“Okay, let me get a mop before you get up. Don’t want anyone to fall.”
She walks away and Mary, very quietly, asks, “What the hell was that?”
I scratch the zurgle’s head and it leans into me, purring loudly. “I don’t know.”
ARC
The town isn’t abandoned anymore.
Calisan is under a full-blown CSS occupation.
Doors are marked with Xs, weeds and overgrowth have been violently cleared away, and everyone has a gun.
No one is happy Kilo and I are here… including us.
We let Riann deal with them and keep a reasonable distance.
“Safe to say they arenotcoming back after this.” Kilo fidgets with the drone control on his hip. The smaller one held loosely in his hand makes buzzing noises each time he nudges the toggle.
Riann relays what he’s been told and the others eye us warily, their thoughts ranging from thinking we’re unnecessary to wondering what mutation we have. Someone’s trying to get the wording right for a joke about two heads once we’re gone.
Riann comes back to us, looking disgusted, but it’s about what the other man said—referring to Kilo and me—not what he’s about to tell us.
“Everything left inside the houses is set dressing. It’s not real.”The papers were too tidy; the information on them completely irrelevant.“They wanted it to look like they deserted the place long before they actually did.”
“And the underground facility?” I ask.
“It’s been cleared.”Of course.
Of course. “Then I want to take a look.”
“Why else would we be here?” He nods toward the enormous doors. “The good doctor’s home was cleared out long ago. It’s not even staged to look like the others.”
“He might not have even moved in,” Kilo suggests, and Riann looks at him askance. “Why bother to set up shop if you know you’re just going to be working underground the whole time?”
We step inside, seeing a few of the water tanks Riann previously predicted would be in the cavernous space, but the rest of it is empty. Lines in the dust worn away by tires give clue to what we already knew. They kept their vehicles here, prepped for a hasty departure.
“Do you care if I disappear?” Kilo asks quietly.
“I’d prefer it,” Riann says, and Kilo chuckles to himself as he leaves, walking through an open door, out of sight only to return a moment later.
I don’t acknowledge him because I know no one else can see him.
Silent and watchful, he wanders the room while Riann leads me to a man with a dark band around his head, a healing wound I don’t think came from his position with the CSS.
But I ignore it and his thoughts give me no clues.
He doesn’t introduce himself.
He doesn’t want to be here and he doesn’t like Riann…
“You know where you’re going?” he asks brusquely.
“We do.”
Wedon’t, but I don’t correct Riann. I scan the room, being very careful not to look at Kilo.
He weaves through the other CSS personnel and I’m reminded—again—that his fidgeting and constant questions are a part of the way he makes sure he can stay invisible in these places. If theyexpectto hear him or see movement, they won’t think he’s there when he is.
