She kept the fruit but handed the roots back. Perry returned to the fire, too stunned to be offended. No one handed food back.
“The fire won’t burn into these trees,” he said when she didn’t join him. She was inspecting each piece of fruit before she ate it. “It won’t burn like that night.”
“I just don’t like it,” she said.
“You’ll change your mind when the cold sets in.”
Perry ate his own meager dinner. He wished he’d taken time to hunt. Probably wouldn’t have worked even if he had. Her constant blather had scared off game. Nearly scared him off too. He’d need to find food tomorrow. They’d eaten almost everything he’d brought from the cave.
“The boy who was taken,” she said. “Is he your son?”
“How old do you think I am, Dweller?”
“I’m a little shaky on the fossil record, but I’d say fifty to sixty thousand years.”
“Eighteen. And no. He’s not my son.”
“I’m seventeen.” She cleared her throat. “You don’t look eighteen,” she said after a few moments. “I mean, you do and you don’t.”
Perry figured she was waiting for him to ask why. He didn’t care.
“I’m feeling fine, by the way. I have a headache that won’t go away and my feet hurt like mad. But I think I’ll live to see another day. I can’t be sure, though. The stories say diseases can creep up quietly.”
Perry bit down into his teeth, thinking of Talon and Mila. Was he supposed to feel sorry for her because she might fall ill? He couldn’t imagine a life without disease or illness. He took the two blankets from his bag. Sleep would bring morning and morning would bring him closer to reaching Marron.
“Why do you avoid looking at me?” she asked. “Because I’m a Dweller? Are we ugly to Outsiders?”
“Which question do you want me to answer first?”
“It doesn’t matter. You won’t answer anyway. You don’t answer questions.”
“You don’t stop asking them.”
“See what I mean? You avoid answering and you avoid looking. You’re an avoider.”
Perry flung the blanket at her. She hadn’t been ready. It hit her on the face. “You’re not.”
She snatched it away, shooting him a fierce look. Perry could see her perfectly, though she sat beyond the circle of firelight.
In the cover of darkness, he let the corner of his mouth lift.
Hours later he woke to the sound of singing. Quiet words, sung in a language he didn’t know, but that seemed familiar. He’d never heard a voice like that. So clear and rich. He thought he might still be dreaming until he saw the girl. She’d moved closer to the fire. To him. She hugged her legs as she rocked back and forth. He caught the salty tang of tears in the air, and a cold slash of fear.
“Aria,” Perry said. He surprised himself by using her name. He decided it suited her. There was a curious sound about it. Like her very name was a question. “What is it?”
“I saw Soren. The one from the fire that night.”
Perry jumped to his feet and searched into the fog. He’d never liked fog. It robbed him of one of his Senses, but he still had the other, his strongest. He breathed in deeply, careful to keep his movements subtle. Her fear wove with the woodsmoke, but there were no other Dweller scents.
“You dreamed it. There’s no one here except us.”
“We don’t dream,” she said.
Perry frowned but decided not to mull over the strangeness of that now. “There’s no trace of him here.”
“I saw him,” she said. “It felt real. It felt just like being with him in a Realm.” She brushed the blanket over her wet cheeks. “I couldn’t get away from him again.”
Now he didn’t know what to do. If she were his sister or Brooke, he would have held her. He thought about telling her he’d keep her safe, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. He would protect her. But only as long as it took to get Talon back.
“Could it have been a message through your eyepiece?” he asked.
“No,” she said firmly. “It’s still not working. But the strange thing is, I saw what I recorded that night. I recorded Soren when he was . . . attacking me.” She cleared her throat. “And that’s what I saw. It’s like my mind played the recording back on its own.”
That was called a dream, but Perry wasn’t going to argue over it. “Is that why the Dwellers want it back? Because of the recording?”
She hesitated and then nodded. “Yes. It could ruin both Soren and his father.”
He ran a hand over his hair. Now he understood why the Dwellers wanted the eyepiece. Had they taken Talon as barter? “So we have leverage?”
“If we can fix the Smarteye.”
Perry exhaled slowly, feeling a surge of hope. He’d been prepared to surrender himself to the Dwellers in exchange for Talon. Maybe he wouldn’t have to. If the Dwellers wanted that eyepiece badly enough, it might be enough to get Talon back.
The girl’s temper was beginning to ease. He threw on a fresh piece of wood and sat on the far side of the fire. He couldn’t avoid looking at the eyepiece on her face now. “Why do you wear that thing if it’s broken?” he asked.
“It’s part of me. It’s how we see the Realms.”
He had no idea what Realms were. He didn’t even know what to ask about them.
“Realms are virtual places,” she said. “Created with computer programming.”
