by Corey Ostman
Jaya knew she couldn’t outrun it. So she stood on the boulder, dusting off her pants, and bringing her hand along the side of her face to block the evening sun. The horse was at full gallop, following her recent path, but as her vision focused, she saw that it wasn’t Dan or Raj or Anna. It was the same cowboy who’d greeted her at the ranch gate.
They’d sent a ranch hand to collect her like a stray cow.
“Howdy, Jaya. We met before,” he said when he’d come close and reigned in his horse. He tipped his hat. “Sorry I didn’t give you my name then. I’m Ephron.”
“Hello,” she said, frowning.
“The Boss and I rode out to look for you,” he said. “He’s worried ‘bout you. They all are.”
“Sure they are.” She sighed and walked over to the horse, giving the mare a pat on her velvety nose. The horse lowered her head, enjoying the caress. Jaya ran her fingers through her mane and tried to shut out the future.
“Where’s the boy?” he asked, repositioning his hat, tilting it down on the right to shield his eyes from the sun.
“Ran away,” Jaya said.
“So that’s why you lit off like that.”
“Yeah,” she said, feeling guilty in the lie.
“And you think he’s in the gorge?” Ephron looped the reins around the horn of his saddle and dismounted.
Her skin crawled at the words, even before she knew what he was saying. If Avo were in the gorge, he could be—
She stepped up to the edge of the canyon, gazing up and down its jagged maw. Ephron had already started following the ridge, looking down, kneeling in a few places. He was shaking his head when he walked back.
“Don’t see nothin,” he said. “No sounds or tracks, either.”
“He probably went back to town,” said Jaya.
Ephron nodded. “Boss sent some hands that way, too. We’ll get him.”
Jaya sighed. “Thank you.”
Ephron crossed his arms and looked out over the canyon.
“Favorite spot for the Donner family, this here gorge. Gracie’s ma liked exploring the caves in back.” He stared at her. “You know the family well?”
Jaya wiped her hands on her pants. “No, not really.”
“Just Grace, eh? Dan said you’d delivered a package for her.” He shook his head. “Shoot, I ain’t seen Grace in years, since afore she went to Fox. How’s she doing?”
“She’s fine,” Jaya said.
“Ok. Well, we should be headin’ back,” he said. “It’s gonna be dark soon.” He nodded toward the horse. “I see you know your way around Bloom. If you like, you can ride ‘er back. I can keep up on foot if’n you don’t go too fast.”
“On her? Thanks!” Her feet were aching from the unexpected run. She knew she’d feel safer on horseback, safer on a beast she could trust. She was glad the cowboy hadn’t insisted on riding with her.
Bloom had wandered nearby and was busy tearing at the stubby grass.
“I wish I had some carrots or apple slices for you, girl,” Jaya said, walking up alongside.
“I can give you a lift up. Bloom’s a lot bigger’n most,” said Ephron.
“Sure, in a sec.” Jaya walked around the horse and adjusted the stirrups. Then she grabbed the reins and the horn, and placed her left foot in. Her calf ached. Turning around, she nodded to him. “Please.”
Jaya bounced up, and felt his hands on her right calf. Expecting a push, she was horrified to feel the hands slide to her waist. The world spun as he pulled her off the horse. She kicked and tried to twist, but he was rotating her, wrestling as they sailed toward the ground.
She hit rocky soil, pain radiating down her shoulders and spine. Her head struck the ground next, the pain so sharp it felt like a rock had split her skull. Her ears rang with her own scream, but one of his gloved hands clamped over her mouth, splitting her lip as it scraped against her teeth.
“Quiet, now,” he said, his face so close she could smell his peppery breath. “Grace Donner.”
“I’m not Grace!” she yelled into his glove, kicking against the ground with both legs. Her shout was muffled, but she saw Ephron raise his eyebrows.
“Oh sure, you don’t look like her, but that’s simple surgery.” He peered closer. “I can see the laser lines.”
“No! I’m not!”
