by C. Gockel
For a moment, she could only stare at him. His eyes were wide, his brow drawn—he looked worried. She averted her gaze to the hem of the blanket. Sometimes, when she looked at him, she felt she was looking at an impostor, not a real human being.
The car swayed, and Noa looked up at the ceiling as though searching for something she’d lost there. “Stupid hay, it is too prickly,” she said, to say something, anything, that wasn’t about the dream she just had.
James took an audible breath, and then, mimicking Noa’s voice perfectly, said, “This freight car is the perfect way to get to Luddeccea Prime.” No grin tugged at the corners of his lips. Tim would have cracked up halfway through that joke. James wasn’t Timothy, but he wasn’t an impostor, he was himself.
“Shut up,” said Noa, but she smiled, trying to let him know she was grateful that he had changed the subject. He was picking up on the witty banter thing, at last.
James narrowed his eyes. His jaw moved from side to side as though he was trying to grin. “I don’t think you mean that.”
“Yes, I do.” Noa glowered, but it was feigned. In the freight transport container behind them some cows lowed.
“If more than five minutes pass without conversation, you talk. Or prompt me to talk,” James parried.
Raising an eyebrow, Noa put a hand to her chest as though she were affronted. “Are you calling me a chatterbox?”
James looked up at the ceiling as though searching for something hidden in the eaves, just as she had a moment ago.
“Never mind, I’m going back to sleep,” Noa said, rolling onto her side. James flicked off the light.
Beneath them, the track the freight container was elevated on must have hit a rise, because the container rocked. They’d dumped the hovercraft in the forest a few days ago. They couldn’t refuel it—their faces were all over “television”—so they’d hopped on this freight transport. The hay was prickly, but soft. This container and the half dozen behind and in front of it were hitched together, and hovered on a magnetized track. It was less energy-intensive than antigrav. The rocking usually put Noa to sleep.
Noa shifted beneath the blanket she shared with James. It smelled like him. No man should smell as good as James did, especially not after a few days without a bath. Scowling, she closed her eyes. As much as he gave her nightmares, she was attracted to him on some base level; she caught herself observing him too closely, and she felt herself flushing when he was close. That attraction ran smack into a wall in her heart or her head or both. He looked too much like Timothy and had the same sort of constantly curious mind Tim had. But Timothy wouldn’t have thought twice about going to Prime; Timothy, even more than Noa, would always do the right thing. She closed her eyes. She was beginning to like James, but she wasn’t sure she respected him. It was annoying that he had to be so good-looking.
Sleep didn’t come, even with the gentle rocking of the car, although she was warm and not hungry.
She sighed. “You have to admit, hopping a ride in this freight car was a pretty good non-crazy idea.”
“Four minutes and thirty-five seconds,” James said dryly.
Putting a hand to the side, Noa found her canteen. “Admit it,” she said and took a swig. James was silent. Returning the canteen to its spot, she plucked up the flashlight—recovered from its dip in the water—and shone it at James.
He scrunched his eyes in the spotlight, and held up a hand. She knew him much better after a few long boring days in a freight car. His father was a cybernetics expert, his mother was a biomechanical engineer—occupations that made perfect sense for the parents of a hyper-augment. She knew he didn’t have a grip over all of his augmented bits; he was not sure how fast he could run or how strong he was, and the mysterious origins of his tattoos bothered him—but whenever a beam of sunlight streamed into the car, he invariably wound up sunning himself in it, shirt open, the tattoos turning black on his pale skin. He didn’t need to shave, though he had a touch of stubble and didn’t look like he’d had his facial hair follicles surgically depleted. Also, she’d never met anyone who ate as much as he did. She’d thought he’d overdone it when she saw how much food he’d packed, but now they were nearly out.
She realized that she was still shining the light on him, and he was blinking furiously.
She dropped the light guiltily—and then realized the spotlight had been like a wall between them. Flustered by how close he was, she looked away.
