by White, Gwynn
"He is. We opened a room for him too. But I don't want you to worry about him right now. Keep your focus on Samu getting to his father. When you're done, I'll let you go see Adi, and the two of you can continue your journey to Fel Or'an in person."
"Why couldn't we do this in person from the start?"
His father took a moment, then said, "Everything is working out just fine. Focus on this task for now, and as your reward, more information will be given."
Emmit gave a slight nod.
His father winked, stood, and patted Emmit's shoulder on his way out.
Emmit returned his focus to the boy now lifting another big rock from the path. The bugs, exposed to light and vulnerability, wiggled and clawed in futile attempts to escape their death and mutilation.
Tiny feet tickled Emmit's neck as Dy crept out from under his shirt, as though to get a better view.
Emmit reached back to pet his gecko's head. The pokey skin met his touch with lifted embrace. How did you get here? This is the net....
If I can imagine you into this state, what else have I imagined?
Suddenly, the comfort he'd enjoyed from his conversation with his dad left him in a spirit of confusion as to how much of that was what his mind wanted to happen.
What if my dad really isn't alive?
If he isn't, then who just told me to move this kid to the lake?
Could this all be my mind trying to work out why I'm hearing voices?
Something... someone has been acting in this. I didn't put that Versteg message in the bush or on my h-drive.
Without knowing for sure who was asking him to move the fisherman's son, or why, Emmit couldn't continue in faith that it was the right direction.
But if that isn't Dad....
The pain attached to such a hopeful reality being pulled out from under him was almost enough to make him give up on it all.
No, I'm not giving up.
What he did know, he hoped, was that outside of the net, Adi was in danger or, at least, lost and afraid. His wolverine was out there somewhere, and so was his mom. Whatever else sided with fiction or truth, he also knew there was a connection between his mind and others.
He didn't need to exercise that ability for someone else's gain to move a kid from one place to another; he would use it to free himself, his friend, and his mother, and then they could decide who else was real, whom they could trust, and whether they would go to Fel Or'an or find a way off this planet.
Emmit closed his eyes and pictured the cell where the neuronet activation pole stood with its beam of light directed into his hypnotized gaze. He tried imagining how his body felt standing in that room and not the body sitting in this chair. He tried to smell the humid air, scented by the moisture deep inside the cement walls. He did smell that. His legs felt the weight of his body. Eyes still closed, he reached out and closed his hand over the head of the activation pole.
And woke to the cell.
15
I can show you where your son is." Willo's voice interrupted the rattle of a bird call.
Ehli stopped in her tracks.
"What?" Cullen asked.
"Willo."
"I'm trying to help you."
If you know where he is, then take me there now.
"What is she saying?" Cullen asked.
"She says she knows where Emmit is."
"It will mean I can say less, but I'll share with both of you so he'll stop interrupting me. Cullen, nod that you hear me."
Cullen's eyes sharpened, and he nodded.
"Good. Now stop interrupting me. Ehli, I told you to touch the snake because you aren't ready yet. Emmit will be fine where he is for now. Schaefer is no doubt also trying to help him develop his abilities."
"You said you're the girl with the answers," Cullen thought. "Prove it. Prove how you are the only one I can trust, as you told me earlier. And explain what you meant by being Schaefer's failed experiment."
"I'd really rather get started on Ehli's development. We're going to need her abilities."
Ehli growled and turned, heading back to the branch with the alden snake curled like a colorful mass.
"Ehli, wait."
"Careful, girl. Don't—"
"Shut up." As Ehli approached the snake, it slithered its pink tongue out at her and loosened the length between its head and the branch. The movement connected like a dull ache that you couldn't tell was pain or just in your head. She inhaled as though to breathe life into that part of her, and the itch grew. That's right. The snake stared into her eyes. Don't worry. I just want to touch you. I won't hurt you. She took a step closer. Another slither of tongue. She lifted her hand, palm up. The snake's head extended. Its mouth peeled back to expose sharp fangs.
