The sun was well up when Breslin introduced me to his wife.
“Hi, Jossi,” I said, shaking her hand. She had strong hands for someone so small. A tiny blonde woman, she was cloaked in nervous energy, eyes darting around as she met me. There was an evasiveness to her that made me think she was ready to run away at any moment, but then her kids came up in a friendly tumult and she calmed down, if only slightly.
“Hi. Jack.” She continued to look up at me, pale blue eyes squinting in the sun.
“Tell him your plans, dear,” Breslin said, beaming at her. He dwarfed her in every way, but almost seemed deferential in bearing as he stood next to her, holding his battered hat in a giant hand. “I’m off to the new channel. We’re blocking in another pond this morning. There will be room for five around it.”
“Houses or craft stalls?” I asked.
“Either. Good sized pond in a natural depression. It’ll be a meter deep at the edge and two in the middle. Not a bad place to put fish, if you ask me,” he added.
Jossi frowned.
“Not a fan of fish?” I asked her, trying to lighten her mood.
“Not really, but I guess they’re better than ducks. Noisy things,” she said with a shake of her head.
“She doesn’t like messes, really. I’m off, then.” He bent to kiss her cheek, and she tilted up to him, if only just. “Back later.”
He strode off, bellowing to his crew, who were taking advantage of the break to grab food from the community table. I was left with Jossi and a hum of discomfort, so I broke it with an obvious question.
“Breslin says you make paper?” I asked, inviting her to speak.
She nodded, her lips tight, but then something loosened around her mouth and she looked directly at me. “And fabric, too. I can dye things, if I have anything to work with. Some of the things we made came from rags, but when you dye them, no one knows.”
“Knows what?” I asked.
“That my children are wearing trash. It’s colorful, but it’s still trash.”
“I’m sure you did the best you could,” I said.
“Mm-hmm,” was her answer. She looked away, watching their children tussle with a large section of wood to be used for the firepit.
“Would you like a shop? We’re not always going to be a barter community, and at some point in the near future, your business would be your own.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, the light of interest in her eyes.
“Money. Your own money, and earned with a skill only you seem to have, at least for now. As to the people who show up today, and tomorrow, I don’t know. But for now, it would be just you making paper and fabric work. We could pick a site for you near the pond that your husband is tiling in, unless you want to work close to your home?” I asked. Their home was to the left, on the main channel and less than a hundred meters from mine. The site was already shaded by trees that were leaping upward, the product of seeds that had been tweaked to grow at unnatural rates.
“Away is better,” she said quickly. When I raised a brow at her response, she added, “Dye work stinks. Paper work isn’t much more fragrant.”
“Ahh, right. So away, then. Maybe out at the edge, where the new springs are?”
“That would be—that would be good,” Jossi said. “Thank you.” The words sounded odd, like she was unused to being considered in decisions, though Breslin gave no signs of being a tyrant whatsoever.
“I’ll have Silk help you pick the site,” I said. “May I ask you something about your husband?”
She looked alarmed, then her eyes narrowed. “Okay,” she said in a neutral tone.
“How did you meet?”
Whatever she’d been expecting, that was not it. For nearly a full minute, Jossi stood, forming her answer. I’ve found that when people take time to respond, it either means they want to be accurate, or they’re full of shit and a lie is coming forth.
Jossi was unreadable when she answered. “In Kassos. I was young.”
“Were you free?” I asked, pressing.
“Yes,” she snapped with a toss of her head. “I was no slave. I—worked. I made clothes, for a large house. Good clothes, too, not the shit my children wear.” She looked down at her own shirt and pants, hanging on her small frame. “Or I wear.”
“I didn’t mean to offend, just curious.” She was mollified, but only somewhat. Her eyes still flashed with anger, and it was directed at me. I tried something different. “Your children are safe here, Jossi, no matter what they wear. And they will have better things, starting with your own craft stall and home.”
