Thread War Read online

  Krugar’s face broke wide open, his smile showing teeth. “I like that. That’s a good saying.” He looked back at the group. “Come on, we’re due a win. Let’s go find one.”

  They rolled for twenty minutes before they found an active door. Vies attacked twice in that span, but the group stayed tight and Wobble was able to handle most of it. What few Vies got through were dispatched by Krugar, Torg, or Torres.

  “How do you shoot that well with only two eyes?” Torg asked blithely.

  “I know a woman who can do it with one,” Krugar replied. “Never figured out how she calculated the distance.”

  Once they went through the door, Wobble scanned the surroundings. “All quiet-quiet on the outer rim. Warm and fuzzy. We-We are safe for-for now. Wobble.”

  “Huh,” Torg said, studying a holla in a way that Johnny had once seen Betty do.

  “What?”

  “We’re near a hub. One way travel, but goes lots of places. If we move fast, we might be able get to Albert before Betty realizes where we are.” He led them down a corridor lined with light.

  “And where are we?” Shabaz asked.

  Torg grunted again. “Long way from where we were.”

  The hub was a large room with a brilliant glowing ball floating in its centre. “Okay Wobble, show us where Albert is,” Torres said.

  “Cartographers and holla-hollas. We found Turge, it was there all the time. Wobble.” The machine projected an image into the space.

  “That looks familiar,” Torres said, frowning.

  Torg examined the holla, then groaned. “It’s a sim. She has him in a sim.”

  “What’s a sim, squi?” Dillac said, peering at the holla as if he could decipher its secrets.

  “It’s the type of program we come from. Same with Krugar.” Torg sighed. “I would greatly enjoy not to going back to the jungle.”

  “Well, we’re going,” Torres said. “Wobble, lock in the closest path through the hub. Let’s go.”

  Travelling in the hub was instantaneous and remarkably pleasant. “How many ways are there to travel through the Thread, anyway?” Johnny asked.

  “Too many to count,” Torres muttered. “We’ve figured out about a dozen, including at least three we never would have found if we hadn’t seen how Betty took us to the Core that first time. Some, like the hub, actually make sense.” She rolled her eyes. “Come on, it’s this way.”

  They travelled down a series of hallways. They turned one corner, then another.

  Bian and Peg were waiting for them after the third.

  Oh sweet snakes, this day, Johnny thought, his heart sinking as Torres and Wobble plowed through the two skids. It wasn’t until Johnny neared that they turned and fell in line with him.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Peg said.

  “You can’t be here,” Bian said.

  I am not doing this, Johnny thought. Shabaz is right there. She just walked through you. I am not having this hallucination right now.

  “Johnny, you must stop,” Peg said.

  Nope.

  “Johnny, there is nothing but death here,” Bian said.

  Just walked out of a place like that, still rolling. He picked up speed, trying to put himself in the middle of the pack. They accelerated and swung in front of him. Furious, he waited three seconds until there was a little space between him and the group, then hissed, “Go away. I am not doing this right now.”

  “Johnny . . .”

  “Shut up, my girlfriend is right over—”

  “She regrets this most of all,” Peg said. “This isn’t where you need to be.”

  “He’s waiting, but doesn’t know how long he can,” Bian said.

  “Stop that. For Crisp’s sake, if you’re going to talk to me, you could at least stop talking like Wobble and start talking like skids.”

  They stared at him for a moment, a great sadness in their eyes.

  “We can’t,” Peg said.

  “We don’t exist,” Bian said.

  “What are you talking about, you’re right—”

  “Johnny?” Shabaz said, emerging between the two ghosts. “Why are you—?” She caught the expression on his face and immediately knew. “Oh, you have got to be kidding. Is she here? Where the hole is she?”

  The second her gaze swung directly at Peg, both dead skids disappeared.

  “They’re gone,” Johnny said bitterly.

  “She better be—” Shabaz stopped. “What? They?”

  “Bian,” Johnny said. “It was Bian and Peg. Together.”

  Shabaz’s eye widened to full. “Bian?! With Peg? Oh, that’s just vaping marvelous, Johnny. Now you’ve got another dead ex stalking you?”

