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  Juan’s posture hitches, one shoulder slightly elevated than the other, yet his demeanor lifts with authority completely. “Last thing we need is another Mord sympathizer shooting off her mouth like some friggin’ Mother Theresa of all the rest of us. Ain’t nobody gives—they lost a long time ago… Shut it Nazrete!” Juan’s shoulders both drop, like he’s shut himself down, but still manages to walk forward with the group.

  “Mord?” Gordon moves back from me and raises his voice as if the mere thought of my concern for them makes me stink. “Oh. Seriously, Jennie.”

  “That’s another thing,” Mav says. “The news has your name all over it. Like you’re some part of the whole mess.”

  “Gordon’s?” I ask.

  “No, Jennie.” Mav runs a hand through his hair. I check to see if Juan happened to turn around and notice because it’s a motion I’ve seen before. Ace has the same nervous tendency. “You might want to consider going by a different name.”

  “Because they’re so many people around to hear you talk to me,” I add.

  “Just think about it,” he says.

  Conversations fade as we continue to climb. I pull up geographical facts from my database—things I’ve already stored prior to our trip. I’m still unable to access more information. Imbabura is a volcano reaching over fifteen thousand feet elevation. The thin air doesn’t impact my ability to keep up. Gordon struggles. If he has the lung capacity of his frame, there isn’t much available to hold in air.

  “Gordo, you alright?” Mav keeps step with Gordon, his arm out, ready to catch him if he falls. Gordon stumbles a bit toward the ravine side of the path like he’s intoxicated.

  “I don’t feel so good,” he manages to say before vomiting all over his shoes.

  “Oh, man.” Mav falls back a few paces from Gordon.

  “Basta, ya.” Belen calls us to a stop. “We wait.” She nods to Gordon.

  “Altitude sickness,” Juan informs the group.

  “We know that, Juan,” Mav says. He gets more agitated the higher we go. I can’t tell if he too is suffering from the elevation, or if he’s just an ass when it comes to heights.

  Everyone finds a place to sit along the edge of the road. The high mountain appears to connect to other mountain peaks, dipping low into valleys and ravines and rising to sickening heights again. Pencil thin trails snake along distant hills, signs of inhabitants in the remote mountain lands despite how the industrial boom of the Intercontinent resource ring drew hoards to larger cities.

  “Do people still live out here?” Mav asks Belen. I follow the line of his gaze to a worn path not far from where we sit. It leads down at a diagonal, only to switch back in direction as the path descends the mountainside.

  “Yes. They use cables and lines to cross.” She points to a ridge in the distance. A thin line, appearing spider web thick from where we rest, outlines the peak connecting the dots from one power pole to the next. In the farther distance a cellular tower glints whenever the low cloud cover clears enough to permit sunlight to kiss the metal structure.

  “That’s not so bad,” I say. “I could live out here with a power source.” Everyone looks at me like that’s the most ridiculous thing any of them have heard. A low rumble shakes the blades of grass near my thigh. It takes me a second to realize it’s not the grumblings of one of my traveling companions. “You guys hear that?” I scan our surroundings, my range limited.

  Juan cocks his head to one side. “Get off the road.”

  We don’t ask. All of us jump to our feet, following Mav’s lead along the path twisting back and forth down the steep mountainside. The rumblings grow in intensity.

  “Find cover,” Juan orders in a manner that transports me back to the game, under military command and fearing for survival of any kind—even trapped with rivals inside a metal coffin.

  Cover isn’t hard to find. It’s no wonder Ecuador thrives in a world where resources equal power. Treated posts pounded into the ground for fencing have taken root, with rich green leaves and healthy branches stretching out from splintered posts still clinging to barbed wire.

  “Watch the barbs.” Mav warns us too late. My wrist skin flap rips longer where the edge catches a wire spine.

  I pull my sleeve lower and duck behind some tall brush and rocks—also covered in growth. “It’s okay. Not that bad.”

  Belen puts a finger to her lips, indicating we all need to all shut our mouths. The angry sound of treads on dirt rolls above us, moving slowly.