He had pinned both arms. Jaya tried to roll away, but he pressed down harder on her face, gravel grinding against her scalp. She felt hot breath from her nostrils against the leather of his gloves. If he shifted his grip a little higher, she wouldn’t be able to breathe.
Think. Think. How would Grace get out of this?
An internal nudge directed her eyes to Bloom. If I could mount the horse, she thought—
“Uriah Panborn,” Ephron said.
“Who?”
He jostled her. “Don’t pretend you don’t know!”
She thought for a moment. Who wanted Grace, here in cloister?
“Aposti,” she said, hoping it was enough.
“My brother! He followed you from Mars to Ceres, tryin’ to fix the damage from your synth-lovin’ propaganda. You murdered him for it.”
He shifted, straddling her with both hands. She gasped after the glove hand withdrew and lifted her head away from the gravel. Coughing on blood and spit, she found her voice again.
“I-I’m sorry, about your, umm, family,” she said. “But I’m not—”
He slapped her. The cracked surface of his gloves scraped against her cheek like sandpaper.
“Uriah Panborn. I wanted you to hear his name afore you die.” His smile grew, revealing his white teeth.
She didn’t wait to hear what he’d say next. Spreading her legs, she raised her pelvis off the ground. As he slid forward from the movement of her body, she lifted both legs into the air and slammed her boots with their shiny new spurs into the sides of his head.
Ephron yowled and grabbed for her legs. But her legs were already down, giving her the momentum to rise up and punch him hard across the jaw. He lurched to his right, and she used the leverage to twist him off. Bounce, Jaya! And she was up, scrambling for the horse, Grace working in tandem with her thoughts.
“Bloom, rise!” shouted Ephron behind her.
The horse immediately reared up. The move was so quick, so powerful, that Jaya fell backward. She tried to gain purchase as she fell, but all she did was get a brief hold on the collar around Bloom’s neck before falling into the dirt.
A push collar.
“Bloom, trample!”
The mare’s eyes flashed wild, like she was fending for her life. She reared up, front legs deadly clubs in the air.
“No!” Jaya screamed, the canyon echoing her voice as the mare came down on her. She tried to move, but the striking hooves imprisoned her.
“Bloom, push!” the cowboy commanded.
The mare pivoted, flashing hooves knocking her to the edge, one of Jaya’s feet sliding over empty air. She reached for the horse’s legs, anything to grab hold, but the ground gave way. A hoof hit Jaya on her left temple. Her feet came out from under her and she flew backwards, into the gorge.
Her mind registered flickers: the horse getting smaller and smaller. The laugh of the man. The dark, cloudy sky.
Then she struck the canyon floor.
Chapter 24
Avonaco stood rigidly beside a stone, his hypervision scoping the distance. Four kilometers away, Jaya and the cowboy had been talking; now dust was rising from the ground. Had one of them tripped? But there was Jaya, up and on the horse. Then the horse reared, and Jaya fell. He heard the cowboy’s laugh echoing through the canyon, and her screams.
He began to run. He had no plan. He had to reach Jaya. Raw anger streaked through his circuitry: he wanted to intercept the man—to use his mass and incompressible metarm to pummel soft human flesh to pulp. Then Jaya would—
He paused at three kilometers. Where was she?
He stopped and crouched amongst the prairie grasses. His head poked abov
e the tallest of the greenery, but he knew human vision was too imperfect to resolve something as small as his skull from this distance.
The cowboy was looking over the edge of the canyon.
Jaya!
Avonaco vaulted from his hiding spot, racing forward. But the cowboy was already leaving: he’d gotten onto the big yellow horse and was cresting a nearby hill, his back to the canyon. Avonaco had a chance to catch him, if he ran hard. But if Jaya had fallen—
Tears blurred his vision.
Over the final stretch the grass grew more sparse, the ground hard. There were ghostly infrared splotches ahead, where Jaya and the cowboy had struggled. Avonaco hoped that the cliff wasn’t too steep, that Jaya had only rolled a short distance from where the horse had struck.
His simulated heart beating at a gallop in his chest, he reached the canyon’s edge and looked down.
