Essentially Human (21 page)

“I don’t have anything to feed you. I don’t believe in feeding the wildlife.”

The bird hopped onto another branch, casting a glance at her and tilting its head. She’d missed birds when traveling with Sam. He’s explained that thousands of species had disappeared in the last few decades. It was only in the places far from human industry that some birds still thrived. She’d seen none in the southwest, but in the northwest, the feathered folk did better.

The large bird opened its beak again and this time it loudly croaked at her.

“Nevermore, eh?” She chuckled, then shook her head. When had she last laughed? Oh, with Sam. At Smiley’s. A sudden ache rose from her belly and she put a hand at her heart. It wasn’t possible to actually suffer a broken heart, she reminded herself.

The raven let loose with a series of caws that sounded like laughter. She opened her mouth, uncertain what she was going to do…

“Ma’am, your room is ready and the cook has fixed you a pack lunch to take hiking.”

The emotional rise dropped away into stillness as she turned to address the attendant. She handed her pack to him, he’d see it to her room, and took the sack lunch. She planned on reaching the water and taking the launch out to Wizard Island, returning before dark.

The next morning, Ria took another hike to a viewing area that gave her a vista of the cascades to the north. When she turned back to look at the lake, a sudden realization hit her that the lake color was similar to Sam’s eyes. She pulled her music player out and filled her head with the crash of the most cacophonous rock music she could find.

On the shuttle to Mr. Lassen, she kept the music playing. With no driver, there was no need to speak. But her mind wouldn’t let go of the color of Sam’s eyes, she drifted into a nap and woke with a start, heart pounding, hands clenched, face screwed tight. It was too much, she wanted it to go away.

Why did she ever think she wanted to feel emotions again? This was torture. She leaned against the glass, head pounding and switched off the music. It wasn’t helping anymore. This was the last stop on her tour of the country. She planned on taking a train back to the east coast, but what if she couldn’t stop this ache?

Sam glared at T’talin. “I need to see her.”

The alien tilted his head. “Agent Montgomery, are you angry at Ria?”

“What? No! Why would I be angry at her?” Sam closed his eyes. “No, she has the right to be angry at me. Where is she? Please.”

In the end, it wasn’t the Aleena that tried to keep him on the east coast, it was the new president. Finally, Sam convinced the man of his lack of value. “I’ve been unconscious for six weeks. I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know from Dr. Drummond, or his son, Jermaine , even Professor Bales…they’ve all been here for the transition. I have business elsewhere.”

He won. T’talin showed him how to trace Ria, via her music player. When he handed the incredibly expensive ticket to the security at the airport, she was in Oregon. When he left that plane in Portland, she had turned south. He studied the computer tablet displaying the information regarding her journey, he deduced where she was likely heading and rented a car. The Aleena insisted on providing financial assistance for this trip. And their access to funds was limitless.

Finally, he stood at the foot of a looming mountain, looking down at the GPS signal. Yes, she was up there, ahead of him. He downloaded the trail guide and began the climb. Though the Aleena released him from their infirmary with a clean bill of health, his body had lain still for too long. He could feel the tendrices tucking themselves tight against his skull. Undoubtedly they found the dry air challenging.

He understood what they were now and how they functioned. Milaar explained that they hadn’t kept the knowledge from Ria with deliberation.

“There seemed no reason to explain to her. Her first few years, we deduced her emotionally unstable and sought to reduce the stress of her situation. Later…” The Aleena physician tried to shrug, which Sam found fascinating. They were adopting human customs so quickly. “I admit, we didn’t see the need. Initially, they were not meant to be permanent. The fractures of her skull necessitated their implantation, but they melded with her brain in an unforeseen way.”

“She used them without knowing what they did?” Sam guessed. By then, he knew of the three used to keep him alive.

“Intuitively. They took over keeping her chemically stable from emotional outbursts. They are part of her, but exist in almost a parasitical fashion. Save they will not harm their hosts. And they adapt.” Milaar had smiled slightly.

“As you adapt. I get it.”

“They will change to meet your demands and assist you, agent. And we who donated will grow new ones.”

Sam didn’t want to know what she was missing to keep him alive. The poison Hammer had injected continued to build up in his system, without the filtering ability of the tendrices, he’d die.

As the oxygen demand grew with his hike, his scalp began to itch. His hair was once again past his shoulders. Between the water and food aboard the ship plus the new implants, he’d have it down to his thighs in no time. But Milaar had assured him that he could cut it easily.

