The Loss Queen (Approaching Infinity Book 5) Page 17

  He stepped into the hall, which was no longer sterile white, but a dingy beige. Many of the overhead lights had been smashed, and those that remained flickered ominously. In addition to glass, the floor was strewn with rubbish: bundles of dusty clothing; two old chairs with ripped upholstery, both spilling foam entrails; a variety of paper reading material, once likely very colorful and eye-catching, now faded and crumbling. On the wall opposite his door was a red smear, heading perhaps to his right and punctuated with a full palm print of the same red. All of the cell doors were open and in various states of ruin.

  He glanced back towards Raus’s room, but heard noise from the room across from it. An elderly orderly stutter-stepped from the doorway, clutching at his throat, trying to stop the blood pumping out over his fingers and all down his front. A hand reached from the doorway, gripped the back of the orderly’s shirt, and with a single jerk, yanked him off his feet and back into the room. Seconds later, another man emerged from the room. He wore a straitjacket, but the sleeves had been cut away. In his right hand he held the tape-wrapped end of a long shard of dirty, blood-smeared glass. The man turned slowly to regard Jav and Jav knew him instantly. It was Forbis Vays.

  Vays wore a vapid grin and stared wide-eyed.

  Jav’s lips were suddenly very dry. “Where’s Dr. Gordon?” he heard himself say.

  Vays said nothing, took another step into the hall, and remained there like a sentinel, his only movement now that of his breathing. Behind him, Raus emerged from his own room. Around his neck was a thick quilted belt with a length of broken chain dangling from it. Jav noticed the burn marks on his temples. Electroshock.

  Once again Jav was rocked by the feeling that this was exactly how things were supposed to be but also completely wrong. He wondered suddenly if he would see the same burns upon his own temples if he looked into a mirror, and the thought consumed him. Did he belong here? Was anything real here? Was he even qualified to make that determination? His head bent under the crushing weight of doubt, but through it he realized that something else was more important. More, he would rather actively err in its favor than passively succumb to his delusions. His face screwed up as he strengthened his resolve.

  “Where is she?” Jav demanded.

  His grin never wavering, Vays raised the shard of glass, pointing down the hall behind Jav. As he did this, he and Raus were joined by another, a perfectly bald man with the plainest face Jav had ever seen. Icsain? Like Vays, he wore a straitjacket, but the sleeves, though unfastened, were intact and hanging to the floor. The ends were blood-soaked and shredded, but the gleam of metal winked from between the dripping red tatters of each.

  Jav swallowed hard, and slowly backed down the hall, keeping his eyes on the lot of them for almost a full minute before turning around to continue in the direction Vays indicated. Despite the distraction, he managed to avoid the glass from the broken lights with unconscious finesse.

  Jav’s and the room opposite it were the last in the corridor. Beyond the patient rooms were doors to common areas and the corridor terminated in a set of double doors. Jav pushed through these to find himself in a hall, lushly carpeted, and perpendicular to the one from which he’d come. The walls were covered in wood paneling, which was faded and cracked in some places. There was a stillness here that made Jav nervous; more so than he already was. Doors lined both walls. All but the one immediately before him were closed. The rooms behind the closed doors were offices he knew. The cracked open door ahead of him led into a conference room.

  It was dark inside except for the television set laying askew and shouting out white noise upon the central conference table. Jav saw that all but two of the nine chairs surrounding the table were occupied, but none of the occupants were moving. He moved slowly around the table to see faces illuminated only by the snow flash of the television. Marcus. Tom. Both their necks were terribly bruised and obviously broken, their heads hanging at sharp angles. The rest he didn’t recognize: three other men and two women. Thankfully, Dr. Gordon wasn’t among them. But that wasn’t entirely accurate.

