The Great Midlands (30 minute read)

ONE

Contrary to popular imagination, velomobiles are not silent.
Rushing air whistled over the enclosed cockpit. Autumn leaves crunched under the tires and Cassiopeia’s own breathing echoed in the cramped space of the vehicle as she labored over the pedals.
Trees rushed by either side as she drove deeper and deeper in to the Great Midland Forest.
Cassie hit a downhill stretch and took a breather. She watched the speedometer slowly tick up to 60kph. If she turned on the power assist now and added her own effort to the pedals, it was possible to get it up to a hundred. But it was terrifying to travel so fast in such a fragile shell, so she just sat back and enjoyed the short rest the slope afforded her.
Eventually the road turned in to a narrow, grassy track, and then to a barely traveled, weed choked path. The last kilometer to the outpost she had to use the power assist and raise the suspension.
As the little composite shelled vehicle trundled over the mounds of weedy grass, she looked around in awe at the trunks of huge trees that had sprouted like weeds in the great, nation-spanning Midland woods.
The road emerged in to a clearing where a group of half a dozen small shelters were constructed. They belonged to her neighborhood committee, a weekend refuge that could be used by any member, as long as they booked in advance.
At the nearest shelter she used her community key to let herself in and checked the alcove that stored their gear. No one had nicked it yet.
As she was showering under the tepid water in the shelter’s utilitarian bathroom, her minicomp let out a few jazzy chords to herald an incoming call. There was a stuttery image of a youngish, dark skinned woman frowning from a subsection of the screen.
“Sax, is that you?”
“No, it’s Marilyn Monroe. Who were you expecting?”
Cassie sighed. This would be awkward.
She dried off quickly with one of the musty towels and slipped in to her under suit.
“Don’t be upset”--
“I’m not upset. I just thought we were going to the festival this week. When I got home you’re nowhere to be found.”
“I”--
“Hey, I can’t see a thing. The frame rate is terrible. Are you in a lift or something?”
Sax always did that. Switched topic so fast you couldn’t get a chance to explain or apologize to her.
Cassie checked the minicomp’s screen for signal strength. Just one bar.
She hung up abruptly and rang back with a voice only call. “Any news on Manchester’s launch date? It’s a pain having to rely on a bootstrapped wireless net all the time. When are we going to get satellite service back?” She could deflect too, if she had to.
She heard her housemate making herself comfortable at the other end, probably sitting on the couch in their shared room. There was the clink of glass and ice.
Sax sighed. “You might as well ask the Chinese or the Yanks. It was their cold war, their last ditch play in a game of global cyber warfare.”
Cassie set the minicomp to speaker mode and went over to the alcove. She pulled out a hapitc suit and some gogz.
She began to get dressed. “Who would have believed that they would slag their own satellites? Well, no one is talking now. Either they won their little civil wars and created their private paradises on Earth, or...”
“...or else they wiped themselves out. Global emissions are way down anyhow, so something happened. I guess we’ll never know.”
“We might if we get that satellite launched. You’ve got contacts on the communications committee, Sax. What have you heard?”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment. Well, either silence or the sound of someone drinking a gin and tonic. “I’m out of the loop, remember? On administrative leave after that crap with the aquatic bank robber. No one’s talking to me right now. I’m officially persona non grata at the constabulary. Those ungrateful bastards...”
Cassie mentally tuned out her friend’s tirade and finished setting up her gear. It was something she had heard dozens of times over the last few weeks.
She shrugged on her backpack and tightened the straps until they were almost uncomfortable. The gogs went on last and then she was out the door.
“...didn’t even thank me for serving up that...”
She stashed the minicomp in her backpack and synched the gogz to it. Suddenly the earphones were filled with Sax’s sardonic voice. She hadn’t stopped talking. “...found the other guy in a box, cut up into shark bait”--
“Ew... what other guy?”
“The other Republican. The one who planned the heist. Never did find his gogz... that would have saved me a lot of trouble... hey, what’s that noise?”
Cassie strode down the path, her thick soled boots crunching through dried leaves. “Sax, I think you should take some time to relax, get over the”--
“Wait a minute, where are you? Let me see here... uh? What are you doing in the Midlands?” her friend sounded incredulous. She couldn’t blame her. Cassie wasn’t much of an outdoors type.
“I’m... LARPing.”
Sax laughed heartily. “You? No way! Just a sec. This is something I’ve got to see.”

TWO

There was a human outline beside her, barely sketched out in rough polygons. The legs were moving but the torso and arms remained limp. Sax must be wearing only half the suit.
The image froze and rebooted. The display flashed in to negative for a moment. Crisp polys uprezed, subdividing in to detailed topology. A high res texture started to appear. Sax’s avatar zipping in to Cassie’s minicomp a line of code at a time. Cassie recognized the face. It was a stock resource, what you got as a default character before customizing it to fit your preferences. “A cleric, really Sax?”
“Actually I’m a priestess. Don’t knock it. Everyone needs support. Anyway, look at you!”
Cassie summoned up a real-time mirror with a gesture. “I think I look pretty good.”
“You’re an ork warrior!”
“Actually...” She drew the word out, mimicking her friend. “I’m a paladin. Support class, with attitude.”
Sax waved her arm, the movement a bit jerky as the minicomp interpolated the mocap data from her suit being sent over the wireless. “An ork paladin? That’s ridiculous!”
Cassy turned to face the priestess, she watched her diaphanous gown float in the breeze. Almost realistic until you noticed that the trees were fluttering in the opposite direction.
“Do you even LARP, bro? The whole point is to pick stupid combinations. A gnome barbarian. A troll wizard. A lawful good, orc paladin... The more useless the better. Who wants to spend their R&R min-maxing a roleplaying game? It’s just for fun.”
Sax laughed. “Oh, I get it. Very entertaining. Come on then, are we going to go kill some dirty, green-skinned gobos?”
“Shh. Don’t say that! It’s racist. I’m an orc remember.”
“Ok... punch some fascist skeletons then. Whatever.”

