A Girl Called Badger (Valley of the Sleeping Birds)

by Colegrove, Stephen

  “Do you think there’s anything inside?” asked Badger.

  Wilson clicked a few buttons on the sides but nothing happened. “There’s no power, so it can’t be alive.”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “The warning label probably means these are broken. Whoever took the rest of the caskets thought these were worthless. Or too much trouble.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” said Badger. “Stand on this one and I’ll help you jump to that window. That’s where we have to go, right?”

  Wilson peered up at a dark, square opening high on the wall. “You’re right. That’s probably Level One.”

  He cleaned dust and debris from the top of the casket. It was wide enough for both of them to stand side-by-side. The number “051” flickered on the wall as he set down the lantern.

  “That’s got to be two meters over my head. How do we do this again?”

  Badger knelt and cupped her hands. “Put your right foot here––it’s the stronger leg––and hands on my shoulders. When I count to three, jump and grab the edge.”

  “Okay. I’m ready.”

  “1 … 2 … 3!”

  Wilson jumped for the window. Badger’s lift gave him extra reach and his hands found the edge. He pulled himself up and onto a table and knocked over several apparently delicate items in the process. He dropped his pack, uncoiled the rope around his body, and lowered one end. When he’d pulled up the lantern he looked around the cramped room. It was mostly broken tables and cracked displays. Someone had been in a hurry just like the rest of the complex.

  “Don’t leave a girl waiting!” Badger yelled from below.

  Wilson tied a bowline around his waist with one hand and flung the rest of the rope down to Badger. He lay on the floor and braced his feet on the wall beneath the window.

  “Now!”

  The rope tightened and Wilson pushed hard with his legs. A few seconds later Badger’s hands appeared and she pulled herself over the edge. She landed hard on Wilson’s chest and knocked the breath out of him.

  She hovered close, her face inches from Wilson’s nose. “What was that sound you made?”

  “I’ll be okay … just need a minute,” he squeaked.

  “You’re a strange cat,” said Badger.

  She coiled the rope and waited for a bit, then helped him stand up.

  “Ooooh, much better,” said Wilson. He waved at the consoles in the room. “I guess they monitored the caskets from here.”

  “Or prayed for their souls.”

  Vast piles of wiring and a few dead consoles were behind the door to the right. Wilson held the lantern and pistol while Badger opened the only other door. Outside, more rats ran for the shadows or disappeared under piles of ceiling panels.

  A stylized mural faced them across the corridor. From his astronomy text Wilson recognized the solar system. The sun in the center had been replaced with a white-headed eagle. On the wall below was “USAF Hyperion: Reach For The Stars.”

  They searched through meeting rooms, bare offices, and rubble-filled chambers. Luckily, none of the tunnels on this level were blocked. At last they arrived at a door labeled “B102.”

  Badger pointed at the number. “Is this it?”

  Wilson shrugged.

  A fallen cabinet blocked the door from the inside. Badger squeezed in first and Wilson followed her through the narrow gap. The floor squished and felt slippery under his feet. A thick, tangible stink clouded the air.

  Badger coughed. “I’m seeing double! Make this quick.”

  The lantern glowed over a table, a large desk, bare shelves, and the yawning doors of empty storage cabinets. Rectangles of faded writing and gray ghosts of pictures lined the walls.

  Badger pointed under a table. “Something right there.”

  Wilson holstered his pistol and covered his mouth and nose. He knelt and saw an edge of yellow paper in a brown pile of animal waste. He groaned and pulled a folder from the moist goo.

  “I don’t believe it!”

  Both scrambled into the corridor and sucked in deep, gasping breaths with hands on their knees. Wilson shook the folder to get some of the solid material off and Badger yelped.

  “Don’t get that on me!”

  “Sorry.”

  The folder was marked with the same old symbols as the walls and a stack of white pages lay inside. Much had been washed away or stained.

