Page 72 of The Brightness Between Us

I now know that there’s no chance of survival for me, either, if I stay. Even if I’m not the target, if the warbot is willing to kill dogs just for happening to be in the area, it will be perfectly happy to kill me. As I speed along the path to the hut, I wonder if Ambrose has tracked down my bow, if he might accidentally attack me. I don’t think so, and it’s not worth the risk of calling out and alerting the warbot to where I am.

I’m cursing myself as I go to help him. The heart is not the wiser organ.

And finally, a thought that’s been lying out of focus at the edge of my mind becomes sharply and horribly clear: Devon Mujaba sabotaged the zygotes. I’ve managed to shove the shock of that to the periphery until now, but it is creeping in.

Not a useful thought to indulge. I leap along the mossy wooden planks, picking up speed as I go. I hurl myself into the door to the hut, knowing all too well how flimsy its wooden latch is. As I burst in, I’m ready to warn Ambrose.

But he’s not inside.

I look out the glass at the broad lake. A small figure makes its way along the shore, and heads into the trees at the far end.

Ambrose heard the sonic boom, just like I did. And he’s already come to the conclusion to flee.

I’m the one being left behind.

I’m the one in danger.

I grab whatever is within reach—bow, arrows, a spare shirt, a knapsack containing some food and maybe some bandages, if I remembered to put them away. I don’t have time to check before I’m hurrying down the steps, listening for signs of the approaching warbot. A hawk cries, and the lake’s waves lap, but that’s it. Not that the warbot will make much noise while it stalks, not if it’s functioning properly.

I scramble along the other side of the lake from Ambrose, so that I can pick up Sheep on the way. She looks at me groggily, then gets up and bleats. She keeps up easily as I speed through the trees, hooves better than feet at our current task. Of course she has no idea what danger we’re facing, but she’s clearly picked up on my urgency.

I give my home one last long look, then speed along to catch up to my intruder and shipmate.

Chapter 2

For hours, Ambrose has made steady progress south along the abandoned highway, Sheep and I tailing by half a kilometer, behind and above him. We avoid the road, instead taking the mountain trails I’ve come to know from my foraging. Our route is far less exposed than the abandoned highway, and gives us a view of the valley below.

My high vantage point is how I discover the warbot is a couple of kilometers back, making its way toward Ambrose. I don’t see it often, but twice I catch sunlight glinting on its visor as it passes along the painted median of the ruined road. Nothing with that kind of weaponry has any need for secrecy. Even though the warbot is following Ambrose’s trail accurately, he has managed a fast enough pace that his enemy is slowly falling behind. Even when Ambrose has to scale the rubble of a fallen overpass, the warbot never gets closer than a kilometer or so. That’s no cause for premature celebration: the warbot might be going about two-thirds of Ambrose’s speed, but of course it will never slow. It will never sleep. It will catch him when he rests.

As the afternoon wanes, Ambrose takes a pause toremove his pack and boots, to rub his feet. From on high, I watch and silently scold.No. Stopping to rest is how you die.

I scramble my way down the mountainside, Sheep making her surefooted way behind me. The tree line breaks halfway down, which means I’ll have to run down a bald rocky stretch. Ambrose might notice me, but what will he do if he does? Run? That’s what he’s already doing. And why should he run from me? I’m the one who left him.

As soon as I’m down below the level of the clouds, the air warms and the trees return to obscure the land. I can no longer see Ambrose—or the warbot. Newly blind, I lead Sheep to the last spot where I saw Ambrose. A small clearing, calm and empty. Unhitching my bow from my shoulder, an arrow nocked in the string, I take the most probable path onward. It’s the one I’d have chosen if I were him, down across a suburban road with moss-covered ruined houses on either side, toward a bridge over a burbling river. A hint of shelter.

Sure enough, Ambrose is at the bridge’s start, emerging from a long-abandoned grocery, a can of food in his hand. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think I see disgust on his face—it’s not something he’d have chosen to eat, no doubt. He starts across the bridge.

This is a terrible idea. First, if the warbot catches up, he’s an easy shot, with no cover. Second, warbots will avoidfloating over water when possible because a perfectly aimed shot from a disabler could possibly sink them. We don’t have a disabler, of course, but the warbot doesn’t know that, so fording each stream in a place without a land bridge is our best option for getting some distance between us.

Us.

I break into a sprint. “No!” I shout. “Not the bridge!”

Ambrose startles and falls into a crouch. I continue to barrel toward him. “I don’t have time to explain. Follow!”

Sheep and I race past him, and down the ravine to the riverside. I don’t sense any movement behind me—for now. “The warbot tracks our locations through hypersensitive hearing, not smell, which means that the river won’t make it lose us,” I call over my shoulder. “But the EMP dust means it can’t be receiving outside instructions, and if it’s autonavigating then it will track us to whichever part of the river we try to cross, and then it will find a crossing it’s willing to make.”

Of course, the warbot might have heard what I just said.

I don’t get a response from Ambrose, but I do now hear him scrambling behind me. Good enough. I’d much rather not have to talk this through out loud anymore.

We’re at the lowest point in the valley, forested hills rising sharply on either side. Though passing along the riverbank means easy treeless going, it also means the sun sets earlier. After about an hour we’re sloshing through stonywater in the half-dark, shivering with chill. I raise my hand to call us to a halt.

Ambrose stops before me, his face a mask in the dim light. “Welcome back,” he says. He gives Sheep a hearty rub. She wriggles in pleasure.

“I’m sorry I surprised you. But you destroyed my new life, and it made me angry,” I say quickly. Ambrose blinks back at me. Isn’t this how he likes to talk, expressing feelings and such? I rub my mouth. “But once we learned it was a warbot they sent after you, I knew that escape was our only possible plan.”

Ambrose looks up from petting Sheep. “That’s the same conclusion I reached,” he says.

---