and I’ll be right behind you.”
I opened my mouth to intervene, but then the totally unexpected happened.
“I’m sorry, Alba.” Card lowered the gun. “I’m way out of line here. Forgive me?”
“Um . . . sure, Card.” She slowly reached down and retrieved the shotgun.
“I’m used to spending most of my time in virtuality. Making my living in an imaginary world, and mostly living there. Without it, I suppose my imagination is a little out of control.”
“It isn’t a bad instinct,” Namir said carefully. “We need to think in different ways; need to look at problems from every angle.”
“Though we might stop short of pointing guns at each other,” Paul said.
I was just plain stunned. The Card I grew up with would not have apologized if he’d caused the London Fire and 9/11 combined. The fifty years had mellowed him.
“Okay,” Namir said. “If we’re going to stay here much longer, we have to bury what’s left of that poor bastard up front. He’ll be smelling pretty bad by evening.”
Something made the small hairs on the back of my neck stir. “Wait. Where’s Meryl?”
Namir looked around. “Wasn’t she with you?”
“Back in the kitchen, a minute ago.” I called her name twice.
Dustin trotted back toward the kitchen. “Oh, shit,” he said softly.
She was lying on the kitchen floor in front of the sink, her legs out straight, as if she were resting. There was a red stain the size of a playing card on the center of her chest and a large pool of blood under her back. The window over the sink had a bullet hole and blood spatter.
Dustin fell to his knees and tried to breathe life back into her.
I couldn’t find breath myself. Elza shook her head, and said “No.” She got down next to Dustin and grabbed his shoulders lightly. “That’s not . . . She’s too far gone.”
Dustin didn’t respond at first, but then eased the body back down. He wiped blood from his lips. “She didn’t make a sound.”
It was one of the bullets that had crashed through the living-room window. Paul and I found two spades in a shed out back. There was a patch of grass with some roses behind it. We all took turns standing guard and digging. After we buried her, Dustin said some words in Latin.
We washed up in the bathroom, avoiding the kitchen. The water from the tap was still warm.
I felt like part of me had died. I’d never been as close to Meryl as to the other five, but we had all lived through several different worlds together.
So we weren’t immortal. We weren’t even bulletproof.
“The hell with the body out front,” Paul said. “Let’s get our gear together and start pushing up to Fruit Farm.”
“Nothing here for us,” Namir said, then . . . “What the fuck?”
The lights had come back on.
From Rear View Mirror: an Immediate History , by Lanny del Piche (Eugene, 2140):
. . . were the Others just playing a sadistic game, when they restored power temporarily on 30 April that year? If my guess is as good as anybody’s, I’d say they were just temporarily changing the parameters of the experiment. Our physical comfort was of no concern to them, and our existential or psychological state was invisible, not even a variable.
My first area of study was animal behavior. We were reasonably enlightened in our treatment of test animals—any sign of cruelty or even lack of compassion would’ve resulted in student demonstrations and faculty censure.
But that was about animals who were cousins to humans. A lab rat shares more than our gross anatomical structure; it has more than hunger and thirst; it prefers one taste to another. Individual rats have individual personalities, even when they’re raised in robotic unison. Sacrificing them was a necessary chore, but I remember how I grated my teeth when I grabbed one by the tail and swung him down to smack his head against the lab table. Did the other rats know what was going on? I don’t remember them reacting; if they
I opened my mouth to intervene, but then the totally unexpected happened.
“I’m sorry, Alba.” Card lowered the gun. “I’m way out of line here. Forgive me?”
“Um . . . sure, Card.” She slowly reached down and retrieved the shotgun.
“I’m used to spending most of my time in virtuality. Making my living in an imaginary world, and mostly living there. Without it, I suppose my imagination is a little out of control.”
“It isn’t a bad instinct,” Namir said carefully. “We need to think in different ways; need to look at problems from every angle.”
“Though we might stop short of pointing guns at each other,” Paul said.
I was just plain stunned. The Card I grew up with would not have apologized if he’d caused the London Fire and 9/11 combined. The fifty years had mellowed him.
“Okay,” Namir said. “If we’re going to stay here much longer, we have to bury what’s left of that poor bastard up front. He’ll be smelling pretty bad by evening.”
Something made the small hairs on the back of my neck stir. “Wait. Where’s Meryl?”
Namir looked around. “Wasn’t she with you?”
“Back in the kitchen, a minute ago.” I called her name twice.
Dustin trotted back toward the kitchen. “Oh, shit,” he said softly.
She was lying on the kitchen floor in front of the sink, her legs out straight, as if she were resting. There was a red stain the size of a playing card on the center of her chest and a large pool of blood under her back. The window over the sink had a bullet hole and blood spatter.
Dustin fell to his knees and tried to breathe life back into her.
I couldn’t find breath myself. Elza shook her head, and said “No.” She got down next to Dustin and grabbed his shoulders lightly. “That’s not . . . She’s too far gone.”
Dustin didn’t respond at first, but then eased the body back down. He wiped blood from his lips. “She didn’t make a sound.”
It was one of the bullets that had crashed through the living-room window. Paul and I found two spades in a shed out back. There was a patch of grass with some roses behind it. We all took turns standing guard and digging. After we buried her, Dustin said some words in Latin.
We washed up in the bathroom, avoiding the kitchen. The water from the tap was still warm.
I felt like part of me had died. I’d never been as close to Meryl as to the other five, but we had all lived through several different worlds together.
So we weren’t immortal. We weren’t even bulletproof.
“The hell with the body out front,” Paul said. “Let’s get our gear together and start pushing up to Fruit Farm.”
“Nothing here for us,” Namir said, then . . . “What the fuck?”
The lights had come back on.
From Rear View Mirror: an Immediate History , by Lanny del Piche (Eugene, 2140):
. . . were the Others just playing a sadistic game, when they restored power temporarily on 30 April that year? If my guess is as good as anybody’s, I’d say they were just temporarily changing the parameters of the experiment. Our physical comfort was of no concern to them, and our existential or psychological state was invisible, not even a variable.
My first area of study was animal behavior. We were reasonably enlightened in our treatment of test animals—any sign of cruelty or even lack of compassion would’ve resulted in student demonstrations and faculty censure.
But that was about animals who were cousins to humans. A lab rat shares more than our gross anatomical structure; it has more than hunger and thirst; it prefers one taste to another. Individual rats have individual personalities, even when they’re raised in robotic unison. Sacrificing them was a necessary chore, but I remember how I grated my teeth when I grabbed one by the tail and swung him down to smack his head against the lab table. Did the other rats know what was going on? I don’t remember them reacting; if they
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