Taking a long breath, James said, “It’s probably more comfortable than a cave in the Northwest Province ...” his voice trailed off.
“But?” said Noa, shoving him back with her shoulder and instantly regretting it.
“I can’t help thinking about the Nazis loading the Jews into cattle cars.”
Noa rolled her eyes. He was obsessed with this.
James continued. “We’ve done the work for the Luddeccean Guard, loading ourselves onto our century’s version of a cattle car.”
The transport jostled as it hit a bump in the track ... as though emphasizing James’s point. Noa groaned. “Not with the Nazi’s again, James!” She put a hand over her eyes. “And nothing about ISIL, or North Korea, or the gulags of the USSA—”
“USSR,” James said. “The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”
“Whatever!” said Noa. “They’re dead and gone!”
“The impulse for genocide and reigns of terror isn’t gone, it’s alive and well here.”
Groaning, Noa dropped her head to her knees and banged it several times. He’d filled her in on all of those despotic regimes, and she had to admit, he had a point; but she didn’t want to think about it. They’d be in the thick of it soon enough. She’d already been in the thick of it on her own.
Not catching the not-so-subtle body language, or not caring, James slipped into professor mode. “Usually, this sort of fascist, self-destructive upheaval comes about because of corruption within, or from intolerable stress from without.”
Hoping he would get to the point and change the subject, Noa groaned again. Loudly.
James kept going. “I don’t know of any external pressures on Luddeccea right now.”
And that rankled. Against her better judgment, she found herself drawn into his useless philosophical meanderings. Again. “Of course you don’t know about the external pressures … you are an external pressure.”
James blinked. “What? Me?”
Noa waved the flashlight. “The original settlers to this place didn’t want to be part of the Republic. You guys just showed up—”
“You”— he pointed at her chest — “are a member of the Galactic Fleet of the Republic, you are ‘you guys.’”
Aiming the flashlight in his eyes, Noa ignored his commentary. “The Republic showed up, offered to build the time gate to allow Fleet and traders through. Luddeccea said no—but then the third-wave plague broke out, a vote was held, the yes votes just barely prevailed, and this planet joined up. Now that there are no longer huge epidemics, and the place has been basically tamed, off-worlders are moving in, building enormous houses, not hiring locals, driving up real estate prices and making it hard for young people to buy farm land … ” She gestured at him absently. “And looking so pretty with all your augmentations and leading easily impressionable youth astray.”
“Looking so pretty?” said James, an eyebrow shooting up.
“But that’s not the same as having two superpowers wage war on your turf like what happened in North Korea,” said Noa. She thought it was a pretty good recovery, even if it slightly negated her point.
James exhaled. “You are right, it is not as extreme as the influence wars on old Earth. The local regime … it is corrupt, though, too.”
Noa tilted her head. “It’s static more than corrupt. The same families have held sway in Luddeccea since the founding of the first colony … but you can still have a very nice life here if you want to start a farm and make babies.”
“Isn’t ‘static’ the same th
ing as stagnant … and isn’t that corrupt?” James said.
Noa shook her head. “Maybe a little. But it isn’t like the way you described Earth’s Middle East in the early 2000s. You don’t have to bribe officials. Business permits are slow, but you can get them.” She tapped her foot and frowned. Her baby sister had complained it was harder to do if you were female, too. Noa thought she’d been exaggerating—her sister had tried to start a composting plant when she was fourteen, based on a science fair project she’d done. That had been a little ambitious for a fourteen-year-old, in Noa’s opinion, and Noa could see where the authorities might not trust a kid to follow safety protocols. Noa rubbed the back of her neck. But she’d also understood why her sister had been hurt and angry when a twenty-year-old boy from one of the old families had taken her idea and had gotten a permit for it right away. That incident was shortly after Noa went to the Fleet, and shortly before her sister had graduated and moved to Earth for schooling. One by one, her other siblings had followed, and then her parents. Kenji had gone off world for a while, too—but then had come home.
