by Arthur Stone
It wasn’t hard work in its own right, but after the day’s events he was exhausted, to say the least. Pushing back his desire to collapse onto the couch and start snoring away, Rocky tended to his new wounds, the ones inflicted on his cheek, his forehead, and his wrist by the sharp edges of the biter’s armor plating. They weren’t serious, but they hurt. Kitty assured him they would heal by the next day, with every trace of them gone in a week. He doubted it. He disinfected the spots with iodine, grunting out one indecent word after another through his clenched teeth as he did so.
His companion called out from the next room. “What are you swearing at now?”
“With, uh, with my pain receptors.”
“They have feelings too, you know. Can’t you be a decent person and speak to them without raising your voice? The rain is barely falling now, and the ghouls’ sense of hearing is as sharp as ever.”
“Sorry, I forgot. I’m not you, after all.”
“Uh, in what sense?”
“If my bone got shot to powder like yours did, I would probably have sat there howling at the moon for days. Oh, by the way, is the moon still around? Or was there no room in the budget for it?”
“You really don’t know?”
“How should I? I’m a moron. I’ve only seen two nights here, anyway. The first night, smoke filled the air, and the second I spent in that house with you. Plus, I wasn’t feeling up to doing any astronomy either time. Sadly, I was not distracted by romance on that second night, but when I looked out the window, the clouds were so thick that I didn’t even know which way to look for it.”
“Drop one more hint like that and your broken legs will be asking you why the hell you insisted on flirting.”
“Forgive my frankness, Kitty, but you’re in no position to threaten my legs right now.”
“No need to apologize for being stupid, Rocky. I forgive you. It’s funny, actually. You don’t have the slightest idea what you’re dealing with, and yet you think you’re the cleverest boy around. Know-it-all freshman. That’s normal. The System keeps your Intellect depressed until about level ten. After that, you’ll start to think more clearly. That change happened to me a long, long time ago. You should have seen some of the situations I thought myself out of! This whole leg thing doesn’t even rank in the top ten. The worst was when I lost my right arm up to the elbow. Oh, and when half of my face got torn off, including one eye and one ear. I’ve broken all my ribs before, too, along with all the accompanying internal bleeding. Imagine what that was like. I lost rivers of blood. I still can’t believe that didn’t send me straight to respawn. That wasn’t something I could recover from on my own, but somebody helped me out.”
“Are you making these up?”
“Choose not to believe me if you want, but all of that happened.”
“How?”
“I stuck my hand down the mouth of a manmincer.”
“A what? One of those monsters? The hell for?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s a big one, too. The last stage before elite. People count the levels differently, but in my book the manmincers are anywhere from level forty-six to level sixty-one. If you’re lucky enough to bump into the youngest kind, it’ll be fifteen hundred pounds or so. The biggest weigh a ton. They have overlapping armor, protecting all but a few small places. Since it overlaps, even hitting a joint with a powerful bullet isn’t guaranteed to hurt the thing. That depends on the joint, though. Even a pistol can still do decent damage if shot at the right place.”
“A more serious beast than the one I killed in the manure, I take it.”
“Right. It’s not an elite, but it’s a fantastic kill if you can manage it. Hey, come closer so that we can talk more quietly.”
“I’m busy cleaning up my scratches.”
“You can clean them up here. No need to yell across the house. I can’t sleep because of my leg. Figures. At least if we talk it’ll keep my mind off of it, and I can teach you a thing or two.”
“But I’m already finished, and about to go to sleep.”
“Come on, chat a bit. Too much sleep is bad for your health here. Lots of people die in their sleep. Make some tea for us. That’ll be good. Anything here other than crackers?”
“Not really. Some kind of taffy.”
“That’ll do. Bring it over. Healing is tough work. It always makes me want something sweet. Or fatty, sometimes.”
“Where does it all go?”
“Yeah, no matter what I eat, I can’t fatten myself up. My godmother even joked that I should change my name to Broomstick or something like that.”
