The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man (29 page)

This isn't right.

It's okay, you can trust Urea.

But can she? She's never even seen her, and she
doesn't like this Zetis either. He is too slick, his words play
games in her head and hadn't he made the Storm destroy her
people?

We need you, your brother needs you, Urea's name
blinked as she chimed the girl. Her voice was as distorted as the
boy's. Phoebe said they were both prisoners, trapped in cages like
her.

Please? Pheobe begged

I have all of the pathways set up. Phoebe, it’s your
last chance to make her do a jig or scratch your back, once she
commands the chamber you won't be able to control her. Zetis
chimed.

Phoebe forced a weak smile but the humor was lost on
the wild girl.

corrupts anyone else.>

Baucis looked down from a set of clean
surgical tools to the old ape, unconscious on the table. Skup
watched the entire thing through Baucis's own eyes. The Master
ecologist had insisted on the two synchronizing their Virtual
Reality Chips, a forbidden use of technology, something far beyond
the petty chiming program Zetis invented. That this was even
possible boggled the young Evanimal pilot's mind.

Skup stood in an amplification room, while
Baucis prepared for surgery in the medical ward. His mind clawed at
him.
Take control.
The electromagnetic field would support
him, but he'd never asked an Evanimal a question, only given
commands. Still, he could probably make Baucis
want
to
answer. But such thoughts were dangerous, blasphemous in fact. Even
if it did work (and Skup felt certain it would) the repercussions
would be dire. Baucis would withhold no punishment. Skup was sure
of nothing, only that he feared this ape, or this
Wild Man.
Whatever name he gave it fell short of the truth. All he could do
was try to focus on the task at hand, or more precisely, Baucis's
hands.

The ape looked so human. He had ten fingers,
ten toes, eyes, ears, a nose. He snored gently. In the harsh light
of the operating room he could see through his wispy hair to his
skin. It was wrinkled with age, like any old man. Obviously it
wasn't Nature's Warrior:
the
Wild Man
of the earth
High Priestess Ntelo prophesied. That one was still out there. This
guy was just a tired old man with a hunched back, at least that's
what he looked like to Skup.

That Baucis expected him to synchronize with
the ape only confused him further. His sister was the more gifted
pilot. Everyone knew that.
If the ape overwhelmed
her
then what can
I
do?

Urea had been convinced it was intelligent,
maybe it was as simple as she had refused to help Baucis. But then
why the secrecy? He couldn't even chime her. His little sister
better be safe.
If the ape hurt her
... the thought made his
blood boil. But it must have! Why else would Baucis allow Skup to
synchronize with him? Using another human's VRC was an egregious
sin. Even now, he could almost touch Baucis's thoughts...

Baucis's adept fingers trembled over his
tools. With Skup in an amplification chamber and synchronized with
him, he needed the pilot to remain calm, he could feel his
trepidation flooding into his own mind through the electromagnetic
frequency the Virtual Reality Chip made their minds share. The
boy's nervousness made his mind race.

After the ape's last display, the Baucis
wanted the surgery to happen immediately. He could not risk others
finding out about the ape's ability to draw symbols, nor that
another one was traipsing through the Garden. Surely the
Naturalists would cling to primitive scribbles as a sign of
intelligence. They could be so melodramatic. Birds sang songs, but
that did not make them musicians, ants built mounds, but that did
not make them engineers. Yet Baucis was certain the Naturalists
would worship the simplistic figures as sacred art. Sometimes the
religion he spawned repulsed him. If the Naturalists had their way
humanity would have crashed to the ground long ago. Maybe the ape's
sketches did make him the
Wild Man
, for if the Naturalists
found out about his abilities, they'd surely try to bring an end to
the Spire.

Baucis had to act. If the VRC and
accompanying implants worked on the ape, then he'd finally have the
tool Tennay had long demanded for his engineering works. The ape
was twice his own height, covered in muscles, had a thick skin and
large eyes that seemed to be able to distinguish color at least as
well as their own (judging from the paintings he made). Best of all
the ape had fingers. Ten digits complete with two opposable thumbs,
same as
homo sapiens
. It was almost too good to be true. If
they weren’t so hairy and brutish and had a real language instead
of their primitive grunts, Baucis might actually consider the
possibility that they were a long lost cousins of
homo
sapiens
. Though that kind of thinking would keep humanity
bottled in the Spire forever.

And now Skup was scared of the same religious
propaganda? Urea he could understand, her attack only proved how
much she had let the
panthera
into her mind. Baucis would
conduct the operation alone. If Skup had to watch through his own
eyes, so be it. The arrogant Councilor refused to even harbor the
idea of explaining his incriminating scars to anyone, especially
the boy. Baucis regretted imprisoning Urea, but she hadn't given
him a choice. She forced his hand. He'd be damned if he heard
otherwise. These thoughts set his heart beating and Baucis doubted
his decision to synchronize for the umpteenth time. How much access
did Skup have?
Does he know only what I'm thinking or can he
read my brain like data spreadsheet, flipping around as he pleases?
Or can he see anything at all?

my hands tremble.>

Baucis immediately felt his heart rate slow,
his body still. Skup really was a prince of control. Baucis hoped
he didn't realize how much control the young pilot had over the
ecologist at the moment. But he had to push such thoughts from his
mind. Person to person synchronization was studied far less than
person to Evanimal, they were playing against the odds. He'd have
to talk the pilot through the surgery.

minutes. I need to open up the back of his neck, connect the VRC to
the brain stem, at which point you will switch synchronization from
me to it. This ape has tested very low for any of the metallic
compounds that conduct the Field, so you'll probably have very
limited control.>

controlled.>

worked with one from outside the Garden. It appears that diet is a
determining factor in biological make up.>

Baucis said reassuringly. It
was good to hear Skup reciting acceptable phrases. It showed he was
less nervous, thinking in a more predictable pattern.

compounds, it's possible you won't be able to make him sit up, or
isolate distinct muscle groups.

