Marcus complied and carried the rations to the buggy. He stuffed them in the small cargo area behind the back seat.
“Did anyone survive?” Liu asked.
“Not sure, but there’s reason to hope. The pilot is dead, which we already knew, and one of the skins too. There’s no sign of Bethany, the other skin, or the beast, so who knows? If anyone could survive the crash, it would be her, though.”
Liu looked a little relieved. “I sure hope she’s looking for us right now. She’ll get us out of this mess.”
“Thorne man! Get back here and carry some more shit!” He looked around and saw Surfer motion curtly at him. Grint was carrying the pulse rifles and looked pleased at his prize.
“I sure hope so too,” he replied to Liu. “I have a feeling it’s only gonna go downhill from here on out.”
***
The miles slid by beneath the hoverbikes. The day had been uneventful since the incident on the bridge. They neared another massive chasm that had ripped the land apart and paralleled it for a couple hours before moving into hillier country. Reznik noticed quite a few craters in the ground, ranging from a few meters to a foot or less across as they traversed this desolate landscape. Almost like the surface of the moon. Wonder what the hell this is from. I thought they said the meteor struck the ocean?
Pretty soon, the sun sank in the sky, and they decided to make camp for the evening. According to Rin, they would make it to their destination in the late morning.
The two of them sat huddled against their gear and ate another meal of the bland rations. Reznik thought a campfire would have been nice, but there was nothing around to use as fuel other than weeds and coarse prairie grass.
A cold wind from the north soon picked up, and Reznik wondered if they would have another storm to contend with. Clouds lay on the horizon, but it didn’t look like a thunderstorm, so he thought it might just be a cold front moving in.
After he finished eating, Reznik leaned back on his pack with his hands folded over his stomach. He watched the stars overhead—more of them twinkled in the sky over the desolate wasteland than he could ever remember seeing before in his life.
“TIME REMAINING UNTIL UNIT EXPIRATION: 05:00:18:33” his HUD displayed. My drop-dead date is starting to get close, but hopefully I get this squared away in the next day or two at the latest. Reznik thought about the colonists from the Extensis Vitae Colony 13, and how they had been rounded up and shipped off to Skin City to be sold into slavery. He had given Administrator Swanson his word that he would go after those people and try to save them. It wouldn’t be easy. He was under no illusions in that regard, but he still intended to try. I need to try to pick up the trail before it gets too cold. If everything works out with getting this kill switch deactivated, then a few more days should put me in Skin City. I’ll be out of Rin’s hair, so she will be free to pursue her own business after that, which should make her happy.
He felt a tap on his arm and turned to see Rin holding out a three-quarters-full bottle of liquor. Reznik took it and unscrewed the cap, sniffing at the amber liquid. The sharp scent of whiskey assaulted his nostrils.
“Where’d you come across this?” The label had been peeled off, but he had the distinct impression it was cheap stuff. He cautiously took a pull on the bottle, and the alcohol burned as it went down. Definitely cheap, but beggars can’t be choosers. He cleared his throat and passed it back to Rin.
“Our rebel friends were careless enough to leave it lying out in the open. Small price to pay for accosting us,” she said with a shrug. She took a sip and passed it back over.
Reznik chuckled. “Good call. It will harden those soldiers up if they don’t have luxury items like booze. They don’t need any of that to keep fighting the good fight.”
“Fighting the good fight by robbing travelers?” She scoffed. “Those fools were probably put there so they wouldn’t be a liability to anyone that was actually doing any fighting.”
“The older man seemed seasoned, but the rest of them were definitely green. Especially your charming friend that must’ve been recruited straight out of a trailer park,” he joked. He took another pull of the whiskey. The warmth in his belly felt good against the chill of the evening.
Rin studied the whiskey bottle when he passed it back but didn’t reply.
Remembering something that had been nagging at him, Reznik’s curiosity finally got the better of him. “How do you do that trick with the knife?” he asked. On two different occasions now he had seen Rin make that blade appear in her hand like magic. He had never seen her carrying a knife other than the broader-bladed throwing knives strapped to her thigh.
