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zzambrosius_02This story went in some disturbing directions. Maybe it could use to be cut a little, but here it is as it is now. BTW, it has naughty words in it.
Three enormous trucks, laden with logs, swept growling around a bend in the highway. The second truck made the turn with its trailer at an alarming angle, but it didn't overturn. They sped down the hill towards him, growling like giant tigers.
"Glad I'm on the other side of the road," he murmured as they went by: "And I'm even gladder that I won't have to walk back down this way.' The wave front of hot deisel-y air washed over him. He grabbed his hat.
'Not that I've really walked that much,' he thought. He'd used his Shifter to geoSaltate big chunks of the road. Whenever he got a straightaway, with no traffic in sight, he'd just Shift to the uphill end.
He hiked around the curve and into a small town. Leaburg was on the map in his head; he was going to pick up some supplies there.
'Leaburg Market,' the sign said. He wiped sweat from his brow with a bandana he had in his hand, then entered.
The woman behind the counter seemed cheerful: "Good morning, sir. Hot day out there, huh?’
"Sure is," he grinned. He unhooked the belly and chest bands and shrugged out of his pack. He left it by the door and began cruising the aisles, searching for the stuff he still wanted for his camping trip. 'Waterproof matches,' he pondered: 'Ah, here they are. Fishhooks, check; line, check; new sunglasses. That oughta do it.'
He laid his purchases out on the counter and the checker rang them up. He bought a scoop of ice cream, as a last treat before his retreat from the world.
"You gonna be doing some fishing?"
He smiled gently: "I'm heading up into the hills for a while. Got some thinking and meditating to do, and I want to be alone to do it."
"Oh."
"But yes, I may do some fishing, to make my food last longer."
"Ah," she said, pointing at a poster above the door: "Just be sure to release any Bull Trout you catch, OK?"
He stared for a moment, memorized the distinguishing characteristics of the endangered fish, then nodded: "Got it." He handed over his debit card.
After the formalities of PIN and receipt, she said: “Have a nice day, Mr. Rothakis!”
“Thanks. I will. And yourself as well.”
He stowed the line, hooks and matches in his pack, and wrestled it out to the seating area that faced the road. RVs and camping trailers passed by, going uphill; log trucks and other semis screamed past going downhill. Cars of various kinds were mixed in, all traveling at least sixty-five miles per hour.
“Doesn’t seem like anyone thinks much of those ‘Speed Limit 45’ signs at the town lines,” he observed, sardonically.
A teenage girl at the next table over laughed: “My stepdad usually speeds up when he sees one.”
“Huh.” He ate the over-sweet chocolate treat, slowly, savoring the greasy mouth feel and the bang of the cane sugar on his palate.
He used his pocketknife to cut away the price tag on the new sunglasses, and swapped his old ones for the new. He left the old set sitting on the heavy planks of the picnic table and stood up. With his pack back on, he tossed the ice cream cup in a recycle bin and started the next stretch of his journey. He tramped along for a couple minutes. The new RNA training he’d taken two days before tried desperately to get his attention. He suppressed it, wanting to wait until he had a camp set up.
“Hey Mister!”
He turned to look. The girl was running along behind him. She waved the old pair of specs as she ran: braless, her breasts were bouncing, and he saw the line of perspiration soaking through her shirt beneath them. A little chubby, she had dirty blond hair, somewhat curly, and an impish expression.
“You forgot your sunglasses!”
He grinned: “I know. I have new ones.”
“Oh,” she said, looking confused.
“You can have those, if you want them,” he said, waving: “or leave them for the next girl...”
“Oh,” she said again: “Cool! Thanks!” She put the discarded shades on and struck a dramatic pose. “I broke mine yesterday!”
He laughed and continued on his way.
His pack rode easily on his shoulders, for all its weight. It was old-fashioned canvas, which he preferred to any of the modern fabrics. His bedroll sat atop the frame, and the pack bulged where he’d jammed the contents in. All of the outer pockets protruded similarly.
He looked to be about fifty-five or six, which was accurate. A tanned and wrinkled fifty-five, from years of outdoor work; he was fit and healthy and moved like a younger man.
He had dressed for the heat, except that he’d chosen to wear his Free Walker boots rather than sandals or shoes. He wore khaki cargo shorts and a safari shirt, and the patch pockets of those were also visibly stuffed with gear. He had a white, heavy leather belt that cinched the waist of the shirt, and that had a couple of pouches depending from it.
His hat, a stylish, heavy elk-hide, fedora-like thing, covered a thick bandana draped over his head. He bore another such kerchief in his left hand, to wipe away the sweat that escaped his head rag.
The final visible piece of his equipment was a staff or walking stick. It stood chin high on him, and had a rubber foot that grabbed well on all kinds of ground. He’d planed it himself out of a stout plum sucker, and added a leather wrap to the handle, a wrist guard, and a pommel at the top end.
It resembled a bo-nodachi only when he turned it end-for-end and deployed it as such.
He reached the eastern limits of the town, hiking at a moderate pace.
After he got around a slight left curve and could see a ways up the road, he paused. He pulled the Shifter out of the left patch pocket of his shorts and activated it. With a cursory glance at the image of the road behind, he Shifted up to the next curve.
“Seven-league boots,” he thought, smiling wryly. He repeated the process whenever he could, eventually reaching a side road: “Aufderheide Drive,” he said aloud. He turned right onto the crunchier pavement and into the welcoming shade of a Forest Service rest area.
“Whoo-ooh!” he exclaimed. “Now I can have a bit of a rinse off.”
He stripped to his shorts, emptying his pockets and setting everything atop his pack, then waded cautiously into the icy river. He could stand only brief immersions in the cold water. “I am cleaner now, though.” He actually shivered for a few minutes after he emerged from the river.
His sweat had soaked through the shirt wherever the backpack touched, on the back, and where the straps went over the shoulders. He pulled everything out of the pockets of the shirt and rinsed it thoroughly in the stream. He dipped himself another time: ‘For good measure.’ He hung the shirt on a tree branch to dry.
The sun had risen to high noon. ‘Gotta be ninety-five out in the sun,’ he thought, as the heat settled back in on him. His recent RNA session had activated all the older ‘programs’, something that Voukli had warned him about. The conversions from ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit to Celsius and Commonwealth scales automatically popped up, and he sent them firmly back into his subconscious: ‘I know, I took too much new stuff,’ he said to himself. “That’s why I’m heading for the hills, to get some Trancing in.”
He dug into one of the outer pockets of his pack and got out a ham sandwich. The gluten-free bread had turned a little soft and sticky: ‘Oh well, it’s better than crumbly. Can’t make a sandwich out of that kind at all.’
He drained a water bottle and swapped it for a full one from the pack. He set the pack frame against the tree, and leaned back against it, closing his eyes: ‘One hour,’ he thought: ‘Then I’m on my way again.’
He woke earlier than he’d intended. A couple of cars pulled in to the parking lot and an unnecessarily large number of children came tumbling out, shrieking and laughing and demanding food and soda from their harried-looking parents. He sighed, and repacked his belongings. After a drink and an energy bar, he hoisted his load and tramped away across a bridge and onto a straightaway. He looked back, saw no onlookers, and Jumped.
“Gonna be more walking and fewer Shifts from this point on,” he grumbled. ‘Oh well, it’ll keep me honest and in shape, right?” He hiked through a series of curves, staying as far to the right of the pavement as the narrow verge allowed.
He only got two more chances to Saltate away big chunks of the road: one when an outward curve let him see the dam that held back the river, and another when a similar bow of the pavement put him in sight of the bridge that crossed the water at the upstream end of the reservoir.
After that, it was a hard, mostly uphill slog on another narrow verge. The sun was significantly west of him by then, and he had access to a lot more shade.
He passed an SUV with Forest Service markings, which sat pointing downhill, partly off the road at the outside of a curve. He paused to look around, and saw no personnel: ”I wonder what’s up?” He labored on, climbing toward a bend at the top of a steep stretch of road. He paused and looked back, still wondering.
Just then a Ranger came out of the undergrowth across from the vehicle. The fellow waved at Ambros, so he stood there while the khaki-clad man stumped up to him.
“Good afternoon, sir,” said the ranger: “Have you just hiked up Aufderheide to here?”
Ambros nodded: “Long walk.”
“It is. Sir, there is a possibility that we have a stray child, sixteen years old, lost up here in the area. Did you see anyone on your way up?”
He shook his head: “A few cars, a younger man hiking down, and some folks at the hot springs parking lot. All grownups. There were two cars, families with kids, at the rest area near the highway, no teens in either car.”
“Okay. Well, here’s a photo. Her name is Gretchen Morgan. If you see her, and you are where you have cell service, would you call us, please?”
He took off the shades: “Sure, I...” He stared at the picture. “Um. I saw this young lady when I passed through Leaburg this morning.”
“Really? Tell me more...”
Ambros described his brief encounter, and said: “Last I saw, she was traipsing back toward the Leaburg Market, wearing my old sunglasses.”
“Well,” the ranger nodded: “She was seen hitchhiking up this way. She’s run away to the woods before, and once to Springfield, they tell me. She knows how to survive out here, tickling fish and all...”
Ambros interrupted: “Ah, so she’s not so much lost as evading pursuit.”
The ranger chuckled: “Yeah. Her folks aren’t too worried, but it is damn hot out, and the fire danger is very high. We’d like to at least know where she got to. You have a cell phone?””
Ambros nodded: “If I see her, I’ll check in.” He didn’t actually have a cell phone, but the Shifter would tap the cell network from anywhere on the planet. ‘Even from other Timelines,’ he thought. Aloud, he said: “There is probably no spot along this river where I can’t get cell service.”
“Good plan, huh? Where exactly are you headed? So I know where there’s eyes on the ground...”
“I’m not sure exactly. My map says that there’s a campground called Red Diamond not too much further up this way,” Ambros gestured: “...and it appears to be the last along this road for some way. I’m looking for solitude at the moment. I figured to hike along the river from there until I found it.”
“Solitude, huh? There’s a fairly well-used trail along the top of the bank for about six miles upstream from Red Diamond. After that, you should be let alone.” The ranger looked over his gear: “You know what you’re doing. Be careful with fire, release bull trout, don’t cut any live wood. I’m sure you know the rest of the drill, we’ll just say I told you.”
“Gotcha, Ranger...” Ambros checked his name tag: “...Ranger Reid.”
Ranger Reid shook hands with Ambros and then went traipsing back down the hill to his car.
Ambros continued the uphill slog. He eventually passed a Forest Service sign on his left, which read: ‘French Pete Campground’ and pointed at a gravel drive across the road. He was calculating his remaining walking distance when a fairly loud “BANG” occurred down the road to the campsite.
He threw his walking stick into the ditch on his right, then dove after it, slapping at the releases on his pack. He rolled over to his right as he hit the lip of the ditch, shedding the pack in a fluid motion, and scrabbling at the patch pocket on the right thigh of his shorts. He snatched at the backpack, getting hold of one of the straps; he dragged it into the ditch with him, and dropped it between his knees as he landed on his back. By then he held the pistol, both hands on the stock, the serious end aimed between his knees and over the pack. He automatically tipped his head back, scouting the area that was not in line of sight; seeing nothing, he returned his attention to the drive, as the echo of that single explosion rattled back from the high rocky hill across the road.
Several smaller bangs occurred; he moved the pistol back and forth, searching for targets. A fizzling series of pops and cracks followed.
“Firecrackers...” he said, growling. He flipped the safety on the Commonwealth Commando Glock-oid and slid it back into his pocket. His heart pounded, a film of sweat covered his body, his brain processed everything around him at a breakneck pace. His expression was grim and angry.
The ranger truck screeched around the curve and slid to a stop pointing down the drive. Ambros could see a second ranger in the passenger seat, a woman with short curly red hair. Ranger Reid stuck his head out the window and asked: “You all right, sir?”
