“It’s not possible to open all ten,” Captain Mercier explained upon joining them beside one of the containers. He was reading the report from Hugo’s safe. “They’re mixed in with other containers in this stack. We can get them out with the deck crane, but it will take a few hours.”
“Why?” Lee asked.
“Security,” Hugo explained. “If pirates get ahold of one, they won’t get them all.”
“Unless they take the entire ship,” Lee suggested. Hugo shrugged. “Open this one, please.”
Hugo nodded to a pair of crewmen who used a key Hugo gave them. The door swung open with a groan of rusted metal. Hugo flicked on a flashlight revealing rows of 55-gallon plastic drums marked, “Salt.” He walked to the closest one and used a plastic wrench to unscrew the lid. Lee moved over and looked inside.
“They’re all the same,” Hugo said.
Lee grunted, took a ladle from his pocket and scooped out a sample. He sniffed it, then poured the fertilizer onto the drum’s lid to get a better look in the light. Satisfied, he took a thin metallic rod from one of his men and plunged it into the barrel, pushing until it hit bottom. The rod had markings which he examined.
“Another, please,” he said after withdrawing the rod. He pointed to a barrel halfway down the row. “That one.”
Hugo pointed, and the two crewmen took the wrench from him and opened it. Lee went through the same ritual with that drum, then three others. All produced the same results.
“How much is in this container?” Lee asked.
“There are 255 drums in this container. Each holds 257 pounds for a total of 32.76 tons or 65,535 pounds. Based on my estimates, one container can improve your crop yields for five years. Longer, if you switch to a monoculture or only use it on one crop.”
“You’ve thought this through,” Lee said.
“Wouldn’t you?” Lee smiled at him. Hugo made his move. “So, do we go forward?”
Lee looked around as if he might spot something at the last moment to change his mind. After a second, he looked at Hugo and nodded. “Let’s head in so you can meet Tam Olchern.”
* * *
Elan Olchern was waiting when the cart pulled up to the base of The Tower. As Hugo expected, security was tight. However, the checkpoint at the main gate was only manned by two people. It looked to Hugo as though the guard shack was designed for a half dozen.
“Welcome!” Elan said as Hugo got out. Instead of offering his hand, Elan pulled Hugo into a hug. “My friend, I am so happy to hear everything went well.”
Hugo was surprised for a second, then returned the hug with a little less enthusiasm. “I’m glad too. Do I finally get to meet your legendary father?”
“Of course, of course. Come inside our humble home.”
Hugo looked up at the sheer, ten-story, slab sides of The Tower and smiled when Elan called it humble. Deputy Inspector Lee fell in behind them, and they entered a plush lobby where fewer security were present than Hugo expected.
Built at a time when power was readily available, The Tower’s ten stories sported a bank of four elevators. One was still operational, and that was amazing to Hugo. Elevators were power-hungry machines. The door stood open, and a smartly dressed man bowed as Hugo, Elan, and Lee entered the elevator. As soon as they were inside, the man pressed the top button. The doors closed smoothly, and they began to rise.
“It’s been a long time since I rode in an elevator,” Hugo noted.
“We manage a few amenities,” Elan said, then grinned from ear to ear.
The elevator arrived at the top floor, and the doors opened into the foyer of the penthouse. The owner, Tam Olchern, waited inside.
“Welcome to my home, Mr. Legrand.” Tam Olchern was in his late fifties and as fit as an acrobat. It was clear his son inherited his high cheekbones and dirty blonde hair, though Tam’s hair was beginning to gray. His eyes were dark and sharp, quickly taking in every detail of his visitor and potential trading partner.
He wasn’t what Hugo was expecting. “Thank you, Mr. Olchern. Pleasure to meet you.”
“You are not what I expected,” Tam said.
“Oh? How so?”
“I’ve heard of you. Word of your fertilizer operation in old France gets around, especially on an island where trade is rare.”
“I suppose I should be honored you’ve heard of me.”
