“Good enough for me. Silk, light ‘em up,” I said, grabbing the door handle and leaning back as my boots scrabbled to find a grip in the sand. When the soles of my feet settled, I wrenched the door with a shriek, metal protesting as rust and grit fell away in shattered clumps. “So much for stealth.”
“If anything is in there, it’s long dead,” Silk said, but she wasn’t entirely sold on the idea.
“Unless there’s access somewhere else, and this entrance is closed,” Mira said. She had the air of someone who’s seen too many surprises in the Empty, but her weapon was steady, face devoid of fear.
“One more. Give me some room,” I warned. With a savage jerk, I pulled the door fully open as sunlight streamed into air that was stagnant with untold years. Motes of dust swirled before me, drifting inward as the hot desert air began changing places with the cooler, dry air of the ancient hallway.
Silence greeted us, but I stood still as my eyes adjusted to the gloom. “Ready?”
Mira and Silk said nothing, but stepped forward to flank me. I went in, lifting my feet in a vain effort to stop dust from rising. There was sand near the door, but it faded as we went on, and in ten feet, the bland hallway was more a time capsule than a relic.
“What is this place?” Mira asked, running her fingers over a smooth wall. The hallway went on for at least thirty feet with only a security window and desk breaking the monotony. The chair was still there, toppled over in haste long ago when someone let panic get hold of their emotions.
Then I saw the bullet holes.
“Gunshots,” I said, pointing to the wall. A spray of holes, arcing wildly upward. Someone had been using the spray and pray method, meaning that whatever happened, it had been fast and chaotic.
“There’s your shooter,” Silk said.
The skeleton was still in uniform, though much of the cloth had decayed into little more than faded patches. The hair was still close to the skull. He’d been black-haired, short, strong looking. His left arm was detached, broken in three places and a meter from his body.
“What did that?” Silk asked. “Looks like it was torn right away. Where’s his foot?”
“Missing,” I said. I hadn’t seen his right foot was gone, as his leg was facing away from us.
“Not human,” Mira said, lifting her gun as she waved the torch in short, nervous twitches. “Something did this to him.”
“It’s okay. This was a long time ago. All quiet now,” I told her. She calmed, but only a little. The base wasn’t just a tomb, it was a the site of a brutal murder. I understood her feelings. “We go in each room, scan, then back. We need to move quickly in case the air isn’t good enough, okay?”
“Got it,” Mira said. Silk nodded, her eyes round with concerned interest.
Moving steadily, we entered a second hall, lined with doors on both sides. At regular intervals, we would open, scan, and move on, finding little except for decrepit office space or meeting rooms. Whatever this wing of the building had been, the primary purpose was corporate, not research. We needed to change venues.
I found our opportunity on the other side of another security station, this one manned by two skeletal soldiers, their bones slumped in frayed combat armor. Both were killed from behind, their angle of rest pitched forward in an oddly peaceful way. There was no blood spray, but then, I didn’t know how long blood would last, even in a closed building.
“Lots of bones, and no idea who did it,” Mira said.
“What about that?” Silk asked. She pointed to a series of marks along the wall, low enough that I had to bend close with a torch to light them up.
Claw marks.
“Something went wrong here,” I said in the understatement of the century.
Silk gave me a measured look, running a finger over my bicep. “What if it went exactly the way your people expected?”
“I—good point.” I levered my gun up, waving everyone forward with the torch. It felt wrong to speak, even though nothing could answer. Not in that place. “Down the stairs. Better chance of something useful, I think.”
We descended two flights of stairs, past a bank of elevators with two more security stations but no bones. The floor opened into two larger sections, divided by a plexiglass wall. By torchlight, everything gleamed with the dull finish of dusty surgical steel.
I knew the layout, because I’d seen it before. A clinic, and not unlike the one where I’d been put under by Marsten. This one was five times larger, but there was no evidence of sleep tubes. Dusty circles spotted the floor at regular intervals, above steel tables. Peering close, I bent to pick something out of the gritty residue—a needle.
