VIRGINIA PRIME.

WE DECIDED TO KEEP TO THE WOODS, though that meant climbing up and down some hills along the way. We all agreed that we didn't want to come out into the open until there were more people around, at which point it would be harder for observers in the looming citadel to pick us out. But really, I think that we just didn't want to walk to where Route 340 was supposed to be, and find out it wasn't there. We all had this visceral need to pretend things were normal for as long as we could, and staying away from familiar landmarks helped us do that.

At one point we came to a narrow stream, and we all bathed. Not in the normal sense of the word but full immersion, clothes and all. We figured we were better off looking like drowned rats than covered in flaking mud. We ate some more energy bars and continued on. Soon the slope grew much steeper, and the going became more difficult. Devon brought out his cached maps and a.s.sured us that this ridge was the last major obstacle before we reached Luray. Once we got to the top, we should have a good view of the city, he said. So we climbed with newfound energy.

But when we finally reached the crest, gasping for breath from the last steep bit of climbing, we looked out over the valley and . . . well, like I said, this wasn't our world.

Apparently Luray was so expansive here that it had extended civic tendrils up and down the Shenandoah Valley, swallowing up all the peaceful little towns nearby, turning them into tightly packed suburbs. From our hillside perch we could see the heart of the city to the south of us, and it looked as crowded and congested as any urban jungle, its narrow, twisting streets running like rat burrows between looming walls of brick and concrete. There were a few green islands here and there in the urban sea, great mansions with trees and gra.s.sy lawns surrounding them, with walls or tall fences to protect them from the rest of the city. One had a slender tower several stories high, with an observation deck running around the top. From it, one would be able to see most of the city. The streets surrounding each mansion radiated outward like the spokes of a spider's web, with wealthier residences s.p.a.ced along them at neat and perfect intervals . . . until those streets collided with the pattern radiating from some other mansion, and the whole pattern devolved into chaos.

I wondered if the urban planners responsible for this place had helped L'Enfant design Washington DC.

On the outskirts of town the houses thinned out, and wherever a rising slope rendered the ground so inhospitable that only the poor would live there, I saw shantytowns, crowded with shacks precariously constructed from cast-off wood and bits of rusted metal. I'd seen such things in movies, of course, but usually in a Third World setting. Never had I stood this close to so much poverty.

Nothing in the view looked so drastically unfamiliar that it should have made my skin crawl, and yet crawl it did. There was something wrong here; I sensed it viscerally but couldn't identify the cause. Something made the place seem utterly alien to me, despite the fact that many of its streets looked so mundane that they could have been set down in Mana.s.sas without drawing notice. Devon was the one who finally gave it a name.

"There are no cars," he said quietly.

I realized with a start that he was right. There were houses, shopping plazas, parks, and even playgrounds, all so very familiar in form . . . but nowhere was there a single car, or truck, or gas station, or even a paved road with lines down the center. I did see a railroad track running north-south, right where Route 340 should have been, and there were boats on the river, albeit small ones. So it wasn't like there were no transportation vehicles. Cars were the only thing missing. I shook my head, unable to make sense of it all.

Then Rita gasped and pointed skyward. I shielded my eyes against the sun and followed her gesture to where a bullet-shaped silver object was edging its way over the mountain ridge west of the city. It was coming in low over the trees and seemed to be headed for a tower on the far side of the river.

"Is that a blimp?" I asked.

"I think it's a zeppelin," Devon offered.

"Jesus." Rita shook her head. "This place is seriously screwy."

Understatement of the day.

We began to climb carefully down the steep, rocky slope. Along the way we had to surrender our view of the city as the trees closed over our heads, but it was worth it to have cover again. Soon enough we would be out in the open, and I was already feeling exposed and vulnerable.

About halfway down the hillside we came to a sudden steep drop, twenty feet of sheer rock that stretched in both directions as far as the eye could see. We started looking for the best way to hike down and were so focused on that task that it took us a few minutes to realize there was some kind of encampment at the base.

Twenty, maybe thirty, ramshackle shelters had been jury-rigged from tree branches, ragged blankets, and trash. It took no great insight to recognize it as a transient camp for the homeless; the architecture of despair didn't differ much from world to world. And though I recognized what the camp was, it felt, once more, strangely alien. I squinted as I tried to make out enough detail to figure out why.

