Nebula Awards Showcase 2013 (15 page)

“Ready to ride.” Christ, I'm only fifty-six.

“Any one seen the new guy yet?” Keith asks.

Silence. It had been a good seven years without any casualties. Fourteen migrations without any big accidents: a stretch so long I think we all forgot what could happen. No one noticed Siv getting older. He didn't show any weakness, not up until the very end. And now we had a new guy coming on.

Our Sponsor arrives in a long black four door car spewing enough exhaust to make my eyes water. He steps out wearing sunglasses and skin stretched so tight over his face that he looks like he might pop. All the immortals look like that. Even though they have enough money to buy life, they have that look to them like it's been a long time since they've lived at all. We smile at him, each of us thinking, I reckon, about the last time we saw him.

He was yelling and calling us murderers as we all stood around the broken body of Siv. He threatened us with life in prison, even though we all knew he couldn't do a damn thing about it.

Now he's showing off his white as paint teeth and looking at us like we are racing horses: profitable flesh. He frowns as he looks at me. Other doors on his car open and men that look like him, but with cheaper clothing, get out. You can't get them to talk to you, I've tried.

The new rider comes out of the car and blinks like he's just waking up. It takes a while to get used to the eyes. He's too skinny—someone should have told him to fatten up—but otherwise he looks tough enough. He has thick black hair, olive skin, and a five o'clock shadow even though it's only noon. He looks us over. He smiles at Keith, who must be the leader, I can see him thinking, because he's the youngest and strongest. Keith smiles back enigmatically.

“This is Theo Anders, boys, and he's going to make me proud!” The Sponsor tries to act like one of the good old boys, but there's a billion dollars and ownership issues between us.

A trailer pulls up with our bicycles, and Scotty runs over to them. He's our resident gearhound. Our Sponsor chats him up about all the new components on his bike.

“No way! Awesome!” he says.

The new guy stands near us nervously. For him it's the most important day of his life so far. The first day of the migration. For the rest of us, it's not so special.

“Hey Theo, I'm Josiah,” I say. “Welcome to the migration.” I introduce him to Keith and Hector. “A man's first migration is the most dangerous,” I say. “Just like with real birds. You won't know the route, the dances, or how to pace yourself. All kinds of changes will be coming on inside of you all the while you're expected to keep pedaling. Just don't do anything stupid.”

“I had the operation three months ago. I've adjusted to the changes. The Sponsor told me everything I need to know,” he says.

“That's what he'll have told you,” I point my thumb at our owner, “but it's not true. It takes awhile for it all to settle in. They never know when they'll need a new rider, so there's never enough time to change.”

“He said—”

Hector steps toward the fledgling and says quiet enough that only we can hear, “He only cares about getting you migrating as soon as possible. He doesn't care about you.” Hector shakes his head and gives Keith and I a look like
can you believe this kid?
Nevermind that he was just as ignorant when he came on.

Theo's face turns a dirty pink. “You saying something bad about our Sponsor? That's against contract clause twelve B.” His voice is too loud.

“Calm down,” I tell him. “We're all friends here.” But his words make me uneasy. Our owner has tried to get a man on the inside for years. Someone who will tell the truth of what actually happens on our migration. Maybe he's finally found one.

Theo eyes me again, and I can see he thinks I'm worthless. America never had any use for the old. I could tell him I'm going to be more useful to him than he can know, but I don't. Let him learn.

We grab our bikes with fat panniers loaded up with MRE's, protein bars, and watergel. The first day of our ride we're not riding hard: we're just getting onto our bikes, checking out the upgrades, and learning to ride again. It's a relief to get on the road and get moving. Tonight will be the first time in a week any of us will be able to sleep. When the change comes there's nothing for it but to start moving. That's what birds always did, and with how they modified us, we're no different. The bikes are custom made for each of us, and we get a new bike every migration.

