Free Veniss Underground by Jeff VanderMeer Page B

around him, defined by that which is not him
. A card slides in the lock. A card slides in the lock. The door opens slowly.
    Salvador turns on the lights. He has a sad look on his face, sadder still when he sees you on the couch. He carries a bag of fiddler crabs.
    â€œHello, Nicola,” he says.
    â€œSalvador. I couldn't sleep.”
    He does not reply, but walks over to the kitchen, places the bag of crabs on the counter.
    â€œMore crabs?” you say. You've hidden your laser gun at your side, under a cushion.
    Salvador's eyes are red, not amber, under the panel illumination of the kitchen. He walks back into the living room, stands in front of you, the window, the night sky, at his back. You no longer know what you see when you stare at him.
    â€œNicola,” he says. “Nicola. How stupid do you think I am? I
know
where you've been. I can smell it on you. I can taste it on you.”
    A distance, some vast space, lies between you and the fear.
    â€œYou fell through the alleyway. You walked down the white pebble path to the bridge, and you saw our lights and you found us.”
    He smiles—or is this a snarl? If he moves one step closer, you will shoot him whether he smiles or snarls.
    â€œI was there,” you confess. Does it matter what you tell him now? “It was beautiful. It was
wonderful
.” And it was, oh it was! Beautiful and wonderful and terrible.
    â€œMy dear,” Salvador says gently, almost with love, “you should not have seen that. You should not have followed me.”
    â€œI'd never tell. If I told, they'd come and destroy it, Salvador.”
    â€œYou're a programmer from the Bastion, Nicola. No matter what you say, you'll destroy it.”
    He snarls, and his forepaws clench and unclench. His eyes are red. He laughs—a wheezing laugh full of savagery.
    How can he be so split? So gentle and sad, and yet so full of anger? It surprises you, the answer:
because he's fully human
.
    He circles you now as you half rise from the couch, your gun aimed at him.
    â€œIf you put down the weapon,” he says, growling the words, “I will kill you quickly.”
    â€œI know Shadrach,” you say. “I know Nicholas. Both of them work for Quin. Quin is your master. If you leave now, I won't report you.”
    â€œYou know no one. I'm Quin's ambassador, come for you.”
    â€œDo you want to be as cruel as those
humans
in your holograph show? To be no better than the worst of what we are?” and in your words a peculiar echo, a sense that everything has already been said.
    Again the sadness in his movements, his voice: “To protect ourselves, we must be cruel. I'm sorry, Nicola, but you drive me to it.”
    You fire your laser, miss, and set the carpet on fire. The force of the blast knocks him off his feet. You run behind the couch. You aim again as he recovers and launches himself at you. Your beam catches him in midleap, and he falls onto the couch. His fur is blackened, his left forepaw a stump—but he launches himself again, at your throat. His teeth click an inch away, his hot breath on your neck. The meerkat's teeth close around your wrist. You do not feel the bite, only the moment when the grip falters, the limbs convulse, and Salvador falls back onto the couch, his eyes closed, the whole left side of his body blackened, his fur stained red. Is he dead? Close enough.
    You drop the laser. You wander around the living room. The image of the flayed dog comes to you again. You cannot pull it out of your head.
    Absentmindedly, you put out the fire, and even when its last flames lash out at your legs, you feel nothing. You try not to look at the still, burnt shape on the couch. This cannot be real. Your life cannot be real. The moonlight is not moonlight. The aquarium is blue-green illusion. Only the forest leading to the sea is real. Only the nervous fiddlers on their mudflats are real. Nicholas—even Shadrach—might understand you