Raiders

by Malone, Stephan

  Aurelia’s expertise was in practical operation and repair of these radios. They were impossible to jam and extremely reliable. She was proficient at software emulation of various radio encryption schemes as well which added a further level of security. When her squad was ambushed a few months ago the other soldiers fought off the Raiders as best they could while she operated the Flex X-5 Radio to notify Central Command that they were under immediate attack. Victoria relayed that distress signal using the Flex pack which even as it was left behind, abandoned at the foxhole’s floor of dead soldiers. Had it not been for the neutrino radio the recon team would have never retrieved Aurelia alive. Victoria did not have the ability to transmit a distress signal from so far away.

  Julian. Julian's expertise was tactical heavy ordnance mechanic or T.O.M. for short. The soldiers called them ‘Tommies’. They held a lot of respect among the ranks. Tommies had to be good with their hands and have that special knack for fixing broken things even under the pressures of live fire. Julian would be out on the Wall’s perimeter maintaining the cannon stations for fourteen hours or more with hardly a break. The cannons were his second love though for he never grew tired of working on them.

  The 105 medium range cannons were Julian’s favorite. Their old-world simplicity and high reliability made them a military wondergun that seemingly defied centuries of technical advances. Sure, they bolted all sorts of newer technologies onto the 105's but the basic core mechanics of these spectacular weapons were left virtually unmodified from their original manufacture. There were one hundred and ten cannons actively deployed around the Polar City’s perimeter and each one had a different personality to them. He loved that. Some of the 105's contained their original linkages and hydraulics while others were a mash-up of older and newer components. Each 105 was accompanied by a robotic short range auto-turret that provided for near-ground protection and cover. Julian didn’t care as much for working on the smaller auto-turrets for, unlike the 105's they were homogenous and modular, one indistinguishable from the other.

  Kama settled into her new Pod and slowly acclimated to the alien Polar City environment. She never quite got used to the concepts of day and night in a completely underground world. She observed that the entire City pretended that there was such a thing as morning and evening without any natural environmental signals to oversee them. Back in the Reso, nobody cared whether it was day or night. Every moment was its own. When you were tired, you slept. When you woke up, you raised yourself out of your sleeping nest. But she was not in Reso any more.

  City citizens frequently stopped by, strangers all who desperately wanted to meet her. The knocks on her Pod door became so continuous that City Officials had to put up a temporary barrier around her door to keep the people away. Kama almost never left her Pod. She never had to shop at the Night Market for food or clothes. City citizens would leave clothes, food and personal supplies at her door just inside the barrier. Typically they would leave contact information with little notes attached such as “Visit us at Pod 11540 for lunch. We would love to meet you! -Luxela”. Things of that nature.

  Eventually cabin fever got the best of Kama. It didn’t take long really,.After two weeks and a day she started to get bonky. One note left at her doorstep made her think about getting outside and into the City. The note said, “Kama have you thought about shooting targets for money? PS Enjoy the necklaces. I made them myself!” How did this person know that she was a skilled sniper? Maybe they figured that out from her Coilgun? Maybe. She really didn’t really know but what did it matter, anyways? She didn’t have the gun and even if she did, she doubted they would let her use it now.

  She couldn’t take another day of being bottled up in her Pod so she contacted Colonel Eiger using the Media Center. Thankfully someone left an easy to follow user’s manual printed out on old world paper in simplified Mandarin Chinese. There was an English version too that was mostly gibberish to her although her English was getting better thanks to the City media archives. Almost all the on demand movies with English dialogue also had Mandarin subtitles.

  “Yes Kama, hello! What can I do for you?” Colonel Eiger responded to the video call. His head disappeared from Kama’s screen and then bobbed back into the frame.

  Kama paused for a second and then said, “I have an idea. I need to do something, I feel useless sitting here in this house pod. It’s starting to feel like a coffin.”

  “You can go out anywhere in the City at any time. You know it’s okay, right?”

