//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: Don't Bug Me // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Amie should’ve known that talking to her kids would be the easy part. They were desperate for someone to give them instructions, and explain the insanity they were living in. Amie couldn’t explain what she didn’t know, but at least she could impart a sense of order and legitimacy to an otherwise out-of-control situation. By the time evening came around and she had a chance to check on her brother, she found the tent empty. Most of his stuff was still there—but that meant very little. No amount of clothing would make him blend in outside, or protect him from the mountains outside. The trail wasn’t as clear for her to follow this time, but that didn’t matter. Wes was her brother, and she could guess where he would end up. His friends in camp would be at robotics… but that would mean walking into the center of camp looking like a pack of skittles, which he would never do alone. Where did that leave? She couldn’t see any sign of motion on the lookout, and he’d already been up there once. Where else would he end up? She wandered out along another trail, this one leading down the mountain instead of up it. It didn’t lead into camp directly, but sideways into the woods. Followed far enough, it would lead to a property fence, and the interstate. With no one to drive it anymore, other than a few old buses and jeeps in the camp garage. But none of them were on the road now. Amie followed the road all the way to the fence, where two sections of metal mesh parted just enough for a person to squeeze through. At their size, it was trivial to fit, just like the deer and other large animals that were always flowing in and out of camp. There was something strange about walking along a gravel access road, and eventually finding a cement street, leading to a highway onramp. Bright green reflective signs proclaimed the destinations on either side, and “Stella Lacus Adventure Camp, No Services” Her brother sat just beside the road. This time there was an entire family of skunks—a large adult, then a row of tiny babies. They all looked up as she approached, but didn’t scatter.  The smell wasn’t as bad as she might’ve expected, either. They hadn’t sprayed Wes yet, nor did they seem threatened by him. “What are you doing with the wildlife?” she asked. “Is it gonna be cougars next?” He looked up, wings halfway open. The sunlight only made him look orangery than usual, making his fins seem to glow. That didn’t happen to hers. But the animals actually reacted to her. The little ones scampered away, herded across the street by their mother. Amie watched them go, relieved they hadn’t turned this into a standoff. A confrontation she would never have pursued. She watched until they were out of range before approaching her brother. “What were you looking for out here?” He shrugged. “Hoping someone would drive by, I guess.” She sat down beside him, feeling a little small and shriveled by comparison. “That would just be a nightmare for all of us. You’d get kidnapped by some hillbillies or something, thinking you were a magic talking deer.” He laughed. “Guess I am. Weird alien bug deer. But I wanted to do something to help, and there’s nothing I can do in camp. I don’t have skills like you do, the other campers don’t look up to me. But maybe I could be a set of eyes at the right time, to notice things others missed.” There were other things he wasn’t telling her. There was a thick undercurrent of fear buried just beneath the surface, along with stranger feelings she couldn’t quite identify. “I don’t know how to put this, Wes… does it feel like you know what people are thinking?” His head snapped up instantly, meeting her eyes. Regardless of what he said, the answer was yes. “I haven’t been around as many as you. But I can always tell how you’re feeling. Families get a sense for that stuff.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t mean the normal kind. I mean a real sense. I mean like birds can feel magnets or snakes see in infrared. It feels like there’s another sense here that I’m using without even knowing how. That’s how I found you both times, I just sorta felt where you’d gone.” He stood abruptly, taking a few nervous steps onto the cement. “You might be right. I’m feeling something I wasn’t before, and it might be emotions. I haven’t got a good look at the others like you, but I see lots of similarities. You think maybe we’re different stages in the… life cycle? Lots of bugs have radical transformations they go through. Maybe you’re the larval stage, and I’m the mature adult.” It was her time to break into energetic giggling. “You’re the adult? Nurse Sobol is a million years old. Pretty sure she helped treat allied soldiers during the first world war.” He actually seemed hurt by her laughter. He backed away, face twitching slightly with something. Almost pain, but not quite. “Yeah, you’re probably right. It’s a stupid theory. Whatever it is, real age doesn’t have anything to do with it. I’m not that smart, and I like to think I’m not dumb. So why am I the only one who looks weird?” She patted him on the back with one hoof. “I still love you, Wes. Even if you’re a skittle.”  