The Dream Widow

by Stephen Colegrove

  Under the noise from the fire and the trenches he heard the sound of crying infants. Robb watched a line of women and children run past the burning blockhouse and into the darkness.

  Out of shells, he crawled to Hausen and searched the dead man’s clothes. In a belt pouch ten rounds clinked like golden coins.

  Using the body as cover, Robb aimed for the upper torso of his targets. He shot five rounds and dropped the hot brass in a pocket of his jacket.

  Bullets smacked into Hausen and snow sprayed Robb’s face. He used his Runner trick and ran across the plaza to the mouth of Barracks, farther from the snapping bullets.

  From the cover of the concrete stairs he watched the mottled brown-and-green soldiers clamber over the top of the last trench. One of the soldiers yelled in the tribal dialect and waved the others forward.

  “Chop the head and kill the snake,” said Robb.

  He centered the three posts of his sights on the soldier and pulled the trigger. The rifle kicked his shoulder hard and the soldier fell backwards into the last trench.

  “Leader or not, you’re a hero now.”

  He waited for any more of the animals to stand up and give commands. Instead, dozens of the Circle climbed out of the last trench and rushed the plaza en masse.

  Robb shot three more rounds but hit only one soldier. Something brushed by him and he saw Kaya run down the steps to the Barracks entrance.

  “Wait!”

  He sprinted after her to the cafeteria. Half a dozen tribal women were slumped around the walls and on the floor. Kaya ran to a young woman in a blue and white printed dress and tried to lift her.

  “We can’t save them, Kaya!”

  Robb grabbed her by the waist and she tried to shake him off.

  “But these are my friends!”

  He pulled her back toward the exit. As they reached the hatch, the inside lever began to turn.

  Robb pushed Kaya against the wall. He closed his eyes and breathed a poem.

  The door creaked open and he shot the first soldier in the face. Drops of blood floated in the air like beads of a broken necklace as Robb jumped forward and slashed the necks of the five soldiers on the steps.

  He realized he should have stopped at four, or even three, as time zoomed back to normal and the reaction from the trick twisted his lungs in half. The hanging blood droplets spat against the grey walls and bodies tumbled on the steps. Surrounded by the squirming, dying soldiers, Robb bent double and dry-heaved. A weight smashed the back of his head and turned it all black.

  MAST CHEWED HIS FINGERNAILS at the entrance of the Tombs. He watched the blockhouse burn and wished he had a rifle or even a pistol. If he attracted attention, however, the Tombs would be cut off and useless as an escape route.

  A pair of hunters stumbled past the fire and into view––Carter and Zhang. Mast took a rifle and ammunition from Zhang. He and Carter steadied their weapons on the concrete lip at the top of the stairs and waited for more survivors.

  The huge fire deepened to an orange color but still cast light on the snow and the plaza. Mast watched a group of soldiers mill around the entrance to Barracks and carry up the body of a teenage boy. After that a pair of soldiers pulled a struggling girl up the steps.

  “No!”

  Carter grabbed Mast’s belt and pulled him down. “You can’t help him that way. Take the one to the right, on the count of three.”

  They aimed at the group around the prisoners and shot within half a second of each other. Mast hit a soldier in the chest. On the left, Carter’s man had suddenly turned and the bullet ripped through his arm instead of his heart.

  The soldiers dove to the ground and scattered for cover. Four carried Robb and Kaya out of sight toward the trenches. Mast wasn’t confident enough in his aim or Zhang’s rifle to risk hitting either Robb or Kaya.

  He and Carter shot three more Circle before running out of shells. Before leaving, Mast stared at the last place he’d seen Robb and spat on the concrete steps.

  Inside the entrance to the Tombs, he pulled down a lever and watched the massive door grind over a deep track. It slid into the door frame with a thud that shook the concrete floor.

  Carter touched his shoulder. “The women and children ... they made it inside, right?”

  Mast stared at the blonde-haired hunter covered with blood and soot, his clothes dripping with melting snow. It took him a moment to realize what Carter was asking.

