The Conformity Read Free Page B

one.”
    â€œShreve—” Priest rose, clutching his cane. He took two weak steps toward me.
    â€œNo. It’s okay. I just like to know who I’m dealing with. And now I know.”
    Priest remained silent for a long while, thoughts churning at his features. “So you will stay? You will help me defeat this thing?”
    Not for you, asshole. For my brother.

three
    The second Conformity soldier bellows with its multitude of mouths, a foghorn ululation that makes my skin prickle. It lumbers up and over the meeting of mountains, framed for an instant in a sky pink with the rising sun, and pounds down the slope, brushing trees away with mighty sweeps of its multi-formed arms.
    It’s coming for us! I send.
    We didn’t plan for two soldiers! Danielle says in my mind, and I get a visual flash she’s projecting of the first Conformity soldier swinging its massive arm in a slow arc, the details of its “skin” coming into focus, hundreds upon thousands of people gripping each other tightly, running with the fluids and excrescence of humankind, straining against one another, mouths open in screams and moans, eyes wide in terror.
    The stench of it assaults me through Danielle.
    Then the sensation is gone.
    Bernard sends, I’m at the manual trigger down by the generator, man-child. Where’s the Director at? Ain’t he supposed to be here by now?
    I ignore that and lift the walkie-talkie Davies gave me before I ascended the tower.
    â€œUh, Red and Green Teams, we have a second soldier.” I try to keep the terror from my voice. “And the bastard is right by the water tower. Split up the teams! Red Team, intercept the soldier nearest the tower! ”
    â€œNegative,” the walkie-talkie burps. “Negative, we have orders from the Director to engage the soldier approaching from the south. I repeat, we have orders to engage the soldier approaching from the south.”
    â€œI could give a shit if you’re following orders! We need help here! Soon!” I race over to the Helmholtz array and begin tugging at it to turn the focal lens thingamabob just like the R&D guys trained us. It squeals in protest.
    Here, Casey sends, let me help. She doesn’t move, but the array squeals louder, trailing the power cables that snake away from it and run down to the generators on the ground, so far below. It’s taking far too long to turn the Helmholtz array. Far, far too long.
    The radio squelches again. Hissing. And then, “This is Director Priest. I repeat, this is Director Priest. En route to water tower with reinforcements. Until that time, Shreve Cannon is in charge. Follow his orders until we’re in situ. I repeat, follow Shreve’s orders until we’re in situ.”
    Hissing.
    â€œRoger that,” says Solomon, indifferent.
    â€œCopy,” says Blackwell. That isn’t sitting well with him. The world’s ending, and he’s worried about his dick getting snipped a couple of inches.
    â€œRed Team,” I yell, pressing down the transmitter. “NOW! Move to intercept!”
    The Conformity soldier slumps forward, a half mile away now, moving faster than you’d think a walking tower of naked screaming people could move. It doesn’t even have feet, just flat bloody truncations that resemble an elephant’s feet, but they get the job done. Each of its steps hits with a boom , and I can feel the percussive impact of the footfalls reverberating like shockwaves down the mountainside, up the metal struts of the water tower. The tower shakes and groans, almost in answer to the soldier’s terrible call.
    My stomach turns, my bowels begin to loosen I’m so scared. The thing grows.
    I inhale the stench of it. The smell, like the noise of its thousands of mouths, is a multilayered thing, reeking of all the terrible fluids of mankind—blood, sweat, tears, shit, semen, pus. My nostrils burn and my eyes water. On the metal