- •The Growing chapter one
- •It’s not a question, and everyone realizes it.
- •I’m not gonna look. I won’t and you can’t make me.
- •It is waiting for her at the bridge.
- •In a related story (a 14) the Palace had "no comment" to Tonight Show host Jay Leno’s remark that His Majesty King Charles is an early, unmarketable Westerhaus test model.
- •I’m going to die.
- •It is what she had intended to do in any case. She had not expected to have allies. Koda nods. "Count me in."
- •In an automatic reflex, Dakota looks over at the nightstand, but of course, the clock that stands there is blank without the electricity needed to run it.
- •I have Asi.
- •I have summoned her here. Watch, and see.
- •It’s Maggie’s turn to sigh. “Much as I don’t like it, I think I’m going to have to split them into smaller squads.”
- •It is not what she has forgotten. It is who she has left behind.
- •It has been so quiet for the last several miles that Kirsten starts at the sound of Micah’s voice. “Pardon? Dragons?”
- •It is much too big to be a fox.
- •It does not explain the familiarity.
- •It is a dangerous mind trap when there is no hope, and Kirsten only manages to scramble out when she notices the shining silver bands around the necks of what she now recognizes to be androids.
- •It is not disabled, certainly not destroyed. Its logic chains have simply returned a null set upon evaluating the possible success of further resistance.
- •I am not strong enough. Not wise enough.
- •I will go back, she says.
- •It doesn’t have to be that way, Little k. Her father’s voice intrudes into her thoughts, frustrating her with its always maddening logic. Nothing’s keeping you locked inside. Nothing except you.
- •It is a peaceful time that appeals to her need for solitude.
- •It’s time to buck it up and call a spade a spade, little k.
- •Ithanchan winan. The thought comes unbidden. This woman is a chief.
- •It seems a lifetime but is perhaps five minutes later that Kirsten raises a hand to her earpiece. “They’re here.”
- •Instantly serious, Maggie snaps, “And—“
- •If she only knew how.
- •Item: Article 120. Rape and Carnal Knowledge
- •Item: Article 128 Assault
- •Item: Article 81. Conspiracy.
- •In Russian.
- •Is there still a United States? If so, is there a Constitution?
- •Insh’allah.
- •It is dismissal. Maggie rises, snapping her attaché case shut. "Thank you for your time, General."
- •It does, though only briefly, and she feels almost faint with relief as it passes on, leaving her untouched.
- •In those eyes, she can see visions; bits and pieces of his life, and hers, and the bond that draws them together closer than kin.
- •It is the silence during a gathering storm. "Fine! You want to kill yourself? Be my guest. I hope you have fun doing it."
- •It is over in an instant of an instant, but when she opens her eyes, she knows that she has been forever changed. Koda is smiling at her, a sweet, tender smile filled with so much, with…everything.
- •It comes, then; a deep, Caribbean blue that nurtures and soothes, and settles over her, leaving nothing within untouched.
- •I’m in love with her.
- •In plain language, Manny had potted the bastard right between the eyes, blowing his brains out. The said bastard had been dead before he hit the ground.
- •Instinctively responding to Dakota’s tone, Shannon relaxes, slumping against the wall and breathing deeply, as if she’s just come out of a trance.
- •In this life, in the next. For all time.
- •In the silence of her mind, a wolf howl rises to the floating moon.
- •If he were right. . . And it seems he is, though not in the way he expected.
- •It had been the third suicide in as many weeks, and people—too many people—were looking to her for answers she didn’t have.
- •It takes twenty minutes, with much grinding of gears and spinning of wheels, but Andrews jerks the pickup to a stop just on top of the slope and just short of the trees.
- •It is nothing, however, to the beatific expression on Manny’s face, framed in the rear-view mirror. "Good bread, good meat," he says reverently. "Good God, let’s eat."
