Lenny let out a brief laugh. “And there it is, kids. The unvarnished truth.”
“Here’s how I look at it,” Xavier said after a moment of contemplation. “As preposterous as it seems, the reality is that infinite universes really does mean infinite. Even if we manage to successfully bridge a thousand colonies, those thousand worlds are only a drop in the bucket. There are still an infinite number of worlds that don’t get contaminated by humans.”
Gideon grunted. “Hell, there are eight billion people on this world. By your logic, it shouldn’t matter that Joaquim was killed today.”
Xavier looked down at his crossed legs. “I didn’t really mean to say—”
“I know.” Gideon waved a hand dismissively. “I ain’t mad at you, brother. Just making a point. When you bridge a colony, it might matter to whoever or whatever lives on that world. What I’m asking is, how do you bridgers feel about that?”
They were all silent for a moment. Was Gideon right?
Infinity said, “The way I see it, there’s no right or wrong about it. Like you said, Gideon, fighting to survive is human nature. So that’s what we do. End of story.”
Gideon gazed at her for a moment and then nodded.
Desmond got up and stepped to the guardrail. The water below the bridge was nearly gone now. It had left behind all kinds of debris and strangely-beautiful patterns of mud. An object by the edge of the road below drew his attention. He couldn’t be sure, but it appeared to be the mud-caked body of a German Shepherd.
6:41 PM
Desmond stared at the thousands of perfectly good vehicles that had been abandoned beside the last stretch of County Road UU leading to the SafeTrek facility. Hundreds of people were walking the road toward SafeTrek, some of them wearing backpacks or pulling various carts loaded with supplies. Others had nothing but the clothes they were wearing. These weren’t people selected for official spots in the colonies—the chosen refugees were always brought directly to the gates in buses. These people were hopefuls, leaving everything behind for the slim chance of being allowed to join a colony.
Over three hours behind schedule, and with the gas gauge needle in the red, the Jeep approached SafeTrek’s gates. Countless people were gathered outside the fence, most of them camping in tents. These hopefuls weren’t blocking the road, but hundreds of them swarmed close, making desperate pleas to be considered for a colony.
Lenny lowered the driver-side window. “Sorry, you guys, we don’t have the power to help you. Good luck. Good luck to you. And to you, too, man.” He continued apologizing until the Jeep was at the gate.
No fewer than a hundred National Guardsmen were standing near the gate. Since the gathered hopefuls were being peaceful, the guardsmen apparently had little to do at the moment, and they gathered around the Jeep and started asking questions about the condition of the world beyond SafeTrek’s gates. But then one of them saw Joaquim’s body in the back and quickly instructed another to open the gate.
Once they had passed through, Gideon got out of the Jeep and helped several other men unload the body. Gideon then came back to the Jeep and leaned in Lenny’s window. He said, “Good luck to you all. We’re losing guardsmen every day as guys take off to spend their last days elsewhere. For now, I’m planning to stick it out here. If you need my help, you know where to find me.
They all thanked him, and Lenny started driving up the winding road toward the facility.
Infinity sighed. “If we actually do get a chance to bridge one-way with a colony, I vote we take that guy with us.”
As they made their way up the half-mile road, Desmond gazed at the mangled trees that had been blown over in the recent storm. Scattered amidst this devastation were the tents, RVs, and bunkhouse trailers that housed people who had actually been chosen for colonies. Supposedly, these were the lucky ones. But based on Desmond’s bridging experiences so far, lucky wasn’t the word he would choose.
Hundreds of refugees were gathered beside the parking lot in front of the blocky, concrete SafeTrek building. Andrea Van Loon and Gavin Pushing stood before them on a raised platform, addressing the crowd with a PA system. Andrea and Gavin were the official representatives of colony ST5, which was about to be the fifth colony of 718 refugees to be bridged out from the SafeTrek bridging facility.
