“How far?”
Storm looked back into the darkness of the path, scanning the shadowy outlines of the hills. She took one shaky step towards town, then another. The headlamp reflected off the suit, a shining, unreal beacon in the heady earthiness of the forest.
“Do you want to know why I’m here?”
Storm had walked far enough that she was being absorbed into the woods, a ghost roaming lost in the open lands. With the head lamp secure again, Maria approached close enough to bring her back into the pool of light.
“Havernal sent me to find you.”
“Still doing his bidding are you?”
Maria let the insult roll off her. She was used to Storm’s derision for hierarchies and a chain of command.
“I do what needs to be done.”
Storm grabbed a tree trunk for support, forcing Maria to stop. She turned her face back towards the light.
“How did you find me?”
Maria hadn’t known where the coordinates of Storm’s location had come from, only how long she had been searching, unsuccessfully, for that information.
“You were the person we thought could help us.”
“You wasted your time.”
Maria’s agitation grew as Storm continued back towards town. She could physically stop her but that wasn’t going to help. She was relieved when, after less than a hundred meters, Storm stopped at an intersecting trail that Maria had dismissed as a deer track when she had passed it earlier. Storm pointed a finger down the short lighted patch of path that followed the river.
“That will get you back to town.”
“You think I’m just going to leave?”
Storm lowered herself to the ground, her back against an outcrop of rock.
“I don’t remember asking you to come.”
“You would have died back there.”
The animosity was familiar, easy, but the time for it had passed. For both of them.
Maria lifted her chin so the beam of the head lamp followed the smaller track into a criss-cross of branches blocking the path.
“Where does that take you?”
Storm retrieved the drink and took a small sip, the hand that held the bottle steady. Maria tried to ignore the intoxicating sweet smell of the juice that sent pangs of hunger deep into her gut. She crouched, her face level with Freeman.
“There were cameras in the square. They’ll know it was you.”
Storm’s eyelids were half-lowered, and she seemed in no hurry to answer.
“What is it you want?”
The head lamp pulled at Maria’s hair as it came off, the pool of light where it hung leaving her and Storm mostly in darkness. Maria thought of the long days getting here, the driving need to find Freeman dictating every decision, every choice. Yet she hadn’t expected to find this.
“Havernal’s dying.”
Storm barely reacted, a deepening of her frown the only indication the information had registered at all. She stared into the darkness behind Maria’s left knee.
“How long?”
“How long what? Until he dies?”
Maria’s voice was high and raw, the harshness of it betraying her.
Storm’s gaze lifted to Maria’s, so intense it felt like an accusation.
“How long has he been sick?”
Storm and Havernal had had a wary respect for each other, though this inquiry felt more factual than personal. Maria tried to remember when it was she had noticed the memory lapses, the sudden flinches as if he had been poked with a pin.
“Nine months…maybe more.”
Storm’s gaze was distant, intent on how this new piece of information fit with what she already knew. What Maria wouldn’t have done to have Storm’s knowledge and understand the world as she did.
“You had one of the first Gatherers.”
It had been small, one of the first models—a slap in the face at the time, Storm having released the Gatherer under their noses and sent them one of the first production models as a gift. It had been installed in the central control room to feed the banks of computers and the entire administrative complex.
“Did you know then?”
Storm stood, staggering slightly. She grasped a branch to steady herself. Her free hand was held to her forehead as if there was a great pain there, and for a long time, the rustling of the river spoke for them.
Cold settled onto Maria’s shoulders, into her buttocks and the backs of her legs. Storm held an open hand out to Maria, demanding the light.
Desperation tightened Storm’s features and the pain curled her body inward.
“Give me the light.”
Anger, or pain, cracked Storm’s voice.
Maria’s grip around the light’s case tightened. The toll the plague had taken on Storm was heartbreaking, rendering her such a weakened opponent.
“I’m coming with you.”
Storm withdrew her hand, the effort it was taking her evident in each shaky movement. She opened her arms wide, displaying her pain-ridden, emaciated body.
“I can’t help you.”
Storm threaded her pack onto her shoulders, struggling to get her arm into the second strap.
There was a memory of Havernal overwhelmed by the effort to put on his shoe, and Maria stepped forward to help. Storm turned away from her.
“If you slip through town, you could be far from here by dawn.”
Maria’s path along the river had been quiet, her route keeping her away from the main highways. No one would know she was here.
“I didn’t come all this way to be sent away.”
The suit shimmered as Storm readjusted the pack, its weight looking more than it should.
Storm stepped away and her foot caught on the edge of a large stone. She stumbled, falling hard to the ground. She swore and rolled onto her back, eyes closed against whatever renewed pain coursed through her.
