“—and you can’t prove it’s not
true.”
A fist was poking him in the
chest. He automatically lifted his arms
to shove his assailant back. Then he saw
it was Murphy, and Murphy was about fifteen, and Turo meanwhile was wearing an
open-front shirt that plainly showed a complete lack of chest scars, and very
little chest hair. He was fifteen too.
“I can’t prove it’s not not true,
either,” Turo said agreeably, stoicly withstanding another fist poke. When everybody was relaxed, Murphy was hyper
and funny. Cracking jokes. Suddenly turning cartwheels. Constructing elaborate practical jokes. But when the group was feeling something more
along the lines of anxiety, Murphy got intense.
Potentially dangerous, too.
This was the kind of mood he’d been
in the time he convinced everyone it was a good idea to go race dirtbikes at
the gorge, and Boris broke his arm in a bad spill. They were out of connectivity range and
couldn’t call an ambulance, so they had tied him onto the back of Ernie’s bike,
which had snapped an axle due to the excess weight. Gunther had become fed up at this point and
he raced into town for help, and they had all gotten in trouble, and had to
spend four consecutive weekends on the road repair crew, and much of their
savings had gone toward Ernie’s new bike.
To be fair, sometimes Murphy’s
intense urges led them toward fun and excitement. The Red Death concert, where they had enjoyed
a magnificent evening drunk on cheap beer, pumping their fists to rude
songs. The carnival, where they had
linked up with a pack of seventeen and eighteen year old girls on recreation
leave from combat. The clashball
pre-season game, where they won a minor skirmish with fans of the opposing
team. Hanging around with Murphy was
risky, but payoffs were consistent. Plus
he was very funny, and could be relied on to make you laugh so hard you had to
catch your breath at least two or three times a day.
“I’m just saying that if it is
true, and if we go there and get caught, it could bring down lots of
trouble.” Turo blocked the incoming fist
poke, knocking Murphy’s wrist high and wide.
“Your sister would know,” Tom said
as the tiniest wince flashed across his face.
“You’re the only one here who’s got a sister attending Roseheart.”
“It’s not like we sit around
talking about it. It’s not like I can
even sit around in the same room with her.”
Tyra still lived at home, but she
stayed in the womens’ section of the house, where she had constant connectivity
with her teachers and friends and family.
The connectivity was free. A
government truck had rolled up to install the uplink when it had been determined,
shortly after her thirteenth birthday, that was capable of motherhood, and that
she had made her own decision this was a path she wanted to take. The
government desperately wanted girls to opt for motherhood, and offered them all
kinds of benefits to tempt them from opting for the surgery instead. If a girl
wanted to serve as a soldier, or work at a profession, or do pretty much
anything that involved interacting with the real world, she had the surgery.
Mothers needed to isolate themselves to keep their wombs and babies safe from
the byproducts of the war.
There weren’t a lot of kids in
their neighborhood. Red Ridge consisted
of seventy-five houses, most of them connected to farms that shot off in
various compass points and expanded to wedges of rocky pasture where they
farmed a few hardy food crops and grazed thousands of tall, shaggy,
ill-tempered sheep. They didn’t even
have enough people to support a school, and Turo and the other boys took their
lessons on a screen along with several other isolated boys remoting in. Since they weren’t girls, their connectivity
was low priority and sporadic, and sometimes they went weeks without school, or
any other contact with the world outside Red Ridge.
Their families frequently found
useful things for them to do during these stretches of aimlessness, but not
always. Murphy therefore took it upon
himself to find activities. The activity
he was considering had to do with a rumor that a group of girls from Roseheart
Academy were planning an outing over at the hot springs a few kilometers
away. Roseheart was a virtual school
attended by girls like Tyra. People
called them maidens. To distinguish them
from regular girls.
Maidens were almost like a
different species. They hardly ever came
outside, and if they did, it was under heavy guard. The only work they had to do involved staying
in optimal health. They spent their time
chatting with other maidens and researching prospective husbands.
You didn’t have to be a rich
handsome decorated hero with an even temperament and several generations of
respectable ancestors, but it helped.
The competition was fierce. The
prebrides journeyed through their fast connections to a virtual city of virtual
rooms set up by men hoping to attract prebrides. Turo was familiar with them because sometimes
Tyra sent him samples, with comments like “don’t grow up and be like this or I
will have to shoot you!”
The prospective grooms furnished
their virtual rooms with music and art, and pictures of things they thought
prebrides might like: puppies, dune
buggies, buckets of cash, the applicant’s own naked body. You could rummage around their virtual rooms
to find out anything you wanted to know.
How much money they had. Whether they had a service record and if not,
whether their qualifying disability would interfere with their ability to
father a child. Turo had always felt a sort of horrified embarassment looking
at the applications. He knew he’d be filling one out himself someday, and then
he’d face an unknown length of time wondering whether he should check his
messages because maybe some girl had gotten bored at three in the morning and
paged him to see what his favorite ice cream flavor was. Assuming he gave the
correct answer, he would then chat with her and get to know her, and if
everything worked out, they’d enter formal negotiations for marriage.
