Dead End Stories From the End of the World

by P. S. Power

  The Technologists' old city was mainly underground, but impressively large when he finally got a good look at it. There were giant lights set up to mimic the sun, but the interior was a nice seventy degrees or so, much cooler than outside. There were rounded buildings that had a bit of a fantasy world feel to them, made of something like tan colored concrete. Inside or not, there was space between each one, leaving ample room to walk around, and the doors were each a different, but bright, color. He didn't count the dwellings, but there seemed to be several hundred structures in the vast cavern.

  Donald spoke in a normal voice, nearly getting shot, though he didn't notice it, since Jake managed to abort the movement early enough to not seem like a psycho. It was safe here, from zombies at least. They could talk. It was still just so hard to believe.

  "We have the units ready to be assembled. The panels are color coded and snap together in order. Red to orange to yellow, green, blue, and purple, then black. Is anyone color blind?"

  No one was it seemed, since they didn't speak up.

  "Wonderful. Then the materials just need to be dumped in the hopper on the top. The machine will reject anything that it doesn't need, but it comes out the side, so it can be reused."

  He led them directly to a device, which looked a lot like a steel box with a funnel on the top and two chutes coming out of the sides. It wasn't pretty, but when the single lever was pulled back the whole thing started kicking out the little capsules they needed so very badly.

  It was suddenly the most lovely thing Jake had ever seen.

  Then, explaining the whole time, he had each of them assemble their own unit, which was several hundred pounds of gear, and took more than one person to build each one. Then they had to fire it up and make a batch of compound. It took a while for those to be made, but, the Technologist assured them, they could be run twenty four hours a day and would last for years.

  "We've been doing that here, my family and I. A slightly larger team would be ideal however. We have the first consignment ready to go however. It's been slow going, lacking materials. Is that being seen to?" He didn't seem worried, looking a little cold about it to tell the truth.

  It got Jake to nod.

  "I need to know what all is needed for certain, but we have some sulfur and iron coming, today I think. Carbon... No one is working on it, but we can get a few teams going, that might take a few days. We can use the charcoal from my forge for now though." He hated to use that as material, but it was the only stockpile like it he knew of.

  It seemed to make the Linsters happy though and they offered to provide a meal. Since they had to collect it from the jungle themselves it seemed a hardship to Jake, but Sara shook her head.

  "No, we need only edible bio-material. Even at that 'edible' is a loose concept. We can use sticks, leaves, even wood. Our assemblers do the rest of the work easily enough. It takes only a few minutes work each day to collect the needed components."

  That was news to Jake.

  "The... Bad guys, I guess, told me that your people grew their own food hydroponically. That's why they needed help getting enough food... I came back to hunt for them, with a crew and that's when..." His mothers doppelganger blew up.

  Hal chimed in then, his voice young sounding and fresh, rather than tired like his parents.

  "We have such facilities, but those are used for those that like flowers and decorative plants mainly. They could be used for food, but it was never the plan of the community that I know of. We've used food pattern assemblers for decades. There is no reason to think we'd need to do anything differently. It was clearly a trap."

  No doubt.

  Jake didn't mention anything else, just accepting the food from the plain looking box. Each meal took a while to come out, about five minutes, but it looked and smelled pretty good. They just spoke what was wanted into the top and for the most part, that was what came out.

  Dave asked for a hot blonde about five-foot nine and got a plate of pasta with white sauce instead, but Jake got the hamburger he asked for, with fried onions and a chocolate milkshake. When the flap on the side lifted the food was just sitting there, perfect and just the right temperature for eating.

  After the first bite and sip of the drink out of the metal cup he sighed.

  "OK, how do we get these to everyone in the world? I know that the compound has to come first, but this is just amazing. People could just stuff in leaves and twigs and come out with things like this? We could end hunger." If the cost of doing it wasn't too high.

  Donald nodded.

  "Indeed. It was originally created with that in mind, the specifics given freely to the world's governments, but it was hidden away instead of used as intended. If you believe that people would let them go into use now, we can arrange a program to distribute them. We have some stockpiled for personal use here. More than we ever needed. The others didn't even take them along when they left. It's a basic device." He took a bite of something that looked like a chicken salad sandwich on dark bread.

  "I can get them spread out, if you have them. I know that we could use them at the House for instance." A lot of starving people would probably like them too. The military could take them around maybe?

  He really needed to get with those guys soon too. Maybe taking them some presents. Everyone liked free stuff, didn't they?

  The Linsters offered to put everyone up for the night, but Jake really needed to check on the supplies, and get things arranged for manufacturing, so that they could have that going the next day. It was going to be a long night for him. Cam too. Probably harder for her, since she had to do most of the actual work. It was something to keep in mind.

  He left the others so they could make sure everything was ready to move in the morning and set out on his rounds, which were far more limited than they should have been, since Cam didn't know the locations of all the leaders yet. She could get him to Morris though, and Yalla, so he decided to start with the Val leader. She was nice enough and would probably be willing to go along with setting up guard details for the various things. Being a warrior she'd probably even understand the need to do it without having hours of explanation first.

