Chosen Different (Book 3): Different Paths

by Kozinn, Nat

  It won’t be a war between nations. No we’ll long for the moral clarity that came with slaughtering the bastards that live over there. It will require the disintegration of our own families. We have already asked the mothers of America to stand silent as their child is tested and possibly torn from their arms, but those children still have lives. Imagine what happens if the results of that test lead to death not employment. How many mothers will do what is natural and right and hide their children? How will we as a society punish those women who simply want their babies to live? What will we do to those who refuse to submit? That is the path the hard-liners put us on. The path of those who talk about teaching their fellow human beings obedience like they’d speak of training a dog. It cannot be a war of us and them, because there is no us and them. There is only us.

  “It Can Get Worse” by Forest Brown, think.Net News LA (printed in the Los Angeles Times)

  I think we’re near Lake Arrowhead, but I’m not considering that a fact. My knowledge of the geography outside the Los Angeles Metro Area would generously be described as shaky, and I haven’t exactly been following a map. We headed south easterly when we got out of LA Metro lockup and we’re in a mountain looking area so I’ll say it’s a decent guess.

  The Beast reaches the crest of the hill, and finds a nice, well protected crag in the side of a cliff. He drops me and the dead solider with a bit of a thud. His breathing is heavy, he just carried 500 pounds of flesh at least 15 miles, and the last five were mostly uphill and he did that in about twenty-five minutes. I’m not sure I could have done that even with his muscles.

  “Damn, I swear it felt like you got heavier as we were running,” he says and rubs his back.

  He’s not wrong. I made several thousand calories worth of Manna while he was carrying me, enough to regrow a good amount of bone and muscle including my hip. I’m working on the task of reconnecting my blown off arm, stimulating nerves and connective tissue to regenerate and fill the gap. It doesn’t take long.

  The Beast goes over to the dead solider and hunches over the man. It is only then that I notice the blood that covers virtually his entire body. It did not all come from his victims. Dozens of gunshot wounds of all shapes and sizes litter his body. Whatever surge of adrenaline he was riding has finally worn off. He can barely keep himself upright up as he rips off the dead man’s shirt. I’m not willing to watch what’s about to happen, I don’t care if the solider is already dead.

  I get up and put my good hand on The Beast’s shoulder. I make sure my grip is firm.

  “Stop,” I order.

  “Gavin, you are truly amazing,” The Beast says and kneels down to gather his strength. “I saved you only through the grace of God, and you still won’t believe. The Lord made you one stubborn son-of-a-bitch.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you, you don’t talk to the Lord, you talk to a 13-year-old girl? I know you grew up in Houston, but you still know what think.Net is. She’s the one who runs it. She’s got an army of Telepaths and that’s how she’s able to get in your head.”

  “How do you think God works, boy? He has vessels. Cabot worked for Him, I work for Him, this girl you’re talking about must work for Him too. Why do you think she’s leading the charge for the Chosen Sons?” The Beast says, his breathing is becoming labored. He’s not doing well.

  “If there’s one thing I know for certain about Nita, it’s that she’s not religious. That would interfere with her imagined position at the top of the pyramid.”

  “We can build the Pyramids again. Even bigger. And we won’t need slaves,” The Beast says, with a slur.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “They made a city all our own. It must really be something, I hope I can see it one...” he says, trailing off because he’s passed out.

  I could just leave him here. He’s lost a lot of blood, even with his enhanced healing, I don’t think he’ll make it. Although he has survived worse. I can’t trust that he won’t wake up, eat bugs and squirrels until he’s strong again, and then say God saved him and come back at me with a vengeance.

  I could kill him. He’s unconscious, which would make it pretty easy at least from a practical sense. I could use a rock to split his skull, or better yet, use his own implanted Maceo Steel blade to slit his throat. Finally do what I tried to do back on that roof all those months ago. But then I’m a murderer. I can’t even claim it’s self-defense this time. He’s helpless.

