Twig

by wildbow

  “I thought we’d have to spend a while waiting,” I said. “Maybe hunt a grass-rat for food? What the hell are they doing?”

  “Don’t know,” Jamie said.

  The carriage slowed, then stopped.

  Two women got out, wearing labcoats with hoods. One had long, very straight hair, the Easterner, the other had red hair, curvier than the first. They started walking, a very leisurely, sure pace. Moving as if they knew where they were going.

  Curious.

  The carriage resumed motion, turning at the next corner.

  “The carriage always picks them up,” Jamie said. “Right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “If it dropped them off, it’s moving, it’s going to meet up with them again. Whatever they’re doing, they don’t expect to take long.”

  I looked over at Gordon. I pointed an arm straight out in his direction, then raised my arms above my head, an ‘x’ shape.

  His group. Aggression. In the simplest terms possible, for our crude language system, he was going after the people.

  His right arm went up, confirmation.

  I left one arm above my head, then dropped it, letting it swing pendulum style.

  My group. Ground, moving.

  He raised his arm again, confirming.

  We had our tasks.

  Mary had joined Jamie and I.

  I’d hoped to have her in Gordon’s group, to give her opportunity. Gordon had been oblivious. I was very aware of her, and thoughts of her as she’d been in that room danced through my head, making even the fact that she was standing near me that much more interesting and exciting.

  “We’re after the coach, he’s after the two on foot,” I said. “We need to stay together.”

  “I’m going to slow you guys down,” Jamie said.

  “Well, you’re not staying behind,” I told him. “Not with that story Craig told about that one kid disappearing when they were searching for the first one.”

  “Len,” Jamie supplied. “Bert.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Get your book,” Mary said. “Sy, help me.”

  I frowned, “With?”

  She stomped on the floor. A floorboard rattled.

  By the time Jamie had his book in his backpack, which wasn’t long at all, Mary and I had torn up a lone floorboard. It stretched twelve or so feet, and was less than a foot thick. We slid it out the window, to the nearest building. Mary tested it, wobbling it.

  Jamie looked a little wary at that.

  “I’ll hold it,” Mary said. “Sy, you go.”

  I stepped up to the windowsill.

  “I’ll take the bag,” I said, reaching for Jamie’s book. “I weigh less, and I trust my balance more.”

  He handed me the bag, but his expression was clouded with doubt. “Why do it like this?”

  “If we go down, on foot and try to navigate around buildings, we’ll lose too much time,” Mary said.

  Her reasoning continued as I ran down the length of the plank. I hooked the bag over a chimney and held the other end firm.

  I could only barely hear what Mary was saying to Jamie. “—follow Sy and—”

  He moved at a crouch, more a shuffle than a run, but it wasn’t as slow as I’d anticipated. Mary was as fast as I was.

  As a pair, while Jamie held onto us to keep us from sliding down the shallow slope of the roof, we hauled the plank up, propping it up to the next building. We had to place it at an incline, leading up to a higher vantage point. One slip, we’d fall, bounce off the roof, and hit the road.

  We flipped it dry side up before I went. I went up first, bare feet on wood, quick, and grabbed the edge of the roof. I hauled myself over the lip. Flat-topped roof.

  I looked and noted the location of the carriage. Another look marked the location of the two women. Gordon, Lillian, and Helen were traveling over rooftops, too.

  There were benefits to the dense urban geography and the narrow roads of the shims.

  I gave Jamie a hand as he followed. The two of us reached down, each devoting one hand to holding the plank steady while the other hand reached for her hands. We clasped her fingers and lifted her up.

  From then on, it was smoother sailing. Buildings with grown exteriors, branches extending out, some hewn short, others left like leafless trees. Handholds. We tracked the cart.

  There was a trick at work here. An experiment, something less natural. Academy work.

  We hadn’t done anything at this point that Craig’s mice couldn’t do.

  Yet we made our way along rooftops, taking shortcuts, tracking the carriage. We kept the location of the women in mind, noting their presence every time intervening buildings blocked our view, giving Gordon’s group direction to point the way to the women when we could.

  The carriage, apparently no longer intent on a rendezvous with the women, pulled away.

  “Checkpoint,” Jamie huffed.

  “What?”

  “That way would be one of the checkpoints. Search and investigation by Academy tools, armed guards.”

  “They’re going back empty handed?” I asked.

  “Must be,” Jamie said. “The carriage only stopped once.”

  “Two carriages?” Mary asked.

  I frowned. I didn’t see a second.

  Gordon had stopped, he was signaling.

  A question.

  I turned and looked, tracking the last known location of the women.

  One woman. The Eastern one. Between the time they’d stepped behind an obstacle and now, one of the two had become a ghost.

  Mary was drawing a weapon.

  I drew the blade she’d thrown at me.

  Gordon’s group seemed to get the message. Gordon hopped down from the rooftop, out of view, Helen and Lillian following, in that order.

  The problem with hunting predators, was that the tables could so easily turn.

  We moved, running along wet, loose shingles, weapons in hand.

