PodPooch (Cladespace Book 4)

by Corey Ostman

  Jaya woke up sweating, the orange glow of the fire overloading her eyes, its heat warming her skin. All she could see was fire, all she could hear was its sizzling crackle. She tried to turn away, thinking she had rolled too close to the flames, but there was Avo, right beside her. She hadn’t moved.

  She sat up, coughing. The air was painful to breathe. She blinked against the smoke and the sparks. It wasn’t the campfire, still in its ring of stones—it was the other fire, the larger fire, the fire that roared from the hillside. Most of the perimeter of the clearing was ablaze, flames rising meters into the air, licking down to the bottom branches of the pines. Curtains of gray smoke hung behind the walls of orange, obscuring the mountains.

  And the inferno was headed toward them.

  She shook the still form beside her.

  “Avo! Wake up! Fire!”

  She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook harder. The child was limp, unconscious.

  “C’mon, Avo! Wake up!”

  A scream clawed in her parched throat. She grabbed her duffel with Tim inside. She had one shoulder through the strap when she noticed the legz weren’t attached. Jaya spun toward Avo’s backpack. His legz were gone, too. She scanned the area, but all the hydraulic limbs were missing.

  “Avo!”

  The boy stretched and grunted, rolling toward her.

  “Mmm, why did you wake me, I was dreaming about—”

  “Fire!” she yelled.

  Avo’s eyes snapped open and, in a fluid motion almost too fast to see, he stood. Turning in a circle, he surveyed the entire clearing.

  “We have to get out!”

  “Our legz are gone,” she said, shoving his backpack against his chest. “Strap this on. We’ve got to find a break—” Coughing overwhelmed her. She hunched over, trying to shield her face, fighting to catch her breath.

  Avo clutched the backpack and stared at one section of the blaze, then another. All the while he chanted a stream of measurements: “Southeast, fire depth seven meters, height three meters; east, fire depth six meters, height two meters; northeast—Jaya. There is no opening.”

  She stood, shielding her face. In the short time they’d been awake, the wall of fire had advanced, consuming the pine needles and larger shrubs scattered throughout the clearing. Twenty meters to the east, two smaller trees caught fire. With a crackle and a thud, the tree to the right toppled, sending sparks toward them. She and Avo stamped out the few that landed nearby. Pointless. They might have been able to run through flames with their legz—maybe even been able to leap over—but at human speed and human height, they could do little.

  “Take the duffel,” she coughed. “Run for Donner Ranch.” She knew the flames wouldn’t harm Avo. They might destroy his clothes, might blacken his synthetic skin, might even burn down to the metarm, but he’d survive.

  “I’m not leaving you!” His voice rang clear and pure, unaffected by the smoke.

  “You. Have. To,” she said, each word a chore, like chipping away granite. Jaya reached into her harness and unsnapped the water condenser. She took a small sip. It was painful to swallow, but her voice felt like it might work again.

  “Avo,” she said, the words flowing, though the thoughts behind them were a chaotic mix of logic and terror. “You can make it through the flames. Tim can too. You have to survive!”

  “I am not leaving without you!” He intoned each word separately, each loud, their meaning clear. She’d heard those words before. She’d heard them when she’d been shot.

  He took the water condenser from her. It surprised her: he didn’t need the water. He turned the unit over and read its lower display.

  “The fire’s caused the humidity to drop, but the bottle is still reporting enough in reservoir. It should work.” He looked at her, his eyes intent.

  “What?” she asked.

  “This.” He inverted the condenser and placed his thumb over the lip of the vessel. Pushing the release button, he dowsed their blanket with water, using up all of the reservoir and tapping into the anemic moisture in the air.

  “You are going to get under this and make a run for it,” Avo said. “Quickly, before it dries out! Do not worry about me or Tim. Just choose your point and go!”

  Jaya took the blanket. There was a creek to the southeast, or had been, when she used to camp here. She turned her ptenda until its compass pointed southeast, and dug an arrow in the soil with her boot.

  “That way,” she pointed for Avo.

  “I will run behind you.”