"Make the snake part of you. It can't hurt you if it is you."
Ehli looked at herself through the snake's eyes, and tried to imagine that she was just another part of the snake. To be touched would be no different than the touch between parts of its body wrapped on the tree.
Her gaze flicked from the snake's skin to its fang. The reptile's body snapped out, maw wide and exposing pink inside, fangs on the top and bottom. The bite that struck her face happened quicker than felt possible, but the burn... the burn affirmed that it had happened and she was stuck with the results.
"Ehli!"
She snatched the snake at the base of its head even as it tried to snap another attack.
"Whoa!"
She turned to see Cullen dodge something and look at his uniform top. He patted at the material, then looked up. "Put that thing down."
The snake writhed in her grasp, its maw wide open and fangs dripping with poison. She squeezed, burning under the touch of the same poison, but first.... "Stupid snake." She took the machete from her backpack, a hand-length serrated blade with a smooth plastic grip, and placed the tip under the snake's throat.
Cullen was looking around at the bushes, bending over as he examined them. "I remember the plant Ocia's program said could be used for an antidote. If you're gonna kill it, do it, and help me find the asilth plant."
Willo, are you still there?
Ehli waited a few seconds. Really? Why?
The more the snake struggled, the more Ehli despised it for having bitten her. She jammed the blade into its tiny brain, then ripped the blade out through its face, straight between its teeth, and let the carcass unravel and fall to the dirt path in a green pool.
She turned to find Cullen watching her.
"Willo, are you still there?" he said. "Really? Why? You thought that. Your telepathy works." In her shocked silence, he added, "Your face, it's really swelling."
She put a hand to her jaw and her hand met skin before it should have. The skin didn't register her fingers' touch. "It's numb."
"Come here." Cullen came closer. "I have to suck it out."
Before she could answer, his mouth was on her jaw. His lips made a sucking sound, and then he turned and spit. The relief of some of the poison made her head swell. Or maybe that was just the settling in of the poison. She reached out as her balance faded into absence of control. Cullen wrapped an arm around her back, then guided her down, sucking on her face as he lowered her. He spat out a yellow string into the dirt.
It was too late. The white of the sky above the green trees bled into their branches, and the bubbling in her brain signaled consciousness was on its way out. Where was Willo? Why had she left right when Ehli needed her? Had she wanted the snake to bite her, or had something happened to her?
* * *
The poison in Ehli's face numbed Cullen's lips and tongue. He'd done this for Torek once on Orniman, and he'd survived, so....
Ehli coughed bubbles of vomit that sprayed Cullen's face. He pushed her onto her side, patting her back. Ehli's eyes rolled back and her eyelids fluttered. "Fight it."
Too late. Her eyes shut. Crap. He'd sucked enough poison out. He needed to find the antivenom. Leaving her here wasn't ideal, but the poison in her system was
more dangerous than anything that could find her.
He turned for the forest, looking for the tear-drop shape of the asilth plant and its woody inner branches with cone-shaped yellow and green flowers. He didn't see any immediately among all the green dense vegetation. He took his machete out and hacked his way in deeper, one eye out for the asilth plant and another for any more snakes that would make victim number two. At first, he tried skirting their path, but the species of plant taking up most of the soil space was not what he needed, and eventually he drifted farther off the path. His shirt had a nice air flow to it, helping ventilate the body heat built by all the swinging of his machete, but the humid heat still drained sweat from him like a leaking bag.
He caught sight of something that looked almost right, so cut through a network of thick vines, and trudged through bushes he didn't have time or energy to cut down, to get to it. Their branches dug sharp points into his legs and sides as he stepped through. He kicked a section of bush, cracked a branch off, and stepped down in front of the plant he was aiming for. And it was. Asilth. He cut as many branches as he could hold, then took off his backpack. Inside was a device used to tear leaves into shreds. He stuffed the leaves inside it and pulled on the string. The blades inside cut through, then he shook it and pulled the string from the other side. He added some water through a plug on one side, sealed it, and repeated with more leaves. Once it was too full to put in any more leaves, he unplugged it over an empty bottle from his bag. He repeated this process until that bottle's murky green contents reached the 60-mg line. Then he repacked his bag, picked up his machete, and ran back for Ehli.
