The Chronotrace Sequence- The Complete Box Set

by D J Edwardson

  On the third day after finding the crash, they arrived at a familiar place: the Desiccant Flats. Marked by a stretch of black nidor rocks which the Waymen feared to cross, the flats were a pale stretch of sand that occupied the hills surrounding Oasis. Though Adan knew where they were from his bioseine and the enhanced vision afforded by the lentes, a sand storm racing across the landscape obscured the terrain to the naked eye. It wasn’t until Adan landed the sovos on the edge of the field of flat black rocks that Nox became aware of where they were.

  “The blood rocks again. Are those weapons out there?” Nox asked, referring to the whisper cannons which protected the outer perimeter of Oasis and had killed so many Waymen during their previous journey here. He had to shout so his voice could be heard above the winds whipping across the flats.

  “I can’t say for sure,” Adan said, “but unless they replaced the one we destroyed last time, we should be safe. I’ll drop you here and make sure, though.”

  “What?” Nox blurted out, obviously alarmed. “Leave me? How do I know you won’t run off with the ship into the dust clouds and disappear forever?”

  “I promise I won’t leave you,” Adan assured him.

  “Ha!” Nox laughed. “Promises are empty wind. You’ll have to give me something more tangible.” Nox looked down at Adan’s feet where the chronotrace rested. “That’s what you’re using to track your friend, isn’t it?”

  Adan nodded, wary of where Nox was headed with his question.

  “Leave it with me,” the Wayman said, “as proof you’ll return.”

  Adan did not like the thought of leaving something so valuable in the hands of this unpredictable Wayman, but Nox did not trust him any more than Adan trusted Nox. He picked up the device and reluctantly handed it over. If for some reason Nox took it into his head to run off with it, Adan would be able to track him down with the duster.

  “Don’t do anything to it,” Adan said.

  Nox’s face broke out into one of his unsightly grins. “Oh, don’t worry,” he said, gripping it with his thick fingers. “I can be quite delicate when I need to be.” He let out a raspy chuckle, clearly enjoying Adan’s anxiety.

  Nox hopped out of the ship and onto the sand.

  “I won’t be gone long,” Adan told him, both as an assurance and a warning.

  Nox pulled out a piece of kern from one of the pockets of his garrick. “Take your time,” he said, yanking down his kaff so he could take a bite. Though he got a mouthful of sand from the storm along with his food, it didn’t seem to bother him. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Adan engaged the forward lever of the sovos and launched into the surrounding clouds. The billowing debris was almost invisible seen through the lentes. It looked like a thin film shifting this way and that in front of him.

  He soon passed over the cracked, windswept sections of the flats and the ground became more sandy. In a short time he reached the remains of the whisper cannon. It appeared almost exactly as it had when they left it, a charred out hulk of ebony metal. The only difference was that the base was now coated in several layers of sand.

  Adan circled around it one time just to be sure it was no longer a threat. Satisfied, he thrust the forward level to full again and sped back towards Nox.

  When he arrived at the edge of the flats, he found Nox some distance beyond the place where he’d left him.

  “I didn’t like being near the blood rocks,” the Wayman explained once he had boarded the duster again. “I know they’re not enchanted, but old ways are hard to shake.” He fingered the pendant he wore at his neck, his eyes darting about, as if expecting something to rush out at him from the dust clouds.

  “We’ll be across the flats soon enough,” Adan said as the ship ramped back up in speed. “And the cannon is still down so you won’t be in any danger.”

  “Good. I’m looking forward to seeing the mess.” Nox scanned the shifting walls of dust around them. “Maybe one day the same thing will happen to Hull,” he added. “Unnatural, that place is.”

  “How long has Nolan been the ruler there?” Adan asked. He knew Nolan had left Oasis at some point, but he had no idea when.

  “No one knows for sure,” Nox said, “but we started hearing about a Wayman who’d mastered the ancient relics quite a while ago. That was the reason Sparc wanted to capture Oasis, so that he’d be as powerful as the Wayman we were hearing about.”

