by E. R. Torre
“Radio transmitter and long range antennae were fried in the explosion. I’m afraid we’re on our own.”
“Terrific.”
Ellis leaned back in his chair.
“Let’s hope the drones—” Ellis’ voice faded. “Sara?”
“Yeah?”
“Take a look at monitor three.”
Sara looked at the monitor. Her mouth swung open in surprise.
“Holy shit.”
The black clad figure was there, no more than a hundred feet from the Betty Lou. She walked with a heavy limp toward the tank. Her body armor was ragged from the blast and her helmet, as well as most of her weaponry, was gone. However, her shock rifle still hung from a strap on her shoulder.
“She’s alive!”
“And armed,” Sara muttered. “She’s coming at us. What should we do?”
“We’re not going anywhere, Sara. Let her in.”
The tank’s outer door opened and the dark figure walked into the sealed decontamination compartment. Low level lights flashed as the air within was cleansed of all impurities. A wave of chemicals then blew in and flooded the cramped quarters. All remaining hazardous materials were removed while the proper aerosol medicines were applied.
The figure within the compartment lowered her shock rifle and slid down to the floor.
Sara and Ellis watched the images sent in from the decontamination compartment. For the first hour, the figure remained deathly still. The only movement coming from her was her chest, which rose and fell with each labored breath. She was either unconscious or in a very deep sleep. She stirred a couple of times afterwards and even let out a faint groan. It was obvious she was in a lot of pain.
“We need to get her to a hospital.”
“She’s beyond medical help,” Sara said. She eyed the radiation levels within the compartment. “We go in there, we’re just as dead as she is.”
The next day, the woman in the decontamination compartment stirred some more. The irritating noise from the repair drones had, perhaps, awoken her. She rose to a sitting position and stared at the opposite wall.
“I can’t believe she’s still alive,” Sara said.
Ellis didn’t comment. Together they watched the monitor of the decontamination chamber. The soldier tried to stand. She couldn’t. She eased back to the floor and lay very still.
Two hours later, the soldier stirred once again. She groaned in pain and unzipped the front of her suit. Taking it off proved an excruciatingly painful chore. The flesh below the suit was red and covered in bloody welts.
“By the Gods,” Sara said when the soldier was fully nude. “She’s a little girl. She can’t be more than fifteen years old.”
Ellis didn’t look surprised.
“Did…did you know?” Sara asked.
Ellis nodded.
“I saw a couple of them back at the base. I thought they were someone’s kids. I thought…”
Ellis didn’t finish his statement. For a while, silence descended upon the cabin.
“Have we come to this? Sending children into a warzone to fight and die for us?” Sara asked.
“Someone told me they were clones. No family, no ties. As I said before, they’re programmed to fight and die and nothing more. That’s why they’re so effective.”
Ellis pressed a button before him and talked into a microphone. His words were broadcast into the decontamination chamber.
“Soldier, we can’t go in there to help you. Your clothing and weapons are irradiated. If you can, please throw them in this slot.”
Ellis pressed another button and a metal drawer opened to the girl’s side. It took a great effort, but the soldier was able to put the clothing and gun into the drawer. The drawer shut and the irradiated items were vaporized.
“That makes me feel a hell of a lot safer,” Ellis said.
“She’s done fighting,” Sara replied. She turned to the microphone. “Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
The girl gave a weak nod.
“We’ll send in some food.”
Sara shut the microphone off.
“The least we can do is make her last hours a little more comfortable.”
The girl ate little of the food but drank all the water. Sara sent along more liquid but was not surprised to find the girl soldier once again drifted off to sleep. Ellis turned from the internal monitor display and looked at the view of the outside area. For many hours now the sun was unable to penetrate the thick cloud of dust that lingered for miles around them.
“How are the repair drones doing?”
“Progressing. Schedule’s tight, but we’ll make it.”
“Then there’s little to do but rest,” Ellis said. He rose from his seat and stretched. It occurred to him that neither he nor Sara had slept in over thirty hours.
“It’s done,” came a voice over the speaker. It was low and weary.
Ellis’ eyes returned to the monitor. The girl soldier was awake.
“What was that?” Ellis said into the microphone.
“The war…it’s over,” the girl mumbled.
“How do you know?”
“Sada-bir. The other major cities. We…we made them –the enemy– think they were safe havens…neutral zones. All the refugees went there, seeking peace. In time, the military leaders hid out there, too. We kept track of their movements and left the cities alone for years. We waited for the right time. When they were all there…”
“It was a trap?” Sara gasped. “It was always a trap?”
“Blue, Orange, and Black Brigades were ordered to infiltrate and surround each city,” the girl continued. “They were ordered to detonate.”
“How could anyone convince a group of children to willingly sacrifice themselves?”
“It wasn’t our choice. They…they controlled us, just like your aerial drones.”
“And you?” Ellis asked. “Why didn’t you…?”
