Nirvana Effect

36



Edward ran. He concentrated on getting every iota of momentum possible out of his leg muscles. He pushed with all his might. He had to catch up with that boy. Tomy had a head start, but Edward was closing on him. Though the Onge boy had been raised running the jungles, Edward had the trance and longer legs.

The boy darted behind bushes and plunged through underbrush. If he got out of eyesight long enough, he could hide. Then Edward would be one step behind Mahanta again. Dangerous. Gotta get him.

Edward felt the sharp thorns of plants ripping at his skin. He stumbled, but managed to launch himself back up without slowing his pace.

For a moment Edward lost him. Tomy was out of sight, and all Edward had to track was the swaying of vines and limbs in the boy’s wake.

Their chase had taken them deep into the jungle, where the moon had a harder time piercing the treetops. Even with his trance vision, Edward had a hard time seeing what was ahead of him.

He forced his eyes to dilate further as he ran, so that he could pick up motion more easily but caught less detail. Edward didn’t feel the fear he’d felt during his first nighttime race into the jungle. Rather, he felt calm, detached, as though he were playing a game of cat and mouse.

He heard moving water, some sort of stream. He kept following the branches whipping back, the leaves waving under the moonlight. It was harder to hear the footsteps and the boy’s path because of the water, but he could still make it out.

He started being able to hear the boy’s breathing. Edward was getting closer, still, but the jungle was growing thicker. He strained his eyes to catch a glimpse of that boy’s dirty shirt and dark skin.

The finer calculations of his predicament were starting to enter rapidly into Edward’s mind.

The spear. That flash of metal had been a spear. He had to keep the boy on the run, or else Edward might have Tomy’s weapon run through his gut.

Edward heard Tomy shout. He was close. Edward lunged through a wall of brush, pushing hard into the jungle floor for more leverage.

There was no leverage. His foot pumped through the empty air.

He gasped. His right leg plunged downward. His left knee smashed into the ground and then he was flipping in the air. Directly below was water shimmering by the moon. It was a thirty foot drop to a rocky bed. The jungle stream had carved a gorge into the bedrock.

Edward stopped time. At least, that was how his sense channels perceived it. He could think so much more rapidly than the events unfolding that he may as well have been suspended in the air for an hour. His mind took in everything. The rocks below. Tomy on the ground near the water, hurt, dragging himself up. The spear on the other side of the water.

The stream was shallow and only a few yards wide. There was no sense in landing in it.

The roots. They projected out from the other side of the gorge. They were insubstantial, but his only shot at avoiding injury. He could reach them. He spotted a long, fat root hanging out from the other side about ten feet down. He extended his body out of his aerial roll to catch it.

The root creaked, but he stopped his fall.

Below, the boy started moving away in a gimpy sprint, cradling his arm. The way he moved reminded Edward of the beggar boy. He’d been the beggar boy. Edward hadn’t recognized him in the shirt, with his dirty skin and his hair so much in his face. Tomy was picking up speed. Edward kept his eyes locked on him, adjusting his grip on the root.

It started to give. Edward’s hands slipped as the root bent down towards the stream. The root was too moist to really grip well. He saw another root ten feet below, but it was too far downstream to reach.

The root gashed his hands, but he willed himself to hold on long enough to swing slightly downstream. He fell.

Edward caught the next root, but only for a moment before he dropped down to the creek bed. He landed hard. The whole bed of the gorge was rock.

Had he not been trancing, the impact even from twenty feet up would have knocked him out. Instead, he willed himself through, rolling toward where he’d last seen Tomy and launching forward.

Tomy had slipped out of sight. Edward raced along the bank, moving much more rapidly with firm ground underfoot and every muscle working in perfect harmony under the trance.

He didn’t feel any of the exertion he’d just gone through. He could tap into the pain of it if he so desired; he didn’t so desire. I could probably will myself to sprint until I drop dead. Gotta make sure I don’t overdo it.

The gorge stretched long and straight. He could see far ahead, but no saw no sign of Tomy. He must have gotten out somehow.

There. Edward almost passed it - a steep yet navigable slope out of the gorge. Edward climbed up, back into the jungle.

He tuned his ears to every sound of the night, but the one noise he was looking for he couldn’t find. He heard no footsteps, no rustling, just the howls of the animals, the croaks of the reptiles, the calls of the insects. Nothing human.

Breathing. He heard human breathing. It was only one sound of thousands, but in the trance, he heard it. It came from above.

Edward craned his neck. He knew Tomy hid in the tree branches, but couldn’t see him.

A thousand calculations whirred through Edward’s mind. Edward was no Onge; he wasn’t physically able to scale a tree. Even if he tried, Tomy would just jump down and escape. It had been a wise move for the boy to take the high ground.

Edward edged forward slowly, alert for an ambush. None came. He knew Tomy was watching his every move from high in the branches. For fifteen minutes, Edward continued on, expecting at any moment to hear the dull thud of Onge feet on soft jungle ground and the boy running again. Once Tomy was on the ground, Edward would have him.

But Tomy didn’t drop. Finally, Edward decided to head back. He didn’t know how much longer the trance would last, and didn’t particularly want it to end before he got out of the jungle. As Edward turned to go back to the gorge, he heard the rustling of tree branches, but no thud.

The Onge boy was wisely sticking to the treetops.

Edward thought about his next move as he ran back. He knew he had a little time to think. It would take Tomy over a day to get back to the village on foot, even at a breakneck speed. Edward could make it in a car in just three hours.

I’ve got time. Think it out.

He had to cut off Tomy at the pass. He didn’t know what Tomy would report to Mahanta. Edward had to assume Tomy had seen the pills and that he’d seen Callista. That put her in danger and him in danger.

Edward found another exit to the gorge on the other side and ran back to Callista’s home through the jungle.

As he ran, he wondered if he hadn’t made a mistake.

I did. He had known he was making it when he kissed her, but he would have never have done it if he’d known Tomy followed him.

He mentally cringed at the idea of what he must do. He had to end it with her now. Now that he didn’t get Tomy, his vision with her was not just dim; it was dead. It would only be selfish of him to cling to her. If he didn’t stop it now, she might end up dead as his vision. He could not predict Tomy or Mahanta. Both would have no compunctions against harming her if they saw fit.

He hated it, though. He was about to hurt her worse than he’d ever hurt anyone.

He was glad that the trance allowed him to will his thoughts away from it. He would do what must be done when he got back to the house. For now, he would just run through the jungle.

He willed away the sick feeling to his stomach, as well. It was the same sick feeling he’d gotten when he signed his life to the Jesuits. It was the feeling that she was gone.