by Mark Lingane
Charlie’s face twisted into a mask of incomprehension.
“I can bend metal and stuff. At a distance.”
“Oh, one of those. A tesla, you say. We have one of those, but we don’t call them teslas.”
“What? Really? You have a tesla here?”
“Yes. He’s handy when you want to open a can and there’s no can opener around.”
“Well, my powers are bit more powerful than that.”
“So it appears, if what I’ve been told is true.” He turned to the center standing beside him. “Thomas, bring what’s his name … Matthew to me. Now tell me, young Sebastian, how you single-handedly defeated our enemy.” He leaned forward and stared at the young warrior, his eyes shifting over Sebastian’s face.
“I was told there’d be food.”
“Eventually. Tell me your story and about your powers.”
Sebastian explained. “I grew up in a small farming village in my home country of Australia on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. The cyborgs came and destroyed everything because Iris told them I was dangerous. I escap—”
“What is ‘Iris’?”
“It stood for something like information something something system,” he muttered unconvincingly. “Iris was the cyborgs’ commander. Cyborgs were part human, part machine. Anyway, I escaped and made my way to the Steam Academy, where they recognized that I was a tesla, and a mad scientist trained me and other teslas. Then there was a big war that went on for years. Everyone died. Then we won. Then a new enemy attacked us. They were making zombies. And it was awful. Then I found out I had to go to New York, so I got on a voidship and it crashed a bit.”
“In terms of military intelligence, that was possibly the most useless explanation possible,” Charlie said. “Maybe you should’ve written it down in a book, or three.”
“Um, maybe I did, and it got eaten by the voidship cat.”
“Ah, yes, the voidship. So you know what this creature is. Receiver, pull back the sheet,” Charlie said to the soldier beside the stretcher.
On the stretcher lay the twisted and mutilated body of an infected. “You’ve seen these before,” Charlie said to Sebastian. “I can see it on your face. What is it?”
Sebastian looked hesitantly at the receiver. “Are you sure it’s dead?”
The soldier looked over the mangled body full of bullet holes. “Yes.”
“Please, examine it,” Charlie said to Sebastian.
“I’d feel better if you chained it down. They can be unpredictable.”
Charlie looked skeptical. “Even when they’re dead?”
Sebastian stood up and stepped cautiously to the stretcher. He rubbed his nose and craned in to examine the infected, keeping his distance.
“It, she, is called … we call them the infected. They were once people like you and me, but there was a virus that changed them into these. A drug called Famish was created, but it went wrong. It mutated and continued to mutate, and it turned people into land sharks. They have to keep eating or the virus eats the host. I’m guessing you don’t you have them here.”
“No,” Charlie said. “This is the first one we’ve seen.”
“Oh. Then it must’ve come over with us on the voidship,” Sebastian said glumly. “They’re hard to kill. Unless you’re Nikola or Melanie.”
“Yes, it was found in the wreckage of your voidship.”
“Oh, no. If you don’t have any infected here, that means you don’t have the antidote.”
“How dangerous is this virus?”
Sebastian puffed out his cheeks and forced air through tight lips. “Very. I’ve seen it wipe out whole cities.”
Charlie tapped his fingers against the chair’s arm. “What can be done?” He stared at Sebastian. “There must be something,” he added impatiently, when Sebastian made no reply. His anger was rising toward the trouble the voidships brought across the sea.
Sebastian shuffled his feet. He looked down at his boots. “This is the hard part.” He sighed. “You have to burn everyone who’s been cut by an infected. They seem to be able to survive everything except fire. And their heads being cut off. You have to cut their heads off. I suggest you do that right now.”
“Burn them? What are you saying? What if they’re still living?”
“I guess you could shoot them first. But you don’t want to see anyone you know become an infected. It’s gross.”
They both looked at the body.
“We need to tell our people about this,” Charlie said. He clenched his jaw and stared at the infected. “Receiver, get the word out to the troops urgently. I’ll let the Peacemaker know the infected are coming.”
“The virus can cause an epidemic that could wipe out your civilization,” Sebastian said. “My friend Michael Filbert, who’s a veterinarian, made the antidote. Our stocks of antidote ran out, but if you can get word back across the void, Michael might be able to make more. It’s probably your only chance.”
“I don’t like void riders,” Charlie said darkly. “They bring nothing but trouble, and all for the sake of illicit money.”
The room went silent.
Memphis chewed her lip, watching the revelations unwind. Her interest had been sparked at the mention of money.
Charlie looked at his two guests. Sebastian thought he caught a flash of sadness in the man’s eyes. “Enough of this,” Charlie said. “Let’s eat. Follow me.”
He led Sebastian and Memphis into the mess hall, across to the head table, which had been set for the guests. Sebastian was seated next to Charlie. Memphis made sure she sat next to Sebastian. The two simultaneously reached for the water jug, touching hands. Memphis smiled and looked away. Sebastian looked down at his plate.
A small army of cooks appeared and set the plates on the table. Sebastian looked at the food in front of him with horror.
“Please," Charlie said, "eat."
“Everything is green.”
“So?”
