XOM-B (6 page)

I lean forward a little farther and the vehicle tilts with my weight.

Too far!
The turbines now push the cycle forward and
down.
The far side of the canyon slides out of the darkness, lit by the moon. It’s a crisp dull blue in comparison to the deep shadow of the gorge below. I try to think of some way I can push the cycle farther or higher, but with both feet crushing down on the two pedals, I’m doing everything I can think to do.

And it’s not going to be enough.

The far side isn’t a great distance now, but the nose of the cycle is pointed below the crest.
I could jump,
I think, but then I remember how fast I’m traveling. An hour ago, death seemed like a stranger, something I’d never have to think about, but I once again find myself contemplating the finality of things. I’ve done so little with my life.

This can’t be the end.

Desperation fills my core and I repeat the potentially foolhardy plan that started the cycle in the first place—I push buttons. All of them. And this time, the power is on.

Compartments open. Lights flash, blue and red. A siren howls. Long tubes extend from the hood and launch metal projectiles toward the cliff, shattering stone.
Guns,
I realize, like the one Heap carried, but more powerful. Amid the cacophony of firing guns, blaring sirens and other noises I can’t identify, I hear a steady high-pitched hum rising in volume. I have no idea what this sound means, but it makes me tense up. My hands tighten on the handlebars, and not a moment too soon.

The high-pitched whine becomes a scream and something behind me explodes. I’m pulled backward, but manage to hold on, yanking the steering column up and the nose with it.

Why hadn’t I thought of that before? For a moment I worry that there is a problem with my memory, but I’m too young for that to be an issue.

These thoughts come and go swiftly, but their speed is dwarfed by that of the HoverCycle. I purse my lips tightly and pull myself forward, leaning under the wind. My eyes catch sight of the glowing speedometer.

Three hundred fifteen mph.

I’m a rocket!

I turn my head slowly back and see a bright orange glow radiating from the back of the cycle. A jet engine!
Turbofan,
I think, somehow recognizing the hardware, which is the most powerful engine in the world. And I’m sitting on top of it. My eyes widen, and oddly, for reasons beyond my understanding, I smile.

And laugh.

And then, the orange disappears.

The bike lurches and drops, but the descent is controlled, slowed and smoothed by the repulse engines pushing against the ground. But my speed … I’m slowing, but not quickly.

Brakes. How does Heap slow this thing down?

Before I can figure it out, I’m beneath the tree line, sliding back into a densely forested area. The possibility of a brutal, but quick death once again takes my full attention. I focus on the land ahead, noting the position of trees, the rise and fall of the ground and the occasional rock or thick bush.

The bike stops descending three feet from the ground, and for a moment I’m quite pleased with myself. I’ve managed to land the cycle from a great height, at an even greater speed, and without the slightest jostle. My feet work the pedals with little thought.

It’s instinct,
I think. That strange force within that seems to suggest actions before any conscious thought has taken place. I’m not sure how such a thing is possible. Things need to be considered, at least for a moment, but instinct … it’s immediate. I make a mental note to explore the subject in the future, then twist the steering bar to the right, swerving around a thick tree.

More trees flow past on either side, a horizontal blur. With every second that passes, I find my comfort level grow.

I swerve farther than I have to.

My foot remains firmly planted on the accelerator despite the danger of the dead being far behind me.

The smile creeps back onto my face.

No wonder Heap never let me drive the cycle,
I think,
it’s too fun.

Thinking of Heap reminds me that this isn’t just another midnight ride. I look up for the stars, hoping to locate the North Star, but they’re blocked by the trees. When I look down, I nearly crash headlong into a boulder the size of a ruined suburban home Heap showed me yesterday, and then forbade me to enter.

I shout with surprise and careen around the giant stone, just inches from smashing into its broad gray surface. A completely inappropriate laugh rises from deep within.
What was that?
I think.
I nearly died. Again! And I laughed?

Something is wrong with me. I’m sure of it.

