In the last days, Ray slept most of the time. Ethan framed mental conversations with him. Missing Ray's smiling words, Ethan's mental conversations mingled increasingly into his day even before he passed on. In all the long years after his death, Ethan had more conversations with Ray than they'd actually experienced in his short life, imagining responses from fragments of pieced-together memories.
Got to hurry, he thought, but it was more of a question.
But we've also got to be careful, Ray answered. You saw what almost happened…
I know. It was close, but it's under control.
Ethan imagined Ray shaking his head, his little eyes staring.
I pulled it back again, Ethan thought. I just lost control for a second, there was a lot going on, and…
But it affected him, Ray said from somewhere indistinct.
Ray was right. Yes, I think so. He had trouble catching his breath and I thought he might faint, but I rolled it back in time. He's young. Ethan scowled as he climbed the steep hill, putting his hand on each knee as he stepped to push up.
How are we going to get him out of that thing? Should have brought the crowbar, maybe I could crack it open at the seam. He stopped to listen. Have to find him first anyway. If he's changed direction… Ethan trailed off worrying.
Ethan sensed Ray was still concerned and reassured him, I've got this under control. I think I can control it now. Ethan knew Ray was waiting for him to open up. It's been so long…
I don't think so Dad. Ethan's throat constricted hearing Ray say "Dad". He swallowed. Ray seemed to sense his heartache and softly asked, What about Oscar?
Ethan reached the ridgeline. In the summer, with every tree covered by leaves, there were only a few ridgelines that actually offered a view of the surrounding hills and valleys. Most, like this one were boxed in by leaves and branches allowing only gaps through the trees to see the valley below. A large rock outcropped the ridge. Ethan climbed up on it for the additional elevation, the rock also providing a quiet place to stand without rustling leaves.
He listened, slowly turning, careful to avoid falling from the rock. He heard shuffling in the leaves over the next ridge, or maybe further. It sounded like something running, or at least moving faster than the slow walking pace of a deer or a bear. Ethan tried to focus his hearing on the sound, but instead heard the sound of helicopter blades thrumming thick, humid air.
Ethan looked up, trying to pinpoint the helicopter. It wasn't close enough to see, and the tree cover overhead was dense.
Might be someone looking for the boy, Ethan guessed, or a routine overflight looking for marijuana plants. In any event, it wasn't close enough to help, just close enough to completely cover the shuffling sound. Go on, Ethan thought, move on.
He was still looking up, when something white caught his eye. It was only above the treetops for a second before he lost sight of it. He heard sticks break and leaves rustle in the direction whatever it was seemed to travel, but couldn't see or hear anything else above the low thrumming of the distant helicopter blades. It was maddening. The dense woods already limited his vision to short distances, making him more dependent on sound – and the helicopter reduced even that.
What was that? He hadn't seen it straight on, only from the periphery, but he was sure that it was white. It stood out sharply in the green treescape. He looked in the direction of his earlier pursuit and then back where he'd seen the white shape.
The helicopter was closer to the direction he'd been traveling. If that is a search and rescue copter, and Leo is in that direction, they will find him before I do. If that white movement was Leo though, he's going in almost the opposite direction – they won't find him, or at least I can probably get there first.
Ethan set off in the direction he'd seen the flash of white, unsure if he'd made the right choice. As the helicopter left his original route and he heard it coming in this direction though, he began to hope he'd chosen right after all.
40
Leo wasn't expecting the suit to leap. When it did, it took him a moment to figure out what was happening.
It walked up the ridgeline faster than he could have climbed it unencumbered. It reminded Leo of a train. The Clinchfield Railroad still carried loads along the Nolichucky River. Trains sliced through the mountain valleys several times a day. When you were close to the track, you kept an ear out in both directions. There was something abrupt and surprising about a train suddenly appearing around a bend. Even when you were clear of the tracks, it was a disconcerting surprise. The train seemed out of place in the quiet.
