The Exodus Towers: The Dire Earth Cycle: Two

by Jason M. Hough

  Tania frowned. The cord generated electricity due to friction with the atmosphere, something the stations tapped as a backup source. The climbers relied on the source exclusively to make their journeys. A change in that would be catastrophic.

  “Everything’s fine now,” Tim said. “Greg says all systems are reading normal up there.”

  Memories of Darwin’s Elevator malfunctions raced through Tania’s mind. Nothing like this, but still, if something similar was happening again … “Put all stations on maximum alert. All personnel should be required to check in. If the aura failed …”

  “Already done. Commanders will report within the hour.”

  “Thanks, Tim. Keep me posted.” Her hand shook as she switched the intercom off.

  Tania sat cross-legged on the floor of Room 17, her chin resting on steepled fingers.

  The room, which had been stocked to the brim with weaponry by Neil Platz, was all but empty now. A few crates remained here and there, mostly gear no one knew what to do with. That simple fact seemed to encapsulate for her everything about the state of the so-called colony. Gear and resources depleted, and no one who knew what the hell they were doing.

  She sighed, exhausted from the mental effort it took to stop thinking, even in brief spans, about the fate of the aircraft she’d sent down to the planet below. Crew and craft lost, and they hadn’t even made it to the edge of Camp Exodus. By any measurement the entire endeavor had been a complete fiasco.

  The bizarre fluctuation along the cord didn’t exactly help her nerves, but all personnel were accounted for and there’d been no repeats of the event.

  Failings aside, what bothered Tania more was that she had no idea what to do next. The strike team had been her last-ditch effort. She glanced around the nearly empty room. “You’d know what to do, wouldn’t you?” she asked, her voice echoing from the walls. She wasn’t quite sure if she’d meant the question for Neil Platz, or for Skyler.

  The soft sound of a key-card swipe came to her from outside, and the door behind her opened.

  “There you are.” Tim, of course.

  “Here I am.” She felt immediate guilt for the unappreciative tone in her words. He’d been trying, hard, to lift her from the melancholy she’d fallen into since the failed rescue. It seemed wholly unfair to treat him badly for the effort.

  “I brought chai,” he said. “Can I sit with you?”

  With a sigh she hoped she’d hid, Tania nodded and patted the floor next to her.

  He handed her one of two mugs and mirrored her cross-legged position. “Spared no expense,” he said, gauging her reaction.

  The cup had a twist-on lid and when Tania opened it the warmth and smells contained within hugged her like an old friend. “This is the good stuff, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Mm-hmm. You gave me two bags of it for an early simulation result, a few years ago.”

  “I remember,” she said, lying.

  “Been saving it,” he added, then sipped. Tim winced from the heat and set his cup down. “Oh, blimey but that’s hot. Might want to wait a minute.”

  Tania followed his lead. In truth she was content just to let the complex, spicy scent drift up and around her. It smelled like her mother’s kitchen. “Thank you for the tea,” she said earnestly. “And the company.”

  “No problem.” He shrugged, settled himself. “So what are we doing in here? Concocting a new plan?”

  “I wish,” Tania said. “Unfortunately I don’t think we have many options left. I mean, look at this place. We’re overextended everywhere. No supplies are coming up. Who knows what the hell is going on in camp.…”

  She let her voice trail off. Tim knew all this, and the last thing Tania wanted to do was rehash it all again.

  Tim, mercifully, said nothing. He tried his tea again, hissed through clenched teeth, and set the cup back down. “You think you have problems—I can’t even boil water right.”

  Tania elbowed him, laughed lightly at his mock show of pain. “Anything new to report on that vibration that the cord exhibited?” she asked.

  “It was some kind of power surge, we know that much. Beyond that, nothing new. No damage reported, at least.”

  “How’s Zane?” she asked, desperate to change the subject.

  “He retired early. Between us, I think all this stress is getting to him. He’s always tired, and doesn’t eat enough.”

  “Sounds like he’s the one who needs chai,” Tania said.

