The Northern Star Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by Mike Gullickson

  “I know.” And, just for those two words, the soulless voice vanished and it was Cynthia, the real Cynthia—the one he’d wed without a ceremony, the woman he had lain next to for over fifteen years, and still their time together was too short. “Turn on your comm,” she said. Sabot mentally hit the switch and she filled in next to him. “I will guide you to her, out of sight, and away from harm.”

  He went to the elevator, through the CPU graveyard, and down a service ladder to the fiber conduit he had used to get inside. He slid headfirst into the narrow, pulsing tube and squirmed his way toward the sewer. The comm blacked out—and with it, her—and it was just him and his thoughts, and the only thing that ran through his mind was that he would never see Cynthia again.

  When the conduit widened to where he could stand, he jogged toward the sewer. Eventually the comm came back, and with it, Cynthia’s presence. His eyes caught movement between the fiber line blats. Revos had been imbedded through the conduit like roaches. Some hung from the ceilings, others were ramrod straight, hidden beneath the pulsing fiber lines. Every fifty meters, he saw one protecting a hover-rover. They were an army in wait, a death trap for any assault into MindCorp.

  Ahead, a Revo leaned in from the service door to the sewer. It’s me, Cynthia said. The Revo retreated to let Sabot pass.

  The sewer beyond was choked with more Revos, some with night-vision eyes, others staring at the ground, their eyes rotted out and the rest of their organs a congealing stew. They smelled of rotten peaches and earth.

  They ran with Sabot as the Revo Cynthia controlled led him four miles past his original entry point, zigzagging between sewers and conduit. At last they stopped at a ladder to the surface, guarded by a group of hideous soldiers.

  The Twins are up there. This will put you behind the building where they are.

  Sabot hurried up the ladder. The manhole opened and another Revo helped him out. Half of its face had been cleaved away, and one twitchy eye watched him.

  Up top it was the zombie apocalypse. Five hundred Revos in various states of disrepair and decomposition occupied the streets and alleys, effectively putting a safety bubble around Sabot that extended a quarter mile in all directions. Sabot sprinted to the building.

  = = =

  Odessa sat on the handlebars as Nikko pedaled down Huron.

  “Close your eyes,” Nikko said. Odessa did. They passed a dead body. “Okay.”

  They neared an intersection.

  “Here!” Odessa pointed to a building.

  Nikko stopped the bike and helped her off, then hid the bike in an alley while she waited.

  The lock on the front doors was broken. Nikko led the way inside.

  “What floor is your mom on?”

  “Twelve.”

  Nikko tried the elevator, but the button didn’t light. He looked out to the street. All the buildings were dark. There was no power on this block.

  Nikko sighed. “We’ll have to walk up.”

  By the time they got to the twelfth floor, Nikko was dripping with sweat. Odessa was fine though—just excited to be home. She ran ahead.

  “Wait!” Nikko panted.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” He pressed on a stitch in his side. “Yeah.”

  They walked down the hallway together. At room 1242, Odessa knocked on the door. “Mommy! Mommy!”

  Nikko heard running footsteps, and then the door tore open.

  “ODESSA!” her mom screamed. She picked her little girl up and smothered her with kisses. “Oh God, I thought you were gone! Oh my God.”

  “Nikko brought me here,” Odessa said.

  The woman looked down at Nikko, then swooped in and hugged him. “Nikko, you are my angel. Come inside.”

  “I can’t. I have to get home. My grandma’s by herself.” Nikko unslung the duffel bag. “Do you have food?”

  “No.” By the look of the woman, she was telling the truth.

  Nikko gave them half of what he’d found.

  Going down the stairs was easier than up. Nikko had just gotten to his bike and thrown a leg over when the ground started to shake. Two giant men ran passed him, stopping at a building just down the street. These guys made the previous title-holder for largest man Nikko had ever seen—Sabot—look tiny.

  Nikko turned the bike around to get to the other street when he heard an approaching thunderstorm. Footsteps. Thousands of them. And they were all converging on his location.

  = = =

  The Twins stood outside Vanessa’s twenty-story apartment building, unaware of the Revos gathering around them. Evan had whispered that Vanessa’s apartment was on the tenth floor.