Reaching the ridge top, the suit slid to a stop on small gravel. It squatted down into a deep crouch, extending Leo's arms to brace on the ground in front of it. It's the same pose that Ethan carved, Leo thought. Then, something smacked the back of his head hard, and green leaves and branches smashed into his face. They flew through the tree tops, then sailed into clear air. He felt leaves brush the boot tips.
Air rushed at his face, then both of the suit's arms were in front of him, shielding him as the leap's arc dropped him back into tree branches. Thick branches cracked against the suit, with the leap's great momentum shattering the smaller ones out of the way. The right arm whipped out and down. Leo saw pieces of a huge dead limb and a mass of flying splinters flash past before the right arm came back to shield him.
Leo tightened his eyes against the impact he knew was coming when they hit ground. He expected a bone-shattering impact. Leaves and branches exploded around him when the suit hit. It was still traveling vertically and horizontally, but Leo could hardly tell anything had happened. It felt like he'd jumped down from his bed. Momentum slid them for several yards through the leaves. The boots ripped deep into the soft dark soil and wet, fallen leaves.
Before all the momentum was gone, the suit started running, changing direction. Leo twisted his head to look back. The suit had leaped from one ridge to another, avoiding the thick rhododendron and briar growth that accumulated in the crease.
41
This last mountain was steeper than all the others they'd passed. Giant Poplar trees ran from ground to sky, with trunks straight as rulers. The giant trees surrounded the clearing, digging deep roots into the ground away from the cliff edge. Small scrub trees sunk their own tough roots down through rocky loose gravel nearer the edge.
It was treacherous, sliding footing. Leo would normally crawl low or even go on all fours to peer carefully over such sheer edges, fearing the loose rocks would give way underneath.
The suit ran up the very edge, boots sliding for traction. Leo saw the edge ahead had fallen away leaving two large stones jutting precariously into space. The suit didn't slow, launching from one rock to the other with a long stride. Leo felt his heart trying to fly up out of his chest.
Looking left, he saw the tall trees too far away. On his right, he saw only air and hazy green distant mountains. He held his breath, expecting to slip and fall over the edge at any moment as the suit ran.
Then they crested the ridge. Unable to see the ground near his feet, Leo expected the suit would sail off into empty air. He felt the boots sliding across the rocks. Finally, the sliding stopped and the suit stood up from its running crouch. They were in a clearing atop a high cliff.
He couldn't see the ground, but the open air all around him was assurance enough that the suit must be standing directly over the cliff's edge. His fingers tingled and his palms felt cold and sweaty as he peered over the collar's rim. He saw the tops of tall Poplar trees in the valley below. On all sides he looked out over valleys and mountains covered by trees, packed so tightly that he couldn't see ground. Leo looked toward Iron Mountain. He couldn't see any of the houses through the tree cover, but thought he was looking at one of the mountains that circled the village valley.
Twisting his neck, he saw the forest behind the clearing. Large rocks scattered a boundary between forest and the rock scrabble clearing.
The suit stood on the edge. After a few minutes,
the arms moved. Both arms stretched out to each side, palms open. It froze in position, as if the suit relished the warm midday sunlight.
Then it was quiet. The suite made no movement or sound. Leo heard the squeaks and chirps of grey nuthatches as they regrouped in the clearing. He heard, or possibly felt, a very low vibration coming from the suit. When he focused on it, he thought it might have some minimal change of scale or pattern, but it was so faint Leo he thought it could just be his imagination.
Gradually, he heard a new sound, very faint, but increasing – a helicopter. Leo straightened, the stiff and sore muscles of his neck locking his head in place, his mind gauging the subtle difference in volume, triangulating the helicopter's position.
He held his breath hoping the helicopter would continue growing louder.
A branch cracked in the woods behind him. Leo tried to see the sleeve's map, hoping it might identify a potential rescuer, or at least assure him that it wasn't a threat, but the arms were still fixed outstretched. The map was too far to read and at the wrong angle.
He craned his neck to one side, then the next, trying to see what was coming. The crunching and shuffling leaves suggested a person walking rather than the mulling casualness of an animal looking for food.
