Scavenger: A.I.: (Sand Divers, Book Two)

by Timothy C. Ward

  Scavenger: A.I. (Sand Divers, Book Two)

  By Timothy C. Ward

  Copyright © 2016 by Timothy C. Ward

  Editor:

  Tim Marquitz: http://www.tmarquitz.com/

  Cover design:

  Shawn T. King http://www.stkkreations.weebly.com/

  For information on Timothy C. Ward, visit his website at http://timothycward.com or sign up for his author newsletter for giveaways and new releases http://eepurl.com/NA__X.

  Signed paperbacks and a list of Tim’s books are available at http://spikepub.com.

  His next book, Godsknife: Revolt, an apocalyptic fantasy set in the rift between Iowa and the Abyss, released this summer from Evolved Publishing.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Worldwide Rights

  Created in the United States of America

  To my wife and children, may I be a better husband and father than writer. To my parents, thank you for fostering my passion of story and language, but more importantly, thank you for your love. To Hugh Howey, thank you for so graciously opening up your world to my characters. To my readers, you keep these stories alive. Thank you.

  Scavenger #4: Eclipse

  Prologue – The Gov

  The Gov’s shout carved through the sudden silence in his office. Rush’s destruction of Avery’s phone had severed his last connection to Fort Pope. Heat coursed through his veins in a flood wide enough to cut through his skin. A splitting headache blurred his squinted vision. He needed nitrous. Beyond the closed door in the corner of his office. Standing twisted a cramp from his heart to fingertips. “Agh. Nitrous shower activate.”

  As he staggered to the door, he pictured Rush looking up as he stomped his boot into the damned diver’s face. How had he let that sandrat win? It’s just one battle. I’ll be back.

  He ripped through his shirt buttons and banged an elbow on the opening door. Inside the dark room parted a six-foot-tall, glowing blue rib cage. He shed his pants and embraced the bitter chill of his nitrous shower’s fog. Underneath the action screen was a syringe equipped with his last dose of diluted plasma. As he stepped closer to the humming coils, their manufactured chill radiated through the sweat on his chest. He closed his eyes and let the dampening of his inner coals enjoy the moment of solace. In a few days, he’d get his hands on plasma and technology to make this fumbling dance obsolete.

  He snatched the rubber strap off the shelf, looped it above his elbow, and tied a vein. This was the worst part. Not once had he passed through this stage without a scene from Breaking Bad running through his mind. The one where Jesse Pinkman first shoots heroin. Taught how by his loving girlfriend. Every time that scene plays through his head, he sees the early morning meeting in the abandoned Skiff Row Bar. The faces of the five who gathered to prove they could help him build a country. And then he remembers their resting places: Ava with the crowbar impaled forehead; the 26-inch tread driven into Bern’s denim jacket and the bloody expulsion staining his throat and long blond locks; Cheri, bloated with two days of water from the Cuyahoga, minus what the fish ate before his men found her; Meryl’s frozen blue stare from one Pennsylvania night, January 3rd, speckled with chunks of ice after they pulled him out of the ditch; and the upside down hair and blood matted face of Jason after his avocado green Gremlin tipped off a gravel road and flipped three times before landing on that rock.

  The Gov didn’t have to picture these old partners, but he did. Whether it was a motivating reminder not to be remembered as a failure, or simply to remember that he was not a failure, they, in the eternal epitome of their demise, always showed up to give their statuesque salute to his continued success. He heard every one speak their curses to him for the jobs he gave them, but it wasn’t his fault they didn’t realize it would always only ever be his country and the people he governed.

  He injected his last dose of plasma and entered the hot-cold shock of euphoria between dying and eternal life.

  If some diver named Rushing Stenson thought he had any business walking the same line as him, it would be a pleasure to add his face to the routine.

  1 - Rush (8:37 pm, Friday, April 11)

  Rush’s wife, Star, tugged him toward the Poseidon’s upward raised palms at the other end of the broken surface of the Depository’s new floor. The metal hands and wrists stuck two feet up from the rubble.

  “Jeff has M-MANs in his arm,” Star said. “I see and feel every sway.”

  Her words awoke needle tips pressing deep into his forearm, drilling slow rotations through bone.

  Rush threw his arm up, letting go of her hand as he let out a cry that tore through his dry throat. He gritted his teeth as pricks of cold fire melted deeper into his arm. Worse was knowing he’d failed to keep the M-MANs inside Fort Pope. How can I stop them now?

  “Rush.” Star swept her Poseidon shielded arms into the space between his own and stopped him with a grip on his Poseidon’s collar. “Stop.”

  The button she pushed powered down his dive suit, washing away the needles that had dug deep into his skin.

  “You’re clean.” She reached over and pushed the visor connections, releasing their pressure on his temples as she eased his visor farther back over his head. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… Did…” skepticism and defensive instinct showed through her eyes. “Nevermind. Doesn’t matter now. You don’t feel it anymore, right?”

