She didn’t ask anyone else any questions. Flora could only assume the others had had their fill the day before. Flora ordinarily didn’t mind talking, but Rosalie was asking about things that were uncomfortable, things she didn’t like to talk about, especially given the web of half-truths she had concocted could fall apart if she had to keep explaining herself. Eventually, Flora decided the only way to distract her was to ask her own questions.
After another question from Rosalie about the embarrassing retcher incident, Flora asked, “do you have retchers where you’re from?”
“Oh, sure. There are stories bandied about. I never seen them first-hand though, not in my lifetime.“
“Why do you think that is?”
“Well, I’m from a place called Jacksonville. It’s mostly a Spoke town, thanks to the railroad, but it wasn’t when I was born. Lots of mercs from there too, and we try to get along. Anyway, there’s just not that much around there but swamps and such. A long time ago, the people of Jacksonville done got rid of all the Old World tech. There aren’t even any bike towers nearby. So nothing for the retchers to retch on, I guess. But you shouldn’t be askin’ me. My first husband, he once said there was a tree stump in Florida that had a higher IQ than me. Of course, I done kilt him, so maybe I’m a sharper stump than he reckoned.”
It was hard to say when Rosalie was being facetious. She seemed unfazed by Flora’s questions, so Flora continued on. “Do you have to… kill a lot of people, as a merc? I mean, what kind of work do you usually do?”
“Hey now, a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, and a merc doesn’t kill and spill the beans. We mostly do security details, and it can be downright boring. Sure, I done kilt twenty or so folks, mostly as parts of raids we were hired for, plus my first husband, of course.”
Flora suspected she was being honest. It made her nervous to be walking in front of someone who had killed so many people, and who could speak of it so flippantly, as if she was talking about a change in the weather.
Rosalie continued, “but not as many as Mehta here. No ma’am. Give him a few targets and he’s like a moth in a mitten. He done kilt and kilt and kilt, he has. Ain’t that right, Mehta?”
Mehta was leading the group. He glanced back to give them a dark look. Flora’s skin crawled.
“Such a pussycat he is,” Rosalie said.
“I’ve heard, down in Jacksonville, that there was a lot of sickness in the old days, what they call the fade. Is that still down there?”
“Yup. Was speaking with Lady Cecile here yesterday about it. Up there in frenchy land they call it Laifasae, or some such thing. Anyway, yeah we still have some of it. That’s why no one ever goes south of Jacksonville. Florida to the south has big pockets of the stuff. And you don’t know you got it until it’s too late.”
“How do you know it’s still there if no one goes south?”
“Because sometimes bandit types come up from there. They wander into Jacksonville, wanting refuge, wanting to trade. A lot of times we done kill’em straight up, or if we like the looks of em, we put them in a box for a week. Make sure they don’t show any symptoms before we let them in.”
“What are the symptoms?
“Only saw one when I was a kid. Makes them funny in the head it does. A day or two after they get the symptoms, they don’t know who they are anymore. They start to speak like a two-year-old. Then they done start shitting themselves. Gets pretty ugly. Don’t know what happens after that. We done kilt the one we had at that point.”
They were momentarily distracted as they scaled a steep rock surface. She was glad Darla hadn’t come. Clearly it would have been impassable for her.
Rosalie continued her explanation after the rock face. “Lots of people down in Jacksonville think that’s what caused the fall, or the Detonation, or whatever you folks call it up here. You know, the shit we’re in. I know you Essentialist types think the Old World folks were too dirty and polluted. You think it was more than just nukes. The Spokes, on the other hand, they think it was mostly some nuclear pissing contest, through some Old World mindfuck about fears and obsession. Down in Jacksonville we know the fade used to be way worse. Lots of people down south think that’s what did it. The fade done kilt more than Mehta even.” She snickered.
There was a moment of silence, and then Cecile chimed in ahead of them with a lonely word. “Millions,” she said.
Ember weighed in, always eager to assert the orthodox Essentialist viewpoint. “Technically, Essentialists wouldn’t argue the fade killed many. It was a horrible, horrible plague, but you will find that the fade killed people near populated areas—areas with poisonous cityscapes. The fade is just one more symptom of the Old World’s complete disregard for the sun, soil, and seed—one more consequence of their toxic treatment of the earth.”
Mehta had stopped and was looking back at all of them. “Speaking of people dying,” he said, “a sure-fire way to get ourselves killed is to keep yammering away when we approach Skyline. So shut it. I mean it.”
“Such a pussycat,” Rosalie whispered, smiling her gap-toothed grin at Flora.
Rosalie wasn’t completely irreverent. She did keep quiet from then on, as did Ember and the rest of them.
They soon approached the broad boulevard at the top of Skyline. They had left the main Gap Run path a while back, so as to not make tracks on a known path that exited onto the road. They had been mostly breaking through old forest growth.
They walked carefully through the woods on the Essentialist side to make sure there were no hidden outposts, and then dashed across into the foliage on the Spoke side when they were sure the way was clear.
When they were in Spoke territory, Rosalie fell back farther to the rear and cast a watchful eye into the forest around them.
Descending the other side of the ridge took longer than going up, as most of it was through dense woods, with no path and fewer bearings. They had to double back a few times to make sure they were taking the best route down the mountain. Eventually they made it down to flatter ground and stopped to make camp for the evening. Mehta and Rosalie seemed more relaxed and even exchanged a few words.
Ember whispered, “Are we safe here, in this campsite?”
“We’re through the worst of it, yeah,” Rosalie answered. “The real militant Spokes would be up on the ridge. The Spoke people down here won’t expect us, and are more likely to be farming types.”
“That’s great,” Ember said. “Congratulations, everyone.”
Rosalie had been skinning a rabbit. She pointed the bloody tip of her dagger at Ember. “But it makes about as much sense as tits on a bull for us to start yapping away just the same.”
Ember only nodded.
It began to rain soon after, lightly at first, and then in heavy sheets. They all adjourned to their tents.
Flora was in the same tent as Cecile. A rope was tied to Cecile’s cuffs, which extended out of the tent to circle a nearby tree. While Flora helped her get changed, Cecile drilled into her with one of her probing stares, just like the stares she’d given her in the prison cell. For some reason it didn’t make her uncomfortable. Maybe it was because she was getting use to her, or maybe it was because they would soon be rid of her.
Flora went to bed happy. They had passed the most dangerous part of the journey. She was closer than she’d ever been to her goal. Maybe, just maybe, she would see Granger again.
Just before her head hit the soft pillow, Cecile said, “Be careful Flora.”
It wasn’t a casual good night. It seemed out of place, especially given the worst of the danger had passed. “What do you mean?” Flora asked, sitting up.