  CLASSIFIED

  Project Hyperion is a Joint Task Force …

  … USAF 3rd … Development Center …

  … in cooperation with 4th SES, Schriever AFB …

  … Space Vehicles Directorate, Kirkland …

  … second decade of operation. Challenges …

  … US Army … Survivability of …

  … exposure to viral and chemical …

  … percent. The volunteer-inhabited …

  … three years of perfect operation. …

  … maintenance-free energy …

  … production and heat …

  Wilson put his back against a corridor wall and groaned.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s so much going on I don’t know where to start.”

  “What IS going on here?”

  He pulled off his gloves and sighed. “So much is missing.”

  “That’s because it’s covered in brown–”

  “No. I mean, the implants. Where’s the connection?”

  The lantern that Badger held guttered and threw wild shadows.

  “I’d better light this,” Badger said. She opened the glass door and stuck a rolled paper into the flame.

  “Wait! Put that out!”

  Badger smothered the paper with her hand. “It’s just a scrap. I found it in a desk.”

  “Let me see.”

  Wilson unrolled the thin sheet.

  Z,

  The brown-outs are making this serious. I had to use Versed or he’d be in constant seizures. Schriever has the shutdown sequencer but like you said, all lines are down including milcom. I have to risk it and send someone by ground. We’re not black-tagging another one, no matter what.

  ––Greg

  Wilson held up the paper. “I can’t believe you almost burned this. They had a patient with the same problem.”

  “How did they fix it?”

  “I don’t know, but this mentions a place called Schriever.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “I have no idea. I’ll have to study these pages.”

  She pulled Wilson through the passage and around a corner. Next to a doorway they found another floor plan. Wilson looked over the layout and tried to orient himself.

  “Maybe this way?”

  “Get your hand-cannon,” Badger whispered.

  Wilson turned. “It’s not a can–”

  Down the corridor a pair of circles reflected candlelight. They didn’t blink and jerked forward.

  “Move!” Badger yelled.

  A black mass slammed into her and knocked both of them backwards. The lantern flew from Wilson’s hands and he curled up on the floor to protect his face and belly. The range lizard hissed inches from his face. He instinctively raised his left arm and yelled as the lizard bit down. Wilson pulled a knife from his belt and stabbed wildly. The reptile freed his arm in a gush of blood and scrabbled away.

  Wilson felt lightheaded. A detached part of his mind wondered if the lizards hunted by smell or sight. He lay on his side and stared at a shard of rock covered in blood. Was it his?

  Something crunched like a fresh head of lettuce. He turned to see Badger hunched over a motionless range lizard. She pulled her knife from the eye socket with a spurt of blood.

  The light from the broken lantern dimmed orange then everything went black.

  “Fantastic,” Wilson tried to say, but all that came out was a mumble. His left arm was numb and he held it close to his stomach.

  Badger grabbed his shoulder. “Are you hurt?”

  He shivered. “Bit
ten. Cold.”

  “Where?”

  She felt his legs and arms in the dark then opened his jacket.

  “I can do it,” Wilson said.

  He pulled his arm out of the sleeve then took a packet of sterilizer from his belt.

  “I need some cloth.”

  Wilson opened the sterilizer packet with his teeth and shook the powder over his arm. With his other hand he rubbed it into the bite wounds. Cloth ripped in the darkness and he felt something wrap soft fabric around his injured arm.

  “I can do without an undershirt,” Badger said.

  With her help Wilson got to his feet and they stumbled along the uneven floor of the passage. After a few twists and turns in the labyrinth of tunnels, Badger stopped. Wilson heard metal scrape over stone.

  “Was that a door?”

  “Yes,” said Badger. “Wait until I close it.”

  Wilson reached into the dark and found a wall. He put his back against it and slid to the floor.

  “I need your sparker,” said Badger.

  Wilson searched his pockets for a long, desperate moment, then sighed. “It’s gone.”

  He felt Badger move her fingers over his belt pouches. “It’s not here?”

