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Don’t throw up. Whatever you do, don’t throw up. Abe was fighting the smell wafting into the bower. Umezawa and Lars were laughing uncontrollably. James Thurgerson was wincing. Sano was taking in the scene without expression, as usual. Don’t throw up. Not in front of her. Blake had managed to get himself out of the bower and into the piercing cold, where his vomit was quickly freezing solid. Well, Stoic, what do you make of tears? Stoic and Sano don’t mesh, see?
Lars got control of himself. “The mighty hunter, Blake, undone in the gut by a little flesh and sinew,” he said.
“You do have me there. The drop of blood did me in, I must admit,” said Blake. “It must be like seasickness: it stalks and pounces on even the most sturdy seaman.”
Umezawa, not quite recovered from hysterics, burst into a fresh round of belly-laughter. Jason, this time, joined him. “Sturdy seaman!” They gasped for air between spasms of laughter. Blake rolled his eyes.
“Kids, eh?” said Lars, returning to the task at hand. He bent over the gossamer wire he’d loosened within James Thurgerson’s open wrist, called for James Thurgerson’s Leatherman multitool, pulled out the mini-scissors, and he made a snip here and a snip there. “One microscopic resistor, excised. That’ll throw them off.”
Blake opened a can of something orange.
“That’s right, Blake,” Lars said, still teasing his friend. “Rinse all the chunks away with a pop.”
“The carbonic acid in this soda will do the trick,” Blake said. He took a big sip and began to swish.
Abe felt himself turning green at the sight of the orange. Oh, come on, stoic. Don’t throw up. She’s staring right at you. What will she think of you if you throw up and she has sympathetic vomit? Still your tummy like a man, why don’t you! “Ohhhh…” he said. “I don’t feel so good.” The bower began to spin a little bit. His saliva glands were pumping away faster than he could swallow.
“Out!” said Umezawa. “Get out, quick!” Abe took the advice and ran toward the entryway, tripping over Blake’s foot and landing on his face, albeit outside the bower. The fall righted his insides, however, and the wave of nausea passed away. Nice. Very stoic fall. Well done. At least you didn’t throw up.
“Whew,” he said. “All clear!”
“No, seriously,” James Thurgerson was saying. “That resistor will regenerate itself. Machine learning. The software is programed to look for hardware anomalies, and find a way to heal, as it were.”
“As it were?” said Blake, still swishing.
“Like I said: machine learning, basically,” said James Thurgerson. “Regeneration is a key feature of my beta programing. That’s why I need so many calories; constant searching and repairing. Any exertion, really, causes ruptures in my various systems implants. A deliberate one like that, however, is not in the immediate diagnostics sections, so the AI will have to do some research. It will learn quickly, I’m afraid. The nutrients in my blood will be tapped, a new wire will grow, and silicates we pick up from the wind and other environmental disturbances will be harvested through my nose, mouth, and eyes, and whatever other orifices, resulting in a tidy new micro-resistor.”
“Well, we’re really talking about nano technology, aren’t we?” Blake said.
“Yeah, but who cares, really?” said James Thurgerson. “All I care about is being free.”
That brought the entire party to an unmoving silence and meditation.
“Well,” said Jason, contemplating. “I guess we have a main questline now.”
“I have to admit the Season 7 OVA revealed a little bit of messiness in the main questline of The Morose Alpaca,” said Abe. “It was like the writers were more in love with the characters and the MacGuffin than in the actual story progression.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Well, yeah,” said Lars, “but when you have a beloved franchise, you really do have to tap the patience of your fanbase—and engage in shameless fan service—”
Sano suddenly coughed very prettily. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “I think a bit of tree bark went down my windpipe. Excuse me!” She giggled very prettily.
“As I was saying,” said Lars, “you have to engage in that sort of thing for an arc or two, to let the plot breathe a little bit, like any good work of art. It’s the slow spaces that make the action all the more colorful and interesting.”
“They’re after me!” James Thurgerson said. “I just know they want to put me in service of the government!”
“Who’s they?” said Blake.
Lars continued, “And if the writers push the patience of their fanbase a little, they can likewise reward them with lots of running, jumping, shooting, and kung-fu fighting, complete with expensive CGI lighting effects.”
“Say, you’re right!” Abe said, brightening.
“Anyway,” said Lars, “we should get going. The sun is getting high enough in the sky to drive the big game around for us to see them. And I have to do some final cleanup.”
Umezawa finally stopped laughing, holding his slightly chubby frame with both hands. “I’d like to learn how to hunt.”
Lars rustled through his pack, producing a first-aid kit, and from the first-aid kit he pulled a tube of super glue and a small adhesive bandage.
