First my memories, and now my sanity, he thought to himself.
The cry had sounded like child's happy laughter. But of course no child would ever be on the island, and of course no man there ever laughed. What was it, then? he wondered. But the fading rotors and gusting wind didn't answer. They only continued eastward together, unaffected.
With a feeling of genuine disquiet, Obe turned from the mysterious cry and stepped deeper into the island's outskirts. He was consciously leaving behind the sights of the city streets for the first time.
To his far right, an almost inaudible thunder rolled across the hills.
4
Obe heard them long before he finally saw them, and though it was shocking to actually see what they were doing, the worst part wasn't the action itself, but where they had chosen to do it.
He stumbled onto the largest outcropping of rock he had yet seen on the island, and there they were. Smack in the middle of the giant gray field, two men were having sex.
Obe wasn't surprised. He had equated the island to a prison long ago and knew if it happened in one it was likely to happen in the other. If anything, he was surprised it was the first time in three months that he had witnessed it. But only my third day in blue sector, he reminded himself.
Nevertheless, hearing and then seeing the two men unnerved him and he immediately wondered about the circumstances. Was this really just the desperate carnal lusting which it appeared, or could he be witnessing the intimacies of an actual relationship? How often did this kind of thing happen? And finally: Was the man in front whoring himself out for food?
I'd rather starve, Obe thought. But a moment later his mind offered an alternate theory. Really? Have you ever been that close to actual starvation? Have you considered the atrocities women have sold themselves for over the centuries? They have fed everything from children to drug habits on their backs. There's a reason it's known as the world's oldest profession. And for once this wasn't the voice imposed upon him from the fortress. The thought was his alone, and he didn't correct it.
What Obe didn't understand was why they had chosen to be so observable like that. There were plenty of bushes nearby, but they apparently felt no modesty. Is there a rule against it? he found himself wondering. He didn't remember. Nevertheless, he was certain the women would not approve. Men weren't supposed to enjoy themselves for any reason.
It's defiance, he suddenly realized. A big 'fuck you' to the women. They do it in the open because they can. And despite his own displeasure at the act itself, Obe ignored them easily enough and gave them a wide berth. Neither of them ever appeared to notice him.
When the rain finally started some minutes later, he was no closer to finding the stream and he was glad for the cold precipitation. He opened his mouth to the sky and allowed his tongue to become slowly dappled with moisture, but it was a tantalizing endeavor. The rain was still a mere drizzle, and after many minutes his neck ached and he felt no closer to quenching his thirst.
I need a bottle or something else to collect it, he thought. But he owned no such container. His best bet was to find a puddle and lap up what he could. The streets, however, were better for finding such natural basins, and he was determined to continue searching for the stream.
He thought he heard the helicopter again, but when he listened for it the sound only faded into more rumbling thunder. The laughing cry he'd heard before came again as well. This time it seemed right in front of him where nothing existed but a long, empty hillock. Obe shook his head and the sound died instantly.
I'm going insane, he told himself again. Yet the conscious knowledge of it did nothing to stop it. The child's laugh echoed in his mind, mocking him with every step he took like the unremitting insistence that his name was truly 'Obe' had been doing for months.
An hour later, the drizzle had turned to fast, stinging needles and he had managed to fill his open mouth with a half-swallow of rain four or five different times. His cheeks, however, were getting sore at the constant battering, and the air and rain were truly cold now, causing him to wish for another layer of cover or even just longer sleeves.
Then he saw a group of four men standing atop a small hill in the distance. He made his way to them, determined to get some kind of answer from one of them. Cold rain, he knew, could never replace his real need. He would be willing to give up some of the food from his next bag if he had to.
"Well, well, well," one of the men said as he approached. Obe couldn't quite see his face in the darkened afternoon skies, though the voice was definitely a familiar one. "It's the crybaby, O.B.E. Obe. What's the matter, crybaby, looking for your momma?"
The speaker was Jain. Obe looked at the other three men but didn't know any of them. That they had chosen to give audience to the one man who had so quickly assaulted Obe wasn't a good sign.
"Hello, Jain," Obe said, trying to keep his voice neutral. "Nice weather we're having." Jain only harumphed and smiled, waiting for the inevitable show.
"Alright then," Obe tried again. "I'll get straight to it. I was wondering if I could buy some information from one of you."
Jain's smiled instantly widened. "Well, that depends on what information you need," he said. The other men didn't speak, and suddenly Obe wished Leb were there to help him once again.
He had been thinking about the price that the men of the Family might ask for simple information. He was sure Jain's would be astronomical and that he'd be a fool to take any deal with him, but it was a starting point by which to judge any future offers.
"I didn't get any food today," Obe admitted, "so any price we agree on will have to wait until next grocery day."
"Ha!" Jain shouted. "Well, if you're asking to sell your sneakers I'll gladly give you a banana for them." Obe didn't respond and the other men all laughed.
Obe waited for them to quiet, trying desperately not to show his growing frustration. "I wasn't asking for food," Obe continued. "I don't want to rack up big favors so early. All I'm looking for is the location of the stream."
