Out of Sight (Progenitor Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  Lissa spat up a mouthful of water and lapsed into a fit of heavy coughing. Sima kept patting and rubbing her back, muttering encouragement. Once it became clear no more water would come up, she pulled the girl into a hug and held on. The child’s skin had become cold, but not quite so much it worried her.

  “My breaths hurt,” rasped Lissa. “I got dizzy.”

  Austin let out a long sigh of relief.

  “She gets tired fast,” said Juan.

  “I’m sorry,” said Sima, tears in her eyes. “I should’ve pulled you out of the water before you got too tired to keep swimming.”

  Lissa shook her head. “I splashed too hard. My fault did it.”

  They sat in silence for a while, Sima holding Lissa in her lap. Eventually, Austin dried off enough to pull his briefs back on and began wandering along the creek bank. Juan, despite being dry, ignored his pants and followed after.

  “Juan,” said Sima. “Get dressed before you go wandering around.”

  He shrugged and came back to reclaim his shorts.

  Sima picked up Lissa’s briefs. The girl gave her a look of mild annoyance but offered no protest to being dressed like a toddler. She rested her cheek on Sima’s shoulder and continued to breathe in raspy wheezes. Having no idea what else to do with a kid clinging to her like that, Sima pet her like a cat. She’d never had dolls growing up, and her mother never touched her beyond the likely changing of diapers that happened too long ago to remember. Granted, the occasional slap when they argued counted as ‘touch.’ As much dislike as Sima had for her mother, it deepened at the wonder how a grown woman could strike a child. She couldn’t imagine wanting to hit the fragile-looking Lissa. Had something been wrong with her mother, or had she not been cute enough to trigger the same feelings within her mother that this girl drew forth from her? Sima hadn’t even given birth to this tiny blonde sprite, and yet, somehow, she couldn’t bear the thought of her being in pain.

  “I’m sorry,” whispered Lissa. “The doctor lady told me I shouldn’t do too much. I’m not supposed to run and stuff. Not ’til the doctors here give me new breaths.”

  Sima rubbed the girl’s back. This kid needs food. “Let’s find a fruit or something. Are you hungry?”

  “Not really, but I’ll eat if you want me to. My parents didn’t have food all the time.”

  “My mom made me cook for myself.”

  Lissa grinned. “But you’re big!”

  “Since I was like eight.” Sima stood, carrying her. She walked to the left, following Austin and Juan, who’d since vanished into the trees.

  “Boys?” called Sima.

  “Here,” yelled Austin. “You gotta see this!”

  Sima shifted the girl to the side, perched on her left hip, and hurried up to a trot, worried at having the boys out of sight. A minute or so later, she ducked past a curtain of teal-colored vines and stopped short at the sight waiting for her.

  One of those enormous twenty-foot tall flamingo-shaped birds sat in the creek, emitting sad cooing noises so deep they rattled Sima’s bones. This one had sapphire blue feathers instead of green, and a white beak. Austin had tucked himself up under its right wing and appeared to be either scratching at or combing its feathers.

  Juan ran in circles chasing blue, fuzzy creatures that ranged in size from ramen bowls up to bigger than an EGSF officer’s helmet. They emitted squeals that sounded like a combination of piglets and chipmunks, avoiding him with relative ease. Whenever one got far enough away, it calmed and stopped running, turning its two pairs of oversized black eyes warily on him. The boy seemed to be trying to pet or hug one, but the critters had little interest in human contact.

  The bird swung its head around toward Austin, emitting a soft slate-scraping noise while the lower flap of its beak fluttered.

  Lissa gasped, pointing at the bird, then whispered, “Is it going to eat him?”

  “I don’t think so,” whispered Sima. “Austin, what are you doing?”

  “It’s hurt.” Austin ducked out from under the wing, holding up a handful of thin metal rods. “It’s got these stuck all over its side.”

  Sima stepped around the darting fuzzballs and approached him.

  “They’re so cute!” chirped Lissa, reaching toward one of the ‘pigs.’ “Can we keep one?”

  “They’re wild, not pets.” Sima gestured at Juan. “Stop chasing them. If they feel cornered, they might bite you.”