Desmond glanced at the clock on the Jeep’s dash—almost 7 PM. This colony’s bio-probe was returning in four hours, at 11 PM. If the test animals returned alive, these people would begin bridging to their destination world at midnight. And since Desmond and Infinity were the only experienced bridgers currently available at SafeTrek, it was their job to assist the colony.
It was a good thing Desmond had gotten a decent night’s sleep at his mom’s house.
4
Armando
September 1 - 8:27 PM
Sitting cross-legged on the floor of her bunk room, Infinity focused on a bottle of protein water she had placed in front of her. She allowed her eyelids to relax but not close completely. She pursed her lips, inhaled through her nostrils, and formed a mental image of the air moving up her nose, through her forehead, over the crown of her skull, down her spine, and into her abdomen, where it gently swirled until it vanished.
She exhaled slowly, trying to clear all anger and fear from her consciousness, an important prerequisite to achieving the desired effects of the meditative state known as Mokuso. She took another deep breath, repeating the visualization of air entering and soothing her body.
But it wasn’t working. Disturbing visions kept invading her mind: rampaging flood waters, Joaquim’s dead face and shredded eyes, Roslyn’s last wave to her son. When she pushed these visions away, others from recent bridging excursions took their place: enraged human-like orcs four times her size tearing the limbs from terrified refugees, intelligent bird men who delighted in hunting and torturing their victims, the faces of Razor and Hornet, the two bridging partners she had lost in recent excursions.
Infinity sighed. She gazed at the variety of easily-digestible foods on a tray on the floor beside her—a half-empty tube of protein paste, a bag of raw almonds, and a bowl of lightly-cooked, lean ground beef. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast at Roslyn’s house in Kentucky, but she wasn’t particularly hungry. She glanced at the clock. 8:30 PM. The bio-probe would return in two and a half hours. If the test animals were alive, she and Desmond would bridge out with the first eighteen members of Colony ST5 at midnight. Not much time to recover from the last disastrous excursion.
She picked up the tube of protein paste, the only item she’d managed to start on, and squeezed a lump into her mouth. She sat chewing the lump, even though it didn’t really need to be chewed.
Someone rapped lightly on her door.
She spoke around the mouthful of paste. “It’s unlocked.”
The door popped open and Armando Doyle poked his head in. “You decent?” He saw that she was naked and pulled his head back. “Um, do you mind?”
Infinity sighed and got up from the floor. She pulled on a t-shirt and shorts. “Alright, come on in.”
Armando peeked in again, and then he entered timidly.
“You’ve seen me without clothes a hundred times,” Infinity said.
Armando closed the door behind him. “Yes, but that’s in the bridging chamber. Here in your room it doesn’t seem appropriate.”
Armando was Infinity’s boss, or at least he had been before the government had taken over SafeTrek. Almost five years ago he had recruited her from a dead-end life in the lower ranks of professional fighting with the promise of adventure, meaningful work, and good pay. Infinity had been so grateful at the time that she could have easily been coaxed by Armando into a sexual relationship, even though he was old enough to be her father. But Armando wasn’t that kind of person.
He looked at the protein water and tray of uneaten food on the floor then tapped his watch. “Three and a half hours before bridging out again. Cutting it kind of close with your meal, aren’t you?”
>
She shrugged without answering. Armando was referring to the fact that the bridging process would strip away any food that hadn’t been broken down and drawn into her bloodstream. With only three and a half hours, she wouldn’t get to keep much of what she was able to get down.
He gazed at her with a fatherly look she had always found annoying. “You okay, kiddo? Your behavior lately is somewhat concerning.”
She glared back at him. “Tough times. And some of us have to actually bridge out with refugees and watch them die.”
He frowned, looking sincerely hurt.
She studied him for a moment. His eyes were red and sunken. His usual bowtie was missing, and his white shirt appeared to be in its third day or so without being removed or washed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That wasn’t fair. All of this is just wearing me down, I think.”
