by Richard Lord
CHAPTER 6
“She was beautiful and all I could do was talk to her while the cruel world made it impossible for me to stop it. I could hear the other people on the line, being changed, holding on to our conversations as if they were their own. It was at those times I felt my rare ability was a curse.” -- from the Book of Phillip
As he let go of her hand and knelt down beside her Phillip said, “I have new hope now. I want you to always look forward to tomorrow. Please don’t give up. You have a child to be born and your child should be a child, not a synth. I promise to do my best to keep that from happening.”
He drew on the ground aimlessly and then the line moved forward. He stood and moved forward and was next to her again. Then it came to him. He thought to her, “Do you know where I can get something to draw on or with?” He listened intensely for her thoughts, but the further down the line she moved, every day, the less she thought like a human. It was becoming difficult to interpret her thoughts. “Please, think hard. This is important. I won’t get caught. I haven’t been caught yet. I have a secret way of getting around. I can’t use it to get you out of here. You and your baby would die if you were unplugged at this stage. The plan will be soon, but you have to get through the next stage. I’m very sorry.” Then Phillip went silent and he saw an image in his head. He stood up, kissed her hand and said, “Thank you!” He clicked and he was in a room that was clearly some type of office. He moved quickly to the desk and there, just as he saw in the picture that model KRY-1-CT-A1 had shown him in his head, was a pad of paper and a holder full of pens. He grabbed a pen and a few of the pieces of paper from the pad. He turned to the door and put his ear to it. He didn’t hear anything on the other side. He listened for thoughts of others, even synth thoughts. He didn’t hear anything. He knew he had to be very careful and pay close attention to the sound of thoughts nearby or he would be caught.
He drew a box on the piece of paper and a note over it. Then he opened the door slowly and peered outside. He saw that the hallway went in two directions. He closed the door and drew that on his paper connected to the box. Then feeling emboldened opened the door, walked through it and turned right, noting every passageway. At every door he stopped, looked in, drew relative sized boxes and notes for each one. He thought to himself that this would take a while, but he had to wait before he could use his plan anyway.
A few hours later he looked at what he had so far. He had no idea the job of a cartographer was so tedious. He thought his first drawing was a jumble and noted all the question marks for the places he had to avoid because there were synths working in those areas or moving through hallways, etc.
Feeling as if he had pushed his luck enough for one day, he clicked.
“So I assume you went to see her again? You were gone a long time. Longer than usual.” The voice came from behind him.
He turned and said, “Actually, get everyone together. I want to show you some plans.” He looked at Venetia with her arms folded. He heard her sigh in frustration as she turned to get the rest of them. He turned to take a seat at their meeting table, or what served as one.
“Hey boss, what’s up?”, asked James.
“I was just about to ask you the same. What’s everyone working on?” He watched as the rest of them walked in.
“Tina is working on your ride. The way you severed it’s connection to the uplink was a bit rudimentary. She said it’s going to take her awhile to get it back to full normal functionality. Jason is working on a fuel source for it. Strangely, he’s thinking sand. I’ll let him explain that. Marla has mostly been cleaning up after all of us and I’ve been going over the latest communications intercepts. I’m starting to have a knack for the language. It’s logical, but so much so that it’s hard to think what some of it means, even if I do run decryption on it. Paul and Siri aren’t here. They went to try to snag some more equipment.” James folded his hands. So Venetia says you’ve got a new plan?”
“I do, but what you all are doing is important. Then he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and put it down on the table. “What I’m trying to do is map out the place from the inside. Not only would it help us get better equipment if we knew where specific things were, it would give me targets for later.”
“Aren’t we quite a ways from trying to attack that place?” Venetia asked.
Everyone turned to Phillip. He responded. “Maybe not, but we’ll see. Venetia, you know how to map. Do you want to come with me to help?”
“I used to draw sea charts. That’s quite different from what this looks like and a lot simpler.” Venetia leaned back and folded her arms.
“Okay, understood, but would you try?” Phillip asked.
“Even with what you can do, I don’t think you’re going to be able to get away if you get caught and certainly not with two of us.” Venetia leaned an elbow on the table and looked at his rudimentary drawing.
“So that’s a no?” Phillip asked. Everyone turned towards her.
“You know I don’t ever want to go back there. It’s why I don’t help on the raids. I’m perfectly happy building nicer quarters here, for everyone and helping James out with the systems. But I didn’t say no.” She paused and then her face got more serious, as if that was possible. “I’ll go if you can think of a quick way for me to take myself out if we are captured.”
“We’re not going to get captured and you don’t have to die if we do. I’d get us out.” Phillip waved the back of his hand at the air between them.
“I’m serious.” Venetia said, sternly.
“I know. That’s what is troubling. I’d rather not take you if it’s that upsetting to you. I understand. I really do.” Phillip looked off at the wall opposite of him.
“I know you understand. I look at your face every time you come back here from visiting her. None of us even knows why she is so important to you that you risk yourself daily to see her and watch what they are doing to her.” Venetia leans slightly towards him, over the table.
