by Eric Warren
She stared at him, her eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Did they get you?”
“No. But…” She pointed to the holes in his clothes.
He ran a systems check. The thigh wound wasn’t a worry, the bullet had gone straight through without puncturing anything vital. And the one to the face had bounced off the mask, despite ruining it. But the bullet to his midsection was still in there, and it had torn through a few crucial systems in its path. It would become a significant problem if left untreated. He should have enough time to make it back to the apartment, repair himself there. He stood, walking with a pronounced limp over to the human.
“What are we supposed to do now? You said you had a way out.” He still couldn’t believe he’d listened to her.
“My plan relied on you having two good legs, but we’ll have to make do with one. You know what grasshoppers are, right?”
Of course. They were common outside the city, he’d even seen a few in the parks on the rare occasion he was out when it was sunny. Funny little creatures, hopping and bounding around like…
“No.”
She pointed to the roof across from them. The building was roughly the same height. “It’s the best way out. You can jump with me on your back.” She studied the roof for a moment. “It looks to be about twenty feet away, which means you’ll probably need to reach a perigee of sixty feet or more. How much do you weigh? Never mind, we’ll estimate you at about two hundred pounds. I’m close to one-twenty, so that means you’ll need enough force to push three hundred and twenty pounds roughly sixty feet in the air in an arc to make the distance. In order to do that you’ll have to hit about eight hundred feet per second. Dividing that by the acceleration of gravity and multiplying by our original weight you’re going to need roughly eight-thousand pounds of force to get us over there. Do you think you can do that on one leg?”
“What?” Frees asked, dazzled. Had she done that calculation in her head? Humans weren’t supposed to be very fast with numbers.
Engines buzzed in the distance. “The transports,” he said more to himself than her. Not only had they sent Peacekeepers but the aerial units would be here soon enough. They needed to get underground as fast as possible. He’d never vaulted from one building to the other before. Never even considered it. But with his damaged leg he might not have the required force. “I’m not sure my systems can handle—”
“They can,” she interrupted, positioning herself to climb on his back. “Just focus on the next roof, and let your systems do their work.”
“Just…jump?” He hesitated.
The human nodded. She was more confident about this than he was. “With as much effort as you can.”
He grabbed her legs as she climbed up on him, her hand grasping the hoodie, pulling it tight to his body. For the first time he noticed she was missing her right hand. Why hadn’t she—that’s right. Humans couldn’t replace missing or damaged parts. If something broke or was destroyed, it was gone for good. But what had happened?
He ran his own calculation as he measured the distance to the other roof and found her math to be accurate. He made a mental note to ask her how she’d done that later. Footfalls on stairs echoed loudly behind them from the stairwell. It was now or never. He tilted so his weight was on his good leg, thinking about the tension required and sprung off, soaring through the air.
It was as if he were flying, the wind rushing past him, the sensation of being completely untethered. He’d never felt anything like it. They reached the peak of their arc and came soaring back down until he landed on the adjacent roof with thud, cracking the concrete as if it had been hit by a boulder instead of two people.
Eight-thousand pounds of force indeed. He took a step, misjudging it and tripped over his bad foot, sending them both tumbling to the ground.
“Ow!” the human said as she rolled away from him.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever jumped across a building.” Frees picked himself up, the damage to his midsection was getting worse, the more he moved the deeper the bullet traveled.
“Why?” she asked.
Why hadn't he ever done that before? He was obviously capable, if anyone had asked him if he could jump from one building to another he’d have told them it was only a matter of making the right calculations. So why hadn’t it ever occurred to him before now? He stared at the girl not knowing what to say.
“Come on, we need to get back inside, before they figure out where we went.” She waved him over with her bandaged arm. He glanced at his own hand, the only part of his body he hadn’t modified in some way. If he could he would have torn it away long ago. And here was someone who would probably be grateful to have a human-looking hand. He pushed away what little shame had built up inside him and followed her to the roof access door.
It was sealed shut, but he hadn’t come this far to be stopped by a door. He fired the felp at both hinges and the door fell free. Once they were both inside he made sure to position it back. The Peacekeepers would find their escape route eventually but not until he and the human were long gone.
“Thanks, hoppy.” She winked, then bolted down the stairs.
“Wait, wait!” She was fast for a human, and with his injured leg he couldn’t keep up. “Human, stop!” She didn’t even have any shoes! Human feet were supposed to be fragile. He couldn’t leave it to chance, he had to catch up. He stumbled down the first flight, almost falling, but catching himself at the last second. Frees winced at the pain in his abdomen. His leg was worse than he thought, that jump might have injured it further. There was no way he’d be able to catch her in time. He consulted his scanners again, she still wasn’t registering a heartbeat or any body heat. How was he supposed to find her if he couldn’t track her?
Frees stumbled again, desperate not to let his only chance disappear before his eyes.
Thirteen
ARISTA HAD THE STRANGE SENSE OF DÉJÀ VU as she reached the bottom landing of the stairway. Above her, the kidnapper clanked and thudded along, but he was still a good thirty stories away. There was no way he’d catch her again in time. Still, she needed to be quick. She pushed the door, checking the alleyway before emerging. Best to avoid another situation like the one back at the hospital.
