At the Edge

by Lee Murray

  But of course, we hadn’t. Him with his booth and wires and shooting his consciousness out across the networks and through and around high tech ICE; me holding Anka’s brains inside her head as though it was just a bleeding flesh wound I could staunch with pressure, Kolain’s tired shake of the head as she pushed me aside and put a bullet in the rest of Anka.

  One life, no respawns. Both an invective spat into the eye of our enemy-of-the-day, and a promise to the last of the hit-dirt-and-pray soldiers.

  Our roles reversed then. The jack must have seen my own face shift, a difficult thing considering how inflexible most of it was. He wasn’t trained to deal with vets like I was, so he just ran his stupid mouth.

  ‘Probably saw some crazy stuff in your time,’ he said. ‘I did some work with the corps once, 2057 clearing out tour.’ He laughed, and I thought, No surely that’s too much of a coincidence, and then he said, ‘New Sydney, it was, or what was left of it,’ and, of course, that opened the gates.

  ‘Hah, yeah, I remember that.’

  I tapped at a screen to flick through stats. Everything had seemed clear, plenty of power left in the units. My team was picking through the New Sydney rubble still, so it was unexpected when Kolain called us back via the emergency channel.

  Most of the ruins had simply sagged over the decades, hunched their shoulders and settled into the dust and debris, over forgotten, desiccated civilians. Hidden in the dust lay countless fragments of depleted uranium ammunition, pushing the Geiger counter readout in my helmet to almost 1,000 times normal background radiation levels.

  I snapped my hand sharply across the sensors in my chest and my mechanised units stopped picking through the rubble and stood to attention. On my heads-up display, I saw the icons of Anka’s team first freeze, then head inwards from our perimeter, back towards Kolain’s safe point. In rapid succession, Moria, Jacques and Gert-Jan’s teams followed suit. There were only nine dots left in Gert-Jan’s squad, which made me wonder what resistance he’d encountered.

  I hesitated to follow the order. My units had uncovered a piano – a dry, cracked thing that would’ve been stuck under the rubble for a decade – and underneath it a skeletal mummy in the shreds of a military uniform.

  Kolain’s glyph in my visor flashed red. A brief message blinked beneath it.

  HTFU

  One of the politer ways Kolain used to hurry me up.

  I directed one of the scout units to document the find and waved for the others to follow me back to the safe point. It was autonomous enough that it would come back when it was done, but worst case one of the jacks at HQ would find it during a map scan and guide it back manually, assuming no enemy e-war algorithms found it first.

  Gert-Jan’s units started disappearing off my visor. Aw man. They blinked out, one at a time. I couldn’t hear anything over the crunch of my own feet in the dirt and the padding of my squad. I sent a scout and three infantry units across the rubble in the direction of Gert-Jan’s position, but I cautioned them. Something had ambushed him, there was no other way he could’ve lost three, now four, units that quickly.

  Everything was so quiet. The sound of steps in dirt, the occasional whir of the fans in my helmet kicking up. Somewhere out there was mute warfare. Gert-Jan’s units were gone and it was just the glyph of him now, moving across the HUD map projected into my eye. Then, that too vanished; all silent. One life. I couldn’t abide that silence.

  I blinked very slowly. The jack looked back, mouth slightly open, gaze flicking around my face.

  After another moment, he took my stylus and filled in his application e-forms for the security job. ‘Not too often you get to reuse your skills in a civilian company,’ he said, breaking the silence. ‘So many things I picked up out there, even just on the networks. If I tried that stuff now I’d go straight to jail.’ He paused. ‘What did you leave behind, out there?’ He asked it so casually, initialling here and dating there.

  ‘I just love that idea, man,’ he added, even though I had clearly ignored his question. ‘Just … being able to use your skills to the limit again, but back here in the real world.’ He paused apologetically. ‘This job seems cool, though.’ He finished signing. ‘Job hunting skills are really networking skills, they say.’ He tapped his forehead, tapped all the tech hidden inside that skull somewhere. ‘I can do networking.’ His smile cracked a little.

