by K A Riley
Elevating past the lowest foothills, we clamber up a natural stairway of rocks that juts out from under feeble patches of crisp, yellow grass. Thankfully, the air grows more breathable and cooler as we climb. We all inhale deeply as we try to purge our lungs of the harsh desert dust we’ve been breathing in for the past two days. At one point on the steep climb, we come to a faint trace of a path, but it disappears after a few hundred yards, and we’re left pushing and shouldering our way through more dried vegetation as thorny vines snag at our clothes and skin. I’ve been wearing my jacket tied around my waist, but now I sling it back on before the skin on my arms winds up shredded beyond repair.
As we trudge along, it occurs to me that my friends and I aren’t too different from the world we’ve been stumbling around in over these past few weeks. Like us, the natural world around us feels like it’s struggling to survive a trauma. It feels like it’s on the verge of collapse or—less likely—recovery. There’s a creepy tension in not knowing which way either of us will go.
Every once in a while, we pause while I ask Render to scout up ahead to help us get our bearings. Rain still insists on calling it “sending” him up ahead. “Kress,” she says, “can you send your bird up ahead again to scout the area for us?”
And then I have to remind her that, one, Render isn’t “my bird” and two, I don’t “send” him anywhere.
“Well, if you don’t ‘send’ him,” she asks, flicking her eyelids rapid-fire and making invisible quotes in the air with her fingers, “how does he know where to go?”
“I don’t know, Rain,” I sigh, unable and unwilling to keep the exasperation out of my voice. “How do your legs know what to do and where to go right now?”
“My brain tells them,” Rain snaps.
“And how does your brain know what to tell them?”
Rain opens and closes her mouth like a fish puckering up for food. She glares at me out of the corner of her eye as we walk along. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she says at last. “I am my brain. And my brain is me.”
“But your legs also tell your brain when they’re tired, right? They let your brain know when they need to rest.”
“So?”
“So they work together. One isn’t the slave of the other.”
“Look, either you’re in charge or the bird is, and I don’t like not knowing which one of you we’re getting advice from.”
Right now, Rain is making me feel like I’m being interrogated under hot lights, and I feel like slapping her. I can tell she’s annoyed too. Partly with me, but also with herself, for not being able to grasp my relationship with Render. Rain is a problem-solver. An answer-getter. For her, a bird is either a wild animal or a pet. In her more flexible moments, she might accept Render as a guide and maybe even as a kind of loyal mascot. But there’s no room in her imagination for a mental connection based on something she can’t see or feel for herself.
“It’s not magic,” I tell her, more than slightly irked as I push my hands down hard onto my knees to help propel myself up the steep path. “And I don’t have a super power. I don’t care what Hiller told us. My connection with Render is just micro-tech my father decided to implant to connect the two of us.” I utter the words as convincingly as I can, but I know perfectly well that saying them doesn’t make them true. On some level I know Hiller was right. My bond with Render goes far beyond microchips. I just wish I understood what was happening to me. To us.
“But you see what he sees?” Rain asks.
“Kind of. But he doesn’t see like we do.”
Card chugs along next to me. “His vision is better than ours, right?”
“Well, it’s definitely different.” I’m thankful to Card for talking to me like I’m still me, as opposed to Rain, who latches onto anything she doesn’t understand like she’s a tiger shark on a minnow. “It’s hard to explain. He can see wide and narrow at the same time. It’s not like us, where we have to shift our focus from near to far and left to right. He has a much wider field of vision, and nearly everything is in focus all the time. It can be…”
“Overwhelming?” Card finishes as I search for the word.
I nod. “To say the least. And sometimes the connection works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s a blast of blurry images, and I don’t really know what I’m seeing.”
Brohn’s told me before that he doesn’t totally understand what I’m seeing either. But he was with me in the Processor when Hiller revealed that there was something unusual about him, Manthy, and me. He knows there are things happening to the three of us that none of us fully grasps, so he’s willing to accept certain things at face-value, whether he understands or not.
I think Manthy’s in denial about the whole thing. Her only wish in life has been to be invisible, a desire I can relate to. Now it turns out she may be some highly-evolved techno-genius who can control machines with her mind. Yeah, I can see why that would freak her out.
Cardyn, unlike the others, gets it. He has an intuitive understanding of what Manthy and I are learning to do. He even has his own name for it. He calls it telempathy.
“It’s a different way of connecting, right?” He’s huffing and puffing from the hike, and I don’t know how he has the breath or energy to keep talking, but on he goes. “See, I think you and Manthy just do what we all do. We feel sorry when we see others in pain. We share happiness and sadness. We even yawn when we see someone else yawn. I think you and Render are sharing like all of us do, just on a level the rest of us aren’t used to or don’t know how to access.”
“That’s about as close as I can describe it, myself,” I say as I duck under a cluster of low-hanging branches arching over us. I’m thankful that Cardyn has taken it upon himself to help me to explain something profoundly unexplainable.
“It’s like how sometimes, we can tell instantly what someone else is feeling just by subtle clues,” Cardyn adds.
“Subtle clues?” Brohn asks.
