by Steve Feasey
‘The metal man,’ Brick uttered in a dread tone as the trio did as they were bid.
Rush gave a small gasp. The sight of the man he’d once encountered in a back alley of Muteville took him aback. The mutant known as Steeleye Mange was a thing of horror: half man, half machine, he was holding out an electromechanical arm, pointing what could only be a gun of some kind, mounted on the top of it, at them. His one living eye gleamed triumphantly as he took in their stunned faces.
‘What’s that thing on the floor behind you?’
‘We don’t know,’ Jax answered in a voice laced with resignation.
‘You don’t know? You expect me to believe that?’
‘Believe what you want. It doesn’t really matter any more, does it?’
That piercing noise was so high now it was almost painful. Rush allowed his eyes to drift to the countdown timer: eighteen seconds. He was about to be destroyed by millions of tiny robots swimming around inside his veins as they burrowed their way through him, and all he could think about was that damned noise in his ears. So it was a blessed relief when the strident screech abruptly stopped, replaced by three short blips. Without needing to look, Rush knew the little domed light would now be green, and somewhere near it the word CHARGING had been replaced by another: READY.
‘What the –’ Steeleye said, his look going from the three of them to the thing on the floor and back again.
Rush reached out with his mind for button number two and pressed it down.
There was no explosion. Instead there was a low WHOOMP! that was not so much heard as felt, as the hugely powerful electromagnetic pulse was discharged in all directions, wrecking every electronically controlled piece of equipment within a half-mile radius. The screens showing the smiling face of the woman went grey, her voice falling mute too. The lights went out, plunging the auditorium into darkness and eliciting screams and cries from the mutants packed in down below. As mutants stumbled about, trying to find the doors in the blackness, the guards found that their communication devices, and more importantly their pulsed-energy weapons, were rendered useless. Then, as a series of generators kicked into action somewhere deep underground, a few emergency lights winked on here and there, but the meagre illumination they provided did little to assuage anyone’s fears. At least the break in power meant the electronic locks on the doors had been disengaged.
Rush looked over at Steeleye, and saw that he too had been affected by the EMP. He was frozen, his human eye rolling about in his head as he tried to take in what was happening, the movement accompanied by a series of strangled moans and incomprehensible utterances. The young Mute watched as Jax stepped over to the cyborg, taking the thing’s face in his hand and pushing his own into it so their noses were no more than a finger’s width apart.
Rush watched as Jax reached down and snatched up the big, ugly knife hanging from the cyborg’s belt. He brandished the blade menacingly beneath Steeleye’s chin, so the cyborg, his head frozen in place, could only swivel his eye downwards, trying to get a look at the thing.
‘I should kill you. I should end your miserable life right now while you’re helpless and defenceless, just like you killed little Flea and the man who was a father to me.’
‘Jax –’ Rush said.
‘Did it make you feel powerful, hmm? Did you enjoy ending their lives?’
‘Jax. Put the knife down.’
‘All it would take to rid the world of a miserable degenerate like you is one swift thrust of my hand. Just like that, and you’d be gone.’ His voice had taken on a maniacal tone, and Rush was about to step in when Brick blocked his way with his huge bulk. Reaching out slowly, the big guy put a hand over Jax’s wrist. He could easily have forced the weapon away from Mange’s throat, but for now he just rested his hand on his friend’s.
‘No more hurting,’ Brick said. ‘No more. Not now.’
The silence between them seemed to stretch out forever.
‘Brick’s right,’ Rush eventually said. ‘Killing Steeleye won’t bring Silas or Flea back. And neither of them would want you to take a life because of the sadness you feel at them being gone. Silas loved you, Jax. Don’t let your anger and pain make you into a monster. If you do, you’re no better than Mange.’
The albino didn’t move for a second or two. He blinked, two tears sliding down his pale cheeks. A small shuddering sigh escaped him and the knife fell to the floor. He turned away from the cyborg.
