by Daniel Ruth
“Her.”
“As you say. Her.”
Over the five-hour flight, it was mostly Conrad, the president and I chatting. The president was actually an interesting conversationalist. Conrad said less but honestly it was still the most I have heard from him, including the entire time I have ever known him. We conversed about the ley line storms, dinosaurs, barbecues and supernatural biology. A few times they segued into politics and I took those opportunities to snack or check on Jeremy.
Before the end of the world, we would have been there in less than two hours but with earth blockaded it was harder to get up speed and still stay within an atmosphere. Also, the aircraft was an older military model simply because they didn’t want their president to hit a stray ley line and have the power blow out.
Jeremy was a bit of a disappointment, he spent most of the flight sleeping in the back. Beth sat quietly next to him diligently practicing her psionics. Glowing a soft blue, holding Jeremy’s hand the whole flight, she was the very picture of an ardent student. I think she may have been afraid of flying because she almost slavishly kept her force field up. By the end of the flight, she had sweat trickling down her forehead. I got up to check her reserves a few times. Jeremy would be pissed if I let her pass out from overexertion.
The flight ended uneventfully, in a light vertical touchdown in the outskirts of Paris. I was grateful for this because I am not sure how I would have been able to save the humans from a fall from the upper atmosphere. Beth would have probably been fine from the fall, considering her talent with force fields. Well, until she drowned. Definitely, a good thing nothing happened.
Chapter 12
We exited the flight to a full military escort. They weren’t there for me, this time.
“Farewell Professor, I wish you well as this world’s first ambassador,” the president shook my hand as he went off towards his honor guard. This left Conrad, Jeremy, Beth and I alone in an abandoned airfield outside a smoking city. To complete the scene a small raptor ran across the tarmac perpendicular to us, chasing a mottled rodent. I checked for tumbleweeds.
“Conrad, there are still people alive in the city, right,” I asked after a moment. I was wondering if I had flown across the world to be left in a dead town.
“Yes,” he hesitantly replied, furiously swiping at his wrist terminal’s floating interface. A moment later a driver in an old floater came around the air control tower and headed our way. “And there’s our ride.” I thought I could detect a hint of relief.
“Get in sir,” piped the driver. He was in full military gear. I couldn’t tell whether he was civilian militia, government military or attached to the United Nations. “We’ve secured a portion of the city. Your accommodations will be there, in an abandoned apartment tenement we’ve converted. We’ve set up a mess hall for the remaining civilians and military that your welcome to use.”
“Thank you Lieutenant...” he trailed off in question.
“Lieutenant Michaels, sir.”
“Excellent. Has the shipment we arranged for arrived?”
“Yes, sir. It will be outside your building with a freight hauler. One of the armored division’s men is guarding it.”
“Then we can get started.”
The ride was slightly uncomfortable, due to the floater’s small size. There were only three seats in the back and Beth ended up sitting on my lap. Conrad seemed unhappy about having her here. He didn’t even acknowledge her existence.
The trip to the tenements was rather depressing. It was clear that this city was once a tourist spot. I could see where there had once been extensive well-kept greenery bordering the streets, but now it there was only the skeletal remains of bushes and trees left. Most were burnt but they contrasted sharply with the rest, which was a vibrant green and completely overgrown. Combined with the broken and cracked streets and it looked like it had been years since the event, rather than only a few weeks.
“Why is everything so overgrown,” Beth whispered in my ear shyly.
“The world is saturated with life energy. That is what the ley lines basically are. Life energy, or condensed magic flowing like rivers across the world.”
“Why wasn’t Arc like this?”
“Arc had a lot less greenery. It was why the packs loved the Minerva Park so much. The park is probably looking pretty wild right now and will likely spread if they don’t do something.”
“Um, thanks, Professor,” Conrad replied, looking at me oddly. I stared at him in turn.
“Your welcome,” for what I had no idea. Weird people. “Jeremy, I want you to get to sleep as soon as we get there. If you’re not feeling better when you wake up let me know and I’ll give you a checkup.”
“Sure thing,” he sleepily replied. He didn’t really look sick, just tired and a bit out of it.
The streets weren’t the only part of the city that was scarred. The buildings barely had any windows intact. Those that did were obviously the spray on windows that were intended for temporary repair. I had the feeling they were going to be more permanent additions. About one in five buildings had collapsed and the crevasses and cracks in the remaining building hinted that there had been tremors.
“Have you had the ley line surges and earthquakes?”
“You mean the lightning storms? Yes, mostly along those glowing walls of light,” our nameless driver replied over his shoulder.
“The ley lines.”
“If you say so. There were some earthquakes in the beginning but nothing too bad. The thing is, this entire country doesn’t have them at all. The new buildings are built with huge tolerances but Paris is all old construction. It’s been repaired and rebuild hundreds of times but to the original specs. None of it was made for the earth moving. It got worse with whatever monster they stirred at the Arc de Triomphe.”
“Monster?” I looked at Conrad. He shrugged and kept his face blank. Apparently, they haven’t informed anyone of their new neighbor.
