King's County (18 page)

They lived on the Olympic peninsula in
small groups, 71 in total. The largest group was 6 people, most
were couples. I focused on a pair lounging around a pile of vividly
green mossy boulders framing a short, falling stream.

The man lay on his back covering his
eyes with an old piece of fabric. The woman cleaned her feet in a
pool of the clear water.

Another couple approached. The man sat
up to talk to them and gestured for the other man to sit by him
while the women bathed.

They spoke a language I didn't
understand or recognize. The men soon left. I followed them a short
distance to a sheltered area beneath an overhanging rock. They sat
on clean boulders arranged around the remains of a fire.

Out of his blue frayed and sun-faded
but still serviceable jacket, the first, the older man withdrew an
engraved ceramic pipe. He checked it over and passed it to his
friend. The old man was lean with darkly weathered skin and he
moved with a quick, deliberate gracefulness.

The men smoked in relaxed silence. The
women arrived, chatting in their language, and went under the rock
to busy themselves with the few possessions tucked
inside.

A table was unfolded, places were set.
Soon they were eating. The old man went under the rock and returned
with an ancient encrusted wine bottle. A bit of vapor curled out
when it was opened. He poured some of the precious liquid into each
of their cups and they stood turning to face the
shelter.

It was to the mountain that they
looked. Cups were raised to the mountain and drained.

I left them to explore further. Down
and around the other side of the mountain, something strange stood
out. A blue tab indicated it was infrastructure but not that of
KC+9.

At first glance, it appeared to be a
cave but the curved lines of the opening were too symmetrical and
well defined. It was overgrown with mossy vegetation on the top and
sides but a foot trodden path led into it.

The tab told me it was a Universal
Factory. Still in service though used rarely now, it was there to
supply the peninsula residents.

A woman walked up and paused at the
opening. She cupped her hand and called out in the same language
the others had used. She was also older looking, sixty or so, and
had the same lean, windburned vigor. She wore a high waisted purple
dress under a long brown coat and no socks with rugged men’s
leather shoes. I saw her name was Mel Waller.

She sat cross-legged by the entrance,
facing away diagonally. She put her hands on her knees and closed
her eyes.

I prayed for her to stay there long
enough. She was soon asleep the system told me. I relaxed along
with her. The sun came from behind a cloud, filtering through the
emerald leaved canopy, making patterns on the ground where she
sat.

A mole poked his nose up, just breaking
the surface, then pushed half his body out. She didn't notice. I
brought him out and balanced him upright on the driver paddles at
his tail. I dropped him and flicked out an appendage to flip him
over.

Her eyes slowly opened; she saw me and
smiled. I scurried around in a figure eight and quickly flipped a
few more times making her laugh.

She reached out a long finger and
touched the tip of my nose. I whirled around upright on the paddles
and flipped again. She groaned a little, laughing in a lower tone.
I was losing her.

From inside the factory cave came the
cry of a man. He emerged holding a tool in his hand. Mom got up to
go to him.

He showed her the tool. It was a
handsaw, freshly made inside the cave. He admired it, wiping his
hand along the dull side of the blade. She played along for a
moment, dutifully inspecting the saw, then she remembered me and
pulled on his arm.

They walked over. I balanced on the
paddles and did my flip. He bent down for a second, raised his
eyebrows and kindly laughed. Then he walked away. He didn't say
anything, or look back or wait for her. She gave me a little wave
from her waist and hurried off to catch up to him.

I stuck out all my appendages and
twisted around in the grass tumbling and bouncing around. A double
flip: I had a new trick. But her back was turned. Soon she was
gone.

"That's enough, I think. Come on out
now." The voice was not in the forest. I resisted.

Everything shut off. I felt myself
pushed gently back into the chair, staring at the beige wall of the
B level control room. He was sitting to my right, one leg over the
other, in another operator’s chair pulled up to my
station.

His suit was a dark brown, deep, richly
toned wool that drew my eyes into it. He wore traditional leather
shoes of equally high quality with black socks. He patiently
watched me noticing and spoke,

"I’m not sure what to do with you. You
broke a lot of rules here today."

"We’re hoping that you didn't go too
far, John." It was Qim, startling me. I turned to see her seated
behind me.

"I decided to bring her in after the
incident at her home," he said.

Qim folded her hands in her lap and
stared at them. I turned the chair back around. The guy stared at
me, trying to wait me out, make me say something.

"So, who are you? Are you from A
level?"

"My name is Galton-Smith. I am from A
level."

A long pause ensued. I used his trick.
He broke first,

"She’s going to take you home now.
That's what you want. But we expect you back here - 8 o'clock
tomorrow morning. We need you, John."

*

Qim was chatty on the elevator ride
down but I wasn't having it. Every word out of her mouth was like
bitter poison. The elevator was a hot stove. By the time we walked
out into the foyer, my head was pounding.

I walked ahead much faster than normal.
When she matched my pace, I jogged then sprinted. Quickly around
the corner, I ran another 50m and turned again. I'd lost her. If
she had found me I think I would have done something
terrible.

I knew the way now and found it
familiar. A narrow, unremarkable alley led to a long, mostly empty
street that sloped down to some green spaces, then the highway. The
waterfront lay beyond.

It was past sundown when I arrived at
the kiosk. The locals were out. A clique of garishly dressed
jugglers loitered near the ever present skateboarders. The rest
were mostly the boring, interchangeable art bums or downtown
busywork drones, all of them wandering the boardwalk in little
groups, grazing their nightly fix.

I got my beer: half a liter, self
cooling with double-lined insulation, a self closing wide mouth
spout. The can was spearmint green with subtle red
pinstripes.

