Deviation (27 page)

Reesa grimaced and tried not to think of what illegal actions Matt might have to take to contain the problem. If the Loyalists did come for David, she doubted the religious faction was prepared for the level of destruction Matt could bring down on them.

She watched him stand up and move to the door. "What are you doing?"

They had given her several drugs in an attempt to lower her pain level and as a result she found it difficult to move, but she could still swivel her head to watch him. Matthew continued to fiddle with something at the door lock, his face profile to her. He looked so serious and so handsome that her heart ached. Why had he married her? Was it really just to keep the authorities from taking her away, or had there been some other motivation?

"I am calling for the cavalry," he said quietly.

Reesa frowned, realizing at last what this was all about. "You knew we'd be taken?"

"The woman builds a wormhole through time to get you and you think she'd just let you go?"

"But ... What if they'd killed you?"

Matt flashed a smile over his shoulder. "Then you'd have become the single richest woman alive."

He stood again, leaving something blinking on the door handle. Reesa fought back a wave of giddiness and closed her eyes. Movement around her seemed to blur in her vision. The drugs were dampening her pain, but she could still sense it. She could imagine the Mavirus growing, slowly consuming her; a malicious, black void spreading through her center.

"I'm dying, Matt," she whispered.

She felt him move to her side, felt his knuckle graze her cheek, and heard him sigh. "David is very good at what he does. You should have a little faith," he said.

Opening her eyes again she met his gaze. "And why should I be spared from a fate I forced onto the whole female race?"

He frowned, gently pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, and made a thoughtful hum. She waited for his answer, praying it would be right. She needed him to have an answer, to have some form of redemption for her. Perhaps justice was served in her death, but even death-row inmates were given a chance at clemency, weren't they?

A final prayer, a last wish, she thought.

"I think we've come to the matter of your own motivations, Reesa," he said. "Tell me why you really wrote the books."

Her heart might have stopped at the sudden wash of pain. She certainly wished it would. Fixing her gaze on the juncture between wall and ceiling above them, she was transported through her memory, to the small clinic exam room when she was eighteen years old. Her mother's voice rang loud in her ears, calling her irresponsible and thoughtless, convincing her that a child would ruin eight years of modeling competitions and progress. And in her hand, Reesa could still feel the coarse, politely brown paper bag of contraceptives she'd been given after it was all over.

Matt made a soft, soothing sound and wiped the tears from her face. Reesa closed her eyes, unwilling to look at him as she made her confession.

"I wrote a book where everyone was as ugly as I felt."

He was quiet for a long moment. He took her hand in both of his and pressed a kiss to her palm. She felt the silky warmth of his lips and the heat of his breath, and for reasons she couldn't explain she was comforted.

"Reesa, I don't know what you think you're guilty of," Matt said. "But unless you sat down and literally built the Mavirus Carcinoma, you are not guilty of this."

"I wrote it."

"You wrote
about
it. You didn't write it into existence. Just like you wrote about me, but you certainly didn't create me. Jason and Carmine Borden and God did that, not you."

She took a deep breath and stared up at him. "Then how did I know to write it?"

"I've no idea. Maybe Celeocia is right and you're some sort of prophet." He shifted to lean closer to her. "But listen to me now. Whatever sin you're hiding in there, whatever pain caused you to write the things you did ... You have to let it go."

"You don't understand."

"I understand enough." Matt glanced at the door. A loud clank on the other side heralded the arrival of the Fomorri, but he turned to look at her again before moving. "There is one thing my mother taught me very well. No matter how nasty David was or how aggravating father could be, she maintained that no one was below forgiveness. That includes you, Reesa Borden."

The door opened and Chamberlain peeked in. Flanked by Newbill and Pitts, all clad in their armor, he glanced at them both before pushing the door wide. Reesa saw Lithia Bonsway in a heap on the floor and struggled to sit up. Matt stopped her and hefted her into his arms. Reesa held onto him, blushing at the boyish grin he gave her before heading to the door.

"See?" He whispered. "Cavalry."