“Now is as good a time as any,” said Blake. “Are you sure you’re up for the hike?”
“I’ll bring plenty of soda pop.”
Blake nodded.
“Hold that skin together; pull the cut closed,” Lars commanded Jason. “Not so tight; we just want to help it along. Just so the two sides meet. That’s right, just like that.” He quickly squeezed out three drops of super glue along the incision.
“Yeah, my human parts heal like yours,” James Thurgerson said.
“Aw…” said Sano. Lars looked up. Jason looked up. Abe looked up.
Lars came back to his task, blowing on the glue to help it dry, then covered the wound with the bandage. “Last thing we need is a member of the party incapacitated with an infection. I just now remembered I forgot to sterilize the knife blade. Or the incision. Oh well.” He looked at James Thurgerson, shrugging. “We’ll pray for good luck, okay?”
Blake was handing Umezawa a rifle, but then he hesitated. “You know what?” he said. “Have you ever shot a rifle?”
“You mean in real life?”
“What other…never mind.”
“I always play sniper in Call of Duty.”
“He does,” said Abe. “He’s great. Absolute ice in his veins.”
“Yeah…” said Blake.
“And I watch a lot of Attack on Titan. There’s a lot of military precision in that anime.”
Jason and Abe nodded agreement.
“No…” said Blake. “No, I tell you what: I need your young eyes—are those contacts?”
“I can see great with them.”
Blake sighed. “We’re going to starve to death on this mountain.”
“Come on, what other choices do you have? Sano?”
“Up to Sano,” said Blake. “She might like a break from you leeches.”
“Huh? What about you?”
“What about me? I’m a married man, aren’t I? None of the rest of you are married, right?” said Blake. “Wait: Jim? You married?”
“Halfway through my third one,” he said, glibly.
“See there? So it doesn’t matter,” said Blake. “Sano, I’m not about to play chauvinist. You wanna be my spotter? Three’s a crowd in this endeavor.”
“No,” said Sano, without hesitation. “I don’t like being cold.”
“Jason?”
Jason held his head up. “I’ll help establish a base camp with the rest.”
“Abe?”
[https://embodimentandexclusion.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/chapter-11.jpg]
Well, Stoic? Shall you leave the immediate environs of your beloved Sano, who barely knows you exist? Shall you tes—“Yes, I will go, too.”
“Aw,” protested Umezawa.
“And really,” said Abe, “Ume and I are like one person. We won’t add up to three. What do you need? Eyes scanning for movement?” Umezawa’s face broke into a broad smile.
“Very good,” Blake said, praising Abe. “Very good.”
“Say, Abe,” said Lars. “That is a very good observation, without being told. You sure you never hunted?”
“No,” Abe said. “I just—well, all this gore and wreckage and nano and micro technology, and magic manifestations, government intrusion, and secret para-governmental cabals, not to mention a lifetime of cartoon fantasy-worlds—I just think it’s time for me to…to…” The party paused while Abe searched for the end of his thought. He looked at Sano, then to Blake, to Umezawa, and finally to Lars. “I want to be an active participant in my own story.”
“Fine. Good. Good,” said Blake. “Good. How’s your layer situation? Thin at the skin? Thicker in the middle? Puffy on the outside?”
Umezawa and Abe answered in the affirmative. Lars handed each a handgun. “They’re loaded. Try to keep the business end pointed at things or people you actually mean to kill, okay?” They nodded. “Get us some food.”
Blake turned, departed, and the two teen-aged young men followed, packing a bit of water and several cans of disputed soda or pop.
The sun seemed powerless. A mountain wind was swirling, not whipping with any sort of malice, but rising and examining these intruders, innocently taking heat off them with alarming haste. Even so, the light of the sun was welcome enough, until Blake reminded them that they were being sought.
“I’m not so sure about Jim,” he said. “I think he’s trustworthy enough, but I don’t think he knows or appreciates how powerful his enemies are. Lars and I talked for a long while about that helicopter, and both of us are agreed that they’d rather wait for Jim—and us—rather than contend with that airplane. Stay close to cover. This is going to make our hunt all the more difficult.”
Abe turned to look back at the base camp, the bower of warmth, of green, and of friendship. The party was now split. They had already covered a surprising distance. Even so, he saw Sano, standing at the doorway, and she was waving. He waved back. She appeared to shiver, and she turned to go back inside.
For a moment, Abe thought that she was wearing only her school skirt, lacey socks folded down at the ankles above her black buckle shoes, and a very light, white blouse. He shook his head, turned back to Umezawa and Blake, and in a quick step or two, caught up to them.
They all three together saw movement at the same moment.
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