A.I. Destiny 5 Talisman of Tomorrow

by Timothy Ellis

  Dodgers was looking at him curiously.

  They returned to the square. Jamie had told Dodgers he needed to find out where the planet was, and make his way to the Main Lake. But to get there, he needed to buy a geo-location program, or more simply, a map. While Dodgers knew the name of the planet, calling it an untranslatable name, she hadn't been off world, and knew nothing about neighbouring systems, or the sector of the galaxy it was located in.

  Dodgers led him to a store which seemed to sell anything and everything. Crammed with odd items, in no apparent merchandising order, they made their way through a maze of aisles made up of shelves, larger items, and every kind of container imaginable.

  The counter stood at the back of the store, an odd place for it, as it left the rest of the store open to theft. A hedgehog being was crouched over a counter, engrossed in reading a tablet. As they neared, it looked up, and eyed Jamie curiously.

  Dodgers explained what Jamie was looking for, and the hedgehog left the counter and led them down another aisle, shelves leaning precariously over them, Jamie trying not to knock anything over. Finally reaching some shelves, the hedgehog pointed to the boxes of tablet software on a high shelf.

  Jamie quickly saw he didn't have the tors to buy the programs.

  "Ye don't happen to have a paper map, do ye?"

  The Hedgehog raised its eyes and sighed. He leaned down to the bottom shelf, took out a box, dusted it off, and rummaged around inside. He brought out a paper document folded over and over.

  "Don't have much call for these," the hedgehog explained.

  Jamie unfolded the paper, and saw it was an old-fashioned map showing the landmarks, roads, tracks, and features of the district. He spotted the Main Lake, but couldn't find the town they were currently in. The hedgehog sighed again, and placed a finger of his paw on a place on the map. Jamie memorised the name, and its place in relation to the Main Lake. He could see it was some way away. He paid for the map, and they wended their way out of the store.

  It was still raining outside. The market was doing business in a desultory fashion. Jamie was still hoping there was an office which could tell him where the planet was located. They made their way down the street, and found a pub.

  "Time for a drink," suggested Dodgers, entering through a small doorway into a crowded, dark space. Jamie followed, and as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see tables, stools of various kinds and heights, and a large, noisy clientele of different bird beings, hogs, and hedgehogs. They found a table at the back, and Dodgers went to get beers. For once, Jamie was glad not to be serving or cleaning up, just relaxing being a customer.

  He looked around the room, taking in the squabbling, guffawing, back-slapping, chatting crowd, tables with one species only, and some with mixed species, all brimming with life. His loneliness descended like a weight as he saw beings turn and look, and murmur amongst themselves about his alien-ness. He could see, but didn't look, as transactions took place, drugs he assumed, deals, tors changing hands, and thought about space station bars, and the adventures of the Seasprite.

  Dodgers appeared with two pints of beer, they clinked glasses, and chugged back great gulps, the duck looking to Jamie faintly ridiculous managing the glass with its beak. They sat back, and looked at each other.

  "You don't have papers, do you," started Dodgers.

  "Not as such," admitted Jamie.

  "Need to have a think."

  Dodgers took another long draught. They sat companionably for a while.

  "Make a run for it?" Dodgers suggested.

  "With what? And I'm a wee bit recognisable."

  "Yes, that's true.

  There was another pause.

  "Why are you here with no papers?"

  Jamie just shook his head.

  "Ye'd ne'er believe me, and neither would the police."

  "Make something up."

  "They'd soon check."

  They considered the dilemma a bit more, suitably lubricated, but with no real solutions.

  "Something will come up," suggested Dodgers optimistically.

  Jamie stood up slowly.

  "I hope so, and it needs to be soon."

  He pushed his way through the crowd to the bar to buy two more beers, and something to eat.

