After I had taken cover, lying on ice and feeling it burn through my factory overalls, the cold made me shiver to the point where I forgot and tried, unsuccessfully, to regulate body temperature. The others must have been second generation; none of them shivered. Soon we heard a thumping noise, the footsteps of a giant, which grew louder with each passing second.
“What is it?” Margaret asked again.
“One of their powered armor experiments. But maybe the alarms mean something went wrong.”
Seven missiles streaked overhead, and one of them slammed into a nearby boxcar, shooting splinters of metal and wood into the ground. One of the girls to my left screamed. I glanced over and saw her, shredded, a pool of blood growing in the snow but I looked away when the ground beneath us began vibrating. We watched as a camouflaged shape approached, its chameleon skin turning the air into something like a mirage so that I couldn’t tell the thing’s shape, only that it headed straight for us. It reached the platform at the same time a rocket impacted, striking its rear and sending hot metal to hiss on the ice-covered concrete. One of the armor suits, the same one shown to me by Misha, materialized then, as it crashed to the ground in front of us. Its shoulders sparked. The thing was close enough to touch and I reached out toward its helmet just as teams of armored Russian soldiers swarmed in, their weapons pointing at me and voices screaming to keep my distance, their officer pushing through to kneel beside it. He flicked open a panel and punched a series of keys until the carapace hissed open to send a wave of green fluid around his feet and reveal the suit’s occupant, who was face up, empty eye sockets connected to the suit via a series of fiber cables. When I saw the face, I threw up.
“God above,” said Margaret. “It’s one of us. A Lily.”
We didn’t stay to watch. But the memory of her—armless and legless with tubes and wires that seemed to grow from her head, ears, and stumps—stayed with me as we loaded the carts, refused to disappear even after we had left the platform. We drove back toward the factory. At first neither Margaret nor I spoke but half way there, at the top of the hill, she stopped the truck.
“I feel sick, Ubitza.”
“That was the first time I’ve heard you mention God,” I said. “The first time I’ve thought of him since my arrival.”
“What was that? Did you see what they did to her?”
I nodded. “Didn’t they show you the armor, when you came here?”
“No. When I came here they assigned me to the factory. Only some girls are given a choice, usually the most combative, first-generation units like you. The rest are automatically assigned depending on Moscow’s needs. That was the first time I’ve seen one of their experiments; who would choose that?”
“Margaret, how did they change you? When did you forget who you were?”
She glared at me, but her expression softened and Margaret looked up at the sky. “The rapes didn’t do it. It was the sessions in between, when they showed us holos taken from American news stations, some even captured from our old units. They lied to us, Ubitza. God doesn’t exist. Not the way they described Him to us anyway, and He doesn’t want war, so a death in battle doesn’t earn anyone a place in Heaven, least of all us.”
“You believe them? Trust they weren’t lies, the holos?” I wanted something, anything to hold on to, because as she spoke it felt like the last of my resolve had begun to crumble. The past months had been working on it in secret, sapped at it, undercut my faith that God had a plan, but did it in secret so that when she spoke I saw it for the first time: I had almost no faith left. There was no more reason to even exist. And if I didn’t believe in anything, why not stay here like Margaret had done, accept that this was a life as good as any?
“I believe them, Ubitza. You should too.”
A cloud had passed in front of the sun, turning everything a dull gray, and without a glare you saw the stains from underground exhaust, stretched across the white snowfields in brown and yellow smears. Then, when the sun returned, everything turned white again.
“I’m leaving here, Margaret. I need your help.”
“What?” She turned the engine over and gunned it, her speed threatening to send us off the path. “That’s insane, Ubitza. Even if we could get you supplies, a combat suit, food, a weapon, and fuel cells, there is no place to go. Stay here. You don’t have to become an experiment like her.”
“That’s not what scares me.” The truck banged again as we lurched over the entrance and began our descent into the tunnels, their warmth wrapping around us and beginning the process of drying my overalls. “What scares me is that I’ll become like Heather.”
