vN (8 page)

  –far away, a rock tumbled loudly, like an exclamation point.

  The police followed it. So did their radios. So did their noise.

  And above her, Javier bounced from tree to tree, hands curling confidently around boughs that greeted him with needles. She saw him hit the tree above her head and crawl downwards, lizard-like, toward her head.

  "They're distracted," he murmured. "Go."

  She ran.

• • • •

They sat perched in a Douglas fir that clung to a steep, unfriendly overhang with a magnificent view of the police officers and all-terrain trucks clustered below, at what was apparently a trailhead or logging road. From here, Amy could turn her head and watch the trail worm its way up the mountain, its shining length frequently disappearing under the cover of trees. She watched flashlights bobbing along it, now, as the officers hiked. A group had stayed behind to reload one truck's giant battery.

  She had been sitting this way – legs and arms hugging the sticky, fragrant trunk of the tree, neck twisting as she struggled to obtain a better view, clothes stained with sap and mud and Javier's gunk – for hours. Javier sat comfortably on a very sturdy-looking bough, ankles hooked around the tree, baby in his arms. He looked completely at home.

  Amy rested her forehead against the tree. Rain-wet wind reached up the back of her shirt. The tree swayed. She wanted to go home. She wanted the special vN cocoa from the coffee shop nearest her building, the kind she and her mom drank on winter days from specially coloured cups so the humans wouldn't get confused. She wanted her mom to know where she was. She wanted this to be over.

  "When do you think we can climb down?" she asked.

  Javier said, "Not for a while. The cute blond one just handed out more coffee."

  "I don't see him with any coffee."

  "I meant the girl."

  Amy squinted. "How can you even tell who's cute and who isn't, from up here? It's
dark
."

  "I saw them earlier, remember? Oh, there she is. She just stood up. Her shoes keep coming untied."

  "Oh, the one who keeps bending over!"

  "Well, uh–"

  "She should just get Velcro shoes. That's what people who don't know how to tie their shoes yet wear."

  "…Right. Anyway. They're digging in. We're up here for a while, I think." The bough beneath Javier creaked slightly as he shifted. "And I saw that guy's teeth, earlier. They're a total loss. He's got, like, this one, and it totally sticks out all funny."

  "Maybe he can't afford injectables," Amy said.

  "Humans are programmed obsolescence, all the way. It's a little sad." His bough creaked again. "They're cute, though. That makes them kinda useful, for a while."

  
"Ewww…"

  "Hey, it worked for your mom. She found herself a nice slice of meat, right? You're a big girl now, and if those chimps down there can do anything, it's–"

  "Not listening,
la la la
–"

  "I could put in a good word for you with Officer Snaggletooth–"

  "Shut up! You're
gross
." She shuddered. "I don't
like
him."

  "Oh, yeah, sure. You're a total ice queen now, but wait till you're in front of him and your failsafe takes over. He'll have you playing Hide-the-Baton all night long." Javier poked the first finger of his left hand into a circle made by his right thumb and forefinger, in and out, in and out.

  Amy turned away. "You're disgusting. I'm not like that."

  "Yeah, right. Tell it to your OS. You've got a failsafe like everybody else."

 
 Do you? Do you really?

  Of course she did. Amy's mom hadn't spent much time on the subject, but she had said that von Neumann-type humanoids were "allergic" to hurting humans, or to seeing them get hurt. She'd said that's what love meant: the inability to see the other person get hurt without losing a part of your mind, the desire to do anything and everything to keep it from happening. And all vN everywhere felt that way about humans, whether they lived together or not. It was part of New Eden's plan – to leave God's unwanted children with people who could really love and protect them. But when Amy's granny killed Nate, she hadn't suddenly fallen down dead. Nor had Amy. Amy had looked at Nate's body – the limp and twisted heap of it, rumpled like dirty clothes – and had not recoiled.

