The Dream Widow

by Stephen Colegrove

“Are you okay, Mary?” she asked between breaths.

  “Oh, I’m fine, dear.”

  “Good.” Badger leaned against a nearby tree. “Super. Glad I ran up here.”

  “Thank you, Kira,” said Mary.

  “Will ... why is your mother smiling at me like that?”

  “No reason,” he said with a grin.

  FOUR

  The frozen canvas of the tent’s entrance flap crackled as the surgeon pushed inside.

  “He’s dead.”

  “Thank you for that obvious fact,” said Darius.

  “Calm down,” said the Consul. She shifted in her chair and crossed one leg under the bear pelt on her lap. “Continue.”

  The surgeon cleared his throat. “Patient found in the position he was left in last night––tied to a post outside the guard tent. Multiple lacerations to his extremities and torso. Superficial burns. Cause of death: hypovolemic shock from blood loss, complicated by exposure to the elements.”

  “Thank you, Sal.”

  The surgeon bowed and left the tent.

  The Consul watched Darius, her mouth pursed but with a half-smile. She bounced her crossed leg over and over, causing the soft leather trousers to squeak.

  “The body count is rising as high as a royal hunting trip, Darius, but I’m still waiting to see this valley full of treasures. At this point I’d probably settle for a clan of slightly enigmatic mountain folk.”

  “I promised to find it, Your Grace, and I will, but that disgusting savage had nothing more to tell us.” He leaned closer. “As long as Your Grace enjoyed watching my interrogation.”

  “I struggled to stay awake. You’re one of the best I’ve seen with an iron, but it gets old the fortieth time.”

  “I apologize, Your Grace. I’ll vary the techniques next time.”

  The Consul nodded. She pulled her long fingers from the bear pelt and rubbed them unconsciously, like a spider cleaning her mandibles.

  “Now that I’ve seen you interact with my soldiers and the tribes, I understand how we’ve expanded so quickly in this region. You have a talent for finding and exploiting the weakest point in people.”

  “Thank you, but I’m just a small cog in the giant Circle machine.”

  “A giant machine powered by these tribal beasts.”

  “Your Grace is quite correct.”

  “How did they control so much land in the old times? It’s a mystery, considering the huge resistance we’ve had in these new sectors.”

  “Indoctrination,” said Darius.

  “Explain.”

  Darius licked his lips. “Before the great war, children were taken from their parents–– by force if necessary––and placed in training centers. These organizations claimed to teach useful skills to the children, but the true value was in shaping their minds. The children who performed well and did as they were told were rewarded. The ones who asked questions or resisted the artificial beliefs of the national training were cast out and lived on the edges of the old society.”

  “That sounds like the tribal schools in your sector.”

  “Your Honor has an excellent memory. The training model from the old times was an inspiration to me. I began using it last year.”

  The crunch of boots and a murmured conversation came from outside the tent. A guard raised his voice.

  “Senator Darius, a messenger!”

  “Let him pass.”

  A soldier in an olive-green jacket and trousers stepped into the tent. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head.

  “We found this, sir!”

  Darius took a folded note from the soldier’s hand.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “Buried, sir, near the burned village. It was inside an empty crate.”

  “Dismissed.”

  Auburn clay stained the creases of the note. Darius flattened the coarse material on top of his writing desk.

  “It’s a message left by the fleeing tribals,” he said. “But it’s in code. If Your Grace allows, I’ll try to decipher it.”

  The Consul covered her mouth and yawned. “Go ahead.”

  Darius took a clean sheet of paper and a stylus and placed them to the right of the clay-streaked note. He peered at the tribal code and scribbled letters on his paper, scratching a few out. After a few minutes he set down the stylus.

  “What is it?”

  “A simple substitution. They wouldn’t have had time to prepare a more complex code. What am I saying? There’s no way they could have a sophisticated–”

  “I mean the message.”

  “My apologies. It reads: ‘We are traveling west. Follow the sunset three days to a valley called Station. Leader Yishai.’”

