Over Freezing Altitudes

by Kate MacLeod

  “We’ll be safe there?” Scout asked.

  “No,” Daisy said, looking even more confused. “Shi Jian is there.”

  “Oh,” Scout said.

  If Shi Jian were there, Scout would rather be anywhere else.

  But the Torreses and the McGillicuddys were also up there. If Shi Jian couldn’t get her hands on Scout, she might harm them instead.

  Or they could also be on her hit list, being tangled up in the Tajaki trade dynasty court case just as much as Scout was.

  “Do you know how to get there?” Scout asked as Daisy continued surveilling the options from the cliff they were huddled on.

  “Up,” Daisy said.

  “No, I mean, you seem to know where trails are,” Scout said.

  “We’re not on trails,” Daisy said. “No one is crazy enough to walk up this mountain. But I studied the slope from above before I came down to the village. It’s climbable without gear. We’ll be fine.”

  “We can’t get up there before dark,” Scout said. “It’s too far.”

  “Way too far,” Daisy agreed. “We’ll be lucky to make it before dark tomorrow night. Probably won’t.”

  “We can’t climb in the dark,” Scout said.

  Daisy leaned closer to peer at Scout’s eyes through the reflective surface of her goggles. “Get your glasses on under those,” she ordered. “They have night vision.”

  “Oh, yes,” Scout said, patting her pockets until she found her round-lensed glasses. She pulled off her goggles and hat, her entire body shivering instantly and intensely at the kiss of cold against the exposed skin of her head and neck. She pulled the frames around her ears and slammed the hat back down. Daisy helped her get the goggles settled over the glasses.

  “Night vision,” Scout said, trying to sound casual. Warrior was the one who told her how to use technology, but Scout was reluctant to turn her on now. Daisy had all of the augments Clementine had had, maybe more. She would see Warrior the moment she appeared. It might be important later that Daisy didn’t know Scout had an AI with her.

  But the glasses responded to her command and just like she had been able to see the walls on the tribunal enforcers’ ship, everything here shifted to green tones, the lines of the world around her suddenly sharply defined.

  “Wow,” Scout said, looking around. “I hadn’t realized it had already gotten so dark. The days are short here.”

  “Part of that is the storm,” Daisy told her. “But your glasses filter out the snowflakes so you can see the ground better. Try looking at a distance.”

  Scout looked around, then crept just a bit closer to the edge of the cliff to look down.

  Not only could she see every detail of the still-smoldering cabin on the plateau and the smaller one huddled above it; she could see every cabin in the village around the remains of the tramway platform. She could even tell where the doors were by the pinpricks of light that shone down on their stoops.

  “Amazing,” Scout said, then felt her cheeks flush at how silly she sounded. Daisy had spent her whole life around far more impressive technology. Luckily the layers of her scarf concealed her embarrassment.

  “This looks like the best option,” Daisy said, looking up another fissure through a rock face. “The others would be too steep for the dogs. At some point, we might end up carrying them, but they should pull their own weight as long as they’re able.”

  Scout, who had once crossed a prairie with Gert on her back and Shadow in her arms, couldn’t argue with that. The dogs got heavy fast.

  It was slow going, making sure each step was secure before putting their full weight on it, then moving the other foot and finding a grip on the rock under the loose snow. Gert seemed indefatigable, plowing through what little Daisy left behind. Shadow wasn’t happy about how cold any of it was but seemed to appreciate that it would be much worse without the two ahead of him getting the worst of it out of his way.

  Scout brought up the rear, partly because Daisy was better at finding and creating their trail, but mostly because she wanted her dogs in front of her, where she could always see them.

  She ignored the prickly feeling on the back of her neck, that feeling of being followed. They had a big head start on the assassins, and the snow was falling more and more thickly as the day drew on, covering their trail behind them. She doubted they’d lose the assassins entirely, but there were a lot of places where they might choose the wrong path and have to backtrack.

