The Superiors

by Lena Hillbrand

  He skirted the building so he wouldn’t run into Bonnie and get drawn in by her chattiness. The clinic’s entrance led to several wings. Draven went through the doors to the treatment wing. He found Cali’s room and went inside. She sat propped up on the bed, eyes open. She looked at him out of a grey face with grey lips.

  “Cali.” He went in and sat on the bed beside her and pulled up his knee so he faced her. “Do you need water?”

  She nodded and he brought her some in the cup he had used the night before. When she took it, her hands shook. She drank and then sank back on the bed.

  “Has the doctor been in to see you?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

  “I’m glad you’re awake. I wish I could do something for you, but for now there is nothing more to be done. I’m going away on an assignment, and when I come back… If I do, I’ll have a surprise for you. I hope it will be as pleasant for you as it is for me.”

  He lifted her hand and put into her palm a tiny package wrapped in orange plastic. “Here is something, until then.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “A caramel.”

  She closed her hand around it and closed her eyes. Draven brushed the hair back from her face, then stood and put his face close to hers and inhaled deeply. He thought she would live. She smelled good enough to eat already.

  He walked to the door, but when he heard her stirring, he turned back to look at her one more time.

  “Master?” she said in her raspy voice. He waited, and after a moment she said, “What’s your name?”

  He paused before answering. He knew he shouldn’t. But if he died, he wanted someone to remember, even if it was only a sap. Of course a few Superiors would remember, but he didn’t imagine he’d leave a big gap, or even a small fissure, in anyone’s life. Not even a sap’s.

  “Draven. Draven Castle.”

  “Thank you, Draven Castle.”

  He turned and left without looking back.

  Chapter Forty-One

  “It seems we’re riding in style the first part of the trip,” Draven said when he’d settled into the car with Byron.

  Byron laughed. “Not my car. Or my driver. All provided by the great nation of North America. Enjoy it while you can. I have a feeling things are going to get a lot more rustic here in a few days.”

  “Duly noted, sir.”

  “None of that sir stuff on this trip, you hear? We’re friends, and on this trip we’re equals. Alright? We’re business partners, of sorts. We’re both soldiers setting out on the same task force. So from the time we leave the city until the time we come back, there’s no difference between our positions.”

  “Yes, sir.” Both men laughed. “I can’t help it,” Draven said. “I’ve grown used to it.”

  “How about you just say ‘yes, soldier,’ and I’ll do the same.”

  “So how long will it take to reach Houston?” No sir at the end. It felt strange.

  “At least a day, maybe more. Then we have to track him in the area.”

  “And once we catch him, we’ll bring him back and he’ll go to jail?”

  “If you catch him, you can bring him back.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Whatever you think it means, soldier. Our orders are to bring him back dead or alive. You choose which option you like best, and if I catch him, I’ll choose the option I like best.”

  “You’d kill him if you didn’t have to?” It surprised Draven to hear that coming from a member of law enforcement.

  Byron reached behind the seat and brought forward a long black case. It reminded Draven of Hyoki’s instrument case. Byron opened the latches and lifted the lid. Inside gleamed two long, highly polished wooden knives. The blades, each about half as long as Draven’s arm, looked razor sharp.

  “What do you make of these, soldier?” Byron asked.

  “I’ve…never seen anything like them.”

  “And that’s a good thing, believe me. Let’s just say, this is what the government gave me to help us catch Ander. Do you think they want us to bring him back alive?”

  “Then what is the trailer behind the car for?”

  “To bring him back. If he’s alive, we’ve got restraints in there. If not…” Byron shrugged. “Right now we have something a little more pleasant than Ander back there.”

  “Oh?”

  “We’re stopping now to get an extra battery for the car. It takes a lot of power to pull a trailer, even with not much in it. Come and have a look for yourself, soldier.”

  Draven followed Byron to the back of the trailer while the driver went to get the battery. Byron unlocked the heavy door and lifted. Inside, two sapiens squinted out at their captors. Draven recognized one of them.

  “The dark-haired one is your favorite, right? You said she was the one you went to Estrella’s for.”

  Draven laughed. He’d forgotten that lie, but he remembered it now. He had told Byron he liked that one because Cali hadn’t been there that night. She’d been at his apartment, and he hadn’t wanted to draw suspicion, so he’d just picked the first sap he saw. And Byron had remembered.

  “I figured you’d like that,” Byron said, taking Draven’s laugh as one of pleasure. “You might be eating powdered sap from a package on a few nights, so when we’re traveling, we’ll have the real thing. I got special permission from Estrella’s to take yours. You’ll need whatever strength you can get for what’s ahead.”

  “Yes, sir. Soldier.”

  “You want to have an appetizer now, while we’re stopped?”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Draven said, and they went into the trailer to eat before they resumed their journey northward. When he finished, Draven pulled away and neatly sealed off the punctures in the sap’s arm. Byron finished up as well, and when he pulled away he grimaced, and the sap covered her arm where he had bitten. Byron patted his mouth with a white cloth he’d taken from his pocket, still making a face, and turned away. “Come. We should get under way again. We have a long way to go before daylight.”

