by Alex Bobl
"And you?" Georgie asked.
"I'll get some tools from the workshop."
We split up. As Georgie and I descended into a stifling darkness, he tried to draw me on my plans and suss out what I needed makeshift jetpacks for. But I didn't have time to explain. Together we opened the hatches that led to the capsules. I showed him the sequence in which we had to pry the levers open in order to release the capsules in their shafts and send them sliding down the rails toward the deck.
I had to hurry. Blank must have been approaching New Pang and he knew that he had trouble back at the camp, in the gasometers. He might have dispatched a reserve squad already for all I knew. It was a race against time.
When the safety locks clicked and the rockets' nozzles clunked onto the fireproof tiles inside, Fritz returned. He threw me a screwdriver, hurled another to Georgie, put the toolbox down, and we got working. We unscrewed the bolts that kept the tiles in place, then took them off their mounts and set them aside. I inspected the jets' nozzles and panels and nodded to Fritz. The capsules couldn't have been in a better state of repair - I'd even noticed traces of original lubricant on the panels. Why would it be otherwise? No one had any use for them here. The hermetic shafts with their hatches and heatproof tiles worked as natural sarcophagi offering the best conservation imaginable.
It took us another ten minutes to remove the jets and extract the drums that contained the brake chutes. Afterward, sweating like pigs, we took everything to the workshop and I used all my welding skills to shape a jetpack frame.
While Fritz and Georgie busied themselves making mountings for the thrusters and cutting stabilizers out of pieces of tin, I made leather hand and ankle straps and, once the contraption was assembled, attached them to the frame.
We fumbled around with it for about forty minutes, no more. The jetpack turned out to be awkward and heavy - nothing like the original Defense Ministry kit - but I didn't care. I was more than pleased with the result: the thrusters hung on the frame on either side of me and between them sat two brake shute drums. I could have added a safety deflector to make sure the blast didn't burn my feet but I didn't want to lose more time than absolutely necessary. At any moment, Blank's reserve squad could have arrived at the City of Forecomers.
So we decided to go back. I still had to assemble the fuses and wire them in to the gunpowder tubes. I couldn't use the original fuses: to be able to get to them, you had to eject the capsules from the shafts and open them. You couldn't do that without a crane.
We set off on our way back. Georgie sat next to Fritz while I took the back seat and started fiddling with the wires. I leaned the jetpack against the backs of the front seats so that the tubular handles of the stabilizer controls faced me. I used some insulating tape to attach two button switches and fed the wires through the tubes.
There'd been no portable batteries at the tanker but Fritz had unearthed a flashlight with a hand generator. I could use it to power the fuses. In the workshop, I'd borrowed a pair of safety goggles which were now hanging around my neck.
"Fritz? What was it you told Stepanych to make him let us through?" Georgie's voice cut through the hum of the engine. "I'd rather fuck a clone than do something like that. I'd never let us go in."
I looked up. Fritz tilted his head at Georgie and gave him a sly grin. But Georgie rose in his seat, leaning against the dashboard.
"The thing is, he-" Fritz started but Georgie didn't let him finish.
"Over there!" he stood up, then slumped down again as the Willys hit a stone. "Look!"
By then, we'd almost reached the rocky plateau. There, far in front of us, two combat buggies were racing toward the City of Forecomers raising clouds of dust from the road.
Fritz hit the anchors. I grabbed at the jeep's side just in time, my chest very nearly ramming the jetpack's frame.
"Looks like one has turned round to meet us," Georgie croaked. "What do we do now?"
I lifted the jetpack, stood up on my seat and put my arms through the straps.
"You haven't tested it!" Fritz raised his red eyebrows staring up at me.
"Never mind," I said fastening the ankle straps. "If it's stable, that's all that matters. It sure can fly me from here to the ruins."
I finished and wiggled my shoulders adjusting it, then put on the goggles.
"But what about the wiring? The fuses?" Fritz said seeing two disconnected wires hanging off my shoulder.
