Outland (World-Lines Book 1)

by Taylor, Dennis

Bluto nodded. A little more complicated than his idea, but it still included shooting people. A good plan.

  Hostage

  Suzie sat with her friends, enjoying the last bits of her meal. It had been another long day. In the tradition of familiarity breeds contempt, she found herself bored more often than not. After a while, even the roars of large, supposedly extinct cats in the distance lost its edge. And once she’d seen twenty or so mammoths, she was good for life.

  The days had fallen into a routine. Oh, it wasn’t the same for everyone, of course. The scavenging parties had just run into far more excitement than they wanted. But for kitchen staff, not so much.

  She’d helped prepare the meal today, and once it had been handed over to the serving people she was free for the evening. Venison Chili stew again. Suzie sighed. This Bill Rustad had an unholy fascination with chili. He’d stocked up literally gallons of the stuff in those big tins. But it was better than those Meals Ready to Eat. Wow, talk about an oxymoron. She’d tried one and had decided that if someone needed to be punished it would be enough to make them live on those for a day or two.

  As they ate, the friends compared notes.

  “I got to help make fences again today,” Frankie said. “Oh, what fun! Not! I must have poked myself with the barbed wire a thousand times.”

  “I’m on chainsaw duty,” said Maddie. “I actually enjoyed myself. Maybe if I can’t get a job as a history professor, I’ll take up lumberjacking.” She giggled.

  Suzie had a sudden mental image of Maddie in a plaid shirt and a tuque. She started singing, “I’m a lumberjack, and I’m okay…” and everyone cracked up.

  Stephanie said, “I’ve been with the group that’s been inventorying what we have and trying to figure out what we need the most. We’ve finally finished, and we’re ready to give the scavenger crews a list. Up until now they’ve been bringing back everything they find, and it’s kind of getting crowded.”

  It was an enjoyable moment, sitting with her friends, relaxing and talking about whatever came to mind.

  Suzie saw movement by the fence, right where it abutted against the edge of the shed. Two figures were moving around. She heard a screech of rubbing metal as one of the figures pulled the fence panel up off the stake that had been holding it in place. Before she could make sense of what she was seeing, the other figure had rushed at her, grabbed her by the hair, and pushed a shotgun in her face!

  Confrontation

  Dinner time. Monica settled down with her plate of something stew.

  The colony had settled into a routine of communal meals. It helped a lot that a good fraction of the students were from rural homes and knew how to convert a deer into food. A couple of gallon-sized cans of chili added to the pot produced a very serviceable stew. Meals might get monotonous, but there would never be a lack of calories.

  Meals were always held inside the protected fenced area. The fence had been expanded as much as possible using every available panel. Even so, many people had to seat themselves inside the sheds during meal times.

  “Hey, where’s Pete and Phil?” someone asked.

  Monica looked around for them. Wow, they never miss a meal.

  “The stoners are probably out getting blitzed again,” she said. “Or as they call it, ‘scouting.’ ”

  “You’d think hunger would have driven them back by now,” Erin observed drily.

  Monica shrugged. “Maybe they’re in one of the sheds. I’ll have a quick look.” She got up and headed for the second shed, plate in hand. Since it contained most of the equipment, it had a lot of convenient places to sit and eat.

  She walked slowly through the shed, looking left and right. The lights hanging from the ceiling gave adequate if somewhat uneven illumination. Going to have to watch our fuel usage for the generators until we can get more in, she thought idly as she looked for the two miscreants.

  Pallets of supplies alternated with crates of equipment and weapons. Off to one corner, the portal equipment had been stored. And there, sitting on one of the portal generators was Kevin, writing in a notebook.

  “Kind of primitive, isn’t it?” Monica asked, pointing at the notebook and pencil. She was careful to smile as she said it, as Kevin had a tendency to miss social cues.

  Today, Kevin was getting it. He smiled back and said, “Yeah, but running the generator just to recharge a tablet seems kind of wasteful. And in the longer term, we’re going to have to figure out how to live without it.”

