He hit the bottom of the pile and looked up, first at her, and then at the hairy beast straddling over him. Saliva dripped from the beast’s bared teeth, and a low, guttural growl sounded from its throat. Deirdre found the beast’s continued existence remarkable; it stood on a patch of grass, one of the few spots the roiling swarm had yet to cover.
She doubted its luck would last much longer.
The creature raised its long snout to the sky, opened its mouth to draw breath, and let loose an ear-shattering howl, one matched by the other members of the pack standing nearby. Deirdre felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She didn’t know much about wild creatures, but that sound spoke a language she had no trouble interpreting.
It was time for dinner. And the main entree would be her new friend and apparent one-time fiancée. She’d learned that shocking detail just moments earlier.
She remembered his earlier words of sneering condescension. She remembered the red-hot anger he’d directed toward her, hurling insults her way. He’d described her worst traits and she shuddered, and not because those descriptions were inaccurate. She found truth in every accusation he’d enunciated through gritted teeth.
She wanted to prove those accusations wrong, to change who she was.
She wore a suit of armor fashioned from a more pliable alloy of Diasteel, one that allowed a thick suit of metal to bend and conform to the movement of the human body. The alloy-based suit housed air scrubbers, microphones, and speakers, enabling her to breathe inside the sealed metal outfit, listen to the sounds around her, and communicate with anyone alive to hear. Deirdre and her new companion were in no danger from the beasts or the Ravagers; the former would be unable to penetrate the armor, and the latter were programmed to avoid all Diasteel constructs. Though they might swarm over the surface and deconstruct every other living creature and human-built creation to mere dust, they’d be left unscathed.
Deirdre didn’t know how the man would react in a situation which, but for the suit, would likely leave him dead. He might panic. But she did know that the cowardly, self-centered Deirdre would stand back and watch, let the creatures attack, and demand that others clean up any resulting messes.
She didn’t want to be that Deirdre any longer.
She charged down the debris pile toward her fallen human companion as the beast prepared to pounce, screaming a battle cry as she clambered along. The beast’s eyes flicked her way, and its changing posture suggested she had the creature’s attention. It lowered its front legs, descending into a defensive crouch, protecting its prey from theft. Then it howled a warning at the oncoming streak of glinting metal.
Deirdre didn’t care.
She dove for the creature, wrapping her metal-clad arms around its body at the moment of impact. Her supplemented weight and momentum carried her and the beast to the ground, and they rolled human-over-beast five times before stopping, leaving the creature atop her. Though it had to be hurting, the creature growled and turned its blood-covered snout her way and bared its fangs. Its hot breath fogged her mask, and she heard the clangs and felt the reverberations as the massive mouth opened and tried to bite through the skin and bone and muscle of her face. It seemed she could smell its fetid breath. She wondered what poor creature had served as lunch earlier in the day.
She wondered if lunch had been a human, and if that fresh taste aided the beast’s desire to consume her friend.
The thought sent a surge of adrenaline through her body. She rolled until the furry, bony body lay beneath her, oblivious to the teeth and razor-sharp claws attacking her in the process, until she straddled the creature’s back and pinned it down, unyielding as the beast’s powerful legs and paws fought to dislodge her.
Then she lifted her Diasteel fist and slammed it against the creature’s skull.
She heard the sickening crack echo off the shrinking pile of debris and felt the creature tense beneath her. The eyes glazed over, the frantic efforts to regain its footing ceased, and the last exhalation of air left its now dead body.
Behind the mask, she blinked, surprised. Had she just killed a living creature? In some recess of her mind, she felt revulsion at her actions, repulsed at the idea of taking a life. But practical reality intruded; if she’d done nothing, that same creature could one day hunt her down if she dared stray outside the protection of her suit. Assuming both survived likely Ravager attacks in the process, of course.
“Pick it up!” the man shouted. He pointed at the dead body. Deirdre noticed he’d gotten to his feet as she’d executed his attacker.
She didn’t understand, but complied with his orders. He’d shown solid instincts earlier; she had little reason—or desire—to doubt his decisions now. The beast likely weighed several hundred pounds, but with the muscle enhancers, she hefted the creature over the shoulders of her metal suit with little trouble.
The man rose to his feet and pointed. “Follow me.” He moved.
She followed.
The remainder of the pack howled and snarled and growled. They bared their teeth and pawed the ground as if threatening an attack. None dared approach the metal-clad human. The man finally charged one of them, shouting, and the entire pack fled, tails tucked between their hind legs. Three of the creatures started running but fell as their legs dissolved beneath them, eaten away as the oily black swarm saturating the ground moved up their bodies. Deirdre couldn’t fathom the pain they felt in death, and experienced some relief as they evaporated before her eyes, little more than a cloud of raw Ravager material, their suffering over. Yes, they’d attacked her friend, and would most certainly have come for her next. But that was instinct, nothing personal, merely hungry creatures eating in the manner in which they were designed. She hated that they’d suffered, because in many ways, their deaths were her doing.
It was another consequence of her plan.
