Peace in an Age of Metal and Men

by Anthony Eichenlaub

  Still, I needed him. For as long as my purposes aligned with Goodwin’s, I needed to keep Zane around. His tech skills and understanding of the corporate structure were critical, or so I figured.

  And dammit if I didn’t want him close just for the sake of having him there. “Get,” I said. “Set up camp over there, but make it a small fire. There’s enough smoke around here and these trees will be mighty dry after all this heat.”

  Zane opened a storage compartment in his car and pulled some fancy-looking weaponry off a gun rack. I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Leave them,” I said. I didn’t think there was any threat in my voice.

  He glared at me. “It’s for protection.”

  “Well, I’ll feel safer if I hold the guns for now.”

  Zane opened his mouth like he was going to protest.

  “Gravity well,” I said.

  He blinked. “What?”

  “You said Tucker Hale trapped you in a gravity well when you went to visit him. There’s no such thing in his place.”

  “That…That doesn’t make him less of an asshole.”

  “No.” My fist was clenched so tight the knuckles turned white. “But it means you were lying about what happened there. Who placed the camera?”

  Zane looked at me pleadingly.

  “Who put your camera in the butcher’s shop?”

  “I did,” said Tucker. His eyes sparkled with amusement. “That city boy’s stars sparkle just like anyone else’s.”

  I stuck a finger in Zane’s chest. “And that’s why I don’t trust you.”

  Zane shoved my hand away. “I’ll carry what I want to carry, J.D.” He put the pistol back on the rack and locked the case. “But for now I’ll do as you ask.”

  “We’re safe here. Nobody’s coming after us right now. If something does, then we’ve got plenty to hold them back.”

  Zane nodded and got to work making the fire.

  As the sun set over the hilltops, Abi arrived on my skidder. She flew low, skimming the tops of trees and coming in nice and quiet. She landed gently a distance away from the door and walked over to me with slumped shoulders. Her eyes had bags under them, and their redness told of recent tears.

  I tipped my hat when she approached.

  “Howdy,” she said.

  There wasn’t a thing I could say that would make Josephine’s death hurt any less. Hell, it hurt me so bad just seeing Abi’s pain. “I’m sorry, Abi.”

  She shook her head and stared at the dirt.

  I placed a hand on her shoulder. “Ben tell you about the door?”

  “Yeah. He called me earlier.”

  “Any ideas on how to get it open again?”

  “It’s locked?”

  “We have to get in there.”

  She looked at the wall, standing there next to me and staring for a good long time. After a few minutes she said, “I don’t know, J.D. I don’t think there’s going to be any…Hey, what’s this?” She picked up Tucker’s nearly empty can of foam door. Shaking it, she held it close to her ear and smiled. “There’s some left.”

  “Not enough to make a door, though.”

  Abi looked at me like I was stupid, which more and more I suspected might be true. Shaking her head, she walked over to the door, which was no longer searing hot, and climbed up so she could reach the top. She shook the can and sprayed a single, sputtering line across the top of the door. Then she put the last bit of foam at the top corner of the door, right where the hinges would be hidden behind layers of concrete.

  All I did was stare.

  As the foam bubbled, it started oozing out of position, seeping along the front of the door, where it wouldn’t do any good. Abi grabbed some leaves, using them to sweep the nanite goo back into place, where it bubbled some more. Along the side of the door, the foam slowly worked its way down the crack between the door and the wall, expanding it as it went. There, it hardly needed any coaxing, but Abi kept a close watch on it, anyway.

  Minutes passed. Slowly, the edges of wall around the door eroded away. It wasn’t enough to let us see through, but it was enough. Abi ran to Ben’s truck and rummaged around in the back, emerging with a meter-long crowbar. With the crowbar slung over her shoulder, she strode confidently up to the door and gave it one long look.

  With a smirk, she jammed the crowbar between the door and the wall and applied a little pressure. The door popped off, forcing her to jump back before it slid down and crushed her toes. It landed with a whump, and black smoke lazily rose from hole in the hill.

