Future Reborn Box Set

by Daniel Pierce

  His hand was steady, the knife in it barely moving as the six-inch blade pointed directly at my center mass. If I attacked, he would lash out, and it would be over. If I held firm, he could circle me in hopes of his people taking out my team, and we would die of old age facing each other in the ridiculous standoff.

  Up until that moment, my thoughts had been fully human—those of a man from my time, who knew nothing of life with ‘bots, and certainly not an advanced form of machines singing in my blood. I went inward for a second, listened to their call, and made my decision.

  I jumped forward, and Rowan’s blade met my right arm as he buried the knife deep in the flesh of my forearm. Pushing ahead, I turned the knife away, tearing my own arm open in a spray of blood that colored the morning light scarlet, Rowan’s grunt of triumph fading as the belt wrapped around his neck, the circle closing as the buckle smacked into my open palm.

  I pulled.

  He lifted from the ground, eyes bulging in horror as I twisted, freeing his knife from my ruined arm as I began to spin. I made three rotations so fast he didn’t even have time to lift his hands, the oxygen fading from his brain under the force of the belt, and my muscles, and the inertia of his own body stretching vertebra until one of them snapped with a sullen pop.

  His body went limp, eyes staring into a place where no living man could see.

  “So much for our interrogation,” I said, letting the corpse hit the sand.

  Behind me, Mira called out, her voice ragged with emotion. I turned, tried to lift my other arm, and let it hang, the long cut bleeding freely onto the ground, but slowing even as I stared at the white edges and exposed tendons. I was no longer truly human, and wounds could be given if it meant winning the fight. Rowan had forgotten that aspect of the ‘bots, or maybe he had never known. It didn’t matter. He was dead, and my arm might work again, or it might not.

  “Jack.” I looked up at the insistent call. This time, it was Silk. “Can you walk?”

  I nodded weakly and began making my way to her. “What is it?”

  In answer, she stepped aside, revealing Chloe, whose head was in Mira’s lap. A bullet wound in her chest was sucking air, the rasping keen both high and wet, a noise so inhuman it set my teeth on edge. Chloe looked up at me, her face white and gleaming with sweat.

  “Got him, but he got me. All dead. All of them,” she said.

  I knelt by her to say something kind, or even profound, but she was dead. In that instant, her body became a hollow thing, another casualty of people killing people in a landscape where they should have joined together to fight the monsters. Rowan was a monster, but with a smile, and now Chloe was dead. Many others were dead, and it was all an utter fucking waste.

  “Are they are— did you get his squad?” I asked, staring at Chloe’s face.

  “All of them. The scorpions did the rest, then tried to go back into their hole,” Silk said.

  “Tried?” I asked, slumping to the ground.

  “Rats. They heard their friend, I think, and—there are a lot of dead animals over there. I don’t know how many survived, but our job is a lot easier,” Silk said. She knelt and closed Chloe’s eyes. “She was a kid.”

  “Everybody out here is a kid. We don’t know what the fuck we’re doing,” I spat, then began tearing a bandage from my shirt, wrapping my arm in the filthy cloth.

  “Not all of us,” Silk said. She pulled an actual bandage from her pack and began to roll my arm in the clean cloth. Without looking up, she cut her eyes to Chloe’s body. “Where will we bury her?”

  “On this ridge, I think. It’s her place now. Our place, too,” I said, and a thought occurred to me through my growing pain. The wound and ‘bots working hard were taking their toll. “Andi?”

  Silk smiled. “Busy. Turns out she’s a natural at killing giant rats. Doesn’t like them at all.”

  I almost smiled despite the pain, and the loss, and all of it. “Good.” Then the ground rushed up to meet me, and I knew nothing at all.

  Epilogue

  “Eden Chain? You’re sure that’s what you recall?” Andi asked.

  I spoke slowly, sifting my memory to make sure I was getting it right. “Yes. He was smug about it, too.”

