Dragon's Ark

by D Scott Johnson

  But English wouldn’t come out. She shouted in Mandarin, “Tell him I’m alive!”

  “Fang Hua, please report your status.”

  Mike must not count in Father’s complex matrix of relations. His voice was frightened, concerned in a way she only heard when they were alone.

  “Are you all right?”

  Thinking the words made her trip over them again. Pieces coalesced, found homes, fit together. Let the body do the work. “I’m fine, Father. I can’t speak English though.” As long as she didn’t concentrate, things just happened.

  “Daughter say okay,” Father said.

  Maybe her host didn’t speak English, or at least not very well. There was no physical component to Helen’s languages; that was why she had no real accent. Her English teacher in Hong Kong had commented on it often. Now there would be muscles to train. Mike called it muscle memory. She wondered what other gifts might be hidden in this new host.

  “Thank God,” Mike said, and she smiled broadly at him. An actual smile, with teeth and lips and skin and eyes.

  A warning buzzer sounded from the scanner. He checked the readouts, and then took a phone from a cart. “We need to get you synched to your real self through a phone. The medical scanner’s overheating.”

  He reached gently behind her neck and lifted her head. Her very first touch. It was warm, and it zipped. She wanted to laugh. It tickled. That was a tickle. And smell. Now that he was close, she understood smell. His was spicy and warm, like the way her threads got when she was excited.

  The phone interfaced, and her outside vision doubled as she briefly experienced it through both the scanner and the phone. It vanished into singularity when the scanner shut off.

  Mike retrieved a bone knit device from a cart after they wheeled her away from the scanner. It looked like a mechanical spider with too many legs, gleaming white. “Lift her, please,” he said to Father.

  She translated for Father and was rewarded with her second-ever touch, this time from the man who had raised her. His hands were cool, softer than Mike’s. His scent was faint and very clean. Mike fit the device over her head like a helmet—her head, she had a head now—and snapped it into place. He pressed buttons on the top and after a few cheerful beeps, red lights flashed faintly on the edges of her vision.

  If Mike’s predictions were correct, in thirty-six hours the device would heal not only her surgical incisions, but also the areas of the brain required to truly anchor her to this host. The information and structures that made up her consciousness—she was disappointed to find out Mike was so superstitious that he called it a soul—would spread out over both sides of her existence. Once the process was complete, there would be no going back.

  Her threads flexed and split while they pushed the private realm out further. She lay back on the bed. The tiny efforts left her gutted. How strange to have a completely new paradigm for feelings.

  Maybe single English words would work. “Tired.”

  “Yes, that will pass, but you should rest for now. Tell your father we need to move back to the hospital room.” She did, and then was hypnotized by the way the bed moved. Her new world. Helen concentrated to see if it was possible to breathe in one nostril and out the other, and then slowly faded into a warm, safe darkness.

  Chapter 25: Kim

  Mike was dead.

  The grief came at her in waves as they walked through the bamboo forest. They’d managed to get far away from the lab. Prison.

  Morgue.

  Mike was dead.

  Spencer kept them following game trails made by deer and other wildlife, crossing them frequently and changing direction. “Arkansas has a hunting season for pretty much everything, and dad dragged me along to all of them. Eventually I guess it just rubbed off.”

  He always managed to find another one. Most were only wide enough for them to walk single file, sometimes over jagged rocks. “We’ll have to stop soon. I won’t be able to use the sun to navigate when it’s the middle of the day. We don’t want to wander around in circles, maybe stumble into a patrol.”

  They stopped in a secluded clearing well off the game trails, with good sight-lines across the valley. A day ago the view would’ve taken her breath away.

  But Mike was dead.

  Ozzie sat down across from her. He and his cousin really did look a lot alike, but there were little differences. Real Ozzie twitched and checked and flinched the same way she did.

  Before she met Mike.

  Tonya sat down next to her. “Are you okay?”

  Everyone checked on her. It was stupid. They’d lost a friend, too.