"Splice them," I lay my hands on the stabilizers' handles that traced the shape of my arms.
"Can't you see we're toast!" Georgie exclaimed. "We need to get the fuck out of here."
"Wait," I moved one hand onto a handle and turned my head watching the right stabilizer change the gradient. "They'll have better things to do with their time in a moment."
Fritz adjusted a twisted strap and slapped my shoulder, "All ready."
I nodded to him and stood with my feet wide apart, then crouched and leaned forward. The jetpack pressed on the small of my back. I rearranged it and took the handles again.
"Now duck."
I grasped the hand generator's handle and pressed the button. Loud crackling and hissing noises came from behind my back. With a swoosh, tongues of fire issued from the two nozzles lifting my feet off the seat. For a second, I hovered about a meter above the jeep in a cloud of sand and dust raised by the jet. Then it jerked me up so hard that the acceleration knocked the stuffing out of me. The straps pulled hard against my chest. The air roared in my ears.
I slightly spread my arms changing the stabilizers' angle and looked down. I was sliding along the valley gradually descending. Fritz and Georgie in the jeep had stayed far behind. I glimpsed a combat vehicle below making a sharp U-turn: it must have noticed me.
The next moment fiery projectiles criss-crossed the sky, launched from the pulse gun on the vehicle's roof. They didn't seem to have any guided ones: in a cyber's hands, one would be enough to hit any target.
Changing the stabilizers' angle again, I rose higher to overtake the second vehicle of the reserve squad. It was racing toward the gasometers that loomed into view far ahead. If only I had enough fuel! If I burned the two remaining stages, the jetpack would become a useless pile of junk. Then I could forget saving Mira and my daughter.
The thrusters had been designed to lift a much bigger weight than mine, but unlike combat jetpacks, they weren't made for repeat ascents that battlefield situations demanded. It meant that the fuel in the stages would burn out completely in about two minutes creating enough thrust to accelerate to nearly two hundred miles an hour. That would allow me to glide for a while using the stabilizers and then...
The gasometers approached rapidly when the engines died. I estimated the distance and started to drift down. I had to find a place to land. The chutes would kill the speed but as I had little control over them, they wouldn't prevent a hard landing.
I used the stabilizers to slow down my descent a bit hoping to make it to the gasometers. And I could already see below the yellow and brown spots of a cam net stretched over the roof of one of the buildings.
Shots were ringing out below. Both riggers and loggers fired away at me with their carbines mistaking me for one of Varlamov's troopers. This was the last thing I needed, to get a bullet in the guts from one of their snipers and go tumbling down from a height of two hundred meters. Not my idea of fun.
When I arrived at the gasometer with the portal machine, I dived down and reached behind my back to activate the chute. I pulled a brace releasing the drum and, grabbing at the stabilizers' handles, drew them close to turn the stabilizers parallel to the ground.
The chute billowed open jerking me up. My legs shot forward like those of a marionette. I let go of the handles and pulled the chute's webbing as I tried to increase the surface area of the chute hoping to slow down my descent. I barely missed the roof and flew chest first into a stone wall.
I got the shit knocked out of me. Dozens of fireflies exploded in my brain. Circles fl
ashing before my eyes, I grabbed at the edge of the cam net and hung gritting my teeth.
"Don't shoot!" I heard Lars' strong voice. "It's one of ours! Get him down before he falls!"
I glanced over my shoulder. I hung about thirty meters up. To my right, I noticed the end of a crane hoist protruding above the wall at slightly more than an arm's distance. Fragments of a disintegrated wire rope were still stuck in the crane's block. The heavy jetpack prevented me from climbing up, but I could always try and reach the crane's arm.
Below, people fussed about shouting at me to hold on; someone urged for a tarpaulin to be stretched under the wall.
Yeah right. By the time they found one, the cybers would have been here and then the settlers would have had more important things to do with their time, leaving me hanging until I dropped, exhausted, from the height of a twelve-story building. Then they could scrape me off the concrete if they wanted.