  “No,” she said. “I’ll carry you on my back.” Jaya would have had difficulty doing so two years ago, but Grace had a stronger build, and the adrenaline to use it now. She shifted the harness to her front and crouched down. “Climb on!”

  “No!” he shouted and stepped behind her.

  No time to argue. She stared at the line in the soil for a couple of beats as Avo draped the blanket over them. The blanket covered her face and weighed down her arms.

  Just run, she told herself. Don’t stop. There are bushes and shrubs, but they’ll only scratch. Scratches don’t matter. Go between the two big trees and then we’ll reach the creek.

  For the first five meters, Jaya jogged slowly, cementing the mental image of the course. Once she felt the heat on her shins, she pushed hard with her legs, racing forward. The fabric against her face was piping hot. But the pain couldn’t matter. Not now. She ran.

  There was a loud cracking ahead, followed by a deep, bellowing groan. A wall of sound hit her chest, and she knew—she felt—a big tree topple in front of her. Searing pain pierced her feet and shins as she spun around and sprinted in the direction they’d come. When the pain lessened, she lifted the blanket and saw the line of fire ten meters away. They’d gotten through, but she had to keep moving.

  Jaya sprinted south, the ground beneath her a charred destruction. She leapt blackened branches, kicked up smoldering ashes that burned her legs. The creek was finally visible, a depression in the land near scorched trees.

  “Jaya?” said Avo from her back.

  “Almost there, sweetie.”

  Soon they were splashing in the low water. The wetness burned cold against her seared legs. She gasped in the dry air.

  Jaya had just pulled the blanket back from her face when a brilliant light pierced the sky. Columns of smoke parted, gigantic curtains being drawn away. A shockwave hit them and they flew backward. Avo fell away. Jaya scrambled to her feet, hands and knees on burning ash. Behind them, flames disappeared and the wall of black and gray smoke changed to wispy white.

  “What happened?” Avo whispered, standing next to her.

  “Compstate fire suppression. Let’s go!” she said, grabbing Avo’s hand. They took off, headed down the creek bed. There was white vapor ahead—it looked like fog. It was hard to tell. Her vision was blurred from the smoke and flames. She blinked her stinging eyes.

  “Watch out!” Avo’s voice.

  A man loomed out of the smoke. A huge man. How had she not seen him? She tried to skid to a stop, but the creek gravel was slippery. She crashed into his chest.

  He grunted in surprise, but her impact didn’t move him. She sank to her knees, her arms and legs stinging from myriad burns.

  “Did you just—?” began the man.

  “Don’t touch me!” Avo yelled. “We’ve got to get away.”

  “I’ve got to get you to safety, kid,” the man said, his voice booming.

  Jaya felt reality cleave. She wanted to grab Avo and race past, but that voice, oh that voice. Her belly warmed, like she’d had a good meal and felt safe. His voice makes me feel secure.

  Confused, she looked the man over. He was dressed in an armored protector jumper, camouflage brown with the Wheatland insignia and a name patch: N. BELLOWS. If the voice had stirred feelings of safety, that name caused a wave of recognition, of friendship, of home. Jaya didn’t know who this protector was, but he was a friend, and he would save them from the fire.

  “You
ok, ma’am?”

  She nodded, tears blurring her vision.

  “Protector Nick Bellows, Wheatland Prefecture,” he said.

  “Jaya.”

  “Let go!” Avo squirmed.

  “Sorry, firebug,” Bellows said, “but this isn’t playtime. You’re coming with me.”

  “Where?” Jaya asked. She looked back over her shoulder at the fire. The wind had shifted: it was moving in their direction. This man had the easiest way out, but he was compstate. Yet, was it better to tangle with whoever started the fire? Someone who had their legz and could hunt them down?

  Bellows pointed into the fog behind him. “I’ve got a mover over here. We have to leave before the cruiser makes its water drop, otherwise we’re gonna get w—” He looked up at the sky. Far above, the navigation lights of a scout cruiser strobed. Bellows shouted into his ptenda. “Dammit! I said approach from the south. Don’t you see the wind’s from the north?”

