Head Full of Mountains (15 page)

“I don’t believe you.”

“They’re runners on some pointless patrol, or they’ve strayed, and been forgotten. They won’t hurt you unless that’s what they’ve been told to do. They barely think.”

“I’ve never met another person.”

“Never?”

“Only father, and— Only dad.”

“Well,” said the machine, “it’s not a big deal.”

Crospinal’s hands were sweating: the capillaries of his mitts attempted to accommodate. “Go slow,” he said. “Will the lights come back on soon? I can’t see anything.”

“That’s the whole point. They turn on in the morning. Night’s just getting started.”

“Father was able to keep the darkness away. This is bad.”

“You’re freaking out,” said the machine. “It’s just a pair of young runners. That’s all. Relax. Keep your hands in. Should I scan you?”

“No.”

Beyond the dim shape of the root masses, he saw the gleam of a circular pool, like the one in the garden back home. As they advanced upon it, Crospinal made out the far edge of nutrient tiles, and gentle ripples on the water, reflecting what few lumens remained. Around the rim of the pool, roots could find no purchase and dangled, pale, puffy, waterlogged. In the darkness, these looked like dead fingers, trailing the surface.

“Can’t you make the lights come back on? Isn’t there a controller here? I don’t like this. How do you keep darkness away?”

“You should probably be quieter, young master, if you wish to remain undetected.”

“I can’t see a damn
thing.
” Crospinal ground his teeth together. Was this a trap? The night, the drone, the obtuse elemental. There were no signs of other people. “Where are they?”

The machine answered very quietly. “There are two, as you predicted, one predominately male, the other a female. Though you’d be hard-pressed to see the distinction. The girl’s helping the boy. They’re still there, on the far side of this reservoir. They were thirsty, but this water’s not for them. There’s something wrong with the boy’s legs.”

Crospinal sat numbly in the saddle, cheeks burning again. The elemental had been messing with him all along. Lies and stories. Because it could not be possible that all boys had something wrong with their legs.

The trees were silent, leaves limp. Crospinal discerned grey indications that the garden continued, on the far side of the water: the hint of a curve at the water’s edge, but no movement. Should he run away? Not wise, he supposed, in these conditions.

The elemental took careful steps forward. Crospinal had more than his share of doubts. His head buzzed with thoughts, none of which could be pinned down or be considered helpful. Could he even share the same space as another living person, outside the pen? They would negate each other.

Despite further protests from the elemental, Crospinal again dismounted. He stooped to drink, filling his cupped hands. The Dacron hissed and he felt the liquid roil in his palms. The water was cool, heavy, embellished with proteins and antitoxins. Crospinal soon felt more level-headed—

A blur in the trees opposite, smearing the dark, as if an apparition passed through the dark roots there, but no apparition could remain coherent in this dense landscape, nor was father tethered nearby, projecting—

The drone came down again, swiftly, hovering there, silent over the water. Like a hole, sucked from the night. Crospinal remained still, hand to his mouth. Slicing out, the light curtain, scanning the trees on the far side, swung across him and the elemental without pause. Nearly blinded, on his haunches, mitts wet, face dripping, with the elemental hunkering beside him. Seconds later, the light swept again over the surface of the pool, illuminating a surprisingly great depth—much deeper than the pool in the garden back home—and fragmenting into harsh shapes against the tangles of roots. Eager leaves sprang erect, hissing like breaths, but were fooled: the drone turned, humming briefly, and moved into the trees, showering no fragments in its wake.

Gone
.

Was that the faint sound of a person in distress, or a thousand leaves dying all at once?

“How do you explain that?” he said.

“I can’t,” replied the elemental. “Get back on.”

Crospinal did so, and together they crept away, picking up speed at a steady rate once they were clear, until moving swiftly again, despite the darkness and the trees. The drone did not come blasting through the flora to thwart their passage.

“What happened to the people? The runners?”

“I don’t know. Reception’s bad here.”

“You agree we saw something threatening? You’re not telling me something. That drone hurt the runners, didn’t it? It did something to them?”

“Take it easy, young master. It’s not called a drone, it’s—”

A distant explosion from far behind—and a quick series of pops, clustered together—cut the conversation short. Atop the elemental, Crospinal felt no tremor, but the concussive wave came like a slap.

“What was that?”

The machine was silent, tense. Then, quietly: “I don’t know.”