  “Okay.” Juan stopped running around, but still walked toward the creatures.

  Austin showed her a handful of narrow sticks, each about nine inches long, seemingly made of dull, silvery metal. They tapered to points on one end with small holes like hypodermic needles. The opposite end had a nugget of some rubbery translucent substance. “There’s a bunch of these stuck in the bird. They look like darts. Think there’s tribes here?”

  A shiver of worry ran down Sima’s back. She set Lissa on her feet and took the bundle. “Bracelet, what are these?”

  Lissa wrapped both arms around her and clung.

  As soon as Sima held her left wrist near the strange darts, the grid of blue laser light appeared.

  ‹Material composition corresponds to keratinous biological matter with an abnormally high mineral content. Cartilaginous deposits at the posterior end suggests a form of naturally growing quill.› An image of a porcupine appeared on the little holographic screen. ‹Based on the length and diameter of these quills, my calculations indicate there may be an animal here similar to this, though it would be quite large. I am also detecting traces of venom inside the quill.›

  “Venom?” Sima’s eyebrows went up. “Austin! Be careful.”

  “I am,” said the boy, once more buried under a huge wing. “I’m not gonna stick myself with one.” He plucked more quills out one by one, and dropped them.

  “None of us have shoes,” said Sima.

  “So don’t step on them.” He dropped another one.

  Sima looked up at the massive bird. Dark sapphire blue feathers shimmered in the sunlight, almost blending in with the forest canopy above. The creature’s great spherical eyes fixated on Austin, though the bird didn’t appear agitated at his proximity. In fact, its demeanor gave off a sense of gratitude. “Just be careful, okay?”

  “Yeah,” said Austin.

  A sudden, gurgly noise interrupted Lissa’s breathing. She coughed once, hard enough that her briefs fell. With a phlegmy sigh of annoyance, she stooped to pull them back up. “These are too big.”

  “Mine are too small,” said Juan. “Wanna trade?”

  Lissa shook her head. “You have boy shorts. And you’re bigger than me. Those would still be too big.”

  Austin grunted and climbed up the bird’s side. He perched on top of its body, straining to reach a few quills stuck near the base of the long, tubular neck. Sima bit her lip, not at all comfortable at having him that close to unknown wildlife. The bird didn’t appear capable of bending in a way necessary to pluck the darts from its neck. She figured it probably could’ve reached the ones in its side, but perhaps the work had been too delicate for such a massive beak.

  “It’s a space chicken,” said Lissa.

  Juan laughed.

  Sima looked at her bracelet. “Do these things have a name?”

  ‹Not yet.›

  Lissa stared at the bird for a moment, then said, “Aurak.”

  “What?” Sima glanced down at her.

  The girl pointed at the giant bird. “That’s an Aurak.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Juan laughed. “She made it up.”

  “Yeah. So?” asked Lissa. “When it did bird talking, it kinda sounded like”—she mimicked an avian screech—“auraaaak.”

  The bird emitted a noise somewhere between araaak and orek.

  Sima blinked at it. Did that thing understand her? No way… not only was it an animal, who would possibly have taught it to understand GANSEC. Of all the names a six-year-old could’ve come up with for something, that d
idn’t sound bad at all. “All right, that works.”

  ‹Database updated.›

  The Aurak twisted its head around and rubbed its huge beak against Austin’s shoulder.

  “Okay, okay,” said the boy. “I’m almost done. Just a couple more.”

  It emitted the same araaak noise. Though the creature appeared to be attempting a soft whisper, its sheer size made the vocalization loud enough to be cringe inducing, and the rotting vegetation on its breath didn’t help. Lissa got some color back in her face and the wheeziness in her breathing faded to almost nothing.

  “Last one,” said Austin, before tossing a quill into the water.

  With a groaning cry of exultation, the Aurak lurched upright on its stilt-like legs, carrying Austin way up off the ground.

  “Aaah!” he yelled, clamping himself around the base of its neck with both arms and legs.

  “Down!” said Sima, waving her hands. “Let him down!”