"Hello?" Leo asked.
42
Taylor pulled himself onto a sunbaked gray sandstone rock and breathed deep. He felt the blood pumping through his jugular vein. It thrummed in his ears.
He was slick and slimy with sweat. Dust and dirt mixed with sweat to make a gritty grime. He pulled loose shirttail from his waist and wiped face and forearms. The shirt was soaked through with sweat already, but he felt better getting the grime off. The painful presence in his mind had blasted him several times during his trek through the woods. He was in poor physical condition and stopped several times when he couldn't force himself to go further. After a minute, images would flash into his head. He learned quickly that failure to respond to the images would be corrected by the painful jarring. Trying to breathe in the thick and humid air was like pulling oxygen out of water. He sat on the rock expecting to receive another prod again before he could rest. A moment passed, and another though, and he gratefully used the opportunity to catch his breath, never taking his eyes from the white figure standing on the cliff ahead.
Although he was far outside the usual range for a timesharing connection, almost fifty feet, he felt his mind beginning to connect with the person in the white suit. For some reason, the suit was facing the cliff edge. The toes of its boots appeared to be almost hanging over the edge. It reminded Taylor of the mountain statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro that stood on the precipice with white arms outstretched. His mind recognized the figure in the suit as a boy. He sat, still breathing hard, while he allowed the connection to fix in place.
"Hello?" the boy said again. Taylor felt his fear, his racing rabbit's heart, trapped in a snare and fearing the step of the hunter.
43
Taylor didn't respond to the boy's call. He sat for a moment longer, quietly thinking. Then he stood and slowly made his way to the boy. Several times he nearly fell, twisting his footing. The clearing was covered with sharp-edged rocks, shattered by winter ice and summer heat. He felt a fury toward the boy rising within him. Whatever coerced him up the mountain bristled at the sight of the boy in the white suit. Having felt the punishment the presence could inflict, Taylor felt a moment's empathy toward the boy. He wasn't accustomed to concern for anyone else, but it only lasted a moment.
It wants the suit back, he thought. All of this was to get back here to this suit. As he thought this, an image flashed to his mind along with a feeling of frustrated impatience. In his mind he saw the long-armed suit flying through blackness. Not a suit, a flightsuit. It is a flightsuit. And the frustrated feeling subsided.
He stepped close to the flightsuit, edging carefully toward it while keeping a close eye on the cliff's edge. The flightsuit's boot tip was just inches from the edge of the cliff. Taylor wondered why the suit would step so close to the edge. Some of the small rocks dislodged as Taylor's foot scooted close to the suit actually fell from the edge causing the last drips of Taylor's exhausted adrenalin to seep into his bloodstream.
The boy's eyes were wide and frightened. His face was covered with dust and grit with clear streaks underneath his eyes. His wide eyes looked hopefully at Taylor over the edge of the flightsuit's deep collar.
Taylor looked down at the flightsuit. He reached his own dirt-covered fingers to the touch the white shoulder. The boy gasped, "No! Don't touch it! It will shock you."
Taylor hesitated, listening and tense, for a warning from the presence. I don't think so, he thought. In fact, it felt like the presence wanted to feel it. He slid his fingers along the smooth shoulder. Same, thought Taylor. It's the same as the artifact. It felt so smooth, like glass. As his grimy fingers traced the surface, the dirt fell away leaving no smudge, no mark at all. He looked at the flightsuit standing amidst the dust of the clearing and saw its surface shone as if polished. He tapped on the sleeve to hear the heavy metallic ring and smiled.
Stepping back from the cliff edge, Taylor slid a small pack from his shoulder. He reached inside and withdrew the artifact Sowyer had stolen. He looked at the flightsuit trying to see where it fit. There didn't seem to be any holes in the surface, nothing missing. He felt the artifact pull from his fingers. He craned his neck watching the artifact float to the opposite shoulder and settle into place. The artifact formed a ridge on the shoulder that Taylor now saw matched one on the right. It wasn't obvious before. He reached up and touched the artifact's twin on the near shoulder. Seamlessly back together. Amazing.
