Battle of Earth

by Chloe Garner

  “Yes,” Olivia and Cassie said at the same time.

  Olivia looked up at the Palta woman, and they both nodded after a moment. He wasn’t perfect with either of them, but they both wanted him back enough to be able to live with that.

  “Sorry ladies,” Troy said with another laugh. “The guy who volunteers for a job like that is back pushing paper on Earth.”

  “No,” Cassie said. “You’re still him. You’re all of his spontaneity and all of his joy, but you still care about things just like you always did. And the war going on here hurt you just like it did me, because it’s so stupid.”

  “It is stupid,” Troy said.

  “I left Olivia here with a species that was ready to throw her out a window the moment they could track her down, so that I could put the species around here on a path to peace. You can’t do that.”

  “I could,” Troy protested. “If I wanted to stay long enough.”

  “You can’t understand their speech,” Cassie said. “You don’t have your implant. And you don’t have the attention span, anymore. You don’t sit and think about things. You just breeze on.”

  “But you wouldn’t have been here, if I wasn’t here,” Troy said. “Did you really fix them?”

  “Up to them,” Cassie said. “I showed them the off-ramp.”

  “So the trees are going to be okay?” Olivia asked. Both of them looked at her, and the corner of Cassie’s mouth curled up.

  “No. The side-walking species have changed their motion patterns, and they graze on the crystal supply as a supplement.”

  “Oh,” Olivia said. “Well, I figured it out.”

  “What did you figure out?” Troy asked.

  “The trees are dying,” Cassie said. “They need supplemental nutrition that they aren’t getting because the war drove a mass migration change and the crab people are eating all of the natural supplements they’d be using.” She looked at Olivia. “You really figured it out in two days?”

  Olivia blushed.

  “There are sedimentary rocks in the forest,” Olivia said. “They need to boil them in seawater for probably an hour and then put the water on the trees. Probably four times a year. You don’t want to do it too often because of the root shock to having that many heavy metals come down on them at once…”

  “Well done, Ms. Macon,” Cassie said with a smile.

  “But they won’t let me tell them that,” Olivia said. “And why would they believe me?”

  “Once again,” Cassie said. “We can’t choose for them. We can only show them the off-ramp.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you,” Troy said playfully, closer now. “You never let an opportunity go by to make someone make the right decision.”

  Cassie laughed.

  “Fine. I would if I could. But we can’t.”

  The three of them grew silent again, Cassie and Olivia watching Troy.

  “I’m happy,” he said after a moment.

  “You’re alone and you will spend the rest of your existence just watching things,” Olivia said. “Are you really okay with never doing anything again?”

  “I could,” Troy protested again. “I just don’t feel like it.”

  “I don’t know if you ever will, again,” Cassie said. “It’s not that you don’t recognize the need. You’ll feel for people that you see, everywhere you go. It’s that you know the horizon is just a moment away, and then the horizon after that. It’s too easy for that horizon to be the only goal. Especially when you’re so happy yourself, and the people you’re seeing aren’t.”

  Troy settled back on the roof next to them.

  “All right,” he said. “But I don’t know how to go back.”

  “You’re going to possess me,” Cassie said.

  “What?” both Troy and Olivia asked. Cassie nodded.

  “You’ll figure it out. You can coexist in my personal space easily enough; possessing me is just another step.”

  Troy spun, a slow blur of energy and gold light, looking out at the forest, the sea, the horizon.

  “I liked my life,” he said.

  “You did,” Cassie said. “And you will again.”

  He sighed, going out of focus and then coming back into his own form, then turned to look at her.

  “All right.”

  *********

  The next hour was fast.

  Really, really fast.

  Cassie wasted no time diving down the hole back down into the upper reaches of Llargon, where various Band Rung started after them.

  Olivia was certain that the foreign terrestrials were faster than she was, but somehow she and Cassie kept finding one more and one more odd turns where the Band Rung would fall behind, calling to each other and taking other paths trying to find them again.

  Floor by floor, they made their way down, into and out of rooms, down blind hallways, always just a whisker’s breadth away from getting caught, running flat out, and then slamming her back against a wall and trying not to breathe too hard.

  They were running down a wide hallway along broad windows when Cassie came skidding to a halt, looking over her shoulder as dozens of Band Rung gathered, approaching them more slowly. Olivia thought maybe she recognized Breath of Air, but she wasn’t sure, and things were moving too fast.

  Cassie started forward again, and Olivia’s attention was too drawn to the crowd behind them to notice as they walked into the common room where the elders were. It wasn’t until Olivia walked into Cassie’s back that she realized they were surrounded.

  “How appropriate,” one of the elders said. “You’ve upset the entire city, and now you find yourselves here for sentencing, even as you’ve tried to evade us. Someone bring forward my son.”

  “You know that killing the side-walkers isn’t going to change anything,” Cassie said. “Well, actually, I know that you don’t know that, and I also know that you feel like you have to do something, in order to look like you’re leading, rather than just as helpless as everyone else to save the trees and the city. But I’m telling you, killing the side-walkers can’t do anything more than make things worse.”

