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angela_n_huntSince the June issue of KidVisions is nowhere to be found, please to enjoy the nominated story. :)
* * *
ELI #7
Eli Shevah tested the air with her sensitive nose, and pressed her bioengineered hand against the rubble in front of her. Super light, and super strong, she would not shift the earthquake rubble on her own. She’d been engineered from Greyhounds and bird genetics, all grafted onto a Homo sapiens base. Saiden Dog they called her kind, and the cast of her face showed the Greyhound while her movements showed the manipulated hawk genetics. This very work was everything she’d been designed for. Disaster recovery, earthquakes in particular.
But Nature might have other plans. Science might have made her, but Eli never underestimated the power of Nature.
Shevah, her last name, was actually her designation, Seventh in Series. The previous six of her series? All had fallen prey to Nature’s embrace. Nomi had died in a tsunami in the Far East. Josh and Moisha in a firestorm in the Amazon. Tikva, Ruti, and Sarah in a volcanic eruption in the Pacific Northwest. All had died saving others. Saving humans.
Eli didn’t think herself smarter or faster or better than her series mates. She only knew that she gave Nature utmost respect, and so far, she survived. While her series mates were no more.
It left her alone in the world. No more series mates when she infrequently went back to the barracks that others might have called a home, but Eli never did.
She only had one companion now. Her handler, Beatrice, safely outside the rubble zone, and currently silent on the ear bud perched in Eli’s delicately pointed, and slightly furred ear. Beatrice knew Eli needed silence during a recovery.
There.
She heard it again.
Crying.
Five meters ahead and down.
Eli eased forward and began digging, nano-reinforced nails, polymer-carbonate-reinforced bones, and bio-engineered muscles making quick work of the rubble, thrown behind her, because there it was stable. No one would be hurt by the additional weight of stone and dirt.
She hummed almost silently as she did. Today, she’d save someone.
* * *
Jill heard the angel before she saw her, trapped in the remains of her papa’s hotel room. The sound of shifting rubble and the soft, soft humming. She would have called out, but her mouth was too dry. She swallowed and made fists, trying not to cry, but her cheeks were wet anyway. She was a big girl. Her papa had said so. She wouldn’t cry.
The rubble parted, revealing two lambent golden eyes that seemed to hang in the darkness.
Her papa hadn’t lied. Angels did exist.
* * *
“What’s taking so long?”
Beatrice keyed off her communications package. She’d be damned if she’d disturb Eli.
“It takes as long as it takes,” she said evenly.
How the man had gotten past the security perimeter, she’d never know. Some high level dignitary, and his daughter might or might not be in the disaster zone now.
“It’s been hours! Can’t that machinima go faster?”
“Eli is not a machine. Eli is only flesh and bone. Enhanced, and engineered, but only flesh,” Beatrice said. “She gets tired.”
She turned away before she did something she would regret. Saw the red dot begin to move on her laptop screen.
“That’s our Eli. Lucky number seven,” she breathed to herself, and prepared herself to wait, and ignore the man.
* * *
“Hello,” Eli said, enhanced eyes seeing easily in the gloom. She knew that the little girl in the hole she’d unearthed couldn’t see more than a shape in the growing darkness.
The girl just stared.
“Are you hurt?”
The little girl shook her head.
Eli crawled down into the hole.
“Can you climb on my back?”
“Who are you?” the little girl’s voice was weak and tired. Eli hurt to hear it so.
“I’m Eli. I’m here to save you.”
And with that, she helped the girl climb on her back, and carried her out of the ruins, retracing her steps back the mile and a half out of the rubble zone. She went with hands and feet, the girl now clinging to her back, little arms around her neck in a way that would have choked a human, but troubled Eli not at all. She’d have preferred to go erect, but all fours meant for more stability and speed. They’d be out of the zone before full night fell.
Eli allowed herself to hum a little louder.
* * *
She smelled it first. Then she sensed it in her head, a sensation that she’d never been able to describe to anyone else, not even Beatrice. Her head came up, nostrils flaring. The smell came again.
“Beatrice? Beatrice!”
No response.
