Dadr'Ba (26 page)

The day of the race was exciting, all working T’Bm’s were minimally manned, and it seemed like Ol’Tn’Ka couldn’t hold any more people, the narrow streets and alleyways were packed. It was early mid-morning for sector three, everyone in Nu’Tn was either at work or school and the few surveillance sensors operating in Ol’Tn, as poorly maintained as they were, finally failed completely.

Portable displays of many varied types and sizes appeared all over Ol’Tn. Though virtually everyone could view the run through their TaC-B’s, watching the run on a conventional screen as a group, enhanced the group aspect for the psychically connected spectators. There was hardly a direction to look that didn’t have a blank space or bare wall containing some display with some portion of the event on it.

People stood next to mats, folding and inflatable chairs and couches that lined the street that served as the beginning of the course and by the way which the finishers would return. Once the run started and the runner had passed, the spectators would overflow into the middle of the street, with the viewers settling into a comfortable position to watch on the multitude of screens viewable from nearly every spot along Ol’Tn’s main street.

The staging area for the runners was at the far end of the street from the access ramp and airlock to zone three. The runners’ check-in at a table where race officials verify their id and assign them their run number and give them a set of closely fitting goggles, a compact respirator and a sealable bag to put their things in with their name and number on it.

From check-in, the runners go to one out of a row of tents, each clearly identified outside to indicate the artist within. There they take off their clothes and are given a coat of cryo-reactive exothermic body paint; the paint amounts to a self-destructing eSuit that slowly burns away during the run.

The runners choose in advance their artist as well as the design and thickness of their “suit”. The thickness is based on how much they think they’ll need. The paint is cumbersome and inhibits freedom of movement. The goal is to have just enough to get the runner through to the finish, but not too much that it will weigh the runner down when they need to be fastest but still sufficient to keep the runner from freezing in the cryogenic temperatures of Zone four.

The goal is to gauge just the right amount of paint against the external temperature factoring in the runner’s internal heat generated by exertion and to end the race alive, naked, and un-frostbitten.

P’Ko chose a light coat; his practice runs with Su’Zi had been in leotards for all the zones except for zone four. For Zone Four during the run, he as most of the others expected to be at maximum exertion and maximum internal heat generation and not to need as much thermal protection. Mostly, his decision was based on Su’Zi’s recommendation, plus another factor, avoided in most conversation, that being the level of terror from having a Se’Ro’Bs chasing you.

P’Ko, naked, covered with only a thin coat of cryo-reactive exothermic body paint found himself near the center of the group of other similarly clad runners. A head taller than the rest, he could see just about all of them.

The runners, clones all, scream through their appearance, their personal individuality and uniqueness. Each runner is attempting to be more outlandish and distinct than the runner next to them. They mill around behind the starting line, each painted in a wide variety of bright fluorescent colors and designs creating a psychedelic chorus line of grandiose and visually striking displays.

The runners as a whole stood out from the much larger crowd surrounding them and lining the street. As the starting time neared, the runners start to coalesce, riding on the force of the will of the runners as a whole and backed by the psychic essence pouring from the surrounding community of Mi’Nr’s. What had started as a visual cacophony and a collection of discordant individuals melded together, become synchronized with a common goal on a common mission.

They all face the starting line and the stage set up adjacent to it.

P’Ko wished he had his TaC-B, but none of the runners were allowed their personal communication devices. He was made to remove it and put it in his personal effects bag. Su’Zi had told him about this, but it made him feel even more naked without it. He would have no way of communicating and without its positioning function, he wouldn’t know where he was. Su’Zi just told him to play it safe, stay in the middle of the pack, follow the rest and that he’d be okay.  

Once it was confirmed all the runners were prepped in the starting area, a race official got everyone’s attention. After the crowd quieted, the chaplain, gave a prayer, asking God to protect and guide the runners. The race director came back and reviewed the rules, then introduced the M’Vr
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  from the previous year, who said a few words of encouragement.

The race director returned, then after slowly raising his hand above his head quickly brought down on a switch that was at the corner of the podium near where he was standing.

A bright flash erupted from a large strobe light that had been suspended over the runners. P’Ko’s vision was blanked for a moment when he recovered; he found himself moving across the starting line in pace with the rest of the runners.

The psychic energy around him was high; everyone was as excited as he was but nobody was running, this was more like a trot, wasn’t this about running? But immediately the answer came to him from all those around him, no, it’s about running, it’s about “the run”, the course, the experience, challenging death and bonding with your teammates.

P’Ko was experiencing a whole new level of psychic experience; the answer he received didn’t come from a single individual but the group. He got a little dizzy as he began to comprehend it. He didn’t fully realize it before, but this was a run for the group, not the individual.

To survive without losing one of its members, the group must act as one. P’Ko realized that this answer to the question he thought to himself was the first step in being accepted.

As P’Ko thought about the team and what they are setting out to do he realized that if he’s going to finish this run successfully the itty-bitt of acceptance he has now must grow substantially. He didn’t get any reassurance from his neighbors as this thought crossed his mind, they seemed not to be paying him much attention.

When he focused on it, he sensed his running mates were congealing; this wasn’t a group of “individuals” but a “team” and forming up as one as they trotted down the street. The crowd, psychically aware, connecting with the runners, endorsed their mission, were excited, and shouted encouragement to their runner(s). Many among the crowd displayed banners, some even painted themselves naked in the same design as their runners.

Psychic energy grew, and the runners trot became faster, and their strides stretched out. Then as one they broke out into a run and picked up speed. P’Ko found this transition difficult; he hadn’t practiced it, his height made his stride much longer than the rest, making him feel disconnected from the group.

