Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls Part 21

She starts inching toward the ladder again. "Dylan was good but he was naive. They'd kept him in a box, you see. No current events or news, no idea of how the information he was providing was being used. They did give him carefully edited old-time stuff: fairy tales, science fiction, romances. He had a cute idea of right and wrong and he was definitely on the side of RIGHT-all in capitals, if you get what I mean."

Reaching the ladder, she begins to ascend, aiming for a platform that's more stable. I s.h.i.+ft slightly so that I can see her. I say nothing, wanting only to hear the rest of her story.

"I showed him, though, news clips, photos, other stuff. Dr. Aldrich left me alone with him a lot because he was my brother-something n.o.body else knew. Dr. Aldrich liked keeping who his Wunderkind Wunderkind were a secret. Gave him an edge, you see, Sis. were a secret. Gave him an edge, you see, Sis.

"Essentially, Dylan caught on that he wasn't the sorcerer for n.o.ble houses, but the blackest of necromancers for the vilest of merchant princes. I take some pride in this-I mean the boy was so naive that he thought that s.e.x was the weekly jerking off he did for the sperm bank. Try and get someone like that to understand what makes war or rape or robbery terrible."

Gripping Betwixt and Between so tightly that their back spines cut my hand, I lean forward to see her face.

"Why? Why did you want to do this to him?"

"I wanted him to kill himself, of course," she says, coming to sit on the platform edge. "He didn't though-not right off. He loved living too much. But he thought he found a way to live and yet stop serving evil. Like me he grew up with stories of little Sarah who wasn't good enough 'cause she was crazy as a bedbug and couldn't talk."

"Yeah, don't try and rub it in, Dr. Haas," I answer curtly. "Jersey told me that Dylan messed up his throat and couldn't talk and all the rest. What I still don't understand is why you wanted Dylan dead!"

"You don't, do you?"

Her emerald eyes study the Reaches with fixed, unseeing intensity. "I wanted Dr. Aldrich to train me, to bring out my abilities. And he would have if Dylan hadn't forced the Inst.i.tute to get linked up with Jersey. Then, well, then you became an option again, and when Dylan hung himself, plans were made to recover you. Bring you from the Home to home."

She giggles and her hands pluck restlessly at one of the Web cables nearest to her. From my gently swinging hammock I can feel the dull thrum of her motion; it vibrates through me like her pulse in my body. After a few smothered giggles, she continues.

"I nearly stopped them, though, getting you discharged from the Home. Figured you'd die out there, nameless, voiceless, but when Dr. Aldrich started checking, he learned that you'd been sighted. Eventually, when the street people didn't turn you in-seemed to protect you even-we went after them."

She stops. "Why am I bothering to tell you this?"

"Bragging," I offer. "Couldn't tell anyone else and I can't rat on you unless someone comes here, so you're showing off."

"Maybe," she says conversationally, "because you're a safer confidante than even you may have thought."

She brings her hand up and then down hard and I see the flas.h.i.+ng silver edge of the cutting tool she's had concealed in her hand. Quick as thought, I understand and, worse yet, I believe what she has been doing while she talked.

With her handsaw, she had been sawing away at one of the cables that supported the part of the Web from which I swing. With the anchor rope sawed through, the ropes holding me sag. I lose my balance and fall, tumbling toward the hard metal and dirt floor, recalling too vividly the mutilated body of the Inst.i.tute guard who had died just this way.

In a futile gesture, I roll myself into a ball, protecting my extremities as even the newest Cubs are taught and praying that I will land on something to break my fall. Jolting off still-strung lines, I resist trying for one to break my fall, knowing that it would more likely break me and that the damage-or death-would be as real as I believed it to be.

I am bracing against death even as my body hits, bounces, and lands. My breath is knocked from me but I am basically unharmed enough to realize that I lie among the ruins of Head Wolf's tent.

Sprawled amid the rugs and cus.h.i.+ons, snapped tent poles and painted canvas around me, I laugh and laugh. My face is buried in pillows, m.u.f.fling the noise. Still, there is a maniac note to my glee that brings Athena to perch by my head and churr softly in concern. I stroke her soft chest plumage with a gentle forefinger and find, as I expect, Betwixt and Between nearby, squarely centered on a red fur cus.h.i.+on.

