Flight (54 page)

Prissi squeezed her eyes tightly shut and
used her fingertips to flick away at the illogical words the
inarticulate boy was flinging at her.

The next time Prissi woke the room was dark.
When the girl took a deep sigh, sharp pain shot through her torso.
That pain was followed by a disembodied voice from across the
room.

“You have two broken ribs. Your right ulna
has a greenstick fracture. You have a concussion. There is blood in
your urine, most likely from a bruised kidney. You were very close
to dying. First, I hoped, now, I know you will live. You are
strong. You are healing much faster than could be expected.”

Olewan stared at the girl, who remained
silent. Despite the fact that Olewan assumed the girl’s silence
meant fear, rejection or dismissal, she still was happy to be in
the room. For too many years, Olewan has been alone—except for the
irritating distraction of the boy. For years she has looked at her
future, her death and done nothing more than shrug. Now, that
indifference has changed. Since her clone has been delivered to her
in Mortos’ arms, she has been considering the end of her life with
very different insights, regrets and hopes.

The girl definitely is her clone. She has
proved that. But to learn why the girl knew to come to the Bury,
Olewan has had to wait impatiently until the girl became conscious
and coherent. Now, that the girl was alert, Olewan hoped to have
her many questions answered.

It took more than two hours—a time filled
with long pauses and tears, with both angry and despairing words,
and with many answers before Olewan’s questions stop. Despite the
girl’s insistence, it made no sense to Olewan that it would be
Joshua Fflowers’ trying to harm her. When Prissi tells Olewan how
she had come to the Bury through the kind acts of a crippled man
named Allen Burgey, who she later learned once was called Glen
Laureby, the old woman does not doubt that that seemingly kind act
was fathered by a dozen darker motives. When the teener told her
about the crystal pendant Laureby had given her and how it matched
the one she had found among her mother’s treasures, it made the
crone’s heart race with hope. Being given an opportunity to extend
her years was a much more beguiling gift now that the girl was in
her life.

As the girl watched, Olewan scuffled across
the floor and put her spidery hands into Prissi’s pak. It was hard
to tell who was more disappointed when the pendants were not to be
found. Prissi thought they must have been lost somewhere in the
forest where she had crashed. Olewan was sure that Mortos had
stolen them.

Not wanting the girl to see how disappointed
she was, but also not ready to break off their visit, Olewan said,
“While you are quiet, let me tell you a story.”

The old woman paused as if gathering her
thoughts.

“You are here because I am here. You were
sent here. For a reason. I am an old woman. My name, Olewan, says
that. I have been alone so long that I talk poorly and, I am sure,
converse worse. If you have questions, and you will, they may not
be answered. Because I can’t, or because I won’t.

“You are interested in me as I am interested
in you. I am not yours, but you are mine.

“Before I was Olewan, I was Elena. When I was
Elena, I was bright, but not wise. Much like you, I fear. Now, I am
neither. But, I am alive.

“Is that a worthy goal? To be alive? Aren’t
all stories about being alive? Alive with love. Alive and alone.
Alive with loss. Alive with Death stretching out its dark eager
hand…to pull you across the river.

“You have met Joshua Fflowers. He, like me,
also confused knowledge for wisdom. Many years ago, I was married
to Joshua Fflowers. That was a mistake, but a worse mistake was
that I was wedded to Joshua Fflower’s ideas even more than I was
wedded to the man himself. His idea of winging humans. His idea of
creating a bestiary. His idea of extending life. I helped all of
his ideas become real. We grew wings and centaurs and centuries of
extra life.”

Prissi was having a very hard time making
sense of what the woman was saying. With each of the woman’s words,
Prissi’s mind went off if a different direction. The sense of
mental anarchy she had had with the boy and bird Bob returned with
a vengeance.

