The Harmony Paradox (Virtual Immortality Book 2)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Hey,” shouted Noriko.

  The car hit the wall of a ruined high rise without a noise or any visible damage. It disappeared, surrounded by a shimmering blue glow. A second later, the wall rippled like fluid, showing no sign anything had happened.

  “Hologram,” muttered Masaru.

  Noriko squinted. “Why would someone be out here?” She raised her rifle at the building. “Looks like a neat one-story hole in the north face. I see some thermal reflections from inside, but no direct visibility on anyone. There are definitely people in there.”

  Masaru closed his eyes and focused on his augmented hearing. Echoed snippets of a Slavic language slipped between the thump of car doors closing. “I believe we have stumbled upon foreign invaders. I hear Russian.”

  “What are they saying?” whispered Noriko.

  “I do not know. It is too faint to make out words, nor would I understand them if I could.” He pointed west. “We should continue until we are able to obtain a signal.”

  “I want to take a closer look. This might be the source of the jammer. If I can disable it, I can comm for reinforcements.”

  He squared his shoulders, eyed the phantom wall for a second, and turned toward her. “Noriko, we are two and do not know how many we may face. Would it not be wiser to leave and make their presence known to the JSDF?”

  She lowered her rifle and glanced at him. “You don’t sound fearful, so I won’t call you a chicken.”

  He frowned.

  Noriko started to smile at him, but took on a purposeful expression. “I joined the JSDF because I wanted to make a difference in the lives of everyone who’s getting stepped on. Japan is still a nation, and I wish we would start acting like it instead of behaving like a coop full of roosters who keep pecking at each other instead of watching for foxes.”

  A wry grin curled Masaru’s lips. “But we have the NSK watching us.”

  She gave him a flat look. “And what does the farmer do to his chickens?”

  “Consumes their offspring, and when they have worked themselves no longer to usefulness, consumes them as well.”

  Noriko’s expression softened, tinged with respect. “Perhaps you do understand. There’s a massive EM surge coming from that location. It’s got to be the jammer.”

  “If it’s so massive, why hasn’t it been discovered yet?”

  “Because.” She resumed walking south. “Any aircraft that’s come here to investigate has disappeared. Some of the pilots think of Miyakonojo as a paranormal flytrap. There have been over a dozen losses.”

  He hurried to catch up, walking astride at her right. “Yet this has not been mentioned on the news. They are so quick to inform us of death… ratings.”

  “I think command was afraid of ghost hunters swarming here and getting hurt. After the reconstruction failed, people got to talking. Angry spirits, oni, that sort of thing.” She ducked left into an abandoned building and pulled him in after her. “Someone was approaching. I saw a heat outline behind the hologram. Just the top of a head. I don’t think they saw us.”

  Masaru nodded.

  The taste of damp drywall and earth settled on his tongue. Mold covered everything not made of concrete or steel. Ancient desks and chairs rotted where they stood amid fragments of fallen ceiling. A spongy layer of sediment underfoot seemed over an inch thick and clung to his shoes.

  “This building could collapse at any moment,” whispered Masaru. “You are… going toward them.”

  “Yes. I must understand what threat they present to Japan.” She stopped and faced him.

  “You could get yourself killed…” He stared at her face: proud, oval with a gently pointed chin. Perfect. Strong. Determined. Nothing had happened to her yet the thought it might made him angry.

  Noriko opened her mouth, but looked away without speaking.

  “Your leg may still be injured.” Masaru put a hand on her forearm guard.

  She tensed. A few seconds later, she glanced at where he touched her, but didn’t flinch away or glare. “I am not in any hurry to die, but if I wasn’t willing to risk my life for Japan, I would not have signed up.” She lifted her gaze to make eye contact. “Have you ever believed in anything greater than yourself?”

  Years flashed by in Masaru’s thoughts. Every toy he’d ever wanted, a synthetic pony and miniature samurai armor for his eleventh birthday. Yumi lessons. By thirteen, he could put arrows in six-inch targets while riding. Women, games, electronics, cars―he’d never wanted for anything… except his father’s respect.

  Noriko slung the box of rations off her shoulder and stashed it under some debris.

