The Madness Engine

by Paul B Spence

  "Oh, I see it: a little armored guy."

  Riksen grinned. "Concentrate on the icon."

  "Okay, now what?" said Geoffrey, and then, "Oh!" Suddenly his vision was filled with schematics and branching data-access trees. Files streamed past his mind's eye, and then they went away, replaced by a single blinking line: STARTUP COMPLETE.

  "Command the suit to open."

  "Okay." Geoffrey thought Open! and the suit in front of him popped open with a sigh of pressurized air. The interior of the suit was light grey and looked soft.

  "You'll need to strip to wear the suit. You can't wear anything under the armor, not even an earring. Anything worn under the suit will be crushed into you when the armor seals. Trust me, you don't want to experience that."

  "What about... plumbing and stuff?" Geoffrey didn't know quite how to ask about what the waste disposal features were like on the suit. He knew that the suit must have them; he'd read about people wearing the suits for days at a time.

  "Don't worry about that. The armor is fully automated. It'll take care of hooking you up once you close the suit."

  "I'm not sure I like the sound of that."

  "You won't feel anything. The suit performs a simple neural block before doing anything invasive."

  Geoffrey sighed. He still wasn't happy about it, but he didn't have much of a choice. He quickly stripped and stepped into the armor. It closed like a shell around him. He was glad that he wasn't claustrophobic.

  "How does it feel?"

  "Odd," Geoffrey replied. The holographic displays were more complex than he had imagined they would be. Target recticals locked onto anything he focused on and displayed data about the object. He was able to pull schematics of the station with the locations of everyone aboard. It was a lot to take in.

  "Walk around a bit and get used to it."

  Geoffrey walked around the armory. He had been afraid that it was going to be difficult to walk in the suit, given the strength amplification, but it didn't feel strange at all. The suit seemed to understand that he only wanted normal strength for walking. He was even able to pick things up without crushing them.

  "Well?" asked Riksen. "What do you think?"

  "I think it is pretty cool," Geoffrey said.

  "Good. Come on over and back up to the wall rack. The admiral is coming down to talk with you."

  "Okay." Geoffrey backed into the rack and ordered the suit to open. It popped open, and he stepped out. It was that easy. He quickly got dressed.

  "Did the waste elimination features bother you?"

  "They didn't activate, did they?"

  "Yes, they did. I was monitoring your suit from here. All features were online and fully operational, both the catheter and the excrement tube."

  "I didn't feel anything." Geoffrey was more than a little disturbed by the concept.

  "As I said, everything worked right. You should never notice. You won't even feel the urge to urinate or excrete. The suit takes care of everything."

  "Great. Can we not talk about this?"

  It only embarrassed Geoffrey more to know that Riksen probably wondered what kind of culture had produced Geoffrey's hang-ups about natural bodily functions and nudity. He knew the people in the Concord were a lot more open about such things, but he just couldn't get past his upbringing. There just some things you didn't talk about with strangers, and everyone was a stranger to him here.

  "No problem," Riksen said. "The admiral will be here shortly."

  Geoffrey knew that while Riksen didn't understand his problem, he didn't want to trample on Geoffrey's beliefs, either. The people of the Concord were nothing if not understanding.

  Chapter Nine

  Drake scavenged wood from the ruins and built a fire. The temperature, already low, fell quickly once the sun was down. The woman lay wrapped in the dead man's coat as an extra layer; Drake wasn't sure it would be enough. The cold didn't trouble him, but he knew most humans would die of hypothermia if exposed for too long.

  Tom offered to share his meager meal with him. Drake didn't have the heart to turn him down, knowing that hospitality was important to these survivors. Everywhere he had gone, people were eager to share. They just seemed happy to see another person. Tom heated the rusted can of beans next to the fire, and they shared them with the solemnity of ritual.

  "Where are you from?" Tom asked him after the last of the beans had been eaten.

  "All over," replied Drake. That wasn't a question he was ready to answer honestly. "I've recently come down from Cincinnati."

