XOM-B

by Jeremy Robinson

  Not that I would follow this plan. I have no intention of abandoning Heap, Mohr or even Sir. But Heap doesn’t need to know that. He and Mohr have kept plenty of secrets from me, so I feel little guilt about keeping one of my own.

  “Go ahead,” I tell him. “We’ll be fine.”

  Without another word, Heap stomps up the pine tree–laden hillside. Branches break, saplings bend away from him and the ground compresses beneath his feet. It’s a good thing the undead lack intelligence or we would be easily tracked. Heap’s armor was built for protection and power, not for stealth or subtlety.

  When I turn back, a flash of panic momentarily grips me, like hands around my neck. Luscious is gone. But then I spot her toes and find her sitting on the ground, leaning against a tall pine. She hasn’t said much since we left the city.

  I crouch down next to her, pressing my hand into the soft earth for balance. I’m momentarily distracted by the textures beneath my fingers. The crispy layer of dried pine needles gives way to soft decay and then cool, damp soil—the sweat of the earth.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “Fine,” she says, showing no trace of emotion beyond stunned silence. When I raise my eyebrows at her, she adds, “I’m not hurt.”

  “But are you okay?” I ask again.

  “I already told you—”

  “Not your body,” I say. “The you that is not your body.”

  She laughs, but it’s a mocking sound, not humor. “You think we have souls now? That when we die, our spirits simply float free of our bodies and live with God?”

  “I don’t know what God is,” I say. “But yes.”

  She rolls her eyes, which somehow communicates she thinks what I’ve said is ridiculous.

  “God is supposed to be some kind of benevolent all-seeing, all-knowing supernatural being that created everything. The Earth. The Sun. The whole universe. Even people. Me, I’m an atheist, but the Masters believed in God,” she says. “Some of them. Mine did. Claimed to anyways, though I don’t think he really did or else I wouldn’t have been there.”

  I’m not sure how Luscious’s presence could negate the existence of a benevolent creator. Her existence suggests the opposite. Then again, the undead … they’re hard to justify. I suppose the Masters are, too, which might be why I’ve never heard of God. Why teach me about something no one believes in anymore? But speculation on a supernatural being doesn’t change what I know to be scientifically true. “Energy isn’t destroyed, it’s only changed. The atoms that make up our bodies, store our thoughts and encase our … being will always exist. Our bodies might die, but the rest of us?” I shrug. “Maybe we’ll live on somehow. It’s possible we could even get new bodies.”

  Luscious laughs again, but this time it’s lighter. “How do you do that? Turn something like death into an idea that almost sounds like something worth hoping for.”

  “I don’t hope for death,” I say. “I’m only seventeen days old. But I don’t fear it. Maybe I’m just naïve.”

  Another laugh, this one pleasant. “Naïve is your middle name.”

  “Huh,” I say. Her comment has triggered a realization. “I don’t have a middle name. Or a last name.”

  “Not something to worry about. Most of us don’t,” Luscious says. “Besides, you have a great name.”

  I can’t help but smile at the compliment. Of course, she could probably insult me and the sound of her voice would still please me.

  She pulls me closer so our faces are just inches apart. I’m not sure why, but my nerves are on fire and I suddenly feel a lightness in my head. “What are you doing to me?”

  “I’m going to kiss you,” she says.

  “Kiss me?”

  Then her lips are on mine, interlocked and pressing gently. A rush of emotions flow through me, locking down my thoughts until, for a moment, Luscious is the only other being in existence.

  She pulls away, her lips slipping cleanly away from mine. I find myself leaning forward, pursuing her lips for a moment before my senses return.

  “How was that?” she asks.

  “It felt … like music,” I whisper, slowly smiling.

