“Well, because there were too many—”
“Too many people? How is that even possible? Surviving is hard enough without that,” Mira said. Her eyes narrowed in distaste at the castrator.
“I never said I used it, and I sure as hell wouldn’t let anyone use it on me,” I told them, trying to defuse their revulsion. The device clearly hit a nerve among people who fought to survive and presumably have children to carry on whatever passed for life.
Mira’s face calmed, then Bel did also, once she saw her sister’s anger recede. I stood to start a new hole. Offensive as the tools might be, they were also damned valuable.
“This is almost enough for a full load. More if we’re going by value,” Mira said.
“Can we dig for the rest of today, then start out in the morning?” I wondered how far the trading post was.
“We will. Better to start fresh, two hours before dawn. We have two days to travel and no ogres, so the going will be slow,” Mira said.
“Did you say ogres?” I asked, making sure I wasn’t hearing things.
“Yes, of course. How do you think we pull heavy wagons?” Mira asked me, surprised. “You don’t know what an ogre is? What moved your goods around? Hightec?”
“Among other things, yeah. We used tech, but—ogres? Big green guys with horns?” I asked. The planet had gotten weirder while I slept, and I considered the virus yet again. No wonder the idea of not having healthy children offended them. They lived in a world where fucking ogres were oxen.
“No, silly. They’re blue,” Bel said in a reasonable tone.
“Of course they are. And they’re tall?” I asked, still not quite believing it. Then I looked around at the howling wasteland and shook my head. Of course, there were ogres.
“Half again as tall as you and thickly built. Blue pelts but light in the desert. The mountain ogres are much hairier,” Mira said.
“They stink,” Bel added, wrinkling her pert nose.
“I imagine they would. What a world.” I lifted my shovel to strike again, thinking of all the questions I had. There would be time enough for all of them out here in the Empty. “Tell me about ogres,” I said, as the shovel bit hard.
5
Bel fell asleep instantly when her watch ended, just like the night before, but this time, she had midwatch. That meant I would see the sunrise again, a fact that would ordinarily have pissed me off but not tonight.
I wasn’t dog-ass tired, despite digging like one all day, and after five hours of sleep, I was on the verge of boredom. I touched Bel’s arm to let her know I was on duty, but she was already snoring. “Good soldier, there,” I muttered. She knew what was important.
The moon was a searchlight above me, brighter than I remembered. A light wind carried precious little noise, though I heard some kind of bird high enough up that I couldn’t tell what it was.
“It’s a moonhawk,” Mira said from the darkness.
“Didn’t hear you get up,” I said, slowing my heart. She was utterly silent, a quality I found unnerving and admirable. “They hunt at night?” I peered up into the moonlight, noting the blue shadows around us.
“Only at night, and only during fat moons. They’re harmless. Small, about as long as your arm, unlike the other ones,” she said. Bel snored and rolled over as Mira smiled at her.
“That’s a relief. I like adding to the list of things that aren’t deadly,” I told her.
She was very still, standing there in the white light of our shared moon. She was also naked. When she saw my expression, her brow lifted, mocking but not cruel. The light flowed over her, making shadows and curves into a tantalizing map of everything she was offering me.
I reached out to take her hand, because I’m not stupid, regardless of what my drill instructor told me back in basic. Her fingers were warm, the skin roughened by work, but her touch was light and feminine. Just like the rest of her—perfect for the moment.
“Shhh,” she said, putting a hand over my mouth, then kissing me into silence. “Been a while.”
“For me? Or you?” I mumbled, hoping both were true. I also hoped the dawn was far off because the touch of her body was incredible. She straddled me there on the sand, not ten feet from Bel, who slept away the night while her goddess of a sister got ready to mount me.
“Pants,” I said while she nodded into our kiss, never letting her lips break from mine. In the first true test of my new muscles, I pulled my pants off with one hand while holding her aloft, my fingers sinking into her soft ass like I was kneading dough.
