Nobody moved.
“Well? Go on,” Kenji said, enjoying the fact that it was someone else who was now being pressured to eat a raw frog.
Matthew picked up the limp creature, and with the fascinated eyes of the group on him, slowly raised it to his mouth and tore off a leg, chewing with his lips open as though trying to refrain from touching the frog meat as much as possible. He extracted the bone from between his teeth and swallowed loudly. He looked like he was about to throw up.
“It doesn’t count if it doesn’t stay down,” Kenji said, laughing at Matthew’s obvious effort not to vomit.
Eventually he nodded. “Okay. Your turn.”
Kenji picked up his frog grimly and sighed. “Well, here goes nothing.”
He bit off a piece and chewed it quickly before swallowing hard. He looked at the remains of his frog thoughtfully. “Honestly, it’s not that bad. Tastes like sushi.”
“Gross, you used to eat lab sushi?” Clove wrinkled her nose. “And here I thought you were supposed to be some kind of gourmand.”
Evelyn smiled at this. There was something almost cute about the way Clove and Kenji made jibes at each other, and as she thought about them together her eyes drifted to Matthew, who sat opposite her.
“Well, we'd better try and get some sleep,” she said, her breath coming out in a cloud. She shivered and added. “If we can.”
“Right,” Matthew said awkwardly. “Cuddle time, I guess.”
They all began maneuvering themselves into position as Bob watched them, all equally unsure of where to lie. Evelyn strategically placed herself between Clove and Matthew, so that Kenji lay at the back of the shelter, then Clove, then Evelyn, then Matthew, with Brenner closest to the opening. Bob, apparently, was not yet ready to sleep, and was busy tucking into the leftover frog that no one else had wanted.
“Kenji!” Clove shrieked suddenly.
“What? It's just a stick.” There was a snapping sound. “Damn branches,” he said.
Evelyn rolled over, trying to find a comfortable position on the bed of tree boughs, and found herself looking at the side of Matthew's head. He lay on his back with his eyes closed, but as she watched him they opened and he turned his head towards her.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Just cold,” she said.
“Yeah, me too.” He turned his eyes back toward the roof. “Do you want me to …?”
“Yes, please.”
He moved closer to her, and she could feel the heat of him.
“You're warm,” she whispered.
“Yeah … so are you.” He sounded surprised, and Evelyn found herself smiling. For some reason it was good to know that her body generated heat. Just like a real person.
She closed her eyes, and though the chill in the air was enough to be uncomfortable, she was so tired that she fell asleep immediately.
It felt like she had barely slept at all when she awoke to bright lights and a thunderous roar above them. Her mind reeled as she remembered where they were, and beside her Matthew snapped upright.
“What the ...”
The white light sliced down through the treetops, blinding her. The roaring sound was deafening. “It's them! Get up! Everyone, get up!” She sprang out of the shelter, holding her hand up to shield her eyes from the light. She couldn't see it, but she knew the Jumper was up there. How had the higher humans found them?
“Guys, come on!” she called, grabbing Clove and pulling her from the shelter. It was then she noticed that Brenner was not there.
“What do we do?” Matthew asked.
“Run!” She darted off into the trees, using the light from the Jumper to make her way through them. She glanced back to make sure the others were with her. They followed close behind. “Where's Bob?” she called back.
They all glanced around them. Bob was also gone.
She thought about stopping, but decided against it. Bob knew how to look after himself. And Brenner … well, Evelyn now had an idea about how they had been found. But how had she signaled the higher humans? She supposed it didn’t matter. It was her own fault for trusting her.
“Keep going,” she urged, as they ran blindly into the forest. She had no idea which direction they were running; her only concern now was to get them away. She thought she heard movement up ahead, and called softly. “Bob, is that you?”
“I'm afraid not,” came the familiar voice of Miles Tucker, and before she knew it she was flying backwards through the air. As she lay on the ground, her body numb from the shock wave of the blaster, she realized how the trap had been prepared and sprung. The higher humans must have seen them when they flew overhead earlier that day, and they’d found a place to land and slowly surrounded them on foot. Perhaps Brenner was innocent after all.