Maria stood over her, her disappointment gathering inside her. The air felt colder in this new place they had moved to, the cold digging deeper into places it had not yet reached. When Storm opened her eyes, Maria extended her hand. Storm could have gotten up without Maria’s help, squirmed her way out of the narrow space between Maria’s legs and the underbrush along the path. Maria could see that she wanted to, the offered hand an admission to something she didn’t want to accept.
A wolf called in the distance, and Storm cocked her head as if she had heard more than its simple plaintive cry. She gripped Maria’s hand, all sinew and bone, her strength failing halfway up so that Maria had to lift her to standing.
Would she even be able to do what they needed her to?
The trail climbed steadily, carrying them out of the river valley, the stars that had come out as they walked spread in a dense, distant blanket that stretched beyond the horizon. The Yukon was a vast place, probably part of the reason Storm had chosen it—as good a place as any to disappear.
Storm stumbled frequently, though Maria shone the light directly in front of her. The first time she fell, Maria helped her up. The second time, she slipped under Storm’s shoulder. Storm initially resisted the support, but after a few steps her weight fell onto Maria.
“How far is it?”
Storm mumbled something that Maria thought sounded like ‘forever.’
“How far?”
“Twenty k.”
Maria faltered, nearly sending the two of them sideways into the scrappy underbrush. She tightened her grip beneath Storm’s ribs and lowered her head to the task, the ache of hunger and fatigue already creeping through her.
NINE
Maria lowered Storm onto the rock outcrop and the tension from carrying her the last few kilometres released from her back muscles. Storm slumped onto the rock, curling in, consumed by the shaking that had overtaken her as they walk
ed.
A dog’s wild incessant barking reverberated out of the woods to the south. Turning off the head lamp, she placed her feet carefully through the stones and boulders lit by moonlight and climbed the low ridge. A clearing spread below with the dark shapes of two buildings, a vehicle, and what could have been the crouched figure of a man disappearing into the trees. The barking came from the smaller of the two buildings and the cause of the animal’s agitation was visible at the larger, further building. Flashlight beams bobbed inside the windows, a window growing brighter as one of the beams explored into the corners. Whoever they were had wisely avoided the smaller cabin, choosing to search or wait for Storm in the larger structure.
Maria made her way back to Storm and crouched beside her.
“There are people waiting.”
Storm didn’t respond immediately and Maria leaned in closer, unable to see whether she was still conscious.
“We’ll have to wait until they leave.”
Storm pushed herself to sitting, her movements slow and heavy.
“I can’t wait.”
She paused on her hands and knees, her head hanging low below her shoulders.
“You can’t go down there.”
Storm stood and started picking her way to the top of the ridge. Maria could have tackled her, held her down until the searchers gave up and left, yet this show of strength was the first sign of hope she had seen. At the top of the ridge, Storm looked back at Maria, her face gaunt and skeletal in the moonlight.
“If I don’t make it, the door is unlocked. Carry me to my bed.”
She started walking.
“Please.”
A path led down to the clearing, one that Storm appeared to know well. The pace and strength of her strides increased as they neared the bottom, the grass swishing against their ankles.
“We should keep to the edge. In case—”
The lights panned inside the barn, a beacon amidst the cold darkness of the clearing. Storm walked straight for the cabin, barely lifting her head to the lights. Halfway across, the dog’s bark changed from an intruder alert to an excited welcome home. Maria waited for the searchers in the barn to hear it. They were twenty paces from the cabin when the door of the larger building opened and a flashlight beam cut into the dark. Maria ran forward, her arm around Storm’s shoulder rushing her faster to the cabin. They reached the cabin as all three lights swept into the clearing. Maria pushed Storm against the rough wood, the searchers’ view blocked by the corner. Storm leaned heavily on her, her body trembling. The dog’s barking reached a frantic pitch, and the wall shook from where the animal launched itself at the other side. Storm freed herself from Maria and slipped to the door. Maria could hear nothing of the approach above the dog’s frenzy. The latch clicked and the dog’s barking abruptly changed to joyous whimpering. Lights panned across the grass at Maria’s feet. Storm spoke softly to the dog as Maria stepped in front of the open door. The beam of a flashlight ran up the front of the cabin, across the peak and ended on Maria.
“Ms. Curie?”
The dog barked twice, returning to his intruder alert, but a short command from Storm made the barking stop. The men stood behind the halo of the flashlights in the sudden quiet, the light reflecting on a high forehead, outlining a bushy beard, and catching the long, straight line of a nose above a uniform.
Behind her, a match struck and a yellow glow flooded the porch, casting her shadow over the men. A constable with a gun in his holster stood beside a tall wiry man who had left three attack points open. The bearded man hung back two steps, his large gut hanging over his belt. Three men with a fourth potentially still in the woods.
“We’d like to question Ms. Curie on what happened in town tonight.”
She could feel them taking in the rumpled clothes, their wariness at what her role was and how dangerous she was. She settled into a wide stance, feet planted, her muscles taut with anticipation.
