Dreamfall (41 page)

I strained to see over the wall of flesh blocking Miya from
my sight; tried to see what CorpSec had already done, whether they were only
using stun weapons, whether they were taking prisoners ... whether they weren’t
going to stop until everybody here was bleeding or dead.

I saw bursts of light up ahead, out over the bridge, not
sure if that meant weapons fire. I swore and covered my ears as a percussive
blast half deafened me. When my head cleared again I saw Miya almost within arm’s
reach. I fought my way to her side, using every dirty street trick I knew to
close the final space between us. “Miiy’—!” I shouted her name, or as close as
I could come to it now.

She turned—was knocked sprawling with fifty others as another
blast went off just beyond her. Out on the bridge I saw bodies going over the
side—wondered if they’d been shot or thrown themselves off, only knowing that,
either way, they were dead.

I went down on my knees as someone collided with me from
behind. I crawled through a forest of flailing feet, getting paid back for
every bruise I’d given out as I’d struggled to reach Miya. I touched her dazed,
bloody face, grunted, and collapsed as someone kicked me in the ribs.

We clung to each other, supporting each other as we
staggered to our feet. A fetid rain of something from the sky made my eyes burn
and my skin itch; made me retch as I inhaled. Miya sobbed uncontrollably, as if
she’d been struck deaf and blind; her absence in my mind told me everything I
couldn’t know about what she was feeling now.

“eC’mon—” I cried. Tears streamed down my face as I tried to
force her back the way I’d come. We weren’t that far from the street that had
led me to the square. We might still be able to get out alive.

“... oyasin—!” She coughed and spat, fighting for breath.
Her hands struck at my face as she struggled after the one thing in all this
madness that still had any meaning for her. “Save fue1—”

But I couldn’t see Grandmother anywhere, now; couldn’t tell
if we’d even been close to reaching her. Maybe she’d already escaped,
teleported—“Can’t!” I jerked Miya away, half dragging her as she resisted. “Worse
... if ... catch us! Miy’—!” Pleading now, letting her hear my desperation.

She came with me then, our hands fused in a life-or-death
grip as we fought our way back through the crowd. Behind us the screaming
increased, screams like nothing I’d ever heard, ripped from the throats of
people who’d always had other ways, better ways. I heard bones crack as
children fell under the feet of the mob, heard infants shrieking. Buildings
exploded along the sides of the square, crushing the life out of the helpless
people below. I heard it all, heard it drowned out by more explosions. My eyes
were burning and half blind from the chemical smog; I gagged on the reek of
burned flesh.

But we were almost out of the square. If we could just make
it to the alley; if we could only—

Something hit me from behind. I fell to my knees and then
flat on my face, dragging Miya down with me. Bodies landed on top of us. This
time half my body couldn’t feel them as they kneed me in the kidneys;
stunshot.
Only grazed, or I wouldn’t have the sense to know what hit me. I staggered
up as the panicking strangers scrambled off of me; nearly fell down again, with
one leg lame and one arm hanging useless at my side.

“Bian—!” Miya gasped. Her red-rimmed eyes were clear now as
she threw an arm around me, hauling me forward. She elbowed a way for us
through the body-jam at the edge of the square like a street fighter. The
outflow of protesters sucked us into the waiting alley, where nalrow walls kept
the flyers at bay.

Miya pulled me with her along the tunnel of the street. Now
the flow of the mob helped us, keeping me on my feet and moving in the right
direction. She slowed finally as the crowd thinned. Others began to vanish, one
by one, around us.

She guided me into the shadows, helped me down the steps to
a sunken doorway. We collapsed, gasping for breath. I touched the solid wall in
front of my face, dragged my good hand down its textured surface, barely able
to believe that I wasn’t surrounded by screaming and explosions anymore. I
still heard sobs and coughing, the uncertain footsteps of other fugitives as
they slowed, 4s their psi began to function normally and they realized they
were safe.

“Thank you ...” I whispered when I could speak again. I
caught her hands, pressed them to my lips.

