It didn’t work. The world tilted out from under me as we lost our balance and went off the edge, falling into the crowd below.
I hit bodies and then the ground, landing hard enough to knock the wind out of me. I staggered up, feeling as if every breath I took drove a stake through my lungs. But the pain should have been worse; Miya had managed somehow to break our fall.
She struggled to her feet beside me, shaking her head. A stranger’s flailing arm knocked her against the wall as a ripple of panic spread through the crowd around us.
At first I thought we’d caused the crowd’s reaction by the way we’d dropped in on it. But the rising levels of noise said I was wrong: the people around us, who had always relied on their network of psi awareness, had all discovered at once what I already knew: how it felt to have something as integral as their soul suddenly ripped out of them. Hundreds of people all around me were living the moment when I’d lost my own psi, and I remembered what it had done to me—
I slammed into Miya as someone else collided with me. Physical pain crushed the pain of memory and let me see again with the clear hard vision of anger … letting me see, as I turned around, that Miya had disappeared from beside me.
“Miya!” I shouted her name. It was lost in the cacophony as the crowd found the only voice it had left, and the noise and shouting rose. I looked around, frantic; saw Miya struggling through the riptide of bodies on a trajectory that would take her to Grandmother, if the crowd didn’t swallow her first … if CorpSec lightning didn’t drop out of the sky and strike us dead.
I saw more bodies wink out of existence here and there—lucky ones who hadn’t been incapacitated by the gas before they realized what was happening. But the rest of them were trapped, blind targets. And so was I, if I didn’t start back down the alley now.
But I knew I wasn’t going anywhere without Miya, and she wasn’t going without Grandmother. I fought my way deeper into the crowd, going after her … realizing that in a panic-stricken mob, being too Human—ruthless, senseless, used to doing everything the hard way—was actually working in my favor.
But then I heard the screaming start in earnest, screams of terror and pain. The Corpses were making their move, now that the demonstrators were helpless, trapped on the bridge or here in the crowd-choked square. Hydrans screamed just like Humans when their bodies broke and bled like Human bodies.…
I strained to see over the wall of flesh blocking Miya from my sight; tried to see what CorpSec had already done, whether they were only using stun weapons, whether they were taking prisoners … whether they weren’t going to stop until everybody here was bleeding or dead.
I saw bursts of light up ahead, out over the bridge, not sure if that meant weapons fire. I swore and covered my ears as a percussive blast half deafened me. When my head cleared again I saw Miya almost within arm’s reach. I fought my way to her side, using every dirty street trick I knew to close the final space between us. “Miiy’—!” I shouted her name, or as close as I could come to it now.
She turned—was knocked sprawling with fifty others as another blast went off just beyond her. Out on the bridge I saw bodies going over the side—wondered if they’d been shot or thrown themselves off, only knowing that, either way, they were dead.
I went down on my knees as someone collided with me from behind. I crawled through a forest of flailing feet, getting paid back for every bruise I’d given out as I’d struggled to reach Miya. I touched her dazed, bloody face, grunted, and collapsed as someone kicked me in the ribs.
We clung to each other, supporting each other as we staggered to our feet. A fetid rain of something from the sky made my eyes burn and my skin itch; made me retch as I inhaled. Miya sobbed uncontrollably, as if she’d been struck deaf and blind; her absence in my mind told me everything I couldn’t know about what she was feeling now.
“C’ mon—” I cried. Tears streamed down my face as I tried to force her back the way I’d come. We weren’t that far from the street that had led me to the square. We might still be able to get out alive.
“… oyasin—!” She coughed and spat, fighting for breath. Her hands struck at my face as she struggled after the one thing in all this madness that still had any meaning for her. “Save her—”
But I couldn’t see Grandmother anywhere, now; couldn’t tell if we’d even been close to reaching her. Maybe she’d already escaped, teleported— “Can’t!” I jerked Miya away, half dragging her as she resisted. “Worse … if … catch us! Miy’—!” Pleading now, letting her hear my desperation.