  Adan could see why Nolan would have been a threat to the other thrals, but he still wondered how he had created the walled city and all of those ships and weapons in the first place.

  A sudden dip of the sovos startled him out of his thoughts.

  “What was that?” Nox shouted, his face brimming with a sort of bewildered rage.

  Adan checked the topography of their location via the map displayed on the instrument panel.

  “We’re in the foothills surrounding the ridge,” he said. “Get ready for a bit of a rough ride.”

  “More rocks! And we’re heading deeper into the storm,” Nox bellowed. “You’re trying to kill me again, aren’t you? What an empty shaft I was for agreeing to ride in this death trap.”

  He moaned and complained all the way up to the ridge, but Adan soon forgot he was there. He was too busy maneuvering around the rocks, pressing and pulling on the levers to keep the sovos from crashing. He wished the ship had an esolace connection; that way he could have controlled it with his mind instead of through these clumsy controls. If Adan hadn’t been wearing the lentes they would never have been able to make it. The storm got worse the further they went until the winds beat so fiercely against the fuselage that only the ship’s massive weight kept it from being blown away.

  As they wound their way through the maze of Virid Ridge, Nox gestured wildly and dashed around the ship, hollering about the evils of machinery. From the way he talked, it sounded like he was blaming the storm on the very thing protecting them from it: the ship itself. The demons were mad at him, he said, because he was riding around in one of the relics, as profane an act as possible in the mind of a Wayman. Adan was grateful when his squeals eventually got drowned out by the wind.

  As the gusts rattled the ship’s paneling, Adan wondered how much longer the duster would hold together. He didn’t even feel safe after the ship left the ridge and plunged over the far side and down towards Oasis, though the storm did let up some as they flew towards the edge of the city.

  With the diminished force of the wind, Nox’s squealing rose above the storm’s racket once again. Adan tried several times to get him to calm down and be quiet, but he wouldn’t listen. Up until now, Adan had always assumed that Oasis would be utterly abandoned, but at that moment a thought occurred to him. If there are somatarchs here, that must mean some of the Developers survived. They’re going to know we’re here if Nox doesn’t keep quiet.

  As they entered the city and Nox kept spouting off doom and woe, Adan scanned their surroundings. With his lentes he could at last see the full extent of the devastation. Oasis was almost unrecognizable from the ordered metropolis it had once been. Nothing in the city had been left untouched. The buildings were either piles of metal and debris, empty husks, or were gone altogether. Even the pavement was in shambles; it looked like a giant army of Waymen had hacked it to pieces with their weapons.

  Nox continued to wail that the storm had come back to the city, bellowing that the end was near.

  Finally Adan had had enough. He pulled the duster to a stop just inside the remains of The Service Ring, halfway to the center of the city. He let the ship hover in place over a debris-strewn street and turned to face Nox. For the first time since he’d met the murderous Wayman he was not afraid of him. Better to risk the wrath of Nox than to attract the attention of somatarchs or Developers.

  “Stop it!” Adan ordered, rushing at Nox with the intention of clamping his hand over the hysterical Wayman’s mouth. But as he reached for him, Nox, whether from shock at Adan’s reaction, or because of his own mad gyrations, s
lipped and fell backwards. Adan, already committed to his forward movement, fell along with him, landing on top of the startled Wayman. “You’re going to get both of us killed,” Adan said angrily, struggling not to yell and draw even more attention.

  Nox went dead silent. He stared up at Adan, his eyes wide with disbelief, as if he could not fathom a world in which someone like Adan would do what Adan had just done.

  Adan was breathing heavily. A rush of adrenaline flooded his head. Finding his feet, he rose to stand over the prostrate Wayman. With newfound boldness, he pointed his finger threateningly at the stupefied man. But the words of admonishment he had intended to say never left his lips.

