He set the charred creature down. Alma stopped eating for a moment and looked at him.
“Eat,” she said. “It’s important.”
“I’m not hungry. I had some pork with the Rovers. I’m fine.”
She shrugged, helped herself to his half-eaten rabbit thing and continued munching away. Sam took the Hermes Research papers from his pocket and went through them yet again.
“What are you expecting to find, that you haven’t seen already?” asked Alma, between mouthfuls.
“I don’t know,” said Sam. “Maybe a last page that got stuck to the one before. A final memo saying, ‘Y’know what, this is dumb, let’s cancel the whole project.’”
He smiled thinly, rolled the papers up and shoved them back into his coat pocket.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said, lying.
“You look different.”
“Yeah?”
“Kind of folded up into yourself.”
Sam shrugged. “Maybe I’m growing up.”
Alma laughed. It was the first time he’d seen her laugh and she looked beautiful, her face seemed to open like a flower.
“Not a chance,” she said. “Now tell me.”
“I don’t want to think about it. Seriously.”
“Sam…” She left her place on the other side of the fire and sat down next to him, gazing into his face with a genuine concern that took Sam aback. “You can’t ignore things that bother you. We are going into battle and we both need to be as sharp as we can.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“No. You won’t. I’ve seen this before, more times than I can count. Men’s thoughts wander and with that comes hesitation, maybe just a moment, less than the smallest fraction of a second. But that’s all it takes. And it won’t just be you that falls, it will be everyone with you.”
Sam thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. The truth was that he was afraid that if he said it out loud, it would somehow make it more real and he didn’t want it to be real. He wanted to go back to the way he was before he’d ever heard of locules or seen the Paradigm Device, back to the way he was in the Wilds.
Alma took his hand and squeezed it, gazing into his eyes as though she could see far past them and straight into his soul. He looked down. Her hand was slender and soft yet strong as steel.
“If I’m not human…something else…then—”
“But you are human,” said Alma. “Two thirds of you is, anyway.”
“Yeah, thanks,” said Sam. “That makes me feel a whole lot better. The thing is…when I was at Hermes and Robinson took me up to see the board. There was…Matheson said something…”
His voice trailed off and he just stared at her hand. Alma pulled it away.
“What, Sam? Look at me. What did he say?”
He looked up slowly into her dark, worried eyes.
“He kept asking if I was really “pre-download.” That’s the word he used: pre-download.”
“So, what does—”
“It was because of the…things I can do. The pulse and the machines, that stuff. I don’t think the others could. I think we weren’t supposed to be able to do any of that until they’d…they’d…”
“…until they’d stuck Mutha into your head.”
Sam nodded.
Alma thought about this for a moment, her head cocked to one side, like a bird.
“But that makes perfect sense,” she said. “I mean that’s how inheritance works, isn’t it? You get traits from each of your parents. You know, like maybe red hair from your dad and the ability to touch your nose with your tongue from your mom.”
“Your nose with your tongue?”
“Yeah, I got that one. Look.”
Sam couldn’t help laughing as Alma’s tongue shot out and licked the end of her nose. She looked silly and ordinary and like a girl. He wanted to put his arms around her and kiss her and bury his face in her hair. But he didn’t. He didn’t want to ruin it, this night alone by the river.
“You see what I mean, though,” she said. “Why shouldn’t you inherit some stuff from Mutha as well?”
“I don’t think it’s what they had in mind.”
“Well, more fool them, then. A child isn’t a carbon copy of its parents, it’s an individual. D’you want that last critter?”
“No,” said Sam. “It’s yours. I’m going to try and get some rest.”
She nodded, helped herself to the other rabbit-thing and went back to the other side of the fire. Sam lay down in front of the flames and closed his eyes.
He was sure he wouldn’t be able to sleep, but he did—a deep dreamless sleep, better than any he’d had in weeks. When he awoke, the fire had almost burned out and the dawn was just beginning to play around the distant horizon.
He stood up and stretched. Alma was still sleeping, or pretending to, so he crept away from the camp as quietly as he could, walked to the top of a nearby hill and sat down on the scrubby grass to watch the misty sun ease above the earth.
The thin daylight slowly unveiled the plain below, desert-dry and almost bereft of life. In the distance Sam could see the arid scar that had once been a great canal. It had taken water from the north to the great cities of the south and had been one of the first things destroyed in the water wars. Beyond that there was just dusty dirt, with the occasional tumbleweed bouncing through and small dust devils appearing and disappearing as the hot wind whipped through the valley.
He heard a slight noise and turned around. It was Alma. She sat down next to him and sighed.
“You’d be so easy to kill.”
“Maybe. No one’s managed it yet.”
They sat for a moment as the wind jounced a particularly large tumbleweed across the highway and onto the hard ground where it caught on the stump of an old fence post.
“So,” she said. “What’s the plan?”
Sam thought about arguing, insisting that he could do this on his own, but he knew it was pointless.
“You go back to Bast,” he said. “I hobble along later. Assuming the Vega makes it. You let me in. I swipe the box. We run away.”
