Chapter 22
They’d marched away into the Undercity, Sawyer among them.
Lonely yet not alone, with JI, Keera, and this swarm of jaggs. Keera had finally noticed the swarm and ventured over, limping, her weapon tucked into the crook of her arm.
“Have you bonded with them?”
“Yes.” Wasn’t much point in lying to Keera.
“Clever girl. Just keep them in order then. These look ready to go to the next stage soon. When they return, you’ll have to give them up, you know that?’
“Sure.”
Satisfied, Keera went back to lazing about. She was reading some ancient book, carefully turning the pages and occasionally cursing when the old parchment tore. Whatever the story was, it kept Keera away from what she planned to do. For long enough though? Ari prayed it would be so.
Heal JI.
Then escape.
The chains about her neck were tough enough that bashing them with the metal block Sawyer had tossed aside was unlikely to do more than scratch and bend the metal.
“Sawyer has entrusted me with your s-safety and your captivity,” JI said solemnly.
“Yeah?” She cocked her head. “And if I decide to leave?”
“You must not, Ari. What I promise, I deliver.”
“What if I had asked a promise of you first?”
“You mean one that clashes with what Sawyer has asked? He was my friend first, therefore, his friendship holds a higher priority.”
“That’s not how friendships work, JI.”
“No? Am I then to take only your advice? It is my choice to value my friends like that. My choice.” He tapped his chest.
The mech had a point, even if she hated it. She blew out her lips in a huff. “Fine. Be like that.”
“Like what?”
“Mean.”
“Now you are being bad and insulting me. You see, this is why yours is a second-grade friendship.”
“Was that a joke?”
“Perhaps? I would laugh at it if it didn’t hurt my head.”
She snorted. Hmmm. Difficult to stay angry at JI. “You’re sounding better today.”
“I’m powered up. I’m also aware you’ve found more mechlings. These aren’t quite dead.”
“No.” Also no point in lying to JI. “Are they acceptable to you, if I try to get your brain to use them?”
“You want me to expand into their space. Let me examine them.”
Leads snaked from beneath JI’s head, and he plugged into each of the mechlings, one after the other, carefully, so as not to disturb the ropes. “Poor things. They are gone elsewhere. I will accept them, Ari, if you can make this work. I will attach them properly first.”
With a thunk, each of the mechlings at his shoulders seemed to sink into and hug closer to JI.
“There. Done. They won’t jar loose.” The ropes slackened and draped, like grotesquely wrong fashion accessories.
“Good.” She took a deep breath. “Bring me closer to them please, JI. I want to be able to touch both you and them.” Closer the better with such fine work.
“Climb on.” Gently the mech lowered his clasped hands.
She stepped onto the cage of his metal digits and hung on as he raised her to his neck.
Perhaps, this was what she was born to do? It seemed as if that might be true. Healing people had never worked for her. Never been easy. This, though...
“Keep your thoughts as still as you can, JI,” she murmured.
“I will. Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” he whispered.
So true.
She touched him, then blindly reached to the left and touched the first of the mechlings. Inside this one was a burned-out brain, mostly dead, somewhat alive. Enough, she hoped, providing feeding JI into it didn’t do him some irreparable damage.
“I might kill you,” she’d told him.
“We all die,” he’d said in return.
“Not sure I can take that if it happens. Please don’t,” she mumbled, praying to the star gods she’d never believed in. Then she began to weave her magic.
Never having seen what was inside his brain case, she imagined it as a green mass of pretty glowing lights. Each miniscule light a part of JI, and now she had to entice them into following the path she made that led to Mechling One, and Mechling Two.
Playing with life, she was. If there were gods, she was one to JI. Come to me, and she showed the lights the way, weave and spin, spin and weave.
They seemed to follow, they settled, the tendril of JI communicated and spread. Whether he would still be JI when this was done, another matter entirely. Not enough, not yet. Inside JI the brain case still bulged with inordinate and obscene pressure. She taunted, teased, and led him onward to Mechling Two.
Weave and spin, spin and weave.
Time washed past, blurred. She remembered to breathe, barely, the susurrations of real-life air going in and out of her lungs as a background noise. These thousands and thousands and millions of connections played beneath her virtual fingers.
When she was finished, she found herself curled up on his elongated hands. She stretched and blinked up at him. Orange sensor lights glowed, wavered. JI was quiet, but alive, sleeping.
Hours, it would take hours for this to resolve.
Time for her to help herself, and she knew what she had to do. It wasn’t nice, exactly, but no one would be hurt, unless...
Keera. Slowly Ari turned on the small space of the hands. The woman was asleep, lying next to the rock where she’d been reading. A bowl of food sat on the ground before JI. Keera must have left it for her.
The light past the overhang was dim and fading quickly. Sunset then, though the high towers provoked an early dusk. She had to hurry or this would be impossible. Healing JI had taken many more hours than she’d predicted. Far too long.
Hurry.
What she had to do was almost a violation of JI, but he was asleep and it was her only way. She put her hand to him again, found the lower neural pathways. Balancing on only one of his palms, she instructed the other arm to gouge the stake from the ground.
Such a simple thing for such a powerful mech. The arm pried it loose in seconds, but the groan and rasp of earth and metal was louder than she’d expected.