Rocky managed to start the kerosene stove without any difficulty this time. Now that’s what I call experience. The continual smell of gasoline troubled him, but he hoped it wasn’t too strong. And if he felt a sneeze coming on, he would cover his mouth with his coat to muffle the sound. That should work.
He tried to mentally compile a list of questions he needed to ask Kitty, but he started getting confused. His mind became muddled. He could barely remember where the tea leaves were. His eyelids demanded he give in to sleep.
Rocky poured in so many tea leaves that there was no room left for water. That was intentional. He hoped the bitter black tea would hold off his inclination to sleep, at least for a little while. He diluted Kitty’s tea, of course, and then brought both mugs and the meager snacks into the girl’s room.
She mumbled her gratitude, then asked, “Have you been keeping an eye on your spore balance meter?”
“Always.”
“How’s the leg?”
“Can we just cut it off already?”
“That bad?”
“The pain isn’t the worst part. It’s that my knees just won’t obey. They even bend on their own from time to time.”
“Don’t worry, it won’t be for long, I swear. Too bad there’s no salted meat or stew or anything like that. Those help with healing. Assuming you have some lifejuice, that is.”
“By the way, this house doesn’t have any shutters. Is that alright?”
“Doesn’t matter. If they’re going to find us, they’ll do it whether we have shutters or not.”
“What do you mean?”
“The System doesn’t like it when somebody stays in one place for a long time. It usually assigns a punishment. And a town like this can attract all sorts of dangers, anyway.”
“Are you saying we need to get out of here?”
“Of course, but we’re not in the shape to do that right now. Tomorrow, perhaps.”
“We won’t exactly be raring to go by tomorrow.”
“As long as we’re alive. That’s what matters. We’ll take some blankets and warm clothes and relocate to the woods. They’re close.”
“They’ll be drenched.”
“You’re right, but that’s good. Wet earth doesn’t hold the smell of a trail as well. Rocky, it really is dangerous for us to stay here. The biter is dead, but its carcass remains. Tomorrow it will start to smell even worse, and ghouls will come from miles around.”
“This place smelled plenty rotten already.”
“That’s different. The infecteds who were too afraid to come this way before will smell the biter and realize that the town is up for the taking. They might come. If one or two show up, that’s fine, but a whole herd?”
“They attack towns in herds?”
“Huge herds. Sometimes massive groups emerge from the central areas. Many as strong as a biter, some even stronger. They’re called hordes. It’s a very unpleasant site. Everything in the way of a horde gets swept aside. Even the strongest of stabs is at risk when a horde marches through.”
“How does anyone live in these conditions?”
“By doing whatever it takes. But yeah, it’s bad. So we’re agreed—we leave tomorrow. No arguing.”
“I wasn’t arguing.”
“Sure sounded like it to me.”
“Nah, I was just curious.”
“Ah, curious. Of course. Be glad if the worst thin
gs to show up here are ghouls. They’re bad enough. Hey, what’s wrong?”
Rocky jumped. “What do you mean?”
“You just almost fell off your chair.”
“I’m just so tired. My eyes are closing on their own.”
“That’s a good sign.”
“How?”
“It means you’re healing. Being in an apparently safe, calm environment helps with that. Go ahead and lie down. Sleep if you can. Leave the tea here—it’s not what you need right now. Holy hell, that’s dark! What did you make this with, tar?”
“Almost.”
“Go, go, before you really do fall over.”
“Do you need any help?”
“No, like I said, go sleep. Why do you always want to chat about every little last thing? I’ve had it. Get out of here!”
* * *
As he woke, Rocky made sure he had slept at least until evening. He had. He was still tired, though, but not exhausted. He wanted to sink back into sleep and finish the dream he was having. It was beautiful, warm, and dry, with no one trying to shoot him or grumble happily and eat him, but he stopped himself.
Better to go see what Kitty was doing. Quiet sounds he could not explain were coming from her room.
