Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (44 page)

"I've told you all I know," Finch said. "Anything you needed to
know." But not Sintra. Not Rathven. Not the Lady in Blue. Hadn't
given them up. Still, couldn't be sure anymore.

She said she'd have watchers on me. She lied.

The Partial ignored him. "Don't worry, Finch. We're almost to the
end. Almost to dawn. Just another couple of hours. You might even
make it."

Couldn't help himself. "Fuck you. Fuck you. You psychotic little
prick. You cock-sucking psychotic bastard. You fucking coward!"

Thrashing in his chair until it fell over onto its side.

Silence then. Waiting.

The Partial lowered himself against the floor next to Finch. Looked him
in the eyes. Said, "We'll keep going until I see all of you. All of you."

Finch tried to spit in his face. All that came out was a trickle of
blood.

Am I dying? Is this what death is like?

The rest dissolved into a kind of distant burning.

A kind of despairing, raging ache.

Back on the Spit. On the roof of the houseboat. Dusk now, the sun
almost gone, but lingering.

The Spit smoldered. Thick with flame and smoke. The towers
were silent. From that angle, he couldn't see what lay between them.
But strange birds flew out between them. Like parrots, but different.
Flashes of green-blue-orange. Beyond that, the city, in an agony of
bronzing light.

Opposite him on the bench sat Duncan Shriek. This time he had a
long gray beard, white hair down to his shoulders. His beard writhed,
alive. His overcoat wasn't made of cloth at all. Concealed a mountain
of a body, reminding Finch of Wyte. No shoes. Shriek's feet seemed
to blend into the wood of the floorboards as if rooted there. His image
flickered in and out. Could not seem to settle into flesh and blood.

"Hello again, Finch," Shriek said.

Finch, bitter: "They burned your body. Spread your ashes over
the towers. You're dead," Finch said. "You failed us. Thousands and
thousands of people are going to die because of you." Angry at himself.

Shriek said, "Your body is shutting down, Finch. You cannot take
more torture. You have to do something. All I can do for now is numb
the pain."

Finch's legs were on fire. He couldn't put out the flames.

"There's nothing I can do."

Shriek pulled him close. Until his face was inches from Finch's.
Drawn into the power of those eyes that were both more and less
than eyes. Into the magisterial force of the experience and pain there.
"Find a way. And when you've done it, drink the vial you brought
with you. Even if you do kill the Partial you'll die there on the floor,
otherwise."

"The Photographer said the vial is poison."

"It is. But it's life as well. You'll die, and then I'll bring you back."

"You can't do anything," Finch said. "You're just in my head."

"So are you," Shriek said.

He picked Finch up by the shoulders. Raised him high. Pushed
and released him in the same motion. So violently that he was sent
flying over the city. Where Shriek's hands had touched him, a healing
numbness. Spreading.

Below, the fires crackling on the Spit were snuffed out. The black
smoke turned white and then broke apart. Still he soared, over the
twinkling green of the Religious Quarter, over the dull white remains
of the camps, over everything.

So this is how it ends. How it really ends. But at least it ends.

Woke to darkness. Woke to blood caked around his eyes. To a broken
nose. To the knowledge that his bowels had loosened. That he'd
pissed himself. Dribbling hot down his thighs, itching through the
numbness. Was able to move his legs a little. A veil now between
him and the pain. It registered as an even, serrated glow around his
body. No part of him hurt more than any other part. Allowed him to
concentrate. Gave him energy.

"Not done with you. Not the right answers." Mumbled like a prayer
from somewhere in front of him.

Right eye was swollen shut. Opened his left enough to squint.

The Partial's face was up close through that slit of vision. The abyss
of the fungal eye. The orange lichen of the other. The stark white
landscape of that face. Staring at him. A hand shaking him. Trying to
see if he was still alive.

Too close.

The gun was on the table. The knives were on the table.

Erupted hard up and out. Caught the Partial on the chin with the top
of his head. A grunt of surprise. Of pain. Finch fell on top of the Partial.
Legs still too rubbery. Brought his forehead hard onto the fungal eye.
Could feel it give. The Partial screamed. Tried to push Finch off of him.
Battered his sides with his fists. But Finch felt none of it. Bit into the
Partial's left cheek. Pulled back. Spit out the flesh. The Partial shrieking.
Finch kept smashing his head into the right side of the Partial's face.
Until the eye socket sagged and the Partial was moaning. The beating
of hands at Finch's sides now more like the wings of a bird.

Finally, the Partial stopped moving. Maybe he'd been saying
something. Screaming something. Finch didn't know. Didn't care. The
warm glow that surrounded him muffled sound. Muffled everything
but itself.

Was the Partial dead? He would be. Finch picked up a knife off the
table with his mouth. Positioned it between his teeth. Knelt. Bent his
head to the side. Came down hard. Jammed it hilt-deep in the Partial's
throat. Got out of the way as the blood came quick and heavy. The
Partial convulsed once, twice, back bucking. Then nothing.

The pain was coming back. Everywhere. The veil fading. He backed
up to the table. Got his hands around a knife. Tilted it downward. Cut
himself free after a minute. Didn't care what he had to cut through
to do it.

Stumbled past the Partial. Past Heretic. To his jacket. Found the
vial. Opened it. Stood there, trembling.

The Photographer had said it was poison. Bliss had said in liquid
form it would rejuvenate Shriek. Shriek was gone. But the figment in
his mind had been right about one thing: one way or the other, he was
going to die without help.

