by Toby Weston
The big device looked like a garden fork with too many prongs, crossed with a 1950s ray gun. The brothers moved the accompanying speakers into position and started it on low power, aiming it through the obscuring wooden walls of the barn towards the soldiers’ vehicles. The two ladies knew what was coming, but still involuntarily tightened and glanced around for reassurance when the switch was flipped and the hairs on the backs of their necks stood on end.
The officer, already uncomfortable with orders telling him to come up here and bother the well-respected old matron, began to experience a conviction that he was committing some horrible crime against Allāh. Divine disapproval was manifesting as a physical weight on his shoulders and a churning in his stomach. He felt a skeletal hand inside his shirt, clenching his heart. The smells of the fumes and the evil cursing were enough; he began to edge away from the gate. The sky was ochre with smoke. Soldiers inside the bus began a nervous chittering.
When he heard the percussive metallic sounds of weapons being fiddled with, the officer decided to pull back. He could feel the sense of panic spreading. The skittish men would do something stupid if he didn’t get them away.
They sped back to town, leaving ghosts and the two terrifying women to raise their boys alone.
The boys laughed, despite the tongue lashing they would shortly be receiving for bringing soldiers to the house in the first place.
Five of the battlesuits looked in good shape; another two were badly damaged, with missing limbs and nasty, fatal-looking wounds in their armour. Another three were scrap. They had all come from the tiltrotor that had crashed back in the Spring. Kemal had headed over to loot the wreckage, expecting nothing more than scrap metal, and perhaps some live ammunition. He had hit the jackpot, but hadn’t known what to do with the battlesuits. He had kept quiet for months, until Zaki, who had heard a rumour, turned up with his offer to take the scrap off his hands.
Zaki insisted they had been set up; but, despite agreeing that word had somehow spread back to the local ZKF leadership, Kemal swore he had kept the deal a secret. Eventually, they agreed that he could keep the payment, and they would even forgive him and not offer him up to the Clan for retribution—if he offered the three write-offs, stripped of crucial spare parts, to the technically illiterate ZKF militia and convinced them there was nothing of value up at the Çiftlik house to justify another visit.
A few nights later, as Zaki was working on the suits, he realised that one of the anthropoid shells would have once belonged to Keith. Not for the first time, he wondered what the reluctant soldier hero was up to now…
‘Probably drunk on a beach somewhere!’ he laughed to himself, grinning in the dim light of the barn while twisting off a damaged foot.
Chapter 13 – Biting the Hand
The screaming, flaming wreck arrives like an avenging angel roaring out of the sky to bring retribution on the Earth. It strikes the ground twenty metres or so from the edge of the fence and transforms into a cone of destruction. Sequentially, fence, guard house, and office building are simply erased. A split second after impact, there is a brain-pulverising concussion as a mist of vaporised kerosene, released on impact, combusts, sending up a not so mini mushroom cloud. Keith is looking back, watching the spectacle. They are over a kilometre away, but the shockwave is still considerable. The timer disappears from his Spex and is replaced by an arrow and a new number: forty kilometres.
“Okay, now that we seem to have a few minutes, any chance you can tell me what the FUCK is going on?”
Dee answers by banging her helmet against Keith’s visor. Obviously, she doesn’t feel like elaborating at the moment.
The electric off-road bikes are relatively silent as they bump through the desert, big soft tyres rolling easily over scrub and stones.
“Satellite will be over in six minutes,” a voice says over the group channel. “There is a drone en route; at current speed, it will be over us in twenty-two. What’s your status, Brian?”
“In three or four minutes I join the thirty-five. I’ll take it from here. Good luck, guys.”
“Copy that. Everybody else pull in together. Mindy, be ready with the camo.”
“Roger,” a female voice confirms.
Up ahead, one of the bikes has stopped, again without drama; no skidding, no dust. Two people, one of them presumably Mindy, quickly shakes open a huge blanket with ragged fractal edges. It’s silvered on the underside, with mottled camo on the top. The other three remaining bikes gently pull up and nudge underneath. They wait. Radios and bike motors are turned off. Nobody speaks—which doesn’t really make sense to Keith, but he doesn’t dare bring it up in case there is some way satellites in space can listen to voices.
“That’s it. We’re good. Still twelve minutes until the drone gets here.”
The bikes head off again, perhaps another two kilometres of bumping through the scrub, and then they surge up a small ramp and turn onto a rough tarmac road that merges on either side with the dusty orange. There is very little traffic on the road. The few cars they pass have pulled over to watch the towering fireball that is fading, but still looms, over them. They are close enough to see that the air is full of burning confetti, and they can hear explosions when pockets of kerosene or hydraulic fluid go up in flames.
Two bikes stop near a cluster of vehicles, where a guy in a baseball cap and stained vest is standing on the roof of an ancient wrecked mini-bus parked, or possibly abandoned, at the side of the road. He is excitedly shouting a blow by blow description of what he can see to his friends. As Keith and Dee pass, Keith sees Mindy join the shouted conversation with the guy on the roof.
