Earth Thirst (36 page)

The other Arcadian has nowhere to hide and so he charges me. I pull the trigger on the MP7 and nothing happens. The magazine is empty. I forgot to check how full it was before I started climbing. He's on me before I can eject the magazine and put in another. He shoves my gun aside with one hand, grabbing me with the other. As if we were going to grapple, Greco-Roman style.

With very little effort, I throw him. He bounces once, slides a meter or so, and then discovers he's out of roof. He has a surprised—and somewhat hurt—look in his eyes as he scrabbles at the edge of the roof, as if I have somehow cheated. And then he is gone.

I've just been wrestling longer than he has. Quite a bit longer.

The third guy is still hiding in the stairwell, and there's no easy way to approach him without giving him a clear shot, and so I dig in my pocket for my last grenade. Pull the pin, toss it over like I'm throwing a bean bag at a lawn party, and shake my head at the foolishness of hiding in a hole.

I drop the empty magazine from my MP7, and slap another one in.

The grenade goes off, and I'm sure the noise and flame are signal to the helicopter crew that something is amiss on the rooftop. There's no sign of Phoebe and the Arcadian who went up with her—they must be on board already—and the cable is still hanging down beneath the helicopter. On its way for the other two, who are no longer in need of it. For a second, we're caught in that moment of transition: Brains processing signals. Decisions being made.

I leap for the statue, scrabbling like a monkey up its bronze chest. I hoist myself up onto its outstretched arm, and as the sound of the helicopter's engine changes and its nose starts to dip, I leap off the statue. The helicopter pulls away from the tower, but it takes a second for that change to travel all the way down the cable. The clasp at the end of the line hangs in the air over Pachacutec. I stretch out my arm, not unlike the statue beneath me, my fingers straining for the clasp.

As I wrap my hand around the metal loop, it is yanked forward, pulling hard against my fingers. My arm follows, my shoulder complaining from the sudden tug. I fumble with the strap of my rifle, trying to get the weapon under control as I sail through the air beneath the helicopter. It's only going to be a few seconds before someone notices me, dangling down below. We streak across the promenade, roaring over the traffic jam, and I hear the distant noise of gunfire below. Something bites my right leg, down on the calf, and blood begins to flow.

Twisting on the end of the cable, I point the rifle up at the helicopter fantail and try to wreck the assembly with several bursts from the MP7. The cable bounces, dropping me a meter or so, and I shift my aim toward the main portion of the helicopter. Several more bursts from the gun and I'm out of ammo again, but at least the cable has stopped dropping. For the moment.

I hit the button that drops out the empty magazine and try to figure how I'm going to get the last magazine out of my back right pocket and into the gun without letting go of the cable, and I decide that isn't going to happen.

The helicopter turns to the north, climbing to a height that will allow it to clear the hills that ring Cusco. Discarding the empty gun, I start climbing the cable. It's slick, meant to be wound quickly and efficiently around a drum, but I've climbed worse. It's precarious work, but there's also no reason to dwell on what I'm doing. Hand over hand, as quickly as I can.

As I get close to the helicopter's landing struts, the cable starts unspooling again. It starts slow, but picks up speed. In another second or two, it'll be unspooling faster than I can climb. My muscles aching, I move faster, my hands burning as they grip and release the cable. My first attempt at grabbing the long strut misses, my bloody hand slipping from the rounded strut. Another meter of cable plays out and I have to make up lost ground before I can try again. I climb higher, and on my second try, I get my arm wrapped around the strut. I disengage myself from the cable and get my other arm around the landing gear too.

Still not out of the woods yet.

I get my legs around the strut, and hanging upside down, I wrestle with the pistol still in my pocket. One of the spare magazines goes tumbling away as I pull the gun out. A masked face peers out of the helicopter to check on the cable, and I pull the trigger twice. The face disappears, replaced by a foot jutting out from the cabin of the helicopter. The foot doesn't move, suggesting that I hit my target. As long as it stays there, I have a chance.