  “You think they’re looking for something?” I do my best whisper, which I still haven’t mastered. The group erupts in a wave of hands and mouthing ‘shh!’ and some words I can’t quite make out by lip reading. How does a person whisper? It’s not like I have the exact same vocal cord structure as a real person, what do they want from me?

  The vehicle is armored. Not exactly a standard mine worker utility vehicle. There’s no cannon protruding from its front, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t armed. We stare up steeply aware that one wrong move off the ledge will bring the heavy vehicle down on top of us. We’d have no chance of getting out of the way before it barrels us down. Maybe next time we spread out…

  The armored beast rips the road apart as it continues out of view going downhill the direction we came from. “Where did that deploy, if it came from higher up?” Mav asks. “It’s headed to where we left the car. They might come back looking for us.”

  Belen kicks at the two-foot-wide path at our feet. “Let’s keep going.” Her finger points across the nearest ravine, and out to the mountain beyond. At a tiny cabin barely visible in the distance.

  “How are we going to get over there?” Gordon asks. His skin has regained some color, but his cheeks are flushed in a way that suggests he still has some vomit eager to jump ship. “This ravine goes all the way down.”

  My eyes skate along the steep mountain we’re perched on like regular goats. It’s not so steep that we lose our footing, but it’s enough to provide that tipsy feeling one gets when two depths within the visual field don’t agree on a stopping point. Clouds blow through the space between us and the cabin, haunting the ravine with cold mist. “How can you tell how far down it goes?” I push my scanners to their limit to try to measure the bottom, but don’t get a ping. My systems proving less and less reliable.

  “Let’s go.” Belen takes lead ahead of Mav down the path. “A crossing.”

  “A bridge?” Gordon asks relief in his voice, the hold of his shoulders, and the tightness of his neck. “Sweet.”

  “I don’t know how I feel about a bridge.” Mav drags his toes, sidestepping in the steeper sections of path. “How high up is it?”

  Juan stays in the rear, keeping watch over the rest of us. I move around Mav so that I’m closer to Gordon, nearer the back of our party. Again, I try my best at a whisper. “Who do you think Juan is, really?”

  “He told us already, he’s like five people or something.” Gordon sounds irritated at having to endure conversation while suffering his current condition.

  “No. Yeah… I know.” Talking with words is such a hindrance. I wish I could upload the images and ideas floating through my mind right to Gordon’s brain. It’d take five seconds to sort out my question and there wouldn’t be any confusion about what I’m asking. “Who do you think is Juan, though?”

  Gordon keeps step with Mav, not looking up at the scenery. He doesn’t answer me. I follow in reluctant silence, observing the bird life and other wild animals inhabiting trees and plants around us. The deeper we move into the shade of the mountain, the thicker the tree coverage and animal activity. There weren’t animals in the game. They’re new to me. They make sounds without patterns governing them, no playlist or order of operations. One bird flies low into a branch, tangling in the thick leaves. That wouldn’t happen in the game. If it did, it’d signal something was wrong. I mean, if there were birds and the birds started doing weird things like forgetting how to fly. This real world is so much different. />
  “What if he’s not a person?” Mav’s voice says, muffled by the fact he doesn’t turn around to speak to us. And that he’s walking quickly to keep up with Belen.

  I look back at the fallen bird. It’s not a person. Already lost on what Mav might be talking about.

  “Juan might be a program,” Mav says.

  “You don’t think he’s a donor?” I ask, remembering the question I posed to Gordon, who never answered, by the way.

  “Does it matter?” Gordon says between us.

  And it doesn’t.

  More birds fly sporadically—no one programming their flight paths from computer labs. I look around the group to see if anyone else finds the bird behavior liberating. Maybe the humans don’t notice anymore. Living without parameters does that to a lifeform, I’m sure.

  “Hey, Juan.” I slow up, so I can walk closer to him. The path isn’t wide enough for side by side travel. “Don’t you love how the birds can’t fly here? No one tells them how. No one programs their flight pattern and they just fly straight into trees and no one cares or thinks twice about it.”

