Absynthe, page 38
“Alastair,” Liam said, “are you all right?”
Several long seconds passed before he responded. “Do you recall asking me on the Eisvögel whether I recalled my time as a soldier? And my responding that I didn’t remember anything?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I lied, Master Mulcahey. I do remember bits and pieces, most of them horrifying. I don’t like thinking of them, which is why I lied. It reminds me of the barbarous things I once did.”
With those words, the source of Alastair’s distress was made clear. In saving Clay, he’d resorted to the same sorts of violent acts that haunted him. “I’m so sorry, Alastair.”
Bailey, Liam suddenly realized, was crying. Tears fell freely down her face. “I’m sorry, too”—she stood and moved to Alastair’s side, then bent down to hug him—“but thank you for rescuing my husband.”
Alastair was staring at her as if he felt he didn’t deserve it, but then he hugged her back. “I’m glad he’s safe,” he finally said.
Bailey released him and sat back down, wiping tears along the way. “This has all been a lot,” she said to Liam, “but I need to make sure I understand. You’re telling me the real De Pere died during the war?”
“That’s right,” Liam said, “and the person we see as De Pere is actually Colette Silva, or a part of her. There’s a malignancy inside her, a consciousness distinct and separate from hers that was created and fed as she took more and more of the serum. It calls itself Echo.”
Bailey’s eyes narrowed, her expression pensive. “Distinct and separate . . . ?”
“Yes. Echo’s birth was a byproduct of Colette’s growing addiction to the Henchman serum. It eventually coopted her mind. It’s been the one doing this all along by portraying itself as De Pere.” Liam told them how he’d dug through De Pere’s memories even as De Pere searched through his, how he’d seen things from Colette’s point of view. He told them how Echo had gained more and more power over Colette, and how it had eventually won, suppressing her entirely.
“I don’t understand, sir,” said Alastair. “If De Pere is actually Colette, why was he surprised when confronted with that fact?”
It was Stasa who answered. “There have been a number of documented cases of split personalities, people who, after enduring some deep and extended trauma, compartmentalize themselves as different people. In such cases, one personality becomes dominant for a time but eventually gives way to another. It’s possible Colette suffered that sort of trauma through prolonged use of E. sentensis. It’s further possible that Echo, in order to make sense of its own consciousness, adopted the persona of Leland De Pere.”
“Even assuming all that’s true,” Bailey said, “how could Echo have fooled everyone for so long? How could no one have realized De Pere isn’t real?”
“We all know how powerful E. sentensis is,” Stasa said. “Its ability to make us believe in things that aren’t real go beyond mere sight and sound. Its very power relies on our natural expectation that the world behaves in certain ways, that there is permanence. When those expectations are strong enough, we ignore facts to the contrary. Any slips that De Pere might have made along the way would be reasoned away as the failings of the observer, not the impermanence of De Pere himself.” Stasa snapped his fingers while turning toward Liam. “That’s why you’ve been remembering Colette’s memories after your own.”
Liam shook his head. “Come again?”
“We’ve long known that some take to the serum better than others, their physiology being more attuned to the needs of E. sentensis.” Stasa became more animated, using his hands as he talked, a rarity for the mousy man. “We also know it took to yours quite well, Liam. Echo may have targeted you for that very reason—to ensure its survival first and foremost, but also to counterbalance the instability of the one it had identified as key to its plans, the one it planned to take next: Kohler himself.”
For a moment, Liam was stunned. He didn’t want to admit it, but it was an all-too-real possibility that Colette hadn’t selected him at all. Echo might have.
“We also know that neural pathways form in our minds when we perform habitual tasks,” Stasa went on. “The same may be true of mind-to-mind connections. Echo was born of Colette’s consciousness. The very fact that you were the first to join her may very well have linked the two of you in crucial ways.”
