The No Names

by Frank Albelo

  While Delta and I looked around for another boulder candidate, I instructed the others to pile the larger rocks they collected along the cracks of the boulders and then use the smaller ones to try to fill the voids. There was no way to get a properly gradated wall with the large rocks, but it would keep out more of the elements and enemies.

  By the time the planet light began to bathe us, we had managed to complete about half of the semicircle.

  I noticed Beta and Gamma breathing heavily and taking breaks often. Delta and Zeta also looked ready to keel over, so I called everyone to come eat and stop for the night. I felt refreshed, definitely not like a man that had just been pushing quarter ton rocks around. I tried to burn off restless energy by brushing the small debris out of the main area with my foot while I ate.

  There was smooth stone beneath the dirt and rock, which looked to be flush with the passage. There was no way for the passage to have been built before the ice movement that formed the moraine. The timeline for the USG’s discovery of Dun Lund, as well as their occupation of it, wasn’t exactly a match with the features we had found on the moon. The implications of this made my head spin.

  I drifted closer to the opening of the passage, staring into its lit depths and the dark point in the distance; there was still much more to explore.

  Zeta snuck up on me while I spaced out.

  “Alpha!” she shouted near my unarmored head.

  I jumped the full ten feet height of the passage, smacking my head onto the hard stone. My lower back and ass armor scraped the stone with a screech. I held my head for a second while it rung, but the pain quickly faded.

 

  That’s a new one again, I thought.

  “Yes, Zeta?” I replied through gritted teeth. I had not expected to jump like that; the tension from the moon must have been getting to me.

  “Come and join us! No need to space out alone anyway.” There was a sad smile on her face. After looking in her eyes for a few seconds, I conceded. Zeta grabbed my shoulders and pushed me to where everyone was gathered around Marvin’s opened chest.

  The ATC had deactivated its repulsors to conserve power even more, so it was sitting static. There was a quiet whirling in the background as Marvin worked on its internal hinges to get its arm operational. I had cut down its work significantly by dealing with the wiring, but it still needed to repair its mechanical components.

  After checking over the repair’s progress, I looked to the others. Most were smiling, talking about their past lives again or discussing improbable plans for the base we were working on. I broke my own reverie of the past when I noticed that Epsilon and Delta were the only ones still awake. The girls and Beta were all snuggled together. Taking out the whole space armor and threat of mutation from the picture, the scene could have been taken from an old camping catalogue.

  While I still felt refreshed, I began to wander around the outskirts of the camp. Before I knew it, I was collecting rocks and clearing the area of anything I was capable of lifting. It took another two hours of extensive physical activity for me to actually become tired. I didn’t want to think about how badly I smelled underneath the armor, considering my three days of constant activity and severe lack of bathing.

  As I chuckled about the reekfest that our ragtag group must be, I spotted my pipe wrench propped against the rock near Delta and moved closer. By the time I had returned to camp, everyone was dead asleep and had obviously taken my activity as a sign of safety. Taking my wrench and hanging the teeth from on of my shoulder armor plates, I climbed up on one of the larger boulders Delta and I hadn’t been able to move.

  The blue shimmering planet light had been shining slightly all throughout the night. There were occasional clouds that I could see in the distance; Dun Lund looked to be barren of not only life but rain. Thinking back about how much everyone smelled, a slight plan formed in my head as I climbed down. I moved the largest and flattest of the rocks I could find closer to the camp. Taking tests swings with my wrench, its teeth closed so it resembled a club more than an industrial tool, I started to wail on the stone.

  The chipping process was slow and thankfully my wrench was up to the task. The metal head of the wrench was only scratched slightly as I broke off chunks forming an ellipse on the flat stone. Once the perimeter was marked off, I methodically hollowed out the stone leaving a large stone bowl about two feet deep and almost five long. Having noticed that the planet light would fade soon, I roused Delta as watchman.

  The Digit grudgingly got up shaking off sleep, neither him nor the others had been woken up by my racket! I sighed, shaking my head at the group, as I plopped into the stone bowl. My little project wasn’t completed, but it would hopefully improve their lives on Dun Lund significantly. As I mused on my project, as well as a few other ideas that had begun to take shape in my mind, I activated my helmet. The howling wind became muted and I let the day’s exhaustion lead me to sleep.

  The start of the next day was relatively simple. Everyone took a half ration as breakfast, leaving us with three days worth once again. I was concerned about our food, but I was optimistic about the passage leading to more mutants.

  For the first couple of hours we continued to work on the outer rocks. Restored from the previous day’s efforts, everyone worked quickly. Beta switched out with Delta halfway and we moved the last of the six foot boulders around the camp. The others filled in the spaces around the stones and the camp was complete. My rock bowl had been moved inside the twenty foot diameter semicircle. The others were confused by my project, but I remained cryptic as to its purpose.

