by Isaac Hooke
“I guess I thought the sediment would settle once the storm ended,” Rhea continued.
“This is settled,” Will told her. “It doesn’t get much better than this. Earthquakes and bioweapons help disperse the latest storms. I’ve seen it really bad at times, where you had to wade through sentiment reaching up to your hips in places. And at other times, the landscape has been scrubbed completely clean.”
“So we didn’t see any drifts until now,” Rhea said. “I’m guessing that’s because a storm transferred all the loose grit somewhere else.”
“Not quite,” Will explained. “Weather control restricts the storms to Outland areas that are well away from cities. The High Council doesn’t really care if Gritstorms run rampant here, since there are only bioweapons and bandits in the Outlands anyway. But letting a Gritstorm get close to one of their precious settlements? They’d never allow it. Not that the residents wouldn’t be able to handle it—they’d have to cloister up for a few days. But can you imagine the cleanup effort afterward? Not something that cities like to budget for.”
Rhea saw subtle signs of the Gritstorms thereafter, with drifts affecting objects to varying degrees. Even the farmhouses had small piles collecting next to them.
A week into their trek west, the party came upon an abandoned farm that was roughly thrice as big as any encountered thus far. It was set amid a large clearing in a forest of dead trees. Small drifts covered the eastern bases of the trees in said forest, while even smaller sediment piles had collected on the farm buildings, no doubt thanks to the forest, which had obviously served as a catch for airborne sediment in the last storm.
Three towering grain silos squatted on the perimeter, but the trapdoors on all of them were open, the grain within long since looted—perhaps by men, perhaps by bioweapons. Two wide, empty plots lay beside the silos: Rhea suspected crops had once grown in them.
The barn had its doors blown off at the hinges. There was some rotten hay inside, and the skeletons of a few horses, but that was it. The vehicle shed fared no better—the husks of two dismantled farm machines lay within, their most valuable parts missing.
“So much for a new route offering fresh salvage,” Horatio commented. “We’ve been traveling for almost a week and almost have nothing to show for it. In previous years, we would’ve found at least one high ticket item by now. I always knew this day would come.”
Rhea frowned. “What day is that?”
“The day the Outlands had been entirely looted,” the robot answered.
“No way, dude,” Will said. “That day will never come. There are too many nooks and crannies out here. Not just in the wilderness, but in the fallen cities.”
“I was attempting sarcasm,” Horatio said.
“And you know something else?” Will continued as if he hadn’t heard. “Bricked satellites drop from orbit all the time. No, there’s enough junk up there to last a few lifetimes, my friend.”
“Didn’t I already say I was going for sarcasm?” Horatio asked.
“Good attempt,” Will told the robot.
“We should save up to buy a shuttle sometime,” Rhea said. “Go direct to the source.”
“Some salvagers have shuttles,” Will admitted. “Unfortunately, the cost is just a little bit out of reach for us at the moment.”
After a quick check of the guesthouse, they went to the main manor. The door was kicked in, and the windows broken.
“All right, let’s split up,” Will said.
They entered the main hall. The entrance rug was chewed up, as if by rodents or insects. The group separated.
Rhea took a hall that led to what looked like the kitchen. All of the appliances were looted. Dead flies littered the floor and tabletops. Mouse droppings were strewn across everything. She saw balls of fur as well, with the skeletons of the mice that had once owned the fur at their centers.
“What’s with the flies and mice?” Rhea asked. “I thought everything was supposed to be dead in the Outlands? Other than bioweapons…”
“Well, the flies fed off the corpses of the mice obviously,” Horatio replied. “And as for the mice themselves, they probably found a hidden food source somewhere in the house. Maybe supplies buried under the kitchen floorboards.”
“Enough to last them thirty years?” Rhea pressed.
“Could be,” Horatio said. “What would last humans two years, would keep mice for thirty.”
“Life always finds a way,” Will agreed. “Who knows? Maybe they’ve mutated just like the bioweapons, and they’re able to generate some of their daily energy requirements from the sun.”
Rhea waved a dismissive hand, even though Will couldn’t see it from where he was. “Pfft, I doubt it.”
“There are certainly hardy insect species that still exist in the Outlands,” Horatio added. “Some of them have even evolved to have a parasitic relationship with the bioweapons. For instance, did you know Werangs have lice?”
“Thanks for that image,” Rhea said.
She stepped fastidiously across the floor, avoiding the dead mice and flies, and began checking the cupboards and drawers one by one. The windows of the kitchen were intact, but black flies crawled along the frames. Dark dots littered the surface—fly eggs. She wrinkled her nose in disgust and went on to the next drawer. She found utensils. The metal had some small value, but in truth, the kitchenware would merely take up space in her pack that was better saved for something more expensive. Then again, at the rate they were finding salvage, she might be better off just grabbing the utensils so that she ended up reducing her debt by at least some amount by the next settlement. She could get rid of the cheap items when something better presented itself. Assuming Will or Horatio didn’t beat her to it, again. They liked to remind her about the salvager’s first rule all the time: Finders Keepers.
Screwing up her nose, she scooped up the dirty, dropping-caked utensils and shoved them into a side pocket in the backpack.
