Incarnate- Essence

by Thomas Harper

  “Are you going to tell me she’s a monster?” I asked.

  “No,” he whispered, “I think she should be leading us.”

  I said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

  “Major Forrester…he’s shown nothing but rank incompetence since we left Cortez,” Yrid said, “and now he’s almost belligerent after his failure bringing those people north. Hell, before any of this even started, he only ever made Major because his son and daughter-in-law run Liberty Protection. But that’s not the point. Forrester and Ellison are trying to get people to turn on both the forty-eights and Colonel Riviera.”

  “Turn on them?”

  “Anywhere from getting people to stop listening to them to…whatever it takes,” Yrid said, “I don’t think Major Forrester would have any qualms about killing the forty-eights. At least Sachi, anyway. He despised you guys being in the LoC from the start, and this whole situation has done nothing to soften that stance.”

  “Has he gotten anyone on his side?”

  “Frank Davis, I think,” he said, “and Major Ellison and a woman named Helen Wyman from LoC Security. I don’t know much about her except the sound of her voice over the radio. Other than that, it sounds like they have a few of the refugees agreeing not to listen to anything the forty-eights tell ‘em to do.”

  “Nobody who might be willing to kill Sachi, though?” I asked.

  “Like I said, I don’t know much about the LoC Security people,” Yrid said, “Frank would do it if Forrester ordered it, but despite his gruff front, Forrester is pretty weaselly. He’d be glad if someone killed Sachi, but I doubt he’d make the order directly. Just plant the seeds for someone else to get the idea.”

  “Why are you telling this to me?” I asked.

  “Like I said, I saw you talking with Sachi,” he shrugged and then started to get up, “and you looked like the most reasonable person back here in the rearguard, so I figured I’d tell ya and let ya do what you will with that information.”

  I climbed to my feet, “do you know what will probably happen if I tell her?”

  He stopped and looked over his shoulder, “the same thing that might happen to us all if ya don’t,” and then kept walking.

  I stood there saying nothing for some time. A migraine was brewing again, blurring my vision. I turned and looked up the hill, shutting my visor and using the night vision to scan across the horizon, but once again the forest seemed to stand empty. Even with the night vision, the trees and boulders around provided plenty of room to hide.

  I spotted Akira on the outside of the camp. She sat awake near Doctor Taylor’s family where Yukiko was. She stared blankly as John Waters moaned and tossed in his sleep, having been hit in the thigh with one of the stray bullets during the pursuit. Doctor Taylor had patched it up, but I could tell she wasn’t completely optimistic about the prognosis. Akira still had a distant look in her gaze, but she somehow actually seemed better, despite the harrowing retreat.

  I started in her direction when I found Rocky approaching. “Can’t sleep either?” he asked.

  “Seems most people can’t,” I said, raising my visor, taking one last glance at Akira before we both turned and started strolling in the other direction. She didn’t seem to notice me, and I decided it might be best to let her rest a while.

  “Yeah,” he said, “Sachi’s talkin’ about getting’ a move on.”

  “Forrester probably won’t go for it,” I said.

  “Man, that dude’s a straight up dick,” Rocky said, “I’m surprised Savita hasn’t shot ‘em yet.”

  “That would just make all of us look bad,” I said, “chances are he’ll get himself killed, anyway.”

  “That’d make Olivia’s day,” Rocky said. “Damn, I almost forgot I had her on another bet. No way I’m gonna win that one now.”

  “She was pretty close with Benito I take it?”

  “They had kind of a father-daughter thing goin’ on,” Rocky shrugged, “I think she was actually friends with his real granddaughter or somethin’. I guess he was really close to his granddaughter, but then her and her whole family was killed by a rival cartel. So those two just kinda got close and she ended up followin’ him into the life.”

  “She must be pretty broken up about it,” I said.

  “Olivia looks like a frail lil girl,” Rocky said, “but she’s pretty tough. Still makes me feel kinda bad tryin’ ta move in on her right after this happened.”