  He jogged forward, Avo under one arm. Jaya followed. His phasewave rifle bounced on his back, looking undersized between his broad shoulders. As they ran, he reached to his belt and unclipped two white balls, tossing them behind him. The balls landed, releasing a directed burst of light, followed by a shockwave that kept the flames at bay, pushing the wall of fire back.

  They reached the mover. Once there, Bellows set Avo down and punched the cargo button on the mover’s flank. The side of the mover unlatched and raised, revealing a passenger bay with six empty seats.

  Jaya ducked her head and plunged into the passenger compartment, out of the smoke, out of the heat. Avo stood outside, staring at her, his eyes wide and pleading. She reached out to him, but he stepped back, shaking his head and mouthing the word No.

  But Bellows was soon lifting Avo off his feet. He set him next to Jaya. The boy looked like a coil of energy, ready to bolt from the mover, but before he could act, Bellows tapped the side of the vehicle and the door slammed shut.

  “This is a mistake.” Avo’s voice buzzed in her dermal dot. “We should have made a run for it!”

  “Protector Bellows is a friend—” she began.

  “Not aloud!” Avo said, tapping her dermal. “This is a compstate—”

  The protector’s voice cut in over the comm. “You’re two lucky folks. A few more moments, you’d have either been wet and gulping like fish, or breaded and fried.”

  “What are we going to do?” Avo pleaded in her dermal.

  “Strap yourselves in,” Bellows said. “The trip down the mountain is gonna be rough for a few clicks.”

  Jaya clicked the harness across Avo’s lap and chest, then strapped herself in.

  “We can trust Bellows.” She concentrated on each word, like reading them from a script, making sure her mouth remained shut. Avo would be able to hear her subvocalizations.

  “He’s compstate.”

  “Even so. I felt trust, like he’s family. Grace must know him.”

  “But he does not know you.”

  The mover rumbled and rocked. Bellows had the cockpit hatch closed, so she couldn’t see where they were heading. It was too dark outside to see anything from the cabin windows, but she got the distinct feeling they were traveling down the side of the mountain and not using a road at all. Branches whipped against the side of the mover as they pitched from side to side. Rocks scraping against the chassis preceded a bump, and they went airborne.

  “Hold on!” said Bellows.

  The mover slammed back into the ground and it raced forward.

  “Yee!” The glee in the protector’s voice made Jaya feel less guilty about enjoying the danger of the ride.

  “He called me firebug,” Avo said. “Does he think I started the fire?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

  “They will have a lot of questions,” Avo said. “And they may not like our answers.”

  Chapter 17

  The mover lurched to the right and entered a descending tunnel. White squares painted on the walls pulsed by. Avonaco banged his ptenda again, but it was futile. Protector passenger bays were technological isolates.

  He glared at Jaya. He wanted to scream so loud that her dermal dot would pop out of her skin. Didn’t she understand what losing their liberty to a protector would mean? Whether or not Grace Donner knew this Protector Bellows was immaterial: he certainly did not know Jaya. Yet here she was with a grin on her face, enjoying the ride to Wheatland, unconcerned with what might happen next. The medbinds he’d put on her burns weren’t even bothering her. Why wasn’t she morphing back into Grace? He could use Grace right now. She’d know how to get out of this mess. Instead, he had Jaya, or some version of her, but she didn’t seem quite right—

  He couldn’t let himself think about it. That he might not have saved all of her. He squeezed his eyes shut.

  The mover decelerated to a stop. They were underground. Craning his neck, he could make out a lift bank beyond the mover. Once they exited, they’d probably be bathed in scans. Avonaco switched on his simulated heart.

  The hatch opened. Bellows stood with his arms crossed.

  “I’m not gonna have any trouble from you two, right?”

  “No, sir,” Jaya said.

  Avonaco was surprised by the crispness in Jaya’s voice. Was it Grace, returning? He looked at Bellows, who filled the open hatch. Even if it was, and they knew each other, she wouldn’t look like Grace to him.

  Whoever it was, Jaya or Grace, she removed her restraint belts and stepped from the mover. Avonaco wished he could pull her back, slam the hatch shut, break into the cockpit, and drive the mover out of Wheatland. Instead, he sighed and unclicked his belt.

