“Why?” Silk asked, her brow furrowed lightly.
“Because Andi and I are the only link between their world and this one, and I hope they see that survival depends on both parts of that equation.”
17
Andi rode up front, with Breslin in the back, brooding but alert. He held a rifle in his hands, making it look like a toy. It had been a challenge to convince him to go, but when he saw the footage, he understood that mine and Andi’s presence was just the hint of something bigger. With his mind open to the possibility of a stable place for his children, he said a tearful goodbye and left them in Beba’s capable hands. By the time we were rolling east, his kids were running with Natif, and I heard the big man sigh in his first deep breath of two days.
I looked at Andi, who watched him and then shrugged. No one knew how people dealt with the pain of betrayal, but I had my suspicion that Breslin was made of tough stuff, and after a few hours on the desert, he would find his focus.
I was right.
After our first break to check the truck and eat, he came up to me, blocking the sun while I checked a tire.
“Thank you,” he said, then walked away to stare at a snake that watched us from a small pile of rock.
“Progress,” Andi said. “We’re good. Cells are running cool, and we’ve got plenty of water. Onward.”
“Onward it is, then,” I agreed.
We would avoid going all the way to the Cache, and break north and then east to pick up bits of available road when we could. There were two massive washouts in our path, but the truck was high enough that we could drive through any creek at the bottom, provided the fords we saw from the air hadn’t collapsed. The stream banks were wildly unpredictable, and I learned to expect the worst out here in The Empty.
“First ford should be just—there,” Andi said after another thirty minutes. We had two solid hours of daylight left, and I wanted to get across the first obstacle before pulling up for the night. As I drove forward, I didn’t see the bank.
Instead, I saw a flurry of wings.
“Blood chickens? On something big?” I asked myself, then Andi found the range with her sight as well. “Huge, whatever it is.”
“That rhino you saw? Long way from the driftwood jumble,” she said.
“What’s that?” Breslin asked, peering forward.
“Scavengers on something big, and a lot of them. More than I’ve ever seen in one place,” I said with a wary note. As a rule, dead things were bad, because they attracted things that liked to kill.
“Go on foot?” Andi asked, but I shook my head. I didn’t care about the squabbling horde of blood chickens. I cared about being mobile enough to leave in a hurry. Just in case. The idea that something brought down an animal big enough to cast a shadow made me wary of being unprotected, no matter how badass my ‘bots thought I could be.
“Gun ready, Breslin.” Andi had her rifle out the window, sighted and ready as we edged closer. I could hear the complaining mass of scavengers even two hundred meters away, their wings beating at each other and the ground to cause a dust cloud that rose twenty meters before dispersing.
“Jack, how big was that rhino you saw?” Andi asked, her voice low and filled with awe.
“Huge. Tons. Bigger than anything I’ve ever seen before,” I told her, peering through the chaos of blood chickens and their endless brawl for food.
“Is that thing . . . bigger?” she asked.
Breslin was staring too, his mouth open as we came close enough to send some of the birds skyward in a torrent of squawking anger.
“Not just bigger. Taller, too,” I said. “I’m getting out. Cover me.”
I left the truck, took a good look around, and started moving toward the carcass with slow, deliberate steps. The stench was eyewatering, like a physical blow that filled my nose and mouth. I spat and cleared my mouth, but the stink returned, more powerful than ever. I got within five meters of the beast and began to understand what I was looking at.
Rather, I tried to make sense of it. My mind rejected the sheer scale of the creature, but there it was, in glorious, stinking death right before me.
Andi called to me from the truck, waving her tablet. “You’re not going to believe this.”
“What is it?” I asked, staring at the enormous body. The chest and body cavity were nearly empty, but the rest of the animal was intact. It was covered in tough gray hide with speckles near the shoulders, a long, thick neck, and legs that were half again longer than me. Standing, it would have been seven meters tall, easily, and it had to weigh twenty tons. There was no way this animal should be here, not even in a world gone mad with a virus that could make people into ogres.