  We were in.

  Chapter 28

  As the sky grew dark and the sounds of the night life rose in the forest, five of us ventured into the still-smoky depths of Francis William Brown’s hideout. Abi pulled out a multi-tool and clicked it so that it emitted a soft, blue light. We wore handkerchiefs over our faces to filter the smoke, so we looked like a band of thieves.

  “Just untie my hands,” Tucker pleaded. “I’ll help y’all out.”

  Ben gave him a shove. “You’ll help our brains out of their damn skulls.”

  “You can trust me.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I know I can trust you. I’d trust you to do what you think’s got profit for you and to hell with anything else.”

  The hazy room opened up in front of me. It stretched back into the hill a dozen meters, with smaller branches making a large area give the impression of something cramped and small. The far wall was a bank of computers, mostly slagged by the intense heat of a fire. One side seemed mostly untouched, and Zane moved to investigate. I held up a hand to stop him.

  “Careful,” I said.

  He pushed past me without any sign that he’d heard. My handkerchief smelled like tobacco and oil. Abi furrowed her brow at the melted wall, so I pointed to where the scorched metal looked the worst.

  “Miss,” I said, “see if you can’t figure what started that fire.”

  “You bet.” She placed her multi-tool on the table so that its flickering blue light spread through the entire room.

  “Ben, keep an eye on Tuck. Bastard’s crafty.”

  Ben nodded. Tucker leaned up against the corner of the wall near the entrance while Ben watched him warily from the stairs. Tucker’s gaze followed me through the haze.

  Every surface of the room was covered in thick, black soot. Anything that had been wood or paper had long since gone the way of the buffalo. Hell, even most of the plastic was gone and large sections of metal were twisted and sagging. The table in the middle of the room looked surreal. When I poked it with my toe, one corner of it shifted and made one hell of a racket.

  Zane pried a cube from the twisted face of a computer bank using a slim knife. Everything around it was slag, but the cube was clean, shining silver.

  “Data cube,” Zane said, smiling. “Very retro.”

  Tucker snorted. “You’re trusting the city boy with that?”

  “Shut up, Tuck,” I said. I turned to Zane and raised an eyebrow.

  Zane scowled at me and set the cube down on the wobbling, three-legged table. “I don’t have the reader for it, anyway.” He went back to the computer bank and continued to dig.

  “That’s how it’s done,” said Tucker. “Sleight of hand. Boy’s probably already copied the data, or switched cubes on you.”

  Zane crossed the room before I could blink. “Just what are you implying, Mr. Hale?”

  Tucker grinned.

  “Are you accusing me of being a spy for Goodwin?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Zane’s face was a furious crimson, his fists balled at his sides. After several long seconds, he breathed out and relaxed. He turned back to his work and didn’t say another word for quite some time.

  One of the walls appeared to be solid steel, but closer inspection revealed flaws brought out by the heat. Tiny, almost imperceptible lines were etched in the otherwise black surface. When I rubbed them with my fingernail I could feel it catch. I traced it around until I could feel the outline of
a panel that was about a half meter on each side. Pressing it didn’t seem to move it. Pulling it using Ben’s odd half sphere didn’t yield any results. It seemed stuck.

  “It was probably controlled by the computer,” Zane said after a while.

  “Better just give up,” said Tucker. “Takes a clever man to break into something like that.”

  I tried my best to ignore him.

  Tucker kept talking. “That’s never really been your thing, has it? You need a veteran salvager on your side.”

  “Shut it, Tuck.” I stared at the wall, as if scowling might force it open.

  “I mean, if you couldn’t shoot it or punch it, it wasn’t a problem you could solve, now, was it?”

  “Ben,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “If Tucker talks again, shoot him in the leg.”

  Nobody said a damn word.

  “Tuck,” I said. “Shooting and punching are good solutions, but you know I have more than that. I’ve got my charm.”

  Silence.