“She needs to rest.”
The sound of pants being pulled off and a parka hitting the floor.
The Constable was mid-forties, broad shouldered, and thick at the waist. He kept one foot on the first step of the porch.
“This isn’t a choice.”
She bristled at the assumption of authority. If she had been in uniform it would have been different, her status unquestioned.
“Her name’s Freeman.” The bearded man spoke casually, with all the time in the world.
The Constable looked to him for confirmation and Maria took the opportunity to glance back into the cabin. Storm stood next to a long, silver rectangular enclosure. She had stripped down to an unlikely peach lace bra and underwear, the underwear hanging loose on boney hips and her breasts barely filling the cups.
“I came here with Mac once, on a delivery.”
The tall man frowned and started forward.
“Wait. That’s Storm Freeman?” He leaned sideways to see in the door.
“What are you talking about, Alan?”
The Constable’s hand shifted to his holster.
“I never thought she’d be here.”
Alan knocked into the Constable as he tried to catch a glimpse through the window.
Maria placed herself in front of the door.
The Constable moved his foot up another step.
“You need to let us pass.”
“Can’t do that.”
The Constable’s gaze hardened, re-assessing her.
“Disabling a Gatherer is a federal offense. I suggest you get out of the way.”
A door slid shut inside the cabin.
If she was operating under an official order, it would have been easier. As it was there was no reason for her to be here other than to make things right and she doubted that qualified in his list of acceptable reasons.
“Ms. Freeman is in no condition to see you right now.”
“I don’t care what state she’s in.”
The porch shook as the Constable’s unhurried steps struck the stairs. The bristles on his beard showed dark in the full light of the lamp.
“You need to get out of my way.”
The threat was implicit. If she didn’t move he would make her. But she wasn’t going to let them take Storm away. No when she had finally found her. She leaned forward onto her toes.
* * * *
Storm pulled the blanket up to her chin and turned on her side, each movement requiring focused attention to complete. A drunken surge of fatigue rushed through her muscles, the burn in her eyes easing as her lids closed. The sleep of this kind of fatigue would be complete and she let go of her hold on the room and the voices outside. She would need a day, a week, maybe a lifetime to recover from this.
“She is in no condition to see you right now.”
The voice tugged Storm back from sleep, like a fish caught on a line. She would gladly destroy all of them if she could. And the schematics and test results that could ever lead someone to build a Gatherer again.
“We’ll go down in history!” Callan’s flushed, excited face floated out of the fatigue.
“I don’t care what state she’s in.”
Storm felt a reluctant response of adrenaline to the aggression in the Constable’s voice. Her heart beat slowly, each beat a struggle as it tried to respond. Could they not leave her alone? She fought the weight of her eyelids enough to see Kowalski’s silhouette blocking the door, her unwanted, self-appointed protector.
“You need to get out of the way.”
The Constable’s voice was louder, his bulk towering over Kowalski, Alan and Curtis crowding in behind. She had guts. Storm would give her that.
“Let them in.”
Her words sounded raspy and thin.
After a long pause, Kowalski stepped to the side. The three men filed in, crowding into the tiny area of the kitchen afr
aid to get too close. Blue barked twice before positioning himself at the head of her bed. Kowalski positioned herself between Storm and the men.
She felt them taking in the room—its functional design, her strange setup inside what looked like a woven metal incubator, and the absence of any of the electrical gadgets that the era of light had brought.
“Are you working on a new Gatherer?”
Alan stepped forward, almost bowing in reverence.
“Is that what you’re doing out in the lab?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Kowalski’s pants had streaks of dirt down the back and a round dirty circle on her ass. She held herself straight despite her legs having buckled countless times under Storm’s weight.
“I wasn’t asking you.”
Alan moved to push past Kowalski and she blocked him. He pushed her aside and with a sudden twist and jerk Kowalski had him bent over, gasping in pain, his arm twisted behind him.
The Constable stepped forward, hands held out in supplication. His hair was cut close around a square forehead, his eyes, eyebrows, and the bridge of his nose all unrelenting, straight lines. Kowalski’s blonde hair had fallen out of her bun and she had the peaked, delirious look of someone too long without food or rest, yet her hands were steady where she pinned Alan’s arm.
“There’s no need for that.”
Kowalski frowned, looking back for confirmation. Storm nodded and Kowalski released him, shoving him towards the Constable as she did. Curtis caught Alan as he stumbled.
“Are you Storm Freeman?”
The Constable had apparently figured out what Alan was talking about.
“I should have recognized you.”
Storm wriggled her toes against the nylon bag, the tension easing along the top of her feet. She no longer felt like the Storm Freeman he would know, who had been so sure of her creation and professed a victory for humankind.
“Are the rumours true? Is the Gatherer the source of the plague?”
The Gatherer Series, Book 1 Page 7