Accidental Creatures (21 page)

When they got to Hyper’s house, he was on his way out the door, a plaid cellweave wind breaker under his arm. “The vatdivers are standing on the tables down at Josa’s,” he said as they came up the steps to meet him.

“Standing on the tables,” said Chango, “they haven’t done that since-”

“Not since the strike, I know.”

“Why? What’s it about?”

Hyper glanced over her shoulder to Helix. “Word came in today, you still have a job.”

They snuck in through the back door of Josa’s. Coming up the hallway past the bathrooms, they could already hear the voices shouting.

“She’s not even from here!”

“They never should have hired her in the first place!”

“People, people! Quiet down,” it was April. Peeking around the corner, Helix could see her, standing on a table near the center of the room, “We’re here to discuss a plan of action, not belabor the obvious. Now GeneSys has stepped way out of line on this one, we all agree. The question is, what are we going to do about it?”

“Strike!” somebody shouted, and they all took it up, chanting, screaming and pounding the tables,

“Strike! Strike! Strike!”

Helix felt Chango and Hyper tugging at her shoulders, but she didn’t move. She looked at the faces of the vatdivers, angry and hateful and afraid, and their voices were a roaring in her ears like the oceans of this world. Everyone said that life started in the ocean, but not hers. The seas of her birth were considerably smaller, and green, not blue.

The chanting died down, and Vonda took a table. “The time to seize our power has come!” she shouted,

“We all know GeneSys is hard pressed to meet their quotas, we’ve been working the hours to prove it. Striking now, we can demand a lot more than just her dismissal. We need stricter safety standards. Diver approved standards. And a three percent pay raise across the board!”

The wall at Helix’s cheek trembled as the vatdivers voiced their approval.

“Let’s get out of here, now,” Chango hissed in her ear, and Helix allowed herself to be dragged backwards, out the back door.

They went to Hyper’s house and sat on the floor. Hyper took out a bong, filled it, and handed it to Chango who offered it to Helix. Helix shook her head, and stared at the curtains. “They think they can stop me,” she said, “they’ll have to kill me first.”

The screen door rattled as Benny opened it and came inside. “Hey, that’s just the kind of talk I was hoping to hear.” He slid down on the floor next to Helix. “You have to stand up to them. You can’t let them get away with this. You have just as much right to be in there as anyone else,” he said.

“Says who?” said Chango, “She should have gotten fired.”

Benny looked at her, “But she didn’t, and if a non-sport had done the same thing and not gotten fired, do you think they’d be striking over it?” He shook his hands and tilted his face towards the ceiling. “I can’t believe it. All these years, our gains gradually being nibbled away from us crumb by crumb. And what is it that finally galvanizes this community to action? Bigotry. I can’t believe it. I wash my hands.”

“What am I going to do?” said Helix.

“I think you should go down there tomorrow and face them down. They’re a bunch of cowards, they’re afraid of you,” said Benny.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” said Chango. “They may be afraid of her, but that doesn’t mean they’ll back down, not now that they’re united by a common cause. She’s likely to get beaten up, or worse.”

“I just want to dive again. I have to,” said Helix.

“Then you know what you have to do,” said Benny. “They expect you to back down.”

O’Grady’s tea room in Detroit’s historic Bricktown was a small room with upholstered chairs and lace curtained windows. Colin Slatermeyer clenched his sweat damp fists and walked across the room to where Nathan Graham sat waiting for him at an inlaid wood table.

“I took the liberty of ordering,” said Graham as Colin sat down. “I hope you like Earl Grey.”

On the table a ceramic tea pot littered with rosebuds sat on a handmade doily. There was also a silver tray of scones accompanied by strawberry jam and clotted cream. Graham poured tea for them both and offered him a scone.

Mechanically Colin went through the motions of splitting the scone and spreading it with cream and jam, but he wasn’t hungry. His stomach was tied in knots, his eyes fixed on Graham — watching him inhale the steam from his cup and sip at the amber brown tea. “Ah,” he said, and bit into a scone, sending crumbs scattering across the table. Graham chewed thoughtfully for a moment, swallowed, and fixed his gaze on Colin. “Now,” he said, “I want you to tell me about the day the tetras threw you and your colleagues out of the vat room.”