  “Oh, and this.” I turned to the wall and kicked it with every ounce of my strength. The panel dented, making the line of one corner pop out just a little. I pried it back with one of the fingers of my metal hand and tore the entire thing loose. Tucker rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything.

  The panel had concealed three drawers. The top two were full of food and drink. Bottles of milk had cracked and broken from the heat, and everything in the bottom drawer was coated with a thick sludge of partially cooked dairy.

  The bottom drawer was packed with harnesses like those Ben had been modifying, but the shape was different. These weren’t designed to control horses or longhorns. They were much smaller, with a rounded top and softer leather.

  The harnesses would fit perfectly on humans.

  “Aha!” Abi said from across the room. She popped up from behind the wobbly table with a shred of something pinched between her fingertips.

  I dropped the harness back in the bin and peered at the piece in Abi’s hand. It was thin metal, like a piece of a tin can. When she rubbed away the soot, there was the faint hint of color.

  When nobody seemed to understand what they were looking at, she said, “See the orange and blue? With the swirl?”

  I nodded. “It’s familiar.”

  “It’s from an incendiary grenade. Slow burner, probably.” She turned it over in her hands. “Or maybe an old one that didn’t burn properly.”

  “Old,” I said. “Like from an old Civil War stash?” I turned to Tucker.

  Tuck’s hands were free. He lunged at Ben, deflecting the shotgun just before it went off. The thundering shot scoured the wall and left my ears ringing. Tucker shouldered Ben forward, knocking him on his ass. Tuck bolted out the door.

  Pulling my gun, I ran after him. When I crested the top of the steps, he was five meters away and moving toward the cover of Ben’s truck. I thumbed the pistol active, and aimed it at my old army buddy Tucker.

  But I didn’t shoot him.

  My shot slammed into the head of a coyote, centimeters from Tucker’s neck, as it leapt at him from the hood of the mangled truck. Pasted skull splattered Tucker, pulling him up short. He turned back at me, rubbing his eyes.

  His voice was high and panicked. “It was just a job!”

  Two more coyotes rounded the truck. I shot one, taking off nearly its entire front left leg with one shot. The other got close to Tucker before I could shoot.

  Tucker’s eyes got wide looking at me. No, not me. He was looking behind me.

  I dropped to my knees and covered my head with my metal arm. The coyote flew over the top of me, skittering to a stop just a meter away. I reached out, grabbed its head in my big metal fist, and squeezed. Its head crunched and the coyote went limp.

  My ears were still ringing, but I felt Ben move up behind me. He went left, so I turned right. His shotgun roared twice and I picked off another coyote with my pistol.

  Tucker screamed.

  A coyote had his arm and it shook. Blood sprayed everywhere, plastering the side of the truck and darkening splotches of earth. I couldn’t get a clear shot. He was moving too fast. If I shot, I’d hit Tuck—if not in the body, then at least in his arm. I couldn’t shoot him. Shit, I just couldn’t.

  Ben didn’t have any such problem. He took two long steps forward, leveled his shotgun, and fired. The shot tore the coyote to shreds, turning most of its head and body into paste. Tuck collapsed, mouth open in a silent scream. His arm below the elbow was a mess of bone shards and bloody meat.

  Coyotes screamed and howled, worked into a frenzy. There were more in the woods, surrounding us.

  Stepping forward, I scooped up Tucker. He was a heavy man, but with my metal left arm he was like lifting a kid. I slung him over my shoulder and made my way back into the hideout. When I got there, I handed Tucker off to Zane and went once more out into the darkness. I picked up the black metal door and waved Ben in. Once everyone was inside, I pulled the door up as a makeshift blockade. The howl of more coyotes echoed through the valley.

  “Tuck!” I roared.

  Abi was staunching his blood with her shirt. His face was red and tears rolled tracks through the dirt on his face. His eyes turned to me, whites showing all his fear.

  “You’re either in here with us or out there on your own,” I said through my teeth. “I won’t pull the trigger on you, but I’ll set you out on your way.”

