Flashback

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jem watched the chalky outline of Cory convulse, then fall. The crackle of broken branches reached her a moment later. She could not begin to imagine what had happened to him. Had he been shot? She reached for her phone and brushed the snow away. The phone’s keyboard had been destroyed by the bullet but the screen was still bright and the battery compartment intact. The display was a solid block of pixels. She removed the battery and reinserted it, but the phone would not boot. Only the backlight worked.

Jem rose. Part of her wanted to find out the extent of Cory’s injuries, but she had come here for Saskia. She walked towards the hut. Her steps were high in the deep snow. She put the mobile phone in her pocket to smother the glow of its screen.

As she looked up, something moved to the left of the hut.

Cory? The woodsman, perhaps?

She paused at the last tree that provided cover from the dooryard. She waited, side-on to the trunk, breathing through her nose, watching.

Another movement.

She remembered how the darkness in that Berlin church had seemed to gather into the shape of Saskia. Could she have come back to life? The idea was

(stupid)

possible.

What are you really, Saskia?

Curiosity killed the cat.

Satisfaction brought him back.

Who had she seen?

Brought him back.

Jem left her hiding space and walked around the hut. She could hear her heart. When she saw the person-shaped shadow again, this time in front of the woodpile, and caught the eyes watching her, Jem snatched a breath and held it. Then she raised her mobile phone.

Saskia moved into the light. Her eyes were shark-dead. Their blown, trembling pupils turned away, searching the trees. A thick tongue probed a tooth gap. Jem put a hand across her mouth as she gagged. She could not shake the feeling that Saskia was still dead and that her body was being moved by strings in the tree above her. Saskia—the body of Saskia—turned. Jem watched it shuffle away on bare feet. She followed, quietly.

How could this be her friend? She had been smashed: months away from any recovery, if that were even possible. But Ego had told her about the machines in Cory’s blood that could repair tissue. The ichor, Ego had called it. Had Cory somehow infected Saskia with the substance? Why would he do that?

Around the hut, snow fell soundlessly. There was a body lying face down—the woodsman?—obviously dead, greyed out by the recent snow. Jem continued to watch Saskia as she stared at him. Was there sadness in her expression? Saskia turned and took two paces uphill, away from the hut, where she dropped to the ground. Jem was worried that Saskia had fallen. She moved towards her and touched her shoulder. Blackish blood dripped from Saskia’s nose. The jaw worked while the tongue remained still.

Gently, Jem reached for the safety pin that had fastened her tongue to her cheek. She released it. Her fear and revulsion were distant places now.

‘Talk to me, sweetheart.’

‘Take,’ Saskia whispered, ‘my hand.’

‘Of course I will. There. Now let’s get out of here.’

The face warped. ‘Take my hand. Take my hand.’

Saskia snorted in frustration and looked down. She began to dig at the snow with her stump. Jem hesitated. She was uncertain whether Saskia wished her to help. When Saskia had cleared six inches, she rocked back, gasping, and looked at Jem as though for the first time.

‘You want me to dig?’ Jem asked.

In reply, Saskia blinked.

Jem set about scooping away the snow. The surface was brittle and wet but the deeper snow was packed hard. She dug until her fingers caught a metal edge. It was a small fuel container, perhaps bearing a gallon, and too heavy to move.

‘Take my hand.’

‘You want me to open it?’

Saskia blinked again.

Jem considered the container. It was lying on its side. ‘But the fuel will pour out.’

Saskia looked at the body of the woodsman and said no more. Jem sighed, covered her nose, and unscrewed the cap. Fuel poured out and dissolved a cavity in the snow.

‘What now, Saskia?’

Saskia pushed at the container. It was almost empty, but something metal knocked against its interior. Jem turned it upside down. She shone her phone on the object that fell out.

Saskia took the gun and struggled to her feet.

‘What are you doing?’

Saskia took uncertain steps through the snow. She passed the woodpile, raised her head to get her bearings, and walked around the side of the hut. Jem followed her; her desire to stop Saskia checked by the presence of the gun and the knowledge that this… this thing was not quite Saskia.

They crossed the emptiness of the dooryard with Jem lingering two paces behind. Every few metres, Saskia stopped, as though listening. Jem wondered at the technology in her head. Not just the device itself, but how it communicated with the brain. How did it move her legs and arms? Was the process something Frankensteinian, like frog’s legs twitching on a dinner plate? Was the device a puppeteer?

No, thought Jem. I shouldn’t call it ‘the device’.

Saskia stopped briefly once more.

I should call it Saskia.

They found Cory on his back with fallen branches around and across him. His fluorescent jacket had ripped open at the chest but there was no sign of serious injury. Only his lower leg seemed broken. It was bent at an impossible angle and his foot was turned inward. His eyes were closed.

Jem had time to notice a small, white cube nearby—was it the thing that sometimes took the form of a cane?—when Saskia raised her gun. She pointed it at Cory’s head. The sight of it focused Jem on the implications of killing him.

‘Wait, Saskia. What if he hasn’t finished fixing you? Maybe what’s happening inside you needs him to be alive.’

‘Take my hand.’

A paroxysm overcame Saskia. She doubled at the waist, screaming silently at her bloody feet. Jem moved alongside her. When she straightened, Jem took her in her arms. The gun remained pointed at Cory. Jem touched Saskia’s cheek with hers and closed her eyes. She remembered a morning two weeks ago when Saskia’s breath smelled faintly of the night, and Jem thought, An imperfection at last. She had faced her across the pillow in the white sunshine and kissed the tip of her nose.

The gloved hand of a stranger—leather, the colour of midnight arrest—closed around the barrel and twisted. Jem gaped at Inspector Duczyński, of all people, who put the weapon inside his jacket. Solemnly, Duczyński turned to a taller, older man wearing a fluorescent jacket and a yellow cap. Snow had gathered on its brim.

‘We found her,’ said the taller man. He was speaking into a mobile phone. ‘Hello? Mr Self?’

When Danny stepped from behind him, Jem felt her strength diminish. Saskia slipped through her hug and Danny caught them both, and the three sank, Saskia sighing as he looked from one to the other. Air blew through the black colonnades of the forest, bringing sparks of snow.