Chapter 15

  It's hot, the humid air heavy like breathing through cream of mushroom soup. I think back to what I last remember, flashes of Maria, sights, smells, tastes. I push my eyes open. There is some rustling around outside the tent. Opening my mouth to speak there is a dry, choking feeling, words don't push out. I cough. Maria pokes her head in, she sees my eyes open. Moving over she kisses me on the forehead, gently putting her hands on my face.

  “I was so afraid I lost you, that your destiny would mirror your suits.” She says, putting her forehead on mine she gently sobs.

  I struggle to speak, all that comes out is a whisper. “I'm alive... we broke the cycle... I love you...”

  “Save your strength, you need more rest, not that I don't love hearing you say those words.” She says with a huge, warm smile on her face, “I have some good news; we now get a supply drop every Tuesday. Frankie is leaving what supplies he can near the zoo at Central Park when he goes to get Edgar mealworms now. We have some meds, you've been on stims.” She looks different than before, she has more emotion, joy in her face. She looks at me and puts her hands on my face and kisses me. “Sorry, I just, I love you. And it feels like I can say it now. Now rest, my love, it's Tuesday, I need to get the weekly drop.”

  I shouldn't have looked, I can see why she has me on an IV. The wound has healed over but is black and blue. I'm assuming my stomach is regrowing, the thought of eating makes my stomach hurt. It's time to get on my feet. The pain from bending to stand is so bad I almost blackout. A different kind of agony strikes my feet as I put weight on them it feels like they're made of glass, shattering outwards, each little crack a bit of pain. Not wanting to put weight on them I awkwardly stumble. Now stable, I inch my way out of the tent, bracing myself on the edge of the lean-to outside the tent, finally standing upright. My back cracks, the muscles pull into a more normal position, it feels good.

  The midday sunlight glow bleaches the warms and cools out. A fly buzzes around my head, landing on my nose before I swat it away. I look to the middle of the roof, my stomach goes tense, a pain deep in me strikes all the way to my back. My brother was standing right there. I hobble over to the spot I stood when he struck me down. The blood has long since washed away.

  “Stanly.” Maria says as she emerges from the top of the fire escape. My stomach feels as though a clawed beast grabs it and squeezes, I drop to my knees. “You need to not be there.” She goes to help me stand.

  “Wait,” I wave her off. “I... need... to do this...” Bent over the palms of my hands push on the concrete roof, my head down I look a couple feet ahead of me. He betrayed me. I force my right foot forward so it's flat, my stomach feels like it's in a vice. Glaring at the spot he stood with a grimace I push myself up, I'm standing there; he is not. Looking at Maria I nod and put my arm around her, she helps me to the shade.

  “I want to sit outside.” I say.

  “Ok, my love.” She helps me sit.

  “What happened was wrong.” I say.

  “There is no doubt. But the cycle is broken.” She says.

  “No. With the Agents. I've been thinking it over, that can't happen again, we need to renegotiate.” I say.

  For the first time since waking I see a flash of wrath, vitriol, and anger in her face. “They let us starve for years." She says with a sneer "I'm still hungry as we speak. I had to beg them for meds.” Her lip curls, her eyes narrow as she speaks. She’s a very prideful person, begging must have been very difficult.

  “But they did help.” I gently say.

  “They fucking shot me!” I’ve never seen such venom in her as when she spoke.

  “What?”

  “They shot me in the leg, I was on my knees begging and they shot me in the leg because I was a meter over the line. They shot me and dragged me back a metre. I laid there for an hour while it fully healed, on the boiling asphalt. Jodi was the one that started to help, she yelled out 'Check Edgar's food'. It was enough that I got the point.”

  I take her by the hand, placing it on my chest and I place my hand on her chest, “Maria, this is all we have. If we lose who we are, if we become that which we fight against we lose who we are. We need to convince them Agents killing Agents is wrong, that, even if they don't free us we need basic supplies to survive, that we can do good here, fight against the Others.”

  “No one cares about me though.” She says, with a pensive far off look.

  “I fucking do.” I say with a smile. She smiles, which turns into a laugh as she hugs me.

  “I'm teaching you some bad habits.” She says.

  “They are afraid of us, that is where this is all coming from. We need to start with those who have already risked themselves and get through to all of them. It doesn't seem right to ask more from those who gave much already, but they came forward because they were compelled to, they knew deep down it was the right thing to do.”

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  She gently puts her hand on my face, pursing her lips to the right like she often does. She wrinkles her nose. “You seem different. The same, but different.”

  “I don't feel different. Maybe I'm weary of just surviving. You know we are more free than most.” I look away, over the roof tops, pointing I sweep my arm over the distant city “All of them, the Others, even enslaving Hosts they don't have our freedom. The Agents below, the people in the Harbour, the Collective, they're living with checks and balances, day to day.”

  She looks into my eyes with a look I've never seen from anyone, a look of longing joy.

