by James Axler
They trekked for an hour before reporting in to Cerberus to request their ride back home. By that time they had reached a dirt track running between two vegetable fields, carrots to one side, potatoes to the other, a distant farmhouse looking out toward them.
“Grant, this is Kane,” Kane said, activating his Commtact. The Commtact was a small radio communications device that was hidden beneath the skin of all Cerberus field personnel. Each subdermal device was a top-of-the-line communication unit, the designs for which had been discovered among the artifacts in Redoubt Yankee several years before by the Cerberus exiles. Commtacts featured sensor circuitry incorporating an analog-to-digital voice encoder that was subcutaneously embedded in a subject’s mastoid bone. As well as radio communications, the Commtact could function as a translation device, operating in real time. Once the pintels made contact, transmissions were funnelled directly to the wearer’s auditory canals through the skull casing, vibrating the ear canal to create sound, which had the additional effect that they could pick up and enhance any subvocalization made by the user. In theory, even if a user went completely deaf they would still be able to hear normally, in a fashion, courtesy of the Commtact device.
The radio link molded below Kane’s ear spoke with the familiar voice of his partner. “Hey, Kane, how did it go?” Even over the Commtact relay, Grant’s voice was deep as rumbling thunder.
“We bewildered and destroyed,” Kane replied. “Just another day at the office.”
Grant’s laughter echoed through Kane’s skull from the Commtact.
“Triangulate on our position and give us a ride,” Kane said. “We’re all set to go home.”
The triangulation was easy. Kane, Brigid and all other Cerberus personnel had a biolink transponder injected into their bloodstream. The transponder used nanotechnology to relay a subject’s position and detail their current state of health to a satellite pickup station, which then delivered that information to the Cerberus redoubt in the Montana mountains. This technology along with the Commtacts allowed Cerberus to remain in constant touch with its personnel while they were in the field, and it could be accessed by the operations staff to home in on an individual to deliver aid.
In this case, that aid came in the form of a Deathbird, a modified AH-64 Apache helicopter, that arrived over the field of potatoes, shaking their fluttering leaves in its passage. The Deathbird featured a turret-mounted chain gun, as well as missile armaments—and it had been on call in case the mission went sour.
Kane and Brigid watched as the Apache dropped down to the ground, landing gently on the dirt strip between fields, its rotor blades whirring in a blur. As soon as it was down, the two Cerberus rebels hurried toward it in a crouched run, keeping their heads and limbs well below the height of those rotating blades, even though they knew there was room to maneuver below them. Too many times, the drag created by the rotors had wrong-footed a man and created a shockingly swift accident as the fast-spinning rotors became like knives cutting the air.
Kane drew back the side door. Brigid tottered inside with Kane just a couple of steps behind her. As soon as Kane was in, Brigid shouted, “Clear!” and the helicopter ascended into the skies once more.
Piloting the craft was a large dark-skinned man in his late thirties, with a shaved head and gunslinger’s mustache. He was wearing a shadow suit that matched those worn by his passengers. Though large, the man was all muscle—accentuated by the tight fit of the shadow suit—without an ounce of fat on his body. This was Grant, who had served as Kane’s field partner all the way back to their days as Magistrates and with whom he had been partnered ever since. Grant was a proficient hand-to-hand combatant, as well as being trained in the use of most ballistic weapons. He was also a phenomenal pilot—Kane would argue he was the greatest pilot that Cerberus would ever know...excluding himself, of course.
“So, you guys pick up anything good while you were shopping?” Grant asked in his rumbling-thunder voice as Kane drew the side door closed.
Kane shrugged. “Trouble, a few stones. The usual.”
“Stones,” Grant muttered, shaking his head. “Like we’ve not had enough of that for one lifetime.”
Kane and Brigid had to agree.
