by Sue Perry
Somewhere in the back of my addled brain, I realized I might have put three teenage bystanders in terrible harm's way, much as I had done when I took Ziti to Ben's apartment. We had to hope my slow learning would not have disastrous consequences.
We walked straight uphill, in a hurry to put distance between the teenagers and us. First, Dizzy, Anwyl, and I would Travel to a new Frame together - to draw attention away from the truck ASAP. Then we would split up. Dizzy and Anwyl would Travel wherever they saw fit, using their powers. I would Travel with my Guide and advance one notch at a time. Each notch on the Guide was farther from my home Frame, and thus a more difficult journey. If none of us made it to Shastina's summit, Tee would make sure that Shastina knew about the truck's hidden witness.
Anwyl showed contempt for Dizzy's ability to help us. I pretended certainty that the cat could be counted on. Dizzy did nothing to indicate whether she even knew there was a plan. Still, she sauntered uphill more or less alongside me.
"Shift Frames now," Anwyl said.
"On my way." I reached for my Guide, but as soon as Anwyl and then Dizzy vanished, I stopped pretending I was okay to stand. My injury and the Frame shifts had left me weaker than a poisoned sparrow. I'm usually a great hiker, but here I climbed using all fours, dragging myself from boulder to boulder. Suddenly, I remembered that I should have shifted Frames to rejoin Anywl and Dizzy. I searched futilely for my Guide and finally found it in my hand; then it took three attempts for me to inhale strongly enough to activate it.
As I shifted Frames, I slipped and skinned both knees on the rubble of rock. Anwyl appeared beside me and Dizzy materialized on my other side. So far, so good. Anwyl took my elbow to help me stand. I leaned over to brush rock from my knee wounds and waved him away. "Get out of this Frame, I'm fine, we need to split up right away or -"
A scuffle of leather on the path above us avalanched shards of rock that buried my toes. I felt a stab of presence in my head and I bit back a whimper, then focused on the killing field, a memory so potent it obliterated other thought.
"How charming to have friends!" Middle Cyst greeted us. He wore a caftan the color of dried spit. In the breeze it clung to his body appallingly. Left Cyst wore velour training gear with T J Maxx sales tags attached. Right Cyst wore a kelly green, sequined bolero with a kilt. The Entourage was larger today, and its members spread over the slope beside and below us. They were dressed like United States Secret Service on duty, complete with eyeshades and earbuds.
The attitude was unmistakable. They had won this engagement and they mocked us.
Tinny growls and barks made me look around. Bounding toward us from all directions were packs of clockwork dogs, reject mechanical beasts that were part flesh and part metal, with dangling wires and ill-fit parts, forced together with rusty bolts and mismatched gears. Steampunk? So last week, and yet the dogs were no less terrifying for being passé. The closest and angriest of the dogs had Doberman features and poodle curls, so maybe his anger was warranted. Instead of teeth, overlapping circular saw blades whirred in his jaws.
Above the dogs buzzed flying chain saws, filling the air with a diesel stench. The chain saws dived over our heads, splattering us with blood and gore from recent kills. Dizzy took to cleaning herself furiously. Apparently, the Cysts liked their victims in tiny pieces.
"You understand us so well, Neeks," the trio called to me in unison.
Their use of Ben's private nickname undermined my lock on my thoughts. Unbidden came an image of Ben as I had last seen him, barely conscious on the floor of his apartment.
"So difficult to walk away from a loved one in danger," Left Cyst cooed.
"In this case, the fear was well justified," Middle Cyst told Right Cyst.
I thought about the killing field, the killing field, the killing field.
"You block our way. Step aside." Anwyl had had enough.
"This way is treacherous. Let us guide you to a safer path."
"We know our path and you have soiled it."
The Cysts and the Entourage chuckled, the same noise and cadence coming from a score of separate mouths. The dogs whirred like their teeth ground iron.
"You have tried so hard, Anwyl, son of Rayn, and all for naught. Betrayed by your own," Middle Cyst said.
"She meant well. He should never have brought Neutrals into his affairs," Left Cyst gossiped to Right Cyst.