The drone will be overhead now. Keith and Dee are riding about half a kilometre behind Terrance and Chuck on the lead bike. Brian has taken the delirious guard south, possibly towards Mexico. Keith hopes they are not going to kill him and lose the body in some overgrown creek. Mindy and three other jumpers have parked their bikes and are blending in with the rubbernecking rednecks. Even from the drone’s enhanced point of view, there should be nothing unusual or suspicious to flag. Time will tell if the multiple layers of subterfuge will resist careful analysis, but, at the very least, it should buy them enough time to get out of the area.
“Package is secure, heading to rendezvous.”
“Copy that,” Dee says, glancing up at the lead bike. To Keith she says, “We should be okay now. We will be at the next rendezvous in less than an hour. If anything goes down, we are support for Terence and Chuck. They have the package. They need to get out. We don’t, okay?”
“Okay, got you,” says Keith. “Expendable is my middle name.”
“There is a pistol in the side pocket of your pack,” says Dee. “Don’t feel you need to kill yourself if we get captured, though. You don’t know anything, anyway.”
“Wow! I’d forgotten how much fun you are.”
Dee bangs her helmet against his visor again, but this time it is almost affectionate.
Their bike shudders along the rough tarmac. Dangerously over-capacity and irritated by the constant vibration, Keith’s bladder is at DEFCON 1: COCKED PISTOL; nuclear war is imminent. His erection, not willing to sit out the crisis entirely, is operating at DEFCON 3: ROUND HOUSE; increase in force readiness above that required by normal circumstances.
It is the catsuit that Keith can’t get out of his mind. The jeans and jacket Dee pulled on top before they set off are a mere superficial irrelevance, beneath which, he knows, mounds, valleys and flat expanses of tantalising black Lycra lie, like the terrain of an undiscovered planet. A tiny part of Keith’s mind—the part which is not currently occupied dealing with all the neurological sirens, blaring klaxons, strobing lights, emergency flares, alarm bells, screaming wardens, and intermittent sharp slaps to the face being broadcast in a constant barrage by his distraught organs—is curious to see whether BLADDER prevails and manages to squeeze its liquid payload past PENIS’s vigilant clenched checkpoints, or whether PENIS will be able to maintain
full launch readiness until a fountain of piss bursts out of Keith’s ears with the force of a ruptured fire hose.
As the ‘distance to destination’ readout counts down to zero, they cruise unmolested along mostly empty roads. The land on either side is virtually deserted, with only a few clusters of buildings or solar farms breaking the monotony. A couple of times, emergency vehicles pass with sirens and lights blazing. Their physical presence is preceded by warnings and instructions broadcast into the digital.
Dee pulls off the road at a bleached wooden sign announcing showers and ‘low, low rates’. They follow more guidance overlays to a big old RV, where they pull up beside Terence and Chuck, who are dusting off. Helmets are lifted and grins exchanged.
Keith dismounts carefully and—ignoring the querying glances from Dee and the others—walks stiffly out of view around the side of the RV. There he stands, eyes closed, beads of sweat pricking his forehead, vibrating with effort, while he fumbles with his zippers and eventually manages to retrieve his suffering organ and aim it away from his body.
He clearly hears a heavenly choir exalting hallelujah as he allows himself to relax; then, he is almost knocked off his feet by recoil as a golden beam of energy blasts from his groin.
When it is over, Keith returns to his body, seals up his suit and re-joins the others. He gets the impression that they stopped their conversation some time ago and have just been standing, slack-jawed, as shadows lengthen, listening to Keith pressure washing the resonant metallic skin of the RV.
“What?” Keith says, stepping over a new stream which looks like it is spiritedly embarking on a journey to reach the sea.
More immediate action follows. First, hosing the bikes down, presumably washing off any stubborn traces of air disaster, then the bikes are hung up and hooked to the back of the RV.
Inside, they strip off everything that screams ‘tactical’ and stuff it into a big, dark green, wheelie suitcase. The two rats are pulled out, and Terence places them lovingly on the floor. He spends a minute kneeling down, tickling them behind the ears, and feeding them chunks of dried mango. Eventually, the rats hop out the door and down the steps.
“Don’t be long!” Terence calls after them.
During the unpacking, a rough, oval, metal object, with thick wires sticking out of one end, is carefully transferred from a padded, military-looking grey plastic case into a shoulder bag that might conceivably be used for carrying archaic pieces of photographic equipment.
“That’s it then, is it? The package?” Keith asks.
Ignoring him, Dee says, “Let’s get a few hours of sleep. We’ll set off in the morning at eight-thirty. Chuck, fill Keith in on the plan.”
“Right, cover story,” says Chuck. “We are two couples on holiday. You’re both in there.” Chuck points to a door behind them. “Me and Terry are here on the pull-out. We bought this beauty in Los Angeles,” he says, slapping the wall of the RV, “and we’re heading for New Orleans. Details are here...” He pings Keith a tarball that registers, jiggling on the shelf briefly, before fading into Keith’s peripheral vision.
Keith raises both eyebrows and turns his head to check with Dee, but she has already turned away and is opening the door to what Keith gathers is their shared bedroom. Clearly, that’s all.
