by Joe Darris
They were greeted with raucous cheers. Except the voices weren't human, they were howluchin. They screamed and yipped in the stands, a few dozen of the most privileged humans controlling the least privileged primates. The cheers were loud and piercing. The pilots knew better than to use the discombobulating, unbalancing shrieks they had been named for, but the pitch was close. The panthera bared her teeth at the noise and Urea did the same. The decibels increased her VRC told her, but her mind understood the data. They love me.
Urea wondered if those in the Spire could hear the cheering below. They could certainly see it, every digiscope was pointed at the battlegrounds, and probably every analog telescope too, though those had little chance of seeing through the clouds that always obscured the Spire. Still though, the less fortunate could dream if they could do nothing else. Maybe the clouds would clear for a small hairless girl and she'd fall in love with pantheras like Urea had, not that she'd have a chance of ever piloting one without a head of black hair.
The two feline femme fatales eyed the crowd warily. It seemed nearly every biselk was in attendance. The fifteen birthing does were there as were all of the great antlered males, save Jacob's Alpha. Someone had to watch the Garden, Urea reasoned, though she wondered who she'd be dueling. All the biselk but his were in the stands, surely Baucis wouldn't pit her against a wild one? With so much at stake, he and Ntelo would want a show. Even if she took her time with an unsynchronized biselk the battle would be over in less than thirty seconds. Wild ones had no courage, let alone finesse. They saw the two ton killer barreling down on them and practically bared their necks and slit their own throats.
Two shadows eclipsed the sun, one after the other and the duel was ready to begin. Skup and Elia were in place, the final animal cameras (powered by VRCs) Aurelius and Ntelo needed to put together a proper show. They shadowed Urea, which meant her challenger (not that it'd be much of one) was about to enter.
Her panthera bristled as the shadow fell over her. Every black hair stood on end, sparkling an iridescent rainbow as the sun fell back upon her. It was time to kill. Her mane bristled last, blooming like some deadly flower with fangs and killer's eyes instead of pistil and stamen. Urea shook her own head of hair as the panthera did, consciously jealous of the iridescence of the cat's fur. Phoebe's hair was iridescent, why not Urea's?
Now that vultus had signaled, there was nothing to do but wait and see what came out of the entrance across the the arena. The panthera was content to bare its teeth and snarl, but Urea's mind wouldn't allow her such savage tranquility.
Instead her thoughts jumped as they always did to the Naturalist service that was going on right now, watching her every movement. She hadn't ever been to one. She and her twin had black hair, even as toddlers, so they had been adopted by the Evanimal program and turned into Pilots before they were old enough to so much as miss their mother, so Baucis claimed. Like all of the Pilots, she understood Naturalism through a different lens than the rest of the Spire. They had grown up as a sort of acting troop commune. Baucis and Ntelo played mother and father, Urea and Skup were big brother and big sister (their generation was so skilled that none of the older pilots so much as attempted to synchronize anymore). Others had their roles. There were younger, but Phoebe played the baby. Zetis played the cousin, his hair, thinner than the pilots, marked him different in look and strangely, skill. Jacob seemed to be the big brother to most, But Urea had never seen him that way. She and Skup were the only two of the whole group who knew that they had family at all. They were so clearly twins that to imagine a stranger as a brother seemed childish and desperate, though she was sure many of the howluchin pilots were only able to sleep at night knowing they had someone like Jacob to take care of them. Really he was the eldest of the group, and acted as such. He cared for the others, commanded them. Skup and Urea did nothing save work miracles with their predators, but without Jacob, the Garden would not function. He was a Shepherd, true to his title.
But none of them, not one, had ever seen a Naturalist service. In a sense they had, a Naturalist service was little more than what Ntelo called a “consecration to the life force” a term Urea understood as bloody sacrifice. But every Pilot saw the duel through their own Evanimal's eyes. They were given strict orders on how to watch, where to sit, even what sort of emotional state to be in (hence the ridiculous cheering) and told it was all for something greater.
Aurelius explained it to them from time to time, but his words did no more than they were intended to: still their questions and encourage them to continue with Nature's mission. He had explained that he would take all of their footage, edit it together as Ntelo spoke her sermon over the top of it, making some sort of Naturalist montage. Then those wealthy enough to already possess VRCs, a few hundred people, no more, would offer tithing for the privilege to kneel in the ballroom and watch it as a group, live, or so they thought. The Media Baron wasn't so dense as to let a thirty second battle last an actual thirty seconds when he could stretch it into fifteen minutes of action. Afterward the congregation shared communion, meat and vegetables from the Garden, then were absolved of their transgressions of artificiality, though Urea doubted anyone ever mentioned the VRC that made the whole show possible, and finally left, ready to return again a week later.