Ambros waved him on: “No problems. I just over-reacted a bit.”
The rangers’ vehicle ground its way down the hill toward the campsite.
Ambros hooked his ankles in the straps of the pack and used the weight of the thing to help lever his body into a sitting position. He put his face in his hands for a moment, shaking like he had a fever, then punched his right fist into his left palm hard enough to hurt.
He’d lost his sunglasses. He looked around and saw them, sitting just in reach to his left. “My hat,” he grumbled: “There it is.” He got to his feet and retrieved it.
The shaking waned, and he took several deep breaths. The short term effects of the adrenaline rush faded, and he felt the icy wash of the fight reflex drain down from his head to his feet, seemingly into the earth itself. He stared at the ground, putting his thoughts in order. He felt weak, and a little dizzy.
He hoisted his pack and strapped it on, picked up his staff, and began to hike up the hill. “Idiots,” he said aloud, falling into a rant: “...way too damn dry up here to be setting off fireworks...not allowed in National Forests anyway...stay home and burn their own damn houses down... just about scared the shit outta me...”
He stayed silent for a while, forcing his thoughts inward.
Again he spoke aloud, to himself, as he climbed up and tramped down the winding uneven road: “And all that anger is just a way to avoid reality. I just had an episode of PTSD. The fuck...”
He realized that he needed, not therapy, but courage: “As long as I am involved in a war across the Multiverse, where reactions like that can and surely will save my life—on occasion—I can’t talk or medicate those reactions away. I need them.” He sped up his pace as much as he dared: “Suddenly, I wanna be way up into the wilderness before the Fourth rolls around.”
The road twisted and turned according to the lay of the land. The river, the south fork of the Mackenzie, was always audible and frequently visible, off to his right. The sun sank behind the trees lining the ridgetop on the other side of the stream. He slowly gained altitude.
At last he saw a small sign with not very large letters: ‘Red Diamond Campground, 300ft.’ He sighed, anticipating a brief rest.
He turned into the campsite’s parking lot, only to find it partially filled with automobiles. He glanced at the bulletin board just inside the gate, and saw a notice: ‘Reserved, June 28-July 5, Trevor Michaels’.
He paused. “I don’t really need the rest, I guess.”
He noticed that one of the campers’ tents was a high peaked ‘arming pavillion‘ and he relaxed a bit. ‘Gotta be SCAdians, or somebody like them.
A man strolled out of the main camping area, smiling: “Hey, how ya doing? Just passing through?”
Ambros saw the medievalish tunic and wide red belt that the fellow wore, so he said: “That’s right, Squire. I’m heading upriver, but I wouldn’t mind a little sit down before I go.”
“You must be a SCAdian,” said the man: “I’m Michael of Milan, Squire to Sir Darien.”
“Viscount Ambros. Is that the Sir Darien who is Baron hereabouts?”
“Sure is! He’s back in camp right now...” Squire Michael hooked a thumb over his shoulder: “...c’mon back and sit for a bit.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” said Ambros.
Baron Darien welcomed him, and introduced him around: “This is my full household, pretty near, including the bunch from Portland.”
Ambros shed his pack and accepted a bowl of beans and rice, and a glass of tea. They offered him harder drinks as well; he refused, explaining his motive for solo hiking as: “Hard decisions and gentle meditation.”
After listening to them talk about SCA politics for a while, and enjoying some talk about swordfighting, he rose to leave: “Thanks folks. I’d best be on my way...”
“Will we see you at combat practice anytime soon?” asked Baron Darien.
He shrugged: “Maybe not till September. I got a lot on my plate right now.”
“I got ya. See you whenever...”
He waved and headed up the trail.
He didn’t get far in the gloaming; the dark beneath the trees slowed and soon halted him. ‘Out of sight of the camp, at least,’ he mused. “I’d better set up for the night.”
He put his hat down, shed his pack, got out a headlamp, and began.
'A hundred feet back from the stream, check.' He got his bedroll out, situating it under an overhanging fir branch. He deployed a mosquito net over the bed, bungee-ing it to the branch and spreading the weighted edges out around his bed. He didn’t bother to add the actual tent to the thing, since he wasn’t going to stay there for long: ‘Too close to civilization.’
He pulled a small trowel out of one of the side pockets of the pack. 'Let's put your cat hole about a hundred feet up this way,' he thought.
When he'd relieved himself he crawled into his bed and sat for a while, breathing deeply, letting his body relax, saying: "Calm," on the inward breath and: "Relax" on the outward.
He lay back, letting his mind wander while still meditating. Little pieces of the programs he'd absorbed under "four strand memory RNA training” popped up and attached themselves to his 'real' memories; then the new stuff formed its own synapses and he could access it easily.
'...Objectivist Prime Timeline has been stable for a century...it's the only Objectivist Line that hasn't had constant turmoil as a result of economic inequality...incorporated the planet! Brilliant solution, really...
'That powered armor worries me...Objectivists are not likely to allow that to get into the hands of any Authoritarian Lines, but still....can l'Iriquois' techs be far behind? Well, yeah, they could be, but maybe not...
'Averos appears to be getting some good ideas along those lines from the alien Squid-ish tech he got his hands on...'
'How much do we really know about the Squids?’
There the reverie faded, as Commonwealth Prime's Tech and History Guilds had made no progress on that subject. Having come up against such a blank space, he fell asleep and took no more note of the world until morning.
He woke in the gray light before dawn, with the distinct impression that somebody was watching him. He stayed utterly still, mimicking sleep, while he explored that feeling.
He sat up, slowly, and stretched, arms high and wide. He stripped naked and dressed in fresh garb: long trousers that bloused in the top of his boots, just below the knee; otherwise very like the previous day’s outfit. He transferred all of his belongings to the new outfit and re-packed.
When he returned from his cat hole, he stood a few moments, listening intently. He contemplated using his technology to examine the area, and decided to wait: “If there’s anyone following me, I’ll let her have a chance to make contact on her own,” he said, not too quietly.
He began to hike uphill, the river on his right. It narrowed as he climbed, occasionally crossing smaller streambeds, nearly dry with the drought. He found a place where tree trunks let him cross to an island in the main channel, and where rocks and boulders in the streambed on the other side allowed him to reach the west bank dry-footed. Once he reached a vantage point above the crossing, he sat for a bit and watched the natural bridge and fords for a while.
“I know that she’s still back there,” he muttered: “Too smart to cross right where I did, this soon.”
The river would get narrower still, he knew. “For now, I like it that she’s paralleling me from the east bank.”
He kept moving for some time. When he was a mile or so upstream from his crossing point, he climbed down the bank and walked along the sand and rock verge of the river.
“Whoo. It’s at least ten degrees cooler here...” The temperature conversions rose into his head at that point, and he let them sit in his mind’s eye for a moment, before pushing them away.
The day passed. He hiked. When the sun sank below the treetops to the west and the long slow evening of the mountains began, nodded to himself: ‘Soon, Ambros, soon.’
He stopped occasionally to look around, admiring the scenery: ‘This far from the cities, there’s almost no sign of war damage. Very nice.’
The burned-out buildings of the downtown areas and the flattened mall across the river from Eugene faded from his mind, as well as the constant din of reconstruction. He felt the calm settle over him. He hiked on.
When he reached the southern end of the next bend of the river, he paused. “I guess this is it, or close enough.” He slipped out of his pack and set to work with his tech. He got out the Shifter, which looked enough like a hockey puck to pass for one, and tapped the back of his left wrist to call up the MPS.
Using those two devices together, he imaged the area within twenty miles of his location. After a few mental commands, they showed him what he wanted to see: “Nobody within ten miles in any direction, except Gretchen.”
She showed up as a dot on the invisible-except-to-him map produced by the tech. He concentrated and closed in on her position: “She’s made an error, there; she has to summit a ridge and then cross the river before she can pick up my trail again. Probably be a couple days before she actually finds me.”
That would give him time to get the heavy mental lifting done, before he had to deal with her: “Whatever she’s up to, whatever she has in mind...” He set the MPS to alert him to any human presence within a mile of his camp: “That oughta do it.”
He gazed about, contemplating.
At length he began to set up camp. He found a spot where the beach spread about twenty feet wide, and created a flat spot about three feet above water level. “Yeah, I know I’m supposed to camp a hundred feet from the river. I want the cover here, so tough luck, Ranger Reid.”
He began unpacking and deploying for an extended stay. He laid down a ground cloth, and set the mosquito netting up as before. He got out his ‘tent’ and set it up, wrapping it tepee style around the pyramid that the netting made.
He went inside and adjusted the high-tech cloth to “Camouflage” He stepped out and looked back at it. ‘It is, for all practical purposes, invisible.’
The fabric warped the light around itself, such that whatever folds or creases were in it, only what was behind it showed to the casual eye.
He stared: “Okay, if I concentrate, I can see some blurring and twisting along the edge. Takes a bit of work, though.” It occurred to him to wonder if anyone whose sight had not been augmented by Commonwealth Medical Tech would be able to see anything at all: ‘Possibly not.’
He set up a ring of stones for a fire pit right down by the stream. He used rocks and mud to build a small dam, so that he could douse the fire with river water by moving one stone, and then set to work kindling a fire of twigs and driftwood.
He was very hungry: “Haven’t eaten anything for two days except energy bars and ice cream. Right, and a sandwich...plus a bowl of arroz con frijoles at the SCA camp.”
Deep in his pack he carried a small soft-sided cooler. He got that out, and all of the water bottles, and his water filter. When he had the water dripping into the first bottle, he opened the cooler. He found a stick and roasted a couple of sausages, wrapping them in lettuce and eating them like that.
‘No sense saving any lettuce, it won’t last.’ He chowed down all of what he had, wrapping it around various bits of protein.
He sighed and sat back, leaning against a conveniently placed boulder. He crossed his ankles and began to contemplate his program for the next few days.
The first two nights were rocky as hell: “Unrelentingly weird stuff,” he said: “Timeline histories all mixed up, my own Line folded in like chocolate in a meringue...”
The third night’s dreams had been all about his former family; his current lovers made repeat appearances, as though to confuse things, but he began that night and ended it in bed with Tina. “Marissa was there, too, in that last dream,” he said to himself.
That dream pulled him awake before dawn, eyes wide, tears flowing: “Marissa, Andrea, Tina,” he sobbed, not really wanting to stop.
By the time he cried himself out, he was wide awake.
Regardless, he had a handle on the new information, a lot of it, anyway: “The connections make more sense, now,” he muttered: “A couple more nights and an few hours meditation, and I’ll be good, for now. I doubt I’ll sleep again, so I guess I’ll meditate.”
He began as he always did, sitting comfortably, attending his breath: “Calm,” he said on the inward breath, and “Relax,” as he exhaled.
Slowly, as he became calm and relaxed, his memories began to integrate: ‘...Chinese hegemony Lines are isolationist...almost never go Quiet, but they can get pretty chaotic...the Tom Paine Line is a one-off, nothing else quite like it, that we’ve found...Bizarre consonances with USITs...The Wobbly-Spartacist revolution went really bad every time...conspiracy theories in right-wing Lines make sense in some other places...’
The sun broke through the morning mist and shone on the river. He rose and dressed.
He sat by his fire, the morning light slowly filling up the valley. He was breathing slowly and deeply, letting the new information flow across his conscious mind: “This is a lot of data,” he said, grimacing. With even the rough outlines of seven basic alternate histories available on the surface of his thoughts, he could see connections that never would have occurred to him before:
“Weird synchronies, here and there...see how actions by the elite in some of these Objectivist Lines affect the economy in others...all these Quiet Lines growing out of the Nazi Victory Triad...several of l’Iriquois’ proconsuls die of some disease, and then there’s an immediate crackdown on dissent in every Chinese Hegemony Line...US Imperial Timelines where the stock market parallels warfare in the more backward Religious Lines...Syndicalist Lines where the Assemblies reflect actions in Objectivist Prime, but in a funhouse mirror...
