Future Reborn Box Set

by Daniel Pierce

“There’s snow to the west, but that’s in the mountains, and you wouldn’t want to go there without a damned good reason. Snowcats and other things up high, above the treeline. I’ve seen it. Beautiful but littered with wagons,” Silk said.

  “1641,” I felt myself repeat. “That means we lost three centuries after the virus.” I couldn’t imagine what kind of hellhole the world had been if this was an improved version with clocks and calendars. “I’m glad I slept through it,” I said with a rueful grin.

  “Not many people made it at all. I heard stories of people going a hundred days without seeing anyone else, and there are still dead zones in between the trade routes and roads,” Mira said.

  “How do you know of the mountains?” I asked Silk.

  “Same way I know of everything before I came to the outpost. I was there,” she said. “I saw so much before I came of age. I can’t say I miss it, but I miss the discovery. Having you and Mira means we can do some of the best parts, and maybe even survive it.”

  “If I can get over a ghost clock nearly making me faint.” I shook my head in disgust, slipping the clock into my pack. “For good luck. I’ll always know when I am.”

  “Better to know where you are, but we can handle that. Keep looking, or have you seen enough?” Mira asked.

  “We go back to the lab, strip what we can, and then sleep under the stars. I’ve had enough dead air for one day,” I said.

  “I’m sorry your people are gone, Jack,” Mira said, her voice almost a whisper.

  I smiled at her honesty as we turned to leave the dead colonel and her revelations. “They were your people too. The saddest part of it all was it didn’t have to happen.”

  “What can you do about it?” Silk asked. She was giving me a way out from my own past, but I didn’t need it. Not now, and not ever. This had not been my mistake, and I knew it.

  I shouldered my pack as we left the room, eyes ahead on the dark. “I can help us rebuild, and make certain nothing like this ever happens again.”

  “How will you do that?” Silk asked.

  “Simple,” I said, my mind made up. “If we see anyone playing god, we stop them, no matter what. Our world has enough bones.”

  28

  It was a bad place but a good haul, and we left with more than when we descended into the dark. I carried more than just the clock; I had the weight of truth with me now, and there would never be any way to forget it.

  After two hours, there was enough distance between us and the ghosts of Alatus to make camp under the growing stars. The moon was bright enough to travel, but rest was in order. We’d earned it, and I had to remind myself that Mira and Silk didn’t have the benefit of nanotech to rid them of the worst effects that exhaustion could bring.

  “Good enough here,” I said as we crested a small rise. We were heading east by dead reckoning, at least until daybreak. I knew the forest would be visible at a distance, and Mira was certain birds would lead us directly to it. Water was too precious this far out in the Empty. Nature would guide us, even if the destination was far from natural.

  I built a small fire while Mira left us briefly, returning with a rabbit the size of a dog. “Saw his tracks back a bit, knew he’d be out. Easy shot,” she said.

  “Shot with what?” I asked, not having heard a thing.

  Mira twirled her knife and thrust it into the sand. “A slower bullet, but sharp just the same.” She set to work skinning the beast but saved its hide. “For a pillow. They tan well.”

  “Salt cure or...?” I asked her, letting my voice trail off on the first choice and hoping she was going to agree.

  “We’re not animals, Jack. Only the far eastern traders still use piss to cure things,” Silk said with mock dignity. Her half smile told me what she thought of the traders, but Mira held up a hand when we started laughing.

  “Urine is cheaper than salt,” Mira informed me.

  “It’s also urine. Not that I’m against using what we have on hand, but—a pillow? Stuffed with what, exactly?” I asked her.

  “Folded in upon itself. Small but fuzzy, and damned warm in the cooler nights. Don’t get many hares near the post; they were hunted out a few summers back when the trade routes closed for a month due to war. Too many hungry people around, and they haven’t come back. Not yet, anyway,” Mira said.

  “I have a lot to learn,” I admitted, then cut my eyes east, where the echoes of my world came together, making something new and terrible. “So do both of you. I’m glad we have each other to do it.”

