by Paul Melko
“Yeah. I was born in Osbourne Creche. We formed a pod, my friends and I, and we called ourselves Edgar Longhorn. We were a quartet, but it didn’t work out, so they re-formed a trio without me. I couldn’t … do it after that.”
I looked at her. She had been institutionalized after failing to form even a duo. I’d never considered the failures of the pod system, but now I saw the waste in the process. Even if one individual was ruined for the sake of a thousand viable pods, I wasn’t sure it was worth it.
“I’m sorry you didn’t form a pod.”
“It’s okay. I’ve had years to come to grips with my brokenness. Soon, I should be able to join a singleton enclave. This way.”
She led me down the passageway.
“This is Wing Three.”
Two figures were coming down the hall. I pushed the woman into a side hall, shushing her. Peeking around the corner, I saw that one of the two was the singleton who had worked on me. The second man I did not know; it wasn’t Anderson McCorkle. They were chatting amiably as they walked down the hall. They stopped at a door, laughing at a joke, and turned the knob. Where was the duo?
I was running as they entered. If one of my pod was in that room, I couldn’t allow them to use the drug they had used on me. I couldn’t let anyone else lose her senses as mine were now destroyed.
I caught the door before it shut, holding it just a few millimeters open, and listened at the door.
“Where’s the rest of my pod?” Meda’s voice.
“You have no pod, young lady.”
“Of course I do. We’re Apollo Papadopulos.”
“You wouldn’t be sent here if you were a viable pod.”
“We’re a functioning quintet. You can’t keep us apart.”
“Quintet! There’s like ten of those in the whole world, and you expect me to believe that one of you is tramping through the Amazon jungle? More likely you’re a broken experiment the clusters built. We get them down here all the time. Misshapen, broken people that we have to fit back into society.”
“We’re not broken.” Meda sounded shrill.
“It’s not your fault, I know. You can’t help it that your body was fucked with.”
“What’s in that syringe?”
I pushed open the door and launched myself at the nearest body. I clawed, kicked, gouged, using my feet and hands.
The man’s hypodermic fell, skittering across the room.
The second man grabbed at me, catching my shoulder and pulling me off the first man. I was not as massive as either of the two. I landed with a thump against the wall.
“What’s he doing here?” the first man cried.
I launched myself at him again, fingers outstretched. My hands found his throat, but the second man had me in a headlock. I couldn’t fight two people at once.
The second man pushed me up against the wall, pinning me.
“I’ll get restraints!” said the first man, slipping out the door. “Hey!”
Something thumped against the wall outside the room. Then the pressure on my chest eased. As I fell against the floor, I saw Strom tossing the second man against the first into a corner of the room. He smiled at me and began to unlace Meda’s restraints.
They touched wrists, and I watched from the floor as they shared memories. I should have been able to smell the pheromones, to catch whiffs of the chemical thoughts. I pulled my hands behind me, suddenly scared.
“Come on,” Strom said. He and Meda ran out of the room, and I followed, pulling the door shut on the two stunned men, locking it.
Quant stood at the end of the hallway. She rushed to Strom and Meda, touching palms. Still I hung back. I should have been able to hear something!
Jol stood nearby, an odd look on her face as she watched my pod consense. She had opened the doors to all the cells, releasing my pod, while I had rushed Meda’s cell.
“Where’s Moira?” I asked, looking in doors.
“Here!”
The sound was muffled, but I traced it to a door and opened it.
Moira lay on the bed. I unstrapped her and hugged her.
“Thanks!”
We joined together in the hall, Moira and Quant taking my hand, so I couldn’t pull away. I tried halfheartedly to struggle free.
Nothing.
I couldn’t hear them. My thoughts were crammed inside my own skull and unable to reach the rest of me.
They turned then, their faces horrified.
“I can’t think with you,” I said, my voice breaking.
They pulled me close then.
“It’s okay,” Moira said. “It can’t be permanent.”
“They drugged me,” I said. “They were going to drug all of us.”
“We have to get out of here,” Strom said simply.
I watched as Strom took control, felt the lack of any sensation or pull. I knew the others were attuning themselves to his direction. I watched, detached.
“Where are we going?” asked Jol. She stood next to me in her hospital clothes, her hair disheveled.
“We’re leaving,” I said. “Thanks for opening all those doors. You saved us.”
She smiled. “Is that your pod?”
“Yes. Only I can’t join them. The drug they gave me …”
The rest of my pod, halfway down the hall, turned as one to look at me.
“Coming,” I called.
Faster than I could understand, two shapes converged on Strom.
It was Anderson McCorkle.
They knew to attack our strength: Strom, who took control of all combat situations. So busy protecting himself, Strom had little time to direct the pod. The other three and I hung back, unsure what to do. Then Strom’s thoughts reached them, chemical directions flitting in the air.
Quant flung herself at the first of the duo, while Meda and Moira swarmed over the second. I knew there were directions for me as well, but I had no idea what they were, and instead hung back out of the way with Jol.
