Seeds - One

Part 1

Reince often wondered if some of the fables were true, that the world had been different once. He did so now as he looked out over the forest canopy, the tall sentinels thrived like weeds shedding the soil souring needles. As if some pernicious force had seeded them to displace the humans of old. Some forty miles to the south from the foot of the hill there was an old city, said to have housed millions. Millions, such a number, thought Reince idly kicking his heels against the outcropping stone upon which he sat. Though the terrain was different there, less claustrophobic, it also resisted edible crops.

The slope of the hill fell sharply away below him, disappearing quickly behind the trees. The tenuous safety of the trade route to the city was guarded over by the peoples of the Camp. It was also his occupation to ensure the flow of new materials by hunting any that menaced the peace of the road.

The sun fell weakly behind the endless wall of Needle Trees. If not for the vomit orange reflections from the carpet of rotting needles one would not be able to infer its presence in the late autumn chill. The deep dull khaki hues were mimicked by his layers of camouflaged netting, worn about the shoulders like a cloak. Brown leather gloves, stained green and bulging with the cloth mittens he wore underneath, dug around in the pockets harnessed tightly around his chest. He found the Gopi-stove tucked away at his side, but the gloves forced very deliberate movement in removing the flat black box from the recesses of his gear. With care, he turned the dull surface around until the LED display faced him upside down. One hand turned it at an angle, and the other hand clenched it deliberately and turned the display right-side-up. He squinted at the dull digital letters, eighty-one percent pressure. He'd bought it from Trade Camp's commissary.

The engineer at Trade Camp had tilted his head back from the ranger, who seemed like a walking Stunt-tree. The acidic stench of rotting needles wafting from the ranger further deepened this impression. 'How's it work?' Reince had asked, scrutinizing the box. He had stood before the man in his full deep-range gear, all of it stained green and dull orange hues, with finger thick needles woven into the layers of foliage impersonating netting. 'Separation phenomena and atomic locking,' the engineer had replied. The walking tree had stared back. 'Gopi-particles have locked relative positions on the atomic scale,' the man had said pinching his nose and taking Reince's tokens, 'Vibration splits the particles, causing the structure to compress itself, it's a bit like shaking a bowl of sand and the larger particles separate to the top. Then when you turn the stove on, fwhoop, all the particles snap back to their original positions. This allows immense pressures to build up and energy is generated from the pressure transfers between the Gopi-balls.'. Reince had said, 'So, shake it?'. The engineer had shaken his head, 'Just carry the thing or turn the crank.'

It had quickly become his favorite piece of kit. As far as he could tell, the intense need to build fires against the colds of the deep forest was the leading cause of death among the rangers. The smoke, stench or light of habitual campfires would almost inevitably draw attention; in which case, a simple death would be the best outcome. Twice a day, he could warm food and boil water for tea. It made deep-range work infinitely more comfortable.

Unclasping the cloak, he let it fall around him like a wilted Stunt-tree. The tight harness around his chest was saturated with pockets; everything had to be wrapped or otherwise separated to prevent noise. Careless packing of kit was the second most common cause for a ranger to disappear, he believed. The boiling tin fit snugly behind his left arm; he unclipped its pocket and slid it out. He stored two rubber cups in it, but the cannister was empty. Gently he placed the Gopi-Stove beside him on the stone.

He swung round; two boulders leaned against each other forming a canopy at his back. He had had to dig through the soil above and climb through the boulders to reach the ledge. He saw nothing in the white twilight. He closed his eyes, listening; the cracking complaints of ancient rheumatic wood formed the ambience of his existence. Far away voices from the trade route to the plains city came from his left, he forced it away and found a slight rustling from below and to the right. Ranger Reince yanked his legs up, rolling backward over his head and coming up in a low crouch, he crawled to the ledge and peered over. A Stunt-tree nestled against a thirty-foot Needle Tree spearing out above the others. Reince grabbed the empty boiling tin, stood and lugged it at the porcupine-like Stunt-tree. It clanged as it connected with something hard in the apparent needle bush. It stirred unnaturally.

'Oi! Where's the cups?' he called down.

The Stunt-tree doubled in height and halved in circumference. It picked up the cannister and walked towards the ledge. 'In the tea pocket,' a high girlish voice called back.

