Rise Again Below Zero

by Ben Tripp

  Except there was no question in her mind that Ernie’s still-animated eyes had looked up into her face—and recognized her.

  • • •

  The twilight was rearing up under the snow-pregnant sky, darkening the world. Danny was planning her next move, watching the light die. A couple of guards regarded her from their shed next to the gate; a light came on inside and Danny got a glimpse of a cook stove and a couple of cots before one of the men closed the door. Then headlights winked through the gloaming up near the center of town and a security van came tearing down the street toward her. It scraped to a halt and Cad Broker jumped out, scooping his arms at her:

  “We have a situation. Get in the van. Now.”

  Danny heard a distant roil of voices that she had previously thought were crows. There was gunfire that echoed and clattered against the mountain. She sprinted forward and jumped into the van after Cad.

  12

  “There’s a fight,” Cad said. He was out of breath, and his wheezing for air sounded like the Architect or the Risen Flesh. Danny clung to the grab handle in the ceiling as the van rocked around corners. There were three guards with them, and they weren’t there to keep an eye on Danny. They were looking through the windows, fingers hooked around the triggers of their weapons. Amateurs. One good speed bump and they’d shoot up the van.

  A couple of blocks into Main Street they stopped and the guards piled out.

  “Somebody give me a sidearm,” Danny said, and nobody did. So she opened the van driver’s door and held out her good hand. The driver looked at Cad, who nodded, and then he slapped an automatic into her palm.

  There was smoke rising up from the area around the Civil War statue. Searchlights roamed over the gathered heads, but didn’t know what target they sought. It had the look of a rock concert. A mob of people blocked the view down the street; fists and sticks and bottles raised overhead reminded Danny of all the riots she’d seen in the war zones before the fall of civilization. She dropped the clip and counted the rounds. Nine. The ammo was mismatched, from three different manufacturers. There was a muffled bang and a puff of black smoke rose over the crowd. People screamed.

  The asphalt and the sky were the same color. It was dark now. Felt like snow. These thoughts flitted through Danny’s head as they always did when there was a battle ahead. Occupy the mind, distract it with trivia, keep it away from the fear and anger that would come when the fight was on. As the seconds ticked past she expected the fight to break up. But it appeared to be escalating.

  Glass broke. There was another bang.

  “I’m going to see what’s happening,” Danny said. “This entire fucking town is on the edge of collapse. You know that, right?”

  Cad nodded. He was scared shitless, Danny saw. He must know how short his remaining days would be if the Architect fell out of power. People must have known there was something alien about him. Some must know about the infection. Word would travel. He’d find himself in one of those stinking buckets out there in the badlands.

  She thought of all the people crammed into their little shops and apartments cowering in the dark, and the kids in the warehouse hearing all the noise, probably descending into terror. It was time. The Architect was right: She needed to act immediately. But after what she’d seen out in the badlands, he wasn’t going to like what she’d decided to do. He was going first.

  Danny strode toward the back of the crowd, then when she was among the most timid of the rear guard, she got up on a wrought-iron bench and looked over the heads in front of her. There on the ground by the statue was an acolyte, dark blood flowing out of his head. He was dead for real, not only half-dead. A couple of the blaze-vested guards were carrying one of their fellows to the back through the crowd on that side of the street. He didn’t show any outward injuries, but his face was fish-belly white. He didn’t look good. Then a brick sailed through the air and clipped one of the men carrying him. He tumbled to the ground and the stunned guard fell across the wounded man.

  A syncopated refrain of gunfire crackled out, and now people were running. The shots had been fired into the air, Danny thought, but she still jumped down off her perch. People were stampeding. Then a second wave of gunfire broke out, and now several panes of glass in the Architect’s upstairs office shattered. There were gunmen inside the church, shooting across the square. Several young men with rags tied around their lower faces rushed out of a building on the third side of the square—the same building Danny had seen the refugees running from on her first fateful night in Happy Town. They were carrying Molotov cocktails, several each. The one in front used a lighter to set fire to an old flannel shirt, dropping it on the pavement, and the others dipped their improvised missiles into the red flames. Now the crowd was panicking two ways—gunfire and fire itself sent them in all directions. The silhouettes of the people in the crowd looked like shadow puppets. A path was opening up in the direction of the bank building.

  The military training that ran Danny’s waking life kicked in and she found herself drawing a bead on the young man who had set the shirt on fire. She could knock him down with a single easy shot. She hesitated. Take him out for the safety of the people around him, sure. And then she would have publicly chosen sides. She’d be in the fight, and whatever happened after that she could not shape events to achieve her goals. The Silent Kid wasn’t going to jump into her arms again just because she shot some asshole with a Fanta bottle full of gasoline. She lowered the weapon and waited as he threw the blazing vessel in a high arc at the bank. It didn’t even come close. One of the guards had to beat the flames out of his pants leg; otherwise all that was accomplished was a sooty fire in the middle of the road.

