The Superiors

by Lena Hillbrand

  Sure, he had some packaged sap in his bag. He could go for days before he starved. Even then, he would never die of starvation. If he starved long enough, he’d shut down, of course. But the state resembled hibernation more than anything. If food became available, he’d awaken at once.

  Byron stood and watched Draven remove his pack and set off. Draven went away from his companion for the first time, the first time he’d gone alone into the desert. Again, he had the tremendous feeling of isolation. He let his stride lengthen, let his limbs flow out in the chill of the morning. He stretched his senses as far as he could and turned sharply to descend upon his prey. The rabbit zigzagged across his path, and then stopped still, eyes jerking in fear. It took off just as Draven leapt, but he came down close enough that when he dove, he just got its hind feet.

  He scrambled up, shook sand from himself, and twisted the head until the neck snapped. He followed the trail he’d left and found Byron setting up camp.

  “You killed it,” Byron said.

  “I did it quickly.”

  “But you’ve never killed an animal before, right?”

  “Not since I’ve been an evolved creature,” Draven said, sitting down on his pack. “But I’ve never eaten one since then, either. Do you want some?”

  Byron shook his head. “Go ahead, brave soldier. I can hardly bear the thought of feeding from a sap. I’ll eat what’s in the packets until they’re gone.”

  Draven hadn’t had to eat from a non-human animal before. He didn’t even know how much nutrition he could absorb. He knew animals weren’t like homo-sapiens whose energy converted into his energy and nothing had to be wasted. Human blood contained the same elements as his own body, which only lacked the energy. His body used the exact amount of energy it took in, and wasted nothing.

  He didn’t know about rabbit. But he planned to find out. He found the task unpleasant, and the taste even more so, but it rehydrated him at the least. When he woke the next evening, he had more energy than he had when only eating the packet of dried sap. He ate the usual packet, hating the way the sap flakes clung inside his mouth almost as much as he’d disliked the animal. But he needed nutrition, and added to the rabbit’s blood, it gave him a burst of energy he hadn’t experienced in several days.

  Two more nights he caught animals, and on the third a small deer-like creature. He ate from it without killing it, although it made a sound worse than that of a screaming sapien. Byron didn’t draw from the animal, and Draven let it go before turning in for the day.

  When they awoke, a storm had blown in. The sky turned an awful color that reminded Draven of Cali’s infected arm, and he wondered again about her. He didn’t know how long he’d wandered in the desert, but it seemed a long time.

  The rain came, and the wind, and the men gave up walking and pitched their tents on the top of a small ridge of sand. Draven unzipped the door of his tent partway and watched the rain gush through the sand below, carving out a gulley as it washed the sand away. Lightning split seams across the sky and thunder followed, tearing the jagged seam open from west to east, letting out torrents of water. When the storm passed, the men drank water from the stream before it sank into the sand, and decided to stay a few minutes. Draven wanted to bathe before they continued.

  Although he emitted nothing, no waste of any sort, he liked staying clean. He didn’t imagine he’d have another chance to wash the sand-dust from himself before they returned. Out there, it seemed they were always covered with a thin film of the finest dry particles. Not exactly dirty, but dusty. Draven preferred to keep himself neat, and like most Superiors, he liked his body’s natural cleanliness. He found the addition of environmental particles distasteful.

  Not only that, but when the opportunity to bathe in an outdoor stream presented itself, he couldn’t resist. He hadn’t done something so primal since he’d evolved. Under the fleeing clouds, he undressed near the rushing stream. Even if the water left him dirtier than before he bathed, he didn’t mind. Really the thing of it was the excitement of undressing under the endless sky, in the endless desert, and getting in the frigid water. The aim of the act carried little weight. The clouds raced onwards and away, leaving an infinite space, strewn with stars, to watch over him as he stepped into the diminishing current.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Byron sat on his pack on the wet sand and watched Draven bathe in the streambed the storm had carved out of the dunes. He wouldn’t bathe until he returned home. He’d never been comfortable with his own nakedness, especially not in the presence of a man like Draven. So he watched the Third, envy stealing up in him despite his efforts to quell it.

  The night became still, only the clouds continuing their ceaseless motion across the dark sky. The moon shone through jagged holes when the clouds began to break apart. The water rushed by, small clumps of tumbleweed rolling along in the current. Draven dropped his clothes beside the stream and stepped forward, squatting to splash water onto his face with his cupped hands. He stood and splashed water onto his body, wet and glistening in the cold moonlight.

  Draven didn’t have the kind of body that most men noticed or envied—his chest wasn’t burly enough, his calves a bit too thin, his muscles seemed to stay concealed under his skin instead of bulging against it. He had the body of a runner, muscled by hard work without tangible reward. He didn’t have the brawny look of the Seconds who had spent their human years as bodybuilders or weight-trainers or movie stars, or regular old gym rats, but Byron envied him all the same. Byron would always have the bulge around his middle that grew back no matter how many times he had it taken out. He would never have the strong, muscular build of those ripped Seconds, or even a hard, slender one like Draven.