  “Fine,” she muttered, pushing at the dirt with the tip of her shoe. “We need to find water soon.” They’d run into the woods with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and needed to survive long enough to find civilization again.

  Based on what Kim remembered of the maps, small villages were scattered along the two river valleys that bordered the sanctuary. The nearest ones were probably crawling with soldiers, but they couldn’t cover everything. Hiring a driver or stealing a car would get them out of the search area with ease. The guards were shooting now, though. They had to be careful, or they’d end up in a body bag.

  Like Mike must have been in, right now.

  Stop it. Concentrate on tactics. Help the team survive. “Shan,” she asked, “are you from this area?”

  “No, I’m from west of here, different valley.”

  Ozzie broke his silence as he rocked back and forth. “I know exactly where to go.” He shrank back at Kim’s glare. “What else did I have to do? I’ve looked at this place through satellites for years.”

  “Exactly when were you planning on telling us this?” Tonya asked.

  “Right now. I told you right now. I’ve been planning for a very long time.” He turned to Kim. “Well, not the bad parts. Nobody was supposed to get hurt. But the important parts, certainly.” Ozzie made a crude map with a stick. “These are the valleys, and the lab is here.” He made a dot. “Spencer, do you know where we are right now?”

  Spencer reached for the stick. When he got close Ozzie shouted, “No touching!” and threw it at him so hard it bounced right past Spencer’s feet.

  Spencer looked at Kim as he picked it up. All she could do was shrug. There was a time when she was that sensitive. It was remarkable how far she’d come, being around the right people.

  The right person.

  Sobs Kim could not afford tried to rush out, but she managed to fight them off, again. This wasn’t the place, and it wasn’t the time. He could not be dead.

  He was dead.

  Spencer nodded at the map as he pointed. “We’re probably some-where pretty close to here. I’ve kept us moving west all morning.”

  Ozzie stood to survey the valley below, adjusting his glasses. She wondered how he managed to get the prescription. For Kim it was dentistry that made her life complicated. Fortunately, Mom had found a very understanding orthodontist who was married to an anesthetist.

  Don’t think about the gurney. Don’t think about it.

  Stop thinking.

  Stop.

  “There,” Ozzie said as he pointed up the valley. “Can we reach the base of that cliff before nightfall?”

  Spencer stood well behind him, trying to figure out what Ozzie was pointing at. He nodded. “If we don’t run into anything stupid like wolves or mountain lions or whatever the hell runs around out here, we should be able to make it. At least it’s summer. Sunset is a long time from now. I do not want to walk around in the dark. What’s at the base of the cliff?”

  Ozzie smiled broadly. “Treasure.”

  That got everyone else motivated, and they hit the trail again.

  But Mike was still dead.

  “Kim,” Tonya said softly, “do you want to talk?”

  She almost lost it completely then. He was gone. He’d screwed up; she’d been so angry with him, and he knew it. He died thinking she was angry with him. She’d promise
d to apologize, and now he was gone.

  No. Kim would not collapse over this. Not yet. “We need to find Ozzie’s treasure, sooner rather than later.”

  It turned out Ozzie was their biggest problem. The guy looked like he was in as good a shape as his cousin, but he kept running out of breath. Eventually she held back, nodding at the other three to go on ahead.

  “God damn you, Ozzie, you get off your ass and you walk.” She fought through bamboo stalks on the edge of the trail and got behind him.

  “What are you doing?”

  She walked closer.

  Mike was dead.

  Kim would not let Ozzie’s lazy ass get them caught. Changing languages would help distract her from Mike’s…she switched to Arabic and cut loose with an extremely satisfying string of curses. “You will get off your ass and walk up that trail.” She kept getting closer to him, definitely up for a good game of chicken.

  He replied in the same language. “I’m tired; I just need to rest.”

  A Lebanese accent to her Egyptian. He must’ve watched the same war movies she did and rooted for the other side.

  “You lazy son of a whore.” She leaned forward until she was just inches away, close enough it made her uncomfortable. “Ozzie, look at me.”