Margaret didn’t say anything for a moment. She gripped the wheel tightly and refused to look over until finally she stopped the car again.
“You promise me that you believe in something else. Something better than this?”
I nodded. “With certainty. This place is no different from war, Margaret; we are servants here just like we were then. There must be something else.”
Margaret started the truck and moved us slowly, taking us deeper underground.
“Everyone speaks of Thailand—of going to Korea and catching a boat from there to Bangkok—because in Thailand a number of us have found freedom. But take me with you. And stay out of Heather’s way; if you kill her, they’ll put you in the laboratory, and if she kills you… I should never have become your friend, Ubitza. Should have stuck with just whoring, with looking out for myself.”
“Then that’s where we’ll go,” I said. And it was a relief to have at least part of a plan.
SIX
Forest for the Trees
All of God’s children spoil, all doubt. Repent or the end will come slowly, with vengeance as a sword from my mouth.
MODERN COMBAT MANUAL REVELATIONS 2:16
It’s good to finally see you like this,” said Misha. We both spoke Russian now. I sat in his office, a rock-hewn cubicle with a single computer on a desk, its holo display showing the factory’s progress toward the month’s quota. He pointed at it. “This is my war these days.”
“Grow a hand,” I suggested, “return to the real thing.”
“I’m too soft. You’re the only one that still exercises, still trains. The other girls talk about it, you know, call you insane when it’s they who have gone insane. Maybe even me.”
“Heather tried for me a week ago. On shift change, she and two others attacked when I got off the elevator.”
Misha sighed and lit a cigarette. The room’s ventilator sensed the smoke and kicked into high automatically, sucking the cloud into a vent. “I know. So kill her and be done with it.”
“Then I’ll die, or be sent to Exogene.”
“So what?” Misha flicked off his computer and stood, then pounded against the rock with a fist. “This is just rock! This is all shit, wasn’t what I wanted after all, isn’t that funny? For a whole war, we begged for this, dreamt of it, our own piece of Russia. And when we get here, guess what? More of the same: humans, this time not even warriors, but bureaucrats disguised as warriors, calling the shots like big pinecones. There was never a place we would call our own, only more service to Mother Russia and more service to the nonbred incompetents. Remember the songs on the train? That was our dream. A moment on a train, a moment of Brodyaga and maybe some of the Jew song and cigarettes, only back then we didn’t appreciate it for what it was.”
“What was it, Misha?”
“Freedom. Our own little piece of Russia, for just a few days.”
It had been sitting in my mind, crouched like a panther about to leap, and still I hadn’t let it out because nobody, not even Margaret, could have predicted how Misha would react when he heard the reason for my visit. Margaret was waiting in the barracks, terrified. But now that I saw him, like this, it became clear that it was time.
“I’m leaving, Misha.”
He turned from the wall and stared at me. “What?”
“Zeya. The factory. I’m leaving
with Margaret, to head southeast. She says that if you make it to Korea, you can head south and grab a ship to Thailand. There’s real freedom there, Misha.”
“So go.” He sat again and turned the computer back on, punching at the keys like they were his new enemies.
“I can’t go. Not without your help. The snow, the forests, it’s like you said: we won’t make it far.”
Misha glanced up at me. “I know what you’re about to ask, but do you? Do you have any idea what they’d do if they found out I supplied you with food or extra tranquilizers, let alone a knife?”
“We’re all dying here, Misha, even you. Please help us get the things we need.”
