Future Reborn Box Set

by Daniel Pierce

  “What do you mean? Were you sick? The only reason people quit being soldiers is from wounds, usually,” she said.

  “Not exactly.” I stared at the mummy as possible explanations rose and fell on my tongue, then decided to go with the simple truth. “This man? How old do you think his body is?”

  “I don’t know. It’s from the time of Hightec, right?” she said, peering down at the man out of time.

  “He is. And so am I,” I told her, waiting for a reaction.

  It wasn’t what I expected. “Go on.”

  “You don’t seem shocked. Why?” I asked her.

  “Rowan. He . . . did something with Hightec, and it changed his body. Why couldn’t you do the same? I know you’re different from him, because you have already shown yourself to be so. I don’t think you would lie about something like this, because men only lie for the same reasons, and I was under the blankets with you, yet you did not touch me. You have not tried to harm me, yet you could. So, because of all those things, I will listen, and then decide if you are truthful, or just mad.” She crossed her legs and looked up at me, face a mask of attentiveness.

  “Okay. Point one: I didn’t touch you because I won’t ever force a woman to be with me. As to the rest of my story, that’s easy. This man—and me—are 2000 years old, but I’m alive because of Hightec in my blood, and a device that kept me asleep while the world fell apart over my head as I dreamed of nothing except my own heartbeat.”

  She took my words in slowly, emotions flickering across her face as she watched me for a sign of deceit, but seeing none, asked a question of her own. “What happened to the world? Was it always this way?”

  “No. And it was a virus. It made the ogres, and the other beings that hunt us in The Empty and beyond. My time was—complicated, but good. What’s left over is harder, and I intend to change it. That’s one of the reasons I went to see Rowan, even though I suspected he was full of shit. I need to reclaim parts of my world in order to build this one again. Does that make sense?” I asked her.

  “Perfectly. And you have a place already? A place I can go?” she asked me, her eyes pleading.

  “I do, and you can. I only ask that you help us all work toward making a new life. Something better, without slaves and chains and blood. That’s what I want, and it’s the only thing I’ll accept until I’m all out of fight,” I said.

  She reached up, taking my hand, and I pulled her to her feet. She was surprisingly light, her body held against me, wrapped only in one of the blankets. A peal of thunder hammered at the sky outside and she flinched then leaned in closer as the rain lashed at the cave opening from a new direction.

  “Storm’s moving. It won’t be long until we can move,” she said.

  “We can wait it out, but then we’re going to have to move quickly. I don’t know what to expect outside, but none of the dry stream beds are going to be anything less than a raging torrent.” I rubbed at my face, planning steps to save time and effort for our ultimate goal. The reactors. “If we can’t move, they can’t move. Is there any reason they wouldn’t come after us right away? If it had been me, I would have given chase.”

  “The patrols. They were still out, and maybe Rowan thinks some of them will survive the storm,” she said.

  “Patrols? Plural? How many people are we talking about?” I asked, more than a little concerned about her oversight. And mine.

  “Maybe fifteen men, a few women, and of course, Lyss. They weren’t far out, but most of them were seasoned desert fighters. They would know the storm was coming and streak for the base,” she said. “They stay out overnight, scavenging and looking for girls. That’s why we didn’t cook for them.” Her eyes lowered, but I reached down to lift her chin.

  “My fault, not yours. I should have asked, but we got our guts beaten out by the storm, and we’re just now coming around. Thank you for telling me.” She brightened, and I felt myself smile. Her beauty was pure, and she was tough enough to survive a storm that would kill most people. “What did you do before they took you?”

  “Hunting and ranching, and damned good at it, if I say so. My family was among the best in the area, but we had two bad years in a row thanks to divine intervention,” she said, her face darkened with anger.

  “What kind of intervention?” I asked her, unsure if I’d heard correctly.