Turo’s father had done it. All the fathers in Red Ridge had. Boris’ dad
had even had more than one wife, and he used to tell them the hard part was
surviving the war. Once you’d fulfilled your service requirement, you obtained
a few more government perks that transferred to your new spouse. Girls liked
soldiers. Girls looked down on guys who hadn’t served. Girls would forgive a
crooked smile or a substandard height if it was accompanied by a few medals and
references from fellow soldiers attesting to the applicant’s superhuman feats
of bravery and strength.
Possibly girls would be impressed
by young men willing to hide their dirtbikes behind the water tower and proceed
on foot for the last mile, past rusty coils of barbed wire and up a cliff,
which required them to use climbing gear, as there were a couple of sections
where odds were good you’d fall without someone to anchor you, so they roped
themselves together and took turns ascending and bracing. Then they squeezed into a cave and crawled
through a narrow tunnel. Boris scraped
his belly during this part of the exhibition, but all the blood washed away
when they jumped into a pond and swam through the warm, sulphury darkness to
the other side.
They lit their lantern and walked
together in a close pack, trying not to startle the bats above, until they
reached a section with strips of blue light tape outlining a path. Murphy froze and gasped, and they all gathered
near him, trying to see what had caught his eye. As Turo’s eyes adjusted to the dim
illumination he made it out. A
footprint. Made by a tiny sandal. Murphy planted his boot alongside it to
illustrate the contrast in size.
The footprint was pointed toward
the sound of rushing water, and they trekked up the smooth and well-maintained
path for a ways, noticing there were wheel ruts for girls who didn’t want to
walk. Turo assumed it wouldn’t be very far since at least one person had
decided to traverse it in sandals, and he was right. The path curved, and on
the other side of it they could hear high pitched voices.
The boys gathered in a wide spot
where the cart that had made the wheel ruts was parked. It was covered by
flower garlands and wreaths, which made it bulk enough to conceal all of them
behind it. “There’s gotta be a guard,” Murphy whispered once they were all
safely concealed.
“Distract ‘em,” Andre said.
“Someone go make a noise up the path, then we can run in and say hi before they
throw us back out.”
“Maybe the girls will decide they
want us to stay after they get a good look.”
Ernie grinned, his baby-round cheeks puffing up like he was smuggling
cookies.
“Or if they see this.” Murphy
wriggled out of his backpack and produced several offerings: a bottle of
Tropicacious pineapple cider, a bag of slightly melted chocolates, a box of
sour apple licorice and a music pod. “Nine hours of dance music, in case they
want to dance around.”
“I don’t know how to dance,” Boris
objected.
“Girls love dance music,” Turo
said. His sisters and mom did, anyway, and they represented the majority of his
experience with females. Some guys, like Murphy for example, didn’t even have
female relatives around. Murphy’s mother had left his dad for some guy up in
Chester Creek who had half his face melted off by a scorpion tank. She had seen
him on the news and was so impressed by his heroism that she started writing
him fanmail, and when Murphy was about six she got a divorce and left, leaving
Murphy to be raised by his dad and his older brother and a houseful of bangbots
with secondary programming for household chores that his dad had purchased
after the split.
Turo was a little leery of bangbots
himself. On his third experience with one, something had gone wrong with her
power supply. She had gone from moaning and cooing to staccato screeches as her
inhumanly strong metal-core limbs seized around him and her face contorted into
a gruesome mask due to the way her mouth wasn’t exactly shaped like a real
person’s mouth. Turo still had nightmares about this occasionally, and had
switched to satisfying himself with his hand.
“This should get their attention.”
Andre pulled out a firecracker the size of his pinky. Tom nodded in approval.
Ernie had an extra twist of fuse on his pocket and he deftly knotted the
extension in place, and Turo ran it down the path a good distance, lit the end,
then hightailed it back to their hiding place, sliding in beside Gunther just
as the firecracker went off.
They were nudging each other and
giggling and listening to the girls’ startled screams when there was a
secondary explosion. It had a thunderous
reverb behind it, and the air turned dusty.
Two uniformed guards headed down
the path, swinging big flashlights. They
had military issue automatic rifles strapped on their backs, but their hands
were on the sidearms strapped to their thighs.
A variety of other weapons and crowd control devices hung from their
belts. They were female, about
thirtyish, with stress lines permanently engraved on their faces.
“Go go go,” Murphy hissed as the
guards headed down the trail. The boys scurried toward the girls’ voices,
emerging into a big cave containing a hot spring. The girls had filled it with candles, and
incense to offset the sharp tang of sulphur.
They were lounging near a small and steaming waterfall. They were mostly
naked, not counting the abundance of ankle bracelets and hair ornaments and
earrings and necklaces and bracelets.
