The Dream Widow

by Stephen Colegrove

  Badger wriggled out of the underground shelter’s tight exit and Zhang followed her through pine trees to the edge of a stream.

  “Did she stop?”

  “Stop talking,” said Badger.

  Red-winged blackbirds trilled in the morning sun. A pack of dogs barked in the distance.

  Badger slid down the bank and splashed across to the other side. Zhang scrambled after her and up the muddy bank to the field.

  They ran through the waist-high grass, startling a flock of bobwhite. The quail flew north and Badger found Lizzie lying on her side. A white bandage wrapped around the girl’s head was soaked with blood, and her damp clothing was covered in tiny seeds of grass.

  Zhang touched Lizzie’s chest. “She’s still breathing.”

  Badger took the other arm and they dragged the girl back to the stream. The barking was louder now, but Badger still couldn’t see any dogs.

  A volley of shots cracked the air. A bullet snapped close to Badger’s ear and she hit the dirt.

  “Cat’s teeth,” she cursed.

  “Here,” said Zhang, ripping cloth from his shirt. “Roll her onto me.”

  Badger shifted Lizzie onto Zhang’s back. He tied the girl’s wrists together and put them over his head.

  “Keep crawling,” said Badger.

  She sprinted away from Zhang and the cover of the tall grass. Shots popped after her like a green log thrown onto a fire.

  STILL AT THE EASTERN END of the pass, Wilson and his students heard the gunfire and ran faster. They caught up to Hausen and his men at a forest dugout as the sun rose in the scarlet east.

  “Take Anders and these men a hundred meters that way,” said Hausen to another hunter. “We’ll dig in here.”

  “Dig in?” said Wilson. “What about your daughter?”

  Hausen pointed to the stream at the edge of the forest. “She’s coming. We can see the trail in the grass. All right––spread out and don’t shoot till you have a target.”

  Wilson stuck his head in the window of the dugout. It was dark and empty.

  “Where’s Kira?”

  Hausen shrugged. “Not here. Zhang’s missing too.”

  Another volley cracked from the trees on the other side of the field, and clouds of blue-gray smoke floated lazily over the grass.

  Robb pointed. “There she is!”

  A girl ran across the open field, dark braids whipping behind her head.

  Wilson pointed along the tree line. “We’re following her!”

  “I’ll give covering fire,” said Hausen.

  Wilson led the group of twenty-nine teenagers south through the forest and paralleled Badger’s flight. More shots boomed across the open field and she dropped into the tall grass.

  Wilson’s throat closed up. He stopped and jerked his arms left and right.

  “Take cover behind the trees. Fire at the smoke!”

  He heard a distant yell from Hausen. Thunder rolled through the forest as the men from Station aimed and fired at vague figures in the haze across the field.

  Wilson’s students crouched and used the rough-barked trunks of pine trees to steady their rifles. The first dozen students chose their targets carefully and fired.

  Near Wilson, Mast centered his sights on a muzzle flash. A shadow moved and his index finger brushed back on the trigger. With a deafening crack, the rifle kicked his shoulder. He pulled the bolt up and back, slid a new shell in the chamber, and slammed the bolt forward.

  The tall grass shivered at the edge of the field and Badger slithered out on her elbows and knees into a dead zone of fallen pine needles.

  Both Mast and Wilson slid down the hillside and grabbed her under the arms, but Badger shook them off and pointed south.

  Soldiers in tall black hats ran through the aspens at the edge of the field, behind giant, broad-headed mastiffs with glossy brown and black-striped hides.

  All three ran up the slope to Wilson’s students.

  “Dogs!” he yelled.

  He pushed his palm to the ground and waved a line with the other hand. The three dozen teenagers adjusted their facing to the south.

  Without a bark or warning signal the huge, yellow-eyed beasts were on top of them. Leashless and slobbering, the first dog took a rifle bullet to the chest as it clamped jaws around a boy’s neck. Six more rounds smacked into the dog’s body before it let go, but it was too late.