  Or so Scout hoped. All she knew was when she looked back she saw no signs of pursuit.

  But the climb was tiring. Scout was bathed in sweat under the layers of warm clothing, and her heart was beating way too fast. She panted to keep up with the girl, but a tickle in her throat had her coughing again and again. Was she getting ill?

  That didn’t seem likely; they would have noticed it when doing her medical processing, surely. And yet, she didn’t feel right. She had spent days on end under the hot prairie sun pedaling up steep hillsides. She had never tired this quickly.

  Another tickle of cough grew into a fit that forced her to stop climbing for a moment. When she at last had her breath back, she looked up to find she was quite alone. No sign of Daisy, no sign of her dogs.

  They couldn’t have gotten too far away from her, but when Scout lifted her foot to take another step, she suddenly got very confused about where she was going. They were in less of a fissure at this point than a narrow runnel, and the runnel branched and branched again. Scout could see the indents forming over the top of the snow that showed where the runnels were, but they were all disturbed as if Daisy and the dogs had split up and plowed through everything.

  Where had they gone?

  Scout took another step forward but neglected to be sure of her footing before putting her weight forward, and her boot skidded off the rock face. She went down on one knee, hard. Her thick layers of clothing, the ones she was sweating like mad under, protected her kneecap from the worst of it, but she still had tears in her eyes.

  She sat down in the snow, rubbing at her knee as she looked up the slope again. Where had they gone? Her dogs never lost sight of her if they could help it.

  Had Daisy abducted them somehow? That didn’t seem likely, but Scout’s thoughts were a muddle.

  She just needed a little rest and then she could find her dogs. But even sitting still she couldn’t slow her breath or her heartbeat. The frozen chill of the rock beneath her was penetrating her coat and pants, seeping into her bones, and her sweat-soaked inner clothing was clinging to her now-goosefleshed skin.

  She started to shiver. And once she started, she couldn’t stop.

  Somewhere in the back of her head she knew she should get up and get moving, but her muddled brain decided against it. She didn’t know which of the paths Daisy and the dogs had chosen. Perhaps the best thing would be to wait for them to circle back for her. To get her heart rate down to a place where it wasn’t beating so loudly in her ears.

  She tucked her mittened hands into her armpits, hugging herself close as she waited.

  Her rapid breathing began to slow to a hypnotic pace, and her eyelids grew heavier and heavier.

  She thought she heard something over the wind, someone calling her name. But was it Daisy or the assassins in pursuit, trying to trick her into revealing herself? Better to remain silent. Daisy knew how to find her.

  She did wish she had her dogs beside her, though. The dogs always knew how to warm her.

  Although maybe she didn’t need that anymore either, because she felt suddenly, strangely warm all over, like a cloud of magical warmth had settled down over her, a gift from the sky. It hugged her like an ephemeral blanket, so cozy.

  Her bone-shaking shivers finally stopped.

  She was so very warm.

  13

  Scout sat up, heart racing. But this wasn’t the thready, ineffectual fast beat from before. No, this time it was a strong, hard beat pounding alertness to every bit of her body. She could see the world around
her in sharp detail, hear every skitter of a snowflake hitting the rock face around her, process sensory detail from every distinct nerve ending over her entire body.

  Or at least it felt that way. It was all too much. She wanted to scream, but a hand was already pressed tight across her mouth to hold the sound in.

  “Easy,” Daisy said. “Give it a minute. The first jolt is the worst.”

  Scout took a few deep breaths through her nose, and as she willfully forced the tension out of her body, Daisy dropped her hand. Scout took a few more breaths before asking, “First jolt of what?”

  “Stim,” Daisy said, putting a little injector back into her coat pocket. “You needed it.”

  “Something’s wrong,” Scout said. Her crystal-clear vision was starting to swim again, and she rubbed at her goggles.

  “I guessed that,” Daisy said. “Hold still; I need to check something.”