A
s they reached the ramp, the pace had increased enough for P’Ko to feel more comfortable. They ran down the ramp, through the air lock, forced open for the event, and found themselves entering the maze of tunnels as the air lock closed behind them.

P’Ko sensed their first goal was to scatter and find a Se’Ro’Bs his long comfortable stride took him to the lead position; it felt good, but he sensed only skeptical acceptance and some resentment from the group as he did this. He tried to reassure them that he wasn’t out for the glory of the lead, that it was his comfortable pace, but he also couldn’t hide the thrill he got from being in front.

Then he remembered Su’Zi’s advice to “stay in the middle of the pack” he slowed a little, and let someone else take the lead, he sensed it was one of the more experienced runners. P’Ko decided to try to stay with him even as they passed the first split, a group of runners at the tail of the leading group split off and took that path. The main group staying with P’Ko and the leader.

They passed more tunnel splits and at each, another group split off until the number of runners was reduced to five. The tunnels grew darker until an inky darkness prevailed. The darkness was interrupted only occasionally by automated lighting at the tunnel intersection as it branched off to lower levels.

As they descended each level, it got colder; dim light started to glow as the group’s body paint began to activate. P’Ko hadn’t realized before that one of his bodymods included infrared vision.

He began to feel part of the group he was with as he adjusted his stride to match his pack mates, and with practice became accustomed to it. He exercised his full stride as he bounded over obstacles that appeared as they came across partial tunnel collapses and sags, caused by accidental overheating of that part of the tunnel or a weak reinforcement, that could have occurred centuries ago.

They sometimes climbed ladders or slid down a hole to the next level. The five packs they had separated into were combing the entire sector, trying to find a Se’Ro’Bs, something that down to the very fiber of its being wants to catch and consume them.

P’Ko in the middle of his group began to hear clicks, he didn’t know what it was coming from and thought it could be coming from a Se’Ro’Bs, but it was coming from somewhere within his group. Without speaking his group said back to him, “listen and see.”

P’Ko didn’t quite know what that meant, but did as he was asked and focusing on listening and seeing at the same time, his mind opened to the rest of the group, and he began to see the tunnel around him lighted in still frame with each of the clicks he heard.

At first, it was distracting trying to run using still frame flashes of vision, but he soon began to focus on the distant parts of the images and running from the memory of what’s in between. Using the dim body paint glow to help fill in the near gaps.

P’Ko tried and discovered that he too could click, he didn’t know what part of his body, it emanated from but he could do it, and he soon developed a timing joining, like joining in with a song, with the pack to form a jagged picture of their progress.

Why, hadn’t Su’Zi mentioned this? But he dismissed the question rapidly. The practice tunnels were relatively well lit, and Su’Zi might not have realized that P’Ko could see echo click, so neglected to mention it. She told him just to play it safe and stay in the middle of the group.

P’Ko soon realized that staying in the midst of the pack wasn’t going to work. Su’Zi must have thought that the pack would accommodate P’Ko, leaving him in the middle of the pack rotating around him. However, they weren’t, and P’Ko’s psychic queries on the subject were resoundingly rebuffed.

After a little while the runner that had been trailing last surged forward and took over the lead, soon he’d be trailing last, then he will have to move into the lead.

He liked the idea, to be in the lead during those first moments of the run, but he still had no idea where they were. He could tell by the weight he felt; they’ve descended but had no idea how much or how much further they had to go.

He felt that it was a long way yet because they hadn’t yet, as far as P’Ko knew found a Se’Ro’Bs. Once they found the Se’Ro’Bs, the run would turn into a race against the Se’Ro’Bs.

P’Ko’s group crossed paths a couple of times with other groups, all seeming to operate at the same steady pace that P’Ko’s pack was running.

Then, with P’Ko trailing and just as they passed down another level they just knew that one of the other groups had found a Se’Ro’Bs. The Se’Ro’Bs was fresh and fast, the pack it was chasing was already beginning to tire, the group was in trouble.

All of the groups of runners began to converge on the Se’Ro’Bs and the group in trouble. The pace picked up dramatically, and though P’Ko was able to handle it, he knew it wasn’t a pace he or the rest of his group could maintain. But people were in danger, and they needed their help, needed P’Ko’s help, so they pushed on. Along with the feeling of urgency, P’Ko began to feel like he knew where they were and where they were going. He was aware that where the pack with the Se’Ro’Bs chasing it was, how to get there, and how to intercept them.

They neared the predator and the prey, P’Ko’s pack had been closest, and it was P’Ko’s turn to take the lead, without thinking much about it, he surged forward into the lead. Then realized that he didn’t know what he was supposed to do when his pack made the interception. It was just ahead, P’Ko overcome with excitement, and a surge of a kind of panic was running all out as he saw the glow of the pack ahead and the trailing body painted runner partially obscured by a blackness bounding too close behind it. P’Ko and his pack were coming up fast. P’Ko had put some distance between himself and his pack, echo clicking in rapid succession. The echo clicking showed nothing of the creature, but a large dark cloud with what could have been arms caught in freeze frame sweeping forward, trying to trip up the runner just out of its arms reach.

P’Ko felt his pack trying to caution him, to hold him back, but it was too late. The dark shadow somehow sensed that P’Ko was there, too close to stop at the speed he was running and quickly stopped turning to face P’Ko.

All P’Ko could see was a dark shape in front of him, and dark, thick appendages stretched wide to greet him. P’Ko lunged up and over, hearing and feeling the pressure of the atmosphere as it was pressed against him by the creature clawing up against him, millimeters separating him from almost certain death.