* * *
THE TRIO ARRIVED back at the Cerberus redoubt two hours later. The redoubt was built into one of the mountains in the Bitterroot range in Montana, where it was hidden from view. It occupied an ancient military base which had remained forgotten or ignored in the two centuries since the nukecaust of 2001. A peculiar mythology had grown up around the mountains in the years since that nuclear conflict, with their dark, mysterious forests and seemingly bottomless ravines. Now, the wilderness surrounding the redoubt was virtually unpopulated. The nearest settlement could be found in the flatlands some miles away and consisted of a small band of Indians, Sioux and Cheyenne, led by a shaman named Sky Dog who had befriended the Cerberus exiles many years ago.
Inside, the redoubt featured state-of-the-art technology despite its rough exterior. The redoubt was manned by a full complement of staff, over fifty in total, many of whom were experts in their chosen field of scientific study. The staff relied on two orbiting satellites at their disposal—the Keyhole commsat and the Vela-class reconnaissance satellite—which provided much of the data for analysis in their ongoing mission to protect humankind. Gaining access to the satellites had taken long man-hours of intense trial-and-error work by many of the top scientists on hand at the mountain base. Concealed uplinks were tucked beneath camouflage netting around the redoubt, hidden away within the rocky clefts of the mountain range and chattering with the orbiting satellites. This arrangement gave the staff in residence a near-limitless stream of feed data surveying the surface of the Earth, as well as providing near-instantaneous communication with field teams across the globe, such as Kane’s team, which was designated CAT Alpha.
They convened in the Cerberus meeting room, a rarely used lecture theater with several stepped rows of fixed seats. Kane and Brigid had showered and changed clothes, so Grant was already sitting when they entered, his massive frame almost too much for the regular-size seat. Three other people were in the room—Lakesh, Donald Bry and Reba DeFore—and all were dressed in the standard white duty uniform.
Mohandas Lakesh Singh was a physics and cybernetics expert who was the head of the Cerberus organization. A man of medium height, he appeared to be in his fifties, with a dusky complexion and vivid blue eyes that shone like sapphires when he addressed you. His black hair was slicked back away from his forehead, showing a few threads of gray, especially at the sides above the ears. Lakesh had an aquiline nose and a refined mouth, and his breadth of knowledge was second to none, except perhaps Brigid’s. Though he was, for all intents, a man in his fifties, Lakesh was in fact far older than that—he had been born in the twentieth century, but thanks to cryogenics and organ replacement, he had lived past his two-hundred-and-fiftieth year and was still going strong. Amazingly, Lakesh had been one of the original scientists involved in the Cerberus facility based at this redoubt in the twentieth century, a research project developing and investigating the applications of a fixed-point teleportational device called the mat-trans. The mat-trans was still in operation all these years on, although it was only one of a number of transportation options that the Cerberus personnel employed.
Beside Lakesh stood Donald Bry, Lakesh’s right-hand man and the unofficial second-in-command of the Cerberus operation. In his thirties, Donald had an unruly mop of ginger curls atop his head and a look of perpetual worry on his features. Donald’s field of expertise was computers, but he was also knowledgeable about most of the general goings-on relating to Cerberus and its field operations, including communications and the intricacies of the biolink transponders.
The final person in the room was Reba DeFore, a stocky, bronze-skinned woman with ash-blond hair, which she had clipped back from her face
in an elaborate French twist. DeFore was the redoubt’s medical expert, and she had patched up Kane, Grant and Brigid more times than she cared to count.
“Grant tells me you ran into an old friend out in Saskatchewan,” Lakesh began after welcoming Kane and Brigid. They had been gone for four days.
Kane nodded gravely. “Ullikummis. Not quite back, but his devotees are trying real hard to hasten the second coming.”
“Wrong savior,” Brigid corrected him. “They were using the old stone seeds,” she elaborated, “that budded from his body, charging them with human blood.”
“Sacrifices?” Lakesh asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No,” Brigid said. “At least, none so far. The blood of pilgrims gave the thing life, but it seemed mindless—like it didn’t have any purpose. It just stumbled around draining blood from anyone who stepped into its grasp.”