  Dodgers contemplated his new friend's figure as he stood at the bar. Humans were very strange looking creatures indeed. Their symmetry was pleasing, but the lack of a third arm was disturbing, as if they were not complete, and only two legs not four, which seemed dangerously unstable. How could they stand up properly? She pondered how he'd come to this backwater, with no papers, and no story which would stand up to questioning. And should she stay with him? Once her wing healed, she could make her own way without him. There was something vulnerable, but at the same time, tough, about him.

  After finishing off some green mush stew, and polishing off their drinks, they made their way out through the crush to the street.

  Dodgers had explained she needed to get her wing checked at a clinic, and Jamie wanted to reconnoitre the town. He was thinking he needed transport to get further along the road to Patchet's pub on the Main Lake, and to get there quicker. Perhaps he could leave tonight, and the police wouldn't bother with him tomorrow. He doubted this, but it was the only real plan he had.

  They agreed to meet for evening dinner back at the pub.

  As he walked, Jamie took stock. He was alive. He had a companion, if a duck like creature, and he still had his wits about him. He started to feel more positive, and to get his enthusiasm back. He would make this work. The coincidence of being on the same world as Patchet, although strange, was a piece of luck, and had him thinking things would turn out right. They had to. He was on a mission.

  He'd become used to the stares of the local inhabitants, and some of the comical accidents which occurred as a result, with creatures 'double taking', not looking where they were going for a second, with trips, falls, and collisions resulting. When a group of ratty looking hog children started following him at a shy distance, he didn't mind, finally stopping to play a game of jacks with them. Strange how the patterns of the universe kept repeating in odd ways. He'd played jacks with his friends on the Scots Homeworld.

  He found a lot selling cars, but they were far beyond the reach of his meagre savings. A touring company had seats on a bus-like vehicle which would get him part of the way, but again, he didn't have enough tors. He'd have to work to earn enough, or make his way on foot, relying on hitching a lift where possible.

  If the police would leave him alone.

  It was as he was making his way back to the pub, he heard a droning sound, looked up to see a flight of heli-craft nearing the town. That's what he needed. Steal a heli-craft, and fly to Patchet's pub.

  As they came nearer, he wondered why there were so many, flying in formation. Formation. Bunker-like buildings. His brain was just making the connection when the first bomb landed on the municipal council building, the largest bunker in the main square.

  The explosion blew a hole in the roof of the building, despite its construction, the next adding to the damage, and the third blowing out the front of the building along the line of the doors and windows. The concussion blew Jamie off his feet. He staggered up, and dived into an alleyway where he took cover behind some boxes. He looked up. The formation of heli-craft was flying directly over-head. He knew he needed to get to better cover. His suit had automatically gone to full protection mode, but he wasn't sure he could take a direct hit.

  A mournful siren belatedly sounded, and kept going. Beings were running for cover from the square, where a string of bombs were falling now. A fireball erupted from a direct hit on a truck, fragments of stalls blew into the air, and bodies were flung like rag dolls. Smoke obscured the worst of the carnage.

  Piercing screaming rent the air, and was suddenly cut off.

  Bombs were falling throughout the town, shrieking as they fell, and the sound of blasts and concussions added to the complete chaos.


  Jamie didn't stay in the alleyway. Guns drawn, he was taking pot-shots at some of the nearest copters, even though he knew he'd no chance of really hitting them with his hand guns. He felt better, as if his frustration at his situation finally had an outlet.

  He ran through the chaos in the square, headed for the police station. If there were larger calibre weapons, they would be there. As he neared the station, a heavy booming rattle of firing from the ground sounded, as an anti-aircraft battery started firing. He could see a compound at the back of the police station, a fortified and sand-bagged enclosure, and a team of hog police firing several guns. He ran towards them.

  The blast of a bomb near the gun emplacement knocked him down, but the suit cushioned his fall. Ears ringing, he staggered to his feet to see the hog police dead and wounded, blown into ungainly positions around the emplacement. Jamie could see the gun was a breach loader, requiring someone to load shells, and totally useless for firing at anything in the air. But as well as the large gun, there was a proper belt fed anti-aircraft machine gun. More his style.

