Origin (9 page)

“They are red, aren’t they?” he asked without turning around.

“You could stop traffic,” Sun said.

Andy left without another word. There was some fruit cocktail left, but Sun was no longer hungry. She dumped it down the disposal and went back to her room.

Alone.

S
un woke up at half past nine in the morning. She’d always been an early riser, a fact that she recently discovered was dependent on sunlight. With no morning sun to wake her up, she’d been sleeping later than normal. One more thing to dislike about being two hundred feet underground.

After her exercises and a quick shower, she stopped by the Mess Hall, half-hoping Andy was there. He wasn’t. She made herself a bowl of shredded wheat with vacuum-packed milk and frozen strawberries, but only picked at it.

Sun wasn’t exactly sure what she was feeling. Andy was attractive, and found her attractive, but this wasn’t exactly the time or place to start a relationship. She felt flattered, and annoyed, and disappointed all at once.

Romance sucked,
she decided. It was much simpler being a hermit.

She forced herself to finish breakfast and then put in some hard work at Red 3 with more enthusiasm than the mundane task warranted. Her current fixation—organizing the thousands of photographs—so absorbed her attention that when she checked the clock it was already a quarter after twelve. Bub’s lunchtime.

Sun put some bounce in her step on the way to Orange 12, again hoping to bump into Andy. No such luck.

She was quick and thorough in selecting and examining the sheep, but it didn’t hold the charm of the previous time with the linguist.

“I’m acting like a school girl,” Sun chided herself. Why didn’t she just write him a love note and draw a heart on it and slip it in his locker?

Sun led the hooded animal down the Red Arm. Dr. Belgium, who practically lived in Red 14, wasn’t around. She approached the habitat quietly, the only sound being the whirring fans of the Cray computer and the tap-tap of the sheep’s footfalls on the tile floor.

Bub was squatting, his eyes closed and his arms on his haunches; a warped parody of the tai chi lotus. This was the position Bub slept in. She’d been recording his sleep patterns, and he took between ten and fifteen naps a day, never longer than twenty minutes each. All totaled, he slept about four hours daily. Far less than any animal she’d ever encountered.

Even squatting, Bub was taller than Sun. She watched his massive chest undulate in waves, his many lungs taking in air at slightly different rates. As usual, seeing Bub filled her with a mixture of awe and fear. Sun clearly recalled their first meeting. She’d walked up to the habitat, so cocksure, and when Bub came out from behind the trees her legs gave out on her and she squealed in fright, much to Race’s amusement.

The fact that Bub looked demonic was only part of the shock. What most impressed Sun was the creature’s size and obvious strength. It was like seeing a dinosaur up close. More than once Sun had wondered if that Plexiglas wall was truly strong enough to hold him.

Sun leaned closer to the partition, her forehead almost touching it.

“Sun is laaaaaate,”
Bub said, his voice remarkably clear coming from a mouth packed with so many teeth.

The sheep screamed and bucked, and Sun was so startled she let go of the harness. The sheep ran off towards Dr. Belgium’s computers and barreled into a desk, upsetting papers and a coffee mug.

Sun took back control of her faculties and chased after the sheep, one arm locking around its large woolly neck and the other pulling tight on the harness. After a few seconds of struggling and talking, she managed to calm the sheep down enough to tether it to a door handle.

Bub watched the whole episode from his lotus position, his reptilian eyes keenly intelligent.

Sun chose her words carefully.

“I’m sorry. I was busy. Have you always known English?”

“Yooooou are Sun,”
Bub said.
“That is luuunch.”
His voice was a throaty baritone, but soft and wet like a wheeze.

“Right. My name is Sun Jones.”

“Joooooones.”

“Yes.”

“Yessssss,”
Bub hissed.

Sun approached the habitat slowly, unconsciously using the stalking approach that she’d used to get close to lions without spooking or threatening them.

Her mind whirred. Even with all the conversations she and her cohorts had had in front of Bub, could he have picked up enough information to understand English?

“Can you understand me, or just repeat what I say?”

His hand raised up and a long claw uncurled from his fist, pointing at her.
“Suuuun Jooooones.”
He turned the talon on himself.
“Buuuuub.”

Sun pointed at the sheep.

“Luuuuunch,”
Bub said.

She gestured over her shoulder, to the rear of the room.

“Compuuuuuuter,”
Bub said.
“Craaaaaay. Four teraaaaabytes.”

Sun blew out some air. Bub startled her by repeating the gesture.

“Is Bub hungry?” Sun asked.

“Hungry Buuuuub. Eeeeeat.”
The demon looked beyond Sun.
“Fraaaaank.”

“Good lord,” Dr. Frank Belgium whispered.

Sun hadn’t even known he’d entered the room, so intense was her focus.

Bub sprang up on his legs and threw his hands in the air, just as Belgium had. The demon bellowed as loud as a thunder clap,
“Goooooood looooord!”

Both Sun and Frank Belgium jumped backwards, and Frank kept backpedaling until he’d bumped into the sheep, which bleated a scream at the intrusion.

“Find Andy,” Sun ordered. “And Race.”

“Sure thing. Sure thing.”

Dr. Belgium hit the door, repeating “sure thing” like a mantra.

“Buuuuub is huuuuungry,”
the demon said. He lowered his head to her height, pressing his moist pig snout to the Plexiglas. It made a sticky wet spot.

“Lunch, nooooooow.”

Sun, who had that jelly feeling back in her legs, fought the fear and stepped up to the glass.

