Ghost in the machine

All alone...

There is a voice in her head. Another voice. Quieter and calmer than her own, although she is becoming award that it is just as much hers as the one with which she talks to herself. It doesn't feel despair, or self pity, or fear. It is concerned only with her continuity, with analysing the present to predict the future. It has no patience with feelings, and considers emotions to be prehistoric chemical pathways that serve only to waste time and induce erroneous action. And there, in that place, wasted time and mistakes will be her end.

She takes a deep breath, wipes her eyes and begins to listen.

She has two options. To walk or to wait. Walk two hundred and thirty six kilometers back to the pods. Or wait for her captors or her pursuers to return.

Whichever she chooses, she needs water, food, footwear and clothing. She needs these things urgently, or she will die very soon.

Footwear knows where to find, and the rest she figure might lie amongst the debris of the battle. She does not want to, but the voice insists that she look.
She stands and reaches over the edge of the hole to grab the boots. At first there seems to be no way to separate them from their grizly contents, but she finds that a thin rib running up the inner side of the boot, from ankle to cuff, opens like a microscopic zipper when she pulls either side as though trying to rip it open. The boots are three centimetres too large, but she feels the fabric adjusting to her feet, shrinking to fit. The boots are light, like a second skin, and appear to be both breathable and waterproof.

The flying machine is of a technolgy vastly superior to that of the quads. Perhaps, the voice muses, it can communicate with the beacons? She already knows her location, she might request a map on which to put it. She might ask for a route, one to somewhere closer than the pods, or even help from the people with whom she belongs. The beacons will know what she should do. And, most important of all, they will tell her who she is and from where she comes.

She stands to test the boots and discovers that the fabic and sole adapt to her movements, stiffening to offer support or softening to become more supple. They are still too large, but they're cool and comfortable and infinitely better than walking barefoot over the scorching sand and rocks.

The plastic binding her wrists proves impossible to break with her teeth. She needs a blade. Or some severed metal. That would serve just as well, and there is plenty of that.

She hops out of the hole and creeps over to the downed machine, any fear of discovery eclipsed by the despertion with which she desires to find answers to the million questions tumbling around in her head.

With a swift tug she parts the plastic on a jagged spike protruding from the torn flank of the machine. As an afterthought, she snaps off the spike and puts it in the pocket of her coat, surprising herself with her strength. Then she climbs into the belly of the metal carcass.

Inside, the machine is sparse. It seems not to have been built with human comfort in mind, and there are no visible devices of any kind. No words or symbols or objects that jog her memory. Behind a panel marked with letters she understands to mean 'Emergency', she finds a pack with six half-litre sachets marked 'Electrolyte' and four tubes containing 'Rations'. She tears open one of the electrolytes and gulps it down, then tries one of the tubes that she discovers is an edible paste, one thousand tasteless calories.

She lays out the other items. Two one-litre sachets marked with a red cross containing what appears to be blood. A paste that, when aplied to the cuts and burns on her legs and face dries to form artificial skin, and auto-injectors whose functions seem to be to rid the body of pathogens or boost cardiovascular activity. There is also a small globe surrounded by a wire mesh that fits perfectly in her hand. She has no idea what that does, though the voice identifies the mesh as a possible Faraday cage, meaning it is designed to be unaffected by electromagnetic radiation. It might be some sort of electronic device to be used in emergencies. She decides to keep it.

Given the heat she has experienced and the rate at which her body has dehydrated, if she rests by day and walks at night, the electrolyte will provide her with forty-eight hours of normal function. She gazes out over the riverbed and estimates that she could cover a hundred kilometers before muscle cramps and confusion render her body ineffective. Two hundred, if the other downed machine contains the same supplies. Enough to reach the fallen pods? Perhaps. But probably not.

A quad could get her there in two or three hours. Even depleted, if she only gets another half an hour out of it before it dies, she could put the pods within a day's walk. She's never driven one, but how hard can it be? 

She shoulders the pack and slithers down the slope, retracing her steps from memory. The hole in the bank is empty and the quad is gone. The source of that fading column of dust on the horizon, now nearly ten kilometers to the northeast.

She finds the cover the woman used to camouflage the quad's hiding place when she steps on it. It's difficult to see, more like a film or skin than the canvas she'd imagined, and once spread out on the ground some five metres square and so fine that, rolled up tight, it would fit neatly into a pocket. When she presses it against the rocks on the ground, or even her leg, it moulds itself to that surface, taking on both its texture and colours. The patterns repeat over any area not in contact with a surface creating an illusion that, although flawed, is difficult to distinguish beyond a few metres. Almost transparent when close to the eye, its outer surface reflects the sun's heat whilst the inner absorbs and disperses it. Meaning a warm body could hide in plain sight. A person could see without being seen. She rolls it up and stuffs it in the pack. It will serve as both a hide and a shelter.

No sooner does she step out onto the riverbed towards the second machine, than she hears the faint hiss of a flying machine. She drops to a crouch and freezes, scanning the terrain for somewhere to hide. The quad's hole is the first place that comes to mind, but the tracks leading from it glare out like signposts advertising its presence. It would be the first place anyone would look. She settles for a shallow gulley cut by running water into the shaded slope of the riverbank. Squeezed inside and wrapped in the cloak she can lie back and watch the riverbed.

As she'd expected, the machine, a hummer the man called it, is indeed almost impossible to locate with the naked eye. It has no heat signature she can discern, but when it comes within a kilometer she can track its zigzagging approach from the west by concentrating on the soft hiss made by its rotors and the slight changes to the air temperature above and below. It's searching for something. For her? It seems likely. She considers standing up and calling out, then remembers the crimson stains smeared over the battlefield and remains still.

Afraid to move and afraid not to, she waits, slowly roasting in her own body heat. The machine is skittish. It has seen its two colleagues brought down and it flies quickly, avoiding remaining in one place for more than a fraction of a second, and never following any predictable pattern.

Sweat's trickling down her back, soaking into her jacket. Her thighs are sticking to the earth. After what feels like an age, the machine reaches the wreckage of its colleague and circles, spiralling backwards and forwards as it scans the battlefield for signs of life. Finding none, it flies parallel to the riverbank, on a course that will bring it directly over her head. She holds her breath and remains still, afraid that the machine will hear the thudding of her heart.

At two hundred metres, right above the foxhole in which she had hidden with the woman, a figure leaps from the belly of the machine. A human figure, a man, made of flesh and bone. Her heart jumps. He'll die. It's to high and too fast, she thinks, watching in awe as he falls at least four times his own height with a horizontal velocity in excess of fifty kilometers an hour. He lands with ease, rolling once before regaining his feet and moving along the rim of the riverbank with inhuman speed and grace. Directly towards the foxhole in which she and the woman had hidden. They know she's there.