Freedom's Myth, page 15
part #3 of Freedom Saga Series
“How is she?” Angel watched from two steps back.
“Glove up and help me get her into the car. Temperature is five degrees above felinezoid normal. Breathing is laboured. Pupils are dilated. I think she might be dying.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Angel took gloves out of the medical bag and pulled them on.
“If this is contagious, Toronk could be affected. The more we learn now, the better for him later.”
“Stardust.” Angel lifted Valaseau’s legs so they could move her into the SUV.
* * *
“Kitoy.” The voice was tentative.
Kitoy turned from the E.S.T.C. she was manoeuvring towards the ramp. “Ziggy.”
“I… I’m sorry,” said the fat, dark-haired, Homo sapiens male behind her. He needed a shave and a haircut but otherwise seemed clean. He wore a U.E.S. Ground Forces uniform with silver retiree’s braids over the shoulder patches. The uniform looked like it had been washed in a sink.
Kitoy lashed her tail. “You came through for Ryan and Rowan. You don’t need to apologize.”
Ziggy sighed. “I need help.”
“For?” Kitoy sounded skeptical.
“Kitcat.” Ziggy bit his lip. “I haven’t touched memoria since I did the job for Ryan. I… It’s so hard. I want to lose myself so much.”
“I wouldn’t give you money for drugs even if I had it to give.” Kitoy lashed her tail.
“That’s not why I’m here. Divine. Help me, Kitoy.” Ziggy dropped to his knees as if standing took more will than he could spare. “I need a place away from memoria. I… Helping Rowan was the first thing I’ve done since Murack Five that felt right. It made me realize that maybe I could do something. Something to wash the blood off my hands. I… I need to get to Murack Five and join the relief effort.”
“So, sign up.” Kitoy regarded Ziggy with a questioning look.
“I tried. Star Searcher won’t accept me because I’m a known addict. But on Murack Five, there won’t be drug dealers, just relief workers. I wouldn’t be able to get memoria. It would force me to stay clean, and maybe I can make a difference. If I show up and am useful, they’d keep me, and the local director could override Star Searcher’s decision.”
Kitoy swished her tail. “If you come aboard, that’s it. If you don’t bother to hunt after I stamped prey for you, we’re through!”
Ziggy nodded. “You’re the only friend I have left.”
“As long as we’re clear. Come on, we need to speak to Ryan.” Kitoy led the way into the Star Hawk.
* * *
Obert opened his eyes. The cold had faded, leaving an ache behind. Kendra lay tight against his back and Armina against his front. Medwin lay beyond Armina.
If I didn’t feel like stardust, this could be a party, he thought. He didn’t want to move; it was warm under the piled sleeping bags, but nature called.
Trying not to disturb the others, he slipped from the warmth and immediately hugged himself against the chill in the pre-dawn air. Staring about blurrily, he found his clothing spread over a rock. The fabric was dry. Pulling on his shirt and jacket, he stepped away from his companions and relieved himself before rushing to don his pants, socks, and shoes.
The glimmer of false dawn touched the eastern horizon. Moving to Kendra, Obert gently shook her.
“What? Oh… Obert. You’re up,” remarked the dark-haired girl.
“We need to go before the tree planters start.” Obert gestured to the east.
“I just hope we can. Medwin.” Kendra reached over Armina and shook the man’s shoulder.
“Armina.” Medwin snuggled into his girlfriend, then slowly opened his eyes. “Oh, Divine. How is she?”
Kendra took Armina’s pulse. “She’s still alive.”
“Honey,” Medwin spoke softly into the blonde’s ear.
“C-c-cold,” she stuttered.
“We need to move. We don’t want to have to explain us being here to the tree planters. Some of them might be actively monitored,” said Obert.
“Right.” Medwin extracted himself from the blankets, being careful to keep Armina covered. He moved straight to where he’d left his damp clothing and pulled on the now dry garments.
“Where’s the second tin of camping heat?” Kendra searched the packs.
“Armina was carrying it. Her pack got swept downstream.” Medwin picked up the now burnt-out container of fuel.
