Unnaturals

by Merrill, Lynna

  "Well, girl," the old witch said, "you don't have to answer me. I can see some things by myself well enough. As for the rest of them—perhaps I am not meant to see them."

  "You're not a watcher, then. They watch everything. So what are you?"

  She didn't want to sit here and chat, but the tea was half-full. You must drink it slowly, or else you might end up doing the opposite to what you intended, burning your entrails. But the witch could have given her pills.

  "There aren't pills against burning." The witch smiled and raised an eyebrow at her. "Why would there be? Where the people with pills live, there is no sun to burn you, no fire."

  "How about fire in the factories, the places where they make jars?"

  "You don't really think humans work there, do you? Machines have been faithful servants of the natural human for a long, long time. Humans in the cities, wouldn't see real fire, or real coldness, unless they somehow managed to bring it upon themselves. No one does this—almost. For the exceptions, there are shots. I don't have a medstat. I don't have shots."

  "You don't necessarily need a medstat for shots."

  "Yes, and you can make glass with your own hands. If you had stayed in the village, you would have brought progress to it, I am sure. Unless they destroyed you first. But then one of your students might have done it. That's how it always works." The witch met her eyes. "I will show you the way you want now, the way you wouldn't see before. But get that computer of yours out of the cottage first. Else I will show you nothing."

  Slowly, Meliora shook her head. That computer was the only thing of Nic's she had right now, and the only thing that connected her to the city she'd fight. It might also be her only way to get into the witch's computer.

  The witch had an isolated room in a cave behind the waterfall, Mel had sensed. If she could get to that room, she felt she'd find enough secrets to set her on her way. The computer felt hot in her hand. If she let go of it, she thought it would hurt. It would hurt like breaking your hand would.

  "Oh, fine." Stella sighed, and suddenly she looked less like the scary woman Meliora had met here many months ago, who had seemed to know all the secrets of this strange world except for the most important one. She looked like a tired old woman now. "I will show you the way regardless. Come with me."

  She took her directly to the room Meliora had sensed.

  "This room is protected. It might well be the only truly private place in this world. They can't get in here. I am connected to their network, as you rightly observed. But they are not connected to me. They won't be connected to you in here, either. I read their feeds, I see the images their cameras transmit. They see, hear, feel, or know nothing of mine. What I tell you here, they won't know. I will show you the way. Indeed, I will do more than that. I will give you just the right herbs to put a whole city to sleep if they are mixed in the right way and sprayed in the air— or make a whole city brain-dead, if they are mixed differently. Oh, there's an antidote, too. I might even give you that."

  "And you think I'll believe you. Why would you want to destroy the City of Death? You're one of them."

  Yet, she lived like a village woman—ate a village woman's food, had a village woman's brown, sun-scorched skin. The City of Death used rabbitlike. Jerome was old but not sun-drained. Her world was not the City of Death's world.

  Stella shrugged. "What other choice do you have?" She handed Mel a small pouch that no one must see on those cameras that were everywhere. Meliora hid it in the backpack with food that the witch gave her.

  Not that she'd eat any of it. She was done with eating stuff that hadn't been grown in a laboratory. Meliora also expected Stella to give her access to an airtrain, but all Stella did was open the front door to her cottage and point ahead.

  "I never fancied those flying things," she said. "I am afraid I can't help you there."

  "And I am afraid I can't trust you." But Mel's computer could not find an airtrain to connect to, and she had no time to look for it in other ways. She could be looking for days. Months. But I am a Doctor of Computers, and I learned about networks from Nicolas. Besides, there was this last wonderful experience, and the pilot's words. That airtrain hadn't killed her when it crashed. It must have a backup system. It would fly. She'd give herself a few hours to make it fly. If it didn't—she fingered the pendant on her neck. Her dad would give her Albert. She was sure he would.

  She understood her Dad now—truly understood his young self, who had been willing to take bullets rather than never again see his wife and child. She'd go to the City of Death, even though they had eyes everywhere while she had eyes just as far as her computer could connect, and every time she connected now, her body rebelled against it.

  She reached the airtrain. She started working on it. This airtrain would fly—and then, after she'd taken Nicolas out, it would destroy the City of Death.

  The airtrain's computer woke up. Meliora knew something was wrong even before her own computer got the signal. Something was broken irrevocably. The machine wouldn't fly, and she was shaking again and feeling numb. As if she felt the machine's pain—as if the machine had any pain.

  She was a healer, and a Doctor of Computers. She could not bear someone's pain. The thing was broken. It was broken irrevocably, even though its body shone silver and bright in the morning sun. Death from young age. It was all she could think of. Death that someone must finally take away. Through her network, on her screen and even in the air, she now saw something. Pulses, like a heartbeat. Wires like nerves, against a faint shadow of metal that must be the airtrain's body.

  Yet, she couldn't connect to it like she had connected to the wonderful experience's computer. People weren't meant to do this, the pale pilot had said. And time was running out.

