by Al K. Line
"Oh! Um, I love you too. I didn't think... Well, you know."
"Oh, that's just great! Why don't you start making babies right now then, rather than do what needs to be done and stop this insanity from carrying on? Jeez." Cashae stormed off, unable to deal with them for one moment longer.
No. Why should I let them behave like this? They need to learn.
Cashae turned. "If you think I'm happy for you then I'm not. And it's not because I'm jealous, it's because you are cowards and you have gone back on your word. What, you just going to let her die? Is that it? You think you can do what you want all of a sudden? After a hundred years of doing as you were told you think everything will somehow be great if we allow Vorce to do this?"
"Calm down, Cashae. What's got into you?" Talia moved forward but Cashae was having none of it.
"Don't you touch me, don't you dare!" Cashae warned. "You lied, and you'll regret it. I'm going, to help, even if you think that somehow Vorce will forgive you for this and leave you alone. You made your decision and now you have to actually do something. Cowards." Cashae left. If that's how they wanted to play it then fine, there was no way she would back out of this now. No way in hell.
They were meant to be the smart ones. The brave ones. The ones that had convinced her to consider what they were doing and see how wrong it was, weren't they? Sure, they'd all discussed it, told of their misgivings, but it was Talia that had gone to see Arcene then tried to help her get away. But was that as far as it went? Was she still willing to hunt if it came to it? Just to keep Vorce happy?
How could she be so weak? Cashae trembled with fear, but she knew her own mind, and knew the reality of The Hunt made it clear how terrible a game it was. And that's exactly what it was: a game.
Were Erato and Talia more concerned with themselves than the entire future of their people? Seemed that way. Well, she would go, and help, and die trying to stop Vorce if need be. She had made a promise. She intended to keep it.
They had picked up Arcene's trail easily that morning. Wisps of smoke from a fire in the distance a beacon impossible to ignore. It was as if Arcene had given up on hiding and was taunting Vorce, taunting them all. Challenging them to come get her.
Cashae had seen the anger on Vorce and Elder Janean's faces as they broke camp and changed direction, seemingly heading right back where they had come from. Cashae could see something else too, a concern, maybe even fear on Elder Janean's usually blank countenance.
Were they afraid? Good, they deserved it. This wasn't right and she hoped they got what they deserved. How many people had they killed over the years? If not directly, then the blood was still on their hands. Vorce and the Elder were the ones directing The Hunt, making it bigger and bigger, more a part of their lives with each passing year.
After Talia's tale of her conversation with Arcene, the three friends had huddled close through the night and spoken in whispers once they knew Vorce was asleep. Elder Janean was dead to the world, exhausted from the day's tracking.
They had agreed they would have nothing to do with it, and when given the opportunity they would leave Vorce and Janean, find Arcene and somehow convince her to go home, leave the madness behind. Then, they would return to The Island and do all they could to convince others it was wrong. Then, and only then would they come back to the beautiful land they never even knew they longed for.
They'd agreed!
None of them felt capable of stopping Vorce. He was, after all, very scary. But they figured that if they helped Arcene, if they could persuade her to just run away and evade capture, then Vorce would have no choice but to allow them all to return home. He wouldn't chase about the country forever.
It was a good plan, a solid plan, and within just a few hours they had their opportunity.
Tracking Arcene was easy. She was no longer hiding. Vorce was getting angrier by the minute, but Elder Janean seemed to need more rest. Hunts never usually went on this long, and it was obvious she wasn't as strong and fit as she once had been. When Vorce ordered rest, the three friends suggested they go off together to look for food. Vorce took little convincing. After all, they were all hungry, and he certainly wouldn't expect them to leave and go after the girl alone. Let alone try to help her.
They ran, putting distance between themselves and Vorce. As they approached the city, knowing there was now no turning back, her friends shocked her.
They had stopped to catch their breath, and both said they thought they should just run away, or at least consider it. Run, like they were Prey! Cashae couldn't believe it. She was supposed to be the scared, timid one. They were always both better at sports and much better with weapons, but now they were saying they should leave.
Talia had explained again about Arcene, how she thought she would cope on her own, be able to defeat Vorce, and they should escape while they had the chance. Cashae couldn't do that, not after they had decided.
She ran, ran away from her friends, knowing they wouldn't be able to keep up. She may not have been so great at much of the training and regimes all children and adults maintained back home, but one thing she excelled at was running. She could run all day, just keep on going and going, sucking in energy from The Noise that allowed her to keep moving effortlessly.
When she was younger she really scared herself. She had gone deep into The Flow, and done circuit after circuit of The Island, feeling amazing, unstoppable — like the wind or a fish swimming through the water, never tiring. A natural force.
Talia put an end to it. Grabbed and shook her, stared into her eyes with love and concern, telling her she had to stop.
Cashae had been confused. Why would she want to stop? Why was Talia making her?
Turns out, she'd run all day, then through the night — although how she did that she never knew — and had just kept on running the entire next day too.
It took a week to recover. She couldn't eat enough to refuel, and from then on had kept her running to a much more normal level — just a few hours at a time no more than twice a week.