  “Are you okay? After the clock thing and all the bones?” Silk asked.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be normal again. Part of me is better than I ever was, but that’s because of the very thing that killed some of my people.” I inhaled deeply, then tried to exhale some of the tension in my body. I was doing decently well, given the fact that I just found out I was two millennia into the future and some kind of blood-borne cyborg. Overall, things were about as good as I could hope, given my brutal new reality.

  “Do you think you’re going to turn into a monster?” Mira asked into the space between us. The fire crackled, small and hot, fat sizzling on the rabbit as I tried to give her an honest answer. I didn’t have anything except two knives and my word, so I took my time.

  “No,” I answered, giving her a level gaze.

  “Why?” Silk asked.

  “I was in that tube for more than two thousand years, but I wasn’t dead, just suspended in time. Even with what little activity went on in my body, if the ‘bots were going to turn me into something else, you would have had a very different experience when the tube opened,” I said to Mira. “I know how I feel, how I think. There’s nothing in me that isn’t exactly who I was all those years ago. I’m just better. I think of the ‘bots as a kind of medicine. In the right dose, it can cure you. In the wrong dose, it kills.”

  “What’s it curing you from, Jack?” Silk’s deep green eyes gleamed in the firelight, open and curious.

  “Being ordinary. I think being human can get you killed here, and sometimes, even being better than everyone else still might not be enough,” I said.

  “And you think—” Mira started, but I held up a hand for silence.

  I heard a noise that was so delicate, it wasn’t even a real sound. Just the hint of something sliding on sand, a whisper in the starry night that could have been anything, but it wasn’t. Staring into the dark beyond the fire, I saw them, skulking toward us with murderous intent. The wolves had followed us, at a distance far enough to mask their approach until the very end.

  Mira grabbed her gun, moving silent as a spirit. Silk faced the fire, eyes flicking over her shoulder without moving. She was in the worst position, needing to turn and grab her weapon before she could even target the predators. Raising my gun, I drew down on the alpha, a beast that had once been magnificent, I was sure, but was now just a large, hungry dog with fangs.

  “Take them?” Mira asked.

  “Not yet, unless you need another pillow?” I said in a low voice.

  The wolves watched us; their eyes intense golden orbs as they lifted their noses in unison, and their heads turned back and forth. They glanced at us, then each other, and faded into the night without a sound.

  “Why did they leave?” Silk asked after a minute. The air around us was thick with tension, dissipating only when I stoked the fire higher, adding the bundle of bleached sticks we gathered along the way.

  I could only think of one reason why, especially given that I neither heard nor smelled anything, and saw only the dark sky and a wealth of stars.

  “Something more dangerous than they are, and it’s just over that rise,” I said, pointing with my chin into the gloom.

  Silk gripped her gun tighter, squinting into the darkness. “How close are we to the forest?”

  “A lot closer than I thought,” Mira said. “The breeze is coming our way, so whatever it is, the wolves smelled it.” Her smile was an orange crescent in the firelight.
“Still think you’re good enough to kill whatever waits for us in the trees?” she asked me.

  “I’m going to find out. So are you, but not until just before dawn. Silk, take this watch, then wake me. We leave two hours before light. I want to be in sight of wherever we’re going before the sun comes up, so we aren’t surprised by any of their early risers,” I said, easing back on my elbows. I didn’t fear the wolves, and if predators from the Empty feared what the forest held, then the only thing to do was sleep. There was no sense in greeting mutant killers in a haunted forest without some shuteye, and there was enough rabbit left over for a full meal before we struck out.

  Silk edged closer to Mira, and they leaned on each other, eyes sweeping the sky together as they pointed out stars, planets, and the brief flare of a silent meteor, streaking south in cold fury. I let my eyes close in the chase for sleep, and the skeletons of Alatus were waiting—just as I knew they would be. They waved to me, smiling with jack-o-lantern grins as their jaws tumbled to dust, always laughing and waving me forward, deeper into a dark, silent forest that smelled of decay.

