The Gods of War

by Graham Brown

The systems officer looked up, his face ashen. “War’s broken out on Earth. President Collins has been injured in an assassination attempt. The prime minister is dead. Forty senators are dead. Half the president’s staff are missing and presumed dead. It’s believed Black Death insurgents are responsible and that their next move will come here, on Mars.”

  “Maybe that explains why we were sent here in the first place,” the pilot said.

  Dyson gave the driver a sharp look. “Is there an order attached to that news?”

  “We’re to report to some guy named Cassini in Olympia. He’s being installed as an executive governor, with full emergency powers.”

  Dyson didn’t like it one bit. He moved the comm officer aside and took a look at the screen himself. He read the entire order, with all its directives about guarding infrastructure and the arrest of suspected individuals. It was signed by President Collins, and it certainly sounded like a reaction to the situation on Earth, but Dyson had never heard of military units being ordered around by a private contractor.

  “Anyone know who this Cassini fellow is?”

  The crew shook their heads.

  “What do we do?” the gunner asked.

  Dyson hesitated. He studied the order one more time, looking for something he didn’t see.

  “Lieutenant?”

  Dyson sighed. “Orders are orders,” he said grimly. “And we’re going to follow them.”

  CHAPTER 12

  New York City

  James stood in fetid darkness. It smelled like a mix of burning oil and trash and waste. A miserable stench, even for this world.

  Unable to claw his way through the rubble and back to the surface, he’d been forced to go deeper into the sub-levels looking for an exit. Using the micro-light on the lower rail of his pistol to guide him, he’d followed the hand carved tunnel until it gave way to an ancient, abandoned subway line. There he’d dropped onto a track bed devoid of rails or lighting or anything else that could be removed and sold.

  Amid the overlapping graffiti, he noticed strange designs carved into the walls. The marks were unfamiliar to him, as if the underground had its own language and symbols. He guessed they were territorial marks, signs or flags to warn other groups away, as the sub-levels were known to house many factions and gangs who often fought one another for control and access to the surface.

  An hour of hiking brought him past several dead bodies and a group of jerry-rigged supports wedged in place to keep the roof from collapsing in one section. At several points in the hike he’d heard strange noises emanating from various vents and grates in the floor, and the sound of water dripping was constant, but no one had challenged him.

  Finally he’d reached an area that had once been a station, but after climbing up on the crumbling platform he’d found the exits sealed with huge piles of concrete and twisted metal. He couldn’t tell if it was the work of the gangs, who wanted to keep people in and charge for access to the surface, or the surface dwellers who feared these underground tunnels and those who lived within them.

  As James considered his next move, a series of muffled reverberations rumbled through the cavern. The double thud of distant explosions was unmistakable. Big enough to shake the city.

  Whatever the hell was going on up top, the big guns were involved now. He wondered if Inyo’s civil war had broken out, or if the coup against his father was being consolidated. There was even a slight possibility that the military had figured it out and were now moving against Lucien and the Cartel, but if the regulars were on the march it was more likely they were lashing out in revenge, blindly pounding any suspected enemies in the city.

  Either way, he needed to do something about it. Exactly what he wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t do a damned thing if without getting back to the surface.

  He dropped back onto the track bed and aimed his pistol down the tunnel. The tiny light cast a narrow beam that cut through the darkness and clouds of dust. Nothing but tunnel ahead. He picked up the pace, double-timing it now, racing for the next station.

  A quarter mile on he began descending and rounding a curve, dropping another seventy feet before the slope flattened out. He was now on the second level. A third and fourth level of tunnels were known to exist below but James wasn’t interested in going any lower. Not if he could help it.

  Far up ahead he noticed firelight. He doused his own beam and continued towards it.

  As he grew closer, something scurried across the tunnel from one side to the other. He only saw its silhouette, but by the way it moved, James thought it was an animal of some kind. Seconds later, other shapes fluttered after it.

  James stopped his approach as a kind of whooping sound came out of the dark. Human voices, shouting and calling something out, distorted into an unnatural sound by the odd acoustics of the tunnel.

  He edged closer to the side of the tunnel and gripped the pistol tighter. He could see shapes creeping towards him in the dark, hugging the walls. Suddenly one of them began running. The others followed. All of them charging for James.

  With the light behind them they were nothing but shadows, dark shapes that seemed to be flying his way.

  James raised his weapon and lit up the closest one with the blinding white beam. He saw a man with dreadlocks and a dark rat’s nest of a beard. Crazed eyes seemed filled not with madness but fear. Startled by the light, the man tried to stop.

  Instead of killing him, James clotheslined him around the neck with his free hand and slammed him to the ground.

  He raised the gun, but the others continued the charge. He fired point blank, blasting two of the charging shapes. Three more rushed forward, one firing a lethal looking dart from a cross bow. Another raised a machete-like blade.

  James dove out of the way, releasing the man he’d body-slammed and blasting the machete-wielding attacker.

