“What?”
She glanced at him and said, “There’s a Level Six, Sangzani—black body, crazy ice-blue stripes—all the girls are in love with him.”
“Oh, are they?”
“Stay in the race, Johnny. Anyway, he’s one of the skids I’ve been keeping an eye on—shut up—and he’s got potential. He’ll make Seven, maybe even before his third birthday. He reminds me . . .” She hesitated and glanced at one of the stones.
Johnny smiled, pretty sure he knew what was coming. “Yes?”
“He . . . he reminds me of Albert.”
The smile turned into a grimace, but he nudged her treads. “You know, I can hear his name.”
“That’s not what the look says.”
“The look?”
“The look you get whenever I say his name.”
“I do not have a look.”
She held his gaze, then very deliberately swung a second eye his way. “All right,” he said, laughing, “I have a look. Can’t help it, we have a history. Hey, I made him a stone.”
Now it was Shabaz who laughed. “You finally made it last week.”
He loved her laugh. “I wanted to do it right.”
“You made his after Gort.”
“I liked Gort.” He sobered as a pain went through his heart. “Besides, no one’s stone is more important than another’s. They all matter. Especially the Gorts. Especially the ones who died.”
He wouldn’t get them all, and that . . . that hurt. Shabaz was right, eighteen was a lot of stones, but it wasn’t nearly enough. He had no idea exactly how many skids had fallen with him through the black that first time; no idea how many he’d pulled through. Forty, maybe fifty. But he did know that most of them died during the first Vie attack, many of them without even being counted by Bian or Torg. Dozens gone, and Johnny couldn’t have created a memorial for them even if he tried.
“Hey,” Shabaz said gently, grazing his stripe with her own. “It’s okay. I’m just teasing; what you’re doing at the Spike is amazing. I still have no idea how you create them.” She grimaced. “We remember who we can. The best we can.”
“Yeah,” Johnny said quietly. He took a deep breath, exhaling loudly. “So Sangzani’s like Albert, huh?”
“Not exactly,” she said, studying his expression. “But he is yappy in the game and quiet out. And you should see him grind the corners in Skates.”
“Yeah. Albert always could skate.” He chuckled. “No wonder the girls like him.”
A skid came around the corner of the nook and stopped. “Oh,” he said, the tomato red body flushing. “Sorry, someone said they saw you in here. I’m interrupting . . .” His eyes dipped and he began to turn.
“No, Makaha,” Shabaz said, waving him into the alcove. “It’s fine, you weren’t interrupting.”
“Uh . . . all right.” The skid rolled into the alcove, one eye on Johnny, wide with awe. “I didn’t know he’d . . . I mean . . .”
“Hey,” Johnny said gently, giving Shabaz a look. “It’s okay, I was just leaving.”
“Oh.”
“Unless,” Shabaz said, “you’d like Johnny to come with us too. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”
“I wouldn’t want to . . . I mean, yeah, if you want . . .”
Johnny couldn’t believe this guy was five years old; he acted like a squid. He counted the red-on-red stripes. Ahh . . . seven. This guy was tapping out at Level Seven. No wonder Johnny didn’t recall the name, he was exactly the kind of skid that Johnny would have never noticed just three months ago. He wondered if Makaha had ever hit a podium in his life. “I can come,” he said. “I’d like that, if it’s okay with you.”
The stripes flushed again. “Yes, that would be nice.”
“Is there any particular place you’d like to go?” Shabaz said.
Makaha glanced at the woods. “I’ve always kind of wondered how far back those go.”
Well you’re not going to find out, Johnny thought. Given that Betty had rolled for three straight weeks before finally breaking out of the sphere, they weren’t going to come close to that in the time Makaha had left.
“That’s a lovely idea,” Shabaz said. “Shall we?” The dying skid hesitated for a second, then followed her into the woods. Johnny lagged a little behind, not sure how much privacy Makaha wanted.
