The Amber Project: A Dystopian Sci-fi Novel (The Variant Saga Book 1)

by JN Chaney

  But now Terry knew the truth. Humans started it. They built a machine and it did something it wasn’t supposed to. It killed them all.

  “So people did it,” said Alex. “It doesn’t change anything.”

  Mei scoffed. “Are you kidding? Of course it does! We actually know what happened now. Don’t you get it? Maybe we can do something about it.”

  “Yeah? What are you gonna do, huh? Bring back the dead? Good luck.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said.

  “Then, what? Run home and tell your masters? Show them your disk? Hey, maybe Nuber will give you a gold star for this one. A nice pat on the head.”

  Mei gripped the pad with both her hands. “This is important! It’s a way to fix everything.”

  “Bull,” said Alex. “It’ll never work. There’s no fixing this.”

  “You don’t know for sure.”

  “Sure I do. All your recording says is to turn off the machine, right?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “How long’s it been since this message was sent? A hundred and fifty…no…two hundred years? Look around you. There’s no way the building is still standing. Even if it is, you really think the machine’s still on? Open your eyes. It turned off or ran down years ago.” Alex glanced around and held out his arms. “Look at this,” he said. “Still a wasteland.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said, staring at the ground.

  Terry was tired of listening to them. “If we go home and turn this stuff in, it won’t make any difference. They’ll listen to the files, store them away, and that’ll be the end of it. We’ll get debriefed, and they’ll probably run some tests. Alex will get thrown in prison for trying to escape.” He didn’t know if his prediction was true or not, but it might be worth mentioning. After all, Alex valued his freedom. It was the reason he left in the first place. “But if we do like Mei suggested,” he continued. “If we find this place Gideon was talking about…even if the only thing left is a pile of dirt…it’ll be something. They’ll forget about what you did. They’ll forget about how we all screwed up.”

  Alex laughed. “Save all the crap for someone more gullible, like John over here.”

  John frowned.

  “Those bastards don’t give a damn about me,” said Alex. “First chance they get, they’re throwing me down the biggest hole they’ve got.”

  “Fine,” said Terry. “Then, think about this like an extension.”

  “A what?”

  “An extension,” he repeated. “You get to stay here for a little longer. No going back until we’re done. It might only be a day or two, but it’s better than what you were talking about. Isn’t it?”

  “Whatever,” said Alex.

  Terry looked at Mei. “How far a walk are we dealing with?”

  “Less than a day. It’s on the far edge of the city. Maybe sixteen miles from here. It’s a hard run, but we can do it.”

  “We need to radio Sarah,” said John. “She’s waiting for us to come back.”

  Terry nodded. “Mei, send a message on your pad and tell her what we’re doing. Send Gideon’s files, too, just in case.”

  “Sure you don’t wanna run home?” asked Alex. “It’d be a lot safer for you.”

  Terry ignored him. There was no point in arguing now that Alex had agreed to come along. Instead, Terry helped John pack the supplies.

  It didn’t take Mei long to contact Sarah. “She’s not completely in agreement about whether or not this is the right thing to do,” she explained to the others. “But she said she understands. She wanted to meet us there, but I told her not to. If something happens to us, she’s the only one who can tell them what we found. I think she gets it.”

  “Good,” said Terry.

  “But she also said she’s not going home without us. She’ll go far enough to get a signal through, along with a confirmation saying they received it. Then, she’s waiting for us to meet her.”

  “Sounds about right,” said John, throwing his pack over his shoulder. He fastened the buckle around his waist and gripped both straps. “So you guys are sure about this?”

  “Aren’t you?” asked Mei.

  John shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Huh?” she said. “John, of course it matters.”

  “Not to me,” he said, grinning. “I don’t care either way. I’m following you guys.”

  Mei groaned. “Great. Thanks, John. Go ahead and put all the responsibility on us.”

  “We’ve each got our jobs,” he said, as if it were settled.

  “What are you talking about? What jobs?”

  “You two make the plans,” he explained.

  “Oh, I get it,” said Mei, giggling, as if she’d finally gotten the joke. “If something goes wrong, you’re not responsible, right?”

  He nodded. “Yup. Pretty much.”

  Terry laughed. “Nice plan,” he said. “But if we’re doing the planning, what’s your job?”

  “It’s like I said back on the hill,” he explained. “Someone’s gotta look out for you. It might as well be me.”

  *******

  They made it to the end of Starlight Park and on through most of the city before evening. Mei insisted they stick to the outer roads, which ran along the edge of the city like a wide oval. This meant adding half a day to their journey, but everyone agreed it was safer than the alternative. There was more open space along the road, more fields and parks like the one they’d slept in the prior night. The more direct path had been the city’s downtown, followed by residential areas. Both meant narrow streets riddled with cars, debris, and potential surprises they couldn’t see coming. Out of the question.

  Mei’s directions had them follow the road for five miles, until it hit the riverside. Once there, the road ran parallel to the river for several miles before finally curving around. They wouldn’t need to go that far, however. The facility lay across a quarter mile bridge and then several miles beyond the opposite shore. Before they could reach it, the sun began to set and they agreed to make camp.

