Jump Zone: Cleo Falls

by Snow, Wylie

  Jump, grunt, breathe and repeat, eye on the bag.

  The leaves rustled from the shadows beyond the clearing, branches crackling under the weight of her hunter.

  Almost there. One more jump, maybe two. Holding her right leg bent, she again placed the log in front of her and, with her teeth clenched tightly, she coiled the muscles of her left leg and sprang forward. The burned end of her cane shattered under the weight. Smoldering embers scattered everywhere. Cleo gasped as the ball of her right foot slammed down. She fought to gain her balance, to keep going, to get to that sack.

  A quick glance down confirmed what she feared. Her throbbing wound dripped with fresh blood. The animal would be opening his mouth, flicking his tongue between the long, razor-sharp cuspids to taste her blood in the air.

  Nausea roiled her guts, more from terror than pain.

  Cleo dove the last few feet and ripped the bag off the branch as her body slammed into the ground. She rolled into a sitting position and, with trembling fingers, tore through his possessions.

  It approached slowly, stealthily.

  Clothes, a pathetically inadequate first aid pouch, packs of powdered food, a shiny black disc that she shook, hoping a blade or something deadly would appear. She threw it to the ground. Useless, all useless.

  He must have something! People just didn’t wander around the damn Taiga without some means of defense—spray, gun, laser… oh come on, urbanite, you saved me once, please do it again.

  She almost wished he’d not found her last night. She’d be dead already, her soul in limbo, or heaven or wherever souls went when they had no body to inhabit. As bad as drowning was, and it was horrific, the thought of her flesh being ripped apart by sharp teeth… well, that was too much.

  Cleo’s pulse hammered in her ears, muting all other sounds.

  All except the steady chuff-chuff-chuff of the alphacat’s breath.

  Her skin prickled. She knew it was sizing her up from the dark foliage, smelling her blood, her fear. She imagined the slits of its predatory eyes narrowing and widening, focusing on her, its next meal.

  They always paused before the attack, confusing their prey into thinking they had time to flee, and it was the moment Cleo needed to collect herself. She held her breath, her arm buried in the backpack, her hand moving methodically through its contents, searching.

  Cree-ack. A branch broke under its weight. It was settling back on its haunches, waiting for her to move. To scurry for cover. To run for her life.

  Too scared to breathe, she imagined its tail, held low for balance, flick once, twice in anticipation of the pounce, the leap, the kill.

  She let out a small whimper as her fingers reached the bottom of the bag. Her leg muscles tensed, prepared to run, when her fingers slipped under the reinforced bottom and landed on something long, hard, sheathed. A handle.

  If lucky, she’d be able to rip the knife from its encasement before the cat emerged through the foliage. If she wasn’t lucky, she would die.

  A deep growl crescendoed in Cleo’s throat as a burst of adrenaline guided her through the next few seconds. Her thumb snapped the release just as something exploded into the perimeter of camp, sending twigs, leaves, and a cloud of grit through the air.

  Six

  It took Libra longer than he intended to get back to camp. He circled too far and probably would have kept going if he hadn’t run smack into a familiar-looking rock wall. Though around here, every zhang-damn rock was beginning to look the same. He followed the escarpment eastward and sure enough, it came out at the waterfall. He gave his head a shake, glad his auto-tutor hadn’t seen that gaffe. He’d never known a computer program so capable of sarcasm.

  Fumbling around in the bushes made him lose precious time. He couldn’t stay away too much longer for fear of amplifying her suspicion.

  The closer he drew to the clearing, the more care he took placing his steps, sticking to the hard-packed soil and rock, avoiding the crunch of foliage. He scanned the vicinity until he found an ideal observation spot: two large rocks, boulders half as tall as he was, surrounded by brush. There would be just enough space to wiggle between them and crouch down, completely camouflaged, and still be able to see into their camp.

  He barely took a step toward it when he heard her voice.

  “I don’t know your name.”

  Zhang hell!

  “Libra,” he called back, fighting his way through low branches of prickling trees. “I’m Libra.”

  “Why are you sneaking up on me, Libra?” Her tone was flat, accusatory.

  “I…I wasn’t. I just didn’t want to disturb you if you were sleeping,” he said. “And I got turned around, went too far that way and had to double back.”

  She sat on the ground a few feet from the fire, staring up at him with widened, untrusting eyes. He emerged, brushing twigs and pokey green needles from his hair. “What happened to your leg?” he asked, noticing her shin, slick with fresh blood.

  Something in his peripheral vision caught his attention, made him stumble back. “What the—”

  “I had a visitor while you were gone.”

  He felt his jaw moving, but no sound came out. He stepped closer, eyes darting between the beast and Cleo. She seemed unruffled as he circled the cat tentatively, assuring himself that yes, it was indeed dead—that much was obvious, even for a city boy. He moved cautiously, not believing what he saw and knowing that on some level, he was losing serious man-credits.

  The holograms on his auto-tutor did nothing to prepare him for the reality of seeing an alphacat up close and personal. Its thick short fur mimicked the colors of the rocky outcroppings he’d just leapt across. He could have jumped right over one and not known unless it snagged him.