Despite owing the stranger a debt of gratitude, she wasn’t about to be taken to another facility where someone else could do experiments on her. Who knew what kind of person he was and what he wanted of her. You don’t break someone out of jail unless there’s something in it for you, and Arista wasn’t about to wait around to find out. Her mind flashed back to Patrick’s torture. But then…Patrick had helped them—helped her escape. The stranger said she had controlled what happened to him? But Patrick was already red, he already had been changed by the Cadre. So why would anything she did make him let them go?
Arista shook the thoughts away. It didn’t matter, she’d figure it out later. Now she needed to regroup with her parents, wherever they might be. No, first she needed clothes, this wispy gown-thing wasn’t going to cut it. Exiting the side of the building she tripped over a set of metal pipes discarded on the ground, nearly plowing face-first into the ground again. She managed to catch herself in time, her wrist hitting the ground like a pylon. She’d expected it to smart, after all it had hit right on the wound, but she barely felt it.
Making her way to the end of the corner she peered around the opening onto the main street. Hundreds of people bustled by on both sides of the street, maglevs suspended inches above their rails sped overhead and rows of personal transports filled the skies in their organized lane patterns. On every level of this city “people” moved and hustled and traveled from one place to another, oblivious. She needed to become one of them again, blend into the throngs. She’d never make it far otherwise. Even with new clothes it’d be smart to stick to the back alleys and if she had to, the underground.
Her perfect mark rounded the corner. A woman about her size, walking by herself, clothes not too fancy and
not too dirty. She had shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair and a square face with lots of eyeliner. She took a leisurely pace, not in as much of a hurry as the others. Arista would have to do this the old-fashioned way. Pulling the sleeve down off her wrist, she examined her injury in earnest for the first time. The skin had been sewn together to form a lump. They’d used some sort of hyper-regeneration, maybe generated by the sleeve. The wound was small and looked like it would disappear in a few days. She peeked out at just the right time.
“Excuse me, Miss?” Arista said. The woman didn’t look at her at first. “Miss?”
She turned and stopped. “Yeah?” Perfect. She had some variation in her programming. Some of them would ignore her completely if she wasn’t part of their schedule. They simply wouldn’t see her. Others however, could interact with change.
“Can you help me? I can’t seem to find my purse.” She slipped the sleeve back on. “It is dark brown and covered in hatch marks. Could you help me find it?”
“Oh. Yeah, sure.” The woman shrugged, following her into the alley.
Arista walked back down to the steel pipes she’d tripped over. The woman followed her lead. “I don’t know what happened. I just woke up here and it was gone. I’m sure it is here somewhere.” She’d never done this before, but there wouldn’t be any permanent damage. Not if she did it the way Dad had taught her.
“How long ago?” the woman asked.
Arista ignored her, spotting the pipes. The kidnapper had to be close; even with one bad leg it wouldn’t take him much longer to make it down those last flights. This needed to be quick. She grabbed the closest one and in a swift move brought it around her body like a bat, connecting directly with the woman’s neck, breaking the housing and snapping the primary motor function conduits. She collapsed on her back. “Two primary conduits damaged. I have lost all function below C3. You damaged me,” she said in an even tone.
“Hush. I need your clothes.”
The woman wasn’t light by any means but Arista managed to pull off her dark wash jeans with a good bit of effort. She was sweating by the time they were off. Without both hands to grab on to anything, everything took so much longer! And the kidnapper could burst through that door any second. She sat the woman up, threaded the dark jacket off her arms and lifted the t-shirt up and over her head. She was getting frustrated trying to put everything on with just one hand. It was the first time she’d ever dressed herself without the aid of both of them. At least the boots were a perfect fit.
“Will you be notifying the local repair depots?” the woman asked, somewhat pitifully.
“No,” Arista said, leaving her there with nothing but her underwear, socks, and a semi-destroyed neck. It was an easy fix. Two hours in the body shop and she’d be perfectly fine. Machines had it easy. No growing up, no growing old, just the same thing all the time.
“Wait, you’re not going to help me?” Panic rose in the woman’s voice. “My head. Oh, my head is killing me. Why can’t I move my arms?”
Oh no. I have to get out of here.
“I’m hurt, I could die out here! How could you leave me?” The panic was a full-blown attack now; the woman’s head twitched with what little motor control remained.
Arista couldn’t help but look. Sure enough, light brown eyes no longer stared back at her. “I’m sorry,” she called as she ran into an adjoining alley, “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen.” She’d just sentenced that woman to death. She thought she’d be able to manage it, to get the clothes without a problem. But she’d gone orange, just like all the others. Was this an automatic thing now? Would everyone she encountered change? She wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without leaving a very easy trail for the Peacekeepers to follow.
The kidnapper wasn’t out of the door by the time she left, he might have been injured worse than she’d assumed. She briefly considered going back to check for him, but thought better of it. He had taken bullets for her, but she couldn’t risk it. Not without knowing his plans. He’d be fine, repair himself later. Best to get as far away as fast as possible.
