by Paul Melko
Around three in the morning, Gueran said, “You haven’t slept in a long time. Let me take the stick.”
I grunted, my eyes stinging from the constant headwind, and sank down in the bottom of the boat. Jol was there, curled in among the canvas blankets. She snuggled closer, and I let her.
She whispered in my ear, “Why don’t you want me?”
“I never said I didn’t.” I felt myself blush, and I was thankful none of my pod could read my thoughts.
“I’m attractive, I know I am. The orderlies said so.”
“You are. But I’ve never really …”
“Been outside your pod? Well, you’re outside them now.”
“Hush,” I said. Jol’s voice had been rising. “We’ve been together for a long time, is all. This drug has to wear off at some point.” I hoped it was so.
Jol shrugged. “And if it doesn’t?”
“I won’t be going back to that hospital, that’s for sure.”
“Me neither.” She placed a kiss on my forehead. “Thanks for rescuing me. I didn’t even know I needed rescuing.”
“You’re welcome.”
She kissed me again, this time on the lips.
I kissed back, gently, remembering what it was like when Meda kissed Malcolm Leto. It was nicer when it was not just a memory.
I pulled her closer, snuggling in the damp boat, and fell asleep.
I awoke to a half-heard thought. I sat up, shaking my head, and looked over the side. It was just before dawn, and the sky was overcast. Drops of rain plopped into the dank river. That was what I’d smelled.
Strom and Meda were in the prow of the boat awake, holding hands and sharing thoughts. Meda smiled, but I shrugged. If I had heard them thinking before, the air was silent now. I resisted the urge to crawl forward and touch hands.
“Don’t know this side of the river this far up,” Gueran muttered behind me.
I looked at him. He was only in his sixties, yet he had seen three ages of the Earth.
“Why didn’t you go with your brother?”
Gueran laughed. “I go, I be dead too.”
“How do you know he died? Didn’t the Community transcend?”
“Then they left a lot of dead bodies behind. Don’t know anyone want to leave their cock behind.”
“What do you mean?”
Gueran steered the boat up a small tributary.
“My brother, he visiting when things go to shit. He have this little satellite dish he put on my roof, so he can still be linked in, you know. He comes and visits and says it’s the best thing in the whole world, I should come do it. Get the little hole in my skull, like your one over there. Don’t need any more holes, you know.”
The boat ground onto a thin low bank. Gueran jumped out and tied it to a rubber tree. His finger ran across machete slices on the tree, came back white.
“Hmm, we better keep going, I think.”
He and I pushed the boat back out into the small river and Gueran turned us back toward the west.
“Anyway. He have breakfast, jacked in, maybe he checking his mail. Anyway he’s eating, and then he keels over, facefirst into the milk. Knocked over his pineapple juice. I say, ‘What, you kidding, Yos?’ but he deader than a doornail. I didn’t know the CPR or nothing, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Wasn’t nothing there anymore.” He tapped his head.
“So he dead that day, and that the same day the planes bombed Ulaanbaator. Then the people started getting the buboes, black in their pits, and dying. So many corpses after that, no one realize the Community had all died together. Like some cult thing.
“You say they transcended, I saw they died. Yos, he don’t know anything coming. He just keel over. I think you have a transcend coming, you let people know. Press release. Something. No, I don’t think they knew—”
The aircar shot over the trees of the northern bank and came to rest above the boat, the downspill rippling the water.
“This is the OG. Stop the boat now.” The speaker crackled.
“Shit,” Gueran said. But he didn’t stop the boat. Instead he aimed it at the bank and ran it full speed into the reeds and up onto the soft, muddy bank. A flock of birds winged up around us, hundreds, momentarily obscuring the aircar, which dodged to avoid them.
The boat tilted to the side, and everyone scrambled out. The mud sucked at my feet as I helped Jol out of the boat. Ahead of me was my pod and Gueran. Above, the aircar screamed and banked, trying to cut us off from the jungle.
