Beat (9 page)

I found the CyJet where I’d left it. I was a little surprised that the Enforsers hadn’t tracked it down so they could take it in. I guessed they were too intent catching me. And killing me.

As I’d run up the street, I had folded the casing of the Papa back into place and put the spoke back into my left pocket and the handy nanocutter in my right pocket. I racked my brain. I needed to be able to keep wearing the Papa on my wrist so I could still ride the CyJet. That is, if the Papa would still start it.

I passed my hand holding the Papa in front of the sensor on the left of the console and pressed the start button. The CyJet rumbled to life. Unreal. It had worked. The casing needed to be held closed, and I still needed to be able to wear the Papa. In the shadows, I could only barely make out the time. 03:50? I guessed I still had a couple of hours of darkness. I needed to be out of the city and a long way away before the sun came out.

As I took my hand away from the sensor, the CyJet settled back down. I briefly thought of wrapping the spoke tightly around the casing of the Papa. No way. Even if I could bend the spoke that tightly, which I doubted I could do, it would hurt my wrist when I tied the Papa back on. I needed something thin, or some glue. A strap would work.

I could make a strap.

It took some doing, and when I checked my Papa, it showed that two minutes had passed, but I was able to tear a short strip of cloth off the bottom of my shirt. Using my hands and teeth, I got the strap tightly tied around the Papa’s casing. I shook it; the strap stayed in place. I tied the Papa back on my wrist with another piece of shirt, got on the CyJet, and fired it up. The Enforsers would figure out what I’d done with the tracker soon if they hadn’t already. I needed to go.

Staying low, I directed the CyJet to the road, glancing behind me. In the illumination of the streetlamps a few blocks away, I saw two Enforser pods with a lot of movement around them. I’d seen another pod on the next street over as I’d run this way. I eased the CyJet across the road and started putting on speed, hoping to make it at least to Edge Road before the Enforsers got in their pods again. They could easily track me if they were flying above me, and I was sure the pods could get higher than the CyJet could fly.

Besides, I really didn’t want to spend any more time as high as I’d gotten coming out of the Enjineering Dome.

Before long, I was on Edge Road, cruising toward Hope Park and finally feeling like my heart rate was coming down to normal levels. I knew I needed a plan, but for now, I just wanted to find a place to hide and rest. As the adrenaline that had been carrying me most of the night dissipated, exhaustion hit me. I felt drugged, almost dizzy. Like I was fighting a couple of knockouts.

Behind me, the sirens of the Enforser pods shattered the relative calm that had returned to the New Frisko night. I poured on the speed and was soon crossing over the grounds of Hope Park. If I could get out of sight quickly enough, they wouldn’t know where to pick up my trail. I remembered momentarily that Hope Park had surveillance sensors here and there, but given the short moments I’d spent exploring past the park, I was pretty sure that the sensors didn’t extend into the wilderness beyond the park.

And suddenly I was out of the city of my birth and life. I was moving fast, skimming the ground and dodging trees and shrubs as the CyJet climbed with the slopes of the foothills. I’d never been so far outside the city. Every kid in New Frisko tried leaving the city at least once, curious and wanting to explore. But that had been one of the clues that Admins knew where we were at all times. Enforsers always showed up within minutes of the sensors catching the kids leave.

What about the EarComs? Were they tracked, too?

I reached for mine but stopped. If I got rid of it, I’d be completely alone; I’d have no way to talk to anyone.

The New Chapter’s motto came to me: Better safe than sorry.

But not yet. I pulled the CyJet to a stop under a tree and activated my EarCom. I paused a second before saying my dad’s name. If I started talking to people, the Admins might be able to pinpoint where I was. But I was going to be quick.

I mentally apologized to my parents and then called my dad.

“What? Who—” my dad’s voice was rough.

“Dad. It’s me. I’m sorry.” I swallowed past a lump in my throat. “I don’t know what happened. But I have to go. The Bug’s gone. I—”  What else to say?

