The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross [138]
I’m still trying to think of something to say when Ramona takes the initiative: “Fancy meeting you here, dear. Did Pat deep-six you, or did you decide you needed a bit more bargaining power?”
“Ramona?” She cocks her head to one side. “Ah, I should have guessed. Three’s a crowd: Why don’t you butt out, bitch?”
I manage to temporarily regain control of my larynx: “She stays,” I say. Remember to breathe deeply, I tell myself. My doubled vision is beginning to annoy me: the light around Ramona is definitely brightening towards a predawn twilight. I try to keep the MP-5 pointing in Johanna’s general direction, but she’s right—if I start shooting, I’m as likely to take out the geas generator as hit her. “What are you doing here?”
“Unlike some, I know who I’m loyal to. I figured I’d help myself to the leftovers at the rich man’s buffet, seeing I’ve just armed the scuttling charges. And aren’t you just the dish? I think you’ll do for starters.” Johanna’s grin widens, carnivorously: I catch a whiff of breath that’s not so much stale as cadaverous, reeking of the crypt. “I can disentangle you, ’Mona, did you know that? I can even unlock your binding without killing McMurray. I stole his tokens while I was helping him consider the error of his ways down in the brig.” She turns her free hand so that I can see she’s holding a small plastic box. “It’s all in here. I own you both.”
Breathe. Ramona tenses and kicks harder towards the light. Her buttocks are a solid slab of agony: she’s swum nearly a kilometer straight up, and she’s beginning to tire of struggling, of fighting off the adaptive stress that seductively taunts her, the knowledge that if she just uses her other muscles everything will become so much easier—
“So what do you want with us?” I ask, taking a short step towards her.
“Stop. Don’t move.” She stares at me. “I want you to adore me,” she says, almost wistfully. “I want you to be my body. ’Mona, give him to me and I’ll even set you free, Ellis doesn’t need to know—”
For a moment I’m in Ramona’s body, swimming free towards a surface that is slowly brightening: it’s still a dim twilight, utter darkness to merely human eyes, but I can see shapes in the murk above me. Half of the horizon is dominated by a huge, black shadow that the drill string disappears into, and there’s another dark silhouette in the near distance. I’m in control, I’m the one who’s swimming with unfamiliar legs and weaker upper arms—I begin altering course towards the distant, dark shape in the water—
Meanwhile, Ramona is in my body, and she’s dropped the MP-5 and is halfway across the perspex lid covering the diorama, making a noise in the back of her throat that I’ve heard when two cats get serious about their territory. Johanna whacks the hammer hard, off the back of my neck—aiming for my head, but she misses—causing a bright sharp pain, and then I’m in her face and she’s biting at me and trying to smash me on the side of the skull and Ramona does something with my arms that I’m just not up to, some type of blocking move. I can feel muscles, possibly a tendon, tearing as I punch Johanna overarm; she blocks, I bring up a knee—
Breathe for two because the Mabuse is holding station but it’s still a third of a kilometer away—
“Bitch!” screams Johanna, then sinks her teeth into my shoulder and goes for my balls.
Ramona, not used to having that external hazard to guard, doesn’t react in time to Johanna—but I do, and I manage to squirm sideways so that Johanna grabs my inner thigh painfully, rather than turning me into a pile of screaming jelly. The Glock in my pants is digging in uselessly. Then I notice Johanna’s teeth in my right shoulder.