Evolution (27 page)

Apollon and I lean in, hoping.

"In the chair," Jack says.  "The nuts
are in the chair."

"The nut is in the chair," Apollon murmurs. 
I jab him with my elbow and he grunts in pain.

Jonas is just shaking his head, refusing to give up. 
"Not where you put them," he insists softly.  "Where do you
get the nuts?"

"In the chair," Jack says.

"Where you
get
them," Jonas repeats.

"In the chair," Jack says.  Here we go again.

But Jonas stands up, regarding Jack.  He lets out a
long sigh, eyeing the man.  Then he says, "OK, Jack.  In the
chair.  Can you show us?"

Jack stands up and shoves the chair out of the way. 
Beneath it, a hole in the floor is filled with nothing but darkness.

I'm several feet in, right behind Jack, when panic closes in
on me.  The earth is pressing on all sides.  I'm like a worm,
wiggling my way through this darkness.  Jack is in front.  Apollon
and Jonas are behind.  I'm trapped between them.  Stuck. 
Memories of the box close in.  Clawing.  Screaming.  Endless
darkness without relief.  I'm screeching and kicking at the dirt around
me, a mess of adrenaline and primal instinct.

Apollon's fingers clamp down on my ankle.  "Stop,
Eden," he yells.  "You're OK.  Just go."

I rake in breaths, trying to shut it down.  My fingers
claw the frozen mud, hauling myself forward.  Behind me, I hear Apollon
spitting out mouthfuls of dirt that I probably kicked into his face.  Even
further back I hear Jonas' muffled voice, but I have no idea what the words
are—only that he sounds concerned.

"Sorry," I shout back, forcing my mind to focus on
the task at hand.  "Temporary freak-out."  I'm embarrassed
now.  My face feels hot.  But that's great.  It's human.  I
hold on to the mortification and use it to help keep my head out of this
grave.  Still, it feels like hours that we are crawling through the
freezing black worm hole.  When we emerge into open air on the other side,
only a few feet past the barrier, I feel my body shaking, shock moving like
chemical hell through my veins.

Apollon wraps an arm around my shoulder, rubbing my upper
arm.  I'm hunched, hugging myself, teeth chattering.  I don't think
it's really this cold out.  We stand in the darkness—we waited for the
cover of night to do this—and watch Jonas emerge from the hole.  He pulls
himself out using his forearms, then reaches down and grabs hold of the rope
that our packs are strung on.  Apollon leaves me and goes to help pull
them the rest of the way through.

They untie the packs from the rope and shrug theirs
on.  Apollon looks like he's going to try to carry mine, too, but I free
it from his grip.

"I'm good," I mutter in reply to his questioning
look.  He doesn't argue.

"Alright, Jack," Jonas says softly, "let's
get you some nuts, and then we'll be on our way."

We follow Jack off into the trees where he leads us to a
large oak.  We scramble around in the dark and find as many acorns as we
can—though I’m not sure they’re good for anything other than counting.  If
it weren’t for the small loaf of bread that Jack shared with us, I might
consider trying to eat them anyway.

The weather has not been so bad here, and there are only
small patches of snow obscuring the ground in places, rather than the endless
cover of white.  It's still beyond cold, and there's a sharp breeze
whistling through the night, but we're out.  That's all I can think. 
We're out.  We made it.

Jack has a cloth bag, and we fill the whole thing with
useless nuts.  Then Jonas gives him another copper and a pat on the
back.  "Thanks, Jack.  We owe you one for this.  Good luck
with your nuts."

I narrow my eyes at Apollon and he doesn't make a
comment.  Just smiles.  "Thanks, Jack," he echoes.

I nod at our crazy helper.  "Really, Jack. 
Thanks."  I give him a smile, and we turn and head off through the
woods.

Footsteps follow after us.

We all stop at the same time, but none of us turn.  I
close my eyes and take a deep breath.  I can sense the boys, in front of
me, doing the same.  How are we going to do this?  When we finally
make ourselves turn around, we are immediately subverted.

Jack throws us a wide grin, looking strangely
childlike.  "Got nuts," he says happily, waving around his bag
of nuts.  He marches straight past us, on into the forest.

Jonas groans as he turns to follow.

Apollon flashes a grin at me as we start after them. 
"Got nuts."