  “Now you know why I’m called Luscious.” She grins wickedly, but then frowns.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “I don’t feel it the way you do.” She places her fingers against her lips. “I mean, I feel it, but you look … transformed by it, you—” She shakes her head. “I envy you. The way you hear music. The way you see the world, and people. It’s beyond me. You’re not like the rest of us. You’re more. Better. I’ll never—”

  I take her face in my hands, pull her toward me and press my lips to hers. I’m no expert on kissing, but I think I’ve done a fairly decent job of emulating her actions. But I don’t stop there. I focus on my lips, pushing my feelings for her from my skin to hers, willing her to feel my desire.

  She reaches around my head, runs her fingers through my hair and then clenches her fingers shut. I feel the sting of her grip, tugging on my hair and fear that she’s pushing me away, but then she pulls me tight, turns her head slightly and everything changes.

  The flow of desire reverses. My mouth is pried open. Her tongue finds mine. My mind melts away, leaving only bliss. This is no longer like music, it’s more like overclocking, but good. Natural.

  And then, we separate, like two magnets whose poles have just reversed.

  “What was that?” she says, eyes wide.

  “I don’t know!” I say, laughing a little. “I’ve never done that before.”

  “Neither have I,” she says, looking a little stunned. “Not like that. I—felt it. I mean really felt it. Felt more than just the touch.”

  “Freeman!” Heap’s voice rolls down the hill like thunder. And he arrives with the same power and suddenness, landing ten feet away, gun drawn.

  “What’s wrong?” I shout. “Is it the undead?”

  His head jerks toward me. “Freeman,” he says again, sounding relieved. “I couldn’t see you.”

  I look up and see that Luscious and I are both behind the tree.

  “I thought you were—” He looks from me to Luscious and then back again. He squints for a moment and then asks, “What … were you doing?”

  Feeling embarrassed, I stand up and step back. “Nothing. I was checking her. For injuries.”

  He looks at Luscious. “I can see that she is unharmed from here.”

  “Right,” I say. “Umm, is it safe? Ahead.”

  His four glowing eyes linger on me and I can’t help but wonder what the face beneath the armor looks like. “Safe,” he says. “Yes. But there are some things you should see. Come.”

  He starts back up the hill.

  I help Luscious to her feet and start after Heap, but she stops me with a hand on my shoulder. “I feel better now. The me inside my body.”

  “Me, too,” I say. We follow Heap together.

  The hill is tall, perhaps three hundred feet at the crest, which is topped with exposed granite. Heap stops at the top and turns around. He raises one of this thick, black fingers and says, “There.”

  Luscious and I turn to find a sweeping view of the forest, an undulating carpet of green. But Heap isn’t pointing at the land, he’s pointing beyond it, to Liberty. The city rises above the endless green, stretching up toward the sky. But the tall towers are indistinct now, mired in black smoke rising ever higher into the sky.

  I zoom in on the scene and see several circling aircraft, still not much bigger than specks, firing missiles at unseen targets. Drones, I think, probably controlled from the Spire. But then one of them is destroyed. And another. Have the zombies found a way to defend against an aerial assault? I tense when I realize that a more likely scenario is that the remote pilots are being attacked inside the Spire itself. With no way to be sure and nothing to be gained from viewing this—aside from despair—I zoom out and look away.

  “Do you think anyone is left alive?” I ask.

  Aft
er a pause, Heap nods. “Between Mohr and Sir they will find a way to hold out.”

  I’m not sure if I believe him or not, but this isn’t the time to argue.

  “Can’t we just call them?” Luscious asks.

  This strikes me as something both Heap and I should have thought of first.

  “Mohr requested that we do not attempt to contact them unless we are successful. He fears the undead are using cell transmissions to home in on populated areas.”

  “Like migrating birds following the Earth’s magnetic field,” I say. “But what about the radio signal? Aren’t they being directed?”

  “Maybe they’re pointed in the right direction and the cell signals keep them on course?” Heap gives a shrug. “I don’t know.”

  I decide the analogy isn’t important. “So if we make contact,” I say, “we become targets.”