“They will retreat when faced with damage. I would recommend you maintain a length just past your shoulders, for maximum health.” Milaar appeared to find his grimace amusing and chuckled at him.

A surge of energy ran through him and he finished the last section of switchbacks feeling invigorated, assuming the additions at his head had somehow gauged what he needed and provided it. Again, he checked the GPS reading. It was extremely precise. He paused to survey the vista and whistled. It was impressive. And extremely isolated. His car was the only one in the lot. An automated voice at the entrance to the park had recommended he leave his vehicle and use the shuttle system, but he flashed his newly issued badge and was waved through.

He’d seen very few visitors as he drove the park road. The few shuttles that passed were not full. As he considered these things, a growing sense of foreboding filled him. Why such a lonely place? He glanced upward. So dry, so…high.

“Shit.” He increased his pace.

*****

Ria sat on a rock at the edge of a steep drop off and drank her water. The view of Mt. Shasta’s snow covered peak was obscured, as it normally was. Even with global warming, that solitary mountain made its own clouds.

She’d found some respite when she’d hiked down to Bumpass Hell the day before. Watching the boiling sulfur pots had been oddly calming. Now she stood on the peak of Mt. Lassen and considered her future.

“I’m one hundred and twelve years old.”

Stating the bald facts didn’t make them real. But they were the truth. If one calculated from the date she was born, one hundred and twelve years had passed. She had earned the right to be tired.

When she jumped from that cruise ship, she’d thought there was nothing to live for. No reason to continue throwing her efforts into lost causes, nothing to look forward to. Jarveski had uncovered the extent of her resentment regarding Phillip’s deception and the deep fear she held after the magic of writing deserted her. The weight of her sadness overwhelmed the desire to live.

The rational couldn’t be denied. Not then. And not now.

She glanced downward.

Almost absentmindedly, she touched her music player and let it randomly make selections. A sweet cello solo swept through her and she decided she wanted to hear it to the finish. Sliding from the rock she began to walk around the exterior of the crater. Rugged landscape, harsh and unforgiving, met her every glance, contrasting to the mellow richness of the music.

It reached climax and she sighed. The next selection began and the peace she’d found shattered. The simple piano began and the words floated out. “…once human…” and she screamed, falling to her knees. Somehow she thought she’d removed that song. Yanking the player from her pocket she threw it with all her strength. It hung in the air then began to fall, as the music continued to weave through her head. It fell, but the music didn’t stop.

The Aleena built things to last. With a sob, she tried to dig the ear filters out of her head, but they were in too deep and she’d had them too long. Tears blinded her eyes and she stumbled off the path, into the jagged boulders that filled the crater. She had to find it. She had to stop it from playing.

The words danced in her head. “…nothing left…”

“…cruel wanting…”

Her foot slipped and with a sense of surrender, she let herself fall…

*****

Sam heard her scream and sprinted the last hundred feet to the summit. He scanned the rim, looking for her. A discarded pack caught his eye and he dashed to it.

No. Please, god, no.

The steep drop off caused his head to spin. If she’d taken that leap, she was gone. Kneeling at the edge, he peered down, looking for some sign. “Ria!” He called out, his heart breaking. He’d let her down, he’d failed so utterly. And she’d never know his regret, his grief at hurting the woman he loved…

The GPS! He pulled it out and studied it. Not here, she wasn’t here…she was over there? He stood up and searched the rim trail for a sign.

“Ria?” There was no sign. A sudden cold wind whipped his hair about and into his face. He brushed it away and began to follow the signal. He found her music player twenty minutes later. It lay in a tangle of rocks, scratched but still intact. And still on.

He fiddled with his palm device and the music she’d been listening to played across the screen. “Lost Paradise.” Oh, shit.

But that was a dozen songs ago. Where was she?

He tuned into the player and heard another group she was fond on. “Something to Live For.” 

Let it be a sign.

“Ria! Ria! It’s Sam! Ria, please! Where are you? Honey, answer me! Ria, don’t leave me, please! Ria!” He called out as he scrambled around the chaos of stone and shattered glass, old lava and pumice cut his hands while the light grew fainter. He glanced overhead. It was going to rain. What a hellish place to be stuck in a storm…

“Sam…?”

Did he hear something?

*****

She hurt. Oh, God. She just hurt. She groaned and tried to push herself up, but the angle at which she’d fallen made it impossible. She’d wedged herself into a narrow passage where two great boulders met. Ten minutes of sweating and cursing saw her sitting up, leaning against the smaller of the two and gazing at her right thigh, a terribly gash staining the grit beneath her with blood.

