Wide eyes and an open mouth, the soldier’s final expression as they became an adornment on the elk’s head. A look of shock at Fir’s sudden betrayal? Or maybe this is just what anyone would look like when they were pierced by antlers. Her expression wouldn’t tell me what I wanted to know, but I still stared like I could glean any sort of hint that would make this make sense.
Fir stepped slightly behind her elk, her distrust written clear on her face. They had come from the opposite side, not from the forest, but from a path along the wall of the manor’s north face.
“She shot at me first,” she said in a low voice. “She tried to kill me.”
“Fir,” I said shakily, “where is Kay and Capiz?”
“I’m not telling you that.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “They were with you. They can verify that what you said is true.”
Fir’s voice raised in pitch. “I acted in self-defense!”
I raised my hands. “I get that. I just wasn’t there. To me, it just looks like your elk killed one of us.”
“Codename: Fir,” Conrad butted into the conversation, eyes narrowed. “Real name: Enebish Lkhagvasüren. You’re a free agent from Mongolia. You cooperated with the U.N. for two years before requesting to be loaned to H.E.S.P. for the Organ assault. Yet it is clear as day your desire to preserve yourself and your Wolves came before helping any of us. So why even come?”
Fir’s expression hardened. The elk shook its head, flinging the corpse onto the grass.
“That’s a low blow. I saved whoever I could. I wouldn’t have been in this situation if I had just run.” She choked up as she said, “Odval’s dead now. He stepped in the way and took the bullets.”
Conrad straightened to his full height. “That doesn’t answer the question.”
“Wouldn’t I hide the body if I was a traitor?! Fucking hell. I just like Canada. I visited here with my sister when we were young. I hoped that I would be treated better here. Like a person, not a malevolent Witch. I guess I was wrong for thinking that.”
“Get to the garden,” My radio spoke from underneath my armour.
I shook my head, trying to stay focused. “Please, Fir. Let’s try to work something out. I- I could read your memories. If you let me assimilate a small piece-”
Fir laughed incredulously. “Seriously? I don’t have any reason to trust either of you either. I saw your expression while you fought, Marrow. You enjoy it too much. The violence. And Conrad hasn’t trusted me from minute one.”
Conrad folded his arms. “To be clear, I don’t trust either of you. You just happen to be more self-incriminating at the moment.”
“Not helping,” I muttered through clenched teeth.
Several H.E.S.P. soldiers began to emerge from the woods, staggering as they dragged their allies with them. One of those being dragged was the unconscious squad leader. His face was a mess of puckered bite marks.
The parasitized soldier was among those still standing. He supported Isipho who had a trail of blood running from his head. He gently let Isipho rest against the wall of the manor, then he straightened and lunged towards Fir.
The elk stepped into his path, lowering its antlers and huffing.
“Hey!” I shouted, throwing up my arms. “Stop! We need to talk and figure this out.”
The soldier stopped, cradling their spasming shoulder.
My mouth was terribly dry. “Something’s gone wrong at Command. We can’t just fall apart and lose our minds here. Did any of you see what happened to Fir? No? Then please, take a second to chill out.”
“You wouldn’t be saying that if it was one of your friends,” one of the soldiers said coldly.
Another soldier rested his head in his hands. “It’s over then. Our numbers are decimated. We haven’t even found a way inside. We should retreat.”
“That’s-” I was distracted by a pulse of emotion.
Nell was making a play. Something big. I felt the waves of confidence and fear intermingled. She seemed okay but that had me worried. I pulsed paranoia and caution. She agreed. She knew there was something fishy going on. Insider traitors were sabotaging our assault on Organ.
“There might not be any safety to retreat to…” I said absently. “Tom keeps talking about a garden.”
“What garden?” another soldier asked dismissively. “Quit speaking nonsense. Tom isn’t allowed on the radio for a reason.”
“There is one,” Fir said. “Tucked into the north-west corner. There’s something wrong with it. I didn’t even notice until Narantsetseg pointed it out.”
“Who the fuck is that?”
“My elk.”
A garden? I looked across to the far side of the manor. Short hedges lined a cobblestone path that seemed to go all the way to the north-west corner of the property. Nothing stood out and I quickly turned back. I needed to pay attention to make sure no one tried to attack Fir. Or vice versa.
“Fir, where is Naran- your elk?” I asked.
“There, with Capiz and the butterfly one. I’m keeping them away. I don’t trust them either.”
“Why not? Didn’t they see the soldier shoot you?”
“Yes. But there… there was someone else there. I-” Fir sounded confused. “I just went off of what my elk was feeling. I didn’t want to even look at that garden.”
I vaguely recalled what the satellite maps had looked like. We had talked about access points and that garden had been dismissed. I didn’t remember why.
“I will not accept this outcome,” Conrad snarled. “Do you think those victims that Organ is experimenting on have the privilege to simply turn tail and run? Cowardice is a privilege not afforded to them. And I thought I knew all of you. Motives aside, I thought each of you had the will to persevere.”
Many of the soldiers straightened up at Conrad’s words and paid close attention. Conrad turned, meeting each of their eyes in turn and instead of shying away, it seemed to bolster them, as if they wanted to prove Conrad wrong.
“Are you doubting yourselves because not everyone is the friend you thought you had? I won’t coddle you. But I will say this: I will not be played for a fool. Any traitor here should mark my words, I will find out which of you have Organ’s money lining your pockets. Leave it to me. So don’t get distracted and do your jobs. Fight.”
“Names,” I blurted out.
People looked at me with confusion.
“I want to know everyone’s real name. We might not be friends, but we aren’t strangers either. We need to act as a team. My name isn’t Marrow, it’s Nick.”
Conrad grumbled something about pointless effort.