  “In theory,” Heap says with a nod. “But there might be another way.” He turns around and points in the opposite direction. The aberration is three miles off, but easy to see because it’s alone in the thick woods. I look closer. It’s a small home like those I’ve seen in the suburban neighborhoods, standing beside a lonely, curving street. Such a thing would rarely hold my attention, but in this home, the lights are on.

  “Older homes like this one had landlines, cables that carry signals.”

  “Phone and TV,” Luscious says.

  “TV?” I ask.

  Heap shakes his head. “Not important. But we might be able to reach Councilman Mohr without revealing our location.”

  “You’re worried?” I ask.

  “Mohr is my friend,” Heap says. “Like you.”

  “But why are the lights on?” Luscious asks.

  “Somebody lives there,” Heap says.

  “What do we do?” I ask.

  “This is something I do know about.” Heap looks at me with a smile. “We knock.”

  29.

  “Look at the trees,” Luscious says, head turned toward the dimming sky. The pines have faded, giving way to a few lushly leaved varieties. I’ve never seen them before, but recognize them nonetheless.

  “Maples,” I say, pointing to a stand of hundred-foot trees with wide sweeping branches. The golden glow of the setting sun strikes the topmost leaves, giving the foliage a luminous effect that I find … something. I stop turning to take in the leaves of birches and oaks. “What do you call this?”

  “Trees,” Heap says, hardly impressed.

  “But you lived in the woods, right? For two years. You’re used to seeing this.”

  Heap’s expression sours, but he looks up. “Yes.”

  “Maybe the people you were with called this some—”

  “Magical,” he says. “They would have said it was magical.”

  There are three definitions for magical. I decide the second, mysteriously enchanting, is the correct understanding. “Magical. Yes, I agree.”

  “I would like to reach our destination before the night arrives,” Heap says, continuing forward.

  I stand my ground for a moment. “Have you ever seen anything like this?” I ask Luscious.

  Her neck is craned back like mine. She shakes her head. “I only left the Lowers once.”

  This astonishes me. “Once in your whole life?”

  “My Master lived in the Lowers before it was called the Lowers. He took me out once. To a cabin. It was in a forest like this, I suppose. I didn’t really see. Spent the time indoors.”

  “What about the trip?” I ask. “Could you see the trees from the vehicle?”

  Her head drops. “He kept me in the trunk.” Then she walks away, following Heap.

  In the trunk? It’s not a violent act, certainly not high on the scale of what I would consider an atrocity, but something about it offends me. Infuriates me. The Masters have always felt vague and distant to me. I know the overarching story about slavery and freedom, but not the details, and certainly not what everyday life was like during the Grind. This single detail has made me understand the global hatred for the Masters a little better. But why keep her in the trunk at all?

  Understanding comes to me in a flash. Luscious’s Master was ashamed of her. Luscious. This precious woman who is by far the most wondrous of discoveries I’ve made in my nearly eighteen days of life. He felt such shame about her that he kept her locked away in a trunk.

  “Freeman,” Heap says. “Get up here.”

  Heap’s order rubs me the wrong way, probably because I’m thinking about punching Luscious’s Master in the face. It’s my first true thought of violence beyond instantaneous reactions to the undead, and I’m captivated by the feeling. When I reply to Heap, the anger remains. “God! I’m coming.”

  I stomp ahead, growing more curious about the anger I’m feeling, and seemingly blind to what lays ahead. I strike something hard and spill backward, landing on my back. When I look up, I find Heap, slowly turning around.

  “What are you doing?” he asks and then reaches down to help me up. He doesn’t seem upset at all. In fact, he’s wearing a strange expression. Like how I pictured my face looking when I saw the leaves, except that my eyes aren’t hidden behind armor.

  Apparently, he either didn’t hear my terse reply, or he doesn’t care. “Wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  He pulls me up. “I can see that.” Then he grins. “Look.”

  When Heap steps to the side, I have no idea what to expect, but if I were given a thousand guesses, I would have never come up with what I find. The forest is alive and moving. Flitting things slide through the air, pausing briefly at clear containers filled with red liquid. I quickly count more than a hundred of them hanging from the branches, and perhaps twice as many of the small creatures, which are little more than blurs. Then I notice the sound. A constant but shifting hum fills the forest.