Andi was out of the truck, Breslin standing next to her with his eyes flicking nervously across the scene. She held up her tablet, and a drawing of the dead animal was on screen.
“Indricothere?” I asked. “I’m not entirely up on my megafauna, but didn’t they die out a couple million years ago or something?”
“More like fifteen million years, at least.” She pulled at her lip, thinking.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Before I went in the tube, more than one team was bringing the mammoth back. Let’s say it worked, and I have no reason to doubt it because they had run trials with smaller animals, like extinct seals. This,” she said with a wave at the beast, “would be just the kind of thing some idiot would try, and there was a good amount of time between my nap and the end of the world.”
“Which means we have no idea what’s out here, and overseas,” I said.
“And under the seas. I’m not saying they brought all kinds of animals back, but if we don’t understand the virus, and we don’t know how it went haywire,” she wondered.
“This thing was natural? At some point?” Breslin asked.
“Completely. The planet was covered with giant animals like this for tens of millions of years, and for a hundred million before that, but those were different. Dinosaurs, amphibians, giant bugs. Your basic nightmare,” Andi said.
I walked closer to the creature, touching the skin. It felt like an elephant, but the scale was mind-boggling. Then I heard a low whuff, and I pulled a blade, whirling to my right with all the speed and power my singing blood would allow.
The giant cat burst from cover behind a shrub so small it wouldn’t cast a shadow at noon. His face was smeared in gore, giant fangs bared and paws flaring into circles tipped with claws as long as my hand. The hide was a flawless match for the dull grasses around us, and the cat hit me like a comet as I drove my knife up into its neck, steel bursting through the hide with a sickening pop. I rolled my hip, letting the creature’s enormous weight carry it past me to crash into the dead Indricothere with a resounding thud.
The entire fight lasted less time than a cowboy would stay on a steer.
I wiped blood from eyes and stood on shaky legs, letting my blade drop to the ground. After two calming breaths, I turned to Andi and Breslin, who both looked at me with eyes gone round from horror. To her credit, Andi’s gun was up and ready, but Breslin was frozen.
“You okay?” I asked as casually as I could with my heart threatening to break my ribs.
“What . . . the . . . fuck,” Breslin breathed.
“I kinda feel the same way. Eyes up, Andi. Those cats don’t hunt alone.” I found my rifle— which I’d dropped in the attack—checked it, and began sweeping the area. I wouldn’t trust anything bigger than a loaf of bread, because it could hide one of the giant cats. When we made a circuit of the kill, I told Andi and Breslin to stand guard while I pulled my smaller knife.
“What are you doing, Jack?” Andi asked, watching me kneel beside the cat. It wasn’t a liger. It was too big, at least eight hundred kilos or more. The mane was small, the ears tight to the head, and the body thick and powerful. The paws were something to behold, being twice the size of a dinner plate.
“I want a souvenir. Sort of.” I slipped the blade into the dead ca
t and began skinning in quick, decisive motions.
“Why?” Breslin asked.
I looked up through eyes that stung from sweat. The cat’s innards were steaming hot. I grunted as I worked, pausing to answer his question. “Because I might not ever see another one of these, and I want to remember this day. I would never kill for fun, but I’ll be damned if I leave this here to the blood chickens and worms. This is my fucking kill, and it’s going home with us.”
“Okay,” Andi agreed, but she held up a hand of warning. “If you think we’re making love on a lionskin rug, you’re out of your mind. I’m not joining you for your weird 1970s porn cosplay. You feel me?”
I laughed, turning the cat over to finish cutting. “Loud and clear. No rughumping.”
“Rughumping? What’s wrong with you people? That thing just tried to eat him,” Breslin said, stunned.
“Yeah, but I got the drop on him, and now we can use him. He’s just a predator, Breslin. He was doing what he was made for, and I answered him by doing what I’m made for now. Nothing personal. Just business,” I said. “You see?”
