After the Red Rain

by Lyga, Barry

  “—were my last hope,” the voice of Dr. Dimbali said from the screen.

  Deedra watched herself drink the Rose-tea from her mug, then stare at the video version of Dr. Dimbali, stand up, and say: “We’re going to break Rose out of jail.”

  “You’ve been recording me?” she asked.

  He waved away her concern. “Of course not. Why would I do that? I record myself. You were simply here at the time. My presence activates the recording.”

  “That’s… weird.” Who would want a video record of everything they did?

  “This is a place of science, Ms. Ward. Everything that happens here matters. Everything I do must be recorded for examination and posterity. Who knows when I might do or say something that will prove crucially important to my research later?”

  She sighed. Whatever.

  “I promise you,” he told her, “we will do all we can in this situation. But our lives after the rescue will not, I fear, resemble their current states. In all likelihood, we will be on the run, hunted.”

  Some part of her had assumed this from the beginning. But that part had a quiet voice and never spoke much anyway. Had she ever imagined that she could break the law, retrieve Rose from prison, and then go back to her oh-so-ordinary life?

  Then again… what was so great about that oh-so-ordinary life anyway?

  “Are you all right?” Dr. Dimbali asked. He asked it with the clinical air of a man wondering if a wall’s structural integrity is still viable, not a man genuinely concerned with her.

  She was used to it. This is my life, she thought. A scientific genius with all the warmth of a dead rat, and a beautiful, imprisoned boy who is also a plant.

  The laughter burbled out of her involuntarily. Before she realized what was happening, she convulsed with it, doubling over and howling, gasping for breath at the same time.

  I’m in love with a plant, and the only person I can trust is probably more than a little bit crazy and thinks he can save the world.

  The laughter came harder, and she leaned against the wall for support, heaving out guffaws. Tears streamed down her face. As she caught her breath, she looked up to see Dr. Dimbali gazing at her, his goggles still pushing his hair up in a spray, his face gritty and gray with a fine coating of concrete dust, his expression one of such earnest befuddlement that she started laughing all over again.

  Her oh-so-ordinary life? Ha! That life had ended—if it had ever really existed in the first place—that day by the river, the day she’d seen the blue rat.

  She palmed the tears away, choking down air, forcing herself to breathe. She was never supposed to have to make these decisions. No one was ever supposed to have to make these decisions. How was any one person supposed to decide the fate of another person, much less the fate of the world?

  Why her?

  But hell—why not her?

  “Let’s do it,” she said.

  CHAPTER 35

  The plan had to be simple, as all good plans must be, according to Dr. Dimbali.

  As an enemy combatant, Rose would not be permitted visitors, except for his attorney. Dr. Dimbali was known at the Complex, having visited there on L-Twelve business with Jaron. But Deedra was unknown to them. She would have to be the one to perform reconnaissance within the facility itself. To capture the floor-plan information they would need to execute the rescue.

  “If my calculations are correct,” Dr. Dimbali said with a tone of voice that left no doubt that they were, “then Rose is no doubt extraordinarily weak right now. We need him strong, but the conditions inside his cell would prevent him from recouping his strength.”

  She thought of him on the patch of dirt outside her apartment, absorbing his food through the soil and from the sun. Precious little of either in SecFac, if any.

  “My research indicates that roses need nitrogen and phosphorous in particular to thrive. Fortunately, these are easily distilled from waste matter. We will develop concentrates of these nutrients, delivered in a solution no larger than a standard hypodermic needle. This will give Rose the nutritional jolt he needs to escape. It is imperative that he conserve his strength, that he not act until the precise moment we are ready for him to act. With his biomorphic capabilities, he should be able to escape through the window.”

  “Biomorphic?”

  “Shape-shifting.”

  She thought of the tendrils Rose had extruded from his body. Of course. If he could do that, what other ways could he change his form? She suffered a sudden jab of jealousy that Dr. Dimbali knew more about Rose than she did, then quelled it. Rescuing Rose was what mattered.

