Simple

by Dena Nicotra

  I had to bite my fist to keep myself from blowing my cover. That gypsy bitch had just issued a death sentence for my friends. As she continued to kiss their synthetic asses, I debated what I should do. A part of me — the part that didn’t care about most people — argued to let it be. The other part demanded I do something to try to stop this, for my friends. I argued with myself that Mic and Giz had all but surrendered anyway. They’d let me leave the room. Hell, Mic hadn’t even so much as given me a goodbye kiss, so why should I even try? We’d probably all be dead in less than an hour anyway. My instincts kicked in at the thought of this. If that was the case, I had to try to do something. I had to try to help them. Not that I was worried about my immortal soul, or anything like that.

  I carefully stretched out, dropping my body flat on the linoleum floor. Without shoes, I was able to inch along using my hands and toes to move silently. Their hearing was acute, so I knew my chances were slim. It didn’t help that the broken glass was digging into my hands and feet, making for a blood-slicked endeavor. I hoped that the drumming rain would block any slight noises I made. I got to the edge of the carpet and paused. Looking up, I could see into the doorway of my room now, which meant that if any of them looked over and down, they would see me. The simp that was talking with drawn out words was the overly tall one. It was as I had seen earlier, completely nude. From this close proximity, I could also see it lacked genitalia. Its arms were garishly long and hung down to its knees. The one with the hiss was even more disturbing. It had a normal looking head and a torso, but instead of legs, it had multiple arms that sprouted from odd angles. Some of them were masculine and others were pinkish and infant-sized. The elbow joints seemed backwards, and where one would expect to see legs, it had more arms. It positioned these outward for balance, like a tripod spider. I squeezed my eyes shut and grit my teeth to push back the terror that threatened to immobilize me. Spider simp began twitching in a rapid fashion while emitting an awful, high pitched, jittering sound. I could only assume that this was some sort of signal to the other simps to join in the attack. Sonya was pleading with the tall one to ensure her ‘boy’ would not be harmed.

  “He’s all I have, please let him be. We’re all going to die eventually anyway; I only ask that you let me keep him until death takes us both. I’ve done everything that you asked of me, and I will keep doing that. Aaron, you promised. You promised me!” She had called the tall one by name. Those two simps were clearly not manufactured by IDE, which meant that whatever process of creation they were doing on their own now included…giving themselves names. It’s strange how in that moment my brain struggled to grasp that concept. What else were they doing? The odd physical traits of these two suggested that either something was going off course in their creation process or they were deliberately altering genetics to modify their human appearance and capabilities. Still, the fact that they were taking human names bothered me most.

  I forced myself to continue inching forward, painfully aware that these could very well be my last moments. My eyes shifted to the frayed carpet as I focused to remain as silent as humanly possible. Then, without warning I heard Sonya scream out in agony. Aaron had apparently hit her. Fortunately for me, the sounds of her wailing offered me the distraction I desperately needed. I jumped to my feet and ran down the hallway as fast as I could go. Reaching the stairwell, I swung the door open and bolted up the stairs as fast as I could. At that point, I knew that Sonya was still alive, because I could hear her pleading wails of protests from three floors away. I hoped that her life was spared, only because I wanted the satisfaction of killing her myself.

  By the time I reached the sixth floor I was completely out of breath. I slapped at the door with my palms. “Let me in! Please, Mic, open the door!” I huffed. When there was no reply, I pounded the door with my fist. It wouldn’t matter if the simps heard me at this point; they’d be coming for us any second. My lungs burned as they fought to squeeze air into my body. I stopped pounding and rested my head against the door. My eyes landed on a crooked picture on the opposite wall in a dusty, wooden frame. A golden field with purple mountains in the distance…how I longed to be there. How I envied every inanimate object that would continue to exist without facing the same terrors that I did. I could be slaughtered right here beneath this crooked picture, and it would remain hanging safely on the wall above my rotting corpse.