The girl rose on unsteady feet and turned her bare back to the camera, revealing a deep rectangular gash in her upper back, just to the right of her spinal cord. Mingled in the bloody flesh were wires that disappeared into the girl’s body.
“I ripped their controller off,” the girl said. “Never was good at taking…taking orders.”
She slipped back to the floor and closed her eyes.
Ellis shut the microphone off.
“Genocide by remote control, performed by children strapped to nuclear devices,” Sara said. “I was wrong.”
“About what?”
“We’re the monsters.”
The next day, the girl ate all her food and the repair drones reported progress over and above their estimated completion time. The tank would soon be free. The tank’s pilots, however, kept their focus on the decontamination chamber and their guest. Sara was the first to note the change in the girl’s condition.
“Her skin’s not quite as red as before,” she said.
Ellis hit a switch and the decontamination chamber’s camera zoomed in on the girl’s back. It then tracked right and left, providing a close up view of her entire body. When he was done, Ellis sat back.
“She does look better.”
Sara pressed a series of button and the monitor switched to several readouts. Sara read the information before her. Her eyebrows rose with surprise.
“I don’t believe it. The radiation within the compartment is lower. The level’s still lethal, but significantly lower. And…”
Sara shook her head.
“It can’t be.”
“What?”
“A…at this rate of degradation, the chamber –hell, the girl herself– will be free of all radioactive contamination in…in three days. That’s just not possible.”
“It is,” Ellis said. “The girl’s Blue Brigade. Nothing stops them.”
The cursed war ended as it began, a mix of pointless destruction and very real despair. Taxed economies were fully exhausted. Massive famine and political upheavals followed. The planet, polluted and s
ick, roared her displeasure. Ice flows melted and temperatures rose. The desert lands spread, until they were found on every continent...
CHAPTER ONE
Twenty years later…
The sandstorm came out of nowhere and sent a cloud of red dust billowing over the area. Like the storms typical of this time of the year, she barreled on, like a freight train uninterested in whatever stood in her path. The occupants of the Octi Corp Survey Group 4 camper watched in awe as she raged in the distance, just a few miles from their position. Had they been more interested, they could have charted her progress with their bare eyes.
There were five of them scattered in a semi-circle around the shiny silver camper. In each of their hands was a Geiger counter. The Geiger counter remained stubbornly silent, to the consternation of the men and women carrying the devices.
One of them, a woman wearing a floppy beach hat, struggled to shade herself from the burning sun. Like the others, her face and all exposed body parts were swathed in heavy white sunscreen. And like the others, a close look at her face revealed blistered and deep red skin. Her clothing was coated in a thin layer of desert sand, but it didn’t bother her. The only thing bothering her was her silent Geiger counter.
She swore and turned it off. Beyond the group and the sandstorm, the sun faded.
Another wasted day.
She swallowed her frustration and arched her back. Scouting the area was both tedious and draining, but what kept her and her group going were the rewards for those who succeeded. She laughed at this thought. Right now, a decent shower was a pleasant enough reward. If the others heard her laugh, they didn’t react. Emotional outbursts were the norm when you spend this many hours each day under these conditions.
A bearded man in the center of the group also noted the setting sun. He eyed his wristwatch and said:
“Let’s wrap it up.”
There was no need to repeat the instruction. The three remaining members of the group stored their gear and headed back to the van and a much deserved rest. They were part-timers and worked only as long as they were contractually obligated to do so. They all walked past the lady in the floppy beach hat. The bearded man stopped at her side.
“What’s the matter, Mary?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Mary replied. “Just admiring the view.”
“What view?”
Mary shrugged. By this time, the others were already inside the camper.
“The place has its beauty,” Mary said. “If you look.”
The bearded man spotted the sandstorm, now tiny in the distance. Soon it disappeared, blurring the last of the sunlight into a bloody red cloud.
“I suppose you’re right,” the bearded man said. For several minutes they admired the diming lights and the rapidly cooling breeze. Unlike the others, this was their element, this was their world. The bearded man wrapped his arm around Mary and gave her a soft kiss.
“How about dinner?” he asked. “We’ve got Jambalaya ready to go. My treat.”
“And I thought we were eating Octi Ration 8a.”
“You say tomato…”
Mary chuckled.
“The last of the romantics. Fire up the microwave.”
The bearded man released Mary and headed for the camper. Mary watched him leave but remained behind a few more minutes. When the sun was fully gone and the moon appeared in the eastern sky, Mary removed her hat and fanned her face. In another hour, the temperature would drop another twenty degrees. Soon enough, she would need a sweater or heavy jacket.
Mary turned from the moon and walked to an outcropping of stones between her and the van. She sighed. Their group spent most of the summer here, in this blazing heat, searching for anything worth salvaging. So far, they’d come up empty and the other temp workers were growing increasingly surly. If they didn’t find anything worthwhile very soon, this whole summer would be a waste.