  “Then what?”

  “Then he and I can complete my work and begin reviving the world.”

  “No, no, I mean… I mean, I go in and reconnoiter, and we make a solution out of our… you know. But how do we get it to him?”

  Dr. Dimbali’s face lit up. “That is where you are fortunate to be working with me on this endeavor. There are a few possibilities. Still, let us not get ahead of ourselves. One step at a time. Your reconnoiter comes first.”

  “What if it doesn’t go well? What if I don’t learn anything useful?”

  “You must. Once they learn what Rose is, I’m afraid he will be nothing more than a lab specimen to them. One that talks. Until he no longer can.”

  Deedra shuddered. Dr. Dimbali had a way of delivering the most unpleasant news possible in a flat, apathetic tone that made it even worse.

  “Then let’s not waste any more time,” she told him, and held out a demanding hand. Dr. Dimbali—with a moment’s hesitation and more genuine regret than she’d ever witnessed in him—slowly removed his SmartSpex and placed them in her hand.

  CHAPTER 36

  Under cover of night, Rose had tested himself. The camera was infrared-equipped, he was certain, like the drones he evaded so easily. His body temperature fluctuated, sometimes involuntarily, depending on the ambient climate, but the conditions in the cell never changed. He could change his core temperature at will, making himself cool enough to blend into the background at night when the drones were looking for him, but while in the cell, he had to maintain a human range of body temperature so that he wouldn’t vanish on the camera and cause suspicion.

  Now that he felt stronger, he began plotting his escape. No one would be coming to rescue him—how could they?—so he would have to be his own savior. Which was fine. He’d survived so long on his own, after all. For years, he’d needed no one but himself.

  And then Deedra.

  Why had she extended a helping hand to him that day by the river? And why had he accepted it? In all his travels, she was the first person who ever tried to help him for no other reason than to help. She wanted and took nothing from him in return for her aid; she baffled and charmed him at the same time. Not that he couldn’t or didn’t understand the impulse; he understood it intimately.

  He’d just never witnessed it outside of himself before.

  In all the places he’d visited since that first day in the graveyard, since that sighting of what may have been the last rose in the world, he’d encountered hundreds if not thousands of people on his path. Some, he’d helped. Some had helped him. Some had shunned him, avoided him, tried to kill him, or persecuted him. Of those who had helped, though, none had done it without cost. None had offered one hand without the other open and waiting for repayment.

  Until Deedra.

  I was fine. I was fine until you. And then I had to stay, I had to stay here, and look what’s happened to me.

  Now he would leave. He would leave this prison, and he would leave Ludo Territory. A fugitive. A year ago, it would not have bothered him, having to flee.

  Now, though, he was leaving someone behind.

  He forced himself not to think of her, focused on practicing in the dark. The camera could read his heat signature, but not the fine details of his shape.

  Or his color.

  He practiced. He was almost ready.

  In the morning, t
hen.

  CHAPTER 37

  The Complex loomed ahead of her that morning. From ground level, it was much more imposing than it had been from an angle above, and its formidable gray walls and electrified fencing nearly weakened her knees and made her reconsider.

  But that time was past.

  She slipped on the SmartSpex. They smelled faintly of some kind of piquant spice and the peculiarly male odor of sweat. They were a bit too large for her, and she had to keep poking at them to push them up on her nose.

  The world was fractured through the broken lens on her left. Clouds gathered overhead. Rain? She couldn’t tell. The day was humid and hot, the only alternative to freezing cold.

  At the gate to the Complex, two DeeCees stood in full riot armor, with weapons at the ready. One of them glanced at her. “Move along, citizen.”

  “I have business here,” she said, drawing herself erect.

  Nothing to fear, Deedra. Not right now. This is just part one. Recon. Nothing to fear.

  “No, you don’t,” the DeeCee barked. “Move along.” As if she didn’t get the point—and the threat—he gestured up the road with the barrel of his gun.

