by Nick Ryder
“So, you’re saying my brain can move in and out of bodies as we choose them?” I asked. It was still a lot to take in, and the body on the floor was being prepared for reclamation from the remaining automatons. I sent a signal to Ego automatically thinking we needed more automatons since the creature from sublevel five destroyed two of them.
“We can’t do that?” Marie asked lightly.
“I don’t believe so,” Ego replied. “Your genetic coding is specific to the bodies we’ve produced for you. I was unaware that nanobots were able to recode at all.”
“You think this has something to do with the programmers or the fact that the nanobots are reproducing and evolving,” Lisa added, “adapting to the necessities of the base.” She limped away from the pooling blood from my corpse. All three of them were avoiding looking at it.
The body was human, hulking and broken. While I thought it was a good idea to have a human form, it turned fatal. The first encounter with the beast on level five tore through the skin like it was paper.
“We’re glad you’re okay,” Marie said softly.
Elaine and Lisa grunted their agreement, as if embarrassed by how much emotion they’d shown.
“This might not be the best time,” Ego announced, shattering the moment, “but we have intruders in the base.”
Chapter Twenty
For the sake of herself, and to put no one else in harm’s way, Cara left the village alone and without announcement to the council or her father. The trouble was, she knew, several miles from home, on her way to confront the demons inside the mountain kingdom, she wasn’t alone.
Nightfall in the desert was a clear black line drawn across the sand. When the sun sunk behind the mountaintops, the light and heat simultaneously snuffed out. It was colder and dark before Cara finally stopped. She had no intention of camping. She wanted to make it across to the mountain kingdom as soon as possible, and that meant traveling through the night. But she knew whoever decided to follow, wasn’t as experienced as she was, didn’t have the combat skills, and likely expected her to stop for the night.
“You can come out,” she said, kneeling in the warm sand. The scrub brush that surrounded the way to the other side of the valley was sparse. When it came to the middle of the desert, nothing grew. Wind pushing sand kept seeds from rooting. There wasn’t enough water in the desert to help the soil thicken.
The scrub brush moved, shifted with someone standing up, surrounded by the tangled weeds. In the dark, it looked as if the thin figure was the same shade as the plants, a dusty pallid green, struggling for moisture.
“Can I have some water?” a small voice asked.
“Didn’t you bring any water with you?” All the girl had was four skins of her own. “What’s in those then?”
“I drank it all.”
“You really need to learn how to ration your precious resources. How thirsty can such a small girl be?” Shaking her head in disbelief, Cara tossed her own skin of water in the direction of the silhouette. She watched small hands with long fingers pick up the container. She heard the girl sucking hard on the top. It was the last of her water and Surre drank it all.
Cara took a deep breath. She stood up, lifted her halberd, and balanced it in her hand, pointing the tip out into the desert dark. After a moment of listening, turning her head one way, then the next, she launched the pole weapon, and it whooshed out of sight.
There was a thud and squeal as she squatted and pulled together dry brush and started a small fire. As the flames consumed the brush, Cara wandered away from the light in the direction of her halberd.
Surre moved closer to the flames. She put Cara’s container on the ground where the woman’s boot prints left impressions in the sand.
“No weapons?” Cara asked when she returned to the fire. There was a lizard more than a meter long hanging from the end of the blades.
Cara shook off the dead lizard and began skinning it with her dirk. Surre shook her head.
“You know how dangerous it is out here?” Cara reminded the girl. She was still barefoot. She squatted, both feet in the sand, her toes dug in deeper.
“I said I was going with you,” she whispered.
Cara shook her head. “It’s your choice,” she said and stripped meat from the lizard. There were thick twigs, she propped up next to the campfire and laid the strips of lizard meat against the makeshift barbecue spit. Cara wasn’t going to scold her. She was ten when Sampson took her on scavenger trips. Surre got a late start.
“Do you have anything to protect yourself?” Cara asked.
Surre shook her head.
As soon as Cara finished with the lizard meat, filleting as much meat as possible from the carcass, she cleaned the knife and handed it to Surre.
“I want this back as soon as you find a weapon.” It was a rite of passage. There were several weapons in the village armory. They even had a woman at arms. She was a weapons master who helped everyone find the perfect tool for their lifestyle. Sometimes it was a trowel if you worked in the gardens. Cara had a halberd and her father fashioned tools and weapons for everyone. Surre didn’t even have a small shovel with her.
They reached the plateau sometime before dawn. They ate their fill of lizard. Surre complained of thirst for an hour before Cara told her that talking only brought the monsters out.
It was the first time she’d returned to the steel door since she discovered the solar panels. The door was closed and immovable. Cara considered this because it proved something to her that she didn’t share with anyone else. There were sentient creatures inside the mountain hideaway. While she thought the robot she’d seen before had enough common sense to close a door, it took something intelligent to barricade the steel cover.
“What is it?” Surre asked. She put both her hands against the metal door. It was something Cara noticed of the girl. She had to touch everything. Along the way, she saw Surre pick up rocks and twigs to examine them.