It was a vertical drop. Thirty-eight meters. He could see the infrared rubble where she’d caught the edge, but he couldn’t see where she had fallen. Avonaco choked, though he wanted to cry out her name. Where was she? Where was Jaya? He leaned over the edge for a better look. Fear of what he might see shook his body.
He scanned the canyon floor. Although in shadow, he could make out the deepest part of the chasm, gravel with the occasional scrub. Avonaco leaned over farther, then farther still as a hint of horizontal caught his eye. There: a ledge eleven meters below. It was narrow, and far from level. He crouched, lowering his center of gravity and extended over the precipice a little farther. Yes! Her leg. Her body! There was Jaya! The ledge had stopped her fall.
He stared at her unmoving form.
His first instinct was to jump down. The drop meant nothing to his endoskeleton, but how would he climb back up? He didn’t have rope. He looked around him. No vegetation to speak of. The rock beneath his hands was crumbly. Avonaco frowned and leaned back to survey the gorge—this time to the right and left of Jaya’s position. The left continued a vertical alignment, but to the right, there was an incline of a steep but acceptable grade. It would take a powerful jump to get there from Jaya’s ledge. Yes, he thought, that will do.
Avonaco stepped off the cliff, landing two meters away from Jaya. She lay on her left side, crumpled against the canyon wall. The ground was crimson with fresh blood.
“Jaya!”
He placed two fingers to her neck. A steady heartbeat. He shuddered in relief. Then he crouched to look at the side of her head, at the external device that held all of Jaya he’d been able to save.
There was a two-centimeter hole where the grafty should have been.
“No!” he wailed. He scrambled around the body, searching for the disc that held Jaya’s mind, but the ledge was barren. He scanned the vertical wall, but there was nothing that could have caught the grafty on the way down. And behind him was the shadowy abyss of the canyon. If the grafty had fallen all the way down, it would take days to locate. If it had survived the fall at all. Avonaco looked up. It was possible that the grafty was still up on the rim—
Jaya coughed, white froth mixed with blood pulsing between her lips.
Avonaco gritted his teeth. A search would have to wait. He knelt beside her and, holding his left hand over her head, activated the terahertz imaging sensor in his palm. Her internal structure filled his field of view, the reality of the canyon ledge dimming as skin and bone and brain appeared.
He cupped his hand, following the curvature of her skull. Rotational forces had caused trauma to the midbrain. A bad concussion, but he wasn’t detecting any cerebral hemorrhaging. And the cranium was completely intact, no fractures, though there was substantial external swelling above her left ear.
He probed deeper, imaging the brain stem and spine. The spine remained intact. There were minor contusions above both shoulder blades. Pulling his hand higher, he imaged her torso. Three broken ribs. Lungs and heart flickered into view. Breathing was shallow and heartbeat elevated. The diaphragm was undamaged and so was the liver directly beneath it. No other organs were showing signs of injury. A pass over the pelvis and each leg showed the bones intact. The body had survived the fall fairly well.
Scan complete, he moved to visible injuries. The right sleeve was soaked with blood. Beneath it, he found a deep gash from elbow to wrist. Avonaco pinched the skin together and cauterized it with his laser finger. She moaned and twitched as he slowly worked up the arm, zipping the wound shut. She would need pain medication soon, and he had nothing after the mountain lion attack.
As he worked at the other cuts and abrasions, he kept glancing at the gash where the grafty had been. He wondered how much of either Grace or Jaya was left. Both the concussion and sudden loss of the grafty could have caused significant neural damage. Though his imaging systems had fidelity enough to detect structural and circulatory problems, he lacked the ability to analyze neural electrical activity.
He had just finished binding her ribs when her body twitched. First her right leg, then her left arm. She began to moan, wriggling her shoulders like she was trying to stretch, though her arms remained at her sides. Her eyeballs rolled beneath closed lids and her nostrils flared. Her lips parted and revealed a small cut in her lower lip, already scabbed over. The tongue was working, moving behind her lips now, and she swallowed, like she was gathering the strength to speak.
“Jaya?” he said, hopeful.
