Chapter 14: Sanctum

 

Everything here smells like lemons.

Bizarre, and impossible, considering how the facility was the very picture of carnage only months ago. There are stains, here and there, gouges in the plaster, bullet holes in the walls, but for the most part, Vertex’s corridors could very nearly be described as pristine. But who’s been cleaning?

A metallic noise scrapes across the floor as a tentacle snakes by. Oh. That’s who.

No need for garbagemen, or any other staff now, it seems. The whole facility, or the parts that Jarod has seen, at least, are maintained by these things, these metal arms that could almost seem sentient if Nessa hadn’t plainly explained how they worked.

“They’re connected to me, neurologically.”

Gabriel watches her warily, hands cupped around his elbows, lips pursed as he sips in careful breaths. For all the maintenance the tentacles handle around the complex, it seems that nobody has bothered to consider turning up the heat.

“All of them,” Gabriel says. “To you? So you control them somehow?”

Nessa nods. “Mostly by thought. The techs in defense were working on this.” She gestures at herself, at the strange, armor-like shell encasing her torso and legs. “It’s an exoskeleton. You might say that I need it to function now.”

Jarod swallows. Did Robbie really take that much of her body? Was he that hungry? It wasn’t so long ago, but Jarod can’t remember anymore. Maybe he blocked it out. Nobody wants to remember the minute details of how their best friend was eaten alive.

“Then how do you sleep?” Tyler asks.

“I don’t.” Nessa shrugs. “I don’t have to.”

Tyler grunts. “Dang.” He’s already taken position at the far end of the room, as usual, leaning against a wall with his arms folded, expression wary, but his body seemingly relaxed.

Everyone seems relaxed, really, in spite of just meeting Nessa and her curious menagerie of bio-organic appendages. Perhaps it’s the relative comfort of being behind reinforced steel and knowing that the worst of Paragon is finally behind them. As much as the facility has been the source of so much dread, nothing beats several feet of thick concrete and, to Jarod’s surprise, functioning electricity.

And some part of him knows, on instinct, that everyone else is doing about the same thing that he is: postponing the absorption of what happened at the Hive for later. He sees it in the back of their eyes, senses it in the air. There’s something to be said for how readily the others have taken to trusting Nessa when they viewed Robbie with so much suspicion. Then again it’s as simple as drawing a line between patient zero and his very first victim.

Magpie’s poking around the laboratory, inspecting everything curiously, head tilted and hands clasped behind her back, as if she knows she isn’t supposed to touch anything. Daniel trails along after her, muttering breathily as he peers at all these new and strange instruments, all these machines and contraptions that Jarod only ever took for granted. He’s grateful for this small shift in Danny’s mood, at least, this small distraction he’s allowed from his grief.

Only Gabriel is really giving Nessa any sort of berth, one hand looped around the wrist of the other, his arms draped in front of him in a half-boyish, yet clearly defensive manner. Even Esther seems fine with this, her nose practically pushed up against Nessa’s body as she leans in to inspect her armor. They did know each other from work, after all, and maybe there’s a lingering sense of office solidarity there.

“So you’ve never bitten anyone,” Esther says.

“Never had a chance to. The facility’s security protocol activated by the time I – well, by the time I came back to life. All the doors were sealed. I must have been stuck there for days.”

“And the hunger?” Jarod clears his throat. “Robbie mentioned that.”

It’s crazy to be talking about this so casually, like Paragon’s resurrection was just a standard medical procedure, or puberty, something that happens to everyone. It’s even eerier to think that so many died right within these walls, yet the signs of that happening have been scrubbed and sloughed away by the metal extensions Nessa considers her limbs.

“It just – passed.” Nessa blinks, her eyes distant, like she’s having a hard time recalling. “It took a while but my body healed what parts it could, and one day I just came back to being me. I used my access codes to leave the lab. I knew where the exoskeleton prototype was and headed there.”

“What about the zombies your test subject made?” Esther nudges at her glasses, her forehead creased. “All those night crawlers he killed?”

“They ignored me. Technically I’m one of them, remember?” She lifts her hands, looking at her palms, as if that might provide some sort of answer.

“This is a lot to take in,” Tyler says. “Between Esther doing whatever the hell it is she did and – well, whatever all this is? I don’t know what to think.”

Gabriel shakes his head. “We spent half a year killing zombies, Torres. Zombies. This is hardly a stretch.”

A tentacle snakes by, its slender tip wrapped around the shaft of a dripping mop. Tyler nods at it. “Really? Hardly a stretch. Really.”

“It’s how things work around here.” Nessa shrugs. “Jarod can tell you.”

She smiles, laying a hand lightly on his arm, the way she used to when they sat together in the cafeteria. Jarod doesn’t smile back, and he tries his hardest not to flinch away.

He can tell Tyler all about Vertex, all right. It’s a place of madness, where a door on the fourth level teleports you to a corridor on level sixteen, where children tear men apart with their minds – where innocent people spend their lives engineering miracle cures, only for the company’s head to blight them all in accordance with his twisted vision.