  I follow one of the creatures as it zips past. It pauses just a moment, allowing me to zoom in and inspect its blue-green iridescent feathers and needlelike beak. “Hummingbirds.”

  “I wish they could have seen this,” Heap says, but I don’t think he’s talking to me, and I quickly understand the “they” are probably the Masters he protected for two years. The … children.

  “What are children?” I ask.

  When Heap’s head whips around toward me, I worry that I shouldn’t have asked. But his suddenly grim expression fades when he looks down into my eyes. Then he does the strangest thing. He reaches his big, heavy hand up and places it gently on my head. “Young people,” he says. “Like you.”

  Now I understand why Heap was chosen as my guardian. He has experience.

  “Are there other young people?” I ask.

  “Not anymore,” Luscious says.

  “You’re the only one,” Heap adds. “Enjoy the view for a moment. Then we’ll go.”

  I almost suggest we leave immediately. Time is short. But then I realize that Heap’s desire to stay, to give me the chance to experience this natural wonder, might actually be more for him than me. I’m not the only one with emotions to process.

  We stand there for five minutes, watching the birds buzz back and forth, feasting on what I now realize is nectar. But these red-filled vessels aren’t natural. Someone is feeding the birds. Wondering who that is, I say, “Let’s go,” and step forward. Walking amidst the birds almost feels like being back in Liberty. The tall trees and almost frantic energy of the birds mixed with the orange glow of the setting sun reminds me of the city.

  And then we’re through, standing on the edge of a paved road that’s just a little bit overgrown. On the other side sits the home, its lights still glowing. The building is long, white and in good repair—nothing like similar structures I’ve seen. The grass is not only green and lush, but cut short in a way that reminds me of Luscious’s rug. There are bushes with pink flowers that look like bells, all being frequented by even more of the hummingbirds. A windmill churns slowly, towering above the home, while the setting sun’s orange glow reflects off of three long
solar panels installed on the roof.

  “Someone definitely lives here,” Heap says.

  Luscious puts her hand on Heap’s forearm. “You don’t think—”

  Heap shakes his head.

  “But it looks right … like one of them could still be—”

  “They’re all dead,” Heap says with certainty and I deduce that Luscious was concerned a Master might still live here. Something about how the house has been kept up has her worried. “If you’re concerned, wait here.”

  Heap heads for the front door. Luscious doesn’t budge. Instead she reaches out a hand, silently asking that I remain behind with her. The fear gripping her would be palpable even if I wasn’t holding her hand. The difference between her reaction to the idea of Masters living, and Heap’s, is so different that there is no doubt they led very different lives before the uprising that freed the living from a life of servitude. I trust both of them. Neither is lying. Which means that the past is not a simple thing to understand.

  Three dull thuds lift my eyes toward the door Heap has just knocked on with surprising gentleness. He could probably force the door open with a flick of his finger. He knocks a second time and when there is no answer, he tries the doorknob. The door opens, swinging inward. Heap grunts.

  “Is that not good?” I ask.

  Heap looks inside. “Section five point seven of the social safety code recommends locking doors and windows at all times.”

  “Social safety code!” Luscious blurts. “Are you serious? That’s a—”

  “I know what it is,” Heap says. “But if the undead find their way to this home during our stay, I think you will be glad for locked windows and doors.”

  “What do you mean, our stay?” Luscious asks.

  “It’s not safe to travel at night.” Heap turns to me. “Are your ocular upgrades functional again?”

  I try, but every spectrum shows up as black space. Whatever damage the soldier-zombie did, it seems like it could be permanent despite Mohr’s confidence that it will heal. Not that I have any gauge for how long healing will take. And neither does Mohr. “I can only zoom.”

  “Even if he could see in the dark,” Heap continues, “we would handicap him severely with our nighttime blindness.”