“I haven’t found a replacement for Herman. It’s expensive to travel with them.”
“Isn’t it?” Byron said, backing off and adopting a more friendly tone. “I brought two here myself. I’m breeding them to sell the babies. I noticed in your file that you have bought some very young sapiens.”
“The saplings taste cleaner,” Meyer said with a shrug, his shoulders moving up and down with the exactness of a robot. “And they’re even more resilient. Isn’t it amazing, Byron, how we are just like them, and like animals in this way? All of us will do whatever it takes to survive. We guard our lives so jealously, don’t we, Enforcer?”
“I guess that’s true. But a life that can last as long as ours is worth guarding. A human life, that’s so temporary. They’re gone before you can remember their names on a regular basis. Their lives are meaningless and pitiful.”
“And yet they would guard their lives as fiercely as we would ours. To them, life is as precious as ours is to us. Isn’t it the goal of all life to keep living? Animals and humans, they keep living through their offspring, by producing more of themselves. That way they aren’t living but their blood still is. We’re the only species that never ages and never produces more of ourselves.”
“And this is why we are Superior and they are human. We don’t need to produce offspring, and if we did, the world wouldn’t sustain our number. We live out our own lives instead. What being wouldn’t want to keep living instead of the cheap substitute that animals have? We simply found the answer before any other species.”
“We are also the only species that remembers its own evolution,” the boy said, leaning forward. “Tell me, sir, do you remember what it was like to be human?”
“I don’t think about it too often. That part of my life was petty and meaningless.”
“I remember my own life as human. Now I have so much more. But in some ways, I have never changed.”
“We’ve changed in many ways, but you’re right. Our basic nature, I believe, is always with us. And you will always look like a child.”
Meyer smiled. “I despised that for the first century or so. No one took me seriously. Now I’ve learned it can be quite an advantage.”
“I can see you’re not missing anything in the intelligence department. How old were you when you evolved, Meyer? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Twelve,” said the boy.
Byron thought he stretched the truth a little. He looked more like ten. “Were your parents killed in the War?”
“No. They were killed in the Time of the Takeover.”
“Your parents never evolved?”
“They weren’t given the option.”
“Then how did you end up being changed? The only children I know were evolved by parents who couldn’t bear to be without them.”
“I will tell you my story if you wish to hear it.”
“I’d be very interested.”
“All right,” Meyer said, leaning forward. “I was at a boarding school, and a very good one, too. My father was one of the richest men in England. Do you remember where that was?”
“Yes, off the coast of Belarus. It was destroyed during the War.”
“Right. Well, I was in a boarding school out in the countryside. A school for boys, with a girl’s school opposite. When the Takeover began, there were a few reports on the radios before the stations outside big cities were taken down. It took a few weeks for the Superiors to reach us in the countryside. Though I’m sure it took much longer in this country. There’s much more space here.”
“Yes, as long as a year or more to reach all of them.”
“Out there, we knew they were coming, so the headmaster kept us all and wouldn’t let us go home. He locked everything up and barred the windows. We had everything we needed right there, and it was summer so we didn’t have to worry about the cold. We went on with our lessons as if the world wasn’t ending outside. The only difference was that after a week, the girls’ school transferred into our building because it was more secure. They brought all their food and supplies, too. We had a cafeteria there, and lots of space for food storage. We just holed up and waited for them to come, although of course we didn’t know who they were. There were about two hundred of us counting both schools and the staff.”
“Did anyone else survive?”
“I’ll get to that. So when they came, we stayed inside and locked the doors. We thought they’d go away, but they waited us out. There were perhaps a dozen or more of them, but nothing compared to us. We didn’t know what they wanted except to kill us. We didn’t know what they were, of course, just that they came out at night and seemed to disappear during the day, which we thought was a trick to lure us out. We stayed inside for three months without setting foot outside.” Meyer paused to let Byron appreciate this fact before going on. He looked quite self-satisfied with his story.
“Well then, after two months we had run out of everything edible in the place, and other essentials like our backup electricity supply and toilet paper and the like. Do you know what we ate then?”
“No, what?”
“A human will do anything to survive, Enforcer. They’d even eat their own excrement. But that’s not what we did. You see, we had food right there. But then this stupid girl got too scared one night and ran outside, and then all the Superiors came in, and they killed all the other children. I hid, naturally, bright boy that I was. But they found me, of course, and one of them was about to rip my throat out, and do you know what I said to him?”
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘You don’t want to do that. My father is one of the most powerful men in the country, and besides, I can help you. My brain is about twice the size of yours already, and you’re a grown man.’ And do you know what he said to me? He said, ‘I don’t give a rat’s ass who your dad is, and the only thing your brain is good for is my breakfast.’ And do you think I was scared, and screamed for mercy?”
“Probably not.”
