Ignoring him, she went to Liet, who was sitting on the side of her bed. She put her arm around Kala and said, “Oh, sweetness. Why did you do it?”
Kala felt an urge to weep, but suppressed it once again. She was starting to get good at that. “None of you understand them. They’re more like us than you think. They hurt, they love, they can sacrifice themselves. I got to know Jennie that time we were stuck out in the Mission overnight. She’s my friend. I can’t hurt her.”
Crisfer said, “I’m not interested in your excuses. Get your things and get out of here.” He lay back down and turned over so that he was facing the wall.
Rami turned his gaze away, looking uncomfortable. Liet gave Kala a sad look, but said nothing.
Feeling numb, Kala packed her things in a bag and slung it over her shoulder. She looked once more at Liet, but she was staring down at her clasped hands. Kala turned and left. Feeling like her feet and legs were filled with sand, she walked down the hallway and into the beta wing. She found a couch in the darkened common room and lay down. Her drones were still on Jennie and the baby. No one else had challenged them since Kasana. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
After what seemed like only a few minutes, she opened her eyes. Araka was speaking to her; it was all tangled up with a dream. She must have been asleep for a while. She concentrated, blinking muzzily.
Wake up, dear heart, Araka was saying. Crisfer is coming, and he’s rather agitated.
Instinctively, she reached out. Her drones were still in place around Jennie and the baby. They were keeping Crisfer’s attack drones away.
Gritting her teeth, she sprang to her feet and positioned herself before the door to Brandon and Jennie’s room, which opened directly onto the common room, and waited for Crisfer.
He appeared in the doorway of the common room and walked over to her. “Call off your drones, Kala,” he said quietly, his voice heavy with threat.
“I will not. Call off yours,” she snapped.
They stood glaring at each other, breathing heavily. Kala sensed movement behind her as the human couple turned on a light and opened their door. Human faces appeared in other doorways, peering out.
It was amazing how fast things got around—the room was already filling up with agents curious to see what was happening. Behind Crisfer, Kala glimpsed Liet’s worried face in the rapidly growing crowd.
“What is going on here?” Adira asked, but no one answered her.
With a shock, Kala realized that Crisfer’s attack drones had left Jennie and were coming for her. Another first! she thought, and had a crazy impulse to giggle before the sensation was drowned in fury. “How dare you!” she screamed in his face.
She held her breath as Crisfer’s drones met hers. Nothing happened.
Kala threw her head back and laughed. “Come on, Crisfer. You had to realize by now that our drones would never attack another Unathi. Is that the best you can do?”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
So fast she barely had time to register it, his fist was coming at her face. She tried to dodge, but she hadn’t seen it coming and there was no time. The blow was a bit clumsy—the agents had never been trained in fist fighting—but had his full strength behind it. His fist struck her jaw and pain exploded in her head, ricocheting around her skull and down her neck.
Inside her body, Araka had registered the blow coming before Kala did and was ready for it. Millions of tiny biomechatronic particles rushed to Kala’s jaw, head and neck and consolidated themselves there, forming a temporary wall of inner armor a mere fraction of a second before Crisfer’s fist struck.
Kala’s head snapped back and she staggered backward a few steps, but kept her feet. She heard Jennie cry out behind her, but at the moment she was distracted by all the pretty circling stars.
She gave her head a little shake and everything came back into focus. Crisfer was gaping at her, no doubt wondering why she wasn’t on the floor.
Kala saw red. Before anyone could react, she swung, driving a return blow straight at Crisfer’s jaw, using all the strength and momentum she could muster.
“No!” Liet shouted, but it was too late.
Araka had read his host’s preparatory muscle movements in plenty of time to shift millions of particles to her fist and arm and concentrate them there. A sharp crack echoed through the room when her fist met Crisfer’s jaw. He flew backward, crashing into a couple of agents behind him, and would have fallen to the floor if they hadn’t grabbed him and held him up. They set him carefully on his feet.