- •Very gently she says, “It’s not going to be the same, no. In some ways, it may be better. Or there may be no one left to care. We just don’t know yet.”
- •Very gently she says, “It’s not going to be the same, no. In some ways, it may be better. Or there may be no one left to care. We just don’t know yet.”
- •I wonder. . . .
- •It is only then that she notices the frightful cold pressed against her right side, melded to her like a block of ice that has melted and refrozen.
- •It is a tone she well remembers, and instinctively heeding it, she begins to do as ordered. After a couple of spoonfuls, however, she pauses, the soup sitting heavy in her belly. “Ate, I….”
- •It is a long almost. But when she walks through the front door, into Asi’s exuberant greeting and Dakota’s arms, she is as well as she has ever been in her life.
- •If they survive this battle, their first priority must be to make contact with other surviving communities and make alliance with them.
- •If her plan works, he will not need to.
- •Voices come to her on the wind of her passing, but she does not heed them. "Surrender," she says.
- •Intolerable.
- •It is only when the dynamic duo has left the office and the door closes quietly behind them that she lets the smile bloom fully over her face. With a jaunty little whistle, she turns back to work.
- •I miss him, she says without sound.
- •It's not a question, and she doesn't have it within her to demur. Not now. Instead, she nods.
- •It is a better one to live.
- •I am on your ground, Igmu-tanka. Teach me patience.
- •It is what she does not know that frightens her. "All right!" she shouts, stepping up to the crest of the ridge. "Move out!"
- •I’m hallucinating.
- •It is over.
- •In the guardshack above, Kirsten’s jaws clench tighter and a thick vein throbs to prominence at her temple.
- •Very carefully, she lets go of Simmons' gun, handing it to Koda. She meets her lover's eyes. "Don't worry. I'm not going to give him anything."
- •In its wake, a silence so profound that not even the ever-present wind soughing through the boughs of the large pines surrounding them can penetrate, descends, and Kirsten shivers.
- •I’d kill for a hot bath. No, not kill. Maybe maim somebody, though. Starting with Hunk-boy here.
- •It is either dry humor or stupidity; Koda opts for the former. "We aren’t. We are hungry, though. Chasing that antelope right into your sights was hard work."
- •I made it, though. Made it without help.
- •I would know you in the silence between the stars. The thought is her own, and not. And with it comes another. I see you in the darkness, like a flash of lightning. And the darkness cannot hide you.
- •In the west, where the stone holds a raven’s wing and a bowl of Kirsten’s irises and gentians, another priestess raises her hands and makes the invocation.
- •Ina Maka, Koda prays as the women disperse to feast and celebrate. Give us strength and wisdom to do what we must do. Let the death end. Let the life come forth again.
- •It is not a small honor, and Koda says quietly. "Thank you. But we can’t stay."
- •It is that tone, even more than her words, that confuses him and causes his steps to slow. "You wouldn’t…."
- •In the end, it is mercifully easy. Where you go, I go, she thinks, lowering the rifle and setting it on the cold, gray floor.
- •It ends here, she thinks, opening her eyes to the still monotonous view of the security screens. It all ends here.
- •It will not stop them. It will force them to break the door or go around the building to the other stairwell, and that will buy her time. Buy Kirsten time.
- •Venous blood.
- •Ina Maka says, "Every soul that passes from the Earth comes to Me. Not all come here, to this place—only My chosen ones. But for them, as for the others, a reckoning must be made. You know this."
- •I can die when I get outside.
- •Virgilius’ termination had been evidence of Kirsten’s success. This is confirmation. "You did it," Koda breathes, marveling. "It’s over."
I’m hallucinating.
Kirsten shoves her laptop aside—it has long since ceased to be useful in any case—and grabs her rifle. The monsters lumbering onto the battlefield are nightmare come to life: enormous snouts uplifted in wrath, impervious metal hides clanging as rounds glance off them to ricochet and scatter among the droids. For a moment a flash of memory crosses her mind: Micah and his oil-pump dinosaurs on the flat plains of the Texas panhandle, their kin come suddenly to life here in the north where the wide salt sea drew so many of them into its sands.