He got up and nearly yelped in surprise. His knees still felt foreign, like somebody had transplanted them into his body, but the pain which had formerly tormented him when he experienced the slightest was gone, leaving nothing but pale echoes of agony which were too weak to take seriously. The limp was almost gone, too. Miraculous.
Kitty had experienced a similar miracle. Without any help from anyone, she had used crutches crafted from shovels to bring a pile of junk into her room. Mostly clothes and blankets, but also other kinds of bedding. She had then settled in the midst of this mountain of rags and was cutting the fabric into strips and folding them neatly on a stool, where they awaited the needle.
“What are you doing?” Rocky said, surprised. It looked like something an insane old lady might do in a black and white film. “You should lie down.”
“Nah, you got enough rest for the both of us,” she said dismissively. “We need to make a couple of sleeping bags for ourselves. There aren’t any in the house.”
“So you still want to leave.”
“No, I don’t. But we have to. We’ll spend the night here, but then tomorrow we head to the forest. We have water and food enough for three days. We’ll get on our feet out there. Life will become easier.”
“I’ll get on my feet, but I doubt you will.”
“Has your knee gotten better?” Kitty inquired, squinting.
“I think so.”
“People like you usually get rid of problems in a few days, without a trace left.”
“So who did you mean?”
“What?”
“When I was starting to drift off, you said I should be happy if ghouls were the worst we saw. Who else are you expecting?”
Kitty was concentrating on threading a heavy needle intended to sew a woolen blanket. She frowned and nodded at the edge of perceptibility. “The ghouls are a problem common to all infecteds. No matter what you do, they’ll never be your friends. But I have another enemy. And so do you, as long as you’re with me.”
“Who?”
“Romeo.”
“The guy those lumberyard freaks kept mentioning.”
“Right.”
“It sounded like he wants you to be his Juliet.”
“Not quite. He has plenty of Juliets already. Every woman is his Juliet, except the ugliest, the fattest, and the sickliest. All over the Continent.”
“So he’s going for the fertility record.”
“He’s a pervert and a bastard. Not the rarest combination in this world.”
Kitty’s voice had changed into something he had never heard before. Even if he had switched off her consonants and just heard her intonation, he would have understood how much she did not prefer this man. To put it softly.
“Can you tell me more, seeing how I’m already mixed up in this now?”
“He’s one of the founders. One of the people who showed up here first. Strong and dangerous. I wouldn’t have a chance against him in a fight. He’s always been a red, but no one wants anything to do with him. They fear for their own lives. He holds grudges, which he never forgives. He has no principles whatsoever. He will do anything to get what he wants. He goes where he wants, does what he wants. If he sees a woman he likes, he takes her. No consent of any kind is necessary. He may not have mutated physically, but he’s mutated morally. Consent might even turn him off.”
“A moral mutant?”
“Yes. He’s a cheater, like you. Found a way to break the System.”
“But what does that have to do with mutation?”
“The Systems gives various players disadvantages—and various kinds of compensation for those disadvantages. You can shoot things with an accuracy that no one would believe. His compensation was different. It affected what was most important to him. Do you know what happens if your Pleasure drops to zero?”
“No.”
“The Pleasure meter is the strangest, the most complicated. It is hard to maintain, and even harder to bring up. It falls pretty quickly and responds to things unpredictably. You want a drink but you don’t get enough, it falls. You’re hungry, cold, tired—it goes down. It drains like an unplugged bathtub in dead clusters. You don’t know about those, yet, but no matter. So Pleasure only goes up under ideal conditions, once all of the other meters have reached the top, or near it. To fill it up completely, you have to do something amazing. Lounging on the couch doesn’t count. You need to eat some kind of amazing delicacy, listen to some great music, that kind of thing. Some spiritual practices can help, too, but that’s not reliable. Killing a newbie can drop your Pleasure scale twenty percent—but reds aren’t as affected. Killing experienced immunes, though—level ten and higher—doesn’t incur this penalty unless they have at least one thousand Humanity points. The more the victim’s Humanity, the more Pleasure the killer loses. In theory, one kill could drop Pleasure all the way down to zero, but no one has verified that, since no one’s Humanity is high enough. There’s another way to drop Pleasure to zero without killing, though. A way involving sex. Oh, that perked you up, huh. Your favorite word, I’m guessing. Pervert.”
