by Tobias Wade
“You can always tell an Outlander, but you can’t tell them much,” Sali huffed. “Yes my processor runs faster than the biological default. You got a problem with that, meat head?”
“No ma’am,” Elden replied meekly. “I was being serious. What are the chances?”
“Almost zero percent. You don’t get an atmosphere like this without photosynthesizing plants. All that green must be an entire alien biosphere down there. I don’t think we were just sailing through space when we happened to be attacked. I think the Galactic Express had a destination, and we’re exactly where the Humanists intended us to be.”
Elden stared out the window wistfully, drumming his fingers against the wispy stubble on his chin. It was hard to believe this was really happening. Maybe he would have been better off if he’d stayed asleep in that vat. If he’d never woken up to realize his life had continued without him, twelve years and an impossible distance away. And yet his memories of those golden fields and his little house by the river seemed like only yesterday. And then there was Amore, flinging herself around their cramped new apartment in the city, longing for a day that would never come when he returned to her.
As long as it was a fantasy, then she might as well be wearing that fiery red dress of hers that fit her like a second skin. But twelve years was an awfully long time to remember, let alone miss, someone as foolish and undeserving as him. Come to think of it, twelve years was an awfully long time to fit into the same dress. He couldn’t help but picture her as he had seen her last though, her chilly beauty like a marble statue that was too perfect for this dirty world.
Elden sighed. The scratching on the roof was getting harder to ignore. Eager, desperate probing, searching for a weak spot. At least he wasn’t the only one anxious about it; Ramnus’ face was strained, and so pale that it practically matched his snowy beard. He’d begun to rock back and forth on his stool, causing the entire pod to buck and heave with his shifting weight.
“Doesn’t this thing go any faster?” Elden asked. “I can’t stand listening to that sound.”
“Interestingly enough, the sound only exists inside the pod,” Sali said. “There aren’t any air molecules outside to vibrate, but the vibrations in the metal are passing through to the air in here.”
Ramnus groaned. He clutched his stomach like a seasick sailor preparing to release his catch of the day. Please not in here—not on us, Elden thought, growing more irritable by the moment.
“If you have to tell me that it’s interesting, then I probably wasn’t interested. Can’t you shake it off or something?”
“Hatachi Escape Pods aren’t designed with that kind of combat maneuverability. It’s not like Humanist ships would ever attack each other, and there’s nothing else in the Universe that could have posed such a threat. So we thought, anyway.”
“I guess you don’t have any files on that monster then?”
“Not even close. The Universe is a big place though, and every probability curve has to fall off a cliff somewhere. I uploaded some articles about a few microbes discovered on a moon with liquid water, and there were some fungi growing on a comet, but nothing anywhere on the scale or sophistication of those creatures. So that’s fun at least, right? Being the first humans to ever encounter complex alien life?”
“Just imagine what kind of awards we’ll get by being the first humans to be turned into complex alien waste,” Ramnus moaned.
“Oh, I hadn’t even thought about that,” Sali said with excitement. “We’ll be put into textbooks for generations. They might even turn us into statues!”
“At least pretend to be bothered by normal human concerns—for our sake,” Elden pleaded.
“Typical biological chauvinism,” Sali huffed, turning up her delicate nose. “You must not have much experience with Cybers, because we really are just like the rest of you. We think the same thoughts and feel the same feelings. We just do it better, and faster, with less chattering from that bothersome limbic system that’s always ruining your moods. For example, you’re probably having trouble not thinking about the alien insect burrowing through the last layer of metal between us and the void.”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Elden confessed reluctantly.
“More than crossed. Admit it. You’re obsessed with the idea of suffocating as the cabin depressurizes, spiraling us to a catastrophic crash that distributes your body parts across the planet.”