  Ignoring her, the Aurak strode forward, following the stream. Austin shifted side to side, peering over at the ground easily twenty feet below. High branches bent out of the way of the bird’s tall neck, though its eye stalks reached past the top of the jungle canopy, free from whipping vines and leaves.

  Sima pulled Lissa onto her back and grabbed Juan by the hand before rushing after it, having to run to keep up with the Aurak’s casual stride. Austin went from making nervous whimpers to laughing, then cheering as he rode the huge creature through the jungle.

  “This is awesome,” shouted Austin.

  A chest-high growth part root, part vine got in the way a few minutes later. The indigo plant looked much like the stem of a rose bush, only in place of thorns, it had soft, conical flowers in various shades of white and lavender. Sima hoisted Juan up on top of it, then Lissa scrambled off her shoulders to follow him. Both kids squatted and grabbed at her, helping her climb up and over the oily plant. Touching the side left her smeared with dark blue like ink. The kids jumped down to stand beside her. Lissa lifted her foot, giggling at her stained soles. Juan reached over and left a purple handprint on Lissa’s chest. She returned the favor, but on his face.

  “Damn,” said Sima. “Is this dangerous?”

  The bracelet projected its laser grid for a few seconds on her hand. ‹Chemical analysis suggests it would taste extremely bitter and likely induce vomiting if consumed. However, it is harmless on contact with skin.›

  Lissa pressed her hands into Sima’s leg, leaving two indigo prints, then grinned up at her. Before the child could roll around on the vine and turn herself blue from head to toe, Sima snagged her by the wrist and pulled her along. She didn’t trust leaving that stuff all over everyone, but she had bigger issues—like a three-story tall googly-eyed flamingo walking away with Austin—to worry about.

  Once more with Lissa on like a backpack, she rushed along the creek, which grew deeper and wider. Running made up ground, and as soon as she got close enough to see the Aurak, she relaxed and slowed to a jog. Austin appeared to be having a blast, clinging to the bird’s neck and looking around at the landscape. The creature didn’t move its right wing much at all, and its gait suggested the leg on that side had become weakened.

  Those quills.

  “Hey,” yelled Juan. “You see any other lifeboats from up there?”

  Austin twisted side to side, a hand to his forehead shielding his eyes. “No… just more trees. I can’t see over them.”

  Other bird-like creatures cruised by above the tree canopy. The smallest ones looked about Lissa’s size. Most had deep blue feathers, others dark green, and a handful yellowish-orange. Not one paid the least bit of attention to the humans who had invaded their home.

  The Aurak stopped without warning and leaned down to nip at the treetops. It closed its beak around a large blue pod studded with lime green spheres, and snapped it from the tree with little effort. Rather than swallow it whole like the last bird she’d seen, it twisted its head around, holding the pod toward Austin.

  He peered up at it for a few seconds, confused, until he decided to grab one of the green pods and pull it away from the blue part. The Aurak turned its head toward the bank, leaning close, dangling the pod in front of her. Sima stared up at it in awe.

  This thing could eat me in one bite.

  Dark indigo membranes on its eye spheres tilted upward on the inside, conveying an almost human emotional quality in the way eyebrows might say ‘aww, how cute.’ The bird cooed from deep within its throat, and dropped the pod to the ground beside her with a heavy thump. It nudged the fruit with its beak, then flapped the movable bottom part as if to say ‘eat up.’

  Austin stared at the sphere in his hands, almost bigger than his head. “It kinda smells like something I had before, but I don’t know what to call it.”

  Sima set Lissa down and squatted over the huge pod. As soon as she plucked one of the spheres loose, the Aurak cooed again and lifted its head back into the trees to eat a second pod in one bite. She held the fruit close and sniffed it, getting a whiff of peach.

  “Smells like peaches,” said Sima, before taking a tentative nibble. It somewhat tasted like a peach as well, if a peach had been crossbred with a lemon. Though, since the flavor had more sweet than tart, she took a bigger bite.

  Lissa and Juan helped themselves to a single fruit, which they shared.

  After eating three entire pods, each of which had about twenty or so fruits on it, the Aurak resumed walking. Austin looked over the side down at Sima, with a hint of worry in his expression.

