Rutger

by Cari Silverwood

  Below it in smaller capitals was:

  JUST MARRIED

  She smirked. Humor was the perfect answer to her moodiness.

  Apparently, everyone in the group was bondmated to another beaster, or to her, though Locke and Kiko were not attached to anyone. No humans were included except for Maura, and she had a past that tied in with the Maelstrom project in a roundabout way. It was the only solution, considering the long journey and the enforced long absence from Worshipper Quarter. Any bondmated humans would have reverted to being Lure zombies if left un-fucked for that long. She eyed Willow and Mads and was convinced those two were a pair. Maybe even a recent hook-up, considering the writing?

  Toother was sitting on his haunches, his soft fur making him look like a stuffed toy blown up to elephantine proportions. He waited patiently, and Willow thought he’d be happy running alongside the vehicle. If he ran out of puff, maybe he’d catch up?

  Mo, where was Little Mo? Ah, clinging to the roof.

  She slid in beside Rutger on the back seat and slammed the door. The sound of a car engine turning over was sweet and weirdly reminiscent of the past. As with most of her memories of happenings, of anal sex even, and ohmigod at that, she knew she’d heard it before, or done it, or whatever, but could not recall the exact circumstances.

  A bummer considering knowing all about anal was likely a self-preservation thing when it came to getting fucked there by this ginormous beaster. She followed the curves of his beautiful blue horns upward. They stuck out above, far past where the car roof should be.

  The car lurched forward then stalled. Mads’s stark white thatch of hair jolted forward, back and her ribs protested the jolt.

  Rutger slid his arm along the back of the seat and drew her to his side, his voice rumbling directly into her skin. “Don’t be afraid of Mads. I’m told he does have a licence to drive.”

  “Hah!” Mads called back. “I’m rusty after five years, and this car’s battery is ready to give up. Kiko and Locke worked on all the engines to try to get them running well but they really need more done.”

  “And the fuel isn’t rancid?”

  “Rancid?” Cyn sat forward. “It goes off?”

  “It does go off. And hell no, Rutger, we wouldn’t doing this if we didn’t have good fuel. We got lucky and found some tanks the government held in reserve. Most of it’s gone by now. We were frivolous in the early days. Remember how we used to explore the quarter in cars, when we could? Now, trekking by foot is better.”

  “And sustainable,” Willow chipped in.

  It seemed odd to be listening to this amiable chat. Willow had gone from friend at the picnic to judge, and it left her feeling betrayed.

  What about Vargr then? He accused me. But I shot him.

  Mmm. She didn’t know that answer. It wasn’t me?

  The car took off again, more smoothly, going at a fair speed of maybe ten mph. Faster would risk a crash if road conditions had deteriorated. Cyn looked back to check the others were following and they were.

  Car travel. Everything that was once taken for granted was now amazing. She’d kill for a cappuccino, or a good hairdresser, she thought, winding a lock of her inky black hair over a finger. She stared at her hand. A spot of thickened and shiny skin on the top of her wrist made her want to pick at it to see why it was there. Darkish red. A mole? Except it looked like a fish scale.

  So? Now she was turning into a fish? Oh, okay then, nothing new.

  Fuck.

  She’d had enough of her weirdness. Wait and see because it might vanish tomorrow, though that was probably a false hope. It’d be there. A week or two of this road-trip and there’d be no more guessing, if Big Daddy was truly a database of Maelstrom. If.

  Cyn massaged the back of her neck, letting her head flop back and staring at the above but not really looking at what was left of the ceiling. How many stories down were they? How many were up there above, piled over them? She’d lost count, and she kept massaging her neck and thinking about how no one worried the scraper might one day decide to collapse on them, crumbling like a stack of pancakes made of fairy dust. These buildings wouldn’t last forever without maintenance.

  Worrying was for the birds.

  With her fingertips she absentmindedly traced a line across the back of her neck. Somewhere, about where she was touching, was a tattoo that spelled out Maelstrom. Why had she been tattooed? It was as if she was owned by the project. Pet Cyn, reporting for duty, sir. Almost every beaster was ex-military, so the odds were good that she was too, despite her porn-girl, octopus ass-tattoo.