  At that moment a bright light flashed all around them and a deafening blast rocked the sovos, shooting Adan straight out of the vehicle. There was a brief sensation of movement, an instant of confusion, and then nothing.

  Eleven

  A Familiar Stranger

  The world came back only half a microslice later. Pain washed over Adan. The wind pelted the multiple cuts on his hands and face with debris, but the worst pain came from his leg. It was the same one that had just healed. This time the wound was not in the calf, but in the thigh. A sheet of metal, about the size of his hand was buried deep in his upper leg. The terrible stinging felt like his leg had been thrust into a fire. He shut off the pain with his bioseine before it became too much.

  The shrapnel was a jagged, irregular metal sheet. Slowly, mechanically, he worked it back and forth until it popped free.

  Blood welled up from inside the wound, seeping into his clothes, but his bioseine kept him from passing out. He ripped off his kaff and fashioned a makeshift tourniquet. Sand raked across his face.

  Once he finished the grisly work, he surveyed the wreck of the sovos. It lay about a dozen paces away, a mess of warped metal, flipped upside down from the blast. It looked like a beaten up, metallic version of Will’s shelter, with the floor now forming the roof. The lentes had flown from his face in the crash so he could no longer see through the swirling dust clouds, but he could make out the skeleton of destroyed buildings to either side and several piles of rubble which obstructed parts of the street in front of him.

  There was no sign of Nox, but debris was everywhere. He must have been lying somewhere amongst the wreckage. Adan had no great attachment to the Wayman, but he was not about to abandon someone who might be injured or dying. Whatever had destroyed the duster was no doubt still out there. Adan had to find Nox and get out of this place as soon as possible.

  He rose to his feet, but as he placed weight on his injured leg, it felt unsteady, as if he were standing on a layer of gel. Checking his bioseine, he realized that he had sprained his ankle as well. Because he felt no pain, he could still walk on it, but it did not support him well enough to move very quickly. He had to limp in order to avoid putting too much weight on it and injuring it further.

  The large sheets of metal which littered the scene made him remember the cutter. That would make the task of searching for Nox that much easier. Rifling through the wreckage, he soon found the tube poking out from under one of the metal panels that had flown off the sand duster.

  He shoved the cutter onto his forearm. At that moment there was a break in the wind and sounds of movement came down the street from behind. Thinking it must be Nox, he turned and looked in that direction. All he could make out were piles of rubble. Was Nox behind one of them?

  Adan hopped back to the overturned sovos and squeezed inside. If it was Nox, he would find out soon enough. If not, he could only hope they wouldn’t come inside the ship.

  He fingered the controls of the cutter nervously, hoping he would not have to use it. He thought he caught the sound of voices on the wind, but couldn’t be sure. Still, the possibility did give him a spark of hope. Somatarchs rarely spoke; if someone was talking, it was most likely not one of them. But it could still be an assessor, another part of the Oasis security detail, which would be just as bad.

  Peeking through a chink in the duster’s outer wall, he stared down the ruined street. He thought he saw a pair of round shapes pop up over a pile of debris. They might have been heads, but were nothing more than silhouettes. They quickly disappeared.

  “It’s all right,” came a man’s voice, shouting from down the street, “We don’t mean you any harm if you don’t mean us any.”

  Adan pulled away from the opening, his heart pounding, certain he’d been spotted. The words were followed by more muffled conversations and then the same voice spoke again, louder this time.

  “Come out and show yourself,” it said. “We aren’t going to hurt you.”

  Adan had no way of knowing whether or not the man was lying, but he wasn’t going to outrun anyone on his bad ankle and he couldn’t stay inside the sovos forever. Still, how could he trust them? He could almost hear Nox’s voice inside his head, “Now you’re thinking like a Wayman. Never trust anyone.”

