After the Winter (The Silent Earth, Book 1)

by Mark R. Healy

  Max looked sceptical. “Are you for real?”

  “Yes, I am.” I placed a hand on my chest. “I was once a human, and now my mind inhabits this synthetic body.” This inferior body, I almost said, but I didn’t want to insult Max.

  “And where exactly did you get that body? A whole and complete clank couldn’t have been easy to come by in those days.”

  “The division owned maybe half a dozen that were kept in storage. We used them in our nanotech department. A couple were prototypes and weren’t really suitable for what we were trying to do. For the ones we selected, we just had to erase their existing personalities and memories. At that point we essentially had a blank canvas on which to imprint.”

  “So how many were imprinted?”

  “It’s hard to say. The Grid was smashed in those last days of Summer. We were all in the process of finishing off our Displacers when it went down. There were teams of two in Russia, France and the United Kingdom. I can only hope they made it. Here, we only had the resources for me and one other.”

  The light outside was fading. Max reached up and activated the lamp. The coils began to glow softly and it made a slight ticking sound as it began to heat up. “So where’s he?”

  “She,” I corrected. “Her name’s Arsha. Last time I saw, she was still back home.”

  He squinted at me. “You keep talking about home. Home this. Home that. Why aren’t you there?”

  “I haven’t abandoned it for good,” I said. I leaned down and put my hand on the windowsill, stared out into the dim streets of Perish. “The Marauders came looking in our city. I did the only thing I could to protect Arsha - I led them away, into the desert. But once I’m sure I’ve lost them, I’m going back. I have to go back so that I can return to my human body.”

  7

  Max went quiet for a time. He grunted at my revelations, shaking his head as if struggling to come to terms with them, and asked no further questions. He seemed to tune out, lost in his own thoughts. It was a lot to take in, I knew that. Maybe he was still trying to decide if I was telling the truth at all, or if I was just intent on deceiving him for my own amusement. I left him to his thoughts and remained quiet, losing myself to my own memories, made vivid by the retelling.

  Despite his frostiness, I realised I had a new goal. I would be leaving Perish soon, keeping on the move across the wasteland and staying ahead of the Marauders, and I wanted Max to come with me. After what he’d done for me, I couldn’t just leave him here. The Marauders would come after me and they’d most likely find him. But in order for him to agree to it I’d need to reach him, cut through the antagonism that he’d surrounded himself with if I expected him come along.

  As I sat there trying to sew up a patch in my trousers with a rusty nail and a thread I’d pulled from the carpet, I tried to figure out how to do that. What did Max want? What could I offer him? He hadn’t mentioned leaving, and didn’t seem to want anything else from me. Perhaps the best thing to do would be just to nudge him in the right direction. If I could somehow get him mobile, it might prove to be the catalyst that I needed.

  Clumsily scraping my leg with the nail, I snorted in frustration. Performing this kind of intricate work with my hands made me acutely aware of how inadequate this synthetic body could be. Often it seemed to chafe me, like an ill-fitted suit of armour. I yearned for the day when I’d be back in my human form, my natural condition, where I didn’t recall ever feeling this awkwardness. I hadn’t struggled then as I did now.

  But what did I expect? Inside me was the soul of a man, pushing and straining at the confines of a machine body. Architects of the synthetics had never anticipated such an application, never incorporated the idea into any design. It was no wonder that the two disparate parts of me were at odds with one another. They were never meant to fit.

  The day when I returned to the Displacer lab couldn’t come soon enough. For now, I would have to plough on as best I could.

  Soon Max’s mood lightened, and, in better spirits, he related some of his adventures during the White Summer.

  “I was the only clank aboard the gunship,” he said. “Six months earlier, the whole squad was clanks, but not anymore.

  “We were supposed to set down in the Shanxi Province in China, but we never made it to the LZ. We took a mortar to the tail rotor and that put us into an uncontrolled spin. All you could see was the ground spinning past, then the sky. Over and over again. Grown men were screaming, puking. We impacted, and there was fire, and noise, and all hell broke loose.

