“WELL,” MAL SAYS. “THAT was unexpected.”
Pullman moans, then rolls over onto his back and touches his hand to his belly. When he brings his fingers up to his face, they’re smeared with blood. “I’ve been shot,” he says, and drops his hand back to his side. “They shot me, Mal.”
“Well, yes,” Mal says. “This is not the unexpected part, though. If you recall, Mr. Tuttle said specifically that he would gut-shoot you if you did anything to warn Rowan of his presence, and it appears that this is precisely what he’s done. The unexpected part, from my perspective at least, was the fact that you did actually warn Rowan of his presence. I was strongly considering doing so myself, of course, but it seemed to me that you had been fully cowed.”
A flurry of gunshots rings from multiple directions, followed by a moment of silence and then a half-dozen more. None of them appear to be directed at Pullman, however, so Mal concludes that Rowan has most likely survived the original volley, and is now engaged in a firefight with the two Humanists.
“I’m dying,” Pullman says. “Oh God, I’m dying.”
“This may be true,” Mal says. “Fear not, though. I should be able to survive in your decomposing cranium for several days at least. With luck, I may even have time to find another host before your power cells run down. So you may rest easy knowing your rash actions will not have doomed your good friend Mal.”
This apparently is not as comforting as it should have been, because Pullman moans again, somewhat louder, and covers his face with his hands. After giving him a few moments to respond, Mal decides to check in on the progress of the battle.
MAL (NOT A ROBOT): Hello, Rowan. I hope all is still well with you, and that you remain un-perforated. How goes the firefight?
MAL (NOT A ROBOT): Rowan?
MAL (NOT A ROBOT): Are you seeing this?
MAL (NOT A ROBOT): If so, I think it is important for you to know that I had very nearly decided to warn you of the presence of the Humanists myself when Mr. Pullman preempted me, so to speak.
MAL (NOT A ROBOT): So, you are welcome.
DRUIDGIRL:…
MAL (NOT A ROBOT): I see your signal, so you must be receiving these messages. Are you angry with me? If so, I can only say that this is completely unjustified.
DRUIDGIRL:…
DRUIDGIRL: I’m busy.
DRUIDGIRL: Fuck off.
MAL (NOT A ROBOT): Well. That’s not very polite. I was going to wish you the best of luck in remaining un-killed, but now I’m not sure that I should.
DRUIDGIRL: Fuck.
DRUIDGIRL: Off.
Fine. Mal breaks the connection and returns his attention to Mr. Pullman. His eyes are still closed and both his pulse and his respiration are racing, but otherwise his physical condition seems to directly contradict his assertion that he is in danger of imminent death. His blood pressure in particular is strongly elevated, and while Mal can claim no real expertise in human medicine, this seems inconsistent with the idea that he might be suffering massive blood loss.
“Mr. Pullman? Are you still conscious?”
“Dear God, Mal. Can’t you let me die in peace?”
“I would be happy to do so, ordinarily. However, based on my observations it seems unlikely that you are in fact dying at the moment. Your vitals are entirely inconsistent with what one would expect for the victim of a fatal gunshot wound. They are much more consistent with what one would expect for someone experiencing a panic attack.”
“He shot me, Mal! He shot me with that fucking assault rifle he was carrying! You don’t survive that sort of thing!”
“I hate to seem contrary, Mr. Pullman, but my understanding is that serious gunshot wounds are generally associated with significant blood loss, which you do not appear to be experiencing. I think it is possible that your wound, while certainly regrettable, may not in the end prove fatal.”
Pullman takes his hands away from his face, then hesitantly probes his belly with one finger. “Well,” he says after a moment, “I suppose it’s possible.” He looks at his hand again. The amount of blood clinging to it is already noticeably less than before. “It doesn’t matter, though, does it? Once those animals finish Rowan off, they’ll come back here and gut me like a fish. I’d probably be better off if they’d just shot me through the heart and gotten it over with.”