“We really need to go.” Obert glanced around nervously.
Medwin nodded. “We’ll zip up one of the sleeping bags around Armina.”
“We should put all the equipment into one of the packs. I can carry that so you and Obert can focus on Armina.” Kendra started rearranging their equipment.
“If we tie the frames from two of our packs together and pull one of the sleeping bags over it, it should make a fair stretcher,” said Medwin.
“No one asked me if I’m up to carrying the weight,” objected Obert.
“Do you have a better idea?” Medwin pulled a length of rope from the equipment Kendra was transferring to her pack. Moments later, the packs were tied together and slipped into one of the sleeping bags, forming a rigid platform that Armina could fit on with her feet dangling off the end.
The sun was cresting the horizon as they started towards the distant line of saplings that marked the edge of the forestation project. They came to a group of three portable drilling rigs. The devices consisted of a steep-sided pyramid of pipes with a two-metre shaft running down the centre mounted on a platform supported on caterpillar treads. A platform at the back of each allowed an operator to stand behind a control panel. One of the rigs had the drill shaft partially sunken into the rocky ground. Next came a series of craters blasted into the rock, partially infilled with rubble, then the stench of rot and sewage filled the air.
“Stardust!” Obert found his leg sunken up to mid-calf in a mix of milorganite sewage and rock chips.
The stretcher tipped. Armina cried out as she almost fell to the ground. Medwin pulled up his side, wrenching his left arm. “Arrr.”
Struggling, the two men managed to control the stretcher’s drop.
“Nova blast, Obert. Be careful!” snapped Medwin. “Armina, are you all right?”
Armina looked up from the sleeping bag. “I… I’m still cold, but I think I can walk now.”
“We won’t get through this carrying the stretcher,” observed Obert. “We’ll need to pick our way around these pits. What are they for anyway?”
“Planting. By the end of the day, they’ll all have saplings in them,” explained Medwin.
Setting the stretcher on the squelchy ground, they unzipped the bag, releasing Armina as Kendra passed the blonde her now dry clothing.
“How’s the ankle?” Medwin looked at Obert.
“It will do. It has to. Stardust!” Obert pointed. Where the line of saplings began, a man and a woman walked into view.
“Nova blast! Get the sleeping bag off the packs.” Medwin and Obert raced to put action to word, then pulling his camping knife from its sheath on his belt, Medwin cut the ties holding the stretcher together and stuffed the two sleeping bags into the packs.
“They’re coming this way,” stated Obert.
“Let me do the talking,” ordered Medwin.
“We’re going to be caught.” Armina’s voice was frightened. “The controllers will find out and—” Medwin pulled Armina into his arms, stilling her ramble.
“I can handle this. I recognize one of them from my summer job.” Medwin spoke softly, hoping it wouldn’t carry to the tree planters.
He released Armina and waved. “Hi, Mr. Hunter.”
“What the nova blast are you doing here?” snapped the man as he drew closer. He was pasty-faced with thinning brown hair and a body that was muscle covered by a layer of flab. He wore the green coverall of a tree planter.
“My friends and I were camping. Armina here came down with a bug. We were trying to get her back to town.”
“You shouldn’t be here. Suppose there were unexploded ordnance?” The slender, dark-skinned woman ran a long-fingered hand through her mane of thick, curly hair.
“We stayed on the ridges. We just want to get our friend home.”
“I remember you. The science fiction geek, Merwin,” snapped the large man.
“I’ve worked the last three summers as a tree planter.” Medwin didn’t correct the name.
“Yaa, the kid that’s too good to plant trees, saving up for university, as if honest work was beneath him,” snarked the large man.
“We need to get our friend home,” added Kendra.
“I bet. Kids today, any little thing they go running to mommy,” griped Mr. Hunter.
“Didn’t you see the warning signs; this is an active plant?” asked the woman.
“We came in from the other side,” explained Medwin.
“What the nova blast were you doing over there?” The woman glanced beyond the drilling rigs.
