It all took five minutes. Taj scraped out his diagrams from the dirt, and we formed into a column.
Taj handed a magazine to Ivan himself. “There are a hundred Outlanders not half a kilo from here. Use this on us, and there will be no one to save you from them. Here are 20 bullets. I will listen. If you try to save one, I will kill you.”
Ivan met Taj’s eyes, face completely blank.
Crisp, Ivan, and Duck took the front. Duck’s gaze was unfocused, like when he wandered the shadows after our first skirmish. Behind them were Abel, Stump, and Pope, ready to cut left and charge the hill once the trap was sprung. Happy followed closely, wearing the Ears on his back, and I walked just behind, keeping an eye on it. Ten days. We were using the screen too much, but I wouldn’t be the one to turn it off, not now. My rifle was on my back, the Eyes in hand, ready to loft. I held them with white knuckles, indignant, grateful, terrified. Behind me were Kodiak and Taj, ready to slink off as we approached the ravine.
Our comms let out a constant, dull hiss, laying a foundation under our silence. The oblivious jungle sang on, unaware that Crisp in front and Kodiak in the back, and all between were wondering if we would be dead in an hour. I saw a flash of red, feathers in the sunlight. A butterfly landed on the Ears.
Both hills were stained red, as Taj had said they would be. Red dots with no space between. They had crouched there on their hills, waiting through the night. Now they sat in the sun and weathered the dread as we did. Except we had guns.
I asked myself what we were doing for the hundredth time. For the hundredth time, I didn’t know. I hooked the propeller back on the Eyes. I twisted the screwdriver in its sheath: clockwise, clockwise, clockwise.
In the gaps between trees, I saw the ridge poking through, tilting the horizon. It wasn’t overly large. Large enough to put a man with a spear above me. I heard Kodiak’s breathing behind me, deep, even, loud. I looked at the ridge again, and wished I was on top rather than below.
Something throbbed in my chest, and the vein in my neck began to pulse. I could feel it in my boots and the tips of my fingers pressed against the screwdriver. I was nauseous. We had not eaten breakfast.
I knew what was happening; my body was trying to survive. Clear the stomach so I would be lighter. Oxygenate the muscles in anticipation of anaerobic stress. Pool the blood in my abdomen so that extremities would not bleed. I knew what was happening, but it felt like death. It was prehistoric, feral, the instincts programmed by millennia upon millennia of death and mistakes. I felt savage; I’d felt it before but never this intensely. And every time before, it was a misfire of evolution, a programmed response to some minor snag of civilized life. This was who we really were. This was what we’d evolved for. To kill and, by killing, to live. I wanted to fight and flee and scream.
Clockwise, clockwise.
The ridge was closer still, visible through the trees even where they were thick. Taj’s voice broke the hiss on our comms, a hushed whisper. “We’re gone.” I felt the air move behind me and, looking back, saw no one.
Up again. Closer again. There had been no other dots, no stragglers or contingency plans for the Outlanders. Taj had been right, and I hoped he continued to be right, because I worried we were the ones who might not be clever enough.
But we had the Ears, and guns. State help us. I shook my head, not the State. Never the State. Something help us.
The red blotches began to surge, the edges swaying. They knew we were here. I took the Eyes again and held them tightly.
Suddenly, another voice broke the silence over the comms.
“You chose this,” it said. “This is your fight, not ours.”
Ivan, I realized, as I looked up and saw him and Duck sprinting away toward the ravine.