“It’s a base of some sort.” Cara turned the halberd around in her hands, pointing the tip of the blades at the steel plate. She looked over her shoulder at Surre. “Stand back a little. A little more,” she added. Then she said, “Um, don’t tell anyone about this.”
And before Surre could determine what she was supposed to keep secret, the blade of the pole weapon turned red. An intense heat washed over them. Cara concentrated and pressed the edge against the plate. It began to match the red and then turned orange against the tip before the halberd blade slipped through the metal. Cara gave her wrists a turn, and the steel sliced open, and she carved out an opening big enough to crawl inside.
She sat down on the cliff. The opening radiated heat and still glowed red. “It’ll take a while before it cools off.”
Anything living trying to get through that opening would receive severe burns. For the moment, Cara relaxed and cooled off. The sweat coated her body and the chilly night breeze felt blissful.
“They don’t know you can do that, do they?” Surre said. She saw the desert plants that took root near the opening of the metal cave. She ran her hands over the thick tangle of branches.
She stared at the horizon. “What’s that?” she asked.
Cara followed her gaze. At night it wasn't entirely dark in the desert. While the mountains looked like black lines that made walls and the valley floor was a flat gray surface, the night sky had enough ambient glow to show modest details. On the horizon, there was a pale azure smoldering.
“I think that’s the sunrise,” Cara said dismissively.
“The sunrise comes over the mountains to the east. That is north.”
It was a mistake Cara didn’t make lightly. She’d noticed the reddish blush earlier before they climbed to the ledge. And she didn’t want to think about it. It was miles away. Surre’s note made Cara realize that it wasn’t as far away as it was an hour before. The sun would tamp out the radiance before they had to worry about it.
“Let’s get inside.”
The edges of the melted metal twinkled. Inside the space, Cara kept Surre behind her. They moved forward. It had changed some since her last visit. Crates had moved, barriers erected, there was more fortification built since last time.
“Someone lives here,” Surre whispered.
“I know,” Cara said. There was a considerable arching space further inside. Dormant vehicles with rust and rockfall trapping the human-made things. The counter where Wilbert found the mug she took to her father, had been cleaned. There was a square steel basin within the countertop. Surre broke away from Cara, ran to it.
“I think this is a well,” she said, “A tiny one.” She flipped one of the small tabs. There was a hiss, a gurgle, and black ooze poured into the sink. It sputtered and hissed again.
“Turn that off,” Cara hissed. The hallway on the far side of the large bay still had closed doors.
After a moment, the pipe cleared and water poured from the facet. Surre ignored Cara, cupped her hands together under the flow and began to drink hardily.
“Fill up all the flasks,” Cara said. The girl had an insatiable thirst and drank heavily from the running water before following the order. Something moved inside the space. “Turn that off,” Cara demanded. She moved forward and knocked Surre behind her; turned off the water.
The double-doors on the far end hung open. The ceiling was a tapestry of steel girders, welded and bracketed against the mountain. Along the far wall, leading more in-depth into the vehicle storage, the crates were long and black. The small deposits of LED lighting gave away just enough interior that Cara didn’t bother with her fire stick. Surre didn’t have one. The girl didn’t have a utility belt, just hemp rope for a strap over the cotton tunic.
“That’s not a box,” Cara said when she realized the stacks of crates against the far wall began to uncoil and skirt further into the vehicle bay. It was lithe and silent and a mixture of white, black, and orange.
Before she could pull the halberd up to protect herself, the humanoid cat creature launched at her. White daggers protruded from its paws.
But Cara dropped the pole weapon and lifted her hands; an arc of blue light began to crackle between her hands. Full of surprises, and now she couldn’t hide them. Surre was the witness. If they lived, she didn’t know if the girl was trustworthy.
“Pretty! Don’t you dare hurt it!” Surre shouted. And something happened. Cara felt sick to her stomach as something coiled around her shoulders and neck, yanking her off her feet backward just as the giant cat reached the spot she stood. But the cat person stopped, hovering in midair too. It made a yowl as it involuntarily turned in the air.
It wasn’t free-floating. The same magic that trapped Cara had the creature. Its substantial green eyes blinked at the slender girl. There was an iridescent greenish hue pulsating about her. The tendrils from the plants at the mouth of the cave had snatched the victim and attacker, separating them.
“She’s just protecting her home.,” Surre said. “I think. You’re not going to hurt her.”
The creature’s face was distinctly human, and so were many aspects of its fur-covered body. It was wearing clothes. Well, barely, but they were there. It was a lot like the wolf woman that Cara swore had tried to save Spencer from that giant eagle. Only this one was much more graceful and slender, beautiful too.
Cara didn’t speak immediately. There was a wrap of branches around her throat and some leaves in her mouth. Someone spoke.
“Um, can you put me down?” The voice was low and sultry even with that simple request. Cara stared up at the cat woman suspended off the floor, tangled in branches and leaves that wrapped entirely around the body and hands. Only the tail moved freely, and it twitched irritably.
“You can talk?” Surre squealed. It was as if all the stories from childhood bubbled up inside her.
“I’m not what you think,” the curious figure said, looking down at her own form.
