Future Reborn Box Set

by Daniel Pierce

  “Hush, you. It’s farming, and you know it,” she said, leaning down to pat Natif on the shoulder. “We’re looking for the Hannahs, I take it?”

  “Good guess. They’re out there. Might as well guide them in,” I said. “Derin can work on his forge. Everyone else can plant. When we find the Hannahs, we’ll add some people to our ranks and then spend some time down under, in the facility. We can show everyone what we’re doing here, the water, the gardens, and then we can get serious about expansion, especially if I find that power plant. This is the catalyst we needed to get out there and take a leap forward.” The Hannahs might not be alone, which meant more hands than I hoped for. We could use the help.

  “Natif, tell Silk and the Harlings. We’re grabbing our packs and heading—” She raised a brow to me, shrugging. “—west and then north?”

  “Exactly. Let everyone know. We’ll be back by nightfall,” I told him.

  “Got it, boss. Need anything?” he asked.

  “Nope. We’ve got out packs, ammo, guns, knives—”

  “I’ve got dried pork rations, three skins as backup, and medical. We’re good with my pack and yours. We sleep rough, if we have to overnight, but we don’t go past fifteen clicks out, by my call,” she said, walking away to grab her gear. Mira didn’t waste time, and I knew we would be in motion before the next tree was planted.

  “Natif, stay here and work. We’ll tell Silk about our mission,” I said, amending my order. The Empty was an ocean of sand, and you didn’t dive without a plan. And a buddy. I would use both, even for a day trip.

  I sketched the idea to Silk, then the Harlings, and in minutes Mira and I were on our way to the north, alert for any sign of wagons or corpses. I peered up at the sun and came to the realization that I was getting used to The Empty.

  That, or my ‘bots were evolving.

  “If she was following the route south, we could intersect her by taking a diagonal track. Save time that way,” Mira said. She knew The Empty in ways that I was still learning, but my augmented body was more forgiving about mistakes made in the desert. I had to adjust my actions accordingly.

  “Easier going to the north. Let’s go two klicks and drift west. If there’s anyone out here, we’ll see signs. If they get past us, they won’t be able to miss Alatus and anything that Taksa left behind,” I said. “You have glasses?”

  “Got them,” she said, flashing a small pair of binoculars. They would extend our view and give us the ability to cover even more ground. She put them away, but not before rewrapping them in a cloth. It was no longer a disposable world, and she took care of her things. I felt the same way about people. With the virus taking so many and leaving a husk of a planet, people had more value. Life had more value than when I was put in the tube, even though the world was far less forgiving.

  We walked for an hour at a good pace. Mira was lean and tough despite her feminine exterior. When she smiled at me, there was a lightness to her that hadn’t been around after Bel died, and I knew that inside she was healing. Her smile faded to mild confusion as she titled her head, eyes narrowed to ward off the sun.

  I followed her gaze due north to a smudge on the horizon. “Not a wagon,” I said as my eyes focused on the distinct shape of two figures, then four as they walked up a low crest. They wore light colored clothes and carried weapons.

  “Armed. Four of them.” I stared again, and the weapons resolved into two guns and two leaf-bladed short spears. “Two women, two men—wait.” More shapes lifted over the rise. “Make that at least seven people in all. Two are not armed.”

  “It’s the Hannahs,” Mira said with certainty. Her eyes were excellent, and nearly as good as mine.

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “They walk like women, they’re not armed, and they’re in the middle. Those people are bringing them to us,” she said.

  “Or making them lead them to the Oasis,” I said with a touch of cynicism. Being negative could keep my people alive, and I wasn’t averse to the idea of assuming the worst.

  “Could be. Only one way to know. Do we fire over their heads, or would you like to chat first?” Mira grinned, lifting her rifle to hip.