Everyone was talking at once; Kala wasn’t sure if it was live or over the Dronet. It was mere distant babbling; her attention was narrowed sharply on Crisfer. She gathered herself to strike again, but Brandon and Jennie grabbed her arms. She was about to shake them off, send them flying, when Jennie’s voice hissed in her ear.
“No, Kala. Stop, please stop!”
She stopped.
Crisfer stared at her, his eyes wide, tears streaming down his face. His hand rose to his cracked jaw and broken teeth, fingers hovering just above the injured area. The pain must have been considerable, but Kala felt nothing about that. She realized his symbiont was already helping him, because his contorted face relaxed somewhat, and he stood up a little straighter, pushing away his supporters.
“Thish ish not right,” he mumbled. “Ish jush not right.” Without another look at her or anyone else, he turned and stumbled from the room, obviously heading for his quarters to lie down and let his symbiont take over with full-time healing.
And then he was gone and Kala was alone with the other agents. The talking had died down; they all stood around the room, staring at her silently. She thought about defending herself, pointing out that Crisfer had attacked her first, but then discarded the idea.
Jaff was the first to speak. “How did you do that, Kala? What what are you?”
She ignored him. “Jennie, Brandon, pack your things,” she said in English. “We are going.”
The couple let go of her arms and hurried back into their room, their faces frightened and confused.
Ignoring the murmuring agents, Kala went to her bag, pulled armor and clothing from it and put it on. The human couple was ready within minutes, and she shepherded them toward the door.
“Kala,” Rami said. “Wait. Let’s all talk this out.”
She didn’t answer, guiding the couple with their baby through the door ahead of her, directing them downstairs to the storerooms near the kitchen. She set Brandon to filling up some empty sacks with food while she picked out medical supplies, a water filter, a micro computer, and other things that might be needed, stuffing them into a large duffel bag.
What seemed to be the refuge’s entire contingent of agents followed her to the storeroom, then stood and watched what she was doing from the doorway.
“Kala, stop.” This time it was Charis. “You don’t have to do this. Please, let’s discuss it.”
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Kala said. She stood up, lugging the duffel bag, and walked straight toward Charis as she stood in the doorway with the others. “Get out of my way.”
They hastily backed up, making a space for her and the humans to pass through.
Outside, the sky was just starting to lighten in the east. Kala strode to the Jeep and she and Brandon packed the supplies in the back. She motioned for the couple and their baby to follow her and headed for the garage, where she selected some tools, auto supplies, and rope. Belatedly, she realized that she had left her mallet in her quarters. No way was she going back there now.
Brandon spotted Jennie’s crowbar in a corner, which had been confiscated from the human couple when they had arrived. He picked it up and then added a tire iron, to serve more as weapons than tools.
As Kala was turning to go, she saw stored camping equipment with small tents, blankets, sleeping bags and such, and loaded Brandon up with all he could carry.
When she got back to the Jeep, her arms full, W
ilm stood there breathing deeply, his face calm. At his feet sat several large cases; the parts for the time travel device. His brows were raised, his gaze clear and steady.
She looked at him for a second, then nodded.
“Brandon, please help Wilm load this,” she called out in English.
Brandon finished loading the camping stuff and came around to help Wilm, but one of the agents reached out and grabbed his arm as he passed. It was Kasana, one of the Hunters. “This beta stays with us,” he said in Unathi.
Kala dropped the things she was holding and strode toward him, her face set.
“All right, all right,” he mumbled. He dropped Brandon’s arm and backed away.
She nodded to Brandon, and he and Wilm packed the cases in the back of the Jeep while Kala stood guard. She felt hard, like she was made of rock or ice. It felt good and bad at the same time. But when her eyes fell on Liet’s face in the small crowd of agents, the ice suddenly began to melt and her throat swelled painfully.
She held out her hand, reaching toward her bondmate. Come with me, Liet.
