The Ballad of Ash and Hum

4. Sky

The next stop happens when they nearly fall off a long flight of stairs. One karabiner fails. Hum shouts it was her fault, she didn't place it correctly. Bhari feels her hand curl into a fist, senses the exact amount of drive and power necessary to punch him in his stomach for some blessed silence and the end of Hum's nagging.

Two breaths, three. Slowly her nails stop digging into her palm, and she recaps the water bottle. "Let's keep going."

At the next stop she lets him sleep for a few minutes. While he's out she trickles some of their precious water over the wound on the back of his neck. For the most part the blood has dried, but Bhari can see the tattoo: HUMAN 273.

Asleep, Hum looks very young. Long eyelashes cast fanned shadows on his sharp cheekbones in the beam of her light. She steels herself and wakes him, stands and hefts the bag to her shoulder.

"I know, I know," he grumbles, getting to his feet. "Keep going."

#

They climb in silence, their breath whistling in the stale air. Anything could happen – a landfall burying them under massive tons of rock, pockets of carbon dioxide. Moving through the darkness is awful, eerie. Strange shapes seem to rush at them as their eyes create sensory images.

Bhari thinks she sees her old boyfriend, his hand swept back to crack her across one ear. It's not until Hum's arm shoots out and catches her elbow that she realizes what was about to happen.

Every muscle in her body shaking, Bhari switches on her flashlight and shines it ahead. The floor in front of them has caved in, and she nearly slipped into the hole.

She turns to Hum, her eyes widening. "How did you...?"

"Echolocation," he whispers. "It's coming back." A huge grin splits his face. "It's coming back! I can sense the passage of time, too – run a mental clock."

She nods, digs in her pack. "Can you estimate how far we have left?" The water in the bottle sloshes as she holds it up. "Will this get us up to the surface?"

Hum studies it, purses his lips. "Depends on how destroyed the stairs are up ahead."

Bhari holds the bottle to her cheek as though the moisture could leach through her skin and laughs without mirth. "It'll worsen the closer we get to the blast."

"Oh." Hum closes his eyes, breathes. "We've got to double the time between rest-stops."

"Can you tell me when we should stop?"

He nods.

"Keep going," they say together.

#

During the next few climbs Bhari realizes she's put her life into the hands of a damaged enhancement. Her mind tries to trick her, to tell her he's drawing out travelling too long. Surely they should be stopping by now... She makes herself count to a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand.

At last Hum calls time. They slump, exhausted, against the wall, and he tells her they can only have one sip each.

She nearly hauls off and slaps him but just manages to tamp her fury. Bloody Alliance, Ivenko influenced me more than I knew, Bhari thinks.

Reality wobbles in and out in the pitch black. She sees floating squids, luminescent whales – all creations of her own optic nerves. Hum hands her a few flakes of phytoplankton, and she nearly knocks the food out of his hands, trying to avoid a nonexistent shoal of eels.

This time they don't even say it. Bhari's getting sick of her determined attitude, to be honest. She and Hum get to their feet, brush off the crumbs, and keep going.

#

Hum's second warning comes too late. Bhari trips, and the bag flies off her shoulder. There's a sickening thump. All their supplies fly out, skittering in the dark.

They have to go on hands and knees to find what they can. When Bhari discovers the flashlight and turns it on, the beam shows just how close she came to pitching into another cave-in under their feet. As it is, their water and extra food have pitched into the hole, lost forever.

"You go," Hum declares. "Find Ash, and tell him – tell him..."

"We're both going," Bhari says.

"I saw how you looked at him." Hum's tone is accusing. "You can sexbond with him once you Surface."

"What?" Bhari slumps, sits next to him even though they're way behind schedule. Any second Crippen could come after them, or the whole shaft could implode. "I – Hum, Ash is a beautiful guy, but. But."

"But?" he prompts, fierce and young.

"I'm not made that way," she confesses. "Prefer tech to people, to be honest. I – I admire beauty, but there's no desire behind it." It's the most personal thing she's ever divulged.

Hum lets his head fall back against the wall of the shaft. The white bricks are covered with mold, but he doesn't seem to notice. "He'd be better off with you," he whispers.

She's about to tell him he's strong too, she couldn't have made it this far without him, when the ground underneath them rumbles. Far below there's an ominous creak, a prolonged grumble from the earth itself. "Alliance drift," Bhari swears. "What the hell was that?"

Hum's on his feet, feeling for their remaining supplies. "Explosion," he explains. "In the Alliance. Gonna cause aftershocks..."

They run, the slim beam of the flashlight picking up the tunnel. There are more holes now, and they have to weave to avoid them. Hum's breath whistles in his chest, and she can nearly feel the boy's pain as clearly as if they were connected on the neural level.

Another rumble, and Bhari loses her footing. As she goes down the flashlight skitters out of her hand to thump inside one of the holes. A moment later there's a tiny thump, and they are left in the dark.

After running and urging Hum to keep on moving, Bhari is at the end of her strength. She hears someone cursing worse than a seasoned EMO, and after a minute she realizes the voice is her own. "This is it." Bhari slumps against the wall. "I'm sorry, kid. We're at the end of the adventure – looks like we lost this round." Maybe she can find a sharp edge to take them both out so they don't have to suffer the slow horror of death by thirst and hunger. Or maybe... Her hand moves under the hem of her shirt, finds the knotted string. There's a whistle on it, the one Crippen gave her when the man rescued her from being raped, all those cycles earlier. If she took it out and blew it, would the EMO's find her and Hum? Put bullets through their brains to end the suffering?

"No." Hum shakes her shoulder. "No, Bhari. Look!"

He takes her hand and points ahead, angled up to where the Surface must lie. Ahead of them, in the black, there's a distinct rectangle – the outline of an open door.

It's the first time either of them have seen the sky.

Wiping away her tears, Bhari gets up from the floor. Holding Hum's fingers tightly in her fist, she follows the boy forward, heading towards the little square of blue.

As they get closer, a small, feathered shape soars across the framed view of the Surface. Squinting fiercely, Bhari can just make out what it is.

The shape appears to hover in the wind and emits a klee-klee-klee of victory: the triumphant call of a kestrel hawk.