“It’s beneficial too,” Tam added. “If I hadn’t heard of you, I would have had the patrol boats turn your ship away. Dozens try to land illegally each year. The fishing boats help keep them away. There’s only so much food to go around.” He studied Hugo from head to toe. “I expected a fat, old chemist or former corporate operative. Maybe even a surviving Geno Freak who’d been bred for the business. You, sir, look more like a soldier.”
“Running a factory in a radioactive zone full of roaming warlords requires some of that.”
“For that, I am grateful.” Elan moved next to his father, who put an arm around the younger man’s shoulder. “I would be without my son, if not for you.” Elan smiled and nodded.
“I was just doing what I could. What needed doing.”
“Either way, you have my thanks.” Lee was off to the side, and Tam glanced at him.
Hugo tensed slightly. Months of planning came down to this.
“Everything was fine,” Lee said. “It’s an incredible ship, and the fertilizer is as your farmers have said. According to Mr. Legrand, they have over a million pounds of it.”
“One point three million,” Hugo said. “It represents a lot of lives.”
“It can save a lot of lives,” Tam said. He gestured, and they moved into a plush living area. A servant brought in refreshments. One of the room’s walls was a window. The wharf was visible a half mile away—a spectacular view.
“Even the ones on St. George’s Island?” Hugo asked.
Tam laughed and shook his head. He pointed a finger at Hugo and waggled it. “We cannot cry over spilt milk. Those people tried to kill my son and you! We are merely pruning the weeds. It’s proving more difficult than I feared.”
“Looks like a lot of your people are there.”
“Most of my forces, I fear. I barely have enough to man The Tower’s security. A lot of people will be mad. But, thanks to your fertilizer, I can increase the yield and quality of our crops. My head farmer says we can grow some things we couldn’t before. By God, more than a million pounds!” He clapped his hands together. “How much will you trade and what do you want?”
“I want 100 gallons of water per pound, five pounds of fresh or preserved food per pound, and one gallon of diesel per five pounds of fertilizer.”
Elan gasped, and Lee shook his head. Hugo watched Tam closely. The older man narrowed his eyes, then laughed. “You are a shrewd trader, sir. I cannot impoverish myself, even for your fine product. Do not tempt me to take it.”
“You would find that difficult,” Hugo warned.
Tam looked at Lee who half nodded and half shrugged. “It wouldn’t be easy,” he confirmed.
“Let’s not talk hostilities,” Tam admonished. “Those days are past. We can come to an agreement. You have my assurance. I would invite you to dock your ship, the Vichy is it? Dock and we can discuss the details. I can provide all you ask, though we need to discuss the exchange rates.”
Hugo set his briefcase on the desk and opened it, removing the headset from his BayComm 5000. Tam’s eyes sparkled with interest as Hugo put on the headset and spoke. “Captain Mercier, the way is clear. You may dock.”
“Very good, sir, we are weighing anchor immediately.”
“Let’s finalize negotiations,” Tam said.
They sat. The details took several hours to work out during which Hugo could see the Vichy approach the wharf and begin docking. As the ship stopped, Tam was pouring champagne.
“I am sorry we could not agree on your refugees. Maybe another time?”
“If possible,” Hugo agreed. “You win some, you lose some.”<
br />
The elevator opened, and Edward Colburn entered. He was sweaty and exhausted looking, and he had a bloody gash on his forehead which had clotted.
“Ah, my good security chief,” Tam greeted him. “How is the operation progressing?”
“Well enough, sir. We should wrap it up by tonight.”
“Good news indeed,” Tam said.
“I would like to have seen your ship,” Colburn said to Hugo, looking out the window at the Vichy. He paused and looked curiously at a curl of smoke rising from one of the dock buildings.
“You wouldn’t have liked it,” Lee told him. “He has dogs.” Colburn glanced at Lee, then back at the dock. “A bunch of them in suspended animation. For the trip, he said.”