Anyway, that was the past. All that mattered now was getting away from friends that had turned into liars and would allow Arcene to die, and their people to remain as they were, all so they could... What, run off together, stay on the mainland and live happily ever after? Have babies and raise a family? Who did they think they were kidding? As if that could ever happen.
Vorce would never allow it.
Cashae ran through alien streets that scared her, but she didn't stop. She would get to Arcene, convince her to go home, and then Cashae would try to deal with the consequences. She was terrified, but if it meant her life then so be it.
They had agreed!
She may be meek, but Cashae had never gone back on her word in her life.
She wasn't about to start now.
Broken Friendships
"We can't just leave her," argued Talia. "We have to go get her."
"I know," said Erato with a sigh. "You don't have to say it like I'm arguing with you."
"Yeah, well..."
"Well, what?"
"Oh, I don't know. It's all gone so wrong." Talia wouldn't cry, not a chance. How had it gone so bad so quickly though? They had agreed to go see Arcene again, as Talia was sure she could convince her to leave. If all three of them were there she was hopeful they could convince her that Vorce would have to return to The Island soon — he wouldn't leave everyone alone for more than a few days.
But something had changed, she felt it as they ran away from Vorce. Their plan was flawed. Even if they convinced Arcene to return to her son and friends, Vorce would never believe they weren't to blame. He would kill them all, even if he couldn't kill Arcene. Now they had run away there was no going back.
They could never go back.
When she'd aired her concerns to Cashae and Erato, she wasn't surprised Erato agreed. He was an intelligent man, less emotional than her or Cashae, and she wondered if he'd known from the start that their plan had a serious hole
in it. What were they thinking? Once they left that was it — no going back. What had surprised her was him saying he loved her, and not in a friendship way. Her heart fluttered and she wanted to grab him and kiss him right there and then, but it was hardly the time.
And now damn Cashae had run off alone and was determined to ruin it all. Okay, maybe it was their fault, they shouldn't have gone back on their word, but it was just a conversation, not set in stone. They could have talked about it. Maybe they would have decided to try to convince Arcene after all. No, that was a lie. She ached to leave, be done with the whole thing. What did that say about her?
"Talia! Hey, what the hell?"
"Sorry, I was thinking about what to do. We shouldn't have said that, Erato. We should have stuck to the plan and gone to help Arcene."
"And risk Vorce catching us all. Look, I thought it was a good idea, getting her away, us going back home and changing things, but it was stupid. We made our choice by leaving. We could never cheat Vorce, he would see right through us."
"But we can still help, can't we? We have to."
"I know. Look, we'll go get Cashae, see if we can get Arcene away. Then we will have to run, you know that, right? We can go away, be together, and..."
"You meant it, then? That you love me? Want to be with me?"
"Of course! I always have."
Talia clutched at Erato as though she would fall without his embrace. How she wanted to bury her head in his hair and never come up for air. But now wasn't the time, and she wondered if there ever would be one. It had all gone so horribly wrong. They should have stuck together, never mentioned running away. What were they thinking?
They couldn't leave their people. What would Vorce tell them when he returned? That they were killed by the Prey? Then on it would go, year after year, the same damn thing.
"I love you too, Erato. Let's just hope we have the chance to..." Talia blushed. Her life was in the balance, and that of her friends, and she was blushing thinking of the chance to get intimate. She was a grown woman, what was wrong with her?
"Come on, let's go. We'll find Cashae, convince Arcene, and—"
"And what? What about Vorce? Elder Janean?"
"We'll figure something out."
"I hope so."
To Stalk...
Arcene was hot. Too hot. Her face felt flushed, her clothes uncomfortable, and her damn pigtails, which she'd finally got under control, were banging about first in front and then behind as she ran. It was driving her crazy.
She slowed to a walk and focused on cooling herself down. She pictured her whole body in an icy pool like the one in the cave, and let The Noise envelop her, or she enveloped The Noise — it was all the same. Her body sizzled and sweat turned to ice crystals.
Oops, a little too much. She concentrated, eyesight dimming, surroundings dissipating like early morning mist, and did things properly. She set her temperature, then raised it until her clothes were dry, then cool again. Perfect.
The world solidified and Arcene became herself once more. She felt like a new woman, like she'd just had a dip in a hot spring followed by a cool shower and somehow there was even a hint of roses. She sniffed. No, not roses, the smell of rotten vegetation.
Back to reality then.
Arcene stood in the middle of the road, in the same spot where it all began. Was it only yesterday? She stared at the pile of items left for her the day before — still as useless.
"Okay, Leel, now we have to sort this mess out. They'll be after us, at least some of them will, and we have to be sure we do the right thing. Hmm, what do you think that is?" She turned to Leel, stared into those beautiful hazel eyes, and smiled. Stupid dog. Haha. How she loved Leel, silly thing that she was.
Woof!
"Well, that's one idea. Or, um, we could, er..." Arcene chewed on her lip, then realized what she was doing. Moment's later she was poking her tongue out like she needed to taste the air, but it got her brain working.
"Turn the tables, that's what we have to do, Leel. Gosh, I've been so silly. I have the perfect plan."