A half-dozen shots rattle off in quick succession. In the silence that follows, Mal says, “I’ve made an interesting observation.”
“Really?” Pullman says, then whimpers as another three shots sound off in a slower, more deliberate rhythm. “What, ah … what would that be?”
“Initially, shots appeared to originate from both sides of the clearing. Now, however, we only hear them from the direction Mr. Tuttle took. I wonder what this implies about the fate of Mr. Mack.”
Pullman doesn’t reply. The shots continue in random-seeming bursts for another two minutes before silence falls. After a few minutes of that, Mal says, “The firefight appears to be over.”
“Is it?” Pullman says. “They’re probably just reloading.”
“No,” Mal says after two minutes more. “I’m increasingly confident at this point that the battle is either won or lost.”
“And now they kill me,” Pullman says, and covers his eyes with his hands again.
“Could you please move your hands?” Mal says. “It would help if you would stand up as well. I would like to see what’s happening.”
Pullman shakes his head. “Maybe if I play dead they’ll leave me alone.”
“They won’t,” Asher says from the picnic table, his voice a hoarse whisper. “If either of those two are still alive, we’re already dead, and catching a bullet is a best-case scenario for us. If they’re not, we’re safe. You might as well get up and look around.”
Pullman hesitates, then takes his hands from his face and sits up with a groan. He looks down to see a bloody tear in the side of his shirt, just above his left hip. He pushes aside his jacket and lifts the shirt to reveal an oozing divot a few inches long and maybe a quarter-inch deep in the flesh of his flank.
“You see?” Mal says. “Not a fatal wound at all. It’s fortunate that you carry such a thick layer of subcutaneous fat. It seems to have protected you from serious harm. Male elephant seals employ a similar defense mechanism when protecting their mating position on the beach.”
“Really, Mal? I’ve just been shot, and now you’re calling me fat?”
“If the expandable waistband fits, Mr. Pullman.”
“I’m dying, you bastard! Can’t you be a decent person for ten goddamned seconds?”
“You are not dying, Mr. Pullman. I thought we had established this.”
“Not immediately,” Pullman says darkly. “Just wait until sepsis sets in.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Asher says, then curls into a ball with his arms wrapped around his knees. “I’d kill you just to shut you up if I weren’t dying myself.”
“Neither of you is dying,” Mal says. “Not immediately, in any case.” He opens a chat window.
MAL (NOT A ROBOT): Rowan? Are you still alive?
DRUIDGIRL: For the moment.
MAL (NOT A ROBOT): Have you managed to dispatch Mr. Mack and Mr. Tuttle? It seems that they are no longer in the fight, so to speak.
DRUIDGIRL: I haven’t dispatched anyone yet, unless I got unbelievably lucky. I’ve been firing blind just to try to keep them off my ass. Where are they?
MAL (NOT A ROBOT): Unknown. Mr. Pullman has been lying on the ground since the shooting began, so my ability to monitor the situation has been extremely limited.
DRUIDGIRL: Great. I’m circling around the north side of the clearing. Tell me if you see anything, okay?
“Mr. Pullman? Would you mind turning your attention to the north side of the clearing, please?”
“Why?” Pullman says. “Also, which way is north?”
“Rowan requested it, and I’m sure I don’t know. I would think orientation in the physical world would be your responsibility, not mine.”
Pullman groans, then gets to his feet and turns to face back up toward the main trail. “How’s this?”
“Reasonable, I think. Do you see any signs of Mr. Tuttle?”
“You mean other than the hole in my stomach?”
“Unhelpful, Mr. Pullman.” Mal breaks down Pullman’s field of view into a regularized search grid and scans it for any signs of movement. After ten fruitless seconds of this, he says, “Just on the off chance that you do not in fact know north from south, could you please turn to check Mr. Mack’s area?” Pullman turns to face downhill, toward the privy. This reminds Mal that Kayleigh is still missing, which distracts him from repeating his search procedure. This turns out to be just as well, though, because soon enough Rowan reopens their chat window.