  He jumped away from her and then charged up the trail. Ozzie was built like a damned fitness show star, but he moved like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man. It was dark by the time she herded him to the top. The moon was out, which at least helped her see.

  Ozzie being a lazy asshole kept her from thinking about Mike for the entire way up the hill. How could she possibly forget him? Kim was still here, and he was probably already lined up for the crematorium. This could not be happening. It wasn’t real.

  It was.

  There was a cave at the base of the cliff. Kim only spotted it because of a sliver of light that leaked underneath a curtain of some sort inside, maybe a blind. It was a level of preparation Kim hadn’t expected.

  “Ozzie, what the hell is this?”

  Ozzie crawled behind the curtain, and she followed only a few steps behind.

  He wasn’t kidding about treasure. Crates were stacked up everywhere. The others had already found a lamp and a camp stove. Tonya was laying out the last of the sleeping bags on the gravel floor while Spencer and Shan crouched next to a big pot of water, waiting for it to boil. They stopped when they saw her.

  Ozzie grinned at his horde. “I’ve been planning this for ages, tricking bandits into storing their stuff here, and then making sure they ambushed each other.” He turned to her. “Kim, I am so very sorry for your loss.”

  Damn it, the one thing she could not do was acknowledge it. She wanted to be alone, to just crawl in a hole and die. But no, she had to lead another set of refugees out of another wilderness. Spencer was a guide, but he looked to her for every decision. Tonya had never been in the woods before. All Kim wanted to do was fly to pieces, but by God, she’d make sure the rest of them were safe before it happened.

  Spencer hopped up. “Oh, Kim, you won’t believe this.” He rushed to the back of Ozzie’s hoard. After some metallic rummaging, he stood up with a pistol in each hand. “Say hello to my little friends!”

  Kim smiled back, but for a very different reason. She’d get them to safety, no doubt about it. And after that Tonya wouldn’t need to worry about her jumping off a cliff.

  Not anymore.

  She dreamt of him that night. He was kind, happy, and so close. Helen was with him, somehow walking around in realspace. A harsh voice said, “They are sleeping. We will continue with the therapy.” She snapped awake, and then listened to the woods outside the cave until they lulled her to sleep again.

  It got worse that morning. For the first time since…it happened, Watchtell paid her no visit in her sleep. She didn’t wake up slimy, violated, or half insane. Kim felt no need to flinch at shadows or tear apart something just to back it down, make it fade.

  She’d tried waiting out the consequences of what had happened to her that day, so she could finally trust Mike. As usual, Kim had failed completely. Watchtell was gone because Mike was dead. One violent horror to fix another. It was unbearable that she was awake and Mike wasn’t, wouldn’t be, ever again.

  They marched away before daybreak loaded down with Ozzie’s supplies. Spencer pointed out the guards on the far side of the valley.

  “We walked that far yesterday?” Tonya asked.

  “Hey,” Spencer said, “I told you I was awesome. And tonight?” He patted the holster on his hip. “Tonight we might have venison. Rabbit at least.”

  Kim made sure she had the other pistol. Tonya stayed very close by her side. “Kim, we need to talk about Mike.”

  “I need to get you all out of this damned forest.”

  “We need to get out of this forest.”

  Lying didn’t cost anything. “Right. We’re all getting out of here first, okay?”

  As they hiked, madness flickered to life inside her. Prime numbers. The trees shook in prime number intervals, one through thirteen. Kim waited for it to vary, but it never did.

  Spencer and Shan vanished at midday to go hunting. They reappeared just before the afternoon rendezvous with three rabbits between them.

  “No canned food tonight!” Spencer set to cleaning the catch while Shan started a fire.

  Ozzie was a total jerk about it. “Gah! That’s so gross! There’s no way I’m eating that!”

  “How long you in prison?” Shan asked in English.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You Chinese.”

  Ozzie still looked confused.

  Shan added, “Eat everything except table?”

  Kim managed an ashen chuckle. Ozzie cursed them all and then walked to the edge of the firelight, resentfully eating crackers.