“Hang on tight,” she said to the girl, and with one arm, shifted the child to her chest, her arm wrapped around the child to go upright.
And ran as fast as she could, overloading her endorphin register.
* * *
“Eli?!” Beatrice saw the speeding shape before anyone else. Belatedly remembered her comm package, and cursed herself for turning it off.
“Eli?” she repeated, panicked. Eli wouldn’t make that kind of speed on a rubble zone unless something was really wrong.
“Temblor coming,” Eli responded, breathless. “Beatrice, get to safety!”
“Oh shit,” Beatrice said, and yelled to the rest of the team while grabbing the man. “Everyone, move! We’ve got another one coming!”
“How does she know?” the man gaped.
“I don’t know. It’s not in her design specs. But she’s never wrong,” Beatrice said, as they made for the armored transport at a dead run.
* * *
Eli’s breath came in even measures. Always enough oxygen for the burn. She would not pant. Her pulse pounded in her ears. And her arm never unlocked from the fragile burden that she clutched to her chest.
The little girl hung on like a limpet, her face buried in Eli’s chest.
The temblor that she had sensed and smelled on the wind hit. It rolled like the ocean Eli had been on once long ago, an ocean rescue she hoped never to repeat. The ground rolled, but Eli kept her feet.
But it didn’t stop. The earth rebelled, the quake growing stronger and stronger, unending. And changed.
Eli felt her heart stutter step.
Nature was going to finally get her. The ground began to shake and jerk, the rolling gone.
* * *
Beatrice strangled a cry, able to see the small form of Eli and her burden on the rubble zone. Watched Eli run like a sailor across the deck of a storm-tossed ship. But Beatrice stuffed her hand over her mouth. Eli needed her concentration now more than ever.
But Beatrice could pray.
“God, keep my Eli lucky,” she whispered.
* * *
Eli stumbled, the heaving earth throwing her from her stride, a chaotic jerk that she hadn’t anticipated. That ripped the ground in front of her into a sudden crevasse.
* * *
The man screamed. He had seen Eli.
And he’d seen the crevasse that opened like a hungry mouth before Eli and her burden.
“JILL!”
* * *
Eli didn’t know how to pray. Didn’t know what it was. But she did know how to leap.
Somehow she found her footing…
And jumped, throwing her heart and will over the opening ground.
Eli and the little girl hung in the air for what seemed forever to Eli’s heightened and overdriven senses.
The hole under her seemed to become a mile wild. She wasn’t going to make it. Nature was going to win.
Then the ground on the other side of the crevasse was hurtling up at them. Eli tucked the girl tighter to her chest, becoming as close to a ball as possible, and rolled.
They came to rest at the door of the transport, just as the temblor died away. Eli unrolled, the girl unharmed, both of them covered in dirt and dust.
“Jill!” a man yelled, someone Eli didn’t recognize; he pushed past Beatrice, and scooped the child up. “Oh, Jill!”
“Daddy!” the girl squeaked, but still weak and tired sounding.
“Oh baby,” he started to cry.
Eli allowed herself a smile.
Nature passed her by again. Somehow. Today, she had saved someone after all.
* * *
A short while later, while Beatrice went over every inch of Eli’s body with a towel and anti-bacterial cream for the inevitable small scrapes, the man and the girl approached. They stood at the back of the transport. Beatrice raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. Eli wondered about that.
“My daughter won’t let us go till I say something to you,” the man said, shame mottling his face in red patches.
Eli cocked her head in mute interest.
“Thank you,” he said, and he would have turned to go, but his little girl, Jill, came over, still tired and still weak and wrapped her arms around Eli’s legs. Eli startled on the inside, but didn’t jump.
“Thank you,” he repeated. “You are definitely more than just a machinima.”
“Thank you,” Jill said. “Thank you, angel Eli, for finding me.”
Eli didn’t know what to do. It was Beatrice who came to her rescue for once. How strange to be the rescued and not the rescuer, Eli thought with wonder.
“No one has ever thanked her before,” Beatrice said.
The man’s face hardened a bit and then he smiled at both Beatrice and Eli.