  As he continued, he became aware of a presence, hidden by shadow, standing before the curtained window on the wall opposite the entrance. Dr. Howard Gordon threw the curtains open, letting in the dying orange light of sunset. Jav eased up behind him and looked out the window. They were eight floors up, looking down into the city. The buildings across from them and in view were veined with cracks. The asphalt-paved streets, similarly veined, were littered with chunks of errant concrete, as well as cars and trucks, some upright, many on their sides or upside down, all long-ago abandoned by their drivers. Sporadic fires burned in lazy silence, reaching from open windows or from cracks in the street: little blooms, accents of color to complete the scene.

  “Where are all the people?” Gordon said. “Surely you know. Surely my wife told you.”

  “Where is she?” Jav said.

  Gordon turned around, his pasty features familiar and eliciting from Jav hate and revulsion.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know. I guess I would, too,” he said. His face had started to change, to grow. His whole head was swelling like a balloon or like a. . .

  The door swung open then. Vays, Raus, and Icsain entered the room and came towards him. The television on the table stirred, rose, and Jav saw that it sat like a head upon the shoulders of another patient.

  “What the hell?” Jav blurted. He cocked his head, squinting to focus his eyes. “Scanlan?”

  “Ah, very good,” Gordon said. “May require all of you, but do take him back to his room and see that he doesn’t come out again. Ever. Seems my wife has crossed a line.”

  “Why did you do this?” Jav said, addressing everyone, pointing with his chin to the dead sitting at the table.

  “Us?” Vays said, still with that vapid grin and shaking his head. “This was all you. Well, mostly you.”

  “No!” Jav shouted. He broke into a run and leapt for Vays, catching him in the chin with the top of his rising bare foot. Vays threw his head back with the force of the kick and fell backwards to the floor.

  Jav kept his balance as he landed, but was snatched up by Raus and raised up off the floor in a suffocating bear hug. He felt his ribs compressing, prompting an initially sharp pain in his right side. Without thinking, he drove his forehead into Raus’s once, twice, three times. Jav touched ground as Raus’s arms relaxed, his knees buckled, his eyes rolled up to whites. He kicked Raus in the Jaw to topple him and felt a sting upon his cheek.

  Icsain was swinging his arms, the wet ends of his sleeves tracing figure-eights. He lashed out with the right then the left. Jav tried to dodge, but was struck again, just below his right eye. Blood rose from the cut, covered his cheek. He cried out and charged, bending and leading again with his head, striking Icsain squarely in the stomach. Though it was like striking the wall, his scalp pulling and nearly splitting, Jav succeed in driving Icsain to the floor. Jav followed up by stomping his heel into Icsain’s throat, the act producing a wet, squelching sound. Jav whirled to kick the television man in crotch. Scanlan, if it was Scanlan, crossed his knees, and unable to support the weight of the television, crashed to the floor heavily, the impact shattering the screen, silencing the white noise and flashing snow.

  Jav glanced back to Gordon, whose head was now wider than his shoulders. Sharp, angular features began to glow dimly across his misshapen face. Jav bolted from the room.

  “Jennifer!” he shouted, shouldering through the doors to the corridor from which he’d originally come. He slowed instantly when he saw the man in the doorway of his room.

  “Jacob?” Jav said, nearing him. “You’re Jacob Strauss.”

  The man held his finger to his lips, “Shhhh.”

  He was a little taller than Jav and of a heavier build, but all muscle and bone. He had thick blond hair and could only be described as leonine. He stepped inside Jav’s room and beckoned for Jav to follow him.

  Jav stepped into the room and Jacob closed
the door, somehow mended now, behind him. The overhead lights were still out, but Jacob was limned by a golden corona that produced just enough light to make him visible

  “What’s going on, Jacob?”

  “You’re not supposed to be here. You’ve got things all mixed up. Anyway, I know you still don’t remember everything, but I wanted you to know. You’re the Moon. The rabbit told me. You were supposed to be his replacement, but you came too soon. Neither of us was ready. They came,” he said, his piercing green eyes darting up and drifting back down, “and because we weren’t ready we lost. We all lost something different, but we lost just the same. Even you. Maybe you most of all.”