  “Hey, Bian and I never—snakes, you think I asked for this? You think I like seeing her? You think I like hearing the crazy grease they say? Don’t blame me for this, I told them to go away.”

  She glared at him. Not far ahead, Torg appeared around a corner. “All cool here?”

  “We’re cool, Torg. Catch up in a minute,” Shabaz said. Torg, catching the tone, bobbed an eye and rolled away. “I believe you, Johnny,” Shabaz said coldly. “I believe you told them to go away. Now, we don’t have time for this. We’re going to go get Albert and we’re going to focus on that. But once that’s done, you and I are going to have a long talk about your ex-girlfriend.”

  “I told you, Bian and I—”

  “I meant Peg,” she snapped. “Know when you’re winning.” With that she turned and stormed up the hallway.

  Sighing, Johnny followed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Shabaz couldn’t remember being this angry. She’d never been the type. Sure, she’d complained a lot, but it had been a petulant complaining, fuelled more by fear than by rage.

  She had plenty of rage right now.

  It was hard not to direct it at Johnny. Oh, sure, she believed him when he said that he’d told them to go away. She believed he wasn’t asking for this. Consciously.

  Bian . . .

  Shabaz knew that Johnny and Bian had never hooked up, but she also knew that Bian had a thing for Johnny in those days after she broke up with Albert—if she’d ever gotten around to actually breaking up with him. She’d definitely played Johnny off Albert.

  Bitch.

  Taking a long, ragged breath, she tried to calm down. She didn’t want to think of Bian this way. Hole, she liked Bian: she’d fought alongside her, been in awe of the way she’d died, by what she’d said at the end about Johnny and Albert, about the skids in general. What Bian had said had been half the reason why Shabaz had done what she’d done once she was back in the Skidsphere.

  Not so much with Peg. Was Johnny creating her? Subconsciously? Was he afraid to move on? Did Peg offer him something she couldn’t?

  The crazy thing is . . .

  She refused to believe he’d ever said something like that to Peg.

  The others were waiting for them by a door. “Snakes, you two,” Torres said, grinning fiercely. “Can’t you snug some other time?”

  “Feel like eating that sword of yours?”

  Torres blinked. “Okay, not in the woods then.” Her gaze narrowed as Johnny pulled up. “Something I should know?”

  “We’re fine,” Johnny said. “Let’s just get hurry up and get Albert, all right?”

  “Hurry up and get Albert? Now I’ve heard everything.”

  “Torres,” Torg said, studying Johnny and Shabaz. “How about we get this party started?”

  Her stripe tilted. “Fair enough.”

  Like the sim where they’d found Krugar, there was a symbol on the entrance: a square with vertical bars and dots embedded in the space behind. “There better not be a jungle behind that,” Torg muttered as Torres opened the door.

  It wasn’t a jungle.

  They emerged into another hallway, except without the familiar golden outlines. Wobble’s light was the only illumination, shining over darkened surfaces. It reminded Shabaz of the dead part of the Thread
they’d just recently left behind. “Snakes,” she whispered. “Is this dead too?”

  “No,” Krugar said, blinking rapidly. He appeared to be examining something embedded in his eyes. “There’s heat here. This sim is active.” He hesitated, blinking several more times. “I think.”

  Wobble widened his beam, revealing a hallway very different from any Shabaz recognized. There was an overabundance of detail: the walls weren’t completely flat, nooks and crannies abounded, with pipes hanging overhead. It made her think of a cramped version of the ghostyard. It wasn’t a comforting thought.

  “Anything moving?” Torres said, one of her light-swords out. “Wobble? Krugar?”

  “Nothing,” the soldier said.

  “Negatory,” Wobble said, gears whirring.

  “Fine,” Torres said, but she kept the sword lit. “Wobble, where is he?”

  Wobble displayed an enclosed schematic with several floors. Krugar grunted. “We’re on a ship.”

  “What?” Torres said.

  “A ship. Transports people place to place.”