“Okay,” he said: “If I really concentrate on the details of this stuff, it will all integrate better and make more sense. But maybe I better put that off for a bit...” He tapped the MPS: “Gimme a location on Gretchen Morgan.”
The map popped up, and showed her as a green dot a little more than a mile downstream from him.
“Okay, she’s on this side of the river, moving this way, slowly and with a lot of hesitation. Did I leave that much spoor behind me? Maybe...Anyway, she’ll be here before suppertime.”
He went upstream to check on a fishing line. “Hey, I caught somebody...” He reeled the line in and looked his catch over: “Nope, that’s a bull trout, more’s the pity.” He slipped the hook out and sent the fish away: “Go eat some flies, buddy.”
He moved some more rocks around, until he had a ten-by-ten space of mostly smooth sand, then he stripped to his shorts and began a sword form, using his walking stick as a simulator. When he had a good sweat going, he sat by his fire pit and ate a light lunch.
“I don’t even need to check the MPS,” he grumbled. “She’s watching me now, I can feel it.”
He stripped off his shorts and waded slowly into the water, rinsing and dipping, until he felt clean again.
He walked naked up the slope and slipped into his tent, chuckling. ‘If she’s in line of sight, I just vanished into nothingness.’ He adjusted the tent fabric to ‘transparent from inside’ and looked out along the river. ‘No sign of her. She’s good.’
He lay back for a nap, after instructing the MPS to alert him if she got within twenty ells. He dropped off.
The MPS buzzed him. He sat up, reaching for a pair of trousers. While he donned them he checked her out: since all she could see of his camp was the slightly smoking firepit, that’s what she made for, cautiously.
The tent remained in ‘camouflage’ mode, from the outside. Her eyes passed over the riverbank, not noticing any sign of his presence.
She sat by the fire, looking over the river, while the sun westered and the light began to dim. After a while, she added some wood to the fire and built it to a flame.
She got up and stretched, then walked off up the bank. In a few minutes she came back, with an armload of sticks and dragging a fallen branch behind her. One twig caught on the edge of the tent and dragged it a little ways, but Ambros pulled it back into place before she turned and looked. Then she shrugged and set to breaking up the branch into pieces fit for the firepit.
He put his boots on, making no noise at all, and slipped a long sleeved tee over his head. He touched the Shifter in his left trouser pocket, and also opened the flap on the right one, where he had his Commando pistol. He coughed a little bit, which made her start and turn. Then he slipped out through the door of his invisible shelter.
“SHIT!” she yelled, and picked up a fist-sized rock.
He stood still for a moment, hands at shoulder height, palms open and displayed.
She dropped the rock and stepped back.
He smiled: “You’ve been following me. Why?”
She shrugged and turned away. She sat by the fire and stirred it a little with a stick.
He walked over and sat beside her. She flinched a little and turned towards him. When she saw that he gazed only at the fire, and not at her, she relaxed a bit, leaning back on her hands. It was an inviting position, sexually: her legs splayed a little, her arms behind her, her breasts high and firm. He wondered if she did it on purpose: ‘Could she be unaware of the symbolism?’
He doubted it. After a bit, he spoke:
“You’ve also been spying on me, when you were in eyeshot. I don’t think it’s too presumptuous to ask you why.”
She gulped a little, then sat back forward, her knees up and her arms around them: “I didn’t think you saw me.”
“I didn’t.”
“But you knew I was there?”
“Yup.”
“How?”
It was his turn to shrug: “What do you call that, when you feel someone’s eyes from behind you, without looking?”
She made a face: “ESP?”
“I dunno. Maybe.”
They sat in silence for a while. He leaned upstream and pulled on one of his fishing lines, and a rainbow trout came out of the icy stream into his hands. He drew his knife and prepped it, then put the filets onto a hot rock near the edge of the fire. The fish began to sizzle.
“Staying for supper?” He smiled at her.
“Umm. Yes, I guess.”
“Then one of those is yours.”
After a silence, she said: “I had to get out of town for a while. Following you was a good excuse.”
He pursed his lips and nodded: “Okay. Is it my business to ask why you wanted out of Leaburg?”
“Not really.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll tell you anyway, if you want.”
“I think you should tell me anyway, if you want.” He used his knife to turn the fish end for end, and sniffed: “A minute more on this side.”
She looked down, and he could see tears in her eyes.
“Do you think I’m sexy?” she asked, in a very small voice.
He sat silent for a few minutes, contemplating what her question might mean. Then he threw that line of thought away and answered her, honestly: “Yes. And by that I mean: Ranger Reid told me you’re sixteen.”
“Almost seventeen...well, sixteen and a half, anyway.”
He shook his head: “Well, any woman your age is sexy, without hardly trying. Unless she’s got some obvious problem.” He flipped the fish over.
“Oh.” She turned a little to face him and continued: “I never thought of it like that. None of the boys at school seem to think so.”
He laughed: “Spectacle and indoctrination. TV and other media have them hypnotized. So they think that there is only one kind of sexy. Some of them will grow out of that.”
She sat there silently, frowning. After a bit she said: “If you think I’m sexy, would you fuck me?”
“Pretty straightforward. No beating around the bush for you, huh?”
She smiled, the first time she had: “I kinda thought that would work best. With you, I mean.”
“That’s a fair cop. And under other circumstances, you might already be on your back. But there are some...complicated...I have a complicated life.”
“Really?” She looked around, and said: “I don’t see any complications.”
He laughed softly, but remained otherwise uncommunicative.
She looked at his left hand, then turned away: “You are not married. I mean, you don’t have a ring.”
“I don’t have a ring,” he admitted: “Doesn’t mean anything.” He got a stick from the woodpile and speared the larger filet: “Here,” he said, handing it to her. He used his knife to pull the other piece off the rock, and began to eat.
It was a substantial fish. They had a few minutes to think, each of them, as they ate.
He belched a little: “Scusi.”
She nodded. After a bit she started talking again:
“When I was fourteen my mom remarried. His name is Jack. He wanted to me to call him daddy, but I won’t. He seemed like a pretty nice guy, but he’s not my dad.”
“I get that.”
“Then when I was fifteen, getting close to sixteen, he started saying things like: ‘When you’re sixteen, you can learn to drive,’ and ‘Your mom says when you’re sixteen you can go on dates,’ and ‘Your mom says when you’re sixteen we can leave you in the house alone’.”
A moment passed. Ambros said: “You figured he was hinting at...”
She interrupted: “He wants to fuck me. It took me a while to figure it out, cuz I’m kinda dense that way.”
“Inexperienced is more like it.”
“Whatever. Anyway, he’s old and fat and smokes cigars. I have no...”
“I get it. Yet you made a very forward pass at me. I am probably older than he is.”
“Well...”
“I know, I am not fat and I don’t smoke cigars.” He waited a couple seconds and then prompted her: “So you had no interest in him?”
“Not exactly.”
“Okay.” He waited in silence again.
“See,” she said, and then paused for a long time. She glanced over at him, and then continued: “I started thinking about it, a lot. Mom is pretty strict. Jack was there, and available. It freaked me out, but I couldn’t keep my mind off it. I wanted not to be a virgin.”
“What did you do?”
“I had run off, up here to the woods, a few times already. I did some things to make them think I’d done it again, but I went to Springfield instead.”
“And?”
“I hung out, slept on people’s couches, ate out of dumpsters. Eventually, after fending off any number of dirty old men, I hooked up with a boy named Tommy.”
He sat there nodding. He built up the fire. It was the only light they had by then, save the stars and the moon.
“Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Some. I figured...that guys had to learn to do it good, you know? So I been watching. Waiting. You looked...do-able. Why won’t you fuck me? Those thirty-somethings in Springfield woulda.”
“I’m fifty-five. You are underage in this state.” He held up his hand: “I’m not afraid of going to jail. But I don’t want the trouble of dealing with cops on yet another subject.”
She frowned: “What have you been, you said, ‘dealing’ with the cops about?”
“We don’t know each other that well.”
“Oh. Well, why aren’t you afraid of going to jail? Most people are!”
He sat quiet for a while, tending to the fire. He decided on the truth, at least that part of the truth he could tell her: “For reasons that I am not at liberty to explain to you right this minute, there is no jail or prison anywhere in this world that can hold me, if I want to get out. But it would be really stupid to wind up going through all of the rigamarole involved just for a little sex.”
“I promise that it wouldn’t be just a little. And you won’t ever have to deal with the police about me.” She scooted over closer to him, and laid her head on his shoulder.
He thought: ‘Shock Therapy time. Get the adult on, monkey boy.’
He turned towards her, growling. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, hard enough to make her squeal. He ranted at her, sounding angry and dangerous: “Listen you silly little...” He shook her again, and saw the raw terror on her face: “There’s a certain kind of man in the world who would tear your clothes off, rape you repeatedly, and you can bet he wouldn’t have to deal with the cops about you afterwards, because when the bastard was finished with you he’d strangle you or cut your throat and bury you there in the river under half a ton of rocks! And there’s no good way to spot most of those men, and there’s no way in hell you can be sure I’m not one of them. If you’ve got the sense of a box of feathers, you’ll learn that lesson right now, the easy way, and not have to suffer through it the hard way. So...”
She was weeping and trying to escape his grasp. He let go of her and she fell away from him, crying.
“Fortunately for you, I am not that guy.” He was once again a kind, sage, older man whom a girl could trust. He continued, in a soothing tone: “So...If you want to make a pass at a man, of any age, at any time, go right ahead and do it. But choose your time and place carefully, with the existence of sociopaths in mind, with bugout routes and easy access to a place where a lot of other people are, with pre-arranged safe words and your phone at hand, preset to 911...” he smiled at her, and took her hand, pulling her to a sitting position and embracing her. He let her cry for a while, then pushed her back: “I need to sleep now. I am going to bed. You should, too.”
She smiled weakly, wiping tears away, and nodded: “I’m glad you’re not a...um...”
“Sociopath. Look it up when you get home.”
“Okay.” She paused, then said, tentatively, still frightened: “Can I stay with you tonight? Where’s your tent?”
He shook his head, smiling a little bit wryly: “Where’s yours?”
“I left it down the river a little. It’s too dark to find it now.”
“Uh-huh. I oughta let you sleep out here in the cold, with the skeeters.”
“No, please. I mean...”
He calmed her: “I know. I’m too nice to do that. You can sleep in my tent, but we are not fucking. Nor petting, nor kissing, nor holding hands. We’re not even getting undressed. Got that?”
She made a face: “I got it.”
He took her arm and led her toward the riverbank. He opened the flap of the tent and sent her in. He followed, securing the tabs along the flap, then he moved his pack and sundry other gear to form a barricade along the centerline of the tent.
“Why the hell couldn’t I see this tent?”
He lay down on his bedroll, turning his back to her: “It’s invisible.”
“I can see through it,” she whispered, her voice loaded with fear.
“Only from the inside,” he said, sighing. “Good night.”
“G-good night.”
He woke once in the middle of the night. He heard thunder and saw flashes of lightning to the west, apparently over a ridgeline or two away. He lit up his tiny battery lantern and looked at Gretchen. She sat there, eyes wide.
He said: “Boy, I hope we get some rain with this. It’s way too dry for lightning without some hard rain.”
“Yeah,” she said, mischievous again: “But I’m not a boy.”
“Huh. You don’t say...”
He lay back and listened for a while to the rumbles and bangs. He drifted off to sleep again, worrying about that and anticipating weird dreams from the combination of worry and Trancing.
He slept deeply, far more so than usual. The dreams he suffered were surreal, full of imagery inspired by his new knowledge, connections both logical and absurd being made in his subconscious.
Ambros woke to the light of day shining dimly into the tent. He groaned and shook his head, feeling an odd wetness upon his face. He emerged from a nightmarish scenario involving Nazis, Squids, and Colonel Renault.
