He landed on the path, and although he bent his knees, he still felt a jolt run through his joints, from ankles up to his hips.
He looked over his shoulder, and saw the doors almost obscured by thick, dark clouds of smoke. He thought he saw a couple of figures moving in the darkness, but it was so thick, he might have been mistaken. The siren continued to howl, and back on ground level, it came to him as an almost physical assault on his ears. He also got a good lungful of his own smoke, which was oily, and stank like a dying barbecue. He choked, and started to cough, which made him fear he’d be heard by the guards, but for this he was grateful to the siren, for it sounded so loud that it drowned out any noise he was making. It was so loud that he couldn’t hear his own coughing.
He didn’t waste time. He ran across the grass to the jeep, and as he ran, he coughed, and spat to rid his mouth of that foul oily taste.
Moments later, he came to the jeep. As he neared it, he saw it was a real old army jeep, grey green, dented and scratched. It looked like something from the props department of a film studio. He also found the source of the screaming.
She sat in the front seat, pulling and jerking at the wheel. For a moment he thought she was drunk or crazy, but then the glitter of metal at her wrist told the story. His distraction had worked, but Gell Shield didn’t employ stupid men. Before dashing off, one sharp fellow had cuffed his prisoner to the wheel.
But why hadn’t she just driven off, and dealt with the steel bracelet later?
“They take the keys too, I guess,” he said.
“No shit, you stack fuck freak,” she yelled over her shoulder.
She paused in her struggle to jerk the wheel off the car, and twisted in her seat. “You’re not one of them,” she said.
“Guess not.”
“What do you want?”
The corners of his lips turned up. “I was just taking a walk, enjoying the fine air-” He broke off coughing. “What do you think, pigtails, I came to help you out.”
“Pigtails?”
“Pigtails and ribbons,” he said. “As far as I can see, that’s what you’re all about.”
That much was true. She wore a pale grey jump suit, but he didn’t think it was her usual attire, because it contrasted way too much with the mass of pigtails, braids and pink ribbons that sprouted from her head. She had blue green eyes and the appealing features of a Hong Kong kung fu starlet. He saw a glint of gold at her ears, but when he looked closer, he couldn’t understand where it had come from, because she looked to be wearing plain black earrings, of an unusual, heavy looking oblong shape.
“Who says I want your help, you dirty hunk of-”
She fell silent as they heard a rustling noise from the trees. He scanned the grove, but he couldn’t make out anything except trees. Not just any trees, either. In the centre of that grove, hidden before but revealed now, he saw the tree.
He saw the cherry blossom.
New Verity might have been a heavyweight biotech firm. They might have had the professional ethics of a fluke worm. They might have been the spearhead for an invasion by vicious brain sucking aliens from the Horse Head nebula. Soro didn’t know what evils they had hidden behind the corporate logo and the Gell Shield mob.
He didn’t care.
Soro cared about one thing: beauty. Not the elastic plastic of Hollywood or the New York catwalk. They were good in their way, and he didn’t sneer at them, but they weren’t hand crafted, they were bulked out by the barrel.
They tried so hard to be beautiful that they ran together, like the spill from a row of paint pots when the aged wood gives way.
They weren’t unique.
Soro lived for beauty. He saw it every day, in countless places. He saw it in the crooked smile of the waitress when she saw a pair of young lovers share an ice cream sundae. He saw it glimmer on the roofs of old brick houses caught in the dawn sun. He saw it in the ripple and shine of a stream where an old hobo sat fishing under the shade of a pear tree.
Soro didn’t need to seek out beauty. He found it wherever he was, and if he tried to ignore it, it had a way of insinuating itself into his every day experience.
Just as he hadn’t needed to search for beauty, neither had he needed instruction when his father had given him his first camera. The cool, silvery plastic casing had fitted his hand as if it had been made just for him, and he’d know, even at the age of nine, he’d know that this was what his life would be.
Soro didn’t need to go looking for beauty. But when he’d heard about the cherry blossom that had taken New Verity’s bioengineers a decade to perfect, he’d been seized with an overwhelming need to find it, to see it, to take the very first photo by an outsider.
