James Decker - Fallout

Qian lunged, and clamped one hand around my throat, dragging me down onto my knees in front of her. I felt her steady calm falter through the cluster, and a pulse of frustration, and anger seeped through. The promise of violence flooded my mind, but unlike my encounters with Sillith years before I didn’t sense the same perverse excitement that had accompanied her acts. Qian would commit violence, and lots of it, that much I could tell, but she wouldn’t enjoy it. As far as she was concerned, she was defusing a bomb and we were nothing more than wires to be cut.

Vamp went for her, then. Out of the corner of my eye I caught the flash of his butterfly knife as he twirled it open in midstride; then the blade chirped through the air. The edge bit through what appeared to be Qian’s throat, and opened a gash there. Warmth spurted down over my face and chest, dark, oozing red that felt like wriggling little worms. I tried to turn my face away but couldn’t move as Vamp whipped around for another attack.

The blow never landed. Vamp’s arm collided with some invisible part of Qian she’d raised to block him, and I saw a ghost image of a haan hand flick around his wrist before fading again. It twisted Vamp’s arm back until he barked out, and the knife fell from his hand.

I stared in horror, sure that the next thing I’d see would be Vamp’s hand being torn from his body, but Qian didn’t do it. Once she’d disarmed Vamp, she hurled him away. I heard him hit the floor with a grunt, then roll into the wall with a thud.

“You shouldn’t have done it,” Qian said, her voice becoming softer as she moved her face close to mine. Another spurt of blood burbled out of the gash before it closed up, and disappeared. “You are correct. Sillith’s virus has spread, and continues to spread. Invisible to you our numbers have grown, but this is not what we wanted. It shouldn’t have happened, and we are trying to stop it. The other nations of your world, outside the scope of our influence, have seen what is happening and they are preparing to invade. If this comes to light now, we will never be able to reverse it.”

“You’re replacing us,” I said. “You’re wiping us out.”

“No,” she insisted. “We would never change you. We’re trying to save you.”

“Save us? You’re supposed to fix the planet, not this. I’ve seen it. People are being changed.”

“Their bodies have changed. We would never change who you are. I have all my memories, every joy, every sadness, all human. I am still me. I am still Qian Cho.”

I tried to shake my head. “You say ‘we.’ ‘We’ would never change ‘you.’ You’re not Qian Cho, not anymore.”

I felt anger through the mites, defensive anger. She pulled me a little closer, and lowered her voice.

“You say we should fix the planet that you depleted?” she said. “This planet can’t be fixed. Not now. Not anymore. If you’re going to survive what’s coming, then you need to evolve.”

“You’re eating us,” I gasped.

“There weren’t supposed to be so many, so soon,” she said. “We weren’t supposed to have to resort to this. Sillith’s virus—”

“Even without it, once we’ve all changed we’d still have to eat,” I said. “The planet can’t feed humans; how are haan going to live on it?”

“Sam,” a voice said. “There is some truth to what she says.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw that Nix had returned. He stepped into the room, moving between Qian and me just a few paces back. He made no move to interfere with Qian’s hold on me.

“Nix?” I managed.

“It isn’t common knowledge,” he said, “but it’s true that your world as it is cannot be fixed. Our universe is very similar to your original one, but there are small, but fundamental, differences. Your world doesn’t have much time. There is a reason for all of this, I promise.”

“How did you get back here?” Qian asked.

Nix didn’t answer, but wherever she’d gated him I guessed he used the gate system to reach my apartment and came in through the closet portal. Qian wouldn’t have known about that.

“Nix, help me,” I wheezed.

He didn’t move. I could sense how conflicted he felt at that moment. On the one hand, the haan had abandoned him and his loyalty to me was real. On the other hand, he faced the extinction of his race. He couldn’t reconcile it.

“He’s not going to help you,” Qian said. “He knows that I’m right even if he can’t quite accept it. This is your last chance to do as I ask.”

I struggled to stand my ground, but I found my resolve slip, just a little. I made myself remember Sillith, and how she’d almost killed millions of people. I remembered her victims, bound and mutilated down in the pit under Shiliuyuán. I remembered the little girl, smiling next to her own discarded skin and how afraid I’d become to walk the streets of the city that was my home. Nothing else that happened to me, not losing my mother, or ending up homeless, or even being taken by the meat farmers had made me scared to be in Hangfei. Only the haan had managed that.

“You hid the truth from the start,” I gasped. “It’s time for people to see….”

Spots bloomed in front of my eyes as her grip closed my throat, and choked off the words. Still, Nix did not move.

I’m going to die, I thought. The time had come. I felt myself slipping, blacking out, and I knew that once I lost consciousness I would never awaken, not this time. Several scaleflies crept from her hand, their legs tickling as they crawled up my jawline and over my cheeks. I grabbed her, trying to peel her fingers away but she felt as hard and as strong as stone. Crushing me took no effort at all.

“You don’t have any choice in the matter,” Qian said. “The universe you find your world in now is rejecting you. The decay will be slow, but certain. All life on this world that does not evolve will die. Stop fighting. Let us save you.”

A sound like water rushing filled my ears and as my eyes began to roll, I felt no fear. For once, I wasn’t afraid at all. I felt a strange, disconnected calm and if anything, it came closer to relief than anything else.

It’s over….

A boom sounded from somewhere behind me, and the dark cloud scattered back into spots as my lungs pulled in a long, painful breath. I fell, landing hard on my back and looking up at the ceiling as a second boom went off. A shiny brass shell casing spun past me, and Qian dropped Shuang onto the floor in a heap.

Gasping, I rolled over and saw Dao-Ming, the gate remote in one hand and a pistol in the other. The gate she’d just stepped through shrank closed behind her as she fired three more times.

“Sam, get away from her!” she called.

My vision flickered, and the image of Qian shifted for a second. Wet, black coils unraveled down the front of her and snaked out across the floor toward us. One lashed out and grabbed Dao-Ming’s wrist, pushing the gun away, toward the wall next to her even as she continued to fire. Another wound around her right leg just under the knee, then jerked her up into the air.

Dao-Ming landed hard on her back; then the gun flew from her hand and spun across the floor behind Qian. Dao-Ming struggled, the cords in her neck standing out as the grip on her leg tightened.

This wasn’t going to end well. Even all together, we were no match for the haan and all the while the struggle had been going on Nix still stood there, stuck in a state of indecision. Even now, he just watched as Qian forced Dao-Ming to the floor and pinned her there.

Vamp closed in to try to free her, and Shuang, terrified, tried to run. Before she could reach the exit, something snagged her ankle and she went facedown onto the floor. Her body slid backward across the floor toward Qian, and I took the opportunity to dart back behind them, toward Dao-Ming’s gun.