Ramnus whimpered. Elden clenched his jaw and said nothing. He continued staring out the window so as not give Sali the satisfaction of seeing the twitch in his temple, which had begun to hammer like a kangaroo on a trampoline. The green sphere was getting closer; that couldn’t all be vegetation, could it? There weren’t even any bodies of water or patches of brown soil—just endless green as far as the eye could see.
“Well not me,” Sali persisted. “As soon as that intrusive thought starts bubbling up, I can authorize a little electric current through my central lateral nucleus, and—”
Sali suddenly slumped to the side as though she was struck by an unseen blow, her hands slipping from the control lever. The pod jolted and veered off to plummet at a steeper angle. Elden was thrown against the wall, with Ramnus enveloping him like a damp beanbag chair. Elden struggled to reach for the controls around the giant yellow ballon. The large man wasn’t helping in the least, and merely covered his eyes with his great hairy hands.
Suddenly Sali sat bolt upright again, snatching the lever to rebalance the pod. “Just kidding, I’m fine.”
“Why would you do that?” Ramnus gasped.
“Oh lighten up, you big baby,” Sali said dismissively. “Man, you guys really don’t know how Cybers work at all, do you?”
Elden collapsed back into his chair as the pod stabilized, but he was still heaving for breath. “Well excuse me for not wanting to die, you computer-brained maniac. If you’re so fearless, then why didn’t you go back for the other prisoners with Eisen, huh?”
Sali’s smile faded. She pressed her lips tightly together and turned away. “I told you I feel the same feelings as you, so please don’t bring that up again. Hold on for real though, because things are going to get rough as the atmosphere density increases.”
The bouncing pod felt less like turbulence, and more like someone had placed them in a shoe box and shook it from side to side, maybe taking a break to kick it down the street and stomp on it once it landed.
The roaring air outside quickly overwhelmed the scratching of the bugger on the roof. Maybe it really had incinerated—but the sudden howl of wind signified it hadn’t gone down without a fight. A pinprick of light glowed like a malevolent eye where its claw had finally pierced the metal exterior. The imbalance in air pressure was enough to destabilize the craft, adding a nauseating loopy spiral to the already perilous descent. The thrusters were going full blast to slow their fall, but now that they’d begun to spin, the engines merely propelled them in whatever random direction the pod happened to be facing in any given moment.
The window flashed between green and black as the craft spun. Every time the green reappeared, the alien jungle had leapt closer with terrifying bounds. Bellowing like an abused hippopotamus, Ramnus hurled himself against the top of the craft, using his broad back to block the destabilizing hole. That gave Sali just enough time to orient the pod correctly and give a final upward blast on the thrusters. It wasn’t enough to reverse their direction, but at least it took the edge off their speed as the pod plowed a devastating path through the tangled green wall.
A blizzard of leaves and broken branches swirled around them before the pod finally rolled to a jolting stop. It was the kind of landing that made Elden probe his mouth with his tongue to see if any of his teeth had been shaken out. They hadn’t—but he wouldn’t have blamed any number of his body parts for quitting their job on the spot after such spectacularly poor working conditions.
The three of them sat in stunned silence for a moment before Sali began to giggle. Elden thought s
omething in her brain must have broken, but the euphoria of their survival was contagious, and he began involuntarily chuckling as well. Ramnus scowled like a thunderstorm however, now sporting a hole in his jumpsuit and a brilliant red burn where he’d pressed his back against the ceiling.
The pod groaned hideously as the whole front half slid loose and rattled to the ground. A rush of hot, humid air flooded over them, pungent with rich and unfamiliar textures. Elden staggered to his feet and stretched tenderly, finding each step heavy and burdensome in the comparatively high gravity. The green canopy above was sparse enough to allow warm red sunlight to pour through and reveal the pervasive alien foliage.
Vibrant bulbous plants, incandescent shifting leaves, and knotted undergrowth surrounded them in every direction. Most notable of all was the impossible scale of the trees which couldn’t have been appreciated from the air. These mighty trunks spanned dozens of feet around and soared hundreds of feet upward like the columns of some gargantuan palace. Thick green vines spiraled around the trunks all the way to the upper branches. The vines pulsed and twisted like snakes, their motion causing the branches to sway in constant shifting patterns which bathed them in dancing shadows.
