AI - Alpha Part 32

blow, even more so for Alpha's lack of response. To have her kill him after last night would be too much. If only she would show even a trace of remorse. But she was just following her programming. He was the fool who had deluded himself into believing he could change a mesh system.

Thomas headed for the ridge behind the station. As he dragged his cast, he wondered why he bothered.

Charon didn't care about interrogating him; he had held out that hope to torment Thomas. Nor were they likely to try the hostage business again. Charon would know from Alpha that his other copy failed with that plot. He might be insane, but he wasn't stupid; he wouldn't make the same mistake twice. He most likely intended to stay out of sight for a while. This island was as good a place as any if no one lived here, and Charon would have already checked the station records to see if anyone was scheduled to return in the near future. While he hid, he could kill Thomas at his leisure, drawing out the process for his own sick entertainment.

Thomas wanted to rage at Alpha for turning on him, even though he knew his anger would achieve nothing. If he stayed put and let them shoot him, his death would be quick. But his instinct for survival was too strong. He couldn't give up.

He limped to the base of the ridge and tilted back his head to look up. It rose in a steep slope. Only a few straggly plants grew on the gritty beach, but stunted trees and leafy undergrowth tangled together all up the ridge. After yesterday's rain, the hillside seemed more mud than dirt. It smelled of loam and decay, and only the roots of the plants kept it from sliding. The world was reduced to a few colors: rich, dark earth; the paler brown of the beach and stems of the plants; the vibrant, fertile green of foliage; and blue sky. New rain clouds were already gathering, grey and swollen.

The top of the ridge wasn't high, perhaps one hundred yards. Not far at all-for someone without injuries. His leg throbbed. He leaned tiredly against the trunk of a gnarled tree that seemed half bush.

While he rested, he looked back at the weather station. When he saw that Charon and Alpha had come around the side and were watching him, he gritted his teeth.

Turning to the slope, Thomas grabbed an exposed root from the tree and jammed his left foot into a small cavity about a foot above the beach. Then he began to climb. Mud slid under his feet, but with so many bushes and roots to grab, he managed to keep from slipping back. Perhaps he could find help.

Although he doubted Charon would have let him go if anyone else lived on this island, he could always hope the android had missed something. None of them had been here that long.

It took forever to climb the ridge. He gritted his teeth every time his cast banged a trunk and pain shot through his leg. At the top, he clung to the slender trunk of a tree while he gulped in air. Mud covered his cast and soaked his clothes.

As he caught his breath, he looked down the ridge. Alpha and Charon were gone. The station was to his left, and far to his right, the two jets gleamed in the watery sunlight. Alpha hadn't damaged the Banshee when she landed, but it wouldn't do it any good sitting out there, and their clambering in and out of it without a ladder-bot could damage the composite surface. He didn't think it would stop him from flying it, though, if he managed the takeoff.

His chest ached. He laid his palm against his breastbone and pressed, as if that could stop the pain. Then he turned inland and limped among the trees. It took about five minutes to cross the straggling forest. He might have called it a jungle, but it wasn't really tropical enough. It ended a few yards from a cliff. He went to the edge of the bluff and looked out-over the ocean. The cliff dropped away from his feet, far down to a narrow beach littered with rocks. From here, he could see most of the island. It consisted of a crescent-shaped ridge about one mile long, mostly covered with forest. In the south, it sloped down to a point of land; in the north it reared in a series of rocky promontories. And that was it.

"Like the view?" Charon said.

Thomas turned with a jerk. Charon and Alpha were standing a few yards away, by the fringe of the forest.

Charon lifted the EL-38. "You're dead."

Thomas just looked at him.

"I didn't think you could even make it up here," Charon said. "But I guess I could kill you now. Or let

you kill yourself."

"Why would I do that?" Thomas said.

"You're going to keel over anyway," Charon said. "Thirst, starvation, cardiac failure." He waved his

hand. "Go on. Run."

"It's no game for you if I'm so easy to catch," Thomas said. "Make it more challenging."

"Why would I do that?" Charon mimicked his tone exactly.

Thomas prodded his fuzzy mind to think. "Entertainment. Sport." He hoped he wasn't misjudging Charon. If so, he might only be provoking his tormentor to kill him sooner.

The android smiled, an ugly expression. "What do you suggest?"

"Give me a head start."

"You've nowhere to go," Charon said. Alpha stood at his side, a statue with no expression.

Thomas held up his hands, palm out. "I'm resourceful."