“I’ve cleared the place out since, though. You’re free to move around if you like.” She gestures to the elevators. “You can help yourself to whatever rations you can find. I’m afraid much of the food that was left out spoiled, but I’m sure you’ll find something worth salvaging in the cafeteria. Canned goods.”

“God,” Tyler says, his voice and his gaze distant. “I would kill for a burger.”

Nessa tilts her head. “Maybe you won’t have to. We maintained power in the facility and refrigeration worked splendidly. Again, help yourselves to whatever you can find.”

There’s that word again. “We.” Jarod thinks he’s the only one who notices until he spots Magpie shooting him a look from across the room. And there’s the question of power as well. How have they maintained that? Does Vertex have its own generators? Jarod clenches his teeth as he considers another possibility. Has the rest of the world been fine all along?

A soft hand grips Jarod by the wrist. He jerks, but only slightly.

“Jarod,” Nessa says. “Go with them. You need to eat, too. Head to the cafeteria.” She squeezes his hand, then smiles. “Come see me after. We can catch up then.”

Another of Magpie’s looks, and the second that Nessa didn’t catch. Gabriel’s quicker than that, though, or maybe he’s stood exactly where he can see it. The bridge of his nose crinkles, but he says nothing.

 

***

 

The cafeteria is spotless, and rigidly organized, the very picture of a corporate canteen. If anyone was slaughtered here, no one would ever be able to tell. On one hand, it represents precisely half of what the garbagemen stood for, everything that the waste management department was supposed to accomplish. Keep things clean. The other half – keeping people alive – not so much. Worse still is that no one will remember those who died here. No marks, no stains, no memories. For all they know, nothing ever happened.

And that’s all forgotten, anyway, as the six of them sift through what remains of the kitchen. Plenty, it turns out. Canned goods, dried food, frozen meals, nearly all of it in the familiar, clean white packaging of Hargrove Farms.

Here they have all the electricity, heat, and water they’ll need to prepare everything. It’s such stark opposition to how life was just hours ago, with a colony on the brink of hunger, facing the very open reality of thirst. That colony is gone. The Hive is dead. Obliterated. For the rest of them, life goes on.

“I can’t believe this has been here all along,” Gabriel says. He takes another pull from a bottle of water, sipping carefully, just from the tip, like he’s afraid it’s going to spill or that they’ll run out.

“We could have come here,” Esther says. She’s standing over a table, palms laid flat. She stares at the back of her hands. “If we had known we could have saved everyone. Been safe all this time.”

“But we didn’t,” Tyler says. “Don’t do this to yourself. We didn’t know, Esther. We never hunted this far because we thought it’d be dangerous.”

Magpie coughs. “It might still be.”

Tyler frowns. “How do you mean?”

Jarod drums his fingers. He’s at his favorite table, the one he used to sit at with Nessa, and the one he’d later share with Gabriel. They’re sharing it again right now, also sharing the same look Gabriel shot him back up in the laboratory.

“She’s right,” Gabriel says. “We don’t know what’s actually happening here. Why are the lights on? Why is this place so well-maintained?”

“Nessa. She’s always been neat.” It’s a feeble explanation, but it’s all Jarod has. “She likes to keep things right. Proper. As much as she can.”

Magpie puts down her bottle of water. It thumps on the table a little too hard. “That explains nothing, Samuels, and you know it.”

“What do we have to lose by trusting her, at least for now?” Tyler looks around, waiting for a response, then frowns when all he gets is a glower from Magpie. “I’m seriously asking.”

From closer to the kitchen, Daniel coughs softly. He’s been busying himself, sorting cans of food to no real purpose, like it’s something he was so used to doing back at the Hive. He sets down the last can, then gives Tyler a somber look, his eyes red-rimmed, hair disheveled. It hurts to see him like this, but what can any of them do, really?

“She’s still one of them,” Daniel says. He glances towards Jarod apologetically, then shakes his head. “We don’t know how much of what she says is true.”

“But we were as good as dead out there.” Esther clasps her hands, her lips set tight. “Doesn’t matter now, does it? I always knew Nessa Wong to be a good person. Decent, hardworking. So what if she kills us now?” She shakes her head. “We’ve been as good as dead for so long. Least we get a hot meal out of it.”

“Nessa wouldn’t do that.” Jarod’s voice sounds detached even to him, almost like it’s coming from one of those headsets he used to wear for work. “We’ll be fine. She won’t hurt us.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Tyler’s glare is challenging. You’ve been wrong before, it says. He doesn’t speak the words, but Jarod knows Robbie’s name is just on the tip of Tyler’s tongue. “Let’s say something happens. What then?”

Jarod stands up, the legs of his chair scraping across the floor. “Then I’ll fix it. Whatever needs fixing. If it means I have to kill to do it. If it means I have to die.”

Daniel sighs, a heave so deep and hard that everyone in the room pauses to look at him. “Some things we can’t fix, Jarod.” He smiles, but there’s no joy in the creases of his mouth. “Some things break, then they’re just broken forever.”

Jarod looks at his shoes.

“I’ll be back,” he says.