His face relaxed a bit. “Understandable.” He nodded toward the only chair in her room. “Do you mind if I sit?”
Again she shrugged. As he sat down, she gathered the items from the floor and put them on the desk beside her bed. She sat on the bed, grabbed the bowl of ground beef, and shoved a spoonful of it into her mouth.
“You and Desmond cannot be expected to continue at this pace,” Armando said. “Tomorrow I’m going to recruit some new bridgers. There are several strong candidates among the refugees of ST6.”
“Don’t forget the National Guardsmen,” Infinity offered. “The guy who made it back with us today—his name is Gideon—would be a good choice.”
Armando nodded. “Good to know.”
They sat in silence for a while. Infinity was convinced there wouldn’t be many more colonies bridging out. Bizarre storms were becoming more frequent, and earthquakes were occurring at least every few hours. SafeTrek was only 150 miles from the New Madrid fault near the Kentucky border, and at any second there could be a quake strong enough to bring down the facility.
As if Armando were reading her thoughts, he said, “I learned today that the Norwegian bridging center has been destroyed. Not by quakes, ironically enough, but by rioting mobs.”
She stared at him. “In Norway?”
It was his turn to shrug. “As you said, tough times. We are fortunate that SafeTrek is situated far from large populations. Otherwise we’d need a lot more than two thousand guardsmen protecting us.”
“So only three bridging centers are still functioning?”
He nodded grimly.
“How many colonies have been bridged out successfully?”
He rubbed his chin, thinking. “Thirty-three at last count. Although the ultimate success of these colonies is somewhat dubious.”
Armando was understating the situation. Infinity and Desmond had only bridged out one colony. But close to a third of the 718 refugees had been killed during the first thirty-six hours, while Infinity and Desmond had still been there to help them. Infinity would never know if the rest of that colony had survived. That had been Colony ST3. Since then, Colony ST4 had been assisted by the bridgers, Viper and Falcon. Again, 718 colonists had been bridged out. The world should have been viable, but at the end of the thirty-six-hour excursion, Viper and Falcon had bridged back dead. No discernible cause of death. And no one would ever know whether the refugees they’d assisted had suffered the same fate.
“Thirty-three,” Infinity mused aloud. “Something like twenty-three thousand people. If our goal was to save the human species, I think we’ve failed.” It was worse than that, though. Their bridging had been the cause of the earth’s irreversible collapse in the first place. “Talk about one hell of a guilt trip.”
Armando nodded, a deep, knowing sadness in his eyes. “Indeed.”
Infinity gazed at him. “You don’t come to my room often. Why are you really here?”
He shook his head slightly, as if pushing aside grim thoughts. “Yes, of course. Well, I felt compelled to share a bit of discourse with you regarding something important. Important to me, anyway.”
She raised her brows, waiting.
He cleared his throat. “You’ve been in this business with me from the beginning. Five years. You were one of my first bridgers, and now you and Desmond are the only ones left.”
“What about Trencher and Wraith?” These two had assisted with the bridging of Colony ST2 but had come down with a nasty illness soon after returning. As far as Infinity knew, they were still quarantined but alive.
He shook his head. “Still alive, but they haven’t gotten any better. It doesn’t look good.”
If Trencher and Wraith didn’t survive, then it was likely the 718 refugees they’d bridged out would die of the same illness. In fact, Infinity had half-expected to get sick, as she’d had close contact with Trencher and Wraith after they’d returned.
“What I’m trying to say is this: I’ve always thought—no, hoped—that perhaps you’d survive bridging long enough to get tired of the game. Maybe you’d retire. God knows you surely have earned enough with all the excursions you’ve led. I thought maybe you’d settle down somewhere. Get a house, a good man, maybe even have a kid or two. Then I could come visit you. Like a father visiting his daughter. Or a grandfather visiting his grandchildren. That’s what I imagined might happen one day, kiddo.”
