by Stu Jones
A gasp ripples through the crowd.
“What is this treachery?” a burly captain on the front row shouts, his face twisted in anger. “Where are Kapka’s men?”
“They chose their fate,” I reply.
“This man has tried to seize the great Kapka’s rule for himself,” he shouts to the crowd. “He is not to be trust—”
The blast of my golden revolver causes everyone to flinch. Some of the closest men gnash their teeth and cup their ears. The captain stumbles back, staring at the small crater at his feet where the round struck the ice.
“My name is Faruq and I am here to tell you that you are free. I wish to rule no one.”
The crowd grows still.
“Some of you no doubt believe in Kapka’s dream, and have benefitted from it,” I say, my voice on the verge of breaking. “Others were forced into his army. And yet others were treated as no more than slaves and whores to be used. Had Ilah willed, He would have made us a single community, but He wanted to test us. We should have competed with each other in doing good, not evil. Now is the time for change. Every one of you will return to Ilah and He will inform you regarding the things about which you differed.”
“Don’t think you can so easily bribe us with a hot meal and words stolen from our Holy Book,” the captain says. “There is nothing to stop me from killing you where you stand, groveler-lover.”
Groveler lover? He’s referring to Mila.
The captain pulls a handgun from its holster and levels it at my head.
“Yes, you could kill me where I stand,” I say. Breathe Faruq. Follow it through. “And then what?”
He stares at me, confused.
“Then you take over in Kapka’s place? And perhaps it will be your head in a bag, and another man standing where I am now. If I have shown you anything, it is that even the weakest of men can overthrow a tyrant. This is the way of history.”
The crowd murmurs, restless, volatile.
“Or,” I continue, “we can find another way. I wish no more violence for our people. No more pain. The Graciles are gone. The enclaves are broken. We do not have to fight any longer. Come with me, and we can build a new way of life, together.”
The captain’s trigger finger twitches.
“Sheikh Faruq is the last prophet of Ilah,” Baral interrupts. “I know this to be true in my heart. Kapka’s own gun would not kill him. He will guide us through these end days.”
The boy must have seen my suicide attempt.
“Blasphemer!” The captain swings his gun toward Baral.
My weapon bucks upward with a flash of fire and the captain’s skull explodes in a pink mist of brains and blood. Again, I stoke the fire of the murderer hiding deep inside. When will it ever stop?
The crowd gasps. Several men grab up their knives and guns, their eyes flashing with anger.
“Threaten my life, if you must. But I will tolerate the oppression of the peaceful no longer.” My words sound confident, but my chest aches.
“Fine,” says another man. “Then we’ll threaten your life.” He and three other men rush me.
My blood runs cold and the specter of death casts a long shadow. Three more cracks of gunfire and my assailants tumble lifelessly into the snow. This time, it’s not my doing.
One of Kapka’s men steps forward, smoke spiraling from the barrel of his rifle. “I never wanted to join,” he says. “Kapka forced me. Threatened my family. My name is Amir, and I will follow Faruq, the last prophet of Ilah.”
No wait, that’s not who I am. I’m not a—
“Kapka made good on his threat against my family,” says another voice. It’s one of the camp’s cooks. Standing at the edge of the crowd, she holds a smoking revolver. Several more of the camp’s women are with her. Each brandishes a weapon. “We too will stand with the prophet.”
“No, you’re not listening—”
A second captain steps forward to the short platform and turns to face the crowd. “Kapka’s ways were not the ways of our forefathers. I will stand with the prophet.”
“And I.” Another man steps forward.
“I too.”
“I will not.”
This is getting out of control.
A crescendo of curses and shouts sweeps the crowd. A small melee ensues. But it’s short-lived as the last of Kapka’s loyal followers are pulled to the icy ground. Ruling through hate and fear only leads to more hate and fear. Few men were as loyal as Kapka hoped.
Still, this is not how I wished it. I am no prophet.
Baral sidles up next to me. “Not all men are born great,” he whispers.
