by A. W. Cross
“But what’s the chance anyone will actually be there? You know, with the apocalypse and all?”
Another shake of his head was all the response I got.
Tor found an acceptable place for us to camp, somewhere hidden where we could see anyone approaching. After shooing me out of the way, he set about building a shelter, and I tried to reach Pax again.
“Pax? Are you there?”
Nothing. The lack of contact from him and the constant pull of that damned homing signal were taking their toll. I also couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched, that whatever I’d seen in the trees had followed us. When my skin had prickled, I’d felt the briefest of touches in my mind. Whatever or whoever it was didn’t seem malevolent. Still, my nerves were raw.
The shelter Tor built was impressive, although I shouldn’t have been surprised. The man had been living in this landscape for five years, after all. He worked quietly, methodically, laying a fallen tree within the split trunk of another then setting up our tiny tent underneath it and lining it with branches.
When I went to investigate, he was smoothing on the final handful of crusted moss, dusting his boots with dead foliage.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “If I have to live through the End of Days, I’m glad it’s with you.”
He gave me a lopsided grin. “I was a boy scout before I was… Well, before.”
We ate dried strips of smoked hare in companionable silence.
“Anything from Pax or Cindra?” he asked.
“No. But he’s alive. And we’re going in the right direction.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, his connection to me is still there. As for the direction, I’m not sure. I just know.” He must be getting as tired of that answer as I am of the question. “Are we going to take turns standing watch?”
“No, I’ll wake up if anything comes near us,” Tor said.
“Is that another one of your cyborg super-powers?”
Tor tossed his last chunk of hare back in his pack. “Something like that. I’m going to bed.”
“I’ll be right in.” I appealed to Pax one more time. Nothing. “We’re coming. You have to hold on.”
As I slipped under the blankets, I tried to remember the last time I’d seen the stars. I couldn’t. Would I ever see them again? Maybe it was better not to think about it.
“Just think, all the injustices of this world could be solved. For one, we would have leaders who rule with duty and logic over self-interest. No longer will people starve or die from preventable disease. Poverty will be eradicated. Everyone will have a rightful place in this world. Rather than die at the hands of our neighbors, we will die in our beds as old men and women.”
—Robin Leung, CEO of Novus Corporation, 2039
“…and they looked upon the sun and saw how it shone brighter than the highest flame. They saw each other’s faces, the lines and their weather-beaten skin, and they pulled at their clothes, lamenting the dullness of the cloth. They wanted to shine too, to leave this earth and live among the Heavens…”
I couldn’t help but smile at the rapt expressions on the faces of the children as they listened to my grandmother’s story. I remembered the first time I’d heard it, remembered leaning forward in anticipation, my weaving forgotten in my lap.
Now, listening and weaving at the same time came easily to me, which was lucky since I had nearly a dozen orders to complete before the weekend. Although there were machines that did the same job, hell, did a better job, tourists still liked the idea that their souvenirs were made by the living hands of a historical people; it justified the price I got for them. I was more than happy to oblige them—the work was soothing, and it pleased my grandmother, who insisted we kept the traditions we’d very nearly lost alive and well.
Asche smiled at me over the children’s heads.
“…‘We need to get the attention of the Sun,’ they said. ‘She will see that we are worthy, and will take us up to the sky where we can live beside her.’ To do this, they decided to build a statue of themselves, one so tall it could touch shoulders with the sun…”
As she was speaking, a smile tugged at the corners of my grandmother’s mouth. She’d seen me watching Asche. It didn’t matter. She would be thrilled if something were to develop between Asche and me. We’d known each other all our lives, and yet only recently had I noticed the man he’d become.
When we were young, his hair stuck out all over his head. We’d teased him and joked that his mother must’ve been struck by lightning when she was pregnant. Now his hair was long, a wavy cascade of deep raven-black that made him resemble the men on the covers of the books my grandmother hid in her nightstand. He’d always been tall, but in the last two years he’d become wider as well, making me feel small and delicate.