‘You three,’ Rush said, turning towards the ARM officers on the floor. ‘Up on your feet.’ He waited. All three were badly hurt, but they managed to do as they were told. ‘Now get this hunk of junk out of here and take him back to where he came from. You and every other citizen of the Six Cities have exactly one hour to get off this mutant reserve. If a single one of you Pures remains here after that time, we will not be as restrained as we have just been, and we will see you for what you are: an enemy of the newly founded Mutant Nation.’ He paused. ‘You might give President Melk a message from us too: tell him that his planned genocide has failed and that we see his attempt to wipe out the people of Muteville as an act of war. Tell him, however, that the Mutes do not seek war. Tell him that we will not be the aggressors in whatever comes next, but that we will no longer be cowed by the Six Cities and those inside the walls who would do us harm.’ He looked at them, locking eyes with Steeleye last. ‘I hope I never see you again, Mange. But if I do, I hope you’ll remember what happened here today and realise that we are not your enemies.’
Rush and the others watched as the ARM agents manhandled the huge cyborg out of the control room, Steeleye’s robotic legs making a terrible screeching sound on the metal catwalk as they dragged him away. The three watched them go until they disappeared into the darkness. With no weapons and no means of communicating with their superiors, he had little doubt that the guards would do as he’d bid and leave.
He took a deep breath and let it out again, doing his best to calm himself after everything that had happened. Sounds from below drifted up to him, and he knew the three of them needed to get down there. They, with the help of Muteville’s leaders, would need to calm the frightened people inside the auditorium. Not only that, but they owed it to them to explain what had almost happened here.
And then what?
They would need to work with those same leaders to try and form a new society, a community that now had a place to call its own. Melk’s promise of a new home might have been a lie, but now these people did have a fresh start, and it was up to the mutants of Scorched Earth to make sure that they took this opportunity with both hands.
He turned to his friends, smiling at them in the murky half-light. ‘Let’s go down and tell the people of Muteville the truth. And once we’ve done that, let’s see what we can do about getting the lights back on.’
Epilogue
The harg was as jittery as Tink had ever known it, the animal’s mood perfectly matching his own as it reluctantly obeyed his murmured urgings to keep plodding forward, pulling the wagon. The canyon they were in must once have been full of water, a river that was responsible for gouging this deep scar into the rocky terrain. But that river had dried up long ago, and the wound it had left behind was as arid as the rest of this harsh landscape. The gorge was narrowing now, and as it did so the tall cliffs on either side became all the more imposing and sinister. But it wasn’t the geology of the place that had the man and his beast unnerved. No, the cause of their joint disquiet was the things they occasionally glimpsed out of the corner of their eye, things tracking their progress from among the rocks. If he didn’t know better, Tink might have put these vague sightings down to the heat and his own imagination, but the harg was clearly reacting to them too, and Tink trusted the big animal’s instincts a whole lot more than he did his own.
‘Yeah, I see ’em,’ he told the animal at one point when it paused and shook its mane skittishly. Now they’d stopped, Tink lifted his head and scanned the cliffs in the hope of catching a glimpse
of those watching him Away to his left something moved, and he snapped his head round. Was that a leg he’d seen disappearing behind a boulder? Small and slightly chubby, it was gone before he could properly make it out, if indeed he’d seen it at all.
Tales of the Chuni abounded in the Blacklands. They were said to be small, almost child-sized, but what they lacked in stature they made up for with a legendary ferocity in battle. One of the tales that particularly concerned Tink right now suggested they turned to cannibalism when game became hard to come by. He hoped that this year the Chuni’s prey of choice was thriving in numbers so huge that the little people’s bellies were swollen near to bursting. Other interesting tales about the Chuni people involved their legendary camouflage skills. It was said that they had the ability to ‘blend in’ with their surroundings – the skin on their hairless bodies changing colour depending on their surroundings. If that was the case, there was little wonder he was having trouble making them out against the endless expanse of orange-tan rock up there.