THREE

“What are you doing wasting your time on VR for anyway. When you could be here with me?”
They were walking along next to a ravine. The river ran low at the bottom. It had been a while since it last rained.
Well, Cassie walked. Sax was stuck in their bedroom, so she lag-levitated over the rough ground, rather than be left behind.
“It’s not VR, it’s AR. The gogz capture real-time images and overlay 3d geometry. I look at the forest and I see trees, adapted for the fantasy setting. More flowers, more moss, more crystals and mushrooms and stuff. The gogz put your image in front of them. If there was a dragon, it would sketch it in too.”
“Cool. But why bother? You could just take a walk in the forest and enjoy”--
“I expected to be here alone actually Sax. The game is just to provide some distraction.”
The avatar didn’t have Sax’s face, but it did a good job of mimicking her emotions. She looked a little hurt. “So why not invite me and we could come here together? It’s rude to make me invite myself.”
“I’m sorry Sax. I just... needed some time to myself. Not that I don’t relish your company, but the commune can feel oppressive sometimes, too many people...everyone knowing who I am.”
“This is about your mother, isn’t it?”
Cassie surprised herself with her anger. She turned and stamped her foot. “It’s nothing to do”-- The air suddenly felt hot and heavy. The forest oppressive.
She stopped. “Look, you already know the story, you know”--
Sax pointed over her shoulder, interrupting her. “What the hell is that?”
Cassie looked. She didn’t see anything. When she turned back to Sax, the avatar was gone. “Well, that was rude. Ugh... I think I need to sit down.”
She was starting to feel light headed. She turned back and squinted ahead to where Sax had pointed. She saw the bushes rustling further along the ravine. Suddenly a monstrous form erupted out of the ferns and knocked her down. “What the”--
Before she could react, long, hairy arms reached up and snatched away her gogz. She was looking up in to the big, round, sweaty face of a male Orangutan. “Oook?”
The ape reached up and pointed back over his shoulder. “Ook!” She suddenly saw what had been hidden by the AR simulation; a towering Inferno of burning trees that reached right up to the opposite edge of the ravine.

FOUR

With the help of the Orangutan she climbed down in to the ravine and dropped in to the cool shallow water.
Her suit was waterproof and heated. She could stay in the stream for as long as the batteries held out.
A burning fragment of leaf scorched her cheek and she ducked lower in the water. Ash and cracking twigs rained down in to the rocky cleft, but the heat seemed survivable for the moment.
“Oook! Ook. Brrriippp.” The ape vocalized and blew a lisping raspberry. He pointed to her gogz, now hanging round her neck, and then at himself. “Ook!”
She took a while, but then understood. “Oh, you want me to put them on.”
She did so and saw Ook’s avatar in crisp digital detail. It was an Orangutan, but more fluffy. Younger maybe and cuter. A little more muscular.
Even apes had vanity it seemed.
He moved his hands in a complex pattern. His fingers stroking one hand against the other palm, making shapes. It was a little like the gestures she used to control her gogs when absent a keyboard.
But his movements elicited glowing words above his head in the sim space.
She gasped. “Ah, sign language!”
What they used to use before gogz and QUIDs made nonverbal communication seamless.
“Hi, my name is Louis. You can call me Lou. Everyone does.”
“Hello, Lou. You really saved my bacon there.”
“No problem. We had better wait until the fire has passed over us before we climb up. It might take a while.”
Cassie shivered. There was a trickle of ice water dripping into her dry suit. It drip, drip, dripped down her bum crack. Somewhere she hadn’t fastened the adjustable seals properly. “Do you think we can make our way back down the ravine? My clothes and stuff are there, as well as my”--
As he started signing, she stopped talking. It felt rude to speak over him. She looked at his expressive face. He was probably colder than her in Real Life, soaked to the skin, unless his fur had some kind of oils to keep him dry. Didn’t sheep have that?
Finally her gogz caught up with his rapid signing. “No can do, sorry. The fire front is moving faster than we can walk or ride. I know the shelters you’re talking about. We can’t get to them before they burn.”
“Oh.”

The fire raged above them, sparks leaping from tree to tree. Big, thick trunks split and cracked with noise like gunshots. She heard animal noises too. Birds squawking in alarm. Howls and screeches of other animals she didn’t know. The Midlands FAQ she had read mentioned badgers, snakes, lizards, frogs and even wolves and boars as having been reintroduced to the forest. She hoped some would get away.
She and Lou sat ears deep in the water. Only the tops of their heads showing.
Occasionally a hot stone or pebble would be knocked down from above. Hissing as it dropped in to the water.
She sat and shivered for a bit. Thinking.
Then she realized she hadn’t introduced herself.
“I’m Cassie, by the way. Short for Cassiopeia.”
“Nice to meet you Cassie. That’s a beautiful name.”
“You’re, uh... very eloquent, for an orangutan...”
Lou frowned and blew air through his prehensile lips.
“Brrrapp! Are you saying orangutans aren’t eloquent?”
Even through the cold, her face colored. Embarrassed.
So embarrassed.
“No... wait, I.. eh... that came out wrong.”
He grinned, revealing big flat teeth. Then pouted playfully.
“Ook! Llllssppp!”
He started wading up stream, through the low running water, but stopped and gestured back at her. “Don’t worry about it, I’m not an ordinary orangutan. It’s a long story.”

FIVE

Cassie and Lou had emerged from the ravine upstream and behind the edge of the burn. Here the ground was still hot, covered in ash. She offered to carry him, so his feet wouldn’t get burned. Her own boots were sturdy enough that it just felt like walking on warm sand.
She almost immediately regretted the offer. “Goodness Lou, you weigh a ton. No offense.”
The back cam on the band of her gogz caught his signed response. Text flickered up in her field of vision. “None taken, Cassie. There are few things heavier than a wet orangutan, but you’re lucky. I’m a special case. Very small for my age.”
“Great! That’s good to know.”
“Brraap!”