The Cysts and the Entourage turned to me. "You cannot outrun us, you will only harm your weak body in the attempt. We know your direction the moment you turn to it, and we reach your destination before you do." Every left hand in the Entourage produced a handheld device. They touched the screens and I screamed.
My ankle burned and throbbed. I yanked my pants leg up, expecting to find a swarm of fire ants. Instead, the GPS tracker glowed the same sickly yellow that emanated from the Entourage's devices. They tapped their screens. The screens glowed magenta and my ankle tracker burned magenta.
Dizzy paused grooming to watch the color pulse.
I had never seen Anwyl go pale before. "What treachery is this?"
"It's a GPS tracker - because of my arrest in my Frame. The Court made me wear it. Hernandez and I figured it would get me locked up for leaving Frame." Stunned and babbling, I couldn't hold my thoughts to the killing field, so I fixated on Hernandez touching my ankle.
"It worked perfectly," Right Cyst gloated.
"Beautiful reception in every Frame," Left Cyst told Middle Cyst.
Anwyl had pity for the depth of my idiocy. I resumed thinking about the killing field, mostly, but began to fantasize about shoving Anwyl into the dogs and running as fast as I could downhill.
Because any situation can always get worse, up the hill flew a squadron of books, shedding a black rain of text. The rain lessened to drizzle as the books circled us, imprisoning us with slow flaps of their covers. Dizzy and I were in one circle, Anwyl in another. Every few seconds, a book released a drizzle of text that whizzed past to slice a stone in two, a compelling reminder to stay in the circle.
"For safety, come with us, Neeks." All the Cysts and Entourage stared at me. I pictured the look on Anwyl's face if I agreed.
"To help Ben, come with us."
"To protect Jenn, come with us."
Threatening me hadn't worked, so now they threatened my loved ones. Did they think I was that stupid to trust them after what they had done to Halcyon, after what they had done to Ziti, after what -
They became very still while my thoughts exploded.
"Nica!" Anwyl hissed as he regarded them. "Nica realizes that you delay us here in hopes her memories will serve you. But she cannot reveal what she does not know."
I thought about the killing field.
Their giggles echoed and reverberated. The Entourage stamped its feet like soccer fans on a rampage. The chain saws went berserk and swarmed one of the mechanical dogs, which sprayed hot oil as they chopped it to bits. This put the other dogs in such a frenzy that I came to feel protected, rather than confined, by the circling books. Loose rock had been sliding around me and now it skittered and slammed. Dizzy looked up from her grooming when a piece thwacked her leg.
I have a toy duck. Wind it up and it spins, flapping its wings and quacking like its tail is on fire. I had never felt so much kinship with that duck. But I didn't flap or quack. I held still and looked to Anwyl for guidance. He watched the destructive show like these were children who needed to settle down before he would talk to them further.
I returned my thoughts to the killing field, but it was losing potency. I thought of Ick's coma.
The commotion ceased. In my eyes, our lack of reaction had just won an emotional victory, but the longer we stayed here, the greater the risk that I would have the wrong thought. I soothed myself with a vision of running down to the access road, changing Frames in the sprint, jumping the fence to the highway, flagging the first car.
"Warty Sebaceous Cysts. Have you taken prisoners? Would you start a war?"
That was Anya's voice! I saw no clouds - the sky was a uniform, yellowish gray from horizon to horizon. Instead, I spotted Anya as she followed her voice down from Shastina's summit toward us. The chain saws swarmed the air above her. She removed gloves and tossed them over a shoulder. The chain saws went wild hacking apart the gloves. Two saws hit the ground, partially dismembered by their peers.
"Such senseless destruction," Middle Cyst criticized her.
"Home, lads." Left Cyst clapped twice and the surviving chainsaws flew away. The clockwork dogs feasted on the dismembered chainsaws.
"The eyes of the free Frames watch closely, and question whether your freedom remains warranted," Anya told the Cysts as she pulled level with them.
"We take no prisoners but instead offer protection."
"We decline that protection," Anwyl said.
"You decline. But your companion may think more wisely of all the dangers to herself and her beloveds."