James tilted his head. “If ambitious men cannot get ahead by legal means, they will do so by criminal means … I remember reading the new Premier isn’t from a First Wave family; he’s just very good at promoting their agenda.”
Noa stared at her feet, her thoughts catching on the words “ambitious” and “criminal.” “I’ve been called ambitious and criminal, and I’m not a fanatic.”
James lifted an eyebrow. “Really?”
“How do you think I knew how to hotwire a grav bike? I borrowed one from a neighborhood Guard patrol when I was a teenager.”
James blinked. “Why would you need to hotwire a vehicle you were borrowing?”
Noa looked up at the roof. “I didn’t ask to borrow it first.” She pursed her lips. “Although it wasn’t technically a crime, since the charges were dropped when I told them I was going to join the Fleet as soon as I graduated. The judge’s last words to me were, ‘good luck and good riddance.’” She tapped her chin. “So maybe I wasn’t really a criminal since I was never charged. Although I did hop transports like this too, I just never got caught. If you don’t get caught, is it really a crime?”
“That seems like something a criminal mind might ask.”
Noa grinned at the wry humor. “But I’m not a criminal. I joined the Fleet and flew straight, figuratively, if not literally.”
“And if you had stayed here?” James asked.
Noa rolled her eyes. “Not worth thinking about. There would be nowhere for me to go, especially as a woman. The Republic may grant women rights, but culturally, on this planet … ” She shook her head. The law was only the first step in such things. “My family wasn’t like that … and they all left.” She touched the scars on her abdomen self-consciously. “My mom always said the Luddecceans are slightly cult-like, and cults need to make babies. When babies need to be made, women can’t be out making a living.”
After a long moment, James said, “Which leads to a third reason why such fanaticism might be taking hold … maybe they really believe what they say?”
Noa shook her head, bored with the mental exercise that took them nowhere. “Why does it matter why it is happening? At this point, it only matters that it is happening. Our job is to alert the Fleet. They can come here and straighten it out.”
Taking a deep breath, James closed his eyes and rubbed his jaw. “If I understand why this is happening … ” He looked away. “There are so many things I do not understand. Things that should bother you too … like how I found you, and how I knew your name.”
“Those things really do not concern me more than staying alive and not dying,” Noa said.
“They should concern you more,” James said softly.
There was a quiet that stretched too long. Taking his hand on impulse, Noa batted her eyelashes at him. “Is this the point where you tell me you’re an alien, James?”
His gaze met hers, and his fingers tightened. “No.” She had a moment where she thought he might kiss her. She felt herself flush, realizing a part of her wanted that … but Noa told herself it was too much emotion, too fast, brought on by too extreme circumstances—that she had too much to do. The transport jostled and Noa felt it all the way to her bones. She was also just so tired. Leaning back against the wall, she pointedly looked straight ahead. James didn’t let go of her hand.
So quietly that he was hard to hear above the rattle of the connections between cars, and the lowing of the cows, James said, “Something is wrong with my neural interface and my brain, Noa.”
Noa thought of her nightmares, and her flashbacks, and nudged him again. “We’ve both got broken brains.”
Flexing his fingers in hers, he whispered, “You say the most unreassuring things.”
Noa stared down at their entwined hands, dark on light. It brought back so many memories, and she couldn’t bring herself to tear away. Instead she said, “James … will you put on a move-ee?” They’d been watching a lot of move-ees and tee-vee programs to pass the time when they weren’t eating or training. Noa had assigned herself a calisthenics routine to try and recover her strength. She should do that right now … she liked working out, the meditative quality of it … although lately it was exhausting in a way she wasn’t used to. Before her muscles ached, she felt inexplicably drained.
James took his hand away as he pulled out the laptop. She put hers in her lap and out of reach. As music started to play, she had a moment of apprehension. “What is this?”
“Schindler’s List,” James replied.
“Is this about ISIS or North Korea?”
“No.”
“Is it happy?” Noa asked.
That was met with silence.