They came across the velomobile and shelters a couple of hours after setting out. It hadn’t been far, but they had to circle far around to let the burn get ahead of them.
“Ook! I don’t like to say I told you so Cassie, but it’s all gone.”
He was right. The shelter was burned to its foundations. Not even the printed fiber frame of her velomobile had survived. “Nuts! What are we going to do now? It’s got to be at least a day’s walk back to the nearest town. I’ve got a flask of water and a lunch ration bar and that’s it. I left my pack on the edge of the ravine and I bet it’s barbecued by now.”
“Ook! It would take longer than that. Do you see the road?”
Actually she couldn’t. The overgrown path had come in to the clearing beneath the boughs of tall trees. They had burned to the roots, collapsing and dumping their ash, and now it wasn’t clear what had been undergrowth and what had been path.
“Muther f”--
“Ook! Language! I’m sure we’ll find a way. We’ll just have to use our heads, won’t we?”
“Ack! I should have stayed at home. I can’t believe I’m lost in a forest with a bloody mon”--
She stopped herself just in time. There was something in Lou’s eyes which warned of stepping over a line. “Oops. I nearly did it again, didn’t I? Unforgivable. Sorry Lou.”
He pouted and hand walked over to the ruins. The ground was cooling rapidly here, night was coming on soon and there was an autumn chill in the air.
Lou slipped on his gogz and gestured off in a direction that might have been west, towards the rapidly setting sun. “I’m getting a player ID signal from that direction. About 3 kilometers away.”
“People, out there? Wouldn’t they be beyond saving by now?”
“I don’t know. Ook? Maybe we should go and see.”
She drank from her flask and scrubbed sweat and ash away from the edge of her gogz. “I don’t know Lou. What can we do for them if they are still alive? We don’t have any medical supplies? We’re in deep, eh... up a creek ourselves.”
“Well, they might have some gear we can use, or they might have some skills that help us. If they aren’t charcoal.”
“Maybe so, but I think we have”--
He waved her silent and continued signing. “In any case, even if they are injured or dead, we can give them some comfort.”
He looked at her. If an orangutan was capable of showing disgust, it was there, written all over his face. “Brrraappff! Humans!”
She felt her face redden. A lump was in her throat.
A tear leaked from the edge of her gogz. “I’m sorry Lou, I’ve never been in a life or death situation before. I never expected that starving to death in a forest was something that could end up on my tombstone. I’m freaking out a bit here. Give me a moment would you?”
He turned and headed off towards the signals. Waving over his shoulder for her to follow.
She didn’t have much choice.

SIX

Cassie hid behind a giant gene-engineered oak and watched the stranger’s camp. The trunk was blackened on its surface, but where a chunk of bark had flaked away, she could see the burn was only skin deep. The trees here had been designed to grow quickly and the whole forest had become old growth in a matter of a few short decades. These trees would survive and keep on growing.
The man stood at the edge of the lantern light, chugging beer from a tankard and pissing in to the wind at the same time. He burped and began to zip up his drysuit. She saw the same kind of gogz as she was wearing. LARPers.
“He looks like a twat. Seems fine, no obvious injuries. I vote we walk on by and let him keep on drinking.”
“Ooook?”
She turned and whispered to the primate. She didn’t want the people in the camp to hear them. “Look, Lou. I’ve got to be honest with you. I’m not much of a people person.”
Even in the dark she could see his low silhouette raise its arms in a shrug.
“I have... issues.”
He gestured, then turned and walked towards the camp. She didn’t need a translation. He was going over, and she could stay in the dark on her own if she wanted.
“Aw, Lou. Fu”--
She hurried to keep up with him. Then, she slowed down to match his waddling gait as they approached the camp.

“What the holy Jesus is that?”
The man stood wide eyed, staring at Lou.
Cassie forced a grin and hissed through her teeth. “Hi, I’m Cassie and this is Lou. Be careful, he’s sensitive.”
“He’s a bloody mo”--
The man was brought up short by a big muscular arm. The hand attached to it wrapped around his mouth. “Mmmpphh?!”
In to the lantern light stepped the biggest woman Cassie had ever seen. She had almond shaped eyes, and a half dozen ethnicities wrestled for dominance on her face. “G’day folks. Wotcha doing out here in the bush?” The woman looked at Lou and did a double take. “Crikey, you’re a handsome fella, aren’t you?”
Lou pouted and grinned. He waddled up to the big woman and shook her outstretched hand. He started signing his own introduction.
Cassie noticed they weren’t wearing their gogs and she motioned for them to put them on. She slipped her own over her eyes and the scene in front of her was transformed.
The trees were suddenly green and alive again. Long grass swayed in the clearing. That gave her an idea, but it was immediately driven out by seeing the strangers in their LARP identities.
The tall one was even bigger in AR. Her tattooed, oiled muscles bulged as she drew herself up for an introduction. “I’m Tammy the Barbarian, maybe you’ve seen my cosplay show?”
Cassie shook her head. “Sorry, I’m not really a follower of pop-net.”
Tammy shrugged. “Oh well, no accounting for taste, is there? Anyway, this brain-dead bludger is Bruce”--
“Don’t call me that!” He frowned at her. “I’m Helioconcoptus the Demon Warlock of Westermere!” He raised his tankard and his scepter, a serious look on his face.
Cassie looked at Tammy. They both looked at the Demon Warlock. He had red skin, horns and goat legs. Out of curiosity, she checked his stats and his backstory.
Chaotic evil. Edgelord alert.
Tammy laughed and shoved him. His beer spilled on to his shaggy legs, but the sim wasn’t sophisticated enough to render it. “That’s why I call him Bruce.”
“But it’s not my name!”
“It is now mate, better get used to it.”
He tried to push her back, but she was so huge she barely moved. He spluttered and walked off towards one of the tents. “I don’t know why I agreed to come on this stupid team building exercise.”
She called after him, “I do mate, it was this or get deported if you bailed.”
He turned and glared at her. “I don’t want to talk about it!”