  “They were the ones who started this,” one of the other elders said. “They steal what belongs to us.”

  “They consume it,” Cassie said. “Whose the deposits actually are is a lot fuzzier than you’re making it out to be. Regardless, that they are there isn’t going to change. They aren’t here to steal. They’re trying to avoid a conflict that has this entire planet tangled up. The Band Rung are about the only species not involved, and I’d dearly like to keep it that way.”

  “Our trees are dying,” someone behind them said, and Olivia looked back as the Band Rung there pushed Breath of Air forward out of the group to stand on his own, somewhere between the rest of them and where Cassie and Olivia stood.

  “Yes, well, I told you that I brought an expert, and she has a theory that you ought to try, before you pick a fight with a species that is literally built for nothing but fighting. There is a specific kind of stone you can find in your forests…”

  Olivia dug into her pocket and pulled out one of them, holding it out for Cassie.

  “Here,” she said quietly, and Cassie nodded, taking it.

  “These. You put them in a vat of seawater and put it over a fire to boil for a half a solar shift, and then you let it cool and pour the whole thing onto the base of the trees once each season. It should replace what the deposits are currently giving the trees.”

  “They’re our trees,” someone called from behind them.

  “She is a student,” Breath of Air said, stepping forward. “I have watched her study our trees, our soil, our rocks for the last two days, and I believe that if she is confident, it is because she has seen something that we should be using to our advantage.”

  Olivia looked over at him with a tight smile, appreciating that he would say it.

  “Look, I might normally argue with you, but I have something that presses us to move on,” Cassie said. “It
’s up to you.”

  The foremost elder looked back at the others as they wove their limbs around each other more tightly.

  “You are spies and thieves, here to corrupt the youth and distract us from what we must do,” she said.

  “I’m sorry you see it that way,” Cassie said, vanishing. Olivia looked around the room nervously as the Band Rung shifted closer.

  “She is a gap-walker,” Breath of Air said. “We should listen to her.”

  “I agree,” Still Water said, coming to stand next to him. They looked at each other as they wove their arms one through another and the elders stirred.

  “Take her,” Light of Dawn said. “She will get flying lessons, and may the trees catch her.”

  Olivia took a step toward Breath of Air as Cassie reappeared, holding her crate.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t get a chance to pack it,” Olivia whispered.

  “Don’t be. Fun to see how you worked,” Cassie answered brightly, taking her hand in a friendly way.

  “Good luck,” she said, addressing the Band Rung, and then…

  They were standing in Olivia’s living room.

  “I thought we couldn’t jump here directly,” Olivia said, looking around.

  “I got a pair of beacon signals, finally, that told me where we were,” Cassie answered, tucking the box against the wall.

  “How do you know where I live?” Olivia asked slowly.

  “I hate to admit it, given that I’d really like to get along, but I’ve been here a few times. Before. While I still had Midas in my head. It was part of being destructive, understanding who you were so that I could…” Cassie paused. “I’m sorry.”

  Olivia looked around.

  She didn’t have any secrets here.

  She spent much more time at the lab than she did here; it had been fun to pick out her own grown-up furniture and hang art on the walls, but…

  “I think I learned a lot more about you looking at your lab setup than I did coming here,” Cassie said after a moment. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to store my kit… here. It would mean that I might jump here to get it, sometimes, but…”

  “Yes,” Olivia said, the idea of getting to keep the gadgets in there somewhere close immediately overpowering any hesitation about giving Cassie permission to be here.

  Cassie grinned.

  “You know there are restrictions.”

  “Of course,” Olivia said. “This is foreign terrestrial gear. Completely contraband. I won’t let anyone see it or tell them that it’s here.”

  “Not even Celeste,” Cassie said. “It’s not that she can’t keep a secret - she really can - but she’d want to see it, and it would influence how she worked. It would be dangerous.”

  “You’re saying…” Olivia started. “You’re saying she would take knowledge away from the technology that I won’t.”

  Cassie pressed her mouth and nodded.

  “I am.”

  Olivia flustered.

  “It isn’t that you aren’t the scientist she is,” Cassie said. “It’s that you don’t mind things being a black box. That it works is all that you need. She’d have to see how they work.”

  Olivia nodded slowly, pacing and then coming back.

  “Okay. Okay. Deal.”

  Cassie nodded.

  “Now I need you to call Troy.”

  “What?” Olivia asked. “No.”

  “Why not?” Cassie asked. Olivia found she was pacing again.

  “He won’t come,” she said. “He doesn’t take my calls. I can’t even get past Bridgette. He’s too busy.”

  “You understand why I’m asking you to do this?” Cassie asked. Olivia stopped, frowning hard and shaking her head.

  “I didn’t think so,” Cassie told her. “Troy is going to get very, very sick when I put his spirit back into his body. They aren’t meant to be separated, and… His spirit is cold. I can handle it because I’m me, but he is going to have a really hard time pulling himself together, as it were. Best he does it here, where he’s safe and out of sight.”