"Oh, what the f.u.c.k." Charon's teeth glinted when he smiled. "Thirty minutes. Then I come a'hunting."

Thomas edged toward the forest until he was under the trees, his balance precarious in his cast. Charon

and Alpha remained surreally still, far more than any human could manage. He kept going until the foliage s.h.i.+elded him from their inhuman gazes. He knew his only realistic course of action was to go for the jets and see if he could break whatever locks they put on the systems. But it was the first place they would look, and it would take him at least thirty minutes to get there.

He set off in the opposite direction, toward the northern end of the island with the promontories. He had to make his own path, dragging aside th.o.r.n.y stems, vines, and bushes. Branches caught the ragged edges of his cast, and scratches soon covered his hands and thigh. At least the tangled undergrowth kept him from falling over. He had plenty of handholds.

Hunger ground at him. And thirst. This place had to have fresh water, or the forest couldn't survive. It didn't look like the tree roots went deep, which implied the water table was close to the surface, especially with the recent rainfall. Before he sought water, though, he wanted more distance between himself and his pursuers.

Pus.h.i.+ng through the forest, Thomas tried to plan. He needed a weapon. Nothing he could jury-rig would match the EL-38, which meant he had to attack first. He would get one attempt; if he didn't take both Charon and Alpha out on his first try, that would be the end. He tried not to think about how unlikely it was that he could overcome even one of them, let alone two at once.

After a while, Thomas found a depression in the ground that was even soggier than the rest of the forest.

He sagged against a trunk and breathed deeply. The overcast had thickened, and mist curled through the trees. After a few moments, he maneuvered down to kneel in the mud. Then he started digging. Mud squeezed through his fingers, thick with dead insects and leaves. The smell was overpowering, pungent loam and rich, leafy scents.

When his hole was about a foot deep, water seeped into it. He dug more and liquid filled the hole. With a grunt, he leaned over and cupped his hand full of muddy water. He drank in gulps, scooping it up as fast as it leaked into the hole. He got as much grit in his mouth as liquid, but water had never tasted so good.

After a bit, he slowed down and spat out mud. Then he raised his head and studied the bushes. They were unfamiliar, which made him leery of eating any part of them. Years ago, during training, he had learned a great deal about edible and poisonous plants, but he had forgotten some of it and what he did remember was more specific to the Middle East than an island in the Atlantic. He guessed they were south of Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., perhaps even of the U.S.; not only were the trees unfamiliar, but they hadn't yet lost their leaves.

He pulled himself to his feet, using a slender tree for support, and wiped his palms on his jeans. It didn't

help much, given that he had as much mud on his clothes as his hands. Then he set off, this time with a specific purpose. The twisted formations on the tip of the island might offer better hiding places than this forest. He moved as quietly as he could manage. The mist thickened until he could see only a foot or two in any direction. It hung around him, wet on his face, and m.u.f.fled the distant whoosh of waves. Time seemed to go still, holding its breath.

Gradually the trees thinned out. The squelch of mud and dead leaves gave way to silence, and the heavy scents of the forest faded, replaced by the tang of salt water. He was walking on rock slabs now, with only a few straggles of gra.s.s poking up from cracks. The crash of waves against rock grew louder.

The ground ended at a jagged outcropping of stones that thrust into the sky like giant teeth the height of a man. Thomas leaned against one as he studied the misty seascape. He was at the edge of the island, high above the ocean. Instead of the land dropping down in a sheer face, though, slabs of rock formed terraces that stepped down from his feet. After several yards, the shelves ended in a cliff. This tip of the island was shaped like a flattened claw. He was standing on the "wrist," which widened into the land ma.s.s behind him. Narrow strips of land to his left and right formed the thumb and fingers of the claw, respectively. He looked down, beyond the terraces; far below, the sea frothed in a small cove filled with jutting rock spars rounded from the incessant waves. Although he might manage the climb down, it would be hard to come back up, especially in his condition. And as a pilot, he instinctively didn't want to put himself below the level of his opponent, even on the ground.

Thomas rubbed his eyes. He needed to rest, which meant he needed to hide. He was cold, exhausted, and scared. His angina had worsened. But he couldn't quit. Not now. Not when he had so much to live for. He thought of his children and his grandchildren. Of Janice. His wife had stuck by him all those years when he had compartmentalized his life, his flying front and center and everything else, including love, in an emotional box. His ability to regiment his life had been a survival trait for a fighter pilot, but he had paid a price in his personal life.