  “Bad enough for forfeit your wager?”

  “Hell no,” Rocky said, “I been lookin’ to tap that for months now and I haven’t gotten anywhere. She’s immune to all my charms.”

  “You could always just ask her to help you win the bet,” I said.

  “That’s a risky move,” Rocky said, “I’d say there would’s a forty percent chance she’d go for that. But there’s a sixty percent chance it’d backfire and then I’d never hear the end of it.”

  “What I said was true, you know.”

  “About what?”

  “During situations like this, people often find comfort in each other,” I said, “I remember back in the early seventh century, I was a slave under the Sui Dynasty in China. I was made to work on the Grand Canal, which now connects the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. Those were…miserable conditions.”

  “Worse than this?”

  “Yeah,” I said, seeing him raise his eyebrows in surprise. “People were constantly dying, getting sick, getting injured, being beaten, tortured, and executed. The labor was difficult and endless, the food was minuscule and full of rats and roaches, and there was little hope of escape. But in the few hours of sleep we got most nights, a lot of people were getting it on. It didn’t matter what sex they were – it was mostly men there anyway – or even if you knew them. Looking back on it now, I’m pretty sure there was an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases, but most people had a pretty low life expectancy on that job, so nobody really cared.”

  Rocky shook his head, “it’s fuckin’ crazy to me that you and Sachi have probly been through much worse shit than this. I mean, this is probly the nuttiest shit I’ve ever experienced.”

  “Comparing one terrible thing to another is apples and oranges,” I said, “having experienced something really terrible doesn’t make experiencing something a little terrible any less terrible. Just because you’ve broken your leg before doesn’t mean stubbing your toe doesn’t suck.”

  Rocky smiled, “I guess that’s one way to-”

  Both of us fell silent, listening to the faint sound of some kind of commotion from up the hill. We put our visors down and looked up there, not seeing anything for a moment. Rocky pointed up a ways to a tree where it looked like something was moving. He signaled with his hand for me to sneak around to the left of the tree while he went to the right.

  I started my way up the hill, stepping lightly on the frozen ground, moving slow, trying not to make a sound. I looked back over my shoulder, seeing that Manny and Emma were both standing there now, watching us move, arms raised and ready to fire. I continued up, seeing more and more of the movement – someone was behind the tree. And they were struggling.

  Rocky saw it, too. He sprinted toward the tree and I followed suit, getting there a moment after him, already seeing him grabbing someone and lifting them off the ground. It was Frank Davis, from Liberty Protection. He had his helmet and exoskeleton leggings off and his pants down, and beneath him was Aveena face down, now sobbing loudly with her attacker removed.

  “What the fuck, dude?” Rocky asked, the paunchy Frank trying to both swat Rocky’s hand away and pull up his pants at the same time.

  “Leggo uh me yeh pissa shit!” Frank shouted, slurring with drunkenness.

  I knelt down and reached out to Aveena. She pulled herself away, fear in her eyes, and then stumbled toward me on her knees. She wrapped her arms around my exoskeleton, burying her face on the hard armor, body heaving with cries.

  “Tha fuckin’ bitch trit me!” Frank slurred, having on
ly succeeded in sloppily pulling his pants up far enough to cover himself, “thassa fuckin’ dude.”

  “Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill you right now,” Emma said, having taken off the upper part of her exo suit and allowing Aveena to seek more comfort in her embrace.

  “Heesa one tha fuckin’ trit me!” Frank said, “I ain’t no faggot!”

  Rocky backhanded him across the face. Frank howled in pain as the hard-gloved hand made a thick packing sound on his flesh.

  “You broh muh face!” he bellowed, “you fuckin monzer, you broh muh face!”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Rocky said, lifting the belligerent man bodily off the ground and carrying him back down the hill as the drunken man shouted slurred obscenities.

  I looked back to Aveena, who was shivering in Emma’s arms, out of her mind with fear. Emma was whispering something to her. She helped Aveena to her feet, both of them walking back down the hill still embracing. Manny and I exchanged an awkward glance before picking up Emma’s exo suit components and carrying them back down the hill after her.