  She didn't know much about nerves. Doctors in today's Lucasta didn't know, and village healers knew even less. She was both of those, and yet she was helpless—no. She wasn't. She was a Doctor of Computers and that counted for something when you dealt with machines. She was a also a village healer, and those could sometimes fight disease. It wasn't easy. They paid a price. Few healers got as old as old Codes. They surrendered bits of themselves every time they healed, Meliora suddenly knew—just like in the old, old days, doctors had given blood from other people to the needy.

  Meliora gripped the knife Stella had given her with the food and made an incision in her forearm. There was pain and dizziness and burning now. Good. Somehow she knew that this would help her find and manipulate the nerves and wires and buttons in the air and in her mind better. There had been pain in Jerome's wonderful experience. There had also been pain—of the emotional kind—when the airtrain had snowed. She had both kinds of pain now.

  With the bloodied arm, Mel touched the torn cables sticking from the airtrain's twisted door. Yes, the pain became stronger, but that was not all she felt. She felt the computer better now. She started repairing the invisible nerves.

  An hour later, the airtrain jumped from the ground. Meliora flew, but not to the City of Death. There was another stop she must make first.

  She landed right in the village's street. Let them see her. Let them know that machines existed that they had never seen either in the village or the cities, let them know that there was a world beyond the sky's horizon, and that they should sometimes look up.

  There was a chance for Nicolas, a chance against the City of Death. Perhaps the witch hadn't lied to her. Perhaps the herbs would do exactly what Stella said they would. Mel wouldn't try it with Nicolas still inside. But she had the Book of the Gods with her, her Dad's last gift, together with the pendant. The Book said that when the gods had gone to the sky it had been a sacrifice for their human creations.

  That's why you gave it to me, Dad. So that I would know. Because you could not say it in words. Her dad would come with her now. She knew he would. He would let her test the sleeping and waking up part of the herbs on him, and he'd be glad that his life had been useful to his daughter and to the boy who was chi
ef after him. And to the world.

  She didn't even have to get down from her airtrain. The old chief, when he saw her at the door, ran to her and climbed up without a doubt.

  But then, she did get down. Another airtrain was landing. She'd felt it in the air long before she saw it, and she knew the person inside it was Nicolas. He even sent her a message, telling her to wait for him where she was. She barely read it. It was a bit hard to perceive human words just now, after flying her airtrain with invisible wires.

  By the time she was on the ground, she could perceive them, even though some part of her really didn't like this. It wanted to stay attached to her machine. It wanted Nicolas to become attached to his, too, so that they both could communicate in just the right and proper way.

  Nic leaped from his airtrain instead of walking down its stairs. He ran to her, grabbed her, and kissed her more intensely than even when he'd done the rape-pretense.

  People were gathering. Walter, the newest chief, Belle, Carlos, old Codes with little Lizzy. For a moment, it was just like coming home.

  "Oh, Nic, you ran away! You're alive and well—let's go, Nic! Let's stop them from damaging any more lives! Let's destroy the City of Death and free the world from their tyranny! We can come back then—"

  "Destroy the City of Death? Mel, my love, this is exactly what we won't do."

  She glimpsed the shot in his hand just as he pulled her to himself for a second kiss. Then darkness fell.

  Place

  She woke up surrounded by medstats in what was undoubtedly the City of Death. It must be, with Benedict's face hovering inches over hers.

  "You won't be kissing me, Ben, will you? No? Then back off."

  The old-young man backed off with a smile. "I haven't kissed a girl in something like seventy years."

  "I don't advise you to. Take a piece of wisdom from me: kisses never lead to anything good."

  "Mel, you must know that—"

  "She must know many things, and yours can wait."

  Jerome, and she didn't care to hear his voice ever again in her life. She slept.

  The second time she woke up, she was surrounded with medstats, physical wires being stuck into her skin. Fluids were running into her, and her body was heavy and disobedient, though her head was clear. No invisible, virtual nerves or interfaces. Her father was beside her, holding her hand, and Nicolas was standing by the bed. She thought she saw Nicolas sigh with relief.

  She looked at the younger man. "Please get out of my sight," she said, "chief of Death."

  None of the men said anything at first. Then Nicolas sighed.

  "Jerome tells me you didn't get to the most important part of the wonderful experience. The City of Death is what keeps this world from becoming what it was before, Mel. This is why they surround themselves with all that decay. It is a reminder. Of what the world was, of what it should never again become—of what it could become at any point if someone doesn't keep control. You know what those entwined snakes with the bitten tails mean? Repetition, and infinity. None of what has happened to us is just a whim, Mel. It was all for the greater good—"

  "Jerome tells you!" She was shouting now, so her voice swallowed his. "Why don't you go to Jerome then!? And leave me alone! Perhaps he'd like you around—I know you find it easy to make 'chiefs' like and trust you and, one day, transfer their power to you, one way or another. Will it work this time? The gods know! What will you do with this, and when will you abandon it? Even the gods don't know that!"

  His eyes narrowed and her father opened his mouth to say something for the first time. Mel's eyes closed, and somehow so did her ears. She saw nothing, heard nothing—and she'd once told herself to never cry because of these two, so she didn't.

  The third time she woke up, she found a small computer beside her in addition to the medstats with liquids and wires. It wasn't Nicolas'. It belonged to Benedict234354, and there were links to specific text and video feeds on the screen. She watched them and read them. She'd been doing this all her life, and she could not just stop. She could make herself not listen to people and not look at people. They knew it. They used it.