He was on his back, a position he almost never slept in; he coughed and his hands executed 'Lady Plays the Lute" from his taichi days.
Gretchen squeaked and pulled away from him, as her head slipped between his arms. He wiped his mouth: 'She was kissing me, in my sleep..." He opened his eyes.
She was unzipping his trousers.
He coughed again, harder: "Gretchen, what?" He pushed her away from his waist, and began fastening his pants: "What did I say? We are not having..." He began to cough again: "Oh, hell, girl, can't you smell that?"
He had an erection: ‘Not an unusual occurrence first thing in the morning, even without...’ It complicated the task at hand. He sat up, dislodging her from his lap.
Gretchen also started hacking; she fell to the floor of the tent, crying and retching. She had stripped naked; her breasts heaved and wobbled with the strength of her coughing.
"Get dressed, quick! The damn forest is on fire! We have to get outta here!" He had slept in his boots; he pulled a crocheted hat out of his pack, put it on as a means to corral his hair, and then began stuffing and ramming his belongings into the pack.
'Don't bother with the clothes, or the bed,' he thought, his expression becoming grimmer by the second. "I said get dressed! Pants, shirt, and boots, at least, and now, and fast!"
He dove out the door of the tent, slapping the pockets of his cargoes to make sure his stuff was all where it belonged. He reached back in and dragged the pack out, shoved the water filter in, and secured the flap.
Smoke filled the valley. He heard shouts and cries from up the hill behind the tent. A man loomed out of the sky above, his parachute luffing as he steered himself down to the shelf where the two of them had camped.
"Hotshots," he said aloud: "Oh, I don't like the implications of that..."
Gretchen stumbled out of the tent, her hair and clothes in disarray, and saw the guy gathering his chute.
"Oh, God," she moaned, knowing full well what bad news that was.
The firefighter shouted, apparently into a radio: “I got dispersed campers here! Father and daughter, maybe...”
Ambros’ hearing had been augmented by Hellenic Medical tech; he heard the reply over the man’s earphone: “Draft ’em! We’ll need every hand!”
The firefighter lifted his face shield and looked at them, eyes narrowed, calculating: "You two, come here!" he commanded, in a Mexican accent. "You gonna have to help us fight the fire, you can't get outta dis valley any other way!"
"Got it," said Ambros, knowing otherwise: "What tools have we got?"
The man pointed upstream: "Pallet should be that way...let's hope it's down on solid ground.”
“Yeah, let's." He grabbed Gretchen's arm above the elbow and said: "This way, Miss Succubus. We got work to do!"
She seemed to get a hold of herself, and soon she followed him without his guidance.
They found the crate where it was intended to be, a little west of the river and on only slightly sloping ground. Mexican Hotshot pried the thing open with a tool from his belt. He tossed gas masks to each of them, saying: "You gonna need those, good thing we always pack spares. Now listen! Fire started in the next dell over, it's climbin' the ridge fast. It'll slow down some when it starts burnin' downhill, but things are so dry, it may still get here before we're ready for it. So work like your lives depend on it, 'cuz they do!"
“What about the road?” asked Gretchen. “Why can’t we go out that way?”
“Fires on both sides of it, and down by the dam, too. That’s why Hotshots in the valley, here.”
More Hotshots showed up, coming from up and down river, and began grabbing tools. Mexican Hotshot seized a chainsaw for himself, and handed Ambros an axe and handsaw: "Anything I drop, you limb it. Miss, you drag or rake all the small stuff down hill, until I tell you to stop. Get everything into the water if you can!
"The river makes a natural fire break, and we are gonna try to make it wider!"
'I understand." Ambros stuck the folding saw into his pocket and rolled his shoulders, hefting the axe.
As each tree dropped, he went at the limbs. Soon he was in a semi-berserker mindset, chopping at the branches without a thought in his mind.
Hours had passed. Ambros was soaked in sweat, caked with mud and soot, and wearing his third gas mask: 'There aren't any more refills, either,' he thought. For an hour they'd cut and hacked and dragged every burnable thing down hill; when they were about a third of the way up the slope, they switched to pushing things up, preparing for a burnout. Gretchen dragged herself up and down the hillside, obviously exhausted.
Suddenly every firefighter on the hillside turned tail and ran down towards the river. Ambros looked up and saw the wall of fire licking at the edges of their makeshift burnout. The whole dry mess of tinder and kindling and logs exploded into flame, and a wave of superheated air hit him and knocked him down. His mask fell off and away. He began to crawl downhill, then stopped. He turned and croaked: “Gretchen!”
He couldn’t breathe; the air scorched his sinuses and ground like glass in his lungs.
She lay at the foot of the fire, her blouse already ablaze. He heard men running up the hill towards them, but ignored that. He tore at his left patch pocket and pulled the Shifter violently loose from it.
He Jumped, dropping in right beside her. He held his breath, dizzy with smoke inhalation and heat, and yanked her to her feet by one forearm. He ripped her burning blouse off her with a single gesture, then pulled her to him. He looked at the Shifter, shouted: “Keenafthono!”
When the red dot appeared he touched it.
Saltation.
He fell to the floor, dizzier than even a trip to the Commonwealth usually made him. He retched and vomited, a thin watery gruel from an empty stomach. Black phlegm filled his throat and he coughed it out, helpless to stop.
He could hear the alarms going off. White-clad Meds surrounded him, pulling him off the landing pad. Gretchen looked around at the War Room, terrified, and screamed once; a Med slapped a red patch on her shoulder and she passed out.
Iatri Alaini looked him over, listened as he tried to explain what happened, his tale interrupted by wracking coughs.
“Report this later, Magistros, to your mentors or the Council,” she said, waving him silent: “We’re transporting you to Combat Med.” She slapped a patch on his arm and he too passed out.
He lay deep in dreams, helpless to awaken.
The head of the Northeast Ohio branch of Posse Comitatus appeared: “Hey hippie, how ya doin’?”
“Get outta here,” he replied.
“You can’t make me,” said Duggins: “It’s a dream.”
“Of course it is. But you‘re dead, asshole. So I needn’t pay you any mind.”
Duggins frowned: “Dead?”
“Yeah, Stanley shotgunned your innards in the back yard at our house just outside Cleveland. Decades ago.”
“I...oh.” Duggins wandered off.
Ambros tried to sit up, but found himself restrained in some way. He coughed, hard and nasty, and some part of his mind knew that the coughing was no dream.
Regulos walked into view. He leaned over Ambros and sneered. He triggered a cascade of thoughts and memories, real and RNA induced.
Ambros finally woke fully, to see Marie and Kim hovering over his bed. He shook his head, coughed experimentally, and found his lungs and airways clear.
“Whoa.” He shook his head again, and felt no dizziness. Kim stepped away from the bedside and called to someone in the hall: “He’s awake!” Luisa came in, smiling.
Other people began filing in: Arrenji, Voukli, Averos at first; then Magistri Anni arrived, followed by Megalos and Danilos.
He tried to speak, and stopped; he coughed a little bit of phlegm out of his throat and swallowed.
“Old home week,” he said, smiling.
“Indeed,” said Voukli: “You’ve been out for a couple days.”
“Smoke,” he said, remembering.
“And fire,” said Luisa. “Your chest was pretty badly burned.”
He put his hand under the sheet, felt smooth skin and the faintest scritch of hair growing back: “Huh.”
His brain started to tick then, and he recalled his adventure: “How’s Gretchen?”
“Is that her name? She’s alive, but unconscious,” said Iatri Alaini: “I thought it would be cruel to let her awaken without your presence.”
“Yeah, she’ll have no idea where she is or how she got here.”
Alaini added: “I wanted to get her completely healed up, too. No need for her to ever know how badly burned she got.”
He nodded.
“So...exactly who is Gretchen? You were supposedly going camping alone...” Kim trailed off, amused not angry.
He shook his head: “Gretchen Morgan, from Leaburg...” He told the tale, smiling wryly.
Marie laughed at him: “Why didn’t you do her? Sounds like it would have been good for her.”
“I told you, she’s underage and I already had a lot on my plate.”
“She looked like she was old enough,” said Voukli.
“She’s about a year and a half short of eighteen,” he replied: “Here in the Commonwealth, she’d be an adult plus some. In US Imperial Seventeen, she’s not. That’s all.“
“You people are flat-out insane on the subject of sex.” Voukli said.
“I am all too aware of that,” Ambros said: “New subject, please.”
Arrenji spoke: “Do you still need to do some Trancing?”
“He does,” said Alaini: “In an hour or so I’ll put him under again, and hit him with a hypnotic to speed things up.” She smiled at Ambros: “If that suits you, I mean.”
“It does.” He sat up slowly, finding himself weak but hale: “I need something to eat, though. And somebody ought to drop in to my campsite and clean up any tech that survived the fire...”
“That’s done,” said Arrenji: “Averos and I checked as soon as it was safe to Saltate there.”
“Excellent!” He looked around: “So, anybody have any food? I’m hungry.”
A windowless room, softly lit in amber and green light:
Ambros sat down in the chair by Gretchen’s bed. She was on her left side, facing towards him, curled in a fetal position and with her hands over her face. She breathed but otherwise did not move.
He groomed his mustache with his right thumb and stroked his beard. He stared at the wall at the foot of her bed, musing.
He had dressed in the full panoply of his Rank, Master in the Sacred Band: Black leather boots; trousers of black silk; a red linen tunic, barely faded; belts of black and white leather. He wore his brand new real gold Knight’s chain. His hair he’d pulled into a topknot, but he’d not braided it at all.
‘I guess I’m not feeling too rebellious today. That’ll pass...’
Gretchen rolled onto her back and stretched out, yawning. He didn’t move, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.
She sat up, suddenly. The sheets fell away, revealing her breasts: high, round, soft, smooth.
He kept his eyes on the wall, letting her take stock of the situation. She blushed but didn’t cover up.
“Um...Hi,” she said.
He looked her in the eyes: “Welcome back to the world.”
She frowned, then pulled the sheet up over her bosom: “Where are we? A hospital? Is this Sacred Heart? I know it’s not Mackenzie.”
“It is a hospital. Not one of those.”
“Oh.”
“You were burned pretty bad. I took you to a place where I knew they could fix that.”
“I remember now!” She ran her hands over her face, then over her breasts and belly: “No scars...but the fire! I was burning up.” She looked at him, appalled: “There should be scars!”
“There ought to be, it’s true. I brought you here so there wouldn’t be.”
“Where are we?”
He paused: “It might be better if I don’t tell you too much. That would preserve your freedom to act.”
“I don’t understand...”
“I know,” he said.
“Complications again?”
He grinned: “Infinite complications. Do you want to go home?”
“Kinda?”
“You must decide.”
“Okay, yes.”
“Good choice. I’ll start the arrangements.” He touched the MPS and sent a signal: “We’ll get you dressed and made up to look as if you’d been in the fire zone all along. We’ll drop you just uphill from French Pete. There’s a fire crew camped there; just walk downhill and you’ll be a news story about miraculous survival.”
She frowned, then smiled. Ambros thought: ‘She has a lovely smile.’
She said: “I guess I can just act confused and amnesiac. Traumatized, right?”
“We can make the amnesia real, if you like.”
She stared at him: “I’d rather not forget you, or the things you said. I should look up ‘sociopath’...”
“You could also look up ‘succubus’ and...” He gauged her reactions: “...Emancipated Minor.”
She narrowed her eyes and then widened them. He stood up.
She bit her lower lip, looking suddenly very young; then she threw the sheets aside and reclined, staring at the ceiling.
She folded her arms above her head and opened her legs, a little. She let a couple tears fall, then closed her eyes.
He gazed for a while, admiring, then said: “Some Laborers will be here in a couple minutes, with clothes and such.” He soothed her: “I’ll stop by the Leaburg Market, say, Thursday afternoon. If you want to talk some more.”
