Oasis (The Last Humans Book 1) (13 page)

Unlike ancient fugitives, I have very limited options when it comes to escape. Even if Phoe manages to get me into the Adults’ side of Oasis, we’re still talking about a very small surface of habitable land that they would have to search before they find me.

“Seriously,” Liam says, and I realize I missed something he said. “I ought to knock you out and take you back for your own good.”

“Liam, trust me, I can’t go back.” My voice cracks, and I pause to clear my throat before continuing. “Please, promise you won’t tell them where I am.”

“But you’re not well.” He chews his cheek. “You can’t expect me to ignore—”

A rustling sound comes from the trees behind the stump.

Without fully realizing what I’m doing, I dive for the place where Liam was sitting earlier and crouch, ducking my head. The pain in my ankle is so sharp I’m surprised I haven’t fainted.

The sound of someone moving through the forest gets louder.

Liam steps toward me but doesn’t look at me. His eyes are glued to a point far above my head, behind the stump.

He stops right next to the stump, so close I could reach out and tickle his leg were I in a more jovial mood.

“Liam,” a horrifyingly familiar nasally voice says. “Were you just talking to someone?”

I recognize this voice. After the game, I don’t think I’ll ever not shudder at hearing it.

“Hi, Instructor Filomena,” Liam says. “There’s something you need to know.” He makes his hands into fists, relaxes them, turns them into fists again, and then sticks his hands in his pockets. “It’s about Theo.”

F
orgetting
about the pain in my ankle, I coil up, ready to pounce, but Liam is standing in my way. It would be impossible for me to spring without knocking him over.

“Theodore?” Instructor Filomena’s voice rises with each syllable. “What about him?”

“I saw him,” Liam says. “I was speaking of my discovery into my Screen.”

“You saw him?” she repeats. “Why are we standing here then? Where is he?”

Liam takes his hand out of his pocket. Raising it, he points southeast. “He was running that way. I yelled for him to stop. He looked at me but kept running.” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Do you know what happened? Why he ran?”

“Don’t you worry about that.” Instructor Filomena tries but, in my opinion, fails to sound soothing. “Come with me. We can cover a wider area if we work together.”

“Okay.” Liam takes a step to the left and stops next to the stump—I’m guessing to block Instructor Filomena’s view of me. I hear shuffling footsteps and realize she’s probably heading in the direction Liam pointed in. After a few moments, Liam follows her.

I sit quietly, not daring to even sneak a glance at them. I massage my ankle as I wait and wonder what I’m going to do next.

A shadowy figure suddenly looms over me. I jump, nearly smacking my head against the stump.

“Sorry,” Phoe says. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t,” I say and attempt to swallow my heart back down my throat. “I thrive on sudden movements and menacing shadows.”

She chuckles, raising her transparent hands to her head with no face. Now that I know what she would look like had this been my man cave, or had she possessed enough resources, I can picture that sly, crooked smile.

It’s an oddly pleasant visual.

Phoe clears her throat. “Anyway, you’re now authorized to enter the Adult section.”

“Great.” I rub the back of my head, where it touched the stump. “One thing you never told me is why I would go there. Won’t I be like the proverbial lamb going to the slaughter?”

“Not necessarily. They won’t think to look for you there. At least not for a while.”

I use the tree stump to help myself to my feet. My ankle hurts when I put my weight on it.

“Shit,” Phoe says. “You can’t run like that.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll be lucky if I can limp my way there.”

“This development just strengthens the need for you to cross the Barrier.” Her ghostly form makes a motion of running a jerky hand through her hair. “I can get you transport once we’re on the Adults’ side.”

I take a step and wince. “Damn. This really hurts.”

“I’m sorry I can’t ease your pain with my current resources.” Her voice is full of regret. “Not without undoing the anti-tampering protection I put in place per your request.”

I carefully balance my weight when I take the next step. I’d rather be in pain than have my mind messed with.

Suddenly, Phoe’s spine straightens, and she runs ahead. “Come here,” she exclaims. “There!” She points to the ground.

I limp over and look at where she’s pointing.

“That’s a dry stick,” I say, not even trying to hide my disappointment. She was so excited I was expecting to see an invisibility cloak or something.

“An invisibility cloak would require extremely complex manipulations of the Augmented Reality interface—and for tons of people. With my meager resources, I have trouble dealing with just yours. This—” She makes a showy two-palm gesture at the dry branch. “This here is a
walking
stick
.” She’s using the overexcited style of speech common in ancient advertisements. “Like all the famous explorers used.”

“More like a cane,” I mutter but pick up the stick.