  Draven looked at Byron’s sapien and then at his friend, frowning. He got up after a moment and followed his elder. He decided not to say anything, but when they ate again and he watched the same thing happen, he couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. Once could be an oversight, but not twice.

  “Do you not seal the entrance points when you feed from your sapiens?”

  Byron shrugged and made that same disgusted face. “I can’t stand to be near them any longer than I have to.”

  “They are in pain afterwards. Every time you do that it leaves a scar under the skin that hurts them.” Draven usually wouldn’t speak so boldly to a Second, but after seeing Cali’s situation, after doing the disgusting thing he’d done, he had more conviction than ever on the matter. And he’d always had plenty of conviction when it came to that subject.

  “I’ve heard that. But saps don’t feel the way we do, soldier. They’re just animals. They hardly register pain.” Draven thought of Cali’s screams, and he knew that for once he knew more than someone else. And not just anyone. A Second Order Enforcer.

  “I just thought someone with so much sympathy for sapiens wouldn’t mind sparing them a little pain. You don’t have to go out of your way to be kind to them.”

  “Sympathy? I’m not sure I’d call it that. You, my friend, have a little too much of that when it comes to saps.”

  “I’ve seen them get infected from it, that’s all. It can kill them, if the infection isn’t caught.”

  “We take ours to the animal clinic if they get sick with anything. We take good care of our saps. I just can’t stand to be near them. I prefer to drink from a cup. It’s always seemed more civilized to me. And the saps, well, I don’t care for them at all. If we could find some way to live without them, I’d say put them all out of their misery.”

  “Do you mean that? They’re just animals. They were here before we were.�
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  “Are you a bleeding-heart liberal, Draven? You’re beginning to surprise me.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I just quite enjoy drawing straight from the source. It’s as close to our former life as we get.”

  “That’s not a life most of us wish for anymore. Do you miss your human existence?”

  Draven bristled a bit at the intimate question, but he had to answer by law, no matter what Byron said about temporary equality. The law had instilled itself so deeply in Draven that he couldn’t disobey it even with permission. “No. Of course I don’t. I just didn’t take you for…I guess you have surprised me as well.”

  “I hate to see them suffer, too, my friend. And if it is of no consequence to me, I don’t mind helping them. But being near them has grown so repulsive to me that I cannot bear to touch them unless it’s imperative. And touching their skin with my tongue, my lips—.” Byron broke off with a shudder.

  Draven nodded, although he didn’t mind the warmth when he ate at all, only the bodily warmth. “I can see that. It can be unpleasant at times.”

  They rode in silence and Draven thought about this, and he wanted to believe he didn’t think of his mentor any differently because of something so trivial. Byron was correct, of course. Why should he risk his own discomfort for the comfort of an animal? And yet, Draven couldn’t quite shake the feeling of guilt that he’d watched his friend do twice to a sap what had almost killed Cali. He couldn’t quite summon the same feeling of respect he’d had for his boss before their conversation.

  In the morning, the men let the saps out to take care of their needs, provided them with food, and put them back in the trailer. The driver slid the blinders over the windows and the windshield, and the men slept in the car. When darkness came, they drove on. They had to go further than they had thought, as Ander moved continually. Byron traced what he believed was a pod in Ander’s possession. If correct, it meant Ander had moved northwest of Houston. The roads crumbled in places, and once the government car had to backtrack to find a passable road.

  They came to a deserted area—miles and miles of sand and sagebrush. The landscape looked strange and foreign to Draven’s eyes. He had lived his entire Superior life in cities, and so much open space made him a bit jumpy, although he was awestruck by the hugeness of the sky, the land, the silence around them, all of it stretching out as far as the senses could travel. It seemed endless, like nothing he’d ever known.

  On the morning of the second day, the road ended. No abrupt halt, no torn asphalt track, no blockage stopped them. The road they had followed simply faded away into sand until the driver thought going further would render the car useless. He backed out of the sand onto the last visible stretch of road. Draven and Byron drew from the sapiens, filled the last corners of their packs with bottles of water and set off.

  They donned hats and sunglasses, and walked away from the car into the endless stretch of desert sand. They could make a bit of headway, walk for an hour or two before the sun got too strong. The desert, blue and bright in the morning, was eerie in its silence. They saw an animal in the distance, something that stopped and turned towards them with silver moon eyes. It darted away and they walked on in the lonesome landscape, silent as the morning around them.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Cali opened her eyes and immediately shoved her hand under the pillow in a panic. She closed her hand around the crackly orange plastic and sighed. Still there. She took out the caramel and lay back, holding it between her thumbs and forefingers. She knew she should eat it. Every time she woke up and thought someone had taken it, a rush of panic rose in her chest. Not that it was illegal or anything—lots of Superiors probably bought sap treats for their pets and livestock. But she could only speculate, since she didn’t know anyone who had ever had a caramel besides her.

