“Thoughts?”
“Who reads books like this any longer?”
“Some still read Greek and Latin.” The Jungian answered a taint to his voice.
“No, I mean paper. Who still reads paper?”
“Get a grip, this is serious.” Coral snapped.
“I’m not suggesting it isn’t—not openly.”
“So, what are we going to do?” Coral asked the bookworm with a thread of peeve in the voice.
“Haven’t read the report, what happened?”
“Separatists have attacked a small town in Arkansas called Searcy. Those they didn’t kill were made refugee when they burned the town.”
“What was the population?”
“Just over 20k.” Jonah answered in a bored voice, but Matt knew he was anything but. This was, perhaps, the provocation he’d been looking for. Yet Matt wasn’t going to be drawn into the political—he’d other goals.
“How many were killed?”
“The report doesn’t mention numbers, but says there were a considerable number of bodies in the remains of the town.”
“Depending on who was writing that could mean anything from a dozen to a few thousand.”
“Either number is considerable.” Coral shot back. Matt turned on the woman with a smile.
“We do not inhabit the same world.”
“What’s that mean?” The woman sounded as though she’d been insulted. Truth be told Matt was not certain what he meant by the rejoinder—so he shrugged and flopped down in a chair.
“The point is,” Salt stepped into the dispute, “that is only seven or eight hours from here—not much more than that, even now.”
“Eight hours is a goodly distance,” Matt continued in a languid voice, “some 500km isn’t it?” Jonah nodded.
“Still, the Separatists are gaining in strength—therefore, we need to have them declare for us or the Transhumanists.”
“That’s why I’m here?” Matt placed a foot on the desk and pushed back on the chair’s two legs.
“Until we get some solid info on Leonor you may as well keep busy.”
“Alright,” sighing, “what are your plans?”
“Good man,” Salt smiled, “your plane is waiting.” Matt smiled, half expecting this.
“She coming?” Thumbing at the spiky haired woman.
“Got a problem with that?” Coral’s voice edged.
“No, the more the merrier—but we are going heavily armed. If I’m going we are.”
“Yes, but this is a diplomatic mission.” Salt warned.
“And you’re sending me?”
“You are what we have—besides, it’s time for you to expand your repertoire.”
“Has to be more than that. What’s up?”
“You’re a known quantity, now. They know of China and Leonor—because your woman is a Metahuman they are more inclined to trust you.” Matt wondered if he were just being set up again but decided there was but one way to find out.
“Okay—see ya later.”
***
Hemper stood by the football net and looked over the empty, brown field hands on the Bullpup strapped to his chest. “They could be anywhere out there in the scrub or the stand of trees.” He pointed north and west of the field. Matt kicked the tire, knocking off the mud from his boots, then walked around to the back of the SUV; here he checked on the RPGs.
“You still think this is straight up?” Matt asked Hideaki, the UN diplomat he found waiting by the plane in Nashville. He was a 50-something bureaucrat that appeared ill at-ease with both the meeting place and all the weapons the Sansa had brought along.
“They may be nervous. I’m uncertain how productive Director Salt’s conversation with their leadership was.”
“Leadership?” Coral quipped. “I thought these people were anarchists?”
“That is mostly posturing—they feel alienated from both the Transhumanists and the Archaics. With that kind of dislocation comes extreme rhetoric.”
“Scatter!” Daniel yelled from the middle of the park. Matt looked up in time to see another vapour trail. At the same moment he turned and bolted across the road. The RPG hit the SUV nearest the goal and sent Hemper flying from the blast. The diplomat, meanwhile, dove between the two remaining vehicles as trucks appeared on either side of them, but still a few hundred metres away. Matt picking himself up off the road, where he’d dove after hearing the blast, raced back to the truck hoping to get the RPGs before there was another attack.
“Help me!” He shouted at Hideaki. But the diplomat covered his head and screamed, incoherently, in Japanese.
At that moment fire opened up across the field and Coral’s team was returning this. Matt took the first RPG and sited on the west bound truck. They had to have been amateurs because even as he fired they kept on coming. Then there was the blast, and the vehicle was thrown to the side of the road. Grabbing a second RPG, Matt finished with the next truck—though this one had learned and attempted to swerve out of the way. It hadn’t worked. As the second blast was dissipating, Hideaki jumped up and bolted into the field, waving his arms. He was struck by several rounds—the last taking him in the head. This simply exploded in a grisly pop of blood, tissue, and bone. In a few more minutes the engagement was over. They were left with two dead—Hideaki and Hemper. Matt would miss Hemper a great deal more than the diplomat.
***
For the past two blocks he’d played bumper cars with the curbs and parked cars; it’d been working too—then the cherries in the review, followed by the burp of a siren. If this there were a few months earlier Matt would have been worried about the weapons—now there seemed little point in pushing the P-90 under the seat. What he was more concerned with was whether or not he should bother pulling over. His afternoon on Broadway in a good, old-fashioned pub crawl hadn’t helped. Feargal’s last stop in Merchant’s had resulted in a bar brawl that had taken him by surprise. Considering this, Matt gingerly felt inside his mouth to a back molar. It was loose—ah, his first implant. In this he’d crossed a threshold which had been avoiding him.