  I thanked him and stayed seated as he left. I wasn’t ready yet for the metal pain of standing up and seeing him out, the spear in my spine with each step. Always be as efficient as you can, Kolain had said. No point charging through jungled streets when all the automated defences run full-spectrum cameras and can tell a loitering baboon from a macaque at three hundred metres.

  ‘No frakkin’ respawns,’ Anka yelled in response, laughing manically. Her grandfather used to call her ‘Yolo’ and cackle like it was some secret generational joke. I looked it up once; it was just some stupid acronym.

  Jacques helped me with the Chlorin e6 eyedrops and because we were on such a time constraint, I was still blinking into my night vision when Kolain took the team further towards the compound. Our remote jacks disabled the nearest security cameras and our mechanised units swarmed across the streets, firing precision bullets and shaped EMP bursts at enemy placements. I flicked on the camo suit and moved in, perfectly visible to the rest of the team, but with the heat profile of a bunch of confused cats. We only had to fool artificial vision, after all.

  When the weapons fire started I didn’t even realise I was hit; I was behind Anka, and she was silhouetted by sudden whitesmoke deployment, frozen for the briefest instant before the hard pak that knocked her helmeted head sideways, and then me running towards her crumpling shape, oblivious to the gaping tear in my thigh and the wetness blooming there, and the gas canisters raining down around us, and each breath burning a gash deep in my chest, stripping me raw, skin and bone and heart.

  I tried to calm the ache in my lungs, pulled some reports and glanced at my watch. I waited for the ex-jack’s footsteps to fade. It was almost time to go home.

  You know it’s pointless, Kolain’s tired voice, and then the muted crack that finished Anka.

  You know it’s pointless, my own inner voice anticipating the exit interview feedback.

  customer satisfaction is low and you need to do something with that face prosthetic is a problem but can’t you get a surgeon just to clear it up so we can’t see this working out for everyone because these vets are sensitive and with your attitude is a problem and we really don’t think

  Decent hit rate today for placements. End of business day imminent. Pain levels nominal, which was nice because the doctor kept telling me I’d eventually become resistant to some of the stronger pain relief, the kind that got me to sleep through a solid night.

  The lights dimmed on cue and I struggled to my feet, leaning heavily on the desk. I caught a glimpse of the wall behind me: Anka, Gert-Jan, me. A goofy group high-five on a battlefield I recognised but couldn’t remember. I wouldn’t miss it.

  One life, no respawns, the motto said beneath it.

  It was supposed to be a curse to the enemy and a promise to the troops, not a corporate slogan. Not some shiny promise to burned-out high-tech soldiers, scrabbling to make sense of the normal world, whatever the hell that meant.

  I sucked an anticipatory breath against the pain and lurched towards the door, where Kolain and I regrouped, spinning in the centre of our units. Four-legged hound artillery cleared out the horizon beyond our line of sight, while several scouts wheeled out to telemeter the targets and locations to our visors. We fired single smart shots whenever the reticules on our helmet displays agreed with the tiny virtual intelligences in our guns, taking out barely visible enemy units before their scrambled visual systems could lock.

  A single contrail cut across the clear sky and then a silver confetti bloom burst above us. Kolain swore.
‘That’s it, jacks are out. EMP flak killed the whole damn network.’

  The units dropped back to local and autonomous modes, which suited me fine. I called back the infantry units, sent them left to flank an embedded cluster of targets, while I searched for cover in the smoke. I didn’t have a visual on Kolain, but her green blip in my visor reassured me.

  I spotted a tunnel opening to my right, hurried in while I shot commands to the artillery to lay a wall between me and the infantry. Stung by splinters of stone, I reached safety and tumbled into the elevator, leaned heavily against the wall to catch my breath.