She sobbed, covering her face.
He departed without looking back.
Three enormous trucks, laden with logs, swept growling around a bend in the highway. The second truck made the turn with its trailer at an alarming angle, but it didn't overturn. They sped down the hill towards him, growling like giant tigers.
"Glad I'm on the other side of the road," he murmured as they went by: "And I'm even gladder that I won't have to walk back down this way.' The wave front of hot deisel-y air washed over him. He grabbed his hat.
'Not that I've really walked that much,' he thought. He'd used his Shifter to geoSaltate big chunks of the road. Whenever he got a straightaway, with no traffic in sight, he'd just Shift to the uphill end.
He hiked around the curve and into a small town. Leaburg was on the map in his head; he was going to pick up some supplies there.
'Leaburg Market,' the sign said. He wiped sweat from his brow with a bandana he had in his hand, then entered.
The woman behind the counter seemed cheerful: "Good morning, sir. Hot day out there, huh?’
"Sure is," he grinned. He unhooked the belly and chest bands and shrugged out of his pack. He left it by the door and began cruising the aisles, searching for the stuff he still wanted for his camping trip. 'Waterproof matches,' he pondered: 'Ah, here they are. Fishhooks, check; line, check; new sunglasses. That oughta do it.'
He laid his purchases out on the counter and the checker rang them up. He bought a scoop of ice cream, as a last treat before his retreat from the world.
"You gonna be doing some fishing?"
He smiled gently: "I'm heading up into the hills for a while. Got some thinking and meditating to do, and I want to be alone to do it."
"Oh."
"But yes, I may do some fishing, to make my food last longer."
"Ah," she said, pointing at a poster above the door: "Just be sure to release any Bull Trout you catch, OK?"
He stared for a moment, memorized the distinguishing characteristics of the endangered fish, then nodded: "Got it." He handed over his debit card.
After the formalities of PIN and receipt, she said: “Have a nice day, Mr. Rothakis!”
“Thanks. I will. And yourself as well.”
He stowed the line, hooks and matches in his pack, and wrestled it out to the seating area that faced the road. RVs and camping trailers passed by, going uphill; log trucks and other semis screamed past going downhill. Cars of various kinds were mixed in, all traveling at least sixty-five miles per hour.
“Doesn’t seem like anyone thinks much of those ‘Speed Limit 45’ signs at the town lines,” he observed, sardonically.
A teenage girl at the next table over laughed: “My stepdad usually speeds up when he sees one.”
“Huh.” He ate the over-sweet chocolate treat, slowly, savoring the greasy mouth feel and the bang of the cane sugar on his palate.
He used his pocketknife to cut away the price tag on the new sunglasses, and swapped his old ones for the new. He left the old set sitting on the heavy planks of the picnic table and stood up. With his pack back on, he tossed the ice cream cup in a recycle bin and started the next stretch of his journey. He tramped along for a couple minutes. The new RNA training he’d taken two days before tried desperately to get his attention. He suppressed it, wanting to wait until he had a camp set up.
“Hey Mister!”
He turned to look. The girl was running along behind him. She waved the old pair of specs as she ran: braless, her breasts were bouncing, and he saw the line of perspiration soaking through her shirt beneath them. A little chubby, she had dirty blond hair, somewhat curly, and an impish expression.
“You forgot your sunglasses!”
He grinned: “I know. I have new ones.”
“Oh,” she said, looking confused.
“You can have those, if you want them,” he said, waving: “or leave them for the next girl...”
“Oh,” she said again: “Cool! Thanks!” She put the discarded shades on and struck a dramatic pose. “I broke mine yesterday!”
He laughed and continued on his way.
His pack rode easily on his shoulders, for all its weight. It was old-fashioned canvas, which he preferred to any of the modern fabrics. His bedroll sat atop the frame, and the pack bulged where he’d jammed the contents in. All of the outer pockets protruded similarly.
He looked to be about fifty-five or six, which was accurate. A tanned and wrinkled fifty-five, from years of outdoor work; he was fit and healthy and moved like a younger man.
He had dressed for the heat, except that he’d chosen to wear his Free Walker boots rather than sandals or shoes. He wore khaki cargo shorts and a safari shirt, and the patch pockets of those were also visibly stuffed with gear. He had a white, heavy leather belt that cinched the waist of the shirt, and that had a couple of pouches depending from it.
His hat, a stylish, heavy elk-hide, fedora-like thing, covered a thick bandana draped over his head. He bore another such kerchief in his left hand, to wipe away the sweat that escaped his head rag.
The final visible piece of his equipment was a staff or walking stick. It stood chin high on him, and had a rubber foot that grabbed well on all kinds of ground. He’d planed it himself out of a stout plum sucker, and added a leather wrap to the handle, a wrist guard, and a pommel at the top end.
It resembled a bo-nodachi only when he turned it end-for-end and deployed it as such.
He reached the eastern limits of the town, hiking at a moderate pace.
After he got around a slight left curve and could see a ways up the road, he paused. He pulled the Shifter out of the left patch pocket of his shorts and activated it. With a cursory glance at the image of the road behind, he Shifted up to the next curve.
“Seven-league boots,” he thought, smiling wryly. He repeated the process whenever he could, eventually reaching a side road: “Aufderheide Drive,” he said aloud. He turned right onto the crunchier pavement and into the welcoming shade of a Forest Service rest area.
“Whoo-ooh!” he exclaimed. “Now I can have a bit of a rinse off.”
He stripped to his shorts, emptying his pockets and setting everything atop his pack, then waded cautiously into the icy river. He could stand only brief immersions in the cold water. “I am cleaner now, though.” He actually shivered for a few minutes after he emerged from the river.
His sweat had soaked through the shirt wherever the backpack touched, on the back, and where the straps went over the shoulders. He pulled everything out of the pockets of the shirt and rinsed it thoroughly in the stream. He dipped himself another time: ‘For good measure.’ He hung the shirt on a tree branch to dry.
The sun had risen to high noon. ‘Gotta be ninety-five out in the sun,’ he thought, as the heat settled back in on him. His recent RNA session had activated all the older ‘programs’, something that Voukli had warned him about. The conversions from ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit to Celsius and Commonwealth scales automatically popped up, and he sent them firmly back into his subconscious: ‘I know, I took too much new stuff,’ he said to himself. “That’s why I’m heading for the hills, to get some Trancing in.”
He dug into one of the outer pockets of his pack and got out a ham sandwich. The gluten-free bread had turned a little soft and sticky: ‘Oh well, it’s better than crumbly. Can’t make a sandwich out of that kind at all.’
He drained a water bottle and swapped it for a full one from the pack. He set the pack frame against the tree, and leaned back against it, closing his eyes: ‘One hour,’ he thought: ‘Then I’m on my way again.’
He woke earlier than he’d intended. A couple of cars pulled in to the parking lot and an unnecessarily large number of children came tumbling out, shrieking and laughing and demanding food and soda from their harried-looking parents. He sighed, and repacked his belongings. After a drink and an energy bar, he hoisted his load and tramped away across a bridge and onto a straightaway. He looked back, saw no onlookers, and Jumped.
“Gonna be more walking and fewer Shifts from this point on,” he grumbled. ‘Oh well, it’ll keep me honest and in shape, right?” He hiked through a series of curves, staying as far to the right of the pavement as the narrow verge allowed.
He only got two more chances to Saltate away big chunks of the road: one when an outward curve let him see the dam that held back the river, and another when a similar bow of the pavement put him in sight of the bridge that crossed the water at the upstream end of the reservoir.
After that, it was a hard, mostly uphill slog on another narrow verge. The sun was significantly west of him by then, and he had access to a lot more shade.
He passed an SUV with Forest Service markings, which sat pointing downhill, partly off the road at the outside of a curve. He paused to look around, and saw no personnel: ”I wonder what’s up?” He labored on, climbing toward a bend at the top of a steep stretch of road. He paused and looked back, still wondering.
Just then a Ranger came out of the undergrowth across from the vehicle. The fellow waved at Ambros, so he stood there while the khaki-clad man stumped up to him.
“Good afternoon, sir,” said the ranger: “Have you just hiked up Aufderheide to here?”
Ambros nodded: “Long walk.”
“It is. Sir, there is a possibility that we have a stray child, sixteen years old, lost up here in the area. Did you see anyone on your way up?”
He shook his head: “A few cars, a younger man hiking down, and some folks at the hot springs parking lot. All grownups. There were two cars, families with kids, at the rest area near the highway, no teens in either car.”
“Okay. Well, here’s a photo. Her name is Gretchen Morgan. If you see her, and you are where you have cell service, would you call us, please?”
He took off the shades: “Sure, I...” He stared at the picture. “Um. I saw this young lady when I passed through Leaburg this morning.”
“Really? Tell me more...”
Ambros described his brief encounter, and said: “Last I saw, she was traipsing back toward the Leaburg Market, wearing my old sunglasses.”
“Well,” the ranger nodded: “She was seen hitchhiking up this way. She’s run away to the woods before, and once to Springfield, they tell me. She knows how to survive out here, tickling fish and all...”
Ambros interrupted: “Ah, so she’s not so much lost as evading pursuit.”
The ranger chuckled: “Yeah. Her folks aren’t too worried, but it is damn hot out, and the fire danger is very high. We’d like to at least know where she got to. You have a cell phone?””
Ambros nodded: “If I see her, I’ll check in.” He didn’t actually have a cell phone, but the Shifter would tap the cell network from anywhere on the planet. ‘Even from other Timelines,’ he thought. Aloud, he said: “There is probably no spot along this river where I can’t get cell service.”
“Good plan, huh? Where exactly are you headed? So I know where there’s eyes on the ground...”
“I’m not sure exactly. My map says that there’s a campground called Red Diamond not too much further up this way,” Ambros gestured: “...and it appears to be the last along this road for some way. I’m looking for solitude at the moment. I figured to hike along the river from there until I found it.”
“Solitude, huh? There’s a fairly well-used trail along the top of the bank for about six miles upstream from Red Diamond. After that, you should be let alone.” The ranger looked over his gear: “You know what you’re doing. Be careful with fire, release bull trout, don’t cut any live wood. I’m sure you know the rest of the drill, we’ll just say I told you.”
“Gotcha, Ranger...” Ambros checked his name tag: “...Ranger Reid.”
Ranger Reid shook hands with Ambros and then went traipsing back down the hill to his car.
Ambros continued the uphill slog. He eventually passed a Forest Service sign on his left, which read: ‘French Pete Campground’ and pointed at a gravel drive across the road. He was calculating his remaining walking distance when a fairly loud “BANG” occurred down the road to the campsite.
He threw his walking stick into the ditch on his right, then dove after it, slapping at the releases on his pack. He rolled over to his right as he hit the lip of the ditch, shedding the pack in a fluid motion, and scrabbling at the patch pocket on the right thigh of his shorts. He snatched at the backpack, getting hold of one of the straps; he dragged it into the ditch with him, and dropped it between his knees as he landed on his back. By then he held the pistol, both hands on the stock, the serious end aimed between his knees and over the pack. He automatically tipped his head back, scouting the area that was not in line of sight; seeing nothing, he returned his attention to the drive, as the echo of that single explosion rattled back from the high rocky hill across the road.
Several smaller bangs occurred; he moved the pistol back and forth, searching for targets. A fizzling series of pops and cracks followed.
“Firecrackers...” he said, growling. He flipped the safety on the Commonwealth Commando Glock-oid and slid it back into his pocket. His heart pounded, a film of sweat covered his body, his brain processed everything around him at a breakneck pace. His expression was grim and angry.
The ranger truck screeched around the curve and slid to a stop pointing down the drive. Ambros could see a second ranger in the passenger seat, a woman with short curly red hair. Ranger Reid stuck his head out the window and asked: “You all right, sir?”
Ambros waved him on: “No problems. I just over-reacted a bit.”