There were five of them, and one was
Tyra. She immediately noticed Turo, and
he turned bright red, keeping his eyes above her neckline. She opened her mouth to yell at him when
Boris splashed right into the water, which made the girls laugh. Then Turo made
a goofy face and went into a mock panic over Boris’ supposed drowning, which
made them laugh even more. Tom took advantage of their good spirits to drop
down on one knee beside them, presenting his array of temptations with a
flourish.
“You guys are so not supposed to be
here -- ” Tyra started up when the laughter subsided.
“What are you little ratshit
bastards doing sneaking in here?” The guards reappeared, looking dusty and
distressed. The yelling guard had her
name on her chest: J.A. Bowyer. She also
had her sidearm drawn and was waving it in the boys direction, and they raised
their hands and smiled their best innocent smiles.
“Calm down, Bowyer.” There was a
note of disapproval in Tyra’s voice.
Turo knew she hated bad language.
“Just my brother bringing me something I asked for.”
“Sour apple, yum.” The girl beside Tyra reached for the box and
took out a strip, biting into it.
“Did you boys set off that
dynamite?”
“What dynamite?” Murphy looked offended. “We had a teensy
little firecracker to distract you while we made our delivery. Surely they taught you better in the Army.”
“Shut up, smartmouth.” The other
guard stepped forward. Her nameplate
said she was M.J. Luiz. “Whatever you blew up caused some structural
destabilizing and the exit is now blocked.”
“Dumbass,” Bowyer added.
“Language,” Tyra snapped. She lowered herself into the water, and Turo
was relieved he didn’t have to not look at her anymore.
Bowyer looked at Tyra with an
expression that made it clear she despised her job. “I’ll go radio for someone
to come dig us out.”
“May I offer you ladies a drink
while we wait?” Andre whipped out a small knife and began hacking away at the
stopper of the pineapple cider.
Gunther burst into a brief
syncopated rap about how fine it was to be in a luxurious underground cavern
with the loveliest girls in the universe, his voice echoing off the canyon
walls. Not to be outdone, Murphy cannonballed into the water.
“You boys don’t get too wild, now,”
Luiz sat down on a boulder and began scribbling on a little notepad. “Already
got lots to write down in my report.”
Turo accepted a small cup of
pineapple cider. All the girls declined
it except Tyra and a round, dimpled one whose name was Batilda, or Tilly to her
friends, and since they hadn’t done anything to cast doubt on their friendly
intentions, they could proceed directly to Tilly.
“She is about to leave our ranks,”
Tyra said. “This time next year she’ll be changing diapers and posting pictures
of them to the other mommies.”
“That’s right,” Tilly agreed. “I
intend to start with a little girl, followed by three or four boys. Then another girl.”
“I want a boy first,” said the girl
Turo thought was probably the loveliest of them all. She had a big cloud of
fluffy blonde hair and puffy pink lips, and a whispery little voice. “A little
man. Carlos, after my uncle, and he’s going to learn to draw pictures and play
drums.”
“You say that now, Edith. Wait
until you’ve got a three year old waking you up with drum solos at nine in the
morning.” An irritable-looking girl with brown hair dyed in red streaks poured
herself a cup of tea from a platter of refreshments the girls had brought for
themselves – tea, iced cakes, little turnovers containing spiced lamb and
vegetables, drizzled with yogurt sauce. Edith was adding the boys’ offerings to
the feast, arranging everything symmetrically, and the red-streaked girl did
not seem to approve.
Gunther, meanwhile, had taken the
artistic direction to heart. He started rapping in a little kid’s voice. “Mama, I want some backbeat, mama, I want
some horns coming in on the three.” Boris and Andre encouraged him by making percussion
noises with their mouths and armpits.
“Mama, I’d like my pension now,”
Luiz muttered under her breath.
It was bold, it was risky. It was
in definite contravention to the usual channels. Boys did not marry prebrides;
men did. Boys could dream about it as they worked out with their bangbots, and
they could write epic songs and poems about it to post when they started
seriously advertising. After they had proved to the government that they had
money and a place to live and were medically worthy of contributing their genes
to the country and survived a minimum of four years of military service. After they had done all of those things, they
were qualified to talk to girls in the hopes of entering into a romantic
relationship which would result in as many children as possible. The idea of a
mere boy who had not yet jumped through the hoops and hurdles just talking to a
marriageable girl was gauche, it was strange, it was just not done, and it was
borderline illegal.
But Turo decided to do it anyway. He
unlaced his boots and focused on the least noticeable girl. That seemed to be
intentional on her part. She had long hair secured in a lace snood, and a
naturally frowning mouth that made her seem smart and serious. He peeled off
his socks, shrugged out of his overshirt, kept his pants on and splashed into
the water beside her. “Hello. My name is Arturo Alfonso Berengar. It’s a
pleasure to meet you.”
