Wilders

by Brenda Cooper

“I’m going to work for the Lucken Foundation.”

  “Which one is that?”

  “It’s one of the conglomerates. I think it’s owned by four of the philanthropist families. Maybe five. I’ll probably get all of that at orientation. They’ve taken on wilding one of the biggest unbroken reclaimed spots in the country. It used to be part of three states.”

  “Is it nearby?”

  Lou leaned forward, steepling her hands. “Yes.”

  Coryn thought for a moment. She did know her geography. “The Palouse Reservation, which includes parts of Promise, Oregon, and Idaho. It used to be Indian country, and then it was farm country, part of Breakaway Promise, and then it was all taken back, right?”

  Lou smiled at her. “It’s all NGO now. The wilding center is on RiversEnd Ranch.”

  Coryn closed her eyes to block out the excitement on Lou’s face. “That’s all the way across the state.” The Palouse region was huge. Miles of rolling hills with three thousand foot passes, few roads, and fewer people. The Snake River ran through part of it, and the Columbia bordered it, and maybe another river, but she couldn’t remember the name. So much space. She picked a few leftover blueberries up from around the bits of French toast on her plate, trying to imagine what so much space might look like. Maybe it would be like standing on top of the Bridge of Stars or something. “What will you do?”

  “They’ll train me, and then I’ll protect the land.”

  Even though she couldn’t tell what that much open space would feel like, she could picture Lou in a uniform, all formal and maybe even with a knife and a canteen, and with her hair slicked back in a red ponytail.

  Lou looked guarded, her face tightly controlled and her eyes hard. “I won’t be able to come back for a long time. It’s a basic-basic job. I’ll get some of my living expenses for free. If I save half of the rest, I can come back and be here when you graduate.”

  The words battered her like physical blows. Coryn stuck a fork in a piece of French toast and pushed it around on her plate, getting the syrup and butter to ride ahead of it like a brown wave. She took a bite, chewing slowly, unable to think of what to say.

  She couldn’t fight Lou. Lou had always been unhappy. She’d always been obsessed with Outside, and she’d always planned to travel. If their parents were still alive, Coryn wouldn’t even be thinking twice about it. Well, she would. She’d be happy for Lou.

  “Look,” Lou said, “you have Paula. I even checked again. You own her. Mom and Dad owned her outright and you got her. You remember that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” It had been a serious meeting somewhere in the unhappy and lost time between being sent to the orphanage and finding out her parents were suicides. Adults in suits had told them both about the few things they had left. Lou got stuff like small kitchen appliances, which she sold as soon as she could, and their dad’s leather coat, which she kept. Coryn got Paula, but she’d had Paula for years so it didn’t feel like an inheritance. If she had even thought for a minute she might lose Paula she would have been frantic, but she didn’t imagine that until after they told her it wouldn’t happen.

  They each got to pick a pair of their mother’s earrings. Lou sold her pair right away, while Coryn tucked hers into an old purse. Everything else went to the city for a variety of reasons Coryn didn’t understand, perhaps because she really didn’t care to.

  Lou worried at her lower lip. “You’ll be all right.”

  Coryn tried to find a smile to put onto her face. She managed to hold her features still long enough to agree. “I’ll be all right.”

  “Of course you will,” Lou snapped, and looked away.

  She wouldn’t. “What made you go now?”

  Lou lost some of her serious face. “I can’t stay. That’s all.”

  “You can stay for me.”

  Lou looked away. “I hate this place. I really, really hate it. If I stay, maybe I’ll do what Mom and Dad did. I don’t want to do that to you.”

  That stopped Coryn, but only for a second. Her voice rose. “You wouldn’t! I know you would never leave me alone like that.” Just the idea froze her from the inside out. “You would never do that. You couldn’t. Not ever. Promise?”

  Lou put a hand on her arm. “Shhhh . . . calm down.”

  Coryn bit her lip, struggling to stay calm. Already, the couple next to them was peering their way, faces drawn in curious frustration.

