Critical Path

Especially since Layla had taken over proceedings.

But then what did he care anyway? The bitch could do what she wanted; he had someone else to occupy his attentions now. A fitter, younger, more naïve model who wasn’t some damned anthropological expert.

This one didn’t have an answer for everything and would be easier to bring on side. He just needed a little more time with her.

With Denver realizing he had a pair of balls and taking a fancy to Layla, poor little Maria was left abandoned and in need of a friend—a special friend.

Gregor pushed the throttle to three-quarters. The engines whined with power, blasting the hover-bike northwards over the trees. Below him, giant snakes of charred earth cut an east-west trajectory where once harvesters roamed. They had dug it up, burned it all.

A pair of lonely, empty harvesters sat in the middle of a track of blackened ground. One of them had its tracks missing. The people from Freetown and other farms stripped the vehicle for parts.

Charlie’s old friend Mike paid particular attention to this task as he passed on his engineering knowledge to some of the younger farmhands.

God knows what the old fossil was planning to build now. In his seventies, Mike still acted like a fool. He was one of the few who never really took the root. His fault. The old bastard would be dead soon.

Gregor was in his mid-fifties, but with the root, he felt and looked like he was in his early forties. Other drives and motivations, however, were from a much younger man, and he needed those attended to at some point.

With that thought in mind, he nudged the hover-bike so that it pitched violently a few degrees. Maria’s hands grabbed tighter around his waist. Her thighs press against his legs and her body against his back.

A good start.

“Hold steady,” Maria shouted into the wind. “I nearly fell. Are you trying to kill me?”

Looking over his shoulder, he gave her a grin. “I would never try that with you, my darling girl. You just hold tight in case we hit a little turbulence, eh?”

“There’s no turbulence this low, asshole.”

Gregor laughed as he turned back to the controls and pushed the throttle all the way while also bringing the bike lower so that the underside skimmed the branches and leaves of the tallest redwoods.

“How about now?” he said, wobbling the bike side to side, making Maria scream and squeeze him tighter. “That’s the spirit,” he said before raising the bike clear of the trees.

“You’ll kill us both with stunts like that,” Maria screamed.

Chuckling to himself, he looked down as something caught his attention.

He noticed three groups of approximately a dozen ex-cattle. Men and women bred to feed the croatoans.

Layla had created an education program to turn them back into ‘valued members of society.’ Gregor doubted its effectiveness.

Many of them were born simple. Even without the learned cattle-like behavior, he didn’t think they had the brainpower to comprehend language and appropriate behavior, but then this was right up Layla’s street.

The bitch got wet thinking about all the good she could do with these poor stupid creatures, but he knew it was all crap. She wasn’t doing this for their welfare; she was doing it for her own ego and guilty conscience.

Working with Augustus, she was one of humanity’s betrayers. She helped set up the organization for the farms, including the usage of human cattle, not to mention the breeding programs she oversaw and all the ‘efficiencies’ she delivered.

At least Gregor was honest in his views. He didn’t much care for the cattle people and thought they were probably better off dead. They weren’t going to have much of a life.

A Freetown scientist working under Layla’s direction tried to encourage them to forage. He held up a number of berries and edible plants and showed them how to pick them, but most stared back slack-jawed, unable to comprehend him.

Gregor banked the bike to the left as he saw the first farm tower. The main facility lay further on, hidden by the trees. He used the series of observation towers on each corner of the facility to navigate his way in.

“Hold on,” he said over his shoulder, winking at Maria. “It’s going to get a little… rough.”

“Take it easy. No need to be reckless.”

“No need, but it’s more fun!”

Maria screamed something, but her words were snatched away by the rush of the wind in his ears as he dove the bike, pointing its nose through a narrow gap in the treetops.

Branches scratched against the fenders on the side of the bike, but he powered on through, digging his feet into the cups. Maria’s weight slid against him, pushing him further into the bike’s controls.

With a heavy pull, he raised the nose as they flew down between two blocky, flat-roofed buildings. He piloted the bike beneath a gantry, ducking even though he had plenty of space.

A couple of women in the alley dove to the floor, making him laugh out loud.

“Slow down!” Maria screamed, her words barely audible.

Exiting the alley, he took the bike across a paved courtyard.