"Stop fighting it, Steven. Come to me and you'll see," Asherah whispered gently in his mind. He could feel a presence in him that was distinct in itself. Something he couldn't shut out or ignore. It had been there since the kiss. She was there and he could feel her and her emotions. She was scared, but thrilled at the same time.
"Asherah, you are driving me nuts. You really are. I can feel you inside, hear your thoughts. That's just crazy!" Steven grit his teeth as he came up to a clearing and dropped out of the trees to cross it. A bear ambled up to him and he scratched its ears. It was real. He could feel it, experience the coarseness of its fur as he embraced its neck. It nudged him then ambled off.
"That is the nature of our bond, Steven. We are one now. Always. And you can touch me too, Steven. Just come to me," Asherah said, jealous of the fact that Steven felt the bear was real because he could touch it but she was not. They spent years dancing with each other, racing and wrestling and climbing with each other. Steven experienced that thought and shook his head.
"But it's different. I touched you then. But the meadow is just the same old grassy meadow with a dead snag. I can go there any day and see it with my own eyes." Steven found himself arguing with his imagination. The irony of that bemused him.
"The meadow we spent so much time in is just as it always was here, Steven. You are seeing your home now. But we spent all that time together at my home. There are things about yourself that you just don't realize," Asherah persisted.
"Like what?" Steven asked. He trotted through the clearing and found a suitable tree to climb.
Asherah was quiet for a while. "You're a... gatekeeper, Steven. More than that. But basically a gatekeeper. You can access any world you want. This one. You can come to me. Or bring me to you. It was all you, all this time."
Even in her explanation Steven saw or felt what she was meaning. "A deviant? You meant to say deviant."
Asherah didn't answer. That was more explaining than she was prepared to do just yet.
"Great. Wow. That makes it all easier. Because you're an alien on a world galaxies away and we're having this discussion, in my head. That just clears everything up." Steven shook his head as he pushed off a trunk, grabbed a branch from a neighboring tree, and continued the trek through the canopy.
"Look at yourself, Steven! Who runs through the tree tops?" Asherah retorted at him and he could feel her hurt and anger.
He had never really dwelt on that much. He was the only person he's known to do that. Ever.
"No, you've met one other. My mother," Asherah said. "And me."
"So, I'm also an alien?" Steven said. This was getting better all the time. Perhaps he really should take up writing.
This wasn't going right at all. Asherah was getting very frustrated and fell silent. Steven felt her vexation and was surprised again by feeling guilty. He was feeling guilty for what? Offending someone that he didn't believe existed?
"You'll see me soon, Steven. Touch me. Bring me to you and you'll know I'm real," Asherah said. He could feel her excitement as he traveled through the forest, and wondered if he had gotten things all wrong. He had been tempted to give in to the fantasy, but what if it wasn't a fantasy at all? That tiny little spark of doubt was answered with a thrill of hope from Asherah that Steven found infectious.
The glade seemed to explode in even more blooms at Asherah's excitement. Steven was getting close and she danced around in joy. She radiated her joy out to Steven and felt him receive it and almost miss a branch as he was traveling. Giggling, she covered her mouth. Soon he would be able to see her. Even touch her. She bit her lip and looked around then down at herself. Her forest outfit was scant and tight enough to not get tangled in the branches. She grinned at the thought of his reaction to how she looked. But it wasn't good enough. Asherah brushed at her fur on her stomach. She was dusty from the cave.
Disrobing, Asherah dove into the little pond that captured spring water from a small waterfall a short distance away from where she expected to intercept him. The coolness of the pond was refreshing and helped wash away the remaining tendrils of grogginess. Her own home wasn't quite as tropical as this place and sometimes she found the constant thick humidity and still air of the deeper jungle less than ideal, but the ponds were just enchanting. The cool water seeped into her short fur and rinsed away the dust and seemed to rinse away the last remnants of the drugs her father had given her. Bursting up from below the surface she took in a big breath of air. It was hot and steamy, in stark contrast to the coolness of the spring water. She scrubbed her fur with her fingers, working the old oils up into a lather that carried away the rest of the grime.