  “I have to go,” Lou whispered. “I have to get out of here.”

  “You can’t,” Coryn replied.

  “You’ll be okay. This is a really good opportunity. They only take ten new people a year. I had to apply, and I got in.” She leaned forward. “I got in. They want me.”

  Coryn sat back, watching her sister closely. Lou had always wanted to be a Wilder, had always wanted to be on her own and away from their parents, but Coryn had always thought they’d leave together, after she grew up.

  Lou smiled. “I get to ride horses.”

  That stopped Coryn. Horses. She couldn’t compete with horses.

  “If you wait a few years, do something else, I could go with you.” She sounded pathetic, so she shut up, waiting.

  Lou clamped her mouth shut. Her eyes brightened, and a tear formed in one of them but didn’t fall.

  They watched each other. Lou’s gaze was steady and sad and she held herself so still she could almost be a robot.

  Coryn heard her own breath, started counting.

  Maybe Lou would relent.

  Instead, before Coryn got to twenty breaths, she smiled the saddest smile that Coryn had ever seen on her, and then she went back to eating.

  Coryn watched her, wishing she knew what to say. She tried some small talk, but every phrase seemed like the words of a stranger.

  Lou looked up, her eyes red but her cheeks dry and her jaw tight with resolve. “I would take you if I could.”

  It didn’t matter. She couldn’t leave now. Without her high school diploma she wouldn’t even get basic-basic. She’d starve or get kicked out of the city. “Really?”

  Lou touched the back of Coryn’s hand with the tip of her index finger. “Really. I’ll write to you. But you know I don’t belong here, and that you do. You know I can’t stay with you and you can’t stay with me. So I might as well go. I’ll think of you every day, little sis. I will.”

  Coryn bit her lip and took a deep trembling breath. “I’ll think of you, too.” Lou looked away, and Coryn knew there was more. “When are you going?”

  “Tomorrow. I finished my classes early, and they want me to start work.”

  “Really? You can do that? Just leave?”

  Lou looked miserable. Her voice shook. “Take care of Paula and let Paula take care of you.”

  Coryn’s throat clogged with words she didn’t want to say.

  Lou lifted her hand. “I swear I will be here if you really need anything. Just call me. I’ll come.”

  Coryn managed to break the logjam in her throat. “Okay. I’ll come for you if you need me. I’ll find you.”

  Lou shook her head. “It’s way too dangerous Outside.”

  “And you think the city is safe?”

  The people at the table next to them stared. The waitress came over and practically snatched at their plates. “Are you finished?”

  Lou said, “Yes,” and the last bite of Coryn’s French toast disappeared.

  Lou stood up and offered her a hand, which Coryn refused. On the way out, Lou leaned over and said, “I’ll send you messages.”

  “Okay.” She wanted Lou gone. “Have fun,” she whispered. “Save the world.”

  Lou laughed. “I don’t know if that’s possible anymore.”

  They stood outside the restaurant, the late morning sun painting warmth on Coryn’s back. Purple globes of great allium flowers bigger than her fists lined the walkway, and beyond them a whole garden of fruit trees bore green apples, oranges, and avocados. “Sure it is. It’s getting better.”

  “If you say so.
”

  This was the same argument they’d had about her last junior high school paper. “We’re not doomed. Things are better than they used to be. All the news says so.”

  “And the naive little girls believe it.”

  Before Coryn could respond, Lou turned and walked away. She didn’t turn around even once, but then Lou almost never let her feelings show. Coryn watched her disappear down the street and fade into the crowd. She wasn’t even going toward the orphanage, so who knew when she’d be home.

  A small part of Coryn wanted to die right then, so she wouldn’t have to wake up alone in the city. The only family she’d have left would be Paula, and for all that Paula was, she wasn’t alive.

  She allowed herself three dry sobs and wiped her eyes. She would be okay. She would be okay. She would not turn out like her mom, crazy and depressed and self-obsessed enough to die on her daughter’s graduation day.