  Monica considered this for a moment, then brought the conversation back on topic. “So hey, I’m looking for Phil and Pete. Seem them around?”

  “The stoners? No, sorry.”

  Monica laughed inside at the thought that even Kevin got it where those two were concerned.

  ***

  Erin watched Monica go into the shed. As she turned her attention back to her food, she heard a sudden grinding and scraping sound from the corner where the fence attached to the shed. She turned to look, and the sight was so unexpected that for a moment she was unable to make sense of it.

  It was two of the goons from the warehouse altercation. One had yanked the fence panel off the stake, and the other had moved quickly into the compound. Before anyone could react, the black bald goon had grabbed a student by the hair and held a shotgun to her head.

  He gave a nasty grin and yelled, “Nobody moves, or the kid’s brains get splattered all over! If I see a gun, if I see anyone run for the shed, if I see anything that makes me upset, the kid’s dead!”

  As Erin got to her feet, she realized that the other goon, the big ugly one with the beard, was bearing down on her. Before she could think what to do, he grabbed her by the front of her shirt and pressed a pistol under her nose. She had time to see that he had a shotgun on a shoulder strap.

  “Open your mouth, bitch!” he yelled at her. “Open it, or I’ll break all your teeth!”

  Still trying to mentally catch up to events, Erin opened her mouth, and Bluto stuck the barrel of his gun into it.

  “Now,” he said, raising his voice so that everyone could hear, “unless you want the top of her head blown off, you’re all going to do what we tell you.”

  Someone piped up, “Those are Pete and Phil’s shotguns, aren’t they? Where are they? What did you do with them?”

  Bluto responded with a laugh, “You mean the guys with the stash of weed? They’re lion food now, shithead. Which you’ll be in a minute, too, if you don’t shut the fuck up!”

  “Now, where’s the dweeb that runs the time machine?”

  People looked at each other in confusion. Finally one student said, “You mean the portal? Kevin?”

  Bluto replied, “Geeky, skinny, glasses, pushes the buttons. Get him. Now!”

  The student said, “I think he’s in the shed,” and gestured towards the second shed. “Will I go get him?” He clearly did not want to do anything that would anger the goons or endanger Erin or the other student.

  Bluto replied, “Yeah, you do that, dweeb. But nobody else moves. And if someone comes out with a gun, boom!” He inclined his head towards Erin to emphasize his point.

  ***

  Monica and Kevin had missed the first part of the drama out front, but caught all the dialog. Monica peeked around the corner and saw Bluto with his gun in Erin’s mouth. And she heard the part about Pete and Phil being dead. As this all sunk in, Monica’s teeth gritted and her eyes narrowed to slits. She felt herself sinking into a white hot rage, as the world narrowed down to one single imperative.

  Monica had learned from her brothers at an early age that you gave no quarter and you asked for no quarter; you paid back all insults with interest; and you always maintained a scorched-earth policy.

  Now the goons had killed people she knew and liked, and were holding a gun on her best friend.

  This is war, you fat, impotent fucktards. Prepare to be dead.

  “Kevin!” She turned to him. “You’re going to do exactly what they say. You’re going to cooperate.
Don’t do anything to endanger Erin or the other student, but don’t tell them I’m here. And if they ask, we only have one portal here right now, okay? We have two, the other one is with the scavenging party. Got it?”

  Kevin was already shaking with fear. As Frankie came up to them and opened his mouth to talk, Monica held up her hand to stop him and put her finger to her lips in a shushing motion. She motioned to Kevin to go back with Frankie.

  Monica motioned to a group of students that had been in the shed when the excitement started. She pointed to one and said to him in a low voice, “Get me an AR-15 and some spare clips.” She pointed to a second one. “Make sure there’s an extension cord running to that corner,” and pointed to another corner of the shed. She pointed to a third student and said, “Help me move some equipment over there.”

