Night Road

by A. M. Jenkins

  He waited a few more moments, gauging the time, then said, “That’s enough,” and reached over to pull the wrist away. But he held it just a second longer, to make the omni boy look up at him, so he could see Cole’s cold stare warning him that he’d better not smirk again.

  The boy saw. He seemed to wilt a little.

  Then Cole released the wrist. “Thank you,” he said, a cool dismissal.

  The boy left without a word. And rapidly.

  Gordon did not thank Cole. He did not say anything, just sat there, slumped and dejected. Cole watched him, thinking what to say next.

  “It’s done,” he told Gordon abruptly. “You’ve learned something. And now you must get up.”

  Gordon shook his head but obeyed, getting to his feet. He was slightly taller than Cole, but his eyes were big and sad—yes, like a puppy’s.

  “How old are you?” Cole asked him.

  “Eighteen.”

  Cole put one hand on the boy’s shoulder—not out of companionship but to guide him back into the heart of the Colony.

  “I really want to wake up now,” Gordon said, his lip trembling—and Cole saw, to his horror, that the downcast eyes appeared to be brimming with tears.

  But there was nothing he could say to make it better. “I know you do,” he said, his voice flat, and he did not look again. Pity would help no one, and getting sucked into an emotional response would be one step toward the brink of a long slippery slope. He knew that from experience.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE living room looked as it had when Cole had first come in. Johnny had taken the omni girl off somewhere. Mitch was still in his chair. The two remaining omnis were lazing again. Cole knew that if he got closer to the back door he’d still be able to hear Frederick droning on. Frederick always droned on. And except for the occasional feed, Cole knew, Frederick hadn’t left the Building in well over a hundred years.

  This place is soft, Cole thought. An incompetent new heme walking around, and no one saw the need to keep an eye on him. Apparently nobody had even bothered to teach him the basics of feeding. Cole doubted anyone would do much more than bat an eye when they found out what had just happened.

  Still, it wasn’t Cole’s job to babysit.

  Gordon hadn’t moved to sit down. He just stood in the middle of the living room looking overwhelmed, and rather lost.

  As Cole watched, he sniffed and swiped his eyes with his sleeve.

  “When Sandor comes,” Cole said to Mitch, “tell him we’re in the kitchen.” Mitch waved that he’d heard. And Cole guided Gordon through the swinging door.

  The kitchen was empty. If Seth had gotten juice for the girl, he was long gone. A faint odor of recently baked bread permeated the air. Not fresh—whatever cooking had been done had taken place several days ago. The kitchen was mostly for the omnis, who were not allowed to bring food out into the rest of the apartment, and it was an inviting place—or would have been if it wasn’t for the warm yeasty-wheat smell, which was stomach turning to Cole. Its brick floors and granite countertops had been designed with two things in mind: preventing fires and keeping the omnis happy. The large table in the nook at the end had a cast-iron frame and a tiled top. In the middle stood a stainless steel container filled with yellow roses. Real roses, Cole noticed, catching the faint, soft scent.

  Gordon slouched wearily into the chair Cole pulled out for him. Cole took a seat opposite.

  They waited in silence. Gordon did not move. Cole sat, elbows on the table, his fingers laced, observing Gordon. Now that the boy wasn’t feeding or puking, Cole could see the shocked, slightly bewildered look in his red-rimmed eyes—the same one Cole had seen in omnis as they walked away after having survived a car accident.

  He felt another stir of sympathy but pushed it away. Anger, on the other hand—now that was called for. The Building hemes had obviously let the kid feed as freely as he had wanted on the resident omnis, without rules, without any attempt at discipline, without giving him any concept of moderation or restraint. The Colony hemes weren’t lazy; he knew they all did their share—more than their share—of running the Colony. And he knew that most of them—no, all of them except Frederick—tried to feed mostly outside the Building. But their feeds were more like grazing, contentedly and easily like cattle, and if the grazing seemed as though it might get difficult, they came here rather than sort through the difficulties. It probably hadn’t occurred to them that a new heme would need structure and guidance.