  “Yes I know but, I don’t know how to explain it. How about this? I’d like to do some target practice with my gun outside the City. I don’t care if people watch.” Kama smiled and said, “Maybe it will be entertaining for some of your people.”

  “How good of a shot are you?” Colonel Eiger nipped at his coffee mug.

  “Good enough, Nelson.”

  “You know what? I’m insane for even considering but I’m going to roll the dice on this one.” The Colonel shook his head in evident disbelief. “Kama, tell you what. I’ll have some of my boys get your Coilgun back together in one piece, and we’ll throw together a range for you. How far can you shoot? Eight hundred meters sound far enough?”

  “No, further.”

  The Colonel froze for a moment and sipped some more coffee. “Really now? How about, say, a thousand meter range? That’s farther than our best riflemen can do.”

  “No, further,” Kama said.

  He rubbed his hands onto his eyes and rubbed them inward. “Okay, Kama. How about you just tell me how far then and make it simple?”

  “Two, maybe more.”

  Colonel Eiger started to laugh and set his coffee down. He clutched his hands and then pointed straight into the media camera with both pointer fingers. “Two thousand. You’re serious. You know how far that is, right?”

  “Yes I know. I lose accuracy at about two thousand five hundred meters, so two thousand should be safe.” Kama looked as everyday serious and plain as anything in the Colonel’s media screen display. She smiled into it as a if she were an overgrown Girl Scout trying to sell a box of cookies to the Colonel.

  “I..” Eiger raised his palms at the display. “Okay. Fine. But I will have to guard you. No funny business Kama.”

  Kama moved her head from one side to the other and said nothing.

  Two days later and the shooting range was ready as was her Coilgun. The lab technicians had reverse engineered Kama's gun as far as they could anyways and had no further use for it. Kama opened her Pod door to a series of loud knocks after someone yelled through the door, “City Military! Let’s go Kama, we’re ready! You there? Hello! City Military!”

  The rumor spread throughout the City that the mysterious, reclusive Raider was going to attempt a two thousand meter downrange target shot although no official announcement was ever made. Tickets were sold at the Military Center to benefit the City’s disabled and special needs populations at twenty credits a pop. Anyone who was not predisposed to some other activity or work bought themselves a ticket for the rare spectacle.

  Kama emerged outside the City with an entourage of soldier escorts. She was stunned at the vast crowd that waited for her outside. Aurelia stood and watched with the others. Julian happened to be outside as well. He worked on a sentry gun about a hundred meters away from the gathered crowd. Kama noticed him hunched over the machinery from a distance.

  An announcer spoke into his portable wireless microphone. “Citizens! Today we are going to be treated to a display of incredible skill! The girl Raider with her homemade gun will attempt to shoot the ten glass targets that you see before you! From a distance away of two thousand, that’s right folks, two THOUSAND meters! Thank you so much for your support for our citizens in need and enjoy this presentation!”

  Julian briefly stood up and turned around to face the spectacle. Kama beamed a smile straight at him and then turned to face the crowd. Aurelia never saw her smile at him for her back was turned. Julian stood in place and
panned his view across the crowd. “Hey Tommie you might want to take a break from your work there friend!” The announcer said as he waved to Julian from his raised platform.

  Julian waved in acknowledgment and yelled something in response but the distance between him and the group made his voice inaudible to anyone.

  Kama creaked herself into a nearby bicycle rickshaw and sat down inside its car. She decided to wear her original leather battlegear which provided nothing for her excepting the sole purpose of showmanship. She was used to making her own coil rounds out of scrap metal found throughout the Wastes but for this event the Military lab boys made her a set of custom bullets, simple aluminum tubes with a honed point on one end. There were no propellants or ignitor materials to be found within them.

  And away she wen., The rickshaw operator pedaled the little cart down a dirt roadway. A wide clearing about fifty meters wide just outside of the City Wall served as the range. The crowd stared at the rickshaw as it moved away and diminished from their viewpoint. The forest’s border edge was one their left hand side, the City’s Wall on their right.

