52 - "Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are!"

Hara rubbed her eyes with her hands and sat with them closed for a long moment.  Da and Stepapa were handing off the observation of the moon shot with each other, so there would be someone with authority available to Terence at any time.

She was watching the settlement, the boy who’d been made to clear the pitter field wasn’t going back into the buildings until after dark, avoiding the Immoderate. He was finished his job but was pretending to still try to clear the pasture by hand.

*I am moving closer,* Two Hundred said.

*Be cautious* Hara sent to him.

*I am always cautious* the Drake sent back, just beginning to acquire the snide tone that Mom’s protocols had down to a ‘t’.

“Darcy!”  The full moon turned the valley into stark black and white and showed the friend, Haig, running down from the compound.  “Darc!”

He materialized out of his hiding place in the ditch.  “Haig, what? What’s wrong?”

“’e’s found y’re still out here, though we stalled ‘im long as… he say the damned vermin won’ be able t’… ah shit on t’ page!”

The sound of metal hooves on the road echoed against rocks all around and the dark uniform and the dark horse of the Imoderate showed clearly against the pale stone.  Haig had flung himself flat into what was left of the dust grass, now that it was clear of pitters and safe.  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Versace sing-songed. “Ill…. Iiiii.. ter….aaaaaaate.”

Darcy crouched in the grass where he’d cowered down as Haig had cursed.  He couldn’t make himself move.  Versace sounded drunk, though it was not allowed for them.  If he was intoxicated it was going to be very… very bad.

“Come out lil boy… come out… you you’re done boy… come out… You did your punishment and now I will reward you… now I will reward you…” His voice was high and soft and he dismounted and the horse froze in place as he left the saddle.  He caught his toe in the stirrup and staggered, hopping, to pull it free.  As he reeled on the road, arms windmilling, the moonlight caught something in his left hand.

Fakkin page ‘n fakkin stinkin mother fakkin’… Darcy recognized the neural transmitter and he just bolted out of his shadow and ran.  “Ha! There you are!  I’m… I’m going to get you, little Illiterate!” If Versace got that thing on his head he was done.  His heart leapt up into his throat choking him as he ran, his filter mask holding sweat pooled against his face.  He had no breath for anything but running.  This foreign desert was better.  Nothing but running.

Versace hadn’t remounted.  Darcy could hear him trotting behind in the moonlight, taking his time to hunt him down. His steps weren’t steady.

*Two Hundred… don’t… you can’t let them know…* Hara leaned forward… *Don’t…*

*Pfff.  I don’t like that man.*

Darcy had run out of road.  There was no more hard surface under his feet, only sand up to his ankles.  His run turned into a flounder, a stagger and a fall then rather than trying to get up he flung his arms over his head as a massive, flat predator detached from the rock wall and, with a ruffling of its edges, danced in the air like a banner.  Versace stopped and screeched, scrambling his firearm out of its holster.  It barked, once, twice, three times, Darcy looked up and wondered at the holes shining through the flying sand sheet as it dropped down over Versace, bulging slightly as it seemed to contain the fourth shot.

Darcy rolled over, sitting, staring, as the enormous sand sheet folded tight around Versace and rippled as he fought to fire again, but he was held so tightly he couldn’t even touch the firing pad with his finger, for the gun didn't go off.  Darcy could see, back on the road, the horse standing like a statue and Haig pelting back toward the compound.  In front of him now there was a bundle of flesh and skin that wiggled and rolled and twitched but nothing cut through from inside.  Apparently the Immoderate couldn’t even cut his way out.

He looked around vaguely, wondering if there was something he could do, something he should do.  There was a rock on the ground by his knee and he picked it up, dropped it.  It would do nothing to help the Immoderate.  The wiggling was growing less, a muffled noise from inside.

The compound lights were all on now, waving and crossing in the air, spearing through the clouds of dust. The horse never moved.  It was a stupid entity. The wiggling in the sheet was down to some random twitches.  It was grey and green, not the maroon and yellow that Darcy had seen before. Illiterates, armed with hand-tools and herd bots came slowly down the road.

There was a muffled thump inside the monster and with a sound like a flag unfurling the thing unwound and flattened in the air, Darcy couldn’t even fall backwards. Then, leaving a smell like bile and bleach, sulfur and the most uncanny mix of scorch and rot, it rose up into the air and vanished into the desert night.

The soaked lump it left behind was flattened and empty, skin and flesh curiously gellied and fallen close to the bone. The gun was corroded, hand melted around it.  It was no longer living.

I’s a ver’ lucky young man, Darcy thought dully, shaking.  I can’ move.