“Then let this just be the first of many. Come on, Jill, let’s go home.”
* * *
ELI #7
Eli Shevah tested the air with her sensitive nose, and pressed her bioengineered hand against the rubble in front of her. Super light, and super strong, she would not shift the earthquake rubble on her own. She’d been engineered from Greyhounds and bird genetics, all grafted onto a Homo sapiens base. Saiden Dog they called her kind, and the cast of her face showed the Greyhound while her movements showed the manipulated hawk genetics. This very work was everything she’d been designed for. Disaster recovery, earthquakes in particular.
But Nature might have other plans. Science might have made her, but Eli never underestimated the power of Nature.
Shevah, her last name, was actually her designation, Seventh in Series. The previous six of her series? All had fallen prey to Nature’s embrace. Nomi had died in a tsunami in the Far East. Josh and Moisha in a firestorm in the Amazon. Tikva, Ruti, and Sarah in a volcanic eruption in the Pacific Northwest. All had died saving others. Saving humans.
Eli didn’t think herself smarter or faster or better than her series mates. She only knew that she gave Nature utmost respect, and so far, she survived. While her series mates were no more.
It left her alone in the world. No more series mates when she infrequently went back to the barracks that others might have called a home, but Eli never did.
She only had one companion now. Her handler, Beatrice, safely outside the rubble zone, and currently silent on the ear bud perched in Eli’s delicately pointed, and slightly furred ear. Beatrice knew Eli needed silence during a recovery.
There.
She heard it again.
Crying.
Five meters ahead and down.
Eli eased forward and began digging, nano-reinforced nails, polymer-carbonate-reinforced bones, and bio-engineered muscles making quick work of the rubble, thrown behind her, because there it was stable. No one would be hurt by the additional weight of stone and dirt.
She hummed almost silently as she did. Today, she’d save someone.
* * *
Jill heard the angel before she saw her, trapped in the remains of her papa’s hotel room. The sound of shifting rubble and the soft, soft humming. She would have called out, but her mouth was too dry. She swallowed and made fists, trying not to cry, but her cheeks were wet anyway. She was a big girl. Her papa had said so. She wouldn’t cry.
The rubble parted, revealing two lambent golden eyes that seemed to hang in the darkness.
Her papa hadn’t lied. Angels did exist.
* * *
“What’s taking so long?”
Beatrice keyed off her communications package. She’d be damned if she’d disturb Eli.
“It takes as long as it takes,” she said evenly.
How the man had gotten past the security perimeter, she’d never know. Some high level dignitary, and his daughter might or might not be in the disaster zone now.
“It’s been hours! Can’t that machinima go faster?”
“Eli is not a machine. Eli is only flesh and bone. Enhanced, and engineered, but only flesh,” Beatrice said. “She gets tired.”
She turned away before she did something she would regret. Saw the red dot begin to move on her laptop screen.
“That’s our Eli. Lucky number seven,” she breathed to herself, and prepared herself to wait, and ignore the man.
* * *
“Hello,” Eli said, enhanced eyes seeing easily in the gloom. She knew that the little girl in the hole she’d unearthed couldn’t see more than a shape in the growing darkness.
The girl just stared.
“Are you hurt?”
The little girl shook her head.
Eli crawled down into the hole.
“Can you climb on my back?”
“Who are you?” the little girl’s voice was weak and tired. Eli hurt to hear it so.
“I’m Eli. I’m here to save you.”
And with that, she helped the girl climb on her back, and carried her out of the ruins, retracing her steps back the mile and a half out of the rubble zone. She went with hands and feet, the girl now clinging to her back, little arms around her neck in a way that would have choked a human, but troubled Eli not at all. She’d have preferred to go erect, but all fours meant for more stability and speed. They’d be out of the zone before full night fell.
Eli allowed herself to hum a little louder.
* * *
She smelled it first. Then she sensed it in her head, a sensation that she’d never been able to describe to anyone else, not even Beatrice. Her head came up, nostrils flaring. The smell came again.
“Beatrice? Beatrice!”
No response.
“Hang on tight,” she said to the girl, and with one arm, shifted the child to her chest, her arm wrapped around the child to go upright.