***

We walk for a few hours until we've put some distance
between us and the city.  I don't think we're moving exactly south, but at
least we're getting away.  We’re alive.  We’re free.  Beyond the
boundary.  Beyond the reach of the Amazons, or whoever else might decide
to kill or torture us just for kicks.  But my body is still feeling sore
and tired.  The boys are tired, too—mostly emotionally.  Mostly
because they’re still worrying about me.  We could all use a good rest.

As we walk, my thoughts are all over the place.  I
carefully direct them away from recent horrors and try to focus on the other
things that have been lurking just below the surface.  I know I'm tired,
stressed, and that's a lot of it, but I have this feeling that things are just
making less and less sense.  That nothing really adds up, though I'm not
sure why.  My mind meanders sloppily over the past couple of days, minus
strategic parts, and the whole blur is just confusing.

"This world is messed up," I find myself saying as
we walk.  "I'm pretty sure that place violated most of the Ten Laws.
 Religion, politics... murder.”  My voice breaks on the last word,
but I push forward.  “How do they get away with so much?  Aren't the
Sentries supposed to stop that sort of thing?  Isn't that the whole point
of them?  I mean, where
were
they?"  My stress is evident
by the way my voice climbs in pitch.  I blink away tears once again,
swallow the lump in my throat, and keep walking.

Jonas shoots me a dark look and says nothing.

Apollon gives me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, shaking
his head.  "Sentries are stupid," he says, as if it’s the most
obvious thing.  "The Forefathers failed us.  They couldn't make
a smart enough Sentry to do the job right.  People like the Amazons have
obviously figured out ways to exploit their stupidity."

I consider this for a moment as we move through the
trees.  Sentries are a wonder of engineering.  We could never have
built anything like them.  Sure, Miranda was able to copy them, but could
she have ever come up with that sort of thing on her own?  Probably
not.  They're beyond anything we could have imagined.  Even so, are
they simply not good enough?  I shake my head.  "But the
Forefathers made so many amazing things.  That rainbow.  Did you
really look at it?  I mean, how could you make something like that if you
weren't... genius?  I thought the Forefathers were like... Idunno... gods
or something."

Apollon snorts.  "Distortions," he
says.  "No one really knows what the Forefathers were like."

I squint up at him, trying to see his face through the
darkness.  "Aren't there books?"

His eyebrows go up.  "Yeah.  Not a lot from
that time period, though.  And they all seem to be complete fiction."

"Are they?  I thought..."

He just shakes his head.  "A lot of people think
all that stuff is true—that the Forefathers could do pretty much
anything.  Their stories have a lot of things in common.  Incredible
technology.  The ability to communicate over long distances—across the
world, even.  Access to unlimited information.  You name it. 
They were fascinated with this... mythology... of omniscience, omnipresence...
everything right now.  They wanted to be gods.  But they didn't do
it.  They couldn't have."

I'm silent for just a moment, feeling the significance of
his words.  "How are you so sure?" I finally manage.

"Because Sentries are stupid."

Just like that, it all comes together.  If the
Forefathers could do all the things people say they could, then why would they
build a flawed machine to rule over us?  Why would they leave us, their
children, in the care of tyrants incapable of understanding us.  Wouldn't
they have known how we would manipulate this system?  Wouldn't they have
guessed what would become of us?

None of us speak as we continue our march.  I have the
feeling that I am not the only one mulling over these ideas.  The image of
a hand, severed, bleeding into the snow, is imprinted on my mind.  I
hardly see the dark shapes of trees in front of me, but I am not coherent
enough to make sense of anything now.  After another hour of walking I'm
hardly thinking at all.

Finally, we find a good place to camp in a little space
sheltered within a thick grove of trees.  The wind is biting, so we risk
making a campfire, but first we dig a deep hole to build it in.  Hopefully
between the hole and the distance we've walked, we'll be safe from stupid
Sentries.

"What are we even doing now?" I find myself
muttering as I unroll my sleeping pack near the fire.  Thinking about the
future helps me turn my thoughts away from the past that is trying to creep up
on me now that we are standing still for a moment.

Apollon gives me a smug smile.  He's sitting on his
bedroll again, sipping a cup of melted snow.  "I have a feeling
you're not done with this game of yours."

Jonas makes a sound behind me.  I'm not sure what that
means.

To my other side is the low murmur of Jack counting his nuts
by the firelight.

I go flop down next to Apollon, shoving him over to make
room.  "Idunno," I say.  "I kind of forgot about
everything back there.  We didn’t even think to look for a
tower." 
Or for Oscar
, I add silently.