What did it matter. This time, she knew, it was really over.
She sensed a presence standing over her.
“I’m sorry, Evelyn,” came Brenner’s voice. “If it makes you feel any better, the Colony at this location has been utterly destroyed, including Ciso’s command point. You were never going to get to her anyway.”
There was another presence above her now. Miles Tucker spoke, “You cannot stop mankind from achieving its ultimate purpose, Evelyn. We will rebuild what you destroyed, and you will help us. Your friends, however, will not be there to see it.”
The last thing she heard before she lost consciousness for what felt like the hundredth time was a strange gurgling sound coming from nearby that sent a cold shiver down her spine. It was the sound of somebody choking.
27
The next thing Evelyn was aware of was a rushing sensation in her head; both a sound and a feeling. It started small but grew rapidly like an advancing tsunami, plowing toward her with such force it shook the very air around her. Then suddenly the wave struck, and she felt her mind slammed back into her body.
Her eyes snapped open. She was on her back, moving. Hands gripped her ankles, her head bounced over lumps on the loamy ground. The smell of earth hit her, wet earth. She remembered what had happened.
As the higher humans dragged her along the ground she tried look around for her friends. Where were they? It was too dark… she couldn’t see. She sensed that she shouldn’t alert her captors that she was conscious, so she let them drag her along and waited to see what would happen. Somewhere ahead of them a light shone into the trees, casting long shadows that moved across her vision like phantoms. The Jumper; it must have found a place to land, and that was where they were taking her. They wouldn’t kill her, of course. They still thought she could help them, especially now that she had undone so much of their work – they needed a short cut. But Matthew and the others? What had they done with them? She still couldn’t see them.
Her captors stepped directly into a beam of light now, and as one of them looked back at her she quickly shut her eyes, feigning unconsciousness. The insides of her eyelids glowed red, flickering black when a shadow passed over her. Still she kept her eyes shut. She tried to think: they were taking her onto their ship. Then they would surely secure her. If she was to have any chance of escape she would have to take it now.
She cracked her eyes open. Her captors were looking ahead, to where the hulking shadow of the Jumper lurked in a clearing. She let her head loll to one side, and found a pair of legs beside her. The large feet suggested they belonged to a man. So there were two dragging her, and at least one more walking beside her.
There was still no sign of the others.
They had almost reached the jumper. Evelyn watched the legs walking beside her, timing her attack. Her hand shot out as the man stepped forward, grabbing the far ankle. She jerked the leg towards her, causing the man to trip over his own foot. As she had hoped, he tumbled into the man who held her right ankle. He grunted in surprise, releasing her foot. Using her hands for leverage, Evelyn flipped herself over, twisting her left ankle from the grip of her second captor.
Evelyn pushed herself up with her palms, guessing
the man’s position, and threw herself backwards. The back of her skull smashed into his cheek as he turned, and Evelyn’s eyes moved to a fourth person she had not seen until that moment; a woman who had been walking on her left side. The woman was staring at her in complete shock, but something must have clicked in her brain for she began raising her blaster. Suddenly her expression of shock changed to something different, and she took a little step forward, then dropped to her knees and looked down at her belly, where a dark splotch was beginning to spread out from a point in the center of her belly. Evelyn looked past her, where a shape was rushing at her from the trees.
The shape let out a horrifying snarl, and she raised her hands instinctively, but the shape flew past her, and she realized it was Bob. He was holding his ax, and Evelyn turned to watch him bury it in the skull of the man she had head butted.
Bob left it there and leaped onto the next man, howling like a demon. She quickly looked about, still seeing no signs of the others. A sick feeling began growing in the pit of her stomach, like a black hole in her belly that was sucking out her guts. Where were they?
Her eyes sensed movement by the jumper, and she snapped her head towards it – two more of the higher humans were coming from a hatch on one side, drawn by the commotion.