“I can’t explain. I suppose it…I just can’t explain, I don’t fully understand so how could I explain it to someone else?” Phillip answers.
James interrupts. “We all understand about as well as you do. We understand how lucky we are to have gotten out, thanks to you. Not enough of us did. That’s why we are working so hard on this and we all use things we learned in life to work towards a way to end what goes on in there.” James looks at Venetia.
“I said, I’d go. I just want a fail safe!” Venetia raised her voice at James in her response. Then she pushed her chair out and left the room. James started to get up, but Phillip grabbed his hand.
“Let her go. Give it time. We have time.” Then he held his hand out and swept the room, “Anyone? Anything else to add?”
No one said anything so he concluded, “Okay, well everyone’s working on something. I am curious how sand could be used. Right now I’m tired, so I’m going to hit my bunk.”
CHAPTER 7
“I felt like I had been freed even though I never knew I was in a cage.” -- from the Book of Tomorrow
As the fire died down she woke up because of the cold and moved over towards him. She laid down and put her body in the same position with his as she had the night before. She stared out at the new world. Then she heard him moaning in his sleep. Wanting that to end, she decided the best cure was to go to sleep again, herself.
When the sun rose she unwrapped herself from him and began her day as she had the day before.
He woke up and as he got up, he looked over at her. Again squatting. He reached up to his face and wiped the sleep from it but kept moving both hands back to tug at his own hair. “Why do you insist on peeing in every spot we find that we can make a camp out of?”
“Why do you moan when you sleep?” She asked in return, standing to re-button her trousers. “Do you have bad dreams or something?”
“No, you do. More like bad girl dreams. Not the kind that are easy on me trying to be a decent gentl
eman in reaction to.” He said as he again realized this camp was lost. He turned away to relieve himself.
“What do you mean by that?” She asked.
“A gentleman is hard to define. I’ll think about the definition of that and get back to you.” He said.
“I meant about my dreams.” She noted.
“Even harder to explain. I’ll think about that too, since clearly today is a walking day again.” He turned and pointed at the puddle she had left. She pointed at his face as it went red with frustration. “I wouldn’t have, if you hadn’t already!” Then he saw her shrug at him and he walked over and picked up the pack.
“Do you have a wife or a girlfriend?” She inquired.
“Not an easy thing to answer. I suppose my mistress is what most people call fear.” He answered.
She looked at him sideways. “Then you’re a pretty bad lover. You don’t pay any attention to her.”
He considered her comment. Then he responded, “I’ve been married and I have children.”
“Where are they now?” She cut deep and she knew it. She didn’t know the entire story, but she wanted to make her point. Realizing she really didn’t know the circumstances that brought him here she brushed her fingers through her hair, ready to follow him again. She said, “You were right. Snake is pretty good.”
He considered how many thousands of ways he tried to change outcomes for everyone, but he smile and said, “Cows taste a lot better.” He replied while looking up at the sun. He held out his hand, arm’s length in front of his face and began folding fingers back into his palm. Then he begins to walk.
“When do we come across one of those?” She asked.
“There aren’t any cows in the desert. Mostly it’s lizards, mice, rats, snakes, birds and wolves. Although it’s been a while since I have seen a coyote out here.” He explained.
“Oh. So what do coyotes taste like?” She asked.
“Generally people don’t eat coyotes. Usually it’s the other way around, although coyotes, like desert foxes, mostly eat mice and lizards. Actually most canines eat mice. However, when they hunt in packs they sometimes eat deer or even cows. But coyotes are usually lone.” He picked up his step.
She could tell he was walking faster because he was irritated with her, but she was curious. “What do you mean by that? The way you used the word pack.”
He looked at her, “Ahh, Well, let’s see.” He thought for a moment on how to explain and then decided to just begin talking. “We, as humans, chose to be social. For the same reasons wolves and other species choose the same survival strategy. It may not have been the best plan, but once it was conceived, it was the only plan available for survival. Humans will kill other humans, especially if they see them as vulnerable. Therefore, a pack may gang up on someone, meaning attack in numbers, or they will see the other person has a pack of their own and determine that it is not worth the risk to attack. Basic Risk vs. Reward thinking. If you are solo, then your best plan of action is to form a pack. The same is true of species that humans hunt and vice versa.”
She considered this concept and determined it was true. Although her experience with other species was limited, she certainly knew how this worked down where they had come from and where she had spent her whole life. Then she turned to him and asked, “So if you can do that magic thing and take us anywhere, why are we in the desert?”
“Because you could use the sun.” He smiled to himself at the joke, but knew she didn’t know about beaches.
She nodded. “Ok, when I get enough sun, can we go to one of the other places?” She asked.
“If you can find food here, then you can find food anywhere. One day at a time, girl.” At that, he stopped and turned towards her. “By the way, what’s your name?”
She asked, “What’s yours?” Then she watched his brows furrow.
He looked at her for a long time and then he said, “I’ve gone been called a lot of things. You can call me by the name I was originally given. It’s Adam. So out with it, what is your name?”
