Paragenesis: Stories of the Dawn of Wraeththu (44 page)

I nodded and patted Thorn on
the shoulder. “Thanks.” Being the sort of har that people felt
comfortable confiding in was definitely proving to be helpful.

Inside the suite, I found
Luster at his desk pushing about papers, as usual. “He’s been
waiting,” he announced, his tone rather patronizing. If Manifest
was disarming in his unpredictability, Luster was annoying in his
pre
dictability. As far as I was concerned, he was nothing
more than an elevated pencil pusher with a lot of authority. I’d
seen him kill out in the field, but more often his weapon was a
searingly arrogant, cruel attitude. Although he had his uses, most
hara in the tribe despised him.

I strode past Luster and
knocked on the principal’s door, using my own unique knock pattern,
although with Manifest, you could be sure he always knew who was on
the other side of the door, whether you knocked or not. “I’m
waiting,” I heard him call, and in the same moment, my hands were
on the doorknob letting myself in. Thorn was right; he certainly
was
impatient about something.

Manifest was standing in the
corner, hands clasped behind his back, looking like he’d just that
moment stopped himself from pacing. Around him the room held its
usual look – half war-room, with maps and notes strewn on every
surface, half private study, with bookcases holding Manifest’s
personal library and choice artwork, all seized, mounted on the
walls.

I greeted him and was waved
into a chair. He gave me a summary of that day’s progress in the
town and what they expected for the next day. Within the week, the
town would be completely under our control. That afternoon they had
secured the last of the gas stations. Meanwhile tribal business was
going smoothly as well. In the locker room I hadn’t visited,
fifteen inceptions were in progress. So far only two of the boys
had died.

Considering Manifest was our
phylarch and I at that point only a minion, even if a rising one,
it was a lot of information I was being given, almost as if I were
his equal, maybe even his superior. “So what else is up, that you
called me here?” I asked, wanting to bring the dynamic back to what
seemed more usual while also displaying the directness I knew
Manifest valued in me.

“Well, to be honest, I wanted
to hear about
your
day,” he said. “I hear you’ve done very
well today in your recruiting.”

I smiled at the compliment.
“Yeah, pretty well. Do you want a report?”

Manifest thought for a moment,
then shook his head slightly. “No, not detailed, just how
many?”

“Twenty-one,” I replied. “All
strong and healthy.”

Manifest, who hadn’t taken a
seat even during his lengthy report to me, now drifted towards the
padded leather chair and sat down facing me, lacing his hands
together on the desk. “Twenty-one? Well done.” He stared down at
his hands, then looked up. “Anything special about any of
them?”

This was a usual question of
his, any time we’d go over recruitment numbers. Often I would pick
up on interesting character traits that other hara would miss in
our new recruits, simply because I’d either observe them or get to
know them before they were brought in to headquarters. Once they
were brought into the waiting room and realized where they were and
what was going on, their fear often warped any true reading of
their character.

An answer popped into my head
almost before I could think. “Yes, the last one,” I said. “Found
him last thing before I was coming back.”

“Where was he?” Manifest
asked.

“He was staring at a fire
actually, this row of houses burning down” I said. “It was the
weirdest thing… He was just staring at it, not angry, not scared,
not anything.”

Manifest pushed back from the
desk suddenly. “Staring at a fire?” When I nodded, he gazed at the
floor, considering. “This is most… remarkable. Please go on. You
say this boy is unusual?”

I was starting to get nervous.
It seemed like there was some relationship between Manifest’s
agitation and my recruitment work. I hoped I’d be able to soothe
him rather than piss him off. As I mentioned early, not pissing him
off was a specialty of mine.

So I told him about Sphinx. He
didn’t have a name then, of course, but I described in some more
detail him watching the fire and then about the tingling up my arm.
Manifest leaned forward during this part of the story and asked me
some questions about what kind of power I’d felt. “Just something
really strong,” I said. He nodded and had me go on. I told him
about the running, although left out the part about me thinking
Sphinx was perhaps either crazy or an imbecile.

Manifest figured out my game
before I had even got to the part in the locker room, however. “He
doesn’t speak, does he?”