I took two deep breaths and pushed away from the wall to gain some momentum. As I swung back, I reached out for the crane's arm and scratched its surface breaking my nails but at least catching hold of its edge. Now I hung sprawling in the air like some kind of crucified martyr.
My shoulders shook with the strain. My neck muscles were cramping.
"Get to the crane!" I heard. "Climb down the rope to the ladder!"
It was Lars shouting but I couldn't even turn my head for fear of letting go of the wall's edge.
Not breathing, I released the net. My right hand slid off the edge while my left one grabbed the wire rope. But instead of the jolt I expected, I started falling with it. The block overhead rattled with the unwinding rope. The people watching me on the stone platform below grew closer with every second.
A man on the ladder jumped off just in time to avoid my legs kicking his head. At the last moment, the block jammed. The rope jerked and stopped. My fingers slackened; not expecting this turn of events, I kicked the ladder as I tumbled head over heels flailing my arms in the air. Then I was hanging head first wondering why I'd stopped.
"Get him off!" Lars ordered. "Quickly!"
Grunting from the pain in my chest, I doubled up grabbing at the ladder's sides and finally realized what had happened. The ladder's lower rungs were caught on the funnels of two engines and that had prevented it from falling. But I couldn't get down on my own.
Strong hands grabbed my back. A deep voice told me to hold still. I let go of the ladder and entrusted myself to my helpers.
The next moment, I was standing down on the platform.
"Prepare to fight," I told Lars when he stepped toward me without going into details.
I unstrapped myself, put the jetpack down and squatted next to it studying the stabilizers and the nozzles.
"What's all this?" Lars asked. "Where're Georgie and Fritz?"
"Back at the base," I stood up and lifted the jetpack by its frame. "You have two combat vehicles bearing down on you. Things will get pretty hot here in a minute."
Rubbing my aching chest, I went toward the gasometer's entrance.
"Where are you going?"
"Down," I ducked into the opening and hurried toward the stairs hearing Lars wheezing behind me.
The stench of Fritz's thermobaric round still hung thick in the hallway. I hauled the jetpack onto my shoulder and covered my face with one hand. As I walked down the steps, I nearly ran into two burly bearded men.
"Who are you?" one of them asked suspiciously raising his carbine.
"Let him through," Lars ordered. The loggers stepped aside.
Wladas and Kathy waited for me by the portal machine.
"How is it?" the girl asked and then shook her head, unbelieving. I must have looked a sight.
"Fine," I turned around. "Where are the cybers' bodies?"
"We've put them in the room where they kept us," Wladas explained.
"Get in there, quick! Take a uniform off one of them and his gear. Hurry it up."
He blinked, confused.
"Didn't you hear?" Lars boomed as he stood next to us.
'Kathy," I said, "help him. It'll be quicker with two people."
"Right," she nodded and motioned to Wladas. The pair of them disappeared down the hallway.
"I need a pulse gun and some ammo," I told Lars as I walked toward the pedestal with the semisphere on it. "A knife and a handgun, as well."
I put the jetpack down and glanced at the rods vibrant with lightning.
"Mind if I ask where you're off to?" Lars asked once he'd given the orders to his men.
"I don't know yet," I wiped the sweat off my forehead and unbuttoned the jacket. "Either to New Pang bay or to your tollgate. Which one is closest to the town?"
He coughed. "Are you serious," he nodded at the pedestal, "about using this thing to teleport yourself to one of the beacons?"
"I am," I turned to him. "So which one can take me to town faster?"
Lars thought stroking his beard.
"Depends where in town you want to be."
"McLean's farms."
"Then it's definitely the bay beacon. But they'll see you."
"That's my problem. I absolutely have to send a message to the Fort. And..."
I didn't finish. I couldn't start telling him about Mira and our daughter. Or about my father.
Kathy and Wladas returned bringing a uniform, a harness, a pair of boots and a tactical helmet. I took the jacket from Wladas and glanced at the name tag over the breast pocket. The uniform had belonged to Badry. I started to undress.
"Mark," Kathy said.
