Kzine Issue 11

by Graeme Hurry

  “Captain!” Cromby called out. “A courier from the settlement!”

  She bit her lip. A courier would not have been sent on the perilous journey after them unless something important had happened. The courier had to take precedence over a routine punishment. Duty first.

  “Sergeant Riley, take over.” She handed him the whip, aware that he would use it far more leniently than she would have. Riley could take on any three men and win and had killed muties by the score but he was essentially a gentle giant. Concealing her disappointment, Tanya walked across to the courier.

  He was tall, lean, long-legged individual with an unruly mop of black hair. His shirt was torn and the knees of his trousers were ripped. There was a red gash on his right cheek.

  Tanya looked him up and down. “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “Muties chased me but I got away. Luckily there were no fast ones”

  She nodded. The muties came in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some were huge and strong, some were small and quick. Many were essentially disabled, so deformed as to be useless for anything.

  “News?”

  “Bad. The muties intercepted the courier we sent to the west. They left his body on the M4. He was carrying a message about the tomb of the ancients so now they know about it too. Your dad thinks they’ll send a party there immediately.”

  “So, it’s a race.” Tanya turned to Cromby. “Give the order to break camp. We’re pressing on right away.”

  He was openly incredulous. “At night?”

  “We have no choice. If the muties get the knowledge of the ancients, we are doomed.”

  “Is the knowledge of the ancients so wonderful?”

  She almost stamped her foot but controlled the impulse. “Yes,” she growled. “I believe that with their know-how we can get all we need to survive, to beat the muties, to prosper. All we need, Cromby. Now move.”

  The full moon didn’t help, not only because it made them easier to see but also because the crumbling towers of London cast long, strange shadows that spooked even the toughest soldier, and could conceal muties.

  “We’re being watched”, whispered Cromby.

  Tanya shivered. “I feel it too, though I can’t see anyone. Why don’t they attack?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sergeant Riley was on point duty and now he stopped and trotted back to his Captain, leaving another man crouched behind a rusting car surveying the dark street ahead of them.

  “This is it, Captain. The building we want is that tall glass tower on the left. The so-called tomb is in its basement, apparently.”

  Tanya grimaced. “There’s a lot of wide open ground between us and that glass tower, Riley. How do you think we should play it?”

  “We think we’re being watched,” said Cromby.

  Riley grinned. “I’m sure of it. Felt mutie eyes drilling into my back for the last few miles and was waiting for mutie arrows to follow.”

  “Why do you think they’re waiting sergeant?” said Tanya.

  “Maybe they want us to go in and open it up before they strike. Opening it might be beyond their technical capabilities, which are even worse than ours. No point in killing us all and then being left with a closed tomb, or vault, or whatever it is.”

  She grinned. “Well, if that theory is correct we should be able to get to the building safely. Even so, I think we’ll be cautious. What do you suggest?”

  “Charge.”

  Cromby laughed. “Charge. Is that your brilliant tactical mind at work, Riley?”

  “Charge very fast. It’s open ground, sir. We can’t defend it and there’s no point in going cautiously because we’re still in view. We should get there as quickly as possible.”

  “We may lose a few men,” said Tanya grimly.

  Riley shook his head sadly. “You and me have lost men before, Captain… Lieutenant. It comes with the territory.”

  “Then let’s get across this bit of territory smartly. Pass the word to the men on your way back, sergeant, and then we’ll go on your signal.” Tanya drew her pistol with her right hand and her dagger with her left.

  Seconds later, Riley was at the front of the group. He raised his right arm.

  “Charge!”

  Five minutes later Tanya was stood in a large foyer with a tiled floor and walls of frosted glass. A huge desk took up most of one wall with the word “Reception” written across the front of it in red letters two feet high. There was assorted litter in the corners: used paper cups, meal cartons, less pleasant things. Tanya had a knife cut on her left arm, not deep, and mutie bite marks on one ankle that made her limp. She turned to Riley.

  “How many did we lose?”

  “Ten. Including Cromby, Captain, I’m sorry. He had one mutie on his back and another one hanging onto his legs, both stabbing at him. I tried to get to him but there were too many.” He turned to the entrance of the building. “I’ve got four rifles covering the door but they haven’t tried to follow us in.”

  Tanya was grim. “Why should they? They can get us when we come out. Ten gone. Half our force. And whatever happens here we have to get back to Greenwich through a horde of muties afterwards.” She looked the sergeant straight in the eye. “This could be it, Riley.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Tanya laughed. “Don’t you ever worry.”

  The big man smiled faintly. “Captain… Tanya, I’ve been a soldier since I was fifteen and I’m probably the only survivor from that time. I’m tough, I’m careful but I live with death every day. I always knew the muties were going to get me one day.”

  Tanya pointed to a sign on the wall to their left. “Stairs. Let’s go see what’s in the basement, Riley. Maybe the ancients will have some ideas on how to get out of here.”