  “I’m nothing if not reasonable. Let’s talk first, kick ass only if we have to.” I considered the women, and their height difference sold me on their identity. “I’ll be damned. They did come from the north.” I shrugged and started walking as Mira waved. My shotgun was up but not pointed at the approaching party, who were no less than 200 meters away. Anyone with a brain knew my gun was useless at that range, but Mira’s was another story, especially with her gift as a hunter. Her skills were honed in the hardest lands I’d ever seen, and I knew she carried herself with the air of a survivor. That would be evident to the other people even at this range, so we approached with cautious optimism before the Hannahs saw us and broke into a run, waving and laughing as they slid down the dune to greet us. None of the others tried to stop them, which was an excellent sign that diplomacy and friendship might win the day over sniping skills.

  “Jack!” Hannah yelled, rushing to hug me. Her body was light, but her smile was bright, and she looked healthy despite a day or two on walkabout. I flicked my eyes back and forth to the women, who were in their early twenties but still young enough to be joyful. How they managed that after life in a whorehouse was a question I would ask Silk later, but for now, we exchanged a tumult of greetings as they turned to introduce their companions.

  In my mind, I’d already sorted them as Hannah and Hannah Too the shorter being Too on the basis of her smaller stature. Hannah was a brunette with brown eyes and freckles, full lips, and an elfin look. She was four inches taller than Hannah Too, who was a blue-eyed blonde with a small nose and legs that looked impossibly long for her smaller frame. They were both beautiful, and I could see why Silk trusted them to bring in customers. The intelligent look they both gave me confirmed that Silk was very good at judging people, and I draped an arm around Hannah Too as she murmured in my ear.

  “Safe, but quite interested in who you are,” she said before breaking into a winning smile. “These people found us after our wagon fell through the roof of an underground washout. Only three meters down, but a hard enough fall that it smashed everything we had and killed Edgar.”

  “Edgar?” I asked.

  “One of the house guards. He came with us. Things are bad back at the post. It’s coming undone,” she continued.

  The others stood a short distance away as I walked forward, hand out in greeting. There was a tall woman and four men, all desert hardened and slender in the desperate way The Empty shaped people for life under the sun.

  “Jack Bowman,” I said to the guy in charge. He had a command authority, and if I was any judge, the woman was his second.

  “Rowan. This is my captain, Lyss, and my away team, Tergis, Wyant, Stoker, and Barvi. We’re glad we found you, but Hannah and, ah, Hannah were on the right track, it seems,” he said, taking my hand in a firm grip that was polite without being in the dickhead-level of pressure.

  He was around six feet, with dark eyes and deeply tanned skin, his hair almost shaved, but what showed was gray. An experienced person with laugh lines around his eyes and the aura of someone used to giving orders, he smiled at me without guile.

  “This is Mira. She’s my second, and we’re glad you found the Hannahs. We were on our way to look for them, and it was a good excuse for a walk. Are you from the post?” I asked.

  Rowan’s face shifted into neutral. “Let’s sit and talk for a minute, if you don’t mind. I know you’re not interested in revealing your location to us, and we feel the same about our place. Might be that a discussion is in order, just to set our minds at ease about any potential misunderstandings.”

  “Couldn’t agree more. Not much in the way of cover here,” I said. We were in the glare with nowhere to go, until Tergis and Barvi unloaded a tarp and collapsible stakes from their packs.

  “Instant shade. I find it makes
thinking easier, especially out here,” Rowan said. “Let me start off by telling you we neither know nor care where you’re building an outpost. We have our own, and mostly wanted to be away from Wetterick and the reaches of Kassos. Before you ask, I’ll tell you. We went east, and we did it for the water.”

  “We’re to the south, for much the same reasons,” I admitted. We were showing our cards in a measured way, and so far everyone was behaving.

  “South?” Rowan looked at Lyss with unguarded surprise. “Didn’t think there was anything to the south until you hit ocean, and even then, there’s nothing but death.”

  “You’ve heard of Taksa?” I asked him.

  His entire party stiffened. Yeah, they knew of him alright.

  “We took him out, and that cursed sister of his, too. The Black Room is kindling.”