“And we blew it up before it could get very far with that,” Kane added.
Lakesh nodded solemnly. “A worrying development, dear friends,” he said.
“Were any of you hurt?” DeFore asked as the room went silent.
“I took a few knocks,” Kane admitted, “and Brigid took a few, too—”
“When you knocked me to the floor,” Brigid pointed out.
“—but we’re all good, I think,” Kane finished.
DeFore proposed checking them over anyway and, using a portable medical kit, accessed their transponders for a full rundown on their current health. The shadow suit had protected Kane from most of the knocks he had taken at the hands of the deluded pilgrims, and other than a bruised arm, Brigid had got off scot-free.
While DeFore was sterilizing the few scrapes and grazes Kane had taken during the frenetic conflict, the group discussed their mission in detail. As they reached the wrap-up, Brigid recalled one thing that had stood out as possibly important.
“A few people have mentioned something about a storm out to the west over the past few days,” she said. “Sounded vicious, like it’s taken some lives.” She shrugged.
Donald Bry brought up a map on the projector screen that dominated the wall behind the stage. Using the old designations, west of Saskatchewan was Alberta or British Columbia. “This is pretty much no-man’s-land now,” Bry stated as he indicated those areas.
“Well out of reach of the baronies,” Kane pointed out as he eyed the map.
Lakesh looked at Kane querulously. “Something on your mind, Kane?” he asked.
“Not sure,” Kane said. “People were speaking about this storm like it was a big deal. A big deal well away from the baronies, where there wouldn’t likely be much in the way of organized help.”
Lakesh took a slow breath as he looked at the map. “We could send out a rescue party, see if anyone needed our assistance,” he said.
“Helping people is what we do,” Grant reminded everyone. “Can’t always be fighting crazy aliens and nutty priests.”
“It’s a lot of territory,” Bry argued. “Do you have any idea whereabouts this storm hit?”
Brigid’s red-gold locks cascaded about her face as she shook her head. “We had more important concerns at the time.”
“Would a satellite scan find evidence?” Kane suggested.
“It may,” Lakesh confirmed. “It really depends on how much damage the storm created and whether there was any notable habitation there to begin with. If it’s trashed, unpopulated territory we’d be hard-pushed to confirm it from the air.”
Kane fixed Lakesh with his no-nonsense stare. “Look,” he said.
Lakesh nodded once, accepting Kane’s challenge. He had organized Cerberus to help people, and while a storm was not the kind of threat he had had in mind, helping those in danger or trouble was the operation’s remit. They would use the satellites to scan the area to the west of the sacred temple of the stone god, and maybe—just maybe—find a place where help was needed.
Designated Task #016: Sleep
Sleep has been prescribed for all citizens at an optimum 6.2 hours a day. Sleep occurs when a citizen is not on shift, and this may be in the day or night. After 6.2 hours an alarm alerts the citizen to wake, after which their routine begins again.
I note that the sleep patterns of my immediate neighbors in this residential block are different to my own, accounting for their own shifts at their designated tasks.
My bed is soft and uncomfortable, the padding inadequate and the base structure of the sofa which it converts from pushing against my body as I toss and turn. I have no one to report this to.
—From the journal of Citizen 619F.
Chapter 5
“Storm,” Brewster Philboyd announced emotionlessly.
“Storm,” Lakesh agreed.
The two of them were sitting in office chairs in the Cerberus operations room. The room was a vast space with high ceilings and pleasing indirect lighting. Two aisles of computer terminals faced a giant screen on which material could be flagged. A giant Mercator map dominated one wall, showing the world before the nukecaust had reshaped the coastlines of North America and other locales. The map was peppered with glowing locator dots, which were joined to one another with dotted lines of diodes, creating an image reminiscent of the kind of flight maps that airlines had given to passengers in the twentieth century. The indicated routes were not flight paths, however, but rather they showed the locations and connections of the sprawling mat-trans network. Developed for the US military, the majority of the units were located within North America, but a few outposts could be seen farther afield.
