Episode 8 - Symbiosis

  Chapter 76 - Operation: Baise (3)

  We gallop between broken buildings and waking giants as the rain falls.

  I lean close, wrapping my hands around Pooka’s neck and hiding my face in the back of his neck as he surges, leaping from one decaying pile of bricks and concrete to the next over the fleshy lumps beneath us that are stirring. His broad, flat hooves are sure-footed even as the ground beneath us becomes slick with mud.

  The rain is coming heavier. As it knocks the haze from the air, I can see further and further around me with an unsettling clarity, including the dark storm clouds above us building. Occasionally, I hear the flash and rumble of thunder and lightning, shaking my diaphragm. It was always so far away inside the dome. Here, it chases our heels. I don’t know if we will get ahead of it to provide much warning. I let myself get too distracted looking at the ruins.

  The surrounding lichens continue to swell as they draw in moisture, rubble shifting where it has fallen on them. So far, nothing seems to stir more than the swelling of their bodies as they absorb the rain, but I am sure it cannot be long. I am certain I have seen the white hyphae begin to twitch and twist, or a fleshy lobe pulsate as we pass by at speeds that would throw any other human. I twist in position to watch a window swing open as an orange crust unsticks itself from the shutter.

  Then, the street in front of us explodes.

  I duck beneath a flying chunk of asphalt. Pooka darts, hooves skidding on wet concrete as he pivots our headlong gallop to turn down a side street. From beneath the road, a hulking pale green mass flops a fleshy limb clear and draws itself upwards, unfurling branching fronds to catch the rain. It must have been buried beneath the street, down in the sewers or maybe in the skeletons of buildings that are still covered by the earth. The rain must have woken it with its brethren, and it surfaced to bask and rehydrate for now.

  We find a clearer street, and Pooka accelerates, getting us ahead of the storm front finally. Frost dusts the ground with every touch of his hooves to the ground now there is moisture in the air, he’s gathering energy.

  I can see the first scavengers now. A crew has a system of ropes anchored to the side of one building. The door is off its hinges, and crews are passing up supplies. There are coils of wire still dusted with fragments of white drywall or insulation, rusted parts of old technology - even a chair that someone has uncovered underground. Several members of the crew are leaning backwards, hoisting boxes of ceramics up out of one window, the avian symbionts around them darting in and out of windows and scouting the nearby buildings.

  I take a deep breath. “Rain! Rain is incoming. Time is up!” I scream as we gallop towards them.

  All six heads I can see swing my way, then immediately turn back to their work with new resolve. The crate of ceramics is pulled through the window and roughly untied, the other goods are loaded onto the back of a carriage pulled by a bovid symbiont. A slim man climbs up the building to free their ropes.

  “How long have we got?” asks one man as we skid to his side.

  “Not long. I barely beat the rain back,” I explain between panicked breaths. Pooka is gleaming with moisture from the rain beneath me, dancing in place and eager to continue running.

  “Drop what’s not already loaded, safety first!” yells the man's companion, who overheard me. They’re already almost done freeing their ropes, a younger member of the crew rapidly bundling the last of their equipment into the trailer. There are still several goods they’ve recovered from within the building lying in the dirt.

  “Where is everyone else?” I ask, looking back over my shoulder at the path we came. The white haze has closed in around us again as we got ahead of the rain, but it cannot be far.

  “Keep heading ?up this street, pass the message. We’ll be right behind you,” commands the man I initially stopped to address again.

  I give him a nod. Pooka needs no prompting, and we gallop onwards again. The next crew has a prize haul. They’ve smashed a window and are looting jewelry that must have been newly uncovered. In their fingers are handfuls of gold and platinum white chains, and even some cosmetic size gemstones. I repeat my warning and barrel past, trusting them to pack up and follow like the previous crews.

  The majority of the trailers are in sight now, several with roller doors open in the back as crews load all sorts of odds and ends into the backs. Addie is in a fight with several men who are dragging old technology out one building.

  “That’s hickory down there! Real hickory! You need to pull the flooring up!” insists Addie, her face shield almost foggy with the steam of her anger.

  “Why would I waste my time on something that’ll take ten times as long to scrap?”

  “Because! The lichens will eat it now it’s uncovered, and then it’ll be gone!” replies Addie. “Your metal and circuit boards have nothing for them to eat, so it’ll be here for next time still. Get the wood now while we still can!”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Calm down twitcher, wood buyers are picky. Almost anyone buys metal scrap.”

  “It's not about the buyers, it’s about saving what we can sometimes!”

  “Too late,” I interrupt, Pooka turning to his side as we canter up to their fight. “Time is up, rain is here. We need to be moving now.”

  “Conrada! Help me get the hickory up!” pleads Addie.

