Jay Posey - Three

Even standing, it was hard to resist sleep. Cass’s body was near collapse, threatening to shut down without regard to her wishes if she didn’t willingly rest soon. The ache was back. The hunger, the thirst. The dull, glowing heat in the pit of her stomach and at the back of her throat that cried out for quint. Whatever synth Three had crafted, he’d said it’d last her a few days. It’d been less than two. And it was gone, already used up by her ever-accelerating burn rate. Her arms and legs shivered, though not from cold. She just had to endure, had to let him think the worry was getting to her, which was true enough. Worry for Wren made her head swim. But it was fear that kept her from telling Three the truth, fear that knowing she’d lied about her burn rate would lead him to question how else she may have misled him. And as much as Cass hated it, she needed Three now, needed him to get them through. She knew whatever it took to keep him on their side, she’d do without question or regret.

Three had been right, of course. In her heart, Cass knew Wren was alive. Frightened, certainly. Hurt, maybe. But alive. As a mother, it just wasn’t enough. She yearned for contact, for a touch, a glimpse of him, even a word. Just a word.

Cass glanced up at Three, thirty feet above her, all but invisible now. Far enough away. Even if he was monitoring her signal by proximity, he was too high to trace anything simple, and from the look of it, he was focused more on his climbing than on anything she was doing. She’d expressly forbidden Wren from pimming her, knowing that opening those channels carried too great a risk of exposing them both to Asher’s ever-watchful eye. It’d seemed like a smart rule before, when they were never apart even for a moment. But now, in the cold, in the dark, cut off from one another by some unknowable distance and who knew what else, the danger didn’t seem so great or so relevant. Not compared to the hope offered by the simple act of reaching out across that distanceless space where Wren was separated by no more than a thought.

In less than a breath, it was done.

“Wren.”

A heartbeat. Another. And another. Long enough for her son to have responded, if he was alright. Fear grew in her with each passing moment, every second of silence conjuring new nightmares that might have befallen her child.

And then—

“Not now.”

His message came through, clear, simple, like a thought of her own spoken in his voice. Reassuring and baffling at the same time. Somewhere in the distance, a crackling wail sounded.

Above her, Three hissed, calling Cass’s attention. Straining her eyes she could just make him out motioning to her, an urgent, forceful wave beckoning her to climb. She drew a deep breath, tried to steady herself. Worked her hands to ease the trembling. And started to climb.

The metal of the scaffolding was warmer than she’d expected, which was a welcome surprise. But after the first step up, with her full weight off the ground, she knew it was going to be a tough climb. Forty feet, maybe. It wouldn’t have been hard if she’d had her chems. Without them though, everything was hard: climbing, walking, breathing, thinking. Cass hoped sleep would fix some of her brokenness. Assuming sleep would come.

Five feet up. Thirty-five to go. She glanced up to the underside of the maglev line, but it was too dark now to locate Three. Maybe he was already on the top. She wondered what climbing would do for them out here. Maybe the Weir wouldn’t think to look for them up so high, though she doubted that. To her, it seemed that the Weir were led by something other than their eyes. She thought back to the night they’d spent in the cavernous storm water system outside the Enclave. When the Weir had passed her by once. Of course, it had come back. And so had others.

Hand up. Hold. Then foot. Reach. Stretch. Ignore the burning. Fifteen feet up. Still no sign of Three. Up here, she realized some of what she’d thought were support beams were actually just thick cables. Round, they were easy to grip, but their odd angles made her footing unsure. She did her best, forced herself to take her time despite the searing in her forearms, her back, her thighs. Even so, she never really felt completely in control.

Twenty-five feet above the ground now. Just twelve or fifteen more to go. Cass thought briefly about how they’d get down, then shoved the idea out of her mind. The thought of doing this again, not to mention backwards, was too much to process. And maybe too optimistic. Coming back down assumed they’d survive the night.

Below her a sudden croak sounded, startled her, made her lose focus just as she was mid-step, floating between foothold and handhold. Her foot slipped sideways on the cable beneath her, twisting her around out of reach of the grip she’d been reaching for, and she slammed her back into the edge of something hard. Above her, a shadow within shadows swept across the cables; she sensed it more than saw it. Three. He would save her. For a moment Cass dangled out in space, one quivering hand her only connection to the physical world. Then that too was gone.

She felt his fingertips brush hers as she slipped away into the darkness below. The first impact caught her across the back, knocking the breath from her lungs and throwing her forward. Another six feet down Cass slammed into a pair of cables where they met in an X. It bent her double with a searing pain across her belly, and the speed of her fall flipped her headfirst. In a flash of instinct, she managed to hook one elbow around the cable as she spun over the top. That probably saved her life. The cable bit deeply, but she slowed herself just long enough to make a desperate grab with her other hand. With a solid grip supporting her for a moment, her feet scrabbled and found stability on the scaffolding below. She readjusted, got two good handholds, steadied herself. Still alive, somehow.

Cass’s back muscles were still seized, and she fought to suck air into her lungs, if not to breathe at least to scream. She could hear above her now Three’s quick movements drawing closer, descending with such swiftness she felt certain at any moment he’d plummet past her to his own death. He reached her about the time she got her first breath.

Even in crisis, Three remained stoic. He continued down past her without a word, climbed in just underneath her with his shoulder near her waist. He shifted his weight, seemed to be testing for secure footing. Then, he pressed into her, his shoulder firm and sure against her stomach, raising her up and taking her weight from her hands and feet. The pressure sent fire coursing through her middle, and she bit into her lip to stifle a cry. Surely he didn’t mean to carry her.

“Arm around my neck,” he whispered, barely audible. Slowly, painfully, Cass draped her arm over the back of Three’s neck, along his left shoulder. He grasped her wrist, shifted her across his shoulders, distributing her weight as evenly as possible in a sort of fireman’s carry.

“Now,” he breathed, words hardly more than wind in the air, “be still .”

And with that, he began to climb.

The ascent was slow and painful for Cass, every upward movement sending shockwaves through her damaged body. She couldn’t imagine how Three must’ve been feeling. He made no complaints, but there was no doubt the climb was taking its toll, even on him.

Not a machine after all, she thought.

Sweat poured, soaked through his coat where she was laid across his shoulders. Muscles strained, trembling slightly. Pauses between movements grew longer. Three seemed to be gearing himself up for each effort. Cass had no idea how far they had left to climb. It was tough to judge their height from her vantage point, where she felt lost somewhere between sideways and upside-down. She thought about giving it another try herself. Her mistake had only almost cost them one life. A mistake now would cost at least two, and probably a third, later. But she knew her body was spent. Her head was swimming, and occasional waves of nausea were washing over her with increasing frequency and strength. Three had asked her to be still, and that was something she absolutely could do.