“Please, don’t be afraid.” The other voice was close to Cara’s ear on the left. She turned to see a rat, much larger than the one that snatched Troy, but somehow shapely. Like the cat, the rat was more human than rat when she saw it properly. Cara was certain the rat woman’s appearance was a deception. She looked small and sweet, with a small pointy nose and plump lips, but Cara didn’t doubt she packed a punch. “
We’re on your side,” the rat woman said.
The plants that ensnared Cara and the cat woman loosened. Surre wavered a little. She went back to the sink, ignoring the talking humanoid animals and began gulping more water. It was more like a compulsion than a simple urge to drink. Maybe using her freaky plant power dried her out. Flora did need a lot of water to thrive, after all.
“We’re human,” the deep voice said as a familiar wolf like being limped toward Cara from the double-doors.
“Are you sure?” she asked. The halberd was still on the floor some distance from her. If she insulted the creatures pretending to be human, they’d rip her to shreds before she conjured another fireball or got to her weapon.
“You’re from the village,” the white she-wolf said. She sat down, legs crossed and arms folded. Her left hand had a gauze wrapped around it. Her fur had patches of pink and Cara understood that something violent had happened inside the mountain.
“We are,” she agreed. “I saw you before.”
The wolf woman nodded. “I’ve been watching you.” It shouldn’t have been a surprise that when Cara got closer, she appeared more woman than beast too. Stoic and powerful, her gorgeous face held strength that was innately appealing to Cara. She was a leader, no doubt.
“Why are you here?” Surre asked. The water had replenished her strength. She had a little color to her cheeks. She moved to Cara.
“We’ve been here for a long time,” the cat woman said.
“Is that why you think you’re human?” Surre asked pointedly.
“I think it’s better if you come with us,” the rat woman said.
“No, leave the weapon there,” said the wolf woman. Cara made a face and stepped around the halberd.
The two girls followed the animal women through the doors on the far side of the bay.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was a meeting that took both parties time to adjust to. I studied the girls. Cara was strong and intelligent, on top of making my non-existent nether region throb with her sheer beauty. She actively listened, and I saw her test the dagger at her belt a few times to make sure she still had it. The other girl, Surrexerunt, or “Surre” as she asked us to call her, was a marvel. They were both remnants of the Change with special abilities, and it appeared by their conversations, the true extent of their powers were secret from them as much as us.
“You can control the plants?” Ego asked. It took the girl a little time to get used to talking to the room. When she learned I was part of the system, and Ego was an AI, she directed her conversation into the camera that watched from the upper corner of the lounge.
“I work in the gardens at home.”
“I don’t think that’s what Ego meant,” Elaine said. She had to tolerate Surre because when the girl wasn’t staring up at my camera, she had run her fingers through Elaine’s fur. Stroking her back, rubbing around her ears, Elaine caught herself a few times purring from the touch.
“We’re hoping there’s a way to work together,” I said. If Cara was the diplomat for the village, a representation of the people who carved out a life on the other side of the valley, it was possible we could mutually benefit each other.
“I don’t know if that will work,” Cara said. “They’re—” She thought for a moment before saying, “Closed-minded. Everything is part of a rigid system for us. It always has been since the Change. Surely you’ve heard of the Seer who helped save what is left of humanity so we could survive?”
“I have no records of that,” said Ego defeatedly. “I will need to interview you on this matter soon.”
“They’ll just come here and take what they want.” Surr
e wasn’t a diplomat; she was a straight shooter, and a force to reckon with. “The reds take what they want. They’ll have a meeting and make some decision to decide what to do with you.”
“We don’t want to fight regular humans,” I said.
“If you want to have a truce, they’ll want you to bring something.” Cara watched the she-wolf. It was an arm’s length from her, but respectfully, she hadn’t tried or asked to touch Lisa’s fur. “Would you be willing to let us have some of your solar panels?”
“We can do that,” I said. “Ego can have panels constructed, and we’ll present them as an offering for good faith.”
Cara looked uneasy.
“What?” I asked. “You’re not a fool, Cara. We can see that you came here believing there was something worth finding. We started out on the wrong foot, but I’d like to think we’re on the same side.”
“Are all the survivors like you two?” Lisa asked. Cara looked into the beautiful Lisa's amber eyes. She still didn’t try to touch the shiny white coat.
“You mean does everyone have special abilities?” Surre asked. She moved from Elaine to Marie and the other rats. They were skittish at first. Then Surre sat on the floor, and they pressed against her, sniffing her ears, pressing their furry gray bodies against her. She giggled and hooked her arms around one of the rats to hold onto while they talked. “I’m a level five. No one even knows I have abilities.”
“Is that all you can do?” Cara asked.
“Level five?” Ego asked. “I do not detect any levels when I look at your statistics.”
“Our what? Levels, you know,” Surre said. “We score points from our contributions in town, and then we level up.”
“It’s something that came after the Change,” Cara said. “The points only exist on paper, but they are highly prized in our community, like money used to be before the Change. It was the way of the great Seer. My father said it was how the survivors managed. Some of the people who have extraordinary powers are category SS. But,” she said looking around with doubt, “I don’t suppose you were awake for any of that?”