  Jacob blinked rapidly and looked for a moment like he might slip into a seizure, but he mastered himself. “It’s so hard to remain separate. We couldn’t talk before, not like this. This place is dangerous. If you’re not careful, you could get stuck here. I wanted to apologize to you. I wanted to tell you. . . I’m so, so sorry.”

  Shouts could be heard from outside now, and the bass thumps of many feet pounding down the hall.

  “For what?” Jav said.

  “You know.”

  Jav shook his head. He didn’t know. At least not on the surface, he didn’t.

  “We may never have the chance to talk like this again,” Jacob said. “I wanted you to know that if I could have done things differently, I would have. We were friends, but what I did. . . I’m sure you don’t think of me as such.”

  Several voices barked right outside the door.

  Jav didn’t know what to say. He shrugged, shook his head, and then it occurred to him. He knew what he had to say and he knew that he meant it. “I forgive you.”

  A smile blossomed across Jacob’s face.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Fists pounded heavily on the door from the outside. A succession of blows created a widening dent right at eye level.

  “Jacob,” Jav said, “tell me: what’s my name?”

  Jacob’s smile faltered, suddenly weighed down by sadness. He shook his head. “You’re not ready yet. Do you trust me, though?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to go out this door. After I shut it behind me, I want you to count to three then go through it yourself.”

  “I can help you out there.”

  “I know you can, but like I said, you could get stuck here, and you have other, more important things to do. Besides, what happened here has already happened.” As he finished speaking, the golden corona flared and before Jav stood the Sun Lion, an animate statue of solid gold, with immensely broad shoulders, carved curls of golden mane over those shoulders, rising up over his head. Hs mouth was set in a fierce snarl, with golden fangs bared, but the expression conveyed just retribution rather than mindless savagery. His feet were clawed, as were his hands, which were bound in a mundane pair of policeman’s handcuffs—they had been all along, Jav realized.

  The Sun Lion crouched briefly, his bound hands reaching swiftly and deftly to open the door, and he passed through in a fluid, almost circular motion that seemed impossible.

  Jav took a deep breath, counted to three, and opened the door himself.

  10,923.026.0200

  Planet 1612 (Loss)

  Barcos Steppe

  Clad in the Kaiser Bones, Jav stood atop a barren hill. He glanced over his shoulder and saw what he expected to see: nothing. He made his way down the craggy face, passed through the standing corpses and skeletons, then waded through a hundred meters of both that were prone. He found Spaier Waice where he expected to. Gran Mid was there as well, waiting. Gran Pham was still in two pieces. The exhausted remains of Raus Kapler and his brother Ban still burned.

  “Where were you?” Jav said to the Voice of a Hundred Heroes.

  “You were hard to reach,” they replied. “We took advantage and sped repair. You should be feeling much better. In the end, we spoke. Do you not remember?”

  “I remember. . .”

  “We have, of course, observed your every opponent since our union,” the Voice said. “No one so far has done with a single punch what Spaier Waice has. Wheeler Barson likely would have been able to effect similar or greater results, but to attempt a direct assault through your signature attack, was both genius and folly. He is very brave or very stupid.”

  “Could be both. And maybe you’re forgetting Garlin Braams.”

  “Braams, yes. A special case. Anyway, we raise the point only because Spaier Waice reminds us of someone.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, he does.”

  • • •

  Jav had resumed his tinkering within Gran Pham’s skull, but despite focusing on his task, became aware of Waice behind him stirring, rising, approaching. Jav ignored him and continued working to disconnect something.

  “Why am I alive?” Waice said.

  “That’s an existential question I can’t help you with,” Jav replied, succeeding in removing one of the connectors holding the piece he wanted to retrieve.

  “Why am I still alive?” Waice said more sharply.

  “Because I had no interest in murdering you while you slept. I don’t really have any interest in killing you at all, Waice.”

  “I may be the only one with a choice in the matter killing you.”

  “What do you mean?” Jav said, removing another connector.

  “Almost immediately into transit, Brin Karvasti met individually with the members of the Titan Squad and Twenty-First Generation Generals.”