  “No. Back under the rubble. Along with the candles,” he said.

  He couldn’t hear anything for a long moment and Badger didn’t speak.

  “Kira,” he whispered.

  Warm fingers touched his hand. “Stay here. I’ll look around.”

  “Don’t go.” Wilson shivered. “It’s getting cold in here.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong? I can’t feel my arm and I’m freezing. Both of us are buried alive with no water, food, sparker, candles, or way out. I’m a stupid showoff apprentice, who’s now buried alive with the only girl he ever really cared about. That’s what’s wrong.”

  He felt Badger’s arm on his shoulder.

  “There’s something I have to tell you. Just listen.”

  She began to recite:

  Hold on to what’s good,

  Even if it’s a handful of earth.

  Hold on to what you believe,

  Even if it’s a tree that stands by itself.

  Hold on to what you must do,

  Even if it’s a long way from here.

  Hold on to your life,

  Even if it’s easier to let go.

  Hold on to my hand,

  Even if someday I’ll be gone away from you.

  Wilson was quiet for a long moment.

  “I’ve never heard that before,” he said.

  “My mother used to say it to me every night. It’s a prayer. Or a way to make children sleep.”

  “Am I your child now?”

  “No.” She sneezed, then giggled. “No!”

  “Tell me about her. Your mother.”

  Badger didn’t say anything. Wilson was about to ask her again when she began to speak softly.

  “I remember helping her pick tomatoes in the fields. I stepped on a few and she yelled at me. Another time the older children put a bucket of water over my head and my mother gave them hell. She always sat with me until I fell asleep. My father never spoke much. He smelled like a tree because he carved wooden animals.”

  Wilson rubbed his chin. “My father made a tiny crossbow for my birthday. All the parts worked perfectly but I broke it playing outside. He said I was a bad kid and he wouldn’t make another one.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I figured out how to fix it,” said Wilson. “That’s what got me interested in machines, at least at first. I thought I’d grow up to be a metalworker like him.”

  “Some things break and can’t be fixed,” said Badger.

  “I know. Those things … I wish I could go back and change them.”

  “The past is the past,” said Badger. “But you can change the future. Look at us.”

  Wilson laughed. “Right, look at us! The star-crossed–”

  Her breath was on his face. They pulled tight against each other and kissed like parched travelers who’d found a cold stream of water. At last they parted, reluctantly.

  “Now I feel much better,” said Wilson.

  “Me, too. How’s your arm?”

  “It’s better. I can move my fingers.”

  She untangled herself from Wilson’s hands. “I’ll be back.”

  “Wait! It’s pitch black in here. How can you see?”

  “It’s a hunter’s trick.”

  “Teach me.”

  “Listen Will, it takes time to learn.”

  “What else should I do, Kira? It’s either that or I make rude paintings on the wall with my spit. And when I run out of spit–”

  “Fine, fine. I get the point. Just promise me you won’t tell anyone, especially Simpson. Slow your breathing to once every ten count. Think about a really bright light and say:

  Eyes made of light

  Eyes made of sun

  Eyes made of moon

  Restore my sight

  The door scraped and Wilson was left alone in the dark. He slowed his breathing and repeated the words over and over. He tried to imagine staring into the sun on a hot summer day.

  After several minutes he realized his eyes were closed. When opened them, the room was still dark but not midnight coal like before. He could see the outline of a desk and a table. He kept visualizing sunlight and saying the four lines, but the room didn’t brighten much more. Even after he stopped focusing, the room didn’t return to black and he could still see those vague shapes.

  Wilson took note of his inventory: one coil of rope, bundles of papers in an old backpack, one hunting knife, one throwing knife, six rounds in the pistol and thirty-three reloads in a belt pouch. Another pouch held a sterilizer, two painkiller packets, and three bandages.

  He had no water to mix with the painkiller, but his arm had begun to throb with a sickening pain. Wilson ripped a corner of the packet with his teeth and poured the contents into his mouth. He swallowed the fine powder and coughed.