Meyer smiled, leaning forward, his eyes shining. “You’re right. I didn’t. I said, ‘You know, that’s funny, because that’s exactly what I said to Suzy Shepherd right before I cut off her head and ate her brain fried up with peppercorns and sea salt.’” Meyer laughed and slapped his knee.
“Ah, well,” he said. “Guess you had to be there. But see here, the Superior laughed, and then he looked quite surprised himself, and said he hadn’t known he could laugh anymore. He said I was worth holding onto because I’d made him laugh, and he wasn’t that hungry anymore anyway, having just eaten about ten children. So he took me out and told the others he was taking me back to where they had saved all the very young children.
“The rest of them went on, and he took me back. Of course he fed on me on the way, but he delivered me up to one of the older ones, a First. They put me in with a bunch of screaming, smelly babies for about a week, and that was torture, let me tell you. Then they figured out how intelligent I was, and one of them evolved me. I’d already read books about our kind, of course. I wanted to evolve, and I was pretty convincing, even as a human. I was still a child when I became Superior, but I’ve developed into a man inside.”
“I see. So you were already feeding on humans before you evolved.”
“Out of necessity, you understand. Like I said, animals and people alike will do what it takes to survive. We knew the staff would starve us to death, so we did away with them first. Most of us were the sons of aristocrats and the like. But there were a few boys attending on a grant to see if a pig farmer’s or mailman’s son could do as well as a rich man’s son if given equal opportunity. The mailman’s son didn’t do so well, as it turned out, but a pig farmer’s son knew a thing or two about butchering. So did a rich man’s bastard son whose mum worked in a meat packing plant. We had a big cold storage area behind the cafeteria where the school kept all the frozen hamburgers and such. The staff at the school wasn’t very large, especially when packaged individually.”
“I don’t mean to shock you, Enforcer. Just to let you know that I am and will always be a survivor. If you’re scared some stupid sap is going to seek revenge on me while I sleep, rest assured I can take care of myself. And certainly if I die, it won’t be at the hands of a sapien, least of all one I treated as kindly as my Herman. I only wish that if he is alive, he’s not being treated badly by a less gentle master.”
Byron wasn’t sure what to make of this change in direction. The boy was certainly clever. Byron hadn’t for a moment worried about Meyer’s safety. Meyer surely had all sorts of security in place night and day. The child had a healthy consciousness of his own worth.
“Yes, we would all hope for that,” Byron said, although he’d never waste such hope on a sap.
“Do you think there’s a chance he’s still alive then?”
“It’s possible. We’ll let you know if we hear anything else.”
“Thank you, Enforcer. I very much appreciate it. And if you ever feel like contacting me again, please do. I find our chats very amusing. Please think of me when you’re not too busy.”
Byron switched off. Somehow the child always made him feel like the fool. For someone so young to be evolved alone seemed strange, no matter how smart Meyer was. But he had certainly learned to patronize, probably through his own experience with it.
Byron sat thinking about the child’s story and the information he’d gotten, and he compared it to the information the boy had given him on his earlier visit. The only inconsistency was the boy’s estimate of the length of time he’d owned Herman, and that could have been oversight or forgetfulness. Time wasn’t as set in stone as it had once been. People often made simple mistakes concerning amounts of time. Meyer just didn’t seem like the type to make them.
26
“I would like to speak with you,” Draven said when Sally entered the shed the next night. He’d had time to think of her story.
“About what?” she asked.
“About your sister and that…thing. That man. He was not one of us.”
“He weren’t?”
“No.”
“But she said he was, said he told her he was gonna change her, and he only came at night…”
“Yes. I’ve not met one, but I know of them.”
“What was he then?”
“They’re…mutations. When we evolved, a few people didn’t turn out quite as they should. They are like us in many ways—nocturnal habits, lives lived without aging. They have existed for centuries, a few of them, the same as a few of us have. But they’re very rare. They are called incubus.”
“A what?”
“An incubus. I know very little of them. They have a power over dreams or the ability to make themselves appear as dreams, I believe. And they don’t feed directly, like we do. They think they are the next step in evolution, beyond Superiors, because they don’t withdraw physical sustenance from their prey. They feed on the energy of a human until the person dies, and then they seek another.”
Sally hunched her shoulders and looked in at Draven. “That’s creepy.”
Draven smiled. “Perhaps. Is that why your people believe I can hypnotize them?”
“I reckon. I just always heard you could.”
“People attribute many things to that which they fear.”
“I reckon you’re right about that.” Sally reached through the bars with a handful of food packets. Draven received them and began opening one with his teeth. His wrist itched terribly where his new hand had begun to slowly regenerate, but he would not be able to use his hand for a long time yet.
“I got something I wanna ask you,” Sally said.
“Ask.” He poured a portion of the flakes into his mouth. Sally handed him the quart jar of water in an absent way, as if she had no awareness of her action.
“Can you really change a human into one of y’all?”