A separate chamber was located in one corner of the room, far from the entry doors. This chamber had reinforced armaglass walls tinted a coffee-brown color. Within was contained the Cerberus installation’s mat-trans unit, along with a small anteroom which could be sealed off if necessary.
Right now the mat-trans chamber was empty but the main ops room was buzzing with activity.
“Big one, too,” Philboyd said as he enhanced the satellite image on his screen, giving a wider view of the storm over British Columbia. Philboyd was a tall, lanky man who seemed somehow hunched over whenever he sat in the standard office furniture of the ops room. His blond hair was swept back and slightly receding while the skin on his cheeks showed evidence of acne scarring from his youth. Philboyd wore round spectacles with dark frames and was a physicist of some good standing. Like many of the personnel who populated the Cerberus redoubt, Philboyd was a transplant from the twentieth century, part of a research project that had been located on the Manitius Moon Base. After the nukecaust had struck, the moon base had gone into lockdown, plunging its staff into cryogenic deep freeze and retaining that expertise for another generation. It had taken a Cerberus exploration party to discover and relocate them to the redoubt.
Lakesh looked at the monitor screen where the satellite feed was playing out. It showed a desolate area of the territory that had once been Canada, around the point where Alberta met British Columbia. The area was white with fallen snow, a few clumps of trees visible as dark shadows on the ground. There was no sign of human habitation; any roads or tracks cutting through the land had been painted white with snow. In the midst of this desolate wasteland was a whirling blur of cloud, feeding the land with ice crystals. It was a small, isolated shower but it still covered several miles. “I didn’t expect the storm to still be raging,” Lakesh muttered, shaking his head.
“No housing nearby,” Philboyd observed, twiddling the image control dial to pull out farther from the storm. “Closest settlement is approximately ninety miles away. If this is your storm, it’s not affecting anyone other than the moose and squirrels.”
Lakesh rubbed his forehead, deep in thought. “Storms move,” he said. “Can we trace its path, backtrack to see if it has caused any devastation?”
Philboyd looked quizzically askance at Lakesh.
“With respect, Doctor, I understood that what we were looking for was a past event. This storm is happening very much now.”
“It is,” Lakesh agreed, still thinking, “but hurricanes and tropical storms can rage for days, even weeks.”
Philboyd widened his search area, scanned for signs of devastation. There was nothing obvious—if the storm had destroyed anything it was obscured by the clouds.
Lakesh was still thinking, working through the possibilities in his incisive, analytical mind. “What are those clouds hiding, Mr. Philboyd?” he pondered.
Philboyd didn’t answer, but merely tapped a few commands into his computer keyboard and brought up a surveillance map showing the area. The map showed in a separate window on-screen and it was blank. “Nothing,” he said. “Just wilderness.”
Lakesh bent closer to the screen, studying the map. “Not wilderness,” he decided. “It’s too flat for that.”
“Sir?”
“Brewster—can we backtrack this image twenty-four hours, say?” Lakesh asked. He knew that they could; the satellite would have made a sweep over this area one day before. He was already beginning to suspect something, although he couldn’t put his finger on what.
Philboyd pulled up the records, ran the surveillance footage from one day before. Its time stamp glowed in the lower left corner as it played, moving slowly across the area which Lakesh and Philboyd were looking at now in a standard sweep. As it crossed the particular spot they had been observing, Philboyd let out a surprised laugh.
Lakesh did not laugh, however. What they were looking at, remarkable as it seemed, was what appeared to be the very same storm playing out in the very same spot.
“That’s one persistent storm,” Philboyd stated.
Lakesh pointed to the screen. “But not crossing here, or here,” he said. “It’s fixed to one location. Brewster—take us back another day.”