Her frown disappeared for a second
– her version of a smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Arturo. My name is Livia
Elaine Garrison.”
“We have a total of six names
between us,” he observed.
“And a total of forty letters,” she
replied. “In octal, that would be fifty.”
“I never octal with a girl unless
I’ve known her a long time.”
The frown reversed itself as she
decided he was all right. “I’ll look you up in seven or eight years, then.”
“Please do. With any lucky I’ll
have accomplished something by then.”
“Everybody accomplishes something.
What are your goals?”
Livia Elaine Garrison, in their
extremely brief relationship, had zeroed in on the one thing that bothered Turo
in an extremely deep and unsettling way. “I don’t really have any.”
And it was true. Other than making
a home that was sort of like the one where he grew up, he had no particular
plans.
“Maybe you don’t know what they are
yet. Or maybe they don’t exist yet. Like, imagine some guy living way back in
the dark ages, who is an absolute wizard at microbiology. He could stop the
black plague in his tracks, if only he had equipment and knowledge from a thousand
years into the future.”
Turo gave her a brief flash of
funny reaction face and her eyes sparkled, indicating she was amused. “So
you’re saying that my goal is already out there but it’s something I don’t know
about yet.”
“And it is your duty to educate
yourself!” This time her smile actually exposed teeth. “Of course, then you
would wind up being a penniless scholar.”
“Penniless scholars don’t attract
many girls.”
“It’s okay to be a penniless
scholar if you’re a girl. I’m trying to arrange something with a family that
can get me a break on tuition, though. I’ve got four degrees already. Earned
them all by remote.”
Turo felt an invisible bar slam
down between them, with “no losers allowed” painted on it in shiny red enamel.
His brain rummaged desperately for a reply, and he was grateful for the
interruption when Bowyer came storming back. She had a furious whispered
conversation with Luiz, who seemed upset by the news. Turo and Livia were
closest to them, and they leaned closer in an attempt to overhear, and
gradually the rest stopped talking and drifted over near them, standing in a
little cluster in the warm and bubbling water.
Luiz turned toward them. “We can’t get a connection to call for help.”
“How did you boys get in here?”
Bowyer crossed her arms.
“There’s a lot more to these caves
than just the hot springs,” Andre said. “It’s a rough climb though. Maybe a
couple of us could go for help.”
“I’ll go with you,” Bowyer said,
cheering up at the idea of a dangerous task. “If I can get outside, maybe I can
get a connection.”
Boris gnawed the ends off of two
licorice strips and presented them in his fist together with three fresh ones,
and they each chose. Turo wound up with one of the short strips, together with
Andre. They headed to the break in the path and through the big chamber full of
bats. A couple of bats dived down to investigate, and Andre couldn’t avoid
letting out a yelp when one brushed his shoulder. Bowyer laughed at him and hit
a switch on her lantern, turning the light a deep greenish color.
“Not sure if this will help. It
works on some kinds of electronics.”
They splashed along in silence for
a moment. Then Andre had a question. “Like drones?”
“Mhm.” She aimed her light down and
low. “Some of them detect you by your body heat, others look for motion, some
head for geographical coordinates and if they really hate you, sometimes they
send one specifically looking for your face.”
“That’s harsh,” Turo said. Bowyer
let out a bitter chuckle.
“We swam through this part,” Andre
said as they reached the pool. “Are you waterproof?”
“Thanks for checking.” She fumbled
with some of her gear, and then they splashed into the water and swam to the
tunnel. Bowyer’s gun got wedged a few times but they made it through without
any accidental shootings. They stood on the ledge that would have given them a
great view of the farmland below if it had been daylight. But it was dark and
cloudy and once they left the aura of Bowyer’s lantern they couldn’t see their
hands in front of their faces.
“This is the bad part,” Turo said.
“We came up when it was still daylight and we still needed to use harnesses to
anchor each other.”
“You boys seem determined.” Bowyer
shone her light down the cliff. “Think you can get back down in the dark?”
“I can brace Andre,” Turo said. “Do
you think you can brace me?”
“Shouldn’t be too much of a
problem,” she said. Turo estimated he
outweighed her by a considerable margin but figured she had to be in good
condition considering her job. He hadn’t really paid attention to her shape,
even though it wasn’t all that different from the way the maidens were
shaped. She was lean and tall, with
developed neck muscles and a curvy butt, and a face that was pretty in a bitchy
sort of way.
He had heard plenty of stories
about older women taking teenage boys as lovers. In fact, there was a ranch
nearby where half a dozen of them lived, all veterans, raising sheep and
several orphans, one of whom required an exoskeleton to get around. He had heard
rumors, in fact, that both Boris and Andre were regular visitors, but he’d
never asked them directly. It was their business.
