by Joe Darris
Baucis went along with anything that Ntelo said, but he would writhe and squirm as much as anyone when she preached of the end times. The religion gave him unlimited opportunity to exercise his Evanimal program, his grand symphony. Urea doubted he liked Ntelo speaking of things beyond his control, but he went along with it, and expected everyone in the Evanimal program to do the same.
It was impossible for those who knew the way of their world to believe in the religion they were a part of.
Urea had long felt uncomfortable during Ntelo's doom and gloom prophecies. Ntelo had explained those stories as socializing forces veiled in superstition. She had to use her power as a religious icon to help control the last of humanity. Those dim enough to believe someone else's words above their own knowledge probably needed to be controlled, the Priestess would say. If they would do another's bidding without argument, they deserved no better, Baucis would add.
Urea went along with it all, she had to. If she didn't she would lose her privilege to Synchronize with her panthera, a threat she wasn't sure that Baucis would follow through with, but still too severe to risk. She also saw how much people seemed to enjoy the religion and all of its trappings. People gladly traded labor for the Garden's Bounty, genuinely believing they were partaking in Nature's Communion. In a sense they were, Urea thought, and if this was the only way to get the necessary work that the society demanded, then so be it.
No one forced anyone to think anything, she reasoned. They could still use their minds as they saw fit. So what if they simply didn't?
However, after seeing… that demon fight Evanimals so ruthlessly, she was uncertain of everything. She had tried to dismiss the religion as a social force long ago, but something about the figure spoke to her. If he wasn't Nature's Wild Man, what was he? He had targeted two artificial animals, and Urea sensed he wasn't done. It being out there put her on edge, but there was nothing she could do about it directly. Her brother was tracking its signal, and until he found something, she would have to wait.
That was fine though, for the young Huntress had other plans. Not everything had melted in the Scourge. Three structures remained in the Garden, and Urea had yet to explore one of them.
The panthera's nose bobbed up and down as she sniffed the unusual building. It was remarkably different than the other two stone structures. One was a giant sports structure, something Baucis called the Coliseum. It was basically a giant bowl with thousands of places for spectators to sit. All of the pilots had spent many days testing their Evanimals against each other in mock combat while the Spire watched through biselk or howluchin eyes. The other was a giant swoop of flat stone elevated on stone pillars high above the earth. Baucis said it was a road used to take automobiles over the city. Urea had only ever heard of automobiles. According to Ntelo there used to be so many of them that they couldn't even all move at once. They drank the Nature’s blood and spewed pollution. The Scourge devoured them all, but not the road. It was an ugly thing, striking only for its size and antediluvian purpose.
The structure Urea and her panthera approached was entirely different than the other two. It was grander, more purposeful and stunningly beautiful. The feline cautiously approached the huge stone dome that lay on the edge of the Garden. It was enormous. Nothing compared to the Spire in height, but in sheer presence it easily outweighed the Spire. It was still far away, yet already it dominated the landscape. It was far from the mountain range and its rivulets and streams that irrigated the Garden and cooled the Spire, so water had done less damage to both the structure and the grounds. There was still an ancient stone road that led up to thing. Grasses and weeds erupted in cracks in the road. Nature had begun to take the place back, but it would be a long time yet. Here and there an errant tree forced its ways through the ubiquitous stone that must have covered everything in ancient times. Vines overwhelmed the grounds. In places there were fields with nothing but flowers. Everywhere the grass rose as tall as the panthera, no small feat. Urea wouldn’t be able to see the sky at all if she stood there upon her own feet. This was a place for her predator. The panthera's senses were at their peak. Her eyesight was sharp and crisp. Her ears finely attuned. Each step a silent symphony of stealth.
Urea reveled in the fluidity of it all. She moved her body in perfect synchronization with the panthera. In truth, it was unnecessary, the chamber she was in served as a brainwave amplifier, her thoughts were transformed into electronic commands, but she found it much easier to convince her brain of the movements if she made them all herself. In a twist of technological symbiosis (or was it parasitism?), she had learned to control the panthera from the panthera herself. She had copied every twitch, mirrored every behavior until she understood all of the facets of panthera's being. She could react like the panthera could. She could instinctively move her body to do what she wished. The twins’ method (for the two pioneered it) was very successful, unsurpassed, but it did require the pilot to act like the Evanimal as much as the Evanimal acted like the pilot. Because of this Urea could nearly read her panthera's thoughts and intuitions. Each flick of a whisker or clench a muscle group indicated something, the trick was reading the Evanimal. But to do that, one had to let the Evanimal be in control, and only step in to guide the beast's larger goals. Go there, kill that. Pilots historically had focused on the control of the actual movements of the Evanimals, but few managed to do it with the same control and grace as the animal's themselves could muster. The twins' method changed all that. Instead of preoccupying one's self with one specific strike, the Pilot became the animal, and could learn to control the entire being fluidly.