  Rocky already had Frank down there, on his knees in front of the other Liberty Protection soldier Peter Stone. The drunken rapist was still shouting about being tricked, eyes wild, sweat beading on his balding head despite the cold.

  “Get ‘em ta shut the fuck up,” Rocky said, “or I swear to fucking Christ I’m gonna twist his fuckin’ head off right fuckin’ now.”

  “Why’s his face all swollen up?” Stone asked through his speaker, visor down, ready in case of a fight.

  By now a huge crowd was gathering around.

  “Fuck his fucking face,” Emma said, Aveena still leaning on her. Agent Brie had joined the two of them, trying to be comforting without knowing what actually happened.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Sachi asked.

  Rocky pointed at Frank and said, “this piece of shit was raping that transgenic chick up the hill over there.”

  “Aveena,” Brie said.

  “Thassa fuckin’ lie,” Frank growled. “He wannid it. He trit me.”

  “If she wanted it, then why’s she crying?” Sachi asked.

  “You fuckin’ trannies is all gawn gang up’n me,” Frank said, “Iss bullshit.”

  “How can we be sure he was raping her?” Stone asked.

  “Are you kidding me?” Emma asked, “Look at her.”

  “I’ve known Frank for years,” Stone said, “he might be a horn dog, but he’s not a rapist.”

  “The way I found ‘em, it didn’t look good,” Rocky said.

  “Frank probably found out he was being tricked by a man and got angry,” Stone shrugged, “plus he’s been drinking. You can’t blame him for that. It was most likely your tranny friend’s fault.”

  “Eat shit and die,” Emma said, leading Aveena away from the impromptu court. Agent Brie scowled at what was going on for a moment before following them.

  “What are we gonna do with him?” Rocky asked, looking down at Frank on his knees.

  “You’re not gonna do anything with him,” Stone said, “it’s not your call to make.”

  “No, it’s Aveena’s call,” Sachi said, “once she’s calmed down, I’m going to ask her what she wants done to this piece of shit and then we’re going to carry it out.”

  “You’re just going to take her word for it?” Stone asked.

  “I toll you, fuckin’ trannies iss teamin’ up’n me,” Frank said, “I ain’t no faggot.”

  “You know if you start carrying out executions, everybody will turn on you,” Stone said.

  “I don’t care,” Sachi said, turning to walk away. “You better hope that girl is-”

  Sachi was cut off when gunfire sounded in the night, a few shouts of fear and surprise coming from the refugees.

  Everyone quickly fell back into the rhythm – five minutes of gunfire, fifteen minutes of quiet. And once again, the pursuers seemed more intent on herding us forward than actually hitting anyone. The night crept on into daylight with only one person being grazed, but at around nine in the morning, one of the refugees lost his nerves and ran down the hill toward the road, only to be met by a hail of bullets. A stark reminder that our pursuers weren’t as generous as their aim seemed to indicate.

  Indeed, it became obvious that they had no real intention of hitting anyone as long as we remained in the group. By noon that day we also learned the hard way that our pursuers wished for us to keep moving, as well. We stopped to eat, secure in the notion that they didn’t want to hit us, but after the fifteen minutes of quiet was up, the bullets began to fly with increased ferocity, seven people being hit before everyone could make for a disorganized retreat forward, another four being hit as they ran off from the group, resulting in two more deaths total.

  At that point the bickering and arguing between LoC Security, Liberty Protection, and the forty-eights took on another tone – in the confusion, Frank Davis had disappeared. Sachi demanded that anyone from the two security firms should tell her where he is if they know, but Forrester demanded they keep their mouths shut. This only added to the tension brought by our pursuers.

  By midafternoon, nerves were becoming frayed, even amongst Sachi’s forty-eights. People shouted into the trees. It was no longer jokes and taunts but curses and threats. The LoC Security people had to break up fist fights amongst the refugees eight times before evening rolled around.