They didn’t have to roll far before the woods surrounded them. Shabaz and Johnny often came for a tread out here, but usually they were the only ones. Oh, some skids might go a little way under the trees out of curiosity at some point, but most turned back the minute they couldn’t see the Spike anymore. Which was kind of funny, given that anyone over Level Five could always find their way back by mapping.
As they rolled over the low shrub, Johnny contemplated the tomato red skid. Physically, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with him: his stripes and skin looked healthy, his treads rolled clean. The skids that had been hit by the Vies out in the Thread had looked far worse; hole, Johnny had looked far worse. If he hadn’t known, he never would have guessed it was Makaha’s last day.
Physically.
Mentally, there was definitely something going on. Johnny knew quiet skids, even shy skids. Often there was a sense of awe when they were around Johnny, even before he’d gone through the Thread. But whatever was going on with Makaha wasn’t just awe. Oh, there was a little of that—the Level Seven’s trail-eye kept flicking Johnny’s way—but more, there was a weight and a sadness that you just didn’t see in skids. Truth was, they weren’t very deep, but Makaha . . . right now it felt like the red skid had all kinds of things going on between his stripes.
“It’s really nice of you to do this,” Makaha said to Shabaz. Then he flushed a little and his trail-eye swung onto Johnny properly. “You too. I feel kind of stupid for asking.”
“You shouldn’t,” Shabaz said. “And you didn’t ask, I offered. I’m pleased you let me come.”
“Oh,” Makaha said. “Okay.” He hesitated then said, “I heard you were with Kear when he . . . you know.”
“Yes,” she said. “I was with Kear.”
Listening to the calm, gentle tone of her voice, it amazed Johnny that this was the same whiny skid that had fallen with them from the Pipe. The Thread had changed Johnny forever, but it’d completely turned Shabaz around. I’m lucky to have her, he thought, surprising himself.
“That was nice,” Makaha said. “I liked Kear. We hung out a bit in the last few months; I kinda wish we’d hung out sooner. I wish I’d hung out with a lot more skids sooner. I mean outside the games and the sugarbars.”
“Well, we’re hanging out now,” Shabaz said easily.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
They rolled in silence for a while. A slight breeze ruffled the leaves in the trees, causing the light to ripple across the forest floor. It really was quite beautiful. Of course, that was the point. It had all been created that way.
Shabaz and Makaha began talking games. “My last one was earlier today: the Pins.” His stripes tilted. “I didn’t even come close to the podium. I never could figure out the right angles in that game.”
As Johnny listened to them talk, he began to understand why Makaha was tapping out at Seven.
In a way, it wasn’t that surprising: Makaha was far more representative of the average skid life than Johnny or even Shabaz. Even true Level Nines were rare, never more than ten or so at a time, maybe one percent of the skids to make Level Three eventually reaching that high. The rest hit their fifth birthdays at Level Eight or Seven or Six. Seven was the most common, with half the skids ending there. Most skids ending at Six were either lazy or played scared, like they never truly believed they’d made it past Three.
The ones that made Seven but not Eight usually had more complex reasons for not getting higher.
Makaha was the kind of skid who would always try to math it out. There were skids like that who succeeded, but they tended to be crazy smart, way smarter than Johnny’d ever been. Most of the skid
s who were too analytical couldn’t let it go: they’d never get the artistry of the Pipe or the Skates; never match the ferocity needed in Tag Box or Tilt; never find the daring needed in the Slope or Tunnel or . . . Johnny shook his stripe. They might do all right in Up and Down. . . .
“I won Up and Down once,” Makaha said suddenly, and Johnny had to fight down a laugh. At least the poor panzer had won something. “There’s a different way skids cheer when you win,” Makaha added, and the way he said it made Johnny stop laughing. “It’s . . . it’s really nice.”
“It is,” Shabaz agreed. “When was this?”
“About eight months ago. It’s how I got to Seven.” His stripes flushed as they all did the math. “I was a Seven for a long time. I was hoping maybe I could make Eight before . . . well, I guess that’s not going to happen.”
“Hey,” Johnny said, because the sadness in the poor guy’s voice was just too hard, “you made it five years: most skids who are born never get past one. If you think about it that way, you’ve actually made it farther than I have.”
