Future Reborn Box Set

by Daniel Pierce

  “You mean a paycee?” Mira asked.

  “Close enough. Do they still exist anywhere?” I was hopeful but not overly. It was a shitstorm of a world, judging by the ruins.

  “In the city. In the trading post too, but the owners don’t share,” Mira said.

  I thought about the trading post and what would happen when we got there. There was no turning back the clock for me, so it made sense to plan every move in advance. “Who runs the post?”

  “Wetterick. He’s a thief, but he has men to do his bidding, so we take what he gives,” Mira spat.

  “This Wetterick has a working—a paycee? Does he use it?” I asked.

  The memory core chirped, blinking twice before returning to a steady blue glow. After checking the fans, Bel answered, “He has a lot of tech, but uses it for himself, not the people. Many of them are hungry. I don’t know if he can feed them with the Hightec, but he doesn’t even try.” It was Bel’s longest speech, each word dripping with disgust.

  I hated Wetterick before I’d ever met him, but in a way, I already had. Warlords are all the same. They climb to the top of a tribe and feast on it like a carcass, handing out favors and rewards while getting fatter and richer with each passing day. In the Marines, we saw petty assholes running their people into the dust over a new car, a palace, women, gold, or all of it. The seed of an idea took root in my mind, and I knew that my next move would be to meet Wetterick and see just how stable his crown really was.

  I was in the future. I had no past and no life, but I had strength and a need to find my place. The trading post was an obvious step, and I had the advantage of knowing technology at a level that most people could only dream of if my assessment of this new world was right.

  When Mira unwrapped her mask and smiled at me, I knew I also had something else.

  “We’ll let this charge and go directly east about fifty yards,” I announced.

  “What’s a yard?” Bel asked.

  “A long step. Just over there,” I pointed with my chin at a small outcropping of battered stone.

  “You remember something worth our shovels?” Mira asked, but she was already moving.

  “I do.” I thought back to my last day in the past, letting memory come back as I walked my earlier path. “Just here. Let’s dig.”

  I set to the task with hard blows at the rocky crust. The top layer shattered, and I threw huge sheets of sandstone away. The work felt good, but my muscles felt even better as they worked like pistons. It was time to take my new body out for a test drive, so I cleared a hole into the softer sand and dug, waving the sisters away when they approached.

  I went at the sand like I was a worm on Arrakis, hurling dirt into the air and only stopping to pry out random sections of rock.

  “Water,” I said, not stopping to look up from the hole. It was five feet deep and growing. Bel handed me a skin, and I drank deeply. “Thanks.” I turned back to the task as the sun hammered me, but I didn’t care. At the bottom of this hole could be answers, or money, or both, and I had the body to do the job.

  After fifteen minutes of maniacal digging, I hit a wall. Not my body, just my shovel.

  “It’s here.” I stopped, watching as some rebellious sand spilled down the edge of the pit. At the bottom, a gray block wall squatted, the paint scoured away by time.

  “What was this place?” Mira asked.

  I kicked at a rock, probing with my shovel. I could see the entrance, so I knew my guess had been close. “A veterinarian. Animal doctor.”

  “A herder?” Mira asked.

  “Close enough. They fixed sick animals, mostly small ones like dogs and cats. Even the occasional turtle. Like that shell I drew on?”

  “Hardback. Tough animals, but friendly. One of the only friendly things out here,” Mira said. “Why dig here, though?”

  “I’m hoping they still have supplies that we can use. The medicine and bandages will be long dead, but there are tools we could sell, or keep. It depends on what’s available.”

  Two hours later, the sun blazed overhead at high noon, but I still didn’t care. We hadn’t found one useful thing.

  We found dozens.

  Scalpels, retractors, forceps, and scissors were all perfectly preserved in cases, as well as needles and other small wares that would have good trade value. I explained the items I knew, guessed at the ones I didn’t, and kept a running tally as Bel and Mira wrapped each tool in cloth or leather to protect them from the grit and wind.

