by J. N. Chaney
The control pad for this one popped open easily, and so did the hatch. I climbed inside, strapped myself in, and hit the deploy escape pod button. This thing was childproof for a reason. The excessive layers of personal protection—a helmet that looked like it would suffocate me, gauntlets that went into the wall, and a nearly horizontal chair that wanted to suck me deep into it—seemed excessive.
I did the basics. Who had time for all that other stuff?
The rockets fired once—hard. My restraints were made for survival, not comfort. My new, scar-free, damage-free Reaper head was nearly ripped from my shoulders from the acceleration. Maybe the crazy helmet would have been a good idea.
Lights flashed in my vision as my skull met the headrest. I fought through the mild concussion, forced myself to breathe evenly, and held onto consciousness. The pod rattled and shook through the planet’s atmosphere. There wasn’t much for me to do until the simple screen at the front warned me to deploy the parachute.
I looked for a lever and found nothing. No button or touch screen, and no friendly escape pod LAI existed to walk me through this important process.
In pure desperation, I talked to my HUD. “X-37 HUD thing, connect with this pod and tell me how to deploy the parachute.”
Nothing. Not even a snarky response.
Useless.
The sooner I found X-37, the better.
I leaned back, rolled an imaginary cigar, and lit it just like I did back in the Blue Sphere Maximum Security prison. Imagination had been a great way to pass the time on death row. Now the experience sucked. I couldn’t concentrate. Tricks like that only worked so many times. They were better for warding off boredom. Ignoring the fact that I was about to make a crater wasn’t easy.
X-37 really would have saved me the hassle of dying like this. Tom or Elise would have protected me from my bad decisions.
My active mind grasped for something to analyze, then ran me through what I had learned so far. The interrogation of David Roth and the station AI, Cassandra, hadn’t provided much information.
An unknown agency had created a clone program orbiting Maglan. I had come to destroy it and been killed, except there were already plenty of copies of my body.
The big question was how my memory and consciousness got from the cyborg Halek Cain to me. What little I knew about clones suggested memories and knowledge had to be learned. One of the reasons clones had been outlawed was that they practically had to be brainwashed—and that couldn’t end well for anyone.
What if, for example, someone taught all the new versions of me that wine coolers were a fair substitute for a frothy, dark beer? What if they thought pizza could be made without pineapple? Heresy like that couldn’t be tolerated. Clones with such a skewed sense of right and wrong would be dangerous.
I, on the other hand, remembered every detail of my life. The same lame jokes and profanity packed my vocabulary. My emotions remained as hardened as they had been after a long career as an assassin for the Union turned vigilante freelancer.
Please deploy parachute. Final warning. Failure to comply could result in rapid deceleration trauma on the planet’s surface.
“Was that an escape pod joke?” I asked. And got no answer, of course.
Bored with my daydreaming and my contemplation of my most screwed up situation yet, I renewed my search for the parachute button.
Why not? Hopeless missions and lost causes were my modus operandi.
Next to the safety seat were elbow deep gauntlet holes—spaces a person could insert his or her hands like there were gloves reaching into the support beams of the pod. There was also a helmet that could be pulled down and worked in a similar manner. So far as I could tell, this was just to strap a person in even tighter. With all of this in place, I would be one with the pod. Very zen, and very crash proof. Not getting bounced around in here.
Not that it would be enough when I did my meteorite imitation in ninety-three seconds.
But when on Earth, do as the Earthlings do. Wasn’t that the saying?
I pushed my head into the helmet first and clicked it to the support frame, not liking the way it immobilized my neck. Wiggling my hands into the gauntlets took two tries. Once my fingers reached the end of their respective finger slots, I felt tiny joysticks—more like sensor pads—at the end of each.
“An instruction manual would have been nice. Stupid gauntlet finger joysticks.” The new discovery allowed me to steer the pod, correcting the descent trajectory to match recommendations on the helmet HUD. That little trick would have been really useful at the start of the trip.
“Hey look, this is the parachute command!” I said as I read the HUD announcement that I had finally activated the parachute but without proper safety checks. “Screw your safety checks! Get that thing out there!”
Bam! The chute popped out, grabbed atmosphere, and snapped taut. The rapid deceleration felt like hitting the ground. Without the thirty-five point harness, specialized helmet, and elbow-deep super gauntlets, I would have been busted up pretty badly.
Before long the pod was swinging from the chute, high above beautiful—at least from this altitude—Maglan. The only problem I saw was that my landing zone was in the ocean.
One thing about Maglan I’d learned on day one was that ocean creatures on the otherwise utopian planet were just a tad on the aggressive side. That might be a problem. Worse, I wasn’t sure how far from shore I was going to splash down.
5
Warnings scrolled through my HUD. I ignored them because they didn’t come with solutions. Only one caught my attention.
Objective: locate LAI host.
Warning: fifty percent run time remaining.
Status: far from LAI host device.
“Can I get some clarification? Don’t hold out on me, HUD.” I fiddled with the fingertip controls in an attempt to pull up additional information in the escape pod. My visual HUD answered a few seconds later.
Objective clarification: locate LAI host.
