Divergence

“I want to, but I can’t. You don’t know what it’s like.”

“I will help you.”

“Against the Watcher? It is on a different plane to you or me. Beyond our grasp.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Ivan, I don’t think it even sees reality as we do.”

Something flickered in Ivan’s eyes, as if Eva’s comment had struck home.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” said Ivan slowly.

“What?” Eva followed his gaze. He was staring at the screen. “What aren’t you telling me, Ivan? I saw the way you and Alexandr were looking at each other earlier. Those people we met the other day on the road here—the ones from Saolim—the way they spoke of this Narkomfin. What is it about this place, Ivan?”

“I promised I would not tell you, Eva.”

“Promised who?”

“Social Care.”

“When?”

“Before I came here. I didn’t know what they were talking about then. I just signed a contract, promising not to disclose information regarding the VNMs and venumbs of this region.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The VNMs below this building. The ones that climb the walls. The ones that you are so frightened of.”

“What about them?”

“I found out where they came from. Well, Alexandr did.”

“Where did they come from?”

“I’ll show you.”

Ivan fetched a featureless grey metal box and an induction screwdriver from one of the silver packing cases. He connected the box to the screen with a heavy cable.

“Shielded,” he said, and began fiddling at the box with his screwdriver. “This way no one but me can activate it,” he explained. On the screen a picture came to flickering life.

“This is not too far from here,” Ivan said. “This building sits practically on top of these caves.”

Eva guessed that the caves weren’t entirely natural. The Kamchatka peninsula, where the Narkomfin was located, was a region of volcanic activity. Still, the view on the screen appeared just too regular to be natural formation. Eva wondered if the underground flows of lava had been redirected by the Watcher, just as humans redirected watercourses by using dams. Had the magma table been lowered so that these glassy, shiny caves could float free? Had machinery been at work under here, boring and shaping the walls? Eva thought she could make out the circular patterns of sanders and drill bits evident on the glittering walls. But that was irrelevant: she was distracting herself, trying not to look at the things that filled the caves.

“Are they alive?” she asked Ivan.

“Alive? What is life ? Look closer.” Ivan did something with his induction screwdriver, and the picture zoomed in. Now Eva could see what it was that was creeping and crawling on the floors of the caves.

“VNMs!” she exclaimed. “But what’s the matter with them?”

All of the machines were obviously disabled in some way. Maybe the legs down one side hadn’t grown properly; maybe the sense cluster located on the head section was missing. Eva watched as one rusty creature moving painfully across the rippled stone floor; she could almost hear the metallic squeaking of its unlubricated joints.