I decide not to stick around to see if Headspace makes good on his threat. I run through the woods and don’t stop until I twist an ankle leaping over the metal guardrail of a highway and fall down a steep slope into a shallow bog. Frogs leap into the brackish water, and grackles take flight with a caw. I sit in the damp squish and catch my breath.
So this is what it’s like. To be chased. From what Kalea just shared with me, seems like I’m much more used to being the one doing the chasing.
I get up slowly. Is that all there is to life? Hunting, or being hunted? I can’t say either is a lot of fun. At least when you’re the one doing the hunting, there’s a feeling of control. What you decide matters.
I make my way through the swamp. It takes all my strength to pull my boots up out of the sucking mud with each step. I see the bulk of darkened buildings through the trees and head in that direction, if only to have something resembling a destination in mind.
The sting of Kalea’s rejection still lingers, but maybe it’s a good thing, really. No, I know that sounds like I’m trying to convince myself. But it was my desire to keep her and Clark safe that made me stick around them in the first place. Put a target on my back. Allowed both PRS and Generation Zero to find me.
But now she hates me too. Good. Right? Now I have no one holding me back. No obligations. I can just . . . take off. Do whatever. Let Gen Zero and PRS duke it out. Not my problem. Both that PRS stooge and Telic called me a “weapon.” An object. Something made to be used by an actual person.
Well, forget that. I’m through being used. I don’t care which side wins, gun thugs or psiots. They’re both crazy and deserve each other, as far as I’m concerned. I mean, sure, the psiots are just kids, and PRS has all the guns and government behind them.
But so what! Then it’s inevitable. The kids are doomed. I don’t have to actively go out and hunt them for the authorities, but I don’t have to join their little Rebel Alliance or whatever it is either.
I can just, you know. Strike out on my own. With no ID, no memory, no family, and skin the color of Grandma’s fine china. Sure, I can give myself a human skin tone, any human skin tone, really, but with effort, and it’ll make me so hungry I’ll have to clean out an all-you-can-eat buffet afterward.
I stifle a laugh at my stupidity. Yep, and with all that and the right attitude, I can become the first melanin-free president of the United States. And, of course, I am already starving again as I heal from the beating Superzombie/Animalia gave me.
I reach the fence surrounding the property. Based on the smell and the mud compound beyond the barbed wire, it’s a small farm of some kind. I climb up and swing over. The barbs hurt when they tear open my skin, but I’m used to bleeding by now, and the lacerations are half-healed by the time my feet hit the ground.
A few sheep wander out of the nearest structure and blink at me, then go back inside one of a trio of barns. They have no fear of me whatsoever, which is both strange and very appreciated. I could get used to this. Maybe I could become a shepherd. Are shepherds still a thing?
Painted on the side of the barn nearest me is a child’s crude mural of kids holding hands and hooves with farm animals. “Unity Fields: Cultivating Enduring Life Skills Through Farm Experiences” is printed underneath. I see pigs, goats, and even a large llama.
I stagger inside that barn. Leaning against the wall near the door is a big sack labeled “Livestock Probiotic Feed.” The top is partially ripped open; inside, a big metal scoop is stuffed into a big pile of brown pellets.
Before my brain finishes the thought that, hey, maybe this isn’t such a great idea, my body tells it to shut the heck up, and my hands are shoving into the bag and cramming animal feed into my mouth. It’s got a sour, nutty taste, like a breakfast cereal that’s trying too hard to be good for you. A sheep shaped like a wine cork hears the crunch of the bag and waddles up to me. I’m not some greedy bastard. I give a handful to the sheep, who sucks it down with its slimy, lipless mouth; then I swallow a handful for myself. A couple of goats figure out what’s going on and join the party, and the llama too, and between the lot of us, we polish off the whole bag in maybe fifteen minutes. Not the best or most dignified meal I’ve ever had, but it shut my hunger up, which is all I care about.
My usefulness to them over, the livestock trot away and go back to sleep in the mud of the yard. That gritty feed was as dry as all heck, so I have to find a hose outside to wash out my mouth. Back in the barn, I find an unoccupied stall with poop-free straw. I sit down in it with my back against the wall, and all of a sudden, my limbs feel like they’re ten thousand pounds. I still haven’t slept. I still worry that if I do, my memories will get wiped again, and when I wake up, I’ll be right where I started. Nowhere.