  Why would she come here? Chao asked. It was a foolish place for her to hide: too obvious.

  Food, Kove responded. Can you get in there?

  The doorway was too small, but the lobby looked wide enough. Depending on the stairwell, he could possibly climb up. The Twins were massive, but not nearly the size of the heavies.

  “I’ll try,” Chao said aloud and shuffled forward. Like the dopamine receptors of a drug addict, the electrocution had sapped his electrostatic tissue. He was now less than half strength, and he trembled with palsy.

  Glass was slung against Kove’s back. He hadn’t uttered a word since his dismemberment. Softy soldiers were zeroing in on their position to take him away. Suddenly—

  “VANESSA, RUN!” Glass yelled. “RUN!”

  Kove flung Glass to the ground and grabbed his jaw.

  “SSEAH HOWRH EK HEERS.” See how it feels.

  Kove tore Glass’s jaw from his face. As he threw the mandible into the street, a scourge of Minors rolled around the building, picking up speed as they charged toward him.

  GET HER! Kove yelled to Chao over the comm. Chao broke through the door and ducked underneath.

  Kove left Glass and ran to the front of building, blocking entry. At the back of the lobby, Chao ripped open the stairway door and smashed the framing enough to wedge himself through. There was just enough room for him to climb.

  The Revos tried to run over Kove like fire ants. They shattered through the windows of Vanessa’s building and choked the entry points. Kove decimated any Revo that got within his radius. His arms spun and slammed like a boat propeller, nearly too fast to see, the five-hundred-pound fists connecting with human shapes and turning them into formless, mashed bags of meat.

  Sabot entered the lobby by the back entrance.

  I see her heat signature, Cynthia sent to Sabot. We have no time.

  Sabot couldn’t believe the power of the Twins. Out front, Kove looked prehistoric, sending bionic carcasses fifty feet into the air or smashing them down so hard he created a tissue soup at his feet. Sabot saw the blown-out stairway and quickly rejected it. I’d run smack into Chao, he thought.

  The elevator still worked. Sabot pressed the button and the door opened with a “ding.” Kove spun around, saw the large Samoan, and sprinted into the building after him. His shoulders tore out walls, and the marble floor crumbled under his weight. Sabot darted into the elevator, fired two shots into the ceiling with his 4-gauge, and jumped up through the resulting hole above him. He pulled himself above the elevator and quickly climbed the cable.

  Beneath him, the elevator vanished as a scythe of arms ripped through it. Kove stepped looked up at Sabot. He was too high to reach, so Kove grabbed one of the cables and yanked, tearing it from its anchor, twenty stories up.

  Sabot grunted as he grabbed on to another cable. The broken cable and its mount spaghettied past Sabot, just missing his head. It crashed below. Sabot leaped to an elevator door just as Kove tore the second cable loose.

  She lives on the tenth floor, Cynthia whispered in Sabot’s ear. Chao is in the stairway on the fifth. He has to break the framing to move up.

  Sabot opened the elevator doors and peered out. He could hear Chao’s movement—it sounded like construction work—but he couldn’t see him. Residents were huddled in the hallways, hissing at e
ach other to be quiet.

  An old woman peered through a cracked door at Sabot. She had her chain lock in place. She looked at the huge shotgun in his hand.

  “Don’t kill me,” she said.

  “What floor is this?”

  “Seven.”

  “Is there more than one stairway?”

  The woman shook her head. With no other choice, Sabot sprinted toward the ruckus at the end of the hall: he had to beat Chao up the stairs. He kicked the door open and swung the shotgun through.

  Chao was wedged on the landing directly beneath him, working his way up. He was on his hands and knees, pushing himself up the steps, scoring the walls and crumbling the rails.

  “Woof woof!” Chao barked. “No way out, Sabot!”

  Sabot fired two shots directly into Chao’s head, but they bounced harmlessly off the bulletproof helmet. Chao ground up the stairs as fast as he could, chasing Sabot, but Sabot bounded upward, outpacing the giant easily.

  Sabot reached the tenth floor. He didn’t know Vanessa’s room. He ran down the hallway, kicking doors open and sprinting through each apartment, yelling her name.

  He could hear Chao’s grinding progress grow louder. The hallway was big enough for the giant and the walls here were thin. Once Chao got up here, Sabot would be in deep shit.

