by John Barnes
A flare burst. Larry dove prone. The slow heavy thudding of a black-powder Gatling gun drowned out even the engines. Some rounds whizzed over his head; others hit the crowd with wet smacks and thuds.
The engines cut and the Gatling died away in an irregular spasm of bangs.
“You are the prisoners of the President’s Own Rangers. Lie on the ground, face down, extend your arms in front of you. Don’t move.”
Larry complied; a few shots indicated that some Blue Morning People hadn’t been quick enough. “Now,” the voice said, “Agent Larry Mensche, please stand up.” Larry stood up carefully; the beam of a reflector lantern swept across his face. “Glad you’re okay, Larry,” Quattro Larsen said. “Pick your people out of this.”
“Ryan, stand up,” Mensche said, “and Micah, stay down.” The lantern beam picked out Ryan, and Mensche said, “You’d better come over here and join me. Micah, stand up if you’re out there.”
From the surrounding dark, Micah said, “Still back here. I’m going to walk forward real slow, okay?” He emerged into the glare. All around them, the wounded sobbed and gasped; the Rangers sorted them out in a quick, brutal triage—the dead would be left where they were, for some other tribe to find; the wounded would be asked, once, if they wanted rehabilitation, and killed on the spot if they said no; those able to walk would carry those who could not in a forced march to Ontario, to be sorted into “rehabilitation” and “execution” groups.
“Sir? What do we do if we ask and they spaz attack on us?”
“According to the RRC Field Guide, that’s a yes, but tie them up tight,” the captain said. “And if they say yes, and then start shouting Daybreaker shit, shoot’em.”
“Seems pretty rough,” Ryan said.
Larry’s shrug was a bare twitch of the shoulder. “Orders from Pueblo. Letting the tribes know we mean business, and this Daybreaker shit is not going to be tolerated.”
“What do they do in rehab?”
“I don’t know, but I hope it hurts. Anyway, we’ve got one prisoner to liberate,” Mensche said. “Let’s go get her. Also, Quattro, let the Rangers know there are some young kids in a cabin over that way.”
On the path, they passed the runner that Micah had killed. “I got her coming back,” Micah said, “she just ran neck first onto my knife.”
He was trembling, Mensche realized, and said, “Was she the first person you ever killed?”
“Yeah.” The young man croaked it out.
“She’d have starved or died of disease before spring; it’s gonna be way worse for the tribals this winter.”
“Yeah, but I still killed her.”
“Yeah,” Mensche said. “I’d never even fired my weapon at a human being, before Daybreak. Like Stalin said, one is murder, and there’s some number where it’s just a statistic.”
The cabin door stood open; the reflector lamp’s flickering yellow-orange beam revealed Michael Amandasson, hanged naked in a bedsheet from a rafter. His leg was still warm to the touch, his ankle supple, blood was only beginning to pool in his feet; she must have done it after the runner told them the plane was coming in—
Mensche borrowed the lantern and swept the beam around the cabin, then out on the narrow, railed porch. Off one end, he found a bare footprint in the mud; five feet farther on was a black patch of turned-over leaf mold. Not far beyond that, on the narrow trail leading uphill out of the camp, a branch was freshly broken on a fir.
“She’s my daughter,” he said. “I think I’m entitled to ask her, Debbie, what the fuck? You know?”
Quattro Larsen said, “Yeah, I understand.” He clasped his friend’s hand and squeeze-coded WTF?
Larry’s hand moved to Quattro’s arm as he squeeze-coded:
no idea
d marked trail on purpose
must want me 2 follow
tell h 2 impt not 2 follow
Larry sighed, not entirely acting, and added aloud, “This might take a few weeks, I imagine.”
“You have to do what you have to do,” Quattro said. “Thanks for rescuing Bambi, and if you need a ride, the Gooney Express always has a free seat for an old buddy.”
“’Preciate it. Give my regards and apologies to Heather.”
