Apprehensions and Other Delusions Read online

  “Locked?” you ask, afraid of being trapped here in the walls of the central hall.

  “No.”

  “Then what?” You have your beamer ready.

  “Can you lift it? It’s heavy; I didn’t realize I was so tired.” She turns her wan face to you. “I don’t want it to scrape. Too much noise.”

  “I’II give it a try.” It is against your training to put the beamer aside, but she’s right—the door is heavy and you need both arms to lift it. You struggle with it, and then there is space enough for you to squeeze through.

  There are bits of weather-monitoring equipment still in the tower, most of it useless due to age and neglect. The slitted windows have glass in them still so the tower isn’t too cold. With care, you can watch Them and the road to the river and not be seen yourselves.

  That bothers you: if you are seen, it’s all over. All They need to do is swing Their artillery around and that’s the end of you. You have no place to hide other than this one hiding place, and once it is discovered, there is nothing to fall back on. You frown at the thought, and hope that you are lucky enough to last a little longer.

  “They don’t check this place often,” she says, knowing what troubles you. “Why should They? It’s secure, isn’t it?” She sets her shotgun and light aside, then opens up a cabinet. There are blankets in the cabinet, and a large-scale torn map.

  “How did they get here?” you ask her, suspicions flaring again.

  “Pioneers, of course.” She keeps her voice low. “We must talk softly. Sound carries too well. We can take turns watching so that we can both get some sleep.”

  “I slept in the night,” you say, regarding her closely.

  “That ankle needs rest even if you don’t,” she says.

  “I’II keep it propped up,” you decide. “That’ll rest it until I can get it repaired.”

  “You mean set,” she corrects you.

  “Repaired,” you insist.

  She shrugs and sets about unfolding two of the blankets. They are quite large and heavy, having a strange, mushroomy smell that disturbs you. “If anything happens while I’m asleep—and I need to sleep—wake me. I know the area and ...”

  “And what?” you want to know when she does not finish.

  “And I know where the pioneers are,” she tells you defiantly. “My forces.”

  “They’re near?” you ask, not knowing what to make of it if they are.

  “I don’t think I’ll tell you that,” she says after a short silence. “There’s no reason for you to know the answer.”

  “But they’ve been here,” you say, indicating the blankets.

  “Not recently. It is getting too dangerous and there are better things to do than hide in towers.”

  “You’ve been here before,” you say, certain that she has.

  “I lived in this little room for forty-two days once. I know it well.” She sits on one of the opened blankets, the dawn making a riot of color around her through the slits of the windows. “I came after I ...” Again, she does not finish.

  “Get some sleep,” you say, seeing her face. “I’II take the first watch. You’ve got until mid-day.”

  “Thank you,” she says, sounding more weary than you would have thought possible. She lies back, pulling the heavy, scented blanket around her like a cocoon.

  You nod once, though she cannot see you nod. You look out the narrow windows and see Them below, moving like insects, busy being soldiers, busy waking up. A skimmer pulls up, leaving a slick like the wake of a slug. Four of Them get into it; they roar off in the direction you came an hour ago. You wish now you had taken the time to bury the dead boy back there. But in such hard ground, in the pernicious cold, it was out of the question.

  You turn to tell her, but she is lying wrapped, her eyes closed, her hands limp. She is pale and her eyes are framed in darkness.

  So you watch Them and long for warmth and listen to the voices of Their men beneath your hiding place rise on the morning air, pure and distant as the cries of children at play. You watch and rest and you think about the campaign, about the war. This is your fifth campaign, a remarkable accomplishment for an A.F. model-4 cyborg group 722. Few of you have lasted more than two campaigns. But the wars have taken their toll: once you could remember the number of Them you’d killed. Now, you can’t remember the number of A.F. model-4 cyborg group 722s They’ve killed. And you wish it would end. It has ended for so many others; you wish it would end for you.

  But you don’t want to be killed. It is not part of your programming to be killed, only part of the reality of what you are. You are supposed to fight until you die. There is nothing else for A.F. model-4s.

  You move your foot when your ankle starts to disturb you again. Maybe it has been irritated all the time, but you notice it now, and hate the weakness it reveals.

  The sun is a shiny spot in the heavy sky, sliding over the horizon into morning. You watch the shadows move slowly along the ground, sorry now that you were not issued a timer for this campaign. Everything would be easier with a timer.

  She has moved in her sleep, making a low sound at the back of her throat; in her sleep she is pushing away some horror, writhing at the dream, struggling with a phantom.

  Then you throw yourself at her, reaching for her, your hand pressed over her open mouth to stop the scream.

  She strains against you, eyes suddenly wide, thrashing desperately, pinned by your body to the floor, her back arched, her arms seeking purchase on your gear.

  “It’s me,” you say as you fight to hold her, hoping to wake her before she breaks free. “It’s me. We’re in the tower. Remember? It’s me.”

  She sheds the last vestige of sleep and her tension eases. You feel her resistance fade. “I’m going to take my hand away: Will you scream?”

  She shakes her head no twice, emphatically.