Rin glanced over with a raised eyebrow. “You mean this knife?” One second her hand was empty, the next a slender blade had appeared in her hand with a soft snickt sound.
“Yeah, that one.”
“It’s a nanocarbon blade, housed inside my forearm.” She held out her hand, and Reznik could see that it protruded out of the skin between her second and third fingers. “I just have to think about it, and it pops out or retracts.” This time, as he watched, it slid back inside her hand as quickly as a switchblade.
“So it doesn’t interfere with the movement of your wrist at all?” When she shook her head, he added, “That’s pretty nice to have.”
“I’d say it comes in handy from time to time,” she agreed with a smile. She took another sip of the whiskey.
“What do you plan on doing after we are done? Do you have a home or job to go back to since you are a free woman again?”
Rin looked thoughtful for a moment. “I wish I could say I have a home to go back to, but a job would be more accurate. I failed in fulfilling my responsibilities, so now I have to try to make things right. As right as they can be made, at any rate.” She took another swig of whiskey before passing it back to Reznik. There was some kind of emotion in her turquoise eyes, but whether it was pain, sorrow, or regret he didn’t know. Perhaps it was a combination of the three.
***
“Where’d you pick up these worthless sacks of shit?” A large, ugly brute whose breath smelled as if he had been dining from a landfill loomed over Marcus and Liu. He was big and burly with greasy dark hair and a lantern jaw covered by a stubble of beard. A mass of tattoos and scars fought for dominance over his tree-trunk-thick arms.
Dusk had fallen, and the buggy had pulled up in some type of camp out in the middle of the wasteland. A number of rugged, beat-up vehicles were parked haphazardly. A large truck sat next to them with a large, slotted metal trailer attached to it. On top of the trailer was mounted a fortified gun turret. Slaver camp, thought Marcus. We’re really in deep shit now unless Bethany finds us.
“We found that crash site!” Surfer exclaimed. “These fools were half-dead a few miles out from the Mississippi. They’re some scientists or something… I dunno, someone might pay good money for these brainy types.”
The ugly brute scowled down at them. He shined a flashlight as he examined the two of them. “The chink has a busted ankle, so he ain’t gonna be worth much. This dark-skinned one looks like he’s got a good build—he might be worth somethin’.”
“Pokornoy, these two are Thorne people! That ship was theirs too. Check this out! Thought you might like it.” Surfer grinned as he held up one of the pulse rifles. Marcus thought he looked like a child eager to please a stern father.
A lustful look came over Pokornoy’s face as he reverently took the rifle. He sighted down the scope and turned it around carefully in his scarred hands. Marcus noticed he was missing a couple fingers.
“We found a little bit of supplies on board too,” Surfer continued. “There were some rations, energy cells for the rifles, first aid supplies, and some other shit.”
“What about fuel cells? What kind of shape were the engines in?”
“Um… didn’t find any fuel cells, but Grint checked out the engines, and one of them looked like it might be salvageable, right Grint?” The driver nodded.
“I’ll send Tomas out with the wrecker tomorrow to take a look. Not bad, you two. Grab some food and drink. Even take a bitch to fuck if you want. Share one or take your own. I don’t care. I’ll introduce these two around.” Pokornoy slung the rifle across his back. Marcus noticed he had a machete sheathed at his waist.
Surfer uncuffed Marcus and Liu and gestured for them to get out. Marcus hopped out and reached in to help his friend who winced as he tried to climb out. “We haven’t had any problems with either of those two yet,” Surfer said in parting before he walked off deeper into the camp. The flickering light made Marcus think there was a bonfire going.
Pokornoy grabbed a handful of Liu’s shirt and hauled him roughly out of the buggy. He grabbed Marcus’s shirt too and slammed both of them against the side of the buggy. The man was fearsomely strong. “Now listen up,” he growled, glaring at them and blasting them with halitosis. “This is how things work around here. I’m in charge, and you two worthless fucks belong to me until I say differently.” He roughly jabbed a finger into each of their chests. “You keep your mouths shut and do what you’re told, and we won’t have any problems. But if you mouth off and cause problems for me, there will be no end to the pain and misery I’ll bring down on you.”
