by Eyal Kless
“Two dozen? Are you sure?”
“Closer to thirty, actually, and they are combat ready. We must have alerted them when we crossed the outer gate.”
Vincha nodded, her hair twitching. “There’s a lot of chatter on their Comm. We did not have enough juice to cloak, so they picked up the shark. They know we’re coming and they’re waiting for us.”
I’d stood between these two veterans during a fight in a place called Margat’s Den. It was like walking through the eye of a storm, but this time the foe was much deadlier.
Galinak checked his heavy gun. “What’s the plan? We wait for them to get curious? Pick them off one at a time? Find a back door? Create a diversion? Use some elegant diplomacy?” He turned his head and winked at me.
To my relief Vincha shook her head. “We can’t storm the place on our own.”
“Sure, we can,” Galinak argued. “Ten to one, we’ve faced worse odds before.”
“You and I might be able to handle this”—Vincha pointed her thumb in my direction—“but Twinkle Eyes is not going to hack it. No offence, Twinkle.”
“Oh, believe me, none taken,” I said. “We could try to climb the side of the building and sneak onto the top platform and into the Long Tube, but then we’d have to wait inside until whatever runs it decides it’s time to go.”
“I don’t have that kind of time.” Vincha’s brow furrowed. “And I can’t risk getting hurt, not when Emilija is on her way to meet a mass murderer who will use her and then . . .” Vincha suddenly turned on the engine. The constant beeping began again, but this time with more urgency.
“What are we going to do now?”
“Plan B,” she said, and we were slammed backwards as the shark sped away from the station.
“Vincha.” I raised my voice above the constant beeping. “I can’t but notice we are heading straight towards the Broken Sands.”
“Stop stating the obvious and direct me so we’re under the Tube tracks,” she said as we picked up more speed.
I looked up, my gaze penetrating the roof of the shark. The tracks were to our right and then they veered even farther away. When I looked back down there was only time for me to say, “Vincha, there’s a drop from here to the . . .” The rest was swallowed by both Galinak’s and my own shouts of terror as Vincha drove us off the ledge. We were dropping like a stone when Vincha changed midair to hovercraft drive mode. We scraped quite a lot of sand before stabilizing.
“Damn,” Galinak moaned. “I hope you treat your lovers better than you treat your ride.”
“We’re running out of power very fast in hover mode,” Vincha shouted. “Twinkles, use your rusting eyes and tell me when we’re just under the tracks.”
It took only a couple of seconds before the power gem was completely depleted, and we landed nose down into the sand, thankfully not from so high up as to make it deadly. Sand immediately began to gather on the windshield.
“So much for plan B,” I said.
“Are we under the rusting tracks?”
I looked up and concentrated. “Just about.”
“Just about will have to do. Now I need to reverse the magnets of the hovercraft and find a power source to light this baby up for just a fraction of a moment. Galinak, I need to get under the shark.”
“Vincha,” I said, “we’re sinking. Can’t you feel it?”
It was true—we landed pretty deep and the sand was already as high as the doors.
“Right.” Vincha hesitated for a moment, then ducked under her seat. “Galinak, I need you to rip this metal panel open, right now.”
Galinak bent down. There was a crunching sound and both of them straightened up holding a lot of wires. I glanced to the side; the sand was already at window height and the air was getting stuffy. For the first time I felt panic beginning to rise in me. I did not want to die. To disappear like that from the face of the Earth. To slowly suffocate buried in sand . . . Vincha literally slapped me back into action.
“Take it, Twinkle Eyes.” I saw the butt of her power gun and grasped it before I realised what I was doing. Her hair was twitching in the air and she was looping several cords together.
“Now, look with your twinkly eyes just to the right of the steering wheel. There is a small box inside, can you see it?”
All I could think of was the sand slowly entombing the three of us.
“Rust, Twinkle Eyes, can you see it?” Vincha shouted.
“Yes.”
“Good. On my mark you shoot it with the power gun on full energy blast. That will give us a burst of power.”
“And ruin the shark, possibly blowing us up?” Galinak added.
“Better get blown up than die slowly,” Vincha said, and ducked low, holding the wires. “Don’t miss.”
I leaned forward as far as I could and aimed the power gun above Vincha’s head.
“Now,” Vincha ordered, and I squeezed the trigger. There was the distinct burning smell of melted carbon and metal, and suddenly the car engine lit up. A heartbeat later the shark burst upwards from the sand and the world was turned upside down. I hit my head, but my body dulled the pain as it registered damage.
When I got my bearings, I realised we were driving between the tube tracks, high above the ground, blue lightning crackling around us and smoke coming out of the dashboard.
“You’ll have to extinguish any fires,” Vincha said between tight lips as she concentrated on driving.
“I guess plan B was a success.” Galinak managed to strap himself back into his seat. “Good thinking, Vinch.”
“Thanks,” Vincha said, then added, “Didn’t think we’d flip upside down, though. That was a surprise.”
“Any chance you could flip us back?” I was lying on the shark’s roof. “This is getting a little uncomfortable.”