“Cool…” Sali whistled low. “Too bad we made such a mess though. Look at that poor critter we toasted on the way in.”
Elden turned, expecting to see the crisped remains of the bugger. He instead discovered the front of the pod smeared with dark red blood, spotting the crumpled beast like a broken down sofa a good distance ahead of the craft. Thick red and white fur in circular patterns covered a body, reminiscent of a six-legged tiger that was nearly double the size of its counterpart found in Prian zoos.
“Too bad nothing. We’ve got to eat somehow,” Ramnus said. “We can’t waste time feeling sorry for ourselves either. We’ll be needing to find a more secure place to shelter, knowing this jungle has beasties like that in it.”
“Sali, I assume you still eat like a normal…?” Elden’s voice trailed off as he thought about all the ways he should not end that sentence.
“I’m not eating that,” Sali said, crinkling her nose at the heap of bloody fur.
“Right. Of course. You probably need electricity or something for your batteries… right?”
“I’m a vegetarian, actually.”
“Oh, yeah, that makes sense. And I could go for a burrito, but chances are we’re both going to need to learn to compromise out here. Any idea where the others landed?”
“Probably not far. If Harris was able to control his descent, then he should have come down slower and followed us to land nearby.”
Sali approached the massive furry creature cautiously, checking it for signs of life. Elden tensed as it appeared to stir for a moment, but it was only a rustle of the fur as Sali shifted the bulk back and forth. The thing was clearly dead. Watching her act so naturally around the corpse, it was easy to think that her mechanistic processes were analyzing it in a way far removed from the emotions that would occupy a normal human observer.
Elden caught himself wondering whether he really was prejudiced against Cybers. People modifying their own bodies and brains was something that only existed in Pria, and Elden had only ever heard mention of Cybers through references in television shows which were beamed all the way to the Outlands. The way the characters were portrayed made them seem like they were incapable of learning anything at all though, relying utterly on downloading new files to adapt.
The real problem with Cybers, Elden decided, was that it wouldn’t be truthful to call them fully human. It seemed that you could take something away from a human, like a leg, or even their vision, and they would still be human enough. But the moment you added something—a photographic memory, a robotic hand that could crush rocks, or even a brand new sense like sonar… Once they could do something that no other human ever would or could experience, then it wasn’t right to call them fully human anymore. And if they were indeed something different, then that also begged the question of whether they were better or worse. Neither answer led to a very comfortable place.
Did thinking such thoughts make him prejudiced? Was it wrong? And what about this other thought, wondering whether anything else under her unambiguously tight yellow jumpsuit was bionic? Elden coughed self-consciously, suddenly aware that he had been silent for a rather long time while both Ramnus and Sali had left to inspect the dead animal.
“What did you two do, anyway? To get locked up, I mean,” Elden broke in.
Ramnus and Sali exchanged an uncertain glance, each apparently unsure how much they were expected to share.
“Knocked somebody off without a permit,” Sali replied after a moment. Her eyes were closed, and the blue light was shining through her temples again as she ran her fingers through the dead creature’s fur.
“Seriously? You don’t seem like the type. Not that you are a type… although I’m sure your electronics have a type, but it’s not like I’m saying that’s who you are. Unless of course, you’re saying that too, in which case you apparently are the type, and I should stop talking.”
A shining white smile brightened up her face, so bright there must be an LED light behind the teeth. “How old are you, Elden?”
“Thirty-four.”
“Am I the first Cyber you ever met in thirty-four years?”
“I was raised in a conservative household.” Elden shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “My father wouldn’t have gone for the enhancements. He thought technology made us soft.”
“That’s nothing to be ashamed of. I know a mechanic who could have fixed that for him.”