His hands were marred by the scars of his trade. Like me, he helped preserve some of our older traditions. The meat he hunted was prepared in traditional ways and sold for a premium, but I suspected he would still do it even if there was no money to be made. It had become harder for us over the last few years. The technology that had nearly made us obsolete in the first place continued to grow, replacing us with increasingly intelligent machines. Our old ways, which we’d so nearly lost in the name of progress, were now our life raft, keeping us relevant.
“…they traded everything they had: food, clothing, jewels, and gold, for cold marble. And so the statue grew, and was soon taller than the tallest tree…”
I was still staring at his hands. He’d noticed, his smile replaced by reverence and longing. I imagined this was what it felt like to be his prey.
Should I go to him tonight, after grandmother falls asleep?
I imagined slipping out into the dark, running the wooded mile to his house, swift and silent. I would hesitate to knock, frozen in the glow of the porch light. My heart would pound in my chest. He would feel me on the other side of the door and open it, bare in the summer heat.
Pulling me inside, he would shut the door and push me up against it. One hand would slide up my back, tangling in my hair at the nape of my neck. He would press his mouth against mine, parting my lips with his tongue. His fingers would creep under my hem, slipping into the eager wetness between my legs. He would groan, the sound a rumbling low in his throat. He would drop to his knees and taste me, and it would be my turn to—
“…soon they began to worship this statue, offering at its feet whatever possessions they had left. Many starved and their bones were added to the marble. Soon, it was taller than the tallest mountain. Still, it was not enough...”
My lips had parted, and I was panting. Asche’s eyes were still fixed on me. Warmth burned my face, and I was keenly aware of my underwear as it rubbed against me. I needed to get out, to breathe in some air that didn’t carry the reek of sweat. I stood, my weaving falling to the floor, unraveling and wasting the last hour’s work. My grandmother’s shrewd glance as I headed for the door made my face burn hotter.
Outside, the air was cool and fresh, the stifling heat washed away by a late rain. At the back of the building, the wet concrete was slick against my forehead and the damp air tasted of sunbaked leaves.
“…eventually, the statue grew so tall, they lived only in its shadow. And although they lit fires to keep themselves warm, many froze to death. The rest became deaf and blind and grew ignorant, knowing nothing of the world outside of the shadow…”
I was aware of him before he touched me, his breath warming the back of my neck. His hands weighed heavily on my hips. I longed to press myself against him, to finally force his hand after all this time, but instead, I kept still.
He said my name, his voice like the string on one of his bows. The sound made the heat rise in me once more. I turned, ready for him to take me. I searched his face, hungry to see his need for me. It was there, thick and dark, but his mouth, his mouth seemed sad.
“…they forgot what the stars had looked like, how the sun had felt on their
faces, the taste of honey on their tongues...”
He said my name again, softly, as though he regretted it.
“What? You don’t…” The words stuck in my throat, and my skin prickled with the heat of a thousand swarming ants. It had never occurred to me that he wouldn’t feel the same. That he wouldn’t want me.
“Of course, I do. It’s…what you’re doing. You don’t know what’s going to happen, what you’ll become.”
“But—” My acceptance into the Pantheon Modern cyborg program had come just a few days ago, but I’d told him about my application months before. “I didn’t think you had a problem with it. You never said.”
“I never thought you’d be accepted.”
“What? Why? You don’t think I’m good enough?” The warmth in my skin stopped swarming and blazed instead.
“No! It’s just…things like that don’t happen to people like us. And—”
“And what?”
“And it’s unnatural. You won’t be human anymore. We’ve spent so long trying to reclaim ourselves, and you’re throwing that away.”
“…a lightning storm came, its bolts striking the ground and cracking the base of the statue. It toppled over, crushing all who lived beneath it. The sparks from their fires whirled into the forest, burning for so long the earth became barren and covered in ash…”
A chill drowned out the heat. I was a river, glacial. I was power.