  “Everyone else was killed on impact, but I walked out of there. In bad shape, sure, but I walked out.”

  “What happened then? You were behind enemy lines, right?”

  “Oh yeah, deep enemy lines. Well it’s funny how these things work out. Coming up right behind us were these....”

  He trailed off, his eyes widening. He hunched forward and stared up at the skyscrapers out his window, something akin to excitement on his face.

  Then I heard it too. That deep, earth shaking groan. Soft, but becoming louder. The apartment started to shake.

  “What is that?” I exclaimed.

  “That’s the sound of Perish falling apart, Brant. One piece at a time.” There was a kind of macabre delight in his voice.

  I joined him at the window and stared up at the skyscrapers. He pointed suddenly at a tall spire to the southeast.

  “There, see it?”

  It was an imposingly tall, thin spire, surely the highest structure in Perish, it’s exterior a mesh of hexagonal blocks, blasted and eroded, a simulacrum of rotted honeycomb. At its peak it formed an onion-like dome with a sharp point. As I watched, I could see it sway almost imperceptibly in the fading light.

  “That thing’s coming down!” I exclaimed.

  “Don’t be so sure. I’ve been watching Ol’ Trembler do that for almost a year, and it hasn’t fallen yet.”

  “‘Ol’ Trembler’?”

  He shrugged and raised his voice to be heard over the rumbling. “That’s what I call it. Seems as good a name as any.” He fidgeted with the copper coins on the windowsill, picking them up and shuffling them side by side absently. In less than a minute the noise had quelled.

  “Not today, then,” he said, disappointed.

  “Why do I get the feeling this is a letdown for you?”

  “I’ve got a little bet going,” he said, gathering up the coins and jangling them idly in the palm of his good hand. “See, there’s a lot of tall buildings come down in Perish. At least a couple every year.” He pinched a coin in his fingers and held it up. “And I’ve got good money on Ol’ Trembler being the next one to go.”

  “You’re betting on buildings falling apart?” I said doubtfully.

  He shrugged. “You got something better to put a wager on?”

  “No, not really.”

  He returned the coins to the windowsill. “Me neither.”

  I looked out the window and thought I could see dust kicked up in the distance by the tremors.

  “Perish must have been hit pretty hard during the Summer,” I said.

  “Sure. They bombed the hell outta this place with the nearby military presence. Most of the buildings came down in those initial raids.” He dropped one hand down onto the other, making a loud clapping noise. “What you see now, these few left standing, they’re just a small fraction of what was once here. Over the decades the wind and the rain, erosion, sandstorms and lack of maintenance have all eaten away at the survivors. One by one they’re all tumbling down. And that, too, creates a kind of domino effect. A building coming down makes a hell of a lot of noise and vibration and it weakens anything nearby.” He paused and narrowed his eyes, peering outside. “One day soon, no one’s ever going to know this shithole was even here. It’s just going to be a little mound in the desert, covered with sand.”

  “You think you’re going to be around for that?”

  “Sure as hell hope not. I’m hoping to check out much sooner than th
at.” He considered for a moment. “Y’know what I’d like to do? I’d like to head over to Ol’ Trembler and crawl right to the top. To the very top floor, and then just sit there and wait for it to fall down around my ears.” He wiggled his fingers and made a dropping motion with his hand.

  “There’d be nothing left of you bigger than a piece of confetti.”

  “Yep, that’s the idea. I can leave this fuckin’ place in a blaze of glory.” There was a grim determination about him and for once he didn’t seem to be joking.

  “Maybe there are other options,” I said reasonably.

  “Yeah, options,” he scoffed. “We’re not all living in a fantasy world like you, Brant.”

  I gave him an irritated look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He ignored my question, my outrage, and abruptly changed the topic. “I have this scenario that I wanted to ask your about. Get your angle on it.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” I said, still inwardly seething.

  “So here it is. Let’s say you’re walking through the desert, out for a stroll happy as can be. Unexpectedly, you fall into a crevasse.”