The rangers’ vehicle ground its way down the hill toward the campsite.
Ambros hooked his ankles in the straps of the pack and used the weight of the thing to help lever his body into a sitting position. He put his face in his hands for a moment, shaking like he had a fever, then punched his right fist into his left palm hard enough to hurt.
He’d lost his sunglasses. He looked around and saw them, sitting just in reach to his left. “My hat,” he grumbled: “There it is.” He got to his feet and retrieved it.
The shaking waned, and he took several deep breaths. The short term effects of the adrenaline rush faded, and he felt the icy wash of the fight reflex drain down from his head to his feet, seemingly into the earth itself. He stared at the ground, putting his thoughts in order. He felt weak, and a little dizzy.
He hoisted his pack and strapped it on, picked up his staff, and began to hike up the hill. “Idiots,” he said aloud, falling into a rant: “...way too damn dry up here to be setting off fireworks...not allowed in National Forests anyway...stay home and burn their own damn houses down... just about scared the shit outta me...”
He stayed silent for a while, forcing his thoughts inward.
Again he spoke aloud, to himself, as he climbed up and tramped down the winding uneven road: “And all that anger is just a way to avoid reality. I just had an episode of PTSD. The fuck...”
He realized that he needed, not therapy, but courage: “As long as I am involved in a war across the Multiverse, where reactions like that can and surely will save my life—on occasion—I can’t talk or medicate those reactions away. I need them.” He sped up his pace as much as he dared: “Suddenly, I wanna be way up into the wilderness before the Fourth rolls around.”
The road twisted and turned according to the lay of the land. The river, the south fork of the Mackenzie, was always audible and frequently visible, off to his right. The sun sank behind the trees lining the ridgetop on the other side of the stream. He slowly gained altitude.
At last he saw a small sign with not very large letters: ‘Red Diamond Campground, 300ft.’ He sighed, anticipating a brief rest.
He turned into the campsite’s parking lot, only to find it partially filled with automobiles. He glanced at the bulletin board just inside the gate, and saw a notice: ‘Reserved, June 28-July 5, Trevor Michaels’.
He paused. “I don’t really need the rest, I guess.”
He noticed that one of the campers’ tents was a high peaked ‘arming pavillion‘ and he relaxed a bit. ‘Gotta be SCAdians, or somebody like them.
A man strolled out of the main camping area, smiling: “Hey, how ya doing? Just passing through?”
Ambros saw the medievalish tunic and wide red belt that the fellow wore, so he said: “That’s right, Squire. I’m heading upriver, but I wouldn’t mind a little sit down before I go.”
“You must be a SCAdian,” said the man: “I’m Michael of Milan, Squire to Sir Darien.”
“Viscount Ambros. Is that the Sir Darien who is Baron hereabouts?”
“Sure is! He’s back in camp right now...” Squire Michael hooked a thumb over his shoulder: “...c’mon back and sit for a bit.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” said Ambros.
Baron Darien welcomed him, and introduced him around: “This is my full household, pretty near, including the bunch from Portland.”
Ambros shed his pack and accepted a bowl of beans and rice, and a glass of tea. They offered him harder drinks as well; he refused, explaining his motive for solo hiking as: “Hard decisions and gentle meditation.”
After listening to them talk about SCA politics for a while, and enjoying some talk about swordfighting, he rose to leave: “Thanks folks. I’d best be on my way...”
“Will we see you at combat practice anytime soon?” asked Baron Darien.
He shrugged: “Maybe not till September. I got a lot on my plate right now.”
“I got ya. See you whenever...”
He waved and headed up the trail.
He didn’t get far in the gloaming; the dark beneath the trees slowed and soon halted him. ‘Out of sight of the camp, at least,’ he mused. “I’d better set up for the night.”
He put his hat down, shed his pack, got out a headlamp, and began.
'A hundred feet back from the stream, check.' He got his bedroll out, situating it under an overhanging fir branch. He deployed a mosquito net over the bed, bungee-ing it to the branch and spreading the weighted edges out around his bed. He didn’t bother to add the actual tent to the thing, since he wasn’t going to stay there for long: ‘Too close to civilization.’
He pulled a small trowel out of one of the side pockets of the pack. 'Let's put your cat hole about a hundred feet up this way,' he thought.
When he'd relieved himself he crawled into his bed and sat for a while, breathing deeply, letting his body relax, saying: "Calm," on the inward breath and: "Relax" on the outward.
He lay back, letting his mind wander while still meditating. Little pieces of the programs he'd absorbed under "four strand memory RNA training” popped up and attached themselves to his 'real' memories; then the new stuff formed its own synapses and he could access it easily.
'...Objectivist Prime Timeline has been stable for a century...it's the only Objectivist Line that hasn't had constant turmoil as a result of economic inequality...incorporated the planet! Brilliant solution, really...
'That powered armor worries me...Objectivists are not likely to allow that to get into the hands of any Authoritarian Lines, but still....can l'Iriquois' techs be far behind? Well, yeah, they could be, but maybe not...
'Averos appears to be getting some good ideas along those lines from the alien Squid-ish tech he got his hands on...'
'How much do we really know about the Squids?’
There the reverie faded, as Commonwealth Prime's Tech and History Guilds had made no progress on that subject. Having come up against such a blank space, he fell asleep and took no more note of the world until morning.
He woke in the gray light before dawn, with the distinct impression that somebody was watching him. He stayed utterly still, mimicking sleep, while he explored that feeling.
He sat up, slowly, and stretched, arms high and wide. He stripped naked and dressed in fresh garb: long trousers that bloused in the top of his boots, just below the knee; otherwise very like the previous day’s outfit. He transferred all of his belongings to the new outfit and re-packed.
When he returned from his cat hole, he stood a few moments, listening intently. He contemplated using his technology to examine the area, and decided to wait: “If there’s anyone following me, I’ll let her have a chance to make contact on her own,” he said, not too quietly.
He began to hike uphill, the river on his right. It narrowed as he climbed, occasionally crossing smaller streambeds, nearly dry with the drought. He found a place where tree trunks let him cross to an island in the main channel, and where rocks and boulders in the streambed on the other side allowed him to reach the west bank dry-footed. Once he reached a vantage point above the crossing, he sat for a bit and watched the natural bridge and fords for a while.
“I know that she’s still back there,” he muttered: “Too smart to cross right where I did, this soon.”
The river would get narrower still, he knew. “For now, I like it that she’s paralleling me from the east bank.”
He kept moving for some time. When he was a mile or so upstream from his crossing point, he climbed down the bank and walked along the sand and rock verge of the river.
“Whoo. It’s at least ten degrees cooler here...” The temperature conversions rose into his head at that point, and he let them sit in his mind’s eye for a moment, before pushing them away.
The day passed. He hiked. When the sun sank below the treetops to the west and the long slow evening of the mountains began, nodded to himself: ‘Soon, Ambros, soon.’
He stopped occasionally to look around, admiring the scenery: ‘This far from the cities, there’s almost no sign of war damage. Very nice.’
The burned-out buildings of the downtown areas and the flattened mall across the river from Eugene faded from his mind, as well as the constant din of reconstruction. He felt the calm settle over him. He hiked on.
When he reached the southern end of the next bend of the river, he paused. “I guess this is it, or close enough.” He slipped out of his pack and set to work with his tech. He got out the Shifter, which looked enough like a hockey puck to pass for one, and tapped the back of his left wrist to call up the MPS.
Using those two devices together, he imaged the area within twenty miles of his location. After a few mental commands, they showed him what he wanted to see: “Nobody within ten miles in any direction, except Gretchen.”
She showed up as a dot on the invisible-except-to-him map produced by the tech. He concentrated and closed in on her position: “She’s made an error, there; she has to summit a ridge and then cross the river before she can pick up my trail again. Probably be a couple days before she actually finds me.”
That would give him time to get the heavy mental lifting done, before he had to deal with her: “Whatever she’s up to, whatever she has in mind...” He set the MPS to alert him to any human presence within a mile of his camp: “That oughta do it.”
He gazed about, contemplating.
At length he began to set up camp. He found a spot where the beach spread about twenty feet wide, and created a flat spot about three feet above water level. “Yeah, I know I’m supposed to camp a hundred feet from the river. I want the cover here, so tough luck, Ranger Reid.”
He began unpacking and deploying for an extended stay. He laid down a ground cloth, and set the mosquito netting up as before. He got out his ‘tent’ and set it up, wrapping it tepee style around the pyramid that the netting made.
He went inside and adjusted the high-tech cloth to “Camouflage” He stepped out and looked back at it. ‘It is, for all practical purposes, invisible.’
The fabric warped the light around itself, such that whatever folds or creases were in it, only what was behind it showed to the casual eye.
He stared: “Okay, if I concentrate, I can see some blurring and twisting along the edge. Takes a bit of work, though.” It occurred to him to wonder if anyone whose sight had not been augmented by Commonwealth Medical Tech would be able to see anything at all: ‘Possibly not.’
He set up a ring of stones for a fire pit right down by the stream. He used rocks and mud to build a small dam, so that he could douse the fire with river water by moving one stone, and then set to work kindling a fire of twigs and driftwood.
He was very hungry: “Haven’t eaten anything for two days except energy bars and ice cream. Right, and a sandwich...plus a bowl of arroz con frijoles at the SCA camp.”
Deep in his pack he carried a small soft-sided cooler. He got that out, and all of the water bottles, and his water filter. When he had the water dripping into the first bottle, he opened the cooler. He found a stick and roasted a couple of sausages, wrapping them in lettuce and eating them like that.
‘No sense saving any lettuce, it won’t last.’ He chowed down all of what he had, wrapping it around various bits of protein.
He sighed and sat back, leaning against a conveniently placed boulder. He crossed his ankles and began to contemplate his program for the next few days.
The first two nights were rocky as hell: “Unrelentingly weird stuff,” he said: “Timeline histories all mixed up, my own Line folded in like chocolate in a meringue...”
The third night’s dreams had been all about his former family; his current lovers made repeat appearances, as though to confuse things, but he began that night and ended it in bed with Tina. “Marissa was there, too, in that last dream,” he said to himself.
That dream pulled him awake before dawn, eyes wide, tears flowing: “Marissa, Andrea, Tina,” he sobbed, not really wanting to stop.
By the time he cried himself out, he was wide awake.
Regardless, he had a handle on the new information, a lot of it, anyway: “The connections make more sense, now,” he muttered: “A couple more nights and an few hours meditation, and I’ll be good, for now. I doubt I’ll sleep again, so I guess I’ll meditate.”
He began as he always did, sitting comfortably, attending his breath: “Calm,” he said on the inward breath, and “Relax,” as he exhaled.
Slowly, as he became calm and relaxed, his memories began to integrate: ‘...Chinese hegemony Lines are isolationist...almost never go Quiet, but they can get pretty chaotic...the Tom Paine Line is a one-off, nothing else quite like it, that we’ve found...Bizarre consonances with USITs...The Wobbly-Spartacist revolution went really bad every time...conspiracy theories in right-wing Lines make sense in some other places...’
The sun broke through the morning mist and shone on the river. He rose and dressed.
He sat by his fire, the morning light slowly filling up the valley. He was breathing slowly and deeply, letting the new information flow across his conscious mind: “This is a lot of data,” he said, grimacing. With even the rough outlines of seven basic alternate histories available on the surface of his thoughts, he could see connections that never would have occurred to him before:
“Weird synchronies, here and there...see how actions by the elite in some of these Objectivist Lines affect the economy in others...all these Quiet Lines growing out of the Nazi Victory Triad...several of l’Iriquois’ proconsuls die of some disease, and then there’s an immediate crackdown on dissent in every Chinese Hegemony Line...US Imperial Timelines where the stock market parallels warfare in the more backward Religious Lines...Syndicalist Lines where the Assemblies reflect actions in Objectivist Prime, but in a funhouse mirror...