“Throwing it away? I’m trying to preserve it. Do you understand why we nearly lost ourselves, Asche? Because when they tried to force us to change, we didn’t. We didn’t bend, so we broke. Only once we adapted did we begin to thrive instead of merely surviving. We got ourselves back and then shaped the world outside of ours. If we sit by and do nothing, we will disappear again. The first time we were powerless to stop it. Not anymore.”
He worried his bottom lip with his teeth and gently shook his head. “It’s not right. Nobody here thinks it’s right. Even your grandmother—”
“My grandmother? But she—”
“She didn’t think you’d be accepted either. And when you were, she hoped you and I would get together, and—”
“And what? That I would suddenly throw my belief in our future out the window? Why, for the chance to fuck you? To be your wife? How can you all not see how important this is? What I’m doing will help save us.”
“…from that ash rose a great bird. She had stars for eyes and feathers made from the memories of her people…”
He closed his eyes and said my name yet again, softer now. Taking my hands in his, he asked me the question that had been stalking me since I’d been accepted. “What if you don’t come back? And if you do, what will you be? You still have a choice.” He lifted my hands to his mouth.
“I’ve already made my choice.”
“You can choose to go ahead with this, or you can choose to be with me, to be us. We don’t need saving.” He traced the curve of my palm with his lips.
I was tempted. “Asche, I’m sorry. I can’t. I need to do this.”
He studied my face and exhaled. “I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
He gave me the crooked grin that was as familiar to me as my own heart. “Me too. But at least I can give you a reason to come back to me.” And then, in the rain, at the beginning of my end, he fell to his knees and showed me what I’d be missing.
“…because their world had been destroyed, she left it, carrying her people into the sky. As she flew past the brightly burning sun, each of her feathers turned into a star, and her people spread themselves across the universe at last…”
“I say make ’em. Fuck it. The human race has gone to shit, anyhow. Look at us, hatin’ each other, killin’ and rapin’ and turnin’ on each other. Maybe we do need someone to watch over us, to keep us in check. We clearly can’t do it ourselves. We’ve dropped the ball, man. I personally will welcome our robot overlords with open arms.”
—George Catt , CNN’s ‘On the Street with Shirley Novak’
I held my arms in front of me, expecting to see stars shining on my skin and giving me light by which to see. Pleasure still twisted my belly.
She was behind the next clump of brush, invisible to me. A muted, musky smell rose from her damp coat, along with a sharper, more metallic scent. Fear. She knew I was close. I fell to one knee and held my breath. Her heartbeat was steady and strong, quickening as I raised the crossbow to my shoulder. She didn’t move; she hoped if I couldn’t see her, I couldn’t kill her. She wasn’t the first to think that, and I doubted she’d be the last.
I peered down the sight, trying to get a lock on her. I still couldn’t see her, but she was waiting, her heart beating in time with mine. The bolt flew true: the brush snapped under the weight of her body. Her breathing slowed as I approached, a whisper in the air. My aim had found her heart. I stroked her, her fur soft and downy against the roughness of my palm, and then I slit her throat. Tor would’ve been proud; it was a clean kill.
As the heat rose from the pooling blood, I wiped my knife on some leaves.
The hand holding the knife wasn’t my own.
It was too large, too masculine. My arms were roped with muscle, my shoulders and chest broad.
This was not my body.
I ran my hands over my face. I wasn’t dreaming. The slightest ridge of a scar cut through the left side of my mouth. Tor’s mouth. I had taken him over, like he was a human mech.
Could he feel me inside him? Was he there now, awake and aware of what I’d done to him?
I needed to get out of him. I closed my eyes and searched through the darkness, trying to find the thread connecting us and return to my own body. There was nothing, not a single thread.
I was trapped.
Being inside Tor was nothing like seeing through the eyes of the others. It didn’t just feel real, it was real. Unlike the visions, I was in control.