She turned toward a cupboard, her gaze passing over a window next to it. She stared into the dirty pane of glass, her eyes flitting past the abandoned outbuildings to linger on the dead trees that lined the estate’s perimeter. Black and gray trunks, all claws and talons.
The same fate awaits us all. To lie abandoned. Forgotten. Even cyborgs must die, one day.
She blinked, returning to the task at hand. She opened the cupboard and cringed. More dead flies. The insects had penetrated courtesy of a crack in the side.
“You ever think of doing something else?” Rhea transmitted. “Something that isn’t so… dirty?”
Will laughed over the comm. “Dirty? Hey, everything in this life is dirty.”
“Not everything,” Rhea said. “Love, for example.”
“Love?” Will said. “I hate to call you out as naive, but love is one of the dirtiest things around. People always get hurt. Always. Doesn’t matter the type of relationship. Lovers. A parent and child. Friends. Love is dirty. Not to mention sex, it’s physical counterpart. Think about it. When you kiss, you exchange saliva, and all the mouth bacteria that goes along with it. Your cheeks touch? Well, now you’ve got facial microorganisms jumping ship as well. And we’re not even talking about the actual sex act. Rubbing your genitals together? You’re transferring not only fluids that are crawling with potential viruses, but also dead skin, and the colonies of bacteria that live on and inside the reproductive organs themselves… yuck.”
“If it’s so dirty and gross like the way you make it sound, why did you spend your three days in the city doing nothing but mating all day?” she asked.
“Because I like dirty,” he said. “The same way I like salvaging. That’s cute, by the way. How you say the word ‘mating,’ giving it a cute inflection. Kind of a jealous infection, actually.”
Rhea paused in the act of opening another cupboard. “Jealous?”
“Yeah,” Will said. “Which is understandable, seeing as how you’re not equipped to mate.”
“I’m hardly jeal
ous,” Rhea said. “In fact, I’m the opposite.”
“Really.” Will sounded doubtful.
“I’m free of the urges that control ordinary humans,” she said. “The urges that drive them to make bad decisions. I like this freedom. I don’t think I’m ever going to get genital extensions.”
“We’ll see,” Will said. “I’m willing to wager on it that in a few months from now, when your debt is cleared, the first thing you do is install genital extensions to your body.”
“How much do you want to wager?” she asked.
“How about fifty creds,” he replied.
“You’re on,” Rhea said. “You might as well subtract that from my debt right now.”
“Nope,” he told her. “We wait until six months after you’ve paid off your debt. If you haven’t installed genital extensions by then, I’ll pay you the fifty.”
The next two cupboards had shelves littered with broken dishes. Worthless.
“Machine sex,” Horatio said suddenly. “It’s the only way to go. You say sex is dirty? Well, machine sex is the cleanest around. Why do you think so many people own fembots? Or kenbots, for the lady among us. Even better is virtual sex.”
“As usual you’re late to the party,” Will said. “We were done talking about the dirty part of sex about a minute ago.”
“Well, I didn’t want to interrupt,” Horatio said.
“He’s right, the comment was kind of late,” Rhea said.
“My mind works non-linearly,” Horatio said. “I recorded my response when you mentioned dirty sex, waited until the two of you had hashed out your competing thoughts on the matter, and then added my piece.”
Rhea smiled but said nothing.
“I once dated a cyborg, you know,” Will sent. “She didn’t have genital extensions, but I fell for her anyway. Our relationship transcended the sexual. It was… interesting. She could still satisfy me with her mouth, of course. But she didn’t ask for any pleasure in return. All she wanted was my company.”
“What happened?” Rhea asked.
“She realized that she indeed wanted pleasure in return,” Will said. “She become a VR addict. VR can stimulate the same regions of the brain involved in sexual reproduction, when the right attachments have been implanted. The mind-machine interfaces of cyborgs come with the necessary implants already.”
“I didn’t know that,” Rhea said.
“That’s right,” Will said. “Now I know what you’re going to do with your spare time every night going forward. There goes the target practice Horatio told me about.”
“I’d rather not become a VR addict,” Rhea said. “I think I’ll hold off, for the foreseeable future, and avoid opening pandora’s box. Like I told you, I have no urges to seek sexual gratification of any kind. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“If you ever need an introduction to virtual sex, I’m your man,” Horatio said. “Or rather, machine.”
“Pervert,” Will commented.
“What?” Horatio said. “There’s nothing wrong with having sex with a machine. Couples in relationships do it all the time. It’s not cheating when it’s with a machine.”
“Um, I’m not in a relationship?” Rhea said.
“I meant that only as an example,” Horatio said. “No disrespect.”
“None taken,” she said. “But can we move on to a different topic now? I’m not sure how we got started on this tangent in the first place…”
“I blame it on you,” Will replied over the comm. “You brought up mating.”
“Only after you said sex is dirty,” she countered. “In fact, I’m starting to wonder if you did it on purpose to—”
Rhea heard a sound like splitting wood outside, followed by a crash. Glancing out the window, she saw a Karg erupting from the treeline and making a mad dash toward the farmhouse. Two more broke through the dead trees beside it.