  "How are things up there?"

  "Bad. Cincinnati was one of the cities that got nuked. Things are bad just about everywhere I've been, though."

  Tom nodded. "One of the guys in our clan used to be a university professor. He says the winter should end in another decade or so. We just have to hold out, and then we can start to rebuild."

  "Sounds like you have it all figured out."

  "As if," said Tom. "I'm not convinced we'll make it a year, much less a decade. What did you do before the war?"

  "Military," Drake answered. That was always a safe answer, given his physique and skills. "You?"

  "I worked in construction. I figured you were military, the way you laid those guys out. Special forces?"

  Drake ignored the question. "You're lucky you and your wife and son survived."

  "Oh, ah… We didn't, actually. I met Mary after the war. My first wife... Jane... died from the... from the feral plague, in the first few days."

  "Sorry. I should have realized."

  Tom shook his head. "It happened. I can't change that. You lose family?"

  "Not sure. I had a daughter in Santa Fe. I haven't gotten up the will to walk to New Mexico yet. Figured I'd look for a friend who went missing, first. He had been in Cincinnati."

  "He's probably dead," Tom said. "Sorry, but there just aren't a lot of us around. Professor said probably less than one percent of the human race survived the war. If you don't count the ferals."

  Drake shrugged. "I'll presume he's alive until I find his bones or find someone who knew him and saw him die."

  "Well, if he is still alive, I wish you luck. He's lucky to have a friend like you."

  "I've never had many friends. They're family to me."

  "Service buddy? So you came down here from Cincinnati?"

  "Yes."

  "How?"

  "I walked down Interstate Seventy-five. Do you know of a better way?"

  Tom shook his head again. "I can't imagine walking that alone. How long did it take you?" Tom checked on Mary, making sure she was warm before lying down next to her.

  "About thirty days," Drake said. "I would have been here faster, but I stopped for a while at the settlement at Anglin."

  "Anglin?"

  "It's in what was south-eastern Kentucky. It's a rather large settlement now. Several thousand people trying to grow food, teach kids, stuff like that. They have signs up along the expressway."

  "Really? I haven't seen that many people since the war. How do they keep from being preyed upon?"

  "It was for that reason that I was delayed. I helped remove the local warlord from power. I left enough survivors to let them warn any others away."

  "Must be nice to have someone like you to help. We've had lots of problems down here – one of the reasons we rebuilt the fort on top of the hill."

  "You must have seen a lot of fighting. I was surprised to see someone fighting with a knife."

  "I used to do medieval re-creation. Before the war. Never thought I'd have to use a blade for real."

  "No guns?"

  "No ammo," Tom replied. "We used up what we had fighting off the bosses in the early days. People always seem to want to take power from other people, as if we ain't got enough problems. Anyway, it's too dangerous to enter the cities and look for more. We've got a couple of really good archers, though."

  "Back in Anglin, they're making their own ammo," said Drake. "They've got what they need for gunpow
der close by, though." He had his own pistol, under his coat, but it wasn't something that used gunpowder. He carried it in case he encountered something more dangerous than ferals or lesser Dark Ones.

  "Must be nice." Tom sounded as if he was falling asleep. "Do you mind taking first watch? I'm a bit worn down. My head is really hurting."

  "Sleep. I'll be fine." Drake watched Tom and Mary as them slept. He couldn't put his finger on what he was feeling. It was something like camaraderie, but not quite. The couple were worn down and battered, but not broken. They would fight until the end.

  It was something worth remembering.

  It was something worth honoring.

  Θ

  Commander Hrothgar Tebrey crouched on the surface of the airless planetoid. It felt strange to be on a mission without Hunter along, but his bioengineered companion was back at Steinway with Tebrey's wife and their newborn daughter Amanda. Tebrey hadn't wanted to leave his family, but the nightmares had been getting worse, and he had no doubts as to where the bad dreams came from.