  Little Mo was still up top, holding onto the cut edges of the metal roof and leaning into the breeze like a dog sticking its head out the window.

  Through the dirty windshield, she could see the road was clear of debris and broken-down vehicles. Someone had pushed the defunct ones aside. Of all the roads she’d seen of this size, this one looked almost pristine for these post-apocalyptic times.

  “They’ll use a horn signal if they fall behind.” Willow strapped on her seat belt and observed the road ahead before continuing. “I’ve organized this down to sharpening the pencils and shining the car’s pretty bits, so I pray this goes well and that we return safely.”

  “We have done our best. Bless this road convoy and every ass on every seat?” Mads said to her.

  “Yes. Anything that helps us get there and back.” She pointed at the silver cat leaping forward at the point of the car’s hood. “Look, we can pretend we’re royalty. Who wants to be queen or king?”

  “Trailers for sale or rent…” Mads sang and was rewarded with a groan from Willow. “Heyyy, King of the Road, yeah? Was it by Johnny Cash?”

  “Hell, no. Someone else.”

  “Who then?”

  An argument began that only ended when Rutger said, “Roger Miller.”

  She was still thinking about the silver cat because it meant absolutely nothing to her and yet she knew it should mean something. Suddenly, it did.

  “This is a Jag?” A British car of heritage and poshness, and she’d not recognized it when she should have, with or without a roof. The silver cat was the Jaguar brand’s hood ornament and had been for a hundred years or more.

  Rutger laughed at her question. “Yes. It is.”

  “Okay.”

  Forgetting her past was one thing, but this was a chunk of steeped-in knowledge gone bye-byes for a while, until it had clicked back into place. Shit. She hoped it wasn’t another sign of change, especially not one that said her memory was going backward. Yesterday she’d not been able to remember the word schedule, in spite it being in front of her on a piece of paper.

  Willow had written the word. Then there’d been not remembering how to button her shirt the day before that. Super early Alzheimer’s? Nanomachines eating her brain? After a while of going around and around with those thoughts, she snuggled into Rutger and watched the apocalyptic scenery pass by. Walls, walls, dead cars, skeletons, graffiti on a wall about Armageddon, and a few sparrows that zipped by, chirping madly.

  If humans went extinct, if the Ghoul Lords left the earth, everything else might flourish again. There was a plus to every bad situation, if you thought really hard.

  “We need a name for this motley crew,” Cyn mused. “I vote for the Road-trip Band.”

  With a nod, Rutger agreed and rocked her head where she’d rested it on him. “As you wish, princess.” She grinned up at him.

  “That’ll do me also,” Mads said loudly, over the engine sounds.

  Willow raised her thumb.

  “Road-trip Band it is.” Armageddon Crushers was her alt title, but they needed some levity. “Good.”

  They reached the bridge by the end of the night and paused there. Daylight hours were coming, so the wisest choice was to wait for night. The roadway entered a dark hole where the last scraper of this quarter ended and the bridge began. Toother had kept pace with the cars, bounding along, his long hair flying. They were all here, disembarki
ng, staring at where they must go next.

  The bridge entry bore the marks of some awful disaster—and that scenario was as common as muck in these times. Oh my, a hundred skeletons on my path to adventure? Pffft. That hobbit had it easy with his big spider. Now if this were a functioning Starbucks she’d be a-fucking-mazed.

  A massive number of cars were strewn and packed onto the road. Three high in some places. Maybe some giants had played Jenga? It was an effective barrier and looked as ominous as a packet of corn flakes with weevils pouring out the top. Make that roaches pouring out. Several of those were running along the wall next to Cyn.

  She eyed them dubiously, wondering when her stomach and taste buds, and brain, had decided bugs looked edible, even scrumptious.

  “Are we eating?” She placed her hand over her middle.

  “Sure. Let’s make camp and get some hot food a hundred yards back!” Willow declared. “We’ll have a rotation of guards so we can all get some sleep. Tomorrow, early dusk, we go in there, cross over, and find ourselves in a brand-new quarter.”