“Brilliant. You totally missed your calling. One of the great military strategists of our lifetime…or possibly not.”
“So what’s your idea?”
“I go back first. When you get near, dump the car. Follow the city walls around until you reach the general store called Kate ‘n’ Al’s. Go down to the basement, there’s a tunnel that leads into the city and comes out beneath the baker on the main plaza. Wait for dark, then come to the DETH building. Go up to the roof. I’ll loosen the grate on the HVAC vent. Make your way to Bast’s office. I’m guessing that’s where the box’ll be. Get it and leave the same way you arrived. If all goes well, I’ll join you outside tomorrow morning. If not, I’ll find a way to break you out.”
“That’s exactly the same as my plan!” said Sam, grinning. “Just with more details.”
“We ought to get going.”
Sam stood up, walked to the edge of the plateau and gazed across the dessicated vista. Somewhere out there, beyond the yellow murk, there was an ocean. The widest in the world. And beyond that, other lands, other peoples.
“Alma…I think Matheson may have been right.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I was thinking about the things I can do, the pulse, the thing with the fish toxin, the machines, the plex. I get that they’re probably all inherited abilities, passed down from Mutha, and I guess there could even be more stuff that I don’t know about yet.”
“True. And your point is…?”
“Well, Mutha will be even more powerful, won’t it? It’ll be able to do all those things and more. It’s practically running the entire planet from hyperspace. Without Mutha everywhere would be like the Wilds.”
“That wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
“No, it wouldn’t. But if it’s that powerful from hyperspace, how powerful would it be if it was able to b
e there and here at the same time?”
Alma hesitated for a moment, but Sam could see that she understood.
“Go on,” he said. “Say it.”
“It would be a god.”
Sam smiled thinly and turned back to the vista below. It was beautiful in a severe, stripped-back way. The bare bones of a landscape that had once fed a nation.
“What do you want to do?” asked Alma quietly.
“If…if everything goes wrong and it gets in…into my head, I want you to stop it. Do you understand?”
“Yes. But you have to be sure.”
“I am sure.” He turned back and smiled at her. “As sure as I’ve ever been about anything.”
“Okay,” said Alma. “If I have to do it, I’ll make it quick. You’ll never know.”
Sam smiled.
“Thanks. Wait…won’t the vents be alarmed? There’s no way Bast would—”
“Yeah, they were,” said Alma, standing up. “It was kind of a project of mine the last time I was there. No cameras, no motion detectors. The video in the security room is running on a loop. I wanted a bolt-hole just in case things went tits-up. Right. I’ll see you there.”
“Yeah.”
She looked at him, as if expecting him to say something else, but the moment was gone almost as soon as it appeared, so she flashed her sideways smile, turned around and marched back to the campsite. A few moments later Sam heard the Norton fire up, then roar away from the river and up to the highway. He watched as she vanished into the wavering dusty heat, wishing that he had said something, done something. If she had been an ordinary girl, like Mary or any of the others he’d met, he would’ve known exactly what they wanted and what to say. But Alma wasn’t like them. She was something wild and rare, unpredictable yet reliable, tough and gentle at the same time, and he didn’t want to mess up. He didn’t want to say anything else that was stupid or ill-considered or ill-timed or just plain idiotic. He wanted to be with her.
He sat on the hill, watching the dust cloud become a pin-prick on the horizon and then disappear completely. It was a surprise, this feeling. Now that he’d allowed himself to have it—to admit to it.
He wanted to be with her.
And he would wait as long as it took.
Unless he got killed first.
Which was much more likely.
Chapter 30
SAM COULDN’T HAVE PUT Bakersfield City on a map, but as the old Vega chuntered down the highway, there was no mistaking its location now. The great black plumes of smoke curling into the yellow skies could be seen for miles, and the swarm of helicopters buzzing and strafing made it clear exactly what was going on. Sam smiled—apparently the people of Bakersfield were giving Carolyn Bast and her banker friend, Dustin Farmer, a bit more trouble than they had anticipated. There could be little doubt about the ultimate outcome, but Sam was pleased to see that not everyone bowed to Bast’s will, and that the banker was going to have to spend a lot more money than he anticipated before he’d be able to get his claws into Peterson Oil’s holdings.
Of course, the minor war had reduced traffic on the highway to practically nothing. Between the turnoff for Bakersfield and the customs gate the only other vehicle Sam saw was a small donkey cart loaded with barrels.
The customs gate was different too, the guards had lost their swagger, and both looked nervous, as if they were afraid the war might spread in their direction. They barely glanced at Sam’s fake subcut ident and rushed him through the gate as quickly as possible before retreating into their guardhouse and slamming the door.
Sam drove to the great outlands of Century City and up the hill to the observatory. He parked the Vega beneath some trees and sat on the hood, gazing out across the wasteland of half-derelict buildings and roughly constructed huts. The black towers of Century City gleamed in the distance, a constant reminder to the outlanders that they would never be quite good enough, and that their lives would be a never ending round of scrabbling for food and fighting to keep a roof over their heads, punctuated only by the occasional mind-numbing digivend hit…when they could afford it.