They were trying to bait me again and damned if it didn't work when they added, "What happened to Ick was sadly unnecessary. If only you had taken the right action when you first saw those bruises."
"Fuck you. And get your damn books out of here!" I yelled, with strength I no longer possessed. Three Cysts nodded and text ceased to fall. Three Cysts shrugged and the books stopped circling us then flew to hover behind them.
Anya strode downhill to stand beside us, while she reminded the Cysts of the terms of their release from prison. She recited what sounded like legalese from an official pronouncement. Her lovely soothing voice was just what I needed to calm down, except I wasn't calming down. I was seething that I had let them take and exploit my last memories of Ick. No way would I let them see any bit of the plan to -
Then everything happened at once.
30. The Last Thing I Remember
Each member of the Entourage whipped off his shades and stared at me as though I had shouted.
Dizzy leaped at my shin and clawed her way up my leg and torso. I was already in a thick blanket of pain, but every place her claws took purchase created a shocking hotspot. She launched from my good shoulder - the one not trashed by the Cobra - and ran faster than a thought down the hill and away.
I howled in agony and relief. Whatever I had been about to think was obliterated. At the same moment, I realized this was our chance. Anwyl had the same realization. We yelled at each other "Now!" as I whipped out my Guide.
Some of the dogs took off after Dizzy, prompting Anya to yell, in a voice harder than rubies, "Warty Sebaceous Cysts, if that cat is not your prisoner and chooses to depart, why then do you pursue her?"
I missed their reply - I had Traveled to the next notch on my Guide's dial. Immediately, I turned the dial another notch. I had limited time before they came after me, so I started to run uphill while still inhaling.
Well. Run was my intent. Collapse and crawl were the reality. This time, when the elevator plunged sideways, it hit a cement wall. I had exceeded my physical limit for Frame Travel. When I stopped falling sideways, I stood weaving in place, a sapling in a cyclone - although there was no wind. I took two steps, fell, got myself standing again, took a step, fell, got myself standing again, took three steps, fell, decided standing was overrated.
Around me the rock sizzled, hit incessantly by dry lightning strikes. In this Frame, behind Shastina's summit the sky was the red of raw salmon and the clouds resembled blood-soaked cotton. Part of me thought I should hide from the clouds, but there were no hiding places on this exposed hillside.
One of my greatest feats of personal endurance was to drag myself thirty feet up that slope, which smelled like last night's campfire. Then lightning hit close enough to singe my eyebrow. I unfortunately still had enough energy to startle, which caused me to slip and initiate a small rock avalanche that jumbled me twenty feet downslope.
I no longer remembered why the summit was my destination, but I still knew it was important to get there. I resumed my upward drag, then remembered that I had more Frames to Travel. Anwyl had showed me that I needed to Travel to the penultimate notch on my Guide - I had two more Frames to go. And I was supposed to go home in between. Or I wasn't supposed to go home in between. One of those.
Look, ma, I'm standing. Using my hands and my teeth, I managed to advance the dial to the next notch. I couldn't muster an inhale. I dropped to my knees, then found myself on my back, where I watched the sky go dark with each lightning burst. The sky didn't actually change, the brightness of the lightning just made it seem that way. I wondered what it felt like to be hit by lightning. If I stayed here, I would find out. I was certainly grounded - get it? - with all this rock everywhere.
I held my breath until I ached for air, and when I gasped my next breath, that activated my Guide. One notch away from my goal.
I knew this Frame. Its bruised sky looked familiar. If I reached the Summit, maybe I would see something else that I recognized. I rolled off my back and resumed my upward crawl. The hillside teemed with tiny critters, miniature prairie dogs with delicate clawed wings. The rock shimmered with the critters as they stood on their haunches to watch me. Some unfurled their wings to hop one cautious step closer or to leap away. The closer I got to the summit, the bolder and closer the creatures got. They were adorbs, except when their sharp little teeth glinted.
This was as far from my Frame as I had ever been, and my usual curiosity had not made the trip. I had no interest in getting to know this Frame or seeing the next one.