  The grumbling from many reminded Cyn of what she’d observed before. These beasters had set down roots and hated traveling past their boundaries. Though Vargr had adapted, she had caught him looking wistfully back toward Mercantor Quarter.

  Little Mo toddled up on his dinky metal limbs, stopping near the ankles of her new leather boots. She really should see if he wanted that rust polished out or painted over. Blue or purple, hmmm. “Detect anything like stinkers, Mo?”

  “No, Miss Cyn. Nothing of that type. Some noises in there match the frequency and rhythm of snoring. I believe you will encounter more beasters inside the bridge.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Not so bad then. “Would you like a paint job? The rust is going to spread.”

  Little Mo looked taken aback, somehow, limbs rising then halting, dead still.

  “I could rustle up some sandpaper and nail polish, Cyn.” Mads winked at her.

  “You could?”

  “Not mine, of course.” He grinned. Then he showed her his nails, and these were actually retractable claws, which was news to her—she’d not realized. He had skulls and flowers and all sorts of patterns on the claws. “Willow’s doing. Blue, red, black? I have white too.”

  “Uhhh. What say you?” She eyed Mo. “Though purple would look good. Any purple available?”

  “Sure.”

  “I will accept purple. Also red or black also, please. If I may.”

  Was it her imagination or were Mo’s speech patterns changing? “Done.”

  Mo totally demanded a ladybug pattern because he was more than a bit spidery as he was now. Camouflage should be dark though. Black spots on purple. Yes, that would be it. She could do this tonight. Sleeping had become arduous anyway, ever since the day she killed the Ghoul Lord.

  Chapter 7

  There’d been a few mutinous Ghoul Lords, but Avidex had them under his tentacle now.

  They feared to lose half their bodies as he had, knowing they might never reach for the stars again if their genetic material was insufficient.

  The Queens would scream for the last of them sometime in the next few human-world months. Yet he’d persuaded them, cajoled them, given them slightly false information. Brainless, they were brainless, whereas he had nine brains now. The power was only limited by how many brains he could keep functioning cradled in his body jelly. It taxed him.

  A new problem for them—how to make it possible. The smarter he was the easier it would be to track, catch this Cyn… then eat her slowly after tentacle fucking her, over and over, and dissecting her. Or the other way around. Or all of them. Every combination was possible given time and allowance for healing. Mmm-hmmm.

  The pleasures of the future. He tore himself away from such delicious fantasies. Not yet.

  But soon. Yeah, baby. His mojo was firing on all cylinders today. He wiped one of his triangular-toothed mouths with a tentacle.

  He paced among them, shambled a little, still connected by a tentacle to his main-mind. This human skin-suit wasn’t going below with them but he already knew his fellows were too stupid to see that.

  He’d send them once he had a place pinpointed. The rippers were below already, sectioning the below stories into neat co-ordinates so no area would be missed. Already he knew Cyn had moved on.

  He had to find her before he could take her back.

  Abduct, one of his grammar-obsessed human brains suggested.

  Yes, yes. Abduct. Abduct, tentacle fuck, dissect it while absorbing the screams. Let it heal. Do it all again. Eat. Good enough?

  Well, I do prefer consume rather than eat. And love-making also is more elegant.

  Avidex thought a while before he reached into his body jelly and plucked out that brain then he tossed it to the floor. He watched it expire…die… kick the friggin’ bucket. Shed its mortal coil. That one had clearly had a bug.

  Chapter 8

  They assembled before the bridge, the foot and wing-solders, Willow, their one biotechie, the two weaponsmiths, Maura the token human, and her, Cyn, she was the unknown—not forgetting Toother and Little Mo, of course, with his newly painted shell. The route onto the bridge was restricted to one entry point that Rutger and a few others had widened by brute force.

  Cars were not easy to shift, and nothing, Cyn decided… nothing emphasized how different the world was now better than her feeling safe among these weird people.

  “Let’s go.” Rutger waved them forward before heading to the gap beside a crushed car. Beginning at the car, a pile of motorbikes curved upward into a striking, spoked-wheel and chrome arch, with the other side of the arch coming to rest on the battered cab of a semi.