20 MINUTES LATER. BETWEEN US ROUTE 95 AND HELLS CANYON NATIONAL PARK, IN IDAHO. 8:38 PM PST. FRIDAY, JULY 18, 2025.
Mensche had hunted and photographed wildlife as his main hobbies for decades before Daybreak, had good night vision, and had a career FBI agent’s knack for following people; he could have followed a trail marked half as prominently. In a saddle of the ridge, Debbie had laid a seven-foot arrow in dead sticks on an old recreation trail.
He laughed out loud. “Deb, I’m the one that taught you woodcraft.”
Just behind him, she said, “Yeah, but I’m in a silly mood.”
He turned and hugged her. They could still hear occasional gunshots, far behind them. She asked, “Are the Rangers shooting all of them?”
“Just the ones who refuse rehab, or try to escape.”
“You smell like blood.”
“It’s from Helen what’s-her-face.”
“Good, Dad. I’m glad. She had it coming if any of them did. But actually I’m sorry they aren’t just shooting them all. There’s not going to be any rehab that works. There’s a place up the trail where we can sit if you want.”
“Sure.”
At the base of a low rock cliff, she guided him to a bench by one of the old raised metal firebox grills. He said, “There’s something you want me to do or see.”
“There is,” she said. “It’s important and I realized this was the way to do it.”
“Good enough,” he said, “I’m sure you’re right.”
“You’re not my same old dad.”
“It’s not your same old world.”
“Yeah.” She reached out and threaded her hand into the crook of his elbow, the way she had when she’d been little and he’d been her hero. He just waited. Being here, in the starlight, with just Debbie, is about as good as life has been in a long time.
“So the runner came to let Michael know the plane was landing. I knew you wouldn’t be in an outfit that paid ransoms, and besides Bambi had squeeze-coded me that you were gonna beat the shit out of the Blue Morning People. So at first I thought, I want a special moment here for just Michael and me.”
“No one would have begrudged you that. We wouldn’t even have filed an incident report.”
She leaned back in a stretch, extending her feet and wriggling them. “I knew that. But the whole reason I became a frontier scout for the People of Gaia’s Dawn was that I needed to escape in a way that would make a difference. I mean I knew right away I didn’t want to be a tribal—it’s dirty, nasty, and ugly enough now. Eating bark and twigs all winter, once the canned and dry food are gone—gah.”
“How’d you end up there in the first place?”
“A couple of nutty witch-wannabes in the group I broke out of Coffee Creek with ran into some would-be bush hippies, and I was hoping to find the guys with the good drugs. So I was one of the Seventy-Nine Founders of the People of Gaia’s Dawn. I hope you guys clean out all the tribes; I wish you’d just shot all the Blue Mornings.”
“Some of us favor that.”
“See, I knew I could count on my dad! And that brings me to the thing that I don’t think you’ll believe till I show you.”
“How about if I just believe you?”
She hugged him, very hard, and he felt hot tears on his cheeks.
After a minute, she whispered, “There’s still a reason why we need to do things my way, check me out and see if you agree, ’kay?”
“I’m listening.”
She sat still. Larry heard only the wind in the pines, and the soft scurry of something small moving through pine needle duff.
Finally she said, “I volunteered as a scout so it’d be easy to escape when the time came, once I figured out what I could take along as proof of what was really go
ing on. And then of all the stupid things the lame-weenie Blue Mornings ambushed me. I must’ve been the only slave they ever took, which is why they were so hard to escape from—it was like being a miser’s last dollar.”
“Bad luck happens to the best.”
“‘Along with everybody else.’ I used to hate it when you’d say that to me about my driving and my partying. But here’s the thing. If the tribes were just a bunch of thieving-ass bush hippies with their heads full of prison-paganism and dumbass crystal-worship, I’d figure, hey, they’re just plain old social scum like I used to be. But they’re something a whole lot worse, and if we just went back to Pueblo, and I told my story, nobody’d believe me without investigating, and there’s no time to put an expedition together, let alone find a way for them to see what they need to see. But if you come along and I show you, they’ll take your word for it without any ‘further investigation’ or ‘more research needed’ or any of that bullshit which there ain’t time for. I just don’t want our side to lose three months we don’t have. That’s what it is.”