  The man she was fighting with shakes his head. “There’s no time left.”

  Pooka shifts beneath me, his ears turning back towards the storm. Addie comes to my side, laying hands on us, and I start as she brushes against Pooka’s hide as she grabs my leg. “Please, once it’s gone, it’s gone. Wood doesn’t last forever.”

  Above my head, I can see avian symbionts flying from the crews in panicked flocks. The message has spread. I can even see the shoulders of the giant Garuda several streets over, the crest on the back of his head erect as he looks down his beak at the humans below him.

  I slip off Pooka’s back, feeling the dust puff around my feet as I touch dry earth again. My fingers crackle with static; there is so much energy in the air. “Where is it? What am I doing?” I ask.

  Addie grins, grabbing my wrist and dragging me after her. “Down here, this one. The floor three layers down still has flooring intact.” She climbs through a window at ground level and disappears inside. I grab the upper trim of the window and swing my legs through, Pooka coming after me to sniff and watch. His red eyes illuminate the interior.

  Except for the dust and the slashed walls, it could have been someone's home. There are rotting fabrics on the ground, plastic toys cracked with age, even an old laminated table that has peeled and the flaking core inside rotted. The second half of the room has a pile of rocks and dirt that has been recently disturbed where the staircase down was uncovered. The railings were probably metal; they’ve already been ripped from the walls.

  Someone has put a concrete slab down where several of the stairs have given way as Addie leads me down into the dark, flicking a headlamp over her face shield on to lead the way. The next layer is also rotten with moisture. I can smell the mold even through my respirator. No lichens down here; if they are photosynthetic they must not venture too deeply into the covered sections of the ruins. This time, a once-shut doorway leads to an inner hallway of the building, and the next area is free of dirt and dust, protected by the door. I feel a growing sense of claustrophobia as I look at the next staircase down.

  “Uh, I don’t know that this was a great idea,” I mutter.

  “It’s not far, just a few planks. It’s not about the money sometimes,” says Addie, pulling on my wrist. “It’s about memories. Knowing what once was here. Preserving it even if it doesn’t make sense. What is the point of survival otherwise?”

  I sniff hesitantly, checking in on Pooka who waits at the surface still. The men are rushing to pack up; several of the trailers are being shut and the symbionts are pulling them out of the ruins. We’ll be left behind if we don’t hurry.

  “Addie…”

  “Just one plank, please, down here. Look!”

  The next corner turns into a room with furniture covered by white plastic sheeting. I ignore the dark shapes and look at the ground as Addie stoops to illuminate the flooring.

  It is cracked and greyed, splintering at the edges of the planks, but it does indeed look like wood. Addie unzips the chest of her suit, pulling a pocketknife from the interior and jamming it between two of the planks, splinters shredding between the blade. Then, with a crack of leverage, the entire piece comes up. Addie slips her fingers under the next plank as well and pulls, squealing like a child as she strains, and the plank heaves and splinters free as well. She hands me one, then grabs the other.

  “Thank you! Thank you! Quickly!” and we’re already making our way back out of the building.

  Addie pushes the plank ahead of herself through the window and turns to take mine to do the same with it. Then, she squeezes herself up and crawls from her knees to stand again in the open air. I follow, Addie turning back to grab my wrists and help pull me through. Just as she dusts off her treasured planks, their silvered surfaces revealed to the light, I watch a large raindrop fall on one and darken the grain.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” mutters Addie, wiping it with her hand like that might make the rain go away.

  “Quick, what do we do?” I ask, looking around us. The trailers have all moved now, I can see the footprints of men and symbionts leading away.

  “We've gotta catch up!” yelps Addie, beginning to run ahead with a plank tucked under each arm.

  Pooka canters close, offering a forefoot to help me mount. The rain is growing heavier by the moment. I vault up onto his back, and we close the tiny head start Addie has on us. I lean down, hanging from Pooka’s side using my grip on his mane and the strength of my thighs to keep my balance and pluck one plank from under Addie’s arm as we pull close to her.

  “Quick! Give me the other one, then your hand. Get on!”

  Addie’s eyes grow wide. I balance the planks in front of me across Pooka’s back, then pull Addie up to sit in front of me. We rebalance to take her weight, and I wrap both arms around her. Something shifts in her suit, and I contain my sudden revulsion at the unexpected movement. It must be her symbiont under her clothes.

  “Are you alright?” I ask quickly, loosening my grip.

  “I am now, you can grab me again,” replies Addie. “Quick, quick, please!”

  I close my arms for the second time. Nothing moves now. I push her body weight forward and lean close. “We go fast, hold on!”

  Pooka doesn’t need any bidding; he stretches his neck and kicks off at a gallop to catch up to the trailers. Behind us, the rubble begins to creak and shift as white hyphae snake to life.