Joshua McCune - Talker 25

“Dying whale,” Lorena whispers, then makes a little squeaky sound. I want to laugh, but I can’t seem to remember how.

“Thank you, Sergeant, it was very helpful,” Twenty-Six says. Then, a smile entering his voice: “I’ll see you soon.”

I look up. He’s gone. But Evelyn won’t stop talking about him. His name follows me out of the cafeteria onto the bus. James this. James that.

James doesn’t exist anymore, I want to yell. James is gone!

Why can’t he just be gone?

“One, Seven, Thirteen, Twenty-Five,” Lester announces as we pull up beside the ER.

“Kill the dragons, yes, yes.”

“I think I’d be more useful in the call center, Sergeant,” I say.

My CENSIR shocks me. “I’m tired of your attitude, Twenty-Five. We go where Major Alderson assigns us.”

After putting on our filtration masks and goggles, my team heads for the Chemics station to finish off a tabun regimen on a now-wingless Green.

A soldier retrieves a hatchet from the wall, points it across my face. “Looks like your boyfriend found somebody more to his liking.”

“Good for him.” I avoid looking at the Electrics slab until the A-B’s attention is elsewhere. Twenty-Six is crouched in front of a flickering Red’s scorched snout. Evelyn lingers close, no doubt giving instructions he doesn’t need.

“Pricklers are green for go,” Patch says from the Chemics control console. The mechanized syringe system extends from the wall and injects a needle of adrenaline into the Green’s back. Seconds later, its eyes pop open.

“Proceed, Twenty-Five,” Patch says.

My CENSIR loosens. I repeat the same question I asked a hundred times yesterday. “Velmar, where are the Diocletians?”

“I do not know Diocletians,” he says. The subsequent growl that rumbles through my head comes out as harsh static from Patch’s speaker.

A talon gets hatcheted off. Velmar’s growl deepens.

“Velmar, where are the Diocletians?”

“I do not know Diocletians.”

A lie, at least according to the drone video Patch showed me. Velmar was shot down in a recent ambush by the Diocletians on a supply convoy traveling through the evacuated territories. The jagged scar of glowless flesh along Velmar’s back is unmistakable.

After another talon amputation, Patch injects the Green with a high dosage of tabun. Velmar dims, the growl becomes a whine.

“Velmar, where are the Diocletians?”

“Open yourself to me, human, and I will show you the truth.”

Not the first time I’ve heard that from him, either. Other Greens have said similar things. Creeps me out. I asked Lorena about it once. She acted like she didn’t know, but I think it had something to do with her father.

“Do you know what he means?” I ask Patch as he ups the dosage.

“It’s just trying to scare you. Don’t worry, Twenty-Five, it can’t hurt you.”

I don’t know if he’s trying to be comforting or ironic. I assume the latter.

The loudspeaker turns on. “Team Three, please proceed to Chemics. Team One, stand down and observe. You will remain after hours to account for the backlog.”

“Dammit, Twenty-Five,” Patch says. “Stop making my life miserable.”

“Feel free to transfer me at anytime,” I say, knowing very well that he can’t. He can, however, shock me.

I stifle a groan, which has less to do with the pain from my CENSIR and more to do with Twenty-Six sauntering toward me. At least he’s alone.

“Hey, weak link,” he says. “Can’t squeeze the juice out of this lime?”

“I didn’t need any help with Vestia,” I say. “She was beautiful, you know?”

I hope for a flinch, some sign of the farmboy I once knew, but his coldness remains steadfast. “Vestia was weak, with too much sentiment and not enough sense. Reminds me of a certain underperforming glowheart I know.”

“Bite me, asshole.”

“Control your emotions, Twenty-Five. They tend to get you in trouble.”

The soldiers laugh.

With another glare for me, Patch cedes control of the Chemics console to Team Three’s Mengele.

“Watch and learn, Glowheart.” Twenty-Six turns to the dragon. “Velmar, where are the Diocletians?”

Velmar’s words play from the console speaker. “Did I scare the girl away?”

“Perhaps.”

“Too bad. She smelled delicious. You smell delicious, too.”

“I’m sure I am. But have you ever tasted a human child?” Twenty-Six asks.

Velmar groans through his bindings. A purr almost. “Often.”

“Recently?” Twenty-Six asks.

Velmar doesn’t answer.

“The smell of their skin, the softness . . . ,” Twenty-Six says, as if describing a delicious delicacy.

“Twenty-Six, what are you—” Patch starts, stops as Velmar brightens.

“There is nothing so glorious as fresh flesh,” Velmar says.

Whispered conversations end abruptly. Somebody gasps. Several A-Bs draw knives. A couple pull their sidearms.

Twenty-Six waves them off. “Surely you took some of these fresh kills back to your lair.”

“I surely did, but I will not tell you where.”

“Are you a good little dog, protecting your pack?” Twenty-Six says.

“I am no dog. I have no pack.”

“Yes, but they know where you live, don’t they? That fresh flesh will be theirs. Your bounty.”

Velmar pulses. “Mine.”

“Show me where it is.”

“Open yourself to me and I will.”

“It is too late for that. You know how this ends, Velmar. Show me. The invisible monsters will bury your treasure in an avalanche, never to be shared.”

“You can promise this?”

“Yes, but you must hurry.”

An image appears on the console computer screen. Some mountain range. Then another. Inside a cave. I look away too slowly to avoid the corpses. Little corpses.

“That’s as close as we’re going to get,” Twenty-Six says to his Mengele. “Now, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to chop this bastard to pieces. I’m tired of looking at him.”

A soldier hands him a hatchet. The other A-Bs join the impromptu dissection. For once, I don’t mind.

After another long day in the call center, in which I came in last again and had to spend two extra hours to reach the new minimum daily standard—raised from two to four because of Twenty-Six’s successes—I return to the barracks to find my Kissing Dragons episode playing.

The screen fades to the credits as I go apeshit with the sword on Old Man’s Blue head. Evelyn bounds to her feet. “Let’s put our hands together for Twenty-Five, who has turned the corner and helped make the world a better place. If only we were all lucky enough to be given the chance. How did it feel slaying that demon, Twenty-Five? Was it spectacular?”

“You want to know how it felt?” I say, closing the distance between us in three quick strides. She senses my fury an instant too late to raise her hands. After the first punch, I expect my CENSIR to shock me silly, but nothing happens. Must be Whiskey Jim running Big Brother patrol tonight.

I get in a couple more straight punches before Seven and Ten pull me off and shove me away. I glower at Evelyn. “That was spectacular.”

She wipes blood from her nose. “You’re in trouble.”

Lorena shakes her head. “Anybody asks, you fell.” She leans in, her voice little more than a whisper. “Otherwise, I’m going to let Allie know who took her Kit Kat the other night.”

“That wasn’t me,” Evelyn says.

Lorena glances at Twenty-One, who’s huddled in the corner, grinning at us. “Who you think she’s going to believe?”

“Thanks,” I say on the way back to our beds.

“You need to get it together,” Lorena says, taking me by the arm. I cringe. Her fingers probe the bump on my tricep where Trish injected me. “You should see one of the doctors.”