Moving slightly so that I can see the upper Jungle, I catch sight of Eleanora, her back to us, clambering down.

Softly, I warn my companions, "Don't move. She may think me unconscious or dead."

We wait, a frozen tableau, but the pose is for nothing.

"I know you're conscious, baby sister," Dr. Haas purrs. "So don't bother with the possum thing-or is it the ostrich one-not playing dead, but hiding your head?"

I hear echoes of forgotten nursery rhymes in her words, but let them slip away as I roll to face her.

"That's good enough," she commands as I start to get up. "Stay where you are. I rather like the picture, you languis.h.i.+ng among the pillows."

As I shove myself into a sitting position, bruises scream at me for abusing them. Eleanora doesn't try to stop me.

"So, here we end it," she says, walking towards me. "I can't trick you like I did Dylan, but you're still in my way."

She seems different as she approaches, her walk stiff, her lithe grace missing. And something is wrong with her face-a network of lines seams her exposed flesh: hands, face, throat, legs. I shake my head and look closer, but the lines are still there.

Ignoring her warning, I shove myself to my feet. I feel as Athena flutters to my shoulder, landing with a faint tug on my hair. Betwixt and Between march from their pillow to stand between my feet.

Muscle aches fade instantly as I ignore them to focus on the woman stiffly lurching toward me-her image more menacing, more distorted than I know her to be. She smiles crookedly and, reaching into her bag, withdraws a tranq gun similar to those which had armed the Inst.i.tute guards.

"Believe me, the slivers aren't sleepy dope; they're crystalline poison. Instantly dead-unfortunately painless. Believe me, I'd have it another way if I could."

Believe.

The word resonates in my mind. Of course. I look at Eleanora and see that the lines on her face and hands are seams, st.i.tched there by an awkward hand. I remember Professor Isabella reading to me the story of a man who made a son from spare parts, but wasn't willing to accept the monster he had made. The monster, however, never stopped wanting the love and appreciation of the people who had rejected it.

Somehow, Eleanora-brilliant, pretty woman that she was-had never stopped wanting to be the chosen one, had never forgiven Dr. Aldrich for making her feel like the unwanted monster.

All of this flashes into my mind in the same instant that I am scooping up a large chintz pillow and hurling it at Eleanora. She dodges stiffly and fires her gun, but her movement ruins her aim. I cannot spare the energy to doubt that the slivers will kill me, just as she promises-our minds are too intimately intertwined at this point.

Unlike Grey Brother or Midline, I have no idea how to disarm her, but a strange idea comes to me as I scoop up an oval sofa cus.h.i.+on and fling it into her face. Dropping low, I reach and snag her ankle, pulling her off-balance to come thudding heavily to the floor.

She drops the tranq gun to catch herself and as she scrabbles to regain it, I reach out and grab her ankle. There, as I had expected, is a lumpy seam. Somehow, I find the loose end and, grasping it firmly, I begin to pull, feeling the familiar sensation of st.i.tches coming loose, the faint popping and tugging gaining velocity as the thick surgical thread acc.u.mulates in a fluffy pile around Betwixt and Between.

Athena sees what I am doing and grasps a thread end from Eleanora's face and flaps upward.

"What are you doing?" Eleanora screams, forgetting her gun, clawing at herself.

And as she sees, she begins to come apart. Literally. Ankle drops from calf, calf from knee, a growing heap of body parts. There is no blood as they separate and the pile looks less like a dismembered corpse than a bunch of spare mannequin parts.

From where Athena pulls, the lovely head is falling apart in sections. Golden hair cascades like a wig to the floor; the face drops in sculpted panels, a bit of eye in each. The teeth ripple and fall like dominoes.

Except for the one cry of disbelief, Eleanora is silent and when Athena and I pull the last taut length of thread free to stretch between us, a single note like a plucked guitar string echoes in the empty Jungle.

Then I look down at my sister's wreck and weep.

Sixteen.

WHEN MINUTES? HOURS? LATER I I COME TO MYSELF IN THE COME TO MYSELF IN THE Comp-C, Dr. Aldrich is nowhere to be seen. The door to the corridor is slightly open and I hear shouting. Immediately, I set about unbuckling and unwiring myself from the chair. Comp-C, Dr. Aldrich is nowhere to be seen. The door to the corridor is slightly open and I hear shouting. Immediately, I set about unbuckling and unwiring myself from the chair.