It was unique, and the picture would be unique.
Now, as he stood by the jeep, he forgot about the choking smoke in his lungs, about the wailing sirens at his back, and the team of armed guards who could, at any moment, realise they’d been deceived, and come rushing back to take him.
He forgot everything as he gazed into that semicircle of light and shade, that chiaroscuro made by the play of halogen brilliance on the bent and reaching branches of the trees. For there, in the centre, lit with bold beams, the cherry tree rose above him, glorious as a tiered crown bedecked with gems cut from rose quartz, with pink pearls and silken petal lace.
Her voice rose behind him. “What are you doing? Why did you come here? Don’t gape at it like a slack brained slagger!”
“I come here for the same reason as you, Sakura,” he said with a chuckle.
The itch in his fingers was almost unbearable.
“Sheep shagger! Muff stuffer! I’m from New Zealand, you prize dimmy, and I’m nothing like you!”
She spoke with such vehemence that he turned to look at her, his eyes wide, lips half curled, half twisted with laughter at her odd cussing. There was no humour on her face. How he’d thought she was pretty, he didn’t know. Her teeth were clenched, her lips peeled back, and her eyes burned. She looked like a fury.
He thought about ditching the hero act, but he couldn’t abandon her. He had to make allowances, she was cuffed to a jeep, and he could imagine what kind of threats the guards had made.
“Cool down, hobbit,” he said. “I’ll get you out of here in a second.”
“No rush,” she said, tossing her head to one side. “It’s not as though there’s fifty thugs jonesing to try out their shiny new tasers.”
“Yeah. Let me take one quick picture, and then we’ll get out of here.”
“Wait,” she said.
“It’ll be okay,” he mumbled, fiddling with his camera as he turned.
“No, wait. Look out!”
He turned, and saw the man’s silhouette against the vivid pink backdrop of the cherry tree. He saw the baton, a dark blur, and then he felt the blow.
Hot jags of pain jabbed into his skull, and he found himself lying on his back staring up at the shadow of a man, who advanced. By the angle of his head, Soro could tell the guard was looking down at him. His imagination filled in the picture; it lent the guard a heavy jaw, a red, thickset face, all snarls and sneers. Whatever his true features, they remained invisible against the illuminated backdrop of the tree.
The guard stepped towards Soro, who felt much smaller than usual.
“No,” shrieked the girl. “You leave him alone!”
He felt a tingle of pleasant surprise.
The guard loomed over him, chasing away whatever thoughts might have been budding in his mind.
He raised the baton.
Soro had a moment to anticipate the blow. His head already felt cracked. The next strike would smash his skull open, and splatter his brains all over the soft grass. The howl of the fire alarm faded. He could still hear it, but it was muted, as if the intervening air had been stuffed with cotton wool. The girl yelled something, but her voice, too, was so faint he couldn’t tell if she was speaking, or giving vent to inchoate fear.
He saw, in his mind’s eye,
the scene when the baton smote his skull a second time. Instincts born of habit and experience began to frame image; his body would lie in the foreground on a bed of soft green grass, while the background would stretch out to encompass the complex of labs. Black smoke would roil out of an entrance surmounted by light; the cloud would dwindle to a single misty tendril, stretching forth to touch the blood welling from his head.
The picture shone clear and vivid in his mind, and made him wish he had his camera.
But he did.
What’s more, it was a special camera. He still had the first one his father had given him, all those years ago, but since he’d found that people liked his pictures, wanted them, and would pay surprising sums of money to put them on their magazines, posters and ads, he’d got himself the best kit available anywhere. Most digital cameras took a few tenths of a second, if not more, to find their range, adjust for lighting conditions, and get their shot focussed. Not this one. Like every picture he took, it was one of a kind, hand crafted, and irreplaceable. It still performed all of those functions; he didn’t sneer at modern technology, and he’d grown up in the digital age. Unlike its more common brethren, however, this camera took mere nanoseconds to turn a finger press into a permanent, diamond quality image.