  “Taksa and Senet, last year, and the year before that, a group of big cats that took more than half our herds. We were lucky to survive, let alone eat, and my father took a leg wound that never healed right. He lingered over the summer and died just as the weather began to cool. Mom died three years back, and my brothers were killed fighting in the trade wars when I was little.” She looked stricken, then nostalgic. “We had such perfect beasts. Amazing muscle and horns, and big healthy calves, all the time. We had turkeys and goats, and the meanest brood sow you’ve ever seen. She threw twenty piglets at a time and we had everything we needed. Then the fucking wars started bleeding us, a little at a time until it was me and pa and a lot of broken fences.”

  “You can have all of that again,” I told her.

  “How?” Her eyes were bright with angry tears.

  “I want those things too, and I don’t know a damned thing about pigs other than the fact that bacon is delicious. The last pig I saw tried to eat me,” I said.

  “They tend to do that when they’re rogue.” She wiped at her face, then looked at me with an intensity that pushed back the chill. “Why would you help me get that life back?”

  I laughed and settled to the blanket, grimacing at the sensation of wet pants on my skin. “It wouldn’t be charity. The Free Oasis needs all of the things you can do. You could be the person who makes us self-sufficient for the next stage of our existence. Build a herd. Build a stable. Whatever you can build, do it, because you would be helping all of us take a giant step forward.”

  “Okay. We would need stock,” she said.

  I raised my hands in surrender. “No idea. That’s up to you, but you would have help. We have people joining us with a wide variety of skills, and like I told you, you would be welcome. And safe.”

  She bit her lip, thinking as the storm hammered the landscape around us. When she turned to me, her look was far from scared. There was heat in her eyes as she put a hand on my chest, fingers trailing lightly up my neck. “Do you have a woman?”

  “No,” I told her. “I have two.”

  Her smile was coy, then sensual. “I’m not afraid of competition.”

  She pulled at my pants, angling under me as her body unfolded on the blanket. Her skin was smooth, still dimpled from the chill, and perfect. I edged her over with my arm, settling against her with the warmth of my body as she pushed up against me, hungry for more than just a warm place to fall. As the thunder cracked, I kissed her, then again, her tongue playing a lazy eight as she reached down and slipped me inside her, the muscles tight, her thigs flexed as she wrapped around me like we were forged as one.

  I moved, then she responded, languid motions that were unhurried despite the chaos of the skies just outside the safety of our cave. Her breasts were astounding; defiant and soft all in one, and responsive to my touch as she leaned up to nip playfully at my ears while her first orgasm began in a series of tiny quakes, each moving along her thighs like a message that it was my time as well.

  “What competition?” she said, her voice rough with lust and satisfaction.

  Moments later, I answered the only way my body would let me, her legs locked around me once again in a movement that was familiar and new all at once. My new body answered the call as I slipped a hand behind her back, pulling her ever higher as she let loose a torrent of little gasps. It was time for her, so it was time for me, and we shook together for what seemed like forever, collapsing as one while outside, the first ray of sun breaking through in the distance.

  The storm was ending, and as I kissed her one last time, I knew the pleasure was over. It was time to deliver some pain.

&nbs
p; 9

  We emerged into brilliant sunlight and steaming heat. “Holy shit,” I said, utterly stunned by the scene. The desert had been transformed. Everything had been scoured and reshaped by the furious storm, with rubble piled up against rock formations as water streamed downhill everywhere, rivulets carving and remaking the landscape even as we watched.

  “You said it,” Chloe muttered. She held a hand over her eyes, flat to block the scorching sun. The wind was light but humid, and to the east, a black bank of clouds still roiled, moving away too slowly to discern with the eye. “I think I know how to find the power plant, by the way.”

  “You do? Did Rowan tell you the exact location?” I asked her. All we knew was south, as he’d been careful not to share too much with us other than vague hints about the secret location.

  Chloe smiled, then pointed past me to the southeast. “Maybe that will help?”

  “What did the storm—” I stopped to put my hands up in mock thanks to the fleeing clouds. “I guess we did catch a break, after all.”