  Coughing from the smoke, he swung the gun around to track a heli-craft. Combat routines went primary in his PC, and a lead indicator appeared in his vision. He fired, adjusting aim as he went. Shells stitched through the body of the craft, and it seemed to stagger in the air, pitched over and down, and crashed into the street.

  Hogs from the police station were treating the wounded officers in the gun emplacement, and replacing them. The gun started pounding again, and Jamie's PC closed down his hearing to stop him going deaf. He tracked another hover craft, and fired again. It dodged the tracks of his shells, but in doing so collided with another craft. The two hung in space momentarily glued together, and plummeted to the ground, exploding in a flash of orange and red.

  He frantically replaced the belt of ammunition, finding it difficult to work out at first, and finally getting the hang of it.

  He fired at another, but it was too far away. He swung around, saw three more, and fired into them. One exploded, the fragments tearing holes in the others. He could see the pilots frantically trying to control suddenly out of control craft, one falling from the sky in a crazy whirl of blades, and the other righting itself, and flying on. Jamie tracked it, and fired again, the copter staggering, maintaining flight, but slowly losing height. He lost sight of it as it descended into the smoke and fires of the town.

  His brain belatedly registered the pilots he'd seen were ducks. Not the dull brown of Dodgers, but black bodies, and stripes around the eyes on white faces, giving them a masked look.

  The remaining heli-craft were forming up, and leaving. The gun next to him boomed twice more, and was still, and his hearing returned to normal. He scanned for stray copters, but couldn't see any amongst the smoke drifting in the wind. Multiple fires were burning in the town. The blast of explosions was replaced with roars of fires, screams, moans of the wounded, and sirens of emergency vehicles. The siren changed its warning to a different note and cadence. All clear?

  The hog police on the large gun stood down, and one came over to Jamie.

  "You were great on the gun."

  Her face was blackened with soot, and smoke, but she smiled tentatively, taking in the strangeness of his human frame.

  "Thanks."

  Jamie held out a hand, and the police officer took it hesitantly, Jamie shaking firmly, and the hog responding.

  "What was that all about?" he asked.

  "Black ducks," she replied with a grimace. "It's unusual for them to attack us, as we're such an insignificant target. The heli-craft are new though. Didn't know they had any."

  "Black ducks?"

  She looked at him curiously, and her eyes narrowed.

  "You're the alien who brought in Farmer Brown," Jamie's translator giving the colour of the simple name.

  Jamie nodded. The hog looked carefully at him.

  "Never seen a human before."

  "Never seen a hog police woman before," he quickly responded.

  She laughed, and smiled a wide smile.

  "Humans are good shots, and you were lethal in this fight. Thank you."

  She clapped him on the back, and he would have staggered if not for the suit.

  She moved back to the rest of the gun crew, who were moving bodies, and giving first aid to the wounded. She organised them to go out into the town, to help with the situation there, and looked back at him.

  Jamie came forward, and joined the officers as they moved out into the town.

  Thirty One

  "Jamie!"

  Jamie looked around from where he was helping to heave stones and concrete from a collapsed building where there was someone trapped. As soon as he stopped, his suit changed to stop protecting his hands. It was Dodgers, feathers singed, bandage blackened and bloodied, but still in one piece.

  They compared stories. Dodgers had been at the clinic when the bombs started falling, so had been helping with wounded and critically injured brought in from the town. She'd stayed the night there as the health care professionals worked to repair brutally mangled bodies of hogs, birds, and hedgehogs.

  Jamie had been out with the police all night, working to clear obstacles for emergency vehicles, rescue beings from burning and collapsed buildings, and generally make himself useful. His PC had a thermal imaging mode, and it'd helped him find beings trapped in the rubble, and otherwise hard to find. He'd had a brief sleep towards dawn, and then started again.