Jain's smiled spread even wider, splitting his face in two. The other men mirrored the look and Obe was suddenly sure the stream didn't even exist. It was probably just a mythical tale told only to Greens as the greatest joke that men of the Family could play.
Jain uncrossed his arms and put his hands on his hips. He appeared to be chewing something without swallowing, almost as if he had a piece of gum in there. Then he leaned forward and spoke. "Not… for… sale," he said.
Obe balked. "What? Why not?" he blurted. "It's common knowledge to you. You have to at least offer me a price."
"I don't have to do any such thing," Jain said.
"Sure, you do," Obe tried again. "I thought the Family helps each other out?"
"It's not required, asshole," Jain said. "If you hadn't been such a pansy-ass prick this morning I might have offered you a deal, but I'd rather you just went on and suffered." He paused, watching Obe's dual-colored eyes first widen then narrow. "Any of you boys want to help out O.B.E. Obe here?"
"Nope," one of the men said. His jumpsuit branded him with the KOALA animal.
"No," said a second. He was the VOLE.
After a brief, dramatic pause, the third, a redhead with the inevitable matching freckles, said, "Hell no." Obe disliked him immediately. His animal, SKUNK, seemed to fit him.
"But," Obe began to stammer, "Doov said we–"
"Doov is an elder," Jain said, "not some greenhorn punk too stupid to stay away from the cleanup car." He crossed his arms again and stood straight. "Jesus, it's a miracle you even made it this far. Didn't get any food on your first grocery day, either, and I can see from the smooth front of your jumpsuit and the blood all over your face that you got your purdy new sneakers stolen, too. Christ, boy, you'll be dead in a week. I wouldn't offer you a single bite of bread for two whole bags in return. I'd never get my payment!" The others laughed.
"I wasn't asking for–"
"Get lost, freak, before we decide to mak
e you really sorry."
"Jain, hold on. All I'm asking for is a little informa–"
Jain suddenly whipped his arm forward. Brandished in his hand was a sharpened stick about the length and thickness of a kitchen knife. The blade of the stick was long and thin.
"I… said… get… lost!"
Obe stood there, dumbfounded. Jain's eyes were wide. His mouth was a snarl. The three men beside him had all moved one hand under their sleeves. They'll kill me! Obe suddenly realized. Behind him, the cry of a child's happy laughter came again. He knew it wasn't there, but he turned and looked nevertheless, feeling like his neck was at the command of that sound.
"Yo momma not there, boy," the biggest of Jain's friends said. His voice was slow and deep. It reminded Obe of Rhonda from the fortress. Jain and the others laughed again but in a sinister, melodic way now.
Without saying another word, Obe began to back off, and they let him. Soon he was walking towards the laughter he thought he'd heard, too scared and ashamed to look Jain or the others in the eye.
"Dead in a week!" Jain shouted to Obe's back. He didn't turn. Couldn't think of a retort worthy of turning.
The succeeding laughter from the four men went on into the coming night, echoing in Obe's mind long after the sound itself had left his ears.
Along with it came the echo of the child's laughter and the thumping, invisible aircraft.
5
At full dusk, Obe came to the perimeter poles. These counterparts to the city's wide white line of paint stood like sentinels in the pouring rain. They, too, guarded the sector borders that he was not permitted to cross.
Under penalty of death! Rhonda had told them on their day of release. He remembered the man from that morning who had broken this rule, the man in green who had run so long and so hard only to be killed so effortlessly. He knew the threat was not an empty one.
He stood staring at the long straight line of white poles, the rain pouring over him in full sheets now. He shivered constantly, knowing most of the men were deep in the thickest grasses, under trees, or up against building walls. Anything to block the worst of the downpour. Even the women were probably inside, though even now he stood with his ears alert. He had seen them hunt in the rain more than once.
But not today, he thought. Not in this rain. They'd rather be warm in bed and do twice as much hunting tomorrow. Neither the rain nor the closest perimeter pole argued with his logic.
His confrontation with Jain had been bad, though not unexpected. But worse than that, Obe hadn't come across a single other man in the time afterwards, and his stomach was beginning to rumble. He drank whenever he wanted to now. Puddles were everywhere, and even on the sides of hills little rivulets could be found. But none of it would last. By tomorrow the earth and the sun would soak and dry them all away, and he'd be left to slowly dehydrate.
Yet his hunger, Jain and his friends, and even the cold, pouring rain weren't what bothered him as he stared at the painted pole before him. For several hours now he had been hearing things that weren't there, and his fears over what this meant were growing.
The child's laughter was worse than the unseen helicopter. The laughter, he had surmised, was like a kind of ghost.
But both sounds had continued to pop up throughout the afternoon, and he had learned they seemed to coincide with any kind of bad news. Every time he jabbed his toe or stepped directly on a pebble, the laughter came. Whenever a gust of wind sent a chill running up his spine, the invisible rotors thwapped in the distance. And they'd gotten more frequent over time. Now they seemed to come with every drop of rain. He knew only that the sounds weren't real, and that he was starting to feel like he had during the worst of his days inside the fortress.
"It's a memory," he said to the nearest pole.