“You said you were interested in a small
company called Centsurety. That is what we did there. We altered
wings and lives and life. We assured that there would be centaurs
and we insured that a human life could be two centuries longer than
it had been. That was our intelligence at play—mine and Vartan
Smarkzy with the centaurs and Roan Winslow, Glen Laureby and my own
with the longevity. It wasn’t until we had accomplished what Joshua
Fflowers had dreamed that we looked up and around long enough to
realize that they weren’t dreams at all, but fevered musings,
nightmares, not that different from those that have been holding
you.”

Olewan’s last words made Prissi catch her
breath. That sound held up Olewan’s tale for a moment and allowed
Prissi to realize that the old woman’s words and sentences have
changed. The girl understands that there is more than a simple old
woman before her.

“In the same way that a virulent disease
grows into a pandemic, so, too, grew Joshua Fflowers’ ego. What
happened to him went beyond hubris into megalomania. My colleagues
and I decided that things had to change, radically change. We
decided to destroy our work even though we knew that after we did
that we would have to hide from Fflowers’ wrath for the rest of our
lives. So we did, and so we have. We destroyed Centsurety with
fire, faked deaths, and fled.

“I came here. Glen Laureby first went to
India. The woman who raised you went to Africa.”

Prissi’s muscles went rigid.

“Why do I say it that way? Because it is
true. If you were to see a picture of me at sixteen, you would know
that you came from me and not Roan Winslow. You are my clone. My
child. Mine.”

Although it was easier to stay small and
silent, Prissi pushed the words out past the raw burn at the back
of her throat.

“How can that be?”

“It can be because your mother was the
smartest of all of us. I had ovarian cancer when I was in my
thirties. Before my surgery, my eggs were harvested so that Joshua
Fflowers and I could have children, or, in his mind, geniuses, when
it was convenient. When we, the others at Centsurety called us
Trinity, decided to run away from our successes, I took my eggs and
left others in their place. Now, what is obvious is that before I
had that vengeful idea, Roan Winslow already had understood that if
she were to have some of my eggs, it might act as life insurance,
or at least a bargaining tool, if Joshua Fflowers found her…or if I
decided to betray her.”

The old woman’s story didn’t make sense to
Prissi.

“If she wanted children, why wouldn’t she
have had her own rather than cloning you.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps, she was infertile.
Perhaps, she may have wanted a child who could double as a
pawn.”

In spite of the pain it brought to her neck
muscles, Prissi shook her head in denial.

The old woman shook her head in imitation of
Prissi.

“No? Impossible? Well, perhaps, she adored me
above all others.”

The woman’s snort reminded a horrified Prissi
of herself.

Prissi rasped, “I don’t believe you.”

“I’ve often had the same feeling. One of the
drawbacks of being a scientist is that it makes living our personal
lives more complicated because we are so adept at generating
alternative hypotheses for how and why things are.”

To give herself time to think, Prissi looked
across the room to the tale teller and asked, “Who is bird
Bob?”

“Do you play chess?”

“Not very often.”

“I used to decades ago. With some intensity.
Sometimes, I found it restored me. Now, I feel like I might be
playing on multiple boards again. If that feeling is true, then,
Bird Bob is a piece in a game. My opponent seems to think that Bird
Bob is powerful enough to checkmate me. My inclination is to treat
him as a pawn. My understanding is that Bird Bob seems to consider
himself a knight of some sort. Errant.”

Prissi, who had been staring at the gray
glazed ceiling above her, turned her head when she heard a
shuffling noise.

“I’ve said too much. You have much to
consider. You’re agitated.”

Prissi watched the old woman’s fingers adjust
the IV line attached to her. For some reason, it reminded her of
someone tuning a guitar.

“Sleep…daughter.”

Despite her best efforts to resist the
medicine and the madness flowing in her, within minutes Prissi’s
mind was back in the hot red dust of Africa. Olewan, too, was
wandering in memories from the past, however, knowing that she had
much work to do, she didn’t linger there for long. Instead, she
began to construct a story that would make the girl want to stay
with her. A story that would tell of maternal safety within the
Bury and mortal danger without.