  The camp now completed, we all stood in front of the passage and stared inside.

 

 

 

  I was almost floored by the clear resonating voice in my head. The sound in my head was perfectly clear as it announced my ‘rank’. The message repeated twice over, almost as if it was making sure I captured the information. I did my best to pull myself together, but I noticed Gamma looking at me with confusion as I shook off my surprise.

  “No use standing around. Better get going and maybe we can get another trip to the base for grub.” Delta shrugged.

  I did my best to casually approach Delta. The man had a point. Considering the attack of the previous day we had been apprehensive about entering the passage, but the longer we hesitated the more likely we were to starve in the long run. I still refused to tell the others about the voice in my head, but the questions continued to mound. Without me saying anything further, the other Digits moved forward into the passage.

  I lingered at the entrance. Regardless of what was happening to me the others were already doing their best to move forward. I smiled, thinking of how much more decisive the others had become, and headed after them.

  Chapter 5: Clawing Determination

  It only took about an hour to reach our furthest point down the passage. There was significantly more debris than the last time we had all been there. The rocks used against the mutant and those that had rolled down the slope due to the camp looked to have congregated lightly in our path. Everyone cooperated to created a three foot clear path down the middle of the passage in case they needed to make a swift exit.

  From that point forward, all of us took turns leading the group deeper down. As we tapped the nearest walls to activated the fluorescent panels, someone would run past and light them slightly further in. This allowed for a slight window against things lurking in the dark .

  While we were clearing rocks out of the path it was slow going, but once that was done we entered a pattern. A pair of us would run forward, tap the lights at the edge of our field of view and rush back. The few seconds that it provided was possibly enough to turn the tides in any encounter.

  Through the night, Marvin had completed his repairs and had been moving in his cart form down the passage. Beta would occasion
ally hop onto the mech’s back for a few minutes, pretending to be cavalry charging into battle. Everyone’s tension was eased by the youth’s antics, but when the passage walls started failing to activate fear began to creep its way in. When the inactive panels began to alternate one-to-one with the operational ones, I decided it was probably best to consider our options.

  After a hour and a half of monotonous progress, we took a brief break. Gamma and I had been the last pair to run into the murky dark to activate the lights, so we ran back just as half rations were being passed around.

  “What’s the plan, Alpha?” asked Beta expectantly.

  “I’m not sure. Considering that the lights are not all working, we are going to need to be extra careful. Maybe run forward in trios, or maybe duo’s with Marvin to light the way and sense ahead.” I tapped my uncovered chin in thought.

  The ATC was able to sense about five hundred feet around itself, but its sensors had failed to catch the long armed mutant. If the lights continued to fail, we would be forced to turn around and try to find other mutants in Dun Lund. While I wrestled with my thoughts I looked up at my companions. None of them appeared nervous or hesitant to be deep inside the foreign moon. I wondered if that had something to do with how lucky we were getting in the mutant encounters, but deep inside I knew the truth.

  Our time on Dun Lund had tested us. On Earth we lived backbreaking lives for our oppressors, but it was different here. I saw strength in everyone’s eyes that hadn’t been there when they were corralled and dropped on this frozen hell. Our survival was in our hands, and we wouldn’t hesitate to hold on.

  I rose, stamping my metal boots on the ground. Everyone looked to me in alarm, but I waved their concerned looks.

  “It’s time we define ourselves. We will get off this moon. Regardless of what we need to do,” I exclaimed. I looked each of them in the eye, pausing the longest on Gamma and Beta. When none of them wavered or looked away, I smiled widely for the first time since I could remember.

  “Well, let’s go kill some mutants!” I shouted as I helped Epsilon and Beta to their feet. The others followed close behind as we delved deeper into the passage.

  Ironically, there wasn’t much time before we had to stop again. This time it was because the passage suddenly leveled off. We had been moving down steadily, but now the passage shot forward with no inclination. Even without lights activated in that straight section, there was a strange glimmer at the end of the passage.

  Excitement building, the others wanted to rush forward and it took a quick reaction from Delta to stop the others. The man had been the first to see the light at the end and he turned Marvin sideways quickly to block the others, causing them to crash into the mech. The only thing keeping the ATC upright was the stocky man pushing on the other side.

  “What are you brainiacs doing!?” he shouted.

  “Who the hell knows what’s over there and you get all excited because there’s a little light? God, and here I thought we were making progress.” The gruff man locked eyes with the others as they picked themselves off the ground.

  I had been pulling up the rear of the group, so I only rushed forward when I heard thundering steps. I barely managed to stop before I knocked everyone back down to the ground. After seeing me flailing my arms and the others untangling themselves, Delta busted out laughing. I imagined the man was trying to teach the others a lesson about being overconfident and eager, but the sight had been too much for him.