“Nik? What are you—”

“I’m sorry. I have to go. I’ll stay safe.” I disconnected immediately. I couldn’t answer questions. I didn’t have time and I had no idea what was going on.

I pulled the EarCom out, but I had another thought. The sweat pouring down my back felt suddenly cold. My face went hot. Bug me, this was bad. But I had to. I put the EarCom back in and whispered Jan’s name.

“Who is this?” Her voice was much clearer than my dad’s.

“Jan. This is Nik. I can’t stay on. I know it’s late.”

“Where’s Bren? He’s not in bed.” How did she know that? Bren must have actually woken her up.

“Something really bad happened. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how—”

“What? Something what happened?” I could almost see her eyes go wide from the fear in her voice.

“It’s Bren. We snuck out. We thought the Bug was gone.” I couldn’t stay on if the Admins were tracking my frequency. I had to finish this. “It’s my fault. I’m sorry.” The words. I had to say the words.

“What happened to Bren?” Jan’s voice broke on his name.

“He’s dead. The Bug got him. I don’t know what happened because it didn’t get me. I have to go; they’re trying to kill me.”

“Nik, what—”

I yanked the EarCom out of my ear and threw it past the tree I was hiding under.

Fighting the pain and fatigue back down, I pulled out of my hiding place and got moving, but I went back the way I’d come. After a few kilometers, I veered off and followed a different path between trees and around rocks. Maybe getting rid of the EarCom would throw them off my trail. As I rode, I tried not to think about my parents and Jan. And Bren and Jan’s parents.

I focused on the road. I wished the CyJet had a light that would illuminate the ground ahead of me. I should have thought of that. But no, it was probably for the best. The Enforsers would be looking everywhere; I didn’t want to give them a bright light anywhere out here to home in on.

The terrain was rough. Trees clustered thickly here and there with bushes and irregular small hills, so I had to pay close attention to the path in front of me. As I rode, I climbed higher. I wasn’t heading directly up a mountain or anything, but if I turned more to the right, I would be. There was a place where a few of the foothills crested in front of the larger mountains farther to the east. I wanted to get over that crest.

I’d grown up calling everything to the east of New Frisko the Wilderness. In Ekosystems class, we’d learned that there was more to it than just wild lands. There were remnants of old cities and smaller towns. We’d been taught about lakes, forests, and the animals that populated them. On one memorable day, Teacher Harper had talked about why New Frisko got so much rain, how the ocean to the west of the old city had currents and stuff and made the clouds and wind. Or something like that.

I noticed that I was crossing over, for the second or third time, an ancient road from before the Infektion. Finally the CyJet brought me to the top of a big foothill. I looked around, trying to figure out where to go. I lost a long minute or two just sitting on top of that hill, taking it all in.

Behind me, to the west, were the streetlights, regular buildings, and large domes of New Frisko. I couldn’t see any sign of the old city that they said was even farther west or of the ocean they’d always talked about. I’d always wanted to see the ocean. I noted for a moment that my heart rate had returned to a steady 90 or so. I heard my pulse louder, just inside my ears, for a moment as I scanned the countryside, seeing signs of the old civilization and how the wilderness had taken it back over. Would New Frisko look like this one day? Would there be a day that all humans were gone and our cities all looked like they’d been ground down, softened, and broken up by some unstoppable force?

Old roads and highways, more pale than the rest of the land, criss-crossed the foothills as far as I could see. They looked like paths where huge ghostly creatures, maybe huge snails, had wandered, leaving a trail of asphalt and pavement behind them. Some of the roads were wide and cluttered with debris; others were narrower and mostly free of what I assumed were old cars.

The pre-Infektion people drove those machines everywhere. Huge, unbroken areas of homes had been so isolated from work areas and supply stores that the people had been forced to drive to do even the smallest of tasks.