Curling her legs up, Noa banged her head against her knees. “James, I just escaped a ‘re-education camp.’ Have mercy!”
James stopped the playback. “Would you like to continue the series we started before? You seemed to find that amusing.”
Noa laughed, thinking of the space exploration “sitcom” he’d shown her before. “Yeah, that ship was hilarious. They would have flip-flopped through space.” She’d laughed until she’d cried watching the opening credits.
“So—”
She waved a hand. “Something new.”
James used a finger to navigate through tiny icons on the archaic screen. A show came on, obviously set on old Earth. It was some sort of detective show, with some sort of psychopath type as the lead. He had nearly augment-like abilities of recall. It was entertaining enough, but confusing: little text boxes popped on the screen occasionally. “What are those?” Noa asked.
“At that point in history, instead of thought-to-thought communication, humans used to send text messages on phones—the little black rectangles you occasionally see them speaking into—that were connected by satellite. Those squares of text superimposed on the frame reflect what he’d see on his phone.”
Noa cocked her head. “Sort of like a prototype of thought-to-thought ethernet?”
“That is when they say it began,” James said.
And Noa could see that. Sure, texting was to thought-to-thought communication like paper and ink was to painting on cave walls, but it was a start. If she could have it now … what she wouldn’t give to be in contact with Kenji, her other siblings, parents, or her friends in Luddeccea Prime … Still, just to be contrary, or maybe just to talk, she tsked. “Poor, poor, primitive savages.”
“Yes, they were practically chimpanzees,” James replied. And bless him for joking. Noa grinned, but her smile almost immediately began to fade. “I think I remember reading about ‘texting’ actually … the text messages facilitated some of the early democracy movements, right?”
“Yes,” said James, gaze still on the screen.
“The people of Luddeccea don’t even have access to that,” Noa said, her heart sinking.
“No,” said James. He turned to her, his face blue in the lapt
op’s glare, his features as always too perfect. “Do you still want to continue to Prime?”
Noa’s jaw hardened. She thought of the camp and Ashley. She thought of her brother—he had been in Luddeccea Prime when she arrived planet-side—was he now in a camp? Had they hurt him? In Prime they had to have some sort of computerized record-keeping. The same person who’d helped them access one of the shuttles to Time Gate 8 might be able to find Kenji.
“I need to go there even more than before,” she whispered.
She was dimly aware of James’s Adam’s apple bobbing. At last he said, “We will go there, then.”
She closed her eyes at the word “we.” She was ridiculously grateful not to be alone in this, and she wanted to drape herself over him, but also to pull away. She sat perfectly still, instead, and let herself be distracted by the antics of a consulting detective.
6
From the top of the freight car, James watched the suburbs of Luddeccea Prime roll slowly by. Luddeccea Prime was closer to the equator, and the homes were built with heat reduction in mind. They were low-slung adobe creations with deep awnings. Lights burned inside the buildings, and shone through wide floor-to-ceiling windows open to the evening breezes. There was nothing to suggest that there was anything amiss on Luddeccea. But sometimes, marching down the quiet streets, James spotted men in uniform stopping pedestrians and ground transports.
He had wondered many times, back when he was safe on Earth, what he would do if he were to find himself in one of the genocidal events he’d studied. He’d always fancied that he would choose to resist. But he didn’t feel like resisting now; he didn’t feel any sort of moral compulsion to help these people. He felt as though he was watching a bad play, and all he wanted to do was leave the theater.
He gazed down at the ground rolling past them. It would be easy enough to jump from the roof. The train was traveling at only thirty kilometers per hour, and it had stopped occasionally for other trains, cars, and once a wheeled busload of children. He could easily disappear into the darkness of the early evening. He could catch the next freight train going in the opposite direction. It would be the logical, sane thing to do. He wanted to do it, he really did. But he couldn’t make himself leave Noa; she was the only thing in this nightmarish drama that felt real. He sighed. And he couldn’t make himself bind and gag her and drag her to some place safe, he thought ruefully.