  Sandor—Sandor, who was responsible for the kid—was soft in different ways. He lived on the road, like Cole, and was sharp in that respect. But he had a heart like a marshmallow. And he had not done right by this boy.

  Cole gave the pale face a silent appraisal. The kid was very young. Physically, about the age Cole had been when Johnny had created him.

  But mentally, emotionally? Worse than a child. He couldn’t even care for himself.

  What had Sandor been doing for him?

  Now Cole took his time reading the clues on Gordon’s face. There was a haggard look about him, and the deep-set eyes—which were hazel, damn it, not black, not like Guerdon’s at all, so why did they give Cole the feeling he already knew this kid?—had dark circles under them. The kid had not been sleeping well.

  I just want to go home, he’d said. He was unhappy. Having trouble adjusting.

  “Would you like a glass of water?” Cole asked, making an effort to be kind.

  Gordon didn’t even bother to look up. “Do I drink water?” It was the nonresponse of a sullen teenager.

  Cole was relieved; kindness apparently wasn’t called for. “Every living thing needs water,” he said, his voice curt now. “Are you a living thing?”

  “You tell me.”

  “The answer is yes. Yes, you are a living thing, and therefore you do drink water. Weren’t you sweating just now? Don’t you urinate?”

  “Yeah. But it’s blue,” Gordon said, angry.

  Lashing out, Cole thought. Because he doesn’t like the situation he finds himself in. It was useless behavior at best. Also rude—and very omni-like, in Cole’s opinion.

  “Some advice,” he told Gordon. “Some good advice, and if you’re wise, you’ll take it: Don’t dwell too much on your feelings just now. It will help you get used to things.”

  “I’m not going to get used to blue pee.”

  “Believe me, you will.”

  For answer, Gordon put his head in his hands. They sat there for a moment. Finally, Gordon said in a muffled voice, “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

  Self-pity. The boy probably had been wallowing in it for some time. He’d been indulged and pampered, when what he’d needed was a heme boot camp.

  “There’s no room for ‘mean to’ in the life of a heme,” Cole told him.

  “I don’t understand this place,” Gordon said into his hands. “I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do. She said to take her to the edge. Isn’t that what she meant?”

  “You went past the edge.”

  Gordon lifted his head, but he wouldn’t look at Cole. His face and body proclaimed that he was still immersed in his own misery. “I thought since I wasn’t hungry—”

  “You don’t get hungry,” Cole said coldly. “Nobody gets hungry. We feel Thirst—and you shouldn’t even feel that if you conduct yourself with any sense at all. In any case, you are not an omni anymore, so stop talking like one. And we’re all very lucky you weren’t feeling Thirst, because you would have killed her.”

  “But I kept my hands off her. I thought—”

  “That was the only smart thing you did. If you’d been holding her, she wouldn’t have fallen like that; and none of us would have known anything was wrong until it was too late. So you can feel fortunate you did exactly one thing right.”

  At that moment Sandor came in, holding the swinging door carefully so it made no noise.

  Sandor was powerfully built. He looked like someone who had been in a lot of brawls, but Cole knew
that his crooked nose came from a girl throwing a flowerpot at him in a fit of jealousy. It had healed before it could be reset, and Sandor would not consent to have it broken again so that it could be straightened.

  “Cole!” He came to wrap Cole up in a bear hug.

  “Hello, Sandor,” Cole said, his voice muffled against the genial shoulder, which was covered in a thick, shapeless sweater. Sandor might be sturdy, but he always seemed to be cold. He’d shaved off that rust-colored beard he’d had last time Cole had seen him.

  “So, little fellow,” Sandor said, peering closely at Gordon as he drew up a chair. “I hear you had a difficulty while I was gone.”

  “A difficulty.” Cole snorted. “Just a small one. Haven’t you taught him anything?”

  “Teaching takes time, Cole,” Sandor said, calm. “But I can see why you’re worried.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “Of course you are. I’ve known you for more than a hundred and eighty years, and I say you’re quite perturbed. But to answer your question,” he continued as Cole tried to speak, “Gordon can’t learn everything all at once. That’s why I brought him here, so he could start off in a protected environment.”