  “It’s remarkable that they would leave a message like that,” said the Consul.

  “We know that some of the tribals left the village after it was attacked and gathered at a pre-determined spot. This note was almost certainly left for any stragglers.”

  “It could be a trap.”

  Darius smiled. “It’s not. They really are that stupid.”

  “LISTEN––I’M NOT that stupid. I just don’t understand,” said Mast. “It’s not doing the tricks that’s the problem. I can handle that. I can do everything you’ve taught me. I just don’t get how it works.” He leaned back in the one chair in his and Mina’s quarters.

  Wilson slowly paced the carpet in the small room.

  “Let me try again. Hundreds of years ago and before the war, this place was a center for smart men.”

  Mast nodded. “The founders.”

  “Right. These men studied how to make the human body stronger, faster, and free of sickness. To do that, they added tiny machines to their bodies. That’s one of the reasons the founders survived––the sickness that killed almost everyone else didn’t affect them.”

  “How does this explain the tricks?”

  “I’m getting to it. The Founders were sending other men to the stars. These men would be so far away and out of contact for so long that every single machine they took on the journey had to be simple and fool-proof. That’s why the tricks they needed to survive used meditation and images in the mind to work.”

  Mast shook his head. “But how can your brain control anything?”

  “It’s no different than throwing a knife. Your brain sends a signal to your muscles, you raise your arm, and based on muscle memory through training, you release the blade. Images in the brain and concentration trigger the implant systems. But it’s just like throwing a knife––you have to practice.”

  “That’s a word I can do without,” said Mast. He flipped a wooden blade over and over in his hands.

  “Not to change the subject,” said Wilson. “But is Mina still friends with Kaya? Is Kaya still having problems with her old boyfriend?”

  In the corridor outside Mast’s room, a teenager in a dark brown jacket pressed his ear harder against the door.

  THE SELA PASS. You’ll never get a postcard from there unless it’s been auto-signed by the President and starts with the phrase “Please accept my sincerest condolences.”

  Sela was the cold landscape of a beige moon, an alien planetoid of toffee mountains. It was sharp and strange to soldiers from places like Scranton and Everett.

  Inside the rocky slit of a hideout, Jack peered through binoculars at the Chinese fortress built into a copper mountain less than a kilometer away.

  “No updates,” he whispered into the radio. “Wait a second ...”

  In the parched riverbed below the fortress, two Monpa shepherds whacked sticks at a ragged congregation of goats. Both natives wore dark blue clothing and black caps. One tottered weakly with a staff––obviously an old man of advanced age––and the other was a young boy.

  “Are they coming this way, Sarge?”

  Jack lowered the binoculars. “Pass the word to hold fire. Notify Bravo.”

  He glanced at the three soldiers next to him. Dutch squinted through the eyepiece of his scout rifle. Sli
m whispered into his radio and Red checked his scoped ACR. Bravo Team was in another cave about fifty yards west and up the mountain a bit, with the Indian army liason.

  The shepherds kept coming and Jack stabbed his fingernails into his palm. Too much daylight to make a break over the ridge––the Chinese would see everything. They had at least a battery of mortars and recoilless rifle above the old fortress.

  It looked like the old man and the boy were heading straight for Bravo’s cave.

  Slim rubbed his eyes. “What are we––”

  “Quiet,” Jack whispered.

  The pair of Monpa prodded their white and black goats closer and closer. Each step was a gleaming needle jabbing toward the pupil of Jack’s eye.

  A teenage boy with serious eyes popped out of nowhere two meters down the slope from Jack. He wore a fringed leather jacket and trousers of thick, homespun cloth like a poor man’s Davey Crockett.

  “Wake up,” yelled the teenager.

  Jack pulled the trigger on his ACR. All three rounds went through the boy and he disappeared. The shots echoed through the valley.

  “Holy shit!” said Red.

  The gunfire startled the goats and they hightailed it down the mountain. The two shepherds sprinted behind the herd, the old man moving with newfound vigor.

