The Wild Lands: Legend of the Wild Man (8 page)

Urea went along with it all, she had to. If
she didn't she would lose her privilege to Synchronize with her
panthera
, a threat she wasn't sure that Baucis would follow
through with, but still too severe to risk. She also saw how much
people seemed to enjoy the religion and all of its trappings.
People gladly traded labor for the Garden's Bounty, genuinely
believing they were partaking in Nature's Communion. In a sense
they were, Urea thought, and if this was the only way to get the
necessary work that the society demanded, then so be it.

No one forced anyone to think anything, she
reasoned. They could still use their minds as they saw fit. So what
if they simply
didn't
?

However, after seeing…
that demon
fight Evanimals so ruthlessly, she was uncertain of everything. She
had tried to dismiss the religion as a social force long ago, but
something about the figure spoke to her. If he wasn't Nature's
Wild Man
, what was he? He had targeted two artificial
animals, and Urea sensed he wasn't done.
It
being out there
put her on edge, but there was nothing she could do about it
directly. Her brother was tracking its signal, and until he found
something, she would have to wait.

That was fine though, for the young Huntress
had other plans. Not everything had melted in the Scourge. Three
structures remained in the Garden, and Urea had yet to explore one
of them.

The
panthera
's nose bobbed up and down
as she sniffed the unusual building. It was remarkably different
than the other two stone structures. One was a giant sports
structure, something Baucis called the Coliseum. It was basically a
giant bowl with thousands of places for spectators to sit. All of
the pilots had spent many days testing their Evanimals against each
other in mock combat while the Spire watched through
biselk
or
howluchin
eyes. The other was a giant swoop of flat stone
elevated on stone pillars high above the earth. Baucis said it was
a road used to take automobiles over the city. Urea had only ever
heard of automobiles. According to Ntelo there used to be so many
of them that they couldn't even all move at once. They drank the
Nature’s blood and spewed pollution. The Scourge devoured them all,
but not the road. It was an ugly thing, striking only for its size
and antediluvian purpose.

The structure Urea and her
panthera
approached was entirely different than the other two. It was
grander, more purposeful and stunningly beautiful. The feline
cautiously approached the huge stone dome that lay on the edge of
the Garden. It was enormous. Nothing compared to the Spire in
height, but in sheer presence it easily outweighed the Spire. It
was still far away, yet already it dominated the landscape. It was
far from the mountain range and its rivulets and streams that
irrigated the Garden and cooled the Spire, so water had done less
damage to both the structure and the grounds. There was still an
ancient stone road that led up to thing. Grasses and weeds erupted
in cracks in the road. Nature had begun to take the place back, but
it would be a long time yet. Here and there an errant tree forced
its ways through the ubiquitous stone that must have covered
everything in ancient times. Vines overwhelmed the grounds. In
places there were fields with nothing but flowers. Everywhere the
grass rose as tall as the
panthera,
no small feat. Urea
wouldn’t be able to see the sky at all if she stood there upon her
own feet. This was a place for her predator. The
panthera
's
senses were at their peak. Her eyesight was sharp and crisp. Her
ears finely attuned. Each step a silent symphony of stealth.

Urea reveled in the fluidity of it all. She
moved her body in perfect synchronization with the
panthera
.
In truth, it was unnecessary, the chamber she was in served as a
brainwave amplifier, her thoughts were transformed into electronic
commands, but she found it much easier to convince her brain of the
movements if she made them all herself. In a twist of technological
symbiosis (or was it parasitism?), she had learned to control the
panthera
from the
panthera
herself. She had copied
every twitch, mirrored every behavior until she understood all of
the facets of
panthera
's being. She could react like the
panthera
could. She could instinctively move her body to do
what she wished. The twins’ method (for the two pioneered it) was
very successful, unsurpassed, but it did require the pilot to act
like the Evanimal as much as the Evanimal acted like the pilot.
Because of this Urea could nearly read her
panthera
's
thoughts and intuitions. Each flick of a whisker or clench a muscle
group indicated something, the trick was reading the Evanimal. But
to do that, one had to let the Evanimal be in control, and only
step in to guide the beast's larger goals.
Go there, kill
that.
Pilots historically had focused on the control of the
actual movements of the Evanimals, but few managed to do it with
the same control and grace as the animal's themselves could muster.
The twins' method changed all that. Instead of preoccupying one's
self with
one
specific strike, the Pilot became the animal,
and could learn to control the entire being fluidly.