Hector takes the lead and we ride slipstream on both sides of him on the two lane road. We look like a flock of geese flying in V formation. People say part of our augmentation is to copy the geese, but that's crap. We ride like them for the same reason they do: it's the best way to cut the wind. And with two thousand miles and twenty-two performances to hit in the next month, we'll need it. No matter how slick our bikes are, when it comes down to it they are still one-hundred-percent powered by our legs and nothing else. So we'll do anything we can to make it easier. We're lazy like that.

The Going-to-the-Sun-Road is smooth and lined with trees turning pretty colors in front of deep blue mountains that look like the ocean in rock form.

Keith races ahead then slams on his regenerative brakes. He races forward again, brakes, then pops the hover gear and his bike floats up three inches off the ground for about five feet. Bless the mechanics who figured that one out twenty-one migrations ago. It makes our ride almost manageable through the lower states. We won't need to hover in Montana where roads are still alright—cowboys will never give up the dream of driving, even if no one can afford the gas.

Scotty pops wheelies and bounces up and down on his bike. He's got all kinds of boing-boing with twice the shocks and gearing of any of us. He carries the extra weight and drag of them. He likes the challenge.

I bike elbows to the grooves of my handlebars, laying my forearms against the warm metal. The curve of my back likes being here with my neck craned toward the horizon. My helmet feels like something I've been missing, a part of my head returned. It feels easy, like I could sit here all day and pedal, which is good, because that's what I'll be doing. I straighten up and warm my hands under my armpits, reminding myself of all the ways to ride, all the muscle sets I can use.

Something big skitters across the upper edge of my vision and I turn my head, excited. But it must have been a bug, because there's nothing there. There aren't many wild birds left, but sometimes, out in the middle of nowhere, a little miracle will fly through the sky. I like to imagine them living out here and surviving, despite everything.

We reach our first campsite—an old RV campground with a sign up to welcome us. Hector twists around to confer with me, then takes us another ten miles so we can stretch our legs a little bit more.

“Aren't we supposed to stop there?” Theo asks.

I turn my head around and see he looks peeved.

None of the others answer him, so I say, “It's good to not be predictable. You never know when the Sponsor might try to show up with his cameras and get into our business.”

“What do you have against him? That's his right. It's part of the contract,” Theo says. “And what's our route? The Sponsor says we could add in a couple more dances if we rode faster.”

Theo can't help talking stupid. He's like a baby eagle who's half pin feathers, half fluff. Even so, the other guys glare at him.

“Missoula to Stevensville, then Darby, then over to Wisdom,” I say. “As soon as you've ridden it once, it'll imprint into you. Easy as riding a bike.”

“What happens if our bikes break and we're not at the right spot?”

“Never happens.”

“Never?” he asks.

“All the components are internalized. The wheels are braided tungsten-rubber. The frames are torture tested carbon-fiber. We'll break before these bikes do.”

That gives him a moment's pause, then he asks, “You like being a migrator? You ever get tired of it and think of retiring?” There's something sly and mean to his words.

I don't answer him. There's no way to express the combination of love, rage, fear, hate, joy, and sorrow I feel about migrating. Most humans never have to know about that feeling.

“Back when I started,” I say, and then grin at my grandpa words, “there used to be trackers on our bikes. They were real useful to our owner for planning our performances and getting the crowds ready. Except they always fell off or got broken somehow. That's what happens when he tries to spy on our migration: things get broken.” I give him a knowing look.

He pauses for a moment, but then he starts in on me again. “He's made you all rich. You talk like it wasn't your choice, like he made you migrate.”

The young are always under the illusion that they are free. “He owns enough of us as is. Two migrations every year. When a bird migrates his flock follow the same route every year, but where they stop and rest—every year is a little different.”

“You study birds?” Theo asks.

“I've read some books, thought I should, since I am part bird.”

Theo nods his head. “What else do you know about them?”

“They're quiet when they fly.”

The sun is a cold sliver on the horizon by the time we stop. We set up camp—five orange tents staked down in one corner of a fallow field. Scotty lets into the fledgling about uniforms.