  “They what?” Juan grabs just below my shoulder, holding me back. His eyes trained on the air. Sure enough, another bird dives at a strange angle, not making landing, but smashing into the foliage below. “Gordon.” Juan releases my bicep and scoots beyond me toward Gordon. “How do you feel?” he asks.

  “Terrible,” Gordon admits. His face has gone from flushed to clammy. Sweat clings to his hairline trapping dirt from our climb against his forehead.

  “Mav?” Juan pushes beyond Gordon as well. “Mav?” He puts a hand on Mav’s back.

  Mav turns to respond but instead vomits off to the side of the path.

  “Mav has altitude sickness as well,” I say in a low sympathetic manner.

  “I don’t think so.” Juan studies the ridgeline in the distance. His finger traces the web like trail of electrical wire. “Not that.” He lifts his gaze to where the cellular tower glints in the lowering sunlight. “Belen, how are you holding up?”

  Belen has a hand against a tree trunk as if she’s in need of support to her balance.

  “What is it?” I ask lamely. How does Juan magically know what’s happening? This isn’t a computer world. There are no coded expectations or equated reactions. There isn’t the ability to statistically predict events or account for the random choice factor of human life. This world is completely unpredictable. Yet, here’s Juan going all ‘I’ve already conducted all the algorithms to determine the correct solution for this highly anticipated scenario.’ Stupid Juan.

  “We need to get out of signal range of that tower.” He points to the cell tower. We all squint our eyes in its direction, even though we don’t have to look to know what he’s talking about. “Can you sense it in the air?”

  I pause. Pushing my data search outward does nothing. No feedback. Like all my scans hit a glass wall and bounce back with no information. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. My sensors won’t pick up anything out here.”

  “Exactly.” He points to the tower. “This close to a cell relay and we’ve got nothing? We’re being jammed.”

  “Intelligence can’t be jammed.” Mav stumbles behind us. “I know the programs. It’s like human brains—no mind control. It was part of the guarantee we provide donors and their families.”

  “Don’t tell me what I can’t be!” Juan gets in Mav’s face.

  “Nazrete?” I ask low and annoyed.

  “Sorry, it’s hard to reign in the indignation sometimes,” Juan says. “But we’re definitely being signal blocked.” When Juan says ‘we’ I wonder if he’s referring to him and me, or him and all of what makes up ‘him’.

  Gordon swats at a flying bug almost as thick around as his wrist. “Can you believe the size of these things?” He loses balance in the effort and trips on a large protruding rock.

  I elbow toward Juan. “He wouldn’t last a minute on Fearscape.”

  “On what?” Juan tips his head in an exact replica of human curiosity. Like he has no idea what I’m talking about.

  “Maybe no one had a fear of massive insects in your program. It was messed up.”

  Juan remains with his mouth slightly ajar, and the look of someone running around in their memory banks to find the conversation thread where what I’m talking about has context. His eyes unglaze, with nothing to comment.

  “Did you not have to ‘Face Your Fears?’” I use air quotes for the level’s catchphrase.

  “We need to hurry out of cell range.” Juan avoids answering my question.

  Our human guides stumble down the steep path flopping from tree trunk to tree trunk to prevent them falling flat on their faces. Lucky for humans that this hillside grows anything in rich abundance.

  “Almost there,” Belen manages through a cough.

  “Do you trust where she’s leading us?” I say to Juan. “I mean, how long have they been sick like this? Gordon was showing symptoms before we left the road.” I keep my sights on Belen, mostly to be sure she isn’t listening to me at the moment. “Is she even on our side?”

  “Shut up, Jennie,” Mav mutters.

  Juan doesn’t defend me. “She wouldn’t walk herself into cellular sickness zones on purpose.”

  “There!” Belen points triumphantly toward something so uninspired, I wonder if she’s beyond sick and entered the realm of delusional.

  Still a good distance below us, a wood platform juts out from the safety of the mountainside—like a lakeside dock, except no water collects below the planks to cushion a fall. Only deep, jagged, tree and rock-lined ravine lie below the dock, at a much steeper and less forgiving angle than the portion of mountain we now traverse. I daresay it’s a cliff with a gangplank jutting out from its clutches.