She really should have felt more alarmed at the sight of Bonsway's body. But she had the oddest feeling that the woman wasn't dead. There was no blood, for one thing, and Newbill had taken the time to disarm her. Logically, he wouldn't have needed to take that step if the woman was dead. Still, the tangled jumble of limbs, the awkward glint of metal around her skull, made Reesa shiver in reaction.

"Romberg's ready to fly, sir." Chamberlain stepped aside for them to pass. "We have a straight shot to the Io from here. Finnegan's cleared the path and keeping it open."

"And the target?" Matt asked.

"Not on board. Reports say she was on the Lothogy when it was shot down."

Fear clenched at her heart. "Shot down?" She breathed the question, not caring about the dubious way Newbill was watching her.

"They landed eighty kilometers from Olympus." Chamberlain finished his report to Matthew, flicking his eyes her direction before signaling for them to move.

Olympus, Reesa thought with shock. Kate was stuck on Mars.

"
The Scientific Community announced Friday that it would begin expanding the station on Outboard Jupiter to allow for more civilian housing. The station, located on Jupiter's moon Europa, has been primarily funded by the Borden Company since its inception in 2289
." -A.P. January 23, 2298

They ran.

Kate tried to pay attention to the direction and the landscape as she avoided low-hanging branches and scooted around craggy boulders. But the further they went the more she had to concentrate on general breathing and trying to keep up with Myron. Sweat gleamed off his naked back and shoulders. There was a laceration across his left shoulder blade that was deep enough to trail blood down his side. It became a focal point for her as she willed her body to keep moving.

Something snagged the skirt of her robe and jolted her to a stop. Her feet lost purchase with the ground and she slid. The fabric of her robe ripped, yanking her to the right and directly into a tree. She tried to catch herself but only succeeded in slamming her face against the trunk. Solid tree and coarse bark cut into her right cheek, scraping against sensitive skin until she caught herself.

She hissed in pain and tried to smother her yelp.

A firm grasp on her elbow drew her away from the tree and into a thicket. Myron frowned at her face, his chest heaving as he fought for breath. Kate's immediate thoughts were of the damage to her cheek and she wondered just how much of her face had been scrubbed off onto the tree trunk. From temple to jaw she could feel the heated swell of injury as it throbbed to angry life.

But it was only pain, she tried to coach herself. It meant she was still alive.

Alive, she thought with a growing sense of coherency, and on Mars. With a half-naked man that looked like her husband but wasn't her husband, a deranged starship captain chasing them and some nasty Martian beast hunting in the near vicinity. Alive, she thought again, with the sun setting in the distant horizon, shadows chilling through the area and a single weapon between them.

"Take the robes off and carry them," Myron instructed. He checked his R413 and glanced out at the animal path they'd been following.

Kate stared at him for a moment.

"Kate," he met her eyes as though to summon her mind into focus. "You are still in your suit. I saw it while we were running. It will keep you warm enough during the night and we might need the robes for something."

Supplies, she realized. They were cut off from everyone, including the Lothogy, with night approaching.

Kate was tired of cursing Reesa for creating such a violent and horrible future so she cursed all science fiction writers. From Rodenberry to Charles Stross to Douglas Adams, they could all take a flying leap into hell.

Myron gripped her chin and tilted her head so that he could survey the injury. "It doesn't look pretty but you'll survive it."

Kate didn't like that he put "it" at the end of that sentence. It proved he thought something else would likely kill her. She'd been about to protest when he chucked her chin with his knuckle and gave a roguish wink.

"Come now," he said with humor. "You fought so hard not to wear them, taking them off should be easy."

She panted a surprised laugh. "What ... was that thing?" she asked and began stripping herself of the robes.

"Dromodus Varanidae," Myron turned to check on the path. "Mars has several of them. Don't quote me, but I'm pretty sure they're the mistake the Community made that forced them to form a new military."

"Field Arcs."

He grinned at her. "Advanced. Recon. Combat. Soldiers. And sometimes brilliant pilots."