He and Andre rigged up the climbing
harness, and tossed a coin. Andre lost. He looked up at Bowyer, his face all
serious. “I did set off a firework. It wasn’t a very big one. If I go get help,
will it cancel out the trouble I’m in?”
She laughed, looking almost pretty
in the greenish light. “There was a distinct pattern and smell in the wreckage
which indicated your explosion went off within range of a dormant drone with a
concussion payload. I’ll bet you a root beer that when they recover the chip
they’re going to find it’s over six months old. This place was a retreat for
the brass at one time and somebody must have laid a trap and forgot all about
it. I didn’t think it was wise to bring a bunch of maidens out here but one of
them specifically asked.”
“Maidens get what they want,” Turo
said.
“Within reason,” she corrected.
“Let me radio in and tell them to expect you.”
She uncovered a heavy-duty
ruggedized deld built into her glove and shook it to wake it up. Turo peered over her shoulder at the image,
which was grainy and monocolor. An
animated soldier with impossibly large forearms was telling them the system was
taxed, and advising them to try again later.
Bowyer called him a brainless dingleberry as she cancelled out of the
screen, and both boys snickered.
“Soldier talk,” Andre said.
“You’re damn right. I guess you boys had better head on
down. I can’t promise you’ll entirely
avoid punishment, but I will speak for your heroism.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” they chorused,
and Andre slipped over the side. Bowyer
switched her light to a stark white that added definition to the shadows, and
Turo had to consciously avoid looking at it because it was so bright it made
him see spots. He braced himself,
listening to the scraping sounds of Andre’s descent.
The rope went slack as Andre
reached the ledge. The rope jerked three
times, signalling Turo it was his turn, and he waved at Bowyer. She gave him a brief wave back while fussing
with her deld.
Turo was halfway to the ledge on
his side when they heard the explosion.
Off toward the base, where Bowyer was stationed. The official entrance to the hot springs. It was accompanied by a flash that lit up the
night and made Turo see more spots. He
was blinking when the rope suddenly cut into his chest. He was holding all of Andre’s weight. He clung desperately with his fingers and
toes, feeling Andre’s weight swing like a pendulum before slamming into the
face below him. Andre let out an
anguished yell when that happened.
“Bowyer!” Turo yelled. Her face appeared over the edge. Shortly afterward, the extra climbing harness
they’d brought whacked Turo in the face.
He made a grab for it and his hold on the cliff face wavered.
“Don’t you slip too!” Bowyer scolded. “I can’t dead lift both of you asswipes at
the same time.”
“My arm’s broken,” Andre
yelled. He must have found some footing
since some of the weight released from Turo’s harness. That combined with
Bowyer’s assistance was enough to get him back to the ledge beside her, and
together they hauled Andre up. His
diagnosis was correct; the broken end of bone was sticking out of his right
forearm. Looking at it made Turo’s knees feel like jelly.
“Awwww, shit, that’s a compound
fracture,” Bowyer said. “If I was in
combat I’d try to set it and then splint it, but you’re a civilian kid.”
“Hurts a lot,” Andre said. He had stopped yelling but his forehead was
glistening with sweat from his stoic efforts.
“Base, this is base, you have a
connection, come through.” Bowyer’s palm
started yelling at them and she sat back on her haunches to look at it.
“We have a situation here, I’ve got
a wounded minor civilian.”
“Sergeant, we’re under
lockdown. We’ve just shot down a drone.”
“The general’s daughter is trapped
in the caves,” Bowyer said, returning the ominous news in kind. “Another drone.”
They started barking rapidly to
each other in military slang. Turo understood very little of it at that point
in his life. He understood things were bad, and he bent over Andre trying to be
comforting, and trying not to think of the intricate little machines Andre
sometimes cobbled together for the sheer joy of building them. He had extremely
fine dexterity, and he knew how to machine things down to a fine tolerance with
the lathe function on his fab printer. Turo’s mom had a cuckoo clock that Andre
had made for her after her vision started to go, so she could tell what time it
was. She couldn’t see all the amazing carved figures that popped out on the
hour – frogs and dancing girls and teddy bears and rabbits in addition to
cuckoos, and neither could Turo for that matter, since it was in the womens’
and childrens’ section of the house and he hadn’t been allowed in there since
he was twelve. The parlor and dining
room and kitchen were neutral, and that was mainly where he saw his mother and
sisters.
Sister. It was just Tyra now.
Herminia was married, and expecting her first baby. She seemed to really love
her husband, who was a twenty-eight year old lieutenant commander stationed out
near Pastor, where the most dangerous action involved drunk tourists from
Braganza. No more coming home to school
to discover the kitchen full of girls and platters of food, which they’d
usually share with pesky baby brothers that were willing to put up with some
teasing. Tyra wasn’t as social as Herminia and her parties were infrequent and
usually conducted through the wallscreen in her room.
Bowyer finished talking to her hand
and leaned forward. “Kid, we’re in
combat, and that means you can’t complain if I screw it up. Open your mouth and point your tongue up.”