Arcene let everything fade once more. Deep, deeper still, at one with The Noise, going far into the truth behind all things, where everything was the same and everything was different.
She was atoms, dust, nothing. Everything. Arcene turned with eyes ablaze with colors so intense it hurt to see, but she looked, and she knew the nature of all things.
Focus. Vision narrowing, searching out the memories of what once was.
Data.
0s and 1s half-bitten, information crunched and chewed, corrupted. Arcene saw the colors, the fractal shards of partial knowledge. Computer knowledge, virtual information that meant nothing, still hanging on.
Memories.
Ghosts in the machine.
Her mind swept down the street, wind blowing leaves, trash, plastic, tickling the grass into patterns more complex than the largest processors. Her knowledge, her truth, swept up the front of the building and into the room where the last camera to be turned off still sat, watching with a dead eye.
It pointed directly at her.
Pieces were reconfigured, joined together, the data collecting capabilities restored.
Through The Noise, Arcene followed the flow of light waves, sped down power cables, witnessed the memories of electricity, the whispers of information traveling as On-Off signals flowing down hair-thin glass tubes that came back from the dead and rejoiced in their virtual existence once more.
Resurrected. Back from digital hell. Whole.
Further, deeper, from junction to junction, camera to camera, restoring the mangled processors, manipulating the complex world, gathering loose strands and weaving them together to become whole, digital eyesight restored.
She branched off. Up, down, side to side, faster and faster, speed increasing as pathways returned to wholeness, flowing with the information. Almost as fast as the speed of light, her mind danced along fiber optic cables, conversing with the data, becoming the data.
She split at junctions, parts of her meeting, becoming something else, becoming the computers, bundling and regrouping, breaking off, fixing missed packets, returning to join the others so she remained intact and wasn't lost forever in the invisible world.
She was fat.
A bundle of blobs of diverse information, all vying for space as she sped along the tunnel under the sea, a submarine cable that ran out farther and farther, then up.
Stop. Split.
Feed into the towers that remained, the backup devices and the uncorrupted processors, drawing power from The Noise, sending it where it needed to go.
All together now, fed into one machine.
A once-dead black plastic iris opens then sends the information it receives out into three dimensions.
Arcene retreats.
"How did I get down here?" Arcene is prone on her back, staring up at the cloudless sky. Then the world is obscured and a smiling face looms over her. A tongue sticks out, impossibly large, and Arcene watches in horror as a glistening tear of spittle extends then drips from the lolling tongue.
She watches in slow motion as it descends.
"Ugh, Leel, that is so—"
It's no use, Leel goes in for her favorite move — the full face lick. After all, why else would Arcene be lying down in the middle of a deserted street for so long?
Leel always did have a sense of timing.
Tsccccccccccccch
Tsccccccccccccch.
Two thousand, three hundred and seventeen pairs of eyes stared at the screen, captivated.
"Hello, it's me again. I think you might want to watch this."
The image zoomed. A close up of her face. She smiled.
Static.
Tsccccccccccccch.
Closer still. A luminous blue eye.
Arcene winked.
The screen turned to black.
The crowd erupted into loud chatter. They'd been sat there, waiting, not knowing what to do for a a day and
a night now.
There was a gasp as the screen blinked back to life. From left to right, scrolling across then down, a series of images sprang to life.
The Hunt was back.
The crowd sighed in relief. Then cheered.
Gone again.
Tsccccccccccccch.
A close up of full lips, murder red. "Remember, I said watch."
The feeds return.
Every corner of the arena is now live.
Feeling Scared
Cashae was out of her depth. Far removed from her comfort zone. Why had she ever agreed to come in the first place? This wasn't her, she was no Hunter.
She felt foolish and she felt scared. More, she was downright terrified. She sat in the shell of a building and looked at herself, legs stretched out in front of her. She wiped a tear and sniveled like a baby. How pathetic. If they could see her on The Island what would they think of her?
That this is scary as hell, that's what. Cashae looked around the room, noted the silent camera in the corner above the door frame. Well, nobody was watching, Arcene had seen to that. But still, she couldn't shake the feeling she wasn't alone.
Did it just move? No, don't be silly.
It was precisely because she was alone though — her mind was playing tricks on her, making her jump at the slightest noise, raise her short sword and dagger, feeling useless, like she hadn't been trained for this and didn't know what to do. This was the reality though, wasn't it? You could have all the experience in the world via training, but when it came to real life and death it meant nothing. It was scary. Absolutely terrifying.
The outfit made her feel like a fraud. She stared at her legs in the thick new material, black boots up to her calves. She wasn't a fighter, she was an impostor in an assassin's outfit playing a real game of life and death. She brushed ineffectively at the dusty material, but what was the point?
The camera swiveled as she moved, black eye zooming for a closeup on her tear-stained face as she stood.
Cashae wiped away the pity, the dust making it worse. She sneezed and rubbed her nose. "This is wrong. I don't want to kill people. I want to go home." She moved from her hiding place and stepped out the doorway into the street. She had to find Arcene, tell her to get away.