  Right in that moment, she felt more alone than ever, more alone than the day her parents died. Damn Lou. Damn her mom and dad.

  She drew a deep breath. She had Paula. Her dad had always told her to use her resources. He had given her Paula. She would use Paula to train her to be strong. For one, Paula could help Coryn keep moving.

  Maybe she should start riding her bicycle again.

  Or run.

  Or something.

  She would be all right. She would.

  She slid her VR glasses on and tuned them to mirrors, putting on some of her favorite music and trying to walk on the beat. The familiar, friendly, distant city surrounded her, and she fell into its data streams and walked, and walked, and walked.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Coryn’s feet pounded on the pale blue running surface on the north side of Queen Anne Hill. Her arms pumped, her hair whipped back from her face. Tree branches arched above her, providing shade. Virtual fairies and elves hung from them, clapping and singing and sometimes dropping down and chasing her. They were real enough that she heard the patter of their feet and the slightly off-key notes in their songs. But if she reached for one it faded into a smear of color as her hand passed through it.

  Since it was summer she had a week free of the orphanage for vacation, and Paula had chosen the central city core for a training location. Not quite a real vacation, but it fit in her budget if they found temporary housing. Besides, she could see the Bridge of Stars from here, and of course everything was brighter and newer and bigger than Kent. After two years of running, Coryn’s body moved easily, her muscles fluid and lean, her joints limber. Running made her feel like a bird, free and open and far away from the orphanage and the faceless social workers and the dotty old minder robot that manned the door. Running felt like fire and happiness, like purpose.

  Nothing like hours and hours of endorphins to stave off the darkness of being alone. She’d gotten good at it, too. She’d become fast. Whenever she ran on safe enough paths, she used an enhanced AR world to hype her adrenaline.

  Anything to give her more strength to make the decisions that were threatening to paralyze her. This would be her last summer as a child. Senior year would be hard. Then, next spring, her own time to choose would come up.

  She reached up for bright yellow butterfly and batted at it, surprised when it turned out to be real and flew up and way.

  Paula ran about twenty strides behind Coryn, her dark hair up in a bobbed ponytail and her robotic feet bare. At the moment, she played protector and trainer but not friend. Also, goad. Coryn ran until Paula’s voice, linked into her earpieces, called out. “Time for a breather.”

  “Yes’m. I can go farther.”

  “If you rest, you’ll go even farther.”

  “I hate it when you tell me what to do.”

  “I know. But you do want to stop.”

  “You know everything?”

  “No.”

  Coryn smiled and slowed to a fast walk, pulled off her glasses, and the world returned to a mundane state with no particular visual surprises. Her breath came fast but not quite gasping; her muscles felt oiled and ropy.

  Paula came up beside her, her steps light and easy even though she was almost twice Coryn’s weight. She wore the smile she chose when she thought Coryn should be pleased. “You have a message from Lou.”

  “About time. Did you read it?”

  “Are you giving me permission?”

  “Sure. It’s all roses, right?”

  “Let me see.” Paula paused, obviously reading, and then summarized. “She’s got a new horse she likes. A pinto, like an Indian pony. A brown and white one. She sent a picture. She’s been assigned to work on wolves this summer, and of course, you know that makes her happy. The wilding—that’s what she calls it now instead of rewilding—the wilding is going well, even though they are a little behind. She says there’s a lot of work to do. She met some people from Portland at a campout last weekend.”

  “At least she wrote.” At first, Lou had written once a week, then she’d gone to once a month, and this one came three months after the last one. “Nice to know she’s alive.” In truth, she had been worried.

  “Be glad she wrote.”

  “I am. I just wish she’d come back for a visit.”

  “I know.”

  Paula wasn’t even breathing hard. She breathed—all companion robots breathed, since it was part of their cover as almost-human. Some even breathed harder with exertion. But Paula might as well have been walking for the last three hours. She sounded calm. “Are you going to write back?”

  “In a few months.”

  Paula’s facial expression showed what she thought of that answer.