“It could be salad.” Sebastian looked stricken as the cook set down even more dishes with green food. “I’m allergic to salad. And vegetables. I have a really bad reaction to them.”
Charlie looked over the healthy food laid out across the vast table. “What do you eat instead?”
“Meat.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from the assembled diners.
Charlie looked at Sebastian in shock. “Surely, you don’t eat people.”
“What? No! Cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, fish.”
“We know about fish. Often those horrific three-eyed creatures wash up on the shore, half rotted from the foul seawater. The sea’s polluted for miles from land. But no one would be insane enough to actually eat one. And what are sows and cheeps?”
“Cows and sheep. They’re animals. Animals you raise in order to eat them.”
Sebastian stared down at his lentils and pushed them around with his spork. He tried something long and yellow that everyone else seemed to be enjoying. He glanced at Memphis, who had piled her plate high with healthy-looking food, and was industriously chewing her way through it.
“Grow?” Charlie said.
“Not like a plant. You raise them from babies—baby animals—and when they’re old enough, you kill and cook them. When it was market time back in my hometown, we swam in pig blood.”
Charlie looked horrified.
“Not literally,” Sebastian said. “It just felt like that.”
“It feels like that here sometimes also. We are a warring nation.”
“Have you tried to resolve it? Is it worth it, all this war?”
Charlie shook his head. “The cost has been too great for all of us.”
Sebastian paused. “I had a whole race of people hating me, the cyborgs I told you about, just because they were afraid. But in the end, we sorted it out.” He left out the bit where he nearly killed all the cyborgs accidentally.
“I’m a seasoned warrior and I’ve seen many atrocities. Don’t make the mistake of th
inking I have a soft heart after what we’ve all lost.”
“But people who’ve seen war close up are the best ones to speak out about it,” Sebastian said. “If I met you on the battlefield and we stood face to face, we wouldn’t be any different to us now, right here. We are who we are.”
“We’re continually attacked by the Forty-ninth Division. This is a truth. Our commanders reflect this truth to us, showing us that we can trust our chain of command. We follow them and confront an untrustworthy enemy that has no respect for the truth and manipulates information to confuse and destabilize us. We are who we are, but they’re not who they say they are.”
Sebastian gave up on the long yellow thing and put down his spork. “What I learned from our wars was that we were there because we were told to be there. We were sold the idea. But who’s to say that what they told us was the truth? And who says that what you’ve all been told is the truth?”
“Are you trying to tell me that our commander lies to us?”
“Don’t you sometimes lie to your men to get them to do things? Even simple lies like telling them home’s just around the corner?”
Charlie leaned forward, his face dark and his voice hollow. “Never. This is a military community. We rely on communications down the chain of command to be clear and precise. We’re a fighting people and need transparency at all levels. We don’t have a healthy relationship with words, and we’re suspicious of people who do. Diplomacy is nothing but lies and backstabbing through the use of deceitful words. We rely on direct honesty between each other.”
“How do parents talk to their children?”
Charlie gave him a dark look. “My suggestion to you, as a tesla, is never to mention children around me. Otherwise you’ll find yourself on the end of a long spear.”Sebastian and Memphis entered the war-council chambers. Maps were pinned to the walls, and lines had been drawn over them ending in X’s and O’s. There was a stretcher to one side with a soldier standing beside them. A sheet was draped over the stretcher. It was obvious to Sebastian that it covered a body.
Charlie Baxter sat behind a desk, resting on an elbow in his oversized exosuit, helmet up, conferring with his support staff. He indicated for the two to sit opposite him.
“You, boy,” Charlie said when they were seated.
“Sebastian.” He sat up straight.
“My men tell me you brought down the Forty-ninth Division helicopter without any weapons. How did you do that?”
Sebastian jumped up and stood tall. “I am a tesla,” he said, throwing his cape over one shoulder.
Memphis snapped her head around and stared at him.
There was silence. Sebastian couldn’t suppress a small smile. He felt that everyone in the chambers was properly impressed. A few awkward moments crawled past.
Charlie glanced at the soldiers standing beside him. They shrugged. “Never heard of it,” he said to Sebastian. “What does a tesla do?”
Sebastian was put out by their lack of appreciation. “Well, it’s pretty complicated and difficult to explain, but basically, I control the electrical spin of electrons at the atomic level.”
Charlie’s face twisted into a mask of incomprehension.
“I can bend metal and stuff. At a distance.”
“Oh, one of those. A tesla, you say. We have one of those, but we don’t call them teslas.”
“What? Really? You have a tesla here?”
“Yes. He’s handy when you want to open a can and there’s no can opener around.”
“Well, my powers are bit more powerful than that.”
“So it appears, if what I’ve been told is true.” He turned to the center standing beside him. “Thomas, bring what’s his name … Matthew to me. Now tell me, young Sebastian, how you single-handedly defeated our enemy.” He leaned forward and stared at the young warrior, his eyes shifting over Sebastian’s face.
“I was told there’d be food.”
“Eventually. Tell me your story and about your powers.”
Sebastian explained. “I grew up in a small farming village in my home country of Australia on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. The cyborgs came and destroyed everything because Iris told them I was dangerous. I escap—”
“What is ‘Iris’?”