“Stay.” Gabriel tugs on the hem of his shirt. “Eat something first.”

“I’m not hungry.”

It’s a lie, but some questions need answering. On the way out of the cafeteria, Jarod checks on Daniel’s expression again. It’s difficult to read anything there apart from sadness, resignation.

Tyler pushes a button and the light in a microwave goes on, making its steady hum as it turns and cooks, spins like a turntable, a wheel. For the rest of them, life goes on.

Somewhere in the cafeteria, a camera goes whir, and click.

 

***

 

Some part of Jarod wants to reach out and touch Nessa, maybe give her a hug the way he once might have done. A different part of him is terrified to even consider that. She never bit anyone, she said, but the ichor must still live inside her somewhere, just like how it was still inside of Robbie.

But he keeps his thoughts to himself, and more importantly, off of his face. For now, he’ll play it normal, like nothing changed. A tall order. He sits with his hands clasped between his knees, on a couch in the corner of the executive office that Nessa wanted to meet in. He forces a smile, making sure that it doesn’t look that way.

“So, no glasses, huh?”

Nessa smirks, but the smile fades quickly. “Paragon worked for that, at least. Took away my imperfections. Still, it can’t exactly regrow missing limbs.” She swallows thickly. “Or missing chunks of tissue.”

Jarod frowns, looking her body over.

“He took more of me than you saw,” she says. “That’s why I need to wear this. Customized it to fit me.” Nessa shrugs. “The exo prototypes were tested on men, so.”

She turns in place, giving Jarod a better look. The plates almost look like they’re fused to her skin, a metal cocoon that encases her from breast to foot. And at the bottom of each foot, of course, is a little metal heel. He almost smiles. Some things don’t change.

“This project was meant for veterans, or the handicapped. Hargrove put it in action a long time ago, to help amputees or the wounded get back on their feet and become independent again.”

Corrupted, doubtless, into his vision. There has to be something off about this suit, or maybe that’s just Jarod being paranoid. Hard not to be when Hargrove’s involved, really.

“So you cleaned out the whole facility? Just you and these things? Were they part of the exoskeleton project too?”

Nessa nods. “I modified the exo to give me control of the facility. I’m wired into Vertex, as it were. The tentacles, they’re meant for construction, makes it safer and faster to build things. Different department’s project. So I combined the two.”

“Construction,” Jarod says. “A faster way to build things.” The wall.

“I harvested raw materials to make my arms bigger and longer, at first, to give them better reach.” She clears her throat. “Much better reach.”

“So the wall? It was you?”

“I can’t leave the facility. I had no other way to alert anyone who was out there. I thought the wall would be one way to lead survivors to safety. Quarantine the city, and give them a direct channel towards the facility.”

“Robbie fired a flare.” Jarod looks at the ground, suddenly uncertain that he should have spoken. “He said he was warning us about the wall.”

“It was a trap,” Nessa says. “You saw what happened for yourself. The horde destroyed your home.”

She’s right. Ultimately Robbie’s warning ended with the Hive completely shattered, its people ripped to pieces. Whatever friends and semblance of family Jarod had left, all torn to shreds. Which reminds him.

“What happened to your parents?”

The question takes Nessa by surprise. Her gaze goes distant. “I – I don’t know. I keep saying that I’ll look in on them one day, but how? Maybe you can help, once this is over. Once we clean the city.” Tears well up in her eyes, fresh and clear, the way tears should be. The exoskeleton and the ever-present tentacles aside, Nessa is as she once was. Sensitive, human. A friend.

“Clean the city?” As if there’s anything left of the city to clean. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been studying what’s left of the horde. Paragon has its own hive mind, it seems. They can share information across this network. I don’t understand how it works exactly. Pheromones? A kind of telepathy?”

“We figured that out. Britta came calling. That – it didn’t end well.”

Nessa places a hand on his arm. It’s warm, the skin soft. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s long over. But we learned that much, that they’re all connected.”

“And they seem to take orders from him.” Nessa’s eyes narrow. “I’ve seen it happen.”

“Robbie, you mean? Then how come you don’t?”

Nessa shrugs. “He was patient zero, and I was the first victim. Maybe Paragon is strongest at the top of the chain. Maybe it gives me some resistance.” She looks behind her, at her harness, then sighs and gestures at her torso. “Maybe it’s this. All we know is that he simply has to think it, and he can direct them all according to his will.”

So Robbie was feigning all along? That means that he ordered the horde to swarm the Hive. All this destruction, it really was his fault from the very beginning. Jarod clenches his fist.

“He said he was better, that he’s changed.”

“And you believed him?”

Jarod rests his hands in his lap, opens them, and stares into his palms. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“Believe me.” A hand cups Jarod by the chin, lifting his face up. “Believe in our friendship. This can all be sorted out.” She smiles, as sweet and as beautiful as the first day they met. “I promise, we can fix this.”

She offers her hand, one of the last bits of her that isn’t encased in metal. Jarod takes it, relishing the smoothness and warmth of her palm, the delicate strength of her fingers. Her hand feels like friendship. It feels like trust.