And ran as fast as she could, overloading her endorphin register.
* * *
“Eli?!” Beatrice saw the speeding shape before anyone else. Belatedly remembered her comm package, and cursed herself for turning it off.
“Eli?” she repeated, panicked. Eli wouldn’t make that kind of speed on a rubble zone unless something was really wrong.
“Temblor coming,” Eli responded, breathless. “Beatrice, get to safety!”
“Oh shit,” Beatrice said, and yelled to the rest of the team while grabbing the man. “Everyone, move! We’ve got another one coming!”
“How does she know?” the man gaped.
“I don’t know. It’s not in her design specs. But she’s never wrong,” Beatrice said, as they made for the armored transport at a dead run.
* * *
Eli’s breath came in even measures. Always enough oxygen for the burn. She would not pant. Her pulse pounded in her ears. And her arm never unlocked from the fragile burden that she clutched to her chest.
The little girl hung on like a limpet, her face buried in Eli’s chest.
The temblor that she had sensed and smelled on the wind hit. It rolled like the ocean Eli had been on once long ago, an ocean rescue she hoped never to repeat. The ground rolled, but Eli kept her feet.
But it didn’t stop. The earth rebelled, the quake growing stronger and stronger, unending. And changed.
Eli felt her heart stutter step.
Nature was going to finally get her. The ground began to shake and jerk, the rolling gone.
* * *
Beatrice strangled a cry, able to see the small form of Eli and her burden on the rubble zone. Watched Eli run like a sailor across the deck of a storm-tossed ship. But Beatrice stuffed her hand over her mouth. Eli needed her concentration now more than ever.
But Beatrice could pray.
“God, keep my Eli lucky,” she whispered.
* * *
Eli stumbled, the heaving earth throwing her from her stride, a chaotic jerk that she hadn’t anticipated. That ripped the ground in front of her into a sudden crevasse.
* * *
The man screamed. He had seen Eli.
And he’d seen the crevasse that opened like a hungry mouth before Eli and her burden.
“JILL!”
* * *
Eli didn’t know how to pray. Didn’t know what it was. But she did know how to leap.
Somehow she found her footing…
And jumped, throwing her heart and will over the opening ground.
Eli and the little girl hung in the air for what seemed forever to Eli’s heightened and overdriven senses.
The hole under her seemed to become a mile wild. She wasn’t going to make it. Nature was going to win.
Then the ground on the other side of the crevasse was hurtling up at them. Eli tucked the girl tighter to her chest, becoming as close to a ball as possible, and rolled.
They came to rest at the door of the transport, just as the temblor died away. Eli unrolled, the girl unharmed, both of them covered in dirt and dust.
“Jill!” a man yelled, someone Eli didn’t recognize; he pushed past Beatrice, and scooped the child up. “Oh, Jill!”
“Daddy!” the girl squeaked, but still weak and tired sounding.
“Oh baby,” he started to cry.
Eli allowed herself a smile.
Nature passed her by again. Somehow. Today, she had saved someone after all.
* * *
A short while later, while Beatrice went over every inch of Eli’s body with a towel and anti-bacterial cream for the inevitable small scrapes, the man and the girl approached. They stood at the back of the transport. Beatrice raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. Eli wondered about that.
“My daughter won’t let us go till I say something to you,” the man said, shame mottling his face in red patches.
Eli cocked her head in mute interest.
“Thank you,” he said, and he would have turned to go, but his little girl, Jill, came over, still tired and still weak and wrapped her arms around Eli’s legs. Eli startled on the inside, but didn’t jump.
“Thank you,” he repeated. “You are definitely more than just a machinima.”
“Thank you,” Jill said. “Thank you, angel Eli, for finding me.”
Eli didn’t know what to do. It was Beatrice who came to her rescue for once. How strange to be the rescued and not the rescuer, Eli thought with wonder.
“No one has ever thanked her before,” Beatrice said.
The man’s face hardened a bit and then he smiled at both Beatrice and Eli.
“Then let this just be the first of many. Come on, Jill, let’s go home.”