  Yes I eliminate the threat of The Beast, but I also become a person who murders people in their sleep. That’s not a person I want to be. I’m left with just one option then. Save his life. I pull off his Forte Silk armor shirt to check for injuries. I should probably see if the shirt fits me, but all the solider blood makes that an unappealing notion. I toss it aside.

  The Beast’s gunshot wounds, numerous though they may be, didn’t seem to hit anything critical, so it’s blood loss that has him near death. I need to find water. Getting fluid back into his body is priority number one. Now I imagine since this area was called Lake Arrowhead, there’s some water around here somewhere. It’s lush, at least by post-Plague standards. There are a few trees that have leaves on them; even a little green means water is close.

  I turn my attention to my ears, filling my head with the menagerie of sounds that surround me. I hear wind blowing through the hills, tiny mice sneaking around in the distance, and just what I was hoping for, a nice steady trickle.

  All the healing is taking its toll on my own water supplies. I need a drink almost as much as The Beast does. Photosynthesis takes up water as part of the chemical process to make my Manna.

  I fling the monster over my own shoulder, our rolls reversing in just a few short minutes. I quickly follow my ears to what turns out to be a rather unimpressive mud stream running down the side of a hill. I don’t have time to find a better source.

  I put my lips to the mud and drink. There’s no way to get the water without soaking up a mouthful of dirt. Eventually I just forget it and take a few bites. I filter the dirt out of my stomach, and push the water into my intestines to be absorbed. As a slight bonus there’s actually a decent amount of iron, zinc, and a few other much needed minerals in the mix. The downside is that I ate mud.

  It doesn’t take me too long to get my fill, and then I move on to trying to hydrate The Beast.

  Cupping up some water and trying to pour it into his mouth proves pointless, as does trying to rouse him from his slumber. He’s completely unresponsive. He needs water to make new blood, but I have no way to get it into his system. If I could just give him some of my blood… maybe I can. I don’t have the vast majority of the equipment needed to perform a transfusion but I don’t need that.

  I try to rip off the Maceo Steel knife from The Beast’s arm, but it is anchored deep to the bone. I’d have to shatter his arm in order to get it off. I don’t know if he can take any more injuries. It’s going to be harder to us as my scalpel, but The Beast is so deeply asleep I can move his arm like a puppet.

  I use the blade to slice open The Beast’s other arm, taking care not to just cut through the entire limb, which would take exactly the same amount of effort as the tiny incision I make. I just touch the knife to his skin and it slices, no pushing required.

  Once I have the arm open I reach in and feel for an artery. I find one barely pulsing with The Beast’s weak heart rate. I use my finger to tear the artery, spilling more of his scarce supply of blood. Then I pull out the far end of the tube, exposing a leaky hose.

  Then I cut into my own left arm, replicating the process until I have my own bleeding artery hanging loose from my arm. Then I press my artery up against his, and tell my cells to do what they do best, heal. The cells connect with The Beast’s artery, the two ends growing together. I can’t even tell if I’m signaling my own cells or The Beast’s but either way the connection works and my blood pumps into his body.

  I let the connection go for a few seconds, each beat of m
y heart pushing more and more of myself into the monster. Now his cells are inside my body, and my cells are inside his. I have a strong emotional reaction to that notion, which I suppress. I feel The Beast’s pulse quicken as my blood gives him strength. My blood will even help him heal more quickly than he should. Hooray.

  I sever our connection by ripping apart the two arteries. The Beast’s eyes open before I make the tear; he sees what I did for him. I stuff his artery back into his arm and place it as best I can to connect back to the other end once he heals.

  “I told you we were brothers Gavin. I thought the Lord sent me to save you. But maybe it was the other way around.”

  Then he nods back off.

  #

  “This has nothing to do with your misguided notions of morality. It is about justice. You need to answer for your crimes, and I’m not talking about at the gates of Heaven. There are a lot of people who want to see you pay, I don’t have the right to keep that pleasure all to myself. That’s what the law is about, justice for society,” I tell The Beast.