She stepped toward me but had to give way to Lars' men who'd just come back with a pulse gun, seven rounds of ammo, a knife and a handgun. They put their goodies down next to the jetpack while one of them was reporting to Lars about the combat vehicles approaching the site.
"They're about to attack," the man's voice quaked with excitement.
"I'll be up there," Lars dropped before leaving the hall.
"Mark," Kathy started again. "Can you take me with you?"
"You'd better stay here," I put on the harness, adjusted the straps and took the helmet from her hands.
"Why?"
"Because I've no idea if I can teleport myself alone. What if the machine," I pointed at it with the helmet, "kills you or me, or both?"
Kathy glanced at the semisphere and looked up. I went on, "Let's not take unnecessary risks. I know Blank. I know how many of them are there and I know what tactics they use. I think I can do it."
I put on the helmet and connected my memory chip to its interface, then checked the work of the information terminal and its interaction with all the harness and weapons modules. Everything was in perfect working order.
"Stand aside," I said to Kathy and Wladas as I heaved the jetpack onto my back. "Even better, go out into the hallway."
They exchanged glances and walked out of the hall. I waited for a moment watching them leave. Then I buckled up and stepped toward the pedestal.
"Mark!" the girl called out. "Just in case, the radio is with Philippe, my brother. First house downtown from McLean's. The one with the red roof. It's in a stash under the bedroom floor. If you move the bed and lift the floorboards, it's all there."
"Thanks!" I turned back to the sphere, touched its surface and closed my eyes seeing dozens of shimmering little dots.
Chapter Five
Point Apocalypse
My mind plummeted into a void. The dots had scattered in the dark which grew until it filled the universe, the corridor between Earth and Pangea blindingly bright just out of range of my vision. Below me stretched a grid of crimson threads with the five beacons pulsating on their edges. I was in its center and the beacons made the five points of a star inscribed into the grid. The beacons sent their signals to the glowing corridor not letting it snap and disconnect the two worlds preventing the universe from collapsing.
All this I realized when the beacons' power had entered me. Now I was part of their system - a speck of light capable of
channeling energies and restructuring connections.
It felt weird. In the outer world I was a soldier, a master specialist who knew how to fight and kill. Bound by the most elementary parameters, I could predict a situation's outcome by using my knowledge of the enemy's combat potential and measure it in standard units. But here... Here I held sway of the powers of the Gods who had created Pangea. To lord it over the worlds is far too much temptation to resist. The corridor could disappear at my first whim cutting Earth off from the portals and excluding it from the net, just like the Forecomers had done to their unwanted guests cutting them out like an abscess whose toxic remains still rotted away in the swamps.
But I wouldn't do that. Not until I'd rescued Mira and our daughter.
The grid, the beacons, the handfuls of bright dots all lit up together and then went out. I shook my head in confusion and closed my eyes to get used to the darkness. When I opened them again, I realized that I had teleported from the hall with the portal machine...
Teleported where?
The flashlight in my helmet lit up. A rod protruded out of a vaulted ceiling. The beacons must have all had the same design. In order to find out where I was, I had to go outside. I stepped forward sensing a slight resistance in the air, as if I'd walked through a gossamer film. It reminded me of the moment when I'd stormed the optical membrane back in the gasometer, only then everything had happened much faster and firmer - more vividly.
Light poured in. The sea wafted brine in my face. Waves splashed against the rocks at the cliff's base. I looked around. The large round dome glinted like steel, the twisted rod in its center boring into the sky. The dome stood on top of the cliff, bound by the ocean to its left and the rocky shore to my right. Further on, soft sunlight poured through the drifting clouds where McLean's estate stood on the bay.
I took a cautious step down onto the wet rocks. Facing the beacon, I made my way around the cliff's base toward the water and looked south.
The Fort loomed black on the horizon. A barge was approaching it at full steam, smoke belching from the funnel over the wheelhouse. I raised the rifle and looked through the sights. A rusty container took up all of the barge's deck - the very same one that had been mounted on the trailer in the clones' camp.