“It stood for something like information something something system,” he muttered unconvincingly. “Iris was the cyborgs’ commander. Cyborgs were part human, part machine. Anyway, I escaped and made my way to the Steam Academy, where they recognized that I was a tesla, and a mad scientist trained me and other teslas. Then there was a big war that went on for years. Everyone died. Then we won. Then a new enemy attacked us. They were making zombies. And it was awful. Then I found out I had to go to New York, so I got on a voidship and it crashed a bit.”
“In terms of military intelligence, that was possibly the most useless explanation possible,” Charlie said. “Maybe you should’ve written it down in a book, or three.”
“Um, maybe I did, and it got eaten by the voidship cat.”
“Ah, yes, the voidship. So you know what this creature is. Receiver, pull back the sheet,” Charlie said to the soldier beside the stretcher.
On the stretcher lay the twisted and mutilated body of an infected. “You’ve seen these before,” Charlie said to Sebastian. “I can see it on your face. What is it?”
Sebastian looked hesitantly at the receiver. “Are you sure it’s dead?”
The soldier looked over the mangled body full of bullet holes. “Yes.”
“Please, examine it,” Charlie said to Sebastian.
“I’d feel better if you chained it down. They can be unpredictable.”
Charlie looked skeptical. “Even when they’re dead?”
Sebastian stood up and stepped cautiously to the stretcher. He rubbed his nose and craned in to examine the infected, keeping his distance.
“It, she, is called … we call them the infected. They were once people like you and me, but there was a virus that changed them into these. A drug called Famish was created, but it went wrong. It mutated and continued to mutate, and it turned people into land sharks. They have to keep eating or the virus eats the host. I’m guessing you don’t you have them here.”
“No,” Charlie said. “This is the first one we’ve seen.”
“Oh. Then it must’ve come over with us on the voidship,” Sebastian said glumly. “They’re hard to kill. Unless you’re Nikola or Melanie.”
“Yes, it was found in the wreckage of your voidship.”
“Oh, no. If you don’t have any infected here, that means you don’t have the antidote.”
“How dangerous is this virus?”
Sebastian puffed out his cheeks and forced air through tight lips. “Very. I’ve seen it wipe out whole cities.”
Charlie tapped his fingers against the chair’s arm. “What can be done?” He stared at Sebastian. “There must be something,” he added impatiently, when Sebastian made no reply. His anger was rising toward the trouble the voidships brought across the sea.
Sebastian shuffled his feet. He looked down at his boots. “This is the hard part.” He sighed. “You have to burn everyone who’s been cut by an infected. They seem to be able to survive everything except fire. And their heads being cut off. You have to cut their heads off. I suggest you do that right now.”
“Burn them? What are you saying? What if they’re still living?”
“I guess you could shoot them first. But you don’t want to see anyone you know become an infected. It’s gross.”
They both looked at the body.
“We need to tell our people about this,” Charlie said. He clenched his jaw and stared at the infected. “Receiver, get the word out to the troops urgently. I’ll let the Peacemaker know the infected are coming.”
“The virus can cause an epidemic that could wipe out your civilization,” Sebastian said. “My friend Michael Filbert, who’s a veterinarian, made the antidote. Our stocks of antidote ran out, but if you can ge
t word back across the void, Michael might be able to make more. It’s probably your only chance.”
“I don’t like void riders,” Charlie said darkly. “They bring nothing but trouble, and all for the sake of illicit money.”
The room went silent.
Memphis chewed her lip, watching the revelations unwind. Her interest had been sparked at the mention of money.
Charlie looked at his two guests. Sebastian thought he caught a flash of sadness in the man’s eyes. “Enough of this,” Charlie said. “Let’s eat. Follow me.”
He led Sebastian and Memphis into the mess hall, across to the head table, which had been set for the guests. Sebastian was seated next to Charlie. Memphis made sure she sat next to Sebastian. The two simultaneously reached for the water jug, touching hands. Memphis smiled and looked away. Sebastian looked down at his plate.
A small army of cooks appeared and set the plates on the table. Sebastian looked at the food in front of him with horror.
“Please," Charlie said, "eat."
“Everything is green.”
“So?”
“It could be salad.” Sebastian looked stricken as the cook set down even more dishes with green food. “I’m allergic to salad. And vegetables. I have a really bad reaction to them.”
Charlie looked over the healthy food laid out across the vast table. “What do you eat instead?”
“Meat.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from the assembled diners.
Charlie looked at Sebastian in shock. “Surely, you don’t eat people.”
“What? No! Cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, fish.”
“We know about fish. Often those horrific three-eyed creatures wash up on the shore, half rotted from the foul seawater. The sea’s polluted for miles from land. But no one would be insane enough to actually eat one. And what are sows and cheeps?”
“Cows and sheep. They’re animals. Animals you raise in order to eat them.”
Sebastian stared down at his lentils and pushed them around with his spork. He tried something long and yellow that everyone else seemed to be enjoying. He glanced at Memphis, who had piled her plate high with healthy-looking food, and was industriously chewing her way through it.
“Grow?” Charlie said.