It was delicious, cold, perfectly sweet
and bitter. I drank it quickly while standing there and ordered
another that I took to a nearby bench.

The mango guy flew by on his old
bicycle. His storage box rattled loose and dragged, spilling
yellow-orange fruit slices behind him. He pedaled on undeterred,
frantic. Those in his path jumped aside but the jugglers were
distracted and he hit one of them fully in the chest with the front
basket.

They recovered, laughing, obviously
unhurt. Mango guy’s coat was ruined, though, torn down the back.
His bike was mangled with both wheels and the handlebars bent. He
tried walking the bike but gave up, grabbed it by the frame, and
spun around to hurl it into the water. The crowd watching
cheered.

More skateboarders came down the
boardwalk from the same direction as mango man. They dressed in
tight fitting blue, black and green clothes, the opposite of those
in red and yellow. They came fast, hunched down on their
boards.

The mango man was still playing up to
the crowd. He tossed his ruined coat into the water next and
started doing a strange dance hopping on one leg while the juggler
threw his pins in the air.

The blue skateboarders came onto the
scene in a pack and encircled the mango man. They tried to pick him
up, presumably to throw him in the water, but were unable to get a
good hold of him squirming in his loose outfit. They succeeded
anyway, making the poor man trip backwards, landing in the water
with a loud splash and him screaming for help.

The red and yellow skaters took this as
their cue. They rushed over swinging their boards like clubs and
knocked out half the blues with the first volley. The blues
retreated then rallied and countered as a tight group. They dodged
the boards and went low, grabbing red hosed ankles, and flipped
their enemies onto their backs.

Everybody loved it. A close circle of
onlookers formed around the battle obscuring my view. They threw
their trash into the ring.

I smelled smoke. It was wood smoke -
the side of the kiosk was burning. The lights lining the boardwalk
began blinking on and off which quieted but didn't quell the mob. I
took this as my sign to leave.

*

Once home, I went directly to bed.
Dreams came, stronger and more vivid than any before:

My mother and I walked side by side
alongside Mount Olympus. At times I held her strong, leathery
smooth hand; for miles we walked like this. She stopped at a
rivulet of clear water to drink. She stood after drinking, facing
me, looking into my eyes. She was a thousand years old. Her face
folded into a million wrinkles as she reached into her coat pocket
and withdrew a roasted banana slug wrapped in a broad green leaf
charred black at the edges. She took half of it in one bite and
chewed.

In my dream I slept, lying out in the
open below Olympus on a thick bed of moss. Days passed. I turned on
my side hardening into a tight, safe form. The moss grew to fit
around me. The moles and worms diligently guarded me while the chip
slowed and maintained my blood. The soft office worker clothes I
wore rotted into pieces and blew away; my army boots remained. I
starved, my body fed on itself, the skin tightened around the chip
showing its rectangular outline on my gaunt, naked back.

Early afternoon clouds gathered and
darkened as they collided. From above, deep thunder soothed me
deeper into the dream until cold rain dropped onto my nose.
Something was off. I was wet and getting wetter. The coldness felt
real, threatening.

I kicked the sheets off. My hand went
to my face and felt moisture. I forced my eyes to open.

Water was dripping onto the bed from a
vent in the ceiling. For awhile, I stared at it not knowing what to
do. I was still asleep.

Thunder shook the house hard enough to
knock a book off the shelf. I was awake. Still dressed from the day
before, I put my boots on and went to find the attic
entrance.

I wanted to find the source of the
leak. In the hallway from the ceiling protruded a neat braided
black and white cord ending in a polished wooden ball. I pulled it
and a stairway unfolded, hundreds of small pieces of finely cut
cedar intricately pinned together. It was a marvel of design, the
kind I was just starting to understand and appreciate. The stairs
took my weight with a slight flex but felt perfectly sound
underfoot.

In the empty attic, I quickly found the
problem: A fist sized hole in the roof and below it, a smashed
duct. Rain was dribbling in, collecting in the impression from the
impact, and dripping down to my bed. My first thought was that it
was a meteor that did it, but in the duct I found a jagged piece of
alloy of about 300g, weighty in my hand and still warm despite
being wet.

I stuffed my shirt in the hole as a
temporary measure. Thunder shook the ladder as I climbed
down.

In the kitchen, another rumbling shook
the house. I went to push the button for a meal and another
stronger wave hit almost knocking me off my feet. An Earthquake? I
went over to the main room’s south facing picture
window.

Columns of black smoke came up from
spots downtown. From the nearest, a cluster of semidetached
residences, flames were visible. My legs went weak. I fell onto a
lacquered black wicker chair and pulled it up close to the
glass.

On silent propulsion, two ground attack
fighters cruised at tree top level. They looked more advanced but
were similar to the ones I knew. Underneath their flight path at
regular intervals erupted debris in red flashes. Seconds later came
a familiar thumping sound followed by a rumbling echo.

The GAF duo then swept the waterfront.
The bombs came at shorter intervals. They were demolishing every
scrap of it. I watched in a stupor. The realization hit me that
some of the larger pieces of debris were bodies.

I stayed at the window. Another two
GAF’s came from over the horizon. Dipping to a lower altitude, they
curved around the city and were soon out of sight. The fighters
circled around quickly. They were blisteringly fast, and then were
heading away from me to the south to disappear again into the low
hanging clouds.

For half a minute there was quiet. I
could see most of the populated parts of the city burning but could
hear nothing at all. I got up and went to the kitchen and stood
there numb for a long moment before remembering to make something
to eat. I waited. The house computer said I had no
messages.