  My mental state was slipping, and I had to command my brain and body to move when I finally gave up and realized that they must not be inside anymore. I couldn’t imagine them ignoring me. With no other choice, I ran to the stairway at the opposite end of the hall and prayed I could make it to the ground level without being attacked. I nearly tripped over Kyle’s lifeless body as I reached the landing of the second floor. His left eye was missing and his intestines were snaking out of his belly like big fat sausages. I didn’t like the flash of memory and comparison my brain threw out of fresh sausage in my father’s deli. There was no time for that, and no time to feel sorry for this guy. I hadn’t known him, and I wouldn’t allow myself to feel anything for him. He didn’t need to worry anymore: his fight was over. I was just about to step over him when I noticed that his right hand clutched a piece of notepaper. I paused long enough to reach down and grab it. I shoved it in my back pocket and then I gripped the railing and continued.

  My bare feet hit the last step to the bottom floor and I came face to face with Two. Before I could register what was happening, she picked me up and slung me over her shoulder like a nap sack and began running through the lobby. My head and upper body bounced up and down and it was painful at the pace she kept to get a breath of air into my lungs. She pulled the front door open, and the next thing I knew I felt the rain on my back. It drenched us both. My vision was limited in the commotion, but I could see the hovcar in the distance. I could also see that there were countless simps around us. Several of them were motionless, but there were plenty that were not. Worst yet, they were coming our way.

  Two came to an abrupt stop and lowered me to the ground. “Get to the hovcar,” she stated flatly. I wiped my wet hair back and surveyed the surroundings. It was dark, the only light coming from the flittering neon sign of the hotel. The hovcar was ten feet in front of us. An onslaught of simps was visible in the distance and the gap was swiftly closing. “Go!” she shouted. I heard the hovcar’s engine running and knew that I needed to go, but my feet wouldn’t move. I instinctively reached for my gun but remembered it wasn’t loaded. I had no weapons and no choices. My double paused long enough to look me in the eyes before she spoke. “I’m going back for those two. Get to the hovcar, Lee.”

  “No! Kyle’s dead and Sonya is a traitor! Just leave her!” I shouted, but it was too late. She was already moving across the parking lot at a pace only the machine that she was could manage. With no other alternative, I turned and ran to the hovcar. Giz pulled me in as it simultaneously lifted off the ground. The inside lights were just bright enough for me to make out the rest of our disheveled group. Maude, and Ben were in the seats furthest back, and Alice and Deraline were in the front row. Everyone was wide-eyed and soaked. Giz slid the door shut and climbed over me to the front. I pulled myself to the bench seat and buckled in as quickly as I could. We were now hovering just high enough to be safe. I could make out a shape in the darkness. She moved swiftly, her short hair slicked back in the rain. An uncomfortable sense of melancholy filled me as we climbed higher. I told myself she wasn’t me. She wasn’t even human. A part of me wanted to scream out that we couldn’t leave her, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I placed my bloody hand on the window and silently wished her luck.

  The hovcar moved swiftly through the blackness. The only markers appearing were brief dots of light below. Alice was crying quietly, and the others looked equally solemn. It took me a moment to process the situation. They weren’t mourning Two. “Where’s Barb?” I asked. No one spoke. “Jesus. Where’s Barb?” I asked again. “Tell me you didn’t leav
e her!”

  “She didn’t make it, Lee,” said Maude. Alice turned her head to the window and continued to cry softly.

  “I tried,” said Deraline. I looked away. I didn’t want to know how Barbara died. It hurt too much to think about that now, and it wasn’t right to have a simp sitting amongst us while our friend wasn’t. “No, Deraline,” I said, “you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to act like you feel bad. You don’t get to talk about Barbara as if she was a friend.” Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance as the hovcar hit a patch of turbulence. The jolt shuffled my nerves just enough to further ignite my temper. “You are the reason for this shit storm! They’re looking for you, and if we’d left your synthetic ass back in the Bay, Barbara would still be alive right now.”

  “Lee, please. Control yourself. This outburst isn’t going to help anyone, and it isn’t going to solve anything. Micah, tell her to stop,” said Maude.