  “No.” He didn’t think so. The pain had been so sharp it was hard to carve the line between memory and the present. “How did you feel it without pain?”

  Star shrugged. “This is all new to me, too. You got your nanos from Warren’s man, who was it, Charlie? Where did I get mine? Why did The Gov’s voice control me and Warren’s voice you? Come on.” She waved him on and regained her trek toward the still Poseidon hands. “Avery called you seeing stars in my eyes The Sight? Let’s see what else he knows.”

  The last Rush had seen of Avery was handing him into Nedzad’s arms, his old friend comatose under the infection of M-MANs. Rush jogged after Star. His Poseidon lacked the two foot extensions she had below her feet, his having been released to keep from letting the M-MANs do to him what they were doing to Avery. “Do you sense Avery, too? Is he okay?”

  Star’s form swam quick, long strides—one, two, three—she leapt, landed on the Poseidon palms and sprung. Her Poseidon hands snapped back into place over her fingers as she sailed toward the ridge between their floor and the one above. Her lower half lifted in line with her back as she rose above the ledge. She twisted as her right hand planted on the higher floor. Her palm rotated until her fingertips pointed at her body. Her elbow bent and exerted force to flip her body in a cartwheel as light in the air as finger-snapped copper. She landed in an easy squat and strode toward one of the eighty opened compartments where the Poseidons had been stored these past two hundred years.

  Compartments with plenty of stores of pellets Star could use to regain her high.

  Or just regain strength you both need to move on. Do you have time to heal the natural way? The Gov no doubt headed out as soon as you smashed his phone and ended his means of communicating with his slave.

  Pushing his body to an extended jog was as difficult as sprinting up a dune with wet boots. Too proud to ask for Star to come back and reach down, Rush leapt toward the platform Poseidon hands. Muscle pain stung into the sole of his left foot, stealing his ability to spring with enough force to reach the ledge’s height. Soaring like a bird with its wings tied, all he could do
not to break his nose on the upcoming wall was turn and lean into his Poseidon-shielded shoulder. The metallic suit hit the concrete wall, jolting a nerve in his shoulder, then screeched as he scraped toward the floor.

  “Rush?”

  He managed his feet under him before he landed, but his strength failed to keep his body upright and he tumbled onto his side.

  Star laughed. “Looks like you could use one of these.”

  He looked up to her starburst eyes and the matching blue glow of the pellet lofted from her extended palm and fell toward him. Until the last second of its descent, he was too tired to flick off a fly, but then his hand snatched the N3 plasma pellet from the air with practiced ease. An added dose of restraint prevented that hand from tossing the pellet in his mouth. Instead, it gripped the eyeball-sized orb. The two cap-fulls of plasma inside neither warmed nor cooled the case containing it. The power within seemed deceptive in its lack of temperature.

  “My suit does, but I don’t think I do.” He’d allowed one fifteen minutes ago, but with his life spared and in no immediate danger he wanted to exercise his freedom of choice. He pushed a button near the neck of his Poseidon, lowering the helmet over his face to lock into his collar. A red 4% showed up at the bottom corner of his faceplate. He flipped open the power storage panel at the crown center of his helmet and swapped out a black glossed pellet with the fresh blue one. The pellet suctioned into its hole and was injected behind a rotated panel. The power gauge rose in a blur of numbers, slowing in the forties.

  WELCOME BACK SENTRY STENSON, Singer said. CHECKING VITALS.

  “Thanks, Singer. I could use some nutritional recharging.” He looked up at Star. “And some help getting up to my wife. Do you have another?” he asked her.

  She tossed him another pellet.

  Singer read his mind, catching the pellet with one hand while opening the chest panel. He unscrewed the compartment near the dive button in his suit, inserted the pellet and locked it back up. Singer stood as the power gauge on his faceplate climbed into the green and 100%. WE NEED TO FIND SOME NEW FEET. Singer squatted and, with a burst of power expelled from Rush’s thighs, threw him high enough to clasp onto the ledge. Singer let him hang, arms extended, then pushed up hard enough to land on his feet beside Star.

  Rush’s stomach rumbled from hunger and a wave of nausea. His head throbbed and his mouth tasted of ash. A tangy aftertaste was left behind by the last pellet he’d swallowed.

  OPEN YOUR MOUTH.

  Rush obeyed. A tube extended from his collar and lowered onto his tongue. He sucked in a warm juice that tasted of crow and rice. He took a break to breathe. “Did you get some food?” he asked Star.

  Star grinned wide, showing off neon blue teeth.

  “Starlight, you need nutrition.”

  Can’t we get her suit to force a flush?

  I DON’T HAVE ACCESS. IN FACT, I ONLY HAVE ACCESS TO YOU. WE’RE LOCKED OUT OF FORT POPE’S SYSTEMS.

  “I’ll be fine. Had some before I rayed.”

  Rush didn’t understand.

  Star shrugged. “Twin Suns make the plasma. Drinking it tastes like my skin erupts in sun rays. Thus, rayed.” She waved him right along the row of open Poseidon chambers. “Let’s check on Avery.”