I swallow and cut my eyes at him. “Some have greatness thrust upon them,” I whisper. My father used to say that to me.
Baral smiles.
This is not how I wanted it. Or is it? What did I expect? An icy-wind whips by, grabbing at my coat. I stare at the golden revolver in my hand then at Kapka’s clothes hanging from my bones. Am I like Kapka? Or can I use this new power for good? To rescue our people from the hell of oppression and war?
The crowd stares at me, their hot breath misting the cold air. I can’t even make out their faces, each person blurring into the next. An electrical sense of expectation grows to an unbearable tension. I started this. Now, I must finish it. I thrust my golden wheel gun into the air.
There’s an instant of windswept silence. The throng of people before me erupts, cheering and pumping their fists.
“Fa-ruq! Fa-ruq! Fa-ruq!”
Chapter Twenty-six
MILA
Through the screen of lashing wind and swirling snow, the black barrier surrounding Vel juts from the ice and into the sky. Oozing a sense of dread and foreboding, there’s good reason why this, one of the last enclaves still intact, carries such a mysterious reputation. No one from the outside has ever entered this place. At least, none has done so and lived to spin the tale of it. What barren hell awaits us if we enter into this dark fortress? Is there even anyone alive in there?
I approach the wall and remove a glove, my bare fingers sliding over black steel, smooth and bitter cold to the touch. What secrets lie within? Why would Gil reach out to me after all this time? Too many questions to entertain. We have a duty to act on the information we have. Gil is here and he knows something about the nuclear stockpile all of my enemies seem to desire—Vedmak chief among them. He, most of all, cannot be allowed to access an object of such unnerving power.
“What are we doing?” Husniya asks.
I slip my glove back on. “We’ve got to find a way in. Do you see anything?”
The teen twists, her feet sliding in the slush as she examines the towering fortress wall. “No. Nothing but the wall. There aren’t even seams. It’s as if it is formed from one solid continuous sheet of metal.”
“Exactly.” I huff a cloud of steam into the air. “Which means we have to look for something out of place.” I appraise my small but determined group of well-equipped fighters. “Mos, you and Hus take eight with you and go left. Ghofaun you and I will take the rest to the right.” I pull two tarnished but functional emergency flare pistols from my satchel, handing one to Mos. “Shoot your flare if you find something. Hold until the rest of us can catch up. Assuming we can get in, we only move on Vel together. Everyone clear?” The group responds in kind. “Good, let’s do it.”
“No,” Husniya says as if to herself. She mumbles something indiscernible under her breath but leaves alongside Mos before I can question her.
I don’t know what she’s going through and I can’t help her. Not if she won’t confide in me. The loss of her brother was the final straw. She’s cracking under the strain. A snowflake sticks to my eyelash. I wipe it free and touch the old photo of my brother and me, tucked neatly inside my pocket. Don’t lose your resolve now, Mila. “You ready, Master Ghofaun?”
He gives me a thumbs up.
Minutes tick past as my boots plunge again and again into the fresh powder. We scan the dark foreboding monst
rosity that surrounds Vel. There is nothing of note. Just an unending and unyielding barricade of cold black steel. Who made this, anyway?
A pop echoes in the distance. Ghofaun gives me a nudge. High above the fortress wall, Mos’s flare arcs across the sky with a brilliant red glow. At its zenith, it drops, fading and fizzing as it falls back to Earth.
“That’s it, guys. They’ve got something. Double time it back the way we came.”
It takes longer than expected to make Mos and his team, but the slog is worth it. He’s standing in what looks like the doorway to an external bunker, a couple of clicks out from the wall. It seems to be made of the same steel.
“What is it?” I ask. My heart flutters with anticipation, lungs still burning from the cold and double-time marching through knee-high drifts.
“It’s a door.” Mos shrugs. “To what, we don’t know yet.”
“It was cracked like this? Or did you do something?” I ask.
“We haven’t touched it,” Mos replies.