He found her as he'd left her, on her side and unconscious. A small pool of vomit darkened the dirt under her mouth. He jumped out of the bushes and sprinted to her side, knelt, and felt for a pulse at her neck. It seemed to take forever, but finally her pulse beat under his fingers. He exhaled his relief, then twisted to get his pack off and retrieve the bottle of antivenom.
He lathered the red bite marks with it, but she needed to ingest the rest. Unconscious, she couldn't drink it. He took out a tube and syringe to fit an IV. A vein wasn't too hard to find, and after he cleaned the skin, he plunged the needle into her arm. The kit included a suction pump and crank that allowed him to suck the antivenom out of the bottle, down the tube and into her blood stream. Once it was emptied, all he could do was wait.
Should I get more?
"Ehli? Cullen?" Willo's voice returned, scared. Like a child's.
Cullen glanced over his shoulder before realizing the voice wasn't behind him, but in his head. Willo. Where were you? Ehli got bit.
"Oh no! Oh, I... I'm sorry. I told you I was a failed experiment. Is she—there's a plant. I—"
The asilth?
"Yeah. How'd you know?"
Ocia. I got some already. Applied it to the wound and in an IV from supplies Ocia packed for us.
"Oh, wow. Okay. That's good. How's she doing? Where'd she get bit?"
Her face. The background of his view had a slight shifting of color. He looked up into the bushes, but couldn't find the source of change.
"Oh, that's not good. How does it look?"
The swelling has gone down some since I sucked out the poison and applied the antivenom. Ehli's hair was damp with sweat. The droplets beaded on her forehead and glossed her neck. She'd suffered from a serious burn sometime in the past, but the scarring wasn't too bad, only faint impressions around her eyes, and a little worse at the tip of her left ear. She was still beautiful—more so, he thought, with the strength evident in what she'd survived. He didn't mind the auburn tint to her hair either.
He dabbed his hand against her skin—her exceedingly hot skin. She's still burning up.
"Okay. You'll need to find a river to cool her down in."
Cullen was thinking the same thing, and whether or not going backwards to the river they'd swam through would lead them back to the mara.
Another shift in background greens. He looked up, but everything had returned to stillness. Something's out there.
"What? Why? Whatdya mean?"
I'm being hunted. By something good. All he could hear was the buzz of insects and distant bird calls—that they were distant wasn't a good sign either. He spun his levitor rifle from off his back and flicked on the red laser sight. Be something small, like a boar.
Behind a tree with bright green moss growing up one side, a bush branch slowly bent. Cullen rose, aimed his laser sight at the branch, and squeezed a long bolt. The bush blackened and curled back from the newly-severed branch as the rest of it shook, along with the one beside it. Cullen dragged squeezed another blue bolt, giving lead to the escaping animal.
"What's going on?" Willo asked.
A mara leapt out from the bush he'd fired into and went behind a wide tree.
Cullen let his rifle hang and knelt beside Ehli. Mara. I scared it off. We're outta here. He fit his arms through his backpack straps, then stuck his hands under Ehli to begin lifting her.
"Be careful. Mara never hunt alone."
As she spoke, a tingle rose over his scalp and down his arms. Sweet mercy. His hands were currently occupied under Ehli's weight, and his levitor hung free at his side. Unleash magic telepathy! he thought with mock humor, rising slowly to pretend he didn't notice the predator drawing near. His call out to hopeless chance did not return with any supernatural abilities to save him. In fact, the tingle grew deeper roots into his brain and under his skin, as though the charge were building to a climax.
The bushes were not too far to leap into, but then what? He couldn't do so without dropping Ehli, and it wasn't like that result would lead to getting anywhere else quickly. His gaze drifted to the snake corpse, and he came up with an idea.