She dug a sealed packet from a
first aid kit in one of her pockets and tore it open, and took out a little
spray ampule, which she sprayed underneath Andre’s tongue, and then she passed
him a canteen of water to chase the bitterness.
By the time he handed it back, his head was lolling.
Bowyer instructed Turo where to
hold him. She waited until his eyes were
closed before cutting his shirt and jacket sleeves off with her utility knife,
and pulling on his hand and setting his fracture. Andre let out a brief yell before passing
out. Bowyer sprayed his arm with a
little cannister from the first aid kit, making a shell long enough to cover
the wound and immobilize his elbow, and then she made a sling out of the
discarded sleeves and tied it to his chest.
“You’re pretty good at this,” Turo
said.
“Don’t know if I’m that good, but
I’m experienced.” She passed Turo the
water and sat down. “I suppose what we
do now is head back to the others and wait for the bulldozer to arrive. Unless you think you can make it down
alone. Of course, then you’re counting
on me to carry his wounded ass, and I’m not sure my lumbar region will stand up
to that particular form of torture.”
“I can carry him.” Turo realized she was giving him a graceful
alternative to climbing down alone in the dark and he was grateful for it. “Might need some help dragging him through
that one part, just to make sure his arm doesn’t snag.”
“You got it, strong man. And since I’m a far better swimmer than you,
I’ll get him through that part.”
“I don’t swim a lot, ma’am,” Turo
confessed.
Andre was moaning and muttering by
the time they got to the path. Turo was
looking forward to setting him down.
They heard Gunther singing as they entered the cavern, and found a
dismal little party going on. The girls
had put on more clothes and were clustered together. The air was still hot and
sulphurous, but the mood immediately chilled once everyone noticed Andre’s
condition. Bowyer went over to brief
Luiz and Turo gently laid Andre to the side.
A couple of girls darted over with pillows for his head.
“Bowyer first-aided him. He broke
his arm going down the cliff.”
“Dumbass,” Murphy said, which
provoked outraged exclamations from the girls.
“Bite me,” Andre said weakly, and
that got a laugh from the boys.
“There’s a drone out there,” Turo
said in a quieter voice. “It might be an
attack.”
“My dad’s out there,” Tilly said,
her voice quivering. “That’s probably
why.”
“Your dad is an awesome soldier,”
Livia reassured her. “He’s surrounded by
people who are experts in destroying drones.”
“That’s because Dysz is a bunch of
cowards,” Murphy declared. “They won’t
put on uniforms and face us on the battlefield.
They just send us drones, and viruses.
And try to mess with our maidens.”
“Bunch of noxes,” Ernie added, and
everyone murmured in agreement.
“Well, they won’t face us on the
battlefield because they’d lose.” The
girl with red streaks spoke up. “We’re
twice as big as them. We can run farther
and faster, carry more, our reflexes are faster. They’re the ones who made us that way.”
“They could have done it to
themselves, if they weren’t noxes,” Murphy said.
“They were afraid of the side
effects. With good reason. Birth defects. Fertility trouble. Damaged kids.”
“Vreela, stop being negative,” Tyra
ordered.
“Nobody’s forcing you to have any
damaged kids,” Murphy said. “There’s
guys out there jumping through all kinds of hoops to even talk to you, and they
have no idea what they’re getting into.”
“I’m going to have a lot of kids,”
she said sullenly. “Hopefully one will
survive long enough to give me grandkids.
Wouldn’t that be nice.”
“You have nothing to complain
about!” Luiz suddenly spoke up, her voice echoing across the cavern. “You maidens are spoiled, you’re pampered,
valuable resources are wasted so you can sit on your asses all day eating
gourmet food and playing your stupid games with each other.”
“Shut up, do your job, and get us
out of here,” Tyra snapped. Turo’s
eyebrows shot up.
“If you civilians are trying to
start a rebellion I’m going to have to bring out the zip ties,” Bowyer said,
putting her hand on Luiz’s shoulder. “If
anyone’s got reason to complain it’s that kid over there with the broken
arm. How you doing, Andre? Could you use another hit of pain
medication?”
“Yes please,” he said feebly, and
Bowyer provided.
“The base knows we’re here,” Turo
said. “They’ll rescue us eventually.”
“That’s right.” Pretty blonde Edith nodded her head
emphatically. She was sitting very close
to Gunther. “And also, ma’am, I wanted
to say thank you for your service, ma’am.
I have two sisters that served, one’s still alive.”
“Thank you,” Bowyer said.
“I’m sorry I blew up,” Tyra said,
sounding guilty. She deserved some guilt, Turo thought. Bitching at a soldier
who was risking her life to protect them was very bad manners.
“Drones make you panic,” Luiz said.