“Oh,” Makaha said. “I never thought about it that way.” He started to turn. “Okay, I guess—”
And then he was gone. One second there, then next, he just . . . wasn’t.
There had been no warning at all.
At. All.
“Vape me,” Johnny breathed as a surge of conflicting emotions washed over him. Tears streaked Shabaz’s stripes. “How can . . . how can that just . . . ?”
He’d never seen a skid die on their fifth birthday. He’d seen Ones and Twos get vaped by the thousands, and after they’d been thrown into the Thread he’d had dozens die that he’d known or rescued from the void, some right at his treads. But this was different. Every single One or Two got a chance to fight, to survive to Three. Every one of the skids that had fallen into the Thread had died fighting—either the Vies or the Antis or the broken black breaking them from the inside out—but they’d at least gotten to fight. Even the ones like Aaliyah who’d had almost no chance, at least they’d had some.
But Makaha had just been taken away. No final stand, no warning, just a life . . . gone.
“This is treadgrease,” he spat, as the emotions resolved into anger. “Are they all like that?” He felt like he’d been vaped.
“Pretty much,” Shabaz said bitterly. She looked drained.
“So we all go out like that? In a year, that’s us? That’s—snakes, that’s Torg in—what?—a month? Two?” His whole body was shaking. They’d been talking . . . “Betty was right, this is vaped. There was nothing wrong with him!” he screamed into the woods, his voice echoing in the trees.
“I know,” Shabaz whispered.
Of course. Of course she knew this; she’d already gone through everything he’d just felt. And then she’d gone back again and again, to be there if there was a skid who wanted some company when they died. “Oh, snakes,” he breathed. He nudged up against her tread and put his arms on her stripes. “I can’t believe you do this every day.”
“I did it twice yesterday,” she said ruefully, rubbing tears from her skin. “But it’s not every day. There’s four, maybe five a week, and about half still want . . . they still want to be alone when they . . .” She took a deep raged breath. “But you know something? Even those ones thank me for the offer. Remember Shank? He was a mean old gearbox for his entire life, but when I offered to be there with him, he looked like I’d just given him the best gift he’d ever thought of. Said it was ‘lovely’ that I asked. Shank said that. Then . . . I guess he went into the woods.”
They were silent a moment, staring at the spot Makaha had vanished. “Something has to be done about this,” Johnny said quietly.
“How?” Shabaz tilted her stripes. “We can’t do anything from inside the sphere, Johnny. And I’m pretty sure the others are going to do what they can.”
Johnny thought of Betty, out in the Thread for almost fifty years. He had no real idea of everything she’d been able to accomplish; yeah, she’d been able to put the sphere into stasis to save it, but she hadn’t sounded like she was anywhere close to fixing the dying-in-five-years thing.
Not so long ago, in another sim back in the Thread that was both like the Skidsphere and so very different—both sims built to entertain the Out There—Johnny had been side-by-side with Albert, looking down on a body, wondering why anyone would create a world like this.
He remembered Albert’s snarled response: “Because they like watching things die.”
Then another conversation with Betty, not long after the one with Albert. Rage coating the legendary skid’s voice as she suggested that maybe the reason skids died at five years old was that if they lived longer, they might be able to do something about it.
“Something has to be done,” Johnny said again, unable to quantify his own feelings of helplessness and anger.
“And how are we going to do that?” Shabaz said gently, an odd expression in her gaze. “We can’t just come and go. What if we try to leave and we break the sphere like Betty did?” She sighed. “We can do what we can here, Johnny. We are making a difference.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said. Then he had a sudden thought, an extension of something he’d just said without really realizing it—a little more than a year from now, Shabaz, out here, dying alone. A wave of grief and anger swept over him. He’d already be gone, and she would have to . . .
“Whoa, hey,” she said, staring at him. “What the hole just went through your stripe? You okay?”
“Nothing,” he said roughly, sniffing hard. “It’s . . . it’s nothing.”