“My mother called me Tomorrow. She said she got the name from something she remembered the martyr saying to her. He said he never wanted her to stop hoping for tomorrow, so she named me that.”
“Well, your mother is about as good at naming people as my daughter was. I suppose they would have gotten along well, had they met under better circumstances. And can you stop calling him the martyr? His name was Phillip.”
“How do you know that? Did you know him?” She asked, her heartbeat rising.
“Not well. My Grandson knew him better.” Then as he saw the suspicious look on her face he added, “The two men on the rise we were watching. One was my grandson, Brian. The other was Phillip, his son.”
“That’s impossible!” She yelled loudly while squeezing her fists together yet holding them down to her side while trembling with anger. “The martyr died to save us all!”
“Yes, he did. My daughter died with him.” He took a step towards her.
“Liar!” Tomorrow yelled at him with extreme anger and then she swung and hit him hard striking him in the face.
He backed a step away and then said, “That’s what I meant when I said we’re back to now.”
She paused considering hitting him again but she wanted to hear him. “That doesn’t make sense and how could we see a dead person?”
“We were in the past. I can’t do that too much anymore. I also cannot travel ahead. At least not in a way I can explain. The future is something created by the superimposition of events from the past and current, watched like a movie with other movies played under it, in layers.” He stopped, realizing the explanation was not changing her mind. Then he continued trying again. “It’s like the thing with the rocks. But I can do it with time too. They didn’t know we were watching them that day. It felt good to see them. But I know how they think and I could see that Brian was teaching his son a hard lesson. Phillip didn’t know then that he was talking to his father.” Then his eyes looked up and his finger raised to his own chin, “Actually, I think Phillip knew, but he wasn’t sure. Not then anyway.” He saw that he was getting nowhere, but continued anyway. “See, Phillip thought his father was dead. At least that’s what his mother thought. So that is what he was brought up knowing about his father.”
“How can you be that old? No one loves that long!” She looked at him waiting to hear more of what she perceived to be falsifications.
Pausing, to consider what he was going to say next, he decided just to blurt it out, “This is going to sound strange, but Phillip was my older brother. I was born after him and I wasn’t that old when he gave his life.” Adam looks at her realizing he is confusing her as much as convincing her that he’s making it all up.
“That was just before I was born. I’m not as old as you.” She thought on what he was saying for a while and then said, “So it doesn’t make sense! What made you so crazy? Eating snake or the hot sun up here?” She looked at him, studying his face.
“Yeah, well there’s a thing about time. I’ve lived a lot more of it by moving through it, staying in some of them for long periods and then back at different times. So even though I age slower, it’s been long enough that it’s beginning to show.” He gave her a look wondering if she was understanding his explanation at all. Then he added, “I’ve gone around the sun more times in my life than the planet has, if that helps to explain it. Therefore more years in my time than, for instance, you. You stayed in the same place, relative to the sun.” He thought about that and looked at her and then said, “Never mind. I can barely explain it to people who get the concept of relativity and time travel, let alone to someone.”, he abruptly stops himself.
“You still think I’m stupid?” She asked.
“No, I think you haven’t been given the chance to learn. That’s what I’m trying to do.” He looked down into the sand and asked, “Do you want me to take you back now?”
“Just stay in front of me and give me your knif
e. I’ll think about it.” She held out her hand and tapped her foot as if she was in a hurry.
He reached into his shirt and handed over the knife then he asked, “What made you decide I wouldn’t just use it on you when I pulled it out?”
Tomorrow looked at him. She gestured with the knife for him to keep walking as she answered, “Because you’re crazy. You think you’re doing what you are supposed to do.”
Adam turned and began walking while laughing, “Not bad logic at all. Wrong, but not bad. Plus, if I’m crazy from eating snakes and the hot sun, why do you want to stay up here?”
Tomorrow replied, “Hard to explain. I’ll think about it and get back to you.”
Adam turned to see her smile as he himself began laughing. “Clever. I told you I didn’t think you were stupid.”
CHAPTER 8
“The truth is a fleeting creature, like a shrew. I was told if you see one three times in your life you die. I met a lot of shrews.” – from the Book of Persistence
“Sir, we know what you actually trained him in, off the books. There were witnesses.” The General’s face contorted as he spoke and his hand moved to wipe the look off of his own face. “What were you thinking? He already wasn’t like us, you made him faster, smarter and taught him how to do things I any normal man would go pale at considering.”
“I made him realize he needed to survive, because people like you would hunt him if they knew what he could do. I taught him what we are supposed to teach. Survival. Good luck getting a tag on that one. He’s not going to come in easy. You can sit there with that look on your face like you are in control, but I promise you, he’s in control of his life. That’s what we are supposed to teach.” The Lieutenant pauses and then adds, “I serve for a purpose. When I see someone like that, I’m supposed to act. Don’t think for a minute he had it easy, I made sure of that. Think instead of what he does for us because we forged him.” The Lieutenant looks over at his bottle of whiskey. “I wouldn’t change a thing and if we could go back and redo it, think of all of the things that would have gone horribly wrong that we are responsible for making sure don’t”