  She pulled back the edge of the plastic and pressed the sticky candy to her nose and inhaled. It didn’t smell as good as it tasted. She knew, because she’d licked it twice. It tasted so good she thought she’d died and gone to the afterwards. In fact, her whole life now felt like she’d arrived in the afterwards. People just couldn’t be that lazy and not get punished. The only way she knew she hadn’t gone to the afterwards was that Superiors still came to check on her every night, and she couldn’t get up and walk around or do anything. She had to stay in the bed at the clinic.

  She could go to the bathroom now, which she liked. But her legs shook so bad she could hardly stand on them, and she thought she’d pass out. Still, life was so easy and comfortable she thought there must be a catch. The very best part? No one sucked her blood. Not the ones from the restaurant, not the mean one, not the nice one who gave her the caramel. Not even the doctors. No one at all drank her blood. She’d finally done it, somehow, without even trying. She’d gotten them all to leave her alone. She figured it was probably on account of how bad her infected arm had smelled, but she didn’t care. Finally, finally, no more painful bites.

  And she had a caramel. She’d hated Man with Soft Hair after he’d caught Pat and Patty. Or she thought he’d caught them. She only knew for sure he’d caught Leon, and whatever he’d done to the boy had been so terrible that Leon wouldn’t speak anymore, not to tell what happened to Pat and Patty or to say anything else. And then Man with Soft Hair had been awfully mean to her when they made her go feed him after that. She’d wanted to knock his sharp teeth right out. She’d made herself feel a little better by thinking about how she’d gotten away with stealing from him.

  But he’d been nice to her later, brought her to the clinic and told her his name, and even brought her a treat. She licked it inside the wrapper several times before closing the plastic wrapping and pushing the caramel under her pillow. The day she left the clinic, she’d eat it. That day, she’d need a little encouragement. Maybe Man Who Hurries would come back and start giving her new painful bites. For now, the Superiors left her alone, and she didn’t need a caramel. She’d already gotten as close to heaven as she thought she’d ever get.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  For many days they slept in the black, light-proof tents the government had issued and drank rehydrated sap. When they ran out of water, they ate it dry. They found water once, but it looked like a polluted cesspool, floating with green slime and shiny with oil. They didn’t drink. At night, the temperature dropped so low that progress slowed considerably. The days were broiling hot, and when Draven came out of his tent his body steamed in the cold evening air.

  The warmth stayed in their bodies for a while after dark had fallen, but always by morning they’d grown cold through to the bone and gotten much slower than when they started out. Draven sometimes wanted to give up, but Byron kept on with silent determination, checking his pod, tracking Ander, pointing them in the direction the man had taken. In the course of their exhaustive search, Draven wondered if Ander had somehow apprehended their plan and eluded them by design. As much distance as they covered, they didn’t seem to get much closer to Ander.

  They wound through desert paths and through much desert without paths, and Byron assured Draven in his doubtful moments that they were closing in and that this had never looked like a short assignment. The men talked mostly during the first few hours of the night, and when conversation died away like the road had, they walked in silence each night until Byron estimated they had walked enough and stopped to set up camp.

  Draven began to feel a strange sensation he hadn’t felt in a very long time. He was thirsty. Not in the way of wanting nutrition, but in the way of needing liquid. His body didn’t dispose of liquid the way humans did, but it took in a certain amount, needed to so it didn’t wither and dry.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had water. Both men cut down to one packet of dehydrated sap a day. They had some left, but they couldn’t tell exactly when their mission would end, and how long it would take them to get back. One night they stopped walking before the sun rose, and they sat on their packs and looked out into the desert. Dra
ven wondered if Cali had lived, and if she’d moved back in with her sisters, and if she’d escaped the man who had infected her. He wondered if she remembered that he’d brought her a candy when she awoke, if she had married, how long it had been since he’d seen her, and how long since she’d thought of him.

  He lost himself in his thoughts until Byron looked up from his pod.

  “I saw something a ways back,” Byron said. “I’ll be back.” He turned and disappeared in a moment. Draven sat looking east at the coming light, and he glanced at his friend’s pack. For a moment he wondered how much sap Byron had left, and if he could slip out a few packets undetected. He caught himself thinking of it and was ashamed.

  He smelled his friend coming before he heard him, and he spun to face the darkness and inhaled. He smelled something good, something wet. Byron returned with a cactus, cut open, and both men drew all the moisture they could from it.

  “We can get more, any time we see them,” Byron said. “I forgot this could be done, since I’ve never had to do it. But I looked it up, and this is the best source of liquid in the desert.”

  “Should we go on tonight?” Draven asked.

  “I think it would be wise. We’re getting closer.”

  They talked a few minutes longer before agreeing to push on a few more hours. They walked in silence for a while, and then Byron reached out an arm to halt his friend. They stood together, scenting the air. They looked at each other, and Draven nodded, his lips tight. Byron made a face to show his distaste, but Draven had no doubts. Many years had passed since he’d had to do anything to survive. At home, he thought just paying his rent and eating qualified as doing anything to survive. But now he faced the real thing, or as close as he was ever likely to get.