Moving through the winding alleyways between the venerable, tottering buildings, Kano spotted a legless woman shrouded in a thin blanket. “Hey,” she said, approaching them, “do you know Virtur?”
When they didn’t reply, she added, “Has half his head missing? Sound like anyone you know?”
The woman drew her blanket tighter and shook her head.
Kano turned to Sherp. “Are you sure this is the right way?”
“I’m certain,” Sherp said, scanning the area. “I’ve seen him walk past this very spot.”
Which meant the homeless ghoul in front of them must know something about Virtur’s whereabouts.
“Even just a direction will do,” Kano said, kneeling in front of the woman. “You must know something.”
She shook her head again. Exhaling through her clenched teeth, Kano tried to keep her temper under control. Was she deaf? Mute? Both? Or just stupid? She couldn’t think of any other reason the woman would stonewall her like this… unless they didn’t know who she was. That must be it, Kano felt like a fool for not realizing sooner. Why had she expected someone living at the bottom of society to know of her greatness?
With an audible crack, Kano’s force field flickered to life around the flat of her hand. She cut right through the wall above the woman’s head. “Tell me where he is,” she said, keeping her tone level.
Eyes widening, they stared up at her, but they still said nothing. Kano’s anger flared, filling her with an overwhelming desire to crush this impudent worm. She was preparing to deliver an ultimatum when Sherp interrupted. “Please, no violence. I don’t think she knows anything. And even if she did, I’m not sure she’s in any state to share it.”
Forgetting all about the woman, Kano switched her ire to Sherp. “Sorry? What was that? It sounded an awful lot like you were trying to tell me what to do.”
“I-I didn’t mean to tell you what to do,” Sherp stammered, backing away. “There’s just no point in wasting time here when we could be searching.”
Still full of rage, Kano conceded the point. Much as she hated to admit it, Sherp was right. She’d gain nothing by destroying this hapless creature. Leaving the woman huddled on the ground, Kano moved on. The alleys were sparsely populated at the best of times; they were all but deserted at this time of night.
“Now what?” Kano demanded. “There’s no one else around.”
“Now we search,” Sherp said with a quiet confidence that gave Kano pause.
“Do you know something?”
“I’ve been studying the area, and I think I know where he might be.”
Kano didn’t have a lot of faith in whatever Sherp had come up with, but it was still better than the nothing she had. “Show me.”
Light-brown coat swishing, Sherp brought her to a squat building beside a small polluted river. Sherp provided a long-winded explanation of how she’d figured out where he might be, of which Kano caught only parts. The gist of it was that Sherp had recalled Virtur smelling of industrial waste, and this was the only source of it in the vicinity.
It was far from a brilliant deduction, but Kano had to admit that Sherp had at least a little skill as an investigator, whatever that was worth. It had done little to improve her life, given that Sherp didn’t live too far from here. The air was thick with the smell of chemical waste as they approached a little building beside a waste pipe.
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“Is it okay if I wait out here?” Sherp asked, hanging back. “I won’t be much use anyway if… um, something bad happens.”
Sherp’s cowardice was exceptional, even if nothing else about her was. Kano reached over and grabbed her by the arm. “If it comes to that, I’ll handle Virtur. All I want you to do is retrieve my property. Surely you can manage that much.”
Dragging the toe of her worn boot against the ground, Sherp sighed. “If that’s all I have to do… I guess I can help.”
Kano found it a little amusing that Sherp acted like she had any choice in the matter. What did she think would happen if she refused? Approaching the sheet of tin that served as the building’s door, Kano forgot all about Sherp and focused on the task at hand. She didn’t think Virtur would expect her to show up, but she had little understanding of how he thought.
There was a chance this was all a setup to lure her out here, and that he was waiting on the other side to ambush her. It seemed a little far-fetched, but she couldn’t dismiss the possibility. Ready to bring up her force field at a moment’s notice, she grabbed the metal sheet and pushed it aside. It clattered against the concrete wall, revealing the interior.
The inside bore little resemblance to a home—there was no food, bedding, or spare clothes in sight. Indeed, the place was empty but for the plastic sheet laid across the floor. On top of it was one of the children, lying on their back. Kano assumed it was Seventy-Two, but it was hard to tell. She’d had little interaction with the other children, and it was hard to tell them apart. That and the fact that most of their head was divided into ring-shaped segments.
They lay beside the rest of the body on the sheet. Virtur was sitting beside them, his face low to the ground, when Kano entered. He’d been inspecting them with a fascinated expression on his face. Looking up, he blinked. “What do you want?”
Kano had seen dead bodies before, far more than her share, even. She’d even created more than a few herself. But this… butchery didn’t sit well with her. In the moment, she had little idea why she’d have such an adverse reaction to it, but it felt fundamentally wrong. This was something she could not allow to exist in this world. The only thing that kept her from tearing apart the man in front of her was the knowledge that he was immortal.
“What have you done?” she demanded, her voice low and choked with rage.
“Hm?” he glanced back at Seventy-Two’s body. “Well, I was curious about why someone would make these little things, and there was something familiar about them, so I figured, hey, why not take one of them apart and have a proper look, you know?” He wiped his bloody hands on the plastic underneath him. “The results have been most intriguing,” he said with a droll chuckle.
Kano knew it wouldn’t change anything, but she couldn’t contain herself any longer. Force field glowing on the tip of her foot, she put it through Virtur’s chest.
“What was that for?” he said, staggering back with a bemused look on his face.
Kano was about to strike him again when she heard someone cry out behind her. It was Sherp. She’d followed Kano in and seen what had become of Seventy-Two. The shock of it, and hearing someone else express the pain she felt, granted Kano some semblance of restraint. She stopped attacking Virtur, leaving the wound in his chest to heal. “What could you possibly learn that would justify this?”
“I don’t think someone like you would understand,” Virtur said with a mocking laugh.
Clenching her fists until they creaked, Kano trembled with rage. “Try me.”
“Well, to put it in terms that you might understand: Their brains were altered to allow them to act as a sort of network. Though as far as I can tell, that feature was never activated. At least not for this specimen. The others may be different.”
“A network?” Kano asked. “What for?”
Virtur shook his head. “That’s what I was trying to figure out when you so rudely barged in here. If you’ll just give me some more time, I’m sure I can find out what it’s for.”
“No,” Kano said, her voice low and threatening, “I’m taking them back. And if you ever try to take another, I swear I’ll find some way to kill you.”
“Fine, take them. I believe I have enough information to piece things together as it is.”
He moved past Sherp, who stood rooted near the door, and left the building. Watching him go, Kano kneeled down and pulled the plastic sheet over the body. Some detached part of her noted that Seventy-Two was a girl. Did the other children have genders as well? It hadn’t seemed that way from looking at them.
“Give me a hand,” she said to Sherp, once she had the body wrapped. She was light enough for her to carry on her own but not without dropping parts of her. Repeating what she’d said, she got through to Sherp. The detective’s face was pale as she came to help.
Carrying the body between them, they took Seventy-Two away from where she was killed back to Kano’s home. They had to stop several times along the way to let Sherp rest, but she never uttered a word of complaint.