  Tanya descended the stairwell with Riley and three other men, leaving four guarding the doorway. At the bottom there was a short corridor which led to a large, grey metal door. The plastic sign on the door read “Cryogenic Preservation Facility”. On the wall beside it was an obvious red button to push with another sign below it. “Open.”

  “The ancestors have made it surprisingly easy for us.” said Riley.

  “Maybe not surprising,” mused Tanya. “They would have known that human history is full of wars and disasters that have wiped out previous knowledge. Think of how bad the dark ages were compared to the heights of Roman civilization. It must have occurred to them that one day people with no technical skills or specialized tools would be trying to open this place up. It was planned to be sealed for a hundred years or so. The people inside paid a lot of money to see what the future would be like.”

  The sergeant laughed. “I reckon they’re going to be disappointed, Captain.” He pushed the red button and the door slid open.

  The room was large, about twenty metres across by thirty metres long. There were banks of machinery along the wall on their left. The long wall on the right was lined with translucent pods fitted into circular steel bases. Each pod was about two metres tall and perhaps one metre in circumference. They looked like egg shaped coffins. The room was slightly cool but not freezing. Obviously the insides of the pods were frozen.

  The last soldier in shut the door behind him. There was a loud click and the machinery on the left hand wall hummed into life. Red lights came on at the round metal base of each of the pods on the right hand wall. Tanya walked along them, counting. There were thirty.

  She grinned and punched Riley in the shoulder. “Thirty pods, sergeant. Thirty of the best people from humanity’s Golden Age of science and discovery will be with us shortly. They went to the moon, you know? They were planning a trip to Mars. This is our hope for the future! This could get us all we need.” She could not contain her enthusiasm.

  “The muties outside probably have different ideas, Captain.”

  She was dismissive. “We’ll work something out.”

  It took a little while but the room soon warmed up. The automated machinery continued to hum and th
e translucency in the pods was revealed to be some sort of vapour. As they warmed up the vapour was sucked away into vents in the bottom of each one, revealing human figures within. Then, one by one the pod doors slid open. An assortment of men and a few women stepped out. They were dressed in one-piece overalls of silver-grey that seemed to be some sort of metallic material. They were all old. They looked confused and wary, as well they might. Some of them shuffled down to the end wall where, she now saw, there were lockers with names on. Some had keys in their overall pockets which they used to open the lockers. They took out various small items: wallets, photograph albums, papers of various kinds. One man had a guitar stashed in there. Tanya allowed this then had the soldiers gently line them up beside their pods. When they were all paying attention she addressed them loudly.

  “Welcome to the future.”

  They mumbled and shuffled their feet, cast nervous glances at the armed men stood off to one side.

  Tanya continued. “The future is a disaster. You’re generation ended itself with a terrible war that laid waste to the world. For three generations we survivors have tried to eke out a living, plagued by mutant outlaws and with only limited resources. Food is scarce, disease is rampant. But now we have you. Legend says that the greatest men from the Age of Waste were frozen that they might be awakened when mankind needed them. I thought the legends were nonsense but here you are. Welcome.”

  The group looked at each other nervously.

  Tanya continued: ’I will assess you one by one. Names are not important. I simply need to know what knowledge, what skills you possess that will be useful now. You first.”

  The tall, thin man performed a little dance step, clicking his heels and toes noisily on the tiled floor. “Nice to see you, to see you nice.” He smiled.

  Tanya frowned at him. “Are you a technician. Can you operate the old machines. Can you make food grow or build better shelters?”

  The tall man shook his long narrow head. “I’m a song and dance man, dear. A compere and show host.”

  Tanya shook his head sadly and moved to the next.

  “I am a merchant banker. I can organize the financial system.”

  “I was an accountant.”

  “I was a hedge fund manager.”

  The next was a quiet woman who had obviously been pretty before age ravaged her. She shrugged helplessly. “I wrote books about a boy magician that were made into films and made a lot of money. Sorry.”

  On to the next one. “I was an entrepreneur. I made a fortune with talent shows on television.” The stocky, arrogant looking man with the short hair grinned. “I was famous for my put-downs.”

  The next was another banker. The next was a woman who had speculated in property. Another woman had been a top actress. Tanya shook her head in despair.

  He came to a grey haired man with soulful brown eyes. who was clutching a stringed instrument as if it might save him. Despite his evident age his face retained a kind of boyish openness and innocence.

  “What about you?”

  “I was a musician. You know, songs and stuff.” Regional accents had all but disappeared after the cataclysm but Tanya thought she recognized the lilt of Liverpool in his voice. He picked up the guitar he had taken from his locker. “I had this put in with me in case the instruments of the future were different.” He strummed a few pleasing chords and hummed.