  “What is this thing?” Mira asked, waving a tool that looked like a curved nutcracker.

  I winced, taking it from her hands with a kind of fearful respect. “This is for—you know the word castration?”

  “Castration?” Mira repeated. Bel mouthed the word silently, but neither knew what it meant.

  “It means to cut off a male’s balls,” I said. So it was a nutcracker, after all, just a surgical version. “They can’t make a baby—baby whatever. Cows, cats, dogs.”

  Mira and Bel looked like I’d pissed in their coffee. Their horror was so intense, Bel turned and covered her mouth.

  Mira spoke first. “What kind of people would do such a thing?”

  “You mean castrate something? I guess we did it for population control.” I decided not to mention vasectomies. That seemed like a bridge too far.

  “But why?” Bel asked.

  “Well, because there were too many—”

  “Too many people? How is that even possible? Surviving is hard enough without that,” Mira said. Her eyes narrowed in distaste at the castrator.

  “I never said I used it, and I sure as hell wouldn’t let anyone use it on me,” I told them, trying to defuse their revulsion. The device clearly hit a nerve among people who fought to survive and presumably have children to carry on whatever passed for life.

  Mira’s face calmed, then Bel did also, once she saw her sister’s anger recede. I stood to start a new hole. Offensive as the tools might be, they were also damned valuable.

  “This is almost enough for a full load. More if we’re going by value,” Mira said.

  “Can we dig for the rest of today, then start out in the morning?” I wondered how far the trading post was.

  “We will. Better to start fresh, two hours before dawn. We have two days to travel and no ogres, so the going will be slow,” Mira said.

  “Did you say ogres?” I asked, making sure I wasn’t hearing things.

  “Yes, of course. How do you think we pull heavy wagons?” Mira asked me, surprised. “You don’t know what an ogre is? What moved your goods around? Hightec?”

  “Among other things, yeah. We used tech, but—ogres? Big green guys with horns?” I asked. The planet had gotten weirder while I slept, and I considered the virus yet again. No wonder the idea of not having healthy children offended them. They lived in a world where fucking ogres were oxen.

  “No, silly. They’re blue,” Bel said in a reasonable tone.

  “Of course they are. And they’re tall?” I asked, still not quite believing it. Then I looked around at the howling wasteland and shook my head. Of course, there were ogres.

  “Half again as tall as you and thickly built. Blue pelts but light in the desert. The mountain ogres are much hairier,” Mira said.

  “They stink,” Bel added, wrinkling her pert nose.

  “I imagine they would. What a world.” I lifted my shovel to strike again, thinking of all the questions I had. There would be time enough for all of them out here in the Empty. “Tell me about ogres,” I said as the shovel bit hard.

  5

  Bel fell asleep instantly when her watch ended, just like the night before, but this time, she had midwatch. That meant I would see the sunrise again, a fact that would ordinarily have pissed me off but not tonight.

  I wasn’t dog-ass tired, despite digging like one all day, and after five hours of sleep, I was on the verge of boredom. I touched Bel’s arm to let her know I was on duty, but she was already snoring. “Good soldier, th
ere,” I muttered. She knew what was important.

  The moon was a searchlight above me, brighter than I remembered. A light wind carried precious little noise, though I heard some kind of bird high enough up that I couldn’t tell what it was.

  “It’s a moonhawk,” Mira said from the darkness.

  “Didn’t hear you get up,” I said, slowing my heart. She was utterly silent, a quality I found unnerving and admirable. “They hunt at night?” I peered up into the moonlight, noting the blue shadows around us.

  “Only at night, and only during fat moons. They’re harmless. Small, about as long as your arm, unlike the other ones,” she said. Bel snored and rolled over as Mira smiled at her.

  “That’s a relief. I like adding to the list of things that aren’t deadly,” I told her.