Breslin got my point, even if my casual attitude about death at the jaws of a giant cat made him uneasy. “I guess I do, Jack.”
“Good man. Now use those muscles and help me flip this bastard again. I want to get gone before his family comes looking for dad,” I said.
In fifteen minutes, the hide was off, and I had to think about how to preserve it until we returned. “When we set up camp, we need to be near water. I’ll wash the hide and stretch it over the truck.”
“Going to draw predators, Jack,” Breslin said.
“We’re taking watches anyway, so I like our chances. Then, we keep an eye out for salt. Rock salt is best, but just drying the hide will give us a chance to get it home. We could piss on it, but even I’m not ready to go that far,” I said.
“What?” Andi asked. “Urine? Human urine?”
“Yeah, sure. It’s got ammonia in it. Haven’t you ever watched those prepper shows, or—never mind. You were an engineer. You probably thought prepping was a waste of time,” I said, nudging her with my elbow.
She pulled away, flicking her fingers in distaste at my general state of bloody disrepair. “Number one, wash up before you touch me, you brute, and two—I preferred vintage cartoons, when I watched TV at all,” she said with an air of dignity.
“I respect you even more, woman,” I told her, hefting the hide on top of the truck.
I washed up and we left the site, watching the shrieking blood chickens return before we had even pulled away.
“Jack, I have a question,” Breslin said.
“Sure, fire away,” I answered, never taking my eyes off the ground ahead.
“What the hell is TV?”
18
Sleep did not come easy, but not for a bad reason. Instead, we were taken in by the meteor shower that set the sky in motion, peaking just before dawn with an array of luminous streaks that made afterimages in my eyesight.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” I said, and even I could hear the wonder in my voice. There had been dozens of meteors per hour for the length of my watch, and I’d woken Andi to watch it with me. Breslin got up on his own, and together, we spent an hour watching the incandescent lines carve up the sky as each meteor burned into nothing.
“I never saw the stars at all,” Andi said. “More of a city girl.”
“I was a suburbs kid, but my grandparents farmed. We would see meteor showers in the summer now and then. This is different,” I said, then tore my eyes away from the sky, seeing the first light of day pushing at the eastern horizon.
“I think the whole world is different, Jack.” Andi sounded like she was just beginning to accept our reality. I could relate. There were moments that jarred me, like seeing the giant animals, or an ogre, or even people carrying swords and pistols because the land would chew them up if they didn’t defend themselves.
We broke camp quietly, driving as the day grew bright. I was just cresting a low hill when I saw a wagon. Then I saw another, and then a third, all in a line and pulled by something that looked rather like oxen.
“Traders? Out here?” Andi asked.
“There’s not much trade this way,” Breslin added. “At least not if they want to live. East to west, yes, but not north by south. The paths aren’t good enough for anything permanent.”
“Let’s ask them,” I said.
I drove slowly, lights on and approaching at a slight angle. The people saw us, pulled weapons, and fell back in a smooth motion. They were organized and calm, pulling the children into the center wagon while men and women stood in a loose perimeter. I saw guns, a longbow, and a tall woman who held what had to be a crossbow. All in all, they looked well-fed and capable.
Just the kind of people I was hoping to find.
“Guns ready, but I think these are people we want to meet,” I said, leaving the truck in park. “Andi, driver’s seat. Breslin, alongside the passenger door, and weapons ready but not aimed, if you please. No need to spook them.”
“Got it,” Andi said, sliding over without taking her eyes off the people.
I made a show of slipping my rifle over my back, waving, and stepping carefully toward the wagons. The lead knot of people—two men and a woman—stepped forward, not hiding their guns but not pointing them at me, either. So far, so good.
“Hallooo,” I called, waving again.
