Fear the Future (The Fear Saga Book 3) (36 page)

This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. It was not just wrong for the once impoverished life they’d had in a country they did not even know was called the People’s Republic of North Korea. This wasn’t right anywhere.

And then, of course, there was the error. The scratch.

“Friday!” he said, suddenly full of purpose.

Friday did not respond.

“Friday! Come on! I have to show you something!” he said again, his voice laden with impetus.

Friday looked up plaintively, confused at why his friend was not getting his own birds and planes, and mumbled softly, “But … battle of birdmen …” crumbs still hanging off his suddenly crestfallen face.

“Now, Fri! We have to go!” said Wednesday. “Come on!”

And Wednesday turned and ran back along the corridor. And now it sounded like he was running back down the stairs again. From the sound of it he was already banging across the living room toward the front door. But … wait …

“Wait for me!” shouted Friday, suddenly up and running after his friend.

- - -

“Close now. It was right around here,” said Wednesday, studiously.

“
What
was?” the exasperation was thick in Friday’s voice, the end of all things dear felt in the eight minutes or so he had been forced to endure looking for whatever Wednesday was so desperate to find.

“You’ll see, it is right around here.” Stepping carefully, Wednesday kept retracing a particular path, as if he was trying to recreate something.

“
What
is?” said Friday, as bored as he could ever remember being in his entire, long, tiresome, complicated little life.

“The …” said Wednesday as he stepped behind a tree. And then nothing. Friday blinked. He had seen some weird stuff in the last few years, but this was new.

“… mistake,” said Wednesday, but from behind Friday now, off in another direction.

“Wh … how’d you?” Friday managed, spinning to see his friend walking toward to him from some way off. But Wednesday was excited.

“See! A mistake. I told you. It’s a mistake,” he said, running back to where he had just been.

“Watch,” Wednesday said. He stepped forward again and Friday followed him this time, and … nothing, he was still there, and they walked a little farther and then …wait a minute, they were looking at the same spot again, the same tree, knotted just so. They had moved a hundred meters or so backward in an instant.

“It’s a loop,” said Wednesday.

“A what?”

“A loop. It’s the reason you can never get lost out here, in the woods. Why, no matter how far you walk off, you always end up back at home,” said Wednesday, somewhat triumphantly.

“How do you know that?”

“Because …” Wednesday hesitated a moment, then went on, “because I tried to leave.”

Friday was surprised, but then Wednesday compounded it by saying, meeker now, but still determined, “Actually, I tried a whole bunch of times. That’s how I found this. The scratch, I call it.”

Friday looked at his friend, his closest friend, his only friend, perhaps, and could only say, “But why?”

It was a fair question. Wednesday’s answer came out even more meekly than he expected, “Because I don’t think this … I don’t … I don’t think this is real, Friday.”

Friday stared at him. Not real. What was Wednesday talking about?

“Of course it isn’t real, Wednesday. It’s a game. One we just won, I should add,” said Friday, trying to reclaim the sense of smugness and all around self-satisfaction that seemed, all of a sudden, to have deserted him.

Wednesday explained as best he could. “No, no, Fri. I mean. You know the games, and the sims?”

“Of course …” said Friday, starting to worry that he knew where this was going.

“Well, they’re not real, we know that. But we get stuff, cool stuff, when we do well in them. You know,
here,
in the real world.”

Friday did not nod, so much as twitch, his expression wary.

“Well … we keep doing the glances, and the grab game, and the barn owl, and we keep getting stuff, both here and in the magic place.” Wednesday took a breath. “But … well, what if
none
of it is real. What if even Home isn’t real. What if this …” he bent and grabbed at the soil beneath his feet. “What if none of it is real?”

“This is silly.”

“No, it isn’t. Or maybe it is. Maybe that is my whole point. Maybe it’s
all
silly. All pointless. All just a game.”

“What is just a game, boys?”

It was not Friday’s voice. The voice came from behind them. It was Mother, not her bird self, not anymore, but her old self, standing not ten feet away, smiling.

“What is just a game, Wednesday?” she said again, so kind, so forgiving.

“Oh, nothing. It’s just …” he blushed. He felt … not fear … but guilt. Guilt that he would have questioned this, and that he would have questioned her. But what if he was right? If he was right, then, well, was
she
even real?

