Abbey stopped to render aid to an elderly couple who appeared to be in distress. Someone had knocked them down and taken their wallets and their mobiles. It looked like they had been out for a walk and were properly dressed, hiding under a bridge near a public terminal after being unsuccessful at using it to garner aid. Abbey tried to explain to them that the civic works network and all associated channels were down and that they should go home and wait for instructions from the CGG.
Phelps couldn’t help but wonder if those instructions were forthcoming, or if national emergency services were even operable. If hospitals and police stations could be defunded, anything probably could. In the wake of the CGG’s anti-insurgency standards, most government buildings, hospitals, and other physical edifices of public works were fortified and subject to foreclosure and eviction lockdown. It was supposed to be a measure to force local governments to avoid overspending.
“Well, there is an upside to this, Phelps,” Walter commented while they waited for Abbey to finish reassuring the elderly couple.
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Phelps replied, rolling his eyes.
“You probably don’t need to worry about getting those reports in by three o’clock.”
“Walter, do shut up.”
Chapter 2
Rural area near Helsinki, Finland
5:33 AM December 31st, 2199
Ezra’s War Journal, Part 4
I awoke at my post having dozed off. Thankfully, no one had attempted to approach the cabin during the night and all seemed peaceful. It was bitterly cold and the winter clothes I had managed to scrounge together did little to protect me. I could only imagine what the people in the city just over the hills went through yesterday.
Our cabin was ancient, built before most synthetic materials became mandatory and was warmer, stronger, and better in many ways as a consequence. Still, I preferred the basement when I wasn’t keeping an eye on things. There was a room that looked to have been set up for a child, with a small bed that was just my size.
I could still see smoke trailing up into the sky to intermingle with ever darkening clouds. A big snow storm seemed imminent and the wind was already beginning to grow stronger. I dropped from my perch beneath the roofline of the cabin to the snow below and began walking the perimeter to see if we’d been followed.
It was still too soon to see people walking in from the metropolis. Nevertheless, those with transportation would be looking for food and shelter off-grid. Some might be innocent people trying to survive, but many would be ruthless looters. I had ceased to be amazed by a human’s ability to go from being noble benefactor to soulless scavenger.
Silverstein met me around the back, axe in hand.
“I’m going to chop some more wood. Taylor is still sleeping, but she seems to be a little bit better than last night. You can actually see her breathing now,” he reported.
“There’s a storm coming, and depending on when the snow begins to fall, we can probably expect company from the city beyond those hills,” I whispered, checking my rifle for the fourth time.
“Helsinki is the city you’re talking about. It was one of the most modern in the world which means that there will be very few vehicles in town that wouldn’t have been put out of commission by the shutdown. From the smoke, some commercial transports must have gone down when the airlines and shipping companies were defunded. I bet today was a really bad day,” Silverstein replied, casting his gaze to the horizon.
“We’ve enough food for weeks in the cabin, especially if I only eat when I absolutely have to,” I said.
“How often it that?”
“I can get by with a small amount of food once a week or so. I won’t be at a one hundred percent in a fight, but hopefully the snow storm precludes such for a while.”
Silverstein nodded his agreement and set about chopping wood. I was still tired, but I decided I needed to keep an eye on things a while longer. Until the sun began to set in the early afternoon, all was silent save for a few gunshots in the distance.
We stayed at the cabin for two weeks while Taylor recovered. During that time, I kept a constant vigil over the area around our shelter and dug many snow caves as it piled up higher and higher with each storm. Never having been to Finland, I couldn’t be sure if this was natural for the time of year or not.
One morning I caught Silverstein standing in the bathroom looking in the mirror at himself. He looked ancient, his skin wrinkled and coarse, and his posture stooped over as though he was struggling to carry his weight. He turned towards me and I watched awestruck as he suddenly began to get more and more youthful until he appeared as I remembered him.
“Whoa,” I exclaimed.
“Yeah, I’ve been slowly figuring out how to do it while we’ve been here,” Silverstein reported, somewhat embarrassed.
“You can make yourself appear young or old at will?”
Silverstein began to rapidly change, becoming even more youthful until he appeared as a pre-teen version of himself. I could only blink in astonishment. Silverstein laughed mirthfully at my apparent surprise.
“I haven’t fully explored the limits yet, but my mind and memories seem unaffected. I’d hoped maybe this would aid me in remembering my past, but I’m as confused as I ever was,” Silverstein squeaked, his youthful voice cracking in the middle of his sentence.
“It’s a very strange ability. I’ve heard of humans with interesting mutations, but this takes the cake. When I was being trained in the factory as a Droneling, there was a psychic who could read minds,” I stated, still somewhat amazed by what I’d seen.
Silverstein slowly assumed his more familiar mid-twenties look and straightened out his shirt. Taylor came down the hallway in a colorful nightgown she’d sewn together, presumably the night before. It was fuzzy in some places and just smooth fabric in others. I was transfixed.
“Like it?” Taylor said, striking a pose.
Silverstein smiled and shook his head.