  They slept near the river’s shore, once again taking shifts.

  Nothing came, but through the night, they heard distance cries of life, erupting screams echoing violently from within the city’s concrete jungle. Terry imagined it must be the same animal as the kind they found in the tunnel, but the more he thought about it, the more he wasn’t sure. The monster he’d slain made clicks and hums, but nothing else. Even amid the gunfire as its blood poured out of its chest and face, it never screamed or cawed. Only more clicks, more hums. But if not them, then what? The monsters’ victims? It made sense, Terry supposed. If he remembered Mr. Nuber’s lecture on evolution correctly, and he wasn’t sure he did, every predator needed its prey. For every eight-foot quilled razborback, there had to be a weaker, juicier thing for it to eat. Why hadn’t they seen it yet? Why didn’t they hear those sounds the night before in the park? They’d traveled several miles since then, of course. Maybe the other animals weren’t near their previous camp. Maybe that place belonged to the carnivores. He had no way of knowing.

  The screams came and went through most of the night, but eventually they subsided, replaced by the howling winds and the cold dew of another morning. By the time they reached the bridge, the sun had climbed high into the clear, violet sky, and the midday heat covered them in sweat.

  As expected, cars littered the bridge, though the tunnel had been much more congested. The bridge was twice as wide, after all, with plenty of room for walking.

  John insisted on taking point. With Roland gone and Sarah left behind, he was the closest thing they had to a good shot. Of course, Terry was stronger now, and probably faster, but someone had to guard the rear, too.

  The bridge was sturdy enough, though there were a few scrapes and cracks along the sides. “I’m surprised it’s still holding together after all this time,” said Terry. “After looking at those buildings, I wasn’t so sure this
thing would even be here.”

  “Because it’s not made from the same stuff,” said Mei.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s FlexCrete,” she said.

  “I swear,” said John, leering over his shoulder. “You’re like a walking dictionary, you know that?”

  “I know how to use my pad, you mean. You two should try it sometime.”

  “Tell us what else is says,” said Terry.

  She tapped the pad a few times. “Um…oh! It says here, FlexCrete was created by the Ortego Corporation in 2125, but didn’t see any practical use until June, 2140, when they built a new parking garage with it. Then, in 2146, they used it to redesigned their offices. Afterwards, Ortego licensed it to an architectural firm named Maddison Hills, which in turn designed this bridge…which is called the Maddison Bridge.”

  John groaned. “Oh God, make it stop,” he begged. “And I thought Nuber was bad.”

  “Very funny,” she said, dryly.

  “Hang on,” said Terry. “You said 2146, right?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s only eleven years before the Jolt.”

  “Yeah, they finished the bridge in August, 2150. It only took four years. Maddison Hills built a few other structures, but nowhere near here. Hey, you think they’re still standing?”

  “Probably,” said Terry.

  He tried to imagine such a building. Surely, they existed, if this bridge was any proof. But in a world encased in grief—with absolute destruction—such a thing would stand alone. Like this bridge, everything around it would echo morbid decay, the same as the wasteland they now traveled through, the same as the half sunk city behind them. It hardly seemed a pleasant thing, and so he pushed the thought away, choosing instead to focus on the goal.

  Once they crossed the bridge, Terry suggested they keep moving. The facility lay only a few miles ahead, after all. They could rest later.

  There were many signs along the road, though most had fallen to the wayside, rusted or covered in dirt, claimed by the new world. Thank God for the pads, thought Terry.

  Things could always be worse.

  Their path soon took them into the countryside, far from the highway. There had been a forest here once, Mei told them, but no longer. Now, it seemed the trees had rotted, fallen back into the earth that spawned them. In their ruin, a thousand blades of teal stalks grew, dancing as a gust of wind trailed by.

  As Terry came upon the plants, he hesitated to move forward. The field was thick, an easy nest for predators, but the stalks stretched on in both directions, like the farms back home.

  Their class had gone to the farms once, several years ago. Mr. Nuber had said it was important to see where things came from and how they got made. If everyone knew, he had said, maybe people would understand each other a little better.

  Mei examined the map. “There’s no way in except through here. It’s the only road.”

  “Then, we’ll have to go through it,” said John.

  “This is different from the blue grass. We don’t know what’s in there. It’s too tall to see.”

  “We don’t have any other choice,” said Terry. He reached out and touched the tip of a plant, swept it aside, and walked in.

  The others followed, staying close. Mei kept ahead of John, who had once more taken to the rear. Terry hated being in such a compromised position, unable to see if something was coming, but there was no other way. They had to press forward, which meant taking risks.

  He wondered what Roland would have done. He probably would’ve ordered us to go home. What the hell am I even doing?

  But before he could give himself an answer, Mei took hold of his shoulder. “Wait,” she whispered.

  “What is it?” asked John.

  “I hear something.”

  They waited for a moment, but there was nothing. “She’s making it up,” said Alex. “She’s scared.”

  Mei shushed him. “I’m serious!” There was a thud in the distance. “There it is,” she said.