  “Are you okay now?”

  She nods yes.

  Slowly you take your hand from her mouth, rolling onto your side as you do. Then you turn her to you and wrap your arms around her shoulders. “It’s okay,” you say, knowing it for a lie. You feel her arms go around your waist, her head pushed into your shoulder. “It’s okay. Whatever it was, it’s over. I’m here now. It’s over. No matter what They did, it’s over, it’s over. You’re safe. I won’t let Them hurt you again.”

  And under your arms her whole body shakes; no tears, no sobs, no sound, just that awful trembling. You want her to speak so that you will know how risky it is, but she remains locked in her suffering. Finally she whispers. “When They had me ...” It takes her a little time to go on. “They wanted to wipe out the pioneers. But They wanted information, so it wasn’t going to be just an execution. They knew I was a spy, after a while. They do things to spies, to get information. They did things to me.”

  You say nothing. All you’ve heard have been rumors, and you know how rumors are. But those rumors are enough to make you stop before you ask, before your curiosity wins. You know what happens to Their spies when your forces interrogate Them. Any of that happening to her sickens you.

  “I got away,” she says a bit later. “It was a freak chance, an accident. I escaped during on one of the A.F. raids. I hardly knew what I was doing, only that I had to get away. They were holding me at Their field headquarters. The A.F. came in with a two-prong attack—”

  “That would be A.F. model-11 cavalry,” you tell her, recalling the lectures you were given before arriving here.

  “I ran,” she goes on, paying no attention to what you’ve said. “Everyone was running, no one paid any attention to me. I finally found my way out of the place. I stole a skimmer I guess a day or so later. I don’t know. Between the drugs and other things, I couldn’t tell. But the fires were dying, so it had to be at least a day. I got away. I went back to the pioneers, bu
t most of them were dead. The survivors found me. I was going to quit, but ...”

  Your face is colder. You bring up your hand and find wetness.

  She looks at you, her expression gentle and ironic. “I told you you’re not a cyborg.”

  “A.F. model-4 cyborg group 722,” you say, as you have said for as long as you can remember.

  “You’re a human being, as human as I am,” she says with an emotion you do not recognize. “They’ve done it to you, too, haven’t they? Probably the same way they get spies to confess and change sides. Sides! A. F., Them, it doesn’t matter.” She tightens her hold on you. “I am sick of it all.”

  You feel too much to feel anything as you hold her. How can she be right? How is it possible that you are human and not a cyborg? It would make the A.F. as despicable as They are, and that would mean that you have been fighting for leaders as reprehensible as those They follow. “A.F. model-4 cyborg group 722,” you say as if the words will make it so, will bring back that sense of order you believed in.

  “Human,” she insists. “Human, about twenty-five, with a sprained or broken ankle swelling in your boot. I don’t know how you endure the pain.” The last is embarrassed.

  “It’s not pain; it’s the malfunction.” But as you say it, there is a sensation you have refused to acknowledge, as if fangs were digging into your leg. If you let yourself know what is there, you will have to accept the hurt.

  “Pain,” she says. “How could they do this to you? How do they justify what they’re doing?”

  “They don’t need justification,” you say, repeating what you have been told for so long.

  “No, not Them, the A.F. forces—how can they condone what they’ve done to you?” She leans back but does not release you. “How do they explain what they’ve done?”

  You start to speak and discover that you can say nothing. At last you tell her, “I can’t be human.”

  “Yes,” she says. “There is solace in it, when the world isn’t too insane.”

  “In what?” you ask her, another fear starting deep inside you, a growing dread at the massive lie you have believed.

  “Being human,” she says. She kisses your cheek where the tears are, and it seems to you that there is sorrow and tenderness and that unknown emotion in the touch of her lips.

  You tell yourself that you are numb, that there is no pain, not from your ankle, not from that deeper, festering hurt that she has caused. How you want to be angry with her, to accuse her of distortion and deception; you cannot. Your ankle aches. Your body aches. Your ... soul? aches. You roll onto your back and stare at the ceiling; your vision blurs.

  She rests her head in the curve of your shoulder and chest. Her heartbeat is steadier than your own. She apologizes to you, but you are not able to listen. She falls silent, discouraged by your lack of response.

  It is unendurable, the things you know. You will not let yourself know them. You close your eyes against the knowing, allowing nothing into your mind. In all the world, there is nothing and no one but the two of you. Then the world goes away.

  You must have fallen asleep, because the sun has moved and is coloring the windows on the other side of the tower. You are alert suddenly, attentive to everything. You listen for the sounds outside. If there has been a change, you are not aware of it. You turn your head to study her sleeping face on your shoulder. The blanket is rough where it touches your face, but you decide the sensation is a friendly one.

  She moves a little, still solidly asleep, the deep lines at last less incised on her features. You touch her face, memorizing it with your fingers.

  “Um,” she murmurs.

  “You awake?”

  “No.”

  Gently you ruffle her hair, gently, gently.

  She opens her eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Afternoon. I don’t know how late.” You wish again for a timer, knowing it harmless to make such a wish.

