The Renegades (The Superiors) (38 page)

“I
want to know.”

“Look
away.”

Reluctantly,
she turned away, but she let her eyes drift to his hands as he tapped on the
screen. He wiped the bundle on the black square several times, shaking it a
little and trying again until the screen turned blue. When he was done with the
bundle, he settled it in his lap, pulling the fabric over it, fussing with it
until it rested how he wanted. Then he went back to messing with the screen.

“What
things does it tell?” Cali asked.

“Oh,
I don’t know.”

Cali
stared at him until he glanced at her.

“What?”
he asked, a little smile twisting the corner of his mouth.

“What
does it tell you?” she asked again.

He
sighed, but she could already see he was more relaxed now that he had the
screen on. “Right now it directs us and indicates the exact location of nearby
vehicles.” He pushed a button with three symbols on it, which he said stood for
“Navigational Guide Piloting,” and turned his attention from the road to her.
Cali had no idea what that meant, but she didn’t want to seem completely
ignorant, so she didn’t ask. Instead, she pointed to a red rectangle moving
among the blue ones. “What’s that?” she asked.

“That’s
this car. The blue ones are other vehicles. This shows our direction, what road
we’re traveling, intersecting streets...” Cali watched, fascinated, while
Draven showed her how to tell when they approached the city’s edge, and how he
could come in close and show the car or go out for a far view and see the whole
city, the red dot of the car blinking to show their location. He didn’t even
have to tell the car what to do, it just moved through traffic by itself. Then
Draven tapped on another car, and seemed very interested in reading about the
person whose picture popped up.

“Where
are we going?” she asked after he’d read about a few people in the other cars.
“And why’d you bring that man with us?”

“If
we left him, he’d talk. Still your mind. He will heal. He can’t report us, and
if we are lucky, no one will report him missing for a few days. I was able to
gather the blood from the snow, so we left no evidence. There was only a bit, as
you left the knife in. That was clever.”

Finally
she’d done something right, even if she hadn’t meant to.

“So
we’re just going to keep him back there? What’s he going to eat?” Draven
glanced at her in answer. “What? No. I am not going to let him feed off me.
It’s hard enough feeding you. You’re really going to make me feed him?”

“No.”

“Well,
that’s great. You’re just going to make me feel bad for starving him. I see.
That’s really nice of you.”

“Nice.
Yes.” Draven cleared his throat. “Listen, about what I said before…When we
stopped…”

“Yeah,
I know, you thought you were about to die and all. I know you didn’t mean it. I
mean, I know I’m your…pet.”

He
cleared his throat again. “So, ah, we’ll have to stop soon and discard some
things that would make us easy to track. We’ll also have to drop the trailer in
a few days, because it can be traced. I imagine we can keep the car for a bit
longer if I can determine how to disable the smart chip.”

“What’s
that?”

“It
maps the location of our car and the surrounding obstacles,” he said. “It also
shows everyone else our location.”

“So
we have to get rid of this?” she asked, pointing at the screen. It was the most
intriguing thing she’d ever seen. Though she’d seen a few of the screens in
cars before, like when she’d been in Draven’s car, she hadn’t known what they
did. Now that it made sense, it had captivated her.

“Yes.
I’ve to stop at the endlot for a moment.”

“Why?
What if someone else is there?”

“They
won’t send someone else so soon.”

“Are
you sure?”

“We
need our things. I need a bit of it, but your survival requires much equipment.
I will retrieve our equipment as well as your food and clothing. Perhaps we
will move south, to somewhere warmer. Or perhaps they will expect that. We
should go north.”

Draven
used the screen to direct the car to the endlot, where he stopped. Cali waited
in the car, every moment fearing someone would drive up and see her, steal her
while Draven was gone. But after what seemed like hours, he came back, dropped
the two packs in the backseat and got in the car. They drove until daylight
filled the sky and Draven had to squint his eyes almost totally shut. Finally,
he pulled onto a rough, cracked side road and parked behind the crumbling
remains of a building in the crumbling remains of a city. He retrieved his
shades from the backpack before he began dismantling the magical car. He
started by pulling up the floor mat, cutting the carpeting from the floor
beneath and pulling it back. Cali watched as he pried up a panel on the floor
with his hunting knife, and she thought she’d never, ever be able to live as
well as he did. He knew things she couldn’t even comprehend. She’d never
imagine anything hidden under a carpet, never think to wonder what lay beneath
the floor of a car.