Taking out his hand, the siren burped again and he eased the car over. Before the cop could get out he wrenched his door open and oozed out. There was, from his perspective, something liquid in the movement, but, from experience, he knew all the cop was going to see was a drunk. Better to have his new, and real, identity papers ready. A gift from the American government and another set from the UN—in case he needed to travel abroad. The only time he could see that happening is if they moved China south of the border, or worse—the Arab Peninsula. Yet, that according Roberto and Salt had had its day. Now the preferred hot spots were Mexico and Southern Texas. Closing the door he pulled his ID card from his wallet; then pushed off from the door.
Matt wanted to identify himself before the cop saw the ordnance—but as the officer got out of his vehicle, one hand on his sidearm, his eyes widened in recognition. That should have begun to get old—the recognition had started before the New York trip, but afterwards this had become something of celebrity without the deference, instead there was raw fear—but he continued to be awed by the gullibility and need to worship in both Archaics and Metas. There it was, again, on the man’s face. “Mr. Feargal, are you okay?”
“Yes, just going to a meeting with Director Salt, Sansa, and another UN diplomat.” The words were ridiculous, even if they were true.
“Well, let me see if I can get you there.”
“I’ve got stuff in the car I need.” He nodded and thought a moment.
“Think you can drive?”
“Yes.”
That seemed to be enough and he was, again, on his way—though the adrenalin had sobered him up some. Then he was crossing the Woodland Bridge and heading for some place north of Cleveland Park—look to be the warehouse Salt had been speaking of. Sansa had been planning a holding facility for Meta prisoners, and maybe a few Archaics, as well. Following the GPS directions he twisted, with little more th
an the occasional float over the centre line, from one road to the next—until the warehouse came into view. It wasn’t all that large, but the chain-link surrounding it had been electrified and there was razor-wire topping this. Inside there were tanks and APCs, as well as canon. After the UN breakout the Americans had been taking security much more seriously. At the gate his ID was examined and the guard called their superior before he was allowed through.
The whole chain of command and ritual involved in this was lost on Feargal, and he wanted away from it as quickly as possible. Pulling up behind the building, where Salt’s SUV was parked he noticed both Salt and the new UN liaison were waiting, along with the American commander. The commander he knew by sight, but the liaison was new. He supposed they’d not last much longer than the last one. As he came up to the stairs, above which the group were waiting, Jonah called down. “It was Thin Man in Texas.”
“I should have known—the Separatists working with the Transhumanists now?”
“It would seem so—at least some. The idealists will be holdouts, but the others are, probably, finding it hard going without Zakara’s infrastructure.” Salt answered.
“How do you know?”
“A captured Separatist began talking a while ago.” Matt nodded. “There’s also been an uptick in TM transformations.” This was what more and more were calling the Thin Man transformations—the eccentric, debilitating, egregious, humiliating, bizarre conversions of flesh to sentient ideogram. The TM transformations were becoming increasingly unpredictable and, of late, have been moving deeper into the territories of urban legend, folklore, and pop culture—occasionally a combination of all three. “We need that sorted out.”
“We need a lot of shit.”
“We’re sending you west to collect as many converts to the Sansa/Archaic cause as you can.” Matt nodded—at least that got him away from this lot.
“Can I take Coral’s team?” Salt smiled and nodded—seemed he’d the same idea. “No Federals or Blue Helmets.”
“Why...” The commander began.
“We’re recruiting, right?” Jonah nodded. “Then the more uniforms they see the worse it will be for us.” The officer shrugged.
“Where’s Coral now?” Matt continued.
“M&W, getting some new recruits sorted out.”
“We’ll need her back here—I want out of here before dark.” Salt didn’t argue with him, it was an old complaint. No matter what anyone did there just was no trust in Matt. Too many times had his need to put his family back together been actively undermined for the greater good. Feargal understood this, but since the Archaic governments had been brought in on their secret the likelihood of the women, or even himself, surviving had gone to almost nil in his estimation—though Jonah argued against the notion, Matt didn’t believe him.
***
Clarksville, on a northern bend in the Cumberland River, took them the better part of three hours, when it should have taken less than an hour. Driving in the post-age world—Feargal was still working on a clever name—was becoming less reasonable than horseback. That may have been taking it a bit far, at least motorcycles seemed a better choice—if he’d not been dragging Coral, her team, and just about all the ordnance they could hold along. Strictly, Matt had been informed, this wasn’t ordnance but he liked the word and no one else but the Federals and UN seemed to know or care. There was a part of him that wouldn’t give on the kid he had been before meeting China.
It was late, sometime after nine, and the city was mostly dark. Certainly the street lamps were still working but there was no barricade. They’d all be expecting this because the word was the Federals had not gotten this far west, yet. Remnants of palisades could be found on several streets and enclosing larger buildings, even a few complexes, but for the most part these had been torn apart—in what appeared haste. It wasn’t until they came to Austin Peay State University in the northern end of town that they found any people. They were manning the main gate but were certain to mention that all access points were likewise held. Matt was less than certain, but if it made them feel safer he was happy to give way. The essence behind his demure was self-preservation—frightened people are dangerous.