  Scout flinched back, but the device in Daisy’s gloved hand wasn’t another injector or needle, just a small scanner. She passed it over Scout’s arms and chest and peered closely at the screen.

  “Am I dying?” Scout asked, only half joking. The stim was still trying to make her heart pound, but the beats were getting weaker again, the urge to lay down and let sleep take her returning.

  “Your nanite has been compromised,” Daisy said, slipping the pack off her back and turning it around to search one of the side pockets. “The one that’s supposed to help you deal with the low oxygen.”

  “How?” Scout asked.

  “Either it was defective when it was injected into you, or someone gave you a counteragent after the fact,” Daisy said, finding what she was searching for: a metal box. She flipped open the lid, and Scout saw another injector nestled within, smaller than the one the doctor had injected her with, but of a similar design. Daisy looked at a few of the vials nestled in the foam that filled the lid, then selected one and slipped it into the bottom of the injector handle.

  “I’m not getting enough oxygen?” Scout said.

  “Correct,” Daisy said, pushing back Scout’s sleeve and pressing the injector to the inside of her wrist.

  The little injector hurt more than the big one had. And the world around Scout was still swimming away.

  “Here,” Daisy said, and Scout realized she had dozed off again. She opened her eyes and let Daisy help her put a small mask over her nose and mouth. “Just breathe normally. By the time this tank is out, your nanite should be up to full strength.”

  “But what if I still have the counteragent in my system?” Scout asked, her voice muffled by the mask. Daisy used heavy-duty tape to attach the little oxygen tank to the side of Scout’s pack.

  “I’ll check you in a few hours,” Daisy said, putting the injector away and standing up to get her pack back on. “If you’re right, I can just keep injecting you with nanites until we get to the city.”

  Scout looked around, her brain still fuzzy. Something was missing.

  “The dogs!” she said when she finally worked out what it was.

  “The dogs are fine,” Daisy assured her. “I tied them up there so they wouldn’t get in the way.”

  Scout looked up to the top of the flat slope of the rock face and saw Shadow pressed close to Gert’s side, shivering like mad. They both started bounding up and down when she looked their way.

  “Have their nanites been compromised as well?” Scout asked.

  “I don’t think so. They don’t show any signs, and they likely would have succumbed before you did, especially the little fellow. But I can check them when we get up there.”

  She held out a hand, and Scout took it to let her pull her to her feet. Scout got up and then dropped Daisy’s hand but was immediately overwhelmed by another wave of dizziness. She dropped her head, pressing her mittened hands to her temples as she willed the weakness to pass.

  She heard three soft sounds, something—or things—landing softly in the mounds of snow nearby. Then Daisy was yelling a fearsome war cry.

  Scout lifted her head from her hands and saw Daisy rushing over the slippery, steep slope of the rock face to meet their three attackers. She kept her body weight low and moved with inhuman speed, striking the first on the side of the knee with a quick kick, then catching the fist of the next one as they tried to take a jab at her and using the assassin’s own momentum to throw it into the third, who had just been raising a dart gun to fire.

  “Here!” Daisy shouted, and she threw something. Scout followed the glittering object’s arc through the sky. Her vision was still strange, like she was watching a video that kept starting and stopping in a jerky manner rather than playing in a smooth progression. But she forced herself to focus, to follow the path and catch what Daisy had thrown to her.

  A gun. But not a dart gun. This was a proper weapon, the kind the marshals carried.

  Scout looked back up and saw Daisy trading blows with first one and then another of the assassins. She was good; she was pushing them back hard enough that they couldn’t overwhelm her, but Scout didn’t see how she could change her position from purely defensive to offensive.

  She was going to get tired, and then they would have her.

  Worse, the third had gotten back to their feet and was raising the dart gun once more.

  “Scout!” Daisy shouted, but both of her foes rushing her at once drowned out the rest of her words.

  Scout looked at the gun in her hands. She hated the things. What if it wasn’t even linked to her as Gertrude Bauer’s had been? But surely Daisy wouldn’t have tossed her a weapon she couldn’t fire.