She could only imagine what they thought when the saw Bob astride one of their companions, clad in his wolf skin and scratching at the man’s face like a wild animal. The final man, the one she had tripped up, was running for the jumper, and she realized it was Miles Tucker himself.
“Shoot that thing!” he screamed, gesturing back at Bob, “What the hell are you waiting for?”
He ran past his companions and disappeared into the jumper, and the two new figures raised their weapons and fired them at the same time. Evelyn threw herself to the ground just in time, but she heard Bob yelp as the blasts struck him, and he was hurled through the air to land just beside her. His eyes turned to hers and she saw that they were red and puffy, like he’d been crying. His mouth moved as he tried to say something, but no sound came out and she watched the consciousness drift from his eyes. She heard footsteps in the grass as the higher humans ran over to them, and another sound; the roaring of turbines.
She tore her eyes away from Bob, and felt the sting of tears in them, for she understood what he had wanted to tell her.
Her friends were dead. Miles Tucker had killed them. And now he was getting away.
Something glinted in the light from the jumper beneath Bob’s head. Blood. He must have struck a rock when he fell, and Evelyn knew he was never going to wake up. She stifled a sob. Then she noticed something else: the fallen blaster of one of the other higher humans. It was an arm’s length from her head. She lay still on the wet grass and waited, biting down the sobs that threatened to give her away. The footsteps slowed and stopped beside her head.
“Looks like we got them both,” said a woman’s voice.
“What is this thing?”
“I think it’s … a person.”
“Not from the Colony. We got them all.”
“Well, whatever it is, it’s dead. Hit its head on that rock. Let’s get the AI and go.”
Hands reached under Evelyn’s shoulders, and she snatched up the blaster, discharging it at point blank range into the face of the woman, who was knocked back so violently it was as if she had been vaporized. The man suffered the same fate half a second later, and Evelyn was on her feet and running towards the Jumper.
Its turbines roared louder, and through a window she saw Miles Tucker watching her with a scathing look in his eyes. The craft left the ground and began to rise rapidly. Evelyn sprinted as hard as she could, and managed to leap up and grab onto its landing gear. She swung for a moment, glancing down to see the ground receding quickly, and for a moment wondered if she'd made a terrible mistake. Then she thought of her friends. He killed them. She gritted her teeth and pulled herself up onto the landing gear. There was a door above her. She reached for the handle, tugging it down, and the door swung open. Suddenly the craft listed violently, throwing her off balance, and it was all she could do to hold on. It leveled out again and the door swung shut. Evelyn steadied herself. It seemed as if the craft was no longer ascending, or moving at all. It seemed to be hovering in place.
She guessed Miles Tucker was the only person aboard it now. He must have engaged an auto hover function …
She moved to the other side of the door and tensed her legs, preparing for what she knew was coming. Her eyes watched the door.
It swung outward, towards her. She waited half a second then shoved the door closed with all her might. It didn't shut, and she heard a grunt as it crushed Miles Tucker's hand. His blaster fell from his grip, clanging loudly as it bounced off the landing gear and tumbled down into the darkness.
Not wasting another second, she ducked under the door, which had bounced back, and launched herself up through the opening. Her torso was now inside, and her legs dangled in emptiness. Miles Tucker had fallen back onto the floor, clutching his injured hand. He snarled when he saw her, lashing out with a fierce kick that caught her in the shoulder. Her fingernails scraped along the floor as she tried to stop herself from being thrown out into the night, but he kicked her again and she felt herself falling. Her arms flailed, grabbing onto the only thing they could: Miles Tucker's leg. She was pulling him with her, but he managed to wedge himself in the doorway.
“Get off!” he roared, trying to shake her from his leg.
Evelyn began climbing up him like a panther, grabbing fist-fulls of his trousers. Her head came level with the floor, and she saw that his other leg was firmly pressed against the wall, and his uninjured hand held onto the bottom of a seat that was bolted to the floor.
