How much time did she have left? A few minutes? Then she’d have to face them, face the death she’d been running from since just before dawn.
A single fiery torch glowed brighter between the trees. Yes, they had a Franklin with them. That could be good. Those “real eyes” might actually slow them down. The flame from the torch in all this jumble of trees and thick bushes might confuse the Franklin.
Rose scrambled under the brush. Perhaps a few rabbits and squirrels could be startled from their havens, providing a muddled set of prickles for the vipers’ super-functioning BrainPorts®.
Sharp thorns and ragged branches ripped at what was left of her already tattered jacket. She clasped her hands over her chest, not to still her ka-thumping heart but to secure the small case she’d tucked under her shirt. Inside the case was the real object of the Bachyritas’ pursuit, and it was more than just a part of Exhibit Number 9.
“This way!” The words bellowed through the shadows of the trees.
Huddling as close as she could to the scabrous trunk of the large oak where a shaft of moonlight slithered down over her hands, Rose made out the stains of dried blood in the cracks and lines of her fingers: Roddy’s blood.
A twinge of guilt wedged itself in there somewhere. And grief. But she had to make it to the outlaw camp of the Ungatosonrisas on the other side of the river. Her feelings could wait.
Another voice howled from the far end of the woods: “Over here!”
The snapping of twigs and limbs ceased for a second. If Rose remembered correctly, protocol for the vipers dictated confirmation of verbal instructions before they shifted directions. The Ungatosonrisas were said to employ annoying tricks to draw a posse from its prey.
Rose waited a moment, trembling against the craggy wood, wondering if the distant voice could indeed have been help. Was she close?
Not that the Bachyritas would ever give up. “Stop” wasn’t an option for them, except to stop the masses from supposedly harming themselves. “For the protection of all” were the first words flashed through the pleasure goggles. That was their mantra, and it was the biggest lie ever. Bondage was not freedom.
Rose bit her bottom lip, cradled the case closer, and tried to see through the bushes ahead. She didn’t know how to stop either. Moving as quickly and as quietly as she could, Rose shoved her way through the stands of prickly brambles and bristly scrub while legions of dark trees, limbs swaying low, clawed at her clothes and skin. She hadn’t gone far when she reached a sharp drop. Below, in the moonlight, the waters of the river roiled on innocently enough. And for a moment, Rose wasn’t a thief on the run. She was little Rosie MacGregor, big sister to Ellie Bug, and the river below was their secret fishing spot. There would be a “huge-mongus” tree whose long branch would stretch out over the water. And dangling from that branch would be the coarse rope she and Ellie Bug latched on to swing themselves out over the calm, plunging into the cool, deep murk amid unrestrained laughter.
Rose swatted a mosquito away from her ear. But those times were long gone, and the children of the Bachyritas might never know such innocent, carefree delights.
Swimming, like nearly every other endeavor, had to employ some element of pleasure. “All we are saying is give piece a chance!” was off-used expression. Nothing quite official, but certainly accepted. There was no reason to be embarrassed or ashamed about something so natural as sexual satisfaction. To “Make Love Not War”-which was one of the official slogans-was a beautiful thing.
The windows of the downtown department stores, which once had featured elaborate displays of animated skaters and Santas at Christmas time, had been redesigned to mimic the peaceful love-ins of still-revered writers and peace advocates John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Most people didn’t really know a lot about the couple. The yellowed and peeling posters of what they did over a hundred years ago that lay plastered on abandoned storefronts or in alleyways all around the city did offer their images, but that was about all. What they had begun was far more important.
But people engaging in public pleasure was simply old hat, boring even, except for the few who engaged in the bagism ritual where the couple would enter either a black bag or a white one (if one of the parties was a true virgin). One by one, articles of clothing would be shed through the closing, dangled aloft almost theatrically before being dropped as the hand disappeared back inside. Unlike the couples who made love in the store windows, those employing bagism did offer the added feature of sound.
Self-reflection, self-actualization, self-satisfaction: Those were more watchwords of the renaissance. Watchwords. It always came down to the words. And choices.
Rose threw her hands to her face and felt her tears mixing with the scratches and grime. Maybe she had made the wrong choices and for the worst of reasons: selfishness. But she had told herself she wouldn’t indulge her feelings just now. There would be time later. Later. There had to be a later.
Then Rose spotted the yellow glow of the torch.
“She’s at the river!” someone shouted, unexpectedly and surprisingly close.
If her body heat had betrayed her before, the burning sensation she felt from the glasses case under her shirt was no doubt delivering her presence to the pit vipers this time. Their sounds could have all been a ruse to flush her out.
But as she glanced out at the waters below, Rose gripped more strongly the warm booty to her chest. A few hours ago, she’d determined this treasure was worth saving. And more. It was worth her life and Roddy’s to get this to the Ungatosonrisas. They would know how best to use the treasure.
“She’s ahead on the right. Less than a thousand feet.”
“Get her!”
“I see her!” the Franklin shouted. “There!”
“We’ve got her now.”
Taking only a few steps backward, Rose turned and broke into a run. Pulling the case close to her body, she sailed off the cliff, diving toward the dark water below.
“Think different!” she screamed into the night.
As the moonlit ink swallowed her whole, Rose thought of the color blue. Not black for death or white for baptism or even red for a fiery hell, but blue: the scrubbed denim of her father’s workshirts, the crisp cold paleness of a winter morning’s sky.
Roddy Bach-y-Rita’s blue eyes.
On good days, Roddy called the pit vipers “Pop Rocks,” after the candy that gave a fizzy, tingling sensation to the tongue. That was the same sensation the BrainPort® emitted when its helmet-held computer eye fixed on warm objects-its prey.
Roddy’s chief beef with the entire movement was how it had besmirched his family’s good name and his great-great-grandfather’s honorable intentions by branding themselves “Bachyritas.”
“They were the goddamned military. Soldiers!” He’d spit the last word. Roddy spit a lot in his screeds. Yet like some ancient sage, he’d retell the same tale all over again, varying little except in the expletives he used.
Rose couldn’t decide whether he played storyteller for her benefit, like a peacock with his feathers flaunted, or whether Roddy simply wanted to unleash his ire at the injustice done to him personally. He’d never asked to be born to such respected linage.
It didn’t matter, because the telling was part of the fabric of who Rodman Bach-y-Rita was. Plus, anger made his blue eyes bluer. Like the searing cobalt in a flame.
They’d shared pleasure the first time following one of his tirades. For Rose, they used a white bag.
“They weren’t even the real army,” Roddy said. “Our real army was gone, mostly killed over all the oil crap during the Fifty-Year War.”
“Bastards.”
Roddy riveted his passionate blues on her.