He had missed so much with Tom, Leila, and Fletcher: their first steps, their first words, their halting expressions of dreams and hopes. His emotional distance had been the hardest on Leila because he had better understood his sons' sports and engineering projects than her debate tournaments and ballet recitals. Yet somehow, incredibly, his children loved him despite his flaws. As the years had pa.s.sed, he had learned to bridge the distance that separated him from his family. His relations.h.i.+p with them was better than it had ever been. He had been granted a second chance, especially with Leila, and he was d.a.m.ned if he was going to lose it without a fight. As long as he could breathe, as long as his damaged heart continued to beat, he would battle to stay alive.

First matter of business: a place to rest, before he keeled over. He was having trouble breathing. It felt as if he couldn't get enough oxygen into his lungs. He eased down and sat on the rock slab with his legs hanging over the edge. The first "terrace" was a yard below his feet, an uneven shelf with cracks and spikes of rock. If these formations were like similar terrain he had known, he might find crevices under the terraces, too small to be called caves, but large enough to hide a man. It would mean he was backing himself into a corner, but if he didn't stay long, and they were looking for him closer to the beach, he might get a rest.

Thomas slid down onto the terrace and peered under the place where he had been sitting. No crevice. He went to the edge of the shelf and looked out. A jagged slope with loose rocks angled away from his feet. To his right, the slope dropped off more steeply; to the left it stepped down in another terrace. He went to the left until he was above the next terrace. He sat on the edge of this shelf and could almost touch the next one with his feet. He eased down and tested the ground. It held firm. He let his weight settle- The shelf gave way. It collapsed in a fall of rock and gravel that clattered onto the next terrace. Thomas slid with it, on his back, grabbing for purchase. Every time he got a handhold, it broke off and his slide continued. He was gaining speed, enough that he feared he couldn't stop-which meant he would hurtle over the last terrace and plummet into the boulder-studded sea far below.

Desperate, he threw himself to the left, toward an area that hadn't given way. He grabbed a large rock spur and hung on. It s.h.i.+fted under his weight, and his body kept sliding until he was stretched out on his stomach, lying on steeply sloping ground. The avalanche rattled beside him and battered him with stray pebbles and chips of stone.

Slowly, the slide diminished, until finally only pebbles were bouncing down the cliffs. As the clatter of rocks faded into the muted roar of the sea, Thomas took a shaky breath. The spur he had grabbed was slowly leaning forward, and he doubted it would hold much longer. Scrabbling for a more stable area, he climbed onto a tilted slab to his left. His plastiflex-encased foot kept slipping, but his years in the weight room paid off; he had enough strength in his arms to pull himself along with the help of only one leg. Straining hard, he hauled himself onto the slab and braced his good leg against a cl.u.s.ter of rocks. Then he lay gasping for breath.

After a moment, he lifted his head. The rock slab where he lay sloped up to another slab that overhung it like a shelf. He dragged himself up the slope and under the shelf. He didn't have much room, but it was enough to sit with his legs stretched in front of him. He sagged against the wall of the small cavity and willed the pound of his heart to ease.

Thomas knew he had to keep alert. He intended only to rest, not sleep, but despite his best efforts, he slipped into a fitful doze. His nightmares were like a waking delirium. Alpha taunted him in s.e.xual invitations that either ended with Charon murdering him or with agonizing chest pain.

He jerked awake. Night had fallen and mist hung all around. Either he had hidden better than he thought or else the androids had stayed with the jets. It wasn't much of a surprise; they knew that eventually Thomas had to go down there. Or maybe they had already found him and were toying with their prey, waiting until he dragged himself out of his precarious haven. Well, they could wait until morning. With their IR vision, they could see in the dark and he couldn't. But he needed food. His hunger was a physical pain. He was desperate enough to eat whatever plants he found and trust to luck that they wouldn't poison him. Unfortunately, he didn't even have that option here. Nothing but rock surrounded him.

Be positive, he thought. Whoever fished the MiG pilot out of the ocean would probably report it to the authorities. If someone investigated soon enough, if they found this island, and if he could hold out, he might get help. Too many ifs, but they were better than none.

For the next few hours, he dozed and dreamed about prime rib edged with juicy slabs of fat he couldn't eat. Sometime in the night, a large slug crawled over his leg. It resembled a species he knew wasn't poisonous. He ate the noxious thing and barely kept from throwing up.

