Broken Pixels (Broken Realms, #4)

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 18Mara, Sam and Ping fast-walked across the street, occasionally looking at the dark outline of the church to make sure they weren’t pursued. They headed north and east into a cluster of office buildings that looked less ominous. A cool breeze carried wisps of smoke that curled around the streetlights they passed. It also carried an indiscernible vibration, almost a sound that couldn’t be made out. A regular thrum rode the air: dum-da-dum, dum-da-dum. At a corner Mara stopped and c****d her head.

“You guys hear that?” she asked. “What is that?”

Ping frowned and concentrated. “I can’t make it out, but it has the same rhythm as the chant we heard at the church. See the light. Shine the light. Etcetera.”

“It’s all around us,” Sam said. “Almost like walking through a neighborhood during the summer when everyone is watching the same thing on television.”

“It’s hard to make out. You think everyone is chanting that same little ditty?” Mara asked.

“I would imagine everyone who has been exposed to that crystal those people at the church were carrying,” Ping said.

A shiver ran down Mara’s spine. She shook it off, and she stepped off the curb. “Let’s get to the railcar station and to the repository. Once we get Cam there, we can decide what our next steps should be.”

“You mean, like leaving this realm before our DNA melts?” Sam asked, following her and walking alongside Ping, who fumbled uncomfortably with Cam’s head, almost dropping it a couple times. Sam reached over and took it. “Let me. It’s just easier if you hold him above the ears, like this, on his skull, not on his cheeks.”

Ping smiled. “Thanks. I suppose my cheeks would get sweaty too if someone held me like that. I had not anticipated how unnatural it would feel carrying around someone’s head.”

“Sorry to make you uncomfortable, Mr. Ping,” Cam said.

“Not at all, Cam. It can’t be that comfortable being passed around like a basketball,” Ping said. As they walked on, he said to Mara, “Speaking of returning to our realm, why do you suppose the Aphotis was so willing to avoid a confrontation with you when she has so consistently demonstrated a desire to fight in the past?”

“In that memory fragment that Cam showed me, she was blind or at least having trouble seeing. A look of sheer panic overtook her face. If she has been here a couple weeks longer than the rest of us, that means she’s been exposed to the virus longer than we have and might be experiencing some of the symptoms that Dr. Canfield warned us about.”

“So she’s got this melting disease, and she’s afraid to get in a fight with you?” Sam asked.

“Why fight with me at all? If she can get us to go back to our realm carrying the virus, it will most likely take care of us and everyone else. We’d all be dead, and she wouldn’t have to lift a finger,” Mara said.

“Of course she’s assuming we haven’t learned that the virus persists here,” Ping added.

“She didn’t sound like she was dying when she was using that old woman as a walkie-talkie,” Sam said.

Cam’s eyes rolled up to catch Sam’s attention. “That may be why she attacked the dispensary earlier today.”

Mara stopped walking and turned around. “She needed to get some Quintivir. Would she have been able to find it there?”

“Absolutely. The dispensary is the regional distribution point for the repositories and hospitals in this area. If she has the disease and has been able to arrest it, then she got her hands on some Quintivir,” Cam said.

“I wonder if she knows that it isn’t a permanent solution. If she stays in this realm, it’ll eventually prove toxic to her.”

“You would have to assume that, if she knows what she needed to address her symptoms, she knows what the implications are. After all, she seems to access information, at least indirectly if not directly, from the Sig-net itself,” Ping said.

“Which means, she’s got to have something in mind for addressing her own situation. She can’t stay infected and remain in this realm,” Mara said. “If she knows that, why stay at all? What’s she up to, and what does she have to do with these little purple crystals that seem to hypnotize the people from this realm?”

“You’re assuming she had something to with the tiny crystals. Perhaps she is just taking advantage of the current state of chaos in this realm,” Ping said.

“That’s just a little too much coincidence for me to swallow. She’s behind all this,” Mara said.

She turned and continued walking. The sidewalk ran alongside a block-long brick building that looked somewhat institutional. A few yards from the end of the block, Mara stopped suddenly. She said, “I think you were right. It is the chant. Listen.”

The air vibrated with the rhythm.

“See the light. Shine the light. Be the light.”

Mara looked at Cam and asked, “You’re absolutely positive those words mean nothing to you?”