  Moving quickly, they carried one of the portal generators and a six-foot gate over to the indicated corner of the warehouse. She plugged the portal generator into an extension cord that the other student was holding, and connected the feeds from the portal generator to the gate.

  Monica had watched the others operate the gates many times, and had made a point of asking questions. Now she took the tablet and fired up the gate. As the gate faded into being, the first student came and held out an assault rifle.

  She took the weapon and checked it. She turned to one of the students and said, “When I’m through, turn it off. If you don’t know how, just pull out the plug. But make sure it’s off. Do not come through for at least five minutes after they go through. And make sure someone comes to get us later.”

  With that, she stepped through the gate.

  Reconnaissance

  “Well, that’s suboptimal,” Richard said.

  Joseph stayed silent. He was still stinging a little from Richard’s earlier tirade. Telling himself that it hadn’t been directed at him personally didn’t seem help much.

  They were looking at the National Guard base. It had not handled the ash well. The old, flat-roofed buildings hadn’t been upgraded since Eisenhower. There was no sign of life or recent occupation, although tracks around the ruins of the buildings indicated that there had been activity.

  “They’ll have taken up residence somewhere else. Where?” Richard continued.

  “The airport hangars?” Joseph ventured. “They don’t have flat roofs, and hangars have to be built like a brick—uh, very strong.”

  Richard nodded. “Good point.” He looked to Matt, who gave a thumbs-up and got back in the truck.

  I wonder if he’ll charge us for mileage. Joseph thought irrelevantly.

  ***

  Bill took a sip of coffee. “Wow, this is bad,” he said.

  “You’re welcome,” Chavez answered.

  Bill shrugged. “And thanks. But you can’t tell me you’re drinking this because you like it.”

  For the first time since he’d known her, Chavez smiled at him in a friendly way. “Not with a straight face, anyway. But it’s what we have. We’d have better stuff if you hadn’t cleaned out the Walgreens.”

  “And on that subject,” Lieutenant Collins interrupted, “how about that dishing that you promised.”

  Bill looked at him with appreciation. Not really G.I. by-the-book Joe, are you? He settled back, took another sip of coffee, shuddered, and began to dish.

  ***

  “… and that’s how I spent my summer vacation.” Bill finished.

  Lieutenant Collins and Corporal Chavez stared at him with blank faces, their jaws hanging so far down they were in danger of becoming unhinged.

  “Of all the—“ Chavez sputtered.

  “You’ve got to be—” Collins huffed.

  “Makes sense to me,” a third voice replied over them.

  Lieutenant Collins and Corporal Chavez cut off what they’d been saying and turned to Private Stevenson in astonishment.

  Stevenson looked at them and waved a hand toward Bill. “You think about all the tracks that we’ve been seeing that just petered out into thin air, the buildings that had been cleaned out without apparently being opened. What better way than an interdimensional gate? Or a time machine?” Private Stevenson looked at Bill.

  Bill shook his head. “Sorry, no time machine.”

  Bill turned to Lieutenant Collins. “Look, we’d been intending to release this invention and collect our Nobel prizes eventually, but the eruption caught us by surprise. But it is an actual way out for people. We’ll be happy to turn everything over to the military. You can use it to save a lot more lives than we can.”

  “No, we can’t. Not really,” Lieutenant Collins answered.

  Bill’s eyebrows went up in surprise.

  The lieutenant continued, “You’ve gotten a lot of info from your satellite TV, and it’s mostly pretty good intel. But it’s nowhere near the complete picture. The military has much better and more hardened communications. I’m probably not revealing any secrets by telling you that.”

  Bill grinned and shook his head.

  After a pause, Lieutenant Collins continued. “I’m not sure that there’s a USA left as such. There have been no official communications for several weeks. What we’ve been able to piece together is that Washington fell by the end of the second week. The president was unaccounted for, and they took too long to start succession proceedings. There were more attacks, and I don’t know how far down the chain of succession they ended up, but it’s possible that the White House janitor is now nominally President.