The duo disengaged, rolling away from the four, coming to stand two meters away, side by side. Four against two should have clearly favored the four, but the duo was a combat-trained pod, with heightened strength and speed. I was surprised they didn’t draw their pistols, but I saw that their holsters were empty. Perhaps they had been forced to disarm themselves before entering the facility.
Again, with lightning reflexes, the two coordinated a feint at Strom, followed by a double punch at Quant, who barely blocked the first, while the second sent her flailing back.
It was more a choreographed dance than a fight, and I saw where my place should have been: empty, a weakness.
Strom sent Meda and Moira to attack with a fury of kicks and punches. Meanwhile Quant and Strom tried to circle around, but couldn’t in the cramped hallway.
“You have no military training, Papadopulos,” said one of the duo.
“And you’re running at four-fifths capacity,” said the other.
“You can’t win.”
“OG Military is—”
The four struck mid-sentence in a synchronized attack that forced the duo to drop back. Strom directed the four in a series of feints, punches, and kicks that I could not understand. If I had been a part of the pod, I would have seen the tactics with clarity. Now it was just a blur.
“Wow,” said Jol. “Your pod is good.”
Wham! One of the duo took a solid blow to the head and staggered back.
The duo dropped back three meters. Time was on his side; if he stalled us long enough, others would come to help him.
But the drop-back was a trick. As Strom pressed forward, the two pounced on him in a close attack. I was certain my pod would win now in the close fighting. But the duo knew the pod’s weakness, and one of the two managed to get a choke hold on Strom’s neck. He just needed seconds, and Strom was out, his brain starved of oxygen for an instant and shutting down.
The rest of the pod stopped, suddenly undirected, and stood uncertain. Without Strom’s input, it w
as nearly impossible for us to think tactically. The duo had won against the pod.
I realized that I was still free and able to think independently. Strom’s unconsciousness had no impact on me. The drug had freed me from that at least.
I launched myself at one of the pair. Toes and fingers fought for a hold on his torso. I let loose all the anger I felt for being drugged and cleaved from my pod, pummeling the man until he fell. I ripped at the sensitive membranes on the man’s neck, the pheromone glands. Pain smell erupted.
The second of the duo was momentarily stunned; the force of my attack had disrupted the pair’s thoughts.
It was enough time for Meda and Moira to tackle the second man.
I managed to get a grip around the first man’s neck and squeezed until he purpled and passed out. I didn’t let go until Moira pulled me off. I staggered back, my heart thumping, certain I would have killed the man.
By the time Quant had helped Strom awake, we had stowed the duo in one of the rooms, locking the door.
“I’m sorry,” Strom said. “I let you down.”
The four tapped hands, commiserating with Strom, but I stood apart, pulling free when Moira reached for me.
“Quit wasting time, and let’s go,” I said, still angry, still breathing heavily, as angry as I was scared, but it was easier to show the anger.
Strom nodded and led us down the stairwell, down to the first level. There was a fire door, which he pushed open. An alarm began to sound, a shrill electronic whistle.
The door opened onto an alleyway between large institutional buildings. In moments we were heading down the hill toward the river. Our clothes—five of us dressed as patients and me as an orderly—drew some stares, but no one stopped us.
As we passed the airfield, I noted the two aircars sitting there. One of them had brought Anderson McCorkle; he must have just arrived. He would have had to take the barge all the way to Sabah Station in Indonesia and then a suborbital to South America. The amount of reaction mass he burned to get here was not trivial.
My shoulders shook as I realized we had enemies who wanted us destroyed.
I felt a vague urge to share this with my pod, but the desire was no more than a twinge, easily ignored. I wondered if this was more of the drug’s effect. I was getting used to being a singleton.
Gueran’s boat was empty. While my pod stood on the dock consensing, I stepped into it and started the motor. Jol got in and sat beside me.
“Come on,” I said. I couldn’t understand why they were waiting on the dock. We had to go.
The rest of the pod looked at me, then Strom nodded. They stepped in, while Quant untied the lines.
“Hey! Wait for me!”
Running down the hill was Gueran, yelling and waving his arms.
I ran the boat down to the end of the dock, making Gueran puff and huff to catch up, finally relenting and idling the motor until Gueran could pull himself in.
“One more passenger will cost you more,” he heaved.
I gripped his shirt collar with my left foot and began dragging him over to the side of the boat. Strom leaned forward to stop me, but then sat back down as the boat began to rock.
“We can get rid of one passenger right now,” I said, my anger welling up again. “The caimans would like a snake.”
“Hey. It’s my boat!”
“You sold us out, Gueran. Who are you working for?”
“No! No! I didn’t know you’d all pass out like that. What could I do? I been trying to get to you all day. I been trying hard!”
I punched him, then Moira slid forward past Strom and held my arm.
“Enough, Manuel.”
I looked at Moira, realized that the anger in me had become undamped and wild. The pod was not there to stabilize me. I released Gueran, sat back on the seat near the tiller, and gunned the motor. Jol leaned against me, and I pondered my seething emotions, wondering where I stopped and the pod began.
An hour later, we hid in an overcovered tributary for night to fall. Everyone was too tired to keep going during the night. I watched my pod make camp in silence. I knew they were thinking together, whispering thoughts among themselves, yet it was ghostly to watch their synchronous actions. Once I caught Meda looking at me. I shrugged and turned away. They were missing a part of themselves just as I was.