  “I don’t know about everyone, but yes––your wife and daughter are safe downstairs. Let’s check on them.”

  Badger was still curled in a ball near the stairwell door, and Mast lifted the drowsy girl in his arms. He carried her to the stairwell and punched in the code at the silver keypad. The metal door slid away and he walked inside with Carter and Zhang.

  “Grab onto the railing and start walking,” said Mast. “It’ll be pitch black when the door closes.”

  “Not a problem,” said Zhang. “We’re hunters, remember? We know the sight-trick.”

  Carter put his foot on the first metal step and glanced into the spiraling pit.

  “The children are safer down there?”

  “For now,” said Mast. “I don’t think the Circle can break through the entrance. If they do there’s still this door to block them.”

  Carter and Zhang whispered the sight-trick poem and began walking down the steps. Mast pulled a red handle near the door. The crimson light of the entrance chamber slowly faded like a sunset.

  Mast shifted Badger in his arms and whispered the four lines of the sight-trick. When he opened his eyes the pit of the stairwell had brightened to slate-gray.

  Carter made it to the bottom first and opened the security door. A glow of aquamarine and the sound of yelling mothers and laughing children filled the stairwell.

  The two hunters gaped at the flickering dome in the center of the room. Mast had only been underground once before and understood the shock, but this was no time to stand around. He pushed by them and toward the source of the noise––the open door that led to the medical area.

  The wide, cluttered space glowed with lights and activity. Wilson’s mother Mary gave instructions to Brownie and a cluster of older women. The hundreds of survivors had been split into groups throughout the room. The badly injured lay on or around the medical tables. A handful of young Medics sweated over them and yelled for equipment. The old men––the graybeards––walked back and forth bouncing infants in their arms and talking softly. Other children played along the walls or sat around the women of Station, who distracted them with games and little chores.

  Mast thought about the children whose mothers were still aboveground, and a knot twisted in his stomach.

  He lay Badger on an empty medical bed as Brownie ran up.

  “Where’s Kaya?”

  She saw the expression on Mast’s face and pulled him out to the empty, blue-lit cavern.

  “Where are the rest of them? Is Kaya hurt?”

  Mast shook his head and ran his tongue along the inside of his lips.

  “The Circle won,” he said. “There’s nobody else left.”

  Brownie smacked him on the arm. “You stupid lazy idiot! They’re not dead, they were only sleeping!”

  “I saw the Circle all over the trenches and in Barracks. They took Kaya away. Yishai is missing––dead, sleeping, captured––I don’t know. He’s my father-in-law––do you think I’d be hiding down here if I knew where he was? If I could do something other than getting shot?”

  Brownie shook her head and walked back to the medical area. Mast followed her and found Mina on a medical table, covered with a woolen blanket. Her face was pale and hands colder than normal. Mast brushed a strand of straw-blonde hair out of her eyes.

  “She’s doing fine,” said Janna, bandaging a woman’s arm nearby. “Tribals take ten times as long to heal. They don’t have implants so––”

  “Yes, I know,” said Mast.

  He touched Mina’s cheek and bit the inside
of his lower lip to keep from crying.

  After half an hour Badger groaned. She turned her head from side to side and squinted at the lights overhead.

  “Founder’s three cats ...”

  A shadow passed overhead––Janna’s face and blond hair.

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Of course I can, stop shouting,” said Badger.

  “I wasn’t.”

  Badger rubbed her face, trying to get rid of the numb sensation. “Why is everything so fuzzy?”

  “We think you drank tea full of a sleeping drug. Mast brought you down here.”

  “Down where? To the Tombs?”

  The shadow flickered. “Yes.”

  Badger swung her feet over the edge of the bed. She gripped the sheets as the room spun in circles. “Is Will around?”

  “You shouldn’t get up. Rest a little bit.”

  Badger shrugged off Janna’s hands. “Don’t tell me what to do. Where is he?”

  Mast spoke quietly from behind Badger. “He’s in the cavern and I’ll take you. Janna, stay here.” He turned and raised his voice. “Mary! I need help.”

  “Stop treating me like a baby or I’ll stab someone!”