“Something’s after me, isn’t it?”

“You attribute much importance to yourself, young master.”

“
Something is happening.”

Nutrient tiles ended, so did the trees; the elemental burst from the dark garden into a vast, open area, bathed by the silvery glow from a dim, massive lamp, shining diffused above the clouds. Everything coated matte silver. Crospinal saw no walls, no other features. There was nothing except them to cast shadows. The empty bay went on and on, like a sea of tiles, and they raced across it.

“I don’t see people,” Crospinal hissed into the shield.

There were faint noises of movements, and a rumbling, far beneath. When they slowed to a trot, Crospinal tried his best to keep an eye out for the drone, looking all around, and for a frightful second he was sure he saw its quick sheet of light, flickering through the trees dwindling behind them.

“Speak to me.” He sat up straight in the saddle. “Answer. Where are the people you promised? You said there were two runners.”

“The garden is seven kilometres wider than when I last crossed. Admittedly, that was a long time ago. Out here . . . Well, it’s different now. I’m recalibrating some stuff. Should we leave, return to the station?”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure it’s prudent to continue, young master. I don’t really know where we are any more. I can’t be assured of your safety. And I’m no longer sure who you are.”

“We’re not turning back. There’s nothing there.”

This air was warm against Crospinal’s uniform. The shield over his mouth made his breath taste tangy and processed. When the elemental slowed to walking speed, Crospinal was surprised to see a set of low, metallic structures emerge from the gloom, defining themselves from the darkness: he soon found himself riding among a series of quiet cabins, piled atop each other, almost haphazardly, that rose above his head and extended into the lightless condition the elemental had called night.

“We’re here, young master. Apparently. Maybe my own memory is faulty. Not long now, before dawn. Which means ambients will activate soon, but there’s halogens here, and amenities. We should stay together. The bay is a strange place tonight.”

“Who is this for?”

“Crew. Some might be sleeping. If we—”

The controller, which must have watched them coming, presented itself. Gentle green glow bloomed around the nearest entrance, illuminating the immediate area and, for the briefest of moments, reflecting off the glittering machine Crospinal had ridden here on—until it changed its refraction setting and faded again.

Crospinal’s eyes were adjusting. He saw the extent of the cabins now, sharper edges against a softer background. There were eight, maybe nine rooms, walls smooth and grey. Symbols flickered, icons activating as he stepped forward: sustenance; daybeds; a spigot; hands pressed together.
A console
.

Characters, red and luminous, composed of curved lines and straight lines, which he had never before seen, buzzed into view. The idea that he had done all this before struck him. He ran his fingers through the characters, which sparkled and fell apart. A memory of the haptic the metal rat had shown him—the people, and the dollies, and the giant drones . . . 

When he looked up, there seemed to be another, much larger feature rising behind the last cabin, but he could not be sure, because the night seemed darker still.

“You plan to enter?” asked the machine.

“Yes,” said Crospinal. “Now you’re the edgy one.”

“Controller, extinguish the lights. We can be seen.”

The controller complied.

“I need to charge. Will you wait for me, runner, while I do so? I won’t be long.”

Crospinal’s thumb would not open the door. He touched the plate again and again. The plate did not react. “What’s going on? Can you open this?”

Two of the elemental’s claws approached the surface of the door, a foot lifted: the material dispersed before contact.

Crospinal pushed past.

The elemental and controller followed him in.

“Welcome,” said the cabin. “Chargers are in chamber seven. No rider today?”

“I have no rider,” said the elemental.

Crospinal froze but kept quiet. Didn’t the cabin see him? And what was the elemental up to?

Moments later, in the aura of a surreptitious globe that came to hover over them as they walked, heading deeper into the abandoned accommodations, Crospinal altogether forgot his concerns about being set up when the console, a full unit, with holes and periscopes and glowing plates, opened up to him, like an offering. He was not foolish enough to plunge his arms in, yet even standing there he felt energy coming. Had he found his girlfriend? Stepping backward, Crospinal heard the faint voice of the elemental saying something to him, repeating something, but he could not make out the words.

And then she was there, in her dark uniform, hair pulled back, standing full length before him. Glowing ghosts spiralled around her body and spun off into nothing. The expression on her face was fear, but she was beautiful, and they were together at last.

“There’s so much to tell you,” he breathed. Emotion choked him. “I’m alone now. Darkness closed in. I know you—”

“
Why are you here
?”

