Scavenger: Evolution: (Sand Divers, Book One)

by Timothy C. Ward

  “That was just bad luck. I’m sorry. I had a plan—probably still do—that benefits you and Star as much as it does myself.”

  “One that involved letting me get captured by the man who could control my mind?”

  “We were outnumbered and he got the dive on us. I had to improvise. Really, Rush? You know me.” The softness in Avery’s brown-eyed stare reflected a past friendship that could not be denied. He was often flawed, but did that make him capable of what Rush feared?

  Avery continued, “You broke free from Warren’s command before. I’m sorry, but I had to gamble that it could happen again. Unlike The Gov, his intelligence doesn’t exactly overwhelm. Warren slithers, but we’ve killed plenty a’ snakes trickier than him.”

  Rush drank half of his canteen’s amount, the warm liquid helping his dry throat, and handed it to Avery with a grin. “Better than nothing.”

  Avery took it and held it to drip its supply onto his tongue. He handed it back empty. “Thanks. Was Charles’ clicker thing what set you free? How does that work I wonder?”

  “Sort of. It helped loosen my thoughts. Focus, mixed with a bit of anger, helped me the rest of the way.”

  Avery nodded. “If Warren’s a snake, his brigands are untrained mutts.”

  “How did you get out?” Rush asked through a knot in his throat. He was beginning to regret nearly killing him.

  “Luck, piss and vinegar. Same as always.”

  “Did Warren survive?” He’d left them with a sense that Warren had, but it could have just been fear.

  “I doubt it,” Avery said. “He was buried pretty deep, and his life signal was faint.”

  “So when did the M-MANs show up?”

  “They came over the ceiling from under Twin Suns. That room’s infested.”

  “Did Warren put them there?”

  Avery shrugged. “Not that I saw.”

  “Singer said they were headed for the Tank Room.” Rush gingerly stood. “I’ve got a feeling Star was headed that way, too.”

  “Why?” Avery rolled onto his knees to help himself stand.

  “I’ll tell you on the way.” The cloud from their makeshift tunnel had dissipated to a weak fog. Still, the hall in that direction went straight as far as he could see. “What direction?” he asked himself, turning to the shorter hall on his right. He imagined back to their path into the kitchen, which was to his left. Right?

  He turned around to the dust filled portion of hall. “This way.” I think.

  “Hold on.” Avery staggered forward.

  This was going to be a long walk.

  “I’m surprised Cool’s mom let you come with them,” Rush said. “How’d you pull that off?” He leaned down and picked up Singer’s helmet, then turned it over to let the vomit slide off the face plate onto the concrete.

  “I apologized and said if I hadn’t done what I did, none of us would have had a weapon. It ended up not mattering with your stunt, but it was a plan.”

  Rush waved the dust from his face as they passed the rubble that spilled out from their tunnel. “So how’d you convince Warren to give you a gun when minutes before you were in a firefight against him?”

  “I told him The Gov has my wife and we both want him dead. If he could help me achieve that, or wanted help in that pursuit, then I was with him. I told him the people I found along the way could be useful if nothing more than to carry supplies to Denver.”

  “So he let you keep your gun because of that?”

  “Well, and I told him about your book from Nedzad. His brigands might still have killed me after I served my purpose, but I was betting on finding a way to best them before they did.”

  They turned left at an opening in the hall. Without power for Singer’s help, Rush had no choice but to pull his book out. If Avery tried to take it, he’d deal with that problem then. He found the pages near the back with blueprints of the facility and stopped under a ceiling light. He scanned LL3 for Denver Ave, and then found the open area and kitchen, traced around to where they fell through the floor and matched it to the shape and orientation on LL4.

  “Okay, here.” Rush tapped the hallway they were in on the map, not far from the oval room of The Depository. He slid his finger over the center. “That’s where the Poseidons are.”

  He thought about where Star could be, what Singer had meant about her bluffing leaving for Denver, and the way she looked at the compartment of pellets. Singer had put the same sized pellets in his suit, visor, and DL. He snatched the DL from his leg and turned it over under the light.

