Nanowrimo 2011 - Day 13

[LI / JAMES / KAT - ROAD OF TRIALS]

Li stood up - someone needed to do something - it didnt matter really what, just so long as people werent just sitting around doing nothing and going nowhere. She busied herself with tearing long strips of cloth from the ruined kimono she was wearing until it was nothing but rags and she was back to the form-fitting black tshirt and shorts she was wearing underneath.

Kat laughed.

Li turned and glared at her, “What?”

With a grin Kat said, “We think its funny: You set out wearing all those feminine outer garments but underneath you’re wearing combat boots!”

Li looked down. Kat was right - tight black shirt and shorts even could be construed to be feminine the way that her lean figure was essentially visible to the casual observer - but the combat boots she was wearing were a stark contrast.

In a rare flash of humour Shawna stood and did a reasonable impersonation of a catwalk model, “Black - its the new color for the fall collection: Combat Chic.”

All three women laughed.

The strips of cloth with two long branches created a sturdy stretcher. Li cut a deal with the other two women - they could take turns, but since she insisted so strongly on carrying James (and not just indulging in a swift mercy-killing) she would bear the other end of the stretcher. The walk to the “farm” was uneventful, proving what Kat had suggested about the pair of vampires. There was no pack nearby. Two juveniles. Li wondered what sort of world could support “packs” and juvenile vampires. It was already obvious that the humidity and near constant cloud cover afforded them the ability to be active the whole day. She nodded to herself, as would a generation ship too.

It was a near total binary change, from life to death, from day to night with no warning when it came. One moment they were pressing through the muggy depths of swampy, near jungle vegetation and the next moment they stepped out onto bare earth.

They set James down carefully. He still hadnt gained conciousness, the wounds across his chest and stomach werent bleeding so profusely, but that wasnt necessarily a good sign as when Li felt for his temperature, she found a solid fever had set in. She didnt want to disturb their bandages until they were inside the farm and she could replace them from the stocks she was sure to find there.

As she stood she noticed signs of fire damage on the plants and trees along the edge of the open space. She turned around slowly. Something insinctively kept the wildlife of the jungle behind an invisible line. Beyond that border was an empty space. The ground rose to a ridge nearby, so Li jogged to the ridge line to get a better look where they were, in relation to the “farm”. She had lived in cities her entire life, so didnt have anything to personally judge from, but what she saw didnt look like any farm she’d heard about. Several structures, low and flat were spread out with short roads between them. There were no fields, just bare dead ground. At the center of the flat farm buildings, she saw the main “Farm House” - two stories tall with some attention to styling and looking nice.

Li turned back and joined her companions.

“just over the ridge, surrounded by out-houses.” she said, waving her arm, “I didnt see any signs of activity there - no fields, or farm animals.”

Kat started laughing. Li didnt understand.

“You’re laughing at me again.” she said.

Kat nodded. Both Shawna and Li looked at her, waiting for her to compose herself long enough to give them an answer, “Farm animals.”

Li looked at her, at Shawna, then back to Kat.

Kat sucked in a huge breath, composed herself, and said “The only vampires who hunt are packs of renegades or the juveniles. As a whole when they established this colony they gave up hunter / gathering and started farming. Li … it’s a human farm … most likely meat and marrow this far from the center of things.”

“People farm? That’s terrible.” Li said and paused, “Humans went through this step about twelve thousand years ago though. Who am I to judge? This is what we came here to study.”

Tears prickled at Li’s eyes, “Protocol Seven. Everything recorded and verified.” she sat down next to James with a bump, “Shawna, you’ll verify, we can still make this work … we can get the bonus for this discovery and observation.”

Shawna showed no mercy, “Snap out of it, we dont have time for such things. We have to sweep in, take the farm, and move on with as much data as possible. Need i remind you that our goal is to return to the ship in orbit, not spend weeks in non-invasive observation however fascinating. Do you see a shuttle here? Clearly this is not our destination, merely a step on the way. Pull yourself together.”

Li hated her for it, and was clearly still wrestling with the attempt at returning to normality, but the current reality was hard to ignore. James laying on the hard packed dirt helped, he clearly wouldnt make it back to health without the medical facilities there would be at the farm. James didnt have time for a study of the transition to farming that had gone on here. Still, Shawna’s words stung.

“Shawna, you have no heart. What even are you?” Li demanded, “I mean, who the hell welds deck plating to a sensor-net?”

[SHAWNA - ROAD OF TRIALS]

Shawna had dreaded this moment arriving since she first joined the crew. She was sure that Eric and Patrick - representing military - were the type of men who did what they were told without asking deep questions. They were muscle, they were dependable, and didnt represent a threat unless under orders from someone else. Magdalena and the Captain both had their own secrets that Shawna’s role as dietitian and head of biology had uncovered reasonably quickly. She hadnt had cause to use the leverage over Magda, but the Captain was another question. She formed a pact, indicating to him that she wouldnt invest any resources in uncovering his secrets, if the a mutual arrangement went into place. The stand-off had worked, especially well, since that also meant military never raised a hand against her. The enigma was Li Phan, psychology, with a keen mind and a fragile emotional make up. Eventually simple intimidation kept her out of Shawna’s business. Now, here, on the planet’s surface the worst fear (from the expected, dreaded, source) was being realized.

The entirity of Shawna’s existance had been based around blending in and never being “outed” as artificial, synthetic human, an Android.

Li was waiting for an answer.

“The black exterior you see is the emulation of a sensor net - black pigment and a liberal sprinkling of nanites.”

She waited for that to sink in, using the time to dig deep inside disabling subroutines all over her processing core, undoing safeguards, until she felt able to admit the reality of her existance.

“Isnt it obvious. I am synthetic-human.” she said.

Strangely neither of the women seemed all that shocked. Kat she could understand, if the presence of The Watcher in her head was informing her actions. Li on the other hand … she looked closer … she was showing signs of shock and melt-down. She was grasping at straws - hence “Protocol Seven” - and this was just adding to the weirdness of her day.

Finally Li spoke, “Your kind are illegal. We wiped you out. W T F are you doing here, of all places?”

There. That was what Shawna had been expecting.

James woke up feeling groggy. There was a lump in the middle of his back, a stone on the ground that he was laying on. He sat up and reached for it. With a start he realized his mistake - it was no stone - it was a bullet.

He rubbed sleep out of his eyes and the movement highlighted for him the way his shirt was slashed to ribbons. He looked down at it, and the fresh clean skin of his chest / stomach behind it. He shrugged and took another look at the bullet that he had been laying on before turning his attention to his surroundings.

The ground was hard-packed dirt. Nothing grew. Behind him was a wall of lush vegetation. The two were in stark contrast to one another. He stood and looked around. Nothing.