  “The Territorial Code states that citizens may visit the Magistrate’s Office to register official complaints or to request commendations for Territory personnel.”

  The DeeCees exchanged an amused glance. “Which are you here for?”

  “I want to commend my supervisor, Suresh Dimbali.” She fixed the obstinate DeeCee with a glare. “But maybe I’ll file something else while I’m here.”

  Weak threat, maybe, but it showed her spine. The DeeCee relented. He produced a handheld scanner and ran it over her body. It bleeped as he passed it over her breasts and he tilted his head. Without a moment’s thought, Deedra lifted her poncho so that he could see her pendant dangling there against her shirt. The DeeCee scanned the pendant, shrugged with satisfaction, and then continued.

  “No goggs in the Complex,” the DeeCee said when he’d scanned her and found nothing. He held out a hand, palm up, and wiggled his fingers, demanding the SmartSpex.

  “They don’t actually work,” Deedra said with careful, measured sarcasm. How stupid are you? her tone asked. “I just like wearing them. They look cool.” She removed the SmartSpex and held them out to him, twisting them around so he could peer through them and see nothing but glass.

  Abashed, the guard shrugged. Of course they wouldn’t work. How many people had functional tech like that? He waved her in.

  As soon as she was within the bounds of the gate, Deedra fiddled with her pendant, removing the tiny battery attached there. Pretending to clean the lens of the SmartSpex, she loaded the battery into its compartment, then slipped the goggs on.

  There was a disorienting moment of flashing colors as the SmartSpex rebooted, but then the heads-up overlay settled into place. Deedra pretended to cough into her hand, but instead whispered, “Let’s go, Spex.”

  A hovering light blinked at the periphery of her vision. The SmartSpex were listening.

  “Start capture,” she said, and the SmartSpex began recording everything she saw. There would be a complete layout of everywhere she went in the Complex, a record of things she didn’t even remember seeing. Guard numbers and patterns. Security measures. Everything.

  Hold tight, Rose. We’re coming.

  Dr. Dimbali had taught her a whole range of commands—he called them “murms,” short for “murmurs”—that controlled the various aspects of the SmartSpex. As she made her way to the first building—the Magistrate’s Office—she tested the murms, switching from normal light to infrared to ultraviolet to gamma scatter and back again. The SmartSpex worked without complaint, and she saw through walls, through skin. She was beginning to think that Dr. Dimbali had intentionally broken one of the lenses. As camouflage. If people knew what he was capable of doing and seeing, they would never trust him.

  The Magistrate’s Complex was three buildings arranged around a central concrete courtyard, the whole thing hemmed in by ramparts topped with razor wire. To her left, going through the gate, was the Magistrate’s Office building. To her right lay the headquarters for the local police and the Territory’s DeeCee contingent, including the Emergency Stocks—the Magistrate’s arsenal and supply of emergency rations in case of attack.

  And straight ahead, at the other end of the flat, dead courtyard, the squat, square tumor that was SecFac.

  That was her goal. But she couldn’t just wander in there. She veered left.

  The inside of the Magistrate’s Office wasn’t nearly as cramped as the other buildings she’d been in, but it was almost as dusty and dirty. The floors were carpeted, true, but the carpets were ragged and pockmarked with spots worn see-through thin, even without SmartSpex. Armed guards stood everywhere at attention, watching her as she walked the halls. She tried not to gape at them, as the SmartSpex spat out information on them, revealing their model of body armor and weapon complement.

  We’re in deep.

  She found a desk with a sign that said TERRITORIAL CITIZEN ASSISTANCE and stood patiently until someone showed up.

  “Can I help you?” the woman said, clearly interested in anything but. “The Magistrate isn’t in today, so don’t even bother asking.”

  “I was actually wondering,” Deedra said, speaking the line exactly as she’d rehearsed it with Dr. Dimbali, “how I apply for a permission visa to visit someone in the prison.”