SEVEN

“So they said that if I didn’t join a committee, I wouldn’t be able to get a job, and I couldn’t stay on the island. And no one would let me join a committee if I didn’t agree to this stupid excursion.”
Cassie looked at him. He was obviously angry at the perceived unfairness of it. “That sounds about right. You can’t just be appointed to a committee. It’s not that kind of structure. It’s more of like a...”
“...a club, or a commune.” Tammy finished for her. “Someone’s got to invite you in, or you have to find some other blokes or sheilas and make your own committee. It’s not a business, or a government agency. It’s just a community unit.”
He looked confused. “I don’t get it. Who can I appeal to? Who’s got jurisdiction over this crap?”
Tammy and Cassie looked at each other. “Crikey mate, where are you from? Don’t you know how”--
“I’m from the Republic. A... refugee.”
“Oh!” They both said.
They were sitting around the camp, next to the big space-age tents which had protected the two LARPers from the fire. They had some kind of sophisticated material in their walls which let heat out, but not in. Tammy had tried to explain it, but Cassie hadn’t got it. Materials tech wasn’t her thing.
Now she looked at the Warlock of Westermere again. It was weird sitting around in their alternative personas. He was a demon. Mostly the same as real life though, except for the lush blue mullet, which was dirty black in the real world. Long, shiny black horns sprouted from the side of his head. They were thinner and less gnarly than her own set. “Um.. Heliocon...”
He rolled his eyes. “Sod it, might as well call me Bruce. It looks like it’s going to stick.”
“Alright, Bruce. Can I ask you something?”
He turned his full attention on her. “Shoot.”
“I’ve seen a lot of refugees from the Republic. It’s not a very nice place, all things considered.” A ethno-fascist hell-hole, she didn’t say. “But most of them are not so...”
“White?”
She blushed. It was a sore spot for her, being from a family of Englishmen and women who could trace their ancestry back to the Norman Conquest. Her mother had made a feature out of a bug, daring people to call her on it. But Cassie had never been able to come to terms with being a part of the biggest minority.
He sighed and shuffled his feet. “Well, I’m not so much a refugee as a fugitive. I got in a bit of trouble back home and had to make a hasty exit. One step ahead of the guillotine, as they say.”
Well, that did make more sense. “What about you Tammy, why are you on punishment detail? I wouldn’t have thought you’d have any trouble getting a spot on a committee.”
The big woman chuckled, but it was kind of an empty laugh. “You know, I grew up round here, my parents were a couple of true-blue, global travelers who got washed up on the Island when things turned to shit. They made a good go of it, but I can’t seem to stick at anything.”
Bruce looked at her over the top of his beer. “Are you sure it isn’t your toxic personality?”
“Ah, piss off mate. People just don’t understand me. I’m deep, you know? People look at me and they see a party girl who likes to work out. A meat head. A bimbo.”
She leaned forward and poked the warlock. “A toxic personality... But I’m fricking smart!”
Bruce snickered. Tammy stood up, muscles tight, fists clenched. “Don’t judge a book by its cover, you drongo. I’ve got these.” She pointed to her gogz. “I can work out and read at the same time you know.”
“You can read?” Bruce was really pushing his luck.
Cassie saw the big woman tense, ready to go for him, but then she controlled herself with a visible effort. “Strewth! You’re lucky I’m sober, you bloody galah. I’d knock you in to next week. Anyway, why am I arguing intelligence with a bloke who looks like he left his brain in the cloud?”
Bruce spluttered, outraged. “I’m a nuclear physicist actually!”
“Really?” Cassie was surprised. He looked like a greasy barfly, at best.
“Honestly. PHD and everything. That’s part of why I’m in this mess.”
At that moment Lou wandered in to the circle of light carrying a bag of supplies. “I found these in a hardened storage shed nearby. We should stock up and then try to head out. I think I’ve got an idea of where we should aim for.”
No one argued with him, though the demon warlock looked put out at not being able to continue his argument.
They packed up the tents and headed out.

EIGHT

Cassie was finding it difficult to walk and argue with Bruce at the same time. His side of the conversation seemed to go off on weird tangents and didn’t seem to make a lot of sense. It didn’t help that the sunrise brought the knowledge that she’d been awake all night.
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law!"
“Huh? Who’s that? Sounds like Ayn Rand...”
“What? No! It’s Crowley! The fundamental axiom of Thelma. Love is the law, love under will.” It was kind of hard to take him seriously too, what with the shaggy goat legs.
“Still sounds like Rand.“
“No, no, no. Not at all. Crowley was a religious libertarian and a powerful occultist. I learned all my magic from reading his works.”
“Wait, are you saying that you’re a real magician?”
“A warlock? Of course!”
“And a nuclear physicist?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
There didn’t seem to be much to say to that.
They had found a kind of track through the devastation. Or at least a path of least resistance.
Lou was up ahead, trying to navigate by memory. Cassie’s bright idea had been for them to keep the gogz on and follow the sim, using a rolled back version, based on the scanned data from before the fire.
Tammy came up next to Cassie, stepping between her and Bruce. “Have you noticed that Lou’s signing doesn’t match up with the text in the sim?”
Cassie was taken aback. “Not really, no. What do you mean?”
“Well, he’s signing in Mandarin, and the sim is translating it in to English, but his language ability is a fair bit lower than the quality of the text we’re getting.”
“So maybe his name is Liu, not Lou?”
Tammy nodded.
Bruce leaned around her. “Wait, back it up a bit. You can read sign language and Mandarin?”
“Told you I was smart, didn’t I, mate?”
He laughed and pointed a finger at her chest. “I call bullshit on that one!”
Tammy launched in to a tirade of fluent Chinese with accompanied signing, ending with a gesture that even Bruce couldn’t mistake. The demon warlock stood with his mouth open.
Cassie laughed. “OK, we believe you. I’m sorry I ever doubted it. But what are you saying; that someone’s manipulating the data, or that he’s not really as intelligent as he seems?”
“No. He’s very smart for an orangutan, like really bloody smart. And the translation is supplied by AI. I think he’s taken advantage of the tech interface to bootstrap his development, to overcome the limits of his speech centers and bridge the gap to higher levels of communication that was previously blocked.”
“Crikey!” Tammy laughed at her borrowing the phrase. It seemed apt. “So what do you think his story is?”
Tammy scratched her head. “Dunno mate. When I was back in Oz, the Chinese were doing some mad shit with gene splicing. Human-animal hybrids and all that. I’d guess he came out of their research program. Reckon the real mystery is how he got here.”
Cassie suspected that the real mystery was why such an obviously smart woman worked so hard at seeming dumb.
Her avatar was wearing a chainmail bikini. It was either some heavy social camouflage or some kind of hidden emotional baggage.
Cassie knew all about the second one.
Lou came waddling back down the track, he could move fast when he wanted to.
“We’ve got a big problem.”
They followed him to where the lush forest of the sim rose to an escarpment, and a sturdy looking bridge crossed a river.
“What’s all the fuss?” Bruce looked impatient to be moving on.
“Take off your gogs.”
They did, and got a bad shock.
The bridge was gone, burned down to its wooden foundations, and the river was running high. Broken logs and trees as well as animal carcasses floated along in the angry water.
Across the river, the opposite bank was mostly untouched. Thick trunks of gene-engineered oaks rose to the sky.
“How are we going to get across there?” Bruce asked.
Lou started signing rapidly. Cassie now knew why it took a moment for the sim to catch up, there was a lot of processing being done on the little bit of hardware represented by their linked minicomps.
“Ook! I don’t have a clue! I’m finding it really difficult to navigate two worlds at the same time.”
Bruce folded his arms. “Aren’t you an orangutan? Don’t you have some kind of, I don’t know... racial affinity with nature?”
“Brrrraaaaaaaaaaapppppp!” The expression from his pouting lips was loud and long. It didn’t need to be translated.
“Strewth, who’s that bloke?” Tammy had her gogz on again and was pointing out over the water. Cassie slipped hers back on and looked where the big barbarian was pointing.
A man was sitting cross legged, floating in mid air. His dark skin was covered with tight muscles and only partly concealed by a pair of skimpy shorts and a colorful cloak which whipped about in the virtual wind. He wore a turban which seemed to be about ninety percent plant matter.
He drifted towards them in the lotus pose.
“Hail friends! Call me Achet, the Druid of the woods.” His dark eyes broadcast serenity, but Cassie thought it was an artifact of the sim. His voice held an edge of worry. “You are welcome to come and join me in my refuge, but you’d better get a move on because a freak storm is brewing over the North Sea and things are about to get ugly.”