Reince checked. The rubber cups were snugly bent around the teabags. He heard a stone clatter below. 'Can't climb it,' he said peering over the edge, 'there's an old mudslide a way to your right, follow the stone until you see it. Use the roots to climb, don't trust the needles for footing, it's all fresh covering. There's a hole above me you got to climb into to get in here.'

She broke out in a silent jog and disappeared from sight as the evening air congealed to fog. Reince laid out his cloak beneath the overhanging boulders. He sat on the edge of his bed, tugging off his boots and standing them neatly together. Releasing a series of rubberized catches, he breathed relief as the weight of the harness lifted off his sore shoulders and his supply stores sagged. He dragged the harness into his lap and methodically checked each of two dozen distinct pockets, measuring the depleted stores against the inventory in his head. Compression cannisters for his long-barreled bolt-gun, the remainder of the canned foods and water, the luxuries like the tea and sugar were accounted for. The gun was of basic design, a hardy polymer grip hugging a rifled barrel with a simple hand feed mechanism and a trigger. Cannisters screwed in behind the trigger and could grant anywhere between ten and forty kill shots, depending on use and compression. He checked the assortment of blades hidden on his person.

The girl landed behind him with a rustle, he didn't look back. 'Should I make the tea?' she whispered, approaching in a crouch.

'No, check your kit.'. he put the harness beside his boots then took the tea-cannister from her. Shifting to the ledge, he sat cross-legged and turned on the Gopi-Stove, leaning towards the harness for tea bags, sugar packs and two bottles of water, which he poured and set to boil on the plate.

The girl threw open her camouflage cloak beside his, folding the edges in for lack of space. She carried much less weight than he and soon crawled up beside him for heat. With her slender legs folded together beneath her she nudged him. 'I stink,' Reince warned, lifting his arm. She draped herself across his thigh as if they were neighboring puzzle pieces, resting her head against his stomach. He pulled her hood back, revealing her multichroic hair, she seemed impossibly fragile in the fading light; the slender face looking up at him was dominated by large light eyes and a smile so wide her teeth seemed to split her head in half. Luri gave no reply, impossibly managing to out laze the laziest of cats, like a wet rag slung over his leg.

Reince turned on the single LED light in his shirt pocket, handing the tiny plastic cube to Luri. She held it over the softly boiling tin. The steam rising from it was infinitely thinner than the roiling mists that oozed ochre across the land, pressing in darkly, shrinking the world around them as if only they existed in the weak and sterile white light of their lamp. He dropped the bags into the cups, placed them on the stone beside the stove and poured just enough sugar in both to break the bitterness of the tea. 'You're awful quiet. Usually, you're talking my ear off as soon as we're inside perimeter,' he murmured, pouring the water. A clean earthy aroma supplanted the stinging acid reek of rotting needles. The mild earthen taste was pallet cleansing and somehow reminded him of fertile soil, fresh and alive.

Her head moved against his belly, then resettled. 'One hundred and fifty-three.' Luri answered, strangely pensive. She seemed, always to be counting and like her changing hair color, he suspected it stemmed from her means of conception. 'One-fifty-three what?' he asked as she took the cup. 'Deep-Ranges,' she answered, 'That's how many.'

He had no doubt that she was correct, but the number surprised him, 'You've outlasted the others by a fair bit.' He leaned his elbow on his unoccupied left knee, resting the cup on her waist with his right hand.

'One thousand two hundred; I lost some days.'

Reince counted in his head, just over three years. He took another sip, listening to the world hidden behind the misty curtain as much as he did to her.

'Three hundred ninety-six days in the box before that. Four and a half years since my incubation.'

Surprised, he looked down at her, 'What's churning in your head, Luri?'. He felt her tense under him.

'Nothing,' she said lamely.

'You're thinking about the Grow Camp offer.'

'No,' she lied. The silence hung like the fog.