  “We must have slept for hours,” she says. Slowly she sits up, stretching, her joints popping.

  “Yes,” you say, not knowing how to tell her you feel restored by the sleep, by her company.

  “I’m hungry,” she says to you. “But there’s no food up here.”

  “Sorry,” you say, indicating you have nothing with you. “They don’t give field rations to—”

  “Human beings,” she says.

  There’s no point in debating that now. It is afternoon and the river is near and on the other side of that river are your lines. The A.F. forces are waiting. “We’d better get up,” you tell her, moving away from her, from the warmth of the blankets out into the chill of the afternoon.

  She goes to the window, watching what They are doing in silence. She listens to the scraps of conversation that drift up to you. “We’d better plan to leave pretty soon. An hour before dusk, they’ll be starting their feint. They’ve trapped the bridge, mines and trips. We can disarm it and be free.” She looks at you, with an unspoken question in her eyes.

  You look out into the white sunlight, thinking.

  “There’s the pioneers.”

  You nod. You wonder again, remembering, forgetting. You could reach out your hand to her. But They are out there. If you listen you can hear Them. Who is this person, this woman beside you who talks of the pioneers, as if you could walk away from what is left of your squad. So you stare out the window, watching Them, hearing the sounds of mechanical thunder that announces the nearness of your forces, of battle, of safety, of death.

  “It’s the noise,” she says after a while, her hands pressed over her ears. “They do it deliberately, make all that noise. It wears you down, disrupts your thoughts.”

  “I don’t hear it any more,” you say, and know it for the lie it is.

  “You’ve stopped listening is all,” she says, no more fooled than you are. Her voice is rueful; you turn to her.

  “Let’s get out of here. While we can.”

  She looks at you for a long moment. “I hate Them; I hate the A F., I wish I didn’t, but I pity you.” She changes her manner abruptly. “Let’s go disarm that bridge.”

  This time you hesitate. In light of what she has said, you don’t understand. “Why?”

  “It’s a game, a game for idiots. But if we disarm the bridge, they’ll be live idiots. Live human idiots.” This last is intended to demand your attention: it does.

  “Suppose that’s not possible?” you ask.

  “I’II find a way to set it off before the A.F. get here.”

  “If you set it off, you’ll die,” you say, and have to stop yourself from adding that as a cyborg, you are the one who should take that risk, not her, since she’s human.

  “That may be the price,” she says.

  “But—” You do not know what else to say.

  “Human life is cheap, as cheap as real cyborgs. Maybe cheaper, or why are they telling you and other men that you are modified machines?” She turns toward the door, not permitting you a chance to argue.

  “If we stay here, I can use the beamer, aim right into the heart of the camp.” You offer this as a compromise, so that you can share her risk.

  “How long does it take to fire one of those laser cannons? They have three within range,” she says. “And it won’t save anyone getting on to that bridge.”

  “Point made,” you concede.

  She laughs. “What point?”

  You want to ask why she is willing to do this, since she is contemptuous of the war and the two sides fighting it. You wish you could find the right phrases to use to learn the truth about her. “Are you doing this because of me?”

  For an answer she comes and stands in front of you. “It has nothing to do with you, or very little. The pioneers want that bridge saved, for our own purposes. After what was done to me, I knew that
I had to do something to get back at Them, to have a little vengeance for what They did.” She opens her jacket, then takes your hand and guides it with her own until you touch raised, gnarled flesh that makes you recoil inside, that makes her cringe at your touch. “That’s part of it. I owe Them for that.”

  “You were comforting one of Them when I found you,” you remind her.

  “I shot him; why shouldn’t I comfort him?” She shakes her head and closes her jacket, turning toward the door.

  Before there is a chance for you to say anything—if there were anything you could say—she is gone down the narrow stairway to the cellar. There is nothing to do but go down the stairs after her.

  As she works the concealed cellar door, she says, not looking at you, “That promise—if I get caught.”

  “Yes.”

  “I still want you to keep it.” She is out the door, ducked, running to the long shadows at the end of the central hall.

  You follow her, your beamer a suddenly unfamiliar weight in your arms.

  Together you make a wide loop of the end of the town where They are. When you reach the fork in the road that takes you to the river, she gives you a positive sign with her hand. It is darkening, the clouds lower, heavier, oily-looking. There are about two hours of light left.

  “How’s your ankle doing?” she asks when she has signaled you to stop so she can watch the road.

  “It’s sore,” you say, finding the word strange.

  “Go easy with it.”

  “Sure,” you say, having no idea what she wants to hear from you.

  She pats your arm once before she veers off through the brush, moving parallel to the road. You can hear the river now, and the advancing of men and equipment. Very soon you reach the bank of the river.

  It is steep where you are, the bridge at a wider but more placid bend about forty meters away. Upstream.

  You’re closer than you would like to be. You can see the guards patrolling the end of the bridge, near enough that if you spoke up, they would hear you.

  She has taken a monocular out of her pocket and is scanning the bridge. “Clever,” she breathes as she studies something.