Morte (20 page)

Mort(e) took the medallion, promising to return it. She laughed and told him that she would probably be dead by then.

“And you won’t want to give it back, anyway,” she added.

MORT(E) WENT HOME.
By then, he had converted the Martinis’ garage into a command center. That way, he could remove the investigation from the house entirely. On the floor of the garage, he drew out a map of the entire sector, first in plain white chalk, and then in more detail with colored pencils. He needed to be able to stand in the middle of it and think. Still not satisfied, he decided to make the model three-dimensional, with cardboard boxes and rocks to depict some of the larger buildings and structures, and a hole in the cement foundation—dug with a pick axe—to indicate the quarry where the deer committed suicide.

He hung the medallion from his desk lamp, where it dangled beside his computer screen, the image of the pious man swinging like a pendulum on a clock. Despite the late hour, Mort(e) decided to call Bonaparte. It was something Culdesac liked to do, to show the underlings that the boss could rouse them from their sleep on a whim. Bonaparte answered groggily, which compelled Mort(e) to sound even more chipper.

“The murder scene,” Mort(e) said. “I want you to round up a few people and dig up the backyard. Tell me what you find.”

“We could get a truck over there in the morning—”

“Now, Specialist.”

“Okay, I’ll get right on it.”

Bonaparte sounded annoyed. Mort(e) was not proud of it, but part of him liked spreading the misery around. If the Red Sphinx wanted him to work on this investigation, they would have to deal with him on his terms.

Mort(e) rose from his chair to get some water. That was when he spotted the raccoon through the window. The creature stood in the middle of the grass, facing the garage.

Many animals, especially those who had not been pets, seemed to have liberal views of property. This same raccoon may have even rummaged through the Martinis’ trash before the war. So many of these bottom-dwellers had waited out the conflict living on garbage and grubs. Still, the messenger bag slung over the raccoon’s shoulder showed that he must have had some function other than creeping around at night.

Mort(e) lifted the door of the garage and was immediately overcome with the sweet stink of a feral raccoon, thick as mist. He scrunched his eyes, forcing his senses to grow accustomed to the assault.

The raccoon did not move.

“Are you lost?” Mort(e) asked.

His eyes adjusted. There was something wrong with the raccoon’s face. With his whole head, really. The raccoon’s neck had been split open, and the severed chin and jaw pointed straight upward. But where there should have been the pulsing insides of the throat was, instead, a face. A human face.

All thought left Mort(e)’s mind. Now there was only movement. Calculating distances. Erasing fear and doubt. This was
the counterattack he had been trained to expect. His hind legs tensed, his tail straightened. Mort(e) leapt at the intruder, his clawless hands ready to land on the man’s chest. But the man was fast. Before Mort(e) could seize the human, a piercing noise paralyzed him. A screeching sound that rattled inside his brain like an angry insect. Mort(e) collapsed. With his hands on his ears in a futile attempt to block the noise, he tilted his head up to see that the man held some metal device, about the size of his hand. Whatever it was, it seemed to focus the noise on Mort(e) like a laser.

The noise stopped. The ringing in his head lasted for a few seconds before fading out.

“Get up,” the man said.

“Who are you?” Mort(e) asked.

The noise again, like a horde of ants invading his skull. It was so human of this raccoon to answer a question with more punishment.

“Quiet,” the man said. “Get up and go to the garage.”

Mort(e) obeyed. The temporary fog of the raccoon smell had already begun to disperse.

“Sit down,” the man said.

Mort(e) sat in the chair at his desk. The man closed the door halfway. Perhaps he wanted an easy escape in case Mort(e) somehow overcame the stun weapon.

The human sat on a nearby stool and placed the bag on his lap. The suit, Mort(e) noticed, had been built from the hide of a real raccoon. The mask was perched on the crown of the man’s bald head. He had brown skin. The stubble of a beard framed his jaw. The device remained firmly in the man’s hand, the pad of his thumb poised over the power switch.

“I am Elder Briggs,” the man said. “I know you have a lot of questions. Please feel free to ask them.”

The words had been chosen carefully, most likely rehearsed.
They give away so much in their eyes
, Culdesac had told him in their human interrogation training seminar years before.
You have to watch the eyes. It’s harder for them to lie, and yet they do it so often
.

Briggs’s pupils quivered. He was clearly in awe of Mort(e). Perhaps Briggs had been given a photo of him to study.

“How did you get here?” Mort(e) asked.

Briggs sighed. “You’re starting with a question that you can’t possibly expect me to answer,” he said. “Let’s say I dropped in.”

“How many humans are with you?” Mort(e) said. “How many are in your resistance?”

“Too many for the Queen’s taste. Enough to fight.” Briggs grinned. It made him more difficult to read.

“What is it?” Mort(e) asked.

“Most people would have asked ‘why’ next. But you’re a warrior. Always analyzing the tactical situation.”

“I imagine you’re here because of my investigation,” Mort(e) said.

“EMSAH,” Briggs said. “I suppose anyone under the Colony’s control is investigating EMSAH in one way or another.”

“Is there an EMSAH outbreak in this sector?”

“Of course.”

“Are you causing it?”

“Absolutely.”

Mort(e) chuckled.
I guess this concludes my investigation
, he thought.

“The question you should be asking,” Briggs said, “is not, ‘Is this EMSAH?’ Of course it’s EMSAH. EMSAH is everywhere. We did a good job spreading it around. No, the question you
should
be asking is, ‘
What
is EMSAH?’ And, ‘Why are the ants so afraid of it?’ ”

“Can you answer these questions for me?” Mort(e) asked.

“The Archon decided that you should find out on your own,” Briggs said. “She is our leader. Besides, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Am I infected?”