  The woman arched an eyebrow. Deedra tried not to show how nervous she was. There was nothing criminal about visiting a criminal. It just felt that way.

  “I have a friend who did something stupid,” she went on. If the woman demanded details, she had a whole story invented about her “friend,” including a name and details of crimes, culled from reports on the wikis. She would never admit to knowing Rose. Not here. Not for this purpose. But if she could get into SecFac, she could record more information that would help them spring Rose. If not, she would at least walk by the building. But getting in would be better.

  “Permission visas take ten days to process,” the woman snapped, and slid a tab to Deedra.

  Ten days? She hadn’t known that. Dr. Dimbali hadn’t mentioned it.

  “Is there any way to get in sooner?” she asked.

  The woman simply glared at her until Deedra took the tab and went to stand in a corner. There were no chairs or sofas.

  The tab flickered on, the image wobbling, displaying a Permission Visa Request Form. Deedra grimaced. She didn’t want to waste time filling this out, but if she didn’t, it would look suspicious.

  She sighed and started tapping the screen.

  CHAPTER 38

  Rose stayed under the blanket as long as possible, even though he longed to uncover himself and enter the sunbeam falling into his cell. The clouds were thin today, the sun a little stronger than usual, and its light sang to him, tempting him out of bed. He resisted. He’d spent the night preparing, and if the camera saw his preparation, his escape would be over before it began. Now he only needed to wait for—

  There it was. The telltale tread of a boot just outside his door. Bringing what passed for breakfast for the prisoners of Max Ludo.

  The food slot slid open from the outside and the tray prodded into the cell, waiting for him to take it.

  He slid off the cot, still wrapped in his blanket. Overnight, he had coaxed his skin color to change, deepening and darkening it to a mottled black, like the body armor worn by the guards. As his strength had returned, his sepals had regrown as well, and he’d focused his concentration, shaping them around him. He knew the camouflage wasn’t perfect, but he hoped it would be close enough to fool people at a distance, and maybe those not paying rapt attention to security cameras.

  It had been hard, exhausting work, and it had taken a night of rigorous single-mindedness. But it was nothing compared with what he had to do now.

  He had to perform violence.

  He did not want to do this. In the past
, he’d often been able to reason his way out of situations that called for violence, or used his powers to evade those who would not be rational. But there was no way to reason with Max Ludo or his underlings, and no way to run away. Not without hurting someone.

  Holding the blanket around himself with one hand, he took the tray with the other, slowly pulling it into the cell.

  The hand on the other side of the door let go. The slot was open and unblocked for just this moment. He dropped the tray and thrust his hand into the slot.

  And fired out tendrils from his arm.

  On the other side of the door, he heard a gasp of shock. Lashing out with the tendrils, he flailed until they wrapped around something. A leg.

  Unlike the time he’d wrapped up Deedra and lifted her into the air, this time he was glad for the thorns.

  A yelp from the other side of the door. He tightened his grip. The thorns ripped at the bulky body armor.

  He thickened the vines. Going by feel, he extended them up the guard’s body, encircling the throat and cutting off his voice before he could call for help. Through the tendrils, he could feel the rapid, panicked pulse in the man’s neck. He tightened his noose of vines, and thorns bit into the man’s flesh.

  How much time had passed? Seconds. Maybe. He hoped. If someone was watching him on the camera, they would just be wondering why he was still crouched down at the door. Maybe they wouldn’t react yet. Maybe curiosity would keep them watching.

  Throwing away that worry, he focused on the man outside. He needed the guard helpless and terrified, not injured or dead.

  “If you want to live,” he said into the slot, hoping his voice would carry, “then open the door.”

  There was a gurgle of speech, unintelligible.

  “You have no idea what I can do to you,” Rose said. He tried to make his voice threatening, but it came out more informative than anything else. Oh, well. The thorns biting the man’s neck should be threat enough.