“Go back to the house and play, Friday,” said Mother now, calmly but firmly. “Wednesday and I are going to chat about all this. About what is upsetting him so much.”

Friday stared at them both. He was not a coward. He would not desert his friend, not for all the toys and treats in the world. Not if his own life depended on it, not ever. But though Friday knew that, on some level, Wednesday was in trouble, or at least that Wednesday thought he was in trouble, Friday could not imagine a world in which Mother would harm his friend. She was, without exception, the nicest, most kind, most forgiving person Friday had ever known.

She looked at him gently and said once more, “Go on, Friday. Go home. Wednesday and I need to have a little talk, that’s all. Go on. He’ll be along shortly.”

And so Friday turned. Turned and headed off, glancing back every few meters to watch as his friend and Mother began to speak in hushed voices. They seemed calm enough. She did not seem angry. Not that he had ever actually seen her angry. The last time he glanced back they were, he saw suddenly, no longer in view.

Huh, he thought, I should still be able to see them from here.

Maybe they had walked off. He shrugged, trying to shake off a nagging voice inside him, then turned back for home.

Chapter 37: Finally, Countdown

Quavoce jogged over to where Banu was standing, bending as he got close so he could scoop her up. She was so engrossed with the overwhelming noise of life around her that she was shocked when he grabbed her, yelping, then laughing, then struggling against his enveloping arm, pounding it.

Though she hit him with all her might, there was no spite in it. She knew she could not hurt him. Just as she knew that when she was in the Skalm no one could hurt her. It was the dichotomy of her existence, from the very top of the food chain to the bottom, every time she moved between that world and this.

In any other circumstance it might have left her feeling profoundly vulnerable when she was back to being just a little girl. But not when she was with Quavoce or Minnie. And now she was with both. She could not be safer, and she knew it, deep down in an unquestionable place. These people loved her. It was her anchor.

As if to test her assurance as she fought him, laughing, Quavoce said, “Oh, you want to get away, do you, you little monkey? You want to get away?” and as she laughed and struggled against the soft but immovable synthetic flesh of his arm, he shifted her suddenly, tossing her and then catching her with both arms, and starting to spin her slowly.

She laughed, “No! No! Don’t you dare, Papa!”

But she knew he would, and she so wanted him to. Suddenly she was swinging downward, then she felt his muscles engage, felt his massive strength as he started to heft her skyward again, up, up, and then the release as he catapulted her ten-year-old frame up into the air.

She screamed for real now. It was nothing, really, compared to the acceleration she felt when in the Skalm. Acceleration that would crush this feeble body of hers. But that was just it. Here she was so vulnerable, so fragile. Here she could be hurt.

But not by this man. As she sailed twenty, thirty feet into the air, she felt the change in momentum, felt the shift to momentary weightlessness, then the transference to the fall, the exchange of energies in her, potential giving itself over to a building kinetic.

She flipped in air. He had not only thrown her up, he had thrown her away. Would he have to run to catch her once more, or … no, there she was, smiling as well, but focused. So diligent, so attentive.

Ready at the foot of her arc was Minnie in Phase Eight form, burly but sweet, a gentle giant that bore the eyes of the most capable mind on earth.

Banu let herself go limp. She did not need to fret, not with them, there was no point. She could not save herself from such a fall anyway. The ground came up and she was met by Minnie’s embrace like the fingers of a god, stopping her fall and then lowering her to the ground.

Minnie looked bewildered. Not angry, but perpetually confused by such behavior. She did not understand Quavoce’s proclivity for lobbing his daughter around like this, nor Banu’s enjoyment of it.

“Oh Minnie. Lighten up,” said Banu, laughing.

“Lighten up? But I am fine. Am I not smiling?”

“You do not fake a smile very well, Min. You’re just as bad at it as Uncle Neal.”

Minnie smiled more genuinely now, and received the peck on the cheek she knew she would get in return. Of course, Minnie could fake it perfectly well, should she want to. She was no longer a tottering toddler among her biological friends, she had studied and learned human emotion down to the last iota, the slightest tweak of eyebrow or twitch of lip. She could recreate any emotion she desired, even adding a tear running down a puffed cheek, if it served her purposes.