“Ready,” she said, and it wasn’t a question. I’d been ready since my eyes saw her naked perfection, so my answer was to thrust up into her while pulling her down. I thought of the tube, and the lies that brought me here to the Empty, along with the world this woman survived in and why she gave herself to me.
None of it mattered because I understood her need in my blood.
She moved slowly atop of me, taking direction with my touch on either hip, her spine turning like a snake as I let her do the work, hitting the spots where we both could agree to be at the end of each heated moment. Her breasts were in my face, my mouth, my hands, everywhere, and all things lit with that perfect moon as I leaned back to pull her on me, legs locked together in a grip that only loosened when I felt her first shuddering orgasm.
Her squeal was tiny, but enough to make her eyes fly open in surprise as I pushed higher into her. It was time—my time and hers, all at once.
I rocked back again, feeling all of the confusion from my awakening explode inside her, an electric sensation that shook us both together. I started looking for an angle to curl around her, just as she made to lift off of me.
My body had other ideas.
“This is new,” I said to myself, but she heard, her breath leaving in a huff of surprise. I was rock hard again and in no mood to quit, my blood sizzling with nanobots who clearly had my best interests at heart.
“New to me, too,” she hissed. We began to move, and I stole a glance over her freckled shoulder at the gray line of dawn, now approaching. She understood my gaze. “Do we have time?”
“We’ll make time.” I flipped her under me to see the moon in her eyes, lips parted as I drove down into her welcome hips, knowing that whatever happened next, things weren’t just different because of this—they were better. There was no apology in her eyes as she took her pleasure and gave me mine.
Whatever this new world might be, it was in need of someone like me, and I aimed to deliver.
6
I began the day with a bang.
It would end that way, too. By the time Bel and Mira were awake and moving, I’d had time to ponder the shell my crude map was drawn on. The prospect of digging up an entire civilization brought my situation into focus in a way that the landscape could not, even when I considered the previous night with Mira under a desert moon. I was in an alien place, a time not tethered to anything from my own life except for what lay underneath our feet, covered by the endless march of sand and grit that hid everything I’d ever known.
The sand might be an enemy of Bel and Mira, but it was my friend. There was an entire world beneath us, and I had enough knowledge of it to keep us in whatever passed for money until the sun burned out, if we could survive the desert.
“I think it’s time to see a little more of my new home,” I told the dunes.
“It is,” Mira agreed from behind me. I knew she was there but waited until she spoke. After our night together, I wanted her to come to me on her own terms. She reached out to touch my shoulder softly. “We have enough to trade at the post, and it would be good to sleep with one eye open instead of two.”
She was stunning in the morning light, so I took a moment to admire her frankly, before speaking. To her credit, she stood proudly under my assessment, only breaking eye contact when a distant cry broke the silent air.
“Bird?” I asked. Whatever it was, it was angry.
“Of a sort. Scavengers like u
s, but meaner. They rarely land unless they’ve found food. They drift on currents, usually in pairs.” Squinting to the south, her emerald eyes narrowed in the growing light. “That one is alone. It’s merely a juvenile.”
I turned to see the outline of something like a condor, but three times the size of any bird I’d ever seen or heard of. Circling lazily at middle height, the sun gleaming on its dusty brown feathers with wings that ended in white tips. The head was short, broad, and crowned in red feathers. It flapped once, dismissing us and moving off in a sedate loop to vanish in the distance.
“Tell me about the predators out here, Mira,” I said. The dunes were far from barren, speckled with shards of bone and other items. It was a sea of sand, and like any ocean, the bottom was a catchall.
Bel snorted as she busied herself packing. The sisters broke camp in seconds, a feat the marine in me appreciated to no end. “Which ones? The ones underneath, or the ones in the sky?”
“You forgot the water,” Mira said.
“Water? There’s water out here?” I was amazed. The Empty seemed well, empty, even if it was sprinkled with ruins. As to water, I’d seen none, nor heard Bel or Mira mention it.