  She was very still, standing there in the white light of our shared moon. She was also naked. When she saw my expression, her brow lifted, mocking but not cruel. The light flowed over her, making shadows and curves into a tantalizing map of everything she was offering me.

  I reached out to take her hand, because I’m not stupid, regardless of what my drill instructor told me back in basic. Her fingers were warm, the skin roughened by work, but her touch was light and feminine. Just like the rest of her—perfect for the moment.

  “Shhh,” she said, putting a hand over my mouth, then kissing me into silence. “Been a while.”

  “For me? Or you?” I mumbled, hoping both were true. I also hoped the dawn was far off because the touch of her body was incredible. She straddled me there on the sand, not ten feet from Bel, who slept away the night while her goddess of a sister got ready to mount me.

  “Pants,” I said while she nodded into our kiss, never letting her lips break from mine. In the first true test of my new muscles, I pulled my pants off with one hand while holding her aloft, my fingers sinking into her soft ass like I was kneading dough.

  “Ready,” she said, and it wasn’t a question. I’d been ready since my eyes saw her naked perfection, so my answer was to thrust up into her while pulling her down. I thought of the tube, and the lies that brought me here to the Empty, along with the world this woman survived in and why she gave herself to me.

  None of it mattered because I understood her need in my blood.

  She moved slowly atop of me, taking direction with my touch on either hip, her spine turning like a snake as I let her do the work, hitting the spots where we both could agree to be at the end of each heated moment. Her breasts were in my face, my mouth, my hands, everywhere, and all things lit with that perfect moon as I leaned back to pull her on me, legs locked together in a grip that only loosened when I felt her first shuddering orgasm.

  Her squeal was tiny, but enough to make her eyes fly open in surprise as I pushed higher into her. It was time—my time and hers, all at once.

  I rocked back again, feeling all of the confusion from my awakening explode inside her, an electric sensation that shook us both together. I started looking for an angle to curl around her, just as she made to lift off of me.

  My body had other ideas.

  “This is new,” I said to myself, but she heard, her breath leaving in a huff of surprise. I was rock hard again and in no mood to quit, my blood sizzling with nanobots who clearly had my best interests at heart.

  “New to me too,” she hissed. We began to move, and I stole a glance over her freckled shoulder at the gray line of dawn, now approaching. She understood my gaze. “Do we have time?”

  “We’ll make time.” I flipped her under me to see the moon in her eyes, lips parted as I drove down into her welcome hips, knowing that whatever happened next, things weren’t just different because of this—they were better. There was no apology in her eyes as she took her pleasure and gave me mine.

  Whatever this new world might be, it was in need of someone like me, and I aimed to deliver.

  6

  I began the day with a bang.

  It would end that way too. By the time Bel and Mira were awake and moving, I’d had time to ponder the shell my crude map was drawn on. The prospect of digging up an entire civilization brought my situation into focus in a way that the landscape could not, even when I considered the previous night with Mira under a desert moon. I was in an alien place, a time not tethered to anything from my own life except for what lay underneath our feet, covered by the endless march of sand and grit that hid everything I’d ever known.

  The sand might be an enemy of Bel and Mira, but it was my friend. There was an entire world beneath us, and I had enough knowledge of it to keep us in whatever passed for money until the sun burned out, if we could survive the desert.

  “I think it’s time to see a little more of my new home,” I told the dunes.

  “It is,” Mira agreed from behind me. I knew she was there but waited until she spoke. After our night together, I wanted her to come to me on her own terms. She reached out to touch my shoulder softly. “We have enough to trade at the post, and it would be good to sleep with one eye open instead of two.”

  She was stunning in the morning light, so I took a moment to admire her frankly before speaking. To her credit, she stood proudly under my assessment, only breaking eye contact when a distant cry broke the silent air.

  “Bird?” I asked. Whatever it was, it was angry.

  “Of a sort. Scavengers like us, but meaner. They rarely land unless they’ve found food. They drift on currents, usually in pairs.” Squinting to the south, her emerald eyes narrowed in the growing light. “That one is alone. It’s merely a juvenile.”