'We've beef, rice and mixed veg left. I'll open all three,' he said eventually, hoping to lighten her mood. Peeling open the cans he arranged them on the Gopi-stove to heat. The teabags went into a plastic sachet and back to the harness for use in the morning. He rinsed out the rubber cups, tossing the drops of water into the ether. When the food had warmed, he ladled it out with a plastic spoon until both cups brimmed, a luxurious amount. She pushed herself up against him in a half sitting position, wolfing the food down. His stomach growled, eliciting a slight impetuous wiggle of protest from her. The plain warmth of the bland food was a heavenly pleasure that his body thanked him for. Starvation is the best spice, he thought, enjoying the girl's own enthusiasm. 'Slow down,' he cautioned them both.

Two weeks of disciplined hypervigilance wore the mind down slow, imperceptibly, and always seemed to crash down upon the body, taking its toll once the pressure is released. In the first year, he would be annoyed by her prattling at this point, but he'd grown accustomed to it, and now, missed the comforting familiarity of it. With his own food warming his belly, he noticed she'd stopped eating and was staring off at the glimpses of trees as dark outlines in the mist before them. He hoped to prompt her, 'We'll sleep until the sun is out. Find the road and be back in Trade Camp by mid-morning.'. The top of her head turned to listen to him. He shifted to lean against the stone to his left, dragging her back into her half lounging posture. His calloused finger circled her forehead but found no fever, 'You sick?'.

She shook her head no, 'Ten thousand and seventy-six.'

'What are we counting?'

'The times I was fucked in the box. Average of eight hundred and forty per month. Two hundred and ten per week. Thirty times a day. Five thousand oral, the rest...'

'You counted all that?' he asked, surprised.

'There's a counter in the box. The numbers were like the stove's but its like looking at your hand in water. One token for oral, two vaginal and three anal. Clink, clink, clink; then you're open for five minutes. After, comes the hose and the cold water swelling your guts. You wait for the tap on the ass to shit cum and water, then everything goes quiet again. And the counter ticks up. The box talks to you, it's in your head; if you don't perform, there's this burning electricity making you squeeze or relax. I think that's how they work the broken girls, ya know. If you, do it yourself, the box rewards you with food and aphrodisiacs.'

Reince was stunned. He prodded gently, 'You've never mentioned any of this before.'

'That day, the box opened. There were two other girls. You remember?' Reince didn't but he squeezed her small thigh in answer. 'The other two girls were taller, stronger. He'll never choose me, I thought, I'm the runt. But here I am, counting days and missions instead. I killed my forty fifth man yesterday; the other two girls, if they're not worn out or dead, will be past forty thousand fucks by now, but not me, I am helping. You know how many cocks I've sucked since?' Confused, he blinked. 'A few dozen,' she said, failing to sound playful, 'But yours, is the one I care about. Counting days is better.'. She went quiet.

He found the crescent moon hidden behind the white veil, creeping on its climb towards the zenith, he pointed it out to her. They perked up as distant rifle shots came to them from the road, far below at the foot of the mountains. There followed a series of booming return fire, the impression of men shouting. But it died down as suddenly as it had started. 'That sound like Bannon's rifle?' Reince asked.

Her head nodded but she remained quiet. 'You don't like this life?' he asked finally, hoping to penetrate her moroseness.

'One day I'll miss something, someone out there will...'

'Get the upper hand?'

'Hmm mmm. Ricochet almost got you twice on this range. I-', her weight shifted as she wiped her nose with her small fist, 'If you- if you die, then I do too. If I die, ok. But I think about some other incubate or girl with you out there. I... can't take it.'

Reince frowned, 'I focus on staying alive. The rest, that's consequence you take on to get on.'

Luri wouldn't speak again, she just went limp across his right thigh, using the left as a pillow. Reince lay against the rock wall following the crescent ascent. Another booming shot carried to them, followed by silence. Reince stroked her hair idly in the dim camp light.

'First time I saw you, you were in that cage they let you walk about in.'. Luri stared up at him wide-eyed. 'I asked about you and they said you'd been batch incubated at Grow Camp to fill empty boxes; imprinted and the computer considered you an easy inmate. The world breaks most people and there you were; bright eyed and intensely interested in the goings on outside the cage.'

'And the other two?'

'Didn't ask to see them,' Reince shook his head, 'I went to get you.'. She blinked rapidly, her lips shifting and undulating confusedly like a distressed snake. The light shifted across her face like a spotlight, then twirled in her hands, coloring her light hair in neon hues of purples, blues and greens. It went dark except for the moonlight sagging through the fog. Reince grunted as an elbow dug into his thigh, Luri twisting her body round to him. His belt seemed to unfasten itself and his member was dug out, dangling over his pants. Reince closed his eyes, exhaling deeply as he was engulfed in warmness.