“They were using nanobots here,” I said, holding up the needle for Silk to take. She examined it, handed it to Mira, and wiped her hand on her leg absently, as if the item had been toxic. In a way, it was.
“This is what they put in our blood?” Mira asked, looking up at the open spaces above each table. A wheel of instruments hovered in a folded position, dusty but within reach of a doctor or nurse. It was a production line, but for humans instead of machines, and I knew that whatever had been done to me started here.
I also knew they’d gone too far, and that was what killed the guards upstairs. And beyond.
“A later version, I think. I’m faster and stronger, and my body can change to meet certain needs, like speaking or running or—”
“Or fucking,” Mira said with a grin.
“Or that,” I said, stifling a laugh. It seemed rude to celebrate something among the dead, but the Empty made tough people. It was me who had to change, not Mira, and I reminded myself that she had survived a place that would kill anyone from my generation.
“What about them?” Silk asked in a muffled tone. She was far enough away that I had to squint into her torch. At the edge of the lab stood a door, ajar but on its hinges. “Two more in here and something you should see.”
“What is it?” I asked, moving toward her.
“Hightec. And—Jack, can you read this?” Silk asked, her voice soft with awe.
“I can. Seems she was kind enough to leave us a note.” In the debris of her uniform was a colonel’s insignia next to a pair of ranks, only one that made sense. “Well, this is bullshit.”
“What’s that?” Mira asked.
Silk lifted the officer’s brass, picking them up and putting them down after a careful look. “This was a leader?”
“And then some,” I told her. “Probably one of the ranking officers on base, just under the general, but this rank is bullshit. It’s the symbol for a dentist.”
“What is a...dentist?” Mira asked, speaking the unfamiliar term slowly.
“Like a doctor, but for teeth. They weren’t working on teeth here, which means her rank was a cover story. This was a base in a base, hidden in plain sight. It’s brilliant. They put a cutting-edge program in front of everyone, and then it all went to shit when the virus broke free, I think. Let me see what our friend had to say before she left,” I said, staring at the letter. It was yellowed and frail; I knew touching it might destroy the paper, so I leaned over, careful to keep the sparks from the torch at a safe distance.
“Read it out loud for us?” Silk asked.
“Oh—right.” I felt a flash of irritation at my mistake. The note was in my language, not theirs, the letters written in a precise, unhurried hand. I looked at the name badge, deciding I would have liked Colonel Tavis, who kept her head when the world was falling apart around her.
Clearing my throat, I began to read, and in a few words, I began to understand what happened to my world.
“I’ve got three minutes to write this, whoever you are. The gas is released and the fans will kill everything on base in hopes of stopping it here, but I doubt it. We’re on lockdown, but I can hear the screams topside, so I know they’re free. We tried to stop the virus in mid-shift, but it didn’t work. If anything, it left them feral, uncommunicative, and stronger than ever before. I lost sixteen peopl
e in two days, and now, we’ve lost the state. I think the world is next, but I won’t be around to see it happen. Neither will my husband or children, nor anyone else I’ve ever cared about.”
“Stronger than you?” Mira asked. I shrugged. We would find out in the forest, I was sure of it.
I kept reading. “There are six facilities where we brought nanotech to full use. This is the first facility, three more were hidden in clinics where it was easier to convince test subjects they were doing something for the space program. We were never going to the stars. We were building warriors to fight what was coming because a bad actor decided they were going to create a virus that broke humanity into a prism, with each color being a beast that would kill our world just as surely as a plague. Some were smart, some were vicious, some were just big and stupid, reverting to the state of animals. None are human anymore, and I don’t think we can ever put the genie back in the bottle. I’m sorry we failed. I’m sorry I failed. The closest facility with a working forge is to the east of here. Find the forge. Find the plans. And if you’re reading this, avenge us. The forge will run for millennia, but you must control it before it can reproduce the nanobots. In the desk below, I left a gift. If it’s within thirty centuries, you still have time. Don’t waste it. We were so close to being perfect. Like gods, but isn’t that the way it always goes? We flew too—”
The letter ended, and I felt the world closing in around me. With a shaking hand, I reached down, pulling the metal desk drawer open on rails that shattered after a hard tug. Inside, a plain brown envelope bulged with something.