Strom took control, and the pod swerved as one to the left, heading for a copse of trees. Gueran kept going straight, churning his thick arms. Jol slipped. I pulled her up by her arm, and she yelped.
The aircar turned after the pod, and I watched as Quant casually tossed a stone into the intake of the left engine.
Something clunked and the aircar spun. It still could fly with one, but the damaged engine compromised its speed and maneuverability. The pilot pulled up, unwilling to take a rock in the one remaining engine.
The jungle descended like a green curtain, the sound of river and aircar muffled in the creak of crickets and the call of birds.
Behind me, the pod ran up.
I grinned at Quant. “Nice throw.”
Quant raised her eyebrows, then grinned back wolfishly. “Thanks.”
We pushed into the jungle, following a game trail that touched the river and ran back into the rain forest. Whatever used the trail was short, because the vines tugged at our necks and the leaves slashed at our faces.
“We a couple days from the highway by boat. By jungle …” Gueran shrugged. “Long time.”
Behind us came the sound of the aircar landing.
“They’re coming in after us,” Jol said.
“There can’t be more than two in that aircar,” I said.
“Seats six, tightly,” Quant said.
“Three duos? Three military duos?”
The pod touched hands, assessing. I ignored it.
… one against three …
The thoughts tickled my wrists. I squeezed them away.
Gueran looked up at the canopy of green. “There’s a road from Bolivopolis to the highway. We may be able to walk it on the road. Won’t be able to in the jungle.”
“How far to the road?” I asked.
Gueran shrugged. “A few klicks.”
“They’ll have patrols on the road,” Meda said. “It’ll be impossible.”
“Even if we use the jungle for cover?” I asked. “One day by river is just a hundred kilometers at most. We can hike a couple hundred kilometers.”
“Weren’t you complaining about your feet just a week ago?” Meda asked.
“Strom can carry me,” I replied, joking.
“As far as you need,” Strom replied with sincerity.
Jol stepped between me and the pod. “If we split up, the soldiers will follow the larger group—them.” She dipped her head at the pod. “They’ll have sniffers, looking for pheromones. They won’t find us. You and I can slip away, live in the jungle maybe.”
“It’s not that simple,” I replied. But it was true that pheromone sniffers would find us in the jungle wherever we hid. We’d have to keep moving and move fast.
“It isn’t? Probably not for someone who’s always had a pod, who has never been alone,” Jol said, her voice breaking. Tears had formed in the corners of her eyes. I didn’t want to hurt her, but her alienness scared me. Her emotions were unknowable to me. “I’ve never had that security. But you’re like me now. You’re not like them.”
Meda caught my eye, then looked away. However we had come to be, by whatever choices and luck, we were one now and forever. I shook my head slowly. “I am them.”
“We can’t wait here,” Strom said softly.
“Manuel,” Jol said. “You’ll come with me?”
“I’m sorry, Jol. That decision was made fifteen years ago, and not by me,” I said, remembering the night Corrine was taken away. In Jol’s face, I saw Corrine�
�s terror. “I’m sorry, Jol.”
Her face contorted. “Bastard.” She turned and ran into the rain forest, disappearing in moments, even her crashing through the brush gobbled up by the lush forest.
I turned to Gueran. “Find her a place,” I said. “With singletons where she can find someone …”
Gueran nodded. “Sure, sure. I try.” He slipped into the jungle, yelling, “Good luck, Og flunky. Head for the road. Not far now.”
“Soldiers!” Quant whispered. “Coming this way.”
As one, the pod slipped forward onto the trail. I ran after them, catching up with them at a fork in the path.
Quant pointed toward one path, and the pod disappeared into the green. In the distance, something howled. Sniffers: a pack of engineered dogs, built to track pheromones.
Darkness fell, a quick migration from green to pitch-black. Strom paused long enough for us to dig the one flashlight we had from a pack salvaged from Gueran’s boat. He pointed the light ahead, and round eyes reflected back. The jungle was alive.