And of course, it had a flash like a supernova.
There was only one small problem, he reflected, with his plan. His fingers, reaching into his jacket pocket, found nothing but the texture of rough denim.
The guard said something he didn’t understand, the import of the words lost in the haze of noise and pain.
The guard stepped closer, and kicked him in the knee, and he understood that well enough.
Trouble.
The girl shrieked, and he heard her yank at the steering wheel, frantic. He hoped, if she did manage to break loose, she’d have the sense to run. This guard wasn’t fooling around.
He kicked Soro again, a hard blow in the gut that left him twisted up and winded. He scrabbled at his pockets, unwilling to give up the search. And if it came to the worst, if these were his last moments, he’d be damned if he’d die without his camera.
Maybe he’d have an NDE, and come back with holiday snaps from Heaven.
The guard bawled at him, loud enough to be heard over the fire alarm. “You amateur idiots! We know how to deal with thieves around here.”
Soro might have laughed, if he’d had the breath.
“No one cares what happens to a pair of dumbass thieves,” shouted the guard. Soro heard him now, well enough to wish he couldn’t. “No one’s gonna miss you. But I tell ya, the biotech boys down in tissue culture are gonna be grinning tonight. They’re gonna get their samples free and fresh! We’re gonna scrape them off your hide!”
If only he had a weapon, but no… The mere thought was as comfortable as snuggling with a crocodile. But by the oaths flying from her lips, the girl sounded as if she’d be thrilled to take a few tissue samples from the guard.
He began to despair, but then he saw it, a glint of light on the black mirror of the view screen. It was off to his right side, near his boot. It had to have slipped out of his pocket when the guard blindsided him. He prayed the fall hadn’t damaged it.
He stretched out his hand for it, but it was just beyond his reach. The guard didn’t appreciate the effort, and rewarded him with another kick, one that sent a sharp spike of pain up through his ribs.
“I’m not a hard man,” said the guard. “I’d be inclined to give you a free pass. It’s the company, don’t you see? The company’s got a reputation, and it takes work, it takes upkeep. You try to remember that… It ain’t personal.”
He sniggered.
“Mostly.”
Soro tried again, but he knew it was futile. He heard something almost too soft to catch, a scurrying, padding sort of sound.
If the guard had noticed, he didn’t show it.
Soro fought through the agony, willed his arm to grow and stretch, and came close enough for his fingers to brush the cool plastic casing of the camera.
“I don’t like it when you squirm,” said the guard. He raised his foot to stamp on Soro’s hand, giving him a sickening vision of mangled fingers.
A dark blur flew up from the grass. A monstrous cry made him wince and hunch his shoulders. It was the guard’s turn to shriek in horror as a small shadowy figure leapt up into his face, scratching and biting.
“What in Heaven?” said the girl.
“Squizzle,” said Soro.
He felt new strength flow into his limbs. The pain lingered in his gut and ribs, but it seemed to diminish, and he felt renewed, better able to fight through it.
As the guard stumbled away, clawing at the enraged creature, Soro clambered to his feet, grabbed his camera off the grass, and shoved it in his pocket.
The embattled guard tore the animal off his face, and hurled it to the ground. He raised his foot to stamp on it.
Anger ignited in Soro’s gut, and spread up his spine. His face twisted into a terrible scowl, and his fingers curled into fists. A peaceful man, he could not abide the sight of the guard readying to crush his pet. He felt fury such as he’d not believed was in him, and when he moved, it was the fury that animated him, and not his natural self.
He shot forwards, with speed and strength he hadn’t thought to possess, and shoved the guard back, saving the animal from getting squashed. His fist whipped out, without thought, without plan, and smashed the guard on the jaw.
There had been more vehemence than skill in the punch, and Soro half believed the guard was felled by sheer surprise. Whatever the cause, the man hit the grass like a sack of lemons. His fist sang with agony, it felt as if he’d need to stuff it in the freezer for at least a week, but the pain was worth it.