Colin fussed with his tea for a moment, adding sugar and lemon. He sipped it, but it did little to alleviate the dryness in his mouth. “There’s not much to tell, really,” he said. “It was just like any other day down there, at least to start with. Greenfield and I were doing spectral analysis and cell imaging on agule and polymer samples. Neither of us had been up to the diving platform to check on the tetras, but everything seemed more or less normal. It wasn’t until Dr. Martin came in that things started to go awry.”

“What happened?”

Colin stared at his hands encircling the cup, felt the warmth of the tea spreading through his fingers, and tried to think of the least damaging way to describe what had happened. His reverie was interrupted by a scalding splash of tea on his clasped fingers. He looked up to see Graham with the tea pot, topping off his cup. Graham glanced at him sideways. “Sorry.” he said with utter calm, “I’m so clumsy.” He set the teapot down and stared at Colin with complete serenity. “Go on.”

“He suited up and went to talk to Lilith right away,” Colin blurted, reaching for a napkin to blot his burned fingers. “He didn’t say anything to us, but he was back down again a few minutes later. His suit was wet. He said that Lilith had splashed him. There was a lot more activity in the vats all of a sudden. We could hear the tetras swimming around up there. Suddenly there just seemed to be this tense atmosphere in the place.”

“You said he went to talk to Lilith. How do you know that if he didn’t speak to you?”

Colin was aware of his own eyes widening. “Just because that’s what he always did, in the morning, he’d check in with her,” he managed.

“I see. What did they talk about that morning, then?”

Colin shook his head. Graham leaned forward, giving him the full effect of his glare. “You heard them. What did they say?”

Colin swallowed, his eyes fluttering away from Graham’s like frightened birds. “She told him to get out of there,” he said stiffly.

Graham cocked his head, “Why did she do that?”

“She-she said he stank of her. She said there could only be one queen in a nest, and that he no longer belonged here.”

“She said he stank of her? Of who?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What did Martin do?”

“He tried to calm her. He told her that she didn’t have to worry. He said-” Colin broke off.

“He said what?” Graham prompted impatiently

“That she wouldn’t be back.” Colin gulped.

“Who?”

“I don’t know!” Colin shouted. People at other tables turned and looked. Graham poured himself more tea. “What did Martin say when he came back down?”

“He told us to continue what we were doing.”

“Didn’t you ask him what they were talking about?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I see. And when you discussed it later, what did he say then?”

Colin set his jaw. “We didn’t discuss it. We never did.”

“You don’t have any idea what they might have been talking about? Do you have any idea how much money you owe ALIVE!? I do.”

Colin shook his head. “Look, I really don’t know. All I can think of is she might have been talking about the egg.”

“What? What egg?”

Colin closed his eyes. It was too late now, Graham had him. “Lilith laid another egg, a single, about six months after the drones hatched.”

“Yes?”

“She wouldn’t let anyone near it. The drones would mob us any time we got close.”

“It hatched.”

Colin's jaw worked. “There’s no way of knowing for sure. The tetras wouldn’t let us dive in to examine it. We had to rely on radar to detect its presence, and we didn’t get around to it, that day. Since then, it’s been impossible to determine what happened to it. The tetras destroyed the transceivers, after they kicked us out.”

“So you have no proof, but that is the hypothesis which fits the facts. We’ll go with it. What happened after Martin came back down?”

I was doing protein imaging on a polymer sample, and I looked up, and I saw the tetras climbing over the edge of the vat. They came at us, jumping off the platform and landing on the equipment. Dr. Martin yelled for us to get out of there. He didn’t have to tell me twice, they were dripping with growth medium. Greenfield and I got out ahead of them, but Dr. Martin, they picked him up, and threw him out the door.”

“Very interesting.” Graham dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “I can see I need to have a talk with Martin, but first, I want you to procure a couple of dive suits. You can do that, can’t you?”

“I guess so.” Colin wrinkled his brow. “But why?”

“I want you to take me there,” he said, “to the facility. I want to meet this Lilith for myself.”

oOo

“I’m really not sure about this. It’s not safe,” said Slatermeyer at the door to the vat room.“I think you should reconsider.”

“I’m not going to reconsider,” said Graham, “and as far as it being dangerous is concerned, I’m prepared for that,” he patted the tranquilizer gun at his hip

“I wouldn’t take a weapon in there if I were you. They won’t like it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I don’t care if they like it or not. If they attack us, I won’t be defenseless.”

“But you can’t get all of them with that thing.”

“So? You said they all follow Lilith, that she’s their queen. If I take her out, they won’t know what to do.”