She moved her head up in a lazy arch, the
panthera
did the same and both of their eyes went wide at
the structure that towered above them. In front of them rose a huge
mass of pink granite. Two huge stone halls extended from a
magnificent pink dome supported by rows of impressive pillars. The
stone had worn little in the preceding century. It looked nearly
pristine. Only a corner of one of the wings had collapsed. Granite
bricks dotted the hill, longing to return to their place of glory.
Even the plants didn't challenge the mighty structure. A tree had
forced the collapse; it now lay horizontally on the ground, pinned
by a brick. The entire mass of rock probably weighed more than the
Spire.

A low hum filled her mind, the VRCs rendition
of the
panthera
's low warning growl. Urea would have to be
very cautious. Her
panthera
did not like the pink granite,
too many perfect lines, too much geometry.
Too much order
.
But it was by far the most intact thing humanity had left on the
surface, Urea was determined to explore it.

There,
she ordered, and moved her own
hand forward. After a moment's hesitation, the
panthera
obliged.

She did not know what she hoped to find.
Proof, of course, but of what? Her mind had been filled with the
supposed
Wild Man
who had challenged her brother. Maybe she
hoped to disprove Ntelo's legends of old, or to cast doubt on her
prophecies of the future, though both looked to be monumentally
difficult tasks. The stone building was enormous, yet could only be
accessed by eyes cued into movement and paws inept at subtle
manipulation. Besides, she knew from history that the pink granite
dome was only the crown jewel of the society. The Scourge had taken
everything else.

It was hard to deny Ntelo's argument that
Nature wanted the surface for itself. Everywhere she looked,
grasses, vines, and trees waged eternal war on the once pristine
grounds. The plants had long absorbed or hidden any residue the
Scourge left behind. They had cracked stones and toppled buildings
as they devoured all that the sun touched. The only way to stop the
plant's eternal march was to chop their branches and pull their
roots. War on Nature itself. Urea balked at the prospect. Despite
her skepticism of the religion, she loved Nature and its fecundity,
to think of hurting it made her feel ill.

Her
panthera
mirrored the sentiment,
her tail flicked unhappily and her growl persisted. Urea wondered
if the cat felt it in reverse, as if the road was the last bit of
scar tissue to heal over, the building an embedded tooth or barb
that would have to be forced out before the earth could be
pristine.

She turned back to the stone edifice.
Enter,
she thought, and the
panthera
obeyed.

The inside of the structure was more
impressive than its glowing exterior. Ornate stone walls reached
for high ceilings. Every inch of the place was exquisitely
fashioned. There was wooden trim along the floor, hardly rotten
desks made of wood, chairs made of wood. Urea had seen things in
Spire City made of wood, the ugly card table in Baucis's meeting
room for one, but it was preposterously expensive. She thought it
was an extravagant material, hardly durable, weak to water and
scratches, and so expensive in the Spire, but here on the surface
it seemed commonplace.

She walked forward in the entrance hall, saw
a door made of wood to the left and cautiously pushed it open with
a
panthera
paw. An enormous porcelain throne sat therein.
Urea realized it was a massive toilet. She chuckled to herself.
So our ancestors really were bigger
. She gracefully guided
the hulking cat back out of the little room and towards a boxy
piece of furniture. The
panthera
swiped and the dresser
crumbled. Once the dust settled Urea could make out ancient eroded
fabrics through a flurry of moths. Stars and stripes in colors too
faded to make out. The
panthera
snapped at the insects. Urea
instinctively moved her neck and snapped her jaw as the cat did.
That shouldn't have happened!