She shook her head, pulling her hands free. When she looked
back at me at last the dust on her face was runneled with tears. She wiped them
away, leaving muddy smears. “Don’t,” she whispered, barely audible. “I should
... I should thank you ....” Her voice fell apart. “I was ... alone. I was
4lgng—” She shut her eyes, squeezing out more tears. She wiped them away as
quickly as they came, as if her body’s weakness in the midst of all this
suffering and chaos disgusted her. “How can you bear it?” she whispered. “How
... ?”

I shook my head as she looked at me finally, because when I’d
tried to answer I couldn’t speak.

(First the monastery. And now this .... )
Her psi was
coming back under control: I felt her think it, felt her awareness of every
single Hydran still fleeing past us, their terror, their pain adding to her
burden of fear and guilt. And I was sitting here in the middle of it like a
dead man, too Human to feel anyone else’s emotions without the interface of her
thoughts, too Human to share anyone’s suffering ....

(No!)
Miya’s anger crushed my self-loathing, breaking
down the wall of lies that survival had thrown in place as I ran. Telling me
(that
I didn ‘t have to be Hydran, didn ‘t have to be a psion to share someone’s pain
... that I didn’t have to be a monster to be Humen. Or Human to be a monster
... )
Naoh’s face filled her thoughts.

I drew her close with the one arm I could control, shutting
my eyes while hot tears rose up in me. I choked back words, because speaking
suddenly seemed as inappropriate as spitting blood.

Miya touched my deadened leg where it lay motionless in
front of me. I tried to move it, not expecting anything because I couldn’t feel
anything. My foot twitched, startling an unsteady laugh out of me. The alley
was almost deserted now, but somewhere I heard the tread of heavy boots—a lot
of them, coming toward us.

Miya raised her head, her pupils wide and black.

“Can you teleport us both let—?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, forcing her attention back to
me. I felt her reach into my mind, her contact as reassuring as a caress, even
with the emotions behind it barely under control. “Where would we go?”

I shook my head, my own mind empty. “Joby?” I said desperately.
“Where is he? Take us there.”

As I spoke his name her fragmented control fell apart, and
the nerve-pricking massage of a teleportation scan disappeared with it.

And then it was too late. Voices shouted in Standard,
pinpointing us. In less than a heartbeat a dozen Corpses were blocking the
light above us. A dozen helmeted faces, anonymous behind flash shields, stared
down at us past the barrels of a dozen different weapons. “Freeze,” Someone
said, more irony than warning, aS we huddled in the stairwell staring up at
him.

Someone pushed through the ring of troopers. He cleared his
faceplate to let us see his smiling face:
Fahd.

“This makes my day perfect,” he said. He shifted his plasma
rifle away from us until the barrel rested too casually against his shoulder,
like he really wasn’t afraid of us. “Out of all the freaks we nailed today, I
get to bring you in .... Get up, ‘breed. And the HARM bitch too.”

“Can’t,” I said. “Stunshot.” I glanced at Miya, trying to
catch her attention, because I couldn’t feel her in my thoughts. She was
staring at Fahd. There was no fear in her face, or even defiance, only a fixed
intentness.

Fahd gestured at two of his men. “Drag them up here,” he
said. He lowered his gun again to cover us. “Don’t even think about it,” he
murmured. ‘Administrator Borosage wants you alive, ‘breed. He didn’t say
anything about ‘in one piece.”

One of the troopers started cautiously down the steps. He
lurched suddenly, as if he’d slipped on something I couldn’t see. He fe|| the
rest of the way, landing on top of us like a sandbag.

I heard Fahd swear, above the trooper’s cursing and my own.
The sightbeam of his plasma rifle targeted the trooper’s back, his head. I
couldn’t believe Fahd was qazy enough to risk killing one of his own men just
to keep us from getting away. Until he pressed the trigger—

The gun exploded in his hands, in a blinding flash of
heatl\ght/noise. Even protected by the trooper’s body annor, I felt the energy
strip my senses like a glimpse of hell.

When I could see and hear again, the troopers in the street
up above were staggering, reeling, falling against each other like somebody had
reset their personal gravity. Fahd was screaming, beating his armor-plated
fists against his transparent flash shield like he wanted to riP out his eYes.

I shoved the body of the stunned Corpse off of me and turned
to Miya. She was staring at Fahd, pain-tears running down her agony-stricken
face. But her eyes were like the eyes of a hunting cat as she finally looked
back at me.