Downed it in one gulp. Tasted like dirt and chocolate. Sprinkled
with some sharp yet familiar herb.

Fell heavily to the floor. Sat there as the energy left him. As his
wounds laid him out flat on his back. As he gasped. Every inch of his
body crying out in an endless agony.

inch and Shriek stood in the cavern by the underground sea. In
front of Samuel Tonsure's one-room shelter.

"You're a hallucination," Finch said. Wouldn't look at Shriek. "I'm
dying. I'm having a conversation with myself."

Shriek said, "Remember how Wyte had Otto inside of him? In a
different way, you have me inside of you. I entered your mind when
you ate my memory bulb."

Something had lived inside of Wyte. When it came out, Finch had shot it.
Then sliced it apart as it squealed.

"That's impossible."

"Do you really know what's impossible anymore?" Shriek asked. "Are
you in a position to have an opinion that means anything anymore?
You will still die there, on the floor, Finch, if you don't believe in me."
Felt an immense pressure in his skull. A kind of pulse. "That's me,"
Shriek said. "Me, trying to get out." His eyes burned with a deep and
abiding fire. "I was still regenerating. Healing. But I altered the memory
bulb. I encoded it with a copy of me. When you ate it, I entered your
brain. If my body had lived, if the real me had lived, I would have
eventually become less than an echo. A stray thought. An impulse for
tea instead of coffee. Unexpected sadness or joy. You would have carried
me, decaying, for the rest of your life. But that didn't happen. They've
killed me and I'm all that's left. Now it's my mission."

Tea not coffee. The strange surge of energy during the shoot-out. Sadness
or joy. Emotions not his own. Not Crossley's, either.

"There is no mission now."

"You're wrong, Finch. Very wrong."

Finch, disgusted: "Like Wyte and Otto. I'll die and you'll come out
of me. Like a fucking parasite."

Shriek frowned. "No. Not like Wyte and Otto. Not like that at all.
Otto ate Wyte from the inside out. I'm just a passenger, gone soon
enough. If you help me."

"Help you do what?"

"Manifest in the real world. Become flesh and blood. Complete the
mission while there's still time."

"But you're just a ... an imitation."

"It's not the best way. It's just the only way now."

"My mind's playing tricks on me."

"Listen to me, Finch. It was Bliss who found me in this cavern. Who
brought me to the rebels. I wasn't even human anymore. I wasn't, in
any sane sense, alive. I had learned so much about the world that I had
decided to withdraw from it. If I could come back from a hibernation
of so many years, then maybe you'll understand why a copy of me
might be able to re-enter the world."

Bliss again. On the walls of Zamilon. Finding Duncan Shriek. Bending
the ear of the Lady in Blue.

"When I wake up, you'll just be a memory of a dream."

"You're not hearing me. You won't wake up. Your body is shutting down."

"Then take over. It's a weak enough machine," Finch said with selfcontempt. "How can I stop you?"

Shriek waved his hand. They stood on the battlements of Zamilon.
No one there but them. Cold and windy. Out in the desert: shadows
gathering.

"I can't force you. It would take too much time. We don't have that
kind of time. You'd die first. And right now the Lady in Blue is holding off
the invaders at Zamilon. She's waiting for a miracle. I'm that miracle."

"And if I said no? If I said no, you'd just fade away and this would
all be over?"

"Yes."

Thinking again about Wyte. About Stark under the influence of
Wyte's memory bulb. At what price? And: You knew you might die. Why
aren't you willing to do this?

Because it's not real.

Looked out at the green lights beginning to appear. Above, the
blurred gleam of stars obscured by dust.

"It's up to you, Finch," Shriek said.

"How do we do it?" Finch asked. "I cut open my own head and you
pop out?" And what happens to me then?

"It's nothing like that," Shriek said. "Nothing like that. You open
yourself to me, and then I open myself to you. Then you sleep for
awhile. When you wake up, I am out of you. I can feed off of moisture.
Off of the air. What I take from you will be no larger than the weight
of a baby. And I will do the rest. Then we go our separate ways. You'll
never see me again." Except when I look in the mirror. "I know you're
afraid. But what happened to Wyte was invasive. Hostile. He had a
parasite inside of him. Something made possible by the gray caps."

This isn't invasive?

The green lights were closer. He could almost make out the forms
of the creatures gathered out there in the desert. Waiting to take
Zamilon for themselves. Who could say their cause was any less just?
The Lady in Blue didn't even know what they were.

"How do I know you're not hostile? I `open up' and you take over."

"I won't. I promise. I can't. It wouldn't last for long."

"What's the risk if I say yes?"

Shriek hesitated. Then said, "I won't lie to you. It's a sacrifice. I will
be doing things to your body to make my own. Stealing from your
tissue. Robbing you while you're already weak. You won't be the same
afterward. Even after you recover from the torture. You'll have dizzy
spells. Headaches. You may not sleep for awhile. When you do sleep,
there will be nightmares as your mind flushes out my memories. But you'll
be setting me free. And I won't take it from you unless you let me."

"You're saying it'll almost kill me."

"And heal you, too," Shriek said. "In the short term, I can make
your flesh knit faster. I can shield you from the aftershock of what the
Partial did to you. And a part of you will always be with me. Even
after you die, you will live on because I will still be alive." Shriek
grinned, showing his teeth. "I'm hard to kill."