  “What are you doing?”

  “The DL’s have plasma pellets. If I can get it out and into Singer—the Poseidon—”

  “Singer?” Avery cocked him a funny look. “The diver who wouldn’t take his headphones out even when it almost drowned him?”

  “I always liked him.”

  “I know. You’re the reason we didn’t kick him out.”

  “It was reckless, sure, but he learned how to manage. His brother was dying. He had other things on his mind. You know the way diving can make you feel distant and yet close, distant from problems and close to yourself? Music enhanced that for him. To be honest, I was jealous. But I couldn’t wear headphones and dive or those who couldn’t afford an iPod would feel segregated.”

  Avery shook his head. “You’re still the last drop of ale you’ve always been. Get back to getting the pellet in Singer. I’m getting the shivers here thinking of the floor opening up and making me its own.”

  Rush wedged his dive knife’s tip into the curve between the trigger guard and the barrel. He held the DL between his boots, steadied the knife, and pounded the pommel. The DL split open and a glowing blue pellet appeared in the belly of the barrel.

  He looked up at Avery and Singer. “Give me that.” He opened the book to the section on The Depository and the Poseidons, flipped until he found the page with their diagrams, and located where the power source was stored. At the crown-center of the helmet.

  The hole where the pellet should have been was caked with a sticky black substance. The burnt smell made his eyes water, and he remembered catching a whiff while fixing the door.

  Avery grabbed his hand. Rush’s finger had a black stain and was pointed at his mouth. A glorious taste burned on his tongue, as though he’d just kissed the sun.

  “What are you doing?” Avery forced Rush’s hand to his side.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You licked your finger. Do you have any idea what’s in that? Remember Hannu and the wet battery?”

  Something small fell to Rush’s right. A speck of dust? It filtered down through the aura between light and shadow. A few more. He looked up. A crack had formed in the ceiling. “Crap.”

  He cleaned out as much of the pellet remains as he could from the pellet hole in Singer’s helmet and dropped the DL pellet into the slot. A rock landed behind him. He crawled into Singer and closed the suit’s chest panel. The vomit stench was enough to make even him, someone who’d cleaned spuge buckets for two years, want to vomit. He put his knife back on his leg as a brick-sized chunk fell from the ceiling. It spit into broken pieces on the floor. Avery backed up, turning to him for a quick reaction. Rush closed the visor over his temples and powered on the suit. Something hummed in his helmet, a something-might-break hum, but then the dash lit up before his eyes.

  11% POWER. VITALS CHECK?

  “Get me another suit for Avery and more pellets.”

  Rush waited for a second as another chunk, one as large as his head, fell from the ceiling. Avery pulled him away from the mess. “Singer?”

  I AM LOCKED OUT.

  “Darling.” Star reached out and stroked his cheek. His urgency became as distant as a breeze on the far side of a dune. He was where he wanted to be and nothing could harm him. “Have we hugged today?”

  “No,” he said, then wrapped his arms around her and pressed their bodies together. “You’re so incredible.” He thought of her strength to hand
le Fish’s death better than he, how she had managed to stay on her feet when he couldn’t.

  “Thanks.”

  “I just want to lie down and take you with me.”

  “Me, too.”

  “What are we doing here?” He struggled to think of what lay between them and a home, any home, where they could stay forever and be left alone. They deserved a lifetime of making each other happy, and he wanted it as soon as possible.

  “You need to come get me is all.” Her corporal form faded like a terrible dream that had invaded his real world and threw everything he knew and loved into a tornado of split-open and rusty edges.

  Before she disappeared, as she backed away, smiling and holding his gaze in her teasing playful stare, he asked, “Where are you?”

  “This way.” She lifted a finger to her mouth to hush his thoughts. “Don’t tell Avery, just come.”

  SCAVENGER: Twin Suns

  Chapter 8

  “Is something wrong?” Avery asked.

  Rush glanced back at Avery. Another block of ceiling shattered on the floor behind them. “I’d say. Come on. My suit’s working.”

  “What do you see?”