"Who are you?" Leo asked.
Taylor looked back at him unsure of what would happen next. He had no checklists, no plans for this. He felt the familiar neural network expanding between himself and the boy. He realized, without noticing exactly when the knowledge came to him, that the flightsuit was quite capable of movement. It had run up the cliff edge. It had leaped from ridge to ridge. It was powerful and drew energy from some invisible source. He looked blankly into Leo's eyes, giving no response, while he dug through his memories and experiences. Leo stood locked in place with his mind open to Taylor's exploration.
This experience felt different to Taylor. Not just timesharing. He imagined himself standing in a maze hallway. Little things, he imagined them as figureless small living things, darted past him through the maze, fleeing past in both directions. Ahead, he saw the hall divided in two directions. Some of the little things flashing past his legs went down one passage and a few vanished into the other. He watched the shapeless things for a while before he realized what they were. Thoughts. These are his thoughts. He'd never seen his own, or anyone else's speeding thoughts in this way. It might not even be possible, he realized. Might create some kind of inescapable looping process to start trying to see your own thoughts. Searching thoughts could blend into the stream of searched thoughts and…what? He had no idea, but it might not be a good idea to go too far with that particular experiment.
What else could these little things be? Nothing occurred to him. Wonder if I can actually catch one? His perspective of them seemed as real in this maze place as his own imagined form. He bent slightly and when the next one came around the corner, he grabbed it. It recoiled under his fingers, trying to escape, but Taylor only squeezed it harder. It burst in a spray of Cerenkov-blue jelly. The flowing jelly seeped into his hands and forearms. He licked some from his lips where it had splashed his face. He heard a boy's voice in his mind. It was clear, isolated sound with no background noise at all – like a voice in a dampened broadcast booth. The boy's voice asked, "Maybe he owns it?"
Taylor looked down and saw the crushed little thing pull itself back together at his feet. After a moment, it started to move again. There was a sensation of it moving slowly at first, then abruptly achieving the same speed as the other little ones flashing past him. He looked at his fingers. The je
lly's glow rapidly faded into grey. The electric warmth as it splashed onto his skin now felt like a brush with frog's skin. Wet and dead.
He crouched and waited for another of the little things.
44
As seconds passed in the world outside, Taylor ran through Leo's mind chasing his thoughts, catching them and tearing them apart. His mental personae was covered in gray slime of dozens of intercepted thoughts. The darting thoughts had no hiding place safe from him. Their path through the maze made them vulnerable to Taylor's capture, and he tore apart one after another. As with the first, they reformed at his feet in a diminished state before continuing their original journey.
He wondered if he could create one of the little things himself and send it into the maze. Would it be processed by the boy's mind? He decided to try. What message would he send for such an unprecedented experiment? What would be fitting? Something more suitable than Graham Bell's "Watson! Come here I need you." He watched the helpless little thoughts flying past his knees and felt his complete mastery of the boy's mind. He thought of just the right announcement. As he stood in the maze, covered in the slime and essence of a dozen stolen thoughts, he smiled.
He echoed his announcement in his own mind, trying to figure out how it might be packaged from a stream that he knew was present but invisible. He concentrated and imagined himself to be a magnet, drawing, pulling at the invisible stream. Finally he felt a current between his fingers, as if he'd plunged them into a river and felt invisible forces slipping past them. The invisible forces collected into a fog between his two outstretched palms. It became less transparent and resembled a floating, spinning jellyfish. As it grew to the size of the boy's thoughts, he let his announcement echo into it. The blue glow swirled in until it looked just like the ones flashing past. He squeezed it experimentally and was surprised to feel a sudden terror. He looked about him in the maze, feeling threatened and afraid. There was nothing but the little thoughts. He squeezed his little thought package again and the sudden fear returned as if he were a trapped animal hearing a hunter's step.
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