  When evening finally came, I saw Sachi send Álvarez off away from the main crowd, using his camouflage suit to take cover in the dim light, the darkness making it hard to see, but the lingering light making it difficult to use night vision.

  “Are you sending him after our pursuers or after Frank Davis?” I asked Sachi after seeing Álvarez throw his helmet on and begin slinking away from the group.

  “Both,” Sachi said.

  “Have you spoken to Aveena since it happened?” I asked, looking further up ahead to where she was walking between Emma and agent Brie. She appeared to be doing alright, but stayed quiet as the other two women murmured to each other.

  “I haven’t,” Sachi said. “But Emma is.”

  “Is getting that guy about getting justice for her, or is it a way of establishing dominance?” I asked.

  “You ask too many fucking questions,” Sachi said, speeding up and walking away from me.

  I sighed, watching her catch up to Rocky, both giving a curt nod to each other. I knew she was just on edge. Everything became grating to everyone. People snapped at each other for the smallest things, like breathing to loudly, or having an expression on their face, or even the weather.

  “You want to think she’s acting this way because this whole experience is making her ornery,” Evita’s voice said, “but you’re afraid she doesn’t like you, aren’t you?”

  “Shut up,” I mumbled.

  “What was that? I couldn’t hear you.”

  I spoke louder, “I said shut up.”

  “That’s not a nice way to speak to me,” Evita said, “We’ve known each other for so long and been through so much together.”

  “You’re not real,” I said.

  “That hurts,” she said, “I’m more real than I’ve ever been.”

  “I made you up,” I said, “it’s just this thing in my head breaking down. The split brain. The stressful environment. You’re an auditory hallucination.”

  “A hallucination,” she said, “just like the hallucination. You remember that craziness, don’t you? And then Laura’s bedroom. With her art.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “You stepped into something you weren’t supposed to see,” Evita said, “and Laura somehow created the doorway. A doorway that’s been left ajar.”

  “A doorway to what?” I asked, looking to my left and seeing someone walking beside me.

  “Who are you talking to?” someone asked.

  I turned to my right, finding Akira there, a strange sort of smile on her face. When I looked back to my left, the oth
er person was gone. I exhaled slowly and looked back to Akira.

  “Nobody,” I said, “just…myself.”

  “You’ve been doing that for a long time, haven’t you?” she said.

  “I have.”

  “I’ve been thinking about when we first met quite a bit,” Akira said, “and I was just thinking about it again. That feels like a different lifetime,” she chuckled, “I guess for you it really was, wasn’t it?”

  “You seem to be in a good mood,” I said, scanning across the backs of everyone in front of us, “even while everyone else seems to be in a bad mood.”

  “Well, I wrote a rough program for my brain implants,” she said in an almost singsong voice, “it keeps circulating through the self-repair code automatically so I don’t have to do it manually, but I could only get a maximum of three hours.”

  “Three hours of what?” I asked.

  “The program is on a repeating pattern,” she said, “so it keeps producing the same brain patterns over a three-hour period before looping back to the beginning. That’s why I keep thinking about the first time you and I met. Every three hours. Because that was one of the things I thought about when I was recording the brain patterns to be repeated. I was walking with Doctor Taylor’s family, talking to Yuki and trying to get her to smile so I could have some happy thoughts pop into my head, and I thought about the first time you and I met.”

  My eyes were wide with surprise, “so you’re like a robot right now that can only have the same exact thoughts on a three-hour loop?”

  “No,” she shook her head, “not quite that bad. But you know how when you have a thought that occurs to you that seemed kind of…apropos of nothing? Like you just suddenly remember something funny or sad that you did last weekend? That’s more what it’s like. But it’s the same ones reoccurring every three hours.”

  “So, what are you thinking about right now?” I asked.

  “A conversation I had with Doctor Taylor the other night,” she said, “when I was telling her about what I was doing with the program. That had happened only about a minute before-”