She considered that, then nodded once. “Thank you.”
At that moment, a raptor screamed and dived, swooping through the trees with its toothsome beak open as it streaked toward a clump of children.
Jossi stood frozen, but I didn’t. I drew my gun and fired in a smooth motion, spattering the predator’s skull in a cloud of blood and bone. It hit two branches on the way to the ground, spiraling wildly before thudding into the sand less than five meters from Jossi’s children.
“Someone take it to the fire for dinner,” I barked, sliding my rifle back into place.
“Safe, huh?” Jossi asked, her voice raw with accusation. She stared at the dead thing, its beak filled with razor teeth. The top of the skull was gone, as well as the odd purple wattle on its neck. One of the feet twitched spasmodically, and Jossi shuddered in response to the creature’s death rattle.
I had nothing to say, bathed in Jossi’s anger. After two kids carried the dino-bird away, I scraped at the bloody sand with my boot. “Get with Silk. She’ll help,” I said, not looking at the Jossi, who still regarded me with naked suspicion.
“I will,” she said, then turned away without a word. I glanced as her as she stepped away, wearing her loose clothes and a frown. Unlike me, Jossi could not see the potential of our world. I hoped we could change her mind, if only for the sake of her children and Breslin.
10
The sun was high when Andi came to me, holding her tablet and frowning.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Power. A second reactor, to be exact. I have a site, and we have the need. It’s time,” she said.
“Tell me where.” I leaned against a stump. We were near the firepit, and around us activity was reaching a daily peak, when everyone was tired but looking forward to the end of work.
“Here.” She pointed to her tablet, where she’d drawn a map of our settlement, and then a larger map that showed the Cache and every water source we had found in the past month. To the east, there was an expanse of land that had two water sites, no massive gullies, and room to grow.
“It’s perfect. One problem.”
“Security?” she asked, looking up.
“Yes. It almost requires a second population from the beginning to insure that we don’t invite disaster. Losing a reactor is one thing. Losing people is another. I don’t know enough about the area to say there isn’t a rogue tribe over the hill, so to speak.”
She smiled, and I knew she was one step ahead of me. “I have a solution to that little issue.”
“I’m all ears.”
“The Vampires,” she said.
“Huh.” I thought about it and knew she was right. “What’s their max altitude?” They were glorified gliders, but light and powerful enough to get us aloft. As to their range, I had no idea. We were holding them back for a rainy day, like the mustang and the weapons cache.
The sky was clear, but it may as well have been raining.
“A thousand meters without a mask. Three thousand with, and I have something that will kick our recon range up drastically. A Condor,” she said.
“The drone? How can it—oh. Mount and launch from the Vampire?”
“Yep. It gives us an eye in the sky up at seven thousand meters, minimum. Maybe eight if we catch a current.” Andi’s eyes glittered with the possibility of using tech that could give us actual security. We had an enormous n
umber of items at our disposal, but no way to keep them safe in The Oasis. High altitude recon could change that. We would know who our neighbors were—if we had any at all.
I stood away from the tree, brushing bark from my hands. “How soon can we leave?”
Andi whistled, high and shrill. Natif came running with her go-bag. “I’m already packed.”
We said our goodbyes and left in a truck, determined to arrive at the Cache before dark. Given the predators in and around the site, it was in our best interest to be fast.
We hauled ass.
Following the highway remains, we struck east and then north, making excellent time and seeing nothing more menacing than a gathering of blood chickens that had brought down some kind of steer, its body opened up to the failing light of day as we swept past at forty klicks an hour. Before dusk could get serious, we saw the Cache grove and silos, their familiar shape rising as we sped up the path that had once been a hunting trail for marauding scorpions. There would be no more invasions of the Cache thanks to our hard work and good doors; we had the place buttoned up tight in case any random scavengers thought to go on a gear hunt inside our stash.
