Rash (20 page)

“He’s doing it pro bono. For free.”

“You think this lawyer could get me out?”

“I’ll ask him,” I said.

It took me forever to get to sleep. A confusing array of images and conversations tumbled through my head:
football and Frazzies mixed in with my family and all the kids at Washington Campus and making pizza and Fragger and Bullet and . . . it went on and on.

I was as afraid of going home as I was of not going home. But most of all I was worried that Hammer had given in too easily. It wasn’t like him to cave without inflicting some damage of his own. I had a feeling that leaving the 3-8-7 would not be as easy as he had made it sound.

I was
wrong. Hammer let me go just like he said he would. Two blueshirts escorted me out through the main gate at dawn.

“Good luck, kid,” said the blueshirt as he closed the gate between us.

I looked around. The airstrip was empty.

“Wait a second. Where’s the plane?”

“No plane this morning, kid.”

“The bus, then.” But there was no bus in sight. A creepy feeling started at the base of my spine. “Where am I supposed to go?”

“Churchill is only twenty-six miles east.” He pointed. “If I was you, I’d start walking.”

The creepy feeling wrapped its tendrils around my belly and shot up into my heart.

“On
foot
?”

The blueshirt laughed. “You know any other way to walk? You keep moving, you maybe got a chance.”

“About one chance in hell,” said the other blueshirt. They both turned and walked away.

The sun had barely mounted the low horizon. It was
chilly. The arctic summer was coming to an end. A sparkle of frost gave the tundra a magical fairyland look.

I was not enchanted. I was terrified.

Shivering in my gold T-shirt, I took a few steps toward the pale sun. Ice crystals crunched loudly beneath my feet. Stealth was not an option.

I began to run.

Moss, rock, rock, tuft of grass, grass, rock, grass, moss, rock rock rock rock . . . each footfall made a different sound:
phhhut, crunk, tok, tok, shht, tchuf
. Every ten seconds or so I would look to the left, to the right, and behind me. Twenty-six miles of polar-bear infested tundra between me and the town of Churchill. What were my chances?

Rock, grass, rock rock rock. . . .

In a way, Bork’s strategy had worked. I was free. In the short term he had succeeded. In the long term he had almost certainly gotten me killed.

Each step brought me closer to safety. But each step might also be bringing me closer to a bear. Any one of those frosty hummocks could rise up at any moment to display white teeth and a black tongue, the last thing I would ever see.

I was probably the best runner the 3-8-7 had ever seen. Maybe even the fastest human being in the USSA. But I was not the fastest runner on the tundra. The bears were faster.

I looked back. The 3-8-7 was smaller now, maybe two miles away.

No bears yet. I slowed to a comfortable jog, watching
my feet. If I kept moving, I might reach Churchill in two or three hours.

There had been no ceremony, no good-byes, no drama. Hammer had simply ordered two of the guards to escort me to the east gate and let me go.

I was not the first inmate to be banished. One kid had been kicked out for refusing to work, so the story went. Another, according to legend, had been booted for attacking one of the guards with a homemade knife. I was the first to be banished for retaining a golden-eyed cybernetic troll masquerading as a lawyer.

So far as anyone knew, no banished prisoner had ever survived the journey across the tundra. I came up over a low rise to see the gray, white-flecked waters of Hudson Bay on the horizon. The wind cut at me from the right, carrying away the smell of my fear-tainted sweat. If a bear smelled me, he would come from the north. Every few strides I looked to my left.

The football program would probably be dismantled, all evidence hidden or destroyed. Hammer would feed the shoulder pads and helmets to the incinerator. He would take away the gold T-shirts and the jeans and the Frazzies and threaten the players with an eternity of anchovy pizza should they ever breathe a word.

It hadn’t been a bad life, being a Goldshirt. I’d been in prison, sure. I’d been forced to work twelve hours a day. I’d been living on a diet of fast food and Pepsi. I’d been in constant danger of serious injury, forced to play a violent, dangerous, and highly illegal team sport from the 20th century. But still . . . it had had its good points. It was the first time in my life I’d ever felt like part of a team.

Would they miss me? No, they would hate me. The Goldshirts would have to wear paper coveralls and eat pizza and work just like everybody else while Hammer waited to see if Bork unleashed the Federal Correctional Authority on the 3-8-7. Maybe after it all blew over he would start the training again. He still had that bet with Hatch, and he had his pride.

I descended into a shallow bowl, a protected area where a few stunted spruce trees were making a valiant effort to survive. Near the bottom of the bowl was a shallow pond. I stopped and gulped handfuls of ice-cold water. How long had I been running? Two hours? Three? My legs still felt full and strong. I might actually make it. With a surge of confidence I ran up the slope to the lip of the bowl and I saw, nestled against the choppy waters of the bay, the town of Churchill—still many miles away. I took a moment to scan the horizon. To the west I could no longer see the 3-8-7 buildings. I was surrounded by rolling tundra.

Then to the northwest I saw something moving. For about three seconds I stood rooted, not wanting to believe it was what I knew it to be. A bear, coming straight at me, loping across the land, following my wind-borne scent.

I ran. The bear was a good 400 yards away, the length of four football fields. I ran straight for Churchill, eyes on the ground. Moss, rock, grass, lichen, rock. Spongy, hard, grippy, crunchy, smooth. Don’t trip. You trip, you die.

The bear didn’t care where its feet fell. Those enormous paws rode the tundra easily, relentlessly. It flowed easily over the odd, uneven surface. The bear did not have to worry about twisting an ankle.