“It’s his brother,” she moaned, turning her head to the side, face contorted in pain.
“Whose brother?”
“I have to get back to the house,” she said, a cough interrupting her words. “He’s going to go after Tim,” she started to sob, tears bubbling from underneath her lids and spilling down her cheeks. “And Dad and Raj and Anna—”
Dad. So it was Grace, then. Avo felt his chest constrict, though he tried to be pleased. At least she was coherent. It was a good sign.
Grace’s eyes fluttered open, first unfocused, then locked on him.
“Oh, Avo! You’re here, you’re safe!”
She rolled toward him, hugging his legs, her cheek pressed against his knee.
“I ran back to the gate but you were gone,” she said.
Avonaco wanted to hug her back, to reassure Jaya that he wouldn’t leave again. But this wasn’t Jaya. Jaya was in the gray grafty, and it was lost somewhere on the cliff above or the canyon below. This was Grace Donner.
He stood.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“I feel like a horse kicked me.” She smirked. “Oh, right. A horse did kick me.”
She propped herself up. Her eyes fluttered shut and she reached for her forehead.
“Whew.”
“Any pain?” Avo asked. “Dizziness?”
“Yes. Yes, a lot of dizziness.” She opened her eyes, blinking and glancing around. “When I first sat up. But it’s better again.”
“Take it slowly,” he said. “You have a concussion, three broken ribs, seventeen cuts, fifteen abrasions, and twenty contusions.” He paused. He wouldn’t mention the brain damage until he could analyze her more thoroughly.
“Which you’ve treated,” she said, looking at her cauterized arm.
“I did what I could,” he said, turning away. He didn’t want her to thank him. He wanted her to be Jaya.
“Don’t suppose you have any more painkillers?”
“No.”
She groaned and shuffled behind him. He turned his head and she was standing.
“Hey! Wait a minute, you can’t—”
“Don’t have any choice,” Grace interrupted. “We have to get back.”
She looked sore and unbalanced. There was no way she could walk back to the house, not in this condition. He thought of agreeing with her and then scooping her up after she collapsed.
Jaya would have listened to him.
But Grace was moving again. She leaped from the edge of the ledge, onto the incline he’d noticed earlier. She bent over and winced as she landed on the other side. Avonaco followed behind.
She laughed tightly, straightening up. “Not as bad as I thought I’d feel. Protectors could use more of you when we go out on blind bangs.”
It was something about the offhanded way she said it. The way she laughed, out of step with his anguish and loss.
“More of us on blind bangs?” he snapped. “Do you think I’m some sort of tool? That you can fabricate as many as you need? Oh, sure, your clade would welcome anything that would make violence less costly. Imagine how the protector ranks would swell!” He started to sob. He didn’t want to see her anymore, couldn’t handle this person that looked like Jaya but wasn’t.
He jerked as she touched his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was joking. Something I’m not always good at.”
He shrugged her off.
“I need you, Avo.”
“You need an AI tool.”
“I need you, not a tool,” said Grace. “I need the boy who traveled with me all these kilometers. Who faced a mountain lion and fought his way past an aposti.”
He sighed and turned, looking into her eyes, wanting to see Jaya somewhere in there.
“You remember the fight with the aposti?” said Avo.
“Yes,” said Grace. “Kinda blurry, but yes.”
“And.” He paused, afraid to ask. “And Jaya?”
“Jaya?”
“The grafty is gone.”
Grace reached up to her temple, eyes wide. She winced when her fingers contacted her bruised and cauterized flesh.
“Gone? But—”
“But?”
“I’m confused. I still have memories that I’m not sure are mine.” She rubbed her forehead. “And an awful headache.”
“Could you—”
“Avo. The aposti. We have to get to the house.”
He frowned, and looked at the canyon. The grafty was there, somewhere, if it was still intact.
“Please. I need you to help me here,” said Grace. “If Jaya’s somewhere inside, I’ll try to find her.” She reached for him. “I promise.”
Avo hesitated for a moment. Then he thought of the cowboy, how he had laughed when his horse kicked Jaya.