  The animal’s mouth sagged open to reveal a double row of unnervingly pointed teeth. He reckoned it weighed three or four hundred pounds easily.

  Guilt twisted in his gut. He’d left her alone. He’d left an injured, helpless girl, alone. He’d taken the DEL, left her helpless.

  He looked to her again. She sat calmly, unfazed.

  The paws were as big as his hands, with un-retractable claws sharp as curved scimitars, yet Cleo didn’t have a scratch on her.

  How in zhang hell did she—

  Libra turned so she couldn’t see his face and swallowed the bile that crept up his throat. He pivoted, an apology filling his mouth, but she stopped him with a raise of an eyebrow that seemed to say, “What? I do this every day.” In fact, she appeared a good deal more composed than he felt. What kind of person could do that? Kill an animal and look so composed?

  Though, her fingers were wrapped tightly around her pendant. And her complexion seemed waxier than it had been.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Better than him.”

  “You need a hug, a high-five, a shot of hooch?”

  “Nah, I’m good.”

  Cleo’s lip quivered when she attempted to smile, giving him a glimmer of reassurance that it wasn’t commonplace to slaughter a living creature before lunch, and that under that tough Taiga façade lay a girl.

  A girl he should never turn his back on.

  “Well hell, darlin’, you sent me out for salad while you slayed us some grill.” He meant it to say it lightly, to salvage his compromised Y chromosome, but his voice wavered. He backed away from the dead animal, from between the hunter and the prey, and plopped to the ground in a spot from which he could keep an eye on both of them.

  Zhang hell. He was supposed to hate her, her people, her way of life. But how could he not admire a woman who could take down a wild cat five times her size?

  They sat in silence, staring at the alphacat with seven inches of blade firmly embedded between its lifeless, green eyes.

  Seven

  The sun
had crawled to its apex, turning long shadows to short when Cleo finally broke the silence. Without taking her eyes off the kill, without turning her head, she asked, “How did you know my name?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My name. You said it, earlier, when I had my wobbly moment. How did you know it?”

  Libra gave her a blank look. “Well, you told me. Last night. But you were pretty out of it, so it’s no wonder you don’t recall. And I did tell you mine.”

  She eyed him a moment, unsure if she should believe him, but without reason not to. Cleo stuck out her hand, which had thankfully steadied since facing the cross-breeding disaster designed by misguided scientists who were desperately trying to save any and all species that were near extinction after the Polar War. “Let’s do this again, shall we?”

  Libra hesitated before inching closer to take her hand, but did, per the old customs. Hand shaking went out with the viral outbreaks in the last century, but it was a good way to gauge his grip, his strength.

  As he pressed his dry palm to hers, her ability to assess disappeared faster than the morning mist. Libra’s grip was sturdy, his fingers long and tapered, his hand big enough to engulf her own. Again, the odd texture of the skin on his hands struck her with curiosity. She would ask, but as his pale eyes locked on hers, a fission of electricity passed between them, confusing her thoughts and startling her with its underlying complexity.

  If she had any sense, she’d pull him forward and get him into a headlock and demand answers. But sense had fled when she began enjoying the warmth of their connection.

  “I almost forgot,” he said, snatching his hand back before she could sort the conflicting signals. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of small, bright green stems, and placed them in her open palm. “Nice to formally meet you, Cleo.”

  “You found chamomile!”

  “I think I found everything you asked for,” he said, dumping the small bag of leaves on the ground between them. “I grabbed anything that looked like hairy green spades, figuring that one of them had to be right.”

  Cleo separated out the ones she wanted and added them to a shallow plate of water that she’d heated over the embers of the fire.

  “What’s it all for?” he asked.

  “The chamomile, which I’ll make into tea, has antibacterial qualities so I won’t get an infection. It also is a relaxant, which is important in the healing process. And this,” she said, holding up the spade, “we call Indian Tobacco. It’s good for healing, encourages cell regeneration.”

  She laid them in the water, waited a moment for them to soften, then layered them across her wound, wincing as each made contact. “They also act as a pain reliever, so I hope you remembered where you got them. I might need more.”

  “Or you could just ask me for some acetaminophen,” he said with his half smile. “I do have a basic first aid kit with me.”

  Yeah, I know. “Really? What else do you have?” His mouth was fascinating to watch, the way his well-shaped lips formed words. Others she’d come across during her travels through Taiga country usually had dry, cracked lips and a dullness about them that spoke of poor nutrition. But Libra’s looked soft and lush.

  “What do you need?”

  Your lips, pressed against mine—no, no, no! What she really needed, besides a hard cuff upside the head, was a good fighting knife and a couple for throwing. But she could hardly tell him that. She swallowed. “We’re going to need food—”

  “I’ve got Nutripacks—”

  “Yuk, no!” Cleo shook her head and couldn’t stop her mouth from puckering. “I’d rather starve. How about another weapon? Do you have a gun, or just that,” she asked, looking toward the handle that protruded from the alphacat’s skull.