“Yeah, about a week after all the shit came down, we were just getting things under control. Then there was a huge burst of light and the earth shook. Must have been a seven on the Richter scale.”
I glared at Conrad. That must have been the nuke. He simply shrugged again, as if to say it wasn’t his decision. “Then these balls of fire started to come from the arcs in the Arc de Triomphe.” He paused a moment to elaborate. “You know it turned into this big glowing portal thing, right? All four entrances just big glowing entrances. To hell, in all likelihood.”
“Likely it is now,” I said earning a glare from Conrad.
“Well people had mostly abandoned the city but with the entire area around the gate thing being on fire from this bombardment, even more people left. Apparently, the countryside is far safer. Just a few roaming dinosaurs out there.”
“They go down pretty easy if you have the right weapons. And are excellent meals.”
“Just so. Small arms pretty much. Anyway, we hear almost constant roaring now, as if a beast is raging to get at the people that stayed. That combined with the walking dead and there’s hardly anyone left. Ah, here we are.”
‘Here’ was a tenement that had all of its windows replaced by spray on temps and was mostly intact. A few people were visible but there was no real attempt to repair or restore the area. It was clear it was just being manned by the military. Even they didn’t have many people out. I counted six, including the armored man guarding a large cargo pod outside the building.
I hadn’t seen the armor he was wearing outside the vids Jeremy and I used to watch. It wasn’t just body armor. It looked like kind of armor you climbed into and drove around. It was eight feet tall and unless the man inside was absurdly large, must have had armor six inches thick. A slight blue shimmer was evidence that it had the fabled military grade force field. As a nod towards universal military doctrine, it was painted in camouflage. Just so you wouldn’t notice it.
“Home sweet home.”
It was getting dark and we se
ttled Jeremy in for the night. Conrad had hopped right back into the floater and headed off to a local military base. Supposedly, to prepare things for tomorrow. I would guess it would be embarrassing if our own forces tried to blow me up as I approached the portal.
Beth and I stopped by the mess hall. The food was fresh and remarkably familiar. Tasted just like chicken. Considering the size of the leg bone, it was likely one of the raptors we saw outside. Now that we were inside and relatively safe Beth finally dropped her force field. Her reserves were a bit low but doing remarkably well, considering she was working them almost eight hours, even if she had spent a few of them in a meditative state.
“So can I come?”
“Come where?”
“To see the dragon, of course.”
“Maybe after she’s not so much in a ‘Die humans! Die!’ kind of mood,” I responded as I contentedly chomped on a thigh the size of my arm.
“But I have a force field,” she logically pointed out.
“Beth, that force field is good for raptors, even a rex. Heck, a shifter would have to hit you a few times before it went down. But a dragon would pop it in one bite.”
“Really?”
“She’d have to really put an effort into it, but yeah. Keep practicing and it should take a few big hits in a few months.”
“Will it keep getting stronger?”
“Right now your powers have recently been awakened. As long as you practice, you should see a huge improvement for maybe six months, then you’ll hit a plateau as they mature. After that, it will be a more linear improvement.”
“Oh. I thought...”
“That you’d be wrestling shifters?”
“It would’ve been neat.”
“I would stick to telekinetic attacks from a distance or direct mental attacks. There are a couple of things that will increase your strength but nowhere near enough to suplex Conrad.” She giggled at that.
“So. What would?”
“Allow you to wrestle supernaturals?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a tough one. There are a few temporary enhancements I know but the side effects suck. There are sigils you can draw on a person, similar to what Vatapi did to his minions, that can do amazing things, easily as powerful as most supernaturals.”
“So why don’t you do it to Jeremy?”
“Bah! I think he’s a purist or something. He is proud of being a baseline human. Ironic considering what I know of your parents.”
“They argue a lot. Or did,” she mumbled gloomily. “So can you do those sigil things on me?”
I squirmed uncomfortably, “They have some drawbacks too.”
“Like?”
“Applying them is excruciatingly painful,” I replied, avoiding her eyes.
“I can handle pain, you even showed me that thing to suppress it!”
“I mean agonizing. For days.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll think of something else if you’re interested. Back home there were tons of skills and abilities a human could learn to turn themselves into a death dealing machine. I just don’t know any of them, since I didn’t really need them.”
“Thanks. I still want to go. You know once you calm down the dragon lady.”
“I suppose a little visit wouldn’t hurt. The force field would keep the radiation away.”
“They use clean bombs these days.”
“Oh. Well, that was nice of them. I am sure the dragon lady will appreciate that.” That drew a snicker too.
“So what’s in the storage container?”
“Ideally gifts to soothe the savage heart. I can’t imagine anything that’s good enough to get her to forgive having her home blown up, but we’ll see tomorrow morning. Do you know if Jeremy has made any progress on how to get to Pluto?”
“Well, he hasn’t talked to me about it, but I did happen to see what he was doing since we all work in the living room.”
“Anything good?”