  A knock came from the door and he pulled out the pistol.

  “It’s only me,” said Badger. “Lizards don’t knock.”

  Wilson stood up and walked to the door, his legs trembling from the painkiller.

  “I’m impressed. Can you really see anything?” asked Badger.

  “Black blobs on a background of black blobs.”

  “The light is better in the tunnel.”

  The corridor was a brighter shade of gray. Wilson followed Badger around the corner of the passage. The broken lantern lay beside the dead range lizard. Wilson kept his pistol out and held Badger’s hand as he edged around the corpse.

  They passed door after door through the tunnels but didn’t stop.

  Wilson squeezed Badger’s hand. “I hear something.”

  “It’s only dripping water. Come on.”

  The sounds came from a black pit that yawned wall-to-wall in the tunnel floor. Wilson couldn’t see the bottom of the pit or the far side.

  “How do we get across?”

  “We’re not going to cross it, we’re going down,” said Badger. “Tie your rope here. I’ll go first and help you.”

  She disappeared into the pit. Wilson tapped gloved fingers on his knife hilt and watched the gray blob of the passage behind. After a minute he heard a faint whisper from Badger.

  “Now!”

  Wilson wrapped the rope around his middle. He gripped it with his good hand and leaned over the pit. Badger must have climbed back up, because he felt something guiding his feet to safe ledges. After a few minutes of slow descent over the pile of stone and crumbling earth, he made it to the floor of another tunnel.

  Wilson rubbed the fingers inside his gloves. “Is this Level Three?”

  Badger shrugged and climbed back up the stone pile. After a moment the rope twitched and dropped. Wilson finished coiling it just as she reappeared.

  “This way,” she said.

  Badger led him
through another gray blob of a tunnel. The echo of water became louder. Next to a black opening in the tunnel wall Wilson’s fingers slid across bubbled and peeling metal. He shoved his face close enough to read the sign.

  “Reservoir Access?”

  “It’s a way out,” said Badger.

  She led him to a concrete pier where a lake the color of midnight spread in all directions. Cold air heavy with moisture touched his face. A droplet of water smacked the surface of the lake and a faint echo bounced from the far wall of the cavern.

  “This place is huge,” said Wilson. “But how does this get us out?”

  Badger squeezed his hand. “Trust me,” she said, and began to unbutton her jacket.

  “You’re not doing what I think you’re doing, are you?”

  “Clothes will get soaked and drag us down. I don’t want to lose my knife, either. Strip and wrap everything in your jacket.”

  “Yes ma’am!”

  Wilson peeled off his outer clothes and shoved his trousers, moccasins, and belt in his backpack. He covered the backpack with his leather jacket and tied everything together with part of the climbing rope.

  Badger used the rest to tie her bundle. She stood and held the bundle at her chest, naked except for white underwear bottoms.

  Wilson pulled his shirt up. “Wait! You can wear this.”

  “Don’t bother, I’m not cold.”

  They waded into the cool water and Wilson drank a handful. It tasted strange and slightly metallic. He splashed behind Badger, holding his bundle out of the water with his good arm. The bottom was flat under his feet but slick, so Wilson walked carefully. Badger balanced the clothes on her head with both hands and stayed close to the right wall. The water deepened until it splashed just below Wilson’s chin.

  “Can you feel that?” Badger’s voice echoed faintly. “Stop for a second.”

  Something tickled the hair on Wilson’s legs.

  “The water’s moving,” he said.

  They followed the current, wading for what felt like hours. Ripples on the lake’s cool surface were the only clues to Wilson that he moved at all and hadn’t been struck blind.

  His good arm burned with exhaustion and the lizard bite started to throb again. Wilson let the bundle of clothes and backpack float on the surface. With each step on the flat, slick bottom he expected a sudden drop-off but it never came. The level of the water remained constant, and at his neck.