“Where did you get the material to make that monstrous thing?” he asked with a chuckle.
“It’s not monstrous! It’s cute. Anyway, someone with a timeshare for this place had kids. One of the rooms in the basement had a trash bag full of stuffed animals. I took them all apart and made me a fuzzy-snuzzy to sleep in,” Taylor replied, somewhat indignant.
“I think it’s marvelous,” I said reaching out to pet Taylor’s shoulder.
We retreated to the front room for some warmth and some twice-made tea. I began to nurse a powerful envy of Taylor’s fuzzy-snuzzy as she called it. She looked very cozy, and for some reason, I couldn’t seem to get warm. I had a strange sense all of a sudden that we weren’t alone, but the smell of the fire in the wood stove was all I could detect.
“Is that a bear in a bulletproof vest?” Taylor said pointing out the window from her vantage point.
I leapt to my feet scooping up my rifle. I gazed out the window and saw a huge bear making its way through the snow. It appeared to be outfitted in a tactical harness of some sort, and it was heavily armed. For a moment, I was very afraid because of its size. Marshaling my courage, I stepped out the front door and leveled my rifle.
“Stop! You’re trespassing!” I bellowed as Silverstein and Taylor pressed in behind me.
The bear stopped and looked up at me, cocking one snow encrusted eyebrow in my direction. It rose up revealing that it wasn’t just any bear, but an Ursine Metasapient. He had a silver star pinned to his chest, several satchels of supplies, and a medical kit.
“Point the peashooter somewhere else. I’m a member of the Nordic Patrol. I’m just going cabin to cabin doing welfare checks,” the bear roared in response.
“He’s a cop?” Taylor whispered, somewhat astonished.
“Looks that way,” Silverstein said squinting out into the s
now.
I lowered my weapon and stepped out where the Metasapient officer could see me. It was clear he’d never seen a Drone before, and while I’d never seen a bear Metasapient, we instantly knew what each other was because of our genetic programming.
“Hey, soldier. Get some of that tea you’re brewing?” the officer called out.
“You’ll have to come to the garage, you’re too big for the front door,” I replied.
He lumbered through the snow effortlessly toward the garage which I opened for him from the inside. He stepped, snow piling up on the concrete around him as it fell from his body. He shook abruptly causing Taylor to squeal gleefully as cold water went everywhere.
“Sorry, sometimes I do that out of instinct without consideration to who else might be about,” the officer said, brushing the last of the snow from his shoulders.
I closed the garage and opened a vent so that some of the heat from the wood stove would filter down to the garage. It’d been weeks since we’d seen anyone, and the officer might be able to tell us some of what was going on in the surrounding area. Silverstein handed him a cup of tea that looked comically small when clutched between the bear’s enormous paw-like hands.
“So, Officer...” Silverstein began.
“Eamon, that’s the name the factory gave me. I like it,” the officer replied, taking a sip of the tea.
“Officer Eamon, can you tell us what you’ve seen lately when you’ve been about on your patrols?” I asked, before Silverstein could get out another word.
“You’re a Drone, right? Not from around here?” he replied.
“Right.”
“Well, usually when we get snow like this, the hills are alive with people doing Nordic skiing. The cabins fill up and I don’t have to go far for something hot to drink. People treat my kind better out here than they do in the city,” Officer Eamon said between sips.
Taylor could only stare, doing her best not to laugh at the sight of the huge bear as he gingerly sipped his tea, making it last as long as he could. Silverstein and I did our best to explain why the people probably hadn’t come up to the cabins. Officer Eamon seemed genuinely distressed that the people in the city might be in trouble. Metasapients are designed and bred to be naturally protective of humans.
“I came across a couple along the highway that looked to have frozen to death. I tried to call it in and I left a cadaver marker so they would get picked up when the plows went by. I thought it was odd that I couldn’t find their vehicle. Poor souls must have been trying to walk somewhere from Helsinki when the storm hit,” Officer Eamon said, his fuzzy face contorting to display deep sadness.
“The man responsible, Dr. Madmar, used a transport to escape the military facility a few miles from here. Have you seen any downed air vehicles?” Silverstein asked.
“No. I’ve been in the deep wilderness for the last month,” Officer Eamon said. “I had some time off coming to me, so I grabbed my rifles and went hunting. I haven’t talked to command for weeks. I can’t believe this all happened while I was gone.”
“Are there others like you?” Taylor said smiling as she petted Officer Eamon’s huge fuzzy arm.
“I’m the only Ursine, but there are many Canine units deployed by the Nordic Patrol. I haven’t seen any lately though. Haven’t even come across their scent which isn’t odd because we rarely overlap preferring to each have our own territory.”
“Could you guide us back to Helsinki?” Silverstein asked.
“Easily, but it’ll take three or four days depending on the weather, and it’s a little cold outside if you hadn’t noticed,” Officer Eamon quipped.
“I’ll be okay with my coats and my fuzzy-snuzzy,” Taylor said pulling her multicolored cloak of stuffed animal death more tightly about her shoulders.