NINE

Achet had guided them down stream to another crossing, where they came across a caravan of robomules. The wind had already picked up and big, fat drops of rain had begun to fall.
The mules were carrying provisions, and the group stopped in a clearing to wash some of the caked ash off their bodies and eat and drink.
“I’m sorry friends, but there’s a fair walk ahead of you. It won’t be easy because the fire crossed the river in a few places and caused some damage. You should rest for a short time and try to get ready to move fast.” Achet still floated above the ground. It seemed to be his default pose.
Cassie had a lot of questions for him, but she had to eat. Around a mouthful of bread and emergency insta-stew she asked him one question at a time. Listening and eating, wishing that Bruce would stop interrupting.
“How did you know about the storm? Have you got a coms link back to civilization?”
“I live in a forest shelter, where I oversee the robots which maintain the forest. We have a transmitter and a radio tower, but it’s not got much range with all these trees around. We mostly rely on a mesh of low power wifi nodes throughout the forest. It’s enough to monitor the bots, and to provide connectivity for the sims that our visitors run. We haven’t really got the power to keep a high power antenna going all the time, but we download news reports once a day.”
She drank some cold water and washed down some little blue tabs that Achet said would help with exhaustion. She wasn’t much of a fan of drugs, but Tammy and the demon warlock both downed theirs enthusiastically.
“What started the fire?”
Bruce jumped in on that one. “It was intentional I bet! Some firebug, or careless smoker throwing away a butt. Don’t worry; I’ve already laid black curses on them. They’ll be pissing blood for a week!”
“How does that work? Don’t you need to be able to at least identify the recipient of a curse? Anyway, why am I even arguing this? Surely you don’t really believe in magic?”
Bruce was literally rubbing his hands. This was a subject dear to his heart she could tell.
“Of course I do! Don’t you feel it, all around you? In the dirt and the trees? In the air, fizzing through wireless connections? In the web? So much energy! What if you could channel it to your will?”
“What if? I don’t buy all that mystical energy crap. There’s lots of different types of energy, even if we had amazing psychic powers,”-- She held her fingers to her temples and mimed telepathy. “...how could we be compatible with all of it? Wouldn’t it burn us out? And how do you square your belief in the mystical arts with your role as a scientist?”
Bruce threw up his hands. “I never wanted to be a scientist! I just wanted to play music in my band and study the dark arts. The education was all Dad’s idea.”
“Oh...” Suddenly, Cassie was hit with a strange feeling. She hadn’t expected to have anything in common with such an obvious dickhead. “Tell me about it.”
“He pushed me all the time. Said it was in the family, he had connections and would get me an important job. It didn’t matter that I had no aptitude or enthusiasm for it. He brought in personal tutors, had me on lockdown every weekend.”
“My... my mother was the same.”
“Really? Parents, eh? Wait a minute... now I recognize you!”
Cassie grimaced. Here it comes.
“You’re Rebecca Starling’s daughter aren’t you?”
“Shhhhsh! Keep it down, would you? The others didn’t notice yet and I’m enjoying the anonymity.”
“Wow! I thought I had it bad with the pressure of having a famous father. I can’t imagine what it must be to have a mother who was queen of the Anarchists!”
“She’s not... oh come on, let’s go.” She picked up her new backpack and followed the mules as they waddled out of the clearing.