  The year before, when Tebrey had still been a member of the Earth Federation military, the Concord had shared information about a secret Federation research project. The Federation was years behind the Concord on researching the Theta entities, the demonic aliens plaguing both governments. The Federation had decided that the anomalies in Tebrey's genetic code were a direct result of contamination by those entities; the project was to determine what that code represented.

  To that end, they had cloned Tebrey, apparently more than once.

  That wasn't what bothered him. His companion Hunter was essentially a clone, as had been Ripper before him. What bothered Tebrey went deeper than that. Tebrey was a psion, a telepath. The whole point of making a neo-panther by cloning a human was so the human and neo-panther could join minds more easily. The imperfect clones they were making here shared that ability, and Tebrey and Hunter had been having nightmares about the experiments conducted at the base. These cloned versions of Tebrey were being driven mad, and it was having an effect on him. He could feel the rage that didn't belong to him, lurking in the depths of his mind. These clones were his brothers. He could not allow them to be used and tortured in such a fashion, and if he didn't find a way to stop it, he was going to go insane.

  There were also rumors about the Federation acquiring technology that the Empire had been experimenting with. It was some kind of Engine, the rumors said, a device that made indestructible soldiers. The Concord didn't have a lot of information on it, and they needed more. An Engine was supposedly on route to the base, too. Tebrey had hoped to intercept it and destroy the base from within, killing two birds, so to speak.

  It had taken months to get the authorization, but Admiral Macklin had finally okayed the mission. Tebrey had allowed himself to be captured during a mission that appeared to have gone wrong. The Federation had acted the way he'd wanted them to and immediately shipped him to the bioweapons base.

  With the mission parameters changed, Tebrey just wanted to make sure the Other was dead, and go home. And it hadn't died when the base was bombed, either. He was sure of that. He could feel it down there, somewhere under the rubble. The base had been a secure installation, built into the remnant iron core of the planetoid. No amount of bombing, short of vaporizing the entire ball of rock, would have destroyed the base completely.

  No, somewhere down there were tunnels that still held air, and in those tunnels was something that Tebrey needed to face. He had to see for himself what it was they'd created in that lab. He had to know what it was that lurked in the recesses of his genetic code.

  If it could be saved, he'd bring it out. If it couldn't, he put it out of its misery.

  Θ

  "Geoffrey, I'd like you to meet Deegan," Admiral Shadovsky said by way of greeting.

  "Admiral," Geoffrey replied with a nod. Geoffrey studied the man before him as they shook hands. Deegan was slightly above average height and normal build, just barely shorter than Geoffrey's one hundred eighty-seven centimeters. The man had shoulder-length, variegated brown hair that kept falling across his face.

  The long hair was a shock; even the women Geoffrey had seen in the Concord Fleet kept their hair quite short. Deegan was dressed in black jeans, biker boots, a plain grey tee-shirt, and a dark brown leather jacket. He would have looked at home on any college campus on Geoffrey's Earth. In fact, he didn't look like he belonged in the Concord at all.

  "Have you had a chance to read though all the material I sent you?" asked Shadovsky.

  "Not the new stuff, sir," Geoffrey replied. He hadn't finished with the first batch yet, either, but he wasn't going to admit that.

  "Well, then, you won't know about Aurora. Deegan is an agent for the Auroran Circle. We have formed an alliance with the Circle to fight against the Theta entities. Deegan is also a visitor here."

  "Ah." The emphasis the admiral had put on visitor left little doubt in Geoffrey's mind as to what he meant. He studied Deegan again. It did explain his appearance. "This Circle isn't local, then, I take it."

  Shadovsky grinned. "No, Mr. Meeks. They aren't from this universe. Seems strange for me to be saying that, but since you aren't from here, either, I guess it isn't so strange to you."

  "You might be surprised. So, the Aurorans fight the Thetas, too?"

  "That's right. They seem to have some abilities in common with your friend Drake."