  “What is that?” I ask. Tall splintered posts rise at the sides of the dock with a thick cable strung between them. Attached to that ‘H’ like structure is another thick cord yawning out over the depths, disappearing into the mist. A frayed rope wraps around one side post. The best I can do is stare at the structure below us and then search for a better option to the term ‘there’. Something more inspiring, less decrepit, dilapidated, decayed. This antiquated pirate contraption cannot be our destination.

  “A zipline,” Juan speaks with inflection. A good indicator it isn’t ‘Juan’ speaking, but one of his alter personalities. “Sweet.”

  “Zipline…” Mav stops advancing, decidedly less thrilled than Juan. I’m with Mav.

  “Oh…” Gordon loses his stomach for the third time. “Ugh.”

  “My sentiments exactly.” No way do I trust that rickety contraption to hold all my weight. I don’t know for sure how much the metal in my body adds up to, and I know Geo’s developed a lighter weight, more agile material for all the replacement parts I now have, but still. I’m made of heavy elements. People are made of hollow bones. What do they weigh at most? Probably not a half ton. That’s my guess. “Not doing it.”

  “It’s secure.” Belen urges us downward toward the ravine diving board.

  “I’m not—that things not built to support AI,” I say following our sickly band of fools. By that, I mean nothing about what I can see gives me a ‘secure’ feeling. The air smells of wild olive trees, moss, and whatever jumped ship out of Gordon’s insides.

  It takes a few more switchbacks to reach the platform. It’s worse up close. The boards making up the flooring are split in several places. The posts at the sides of the dock have exposed roots, revealing how the wood attempts to hold itself to the mountainside. No cement footings to be seen. I can’t take my eyes off the eroding earth the planks are built over. Damp earth chunks away into the misty depths as we crowd the cliff ledge.

  “I’ll go first,” Juan offers.

  It’s impossible to determine if he’s being gentlemanly, selfish, or if Nazrete is the one speaking. No matter. I don’t stop him. I even back out of the way, to give him more room to maneuver. No one argues, not ev
en Belen. I sort of expected her to demonstrate the safety of the contraption she’s lead us to, but perhaps at closer inspection, she’s changed her confidence.

  Belen takes hold of the frayed rope and pulls in long coils. A high rusted gear creak-rolls against the line with every tug. Birds jump to the air then resettle on high branches several times over, at the highest range of gear squeak. I feel that way too, a little on edge. Eventually, a knotted stick appears from the clouds beyond. Gordon and Mav both gasp at the sight of the stick meant to carry them across the mysterious abyss.

  The rope used to pull the seat back remains tied to the post. It’s probably the only means of recovering the seat from this side. Belen motions Juan up to the wood platform. She mimes the action of straddling the stick with the rope between her legs. Juan copies, holding the cord connecting the stick to the zip line in both hands. Even though we don’t breathe, I notice he tenses all his tendons and tests the spring in his joints.

  “I’m feeling better, actually,” Gordon announces. “Anyone else?”

  Belen and Mav both exchange curious expressions like they’re inventorying their internal ‘betterness’ ratings. “Yeah, much better. I mean, aside from the fact I’m standing at the edge of a cliff. That’s never a good feeling,” Mav says.

  “Belen? You good?” Juan asks, giving the rope between his legs a tug. The line bounces and chimes out into the cloud cover like one long out of tune guitar chord, chirping its way across the acoustic gap.

  “Yes, Yes. I’m fine.”

  At that Juan nods one time, cocks his robot head to one side in a ‘here’s goes nothing’ cavalier demeanor, and lunges off the edge of the dock. The cords scream and smoke under his weight but hold.

  “Ah!” Needle sensations ping every nerve ending starting at the tip of my brain and reverberating outward to every inch of my system. It’s like being stuck with toothpicks in every centimeter of skin, while my spinal cord is being plucked. I fall to my knees, barely able to pry my concern from myself enough to take in my surrounding reactions.

  “Juan!” Belen, Gordon, and Mav all scream for Juan. Meanwhile, I’m right here, obviously in some kind of intolerable distress. If Juan wants attention he should just jump. Right now I expect someone to help me. Not perfect immortal Juan.