She came with me then, our hands fused in a life-or-death grip as we fought our way back through the crowd. Behind us the screaming increased, screams like nothing I’d ever heard, ripped from the throats of people who’d always had other ways, better ways. I heard bones crack as children fell under the feet of the mob, heard infants shrieking. Buildings exploded along the sides of the square, crushing the life out of the helpless people below. I heard it all, heard it drowned out by more explosions. My eyes were burning and half blind from the chemical smog; I gagged on the reek of burned flesh.
But we were almost out of the square. If we could just make it to the alley; if we could only—
Something hit me from behind. I fell to my knees and then flat on my face, dragging Miya down with me. Bodies landed on top of us. This time half my body couldn’t feel them as they kneed me in the kidneys: Stunshot. Only grazed, or I wouldn’t have the sense to know what hit me. I staggered up as the panicking strangers scrambled off of me; nearly fell down again, with one leg lame and one arm hanging useless at my side.
“Bian—!” Miya gasped. Her red-rimmed eyes were clear now as she threw an arm around me, hauling me forward. She elbowed a way for us through the body-jam at the edge of the square like a street fighter. The outflow of protesters sucked us into the waiting alley, where narrow walls kept the flyers at bay.
Miya pulled me with her along the tunnel of the street. Now the flow of the mob helped us, keeping me on my feet and moving in the right direction. She slowed finally as the crowd thinned. Others began to vanish, one by one, around us.
She guided me into the shadows, helped me down the steps to a sunken doorway. We collapsed, gasping for breath. I touched the solid wall in front of my face, dragged my good hand down its textured surface, barely able to believe that I wasn’t surrounded by screaming and explosions anymore. I still heard sobs and coughing, the uncertain footsteps of other fugitives as they slowed, as their psi began to function normally and they realized they were safe.
“Thank you…” I whispered when I could speak again, I caught her hands, pressed them to my lips.
She shook her head, pulling her hands free. When she looked back at me at last the dust on her face was runneled with tears. She wiped them away, leaving muddy smears. “Don’t,” she whispered, barely audible. “I should … I should thank you.…” Her voice fell apart. “I was … alone. I was alone—” She shut her eyes, squeezing out more tears. She wiped them away as quickly as they came, as if her body’s weakness in the midst of all this suffering and chaos disgusted her. “How can you bear it?” she whispered. “How…?”
I shook my head as she looked at me finally, because when I’d tried to answer I couldn’t speak.
(First the monastery. And now this.…) Her psi was coming back under control: I felt her think it, felt her awareness of every single Hydran still fleeing past us, their terror, their pain adding to her burden of fear and guilt. And I was sitting here in the middle of it like a dead man, too Human to feel anyone else’s emotions without the interface of her thoughts, too Human to share anyone’s suffering.…
(No!) Miya’s anger crushed my self-loathing, breaking down the wall of lies that survival had thrown in place as I ran. Telling me (that I didn’t have to be Hydran, didn’t have to be a psion to share someone’s pain … that I didn’t have to be a monster to be Human. Or Human to be a monster …) Naoh’s face filled her thoughts.
; I drew her close with the one arm I could control, shutting my eyes while hot tears rose up in me. I choked back words, because speaking suddenly seemed as inappropriate as spitting blood.
Miya touched my deadened leg where it lay motionless in front of me. I tried to move it, not expecting anything because I couldn’t feel anything. My foot twitched, startling an unsteady laugh out of me. The alley was almost deserted now, but somewhere I heard the tread of heavy boots—a lot of them, coming toward us.
Miya raised her head, her pupils wide and black.
“Can you teleport us both yet—?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, forcing her attention back to me. I felt her reach into my mind, her contact as reassuring as a caress, even with the emotions behind it barely under control. “Where would we go?”
I shook my head, my own mind empty. “Joby?” I said desperately. “Where is he? Take us there.”
As I spoke his name her fragmented control fell apart, and the nerve-pricking massage of a teleportation scan disappeared with it.