“What?” Colburn said, turning to look at Lee. He glanced at Hugo who wore a small, neutral smile on his face. “Suspended animation?”
“Yes,” Lee said, confused.
“It was good you didn’t come along,” Hugo said.
“Were there labels on anything?” Colburn asked Lee.
“A tag on some of the machinery said Cerberus.”
Colburn’s look of surprise turned to one of horror. He spun back toward the window and saw several smoke columns rising now.
“What…” Lee said, standing and looking at Hugo. “What does that mean?”
“I figured Colburn would know,” Hugo said. “The infrastructure is distinctive, and he said he was involved in technology before the nukes. I was concerned, for a minute, he might insist on coming along.”
Colburn took out his portable radio and yelled for his men on St. George’s Island.
“What is going on?” Tam demanded.
“Get everyone back to Somerset immediately,” Colburn ordered, then drew his gun and pointed it at Hugo. “Sir, get your family to the bunker in the basement!”
“For dogs?” Tam asked. He looked out the window and saw the smoke from the piers. He turned to confront Hugo. “What do you think you are doing?”
“Taking this island from you,” Hugo said, finishing his drink and putting the empty glass on the coffee table. Tam’s expression went from concern to fury. “It took me a while to figure out how to get my ship to shore. I knew I’d probably only get one chance. Your reputation for shrewdness is well earned.”
“You bastard,” Elan said.
“Sir, you need to get to the bunker!”
“Not until I see him dead,” Tam spat, pointing at Hugo. “But not on the carpet.”
Hugo raised his hands, rose, and walked across the sitting area. He could see that the carnage from the wharf had spread as quickly as he planned.
“What about the dogs?” Lee demanded.
“They’re not dogs,” Colburn said. “They’re cyborgs. CERBERUS stands for Cybernetic Endoskeletal Reinforced Bio-organism Engineered Retaliatory Uplinkable System.” Lee still looked confused. “They’re war dogs, or as some call them, Hellhounds.”
“Oh, my God,” Lee said.
“No, not God. So, that is why you needed to dock?”
“Yeah,” Hugo said. “My little babies don’t swim. Downside of all the enhancements.”
“Shoot the son of a bitch,” Tam ordered.
“Bastard,” Elan said.
Hugo continued to look out the window, noting movement at the edge of the park around The Tower.
“Any last words, Mr. Legrand?” Colburn asked as he pointed his pistol at the back of Hugo’s head.
“You can call me Lord Commander.”
“Shit,” Colburn cursed and pulled the trigger. The bullet passed through the spot where the Lord Commander’s head had been, then through the window.
The room reverberated with the gun’s report, and a split second later, with the sickening crunch of shattering vertebrae as the Lord Commander’s foot hit Edward Colburn’s neck where it met his skull. The shattered bone severed his spinal column, and Colburn fell like a marionette with cut strings.
Director Lee tried to pull a compact pistol from his pocket, but the Lord Commander drew and threw his dagger, and the spinning blade impaled Lee in the neck, creating a fountain of blood. Lee lost interest in his gun as he tried to stop the blood flow.
The roar of automatic weapons fire interrupted the Lord Commander’s planned chain of attack, as he was forced to roll away from the stream of crisscrossing bullets. The Olchems had surprised him when they retrieved machine pistols from concealed locations in the sitting area. Impressive.
“How can he move so fast?” Elan yelled during a pause in the firing.
“You don’t think my dogs are the only cybernetically enhanced beings?” the Lord Commander yelled back. A flurry of automatic gunfire poured into the bar he was taking cover behind. He could hear the Olchems moving in opposite directions, trying to flank him. Glass exploded inward. Too late.
A few more bullets flew, then they suddenly stopped. The room was filled with the sound of gurgling screams. The Lord Commander stood and saw two of his beauties standing over the Olchems. Elan was dead, his head torn off by a cybernetically modified war dog. Tam was still clinging to life despite having part of his ribcage torn from his body.
