Humanity by J.D. Knutson Page A

about clothes?”
    “Er, get some?”
    “I thought we’d start right off heading
south, and stop at any shopping malls we find along the way. With that method,
if the first few malls don’t have anything useful, we still have some time
before it becomes an issue.”
    “Is it difficult to find good clothing?”
    Gideon gave me a look. “Generally, yes.”
    I looked down. “My parents usually
happened to procure them through a trade. We didn’t spend time looking for
clothes; we spent time looking for more valuable items. Like the medicine.” I
patted the strap of my backpack that rested on my shoulder.
    “That’s smart. But it involves
interacting with other people, so I prefer finding my essentials on my own. Of
course, it’s a little harder to find clothing because everyone needs it. The
good stuff is usually gone. And then there’s the rare situations where I’m in
need of something a little less common. Like the medicine.” He lightly patted
my backpack, mimicking my motion. “It’s no wonder your parents decided to
target that sort of thing. Very useful.”
    “Yeah,” I mumbled. His patting my
backpack had made me realize just how close he was sitting to me – only about a
foot between us – and it was a little disconcerting. I wanted to scoot away,
but he was sure to notice. Besides, he was obviously aware of our proximity,
and he felt perfectly comfortable with it. I should probably just let it go.
    “One time, a teenager tried to kill me.
She got close enough to leave a cut on my arm.” He held his arm out and showed
me the cut I’d given him over a month ago. It was a healed, thin red line now;
it had never been that deep. “She didn’t know it, but that cut got infected. A
few more weeks and I would have been dead, just as she wanted. However, an
interesting change of circumstances gave me the opportunity to survive: I was
attacked by another group of people who were probably in need of something they
thought I had. The girl who wanted me dead? She saved me. She did it because she wanted to kill me, and didn’t want anyone else to take that from her. So, she
killed my attackers, and then patched me up. Then, she gave me medicine that
would stop any infection I might have – the exact medicine I needed to stop the
infection she’d already given me. The infection that would have killed me.
    “Useful stuff, medicine.” He gave me a
warm smile.
    I gaped at him. “You’re telling me that
I’d already succeeded at killing you,
only to interfere by trying to save your death for myself?”
    “Not only that, but it would have been a
nice, slow death. I would have suffered, and you would have gotten to watch.”
    “But you didn’t tell me that,” I accused.
    “No, I didn’t. And here we are now: I’m
alive. And you no longer want me dead.”
    “I didn’t say that. I said that I didn’t
have it in me to kill you.”
    “Because now you know me too well.”
    I rolled my eyes up at the sky. “Why are
you telling me this?”
    “Telling you what?” he asked innocently.
    “Why are you telling me about the
infection?”
    “Because I’ve wanted to tell you for a while. And now, finally, you’re done
trying to kill me; it seemed like a good time.”
    “But why does it even matter? You didn’t
die from that infection; you let me unknowingly give you the medicine that
saved you. It’s done. Nothing came of it. So why do you want me to know?”
    “Because it’s an interesting twist of
fate. If things had just happened a little bit differently, I would have died,
and your revenge would have been fulfilled, and you would have been. . .”
    “Alone.”
    “Yes. Alone.” His eyes held mine.
    I looked away.
    “It’s just one of those things that makes
you think,” he continued, “and I wanted to share it with you.”
    But why had he wanted to share it with me? Nothing changed by him saying it. He was
still him, and I was still me, and we still had some sort of understanding
between