“She left it for me,” I said, but I knew it could have been anyone. I touched the envelope, watching as it flaked away in pieces to reveal a small, metal square with two buttons on top.
“What is it?” Silk asked, her tone reverent. It was clearly technology, but so plain it confused her.
“It’s an atomic clock, I think.” I placed it on the desk, moving the colonel’s finger bones aside with a gentle push. She was long gone, but I felt a sense of connection to this woman who had done so much as poison gas flooded her base. My finger twitched with uncertainty, then I pushed down on the left button.
The screen flared to life, dull but visible. 19 July 4038.
I went to one knee, the room spinning as the air left my chest. Sweat broke free across my face and neck, a cold chill running wild through me like a fever dream as the years fell away in a flurry. My life wasn’t just gone—it was ancient, almost a myth. It was closer to the pyramids of Egypt than to where I stood, and it took everything I had not to howl at the sky like some demented beast.
When I could breathe, I noticed Silk and Mira nearby, though my eyes were cast down, staring at the scattered toe bones of an officer who crushed my past with her simple gift.
“Jack, what is it?” Mira asked softly.
“Do you use a calendar? I never thought to ask,” I said through gritted teeth. I had to get my shit together, and there was no time like the present.
“We do. It’s Summer 1641. Kassos has a clock keeper, some crone who shrieks about time, the sun, and stars. Never seen her, but she’ll keep on until her daughter takes over, I think. Why?” Mira replied.
“1641?” I asked, rising to my knees, then standing with a suppressed groan. I felt like shit, but it was better than being dead.
“We keep years by summers since the winter is just a rainy season here. Snow to the north, but not here. Too hot,” Mira explained.
“There’s snow to the west, but that’s in the mountains, and you wouldn’t want to go there without a damned good reason. Snowcats and other things up high, above the treeline. I’ve seen it. Beautiful but littered with wagons,” Silk said.
“1641,” I felt myself repeat. “That means we lost three centuries after the virus.” I couldn’t imagine what kind of hellhole the world had been if this was an improved version with clocks and calendars. “I’m glad I slept through it,” I said with a rueful grin.
“Not many people made it at all. I heard stories of people going a hundred days without seeing anyone else, and there are still dead zones in between the trade routes and roads.” Mira said.
“How do you know of the mountains?” I asked Silk.
“Same way I know of everything before I came to the outpost. I was there,” she said. “I saw so much before I came of age. I can’t say I miss it, but I miss the discovery. Having you and Mira means we can do some of the best parts, and maybe even survive it.”
“If I can get over a ghost clock nearly making me faint.” I shook my head in disgust, slipping the clock into my pack. “For good luck. I’ll always know when I am.”
“Better to know where you are, but we can handle that. Keep looking, or have you seen enough?” Mira asked.
“We go back to the lab, strip what we can, and then sleep under the stars. I’ve had enough dead air for one day,” I said.
“I’m sorry your people are gone, Jack,” Mira said, her voice almost a whisper.
I smiled at her honesty as we turned to leave the dead colonel and her revelations. “They were your people, too. The saddest part of it all was it didn’t have to happen.”
“What can you do about it?” Silk asked. She was giving me a way out from my own past, but I didn’t need it. Not now, and not ever. This had not been my mistake, and I knew it.
I shouldered my pack as we left the room, eyes ahead on the dark. “I can help us rebuild, and make certain nothing like this ever happens again.”
