9
It was only once he was walking the bruja back to her
shanty that things really stopped making sense. One
moment she was there, walking beside him, talking softly to
him, and then the next she was gone. Not only was she
gone, but as he looked back, the only tracks in the sand
were his own.
He went on, ahead to her shanty. Perhaps she had left
him and gone there. Perhaps he had simply not been
paying attention.
When he arrived, he rapped lightly on the crumpled sheet
of tin that served in lieu of a door. Nobody answered. He
knocked again, harder this time. Still no answer.
He knocked again. And again. Still no answer.
In the end, curiosity won out over fear. He took a deep
breath and carefully pulled the sheet of tin aside far enough
for him to duck inside.
It was dark. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust.
At first, he couldn’t see anything except the shaft of light
entering through the crack of the door. But he smelled
something, a rich and pungent smell, almost metallic—he
couldn’t quite place it. Then slowly he began to make out
dim shapes. A table, scattered with indistinct objects. A
basin, turned over on the packed earth floor. There, at the
far end of the room, he saw a straw-and-grass pallet, and
on it, under a tattered blanket, the shape of a body.
He called out to her. “Bruja!” The form in the bed didn’t
move.
He moved slowly across the room until he stood just over
the bed. Cautiously he reached out and touched the form
through the blanket, shook it slightly.
“It’s me,” he said. “Chava.”
She was on her side. He tugged her over, flipped her
onto her back, and the blanket slipped down to reveal the
bruja’s wide staring eyes and her slit throat.
He found a box of matches and with shaking fingers lit
the lamp on the floor beside the bed. He pulled the blanket
off, saw the knife she held in her death-clenched fist. The
blade was brown with her blood. He carefully tugged the
knife free and laid it flat on the bed beside her. Her other
hand, he saw, was badly cut, long gashes on each of the
fingers.
Ixtab, he thought.
He picked up the lamp and held it close to her face. The
cut was jagged and incomplete, the bluish white of her
trachea jutting out. She had been dead for some time,
hours at least, maybe days. The smell in the room, he
realized, was the smell of her blood. How was this
possible? He’d just been with her. Or thought he had.
Shaking his head, he turned and made for the door, then
suddenly stopped. In the lamplight, he saw something else.
The walls were covered with crude symbols, like nothing
he’d ever seen, odd twisting shapes, inscribed in blood.
Shocked, he stared at them. Slowly voices crept into his
head, the bruja’s among them. He turned and fled.
10
After Altman had left, Hammond stayed on drinking. His
head ached. Had it been wise to tell Altman? Had he been
right about him? Maybe he was a free agent, but then
again, if he were someone fishing for information, wouldn’t
that be exactly what they’d want him to think, that he was
talking to someone who was safe? But you couldn’t be sure
that anybody was safe. You couldn’t be sure that someone
wasn’t watching you right at that moment. They were always
watching, always looking, and the moment you felt safest
was probably the moment when they were watching you
most closely, most sneakily, the moment when they’d
figured out how to worm into your skull. That’s what they
must have done—they must have implanted a recorder in
his skull. His head hurt, had been hurting for several days
now. Why hadn’t he seen it before? They were recording
his brain waves; then they transmitted them to some supersecret
high-tech neurolab somewhere and plugged them
into someone else’s head and then knew everything he was
thinking. The only thing to do was not think. If he stopped
thinking, maybe he could keep one step ahead of them.
Someone was coming across the room toward him. A
large man with a bushy mustache and a wrinkled, liverspotted
face. It must be one of them. He tensed his body
but remained motionless. Was there time to get to the knife
in his pocket and flick it open and stab the guy? No,
probably not. But he had the beer bottle in his hand. Maybe
he could throw it at the man’s head. If he threw it hard
enough and just right, it might knock him out. Or no, wait, he
could grab the bottle by the neck and break it off. Then he’d
have a real weapon. They’d never take him alive.
“Señor?” the man said, a concerned look on his face. “Is
anything the matter?”
What was that voice? It was familiar: the owner of the
bar. What was his name? Mendez or something. He
relaxed. What was wrong with him? It was just the
bartender. He shook his head. Why was he so paranoid?
He didn’t usually get like that, did he?
“I’m all right,” he said. “I’d like another beer.”
“I’m sorry,” said the owner. “We are closing.”
And indeed, when he looked around he saw that he was
almost the last one in the bar. Everyone was gone except
for one villager, the nameless town drunk who was sunk in
the corner of the room, wrapped in a dark shawl, watching
him.
Hammond nodded. He stood and made for the door. The
drunk followed him with his eyes. Don’t pay any attention to
him, Hammond thought. He’s not one of them, he’s just a
drunk. They haven’t gotten to him yet. Probably. Take a
deep breath. You’re going to be okay.
He made it out into the dusty street okay. He could hear
the surf against the shore, could smell the salt as well. What
now? he wondered. What else? And then he thought:
Home.
He was about halfway back to the complex he lived in,
walking down a deserted street, when he heard something.
At first, he wasn’t sure he’d heard anything meaningful at
all. It was just a clattering sound and might have been
caused by an animal. When he stopped, he didn’t hear it.
But when he started up again, there it was, little traces of it,
like a voice he couldn’t quite hear in his head. After half a
block more he was sure: someone was dogging his
footsteps.