  “Laws are for the Forgotten Sons. They’re tiny little rules for a tiny little world. Are we just supposed to have the same laws for Bob who works at the grocery store as a Chosen Son, given a slice of the Lord’s power? It don’t make sense.”

  “I’m not going to spend the entire walk to Los Angeles arguing with you. There’s no point. Your mind can’t possibly let go of the belief that Cabot was the prophet, and you’re a Chosen Son. Your entire identity is wrapped up in the concept. If you were to change your mind on Cabot, you’d have to face the horror of the many inhumane and barbaric acts you’ve committed. You’d have to face the specter of all the lives you’ve taken. Your brain isn’t capable of that.”

  “And what is your identity made from?”

  “Nothing. I don’t get to tell myself lies. Now get up and get walking and don’t try to run for it again. You’re still hurt and I’m at full strength.”

  “You’re only alive because that’s my hand on you,” he says and points.

  The Beast pushes himself to his feet. I can see him grimace but he doesn’t make a sound. Water wasn’t enough, he needs calories or he’s going to keel over dead long before we make it to the Los Angeles Metro Area. I’m going to have to do another disgusting thing. I start growing a small bladder, which I connect via capillaries to some of the photosynthetic cells on my back.

  “You’re famished. You need to eat,” I say.

  “You wouldn’t let me have what God meant for me.”

  “You know I read your copy of Chosen Sons, and even from that insanity, it’s quite a leap of logic to jump to God wants us to eat humans. He gave us the earth; I saw nothing about okaying cannibalism.”

  “It ain’t just in Chosen Sons, you got to know all your scripture. God gave mankind dominion over the animals. When God turned mankind into his Forgotten Sons, He made them just another animal.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to be able to convince you that you possess essentially the same genome as a regular human with some weird phenotypes. But even with your logic I still don’t see how that means we’re supposed to eat them.”

  “Because Cabot fell short. You know it, not all of his Plagues worked. That’s why the Forgotten Sons are still on top. They need to be knocked from that perch. If I can feed myself at the same time, two birds,” he says with a shrug.

  The small bladder in my back has filled with a supply of Manna. I grow ductwork to connect it with the surface of my skin, and then I reach back and squeeze, popping a pimple full of Manna. I grab a small pat of the goo and then extend it out towards The Beast.

  “Here, this is Manna. Eat it,” I say.

  The Beast turns his nose away. “That’s from our sister, the slave. I won’t eat it.”

  “Three things. First, you’ve already eaten a whole lot of Manna in your life or you wouldn’t be alive today. Second, I talked to Julia, she’s no slave. All she wants to do is feed the needy. There’s never been a God imagined that was against helping the hungry. And third, this didn’t come from her. It came from me. And didn’t you say God must have sent me to save you?”

  The Beast begrudgingly smears the goo off of my hand, and then licks the sugary substance down. We’re both pretty grossed out by the whole thing.

  #

  We run together through the empty streets, our strides paced together and disturbingly similar. He has to know we’re getting close to Los Angeles, he has better senses than I do, and I can still smell and hear the unmistakable stench of people. I wonder when he’s going to make his move against me. I’ve already told him I’m taking him in to face justice. He can’t just let me turn him in, can he?

  Now that we’ve reached the outskirts, some of these buildings are filled with poor desperate souls. I see The Beast eye one old man as we run by; I don’t have to be a Telepath to know what he’s thinking.

  “I know what you’re thinking and get it out of your mind. If you ever kill another person, I’m going to break your arms and legs and I don’t care if it takes me a week of pounding on them,” I say with a snarl.

  “Old habits Gavin. Besides, look at his life out here, that poor old wretch. He’s just going to live in filth and squalor till he dies in it. That ain’t livin. I can give him purpose. I can let him help a Chosen Son, which guarantees him a spot up in heaven. Ain’t that the right thing to do?”

  I stop in my tracks and step in front of The Beast. I shove him in the shoulder, hard. He just takes it. There’s something odd in his eyes. Is it awe? It’s hard to read his emotions. He’s not quite human. Not that I can talk.