  “I asked Singer to get you a Poseidon of your own.”

  “And?”

  “This way.” Rush jogged and cut around a bend in the hall, forcing himself to slow down so Avery could catch up. A closed door waited at the end of the short hall. Star’s faint fragrance dangled him between present and memory.

  The door slid open and Star stood on the other side, facing The Depository. She began walking away. “Star, wait.”

  He wanted to hold her hand. He caught up to her, took her hand, and she screamed. Her head spun toward him. Bright blue light glowed from her eyes and in a shaft from her open, wailing mouth. Rush let go and jumped back. She disappeared. Avery ran for him. The door started shutting between them. Avery ran harder, but was too far. The door closed and a lock clicked into place. The panel on the right lit red.

  Avery pounded on the other side. “What are you doing? They’re coming!”

  “It’ll be good for him.” Star stood next to him. She was dressed in a black dive suit like the ones Nedzad found.

  “What will be good for him, Star?”

  “Rush!” Avery’s pleading cut into a long, brittle scream. Terror cut open by the teeth of two worlds of pain, and he was falling into the darker one.

  Rush reached for the locked door panel. Star caught his hand. A sliver of blue light carved one pupil and faded to black. Her hold severed his ability to move.

  “I won’t let them have your body,” she said, “so they must have his.”

  “The Poseidons?” He tried to twist his hip toward her but the muscle refused to budge. Her grip steeled muscles up his arms, clenching them immobile.

  Avery’s scream quieted into an inhale and then erupted anew. Agony and desperation. The chord rang true with how he would have screamed not long ago, had he the courage of such pleading honesty. And now, as much as he wanted to move forward, upward, into happiness, that sunrise had not come. It had been twin suns, and both wicked.

  “Arm cleanse.” A rupturing pulse of power broke through the pipe of pressure on his arm. Star whipped her arm free, squatted, and jumped onto the railing shielding them from the open space of The Depository’s oval.

  She turned her head to send a bright blue glare his direction, and then leapt down and out of sight. A splinter cut through his heart at losing her again. He ran to the rail and saw her land in a cat’s four-point pose. Relief at her well-being mixed with the need to get her back as she was, without the machines in her body twisting her spirit toward darkness.

  Avery grunted. His gasps were getting faint.

  Rush blinked to dive view. The wall between him and Avery was a tall sheet of gray. He focused on the door, exhaled a burst of charge through his suit, and lunged forward. The wall hit his shoulder. Muscle jarred bone. He fell backwards, his shoulder nerves aflame. He landed on his back in shock. How could a Poseidon not pass through the door? He searched his memory of Nedzad’s book, but hadn’t read of a password for the door. There was no keypad. How did Star lock them? If that’s what happened.

  “Rush,” Avery cried out from a low point on the other side of the door. “Use the sight. Sorry.”

  “The sight? What do you mean?”

  “Light in—” he choked into a hoarse, phlegm-filled cough. “Eyes.” His wheezing barked twice more and then went silent.

  How did he know about what Rush saw in Star and The Gov’s eyes? Use the sight? For what?

  Metal tips tapped behind Rush. He turned to a Poseidon perched on the railing, glowering down on him.

  Singer had said that Poseidons weren’t optimized to fight without human hosts. Rush scanned the floor leading up to the rail. The door had something to prevent diving into, but did the floor? He doubted such a precaution went past the defensive front. He focused on the partition under the Poseidon’s feet, transferred into his imagined body, and threw a fist to slam down and snap the partition from between the Poseidon’s feet.

  The Poseidon leapt before the metal cracked.

  Always have a second, third, and fourth move ready in every fight, Divemaster Hurley had taught him.

  He waited for the Poseidon’s jumping punch to close in, then rolled and cast a soft pool over the floor where the Poseidon was to land. It sank up to its chest compartment. Rush yanked back the EM field. The Poseidon jerked backward, caught. It reached back and clawed the floor, scraping metal on concrete.