“Don’t think so,” Vincha said. “The shark is constantly pulling downwards. I ain’t trying anything that might endanger the magnetic hold.”
“Do you know how long it will take us to get there?” I asked.
“Your shot fried the system and the dashboard display. I’m just driving us from one pair of Tarkanian tracks to the next. We’ll get there soon enough.”
“And how are we going to land when we get there?”
“We’ll figure that out when we get there,” Vincha replied, then added under her breath, “Just like old times.”
Chapter 64
Peach
A patrol found us the next morning. They were dressed in body armour and helmets, but each had a different weapon, rifles, machine guns, power pistols, and even shoulder cannons. They were geared more like a glorified militia than a military unit, but there was no doubt about their training. To their credit, they knew who they were looking for and were not unnecessarily brutal. Perhaps the fact that the strange and intimidating Lizard had disappeared into the night soon after we crash-landed helped keep things civil and relatively calm. My weapons were taken from me, but they handed us face masks and goggles, and I wasn’t bound or otherwise mistreated.
We were escorted to the top of the hill on foot, then driven the rest of the way to the base in an old fossil-fuelled truck that had a light machine gun mounted on top of it. The entire area was devoid of trees or plants, and the slightest breeze brought up large clouds of dust, partly blocking the sun and making the whole area gloomy and relatively dark. Sergiu waved at me once or twice, but with the masks and goggles and covered in sand, it was impossible to communicate further. Emilija was sitting next to Sergiu, almost unnaturally still, staring from behind her goggles and mask. I doubted she would have said anything even without her facial protection.
With no one to talk to, I used the time to watch the land we were passing, trying to identify places and areas I had spent plenty of time in, but it really had been in another lifetime. Catching a glimpse of my past was easier to do when I was in Tarkania or even in the ruined city I woke up in, where everything had pretty much remained the same. With the dust everywhere
and many of the buildings not surviving the passage of time, it was much more difficult to find a familiar landscape. Here and there I saw a few buildings that had been converted into impressively large greenhouses, and in many spots water-gathering, cone-shaped structures and wind turbines had been placed. I saw old petrol-engine generators around many of the greenhouses and several solar plates as well. The few people we passed were wearing worn-looking face masks to protect them from the sand. For some reason, a few of them were also wrapped in tinfoil. I turned my head and watched the Star Pillar. We were still several miles away from the mountain that served as its base, but it was so huge it felt like I could just reach out and touch it.
I thought we would be heading straight to the mountain. To my surprise, the base we drove to was built on a remote hill halfway between the Star Pillar and the air train station. It was a very defensible spot; the surrounding wall was built from a mixture of Tarakan steel plates and other types of salvaged metal welded into a high wall. I spotted several rotating heavy cannons mounted on top of the wall together with cameras, and a forest of antennas and power cables crisscrossing aboveground. Once we passed the double gates and got inside there were hundreds of different electronic devices, most of them military grade. They even had several long-range satellite dishes. It wasn’t exactly a jump back into the twenty-fourth century, but it was close enough to warm my heart.
The buildings inside the base were mostly light mobile military structures, but there were a few more sturdy ones. I’d spent enough time as a soldier to be able to identify each structure just by the type of activities happening next to it. There were several barracks, a field hospital, and a computing centre with enough power cables coming out of it to indicate it could support a Sentient Program. The air vents were a sure sign of an underground level. We might have been on top of an emergency supply bunker, and if that was the case, the base was larger than it looked. If the emergency bunker was still in operation, printing essential supplies on a regular basis make would life under these harsh conditions much more bearable.
The men and women who were not wearing helmets were all hairless, their skin showing different degrees of exposure to radiation. They all walked with purpose, and only a few turned their heads to see us dismount from the truck. The rest were too busy or focused to get distracted. I noted to myself that whoever was in charge had created an impressive base of operations. In modern times this would only be a light military target. Hard to conquer on land, but if push came to shove it could have been dealt with from space or with long-range missiles. But these were not modern times, and this small group might have been one of the strongest military forces in the land.
Emilija was immediately taken away. She walked accompanied by Sergiu without looking back or even glancing in my direction. Sergiu was the one to turn back. He waved and said, “I’ll see you soon, Colonel Major, try to rest and—” he paused just for a second before adding “—behave.”
I contemplated his warning as I was led to the barracks through a decontamination process. The hairless soldier who led the way was a veteran who could have been in his thirties, sixties, or anything in between. When we got through the decontamination process, he turned and ordered me to spread my arms to the sides. When I complied, he measured me with a long tape. Then he shoved a thin cloth towel into my hands and indicated a door. “Shower over there, you’ve got five whole minutes. Believe me, it’s a treat.”
“I do believe you,” I said. “How long have you been serving here?”
The man grimaced. “Long enough to know when not to answer questions. Now get to it.”
He was right. The shower was a treat, even though it was a particle shower, so no real water touched my vessel’s body. Still, I felt refreshed when I stepped out. A bald female soldier kept watch as a uniform approximately my size was brought in, including a pair of baggy but thermal underwear, a belt, and a pair of boots. As I was dressing, I noticed both man and woman had grey, pasty-colored skin that could have been the result of several intense radiation-flush treatments. Any question or comment I fired in their direction was answered with stone-cold silence. I guessed those were their orders.