“No one hurts Squizzle, you vicious-”
“Hey, Jane Goodall, cut the righteous wrath and get his goodies.”
He shot her a raised eyebrow.
“The keys, twit,” she said. “The cuff keys! Get these mumping chains off me, and I’ll give you a free ride.”
His eyebrow twitched.
She coloured. “I mean I’ll give you a lift in the battle wagon.”
He saw no mileage in hanging around, so he rummaged through the guard’s uniform until he found a pair of squareish keys. He tossed them to the girl, watched her undo the cuffs and massage her wrists.
“That’s half a ton better,” she said. “Now c’mon.”
He turned away, and reached into his pocket. There was still time.
He heard the jeep’s engine shake and grunt.
“Get in,” she said.
“I can’t leave yet,” he said, gazing at the cherry blossom.
“There’s no time for this.”
Squizzle ran to his side, and tugged at the hem of his jeans.
“Et tu Squiz?” he murmured.
He fumbled with the camera, and then raised it to his eye. His hands shook; the kicks he’d taken made him shudder when he drew breath, and his right hand didn’t want to grip. He aimed at the cherry tree, resplendent in the luminous pinks and pale purples of its blossom. It stood out, proud, bold against the dark, and seemed to tower above the other trees, to dwarf their paltry gifts.
“You don’t get in the wagon now,” said the girl, “you never will.”
“One second.”
“We don’t have one- Argh! They’ve seen us. They’re coming back!”
He gritted his teeth, mustered the last vestiges of strength, and willed the camera to become steady in his hands.
“You’re gonna get us clobbered! It’s not worth it for a stupid photo.”
He raised one eyebrow, and then he focused on the image he saw through the viewfinder. The lighting looked impressive, but it made it hard to get a picture; these lamps were set in the ground, to shine up at the tree, quite opposite of the usual situation. It felt similar to shooting on the beach at dawn on a cloudless morn, golden brilliance reflecting off the water, a beautiful sight, but hard
on a poor photographer. Worse yet, the background wasn’t just bad, it was missing. If he’d had the time, he’d like to have moved further away from the cherry tree, and zoomed in from that range, to capture the vivid pink cascade of blossom with the other, less extravagant trees curving around to frame it.
There was no time for such vain wishes. Even he could hear shouting over the siren, and at least one pair of booted feet slamming into the turf.
Never or now.
He took a deep breath; put all of his effort into concentrating on the image before him. There followed a moment of intense pressure, a sense, almost impossible to describe, that the world itself resisted his attempt to catch it and cram it into a tiny plastic box. He focused harder, pushing away all the pain and fatigue in his body, the noise around him, the cold fear in his gut. He narrowed his attention to a tight beam, to a laser, and as if the fancy had some physical counterpart, he felt the familiar cool spot on his forehead, as if someone was pressing a penny against the skin, just above and between his eyebrows. He made one last, tremendous effort, and something changed, deep within his being.
It was as sudden and as thorough as clicking on the light. In one moment he stopped being little scratched up Soro, standing in a field, pointing a device at a tree. Everything went away, except the cherry tree. There was no grass underfoot; there were no feet. There was no car beside him; he had no sides. There were no wrathful men running to get him, to catch and punish him. He was not a thing to be trapped or hurt.
He was not a thing at all.
There was tree and only the tree, but it was no tree. New Verity’s prize creation had been a thing of sap and cell, of root, bark and blossom. That thing was gone. In a sense, it had never been. Instead there was a pristine, self luminous arising of glory, infinite yet complete, all space, all time transcending.
From an unthinkable distance, he heard a miniscule click. A hand reached into timelessness, grabbed his shoulder, and yanked him backwards.
At once he was a man again, in a body, being jerked towards the jeep. He was a man, with a tired, injured, hurting body, and liable to suffer worse insults if he hung around.
The girl had left the jeep to get him. He wouldn’t forget that.
He shrugged away her hand, and leapt into the driver’s seat.
“Hey!” she said. From the look on her face, she wouldn’t forgive that.