  “I wish that would work Aunt Maude, but you have to know by now that there isn’t anything anyone can tell Lee when it comes to her opinions,” Mic said. I shot a seething glare at the back of his head. “That’s right, Mic. Just like there isn’t anything anyone can tell you about yours. You left me for dead back there!

  “No. I didn’t leave you for dead. I sent Two after you as soon as we figured out what was going on and developed a plan. You stormed out of the room before we got that far because you’re impossibly impatient!”

  “And now we’ve lost Two because of your actions,” said Giz as he turned in his seat to face me.

  I thought about unbuckling my seat and decking him, but I didn’t have the energy. “Fuck you Giz, stay out of this!” He opened his mouth to say something, but changed his mind and turned back around.

  “I’m a survivor, Mic! As usual, you made a piss poor decision! I wasn’t going to just sit there and wait for those things to come and kill me,” I said evenly. Apparently that was enough to get Giz fired up again because he turned around and fired back at me.

  “Jesus Christ, Lee, can you give it a rest? It isn’t always about you! People have died today. Shit, we all almost died, and you sit there bitching that you’re a survivor? You’re egocentric bullshit almost killed us!” said Giz.

  “Really, Giz, is that what you think? Do you realize that Sonya and Kyle were working for the simps?” I asked. “Do you realize that they were sent to find Mic and Deraline?”

  “What are you talking about, Lee?” Mic asked.

  I explained what I had witnessed, including finding Kyle on the stairs. That’s when I remembered about the note. I reached into my back pocket and pulled the soggy paper out, trying hard not to tear it. The ink was running and it was hard to make out everything. “What does it say?” asked Ben.

  “Hold on, hold on. I’m trying to figure it out, just give me a second.” The first sentence was no almost illegible, but I was able to make out the rest. My eyes scanned the page and then I read it out loud for them to hear:

  I hope that I am still alive when you read this. If not, then I will at least go to my grave with a clear conscious. First, I want you to know that I don’t really have family out here. Sonya is working for the simps, and they sent her here to find two of the people in your group. They are after Mic and Deraline. You guys are all in serious danger, and you need to get the hell out of here! I know you don’t know me, but I am not like her. She forces me to do what she says, or she’ll have them kill me. I’m ashamed of the coward I’ve become, but I’m trying to make it right.

  Kyle

  “That’s it,” I said, crumpling the letter and dropping it to the floor in disgust. Now it made sense. Sonya had taken full advantage of the situation. I would wager that Kyle wasn’t her first boy toy.

  “I can’t believe it. Poor kid,” said Maude.

  “Was Sonya killed too?” asked Alice.

  “She was alive when I saw her last, but she was begging for her life and screaming. I hope they kill her slowly. That reminds me, she called one of them by name. The tall one I told you all about. She called him Aaron.”

  “Aaron?” said Giz. His voice had that familiar high-pitched squeak.

  “Does that mean anything to you, Giz?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied. I wasn’t sure I believed him. Something about that squeak said otherwise.

  “Does it mean anything to you, Mic?” He didn’t answer me.

  “Mic, are you going to answer me?”

  “Yeah, it might.” He didn’t elaborate, and after a few minutes I became more than a little frustrated.

  “Are you going to elaborate on that?”

  “My former business partner was named Aaron Metchler. He had some ideas that I didn’t agree with, and ultimately we went separate ways.”

  “I’m sure that’s just a coincidence, Micah,” said Maude.

  “Yeah, I’m sure that’s all it is,” I said, propping my elbow on the window and looking out at the darkness. How much more was there to learn about Mic Keenan?

  “So where are we headed now?” I asked.

  “There’s an abandoned mining town about thirty-five miles from here.”

  “Thirty-five miles? That’s not a very safe distance Mic. What’s there?”