I felt her mind close me in, and we teleported.

I canae our the other end of the jump, landing hard on a
floor beside Miya, with no idea where I was or what we were facing. Street
reflexes tried to get me up on my feet again, to hide any weakness. My leg gave
out and I collapsed, feeling like one more shock to my system would make me
vomit up my toenails.

I sat on the floor until my head cleared. When I looked up
again I realized we were in another Freaktown building. This one was bleaker
than most; it looked like an abandoned warehouse, never meant to be living
space. But it was living space now, dotted with scavenged furniture and junk. I
heard water leaking somewhere, trickliilg, dripping, escaping down a drain;
smelled dampness and rot. It reminded me of abandoned buildings I’d slept in
back in Oldcity. It reminded me of how alone I’d always been there, an outcast
even among outcasts, because of my Hydran blood.

We weren’t alone now: there were other Satoh in the room,
some of them bloody, some of them dazed, like they’d arrived just before us. I
recognized a few of them. Naoh wasn’t with them. The survivors looked at us
with expressions that ranged from surprise to indifference while they took
turns washing away blood and dirt or bandaging each other’s wounds.

Miya got clumsily to her feet, looking from face to face.
The recoiling agony of what she’d done to Fahd still racked her body; the
horror of what the Humans had done to us all crowded it out of her mind. At
last her gaze found Joby in the arrns of someone I didn’t know. Joby began to
struggle silently, reaching out as if he sensed that she was here. She crossed
the room with a thought and took him into her affns. She kissed the top of his
head, rocked him gently with her eyes closed. The light caught the tracks that
tears still made through the dust and blood on her face.

I pulled myself up, propped myself against a stack of
crates, rubbing my useless arm. The whole left side of my body began to tingle
and burn as it began to come back to life. “Is ... everyone who got away here?”
I asked.

Miya shook her head, but it only seemed to mean that she
didn’t know. “More of them may come after they’ve helped the injured ....” She
looked down. I wondered whether she was thinking about Naoh. Whatever she was
thinking, she wasn’t ready to share it, even with me==I nodded, resigned. I
started across the room to her, dragging my left foot. Joby held out his hands
again as I came toward them. “Cat,” he said, So clearly that I couldn’t have
imagined it.

I stopped moving. “Joby—?” I whispered, hearing Miya’s indrawn
breath. “Hey, Joby.” I smiled, letting him take my hand in his.

“He said your name,” Miya murmured. “He hasn’t spoken at all
since ...” Her face, her thoughts, my mind, finally filled with an emotion that
wasn’t some kind of pain.

“I know,” I said. I settled him on my hip. “I know.” I felt
her feeling what he felt as he looked up at me. I saw myself through his eyes,
through hers ... sa’w myself smile.

And then the moment was gone. We were huddled in a dank
storeroom with a dozen other filthy exhausted fugitives again, and all of us
were as good as dead. My bruised, stunshocked body began to ache all over.

“So,” I said finally, “what happens now?” No one answered. I
glanced up as I felt expressions freeze on every face around me. I realized
then that I’d said it in Standard.

“Play with me,” Joby said in Standard. His face shone, like
he’d discovered the one other person in this world full of strangers who knew
his secret language. “Time to play!”

I felt another smile catch me without warning. I nodded,
glad to have something, anything, to think about besides how the others were
looking at me llow.

Miya looked at us, shaking her head in disbelief. Then, with
the ghost of a smile barely touching her eyes, she sat down and began to teach
me the games they’d played together, exercises meant to work his body and
imprint control of it on his mind. I fixed my attention on the three of us, all
of us struggling to block out the reality of where we were and who we were and
why we were here ... why there were so few others here with us, waiting for a
sign that a miracle had happened, a sign that wasn’t going to come.

Time passed, and more time, until even Joby got tired of playing
games. Miya gave him food and settled him on a pile of mats to sleep. He clung
to her as she bent over to kiss him. “Mama.” he murmured.

I saw her tense, felt her hide the pain that single word set
off inside her. She held him a little longer, gently easing him into sleep
before she let him go. The guilt and grief she held back from him singed the
circuits of my brain.