  I knew it was a dream, but even so, I listened, careful to mark their words, my dream-self nodding, always, as if I could understand what they were saying, but it was all a lie. There was no secret to be found in my sleep, only the memory of a dead world, dead people, and a life that was stolen from me when I crawled into a metal tube to slumber through the end of mankind.

  29

  “Time to get up,” I said in a low voice as Mira and Silk slept next to each other, their breathing a song of unison, dozing away the witching hour.

  Mira woke first, her scavenger’s reflexes making her reach for a knife as I put a calming hand on her arm to still any violent reactions. “Fire’s up, and there’s food.”

  Silk woke next, her eyes fluttering open, then locking on me. “I’m up. All quiet?” she asked, displaying a mind that came to life the moment she was awake.

  “Not a sound, except something fighting in the distance. Sounded like two women in a deathmatch,” I told her.

  “Foxes. They don’t play well with their own or anyone else, for that matter,” Silk replied. What she seemed to think was no big deal set the skin on my neck rippling as the two combatants yowled their way into the distance, punctuated by occasional screams of pain.

  “Good to know. I thought they weren’t quite so angry,” I said, offering them both strips of rabbit. They ate quickly and without fuss, breaking camp in near silence. We became a team during our trip south, and if we could survive the next few days, things would get even better.

  “Not angry. Breeding season,” Mira mumbled around a mouthful of rabbit. She bolted the strip and stood, wiping her hands free of the grease. “Not everyone is good about sharing a mate,” she said, her lips curled up at the corner.

  “I do feel foxy sometimes,” Silk said, stifling a laugh. “Ready for the approach,” she said after finishing her own meal.

  We walked fifty meters, slow and steady before stopping at the edge of a low rise. In the distance, a smudge huddled against the dark, more a suggestion than a shape. “It’s just there, and we’re going to follow a simple plan.”

  “Which is?” Mira asked.

  “I’m going to kill everything that moves. We don’t know what happened to the people in that forest, but based on the letter from our dead friend, I’m assuming it isn’t good. They’re corrupted by the ‘bots, and they don’t know what they’re playing with. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the ‘bots were turning them into some kind of forest creature, compelled to plant trees and haul water, but there’s no way of knowing. Also, it’s too dangerous to give them a chance to explain. Not after what happened to the Harlings.”

  Inhaling, I let my lungs drain slowly because what I had to say next was more than just a death sentence, it was my first true decision as a leader. Due to the ugly nature of the Empty, my first judgment was going to seem brutal, and I needed Mira and Silk to understand I wasn’t going forward without some serious thought.

  “I can’t let anyone have this technology without understanding it. Doing that would be like giving a sword to a baby, except the baby can hurt a lot of people. We end this here, as quickly as we can and get ready for the arrival of Taksa, Senet, and whatever crazies they bring with them. You need to believe me when I say that whatever happens over in that forest is going to seem childish compared to what’s coming,” I said.

  “We know,” Silk said. “We’ve seen cultists before. They have fire in their eyes and poison in their hearts.”

  “I suspect these cultists are different from anything you’ve ever seen. They’re superhuman, but not in a good way. We end them and the Black Room as soon as we secure this forest. Now, when we go in, eyes up, ears open, and no matter what happens, we stay together. Ready?” I asked.

  “Ready,” Silk replied, but Mira just lifted her gun. So much of her life had changed, I felt a surge of pride to see her square her shoulders and head into the fight without a second thought.

  Above, the stars were still pulsing bright, as dawn was a solid hour or more away. It was the witching hour, when mankind finds the deepest sleep and sentries have a hard time keeping watch, their instincts telling them to rest.

  We stalked across the sands, low and silent. In the light breeze, something smelled entirely new.

  Life. That was the scent: green, wild, and rich, tinged with moss and water droplets. It was a smell so different from the Empty, it could be another planet, which it was to Mira and Silk. To me, it smelled like the mountains of Carolina after a summer rain, bursting with living secrets and shadowed places where water could pool. Bird calls, the hum of insects, and even the chittering of an angry squirrel filled the air the closer we got.