  “Uh, I don’t mean to argue, boz,” Dillac said, “but this looks more like a building, squi.” They all looked at him. “What?” he protested, popping his arms and spreading them. “Don’t it?”

  “It is a building,” Krugar said. “Just one that moves.” He peered down the hallway. “Why don’t you let me take point? This might be more my world than yours.”

  Torres glanced at Johnny and Torg, then tilted her stripes. “Go ahead. Wobble, can you pinpoint Al’s location?” A dot of red light appeared near the centre of the holla. “All right, Krugar, after you.”

  Slowly, the soldier took them forward, his head following his rifle as he did. Nothing else moved except the skids and the light from Krugar’s rifle and Wobble.

  “If this building transports people,” Dillac muttered, “where’s all the people at?”

  That was a good question. Shabaz had found the dead city of hollas creepy as hole, just like the ghostyard from the first time they’d been in the Thread. But this was worse. All she could see were shadows.

  They rounded a corner. Shabaz stopped. “Betty Crisp,” she swore. Behind her, nearly every skid did the same.

  The left side of the new hallway was a window. And through it . . .

  “What the hole are those?” Kesi breathed.

  There were thousands of small lights against a black background. No, not thousands . . . millions. No, not millions. . . .

  “They’re stars,” Krugar said, then paused when he saw the looks he was getting. “You know, twinkle, twinkle? You do have night time in your sim, right?”

  “Yeah,” Shabaz breathed, “but not like this.” She’d never seen anything else like this.

  “If this is nighttime, boz, where’s the moon?”

  Now Krugar looked amazed. “You have a moon but no . . . why would anyone do it that way?” He shook his head. “All right, look: you have a sun, right? I saw it.”

  “Yeah,” Dillac scoffed, like only an idiot would believe in a world without a sun.

  “Right,” Krugar said, waving at the window. “That’s what those are—suns. Trillions of them.”

  Trillions??

  “How far away are they?” Torg said. Shabaz hadn’t heard him stunned too often, not even the first time he’d seen the Skidsphere from the outside.

  Krugar chuckled. “That’s a lesson way beyond the time we have. Let’s go with: pretty damn far.”

  A trillion suns in the night sky. So far away that they looked like . . .

  “Oh, snakes,” Shabaz said softly. “Do you know what this is, Johnny?” She swung two eyes. “It’s the Out There.”

  “No,” Torres said firmly, although her own gaze was pinned to the view. “It’s a program. Maybe this is what the Out There might look like but philosophy can wait. We have a job to do. Krugar?”

  The soldier looked like he had a few questions of his own, but he shrugged and continued down the hall. They weaved down several corridors, descending stairwells twice. “Definitely bipedal,” Krugar said.

  Shabaz didn’t know what that meant, but the stairs certainly weren’t designed for treads. Kesi came up with a good solution when she molded skis and slid down. Shabaz might not like her, but she hadn’t seen that many skids so instinctive with their treads.

  After five minutes, Krugar held up an arm and stopped. “What—” Dillac started to say.

  “Shut up,” Krugar whispered. “I heard something. That way.” He pointed down a long side tunnel. After a second or two, something shuffled past the far end. Shabaz wasn’t sure, but it seemed upright; like Krugar, but with a bigger head.

  “Not alone, then,” Torg whispered.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Torres hissed, rolling forward. “We’re close. Let’s get Al and get . . . oh, snakes.” She stopped, staring at the wall.

  At first, Shabaz couldn’t see what was different. Then she realized that the section didn’t glint in the light like the surrounding hallway. In fact, it didn’t reflect any light at all.

  It was flat grey.

  Dillac inched forward to have a closer look, but Torres snapped a Hasty-Arm, clamping it down on his own. “Don’t touch it,” she hissed. “Never touch anything solid that’s grey like that.”

  Behind them, Wobble began to quietly keen.

  “Is this related to the things we fought in the woods?” Shabaz asked. Just looking at the flat grey made her stripes crawl.

  “It creates them. Instantly. The moving grey are bad, but you could fight off one or two if they touched you. But this . . .” Torres shivered. “We have to get Al.”