  The feeds told her that there had been unnaturals in the old, bad days. Or, rather, some people had had hints of the unnatural—of thinking about more than their own selfish good, of trying to help the world or even establish better worlds. Sometimes they succeeded, a little.

  She saw a video of a kind old woman calling herself a mother to many starved, homeless children, giving them food, finding doctors who would heal the sick of them. She saw doctors who agreed to help without being paid. She saw rulers, too, people who had power and wanted to use it for more than buying airtrains and such for themselves. They made schools for children who could not read and didn't know the numbers. They paid for lakes being cleaned of debris.

  She saw people with less power, too, who still did what they could. A piece of junk removed from the river was still more than nothing. A piece of bread given to a starving child was more than nothing.

  And then, she saw some of the kind rulers send airtrains laden not with snowflakes but with explosive missiles to places where children still lived, though not the children they sent to school. The enemy.

  It had not been possible to care for the whole world, the feed said. Because usually no one was powerful enough—and because, even at moments when someone was, that someone was likely not to be kind—or his or her kindness was broken. Bad genes. All humans had them.

  Genes could be better in the next generation if carefully selected, Meliora knew. She watched the world of long ago, and knew it had come a long way.

  The City of Death had the power these days, Meliora learned from the feeds. It had had it for centuries—and that, the feed said, was right and good.

  It was because of the City of Death's gentle ruling hand that people had genes that these days didn't let them hurt others—at least in the cities—that people were young, led pleasant lives, had only one child per couple, and couldn't concentrate on something, remember something, or suffer about something for too long. People didn't overpopulate and poison the earth but were gradually and non-violently becoming fewer. They didn't harm other people on purpose, and on top of all that were happy.

  "The slight problem with that, you bastards," Meliora whispered, "is that they live empty lives devoid not only of suffering and violence but of curiosity and love, and that they die young."

  The cities were good places, the feeds said. The cities had all the right climate, all the right microbes, all the right air and even meticulously crafted daylight and sunlight, measured to be more beneficial to a human organism than whatever nature provided outside.

  There were also, of course, the villages. Places without the cities' health, convenience and tight control. At some point someone in the City of Death had become worried that people were losing their skill to fend for themselves, and not everyone in the city agreed that this was a good thing. What if something happened? What if an asteroid hit the earth, or magnetic rays from the sun destroyed all computers? People could not, should not, become entirely peaceful. Some of them must be able to live in a cruel world.

  Hence the villages. Each of those started its existence supplied at least with some goods. Then, slowly, the City of Death let people there wean themselves from the cities' conveniences. Throw in some godly books that forbade or allowed certain things, and it worked quite well.

  The City of Death didn't know if there were real gods. They didn't care. And, they didn't let the villages be too free. If a village made too much progress—if it discovered how to make long-range missiles, for example, like Village 15, destroyed two days ago, the City of Death took action.

  Oh, old Nicolas, Meliora thought. If you knew. If only you knew. She wanted to throw the computer at the wall, but she didn't. She laid it carefully beside herself and slept away from it all.

  The fourth time, the medstats were still there, and so was Jerome.

  "You know, if you p
refer to die, I'd rather not waste any more medicine on you. Ben has been infusing you with his precious microbes—the ones that keep a person young. Oh, don't worry. It is neither your mother's transformation nor Ben's gruesome thing. We gave you just the right amount. Keeps you alive. Not young." He winked at her. "You know about just right amounts, don't you—and no, that old hag Stella told me nothing about the herbs she gave you. I thought she might want to get rid of me some day, though. No, I have Ben the frog-guy to thank for the knowledge. He'd been wallowing in what you brought with you like a pig in mud. 'Such knowledge, such great possibilities,' he goes—and that old hag had it and never gave it to us. Well, what can a man do?" He shrugged exaggeratedly, which resulted in a bout of wheezing and coughing.

  She turned her back to him but couldn't escape from his voice.

  "So, how about your young man? A day ago he stormed out of here as if wild dogs were chasing him. You should be grateful to him for bringing you—Oh, how much I love that look on your face! Mel, my dear girl, many things are fun in life, but few are as much fun as a broken heart!" He started coughing again.

  She took a deep breath. "You could use some microbes yourself, Jerome."

  Wheezing laughter now. "Gods save me from that."

  "And will they save you from this, teacher?"

  There were medstats around Meliora, and her body and mind were pulsing with invisible nerves. She reached out—and the medstats reached out, too. Metal hands shoved Jerome against the wall.

  You didn't need brute force if you had computers. You didn't need herbs and such. And, in a city so dependent on computers, if you could reach out to the machines, you could bring the whole city down. Right now. Perhaps she'd never have the chance again. Benedict and the rest of them were smart. Certainly Benedict or whoever was best at computers—whoever knew about machines, humans, and thoughtmotion interfaces, would know how to research her new power. The pilot had even said she wasn't the only one. She might never get another chance—and, right now, her father and Nicolas weren't in the city. She felt them in an airtrain somewhere. She wouldn't hurt them.