“Kargs!” she sent.
The creatures were headed straight for the kitchen portion of the manor.
12
Rhea’s first instinct was to reach for her pistol, but her brain was firing on all cylinders, enhanced by fear and whatever flight-or-fight chemicals her mind-machine interface was pumping into her artificial cranium, and she realized it was impossible the Kargs could have seen her. Their echolocation would’ve harmlessly bounced off the farmhouse exterior. The kitchen portion, with the windows still intact, would appear little more than a rectangular object to them, at least until they got closer. Those same unbroken windows would have also prevented Rhea’s smell from carrying to the creatures.
They were attacking something else. There was no other explanation.
It took the last of her will to remain stock still as she watched them charge. While the Kargs had weak vision, they were getting close enough to pick up movement behind the windows. She probably should have ducked when she first saw them.
Too late now.
When the Kargs didn’t deviate from their course and continued straight toward the kitchen area of the farmhouse, she wondered if she was wrong about them attacking something else. Their hearing was sensitive: it was possible they’d overheard her conversation with Will, even if the windows muted sound.
Should have used thought communication.
Or maybe they’d spotted her after all.
Her hand drifted to the pistol. She opened the holster and wrapped her palm around the grip.
The Kargs continued heading straight toward the biggest window, which was located just above the sink. Their head segments opened and closed in anticipation, and the serrated teeth on the tentacles hanging from their underbellies gleamed beneath the sun. Clacks, clicks and hisses issued from them—echolocation.
At the last moment the bioweapons swerved, narrowly avoiding the house. She watched them race in front of the other windows. One of the creatures slammed a companion into the exterior as it passed, hard enough to shatter the particular window that was next to it. The three of them continued running as a group, turning from the building and quickly vanished from her line of sight.
Rhea, what’s going on? Will sent over their mental link. Update me.
They haven’t attacked, she replied.
She moved to the closest window and peered outside. She spotted the Kargs near the middle of the clearing, between the guesthouse and barn. Two of them had thoroughly pinned the third, and the latter wiggled to and fro, tentacles and legs writhing. Finally, the trapped creature tore away; it pounced upon one of its attackers and attempted to wrestle the foe to the ground. None of them drew blood through it all.
I think… she sent. I think they’re playing with each other.
Motion drew her gaze west, toward where the bioweapons had first made their entry. Other Kargs entered from the dead forest. She counted thirty. A chorus of clacking sounds came from them.
Got more, she sent. I’m taking cover.
Likewise, Will replied.
She ducked underneath the cupboard below the sink. As she pulled herself inside, she spotted more mouse skeletons and their fur balls. She involuntarily pressed her lips together in disgust. The profusion of droppings told her she was getting close to the nest.
Wonderful.
She wondered how many mice still lived. On the one hand, she hoped they were thriving, because if rodents could survive the harsh the environment the Outlands had become, that meant other life could thrive here, too. But on the other hand, she was terrified of the very notion, because, well, they were mice. She couldn’t shake the image that popped into her head, of hundreds of mice suddenly emerging from beneath the cupboard and crawling all over her. It made her shudder, and she almost pulled herself right out of there. But a quick glance at the other floor-level cupboards she’d opened told her that they weren’t any better, at least when it came to droppings and mouse corpses. Plus, most of them had shelves blocking out most of the free space.
They’re just mice, she told herself. Harmless, compared to Kargs.
Sh
e took a deep breath, steeling herself, then edged her way through the cupboard, taking care to avoid the tiny corpses as she squeezed between the sink’s drainpipe and the cupboard wall. When she reached the far corner, she hunkered down.
She glanced at her overhead map and confirmed that Will and Horatio had ensconced in other rooms nearby.
With her foot, she reached out past the lip of the cupboard and slowly closed each of the doors, being careful not to make a sound as she did so. A sliver of light indicated where the two doors met and provided enough illumination for her machine eyes to observe the alcove in all its skeletal-mouse detail.
All quiet so far? Rhea sent.
All clear on my end, Horatio replied.
Giz is tracking them, Will reminded her.
She glanced at her overhead map. Sure enough, red dots marked the positions of the Kargs, as recorded by the airborne drone. It was flying high enough to avoid detection.
Yeah, but Giz can’t see through the roof of the building, Rhea sent.
None of the bioweapons have entered yet, Will said. But see those two approaching the front? They’re the ones we have to worry about.
Indeed, two of the red dots were heading toward the main entrance. The first moved ahead of the other, then froze as it crossed the building threshold. The other dot did the same behind it—like she’d said, Gizmo couldn’t see through the roof, and the team was left with the last known positions of the bioweapons.
Nothing happened for several moments. She heard nothing saving for the inhale and exhale of her own nervous breathing. But then in the hallway just outside she heard the loud thudding of four hoofed feet, along with the occasional angry snort.
The noises became louder as obviously one of the bioweapons entered the kitchen. She heard the rising crack of wooden doors being broken off the hinges of kitchen cabinets as it advanced. She wondered if the Karg would find it odd that the cupboard beneath the sink was closed, whereas all the others were open. Perhaps it had been a bad idea to seal those doors with her foot.