  They each stayed quiet, waiting for the sound to reappear. Terry tried to focus. He closed his eyes and listened. It was difficult to hear anything besides the others’ breathing and the wind as it blew through the field. He thought back, remembering the moment in the tunnel when his burst of strength had come to him and his senses flared, where the dark had become the light.

  Then, at once he heard a beating sound, low and steady and deep.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  There it was, the sound Mei had heard. It was soft. Maybe if he concentrated…

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  The beats were louder now and heavy. He tried harder, slowed his breathing. It wasn’t close. He’d have to try harder.

  Thump. Thump. Thump. Ksst.

  There, a new sound. Something different. What on earth could it be? He could feel the pounding in his skull now.

  Thump. Thump. Thump. Kisst.

  Thump. Thump. Thump. Ksst.

  He should stop. It was getting to be too much. He had his answer. Anything more would be too dangerous. He didn’t want to black out again…or worse.

  Terry pushed the noise far from his mind. It left him slowly, in pieces, but after a moment he felt the closer sounds return—the wind and the plants, John gripping his rifle’s holster, Mei’s breathing.

  When he finally opened his eyes, a bright and blinding light consumed him, and he dropped his head, squinting.

  Mei looked at him. “Terry?” she whispered.

  But he shook his head. “Hang on.”

  It took a few seconds for the world to get back to normal. When he could see again, he raised his head and told the others what he’d heard.

  “How could you hear those sounds?” asked Alex.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The noise wasn’t nearby. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, but we should still be careful.”

  “Terry’s right,” said John. “Whatever it is, we’ll be fine if we keep moving and avoid it.”

  As they walked, the distant sound became much clearer, and it wasn’t long before Terry could hear it without trying. It didn’t sound like any animal he’d ever heard before, whether in a recording or here in the wild. There was far too much rhythm to it, like the engines that ran the city’s ventilation systems.

  By the time they left the grove, each of them could hear the pounding noises. It seemed to be getting louder the farther they advanced, which could only mean one thing: whatever this thing was, they were marching toward it.

  *******

  January 10, 2347

  The Surface

  Terry didn’t know how the temperature could drop so quickly, but the air was freezing, and he could see his own breath. The Variant felt strange in his lungs but not unpleasant.

  Mei seemed to be having a different experience. She was shivering, rubbing her hands together. John noticed her and demanded they stop so she could put on another layer of clothing. No one objected, but as soon as she was ready, Terry insisted they keep going.

  The sound had grown quite loud, which meant they were closer to its source.

  They traveled far in the cold, but the plunging temperature leveled out before long. It didn’t get any warmer, but it stopped getting colder. A good thing, Terry supposed.

  Soon they found the compound gate, rusted and buried in the dirt. On either side, brick walls stretched far, eroded and covered in weeds. Before them on the ground, a series of cracked, stone letters read: ORTEGO.

  And below, the subtitle: Building a Better World.

  They had arrived.

  In the distance, a light shimmered in the field, reflecting sun and open sky. Terry and the others ran toward it, stopping once they were close enough to see. The field was littered with glass—solar panels, Terry soon realized. The very same the city still used. But there were so many more here than the fields back home, at least a dozen fold. What did a single
location need with so much power?

  Mei pushed through the others. She retrieved her pad immediately.

  “What is it?” asked John.

  She didn’t answer, so they went to her.

  “Everything okay?” asked Terry.

  “Those panels,” she said, her voice quivering in the cold. “They’re the power supply. I knew there had to be something. Solar energy. It’s so simple.”

  “This is good news, right?” asked John.

  Mei nodded. “Very good,” she said.

  Across from the solar panels in an area all to itself, a separate machine stood alone—tall and cylindrical and encased in silver rings. After a short moment, it slammed into the ground again and again, matching the noise they’d first heard back in the field. Once he was certain it was the source of the sound, he told the others.

  “Maybe the pad has more info on it,” said Mei.

  “It hasn’t led us astray yet,” said Terry.

  “Do you think it has something to do with the power? Like the solar panels?” asked John.

  Mei jumped. “Found it!”

  “What’s it say?” asked John. He tried to snatch the pad, but Mei deflected him.

  She pushed him, laughing. “Stop, and I’ll tell you!”

  John frowned. “You know, for once I’d like to sound like the smart one.”

  She cleared her throat, paused to look at John, and continued. “The Framling Coil, otherwise known as the fever killer, is a device designed and distributed by the Ortego Corporation. While originally intended to assist farmers with managing outdoor temperatures, the device has found greater success in power generation and distribution. The coils absorb local heat, converting the energy into electrical power. However, because of the effect it has on local wildlife, there have been many protests and petitions against its use. As a result, companies have largely abstained from using it, or in some cases, such as with Ortego, restricted it to emergency use only.”

  “What’s all that mean?” asked John.

  “I think we found the reason it’s so cold here,” she said.

  Terry scanned the area. He could already see more of them. They were spread far apart, but still close enough to see. 1, 2, 3…6…9…there were over a dozen, at least.