  “What did you break?” Mira asked, sending me into a spin, gun out instantly.

  Chloe just grinned, then waved to the two women walking toward us on the remnants of a concrete path, now revealed by the erosion of wind and rain.

  “No wonder you were quiet,” I said. The path was arrow-straight, leading to the cave, but broken from the years. “Glad to see you survived that batshit crazy weather.” I holstered my weapon and willed my heart to slow down, then pointed to Mira and Silk, who stood regarding me with bemused smiles. “Chloe, these are, as you said last night, your competition.”

  “Oh really?” Mira and Silk said in unison, their brows shooting up.

  Under the combined weight of their stares, Chloe coughed politely and managed a grin. “It was stormy. We were alone. You know how it goes.”

  “Oh really?” Mira repeated, but Silk just laughed, then grew serious.

  “Let them bask in it. We have news, and not a lot of time if I’m any judge of how fast things will dry out,” Silk said, her beautiful features turned grim. “We saw men on a mission, making good time heading north. They were a team, and there’s no way they won’t see sign of our trail in this muck. Even over hard ground, a child could follow someone, and I say this as a woman who ran a whorehouse for years. We’re in danger, Jack.”

  “Chloe. You say the plant is south?” I asked her, all humor gone from my tone.

  To her credit, her response was instant, serious, and direct. “Look over your shoulder. That’s where we’re going.”

  I did, and saw what she noticed earlier. A highway.

  “The storm scoured it clean. I’ll be damned,” I said, my eyes roaming the length of fractured pavement. It was far from pristine, but good enough for walking, and most importantly, it was drier than the surrounding Desert. We would gain an enormous amount of time using it for travel. I turned to Silk and Mira, motioning that we should start walking. “We can talk and walk. Chloe was a prisoner, and Rowan discovered nanobots. That’s why he wanted the needles. He and his captain have been dosing themselves with ‘bots, and the effects are mixed.”

  “How?” Mira asked.

  We were picking our way down the concrete shards toward the highway, our feet squelching in the muck between sections of stone. The desert began to give the rains back under the sun’s gaze, and in moments, I was dripping with sweat. The heat and humidity were brutal, and despite our pressing need, I knew we could only go so hard. If we arrived gassed and sunburned, then we would be in no shape to prepare the plant for an assault.

  “Lyss—the captain—seems to be handling the ‘bots okay, but there isn’t much of an outward sign that they’re working in her blood. Rowan is another story entirely. He’s strong, and his appearance is varying from day to day. I don’t think he’s stable. His mind might not be stable, either.”

  “How do you know he isn’t from your time? Maybe he’s just confused, and the process didn’t take?” Silk asked.

  “Because of what he asked me to do. He handed me a document from my time, and he couldn’t understand it. That means he’s form here and now, and Hightec is as alien to him as the idea of slavery is to me. That’s why we can’t let him reach his goal,” I said.

  We were walking four abreast on the road now, our steps eating up space as the cave fell away behind us.

  “What’s his goal? More Hightec?” Silk asked.

  I shook my head before answering. “Not just Hightec. The Hightec, as far as we’re concerned. He found evidence of something developed after I went into the tube. Portable power, water driven, and designed to run forever. If we can find it, save it, and use it?”

  “You think this single device can make the oasis safe? And—more like your world?” Mira asked. Her tone was cautious.

  My answer was soft, because I was lost in memory for a second. “The best parts of it, maybe. If I have the courage to do what’s right and find people who think that way.” I returned to the present, my smile widened by possibility. “Since Rowan doesn’t know the truth of the power plant, we could find anything there. The reactors alone are worth risking anything, but the unseen value? We need to lock this place down, at any cost. That patrol you saw will go to the plant. They aren’t looking for us, not really.”

  “Then we need to get there. Chloe, so you know anything more than just south? It’s a big desert,” Mira said.

  “It isn’t just south. It’s directly south, past a small gorge leftover from an earthquake when I was a little girl. There was a bridge, but I have my doubt it’s there after what we just went through,” Chloe answered.