  “Kira, just trust me and don’t fight,” said Mast.

  With his and Mary’s arms supporting her, Badger limped into the cavern. Wilson lay covered by a blanket beside the dome that held a flickering, cable-wrapped Father Reed.

  “The idiot!”

  Badger squirmed and broke free from Mast and Mary. She stumbled across the floor like a newborn deer and sprawled next to Wilson. His head lay on a pillow. Blood-red wire curled from the shining metal circlet around his forehead to an open panel beneath the dome.

  Mast held Badger’s shoulder. “Stop.”

  “Take it off him.”

  “We can’t,” said Mary. “We don’t know what will happen. Do you think I want to hurt him?”

  Badger reached toward the circlet but the pair held her down.

  “He’ll wake up,” she yelled. “Take it off!”

  “You don’t know that,” said Mast. “You’re not the only person that cares about him.”

  Badger hid her face in her arms and shook on the floor quietly. Mary touched her shoulder but Badger shrugged her off.

  After a long moment she wiped her eyes with a sleeve.

  “Stupid bastard,” she said, hoarsely. “All right, get off me. I won’t touch that thing on his head. I swear I’ll kill him when he wakes up, though.”

  She crawled next to Wilson and watched his chest rise and fall.

  “You might want to save your energy for someone else,” said Mast. “The Circle won.”

  Badger stared at him with red-rimmed eyes. “What?”

  “The battle’s over and the Circle controls Station. Apart from the ones who made it down here, everyone else is captured or dead.”

  Badger sat up from the floor and relaxed against the curved dome. She stared at a point between her feet.

  “We have two or three rifles,” continued Mast. “Probably no rounds. Only a handful of fighters made it down here. Maybe three or four are Wilson’s students and know the implant tricks. We can’t find enough blankets for the children and our food supply won’t last more than a few days.” He paced a slow circle. “The Circle has everything and we’ve got nothing.”

  Badger sniffed and rubbed her nose. “No.”

  “If you ask me, we should surrender.”

  “No!”

  Hands behind her on the dome, Badger got to her feet unsteadily and leaned forward.

  “Don’t say that––ever again. You can give up when I’m dead, when Wilson is dead, when the children have starved to death, when anything you ever believed in has shriveled and died, because that’s what you’ll be when you let them win––” She jabbed a shaking finger at Mast and spoke through her teeth. “––dead.”

  He sighed and spread his arms. “Well, what do we do now?”

  “About the Circle? That’s an easy one.” Badger leaned back and slowly cracked her knuckles. “Now we kill them all.”

  ELEVEN

  The lake burned with noonday light.

  Wilson fell, spread-eagled and arrow-straight toward the water. The rushing air tore at his clothes and smelled of lavender and upturned clods of earth.

  He passed through the sparkling lake like a hand chopped through fog. At once cold air chilled his skin. Sand pressed behind him, covered his fingers and the back of his legs. He lay on his back in a shallow ditch. The air felt dry and cool.

  Wilson shielded his eyes from the pale blue sky0. An insect buzzed overhead and disappeared. A bird chirped a strange, halting song in the distance.

  Sweat rolled down his nose––strange in the cool sunlight. He climbed out of the ditch into a valley ringed by tan mountains. Wilson found a rocky overhand and squatted beneath it to escape the breeze. Apart from a few insects and birds nothing moved.

  “I’ve never been anywhere like this,” he said to himself. “Is this a dream?”

  Across the valley a black dash and pair of dots marked the summit of a rainstorm-gray mountain. The horizontal line appeared too finely cut to be natural.

  Wilson left the cave and wandered along the sparse yellow grass of the valley floor. None of the vegetation seemed familiar, and he of all people should know about plant species. He wondered if they were merely decorative, or false fronts for links to subprograms in the system?

  He pulled a conspicuous yellow flower from the ground. Nothing happened.

  “I guess sometimes a plant is just a plant,” he said.

  He buttoned his leather jacket up to his ears in the breeze. After an hour he made it to the pile of slate and granite scree at the base of the mountain. His head pounded with a stabbing pain. He guessed it was a reaction to the interface band around his head in the real world.

