Broken: A Plague Journal tst-3

by Paul Evan Hughes

  Cervera and Jennings locked a look.

  “Fine.”

  “Me?” Adam West slid his only photograph of Abigail into his empty wallet. Milicom paid the bills. “Blood money. Early release from my contract.”

  “How long?”

  “Eight years left.”

  The wheezing, jittery teenager huddled in the corner of the staging area. West saw the healing split of a lip. West saw the dusky haze of a Pearl addict. She shook her head. “World won’t last another eight years.”

  “Sure it will. One last dance, and we’re both out, right? Have to stay positive, kid.”

  She wracked a cough, enough to scare West marginally. Either she had been smoking three packs a day for the last forty years, or she was terminal Pearl.

  “What’s your name, Irish?”

  She looked him up and down, the distrust of a life of trauma.

  “Come on. We’re gonna be here a while. Might as well get to know each other.”

  “I’m called Maggie.”

  West extended a hand, shook her collection of metacarpals. The drug had burned through her, leaving only a gaunt form topped with a blossom of orange curls, tied lazily back with a drab cord. The green of her eyes was diluted.

  “Adam West.” He was relieved, even after a lifetime of dealing with the brutality of his name, that the reference was lost on the Irish.

  He could have constructed a conversation around her age, the fact that she was obviously an outsourced asset, or the Blood Army tattoo he saw crawling up the left side of her neck, but Adam West’s parents had taught him tact.

  He saw others among the group crawling over her, or wanting to, the dozens of eyes of the trapped coming to rest on a pretty young thing, vulnerable, slumped in the corner. He was immune to those restings. She was a cute little girl; he was a widower. He’d protect her, although he suspected that she needed no protecting. Each trace of the artist’s needle was a kill; each slough of lung tissue was a testament to her steel core.

  The staging area had once been an upper-level office complex for the Diablo Mining company. Now, fifty soldiers, all of whom West suspected were there for their own escape plans, to get out of MSI early, to make recompense for some transgression, to be promoted, all waited in various states of anticipation and fear. They were poor, scrawny kids with bobbing Adam’s apples, a few with the lowbright slope of War Three’s fallout, the non-coms and executives among them standing straight and proud, doing fine jobs of hiding their uncertainty. This job would come with a price, and no one knew who could pay.

  The room held the hushed murmur of conversation that only waiting emits.

  “You been here—”

  West cut off as the door cycled open, cut off as one of the more eager execs stood bolt-upright: “Uh-tennn-HUT!” One hundred legs extended, one hundred heels clicked.

  “As you were.” The officer was a tall man, a dark man; his suit was tall and dark. He walked into the middle of the assembly, followed by two. “I’m James Richter, and this is Hope Benton and Michael Balfour. We’re here to apprise you of the situation.”

  “Hope Benton, Quantum-X.” She tossed a projector marble into the air, where it spun to life, splashing a neon blueprint into the air. The assembly silently oohed and ahhed as they studied the display. She’d done a good job of forging a schematic; the grunts would never know the difference. “What you see is the layout of the Diablo Mine, sector fourteen, subsector seven. You’ve been contracted for an important mission, one that will release you from all previous obligations to MSI.”

  There was a smiling anticipation in the air. People caught glances and grins. The fifty participants each had their reasons for obligation releases.

  “It’s fake,” Maggie muttered under her breath. West heard.

  “Quiet, please.” Benton continued. She sparked a pointer to life and began to indicate places on the blueprint. “The Diablo Mining Corp called in Milicom because they’ve had an incident downstairs. One of their fat-bore diggers snagged a thread of an unknown metal, and that caused the core of the tractor to seize up. It went a little critical.”

  “This is a cleanup, plain and simple,” Michael Balfour took off. “I’m sure most of you have experience with cleanups. MSI doesn’t usually grant contract releases for mop work, so consider yourselves lucky. If you work hard, you’ll be out of here by the end of the week.”

  “Sir?” A low-lev exec, probably accounts payable in some square-state branch, raised his hand. “What kind of core was it? I mean—Are we walking into a hot pop? I want to have kids someday, and—”

  Balfour shook his head, chuckling. “No, no, I assure you all, you’re in no danger. The engine was a simple—Hope? Help me out?”

  “It was a pebble bed reactor. Just a big splash of pyrolytic graphite and helium. The hot pocket’s halved down to almost nothing.” She circled an area of the projected schematic. “We waited six months to bring you in, to make sure it was safe. Diablo just needs the human touch before they can get back in and start digging again.”

  West followed Maggie’s gaze. She stared at Richter. West could have sworn that Richter was acting. Some people can’t contain lies.

  “The initial blast rocked the mine, so watch your step on entry. The walls and floors are a little tilted. You’ll be issued protective gear, so don’t worry about making babies.” Hope looked over and smiled at the low-lev, and a nervous laugh sputtered to life around the room. “And so—” she motioned to two guards at the chamber door, who cycled it open. A line of gofers carrying crates of rubberized protective suits came in. “Everybody suit up, so you can begin. Good luck, Assault K. Stay safe down there.”

  West noted a glare behind Richter’s eyes as he looked at the woman.