  “Hey—I always write back to Lou right away. She doesn’t write me so fast.”

  “You might have more free time.”

  “I might. Maybe I’ll answer her tonight. I don’t have anything as cool as pinto horses and wolves to tell her about.” Coryn reached into the small pouch attached to her running belt and pulled out an energy gel. She squeezed it into her mouth, puckering her lips at the sour taste. Paula handed her water, which she sipped on slowly, three times. Her own little ceremony. “All right. Let’s go.”

  “Fifteen more kilometers.”

  “Ten.”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Fourteen.”

  “The course ends in fifteen. Go.”

  Coryn fit her headset back on, dialed in jungle animals, and set the AR so a black leopard with golden eyes would leap at her from behind any time she slowed below her target pace. She grinned and took off.

  About three minutes later, just as she felt the energy gel’s sweet heat give her a boost, a small figure passed her. The woman’s gray-braided head came no higher than Coryn’s shoulder, but her legs were almost a blur. Surprised, Coryn leaned into her own run and picked up the pace. Even though she worked as hard as she could, it took five long minutes to catch the old woman, who didn’t bother to slow down at all. She moved so smoothly that the Coryn almost cursed her for being a robot. But robots didn’t sweat, and they also generally didn’t have long dripping braids of gray hair.

  Coryn put her head down and drove her breathing low into her belly. She found a painful, but faster, pace.

  Her breath burned too hot for her to talk, so she finished the training course just behind the older runner with not a word exchanged, and not one virtual leopard encountered. Any virtual leopards-in-waiting were probably two kilometers back.

  When they finally slowed to walk at the end of the ped-only path and encountered crowds and cars, the woman moved and looked almost completely unspent. Her gray hair and a web of fine wrinkles around her eyes showed her age, but little else did. Her eyes were a bright blue that demanded attention even if they hadn’t been turned on Coryn in open appraisal.

  Coryn held her hand out. “I’m Coryn. I’m impressed.”

  The old woman laughed and took Coryn’s hand. “Don’t be. I’ve run every day for thirty years. After some time, you get used to it.”

  “This
is my friend Paula.”

  “Your minder,” she snapped. “I’m not stupid.”

  Coryn blinked, taken aback. “I didn’t say you were. But Paula’s all the family I have, except a sister who’s out with the Wilders. I don’t think of her as a minder.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t really look sorry. Maybe her run had been fueled with sarcasm as well as energy gels. Coryn felt awkward and a little small around her, and she wished she hadn’t run with her. And why wasn’t the woman offering her name? She could feel a wall between them. “I’ve been running every day this summer except four. That’s twenty-five days since school let out. I finished three full marathons. Came in tenth in my class in one of them, even though it was a small one.” She was babbling. What made her nervous about this little old woman? “But I can’t imagine running for decades.”

  The woman smiled. “I never could either—imagine it. It just happened. Sometimes you do things you don’t imagine you’re going to. Now I can’t picture a day I don’t run.”

  “No rest days. In all that time? Don’t you get sick or anything?”

  The woman shook her head. Something in the gesture and the shape of her smile made her look familiar, although Coryn couldn’t place where she’d seen her. She said, “Good run today,” and started to walk off.

  Coryn didn’t want her to go. “Will you stay and talk to me for a few minutes?”

  “I don’t give interviews.”

  “Interviews?”

  The woman stopped, and the look on her face shifted from closed to curious. “What do you want to talk about?”

  For a moment, Coryn was lost for words. “Running, I guess.” Anything, she almost said. But that would have sounded desperate. Lonely. And it wasn’t that, it was just . . . the woman intrigued her, teasing her with that sense of near-familiarity. Who was she?

  The woman looked like the word “no” was stuck just behind her lips, but then she snapped to a different decision, speaking with power. “You need dinner. I need dinner. Let’s go. I’ll even buy. I like to meet new people, sometimes. Find out how they live.”

  “I’m still a student. I don’t do much. I run.”