Tammy was up ahead of the convoy, carrying Lou on her back like a furry rucksack.
Bruce was grinning now. “Yeah, you know what it’s like. The pressure to live up to an ideal. The disappointment when we inevitably fail.”
“Oh god, did I ever fail. My mum was, like you say, unofficial queen of the Island. She doesn’t wield any legal power, but because she was right about so many things, so bloody smart, everyone comes to her for answers. She set policy for the whole community.”
Bruce nodded. “My dad was a hot-shot nuclear engineer and policy maker for the Republic. It was his dream that I would continue his work on their Thorium reactor project. You can’t imagine how upset he was about me wanting to drop out and pursue my music.”
The drones swayed from side to side as their sturdy legs found purchase on the forest path. Tammy had got in to her stride and was way up ahead, probably partly the influence of the little blue pills.
“I can imagine all right. Just like mum. She didn’t want me to have an easy ride. It was important she said, that there was no appearance of favoritism or”-- Air quotes. “’Nepotism’.”
“Ha! Nepotism’s like the eleventh commandment in the Republic. But dad really wanted a student to follow on his work, not just a lazy kid cashing in on his rep.”
“Do you think brilliance is hereditary?”
He looked thoughtful. “No. Well, not directly. I mean, I’m brilliant, just not in the way my father wanted.”
“Me neither. I really screwed up. The pressure was too high. I retreated from my responsibilities... didn’t study as hard as I might because I expected to fail, I guess. Then when it was obvious I wasn’t going to succeed on my own merits, my mother made sure no one would give me a ‘free ride’.” Again the air quotes.
She walked on down the path.
It was painful to talk about this stuff, but somehow it was easier talking to Bruce than even to her only friend.
“What do you mean? She sabotaged you?”
“She wouldn’t see it like that, but yeah. I was frozen out of any important committees. Even after I’d gotten over my teenage meltdown, and was ready to let go of some of my baggage, it was too late. Anyone who tried to include me in anything worth a damn got in to trouble. My only friend is someone who doesn’t care at all what other people think of her. I sit at home all the time, just existing.”
Cassie ducked a low hanging branch and grabbed a hold of one of the mules to keep her footing. The muddy path was becoming wet and slippery.
“Wow, that’s heavy shit. My father was the same. I did everything he asked. I scraped through university on borderline grades and a lot of bribes. But I was completely out of my depth working on the reactor project. He’d get pissed at me all the time because I couldn’t do the job that he’d been doing for thirty years. It was a nightmare.”
Bruce nearly stumbled over a tree root, hidden in the mud. He came up on the other side of the mule and grabbed a strap. “I was terrified I’d make a mistake and get a lot of people killed. Some days, he’d set me busy work. Other times, he’d give me impossible tasks and refuse to let anyone help me. How was I supposed to live up to his ideal when he couldn’t trust me not to screw everything up?”
The sky flashed bright as daylight for an instant. A few seconds later, loud thunder echoed over their heads.

Cassie kept walking. Bruce’s story was a mirror of her own. She reached up to wipe rain water from her chin. It tasted salty. “And yet you’re supposed to be brilliant, so you don’t need any help...”
“Exactly! It was driving me mad. I had to get out from under his shadow. One day I saw my chance to burn my bridges and I took it.”
“What did you do?”
“The Republic’s really big on secrets. Technically everything belongs to the Progressive State, and the state belongs to the oligarchs, which means all the secrets do too. I collected as much forbidden data as I could and headed North.”
The rain was picking up now. Wind was shaking the trees. Cassie had to speak up to be heard. “I think I misjudged you before. That was a very brave thing to do.”
The demon warlock laughed bitterly. “No, it was very selfish of me. I expected to sell the data and enjoy early retirement. But I didn’t realize you guys don’t have money.”
“We have money”--
“No, not pocket money, or trading tokens, or whatever. I mean real, idle rich type money; the kind that buys servants and mansions. The kind that allows you to pay someone else to write your PHD. No one could pay me what I wanted for the secrets I’d risked my life for, so I gave them away, and here I am with nothing to show for the world’s stupidest gamble.”
“Well, at least you’re free now.”
“Yeah, you anarchists have a funny view of what constitutes freedom.”
“You’ve got the basics right? Food, clean water, a room and bog standard healthcare.”
Bruce put his head down and shrugged. He looked embarrassed. “I already had all those in the Republic. And a whole lot more luxury. I wanted the freedom to really be free, you know? Do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.”
Her feeling of kinship was evaporating. “You had those freedoms, but others didn’t. There are a lot of people down in the Republic who don’t even have the freedom to choose their employer, or terms of employment. Indentured servitude, whatever name they give it. How can anyone claim to be free when their freedom comes from other people’s slavery?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m getting it. It’s not easy to change your whole worldview you know. Give me a break, would you?” He had to raise his voice over the sound of rain and wind, but she didn’t detect any anger. He was just finding it difficult to adapt, like he said.
They walked on in to the rapidly worsening storm. No more chance to talk now.

TEN

The meadow was as big as a football field. The track led out in to it, but the torrent of rain had filled the space ankle deep or more and it was impossible to see where the track went after a few meters.
The storm had turned the sky almost black and it was hard to see.
“Bruce, do you think Tammy is OK? She’s looking a bit unsteady...”
“What?” The batteries on their suits had gone dead hours ago and there was no inter-party chat line to talk over. She had to rely on her raw voice, and it was croaky with fatigue. He simply couldn’t hear her over the noise of the storm.
Rain and wind lashed the water of the meadow. The mules had spread out to try and find a path through to the other side.
Up ahead, Tammy was visibly swaying on her feet. Lou was passed out or asleep on her back. A bedraggled form that would be a dead weight.
“Tammy!”
No sign that the big woman had heard her. Cassie used the last of her energy to surge through the water and tried to catch up.
Near the edge of the meadow the water lapped the top of her boots. As she got further out it came up to mid thigh.
Suddenly she stepped in to a rabbit hole and sunk up to her chest. A wave of dirty water washed over her lower face. “Tammy! Watch out!”
She saw the barbarian raise a small flask to her lips, then stumble and disappear.
Cassie struggled to run faster, without dropping in to another hole.
Bruce surged past her, a wake spreading out behind him.
Cassie turned to one of the mules. She searched through its bags and compartments looking for a rope.
She looked over to the others.
There was no sign of them.
Bruce, Tammy and Lou were nowhere to be seen.
She panicked. She began digging deeper in the bags for a rope, anything that might help. If only she could find the right tool, it would fix everything. Gear fell out and splashed in to the dirty water. Rain battered her shoulders like a fire hose. Gusts of wind tried to knock her off her feet.
After a little while she realized that she couldn’t remember what she was looking for. The mule had been emptied of all its equipment and her hands were holding nothing.
She turned around and saw the others over at the far side of the meadow where the path rose up a slope and in to the forest.
Bruce was dragging Tammy and the orangutan up on to the packed earth with the last of his strength.
Cassie gave up on the mule and dropped prone in the water. She simply swam across the meadow to the other side.