Terence and Chuck look at him briefly, then turn to each other, embrace and start kissing passionately. Keith gets the feeling they are not having to act too hard at being a couple. He decides to give them some space and follows Dee. The room is very cramped, basically a bed and a small area of floor inside the door that has recently become strewn with what appears to be all of Dee’s clothes—although he can’t confirm this hypothesis, as only her head is visible protruding out from under the duvet.
“They are taking their roles seriously!” Keith says, looking around the room and trying to work through the logistics of the situation.
“Infrared,” Dee replies, pointing up through the ceiling. “Satellites. But they’re always like that after action. Chuck is like the most professional soldier you will ever meet, then when he’s off duty, he’s a complete bimbo.”
“Okay, right. So that’s them sorted, and you have a bed...” Keith says, making a show of looking around the tiny room. He locks eyes and then continues, “and where should I...?”
Face utterly impassive, maintaining eye contact the whole time, Dee shifts over a smidgen.
***
The next day, Chuck is wearing shorts and a flowery shirt and looks like he just washed up after a glorious wipe-out. He is driving, while Terence, Dee, and Keith sit around in the lounge area behind him. They are relaxed and look like they have not a care in the world, but Keith witnesses Chuck’s transformation into clipped speech and military demeanour when an opportunity arises to dispose of the incriminating suitcase. They are crossing a low pontoon bridge above a wide finger of reservoir. They slow down, almost to a halt, then toss the case out through the RV’s sliding door. It disappears below the green water in a single viscous swallow. Chuck, back to surfer dude, stamps the accelerator, and they trundle away.
Keith had woken in the morning to find that his legs and neck had been bitten to pieces by mosquitoes. Terence has some Aloe vera. Dee just finds it hilarious, remarking helpfully that she had been completely ignored by the insects, while they feasted on Keith.
Terence, who seems to be the team’s medic and vet, reels off some of CuliCo Corp’s marketing material. Apparently, their NoBiteU™ mosquito is incapable of biting 90% of people. After a little mental arithmetic, Keith points out that, in practice, this leaves one in ten people shouldering the entire parasitic load. This leads into a discussion on the whole concept of Recognising Economic Value of Beneficial Species. They sip their truck stop coffees and openly and enthusiastically share their opinions of CuliCo Corp and the efficacy of REVOBS:
“It’s bullshit.”
“That’s a bit simplistic, Keith,” Terence offers.
“No, he’s right Terry. The people pay like five per cent of their taxes to that crap. It’s subsidies for bullshit mosquitoes, wasps, and jellyfish!” Chuck calls from up front.
“Guys,” says Dee. “Right now, man is causing one of the planet’s greatest mass extinctions. We have to protect whatever is left, whatever the personal cost to some of us. Keith, you should feel privileged to have the opportunity to do your bit for bio-diversity.”
Keith glares at her.
“Come on, Keith. It’s an itchy neck, man up!” Chuck suggests. “And anyway, you’ll get a pay-out for the blood.”
It was true. CuliCo Corp would happily transfer 0.000001 of a MeshCoin into his wallet as compensation if he just took the twenty minutes necessary to complete the claim.
“Okay, I’ve had worse. It’s not the neck, although if I could read braille, I think I might find the entire mosquito bible written there,” Keith says, putting on a brave face. “It’s just another big bag of bollocks, right? That’s what gets me. Another mess wrapped in layers of bullshit double talk. I’m sick of it. But, sorry. Hey, what about you guys? What do you do on Atlantis? I can’t imagine Niato lets himself get bitten. I can’t see him slathering on the DEET to keep the buggers away, either, though. I bet he’s got some Gaian Earth Mother solution, right? Teach them all Buddhism, maybe?”
“Terry, you told me about this one. We don’t have mosquitoes, do we?” Chuck says.
“Nope, no mosquitoes. We incentivise the natural ecosystems to remove them.”
The rats are back, and Terence produces jerky from his pocket, giving one large piece to each of them.
“What the hell does that mean?” Keith asks.
“Okay, so where to start?” replied Terence. “Do you know what the Mesh is? Yes, sure, of course you do. Sorry. So, on Atlantis we have another network alongside it which ties all the local animals into a sort of economy where they can contribute, add value and, in return, earn rewards.”
“Err, one time a grasshopper saved my life,” Keith
says, dragging up the only fragment which seems to relate.
“Really? Cool.”
“Yeah, showed up and led me to two little hacker kids. It saved my life after I got my foot shot off, then had a plane crash on top of me.”
“It was hardly on top of you,” Dee says.
“Oh, I see. No, not that one. This was another completely different plane a little while ago. I can see how that might have been confusing. No, this one was RIGHT on top of me. Very nasty. I nearly died. So yes, there we go. Where were we? So, I ended up in a psychiatric hospital, was not in a good way for a while. Then these hacker guys sprung me, so that I could rescue their friend from pirates.”
“Whoa! Man, that’s some crazy shit right there!” Chuck says, swivelling backwards again, clearly impressed enough that he forgets about the road for a worrying amount of time.
“Niato didn’t tell me all that,” Dee says, looking at Keith curiously.