  In the six days since our battle, we had transferred reactors to the Oasis and begun the long process of finding out what exactly we had at our disposal. Andi was a natural at organization, which helped since my wound was healing slow enough that I was one-handed for at least another week. Derin was beside himself at the technology; peppering Andi with questions at such a rate that she threatened to drug him if he didn’t let her catch her breath once in a while. All in all, the Oasis had gone from a hopeful outpost to a military power, and we hadn’t even revealed the existence of the Vampires or armories to anyone outside our small circle. That would come in time. For now, we were busy making certain that our people were safe, the facility was stable, and the Oasis had a plan.

  “Can you search for it in your system?” Silk asked. She was staring at Andi’s tablet, her head cocked to one side in thought.

  “I can. Have you heard of this thing? The Eden Chain?” Andi asked.

  “I don’t know, but I have a bag full of drives that we haven’t finished searching. It might be there,” Silk said.

  “We can search at our leisure, then, after I’m done scouring this system. I have full access, but the military is famous for keeping us apart in silos. It was always their way,” Andi said, a sour look on her face. Then she brightened, a smile breaking across her features like the sun through clouds. “Unless you have the master key. Which I do.” She turned the tablet around to show us her discovery.

  A series of dots ran up and away from the Oasis, ending at the edge of the river valley far to the east. “Look like a chain to you?” Andi asked.

  “I’ll say.” I counted, then whistled in appreciation. “Thirteen more? I wonder if there are more people sleeping away the years.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Silk said, then smiled at me. “I’ve always wanted to see the river.”

  I put my good hand on her shoulder, drawing her close. I wished Chloe could have been there to see our triumph, but I had Mira, Silk, and Andi. We would be enough for now. “Ladies, get your swimsuits. We’re going east.”

  Future Reshaped

  Book 3 in the Future Reborn Series

  1

  The water poured past me in silence, a bloom of dirt turning the channel from clear to brown. Something was in the sluice ahead, and it wasn’t human.

  I pointed to the water, earning a grim nod from Mira, who unshouldered her rifle without a sound. I did the same with my shotgun, then began to move forward in a low crouch. Overhead, the sun was brilliant, though the air still held the chill of a winter night. It might have been February in the old world, but things like that didn’t matter as much now. We had other concerns, like why one of our scouts had gone missing. We were at the farthest edge of a new expansion on the eastern side of The Free Oasis; a place of few trees and long channels that carried the new water source away in radial canals. The water would be the lifeblood of our second section; a place that could hold another 2000 people or more once it was fully forested and settled.

  The rules were simple. We planted as we went, and we built in between the trees. I was determined to reclaim the desert from whatever calamity created it when the virus split humanity into a broken tumble of beings, all struggling to survive among the monsters. Some humans had become monsters, like the ogres and their kin. We didn’t even know just how far humans had diverged, and without communication over long distances, the only way to know was to see for ourselves.

  There was little cover ahead, which meant the creature—be it good or bad—was in the channel. It still didn’t explain the missing scout, or even why there was no sign of life around us. Even in the raw expanse of The Empty, that was off.

  Mira pointed to the channel ahead of us, and I froze. Bobbing in the water was the remains of boo
t, the sole torn away, the top punctured in a row of marks that could have only been made by large, sharp teeth. “It’s there.”

  “Whe--oh. Shit.” I shook my head in disgust. “Lizards.” One word, but many meanings, and now end to the variation. This one was a mottled brown, its face smeared with gore as it worried at what looked suspiciously like a human ribcage.

  “Too many lizards,” Mira agreed. She aimed her rifle, but I shook my head, holstering the shotgun as I slid my blades free. The lizard was three meters of killer, but that was no reason to waste ammunition. Plus, under the mud and gore, the hide looked interesting; a pebbled affair with swirls of color that would yield a lot of leather, given a little work.

  I made my decision.