  He sobbed. “But—”

  “Get your butt out of my face, soldier.” I leaned down close. “And quit blubbering. We need you here and now. We need to know what you know and we need it now.”

  Abi cinched the makeshift bandage hard and Tucker screamed. When he’d had enough screaming, he met my eyes and nodded.

  “All right.” To Abi, I said, “Fix him up proper.”

  “I need Auntie’s tools for that.”

  “What can you do with what you have?”

  She poked the bandage that made up the stump of Tucker’s arm with her finger, causing the soldier to wince. “I’ve done it.”

  “It’s not enough.”

  “Well, I’ve got a kit in the skidder.”

  “Can you patch him up with that?”

  “I can get some neural links patched in before he heals over it. It’s the best time to do it. We’ll fit him with a false hand later.”

  “No,” said Tucker. The lids of his eyes were wide.

  I looked at him questioningly.

  “No metal.” Tucker’s brow was gleaming with sweat and blood. His teeth turned up in a snarl. He was fighting unconsciousness with everything he had.

  “Fine.” My hands were shaking and my belly was in a knot now that the adrenaline was wearing off. “No metal. Do we still need the kit?”

  Abi shook her head.

  “Good. We’ll stay here till morning, then we move out.” To Tucker, I said, “Now, it’s time to talk.”

  He was out cold.

  “Dammit.” I picked up the remains of the incendiary grenade. “He ran when we found this. Any bets that this was his? Someone paid him to burn this place earlier.”

  “Why’d he come back, then?”

  “Regret, probably. Indecisive bastard. He regretted leaving behind anything that might be of value.” I tossed the piece of grenade to the floor. It was starting to look like the whole trip was a waste. “So, what else do we know?”

  His voice laced with anger, Zane said, “Depends on who you trust.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I could have backed you up out there, J.D. If you’d let me carry my guns, I’d have been some help. Maybe your ugly friend wouldn’t have lost a hand.”

  I wanted to fight. I wanted to yell and holler and let loose on the city boy, but the energy just wasn’t there. All I said was, “Trust’s a hard thing to come by.”

  “It sure is.” Zane nodded at the data cube on the table. “So do you trust me to see what’s on that?”

  The data cube r
eflected the dim light. It was the only shiny thing in a field of soot and ash. It had answers, but as far as I knew, there was no way to get at them. Was Zane asking to leave with it? I couldn’t let that happen. He’d fly off to Goodwin and the corporation would have every bit of technology Francis had been working on. If that included mind control that worked on humans, it’d only be a matter of time before those who worked the ranches and farms were replaced with slaves. As bad as people’s lives were, that would be worse.

  Now that Zane knew such a technology existed, how long would it be before Goodwin had its own version? It seemed each new wave of technology made people’s lives worse and worse, but nobody ever thought of stopping it. Nobody ever stopped researching the worst of the worst. Technology just kept marching forward, ruining the land, the water, and the people as it went. In the old days it would take time to start turning bad. Technology would make people’s lives better for a while before proving to be harmful. As technology progressed, so did the speed of its betrayal. This technology would maybe improve the lives of those rich city folk for only a year or two before they found it being used against them. The smart move would be to never let Zane get this tech back to his people.

  Had he already done so? Communication in the valley was obstructed, but maybe Zane had some tricks that weren’t available to regular folks. He could be betraying us instantaneously. That was the benefit of instant communications.

  “I know you have a glow cube,” Zane said. His voice had an accusatory tone to it.

  “Sure.”

  He held out his hand.

  I dug it out and placed it in his hand. He didn’t move for a second, staring at the scuffed piece of hardware.

  Zane set the glow cube down and activated it. When the display hologram flashed to life above the cube, he squinted at it and cocked his head to one side. “How do you even…” He must have spotted something, because he smiled, poked a few times at the display, and stepped back. The cube went dark and popped in half.

  “What the hell?” I said. “You have it for ten seconds and you broke—”