Would it devour me entirely, or leave a few bits of bone and gristle for the birds?

I knew I couldn’t run faster than a polar bear, but could I run longer? A full-grown polar bear weighs three quarters of a ton. It takes a lot of energy to keep something that big in motion. How hard would the bear work to sink its teeth into my scrawny hide? How long could it run?

I paced myself, breathing deeply. Don’t panic. You panic, you die.

I looked back. The bear was closer, only about 200 yards behind me. I’d run less than half a mile and the bear had closed the gap by half. I willed my legs to move faster, making myself count the strides. I counted to one hundred and looked back again—the bear was still there, but only a little closer. With renewed hope I continued to fly across the land, feet skimming over rock, grass, lichen, moss. Again I looked back.

The bear had stopped.

I stopped too. We looked at each other across the length of two football fields. The bear turned and walked slowly away. I scanned the horizon for others but could see no other movement. I turned toward Churchill and began to run again.

There came a point when the miles ceased to matter. I lost track of time and fell into a rhythm. The land was more varied than it at first appeared. There were depressions, swampy areas, snaking ridges, and flat, tablelike areas strewn with pebbles and tiny late-season wildflowers. Churchill appeared and disappeared as the land rose and fell. I came up over another rise and saw the town spread out before me. Safety. How far? Less than four miles, more
than two. My legs were numb. Each long stride sent a jolt from my ankle to the back of my skull. But I was still running. I looked to the north, to the west, to the south. And then I saw him. Directly in front of me, less than fifty yards way, rising from a grassy tussock, a great, filthy, pale ghost.

I stopped.

Another bear, facing away from me, raised its black-tipped snout to the wind, searching for the strange mansmell that had awakened him.

I remained motionless.

No, not motionless—my knees were shaking. He still did not know where I was. The wind was unsteady, choppy, unreliable. There was a chance he would lose my scent and wander off.

Suddenly he turned his head and stared straight at me. His black lips parted and he seemed to smile.

I took off running straight south. If I could outrun him, I could circle back toward Churchill and safety. But this time I didn’t have the 400-yard head start. This time I’d already been running for three hours. I was nearly exhausted.

I looked back. The bear loped over the tundra with great liquid bounds, rapidly closing the distance between us. The air rasped at my lungs; the tundra snatched at my feet. Spongy, grippy, crunchy, hard. I stumbled. I caught myself. Still running, I looked back again.

The bear was only about twenty feet behind me. I cut to the left and put on a burst of desperate speed. The gap between us widened momentarily, then began to close again. I shifted direction again, but this time the bear anticipated my move. I heard his paws hitting the ground:
phhhut, crusp, shht, tchuf
. I kept running because it was all I knew to do. Something brushed my buttocks. A sharp pain in my calf sent a final jolt of energy into my muscles. I dodged to my right, knowing I had only moments to live.

Then two things happened. I heard a sound like hands clapping, only louder, and then I slammed into the tundra beneath a great reeking hairy mass. I heard bones snap and I couldn’t breathe, and I knew without a doubt that I had run my last race.

I woke
up in a room with white walls. I could tell from the smell and the railings on the bed that I was in a hospital.

I was alive. I tried to sit up. Big mistake. Sharp pains lanced through my rib cage. I lay back, my eyes squeezed shut, and waited as the pain eased to a dull throb. When I opened my eyes, a woman with black hair, squinty eyes, and a full moonlike face was standing over me, her tiny mouth curved into a fingernail paring of a smile.

“How are you feeling?” she asked. She had some sort of accent.

“I hurt,” I said in my raspy voice. My throat hurt, but not nearly as much as every other part of my body.

The woman nodded and made a note on her pocket WindO. “You have some broken ribs and a few lacerations on your leg and hip.”

“Are you a doctor?” I asked.

“I am Dr. Kublu,” she said, touching the WindO to the side of my neck. “Do you recall what happened to you?”

“Bear,” I said.

Her smile flattened. “Nanuk, yes. You have much to answer for.” She removed the WindO from my neck, examined the readings, and made a rapid notation.

“Congratulations,” she said. “According to this device you are alive.” With that she turned and left me more confused than ever.

The next person I saw was a cheerful young man who came into the room bearing a tray of food. He looked as if he could be Dr. Kublu’s son.

“Hey, Bono Frederick Marsten, how you feeling?” he asked.

“Kinda sore. . . . You know my name?”

“Retinal scan. You hungry?”

“Yeah . . . uh, call me Bo, okay?”

“Okay, Bo. You can all me Oki.”

“Oki?”

“Or Charlie. Either one’s okay with me. You can even call me Oki Charlie.”

“Okay, Oki Charlie.”

“Let’s see how it feels to sit you up.” He pressed a button on the railing that slowly raised the head of the bed. “Okay?”

“Okay.” As long as the bed was doing the work, it didn’t hurt.

“You like bean soup?”

“Sure.” It had been so long since I’d eaten real food, bean soup sounded like an exotic delicacy.

“You’re sort of a local celebrity, y’know.”

“I am?”

“Yeah. Nobody’s had to kill a bear up here in a decade. It’s kind of a big deal, killing Nanuk.”

“Wait a second—I didn’t kill anything.”

“You made it happen, though.”

“I did?”

According to Oki Charlie the town of Churchill had only one thriving business: bear watching. Rich people would pay hundreds of thousands of
V
-bucks to fly into Churchill for a close look at the last polar bears on Earth.