She moved her head up in a lazy arch, the panthera did the same and both of their eyes went wide at the structure that towered above them. In front of them rose a huge mass of pink granite. Two huge stone halls extended from a magnificent pink dome supported by rows of impressive pillars. The stone had worn little in the preceding century. It looked nearly pristine. Only a corner of one of the wings had collapsed. Granite bricks dotted the hill, longing to return to their place of glory. Even the plants didn't challenge the mighty structure. A tree had forced the collapse; it now lay horizontally on the ground, pinned by a brick. The entire mass of rock probably weighed more than the Spire.
A low hum filled her mind, the VRCs rendition of the panthera's low warning growl. Urea would have to be very cautious. Her panthera did not like the pink granite, too many perfect lines, too much geometry. Too much order. But it was by far the most intact thing humanity had left on the surface, Urea was determined to explore it.
There, she ordered, and moved her own hand forward. After a moment's hesitation, the panthera obliged.
She did not know what she hoped to find. Proof, of course, but of what? Her mind had been filled with the supposed Wild Man who had challenged her brother. Maybe she hoped to disprove Ntelo's legends of old, or to cast doubt on her prophecies of the future, though both looked to be monumentally difficult tasks. The stone building was enormous, yet could only be accessed by eyes cued into movement and paws inept at subtle manipulation. Besides, she knew from history that the pink granite dome was only the crown jewel of the society. The Scourge had taken everything else.
It was hard to deny Ntelo's argument that Nature wanted the surface for itself. Everywhere she looked, grasses, vines, and trees waged eternal war on the once pristine grounds. The plants had long absorbed or hidden any residue the Scourge left behind. They had cracked stones and toppled buildings as they devoured all that the sun touched. The only way to stop the plant's eternal march was to chop their branches and pull their roots. War on Nature itself. Urea balked at the prospect. Despite her skepticism of the religion, she loved Nature and its fecundity, to think of hurting it made her feel ill.
Her panthera mirrored the sentiment, her tail flicked unhappily and her growl persisted. Urea wondered if the cat felt it in reverse, as if the road was the last bit of scar tissue to heal over, the building an embedded tooth or barb that would have to be
forced out before the earth could be pristine.
She turned back to the stone edifice. Enter, she thought, and the panthera obeyed.
The inside of the structure was more impressive than its glowing exterior. Ornate stone walls reached for high ceilings. Every inch of the place was exquisitely fashioned. There was wooden trim along the floor, hardly rotten desks made of wood, chairs made of wood. Urea had seen things in Spire City made of wood, the ugly card table in Baucis's meeting room for one, but it was preposterously expensive. She thought it was an extravagant material, hardly durable, weak to water and scratches, and so expensive in the Spire, but here on the surface it seemed commonplace.
She walked forward in the entrance hall, saw a door made of wood to the left and cautiously pushed it open with a panthera paw. An enormous porcelain throne sat therein. Urea realized it was a massive toilet. She chuckled to herself. So our ancestors really were bigger. She gracefully guided the hulking cat back out of the little room and towards a boxy piece of furniture. The panthera swiped and the dresser crumbled. Once the dust settled Urea could make out ancient eroded fabrics through a flurry of moths. Stars and stripes in colors too faded to make out. The panthera snapped at the insects. Urea instinctively moved her neck and snapped her jaw as the cat did. That shouldn't have happened!
She glanced at the heart rate monitor and noticed they were out of sync. I laughed. Rookie mistake. Her panthera would not be amused in this bizarre, alien structure. She took a careful breath, realigned her bodily functions with the cat's, and the two headed towards the central domed room as one.
The walls leading to the dome room were covered in tattered images of humans. They weren't photo realistic, but artistic renditions made of artificial colors. Urea found them charming.
They all have so much hair! The womens' hair often went down their back, and many of the men grew it out of their faces. And in so many colors! Blonde, brown, red, black, all far different from the bald heads to which she was accustomed. Her hair wasn't as thick or lustrous as the ancient humans, but she felt a bond with them. Before she realized it she was licking her hand and stroking her own black hair as her panthera did the same. Stop it, she ordered, but wasn't entirely sure who she was telling. Had the panthera sensed Urea's subconscious and acted upon it, or had Urea inadvertently instigated the entirely feline gesture herself?
Forward, she thought and the panthera hesitated then went forward. She felt the mental battle between her and the feline acutely. It didn't operate in words, but the sentiment was unmistakable. No. The resistance had not lasted long, barely a moment, just enough for her to know her panthera was thinking.
Forward they went into the central domed room. It was huge, bigger than even the auditorium in Spire City. There were multiple floors people could stand on that ringed the inside of the dome. The whole room was filled with decaying portraits and nothing else. They were eye level for the panthera, Urea would have hardly reached their chests. How times changed. Supposedly in the surface dweller's time, the animals had been the small ones.
Again she felt that stubborn animal resistance. NO. The panthera was really testing her. She had not done this in a long time, not since Urea first started synchronizing with her. Urea knew her mind was wandering as it struggled with the bizarre environment but her mind often wandered throughout her day. Was the difference the dome? Urea willed her panthera forward. But she didn't move.
The panthera realized her disobedience was working as quickly as Urea did, and raced down one of the hallways. She's trying to block out the signal! Urea still saw everything it did, but its sprint was of its own volition. The stone ceilings and walls interfered with the Spire’s field. The brain implant's power was intermittent at best.