  Rush imagined an axe in his hands, formed a tight grip with his buzzing fingers, lifted, stepped and swung. The EM blade severed the Poseidon at the neck. The glowing slits in the suit and helmet went dark, and the head clanged on the floor beside its whining down torso.

  Rush pried open the power shield, snatched the pellet, and held its glowing orb before his face. Before fully considering his two options, he tossed it into his mouth and gulped it down.

  “That’s my Rush,” came Star’s voice from the nearest empty Poseidon cell. “There may be hope for you yet.”

  Her change was scaring him. Hope was the last word on his mind.

  A barrel of warm alcohol cracked open in his chest, dumped into his stomach, and ignited into a shiver so deep he slouched and shook it out from shoulders to fingertips. His pain left with the shake, replaced by a fresh body able to sprint and dive without fail for days on end.

  But now wasn’t the time to run. Avery was dying, or worse. “Singer, does this Poseidon have a chip I can take and insert so we can unlock this door?” Before Singer could answer, Rush thought back to Avery’s note and the password he’d used to get into Fort Pope. “Never mind. Can you transfer my ID to Connolly, G?”

  PIN NUMBER?

  “394872849.”

  PIN ACCEPTED.

  In dive view, he saw a green knob appear in 3D over the panel and its circuits of red wires. He reached out and EM turned the knob. The door slid open.

  “Clever,” Star said.

  Avery slumped into the newly empty space in the doorway. His head lolled over and his closed eyes left Rush worried. The life signs were still in color, but faint around the extremities and the very center of his chest and brain. Rush hurried to lift him off the floor.

  “Clever, but too late,” Star said. “If you want him to live, bring him down here. This process is highly experimental, and I’ll need him hooked up to a Poseidon to ensure his systems don’t shut down.”

  Rush turned around. Through the blueprint lines of the floor he saw Star standing beside a reclined Poseidon with a human body inside. Its vital colors were faint, but brighter than Avery’s. Rows and columns of Poseidons were lined up and ready, facing her as though for a command.

  “Singer, can you scan Avery’s vitals?”

  A ray of light swept over the unconscious Avery, then back up to his head and went out. PULSE 116. BLOOD PRESSURE 150 OVER 70. UNKNOWN CHANGES TO ANATOMY. CONDITION C
RITICAL.

  “Show map from here to clinic on LL3.” A blueprint narrowed until only the path he would take left of his position showed up on the visor. He took one step and a section of the wall grew out into the shape of Star’s face.

  “There’s no running from me, Rush,” she said from behind the speaker, her mouth moving on the wall as the words were spoken.

  “What’s happened to you?” Was she part of the M-MANs?

  “I’m embracing my own playground of toys, Rush. I thought you’d be proud.”

  “No. This isn’t what I wanted.”

  Star growled so that the wall shook. “I don’t care what you want!”

  The ripples of pixels that formed her face fell to piles of sand on the floor, then collected and grew into dog legs, torsos, snapping jaws…The canines lined the hallway ahead and to his left. Fully formed dogs stepped forward and lowered their front ends, their jaws and chests trembling in angry growls that made no noise.

  A blue burst of light fried through the center of the aisle of dogs, scorching the wall to his right and erupting the dogs from their insides out. Their cinders rose as ash into the breeze from the bolter held by a figure at the end of the hall.

  “Rush, run,” Nedzad said.

  He’s alive.

  Rush obeyed, smiling. Discarded M-MAN bits crunched under his boots. The air was strong with burnt stone. Nedzad lifted the bolter and fired again, flashing a blinding light past him. He ducked and drifted closer to the wall as he ran. Avery’s head bumped the wall. Rush apologized and switched to dock view to check for blood on Avery’s bald head. Not even a scratch…Rush had never seen his head without scratches, either from diving…or from shaving, at least.

  He didn’t have time to really focus much on that though, as the run was jostling Avery’s head on his limp neck.

  Nedzad waved him into a doorway and down a hall. His dive suit had a hole in the back, stuffed with a bandaged stained with dried blood.

  Their path went off the map to the clinic Singer had up on Rush’s visor. “Where are we going?”

  “To bury this base for good.”