Marcus tried to swallow, but his throat was so dry he couldn’t. He snuck a glance at Liu and saw his friend looked terrified.
Pokornoy grabbed each of them by the upper arm and began to drag them toward the large truck with the slotted trailer. Liu cried out as he stumbled on his wounded ankle, but Pokornoy ignored him and propelled them forward. A small, disheveled man smoking a cigarette hurriedly stood up from where he was sitting next to the door of the trailer. He looks like a weasel, Marcus thought.
“Boss,” the man said and nodded deferentially to the big man. A lantern sat on the ground next to the crate he had been sitting on.
“Two more for you,” Pokornoy said. The small man hurriedly unbarred the door and swung it open. “In you go.” With that, the big man surprised them by lifting each of them one-handed and tossing them inside.
Marcus tumbled across the floor. A sharp pain flared in his thigh as the syringe stabbed him, but he rolled over and into a sitting position. Shit, I hope the plunger didn’t get depressed, he thought in a brief moment of panic. He fumbled at it through the cloth of his pocket, but it felt as though the plunger was still intact.
Liu landed awkwardly, bit back a cry, and scrambled back beside Marcus. Pokornoy was a massive shadow in the open door, illuminated from behind by the lantern light.
The door swung shut with a loud clang, leaving Marcus and Liu in the dark trailer. The stench of urine and unwashed bodies was nearly overwhelming in the space, even ventilated as it was. As Marcus’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw fearful and half-starved faces surrounding them.
Chapter 7
The wind whistled mournfully through the scrub grass covering the plain. Reznik and Rin slowed their bikes to a stop about a quarter mile from a series of rolling hills. A large tumbleweed blew across their path as a gust of wind picked up.
They had stopped to survey the remains of an old battle they had come across. Stretching out in front of them, the ground was blasted and barren of plant life. Craters and scorch marks from explosions scarred the landscape, and the ground was littered with pieces of scrap metal and shell casings. The bleached bones of a human ribcage stood out in sharp contrast against the blackened ground.
Reznik dismounted from his hoverbike to take a closer look around. Rin took a long drink of water from her canteen and watched from her bike as he knelt and examined a piece of metal. Brass from 7.62mm bullet casings clinked beneath his boots.
He turned the piece of metal over in his hands. A few brittle wires stuck out of a curved piece of metal, stamped with an insignia he couldn’t make out. “Did this come from a robot?” he wondered aloud.
“Most likely,” Rin replied. “It looks like a skirmish between the rebels and Thorne forces.” She pointed to a skeleton wrapped in the tattered remnants of clothing.
Reznik stood up and looked around, counting the bodies. “I count nine dead.” The skeletons all wore brown or tan rags. “Make that ten. I think there’s one inside that vehicle.” He walked over to the blackened wreck of a truck, which looked as though it had been struck by a missile. It was twisted and lay on its side. A skeleton lay halfway out of the missing windshield. Reznik ran his hand over the blistered metal of the truck and noticed puncture marks stitching the side. They weren’t sharp punctures like bullet holes but looked as though something had burned through the sheet metal.
“What kind of weapon causes this?”
Rin walked over and peered at the damaged vehicle. “Energy weapons. Thorne forces are fond of their pulse rifles and laser cannons. They are pretty rare out in the wasteland because energy cells are expensive and hard to come by. Bullets, on the other hand, are dirt cheap in comparison.”
“Looks like the rebels got their asses handed to them. Where’s the Thorne dead? Did they collect them?”
Rin shrugged. “Doubtful. Their skins are pretty tough—hard to kill.”
Reznik raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s not very heartening news if the rebels got wiped out so easily.”
“Life isn’t easy in the wasteland. Especially for ordinary men and women trying to resist the advance of Thorne’s high-tech troops and weapons.”