  “You can believe whatever perverted religion you want, I can’t stop that. But I’m telling you right now. If you kill again I’m going to make sure you never walk again,” I say and glare into his eyes.

  “I heard ya the first time,” The Beast says and hangs his head. Is this an act?

  “Do you understand what’s happening here? I’m taking you to Los Angeles where I’m going to turn you over to the police. They’re going to put you in another Maceo Steel cage and Nita isn’t going to be able to get you out this time. You are going to pay for your crimes. And if you try to run, or fight the police, I’m going to hurt you.”

  “I know Gavin, I’m a beat dog; you don’t have to keep kicking me.”

  “You’re really just going to let me turn you over? You aren’t going to fight back?”

  “I’m going to play whatever part the Lord has for me. And I can tell you one thing He has made clear to me, I ain’t meant to fight you. I don’t think any of us are. I’ve seen what you can do Gavin. A year ago you was a skinny little teenager needing my help to survive a scrap with some punks. Now look at you, you can heal like a healing Chosen Son, fight like a strong one, and you don’t even need to eat to do all that. I thought the Lord blessed me, but you Gavin, you’re something else. There’s no doubt you’re his instrument. I’m just trying to stick around to see what glories He has in store for you,” The Beast says with what I think is a twinge of jealousy. He wanted to be the chosen Chosen Son, now he thinks I am.

  “Like I said you can believe whatever you want. Just do what I say.”

  As we get within a half mile of the Metro Area, I signal for us both to climb a tall pile of rubble. From there, we can see the National Guard encampment. They have a fairly wide area under patrol, but we can still sneak by them if we head south.

  “We’ve got to go that way,” I say and point.

  “I thought you was turning me in. What’s wrong with those guys?”

  “That’s the National Guard, also known as the men who were shooting at me yesterday. If I try to turn you in to them, they’ll shoot again before I open my mouth. I’m going to turn you over to the L.A.P.D.”

  “And you think they are going to be all nice and reasonable?”

  “There’s an officer I trust. A Captain. She can help us,” I say.

  “This justice business is complicated.”
<
br />   #

  “It’s okay, we’re not going to hurt you,” I say in an even, calming tone.

  The officer’s eyes are wide with terror. I can’t blame him. He’s surrounded by two gigantic Differents, one of whom looks like a wild animal, and the other one looks like some sort of demented science project. I caught a look at a reflection of myself; the black/green patch on my back is just plain weird looking, and I didn’t look normal before growing it. And I’m still hairless.

  “I know you’re afraid. But I need you to calm down. Take a deep breath. In through your nose, hold it, and then slowly exhale out of your mouth,” I instruct, but the poor man can only manage to shake his head.

  “Look at him, ain’t they pathetic? He’s too scared to even try to use his gun,” The Beast chimes in.

  The officer is reminded that he does in fact have a gun. I see his right arm tense up and start moving slowly towards his hip.

  “Whoa, there no need to get that out. You know it won’t work anyway, just do what I said. Take a deep breath in through your nose, hold it, and then slowly exhale out of your mouth.”

  The officer’s eyes remain fixed on The Beast and his hand keeps creeping towards his weapon.

  “Hey!” I yell and he turns to look right at me “Take a deep breath, in through your nose, hold it, then slowly exhale out of your mouth!” I order.

  He does it.

  “Okay good, again,” and he does. “One more time. Now, I need you to use your left hand, the one far from the gun. I want you to pull out that walkie-talkie and call in to the precinct. I want you to tell them that there’s someone here who wants to talk to Captain Maria Vasquez, tell them that it is important. You do that and you might actually get some credit for a pretty huge arrest.”

  #

  The thick metal syringe pierces The Beast’s flesh and I push to drive it deep. I depress the plunger, sending the Tranq into his bloodstream. The drug goes into effect quickly. In just a few seconds, The Beast’s face is plastered with a massive grin. A few seconds after that, he’s lying on the floor giggling slightly, a few seconds later, he’s snoring. It took a massive dose, but it was enough to knock him out.