“Okay,” he said: “If I really concentrate on the details of this stuff, it will all integrate better and make more sense. But maybe I better put that off for a bit...” He tapped the MPS: “Gimme a location on Gretchen Morgan.”
The map popped up, and showed her as a green dot a little more than a mile downstream from him.
“Okay, she’s on this side of the river, moving this way, slowly and with a lot of hesitation. Did I leave that much spoor behind me? Maybe...Anyway, she’ll be here before suppertime.”
He went upstream to check on a fishing line. “Hey, I caught somebody...” He reeled the line in and looked his catch over: “Nope, that’s a bull trout, more’s the pity.” He slipped the hook out and sent the fish away: “Go eat some flies, buddy.”
He moved some more rocks around, until he had a ten-by-ten space of mostly smooth sand, then he stripped to his shorts and began a sword form, using his walking stick as a simulator. When he had a good sweat going, he sat by his fire pit and ate a light lunch.
“I don’t even need to check the MPS,” he grumbled. “She’s watching me now, I can feel it.”
He stripped off his shorts and waded slowly into the water, rinsing and dipping, until he felt clean again.
He walked naked up the slope and slipped into his tent, chuckling. ‘If she’s in line of sight, I just vanished into nothingness.’ He adjusted the tent fabric to ‘transparent from inside’ and looked out along the river. ‘No sign of her. She’s good.’
He lay back for a nap, after instructing the MPS to alert him if she got within twenty ells. He dropped off.
The MPS buzzed him. He sat up, reaching for a pair of trousers. While he donned them he checked her out: since all she could see of his camp was the slightly smoking firepit, that’s what she made for, cautiously.
The tent remained in ‘camouflage’ mode, from the outside. Her eyes passed over the riverbank, not noticing any sign of his presence.
She sat by the fire, looking over the river, while the sun westered and the light began to dim. After a while, she added some wood to the fire and built it to a flame.
She got up and stretched, then walked off up the bank. In a few minutes she came back, with an armload of sticks and dragging a fallen branch behind her. One twig caught on the edge of the tent and dragged it a little ways, but Ambros pulled it back into place before she turned and looked. Then she shrugged and set to breaking up the branch into pieces fit for the firepit.
He put his boots on, making no noise at all, and slipped a long sleeved tee over his head. He touched the Shifter in his left trouser pocket, and also opened the flap on the right one, where he had his Commando pistol. He coughed a little bit, which made her start and turn. Then he slipped out through the door of his invisible shelter.
“SHIT!” she yelled, and picked up a fist-sized rock.
He stood still for a moment, hands at shoulder height, palms open and displayed.
She dropped the rock and stepped back.
He smiled: “You’ve been following me. Why?”
She shrugged and turned away. She sat by the fire and stirred it a little with a stick.
He walked over and sat beside her. She flinched a little and turned towards him. When she saw that he gazed only at the fire, and not at her, she relaxed a bit, leaning back on her hands. It was an inviting position, sexually: her legs splayed a little, her arms behind her, her breasts high and firm. He wondered if she did it on purpose: ‘Could she be unaware of the symbolism?’
He doubted it. After a bit, he spoke:
“You’ve also been spying on me, when you were in eyeshot. I don’t think it’s too presumptuous to ask you why.”
She gulped a little, then sat back forward, her knees up and her arms around them: “I didn’t think you saw me.”
“I didn’t.”
“But you knew I was there?”
“Yup.”
“How?”
It was his turn to shrug: “What do you call that, when you feel someone’s eyes from behind you, without looking?”
She made a face: “ESP?”
“I dunno. Maybe.”
They sat in silence for a while. He leaned upstream and pulled on one of his fishing lines, and a rainbow trout came out of the icy stream into his hands. He drew his knife and prepped it, then put the filets onto a hot rock near the edge of the fire. The fish began to sizzle.
“Staying for supper?” He smiled at her.
“Umm. Yes, I guess.”
“Then one of those is yours.”
After a silence, she said: “I had to get out of town for a while. Following you was a good excuse.”
He pursed his lips and nodded: “Okay. Is it my business to ask why you wanted out of Leaburg?”
“Not really.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll tell you anyway, if you want.”
“I think you should tell me anyway, if you want.” He used his knife to turn the fish end for end, and sniffed: “A minute more on this side.”
She looked down, and he could see tears in her eyes.
“Do you think I’m sexy?” she asked, in a very small voice.
He sat silent for a few minutes, contemplating what her question might mean. Then he threw that line of thought away and answered her, honestly: “Yes. And by that I mean: Ranger Reid told me you’re sixteen.”
“Almost seventeen...well, sixteen and a half, anyway.”
He shook his head: “Well, any woman your age is sexy, without hardly trying. Unless she’s got some obvious problem.” He flipped the fish over.
“Oh.” She turned a little to face him and continued: “I never thought of it like that. None of the boys at school seem to think so.”
He laughed: “Spectacle and indoctrination. TV and other media have them hypnotized. So they think that there is only one kind of sexy. Some of them will grow out of that.”
She sat there silently, frowning. After a bit she said: “If you think I’m sexy, would you fuck me?”
“Pretty straightforward. No beating around the bush for you, huh?”
She smiled, the first time she had: “I kinda thought that would work best. With you, I mean.”
“That’s a fair cop. And under other circumstances, you might already be on your back. But there are some...complicated...I have a complicated life.”
“Really?” She looked around, and said: “I don’t see any complications.”
He laughed softly, but remained otherwise uncommunicative.
She looked at his left hand, then turned away: “You are not married. I mean, you don’t have a ring.”
“I don’t have a ring,” he admitted: “Doesn’t mean anything.” He got a stick from the woodpile and speared the larger filet: “Here,” he said, handing it to her. He used his knife to pull the other piece off the rock, and began to eat.
It was a substantial fish. They had a few minutes to think, each of them, as they ate.
He belched a little: “Scusi.”
She nodded. After a bit she started talking again:
“When I was fourteen my mom remarried. His name is Jack. He wanted to me to call him daddy, but I won’t. He seemed like a pretty nice guy, but he’s not my dad.”
“I get that.”
“Then when I was fifteen, getting close to sixteen, he started saying things like: ‘When you’re sixteen, you can learn to drive,’ and ‘Your mom says when you’re sixteen you can go on dates,’ and ‘Your mom says when you’re sixteen we can leave you in the house alone’.”
A moment passed. Ambros said: “You figured he was hinting at...”
She interrupted: “He wants to fuck me. It took me a while to figure it out, cuz I’m kinda dense that way.”
“Inexperienced is more like it.”
“Whatever. Anyway, he’s old and fat and smokes cigars. I have no...”
“I get it. Yet you made a very forward pass at me. I am probably older than he is.”
“Well...”
“I know, I am not fat and I don’t smoke cigars.” He waited a couple seconds and then prompted her: “So you had no interest in him?”
“Not exactly.”
“Okay.” He waited in silence again.
“See,” she said, and then paused for a long time. She glanced over at him, and then continued: “I started thinking about it, a lot. Mom is pretty strict. Jack was there, and available. It freaked me out, but I couldn’t keep my mind off it. I wanted not to be a virgin.”
“What did you do?”
“I had run off, up here to the woods, a few times already. I did some things to make them think I’d done it again, but I went to Springfield instead.”
“And?”
“I hung out, slept on people’s couches, ate out of dumpsters. Eventually, after fending off any number of dirty old men, I hooked up with a boy named Tommy.”
He sat there nodding. He built up the fire. It was the only light they had by then, save the stars and the moon.
“Did you enjoy yourself?”
“Some. I figured...that guys had to learn to do it good, you know? So I been watching. Waiting. You looked...do-able. Why won’t you fuck me? Those thirty-somethings in Springfield woulda.”
“I’m fifty-five. You are underage in this state.” He held up his hand: “I’m not afraid of going to jail. But I don’t want the trouble of dealing with cops on yet another subject.”
She frowned: “What have you been, you said, ‘dealing’ with the cops about?”
“We don’t know each other that well.”
“Oh. Well, why aren’t you afraid of going to jail? Most people are!”
He sat quiet for a while, tending to the fire. He decided on the truth, at least that part of the truth he could tell her: “For reasons that I am not at liberty to explain to you right this minute, there is no jail or prison anywhere in this world that can hold me, if I want to get out. But it would be really stupid to wind up going through all of the rigamarole involved just for a little sex.”
“I promise that it wouldn’t be just a little. And you won’t ever have to deal with the police about me.” She scooted over closer to him, and laid her head on his shoulder.
He thought: ‘Shock Therapy time. Get the adult on, monkey boy.’
He turned towards her, growling. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her, hard enough to make her squeal. He ranted at her, sounding angry and dangerous: “Listen you silly little...” He shook her again, and saw the raw terror on her face: “There’s a certain kind of man in the world who would tear your clothes off, rape you repeatedly, and you can bet he wouldn’t have to deal with the cops about you afterwards, because when the bastard was finished with you he’d strangle you or cut your throat and bury you there in the river under half a ton of rocks! And there’s no good way to spot most of those men, and there’s no way in hell you can be sure I’m not one of them. If you’ve got the sense of a box of feathers, you’ll learn that lesson right now, the easy way, and not have to suffer through it the hard way. So...”
She was weeping and trying to escape his grasp. He let go of her and she fell away from him, crying.
“Fortunately for you, I am not that guy.” He was once again a kind, sage, older man whom a girl could trust. He continued, in a soothing tone: “So...If you want to make a pass at a man, of any age, at any time, go right ahead and do it. But choose your time and place carefully, with the existence of sociopaths in mind, with bugout routes and easy access to a place where a lot of other people are, with pre-arranged safe words and your phone at hand, preset to 911...” he smiled at her, and took her hand, pulling her to a sitting position and embracing her. He let her cry for a while, then pushed her back: “I need to sleep now. I am going to bed. You should, too.”
She smiled weakly, wiping tears away, and nodded: “I’m glad you’re not a...um...”
“Sociopath. Look it up when you get home.”
“Okay.” She paused, then said, tentatively, still frightened: “Can I stay with you tonight? Where’s your tent?”
He shook his head, smiling a little bit wryly: “Where’s yours?”
“I left it down the river a little. It’s too dark to find it now.”
“Uh-huh. I oughta let you sleep out here in the cold, with the skeeters.”
“No, please. I mean...”
He calmed her: “I know. I’m too nice to do that. You can sleep in my tent, but we are not fucking. Nor petting, nor kissing, nor holding hands. We’re not even getting undressed. Got that?”
She made a face: “I got it.”
He took her arm and led her toward the riverbank. He opened the flap of the tent and sent her in. He followed, securing the tabs along the flap, then he moved his pack and sundry other gear to form a barricade along the centerline of the tent.
“Why the hell couldn’t I see this tent?”
He lay down on his bedroll, turning his back to her: “It’s invisible.”
“I can see through it,” she whispered, her voice loaded with fear.
“Only from the inside,” he said, sighing. “Good night.”
“G-good night.”
He woke once in the middle of the night. He heard thunder and saw flashes of lightning to the west, apparently over a ridgeline or two away. He lit up his tiny battery lantern and looked at Gretchen. She sat there, eyes wide.
He said: “Boy, I hope we get some rain with this. It’s way too dry for lightning without some hard rain.”
“Yeah,” she said, mischievous again: “But I’m not a boy.”
“Huh. You don’t say...”
He lay back and listened for a while to the rumbles and bangs. He drifted off to sleep again, worrying about that and anticipating weird dreams from the combination of worry and Trancing.
He slept deeply, far more so than usual. The dreams he suffered were surreal, full of imagery inspired by his new knowledge, connections both logical and absurd being made in his subconscious.
Ambros woke to the light of day shining dimly into the tent. He groaned and shook his head, feeling an odd wetness upon his face. He emerged from a nightmarish scenario involving Nazis, Squids, and Colonel Renault.