“You already said that. Super helpful.”
Warning clarification: your LAI must reintegrate with a neural network before the host device fails.
“Ominous. How long did we have to start with? We have fifty percent remaining of what?”
No answer.
Status clarification: you are far from the LAI host device because it is not located in the ocean.
“I hate you, HUD message thingy.”
The LAI message board either lacked the capacity for hurt feelings or was giving me the silent treatment. I was stubborn but at a disadvantage. Arguing with machines had never done me much good.
“Give me something useful. Please. See there, I asked nicely.”
Brace for impact in three, two, one—
“Seriously!”
Splashdown hurt. My impact with the waves sounded like an explosion. Water sprayed hundreds of feet into the air, and power flickered and died in the pod as darkness closed overhead.
“I hope this thing floats.” Working quickly, I restarted the life pod computer and read instructions from its simple screen. I was directed to wait two full minutes before ejecting, and I was assured that the capsule would quickly rise to the surface after a water landing. Tracking beacons activated, and flares fired into the air the moment the pod was floating on top of large waves.
I checked the beacon, unable to determine if anyone was picking it up. The flares were already deployed. When I opened the hatch and wiggled free, I saw the flares floating away, born by the stiff winds. To my surprise, the Maglan coast guard didn’t materialize. Jelly didn’t swoop down out of the clouds with Elise, Tom, Bug, and all my other friends.
The shore was barely visible to the east. I didn’t know if I could swim that far, and the capsule lacked propulsion. There were rations, survival blankets, and even a fishing rod in the pod—useful stuff that I hoped wouldn’t be needed.
Hours passed without radio contact. No rescue planes flew over, and I didn’t see ships.
The warning about X-37 existing on borrowed time in some sort of device worried me. I needed to get to shore.
Inquiries on the location of the LAI host device were unnecessarily cryptic. That, or the HUD system didn’t have the capacity to locate and track its mother-system.
I needed to get to shore, which meant I had to swim for it. The moment I had packed a swim bundle, aggressively hydrated myself, and made sure my weapons were secure and dry, I jumped into the water. Waves immediately separated me from the pod.
Looking up the steep wall of water as the escape pod slid rapidly away put my life in perspective. Everything was up from here. I was as low as I could go. Nothing could make this suck more.
I worked with the waves and the current as much as possible, angling for the shore every chance I got. The survival suit standard in every escape pod was buoyant and retained a layer of water that my body normalized. Wetsuit insulation really worked, but the ocean was cold and eventually I would be in danger of hypothermia.
Recommendation: Urinate in your wetsuit for increased warmth. This will add warm liquid to the wetsuit fluid layer.
“I’m going to hold off on that for as long as possible.”
My HUD didn’t repeat the recommendation or make an X-37-like crack about my squeamishness. The LAI would have been a comfort right now. He had talked me through bad situations before, kept me sane, kept me in line, and refused to let me give up.
I swam for ten minutes, then floated on my back for two. Repeating this process moved me closer and closer to the shore. Hazy hills turned into visible sand dunes. A herd of animals ran along the beach before disappearing into a valley.
A large, slippery nose pushed me out of the water. Up, and up, and up I went until it dropped me over the next wave. Swinging my arms and kicking my legs did nothing to stop the attack.
The creature dropped beneath the water without warning, leaving me suspended in mid air. I plummeted into the turbulent ocean, swallowing salt water and coughing it out when I broke the surface.
I twisted right and left, using my entire body to move. “What the hell was that?”
No answer. X-37 might have given me an analysis of the sea creature and offered some options. Not today. All I had was a HUD messaging system that might or might not be relaying me messages from X-37.
I thrust my head and shoulders out of the waves a second time, then I treaded water and turned in a circle to locate my attacker. The creature had thrown me over a wave. As big as it was, it could have bitten me in half.
A tail slapped the water fifty yards to my right. I looked for a dorsal fin but saw nothing. Salty spray blinded me. After wiping my eyes clear, I squinted and forced my heart rate back under control.
A bulbous hippo-like nose crested the surface and blew water into the air, the spume catching light as it dissolved into a rainbow. I wouldn’t know what the creature looked like if not for hours of reading when my wardens allowed me no other form of entertainment. This monster was different, of course, but I hadn’t thought any of them were real in the first place. For all I knew, they were just artifacts of a long dead language—children’s tales or the ramblings of a mad writer trying to eke out a living.
The beast went under and disappeared for several minutes before bursting out of the water right next to me. Its gigantic maw opened wide, and it swallowed water and fish at random like some avenging force of nature.
I backstroked away from it only to get slammed sideways by another hungry sea hippo. Two more appeared, each making a feast of a school of fish sharing my fate.
I twisted away and stroked toward the beach with all my might. My survival kit dragged behind me on a line. A few items were attached to my wetsuit, but I needed the bundle or I would have abandoned it. One pinch of a carabiner would release the drag it caused. The bundle had its own flotation, but it had a lot of surface area and I really felt that slow me down when pushing for maximum speed.
My lungs burned. My arms and legs ached. All I wanted was dry land. And maybe a Goldband. Better than a Starbrand, my Maglan Goldbands were organically grown on the planet. Repeating the mantra kept my mind busy even if it did make me want one more.
