Escaping the Pyre by Jayel

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Escaping the Pyre, Part 5
by Jayel

After two more days of seemingly endless plain, the Eden Project had found a new horizon. A line of dark bluish-green humps had appeared in the distance, forming a barrier between the yellowing grass and a sky that was quickly fading from the brilliant azure of late summer to the steely gray of fall. "Do you think those are the mountains we've been looking for?" Devon asked Danziger as they stood at the front of the procession.

"Maybe," he said doubtfully, peering through his viewer. "More likely a forest--I'll go check it out."

"What--John, wait!" she cried, following him back to the transrover. "What do you mean, you'll go check it out?"

"I mean I'm going to pack some gear and take the rail up there and see what we're looking at," he replied, hauling out his backpack. "No use backtracking this entire caravan because we can't get the vehicles through."

"But you said you didn't think those were mountains," she pointed out.

"I said I didn't know," he answered. He flipped open the transrover's back hatch and fished out a handful of food packets. "From the looks of it, I'd say whatever it is shouldn't be more than a day's drive away, and besides, some of these people could use the rest."

To Devon, everything he said sounded almost but not quite reasonable. "I'm going with you," she decided. "Just let me get some gear and ask Bess to watch out for the kids--"

"No," he said firmly, turning to look her squarely in the eye. "Not this time."

"John, be reasonable--you can't just head out to nowhere all by yourself," she objected.

"Yeah, I can, and I will." He stopped, putting down his backpack to lay his hands on her shoulders. "Dev . . . I *have* to."

She looked up into his eyes, trying to interpret the emotions she saw there. All she could be sure of was that he was telling her the truth and that he needed her to understand. "Okay," she agreed with a nod. "Just promise me you'll stay in touch--and that you'll be careful." She grinned. "I mean, it does seem that every time I let you out of my sight, you end up shot or deathly ill or dehydrated--"

"Enough!" he laughed, throwing up his hands in surrender. "All right; I'll be careful."

"You promise?" she persisted, suddenly serious.

His smile faded, too, and he leaned toward her slowly, giving her ample time to back away before softly and ever-so-tenderly kissing her lips. "I promise," he murmured. Before her world could stop spinning enough to let her form a reply, he had snatched up his backpack and gone.

Tara was unpacking supplies from the rail when he reached it. "Where are you off to in such an all-fired hurry?" she demanded as he moved her aside and heaved the rest of the bundles out with a single mighty shove.

"Scouting ahead," he said curtly, climbing behind the wheel. "I'll be back in a couple of days."

"Cool," she replied, turning to walk away. "John, wait a minute!" she said, running back to the rail. "Are you taking the program?"

He gave her a long look. "Maybe," he conceded.

She chewed her lip for a moment. "That may not be--listen, don't stay on too long, okay?" she said at last. "It's a pretty intense program, and with no one around to snap you out of it . . . "

"What?" he asked.

"You might never come out at all," she admitted.

Danziger had heard about things like this back on the stations, black market VR so intense it could completely obliterate its user's actual reality, given enough time. "How long is too long?" he asked Tara.

"I can't be sure," she confessed. "I'd have to be in there with you to tell--but Eleanor will know."

"Excuse me?"

"Eleanor will know when your real world connection is slipping, and if you ask her, she'll tell you," Tara explained as if this were the most natural thing in the world. "She's a self-aware program--"

"She knows she's a program?" Danziger demanded.

"Not exactly . . . she knows that her reality and the reality of anyone else are parallel rather than concurrent," Tara said. "It's the best possible fail-safe device--she'll know that you've left your world to visit hers, and that if she doesn't warn you to come back, you could get stuck."

"So she'll tell me?" he asked.

"If she's the kind of girl who would tell," Tara answered. "I'll leave that call to you, big guy. Just to be safe, I'd say overnight is about as long as you should stay under, if that long." She stepped back from the rail. "Have fun," she said.

"Yeah, right," he muttered, forcing the rail into gear. "Tell anyone who asks I'll see them soon."

***

As much as she liked Danziger, Bess wasn't really sorry to hear he had gone, because his scouting expedition forced Eden Advance to stop, well, advancing. She would never have asked the group to stop just for her benefit, no matter how tired she felt. But the idea of spending a day or so without traveling definitely had its appeal. For one thing, the ready water supply made the prospect of a tub bath not only feasible but reasonably convenient.

She had just gotten the "Do Not Disburb" sign hung outside the tent, the tub filled with hot water, and her towels laid out when True stuck her head in. "Sorry for disturbing," she said sheepishly. "But I really need to talk."

"Come on in, honey," Bess urged, shedding her clothes with surprising grace, considering her condition. "You know I didn't mean you." She stepped into the tub, and True held her hand for support as she eased herself down into the water. "Thanks, honey," she sighed, sinking blissfully until the warm liquid lapped at her chin. "Now what do you want to talk about?"

"Dad didn't even say good-bye!" True exploded, pacing restlessly around the tent. "He told Devon good-bye--he even saw Tara before he left!"

"He did?" Bess queried, mentally pricking up her ears.

"She was unloading the rail when he took it," True explained, flopping onto the floor by the tub. "She's the one who told me he had gone, and Uly said he saw . . . " She broke off, and Bess could see she was blushing. "Uly said he saw Dad kiss his mom good-bye," she blurted out, staring down at the floor.

Bess suppressed her outward smile and her inward shout of relief. "Is Uly a reliable witness?" she asked.

"I guess so," True answered.

"Well, I still wouldn't worry about it," Bess soothed, the hot bath making her almost unbearably sleepy all of a sudden. "If your dad kissed Devon, I'm sure he was just being . . . friendly. And I'm sure if he forgot to say good-bye to you, that just means he intends to be back before you miss him."

"So you really think it's nothing?" True ventured.

Bess forced her heavy lids to open so she could look the little girl in the eye. "I think everything is going to be just fine," she promised.

***

After a few false starts and several trips to the tent flap to make sure no one was coming, Julia had finally finished attaching the proper video monitor to her diagnostic glove. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, she slipped on the glove and touched her own swelling abdomen.

The image of a tiny, perfectly-formed fetus appeared on the monitor, the natural reddish-pink of its skin only slightly distorted by the artificial light. "Ohhhh," Julia breathed aloud, barely aware of the tears spilling over her cheeks. "Look at you . . .you have fingers . . . and toes--oh God, look at your face . . ."

Alonzo came in carrying a stack of clean blankets which he promptly dropped all over the floor. "Hey look," he enthused softly, as if the baby on the monitor could be disturbed by his voice. He put his arms around Julia's shoulders and squeezed her tight, careful not to jog the glove. "Is that him? Is that Valentine?"

"That is most definitely Valentine," Julia answered, her voice trembling with almost painful joy. "But I think Valentine is a she."

End of Part 5.

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