The demon warlock, looking like just plain Bruce McKenzie, was sitting in the mud panting with exertion. Lou leaned against a tree, his matted fur making him look like a drowned rat. He peered at them with tired eyes, but didn’t attempt to sign.
Tammy was standing again, but swaying. She was laughing and taking swigs from her flask.
Cassie pulled herself up on to the roadway and watched them.
Bruce struggled to his feet and walked over to the barbarian woman. “Are you pissed!? What were you thinking?”
“Strewth, mate! Don’t get your knickers in a twist. It’s just a little pick me up.” Her words were slurred and her eyes were dark slits. She was drunk and on the verge of exhaustion.
“Couldn’t you wait? We could die out here, and you’ve got to make things harder. You know you drink too damned much!”
Tammy leaned forward and shoved him in the chest. “Nobody tells me what to do! What right do you have to say in what I put in my body?”
“What about Lou? Did you think about him? What about us? We need you, you silly bitch.”
Tammy balled her fists and set her legs apart. “What did you call me?”
“Stupid! I called you silly and stupid and selfish!”
Bruce was slow getting out of the way of her punch, but she was slower still. She over extended and slid on the muddy path. Falling face first, aquaplaning down slope.
She lay there and looked surprised.
Bruce stood where he was and looked down at her. “I bet not many people stand up to you like that. Did you ever meet a problem you couldn’t punch your way out of?”
She sat up and picked up her flask. She was looking at Bruce as she carefully unscrewed the lid and lifted it to drink.
Cassie stepped forward and snatched it away. She drew back her arm and threw it far over the meadow, to land without a mark in the churning water.
“You what now?” Tammy’s eyes smoldered. Her muscles rippled under her dry suit as she struggled up to her feet again.
Bruce stepped close to her, ignoring the danger. He spoke loudly but calmly. His voice just audible over the rain. “Tammy, mate. Your friends recommended you for this program because they care about you. They think you’re an amazing person, but you’re destroying yourself and those around you.”
She grabbed him by one shoulder and drew back a rain slick fist. “You don’t get to tell me how to live, you little shit!”
Bruce raised a hand and snapped his fingers. Tammy dropped like a felled tree.

ELEVEN

It took a while to find Achet.
His building was easy to find. Of all the structures still standing in the abandoned village, it was the only one with glass in the windows. It also had an outsized antenna on the roof.
It had once been a school, and standing under the main entrance waiting for the druid to buzz her in, Cassie was reminded of her youth, before the Chaos and the Surge.
“I see you on my cameras. The drones will take your friend to the infirmary. Why don’t you come on up to my office on the second floor... eh, next to the library. There’s someone here who wants a chat.”
So Cassie had come alone, walking through the empty corridors of the old school and climbing the stairs up to Achet’s sanctuary.
It was so strange, seeing an old building like this. So much had changed on the Island, in terms of design philosophy. How quaint to see carpet! And radiators. There were no indoor plants. The thin walls barely kept out the noise of the storm. How had they lived like this?

Achet lay on an inclined bed. White sheets covered his almost skeletal form.
Large robot arms were arranged next to the bed, different appendages were obviously used for taking care of him. Turning and cleaning the small, dark, twisted body.
Apart from the sound of the storm and the slight motion of his breathing, the room was silent.
Cassie went over to a wall socket and plugged her minicomp in to recharge. It took a moment to find the right adapter, and another few seconds for the machine to collect enough charge to boot up.
For a moment she was worried that it had been ruined by water, but minicomps were designed for apocalyptic scenarios. They were simple, easily repaired machines, and they could take an amazing amount of punishment. People had learned the lesson of the old cloud; a distributed network was not resilient if its individual components weren’t durable.
She slipped on her gogz and the room shifted around her. Now she was in a dryad’s grove. Ancient trees stretched overhead. Vines hung above her head, dangling from the lowest branches. Moss carpeted the ground and little mushrooms peeped up from the soil, waving in a manner that was eerily prehensile.
Achet was hovering, looking at her. Still in his yoga pose.
Sax’s plain Jane avatar was there too, but it was absent controlling intelligence. It went through a cycle of idle poses, wind fluttering its gown and ruffling its black hair.
The druid smiled at her. “You survived your journey?”
“Just about. What is this place, the school I mean? Why aren’t there any people here?”
His body never moved, though his eyes and face were lively enough. Still, it seemed like a procedurally generated pattern of movement, rather than living muscles.
“During the Chaos, many smaller towns and villages were abandoned. People fled to the big cities to find jobs and be near government aid distribution centers. A few people stayed behind, but when the Salisbury flu hit, they didn’t have access to the vaccine. There are a lot of ghost towns like this around.”
Suddenly the Cleric’s face became animated and life returned to the limbs. Saxifrage flowed in to the construct like water. “Cassie! You’re OK!”
“Yes, mostly. Are you alright Sax? How are things on the Island?”
“It’s pretty mad here right now. The storm surge was brutal, the worst I’ve seen in fifteen years. One of the older wind turbines fell down and the funicular that runs on the South Bridge got stuck and nearly went in to the sea. A few greenhouses caved in or nearly blew away. Lots of broken windows, lost solar tiles... but it looks like we’re going to come through it OK. Not one death, so far. We built for resilience, not beauty.”
Achet turned to Sax. “The forest suffered a double blow. A fire started near the border with the Republic. We suspect it was caused by illegal logging. It looks like a diplomatic incident. Then the flooding caused by the storm will have created its own problems. It’s going to take a lot of work to clear up the damage that’s been done.”
Cassie took her opportunity. “Achet, I’d like to stay on and help.”
“Of course, an extra pair of hands is always welcome.“
That sounded good to Cassie. To just be useful. An extra pair of hands, no pressure. No destiny.
Just what she was looking for.
“What’s this?” Sax interrupted. “You hate the outdoors.”
Cassie weighed her words. She didn’t want to upset her friend, but no matter what she said, it would hurt. “I’ve never been to the forest before. Even when it was trying to kill me, it was beautiful, and terrible and so great. I love it.”
“What are you talking about? We spent lots of time walking the coast, or picnicking in the groves on the island. You hated it.”
Cassie shrugged. “It wasn’t the same. Those were nice, but they were gardens. I saw out here the raw state of nature, and it was awesome. Sublime even. And in all my life, this is the first time I’ve gotten out from under my mother’s shadow. I could stay here and just be me. Not my mother’s daughter.”
“Ugh. Yeah, I can see how that would be appealing. So you’re not coming back then? You’re going to leave me all alone?”
“You’re not alone, Sax. There are plenty of people who would be your friend, if you let them. Besides, you can come visit me anytime in the sim. Just like this.”
Sax reached out and took her hand. The gloves of the haptic feedback suit modeled her touch, roughly enough. “Is it the same?”
“No, of course not. But it’s not far. I can come back to visit in the flesh, then I have time.”
Sax stepped back, physically putting distance between them. It made Cassie sad. “Well, it’s a big decision. Think about it some before you commit to it.”
“I will Sax, don’t worry. There’s still a few loose ends. I’m not sure how this is going to turn out yet, but it feels right to me.”
They hugged, the haptics tingling briefly, and then Sax abandoned her possession of the Cleric persona again. She was busy in real life, lots of work to do and so on.
Cassie wondered if she would stay in touch, or whether she would cut her off entirely, like cauterizing the stump of an amputated leg. Sax could be kind and oh-so-cruel sometimes. She’s seen her do it before, but she couldn’t hate her for it. Everyone had flaws.
Thinking of flaws...
“Achet, I have to go and see the others. I’ll come and talk with you afterwards.”
“No problem. If you need anything, just talk to the bots. They are my eyes and ears around here.”