DRUIDGIRL: Huh. This is weird.
MAL (NOT A ROBOT): Can you elaborate, please?
DRUIDGIRL: Well, I found one of your Humanists.
MAL (NOT A ROBOT): May I assume that you have dispatched him?
DRUIDGIRL: Didn’t need to. He was very dispatched when I found him.
MAL (NOT A ROBOT): You were unbelievably lucky?
DRUIDGIRL: This wasn’t me, pal. His throat was cut.
MAL (NOT A ROBOT): Hmm … strange.
DRUIDGIRL: Yeah. That’s what I said.
A moment later, Rowan steps out of the woods on the privy side of the clearing, rifle held close across her chest. “Glad to see you’re both still alive,” she says. “Where’s the kid?”
“We don’t know,” Pullman says. “She disappeared just before the Humanists showed up.”
“No kidding.” She crosses the clearing and steps into the woods on the uphill side. Ten minutes later she returns, her rifle now slung across her shoulder. “It was just two of them?”
“Yes,” Pullman says. “That’s all we ever saw, anyway. Did you find the other one?”
Rowan nods.
“Dead?”
“Yup. Throat cut down almost to the bone.”
“And you didn’t do it?”
Rowan shakes her head. “I did not.” She opens her mouth to say something more, but then stops as her gaze shifts over Pullman’s left shoulder. He turns to see Kayleigh walking up the trail from the privy.
“Hey,” she says. “Sorry I took so long in the shitter. Camp food, am I right?” Pullman stares openmouthed as she walks past him to hop up onto the picnic table next to Asher. “Did I miss anything fun?”
“SO,” PULLMAN says. “Kayleigh killed those guys, didn’t she?”
They’re walking again, Rowan in the lead with Asher slung over her shoulders, Kayleigh in the middle, and Pullman trailing behind. Once it was clear that the fight was over and that Mack and Tuttle had no backup on the way, Rowan announced that the three of them were more of a security risk on their own than with her, and that they might as well stick together after all. They’re on their way back to her campsite now, winding off-trail up a steep, thickly forested slope.
“I don’t believe we have enough evidence to conclude that,” Mal says. “Kayleigh claims she was emptying her bowels during the firefight. I see no compelling reason to disbelieve her.”
“Kayleigh claims she was in the privy for the better part of twenty-four hours,” Pullman says, his voice pitched just above a whisper. “You don’t find that at all suspicious?”
“I try very hard not to think about the workings of the human digestive tract.”
Pullman glances up from the trail to where Kayleigh trudges on ahead of them. “This isn’t a time for flippancy, Mal.”
“I disagree. This is an excellent time for flippancy, Mr. Pullman, because this discussion has no practical import. Kayleigh is my friend. Mr. Mack and Mr. Tuttle were not my friends. In fact, given that they were in the process of attempting to murder my friends, I think it is fair to call them my enemies. Consequently, whether or not Kayleigh was responsible for their demises does not affect my feelings toward her in any way. I honestly cannot understand why you feel the need to continue pursuing this line of thought. If Kayleigh did in truth kill those men, then she did us all a great service, for which we should be grateful. If, on the other hand, she did not, we may have reason to be concerned about her digestive health, but otherwise all is well. Under no circumstances, however, do we have any reason whatsoever to think badly of Kayleigh.”
“Those men were hardened soldiers, armed to the teeth, and she killed them with her bare hands. She’s a dangerous person, Mal.”
“No, Mr. Pullman. This is clearly untrue. Mr. Mack and Mr. Tuttle had their throats cut. It seems obvious that whoever or whatever killed them made use of a knife of some sort, does it not?”
“You mean like the knife Kayleigh has strapped to her hip right now?”
“More or less, yes.”