  “Umm, bird?” asked Sima. “Can you maybe let him down?”

  The Aurak trilled, but didn’t slow—or put Austin on the ground.

  Sima scrambled to her feet.

  “Don’t leave them,” said Juan, pointing at the pod. “We can’t reach those without the bird. I like it!”

  Since the Aurak didn’t give off any indication it meant harm to Austin, she allowed herself to turn back and grab the stalk. The whole pod weighed too much for her to lift, so she dragged it along while trudging after the bird. Though the creature moved with a lazy, ambling stride, its huge legs translated to a speed closer to a human sprinting. Sima resigned herself to the truth of having no chance of keeping up with the thing. At least it followed the river, which made losing track of it difficult.

  Austin’s cheering and hollering got farther and farther away, but the Aurak’s size let Sima keep a general sense of where it went. They followed for quite some time, long enough that Lissa began wheezing again from the effort of walking. Sima looked back and forth between the ever-distancing shadow of the bird and the little girl struggling to keep up.

  “Austin,” shouted Sima. “Jump down into the water.”

  “No way!” he yelled back. “This is awesome! And, there’s a lake!”

  Sima stared down at her feet, covered in dirt. Indigo ink from the massive vine still smeared all over her, likely adding permanent stains to her feeble excuse for clothing. She pulled Lissa up onto her back again, and continued dragging the fruit pod along. Trudging through waist-high underbrush proved an exercise in caution and vigilance. Plants in this jungle so far appeared to come in three varieties: edible fruit, soft, gossamer things that broke with little effort, or razor-sharp nastiness. It didn’t take her long to figure out which pointy-leafed dangers to avoid, and which unpleasant-looking red-yellow shrubs with fake thorns or black ‘needles’ were actually harmless and soft.

  Eventually, she emerged from the jungle onto the shore of a giant lake. Awestruck, she stood there staring at the crystalline blue water and pale brown sand. The Aurak, having settled itself in the water, swam around like an enormous swan, no sign of its legs visible above the surface.

  Sima collapsed to a seat on the bank, her toes inches away from the lapping water. Lissa curled up beside her, playing in the mud. Juan took a few more bites from the fruit he’d been carrying, set it on the ground, and walked into the water.

  Some minutes later, Lissa ceased w
heezing and smiled. “I like this place. It’s pretty.”

  “Yeah.” Sima whistled in awe, looking around at all the plant life surrounding the shore. She’d never seen so much water in one place before except for pictures of oceans. The lake was so wide, she figured it would take like an hour to drive across an equal distance of land in a gee-vee. “It’s like something out of a movie.”

  Lissa nodded. “I’m not scared that we don’t have a ’partment to live in. I like it here more than where I lived before.”

  “Where was that?” asked Sima.

  “Like under a broke building. A big room with all old sofas and stuff. This man, Piro, kinda took care of us, but he collected our begs and gave us food.”

  Sima shot a nasty look off at the trees. Lissa had fallen into a Keeper’s little troupe of kid beggars. One such woman had tried to convince Sima to join her band of orphans soon after she first hit the streets. At twelve, she’d looked more like ten, but even at that age, she knew the woman would’ve kept most of the money, exploiting the little ones’ instinct to seek a caregiver for her own financial gain.

  “I wasn’t there long.” Lissa shook her head. “Only a couple days before the cops found us.”

  Austin, evidently having his fill of riding birdback, jumped off the Aurak and swam for shore. Once on the bank, he removed his briefs long enough to wring them out, then pulled them back on.

  The kids gathered around her, sitting and resting for a while. More Auraks in various colorations arrived, some rushing into the lake with such force they sent huge splashes into the air. Eventually, a total of nine huge birds swam about, gravitating together in a cluster. The one they had been following kept looking toward her. Now and then, the others appeared to respond to it and also looked at them.

  Wow… almost like it’s telling them about us.

  Sick of being covered in oily blue gunk, Sima got to her feet and disrobed. Despite her innate embarrassment, none of the kids reacted. She gestured at the shore, and patted Lissa on the head. “Let’s wash that blue stuff off you.”

  “Okay.” The girl flung her briefs off and scrambled into the lake.