  “No… not really.” He put a hand on his Nano katana. “But I will go with you.”

  enny cruised south on a section of old Route 25, holding the e-motors at about seventy mph. Every time he wanted to go faster, he caught sight of one of the four Scrag kids in the truck bed and changed his mind.

  Should’a brought them inside. Cramped or not.

  The rumble-drone of thick tread tires filled the cabin, along with the faintly floral scent of wet hair. The girls had done a good job cleaning the seat, though most of the vomit landed on Hayley’s legs and the plastic floor mat, both easily removed from the truck to be cleaned. Still, a deep enough breath brought the stink of half-digested something to bear. Then again, it could’ve been his imagination too.

  Eldon kept glancing at the rear view mirror on his door every minute or so. He’d done the same thing their first trip out, enamored with actual mirrors rather than cameras and dashboard monitors. At the moment, he seemed more worried about the wall of sepia cloud chasing them.

  Kenny glanced at it in his door mirror. A wide curtain of roiling dust raced over the land behind them. Lightning flickered within, illuminating darker patches, a pair of ancient gods grappling in mortal combat. He looked to his right, his attention drawn to the glowing red ‘30’ on Eldon’s rifle where the stock met the frame.

  In the back seat, Nasir snoozed. Kathy sat next to him wearing a look of calm concern. A few stray locks of brown had fallen over her face, shaving ten years off her age. She looks like she did the first night we dated, scared her father would come out of nowhere at any minute. Kenny smiled at her. She tried to return it, but her lips stayed mostly flat. Her expression seemed to ask ‘tell me we’re going to be okay?’

  Alyssa had her head down, lost in the glow of her NetMini screen. Earbuds kept whatever she played silent to everyone else. At her left, Hayley sat against the driver’s side wall, stiff as a board with her hands clasped in her lap. He hadn’t noticed it over the noise of the tires, but as soon as he looked at her, the constant, low whine leaking from her nose became apparent. The girl had never had much color to her, but she appeared like a ghost at that moment.

  “Hale?” asked Kenny.

  She looked up at him like he’d shot her dog and forced her to watch.

  “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

  “I’m scared.”

  Kenny tried to sound as comforting as he could. “I know, honey. We’re going home now.”

  She looked down. “It’s not gonna let us. The storm is after us.”

  “Aww shit, man.” Eldon shook his head. “That’s some eerie-ass crap right there.”

  A peal of thunder rolled across the sky behind them.

  Kenny glanced at the mirror; the storm seemed to be closing on them.

  “Kath… pull those kids in the window. It’s gonna get tight in here but… I don’t like them out there going this fast. If I don’t see a bump, they’re going to go flying.”

  “Okay.” Kathy squirmed around to face backward.

  Alyssa looked up. “Huh?”

  Kathy slid the rear window open. “¡Oigan! Niños, vengan para adentro ahora!” She waved with both hands, beckoning them. “No es seguro afuera.”

  Thumping came from the back, accompanied by childish voices murmuring. Kenny traded his attention between the road ahead and the center rearview mirror. Cielo,
the smallest boy, came in headfirst. Kathy pulled him clear and handed him forward to Eldon, who tolerated an eight-year-old in his lap. Luna slithered in next and sat on the floor in front of Hayley. Gato in his pink cat shirt followed, grabbing the light bar at the rear edge of the roof and entering feet first. Kathy guided him onto the seat between her and Nasir, which smushed Alyssa and Hayley together. Halcón, the fifteen-year-old, barely fit in the window, but managed to wriggle in with Kathy holding his hands and pulling. She slid the window closed, muting the roar of the oncoming storm.

  After a bit of shuffling around and bumping to the back of Kenny’s seat, Hayley wound up on Kathy’s lap with Alyssa against the wall and Halcón seated between Nasir and Kathy. Luna remained on the floor, while Eldon and Cielo battled for control of his rifle. The boy grinned and laughed whenever Eldon swatted his hand away from a button.

  Kenny leaned on the accelerator, bringing the truck up to ninety-four. He hawkeyed the road, wary of debris such as dead vehicles or chunks missing. At that speed, he wouldn’t have a lot of time to react. Fortunately, the sky and air in front of them remained clear and bright, offering a good view of distance.