  “With everyone except me.”

  Waice shrugged. “I suppose.”

  “I can guess what she told everyone, at least in part.”

  “We were told that you would betray the Empire, that you would fight for the enemy, that we were not to question this fact, that we were to stop you at all costs, and that if successful, we would be rewarded, granted our ‘fondest wish’.”

  “I see. That was rather prescient of the Emperor.”

  “Then Raus and Ban Kapler?”

  “Are dead,” Jav said, bowing his head and sighing heavily. “Along with Vansen Biggs.”

  “Then you did exactly as expected?” Waice sounded hurt. “Wait. Who’s Vansen Biggs?”

  “Insurance, I guess,” Jav said.

  Waice shook his head, dismissing this. “All this time, I assumed that you’d been unfairly singled out. I believed in you.”

  “Thanks for that. Before your indignation blinds you, though, ask yourself why I was singled out. You don’t appear to be bound by Brin’s compulsion. You aren’t are you?”

  “No.” Waice was sullen.

  “Then why?” Jav said releasing the final connector and dislodging a fist-sized oval.

  “Perhaps the Emperor is prescient,” Waice said.

  Jav turned so that he was facing Waice now, but he examined the thing he’d pulled from Gran Pham. Both ends were shod with steel, but the rest of the exterior was transparent. He held it up before his face, supporting it on the tips of his fingers. Inside, the distended ends were connected by a channel that narrowed at the middle, but the middle pulsed with a bright, white spark.

  “Do you know what this is, Waice?”

  Waice shook his head. “No.”

  Jav reached back, and with both hands, placed the item between the shoulder blades of the Kaiser Bones. He fidgeted for a moment before there was a popping sound. “Ohhhh,” Jav said.

  “Well, what is it?” Waice said.

  “Gran Pham’s Charge Circuit.”

  “What did you just do with it?”

  “I think I added it to the Kaiser Bones.”

  “Communication protocols active,” the Voice said, though not audibly to Waice. “Charge Circuit functions nominal.”

  Jav grinned. “Now, where were we again? Right, prescience.

  “You’re new, so you’d have to rely on the histories, but I can tell you from personal experience that the Emperor is not truly prescient. If he were, we would have gotten to this planet a lot sooner, without tak
ing so many losses along the way. So if the Emperor is not prescient, how does he create circumstances in which he appears to be so?”

  Waice was slow to respond. “Well, you just said it, he would create the circumstances.”

  “Exactly. Which brings us back to why, since we’ve really only addressed how.”

  “Are you sure you’re Jav Holson?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Jav Holson hasn’t spoken more than a hundred words in the last year, probably not much more than that over the last twenty. Maybe some crafty Loss Commander has tricked us all and stolen the Kaiser Bones.”

  “That’s a possibility, I guess. But what would be the point? It’s really me. After Vays brought you and Ban to my custom block, you came back and started using the block in secret. Would anyone else know that? Or that you managed to increase your gravity rank three Gs over the standard maximum? I allowed you to continue for two reasons. First, you showed drive that I recognized and respected; second, you reminded me of someone.”

  “Everyone says so! Brin Karvasti said it was Ren Fauer. During our interview she couldn’t keep her hands off me.”

  Jav cocked his head, unable to respond for a moment. “No, not Fauer, though I could see how some might say that.”

  “Then who?”

  “The Moon.”

  “The moon? Which one? Wait, that doesn’t make any sense.”

  Jav nodded. “It barely makes sense to me. It’s more of a feeling, an association that I’ve been making unconsciously since I met you. Do you believe in soul echoes, Waice?”

  “I never really thought about it.”

  “Better start thinking. Otherwise, nothing makes sense. What I can tell you is this: the Emperor plucked me from Planet 1397 with my memory gone, used me as a weapon for as long as possible, and prepared all along for when my memory would return and I would finally betray him. To—I don’t know—postpone this or reduce the chances of betrayal, the Emperor took steps to whittle away my humanity. You saw the results. I was little more than one of my own troops.”