“I’m concerned that in the weeks since the shutdown, people in the city will have given themselves to barbarism and worse to survive. Getting to the city will be hard, but I’m more worried about what we’ll find,” Silverstein lamented.
The officer considered Silverstein’s words while he stirred what remained of his tea.
“Sounds like incentive for me to go back. My brothers and sisters who are still on patrol will have their hands full,” Officer Eamon said, just before downing the rest of the tea.
“Why is there only one Ursine? You are so big, and you obviously care about people,” Taylor asked.
“Ma’am, where are you from?”
“Port Montaigne.”
“I lived in North America for a few years after my training at the factory. There were a lot of Metasapients on the job, but we couldn’t do our job and protect the populace because they wouldn’t protect us. Some low-life guns a Metasapient down, it’s considered a property crime. Over here, the laws aren’t that different, but the people are. When I worked in Helsinki, I could always tell who was from around here and who was a transplant by more than their accent. It was how they treated me and my brothers and sisters that wore a badge. There are human police officers, but they are all administrators. Most have forgotten what it means to do this job, and why we do it,” Officer Eamon began.
“There are hardly any Metasapients where I come from, I guess that explains why,” Taylor said.
“Two years ago, there was a group of armed robbers that delighted in killing innocent people, particularly on camera. Their real weapon wasn’t their guns, it was the fear they spread. They worked mainly in Denmark until the CGG deployed a Custodian to try and deal with them. They fled to Finland where they ran into me,” Officer Eamon continued.
Silverstein and I exchanged looks, knowing something of how these stories can end.
“They were in Stanley & Travis Traders Bank during the busiest time of day. While we were putting together a perimeter, they shot a little girl and pushed her body out the front door on the steps.”
“Oh my God, what did you do?” Taylor asked, horrified.
“I went into the bank and put a stop to them. They shot me up real bad. The people inside the bank never forgot what I did to those guys. Even though I was the only one hurt in the exchange, it was a media circus and police watchdog groups had a field day. They said it proved that Ursine Metasapients were unpredictable and too dangerous for urban use. Every other Ursine working Metro transferred out of the country or into the rural patrols. After I healed up, it didn’t take too long until I was the only one in Finland.”
“I’m sorry,” Taylor said, somewhat remorseful for asking.
“It’s okay, I like this better. The people who live out here are glad I’m around and no one bothers me anymore. My only regret is that I didn’t go into the bank sooner. That little girl might still be alive,” Officer Eamon said.
Taylor gazed mournfully at Officer Eamon, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Hard to get a date now, though,” Officer Eamon joked.
Taylor smiled, but I could see that both she and Silverstein were deeply disturbed by the story. Having endured discrimination for being different myself, I marveled at how easy Officer Eamon had gotten off. They’d have ‘retired’ him if he’d done something like that in North America.
“I can take you to the city as soon as you’re ready to go. Make sure you bring a little extra food,” Officer Eamon winked.
We did our best to prepare for the journey. I didn’t ask why Silverstein thought we should go, but it was doing us no good hunkered down in the cabin, and our food wouldn’t last forever. Officer Eamon was probably our best chance to get out of there. Still, I was cold, like I had never been before. I couldn’t understand it because I’d swam in freezing water displaced from refrigerant tanks in the sewer tunnels back home.
I wore every bit of kid’s clothing I could find in the place that would fit my slender frame. Silverstein loaded up a sled with supplies and covered
them with a tarp while Taylor picked up and tested every battery we had. Officer Eamon shifted his own load so that his modified firearms were more easily accessible in case there was trouble. I marveled at the craftsmanship of his weapons, each with grips and a modified trigger guard to accommodate his gigantic paw-hands. They were Euro-zone in make, and chambered with heavy ammunition I was unfamiliar with. They looked like they were for taking down vehicles and small aircraft and not intended to be used on people.
We finished off our morning tea and set out into the snow in the afternoon. We followed along behind Officer Eamon as he cut a swath through the snow. He was frighteningly strong, acting like a small plow ahead of us. Occasionally, he would turn his broad head around to gaze at us and make sure we were still there. I lagged behind as the cold seemed to make my limbs heavier and heavier.
Finally, Officer Eamon stopped and doubled back to where I was barely standing.
“You okay there, Ezra?” he inquired, trying not to injure my dignity.
“I’m fine,” I replied, leaning heavily on my rifle.
“My eyes are getting kind of tired, maybe you ought to sit on my shoulder for a bit and help me keep watch,” he replied.
“Oh, that is so unfair,” Taylor said smiling.
Officer Eamon picked me up and put me on his huge shoulder where I sat and shivered doing my best to keep an eye out. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew I was laying in the sled all covered up. Someone had made a fire and I was being offered a broth. I drank it and felt a little better.
“Don’t know anything about Drones, and I’ve never seen one before,” Officer Eamon said, sipping his own broth from a bowl dwarfed by his paws.
Uroboros Saga Book 2 Page 3