“Please, gods, if you’re listening, just let me get out of the water alive. I’ll be good—quit swearing, show compassion, save helpless orphans and small animals from evil predators. Just get me through this.”
The next attack came from above. Instead of throwing me into the air, the largest of the sea hippos flopped its whale-like bulk on me and closed its maw over my torso as it pulled me below the waves.
I released the survival bundle. Darkness surrounded me. How deep was I now? There was no way to know, and it didn’t matter.
Pressure increased around my torso. The monster was trying to snap me in half. I bled from teeth puncturing me in dozens of places, including my upper thighs, rib cage, and back. The attack smashed air from my lungs.
Drowning. Why did I have to be drowning again?
I couldn’t reach my knife, but the small pistol was practically in my hand. I drew it, rammed it into the creature’s mouth right next to my ribcage, and fired. Two shots worked but had little effect. Then the water slowed the action of the slide until it jammed and the gun quit working.
The leviathan twisted, rolling me deeper beneath the surface. I lost hold of the gun, then groped for the knife. Stretching my fingers, my arm, and finally twisting my torso for maximum reach, I dragged the blade from my leg holster and began stabbing the monster. The only place I could reach was its gums.
Barely able to think now, I tried to saw its teeth out of its mouth. Hopefully, this inflicted a lot of pain.
The creature thrashed this way and that, then spat me out.
I clawed my way to the surface.
Breathing would have been a delight if I hadn’t sucked in a liter of seawater with my first breath. Hopefully that went into my stomach instead of my lungs. There wasn’t time to give a shit. I started for the shore, once again alternating ten minutes of swimming with two minutes of resting.
I saw other sea hippos, but their pod seemed to be moving away with the school of fish I’d disturbed. Blood oozed from my wounds. The warm layer of water also leaked out of the wetsuit each time I took a stroke. The survival bundle was probably floating somewhere, but I couldn’t see it.
By the time I dragged myself onto the beach, I was ready for a nap—maybe forever.
I was sure as hell over my interaction with the sea hippos. “Let’s add them to the no-go list,” I croaked, then darkness closed over me, and I knew nothing.
6
The first thing I heard when I woke up was static, then a voice, and then the sound of waves breaking on the beach. Large, noisy white birds circled just off the coast, diving and coming up with fish. I squinted against the morning glare. My head hurt so bad that I wanted the sun to die forever.
“Reaper Cain, I strongly advise you to wake up and then hike on a heading of two hundred and ninety degrees until I direct you to stop.”
“X? Holy shit, is that you?”
“Of course, Reaper Cain. Who were you expecting, Z1-01FR381-742-X51DRO-ZETA?”
I sat up, wincing at the bite wounds as the scabs broke open and the flesh parted slightly in several places. “Actually, you know I love you, X, but I could use Z1 and the Black Phoenix exoskeleton right now.”
“That technology and hardware are unavailable, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I must advise you that I have a limited capacity to help you at this range. The more we talk, the less time I have before my host device runs out of power.”
“Gotcha, X. I’ll come to you.” I tried three times to stand, then plopped back on my butt. “Just let me rest for one second.”
“I will assume that is a metaphorical second instead of a literal second, Reaper Cain.”
“You know me too well, X.”
“I am sending coordinates to your visual HUD,” X-37 said. He sounded a thousand miles away, barely a whisper throu
gh the static filling my ears.
“What happened on the station? Why am I a clone? Were you with the cyborg me when he, when I, died? Did I die?”
“Please, Reaper Cain, I will do my best to answer all those questions in time. Until then, you are literally killing me with your inquiries.”
“Sorry, X. I’ll shut the hell up right now.” Thoughts of losing X-37 so soon after hearing his voice motivated me to strip out of the wetsuit and treat my injuries. I needed to get this show on the road. The teeth marks should be sterilized and stitched. All I had was first aid glue. This closed the wounds. As for fighting infection, I could only guess how effective the technique would be in the long run.
I wrung out my clothing and disregarded the ruined wetsuit. All that remained of my kit was my jumpsuit, waterlogged boot liners, and knife. My boots, rifle, rations, and most of my medical supplies had been in the bundle I was towing when the hippos attacked.
I hiked along the beach in search of the survival pack. “Surely it will wash up. If you were a tightly packed bundle of everything I needed, where would you be?”
“I have insufficient data on the currents, tides, and wind patterns to answer this question,” X-37 said.
“Right. Just ignore me when I’m talking to myself, X. I don’t want you to power down because of my rambling.”
“Of course,” he said. “That would be some bullshit.”
“Nice one, X. It’s like I’m a bad influence on you or something.”
I hiked inland, traversing sand dunes and then a series of river valleys crammed with green grass and flowers. Butterflies, bees, and other insects rose into the air when I disturbed them. Other animals I couldn’t identify looked at me, then darted away toward the trees.
Without a compass I was reliant on the sun and terrain landmarks to follow the coordinates in my HUD. I took my time and checked my position as often as possible. With no materials to make a map, I just attempted to remember where I was and where I’d been.