  “There are up to a dozen local despots who’ve declared independence over short-wave, and what concerns me is that they haven’t been shut down. That means that they are in de facto unsecured territory.

  “The situation worldwide is bad and getting worse. There were nukes used in the Middle East, the BBC was right about that. But there were also nukes used in Pakistan, which wasn’t reported because by then the news reporting channels had broken down. Also the Koreas went nuclear. Russia and China have swallowed all their satellite states and are now taking gouges out of each other. It’ll stop when neither has the resources to continue. What’s telling is that already neither one has the resources to nuke the other. It’s truly in the shitter.

  “Meanwhile, we have no more resources than you to build or advertise the existence of this device, and I doubt anyone out there has the wherewithal to do anything with the information if we did.”

  Lieutenant Collins’ face had a haunted look.

  “We’ve been continuing to operate as the National Guard because it’s what we swore to do, and because frankly no-one has any better idea. But there have been questions about whether we should just dissolve the platoon. You’ve seen the people in the hangar. Those are people that we’ve found as we’ve been patrolling, who didn’t have anywhere to go and were slowly starving to death. We’re doing what we can, but we’re pretty limited.

  “In terms of local intel, there’s nothing left that you could call a viable community for at least fifteen hundred miles from Yellowstone. Beyond that, what we’ve been able to get indicates that people are turtling, and closing their borders. Refugees have been shot and killed trying to get through barricades. I figure we’d have to go right to the East or West Coast to have any chance of finding anywhere that would take us and our refugee group. We could force our way in somewhere, given our firepower, but that doesn’t sit well with me. It wouldn’t do anything but spread the misery. Oddly enough, we’re likely better off right here as long as the scavenging holds out. Which is why we’re pretty pissed about your group beating us to everything.”

  Lieutenant Collins straightened up and turned to face Bill squarely. “Look, Bill, you tell a good story. I’m having a little trouble with it. I’d like to believe you, but you may simply be a good talker trying to work his way out of being shot. I’ll have to discuss this with my people.”

  Lieutenant Collins looked at his watch, then turned to Chavez and Stevenson. “Take Mr Rustad to a room and make him comfortable. But make sure he stays put.�
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  Rescue

  “We’ve found him,” Charlie announced. Everyone crowded around him to look at the tablet. The video image showed Bill, lying on a wooden bench in a windowless room. As they watched, he looked up, smiled, and waved. Then he motioned to the camera to come closer.

  Charlie lowered the pole-cam by dead reckoning until it hovered two feet in front of Bill’s face. This put it below the bed of the truck, where they were all standing. They looked down through the gate and they could see Bill’s face, live, smiling at them around the camera from another universe.

  Richard jumped down from the truck, went over to the small gate, and whispered through it to Bill, “We can get you out. We have a six-foot gate.”

  Bill shook his head and said in a low voice, “That’s fine, but I don’t want to disappear. I think we have a good possibility of getting these guys to join us. And they’ve got civilian refugees that they’re trying to care for. I can give you details on all that later. Listen, could you send someone back to Rivendell to get a big bag of my coffee?”

  Richard looked at him in confusion. “Are you shitting me?”

  Bill shushed him. “Look, we want these guys on our side. The coffee will be both a peace offering and an implied statement that I could have left any time.”

  Richard thought about that for a second, then said, “Done.”

  He turned to Joseph. “Get Rivendell on the radio. Tell them to send Crazy Al over with a bag of Nabob. Tell him it has to arrive undamaged or we take away his dirt bike privileges. Again.”

  Joseph nodded and picked up the walkie-talkie.

  Crazy Al had been given that name for good reason. Back in the real world, he had been a motocross, enduro, stunt, dirt, and anything else biker. If it could be done on two wheels and an engine, Crazy Al was there. He was also the best mechanic they had, so they tolerated his habits with the stricture that if he broke it, he had to fix it.