“Of a sort. Small lakes, like scars. They rise from tough rocks, and most are claimed by tribes, not of our own. There are trees and beasts around them, and even in them. You can see them from a distance,” Mira said.
“Oasis. That’s what we called them. Never thought I’d see them here,” I told her. “Will we see one on the way to the post, or are they to be avoided?”
“We won’t on this trip in, but in many directions, the lakes are the only way to survive. Cactus is always on the eastern edge of the lakes. You can tap them for water, even if those who hold the lake are in a mood to fight,” Mira said. “The things under the water are always in a mood to fight.”
It made sense that a tribe would protect their water, even if there were dangers living underneath the surface. It made more sense to let travelers tap cacti for their water supplies. You could still trade and protect your main asset at once. It was a system I’d seen before on deployment. Tribalism was the norm, not a rarity. There was security in numbers, which meant that we three were at risk, even with the sisters’ experience.
“I’ve seen that kind of thing before, but I haven’t seen the creatures out here. You said there are water beasts. What kind?” I asked, expecting almost any answer.
“Hammerheads,” came Bel’s answer.
“Sharks? In an oasis?” I hadn’t expected that. Then again, I didn’t know what to expect at all from my new home since I was the stranger.
“With legs. That’s the problem. They don’t stop at the water’s edge. They can come out, into the dry if only for a minute. The sun will kill them, but they can hunt the shores at night. That’s why the lake tribes live up, off the ground,” Bel said.
“Landsharks. Fucking landsharks. Beautiful,” I said. “I suppose there are spiders the size of a building, too?”
“Oh, not at all. They don’t get any larger than a man, and you can see their webs from quite a distance. It’s the worms that are trouble out here,” Mira chirped, tucking a shovel into her pack.
“Of course there are spiders.” I rolled my eyes up to the sky, letting the weirdness of it all wash over me. “Two-day journey, you say?”
Both sisters nodded, still busy breaking camp. I wondered how we would bring the cart along since there were no ogres, or at least none that I could see.
“Two long days, but we can travel by night, too. The moon is good right now, and shadows will be hard-edged. We’ll see danger before it sees us,” Mira said.
I considered the cart. It was little, with two wheels and a bed that was just big enough to carry a small person. The salvage inside it was an array of items that made good sense—knives, wire, a hammer, some metal, and what appeared to be a tablet computer with a shattered screen. The memory core was in my pocket, safe from the elements. “Why not leave the cart here, and I’ll carry the salvage?”
“Carts cost money,” Mira replied.
“We’re coming back here, though. Right? Since I have the map and we know there’s salvage to be had?” I asked.
“Can we make a pack for me from that cloth?” I asked. There was faded blue cloth in the cart, sturdy and thick. It looked homespun, with heavy stitching and a size that would work for a rucksack, if I used some of the scavenged wire to bind it together.
“We could, but,” Bel began. “Our cart would mean we were here. Jumpers would know, and dig if they found it.”
“Then cover it again, but use rocks to weight down the camouflage and leave it behind. We can move faster without it,” I said, imagining myself tied to the cart like an ox. I didn’t like the idea of my first waking days spent working like a beast of burden, especially when I was grieving.
It was a low hum in my mind, but I felt the loss. I knew my life—and my world, really—was gone forever, but I’d been alone before going into the tube, so my current situation was little more than a giant leap forward. I didn’t have a family to miss. I didn’t mourn for the earth, because it was still here, even if in a different form. As to a crushing sense of loss, it wasn’t there, and I was okay with that. The bones of my life had been buried for a long time, and I had more pressing issues to deal with than letting myself be taken over by senseless grief.
“Jack?” I heard Mira’s voice pulling me out of my haze, so I turned to see her watching me. Bel stood quietly, head tilted.
“Just thinking. There’s a lot of my life underneath this sand.”
“Almost all of it, except the important part,” Mira told me with a brilliant smile.
