L. Lee Lowe - Corvus

Bracing himself against the wind, Zach gets to his feet withouta thought for direction or destination. In the white forever ofthis place, there is no lantern to light the dark and bitter woodsof memory. Even the croakers would find little use for such knottedtimber.

Do you hear me? he shouts full volume in his mind. Nothing worthfelling.

Nothing worth

nothing

He angles into the blowing snow. The cold has as much substanceas the snow, thick and clean and impenetrable, almost lush, and itreminds Zach of a dense text encountered for the first time,against which you pit yourself, into which you tunnel forsustenance, at school his first Mandarin characters had been likethat, you have to wrest sense from the meaty snowflakes before theymelt on your tongue. He opens his mouth and catches one, thenanother. Tears gather at the corners of his eyes, and he wipes themaway quicklyangrilywith gloved fingers lest they freeze his eyesshuthis damned traitorous eyes.

His booted feet are soon clogged with snow, and heavy. With eachstep they amass another layer, and then another, and though hetries to shake them free, the stuff clings like down, soft andfluffy yet as tenacious as the barbs that filled his roughquiltedchildhoodauger, transfuck, mulac, devi, freak. He bendshis head and plods on, breathing painstakingly around the icy knifein his chest. Somewhere there would be shelter. Somewhere therewould be food. They wouldn't want to kill him just yet, wouldthey?

The cry slices through the silence. Zach stumbles and falls, theground flying up to meet him like the breast of a great albatross.Black-vaned against the unending white, its wings beat and beatabout his head. He raises his arms to shield himself, the birdcallsurrounding him like manic laughter.

Where is she, you buzzards?

*****

'All right,' the technician in charge says. 'Safe zone.'

'He's in?'

'Slick as a lube job.'

'Mind your language.' Charles Litchfield runs a hand through histhinning sandy hair and glances round. Senior neuros are cut a gooddeal of slack, but you can never be too careful.

'The amount you worry, I'm surprised you haven't got ulcersyet.' Andy's fingers dance like spiders across the console beforehe raps off a series of instructions to the computer. 'Anyway, Ithought that after the funeral you withdrew your application fortransfer.'

Despite occasional lapses into irreverence, Andy is top-notch athis work, and Litchfield always requestsand getsthe younger manin his unit. Laura said he played a wicked bass, tooa weekendhobby that wouldn't be tolerated in a lesser tech.

'That doesn't mean I flout the rules.'

Andy's eyes never leave the monitors. 'You blame him, don'tyou?'

'Don't be daft. He's been completely exonerated. If anyone is toblame, it's myself. I should have checked for any long-termsequelaecomplicationsof the virus.'

Andy says nothing though his eyebrows arch slightly.

'We all know he's a risk-taker,' Litchfield says hurriedly.'That's what makes him so good.'

For a few minutes Andy works on in silence while Litchfieldstudies the stream of raw data passing across the neural linkmonitor. A few jagged spikes in alpha2, and the feedforward channelseems sluggish though still well within tolerances.

'Maybe you should've sent Gina or Phil,' Andy says when he'sfinished his adjustments. He stretches, then cracks hisknuckles.

Litchfield's eyes go to the tech's fingers. There have beenrumours. 'You know perfectly well it had to be Zach.' He raises hisvoice for the benefit of any watchdogs. 'He's the best we've gotfor this kind of job.'

'What if he breaks? It's hit him very hard.'

'He'll do. Remember who he is.'

*****

'Looking for someone?'

Laura whirled at the sound of Zach's voice. He stepped out ofthe shadows under the massive beeches, tempering his mockery with ahalf-smile. Quarter-smile, actually, and still her pulse responded.She wondered if he'd notice. She knew what they said about him,about his sorteveryone did. A trickle of apprehension slid betweenher shoulder blades, and she glanced quickly in all directions, butthere was no one in sight. Zach's eyes darkened, and he took a stepbackward.

'Right,' he said.

He turned on his heel, his hair swinging like a sluice of blackrain across his face, and strode away through the coppery leaves,which crackled underfoot. It had been a dry season. After asecond's hesitation Laura followed, catching up with him near thegunnera manicatain summer a spectacular display like a giant'srhubarb patch, which had so impressed her that she'd once nettedit. An exotic foreigner needing lots of space, and protection fromtheir harsh climate.

'Wait, Zach. Please. I don't care what they say.'

He stopped under a ginkgo tree and looked down at her. She wasunusually tall, but he was even taller. All of them were, though hemore than most.

'And your dad?' he asked.

'He's not going to find out.'

'Suppose he does? Not reporting it could cost him his job. Andif you're planning to get a place at university'

She shrugged.

He stared at her for a moment longer before plucking a single,butterfly-shaped leaf from the branch overhead and offering it toher, a reminder of his preposterous, infuriating, magnificentunpredictability. 'Come on, then.' He jerked his head towards thepetting zoo, often crowded at the weekend, and the brackish canaldistrict that lay beyond. 'I know a place where they do a decentburger and chips.'

But they both knew he meant where they'd be served.

*****

It was a small, cheerful takeaway with a single table and acouple of hard wooden chairs squeezed into the rear, almost hiddenby a rack of magazines and the drinks cooler. The dark-skinnedwoman working behind the counter nodded at Zach without speakingand without pausing in her chopping. Onions, Laura thought, and aheady spice which she couldn't pin down. Nor had she ever seen suchupper arms, whose skin from armpit to elbow swayed like flaccidudders as the woman worked.

The square of cardboard folded under the leg of their tabledidn't quite do its job, so that every time Laura leaned forward,her coke wobbled. A bit like her feelings, which lurched fromelation that Zach, who threaded a motorbike through the clusters ofkids in the carpark with the same utter indifference with which hetacked in and out of the classroom whenever he could be bothered,that a flesh-and-blood Zach, about whom she'd spent mostof her waking hours, and not an inconsiderable number of hersleeping ones, daydreaming and dreaming, that Zach wasactually sitting right here across from her,eating... to stupefaction and a disbelievingadmiration of her own daring... to dread thatshe'd be found out. That word would get back to her parents, andworse, to the Insects. She was a good liar, but nobody could lietheir way out of this.

Zach picked up a chip with a graceful movement of his fingers,then caught her studying him.

'What?' he asked.

She coloured and couldn't think of a crack response, nor even asuitable one.

'Think we don't eat?'