  It brought to mind the trellised gateway into an English country garden, only this garden was dark and leafless, and the litter underfoot was spark plugs and screws, rotted tire rubber and other lost bits of random humanity, and the occasional bone. If you could drill through the floor to what lay beneath, you’d fall into a chasm and drop for a couple of miles before you hit the ground. It was not very quaint, delightful, or English.

  As she passed through, Cyn trailed her fingers over the leather of a bike seat where it had lodged at waist-height.

  This space continued for many yards, weaving left and right as cunningly as a snake, and she knew someone had designed this. It had to be so. This many cars and trucks jig-sawed together could not be a natural post-apocalyptic barricade.

  Which gave rise to a question. Her man-beast was ahead of her. “Hey, Rutger. Are we post-apocalyptic or are we like… in the middle of an apocalypse?”

  He chuckled, his broad shoulders shaking under his satin-grey shirt. “Tell me when you have it figured.”

  Someone had been clothes foraging last night. She approved. Dress for success and all that. He looked handsome, rugged, and deadly, with his horns, bulk, backpack, and the rifle slung over his shoulder. Everyone looked deadly. Weapons were as common as canned food, and every beaster carried a pack stuffed full of such necessities.

  The cars had been left mostly empty.

  Whatever lay ahead they’d have to scavenge for or use what they carried. There were no shops… wait, no, so very wrong. She clicked her tongue at herself. Duh. Shops were everywhere, though they were tardy about stocking up.

  The space widened, and the few foot-soldiers ahead of them had halted and began to shift to the left and right.

  “Greetings!” said someone with a very deep and gravelly voice. “Fee Fi Fo Fum, and all that. I smell a human. He-he-he.” His words might have been rolled over stones and sledgehammered.

  She moved to see past Rutger and spotted Little Mo using a duct to negotiate the ceiling. The shiny dark purple with black spots rendered him more obvious than a rusty bot but not too obvious. Good. The sandpapering off of rust had taken her an hour.

  Three gigantic beasters stood arrayed across the clearing—the four lanes of roadway bounded by footpaths then dirt-smeared, windowed walls. Beyond th
e windows was air and blurred glimpses of the quarter they wished to reach. These guys were twice as wide as Rutger, which meant they were eye-poppingly immense. Whatever nanites they’d been treated with could not have been the usual. Their skin was distorted by rugged lumps and their muscles and bone structure must have expanded to make them this big. Their fists were grotesque hammers with stumpy thick fingers. Eyes were sunken into gnarly pits and skin was a chalky brown.. Instead of normal clothes, they wore loose cloth with belts and no shoes, but then what would fit them?

  “My god,” Rutger muttered in a voice too quiet to carry. “What have we done? Mankind, I mean. Were the Ghoul Lords a good enough excuse?”

  “They were humans, once,” she said, softly, and that pang in her heart was from regret and sadness. “This Doctor Nietz would have been in jail, if these were normal times.”

  “You killed Nietz, though,” Vargr said from her left. “Yes?”

  “No.” Her mouth twitched, and she resisted kicking his leg with her steel-toed boot. “If it was him, and I really don’t remember what he should look like, he was already dead.”

  “So you say.”

  It’d been a suit of skin that the Ghoul Lord, the Thing, had used. A barely alive shell. How dare Vargr say that.

  “Are you two done arguing? Pay attention.” Willow sauntered forward, her hand hooked on the belt holding up her blue jeans, not far from an augmented revolver similar to the one Cyn had used on skin-suit Thing.

  Which only reminded her that no one had thought it wise to re-arm her.

  “We’re done,” Vargr drawled.

  “Good. Hello there, ahead! We want to pass through and reach the quarter on the other side!”

  Cyn had to admit this woman was an admirably pretty and determined-looking leader. Firm jaw and voice, willing to get whatever needed doing done right. And getting her hands dirty was nothing to Willow, even when it lost her friends. That black leather jacket with the steel studs over her black shirt—damn, she had clothes-envy.

  She’d have followed Willow anywhere, until that day she faced her across the judges’ table.