He sighed and turned his attention back to the route ahead. ‘Get along now,’ he said to the harg, giving the animal a gentle flick on the rear with the reins.
Had things been different he would not have come this way, but the more circuitous route he’d planned on taking had become impassable due to a massive landslide not far from where he’d set off. Up ahead he could just make out the end of the gulley, the shadowy half-light giving way to brighter sunshine beyond the cliffs. He reasoned that in twenty or so minutes he’d be beyond this place, but he had a nagging feeling that whatever was dogging him through the gulch would not be content to simply watch him ride out of it unchallenged.
The harg started to plod on again, only to pull up immediately with an alarmed cry, the tentacles on the side of its face waggling wildly as three arrows thudded into the ground a mere arm’s length in front of it. The arrows had come from three different directions, but the target and timing of the shots left Tink in no doubt that it was a coordinated action. The low, reassuring noises he made did little to calm the startled beast, but he and the animal had been with each other long enough to know that neither was going to do anything silly to endanger the other. Tink forced himself to be calm again. The accuracy of the aim told him that, had the archers wanted to kill either the harg or the driver, they could easily have done so. With that in mind, he took the warning shots for what they were meant to be. Digging into his coat pocket, he took out his pipe and smoking pouch. Moving very slowly, he filled the pipe and lit it, sticking it between his lips and clamping down on it with his teeth. Then, still moving at a speed that made his old joints complain loudly, he stood up on the jockey box and raised his hands above his head. He was still none the wiser as to who had fired at them, but there seemed little point in calling out, so he just stood, waiting for a sign as to what he should do next and hoping that sign didn’t come in the form of an arrow buried in his breastbone.
He didn’t see the small person making its way down the ridge just ahead of where he’d stopped. It wasn’t until the harg made a noise and shuffled back, almost causing Tink to lose his balance, that he looked down to see one of the Chuni standing directly in front of him. Two of the three arrows had already been removed from the ground and stowed in the quiver slung around the hunter’s back; the third was notched and was aimed straight at Tink’s left eye.
Despite the danger he was in, Tink took a second to study his assailant.
The first thing that struck him was that, despite the Chuni having not a stitch of clothing on its body, he didn’t have the slightest idea if he was looking at a male or female. The anatomical area that should have made it obvious was devoid of any clues. The face was neither masculine nor feminine, and the absence of any hair whatsoever did nothing to help. Tink was left flummoxed by how he should address this person. The small person opened its mouth and made a hissing noise, revealing teeth that had been filed down into sharp points.
‘I’m not here to cause any trouble,’ Tink said, careful to keep his hands up in plain sight. ‘I just want to get to –’
The Chuni let out a series of high-pitched whistles, yelps and clicks, the result being that, seemingly out of nowhere, from the cliffs above, emerged a dozen or so identical individuals, all of them armed with the same weapon made to the same design. One of them descended, leaping gracefully and noiselessly from rock to rock until it was on the canyon floor, where it joined the leader. The pair communicated in the clicking, whistling tongue before the newcomer turned to Tink.
‘This is Chuni territory,’ the new arrival said in a weird voice that was high and shrill one moment, deep the next.
‘I don’t want to trespass on your lands.’
‘And yet here you are.’
‘Out of necessity, yes. But I’m merely passing through.’
The Chuni waited.
‘I came this way despite knowing the fearsome reputation of your people. Armed with this information, you must see that I would not have done so if I had some other choice. I am trying to get to the Blacklands settlement on the other side of these hills. I am here to see the mutant, Corem.’
‘We know. He told us you were coming.’
More clicks and whistles followed. When the translator looked up at Tink again, a humourless smile accompanied his savage expression.
‘Step down from your vehicle.’
Reluctantly Tink did as he was told. He didn’t hear the small Chuni approach him from behind. Nor did he anticipate the expertly placed blow that turned the world black as he was rendered unconscious.