  “Just that.”

  “You really shouldn’t come to the Taiga so ill prepared,” she scolded. “It’s a wonder you tourists survive your little holidays.”

  “Next time,” he said with a shrug.

  “Well, it’ll do for a start, but we’ll need something to hunt with, like a wire for a snare or a strap of leather for a slingshot.”

  “You’re kidding, right? I’ve got steak and potatoes. Why would we need to kill—?”

  “No, you have tough, dehydrated little cakes that are called steak and potatoes, but it’s all chemicals. Not good.”

  “Beats spending all day stalking some poor animal.”

  “Why are you here?”

  His shoulders hitched. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you’re an urbanite. Why are you here? What brought you to the tribe lands?”

  “I’m on vacation, trying something new.”

  “You brought your own food. That doesn’t sound like such an adventure.”

  “I wanted to see trees and birds and water that you can touch without having to climb fences.”

  “Yeah, but why the Shield?” she probed. Of all the places in Upper Amerada, the area known as the Old Canada Shield was by far the roughest, most unfriendly terrain to those untrained to deal with its challenges. “I’ve heard about parklands, protected pockets around the city. Why not go there?”

  “Not much of a hiking opportunity in three square miles of scrubby bush, and the Guard will arrest you for so much as snapping a branch.”

  She studied his expression. Tight facial muscles, tense around the neck and shoulders... He was lying.

  Don’t trust outsiders.

  “And I wanted more of a challenge. A man-climbs-mountain-because-it’s-there experience.”

  He sounded just like Jaegar, who’d do anything because… why not?

  “Sightseers usually stay pretty close to the Cut Road,” she said. “How’d you get all the way up here?”

  “Hiked.”

  “By yourself?” She glanced at his feet. “Your boots are barely dirty.”

  “Okay, you got me.” He pushed his hands through his hair and tilted his face to the sky. “I was with some buddies but wanted a bit more excitement than the Trading Post. The guys brought me up this far on their solar scooters and I’m going to boot it back to them.”

  His words were clipped, the warmth gone from his mouth.

  “Well, don’t let me delay you. If you need to go, go. I’ll be fine here.”

  “Leave an injured woman alone in the hostile forest? Forget it. I’d lose all my Ranger Boy badges.” His attempt at humor fell flat. He wore no smile, and there wasn’t an ounce of mischief in his pale eyes. “Besides, I figure it’s only a three or four-day hike and they’re giving me a week to make my way back. If I don’t show up by then, they’ll know I’m either lost or dead.”

  “You can do it in two if you stay on course, but it’s a hard walk.”

  “Is that where you were headed? The Trading Post?”

  “Mmmm,” she said, neither denying nor confirming.

  “Tried to take a shortcut over the falls?”

  “Something like that,” she said.

  Libra cocked his eyebrows and flicked his fingers in a gimme prompt.

  Cleo felt her cheeks heat and looked away. “It’s too embarrassing.”

  “Come on, darlin’. It’s just you, me, and the pussycat. ‘Fess up.” The way he growled darlin’ softened her.

  She couldn’t tell him the truth. He’d think she was completely out of her head. Her mouth opened and she started talking, hoping that whatever she managed to spew would sound convincing. She gave a pretend laugh. “It’s quite funny, really. I was taking a pee in the stream—”

  “Cleo,” he said with a charming smirk.

  The way her name sounded from his mouth shot straight through her. She put a hand over her belly to halt the bizarre pulling sensation.

  “Okay, fine.” At least she’d bought a
few moments to come up with something plausible. “I was upstream catching fish for dinner and I slipped and got carried away in the current.” She looked him in the eye while she lied. Jaegar taught her that. When they were little, Grandma would pump them for information about their dad. Cleo always looked at her feet and stayed quiet, but Jag would boldly look Gram right in the eyes and say, “He’s great, happy all the time.”

  It was for Gram’s own good, Jag said, otherwise she’d fret and worry. And Cleo trusted him. Jag was smart that way, about other people’s feelings. Cleo would have just blurted out, “No, Gram. Dad’s always sad. He hides in his work house. He never looks at me, never tucks me in or kisses me goodnight, and never, ever talks about Mom.”

  But lying never came easy for her, even to this strange man before her, this handsome urbanite, so she looked between his pale eyes and focused on the top of his straight nose. “It was getting dark and I couldn’t find anything to grab onto. I tried to swim to the side, but the fall rains have made the water so high and fast that I couldn’t make it.”

  It wasn’t all made up. After a solid week of torrential rain, the water really was high and fast. But she and Jag had portaged through this area enough in the past that she knew she should have gotten out of the river before the rapids. Her impatience to make the Cut Road by the following day had her pushing downstream, thinking she’d be able to navigate the killer current and get out well before the plunge.

  And she would have been just fine had the flash in the sky not distracted her.

  Libra’s eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly, making her wonder if he believed any of it.

  “Nothing to be embarrassed about,” he said dismissively. “Could have happened to anyone.”

  “Not where I come from,” she said, trying to validate his suspicion by admitting it was a complete gaff on her part.