  Tim grunted, and looked over at her. “If you’re saying I should leave …”

  Tania turned and met his gaze. Even in the dark room, she could see the sparkle of intelligence and energy in his eyes. “I’m trying to find any excuse not to think about our dire situation.”

  “A distraction,” he concluded. “Good. Did you, er, have something in mind?”

  Tania searched his eyes. “Yes,” she said sternly. “Let’s make Zane some dinner.”

  Tim readily agreed, and for the next hour they took over the mess kitchen. The meal had to be improvised, but Tania thought the result was a reasonable curry, something she knew Zane loved.

  They called him down from his cabin and the three of them ate together, even shared a bottle of wine. To Tania’s delight, for that evening at least, no one mentioned the plight they faced. For the first time in a while, they were just three friends sharing the simple, sacred pleasure of a meal well prepared.

  Belém, Brazil

  5.MAY.2283

  SKYLER AND DAVI lay side by side in the brush at the top of a small rise.

  Ana worked in silence behind them, securing their excess gear. She’d become more and more withdrawn during the last stage of their trek. When Skyler asked, Davi had chalked it up to fatigue.

  Skyler held a scavenged pair of binoculars to his eyes, scanning the shallow valley below while Davi used the scope on his hunting rifle. Skyler had found the weapon, too, and spent an hour each morning for the last few days teaching Davi how to use and clean it. The young man had none of Jake’s natural skill, but he could hit a target if he focused.

  The lodge appeared intact. Beyond it stood a barn, doors closed and latched, the muddy ground in front churned and laced by tire tracks.

  A dirt road, obscured by knee-high weeds, served as the primary way in and out of the complex.

  “Fresh tire tracks,” Skyler said. He kept his voice low.

  “I see them. This is the place.”

  Over days of cat-and-mouse with Gabriel’s people through the streets of Belém, Skyler’s radio picked up the needed hint to find the hidden immunes: a call to help free a truck stuck in mud. From that they knew the road being used by Gabriel’s people to move back and forth between their base of operations and the colony at Belém’s Elevator. Tracing their exact path proved easy enough, as the heavy military vehicles Gabriel’s people used left plenty of evidence in their wake.

  Skyler pulled the binoculars away from his face and took in the whole scene below him.

  A shallow ravine lay below, carved by a thin stream that snaked down from lush foothills to the west. Morning fog obscured the eastern end of the valley, where the grassy field gave way to rainforest, and the stream met a stronger river.

  Nestled in the center of the valley, in a wide clearing, was a lodge. A tourist hotel, Skyler judged, with maybe twenty rooms on two stories. A barn stood a short distance from the main building.

  Two black personnel carriers were parked between the two structures. Neither had moved since dawn, nor had any signs of activity within the buildings been seen. The quiet made Skyler wonder if the location had already been abandoned, but the presence of the two vehicles threw doubt on that theory.

  “Let’s go,” Davi said. “They’re probably all sleeping.”

  Skyler caught movement through his binoculars. “Hold up.”

  Three men marched along the ridgeline on the opposite side of the valley. Skyler put them at half a kilometer away. Only their heads were visible above the weeds.r />
  “See ’em?”

  “I see ’em,” Davi said. “Keep still.”

  They watched the men for a tense few minutes as the trio worked their way toward the lodge.

  Davi sucked in his breath as they came into full view. “What the hell?”

  Through the binoculars, Skyler saw something that raised goose bumps on his arms.

  An old man with a thick gray beard led the group. The other two each carried long metal poles, with loops of rope at the end.

  The ropes were lashed around the neck and torso of a woman, or what was once a woman. The subhuman was nude, filthy, and very much alive. She bled openly from a number of lacerations on her belly and legs.

  “Jesus,” Skyler said. “Davi.”

  “I see it.”

  “They captured a sub.”

  “I fucking see it,” he hissed. The young man glanced back at Ana.

  Skyler looked, too. Twenty meters away, her back to a tree trunk, the girl worked methodically to load the new weapon he’d given her. The compact assault rifle fired small .22-caliber rounds, easy to handle but lacking punch. That shortcoming was made up for by the grenade launcher slung under the barrel.