  Cam moved them directly into the visitor center of Valhalla, which meant going outside and yelling for a bit to catch someone's attention, since they didn't want to be crotch deep in snow like the last time they'd come.

  "Hey!" Cam did the actually shouting, to preserve his Very Good dignity or whatever the rationalization was.

  "Odina North! Yalla, Yalla oxen free!" It was kind of funny, if horribly inappropriate for a woman that was one of the world's greatest military leaders, having her own army and everything.

  It worked though, having the lady herself there within a few minutes, running in, dressed in casual clothing, her outer jacket unfastened. It was lighter than what Jake or Cam wore, but Valkyries didn't really get cold. Freezing was a perfectly doable temperature for them it seemed. That meant she'd probably thrown the thing on because she had guests.

  She froze when she saw who it was though, just staring at him as if he'd done something wrong. Or she had.

  "Jake... I..." Whatever she wanted to say just didn't come out, her eyes locking with his for a long time.

  Finally he spoke first.

  "Can we set up a manufacturing center here? It will need a real twenty-four hour guard, and we need ten more teams for that. Plus some groups to go and spread the anti-zombie stuff. They aren't big, about..." He held out his arms showing a four by four space which was only about three foot high.

  "They should be running all the time, which means people coming and going though."

  She laughed.

  "About time. Yes. We can do that. I have seventeen groups set up to protect the Teleporters when they go to spread the AZC. Humans are running the manufacturing then? Do we have more who can teleport than that? I want four person teams on it when possible." She addressed that to Cam who plunked down in a wooden chair.

  "We have
a few thousand that could do it, and probably a few hundred willing to actually try. It's scary, but it's also basically just popping in, squeezing a little doohickey and then moving to the next spot. Pretty much just running the whole time. Exhausting, but doable. We can send more teams if they don't have as many people in them. A lot of adults can't take more than one or two people with them at a time, even though they're fast enough otherwise."

  She didn't mention the fact that she, a fourteen year old girl, had been managing groups of ten people for weeks. She didn't even seem proud of the fact or anything. Then, she wasn't an adult yet. That wouldn't come until she could get away from any danger that might be after her at will. That meant teleporting in about six to ten seconds or so. Once she could do that she'd be a woman. It wasn't assured though, and if she couldn't get fast enough, she'd stay a child forever in her culture.

  Jake figured it would be less than a month though. The girl was good. Then, she had to be. They all did.

  He nodded at her though, getting the idea.

  "Off to Morris next then. We should have the device and your team here as early as possible. Maybe in the next ten hours or so? I'll give you Dave and bring in some folks from the House to run it. Six can help. I mean... Matilde. I'm pretty sure they're sleeping together anyway." As soon as the words left his mouth he realized that telling the woman, the leader of her people, that her nineteen year old daughter might be sleeping with a fourteen year old boy might not fly too well.

  Especially since he might still actually be thirteen. They hadn't been great about keeping track of birthdays after all.

  Cam snorted.

  "Yeah, they're a regular item. You'll like him though, Yalla, he's a kick-butt Cleaner. Used to be on Tipper's crew with Jake. Do you know him? Tipper is your daughter, right?"

  Yalla, instead of pulling a knife, just smiled warmly.

  "That one is known to me. A brave and true warrior. He will fit well here I think. Matilde will need to guard him well though, since each here will be seeking his company, I don't doubt."

  Jake slapped her on the arm, which got returned firmly, but not hard enough to take him to his knees or anything, though it stung a bit.

  Cam already had her eyes closed and hand held out. It had only been about twenty seconds, but Jake closed his own eyes and took it anyway.

  "Later Yalla." He said, not certain it all came out in the Valhalla visitors center.

  The air smelled strongly of clove then and when he opened his eyes he was in what looked like a tent. There was no fire and Mort sat on a low pillow next to his wife, Tansy. She was reading something off, and kept going, speaking in a language that Jake didn't know, that sounded like Hindi. He thought so at least. They all had odd colored eyes, but Mort and Morris, who was pacing a few feet in front of them, both had hair that could pass for brown. Tansy didn't, hers being red and Cam's was copper. The others had yellow eyes though, to her orange.

  He looked at them all and smiled.

  Then he stepped back and turned on Cam, pulling his nine, slowly but obviously, squeezing the trigger, aimed for her face.

  "To the House and come back. Go!" He screamed it at her, since all of the main areas the leaders lived in were free of undead now. He hoped so at least.

  She yelped and closed her eyes, vanishing seconds later. He re-holstered the weapon slowly as everyone looked at him as if he'd gone insane. About fifteen seconds later the girl was back with a ladle. Lois's favorite one.

  Tansy jumped up and threw both hands in the air, yelling in a high pitched tone, it wasn't a normal thing at all. Grabbing the girl's hand she ran out of the tent, which had a nice high roof, still making a ruckus. The sound was answered soon enough, by similar calls from different directions.

  Morris smiled and spread his hands toward Jake.