  “Torres,” Johnny said, staring at the grey patch with one eye and scanning ahead with the other, “if this whole place is like this . . .”

  “We are not leaving without Al,” Torres insisted. “Wobble, stop whining and show me the map again.” The schematic sprang up, the red light indicating Al’s position. “See,” she said, “we’re almost there. We just need to go down one level—”

  The red light on the holla went out.

  Immediately, the keening sound Wobble had been making rose in pitch. “Negatory, negatory! The Tuatha never-never existed. Oh friend-Albert.”

  “We are not leaving without Al,” Torres snarled and sprang forward.

  “Torres!” Shabaz cried, then pressed her lips together in horror, remembering the shape down the other corridor.

  “Krugar?” Johnny said.

  “On it.” The soldier sprinted after Torres, his shadow disappearing down a stairwell at the next bend.

  Shabaz stared after them. Wobble continued to keen, his light throwing shadows over the now empty hallway ahead. “Johnny,” she said, “we can’t leave them.”

  “Are you serio, boz?” Dillac protested. “What if those things are down there? What if that whole level done gone grey?”

  “Then we die,” Shabaz said. “Torres won’t leave without Al and we’re not leaving without Torres.”

  “She’s right,” Kesi said suddenly.

  They all looked at her. All three of her eyes were wide with fear. She swung one towards Dillac. “What are we supposed to do, stay here? Go back? We might die anyway. And she . . . she saved us that first time in the woods. Torres saved me from that Vie after Akash . . .” Her plum stripes vibrated then swelled. “Shabaz is right. We go after her.” Without waiting, she rolled towards the staircase.

  So that’s what it looks like when someone figures it out, Shabaz thought, bemused, before following the teal-plum skid.

  “In for a spoonful . . .” Torg murmured as he and the others fell in behind Shabaz. Even Wobble, although he continued to keen.

  As Shabaz slid down the stairs, a hand grabbed her and pulled her sharply left. “Careful,” Krugar said, grabbing Dillac next. “You might’ve been fine, but that whole right side of the prison is grey.”

  “Prison?” Johnny said, hitting the bottom and swerving left.

  “Yeah, tha
t’s where we are. Your friend Betty knew what she was doing.”

  “Where’s Torres?” Shabaz asked. Down the central chamber she could see an orange light, disappearing and reappearing along the left side of the prison.

  “Trying to open the cells. I don’t think she knows which one your friend is in.”

  “WOBBLE!” Torres yelled, splitting the silence. “I can see you down there. Get over here and show me which one he’s in.”

  “Negatory, negatory,” Wobble keened.

  “For god’s sake,” Krugar snapped. “Get over there and help her before she brings this whole place down. You can’t make it worse.” Wobble made a terrible noise, but he moved towards the flashing orange beams.

  Torres had buried her light sword in a door, cutting it open. “I know you know which one he’s in—tell me, dammit!”

  “Negatory. Please-please friend-Torres, I-We-You must leave. Oh, friend-Betty why? Why?”

  “Wobble!”

  “Negatory, hope is dead here. The Calamari—”

  “Dammit, you vaping machine, tell me where he is!”

  Wobble made a final keening sound. His light narrowed down to a spot, landing on the door three cells away. Torres made a sound that scraped from her throat, rolled, and plunged her sword into the door.

  “Torres,” Johnny said softly, coming up beside her.

  “Go vape yourself, Johnny, we’re not leaving without him.”

  “We’re not going to,” Shabaz insisted, taking the other side. “We’ll open the cell and grab Albert, but we need to be care—”

  “I. Am. Not. Leaving . . .” Torres slammed her weight down on the sword with each word. On the last, the piece she’d carved out slammed into the cell. “Without Al,” she finished, entering the darkness.

  Shabaz glanced at Johnny and followed her in.

  The orange glow of the sword lit up the chamber. Something in the corner moved. “Al?” Torres said hopefully, raising her sword.

  A skid entered the light. It had three eyes and treads. It had a scar down one side of its body. But the body wasn’t silver and it didn’t reflect the light of the sword.

  The body was grey.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE