Meritropolis

by Joel Ohman

  “I see,” Charley said.

  “It is what it is,” she said.

  “I actually would have thought that someone like you would already be with someone.” Charley paused. “You know, for ‘breeding’ purposes, for the System.”

  “Well, if you must know every personal thing about me from the moment we first meet, then I’ll tell you,” she said.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  She kept talking as if she hadn’t even heard him.

  “I did have someone. I loved him. He loved me. I had a high Score. He didn’t. The System said we couldn’t be together, so we aren’t. End of story.”

  “I’m sorry,” Charley said simply.

  The proud angle of Sandy’s chin turned down slightly as she looked over at him. “Yeah, me too.” She looked at Charley for a moment, as if considering whether to speak. “What you did at the gates for that little girl …” She hesitated, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes, before speaking again quietly. “You were very brave. There are others who feel as you do about the System. I may be training to be a Hunter, like you, but you and I are not all that different in our opinion of the System.” She stopped speaking and looked up ahead, now speaking louder. “Well, anyway, we’re almost to the forest. Grigor’s slowed down, and it looks like he’s waiting for us.”

  But rather than rushing to catch up, Sandy looked directly into his eyes. She clasped his forearm and continued to speak in a loud voice. “So,” she said breathlessly, “tell me that you aren’t excited right now. You are, aren’t you?”

  Charley’s heartbeat quickened, and he suddenly noticed how hot it was in the forest. Little beads of sweat bubbled up on his forehead and he fought the urge to brush them away. Very aware of her hand gripping his arm, he struggled to say something intelligent.

  She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

  “Yeah, umm, yes, excited. I am excited, I mean. Yes, very much so. I’m excited,” he stammered. So much for intelligent. At least he had gotten something out.

  She removed her hand.

  “Well, you don’t sound it, but just imagine. What kind of animal would leave a pile of crap that big? It’s probably right up here in the forest somewhere!” she said, turning to dash off toward Grigor and the others.

  Oh, yeah. He hadn’t thought of that.

  Charley caught up to the others and stepped over a large gnarled root that twisted across the path, its knots and tendons aggressively staking claim to the manmade path that dared to cut through its forest. Charley looked up. The tree canopy was immense, almost jungle-like.

  He didn’t recognize any of the foliage, but then again he was certainly no woodsman. After all, he’d lived underground for the majority of his 17 years; the only encounters he had had with nature were during his above-ground “recess” trips strictly within the gates and, of course, whatever he read about in the underground school’s huge store of books—all of which, were, of course, full of pre-Event material that was vastly outdated.

  Charley had loved those books because it meant he could travel anywhere with just the flip of a few pages, but it was never real. Charley knew that without a deep understanding of the world he lived in, and the System itself, his hopes of zeroing the System were just that—hopes. He needed to learn from Grigor to be a Hunter, to learn how the System worked, its strengths and its weaknesses, before he could ever have a chance. He might be book-smart, but he certainly wasn’t System-smart—and that was all that mattered, out here in the real world. Ouch! He felt a sharp prick on his neck as something swooped down out of the trees. This was real.

  “Ahh!” He ducked and swatted the air. “What was that?”

  Grigor appeared at his side, much faster than Charley thought possible, and snatched something out of the air with his massive bear paw of a hand. With his other hand, he motioned everyone else closer.

  “Gather round, please. This is as good of a place as any to start our instruction. Charley here has had our first encounter with the local wildlife. What I have here is basically harmless but a good opportunity for a teachable moment.”

  Charley rubbed the little red bump on his neck gingerly, and Grigor paused and smiled in his direction.

  “What we have here is a crant. Annoying, and their bites can sting but basically harmless unless you wander into a whole colony of them. Not usually a big deal unless you have a very low pain tolerance.” He smiled good-naturedly at Charley, who just scowled in return. It was easy to talk about pain tolerance when you were as big as an ox and twice as strong.

  “Can we take a look at it?” asked Armen, a small, dark-haired boy with bright intelligent eyes sparkling behind a pair of cracked wire-framed glasses.

  “Certainly!” Grigor smiled and opened his hand slightly.

  Everyone leaned in closer. The creature was smaller than Grigor’s fingernail, bigger than a fly but smaller than a bird, with feathered wings, six spindly legs, and tiny pincers.

  Charley rubbed his neck ruefully.

  “It’s kind of like an ant … but not,” offered Armen.

  “It’s more like a deformed bird,” said Hank-Harry.

  “It’s both,” Grigor said with another big smile.

  “It’s a crow–ant hybrid,” said Sandy matter-of-factly.

  “Crow. Ant. Crant. Of course!” said Armen.

  Charley leaned in for a closer look, and now that they said it, it did resemble both a crow and an ant in some weird-mutant-offspring science-project-gone-bad kind of way.

  Hector and Lila, the twin brother and sister High Scores—each quite obviously intelligent, but both possessing that sort of know-everything-teacher’s-pet quality that Charley had already fast found annoying in the classroom earlier—said at almost the same time, “It’s an animal combination.”

  Everyone looked in their direction, and Hector spoke again. “Kind of like a mutation, but cooler.”

  “Because they can reproduce after their own kind,” Lila added.

  “Usually, anyway,” said Hector.

  “Sometimes weird stuff happens. Or, weirder stuff happens, I should say,” said Lila.

  “And how exactly do you know so much about animal combinations?” asked Sandy.

  Charley was wondering the same thing. Not for the first time today, he also wondered just how much he could trust the twins.

  “Easy,” said Lila. “We read. A lot.”

  “And ask questions,” said Hector.

  “It’s true,” said Hank-Harry. “They’re always talking to the teachers underground and noses-deep into a book. Sometimes at the same time.”

  “It’s not really that unusual or hard to figure out. We had tigons and ligers and zorses before the Event, and after the weirdness of the Event we just ended up with weirder and weirder animal combinations,” said Lila.

  “Lots of them,” added Hector.

  Grigor grinned at both of them.

  “Each of you deserves a gold star. Especially because I do not much like the ‘talking’ part of teaching. You make my job easier.”

  The twins beamed at Grigor and then at each other.

  “But there is one thing you neglected to mention. The most important thing.” All eyes focused on Grigor as he spoke.

  “Man caused the Event. And like almost all things that mankind touches, it manages to warp in some way. Man didn’t directly cause all of the animal combinations, but it did cause many of them. And it wasn’t for a liger-petting zoo; it was for weapons.”

  Grigor paused, opened his massive hand, and gently flipped the crant into the air.

  “Almost every animal combination is highly aggressive, hostile to humans and to other combinations.”

  Charley watched the crant slowly regain its wings, beat upward for a second or two, and then jerk itself back in a dive-bomb barrel-roll straight toward Grigor’s head.

  Grigor watched impassively for the space of a heartbeat, and then in a quick explosion of violent movement he clapped his hands together i
n front of his face, instantly and permanently crushing the dive-bombing crant.

  “Every animal combination should be treated as an enemy combatant. If they are not already weaponized, then they soon could be by the others. The other humans outside of Meritropolis, that is.”

  Charley had stopped noticing the throbbing in his neck. Grigor’s burst of violence, even when doing something as insignificant as clapping his hands together, was awe-inspiring.

  “Humans: the most hostile and highly aggressive of them all,” Grigor said.

  He wiped his hands together and then brushed them off on his pants.

  “Let’s get going. We have a lot more than crants to see.”

  * * *

  The forest air was sticky, hot, and sweet, like rotting fruit—a giant oven slowly cooking its inhabitants like so many little desserts. Charley had already sweated through his shirt and had given up wiping the sweat from his brow. He wondered if the forest was like this year round or just now, in the late summer.

  Hector and Lila hung back from the others to walk next to him.

  “Neck still hurt?” Lila asked.

  “Nah, it’s fine,” he lied. It still hurt a little.

  “That’s good.” Lila nodded.

  “Yeah, good thing it wasn’t a scorpicon that went after you,” said Hector.

  “A what?” Charley asked.

  “A scorpicon.” Hector smiled gleefully. “If you thought a crant was bad, then how would you like to get a stinger in you from a scorpion–falcon hybrid? Those suckers are fast!”

  “Sounds great,” Charley deadpanned, hoping to keep them talking. “So, how exactly do you guys know so much about all of these animal combinations?”

  “Well, don’t let Hector’s bragging fool you. He’s never seen a scorpicon to know how fast it is. We’ve never really seen any of them—besides the crant, of course—but sometimes it pays to be teacher’s pets.” Lila grinned.

  “It’s true,” said Hector. “We have no first-hand experience with animal combinations. Not until today, that is!”

  “Right. Well, where do you think Grigor is taking us exactly?” Charley asked.

  “Not sure about that,” replied Hector.

  “I know we have to be back inside the gates before dark,” Lila said.

  Charley looked at the twins. “Why?”

  “You tell me. Do you want to be lying out here in the pitch-black forest trying to sleep while crants and scorpicons are dive-bombing you? Not to mention that those are just the smaller, garden-variety, annoying type of animal combinations,” Lila said.

  Hector chimed in. “Plus, who knows what kind of weirdo freakazoid predators come out at night to hunt. It’s not crants that get to the people put outside of the gates at night, you know.”

  Charley’s gaze hardened.

  Lila noticed Charley’s change of demeanor and paused before speaking. “That was amazing what you did for that little girl the other day. Saving her from the gates. Really amazing. We both think that. Don’t we, Hector?”

  Hector looked over at Lila and then at Charley, belatedly noticing his mood shift. “Why, yes, yes, of course! That was more than amazing—that was awesome!”

  “But—” Hector paused and eyed Charley carefully—“do you think it really made a difference? I mean, I’m sure we all wanted to do something, but it ended pretty quickly, right? I’m really sorry about your friend, though, too,” he added. “Really, we both are.”

  “If everyone who wanted to do something, had done something, then it wouldn’t have ended quickly,” Charley said curtly.

  “Ah, right, well, yeah.” Hector lowered his eyes and shifted uncomfortably.

  Charley immediately regretted his outburst. He resolved to keep his emotions in check; he would have to, if he wanted to get the answers he needed.

  “Everyone gather round!” Grigor called out from just ahead.

  “Let’s go—we’d better catch up,” Lila said to Hector, while darting a quick glance at Charley.

  “Who knows anything about hunting?” Grigor asked the group. “Not first-hand, but from a book maybe?”

  Hector shot up his hand proudly. Sandy rolled her eyes and gave a barely audible snort.

  “Well, forget everything you’ve read. Hunting in the pre-Event world was nothing like what you will need to learn now,” Grigor said.

  Hector lowered his hand, rebuked. Trying to redeem himself, he asked. “How so?”

  “Pre-Event, hunters would do things like set up feeders or feedlots of corn to attract game. They would wait very quietly in tree stands or blinds in the hope that the game would be attracted to the bait without being scared away by the scent of the hunters.” He paused to look at each of the High Scores in turn. “Today, there is no need to lay out corn. There is no need to conceal ourselves. They will come to us. To them, we are the bait.”

  Charley’s senses flipped to high alert, every rustle of the brush around him seemed magnified and out of proportion.

  “Remember, every animal combination is highly aggressive, and most are carnivorous because they have been engineered that way. Some are not aggressive toward humans, only to each other, but most view us as prey.” He held up his hand, listening. “We will have company very shortly. We have been scented. This area is prime territory for rotthogs: Rottweiler–boar hybrids. Imagine the biggest, angriest bush hog you can think of, complete with tusks and an armored breastplate. Now, combine snarling fangs and extreme aggressiveness. That’s a rotthog.”

  Grigor calmly unslung an enormous bag from his massive shoulders and began tossing short, spear-like weapons to each of the students.

  Hank-Harry snagged his spear and twirled it a few times, an attempt at bravado and a chance to display his natural athleticism. Charley and Sandy both caught their spears confidently, neither wanting to show any weakness in front of the others, but Charley detected a hint of uncertainty in Sandy’s features. Hector and Lila gingerly accepted their spears, their previous exuberance at learning about animal combinations notably diminished. Armen, the smallest and most bookish-looking of the lot, grasped his spear with two hands like an oar, pulling it in close to his body as if its mere presence could repel any hostile attack.

  Grigor looked up and let out his deep, gravelly laugh. “Don’t worry. Each of you will stand behind me while I demonstrate how to take down a rotthog. Then Hank, Sandy, and Charley will each have a go at bringing one down while I assist. The others will watch and observe closely.”

  Despite his sudden shortness of breath, Charley almost had to stifle a laugh at the extremely relieved expressions of Hector, Lila, and Armen.

  Even clustered with all five of the other High Scores behind Grigor, Charley wondered at the sheer size of Grigor’s wide, heavily muscled back. He wondered if Grigor could shelter all six of them in a rainstorm. They were backed up against a natural thicket of extremely dense shrubbery and one very tall, broad tree trunk that seemed to go up for miles. Charley could see why Grigor had chosen this position. Any rotthog attack had to come from the front.

  A thundering sound grew closer until it was almost upon them.

  And then it was.

  The rotthog burst through the brush ahead of them. Peering around the hefty expanse of Grigor’s back, Charley was simultaneously revolted and intrigued by what he saw. He knew that unlike their pig cousins, boars were unattractive creatures, but this animal hybrid gave a whole new meaning to ugly.

  The muscles in Grigor’s back tensed as the rotthog lifted his snout to scent the air and then turned toward the group. Its yellowed tusks protruded unevenly at strange angles from a wide, jowled face. Giant, slobbering jaws parted to display large, crooked fangs. It skittered to one side on its hooves and then incongruently gave out a rough barking noise as it charged straight at them.

  Foam bubbled and popped from its open mouth, flinging globules of saliva as it ran. Vicious little eyes glinted angrily in their direction. It wasn’t fast, but it was heavily muscled
and quickly picking up speed.

  “Notice the armor plating on the breastbone area,” Grigor said in his calm, deep voice. “If you aim there, you are likely to get a bent spear. Or worse.” He chuckled. It seemed that only Grigor thought it was funny, but Hank-Harry attempted a confident laugh that sounded more like a squeak.

  The charging rotthog was now only 20 paces away.

  “Instead, I will aim directly for its mouth and let the force of its own charge cause it to impale itself.”

  “What if its mouth isn’t open?” Sandy asked.

  “Oh, its mouth is always open.” Grigor laughed again.

  It was now only ten paces away.

  Up close, Charley estimated the rotthog to be at least 350 pounds. A monstrous specimen.

  “This is a small one. Watch how easy this is,” Grigor said.

  Oh, great, Charley thought. He wondered how many others were rustling around in the brush, hurrying to join the “runt” of the litter.

  “Notice how I am bending my knees and bracing my legs and back.”

  When it was less than two paces away, it leaped.

  Grigor held his ground. As the beast landed on the outstretched spear, the vicious snarling abruptly turned into a grunt, a whimper, and then silence.

  “Now you twist, and turn, and put it out of its misery—quickly. They are only animals. They did not choose to be manipulated by humans and turned into weapons. Even though we must kill them, they deserve our respect. They are God’s creatures, though twisted by the evil heart of man.” With apparent effortlessness, Grigor moved the still-warm carcass to the edge of the brush.

  Charley exhaled, suddenly realizing that he had been holding his breath for some time.

  “We will skin it, dress it, and prepare the meat for easy transportation in a moment. Before that, we have company.” He smiled. “Hank, you’re first, then Sandy, then Charley. Come stand next to me and follow my instructions. I will be right here. It’s time to get your first rotthog.”

  A pack of four howling, snuffling rotthogs caromed out of the brush ahead of them and pinballed directly toward the group.

  Charley could faintly hear Grigor’s calm directions somewhere in the background, but they were drowned out by the blood rushing in his ears. He felt lightheaded and uncertain. At least Charley didn’t have to worry about choosing which rotthog to go for. A black and tan monster was heading straight for him, gnashing its teeth and shaking its tusks from side to side. It had chosen him.