Liet’s eyes glistened with tears, but she shook her head. I’m sorry.
I love you, Liet. Please.
I love you, too. But I can’t. She turned and stumbled away.
Kala swallowed and closed her eyes as Araka helped steady her pulse and breathing.
“All set,” Brandon said.
She climbed behind the wheel of the Jeep and switched on the autodriver temporarily. With the condition of the roads, she would need to control the vehicle herself eventually, but she’d never driven before, and this would be helpful at first.
Gate, she ordered the agents, but as the Jeep rounded the building, she saw that a guard was already holding it open for her. They passed through, and the autodriver turned the Jeep right on Kala’s voice command. As they drove down the street Kala caught a glimpse in the rearview mirror of the gates moving back together. They met and closed with a distant clang. Then they turned a corner, and the refuge was gone.
Chapter 18
SanFran
July 11, 2079
KALA ALLOWED THE AUTODRIVER to pilot the Jeep while she concentrated on deciding what route to take and managing her drones. Brandon and Jennie pestered her with questions about why they had left, where they were going, and why she had fought that other agent, but she ignored them and after a while they gave up.
She consulted the satnav display, but it wasn’t working; the satellite systems must be down. But she had the maps that had been uploaded to her sym, and her drones. Which way to go? South was out of the question. With the intense droughts of the twenty-first century, a huge chunk of the American Southwest had become dry, uninhabitable desert, filled with ghost towns and cities.
She needed to decide which way to leave the city: northwest and cross the Golden Gate, or east and take the Bay Bridge over to Oakland Mega. She knew the latter had been partially cleared by the SanFran agents, but was reluctant to go that way. The huge mega encompassed Berkeley to the north, stretched east all the way to Stockton, and extended south some forty miles, halfway to San Jose. It was so large that the southern half had been assigned its own Guardian refuge, which was located in San Jose and was doing well. But the whole area was probably rife with human gangs and Ghal; best to avoid it. So north and the Golden Gate it was—with any luck, the bridge wouldn’t be completely blocked.
That decided, she turned off the autodriver and concentrated on learning to drive the Jeep. They would be encountering bad roads and a lot of obstructions, so she would need to pilot the vehicle herself. The other passengers hung on grimly while Brandon called out instructions to her, alternately scolding and encouraging. Kala learned quickly and the ride smoothed out.
“Now can you tell us what’s going on?” Brandon asked.
“I promise I will explain later,” Kala said, “but not now. Look up ahead.”
He craned his neck to see. “Oh, crap.”
They had followed Divisadero all the way up, hoping to join Route 101 and take it over to the bridge, but the freeway was choked with stopped cars, many with corpses in them. As they approached, an enormous cloud of crows and seagulls rose into the air, flapping and squawking, reluctant to leave their grisly feast. Kala stopped; there was no way to get on the highway. Even the ramp was clogged. She swung the Jeep around and began threading her way through the small streets running parallel to Highway 101, making for the Presidio and the bridge.
As she drove, she couldn’t help but notice how much the city had changed in the two months she had been here. In the aftermath of the pandemic, everything the humans had built already seemed to be falling apart. Buildings looked abandoned and forlorn, their doors and windows hanging open, interiors exposed to the weather. Signposts leaned at crazy angles; street lamps lay smashed on the ground. Cars were beginning to rust where they sat in the streets, and grasses were working their way up through cracks in the pavement. From somewhere downtown, smoke rose in a column, hazing the sky. The city was starting to burn.
Kala entered the Presidio via the same small road she and Brandon had used to get to his family’s home, but this time she followed it all the way up to the shore. With the help of her drones, she was able to find a place to cross under the freeway, and then, with the bay on their right, she navigated northwest, hoping to find a way to get up onto the bridge. At last, after a jarring cross-country drive through a pedestrian-only area, they were able to get on just before the point where the bridge left the land.