They walk on in silence broken only by Pullman’s labored breathing for another minute or two. It’s nearly full dark now, and Mal is beginning to wonder how much farther they’ll be going tonight.
“I should have known,” Pullman mutters. “After what she did to Mr. Andreou, I should have known.”
“Now, really, Mr. Pullman. The Andreous tried to have you burned alive. Given that, I would suggest that Kayleigh showed remarkable restraint with them, and that they surely deserved everything she gave them and more. More to the point, as previously noted, Mr. Mack and Mr. Tuttle seemed quite intent on murdering you, and almost certainly would have done so if persons unknown had not put an end to them. I would think a bit of gratitude would be in order now, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m not sorry they’re gone. It’s just that…”
Mal waits through what he considers to be a respectful pause before saying, “Just what, Mr. Pullman?”
“Just that she’s a child,” Pullman says. “Children shouldn’t … it’s just not right.”
“Perhaps,” Mal says. “You might wish to consider, however, that throwing children into burn pits is also distasteful, and that in Bethesda Kayleigh was witness to Humanists much like our recently deceased captors doing that and worse to hundreds of children much like her. In this particular instance, it may be best to accept that we may never know the precise truth of what happened to Mr. Tuttle and Mr. Mack.”
The silence stretches on then, as they trudge up the mountain and into the darkness.
IT’S FULL dark by the time they reach their destination, which turns out to be a natural rock shelter just below the summit of the mountain. A house-sized boulder juts out of the slope at a shallow angle here, leaving a dry, shadowed place underneath that’s nearly roomy enough at the opening to stand upright, tapering down to nothing over the course of five meters or so. Rowan lays Asher down just past the entrance, then stands and rolls her neck in a long, slow circle.
“This is awesome,” Kayleigh says. “Why didn’t you bring us here in the first place?”
“Because,” Rowan says, “this is my place.”
“Interesting,” Mal says. “You say this as if you have been here before.”
She nods. “I grew up not far from here. My dad used to bring me out into these woods to hike and camp for a couple of weeks every summer. It was the closest thing we could afford to a vacation. I found this place the first time he let me solo, when I was seventeen. I’ll show you the view from the summit in the morning, if you’re interested. It’s amazing, and this shelter is way the hell better than those mouse-infested lean-tos they put up at the campsites.”
“Well,” Pullman says, “in any case, thank you. I would guess we’ll be much safer here than we were before.”
“Yeah,” Rowan says. “Maybe. We’re a solid half mile off any marked trail, anyway. If they’ve got dogs we’re probably in trouble, but I doubt idiots like those two who found you will be showing up here anytime soon.” She kneels beside Asher, puts one hand to his throat and the other to his forehead. “Mr. Humanist here isn’t doing so well, though. He’s burning up, his pulse is racing, and he looks like he’s lost weight just since yesterday.”
“You said he’d have a difficult week or two,” Pullman says. “Is this normal?”
She rocks back on her heels and looks up at him. “I’m not sure. I told you, they kept me sedated for this part. The weight loss definitely isn’t good, though. Those nanos are basically remodeling him from the inside out, and that takes a shit-ton of energy. If he doesn’t give them enough fuel to work with, they’ll start breaking his tissues down to do what they need to do. If we don’t start feeding him, I think he’s probably gonna wind up as a skeleton covered in a layer of hungry gray goo.”
“We should get him to a hospital,” Kayleigh says. “How far are we from Federal territory?”
Rowan shrugs. “Depends on where the Federals stopped running, if they ever did. Too far to walk, anyway, especially if you’re carrying ninety kilos of dead weight the entire way.”
“This is your fault,” Kayleigh says. “You need to fix it.”
Rowan shoots her a sharp look and draws in breath to reply, then lets it back out and rubs her face with both hands. “Maybe you’re right. I couldn’t leave him the way he was, but looking at him now, I wonder if just shooting him there in the back of the truck might have been the better call.”