“We can park right near the doors,” I said, letting us drift to a stop. Andi agreed, jumping down and pulling her tablet out to key in the unlock sequence. We didn’t rely on anything as plain as a metal lock. Andi used a remote code to throw the huge bolts back, letting the door swing open on silent hinges.
The air inside was fresh. Andi had a circulation system working on cycles, so that the massive array of gear, printers, and weapons would remain dry and free of corrosion brought on by wind and water.
“Smells brand new,” she said. “Those evap units are doing the trick.”
“And then some,” I said, running a finger over the wall. It was dry as a bone and cool to the touch. Out of habit, I drew a pistol as Andi lit the place up. Along the stairwell and halls, lights flared to life in a warm hue, their low hum a welcome noise after the unnerving silence of The Empty and our hissing tires.
“I need to go to Control first,” Andi said, pointing herself down the stairwell.
“After me.” I started down the metallic stairs, gun ready. The scents of decay and animal nests were gone. The Cache was alive with purpose instead of predators, and we were standing before Control in seconds. Andi swiped her tablet and the door opened obediently. She swiped her tablet again, and the massive screen flicked to life, as well as a series of terminals and lights. The room was brilliant with reminders of a world that had been gone for a long time.
But we would bring it back.
“Send up a Condor in a lazy eight, and then we can talk about dinner,” I said.
Andi nodded her agreement and began keying in the commands for a drone launch from one of the silos. There were drones stationed at the top of each, and a plexiglass hood slid back above us, freeing one of the large drones to launch itself when the wings unfolded into a locked position. In ninety seconds, the Condor was aloft and sending data, an aerial picture of the Cache spread across the screen before us with wind, distance, and threat vectors spooling along in the right corner. To the north, a massive lizard waddled toward a Creekside den, its pace slowing as torpor overtook the animal.
“Cold-blooded,” Andi said, staring at the image of the lizard.
“Enlarge his pic for me?” I asked.
She did, and when the beast turned to look back at something, I could see a smear of gore on its muzzle. “Not cold. Full. Been eating good.”
Andi winced, then moved the drone to scan where the animal was looking. A dozen blood chickens and some other scavengers swarmed over the remains of a fresh kill, squabbling in a mass of beaks and talons as the sun went down on another lovely example of Mother Nature being a stone-cold bitch.
“Glad we’re in here,” Andi said.
“Same. I’ve had enough lizards for right now. Loop the drone?”
“Done,” she said, tapping her tablet in quick, confident motions. “Vampires before dinner, then schematics and training?”
“Good. Take me to the goodies,” I told her.
She lifted a brow and popped her hip out. “So soon? But we’ve just met, good sir.”
“Dirty girl. The weapon goodies first. I have plans for your goodies later.”
“Finally, an idea I endorse. Been a few days,” Andi said. Her sex drive was only slightly higher than her intelligence, which was to say, limitless. I high-fived myself mentally as we went downstairs again, emerging at the end of the hall near the second and far more interesting weapons depot.
“Hello, girls,” Andi said. The Vampires hung on the wall, folded into compact units that assembled on command due to an array of nanobots. There were flying suits, masks, and arming brackets alongside, all in numbered sequences. We took two of each—I carried the Vampires, as they were a hundred kilos each—and started back up the stairs. My muscles sang with effort, but I was able to haul the units without trouble because my ‘bots kicked into overdrive and Andi’s pear-shaped ass was just ahead of me on the stairs as we went up. There’s a lot to be said for proper motivation.
We hit the commissary, which had no food but everything we needed to cook, and while Andi got the training rep ready on her tablet, I made stew with pork and herbs, and we settled to eat as she pulled up a video of how I was supposed to fly without killing myself.
“Your ‘bots are going to have a lot to do with this, because your reaction times are no longer really human. With that being said, you can die if you hit the ground at a hundred klicks,” Andi warned.
“How would I be—oh. Terminal velocity?”