He looked at the Hellhound that attacked Tam. “I’ll need to review your combat subroutine.” A non-throat kill was suboptimal.
“Spare my other children, please?” Tam gurgled.
The Lord Commander walked over to the dying man and sighed. “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen. I can’t risk having anyone doubt my authority.” Tam started to say something, but The Lord Commander sent a command to the Hellhound which ended the man’s life with a blinding flash of titanium teeth.
The Lord Commander walked over and looked out the window. His men, disguised as refugees, would be offloading from the Vichy. It would have taken too long to get to the weapons for the assault, so he’d risked the 12 hellhounds. So far, none were out of commission. He looked back at Tam’s cooling body.
“I expected better of you,” he said, then turned and looked out over his new acquisition. The day was still young, and there was still a lot of work to do.
* * * * *
Mark Wandrey Bio
Located in rural Tennessee, Mark Wandrey has been creating new worlds since he was old enough to write. After penning countless short stories, he realized novels were his real calling and hasn’t looked back since. A lifetime of diverse jobs, extensive travels, and living in most areas of the country have uniquely equipped him with experiences to color his stories in ways many find engaging and thought provoking. Now a bestselling author, he has no intention of slowing down anytime soon.
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Caution — Worlds Under Construction
* * * * *
Salt by Marisa Wolf
Every time one of my children leaps from the ship, I can’t summon a single regret for any of the choices I made to get us here. At night, there are hauntings, but I can forget them once the sun rises. I never needed much sleep, anyway.
“—whole patch of blueberries, we coulda picked forev—” Helen saw me and straightened from her knot, her face brightening. “Dad! One of the northern pull outs had some flooding. We sailed right up in the tender, sent out a party, and found the biggest patches of raspberries, blueberries, and fiddleheads I’ve ever seen.”
Helen was twenty-three, with no real memories of the world before the Fall to shadow her joy in the one she’d inherited. I’d done everything in my power to give her the tools to keep her safe, but she’d found happiness on her own. There were many things I was proud of in the years since the bombs, but she was the best of my creations.
“Clean?”
“Clean enough for us.” She laughed, double checked her knot, and stepped away from the edge of the dock. “We’ve got buckets of them. A fair catch of fish too, but we had to toss half of them back. Hopefully, Jim had better luck with his nets.”
“Any conta
ct?”
“Not a soul. We’ll debrief once we’ve unloaded, but there wasn’t a hint of sailors on the sea or trappers on the land. It was a hard winter.”
And a late spring. I remembered years in my childhood when the air kept its chill well into June, but these last few winters had lingered so long I wondered if we’d get icebergs in the harbors instead of summer winds.
Maybe this last winter had been enough to root out the last of the lingering survivors on the mainland. I’d had the thought before and been wrong, so I pushed the hope away. It was too much to ask that anything be so easy, in this Fallen World.
“We deserve a quiet trip now and then. I’ll meet you in the hall for debriefing.” I hugged her close, smelling the salt of sweat and sea in her hair. It was a moment of peace, and I allowed myself to enjoy it before continuing on my way.
Every day, I walked the harbor, studying the ground in front of me, the docks, and the salt-stained buildings. I no longer searched the water, not anymore, not 15 years after my wife vanished one dawn somewhere along this route.
My half-hour walks were rarely interrupted, though someone would inevitably be waiting for me at the meeting house by the time I made my way back. My happiness at Helen’s return from her successful trip kept me from glaring at Geordan when he stepped out from a building and turned toward me.
“Elias.” He was my age, but more thickly built. Like all the surviving members of the Ag Society, he came from generations of island farmers and had the frame and weathered features to match. His dark eyes stared somewhere close to my shoulder, not at my face. Not for the first time, I wondered if I should have put one of his brothers higher on the priority list, but that decision was nearly 20 years behind us. We were stuck with each other.
“Geordan.” I matched his tone and kept walking, and he fell into step next to me. It was easier when we didn’t have to look at each other.
From the Ashes Page 42
