by Peter Liney
“If anyone can get rid of these implants it’s Doctor Simon,” I told her. “And he’d do anything for Thomas.” I was already collecting our things, aware that we had a deadline, that we didn’t have a minute to waste—that each and every second took me and Thomas that bit closer to the rule of the Bitch.
Lena allowed my urgency to sweep her along, though I knew the subject was a long way from fully discussed. Sheila took us back into her shelter and gave us a substantial amount of cooked meat to take, then showed us this flap at the back where we could squeeze out and not have to run the gauntlet of what would undoubtedly have been a protracted farewell. It meant a bit of a detour, but Sheila knew the forest like the back of her hand and soon we were weaving through the trees, climbing the hill.
She burst out with loud laughter when we pulled the tandem out of its hiding place. “You came on that?”
“It’s okay on the flat,” I said, a little defensively. “Not so great on the hills, I grant you—or not going up.”
She hugged us and wished us both farewell, and reminded us to ask the others how they felt about moving to the Commune, then stood there waving as we pushed the Typhoon Tandem up the slope, her steadfast face slowly disappearing into the dusk of evening and the dark of the forest.
When we reached the top, I paused for a moment and took a look back. I couldn’t get over that place: all of those people down there sheltering under the protection of a rogue punishment satellite—and yeah, I guessed they were safer, and it was a nice enough spot, but in some ways they had no more freedom than we’d had back on the Island.
“Let’s go,” I said, helping a rather subdued Lena and Thomas onto the tandem, managing to balance myself on the front despite the extra weight of the meat Sheila’d given us.
No matter how anxious I was to make every second of our time count, once we were out on the plain, I knew my plan to ride throughout the night wasn’t gonna work. This great oil slick of a cloud slid out across the sky, prematurely bringing down the night, emptying its contents over us as if outta buckets.
I did my best to keep going, Lena’s silence not only damning my obstinacy but probably adding to it; however, it almost cost us dearly. I’d noticed how much harder it was getting to pedal, that the wheels didn’t seem to want to turn so easily, and belatedly realized I’d steered us straight into a swamp; that the ground wasn’t just soft beneath us, it was swallowing us up.
Almost immediately we lost balance and went over, Lena’s cry behind me as much of anger and impatience as of distress. I tried to push my way back, to return us to firmer ground, but there was nothing to brace myself against and it felt a bit like I’d steered us in to this big muddy mouth that was now sucking us down as hard as it could.
I soon realized I had to stop struggling, try to lie flat and prevent myself from sinking any further, but the rain was beating down on me like fists, pummeling me as if it was the bog’s accomplice, and I continued to sink ever lower.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t even risk turning to see where Thomas and Lena were; even the action of calling to them seemed to drive me down that bit quicker. It was an utterly unexpected horror, and I gotta admit, as the rain pounded down on me and I slipped ever deeper, I was in something of a state of shock: out of all the ways we could’ve perished over those last eighteen months, were we gonna die like that, swallowed up by the ground and no one would ever know? I could feel the mud working on my big-guy body, using my own weight against me, and it went through my head that it was entirely appropriate that my bulk that had been so much a part of my life should ensure my eventual demise. But suddenly I felt the tandem jolt as if it’d come into contact with something; I stopped sinking, just hung there for a moment, then slowly began to slide backward . . . Jesus! Lena had managed to get Thomas to a place where he was safe, grabbed hold of the tandem and was now doing her best to drag it—and me—out.
Thank God, she was so strong: she had hold of those two back wheels and was heaving with all her might, grunting with exertion as inch by inch she dragged me back to a position where I could finally struggle out on my own.
“Lena!” I cried, going to take her in my arms, so aware it wasn’t the first time she’d saved my life. But d’you know what? She was as mad at me as I’d ever seen her—I was damn lucky she didn’t take a pop. Over and over she told me I’d been reckless and stupid, that even the slightest of chances would be no use if I was gonna get us all killed.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry,” I told her. “Let’s rest here ’til daybreak.”