And then it was too late. Voices shouted in Standard, pinpointing us. In less than a heartbeat a dozen Corpses were blocking the light above us. A dozen helmeted faces, anonymous behind flash shields, stared down at us past the barrels of a dozen different weapons. “Freeze,” someone said, more irony than warning, as we huddled in the stairwell staring up at him.
Someone pushed through the ring of troopers. He cleared his faceplate to let us see his smiling face: Fahd.
“This makes my day perfect,” he said. He shifted his plasma rifle away from us until the barrel rested too casually against his shoulder, like he really wasn’t afraid of us. “Out of all the freaks we nailed today, I get to bring you in.… Get up, ‘breed. And the HARM bitch too.”
“Can’t,” I said. “Stunshot.” I glanced at Miya, trying to catch her attention, because I couldn’t feel her in my thoughts. She was staring at Fahd. There was no fear in her face, or even defiance, only a fixed intentness.
Fahd gestured at two of his men. “Drag them up here,” he said. He lowered his gun again to cover us. “Don’t even think about it,” he murmured. “Administrator Borosage wants you alive, ‘breed. He didn’t say anything about ‘in one piece.’”
One of the troopers started cautiously down the steps. He lurched suddenly, as if he’d slipped on something I couldn’t see. He fell the rest of the way, landing on top of us like a sandbag.
I heard Fahd swear, above the trooper’s cursing and my own. The sightbeam of his plasma rifle targeted the trooper’s back, his head. I couldn’t believe Fahd was crazy enough to risk killing one of his own men just to keep us from getting away. Until he pressed the trigger—
The gun exploded in his hands, in a blinding flash of heat/light/noise. Even protected by the trooper’s body armor, I felt the energy strip my senses like a glimpse of hell.
When I could see and hear again, the troopers in the street up above were staggering, reeling, falling against each other like somebody had reset their personal gravity. Fahd was screaming, beating his armor-plated fists against his transparent flash shield like he wanted to rip out his eyes.
I shoved the body of the stunned Corpse off of me and turned to Miya. She was staring at Fahd, pain-tears running down her agony-stricken face. But her eyes were like the eyes of a hunting cat as she finally looked back at me.
I felt her mind close me in, and we teleported.
NINETEEN
I CAME OUT the other end of the jump, landing hard on a floor beside Miya, with no idea where I was or what we were facing. Street reflexes tried to get me up on my feet again, to hide any weakness. My leg gave out and I collapsed, feeling like one more shock to my system would make me vomit up my toenails.
I sat on the floor until my head cleared. When I looked up again I realized we were in another Freaktown building. This one was bleaker than most; it looked like an abandoned warehouse, never meant to be living space. But it was living space now, dotted with scavenged furniture and junk. I heard water leaking somewhere, trickling, dripping, escaping down a drain; smelled dampness and rot. It reminded me of abandoned buildings I’d slept in back in Oldcity. It reminded me of how alone I’d always been there, an outcast even among outcasts, because of my Hydran blood.
We weren’t alone now: there were other Satoh in the room, some of them bloody, some of them dazed, like they’d arrived just before us. I recognized a few of them. Naoh wasn’t with them. The survivors looked at us with expressions that ranged from surprise to indifference while they took turns washing away blood and dirt or bandaging each other’s wounds.
Miya got clumsily to her feet, looking from face to face. The recoiling agony of what she’d done to Fahd still racked her body; the horror of what the Humans had done to us all crowded it out of her mind. At last her gaze found Joby in the arms of someone I didn’t know. Joby began to struggle silently, reaching out as if he sensed that she was here. She crossed the room with a thought and took him into her arms. She kissed the top of his head, rocked him gently with her eyes closed. The light caught the tracks that tears still made through the dust and blood on her face.
I pulled myself up, propped myself against a stack of crates, rubbing my useless arm. The whole left side of my body began to tingle and burn as it began to come back to life. “Is … everyone who got away here?” I asked.
