This was what he had to tell Archie Banyon before the spring board meeting next Wednesday, the board meeting where Archie was going to name Luther Acting Chief Executive Officer, responsible for all business of Banyon Enterprises until Archie Banyon’s death, at which time the ‘Acting’ would be removed from Luther’s title. What Luther realized, at long, long last, was that he did not want it, not any of it. He loved Archie Banyon dearly, would do almost anything for him, but that future was not his. It was a proxy future, a temporary one that had been allowed to run on too long.
The only problem with telling Archie that this future was impossible was that telling Archie was also impossible. And if both his choices were impossible, what was there to do?
They were coming for her.
She couldn’t open her eyes, but she knew they were in the room. She could hear them, almost like a breath, almost like they could breathe. More, she could feel them, knowing their presence like she knew her own. These weren’t the Lions. The Lions she could handle. These were something else. They wanted her. And they were here. Why wouldn’t her eyes open? It was so much worse in the dark. A scurry across her bare foot. A twitch at her bare hip. A twinge on her oh God bare cheek. The rustling of their movements filled the room, and with just the slightest change in the air, they were on her.
Jacki finally thrust open her eyes but only appreciated the briefest moment of relief before she realized the nightmare had followed her. Numbers, black, filthy, crawling, clamoring, skittering numbers flooded the room and covered her body in a writhing, undulating mass. She leapt to her feet, barely able to keep her balance from the extra weight. The numbers stuck to her like frenzied leeches. She tried to brush them off with her hands, but they burst under her palms until she found herself covered in their viscera. She opened her mouth to scream, and the numbers poured in and down her throat.
—My God, what’s wrong with her? Is it a seizure?
—Looks like it. Can you hear me, Ms Strell? Ms Strell?
The numbers crawled down to her stomach, up her nose, and into her ears. They had somehow gotten beneath her skin, and she saw their shapes pushing out from the palms of her hands. They wormed their way beneath her eyelids, and she could feel them making their way to her brain. I’m dying, she thought. I’m going to die in terror and agony. Help me help me help me help me. She reached back for a final scream and mercifully lost consciousness.
—Give her the water.
—Ms Strell? Can you take some water? I don’t think she’s awake yet. Ms Strell? Jacki?
Jacki was aware of some vague shaking at her shoulders. Something slapped her face. You’ve got the wrong one, she thought. Meg from the stables is the one who gets slapped.
—What was that? It looked like she was trying to talk.
—It was all slurred. I think she’s drunk.
—High more like it. I mean, that sound she made, like she was seeing something horrible.
—Which one does that to you?
—Katzutakis? No, wait, I think Forum is the big hallucinating one.
—Katz is the one that makes you frantic. It must be Forum, but why would she be on Forum?
—Why do you think?
—Surely he can’t make her do clips.
—He makes everyone do clips.
—But we’ve got the immigration thing. What would he have against her?
—That she’s a Forum addict.
Jacki felt cold all over. She began to tremble, growing more violent as the seconds crawled on.
—Uh-oh.
—Should we call him?
—No way. This is probably somehow his fault. She needs a hit.
—Where in the world are we going to find a hit? I wouldn’t even know what one looks like.
—If she’s addicted, she’s got to have some on her.
—She’s naked.
—I mean check her desk.
Jacki could hear some sounds in the background, echoes wrapped in echoes. The numbers were gone, but she was so cold. Her vision began to go white.
—This has to be it. And here’s a syringe.
—Give it to me.
—You’re going to inject her?
—Look at her. She’s going to die otherwise.
—Do you know how?
—No, but I can take a guess. Hold her arm still.
—Oh, my God.
—Here goes nothing.
—Oh, my God.
Honey ran through her veins, and she was warm again.
While the others pushed past her, she stood and regarded her muddy footprint. This was it then, the final clue. It was too early for the grass to be bitter. It was too early for the air to smell so much of dust. It was too early for the eagles to have left their aeries for more verdant hunting grounds. And now, it was definitely too early for the water to have pulled back far enough for mudflats to emerge at the pond’s edge. Drought was coming, was already here in the smaller places, poking its nose at the corners of things. She had lived through a drought when she was a calf, but even with the help of the cubes of dried grass and small stone ponds of water that had seemed to appear from nowhere throughout the city, she had watched many of the older herdmembers and a good number of the younger ones grow weak and finally die. It was a horrible time, the days filled with endless droning sun, the nights filled with the bleats and moans of herdmembers mourning both their hunger and their dead. Lean times had come and gone since, but nothing like that terrible season. Nothing, that is, until what now hovered on the horizon, poised to reach in its hot, dusty fingers and snatch the last blade of grass from them.
She looked out at the herd, squinting to see as they lowered their heads and drank, the water lapping at their toenails. Some of them, perhaps many of them, perhaps even herself along with them, would be dead by the end of the season. Hardship was natural, even drought was natural, yet still the burden on her was far from light, and deep in her crowded, instinctive brain, there was the unpleasant coldness of doubt. She walked slowly over to the water’s edge to join the other herdmembers in a drink. Stopping, she sniffed the air and turned to look behind her.
Something grabbed her horn.
She jolted herself back and wrenched her head up into the sky. She heard a short cry as one of the thin creatures fell down into the shallow water, away from where its grip had been on her nose. She gathered herself quickly and looked down into its eyes, staring back up at her. She was not afraid, only startled. The thin creatures had never been any danger to the herd and especially not one this tiny. She brought her massive head down for a closer sniff. The herd nearby stopped to watch, all eyes on her, straining against their collective myopia, as she took in the smells of the thing. It was mostly sweet with a faint sickly odor of food too ripe, of mother’s milk gone bad. It must be one of their calves, and a very, very young one by the smell and size of