She tried staring at him but instead had to focus on her bottle of protein water. Armando had an actual daughter, although he’d told Infinity once that his daughter lived in Utah and wouldn’t have anything to do with him. That had probably been his doing—he could be difficult at times. Infinity decided this wasn’t the time to mention his real daughter.
“That would have been nice,” she said. “But nice isn’t usually what this world offers. Or any other world, for that matter.”
He shook his head thoughtfully. “No, it isn’t. But I wanted you to know. It was important to me—telling you that.”
Damn. The world really was going to hell if Armando Doyle was getting sentimental. “Are you telling me this because you don’t think you’re going to see me again?”
“Perhaps. There’s more than a negligible chance that this building will be destroyed while we’re bridging out colony ST5. If that happens, you and Desmond will be stuck on the world with the colony.”
“From what I saw yesterday and today on the trip to Kentucky, you may be right.” Infinity took a deep breath. Now that Armando had opened this can of worms, she might as well share something that had been on her mind as well. “So I have a request. Will you do your best to grant it?”
“If it’s within my power,” he said.
“If SafeTrek is still functional, and Desmond and I return alive, I want you to retire.”
He frowned. “What? You know what’s at stake here. I can’t—”
“You can!” she said, more forcefully than she’d intended. “You can. You’re in charge of this place, regardless of what Eagleton says. And if there’s going to be an ST6, you can designate yourself as the leader of those colonists. I want you to go with them.”
He was shaking his head. “I picture myself more as the captain going down with his ship.”
But Infinity wasn’t finished. “If you do this, Desmond and I will volunteer to lead Colony ST6. And we won’t dose ourselves with the radioisotope marker. We’ll bridge one-way with you and the other refugees.” She paused to let this sink in. “Maybe the future you imagined doesn’t have to be out of reach.”
He stared at her for what seemed like a full minute. “You’re serious.”
“Yes. And Desmond will be on board—I’m sure of it. He and I both know it’s unlikely we’ll get to join the last outgoing colony. Because there will never be a last colony. SafeTrek will keep sending them out until this building collapses. That could be tomorrow or a month from now. Armando, I’d like to see it all the way through with one colony—to know that I’ve done one damn thing that actually helped. Instead of living my last few days thinking about the fact that I’m at least partially responsible for killing eight billion people.”
; He was still staring at her, his eyes slightly wide. “You really are serious.”
“I’d suggest we do it tonight, with Colony ST5, but I know you won’t go without the chance to put things in order. Maybe recruit some new bridgers, get Celia ready to take your place, whatever else.”
Celia was Armando’s assistant, and lately she’d been running things part of the time anyway so Armando could get some sleep.
Armando looked down at his hands with furrowed brows, and at that moment Infinity knew he was seriously considering it. She decided to keep piling it on. “You’re telling me if Desmond and I do end up having kids, you don’t want to be around to see the little rugrats?”
This did it. She could see it in the way he pursed his lips and tried not to smile. He was giving in to the idea. Of course Infinity had no real intention of having kids, especially not on some hostile alternate version of Earth. Besides, she’d been stabbed in the stomach three times—and kicked more times than she could count—so she doubted she could even have them. But everything else she’d said was true.
“There is one other thing,” she said. “If we do bridge one-way with ST6, I want Lenny and Xavier to be included in the colony. And that National Guardsman, Gideon.”
Armando nodded. “None of that sounds especially prohibitive.” For several more seconds he considered the idea. Finally, he sighed loudly and shook his head. “Right now you need to focus on bridging Colony ST5. And returning from the excursion alive. If this facility is still standing and functional, we’ll see what happens next.”
Infinity nodded. “You got it.” He was right, of course. She needed to focus on ST5. But she knew she had planted a seed of hope in his mind. And at the same time, she’d also planted one for herself. In spite of avoiding hope her entire life—because hope usually led to disappointment—she found herself enthralled by the possibilities.
Bridgers 3_The Voice of Reason Page 4