I spent some time idle, sitting and then lying on a cot, waiting for something to happen. Eventually a third soldier walked in, and I was escorted back out of the barracks. I was expecting to be taken to an audience with a man sitting on some kind of a throne, but instead I was taken to the far side of the camp, where repairs were being made on some dug-up pipeline.
A frail-looking old man was standing on top of a mound, looking down at a dozen workers who were toiling in a ditch. He looked terrible—hairless, gaunt, and grey skinned, and without protective gear or even goggles to protect his red-rimmed eyes. The grey uniform he wore hung on his shapeless thin frame. He looked pretty much like an upright corpse.
As I approached, he pointed down and said in a rasping voice which nevertheless carried well, “Make sure that plate is welded.” Half a dozen workers rushed immediately to fulfil his order. The man turned his head towards me as I made my way up the mound. With all his emanating frailty and sickness, I had to admit that he was also radiating power and authority. There was no doubt who was in charge here. When I was within earshot he said, “When you need something done well, make sure you stand right there when it is being done.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I answered curtly.
He turned completely towards me. “I am Mannes, or . . .” He tilted his head as if trying to remember. “Dr. Mannes Holtz, deputy head of computer and science engineering.”
The name rang a bell and the title was high ranking.
“And you are Colonel Major Vera Geer, although Sergiu told me you refer to yourself as ‘Peach’ these days. Interesting nickname. A very unlikely one, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
His sunken eyes scrutinized me as I answered, “What can I say? I woke up in a new world, might as well begin with a new name.”
“You had a creature with you, some sort of a Lizard.” Mannes no doubt had been briefed by his underling, but he wanted to double-check. A cautious move.
“Yes, we were four, but the Lizard you mentioned disappeared the night we landed—together with my gear, by the way.” It happened as I was trying to secure the balloon on the ground. One moment it was standing motionless next to Emilija, the next it had snatched my medibag and was charging into the night with a speed I would never have been able to match, even with ESM.
“Interesting.” Mannes’s brow was so wrinkled I could only guess he was frowning. “That is the action of an intelligent being. Do you think it is sentient?”
“No doubt about it, and very attached to Emilija. It is surprising it has left her side.”
“Emilija claims she told him to leave, that she gave him an assignment, although she did not tell me what this assignment might be.”
“That is news to me, but this whole business is quite strange,” I said. “And while we are on the subject, I was hoping you could, perhaps, brief me about what the fuck happened.” I did not plan it, but the last bit came out as a shout. Many turned their heads towards us and I felt the soldiers behind me tense but Mannes seemed to be unaffected by my sudden outburst.
“I think that by now you must know what happened,” he said. “A world war was a dangerous prospect. You must have been aware of it, with the type of work you were doing.”
“Yes, I was aware,” I said, trying to control myself. “And I wrote memos warning about rising tensions and the consequences of our actions.”
Mannes’s lower face moved in a strange way, and it took me a moment to realise he was smiling. “‘Wrote memos about it?’ Have you read your history, my dear hibernating agent? World War One began at a time when there was no real hunger, no famine, no reason for one nation to survive at the expense of another, yet it utterly destroyed a whole continent and several powerful nations, setting the stage for an even more vicious Second World War. I bet there were a few
memos written back then, warning about the dangers of the signed defence treaties combined with rising tension. All that was needed was a spark.”
“Still, even that war did not annihilate everything.”
“That’s because the weapons used in World War One were primitive.” Mannes took half a step towards me. “We are both from another time, you and I. Most likely the only living survivors of that era.”
“Perhaps that is true, but you lived for a hundred years before waking me up from the dead. I’d say you have a slight advantage in figuring out what went wrong.”
Mannes chuckled quietly. “Calling my situation an ‘advantage,’ now that’s a first. To answer your question, I long ago stopped concerning myself with what had been and focused on what is going to be, but”—he raised a hand before I could speak—“in the name of gracious hospitality and in repayment for your incredible service, I’ll indulge your curiosity. To state the obvious, another world war happened. Adam, Tarakan’s central SP, who pretty much ran everything, was infected with a malicious program which caused a chain reaction that brought us where we are now.”
“That is . . . impossible. The security protocols stop outside inter—”
“It was an inside job. A group of Tarakan programmers did it.”
“That is . . . still impossible. Are you sure?”
“I had almost a hundred years to make sure. I even know their names, but they are long dead and unable to answer questions. Now I concentrate my efforts on restoring what we have left. What you see here”—Mannes gestured at the activities around us—“is the greatest salvage operation in the history of mankind.”
It was a lot to take in. Even though I was kind of ready for it, hearing how the world ended, and knowing I had inadvertently taken part in pushing it to that end, brought on conflicting emotions that I had to fight to contain. I changed the subject. “So how does this girl I brought to you fit into your salvaging plans? Why is she so important?”