We push in through the door, guns up, scanning every inch for danger. But there’s nothing inside save a small table, chair, and an old-fashioned stove with a cooking pot. A heavily armed bunker to protect this?
Mos holds up a couple of used auto-injectors.
“Stims,” I say. “So, where’s the user?”
“Do Velians even use stims?” Mos asks, eyeing the thread of pinkish liquid in the bottom of the injector.
“Some do,” I say, my mind drifting back to my scheduled meetings with Gil. He was always stoned.
“Yes, I see it,” Husniya says to no one in particular, as she pushes past me.
“See what?” I grunt.
“The opening in the floor,” she replies.
My eyes widen. There’s no way I should have missed that, but I had. Right smack in the middle of the room it sits, still ajar.
“It has a keypad next to it,” Mos says, crouching down. “And it’s already been opened. Without force.”
I wave over a couple of our men who point their guns at the hatch.
Mos whips it back and for an instant, everyone stops breathing.
Only a square black hole stares back.
“I got this,” Mos says.
Before I can protest, he’s already dropped down inside.
“It’s a tunnel,” he calls up. “Pretty narrow. We can make it through side-by-side.”
I sling my weapon and climb in after him. The cold, damp tunnel is dark and oppressive but thankfully empty. Everyone drops in with ease—all but Zaldov. He takes a moment to calculate the movement, then hops over the edge, landing with the thud-hiss of mechanical parts absorbing the impact of the short drop. The loud noise in this confined space causes my breath to catch in my lungs.
“Want to make some more noise?”
“I do not believe making more noise would be advisable,” he says.
I expel a breath. “No, Zaldov, it’s definitely not advisable.”
We trek along in relative silence. The only sounds are the light swishing and jangling of gear, Zaldov’s marching, and Husniya’s soft murmurings, presumably to herself. The incline increases. Myself at the fore, we trudge up the hard-packed earthen ramp to a ladder extending through another hatch above. We scale the ladder entering into another jet-black chamber, the only identifiable way forward, a crack of light in the opposite wall. Another door left open? It looks immensely heavy. I wait for the others to make the top of the ladder.
“Zaldov, pull it open,” I say, my eyes wide, prepared for anything.
Zaldov heaves, his mechanical fingers peeling back the heavy door. The growing brightness seems to sear my retinas.
“That’s not possible,” Mos says, his voice but a whisper.
Stepping through the opening and beneath an arched alcove, sunlight shines down upon my face. Before us lay sweeping hills of green, gently rolling down to a lake that shimmers and glints. Mouth open, eyes wide, I wander out onto the magical sunlit hillside. Pulling my gloves off, I sink to the ground, tiny blades of grass—real grass—slipping between my numb fingers. There is a sweet smell in the air I can’t place. It fills my throat and sticks in my nostrils.
Mos is belly-laughing. “In all my years, I never thought I’d see such a thing.”
The Kahangan and I make eye contact and I can’t help but release an incredulous chuckle.
Ghofaun and Husniya follow, then one by one my fighters trickle in, awe and wonder written on their dirty faces. It’s as if we were given a taste of heaven.
I dig past the grass, through the roots and into the soil and push the moist brown clumps through my fingers. “It’s real, I can’t believe it. Some sort of self-contained environment or greenhouse. All this time, hidden right before our eyes.”
“No wonder it’s built like a fortress,” Mos says. “Who wouldn’t want to live here?”
“How is this possible?” I ask. “Robusts wouldn’t have had the tech or resources to pull this off. The Velians must have had help. And this sort of tech only comes from one place.” My gaze drifts upward.
“Why would Graciles build this for the Velians?” Ghofaun says, his narrow eyes becoming knife-like slits.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “But Gil’s been holding out on me.”
Ghofaun takes a small step back. “I’m not sure I like this, Mila. Something doesn’t feel right with this place.”
“What’s not to like?” Mos replies.
“No, he’s right,” I say. There’s a tinge of smoke in the air, a hint of decay. And not a single sound other than us. I rise to my feet, my brow knitted together. “Where are the Velians?”