  Cielo settled down eventually and fell asleep, his face against Eldon’s chest armor. The former Marine seemed content to prop him up.

  “Probably been awhile since the little guy felt safe enough to really sleep,” whispered Kenny.

  “Yeah.” Eldon looked annoyed in general. “Why the hell do we leave this shit as it is? We all crammed up in the city on the coast.”

  “Now that’s another ghost story you won’t wanna hear.” Kenny winked.

  “Aww, horseshit,” muttered Eldon. “It boils down to money. One o’ them cost-benefit analysis things.”

  Kenny shrugged, staring at the road. “Maybe. Who knows? Some people think the Badlands are alive.”

  “Oh, here we go.” Eldon rolled his eyes.

  Kenny chuckled. For the better part of three hours, he drove along I-25. Except for the occasional stability warning, the truck’s fusion core and e-motors handled sustained ninety-plus with grace. A few times, the road conditions forced him to slow to a crawl. One cause of the chewed-up paving remained abandoned on the island between lanes: a three-century dead tank. An engagement between armor happened here and the road paid the price.

  Alyssa and Halcón kept looking at each other, which got Kenny squeezing the wheel. Hayley seemed comforted at being in Kathy’s lap. She’d stopped trembling, though had the posture of a little girl after a nightmare.

  Luna and Gato whispered back and forth in Spanish; they wondered if the ‘curtain of fire’ had been a made up story, where would their parents’ spirits have gone? When Luna slam-shifted topics to saying Halcón didn’t need to marry her anymore because this girl is his age, Kenny’s sharp intake of breath sucked up a bit of saliva and he started choking.

  I just gotta watch them for another day… drop these kids off with the cops at the gate, and those two will never see each other again. Kenny smiled at Alyssa via the mirror. My little girl is not ready for boys. Especially a muscular one with no shirt who looks like he walked straight out of that Monwyn game. He gripped the wheel again. Dammit, boy. Stop smiling at her like that.

  Hayley burst into tears. Before anyone recovered enough from her sudden outburst to speak, she whirled around, screamed, “Mommy,” and clamped onto Kathy, sobbing into her shoulder.

  The outburst shocked Nasir awake. He swiveled his head around wide-eyed and fumbled for his sidearm. He seemed to realize the source of the noise before managing to get the weapon free of its holster, and stopped trying to pull it.

  Cielo didn’t stir; mouth agape, he continued snoring.

  Luna and Gato stopped talking. They looked up at Hayley with confusion all over their faces.

  Halcón faced Kathy. “Tal vez ella tiene una premonición. Los espíritus me dijeron que me fuera derecho a la casa antes de que los otros atacaran nuestro pueblo. Si me hubiera quedado, estuviera muerto.”

  “Premonition my ass,” muttered Eldon. He smirked at Kenny. “So he thinks ‘the spirits’ told him to get outta his village ’fore it got raided. Sounds like coincidence to me.”

  Hayley’s wailing grew louder. She screamed.

  The truck went silent for the span of two breaths.

  And shut down.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” yelled Eldon.

  Cielo lifted his head, mouth still open. He looked at Eldon, then Kenny, his eyes big and round with fear.

  “Shit…” Kenny grunted and wrestled the wheel to keep them rolling straight. He thanked a handful of random old deities that he’d installed a physical linkage steering system rather than drive-by-wire. Teeth clenched, he held the truck straight until it came to a stop. “Well shit. That’s a new one.”

  Eldon stared at him, unable to recall seeing the man’s eyes that wide before.

  “It’s okay. Probably a short somewhere.” He frowned at the instrumentation, which should still be showing some manner of error, even if the capacitor died. With a biodiesel under the hood, the ‘standard’ power plant, essentially a larger version of a FuBox generator, sat in the bed up against the forward wall. Nothing leaked out of it, so the miniature nuclear reactor had to be intact. He pondered if it had been a mistake not going for an electrogel unit, but a bullet striking the fuel reserve would’ve been bad. Significantly more so than just running out of electrogel in the middle of the Badlands. “Gonna swap it over to diesel and we’ll be on our way again.”