  Jack clicked the command radio. “Bravo this is Alpha One. Move to south ridge.”

  “Bravo One copies. OTM to ridgeline.”

  “Cover them,” said Jack.

  His team fired careful shots at the waking beehive of the Chinese outpost as Bravo snaked out of the cave and up the slope. With a whistle and ear-ringing boom, rounds from the recoilless rifle began to smash into the mountain nearby.

  “Bravo in position,” said the static-filled radio.

  “Alpha OTM,” yelled Jack. “Go!”

  He pushed his pack and the ACR out of the cave and scrambled up the slope behind Dutch. Dull shotgun-shells of rock and hard cinnamon dirt sprayed around him.

  Halfway up the slope the teenager appeared again, this time within an arms-length of Jack.

  Jack reached toward the boy but a deafening crack threw him into empty space. He woke seconds or minutes later, his side wedged against a rock wall. The teenager bent over Jack and mouthed silent words. The golden tubes of empty rifle casings bounced noiselessly over Jack’s combat boots and down the dirt slope. Something wet trickled into his eyes and he closed them.

  “Wake up!”

  Jack opened his eyes to an English garden and a leather recliner. The swish of wind flowing through the trees and the song of a mockingbird replaced the dull ringing in his ears. He realized where he was.

  He waved his hand sideways and a flickering video screen appeared, showing the dark ring of controller domes. Wilson and an older woman stood around Jack’s fish bowl.

  “Jack, wake up!”

  “I’m awake, stop yelling,” he said.

  Wilson’s mother held her hands over her ears. “What is that awful sound? It’s like a goat being kicked over and over.”

  Wilson sighed. “Jack, stop trying to scare her. Use your normal voice.”

  “Fine. Is this better?”

  “Thank you. Jack, this is my mother.”

  “Of course––Dr. Mary Abrikosov. I remember the surgery, because you were such a tall girl.”

  “That was thirty years ago,” said Mary.

  “Was it? You’re just as pretty today.”

  “Mother, don’t let this old man molest you with his words,” said Wilson. “This was such a bad idea.”

  “What are you talking about? Thank you, Jack,” said his mother.

  “How can I help either of you?”

  “My mother needs some time away from the village,” said Wilson. “Are there any living quarters down here?”

  “There’s a room or two near the surgical room that I can clean up. I admit, I’d be happy to have some company. Don’t feel like you have to talk to me if you don’t want to, Mary. I’m used to the quiet, anyways. I’ll send the boys to fix up your quarters.”

  Silver spider-arms burst from ports in the nearby wall and zipped along narrow tracks toward the surgical room. Near the stairwell, tiny green lights flashed on a waist-high rounded cylinder covered in slick white material. The short machine spun a circle on squealing metal wheels and dashed after the spider-arms.

  “What was that?” asked Wilson.

  “A Zoomba,” said Jack.

  “A what?”

  “Uhhh ... it cleans things.”

  “Thank you,” said Mary.

  “My pleasure. Just don’t tap on the glass again. Or sing.”

  Wilson spread his arms. “Why do you hate that? When we came down here the speakers were blaring with some song about ‘land of the free, home of the brave.’ Over and over, until I almost yelled myself hoarse trying to wake you up.”

  “That’s not good,” said Jack. “Not one little bit.”

  REED LOOKED UP from the screen on his desk.

  “What are you talking about––she wants to stay where? In the Tombs?”

  Wilson rolled his eyes. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. I found rooms that used to be living quarters. I also gave her codes for the entrance.”

  “I’m glad you’re in such a sharing mood, but what’s she going to eat? Rats and silverfish?”

  “I moved food supplies down there. She’s also promised to come out for one meal a day.”

  “What if something happens? It’ll be impossible to contact her unless one of us goes down to the bottom of the Tombs.”

  Green lights flashed over the display on Reed’s desk and the air popped with static.