I've never done this myself before without help and soon I am in a frustrated tangle. I finally work myself free at the expense of some skin and a twisted left pinkie.

I am scooping up Betwixt and Between and heading for the door when I notice that Eleanora is still in her chair. Hesitantly, I tiptoe over and almost choke at what I see.

That she is dead there is no doubt, but what horrifies me are the vivid red lines that trace in a b.l.o.o.d.y network about her limp body. They look like the scores of a wire whip, fresh and angry evidence of her mind struggling to dismember a body it believed was ripping apart.

I back away from her corpse, out the door, and would have fled if I had known where to go. Instead, I stand foolishly in the middle of the corridor, at a loss without a guard or nurse to direct me.

A repet.i.tion of the shouting gives me a sense of direction and, sending Athena ahead to scout, I sneak toward the sounds. Arriving at a bend in the corridor, I bring Athena back to me.

Her once vague noises are beginning to take the form of words-perhaps because of enforced intimacy in the interchange-but the overwhelming sense she brings to me is confusion to the point of speechlessness.

"No one ahead until the box," she says, "there...churr-whoo?"

The box, I know, is how she sees the elevator. Taking her word that the next stretch of corridor is clear, I advance, unable to find words to ask her what has so baffled her. But as I round a corridor, I begin to understand.

What I had taken for shouting is a voice over the station's intercom system. A chorus of voices old and young, melodic and cracked, are yipping and howling-a cacophony that should have chilled me but instead warms me with noisy promise. What I hear is the cry of the full Pack and that means that they have come for me.

Near the elevator doors, Holly is shaking her comlink as if that will clear the channels. Angrily, she switches it off.

"Jammed, d.a.m.n it, jammed and useless." She gestures to the wall speakers. "I wish someone would turn that racket off-they've got to have figured that it's no help to us."

"What do you figure is going on?" her companion asks, a young fellow with a red five o'clock shadow.

"Don't know," she shrugs. "I was having coffee and waiting word to bring Sarah back from Comp-C when the s.h.i.+ft boss races in and tells me to get up here, p.r.o.nto."

"Good," Rusty says. "I thought I was missing something. I'd been off s.h.i.+ft asleep when I got called."

Crouched behind an ornamental plant, I wish they knew more. All they've done is confirm my suspicion that the Pack has come. However, since the only stairwell that I know of runs beside the elevator, the guards are effectively holding both.

This doesn't seem the time to go and try doors at random. I'm in as much danger from my Pack as from anyone else if I open a door unexpectedly. With my shaved head and patient's clothing, I'll too quickly seem a stranger.

Not wanting to be spotted by the guards, I move back along the corridor to Comp-C. The door is still ajar when I get there and, driven by some impulse, I return inside.

Nothing has changed. In the annex, Eleanora still sprawls, stiffening now, in her restraints. The computer banks twinkle, grunting slightly as some demand is made of them. I stare at them, stretching my hearing and catching little fragments of Jersey's joy as he built them, echoes of Dylan's fear as he saw himself being enslaved.

With sudden insight, I realize that Eleanora had been wrong when she believed that Dylan's growing addiction to the interchange had been mainly a result of the drug overdose she had been giving him. Certainly, that had played its part, but the real addiction had been to speech-to communication that would let him bridge the gap that he had created. He could refuse to write, but when given the chance to speak, the temptation was too great.

Wondering, I study the thing. Opening the hall door, I set Betwixt and Between in the corridor where they can see both ways. Then I set Athena on a high doorway, where she can see farther down the corridor and warn the dragon.

"Why let the stricken deer go weep, the hart ungalled play," I tell them. "For some must watch, while some must sleep: so runs the world away."

"We'll watch, Sarah," Between promises. "But how can you sleep now?"

I don't waste time hunting for an answer, but duck back inside Jersey's office before either my resolve fades or I am discovered. In what I plan to do, I suspect that my allies and my enemies would unite to stop me. Indeed, I realize that what I am doing is crazy by most standards, but at least I am comfortable with that thought. Being crazy is not new to me.