And suddenly it came to me.

There was no plastic. No strips of tarp had been used to rain-proof the tents, no sheets of corrugated roofing had served as construction materials, no plastic bottles had even been used to haul water to the site. Even the piles of trash at one end of the camp had no plastic in them. Not even those ubiquitous six-pack holders you're supposed to slice open so wildlife can't get their heads stuck in the holes. Nothing.

Suddenly a small figure emerged from one of the tents. Startled, we all froze, praying that he hadn't seen us. He was small and dark and hunched over, and at first glance I wasn't even sure he was human. At first he seemed wary, even afraid, but when he saw there was no immediate danger nearby he straightened up to his full height, and I realized that he was indeed human . . . a.s.suming your definition of that word is a bit flexible.

He wasn't much taller than Tommy, and the combination of narrow shoulders and a thick torso gave him an ungainly aspect. Everything about him seemed just slightly off: arms too long, skin too hairy, feet not arched quite right. His toes dug into the ground as he walked in that odd way they do when you're trying to hold a thong sandal in place, making his gait awkward. As for his face, I realized that I'd seen the type before, though not on a living person. Jutting brows, arched cheekbones, heavy jaw . . . it was hard to deny what that all added up to. Or accept that a world so similar to mine would have such a creature walking around in it.

Rita whispered, "Planet of the Apes, anyone?"

"Early hominid," Devon whispered back. "The kind that died out hundreds of thousands of years ago." He paused, then said with less certainty, "At least that's what it looks like."

Whatever species the man was, his large, protruding ears had evidently caught wind of our conversation. Fear flared in his eyes as he scanned the landscape anxiously, searching for its source. We ducked low behind a fallen tree as he looked our way, and stayed down until we heard him moving around again. Then we heard even more movement coming from the camp, and we peeked gingerly over the top of the tree trunk to see what was happening about.

Several other hominids had joined the first one. They were all of the same body type, though some had more human-looking features than others. Their clothing was simple: either a sleeveless shift of some heavy natural fabric, or else a shirt or dress of more complicated construction, with its sleeves torn off. The loose garments hid all the body parts I would normally have used to determine gender, so it was hard to pick out the men from the women, other than by size. n.o.body was wearing anything akin to pants. Or shoes, for that matter.

I was about to turn to Devon and risk another whispered comment when suddenly there was a loud cracking sound from downhill. The hominids froze like deer in headlights. The primitive fear in their eyes was a terrible thing to witness. They started running. Not in any organized way, as in running to or from something in particular. Raw animal panic had taken over, and they simply ran. You could smell fear in the air. But it was too late for them to flee.

A moment before there had been no other people on the mountainside; now, suddenly, there were men on all sides of the camp. Three teams of soldiers in mottled green uniforms-clearly some kind of camouflage-moved in from the east, west, and south, leaving only our steep escarpment unaccounted for. Several of the hominids actually tried to scramble up the cliff in sheer panic, but by the time they managed to find good handholds the soldiers were upon them, and they pulled them back with enough force to send their bodies reeling to the ground. I heard a sickening thud as one of the hominids. .h.i.t his forehead on a rock, and a trickle of blood seeped out from beneath his hair as he lay still upon the dirt.

Some of the soldiers had drawn sabers, but the majority were carrying a weapon I'd never seen before. It looked like a crossbow, but rigged to fire small spheres instead of bolts. I watched as one man fired at a couple of the fleeing hominids. Halfway to its target the sphere broke apart in mid-air, dividing up into slices that shot out in all directions. As the slices fell to the ground the hominids fell also, and they began to thrash desperately, like rabbits in a snare. It took me a few seconds to realize that a fine net had entangled them.

I felt a cold sickness growing in the pit of my stomach as I realized what was happening.

Very few of the hominids tried to fight back. Maybe they felt it was a lost cause. Those who did try were ruthlessly cut down. They had no weapons and no defense other than flight, so killing them was easy. At one point the scene got so b.l.o.o.d.y that I had to look away. Devon put an arm around me and drew me close to him, letting me bury my face in his chest. I could feel him trembling deep inside, but his expression was steady, and his arm around me was strong and comforting. Always the brave one.

And then, as quickly as the raid had begun, it was over. The hominids trapped in the nets were untangled and brought together in the center of camp, where thick steel collars were locked around their necks. Each collar was connected to a heavy chain, and you didn't have to be a professor of American History to recognize what was going on.