  “I’m not sure having omnis at his beck and call is a good way to start off.”

  “But don’t you think it’s better to start off gently, ease him into it? You see my point, do you not?”

  Cole did see his point; Cole had once tried to make the transition gradual and easy.

  “No,” he told Sandor.

  Then he turned to Gordon. “Listen here,” he said, making his voice sharp, so the kid would pay attention. “This is important. You do not have the experience to combine any kind of sexual contact with the feed. Keep the two completely separate until someone—like Sandor—tells you that you are ready to do otherwise. That means no touching, no kissing, and certainly no rubbing up against people.”

  “How can I feed if I don’t touch anybody?”

  “Maybe if you only feed from dudes for a while, you’ll learn where the line is drawn.”

  “Now, Cole,” Sandor said, “don’t you think you’re being a little hard on the boy? It’s only been a couple of weeks—”

  “In a couple of weeks he can create a dozen more fools just like him. What have you taught him, Sandor? What does he know?”

  Sandor sighed. “Go on,” he told Gordon. “Tell him some of the things you’ve learned.”

  Gordon didn’t reply. He glared down at the tiled tabletop.

  “Go on,” Sandor urged.

  “We drink blood,” Gordon intoned.

  “No kidding,” said Cole. “What else?”

  “We can’t go out in sunlight.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we blister.”

  “‘Blister,’” Cole echoed, and for once he didn’t bother to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “What a funny little word. What does it mean, Gordon?”

  “It means…. I don’t know. Sunlight hurts us.”

  Cole cast a quick piercing glance at Sandor. “Let me describe what it means,” he told Gordon.

  “Oh, Cole, no,” Sandor said sadly.

  “Your skin burns and falls off—just the skin at first, which exposes the nerves. And then if you don’t get to safety, your insides start cooking.”

  “Really, Cole,” Sandor said, shaking his head, “you’re going to scare him.”

  “He needs to be scared. He has no caution. He has no control. Gordon, listen to this. Our bodies heal.” Cole hesitated, then pressed on. “Our minds don’t. And in sun, your mind goes too, before the end.” Of course Gordon didn’t notice the effort it took to say that, and if Sandor did, he knew better than to show it. “But even when it’s all gone, when all that’s left of you is just a heap of charred bone and tattered flesh, you’re still alive. Do you understand? There must be hundreds, maybe thousands of us who were thought to be dead, all under the ground, conscious but inert, staring at a coffin lid only inches away, in the dark.”

  He felt immensely satisfied, because the sulky expression on Gordon’s face was gone, replaced by horrified fascination.

  With a touch of doubt, Cole noticed. Hmm. That wasn’t good.

  “Well,” said Sandor, shifting in his chair. “That’s enough to give anyone nightmares for a decade or so.”

  “Good. I hope Gordon is now afraid to even blink until he’s asked you whether it’s a good idea.” Cole turned back to Gordon. “In what ways can we die?”

  Gordon shook his head.

  “You don’t know? Any theories?”

  “I don’t know,” Gordon said.

  “That’s right; you don’t. Because, guess what, Gordon, we can’t die.”

  “Now, Cole,” Sandor put in, “you don’t know that.”

  “When have you seen anyone die, Sandor?”

  “I don’t like to bring up an old argument, but Harold died.”

  Cole sat back in his chair. It was an old argument, and neither of them ever budged on it. “He did not.”

  “I think he did. It’s a matter of debate,” Sandor told Gordon, who had forgotten his self-pity for the moment and was paying full attention. “There were a few of us who crashed an omni party at a park, and the omnis had brought dirt bikes. Some of us took turns riding them, and Harold unfortunately rode into a low-strung cable. It took his head right off. Oh, the omnis screamed.”

  “Everyone screamed,” Cole said.

  “Yes. But,” Sandor added quickly, “I feel fairly sure that he died.”

  “No. When his head was lying there in the grass, his eyes moved,” Cole said.