I put the gun in my mouth, biting down on the back of the slide. I need both hands to pull myself onto the strut. I swing up as the helicopter pitches to the right, and I clutch at the strut, fighting to stay on. When it pitches in the other direction—a clumsy attempt to shake me off—I use that change in aspect to my advantage. Both hands on the bar, shoving my butt up, and arcing my back. I pitch forward, sliding across the strut, and I push off, throwing my hands up now, reaching for the second strut—the one that runs along the underside of the helicopter's cabin.

I haul myself up, getting one arm on the inside of the helicopter cabin. The rest is easy, even with the back and forth motion of the helicopter. I get my knees up and, caught in an awkward leaning forward position, I freeze.

Sitting in one of the seats, as calmly as if this ride is nothing more than a tourist trip around the Sacred Valley, is Alberto Montoya.

But I killed him.

He's holding a bulky gun that has two holes in the front of its barrel. It's a Taser, and he smiles briefly at my confusion as he fires both darts.

The current lights up my nervous system, and I collapse on the floor of the cabin. Phoebe is lying nearby, the sack still over her head. She's oblivious to what's going on, and a second later, I am too.

BOOK SIX

PHAËTON

FORTY-ONE

“T
hey're pretty, aren't they?” Alberto's voice penetrates my stupor.

A Taser is just as effective against an Arcadian as it is a human, but since it isn't deadly, it gets overlooked. Though, as a temporary restraining measure, nothing works quite like a massive jolt of electrical current through a nervous system. My vision is still fucked up—I'm only seeing shades of gray with the barest hint of any color at all—and my legs continue to twitch beyond my control. But I can hear again, and I have control of my motion functions. Unfortunately, while I was insensate, Alberto bound my hands behind my back.

He's talking about something outside the helicopter. We've left Cusco behind, and spread out below us is a panorama of brown hills with scattered stands of trees and rocks. Incan ruins, presumably, judging from the regularity of some of the rock formations. What Alberto is wanting me to see is a cascade of white rectangles on a hillside, like a frozen waterfall. The rectangles are reflecting the sunlight, which only washes out my field of vision more when I look at them.

“Salt farms,” he shouts at me, making himself heard over the noise of the helicopter's rotors. “They've been tending them for generations.” He leans toward the cockpit of the helicopter, shouting instructions to the pilot, who nods and brings the helicopter down.

I'm trying to find scars or patches of new skin on him—any indicator that he's been healed—but he looks just like he did the first time I saw him at the penthouse. It's as if the parking lot beheading never happened.

Alberto grabs me and drags me toward the open door, giving me an opportunity to look more closely at the salt farms. Each plot is a rectangular area that is allowed to fill with water. The layout of the farms suggests that the whole network is a trickle-down system. A stream at the top of the hill supplies the fresh water which spills down and fills each basin. Through a network of gates and channels, the farmers direct the water. Once a basin is filled, the water is directed elsewhere so that the trapped water can evaporate, leaving behind harvestable salt.

I have a bad feeling about what's supposed to happen next.

“You hurt my family,” he shouts at me, spittle flecking my face. He hauls me even closer to the edge. “I want to torture you for a very long time—for as many years as it has been since you killed her—but there is no time for that. Instead, your death will simply be very painful.”

As the helicopter crosses over the lower terminus of the salt farms, he tries to shove me out of the helicopter. I don't go like he expects.

He didn't bind my legs, and I've got one foot hooked around the hoist assembly for the cable winch. He turns to pull my leg free, and in doing so, steps between my spread legs. I whip my legs together, catching him across the thighs. As I twist to my left, he falls against the seat behind him, his lower back slamming against the edge of the seat. He roars in anger, trying to extricate himself from my scissored legs, and as he lunges, hands reaching for my face, I pull my legs up and in.

The helicopter wiggles, the pilot compensating for the sudden shift of weight in the back, and all that combined momentum is enough to slide me over the edge. Gravity helps, and as Alberto gets his hands on my face, we both tumble out of the helicopter.

We bounce off the helicopter strut—rather, it's my shoulder that does most of the hard work—and we kick free of each other as soon as we can. The helicopter was fairly low as it came over the salt fields—the cliffs on Rapa Nui were higher—and it's not the fall that worries me, it's the landing.