Sam knew that, compared to some of the alternatives, his life had been a good one. He had lost his parents, but at least he’d had some time with them, and they’d taught him how to survive on his own. More than that, they’d taught him how to enjoy the things he had and not to take anything too seriously. True, they hadn’t been totally upfront about what he was, but he was sure that they would have got around to it, if they’d lived. For a while, back in the house in San Francisco, he’d felt betrayed by them. But if Elkanah had been wrong to pursue the research, at least he realized it in time to get his son out of harm’s way.
Only now Sam was going to put himself in harm’s way on purpose. He lay back and looked up into the trees. The leaves rustled gently in the breeze, their green lattice making the jaundiced clouds look almost beautiful. The scratching feeling at the back of his head had started again, and with it the familiar dull ache in his temples, but he was getting kind of used to it now. He closed his eyes and thought about the Rovers. At seventeen they were old. Most of them were dead well before they hit eighteen. By their standards he’d lived a pretty full life. It was all relative.
Vincent had told Sam he probably only had a year or so left. But his life, too, had been one of adventure and incident, and there was no bitterness or resentment at those whose years stretched on for decades longer. The world was what it was and Vincent was comfortable with that. It was the way his world was supposed to be. Sam wished he could feel the same way, but he wanted more. He’d always wanted more and always been told that things would never change.
Yet Nathan had said the lake was losing its toxicity. Sam opened his eyes. So maybe it wasn’t all irreversible. Maybe one day the blue sky would return and maybe, just maybe, when night fell, the same sky would be full of glittering stars.
He jumped off the hood of the car, took one of the last remaining green pills and drove down the hill. It was a few hours before dusk, but there was something he wanted to do first.
That, and he anticipated some problem getting access to the basement at Kate ‘n’ Al’s. If someone like Alma marched in and demanded the use of your basement, self-preservation would tell you to do exactly what she said and ask her if she’d like a snack to ease her on her way. But Sam had never found it quite so easy convincing people to do stuff.
As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. There was no Kate or Al at Kate ‘n’ Al’s, just a short, hungry-eyed man with grey skin and the jitters, who showed Sam the way after the exchange of a couple of coins, both of which Sam was sure would end up in the digivend outside before the hour was up.
The tunnel was nothing like the one in San Francisco. It was high, old, and well-traveled, lined with a mixture of brick and rubble, and lit by small motion-control lights that clicked on as he approached and off as he passed, so he was in a constant bubble of light as he made his way into the city.
After about fifteen minutes, he came to a battered plywood door that creaked open and led into a storeroom full of bags of flour, yeast and nuts. Sam could hear the shop above, bustling with customers. He took a deep breath and marched up the stairs and out into the small bakery, warm from the ovens and smelling deliciously of bread. The owners ignored him and continued serving customers, so he threw a coin onto the counter, picked up a Danish, and sauntered out into the street.
Once again, the plaza was heaving with humanity—workers on their way home or meeting at restaurants and bars, tradesmen hawking their wares from carts and barrows. Everywhere, noise, activity, and affluence.
Sam walked to the parking lot and took the stairs up to the fourth floor.
And there it was.
Gleaming like a ruby and crouching low to the ground like a cat.
The GTO.
He ran a hand along its length, examining every inch, afraid of an unfamiliar dent or scratch, but it seemed that Nathan had taken good care of it. He t
ried the door. Locked of course. He glanced around to make sure no one else was there, then shimmied under the chassis. There was a second set of keys there. Or, at least, there was supposed to be. He’d stashed them back when he’d first won the car, but hadn’t needed them since, so there was every chance they might have shaken loose in the ensuing years. They hadn’t.
He slid out, opened the door, got behind the wheel, and breathed deep.
Home.
He turned the key and was surprised when the great engine roared to life. The cigar lighter was still there. Why hadn’t Nathan taken it?
Sam turned the engine off and listened, half expecting the jack-booted feet of Bast’s thugs to come pounding towards him. But all was silence. He removed the lighter and looked in the back seat. The gun was where he’d left it. He checked it. Still loaded.
He got out of the car and stood back. He wanted to remember every detail. No matter what happened in the next few hours, he wanted to be able to close his eyes and see it again.
He locked it up, put the keys and gun in his pocket and headed down the stairs. Darkness was closing in fast and the feeble street lights had come on, lighting latecomers home before the power to most of the city was turned off for another nine hours. He walked quickly back to the plaza, through the financial district and out to the imposing offices of DETH, Inc.
By the time he got there, the lights had been cut and even the hotels and other businesses with private generators were plunged into stygian gloom. Sam checked his pocket watch. It was at least three hours earlier than last time.
He looked out toward the oil fields and the great refinery. The place was lit up like an old fashioned Christmas Tree, pumping out fuel around the clock. It seemed even Carolyn Bast was having trouble keeping up with the demands of her little war.
The DETH offices were unaffected, however, so Sam kept as far away as possible while he carefully made his way around the building to the service ladder that led to the roof. The ladder had been securely locked, but now the lock was merely cosmetic—held in place by some kind of putty.
Once again, he found himself marveling at Alma’s ability to get things done.
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