He was lying on his side, still fully clothed. Despite being on the ground, the mound of skins and furs beneath him made a comfortable bed. Tink let out a loud groan as he opened his eyes. His head was pounding, the pain accompanied by a rolling sensation in his stomach that had him clutching at it in an effort not to throw up.
He was in a cabin of some kind – the walls constructed from the glass-like black rock that gave these southern lands their name. A fire was burning not far away, and from the smell coming off it he guessed animal dung was being used as fuel. The smell did nothing to quell his lurching insides. He reached up slowly, testing the area where he’d been hit and noting how his head had been bound up with cloth. A noise behind him made him start, and he instantly regretted the sudden movement. A face, upside down, loomed into view. It was a face like no other – craggy and puckered, it was ridged in places so the visage was almost lizard-like. The mouth broke into a broad smile displaying badly cared-for teeth. Despite the terrifying appearance, Tink thought he’d never been happier to see his cousin, although one look at the other’s expression told him the feeling wasn’t entirely mutual.
‘Since when have you relied on the Chuni to guard your borders?’ Tink asked, sipping from the foul-tasting infusion he’d been given as a drink to alleviate his pain. If it was not in a cup right in front of him, he wouldn’t have believed it possible for anything to taste and smell so bad.
‘We don’t, but lately there have been some unwanted visits from outside these parts, and I asked the Chuni to keep an eye out. We do the same for them.’
‘Unwanted visits?’
‘Rogue gangs. Blacklander scum.’
‘Even so, they make strange bedfellows. I just hope their food doesn’t run out, or both you and these rogue gangs might find yourself on the menu.’
‘Needs must, cousin. You of all people know about getting into bed with the enemy. Do you still trade with the Pures?’
Tink ignored the jibe.
Outside the wind picked up, blowing across the chimney on the roof of the hut, causing it to moan eerily. Neither man spoke for a few moments. Tink put his cup down on the floor, nudging it away as he decided an aching head was preferable to drinking any more of the stuff it contained.
‘The visions,’ he said, breaking the silence. ‘You still get them?’
Corem nodded. ‘You?’
‘Not as often as I used to, but whe
n they come they’re … intense.’
Like many in their family, the cousins both had the power of foresight. As young men they’d shared numerous premonitions – visions of possible futures – but they would argue about the significance of the things they saw. Their failure to act appropriately in response to one of their shared visions – an attack on their family home – had resulted in deaths, and the incident had driven a wedge between the two young men to such a degree that Tink had left the Blacklands and headed north towards the cities, where he hoped he could make a difference to the inhabitants of the mutant slums. He returned occasionally, but things were never the same between the two of them. Corem had gone on to become a tribal elder for his people – somebody they would come to for advice and wisdom – and Tink had become a travelling man, a trader who roamed the lands far to the north, keeping a sharp eye on the world he believed would one day have an impact on the one he’d left behind.
‘War is coming to Scorched Earth, Corem.’
His cousin paused. ‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘And I think my loyalty lies here with the Blacklanders, not with those who chose to leave these lands and go off to live in slums, picking over the city-dwellers’ scraps and cast-offs like vermin.’ Tink’s cousin did nothing to hide the scorn from his voice.
After the Last War, the Blacklands were perhaps the most dangerous place on Scorched Earth. And in a world as utterly ruined as Scorched Earth was back then, that was truly saying something. Scarred and ruined by the sheer mass of weapons used there, it was clear the biological, nuclear and chemical fallout would never be fully cleansed. Unlike those who sat out the effects of the war in the Arks, safely ensconced miles beneath the surface, the people who had survived in this brutal place were as scarred and damaged as the landscape itself, and when these survivors’ children – and their children’s children – continued to be born with horrific abnormalities, many Mutes began to talk of leaving, setting off for lands that were not so harsh in the hope that their future generations might stand a better chance.