“Sure. Like pupil dilation, speed of eye-blinks, skin flush, fidgeting, perspiration patterns, tension lines around the mouth and the eyes. Things like that.” Cardyn’s continuing his impressive feat of being able to pant and talk at the same time. “I think Kress and Manthy are doing the same thing. Just on a micro-micro level.”
Brohn’s forehead scrunches up. “Micro-micro?”
“I don’t know what to call it. But just because something’s so small we can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. And it definitely doesn’t mean it doesn’t have power or value.”
I can tell that Brohn doesn’t like hearing all this. Maybe he’s scared, not knowing what power he supposedly has—some undeveloped, hidden force inside him that may show itself at any time and overwhelm us all. It’s strange knowing something’s developing inside you without having a clue what effect it will have on you or on those you care about. I know as well as anyone how frightening it can be.
Brohn says, “I guess” and slips into the lead, guiding us through a small gully, over a cluster of egg-shaped rocks, and through another thicket of thorny vegetation. Valiantly, he stands with his back to the brambles and holds them back as the rest of us pass.
As thanks, I give him a hearty salute, which he returns with a dip of his head and a sweet smile.
“So, does Render actually talk to you? Like with words?” Rain asks me as we continue our ascent.
I explain to her that he doesn’t use language, which is all but impossible to explain. “Not like we’re talking right now,” I say with an irritated moan.
“So he’s not flying back and saying in your head, ‘There are people up there, Kress. It might be dangerous if you keep heading towards the smoke’?”
I laugh at this, but I assure Rain I’m not teasing her. It’s just the thought of Render having a voice like ours and speaking like we do gives me the giggles. I can’t help picturing some weird, deep man-voice saying, “Hello, Kress. How are you today? Let us begin our melding of minds.”
I think Rain would find it just as funny if I started croaking and kraa-ing at her.
“If he saw or sensed danger, he’d let me know,” I explain in an effort to set Rain’s busy mind at ease.
“What if he doesn’t know what counts as dangerous?”
Okay. That’s a good question. I don’t know the answer, so I pretend I didn’t hear Rain ask it, hoping she’ll move on to something else.
We’ve walked a few minutes more when I ask everyone to stop for a second. “I just want to check in on Render.” I drag my finger along two of the long black lines on my left forearm and tap three times on one of the dots in the pattern. A curtain of white light and a wave of dizziness sweep over me. Shaking off the momentary disorientation, I point to an outcropping just visible through the spindly limbs of a cluster of trees a few hundred yards away. “We need to get up to there.”
Rain scans the terrain and calls our attention to a series of rocks jutting out over a small ravine.
“We can jump to there and then back across up there,” she says, pointing to various spots along the rough route.
“After you,” I say grandly.
Rain takes the lead and guides us over the rocks, across the ravine, around a forbidding cluster of thorns, and back to a more navigable path up the mountain. Cardyn and Manthy help Kella negotiate some of the more slippery and dangerous parts of our little detour. Brohn leaps nimbly from rock to rock and across the ravine like a gymnast-goat hybrid and seems to be enjoying the chance to exercise his knotted muscles. His breathing has evened out, and there’s a gleam in his eye and a smile on his face. It’s like his soul has gotten its second wind.
After we’ve cleared the most treacherous part of the labyrinth of brambles and boulders, Rain slips back a little, and I wind up in the lead again. Personally, I’d like to stop for a few minutes. Between bouncing back and forth in a feedback loop with Render, concentrating on surviving the rough terrain, fending off Rain’s cross-examinations, and talking with the others about what’s happening in my head, I’m getting a bit queasy. But the others keep surging on, pushing me from behind, so I trundle on, and they follow.
After a few minutes, we stop, and I initiate my connection with Render who is circling overhead. He sends me back images of the campfire and of hidden figures lurking behind fallen trees and crouched down in the nearby underbrush. His vision is beyond good sometimes. It can be downright predatory, in fact.
In the Processor, we Seventeens were introduced to high-end laser scopes that could put cross-hairs on a target with incredible accuracy, even from a great distance. Render manages to do all that, plus focus on the big picture at the same time. And I swear he could spot the expression on a flea’s face from a half-mile away.
It’s an insane overload of images, much more than my little human brain was designed to deal with.
I take a long breath and try to absorb as many details as I can: four people are sitting with their backs to the trunk of a fallen tree. Its bark is yellow and dry. Another two people are lying face-down in a shallow ditch with only the tops of their heads and their eyes exposed. One person is sitting nervously in the low branch of a tree. The branch bends and looks ready to break. The person pushes back up against the trunk for better balance. Three more people are stationed in a clumsy flanking formation around the perimeter of a clearing. Their shapes stand out clear as day against the speckled pattern of the leafy bushes and scrubs they’re hiding behind. Two others are standing farther off, probably leaders of the group hanging back, ready to assess and instruct.
“That’s so creepy,” Card says as I shake off the connection and return to my normal limited vision. He’s staring at me with a look of shock on his face. But something about him looks weirdly impressed, too.
“What’s creepy?” I ask.
“Your eyes.”
“What about them?”