  He kicked the fifth door on the right, room 1011.

  “Vanessa?” Sabot yelled as he ran through. “It’s Sabot, I’m here to help!”

  He found her in the closet, huddled like a child.

  “You’ll kill me! You’ll kill me!” she screamed as he yanked her up.

  “No, I won’t. QUIET!” he hissed.

  The queer, trumpet sound of metal bending was too close.

  “Saaaboooot? Vaaaaneeessa?” Chao cooed. He was moving down the hallway, tearing the walls open, searching for them. “Shut the fuck up!” they heard Chao scream at someone.

  We’re trapped, Sabot said to Cynthia.

  Shoot out the living room windows.

  There’s no fire escape.

  Do it, Cynthia said.

  Sabot grabbed Vanessa’s hand and led her out of the bedroom. More walls fell, more people screamed. He put her behind him and pumped three shots into the panoramic window. It exploded outward, and as it did, Chao burst into the apartment, carrying plaster and cabinets in with him.

  Sabot grabbed Vanessa. They were trapped between the open window and the giant.

  “Give me the girl,” Chao said.

  Sabot turned to gauge the fall. They were too high. The wind rode across the opening like a reed, piping a hollow whistle.

  “Don’t!” Chao said. He held out a hand as if he were talking a suicide threat off a ledge.

  Behind them the whistle was overtaken by the chittering whirl of a million cicadas.

  Duck, Cynthia said.

  Sabot grabbed Vanessa and pushed her down. Fifty hover-rovers shot into the apartment like kamikaze frisbees and attacked Chao, slamming into him, annoying him, obstructing his vision. He slammed at them, knocking them down.

  Through the walls, Cynthia said.

  Sabot grabbed Vanessa. “Follow right behind me!”

  He sprinted into the next room and ducked his shoulder like a linebacker. BAM! He blew through the wall. He heard Vanessa’s footsteps behind him, and behind that, the frustrated cries from the Twin. BAM! Another. And another. And then he jumped through the gouged-out entrance of an apartment near the stairwell and pushed Vanessa in front of him. He heard Chao’s stampede approaching.

  “UP THE STAIRS! UP THE STAIRS!” he yelled at her. She bounded up, three steps at a time. Sabot felt the ground shake behind him, and he jumped to the stairs just as Chao slammed through the landing with such force the stairwell walls blew out to the open air.

  Hover-rovers shot in, buzzing Chao as he began his four-legged ascent after Sabot and Vanessa. Sabot scrambled upward, practically throwing Vanessa up the stairs, all the while hearing the train bearing down behind him. But Chao’s speed no longer mattered. Chao had the stairway, and the elevators led to Kove. There was no place to go, nowhere to hide. The only goal now was to delay death and wish for luck.

  They got to the roof. It was a large building and they moved across it, using the rooftop A/C units as cover. Sabot looked down at his gun, aware that it may as well be a toy.

  We can’t let them have her, Cynthia said.

  There’s no way out, Sabot responded. The wind blasted and buffeted, and Vanessa hugged herself from the cold. They heard rumblings beneath them.

  Then kill her, Cynthia said. It wasn’t her voice. It was her digital equivalent, cold and black. Her, but not her.

  Sabot grimaced at the command. He missed the uncertainty Cynthia used to have, the self-consciousness that came from being different, exalted, the constant drive to earn that trust. Not out of ego, but out of honor. In its place now was something that spoke in only statements and periods.

  I won’t kill her, Cynthia.

  You must, she replied.

  The opposite end of the roof fissured open. Instead of exiting from the stairwell, Chao had chosen to move beneath them like a predatory mole. He punched upward, knocking the roof down, coming toward them methodically, pushing them into a corner where there was no escape.

  NOW! Cynthia screamed.

  Sabot could feel her use his eyes, and he knew they regarded the young, tear-streaked woman with no sympathy. A woman who had so quickly entrusted herself to him for survival. How many people should be betrayed? How much is a justifiable cost when all the decisions led here?

  “What are we going to do?” Vanessa asked. She clung to Sabot. The roof was slowly vanishing with the huge sweeping motions of Chao’s arms, two arced-metal blurs slicing through the foot-thick concrete like bread.