“How will you do that?” Silk asked.
“Simple,” I said, my mind made up. “If we see anyone playing god, we stop them, no matter what. Our world has enough bones.”
28
It was a bad place but a good haul, and we left with more than when we descended into the dark. I carried more than just the clock; I had the weight of truth with me now, and there would never be any way to forget it.
After two hours, there was enough distance between us and the ghosts of Alatus to make camp under the growing stars. The moon was bright enough to travel but rest was in order. We’d earned it, and I had to remind myself that Mira and Silk didn’t have the benefit of nanotech to rid them of the worst effects that exhaustion could bring.
“Good enough here,” I said as we crested a small rise. We were heading east by dead reckoning, at least until daybreak. I knew the forest would be visible at a distance, and Mira was certain birds would lead us directly to it. Water was too precious this far out in the Empty. Nature would guide us, even if the destination was far from natural.
I built a small fir while Mira left us briefly, returning with a rabbit the size of a dog. “Saw his tracks back a bit, knew he’d be out. Easy shot,” she said.
“Shot with what?” I asked, not having heard a thing.
Mira twirled her knife and thrust it into the sand. “A slower bullet, but sharp just the same.” She set to work skinning the beast but saved its hide. “For a pillow. They tan well.”
“Salt cure, or...?” I asked her, letting my voice trail off on the first choice and hoping she was going to agree.
“We’re not animals, Jack. Only the far eastern traders still use piss to cure things,” Silk said with mock dignity. Her half smile told me what she thought of the traders, but Mira held up a hand when we started laughing.
“Urine is cheaper than salt,” Mira informed me.
“It’s also urine. Not that I’m against using what we have on hand, but—a pillow? Stuffed with what, exactly?” I asked her.
“Folded in upon itself. Small but fuzzy, and damned warm in the cooler nights. Don’t get many hares near the post; they were hunted out a few summers back when the trade routes closed for a month due to war. Too many hungry people around, and they haven’t come back. Not yet, anyway,” Mira said.
“I have a lot to learn,” I admitted, then cut my eyes east, where the echoes of my world came together, making something new and terrible. “So do both of you. I’m glad we have each other
to do it.”
“Are you okay? After the clock thing and all the bones?” Silk asked.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be normal again. Part of me is better than I ever was, but that’s because of the very thing that killed some of my people.” I inhaled deeply, then tried to exhale some of the tension in my body. I was doing decently well given the fact that I just found out I was two millennia into the future and some kind of blood-borne cyborg. Overall, things were about as good as I could hope given my brutal new reality.
“Do you think you’re going to turn into a monster?” Mira asked into the space between us. The fire crackled, small and hot, fat sizzling on the rabbit as I tried to give her an honest answer. I didn’t have anything except two knives and my word, so I took my time.
“No,” I answered, giving her a level gaze.
“Why?” Silk asked.
“I was in that tube for more than two thousand years, but I wasn’t dead, just suspended in time. Even with what little activity went on in my body, if the ‘bots were going to turn me into something else, you would have had a very different experience when the tube opened,” I said to Mira. “I know how I feel, how I think. There’s nothing in me that isn’t exactly who I was all those years ago. I’m just better. I think of the ‘bots as a kind of medicine. In the right dose, it can cure you. In the wrong dose, it kills.”
“What’s it curing you from, Jack?” Silk’s deep green eyes gleamed in the firelight, open and curious.
“Being ordinary. I think being human can get you killed here, and sometimes, even being better than everyone else still might not be enough,” I said.
“And you think—” Mira started, but I held up a hand for silence.
I heard a noise that was so delicate, it wasn’t even a real sound. Just the hint of something sliding on sand, a whisper in the starry night that could have been anything, but it wasn’t. Staring into the dark beyond the fire, I saw them, skulking toward us with murderous intent. The wolves had followed us, at a distance far enough to mask their approach until the very end.
Future Reborn Page 17