  “Cole does not lie,” Sandor told Gordon. “But what he saw, in the eyes, I didn’t see.”

  “They moved,” Cole said.

  “You imagined it. You know his muscles were useless—how could he move his eyes?”

  “They did move.”

  “So you say. I think you were too upset to observe as dispassionately as you would like to think. One moment Harold was speeding by as he demonstrated the rebel yell,” Sandor told Gordon, “and the next his head was flying through the air while his body kept riding the dirt bike. It was quite horrible to see. Emotions were high.”

  “What…what happened to the…body?” Gordon asked. “If there was a question about whether he was really…you know.”

  “Buried,” Cole said. “Even we can’t grow new heads.”

  “There,” Sandor said cheerfully. “That’s one thing Cole and I agree on. We cannot grow new heads. It is true, Gordon, that our bodies go into a sort of hibernation if we go too long without sustenance. This sleep looks like death, but it is not. So you must be sure to feed often, and regularly.”

  “And don’t forget,” Cole said. “Long before hibernation comes the Thirst, which turns you into an animal—all instinct, no control. The point being,” he added, “that everything you do now has consequences, Gordon. You can’t ignore them. You can’t get away from them. You can’t get away from anything. Like”—he looked around the kitchen, casting about for an example, and landed on the roses—” spring. People always look forward to spring, don’t they? Everything comes to life—but it’s just going to die again. Everything starts anew in the spring—but the clock is ticking on all that newness; it is always ticking on every bit of life—except you. You get to watch the clock tick. You get to watch everyone you’ve ever loved die and leave you. You get to watch everything you’ve ever known change and disappear.”

  “You are so depressing, Cole,” Sandor burst out. “You would try the patience of a saint with your ‘We cannot die’ and The clock is ticking.”

  “You’re not doing Gordon any service by letting him think that he can treat this lightly.”

  “He has plenty of time to learn how to treat it,” Sandor said easily. “As do we all.”

  Cole suddenly realized how tired he was. He looked at his watch: past four thirty in the morning. The Building was safe from sunlight; he could keep any hou
rs he liked here. But he was used to being safely in bed well before dawn.

  “Did you see Johnny when you came in?” he asked Sandor.

  “No. They said he was in the back bedroom, tending to—what was her name? Carol?”

  “Christine.”

  Gordon showed no interest in Christine, or in anything else now. Cole watched his eyes. His head was bowed, but his eyes flicked back and forth, locking on nothing; he was thinking.

  About what?

  It was hard to tell now. There was obviously a lot going through his head. His eyes darted up once, across and past Cole’s. That was a sign of his newness, too. Omnis, unless they wanted sex, had trouble meeting people’s gazes for long. The rest of the time they were like dogs, for whom eye contact implied social dominance.

  Cole thought of the flash of memory that had come earlier. It was completely gone now. There was nothing here, he told himself, that had any connection to his long-dead brother.

  “Well!” Sandor said, slapping his hands on the arms of his chair. “We could have wished for a more uplifting conversation, could we not?” he asked Gordon cheerfully. “But here’s something positive to take from it: You can always count on Cole to tell you the truth. He is one of the most honest people you will ever meet, and the most trustworthy.”

  “I lie to omnis all the time,” Cole pointed out.

  “You see? Even to his own detriment, he must tell the truth. Ah, I’m glad to be in your company again, Cole—it’s just like old times. And this evening has ended without disaster, so all is well. It’s turned out to be a fine night!”

  A fine night indeed, Cole thought. He had to admit now that he would not see Johnny again tonight. Johnny would stay by that girl’s side until she was not only conscious, but alert.

  He rose, pushing his chair back. “I’m going to turn in.”

  “We will talk more tomorrow night,” Sandor said. Cole gave him a brief nod.

  Gordon was still deep in thought, his brow furrowed. He did not seem to hear either of them, nor to notice when Cole walked out.

  The living room was empty now. Some of the others were still outside, though—as Cole walked past he could hear their voices through the open door, rising and falling, washing into the living room in murmured waves.