But before I can contemplate my strange behavior, I notice a thinning in the trees to the left, and I direct the cycle toward what I believe is a clearing. Less than twenty seconds later, I explode from the forest and into a field full of tall grass, just like the one where I left Heap behind.

A surge of guilt, another new emotion, grips my chest and I fight against it. I didn’t leave Heap behind. He ordered me away. I obeyed him.

But that’s not really true.

I obeyed my fear.

Heap was my friend.
Is
my friend.

“I shouldn’t have left him,” I say. My lip trembles. I try to stop it, but I’m unable. Emotions, like instinct, seem to have control over my body in a way that supersedes the desires of my consciousness.

Life is confusing,
I decide, and then I’m launched skyward.

I rise up through the air, no longer seated on the back of the cycle. I’ve been flung off.

Did I hit something?
I wonder and look back to see the back end of the HoverCycle disappear into a hole in the ground. The image comes and goes quickly, because moving my head has caused me to flip over. As I spin head over heels, I catch a glimpse of the stars. It takes just a moment to find the North Star, determine which direction is northwest and turn my head again.

The city’s glow is revealed to be long lights attached to the sides of buildings taller than anything I’ve seen.
They’re beautiful,
I think,
like the trees, but different.

Then I’m facedown again and looking at the Earth below. I’m so tired of contemplating what death will feel like, that I give up on it and focus on the city again. My muscles relax. My tendons loosen. And for a moment, I feel peaceful, like when I was on the rooftop with Heap.

I nearly miss the fact that I’ve hit the ground and passed straight through it, but my view turns black and I register the impact as a dull pain throughout my body. But it’s not nearly as bad as I thought.

Because I’m still falling,
I realize. The ground and the grass is just a thin film.
But above what?
At least I know what happened to the HoverCycle. To the heavy machine and powerful repulse discs, the thin covering was essentially open air. The cycle must have pitched forward, the back whipped up and I took flight.

My fall slows while all around me, things crack and splinter. Invisible limbs poke and claw at me, slowing my descent until I reach the bottom of—what? A pit of some kind? A sinkhole?

I try to get my bearings, placing my hands on the soil beneath me. It feels soft, and squishy. I reach down and take a handful of the stuff, holding it up before my eyes. I can’t see it in this pit where the moonlight can’t reach, so I switch to infrared and get a flare of heat from the surface of the pit.

And it’s moving.

I let the glowing mush slip from my hands until just a little remains. Upon closer inspection, I recognize the wriggling shapes. Worms. A
lot
of worms.

I switch my visual upgrade from infrared to light-amplifying night vision. Everything looks green, but the small amount of light filtering from above, perhaps reflecting off a cloud or nearby trees, or from the stars directly overhead, is made more luminous, allowing me to see shapes, but little more.

But simple shapes, in this case, are enough.

A shout leaps from my mouth and I scramble back from the horrible sight, only to find myself tangled more tightly within the grasp of so many dead.

But these people are really dead.

Long dead.

All that remains are bones. They’re so fragile. Brittle and weak. How did people come to be in this state? And why are there so many?

I look at a skull frozen in a permanent scream. It’s wedged in tight, held in place by all the bones around it. Who was this person? A man or a woman? There is no way for me to tell.

Something strikes my head, bouncing off my hair. I catch it as it falls in front of my face. It’s a bone. A small one. Part of a finger, I think.

And then another one falls.

And another.

I look up. The hole created by my body as it punctured the Earth and crashed through the mass of skeletons is nearly fifty feet deep. The bones surrounding the column of empty space have been broken, the tangle of dead that held them firm is now missing. They’re shifting, sliding in, closing the gap, and falling toward me. A skull pops free, jawless and terrible. It falls through empty space, its empty eyes watching me as it drops. I cringe away from the thing.

The dead surround me.

They tried to eat me, and now they’re going to bury me.

The skull strikes my hands as they clutch the back of my head. The impact doesn’t hurt, really. The skull is weak and shatters on impact, coating me with a layer of dust. Dead dust.