  While the rest of the Nighthawks fired at the snarling dogs in their midst, the Smashers closed their eyes and whispered a chant. As a group they leaped at the animals––some stabbed the dogs in the eyes, others kicked them in the ribs to collapse the lungs, and a few including Mast lifted the huge animals like toys and threw them into tree trunks, snapping their spines. The dying animals slid down the hillside or twitched where they had fallen.

  The huge owners of the dogs appeared, the chain leashes wound around their waists. They crouched and fired short-barreled carbines.

  The Smashers crawled back to recover. Leaves and fallen twigs sprayed through the air as Robb, Alfie, and the rest of the Runners sprinted forward. They returned after a few seconds, the blades of their knives dripping with blood.

  Wilson counted the dead troopers and helped carry back a pair of hurt Runners back to the defensive line. The Medics were busy treating bites and gunshot wounds.

  Muzzle flashes across the open field spread to the north and south. Wilson waved at each of the squadron leaders and rapidly spun one finger in a circle.

  A high-pitched roar cut through the ringing in his ears. With an explosion of leaves and branches, a green wedge roared into the field.

  This wasn’t the monster that had attacked David––the turret was too small, the cannon barrel too narrow, and the prow was tapered like an axe. Dull green and painted with black stripes, the vehicle had four large wheels––not tracks like the other machine––that threw chunks of earth behind it.

  It was also faster. Hausen and his men fired at the rushing monster but their lead bullets sparked uselessly on the metal plating. Small puffs of smoke chattered from the straw-like cannon and tore into the forest around Hausen’s men.

  Wilson and his students flattened to the pine needles and took cover behind the trees. The armored vehicle curved left and swept past the students. A stream of shells burst through the pine trees and transformed the wood into deadly splinters.

  Wilson pumped his arm and the students retreated deeper into the forest. The armored vehicle continued to roar and circle about the field like a lion trapped in his cage.

  Badger led them to a shallow draw in the forest between two small ridges, which gave adequate cover from the cannon fire and flying splinters.

  Smashers carried four wounded up the hillside and Medics went to work treating the lacerations and bleeding. Wilson looked over the injuries then crouched beside Badger at a moss-covered boulder. She peered down the hillside.

  “See anything?” he asked.

  Badger shook her head. “They’re not doing anything stupid.”

  The automatic cannon fired a drawn-out burst that sounded like a long rip in delicate cloth.

  “Hausen’s probably holed up in the dugouts,” said Wilson.

  Badger snorted. “That macho bastard is pinned down. The Circle is going to walk up and eat his lunch.”

  “We can’t let that happen,” said Wilson.

  Badger pointed down the slope. “It’s too late.”

  A steady stream of men in green and brown uniforms jogged through the trees toward Hausen’s position. They carried the same black carbines as the dog soldiers––short-barreled with a long magazine––and moved confidently from cover to cover.

  Wilson waved Robb over and took his rifle. “Take four Smashers and two Medics back to Station with the wounded. Move!”

  The stout Smasher boys meditated then lifted the injured in their arms like they weighed less than nothing. They ran up the slope of the forest toward the pass with Robb and a pair of Medics jogging behind. />
  Wilson waved his palm down and the remaining nineteen students lay on the brim of the rise.

  “Spot for me,” he said to Badger.

  He lined up the posts and ball of his sights on a crouching soldier, exhaled, and fired. The rifle slammed into his shoulder. The man crumpled and rolled down the hill.

  “Hit,” said Badger. “My turn.”

  She fired at a soldier who was diving for cover behind a tree. The man reached the tree but lay still, his legs in the open.

  The line of students fired irregularly, taking time to choose their targets. The Circle troops reacted to the exposed flank and fired back. Tiny fountains of dirt and bark flew at the students. One soldier threw a small green cylinder up the hill but it fell short. A moment later the can ripped apart in a huge puff-ball of smoke and shrapnel.

  Another soldier dashed up the slope with another cylinder in his hand and Wilson shot the soldier in the chest. The man tumbled down the hill and the explosive in his hand burst apart, tossing several soldiers into the trees like puppets with cut strings.

