Ravagers [03.00] Deviate

by Alex Albrinck

  Interesting.

  Delaney kept a firm grip on Roddy’s arm, a grip Roddy knew could tighten to vice-like levels in an instant. With his hands bound, Roddy could do little to escape; he’d fall on his face if he attempted to move at anything beyond a brisk walking pace. He shuffled his feet along the rough, short carpeting, wondering if he could build up enough static discharge to zap his host.

  “About to start our mission, Delaney?” He tried to keep his tone jaunty, conversational. He suspected it came across as snarky. That was okay.

  “Not yet.” Delaney steered him across the wide walkway toward a series of double doors. People streamed in and out of the sets of doors, and from the ways those emerging from different doors conversed, Roddy deduced that there was a single large space behind all of them. “Before we go, Mr. Silver wanted me to familiarize you with the station and the effort we’ve put into everything. Why he’d like to kill you for leaving Deirdre behind, possibly jeopardizing centuries of work.”

  Centuries? Roddy blinked, his footsteps stuttering slightly. Had he misheard the man?

  Delaney chuckled. “No, that wasn’t a misstatement, Light. All that started on the surface as you and Mr. Silver left Diasteel Headquarters was the culmination of two centuries of effort. Of course, the most focused and visible actions in that sequence came about over the past decade or so, culminating in what’s going on down there now. Where Deirdre is.” He shook his head. “I should have kept my mouth shut about you.”

  Roddy felt a brief sense of glee. Nothing about Silver or Delaney’s comments suggested to Roddy that he’d want to do anything but foil their plans.

  Delaney steered him through the nearest set of double doors.

  He felt a sudden sense of overwhelming shock. The room stretched hundreds of yards to the left and right, larger than any single enclosed space he’d ever seen on the surface. Rows of electronics covered the floor; Roddy recognized the basic physical structure of computer servers and storage, mass quantities of cables snaking out the back and into the floor. Hundreds of people sat at tables and desks, viewing screens of information that flashed before their eyes. Many wore headsets, their faces tightened in heightened concentration as they listened to whatever sounds played. Though the entire area was crowded, Roddy noticed that several batches of servers seemed powered down; perhaps two thirds of the monitors sat unused. He had the sense that this space typically saw far more activity than evident at the moment. As if some major work effort had finished just recently.

  He swallowed.

  “You see this, Light?” Delaney leaned in close, the heat of his breath dusting Roddy’s skin. “This is where we learned and watched, decided the fate of millions of people. No matter what someone was doing, we knew about it. We knew about their Internet searches. We knew who they called on their phones, when, for how long, and we knew what they talked about. We knew about illnesses they suffered, genetic abnormalities and deficiencies they possessed, attitudes incompatible with our vision of the future. From here, Light, we picked the Select. Those are the people who met our definition of ideal humans, the ones who’d be allowed to participate when we rebuilt the world from scratch.”

  Roddy looked around. The computing power here was unfathomably huge. If they’d tapped into so many sources of information… it didn’t take much imagination to understand that they’d be able to uncover exactly the details Delaney described.

  It fit with what they’d told him upon his capture: that they’d extracted from danger all those designated to live in their future utopia before unleashing a weapon that would raze the land, destroy every inch of civilization, and kill everyone left behind.

  He swallowed again. Sweat dripped down his back. The evil in Delaney’s words and the effort they’d put into realizing their vision were both staggering. He wanted to faint, to drop dead, to not deal with what had happened right before his eyes. But fate wouldn’t let him die right now. Pride wouldn’t let him quit. “You’re a sick, sick man.”

  “No, Light. There aren’t any sick men left. We got ‘em all.” He snickered.

  Roddy lunged at him, slamming his forehead toward Delaney. The man easily evaded contact, and Roddy face-planted on the ground. He saw stars. Delaney’s voice came at him in a haze, words assuring the shocked women and men around them that Roddy had merely lost his balance, and Delaney would be helping him. His words suggested friendship, but Roddy felt the unnecessary roughness in the grip as he once more hauled the cuffed Roddy to his feet. Delaney leaned in close. “You’ve already lost this war, Light. Give it up.” His voice was low, and Roddy had little doubt that the man’s face showed amusement, one friend teasing another about clumsiness.

  Perhaps the bastards hadn’t filtered out people with that trait.

  Then again, Roddy hadn’t made the cut until Delaney opened his mouth and Oswald Silver intervened. He wondered what it was about him that made him at first unworthy in their eyes, then someone they desperately needed to save. Then he decided he didn’t want to know.

  Delaney steered him toward the far wall, away from the entry doors, then twisted him to the left. He gripped Roddy’s arm, forcing him to stop before a small alcove encased in thick glass. Roddy, much as he wanted to avoid looking at anything Delaney wished him to see, glanced inside. He saw a large, dark cube, made of a shiny metal that Roddy couldn’t identify. The cube’s markings and wear suggested a long existence. In fact…

  “That’s the real Time Capsule, isn’t it?” Roddy whispered.

  Delaney leaned in close. “It is.”

