14

Wenthi arrived at the headquarters of the 9th Senja and was ushered quickly down into a sub-basement he had never previously gone to. He had worked at this house for three years, and he had always assumed that these levels were for evidence storage or files. Instead he was placed in an odd white room, where a pair of nurses proceeded to wordlessly undress him, prod and probe him, and draw an absurd amount of blood.

Then they left him alone, in far too cold a room to be sitting on a metal table while nearly naked.

Nearly a sweep passed before anyone else came in, a pale older woman whose flaxen hair was streaked with gray. “So, this is Officer Tungét.” Her Reloumene accent was uncommonly thick, so thick he had a hard time understanding her.

“That’s me, ma’am,” he said.

“Yes, promising. Promising.” She looked through a folder of tissue-thin mimeotyped pages. “Twenty-seven years old. Born right here in Ziaparr. Interesting, interesting. Very healthy, very healthy, good.” She grabbed his jaw and leaned in, inspecting his face. “And you were classified rhique?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “My mother—”

The woman chuckled. “I know all about your mother, young man. All about.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

She looked at the mimeotype. “The bloodwork is very promising, yes. Very interesting. Your father?”

“What about him?”

“Who was he?”

“Died in the Second Transoceanic.”

“A soldier?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Or a casualty?”

“Soldier. Died on the beach of Hessinfoth,” Wenthi said.

“Interesting. That isn’t listed in your file,” she said.

“Did you serve in that war?” he asked. She looked like she would have been prime fighting age at the end of Second Trans. She easily might have been in in the Reloumene Sovereign Order, piloting a laufmobon bomber or gunning on an umshpri single-prop. “You look like you could have been airguard.”

“Oh, I served, young man,” she said. She stepped back and took a case out of her pocket, taking out a tightly rolled cigarillo. “Served then, served again, and am serving now. Believe me.” With unsteady hands, she lit the cigarillo and took a long draw on it. “And you are as well, serving the city, serving the country. Proud boy, yes?”

“I suppose,” he said.

“You caught the jifozi girl, yes? She was riding the mycopsilaria, wasn’t she? And yet you slipped under her senses.” The word “slipped” danced off her tongue, like that very idea delighted her.

“That’s what they say.”

“Remarkable.” She drew another breath of smoke. “What do you know of the local mycopsilaria, hmm?”

Everyone was asking him that today. “It’s dangerous, but plenty folks—undercaste, mostly—use it for sex.”

“Yes, that is the main use here, isn’t it? A little taste, link up your senses with a willing partner. Or two or three. Very intense, I see the appeal.” She said all that with a dead affect, and scoffed. “Imagine, the very hand of god, being used for shadow puppets. Foolish waste.”

“It’s foolish, yes,” Wenthi said. “I’m well aware of the dangers. You can lose yourself into it. Too much, you go all the way into yourself, into the other person, and both of you become shells, locked into your body. Or a mindless empty.”

“Is that what they say?” she asked. She took another long pull, her jaw tightening. “This is what they teach you?”

“Teach us?”

“At your schools here. Or in your patrol training?”

“Yes, of course,” he said.

“And you never dared try it yourself? A little taste, see what the fuss is about?”

“No, of course not. We’ve seen—”

“What?” she asked, leaning in so close the stale reek of her smoke invaded his face. “What have you seen?”

“We’ve all seen it. In—”

“You’re going to say Nemuspia, aren’t you? They point to that disaster and say that could happen here. But it wouldn’t, of course. Mycopsilaria nemuspiana is completely different than your strains here,” she said, her voice rising, her accent harsher.

“I—”

“You know nothing, boy!” she shouted, her sallow, blanched face quickly turning red. She stormed out of the room.

The nurses came back in, with several Alliance Guard officers, including a lieutenant whom Wenthi had seen around headquarters, but had never spoken to. The officers carried a series of wooden boxes and laid them out on another table.

“Officer Tungét,” the lieutenant said, offering her hand. She was definitely Sehosian zoika. “Pleasure to have you with us. I’m Lieutenant Canwei, I work with Covert Operations. I’ll be your immediate superior on this assignment. How much do you know about the situation?”

“I know there have been a string of petrol robberies from the tanker trains, committed by an organized group of criminals on cycles.”

“Right,” Canwei said. “We originally thought that it was just the work of various cycle gangs, simply looking to score petrol beyond their allotted ration. And as despicable as ration-thieves are—am I right?”

“Quite,” Wenthi said. Resources were tight in the city, in the whole nation, and it was important that everyone respected their share. Ration-thieves ruined things for everyone.

“As despicable as they are, their goals are far beyond just stealing petrol. The Hwungko boy told us that it’s much more insidious. Several different cycle gangs are cells in a larger organization of rebel terrorists, seeking to destroy everything we’ve built.”

“And that’s what I’m going into?” Did Mother know this? Was that why she was troubled?

