Idyllian (Amsterdam Institute)

by R. Z. Held

  For all Carex’s rudeness, he led the way, allowing Eriope time to gather herself into following. Pyrus used his system to shut the door and kept hold of Genevieve’s elbow as they jogged after the others. She wondered if he was anchoring her or himself.

  The audio was far too loud for personal coms, making them all miss a step as their system adjusted. Someone clearly assumed they were broadcasting to ship speakers. The Lingua was heavily accented, but perfectly correct. As the sun slipped away, a group of Resistance fighters hustled out of the back of the terminal toward them, identifiable as Resistance by the way they clumped and brandished their weapons a bit ostentatiously. It gave them a ragtag air rather than the one of efficient lethality Pax Romana units could pull off, but weapons were weapons.

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” Eriope muttered under her breath. Having drawn ahead of Carex by half a stride, she was the one to test the fence’s metal links, pulling at them to see what enhanced strength might accomplish.

  Genevieve said, but she might as well not have bothered. Eriope had already swarmed up and found that easy enough to snap between her hands. She jerked it aside to make a space and then jumped down to the ground on the other side. Her wings snapped out to slow and control her descent.

  Making a hell of a silhouette, they all realized a little bit too late. The approaching group of fighters gained speed, flashlights snapping on as they erupted into shouts of fear and anger as if they’d just spotted the boogeyman.

  Which, remembering her old view of Installs, Genevieve supposed they had. On frontier planets, Installs were used as shock troops, their wings, their eerie silence, their seeming invulnerability played up. Idyll was too newly conquered for the occupying force to include locals who would need Install oversight, as Carex had mentioned, so she wouldn’t be surprised if Installs had been withdrawn and attained a half-legendary status thereafter.

  All three of them started climbing at once, of course, but there was the barbed wire to wrestle aside at the top. With the cat out of the bag, Pyrus landed in the same manner as Eriope, but Carex and Genevieve didn’t have any choice. She launched herself for Pyrus without pausing to second guess, and he caught her around the waist and cushioned her landing, as easy as breathing. He’d have done the same for Carex, she was sure, but Carex didn’t give him the chance. Carex took all of his landing in his legs, cursing under his breath as he staggered forward a few steps to lean on Eriope to rebalance.

  The others had better instincts and took off immediately, but Genevieve had to turn around to see their pursuit first. Perhaps part of her couldn’t really believe that her own people were coming after her. But Pyrus dragged her along and deeper, more animal instincts kicked in. In the twilight, people with guns were coming for her.

  And shooting at them now. Wildly, out of range, her system assured her, but still, the sound was impossible not to react to. She had to run.

  They crossed a dirt road with the chatter of gunfire following them, and made it into a band of trees. It proved to be only a windbreak: tall, leafy, but ultimately too thin to last more than a breath before they burst through into exposure again.

  Up ahead was a barn, the only real cover they’d reach before the fighters made it over or through the fence. The coms didn’t take breath away from running, but no one bothered with them anyway, aiming their path simultaneously with a communication deeper than words. As they stumbled over uneven footing in the fallow field before them, each of Genevieve’s breaths came harder and harder, tearing at her throat on the way down. She couldn’t run flat out for this long, in fact not for one more second. The only reason she made it the last few meters to where Eriope had kicked open the door was Pyrus kept her going in some sort of controlled fall that left her collapsing onto him in the hay-dust-spangled darkness beyond the door. He held her up, but his attention was on the door behind her.

  Eriope was making an examination of the door, palm pressed flat against the wood, and she hissed with frustration.

  Genevieve said. The others gave her pitying looks and clustered closer together at the door, glancing back occasionally at the truck parked to one side of the barn floor, maybe working it into whatever plans they were making on a channel among the three of them. That was fine, Genevieve couldn’t help with those plans, but she had the advantage of already knowing exactly what she was looking for when it came to hiding.

  Still panting, she skirted equipment along the wall as shouts grew closer. No time—but there it was. No ladder, but the hay loft was definitely there. Disused, which was even better. She should still have one exertion in her—she crouched, and jumped, getting her fingertips on the beam.

  Carex cursed incredulously from beneath her.

  Genevieve drew herself up in one smooth pull—never would have been able to do that before she was an Install, which was a reflection she’d worn out in the past nine years but one which came back now with a vengeance, given the familiar venue. The muscles across her damaged back screamed in protest, but she rolled onto her stomach on the rough boards and the pain ebbed as quickly as it had come.

  Carex planted himself to stare up at her. Still dubious as hell, but she noticed he’d at least abandoned the truck, while the other two had their weapons out, still chasing that doomed plan.