Yeah? the pole seemed to mock. Which one?
But he somehow knew it wasn't a memory. Not his, anyway. "Maybe it's from a movie. Or a dream," he said. "Or just something I'm wishing had happened. A good day with my brother. That's all. Just… something I know will never happen now."
Well at least you got that part right, the pole said. You'll die here. Probably within a week. Jain said so. And Doov and Leb can't help you. In fact, Rein will probably break your neck at the next grocery day.
"Shut up," he told the pole, and the pole was suddenly just a pole again. It stood there impassive, as drenched and cold on its glistening white surface as he felt down to his core.
He imagined crossing the invisible line the many poles made, stepping back into the green sector where he knew the layout of all the streets and would be considered king among men. Men of the blue sector had sometimes visited when he had worn green. They had always looked so confident, so strong and healthy. He had envied them.
But Obe was nothing like those men of blue. He was battered and beaten. His nose was broken and his feet were little more than pads of ground beef. He was hungry and without food. He was thirsty in the pouring rain. He had made no real friends and at least one real enemy, and the sneakers he had almost died to get had been stolen even before he had gotten the chance to try them on.
The rain teemed down and he stood unmoving, taking every drop like a little hammer of justice. Thousands upon thousands of miniature gavels. The women were inside their sturdy walls, underneath their sturdy roofs. He knew this. He could easily step across the line and no one would ever know. He could walk along its border all the way to the sea itself. Maybe he could even find a stray man in green who was only a few yards away or who had come to stare with his own ache of desire at what lay on the other side. He could attack such a man. Steal his food. Bridge the gap between this hell and the next when he'd need to fight in the scrum just to stay alive.
But all Obe could manage to do was stare at the pole in front of him and hear the child's laughter and the ceaseless thump of rotors that weren't there.
And as they continued to attack his mind's ear, a matching picture soon began to form. It was a place he'd been told about but hadn't yet seen. A place all the men of the green sector had talked about like legend. "The Cliffs of the Moon" they had been called. And supposedly they existed on the northernmost edge of the blue sector within sight of the perimeter poles that separated it from black.
Without realizing he was doing it, Obe soon had the perimeter poles to his back and was trudging slowly northward.
CHAPTER 11
MISSION
1
Josie left Gertrude's office in a daze. She didn't remember passing through the grand foyer, arriving at her room, or even packing her things. She first realized what she was doing halfway to the heliport on top of the fortress.
In her left hand was the small brown suitcase that now held her only personal belongings. It felt strangely heavy this time, as if her mission were truly that much more important. Reaching for the door to the roof, the questions came to her. Why do I keep doing this to myself? And then, of course… How could I possibly stop?
The helicopter was there, and so was Monica. Her pilot's license was real enough, and Josie gave her credit as a skilled aviator, but that never took the unease away from being whisked away by the giant black bird. This would be only the second time she was the lone passenger. The first had been the day she arrived. That had been just two months after the incident with Charles.
"Afternoon, Josie. All packed?" Monica said.
"Yes," Josie muttered.
"Good. I'm anxious to get ahead of this storm. I'll be ready in five."
Despite the spacious rear quarters and the privacy it provided, Josie sat in the co-pilot seat. She liked the view. Soon Monica tried to break the silence with more idiotic talking.
"I don't know exactly what Gertrude has you doing, but I'm sure it's important. You know how much we all need you to help The Cause. You are so very good at recruiting, Josie, and that's the backbone of our organization. I'm sorry I had to tell her about your problem, but you're on such dangerous ground and we really can't afford to lose you."
"It's ok," Josie said. "I understand."
Minutes later the rotors churned and thwumped the air around them, and then they were airborne. The view, as always, was spectacular. Every foot they ascended, more of the island revealed itself. Despite the run-down buildings and the ugly line of perimeter poles that extended the white lines in the city all the way to the ocean, the landscape was breathtaking. From up there everything was serene. Peaceful. Nobody screamed for their life. Nobody pressed for more efficiency. Josie inhaled, sighed, relaxed.
They rose some more and the island's sharp edges defined themselves.
Monica twisted and pulled on the yoke and the helicopter rolled up and left. Josie's view slid gently aside and changed to nothing but the dark clouds to the west and the unseen stars above them. She frowned, wishing they had left on a clear night. The view then was somehow the most beautiful of all. They were two hundred miles from the nearest outdoor incandescent bulb, so the island offered no light pollution to diffuse the horrendous dark of the sky and the incredible brightness of the stars. Nature surrounded them. Each star in this monumental blackness shot out like a bullet hole in a black cloth.
Josie sighed and tried to picture where the Big Dipper was hiding. She followed the imaginary line pointing to the North Star. It would have been so brilliant, so close, that she would again think to reach out and grab it. The helicopter continued rolling, though, slipping the celestial dot out of view before she could do so.
Monica rolled the stick now to slide their view across the southern hemisphere and Josie knew somewhere out there was Orion. She imagined the three, almost-straight line made by the stars that made up his belt and wondered how far apart those worlds were.
Almost as far as I am from home, she thought.
Man Hunt Page 20