  Wilson and his small group retreated through the forest. They turned east and advanced with caution to the first line of dugouts.

  The smell of fresh pine tar filled the air and mixed with the sulfur and charcoal of burnt gunpowder. The cannon had cut entirely through smaller trees. Heaps of branches and green needles littered the ground like trash from a tornado, and blocked Wilson’s view of the field. The armored vehicle had either stopped its engine or driven away, because he couldn’t hear it.

  His students knelt and fired at a group of approaching soldiers. Wilson waved them farther down the hill, where the bodies of dead or wounded Circle had piled around the low mound of a dugout.

  A sudden flash of air hit Wilson in the face and the dugout exploded in a fountain of wood beams and black smoke.

  The ground shook and the armored wedge smashed through the branches of a tree not ten meters from Wilson. The turret and cannon pointed directly at him.

  “Ne movigu,” said a loud, metallic voice.

  Wilson dropped his rifle and held up his palms. “Pravega,” he whispered over his shoulder.

  He closed his eyes and chanted for a few seconds, the students behind him following along. When he looked up time had stopped and a sound like the ocean he had never seen roared in his ears.

  Most of the students used the speed-trick to run away from the armored vehicle––Wilson ran forward. He leaped over a fallen tree and landed in front of the turret, his pistol in one hand. He emptied five rounds into the slits of an armored viewport at his feet. He holstered the pistol and reached for his knife, but Mast was beside him shoving a huge branch into the end of the cannon.

  Wilson felt the power of his trick fading away and grabbed Mast. They leapt away from the armored monster half a second before a deafening force tumbled both into the trees.

  SEVEN

  On a gentle beach deep within his mind Reed chanted the calming phrases. He meditated more intensely and with deeper concentration than he’d ever needed to before.

  The white fog surrounding the beach closed in like a python and covered his skin with beads of cold moisture. Slowly it cleared and revealed the cavern deep within the Tombs.

  Reed floated over the naked body he’d called his own. Even with all the years he’d spent inside that human shell, he now had as much connection to the old flesh covered in a web of black cables as he did with a wooden toy or a pebble. He floated over his dome, Jack’s dome, and the three dark and dead ones that completed the circle.

  Good but not good enough.

  Reed concentrated and pulled energy from the corners of his mind. His perspective shifted as he rose to the high ceiling then rapidly shot up through the granite. A few seconds later his feet sank on a crust of snow at the peak of Old Man.

  Below his feet lay Station, the place where he’d spent almost the entirety of his long life. Across the valley stood the western crags of Yellow Mountain and the gentle, rounded meadows of Windy Peak.

  A gust of ice particles struck him painfully in the face and Reed wiped his eyes.

  “I’m not even here,” he yelled. “How can I feel any of this?”

  It’s a simulation, based on data from the video feed and weather sensors nearby. They bring the sunshine to your eyes and the frost-chill to your skin.

  A multitude of rifle shots crackled far below and behind him. Reed turned in the snow and gazed down at the pass guarding the valley. He heard a sound like tearing cloth.

  “What’s that sound?”

  The powerful weapons of your enemy.

  “I can see and hear my people dying. But what use is any of this? What use am I?”

  There is nothing you can do. You’re already pushing yourself.

  The snow beneath his feet changed to burning sand, and the mountain changed to desert. A strange soldier in mottled tan gear aimed the red lens of a complicated rifle at Reed and fired.

  Reed flashed back to the white peak and dropped to his hands and knees in the snow. He gasped as a heavy weight crushed his chest and pain stabbed up his left arm.

  “What’s ... happening ...”

  That’s feedback from the interface. You haven’t had time to acclimate and the connection is breaking apart. Pull back.

  The pain faded and Reed stood up from the snow.

  “I won’t let the Circle kill everyone. This was a military base in the past––there has to be something I can use.”

  He inhaled and closed his eyes. The outline of all the base systems flashed like a prairie fire through his mind. A buried system halfway up the mountain snapped and sputtered with red lightning.