  “Wrong about that, padre,” said a hollow version of Jack’s voice.

  Wilson leaned over the screen. “You said you couldn’t reach us up here!”

  “Ever heard that old line: ‘That was then, this is now?’”

  “Don’t be flip with me,” said Reed. He moved his fingers over the display. “How are you transmitting a signal?”

  “I don’t know––flip this, swipe that. I asked Dreamer and she figured it out.”

  Reed pointed at a symbol on the display––a triangle with ‘42’ in the center. “This is new. Appears to be a type of power channel.”

  “There you go. That’s how I’m talking to you.”

  “My mother can use it, too?” asked Wilson.

  “Sure. Say hi to the nice folks, Mary.”

  “Hello, Cubbie,” said his mother. “‘Don’t worry––I’m fine.”

  “If you need me, press that new symbol, the triangle,” said Jack.

  The static popped into silence and Reed shook his head.

  “The things I have to deal with ... Wilson, you’re in charge for the rest of the day.”

  He stood up and stuffed a portable viewscreen, stylus, and writing pad into a leather satchel.

  Wilson shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “But what about Jack?”

  “That’s where I’m going.”

  REED LAY FACE-DOWN on a treatment bed in the Tomb’s medical area. Spider-arms zipped across the ceiling above him in flurries of silver metal.

  “Whatever happens, stay awake,” said Jack’s voice. “And don’t move. You’re strapped down but just in case ...”

  “Fine.”

  A needle jabbed Reed’s neck. Tiny, high-speed drills whirred to life behind his head.

  “Now,” said Jack. “Nobody wants to hear the sausage being made. You’d probably like a little distraction at this point. I searched through the old databases down here and found an audio file you might enjoy.”

  “I thought all of that data was corrupted. Old formats that can’t be read anymore.”

  “The official records and most of the other stuff, yes, but I found a few audio files that I was able to convert. I’ll turn the speakers up.”

  The air crackled and a hiss filled the room.

  “Listen, Greg––that’s just how it works,” sai
d a male baritone. “We can’t let any of the implanted team leave, especially the ones in the control group.”

  “You could have told them,” said another man. “People change their minds.”

  “I understand. Believe me, I understand. But until we discover what happened with Rogers and Fong, we can’t remove any implants. And I don’t want anyone walking out of the base with them. If the Chinese–”

  “All right, you don’t have to tell me.”

  “I think I do,” said the first man. “You don’t have the right attitude for this project, Greg. I’ve never thought that.”

  “In that case, it’s good thing I don’t give a damn what you think,” said the other man.

  “Fair point. I don’t have a doctorate from M.I.T.––a mouth-breather from Quantico like me shouldn’t get any respect from someone like you. But let’s kick our personal feelings to the curb, Greg. What you’re working on is greater than the Manhattan Project, the moon landing, or any other human achievement. It’s more important than the freedom of a few individuals. It’s more important than the freedom of anyone, you and me included.”

  “The ends do not justify–”

  “Don’t throw that self-righteous garbage at me,” said the first man. “We’re sending men and women to the stars, man! We’re expanding from this stinking mudball into the universe. This is the beginning of the greatest age of humanity. Implants to make us like superheroes and hiber-sleep chambers to cross the vast ocean of stars. If we found a tribe in the Amazon who’d built an orbital laser it would be less impressive than what’s about to happen.”

  “What’s about to happen ... you watch what’s about to happen. The control beds are getting bleed-through from the other test subjects. If we launch them into space and turn them into a pack of gibbering madmen, what’s that worth?”

  “It’s worth all the lives of our sweating, struggling ancestors,” said the first man, “Because this has to happen. Our destiny is out there, and not here.”

  The recording broke apart into white noise and stopped. Behind Reed’s head and out of sight, tiny drills whirred at high speed.

  “Is that it?” asked Reed.

  “I’ve got more,” said Jack. “Case studies from the control group those bozos were talking about. Also a few more on the reactor systems. Hope it doesn’t put you to sleep.”