If he removed his free leg from the doorway to try and kick her now she doubted he would have the strength to hold both their weight with his one hand. She grabbed the waist of his shirt and hauled herself on top of him, looking into his eyes with silent rage. There was fear in his face, and something wicked inside her reared up in sadistic joy. This man deserved to feel afraid.
She bared her teeth in something that was half smile, half snarl. “I'm going to kill you,” she said, “for what you've done.”
“If you kill me,” he said through clenched teeth, “you'll never see your friends again.”
Her heart leaped. Her friends were alive? “You … you killed them.”
The whites of his eyes seemed unnaturally large when he responded, “There is no such thing as death in the reality I am trying to create. Help me, and you can live with them again. You can be with Matthew again!”
And Evelyn knew for certain that her friends were indeed dead. Yet still she paused, the flicker of temptation passing through her eyes, and in that moment, where she imagined a world where she and Matthew could be together, Miles Tucker moved. He lurched upwards, grabbing her throat with his injured hand and pushing her backwards. Evelyn hadn't been expecting that, and she was caught off guard. He reached past her and gripped the edge of the doorway with his good hand, using it for leverage as he pushed her backwards into the abyss of the night opening up below them.
Wind from the turbines blasted her face as she struggled, but she had nothing to grab onto, save Miles Tucker himself. She latched onto the arm that held her neck, but he kept forcing her further out of the craft.
“Did you really think you could stop me, Evelyn? I am leading mankind toward its ultimate destiny! Who are you to interfere? What are you to interfere?” He gave her a final push, shaking his arm. Evelyn knew she couldn’t hold on much longer. She saw the sinews in Miles Tucker’s neck straining against her weight, and knew that neither could he, so she raised her right knee and thrust it into the arm that he was using to hold onto the door frame. He grunted in pain, and she saw his eyes fill with surprise as he realized his dilemma: Evelyn’s weight was pulling him from the craft. She kneed his arm again, and she felt herself falling back as he lost his grip on the doorway. She tugg
ed on his arm hard, and then they were both falling.
At the last second she released Miles Tucker’s arm and grabbed onto the landing gear of the craft that was level with her head. Her body swung down and it felt like her arms would pop from their sockets, but she managed to hold on. She glanced down to see Miles Tucker falling away into the darkness. He didn’t even scream.
The jumper was still hovering at what she guessed was over a hundred feet above the ground. She could make out the treetops below her in the light from the flying machine. Her arms were beginning to ache. Gathering all her strength, she clenched the muscles in her stomach and hauled herself up, managing to grip onto the bottom edge of the doorway with one hand. From here she was able to get one foot onto the landing gear and push herself up into the cockpit of the craft. She lay on her back, panting, feeling the vibration of the jumper’s electric motors through the floor.
Dead. Matthew was dead. They were all dead. It was then that she realized she had not seen Brenner again …
For some minutes Evelyn lay like that, not knowing what to do. It had been her job to look after them, and now she was the only one left. She had failed. She thought about landing the jumper and going back to look for them. She felt she needed to see them, to know for sure. But in her heart she did know, and no good would come of seeing them. It would break her, and there was still one thing she had to do. She had made a promise to Bob, and he had died for her. She would free all those who Miles Tucker had enslaved through Ciso. The higher humans may have destroyed the Tall Hut, but she knew there were other colonies, other Tall Huts. And she had a flying machine. She would find one.
And after that? Who knew?
She didn’t want to think about that now. She didn’t want to think at all.
She pushed herself up and made her way to the control panel of the jumper, taking in the simple array of instruments. There was a stick, similar to that of a helicopter, and she sat down before it and gripped it firmly. She located a glowing button that read ‘hover’ and pressed it in. It stopped glowing. She tilted the stick forward, and the Jumper immediately began to move. It seemed simple enough to control, and she aimed it towards the mountain. Its peak was glowing bright orange as if it were on fire. Somewhere behind her the sun was rising.
The Cloud Page 26