  Seven minutes later the announcer said, “Okay folks as you can see the Raider far off in the distance there! Whoa she is far away isn’t she? Heh heh.” He smushed his headphones into his ears. “Alright, please stand behind the barrier there we don’t want any accidents now! Now keep your eyes on the ten glass bowls on the beam in front of you!”

  A wooden crossbeam balanced ten clear glass bowls filled with water. The sparklethrown bowls bounced the midday sun's beams in all directions. Narrow in girth and unnaturally tall, the bowls decreased in height, the tallest one stood on the beam's leftmost side.. The smallest bowl was no more than fifteen centimeters high at best. It was an impossible target from a thousand meters, let alone two.

  The crowd waited, murmured one to another and stared at the sunkissed bowls. A minute later the largest bowl shattered with a loud sha-sha-crash! Eight seconds later the crowd heard the miniature sonic boom catch up with its progenitor as a high pitched and muffled be-thwump! washed over them.

  “Amazing, wow!” The announcer said to the crowd. “Two thousand and five meters! Wow what a shot! Let’s see if she can hit the others!” The crowd cheered and applauded.

  A crowd member held up a glass of beer and yelled down the clearing, “Marry me Kama! Woo hoo!” Kama of course had no idea anyone had said anything to her at all. To her, the crowd was just a distant smudge of darkened abstractness off in the distance.

  Aurelia spotted Colonel Eiger in the crowd and walked over to him. She squinted against the Sun and said, “Hello sir,” and then saluted him. “Colonel a question. What does she have on that thing for sights?”

  “The lab guys said it’s a twelve power scope I think.”

  “Seriously, sir?”

  “Yeah that’s what they said.” The Colonel shrugged.

  “Damn. That’s hard to believe sir.” Three seconds after Aurelia said that to the Colonel another bowl smashed and disintegrated into shards before it hit the ground. Sha-sha-crash! The sound rang over the crowd with a higher timbre than the last. Shi-shi-crash! The next one hit. Six more bowls smashed themselves to pieces in quick succession over the next ten seconds.

  The crowd hushed themselves into diffused silence as if to avoid distraction for the sure-shot Raider who presently was far downrange. They could have screamed out at the top of their lungs if they really wanted to. I It would have made absolutely no difference from such an incredible distance.

  Kama focused for a few seconds at the last bowl standing. The wooden crossbeam appeared as a hazed brown tease of a sliver within her Coilgun's eyepiece. Despite her weapon's fifty millimeter lens the atmospheric distortion was strong and difficult to negotiate. Waved variations twisted and bent the bowl, a tiny glimmered speck. Targeting the diminutive shimmer felt impossible to resolve, even for Kama and her steady and patient hand.

  The announcer simply stood amazed and dumbstruck. The scene was so quiet that the only sounds came from nearby birds who announced their territories and mates from the forest beyond.

  Kama said with a muffle into her arm, “Don’t think I can hit this one.” She drew in a wide breath and as she exhaled she relaxed her hands a little and pulled the shot. The bowl wiggled and then completely and silently disappeared altogether. She sighed out a breath of relief and stood up.

  The crowd jumped around in fevered applause as the announcer re-armed his microphone once more. “Holy Moses above you saw it with your own eyes folks! The Raider’s hit all ten targets from a distance of two thousand and five meters! Hang out with us for a few and you all will get to meet her for your very self! Thanks again for your support and on behalf of the City government we are grateful for the financial help for those in need!”

  Kama returned to the crowd and waited for the cycle rickshaw driver to dismount before she extracted herself from the hand-made car. She held up her Coilgun with her left arm and as she did so the crowd yelped out cheers and chants of admiration. She walked forward with her guards in front. The horde rapidly surrounded the small entourage which made Kama anxious. She wasn’t used to being in the center of such a huge ensemble much less being the reason for a crowd’s assembly.

  Children grabbed at the leather and metal wraps that covered her legs and patted them in youthful curiosity. A few men asked for her autograph.. Several women appeared steadfastly jealous of this leatherbound, mysterious beauty as their husbands fawned over her at such close proximity. Others stood in quiet admiration of her. One woman muttered “I heard she’s a franken-chick” to her boyfriend in an envied huff.