Draven
slipped back into his seat and turned to her. “I must take sleep now,” he said.
“Please stay in the car. I would not risk anyone seeing you. It is daytime, but
we’re just off a main road. Someone may happen by.”

“Okay,”
Cali said. “I will. That sounds good.” She climbed into the back seat. Draven
started to lift her bag for her, but she stopped him. “No, let me do it,” she
said. “I mean, you said…” He nodded and released the backpack into her hands.
Its weight took her by surprise, and she let it thump to the floor. She glanced
up at him, shrinking back automatically. Part of the reason she’d let him do
everything for her was that she didn’t want to make mistakes. If her last
master had taught her nothing else, he’d taught her not to anger a Superior.

Draven
smiled and touched her hair. “Good sleep, my little pet.” After he turned away,
Cali lay down on the seat. The blinders slid down inside the windows, and the
car went dark inside except for the electronic glow of the screen, which Draven
had not yet removed. Cali sat up and peered over the seat to where Draven sat
studying a black screen filled with white words. For a long time he scrolled
through it, changing the colors, touching the screen to bring up images of
people and other things. The words sometimes changed to different sizes, and
strange images flashed on the screen.

“What
does it say?” she asked after watching him for a while.

“It’s
news.”

“What
is news?”

“It
tells what’s happening here, and in North America, and the whole world.”

“What’s
happening?”

He
laughed, that warm chuckle that made her feel like she was falling asleep next
to a warm fire instead of inside a cold car. “This is a story about Julianne
Dormer. Do you know who that is?”

“No.
Who is she?”

He
shook his head. “Of course you don’t.”

“Well,
who is she? Is this a story like your books?”

Draven
chuckled again. “No, it’s a real person. An actor, an important one, very
popular.”

“What
does she act like?”

“She’s
in the vids. Like books, but you watch the action happening on a screen instead
of reading it.”

“I’ve
heard of those. I know what they are. They’re like ads.”

Draven
chuckled quietly. “Quite.”

“Well,
what does this person do in the story?”

“She
wants to buy a vid company, but she’s a Third, so she’s not allowed to own a
major company. People are upset over it.”

“Why
don’t they just let her?”

“Because
even though she has worked relentlessly for nearly a hundred years, and earned
enough money to buy it by saving every spare pence, the law prevents Thirds
from owning businesses except for the smallest local boutiques. Only Seconds
can buy national companies.”

Cali
lay back and watched the light flicker on the car’s ceiling. Whenever Draven
talked about Seconds and Thirds, she didn’t understand a thing he said. She
closed her eyes and tried to sleep. But every time she got close, she would
remember the way it felt when the knife had pulled tight into the Superior’s
shirt and the ripping sensation as it had slid through him. The feeling
wouldn’t leave her hand, like it had imprinted into her muscles. She could see
his face, full of shock and surprise, and hear the muffled thud as he toppled
into the snow.

But
she hadn’t killed him.

Once,
she had thought she’d like to know how killing someone felt, but when she’d
thought she had killed him, it hadn’t felt good. Now he lay back there, still
alive according to Draven. After all the screaming she’d heard, she didn’t know
if she believed him. In her mind, she could still hear the awful sound of it
echoing around the steel trailer and slipping out the crack below the door. The
sound of the metal cables scraping across the floor. Getting chained up
couldn’t hurt that much. Draven had done something else to him.

Cali
had worn a chain for over a year, and though it had been uncomfortable and
bothersome, it only hurt when she tripped or pulled too hard on it. After a
while, she’d gotten so used to it that she hardly noticed it. So used to it
that when she’d gotten free of it, walking with both legs free had put her off
balance. She’d felt strangely light and naked without it. And she’d certainly
never screamed like that because of it.

A
shiver gripped her body.