“And a lot of it valuable. We could dig here for the rest of our lives if we wanted to,” I said, but the words rang hollow. I didn’t sleep away the years to become a scavenger. I had to look around and decide what was next once we arrived at the trading post. I’d done my share of digging as a Marine. There was no need to die with a shovel in my hand, not with a world filled with opportunity and women like Mira and Bel.
“But you don’t want to?” Mira asked.
I shook my head. “No need. Not if we find Hightec that works. I suspect things have fallen apart enough that some tech applied in the right area can make a life for us.” I wondered about the conditions in the trading post, recalling what I saw previously in villages during my tours overseas.
“The post is not as orderly as the city, but still better than out here,” Bel said.
“How far is the city?” I wondered if it was an actual city or just occupied ruins.
“From the post? Five days in clear weather. The road is usually clear, and there’s water all along. You wish to go?” Bel asked, and there was something hopeful in her voice.
“Who waits in the city for you, Bel?” I asked, and she blushed.
“Not a person,” she admitted, but her smile was shy. “A thing.”
“She likes the concert, where we can dance. It’s a bit different than out here. No masks, no armor. We can relax, well, not completely, but a little more than on the dunes,” Mira said as her sister grinned.
I tried to picture the curvy Bel dancing and liked the thought. Shaped like a teenage boy’s ideal woman, she had large, round breasts and plush hips; whereas Mira was taller, with higher breasts and long legs. I admired them both and considered the presence of culture in the city. That meant humanity hadn’t gone all the way down, no matter what it seemed like out here in the Empty.
“There are buildings in the city? Old buildings?” I asked, watching Bel’s hand move with mechanical precision. While we were talking, she worked the blue cloth into a serviceable rucksack with two straps. Handing it over to me, she strained to lift it with both hands. In only my one hand, it was feather light, swinging up on my shoulders without any effort. I’d been strong before, if a little tired and worn, but now my muscles were something more, and this was the third sign my body was something new to be reckoned wit
h.
“Are we ready?” I asked. There was little evidence of our camp except the for fresh sand, and we were careful to smooth out the piles from our excavations. In hours, the wind would scour away any signs we were here at all.
“We are. Bel, to the east.” Mira pointed, and we began our trek, but not before Mira handed me two long blades. They were heavier than machetes but well balanced in their hide scabbards. “Put these on your hip mounts. When you’ve got the pack, you can’t carry them on your shoulders, which is how most fighters do, but your belt will have to work for now. These are yours.” She looked at Bel, who nodded in agreement. “We needed to know if you were going to stay before giving you something this valuable. Hightec we can find, but these blades are hard to get.”
“And you think I’m safe now?” I asked her.
“No, I don’t. I think you’re a dangerous man who doesn’t really know who he is, but we are not to worry.” Mira pointed to the Empty. “That place should worry.”
“And the post, too,” Bel added.
We were walking along a sandy ridge, tailing away from the ruins into the east. The sun was brutal, but I’d felt worse, and the hike would be a chance to learn. “You said ogres would pull the cart, but I don’t see any. Where would you find them?”
“Over this next ridge is an oasis. There will be ogres and all manner of things since we have salt,” Mira said.
I didn’t understand. “Salt? To trade for ogres?”
“No, to hire them. They can understand some things, and they need salt,” Mira replied. She pulled a chunk of salt out of her own pack; the crystals gleaming rose and brown in the sunlight. “For this much salt, we can hire one or two ogres to pull the cart. They work for things, if not money. I’m not sure they understand what coins are, but again, they need salt.”
“They like coins, but they’re just pretty things to them,” Bel said over her shoulder. As she spoke, the oasis came into view. It had been a short walk away from the ruins all along, hidden by the ridge we walked on.
Cacti and other living things, all huddled near the blue scar of water that reflected the sky. There were also several birds, both flying and walking. Something splashed in the water, then dove, leaving enormous ripples that broke the glassy surface.
Future Reborn Page 4