“If you take her out, they may panic, there’s no telling what they’ll do.”

“Stop being a nelly, I don’t have all night. I’m supposed to meet some important people for dinner tonight.”

Slatermeyer pulled the hood of the divesuit over his head, tucking in stray wisps of hair. “Well, I hope you make it to that dinner, Mr. Graham.” He took a key out of the pouch slung around his hips, and unlocked the door.

They were in a long stretch of tiled corridor. Graham gagged on the steamy, pungent air. “Christ, what’s that smell?”

“It’s the vats, you get used to it,” whispered Slatermeyer, “now be quiet, please.”

They crept along the corridor, the air getting warmer and damper and more redolent with the yeasty odor of fermentation and rot. Graham tried to breathe through his mouth, but it was no use. The smell seemed to seep right through his pores. He was starting to sweat inside the divesuit, its rubber lining becoming slick against his skin. No wonder those vatdivers were always bitching about something, they were uncomfortable all the time. Well, screw them, anyway. They didn’t have to take the job, they could have started out in a mail room somewhere, barely making enough to eat once a day, and spent the next twenty years of their lives clawing their way up to a position of status and wealth. By the time they reached the end of the corridor, the walls were dripping with condensation, and they could only see about three feet in front of them because of the thick clouds of fog. The temperature had to be at least a hundred degrees. When he breathed he felt as if his lungs were filling with water. Slatermeyer tapped him on the arm, and motioned for him to put on his face mask and mouthpiece. He had a point. There was no telling what this mist was actually made of. Suiting up had its advantages. He could take long, deep breaths of air without being hampered either by the smell of the vats or the humidity, and he and Slatermeyer could communicate with each other over the built-in shortwaves in their face masks.

“It wasn’t like this when we were in here, they must have done something to the climate controls,” said Slatermeyer.

“They can do that?”

“I’m not sure about the others, but Lilith can, I have no doubt.”

Graham waved impatiently at the billowing clouds of steam, “We can’t see shit. They could be anywhere.”

“Yeah, they probably know we’re here by now. They may even be watching us.”

“Watching? Who could see in this?”

“I don’t know, they see really well through the growth medium.”

“Shit,” said Graham.

“Having second thoughts? We could go back, they might even let us leave.”

“No, look.” Figures emerged from the mist all around them, moving slowly and quietly. They were all naked, and they all had four arms. They weren’t very big, about five foot four and slender. They had long dark hair, and from beneath their lips emerged white, curving fangs. About their waists and necks some of them wore pulpy garlands of a substance he couldn’t immediately identify. They advanced on them with silent, almost placid deliberation. Graham backed away and then glanced behind him, but there were more in the hallway. They were surrounded. In panic he looked at Slatermeyer. “Relax, and go with the flow,” said the voice in his ear. “You’re fully suited, you’ll be alright.” But there was a tenseness in Slatermeyer’s voice that was far from reassuring. The creatures closed in on them. He saw one grab Slatermeyer by the forearm, and then the upper arm, and by the time she’d grasped his leg, Graham felt a hand on his shoulder. He saw four of them pick Slatermeyer up and carry him away, their bodies curling about him as they all disappeared in the billowing, engulfing mist. The rest of them surrounded him, but they did not pick him up. Thirty two hands — on his neck, his shoulders, his arms and back — gently but firmly guided him through the clouds.

His face mask was misted over, and all he could see was what could be glimpsed through the undulating tracks of droplets that streamed across the lucite. He couldn’t make out more than a curl of vapor or a curving arm, a shoulder, a breast. But palms and fingertips directed him, shepherding him up a ladder. At the top they allowed him to wipe at the condensation with his gloved hands. He was only partially successful, instead of a blank wall of moisture he now had a confusion of streaks. He shrank back as one of them reared towards his face with her mouth open, but the others tightened their grip and held him still while she got ever closer to his face, finally opening her mouth wider, giving him a mist-shattered view of her teeth as she extended her tongue and licked the surface of his face mask. When she was done, it was clean, and no new condensation formed. Graham allowed himself to exhale, and looked around. The air up here was clearer, the mist dispersing upwards towards the ceiling above. He was on a walkway that ran just above and between the two vats. In the center it widened, forming a diving platform for both of them. It was here that they took him, carefully positioning him in its center before withdrawing to stand two deep in front of the walkway on either side of him. The message was clear, he could either stay put, or take a dip.