  "Is the failsafe the same for everyone?" she asked. "Every model, everywhere?"

  "What, doesn't it feel that way for you?" Javier asked. "I can't help it. I love humans. They're adorable. Like those little dogs with the wrinkly faces." He grinned, then tilted his head a little when she didn't smile back. "Anyway. Every time we iterate, we copy the failsafe. That's why we get to roam free."

  
Not any more, though. Things are different, now.

  Amy blinked hard. She looked down at Javier. "You sound like you give that speech a lot."

  "Yeah, well, my kids had better know the score." Javier paused, licked his thumb, and wiped something away from his son's face. "Isn't that right, Junior?"

  Amy smiled. "Are you really going to call him that?"

  "All my boys are named Junior."

  "Just Junior? No other name?"

  Javier slowly extricated his finger from his son's fist. "I'm never with them long enough," he said. "They should choose their own–"

  A giant arc light swung over them. Amy froze. Below her, Javier started scrambling. "Move!"

  She moved. She didn't even bother thinking about the placement of boughs or branches. She hugged the trunk and slipped downward, ripping her pants in the process. Javier already stood at the bottom, clinging with one hand to the wet, crumbling earth of the overhang and his child with the other. Together they half walked, half slid down the overhang, wincing at tumbling rocks and hurrying into the cover of spiky trees. They ducked under hair-snagging branches and waded through carpets of spiny wood ferns. Thunder rolled in the distance.

  "Just what we need," Javier muttered.

  Behind them, a gun cocked.

  "Turn around."

  They turned, hands rising automatically. The woman wore forest ranger clothes and carried a flashlight that turned the rain to a shower of white sparks. Amy instantly envied her quilted coat and wide-brimmed hat; they looked like they would keep out the rain. Her own hair was stringy with it, now, her shirt uncomfortably wet and sticky.

  As though reading her mind, the ranger chuckled to herself. She lowered her gun and her light. Now Amy could see her face better. She was a popular Asian-style model, with a broad face and full, pretty lips and high cheekbones that pulled her gentle eyes tight. Even under her bulky ranger clothes, a perfect hourglass figure was discernible. She spoke in a gentle, almost modest voice. "It's all right. You can put your hands down."

  "Huh?"

  "I'm a friend, I promise." She holstered her gun and reached inside her pockets. She tossed foil-wrapped packets of vN food at their feet. Amy recognized the cheery logos immediately; she bent down and grabbed as many as her hands could carry before making a pouch of her wet shirt and stuffing them there, kangaroo-style.

  "What's going on?" Javier asked. "Why are you helping us?"

  "Rory sent me," she said.

  Amy blinked. "Rory? The one who writes my diet plan?"

  The ranger nodded. She smiled. "I'm an ex-dieter, too. I know how the hunger feels. What happened wasn't your fault, Amy."

  Something about hearing someone else say those words made Amy's tears well up. "Thank you."

  "Rory feels terrible about this, Amy. She knows you were on her diet, and understands the role it played in what happened. She knows a place where you can get help. It's in Seattle, near the quake museum. It's not far." The ranger reached for an inner pocket and retrieved a ring of keys. "There's a car waiting for you about a hundred yards north of here. I left the details and some supplies there. There isn't much, I'm afraid, just what I could scratch together… Oh, and this!" She dug in her back pocket. Amy and Javier glanced at each other. What more could the ranger possibly give them?

  "Cash," the ranger said, holding out two sets of bills held together with paperclips. Amy took hers and stuffed it down a back pocket.

  If her arms weren't already so full, Amy would have hugged the ranger. "Thank you. Thank you so much…"

  "I only wish there were more I could do," the ranger said.

  There was, Amy realized. "Where are my parents?"

  The ranger blinked. "I'm sorry?"

  "My parents," Amy said. "I have to get back to them–"

  A light swooped overhead. "You have to get to safety, first," the ranger whispered. "Get going."

