Lexicon

modulated, coming out of a helmet. His name was Masters. He was in control of the soldiers. Currently, Masters had EIPs spreading through Broken Hill like a toxic spill, establishing perimeters, getting fixes, whatever else it was they did. It was to help her neutralize Eliot, but she didn’t like it, being around people she couldn’t compromise.
    She remembered a burger place. It was a good distance from the hospital, close enough to coordinate the action but not so close that Eliot was likely to be able to sneak up and shoot her. She had eaten there, alone, sometimes, other times not. But she wasn’t thinking about that. Harry was trying to surface in her brain but she was not going to let him. The point was, it was a good location. “I know somewhere.”
    A small squad swept the burger place while she and Plath stood outside, shielding their faces from the sun. A chopper passed overhead, whipping up hot, stinging sand. “Ugh,” said Plath. “This place.”
    A soldier opened the rear door and gestured. She passed through a small kitchen, where a dark skillet lay under a layer of dust. Utensils dangled from overhead racks, surprisingly bright. Then she was in the serving area, passing familiar tables. There were no bodies. Maybe the soldiers had removed them. Plath hung back for some reason but Emily moved to the front of the store. There were dark shapes outside, hard to see through the dirty plate glass, and she approached with some trepidation. Outdoor tables. A ragged umbrella still over one of them. A few cars. If she put her face to the glass, she could see farther down the street. She didn’t look for detail but could see the shape of the hospital. Somewhere inside were Eliot and his outlier.
    Her phone rang. She pulled it out. “I hear you’re in Broken Hill,” said Yeats.
    “Yes.” She looked at Plath, the snitch.
    “I find myself wondering why Eliot would go there, of all places.”
    “Well, my guess is to get the word,” she said. “The outlier can just pick it up.” There was silence. “Hello?”
    “I’m sorry. I was rendered speechless a moment, just then.”
    “The bareword,” she said. “It’s in the emergency room.”
    “I
have
the bareword.”
    “You have the copy I made. The original is still there.”
    “How useful it would have been to have this information before this moment.”
    “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She had known that, in one of her compartments.
    “You will kill Eliot,” Yeats said, “and the outlier, and, for that matter, anyone else Eliot has managed to conjure up who doesn’t work directly for me. You will then cordon off the hospital until I arrive. Is this clear?”
    “Yes.” In her head, she added:
you jerk
. She did this sometimes. It was a kind of game.
    “I really am vexed by this outlier business. I have felt decidedly uncomfortable, knowing that one exists. It is a most unwelcome distraction to my work.”
    “I can imagine.”
You jerk.
    “Call me when Eliot’s dead,” he said. “I won’t set foot in Broken Hill until then. Oh, and Emily? At some point, you will fill me in on exactly how you managed to copy an object you can’t look at.”
    “I will do that,” she said. The phone clicked. Her jaw worked and for a moment she thought she was actually going to say it. But she only made a little grunt,
yuh
. She glanced at Plath. But no one seemed to have noticed. So that was okay.
    In the beginning, she hadn’t even been able to think it. Perhaps eventually she would be able to say the words to his face.
Hey, Yeats! You’re a jerk!
It was a fun idea. Implausible; most likely, this was as far as it could go, a mental game. She would see. For now, the important thing was that a part of her was still her.
    • • •
    Eliot strode to the door, pulled it open, and disappeared. This happened much more quickly than Harry expected, because until a few moments ago, Eliot had looked very much like a guy recovering from a near-fatal gunshot wound. What had suddenly revived him, Harry did not know. “Wait,” he said. But Eliot was running down the corridor; Harry could hear his footsteps.
    He hefted the rifle. This was going to be especially useless for close-quarters combat. He hadn’t intended to leave the room. He’d intended to stay and pick off guys until Emily got the message and came to see him. He blew air through his teeth. “Fuck,” he said, and went after Eliot. He jogged down the corridor, passing two neonatal