Improvise>

A long pause from the boy, then finally,

the VRC and activate it, your perspective will shift from mine to
his, don't let this disorient you>

Baucis took a deep breath, and began. The
area was already shaved, so his scalpel sliced through the ape's
muscled neck with little resistance. He had done the operation
hundreds of times, on both
howluchin
s and humans. He
suspected the ape's brain would be somewhere between the two, but
was surprised to see it was almost identical to a human one. He
wished he could dissect it, instead of just look at the brain stem,
but that would happen one day. Patience was key.

In less than a minute, Baucis had all of the
synaptic nodes connected, and activated the VRC.

Skup's vision instantly shifted from the
ape's back to complete darkness. He panicked at first, wondering if
the connection had failed but quickly remembered the ape was lying
face down on the operating table.

He waited, feeling for any instincts or
actions the ape might try to perform. He felt nothing. Perhaps its
more complex mind had done away with all but the most basic
instincts, leaving nothing to combat the VRC.

Cautiously, he pushed the body up, then swung
its legs over the side of the table and sat there for moment. The
ape responded surprisingly well. Skup had never experienced
anything like it before. He marveled as he slowly turned the arms
over and carefully touched his thumb to each long finger tip. It
was uncanny to be in another body that was so different yet so
similar. The nearly identical form seemed to trump the lack of
metallic compounds. Skup had perfect control.

He looked around the room. The ape's eyes
were sharp, they saw more detail than his own, more than even the
vultus
eyes. He cleared his throat and was astonished the
ape did the same thing. It even had vocal chords like him! Any
action he thought of the ape performed automatically, there was no
need to translate actions into a foreign body and learn how to
synchronize anew like he did when he had changed species
before.

Skup stood up. Raised one knee, then the
other. He could even balance on one leg! This was miraculous! And
he felt none of the instincts that his
vultus
so often
confronted him with, none of the hesitations, or desires battling
his own consciousness.

He turned to Baucis. He knew the Ecologist
could read the grin on the ape's face as easily as he could read
his own. But then his smile fell.

Baucis had four cuts across his face. It was
impossible but it looked like a
panthera
had swiped the
ecologist.

“Who?” he managed to ask, surprised that the
ape's voice was so similar to his own.

YOUR SISTER.

A flood of memories overwhelmed him. He
painted an entire mural with furry hands that felt like his, but he
knew that objectively, they were not. He watched his own human body
storm off and abandon his sister, and felt the ape's tender
emotions as strong as his own as he comforted Urea when no one else
would. He watched Urea confront Baucis, he knew it was about the
little girl he had captured. He saw his sister claw Baucis's face
then get hauled away like an animal. He hated what Baucis did to
her, hated that the arrogant Councilor hid his face because he knew
he must.

DEATH
.

Then Baucis's neck, tiny and fragile, was in
the ape's strong hands, his fingers squeezing tighter and tighter.
Skup could feel Baucis's windpipe collapse and the pulse of his
jugular weaken as it tried to feed his brain oxygen. The veins on
his head stopped pumping blood and stayed fat, growing steadily
darker.

For a moment the pilot did nothing.
This
is what I want
,
right?
He was confused, first Baucis's
emotions and then the ape's had muddled his mind. Baucis's face
turned blue, then purple. But it couldn't end like this, with Skup
in the chamber that gave the commands to kill Baucis. Baucis was
the closest thing to a father he ever had.

Skup screamed 'stop' with all of his mental
vigor, but the ape only tightened its grip. He was different from
the Evanimals. He wasn't receptive to the Spire's signals.

Six pairs of monkeys hands grabbed and beat
at the ape, but they were ineffectual, useless. Skup could feel the
pain, but the ape ignored it completely.

DEATH!

Skup felt the emotion as his own. He wanted
to kill Baucis more than anything.
The disgusting arrogant old
ecologist thinks he can control the world. Everything must bow
before the god that is Baucis. Nothing is sacred in his eyes,
nothing is good enough. We're all animals to him, workhorses,
slaves.

Not unfamiliar thoughts...But they are not
his own. He had never synchronized with a being this intelligent.
The two minds grappled with their shared existence, each bled into
the other, but conscious control seemed impossible.

DEATH TO THE FALSE GOD!

Skup hyperventilated, and rocketed his heart
rate to dangerous levels. He risked disconnecting the
synchronization but saw no other option. The ape was totally
unresponsive, his conscious will is too strong. Skup had to try
something lower than the mind, something below the subconscious in
the ape's body.

The ape clutched one hand to its chest, the
other clawed Baucis as he collapsed. Baucis stumbled backwards and
fell to the ground, hurt but alive. Then Skup felt his left arm go
numb and his chest ignite in pain.

The ape returned the heart attack.