I go over what memories I do have again to maybe reinforce them so I can’t lose them so easily by sleeping. What do I know? Sounds like I, the Psiot Hunter, tried to get the jump on this Pulse, and she fried my circuits, so to speak, and wiped my memories. Didn’t Telic say she’d been missing for three weeks, though? I couldn’t have been lying in that clearing for that long before Kalea and Clark found me. But what did happen to Pulse? Generation Zero doesn’t have her, and if she knocked me out, why would PRS have her? If I could somehow track her down on my own and save her, maybe I could bring her back to Kalea and prove to her I’m not the monster she thinks I am.
I spit out the last few remaining flakes of animal feed. Just this morning I was enjoying a McEverything, and a few hours ago, my friends and I were laughing in the park.
I shake my head. Dummy. You’re getting nostalgic for stuff that happened literally today. What are you thinking? Kalea is a trap. Forget her. She’s gone now. You have to be independent of everybody. No connections. It’s the only way to keep yourself safe. And everyone else safe, for that matter.
A strange sound makes me start. I look around, but it’s only when I lower my knee that I see the cat. Mostly reddish brown, with black blotches all over its fur, including over one eye. It’s sitting in the straw of the barn and looking at me. It cries again, a little strangled half meow, half squawk.
I wave it away, but instead it stands and walks closer. Cats. Why are their favorite people always the ones who don’t want anything to do with them?
The cat sits again and stares up at me.
“I’m bad news, you know,” I say out loud. “Everyone seems to think so. Nobody who sticks by me has anything good happen to them. Including me.”
The cat puts one paw up and taps my knee a little bit.
I shrug. “It’s your funeral, fleabag.”
The cat jumps into my lap and stretches its back, kneading my legs with its claws. I can feel its purr throughout my entire body. Against my better judgment, I reach out and stroke its furry head. The purring gets louder. It rubs its nose and mouth across my fingers.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
As the cat curls up in my lap, I lean my head against the wall of the barn. I close my eyes. Is it safe to sleep?
Pulse. She’s the key. If I could just find her, I feel like I could make this whole thing right.
* * *
I learn I can sleep. But I guess I don’t dream.
* * *
A sudden scream awakens me. I don’t even know if scream is the right word. Just a piercing tone, high and sustained, that couldn’t have possibly been made by anything living. Yet it’s coming from within my mind.
Just as it fades, gunshots. Three extended bursts.
A girl screams.
“Tango down, tango down!” The man’s voice is distant, muffled.
I bolt upright. The cat, startled, bounds out of my lap and into the darkness of the yard. I look around. I don’t see anything except farm animals ignoring me.
But I hear the crunch of sneakers on gravel.
A thud, a cry, a bigger thud.
“I got the little one!” yells a much closer man.
“Get off me!” screams a voice I recognize. Kalea’s.
Struggling, grunting, cursing.
“Tranq her ass!” cries a woman’s voice in the distance.
Thupp! I don’t hear anything that sounds like Kalea anymore.
I stand up. I’m pretty sure I know what’s going on.
“Kalea’s iPhone,” I ask out loud, “where is Kalea?”
Where Kalea is is forty-six degrees Fahrenheit, or, if you prefer, 7.8 degrees Celsius.
I jog out of the barn.
Where Kalea is is eight minutes past oh-two-hundred hours, Eastern Daylight Time.
In the yard I break into a run. A curly-horned ram is zonked out in a small doghouse-shaped structure, which I jump onto, the big boy awaking with a bleat; then I spring off and over the barbed wire fence to the hill beyond.
Where Kalea is is forty degrees forty-one minutes north, eighty degrees fifty-six minutes west.
I run up the hill, digging my bootheels into the wet earth, sprinting toward the top, hands like blades cutting through the air.
“Thank you, Kalea’s iPhone,” I say.
The phone doesn’t make a reply, but I have an image of a round yellow head with a blushing face in my mind.
“Whoa, whoa, look: Blondie tried to call somebody.”
“Who?” asks a hollow voice, as if muffled by a tin can. “Our guy?”
“I don’t know, some 1-800 number. Doesn’t look like it went through, though.”
“Well, don’t stand there looking at me with your mouth open, dumbass,” growls Scary Voice. “Turn it off.”
“Okay, Red Cell. Sorry, Red Cell.”
Click.
Silence.
Too late, gun-toting goons.
You were dumb enough to make yourselves my mission.
Now there’s nowhere you can hide from me.