As they began the drive across, Kala saw that the humans had begun constructing a dam across the channel, underneath and parallel to the bridge. It was only partly finished; wavelets lapped across stone foundations bristling with rusting metal support rods.
“Oh, yeah,” Brandon said. “They’re—they were building a dam to try and control the seawater rise in the bay. Some of the docks have been underwater for a while.”
The humans must have been doing some traffic control here toward the end; the bridge wasn’t nearly as bad as she had feared. Even so, she often had to use the metal guard on the front of the Jeep to move cars out of their way so she could make a space just enough for them to slip through. Through the Jeep’s windows, they caught glimpses of the half-rotted faces of some of the unfortunate occupants.
Jennie said, “Oh, my God, the smell.” She threw her jacket over her and the baby’s faces.
Brandon looked away from the corpses, covering his mouth and nose.
Kala’s drones informed her of a large obstacle ahead. At nearly the center point of the bridge, they came upon it: a mass of wrecked and stopped vehicles completely blocking their passage. Kala stopped the Jeep and they got out to survey the mess.
“Looks like we may have to take the Bay Bridge, after all,” Wilm remarked in Unathi.
Kala didn’t answer. She got back in the Jeep to figure out the winch controls. After a quick demonstration by the onboard computer, Kala released the cable and handed the hook to Brandon. “Hook it onto that vehicle,” she said, pointing at an SUV. “We will pull it back and then see if we can slip through.”
Hours later, after a lot of hard work, they managed to clear a way through the last few vehicles by using the Jeep to push them over to the pedestrian walkways on the sides of the bridge, breaking through the low barriers. The cars jutted out dangerously over the bay. Kala pushed one a bit too far and it toppled over the edge and crashed dramatically into the water far below. Finally they squeezed their way through the gap and drove to the end of the bridge, entering the low hills of Sausalito. The car obstacles thinned out and they were able to go around them, using both the north- and south-going lanes.
Kala had been uncomfortably aware of the SanFran agents watching her via their drones while she and the others cleared the bridge.
Araka, can I have my drones avoid all other drones? If this worked, she would lose access to the Dronet, but she could move about undetected.
Done, my dear.
“I just had my drones go incommunicado. Can you do the same?” she asked Wilm in Unathi.
“I’ll try.” After a moment, he shook his head. “They don’t seem to understand the instruction. It appears to be another one of your strange little differences,” he said with a wry smile.
“Keep them in real tight, then, okay?” Kala said. “Leave everything to my drones from now on; they can handle all of it.”
“Right.”
They entered a short tunnel, but the number of stopped and crashed cars had dwindled, and they drove through without problems. The barren hills gave way to flatter land. They passed high-walled, gated communities surrounded by woods. There was no movement inside them or out.
Brandon snorted. “All their money, gates and guards didn’t help them much against the virus, did it?” Then he pressed his lips together and closed his eyes, and Kala knew he was thinking of his own dead family.
No one said anything. Jennie looked out bleakly at the devastation and wiped away a tear.
Roughly twenty miles north of SanFran, Kala turned east off the freeway onto a smaller state highway, following her drones inland. They had been a bit slow at first, working on their own, but Araka had produced many more in a surprisingly short time, and now they formed a relay reaching out to about thirty miles. Her sym told her he could go beyond that if she needed; just let him know. She shook her head. Normally it took quite a bit longer to create that number of drones. What else could Araka do that she hadn’t guessed at?
Once past the northern tip of the bay, Kala turned north toward Napa, planning to keep to the wide corridor of sparsely populated land that lay between 101 and the major freeways further east. Before Napa even came into sight, her drones reported that the highway through it was blocked by a high barrier, manned by armed humans. She slowed and pulled off the highway, bouncing the Jeep through ditches and over a field for a short time until they picked up a side road.
“What is it?” Brandon asked.
“Napa is sealed off,” she replied. “Armed humans at a barricade.”
The X-Variant (The Guardians Book 1) Page 14