“No, no, that’s the whole point. You can’t believe technology can fix you without also believing that you’re broken—that you’re less than whole. And no matter how many little upgrades you buy, there will always be something else, and that feeling will never go away. That’s what my father said anyway—that being human isn’t about being perfect, it’s about finding the beauty in the imperfect before it’s gone.”
“He sounds like a wise man.”
“He is—he was. I haven’t seen him since I moved to Pria, and after twelve years… You’re not offended, are you?”
Sali opened her eyes and the blue light faded from her temple. Everything about her smooth features was inscrutable.
“Nothing in that head is going to substitute for practiced hands,” Ramnus said. “Get out of the way, I know what I’m doing. No different than getting a nice plump Prian rat ready for dinner.”
Ramnus had already begun to skin the dead beast with a broken shard of glass, a nauseating process that Elden felt compelled to step back from. Sali pressed after him, a pursuit which continued until Elden felt the rough bark of a tree against his back.
“And what did you do to earn this little vacation, Mr. Thrush?”
“Just self-defense,” he said, suddenly fascinated by every part of the jungle except where Sali was standing.
“No one gets convicted for self-defense. Try again.”
“Self-defense that ended in someone’s death,” Elden admitted, now staring at his bare feet and the heavy blanket of leaves which covered the ground.
“It’s not a secret, is it? Go on, tell me what happened.” Then cupping her hands around her mouth, Sali shouted into the jungle: “Who in the world am I going to tell?”
Elden flinched at the loud noise, although it faded quickly as the dense undergrowth muffled the sound.
“Hey—be careful!” Ramnus called after her in a hoarse whisper. “We don’t know what else might be listening in the jungle. There could be more of those furry things around that—”
“Nothing that hasn’t already heard our crash landing, and I’m getting to you next,” Sali interrupted, stubbornly loud. Then turning back on Elden who was about to sneak away, she skewered him with the question: “How does someone as awkward, and polite, and impotent as you end up killing someone?”
“So you were offended… alright then, fine. He wa
s my wife’s lover, so have fun with that one. I hadn’t even wanted to move to the city, and we’d only just arrived when she met someone else on the side. The other man said that’s how they did it in Pria, but I didn’t believe him and we got into a fight.”
“He’s right, you know,” Ramnus called over his shoulder. “I once loved a woman who dated a dozen at a time. She gave us points when we did something she liked, and every month she replaced the last few with the lowest score. It became too competitive for me though, especially when everyone figured out it was easier to sabotage each other’s points than it was to gain more of their own.”
“I think that’s a pretty common setup. It’s not such a big deal, is it?” Sali asked. “It must be so boring in the Outlands, stuck with one person until one of you dies. Unless its true what they say about the sheep…”
“See? Right there!” Elden interrupted. “That condescending attitude is exactly why I never wanted to move in the first place. Outlanders treat our sheep with more respect than you treat your people, ask any of them. Not the sheep… the people… although if the sheep could talk, they’d tell you the same.”
“So that’s why you killed him,” Sali pressed, clearly entertained. “You thought he was better than you. You were insecure that your wife would like him better and leave you, lost and alone in the big scary city. And you must have thought you could get away with it, because the Masks in the Outlands don’t know about forensic investigation and only solve the crimes they see with their own eyes.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill him,” Elden growled. “We just got to fighting, that’s all. Then I got a look at Amore’s face—that’s my wife—was my wife—and I got this feeling like she was enjoying watching us go at it. I felt like she didn’t care who won or lost, as long as we were fighting over her. And I got so angry, and I kept hitting him, and hitting him, even when he wasn’t moving anymore…”
“Oof. Self-defense, huh? Are you sure?”
“You must think I’m terrible. Some uncivilized brute, just like the rest of us who don’t want to live like you. It wasn’t my fault. Any animal is going to fight if you pack them together as closely as you do in Pria.”