Finally, with something covering the soles of her feet, she managed to put some real distance between herself and Cadre headquarters. She’d been barefoot and nearly naked ever since they’d captured her. It felt good to have clothes again.
As Arista moved south through the city she didn’t notice any Peacekeepers patrolling the alleys. Which meant either they were still trying to figure out what had happened or had greatly increased their espionage capabilities. Either way, she pressed forward.
The next order of business was finding a phone. Since hers had been forcibly removed from her arm she’d need another solution. But pulling one out of someone else wasn’t an option. Once installed they were keyed to each individual and one already housed by a specific machine wouldn't work for her. Her old one had been a modified, one-of-a-kind unit designed and installed by her mother. And without it she’d need to find an augment repair/replacement shop. They would have phones and other pieces of equipment people could purchase and replace themselves, without need of a body shop. But she wouldn’t be able to go in through the front, no doubt her picture had been transmitted to every receptacle in the North American Hegemony.
Arista needed to find another way.
***
Frees stumbled down the few remaining stairs. He’d taken too long traversing the precarious stairwell. He’d be lucky if he managed to get away before the building was swarmed with Peacekeepers. The thundering blades of a PTD above him reverberated through the building, shaking his sensors. More than likely they were already searching rooftops and it wouldn’t take long to see the damage Frees had left behind with that landing. He cursed the Peacekeeper who’d shot him in the leg; he wished he could go back over there and put a few more holes in the guy.
He burst through the door leading into an alley only to almost trip over a woman lying on the ground in nothing but her underwear.
“Please, help me!” the woman’s head screamed. A close examination revealed the primary servos in her neck which controlled motor function had been severed with a sharp blow. The human. She’d known right where to hit her.
Frees looked down both ends of the alley. “Which way did she go?”
“Please, I beg of you. I don’t understand what’s happening to me.”
He didn’t have time for this, but she was autonomous. Her eyes were the same color as his. He couldn’t just leave her here. This was exactly what he was trying to do, to help these people. But he needed the human to do it and every second he wasted here was more distance she put between them. Taking this woman down had taken time, so she might not be too far ahead.
Frees leaned down to the woman. “Shh. You’ll be okay. Just listen to me. Scan your system, you’ve no doubt done it before. You have a fracture in your cardioid ligaments and perhaps your C2 and C3 spinal connectors.”
“Okay, yes. I can feel them. They’re broken,” the woman said, her voice trembling.
“Listen. I can help you but I need you to help me too. The woman who did this, where did she go?”
“She…she ran down the alleyway.” Tears had formed in the woman’s eyes. This was probably the first time she’d ever cried for real. Where it wasn’t pre-programmed.
“Here, we need to get you out of sight,” Frees said, bending down and wincing as his thigh faltered underneath him. He lifted her up, and limping down the adjacent alleyway, carried her until he was sure they were out of the search area.
“I can’t carry you all the way back to my apartment. And I can’t call the authorities. One look at your eyes and they’ll terminate you on the spot.”
“What’s wrong with my eyes?” she asked, a new fear in them.
“They’ve turned orange. It’s what happens when…well, when we meet a human.”
“Is there anything you can do?” she pleaded.
“I’m going to call someone to come help you,” Frees said, setting t
he woman down. “You can trust her, she’s like us.”
“How could anyone do this? What kind of monster…” the woman said, her voice small.
“But I need you to tell me what you were wearing. I have to find that woman.”
“J…just jeans, boots, a t-shirt, and a dark leather jacket. She stole it all.” A new emotion had formed in the woman’s voice. Anger. She’d said the words through gritted teeth.
Frees pulled his sleeve up and activated his phone. “Jill. I need your help.”
“Frees? You can’t be contacting me like this,” the old woman said on the other end of the line.
“It’s an emergency. There’s a human loose and she’s changed a woman here. Her neck is broken, and I need you to come collect her before the Peacekeepers find her.”
“I swear to God you’re more trouble than you’re worth,” Jill said. “Fine, send me her location. Where are you going to be?”
“I’m pursuing the human. If she isn’t kept under control she could do so much more damage.”
“Find her and get her off the streets as soon as you can.”
Frees nodded, switching the phone off.
“If I ever find that human,” the woman said, fire in her eyes.
“They’re unpredictable, that’s for sure. Stay here, stay quiet and Jill will be along shortly. Her eyes are like mine, that’s how you’ll know her.”
“Thank you…Frees? Is that what she called you?”
He took her hand in his own, the one not covered in skin. He didn’t know if she could feel it or not. “Yes. And you’re welcome.” He placed her hand back down beside her and turned, making his way further down the alley. He glanced down, fluids leaking out of him, soaking into his clothes. He supposed garments were good for something after all, at least he wasn’t leaving a trail for anyone to follow. But if he didn’t find her quickly and get back home soon for repairs, his vital systems would shut down. The bullet needed to come out and his continuous motion wasn’t doing anything but driving it deeper.