  “Your stomach, it's really painful still?” She asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me know the moment it's not too painful.” She wraps her arms around my head and kisses the top of my head. “I got a can of soup, it's kind of hot for soup but it's different from mealworms and combat rations, I'll heat it up.”

  I've been resting up a few weeks now, I just have a bit of stomach pain here and there, Maria is still scanning my stomach daily with the combat shades. I cramp up a bit when I eat, but otherwise feel great. They supplied us with a generous amount of food, my stomach seems to be good enough to handle soup. We figured out how to sneak messages back and forth with Jodi, she said Frankie told her if I was in a hospital I would have been fully healed in a week with the genome fusion I had.

  Maria purses her lips to the side, “Hey, what was the date when... it rained last?”

  “June 21. It was a busy day. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, probably nothing to worry about, we've been starving for the better part of two years, likely things sorting themselves out.”

  We hear what sounds like an old lady in the alley.

  “Has anyone seen my little dog? Edgar! Where are you Edgar?”

  We each grab our machetes and revolvers and go over to the alley.

  “Eddgggaaaaaaarr, where are you?”

  I peek over the edge, there is an old lady with pink shorts and a white teeshirt hunched over looking right up at us.

  “Hi there sonny, have you seen my little dog?” The voice in the last statement was clearly Lenny's voice, looks like his illusion generator is working just fine.

  Maria and I look at each other and laugh.

  “I haven't seen your little dog ma'am.” I say.

  “Ok. I have to take him to the vets, July 15, at the vets that used to be a dentist office.” He's back to speaking with the old lady voice.

  “We'll keep that in mind, good luck finding your puppy.”

  “Oh! I found two of them, look;” Lenny pulls up his shirt and flashes us.

  “I really didn't need to see that.” Maria yells as Lenny walks away laughing.

  Laughing really hurts my stomach, but it feels good.

  “Sounds like a big meetup if they're planning it almost three weeks away. Have you thought any of the man with the accent?” I say.

  “Nah, he clearly is from far away, but he did seem more sympathetic to our plight than anyone else there. Are you up for a walk to Central Park? The weekly supplies should be there.” She says.

  I nod.

  Gearing up feels foreign now, something that was so routine before is awkward now. It was nice, in a way, being away from it all. While meager, the constant food rations have given us a sense of relief in a way. I haven't been eating much other than some soup, so we have a stockpile of MRE bars. Cycling through the different views on the Inside almost feels a bit disorienting after more than a month of not doing so. Looking on the Inside, the ugly glossed over pretty feels real glaring now.

  It's a busy summer day, we're set up with an avatar on the inside so no collision alerts if we bump into people. Walking through the massive wall of people, they all scramble around, eager to go nowhere fast. Maria is right; I have changed. But not in how she thinks, or maybe she sees it. Maybe she sees how much I deeply love the kind of freedom we've had, the freedom to just walk away and do nothing for a day, or bust my arse looking for Agents to help.

  The taste of freedom is an addictive brew, sweet, rich. I've found myself fantasizing of living like humans once did; living off the land, Maria and I. Maybe we could someday have a farm. It would just be the two of us, they made it very clear in the early phases of the genome fusion there would be a zero chance of us being able to reproduce if we do the procedure. So focusing on duty seems even more important now, the reason I got into this was to be a better Agent.

  “Your mind seems elsewhere.” She says.

  “It is, just thinking things over.” Ever since the exile we've been overly cautious about speaking in proximity to Others, who knows who can hear what.

  The Zoo is pretty quiet today. We slip in behind the orangutan exhibit, kill our avatars and start looking for the supplies. The mechanical orangutans are almost more interesting to watch than looking at them on the Inside, you can see the loose metal joints turn and spin as they meander about the enclosure. Maria finds the brown hew bag, we transfer the items; mostly soup and MREs, some meds.

  “Switch back to the Inside, I have something to show you.” She says.

  She leads me down a winding pathway heading through to a point where there is an old stone bridge ahead. She stops.

  “It looks nice here.” I say.

  “Wait.” She says, looking back and forth as people walk past. “Get ready.” I wait, what's going on? I start scanning around, are we in danger? “Now.” she says, holding my hand we push into the deep brush. “Leave the Inside now.”

  I do as she asks. “Where are we going?”

  “You'll see.” I can't see her face as we press through the brush, but I can hear her smile.

  The brush opens up, there is a small 4 x 4 metre wide opening, the sun streaming through the leaves.

  “I found this a year ago when we were talking about catching squirrels. The perfect picnic spot.” She says as she lays down a blanket.

  “Don't you need fancy food for a picnic?” I ask.

  “MRE's will have to do, besides, the most important thing about a picnic is the company my love.” She says with a smile.

  We lay there in each other's arms, the sun filtering through the heavy canopy, the smell of earth. I dreamed of being with nature, no killing, no suffering, no technology. When Maria woke me it was dark, a deep feeling of sorrow hit me that I couldn’t be in that dream world forever. The only reason leaving the grove was tolerable was knowing I would be with her.