He grinned back, relieved. There was more real feeling there, she was absolutely positive. He actually thought her feelings would be changed because he was a different kind of freak. “I think hiding you outside of camp is getting silly,” she went on, before this could turn even more awkward than it already was. “I talked to my Pioneering kids. They know you’re different, and they’re going to keep an eye out for you.” He tensed, his cheerful grin vanishing in an instant. There was something almost physically painful about that, a change that twisted her gut as much as her guilt. Strange. “You told other people about me? I’ve been hiding!” She flared both wings, retreating a step from him. “Not just any people. I didn’t feel right telling Mr. Albrecht, but my kids are as good as they come. I didn’t say anything specific, just that I wanted to keep you on the down-low until we knew better why you were different.” She lowered her voice. “Unless you wanted to try and steal a rifle from the range, having my kids on your side is the next best thing. They’re not just here to climb rock walls and swim all summer. If I gave the word, we’d run out into the wilderness and stay hidden there. They’re on my side, so help me put them on yours.” “You think that will matter?” he asked. “We have a camp full of people, Amie. You think this is gonna go all Lord of the Flies? I don’t like how literal it would be if that happened.” She smiled, but his expression remained flat. His face remained as deadly serious as the emotions he radiated. “I don’t know if it will hold together,” she said. “We’re not from the same places, we’re not in the military, we don’t have that much in common. Mr. Albrecht is already having trouble keeping all the staff working together. I don’t know what happens when the food starts to run out. If we don’t get outside help fast, camp is going to fall apart. I can’t look out for everyone, but I want to look out for my kids. Please don’t make this difficult.” He groaned, and she needed no superhuman senses to read his exasperation. “This is a bad idea, Amie. But it’s probably not better than hiding on the edge of camp forever and hoping nobody notices. I guess I’ll come.” It wasn’t a short walk back to camp. But instead of heading straight back, Amie gestured for the highway. “I heard the gas station is still here. Want to scout it with me? The alternative would be heading back for dinner, but I’m not hungry.” He patted his side with one hoof, eyes wide. “Not hungry. Not sure what crazy you’re talking right now. I’m starving. But I’ll take gas station food over walking into the mess hall in front of God and all camp. Let’s go.” They walked together along the side of the road, keeping to the gravel. Amie had made this same hike many times, definitely never persuading the young male attendant to give her alcohol that she never shared with other counselors after campers went to bed. But even with the streetlights all dead, it was impossible to get lost. There was nowhere else to go. “So camp is all solar?” he asked, as they passed under another dark streetlight. No sign of damage, no blackness or cracking in the bulb. It was just utterly dark. “Do you know how much power it has? How much storage do we have for nights?” She shook her head once. “Never cared. I just know they put all the panels up after my first year. And they’re still working. That means the water is too, as long as it rains and nobody takes long showers. Staff are a little worried about that—tank up above camp was sometimes topped up with city water. But there won’t be any water trucks up this way again anytime soon.” There was no exception for the gas station either, no sign of life from within. No cars were parked in front, and the fridges were all dark. “How do we get in?” he asked. “I wouldn’t want to break anything. It’s so big, feels like… an important relic. An icon of reality. Future generations might be coming here in pilgrimage to the sacred Pilot station.”  She shoved him in the shoulder with one hoof, then gestured around the building. “Nothing sacred about gross burritos. Hope Booker is safe down at the base of the mountain, not sucked into this whole mess.” She made it to a back door, where a simple word-combination lock hung on the door. Simple for human fingers to twist around, anyway. It took the two of them working together, with Wes holding the lock with one hoof while she twisted it in her mouth. It tasted awful, like grease and old plastic, but finally she heard the click, and it fell to the side. Then she pulled the door open. The back room was stacked with storage boxes, with familiar brands stamped on them and snack foods emerging from within. The inside of the station, structurally sound though it might be, was far from clear. The cooler was a blob of different melted ice-cream flavors, and the section that should’ve been under heat-lamps smelled like it wanted to give her a dozen different diseases. Yet it had only been a day. Maybe it was still edible? She wasn’t hungry enough to figure that out—or hungry at all, for that matter. “See if there’s anything here you like,” she said. “But nothing alcoholic.” She twisted her pack to the side, unzipping it with her teeth. She moved slowly, careful not to dislodge the phones inside. “Let’s stock up. I’ll eat anything you will, so pick stuff you like.” They went through, packing it to bursting with protein bars, granola, and other things that wouldn’t need refrigeration. Amie hesitated in front of a rack of beef-jerky, considering what Sobol had said during the meeting. But something caught her eye—a distinct flash of light from just out the dark windows.  “Shit,” she swore, gesturing for the back. “Come on, Wes. Looks like we weren’t the first ones to have this idea.” She gestured again, but there was still no response.  Finally she followed his gaze out the windows, and her mouth fell open. Two things stood outside, looking at the gas station like it was the relic of some ancient civilization. She would’ve called them animals a few days ago, like little horses she’d seen at the petting zoo. Her view of the world was different now. They had fur instead of polished chitin, and normal mammalian eyes. But in basic body plan, they weren’t that different. “This is the place, Sweetie Drops. The Causality Violation originates from just up the hill.”