“I’m afraid you could be.” There was an impatient trembling in Briggs’s voice. Mort(e) could not tell if it expressed regret or satisfaction.

“So the scattered reports about people getting sick,” Mort(e) said. “Is this EMSAH?”

“Probably.”

“But they’ve been testing negative so far.”

“Maybe your test is not keeping up with the disease.”

“And the suicides?” Mort(e) asked.

“EMSAH,” Briggs replied.

“The murders, too?”

“EMSAH, yes,” Briggs said. Now he was being nonchalant.

“Do you control the ones who are infected?”

“We do not control them. We try to guide them.”

“So you guided them to commit suicide?”

Briggs shook his head. “Has it ever occurred to you that
you
are the ones who are compelling these people to commit these terrible acts?” he asked. “We know about you. You’ve always suspected that the Queen’s plans for your people would not work. That’s the reason why you walked away from the Red Sphinx. These infected ones, as you call them, they know what’s in store for them if they’re discovered. How can you blame them for fighting back?”

“So you’re saying that these events are not simply the results of a disease,” Mort(e) said. “They’re acts of protest. Sabotage.”

“A warning,” Briggs said. “A sign of what is to come.”

Mort(e) wanted to bring this human to the house with the
dead rats in it. He wanted to shove the man’s ugly face into the tub so he could see firsthand what his species had done.

“Did you put that message in my basement?” Mort(e) asked, eager to change the subject. “The one about Sheba?”

“Yes,” Briggs said.

“Why?”

“Because it’s true.”

“That’s impossible.”

“The past few years,” Briggs said with a sigh, “have been a monument to the impossible. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Where is she?”

“On the Island.”

The word—along with the casual way in which this fugitive said it—made Mort(e) shudder. Whenever someone brought up the subject, his imagination conjured up images of Janet and the children, filthy and cowering, rounded up by Alpha soldiers, imprisoned in cages until they were summoned to partake in one of Miriam’s experiments. And who could say for sure that Miriam wasn’t also running tests on animals? And yet here was this human, holding Mort(e) hostage in his own garage, forcing him to imagine Sheba on an operating table.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

“It is your destiny to find her again,” Briggs said. “The Queen has feared it. Our prophet has foreseen it. The entire war depends on it.”

“Prophet?”

“An oracle, a messenger with the gift of sight,” Briggs said. “He tells us that you will find Sheba again. In doing so, you will save both your people and ours. Don’t tell me you’ve given up hope.”

“Destiny and hope,” Mort(e) said. “You
are
a relic, you know that? No wonder you lost. Besides, no one can get to the Island,
anyway. She might as well be on Mars. I don’t care what your prophet says.”

“I have something for you,” Briggs said, reaching into the bag, his eyes still fixed on Mort(e). He pulled out a red plastic tube and slid it across the desk.

Mort(e) picked up the tube and examined it. There was a large glass eye at one end and a smaller one at the other. A telescope.

“We are not the monsters the Queen made us out to be,” Briggs said. “We are reaching out to you as friends.”

“Friends don’t spread diseases to their friends.”

Briggs smiled knowingly. “The first step to ending this war starts tonight.”

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Mort(e) asked.

“Look to Orion’s belt at midnight every night,” Briggs said. “What you’ll see will answer most of your questions about what has happened to the resistance.”

Mort(e) placed the telescope on the desk. It rolled before coming to a stop at the computer monitor.

“Do you know Morse code?” Briggs asked.

“The basics.”

“Relearn it, and we’ll be able to communicate with you. One day, perhaps very soon, we hope to be able to tell you how to get to the Island.”

“What does it matter if I get there?”

“It will show that the Queen has not destroyed everything,” Briggs said. “It will show that we are not simply the savages that she thinks we are. So much depends on it.”

He said the word
we
to mean both humans and everyone else, as if there was some kind of camaraderie among the species.

Briggs stood up and backed his way to the door. He extended
his arm to demonstrate that he could still inflict pain if he felt threatened.

“There is a catch,” Briggs said.

“What’s that?”

“If you succeed in finding Sheba, it will trigger the largest outbreak of EMSAH yet. You’ll fulfill the prophecy, and the Queen’s experiment will be deemed a failure. She will respond with a total quarantine. We had a big debate about whether or not to tell you, but we decided that you should know.”

“What does EMSAH have to do with Sheba and me?”

“When you find out what EMSAH is, you’ll understand. All I can say for now is that the Queen has linked the virus to you.”

“That’s insane,” Mort(e) said. “If the Queen thinks I’m part of this EMSAH business, why doesn’t she send her daughters to kill me?”

“Her arrogance has blinded her,” Briggs said. “She thinks she can observe and report. Like this is another test of our weakness as a species. She thinks she can control you. But this is not a lab. And you are not an animal anymore. You can choose to go beyond what she has planned for you. She does not believe. The Queen is blind. And that will be her downfall. It is the downfall of all tyrants.”

Mort(e)’s gaze dropped to the floor in frustration. This talking in riddles was so human, so unlike the brutal simplicity of the ants. Of course the Queen didn’t
believe
—she simply
knew
.

“Remember: watch Orion’s belt at midnight,” Briggs said. “We’ll work on a way to get you to the Island. Good luck.”

The man scuttled under the half-open garage door, leaving behind a brief but intense spray of raccoon scent.

Mort(e) tapped the telescope with his finger. Swaying above, the St. Jude medallion reflected dull flashes of light from the lamp.

The first order of business was to make sure he wasn’t going crazy.

On the morning after the visit from Briggs, Mort(e) checked into the army hospital on the outskirts of the old city, even though he was not scheduled for a physical for a few months. The hospital had once been a train station. Its marble floors and stone walls were easy to disinfect. All it took was a few rodents, some bleach, and a really big hose.