  Skyler broached the question he so desperately wanted to keep inside. “Are you sure you want her to come with us? She could guard our bags.”

  “She comes,” Davi said. “Trust me, she gets very upset if you try to shelter her.”

  “Okay then.”

  “But,” Davi added, “if you could give her the least dangerous part in the plan …”

  “I understand,” Skyler said. He meant it, even though he knew it would be impossible to do. There were too many unknowns. But it couldn’t hurt to give Davi a little reassurance.

  He made a took-took sound through pursed lips. Ana glanced up and waved back. She finished loading the gun and jogged up the hillside to join them on the ridge, crawling the last few meters before lying next to Skyler. The corners of her lips were curled up in the hint of a smile. She was, Skyler realized, enjoying this. Her mirth drained when she saw the men below with their captive subhuman.

  Davi fiddled with the scope on his sniper rifle and took a long, measured breath. “What’s the plan—”

  The subhuman prisoner, now twenty meters from the lodge, clutched at the bar that held her torso and began to howl, her nose held high in the air.

  “She smells something,” Skyler whispered. Us?

  A response came from somewhere inside the lodge. Ten voices, maybe more, took up the same, wild, subhuman cry. Something rang different about it, though. Skyler had heard such cries all over the world, and they always sounded the same. These, from the building, sounded feeble. Weak.

  Skyler swallowed hard and said, “I’ve got a really fucking bad feeling about this.”

  The two immunes who held the female captive in the valley below struggled to keep her under control. She began to buck violently, left and right and again. One of the men slipped. The leader, in front, turned and walked back to them. He was shouting something, impossible to make out against the wailing of those within the lodge.

  “Here’s the plan,” Skyler said. “We’ll surround the lodge—”

  Ana leapt to her feet and rushed down the hill. She ran hard, holding her rifle across her chest. Not even a glance back.

  Skyler started to shout after her, but reason won out. The immunes were too busy with their prisoner to notice the woman racing toward them. She would cross the distance in no time at her adrenaline-fueled pace.

  If she had some kind of death wish, Skyler hadn’t caught it before. Though in hindsight, her dancing alone in that courtyard had a suicidal aftertaste to it.

  “Ana, Jesus!” Davi hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Don’t panic,” Skyler said. “Take a shot before they spot her.”

  Ana was less than fifty meters from the men now. Davi took a deep breath. He sighted downrange, and on an exhale let off a round.

  The big leader’s head jerked wildly. He sank to his knees and toppled over.

  The thunderous sound from the rifle brought a brief shocked silence from all around.

  Davi wasted no time, unleashing two more bullets in rapid succession. Panic filled the valley. The second of the three men dove to the dirt, letting go of his metal pole in the process. The bullets meant for him did nothing more than generate two puffs of dust from the trail.

  Skyler watched as Ana crouched down. She raised her rifle and began firing at the third enemy.

  The man shoved the subhuman toward Ana, turned, and hustled away for the safety of a small mound. The subhuman spun in circles, poles still attached to her, moving like a frenzied animal.

  Another deafening clap from the hunting rifle dropped the subhuman in a whoosh of dirt and outstretched limbs. She twitched on the ground only for a second, and then nothing.

  Skyler heard the sound of breaking glass, coming from the lodge. He saw a shotgun barrel poke out of a window on the side of the building facing the valley. It was far enough away from all of them to be of no concern, but it meant the three immunes were not alone here.

  Battle instinct took over.

  “I’ll flank,” Skyler blurted. He was up and moving, keeping low behind the edge of the ridge.

  As he ran, he heard the battle continue. Another salvo from Ana’s gun. Two shots from a gun he hadn’t heard yet, from somewhere in the valley. Davi answered those with another booming shot.

  Skyler angled for a thin copse of trees that bookended one side of the lodge. He kept his machine gun angled low, at the ready. As he rounded the edge of the wooden house, the sounds behind him faded, until he heard nothing but his own labored breath. He paused to gather himself, just for a few seconds, then crouched below the window height and moved along the back wall of the structure.