Liam’s thoughts were whisked back to the glass-walled room below Fort Nolan. “When I was with Kohler, he confessed Echo was worried because it thought Colette had taught me how to alter memory, to alter someone’s will, and that I would do that to Echo itself in order to stop it.”
“And do you remember?” Stasa asked.
Liam shook his head. “No, but I think it’s what Echo was searching for while rooting through my mind. It seemed fascinated when it came to the night I took the permanent serum, especially when it realized just how desperately Colette wanted me to join the collective that was about to form before Max did.”
Bailey had grown more and more pensive as they’d talked. “Grace always talked about Colette as if she was convince she was dead. Do you think she lied? You think she knew all along Colette was still alive?”
With her words, a thought suddenly occurred to Liam. A staggering thought. A thought that made the blood drain from his face.
Bailey stared at him, then glanced at Stasa. “You all right, dear?”
Liam couldn’t answer. His mind was reeling. He felt exactly like he had while racing toward North Town on the Curtiss, wondering if he’d ever see Nana again.
“Liam?” Stasa said.
He nearly confessed his fears, nearly told them what he should have seen all along. But he couldn’t. He had to work through the idea and its implications first. So he lied. “It’s just everything catching up to me. The attack, our escape . . .”
Bailey patted his hand. “It’s been a lot.” She tipped her head to the door they’d come through earlier. “There are more cots in the back. Why don’t you go get some sleep?”
“I will,” Liam said, “soon.”
“Well, I need to lay down.” She stood with a melancholy smile. “I swear on my mama’s grave, I’ve never felt so tired.” With that, she headed through the door and was gone.
“Our talk has given me an idea,” Stasa said, “something I want to check with Morgan. Care to join me?”
Liam shook his head, then jutted his chin toward the door. “Someone should stay with Bailey.”
Stasa nodded, clapped Liam on the shoulder, and left.
“I’m very sorry I let my emotions get to me in the room below Fort Nolan, sir.” Alastair’s garbled voice box was pitched low. “If I’d stayed with you, maybe Master Graves wouldn’t have been hurt.”
“You were only trying to get us out faster.”
In a perfect simulacrum of Stasa, he stood and clapped Liam on the shoulder. “I’d better go keep watch.” He headed toward the back door. “Sleep well, sir.”
When he was gone, Liam was left alone in the vastness of the ballroom. For a time, he reveled in the silence, but all too soon, as he knew he would, he heard the sound of shuffling footsteps. Nana, wearing her Sunday best, came from the darkness toward the front of the room. As had been true since Liam learned of her death, she’d come to help him work through difficult problems, and this was the most difficult of them all.
She sat across from Liam with an I-told-you-so expression. “Awfully strange, Grace showing up at Club Artemis when she did.”
“Just days after my talk with De Pere,” Liam added.
Nana nodded sagely. “And later, she arranges things with the Uprising so it’s you who goes to President’s farewell banquet, not her.”
Liam thought back to the way she’d resisted. “She didn’t want to risk being seen by him—”
“—because it would alert him to Colette’s presence.”
Liam didn’t understand how it had happened, or even why, but he knew this much: as Echo had adopted the guise of Leland De Pere to do its will, Colette had crafted an identity of her own: Grace Savropoulis. It explained her abilities so much better than the story she’d given Liam. It explained how she knew so much about De Pere’s past. It explained how she knew the first thing about neo-medicine.
Nana sucked her teeth as she pondered. “I wonder if Grace even knows who she is.”
“I doubt it,” Liam said. “De Pere didn’t. Not really. He thought he was real. Grace probably does too. Having no consciousness of one’s true self might have been necessary so De Pere wouldn’t suspect. Colette did it to hide herself from Echo.”
Nana nodded. “It would explain why Grace didn’t have all the same knowledge Colette herself had. And why she was so haunted by that dream inside of LuxCorp, the one that showed those poor people lined up outside the Pinnacle.”
