“This instant?”
For the first time Rath shows me something like mercy.
“Not this instant.”
He extends his massive arm and paddles languidly toward the nearest bank. We bump gently against the side of the river and he pulls me out of the water. We are both soaked, but the afternoon is warm and it is not as cruel a hardship as it might seem. I am dripping inside and out, filled with his seed and baptized by the pure waters of the unnamed river which sustains all Megaris.
I can see the city. I can hear it, a distant humming drone of activity. It is so very large. It was my world. Is my world. Even if only for a few more hours. I want to soak in every bit of it. I want to feel everything because I am sure I will not be feeling for much longer. From here, I can only see the big, black, obsidian wall gleaming with sparks of light from the sensors. It’s pretty. I miss the city. I do not like the green. It is too empty and too full all at the same time. It is not me. It is not where I am from.
Lying on the bank in the afternoon sun, Rath seems perfectly content. He stretches out on his back and says little, his hands crossed beneath his head, his biceps rippling, the breeze playing with tendrils of his dark hair with an impolite familiarity.
I sit next to him, waiting for whatever is next to happen. The thought of running away flits through my mind, but I know I could never survive this green. I would rather be ended by the authority than starve in the green. Is this what it feels like to give up? It’s actually rather nice. If these are my last hours on Megaris, they are at least pleasant.
Within minutes of sitting down, bright blades of color rise from the trees and begin to flap about in the air.
“What kind of augmentations are these?”
“They’re creatures,” Rath says without opening his eyes.
“Creatures? Living things? Why are they flapping about?” One approaches too closely and I see the thin body between the brightly colored sheets of existence. “Why can’t they leave us alone?”
“We are the ones disturbing them, bounty.”
“And why don’t you use my name?”
His golden eye flares. “Because you don’t have one. You have a designation given to you by a machine that knows you little and cares for you even less.”
“My name is Lyric. Even if it’s not my real name, names aren’t real anyway. Call me Lyric.”
I’ve not been this forceful with Rath before, but I really am tired of hearing him refer to me in some third person way. We have been intimate in the roughest and completest ways. I can still feel him inside me. My body will never be the same. I will be forever stretched, forever widened, forever his. He needs to say my fuxing name.
“Lyric,” he says, surprising me with his consideration.
“Thank you.”
A red and orange creature flutters by with the arrogance of a being that doesn’t know bigger animals are around. I don’t think any of these green creatures know we are here. Not the tall structures, not the scurrying brown, not the flashing shades of orange which chatter and grasp at the sides of the vertical erections. We are not really of this world. My place is inside the walls of Megaris. That is where I truly exist. Out here I’m just a confused meat puppet with her puppet master.
I start to wonder what is real, Megaris, or this place? They can’t both be real. Megaris cannot truly be experienced without augmentations, and mine have been stripped from my skull. I may never again see the city I was once so proud to be a part of.
“Why me, Rath? Why us?”
Suddenly, that is the most important question. Why have we been selected for this strange existence? It can't be random. Nothing is random in Megaris. The algorithm sometimes makes miscalculations, but even that isn’t random. The two of us are here for a reason. We weren’t shot down for no reason.
“Who knows,” Rath shrugs.
He is too calm. He has been this entire time. Though, knowing Rath as I do, he is always calm. It is part of his korabi DNA, and part of his natural demeanor.
“I think you know.”
He opens one eye. The silver eye. The dark little dot in the center of it locks on me. I feel my stomach perform a nervous flip.
“You have some nerve to interrogate me, bounty Lyric. But you have plenty of nerve. Don’t you?”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Besides hack my augmentations.”
“Oh. That.”
“I’ve killed for less.” Both his eyes are open now, but he is still lying back, apparently relaxed. I don’t feel as though I am in mortal danger. I feel as though I am spending a warm afternoon living a dream I have harbored for a very long time.