I did a double-take. “Um, no,
he doesn’t, or at least, he hasn’t
yet
. How did you
know?”

Manifest looked up at the
ceiling, then back to me, smiling. “Well, among other things, you
haven’t said this boy’s name once and I know you usually get at
least that information. Plus it would further account for why you
mentioned this boy in the first place. Is there anything else?”

A wave of relief washed over
me. For some reason, I now felt I was on Manifest’s good side.
“Yes, actually. When I left him in the waiting room, he grabbed my
hand and I swear, I could feel his thoughts go right into me. I’m
not really trained for that yet, but I swear, it happened.”

“Fascinating,” Manifest said,
rising from the desk. “This is a valuable find. I’d like you to
bring him to dinner tonight.”

For the second time that
meeting, I did a double-take. “Excuse me?”

The unpredictable feistiness
that was Manifest’s trademark suddenly came to the fore. “You heard
me – that’s an order. Believe me, I know when I’ve got a good
thing, unlike some hara. Off with you until eight o’clock,
officers’ dining room. Bring this boy with you. Luster will be
there, but nobody else except a servant or guard. Got that?”

“Got it, tiahaar.” Not that I
had a clue what was going on, but I wasn’t going to piss him off by
asking. “Am I dismissed?”

Manifest was back in the
corner, glancing at some notes. “Yes, yes, get out of here.”

I had a feeling that in a
sense, I had long since disappeared from the room. The only one
Manifest cared about was Sphinx.

Screams Are a Sound

Sphinx

Screams echoing, all around a
shiver, but nobody talking. Pressed in the corner, cold cement
against my back, I heard. Scream again. Scream. Nobody talking.

Next to me, a fist so tight the
knuckles are white. I stared at the hand, dirty, clenched. Clenched
again with another scream. Then suddenly, the hand was gone, over a
face. The boy’s face I saw, red, crying.

The screams were far away, not
there. Somewhere. Strange echoes of home. Screams are a sound.
Something people do, but I don’t understand why.

The boy saw me looking.
Something, something, something
, he said. Said it again. I
listened, message flew into my head. His knuckles weren’t white
anymore, they were red. The boy turned away from me.

I don’t remember what I did,
but the screams didn’t scare me.

A Human Body

Heart

I headed down to the waiting
room just before seven o’clock. I wanted to get Sphinx ready for
dinner and I thought some preparation time was advisable. Not that
I’d ever prepared any unhar for dinner with my phylarch. Hell no!
Sure, I’d scrubbed some up in order to present them for inspection
– Manifest or Luster normally showed up personally to inspect the
recruits – but I’d never had to make them presentable for a formal
occasion, just make them something more than loathsome humans.

Coming across the connector
hall to the gymnasium wing, I could already hear the screams.
Fifteen boys undergoing althaia, Manifest had said, and they all,
(all thirteen remaining), seemed to be screaming at once. Despite
the number of times I’d heard it, I shuddered and felt myself
squirming uncomfortably. Heading down the stairs to the waiting
room, I reminded myself forcefully that not only was the pain they
were going through a necessity, but it was a lot less than what I’d
gone through. These boys had it good – unlike me. I’d been thrown
in a kind of closet, in the dark, for several days. At one point
that was our tribe’s usual method. Now we were more civilized; boys
were locked in the changing room.

Coming to the entrance of the
waiting room, I was met by the guard, Rock. “Everything OK?” I
asked.

He nodded. “Well, so so. They
hate the…” He cocked his head in the direction of the changing
room. “Some of them were freaking.”

“That’s normal,” I said,
suppressing a shudder as another set of screams permeated the air.
I pushed it out of my mind and said, “I’m here pick up the last
recruit I brought in. Need to get him ready for dinner with
Manifest.”

Rock was incredulous. “Dinner?
With Manifest? Sure you don’t mean dinner
for
Manifest?” he
asked, chuckling.

“No,” I replied, not joining in
his apparent amusement. “He’s invited me and this unhar upstairs.”
I stepped through the door and Rock followed me. “So do you still
have all his clothes?”

“His clothes?” Rock furrowed
his brow. “Um… what was he wearing again?”