  Byron focused his attention on the man washing his hair in the dwindling stream without awareness of being watched. Draven had a physique that was rare among Seconds, almost unknown in Thirds, the body of a man who had grown strong by hard physical work. Byron had never worked hard physically, not before the Evolution. Of course he had during the War, but by then his body was set to look as it had at Evolution and would forever after. He’d never look like this lowly Third who splashed so carelessly in the stream as if he had no thought of modesty. And why would he? The girls would always come to him, and he’d never wonder if they wanted something else, someone younger or more toned or taller. Well, maybe taller.

  Byron wondered what Draven had done as a human, where he’d been used so vigorously. Maybe in the fields, but even that work usually didn’t afford saps such a strong, lean look. Most of them looked weak and slightly unhealthy from their sedentary lives. Before the Second Evolution, some saps had done more strenuous work, though. Maybe that’s where Draven had acquired his fit look.

  Draven dressed in the androgynous style currently fashionable, but kept the look very casual. Byron had always thought his friend looked a bit effeminate, but under his clothes he looked much more masculine. Byron had expected the softer body most sap men had, the untoned, slightly feminine curve of the buttocks, the slender soft arms. Instead, Draven had a ropy, hidden strength about his form. Byron hated him a little for it.

  Here he sat, a Second with a former model for a wife, a beautiful home and two well-behaved children, owner of two sapiens and a great job, jealous of his underling—a Third in a succession of ever-more menial jobs, possessing only a crummy apartment and a tendency towards ennui. Byron shook his head. He had nothing to be jealous of.

  He thought maybe he’d look up Draven’s record though, and see if he could find anything about his sapien life. Asking him about it was out of the question of course, as inappropriate as asking another man the size of his penis. But he’d like to know. You didn’t see a body like that every day.

  He found himself thinking of his wife, as he often did when he saw an attractive man. He wondered how she had occupied herself in his absence. He’d never caught her being unfaithful, never had reason to suspect that she had affairs. Still, it was hard to believe that
in all that time she hadn’t strayed. Certainly she’d had opportunity. He still loved Marisol, and he knew she loved him, and when they had time together they coupled often enough. But she still looked twenty-seven, younger even, and he still looked forty-nine. She had managed to regain her model look even after two children.

  Now, as he had when human, Byron had the insecurity and suspicion that came with having such a young and beautiful wife. Wasn’t she apt to change her mind one day? He’d thought so for several hundred years now, but he never grew entirely certain she’d stay, even after so long. In truth, he’d hurried their marriage out of fear she’d change her mind, and hurried the start of their family as well. He’d thought back then that if he could get her pregnant, have a few kids, she’d depend on him more. And as much as he loved her beauty, a part of him wanted her to lose a bit of it so other men wouldn’t look at her quite so often.

  He had thought she’d get that soft motherly look about her, and men would lose interest. But Marisol’s soft motherly look only attracted more men, as far as he could see, and she’d outgrown it when the second one reached the age of three. And the men kept right on looking. For some reason, always a mystery to Byron, Marisol hadn’t seemed to care much about the looks of other men, at least not as much as he did. She had stayed, raising their family and clipping coupons and struggling to childproof the apartment they’d shared. And that’s what they’d done up until the Great Evolution.

  Things had gotten better then—at least since the War ended. He’d never have been anything but mediocre as a human, and now he had so much—power and wealth and respect. But sometimes he still felt a bitter sense of inadequacy, like he’d prove unworthy and have it all taken away. Some younger, better looking, cleverer Superior would come along and pull it right out from under him.

  Someone like Draven. But a Second Order Superior, of course. Thirds were superfluous, non-entities. No harm in taking pity on a promising one every now and then, giving him a little boost. Especially when the Third proved useful, and it became convenient or beneficial to Byron’s job to have him around. Like now. Having a Third around on dangerous missions had become the norm—to distract or be used as a decoy, or to protect the Enforcer. And Draven had proved good company, too, for the most part. A little discontent and restless, but that could work to Byron’s advantage in getting Draven to do something he wasn’t too keen on doing. Most Thirds didn’t know anything, anyway, not even about their true natures. They’d believe any line from a Second.

  Byron watched Draven dressing, almost disappointed at losing the sight. With his clothes on, Draven didn’t look too special. Just another expendable Third. Too bad they hadn’t figured out a way to make Thirds evolve without the need to feed. That would really come in handy—a killing machine that needed no fuel.

  Draven came up the dune, his wet hair clinging to his face. He didn’t look like a killing machine. He looked grateful and wanting at once. The pathetic face of the Third Order.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  They had skipped the usual talk at the beginning of the walk since the storm had blown up. Now Byron caught up to Draven. Draven noticed that although his friend was older and therefore stronger, he had become a bit slower than Draven for a few days. The animal blood had kept Draven in fair shape, although it had the unpleasant side effect of causing him to be sick every evening when he woke. He rid himself of the foreign substances that he couldn’t use, but still he stayed stronger from what he absorbed.

  “We’re close,” Byron said.

  “We’ve been close for many days.”

  “Now we’re very close. We must move silently, be alert. We’re nearly on him now. Tonight we will catch him, or he will catch us.”