It's impossible to gauge the depth of any of the basins, and so I try to position my body in a way to minimize the trauma of impact. In case that makes a difference.

I hit water—very briny water—and it's like being squeezed in a vise. Salt is dangerous; it dehydrates tissue and, over time, it can be fatal. Salt water—like the ocean—is a slower death. You don't dehydrate right away, but your tissue soaks up the water, absorbing the salt which becomes a poisonous residue that breaks you down cell by cell. It's a slow, painful death. The concentration of salt in this water is much, much higher, which means death is going to come quicker, but it's going to be extraordinarily painful.

Alberto is right about that part.

My skin reacts instantly, shriveling and cracking. I'm becoming both a prune and a desiccated seed pod. The only good news is that the water is denser than regular water, which means I sink less. I still hit the bottom of the basin, but the impact is a distant source of pain compared to the burning pressure of my body collapsing in on itself.

I float, letting my buoyancy aid me as I curl into a ball, slipping my hands under my butt. The next part is a little harder when I don't have something to brace myself against, but I manage to get my hands past my feet. I kick off from the bottom of the basin and shoot to the surface, breaching noisily. The sun beats down on the salt farms, making the air turgid and warm. I feel like I've jumped out of an acid bath into an incinerator. I bob toward the edge of the basin, trying not to breathe. Trying not to scream. Bobbing seems to take an eternity, a cork bouncing up and down on a lake of fire. Will I burn up before I reach the shore?

The only good news is that the plastic ties slip off my wrists with ease by the time I reach the edge of the basin, with only a little bit of my skin as well. There is no blood. There's just bubbling lines of white foam.

How did Phoebe survive
swimming
back from the
Cetacean Liberty
? As soon as I ask myself the question, I realize the answer. It lies in the enigma of her shrugs. Why
wouldn't
she have survived?

I've never been in this much pain—never has so much of my body hurt—but I'm still conscious. I'm still
me
. There are ways to kill us, but for the most part, we are immortal. Mother takes care of us. That's our secret, and our flaw. We think we need Mother, and so when we are confronted with pain—real, life-threatening pain—we run back to Mother. And when we can't get back to Mother, well, then we die. Like any other creature on this planet.

And that's our flaw. That's what Escobar has figured out. That's what Phoebe knows. We think we need Mother. We think that she can fix anything. She's our God, our deity that takes care of us, feeds us, and protects us. She is our faith, and as long as she is there, we think we can do anything. But what happens when she is gone? When there is no one to rescue us? Is that when we give up, when we default to the primal fear that lives inside all living creatures? We are alone, and the world does not care about us. We are insignificant, motes of dust in an infinite sky.

Phoebe sees the world differently. She needs nothing. She needs nobody. She
is
. Zen purity.

I clench my fist, noticing that the foaming spot has stopped bubbling. I don't need Mother's permission to die. Nor do I need her permission to keep on living. Those choices remain with me.

My philosophical breakthrough is interrupted by Alberto, who leaps over the wall from an upslope basin. He looks like a preternatural nonagenarian with sharp teeth and nails. Way too spry for his appearance. All I can do is brace myself.

He slams into me, a snarling bag of bones, and my feet slip on the crystallized bank of the salt basin. One of his hands rakes my face, tearing my skin, and the other claws at my clothing, trying to get my neck exposed. I get my hand under his chin and force his head back, exposing his neck too.

It's primal combat, animals vying for dominance. Equally matched, the fight will be decided by which of us has the stronger will. Who can take more pain, more physical punishment? Who will be more relentless? Alberto is clean and strong. He fights with that confidence—that knowledge that he is the better physical specimen. Even though I'm invigorated by the blood from the Arcadian I killed in the plaza, I'm still weak, traumatized by the salt and sun.

Be quick about it, then.

I've got his head back, and instead of trying to bite him, I grab his throat with my left hand instead. His skin is fragile, like mine, and tearing it is like ripping a snake's discarded skin. He doesn't bleed; he foams—both from his mouth and from the ragged gash in his throat. And while he's still recovering from the attack, I punch him in the side of the head, putting as much strength as I can in the blow. Bones in my hand shift unnaturally.