William Dietrich: Getting back

After two hundred yards he stopped and considered again.

The palmtop solar computer went next, its dietary calculations confirming what he already knew- that he was hungry- and its Library of Congress memory cache still entirely untapped. With greater regret he threw out the Symphony-Pod and headphones, the cellular receiver for satellite news, the foil solar oven, and the coffee grinder with wind-out antenna and stamp-sized TV. Pricey, precious stuff, designed to give his challenging trek a fringe of fun. Now it was metallic junk he'd trade for a liter of water. He sipped the last he had- a half swallow- and heaved on the pack again. Noticeably lighter, he thought bitterly, and none too soon: the faint whoops were drawing closer. He set out again at a half trot, climbing toward the cracked, polished rocks of ancient hills. They shone like cooked meat.

Despite his anxiety Ethan was slowing, the heat leaching his Health-Plus conditioning. Water was the problem, his throat thick, head light. A burst of effort, a long drink. After that, maybe, he could hide.

Figures flickered through the scrub below, his discarded gear eliciting caws of triumph. Ethan didn't know if his hunters wanted the gadgets or regarded his droppings as a kind of bleeding. They loped like wolves, burdened with nothing, and he conceded he was still carrying too much. But what more could he afford to lose?

At a rock overhang he heaved off his pack again. There was little choice but to jettison necessary items and circle back for them later. The tent, the Spider-Fiber hammock, the sleeping bag, the Duraflex cookware, the fuel cannisters, the battery packs. He yanked them out with furious jerks of his arm, angry at the waste. A change of underwear, his camp shoes, his digital recorder. All abandoned, just to get away. How he wished for a gun! But that was against the rules, wasn't it? Everything was against the rules.

He pulled out the orange-painted metal box the pilot had insisted he carry. Heavy as a shot put, dense as stone. This would get them back? He was a gadget freak but the instrument was unrecognizable. A switch, a button, a few socket ports. He flicked the switch back and forth, punching the button. Nothing. Well, the pilot said it wouldn't work by itself. Ethan hesitated only a moment and then heaved, watching the box kick up a spurt of dust before it tumbled into a ravine. Good riddance.

Then he started upward again, studying the surrounding hills. All he had to do was outrun them, hide, and come back. He was smarter than they were, right? He'd always been smarter than almost anyone he knew. So what insanity had brought him here in the first place? What was he trying to prove?

That he could survive, he reminded himself. That he could go into the wilderness by himself, face life at its most fundamental and formidable, and prevail. It would validate his existence as something more than a cog in a global machine.

Had he been seduced? Drawn into this place by a commercial come-on full of bland reassurances, peppy encouragement, and appeals to his own vanity? Or had he deliberately surrendered his head to his heart in order to break free of the logical prison his career had become, essentially making the decision to come here long before he'd heard of this place? He'd run to a continent that promised respite from contemporary anxieties and monotonous routine, a refuge from the tangled demons of his id. Maybe fear had brought him here. Or some pathetic dream of freedom. Another joke: he wasn't sure himself.

Ethan realized dimly that he was bleeding. The scrub was thorny and the grass pricked as he pushed through it, like a stuttering stab of electricity. Everything seemed hard and angular here: the rocks, the bushes, the light. As rough-edged as the city but in an entirely different way. Even the dirt was unwelcoming. Alive with ants.

He'd give anything for a drink of water.

He sensed more than saw the flicker of movement at the periphery of his vision. It was on the ridge above and disappeared as soon as he registered its presence. Ethan glanced wildly about. The calls had stopped, he realized: was it because his pursuers had fallen back? Or because their net was drawing tighter? He began to trot faster, his breath a saw against his throat.

There it was again! A silhouette on the crest of the ridge above, running easily, checking his location and then disappearing. Christ, the pursuers were even with his own position! They hadn't slowed to pick over his things at all!

He had to throw away the last of his old world.

He staggered as he let the pack slip off his shoulders a final time. It represented everything that was to have kept him alive. Now he swung it in an arc like an Olympic hammer thrower, grunting. The pack lofted out over a canyon and fell, thudding onto a steep dirt slope and skidding into scrub. He took a deep breath. While the loss of his pack left him floating with release, it also made him feel feeble. His armor had been stripped.

He set off at a dead run.

Ethan cut downhill, picking up some speed. Running to water! His pores were so dry that his skin stung. Puffs of dust shot up with each heavy thud of his boots, ankles twisting as he fought for balance on loose rocks.

Another darting blur at the edge of his vision, this time downslope. He frantically cranked his neck to either side. More shapes, pacing him, and he heard the pound of footfalls behind. What did they want, now that he'd shed everything he brought?

He cut to the left, following a broad ledge. The cliff shielded him from the view of any pursuers above and the drop to his right prevented those below from easily following. If he could just lose the ones behind…

The urbanite accelerated, his heart pounding, his vision dim. A shrill cry went up, high and warbling, and adrenaline jolted him like an electric prod. They were close! Too close! Faster, faster…

Ethan was in the air before he realized the ledge had ended. His legs chugged at nothing, his arms flailed. Like a silly cartoon character, he thought morosely as his panic gave way to a black, fundamental regret. Then he fell.

He hit a slope and tumbled, wondering dimly which bones would snap first. The calm clarity of it, the sober acknowledgment of miscalculation, surprised him. His fear had been replaced with stupid sorrow. What an ass he'd been for coming here!

Then he hit something hard, spun, and blacked out.

The city filled its vast central basin like a reservoir fills its impoundment, chains of linked town houses lapping at a litter-encrusted shoreline of brown, scabby hills. The hills had been set aside as park a hundred years ago and had slowly strangled into wasteland: neglected, junk-filled, eroded, dangerous. Eruptive urban growth had long since spilled past them and flooded the valleys beyond to bury farmland, swallow rural communities, and engulf remnant woods. This overflow of the urban grid had no final boundary: its horizons were lost in haze, its edges smeared by cancerous growth. The sky was stagnant white, the city gray, and the occasional splashes of architectural color only emphasized the monotony they were painted on. In this dense human colony land was like gold, space currency, and square footage the source of rivalry and aspiration. Houses were bonded like Siamese twins, or stacked like the comb of a hive. Each looked like its neighbor: cramped, clay-colored, straining for a scrap of view. Their yards were patios, scabby greenery enclosed in pots. On the worst days, when the light was flat and the wafer of sun melted at its edges like a seltzer tablet, the city was a hard, ugly place.

Yet the beast retained the seductive throb of human life. At night its arterials were ribbons of light and its tiled plain of asphalt and plastic roofs was broken by archipelagos of soaring skyscrapers and corporate pyramids. Malls were emporiums of bright commerce and cafes spilled onto sidewalks. Winking hovercraft darted like fireflies and info-lasers stabbed skyward toward satellites. Corporate names crested buildings like proud coxcombs, crowing with a glow of marketed pride. The beacons intended warmth, like the remembered reassurance of the lamp or tavern sign, but- bloated to football field dimensions- they instead drenched their neighborhoods with commercial glare. The sign war extended to the sky, where searchlights cast logos on nighttime haze, lasers flickered to announce openings or bankruptcies, and blimps drifted with holographic tidings. The city's signs were a galaxy of rival artificial suns and the pictures they cast were of an idealized, desired, half-remembered, and romanticized world: glistening beaches, convivial families, green meadows, detached houses. "In the world of United Corporations," read one, "everyone can win, all the time."