Her stripes quirked to one side. A small smile graced her lips as she reached out a Hasty-Arm and placed it on the side of his body. “Okay,” she said, holding her hand there for a minute before taking it away. “Okay.”
They sat like that, the breeze feathering the leaves and casting dappled light through the woods. Slowly, the anger and darkness faded and Johnny began to feel normal again. Without realizing it, he and Shabaz had taken each other’s hand.
Finally, he shifted on his treads and looked at Shabaz. She looked back with the small quirky smile that he was already beginning to recognize and love. “That was good, what you said to him at the end,” she said, squeezing his hand. “It was a good thought to go out on.”
“Yeah,” he said, his throat full. Snakes, that had been hard. “We should probably head back. Maybe we can—”
The ground bucked once—hard.
The force of the quake separated them and threw Johnny into an oak, as a sharp, deep crack echoed through the trees. Reaching for Shabaz, he yelled, “Grab on to something, this could be—” He stopped.
The ground was still. The echo of the quake faded into the day.
“That’s it?” he said, stunned. Shabaz had landed seven feet away. He’d never felt anything that strong in a corpsquake; and now . . . nothing. “What the hole was that?”
“I don’t know,” she said, wincing as she rubbed her side. “Snakes, that hurt.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I just twisted a tread. It’s fine.” She straightened up and looked around. “Was that a quake?”
“I don’t know,” he said, echoing her. Everything looked exactly as it had before the shock: a beautiful sunny day in the woods. “If that was in the Thread, something just broke hard.”
“I hate not knowing what’s going on,” she muttered. He looked at her, bemused. Wasn’t she the one telling him that they had to be happy with what they were doing? So much for her equilibrium.
She caught the look. “I never said you were wrong. Shut up.” She swept the woods in every direction with all three of her eyes. “Johnny, whatever that was, it wasn’t good.”
No, it wasn’t. Johnny couldn’t decide which was worse: that the Out There had designed a Thread with so many sims dying for entertainment, or that they’d abandoned it, leaving their creations a broken, crumbling world. Either way, Betty was right: they had a lot
to answer for.
His stripe tilted, feeling helpless. “What are we . . . what are we supposed to do?”
Shabaz stared at the woods for a moment more, then sighed. “Go back and do what we can.” She turned on her treads and he fell in beside her. “Do you think if it all falls apart, we’ll have any warning?”
The thought came uncomfortably close to what he’d thought after watching Makaha die. “I don’t know,” he said, watching sunlight dapple the leaves.
They rolled away, through the forest in the direction of the Spike. Despite the fact that both trailed an eye, neither of them noticed a shadow, far back in the woods, dart between the trees and begin to follow.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Didn’t you make Three?” Johnny said, frowning.
It was the next morning. Johnny and Shabaz had taken the rest of the day off after returning from the woods, talking long into the night. He’d never thought any death would be as horrible as what he’d seen out in the Thread—he’d been inside Brolin when he’d died—but Makaha’s death had haunted Johnny in a way he couldn’t really define. So he’d spent the night with Shabaz, then returned to the Combine, hoping to work on the living, maybe give someone a chance to live longer. If nothing else, he’d continue to help what skids he could.
He just hadn’t expected to continue helping this one.
Akash’s three lemon stripes flushed into a deeper yellow. “I . . . uh . . . I did. For sure, I got vaped in the Spinners yesterday.” The stripes flushed deeper. “I tried to score. It was the first time I ever did that. It, uh . . . it didn’t really work.”
A smirk worked its way across Johnny’s face. “Yeah, that tends to happen. The goalie hits harder than the others. Still, looks like you survived.” That got an embarrassed smile. “Which brings me back to the question: what are you doing back here?”
“I only got to Three cause you guys were helping me out,” Akash said. “I figured maybe . . . maybe I should do the same. I don’t really know what I can do, but I’d like to help.”
The fact that his third eye kept twitching in the direction of a certain white-red skid training a group of panzers on the far side suggested that not all his motives were altruistic. Still, that he’d thought to come back at all, that he wanted to help . . .
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