  The display blinked off, and Benton caught the marble. The three left the chamber to the sound of squeaking rubber being pulled over street clothes.

  “Michael? We’ll catch up to you.”

  Balfour winked at Richter as he continued down the shaft.

  “James?”

  “I can’t believe we’re fucking going through with this.”

  Benton exhaled slowly. “There’s no other—”

  “There’s plenty of other ways.”

  “The probes didn’t tell us anything. We need human—”

  “Rats. You need rats for the maze. We don’t know what that thing is, but we’re still sending people in to get slaughtered.”

  She bristled at the word. “The last two groups—I wouldn’t call it a slaughter.”

  “Still ended up dead.”

  “No.” Her eyebrows narrowed defensively. “Two lived.”

  “And then fucking died.”

  She started walking again. “Why did you even bring me here? If you don’t believe in what we’re doing?”

  He grabbed her hand and anchored her in place. “Because you’re brilliant. I thought you’d figure it out. I didn’t think anyone else’d have to die.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  He let go of her hand in frustration, raising his own helplessly. “You haven’t disappointed me.”

  “Will you still say that when the K group comes out dead?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She walked away.

  Jennings had gone home. Apparently his wife was sick. Cervera sat in his chair. None of the engineers seemed to mind.

  “It can’t be easy for you, I know.” She said, half-watching the eyelines begin to light up. “Being here.”

  “Hmm?” Michael Balfour turned away from watching a disembodied conversation between two of the fodders.

  “It can’t be easy, seeing those two all over each other.” The unspoken implication.

  “James needed help. You, too. It was the least I could do.”

  “Who would have thought, all of us back together again?”

  “Not all of us.”

  The room was suddenly a torrent of chair squeaks and throat clears.

  “You
could have said no.”

  “No. I couldn’t turn this down.” Couldn’t turn him down.

  “Couldn’t turn her down?”

  She has no idea. Michael smiled.

  “Speak of the devil,” Cervera offered seats to the returning Richter and Benton. “Judas cow ready?”

  “The herd’s getting suited. The lead’s been briefed. He thinks we’re after gold. Enthusiastic sort. They’ll follow him.” Benton sat between Cervera and Balfour. Richter noticed. He took a chair as far away as the room allowed.

  “Eyelines?” Cervera performed a quick survey.

  “Allll—up.” An engineer activated the last of the fifty.

  “Good.” Cervera leaned forward. She was starting to like this dance. “Send in K group.”

  “No good,” Maggie grumbled. “They’re lying to us.” She adjusted the tiny camera mount banded to her head. “And I don’t fuckin’ care if you’re listenin’.” She let the microphone boing back into place.

  West grinned as he locked his bubble in place, the cool wash of canned air displacing his internal warmth. He grinned, but he felt it, too.

  “All right, everyone. Ready?” The low-lev was a little too eager. West thought he knew something. “Assault K, move out.” Authority fills a void, especially at the prospect of gold.

  Walking down canted corridors.

  The groan of a metallish bulkhead.

  “What the—”

  The world became light, and Maggie fell to the ground.

  Screaming, life in gaps, brilliant white light, brilliant white light. West knew he was screaming, knew it, but couldn’t hear himself, the room was so light. A ball at the center, a light, and fingers, reaching, grasping. He didn’t exactly have to throw himself to the ground; he fell beside Maggie. The last thing he saw was the light, that light, reaching out and through the fifty, K group, eyes open, lances of white erupting from the ball, the ball at the center, reaching, and

  “I’m going down there.” Richter’s chair tipped as he stood up. “This has to stop.”

  “James—”

  “Don’t fucking James me, Tony. We have to stop this.” The door closed behind him.

  “What do we—”

  “I’m going, too.” And Hope Benton did.

  The eyelines were dying, one by one by ten.

  “Mike, get on the—”

  “Sorry, Tony. I have to stop them.” Balfour ran.

  Cervera wasn’t going anywhere.

  It was a heartbeat.

  West thought he was still alive.

  Blood. Gushing from his nose, thin, hesitant trails from his eyes. The worst headache. He rolled to his side and vomited across the composite floor. There were bodies around him, and something had changed. There were bodies around him, and one was alive.

  Maggie coughed beside him, a wracking, horrible affair. He crawled the feet to her, the distance seeming miles. Wiped vomit and blood from his face as he touched her. She started to cry.

  “Did you see it?”

  Cervera stood over the engineer’s glass, jaw dropped. There were lifesigns on two. Not flickering, strong. They were talking. Finally. A breakthrough. Two survivors who weren’t squealing bags of smeared flesh and agony. Finally.

  West nodded, nodded and sobbed, stroking Maggie’s hair, wiping tears from her. He nodded. He’d seen the light. They’d both seen everything.

  “James!” Her voice echoed down the corridor. Richter heard, but he kept running. “James, please!”

  He came to the chamber door, slid to a stop across the slick, tilted floor. He could hear Benton running to catch up. He opened the door anyway.

  Two people looked up. Gray eyes. Forty-eight corpses around them. The light at the room’s center throbbed.