“Sometimes they do this weird thing where they go really dark.”
“What can I say?” I shrug. “I have dark eyes.”
“No, it’s not that,” Brohn explains on Cardyn’s behalf. “Not your normal brownish eyes. He means they turn really dark. Like black. Even the white parts. Your eyes looked like Snoopy’s just now.”
“Snoopy? You mean Charlie Brown’s dog?” I remember him vividly from an old comic book we found among the Valta’s salvaged belongings. A white dog with black ears and eyes, who always slept on top of his dog house with a little yellow bird on his chest.
“Yes.”
“That didn’t used to happen,” Rain says slowly. She sounds worried, but I don’t feel any different, so I dismiss it as either their imagination, a trick of the light, or just something I don’t have time to worry about right now.
“As much as I appreciate being stared at and compared to a cartoon dog,” I say with a scoff and a gesture up toward the area where the smoke is roiling up over the treetops, “we have slightly more important matters to attend to.”
“Thoughts?” Rain asks after I pass along the final details of Render’s newest round of intel to the group.
“How about a Pincer?” I suggest, recalling a military formation we learned in the Processor.
“With a side of Bait and Bleed?” Rain proposes.
“Three and three?” Brohn adds.
I nod my agreement. “Cardyn and Kella with me, then.”
Rain gives me a thumb’s up, and Brohn gathers her and Manthy around him while I forge ahead with Cardyn and Kella. With Render fluttering up ahead, the three of us walk along for another few minutes until we hear the sizzle and pop of a campfire. I smell the smoke and even feel a slight jump in temperature from the radiant heat.
Clambering over exposed roots, Cardyn, Kella, and I finally break into a clearing. Kella is walking on her own again, which is a good sign. She still looks haggard and pale, but at least she’s keeping up.
In the clearing, a good-sized fire is burning. The seven or eight logs of black wood cackle and spit red sparks and twisting plumes of dark smoke into the air. It’s an odd thing to see—an untended fire in the middle of the ravaged woods. A clear sign of life in the middle of a lot of lifelessness.
I help Kella sit down on a flat boulder in the wide clearing and then Card and I walk the perimeter and look around for signs of life. Kella may be moving better now, but she’s still not anywhere close to strong or alert enough to help us out.
“No footprints,” Card says, scanning the ground around the fire.
“No. They’ve been swept away. They’ve been using mats and some logs and rocks to sit on.”
Card nods. “I can see the marks. They’re total amateurs. How long do you figure they’ve been watching us?”
“Since the desert,” I say. “Maybe longer.””
“How many?”
“Only two trackers. And a bunch of others with weapons,” I add as I inspect the cracked wounds on some of the trees. “Homemade, though. Broken branches. Probably some rocks. Things like that.” I scan the chaos of vegetation—much of it dead or dying—and the fallen trees surrounding the clearing. I glance from the bushes to the mounds of dirt and dried leaves to a few of the trees at the border of the airy glade, and finally back to Cardyn. In as quiet a voice as I can manage, I draw his attention to the twelve people hidden all around us. “Two there. Two there. Three there. Three more over there. And two more—the two taller ones—just behind them.”
“Think we’re in danger?”
“Definitely,” I say with a smile.
We walk back to stand next to Kella.
“What’s happening?” she asks as if she’s just coming out of a trance.
Card puts his finger to his lips. “We’re about to get attacked.”
7
Kella’s eyes go wide, and she starts to stand up.
“Uh-uh,” I tell her with a firm hand on her shoulder. “Let it play out.”
The tangles of vines and dried bushes around us rustle suddenly to life as five boys and five girls, all abo
ut our age or a little younger, lunge out at us from the woods. Some of them carry brittle tree branches as makeshift spears. Others have fist-sized rocks in their hands. One of the girls has a small laser-blade, its blue light flickering to yellow, which means it’s losing its charge and probably wouldn’t leave more than a slight skin-burn if she managed to slash any of us with it.
In an instant we’re surrounded. We’ve got a high-walled rock formation behind us, thick clusters of trees and brambles on either side, and a horde of scruffy children advancing on us from across the clearing. Three of the kids, their faces caked with dirt and streaked through with sweat, level their sharpened sticks at us and scowl with what I think is supposed to be menace but looks more like constipation.
“Great,” Cardyn whispers to me out the side of his mouth. “We’re about to be poked to death by the Lord of the Flies.”
“Knock it off,” I whisper back. “Put your hands up and look scared.”
“We got ‘em!” one of the girls shouts back into the woods.
A boy and a girl, both a little taller and probably older than the rest of the kids, step out of the shadows to stand at the back of the crowd of smaller kids. Like the younger ones, they look like they’ve had a rough go of it. Their faces are also mud-caked and aged beyond their years. Their clothes are a stitched-together mess of frayed fabrics. Still, there is something almost regal about these two. The boy has a sharp jaw-line and a broad nose. He’s thin and lanky, but the ropey muscles in his arms suggest great quickness and strength. The girl is slightly taller than he is and has the confident demeanor of someone used to being in control of herself and others. Both of them exhibit a kind of inner strength even though internally, they must be running on fumes.