She made a point of finding herself a spot a little bit away from me, sitting there hunched over Thomas, shielding him from the rain, and to my surprise the two of them fell asleep within minutes.
I just stayed where I was, unable to bridge that eight- or nine-foot gap for any reason, knowing I wouldn’t close my eyes all night.
Thankfully the rain stopped a little later, though the passage of the early hours was as slow as ever, and I found myself fretting over that thing inside me. Where the hell was it now? I could’ve sworn I could feel it in there, clinging to the apex of an archway, monitoring my thoughts as they passed through, memorizing the ones it didn’t like, those it’d punish me for when it took over. Other times it seemed to be oozing its way around me like some thin, eerily transparent octopus, slithering around my head, tucking itself between my brain and skull, sliding off down through my veins to the distant pulsating rhythm of my heart.
It was enough to drive anyone crazy. For sure I was never more grateful to see the glow of dawn stretching out along the horizon, to catch the first sight of a much friendlier sky. Mind you, what a new day would bring was anyone’s guess.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Before Lena awoke I had a good look at the lie of the land around us—trying to get back into her good books, I guess, to reassure her I was gonna take a more measured approach to the day. It wasn’t immediately obvious, but I began to see that the nature of the grass changed wherever it was boggy: it grew in these heavy island clumps. I spent a while testing my theory, prodding with sticks, risking a few footsteps here and there—the last thing I wanted was to be wrong—but eventually felt confident enough to go back and tell Lena what I’d discovered, though I gotta say, she could’ve been more interested.
A little later, after we’d wordlessly breakfasted on some more of Sheila’s venison (though Thomas stuck to his dairy diet, of course), we picked the mud-covered tandem up off the ground and with me making great play of taking “the safe route” that I’d charted, we headed off, conversation between us still decidedly sparse.
Having said that, it wasn’t long before the rising sun warmed us with a little of its optimism and things began to improve. Eventually we stopped to give each other a hug, from then on feeling that bit stronger, more up to the task at hand, and we returned across that plain a damn sight quicker than we’d first crossed it. By the afternoon we were back up in the hills and amongst the trees, keeping up our pace the best we could, only stopping when we had to, the rest of the time, even when we needed to eat, keeping moving. My only thought was that we had to get back to the farm before nightfall, that we couldn’t afford to lose another day.
We just about made it. Those last ten miles or so we were pedaling through the dark, but as it was mostly on the road, it wasn’t a problem. Finally we turned up the track to the farm, our mood a mixture of excitement and apprehension; neither of us had actually said it, but we were both aware that anything could’ve happened in our absence, that like it or not, we’d do best to steel ourselves for what might be bad news.
It was one helluva relief to enter the farmyard and see them through the window, sitting around the table, the remains of a meal in front of them, Jimmy on a bit of a lecture, the others exhibiting fading degrees of interest.
“Clancy?” Lena asked.
“It’s okay,” I reassured her, “they’re all fine.”
If everyone hates goodbyes, then I reckon that m
ust mean they love hellos, ’cuz that was one helluva noisy and touching reunion. We had people hanging off us all over, screaming and laughing, Lile planting far more kisses on me than I was comfortable with. ’Course, they had to have their say about us leaving the way we did, not prepared to listen to any excuses, battering us with it until eventually they squeezed out our most embarrassed and repeated of apologies.
We told them the whole story, everything that’d happened since we’d left, top billing, of course, going to what Sheila had said about the implants not kicking in for a few days, that for the moment, Thomas and me weren’t putting them in any danger. But they just brushed that aside, far more interested to hear that a punishment satellite was still functioning.
“Still one up there!” Jimmy exclaimed.
“Yep.”
“Cool! I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”
However, Gordie, who’d been on good terms with Nick’s boys, was more concerned by what the satellite had done. “George!” he moaned, as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Yeah,” I sighed, “but it wasn’t George, not as we knew him.”