• • • •

In the car – an old family-style number with the name of the battery on the side in big curvy letters, like it was somehow special – they found blankets and maps. They were in the Olympic National Forest, in Washington. "Wow," Amy said. "I really am a long way from home."

  Javier turned to her. He looked at the map, at her toes curled over the edge of the seat. He sucked his teeth for a moment. "Look, you can take this or leave it, but I think that ranger was right. It's a bad idea for you to try going home right now." He grimaced at the road. "You never return to the scene of the crime, right?"

  "I didn't even
commit
a crime! I didn't do anything wrong! I just intervened!"

  Javier's hands briefly left the wheel. "Hey. Whoa. Do I look like a cop?" He glanced briefly in her direction. "Anyway. You don't have to explain anything. The less I know, the better. We'll find a rest stop, and you can ping your folks from there."

  Amy smiled just thinking about it. "Thank you."

  Javier shrugged. "I'll have to leave you there, though. We're fugitives, so your parents' tubes are probably being monitored. The moment you make that connection, I'm gone."

  Amy hugged her knees. "OK." She nodded to herself. "Thank you. For taking the risk. If you ever come back down south again, you should come visit us." Her eyes widened. She snapped her fingers. "I'm going to need a bigger bed!"

  
"Excuse me?"

  "Well, I'm just so much taller, now," Amy said, stretching her arms out. "The old one won't fit."

  "Right." Javier fiddled with the rearview camera's settings. "Don't tell me you actually miss having a bedtime."

  She laughed. "Nope."

  "Probably past it now, right?"

  She peered at the dash display. "Oh yeah.
Way
past it."

  Javier grinned. He handed her his baby, and motioned at the pile of vN food on the dash. "Can you feed him? And hide that vN food – it's worse than a bunch of empty beer cans, when it comes to cops."

  Amy looked in the back seat. "I wish we had a car seat…"

  "Just hide him under the blanket." Javier handed Junior over to her, then scattered the vN food at her feet. Amy reached down and grabbed some before buckling her seatbelt and wrapping Junior in the extra folds of blanket. She tried making a little tent for him in there like she'd seen nursing mothers use.

  "What if he chokes?" She broke off a square of food. It smelled vaguely like peanut butter.

  Javier shook his head. "I keep forgetting you don't have kids…" He gestured. "It'll melt. You'll see."

  Amy gently lowered the square into Junior's mouth. He watched her with his giant, calm eyes. She was reminded of a faithful dog, somehow. The food slowly liquefied; he sucked it down rather than chewing. "He did it!"

  "Told you. Bend down and smell his mouth. It should smell bitter in there. That's how you know they're ready to eat. It's a compound in the saliva. Helps them predigest the food."

  Amy sniffed. She recognized the smell instantly. Her mouth had tasted the same way, just before she'd eaten her grandmother. She shuddered, and tried changing the subject to something only slightly less bizarre. "That was really lucky back there. I can't believe that Rory herself wants to help, and is sending ex-dieters to look after me."

  "Yeah. That's like, meeting Santa or something."

  Amy frowned. "What do you mean? How is it like meeting Santa? Santa lives at the North Pole."

  Mild panic wrote itself across Javier's features. He swallowed. "Uh… You're right! It's not like meeting him at all! Because Santa's totally real, and–" He shot a quick glance in her direction. By now, she was having a hard time restraining her giggles. "And you're totally fucking with me right now, aren't you?"

  Amy laughed through her nose. Javier gave her the finger. She kept laughing. He kept driving. Every so often, he would look over at her and shake his head, and nudge the speed up. Soon Junior was asleep. Amy followed not long after, lulled by the squeak of wipers over the empty static Javier insisted on listening to.

 

  
"G-G-Granny…"

  
Madness kindles in their eyes. Failures. All of them. She lifts the gun. The puke rounds smell a little dry, but still good.

  
The air fills with the hiss of melting flesh–