Getting out, Asherah shook off and shed most of the water. She took her clothing and rinsed them off as well to get the cave dust off of them. She hated the grittiness of the dust and the smell of the cave and was very pleased to have rid herself of the offensive stuff. Being sequestered in that cave most of the day was cruel of her father, and she resented him for it. He had no idea what he was doing to her and no idea what she was doing or why. Rinsing off the dust from herself and her clothing in the spring was a way for her to rinse off her bitterness toward her father. He had good reasons and took no pleasure in punishing her. But she just wished he would trust her. And now she was struggling just to get Steven to believe in her.
Before she got dressed, she rubbed herself down with her hands, working the natural oils from her skin onto her fur to restore its sheen. She smiled, knowing that Steven would be so attracted to her. He loved her fur. Looking around, Asherah picked several flowers and crushed them up and rubbed them all over her body, transferring their intoxicating fragrance to her. She remembered that Steven liked how these particular flowers smelled on her fur, and she had grown attached to them too. Brushing the remaining crumpled petals off, Asherah put her clothing back on. Her top went straight across and she wondered if she should cut it to show more cleavage. But there wasn't enough time. She could feel Steven getting close. She found more flowers and placed petals in her hair. When Steven saw her she wanted him to have no doubt whatsoever. He was going to take one look at her and scoop her up in his arms and they would be together again. She blushed in anticipation, closing her eyes and reaching out to him.
That was when she sensed someone else in the forest on Steven's side of the fracture. Someone that was stalking Steven.
Chapter 23
Laurence was surprised at how nimble Steven was on the motorcycle. In his training, he had never seen a motorcycle taken to such extremes. It was reminiscent of speed bikes on the race track. He watched as Steven pushed the bike through tight winding curves, leaning enough to scrape the pedals on the pavement and shower sparks while his tires skipped along, barely maintaining traction. Several times Laurence was sure that the motorcycle would leave the pavement altogether and crash at a high speed into one of the residences that they were zooming past. But it was like Steven wasn't riding the motorcycle, but taking it along with him.
They hit a straight stretch and Laurence was able to gain a little. But he saw Steven pull to the right as they approached a neighborhood intersection. He instinctively knew that Steven was about to turn left at the intersection and expected him to slow down for the turn. He got ready to bump his rear wheel out from under him and gunned his car to get closer. But to his surprise, Steven actually sped up. Rather than turning onto the street, he jumped the curb of a driveway ahead of the intersection at full speed, catching enough air to clear the hedges beside the sidewalk. He landed nimbly and left a spray of grass and dirt as he crossed around the front lawn and popped out onto the street as if he had done that move a thousand times.
Laurence was so surprised by the move that he almost missed the intersection. He slammed on the brakes as he approached the intersection, yanked the wheel to the left and hit the gas full to the floor enough to break the rear loose. As the rear came around he turned his front tires to the right and entered the turn almost sideways as the spinning tires left
a huge cloud of burnt rubber smoke behind him. The force of the turn had him plastered to his seat but he was able to straighten the car again and continue the chase with little speed lost. The motorcycle may have pulled ahead, but he still had the advantage on the streets with his car. He had to get to Steven before he hit the dirt, however.
Looking ahead, Laurence saw that the street lights stopped as the neighborhood came to an end and he knew they were approaching the pastures. Past them the road dead-ended into an unpaved fire road that went into the forest. He didn't have much time at all to catch up with Steven and knock him off the motorcycle.