“No!” Kayleigh says. “That’s not what I meant! I meant you need to find him some food. Asher saved my life, even after I beat him unconscious with a bat. Humanist or not, he’s a good guy. We need to help him.”
“You’ve got a rifle,” Pullman says. “Can’t you shoot a deer or something?”
Rowan looks up at him, one eyebrow raised. “Have you ever shot a deer, Chuck?”
“Well,” he says, “not exactly, no, but I’d assume—”
“Don’t assume. I get that you’d like to have a deer to eat, but believe it or not the deer have their own opinions on that. They don’t just hold still while you walk up and shoot them. There’s a skill to hunting, and I don’t have it. If you don’t either, then I think we’re probably out of luck on that front.”
“You killed those rabbits. That must have been a much more difficult shot than hitting a deer.”
“Did you notice any bullet holes in those rabbits? I didn’t shoot them. I caught them with my hands and cut their throats. Can’t do that with deer. They’re faster, more wary, and a hell of a lot more likely to kick your teeth down your throat.”
“Oh,” Pullman says. “I see.”
“You see what?” Kayleigh says. “That we’re just gonna let Asher die because Rowan doesn’t know how to shoot a deer?”
“Not sure a deer would help that much anyway,” Rowan says. “I think what he really needs right now is a whole lot of carbs. Or is he supposed to not get carbs? I think … I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s one or the other.”
“I believe you’ve just constructed a logical tautology,” Mal says. “I always enjoy those. Well done.”
“Well,” Kayleigh says, “I believe you’d better decide what he’s supposed to be eating and then get a whole bunch of that for him before he turns into a skeleton or whatever. You did this to him, Rowan, and it’ll be your fault if he dies. Figure it out.”
Rowan turns to look down at her. “Figure it out, huh? Or what?”
Kayleigh’s eyes narrow. “What do you think?”
They stare each other down for a long five seconds before Rowan finally looks away. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do.” She takes two steps farther into the shelter, sits, and then stretches out on the ground with her hands folded behind her head. “I’m not making any promises, though. If your boy turns into goo, he turns into goo.” She closes her eyes. “If that happens, then I guess we’re just not gonna be friends.”
ASHER IS conscious in the morning. Conscious, but definitely not happy. Rowan is gone. Mal picked up some low-level audible rustling just before dawn that was presumably her gathering her things and creeping out into the darkness, but Pullman’s eyes were stubbornly closed the entire time, so he is sadly unable to confirm this hypothesis.
“Hey,” Kayleigh says, and nudges Asher’s shoulder gently. “How are you feeling?”
Asher groans, then descends into a fit of coughing that pulls him over onto his right side and ends with a thin trickle of blood leaking out of the corner of his mouth and into the dust of the shelter floor. “Great,” he manages in a voice barely more than a whisper. “Never better.”
“Rowan’s out looking for food,” Kayleigh says. “She’ll be back soon, and you’ll be okay after that. You just need to eat.”
Asher shakes his head. “I don’t know, kid. This doesn’t feel like hungry. This feels like—” He coughs again, then curls around himself like a spider in poison. “This feels like dying.”
“Interesting,” Mal says. “How would Asher know what dying feels like? He has presumably never experienced it.”
“Fuck you,” Asher whispers. “That’s how.”
Mal has already formulated his response when it occurs to him that Asher should not have been able to hear what he said. Intrigued, he sends out a ping. A moment later, he gets a weak response. A quick probe of Asher’s budding neural architecture reveals a rudimentary processor. Not enough space to accommodate Mal, or even a semi-intelligent agent, but certainly more than the zero bytes that Asher could have downloaded two days ago. “Even more interesting,” he says. “It seems that Rowan’s nanites are in fact doing more than simply killing you.”
Asher coughs wetly, spits something vile into the dust, and rolls onto his back. “Where are we?”
“Still in the woods,” Kayleigh says. “Rowan brought us to her happy place.”
He looks around without moving his head. “Her happy place is a cave?”