  “What’s that mean?” asked Alyssa.

  Eldon laughed. “Your old man’s got some fondness for that prewar shit. Ancient type o’ engine.”

  “¿Qué pasó con las luces?” asked Luna, pointing at the dashboard.

  “The lights went out,” said Eldon. At the girl’s confused look, he repeated it in Spanish.

  “It doesn’t want us to leave,” said Hayley in a quiet, calm voice.

  “All right, man. That kid is seriously upping the spooky meter,” said Eldon.

  Kenny pushed his door open. “Been in and out of the Badlands lots of times. He’s never minded me going before.”

  “Will you stop?” said Eldon.

  “The kids.” Nasir raised an eyebrow. “They belong to this place. He won’t let you take them.” The thin man’s lip quivered, fighting a smile.

  “Aww, fuck all y’all.” Eldon laughed.

  Kenny grinned and slid down to stand on the road.

  “Mr. Church,” said Kathy. “Need I remind you that there are children present.”

  “Yeah.” Eldon grinned. “But those four don’t speak English, and Hayley spent a day with Joey around, so she’s already heard all the bad words… and probably a few made up ones too.”

  Kenny climbed into the truck bed. He opened the hatch on the power plant; even its keypad had gone dark. These things are supposed to work for thirty years. It’s stone dead. He’d planned for this eventuality, hence the biodiesel, but he hadn’t had to do a field conversion except as a test before. He grabbed a toolbox, but froze at the high-pitched buzz of an ethanol engine in the distance.

  “Aww shit.”

  Dust trails approached from the east. One large black spot rode at the head, with a handful of smaller ones weaving around in the cloud. He left the toolbox behind and jumped to the road before running to the door.

  “We got incoming. Looks like raiders.” He ducked out, opened the rear door, and grabbed his rifle off the rack.

  “Raiders?” asked Kathy.

  “Yeah. Settlers don’t drive around out in the desert, and if ‘he’ doesn’t want us leaving, of course we’d ‘just so happen’ to get spotted by some raiders as soon as the truck dies.”

  “Man, you seriously workin’ hard to convince my ass never to come back out here again.” Eldon opened his door, set Cielo on the seat, and stood on the running board to aim over the roof to the east.

  The boy leapt onto Kathy, yelling, “Viene gente mala!”

&
nbsp; “Oh, they’re not evil,” said Eldon. “They’re just misunderstood.”

  Halcón, Luna, and Gato scrambled past Kenny and ran to the truck bed, collecting their compound bows and arrows. Kathy shouted at them to get inside and stay down, but they leapt to the road and vanished under the truck, taking cover behind the huge tires.

  “One big ass truck, damn thing’s covered in spiked plates,” said Eldon. “Five buggies following it. Swords, axes, couple of rifles. Want me to fire a warning shot?”

  “Yeah, fire one right through their heads. Raiders ain’t gonna back off unless they think they’re gonna lose.” Kenny slammed the back door and ran around to the passenger side, taking cover behind the front end and aiming over the hood.

  “Think that big mother is gonna ram us?” Eldon settled down over the Crusader rifle.

  “Uhh.” Kenny raised his electronic scope to his eye. Five piecemeal buggies with huge rear tires and small front wheels weaved back and forth across the wake of what appeared to be an old box truck covered in armored plates. “Doubt it since we’re just sittin’ here. They’ll wanna take the truck.”

  “What should I do?” yelled Kathy.

  “Grab a rifle and do not let anyone get near the girls.” Kenny drew a bead on one of the buggies.

  Eldon fired. The largest of the buggies, covered in shiny aluminum with two men standing on a shelf in back, ceased weaving and veered off in a straight line away from them.

  Kenny didn’t try to hit the driver in the head like he figured Eldon had. He zoned in on another raider buggy with one axe-waving idiot in a sidecar. He aimed at the body, waited for it to swerve from gliding to his right to the left, and fired three shots one after the other. One sparked. He fired a fourth. The driver pounded on the frame as the buggy lost speed and emitted a billowy cloud of white smoke.