  Previous Next

  Lamb to the Slaughter—6.4

  The weather was hot enough that the air shimmered in the distance, heat rising, a light rain falling. The city was covered by a haze, giving it a dreamlike quality, yet my adrenaline was focusing my senses, making the immediate surroundings extra sharp. Reality was a dilapidated neighborhood, crowded together, surrounded by walls and a city crowned by tree branches. The heat shimmer and the movement of the rain made it seem to be growing by the second, yet it never went anywhere.

  The carriage was at the checkpoint. It was stopped, being checked, and it was going to take us several minutes to reach it, even while we used every shortcut at our disposal.

  That said nothing of Jamie slowing us down, and the fact that we had to watch our backs.

  A whistle, distant. Gordon.

  Warning? Drawing attention?

  I leaped up to a rooftop, grabbing the gutter for a handhold, then climbing the rest of the way up. I was glad my feet were bare—they offered more traction on the shingles of the roof than any shoes would. While I was turned around, reaching for Jamie’s hand, one foot already braced against the little chimney, I studied the surroundings.

  Further back, down the road, the Eastern woman had been alone, her companion branching off, very possibly flanking us or hunting for other prey. If I followed the path she was taking to its logical conclusion, she wasn’t there. I couldn’t see her anywhere.

  Two in the wind, now.

  I caught Jamie’s hand, hauling him up as he half-climbed, half-ran up the side of the building. I made sure he was secure before standing and stepping away.

  Mary was quick to follow, faster to climb than I was. Her new clothes were already stuck to her, and a loose strand zig-zagged across her face, between her brows and down a bit of her nose, to reach the other side of her face, plastered there by moisture.

  “They’re gone,” I said. “Could be anywhere.”

  She gave me a curt nod.

  We ran, with me taking th
e lead. My feet slipped on some wooden shingles, but I caught myself, legs moving as if I were running at double the speed, the knife in my hand stabbing at a gap between shingles to give me the necessary hold and traction. I had to twist the knife to get it free. I ascended to the peak of the roof, ran along the spine of it, and leaped onto a branch that jutted out the side of one building and used it to cross the street, leaping onto a balcony. The bag with Jamie’s book banged against my tailbone as I landed, feet skidding on a puddle, making me land on my ass.

  Jamie was already running, leaping. I scrambled to get my feet under me so I could catch him if he missed.

  He missed. I ended up catching him by the shirt-front, gripping it so it pulled tight against his body.

  “Thank you,” he breathed, as he took hold of the railing and got a foothold. “Mary said to copy what you did.”

  “You’re not me,” I said.

  “I know,” he said. “But it’s a way to do things, worth trying out. Sort of works.”

  “Except you don’t know why I’m doing things. If you step on a patch that’s wet or muddy because I just stepped in it?”

  “Right. Drawbacks. But it sort of works.”

  Copying me to the point that he was actually almost effective? That he could actually do that…

  I shook my head, parting from Jamie.

  We started to make our way over the balconies, hurdling railings, me occasionally stepping on them, an up-down movement that made my legs burn: up to the railing with one leap of a stride, down to the middle of the balcony with my other foot, up to the far end of the balcony. It was only doable because the balconies were so close to one another that they might as well have been attached.

  I kept my eyes on the carriage, still at the checkpoint, still being searched and questioned.

  “Mary!” I called out.

  “What?” she called out. She was only a short distance behind Jamie, who was a longer distance behind me.

  “How close do you need to be to throw a knife?”

  “At the carriage!?”

  “Yeah!”

  There was a pause.

  “That house with the branches,” she said.

  It was that far. A few rooftops down.

  “To be accurate?” I called out.

  Another brief pause.

  “Green roof with red moss!”

  I saw it. Further along. Ten rooftops to cross. Halfway between here and there. No slips or delays allowed.

  I would have crossed my fingers, willing the carriage to stay put, but I needed those fingers to ensure I had a grip as I hurdled gaps between buildings.

  “Throw?” Jamie managed.

  “We won’t get there in time. A knife might!” I called out.

  We approached the house with the branches. It stood out because wood had been used to grow the exterior, with four treelike growths at the four corners of the building, but the branches had been left to grow long and tall, a mess and a tangle that limited the view beyond. I noted a surprise clothesline I hadn’t seen from a distance, no clothes on it. I searched for details, clues that might inform my imminent jump and landing, my race beneath that strange canopy, and the leap to the building beyond.

  In the midst of that search, I saw motion.

  Red hair.

  I was in the exact wrong position, moving too fast and already too close to the edge to actually stop. It made for a dozen conflicting thoughts and priorities in the span of a second. Warn the others and where was my knife and can I fight her and is it really one of the ghosts and what do I say and what do I do!?

  Warn the others. My hands went out to the sides, fingers spread, palms facing the others. I said the first words that came to mind.

  “Oh no!”

  I leaped.

  I had the knife Mary had thrown at me in hand, already badly battered for my use of it in climbing. Reminding myself of it, making sure I had a grip, it took attention away from my landing. I stumbled.

  The red-haired woman in a gray lab coat was blocking my way, standing at the edge of the roof.

  Fast. To get here from there? They’d been behind us.