Too much time would be wasted if I were to seek out specific codes and processes, so I decide to be direct. First, I search along the walls for power cables-I have a few bad moments when I realize that they run straight into the walls and so cannot be easily unplugged. Then I check where they connect to the computer itself. After a few experimental jiggles, I decide that I can loosen them at this point. When I do so, with a groan that is almost like a person, the computer whirs and most of the lights on its panels go off.

But some of the lights tell me the thing still lives and I search for a quick way to ruin it for good. Knowing only the vaguest details of how such machines work limits me some, but I start by blocking up various drives with any card or slip that fits-or better-that almost fits. Any exposed wire gets jerked loose. After a severe shock that leaves my arm tingling, I put on a pair of oversized gloves and appropriate a set of wire cutters from a tool kit in Jersey's office.

Rapidly, the remaining lights go off and as they do, I smash the little eyes of sparkling gla.s.s or plastic with the head of my wire cutters. I am rooting through a panel that has fallen open, strewing chips on the floor and grinding them under my foot, when I hear Betwixt calling.

"Athena says that someone is coming, Sarah. Wake up!"

I want to reply, "I am awake, as you must know from the noise in here" but I settle for "Yes."

Feet come pounding down the hall, heavy and hurried upon the carpet. Voices reach me. "There's her dragon! She must be in there!"

The door is flung open, just as I am moving to open it and as I reel back to avoid it, I am temporarily blocked from the sight of my rescuers.

"s.h.i.+t! Someone's trashed the place real good," Grey Brother curses.

"Sarah?" Abalone begins to call.

Her voice breaks off suddenly as she sees the limp figure on the other couch. The lights are dim around Eleanora's body, masking the brighter gold of her hair and for a moment as though through Abalone's eyes I see myself sprawled there dead. The vision chokes me, but I manage to swing the door back and step forward.

"We be of one blood, ye and I," I whisper and when Abalone turns, the smile that lights her face seems to burn away the tears that streak her painted cheeks.

"Sarah!" she cries, leaping past Grey Brother to squeeze me. "I thought we were too late. The message only came a few hours ago and it took us time to find the place."

"Whose hand the message writ?" I ask, squeezing her in return.

"I don't know," she admits. "It was weird, so weird that I almost missed it. It just said, 'I've found the Brighton Rock girl!'"

Grey Brother cuts in, "We've got to move now. Midline and the rest won't hold the guards for long and there may be reinforcements coming in."

The guards. I remember Margarita, Jersey, my only friends in this place. Questions claw my throat. Scooping up Betwixt and Between and summoning Athena to my shoulder, I follow my rescuers out. Abalone, however, will not be turned from the question of the message sender so easily.

"Sarah, you couldn't have sent that. Who did?"

Puzzling for a way to answer, I see as we pa.s.s through Jersey's office a series of framed doc.u.ments on the wall. Guessing, I point to one.

"Jersey R. Kravis, Ph.D. and all the rest. Enough degrees to make a thermometer break." Abalone grins. "This Dr. Kravis is the one?"

I nod, feeling odd that I never considered Jersey by any other name than the one. With a sweeping motion of my hand, I mimic cutting my throat. Grey Brother sees the gesture and halts.

"You think he'll be in trouble for doing it?"

I nod, biting hard on my upper lip, remembering that Dr. Aldrich is still missing, wondering where he is.

Outside of the elevator, Abalone links her tappety-tap to a wall unit and starts sketching commands. With a triumphant chortle, she reads off a line of data.

"Jersey Kravis, Floor Three, Rooms 323324." She glances up at the elevator, then at a wall sign. "That's this floor, just down there a ways. C'mon."

We pelt down the hallway, Abalone in front muttering off room numbers as we pa.s.s. She brakes in front of a closed door.

"This is it"-she looks uncertain-"Sarah, you'd better knock. If he has a scan, he'll know you."

I step forward and rap my knuckles on the hard white plastic. Then I notice a buzzer and thumb that too. There is no answer and a blazing tension makes my stomach begin to roil. After I bang repeatedly, Grey Brother pulls me back.

"Little Sister, he won't answer. I need to check with the Four. Perhaps one of the guards we've captured has a pa.s.s."