Based on what we’d been taught in school, I imagined that if I kept going east, I would eventually get to a place of fewer roads and no towns at all. But for now, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the dark shapes of trees pulverizing their way up through old roads and hundred-year or more old buildings falling to pieces. In the faint light, the buildings, roads and sagging signs were like ghosts haunting the new world that we’d created, reminders of what had come before.

I shook off the strange feeling. The tightness around my eyes reminded me that I hadn’t slept at all that night, and it was already past four in the morning. I needed to find a place to hole up and rest. I tossed a final look over my shoulder. The Enforser pods had fanned out over the city; they were probably waking people up with their racket. Two pods were headed in my direction.

Leaning forward, I angled the CyJet down the hill and aimed for a road that could have fit maybe eight CyJets flying side by side. Why had they made these roads so wide? What a waste. Once I hit the road, I poured on the speed and let the ghostly path lead me generally to the east. I had to dodge strange, twisted piles of metal and trees regularly, but that didn’t slow me down. It seemed like the longer I was out in the dark, the more my eyes got used to the poor light. Part of my mind wandered as I rode. I wasn’t sure how far I had to go before they stopped searching for me. But if I left New Frisko, I couldn’t figure out what had really happened with Bren.

I thought of Bren’s mom and dad and sister, and I shoved the image of their heartbroken faces out of my mind. I couldn’t deal with that right now. Then there were the other Pushers. When word got out about Bren, Melisa, Koner, and Pol would have no way of figuring out what had happened.  The Admins would have to say something that kept people reassured and calm. Like blaming me.

If they did, they’d be right.

I knew I was responsible for Bren; I shouldn’t have been so careless. I couldn’t think about that right now. I had to get away, find a place to stop, rest, and think.

I must have outdistanced the Enforsers because for the next hour, I saw no sign of them. By that time, I must have gone thirty kilometers or more. I couldn’t believe how far I’d come from New Frisko. The road I was following led me deeper into mountains where trees sprouted thickly. Most of the trees had pale trunks that glowed in the moonlight. As I rounded a hill, I saw a road that branched off of the one I was on. The new road headed almost directly east and looked like it cut through thick groups of hills and incredibly tall forests. That should work.

My eyes felt like they’d been scraped with sandpaper, and keeping my eyelids open was taking more and more of my attention. I rode maybe a kilometer down this new road, really wishing that the CyJet emitted more light than the glow from the propulsion units. The trees had been growing steadily thicker, and the wide, tightly packed trunks cut off the minimal light. These trees were different, too; their trunks didn’t glow. But some of them were immense. Some of the trunks were the size of my room. I pulled the CyJet off the road into the darker space under one of the trees.

Redwoods.

My bleary mind randomly recalled the name of these trees, calling the word up from a memory of some class from a few years back. As I dismounted, I looked around, hoping no wild animals were close and hungry. I found myself standing on a relatively clear patch of ground at the base of the huge tree. There were plenty of leaves, but only a couple of tiny bushes and saplings. I kicked some leaves together, pulled my zip tightly around me, and gingerly lowered myself to the ground, my right arm feeling strangely stiff. I must have had bruises on every inch of skin. Muscles I didn’t think I’d ever used complained.

Maybe I would just live out here. Find some way to get food. Maybe steal it. Nobody would find me in the middle of this place. Nobody ever came out here.

I don’t even remember my head hitting the small pile of flat leaves I’d quickly kicked together.

The CyJet was singing. I was riding along, exploring the gray, overgrown corpses of ancient cities when the machine began singing. I couldn’t make out the words or see a mouth, but there was no doubt in my mind.

I blinked, the dream clinging to me with sticky fingers. The CyJet singing? I fought the strange images back and looked around, sucking in a deep breath. Singing? That was impossible. I stared at the CyJet, which was maybe a meter away from my head. It made no noise. Scuff marks dotted the machine’s body where bullets and electrodes had pounded it.