“No. I heard him mumbling to himself about it. We are completely blockaded. As far as the other colonies are concerned we may as well have demon cooties. Anyone trying to get off this planet is going to get vaporized. That transport we were on today is as high as we’re allowed.”
“Is it common for the colonies to enforce terms on the earth?”
“Never before, but the world government has its hands full trying to keep civilization from collapsing. They lost a lot since not everyone paid attention to the warnings you and Conrad issued.”
“What about something like this,” I reached into my pouch and brought out my anchor shard.
“What about it?” Beth looked at the crystal in puzzlement. “Is it a key for the lock demon set up?”
“Can we ship just this off planet? Preferably to a colony on Pluto.” I easily ignored her questions.
“There are no colonies on Pluto, just research stations.”
“So can we mail it?”
“Officially, no,” her nose scrunched up in thought. “How strong is it?”
“Pretty much indestructible. In theory, you could drop it in a black hole and it wouldn’t care. Though you wouldn’t get it back either.”
“Wow, that is tough. I suppose it’s possible...”
“Possible?”
“Maybe shoot it to the moon. It might be able to slip through if the kits small enough.”
“Kit?”
“Sure you can buy... or used to be able to buy rockets to put stuff in orbit. I heard there were some illegal kits that could go all the way to the moon or even Mars.”
“I would prefer some place with at least a minimal atmosphere.”
“I thought you said it was indestructible?”
“I did,” I didn’t expand on that.
“I can look into it. Once we get back. I don’t have a connection to the net here.”
I took off my wrist terminal. “Here use this. In fact, order one for yourself. Preferably a military grade one, if you can, without bringing the government down on us. I’ll put a ward on it like mine when it comes. Just use one of my accounts.”
“Awesome!”
“It’s pretty important. Can’t go into details, but things could get ugly.”
“How can they get worse?”
“Beth, don’t be silly,” I smiled as I patted her gently on the head. “Things can always get worse.”
Chapter 13
I didn’t have anything on me, except some materials to make some quick and dirty wards, so there wasn’t much for me to do. I went downstairs to ask one of the soldiers if there were any decent book or antique stores in the area but they just looked at me as if I was an idiot. It was obvious their priority were completely in shambles. So I went for a walk.
The scenery was just as poor as I had noted on the way in. It was pretty depressing. The nice thing about the Paris nightlife was the fireballs shooting towards the east. The explosions when they landed were a bit jarring, though. I also had the dubious pleasure of seeing a skeleton animate from a moldering corpse and charge at me. It was interesting how the flesh simply rolled off the bones as the magic took hold. I was able to tell a few things from this. As I had suspected, it was simply an animation spell. Unlike vampires, they weren’t truly undead. They were also very fragile, I simply reached over and plucked the skull off and it collapsed. Obviously a terror weapon, but considering the range the spell covered it was a pretty large power investment. I could really feel the hate from our neighbor.
I did find a collapsed building that seemed to hold some promise. It was a monstrously large palace. Unfortunately, it had been hit very hard by the earthquakes, ley line storms and the never ending streams of fireballs arcing over the sky. I spent an hour digging out the front entrance before I got bored. I did find a tourist pamphlet for ‘Musée du Louvre’. Based on the admittedly limited documentation, most of it was human cultural garbage but there were some ancient displays that just might have once held something splendid and magical. Sin
ce it was all crushed under tons of rubble, I would have to take the advertisement’s word for it.
The night was mostly over when I trudged back. Now I was not only dirty but depressed. Still, the night wasn’t a complete disaster. I was almost back to the apartments when I was attacked by several raptors. I was able to kill them in under a half minute simply by smacking them on the head. This left me with a bit of a problem. How was I going to get these five delicious morsels back to the room without my trusty bike? While their total mass was far less than my previous barbecue each weighed more than a man. I could levitate them, however, I really wanted to save my energy for a certain angry lady.
I was still standing next to the corpses trying to decide the most efficient path forward when I heard the rush of air and hum heralding the arrival from around the corner of a familiar vehicle. My smile quickly left me, as I realized it wasn’t going to stop in time.
I was half way in the air, leaping to safety when it hit me and propelled me into the building across the street. I was unharmed, but silently stewing I heard excited cursing and scraping of cement and stone.
Pushing the pile of bricks out of the way, I stalked irritably out of the destroyed building. Once I was on the street, I saw Conrad and our driver racing over to me. The driver looked furious, as well as nervous. Conrad simply looked worried.
“Why didn’t you bring your damn terminal with you. There was a reason I had getting you it a priority. You’re like a cat that’s never around when you're needed.”
“Is he okay? You saw it! I had no time to stop, right? He was in the middle of the street!” The driver seemed more offended that I had the audacity to hit his car than truly worried for my health.
“He’s fine,” Conrad dismissed his worries while helping me brush the cement residue out of my clothes. “I’m surprised the car survived.”
“Yeah, I rolled with the blow, solely to keep your car in one piece. I left the terminal at the... um, apartments.”