He turned around but didn’t see anyone. He quickened
his step a little. There seemed to be whispers coming from
the shadows in front of him, but as he approached them
they faded, continuing on farther along the road. He shook
his head. That’s crazy, he thought. I’m going crazy. He
heard again a noise behind him and wheeled around
again, this time seeing someone, a dark form, a little
distance away.
He stopped, stared at it. It had stopped moving, and then
as suddenly as it had appeared, it stepped back into the
shadows and was gone.
“Hello?” he couldn’t stop himself from saying. “Is anyone
there?”
His heart had begun to thud in his throat. He reached into
his pocket and pulled out his knife, opened the blade. It
looked absurdly small, almost useless, in his hand. He
started back toward the shadows where the figure had
disappeared, then realized that that was probably exactly
what they wanted him to do. He turned quickly around to
continue the way he had been going.
Except when he turned around, he found the street in
front of him wasn’t empty anymore. There were three men,
two of them quite large, all faces he recognized from the
DredgerCorp facility.
“Hammond?” said the smallest one, the only one of them
wearing glasses. “Charles Hammond?”
“Who wants to know?” asked Hammond.
“Someone would like to have a word with you,” he said.
“Come with us.”
“Who?”
“I’m not at liberty to say,” the man said.
“I’m not on the clock,” Hammond claimed. “Business
hours are long over.”
“You’re on the clock for this,” said another of the men.
He nodded. He pretended to relax, beginning to move
toward them, then suddenly spun on a heel and ran as
quickly as he could in the other direction.
Shouts rang out behind him. He ducked into an alley and
ran down it, a ragged dog barking at his heels for half the
length of it. He leapt over a makeshift fence and crashed
through a pile of trash. Up and running again, he left the
streets of the town proper and entered the shantytown.
His head was throbbing. He looked back—they were still
behind him, gaining. He kept running, a stitch starting up in
his side. Slower now, but still running.
By the time he reached the edge of the shantytown, they
were close enough that he could hear the sound of their
labored breathing. They’re going to catch me, he realized,
there’s nothing I can do. He stopped suddenly, whirled
around, holding the small knife in front of him.
The three men quickly fanned out, forming a triangle
around him. Hammond, panting, kept moving the knife back
and forth from one hand to the other. The others kept their
distance, their hands up.
“There’s no need for that,” said the man with the glasses.
“They just want to talk to you.”
“Who’s they?” asked Hammond.
“Come on,” said the man with the glasses. “Be a good
boy and put down the knife.”
“What’s wrong with him, Tom?” asked the first of the
other two.
“He’s scared, Tim,” said the second, said Tom.
“I’d be scared if I was him, too,” said Tim. “Nobody likes
a thief.”
“Thief? Can you really steal secrets?” said Tom.
“Now, boys,” said the man with the glasses. “You’re not
helping the situation.”
There they were again, the voices in his head. But why
did they need to send voices into his head if they were
there in front of him? And then a terrible thought occurred to
Hammond: What if there were two groups out to get him?
DredgerCorp and another one as well? Or maybe even
three. Or four. What did they want with him? Would they
beat him? Would they kill him? Would it be even worse than
that?
“Now just calm down,” said the man with the glasses,
looking a little nervous now.
Someone, Hammond realized, was making a noise, a
high-pitched squealing. It was a terrible thing to hear. It took
him a long moment to realize that that someone was
himself.
“I told you something was wrong with him,” he heard Tim
say behind him.
“You’re right about that, Tim,” said Tom.
They were still there, the three of them, standing in a way
that made it impossible for him to see all of them at once.
He could turn and turn, but he couldn’t see them all at the
same time no matter what he did. And then there were the
ones in his head, too, slowly extracting things from it. God,
his head hurt. He had to stop them, had to get them out of
his head.
“Put the knife down, friend,” said the man with the
glasses.
But that was the last thing Hammond was going to do.
Instead he lunged forward and flashed his knife at the man
with glasses. The man jumped nimbly back, but not nimbly
enough; the knife opened a gash just below his wrist. He
stood holding it, blood dripping through his fingers, his face
suddenly pale in the dim light.
But Hammond had forgotten about the others. He turned
and there they were, still a little way away, but moving
closer. They stepped quickly back when they realized
they’d been noticed.
He was still surrounded, both inside his head and outside
it. There was no getting out of it. He would never get away.
And so, realizing this, heart thudding in his mouth, he did
the only thing he could think to do.
“I didn’t expect that, Tim,” said Tom.
“I didn’t either,” said Tim. “This one was full of surprises.
What’d they want him for, anyway?” he asked the man with
the glasses.
“A few questions,” said the man with the glasses.
“Nothing serious. Just a few questions.” He had wrapped
his wrist in one of his shirttails. It was slowly soaking
through with blood.
“Never seen anything quite like that,” said Tom. “And I
hope I never do again.”
“Same here,” said Tim, shaking his head.
He took a step back to avoid the puddle of blood that
was spreading from Hammond’s slit neck. He’d never seen
anyone cut themselves quite so deep and so quickly. There
was a lot of blood and it was still coming. He had to step
back again.
How could anyone do that to himself? Tim wondered. He
must have been very frightened. Or simply crazy. Or both.
He squinted, massaged his temple.
“All right, Tim?” asked Tom.
“Better than him, anyway,” said Tim. “Just a little
headache.”
“Me, too,” said Tom. “Terry?”
“I’ve got a headache, too,” said the man with the glasses.
“Been one of those nights. Step lively, lads. Let’s get out of
here before the law arrives.”
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