He pushed it, quickly catching up, and then he had to brake a little to keep from running Steven over outright. Laurence had to do it perfectly or he would end up having to scrape Steven from his tires. As he approached the motorcycle he tenderly bumped the rear wheel. Steven looked back and then leaned over the gas tank to try to get more speed out of the bike. They were going in excess of a hundred miles per hour already. Laurence tried again. He had to touch the tire then try to push it slightly to the left or right to break it from the road and knock Steven over. He tried several times. One time a bump in the road bottomed out his car and he could see sparks in his rear view mirror. The motorcycle's suspension, however, absorbed the bump and Steven pulled out ahead.
Just one more time, Laurence thought to himself. It was like performing surgery while running a marathon. As he got closer and barely touched the tire, he looked ahead of the bike and saw that the road was closed off. And yet, the bike seemed to surge ahead and Laurence was at a complete loss as to what Steven was trying to do. "He's going to kill himself!" Laurence exclaimed. Suddenly he realized that he was way too close to the end of the road himself and he hit the brakes.
The car hit some construction gravel and totally lost traction, spinning around over and over again until it came to a jolting stop just before hitting the barricade at the end of the paved road. Just beyond the barricade was a deep ditch where it looked like some sewer pipe was being installed. During the time that the car was spinning around, Laurence tried his best to keep Steven in his line of sight so he could see where he went, and he couldn't believe what he saw.
The motorcycle hit the mound of construction dirt at full speed. Laurence saw parts of the bike fly off from the impact as it was catapulted up into the air like a rocket. Steven barely held on and Laurence was surprised he wasn't knocked out by the impact as the bike came up and slammed into him. In the light of the full moon, Laurence was able to see the bike as it rose high in the air. He jumped out of his car and climbed up the pile of dirt to see where it landed. He couldn't believe anyone could survive such a jump, much less the landing. The bike was broken. Laurence knew that it was a risk knocking him off the motorcycle, but now he was sure his prize could die for certain.
The bike started falling finally, having traveled impossibly far. Laurence stepped to the side of the pile to see around a sapling that was starting to block his view. The bike was going to hit the trees. But it was too far away to make Steven out clearly in the night. It appeared that Steven was standing up on the seat. Then suddenly he was no longer on the motorcycle, but flying through the air by himself and he entered into the canopy as if swallowed up, barely shaking the tree and suddenly all was quiet until the motorcycle impacted another tree and fell in pieces to the forest floor below.
Laurence was dumbfounded. Steven survived what Laurence had thought impossible. He was more convinced than ever that Steven wasn't human. Running back to his car, he reached in and grabbed another magazine of toxic darts for his pistol, and an extendable baton. He also strapped on a large knife, remembering how the trees attacked the aliens back in the meadow. In the front seat he yanked the GPS off its stand then he popped the trunk and donned his night vision goggles.
After he closed his car up, he ran back to the top of the hill and peered out into the darkness of the forest, setting his goggles to infrared. He saw Steven high up in the trees. He had seen monkeys with less climbing ability than Steven as he navigated from tree to tree. Running and jumping over the ditch that had been dug at the end of the road, Laurence sprinted up onto the fire road. Steven was running in a direction that seemed to be going away from the city but he knew that he was going to come back. He was surely heading home. The GPS indicated that the fire road was a more direct route to a finger of civilization that jutted out into the forest and Laurence predicted that Steven would try to get to that finger, so he stuck to the fire road, running as hard as he could. From time to time he could make out Steven in the distance and his prediction appeared to be correct. Steven wasn't straying too far from the road. But even though Steven was taking a more circuitous path to the finger of civilization, he was still remaining far ahead of him, flying through the tree tops faster than Laurence could run.
Undeterred, Laurence pushed on even harder. Knowing where Steven was headed helped a lot and reduced the need to stay exactly with Steven. His goal was simply to cut him off and hit him on his nugget with the baton. Laurence smiled at the thought and figured he'd hit him a few more times for good measure. The tranquilizers were largely useless in trying to capture Steven. They had pumped a dozen into him and it still didn't phase him. The sedative darts had proven completely useless against his physiology and the toxic darts his gun was now loaded with would surely kill him. But he believed in being prepared for any contingency.