He was on his back, a position he almost never slept in; he coughed and his hands executed 'Lady Plays the Lute" from his taichi days.
Gretchen squeaked and pulled away from him, as her head slipped between his arms. He wiped his mouth: 'She was kissing me, in my sleep..." He opened his eyes.
She was unzipping his trousers.
He coughed again, harder: "Gretchen, what?" He pushed her away from his waist, and began fastening his pants: "What did I say? We are not having..." He began to cough again: "Oh, hell, girl, can't you smell that?"
He had an erection: ‘Not an unusual occurrence first thing in the morning, even without...’ It complicated the task at hand. He sat up, dislodging her from his lap.
Gretchen also started hacking; she fell to the floor of the tent, crying and retching. She had stripped naked; her breasts heaved and wobbled with the strength of her coughing.
"Get dressed, quick! The damn forest is on fire! We have to get outta here!" He had slept in his boots; he pulled a crocheted hat out of his pack, put it on as a means to corral his hair, and then began stuffing and ramming his belongings into the pack.
'Don't bother with the clothes, or the bed,' he thought, his expression becoming grimmer by the second. "I said get dressed! Pants, shirt, and boots, at least, and now, and fast!"
He dove out the door of the tent, slapping the pockets of his cargoes to make sure his stuff was all where it belonged. He reached back in and dragged the pack out, shoved the water filter in, and secured the flap.
Smoke filled the valley. He heard shouts and cries from up the hill behind the tent. A man loomed out of the sky above, his parachute luffing as he steered himself down to the shelf where the two of them had camped.
"Hotshots," he said aloud: "Oh, I don't like the implications of that..."
Gretchen stumbled out of the tent, her hair and clothes in disarray, and saw the guy gathering his chute.
"Oh, God," she moaned, knowing full well what bad news that was.
The firefighter shouted, apparently into a radio: “I got dispersed campers here! Father and daughter, maybe...”
Ambros’ hearing had been augmented by Hellenic Medical tech; he heard the reply over the man’s earphone: “Draft ’em! We’ll need every hand!”
The firefighter lifted his face shield and looked at them, eyes narrowed, calculating: "You two, come here!" he commanded, in a Mexican accent. "You gonna have to help us fight the fire, you can't get outta dis valley any other way!"
"Got it," said Ambros, knowing otherwise: "What tools have we got?"
The man pointed upstream: "Pallet should be that way...let's hope it's down on solid ground.”
“Yeah, let's." He grabbed Gretchen's arm above the elbow and said: "This way, Miss Succubus. We got work to do!"
She seemed to get a hold of herself, and soon she followed him without his guidance.
They found the crate where it was intended to be, a little west of the river and on only slightly sloping ground. Mexican Hotshot pried the thing open with a tool from his belt. He tossed gas masks to each of them, saying: "You gonna need those, good thing we always pack spares. Now listen! Fire started in the next dell over, it's climbin' the ridge fast. It'll slow down some when it starts burnin' downhill, but things are so dry, it may still get here before we're ready for it. So work like your lives depend on it, 'cuz they do!"
“What about the road?” asked Gretchen. “Why can’t we go out that way?”
“Fires on both sides of it, and down by the dam, too. That’s why Hotshots in the valley, here.”
More Hotshots showed up, coming from up and down river, and began grabbing tools. Mexican Hotshot seized a chainsaw for himself, and handed Ambros an axe and handsaw: "Anything I drop, you limb it. Miss, you drag or rake all the small stuff down hill, until I tell you to stop. Get everything into the water if you can!
"The river makes a natural fire break, and we are gonna try to make it wider!"
'I understand." Ambros stuck the folding saw into his pocket and rolled his shoulders, hefting the axe.
As each tree dropped, he went at the limbs. Soon he was in a semi-berserker mindset, chopping at the branches without a thought in his mind.
Hours had passed. Ambros was soaked in sweat, caked with mud and soot, and wearing his third gas mask: 'There aren't any more refills, either,' he thought. For an hour they'd cut and hacked and dragged every burnable thing down hill; when they were about a third of the way up the slope, they switched to pushing things up, preparing for a burnout. Gretchen dragged herself up and down the hillside, obviously exhausted.
Suddenly every firefighter on the hillside turned tail and ran down towards the river. Ambros looked up and saw the wall of fire licking at the edges of their makeshift burnout. The whole dry mess of tinder and kindling and logs exploded into flame, and a wave of superheated air hit him and knocked him down. His mask fell off and away. He began to crawl downhill, then stopped. He turned and croaked: “Gretchen!”
He couldn’t breathe; the air scorched his sinuses and ground like glass in his lungs.
She lay at the foot of the fire, her blouse already ablaze. He heard men running up the hill towards them, but ignored that. He tore at his left patch pocket and pulled the Shifter violently loose from it.
He Jumped, dropping in right beside her. He held his breath, dizzy with smoke inhalation and heat, and yanked her to her feet by one forearm. He ripped her burning blouse off her with a single gesture, then pulled her to him. He looked at the Shifter, shouted: “Keenafthono!”
When the red dot appeared he touched it.
Saltation.
He fell to the floor, dizzier than even a trip to the Commonwealth usually made him. He retched and vomited, a thin watery gruel from an empty stomach. Black phlegm filled his throat and he coughed it out, helpless to stop.
He could hear the alarms going off. White-clad Meds surrounded him, pulling him off the landing pad. Gretchen looked around at the War Room, terrified, and screamed once; a Med slapped a red patch on her shoulder and she passed out.
Iatri Alaini looked him over, listened as he tried to explain what happened, his tale interrupted by wracking coughs.
“Report this later, Magistros, to your mentors or the Council,” she said, waving him silent: “We’re transporting you to Combat Med.” She slapped a patch on his arm and he too passed out.
He lay deep in dreams, helpless to awaken.
The head of the Northeast Ohio branch of Posse Comitatus appeared: “Hey hippie, how ya doin’?”
“Get outta here,” he replied.
“You can’t make me,” said Duggins: “It’s a dream.”
“Of course it is. But you‘re dead, asshole. So I needn’t pay you any mind.”
Duggins frowned: “Dead?”
“Yeah, Stanley shotgunned your innards in the back yard at our house just outside Cleveland. Decades ago.”
“I...oh.” Duggins wandered off.
Ambros tried to sit up, but found himself restrained in some way. He coughed, hard and nasty, and some part of his mind knew that the coughing was no dream.
Regulos walked into view. He leaned over Ambros and sneered. He triggered a cascade of thoughts and memories, real and RNA induced.
Ambros finally woke fully, to see Marie and Kim hovering over his bed. He shook his head, coughed experimentally, and found his lungs and airways clear.
“Whoa.” He shook his head again, and felt no dizziness. Kim stepped away from the bedside and called to someone in the hall: “He’s awake!” Luisa came in, smiling.
Other people began filing in: Arrenji, Voukli, Averos at first; then Magistri Anni arrived, followed by Megalos and Danilos.
He tried to speak, and stopped; he coughed a little bit of phlegm out of his throat and swallowed.
“Old home week,” he said, smiling.
“Indeed,” said Voukli: “You’ve been out for a couple days.”
“Smoke,” he said, remembering.
“And fire,” said Luisa. “Your chest was pretty badly burned.”
He put his hand under the sheet, felt smooth skin and the faintest scritch of hair growing back: “Huh.”
His brain started to tick then, and he recalled his adventure: “How’s Gretchen?”
“Is that her name? She’s alive, but unconscious,” said Iatri Alaini: “I thought it would be cruel to let her awaken without your presence.”
“Yeah, she’ll have no idea where she is or how she got here.”
Alaini added: “I wanted to get her completely healed up, too. No need for her to ever know how badly burned she got.”
He nodded.
“So...exactly who is Gretchen? You were supposedly going camping alone...” Kim trailed off, amused not angry.
He shook his head: “Gretchen Morgan, from Leaburg...” He told the tale, smiling wryly.
Marie laughed at him: “Why didn’t you do her? Sounds like it would have been good for her.”
“I told you, she’s underage and I already had a lot on my plate.”
“She looked like she was old enough,” said Voukli.
“She’s about a year and a half short of eighteen,” he replied: “Here in the Commonwealth, she’d be an adult plus some. In US Imperial Seventeen, she’s not. That’s all.“
“You people are flat-out insane on the subject of sex.” Voukli said.
“I am all too aware of that,” Ambros said: “New subject, please.”
Arrenji spoke: “Do you still need to do some Trancing?”
“He does,” said Alaini: “In an hour or so I’ll put him under again, and hit him with a hypnotic to speed things up.” She smiled at Ambros: “If that suits you, I mean.”
“It does.” He sat up slowly, finding himself weak but hale: “I need something to eat, though. And somebody ought to drop in to my campsite and clean up any tech that survived the fire...”
“That’s done,” said Arrenji: “Averos and I checked as soon as it was safe to Saltate there.”
“Excellent!” He looked around: “So, anybody have any food? I’m hungry.”
A windowless room, softly lit in amber and green light:
Ambros sat down in the chair by Gretchen’s bed. She was on her left side, facing towards him, curled in a fetal position and with her hands over her face. She breathed but otherwise did not move.
He groomed his mustache with his right thumb and stroked his beard. He stared at the wall at the foot of her bed, musing.
He had dressed in the full panoply of his Rank, Master in the Sacred Band: Black leather boots; trousers of black silk; a red linen tunic, barely faded; belts of black and white leather. He wore his brand new real gold Knight’s chain. His hair he’d pulled into a topknot, but he’d not braided it at all.
‘I guess I’m not feeling too rebellious today. That’ll pass...’
Gretchen rolled onto her back and stretched out, yawning. He didn’t move, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.
She sat up, suddenly. The sheets fell away, revealing her breasts: high, round, soft, smooth.
He kept his eyes on the wall, letting her take stock of the situation. She blushed but didn’t cover up.
“Um...Hi,” she said.
He looked her in the eyes: “Welcome back to the world.”
She frowned, then pulled the sheet up over her bosom: “Where are we? A hospital? Is this Sacred Heart? I know it’s not Mackenzie.”
“It is a hospital. Not one of those.”
“Oh.”
“You were burned pretty bad. I took you to a place where I knew they could fix that.”
“I remember now!” She ran her hands over her face, then over her breasts and belly: “No scars...but the fire! I was burning up.” She looked at him, appalled: “There should be scars!”
“There ought to be, it’s true. I brought you here so there wouldn’t be.”
“Where are we?”
He paused: “It might be better if I don’t tell you too much. That would preserve your freedom to act.”
“I don’t understand...”
“I know,” he said.
“Complications again?”
He grinned: “Infinite complications. Do you want to go home?”
“Kinda?”
“You must decide.”
“Okay, yes.”
“Good choice. I’ll start the arrangements.” He touched the MPS and sent a signal: “We’ll get you dressed and made up to look as if you’d been in the fire zone all along. We’ll drop you just uphill from French Pete. There’s a fire crew camped there; just walk downhill and you’ll be a news story about miraculous survival.”
She frowned, then smiled. Ambros thought: ‘She has a lovely smile.’
She said: “I guess I can just act confused and amnesiac. Traumatized, right?”
“We can make the amnesia real, if you like.”
She stared at him: “I’d rather not forget you, or the things you said. I should look up ‘sociopath’...”
“You could also look up ‘succubus’ and...” He gauged her reactions: “...Emancipated Minor.”
She narrowed her eyes and then widened them. He stood up.
She bit her lower lip, looking suddenly very young; then she threw the sheets aside and reclined, staring at the ceiling.
She folded her arms above her head and opened her legs, a little. She let a couple tears fall, then closed her eyes.
He gazed for a while, admiring, then said: “Some Laborers will be here in a couple minutes, with clothes and such.” He soothed her: “I’ll stop by the Leaburg Market, say, Thursday afternoon. If you want to talk some more.”
She sobbed, covering her face.
He departed without looking back.