  At the far edge, he took a quick look around the building before bouncing back. Two more of the immunes stood next to an open door. One held a pipe wrench. The other’s hands were not visible, but from the way he stood, Skyler suspected he had a handgun.

  Best not to take any chances.

  Skyler jumped around the corner and lined up the holographic dot his gun provided on the second man’s back. He squeezed off a controlled burst, adjusted, and followed it with another. The two men were dead.

  Surprise no longer on his side, Skyler moved up to the door the men had come through. He peeked quickly inside, but found it too dark to make much out.

  Then the howling started again, from within. The sound was gut-wrenching. More pitiful than frightening.

  There were, he realized, other shouts mixed in. Human cries for help.

  Skyler flattened himself against the wall by the door. Off to his left, he saw nothing along the trail except dirt. The occasional echo of a gunshot rolled down the valley floor to him.

  Then Ana appeared, running toward him, her gun pointed down as he’d shown her.

  He motioned for her to stop and luckily she saw him. The girl crouched next to a shrub beside the trail.

  Skyler pointed at his gun, then at her, then at the barn. Secure the barn, he mouthed.

  She looked from her weapon to the large wooden structure and nodded.

  Satisfied, Skyler renewed his focus on the door to the lodge. He readied himself to rush in when Ana’s movement caught his eye.

  Or rather, her lack of movement. She wasn’t moving toward the barn—she was taking aim on it.

  Realization hit him just as she fired the grenade launcher.

  Skyler covered his ears as the massive rolling door on the front of the barn exploded into a million shards of thin wood.

  Then a second, much bigger explosion hit. Skyler was slammed into the wall of the lodge by the force of it. He dropped to a fetal position and threw his arms over his face as shrapnel peppered the entire area. Even from here he could feel a flash of intense heat.

  Every window on the lodge shattered. Bits of flaming debris smacked into the walls and roof.

&n
bsp; More blasts followed. Skyler peeked between his elbows and saw nothing but a cloud of smoke where the barn had stood a moment earlier. Gabriel’s people must have been storing explosives inside, or fuel of some sort. Hopefully no one friendly was in there.

  The worst of it over, Skyler leapt to his feet and ducked inside.

  The main hall ran deep into the building, into darkness. On either side were empty door frames, every three meters. Anyone waiting inside would expect an intruder to enter the first room, so Skyler bolted right past the first two openings.

  The tactic worked. Two gunshots, one from either side of him, both late. They shook the walls of the old building, nothing more. Skyler saw that the next door on his right was a bathroom. He ran into it, stopped abruptly, and pressed himself against the tiled wall.

  He closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened them, his vision had adjusted to the darkness.

  Skyler realized that the subhuman wailing came from below. A basement, then. Cries for help came from both below and above.

  A creak from the floorboard in the hall focused him. Skyler half-spun out of the bathroom. He gave himself a split second to make sure Davi or Ana hadn’t followed him in. They hadn’t.

  An older woman stood in the hallway, overweight, dressed only in a threadbare nightgown. She raised a shotgun, aiming from her waist—a clumsy motion. The weapon discharged into the wall a meter from Skyler.

  He answered with two rounds. One took her in the gut, one in the chest. She gurgled as she slumped to the floor.

  Eyes adjusted, Skyler now saw the interior of the main hall. He stalked toward the front of the house, stepping over the old hag’s corpse.

  He’d heard two shots when he first entered. Someone was still there, he knew; he did a somersault across the entryway.

  A shot rang out, hissing through the air above him, where his head would have been. He came up firing, a rat-tat that shook the very walls. The bullets hit the chest of a teenage boy, adding two red holes to his dingy shirt. The kid fell backward with the impact, lifeless, landing on an overturned milk crate, smashing it with his weight.

  A damn kid! Skyler had no time for remorse and shoved the look on the boy’s face aside. The sound of footsteps drifted down from above. From the second floor.