Unnaturals (34 page)

Mel shuddered. She thought of Mathilda again. At least Mathilda had Belle. The weak had Belle and her herbs.

Herbs. Mel must find some for herself. She knew exactly what to give people for burns from fire—and right now her computer felt as if it were burning in her hands.

She crawled further in the forest. She found a trap. Two rabbits were inside it, visible in the pale moonlight. They stood as still as rabbits sometimes would when threatened—as if that would help them hide. But humans saw them. Humans saw everything. Now, Meliora saw that she knew that trap, and she knew the path that wound close to it. It led to an old witch's cottage. It had first led Meliora to killing, when she'd still thought that Mom could live.

I would have done anything for her. I would have done anything to heal her, to make everything better.
She suddenly looked at that dark sky, where the gods knew whoever was watching. She clenched her fists so hard that it hurt more than electrodes—
and I am not done yet! It is too late for Mom. But not for everyone! Not for everything!

She lowered herself into the trap, without throwing any stones this time. She chased the creatures and caught them—then reached up and let them run. She smiled.

She smiled even when an old woman's voice sounded in the night.

"Nice to see you again, Meliora," it said. "What else do you need, except my food? More herbs and venom?"

"No," Meliora said. "I'd rather that you showed me the way. The right way, this time. I know you can."

"Ah." Meliora could not see her well from the pit but could imagine her raising an eyebrow. "How do you know? Did they tell you?"

"They did. But I would have known, anyway. Because of words you've said before that didn't make sense. Hints you've made. Besides, you have a computer that is connected to their network."

"And how do you know
that?
"

Meliora shrugged. "Some of us are better with computers than others."

"Come on." The old woman gave her a hand. "Climb out—can you? You could get in well enough. Yet, I think you do need herbs. Special herbs. No, do come with me, Meliora. The way to reaching that city again, and to saving your boyfriend—or is he your husband? Your mate? Whatever terminology you might be using for that old thing—is through my cottage. Unless you'd like to walk through the forests and find it alone, of course. It's not impossible. It has happened. I knew a boy who did it once."

***

They sat by the first table Meliora had seen in the real world and drank tea. Meliora's had anti-burning herbs and anti-shock herbs in hers, and she had food beside the cup, and a pure city-made pill for pain relief.

"Won't make you dizzy," the witch said. "You can't afford to sleep, I know—but do drink everything, and you know very well that you have to drink it slowly for it to work. No rushing—and yes, I know you'd rather run to your boy and to Jerome and give each of them what he deserves. So romantic, running without thinking. Not so romantic when the runner falls. I did tell you that a girl can afford to adorn herself with romance now and then—but
not
when it matters. Not in the moments when paths and worlds hang on threads. That boy
is
your world now, isn't he?"

He, and the villages, and the cities. All were hers to save. Yet, he—

Meliora thought about it. Mom was gone, and she'd said goodbye to Dad. She had no place in the village the way it had become, and she'd relinquished whatever place she might have had in Lucasta. Nic had no place in the village any more, either, and he must have never truly had a place in Annabella. He was like her. He'd taken care of her. Yes, he was her world now: in his own way, he was the only stable thing she could lean on. She must get him out of there. She must not let them harm him.
They harmed everyone else I love. But I won't let them. Not this time
.

"Well, girl," the old witch said, "you don't have to answer me. I can see some things by myself well enough. As for the rest of them—perhaps I am not meant to see them."

"You're not a watcher, then.
They
watch everything. So what are you?"

She didn't want to sit here and chat, but the tea was half-full. You must drink it slowly, or else you might end up doing the opposite to what you intended, burning your entrails. But the witch could have given her pills.

"There aren't pills against burning." The witch smiled and raised an eyebrow at her. "Why would there be? Where the people with pills live, there is no sun to burn you, no fire."

"How about fire in the factories, the places where they make
jars?
"

"You don't really think humans work there, do you? Machines have been faithful servants of the natural human for a long, long time. Humans in the cities, wouldn't see real fire, or real coldness, unless they somehow managed to bring it upon themselves. No one does this—almost. For the exceptions, there are shots. I don't have a medstat. I don't have shots."

"You don't necessarily need a medstat for shots."

"Yes, and you can make glass with your own hands. If you had stayed in the village, you would have brought progress to it, I am sure. Unless they destroyed you first. But then one of your students might have done it. That's how it always works." The witch met her eyes. "I will show you the way you want now, the way you wouldn't see before. But get that computer of yours out of the cottage first. Else I will show you nothing."

Slowly, Meliora shook her head. That computer was the only thing of Nic's she had right now, and the only thing that connected her to the city she'd fight. It might also be her only way to get into the witch's computer.

The witch had an isolated room in a cave behind the waterfall, Mel had sensed. If she could get to that room, she felt she'd find enough secrets to set her on her way. The computer felt hot in her hand. If she let go of it, she thought it would hurt. It would hurt like breaking your hand would.

"Oh, fine." Stella sighed, and suddenly she looked less like the scary woman Meliora had met here many months ago, who had seemed to know all the secrets of this strange world except for the most important one. She looked like a tired old woman now. "I will show you the way regardless. Come with me."

She took her directly to the room Meliora had sensed.

"This room is protected. It might well be the only truly private place in this world. They can't get in here. I am connected to their network, as you rightly observed. But they are not connected to
me.
They won't be connected to you in here, either. I read their feeds, I see the images their cameras transmit. They see, hear, feel, or know nothing of mine. What I tell you here, they won't know. I will show you the way. Indeed, I will do more than that. I will give you just the right herbs to put a whole city to sleep if they are mixed in the right way and sprayed in the air— or make a whole city brain-dead, if they are mixed differently. Oh, there's an antidote, too. I might even give you that."