Apollon snorts.  “Doubtful any white tower would
survive the wrath of the Amazons anyway.  They probably declared it a
phallic symbol long ago and burnt it down.”

I manage a laugh, shake my head as if banging my brain
around might help free some of my muddled thoughts.  "I'm just glad
we're out."

"Yeah, me too," Apollon says softly, looking into
his water.  He leans over enough to bump me with his shoulder.  We
exchange looks, and his tentative smile is filled with understanding before it
suddenly flashes into a grin.  "That was a great performance, by the
way.  What was it you said?  Something like, 'Our eyes are open to
the light?'"  He starts chuckling.  "'Our eyes are open to
the light'" he mimics in a higher-pitched and funnily accented
voice.  "'We are not stumbling in the darkness of badass
evilness.  Really.'"  He looks like he’s having way too much fun
teasing me, but really, he’s trying to make me feel normal.

I play along, hoping that the act of normalcy will bring on
the actual feeling.  I give him a solid shove in the shoulder, hoping to
send him flying right off the end of the roll, but he only tips and catches
himself, still laughing at me.

"You suck," I say.

"You suck," he chuckles.  "I really
thought you’d sold me out there for a minute.  I mean Jonas, yeah, but
me?”  He does his best to look deeply hurt.

“Psh,” I say.  “There’s no way Rossanna was going to
let you die before she got her hands on you, what with all the smoldering.”

“I was just trying to keep us alive,” Apollon insists. 
“And besides, she would have had to fight the axe lady for me.  I think
she liked me.”

Now I'm laughing.  "She was indeed flattered by
the ass comment.”  I roll my eyes.  "Idiot."

He shoves me back with his shoulder and I go tumbling off
the end of the roll.  I catch myself on one palm, giggling.  I right
myself and stand up, tossing a handful of leaves at him.  He ducks behind
his arm, which does a lot of good.  The leaves sprinkle into his lap and water. 
I whirl away from him, thinking I'm going to retreat before he reciprocates
with something worse than leaves.  My laughter falls short.  Jonas is
just watching us, and the look on his face is...  I'm not sure what it is,
but I feel everything inside me falling.

That's when I realize how quiet he's been all night. 
How distant.  He's thinking hard, troubled by something, and of course
he's not sharing.  I’m trying very hard
not
to think about all the
things that I should be troubled over.  But I hate seeing him look so...
alone.

"Jonas," I say, grinning, "are we ever going
to be able to teach him appropriate ways to hit on women?  Is there any
hope for him?"

A little smile flickers across Jonas' face, but it doesn't
stick.  He looks away, into the night.

Behind me, Apollon is saying, "Test or not, we might
not be alive at all if I wasn't so hot."  His laughter only dies off
as he realizes that Jonas is walking away into the night.  I look back at
him, and Apollon's brow furrows.  He looks like he's about to get up.

"He'll be fine," I say.  "I'm just gonna
go check."  And I beat Apollon to following Jonas off into the night.

Patches of moonlight are scattered between the deep wells of
tree-shadows.  The wind whips at me, and I can't really see where I'm going. 
This landscape should be frightening, but I only have an overflowing sense of
anticipation.  Following after Jonas, for the first time I realize how
much I've missed our little meetings in the dark.

He stops not far ahead.  I catch sight of him, his body
framed in the moonlight.  He doesn't turn back, makes no sign that he
knows I'm there, but I can feel him waiting for me.  My eyes wander over
the black shape of him, his broad shoulders, his sleek frame.  He turns
his face to the side and raises one hand to rub the back of his neck. 
It's a casual gesture, but there is something unbelievably appealing in
it.  I find myself swallowing, trying to breathe evenly.  I almost
turn and go back.  I really should.  Knowing that fact does not make
me even partially willing to tear myself away from this moment.

"Hey," he says softly as I pad through the leaves
toward him.

I stop a few feet off, where I can now see half of his face
illumined in the moonlight.  "Hey."

For a moment there is just the two of us looking at each
other, and silence.  My thoughts are spinning, past and present, wildly
bouncing from sense to nonsense.  I finally clear my throat and ask,
"You OK?"

He hesitates, then shrugs and looks off into the
forest.  His whole face is in the light now, and he really is so
beautiful.

I look away from him, smothering the part of me that won't
seem to shut up.  "Is it... is it George?" I ask, looking at him
sideways.