  “I’ve found it.”

  Reed bend double and dove into the snow. With the speed of thought he flew through the dark granite to a sealed tube. Inside the tight space stood a ten-meter-high cylinder.

  You’re not saving anyone. You’re putting them at risk!

  “Does that include you?”

  Reed pushed his ghostly arms into the electronics and activated a start-up sequence. He rose to the control cone at the top of the cylinder. Sharp and pungent fuel pumped into the machine from thick metallic lines. After a few seconds the large cables jerked free and a high-pitched whine grew in volume.

  “Open the launch bay,” said Reed.

  Stop killing yourself!

  “Stop blocking me. I’ll blow this thing one way or another.”

  WILSON WOKE WITH SOMETHING wet on his face and sharp pain everywhere. Badger leaned over him. Her mouth moved but her voice echoed like a child bouncing a ball through a tunnel. Wilson turned his head and the skin on his neck burned.

  Mast appeared and helped her carry Wilson up the trail to a second line of dugouts. Inside a freshly-dug trench, Mast watched two boys with Medic armbands clean blood from Wilson’s face.

  “You’re going to have a few nice scars just like Badger,” said Mast.

  Wilson tried to sit up but the world spun around his head.

  “Did we get ... that thing?”

  Mast peered over the top of the trench. “I don’t know. The cannon blew itself to pieces, but the rest of it backed away down the hill.”

  Rifle fire increased in volume from the first line of dugouts.

  “Hausen?” asked Wilson.

  Mast shook his head. “Still down there.”

  A shuddering boom vibrated the air, like God smashing both fists on the keys of his grand piano. Both Wilson and Mast looked up at the peak of Old Man.

  A puff of metal and ice fragments sparkled down the mountain and a silver pencil rose above a white, billowing column. It roared through the overcast sky for a moment, then the roar and smoke stopped. Shining fragments spiraled off and the pencil curved a fishhook back to earth. Wilson expected it to crash, but long wings scissored from the center. The aircraft pulled up and flew over Wilson’s head with a high-pitched whine. He saw “USAF” on the bottom of one silver wing.

  Mast pointe
d through the trees. “What the flip was that?”

  A new sound came from the east––a repeating slap, like hands smacking flat into water. The aircraft flashed overhead again and banked to the north.

  “I don’t know what that is,” said Wilson. “But I think it’s on our side.”

  REED TURNED TO THE EAST AGAIN, his arms straight out at his sides and fingers stretched wide. He had to tamp down the sheer joy of flying and concentrate on what had to be done.

  Beneath the trees Hausen, Wilson, and the other implanted villagers gleamed in blue detail. The Circle invaders sparkled red-hot. The targeting system for the 20mm cannon calculated drop and distance versus his airspeed and vector––all Reed had to do was will it and the weapon fired.

  He flew overhead and marked another glowing Circle trooper. The twenty-millimeter cannon moved slightly and fired once, splashing what was left of the man into a tree. Reed moved on to the next, and the next, and the next.

  It won’t help them.

  “You’re wrong.”

  He circled twice more before running out of shells. Twenty-one shots. He’d known the drone was a test model––a history of tests and calibration data had flowed over him like a waterfall when he’d entered the machine. It had never been fully loaded with fuel or ammunition. But twenty-one perfect shots was something.

  Reed banked the drone over Wilson and the other defenders.

  “Good luck, my friends.”

  He flew west to Station and followed a golden eagle as it curved over the valley. Reed slowed his aircraft and watched the bird glide through the cold morning air.

  “This is fantastic! I never dreamed–”

  A weight crushed his center, as if a tree had fallen on his chest. He turned away from the village, gasping and fighting to control the aircraft.

  “Just ... a few ... seconds ...”

  The silver wings of the drone waggled slowly over a crowd of amazed villagers before flying straight into the side of Yellow Mountain.

  A FAMILIAR VOICE YELLED from the trees. A blood-covered and muddy Hausen ran up with a few dozen men, most of them scratched or wounded.