She
could hear Draven fumbling around on the floor again. This time the screen went
off with an electronic snap followed by a soft static sound, and the inside of
the car disappeared into darkness. She slid her arms tight around her body and
waited for him to slide over the seat, silent as always, and take her by
surprise.

Draven
had killed someone. Three people that she knew of. Maybe more. He was scary,
and strong beyond imagining. No matter what he said, no matter how much he
loved her and petted her and acted nice, she had to remember the other side of
him. True, he treated her well, not like an inferior or much different from
himself. She liked that. But sometimes it made her forget that they
were
different, and she had to remember that. It was dangerous to forget that he was
dangerous.

Chapter 53

Sleep
did not find Draven, either. Thoughts of all that had happened plagued him,
thoughts of the man in the trailer behind them, suffering the loss of a hand
that Draven had needed to activate the car, the dash screen, the locks on the
trailer and the car. The hand now lay wrapped in a shirt beneath Draven’s feet,
while the man in the trailer tried to regenerate it without the means necessary
for healing.

Draven
had known enough pain at the hands of the vigilante humans to hurt for the man
whose pain he had inflicted. A tremendous sadness bore down upon him, as if it
could press him through the warm seat and into the snow below. Two years ago,
when he’d been captured, he could never have imagined he’d do something so
brutal to survive. Now he was no better than they—perhaps worse. They had made
him an enemy to protect their kind from his Superior nature. He had made an
enemy of his own kind, to protect a human.

He
turned his thoughts to more practical matters. Looking through the files, he
had learned that Byron had left Princeton on ‘personal business.’ He’d learned
that Byron labeled Cali a troublesome sapien who “responded well to physical
force.”

In
his file, he’d learned that so far he’d only been formally charged with
stealing Cali, but he was suspected in the disappearance of the trackers. They
had yet to find enough proof to convict him of their deaths. He had nearly
missed the new information that Byron had added to Draven’s statistics, which
had not changed in so long that he skipped over them the first time he scrolled
through his file. But as he fingered back up the screen, the changes caught his
eye. Along with the long-ago arrest and the lists of his residences and
partnerships, the new information had stared back at him from the screen.

“Current
residence: Unknown.

Affiliations:
Unknown.

Attachments:
None.

Employment:
None.

Last
seen: North America, Princeton area.

Status:
Wanted.

Crimes:
Theft of government property (two Homo-sapiens, aged 16 and 1 yr).”

But
it was a new section at the end of his file, below several more fingers of
unremarkable information, that stopped Draven, that made him sit and stare
unblinking at the screen for minutes on end before he disabled the device.

“Other:
Shows anti-social behavior, avoids others. Travels alone or with human female
of breeding age. Known contact with incubus. Possible transformation to incubus
suspected.”

In
the darkness, Draven shifted on the ridges between the two front seats,
listening to Cali breathing in the back seat. Wanting her. Aching to reach back
and touch her again. To touch her as he’d touched her hair, stealing the most
intimate touch imaginable. She didn’t know. She thought he’d simply soothed
her, as he often did, with the innocent petting of his sapien.

Was
Byron’s suspicion correct? Had Angel somehow converted him without his
knowledge? Had his contact with Angel changed him into something he did not
understand, while leaving him unaware of the change? From what little he knew,
an incubus was someone who had evolved one step further or in a different way
than Superiors, who gained energy sexually instead of by ingesting sap. If
Superiors took human life force through blood, and an exchange of blood evolved
a human into a Superior, couldn’t an incubus change one without using blood?

At
the time, Draven had thought Angel only wished to save him, to free him from
his paralysis. But when Angel had pressed his mouth to the hole in Draven’s
skull, when he’d breathed a breath like arctic frost into Draven’s brain, had
he done more than heal him?

Draven
tried to recall all he could of Angel—his strange manner of speaking, his resistance
to Superior weapons, his beauty and tears. Draven didn’t cry. Crying wasted
emotion. It cheapened sadness, quenched the purity of emotion. He hadn’t become
sad and lovely like the incubus. Most importantly, he still drew from Cali. He
had never considered anything else.

