“It is strange,” she says.
“What is?”
“Father told me that there would be riots because of that song. That people would die. But it is such a soft melody.” She coughs blood into a pelt. “We used to sing songs by the campfire, out in the country, where he kept us out of…” coughs again “…of the public…eye. When…my brother died…Father never sang with me again.”
She will soon die. It’s only a matter of time. Her face is pale, her smiles feeble. There’s only one thing I can do, since the medBots haven’t come. I will have to leave her to seek out medicine. One of the Houses might have found some or received injectables as a bounty. I’ll have to go soon, but I need to get her food first.
Someone follows me that day as I hunt alone in the winter woods. I wear my new white wolfcloak. They are camouflaged as well. I do not see whoever it is, but he is there. I pretend my bowstring needs fixing and steal a glance back. Nothing. Quiet. Snow. The sound of wind on brittle branches. They still follow as I move along.
I feel them behind me. It’s like the ache in my body from my wound. I pretend to see a deer and pass quickly through a thicket only to scramble up a tall pine on the other side.
I hear apop.
They pass beneath me. I feel it on my skin, in my bones. So I shake the branches under my legs. Gathered snow tumbles down. A distorted hollow in the shape of a man forms in the snowfall. It is looking at me.
“Fitchner?” I call down.
His bubblegum pops again.
“You may come down now, boyo,” Fitchner barks up. He deactivates his ghostCloak and gravBoots and sinks into the snow. He’swearing a thin black thermal. My layered fatigues and stinking animal skins don’t keep me half as warm.
It’s been weeks since I last saw him. He looks tired.
“Going to finish what Cassius started?” I ask as I hop down.
He looks me over and smirks. “You look horrible.”
“You do too. The soft bed, warm food, and wine giving you trouble?” I point up. We can just barely see Olympus between the skeletal branches of the winter trees.
He smiles. “Readout says you’ve lost twenty pounds.”
“Baby fat,” I tell him. “Cassius’s ionSword carved it off.” I pull up my bow and point it at him. I wonder if he’s wearing a pulseShield. It’ll stop anything short of pulseWeapons and razors. Only recoilPlate can gird off those weapons—and even then, not well. “I should shoot you.”
“You wouldn’t dare. I’m a Proctor, boyo.”
I shoot him in the thigh. Except the arrow loses velocity before it hits the invisible pulseShield, which flickers iridescent, and the arrow bounces to the ground. So they wear it at all times, even when they don’t wear recoilArmor.
“Well, that was petulant.” He yawns.
PulseShield, gravBoots, ghostCloak, looks like he has a pulseFist too, and those famous razors. Snow melts as it touches his skin. He saw me in the tree, so I’m guessing his eyes have injected optics. Certainly thermal scopes and night vision. He has a widget and an analyzerMod too. He knew my weight. Probably knows my white blood cell count. What about spectrum analysis?
He yawns again. “Little sleep these days on Olympus. Busy days.”
“Who gave the Jackal the holo of me killing Julian?” I ask.
“Well, you don’t dally away time.”
He did something just as I spoke, and the sound around us localizes. I can’t hear anything beyond an invisible five-meter bubble. Didn’t know they had toys like that.
“The Proctors gave it to the Jackal,” he tells me.
“Which ones?”
“Apollo. All of us. Doesn’t matter.”
I don’t understand. “I assume it’s because they favor the Jackal. Am I right?”
“As usual.” His gum pops. “Unfortunately, you’re just not allowed to win, and you were gaining momentum. Sooo…”