“The more flow to our costumes the better, but you have to be careful about tripping. What do you think, Theo?”

The fledgling doesn't know what to think, but Scotty doesn't mind. All he needs is a sounding post. We all have our tricks for getting through the migration—Scotty's is uniforms and gadgets. Hector's is his tattoos, one for every migration. Maybe mine is thinking about birds. Theo stays up late talking with him, getting in a couple of 'uh-huhs' and 'I guess sos' in between Scotty's monologue.

I zip into my tent and open up the sky window. It's a big sky in Montana, everyone knows that, but the way it makes me feel lonely is all my own. I miss Marion and our two girls, all grown up now. In a day or so I won't think much about them—everything will get focused down to the tunnel vision of migrating. I'm a man who lives dual lives with little overlap. But for the moment, I like to think about my family. I'd do just about anything for my wife and girls, like turn myself part way into a bird and migrate across the continent.

 

* * *

 

Three hundred and fifty miles later, give or take a dozen miles on my sore ass, we reach Yellowstone.

A huge banner stretches over the park's north entrance reading, “See the Dance of the Sandhill Crane!” We sit back on our bikes as we coast into the park. Keith has been singing an old camp song to himself, over and over.

“I like bananas, coconuts, and grapes—that's why they call me Tarzan of the apes! I like bananas . . .”

No one would blame me if I strangled him. Too bad I like Keith.

Theo is full of all kinds of talk again, playing the role of the good little stooge. He's riding behind Hector, who treats him like a mosquito just out of slapping range.

“What can we do to make the dance more exciting and draw in more people? It's great how the Sponsor is meeting us with more provisions, isn't it? He really takes care of us.”

I bike steadily and let my leg muscles do the work. My left Achilles aches, but the rest of me feels strong. Yellowstone has crap roads that twist and turn on themselves like they were drunk when they laid the concrete. I pop and coast into hover a couple of times. Until the day I'm dead, I'll always love hovering.

There are whiffs of sulfur and foul minerals on the air. Yellowstone is nature's fartlands, but it's the most popular American park. Go figure. Cars pull over and line the roads, waving and honking at us as we pass.

Hector increases our pace and we turn down a long stretch of road that's less crowded. Even though it's not the first stop in the park, we go to Old Faithful first. It puts an extra fifty miles on our ride, but that's what the contract orders. We bike along the Madison River then down to the Upper Geyser Basin. The road loops back and around to where we start our performance, so we won't be seen ahead of time. We dismount just out of sight of the Anemone, Beehive, and Plume geysers.

Our Sponsor is there with the costumes and body paint that Scotty radioed to him after talking us all to death about what we should wear. It's not so different from last time. There's cloth sewn along the arms and attached to our shoulder blades with a long skeletal frame to approximate the sandhill crane wingspan. The rest is sleek gray material so tight it shows off every line and muscle of our bodies, save for the modesty crotch-cups. This is a family event, after all.

“And now, what you've all been waiting for. . . .” A tinny sounding drum roll pounds through the park. “Once thought to be extinct, the sandhill cranes have been resurrected for one day only! The oldest birds known to man! Closest in kin to dinosaurs! The sandhill cranes' mysterious movements might be how the dinosaurs danced! Please welcome the Western Migrators!”

The applause of five thousand people is a little unnerving. Theo takes a step backwards. We've painted our skin gray, except for our eyes, which are blackened, and our foreheads, which are a shocking red like the actual birds. Scotty leads the way forward, and we follow him, picking our legs along the ground carefully, straining our necks upward and moving them from side to side. Three of us move in unison for a couple steps then fall out of it, as though any uniformity were random. My legs are sore and my neck's stiff, but never mind that, a crane doesn't know about that. A thousand cameras click and follow our motions. As many people as they can fit into the bleachers lean forward and stare at us. A screen twenty feet above us projects our dance to everyone else. A kid starts crying.