He picked up a stick and poked at the embers. She’d explained without him asking. Like she knew he had no idea. That streaked him a bit, but she kept talking so he listened.
“They’re places as real as this is. If my Smarteye was working, I could go to any part of the world and beyond too, from right here. Without going anywhere. There are Realms for times that have passed. Last year the Medieval Realms were champ. You’d be great in one of those. And then there are Fantasy Realms and Future Realms. Realms for hobbies and any kind of interest you can think of.”
“So . . . it’s like watching a video?” He’d seen those at Marron’s. Images like memories playing out on a screen.
“No, that’s only a visual. The Realms are multidimensional. If you go to a party, you feel the people dancing around you, and you can smell them and hear the music. And you can just change things, like choose more comfortable shoes to dance in. Or change your hair color. Or choose another body style. You can do anything you want.”
Perry crossed his arms. It sounded like she was describing a daydream. “What happens to you when you go to one of these fake places? Do you fall asleep?”
“No, you’re just fractioning. Doing two things at once.” She shrugged. “Like walking and talking at the same time.”
Perry fought back a smile. Her words from yesterday sprang to mind. That explains a lot. “What’s the point of going to a fake place?” he asked.
“The Realms are the only places we can go. They were created when the Pods were built. Without them, we’d probably go insane with boredom. And they’re pseudo, not fake. They feel exactly real. Well, some things I’m not sure about anymore. There are a few things out here that aren’t what I expected.”
She dug into one of her pockets. She’d collected about a dozen rocks yesterday. None of them looked special to him. They looked like rocks.
“Each one of these is unique,” she said. “Their shape. Their weight and composition. It’s amazing. In the Realms, there are formulas for randomness. I can always pick them out, though. Spot how every twelfth rock is a modified version of the first one’s color or density, or whatever the variation might be.
“But rocks aren’t the only thing. When I was out in that desert, and then when . . .” The way she looked at him, he knew whatever she’d say next, he was part of it. “I’ve never felt that way. We don’t have fear like that. But if those two things are different, then there has to be more, right? Other things besides fear and rocks that are different in the real?”
Perry nodded absently, imagining a world without fear. Was that possible? If there was no fear, how could there be comfort? Or courage?
She took his nod as encouragement to continue, which he was fine with. She had a good voice. He hadn’t realized until he’d heard her sing. He’d rather she sang more instead of talked, but he wasn’t going to ask.
“See, it’s all energy, like everything. The Eye sends impulses that flow right into the brain, fooling it. Telling it, ‘You’re seeing this and touching that.’ But maybe some things haven’t been perfected yet. Maybe they’re close to the real thing, but not the same. Anyway, that’s not what you asked. I wear it because I’m not myself without it.”
Perry scratched his cheek and winced, forgetting about the bruise there. “Our Markings are like that. I wouldn’t be myself without them.”
Right away he regretted saying the words. Daylight streaked over the ridgeline in long beams, slicing through the fog. He shouldn’t be sitting there talking with a Dweller when Talon was dying somewhere, away from home.
“Do your tattoos have to do with your name?”
“Yes,” he said, stuffing his blanket into his satchel.
“Are you named Falcon? Or Hawk?”
“No and no.” He stood and buckled his belt. Grabbed his bow and quiver. “I’ll take the eyepiece now.”
Her eyebrows drew together, creasing the pale skin between. “No.”
“Mole, if you’re seen with that device, there won’t be any way to pass you off as one of us.”
“But I wore it yesterday.”
“Yesterday was yesterday. Here on it’ll be different.”
“Take your tattoos off first, Savage.”
Perry froze, grinding down into his teeth. The funny thing about being called a Savage was that it made him want to act like one. “We’re not in your world anymore, Dweller. People die here and it’s not pseudo. It’s very, very real.”
She tipped her chin up, daring him. “You do it then. You’ve seen how it’s done.”
In a flash of memory, Perry saw Soren ripping the device off her face. He didn’t want to do this. He reached for the knife at his hip. “If that’s how it needs to be.”
“Wait! I’ll do it.” She turned away from him. When she faced him again seconds later, she had the device in her hand. Her face was tight with fury as she slipped it into a pocket.
Perry took a step toward her. He twirled the knife in his hand like any kid could do, but it worked, drawing her eye to the weapon. “I said I’ll take it.”
“Stop! Just stay away from me. Here.” She flung it at him.
Perry caught it, dropped it into his satchel. Then he walked away, nearly fumbling his knife as he slipped it back into its sheath.
Chapter 15
ARIA
Aria struggled to keep up with the Outsider the second day. Her feet grew worse with every step. Here on, it’ll be different, he’d said. But it hadn’t been. The hours passed much as they had the previous day. Constant walking. Constant pain. Headaches that came and went.