“I’m sorry, too. It’s just you never know. Rolling up on wheels? Climbing over
the wall? They can fly for short
distances. Disguise them as rocks, as
stray bits of junk, as children’s toys, as animals. They gotta be from five
centimeters to five meters, according to the rules of engagement, but that
gives a lot of room for creativity.”
“The worst part’s waiting for
them,” Bowyer contributed. “You start seeing every creeping shadow and
imagining it’s some kind of mechanical device that’s headed over to spew acid
on your face or explode in pointed shrapnel or try to set you on fire.”
“Or worse,” Luiz agreed. “You gotta memorize a whole manual of
different kinds, and what the countermeasures are.”
“Big ass manual,” Bowyer said. “Have you kids got any of that pineapple
cider left?”
Murphy and Gunther exchanged guilty
glances, shaking their heads no. Murphy
stood up, wobbling a little. “How do we
know there aren’t any drones in here?
You said there was one in the tunnel.”
“An old one,” Bowyer agreed. “I think they planted it long ago and meant
to activate it someday.” She showed them
her palm, which was displaying photos that were hard to make out. “From what I gather, there was one drone at
the compound, a spycam with a shrapnel dispersion self-destruct. It was slaving off our communications to
shoot pictures over to Manganela or wherever their controller is.”
“Cameras?” Tilly wrapped her robe tight around her
chest.
“If I were setting up cameras, this
room would be high priority,” Murphy declared.
“I’d have beautiful images of beautiful women, to last me the rest of my
life.”
“No drones in here,” Luiz
said. “We scanned it. Top to bottom. Dogs, fab detectors, you name it.”
“If we got in, it’s not secure,”
Turo pointed out.
“Do you have detectors with
you?” Tilly was staring up at the
ceiling, a worried look on her face.
“They brought in the big ones, with
battery packs,” Luiz said. “We can’t
even get our delds to work in here.”
“It’s shielded, hardcore,” Tilly
said mournfully. “For security.”
“I am going to head back out there
to get a signal,” Bowyer announced. “If
you children can refrain from holding an orgy for now, Luiz should probably go
with me. Nothing’s going to hurt you in
here besides stupidity.”
“Behave yourselves,” Luiz growled
as she followed Bowyer.
“Ladies, don’t all start the orgy
at once,” Gary teased, giving them his most charming smile. It returned only sour expressions.
“What if another meteor landed,”
Murphy said. “Everyone on the planet
burned up in its wake except for us, safe in this cave. It would be our duty to repopulate the
planet.”
“That’s ludicrous,” Vreela
said. “People would see it coming on the
telescopes and there would be an emergency Ambit meeting and they’d pulverize
it with the satellites once it got within range.”
“Hypothetically,” Murphy
qualified. “Who would you pick? Don’t all pick me.”
“Voluntary extinction,” Vreela
snarled.
“Can we all pick the same one?”
Tyra smiled. “You could fight to the death. We only need one boy.”
“Then all our grandchildren would
be cousins,” Edith objected. “We need to keep at least two.”
“I don’t know how you can joke
around at a time like this,” Tilly said, tears glistening on her round cheeks.
Gunther awkwardly patted her on the shoulder.
She squeezed his hand.
“This could be your last chance
ever to share wild, impulsive passion with a healthy young man instead of some
creaky old guy covered in scar tissue,” Murphy said, not catching the shift in
mood. He was swaying, as though most of the pineapple cider had ended up in his
belly.
“Ewww,” Edith said, under her
breath.
“What? Do I detect disgust?” Murphy peeled off his shirt and looked down
at his sunburnt muscles.
“I have a girlfriend,” Edith
explained.
“Does your husband-to-be know
that?”
“Doesn’t matter. He’ll have to put up with it if he wants
children.” She tossed her blonde hair at
them. “She’ll be living with me. Not him.”
“Will he get to watch you
kiss?” Murph scratched at his
belly.
“Stop being a creep,” Tyra
ordered. Turo looked at his sister, and
at Murph, loyalties torn.
“Back in the good old days, if you
wanted a woman, you’d just catch one.” Murphy struck a heroic pose, then caught
himself against the wall as he teetered.
“Keep her in a castle or something.”
“In the present days, if the
quarter of the population that can carry babies is fertile is subjected to
undue stress or environmental poisons during gestation, they’ll throw mutants,
or miscarry.” Vreela slicked her hair back so that her face looked bare and
stern. “Reproductive strategy is key, and you’re failing at it right now.”
“Hey. Let’s tone it down.” Turo
held up his hands in a gesture of ineffective leadership.
Tilly rose up in red-faced wrath.
“I come from seventeen generations of officers, and if you tried to keep me in
a castle I’d rip your balls off and feed them to you. Because that’s what we
do! We. Win. Fights. That’s exactly what my dad is doing out there. Winning a
fight.”
“We all come from generations of
soldiers,” Boris commented. “That won fights.”
They nodded in agreement so silent
that they could hear Andre, snoring.