“It’s that bad?”
“Whatever ‘that bad’ means to you, it’s worse.” She stood. “We can make it to a Gaia’s Dawn scout post by midmorning tomorrow if we walk through the night.”
“All right. Lead me.”
Shortly after moonrise, she said, “Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for taking my word.”
The moon rose higher. With more light, they made better time, half-sprinting over rises that were almost as bright as day, then plunging into hollows that, from above, brimmed with darkness, but down in them, the stars seemed to shine especially bright.
ABOUT AN HOUR LATER. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 12:30 AM MST. SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2025.
Arnie felt slightly silly about feeling as good as he did. He’d had a few beers. Samson and Ecco had accepted and welcomed him into the beerand-hanging-out circle of, as they dubbed themselves, Jedi Rednecks, and introduced him to the few other serious martial artists in the circle. It was so friendly and comfortable. Nobody asked him to judiciously frame an exact thought; it was warm and fun and there hadn’t been much just-let-your-hair-down in his life lately, or at all, ever, really.
Arnie had always liked country music (initially because it annoyed the crap out of his sophisticated parents). And it was so flattering that they wanted him to help teach the beginner classes.
The dark, empty street seemed so much friendlier, till Aaron fell silently into step beside him.
“I just came from martial arts practice and the bar. Maybe I’m not real controlled; startling me might be a good way to get stabbed.”
“Oh, Doctor Yang. Going slumming with the working class, I see. Looking for some bovine blonde in a cowboy hat—a cowgirl, or some might say a cow-girl—to fill the wide open spaces of your heart?”
“That’s none of your damned business.” Arnie was stalling as he tried to bring his list of questions to the forefront through the beery fog.
“Well, I can hardly fault you for enjoying respect, friendship—and who knows, maybe love—where you can find it, considering how things have been going with your friends and supporters.” Their feet beat out a soft rhythm for a block before Aaron spoke again. “So you are interested in how long Daybreak has existed, Doctor Yang? How long has God existed?”
“For those who believe in him, I suppose forever.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“Do your questions just keep getting more personal?”
Aaron tugged the blanket tighter around himself, and muttered, “Poor Tom’s a-cold, eh? The king and the fool. It’s the fool’s job to ask hard questions, that’s all. Not really personal at all, you know. At all. But if you don’t believe God exists, you do believe the concept or the image or the idea of God exists, don’t you?”
“I see where you’re going,” Arnie said. Gah. Sophomore solipsism. “So for believers, their idea of God is the creator of the universe, so there has always been God, whereas unbelievers would just say God came into being sometime after people came into existence. What the fuck’s it got to do with Daybreak?”
“You know, better than anyone, Doctor Yang, Doctus of the Doctrine and the Doxology where all Documents are Docked into the Docket, Doctor, that worrying about whether information is relevant is the surest way to prevent learning anything. Aren’t all your troubles caused by everyone wanting something relevant right now instead of waiting for you to look into something interesting? How can you start complaining that something is interesting but—”
The voice had become softer and softer, and after a moment Arnie said, “Not relevant?” and turned to find he had said it to the empty street. And that means I wasn’t watching him, either, for at least a full minute. Oh, man, no more walking by myself when I’ve been drinking, and I need to get Heather in on this.
That thought seemed to bring back the happiness from the evening at Dell’s Brew. Once I tell Heather what we have, we’re going to be able to move so fast. I’m going to crack this Daybreak thing.
The last couple of blocks to his house, he walked with his hands in his pockets, hugging himself with his elbows, surprised by how well things were going and how many friends he had. The world after Daybreak was really, honestly, not so bad at all, at least not for Arnie. Interesting how it’s not relevant.
THE FOLLOWING DAWN. HELLS CANYON. 5:20 AM PST. SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2025.