“Right. If you collapse the wing or fall out, which I’ve never seen before, but—” She shrugged. “You’ll be cabled in for data, too.”
“The suit is wired?” I asked.
“Yep. One connection, directly to the helmet. There’s a heads-up display that works with eye movement, and I’ll be in control of the Condor. The drone launches from my Vampire at maximum height, and we’ll set it to mirror us at the greatest safe distance we can without losing direct data feed. It’s going to record everything it sees.”
“So, over the horizon for us?”
“And then some,” she enthused. “We might get coverage out to—ninety klicks? Since our range is a hundred and fifty in any direction, easy, that means we’re going to have a rolling sitrep all the way to Fort Smith, or maybe even Tulsa.”
“What about Oklahoma City?”
She pulled at her lip, thinking. “Maybe. If I could link to some of the permanent birds, I might—”
“You think there are satellites still in orbit?” I asked, stunned. Two thousand years was a long time for ruins to exist, let alone space tech at the edge of human capability.
“I wouldn’t be surprised. The bigger birds that went up after you were in cold sleep had their own defense nets, and most had nuclear thrusters.”
“You mean—they had weapons?”
“Not just weapons. Other satellites in stable positions. We called them lambs. In the event of a kinetic attack, the lambs gave themselves up until the main bird could shift orbit with its thrusters. We were battling with the French and Chinese for orbital space, but it was the private firms who really crowded the skies. Heavy lift rockets were so cheap that private corporations could afford to launch spy birds for industrial espionage, and before you ask, there was a healthy business of countermeasure launches. Companies could launch on Monday and have their satellites torn to junk by an outbound drone strike less than a day later. It was utter chaos. The only really stable networks were in high orbit, and that took a lot of money. Government money.”
“Can you search for an uplink from here?” I asked.
“I already did, but we need to print another antenna. The Cache network link was torn away sometime in the past three hundred years, given the break in data. This facility has been collecting info for seventeen centuries. We can watch it on a loop, if you want. It’s
like—it’s like seeing the world die.”
“Play it,” I told her. Since I’d woken, the end of the world had always been in the back of my mind. I needed to know. I had to see.
She tapped her tablet, and for the next hour we watched the world die.
One city at a time, the lights went out. We saw dams fail, their floods taking people and towns with them, creating giant fans of sludge that colored the oceans, faded, and were gone. I saw fires a thousand miles across, and the telltale signs of war between surviving pockets of humanity as resources became scarce, leading to starvation and death on a scale the world had never seen. Buildings fell, highways buckled, and cities became inundated by water or covered by dunes. The planetary chaos only lasted a few years. After that, it was purely nature.
The earth reclaimed what it had given up.
Then, after a century, lights began to flicker back on here and there. We saw small cities bloom, grow, and die as people found ways to build again, but there was rarely anything that lasted for more than fifty years.
“The life of a strong leader,” I said.
“One king or queen, and then chaos again. The cities fade back into obscurity due to the death of their throne. Or something like that,” Andi said, pointing somewhere in South America.
“What the hell is—was—that?” I asked. There was a city, then lights, and then a glowing crater.
“Volcano, I’m guessing. Took the entire city with it. We never should have built around active peaks, but humans are stubborn. See that? Massive wave took that one. Looks like New Zealand held on to some kind of civilization, at least until an earthquake took them out,” Andi said, her eyes saddened by an event that happened twelve centuries ago while we slept.
“I’m amazed that anyone made it at all, let alone built cities. Where did they find the tech?” I asked.
“I think it was handed down. I don’t think the chain between old and new was entirely broken, and people were able to share oral history, and maybe some of what we knew. What we know, actually.” She turned to me, thoughtful and grim. “There might be others out there, you know. People like us, still sleeping. I know I wasn’t the only one, and I know I was kept away from the entire story. There might be whole rooms filled with sleeping engineers.”
Future Reshaped: A Post-Apocalyptic Harem (Future Reborn Book 3) Page 5