As the bulk of the soldiers started to lead the long chain of captives down the mountainside, you could see just how defeated the small hominids were. Their lanky arms hung low about their legs as their backs bowed in defeat, and they were so submissive in aspect-so spiritually broken-that the leather whip one of the soldiers carried hardly had to be used at all. Meanwhile a few soldiers who had remained behind gathered up all the hominids' abandoned possessions. Blankets, food, clothing, and whatever pitiful tools or mementos they might once have treasured: all went into the central fire pit, covered over with handfuls of dry leaves and clumps of dead gra.s.s. And the bodies that had fallen in battle were thrown on top of all that, like they were just more pieces of garbage. Then one of the soldiers started walking around the fire pit, lighting matches one by one and throwing them onto the pile. Some of them landed on clumps of dried vegetation, and fire spread quickly from there. Within minutes the pit was filled with roaring flames, and the sickening smell of burning wool and roasting flesh enveloped us along with the smoke. Eyes tearing, we had no option but to keep our heads low and try not to cough; we didn't dare leave our cover to try to get out of the way.

After a while the fire died down. The soldiers prodded it a few last times, then kicked some dirt over the glowing ashes and left. Tendrils of smoke were still rising from the center of the mound, but even they died down as the final embers slowly turned to ash.

With shaking hands we took bottles of water and tried to wash the taste of ash and burning flesh out of our mouths. Which is when my stomach decided it had finally had enough, and I leaned over the edge of the escarpment and vomited. Afterward, I just lay there, drained, my body draped over the dead tree, too exhausted by emotion even to cry.

"We need to wait here for a while." Devon's voice sounded hollow, like it was coming from far away. "We need to give them time to put distance between us."

No one felt like arguing with him.

"Why does this stuff scare me more than the undead guy?" I whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "More than the gate, and the aliens, all of it . . ."

"Because none of that connected to you emotionally," Rita said. "It all felt like a fantasy. A dream. This-this was real. People used to do this in our world. In some places, they still do. Our own ancestors probably-"

She stopped herself suddenly and glanced at Devon. For the first time since meeting him I was aware of the color of his skin as something more than pigmentation, and I didn't know quite how to deal with that. My ancestors had been among the huddled ma.s.ses yearning to be free, for whom America had been a precious dream, a place of hope. While for Devon's ancestors the journey had been the end of freedom.

I took his hand, and I held it, and I know from the way he squeezed my fingers back that it was the right gesture at the right moment.

We gave the soldiers enough time to march their line of slaves down the mountainside, and then some more time than that, just to be sure-after which, we rose unsteadily and started moving downhill again.

We reached one of the poorer districts of Luray first. Our presence raised more than a few eyebrows, and at first we thought it was our clothing. My jeans had seemed pretty basic back home, but the slim cut and embroidered pocket details made them stand out like a sore thumb here. Rita had on cargo pants with a zillion pockets, and there was nothing remotely like them that we could see. As for Devon, whatever subtle elements had made his normal clothes look expensive back home were ten times more conspicuous in this environment. A business man in an Armani suit driving down the street in a Rolls Royce couldn't have appeared more out of place than he did.

So, after deciding that Devon and I had no clue about how to steal laundry from clotheslines without getting caught-a pretty accurate appraisal-Rita pilfered new wardrobes for all three of us. Simple woven shirts and loose denim pants, not stylish but comfortable. We found a narrow alley in which to change our clothes, each of us taking a turn at guarding the entrance. Rita had grabbed a few dingy sheets for us, too, so we wrapped up our backpacks hobo-style to disguise them, then shoved our original clothes inside.

But when we got back on the street, we realized we had a bigger problem than clothing.

Back home in the DC suburbs there was so much ethnic diversity that you just took it for granted. Last year in English cla.s.s I'd had a Korean kid sitting to my right, a Somali kid to my left, and the cla.s.s as a whole could have hosted World Culture Day without needing to import anyone. After a while you just stopped noticing that kind of thing. Rita and Devon came from similar settings, and they didn't notice either.

But this place didn't have any Korean, Vietnamese, Pakistani, or African kids running around.

Special stress on the African.