  “He’s never been here,” Olivia said, something telling her that Cassie thought he was supposed to feel safe here, too. Cassie’s face twitched, and then she nodded once, slowly.

  “I see.”

  Olivia looked away.

  Celeste had drunkenly called her the ice princess once, completely in jest, but Olivia carried it with her, a tiny barb. Even her best friend thought that of her.

  “Why don’t we just go to his apartment?” Olivia asked.

  “They’ll look for him there,” Cassie said. “And because I can’t jump him again. He isn’t made for jumping like that, and… Honestly, it was harder on him than I expected.”

  Olivia frowned, struggling with the idea of Troy’s spirit riding around inside of Cassie.

  There was a dirty joke in there, but Olivia wasn’t any good at making them form together right.

  “Okay… then you call him,” Olivia said.

  “If they know I’m involved, they’re just going to look harder when he goes missing. Tell him to come here without his driver.”

  “His driver,” Olivia said, almost laughing. That was how panicked she was. It wasn’t funny, but she was on the verge of laughing because if she didn’t she was going to cry.

  Why was this so hard?

  What about it was so hard?

  Knowing that, once more, he wasn’t going to take her call and she was going to fail?

  Or the idea of inviting him to come to her apartment?

  Under these circumstances.

  Cassie was watching her inquisitively, like she could see the questions forming.

  “It’s possible I’d have come up with a different plan, but I think you need to do this,” she said.

  Olivia opened her mouth and closed it again.

  Pressed her mouth as she tried to talk herself out of crying.

  “He won’t answer,” she said.

  “Think of something,” Cassie said. “I’m going to go make myself a sandwich. You want one?”

  Olivia gaped as Cassie walked out of the living room and into the kitchen, rooting through the refrigerator like she already knew where everything was.

  “You mind if I throw out the stuff that’s gone bad?” Cassie called and Olivia shook her head and opened her mouth, at a complete loss for words.

  She stared at the phone, shaking her hands out as she walked over to it - she was the only one at the lab who still had a land line. She couldn’t remember where her cell phone was.

  “It’s at the lab,” Cassie said. “We were going by water. No point bringing it.”

  Olivia frowned.

  Had she signaled? What had her hands been doing?

  She picked up the phone and set it back down again.

  She had no idea what to tell him.

  How to talk him into leaving behind all of his very important work and coming over here, no questions asked, without letting anyone know where he was going.

  Cassie could have done it.

  She really could have.

  Probably could have even erased Bridgette’s mind after she talked to her so that the woman didn’t even remember the call.

  Or she could have called Jesse, and Jesse could have walked Troy out of the building, while on camera, and even Troy wouldn’t remember it happening.

  Why did Olivia have to do it?

  Why would Cassie say that?

  She picked up the phone again and dialed, not knowing what she was going to say.

  She had a mind for numbers. She memorized phone numbers just by looking at them once. She liked the way things worked. She liked the patterns numbers made when you added or subtracted or multiplied them. Troy’s phone number at the general’s building was full of fours, if you knew how to find them.

  It was ringing.

  There was the first four, obvious, then three and one and two twos and seven and five and three…

  “Major Troy Rutger’s office
,” Bridgette answered.

  “Hi, Bridgette,” Olivia halted. “Um.”

  “Please state your name and business,” Bridgette said.

  “This is Olivia. Macon. From the labs.” Olivia squeezed her eyes shut. “I needed to talk to Troy.”

  “He’s in conference right now,” Bridgette said. “Can I give him a message?”

  Yes. She could just leave a message, and then…

  He would never call her back.

  He wouldn’t.

  “It’s about his mom,” she said, the first words to occur to her.

  “Yes?” Bridgette said.

  “No, I should really talk directly to him,” Olivia said.

  “I can have him call you back once he’s out of his meeting,” Bridgette said.

  “I need to talk to him right now,” Olivia said, standing straighter. It was important. It might not be what she said it was, but it was every bit as important as what she was implying.

  There was a pause.

  “One moment,” Bridgette said, and the line switched to a recording Olivia had never listened to for more than a couple of words. She turned her face away from the phone, finding Cassie standing over the sink devouring a sandwich.

  “What is it, Ms. Macon?” Troy asked. Olivia’s eyes flew open wide and she stuttered.

  “Troy.”

  He sighed.

  “Bridgette said that there was an emergency,” he said. “What is it?”

  “I need you to…” Olivia started, then put her hand over the phone, blinking fast, choking on no words.

  “Quickly. I’m in the middle of a meeting.”

  Cassie took the phone out of Olivia’s hand.

  “Rutger. I’ve got something you need. Finish up what you’re doing, make quiet excuses, give your lovely secretary a head’s up that you might not be back on time, then find a way to Olivia’s apartment. No drivers. No base personnel.”

  She paused.

  Bridgette wasn’t his secretary. Olivia knew better. So did Cassie.

  “Yeah, he’s fine.”

  She hung up.

  Olivia stared at the phone.

  “I couldn’t do that,” she said. Cassie shook her head.

  “But you lied,” she said. “You ever do that before?”

  “I lie,” Olivia protested. “Sometimes.”