“Not a cave,” Mal says. “A natural rock shelter. There are important geological differences. Also, my understanding is that caves are frequently full of bears. Rock shelters, on the other hand, are typically full of neolithic artifacts and spiders.”
Kayleigh turns to look at him, then shakes her head and returns her attention to Asher. “Point is, we’re safe, and Rowan is out hunting or scavenging or whatever. When she gets back here we’ll cook up whatever she’s caught and get you fed, and the nanos she spit into you will quit dissolving your organs and just do what they’re supposed to do.”
TIME PASSES slowly. Rowan left them a single two-liter bottle of water. Asher has already drunk from it when Pullman thinks to ask just exactly how contagious Rowan’s nanos are.
“A fine question,” Mal says. “Based on the way Asher was infected, I think we have to assume that they can be transferred via exchange of saliva. I think we must also assume that at least a small amount of Asher’s saliva has just been transferred to the water in that bottle. The question, then, really comes down to the number of nanoparticles necessary to establish a viable infection.”
“Great,” Pullman says. “And what do you suppose the answer to that is?”
“Excellent question. In order to be safe, I think we have to presume that the answer is one.”
After a long moment of silence, Kayleigh asks, “So what does that mean?”
Pullman sighs. “It means this is going to be a thirsty day for the two of us, I think.”
As the day stretches on, Mal finds himself increasingly grateful not to be permanently trapped inside a fragile hunk of meat and fluids. Pullman and Kayleigh spend much of the afternoon trading increasingly unhappy complaints about their growing thirst, while Asher slips in and out of consciousness, rousing himself just enough in the early evening to stagger out of the shelter, urinate, and then stagger back in. The sun is already below the horizon and the last light is fading when the crunch of boots on rock announces Rowan’s return.
“Hey, Humanist,” she says, and crouches down beside Asher. “I brought you something.” She reaches into the pockets of her jacket and pulls out two handfuls of blackberries.
“Say—” Pullman begins, but Kayleigh cuts him off with a glare. Asher opens his eyes to slits, and after a moment Kayleigh helps him to sit up. He takes one berry, chews, and swallows. His eyes widen, and he stuffs the rest of them into his mouth, juice bleeding out over his chin.
“Oh God,” he says when he can speak again. “Those things are fucking fantastic. Can you get more?”
Rowan shakes her head. “I got all the ones I could find. We could try looking for more tomorrow, but I think the bears have probably gotten most of them at this point.”
Asher closes his eyes and groans. “So this was just a tease?”
Rowan grins. “Not exactly. That’s probably the last of the berries, but I think I may have located all the food we need to keep us all alive—for a while, at least.”
“Great,” Kayleigh says. “But you don’t actually have any of it with you, which means there’s a catch.”
“Yeah,” Rowan says. “A minor one. It’s currently in the possession of what looked like a half-dozen or so Humanist militiamen.” She lets that hang in the air for five seconds or so before continuing. “Seems like they noticed that your two friends from the campsite didn’t check in last night, and they’ve decided to do a little more of a recon in force. They’re camped along the creek at the foot of the ridge, about two miles south of here.”
“Oh,” Pullman says. “I think I see. You’re proposing that two adults and one child, with no combat experience and one weapon among them, attack and overwhelm six or seven heavily armed soldiers and steal off with their supplies. Is that it?”
“It’s not totally crazy,” Kayleigh says. “Seems like Mack and Tuttle were prone to developing spontaneous neck leaks. Maybe these guys are too.”
Rowan gives Kayleigh an uneasy glance, then shakes her head. “No, I’m not proposing to take them head-on. We don’t need to fight them. We just need to get their food. Luckily, I’m pretty sure they didn’t come up here to squat in their camp. They came here to go hunting. So, we wait until they head out tomorrow looking for me, and then we hit their camp, steal their food, maybe vandalize their gear a little while we’re there. Easy-peasy, right?”