I take a tentative step with the assistance of the stick.

Then another.

“Much better,” I reluctantly admit.

“Good,” Phoe says. “The Barrier isn’t far now.”

“
W
e just passed the threshold
, the place where fear would’ve stopped you had my authorization not worked,” Phoe says as I see the shimmer of the Barrier in the distance. She looks at me worriedly. “You don’t feel fear, do you?”

I shrug. “Nothing outside what’s normal. And by that, I mean normal for someone who has the whole population of Oasis chasing after him and who fell to his death the last time he went this way.”

“I’ll take that as a sign that my manipulations worked,” Phoe says. “You clearly have the Adult privileges required to cross this spot.”

Mumbling about why I’m justified in being afraid, I move forward with the help of my stick/cane.

After a couple of minutes, a long stretch of cut grass with no trees that ends in the Barrier comes into view.

“I know,” Phoe says. “I also dislike the lack of cover, but it can’t be helped. We can’t afford to walk toward the section where the Barrier crosses the forest.” She glances down at my ankle.

We walk in tense silence until we get to the clearing. “Theo, wait—“ Phoe starts saying as I step out from behind the last tree, but it’s too late.

I see the Guard, who must’ve just stepped out from the tree line to the left of me, some sixty feet away.

“Maybe he didn’t see us,” Phoe says urgently. “Back away slowly.”

I begin complying when she hisses, “Never mind. Get to the Barrier.”

I glance at the Guard and see that he’s running toward me.

He must’ve seen me after all.

I grit my teeth and limp toward the Barrier as fast as my ankle and cane will allow.

The distance I have to cover is about fifteen feet. A quarter of the distance between the Guard and me, I reassure myself.

“Except if you take into account his current velocity, he
will
catch you,” Phoe says. “You have to run.”

I attempt to increase my speed, but my ankle pulses in waves of aching complaints, and the wooden stick feels as if it’s about to break. I steal a glance at the Guard.

He’s closer than I expected.

Desperation coils in my chest. Stopping, I raise the stick and hurl it like a spear at my pursuer.

He ducks to the side to avoid it, and his foot catches on a protruding piece of rock. I watch in amazement as he sprawls across the ground, sliding forward.

I bought myself a few precious seconds.

I resume my rapid limping. Without the stick, the pulsing in my ankle morphs into a violent throbbing.

It pays off, though. I get so close that if I were to reach my hand out, I’d touch the Barrier. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the Guard is struggling to his feet.

Without testing the Barrier as I did in the game, I rush through it.

Nothing happens.

I don’t feel as if I walked through a bubble, or wetness, or anything else.

One moment I was on the Youth’s side of the Barrier, and the next I’m on the Adults’.

“That’s because the Barrier is not real,” Phoe says next to me. “It’s Augmented Reality that works on the same principles as Screens and my current image.” She sweeps her hands down her body.

I don’t respond. I’m looking at a stretch of grass that leads into a pine forest, and it hits me how unlike the game everything is. Aside from the Barrier working differently, this side of Oasis looks like a mirror image of the one I came from.

“Well, yeah. Did you expect the French countryside to make an appearance?” Phoe says. “Now, quickly, get on that.” She points to a metal disk lying on the ground. “Remember that Guard? Just because you can’t see him through the Barrier doesn’t mean he’s not about to come through it.”

Her reminder jolts me back into action, and I limp to the disk she pointed at.

“It’s just a shiny circle of metal,” I whisper after examining it cautiously. “How do I ‘get on it’?”

“Given your injury,” she says, “you should sit in the center of it, probably in the lotus pose.”

My mind is full of questions, but I step on the disk. A shimmering bubble forms around its edges.

“That’s to make sure you stay safely inside,” Phoe says, answering the question I was about to ask. “Now sit.”

I get into the lotus pose, which allows me to massage my injured ankle.

A shimmering ghostly copy of a disk appears on the ground. Phoe steps on it and sits down in the same pose.

“Go like this,” she says and raises her hand, palm down, keeping her fingers tightly together.

I do as she showed me.

My disk twitches under me.

“Don’t move,” she says as I’m about to jump up. “The field around you won’t let you get off anyway.”

The disk moves smoothly and slowly, as though I’m on an ice slope instead of grass.

Then I realize I’m not sliding on the grass; I’m actually hovering above it.

Phoe begins to hover as well.

At first she’s just an inch above the top of the tallest grass stalk; then she’s almost a foot off the ground.

Before I get a chance to voice any objections, the same thing happens to me.

I’m about a foot off the ground, which is low enough not to activate my panic, but high enough to prove a frightening point.