Indeed, it hadn’t only been Dakota and Morgan whose attention had been drawn to the Pinnacle. It had been Grace too. Echo had nearly recognized her, which explained why she’d been so paralyzed with fear.
“You knew something was wrong with her all along,” Liam said, recalling how distrustful Nana had been of Grace.
Nana’s laugh was the low rumble of a threatening storm. “You knew, boyo.”
Liam shrugged. “Maybe I did.”
“Question is, what do we do about it? We know some of the story, but not enough.”
“We need to understand Echo’s weaknesses,” Liam said.
Nana’s face went hard. “We need to know how to destroy it.”
“You’re right. I need to talk to Grace, but I don’t know how.”
Nana thought on that awhile. “Earlier, Stasa talked about a link between you and Colette.”
“Yes, but I can’t sense it. I certainly don’t know how to use it.”
Nana stood, shuffled closer. “Sometimes”—she used one finger to tap his forehead—“we live here altogether too much.” After a kiss to his forehead, she began shuffling away. Just before the sound was lost altogether, her voice drifted to him, “Listen to your heart, Liam.”
Through the windows high along the far wall, the fading light of sunset played against a bank of distant clouds. Some were the color of fresh salmon, others wheat, a reminder of the endless field to which Grace had taken him so the two of them could speak in private. He considered trying to recreate it so that they could talk, but that didn’t feel right. The wheat field was a place of deception, which felt too close to De Pere and his devious ways. He needed something more personal, something only they had shared.
As the light faded further, he was taken back to his first meeting with Grace at Club Artemis. He lit several candles, which suffused the room in a soft, golden glow. At the bar near the entrance he found a serving tray. On it, he set a pair of fine crystal glasses, a bowl of sugar cubes, a box of matches, a carafe of ice water, and two slotted spoons. From the liquor rack he took a nearly full bottle of absynthe. It wasn’t the same make as what he’d had at Club Artemis. It would probably taste different, too, but that didn’t matter. It was the ritual he needed now, the symbolism.
After choosing a small table near the center of the room, he set the platter down and sat in one of the chairs. He set the spoons over the glasses, placed a sugar cube on each of the slotted spoons. The bottle gurgled as he poured the emerald green liquor over the sugar and into the glasses. Sweet smells filled the air, along with subtler, more savory notes.
He lit the sugar and watched the cubes burn and melt. When they’d hit just the right amount of caramelization—golden brown, no more—he doused them with the cold water. The absynthe clouded, its color like a slice of mint pie. After stirring the contents of both glasses, he set one in front of the seat across from him.
Somewhere outside, he heard the occasional rumble of a car passing by. There came the rhythmic clank of an elevated tram, followed by the soft, momentary hum of conversation as a couple walked along the sidewalk out front.
Liam imagined what the ballroom might look like when it was full. He’d love to take Grace here, or Colette—he found he was no longer sure which one was closer in mind, heart, and spirit to the woman he’d started to fall in love with during the war.
Part of him wanted to drink from the glass, but to do so felt like he’d be giving in. He’d been so confident when he’d began. He still was. He refused to believe that Grace wouldn’t come. He acted as if he were simply passing time until she returned from the powder room.
Each moment that passed, however, chipped away at his certainty. He thought of the first time he’d met Colette, the undefinable thrill that had run through him on seeing her smile for the first time. He thought of the chit-chat before their briefings, talks that had grown longer and more personal as Project Echo began in earnest. He thought of how similar it felt to the first time he’d met Grace.
He’d hoped his memories of them both might summon her. They had to. There was one big question that needed answering or everything they were doing was doomed to failure. But she hadn’t come. Focusing on their history hadn’t acted as a lure.
“Don’t be so sure,” came a voice from the darkness.
An outline appeared near the center of the parquet dance floor. The heels of her shoes clicked against the wood, became muffled as she reached the carpeting. Her fringed gown hugged her body tightly. White gloves wrapped her arms past the elbows. Her pearl headband somehow made her curled, blonde hair and golden skin shine.
