Sam caressed the pod, but Lou showed no reaction whatsoever. More than ten days had passed since Deadman had tinkered with the pod and they still weren’t communicating as they had before. Lou spent most of the day asleep. But maybe that was to be expected. They hadn’t approached any BT-occupied territory or experienced any spikes in chiral density lately. Babies were supposed to sleep a lot anyway. Besides, if regular babies needed so much sleep, then what about babies that hadn’t even been born yet? It would have been selfish to wake Lou for no reason. Wait… wasn’t he intending to reforge their relationship from the beginning after Lou’s memories had been wiped? Calling this kid Lou was so self-centered of him. This kid could have been called by a different name when it was in its mother’s womb. All Sam had done was project his past onto this poor baby. He was basically repeating what Bridget had done to him when she left America in his hands. He recalled her voice inside his head.
—You’re the one I wanted to send, Sam.
No, America’s finished! Bridget, you’re the president of jack shit!
Sam thought back to the hospital room that had been transformed with holograms to turn it into a fake Oval Office. It felt like the weight of Bridget after she fell on him back then had been added onto his back. The children always carry the baggage that their parents leave behind. Whether it’s debt or fortune, the parents force them to bear it whether they like it or not. Parents liked to preach that this was the baton of life and the succession of history. Their kids were even forced to grieve their deaths and usher their souls onward. (Was that why you carried Bridget’s corpse?) But what were parents who outlived their children supposed to do?
A strong wind struck Sam straight on. It roared like an animal and blew past him. The snows thickened and all Sam could see was white. He got down on his knees to give his legs a rest and readjust his cargo. A pain shot through him and he let out a grunt. The wound he had sustained from a stray bullet on that battlefield still hadn’t healed.
Sam heard a muffled cry from the pod. It seemed that Lou had reacted to Sam’s pain. Maybe he was mistaken. Maybe he had arbitrarily determined that to be the case. Maybe he was being arrogant. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that Sam felt the connection between him and Lou repairing itself. He stroked the pod. Then he let out a sigh and got back up. The wind had only blown strongly for a moment, but the snow was still falling and his surroundings had grown silent again. Everything was back to normal, except for one thing.
Something flashed in front of him.
Sam fell to his injured knee again, and then onto his ass. He pulled off the straps of his pack and set it on the ground. Then he removed the Odradek, thrust it into the snow, and switched it on. Sam’s cargo was immediately blanketed in white and now resembled one of the many boulders strewn across the landscape. It was all thanks to his hologram projector. It was one of the new functions included in the upgrade the equipment underwent in Mountain Knot City.
Sam hid in its shadow. Unless he was mistaken, the light had bounced off something manmade.
Then the light flashed once again, adding weight to his theory. Now it was moving. Maybe it was some MULEs? The hologram should have blinded them to his presence, as well as invalidated any sensors. As long as he remained quiet, there was no threat.
But maybe Sam had been too optimistic, because the group had now plainly changed course and were heading this way.
Lou’s fists were clenched tight in sympathy with Sam’s nervousness. Sam could make out five people so far, each of them spreading out in a different direction. It seemed to Sam that they were trying to surround him and they were slowly but surely closing in. They were clad from head to toe in what looked like thick gray cloaks. Each one had a gun in their hand. These weren’t MULEs. This was an armed group. If Sam had to guess, they were probably after the relay equipment he was carrying. But he had to wonder how they knew he would be delivering this equipment and how they had guessed the route he would take. Sam kept an eye on the five’s movements as he quickly took out his bola gun from his backpack and assembled it. If his assailants had been MULEs, he probably could have distracted them with some spare cargo, but it didn’t look like that tactic would do him any good here. They probably wanted to destroy the equipment. He also had to consider the possibility that these five were just the vanguard, and that Higgs was lurking around somewhere. A battle with the BTs could be imminent.
First and foremost, Sam had to protect his cargo. Putting his faith in the protection afforded by the hologram cloaking, Sam decided to try and draw the group’s attention toward him. To his right was the slope he had just descended, and although his left was open, there were likely numerous crevasses lying ahead.
Sam dropped down and retreated. The group’s reaction was swift. Every single one of them at once moved to Sam’s left flank. They were trying to drive him toward the slope.
The guns they held were most likely loaded with normal lethal bullets, but all Sam had was his bola gun, which was intended to apprehend and immobilize and only fired binding bola wires from both ends. It wasn’t deadly in the slightest. The enemy continued to close in. Sam flattened himself against the snow-covered rocks to use them as a shield, but the five enemies circled ever closer.
An uncomfortable feeling, like his organs were being squeezed hard, suddenly came over Sam. It was like someone had plunged their hand inside his abdomen and was churning his guts around inside. Sam felt like he was going to vomit. Lou was frightened.
There was no crying, but Lou was curled up as stiff as a dead body, eyes squeezed tightly shut. That’s when Sam realized that it wasn’t his fear that was being transmitted to Lou, but the other way around. Lou’s fear was gnawing away at Sam. He hadn’t had the same violent reaction when he was transported to Cliff’s battlefield. He hadn’t even felt this way before when he was crossing BT territory.
Lou’s emotions were coursing into Sam like a raging river, and since Lou didn’t know how to express them in words, they were doing a number on Sam’s insides instead. BBs had no way to express themselves in words, which is why they needed to be connected to their host via an umbilical cord and use of the Odradek interface. It was actually because they didn’t articulate the world in words that they could sense the world of the dead.
Sam closed his eyes and placed his hand on the pod. Lou was unusually afraid of these particular assailants. Shattering the silence, a bullet grazed past Sam’s shoulder.
Now they were directly under attack. Sam peeked out from behind the rock to assess the situation. Several armed men were approaching his hiding spot to surround him. He counted five so far. At first glance they looked like ordinary MULEs, but they were obviously out for blood. Was this what Lou was so scared of?
Another gunshot rang out. This time the bullet scraped the rock shielding Sam. Then somebody raised their voice. Just like the MULEs, they spoke in a language that Sam didn’t recognize, with short screams that seemed to make up a code that only their comrades could decipher. It seemed to be coming from nearby. Sam knew that it would all be over if he stayed where he was, so he readied his bola gun and sprung out from behind the rock.