  “A crevasse? Out here in the desert?” I said, perplexed.

  “Yeah, a crevasse,” he said, as if it should be obvious. “You fall down it. You’re stuck. What do you do next?”

  I scratched my head. “I guess I’d wonder how in hell I ended up in a crevasse in the middle of the desert.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Leave the smartass remarks to me, huh?”

  “Okay. So I’m in the crevasse. I’m stuck.” I made an exaggerated shrug. “I guess I climb out.”

  He gave me a kind of half sneer, half smile. “What if you can’t?”

  I ticked the points off on my fingers. “I’m stuck, I can’t climb out. I assume no one will hear me if I yell....”

  “Nope,” he said curtly, emphasising the puh with a note of finality.

  “I give up, Max. Tell me.”

  He sat forward in his chair as if relishing the discussion. “Well, if you’re human, there’s a couple of options. If it’s hot or cold enough, you succumb to the elements in a few hours. You die. If that doesn’t happen, you die of thirst a couple of days later. Either way, your suffering doesn’t last long.”

  “Okayyy... and?” I prompted.

  “Now think of us. Let’s get rid of the crevasse example - let’s say you’re out scavenging here in Perish, which is pretty much the only thing you do, right?” He didn’t wait for me to answer, instead ploughing on. “You just found one of those useless pieces of shit you seem to love, and you’re happy. Then bam,” he clapped his hands together thunderously, “the building falls down around your ears. You’re stuck under a tonne of concrete and wood. What happens next?”

  His eyes bored into me as I considered my answer.

  “That’s a scenario I try to avoid,” I said.

  “But if it happened, which, given enough time, is not only likely but inevitable in this world of ours, falling apart as it is, do you realise what would happen to you? You’d be stuck there for fifty years, unable to move. Unable to call for help.” He gestured out the window. “Maybe you’d live long enough to hear the last ‘scraper in Perish come down, but you wouldn’t be going anywhere. You’d still be alive when the desert itself crawled across the ruins and covered you in darkness, ever blacker and more complete than the Winter. Try telling me that fifty years isn’t forever when that happens.”

  “It’s a nightmare,” I admitted, returning his stare. “Can I change my answer, then?”

  He gave me a look of incredulity. “What other answer is there?”

  “I’d rip out my own power core,” I said without a hint of irony.

  He gave me a dull look, and repeated dubiously, “Rip out your own power core.”

  “If I was faced with your scenario, yes, that’s what I’d do.”

  He looked puzzled. “Is that even possible?”

  “It should be. You’d have to pierce the skin and muscle and then forcibly separate the breast plate first. There’s a line that runs down here.” I ran a finger down the centre of my chest. “Then you’d have to pull the core free of its housing and all the webbing that’s in and around it. There’s lots of nerve-endings there. That would be the painful part.”

  “Oh, that would be the painful part. Good to know.” He banged a fist against his chest. “My chassis is triple strength, military grade alloy. I think I’ll take the eternal darkness option and hope for the best.”

  “Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come down to either option.”

  He wriggled in his chair and turned partly away from me, something I’d seen him do when he was on the verge of drifting out of the conversation. It seemed he’d had enough for now.

  “Yeah,” he said distantly. “Let’s hope.”

  8

  I never really figured out what Max’s routine signified, what he gained by hauling himself out to the same place every day. It wasn’t for the view. He could see just as well out the window of his apartment. There seemed to be meaning for him in the routine, as if it were some kind of regimen, essential for his existence, but I couldn’t conceive of any other practical purpose.

  Outwardly, he projected a constant and resolute nihilism. I hadn’t reached him yet, but I wasn’t giving up. In a garage out in the suburbs I found a wheelbarrow, eaten by rust but sturdy enough to carry a load. I carted it back, and upon reaching the apartment, Max peered out the window at me sceptically.

  “What, are you starting a bricklaying trade now? You’ll have your work cut out for you around here.”

  “It’s for you, Max.”

  A strange look passed across his face. He seemed both overwhelmed and embarrassed, but quickly regained his composure.