  “I don’t know.”

  Chao waded forward, sneering at his trapped prey.

  KILL HER! Cynthia screamed in Sabot’s ear. His hands vibrated, and he felt her try to gain control.

  DON’T YOU DO IT! SHE’S INNOCENT! Sabot pushed back, but his body locked him out, and it was hers. The shotgun rose.

  Vanessa saw the change. Confused and afraid, she knelt to the ground and covered her head with her hands. Chao was only a dozen feet away.

  Sabot was trapped in his own mind by the woman he loved. He did the only thing he could do. The one thing he had never done, the thing that few soldiers ever did: he let Cynthia see what he had seen.

  Like a wave, all the memories of the wars Sabot had been a part of rushed toward Cynthia. The assassinations, the mistakes, the chopping down of children sprinting for safety. Holding a friend while he shook and his blood let, and he died without hope, unsure of God. Mass graves of men, women, and children he had walked through during the North Korea revolt. Bodies that didn’t even receive the small courtesy of a mass grave, but were left as carrion for the birds and wolves, settling into the ground like broken willows, mounds under mushrooms and moss, gleaming skulls and ribs not quite picked clean.

  All of this, Sabot let flow through him. All of it, Cynthia felt. But most of all, she felt Sabot’s torment. His regret was as hungry as the Northern Star. He woke up with it, he spent the day with it, and it haunted his dreams. His life since war was nothing more than makeup covering a scar. And he let her understand that although the world may forget, regret never forgives. It reminds and torments, and it batters the soul.

  Don’t become a monster to defeat one, he said. Please. If you kill her, it’s the mark of a tyrant, no matter how you justify it.

  Her life is just one, Sabot. He felt Cynthia’s hold loosen. He felt a glint of flame in her voice.

  And a thousand are just a thousand. And a million are just a million. It doesn’t stop, Cynthia. Who are you fighting for if the innocent are so easily dismissed?

  But there’s no other way, Cynthia replied.

  Not now, but maybe soon, Sabot urged. If you kill her, you are no better than Evan.

  He’ll win.


  Not forever—not for long. We’ll find another way.

  The governments will be crushed under his grip.

  You may be surprised, Cynthia. There are good among the rotten, and an entire world pitted against a single machine will tear it apart in days.

  There was a pause, and then he felt Cynthia sigh, relent. Do what you must, she said.

  His body was once again his own. He grabbed Vanessa’s hand and dragged her away just before Chao reached them. They sprinted to the edge of the building, sections of roof collapsing behind them as Chao waded forward.

  Sabot looked over the edge. They were too high up. There was no way he could scale down the side with Vanessa. They were cornered. Chao pulled himself up from the nineteenth floor and stood over them.

  “Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,” Chao said. “Hand her over.” He reached out his huge hand like he was asking Vanessa to dance.

  Vanessa stood behind Sabot. “Protect me,” she pleaded in his ear.

  Chao was visibly impatient.

  “I tried,” Sabot said quietly. “I can’t.”

  “No. NO!” she screamed.

  Chao moved to pick her up, and Sabot put the barrel of his shotgun against her shoulder. To Chao, he said: “Will you let me pass?”

  Chao shrugged. “Ah, gee, I don’t know.”

  Through the long gun, Sabot could feel Vanessa’s body quake from fear. Sadness filled him, and he felt like a coward, a man who had sold his soul, who had flushed away his honor, because he wasn’t ready to die. This was his mission, but his life was a few miles underground, tethered to a Core. Cynthia needed him. Even now, cold and distant and binary, she did. Vanessa wasn’t his daughter or his wife, and her fate wasn’t tied to him. Her fate had been preordained by Evan and the choices of her father.

  “You’re quick, but you’re not that quick,” Sabot said, his eyes level with Chao. “I walk.”

  Chao’s eyes turned as if someone was whispering in his ear. “Fine, you walk. Kove and I will honor that. Evan has ordered it.”

  Sabot stepped behind Vanessa, still with the barrel aimed at her back. Vanessa crumpled to the ground, too distraught to even stand.

  “I’m sorry, Vanessa,” Sabot said. “I will never forgive myself, but I can’t die for you.”