“Apart from their obvious definitions and the implied reference to the tiny crystals those people carried, the phrases don’t have any particular significance to me. I’ve even conducted a search on the Sig-net, and I cannot find anything relevant to our current situation,” Cam said. “With so many people affected, you would think there would be something, but there isn’t.”

Mara put her back to the building and skulked up to the corner. She leaned past the building and looked down the intersecting street. The chanting was much louder, unmuffled by the cold brick she leaned against. She could not see anyone approaching. Actually no one was on the streets at all. No cars, no buses, no hustle or bustle, some of which she would expect in the early evening. The only sign of life was the chanting all around them but most loudly from around the corner, just a couple blocks away.

Sam leaned over her and whispered in her ear, “Are they coming?”

“Not for us. No,” she said. “There’s no one I can see, but it sounds like there might be a crowd not too far away.”

Ping c****d his head in that direction and said, “That is the way to the railcar station.”

“Okay, let’s go, but let’s not draw any attention to ourselves,” she said. Looking at the head in Sam’s hands, she added, “Can you do something to not look so conspicuous with him?”

“I guess I could zip him up in my jacket, but then I’ll look pregnant, and that might draw some strange looks. Besides, he’d probably smother to death,” Sam said.

Mara rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t even have lungs, at least not any that are attached.”

Ping interjected, “Just tuck him under your arm, like a stack of books, with his face turned toward your side as much as possible. That should not look too awkward, and it’ll protect him in case we encounter people with those crystals. We don’t want him exposed to those again.”

Mara nodded and waved them forward. After turning the corner, they crept for half a block, but, after a few minutes of not encountering anyone, they relaxed and walked at a normal pace—though the chanting did grow louder and clearer the longer they walked. Mara was fairly certain it was coming from two blocks ahead, across the street. She nodded in its direction and gave Ping a questioning look.

He pointed to a skyscraper across the street a block ahead and said, “In our realm, I believe that building is the Portland Plaza condos. It sounds to me like the chanting is coming from at least another block away. That would be Keller Fountain Park, just across the street from the auditorium.”

A muffled sound came from Sam. He looked down and loosened his elbow pressing Cam’s head into his side and asked, “What’s that?”

“I said, Ping’s correct. The park is on the far side of the condos. The auditorium is just beyond that,” Cam said.

“We’ll meander by and see what’s going on. We’re just on our way to the railcar station. We’re not going to do anything,” she said. She continued down the sidewalk.

Sam looked at Ping and said, “Yeah, right.” Then he peered at Cam. “One day we’ll get you and your body back together, I promise. I just can’t promise it will be tonight, but it will happen.”

Mara noticed the street sign as they crossed Southwest Fifth Avenue. They were on Market Street, approaching the park from the west. All she could see were a row of tall leafless trees backlit from some artificial source nestled in a copse of smaller evergreen trees and shrubs. Doesn’t look like much of a park from this angle. The light among the trees was reflected in the large glass panes of the modern auditorium beyond.

Voices drew Mara’s attention to the cluster of evergreens. Movement and shadows indicated a crowd of people clustered across the street, hidden in an alcove of some kind. The chanting was clearer now. As they approached Southwest Third, the tempo of the chanting increased, became more urgent. A knot of people spilling into the road across from the auditorium pressed forward, craning to see into the alcove. Light danced on their faces, and they chanted even faster. They had dropped the last phrase, only chanted, “See the light. Shine the light.” Faster and faster. Mara’s heart pounded as if somehow it was in sync with the words, speeding up, feeling the urgency of the crowd.

She stopped at the crosswalk across from the tiny park and looked at Ping as he caught up to her. “Something is going on over there. I’ll get a closer look. You guys stay here. I don’t think it would be a good idea to take Cam over there.”

“I agree that Sam should remain here to look after Cam, but I would feel better if I accompanied you. You have no idea what you are walking into,” Ping said.

“You think I might need another distraction to deal with the situation?”

Ping shrugged. “You never know.” He turned to Sam, who had a look of disgust on his face.

“You guys expect me and Cam to stand here in front of this dark parking garage until you come back?” Sam asked. Ping opened his mouth to make a case, but Sam waved a dismissive hand in the direction of the park and said, “Go ahead. If you guys aren’t back in ten minutes, we’re leaving without you. Cam knows the way.”