But what Minnie desired here, with this child, was as unfettered a relationship as possible. She understood the difference between a kind fib and a lie. She wanted Banu to know she was trying to enjoy this horseplay, but that, in truth, she didn’t understand it.

She would always catch Banu though, whether from a preposterously powerful throw from her adoptive father, or from any other fall. Her love for the girl was as real as anything she could perceive. As real as her desire to save humanity, as real as her desire to reclaim her lost mother. These sentiments, such as they were, all drove her equally.

This and a trillion other thoughts crossed the myriad parts of Minnie’s mind in the moment that Banu kissed her cheek.

And yet she was very much present when she turned to an approaching Quavoce and said, “You, Mr. Mantil, are due back at Macapá in twenty minutes. We can turn back now, or I can send a StratoJet to come and get us and have someone take the boat back.

Before Quavoce could reply, Banu spoke up for him. “No, let’s take the boat back ourselves. I like to be on the water.”

They had borrowed a small powerboat from one of the Brazilian officers stationed at Macapá base and gone for a cruise. Instead of heading out of the delta into the fishing grounds, they had headed up river, up the Amazon, into the jungle. It had taken Banu completely by surprise. She must have seen jungles a hundred times from the air. But here it was so much more alive. The noise. The vivid life all around them. The air was thick with countless calls, clicks, and warbles of the life thrumming in the trees that clogged the shores of the mighty river.

Quavoce nodded in reply to Banu’s request and she smiled gratefully.

“First one to the boat gets to drive,” said Banu, suddenly sprinting back toward the boat. It was a silly bet. She most certainly could not win a race against either of them. But they played along, as any parent would, and withheld some measure of their speed as they all ran down toward the boat loosely tied on the bank in a clearing that Minnie had spotted from above.

She got there first, panting, the thrill of real life, of adrenalin, of uncertain footing over unknown terrain, of autonomic systems pumping accelerants through muscles straining against bone and tendon. It all felt very … true.

She was breathing hard as she got to the boat, leaping aboard with legs unused to such strain, slipping and almost falling over as the boat’s deck bucked at her sudden arrival. She caught herself and noted that Minnie was also climbing aboard. Looking forward, she saw her father untying the boat and leaning in to give it a shove.

The boat surged backward under his strain, creating a visible stern-wave, and then he lithely hopped aboard himself, suffering none of the loss of balance Banu had in the process.

She smiled. They were wonderful friends to have, these two magnificent machines. No, not friends. This was her family, she knew that.

But as she turned the ignition key and the boat’s big engines rumbled to life behind her, she could not fight a need in her, a hunger. For as much as she was fascinated by this world, this vivid alive place, she would, if forced to, give it all up in a heartbeat if it came to a choice between this weak, feeble, and molasses slow body and the atomically-charged beast she became was when she inhabited the Skalm.

Now she channeled her desire for speed into the boat’s engines, throttling up hard as the boat came around and grinning a big, toothy grin as the engines responded. The bow lifted into the air as the heavy beast surged forward, fighting through, then up and over the thick liquid they were floating on. She felt the boat working with and against the water, pushing through it even as it used the liquid for purchase. She felt as its hull began to dig a fleeting scar across the muddy river’s surface, sending spray flying, to be matched by the thousands of birds and insects shocked into flight by the sudden roar of the boat’s engines.

They carved away, Banu losing herself in the thrill of the helm, while Quavoce and Minnie braced themselves behind her, watching, checking, ready to step in. This was one of the sharpest pilots in the world and they had no doubts as to the capabilities of her finely honed little mind.

But here that mind was tethered by the limits of the inefficient biological tools the human form had accidentally accrued over the eons: the limited vision, the overwhelmed hearing, the dry nose, and the hands and fingers desperately trying to keep up with her lightning-fast brain as it fought to overcome the limits of her body’s inherently unintelligent design.

But she held it all together, adjusting to her body’s flaws and working within their confines. They sped off, the wind brushing their hair back as Banu gripped the wheel with white knuckles and grinned.