Vreela finally broke it. “You’re twice as big as us but you eventually
have to sleep.”
Murphy was giving her an intense
stare. He moved close to her suddenly, and caught her in an embrace. And then
he kissed her, on the mouth. Vreela froze.
The kiss continued for about half a minute. She opened her mouth a
little wider.
And then Murphy fell down. His
heels bounced against the stone floor and his arms flew out to the sides, and
his head landed on Andre’s leg, which made Andre yell out in pain. Urine
darkened the crotch of his pants and drool ran from the side of his mouth as he
babbled nonsense, his eyes unfocused, blood running from his nose.
“That was not necessary!” Gunther
yelled, and Vreela began screeching back.
Turo glanced helplessly at Tyra but
she was yelling too, as were most of them, aside from Boris, who had Murphy’s
thrashing head immobilized against his pillowy thigh.
He remembered when Tyra had gotten
her stinger installed. It was free, from the government, and a medical truck
came out to do the surgery right at the same time she started bleeding, which
was close to the time when Turo had been moved to the other side of the house.
She had read him all the literature while she was recuperating, dwelling on the
gruesome details.
A stinger was an implant in your
abdominal cavity, and there was a direct interface terminal connected to your spinal cord. It monitored the girl’s
body for various things, primarily other people. If it found any other people
connected to the girl by saliva, or other body fluids, it dispersed a payload
of nanobots and then began manufacturing more. The microscopic bots would then
rush to the point of contact, obtaining access to the invader’s body and
hopping on board to give him a seizure lasting approximately three to seven
minutes.
Tyra had also told her brother that
stingers were invented in Dysz. With the implication that they were invented to
protect Dysz women from Vanramian men.
Then the soldiers had found out about them, and Vanramian women started
using them. Then a female premier had made them free and mandatory for all
female Vanramians, and any men who wanted them. Turo hadn’t looked into it because
he didn’t see the point in having surgery unless you were about to die.
“You have to override it. They made us test it by kissing a bangbot
made up to look like Naughty Rod Majors, from the movies.”
“Ha ha, you got to kiss Naughty
Rod.”
“Shut up! If you want to keep kissing, anyway, you have
to squeeze your butt muscles. Three
times. So if you’re ever kissing a girl
and her butt twitches three times, it means she’s calling off the stinger.”
“How can I tell if her butt’s
twitching her if I’m kissing her?” Turo
had wanted to know. Tyra hadn’t really
been able to provide a satisfactory answer.
Nobody timed Murphy’s seizure but
it seemed to take forever, amidst the yelling.
In the meantime, more cacophony arrived as the soldiers did something in
the outer chambers that aggravated the bats, resulting in squeaking and
flapping, accompanied by cursing and splashing.
As the soldiers’ feet pounded up the hallway, heated arguments broke out
over whether Vreela was playing fair.
Turo watched his sister yell at Gary, her features contorted with rage.
“What hit him? What hit him?” Bowyer was holding her rifle, her eyes wide
and her forehead dripping sweat. Luiz
shoved past her and ran toward Murphy as his seizure subsided.
Something flapped in the entrance
way. A bat. Bowyer ducked, dodging back.
Luiz pivoted. Her pistol was in her hand and she fired at
the small burst of motion, and the bat ceased to exist. Her round detonated in a reddish puff. Turo would later learn that was a pulse
round. Good for destroying the mobility
of a nearby drone, and highly unlikely to ricochet, since its charge was mostly
energy.
A pulse round could also set off a
mine that had been embedded in the wall for years, waiting for someone with a
matching remote control to push a button somewhere. Turo saw it happen. He saw a puff of smoke and heard a deafening
explosion as part of the wall came down.
Bowyer hadn’t dodged far
enough. A cascade of rock fell right on
top of her, right at the entrance to the chamber. Turo couldn’t tell if she made any noise
since he was temporarily deafened, but he saw her leg twitch, and he saw her
face once the dust settled, far away, looking very surprised.
More explosions tore up the
passageway and Bowyer disappeared in a dust cloud. Turo froze.
He was aware of a hand next to his, clutching for him, and he had no
idea whose hand it was but he clutched back, staring at the cloud of settling
dust. There was nothing left of Bowyer
but a bloodstain.
People in uniforms and tactical
gear flooded in and it was a little while before Turo could recognize the fact
they were talking to him. They escorted everyone out rapidly through the tunnel
they had just excavated.
Tyra made good on her word, and
explained that Turo and his friends were innocently delivering party supplies
when they had bravely discovered the hallway trap. They ended up being
interviewed on the news, and being presented with some kind of teenage civilian
home defense award. Turo had heard from his sister that Corporal Luiz was in
line for a crybaby discharge on due to stress, and everyone was making fun of
her. And Turo didn’t think that was quite right, but he still had sadness flare
up in his heart when he thought about Bowyer. He never mentioned it because it
might lead someone to think he was a crybaby too.