Stop.
The panthera only stumbled, then slipped on the smooth stone floor and careened into a wall. The wall crumbled. It was made of decayed wood. The panthera righted itself and charged further, away from the way they had come, like it planned to outrun its ghost.
Urea remained calm. Her pulse didn't automatically increase with the panthera's, the Spire's fields only allowed the implants to work one way. She couldn't feel its urgency, its love of freedom and need to escape.
At the end of the cat's vision she saw a stairway descend into the floor of the structure. It was clearly the panthera's target. The shockingly intelligent Evanimal had realized that the roof protected its mind, and sought to go underground. Urea knew if it made it under the earth it would be lost until it resurfaced. The tiny feed of data probably wouldn't be able to penetrate the ground, and they'd lose its location. The panthera could literally vanish. If it reemerged somewhere where the field was weaker, or during a storm it could run for the wild lands. It might resurface inside the same domed stone structure, but if she was not in her chamber, ready to synchronize with the panthera, it would surely be lost. Urea had to stop it, now.
She saw light glint out of the the corner of the panthera's eye and ordered, there! The panthera whipped its head to the left and looked out of a broken window, straight at the Spire. The Tower of Power. A direct connection! There she ordered, and raised her arm. The panthera reluctantly did the same. Its foot seemed to weigh more than it should. It was fighting with all it had. Urea summoned all the will she could and thought Attack! The panthera's hardwired instincts took over and it leapt out the window, shattering the thin pane of glass outward.
Urea stood from her own leap, and moved to and fro, testing the connection. Strong as ever. The panthera obeyed perfectly. She let it rest and was happy to see the interference was gone as well. No twitches, no odd looks that didn't originate from her.
All was well, but she was exhausted and ready to put the panthera to sleep and take a break. The ruins had revealed nothing of the Ntelo's prophecies of The Wild Man, but Urea sensed she had learned something much more important, a hidden truth, but the kernel of it eluded her. She knew better than to ponder it now though. She headed directly towards the Spire and the energy field that protected them all.
Chapter 6
Worry not children, the Hidden are few and have slept West of Father Mountain for generations. We tell their stories around our fires so we will never forget. As long as we honor the old ways, we will be safe.
The hunter rises with the sun. He slept through the night and is rested but sore. He removes his skull helmet, stands slowly and checks his injuries. Most of the wounds he earned from the crow are scabs. His arm is still swollen around the three prongs that jut from it like dead branches from an old tree. He tests one of the prongs, it hurts, but less. He wonders if they can be removed. Pieces of bone have stuck in other bodies before, but never any so large and dangerous. He likes the idea of it. He flexes his left arm, testing if the barbs can be weapons. Pain sears his flesh and he resolves to consult the tribe's healers.
The hunter looks out from the top of the boulder. His home is not far away, he can make it there before the sun is overhead, especially now that he carries no burden, no prize. He slowly climbs down the boulders and makes his way into their inner sanctum.
In a dark corner lays the mess of brains he discarded. He scoops them up and rubs them on the leather shroud as he walks. He feels something hard in the mess of brain. Rock? he wonders, but then remembers the blinking light and loud crack he heard when he cut the prongbuck from the tree.
He digs into the brains and grasps the stone. It glows red and easily fits in the palm of his hand. It has a large crevice running down it. This made the cracking sound, he is certain. It goes dark and light more regularly than a firefly. He pokes it. It does not feel strange. It is hard as stone and cool as the brains around it. He cannot feel the crevice, only a small prick where the prong must have bored into it. He turns it over in his hands and finds hairs that sparkle like veins of ore in the mountains. The hairs repulse him. He thinks they reached inside of the buck's skill and connected to little fleshy bits all throughout the brain. Seeing the hairs dug deep into the very mind of the beast
s sends shutters down his spine. He remembers the hermit's tales.
The hermit knows stories of faraway places where people do not live in the woods but use magic, odd stories about kingcrows and prongbucks dueling for sport and of clouds appearing on windless days and starting forest fires with bolts of lightning. The hermit always warns of the Hidden, sky people he called them—as if they were related to the tribe—that controlled the fiercest and most cunning animals. He would say that the Hidden could take the animals' minds and sought to control the entire earth. The hermit swore his stories were true, but most of the tribe called them children's stories. They must have believed something of them though, for they sought shelter when thunderstorms approached, and always hunted by stealth. It was bad luck for a large animal to see a hunter and live.
The young hunter hated these stories. They made him feel powerless, like others were in control of the world around him. A hunter should believe in his own two hands, his muscles, and killing his own food to give him strength. The Hidden were something to blame that never argued. Besides, the whole notion of people who live in the sky and control beasts seemed foolish.
Now he is not so sure.
He leaves the rock enclave and looks where the kingcrow began its infinitely pronged attack. Wolves or a lion must have eaten his prongbuck's organs and pulpy meat in the night. This gives him grim satisfaction. At least his kill was enjoyed by something besides the murderous kingcrow.
Freed of the animal's weight, the exhausted hunter begins the march home and ponders how to tell a story that gave him such an impressive trophy, fierce wounds, and no meat.