“What are you doing?” Keera rolled to her feet and sprinted over. “Get down here, girl!” Eyes narrowed she pointed at the ground.
“I’m sorry.” Ari bit her lip. Only one solution. Again it came down to her or someone else. The choices were bad. Her heart paused...
She made JI’s arm swipe sideways and smack into Keera. The woman flew sideways and hit the wall to the right. She slid, crumpled.
That’d been far harder than she’d meant.
If she’d killed her... Healing people wasn’t her strength.
Almost whimpering in anxiety, she climbed down. The chain tinkled and grated as metal slipped along metal. Though she gathered most in her hands, remnants of chain slipped to the ground, trailing along behind her as she ran.
Keera looked so still.
Sobbing, she flung herself down and groped for a pulse at her neck then at chest.
Lub-lub beneath her palm.
Ari shuddered. Her plan had turned to crap but maybe she could help her.
Concussion? Cracked ribs. Fractured arm.
Healing her was going to make her weak when she needed to be strong.
She tried. Her people healing wasn’t at its peak, rarely was, but she tried. The fracture she couldn’t fix exactly. The bones joined poorly. The other damage she partially healed. She hadn’t made it worse – there was that.
Her tears plopped onto Keera’s chest.
“I’m sorry. So sorry. They’ll be back soon.” Hours, but waiting would lose her a perfect chance to run. What she’d done already would earn her some terrible punishment.
She searched among Keera’s belongings for something to use as bedding. A wadded-up bit of clothing went under Keera’s head and she covered the unconscious woman in a blanket. Then she stood, wiped her eyes and figured out how she was going to climb with a heap of chains trailing behind her.
Couldn’t of course.
As a final, hopeless apology, she wrote a few words on the cover of Keera’s book and placed it in her hands.
She had to instruct the sleeping JI to pull apart the metal. Long pieces snapped off. Wasn’t perfect but at least the chains were shorter. After making a sling for the remaining pieces of the chain at her front, she grabbed as much food and water as she could carry, as well as Keera’s gun and knife, searched for better clothes than the flimsy things she wore, but nothing of Keera’s fit her. The woman was far too tall and skinny. Minus pants she was going to rub off a lot of skin, but nothing so simple would stop her now.
Then she walked to the most slanted building. Going straight up would be impossible but this looked possible. She let her gaze travel to the sky.
Darkness reigned, apart from JI’s eyes and faint moonlight.
Her vision let her see most of the crevices.
“If I don’t do this, I’m a slave for life.” Had to then. No choice in this.
Again she wiped her face then she began to climb.
Never had she exerted herself so greatly. The chains made some paths that might have been quicker, impossible.
By the fifth floor, she was gasping and had to rest. Wobbly legs, wobbly arms. After that, her routine settled in. Do five, sit, drink water. Recover, move up.
Not all the floors had collapsed. Some were pancaked, some were partly flattened, and quite a few had shifted but remained intact. It would’ve been easier if all of them had been crushed.
Hours later, her limbs were shaking and had turned into liquid lumps that barely obeyed her. She’d fall if she kept going, so she gave up on climbing and stopped. She’d rest and sleep. When the Scavs came back, she’d stay quiet, wait for night again. Move onward. Hopefully they’d leave the clearing.
The top was only...a day away at most?
Doable.
Had to be doable.
Once she was still and silent, the night noises became louder, insistent.
Hear me, I’m something unknown moving... I might eat you.
Over the thundering beat of her blood, she heard slithering that grew louder and seemed to pass below.
Fuckfuckfuck.
At last the creature passed on, moving away, somewhere. Hopefully it wouldn’t come upon her while she slept. Her eyelids grew heavy...heavier...
When she woke, it was morning or at least it was daytime. Slabs of bright light slanted in, warming her legs. It might’ve been midday. Below, there was shouting, and she had no idea how far she’d climbed last night. When she moved, all the pain from the scratches on her legs, arms and even butt – came to the fore. Owie.
The Scavs and Sawyer would’ve found her gone and Keera hurt. JI, she hoped, would be better by now.
Being utterly still might be her best strategy, but she should find out the location of her enemies – her enemies being everyone except for herself.
So she crawled to the edge, where pieces of uneven rubble lined this broad shelf, and she peeked down, trying to show no more than the top of her head and her eyes.
The people below were tiny. She pulled over Keera’s long gun and put the circular glass sight to her eye which, because Keera was a dedicated markswoman, had a nice magnifying effect. Sawyer was down there. JI too. JI was looking up at her.
She shimmied back with her elbows doing the walking and prayed. He couldn’t have seen her, could he? He was a military mech. Of course his vision would be excellent, when he was healthy, and she’d made him healthy, hadn’t she.
He’d seen her. She knew it.
Swearing would not fix this. Maybe he’d be mute and tell no one.
She needed to go up, desperately, except it was daylight.
Ari stared at the crumbling ceiling. Go or stay? There might be holes that’d let her ascend without showing herself to those below. One was here, deeper into the tier, at the back, a pile of fractured material would let her climb into it.
She gathered her gear and sloped to the hole, peered up. Light showed so it communicated with the outside.
Do it.