She glanced at the heart rate monitor and
noticed they were out of sync.
I laughed
. Rookie mistake.
Her
panthera
would not be amused in this bizarre, alien
structure. She took a careful breath, realigned her bodily
functions with the cat's, and the two headed towards the central
domed room as one.

The walls leading to the dome room were
covered in tattered images of humans. They weren't photo realistic,
but artistic renditions made of artificial colors. Urea found them
charming.

They all have so much hair!
The
womens' hair often went down their back, and many of the men grew
it out of their faces.
And in so many colors!
Blonde, brown,
red, black, all far different from the bald heads to which she was
accustomed. Her hair wasn't as thick or lustrous as the ancient
humans, but she felt a bond with them. Before she realized it she
was licking her hand and stroking her own black hair as her
panthera
did the same.
Stop it,
she ordered, but
wasn't entirely sure who she was telling. Had the
panthera
sensed Urea's subconscious and acted upon it, or had Urea
inadvertently instigated the entirely feline gesture herself?

Forward,
she thought and the
panthera
hesitated then went forward. She felt the mental
battle between her and the feline acutely. It didn't operate in
words, but the sentiment was unmistakable.
No.
The
resistance had not lasted long, barely a moment, just enough for
her to know her
panthera
was thinking.

Forward they went into the central domed
room. It was huge, bigger than even the auditorium in Spire City.
There were multiple floors people could stand on that ringed the
inside of the dome. The whole room was filled with decaying
portraits and nothing else. They were eye level for the
panthera
, Urea would have hardly reached their chests. How
times changed. Supposedly in the surface dweller's time, the
animals had been the small ones.

Again she felt that stubborn animal
resistance.
NO
. The
panthera
was really testing her.
She had not done this in a long time, not since Urea first started
synchronizing with her. Urea knew her mind was wandering as it
struggled with the bizarre environment but her mind often wandered
throughout her day. Was the difference the dome? Urea willed her
panthera
forward. But she didn't move.

The
panthera
realized her disobedience
was working as quickly as Urea did, and raced down one of the
hallways.
She's trying to block out the signal!
Urea still
saw everything it did, but its sprint was of its own volition. The
stone ceilings and walls interfered with the Spire’s field. The
brain implant's power was intermittent at best.

Stop.

The
panthera
only stumbled, then
slipped on the smooth stone floor and careened into a wall. The
wall crumbled. It was made of decayed wood. The
panthera
righted itself and charged further, away from the way they had
come, like it planned to outrun its ghost.

Urea remained calm. Her pulse didn't
automatically increase with the
panthera
's, the Spire's
fields only allowed the implants to work one way. She couldn't feel
its urgency, its love of freedom and need to escape.

At the end of the cat's vision she saw a
stairway descend into the floor of the structure. It was clearly
the
panthera
's target. The shockingly intelligent Evanimal
had realized that the roof protected its mind, and sought to go
underground. Urea knew if it made it under the earth it would be
lost until it resurfaced. The tiny feed of data probably wouldn't
be able to penetrate the ground, and they'd lose its location. The
panthera
could literally vanish. If it reemerged somewhere
where the field was weaker, or during a storm it could run for the
wild lands. It might resurface inside the same domed stone
structure, but if she was not in her chamber, ready to synchronize
with the
panthera
, it would surely be lost. Urea had to stop
it,
now
.

She saw light glint out of the the corner of
the
panthera
's eye and ordered,
there!
The
panthera
whipped its head to the left and looked out of a
broken window, straight at the Spire. The Tower of Power. A direct
connection!
There
she ordered, and raised her arm. The
panthera
reluctantly did the same. Its foot seemed to weigh
more than it should. It was fighting with all it had. Urea summoned
all the will she could and thought
Attack!
The
panthera
's hardwired instincts took over and it leapt out
the window, shattering the thin pane of glass outward.