"Goddam." Manny, beside her, fumbles in his pack for the last of his grenades. "They’ve brought up their field guns."
Recognition snaps into place. These are nothing out of her schoolday dreams. This is the enemy’s final assault on their depleted troops, the last blow that will smash their already broken lines. Grimly she shoves the last magazine into place on the stock of her M-16. What was it Leonidas had said there in the Hot Gates when the Persians demanded his weapons? Oh yeah. Come and get them.
Come and get me, fuckers. I’m not going down easy.
Lying flat, Kirsten sights along the barrel of her gun. Beside her, Manny pulls the pin of a grenade and cocks his arm back. Kirsten squints, her finger tightening—
With a cry that is not quite a shout of triumph, not a scream of fear, either, she lunges to her feet, knocks Manny down, and tosses the grenade clear of the oncoming howitzer, into a mass of milling droids that seem suddenly to have lost their bearings, a tangled mass like a circle dance that has lost the music.
"What—!"
"Look who’s driving, Manny! It’s the goddam cavalry!"
From the corner of her eye, Koda catches a flurry of movement behind one of the upended Humvees, a pale blonde head and a dark one. A wash of relief goes through her, so strong it almost rocks her where she sits. Safe.
A grin, feral as a wolf’s, pulls her lips back from her teeth as she swings the gun around on its footprint and plows it into the nearest pack of droids. Their metal hides crunch and pop as she pulls back on the stick, raising the front of her gun carriage to slam down on them, grinding them under the treads that loop inexorably on and on, carrying her over the wreckage and into the next squad of them, even as they raise their arms and begin to empty their magazines at her, spraying lead over the housing of the engine and the treads, shooting indiscriminately to kill her or disable the howitzer itself.
All along the battle front, the droids turn to face the new attack, tangling in knots around each of the four field guns. One of the mortar drivers slumps in his seat, only to be pulled aside as his second slips into his place and charges into a line of droids near the end of the wall. Koda swerves again to mow down a contingent that has turned, running as best their mechanical legs will take them, for the breach in the first wall, then takes another clutch as they split off from the main body and make for the edge of the road. The grinding of the guns treads brings with it a fierce joy, part battle-lust, part relief, part astonishment at her own competence. But you have done this before, a laughing voice says in her head. We did not meet for the first time, there beyond the trees.
For a fraction of a second, the puma’s face passes before her, eyes golden with the sun that now shines full on the field before her. Then it is gone, replaced with the enemy who fall beneath her, noticeably fewer now, their fire slackening. A little more to do, and all is done.
Behind the barriers, Maggie’s forces have gathered themselves, raining their last grenades and LAAWS rockets into the droids’ rear, driving them toward the crushing treads of the guns. Above the racket of the engines and the slackening gunfire, roaring down on them from beyond the western wall, comes the high whine of tank engines and the rattle of treads on pavement: an armored column bearing down on them. Tacoma returning? Or droids? She has no way of knowing. Driving hard to intercept a line of stragglers making for the ramp, Koda cuts them off just as one of them raises its arm, raking the side of the howitzer with rounds that sing by like hornets. Dakota feels her second slump against her back, wet warmth gushing down her back and legs. Something impacts her right arm just behind the wrist, and her hand on the stick goes limp. Swearing, she shifts slightly to get a grip on it with her left, still feeling nothing as a red stain soaks into sleeve of her shirt and spreads, wetting her pants leg where the arm lies useless
With a crash the returning tanks hump up onto the pavement from their detour around the back wall, Tacoma riding outlier in his Jeep beside them. A great relief washes through Koda, and she lets her gun grind to a halt as she watches the armored behemoths stream by her now, chasing down the few enemy left as they attempt to flee.