  Later, she stayed awake and counted sounds. The prime numbers were still there. Distant animals cried out in Fibonacci sequences. As the sky grew light, Kim briefly fell asleep and dreamed of Mike again, touching her, sleeping beside her.

  Her eyes were sandy the next morning. Kim desperately tried to pay attention to everything around her.

  “I took us straight to Ozzie’s cache just using the sun. How the hell can I get lost with a goddamned compass?” Spencer thumped it in his hands.

  Tonya and Shan walked up to him as Ozzie, once again, flopped down on a log.

  Spencer shook the compass. “I get that we have no wireless signal out here; that’s fine. But this is fucking magnetism. The North Pole doesn’t move.”

  Kim sat next to Ozzie just to make him flinch. They rocked together, just barely out of sync.

  She counted the sequences the next night to be sure, and then dreamed of him again. His mouth was warm against hers. Their hands interlocked.

  That morning the fire was barely warm enough for coffee. Kim kept counting and the patterns still hadn’t changed. What should be random wasn’t. Spencer got lost because something that should always work didn’t. Mike had visited her dreams three nights in a row, so real she could still feel his touch. Kim finally let the absolutely insane idea that’d been slowly forming bloom to life.

  “Kim,” Tonya said as they broke camp, “talk to me, please. You can’t hold it all in like this. It’s not healthy.”

  “He’s not dead, Tonya.”

  She blanched, a weird effect on a black woman. “Kim, no. We all saw his body.”

  The conclusion was impossible but inescapable. “We’re in a realm.”

  Say it, make it true.

  Tonya didn’t buy it. “We’ve been out here for, what, four days? I’m sorry, baby. He’s gone. Please, you’re scaring me.”

  Realmspace connections came with a cost. The neurons in the spinal column that made the connection weren’t designed for that purpose. They burned glucose fast enough that they actually got hot. Normal people logged out after an hour or two and scratched their necks for a minute. Kim was a realmspace athlete and never stayed in for more t
han six hours at a time. Southeast Asia had turned it into a contest, to see how long it would take for burns and sugar exhaustion to kick someone out. The record stood at twenty-eight hours and change; the kid who set it spent the next two weeks in a hospital.

  “Tonya, you’re wrong.” Kim wasn’t desperate. She was right. It was the only answer. It had to be the answer. “I don’t know how, but none of this is real.”

  Kim knew she’d said too much when Tonya, Spencer, and Shan took up positions around her after their first hiking break.

  “Kim,” Shan said way too casually, then continued in Chinese. “Spencer needs help hunting for us tonight. Can I borrow the pistol?”

  Lock it down. They don’t understand. They won’t believe.

  “No, Shan, one pistol can go out, but we need another to protect the camp. It’s safe with me.”

  Tonya would not leave her alone. “It’s okay. You can move on from this. We’ll all help you.”

  “He’s…” No, wait. She had to pretend. One way or another the agony would end tomorrow morning after Kim spent one last night counting. Tonya would try to stop it if she thought something was wrong.

  Kim let a shuddering gasp out. “I know. He’s dead.”

  He’s not.

  “But I can’t talk about it now. We need to find a village, somehow find safety.” She held a bamboo shoot out to Tonya and smiled weakly. Tonya grabbed it, and they held it together under tension.

  Ozzie snorted. “How can you get close to someone like that?” he asked in Afrikaans.

  Kim thought nothing would cut through her pain. She was wrong. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “All of them. You’re so brilliant. Why do you associate with such lowlifes?”

  “Are you kidding me? If you haven’t noticed, Ozzie, we just rescued your sorry ass. My best friend died because of you.”

  “What did he say?” Tonya asked.

  She cursed him in Afrikaans. “He’s being a pain in the ass.”

  Kim could be wrong. Tonya wasn’t kidding; there was no such thing as a realm connection that could last for most of a week. She might be going out of her mind missing Mike, hearing things that weren’t there, noticing the way the edges of the leaves felt and thinking it might be a resolution artifact. But the trees sang math to her.