  “What do you mean?” he said thickly.

  “C’mon.” I waved up at him. “Let’s take a ride.”

  “In that thing?” he said, sceptical.

  “Yeah. It’s just your size.”

  I thought he’d grumble at me and disappear inside, but to my surprise he scraped his way downstairs and climbed up into the tray.

  “I’ve seen some pretty shitty rides in my time, but this one takes the cake,” he complained, but he sounded pleased.

  “Well, I had the option of a Corvette, but didn’t like the colour.”

  “Can’t blame you for that.”

  It was hard going. Max’s bulky frame was almost too big for the tray and he had to grip the edges firmly to stay inside. Getting him along the street posed a bigger challenge. With so much debris, the going was slow and unsteady. On the way here, I’d been able to lift and bounce the wheelbarrow over bricks and stones and piles of concrete. That wasn’t an option with Max’s hulking physique bearing down on it. I was forced to go ahead and clear a path, kicking and hurling rubble aside and smoothing it out as best I could. Even still, we hit a stone and Max’s leg stump almost slipped out. I caught it and helped ease it back inside the tray, the wires trailing from the stump scraping on the wheelbarrow like long hairs of a brush.

  “It must have hurt. The explosion,” I said, my eyes lingering on the wound.

  Max looked down at his legs. “For a while. A few days maybe, until the nerve receptors went numb and my neural core shut them down. I don’t feel it anymore.”

  I’d experienced the same phenomenon, most recently with my wrist. The wound from the drone was no longer hurting anymore, even though the hole was still there. A good thing, too. I couldn’t imagine walking around for years with the wounds I’d sustained still causing pain.

  We passed the wreck of a car and Max suddenly reached out, taking hold of it by the door frame and thrusting his head inside. I fought to keep control of the wheelbarrow.

  “Oh man, I used to love these things,” he said. “A Chevron Galaxy!” He grasped the controls enthusiastically and jerked them back and forth. He peered out through the ravaged windshield as if imagining taking a leisurely cruise down the roadway. Suddenly
the controls snapped off and crumbled in his hands. Disgruntled, he flicked the pieces away. “Needs some upkeep, I guess.” He ducked his head back out of the door frame and twisted to look at me. “You ever drive one?”

  “I wasn’t a big car enthusiast.”

  “You really missed out. These could crank up to 300 clicks out on the open road.”

  “It just wasn’t my thing. I drove a pretty standard sedan, back when I was human.”

  He sighed heavily. “We’re back to that, are we?”

  “To what?”

  “That bullshit about returning to a human body. Do you expect me to take that seriously?”

  “Well, yeah,” I said, insulted. “I do.”

  “So, even if you used this ‘Replacer’ to transfer yourself to a clank body, just so you can return to being human, how can you go back? Unless you invented a time machine along with all your other miracles,” he said sarcastically.

  “It’s called a ‘Displacer’,” I snapped.

  “Whatever.”

  “Why would I lie to you, Max?” I demanded hotly. “What point would there be in doing that?”

  “Well, explain it to me then,” he said, folding his arms. “I’m all ears.”

  It was getting gloomy. I gathered supplies from my satchel and began to assemble a torch as I spoke.

  “After the displacement, our human bodies were placed in cryosleep. Not your typical cryosleep, though. Not the ones they sold on the black market to rich people looking to extend their lives for a year. One or two years?” I scowled and shook my head. “That wasn’t going to cut it. We projected the Winter would last much longer than that.”

  The lighter sprang into life and I turned the head of the torch as the flame started to bite. I rounded on Max, holding the torch aloft.

  “To stay in cryosleep for decades meant going to a level so deep that brain function ceased altogether. I’m talking deep. We calculated the damage would cause memory loss at a catastrophic level. Let’s assume a total wipe, or near enough. To simply lock ourselves in cryotanks, set the timer and then hope we’d awaken a few decades later was beyond optimistic. It was another dead end. We knew that we’d come out of it with no memory or understanding of how to survive.