What happens if you lose your foot? Well, you could receive a prosthetic, but you can’t control it directly, nor can you feel from it. With the E10, if you lost your foot, you could order another, identical to the first, and it would be as if you had never lost anything.
Arnon D’Bvaym
THE NIGHT WAS spent in flight. 64Bit took the lead until a wave of dizziness knocked him from his feet. Kayla pulled him off the ground and supported him as they continued to limp along. By that point, the tree cover had thinned enough that Kayla could navigate by moonlight.
The scent of smoke and wet ash in the air, initially nearly imperceptible, grew as they ran.
They cut through old homes with trees and bushes growing through the floorboards, ran across broken-up roads, and skulked through copses of trees. 64Bit didn’t know how he managed to keep moving, but he barely registered the second half of the night and almost didn’t notice when the sun’s first rays pierced over the mountains. He and Kayla stumbled into a crumbling home in the middle of a street, most of its roof and second floor collapsed in.
By then, the burnt scent of the air couldn’t be ignored. Everything that Zed had told 64Bit became real again. He shook Kayla away and slipped onto the floor, staff pressed against his forehead, then leaned against a wall. “What have I done,” 64Bit whispered. Then he pressed his lips together. “Id. Id. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for . . . Id.”
“Who?” Kayla asked between gulps of air.
“Id. A dark technomancer,” 64Bit whispered. He looked up at Kayla. “Fort has fallen. It was attacked by an army of rozies belonging to . . . Id.”
Kayla looked as if she were about to snap at 64Bit, then sniffed again. The smell of smoke was still in 64Bit’s nostrils, too. After a second, Kayla said, “How did you find out about this?”
“Zed told me.”
“Zed?”
“The rozie that ambushed us,” 64Bit said.
Kayla twisted her lips. “You’re going to believe a rozie is telling the truth?”
64Bit stared at the ground for a moment. He had no reason to believe that Zed had been telling the truth—but the rozie had seemed so straightforward, so . . . genuine. Zed didn’t appear to have a reason to lie. “Except to intimidate me, but he did that well enough,” 64Bit whispered to himself, looking at his injured hand. He looked at Kayla. “Where is this smoke coming from?”
Kayla clenched her fists, then looked up, through the broken house’s roof, into the brightening sky above. She took a deep breath. “I just don’t want to believe it. But I heard screams the other night. Explosions. It could be real.” She began to pace.
“There is evidence,” 64Bit said. He felt so tired—so drained, like a leech had sucked him dry and left only skin and bones. He rubbed his dry tongue over cracked lips. “Do you have water?”
Kayla shook her head, then stomped her feet. She walked over to 64Bit and held out a hand. He took it and stood with effort, his knees shaking the whole way.
“What is wrong with you?” Kayla asked.
“Blood loss . . . Hunger . . . Thirst . . .” 64Bit waved his injured hand at Kayla. She grunted.
“There’s a bolt-hole nearby, somewhat. We should probably hole up in there, recover a little more. Then we can make some sort of plan, figure out what to do.” Kayla threw 64Bit’s arm over her shoulder. “Come on.”
They exited through the back of the home and crossed a yard overgrown with bushes and grasses. The fence on the far side had been knocked down long ago, leaving only crushed plastic panels lying on the dirt. 64Bit hissed and jumped on one foot as a shard of plastic stabbed his heel.
“Where are your shoes?” Kayla asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” 64Bit grumbled. “I just need new ones.”
Kayla shook her head. “Whatever happened, I bet it was dumb. Maybe we can wrap some cloth around your feet when we get to the bolt-hole. Better than nothing.”
#
THE FOREST GLADE Kayla led them to looked like most any other 64Bit had seen. This one was within view of a building with cracked bricks making up the lower half of its walls, had rocky soil, and had a slope that inclined toward the mountains. 64Bit narrowed his eyes when Kayla, after poking at the base of some shrubbery, pulled up a trap door with a triumphant “Hah!” He was amazed that Kayla was able to find this spot that, to him, looked identical to the rest of the forest.
“We’ll rest for a time, then hike back to Fort,” Kayla said as she lowered herself into the bolt-hole. “With a very hard march we could make it back in a day . . . Um, so give it two or three at your speed.”
64Bit stepped gingerly on each ladder rung with his bare feet and opted not to argue. “I need food—meat, if possible, or anything with iron and magnesium. And water. Lots of water.” Trying to lower himself with one hand on the ladder and his staff tucked under his other arm—the one with his injured hand— proved to be awkward, so 64Bit let the staff drop, wincing when it hit the ground, and then finished descending. By the time he reached the dirt floor of the bolt-hole, Kayla was already rooting through storage buckets. She first retrieved and lit an oil lantern, then began collecting water, jerky, and powdered rations that 64Bit assumed formed the base for mush.
The cup that 64Bit had used to eat breakfast was still in his robe pocket. He pulled it out and stared. Khalil had handed this cup to him, had prepared him food that morning. 64Bit wondered where the silent man was now and prayed he had escaped Zed, but he didn’t find himself hopeful.