  The man with the ratty beard got up and ran. Only now did it dawn on James that he was clutching a satchel of some kind and that the others were chasing him. They raced past James and pounced on the runner like a pack of dogs. Two more appeared from the darkness and launched themselves at James. James flung one of them off, felt a knife slice his arm and then blasted the both of them in rapid succession.

  He turned around just in time to see the satchel ripped from the dreadlocked man’s grasp. A booted foot knocked the man down as another of the thugs raised a club to crush his skull.

  James pulled the trigger once again. The crack of the gunshot and the flash of the muzzle lit up the tunnel. The bullet hit the pipe wielding lunatic in the head and sent him flying backward, half his skull blown off. The pipe clanged to the ground as the surviving muggers took off with their prize, racing into the darkness.

  James lit them up with the micro-light but held his fire.

  “Stop them!” the dreadlocked man shouted.

  The shadows racing were easy targets, but James only had a nine shells left in the pistol. He wasn’t about to waste them on purse snatchers running into the distance.

  “Please!”

  James doused the light. “I don’t think so.”

  The dreadlocked man got up and began to chase them, but James caught him before he could get too far.

  “God-damn you,” the man said. “Do you know what you’ve done? There was medicine in that bag. Two hundred doses of Interferon.”

  Interferon was an expensive drug. In its newest form it cured the plagues, the same ones that had killed James’s mother. It kept its potency for a very long time and was sometimes used as a barter currency.

  “And what’s a guy like you doing with Interferon?” James asked. “Paying someone off?”

  The man looked up at him, squinting in the light. James noticed his dark pupils constricting. He guessed that living in the tunnels one got more used to the darkness than the light. He kept the beam aimed directly at the man.

  Using his free hand, James searched the man for weapons. He didn’t find any, and guessed if the man had anything to fight with h
e would have used it already.

  “Trying to help people,” the man said. “I’m a doctor.”

  Though the man spoke with conviction, James figured he was a dealer or courier or something similar. But it didn’t matter. “If you say so, Doctor. Now how about showing me how to get out of this rat hole?”

  “I can’t show you anything if you make me blind,” the man said.

  James held the beam in place for a second longer and then moved it off line. The man seemed to relax with the beam out of his eyes.

  James stood and stepped back, allowing the dreadlocked man to sit up. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  The man eyed him strangely. “Help me to get the medicine back, then I’ll help you to leave. I know where they’re going to take it. We can catch up to them.”

  “I don’t have time for that.”

  “There are people who need that medicine,” the man insisted.

  “I’m sure there are,” James said. “But I have bigger problems.”

  He cocked his head to listen. The pounding had resumed on the surface. “You hear that thunder? There’s a war breaking out. Now you’re going to show me how to get back up top, or you’re going to rapidly outlive your usefulness.”

  The man listened intently to the sound of the distant explosions as if trying to fathom just what they were or to gauge how far away. “Fine,” he said. “There’s an exit tunnel a mile east of here. I’ll show you.”

  “Leading up to the plaza?” James said.

  The man nodded.

  James shook his head. “Hate to tell you, but it’s caved in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. That’s how I got trapped down here in the first place.”

  The man looked glum. “The next exit on this line is three miles beyond that,” he said. “But it’s controlled by a group known as the Long Knives. They will want cash to let you back up to the surface. A transit fee.”

  “I don’t have any cash on me,” James replied.

  “They might be willing to take your gun.”

  “And then kill us both with it,” James said, roiling his eyes. “No thanks. What else you got?”

  The man sighed and then looked to the left, down the tunnel toward the fires, back to where the thieves had ambushed him. “The only other exit within two hours of here is to the south of us. Further down the line.”

  James followed the man’s gaze. The flickering light from small fires danced along the walls. Smoke obscured the ceiling as it drifted and vanished up pipes that led to the surface. He briefly wondered if the shafts were climbable, then discarded the idea. If they were, people would be using them.

  “You don’t seem too enthusiastic about heading south. Why is that?”

  “Because the main tunnel is blocked. Has been for years. That means we’ll have to go deeper before we can climb up again. It takes us into the Badlands.”

  “More gangs?” James asked.

  “Worse,” the man said. “Flesh eaters.”

  James wondered if the man was trying to trick him. He looked down the tunnel toward the fires and then back at the old man. There was only one way to find out.

  “Better grab that pipe, old man,” he said, pointing to the weapon on the ground. “You might need it.”

  Reluctantly, the man crouched down and picked up the pipe.

  James nodded toward the fires and the man who was now his guide took the lead. James fell in behind him.

  “My name’s Bethel,” the man said, glancing back.

  James nodded. “Nice to know you. A word of warning, Bethel. If you lead me into a trap, I’ll kill you before anyone gets to me.”

  “If we end up trapped,” Bethel said, gravely, “I hope you do just that.”

  CHAPTER 13

  James and Bethel moved deeper in the tunnels. They moved past the fires that marked the boundary of the Badlands and into the darkness once again. In certain places there was a tiny bit of light from an incandescent moss that grew in the walls. It was not enough for James to see by and he constantly bumped and stumbled over things, but it was better than nothing as using the micro-light would be a dead giveaway to anyone watching.