What
was
that? I lay in the grass, not sure I could get up. My legs and arms, my back, too, felt pulverized and frozen with pain. Ignoring the pain, I listened closer, but the sound faded. Was it a bird? It sounded like a
person.
Like a girl.

It was gone.

I couldn’t hold back a low groan as I pushed myself to a sitting position with my left hand. My back felt like it was made of stiff, throbbing lengths of heated metal. Suddenly I couldn’t stand the stiffness. I needed to get up, stretch it out. I lurched to my knees and nearly fell, but I managed to put out my right hand and catch myself.

And I nearly fainted from the pain. Black spots swam in front of me and my head seemed to tighten, squeezing my brain. My elbow flashed in lava-hot agony. Lances of pain slashed all the way to my fingers and shoulder. I gasped and swore. What the Bug? Still on my knees, I carefully pulled my right arm closer to try to get a look at it. I could barely move it. I had slept on my left side, and my right arm had been draped over my body in a slightly bent position. It wouldn’t move from that spot. If I tried to lift my forearm, or lower it, the elbow twinged bright with pain.

I thought back through the events of the previous night, trying to track down when the injury had happened. Had it been a bullet? No. It had to have been when I’d fallen off the bugging drain pipe. I’d landed on my elbow pretty hard. Or maybe I’d been hit by a bullet, rubber or otherwise. I couldn’t see blood, but I couldn’t move the arm at all to really check.

Was it broken? I had no way of knowing.
But if it were broken
, how could I have done everything I’d done last night? Had adrenaline just kept me going despite the pain? It must have. I decided it would probably be best if I didn’t move the arm, so I tucked it against my stomach and levered myself to my feet with my left arm, muscles everywhere screaming at me to forget moving for a long time. I fought against the pain and finally stood, wobbling a little and leaning against the redwood trunk. At least the Papa was on my left wrist so I could still ride the CyJet.

An unfamiliar smell caught my attention. It reminded me somewhat of the Dumps in New Frisko, but this was heavier and sweeter. Richer. For a moment, I felt like I’d been transported to an alien world. All around me stood massive trees, their deep red bark stretching in long furrows and ridges from the gnarled bases of the trees and disappearing high above me. The thick canopy of leaves that extended high above me allowed plenty of light in to see by, but it was a strange light. Tinted red and green and gold somehow. Among the huge sentinels that surrounded me stood saplings and some small scrub and bushes.

Images of the stark cleanliness and order of New Frisko contrasted in my mind with the seemingly random placements of the majestic trees around me. But even as I looked, I could see that the trees weren’t growing randomly. Each had a space that it had carved out where it could get enough sun, leaving plenty of maneuvering space among the house-sized trunks. The bark under my hand felt like rough stone. I pushed myself away from the tree carefully to try to get a better look around and then get on the CyJet.

That first step nearly sent me back to the ground. I felt tenderized, my muscles pulsing alternately between dull aches and deep, flaring pains. I took a few more steps, each a little less shaky than the one before. It still hurt to move, but I felt like I could move enough to get back on the CyJet soon. My abdomen felt like it was in a knot that tightened with every step I took. I wondered if I’d been hit in my stomach at some point last night until my stomach rumbled. I checked my Papa. Nearly noon. Of course.

Maybe my idea to try to live in the wilderness wouldn’t work. I looked around and had no idea where I would get food. Or water. I guessed that if I came to a river or stream, I could drink from it, but I had no idea how to find food. Could I eat leaves? Would the water be clean? Before the Infektion, the water had apparently been toxic all over.

That was a hundred years ago. A century. The rivers had to be clean by now. Although that wouldn’t really matter if I couldn’t find one.

“Nice work, Nik,” I said under my breath. “You’ll last about a day. If a wandering bear doesn’t get you first.”