  I turned to see the outline of something like a condor, but three times the size of any bird I’d ever seen or heard of. Circling lazily at middle height, the sun gleaming on its dusty brown feathers with wings that ended in white tips. The head was short, broad, and crowned in red feathers. It flapped once, dismissing us and moving off in a sedate loop to vanish in the distance.

  “Tell me about the predators out here, Mira,” I said. The dunes were far from barren, speckled with shards of bone and other items. It was a sea of sand, and like any ocean, the bottom was a catchall.

  Bel snorted as she busied herself packing. The sisters broke camp in seconds, a feat the Marine in me appreciated to no end. “Which ones? The ones underneath or the ones in the sky?”

  “You forgot the water,” Mira said.

  “Water? There’s water out here?” I was amazed. The Empty seemed well, empty, even if it was sprinkled with ruins. As to water, I’d seen none, nor heard Bel or Mira mention it.

  “Of a sort. Small lakes, like scars. They rise from tough rocks, and most are claimed by tribes not of our own. There are trees and beasts around them, and even in them. You can see them from a distance,” Mira said.

  “An oasis. That’s what we called it. Never thought I’d see any here,” I told her. “Will we see one on the way to the post, or are they to be avoided?”

  “We won’t on this trip in, but in many directions, the lakes are the only way to survive. Cactus is always on the eastern edge of the lakes. You can tap them for water, even if those who hold the lake are in a mood to fight,” Mira said. “The things under the water are always in a mood to fight.”

  It made sense that a tribe would protect their water, even if there were dangers living underneath the surface. It made more sense to let travelers tap cacti for their water supplies. You could still trade and protect your main asset at once. It was a system I’d seen before on deployment. Tribalism was the norm, not a rarity. There was security in numbers, which meant that we three were at risk, even with the sisters’ experience.

  “I’ve seen that kind of thing before, but I haven’t seen the creatures out here. You said there are water beasts. What kind?” I asked, expecting almost any answer.

  “Hammerheads,” came Bel’s answer.

  “Sharks? In an oasis?” I hadn’t expected that. Then again, I didn’t know what to expect at all from my new home, since I was the stranger.

  “Wi
th legs. That’s the problem. They don’t stop at the water’s edge. They can come out, into the dry if only for a minute. The sun will kill them, but they can hunt the shores at night. That’s why the lake tribes live up, off the ground,” Bel said.

  “Landsharks. Fucking landsharks. Beautiful,” I said. “I suppose there are spiders the size of a building too?”

  “Oh, not at all. They don’t get any larger than a man, and you can see their webs from quite a distance. It’s the worms that are trouble out here,” Mira chirped, tucking a shovel into her pack.

  “Of course there are spiders.” I rolled my eyes up to the sky, letting the weirdness of it all wash over me. “Two-day journey, you say?”

  Both sisters nodded, still busy breaking camp. I wondered how we would bring the cart along since there were no ogres, or at least none that I could see.

  “Two long days, but we can travel by night too. The moon is good right now, and shadows will be hard-edged. We’ll see danger before it sees us,” Mira said.

  I considered the cart. It was little, with two wheels and a bed that was just big enough to carry a small person. The salvage inside it was an array of items that made good sense—knives, wire, a hammer, some metal, and what appeared to be a tablet computer with a shattered screen. The memory core was in my pocket, safe from the elements. “Why not leave the cart here, and I’ll carry the salvage?”

  “Carts cost money,” Mira replied.

  “We’re coming back here, though. Right? Since I have the map and we know there’s salvage to be had?” I asked. “Can we make a pack for me from that cloth?” There was faded blue cloth in the cart, sturdy and thick. It looked homespun, with heavy stitching and a size that would work for a rucksack, if I used some of the scavenged wire to bind it together.

  “We could, but,” Bel began, “our cart would mean we were here. Jumpers would know and dig if they found it.”