|
|
|
|
Ayma and Haiden sat across the cook fire from their—captive was not the right word, though he had been taken against his will, just as Ayma had. All three gazed into the dancing yellow flames as if seeking plaintively for some resolution to anneal their respective situations. Asp, now two days released from his geas, had not experienced the degree of confusion that both Haiden and Ayma had, though a sleight swelling around Haiden’s left eye bespoke the climax of one such difficulty. An engineer, Asp relinquished his anger and hostility enough to begin analyzing his current predicament with an almost dispassionate logic. Earlier today he had begun asking pointed questions as he sought to identify the nature of this new freedom. To Haiden it seemed that Asp was probing the inner walls of confinement in an attempt to articulate the strictures they imposed. After these questions Asp would sit and brood, digesting the information in silence. He had agreed to stay with Haiden until he understood the situation more fully before lapsing into his disquieting taciturnity, but it was clear he was distrustful of both his captors. All three now encircled the cook fire and ate their food as if it were dust, empty of taste or pleasure, while inside they chewed the more fundamental gristle of their thoughts.
Asp tossed the last of his viands into the fire before standing up to stretch. His limbs and torso were thick with muscle; clearly he was at home dealing with heavy machinery, and his body seemed to have responded to the rigors of labor-intensive work over the centuries. Corded muscled bulged underneath his formsuit as he rotated his shoulders and neck as if limbering up for a physical exertion. Asp’s eyes, however, were fixed downwards, seemingly reluctant to acknowledge his surroundings, his situation. During these communal meals, Asp’s silence seemed almost to seep into his companions until it had stained each of them to the bone, soaked them in an immedicable seclusion. For this reason it was a surprise to both Ayma and Haiden when Asp revealed his plan for escape.
“Way I see it, we don’t have a choice. Got to stick together, go forward; there’s no way back.” He face twitched briefly into a grimace as he looked at the floor as if trying to find the path of his words written there. “Question is, what do we do?” Haiden swallowed his last bite before attempting to answer. His mouth as dry as a desert, it took him two tries to make his voice work.
“Is it really ‘we’ now?”
Asp ignored the question, did not lift his eyes to meet Haiden’s gaze. “We’re safe here; our schedule won’t bring us into this part of the new city for several more months. I think I can actually extend that.” Asp leaned forward as if examining the machinations of his words. “If I don’t go missing, I can buy us another few months. Perhaps more.”
“Go on,” Ayma prompted, hands clutching her food unmoving in front of her as if it were the only piece of substantiality within her grasp.
“Here’s what I propose. We’re stuck here for the time being; it’s not safe for either of you further in the city, and we’re a long way from the other cities to travel by foot. Now, if I keep working I can help get us a lot of supplies and equipment through simple work-site requisitions. Crew accountability is my domain, and—well, frankly, the system wasn’t designed to be used by an android that could lie. If I say food and machinery are needed somewhere, nobody asks why as long as I fill out the cycle report.”
“Wait,” Ayma interrupted, “won’t the workers who are supposed to have the supplies figure out that something is wrong and report it?”
Asp nodded at her foresight. “Well you’re right, but—I think I might have a way to circumvent that.” Pacing now beside the undulating flames of the fire, Asp placed his plan into the huddled room as if it were a treasured recitation of poetry or work of music. With an almost palpable pride he illustrated how he had developed a rotating worksite location schedule to be shared by seventeen teams. There were a total of seventy-six worksites; each team would work one location alone, have a week with another team on the same site, and then move on to a new location. Staggering the workers ostensibly served the purpose of fostering teamwork, facilitating task-handover, and promoting a variegation of duty. More exactly, however, with the teams working in pairs for a week and then alone on other sites for a week, it would be virtually impossible for them to compare notes, especially as Asp was able to ensure that prior-paired teams would not meet again for several months. Requisitioned supplies would be pre-ordered, but no one team would ever be present for both the initial inventory and the final inventory, completed on a bi-weekly basis. As all reports were handled through Asp, he would be able to move supplies and alter official records without his teams being aware of it.
“No.”
Asp and Ayma both looked in surprise at Haiden.
“Now, just a moment here,” Asp complained, but Haiden shook his head and cut off the engineer.
“No. We’re not staying here. We need to find a way to leave the city as soon as possible. There has to be a way out of here.”
“You seem as eager to solve our problems as you are to create them, Max Haiden,” Asp hissed defensively.
“Haiden, maybe he’s right,”Ayma voiced softly. She shifted her weight uneasily, trying to catch his gaze.
“No!” Haiden’s fists were clenched at his sides. “We need to get away from any others. I can’t take the risk that we’re discovered. Don’t you see? If we’re found, either I’ll do to them what I’ve done to you or we’ll be killed. I know,” he shifted his eyes—pupils wide with adrenaline—towards Asp, “that I’m the one responsible for all of this! I don’t need to be reminded, my friend.”
“I know this place,” Asp began.
“Then find us a way out!” Haiden yelled. Visibly taking control of himself, he continued in a lower voice.
“Here’s what we’re going to do. You continue work like you planned, but I want you to get us some kind of vehicle. We can’t be seen on the rails; the military know that’s how I got out of Mission. I’ve killed,” he looked at his fists with a pained expression on his face. “They won’t stop looking. We need to get far away from here. Figure it out.” He dropped his hands to his sides.
Both Ayma and Asp were silent, waiting for him to speak. Where she looked concerned, however, Asp looked almost angry.
“Asp,” Haiden continued with more confidence in his voice than he felt, “I’ll give you one month. We’ll gather supplies and equipment, but our primary goal is leaving. We’ve got to stay low, stay away from the cities, until I figure this out.”
Until I have control.
The thought was almost not his own; he was changing from the person he was. Haiden looked at his companions as if expecting further argument, but none were forthcoming. Turning away, he walked off along one of the main corridors so that he could be out in the night, alone. Nobody followed him.
Copyright © 2004-2005 Jay and David Steele. All rights reserved.
Recent Comments