The short man waved, a cautious smile on his face. He was powerfully built, dark, and wore a wide-brimmed hat with a band of lizard skin around it. To his left stood a woman who could be his sister, and to his right, a tall, skinny guy with a face like a rat and eyes that never blinked.
I walked slowly, with purpose, and drew up ten meters away. “Are you traders?” I asked.
“Maybe,” the center man answered.
“Got any salt?” I asked.
He cut his eyes at his companions, then looked back to me. “Maybe.”
“I’m going to go back to my truck and get something to show you. If you can help us, great. If not, we’ll be on our way, and wish you well. It’s not a weapon. I’m going to carry it back here, slowly. Sound fair?” I said.
“Not one twitch,” the tall guy hissed.
“Shut up, Monte,” the leader said without looking at him. “Go ahead. We’ll wait.”
I walked back to the truck, my back itching from their eyes, smiled at Andi, and grabbed the hide. I carried it back like it was a bomb, placed it on the ground in front of me, and unrolled it, all under the gaze of dozens of people.
“If you have salt, we’ll trade or buy it. I’d like to save this, I think,” I said.
“What is that?” the leader asked.
“Giant cat of some kind. It was eating a kill about twenty klicks back. Tried to make me the second part of the meal, but I took issue with that,” I said.
The man walked toward me, then used a boot to unroll the hide some more. “You’re saying you killed this thing?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
He stared at me, saw I was serious, then noticed the puncture in the hide. His eyes flicked to the swords on my back, and he whistled softly. “Monte, ask Doc to bring his gear up here. You washed the hide?” he asked me.
“Right after the kill. Dry now,” I said.
He grinned, and it was the first natural expression on his face. “We have a little experience saving skins, but nothing like this. You say it was south of here?”
“It was, and the carcass it was eating was the biggest animal I’ve ever seen. I know what it is, but it’s not supposed to be here,” I said.
He took his hat off, wiping his face with a broad hand, then put the hat back with a decisive tug. “Have your people come over for a drink. We should probably talk.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
He put his hand out. It was thick with callous and muscle. A working hand. “Stanger. My people are a mix of family a
nd friends. We’ve been trading for nearly twenty years since our wells ran dry up north.”
“Jack Bowman, and I’m the lead of a settlement just south of here. We’ve water if you need it,” I said.
“Might take you up on that depending on our chat. You like whiskey?” he asked me.
“No, I don’t. I love whiskey.”
He thumped my back, laughing. “I think we’re gonna get along just fine, Jack.”
After our introductions, Stanger’s people took the cat hide and began rubbing coarse salt into it with small brushes. They worked quickly, wasting no motion and turning the hide so that each section was treated three times.
“They know what they’re doing,” I remarked as we sat on boxes in the shade of an extendable awning. We had cool water and a flask of whiskey that was young, but not too rough. I took a sip, handed it to Andi, and then waited for Stanger to speak. Breslin leaned against the wagon, casting a shadow all his own, but he was smiling because there were kids around and they seemed to gravitate to the big man.
“You’re from the south?” Stanger asked.
I’d already gotten a subtle nod from Andi, who knew what I was going to discuss. “We are. The Free Oasis, to be exact. We’re growing, we have the rule of law, and I have plans.”
“What kind of plans?” he asked. His other people were listening intently as well.
“Short version? I’m going to rebuild a working state, water systems, technology, power grid, dams, and roads. We’re going to have all the trappings of civilization without any of the bullshit you see in Kassos or Wetterick’s place.”
Stanger looked openly dubious. “That’s quite a goal.”
“I agree, which is why we’re so busy,” I replied, folding my hands and waiting for him to continue.
He only hesitated for a minute, but it was enough. This was a man in trouble, despite his assured outward appearance. He had around eighty people by my count, and they were on the move for a reason, not just trade.
“The salt is yours. Do you charge for safe passage through your lands?” Stanger asked.
Future Reshaped: A Post-Apocalyptic Harem (Future Reborn Book 3) Page 9