  "I don't know how to ask this delicately," Geoffrey said, "but your people aren't related to Drake, are they, Mr. Deegan?"

  "It's just Deegan, and no, none of us are related to Drake or his people. At least as far I know." He looked contemplative for a moment. "Most of us only know Drake by reputation. He put up quite a fight when he showed up on Aurora looking for Tebrey."

  "He was on Aurora?"

  "You should really read that file," Shadovsky said with a smile. "I'd like to move on for now. Some things have changed. We have a lot to cover, and not much time to do it in."

  Chapter Ten

  The area around the center of the base was still glowing, a ruddy-orange crater that Tebrey wasn't terribly happy about approaching. The radiation level had fallen off enough to make it safe to venture near, but Tebrey could see little point. Five thirty-megaton fusion warheads had effectively removed all traces of the base from the surface of the planetoid. He began to spiral outward, painfully conscious of how little time he had left. The star was due to flare within the hour, and if he didn't get underground, he'd be cooked alive.

  Twenty kilometers from the edge of the crater, Tebrey found an intact maintenance portal that would let him into the portion of the base where the Other waited. The cryptography suite on his armor couldn't crack the codes, but Alessa was able to break them in seconds. The Federation really needed to get over its fear of machine intelligences. If an MI had been running the base, Tebrey never would have gotten out of his cell.

  His suit sensors detected a fusion power plant still in operation at the bottom of the shaft. The base probably still had power, then. It might even have artificial gravity. The iron core remnant only had about a tenth of a gravity on the surface, enough for him to carefully move around, but not enough to feel right.

  Tebrey moved into the shaft and allowed himself to drop. His slow descent revealed nothing interesting, just an array of pipes and conduits. The gravitic engine on his suit slowed his descent as he reached the bottom of the shaft, two kilometers down. He found two airlocks there, but only one of them led in the direction he wanted to go.

  He cycled through the airlock and entered a long tunnel. Here was air and Earth-normal gravity. Tebrey opened up his extrasensory abilities. He could feel something out in front of him. There were presences; he sensed fear and rage and hunger. It reminded him uncomfortably of his experience on Serendipity. The tunnels weren't much different, but there was no one here to save him if things went wrong as they had there.

  He opened himself up more. Some of what he sensed was a jumble of thoug
hts. There were scientists still alive in the base. Tebrey was glad; he hoped there would be someone to answer his questions. If they wanted to continue to live, they'd tell him what they had done, and why. He jogged along the corridors of the installation, searching for someone still alive to question. The lower levels were all devoid of life, but as he moved upward, he found more and more evidence that something strange and terrible had happened in the base before the bombs fell.

  He was no stranger to carnage – he caused his share – but the ferocity of the destruction was still a shock. In one room he'd found the remains of several of the base personnel. Blood covered every surface. The floor lay centimeters deep in blood, stagnant and beginning to rot. Whatever had killed these people had flayed them open, tearing the meat away from the bones. The skulls stood stacked in the center of the room.

  Some of the remains looked partially eaten.

  Tebrey couldn't imagine what had done this. It was similar to the killing sprees in which lesser Thetas often indulged, but he'd never known a Theta to eat a victim – not after the victim was dead, anyway. What would be the point? Thetas fed off the life energy of dying beings; they didn't need material food. Whatever had done this seemed… hungry.

  A ragged scream and a psionic pulse of pain drew his attention, and Tebrey raced toward the source. Whatever was loose in the base wasn't a Theta. He was certain of that. He wondered if it was the Other. The rumors he'd heard…

  The screams were taking on the hoarse animal-like quality Tebrey knew meant that whoever was dying was almost dead. He was going to be too late to save them or at least grant them a merciful death.

  Tebrey reached the open door to the lab just as the screams ended. The room was empty. Whatever had been there was gone. Several mangled bodies littered the room.

  A low moaning caught his attention.

  Tebrey found a scientist half-crushed under a pile of machinery. She was dying, and there was nothing he could do for her.