  “We have to kill him, don’t we?”

  “Do you want to bring a bound prisoner back, over all the miles we’ve covered?”

  The men moved on, scanning and alert, wooden short-swords in their hands. Draven stopped even his breathing and strained with every sense he had, casting out as far as he could, but he could not find a trace of another being. They crept silently onward until Byron put up a hand. He stood looking at the screen of his pod.

  “He is here,” Byron whispered, his voice hardly discernible even in the intense silence.

  Draven looked around, felt for a smell, a sound, but he sensed nothing.

  “He should be right here,” Byron repeated. He and Draven both turned, finding nothing but sand.

  “I don’t see anything,” Draven said, and then all at once he caught the sound, the scent of Ander, and the flash from the corner of his eye, and before he had turned completely, the man Ander rose up out of the sand and drew a dagger across Byron’s throat.

  Blood dribbled from the Enforcer’s throat, but Draven had only a moment to notice before he faced Ander on his own. Byron’s body crumpled, and Ander let it fall to the sand. In the moment when he released the body, Draven sprang at him. The wooden blade drove into Ander, tore his shirt and sank into his flesh. But even as the knife entered the man’s body, Draven knew he had not dealt a fatal blow. Ander had turned while Draven leapt through the air, and Draven hadn’t had time to correct his aim. The knife went into Ander’s side and the man screamed. Byron hadn’t made a sound.

  Draven had the advantage of striking first, but Ander was stronger, and he swung his dagger at Draven with incredible force. Draven blocked it with his wooden one, and the two men stabbed at each other, Ander using only one arm and holding the other close to his side. He dove forward, thrusting his dagger at Draven, and when Draven blocked the blow with his own, the force of the collision sent a cracking sound into the stillness of the desert around them. In the peaceful silence of the night, the two men struggled.

  It wasn’t until the next time the daggers met that Draven realized with a sinking heart the source of the cracking sound. His wooden sword, his beautiful, gleaming knife, had split. A few more clashes and the thing gave way and he held only a splintered stump. Ander stopped, stepped back from Draven, and laughed.

  “Now I have you, little yes-man,” Ander said. “Did you really think I’d let a measly Third Order prick be the end of me? You’re a flea on my side, nothing more.”

  Draven knew the incredible pain of a wood-inflicted wound, and he had to admire the bravery of his enemy. He had brought three weak saps around a building after his injury and received praise for it. This man could kill another Superior with one arm after sustaining a similar wound.

  Ander dove at Draven, and Draven held up what remained of his weapon, but Ander soon stripped him of even that. Ander slashed at Draven, slicing the wooden handle from his hand and opening his arm from wrist to elbow with one strike of his steel dagger. Then Ander fell on him. Draven was no match for the sheer strength of the older man, wounded or no.

  Ander sunk his long dagger into Draven, and for a moment Draven thought through the blinding pain that the man had missed. He’d sunk the dagger into the soft flesh on the inside of the shoulder, pinning Draven to the sand. But Draven soon saw that it was no accident. The man Ander did not miss when he aimed. He sat and pulled another steel dagger from his belt and sank it into Draven’s other side, pinning him to the wet sand, both his arms incapacitated and almost separated from his body. Draven screamed then, but he hardly heard the sound.

  “I will enjoy this next part,” Ander said, leering down at Draven. Then the large man leaned down and sank his teeth into Draven’s neck.

  The life began draining from Draven. In the desert brightness, he watched the snake tattoos slithering across Ander’s skull. He wondered in his delirium if homo-sapiens felt that way when Superiors drew from them. Had Cali felt this when he bit her neck? Surely it hadn’t hurt this much. She could not have borne the pain without screaming. He could not.

  He didn’t know how long Ander took life from him. The pain stretched in all directions like the desert, and a terror that knew no beginning or end or boundaries. He couldn’t remember a time before the horror or
imagine one after it. He knew only the panic of his life being sucked away and of being pinned, helpless, while it happened.

  And then he saw a shadow rise up behind Ander. He only saw it before Ander sensed it because the man was feeding and not paying attention, because the man, in his arrogance, thought he had killed one man already.

  Byron had no weapon, but he had his body, and he flung it upon Ander. Ander sat up, his blood-streaked face a mask of pain and fury, and let out an animal roar before turning on his attacker. Draven could see, even while pinned to the earth, that Byron’s injury still very much incapacitated him, and that Ander enjoyed the same advantage that he had with Draven. Ander would gain even more strength after tonight. After feeding from two of his own kind, he’d gain almost as much strength as a member of the First Order.

  Draven registered his brief moment of freedom and saw that only the steel blades held him to the sand and not the strength and weight of Ander. He wrenched against the restraints, felt his flesh rip and the flood of pain burning him clean. He gave himself only a second to recover, then threw himself up against the hilts of the daggers, and came free. He reached out and found the hilt of his own weapon, the splintered wooden handle. He struggled to stand without much use in either arm, but when he saw Ander holding Byron, and the way Byron lay limp in Ander’s arms, he gave up on standing and crawled across the sand on his knees.