  After everyone stared daggers at him for a minute, Delta's hoarse laugh settled down. We all then let our eyes accommodate. Right before the change in inclination, the frequency of working lights had decreased to maybe one in four and our eyes were fighting to adjust to the lighting. Once we could see, it was evident that the passage opened up into a more well lit area.

  After spending so long in the gloom of the passage, the light in the distance called to us. Right before leaving the rubble behind us, everyone had picked up a pair of fist sized rocks. As we began to make our way forward, Marvin and I at the lead, the others held the stones at the ready. The last encounter proved that while they would not kill one of the mutants, it would definitely give us an edge to attack from multiple sides.

  After only a brief walk we arrived at a cracked door. It was made of some dark wood, completely out of character with everything they had seen. I didn’t question it further as I anxiously pushed the door open, the Digits close on my heels.

  What I saw on the other side of the door made me drop my pipe wrench. As the loud clang rang out, I shook myself out of my stupor and began scanning my surroundings.

  We had somehow arrived at an underground city. The passage led out onto an enormous cavern that reached up from the surface of Dun Lund and several hundred feet below the small outcropping where we stood. From our position, I noted that the ceiling of the cavern was either ice or some kind of glass that was allowing natural light to filter into the underground space.

  There was a small winding path that led down from the outcropping to where tall metal and stone buildings rose from the ground. There must have been dozens of them, all of various sizes, with slightly rounded and tiered facades. The beehive-like structures looked to meld with one another seamlessly into street blocks, smooth roads running in a grid around them.

  What drew most of my attention however, was what appeared to be foliage beyond the city blocks. Thanks to the light from above, greenery was visible in the distance. I felt excitement rise in my chest, but I did my best to stamp it down. The others however, were not as reserved about what might be lurking around.

  “Are those… trees!?” I heard Beta exclaim behind me.

  I turned just in time to see him and Gamma rushing down the slope. I started jogging after them, the other older members of the group following close behind. I kept a wary eye on the dark buildings. As we moved closer I could see darkened windows and doorways on the shorter ones. Even as my eyes focused on the closest building, a pair of writhing shadows jumped out from one of those open windows.

  “Beta! Gamma! Stop!” I tried to warn them, but they were pulling ahead around one of the curves that led to the streets, the steep incline helping them gain speed. I began pumping my legs, holding my wrench at the ready as I noted the shadows quickly approaching the pair. Epsilon, Zeta and Delta finally noticed the shadows hiding around the buildings and they too shouted at the young Digits.

  “Marvin! Jump in front of the kids!” I managed to mutter between breaths. The ATC’s repulsors lit up and the ATC that has been following behind the group began to whirl loudly. A second later the mech was sailing through the air. Thankfully we had been much lower to the ground level, so the ATC was able to land on the ground with no damage from the fall. Beta and Gamma stopped abruptly as they noticed the ATC jump in front of them.

  I was livid that I had allowed the others to deactivate their helmets, essentially removing the ability to use our comm systems. The temperature had been increasing steadily as we made our way down the passage and removing the HUD saved us precious battery time. The tension of the last few days must have been messing with my brain more than I realized; Beta and Gamma couldn’t be expected to react logically all the time. I quickly activated the helmet, not stopping for the short moment of total darkness while the helmet booted up.

  As I finally reached the ground level, I saw the shadows leap from the nearby building. I used the comm to order the mech to block the shadows from striking Gamma who was closest. There was a loud thump as the bodies of what had noticed their approach rebounded off the ATC. I kept pumping, the Digits on the incline.

 

  I ignored the voice and focused on getting to the youths.

  As I got closer, I saw that the shadows I had seen were some kind of dog. However, these dogs had four and twelve arms respectively sticking out randomly from their bodies. The arms were weakly lashing at the air after they were stunned by their collision with our robot cart.
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  Not waiting for the creatures to recover, I jumped. Taking a step on the back of the ATC, I drove the pointed end of the wrench into the closest dog. There was a sickening crunch as the pipe wrench cracked the the cranium and pierced the dog’s throat underneath. A veritable waterfall of black blood spilled onto the smooth rock floor and I fought to regain purchase as the other dog shook off the impact. Its dozen arms began to thrash more quickly as it focused on the pair that stood paralyzed as they stared at the dog.

  I did my best to use the wrench to move forward, already ordering Marvin to stand in front of the youths, hopefully buying them enough time for me to make it.

  It did not.

  The dog rushed the ATC, using its clawed arms to grip and leap over the robot, landing on Beta’s chest. As the creature’s arms tried to tear into the armor, rocks flew from the approaching group. While some of the rocks struck Marvin and Beta, the majority found their mark. The rocks got the creature’s attention, and when it saw the number of people rushing it down, it scurried off Beta. The dog quickly ran for the street, disappearing into the shadows of the tiered buildings.