Meanwhile, Kayla climbed the ladder and closed the trap door at its top, leaving the room only lit by the flickering glow of the lantern. She climbed back down, looked at 64Bit sitting, leaned against a wall, and threw her hands in the air.
“What?” 64Bit asked.
“You’re going to make me do everything?” Kayla responded.
“I’m recovering from traumatic experiences,” 64Bit said with a frown.
Kayla rolled her eyes, then threw a waterskin at 64Bit, followed by some jerky. 64Bit yelped as the food hit him in the chest; the waterskin bounced to the floor and began leaking. He scooped it up, undid its cap with a shaking hand, and drank until it was empty.
“Is there more?” 64Bit asked.
Kayla looked up from a cup of mush, then tossed 64Bit another waterskin. They ate in silence after that.
The food and drink made 64Bit begin to feel alive again, for good and for ill. He appreciated the energy, but the renewed throbbing in his feet and injured hand couldn’t be ignored, and he still felt a general, heavy exhaustion after a night spent running. He examined his feet by the light of the lantern and nodded. Nothing serious—bruises and small cuts that, provided he washed them well and kept them covered, shouldn’t worsen. His hand would require immediate attention—as immediate as he could give it, anyway. He needed to sleep first.
“We need . . .” 64Bit tried to say, his words slurring with tiredness. He paused when he saw that Kayla was asleep already. He wondered how much sleep she got trying to keep up with the ATV—probably very little, if any. Yet she was present, had enough clarity of mind to take advantage of the ATV explosion— and then was able to flee with 64Bit through another night and find them this bolt-hole.
They both needed rest. Work would come later. 64Bit shut off his eye screens and felt himself drift away.
#
64BIT COULDN’T TELL how much time had passed before he awoke; he just knew that his entire body somehow ached worse than before he had fallen asleep. He shifted to his side, groaned, and then buried his face in his arm and coughed, the sound amplified by the small bolt-hole.
“Who’s that?” Kayla’s eyes snapped open and she jumped to her feet, a knife in her hands. After looking around for a moment, her eyes fell on 64Bit and she frowned. “Oh. Right.”
64Bit ignored Kayla. He turned off his eye screens, placed a hand over his heart and forced himself to pray, then shuffled to the storage boxes while Kayla calmed down and ate breakfast. Inside he found rough, hard soap bars, wooden cups, more powdered mush, and other items for eating, drinking, and cleaning. He also found thick blankets—he could turn one of those into makeshift shoes and towels—and a basic medical kit with a small knife, a thin needle with some string, and bottled herbal medicines. 64Bit sighed. It would have to do.
“What are you looking for?” Kayla asked.
“I need to treat my feet and my hand. I’ll need you to help me—for the hand, at least,” 64Bit said. He looked at her. “Is there a metal bowl in here? Something we could heat water with?”
“I doubt it,” Kayla responded. “But you haven’t searched through everything yet.”
64Bit nodded, then looked through the last two storage boxes. In one he found a large stone that had a depression carved out of its middle—it wouldn’t hold much water, but if the stone were kept hot enough it would heat water well enough. In the other was a second oil lantern. Perfect.
“Aren’t you going to eat before . . . doing whatever that is?” Kayla asked.
64Bit shook his head and removed the top of the lantern, then placed the carved stone on it. The stone was close enough to be heated by the flame, and the lantern had a steady enough base that it wouldn’t fall over on the uneven ground as long as he was careful. He took their second-to-last skin of water and poured a little on the stone, then cut a rough blanket to make a towel. “We don’t have any painkillers, so working on my hand is going to hurt. I’ll eat after. I don’t want to vomit partway through.” His stomach grumbled in response.
Kayla watched as 64Bit heated water, soaked it up with his towel, and began washing his feet. After cleaning off the worst of the dirt and picking out splinters, he rubbed them with one of the soap bars he found and rinsed them, then examined each cut one by one, his work slowed from doing everything one-handed. Once satisfied, he set his feet on a blanket to dry and used the knife in the medicine box to cut strips from another blanket. He looked at Kayla.
“Yes?” Kayla said.
“Could you help me tie these?”
Kayla twisted her lips, but she crawled over to 64Bit and wrapped the blanket strips around his feet and tied them. 64Bit then stood and walked around the bolt-hole. His feet still hurt a little, but it felt much better than walking barefoot, and it would help keep the cuts clean. He sat down again to give his feet more rest.
“Handy,” Kayla said. “I can’t help but notice that you’re using most of the water . . .”
“I’ll need a little more. We should have at least one skin left at the end,” 64Bit said. He took a deep breath and looked at his hand. Technomancers tended to heal quickly and cleanly—it came with the gene unique to all technomancers—and 64Bit was pleased that, while covered in dried and clotted blood, his hand was as clean as could be expected and didn’t smell of rot. He also had enough skin and flesh above the bone of his hand that he could sew it over easily enough. He handed a fresh blanket strip to Kayla.