“Nice kid,” Jimmy commented, “but a bit too sensitive.”
Delilah grunted. “What’s happening around here is enough to drive anyone insane.”
I went on to tell Jimmy about Sheila suggesting we moved over there, that it was safer, and that they were wondering if he could fix the satellite.
“And get it to do what?” he asked.
“I dunno. I think they got some ideas.”
Jimmy made this face, like if he was gonna reprogram a satellite he’d want some part in deciding what it’d do.
When we finally finished telling them about our adventures, right down to the obligatory account of how Thomas had handled the whole thing, Lena asked what had been happening around the farm, but as no one had much to say I took that to be to be a good sign that everything was pretty much back to normal.
“No more weevils?” Lena asked.
“Nope,” Jimmy replied, and I gave a bit of a sigh, feeling a sense of relief, but he hadn’t quite finished. “I just don’t get it.”
I was tempted to ignore him, to change the subject, but, of course, I couldn’t. “What?”
“Well, you know? Was that it? The Big Idea? A full-on implant assault? Or just another experiment?”
“Pretty effective one,” I told him.
“Not really,” he shot back. “Out of seven people, only two—and one of them a baby—ended up being implanted. With all those thousands of weevils?”
“It was enough,” I told him.
Jimmy shrugged, aware I was getting a little irritated but as usual plowing on, “Doesn’t sound right to me.”
“Don’t tell me there’s gonna be more?” Delilah complained.
“Maybe,” Jimmy replied, making this face as if marking the moment in case sometime he needed to say “I told you so.”
“Can you feel anything, Clancy?” Hanna asked.
“Nope,” I answered, knowing immediately what she was talking about. I mean, it wasn’t strictly true, but I was still putting it down to my imagination.
She came and put her arm around me, the way she did now, as if she might only be a kid but she was auditioning for the role of big sister. Gigi pointedly raised her eyes to the ceiling, as if she’d never seen anything so pathetic in her life, her resentment still as acute as ever.
“What are you gonna do?” Gordie asked.
I took a deep breath, glancing at Lena, knowing she wasn’t exactly with me on this and possibly about to resume saying so. “Take Thomas into the City. See if I can get these things removed.”
But if it was Lena I was worried about running me over, I soon realized there were a whole lotta other trucks forming a line behind her.
“What!” Delilah croaked.
“What’s the matter?”
“You gotta be kidding!”
“What’s your idea, then?” I asked, getting a little defensive.
“Big Guy!” Jimmy said, as if I was a little kid who’d just announced he was walking to Africa. “No way.”
“You can’t take him there,” Gordie told me.
“You saw how those people reacted in the Commune,” Lena said, for the first time acknowledging the fact that Thomas might actually be the miracle Doctor Simon always said he was.
“I’ll keep him hidden,” I replied stubbornly, immediately realizing that was a real dumb-ass thing to say—I might be able to keep him hidden, but sure as hell I wouldn’t be able to keep him unheard, not with those prize-winning lungs.
“Get the Doc to come here,” Gordie suggested. “Make a house call.”
“Yeah, right,” I muttered irritably, but then stopped, realizing he might have something. I could do just that: go into the City, get the Doc and bring him back—the way he’d wanted. It’d be a helluva risk—he wasn’t only Nora Jagger’s personal physician, he was the guy who’d double-crossed us and imprisoned Lena. Did we really want to chance bringing him to our secret paradise? Then again, what alternative did we have?
It was a long way from perfect, and Lena wasn’t that much happier about it, but at least it meant Thomas stayed with her, and in the end, it was what we decided to do.
I debated long and hard about whether I should take someone with me, and who that should be. What I had no way of knowing was if there’d be a situation where I might need someone who didn’t have an implant, who couldn’t be scanned and classified. In the end, I decided to take Gordie; we’d just get in and out as quickly as we could. Jimmy also insisted that Hanna went with us as far as the limo so she could bring back the lasers and corroded power-packs for him to try to fix.