I had to find some food. Why didn’t they teach us how to survive in the wilderness in school? I shook my head at the idiotic question. It didn’t matter now; I needed to get moving. Maybe I could find an old garden or fruit tree. Maybe old canned food. I considered going back to New Frisko, sneaking in to get some food and other supplies, and then heading back out.

Back out to where? I’d just proven to myself that I couldn’t really live in the wilderness. With flaring complaints from my muscles, I climbed on the CyJet and leaned forward. My back screamed in agony. I considered where else I could go. I needed to find out if I really was immune, and if I wasn’t, what else was going on. Why I had lived and Bren had died. Why the Enforsers had immediately tried to kill me. Why they didn’t want to know how I’d survived.

It occurred to me that, honestly, they had no way of knowing what had happened.

I had to figure this out. I couldn’t do that in New Frisko, at least not with the Enforsers out to kill me. The CyJet fired up, and I had to be very careful as I balanced with one arm so I could get back to the road. The propulsion units’ whine held steady at a low pitch.

My mouth felt dry and strained, like I’d been clenching my jaw for days. Even my tongue felt like it was rebelling against all of the abuse of last night. I settled deeper into my seat. It was going to be challenging to ride with one arm. I’d have to keep my speed and altitude under control. Good thing I could control turns with my feet.

At the road that had led me into the redwood forest, I looked left and right, hovering gently over the forest turf. The propulsion units scattered leaves, revealing dark earth directly below the CyJet. The rich aroma I’d smelled earlier hit me again. The dirt even smelled good out here.

Where to?

If I went back the way I’d come, I could try to sneak into New Frisko for supplies. But the city had to be on high alert by now. There was no way I’d make it, what with all the surveillance sensors and cameras all over the city. I’d be caught within minutes and that would be the end of it.

Plus, if I went back, I’d probably have to see Bren’s family. And our friends, the other Pushers. I couldn’t handle that right now.

But if I went deeper into the forest, I would have to find a way out. And find food. I had to find other people who didn’t know about what had happened in New Frisko. People in a different—

Of course. Anjeltown. It was south, or southeast, of New Frisko. What had Teacher Harper said about it? It was like 700 kilometers southeast of New Frisko and was near the site of an old, pre-Infektion city with the same name. If I could find roads that led that direction, I could try to get there, maybe talk to doctors there that didn’t know what had happened back home. And as I traveled, I could keep my eyes open for food and water. But if I couldn’t find anything, there was always Anjeltown.

I glanced down the road and turned left, back the way I’d come. I would get back to that bigger road, the one that had probably been a highway, and travel southeast on it. Or near it, considering that Enforsers might still be out there looking for me.

Seven hundred kilometers.

I looked over the CyJet and tucked my arm tighter against my abdomen. How fast could this thing go?

Despite wanting to blast off and make it to Anjeltown in one day, I knew I had to be careful, both to protect my arm and to avoid being seen. The road wound among the huge trees, at one time even cutting through the trunk of one of them. How had I not noticed that last night? How could anybody not notice any of this? The world around me seemed wild, free, totally uncontrolled. I knew laws of Biolojy and
Fiziks
governed the world, but it was as if those laws had decided to make things as interesting and beautiful as possible.

I came to the bigger road, checked the sun, and turned south. My stomach seemed to be kicking my abdomen muscles in anger at the lack of food. The CyJet was designed so that wind was split by the front of the machine, so when I leaned forward enough, I found that I could keep my eyes opened wide without them instantly drying out from the rushing air. I kept a close eye on the woods and hills around me. Now, in the light of the afternoon sun, the rusted and somehow melted hulks on the road looked less ghostly and somehow more, I don’t know, human. More temporary. Like somebody had tried to build something that would last, but that it just couldn’t stand up to nature.

The strange thought surprised me. I realized that, despite the twinges and aches and throbbing in my body, my head felt clear, my thoughts crisp. The sun wasn’t brighter, but it seemed to illuminate the world around me better than at any time before in my life. Near to the sun, the sky was practically white, but as it stretched to the horizon, it grew into a rich, textured blue. Like the inside of an egg might look if it were the color of a bright day—smooth and as if the color weren’t painted on but were a solid thing.