  "Ba-Dehist! So good of you to come and on the day that Cameron becomes a woman, too. There will be a celebration, the giving of gifts and of course, general carousing as everyone tries to be the first one to sleep with her. I have to say, that was dramatic. We normally just have them go to the other side of town with a witness ready to see them. For her to take a prize like that, from so distant a place... It will make her bride price very high." He seemed pleased, but sighed after a few seconds. "Well, no one said that a leader should be wealthy. Morten, if you'd start an accounting, as if she were my daughter?"

  His son hopped to his feet, grinning himself.

  "Heh. Mother will love that, won't she? Still, it is a good thing. First daughter or second?" Whatever that meant Morris laughed at him and waved the idea away.

  "Third, thank you very much. I never slept with her mother after all."

  The boy ran off. He wasn't a boy though, not by the rules of his culture or almost anyone else's. He was a man. Old enough to drink Back Before in America and with his own wife and daughter, she was still lying on a rug off to the side.

  "Hi Ginny." Jake said the words as if the girl could answer, which she did by looking at him wide eyed and smiling. She was little still, not even walking yet.

  That greeting apparently meant he was supposed to watch her or something because Morris ran outside, leaving them alone. Whatever they were doing didn't take long though, since the leader came back a minute later, holding glasses of something that looked brown. It had bubbles in it too, and chunks of ice.

  "Soda from your part of the world. Well, Mexico actually, because they made a superior product there. Cola." He handed the glass over with a smile and waited expectantly for Jake to take a sip. It was pretty good. Sweet and slightly biting on the throat, but it brought back memories of a better time. One that he hadn't even known was good.

  Without waiting then he explained the reason for the trip, setting up the various plants and getting the materials delivered, along with the distribution teams. The man looked serious for a long time and then simply agreed, as if it was the plan the whole time.

  "You should check with the Vulcans as well, they would be most honored to be included and not just relegated to the mining portion of things, though they excel there."

  He nearly lost it, but managed to put things together before looking like a bigoted moron.

  "Right, the fellow... Winsor, he's in charge of that, but having a production facility next to the materials is just common sense. Good three down, seven to go. We have teams to run them, or will at least. Your people are too important to waste on that part of things." Jake looked down then held his head for a second.

  "That sounds awful, doesn't it? It's the truth though. We could, eventually, clear enough space for people to survive without you, but it wouldn't be easy. Not that this will be. I don't know if anyone really get's it yet, but this will take decades. On the good side we can get the main cities cleared in a few weeks. That and farms first. We have a whole world to do though. I hope you're all ready for it. Oh! Some good news, too."

  He explained the food assemblers that the Technologists had offered them all, which got Morris's attention pretty quick. He made a face, but then shrugged.

  "So much for my fortune from the spice trade. Well, if the Ba-Dehist says it should be so, who am I to argue?" His face sobered then though, losing all trace of humor, which was odd for the man.

  "About that, I humbly beg forgiveness for having doubted you, before. I'd just assumed that you were playing the part to help us all, and that the Bawdri girl had put you up to it. I was surprised when she admitted to her ruse, but didn't know that she'd been correct the whole time. Oopse?" Then he smiled and spread his hands. "Who would have known? All the killing you've done, I thought it a dead giveaway, you know. No Dehist kills easily after all. I lacked faith."

  "Faith doesn't do much anymore. Hardly a big deal."

  Morris didn't agree with that part at all. In fact he seemed pretty upset about it all, like it was a huge thing indeed.

  "No, no, and no again Ba-Dehist. You must come and live here now, I won't hear otherwise. You can lead us from safety, and in comfort. F
or us to have risked you all this time... It is on me, for not seeing your honest and true nature. Morten did. He always knew. Our Cameron too. Morten though, he argued with me night after night, insisting that you were the true Ba-Dehist, and that we should care for you as is proper. Bathed in scented oils and with women to tend the needs of your body each night, not living huddled in a house with hundreds of others, cold and near starving at all times."

  It was Jake's turn to laugh then.

  "I don't need to be coddled Morris. What I need is for you and your people to be leaders now. I know that not everyone is thrilled with you all the time, what with the bad reputation and all, but that has to change now. I need an force of... Travelers to set the world right. You shouldn't have to, but if you don't, I think that we all die."

  He shook his head, looking at Ginny on her red and blue striped rug. The whole floor was covered with them in different colors.

  "I don't need comfort, or love or anything, except that. If I die, the world must go on, and that means that you and your people have to go on and become what you were truly meant to be." Whatever that was. Jake was vamping though.

  After all, he had no clue where he was, if Morris refused to let him go home. Hopefully Cam would be willing to help the "Ba-Dehist" out, if it came to it, even if her leader said otherwise. Luckily Morris just agreed with him. That was nice, because it would make everything easier.

  "But tonight we must celebrate! We need to gather the rest of Cameron's friends, her family leader, Nate, those she holds dear. They all need to come and witness her adulthood. I can go get them now, let me get my darling in to take Ginny..." He teleported out so quickly that Jake was left speechless. It was nearly instant.

  The people that came were on foot though, a group of men and women that pulled him away, out into the city of nice looking tents and houses. There were sheer cliff faces all around them and the air was thin, meaning it was probably high in a mountain range somewhere. Puffs of steam rose from the ground in places, explaining the warmth.