  Risking a look through the chink in the wall, he spotted, half-shrouded in dust and haze about thirty paces away, the figures of four men emerging from behind a large pile of rubble. They approached the ship slowly. Soon Adan could make out a few details. Three of them had on tattered gray jumpsuits with canvas hoods and scarves that covered their mouths. The fourth wore Wayman gear: a garrick and kaff that had seen better days. Each of them had pinions strapped to their backs, but none were drawn to strike.

  Adan did not duck away this time, but kept watching them as they drew steadily closer.

  “We’re sorry we shot down your ship,” said one of the men in the jumpsuits, the one in the middle. He wore a metal band with a lit screen around his wrist as well as a pair of green-tinted lentes. “But we didn’t know anybody else in Oasis had ships and we couldn’t take a chance that you were working for the Administrators.” The man’s voice sounded calm, but firm. Adan was encouraged by the fact that whoever he was, he didn’t claim to be on the side of the Developers.

  Adan swallowed hard and called out through the opening, “Who are you?”

  The men stopped advancing.

  “We call ourselves Sentients. We’re survivors of the storm that hit Oasis.” The man who spoke was the one in the Wayman gear. His voice was deeper, with a gruff edge to it.

  Inside the remains of the sovos, Adan bit his lip, unsure of what to do. So there had been survivors? If so, maybe they’d be able to help him find Gavin.

  Adan decided to take the chance. He hopped out through the doorway and stood looking at the four men standing outside his ship. From the haggard looks on several of their faces, they looked as relieved as he was that the situation hadn’t turned violent. Adan sensed in that moment that they were people just like him, trying to survive in a dangerous and turbulent world.

  “It’s a shame about your rig,” said the man in the jumpsuit who had been doing most of the talking. “I tried to tell Bryce that the hollow men don’t float that kind of boat, but he didn’t trust my specs.” He tapped the lentes and tipped his head toward the man in the Wayman gear. His companion just cleared his throat.

  For the first time Adan caught sight of the other man’s eyes. There was something familiar about them. They shone with an intensity that could be made out even in the midst of the swirling sand. And all at once Adan recognized who it was—it was the man from the chronotrace, the one who had taken Gavin’s extractor.

  Adan felt suddenly light-headed, but he caught himself on the wall of the ship before he stumbled.

  “This man needs medical attention,” said the one who’d taken the extractor. He waved his companions forward.

  The two men who had yet to speak hurried towards Adan. One of them pulled out a crumpled piece of cloth from inside a slit in his jumpsuit.

  “That looks pretty bad,” he said, taking a look at Adan’s leg. He had a look of resignation in his eyes, as if he’d seen injuries like Adan’s many times before.

  The man set about wrapping his wounded leg at once. Adan was grateful for hi
s help, but he couldn’t keep from glancing back at the man in the Wayman gear. Whatever else these Sentients were doing here, that person’s presence cast a shadow over the rest of the group. Adan didn’t trust him, and that suspicion spread to his companions.

  “You’re favoring your other leg pretty heavily,” observed the one who was wrapping his wound. “Are there any other injuries you suffered?”

  “The ankle,” Adan muttered distractedly. “It’s sprained.”

  The man started digging around in the debris until he found a couple of long, flat pieces of metal. Then, along with the other man attending him, they set those on either side of his ankle and wrapped it with more cloth to give it some support.

  “My name is Von,” said the man who had been asking about his injuries, “and this is Nance.” The other man nodded. His eyes were the same plain brown as Von’s, but much less grim.

  The other two men came up behind Von and Nance, observing as they finished wrapping Adan’s ankle. The one wearing the Wayman gear glanced several times towards the dust clouds, his brow a stiff line of concern.

  “I’m Raif, by the way,” said the man with the lentes. “And this is Bryce.” He pointed to the one who had taken the extractor. Adan met Bryce’s gaze and gave him a searching look, but Adan’s emotions were running too high to be able to read his thoughts. “We have a shelter we can take you to,” Raif continued. “There are other Sentients there. It’s not much, but we’ll be able to treat your injuries.”