Finding the CyJet fairly easy to control with one hand and my feet, I coaxed it over to the left of the road, nearer the woods. I wanted to be able to duck out of sight fast if I saw Enforsers.

An hour passed and I knew I had left New Frisko far behind. I’d seen no sign of pursuit or searchers of any kind. The road had intermittently led through clusters of old buildings, with what looked like old-style houses set back from the buildings, usually built into hills. Sometimes there were other houses, these far more decrepit, built into large clearings in the woods on either side of the road.

I wondered how it would have been to live in those times. Driving everywhere, choosing your life, your job, your own path. I imagined that day, that first day, of the Infektion—some bio-toxin that nobody has ever heard of suddenly finds a way to supercharge a heart at 140 beats per minute, sending the heart into a cycle that will always end in death, while the bio-toxin eats at your body’s tissues.

What had those people felt? How would that kind of fear have felt?
Bren knew.
For a minute, at least.
I clenched the handlebar tighter, fighting the tears. I slowed and stopped as my chest tightened. My breath came in gasps. Tears dripped off my chin. It was my fault. It had been my idea, my stupid idea. And now Bren was dead. I wondered again if his family knew yet. Somehow, I needed to get back and explain things to them. Not now, but as soon as I could.

Later, as I blasted down the shoulder of the road, I kept my eyes open for fruit trees or old gardens that might have gone to seed but still had edible plants in them. I’d discarded the idea of finding ancient cans of food; there was no way that stuff would be good after a hundred years.

“What’s that?” I think I asked it aloud because I’d never gone so long without hearing somebody speak. Whether it was Admins, Supes, Announsers, teachers, parents, or even the Pushers, it seemed like life in New Frisko was always noisy.

Something glittered off to the right, maybe fifty meters off the road. A long strip of something. Water? It ran between the road and the ragged line of deciduous trees that had to mark where the old people had cleared for the road.

I guided the CyJet across the road, careful to dodge the bent and rusted hulk of what had once been a large vehicle. A stream, maybe two meters across at its widest. My heart pounded in anticipation. I parked the CyJet and eased myself off, grunting at the pains that flared in my legs, back, and arms.

Getting to my knees felt like it took forever, but my legs just didn’t want to bend. Finally, I was propped up on my left arm next to the stream. The water was crystal clear, dancing and hopping over smooth stones. The grass under my knees felt soft, much less stiff than the oxi-grass I’d grown up with. It felt like it could make a comfortable bed.

I assessed my situation. This wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t use my right arm. I lowered myself to my left side, with my face just above the water, and used my left hand to scoop water, splashing it on my face and down my throat. The stench covering me hit with an almost physical force. An image of the source of that stink flashed in my mind; I shook it away. I splashed water all over my face and neck again. The day was warm, but the water felt nearly ice cold and more perfect and delicious than anything else I’d tasted. I slurped and scrubbed for long while, but I forced myself to stop before I filled my stomach with only water. That had to be a bad idea. I hadn’t eaten in—I checked my Papa—14:00, nearly twenty hours. A stomach full of water would probably turn out to be a bad thing.

Pushing myself up, my left hand slipped into the water and the frigid stuff soaked me up to the elbow. It felt amazing. I tried again to get up and succeeded this time. The water would probably feel very soothing on my hurt right arm. I yanked the metal zipper on my zip down and struggled out of the thing. I rolled my still-dry right sleeve up and, being as careful as I could, lowered my right arm, elbow first, into the water. I couldn’t get it very far into the water, but the elbow seemed to contract at the sudden cold. The water flowing down from my arm was tinged brown. That had to be my blood. The position I was in became uncomfortable quickly, so I eased myself back out of the stream and reached for my zip.