He pretended to lose his grip on Ehli, and less than gracefully dropped her onto her side. She rolled onto her stomach as he cursed out loud and moved around to squat between her head and the snake's body. "I'm sorry, Ehli." He put the snake on the right side of his foot so that the mara still unseen on his left—but maintaining its static charge—could not see his hand reach down for the snake. He gripped it behind the head, curled it back and wrapped it a few times around his wrist. The reptile probably weighed fifteen kilos.
Once it was secure, he flung it up into the air on a course over the bushes to his left. In their undergrowth, a bright blue light bulbed and snapped up at the snake dangling in the air.
Cullen locked his sights on the location where the bulb had shot from, and lit it up with laser fire. The bush rustled as the mara fled. Cullen held his beam and angled it after the tiger until the movement of bushes was hidden by trees along its path.
He scanned the jungle horizon for any more movement. The buzz in his skin had faded, but that didn't mean there weren't more maras waiting under cover.
Ehli's head moved to expose dirt clinging to the sweat on her face. Her eyes fluttered open, and she seemed to track where she was before looking up at Cullen. "What happened?"
Cullen knelt to help her up. "Two maras. I've fought them off for now, but we need to get out of here."
She used him as an anchor to pull herself to standing. There would be no sprints in her near future, but her legs managed to hold her up. "My head...." She rotated to unzip her pack and took out a bottle of water.
While she took a drink, Cullen did a 360 scan of the jungle. The insects continued to buzz and hum. A single bird called near enough to encourage Cullen that they might be alone.
Ehli gasped and lowered the bottle, wiping her lip with her other hand. Exhaustion and confusion marred her face. "Have you heard from Willo?"
"Yeah." He helped her put the bottle back in her pack and zip it up.
"Did you tell her thanks a lot for the champion advice?"
Cullen chuckled. "No. I'll let you tell her that in person. Come on."
"Where'd the snake go?" she asked, glancing at the darkened pool of snake blood in the dirt.
"I used it as a decoy to draw ou
t the second mara. Don't expect that to work a second time, so don't go lookin' for more snakes to get bit by, okay?"
As they walked, she gently touched her jaw.
"Don't." Cullen padded her arm. "I put antivenom on it."
"Where'd you get that?"
"In there." He waved to his right and the jungle beyond.
Up ahead, a tree with flat legs rose to make an arch two times his height that planted down on either side of the trail. Two meters up from the conjoining of legs, the bare wood met fat spikes of green leaves. Inside was a nest, and two birds feathered in deep blue and bright red. They chirped and hopped about on the edge of their nest, pecking at and sewing sticks to the mass.
"And here. Is that you, too?" Ehli pointed at the glue-sealed wound from her IV injection.
"Yeah. These packs have some useful tools inside."
"Well, thank you." She smiled in a way that made Cullen self-conscious of having sucked on her face. It wasn't a kiss, but she was more beautiful than any girl he'd kissed before. And the softness in her gaze made him wonder if that might be a future for them.
"So what did Willo say?" She lifted her focus to the tree trunks as they passed under.
Cullen looked, too. A thick stream of red ants crawled up the undersides of the trunk. "She sounded concerned, apologized, and said she was one of Schaefer's failed experiments."
"So, she didn't mean to leave us suddenly?"
"Sounds so, if you believe her."
Ehli nodded. "Right. Speaking of failed experiments, I did something back when we were under fire by those mara tails."
Back when he thought he was going to be cooked for sure. "Yeah?"
"I somehow built a charge great enough to deflect their tail bolts."
"A charge, huh?" If she could emit that kind of energy.... Is that sustainable?
She walked to the base of the trunk, where the spread roots into the soil. The ants had a trail leading off the roots and into the grass. "I don't know. Should I try it out again?"
It took Cullen a second to realize he hadn't spoken his question of sustainability, and her lips hadn't moved either in her response. "Wow. That's amazing. It sounded just like you said it out loud."