  Bethel on the other hand seemed to feel his way through. Perhaps those large eyes of his had gotten so used to the darkness that this small amount of glowing moss provided enough light to see by. After a long time spent walking in silence, James finally asked about it.

  “How is it you can see where you’re going?” he whispered.

  “Retina-max,” Bethel replied.

  Retina-max was a drug that enhanced night vision by five hundred percent. The military used it on night patrols. It gave the average soldier the night vision of a cat without the need for night vision goggles.

  “How is it you have access to Retina-max and Interferon?” James asked, growing more suspicious by the moment.

  “I told you I’m a doctor,” Bethel said. “I worked for the government for many years. I know all the suppliers. I had a very successful practice. I lived in the Cashmir building. My clients were very important people.”

  Cashmir was one of the huge mega-buildings on the island. A smaller version of the Fortress, filled with extremely wealthy individuals.

  “What the hell are you doing down here?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Probably not, but I’m tired of walking in silence,” James said.

  “One day a woman came to me,” Bethel said. “How she got through security I don’t know. She was pretty, but not from our world. She had a four month old baby with her. He was dying from the plague. Against my better judgment, I gave her and her son doses of Interferon. I decided I’d figure out how to account for them later. If I could have patted myself on the back for my good deed, I would have. But as she was leaving she told me there were hundreds of children dying down here, maybe thousands.”

  Bethel’s voice was deep and soft. It came through the dark like a wave rolling onto a distant beach.

  “So you came down here to help them?” James guessed.

  “To this day I’m not sure why,” he said. “I had to see it for myself, I guess. I brought two cases of medicine. The gangs at the entrance took one of them and let me pass. But when I arrived it was worse than I expected. Worse than what you’ve seen so far. Children living off rats and refuse brought down from the trash dumps up above. So many were sick. And of course there were no doctors, not even false ones. I ended up coming back again and again. At some point I stopped going back. I sold off my things to buy more prescriptions on the black market. Now… now, I only leave to get medicine and supplies.”

  For some reason James believed the story. Maybe because it was spoken without a hint of pride. More like sadness, as if the man realized what a fool he sounded like.

  “And I’m guessing you risk your life in the corridors of the cannibals to avoid giving half of your cargo to the gangs.”

  “I have very little left,” he said. “I have to make it last.”

  James considered the man. He sounded both noble and crazy. Maybe those traits intersected more often than one thought. He started to laugh softly.

  “What’s so funny?” Bethel asked.

  “Nothing really,” James said, but then added, “It’s just… someone I knew would have approved of your choice,” James whispered sadly.

  “Noblesse oblige?” Bethel asked.

  “Something like that.”

  A sound in the distance ended the conversation and James stopped in his tracks. He put a hand on Bethel’s shoulder.

  For a moment they held still, listening for other noises. Soon enough, James detected the sound of footfalls soft to be sure but loose, uneven ground crunched slightly with each step. After a few steps the noises stopped.

  In the silence and darkness James peered around. But he spotted no sign of attackers.

  “You see anything with those cat’s eyes of yours,” he whispered.

  Bethel peered into the darkness
, holding very still. He slowly turned his head. “Behind us.”

  So they were being followed. Tracked. James wondered where they’d come from but he guessed cannibals would have well developed places to hide.

  “How many?”

  “Four. About thirty yards away,” Bethel whispered back. “Their noses are twitching. They smell us. Or should I say they smell you.”

  James understood what Bethel was saying. He hadn’t been down there long enough to take on the disgusting scent of the underground. He guessed that meant he smelled different, maybe even especially edible. He thought of the nine shells in the clip.

  “How far to the exit?”

  “We’re almost there. About a hundred yards, maybe a little more.” Bethel said. “I can see the marker.”

  Once again James wished he could see through the night. “Get ready to run.”

  Some kind of strange grunting noise came from the dark. James wondered if it was language or hunger pangs, then decided he didn’t really care. He gripped the pistol, took a calming breath and exhaled.

  “Go!”

  Bringing the pistol up and thumbing the light switch, he lit up the cave behind them. In the bright glare he saw four men half clothed. Long stringy hair and facial growth made them look like animals. They reared back in the light and then charged forward trying to shield their eyes as they ran. They didn’t get far. James dropped three of them almost instantly only missed the fourth as he dove behind a pile of rubble. Only then did James see another group racing forward from further down the tunnel.

  He fired into the pack, then cut the light and raced off in the other direction. He ran, stumbled and fell, then got up quickly. From behind him a whooping and yelling told him the flesh eaters had figured it out and were giving chase. Not interested in running blind, he turned on the light and sprinted through the rubble-strewn tunnel. Up ahead, he spied Bethel scrambling along the edge of the tunnel until he reached a pair of rusted pipes that stuck out from the wall like two fingers. He waved James toward him and then disappeared into a hole.

  When James reached the hole, he stopped and turned, aiming the gun and its blazing light back down the cavern and firing once more. The shot forced the cannibals to scatter and take cover once again. As they did, James ducked through the breach and into a much narrower tunnel, more like a hand carved mineshaft.