  Rowan looked shocked, then doubtful, and then slowly he smiled before sliding a flask from his pocket. “Now that is worth drinking to. Glad that fucker ate sand.” He drank, then laughed toward the sky in obvious relief. “You did the work?”

  I took the offered flask and nodded. The liquor was hot and raw but went down like we were old friends. Wiping my mouth, I passed the flask back and jabbed a finger to the southwest. “Caught them on approach. Snipers—and by that I mean Mira and Silk—dropped the guards, and I took Taksa first. He died about how you would expect.”

  “Fucking worm,” Lyss spat. Her tone was matched in the grim faces of their whole party. It was nice to know they felt the same way about Taksa.

  “He’s feeding worms now, unless he’s just buzzard shit. I killed Senet a bit too quickly. Can’t say I didn’t want it to last a little longer. Not after what she’d done to the victims we found,” I said, and the air around me felt cold despite the sun. I would never lose the memory of her, or the Black Room, but that wasn’t a bad thing. I would use it as a model for what not to allow in the new world.

  “Did they have ogres under their command?” Rowan asked.

  “Plenty, but we set them free. No reason to keep them in chains, not when—”

  “They were once human?” Rowan asked, his eyes sharp.

  “You think so too? Why?” I asked.

  Again, Rowan cut his eyes to Lyss, and an unspoken message passed between them before he spoke. “I think the evidence is obvious to anyone who can look. They’re not bright, but they aren’t animals, either. Either way they know what bondage is. They feel fear, and live most of their lives in it.”

  “I agree. The virus did it, but whatever happened to their bodies isn’t changing anymore. They’re stable, I think, if you can call an eternity of servitude being stable,” I said.

  “It was the virus. That much I know. We have access to some Hightec, and that’s my conclusion. We have other things from the past, too, but not all of the operating systems are in order. It’s too much, even for us, and we’ve been at it for years,” Rowan admitted.

  “I might be able to help,” I offered.

  “How?” Rowan took on a cautious air, careful of putting too much skin in the game before he knew more about me.

  “Hightec is my native tongue. I worked with it, and now, when I find it, I’m confident I can bring it back. I need certain things to do it, but our information makes me think everything I’m looking for is in this area.” I took a pull of my waterskin, smiling. “Like a power plant.”

  Rowan twitched, but it was enough. “What would you do if you found such a place?”

  Lyss was utterly still, as were the others. The Hannahs watched intently, being keyed in to human behavior even if they didn’t have all the pieces of our discussion. Only Mira seemed unconcerned, which meant she was in a state of high alert.

  “Get it working, if I could. It figures in my plans,” I said.

  “Which are?” Lyss asked.

  Rowan said nothing, merely watching me.

  I pointed south to the Oasis. “I’m building a free state, just over there. No chains. No fucking slaves, or controlling warlords, or classes of people with no say in their lives. We have water, and open ground, and something I never imagined. We have trees, and we’re planting an oasis around a system that will let us reclaim this desert, one meter at a time until children can live here without fear. Until laws are real, and peace is the default state, and I can put this gun down and not worry about petty tyrants and their monstrous sisters.”

  “That’s a lot for one man to wish,” Rowan said, but he was smiling. “Coincidentally, I’m doing the same thing, but with different tools. You said you have—trees?”

  “In excess. A seed bank from long ago, planted and growing. We’re plotting out the first expansion, and we just added some much-needed talent to our little tribe,” I said.

  “Derin and scoot?” Hannah Too asked, then covered her mouth at the potential misstep.

  “The very same,” I confirmed, smiling to let her know all was well. “Armorer and his daughter. Good people, and talented. That’s what I need more than anything. We have food. We have water. We even have Hightec, and eventually, it can be brought to heel for our purposes, but what I don’t have is a power plant.”

  “We do, but we lack the understanding to realize the potential value.” Rowan made a decision and gestured to the northeast. “Thirty klicks away over some rough country. It’s there, and that’s where we are. We’re small, but well-defended and partially hidden from the weather. How it survived, I don’t know, but we’re the third group trying to reclaim it. I was able to because I had special help, but you would be a welcome partner if we could reach terms.”