  The police officer he'd talked with after the initial flight he'd named 'Lefty', as she preferred her left trotter-hand out of the three. Lefty was glad of Jamie's help, and in dealing with the aftermath of the raid, appreciated his strength, calm approach, and good humour in the face of disaster. She'd inferred she wouldn't be investigating his case any further.

  He was exhausted, and took a moment to rest, sitting on some rubble with Dodgers beside him. He noticed for the first time his suit was caked in dust and blood. He shifted it to protection mode, and back again, and it was suddenly clean. Dodgers gaped at him.

  "So, black ducks?" he asked.

  "Black ducks," repeated Dodgers. "I wouldn't have thought they'd attack this town. It's too small to bother with, but it may be part of an overall strategy."

  "And they'd do it because?"

  "The black ducks are taking over general territory in this county. They're expanding their control in preparation for war with the swans."

  "Swans?" asked Jamie, in surprise.

  "White swans."

  Jamie looked askance at Dodgers.

  "Not black swans?"

  "No. The white swans control all of the territory beyond the Main Lake. The black ducks and the white swans have been warring for decades. On and off."

  "But not the rest of the beings?"

  "We try to protect ourselves when they come after territory. Or like me, we hire ourselves out as mercenaries."

  "Ah."

  "I was on my way to sign up for service with the swans."

  "The swans? Why not the ducks?"

  Dodgers shrugged.

  "Those black ducks are crazy mean."

  "But you're a duck."

  "I'm a brown duck."

  Jamie shook his head. It was as bad as human squabbling.

  "What will you do now?"

  "Need the wing to heal, as they said at the clinic before all this happened." She waved an arm. "It will take a while."

  "Looks as if I'll be allowed to keep travelling on, without too many questions asked."

  "Great!"

  "Didn't expect to be caught up in a war, though."

  "Didn't expect black ducks to have heli-craft either. Wonder where they got them from?"

  "That's unusual?"

  "Wars around here are mostly fought on the ground, or in the air in natural formations."

  She unfolded and shook her good wing as a demonstration.

  Jamie contemplated the destruction around him. Buildings were half standing, or utterly
destroyed. The dead still lay where they'd fallen, or were half-buried in the rubble, and survivors were sifting through the remains of houses, looking for anything of use. Some were wandering in a dazed state amongst the chaos. Other buildings were standing untouched, as a grim reminder of the random nature of war. Fires smouldered, and smoke hung in the air. An aid station had been set up in the remains of the square, where beings were being served hot drinks. The team behind him were still digging for survivors. Jamie had always been at arms' length from the devastation war could bring. In space, you couldn't smell and touch the aftermath. This was real war.

  He stood, and moved over the rubble to the team still moving steel, concrete, and stones. He looked at Dodgers.

  "I'll keep helping here. Meet me…" he looked around him, "at the aid station, around dinner time. We'll see if we can find something to eat then."

  Dodgers nodded, and waddled off. She was headed back to the clinic to help there.

  Jamie was helping at another bombed building, when he saw Lefty moving towards him. He dropped the bricks he was holding onto the pile of sifted rubble, and jumped down.

  "I'm acting head of the justice forces, as my superior is missing. I'd like to commend you for your action at the station, and give you this." She held out what seemed like a round data chip. "It gives you documentation you can use anywhere in this county, and recommends you to other counties as you travel. It will act as a passport for the time you're in our country at least."

  Jamie was over the moon.

  "Thank you." He took the disk, and put it safely in the pouch holding his pad. "You wouldn't be able to tell me the name of this planet, and where it's located would you?"

  Lefty looked a bit taken aback.

  "We call the planet," the usual sort of name the translator couldn't translate. She lowered her head. "I didn't do too well in science at school. I know we're in the sector nine council, though, if that's any help."

  Jamie nodded. At least he was in an accessible part of the galaxy. Whatever force had deposited him at the standing stones on this planet, had not left him too far from the space and jump points he could navigate. Depending on if he could find a ship. A fast ship would be nice. He smiled to himself, frustrated. Any ship would do.