  Before my units had cleared the field, Kolain’s green blip flickered, and I lost sight of her on the visor. I rapped at the helmet, the ancient ritual that miraculously realigned sensitive electronics. Gone.

  With my fingers still pressed to my temple, I pushed myself off the wall. When the elevator doors slid open, I stepped onto the sidewalk, tapped my wrist to summon an autocab, and tried to ignore a faulty streetlight sizzling in the rain. My own visual systems were almost entirely electronic and something in the frequency frizzed my left eye. Half my body was constantly on high alert, burning through my mental reserves, while the other half always felt like it ran a few milliseconds behind the rest of me, like watching your own hand through a digital camera lens. I closed my prosthetic hand … and my prosthetic hand closed. My brain had never let me obscure that lie.

  I checked the time, which was an excellent mission-critical obsession to have, and moments later the autocab pulled up. I clamped down on the urge to crouch for cover, to tap instructions and push units to the front and back to escort us home, send scouts around to divert traffic, artillery to lay down an exclusion zone. The autocab waited in the silence, mute to my frantic strategising.

  I took a careful breath. I leaned down painfully to climb in and shuffle onto the seat. ‘My place,’ I muttered, and the cab accelerated and drifted into the light traffic.

  No respawns was a lie. One life was a lie. I died out there and respawned back here, in this haphazard fan-made level.

  I glanced out the tinted windows, watched dimly lit buildings float past. I confirmed my team had me properly escorted, scouts running ahead, tracking enemy targets and sending back analytics in tiny encrypted bursts. ‘Yolo!’ Anka yelled hard in my earpiece, crackling through the static in my head. I twitched the softer corner of my mouth in a thin smile.

  That’s when the explosions started behind me in the office building. I counted the sharp sounds of them, the little destructive coughs.

  And Still the Forests Grow though we are Gone

  AC Buchanan

  The hero must always find his way through the enchanted forest. You can take the pick of the dangers that may lurk there: dragons or cannibalistic witches, nixies luring you to the river, or the forest itself, slithering into traps that bind you to your fate. The prize is usually a woman, of little interest to you, but you may still find wealth or a crown upon your head. There are many possibilities. This is your forest, after all.

  *

  Overhead you hear through your dreams the drone of engines, the Hercules filled with the last of the refugees – stubborn, to have left it this late – leaving the South Island. The North is already gone and the forest is closing in. You don’t know how long you’ll have left.

  *

  For the first time in years, you’re sharing the house with someone. Not just with someone, but with strangers, three of them, who’ve taken the spare bedroom, library, and office for their sleeping quarters, who cook in your kitchen and sit at the dining table playing cards in the evenings. You’ve let your house become a hub because it has a rainwater supply, a generator, and a septic tank, because you can’t really live alone and because Glenn built this house himself for you both and you can’t bear to leave it.

  You’ve learned, by now, to recognise these strangers’ footsteps on the hardwood floors, and that was Lauren who just walked past; hers are heavy, determined. She’s usually first in the shower – not that it matters, it’s always cold.

  It’s dark outside. You switch on your torch and pull on an old, but good-quality, pair of jeans and button up a shirt. The others will get breakfast in their dressing gowns, but you’re liable to be considered a doddery old man if you do, and if they doubt your capacity you may end up evacuated without your consent.

  There’s still bread left from the last food drop, so you can make a good breakfast with eggs and toast and canned beans. It’s not all bad. But as the light grows you can see kelp shoots pushing up through the grass, some no more than fifteen, twenty metres away. You’ll go and burn them off, of course, but they’ll come back. You’re not stupid enough to think you can win this war. There’s no breadcrumb trail out of this one.

  ‘Smells good.’ Wiremu Meihana squeezes past you to grab a plate. He’s a big lad – rugby player, you assume, when there were still enough people around to make more than one team. Bright too, a scientist. He worked on the kelp farms, in research and development. Perhaps that’s why he stays. Guilt. Or perhaps he believes he knows enough to solve this problem.