No one in sight was black except for Devon. And he was pretty aggressively black, not some coffee-and-cream biracial who could pa.s.s for a suntanned white guy. Add to that the fact that he towered over most of the local kids, and it was d.a.m.ned hard not to notice him. Which meant that while we were with him, we were all d.a.m.ned hard to overlook.

None of us dared say anything about that. Such a conversation would have inevitably led to the question none of us wanted to ask out loud: What if the hominids are the only people here with dark skin? What if the locals are staring at Devon not just because he looks different, but because they think he's one of them? Instead we just hiked on in silence, our makeshift packs slung over our shoulders. You could feel Devon's anxiety radiating from his body like a heat wave, but we knew there was nothing we could do about that, so we didn't try. Sometimes silence is best.

Eventually the wretched slums gave way to the city proper, and we began to see more familiar features: gla.s.s storefronts, street vendors hawking their wares, even a few small parks tucked between tall brick houses. There were beggars all over the place, and most of them seemed to be children. Dirty, ragged children, all different ages, weaving in and out of the crowd in search of a brief sympathetic nod and a handout. Some looked injured, and they huddled against the brick walls of apartment buildings, tin cups in front of them, begging for charity with their eyes. I tried not to think about whether their injuries were real or feigned, or maybe imposed upon them by someone who would take a cut of their profits later that night. It wasn't the kind of thing that a Mana.s.sas teenager normally had to deal with, but I knew that it happened.

There were horses moving up and down the streets; apparently that was the favored means of transportation in this place. Most were hitched to some kind of wagon or carriage, and the resulting traffic was pretty chaotic; at times it was hard to cross the street without getting trampled. Evidently the locals were used to it, because we saw kids dash across the street without sparing a glance either way to see what was coming at them. I wondered how many of them got trampled each day.

Devon-font of trivia that he was-noted that there were no horse droppings in the streets. As he started to explain why that was significant, we spotted a small dark-skinned figure coming down the street toward us. One of the hominids. He was dressed more neatly than the ones we'd seen in the woods, but otherwise his appearance was much the same. He walked with his eyes cast downward, quickly scurrying out of the path of any larger person headed toward him. I could sense Devon stiffen by my side as he watched the ballet of submission, but he said nothing. Ultimately the hominid ducked into a butcher shop, and we lost sight of him.

There were fruit stands all around us and a sausage stand at the end of one block, so the air was filled with luscious and inviting smells. After a day of eating nothing but energy bars, it made my stomach growl. But with all the street urchins running around, the outdoor vendors were watching their wares like hawks, and I didn't see how we were going to manage to take anything. I started to go through a mental list of my supplies, wondering if I had anything I could barter for food, when Rita nudged me from behind. "You two go over there," she said, pointing to a cafe halfway down the block. "Hand in hand. Then kiss." She pushed us gently forward. "Make it look good," she urged.

I hesitated, then I thought, what the h.e.l.l, and I caught up Devon's hand, and we both started to walk to the spot she'd indicated. But when we reached the cafe I was suddenly so embarra.s.sed I couldn't look him in the eye. But he touched a finger softly under my chin and tipped my face up, until my eyes met his. Such gentle eyes! There was a touch of humor in them, like he knew just how awkward this moment was, and it was okay if we laughed about it together. There was also a touch of gravity in them as well, because we were lost in a strange world, and we were all more scared than we were going to admit. But that was okay, too, as long as we faced that fear together. So I closed my eyes, went up on tip-toe, and kissed him.

I hadn't kissed a lot of boys in my life. I certainly had never kissed anyone who made my heart speed up the way he did, or who made my legs tremble so much that I had to put a hand on his chest to steady myself. Maybe the kiss wasn't objectively that great, and it was just the power of that two-lost-souls-connecting moment . . . but for whatever reason, it shook me to the core of my soul.

You could feel that every eye in the place was on us-mostly because of Devon-but I didn't care. It no longer mattered who was standing around us, or what world we were on, or anything else. The really great kisses of the world are like that.

"Jeez, guys." Rita's voice was pitched too low for anyone else to hear it. "Get a room."

Startled and embarra.s.sed, we quickly broke apart. She put a hand on each of our shoulders and pushed us gently forward. "To the corner, then turn right." She seemed to have some kind of plan in mind, and we didn't, so we obeyed. Then she had us go another short block and make another turn, and we had gone far enough from her, and we stopped.