  “I don’t know what’s there Lee, or if it’s safe, but that’s where we are headed,” said Mic. I could tell from the sound of his voice that his thoughts were elsewhere, like the rest of us. My thoughts went to Barb. She was a gentle woman with a heart as big as the sky, but she’d never quite recovered from the loss of Jacob. I realized that I’d never truly taken the time to get to know her. I didn’t know a thing about her life before the war. It was too late now. I told myself that it didn’t matter. The less I knew about her, the easier it was to get over her death. I hoped that she went quickly and didn’t suffer much. As for Kyle, I guess he redeemed himself in the end. At least he tried. I shook off the thoughts of him lying on the stairs with his guts spilling out…like sausage.

  Chapter 8

  We landed in the middle of a deserted street, which was illuminated by one incandescent light affixed to a bent wooden post. Before we exited the vehicle, Mic cautioned us all to move quietly. Since we were unarmed, Deraline would lead the way. If we did run in to hostiles, she would be able to at least buy us some time. Giz objected, briefly, before we left the hovcar because, in his mind, she was also “our greatest asset.” But he shut his mouth when I told him that she wouldn’t mean shit if we were all dead.

  I observed our surroundings carefully as we moved from the middle of the street to the shadows. An assortment of wooden store fronts served as antique shops and lined both sides of the uphill road. It looked like this was the only way in and out of the little town. I imagined it was once a very quaint location, though I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to visit (let alone live) out to the middle of nowhere. The miners were long gone, but the theme of the old west remained. Plank boards served as the sidewalks, and I cursed under my breath as splinters joined the shards of broken glass in the bottoms of my feet. We passed yet another shop, this one with windchimes hanging out front and bobbing sculptures of road runners made out of metal. The tinkling sounds added a ghostly effect that rattled my nerves.

  I was so focused on this that I bumped into Alice, who had stopped short. Deraline was signaling for us to stop. Her agile body was crouched now at the corner of the store. The rest of us backed up against the wall and waited. This could be very bad. We were ridiculously vulnerable and exhausted. If we were about to face off with more simps, we wouldn’t survive. Ben put his hand on my back and patted gently. He was trying to be consoling, or maybe he was trying to say good-bye. Either way, it had the opposite effect. I didn’t want to watch any of these people die. I spotted a wheelbarrow a few feet away with an assortment of metal scraps. Without further thought, I went for it. I grabbed a long piece of rebar, and moved swiftly past the others to join Deraline.

  Now I could see what she saw. There was a large water tower in a cl
earing, surrounded on three sides by houses and the backsides of the stores. In the center were several people milling around a fire pit. All of them armed. We had two choices: get back to the hovcar and leave before we were spotted, or make our presence known and hope for the best. I guess I was feeling hopeful. I tightened my grip on the piece of metal I held and stood up tall. Deraline grabbed my wrist in an attempt to stop me, but I jerked away from her and stepped forward. Clasping the bar, I raised it over my head and proceeded forward out of the shadows and into direct view. A woman with long braids spotted me first.

  “Dallas! We got company.” That was all it took. A succession of cocking rifles followed as they surrounded me. “Drop it!” shouted the one called Dallas. I lowered my arms slowly and dropped the piece of rebar. I instantly regretted my decision, but it was too late. “Don’t shoot! I’m human.”

  “We’ll be the judge of that lady.”

  “Move forward,” commanded a man wearing a red t-shirt with cut off sleeves. He got behind me and jammed the barrel of his gun into the center of my back. I kept my hands up and proceeded forward. He pushed me toward the fire pit, and for a brief moment I feared he would shove me into it. “Stop her there, Tommy,” said Dallas. I prayed the others would stay put as Dallas blinded me with his flashlight. “I told you I was human,” I said as calmly as I could.

  “You alone?” he asked, clicking off the light. My mind raced. If I answered no, and they found the others, it could go bad. If I answered yes, then I was exposing the rest of the group to whatever I was now facing.

  “No, she’s not,” said Mic from a distance. The rest of my group came out in single file with their hands up. I turned slowly, concerned that they would identify Deraline as a simp and dispose of her quickly. Thankfully, she was second to last before Ben. Tommy pressed the barrel of his gun harder into my back causing me to lose my balance and stumble forward.