“Very astute. We need you to get into one of the cells, and from there, find their leader. A woman called Varazina.”

“I presume Mister Hwungko didn’t give us much to work with in identifying her.”

“No,” Canwei said. “He’s never seen her. Very few have, but they’ve heard her. She leads from the shadows.”

“How does that work?”

“She’s able to give orders, coordinating the gangs, by hijacking radio broadcasts. We have no idea how she’s doing it.”

“Why aren’t we finding their frequencies and listening in?”

“That’s just it—it’s not any one frequency. She’s able to cut into any station, and frequency, and send a message. We’ve got no way to trace it.”

The doctor came back in the room, her demeanor noticeably calmer. “And they use the myco to coordinate with each other, and sense their adversaries. Quite remarkable.”

“Ah, I see you’ve met Doctor Shebiruht,” Canwei said.

“Sheb—” was all he said before the full realization of who this woman was registered. His instinct kicked in, jerking away so quickly he nearly fell off the metal table. “You’re telling me she—the monster—she worked—”

“Yes, yes,” she said dismissively. “The Mushroom Doctor. The Witch of Reloumene. The horror of two wars. Really an exaggeration, if you ask me.”

“Doctor,” Canwei said sharply.

“What is she doing here?” Wenthi asked.

“Penance,” the lieutenant said. “For war crimes in the Great Noble, she is serving her time here, putting her vast knowledge to use.”

“Knowledge of what?”

She went over to the wooden cases. “Of the mycopsilaria. I remain one of the world’s foremost—”

“Butchers,” Wenthi spat. He had heard—everyone had heard—of her horrors, what happened to the victims she experimented on.

“Hardly fair,” she said. “Butchers work with meat.”

“Wenthi,” Canwei said calmly. “I understand your reaction. I do. But the simple truth is, we have a real opportunity with you right now, and with Doctor Shebiruht’s help, give you the tools you’ll need for this mission.”

“What tools?” Wenthi asked. His heart started pounding. What, exactly, were they suggesting?

Shebiruht smiled, looking through the wooden case. “Right now, there’s a girl a few doors down who is, astoundingly, still processing an active, hypercharged dose of mycopsilaria zapisia, the local variation of the mushroom, and I’ve been able to isolate the strain. That it has lasted this long, that her receptors are still active, how she hypercharged herself, I do not know, but it is fascinating. Definitely something special about her.” She seemed very excited, and her accent grew even thicker as she spoke. “Did you know what you think of as simply ‘the myco’ is actually dozens of mushroom species, each with dozens of individual strains?”

“Doctor, we don’t need—” Canwei started.

Shebiruht went on regardless, as she held up a glass vial. “To think, every part of the world could touch every other part. Every mind, every body . . .”

“Doctor,” Canwei said sharply.

“Yes,” she said, coming back over to Wenthi. “And so many small-minded folk wanted to make it into weapons. Klwaza. Elbavu. Rodiguen. Small, petty folk. How can I use this magic to kill, to control, to subjugate? Your people, at least, use it mostly to fuck better. Still small and petty, but it’s something joyful.”

“I don’t—” Wenthi said, the words barely able to come.

“Yes, you’re a good boy, I can tell.” She shook her head and glared at Canwei. “What are you teaching them, hmm? About the myco, the war? Me?”

“I think he has a fairly accurate picture of who you are,” Canwei said.

“Yes, maybe,” she said, handing the vial to a nurse. “I may know more about mycopsilaria than just about anyone, but . . . that knowledge did not come cheaply. But it makes me useful, so this arrangement—”

“Arrangement?”

“Doctor Shebiruht’s expertise remains unmatched,” Canwei said. “The Alliance does not throw away useful knowledge.”

Wenthi got on his feet. “Give me my clothes, ma’am. I don’t need . . . whatever this is to do my job.”

“Wenthi, son,” Canwei said calmly. “I’ve given this a lot of thought. You’re going to need an edge to succeed. The mission will be impossible without what this procedure offers.”

“Procedure?” Never had a word sounded more terrifying.

“You need to get better at explaining things, Lieutenant,” Shebiruht said, bringing over two more vials. “Like I said, that girl’s connective receptors are still active, buzzing with the myco zapisia in her system. We’re going to use that. If your blood is any indication, based on my tests, you’ve got a certain . . . aptitude for what the myco offers. A remarkable aptitude, at that. So we’ll be using that strain she’s on, yes. And then the 14-mycopsilaria outhica to give you dominion over the bond.”

“Dominion?” What was she on about?

“You need to be in charge,” Shebiruht said. “This bond cannot be mutual. And then, of course, this very rare mycopsilaria astiknesa. Oh, this one is the real secret ingredient.”

“For what, exactly?” Wenthi asked as his stomach threatened to crawl out his mouth and run off.

“For the fusion,” she said. “Between you and that girl.”