It was one helluva pleasure for Lena and me to be back in our own bed that night. We were too exhausted to make love, but still held onto each other like we might somehow fuse together, that when we came to untangle ourselves in the morning we’d find we’d swapped a part or two.
Thomas did us a favor by not waking ’til six, which was a small miracle in itself—though he made up for it by immediately demanding to be changed and fed like some half-pint-sized dictator. Not that I minded; I had to be up and on the road as soon as possible, and for sure there was no chance of grabbing a few extra minutes with that racket going on.
I took my coffee out on the front porch, hoping for a few moments’ peace before setting out on what was plainly gonna be one helluva dangerous journey. I hadn’t been out there more than a couple of minutes before I glanced down the track and saw someone approaching.
It took me forever to work out who it was: there was a guy pulling some kind of cart, really having to work at it, his exhausted body bent forward almost horizontal, straining at this taut rope. My first thought was that it was one of the crazies dragging his possessions, that it could be trouble—then finally I realized what I was looking at.
It wasn’t a cart, it was a bed: a single bed on wheels with a couple of boxes heaped on it and, most surprising of all, someone lying under a blanket. I don’t know how much all that weighed, but whoever was dragging it looked just about done in. It was only as I stood there staring at such a bizarre sight and he got that bit closer that it finally hit me—maybe ’cuz he’d lost so much weight, ’cuz he was so bent and ragged—it was Nick.
I ran down there as fast as I could, still barely able to believe what I was seeing. He had Miriam with him, his wife, towing her in that bed she’d been in for the last God-knew how many years.
Nick fell to his knees as I approached, tears in his eyes, and I gotta say, I’d never been a great hugger, but I pulled the guy up and embraced him. If ever a man looked like he needed it, he did.
“Nick, what the hell happened?” I asked, staring into his haunted face, seeing echoes of something ugly etched deep on there.
“Help me get her into the house?” he replied, like he couldn’t say or do anything until Miriam was safe and taken care of.
I went to the back
of the bed to push it, just the top of Miriam’s gray head appearing outta the covers. As we approached the house, the others came out, standing open-mouthed on the porch, looking every bit as shocked as I’d been. Going on Nick’s appearance, the state of the bed—a little rusted, covered in mud, even a bit mildewy—he’d been dragging her around for some time, and no matter what route he’d taken, it would’ve included any number of steep hills. I tell ya, it just didn’t bear thinking about.
We lifted the bed up onto the porch as carefully as we could, within minutes Delilah returning with some breakfast for the pair of them. Nick ignored his, instead concentrating on propping Miriam up and spoon-feeding her, though he gained no response other than some endlessly deliberate chewing and what looked like the occasional glare in his direction.
“See that?” he said. “Never used to do it. God knows what she’s thinking.”
After a while, and having to stop every now and then to wipe food off Miriam’s chin, he started to tell us what’d happened over in his valley. Several times I caught someone’s eye—Hanna, Jimmy—all of them, like me, wondering if he knew about George—if it’d come up or if we were gonna have to tell him.
Turned out, it was the weevils that drove them away: they came night after night, in far greater numbers than we’d suffered; crawling all over the houses, doing everything they could to find a way in, sometimes succeeding through sheer weight of numbers. They’d come massing against windowpanes, layer upon layer, ’til finally the glass gave way and they poured in, streaming out to every corner of the house, looking for any bodily orifice they could enter.
“It went on forever,” Nick said, looking as if he was hypnotized by the memory. “No one slept, just waited to see if what we’d used to seal up our homes would hold; ready to kill those who made it through . . . It was war. We got so tired, we had to sleep in the day and fight at night. We were just about holding out, wondering for how much longer we could, when suddenly it stopped. We thought we’d beaten them, that they’d moved on. One night went by, then another, and we started to relax, to go back to our normal routines, working during the day, sleeping at night . . .