His arousal grew with the gentle ministrations. The clinking of her belt, the rhythmic rustling from her own pants. Reince's fingers drifted over the slender arm until he found her wrist and pulled it away. Digging through her clothes, he found the moist, almost dripping hole crested with her large clit. His hand rested on her pubic mound, his middle finger entering the almost scalding heat of her arousal. He mirrored her movements, sighing as she worked him up towards a nadir but never pushing him over the last hurdle, just keeping him there; he followed her lead, absently curling his calloused finger over her arousal, careful and intimately attuned to the signals her body sent. The moon had crept a long way into the sky before she swallowed him as deep as the angle allowed, sucking furiously. Synchronous, his own efforts increased, trapping the protruding clit in the cushions of his index and middle fingers below the knuckle, using his thumb to rapidly compress and stimulate the stone hard button. It was like a competition to see who could break the other's concentration; but he lost, like always. His orgasm was hard, almost painful in intensity and she knew how to keep him there, extending it until he shivered uncomfortably, his knee rising and shaking involuntarily and his eyes clenched shut. Then he felt her shiver violently in his grip, squirting juices erupting around his finger, drenching his hand and her clothes. Both collapsed, breathing raggedly and satiated.

She swallowed noisily, releasing him with a pop of her lips and a pleased giggle. Reince didn't say much, just nudged her to sit up. Blindly, he collected the stove and the remains of their meal by touch, then crawled onto his cloak and lay on his back. In moments she was beside him, covering them both with hers. They lay in the dark, she toyed unmindfully with his testicles as their shared heat filled their pocket of the world. Her head rested on his shoulder; a leg slung across his thigh. In moments, her movements ceased, her breathing deepened to a restful slumber.

Ranger Reince lay there thinking about the offer from Grow Camp. The general's letter had offered him a house, a quota of incubates and that the manufacturing division would produce whatever equipment he could need. He would be given a command of sorts, but the letter only cryptically referred to the proposed mission's objectives. Luri's mind was focused on the idea that they could escape the never ending deep-ranges; stay in place, warm, comfortable, safe. They wouldn't have to carry their lives on their persons. He couldn't range without an expendable companion and she'd been the first one to reach the six-month mark, then the year mark, another year and another, and now they were into the fourth. She had learnt, was still learning, with an almost slavish attention to detail, often putting him to shame. He wasn't ashamed to admit to himself that the incubate had become more than just a pleasant companion; she'd become a partner, not expendable but indispensable. In a different life she might have been a ranger in her own right, incubates were tools to be used and discarded. Should he accept the offer, his freedom would disappear and the peoples of the Camp would forever lock them both into their assumed roles. Out here, she was something.

Maybe she was right, he had tokens stored up at Trade Bank. They could live comfortably for a while, go on hiatus. Bannon or one of the plain walking rangers could range the west for a year or two. Many rangers envied the deep-range pay and at least a few would welcome the work if it was understood to be temporary.

Something had woken him. He half dozed, listening. Heard nothing. Then the boom of the rifle sounded again, was it closer or just the echo? His limbs were heavy with the last few weeks and protested mightily at the very thought of moving. The girl huffed fitfully in her sleep as he disentangled himself from her and awkwardly slipped from the comfortable oven of their shared heat. His legs were leaden and seemed several beats behind the messages his brain sent. Sharp pains needled his shoulders along the harness lines as he shuffled to the ledge.

Reince pissed into the fog. Yawning and eager to crawl back into the oven, he watched the stream dwindle then shook himself off. Again, he heard the thick percussive echo higher up the slope, closer. Worriedly he sought the moon in the sky, he found it low and to the west now. The sun was not long and whatever trouble there had been the previous evening, strangely, still continued. Where, he wondered, were the Camp guards patrolling the road? There should be three outposts within hearing range of the fighting. Beneath the dull rustling of needles and cracking of old wood, he heard a click. Frowning, he closed his eyes. The first click was answered from nearby. Reince fell into a crouch.