A rattle draws my eyes up.

The night sky is gone. The dead close in and fall, burying me alive.

Panic sets in like never before and for an indeterminable amount of time, I lose my mind.

7.

“Who is he?” I hear a woman ask. I can’t see anything, and my hearing is muffled, or dulled somehow. I can’t really tell what’s going on. The world has become thick around me, constricting and numb.

“Beats me,” a man replies, his accent thick in a way I’ve never heard before. “Found him out by one of the pits.”

“The pits?” the woman says, sounding surprised. “No one goes out there.”

“Just desperate morons,” the man says and I understand he’s referring to himself. “But look what I found with him, inside the pit.”

“You went
in
the pit?”

“Just look,” the man says. There’s a loud clang of falling metal and though I am blind, I can almost see the steel hatch falling on the paved street.

The woman gasps, her voice sounding frail somehow.

“Crazy, right?” the man says. “From the looks of it, this guy drove the cycle straight into the pit and when it went down, he went—” He makes a whistling sound. “The hole in the pit’s cover was a hundred feet out.”

“Is he injured?” the woman asks.

“Scratched up a little. Dirty.” I feel a dull pat against my back. “Covered with the dust of the dead, too.”

“Don’t get that shit on me,” the woman says, her voice a little more distant, like she backed away.
What is shit?
I wonder. I don’t know that word, and I know a
lot
of words.

“Look, the point is, he’s in one piece. Looks in good shape. But I think the fall might have knocked something loose, you know? He’s not coming out of it.”

“Let me look at him,” the woman says, her voice close again. I feel the tickle of her fingers on my face. “I’ve never seen anyone like him before.”

“I know,” the man says. “What do you think his station is?”

“Some kind of science would be my guess,” the woman says. “Look at his clothes. Looks like one of those track suits. Remember those? But, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one of the sciences in person before.”

“But we’ve seen images,” the man argues. “This guy isn’t anything like them. Remember when they announced the first upgrades. Showed all those hairless science-types working in a lab, like we need to see them working to believe they’re getting things done?”

“Yeah,” the woman says. “I remember. What I’m confused about is why you brought him to me.”

“Like you have anything better to do?” the man says with a snort that I think is a mocking laugh, but I’m not entirely certain.

Who are these people? And where am I?
I can’t hear much beyond their voices, and I still can’t feel much of anything beyond physical touch. All I really know is that the man is holding me in his arms and the woman is standing in front of him. Other than that, and their voices, the world doesn’t exist.

“Let’s face it, we’re not exactly the pinnacle of society and I’m guessing this guy is one of us. He’s a stranger, sure, but he was driving a Police HoverCycle like a bat out of Hell, in the middle of the night, and he drove into a pit. He was running from someone. My guess is the Council.”

“I don’t like it,” the woman says, but all I can really think about is what a bat would be doing in Hell, and why the man would think I’d be running from the Council. They’re my friends.

“Like it or not, he’s one of us—”

“And if he’s not?”

“Like you gotta ask.”

A pause and then the woman says, “Fine. Take him inside. If he doesn’t light up before the sun, you can bring him back to the pit.”

The pit!
Images of blank staring skulls and an endless sea of bones fill my thoughts with dread.
Wake up,
I tell myself.
Open your eyes! Move!
But nothing happens.

I feel my body jolting as I’m carried up a flight of stairs. I hear the sound of creaking wood. A door. The man’s rigid arms slide away and I drop into something soft that sinks under my weight.

“Hey buddy,” the man says, his voice just inches away from my ears. “Open your eyes.” I feel him pry open one of my eyelids, but I don’t see anything. “Geez, look at the upgrades on this guy.” I feel him turn my head side to side. He moves to my torso, then my arms and legs. “You should see this,” the man says.

I hear someone come close. The woman, I think, and then she speaks. “What is it?”

“A man with this many upgrades could do anything he wanted,” the man says. “Of course, a less ambitious man might trade the upgrades for a better view.”