  Wilson began to climb. With each step of his leather moccasins, sharp pebbles broke loose and clattered down the slope.

  He felt out of breath and dizzy the farther he climbed. Every ten steps he had to rest, bent over with hands on his knees like a wheezing graybeard.

  At last he reached a gray concrete wall, the black dash above his head. The lines were level and regular and Wilson was certain it was man-made. He rested a full ten minutes, then jumped and pulled himself over the lip to a flat concrete floor. A tunnel higher than a man’s reach extended into the darkness.

  Wilson lay on his back for a moment. He tried to slow his breathing and control the massive, shooting pain in his head. He rubbed his temples with both hands and glanced at the scar on the inside of his left arm.

  “None of this is real. Why would I have an implant?”

  He closed his eyes, visualized a frozen lake, and chanted the recovery poem. His left arm cooled and the pain faded away like a fire covered with blankets.

  Still strangely out of breath, he got to his feet and wandered into dark tunnel. The sight-trick worked also, and illuminated the concrete walls and rectangular spaces. Wilson found nothing in the dozens of empty rooms apart from a palm-sized paper box.

  He walked back to the sunshine at the entrance. Red and white paper crinkled loudly as he inspected the small box. Thin silver material lined the inside. Strange, square characters made up of many detailed lines covered the front and back along with a single word: “Hongtashan.” Wilson found four characters that he was fairly certain were a year. Two horizontal lines probably stood for “two”, followed by a zero, an unknown character, and three horizontal lines. So the box came from “two-zero–something–three”?

  Wilson pushed the delicate paper into his jacket. He dangled his legs off the concrete ledge and meditated again. His throat was parched. How could this be part of the system? What use was a feeling of thirst to the machinery?

  The valley lay below his feet. On his left grassland spread beyond a narrow split in the mountains.

  Wilson squinted at the plains and thought he saw a clump of tiny blac
k and white dots. He slid off the ledge and followed a dusty ridge down the mountain.

  He stepped onto the plains in the deep purple of dusk. A large black tent sheltered behind a rise. Many ropes secured it, probably from high winds, and square yellow flags flew from the wooden poles. Not far away wandered a herd of over a hundred long-haired, black and white goats.

  Wilson smelled cooking meat. His mouth watered and he walked closer.

  “Hello? Anyone home?”

  A bark came from behind a stacked wall of rocks. An ugly black dog––the spitting image of the one back at Station––galloped toward Wilson. It barked and snarled only feet away. Wilson held up his hands but the dog kept barking.

  Voices mumbled inside the tent. A flap swished open and a young boy stepped outside.

  He wore a dark blue robe that brushed his knees, black trousers, and a blue skullcap. At seeing Wilson his eyes opened wide, but the boy quickly smiled. His white teeth contrasted sharply with his tanned face.

  “Nan owa ga de-le?”

  “I don’t understand,” said Wilson, as politely as possible.

  The boy walked closer, still smiling, and repeated the phrase.

  “Sorry, I don’t know your language. Do you speak Anglan?”

  The boy sighed and shook his head like a mother at a stubborn child. He threw a rock at the ugly dog and shushed it, then waved Wilson into the open flap of the tent.

  Wilson ducked his head and crouched inside. A leg of goat roasted over a fire and the air was full of flowery, heavy spices.

  “Ik ming zi lo?”

  The deep voice came from an old man half in the shadows. A faded red turban covered his head and he wore a gray robe lined in sheepskin.

  Wilson shook his head. “Sorry. Do you speak Anglan? Kompren mia lingvo?”

  “Ik ming zi lo?” said the man, louder this time. He leaned forward to the fire.

  Wilson gasped. Even with the dark tan and strange clothing, he recognized the narrow, bearded face of Father Reed.

  “Cat’s teeth! What happened to you, Father?”

  The boy and Reed continued to ask him questions in the strange, mumbling language. They gave up eventually and instead used gestures to invite him to sit down. Wilson guessed they considered him either a mental defective or a lost foreigner.