“Father died and—” His heart had caught in his chest. “I had to find you. Father died and I left . . .”

Her hands, coming up, could never grasp anything, not in Crospinal’s realm, and so passed through his shoulders. “Go back.” She was pleading. “You need to go back.” Glancing over her shoulder, into her own dimension, she said: “Please, you need to turn back. You need to—Crospinal?
Crospinal
!”

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.

—James Allen,
As a Man Thinketh

He came awake gradually, rising in increments toward consciousness, peaceful, knowing he was at home, in the pen. There was no pain. Warm under the covers of his daybed, not wanting to open his eyes, not wanting the effects of a rare and sound sleep to dissipate. Crospinal smelled ozone. Had this smell woken him? The familiar pulse of nutrients through father’s conduits was almost a heartbeat; Crospinal smiled.

Far away, dogs barked, and barks echoed.

But when Crospinal changed position, to roll, languorous, his left knee popped, bones ground against each other, and sobering darts of pain shot to his hips and up his spine. Grunting, he almost put his hands down to touch his legs, verify his rickets had indeed returned, but of course they had. They had never left.

He opened his eyes. Flat on his back. Bent legs splayed and throbbing. He felt himself filling with frustration and anger. He punched his mattress. Freedom from affliction was impossible in life. But at least father was alive. Maybe Crospinal could only have one or the other.
Father was alive
. That must be good for something. . . . 

Just above his head, the ambient illuminated ceiling of his little corner sloped away—old composite, like the rest of the pen, with details of a structure all but hidden underneath, the particulars of which he had imprinted, remaining unchanged for longer than he had been alive. When he turned his face, to see father pacing, the clump of tethers were sweeping in a broad curve.

Three dogs—no
four
—noticed Crospinal had awoken and came bounding forward.

“Crospie, Crospie, Crospie,” they barked. “Crospie, Crospie!”

He tried to be as pleasant as possible, making a show of greeting the apparitions, for they did actually cheer him somewhat, dispersing their bodies of light with waves of his hands when they leaped onto the daybed, so they quavered, yapping excitedly, coming back again and again, but he got tired of this game before they did, and soon he let his smile fade and the dogs break against him.

Father had stopped pacing. Watching now, standing as close to Crospinal as he could get, mitts open, eyes like holes in his sunken face. Crospinal gave one quick nod and looked away, levering himself to a sitting position and grimacing as he swung his crooked legs over the edge of the daybed, one at a time, to put his feet flat on the floor—

They didn’t reach.

“What year is this?” He met father’s gaze. “How old am I?”

Some sort of trick was being played. Crospinal scowled at the dogs now, just sitting there, panting stupidly. He remembered the bay, and the swift elemental, and he found himself irritated to be back here.

“You all right, Crospie? Didn’t you sleep well? You look pale.”

“I slept fine.”

“I haven’t slept at all yet. I haven’t slept in ages, it seems. But I will.” Father’s smile was shaky. “Soon. I’m just trying to recall . . . a certain . . .”

A thin metal spike, concrete ephemera, fell from the ceiling and clattered to the floor. Father looked at it, concerned.

Though gaunt, father otherwise appeared fairly healthy, especially considering the last time Crospinal had seen his dad he had been a nylon sac of bones and sores, lying dead on the floor.

“This afternoon,” father said. “I’ll nap when you do.”

One dog, then the others, winked out.

Crospinal managed to stand. Everything ached. He turned his scowl toward father. “I don’t nap anymore. And my name’s not Crospie. Tell your dogs, too.” He felt hunched and ugly. Any positive residue of sleep was long gone, or perhaps the lingering benefits were squandered, entirely ineffective on him. His eyes were dry as ash. “I haven’t needed to take a nap in years. How old am I today? That’s what I want to know. I asked you a question.”

Father stared for a moment, blinking. “Uh, you should take it easy this morning. Don’t get worked up, son. You seem a bit off. Let’s look at you. Can you come closer?”

Drawing breath sharply through his teeth (making the filter hiss; the shield was working again), Crospinal decided not to confront father about what he had learned, about the world beyond, and about what had been removed from his arms. He glanced at them now, saw that he wore a fresh uniform, with fresh mitts. The processor hummed smoothly when he peed. He would say nothing about the incessant lighting. If the elementals’ talk was accurate, and the encounters had actually happened—the ride through darkness; the massive chamber; the crew cabins—then Crospinal could never know or trust this man. This
passenger
.