  “But then what do the Alliance governments—?”

  “Crude, far smaller replicas filled with abridged bits of information without much useful content. The original Capsule provided the instructions necessary to get here to the Station. Those who found it brought the Capsule here, studied the contents, and hatched the plan they’d use to create a rebuilt civilization of their own styling, in time. They created those replicas, buried them, then found those, generously sharing the new copies with their fellow survivors. That set off the course of events you know from history. Each advance carefully screened and selected here, each surface-dwelling heroic inventor and innovator hand-picked from on high, each new technology adjusted to increase the control and power of those running the world from miles above the surface.”

  Roddy laughed. “That’s the most ridiculous story I’ve ever heard, Delaney. Humanity’s on the brink of extinction, struggling to find enough to eat, yet when two people find this Capsule their first thought is to whisk away to space to plan for world domination.” He shook his head.

  Delaney smirked again. “Most people aren’t you, Light. Most people look for an edge in every situation and instant, the opportunity to control everything around us. If humanity had acted on pure altruism throughout our existence, I dare say we’d still be walking around wearing leaves and trying to fight predators with sticks. Or we’d be extinct. It’s that desire for control of our environment that’s propelled the rise of every human civilization.”

  “Control is something you look for after you’re assured of survival,” Roddy countered. “You don’t fight for the best parking spot while the herd of Hinterlands beasts surrounds you and makes you dinner. You don’t plot how to control elected officials while you’re sick and being left behind to die by the rest of your tribe. That’s just not how people act. Call it altruism or call it a survival instinct, but your story just doesn’t add up.”

  Delaney’s eyes carried a hint of amusement. “The people who found the original Capsule weren’t subject to the concerns you expressed, Light, and as such they most assuredly could think of longer-term strategies.”

  Roddy snorted. “And there goes the imagination once again. Humanity’s almost extinct, except for two special people immune to illness and injury who just happened to find the key to restoring civilization.” He laughed.

  “Laugh all you want, Light. It’s true. And there’s more to it than that. You see, Li
ght, the people who found the Capsule were alive at the time of its creation.”

  Roddy stared at Delaney. “I knew you were mad when I heard your ramblings about picking your Select and clearing the surface of everything else, Delaney. But the Capsule’s from the Golden Ages. A thousand years ago. People don’t live that long, especially those struggling to survive extinction.”

  “You’re wrong, Light. They did live that long, and still do. You don’t live that long if your body isn’t immune from illness and disease, or if you can’t heal from wounds and broken bones in a remarkably quick manner. The limited dining fare would be a challenge, sure, but staying alive wasn’t.”

  “So two people over a thousand years old—”

  “There were more than two, and the two in question were thirteen hundred or more years old, but go on.”

  Roddy rolled his eyes. “These impossibly old people lived long enough to show up just when the Capsule emerges from hiding, and thus needn’t concern themselves with using the technology for survival. They’ve got that part figured out.”

  “Exactly. Those people didn’t live just long enough to find the Capsule, though. They’re still alive and well. And because they’d lived so long, they had the patience required to think everything through, understand the ramifications, and, yes, figure out how they’d control the rebuilding of civilization to avoid all the mistakes made in the past.”

  Roddy shook his head. “This is stupid and utter madness and evil.”

  “No, Light. This is current reality and the vision of the future. You can choose to accept the facts or not, but that doesn’t change the truth.” Delaney grabbed his arm. “Let’s go.”

  Roddy let himself be led away, focusing his attention on escape. He’d been working on his cuffs, which were made of a translucent, string-like material. He’d used his fingernails to splinter the strands a bit. With enough time, he’d get his hands separated. Then he’d beat the hell out of Delaney, get to his ship, and fly home.

  Not that he had a home left on the surface, by all accounts. But once he reached his ship and got away from this place, he could think, come up with a plan, and take down Delaney and Silver.

  Delaney steered him subtly back toward the double entry doors and out, moving them back to the main corridor connecting all of the rooms and compartments of the station. Roddy hadn’t realized the noise levels of the monitoring room until they were a dozen paces away from the doors; the rest of the Station seemed silent in comparison.

  Delaney led him along the corridor in the direction they’d traveled to reach the Time Capsule room. “Humanity had lost a great deal, Light. Population had dwindled to historical and even pre-historic lows. What hurt us was the combined loss of the technical advantages of civilization—medicine, abundant access to nourishing foods, safety from attacks by predators—as well as the random and even cruel nature of the particular people lost. Rock slides took out the fastest runners; the best hunters didn’t always win the battle with their prey; and, to use your own example, freak accidents might lead to a simple bone fracture that cost the victim his life. Humanity ought to get better over time, as the species reproduced with its best and left its worst behind. The devastation in previous catastrophes meant we regressed as a species. That couldn’t happen, not if the vision of a perfect society was to happen, and even failing that, not if we as a species were to survive at all. We had to take action. And we did.”

  “How noble.” It was difficult to pull off the sneer given his captivity, but Roddy managed it. “I take it methods to reverse the so-called decline were identified, then.”