  You don’t tell him that you’re just as guilty.

  After a while, Lauren eats too, her hair smelling of floral shampoo she must have hoarded somewhere. You don’t care for yourself; you barely have any hair left, but it worries you. Selfishness, secrets, have the power to undo you all.

  ‘Nari up yet?’ Lauren asks. Wiremu shrugs. ‘We were going to go wring the necks of the chickens that have stopped laying.’ There’s a hint of pleasure in her voice. Nothing like making a guy raised in the city squirm.

  ‘Well, before that,’ you say, ‘let’s go burn back some of that kelp.’

  Lauren rolls her eyes. ‘Already? We did that yesterday.’

  ‘In case you hadn’t noticed,’ Wiremu says, ‘that shit grows pretty fast.’

  She slides into her walking boots and laces them tight and the three of you walk out into the dawn. There’s a hint of frost on the ground and it’s just cold enough to see your breath as you walk. Another party, parents and two teenagers, signal to you in greeting. If you look carefully, others are doing pretty much the same thing, walking the perimeter with blow torches, small fire extinguishers at the ready. Hoping to keep this last piece of land, hoping that by some miracle the kelp forests can be beaten back and the land can be saved.

  But the cities are in ruins and your time is short. Even over the past few weeks you’ve found yourself increasingly short of breath. You’ll be seventy next year and have resolved to die here, but that time may come sooner than you’d hoped.

  For now, you keep up with the others and hide any signs of exertion. Around you, against the horizon, the kelp forests are closing in, fifteen metres high and more. Brown slippery leaves towering against the sky, beckoning towards you in the gentle wind, filling the air with the salty, metallic scent of iodine.

  You’re not sure why this rugged section of Southland has been saved. Perhaps your efforts have helped, burning back each new shoot, but there were more than a million people in Auckland, with the Defence Force and aid from Australia behind them, and yet the city was still overrun by the seaweed. It pushed through cracks in the concrete, entangling itself around traffic lights and trees and then into the buildings, shattering glass as it grew through apartments and offices.

  ‘Maybe even the JAFAs were glad to see the back of it,’ Lauren had said, once. You laugh at anything you can these days.

  While the chickens are meeting their fate outside, you go round and collect the sheets from the beds. It’s been a while since they were washed and you think keeping up with chores like this is important for all your wellbeing. You pause when you get to the library, where you’d sat and read when Glenn was alive. It still has its rimu shelves – he made them himself – and many of the books, but it’s Nari’s bedroom now. So much of the past has been suc
ked away. You tell yourself that at least he didn’t have to witness this happening to the land he loved but, selfishly, you really need him here right now.

  *

  Your mother told you tales of the Black Forest, of the darkness beneath its evergreen canopy, of the ruined castles and the creatures which lurked within its depths. Of cottages that could transform to a palace, or the scene of your grisly death. Of dwarves and werewolves and virtuous peasant girls with selfish sisters.

  But that was hundreds of miles away, and the forests you grew up in were those of broken stone, bombed out shells of buildings, the debris of destruction and slow reconstruction. You were born as the Battle of Berlin drew to a close, shielded from the worst of the aftermath by a mother who fed you first, as mothers often do, and yet there was a slow trauma reverberating in you all your life. You were told your father died before you were born; perhaps it was true, and either way it was likely for the best.

  You were following a boy when you came to New Zealand, of course you were, but you were also looking for a place where the dust had settled and the air was still.

  *

  Sometimes you try to think back to the days before. It’s a guilty process with one question at the heart: what could we have done differently? But it would have been hard, even for those who ran the kelp farms, to predict how this would unfold, let alone for you, a retired small-town accountant.

  In those years the inevitable end was taking the form of rising temperatures and rising sea levels. A trajectory the world has not unshackled itself from, you remind yourself, though of course these islands have more immediate concerns. But then you thought salvation was an option, and kelp was just one potential saviour amongst many.