“They need to find some more powerful allies, it seems like.”
“Why are you so interested in the rebels?” She regarded him in amused curiosity. “You’ve been on the surface all of two whole days.”
Reznik scratched his head and glanced around the scene of destruction. “From what I’ve seen and heard, this Thorne Corporation seems to be taking up right where the other corporations left off before the Cataclysm. It didn’t sound like the world was a very pleasant place under corporate governance before, so I doubt it would be any different, especially with the tough conditions out here in the wasteland. It must be hard enough for people trying to scrape out a living without being bullied off their land by the corporations and their ever-expanding borders. Sounds like the rebels have a legitimate gripe with them.” He looked at Rin and grinned. “Besides, I always like to put my money on the underdog.”
Rin snorted in amusement. “Thorne Industries is its proper name,” she corrected. “If you could picture the stereotypical example of an evil corporation with all of its cutthroat tactics and greed, then Thorne would fit the bill. Think of third-world countries being invaded and used as slave labor to extract rare earth elements from the ground. Once those mines dry up, the company leaves behind a toxic mess for the native populations to deal with. In the boardrooms, they’ve been known to threaten and intimidate their smaller technology rivals or, if that fails, to either bankrupt them with lawsuits or just buy them outright. It’s all a carefully calculated business strategy to maximize power and profits. I should know… I was in business years ago before the Cataclysm. I might be slightly biased, coming from the Pac-Rim, but even before the Cataclysm, they were not very well liked.”
“What keeps them in check? These rebels don’t seem powerful enough to be able to be much more than a minor nuisance, at least judging from this.” He gestured at the wreckage. “And especially with recruits like those local yokels we met earlier.”
“Their rival Asian corporations, particularly Shiru International, have traditionally kept them in check. However, there’s been a fairly recent development that has swung the advantage back in Thorne’s favor. Hopefully, that will be rectified before too much longer,” she said with some anger. At Reznik’s questioning look, Rin shook her head. “Long story. I’ll tell you another time.”
“It might be in the rebels’ advantage to come to some type of understanding with Shiru, as long as they can work together. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ right?”
“So they say,” Rin said. She seemed lost in thought.
Reznik looked again at the destruction around them and thought the longevity of the rebellion was in serious jeopardy if they had given it their best and ended up like this.
***
Rin steered her hoverbike down a narrow path winding between the rolling hills. As Reznik followed a couple paces behind, he noticed tracks had dried in what had at one time been muddy ground. Narrow tire tracks that could have been from a motorcycle were mixed with heavy rectangular divots in the dirt at regular intervals, spaced out like a person’s stride. He wondered what the tracks might indicate.
A few minutes later, they pulled up in a small clearing. They were in a flat depression flanked by hills on each side. A tall antenna tower rose above them, with a bubble at the top protecting what Reznik assumed was a sensor cluster. In the center of the clearing was a concrete slab with a metal railing surrounding a small area toward the rear. The railing was rusted out but looked like it had a few peeling scraps of paint left on it. The tracks disappeared as they approached the cement slab. A camouflage net had been propped up to form a covered space at the rear of the cement slab. Nice place to park the bikes, he thought.
“This is it,” Rin announced and dismounted. She left her goggles on the handlebars and slung her pack over one shoulder. Reznik followed her lead and pushed his bike under the camo net. He slung his gear on his back and stepped onto the cement slab.
The railing circled a steep set of stairs that descended to a reinforced steel door at the bottom. A few yards from the stairs was a wide steel hatch with no visible means of opening it. Looks like an old missile silo.
He followed Rin and stopped midway down the stairs as the bottom landing was too tight for them both to squeeze onto with their bulky packs. A small camera watched them from the corner.
Rin touched the wall, and a panel slid open. A display lit up, and she swiped her hand past a sensor. She spoke briefly in Japanese and looked up at the camera. After a moment, a voice answered in Japanese as well. Rin nodded and turned to Reznik.
Extensis Vitae: The Shattered Land Page 6