Gradually the mist lightened. He still had no plan with any likelihood of success, and his hunger had become a hollow place within him that made it hard to concentrate. At least his angina had eased. That small improvement gave him an absurd amount of hope.

Inch by inch, he eased out of his hiding place. No one was waiting in the foggy dawn. He tested the ground more carefully this time, and when it remained firm, he stood up, holding onto the shelf that had sheltered him during the night. Then he considered his location. It was going to take him a lot longer to go back up than it had to fall down here. He had about five terraces to climb. Thomas pushed his hair out of his eyes and took a tired breath. Then he started back up. He felt light-headed, even delirious. When he wiped his hand across his cheek, he brushed away moisture. It came from the fog. It had to be the fog. Or maybe exhaustion made his eyes water. He never cried.

It took ages to reach the top. When he finally made it, he lay on his stomach, too depleted to move. He saw no sign of Charon or Alpha. He hated to think what they might have spent the night doing, and he hated even more that he cared. The h.e.l.l with Alpha. The idea of two androids having s.e.x was too strange, even if Charon did remember himself as human. Maybe they liked having no worries about a fragile human partner. They could do whatever they wanted and repair themselves later. No, he wouldn't think about that.

Get up. He couldn't lie here all day, much as he wanted to. Thomas climbed doggedly to his feet and limped to the forest. He pulled buds off the first bush he found. They tasted awful. When he finished his noxious breakfast, he sagged against a tree and tried to plan. The closer he snuck to the jets, the more likely he was to encounter Charon or Alpha. If he stayed away and kept moving, he increased his chances of holding out until help came. If it came. Given the size of the island, it was unlikely he could evade his pursuers for long, especially if they split up.

He plodded through the forest, dragging his leg. It no longer hurt; it had gone numb. It was swollen, too, and he considered cracking off the cast. The bone couldn't have finished mending, though, and he didn't want it to break again. He could wait to see if the swelling got any worse.

Thomas spent the morning traversing the ridge. He kept hidden and stopped often to listen. No Alpha or Charon. He drank muddy water and ate what he could find: leaves, slugs, insects. He avoided anything he thought might be poisonous, including all of the mushrooms and some of the flowers. The meals were still foul, and he threw up twice, but he kept enough down to stave off the worst of his hunger. Then he found a thicket of paltry berries. Most were shriveled and dead, but he didn't care. They tasted like a feast.

The sun had begun its descent in the sky by the time he reached the southern tip of the island. He christened it Cape Defiant. Now he knew almost everything about the island. After he rested, he headed back up the ridge, this time with a goal in mind. It took longer to go up than it had to come down, especially with his continual rest stops. Sometime in the afternoon, he reached the highest ground. His destination was a tree he had noticed this morning, one a bit taller than the surrounding forest, with a stronger trunk and branches, maybe hardy enough to support his weight.

Climbing the tree wasn't easy in a cast; he had to rely on the strength of his arms to drag himself into the higher branches. The foliage was thick enough to hide him, however, and from his vantage point, he could look out above the other trees to the beach where the Banshee had landed over four days ago.

He finally caught sight of Charon and Alpha. They were down on the beach. Alpha was patrolling the Banshee and a private jet that crouched beyond it. Charon was standing near the water, looking up at the ridge. Thomas hoped the leaves hid him well; Alpha had telescopic as well as IR vision, and Charon undoubtedly did, too.

It surprised him that they hadn't posted one android to watch the jets while the other searched for Thomas. Perhaps they were trying to lure him down there. If he didn't show up, eventually they would come looking for him. Charon wouldn't want to spend too much time with this. Or maybe he did. Maybe he was enjoying the "game." His vicious streak seemed as wide as the Mississippi River.

Thomas sat back in a fork of branches and rubbed his eyes. He had to set a trap. Two androids against one brittle human; he needed a method that didn't require he physically engage them. A net might work if he could weave one. The only realistic candidate for rope, though, was the vines, and they were too thick.

He thought of the unstable terraces on the northern promontory. If he could rig one to collapse, he might trick his tormentors into stepping onto it and plunging into the rock-studded cove below. He didn't know if the fall would destroy an android, but it would surely break them beyond immediate repair. When he tried to imagine Alpha falling, though, his mind balked. He gritted his teeth and pushed down his memory of her holding him in bed.