Standing, I walked into the jungle. In seconds the camp was hidden from me behind emerald walls. I disturbed a small frog which leaped to a nearby leaf, clinging to it with its thick digits.
I caught it from behind, letting its suckery feet crawl across my palm. Its front and rear three-toed feet were equally useful to it. It looked up at me with one watery eye, almost as large as its head. Then it jumped with strength disproportionate to its body, disappearing into the brush.
“Beautiful creature.”
I turned to find Jol next to me.
“Yes.”
“I used to look out at the jungle from the hospital windows, wondering what was there. I imagined snakes and crocodiles as long and wide as trucks. I never imagined frogs as small and delicate as that.” She was standing close to me. Her dark hair was darker with water; she had just come from the river—a dip to cool herself off—and her hospital clothes were plastered to her body. She ran her fingers through her hair.
“Are you lonely without your pod?” she asked.
“Not so much,” I said. “I should be, I think, but I’m not.”
“Two people can be a pod,” she said.
I looked her in the eye. The invitation was between us, and this woman seemed as wild and alive as the jungle we stood in. Yet I felt I could not trust myself; my emotions were ruling me without a pod to control them, without consensus to work toward.
I didn’t answer, looking away at the mulchy floor of the rain forest. A tree had fallen—perhaps last rainy season—and the canopy was thin, allowing saplings and bushes to begin a desperate race toward the sun. The fallen trunk was an ecosystem in itself. I watched as termites zipped inside and out of the patchy bark. Spiders had strung webs across rotten limbs. A black agouti, chewing a Brazil nut in its teeth, sat among the upturned root system and observed us calmly.
Jol stepped forward to get a closer look at the rodent. Her foot slid into the soil. I took ahold of her shirt and pulled her back.
What we had thought was a mound of mulch from the tree was in fact an anthill, some two meters tall. The ants had apparently mined the earth around the hill, perhaps for defense, perhaps for material for the hill, leaving it susceptible to collapse if something large stepped on it. Now that I knew it was there, I saw surrounding the hill columns of ants marching to and fro, all of them bent to tasks to keep their little community alive.
Jol clung to my arm, looking at the hole she had created in the earth, now teeming with furious ants. I stepped back, worried that the ants might have a fiery bite.
“Let’s walk back to camp,” I said, thankful I had an excuse to ignore the fire between us.
After midnight we pushed back out onto the river, and again I took the motor. Gueran glared at me, but didn’t argue. I was cocooned in silence even from the other singletons and pretended to be oblivious.
Jol watched me, perhaps looking for an invitation, but I gave none. My pod glanced at me, every few moments, and I knew they were thinking about me. I knew what it felt like to be a four when you were once a five. I even knew what it was like to be a singleton when once you were a quintet. I had shared Strom’s and Meda’s memories of their times apart.
This was different. I felt elevated and relieved, as if a part of me long suppressed was free to step forward.
I said to Gueran, “How many of those hospitals do you know of?”
Gueran started from his own reverie. “Huh. Two more.”
“All run by singletons?”
“Normal people, yeah.”
I bit back an angry retort. “Ten thousand broken pods, maybe more.”
“You people ain’t perfect,” Guera
n said. “Leave your trash for us to take care of. No better than the Community.”
“No,” I said. “No better at all.”
Moira looked at me, her face pale in the black night. “Just different,” she said. “Just different aspects of the same humanity.”
“What happened to Quant back there at the town?” I asked. I knew the rest of the pod would have been grappling with it.
Moira shrugged. “We don’t know. We’ve been trying to figure it out.”
“I remember seeing all the broken pods as bright lights, then …”
“Yeah, then nothing.”
Quant spoke up, “For a moment we were all part of a … a … supernode. I could feel them as extensions of us.”
“That’s never happened before,” I said.
“It has for me,” Strom said. He meant the bears. He had connected with the bears, joined in their communal thoughts. For a while they had been an ad hoc pod, something that did not happen with humans.
“It was the broken pods,” Quant said, looking at Jol. “They were desperate for interaction, for consensus.”
Jol spit over the side. “I don’t need a pod,” she said.
“You tell ’em, girl,” said Gueran. “Ya just need a man, like me.”
Jol glared at Gueran, then turned away.
“Can you see her as a node?” I asked, nodding at Jol.
Quant shook her head. “No.”
“It’s not common knowledge what happens to broken pods,” Moira said. “They hide it from us.”
“They say they’re sent to singleton enclaves,” Meda said. “It’s true.” I realized they were speaking for my benefit, thinking out loud so that I could participate. They were trying to draw me back in, if not with chemical memories and pheromones, then with words and verbal consensus. I said nothing.
“But institutionalized and drugged?” Moira said. “It’s not moral.”
“They are only suppressing the modifications that they no longer need,” Meda said. “It’s for their own good.”
“That’s shit,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Moira asked, but I didn’t want to talk anymore, didn’t want to pretend to be a pod when I wasn’t. Instead I looked out over the river.