“Where are you from?” Sun asked. “How do you know English? Did you just learn it?”

Bub’s lips creased back, revealing a huge valley of yellow, jagged teeth.

He could bite through a redwood with those teeth,
Sun thought.

“Lunch noooooow. English laaaaaaater.”

Sun, who hadn’t taken an order from anyone since she was in grammar school, simply nodded. She went to the sheep, her gaze never leaving Bub. The sheep was rooted, shaking like a jackhammer. It refused to budge.

Sun located the box of Cap’n Crunch, dropped when she’d let go of the harness. There was still cereal left at the bottom, and she lifted the cowl and pushed the box over the sheep’s snout like a feed bag. After a moment of struggle the animal began to munch, its muscles relaxing. Sun led it to the oversized door next to the habitat.

Bub watched intently, the terrible smile on his face never slipping. Sun took the sheep through the walkway alongside Bub’s pen and stopped at the waist-level entrance hatch. The hatch was set inside a large hinged wall, kind of like a pet door. The wall was concrete, inlaid with the same titanium bars used in the Red Arm. It moved up and down like a garage door—industrial pneumatics—and it was the entrance Bub took when his vital signs indicated he was waking up from his coma.

Sun hadn’t been present for that event. She’d arrived shortly afterward. But Race spared no detail, telling her how he’d wheeled Bub into the habitat on a gigantic Gurney, then used a crank to lift up one end until Bub slid off and onto the ground, twitching and blinking the whole time. Race had barely pushed the Gurney back out the entrance and closed the door before Bub was on his feet.

The entrance remained locked, using yet another magnetic bolt operated by a keypad. The hatch in the middle was locked by a simple latch, reinforced with titanium. This was the entrance used for the sheep and the one Race took when he’d been in the habitat on those previous occasions. It was too small for Bub to fit through, but Sun still paused before opening it.

Now that Bub was talking, it made him more menacing to her, rather than less so.

She went a hard round with her fear, then pushed it away and opened the small hatch.

“Fooooooooood,”
Bub said.

He was squatting directly in front of the opening, and his breath, warm and fetid, blew against Sun like a sewer breeze. She felt an adrenalin jolt, like something had run in front of the car and she had to slam on the breaks. It was accompanied by instant sweating and a small cry that died in her throat.

The sheep tried to buck, but one of Bub’s massive talons lashed out and gripped it by the head, dragging it through the hatchway.

Sun watched, transfixed, as Bub twisted the sheep in half only a few feet away from her, a tangle of intestines stretching out between the pieces like hot mozzarella on a pizza. Some blood spattered onto her pants. The sheep’s legs were still kicking as Bub jammed them down his throat, not even bothering to chew. Then he uncurled the glistening entrails that hung around his shoulders like Mardi Gras beads and shoved them into his maw, smacking enthusiastically.

“Gooooooooood,”
Bub said to her.

He licked his talons and belched.

Sun kicked the hatch closed.

For a moment she stood there, her heart playing bongos inside of her ribs, trembling so violently her knees were knocking. She became aware that she was holding her breath, and tried to let it out slowly to regain some control.

He’s just an animal,
she said in her mind, over and over again.

Her mind wasn’t buying it.

Sun forced composure to return, and then left the hallway and reentered the main room, willing herself to look at Bub through the Plexiglas.

The demon was almost done eating, his hairy chest matted dark with sheep’s blood. He picked up the severed head and wedged it into the corner of his mouth. It cracked like a walnut. He chewed with a sound similar to a cement mixer, his eyes following Sun as she walked to the center of the room.

The door opened behind her, and Sun turned to see Race, Andy, and Frank rush in.

“He’s talking?” Race asked Sun, his attention on the demon.

“Yes. He told me I was late for his lunch.”

Andy came up beside Sun but didn’t meet her gaze.

“Hello, Bub!” Race said, a wide grin on his face and a hand raised in greeting.

Bub glared at the general, and Sun noted it didn’t seem friendly.

“Raaaaaace,”
Bub said.

Race scratched the back of his head. “I’ll be damned. What else did he say?”

“He pointed to things and named them, like me, himself, his lunch.”

“Son of a bitch.”

Andy leaned closer to the Plexiglas. “Do you speak English?”

Bub closed one eye and the other locked onto Andy, as if scrutinizing him.

“Hal tafham al arabiya?” Andy asked.

“Lam asma had min zaman,” Bub answered.

“What?” Race asked. “What did you just say to him?”

“I asked him if he understood Arabic. He said he hasn’t heard it in a long time. Qui de Latinam es?” Andy asked.

“Latinam nosco. Multos sermones nosco. Mihi haec lingua patria quam dicis est nova.”

“He says he also knows Latin. But you probably figured that out. He also knows many other languages, but English is new to him.”

Sun checked the corner of the room where the video camera was, reflexively making sure it was still there. It was, red light blinking. This was all being digitally recorded.

“Okay,” Race said, “there are questions. We’ve got a book in the Octopus for when this would happen, a hundred years of questions to ask. I’ve got to call the President. And the holies, they’ll want to be here.”

Race turned to leave, moving double time.

“Ubi sum?” Bub asked. “Quis annus hic est?”

“He wants to know where he is and what the year is,” Andy translated.

“It looks like Race isn’t the only one with questions,” Sun frowned.

Bub glanced at Sun and squinted, his elliptical eyes narrowing in a way that she could only describe as
demonic.