TWELVE

"Ugh! What happened?”
“I mesmerized you.”
“What? When?”
“Over the last few days, we’ve been trekking around this jungle together day and night, and you might have noticed me chanting and mumbling to myself.”
Tammy and Bruce were sitting on opposite beds in the small infirmary. They had stripped off their filthy dry suits and were just wearing inner wear. Cassie had seen Lou wondering around out in the halls. He told her he was looking for nesting materials. He was planning on having a long sleep in the warm and dry.
Now she stood in the doorway, watching the two misfits work out their differences.
Tammy patted her hip, looking for her flask. She gave up and returned her attention to Bruce. She looked more confused than angry.
“I thought that was part of your black magic bullshit.”
“No, it’s real magic. I laid a suggestion on you, because”--
“Shitting hell!”
She shook her head and stared daggers at him. “I feel like I’ve been violated. That was an act of violence against me”--
“Yeah? And trying to punch my lights out was a totally non-violent solution to a conflict situation was it?”
“That’s different! I wasn’t putting you under my control. I wasn’t taking away your agency.”
Bruce shrugged. “In a way, you totally were. You were using violence to get your own way. After you beat me unconscious what would you have done with me next?”
“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. Strewth, I would have just given you a bit of a tap, to make you see sense. I wouldn’t have done anything... But you? I was completely under your power. You could have knocked me out at any time and done whatever your twisted desires”--
“That’s simply not true! Just because I’m a man and you’re a woman, you construct this”--
“I’m not”--
“Stupid bitch!”
Tammy went rigid. The air was charged with barely suppressed rage.
Cassie could almost taste the negative energy on the tip of her tongue, like static electricity.
She stood up from the bed and walked slowly towards Bruce.
He raised his hand in the air, ready to snap.
She stopped, looking at his hand. “If you try it, I’ll rip your fingers off and shove them up your arse for you.”
“Calm down, I’m making a point.” He lowered his hand and she stood unmoving, facing him from arms length.
He pulled his legs up on to the bed and made himself comfortable. “Hypnosis can’t make a man kill his wife, unless he already wants to kill her. It can’t make someone quit drinking, unless they really want to. If I click my fingers now, and you still want to beat me to a pulp, it won’t do anything.”
Tammy reached up and rubbed her chin, thinking. “But it worked before, outside.”
“Yes, because a part of you didn’t want to fight. You just wanted to lie down and give up. You’ve been fighting your whole life, pushing people away, putting up this false front to stop anyone getting near you.”
She leaned forward menacingly. “Rack off, you bloody bogan. You don’t know me!”
“I know your story. I saw it all the time in the refugee camps; people who had been through some bad shit when they were younger and hardened up. Tell me nothing bad happened”--
“Shut your pie hole! I’m warning you!”
Her arms were outstretched, reaching for him. There was real fury in her eyes.
In an almost suicidal move, he raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
Nothing happened.
Cassie was almost ready to jump in and try to stop them from killing each other. But something had changed in Tammy’s face.
“Oh, it was true then.
I let you do it.”
Sweat rolled off Bruce’s brow. For all his devil-may-care attitude, it was clear that even he knew he’d been playing a high stakes game. “That’s the nature of magic; I can’t hurt someone who doesn’t want to be hurt. I can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.”
Tammy walked back to her bed and sat down. She was frowning. “My... friend who brought me here, for the excursion. You saw her, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. She had a black eye and her arm was in a cast. She looked terrified of you, or for you.”
Tammy scrunched up her eyes and rubbed her face. She sighed and put her hands on her lap. “That was me. But it wasn’t me. I was drunk, you see.”
“Oh shut up.”
Tammy blinked, surprised.
“If you want to get a hold of yourself and make something that isn’t broken, the first thing you’ve got to accept is that the drunk you and the sober you are not different people. You are guilty of any crimes of indiscretions you commit, whether you’re drunk or high or just angry.”
Tammy’s façade cracked then, just a little. Her voice, when it came out wasn’t loud and brash. It was soft and remorseful. Even her accent seemed less intense, less practiced. “You’re not wrong. It’s true. I got drunk. I got angry and I beat her black and blue. It was me. All me. I love her, but she’s scared to be around me, and I don’t blame her one bit.”
Bruce came and sat next to her on the bed. “Maybe I can help. Maybe not. I’m not making any promises. It’s all up to you. If you want to change, you will. If not, there’s nothing I can do to force you.”

Cassie waited for a while then coughed. The two on the bed turned their heads to face her. Tammy looked guilty. Bruce looked thoughtful.
The big barbarian woman rubbed a tear from her eye. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough. I’m sorry, I should have said”--
“No, it’s alright. We had some stuff to work through. It’s... OK now. Getting better.”
“That’s good.”
The three of them smiled.
Cassie shuffled her feet; nervous. “Listen, I’m thinking of putting together a working group. I’m going to stick around here and help clean up and...”
Bruce grinned. “And you could use a couple of screw ups to help? Count me in. I’ll give it a shot. How about you Tammy?”
The big woman shrugged. “Yeah, alright don’t look too smug about it. I’m not ready to go back to my life just yet. I need a bit of time to find myself. Maybe this could be a good place to do that.”
Cassie felt Lou push past her and in to the room. He was dragging a dusty bean bag with ‘library’ stenciled on the side.
“Ook?” He grinned at them, then lay down and was almost instantly asleep.