  “Stop!” Tanya held up her hand. “There’s no time for that now.” She moved on to the next person. “What did you do?”

  The man was old and hairless. “I was a currency speculator. I bought and sold international currencies and made a fortune.”

  “Can you operate machinery? Are you a technician?” demanded Tanya, growing increasingly frustrated.

  “I can make money,” the old man declared haughtily.

  Tanya spat. “Bits of paper! We have enough of that.” She stepped back and looked at the twenty five human beings before her. The ancients, it seemed, had placed a high value on uselessness.

  “Is there anyone here that can practice medicine, build a shelter, grow food, operate the ancient machinery or do anything useful?”

  They murmured in protest and looked warily at the men with rifles lined up opposite.

  Tanya looked at the assembled group and shook her head. “None of you would be any good in a fight and we’ll have enough trouble getting out of the city ourselves with the muties outside. We can’t take passengers and we don’t need more mouths to feed back home. I could leave you for the mutants but that would be cruel.” She nodded to her sergeant Riley. “Kill them. No, wait!” She grabbed the musician and pulled him away from the rest. “This one may be good for moral. As for the rest…”

  She dropped her arm and the soldiers opened fire. The rattle of gunfire echoed loudly in the basement chamber. The screams of protest were soon cut off.

  It didn’t take long.

  As they mounted the stairway back to the ground floor Tanya noticed tears running down the musician’s cheeks. They were soft then, these ancients. Her decision had been correct. They would be of no use in the harsh world they had left mankind. Still, she felt some pity for him. She took his arm gently and paused for an instant.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  The musician spoke very softly.

  “Yesterday.”

  Contributor Notes

  M. Bennardo has recently had short stories published in Daily Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. He’s also been published once before in Kzine.

  Maureen Bowden is an ex-patriate Liverpudlian living with her musician husband on the island of Anglesey, off the coast of North Wales, where they try in vain to evade the onslaught of their children and grandchildren. She writes for fun and she has had several poems and short stories published. She also writes song lyrics, mostly comic political satire, set to traditional melodies. Her husband has performed these in Folk clubs throughout England and Wales. She loves her family and friends, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Shakespeare and cats.

  Imogen Cassidy Lives in New South Wales, Australia and writes speculative stories covering SF, Fantasy, Slipstream and Urban Fantasy. She has had stories published in Devilfish Review, Yesteryear Fiction, Aurora Wolf, The Coloured Lens and Aurealis.

  Katharine Coldiron lives in the U.S. Her work has appeared in Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction, Monkeybicycle, Route and elsewhere. She is available in digital form at The Fictator (fictator.blogspot.com).

  Graeme Hurry edited Kimota magazine in the 90s and a horror anthology called Northern Chills in 1994. Now he has branched out by editing this kindle only magazine, Kzine. He received an honourable mention in Year’s Best Horror 2001 for a story he collaborated on with Willie Meikle called The Blue Hag.

  Simon Kewin is a Fantasy and SF author, writer of the novels Engn, Hedge Witch and The Genehunter, as well as around a hundred published short stories. Find him on the Interconnect Data Translation Network at simonkewin.co.uk

  Damien Krsteski writes science fiction and develops software. His stories have appeared in Plasma Frequency Magazine, Bastion SF, The Colored Lens, Perihelion SF, and others. He comes from Skopje, Macedonia.

  Rik Hunik and his wife Jo McKee live with a 17-pound, blue-eyed, white cat. He has written over twenty-six genre stories which have been published in various magazines and ezines. Most recently his sf ghost story “Troubleshooter” was accepted by The Fifth Di…, and his Lovecraftian sonnet “The Black Book” by Dreams And Nightmares. He also self-publishing his stories as ebooks at Smashwords.com.

  Eamonn Murphy lives in Chipping Sodbury and has had one previous story published in samsdot which was bought out by White Cat.

  Conrad Williams has written seven novels (Head Injuries, London Relevent, The Unblemished, One, Decay Inevitable, Blonde On A Stick and Loss of Separation) as well as four novellas and two short story collections. Recently Conrad signed a deal with Titan to reissue Noir crime novel Blond on a Stick under another name (Dust
and Desire) with two more to follow in the series.

  Dave Windett is a professional illustrator and comics artist, his work has been published in Britain, Europe and America. He has drawn comics featuring licenced characters including Inspector Gadget, Eek the Cat, Ace Ventura, Daffy Duck and Korky the Cat. For the Scandinavian market he has illustrated educational books, business manuals and comics. He has also designed original characters for a variety of publications and provided illustrations for everything from magazines and websites to mobile phones, games and children’s shoes. Some of his work can be seen on his website at www.davewindett.com, on his blog and on Amazon.co.uk.

  Grady Yandell is a happily married father of two. He has worked a an editor for Abandoned Towers Magazine and his works have been published in the United States, Australia and India.