“No,” Kayla said. She pushed the blanket strip back.
64Bit pressed his lips together. “If this wound remains open, I could get seriously sick. I don’t think we have time to wait until we get to Fort. If there’s anything there for us. And this is going to hurt me—a lot. I can direct you, but I’ll need you to do the work.” Kayla stared a moment longer, so 64Bit added, “Please?”
Kayla clenched and unclenched her fists, then nodded.
“Here’s the towel—put some water on the stone to heat it—make sure the soap stays clean,” 64Bit began. He directed Kayla through cleaning his finger stump thoroughly, cutting and layering the remaining skin and flesh, applying the herbal medicines, and then sewing it together, with many gasps, grunts, and cries of pain on his part as they went through it. Several times 64Bit had to stop and just focus on breathing before directing Kayla to continue, her face growing greener and her mouth tighter the entire time.
Finally, it was done. 64Bit leaned back against a wall with a sigh, wiped sweat off his forehead, and tried to focus on his breathing. Kayla dropped the bloody towel in her hand and stumbled to the grate at the bottom of the ladder, where she dropped and vomited.
Kayla wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and gasped. “Never—never—make me do something like that again.”
64Bit couldn’t help but smirk. “Can’t handle a bit of—”
“Not one more word,” Kayla said. She spat into the grate. “I’ve helped carry dead scouts without flinching. I can gut and clean any animal you can kill in this valley. There’s just something different about . . . about . . . that.”
“Medicine?” 64Bit asked, confused.
Kayla spat again, then grabbed the remaining waterskin and drank. She then tossed the last of the jerky and a cup of mush to 64Bit. “Hurry up and eat. We need to leave.”
64Bit almost protested—his entire body was sore, his feet particularly so, and he was concerned about his hand. One black glare from Kayla shut his mouth, at least until his hunger opened it again. 64Bit chewed the dry, flavorless jerky as quickly as he could, washed it down with some chalky mush, and wished again for Cortex’s cooking—or just a real kitchen.
While 64Bit ate, Kayla tidied up the bolt-hole, repacking the storage boxes and, after a few moments of looking up at the trap door, shoving the cleaning towel through the grate at the bottom of the ladder. She then climbed up to the trap door and began to undo the latch.
“Wait!” 64Bit said, holding his good hand up. Kayla looked down at him scathingly. 64Bit continued: “Let me check for rozies before we open that.”
“You never learned how to fight rozies, remember? You told me you’re just dead weight.”
“I . . . am not dead weight,” 64Bit said. He used the bolt-hole’s wall to push himself to his feet. “Just because my expertise doesn’t revolve around violence and killing things. You saw my hand—if you’re ever injured like that, you’ll be grateful for what I can do. But I did figure out a way to get a sense for when rozies are in the area.”
Kayla continued to glare at 64Bit, so he glared back. Unlike Kayla, he didn’t need to blink; he had a hard time holding back another smirk when Kayla’s eyes eventually had to close. “Hurry up, then!” Kayla said.
64Bit located his staff and picked it up. He didn’t know if it had helped him sense Zed’s presence before he saw the rozie, but he also didn’t see how holding the staff would hurt. He turned off his eye screens, breathed deeply, and tried to push away all sensations and feelings that he didn’t want to pay attention to at the moment. His aching muscles, his softly throbbing hand— gone. His frustration with Kayla, his concern for Fort—pushed away. The only thing he couldn’t push away was a knot of pain in his heart that made him think of the master whenever he approached it—a complicated, tight knot filled with concern for the man, but also anger. 64Bit didn’t dare approach it, so he just ignored it.
Nothing.
64Bit turned on his eye screens. “I did not sense any rozies.”
Kayla began pushing up the trap door. “So, there’s going to be rozies that try to bite my head off in a minute, huh?”
“Why are you so belligerent right now?” 64Bit exclaimed. “That’s not what I said—”
“I haven’t decided yet if I blame you for Richard’s death,” Kayla said. Her voice wasn’t loud or angry anymore—it was cold. She stared at 64Bit a moment longer, then continued, “If what you said yesterday is true, then it’s your fault that Fort may be destroyed right now. Right? I don’t think there’s any other way to look at it. So don’t push me, technoboy. You might just break the last string that’s holding me back from leaving you.” Then she disappeared into the world above.
64Bit’s mouth gaped for a moment. Then, concerned that being too slow might make Kayla follow through with her threat, he hastened up the ladder, out of the bolt-hole, and ran after her.
#
SHORTLY AFTER 64BIT left the clearing, some nearby bushes shimmered, then melted away, revealing a large, metal trunk with spiderlike legs and a woman’s face carved into its front. With a silence that defied its bulk, it crawled off into the forest, following 64Bit and Kayla.
Copyright © 2023 by David Ludlow
Boo Ludlow 