I describe the outfit: thin
gray pants and vee-necked short sleeve shirt, also in gray – some
kind of hospital garb. As Rock walked off to retrieve the clothing
from a storage locker, I gave the matter of clothing some thought.
Why had this apparently healthy teenage boy been dressed in
hospital garb?

Anyway, a half a minute later,
Rock returned with a metal basket of Sphinx’s clothes. I set it
down on the desk near the entrance and pulled out the shirt. I was
only seeing if it was clean, but then something caught my eye, a
permanent ink stamp inside the collar:

PROPERTY WELLS PSYCHIATRIC
INSTITUTION

“Oh shit,” I said, dropping the
shirt and grabbing the pants – marked with the same stamp.

How could I have been so
stupid? I’d offered Manifest a mental patient as my most promising
find of the day! Something told me Manifest wasn’t going to be
pleased, but dinner was still on, that was orders, and so I had to
go through with it. Clutching the basket, I headed into the main
room to fetch the ex-patient.

“Over there,” Rock pointed,
once I was inside.

Sphinx had found a dark corner
to hide in. His face was in shadow, only his bare knees and lower
legs catching the light. So pale, his skin.
No wonder, if he’s
been living in a mental ward
, I thought.

That whole fact explained a lot
about him. Like the fact there most likely
was
something
different going on in his head than in the other boys’. This
probably wasn’t a good thing, however. Suddenly I felt a stab of
panic: What would we do with him if he couldn’t be incepted? Would
I have to take him back to town? Or would we just execute him?

Approaching him through the
mess of bodies – Rock at my side, in case any of them stirred – I
almost felt pity for him.

His eyes were closed when we
reached him. “Wake up,” I said. After waiting a moment, I grabbed
his knee and shook it. “You, wake up!”

Rock shouldered me aside. “He’s
a stubborn one. See that cut on his forehead? Wouldn’t let us move
him when he came in, managed to smash it on a bench corner.” He
went behind around Sphinx and pulled him up by the armpits. “What
surprised me was, he didn’t cry at all. Didn’t react almost. Just
found a spot for himself and closed his eyes.”

Rock took my hand, then the
boy’s, then joined them together. Sphinx’s palm was hot and dry,
and through it I got another message:
Away, away, away
.

“Thanks,” I said. Gently I
pulled on Sphinx’s hand. Haltingly, but obviously willingly, he
followed me towards the showers.

I had no experience as a
nursemaid. I picked the stall furthest down the aisle. “This one,”
I said, coming to a halt and squeezing his hand. Glancing at the
boy, I had no idea if he understood me or not. He might have, but
the point was, he didn’t look at me when I spoke.

I set the bundle of clothes on
the bench in the dressing chamber. I parted the curtain for the
shower, peered in, then looked back to Sphinx. Could he even wash
himself? I turned on the water and adjusted it to something
comfortable.

The procedure turned out to be
easier than I’d expected. All I had to do was lead him to the
entrance and Sphinx stepped right in. Maybe this was how they’d
done it at the institution, one of their routines. Relieved, I
headed back down the hall to grab some soap and a towel.

Rock noticed me rummaging in
the supply box and came over. “Going to soap him up yourself?” he
kidded.

I straightened up. “No,
actually I think he can do it himself.”

“Too bad, he’s got a fine
body.”

Soap in one hand, a towel the
other, I turned back down the aisle. “A
human
body, Rock.
Lay off a bit.”

I rushed up to the stall,
intending to simply thrust the soap in Sphinx’s direction. What I
saw when I rounded the corner stopped me in my tracks.

The boy had sunk to the floor
and was sitting cross-legged. Head bent forward, his hands were
pressed together, fingertips to his forehead.

“Are you praying?” I asked,
forgetting myself.

He didn’t answer me. The hot
water poured down over him, tangling his dark curls into his face.
He looked like something I’d seen in church, some kind of holy
statue.

I looked at the soap. Ironic,
it seemed, to clean up someone who at that moment looked the
epitome of purity, but I suspected the cleaning was necessary, so I
pressed on with it. Stepping in, I took hold of those praying hands
and slipped the soap between them.