  Genevieve couldn’t suppress the edge of a hysterical laugh out loud as Carex, without further objections, extended hands up to her. she said. Damn, but Carex was heavy and her back muscles were telling her so. The pain made it to sparkles across her vision for a breath after she got him up, so she lost her train of thought and had to scrabble after it.

  The sound of crunching wood overlaid the end of her sentence, so one of the two had clearly gotten the gist even before she had to pause. Pyrus gave Genevieve a frown and shake of the head when she reached hands for him, so she backed up into the low hay-dust topography of the boards and let him boost himself up. Eriope did the same a few moments later.

  The shouts were close enough now to distinguish words sometimes, at least for her and Pyrus. It wasn’t anything illuminating, mostly “this way” and “do you think they—?” Genevieve flattened to her belly and edged toward the back wall, eyes on the boards to make sure she wouldn’t come to rest over a knot that might show skin or light clothing to someone looking up from below. Dust kicked up around her and the others doing the same, tickling and scratching at her throat and her back throbbed a steady protest even when she stopped moving.

  Then the door slammed open and she could only freeze. Clamping down with manual control through her system to breathe shallow and slow, stop any sneeze before it started, at least gave her something to focus on as Idyllians—her people—stamped around the floor below.

  “You saw a coat flapping, not wings—”

  “I know damn well what I saw, it was an Install—”

  “Why would an Install run away? Or be alone?”

  “—three of them.”

  “I counted five. That’s enough Installs to really fuck things up—”

  “Come on, we’re wasting time. Those fuckers can run fast, and they went right out the back again—”

  “—piss yourself because of a fucking coat—”

  Genevieve closed her eyes, because she couldn’t see anything beyond the upper story wall directly in front of her anywa
y. Slow breaths. A beat of pain in her back for each beat of her heart. Don’t look up, don’t look up.

  And they didn’t. The overlapping voices dwindled as their owners pushed through the gap in the boards or circled around the outside of the building. She had her system throw up a rough floorplan, plot everyone’s locations as they finally, finally moved away.

  Two question marks lingered, two people quiet enough her system couldn’t track them completely away, so when no one else in the hayloft moved, Genevieve maintained her stillness as well. The fabric of her duffel was rubbing her abused back raw where her jacket wasn’t zipped all the way up, however, and she finally had to sling it off or scream. And she almost did scream because she’d apparently been bleeding and the duffel ripped off the incipient scab along with it.

  She gasped instead, pressed her forehead to the boards as a few tears pittered to the wood as well. Pyrus was at her side the next moment. He drew in a sharp breath of his own.

  Carex contributed.

  Pyrus’s tone on the channel stretched thin with stress.

  Because she had to be. Genevieve brought her arm around to rest her forehead on, hiding her face so she wouldn’t have to see Pyrus’s worry as well.

  Pyrus’s voice gained confidence and lost worry, and even if it was all a bedside manner act, Genevieve allowed herself to be calmed. He quietly scuffled through his supplies, freezing every so often as a voice or footsteps made it to the edge of their enhanced hearing. Genevieve gritted her teeth as he pressed the bandage into place, zipped her jacket fully over top, and then knelt up to get real pressure on it.

  Eriope asked at length.

  Genevieve flashed to her mother powerfully enough to tighten her throat around her next breath. She could just see her mother striding out into the twilight with their shotgun—

  Eriope sent back a thin laugh and crawled to the opposite side of the loft to give them better data to triangulate with, and everyone pooled their data into one map, silently urging the question marks to resolve. Now, they waited. Genevieve would be fine.

  But certainly not comfortable.

  ***

  The Idyllians fucked around for hours, coming in and out of range until gradually sawing crickets and the very distant susurrus of Delta’s traffic took over as the main sound blanketing them in the darkness. There came a time when someone had to be the one to decide the risk of someone patrolling close enough to see them was outweighed by the need to get somewhere clean to see to her wound, and Genevieve figured that would have to be her.

  She went for her duffel first, but Eriope took that away from her, and Pyrus had jumped to the floor—no one to see his wings this time—before she arrived at the edge. This time, she almost overbalanced him when he caught her, and the awkwardness over the pain and home-not-home of it all brought her to the edge of tears. She shoved Pyrus away quickly because as much as she wanted to be held, this was not the time. She tried for a light tone, didn’t know if any of the others bought it.