  “For the use of the plant?” I asked.

  “Indeed. Power can be transmitted, right? At least, that’s what I think the old signs say. Through wires? I’ve heard they do it in Kassos, but on a very small scale,” he said.

  “Electricity can be shared, but I don’t know if it’s possible yet. Not without a stable corridor between your place and ours. That’s part of the problem we’re facing, if we want to tame The Empty. There are threats I’ve never seen before, and even in good weather, power lines are in need of constant maintenance. Electricity isn’t like planting trees. It can kill you in the blink of an eye,” I said.

  “But it’s worth doing?” Rowan asked.

  “Sure. It would go a long way to letting us reclaim the land. Or cities, if we find them,” I said.

  “You’re thinking that far in the future? We’re still worrying about a steady food source,” he said.

  “And water,” Lyss added. “We have it, but in The Empty it’s always an issue. The rains are erratic, and the springs can only support so many people.”

  “We’re making clay tiles to cover the irrigation channels, and then we’ll dig cisterns. Every water source we find will be protected and used, but we need something else almost as much as water and power,” I said.

  “What is it?” Lyss asked.

  Rowan just lifted his hands in question.

  “People. We need qualified people who can bring something to the oasis, not just mouths to feed. We need builders, not takers, and the people who join us will get the full measure of my protection until I can’t lift a hand to help them. That’s my promise to the oasis, but it extends beyond our trees. It’s going to be the bedrock of what we are as a city, if everything works,” I said.

  Mira put her hand on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “I’ll be there too.”

  “We have to go back soon, but you’re welcome to join us,” Rowan said.

  I thought it over, marking distances and time before answering. This was diplomacy, not a brawl, but it still required my full focus. What I did here would set the precedent for all of my people, so I answered carefully. “We’ll take the Hannahs back and get them settled, then make our way to you in a day or so. Thirty klicks, you say?”

  “Give or take, based on where you say you’re located,” Rowan said, giving me a wintry smile. He knew I wasn’t giving anything away, because that was what he was doing. We were a long
way from trusting each other.

  I would keep him at arm’s length, if only because The Empty—and my new world—didn’t give second chances. I owed it to my people. “We’ll provision and bring something with us that you’ll want to see.”

  “Hightec?”

  He was sharp. I revised my opinion of his intellect, upward. He came off as competent and tough, but he was smart, too.

  “That’s right. Do you have any working computers? Anything that can read data?” I asked. He would have to reveal something to get something.

  “We don’t, but the—where we are does. It’s integral to the place, not mobile. Anything you can share is welcome.” He snapped his fingers, pretending to remember something. “Do you have any needles? For injections? I’ve got sick people, and no way to deliver meds we got from Kassos.”

  “There are injectables medicines in Kassos?” I asked. It was impossible to keep the shock out of my voice, but I didn’t care. That kind of tech could be a game changer, especially in a world without any working hospitals. At least none where I would build my home.

  “And surgery, too, but the cost is—it’s high. They want hardware, not money or trade routes. We try not to deal with them at all, if possible,” Rowan said. There was an angry undertone to his words that I understood. Being hustled for profit when your people lay dying would be enough for me to become unreasonable.

  I nodded in sympathy with his position. “Understood. If we have some, we’ll bring them. It goes against everything I know, but you can sterilize and reuse them, at least until the point goes dull.”

  “Sterilize? As in clean?” he asked.

  “I’ll show you and explain. We’ve got a lot of work to do here, Rowan. Give me three days to get home and to your place, and we can move forward with our discussions. May I bring”—I thought it over, then decided what I would need—“two people with me? Mira and another, to help with the travel?”

  “Sounds fair. You’re welcome, and here’s how you’ll know when the plant is close— go northeast until you see the first rocky rise. Fire off your rifle, and we’ll guide you in. Sound good?” he asked.