Medwin smiled, looked at the ground, then spoke softly. “We were looking for the Wolf River serpent.”
Mr. Hunter laughed derisively. “You’re balmy. Everyone knows that’s just a story.”
“Some people say that maybe a pet python got loose and managed to survive. It seemed as good an excuse to go camping as any,” remarked Obert.
“I don’t have time for this. Get out of the active zone. Bloody kids. Go on. Some people have real work to do.” Mr. Hunter stepped out of the way. Medwin led his group forward.
“I can’t keep going,” remarked Armina.
Medwin and Obert took her arms, half carrying her. Soon they were past the stinking field of infilled pits into an area of newly planted saplings. A few more metres and the smell faded, and they were surrounded by a young, semi-tropical forest.
“At least this is alive,” remarked Armina as they lowered her to rest with her back against a tree. Medwin pulled out a sleeping bag and covered her.
“Do you think they believed us?” asked Kendra with a tilt of her head to the direction they’d come from.
“Hunter will. He’s an idiot! I don’t know the woman,” said Medwin.
“I do, a little. She does aqua fit at the pool. She always seemed okay. You know, the ‘mind your own business and get on with life’ type,” said Kendra.
“What if a controller was watching?” asked Armina.
“Not likely. A couple of tree planters. If they are on active shows, it’s probably during their off hours. Tree planting is too dead boring to make more than a half-hour special,” observed Medwin.
Hours later, they reached the town.
* * *
Arlene stared at the screen while Greg hovered behind her.
“I’ve got their placement. Thanks for taking Ulva’s shift. That spiderzoid virus really put her down.” Arlene shifted the big screen to Medwin’s perspective. It showed a pleasant, suburban, tree-lined street. Houses with small yards bordered the road.
“Mike needss to get more controllerss for Freedom’ss Run if we’re going to be doing real-time. It’ss bad enough cleaning up the rough editss Henry iss ssending uss.” Greg leaned against the wall.
“Mike has more staff tagged to come on as soon as the launch is over. It’s only a few days. Think of the overtime. Have you noticed that Armina’s emotions are very negative?”
“I love the overtime. Between it and the mint I made on the SS.E.T.E. sstockss when they dipped and ssurged, I’ve made enough to buy a housse in the sstudio ssupport town. A real housse, with a yard, by a nature park. I’ve been ssaving up, but I figured it would be yearss.”
“That’s great.” Arlene turned in her seat to smile at him.
“The sstock bump did mosst of it. When I was working Angel Black and Freedom’ss Run, that was murder with the sstaffing sshortage on both sshowss. Where iss Michael getting controllerss?”
“He’s arranged for co-op placements from the university for some of the simpler shows and is moving people up and over internally. The only experienced person on A Cat’s Life will be Terica. She’s thrilled to be head controller. He’s using techs from there to fill in the other shows. Two controllers are coming over from Vampire Chronicles. They wanted something with a lower body count. Stan from Defenders of the Crystal is coming on board. Mike wanted people used to working with enhanced surrogates to help with the Angel Black crossover elements.”
“He knowss his art.” Greg scanned the control board. “You’re right about Armina. Sshe iss in a dark placse.”
“She hasn’t taken finding out well.” Arlene spared the girl’s monitors a glance.
“Tweak her. At leasst let her get a good night’ss ssleep,” suggested Greg.
Arlene nodded. “Mike won’t mind. He did say to keep intervention to a minimum, though.”
“Mike is decsent. No reasson the girl sshould hurt like that. I need to go. Katelin and I are going furniture sshopping.” Greg left the control room.
Chapter Twelve
Those Left Behind
Medwin held Armina and kissed her. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
“I just want to take a bath and go to bed.” Armina held him, almost making a lie of her words. Her parents’ house was behind her, four short metres, and she would be in her door and could shut away the strangeness. Then she thought, The strangeness follows me. They could be monitoring their puppets right now. They could come and kill us all. But how do you kill something that isn’t real? Just a cheap copy.
She bit her lip, then kissed Medwin hard. “My mother will be home soon. I don’t want her to see me like this.” She gestured to her dirty and rumpled clothes.