He watched for a while longer, until he was fairly certain they weren't preparing to search the interior of the island anytime soon. Then he climbed down and slogged back to the northern tip. During one of his rests, he stripped a slender branch to make a cane. It helped, but by the time he reached the terraces, he was ready to drop. He leaned against an outcropping, choking for air. Charon was letting the island make the kill for him in a long, miserable process. He would wear Thomas down with starvation and exhaustion and then come in to gloat over his death. It might have worked on someone else, but Thomas had no intention of going that easily.

Thomas wondered if the androids lacked the mental flexibility to predict his behavior if he deviated from expected norms. He had seen Alpha's limitations when she misjudged his reaction with Jamie. He was less certain about Charon, whose neural template came from a man. It had been copied, though, which would cause distortions and losses. Each time Charon updated the copy, it introduced errors. The forma below approximated Charon, but he could be deficient compared to the original. Although androids a.n.a.lyzed faster than humans, they had less ability to make intuitive leaps. Thomas decided he needed to be as unpredictable as possible.

After he rested, he eased onto the terrace that had supported him yesterday and edged toward the one that had fallen. He tested each step with his cane before he put down his full weight. His terrace held, but when he reached its end and probed the remains of the one below, where the avalanche had started, more of the lower shelf crumbled away. It didn't take long for him to find a place that looked stable but would probably collapse under enough weight. He had two problems: how to get Charon to step onto that place, and how Thomas could position himself so he would serve as bait but wouldn't fall when the shelf gave away.

He studied the landscape. It still looked like a claw to him. Standing on the terrace, he had the "index finger" to his right and the "thumb" to his left. It was a distorted claw, though. To walk from here to the base of the index finger was a hike of about half a mile along the edge of the island. The finger itself was about a mile long and curled all the way from its base back to where he was standing here. In fact, only a few yards separated its tip from the terraces. To reach that tip, however, he would have to step on the unstable shelf. Even if it held his weight, he couldn't jump to the tip with a broken leg. Charon could jump, though. He probably would if he were in a hurry; the only other way to reach the fingertip was to hike out to the base and come back along the index finger.

The landscape suddenly wavered around Thomas and the terraces blurred. Vertigo swept over him. He sat down heavily and lay on his back with his eyes closed, afraid he would otherwise tumble off the shelf. The pain in his chest spread to his left arm and up his neck into his jaw. Frightened and nauseous, he kept as still as possible and prayed he would survive whatever was happening.

After a few minutes, eons it seemed, the pain receded. He opened his eyes and stared at the clouds. He could see them now, with only the usual blurring that plagued his long distance vision. His dizziness had pa.s.sed. He hoped that meant the nanos in his body were doing their work, along with whatever remained of the alteplase Alpha had given him, tending to his heart.

Thomas sat up wearily, his palm braced against a rock spur. He waited until he was certain he wouldn't fall over. Then he struggled to his feet and wearily resumed planning. He had to keep going. The only other choice was to lie down and die.

He needed a backup escape plan. Even if he lured one of the androids onto the unstable terrace, the other might stay back. Thomas would be trapped out on the fingertip, then. Given the mile length of the finger promontory, he doubted he could get off of it and lose himself in the forest before the surviving android caught him. He couldn't outrun enhanced formas. h.e.l.l, right now he couldn't outrun Jamie.

If he couldn't escape back to the main island, his only other option was to go down. In the cove below, rocks thrust out of the sea like broken bones, black and s.h.i.+ny. Waves smashed against them and leapt into the air, shooting foam. Smells of salt and seaweed tickled his nose. The sides of the "finger" promontory dropped down in vertical faces, even concave in places where waves had hollowed them out. It would kill him to fall and hit those rocks.

He scrutinized the finger of land. The hike from here to the base and back out to the fingertip would take an uninjured person at least twenty minutes. Even if an android ran the distance with enhanced speed, Thomas would have a few minutes to escape before it reached him. If he used that time to climb down the cliff, he might lose himself in the jagged landscape below. He knew a little about such terrain, just that the water had probably hollowed out cavities and conduits in the cliffs. If he could get around the end of the island down there, he might make his way to the beach with the jets. It was a long shot, but it was better than anything else he had come up with.

A rope. He needed a rope. He couldn't climb down without one. The vines in the forest were tough and gnarly, some as thick as a fat cigar. They wouldn't do for a net, but they might hold his weight. He pushed to his feet, leaning hard on his cane. The ground tipped around him, or maybe it was just his stomach heaving. Discouraged, he waited for his nausea to settle. When he felt steadier, he trudged back to the forest.