  “Of course. The genetic potential was there in the survivors, even if not actively expressed in the individuals. We needed more people, needed to get those genes expressed again, let individuals choose each other because they’d see those better traits, strengthen everything. We needed to rebuild the gene pool and make it deeper. We needed to restore the population, preferably quickly. That’s why we encouraged a societal expectation toward large families. True, in the earliest days it was necessary to avoid dying out before the plan would see its fruition. Those rapidly growing numbers allowed for the continual observation of the human population, continued tweaking of the definition of what it meant to be Select, and even selective… pruning, even in the earliest days. We finally hit the point where there were enough people meeting our definition that we could act.”

  Roddy glared at him as he slit through another strand of the bonds. “So you unleashed this weapon and killed all the people you didn’t like.” He shook his head. “A little dangerous, isn’t it? You might kill off some of your special Select people.”

  “A legitimate concern.” Delaney either didn’t notice Roddy’s disdain, or didn’t care. “We’d built different sanctuary areas where the Select could live, or migrate when the time for the Purge approached. And of course there’s plenty of room here in the Station, and many opted to take advantage of the opportunity to live in outer space.”

  “What’s the weapon? A bomb?”

  “Nothing so crude, Light. Robots. Robots so small you can’t see them, programmed to seek out and dissolve to dust everything they touch.”

  “Brilliant!” Roddy sneered, shaking his head. “Kill all the people, raze all the buildings, and destroy all the crops and soil and animals you need to eat. Oops! Can’t live on the planet anymore.”

  Delaney sucked in a deep breath, his face taut with worry. “Oh, shit. We are so screwed.” Then he laughed. “Seriously, Light? This has been in the works for decades. Do you really think we’d leave ourselves without food?”

  “Given the implications, I was hoping for just such an oversight.”

  “Hope all you want. Failure like that means you’ll die now as well. Like it or not, you’re one of us.”

  “I’ll never be one of you.” Roddy put as much venom into his tone as he could, hoping the anger hid the faint sound of another strand breaking.

  “You wouldn’t have been, if I’d kept my mouth shut and hadn’t told Mr. Silver about you and your… specialness.”

  “What is it about me that’s so special?” Part of him felt nettled at the fact that he’d been judged inferior in the first place, while part of him was pleased he’d not been chosen to be part of the genocidal maniacs running the show. But he couldn’t fathom what Delaney noticed that made him worth Oswald Silver’s direct intervention.

  “You’ve been here long enough that you ought to be able to tell me.”

  “I truly haven’t the slightest idea.” Snap. Another strand gone.

  “Then I’ll tell you. You won’t believe me, or want to accept what I tell you any more than you wanted to believe me about the immortality of several of our Select.”

  “You’re such a good storyteller, though, Delaney. Humor me on my way to the gallows.”

  Delaney’s grip tightened. “I mentioned that several men and women living today were alive during what we now call the Golden Ages. They developed a form of immortality.” At Roddy’s glare, Delaney rolled his eyes. “True immortality means the person cannot die, with the only exception usually being permanent decapitation. The individuals in question can die just like anyone else. You can shoot them, stab them, poison them, and so on. They’re stronger than most humans, so you might have to shoot them ten or twenty times. But they can die. They just don’t age.”

  “Keep talking. I’m taking notes.”

  “Funny, Light.”

  “That’s my unique skill, isn’t it? Adding humor to your otherwise dull existences?”

  “If you were being judged on humor, Light, you would have been dead a long time ago.”

  “Rats.”

  “That immortality was only part of what made these individuals extraordinary. They also developed mental powers that society today would dismiss as impossible, magic from the realm of fantasy.”

  “So immortal magic users?” Roddy glanced around. “Where are you hiding the elves and dwarves?” He feigned a loo
k of horror. “This entire space station is really a giant fire breathing dragon, isn’t it? Sorry, man, I left my sword down on the surface.”

  “I really do look forward to killing you at some point, Light.” He cleared his throat. “Those mental powers gave them profound advantages over others, giving them the ability to dominate society, steering things according to their will.”

  “Now I believe you about the immortality, Delaney. Sounds like exactly the type of mindset one would expect from you and the other Phoenix bastards.” Snap. Another strand gone.

  “Those powers included the ability to move objects with their minds and without physical contact. They also included the capacity to initiate accelerated healing, which meshed well with the immortality previously mentioned.” He paused, coming to a stop, and jerked Roddy’s arm. Roddy spun to a stop and faced Delaney, who peered at him with an intense gaze. “And it also included the ability to sense the thoughts and emotional states of others with unerring accuracy.”

  Roddy felt a chill.

  He’d always thought himself exceptionally perceptive, more skilled at reading minute physical cues and body language than others. It made it impossible to deceive him, and he’d served as an unofficial arbiter of disputes among the soldiers. Delaney had watched him. Delaney knew, based upon his experiences, it wasn’t just a developed skill at reading nuanced non-verbal communication.

  The truth wasn’t one he’d wanted to face. “I’m… one of them?”