Miya shook her head, but it only seemed to mean that she didn’t know. “More of them may come after they’ve helped the injured.…” She looked down. I wondered whether she was thinking about Naoh. Whatever she was thinking, she wasn’t ready to share it, even with me.
I nodded, resigned. I started across the room to her, dragging my left foot. Joby held out his hands again as I came toward them. “Cat,” he said, so clearly that I couldn’t have imagined it.
I stopped moving. “Joby—?” I whispered, hearing Miya’s indrawn breath. “Hey, Joby.” I smiled, letting him take my hand in his.
“He said your name,” Miya murmured. “He hasn’t spoken at all since…” Her face, her thoughts, my mind, finally filled with an emotion that wasn’t some kind of pain.
“I know,” I said. I settled him on my hip. “I know.” I felt her feeling what he felt as he looked up at me. I saw myself through his eyes, through hers … saw myself smile.
And then the moment was gone. We were huddled in a dank storeroom with a dozen other filthy exhausted fugitives again, and all of us were as good as dead. My bruised, stunshocked body began to ache all over.
“So,” I said finally, “what happens now?” No one answered. I glanced up as I felt expressions freeze on every face around me. I realized then that I’d said it in Standard.
“Play with me,” Joby said in Standard. His face shone, like he’d discovered the one other person in this world full of strangers who knew his secret language. “Time to play!”
I felt another smile catch me without warning. I nodded, glad to have something, anything, to think about besides how the others were looking at me now.
Miya looked at us, shaking her head in disbelief. Then, with the ghost of a smile barely touching her eyes, she sat down and began to teach me the games they’d played together, exercises meant to work his body and imprint control of it on his mind. I fixed my attention on the three of us, all of us struggling to block out the reality of where we were and who we were and why we were here … why there were so few others here with us, waiting for a sign that a miracle had happened, a sign that wasn’t going to come.
Time passed, and more time, until even Joby got tired of playing games. Miya gave him food and settled him on a pile of mats to sleep. He clung to her as she bent over to kiss him. “Mama,” he murmured.
I saw her tense, felt her hide the pain that single word set off inside her. She held him a little longer, gently easing him into sleep before she let him go. The guilt and grief she held back from him singed the circuits of my brain.
The others—the ones who hadn’t fallen asle
ep already—sat watching her with vacant eyes. One of them pulled a taku out of a knotted scarf. It lay in his hand, unnaturally limp and still. Tears filled his eyes and ran down his face. He didn’t wipe them away, like he didn’t even have the strength for that. I wondered if the dead pet in his hand was the same one I’d seen the night I’d met the Satoh.
If any of the Satoh in the room with me now had anything left to say, they weren’t saying it in a way that I could hear. One or two of them still had the energy to pace, their footsteps echoing like unspoken anger in the hollow silence.
Miya sat down beside me by the wall of crates and leaned against my shoulder. She closed her eyes. I felt her exhaustion, her doubt, her hope gutter out. Sleep began to overtake them all, the only escape that was left to us. I closed my eyes, holding her; rested my head against hers where it rested on my shoulder. I kissed her hair gently, wanting her, feeling the warmth inside me become the hot ache of need … not even minding that lust was as impossible as hope, as long as I could hold her in my arms, in my mind.…
* * *
I woke again, not sure how much time had passed; startled awake by a nightmare that had nothing to do with where my mind had been when I dozed off. I shook my head, still stupefied with exhaustion, as Miya murmured “Naoh!” beside me.
Naoh stood in the center of the room, surrounded by a handful of others who must have arrived with her. They all looked dirty, defeated, stunshocked. Naoh turned in a slow circle, studying the rest of us, all that was left of the Satoh. We all looked just as bad. The turning reminded me of Grandmother bowing in reverence to the world around her; but Naoh didn’t bow, and there was nothing serene in her eyes. Her circling gaze stopped as it reached Miya, resting beside me, our arms and legs tangled together like our thoughts. She went on looking at us for what seemed like forever. I didn’t know what was going through her mind; I only felt Miya’s body drawing up with tension as her relief at seeing Naoh alive suddenly turned to anger again.