The story was not as strange to Feargal as it was to Coral’s team. There were a series of bizarre Meta attacks coming from the Northwest—some assumed it was from the Land Between the Lakes. The name itself evoked a high fantasy motif for Matt, but it turned out to be a simple recreational area caught between Barkley and Kentucky Lakes. What was rumoured to have come out of the place were elementals, according to an old man, that couldn’t let go of his Fay motif. There were other, more obdurate, stories of mutated human/animal hybrids that reeked of Thin Man. Coral’s team had never seen any of these, but they’d seen photos, blurry videos, and had been told by Matt what he’d seen in Milwaukee, and then Washington. There were insect anecdotes as well, but Matt had seen only the one instance of this and that had seemed an epic fail.
The town had been abandoned, after the last attack, by most residents. A greater part of these had headed for Hopkinsville because there had been rumours Nashville had fallen to Metas. There was little surprise from any that this had spread, it was either human fear or counter-intelligence being spread by the Transhumanists. It took a while, but eventually it was made clear that Federals, UN—which was a whole new paranoia, and Sansa held the town and there were resources and support in place for DPs. However, the group could not be persuaded to go until Coral finally made a call and let them speak to the Governor.
With that Matt got what information they had about LBL and what organisms were supposed to inhabit this before the group headed south in a ramshackle column of town cars, pickups, campers, and heavy trucks. Whether they made it or not was still an open question—since west of Nashville there was no Federal presence, for the most part, until you crossed the Rockies. What they’d seen on the road did not hearten them—plenty of vehicles, but no DPs and no bodies. The area was fairly wooded, so they could have been hiding in there, or Transhumanists and their prey could have been playing a new game. Matt and Coral debated as to whether or not these people should be informed of the dangers, but to stay where they were would be certain capture or death. The road was their only chance.
***
Rather than hit the road in the middle of night, when anything, literally anything, could be waiting for them they headed back to the University after leaving the column at the southern outskirts of the town. As they worked their way back they raided what was left in the grocery and convenience stores, for no one had yet gotten used to the MREs. Matt was of the opinion that he never would, but he was never far from the food he’d grown up on and there was plenty of game to be had—they did, after all, have the tools for hunting and how hard could the skills be? Coral was not of the opinion that game would be all that tasty, but she had been nibbling on some of the MREs. Secretly, Matt was of the opinion the woman was enjoying them. That wasn’t so much offensive as depressing.
Finally they were back at the University and while the street lamps still shone all the buildings were black, excepting where the DPs had forgotten or neglected to turn the odd light off. Once they’d located Faculty Housing the team setup for the evening when they’d barricaded the compound and set two members on rotating sentry duty. After Texas no one was taking any chances. The stories Matt had told on the drive up of Shasta’s team and their encounter with Thin Man at Lynden airport hadn’t helped those riding with him calm down. Which was all for the good—if there was one thing Matt didn’t want was anyone relaxing on this trip. It was all well and good that this was a recruitment run and diplomatic mission, but there was no law here anymore, and there would not be for the foreseeable future. Edgy would be dangerous for the inexperienced members of the team, but it would also keep most of them alive.
Flicker of light. Light? It had to have been—but it was gone. Silence. Absence. Void. The mind rests as purpose, supposition, anger, fear, and confu
sion fade into a background of white noise. From this ease there is a prismatic flutter of primary colours; then an optic silence. Disturbing the somnus at REM level the intrusion faded as the sleep spindle calmed the body, lowered its temperature, and slowed the heart-rate. Ripping this open, the über-consciousness he’d experienced in the Northwest returned. Shocked, Matt bolted up and tumbled from the lounge onto a sponge shag carpeting which smelt, vaguely, of cloves and coriander. “Hi, papa.”
“You okay?” The familiar, longed for, Korean lilt.
Rolling onto his back, Matt moaned putting a hand to a hitch in this. Looking around, this wasn’t Faculty Housing, and then over to the voice. China was leaning forward in an overstuffed, almost worn, 70s reading chair—a bright, painful orange. On her lap sat Leonor—a little larger, he thought, but otherwise unchanged. “Think I twisted my back.” Groaning, he leaned against the lounge rubbing his lower back. Leonor hopped from her mother’s lap and trotted over to her father. Squatting down she kissed him first and placed a hand against his spine. In a moment his back grew warm and the heat radiated out from this and throughout his body. The pain disappeared. “Thanks, honey.” Smiling Feargal stood, taking the girl up in his arms.
“When did this happen?” He asked, looking about.
“The other day, but we’ve had a little trouble finding you. You’ve been moving around a lot.”
“Things have been picking up.”
“So,” China answered, “I’ve seen—New York, Texas, Tennessee.”
“Haven’t been able to find you two, so I’ve been doing what I can to hurt the Transhumanists.”
“You have, papa. Grandfather is very angry with you. He is my grandfather, isn’t he?”
“Yes, honey—I’m sorry, he is.” Picking at a button on his shirt, Leonor looked up.
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