At one time Steven appeared to drop out of the trees and run on the ground. He couldn't see the trees but guessed Steven had hit a clearing. He was tempted to run into the forest and try to catch him before Steven found more trees to climb up in. However, the chance of missing his opportunity and losing precious seconds was simply too high and Laurence kept to the fire road, working to flank him instead.
He almost tripped on a skunk that had ambled out of the wilderness and could smell its stink behind him as he continued running. The skunk had sprayed, but appeared to have missed him. Grinning at his good fortune, Laurence continued to push himself. His extensive continuous training routinely included full out sprints for several miles under duress so he was just now starting to work up a sweat and still wasn't fully winded as he tried to go even faster. His motivation was fed by the fact that he was currently directly disobeying his boss and success was paramount to his maintaining his good standing with the Order. Failure was simply not an option.
Steven appeared to have found another tree and was up high again, starting to pull ahead. Laurence was amazed that the kid was able to maintain such speed through the tree tops. He couldn't comprehend climbing from one tree to another without climbing gear, let alone maintaining such a fast pace through the trees. He appeared to climb high then jump from tree to tree, each time losing a little height until he climbed up again. But he climbed faster than he ran and it didn't take a second before he was moving from tree to tree again. He may as well have been flying.
Regardless, the chase was still on and Laurence was determined to catch up with Steven before he made it back to town. Laurence determined if he made it through this challenge, he would set about learning how to do this himself. An army traveling through the trees could be an immensely stealthy force if done correctly. Then he saw the infrared image of Steven seem to drop out of the tree, jumping from impossible heights and landing as if hopping off a curb. He wasn't far from the fire road and Laurence switched from pursuit mode to stalking mode. He didn't know why Steven had stopped, but this was an opportunity he couldn't pass up.
Steven let the springy nature of the branches do most of the work as he flew through the trees, much like a diver used the bounce of a diving board. He pushed faster than ever before, racing through the forest in a desperate effort to get to his apartment before the bad guys started tracking him again. The scanner still had not picked him up and he was hoping it would stay that way until he had a chance to make it permanent. If he could get there he could throw them off his trail by falsifying his presence and preserve
the security by obscurity that his apartment now enjoyed. Better, he could create hundreds of false signatures, utterly confounding his pursuers. That would be more fun than just disappearing. Steven grinned sadistically. He wondered if Brandon had made it there yet. It was difficult to keep track of time out there in the forest, especially at night.
Steven's night vision was in full force now and he could actually see pretty well. The nearly full moon made a huge difference but something was different. He could even see colors. That was a newer development for him. Normally he couldn't see colors well at night even in the full moon. But the moon's reflected light was the same color of the sun, just dimmer. Much dimmer. Now he could see a wide range of colors, almost like a dimmer version of daylight and he found it more than a little disconcerting.
Steven allowed himself to be distracted by this pondering as he traveled through the forest as if on autopilot. The issue with Asherah was getting to be more of a disturbance than he could handle. He was sure it was because of the stress. But Asherah did have some very good points. After all, Steven was traveling through the tree tops faster than he himself could run and this was his preferred method of transit to move quickly through the forest. Even on the forest floor his preference was to trot or run rather than walk, unless he was hunting for mushrooms. Brandon had always used a dirt bike out in the forest and did not even remotely have Steven's stamina when it came to running. Steven felt odd if he was just walking. Just how weird was he? Asherah was quiet for a change, letting him ponder things. He got the impression that she didn't want to push too hard.
The energy in the forest was like a supercharger to him and just about demanded that he express that energy by moving through it speedily. For him, it seemed the further and longer he ran or traveled through the trees, the more energy he got. He was never exhausted after traveling through the forest. It was like he was taking a break and the forest was taking over, moving him along. At the same time, Steven had read about native Americans that would run between villages without stopping. So perhaps he wasn't so odd after all. But then, even they did not travel through the tree tops.
Crow - The Awakening Page 53