The parasitized soldier raised his hand first. “Jason.”
“Galen.”
“Wilson.”
“Socorro.”
Most of the soldiers were willing to offer their names. A few took off their helmets to show their faces. They knew it was a desperate attempt to build rapport, but we were in desperate times.
It was Fir’s turn. She lifted her chin. “My elks are Odval, Narantsetseg, and Dulguun.”
The soldiers were quiet. Their hard expressions told me that they still didn’t believe that she had acted in self-defense. Without a clear objective to move towards, enacting justice was on their minds.
Wait. What had I been thinking about? There was something there, before Conrad’s speech.
“Fir,” I said.
Fir was tearing up. “It doesn’t matter what my name is. Conrad said it already. You all won’t fucking believe me and my Odval is fucking dead!”
“Fir. Your elk. You were talking about something your elk had shown you.”
She stared at me in confusion.
“Remind me. I think it was important but somehow it keeps slipping away from me.”
“The garden,” she said. “She’s still there. Follow the path.” She pointed.
I nodded, fixating on the words. Find the garden.
Something was going on. Staying here would only muddy the waters further.
“I’m going on ahead,” I told the group. “Follow me.”
I turned and ran down the path, fighting against the urge to worry about other things. Whatever was happening right now, it was intended to stop us from getting inside. I needed to fight it. So I kept my head down, focusing on running along the reddish stone path.
Eventually the hedges led away from the wall, opening up the space ahead of me.
I panted, staring at my feet. Why did I feel guilty? Like I was trespassing where I shouldn’t. Like I knew things I shouldn’t know. The guilt was powerful enough that my thoughts of the garden felt like oil, not wanting to fully grasp the idea, flipping into other topics just to avoid thinking about it.
It felt like the whole manor was weighing on the back of my neck. My eyes slid around every time I tried to look at what was in front of me. Still, I garnered small details: edges of wooden planter boxes, the leafy outcroppings of larger plants. Something pushed at my eyeballs, pressing it towards the borders and away from the center.
So I focused on what I could hear.
A faint movement through the air. Like a rotating fan. I had heard it before. Capiz’s shield was active. Then the snort of an animal, followed by a strange shrill cry.
I pushed towards the sounds, eyes roaming enough to make me dizzy. For a moment I caught sight of the blur of white and the pointed tips of antlers.
I prayed that Fir would order it not to skewer me.
“Nick!” Kay’s voice cut through the noise.
She was inside of Capiz’s shield.
“Lower it!” I shouted back. “Something’s off about this place and the elk knows it!”
“It’ll attack!” Capiz said fearfully. “It happened so fast. I don’t know. Fir started shouting things. There was a gunshot. Now it trapped us in here.”
I took a heavy step towards the shield. “Capiz, I’m coming in. If you’re a traitor, then I’ll know once I eat a part of you. Lower it.” I continued to walk forward, using the whispering sound of the plates cutting through the air to navigate more than my vision.
The first white panel sliced my brow. Then my foot. I kept moving forward. Another caught in my armour, wriggling into my side painfully, still trying to move. I absorbed the plates that stuck into me.
My knee cracked against the garden box and I fell forward, palms scraping against hard packed earth.
Flashes of Capiz’s life were a welcome distraction from the pain and the nausea-inducing nature of the garden. Hot sun and warm laughter. A full house of welcoming hugs and smiles. Eyes that didn’t judge her by the colour of her skin. Because she was family.
On my hands and knees, I made it inside. My eyes spun and I saw three people within. Kay and Capiz, both sweating heavily, their eyes roaming restlessly.
And a third. My eyes couldn’t touch anything but the edges of this person.
I seized them, dragging their body towards my own, letting the fire consume.
Different memories attacked me. Dark rooms. A distant frown. Eyes that never met my own out of shame and burden. I was something to be forgotten. A child from a cheat and a liar. A reminder of someone she never wanted to see again. Drugs made the pain easier to bear. Until the final needle made it stop forever.
I finished my Aberrant meal, kneeling in the dirt of the garden box. My eyes settled and my head throbbed. Capiz helped me stand.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Why did you leave your family?” I asked.
She stared at me. “How did you…”
“Humour me while I recover. I’m curious, you seemed so welcomed there, even with your Shape.”
She frowned. “The government passed a law requiring Shapers to do mandatory service. For the good of the country, they said. But they were only interested in how they could weaponize us. I refused. It was leave or be imprisoned. I couldn’t bear the thought. Organ’s the worst of all. We need to be seen as more than weapons.”
“You’ve done nothing but protect us,” Kay said, touching Capiz’s shoulder. “Be proud of that.”
The elk huffed and turned as Fir approached. She leaned against it and stroked its fur.
Some of the soldiers arrived shortly after. Seven of them, plus Conrad. The rest had stayed behind to retreat or tend to the wounded.
“I’m staying outside,” Fir said, keeping her elks closely around her. “I don’t do well with enclosed spaces.”
She was leaving out the more obvious reason, that we still didn’t know if she was telling the truth about being attacked.
Kay and Capiz had been too distracted by the Aberrant’s influence to be able to give an accurate account of what happened.
I looked at each of the soldiers in turn, making a note of their names and faces. Then I turned to the innocuous-looking door. It could have been a normal, wealthy family’s house. The silver doorknob. The accents along the doorframe.
But the windows were all covered. And if you looked closely enough, things didn’t add up. Weeds had choked out all but the hardiest of plants in the garden boxes. There were no personal touches, or signs of living, like chairs to sit and enjoy the outdoors or flowers yet to be planted. No sounds came from within the house.
I tried to doorknob and found it unlocked.
All that fight and now you’re letting us in?
It didn’t sit right. But regardless, with the remaining members of our squad, bruised and battered, we went inside.