Woods and Won’ts

Joe pedals south along the laser curtain
toward the Atlantic Ocean. Given that Noramica is not renowned for
being a country where things work, unlike Korea or India, the
longer the boy pedals alongside the unending pile of bones without
seeing a single break, the more frightened he becomes of the danger
he’ll face on the other side of the fence. If the government has
taken such care maintaining the fence, then it must be for a very
good reason. He envisions riding through a land filled with
thousand upon thousands of animals infested with hundreds of ticks,
which themselves are infested billions of Lyme’s spirochetes.

Kilometers pass and the skeleton mound
continues unbroken. Joe has a vision of a woodsy paradise so
over-populated with wildlife that millions of animals are forced to
flee or starve. Yet, the unending scrubland and woods, broken only
by the twists of water, suggest that there are not so many animals
that they have destroyed the habitat.

To resolve the conflict of how so much animal
life has died, yet the habitat appears sustained, the teener comes
to the idea that some force might be driving the wild life out of
its sanctuary and into the killing fields of the laser curtain. As
he rides along, the boy notices that there seem to be areas where
the jumble of bones rises higher. He guesses that could be used as
evidence that something is chasing the animals from the woods. Or,
it could be that something in the habitat beyond the curtain,
something hidden by the deep foliage from his eyes, such as too
much or too little water, or the wrong kind of plant-life, could be
responsible.

As Joe bicycles further south toward the
ocean, his pace must slows as the laser curtain passes over more
brooks and streams. At those spots, the air is humid and misty from
the steam created where the water passes under the laser. Since Joe
himself must investigate every body of water to see whether he can
ride through or if he has to remove his shoes, roll his pant legs
and lift his bike on a shoulder, he takes the time to look for
aquatic life. Some is floating on the surface like a piscine
Ganges, but in the deeper streams, the fish seem to be able to
survive running the laser’s gauntlet.

As Joe approaches the waters of the Atlantic,
the trees become fewer and exhibit ever more fantastic shapes from
their daily battles with the winds. Scrub, vines and rosehips grow
denser. Finally, the boy arrives at a beach where westerly winds
are pushing meter high gray green waves onto the wrack and rock
shore. The last pole of the laser fence rises from the waters
twenty meters out from shore.

Joe takes off all of his clothes and packs
them into a bundle. He attaches the bundle to the bike and lifts
the bike over his head. Keeping far away from the laser line, Joe
goads himself into entering the piercing cold water and begins to
make his way out past the last pole. Before he is half-way there,
the surf is past his waist. The swells push against him like a
parade of bullies. By the time he gets past the end of the laser
curtain, the water is slopping across his face. He has to hop to
get his breaths. Despite the fact that his whole body is quaking
from the Atlantic’s cold, Joe’s biceps are burning from holding the
bike overhead. The shivering teener makes himself keep going
forward until he is sure that he is past the point of danger.
Finally, Joe turns and angles his way back toward shore. His teeth
are chattering and his limbs are jerking like the first day in a
marionette class. He is so consumed by his body’s attempt to combat
the frigid water that he misses a shallow trough in the sea floor
and stumbles forward. Instantly, Joe is hit by all of the feelings
that swept through him when the Hudson tried to swallow him up.
But, as soon as the thought of opening his mouth wells up, Joe
explodes from the water and frantically scrambles toward shore.

When he finally makes it, the first thing he
does is put the Schwinner on its kick stand. Next, he wrings out
his soaking clothes and hangs them out to dry on the frame of the
bike. It is not until those tasks are done, that he squeegees his
head, forearms and chest, and, finally, his legs. His intention is
to stand naked until the sea-breeze dries him, but his shaking
becomes so bad that he decides he has to get dressed. His pants are
on and he has an arm inside his shirt sleeve when he stops himself.
He knows wearing wet clothes is a dangerous idea, maybe even
life-threatening if his core temperature drops too low; however he
doesn’t think that he can endure being naked much longer.

Joe screams STOP at the wind, then, a second,
later, applies the same command to himself. He stands stock-still
as he takes a series of deep breaths. The shaking becomes a little
less violent. He closes his eyes to see what Bob Tom would do.