  She had an empty, cold look in her eyes that essentially confirmed that she wasn’t human. An experiment, or a modified person. She didn’t blink at the water that ran down her face, beneath the hood of her coat.

  “Who are you!?” I called out.

  In answer, she stepped back, over the edge. She dropped out of sight.

  One of Mary’s throwing knives hit one of the branches that was still swinging from brushing against the red-haired woman.

  Fast, fearless, and knows what she’s doing.

  I picked up speed, pushing myself, my legs screaming for me to stop, reached the edge where she’d just been standing, and leaped to the next building, as if she’d never stood in my way.

  Mid-leap, I looked down.

  No balconies to drop down to, no apparent holds, no hiding spots. The flat side of a building, a two-floor drop to the road, and nothing to take cover behind for ten feet in any direction.

  I landed, and the twist of my head as I’d looked down and over skewed my body to one side. I dropped onto a slanted roof, and spun out, dropping to all fours, almost belly-flopping in my attempt to get some traction on the wet shingles.

  I found the right orientation and clawed my way forward. I didn’t make any headway for a full two seconds as momentum and my downward slide won out over traction and hurried movements. Then I had traction, and I bolted. Jamie landed to my left, hitting the crest of the roof, feet and hands planted on either side.

  He fell behind, which was probably a mix of intent on his part, letting me lead the way, and just him being a little slower as a rule.

  I was impressed that he was keeping up this well, as it was.

  Another rooftop, then another.

  I saw the red-haired woman on the far side of the street. She’d been running, and she was slowing to a walk. She didn’t pant for breath, she didn’t say or do anything. She only watched, her head turning to take us in as we made our way forward.

  As we passed her, she picked up speed again. A light jog, then a sprint, then a faster movement, her coat flapping behind her. Pulling ahead, moving to cut us off.

  She crossed the street, drawing nearer to us. The perspective of the building we were running over blocked our view of her.

  I made the next leap, watching. With the space in between buildings, I should have had a glimpse of her as she ran alongside us.

  She was already gone.

  Camouflage?

  No way was there anything that accurate or effective in modern science.

  “Sy,” Jamie called out, huffing for breath.

  I could see.

  The women weren’t our focus. The carriage was.

  It was starting to move, haltingly as it had to navigate past bystanders and a carriage in the immediate vicinity. Not far away at all, a hundred feet, but there was no way we’d get down from the roof to the street, across to the cart and past the checkpoint before it pulled away.

  We were close to the house with the green shingles and what I’d taken for red moss, actually an algae now that I was close enough to see. It grew on the rooftop and gave an appearance very similar to raw, open wounds.

  “Mary!” I called out. “Throw! Doesn’t matter if you hit, just throw!”

  I heard the short, whip-like noise as she whipped the first of the knives out and over.

  I leaped over to the house with the green shingles, glad that the algae offered more traction rather than less. I collapsed, no longer running. There was no point.

  A hail Mary, I thought, joking with myself.

  Not the kind of joke that was worth getting in the habit of saying, considering the Academy’s relationship with religion. Young children among the hoity-toity got lectures for saying ‘oh Jesus’, much as adults lost friends or jobs for mentioning religion. At best, it was a lower class thing to say, only the peons dwelt on such
things, as Mauer’s followers had. At worst, it could offend someone with ties to the Academy.

  The weapon flew through the air. Mary was already throwing more from the rooftop behind us. She had the threads out, and was spinning the knives in whirling circles before casting them out sending them more up and skyward than over.

  Her aim was better than I’d thought. I had weighed the odds, and considered a civilian with a knife in their shoulder or head to be worth it, but Mary was better than that. The first two knives didn’t veer far off course, and they didn’t hit anyone. Crates, boxes, and the side of one cart, striking violently enough to interrupt conversations and turn heads.

  The third hit one of the larger monsters that were serving as guards, just a little past the front of the carriage. Solidly built, with a bulging, translucent forehead and reptilian cast to its horned skin, it was nonetheless humanoid. I could hear it roar, see it react with pain. It lurched forward, lashing out, and shouldered its way into the horses at the front of the carriage, and the ensuing movement and chaos made one side of the vehicle rise up. Forward movement arrested.

  We were going to have to apologize to people.

  Mary grunted softly as she hopped over to the rooftop I was on. She walked past me, picking her way past one arm I had outstretched to grip the cusp of the roof, a thread and knife spinning within a few inches of my head.

  “Kill?” she asked. She had a cold, dead look in her eyes, as she stared into the distance, focused on her quarry.

  I wanted to say yes.

  But we didn’t know for sure if they were Academy or not, and murdering someone who was in good standing with witnesses watching could get us in trouble.

  “Wound,” I said.

  She made a face, then released the string.

  The knife flew skyward.

  “You ask a lot,” she said.

  “I’m a jerk like that,” I said. “And I know you’re capable.”

  Jamie stopped panting long enough to whistle, “Is it too soon to say nice throwing?”

  “No,” she said. “Unless he moves.”

  The man driving the carriage twisted, shouting something to people behind him.

  But his legs were where they were. The knife came down, seemingly right on top of him, and he screamed, doubling over.