  A few weeks passed and Kama continued to keep to herself inside her Pod. She couldn’t walk a hundred meters outside without people asking her questions about her previous life and the mysteries she left behind. Not everybody liked her though and the occasional scoffs and downward looks from random passers-by made her felt increasingly self-conscious and alien. She spent most of her time sifting through sporadically picked videos and music from the last six hundred years within her Pod’s solitude. Although her English continued to be weak she managed to enjoy the media offerings thanks to the City’s universally available auto-translation engine and Chinese subtitles.

  While she watched an old music video from the early 1980s entitled Ratt: Lay It Down she thought she heard a knock-knock-knock sound in her headphones. The knocks were out of place and not timed to any particular aspect of the ancient low resolution video. She realized that the knocks were actually emanating from her Pod’s entrance door and not the media center after all. Kama removed the phones and stood next to the door with an obligatory greeting, “Hello. Who is there?”

  “It’s Mirabella and Calliope. You’re being kidnapped girlfriend.”

  Kama paused a second then reluctantly opened the door. “Yeah. Just try it.” She shook her head and waved them in.

  She met Mirabella and Calliope during one of her solo ventures out to the City’s Night Market the week before which never closed. The Market continuously pulsed with activity year-round except for the three major Holidays. Calliope worked at a bubble tea stand and one time Kama stopped there on impulse. She asked Calliope what the enigmatic bubble tea drinks were. Calliope described the process and contents of bubble tea, at least the variations that she knew how to make and somehow or other they just started to talk.

  It was true that Calliope knew full well who she was talking to but she treated Kama just like anyone else, as if Kama were any old workaday customer who enjoyed milk and tea and pearls of bobbing tapioca. Kama loved that about her and to be sure she had no real friends in this great Polar City deep under the earth and far, far away from her lost and distant homeworld of Reso.

  “No, here drink it with this thing. It’s a straw. Just suck on it.” Calliope plunked a wide diameter straw into the lid. “It’s okay, just be careful because the pearls come right up the straw.”

  Kama drew a sip and chewed at the tea soa
ked pearls. “Good!” She smiled quickly and smacked another sip down. “How much?”

  “First one’s free babe. You’ll be back.” Calliope pushed a wayward lock of black hair that had come loose from her tall paper hat. Stenciled onto the hat were the words BUBBLE TEA YUM! above what appeared to be smiling cartoons of a girl and boy sharing a tea together. “They are ten though. For future reference. Twelve with double pearls.” She sidestepped to the left and asked the couple who stood next to Kama what they wanted. They pointed down at the desk front. “Sorry we’re out of the peach mix,” Calliope said and then pointed to the dynamically rendered menu. A digital image of a peach orange colored tea glass with the letters EACH on it was lined out and greyed. The P was hidden under the straw container’s edge.

  Kama nodded to Calliope as she drank some more of her bubble tea. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Sure. Take care now.” Calliope continued on with her task as the bubble tea stand attracted an increasing number of walkers-by. Kama didn’t move aside but instead stood there and studied the machinery and the hoppers and the spinning things inside this brightly colored overlit booth. She nipped at the cup of milky sweet mango bubble tea.

  At once a girl emerged from the passing crowd and ran up to the bubble tea stand, vaulted onto the serving counter and as her butt slid across the glassed surface she landed right next to Calliope who was smack in the middle of ringing out a customer. She was about the same height as Calliope but unlike Calliope her clothes were phosphorescent green red and black smattered with small built-in lights. Kama learned later on that the miniature lights were called eternals since they were powered by ambient light sources, artificial or from the Sun itself. The girl's hair was an attention grabbing hodgepodge of red, purple and black streaks with a few braids thrown in here and there. The back of her hair was pure bleach-white and went straight down to her mid-lumbar spine. She appeared to be excited about something. As she grabbed Calliope’s left arm she rapidly shot out, “Holy shit Calli I got tickets to Club Fire!”