  Danny moved. She got low and hustled toward the bank in a zigzag that would take her to the side farthest from the main street, where the vestigial ATM machine was. Her course of action was simple: use her VIP status to claim she was joining the defense of the bank, get upstairs, destroy the Architect. She’d have to wing that part, because they couldn’t know it was her who did it—not until she’d used the ensuing excitement as cover to get to the Risen Flesh. This whole thing could be over inside half an hour.

  As Danny hustled toward the bank, another guard shot the bomb-thrower. He went down heavily, strings cut. A hail of flaming bottles followed a second later from his companions, and then they were scattering into the crowd with the rest, covered by the blooming garden of flames leaping up in the town square. A couple of bystanders didn’t move fast enough and were engulfed in flames. Danny got to the porch of the bank and immediately found two automatic rifles pressed into her face. She tucked her pistol in her waistband and showed them her hands, identified herself. The guards were so wound up she felt the real possibility of getting her head blown off. She hadn’t expected it, but these men were not as panicked by the action in the street as typical civilians would be. They could be ex-military, or mercenaries from an outfit like Blackstone or Xie. She calculated the odds of killing the Architect were still pretty good; she could argue her way up to him, at least.

  But there was no chance she’d get away alive once the job was done. And that was an important part of the plan. It was no good destroying one of these things if the other one was still around.

  • • •

  The crowd dispersed once the guards built up a solid cordon around the town center. A van pulled up and the wounded cocktail-thrower was dragged aboard. Half a dozen civilians had been injured badly enough so they had to be carried, but no others were picked up by the guards; the rest were borne away by their allies, leaving pools of blood to jelly up on the cold ground. The burn victims left under their own power, although Danny knew it was only shock. Once the blackened flesh started to crack off and reveal the white fat beneath, they wouldn’t be moving around. Not for a few months. The gasoline fires in the street went out on their own once the fuel ran out, leaving carbon scars and bubbling asphalt and darkness behind.

  By then, Danny had herself dispersed;
Cad had told the guards she was on their side, the guns had been lowered, and Danny had taken the opportunity to do her best “pissed-off superior officer” face at them. But her thoughts were on something else: the scouts. They would probably meet heavy armed resistance to their feint at the Happy Town gates. It wasn’t going to be as straightforward as it would have been only a few hours earlier. But that kind of diversion was ideal for Danny’s purpose. Draw the firepower away from the church and the bank. Get security’s backs turned, then use her apparent insider status to slip inside and do the dirty work.

  Topper’s plan, as outlined in his note, was exactly what she needed.

  13

  Topper moved through the darkness and wondered if he was in love with the sheriff or just a dumb asshole. She had some kind of hold over him. It wasn’t her complete lack of charm, her croaking voice, or the fact that she ran like a man. It wasn’t the scars or the broken nose or the stumps of her gnawed-off fingers. There was just something about her, like down underneath it all, if life had gone another, better way, she would have been the friend he’d want to go hunting with. Ride across the deserts and camp under the stars and get drunk at the Double Down in Vegas.

  He’d heard gunfire a few minutes earlier, but that wasn’t unusual in Happy Town. So he let his thoughts go where they would. If anything, the action in town would keep him safer from detection. He might even be able to get inside the perimeter.

  He still had trouble believing they’d gotten naked together. Topper had a standing bet with the other scouts that Danny did not have a penis. He knew he would never collect, even though it turned out he was right. Why was that? Because he respected her, maybe. But more than that. He didn’t want to betray her. They had a secret and it was worth more than he could express.

  Happy Town cast a tea-colored glow behind the bulk of the ridge across the river, against the low clouds. Topper moved quickly by flashlight for the first few miles, and then switched to night vision goggles. Good military-grade gear. He reached the blasted-out bridge piers. Above him were guards on the intact bridge, and up in the trees on the far side of the river there was a patrol crashing around. He moved with deliberation, watching for trip wires. At one point, he saw an incongruous pool of greenish light ahead, and had gotten considerably closer before he realized it was a fixed infrared camera’s light source shining across a small path along the river’s edge. He skirted around behind it, his route taking him partway up a cliff.

  After a couple of hours of slow-motion creeping along, he was feeling the cold through his layers. But up ahead he could see with his naked eyes a glimmer of light that must be the dam holding the reservoir in place. The authorities in Happy Town focused on the bridges, of course. The dam would be heavily watched. He didn’t think they’d be looking at the steep cliff walls on either side, however. An avalanche would get their attention. He settled the night vision goggles on his face and began the tricky ascent up the rock, taking a long, angled route that should end up with him directly above the end of the dam.

  He was about two hundred feet above the gurgling black river on a sharp ledge, easing his way toward a slim pine tree that sprouted from the cliff, when a spotlight blazed on. The night goggles seared his eyes for a second; he tore them off and they whirled out of the light into the water below. There was a crackle of amplified static, and then a voice boomed out, “We are lowering a rope to you. Don’t move, or you will be shot.” Pebbles chattered down from above.

  “Sorry, Sheriff,” he muttered to himself. “You’re on your own.”