When she reached the table, she glanced at the glasses of absynthe, then held out her hand.
Liam shook his head, confused.
“You danced with Bailey. Are you saying you won’t dance with me?”
She flourished to the empty room with her opposite hand, and it flared to life. A jazz orchestra played on the bandstand. The dance floor came alive with men and women moving in step. Everyone was dressed to the nines, including Liam, who now wore a swallowtail tuxedo made of wool died a deep auburn. His top hat, gloves, and pocket square were a slightly lighter shade of brown, the outfit a perfect complement to Grace’s.
“Colette—”
“Don’t say her name. We have this time. It may be our last. So dance with me.”
He nearly denied her. “It’s a lie, Grace.”
“We tell ourselves lies every day.” She held out her hand. “And it isn’t all a lie.”
The way she smiled at him sent a pang of regret and caring and love running through him that was so strong he wasn’t sure whether the source of the emotions was him, Grace, or a mix of the two. Deciding he didn’t care, he stood, took her hand, and led her out to the dance floor.
Grace moved easily from the Charleston to the Peabody to the Turkey Trot, her motions making the fringes along her gown twirl in bands along her hips and below her knees. Liam tried to keep up with her, but he would no more than fall into a rhythm than Grace would change things up again. She laughed when he grew frustrated, then took his hands and slipped back into the Charleston. Lost in the crowd around them, they danced with wide smiles on their faces.
Is this how Colette sees herself? Liam wondered. Does she even remember who she is? He couldn’t ask her, not when she’d asked him not to. He found he didn’t care to anyway. This moment was, and that was enough for him.
When the song came to a wild, frenetic end, the crowd clapped and headed back toward their tables, all broad smiles and sweat-kissed brows.
When everyone but Grace and Liam had left the dance floor, the lead trumpet eased the orchestra into a slow foxtrot. Liam and Grace started as the dance demanded, their backs arched away from one another, but as the song went on, they found themselves holding one another more closely until their bodies were pressed together. They were hardly dancing at all. Movement was secondary. Liam’s purpose in that moment was one of simply being with Grace, and of letting himself feel whatever it was that came.
The music came to an end, and they stilled and faced one another. Liam couldn’t help himself. He leaned in and kissed her.
Grace kissed him back, and for a time he simply lost himself in that. The hum of conversation faded. The sound of the band’s next song dimmed, finishing on one long trumpet note that slowly attenuated, echoing into infinity as Liam opened his eyes to find the hall empty once more, the candles waging a losing war against the darkness.
“Grace,” Liam said carefully, “I need to know what’s happening. I need to know what to do.”
“I know, but it isn’t easy to share. It’s dangerous, Liam.” She took his hand and led him to the table. “But I think I’ve found a way.”
They sat, and Grace picked up her glass of absynthe, tipped her head to Liam with a smile that made his worries fade, and took one long swallow. Liam followed suit, finding the drink to be quite cool. He wasn’t sure if that was part of the illusion Grace had crafted for them, but really, what did it matter? He savored the taste, particularly the caramel finish, and the world around him melted.
Forty-Seven
During the war . . .
Munitions pounded. Soldiers screamed. The Battle of Whitefish Bay continued to rage. Echo had just used Colette to put a bullet into Leland De Pere’s head. Part of Echo was horrified over what it had done, but more and more it was beginning to recognize that those emotions were not its own, but those of its host.
“Colette?”
Echo shivered in fear as Liam ambled closer in his towering hopper suit. He’d borne witness to De Pere’s death, it realized, a thing that could not stand. As Echo worked quickly to alter Liam’s memories, making him believe De Pere had survived, it felt Colette’s growing terror. It felt strange to experience that terror even as it reveled in the power it now wielded. A moment later, it regained perspective, and the helplessness that emanated from Colette as she watched Echo twist the memories of a man she’d come to admire, perhaps even love, became a balm against Echo’s worries over its own survival.