  Stalking forward, I got to within arm’s length of the beast as it cracked into a femur, the gunshot sound of breaking bone almost enough to make me twitch. The neck. It had to be the neck. I jumped, both blades coming inward as hard as my muscles could drive them, the steel sinking into the creature’s musclebound neck and punching out through the other side to graze my forearms.

  I hadn’t quite thought that part through.

  The creature shuddered and died, the human femur still in its wide, lethal jaws.

  “Stabbed yourself, Canan?” Mira asked, walking forward with a lazy smile. She liked taunting me with stories from my own time, even if she butchered the names.

  “It’s Conan, and no. I grazed myself, which is a huge difference. Heroes suffer grazing wounds, only idiots stab themselves,” I told her while grimacing at the stinging cuts on both arms.

  “Right,” she said with a smirk. She put her boot on the creature’s head. It looked tiny against the long, cavernous skull. “Who’s in his mouth? Or her mouth? I can never tell with lizards.”

  “Might be a he. We’ll know after we rinse the hide. As to the poor bastard he’s eating, I have no idea if it isn’t the scout. We’re not missing anyone else that I can think of, are we?” I asked.

  “No. Head count was solid this morning. Two hundred sixteen and growing, all with their heads.” Mira looked at the remains, then shrugged. “That was a man. Scrawny, if his leg is any sign.”

  “So not one of ours. A wanderer?” I asked, staring into The Empty. There was no sign of a cart, or wagon. No fires and no campsite. Whoever the man had been, he was dead and most likely forgotten, just another victim of a world that truly had no fucks to give. There were shreds of clothing, but nothing that could be considered a uniform or closely paired with a certain occupation, like a trader or smith. I shrugged, trying and failing to hide an attitude of callousness. Sometimes, the best thing to do for the dead was move on. They would never know.

  I thumped a boot into the lizard’s back. “I’ll start at the belly. Help me flip him over?”

  We rolled the creature over, exposing a cream-colored stomach with smaller scales. There were scars on the stomach; a record of a life filled with fighting. I slipped a blade home and began to cut, humming to myself as the lizard went from predator to resource with the slice of steel.

  We were all just a cut away from being in the same place out here in The Empty, which meant the only thing that mattered was to make sure you were the one holding the blade.

  2

  “Make that two hundred and”—Silk looked over my shoulder, her full lips moving silently—“twenty-one. A family came in from the north while you were out.”

  “Any critical skills?” I asked, tossing the rolled lizard hide to the ground. It hit with a wet thump, and I nodded at two kids who were approaching. “Take that to the tannery, if you would. I’ll be along with instructions.” The boys pelted away, hide swinging between them as they laughed at the reeking mass. I’d see to it that they got one of the small pies we were baking at the community oven.

  “The grandmother, Beba, is a capable doctor. One of the grandkids nearly lost an ear to a raptor. Her stitches were damn fine work,” Silk said approvingly. “The dad is built like a bull, kids are good, and the wife has experience with papermaking.”

  “Papermaking? I didn’t even know people did that,” I said.

  “If there are materials. I’m more interested in finding out if she can make fabric. Paper and torn linen are close cousins. Might be that she can open a store of her own.”

  “See that she gets a stall in the market, and let them pick their job. The dad’s big, you say?” I asked.

  “Huge. A hand taller than you and half again your weight. Carries a—well, I guess it’s a club with a spike on the end, on his back. He’s a friendly sort, too. They brought two wagons and some Hightec. They made their way along the remains of that highway that the storm exposed,” Silk said, waving a fine-boned hand at her neck while she held her black curls up. Her green eyes were narrowed in thought, and she was radiant, as usual.

  I was washing myself in the sink. We had water run to more homes each day, especially since two of our newcomers were natural born plumbers. They’d taken to calling themselves the Waterboys, and with enough salvage and creativity, we were going to have a decent water infrastructure. “What’s the big guy’s name?”

