“Are you saying Siv killed himself and made it look like an accident?” Theo asks softly.
“I’m saying there are four men on this migration who will swear to every police investigator that it was an accident. I’m also saying that the Sponsor would pay a man, let’s say a new migrator, good money to prove dancers don’t die on accident. Then he wouldn’t have to pay out one red cent when we died. Wouldn’t you agree, Theo?”
The fledgling had the decency to blush.
We make a loop in Yellowstone and double back to Mammoth, then Tower Falls, and Yellowstone lake. We dance as Tundra Swans, American Kestrels, and Black Terns before we leave the park and cut through Wyoming into Idaho and the City of Rocks. The crowd there is small and some elderly hippie chicks try to join in our dance. Scotty comes close to breaking a leg. We haul ass the rest of the way through Idaho. Pretty country full of bright yellows and pink rock-face sticking out underneath rolling green hills. I’m feeling my body more than I would like, more than I have in the past.
Just before we hit the Utah border, black clouds hover all morning on the edge of the sky and grow as we bike toward them. We feel the electricity in that storm—migrating birds have metal in their heads to follow the magnetic poles, and so do we. It makes me feel buzzed. The temperature drops ten degrees and a mean wind kicks up. Bless the makers of our smart cloth that knows when to keep us warm.
We ride down a busted up highway that smells like grass and petrochemicals. There’s no sign of anything human in sight. There’s less and less on this stretch of highway every year. They bulldoze the old barns and farmhouses because the dirt is contaminated and they don’t want anyone coming here to squat and then suing later for cancer.
Something big and dark flits across the sky. I look up, but there is nothing. A wall of rain rushes toward. When we hit it, there’s so much rain it’s three inches deep on the road.
Hector lets out a ululating cry and raises both of his hands in the air as he raises his head toward the sky. We all do the same. As I stare up at the whirling flecks of rain coming down, everything stops and is made eternal. Then we hunch over our bikes and peddle on.
My belly starts to feel shaky and two protein bars don’t do anything to help it. It grows darker and colder. My arms feel rubbery and numb. Scotty sets a good pace to keep us warm, but not so fast that we keel over. He looks back at me, worried. I grin at him. Mind yourself, Scotty, I’ll keep up. There have been other migrations where we’ve ridden all night just to stay warm, and we’ll do that, if we have to.
Then a sway-backed barn as beautiful as a mansion comes into view, and Hector lets out another loud bird cry.
It’s not that dry inside, and the moldy hay makes my nose itch, but it’ll do. We climb up into the loft where it’s drier and settle in to sleep, except for Theo. He sits in a corner near an open window and stares outside. I’m exhausted and need sleep more than the rest of them, but I go sit next to him anyway.
“Big storm,” I say.
He nods.
“What’re you thinking?”
A lightning strike illuminates his face. He looks worried. “I’m changing… more than I thought I would. More than he said I would,” he says, not looking up from the hay his hands play with.
I wait for him to explain.
He holds out his arm. “Touch it.”
I do. It feels smooth one way, prickly the other.
“Feathers,” he says. “Real small ones.”
I try not to, but it’s been a long day. I laugh.
“It’s not funny,” he says.
“Yes it is. We all have weird side effects. Hell, that one might even be intentional. They don’t exactly know what they are doing with our augmentations.” I hold up one of my hands. The tan polish on one of my nails had chipped off to show the black. “I’ve got talons on my fingers and toes. Have to keep them trimmed real close or else they cut my wife. Keith, though he hates to admit it, loves to eat worms. Ask him about it. And don’t ask Hector and Scotty about where their tale feathers.”
Theo laughs.
“You’re doing fine, Theo. You’re riding well and dancing well. That’s what this life’s about.”
“It’s just… I can’t go back, can I?”
“Nope.”
“There’s something… he offered me five years pay for every migrator I ratted on,” Theo whispers.
“That’s a mighty fine offer.” And half of what the bastard would pay out otherwise, I think. “A man could get rich real quick, but there’s a price for all that money.”
There’s an awkwardness between us. “Do you want to die, Josiah? Don’t you want to keep living?”
“Did the Sponsor tell you migrators don’t live as long as normal people, even without accidents?”
Silence.
“Course he didn’t. It’s true though. It’s a heavy strain on the body.”
“But don’t you want to live?”
“Of course. No one wants to die, but we all do, don’t we? You set your mind on getting through this migration. Leave the macabre thoughts to old men like me.” I put my hand on his shoulder and let it rest there.
Lightning pulses outside, and I see what looks like a huge bird flying up in the middle of the storm.
When the morning sun wakes us up the world has been washed clean and pretty. We ride on and pop into hover over huge gashes in the road. We discover a diner that serves up pieces of peanut-butter chocolate pie that we eat as townspeople gawk at us.
In Colorado we run into some angry types. They catch up to us on a gut-busting climb out of Steamboat Springs up to Rabbit Ears Pass. They chug passed us spewing griesel fumes that smell like burnt french fries. The environmentalists have joined up with the local dance troupe and picked up some anti-genmod types by the looks of their bumper stickers. They stop their van about a quarter mile away from us. Ten of them all pile out to make a human line across the road. There’s forest on both sides of us that we could run into, but we’d have to leave the bikes. We could ride back down the hill, but hell if we’re going to.
“What should we do, Josiah?” Hector asks quietly.
One reason birds have died out, beyond all the toxins, is that they just couldn’t find hospitable places to live.
“Let’s just talk to them,” I say.
We grind on up the hill and stop ten feet away. I’m bonked enough by the ride to be glad for the unscheduled stop, come what may, and squeeze some watergel into my mouth. I keep an eye on them and on my migrators. Usually protesters show up at performances and try to mess us up, but there’s nothing but us and them out here.
“Morning,” I call out.
Hatred thick as cream on each of their faces.
“Hacks,” one of them says. She’s a dancer, by the thin, ropy look to her. “You’re not dancers. You’re monkeys!”
“Freaks,” a man says.
A bird streaks across the air above me, but when I look up, nothing’s there.
Keith takes a step forward. I put a hand on his shoulder and he stays put. Ten to five ratio is not good odds, and we’ve got a dance to make by nightfall.
“Your owner destroys all the wildlife, and then gets tax breaks for sending you out to the parks and make people forget all the animals are gone,” a hungry looking man says.
Anger grows among us. A tensing of bodies. A shifting of feet and stances. Like a dance. I feel my hands curl into fists and the desire to hit something grows in me. “We’re just getting by, same as everyone,” I say, calmly as I can. “Your beef’s with our Sponsor. Go harass him.” But they won’t. He’s too heavily guarded. “We’re just men doing our jobs.”