"And you think I'll believe you. Why would
you
want to destroy the City of Death? You're one of them."

Yet, she lived like a village woman—ate a village woman's food, had a village woman's brown, sun-scorched skin. The City of Death used rabbitlike. Jerome was old but not sun-drained. Her world was not the City of Death's world.

Stella shrugged. "What other choice do you have?" She handed Mel a small pouch that no one must see on those cameras that were everywhere. Meliora hid it in the backpack with food that the witch gave her.

Not that she'd eat any of it. She was done with eating stuff that hadn't been grown in a laboratory. Meliora also expected Stella to give her access to an airtrain, but all Stella did was open the front door to her cottage and point ahead.

"I never fancied those flying things," she said. "I am afraid I can't help you there."

"And I am afraid I can't trust you." But Mel's computer could not find an airtrain to connect to, and she had no time to look for it in other ways. She could be looking for days. Months.
But I am a Doctor of Computers, and I learned about networks from Nicolas.
Besides, there was this last wonderful experience, and the pilot's words. That airtrain hadn't killed her when it crashed. It must have a backup system. It would fly. She'd give herself a few hours to make it fly. If it didn't—she fingered the pendant on her neck. Her dad would give her Albert. She was sure he would.

She understood her Dad now—truly understood his young self, who had been willing to take bullets rather than never again see his wife and child. She'd go to the City of Death, even though they had eyes everywhere while she had eyes just as far as her computer could connect, and every time she connected now, her body rebelled against it.

She reached the airtrain. She started working on it. This airtrain would fly—and then, after she'd taken Nicolas out, it would destroy the City of Death.

The airtrain's computer woke up. Meliora knew something was wrong even before her own computer got the signal. Something was broken irrevocably. The machine wouldn't fly, and she was shaking again and feeling numb. As if she felt the machine's pain—as if the machine
had
any pain.

She was a healer, and a Doctor of Computers. She could not bear someone's pain. The thing was broken. It was broken irrevocably, even though its body shone silver and bright in the morning sun. Death from young age. It was all she could think of. Death that
someone
must finally take away. Through her network, on her screen and even in the air, she now saw something. Pulses, like a heartbeat. Wires like nerves, against a faint shadow of metal that must be the airtrain's body.

Yet, she couldn't connect to it like she had connected to the wonderful experience's computer. People weren't meant to do this, the pale pilot had said. And time was running out.

She didn't know much about nerves. Doctors in today's Lucasta didn't know, and village healers knew even less. She was both of those, and yet she was helpless—no. She wasn't. She was a Doctor of Computers and that counted for something when you dealt with machines. She was a also a village healer, and those could sometimes fight disease. It wasn't easy. They paid a price. Few healers got as old as old Codes. They surrendered bits of themselves every time they healed, Meliora suddenly knew—just like in the old, old days, doctors had given blood from other people to the needy.

Meliora gripped the knife Stella had given her with the food and made an incision in her forearm. There was pain and dizziness and burning now. Good. Somehow she knew that this would help her find and manipulate the nerves and wires and buttons in the air and in her mind better. There had been pain in Jerome's wonderful experience. There had also been pain—of the emotional kind—when the airtrain had snowed. She had both kinds of pain now.

With the bloodied arm, Mel touched the torn cables sticking from the airtrain's twisted door. Yes, the pain became stronger, but that was not all she felt. She felt the computer better now. She started repairing the invisible nerves.

An hour later, the airtrain jumped from the ground. Meliora flew, but not to the City of Death. There was another stop she must make first.

She landed right in the village's street. Let them see her. Let them know that machines existed that they had never seen either in the village or the cities, let them know that there was a world beyond the sky's horizon, and that they should sometimes look up.

There was a chance for Nicolas, a chance against the City of Death. Perhaps the witch hadn't lied to her. Perhaps the herbs would do exactly what Stella said they would. Mel wouldn't try it with Nicolas still inside. But she had the Book of the Gods with her, her Dad's last gift, together with the pendant. The Book said that when the gods had gone to the sky it had been a sacrifice for their human creations.

That's why you gave it to me, Dad. So that I would know. Because you could not say it in words.
Her dad would come with her now. She knew he would. He would let her test the sleeping and waking up part of the herbs on him, and he'd be glad that his life had been useful to his daughter and to the boy who was chief after him. And to the world.

She didn't even have to get down from her airtrain. The old chief, when he saw her at the door, ran to her and climbed up without a doubt.

But then, she did get down. Another airtrain was landing. She'd felt it in the air long before she saw it, and she knew the person inside it was Nicolas. He even sent her a message, telling her to wait for him where she was. She barely read it. It was a bit hard to perceive human words just now, after flying her airtrain with invisible wires.

By the time she was on the ground, she could perceive them, even though some part of her really didn't like this. It wanted to stay attached to her machine. It wanted Nicolas to become attached to his, too, so that they both could communicate in just the right and proper way.

Nic leaped from his airtrain instead of walking down its stairs. He ran to her, grabbed her, and kissed her more intensely than even when he'd done the rape-pretense.

People were gathering. Walter, the newest chief, Belle, Carlos, old Codes with little Lizzy. For a moment, it was just like coming home.

"Oh, Nic, you ran away! You're alive and well—let's go, Nic! Let's stop them from damaging any more lives! Let's destroy the City of Death and free the world from their tyranny! We can come back then—"

"Destroy the City of Death? Mel, my love, this is exactly what we won't do."

She glimpsed the shot in his hand just as he pulled her to himself for a second kiss. Then darkness fell.

Place

She woke up surrounded by medstats in what was undoubtedly the City of Death. It must be, with Benedict's face hovering inches over hers.

"You won't be kissing me, Ben, will you? No? Then
back off.
"

The old-young man backed off with a smile. "I haven't kissed a girl in something like seventy years."