“Little murderer.” He tapped a finger against his chin. While Misha considered the request, my heart rate jumped when my thoughts turned to the possibility that he wouldn’t help us, that he’d turn us in. What then? I hadn’t been ready for death since I left the battlefield, and Margaret, who had far less courage than I, would have even more trouble. What made it worse was how she’d trusted me, as if I were a Lily and there could be no questioning my success—only she wouldn’t get the truth until Misha and a group of humans arrived to haul her to the mines or the labs; she wouldn’t understand the truth that had taken me so long to discover, and only then after I’d watched Megan disappear into the muddy river: that there are no certainties. The fact was, I realized, God’s plans sometimes didn’t include you in them, or sometimes called for you to die, and that was if He even existed. Some of the girls’ opinions had rubbed off on me. Prayer had turned into a thing hated, a joke, so that instead of asking for glory, my few prayers lately had focused on showing me a sign that He existed in the first place. But I trembled then not because of my fears, but because I didn’t want to fail Margaret like I had Megan.
Misha smiled. “Fuck it. I’ll get you what you need. Armor, a couple of weapons, tranqs, food, and fuel cells. There’s one of us who came before, maybe the first one, who they allowed a special dispensation to live alone in the woods with the wolves. I’ll have it all sent to him with a note. His name is Lev.”
“Where is he?”
Misha tapped at his computer, changing the display to a map. He pointed toward a small yellow dot, northeast of the city, where it blinked in the midst of what looked like the largest forest in the universe, a single shade of green that went to the very edge of his display. Misha then pointed at the mountains. “We’re here, and this is the service exit where you leave to pick up factory supplies. Take the main road to the northeast but then leave when you see forest, and make your way east until you’re four kilometers inside the trees. Then head due north. And don’t be seen; I don’t know anymore what they’d do if the nonbred realized you had escaped; maybe they wouldn’t trust the snow and ice to take care of things. Study this.”
After a few minutes I nodded and he switched back to his charts, motioning for me to leave. “Get out.”
“What about you, Misha. What happens if you don’t make your quota because we ran?”
“Fuck the quota. They called my number.”
It took a second for me to realize what he meant. “Exogene? You’ll go to the workshop? Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Yeah.” Misha stubbed out his cigarette and flicked away the butt. “Exactly what I wanted. Except that was a lie too. All these people know are lies—which lies will curry favor with Moscow, which ones will curry favor with the supply clerks. Favors and lies are the currency of Zeya, Little Murderer, not honor. Not war.”
I shook my head. “I’m confused.”
“Of course you are, and you should be. Listen. They perfected the system months ago, the armor and the techniques. We’ve been promised something that doesn’t exist: a chance to return to the field. Why doesn’t it exist? Because all these experiments have been designed only to tweak things a little so they don’t waste their new units on such tiny experiments, ones designed to see how they can squeeze more power out of new fuel cells, or improve the cycling rate of coolant. Instead they use us as guinea pigs, so they don’t waste their next generation of fighters. I’ve seen the new ones in their tanks. Little men who aren’t men, little men with big heads and no arms or legs, who won’t know a life other than one encased in ceramic, wired to machines. They never intended to field the new armor systems with real warriors like you or me, but with half-human animals, created in someone else’s image. Certainly not your God’s.” Misha stopped talking then and laughed. “So go.”
“You could come with us,” I suggested.
“This is still my country. I won’t run to Thailand or anywhere. But you have to leave tomorrow morning because I’ll be gone by then, in the workshop. I’ll have your supplies delivered tonight. Nobody ever questions a supply to Lev, and nobody ever inspects me or my brothers, so don’t worry. Your things will be there. Do you know the route to take, to Korea?”
I shook my head. “I know what they put in my head, but the information is only as good as the Americans had; your information, Russian data, would be better.”
“The East Asian War took much of the Kamchatka Peninsula. When those North Korean idiots decided to take a second try at capturing all of South Korea, China worked with them, making a play for Eastern Siberia. It was the only time we’d allied with your country since the ancient wars, and look what it cost us. Your president, our president, both drooled at the thought of untapped North Korean resources, so as soon as you and Japan attacked through Korea, we counterattacked the Chinese, not counting on the number of nuclear weapons Beijing would use. The Chinese irradiated all of Kamchatka and our major ports, leveled Sakhalin Island; the North Koreans did the same to all of Japan—even to their own shitty country.”