Not the clean way she’d envisioned she’d go.

Her music player kept throwing songs at her, lost somewhere in the stone maze.

Why had she fought? Didn’t she want to die?

“…halfway back…”

Was she halfway back? A turning point? The urge to laugh filled her. Damn, she’d given up too quickly. Such irony.

She leaned her head back and looked up at the sky, growing darker by the minute. “Oh, Sam. I wish I could have seen you one more time.”

The last time she’d seen him, looking directly into her eyes, he’d been fighting through the pain of Hammer’s poison.

She thought she’d understood his apology. Sorry that she’d misunderstood. He thought he was dying, and he tried to make her feel better. A good man. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t forget what she was. Unhuman.

“If only I had a chance to tell you, Sam. I…” She heard a shout through the music and listened closely. She was hallucinating. The blood loss must be weakening her faster than she thought.

A song about paintings on a sidewalk drew her attention. Lyrics taunted her with what lay ahead, and wanting to know.

Damn it. She wanted that. Grimacing, she pulled her a small knife from her left pants pocket and sliced her pants free from the wound. She pressed her hand into the blood, attempting to staunch the flow. If she concentrated, she might be able to trigger some aspect of the Aleena buried inside and save herself from bleeding to death. Maybe.

“Ria!”

“Sam?” She shouted into the void. Was he really here?

The music stopped and she heard him call out again.

A cascade of rocks to the side of her signaled someone was close. “Help!”

A moment later, his familiar face appeared and he dropped down into the opening. “God, Ria. What happened?”

“I fell…” She gazed into his eyes and smiled. “I didn’t jump. I fell.” It was important that she tell him. “I was going to jump, but I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

He smiled crookedly. “I’m relieved to hear you say it.”

“I wanted to die, so tired. But then I fell and I knew I wanted to see you again.”

He smiled crookedly at her, then glanced at her leg. “Oh, that is nasty.” He tilted his head to examine her leg, then pulled his pack to the front, tugged out a shirt and set it at the gash. “I don’t think it’s too bad. Ugly, but not too deep. Honey, you can move your hand.”

“I was trying to stop it. Sam, you’re really here?”

“The moment I woke, I asked for you.”

She stared at his face, blinking. “You are angry at the tendrices. I knew…”

He shook his head. “I’m not angry. I understand that I need them and without them I’d be dead.” He set her hand on the cloth and raised his bloody hand up to brush at strands of her hair, lifting in the nippy air. “Just like you needed yours.”

She fought the urge to jerk away from his hand, trying to understand. “But…I made you sick! You were so repulsed you threw up!”

“No, it wasn’t like that.” He drew a deep breath and glanced up at the darkening sky. “We need to find some shelter. Or call for evacuation.”

“They won’t send a helicopter up here during a storm.” Closing her eyes, she leaned into his palm. He brushed at her lips with his thumb, then she felt his gentle kiss, before he pulled away.

“I saw an area with a natural cave, a tumble of boulders that should give us some shelter.” He examined how badly she was wedged and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m gonna lift you straight up. Hold tight while I maneuver your other leg free.”

The mission wasn’t without some pain. She bit her lip and clutched at him. Finally, she was free. He grimaced at the state of her other ankle. “These rocks sliced right through your shoe.”

“Obsidian is like glass,” she whispered.

“I don’t want to remove that shoe until we get to shelter. Ready?”

“My pack has the park tracker. They’ll know I’m still up here and are probably trying to contact me.”

“I didn’t grab one, you’re more practical.”

“I guess I wanted them to find my body…” Hanging her head, she cuddled into his arms. The welling inside of her, of grief and horror, swept upward and the sudden sob that escaped surprised her. Sam just pulled her closer as he dodged rocks and debris. He knelt and slid her into an opening between three huge boulders just as a crack of lightning lit the scene. The thunder followed swiftly. He stood and she gripped at his leg. “Don’t! There’s lightning and my pack is on the rim! It isn’t safe!”

“Yeah.” He knelt and took her foot in his hand. “Does this hurt?”

“No.”

He gingerly moved her ankle, watching her face. She didn’t flinch, just studied his expression, searching for anger, some sign of disgust as he touched her. The lines she’d noted before were fewer and the bruises were gone. Carefully, he loosened the elastic ties and slid the shoe off, the slice through the sole obvious as he set it down. His smile made her smile back, even as tears ran down her face.