Shit. Shit. Shit. After his reaction when I’d merely peeked inside his head, he wouldn’t take this invasion well. Don’t panic. Get back to camp.
Luckily for me, I had his senses. My footsteps had disturbed the fragile leaves, and I followed them, walking swiftly, my eyes on the trail. Despite the panic rising in my throat, or perhaps because of it, I admired him, his easy grace held in such a formidable frame. I trailed my fingers down his taut stomach before snatching my hand away. Being inside him was crossing enough of a line; touching him, even with his own hands, was just wrong.
Nearly there.
Then Tor began to wake. His awareness tickled at the edge of my—well, his—mind.
My panic had glued my tongue to the roof of my mouth, and I scraped my cheek against the rough fabric of the tent as I sat up, gasping for breath. His side of our makeshift bed was empty and cold.
Definitely not a dream.
I was squeezing my way out of the entrance to go looking for Tor when I saw him standing bewildered before the remains of our fire. His eyes were narrowed, his tattoos black slashes against the paleness of his skin.
“Ailith? Why am I out here? Was I sleepwalking? I’ve never done that before.”
I was tempted to say yes, but if I lied about this, he might never trust me again.
“No. I, uh, woke up inside you.”
“You what?”
“I was inside you. Like before, only this time I could move you, could have my own thoughts as well as yours.”
“Ailith!” My name was brittle in his mouth, as unyielding as this dead forest.
“Tor, I didn’t do it on purpose. I would never—”
“You can’t—you can’t be inside me like that. You violated me.”
To my horror, I burst into tears. I knew exactly how he felt. Doctors had put their hands inside me while I lay naked and helpless. I was never conscious while they were doing it, but whenever I woke up, I’d felt the specter of their hands. The worst part had been knowing it would happen again.
My reaction was not what he’d expected. Maybe he�
�d expected me to be defiant, or contrite. Or he may have believed I was finally showing my true colors, that he’d been right not to trust me. He stared at me like he’d never seen a woman crying before. Maybe he hadn’t, if his ex-girlfriend was anything to go by.
His arms encircled me. He was murmuring too quietly for me to understand. It didn’t matter—he could’ve been reciting a recipe for hare pie and I wouldn’t have cared. The words flowed over me, soothing me, and I cried until I had nothing left.
“Tor, I-I’m so sorry,” I said as he offered me a corner of his sleeve. “I didn’t mean to. I went to sleep, and when I woke up, I was in your body, and I was hunting.”
“You? You were hunting?”
That was all he had to say? “Yes. No. We were hunting. Except you were asleep.”
He seemed as confused as I was. “Did we get anything?”
Despite myself, the pride rushed through me. “Yes, we did. A deer.”
He seemed impressed, his mouth quirking. “Well done us, then. We’ll find it in the morning. Let’s go back to bed.”
“Tor, I really didn’t mean to…after that first time, I would never do that without asking you. I didn’t know I could do that. Move you, I mean.”
He searched my face for a long time. “I believe you. It’s just disconcerting. If it were anyone else… I’m not going to say it’s okay, because it’s not. But I understand. Just promise me you won’t do it again.”
“I can’t promise you that. I don’t even know how it happened.”
He peeled back the flap on the tent and crawled inside. “Well, at least promise me you won’t ever do it on purpose. Not without asking me first.”
“Deal.” I was so relieved, I almost started crying again.
Back in the shelter, we lay facing each other. “Tor?”
“Mmm?”
“What did you mean, if it were anyone else?”
For a few moments, he was silent.
“That girl you saw. The one from my past? She had this power over me, and I did terrible things for her. Cruel, violent things I still think about. I watched myself be this monster for her, and I was powerless to stop it. I’m not making excuses. I chose to do the things I did, but I always felt detached from it while it was going on, like someone else was in control. It was only afterward that I would actually feel the things I’d done. I still feel them.”