  14

  Danny went back to the hospital. She had never expected to see it again; she could hardly claim she was bedridden at this stage, and if her brain was bleeding, it didn’t change much. She could bleed out there where the action was just as easily. No headaches that entire day, despite all the activity and excitement. But she went back because she had a feeling her adventures might be drawing to a close, and she wanted to see Amy and Patrick one more time. She promised herself she wouldn’t get maudlin and talk about death, weep on their shoulders, or any of that horseshit. She just wanted to look at them again, say something that wasn’t mean, and slip on out while everybody was feeling good.

  But she didn’t see them, as it turned out. The hospital was busy, even at the late hour when she returned; the wounded were crying in pain somewhere on the second floor, there were extra guards patrolling the halls, and when she inquired, nobody knew where her friends were. She thought of leaving a note, or waiting around to see if one of them came by. It didn’t seem like the right thing, somehow. In the end she stopped a female nurse heading up the main stairway and asked her to convey her thanks to Dr. Joe—thanks for everything.

  Then she went out past the guards and into the cold night.

  15

  Topper expected to end up at the bank building, which seemed to be the new town hall; instead, he was marched through the woods to a gate in the perimeter fence at the foot of the mountain, then straight through a series of security barricades near the train tracks. His captors had this down to a science. He didn’t try to escape. With his wrists zip-tied together and the darkness and uneven ground he wouldn’t get far. They took him across the tracks, where a bunch of men were outfitting a sort of war-wagon train, and then he was taken into what had once been the station. It was blessedly warm. He hadn’t been warm in days, not even at the little farmhouse. His greatest fear was that they would behead him; so far, he seemed to be heading in the right direction for that. He imagined his headless corpse flung atop the garbage as he’d seen done to others. If luck was with him, maybe they’d just stick him in a cell and he’d see Ernie again.

  He wasn’t made to wait long.

  A man wearing dark glasses despite the night hour arrived. He was wearing so much makeup he looked like Liberace, and he chewed an enormous cigar. Topper would have loved a cigar. They found them sometimes, but usually rat-eaten or as stale as mummies. This one looked fresh. The new arrival looked strange, somehow, like he had a sickness. Topper puzzled over this. The man must have been important, because he had half a dozen guards flanking him with guns at port arms. They filed into the station and took up positions a couple of yards away from Topper; it reminded him of the scene in Hong Kong gangster movies when the villain and his minions met the hero face-to-face. In the movies, the hero always bluffed his way through the meeting, relying on sheer balls. Topper wasn’t sure it would work in real life, so he waited silently.

  “I am the Architect,” the man said.

  “Hi,” Topper said.

  “You came at a perfect time. We were just going around the mountain. Are you fresh as a daisy?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Never mind. Why were you at the river?”

  “Recon,” Topper said. Tell enough of the truth and they might leave him be.

  “For what? Were you going to break in?”

  “Friend of mine got picked up here. I was looking for him.”

  “Not her?”

  “Him. Name of Ernie.” Topper had a feeling this guy knew there was a connection between himself and Danny, and he wondered what she’d been up to. In the thick of things, probably. That being how she rolled. He decided he would deny knowing her, no matter what. Give her room to operate.

  “Well enough,” the Architect said. “Bring him along.”

  Then he went back outside, and Topper’s guards shoved him into motion. He followed, and they descended to the tracks. There, a pickup truck was waiting. It had ordinary tires, but they were mounted on special wheels that allowed the vehicle to travel on train tracks or roads. Very stylish, Topper thought. He loved vehicles of any kind, especially if they were specialized in some way. This thing would make an awesome touring car—travel on the tracks wherever they ran, avoiding the messy, disintegrating roads. And if the tracks were busted somewhere, drive off the rails and travel as if it were an ordinary truck.

  His thoughts were interrupted when a gun stock was
jammed between his shoulder blades and he was half-hoisted into the bed of the pickup. Six men got in with him, all of them keeping their eyes on his face. The Architect and a driver got up in the cab. Then they started the journey along the tracks. They rolled through the sheds behind the station, and a big gate was hauled open by men waiting at the edge of town; the truck drove through, the gates swung shut, and they were moving through the night.

  The train tracks clung to the cliff’s edge for a while, skirting the foot of the mountain with the forest overhanging the rails. Then the route took a sickening turn out over the river, with a long drop into the darkness on both sides. This was the one bridge they hadn’t blown up. Then they were running along the foot of the cliff opposite, traveling north along the route of the river. Topper’s flesh was crawling. He could not imagine what they had in store for him. But if they tried to execute him in cold blood he was going to take at least two of them with him.

  The canyon opened up ahead. He saw lights twinkling in the distance, and identical lights rippling below: water. They must be near the reservoir. Then the tracks crossed a broad concrete surface—the dam, Topper assumed—and even over the noise of the truck’s engine he could hear the rumble of big turbines. So those sheds on the deck of the dam must be where they generated the power. These observations passed through his mind in a jumble; at the same time, he was thinking about whether he’d survive a jump into the water, and what a beautiful night it was, and wondering how long it would take the snow to start falling. It was as if his mind was eager to stock up on mundane observations while it still could. He had a terrible feeling his head was going to part ways with the rest of him, and soon.