“Oh, come on, I’m just sitting here listening to your story.” Rocky was sure he hadn’t “perked up,” and Kitty’s presumptions were irritating him. Yes, deep down, he knew he might deserve it. But not right now. He had definitely not “perked up.”
Kitty lowered her head and apologized. “It’s—it’s just a difficult subject for me. Just pretend I said that to someone else, OK? So where was I?”
“My favorite word.”
“Right. You ladies’ men are all the same. You can ramp your Pleasure up really high here, but you can also drop it straight to the bottom. If you have sex with someone without their consent, it won’t work out. Your meter will drop to zero in an instant. The System has morals in this regard. It does not tolerate rape. And do you know what happens when Pleasure drops to zero?”
“Something bad, I’m guessing.”
“Something very bad. At that level, severe depression sets in. You became indifferent to everything, devastated both morally and physically. Try as you might, you do not want to think about anything. You’re a walking corpse, even—your sense of self-preservation is entirely gone. It’ll keep you from raping anyone. Or doing anything else.”
“So how did your Romeo get out of it?”
“My Romeo!? Be careful he doesn’t become your Romeo. He does like handsome guys sometimes. You’ll fit the bill.”
“Great. Now I’m going to have nightmares.”
“Romeo is a cheater, like I said. The worst cheater of all. A moral mutant, the lowest bastard. His Pleasure meter max is incredibly high—when he satisfies himself without consent.”
“But you said that would drain your Plea
sure completely.”
“Not his. He broke the System. He found a vulnerability, like you did with your shooting, and now his scale is as perverted as he is. And this activity was clearly his lifelong dream. It’s all he does now.”
“You ladies should conspire to give him what he wants. Hang on, hear me out. Since you would be consenting by doing that, his meter would drop down to the depression level.”
“Why don’t you do that instead? Go ahead. We can find some lipstick in the bedroom. I believe in you!”
“Yeah, sorry. Bad idea.”
“Ordinary sex also gives Romeo a smaller amount of pleasure, as with us normal immunes, so your moronic plan wouldn’t work. But, he has this talent for making life so shitty for you that the most sincere consent you might have had turns into categorical rejection. I don’t even want to repeat a single one of the terrible abominations they say about him.”
“So he hasn’t caught you yet, making you his most desired prey?”
“Not funny.” Kitty’s eyes flare, and she made a threatening gesture with the big needle.
“Whoa, whoa,” Rocky recoiled. “I’m just asking why he’s after you so badly. Aren’t there enough other women for him?”
“Sorry.” Kitty calmed down just as suddenly. “No, it’s worse than that. Much worse. Do you know how many girls he could have?”
“I don’t know. Still a moron, remember?”
“This continent is about as large as Eurasia. Maybe even larger, but not much larger. I don’t know who figured that out. So even a thousand perverts like him could roam the land and still not manage to examine every cluster and find every girl. No, this is something else. When I first arrived here, I was like you are. My back wouldn’t bend, and I didn’t understand anything that was going on. I was stupid. I’m ashamed to admit it, but that’s normal for newbies. My memory began to return slowly, and I began to think more clearly. Before that, my thoughts would often get confused, and I’d get stupid ideas, like your consent plan. But I lucked out and ended up joining a decent group. Well, I mean, decent by local standards. It was made up of all girls. Not a single guy!”
“Oh hey. I want to join that group.”
“They wouldn’t take you. Not even if your shooting prowess came along with an unlimited supply of cannonballs. Valkyrie was the leader. She had an Amazon-like intolerance for men. As though she was allergic to them.”