“Keep moving!” The man was twenty yards ahead of her, setting a brisk eastward pace toward the great lake. Deirdre got her legs moving again, her speed accelerating as the muscle enhancers kicked in. She didn’t quite catch up to the man, but sensed that was by his design. “If you’re moving in the suit, the Ravagers should stay away from you. We don’t want them devouring that creature.”
Deirdre couldn’t fathom why it mattered. The beast was dead; what harm came in letting the Ravagers remove the burden from her shoulders?
He kept moving, increasing his speed, increasing the distance between them, and she fell further behind.
“I saved your life again!” she shouted.
“I didn’t need your help.” He sounded annoyed.
“I still saved you.”
“I was in no danger. They’d never get through the suit.”
She glared at the back of his head. “At some point you’ll need to eat and drink and… well, empty your bladder.” She thought she heard him snort. “You’ll need to spend time outside that suit, and that’s when you’ll be vulnerable from creatures like this one. I just removed one potential threat during those times.”
“The Ravagers would’ve gotten it eventually.”
“Before or after they got you?”
He said nothing.
She followed him for ten minutes, the silence aggravating her far more than the weight of a dead predator upon her shoulders. She knew he’d made for the lake immediately after she’d felled the creature, but wasn’t sure what the combination—his path and her mandated burden—actually meant.
She could stand the silence no longer. “Talk to me!”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Silence.
“Why are we going to the lake?”
Silence.
“Why is it so important that I carry this… this… this thing?”
More silence.
“At least tell me your name!” Then she could curse his silence within the confines of her own mind and name the source of her aggravation.
She didn’t think he’d answer, but his voice trailed behin
d him, quiet, almost a whisper. “Jeffrey. My name is Jeffrey.”
“Jeffrey,” she repeated, her tone similarly quiet. She liked the name, and immediately wondered why she’d made that assessment, why she cared.
They walked another fifteen minutes in silence before they reached the shore of the lake, south of the dock used by ships carrying goods and passengers to and from other cityplexes. He searched the shore for something, stooping and crawling, eyes scanning the horizon over the lake and the ground around them, splashing water from the lake upon the dry ground, scattering those Ravagers that had gathered near the water. He found rocks and set them in a circle near the shore, and then began splashing larger volumes of water on the ground.
She started to move the creature to the ground to assist, but he shook his head. “Keep the beast off the ground for now. I can handle this part of the process.”
She didn’t know what that meant, but knew him well enough already to accept that he’d share nothing with her until necessary.
She watched as he waded into the lake and returned moments later with a pile of driftwood, which he stacked near the shore. He moved a portion of the wood inside the rock circle and knelt down by the circle, his back facing her, his body shielding her view of the wood. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but moments later he stepped back. She felt her jaw drop. He’d lit a fire using nothing but wet driftwood. How? This man Jeffrey was certainly full of mysteries.
She watched as he added additional wood to the bonfire.
That struck her as counterproductive. Splashing the water on the ground to drive away the Ravagers made perfect sense. But… “Won’t the fire dry out the water?” The saturated ground acted as a barrier to the Ravagers; evaporating that shield with the heat from the fire made little sense.
“Eventually.” The smoke of the fire rose above him, and she wished she could take off the suit and inhale the scent of burning wood. It was ironic that her idea, the idea that spurned development of the Ravagers, made such aromas impossible. Except when Jeffrey was around, apparently.
Jeffrey stood and faced her, then pointed to a spot between the driftwood resting near the lapping freshwater waves and the fire. “Set him down there.”
Deirdre complied, and felt relief as the dead creature left her shoulders. She stepped back and looked at him expectantly. “Okay. Now what?”
“Now, you leave and never bother me with your presence again.”
She stared at him. “You’re joking.”
“I never joke. Go away. I don’t care where. Just leave.”
She folded her freed arms across her metal-clad chest. The motion and contact generated a faint clang of metal on metal. “No. I didn’t carry your oversized stuffed animal here for you to just shove me aside. Tell me what I can do that doesn’t involve me leaving.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Take off the suit and step outside the saturation zone?”
Ouch. She shook her head. “Not keen on that idea, either. We need to help each other, Jeffrey. It doesn’t mean we have to like each other. Right now, we’re each all the other has.”
He studied her face as if considering something, and his facial expression suggested he found his inclinations on his next action troubling. He reached down and opened the flap of his suit and unzipped it, then reached inside quickly and extracted something that glinted in the faint remaining sunlight. He secured his suit before he whirled on her.
He held a large hunting knife in his hand, still in a sheath she suspected had been strapped to his leg this entire time.
She took a huge breath. “What… what’s that for?”
She could nearly read his mind, the thought that he’d like to use the knife to do to her what she’d done to the dead animal lying on the ground nearby. Instead, he removed the knife from the sheath, carefully grasped the sharp blade with his other metal-encased hand, and extended the handle toward her. “Take this.”
She gingerly extended her hand, uncertain what his gesture meant. Peace offering? Or was this just a reminder that he wanted her dead, and wanted to give her the necessary tools to fulfill his fondest desire?
She took the offered knife and stared at him.