  The third assassin lowered the dart gun, unable to get a clear shot, and ran forward to join the fistfight. Scout raised the gun and tried to aim.

  Her brain still felt fuzzy, and her hand was shaking. She brought up her other hand to brace it, but the barrel was still dancing around.

  What if she hit Daisy? She and the dogs would really be lost then. And yet, Daisy had been at a standstill fighting just two assassins. She was never going to be able to take three.

  “Scout!” Daisy shouted again, half a grunt as she put everything into a powerful kick that sent one of the assassins sprawling.

  They wouldn’t be down for long.

  Scout made her way across the rock face as quickly as she could, which wasn’t very fast. Walking across the slope was harder than climbing up a fissure, and her boots kept slipping on the slick, wet rock.

  She reached the assassin just as they were getting back up, weight on the balls of their feet as they prepared to spring back into the fray. Scout swung the gun down with both hands as hard as she could, bringing the thick handle down on the back of the assassin’s head. Their body crumpled at her feet.

  Daisy was still caught between the other two, ducking and dodging so feverishly she didn’t have an opening to land a blow of her own.

  “Scout!” she cried again. Clearly, her patience was at an end. Scout tried aiming the gun again, but her hands were wobbling even worse than before.

  If she shot Daisy . . .

  Scout’s vision blurred from tears of tired frustration, but with the glasses and goggles both on there was no way to brush them aside. Instead, she blinked, hard, then reached into her pocket and found a stone. She didn’t even bother with the slingshot, just flung it at the assassin who was a little further away from Daisy than the other.

  It hit the assassin’s temple with a soft thud, and they fell to their knees, hands pressed to their head. Daisy wasted no time; as soon as their head was low enough, she kicked them hard. She wasn’t even facing them—she was turned to take on the other one advancing on her—but her mule kick caught the assassin in the jaw, and their head snapped back.

  They seemed to hang there, bent back, for a long, long moment. Then they fell to the snow.

  With only one left to fight, Daisy made quick work of it. The last assassin was raining blows down at her at a pace too quick for Scout’s eyes to even follow, but Daisy dodged them all easily, redi
recting the momentum with a series of blocks.

  Then, when she was close enough, she made a quick jab of her own. The assassin staggered back, their nose gushing what looked like far too much blood. Then Daisy hit them again, and they were down.

  Daisy stood, fists still clenched, for several long minutes until her breath finally slowed back to normal. Then she went from body to body, gathering up their mittens and stuffing them into her own pockets.

  Then she looked up at Scout, and Scout felt her cheeks flushing red with shame. Daisy didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to. Scout knew she had let her down.

  Scout held out the gun as if her mittened palms were a platter. Daisy snatched it up and stuffed it back into its holster, then adjusted the scarf that had fallen loose from around her face.

  She looked up and frowned, and Scout looked up too. It was impossible to say where these three had dropped down from. There was nothing directly above them. Did they have some sort of silent flying vehicle?

  But Daisy didn’t seem to be worried about it. She climbed back up the rock face to where she had left the dogs and untied them but held the leashes until Scout reached the top.

  Then the dogs were all over her, trying to lick at her face despite the goggles and layers of wrapped scarf. Scout let them expend their energy and then looked up at Daisy, who had the scanner in her hand.

  “They’re fine,” she said, and Scout could tell by the clipped sound of the words that she was still angry. “Let’s go.”

  Scout nodded and got to her feet. Her head was clearer, although the plastic mask over her face was far from comfortable. Her breath was filling it with vapor, making a humid pocket of air that was far from pleasant to breathe through.

  But she wasn’t going to take it off until Daisy told her to. She was going to have to try harder to keep up with Daisy. It wouldn’t be easy, not with all the augments Daisy’s body had that Scout lacked.

  But she had to do whatever she could to keep Daisy from asking any questions that would lead to grilling Scout about her aversion to guns.