Draven watched her while he worked the sap around his mouth until it dissolved. “No,” he said at last, after he’d thought it over.
“Then how come that incu-whatever-it-was said he could?”
“Perhaps it is possible. If we evolved from humans, it’s feasible that humans could evolve, as well. But it’s illegal to attempt it.”
“Illegal?” Sally said, then laughed. “You really care about your laws right now?”
“No,” Draven said. “Do you really care about yours?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, if you’re so concerned with keeping me here and letting them kill me slowly because you ‘cannot’ let me out, why would I break my laws for you?”
“You know what? After all the food I brung you and even forgiving you for biting me like an animal, you sure are ungrateful.”
“Oh, I’m grateful, believe me. You have shown me many small kindnesses that speak for your humanity. But despite these kindnesses, you continue to let your people do things that all your small kindnesses don’t compensate for, despite my gratitude.”
“You’re a dog,” Sally said.
Although Draven imagined he could only push her so far, he must find the courage to act if he ever wanted his freedom. Sally held his only hope. He wanted to stand and talk to her face to face, but the bottom half of his body still lay crushed and hadn’t yet righted itself. If only they would leave him alone for a while.
“I may be,” he said. “But if wanting to live makes me a dog, I don’t imagine I mind so very much.”
“Why you wanna live so much? I thought just the other day you was begging me to kill you.”
“Having food again heals me. And I remembered a reason not to die when you tried to kill me.”
“I didn’t try to kill you.”
“You would have put a stake in me. When you did that, I wanted you to. Instinct alone made me pull away. And then I thought of the girl.”
“You know, I sure am glad Angela ain’t around to hear you, ‘cause she’d let you right out for a good love story.”
“It is not a love story.”
“Sounds like a love story to me.”
“It is not love that I feel. Not the sort of love you imply.”
“Is she your sister then?”
“No. She is…she is a human girl.”
“You’re in love with a human?”
“No. As I said, it is not love.”
“Wait, you want to get out of here so you can go do to some girl what that thing done to my sister?”
“No, I would never kill her. I…I value her.”
“You bite her?”
Draven hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. But I have been good to her. I healed her when her master mistreated her, and I saved her life at some expense to myself. Her master is at a town in these mountains, and I came to find her because he mistreats her. I only wish to buy her so I will know she is safe.”
“You’re gonna buy her so you can feed off her.”
“I did not tell you this previously because I knew you would think I only wanted to draw from her. But she is more than that to me. She’s…a girl. It is true that I have wanted to die, but I will suffer anything if I believe that at the end of it I will survive. And regardless of how long you keep me here, I will go to her when I am free, and I will find a way to be free, you can believe that.”
“Sure sounds like love to me.”
“That’s quite impossible. Superiors cannot love humans in the manner you suggest.”
Sally shrugged. “I’m gonna let you go.”
He did not dare hope. “Oh?”
“Yup. If you change me or evolve me, whatever you call it, and make me like you.”
“Sally. Your people despise us. Even if I could do that, your family would kill you on sight. Or worse.”
Sally began knitting, her chair rocking slightly while she spoke. “You know why they all came out here to start with? Just to be free. Weren’t none of this talk
of starting wars and taking back the world. They just wanted to be free. Just like you do right now. That’s all I want, too. Just to walk out to the outhouse at night and not be afeared for my life, or worry about being somebody’s slave. My family would understand that.”
“I believe you give them too much credit.”
“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. That ain’t the point. The point is, if you make me one of y’all, I’ll let you go.”
“And if somehow I could do that, how would we know they wouldn’t simply recapture us as we escaped? How do you imagine they would react if I made their only living daughter into a bloodsucking monster?”
“You promise to change me, and I’ll find out a way. I can start telling them things. They already think you’re mostly dead. Ain’t as fun for them anymore, neither, now that you just keep on living after everything. They ain’t as interested in you anymore. Ain’t you noticed nobody even comes out to guard you excepting me?”
“I have not been awake long enough to notice, and it’s sometimes difficult to pay attention.”
“You seem like you’re talking okay to me.”
“Yes, your presence distracts me from the pain a bit. I thank you for your company.”
“So you gonna change me or what?”
“Sally…I know you think that living forever sounds like the dream your sister described. At first, I also thought it was a gift. Now I am not so sure. Many times I have wished more than anything I could die, have lain here praying for death.”
“You pray?”
“I imagine you’d call it that.”
“Well, I’ll be danged. I thought your soul was cursed to hell.”
“As I said, humans have quite the imagination. They will find ways to make what they fear more fearsome still.”
“So, is you gonna change me, or ain’t you?”
“I would like to say yes, but I’m not certain such a thing is possible for me. I am not a powerful man, and I don’t know how to do it even if I had the strength.”
“Can’t you just do what you remember happening when you was evolved or whatever you call it?”
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