- - -

As they approached the blossoming port of Macapá, she began to slow, as the water traffic of the port, and the township erupting around it, began to thicken. She still threaded the line a little too close, cutting just between passing boats and sending them reeling with her wash. They were buffered in return with several shouts and middle fingers raised in the international sign of thanks, before Quavoce stepped forward and closed his hand over the right hand of Banu, wrapped as it was around the throttle, and gently eased it back.

She glanced at him. She knew the difference between a negotiable expression and this one. She knew this look of approbation all too well, and was instantly tamed by it. She lived for his approval, for his respect. She knew his love was not up for question, but that most certainly did not make him a soft touch.

Wanting to show she was becoming the woman he so hoped she would have the chance to be, she now became the model citizen. She looked this way and that, making a show of analyzing the crisscrossing traffic on the widening river before plotting an obvious, safe course through it and onward to the small marina that abutted the main complex at the base of Macapá SpacePort.

Even as she tried to focus on the job of helming the small boat, her mind was taken away once more by the sight of the elevator rising into the stratosphere, and beyond it, to bridge the gap between them and the void.

But her mind was not the only one that was wandering up there. Quavoce was receiving a call from TASC’s leader.

Quavoce:
‘we are en route now, neal. i have done what i can to speed things up here. what bureaucratic blocks i discovered have been removed, with jim’s help. now it is really up to the dredgers to finish their work.’

Neal:
‘¿is there anything we can do to speed that up, you know, physically? ¿any tools we can use?’

The question was not really directed at Quavoce, but at Minnie. She was not, of course, on the boat, that was merely an avatar, a snippet of her mind. That part of her that was in charge of logistical support was quickly compiling a brief analysis already done on the subject. Analyses that all came to the same conclusion. It appeared in both Neal’s and Quavoce’s minds simultaneously, but Quavoce already knew what it would say.

Quavoce:
‘no, neal, i am afraid not. the fact is nothing we do now will get anymore of what is down here up there before launch day. we have to accept that we will have to go with what we have.’

Neal was silent a moment. He glanced at the file that had appeared in his mind. It was lengthy and detailed, and, Neal was sure, it would not tell him anything different than it had already, no doubt, told Quavoce.

Neal:
‘very well. thank you for your efforts, as always. ¿can you stay there and make sure this get pushed through anyway? either way, we need that port open, if only to spread commercial demand in the Americas away from Sao Tome so it can focus on the war effort.’

Quavoce:
‘of course, neal. this should only take a few more weeks. if they take any longer than that i’ll swim down and clear the channel myself.’

Neal laughed through the line, thanked Quavoce once more, and then was gone.

Commercial traffic. That the cogs of big industry still moved, thrived even, in these times, was shocking. But war made millionaires as well as widows. Be it the automotive, radio, and aerospace giants that had blossomed in the blood-soaked soil of World War II, or the electronics and virtual reality giants that were rising out of the building fires of this first interstellar one, necessity was the mother of both invention and its uglier sibling, industry.

So as the economy at large suffered from the sapping draw of the military need, as austerity and sacrifice became synonymous with patriotism and pride, so, too, did commerce flourish.

You could call them profiteers, you could call them many things, in fact, and they probably wouldn’t care a very great deal. They were power brokers and they were entrepreneurs. Some were definitely malignant, like the Austrian minister who Ayala had so summarily neutered. But most were benign, philanthropic even, outwardly at least, if only because of rumors of the fate that the minister and others like him had met at the hands of TASC’s now infamous enforcer.

Despite such outward displays of altruism, though, Quavoce had still seen a disturbing number of examples of special treatment since his arrival onsite in Brazil. Dispensations given, contracts extended and renegotiated despite shortfalls and overages. He had rooted out the worst offenders, as well as those in the administration that were allowing, or worse, profiting from it, but it did not stop there.

He knew it was not unique to Brazil, not even close, and he had several times fought some very violent urges as he had met with some of the individuals involved. It all spoke of a greater problem. A greater truth Quavoce was having to come to terms with.

“John, do you have a moment?” he asked.

The connection was pure and instantaneous. Unlike other links made through the worldwide subspace network, it was not routed or encrypted by any of Minnie’s subset AIs. These were not two human minds talking, they were not using spinal interfaces, and required no system to translate their thoughts into a synthetic language.