  “How big a gorge?” I asked.

  “About fifteen meters. Pretty steep. Cut right into rock from a big shaker. It was filled in with gravel and dust, but . . .” She shrugged rather than repeat the obvious. The gap would be scoured clean by runoff, which meant I was going to test my body in a new and exciting way.

  I would jump the gorge.

  “Double time, then. You look pretty good for having ridden out that beast,” I said to Silk and Mira.

  “We didn’t ride anything out. There are more caves tailing away to the west along this ridge. It got a bit rough overnight, but we were dry. Closest thing to danger was a lightning strike that blew up the only cactus still standing after the first hours,” Mira said.

  “I could do without that kind of excitement for a while,” Silk said.

  “Sorry. More to come. We need to find and fortify this plant, and the only way to do it is to get there. This road is clear enough to trot. You game?” I asked.

  They all answered by taking off at a reasonable pace, packs swinging in unison as we made our way onto the road proper. The going was erratic but decent given the age of the road, and in less than twenty minutes, all three women were breathing in the pattern of people who are working hard but not being pushed beyond their limit.

  I trotted alongside, weapon up and eyes alert as the battered landscape unfurled before us. “What a disaster.”

  “I see ruins everywhere. How much sand was carried away?” Mira asked.

  “Has to be ten meters or more? I see what you’re saying. There are bits of concrete and—is that a girder? Old metal, I think. Must have carried away a thousand years of dunes. We’ve got a lot of scavenging to do before the next storm covers it all up,” I said.

  “Be a while. There are months, maybe years between storms like that. We’ll get more bad ones, but that was legendary. If anyone survived, they’ll pass it down as a story to their grandchildren,” Chloe said, leaning down to pick something up. “What’s this?”

  We stopped, since it was a good time for a drink and a deep breath. I took the small piece of stone from her, turning it over in the sun. “Arrowhead, from the people before mine. Three thousand years old, easy.”

  “Did you hunt with these?” Chloe asked, before gulping water from her skin.

  “No. There were people who lived on the plains a long time ago. W
hen I was a kid we collected their relics. I always wondered if someone would find evidence of my life and ask who we were, and why we were gone. Now I know,” I said, handing the arrowhead back. “Keep it. It’s a connection to the deepest past.”

  “I will,” Chloe said. “Ready?”

  She was tough. They all were.

  “Ready. South it is,” I said. We set out as the sun climbed higher, steaming away the pools of rainwater and leaving the world ever more humid, but we didn’t run for long. A gash in the earth loomed ahead, so deep that the sun reflected of the walls before being swallowed by shadows.

  “I take it that’s the gap?” I asked.

  “And then some. It’s gotten deeper than what I imagined,” Chloe said, whistling as she leaned over to examine the vertical walls.

  If there had been debris, the storm took every bit of it far away, leaving a raw scar in the land, and no evidence that there had ever been anything like a bridge. Or a highway, for that matter. All that greeted me was a roiling, coffee brown ribbon of water that looked fast enough to drown a hippo. Not only was it fast, there were tree limbs and other debris tumbling like jackstraws as the water scoured hard at the land. It was not swimmer friendly, and it looked too deep to wade even with a safety line.

  The good news was I would be testing my ‘bots and their ability to power me across a chasm. The bad news was I had no means to get the rest of my team across, unless they too developed the means for low-level flight.

  “Well, shit,” Mira said, which just about summed up the entire issue.

  I stood, staring at the chasm with a mix of anger and disgust, and it occurred to me that I didn’t just need to test my body. I needed to test my mind as well.

  “Not all problems are nails,” I said to no one in particular, “but some of them are.”

  “What’s that?” Silk asked. “Some advice from your time?”

  “You might say. We’re overthinking this,” I said, reaching into my pack and uncoiling a line. “Sometimes, the solution is a lot more simple than it appears. Do you trust me?” I asked all three women, never taking my eyes from the gap.