He averted his gaze. What he wanted most was an end to this intrusion, this return to the pen, but he waited and hoped and the end would not come. Father remained silent. Was Crospinal truly a young boy all over again, with his grotesque knees, sullen by the side of his daybed, head filled with jumbled knowledge of the future?

Some pellets
, he thought.
And several cups of cool water to boost the systems
.
Should help
. And if his girlfriend really didn’t want to see him again, then a long visit to the dream cabinets. Some hope remained to salvage this day, on one level, if this day insisted on lingering.

But before Crospinal dragged himself over to the emerging food dispenser to grab breakfast, he heard a voice speaking to him from a great distance. Calling his name. The voice did not have the cool qualities of the myriad intelligent or semi-intelligent devices, and local personalities, not of a machine: this was a human’s voice, with inflection, emotion. He imagined a girl, though not his sister, or a manifestation. Frowning, he looked around the pen, saw no one but father, of course, who appeared—though suitably concerned by Crospinal’s behaviour—as if he had heard nothing. An absence of apparitions in the pen. Which was weird. The dogs hadn’t come back. Crospinal couldn’t tell what else the girl was saying but could still hear her talking, whispering. He leaned against a short counter, straining to listen, to understand what was happening.

“Crospie,” father said, “are you all right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m calling in the elementals. To run a scan. Your face looks pale.”

“No more scans,” Crospinal shouted, spraying spittle. “No more fucking scans! I’m sick of scans!”

Father recoiled. Clearly at a loss, staring at his son for a moment longer before turning away, he dragged behind him the ponderous mass of tethers.

“Look,” Crospinal said, almost immediately, “I just don’t feel like one today. That’s all. I don’t want to see Fox right now.”

“You should never have named the elementals, Crospie. That was wrong. They’re
machines
. They’re not your friends. I tell you all the time. Only you have a name. That’s your power.”

“And my name is
Crospinal
.”

“
Crospinal
. Of course. I’m sorry. I think of you as a child, forever. My baby boy. Forgive me. You would never name the dogs, would you?”

“Of course not. That’d be dumb.”

“Let’s get some food. We’ll need energy.”

The lecture had been a familiar one, but Crospinal was feeling chagrined for losing his temper and would debate no longer. “Dad?”

Long fingers of one hand were beckoning to the dispenser, which had fled Crospinal’s outburst, and now cautiously extended its neck, about to regurgitate a fistful of pellets.

“Sorry I stayed away so much.”

One after another, the stout morsels dropped into father’s mitt.
Food of the world
. But the world didn’t create dispensers. Like Crospinal, they were at odds. Everything was. Father’s face, turned quarter profile, waiting for Crospinal to continue.

“Well, when I get older,” he said, but that didn’t sound right at all. Crospinal frowned. “When I’m—”

“Waking,” replied father. “Waking now.”

In a different, melodious voice. A girl’s voice—

Without time to question, Crospinal’s vision was eclipsed by a face. Looming above him. Father, the banks, the entire pen: gone. In the wide and shining eyes, like his own, looking back at him, were concern, and affection, and other emotions Crospinal could not begin to fathom because he had heretofore seen no likeness: he tried to speak, but released only a low moan.

“Awake now.” Her mouth barely moved.

Lying on his back again, but on a hard surface, in some dim confine, with wind whistling nearby and the gloom broken by flashes of brilliant light that flickered at regular intervals. The smell of ions, of machines. Light stung his eyes. He was close enough to this other to feel the heat of breath, and of a body, upon him. A tremble against his spine: what he lay upon—what they were in—moved.

Only when Crospinal felt again the slightly sour exhalation of her breathing against his cheek—and he stared into her eyes, inches from his own—did he fully grasp that this was no apparition, no sculpture of light or energy. Putting his unsteady hand up, the tips of his fingers touched flesh; her cheek, as alive and yielding and transitory as his own, tingled now through this thin layer of Dacron.

He was already weeping.

“Good,” said the girl. “Good, at last.” But there were tears glittering her eyes, too.

“You’re
alive
,” he said. “Like me.”