All of this Urea could almost swallow. The Pilots were allowed to watch the recorded services and she could almost see the allure of them. They were flashy, extravagant things, with lots of jumps from one view to another that made the battles stretch on and on, longer than they could ever hope to be in reality. Ntelo's narration had always seemed appropriate enough to her, though now that this Wild Man had surfaced her foundation of belief had been rocked. There was some nonsense (her insistence on the duels being Nature's sculpture instead of Baucis's or—Nature forbid--Urea's) and calls for impossible action given the situation of those that lived in the Spire, but it certainly was moving. Sometimes Ntelo's sermons, timed to the ebb and flow of the edited battles, moved Urea to tears. If she hadn't been blessed with thick black hair and the most beautiful and powerful Evanimal in the Garden, Urea could understand working for credit all week long for the opportunity to attend the services, see a spectacular show feel something inside of the cold, lonely tower of a city.
But what she couldn't understand, what was forever out of reach and beyond the scope of her imagination, was the droves of people without VRCs who flocked to Ntelo's “Peasant services.” After each Noble service (as Urea thought of them), Ntelo would leave the ballroom on the fourth floor, climb two flights of stairs to the gardened roof of the Spire and greet a crowd of thousands. Urea knew that not everyone in Spire city was a Naturalist, but it sounded like everyone went. Peasant services went on the day after the duels, to give Aurelius and Ntelo time to prepare, and Urea could always hear the chants of the crowds from her Amplification room a floor below. It was good the Spire was made of Carbanium, surely a lesser alloy would have crumbled beneath their stamping and enthusiasm.
Urea had never been to one of the Peasant Services, no Pilot had, they were always working, synchronized in the minds of beasts and unable to so much as eavesdrop on the hullabaloo happening barely ten feet above them. All Urea knew was what Zetis had told them. The weatherman turned VRC programmer was drastically underemployed, and seemed to be able to find his way into anything. Even he was unable to give fair accounts of the the event though. Every time he spoke of it a look of mystic confusion fell upon his face, like he had seen the sun rise in the west, or a biselk
strolling through the halls of the Spire.
“Its... well... its just Ntelo talking, and everyone kneels and stands and they all sing, but...” and his eyes would get that faraway look, “its powerful... I can't explain it,” and he'd blush, a boy who had invented a new way to talk at a loss for words.
Were there tears in his eyes? Had his voice cracked a bit more than the usual teenage changes? Urea knew she and her brother were focal points for the whole show, but those at the Peasant services saw none of the action. Yet it was usually the unimplanted who called her and Skup “Prince” and “Princess,” but how could words alone placate the entire Spire?
A snarl and her musings fell away. Had the panthera seen something? Was there a glint of light in the darkness of the tunnel? Urea raised one of the panthera's clawed paws, caught a beam of sunlight and reflected it down the dark hallway. Instantly the entire hallway was illuminated, as if the chandelier that lit Baucis's private poker room and had been switched on. Urea recognized the light for what it was, a massive rack of antlers reflecting and refracting her beam hundreds of times over. She was certain the Naturalists would watch this scene, probably this exact angle, but could the Peasant service do it justice?
The biselk bellowed a challenge in response, galloped out of the hallway into the bright sun and reared up on its hind legs. It was close to fifteen feet tall, twenty with its antlers. Its hooves kicked at the air, sparkling in the sun. His black fur, twice as thick on his shoulders sparkled iridescently as it hung from his muscled frame. He was beginning to molt, and clumps of fur hung carelessly from his shoulders. Urea would snatch at those and they'd pull free, tangling her claws. His haunches flexed as he stood upon them, daring the panthera to strike. The beast was much closer to bison of old than elk. The elk's contribution to the genetically modified creation were the antlers that enveloped its body like a crystalline shield. Before the Scourge or the Garden, those antlers had only gone one way, up, but diet and necessity had wrapped them around the biselk, transforming the animals into something from before human times. It was twice as big as the panthera, three times perhaps. Instead of a twenty claws and twice as many teeth it had hundreds of black-iridescent, spring loaded barbs, ready to pop loose and lodge themselves in anything foolish enough to attack the invulnerable monster.
The panther roared a challenge. Urea was shocked and invigorated to hear the reply.
She had never battled a biselk so big, so perfect. It was Jacob's prized Buck, the Lord of the Garden, an animal at the pinnacle of its life. It was lunacy to fight it, animals like this did not get attacked in nature. Animals liked this were more dangerous than predators, and Jacob knew it. Urea smirked. The panthera understood the gesture as showing her fangs. And the two attacked as one.