  “Thanks for saving us,” she said to Bellows, flashing him a big, goofy smile. Jaya.

  “Yep.” The protector reached up to help Avonaco down.

  “Somebody stole our legz,” she added. “I think the fire was set on purpose.”

  “Save it for upstairs,” Bellows said, not unkindly. He gestured them inside an elevator in the lift bank. It smelled like disinfectant. The door sealed shut and the lift accelerated skyward. There wasn’t any readout in the unit—it wasn’t for public use—but Avonaco heard the subtle change in timbre as floors passed by. By the time the elevator stopped, he’d counted fifteen floors.

  The door opened and they stepped out into a small lobby. A protector, no more than twenty years old, sat behind a counter. His name tag read V. MAXO.

  “Whadya got, Bellows?” He didn’t look up from his media pad.

  “Witnesses to an arsonist attack at Friend Park.”

  Avonaco felt relief at the word witnesses.

  “I’ll beam you their scour report,” Maxo said. Avonaco read the reflection of the media pad on the young protector’s eyes. The results of the scans he’d expected. It reported an adult with a neural implant and recent facial surgery, and a child with a metarm endoskeleton.

  Bellows glanced at his ptenda, then up again. “Yeah, yeah. The gal is a nomad and the kid is from Bod Town. That it?”

  Maxo shrugged. “Depends on how thorough you want to be. Her big bag is dark.”

  “I’ll take care of it. Just get me a room.”

  “Go to four.”

  “This way,” Bellows said, pointing toward the left.

  They walked about ten meters until they came to a conference room. It had a long table, enough to seat ten people. There was a food dispenser on one wall. Two ceiling cameras in opposite corners covered the room. Avonaco heard a heavy lock engage when Bellows closed the door. They waited just inside, unsure what to do as the protector strode around the conference table and sat.

  “Drop your bags in the center of the table,” he said. “And help yourself to food or drinks. You need a bathroom?”

  Avonaco shook his head. He wanted this over as quickly as possible. He headed straight for the table, removed his backpack as ordered, and sat down. Jaya went over to the puck dispenser, grabbed a disposable plate, and returned with five frui
t pucks and a steaming cup of rooibos tea.

  “You that hungry?” Avonaco transmitted, as she removed her harness and plopped down next to him.

  Jaya grinned. “I am,” she subvocalized.

  He remembered Grace scarfing down food at the Freer Diner. Jaya was never this hungry, but this was a different body. Grace’s body. He wondered what Jaya’s memories were doing to Grace’s mind. Avonaco closed his eyes for a moment, trying to get his thoughts under control.

  “Are we under arrest?” he asked Bellows.

  Bellows blinked. He didn’t answer right away. Probably because the question had come from a child, possibly because the query seemed foolish, since they were already in a locked room in a security facility.

  “Detained for questioning,” Bellows said.

  “So we are free to go afterwards?” Avonaco asked.

  Bellows leaned forward and put both elbows on the table, steepling his fingers. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” Avonaco began, sensing a logical opening. “Either we are under arrest, or—”

  He paused when Jaya tapped his hand.

  “We’re happy to cooperate,” she said.

  Bellows grunted and went to his ptenda. Jaya’s ptenda lit blue and then Avonaco’s, as the protector used his credentials to interrogate their devices.

  Avonaco glared at Jaya. She might trust this one man, but how could she trust the system behind him? It was the same one destroying AI communities and putting mechflesh in camps. They needed to be sure of their rights, or they could easily end up separated, Tim confiscated. Conveniently murdered in prison.

  “Behan, Jaya. Nomad registered in Cheyenne, Chugwater, Slater, Wheatland, Glendo, Douglas, and Port Casper. Cleared for the borderlands.

  “Reynolds, Avonaco. Citizen registered in Port Casper, crèche enrollment current.” He pressed his lips together. “Doesn’t mention mechflesh implants, but I’ve visited Bod Town and they don’t mention what isn’t unusual.” He looked up. “So what’s so special in that duffel, folks? Faradays that big don’t come cheap.”

  Thousands of plausible answers flooded Avonaco’s mind. He was fast at thinking under stress, but Jaya proved faster.