The cliff fell almost vertically away from their feet. It was still night below but the river reflected the indigo of the dawn sky. Before them, a great fan of mighty razor-edged ridges rose directly up from the water into a high palisade veined with dark rock and darker crevices, sawing into the dark cloudless sky.
“There’s a path on both sides that connects to a bunch of rocks that you can cross on, if you’re lucky and the water’s low,” Debbie explained.
“Cold as hell down there, I bet.”
“Yeah. And dark. But if we start climbing down now, when we get there it’ll be light enough and warm enough.”
“Is that what you want to do, Deb?”
“Naw, I want to spend three weeks in pre-Daybreak Vegas with a no-limit credit card.”
He laughed. “Damn straight. I’d join you, just for the casino hot dogs.”
Debbie grinned. “On the other hand, I think what we ought to do is very carefully climb down to this place I know: a nice sheltered spot under a rock overhang, about half a mile and three hundred feet down from here, right by that hidden trail. Since we haven’t heard a trace of pursuit, I think we could chance a fire. On my way out of camp I liberated some beef jerky and a box of Jiffy, so if you’ve got a mess kit—”
“Happens I do.”
“Cornbread and soggy warm jerky for breakfast, get all the way warm, maybe a nap, how’s that sound? You bearing up okay?”
“Better than okay, I think. Let’s go.” He stretched. “If I’m too old for this stuff, I’m still too young to admit it.”
Descending a steep spot wet with spray from the spring, he slid for an instant. She caught his arm, he found his balance, and he smiled his thanks. Her surprised smile in response felt like warm lotion on his heart.
FIVE:
SCHOLARS TAPPED TO FIND HIS NEW REMAINS
4 HOURS LATER. PUEBLO, COLORADO. 10:40 AM MST. SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2025.
It wasn’t Arnie’s regular hangover: he hadn’t had very much beer last night, he’d been up for hours this morning, and he’d had breakfast. Nonetheless he had a headache, queasy stomach, and painful clarity about the world’s failings.
What failings?
He was lonely but he had friends; he was frustrated but Heather was listening, and once he told her about Aaron, she’d really listen. And a cool July morning in Pueblo beat the hell out of what he was used to in DC. Clear, bright, high-altitude sunlight made everything pop out of its background. Midmorning was pleasantly warm, not the searing dry heat of late afternoon.
And t
he world was healing. In March a clear sky had looked like a few drops of blue food coloring in a barrel of old dishwater. Now it was slateblue again, on its way to real blue. Spring rains had washed a lot of soot out of the air and extinguished most of the fires in the old big cities, though snow might have to smother the last smolders.
Next summer or the one after, the sky will be bluer than it’s been in centuries. The world was rewildernizing—silly Daybreaker word, but still, from the train coming up from Mota Elliptica, he’d seen buffalo and wild cattle. In thirty years something big with horns would rule the plains again.
Hunh. Another note to feed to James Hendrix, over in research. Flying over the Gunnison Valley, Bambi had sighted a herd of yaks. Paul Ferrier had reported flocks of emu in Oklahoma. At Castle Castro down in San Diego someone had found a dead baby kangaroo in a bean field. What had happened to all the imported animals? Were there lions or baboons breeding on the Great Plains, tigers in Louisiana, cobras in Florida?
How would the Daybreakers feel about that? Evolution taking its course, the blasphemous mistreatment of Gaia redeemed into a new kind of wilderness? Or a gigantic replay of dogs on the Pacific islands and kudzu in North America? He could build either narrative, using Daybreaker core signs—that was an intriguing idea. If I were in Daybreak, and I wanted to embrace the hybrid wilderness—
We’ll embrace it, he realized. They’ll definitely embrace anything that makes it tougher for human beings.
Heather waddled in, less than a month to go, over six feet tall, carrying low and all in one place, and Arnie blocked a smile at her exasperated expression—the lifelong athlete having lost control of her body.
She began with the obligatory platitudes, welcoming Arnie back, sorry for the losses at Mota Elliptica, shall not have died in vain, blah blah. Everyone else on the RRC Board looked at Arnie, faking polite concern.