  Hope slammed into his back, grabbing his coat and pulling him into the corridor. She shoved him against the wall, stood between him and the thrumming, screaming ball of light.

  He turned to her, his eyes distant, his mind lifetimes away. He saw Balfour coming down the corridor, the hallway of an alien vessel, forty-eight corpses, two survivors, the light.

  “James—

  A palpable thrust of brilliance tore from the light at the chamber’s center. West and Maggie clawed into each other, the song of the trillions broadcasting above them, the light reaching out, out, out

  When Richter came around, one of the K group survivors was cradling his head. A girl. The other crouched beside Michael, whose head lolled toward him. Richter’s heart stopped an instant when he saw Michael’s cold gray eyes.

  “Hope?” He coughed out, choking on something copper. “Hope?”

  “She’s—” The girl’s cold hand was against his cheek.

  “Hope?”

  The man tending to Michael whispered something.

  “What?” Richter tried to get up, found himself weak in the aftermath of the light, drained. Something was fundamentally different.

  West turned around, a small motion of his head indicating the chamber.

  Richter threw Maggie’s hands from him, crawled slowly, painfully into the orb room. Made it to the edge of the drop into the bowl. Saw what remained of Hope Benton curled peacefully against the corpses of Assault K.

  Something broke.

  There are of course connections that imply a verifiable cosmology, a totality of phenomena constituting all of time and space. Beyond theoretical physics, string theory and the anthropic principle, there is a fundamental symmetry to existence that is better described through a defined set of characteristics in the known megaverse embodied in the form of a particular set of children born in the summer and autumn of the second year of the third millennium.

  David Smith Jennings died an old man in the far, far future.

  Antonia Cervera was shot and killed by David Smith Jennings in Wind River, D.C..

  Abrah Allen-Kennedy was killed in the Quebecois nuclear attack on Washington, D.C.

  Buddy McClure broke his neck and drowned on the bottom of Lake Superior.

  Hank the Cowboy was cancelled.

  Honeybear Brown lives on, under the couch.

  James Richter went into the future to find

  AMONG THE LIVING

  was never known to command respect from his peers was known to steal his fourteen minutes in fragments was known to sometimes allow ashes to burn on his forearms and face while waiting patiently for them to gutter out because at least it was something nearing proof that he was there at all

  was never known to entertain such revolutions but the autopsy was inconclusive as to when and why he chose to enact such validity [then strike in my name; these are mine to erase.] on histories [if the self is defined as

  [/there is nothing left to enlighten

  wished he’d sky-wide hands with which to grasp the world; such moss, the old-growth, teardrops of ocean: the cellular towers would embed themselves in his palm like fiberglass dust as he squeezed a little too long, a little too hard, neither burned nor blistered by the lukewarm blood.

  considered himself an aggressive driver considered himself a philosopher, a deep thinker, an author behind the wheel considered his thoughts the best when thought while driving, while wrapped within a ton or two of green Ford, tan interior so aligned with the subtleties of his landship that once just north of the Mexico exit when the number two cylinder coil blew and his truck resonated new harmonics across grinding metal, he promptly took the exit, checked the oil, and turned around to home because his father had once fixed airplanes in a life younger than his own.

  defined himself in histories of who started hating him when. [the places between stasis are horror.]

  was known to accelerate into curves accelerate into downslopes into relationships was known to fear braking.

  learned eventually learned early learned a little too late that locating his happiness within the broken puzzle pieces gifted in the hope of finding purchase in the segment he’d long ago torn from his own viscera only forced the disbelief of soulmates and w
ondered him wandering in search of so much more than this.

  he’d invented his own mathematics to explain absolutely nothing.

  wished he’d a sky-wide heart with which to love the world: [the world, to him, was always internal, never and he’d hate cities for reasons.

  sometimes pretended he could poetry, sometimes neglected the laws that fed him, always hated womyn, always hated person’s who couldn’t tell the different between websters plurals and possessives.

  if it were possible, he’d use subjunctive.

  if it were possible, he’d trade his ability to dream.

  found inspiration at speeds above legal, at acceleration, at speeds in alternate states: [New York drivers are so…aggressive.] found something comforting in riding the edge, the rumble strips calling out, dead deer

  at what point does animal

  become meat

  become carrion? once took a mislabeled hamburger from the dining hall heatlamp to find portobello: wondered then if that was the taste of coffins, memorials, garroted friends. he’d spit out the first bite, but took so many more after the voices.

  how much now is left of you? the sickly fascination with unstrung vocal chords, rotted through, never again to sing.

  was once so twice so always so enamored by speed and swerves that the rearview mirror delighted hindsight with the dopplered impact of an orange construction barrel. water.

  was known to pick targets when boxed in by tractor trailers when the median gave chance for a head-on collision. drove like he didn’t care to survive.

  bumper stickers warned innocents.

  an army seven-million strong by the time he was ready would be nice if once just once or twice we could stop hating each other so much to honor that time and maybe it’s not really hate but a succession of days spent wondering through desert life at stars at breath my decision of each inhalation tempered now with the surrenders inherent to each departure: i must hate you. i must unlove you unseat you from this tangent, exponentially tangential, scattershot into futures apart.