  Her enhanced low-light vision wasn’t good for color differentiation, but the truck looked to have an honest layer of grime over a light color. A family vehicle, as it had a row of back seats at the expense of the length of the bed under the canopy. The driver’s door was unlocked, but Genevieve didn’t give silent thanks for her luck until she’d stepped up with one foot and pressed the starter to have the system light up, which meant the key was somewhere in the vehicle, probably in the center console. The barn door had been locked, so there was no reason not to leave it convenient, but you never knew.

  She settled in, hissed as her back got near the seat, sat forward again, and brought up the street map on the display to find the nearest hospital, then thought better of it.

  Pyrus said gently from beside her, and Genevieve ceded her place after pushing the button to unlock all the doors. Pyrus’s hesitation over the truck’s display made her pause, initially because she wondered if he was having trouble with written Idyllian, but then she noticed his feet were nowhere near the pedals.

  Genevieve propped herself on the doorframe, fighting off a surge of absurd laughter that might be heard by someone passing by. But his face was such a picture of consternation.

  Eriope said, jostling up behind Genevieve, apparently to volunteer herself.

  Her shove at Eriope’s shoulder was weak, but Eriope went where pushed. Carex let himself into the back seat with the suggestion of amusement tinging his frown.

  Pyrus took significantly more staring down. she snapped finally, and he grudgingly climbed back out.

  When they were both settled in their respective seats, he placed his hand over hers on the automatic shift lever, and they pretended that was something to do with learning.

  All right. Eriope was waiting for them. Genevieve kept the headlights off, so they should hopefully be able to keep a low profile until they made it to a road with other traffic. But if someone was outside, they’d be unable to miss the crunch of the tires on the farm roads, even with the electric engine. If they were going to run for it—drive for it—a second time, she’d better be ready.

  They trundled out of the doors and Eriope swung up into the back seat with a smooth motion that showed how comfortable these ex-soldiers were with any kind of vehicle in another context, lest Genevieve generalize too much from one blind spot. And then they were bumping over the swath of grass in front of the barn to the ruts of the dirt road.

  Genevieve needed both hands for the wheel, sitting bolt upright to keep her back from the seat, but with each few meters, a feeling of slotting into place took more and more hold of her. She remembered this, deep in muscle memory, and it all came together and the truck more or less moved under her control and it all felt right in a way she hadn’t known to miss.

  Fortunately, the night left the roads quiet so she didn’t have to merge or dodge assholes, and the dark veiled most landmarks she might have recognized, rarely as she’d visited Delta proper before she’d had to leave. She could hold a feeling of home—shorn of angry fighters with guns—to her chest.

  ***

  The hospital she’d chosen entirely by geography looked busy enough, but not swamped. As near as she could judge. She’d never been to a Delta ER of an evening on a—she didn’t even know what day of the standard week it was, she realized. But she’d never been to a Delta ER any day of the week. She parked, ignoring the posted signs about restrictions and fees. Hopefully when the farming family tracked down their vehicle, the h
ospital wouldn’t charge them.

  Outside of the truck, her brief bubble of comfort popped abruptly, leaving her to an exhaustion that was becoming intimately familiar. Eriope hissed in surprise on coming around the vehicle to see her back, which Genevieve took to mean blood was soaking through the bandage and her jacket both. The seep she was monitoring from her system was ever-present. Carex more or less shouldered her onto his support first, which should have ceased to surprise her by now, but still did, and Pyrus supported her other side.

  Eriope offered, and ranged ahead, scouting entrances as the three of them limped along the landscaping flanking the building and tried not to look noticeable. For her part, Eriope practically disappeared, and Genevieve was sure there would have been no “practically” about it, had she not had her low-light vision on.

  Eriope said, as they approached a door she was holding just this side of latched, her cadence suggesting it wasn’t the first time she’d repeated the comment. The perils of not having their coms carried by an external system, Genevieve realized belatedly. Even on the smuggling planet, they’d been boosted by the ships. Coms alone worked on internal power close by, but that dropped off quickly with distance. Until they could hook into a local network, that would be important to remember.

  They headed into a deserted hallway, Eriope leading the three of them, with low, channel-fed direction from Pyrus about what kind of facilities to look for. Equipment and supplies in this section it appeared, fortunately, rather than rooms with occupants, and the lights were at night conservation levels. Or perhaps it wasn’t fortunate: they were avoiding notice, but at the expense of a steadily lengthening walk to get to the kind of facility Pyrus wanted.

  It dawned on Genevieve, slowly, that all the notices and signs were in Idyllian. Of course. As had the street signs been. But that had taken time to soak in. Suddenly, up ahead the sound of another heavier, outside door opening and shutting, and a voice speaking in Idyllian too, giving it a familiarity that grabbed at her gut.