I’m sitting on some sort of flying device. It must be the transport Phoe mentioned earlier.

“Don’t dwell on that,” Phoe says. “Turn your hand to the right like this”—she tilts her palm rightward—“to turn right.”

I carefully tilt my hand, and the disk rotates in the same direction.

“Same with the left,” Phoe explains and tilts her hand the other way.

I turn my palm to the left and the disk straightens at first, but then tilts to the left.

“Shit,” Phoe says suddenly and points at the Barrier.

The Guard steps out of it and heads straight for us.

“Do this.” Phoe points her palm upward, at about a seventy-five-degree angle. In response to her gesture, Phoe’s disk whooshes upward at the exact same angle as her palm.

I look at where the Guard was.

He’s no longer there.

He’s a foot in front of me, his hand extended.

If I don’t do what Phoe said, he’ll grab me.

I point my palm upward, though at a narrower angle than Phoe’s.

The disk whooshes over the Guard’s head, leaving his outstretched hand empty. He leaps after me, but I’m already too high for him to reach.

“You’re moving smoothly,” Phoe says. Somehow she’s flying next to me, even though a moment ago she was far away. “Do this to add speed.” She thrusts her palm forward in a jerky motion, looking like an ancient martial artist.

Her disk speeds up. Given how fast it’s going, its flight is surprisingly smooth, reminding me of a stingray swimming after its prey.

I hesitantly repeat her gesture.

My flying device moves faster too—much faster.

What’s worse is that due to the slight slope of my palm, I also gain altitude.

“There wasn’t a choice,” Phoe says soothingly. “Not unless you wanted to fly into the trees.”

She’s right. I clear the nearby trees, flying a couple of feet above their tops.

“What now?” I think, mostly to distract myself from my overly rapid breathing.

“I have no idea.” Phoe’s voice is inside my head. I guess she didn’t want to pretend to scream over the wind in our ears. “My plan of hiding you here is shot to shit, though.”

I nod, wondering how I can feel the wind in my ears if I’m enclosed in a protective bubble. This thought is interrupted by the enormous city I spy in the distance.

I stare at it openmouthed.

This is no French countryside, obviously. I didn’t truly think it would be. But I didn’t expect this… conformity. Why keep the Youths away when everything here is so similar to our section, with the same geometrically perfect metal structures and bucolic greenery, only scaled differently?

“Scale is pretty important,” Phoe says. “You can figure out the ratio of Adults to Youths from the scale, and that ratio can reveal other things, such as birth rates.”

I unpeel my eyes from the distant buildings and look at Phoe’s disk.

“How is it that this thing can fly?” I ask. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

“I already told you: I’m not here in the real sense of the word,” Phoe says. “This form you see is an Augmented Reality construct.”

“I meant
me
,” I say. “How am I flying on a disk? I’m not Augmented.”

“Oh,” Phoe says innocently, as though she didn’t realize what I meant. “Similar to those stairs at the Zoo, this probably has to do with magnetic fields and room-temperature superconductors.”

“Ah, why didn’t you tell me that before?” I say sarcastically. “Now I totally get it.”

“And I wouldn’t go so far as to say you’re
not
Augmented.” She snickers. “Though you’re not an AR avatar, with your nanocytes, you’re pretty augmented all right.”

“I get that too,” I say without sarcasm.

“Then I assume you also get that we can’t fly any farther,” Phoe says, her tone turning more serious. “They could spot us.”

“So where do we go?” I ask.

“I’m thinking we should turn back and return to the Youths’ side, even if it means we can’t fly.” She raises her hands and massages her temples. “The Guard we fled from has undoubtedly reported our encounter and—”

She stops talking and stands up on her flying disk. Her whole body locks as if she’s frozen. With the way she’s standing, it looks as if she’s staring into the distance to her right.

I follow her gaze.

“Crap,” I say at the same time as she says, “Shit.”

Like a flock of migratory birds, a group of Guards is approaching us, their disks reflecting the sun’s rays.

Phoe comes out of her reverie, swerves her disk sharply to the left, and shouts, “Follow me.”

I tilt my palm so sharply left I nearly pull my forearm muscle in the process. The result is worth it, though.

I follow Phoe’s trajectory perfectly.

We torpedo forward, the tops of the trees becoming a solid green blur below us.

“Stop, Theo,” Phoe yells at me. “Make your hand into a fist to do that, like this.”

She follows her words with a gesture that I mimic right away. My nails dig into my palm as I make a fist, and we both come to a sudden stop.

There are Guards in the direction we were flying in.