We had reached a pretty quiet street, with a little park just ahead of us. She motioned for us to sit down on its low retaining wall, in the shadow of a large tree. Then she reached into her hobo bag and brought out three apples, one for each of us. And then warm pastry wraps with some kind of meat in them. And three twisted pieces of warm bread that looked vaguely like pretzels.

"You guys were good," she appraised, as she started eating. "I could have put that that whole d.a.m.ned fruit stand in my bag, and no one would have noticed."

I was glad that Devon and Rita were focused on their food, so they wouldn't see me blushing.

It was the first real food we'd had since leaving home, and it seemed pretty delicious, but after a diet of dry energy bars and distilled water, that wasn't a very high bar. For a few minutes we all concentrated on eating-which, in hindsight, was not our brightest move. As I wiped my greasy hands on my hobo bag, I realized that someone was watching us.

He was a thin boy, roughly our own age, and he was lounging against a storefront across the street. His pose was casual enough, but there was something about his expression that warned us not to take his relaxed posture at face value. And there was no missing the fact that we were the focus of his attention.

We tensed as he started to walk toward us; something about his stride suggested that he wasn't alone, but I didn't want to look away from him long enough to check for his allies. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rita's hand creep to where she had her kitchen knife hidden.

He came up to a spot about five feet from us and stopped. He looked us over, his gaze fixing finally on Devon. "You Maasai?"

Devon blinked. I could tell he was having a hard time transitioning from no one here has ever seen a black person to this guy knows the name of an East African tribe. So he opted for just staring at him and saying nothing.

"I saw the Maasai amba.s.sador once," the boy explained. "You look like him."

The Maasai amba.s.sador? Half the a.s.sumptions I'd made about the place of black people in this world suddenly went flying out the window, and I could see that Devon was equally startled. But he just nodded slowly, as if he knew exactly what was going on. I made a mental note never to play poker with him. "Others have said that to me," he offered warily.

The boy's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You Guild?"

"Do I look Guild?" Devon's voice had a disdainful edge that could be interpreted as either, "Of course I'm Guild, why are you asking such me such a stupid question?" or "Of course I'm not Guild, why are you insulting me with such a stupid question?" d.a.m.n, he was good!

"Are we on someone's turf?" Rita asked suddenly. Plainly, she'd gotten something out of this bizarre exchange that Devon and I had missed.

The boy's expression shifted slightly. It was a subtle change, and I sensed I was missing nine tenths of its meaning, but Rita looked as if she understood him perfectly.

"You were pretty good back there," he told her. "But taking so much at one time gets you noticed. Security will be tighter tomorrow. The locals won't be happy about that."

She was about to respond when a dark shape suddenly pa.s.sed overhead. Muttering a curse under his breath, the boy moved quickly into the shade of our tree. The shadow of something with broad wings swept down the center of the street, heading east. He shielded his eyes with one hand as he gazed up into the sky.

"s.h.i.t," he muttered. "s.h.i.t. That's a Hunter, for sure." He eyed us suspiciously. "Is it one of you he's after?"

"How do you know it's a Hunter?" Devon asked.

He jerked a thumb toward the east. "Those lazy Guild b.a.s.t.a.r.ds don't come into town to do their dirty work, they just grab a host from wherever they are and hitch a ride. Nine times out of ten if you see an animal that doesn't belong here, it's one of theirs." He gestured toward the sky. "That one was a mountain hawk, which means-"

His expression darkened suddenly. "You didn't answer my question," he challenged Devon.

"No," Devon agreed calmly. "I didn't."

For a moment they just stared at each other, like two dogs trying to figure out if they needed to fight. I saw Rita's hand close around the grip of her knife, though I wasn't sure what she thought she'd do with it in the middle of a city street.

"s.h.i.t," the boy muttered. "If the Hunters really are after you, then we should talk. But not here, with the whole world watching."

Without another word he started to walk away from us. The three of us looked at each other in confusion, no one quite sure what to do. Then Rita nodded slightly, and since she seemed to understand the situation better than anyone else, that was good enough for Devon and me. We grabbed up the last of our food, threw our packs over our shoulders, and hurried off after the boy.

Somewhere in the distance a mountain hawk screeched.

17.

BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS.

VIRGINIA PRIME.