He looked her in the eye, the fury no less disguised than before, just moderated in intensity. “You’re right, Deirdre. We do need each other’s help. But I need to trust you, and that’s not going to be easy for me. You’ll need to earn my trust. My only promise is that I’ll give you a chance, however grudging it might be. You have to prove that you won’t hinder me in my goal of reaching New Venice, and that in fact your presence will be of benefit. If not? I’ll feed you to the Ravagers myself.”
She winced. The suit made her invulnerable to those unaware of its few weaknesses. Jeffrey wasn’t one of those. “Fair enough.” She held up her hand, turning the knife around as she studied the blade. “So… what’s the plan?”
“Simple,” he replied. “We need nourishment. We need protein. Protein is most efficiently obtained through meat. All food types are disappearing as the Ravagers overrun the terrain, and thus it’s critical that we eat when we can.” He pointed at the nearby carcass. “We can eat now.”
“But…” She nearly laughed, but realized he wasn’t joking. “That’s disgusting!”
“I have no time or patience for your theories on what is or isn’t disgusting,” he told her. “We need to cook that meat to ensure it’s clear of disease. In order to cook that meat, we must first prepare it for our makeshift grill. That means we need the hair and skin off.”
He pointed at her knife. “That’s your job. Skin the beast so we can eat.”
She stared at him, then back at the knife in her Diasteel glove, and then at the dead animal. “I… I can’t… I…”
“Then give me back my knife and leave. You’ll prepare the meat for cooking, or you’ll leave and I’ll do it myself.”
She steeled herself, nodded once, then looked at the animal. It was dead. It wouldn’t feel anything. This was essential to her survival, to their survival. It had to be done.
She swallowed as she neared the beast and then buried the blade inside the hair-covered flesh. Blood squirted everywhere.
She didn’t even realize she’d fainted as she collapsed upon the ground.
—————
MICAH JAMISON
—————
IT WAS AS if he was living inside an isolation chamber. Every noise inside the house amplified a thousand times, while outdoor sounds so regularly present within this island cabin vanished.
Micah Jamison’s sense of hearing, always exceptional, took on a superhuman quality as the gravity of the situation registered. He could hear and place Sheila by her breathing, hear the slight creak in the floor as she shifted her weight subtly while steadying her aim. He could hear the faint rustle of her clothing, now drenched in sweat after the trials of the past days. He noticed every microscopic detail which meant only one thing. Sheila Clarke meant to take a life in cold blood.
His.
When he heard the chamber spin as she depressed the trigger, Micah moved.
Even with his reflexes, he couldn’t move faster than fired ammunition. He dove to the side and felt the breeze as the bullet Sheila fired tore through the empty air occupied by his head a fractional second earlier.
This wasn’t a game; that wasn’t a warning shot. She wanted him dead.
He must survive, and not just for his own good. He must survive to ensure Sheila’s long-term survival. True, he’d pay the ultimate price if it ensured her survival.
But this wasn’t the time for such a sacrifice. That would come later.
He predicted her next moves. She’d fire a second shot immediately after the first, hoping to catch him off guard. He hit the ground and rolled back in the direction from whence he started.
A second thunderclap erupted. He felt the ground reverberate as the bullet passed through the wooden flooring. The robot staff screamed around him; he’d little doubt their c
oncerns stemmed more from the eventual cleanup required after Sheila’s shooting rampage than over his personal safety. Between the dust from the exploding sheetrock behind him and the new collection of wood splinters and shavings, they’d be busy.
He hoped he’d be around to help with the cleanup.
As the second bullet shattered the floor, he adjusted his roll and bounced back to his feet, then dove behind the nearest sofa. It gave him both physical cover from her far-too-accurate shots and visual cover. She wouldn’t risk firing until she could see him, and she couldn’t see him now. Her weapon had limitations. He knew that each magazine carried only six bullets, and she’d already fired two. And while he didn’t know if she had a spare loaded magazine readily available, it didn’t really matter.
She’d never get the chance to reload.
He measured her steps, sensed the difference in intensity as each footfall brushed the surface, and assessed her likely location. She approached the edge of the sofa to his right, nearest to where his original dive terminated. He scooted in silence to his left, meaning to circle around behind her. If she moved to the far side of the sofa, he’d shove it into her leg and knock her off balance.
“Where are you, Micah?” Her voice, just above a whisper, had a whistling quality to accompany the menace in her tone.
“Sheila Clarke, have you lost the General?” Whiskey squeaked. “He is on the ground on the opposite side of the sofa from your present location!”
He nearly groaned aloud. Damned piece of metal would need a serious tweak to his loyalty code when this confrontation ended.
He threw his shoulder into the end of the sofa, blasting it in her direction. The furniture slid across the wooden floor, the legs screeching as they tore gouges across the polished surface.
Like Sheila’s bullets, his projectile didn’t find its target. She’d taken Whiskey’s information and spun around toward the front of the sofa, anticipating his effort. While the sofa didn’t upend her, it did force her to hop to the side to avoid his cushioned missile. The shot she’d lined up missed Micah once more, still frighteningly close. One of the smaller cleaning robots wheeled over toward Micah, directing a suction-based vacuum in its body to the pile of sawdust near Micah’s hand, and slurped the mess up.
The Ravagers Box Set: Episodes 1-3 Page 30