  We paused at the edge of the growth, and I took stock of what was happening. It was easy to see from the height of the trees, the closest to us no more than saplings, thin and wiry, reaching up to the stars with few leaves and fewer branches. I don’t know a lot about trees, but what I saw seemed impossible. There were live oak and ash, cedar and desert willow, all growing tall and wide, getting higher as they receded toward the center of the garden. I couldn’t think of it as anything else. It was a garden of trees, cared for and planted to carve out an island of green in a searing expanse of sand.

  I was reaching to touch the leaf of a small black cherry, when I heard the sound of breathing, low and steady. Animal, I mouthed in the dark, but I didn’t need to because it was loud enough that Silk and Mira heard it too.

  I drew a blade in complete silence, moving forward into the space between saplings. The garden was a wheel, each spoke a small irrigation ditch with a sandy white bottom. Someone—or something—was lining each canal with rocks, keeping the precious water in line to reach out under the shaded protection before vanishing into the soil. It was primitive but effective, and the garden grew to heights over fifteen meters in the middle. The builders had been here for some time.

  In the midst of all that life, another smell was present as we advanced. Blood was in the air, and not new, living blood. This was the stench of death; the reek of a predator too lazy to clean up after a kill.

  Predators are only careless when they feel secure. That meant we were in a place where people weren’t welcome, and the last fleeting moment of guilt left my mind as I clenched my teeth. The decision was made, and I felt no uncertainty.

  I moved ahead, blade at the ready, and had a moment of déjà vu as the creature was revealed by the light of a desert sky. I knew where Hardhead came from and so much more.

  “Hurk?” it asked, hand poised as it stripped the flesh from a child-sized human skull. It was dark and huge; its muzzle smeared with gore as it reclined like a drunken sailor, legs splayed out and leaning on an elbow. My blade whispered forward, severing the neck with a flashing cut as the monster slumped over before it even knew it was dead.

  I knelt near the spurting body, rolling the head to one side for a closer look.
The creature was big but not as distorted as Hardhead, with ivory fangs clotted with bits of congealed blood, likely from one of the missing Harling family. It was a small blessing to know that we’d avenged one death. That left twelve or more to go, and nothing but opportunity before us in the quiet grove.

  “Was it a man?” Silk asked quietly.

  “Once,” I said. I lifted one of the enormous arms, parting the thin fur. Lurid scars ran up and down the muscles in a network of lines. “Needles, and lots of them. Seems like someone knew just enough to get the ‘bots in, but not the dosage or treatment. It made them into monsters.”

  “Maneaters,” Mira said with disgust. Even two thousand years in the future, certain things were still considered wrong. She spat on the twitching corpse then smiled in apology. “Sorry.”

  “Understood,” I said. “Know what we’re looking for now?”

  “Can smell ‘em first. Yeah,” Mira said, gun at the ready. “Blades or guns?”

  “Blades until we’re blown, then guns. Stay quiet for as long as possible,” I told her. Conserving ammunition was a good idea, especially when I had a body strapped with muscles and two long blades at the ready.

  “Got one,” Silk said. She pointed to the left, under a taller oak, its branches spreading wide over two water channels. A hammock hung between the oak and its sister tree, swinging lightly from the user’s motion. “Yours,” Silk said to Mira, who obliged by sliding away and under the swinging hammock. Her knife entered the creature’s neck at the top of the spine, making the entire body shake like a leaf in the wind before falling still. A patter of blood fell freely to splash on the stony ground, and her smile was bright in the starlight.

  “Done,” Mira whispered when she arrived back.

  “Nice cutting,” I told her.

  “Easy when they’re sleeping. Keep on?” she asked.

  “Onward,” I said. We stayed close, winding our way to the left. We would cover the grove in concentric rings, growing closer to the center, where the most intelligent creatures would be, if my suspicions were correct. Since there was greater safety in the middle, the most bestial creatures would be shoved out to fend for themselves, like ugly cousins no one wanted at a picnic.