I wasn't sure I had the energy to shift Frames again, so my intent was to crawl to the top before I used the Guide again. As I climbed, each movement leached ambition from me. I rolled on my side to look before me. The summit seemed no closer. I rolled on my other side to look behind me and saw a meandering path scraped in the rock. I had dragged myself about three times as far as I needed to move strictly uphill. Critters behind me sniffed the edges of my trail.
I rolled over on my back to hold my Guide in my mouth, but then couldn't sit up or roll over again. I watched bruised sky change like a slo' mo' kaleidoscope and wondered whether the sky was purple with green and yellow accents, or green with purple and yellow accents. Inside me, a sense grew stronger that I was a disappointment. I was letting Anwyl down. I didn't want to let him down, but I couldn't remember what I was supposed to be doing or how to do anything complicated like sit up.
The last thing I remember, a critter landed on my nose. Going cross-eyed to look at it made me laugh, which made it fly off again, chittering. I thought for a while and remembered the word for that. Cute. The critter was cute.
"There she is," three voices called in unison. "Over here, lads." Mechanical whirring and diesel smoke filled the air and chain saws buzzed around me. My body shook and I identified the feeling. Terror.
Some of the Entourage propped me up against their legs and Middle Cyst leaned in close. His breath was as fresh as last year's sushi. "Neeks, we found you!"
"Where in the Frames were you headed? Tisk tisk." Right Cyst pronounced tsk like someone who had only seen it in books.
"Oh, look, they customized a Guide for her. May I?" I had enough grip to resist briefly, then Left Cyst twisted the Guide from my hand. He examined the symbols next to the notches on the dial. "We've been to most of these, only three more to visit."
"Help us help you, Neeks. Where are you headed? Let us take you there."
I felt pressure inside my head, then the Entourage stepped away and I collapsed, backwards, hitting a thousand sharp rocks. A natural bed of nails.
I heard them say as they walked away, "She no longer knows, if she ever did. Fetch her, lads, she's yours."
The chain saws revved, the clockwork dogs whirred.
They were loud but something blocked their noise, a voice that wasn't loud but permeated everything. "Warty Sebaceous Cysts. Leave her. Leave me."
The voice vibrated with the complex tones of a pipe organ and spoke with the intonation of a choir delivering Gregorian chants.
&
nbsp; "Shastina! Well met, well met! We must engage more frequently than once an epoch," a Cyst replied.
"Remove your abominations from my slopes."
"Always your harsh judgments, Shastina. We assert our right to wander the free Frames as -"
A fissure cracked open and steam erupted. The chain saws vaporized. The clockwork dogs howled.
"To that we call foul!" one Cyst yelled, but the other two exchanged nonplussed looks and the Entourage broke formation and milled around, for the first time seeming like separate beings.
"You have five seconds," Shastina replied.
I counted for them, but got confused after three. No matter, by then the Cysts and their cohorts had headed downhill and out of Frame.
"Thank you," I croaked.
"Help will find you. Do not move," Shastina told me.
Move. Now, that was hysterical.
"Laughter will weaken you."
"Too late."
And then I was no longer alone. Silhouettes appeared against the bruised sky and knelt beside me. Anwyl checked me for broken bones, Anya touched my cheek to give me hope, then Anwyl scooped me into his arms and Anya kept my hand in both of hers as Anwyl carried me to the summit.
"Zasu?" I managed to emit.
"Your plan succeeded," Anwyl said. "We found the truck at the summit in your Frame, and had only to transport Zasu to Shastina's Frame."
"We go there now," Anya said, "Maintain your courage."
No worries. I was too sick to feel fear. Or anything else.
Shastina's home Frame looked just like mine, with one startling difference. In my Frame, this is an unpopulated part of California. In Shastina's Frame, the mountain was the only natural ground visible. As far as I could see in all directions rose high rises and cityscape. I later learned that, in this Frame, the entire west coast of the U.S. is one unbroken stretch of urban landscape.
They had Zasu in Tee's truck bed, lying on a thick layer of soil. Her eyes were closed and her face was frozen in a peaceful smile.
"She can't be -" I croaked.