"Why would they make something like that ... Dromodus?" Her voice was muffled as she drew the heavy fabric over her head.

Myron snorted, "The Scientific Community doesn't generally have to explain itself."

"Well, I get that, but why mutate it into something so big?"

Kate paused when he looked at her, the robes half folded in her hand. His frown was complicated, his expression torn and she realized that her general ignorance of what he considered elementary education had to be disturbing for him. And possibly helpful to her cause. There could be no mistaking her for Mesa, not anymore. Not with Myron at least.

"They didn't," Myron explained to her, slowly and cautiously. "Mars did. You recall what we told you about the toxin local to Mars?"

She nodded.

"It had an effect on the animal life as well. It happened gradually, over the course of several years. But the damn things just kept growing." Myron gave her a grim smile, "I hear the Community is working hard to try and stop their growth pattern."

He stopped suddenly and turned, glaring out into the shadowy purple of the forest. A moment later his gaze lifted, tracking something in particular and she heard him whisper a curse. Kate wasn't certain why but his tone, soft as it was, made the little hairs on her body go stiff. She looked up.

The Lothogy still needed repairs, that appeared obvious from the drastic leftward tilt of the ship, but it was airborne nonetheless. Airborne, she realized, and distancing from them, trailing hiccups of black smoke in its retreat.

They were not only alone, she thought with growing apprehension, they were abandoned.

"Come on," Myron said with a scowl. "We can walk for a bit. I doubt Hedric took the time to kill the thing, but it will likely need to nurse its wounds before it comes after us."

Kate tucked the robes under her arm and hurried to match his pace. "You're sure it will come for us?"

"Oh yes. Those things hold a grudge. It can track a man for days if it has to." He sighed and held a branch out of her way. "And since we shot it, I'm certain it has no warm fuzzy feelings for us."

"It can track for days?" Kate asked. "Like a polar bear?"

Myron stopped and blinked at her. Then he smiled, his eyes sparkling with humor. "Yes, like a polar bear."

"What's so funny?"

For a moment he looked so much like Ben that she had to smile back.

"Polar bears are extinct," he said. "I just ... well, it was just amusing that you could so readily make the correlation. Someone from this side of the timeline wouldn't catch it so quickly."

"You do recognize how crazy that sounds, right? 'This side of the timeline'?"

His grin widened and he winked down at her. "Would it make you feel better if I called it the looking glass?"

Kate thought of Alice in Wonderland, Mad Hatters and creepy Cheshire cats and had to suppress a shudder. "No," she said and firmly pushed those thoughts aside. "No, it wouldn't."

Myron chuckled.

They had to stop at the edge of a steep ravine. What Kate had mistaken for a pile of bushes was really the topmost branches of a massive tree settled in the crevasse below. Thick, wide leaves canopied the ravine so well that she imagined sunlight never reached the bottom. Staring down into the deep shadows there, Kate marveled at the intricacies of the planet.

Sure, the Community had botched things up a bit when they made things like the Dromodus, but they'd remembered the little things as well. She could hear birds, and the annoying buzz of insects. They'd made an ecosystem, or at least tried to mimic one here on Mars.

It wasn't perfect, of course. Or at least, to Kate it wasn't perfect. The purple leaves made her want to scream, and the heat was so oppressive she thought her space suit must have malfunctioned. She wanted greenery, the predictable yellows and reds that typically graced wildflowers.

The more she looked at it, the more Mars seemed like a toddler's coloring book. All the shapes were right, if a bit bigger than on Earth, but the shades were off. She wondered if this was the planet's way of fighting back, of retaining its alien-ness.

"We'll have to trek southeast for a bit," Myron said after a moment. "I think we're about six kilometers from the Lycus Sulci Ridge. There's an outpost on the west face, and that's our best chance at survival."

"Won't the Novo Femina be there?"

"Probably, but they won't touch you as long as you're with a man." He frowned and returned his weapon to the holster at his thigh. "I think they won't, anyway. They won't draw attention to you. The last thing they want is for you to end up in a correctional facility."

Kate wrinkled her nose. "Right."