We ran through the night, Quant guiding us, redirecting us through the trunks and shrubs. Her directions did not always take us the best route, just the one that led us most south toward the road. Once we were forced to double back out of a ravine of rocks and vines. A second time, we had to travel east along a river until we could cross in a safe place, one running fast enough that we need not fear caimans and piranha.
At dawn we were exhausted, but I felt cleansed. A night of running in the darkness had shed my emotions and my anger. The loss of Jol stung, but I could not dwell on it. We rested and drank water near a small pool. The ground around us was littered with decomposing plant matter. Quant found a scorpion which she was observing intently as it searched a log for an insect breakfast.
I no longer heard the sniffers howling.
“Are we safe?” I asked.
“I doubt it,” Strom said simply.
Let’s go.
We had gone just a hundred meters when something slammed into my chest. I went down into the mulchy ground, stunned, unable to breathe or move. I could do nothing but watch the line of ants marching across the rain-forest floor in front of him. They were the size of my thumb.
“Well, well. We’ve flushed our pod,” someone said. I placed the voice: Anderson McCorkle.
Something brushed past me. I pushed myself up, saw the boots of one of the duo rushing at my face. My nose crunched.
“You won’t be helping out this time, singleton.”
Nausea wrecked my stomach.
In front of me, the ants crawled over the back of my hand, carrying shreds of leaves. Their feet prickled my skin. But I couldn’t brush them off, too intent on the pain in my skull.
A cry came from behind me: Moira. More sounds of movement in the brush. The pods were fighting again, but now the local terrain benefited the duo. They had had time to scout it and choose it for ambush.
I pushed myself up, ignoring the brief bites of the ants.
The jungle around me was empty, eerily silent. I pressed my hands to my eyes to stop the swaying. I knelt, listening.
Somewhere nearby, someone was breathing. Somewhat farther away, someone was moving through the underbrush.
I tried standing again. Blood dripped in streaks onto my shirt. Slowly I turned.
There on the ground two meters away was Quant, unconscious and breathing shallowly. I pulled her back against a tree trunk and slapped her wrist gently.
Quant blinked, gasped, and released a wave of fear pheromone. I smelled it, pulling away in surprise. Then I knelt back down, holding a finger to her lips.
Together we stood, peering out into the forest. The morning light drove spikes of light through the trees, illuminating some areas and leaving others dark.
Quant lifted her nose, then pointed.
“Over there,” she whispered.
I couldn’t taste the same smells that Quant could, though I had sensed the fear pheromone. The rest of the pod was out there in the direction Quant pointed. I reached out and touched Quant’s wrist, willing the chemical memories to move between us.
For a second I saw a binocular image of the jungle, but it faded into my own view.
I hissed through my teeth.
“Come on.”
We slipped between green leaves, looking for our pod or the duo. The land dipped down into a small ravine, covered in dark soil and hemmed-in tree roots.
Motion ahead caught my eye.
There was the duo, ahead of us five meters down the ravine, watching Quant and me. One of the two smiled grimly, then they launched themselves.
Quant hesitated, unsure of what to do by herself, a singleton. The first of the duo tackled her. But again they underestimated me and my speed.
I dove onto the exposed roots of the tree to my left and swarmed up the tree into the branches. When I was three meters up, I turned, hanging on to a branch above me, and kicked out with my feet, catching the second of the duo in the jaw.
They both winced.
I dropped to the floor and ran. The duo followed, leaving Quant.
I ran at dangerous speeds through the tangled ravine, nearly falling, my feet barely coming free from the twisting tree roots.
I caught a smell, a trace of pheromone. To my left. Then a touch of thought.
Lead them over here.
From the right.
I dodged up the right embankment, slowed enough by the climb to feel the touch of one of the duo on my feet.
Then I was over the side, into a flat, brushless area.