The
thought of becoming something he did not understand terrified him, but in a
strange way, it also brought him relief. It explained changes that had begun to
come over him, disturbing thoughts that had crept unbidden into his mind when
he’d not guarded against them. It explained the unnatural thing he’d said to
Cali. He wanted to believe her, believe he’d only touched her the way he always
had, touched her lovely amber hair. That he’d only said those words out of
desperation. Panicked at the thought of execution, he’d reached out to his
companion, to touch someone for the last time, even a lowly sap.

But
he could no longer fool himself into believing. He had needed to say those
words as both an apology to her and a means of making himself honest before his
life ended. To say that one thing that needed saying, a last honest act in a
superficial life.

It
was wrong for him to feel that way, perverse, even. But he had denied these
feelings long enough, telling himself they were natural. Even before reading
Byron’s addition to his file, he’d had his own suspicions, hadn’t he? He’d
dismissed them, refused to examine his own longings as anything more than
hunger pangs. Now he had to confront his sickness, admit to some twisted
reality inside his mind that made him see Cali not as a meal but as… What?

Not
a mate, certainly. Not a partner.

But
as…a woman. He saw her as a woman. And to see a sap that way—that was
perversion. Illegal perversion. Even so, the emotional attachment he’d
developed bothered him more than the sexual stirrings. If he’d only had to
wrestle with that perversion, a temporary insanity brought on by too much
isolation and the close proximity of a female form that so resembled a
Superior, but different somehow, as if he could see the warmth in her, he could
have hidden it until it passed. He could have denied himself, refused to notice
that she looked somehow yielding, softer even than much curvier Superior women,
and so alive, warm, touchable... Penetrable.

Was
this how an incubus felt towards a human—not violent but loving, helpless
against the desire that would ultimately destroy her? He adored Cali,
worshipped her from afar, scared to touch her for fear that if he indulged
himself for even a moment, he’d be unable to stop. And though his desire
threatened to overwhelm him in moments of weakness, the thought of acting upon
it still repelled him. The thought of anyone else with her was unbearable as
well, as maddening as the thought of someone harming her. Even as his fingers cried
out for a moment of contact, he would die to protect her from himself. He’d
allow no one to so much as touch her, to besmirch her loveliness.

To
maintain the kind of fierce, protective yearning he felt for Cali, he could
never surrender to his desires. The sexual act was akin to the act of crying,
the outward expression of an inward longing. It provided a release, and he did
not want to dispel the torment of love or yearning. It seemed a waste, a cheap
way of letting something go that should be kept sacred, experienced in all its
complexity and profoundness.

Already
the sexual act scared her. Wasn’t that the perfect irony? Sex with her own kind
frightened her. If she thought sex with a sapien dangerous, she had no idea
what horror a Superior could bring upon her. If she caught the slightest hint
of his changing interest, she’d run in a moment or put a stake through his
chest. So he’d keep it inside. For her, he must pretend. He knew what he felt,
what that made him. He knew how careful he’d have to be to hide it, to act with
greater restraint.

They
would continue onwards together, the two fugitives. When someone caught them
again, they could submit or kill again in order to continue their own lives.
Now that he’d taken a life, he’d always have to run for his own. They would
never be safe. They would never have a home. They could never stop running.

He
had reverted to nothing better than an animal, fleeing for its life. Was an
incubus not an evolution gone wrong by a devolution, a return to animal instincts?
Thinking of nothing but food and survival, killing to live, with no community
or law.

He
now thought of little but his survival and that of his food source, with whom
he had developed a strange fascination. He had killed to save her, killed his
own kind, with no loyalty to his people. He had betrayed and shunned his own
kind, their laws, their society, in favor of the object of his obsession, a
human. Perhaps that in itself proved him an incubus, or perhaps it required a
physiological change, one that Superiors by their very nature could not
undergo. Perhaps he only sought an excuse for his inexcusable behavior.

Certainly,
he no longer felt superior to anyone, nor was he human. Yet he did not know if
he had reverted to something more primitive. So he would forge onwards, hiding
the changes, resisting his perverse nature, holding to the last civilized and
moral parts of himself as long as he could. When all fell away, and he would
know what he had become.