  “Breslin. His wife is”—Silk looked at her notebook—“Jossi. He had some tools with him when they were choosing a building site. Said something about sandstone and—well, I wasn’t listening. I was admiring Beba’s library. She has books and things.”

  “Sandstone? Huh. Only one way to find out what he does. Point me to them.”

  Silk took my hand and we began walking. The Oasis was growing at a rate limited only by how fast trees could be planted. As it turned out, water, sun, and importing fertilizer made for a long growing season in The Empty. The central canopy was pushing outward with each month, and houses were built on regular lines, following the radial water channels as they ran toward the desert.

  “Three years, in case you’re wondering,” she said.

  “Then what?” I asked her, looking down. Her role in The Oasis added to her beauty, if anything. Her black curls were pulled away from a face dominated by luminous green eyes. When she smiled, it was a different thing than the night we first met. Her smile was joyous rather than calculating. It looked good on her.

  She pointed to an invisible place beyond us. “The trees will be stable in four different hubs. We’ll have water, housing, and services for each zone. You can let them send representatives to the council.”

  “What council?”

  “The one you’re going to form. I know how you think. You’re not a warlord, Jack, despite your own fears. I spoke to Andi. She told me of your Caesar and Stalin and President Ruston. You’re nothing like them, Jack. You don’t want what they had, and you won’t allow anyone else to take it. It’s only logical to think that the next step is government by the people, as long as they don’t open us up to risk.” She stopped, taking both of my hands. “We can’t descend into—into what there was before. At The Outpost. I won’t go back to that.”

  “I would never let it happen. Nor would you, or Mira, and certainly not Andi. She’s fresh off the exact thing that killed eight billion people,” I said.

  “As long as we understand our goals are one and the same, I’m yours.” She stood on her tiptoes to kiss me.

  I met her halfway. “They are.”

  “Good. Now let’s go see this big bastard and find out what he can do with that club.”

  3

  “I’m Breslin, and my family is . . . scattered for the moment, it seems.” He shook my hand with care. I have big hands. He had paws, not hands, with fingers thickened by callouses.

  “You’ve got the hands of someone who knows their way around work. Got a specialty?” I asked him, smiling. He was big, but there was no air of violence around him. He had the look of a father who happened to be built like a tank. He had brown eyes and black hair, his skin darkened to the color of tea by sunshine, and a lot of it. He made his living outside, if I was guessing.

  “Stonework. I was in the guild at Kassos, but—” H
e paused and spat on the ground, the first hint of aggression I’d seen from him in our brief meeting. “Thieves and liars were the best of what the guild had to offer. When we could, we left. For here.”

  “Here?” I asked him, my brow going up in surprise.

  “The Oasis. You’re Jack, right? We know about you. Know about how you gave Wetterick a lesson, and we know of your place. It sounded a far cry better than that stinking sewer,” he said.

  “Kassos is that bad?” Silk asked.

  “And more. Are you the—is this your place too?” Breslin asked Silk, his face uncertain.

  “Silk, formerly Lady Silk of The Outpost, and yes, this is also my place. I’m with Jack, and we’re glad you’ve come. Point me to your family so I can help them settle?”

  If Breslin knew what Silk had been, he made no show if it. “They were going to the center, to find out about supplies.”

  “Then I know where they are. Welcome, Breslin.” Silk moved away with the grace of a breeze, and Breslin stood watching her for a moment, then closed his jaw. “I—sorry. Meant no offense. She’s a rare one.”

  “None taken, and she is. The four of us—”

  “Four of you? You mean there are more women in your, ah—home?” Breslin asked.

  “Yes. You’ll meet them soon enough.” We stood in awkward silence while he processed that information, then he smiled.

  “You seemed excited to find out I do stone work. What does the Free Oasis need of me?” he asked.

  I examined the growing sprawl of our home. “In a word, everything.”

  Breslin exhaled, then jerked a huge thumb back toward an old but well-kept wagon. “I have tools. What do you need first?”