I ran as fast as I could, my poor modified feet protesting that they had been built to grasp, not to be run upon. I had no time for their complaints.
Behind me I heard a yell.
Turning, I saw the remaining three of my pod confronting the duo in an ambush from behind the trees. But we had stopped short of McCorkle.
The duo had drawn his gun.
“Enough running through the jungle,” McCorkle said. “This is over.”
The guns waved back and forth among us.
“Over here, freak,” McCorkle said, nodding at me. My heart was pounding, my breathing shallow. I could have dashed into the jungle, but that would draw his fire. Quant was still out there, somewhere.
I stepped forward, joining Strom, Meda, and Moira.
“Kneel with your hands behind your heads.”
One of him pulled a wad of plastic ties from his belt: handcuffs.
“Where’s your fifth?” one of McCorkle said.
The other cupped a hand to his mouth, yelled, “It’s over. I have the other four.”
Behind the two, a couple meters from their feet, an anthill writhed. A ring of loose dirt marked the circumference of the ants’ domain. Did they realize how close they were to falling in?
I glanced at Strom, caught his eye. With all my strength, I sent, Anthill. They’re a step away from falling in.
He looked at me, his gaze perplexed, then he seemed to catch my thought, and I heard, We’ll try it.
“Quiet!” one of the duo shouted.
“Come on! There’s no use hiding from me,” the other added. “I have eighty percent of you, and you’re not even the part that can function on her own.” McCorkle laughed.
“Three times, I’ve tried to destroy you, and each time you’ve escaped.”
“I think we’ll dispense with fisticuffs and go straight to a bullet to the head.”
McCorkle shared a thought, and one of him stepped forward to bind my wrists.
Quant.
Something flew from the jungle—a rock—thumping against McCorkle’s wrist. The gun flew away. The other McCorkle, about to bind my wrists, dropped the bands and reached for his holster.
I pushed from my precarious position on the ground, hopping up to get my feet under me.
The McCorkle in front of me tipped over, spinning his arms. His foot slipped at the end of the anthill, and he fell screaming into it facefirst, disappearing in the lo
ose dirt.
The other McCorkle dove for his gun, but Strom’s path crossed his before he reached it. Strom slammed the man into the dirt, while Moira kicked the gun away.
His fellow was struggling in the anthill, overwhelmed by the millions of deadly insects. I reached in and pulled him out of the trap, dusting the ants from his face and neck. Already his cheeks were red and swollen. They barely struggled as we used their own plastic ties to bind their arms together.
We should leave them on the anthill, I sent.
It was so natural to slip into my pod’s mindspace.
I felt their rhythmic patterns of thought, their telltale personalities.
Strom laughed.
Too good for them.
I felt Moira’s hand on mine. Welcome back.
Too long apart.
We dragged the duo into the ravine, where we removed their equipment and any useful items. We bound their wrists, then tied them together. Their legs we left free. They would be able to make their way out of the jungle, but slowly.
We set off to the north.
We’re only a few kilometers from the highway.
It should be an easy trek.
We just have to stay ahead of the sniffers.
I felt myself a part of the consensus, almost overwhelmed by it. Yet, there was no other place to be.
I could have turned them off. I could have shut my thoughts down, forced a wall up. I could have; the drug had shown me how to do it, but I chose not to.
I pushed down thoughts of what might have been—thoughts of Jol and Corrine—and ran ahead to scout the path.
FIVE
Moira
We found the North-South Highway that next morning, a span of mundane plascrete, built five decades ago by the Community to facilitate transfer of goods between continents. Ageless nano maintained the stretch, keeping the encroaching jungle off the berm and repairing any stress cracks before they became visible. Just like the microwave power transmitters, this was another piece of Community technology that pod society used freely. Along the eight-lane road, one-, two-, and three-engine cabs pulled loads at over three hundred kilometers per hour.
How will we stop one? Quant asked.
How will we stop the driver from reporting us? Manuel added.