Misha saw me nodding and smiled. “I know you know all this, Ubitza, but there’s a point. China will be to your southwest much of the way, to your west when you turn south and head straight for Korea. It is farther than you think. Make for the border crossing at Khasan and until then don’t stray east or you’ll find yourself in a nuclear wasteland, staring at the ocean as your DNA dissolves. Remember: we may have driven the Chinese underground after the war, slaughtered so many between Russian and American nukes that nobody could have survived. But they did. So if you wander too far west, whatever Chinese filth is attacking our outposts could take you. None of these dangers will be on your suit’s map. Head south, and stay in the middle, between China and the sea.”
I was about to leave and close the door behind me when Misha said one last thing: “And be careful in North Korea, Murderer. Everything is gone. The fields are still hot and there, even dust is an enemy.”
“Thank you, Misha,” I said, “I’ll never forget this,” and then I shut the door.
The factory was quiet except for the popping of the sintering presses, still cooling from the day’s work, and dim battery lights provided just enough light for me to weave my way through the machinery, which rose from the factory floor in a forest of dark shapes. Something moved. I stopped and crouched, momentarily grateful for the titanium in my feet, which had turned them into weapons; a single impact had nearly broken Heather’s back in our last encounter. Then, without warning, I felt the beginnings of a dream, a nightmare. Machinery began dissolving at its edges and with a sense of terror I realized that I had taken my last tranq tab six hours ago, its effect long since worn off, and nothing stood between me and the abyss into which I now slid. In front of me stepped Heather and two others. Her voice fading quickly, she asked, “What’s wrong, Murderer? I want to finish our dance.”
Two girls crouched, locked in a kind of haka-dance, each waiting for their opening. We had been pulled off the line for refitting where the white coats required us to spend as much free time training as possible, and this was a knife fighting exercise, with Sasha and Francesca its combatants.
Sasha feinted and chopped with her empty hand, barely missing Francesca’s neck, but it left her knife arm exposed. Francesca saw the opening. Her hand blurred, precise
in its movement, and the blade punched through Sasha’s elbow joint with a loud crack. I saw it then. Hatred. Every once in a while, one of us went bad, a different kind of spoiling in which the girl ceased being part of our family and hated everyone and everything. You could see it in eyes like Sasha’s, which had gone glassy a long time before this, dilated and empty, telegraphing that she wasn’t stable.
The two circled again, watching for another opening. Sasha stumbled. She was favoring her wounded arm and hadn’t noticed a small rock that now snagged on the outside of her foot, sending her off balance. I never even saw Francesca move. In less than a second, she had slammed into her opponent, sending Sasha onto her back, and stopped her knife point only inches away from the girl’s chin.
“You fought well,” said Francesca; she stood to offer a hand.
Sasha grinned. “And also you.” But her smile disappeared, and instead of taking Francesca’s hand, the girl slammed her knife through the center of it, the sharp end snapping through her palm in an instant. “Forgive my clumsiness. I slipped.”
We attacked. All of us moved in and began pummeling Sasha, kicking and punching at her face, the only portion of her body that was unarmored. When it was over, Sasha had lost a tooth, and both eyes swelled shut as she laughed and rolled in the sand, spitting blood and cursing us in mumbles that made me uneasy, a language that one would never understand but which conveyed a sensation of hatred. She was gone. Medical technicians took both girls to the medical bots, and for a while we forgot about it.
A week later we waited in a hangar, where a technician stood at a podium. He dragged the canvas shroud off a bulky object next to him and gestured for us to gather around. Both Sasha and Francesca had returned, each of them standing on opposite ends of the group.
“This is a newer version of the stealth fusion cutter, and, when properly operated, it will cut through hard rock at a slightly faster rate than our previous models, at about sixty meters per hour. You’ll get the same tunnel, cylindrical, one meter in diameter. Also, instead of grinding the spall, this unit breaks it into small enough chunks so that they get taken back along the muck line as-is; there will be almost no sound to reveal your position.
Subterrene War 02: Exogene Page 14