“Mila Solokoff, may I be of service?” Zaldov approaches, his boots leaving deep impressions in the grass.
“Yes, tell me about this place. Make it the short version, Zaldov.”
“One moment, searching outdated Gracile information archives,” his monotone voice buzzes, his head twitching. “Formed when the first people fled to Etyom from all over the world, Vel is the first and oldest enclave. Sealed off from the rest of the survivors, it was initially a haven for the rich and powerful, intended to be the home of the future Graciles. That was before the creation of the lillipads. After the Graciles moved their people above the clouds, a small segment of middle-class Robusts were left in charge of the enclave. The Graciles allowed them to live here and cultivate the land in autonomy in exchange for seventy-five percent of all the food and energy they could produce. This arrangement lasted for a long time.”
“Unbelievable.” I force out a coarse laugh. “I knew there was something weird going on in this place.”
“The Graciles got all their food?” Husniya asks.
“Almost, yes,” Zaldov replies, turning to her. “Transferred to them through the lillipad stem via a high-speed magnetic rail elevator.” Zaldov motions to the lillipads’ support structure rising from the earth on the other side of the lake where it disappears through the fake sky above us.
“Wait, energy? What energy?” I ask.
“Nuclear,” Zaldov replies, pointing to the building with high walls and smoke stacks down in the valley ahead.
“Son of a—” Mos starts.
“There’s no stockpile,” I say. “It’s a full-on nuclear power plant. Zaldov, have you known this all along?”
“No, I had to perform a search of the archives via the neural web—”
“No, I mean you could have told us this all along,” I interrupt.
“Yes, but you did not inquire until now, Mila Solokoff.”
I cross my arms, flicking a strand of hair from my face. “Okay, find out everything you can on Vedmak. His location, his plan, base of operations, anything.”
“Technically, Vedmak does not exist.”
“Demitri Stasevich, then.”
The Creed’s head twitches. “There is nothing, Mila Solokoff. Only an old surveillance video feed from Zopat. That was days ago.”
Damnation.
“S
o, where’s Gil?” Mos interjects.
I unzip my jacket and survey the unusual space again. “He didn’t say. He’s gotta be here somewhere. Let’s head down into the valley and start looking. Keep an eye out. If Vedmak is here, he won’t come quietly. Trust me.”
***
Down the hills of sweeping green, we march toward the lake. The blue sky above, though littered with unlit panels, seems to mesmerize everyone—everyone but Ghofaun. He looks worried. I can’t blame him. We’ve yet to see another living soul.
Husniya giggles from behind.
A quick glance and there she is with a smile on her weary face, staring up at Zaldov.
“What? Did I make a joke?” Zaldov says, searching her features.
“No.” She stifles another giggle.
“Then what? I want to learn,” Zaldov says.
“You said, ‘hopefully the Rippers won’t do us.’” She snorts and adjusts her rifle. “I think you meant: do us in.”
“Oh,” Zaldov says, blinking.
When was the last time she laughed like that with me? But, then who am I to her? Mother? Big sister? Teacher? Don’t be so selfish, Mila. She needs the outlet and a robot is better than no one. Even if the thing is just a soulless pile of walking junk.
Reaching the edge of the first cottage-style house, I raise a flat palm to the team. They fan out and take up kneeling positions of security on the corner of the house. The doorframe is cracked, the simple wooden latch distorted and hanging loose.
“Mos, Rinji, Jape.” I point to each of them. “On me. Use caution, the door’s been forced.”
They fall in behind me as we slip into the small dwelling. Dust and decay hang in the air of this place like the soured memory of something that had been good once. Simple tables and chairs lie broken and scattered. The remnants of old produce and foodstuffs rot on the cluttered floor.
“Ransacked.” Jape glances at me.
“Check the back room,” I say, plucking an old black and white photograph from amidst the garbage at my feet. It’s a family of four. They’re smiling, the father dressed in miner’s gear. The look of optimism on his face like the one my brother used to wear. Zevry ...