This seemed to put her off a bit. With a terse nod, she placed the tips of her own hot, bare fingers to the back of Crospinal’s mitt, gently trapping his hand to her face. He saw, in the sudden, brighter glare from that intermittent light—which appeared through a sort of gap in the low ceiling, filling the compartment with a moment of white, and burning the silhouette of this other person against his retinas—her bare arm, and a set of black markings in contrast to his own, inside her forearm, exactly where his own white scars were, before grey returned, consuming all detail.

She was nearly naked. Her torso wrapped only in a few rags, a material he could not, for the most part, identify, and which could serve no practical purpose.

“Who are you?”

She didn’t answer.

His eyes were still watering profusely, but from the light, he told himself.
From the light
. Long, tangled hair—much longer than his had ever been—brushed against him as she shifted. Father would have frowned to meet this girl. No uniform. Long hair. Father had wanted Crospinal to let groomer wasps depilate Crospinal’s head at least weekly. (Though Crospinal generally refused.)
Hair is a haven for microbes, and hair can disrupt the effectiveness of your filters.

A few days ago, certain of death’s impending visit, Crospinal had acquiesced. Father, too ill to appreciate the effort, dribbled blood from his mouth.

Crospinal’s pate was an itchy expanse of stubble. Moving his fingers against the line of the girl’s jaw, he traced underlying bone, toward her chin. Solid, warm. A vein ticked, and the mitt reacted, faintly, but a persistent stinging grew and he had to pull his hand back; he saw no source of discomfort.

What he feared most was that this person might vanish. He did not want this dream to end. When he tried to sit up, he discovered he was far too weak. His extremities throbbed. The stinging spread, flush with his heartbeat. He recalled nothing from before his nap. Talking about memories? Memory seemed a dubious concept at best. “Where am I?”

“Trainboard,” she said, all breathy. She had shadows under her cheekbones, and a scent that put him on edge. Her lips were fuller than his, and red. “Hubward,” she said.

“Where?”

“The supply train. He brought it back, and now
we found you
.” She smiled thinly, the way father used to when Crospinal had made unwanted suggestions or asked too many questions. “We’re taking you back.”

He needed to explain as much as he needed explanation. “My skin, my hands and feet hurt. But not like when, not like
before
. Something—”

“Burns,” she said. “From the face. Why did you? They’ll only try to burn you.”

“Who will?”

A finger to those lips, indicating he should stay silent, or rest. He wanted to put his finger there, too, to her lips, just as her profile lit up again like a magnesium flare. Pointing at him, but his eyes watered so much he could not see her expression. “Batches are sent,” she said. “They’re looking for
you
.”

He inspected his tender hand, and saw nothing out of sorts—except, perhaps, stressed contusions, a split on the thumb, further thinning at the palms of his mitts. Crospinal finally managed to get up onto his elbows. His head pounded.

The compartment was small, with smooth walls, like those around the back of the pen, behind the throne. A low ceiling. He could not have stood, had he the wherewithal. And, resting on the floor nearby, next to the girl (who, he saw now, was kneeling, as if praying), a lantern of sorts, with a flame, burning in a metal cup. A
candle
. Like at his birthday parties. But a
real
candle, burning a
real
flame. He stared, agog. To be absolutely certain this was no haptic or apparition, he extended his hand, felt the heat singe his already-stinging skin, the mitt unable to do anything remotely protective, and he withdrew quickly, burnt, as the light passed over again, limning the girl’s outline, her tattered rags, her flesh, where a uniform should be. Her long hair. Incongruous walls behind her vanished into gloom again.

He managed to rub his face with the crook of one arm. His uniform stank of recycling and the spicy tang of feces, backing up in the processor, which was really shot.

The sound of the wind came from the slot in the ceiling, where the bright light was.

Whatever they were on moved
fast
.

And then Crospinal realized two more things. One: his legs, though throbbing, were not crooked (again), which meant father was most likely dead (again), and all this—the flesh and blood girl, the motion of the
train,
the candle’s flame—
might just remain tangible.
Two: more people quietly watched him.

Turning his head, he saw them, crouching very near, a group of five. Quietly watching. Five silent humans, in tattered rags of plastic, crouching in the shadows, eyes downcast now. But despite the exposed flesh, for a long moment Crospinal could not distinguish which were boys and which, if any, were girls. He was suddenly not entirely sure of the criteria, now that theory had ended and application failed to kick in. Was it length of hair, or the distance between their eyes? Or the smell? Their bodies seemed almost the same as his own, as far as he could recall, though not as pale, or as thin.