“If you’re sure.” Medwin loosened his hold on her.
Armina nodded. “Medwin.”
“Yes.”
“I love you.”
Medwin smiled. “I love you too.”
She hugged and kissed him, then broke away and walked up to the porch of her parents’ house.
“Come on, lover boy. The rest of us should get home. We have work tomorrow, then the focus group,” commented Obert.
Medwin watched Armina vanish into her house with an uneasy feeling.
* * *
Ryan heard a string quartet that slowly rose in volume. He rolled over, pulling Rowan’s warm body close to his own.
“I don’t want to get up,” remarked Rowan.
“Me neither. But when do I ever?” He kissed the back of her neck. “All the best things are right here.”
“Henry, kill the music. We’re awake,” called Rowan as she squirmed against Ryan.
Ryan kissed along her shoulders, sending shudders up her spine.
“Henry,” began Ryan.
“Before you command privacy, you should know that Pikeman is standing on the hangar ramp with two huge maglev platforms full of crates.”
“Stardust!” Ryan leaned up and kissed Rowan on the lips, then let her go and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.
“Command is stardust sometimes,” remarked Rowan.
“I couldn’t say it better. But Pikeman is a passenger. We need to sort out this cargo issue with Star Searcher. The sooner, the better.” Ryan stood and started pulling on the uniform he’d draped over the back of Rowan’s computer chair.
“I guess we owe him.” Rowan scrambled out of bed and looked around the room, which was furnished to mimic her bedroom in Sun Valley.
“Owe him. No, the other way around.”
“He did save my life, twice.” Rowan pulled out clothes and began to dress.
“We saved him. Twice, and he charged us for the stem cell insertion. Don’t make the mistake of letting him have any advantage over you.” Ryan smiled mischievously. “My little mountain tree.”
Rowan rolled her eyes. “You don’t have tentacles, so knock it off.”
Ryan sobered. “Seriously. He is coming aboard for passage, and from what Henry says, he’s brought extra cargo onto an already over-full ship. Don’t coddle him.”
“Me?” Rowan buttoned up her pants and tucked in her T-shirt.
“You’re the ship’s trading officer. You’re better at shopping and negotiating than I am.”
Rowan nodded. “He’s a pig. I think we can maybe get a little back for that!”
Minutes later, Ryan and Rowan descended the loading ramp to where Pikeman sat on the corner of one of his grav-sledges.
“Doctor,” greeted Ryan.
Pikeman regarded Ryan, then Rowan for a long minute. “I… You are Captain Ryan Chandler, and you are Rowan McPherson from the e-entertainment series Angel Black.”
“Of course we are. You know us,” began Rowan.
Ryan saw the confused expression on Pikeman’s face. He caught Rowan’s arm and shook his head.
“I am sorry. I have read about you and experienced the Spuqupa report. I have also reviewed my file on Rowan’s condition. A colleague told me that you and your son were instrumental in saving my life, Captain. I had hoped from that, that you were well disposed towards me. Since my recovery, I have found very few who are. My injuries have left my memory fragmented. I only have flashes regarding either of you. Total memory recovery is unlikely.”
“How can you function as a healer?” asked Rowan.
“Redundancy. I have performed the procedures of my trade hundreds of times. I only need to recall a few of any given procedure to perform the skill.” Pikeman shrugged.
“In that case, I think it only fair to warn you that we were not on good terms,” stated Ryan.
“That is unfortunate. Will there be issues regarding my transport?”
“We are obliged to take you to Murack Five under the terms of Ryan’s sentence. Your possessions are supplemental cargo. We probably won’t have room for them.”
“I cannot work without my equipment. You would be denying the aid workers essential medical care,” blurted Pikeman.
“We’ll discuss it with Star Searcher.” Rowan eyed the man. For all the grief he’d caused her and Ryan with his exorbitant fees, she wondered if this Pikeman was the same man.
“In the meantime, you may put as much as you are able into your quarters,” stated Ryan.