“That’s life,” Mary muttered. As a profession, there was nothing fair about scavenging. It tantalized with the possibility of fabulous rewards for those lucky enough and willing to do the intense work. More often than not, it offered a way to get by and make it through another day.
“It is what it is,” she said. She continued forward, past the stones. Her left foot brushed a rock and Mary stumbled to the side. As she did, something under her right foot shifted. She heard a loud crack.
Mary immediately froze. Because of the poor light, she could not make out what she stepped on. She bent down to the ground and ran her hand through the sand. She felt a hard shape below her. It was enveloped in what felt like ragged fabric.
“By the Gods!” she gasped. She left her Geiger counter on the ground beside her discovery and ran to the camper.
When she entered the vehicle, she forced herself to calm down. It would not do to let the others see her this excited. They might try to share her claim or, worse, try to steal it outright. It happened innumerable times to scavengers who considered themselves far more clever than she.
Mary moved past the part timers and into the back cabin of the camper. There, she found the bearded man inside their private compartment. He was seated in his chair, studying a map.
“Edward,” Mary said. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t entirely keep the excitement from her voice.
“What is it?”
Mary closed the door to the compartment.
“I found something,” she whispered. “I’ll show it to you when the others are sleeping.”
At a little past midnight the duo silently exited the camper and made their way to where Mary left her Geiger counter.
“This better be good,” Edward said. Though he loved his mate dearly, he didn’t relish missing out on any sleep after such a brutally long day. Especially when the two of them had to be up early for another round the next day.
“It is,” Mary said.
They found the Geiger counter and Edward bent down close to the sand Mary pushed away a few hours before. He found the source of the loud snap immediately. It was a dark white bone, blasted by sun and sand.
“A femur?”
“Human,” Mary said. She shone her flashlight at the ground and to the side of the bone. “See the clothing?”
Edward nodded. Below the spot where he lifted the femur were the remains of a pair of dark pants. Edward pushed away more sand. Parts of the skeleton and its tattered clothing were exposed.
“This might not be anything,” Edward said. “A lost traveler, a desert rat.”
“Then again,” Mary countered. She bent down and helped Edward dig.
They kept their growing excitement in check as they exposed the rest of the skeleton. Mary found the dead man’s skull. It smiled at her, as if thankful for the first taste of fresh air in many years.
“Look here,” Edward said. He knelt next to the skeleton’s legs. He found a dull black object underneath the left leg. He brushed away some sand and found the object was a leather case. Unlike the skeleton’s clothing, it was still intact.
Mary rushed to Edward’s side. By then, Edward had the case in his hands and opened. From within he pulled a pair of faded road maps.
“They’re at least twenty years old,” Edward said after a quick examination. He set them aside and again reached into the case. This time, he pulled out several loose sheets of faded paper. Whatever was written on them, if anything, had faded until it was illegible.
“Damn,” Edward muttered.
For the third and final time Edward reached into the case. He produced a small black diary. The edges of the book were chewed up, but when he opened it, he found the writing within still legible.
“What is it?” Mary asked.
“Hold the flashlight steady.”
Mary did as told. Edward read a few random passages from the book. His excitement increased to the point he was shivering with delight.
“We found it,” Edward whispered. He closed the book and, along with the road maps and papers, returned them to the leather case. He hel
d the case tight against his chest. “We have to bury the skeleton, make sure the others don’t know.”
“What is it?” Mary asked.
“It’s what we’ve been looking for all these years.”
With that answer, Mary suddenly found it hard to breath. Euphoria had her paralyzed.
“You mean?” she finally managed to say.
“Yes,” Edward replied. The smile on his face was as bright as the sun.
Despite the chilly night air, Edward and Mary returned to the camper covered in sweat. When they awoke early in the morning, one of the temps discovered the water purification system had malfunctioned. Much was made of this very serious misfortune but, luckily for Edward and Mary, the temps didn’t realize the failure was an act of sabotage. The camper had spare water containers, but only for six more days. That wasn’t much of a margin for error and therefore it was urgent that the purification system be fixed immediately.
The temps unloaded their motorbikes from the side of the camper and, with the broken water purification parts tied to their machines, headed out to the nearest Octi Desertland base.
Edward and Mary stayed behind to watch the survey van. They didn’t mind. They had two full days to do as they pleased. Their first act was to communicate with Octi Corp. about their previous night’s find.
It took only four hours before an Octi helicopter arrived.
The helicopter landed in a cloud of dust barely thirty feet from the camper. Edward and Mary looked away until the dust fully settled. As the helicopter’s blades slowed, a heavily armed soldier stepped out of the vehicle’s cockpit. He approached the machine’s side door and opened it. From within the passenger compartment exited a lean, well-dressed man in his mid-thirties.
“Is that?” Mary whispered.
“Yeah,” Edward replied. “Robert Octi Jr. The boss’ son.”
Robert Octi Jr. walked to Edward and Mary’s side.
“The diary?” he said.
Edward and Mary made no move.