The beasts collided like an asteroid and a planet. The panthera uncoiled its muscles and flew through the air as the biselk, considerably more massive barreled towards her. Her claws outstretched she reached in between rows of anarchic barbs and caught flesh. The biselk only had to twist its head and the cage of antlers pressed against her ribcage and slung her away. Reflexes planted her back feet against smooth spots on the antlers and she leapt free of the biselk before he found blood. She overcompensated, not used to fighting an animal so strong, and tumbled through the packed dirt of the arena's floor. She held a claw a high, First Blood! And was dismayed to see it held nothing but black fur. His molting hide had come loose, as she knew it would. The biselk snorted in response to her all-too-human theatrical gesture, and charged.
She lunged out of its path, but Jacob, having dueled her a hundred times in a hundred lesser biselk knew her tricks and had already adjusted. Before she could move he was on top her, his antlers gouging the earth deeply. She slithered between the crystalline cage and managed not get trampled. She stood too soon, and the biselk leaned on its front legs and kicked her savagely with its hooves, hard as stone.
The panthera careened through the air, and crashed into a stone wall of the Colosseum, knocking the wind from her. Urea could still breath though and stretched her diaphragm and the panthera could breathe again. This was a strategy they had practiced.
Already the biselk was on the panthera. Not a second to recover. He was fighting, really fighting.
A rumble like the crust of the earth moving and the biselk was free of the concrete that had sheathed its weapons. Howluchins and does bounded backwards, unsure if the deadly battle would flow into the stands. She sprung upwards, but this time the biselk was ready and swirled in his antlers in a vortex of razor sharp edges.
She landed, clear of the beast and felt pain in her left arm. She raised the paw and was shocked to see a thin line of blood, red as any herbivore's, glisten back at her.
The biselk bucked up and kicked at the sky, sunlight caught the blood in its antlers, first blood. An herbivore had taken first blood against a predator!
This time he did not charge so fast. The two eyed each other warily.
Why was he acting like this? Jacob, who was normally so kind before he drove some unruly or imperfect biselk to its death at her claws, but then she understood. Only why had no one told her?
The biselk looked skyward, acknowledging winged death as it soared above them.
Of course he did! Her panthera had already replaced the vultus as top predator. Skup only held onto his Evanimal to save the Garden from the flock. Could the panthera serve dual purposes as easily? There was certainly no pride of pantheras to threaten the Spire, nor could it plow the earth like a biselk. Was it easier to simply get rid of it in some grand show before they unveiled the Wild Man? For that matter he might not even need the biselk eventually. Hence Jacob's aggression.
Then why fight her at all? Why such a ruthless show of aggression? But of course she knew that too. Jacob had been with his biselk longer than she her panthera. The two were one, Jacob's short hair and gristly beard were the biselk's own molting shoulders. Jacob's firm benevolence and even his confident gait came from the biselk's demeanor. Killing this biselk really would be killing a part of him as surely killing the panthera would be killing part of her. And Baucis had pitted them against each other. Of course he hadn't told her, she might have refused, but now she was in the ring
, her panthera hungry, furious and craving blood. She could turn against the other biselk or the howluchins but if what Skup said was true... her panthera really could be made obsolete.
Their hands were tied, the show must go on. There was nothing else to do. Either way at least one would lose their Evanimals, better one than two.
Chapter 20
Do you have stories where you're from?
She scratches her head.
You know... like about old people who made things the way they are today?
She nods.
We do too! My favorite are stories with surprise endings. Do you like surprises?
All she has to do is think, she doesn't even have to open her mouth like the hermit does when he tells stories. She takes a deep breath.
The best stories are when the good wins.
The girl nods, then furrows her brow...
How do you know who's good?
The ballroom was packed. Located on the luxurious fourth floor, the room still had some of the fine trappings it had boasted when the Spire was a casino instead of a city. It had gilded pillars that stretched up to the intricately painted domed ceiling. It had been the premier LEAVE NO TRACE destination. Murals of animals and sunsets filled with golds, ambers, and rich purples festooned the walls. Raw filaments, extruded from the reclaimers, hung from the ceiling and glowed in the Spire's electromagnetic field. The whole room was enveloped in warm light.
Half a dozen howluchins bedecked in fine black body suits casually perused the ballroom. They strolled through the crowd, serving drinks, some of the more popular synthesized foodstuffs, and of course, fresh fruits and vegetables gathered that day from the Garden. Baucis smiled inwardly when he thought of how the monkeys had been sanitized of the Scourge.