  Does my password for Connolly, G. still work?

  NO. YOU’RE UNABLE TO LOG OUT OF STENSON, R. ALL ACCESS FOR YOUR ID HAS BEEN RESTRICTED TO MYSELF.

  “You talking to your friend?” Star asked.

  Her new nature gave him the creeps. He slowed a step, then regained his stride, hoping the hitch wasn’t noticed as ascent. He could ask her about the restricted access and hopefully receive an answer that brought them closer, or he could lie and pursue his fear that she was still clawing away from his reach.

  “He’s giving me my vital signs and damage report.” Does the Depository still have the capability to make suits?

  YES. AND REPAIR. YOURS IS STILL IN GOOD SHAPE. IF WE GET ACCESS, WE COULD HAVE THE EXTENSIONS MOLDED IN A FEW HOURS.

  Rush found a compromise as Star looked away and continued on her path. “Singer says he could mold new leg extensions, but he doesn’t have access.”

  TO THE SILVERSMITH.

  “To the silversmith. Can you get us access?”

  Star glanced over her shoulder. “I’ll work on it. Ever since you cleanse-touched my head, my connection to the M-MANs has been scattered and gone completely from the main systems.”

  DOUBTFUL. HER SUIT WOULDN’T HAVE DISCONNECTED FROM A CLEANSE.

  Thank you. Come on, Star. “Okay. I can walk just fine for now, but it would be nice to get some metal feet under me so I can keep up with you.”

  Star looked him in the eye. He waited for a pulse that didn’t show. She let him catch up. “Maybe when I recover from the cleanse I’ll be able to access the silversmith.”

  They walked in stride.

  Any ideas about where we could get access without her?

  NOT YET.

  “We should probably run,” she said. “You up to it?”

  She grinned without a hint of sympathy. More like a challenge to a game he didn’t want to play.

  His head felt like three-fourths rock. “Where are we running? Nedzad said to meet him at the entrance to Denver Ave. Would he be able to tell you shut down the containment sequence?”

  She shrugged. “I know where he went. He took Avery to an Rtix chamber on LL3.”

  2 – Nedzad

  Nedzad held a vaguely conscious Avery before the open door to the Rtix chamber, one of hundreds of cells tucked along a small maze of nearby hallways. Underneath its grated floor was a gas releasing system designed by older generations of Sentries to freeze M-MANs within infected flesh. Avery might be too far gone. Panic fought to take control. The base would implode if he failed to prevent the M-MANs from spreading.

  He rolled Avery into the Rtix chamber, then headed straight into the cell beside it. Inside the doorway was a push button that he pressed with his back. The door shut and a wide lock slid into place inside the frame.

  A white cloud flushed up from the floor and down from the ceiling, chilling his skin near to ice under his dive suit. If he was already too infected, it might be best if the base did implode. He liked Rush and had hoped he could be the one he passed on his knowledge and calling to. He pictured Rush handing over the traitor, then running back after his wife. He hoped for Rush’s success but, after what he saw in the fierce canines dripping into form from pieces of the wall, he had little expectation of anything more than Rush losing the battle of his heart. She was too far gone. In his place, he’d have sacrificed himself for the woman he loved.

  Nedzad stripped off his dive suit, kicked it across the floor, and leaned on his knees. Grated metal pinched into muscle and bone. The current of gas blew his hair clear of his forehead, puffed out his cheeks, and froze the tears in his eyeballs.

  Jules hadn’t given him a chance to sacrifice himself. She’d had her own secrets. The ones he’d take to his grave carved deep gashes across his soul. She was the only love he’d ever known—his story of losing his parents and having learned from a woman named Sady were both lies he’d crafted twenty-two years ago when he first met Jules. Their relationship was seeded with the worst of untruths: betrayal. The kind that prevented him from ever telling her the truth.

  Nedzad wept, his back and stomach clenching as the wind drowned his wail.

  I killed your brother, Jules. I was with Mathius. I never knew family, only what I needed to do to survive.

  He was my first.

  He pictured the flash bang Mathius threw sailing toward Kenneth’s sarfer from behind, their position safely concealed via undersand buoys. The moment Mathius called his name was one of a million nightmares, all screaming for him to change the unchangeable. To change what he’d become and the misery in his wake.

  Even more than finding my parents, I’d go back and refuse Mathius. Kill him instead, if need be. Even if I’d never met you because of it, I’d do that for you.
You deserved so much better. You had family, and I took it.

  Believe me, I’d have done anything to have given you that life.

  But he couldn’t.

  The wind died down. He rose.

  Jules was dead.

  The screen on the wall illumined a neon green replica of his form, mirroring him as he faced the screen.

  A few spots of red dotted around the shape of his lungs. Beside his form the M-MAN INFECTION box showed a diminishing number that trickled under a tenth of a percent.

  The red dots disappeared.

  DETOXIFICATION SUCCESSFUL. Nedzad collapsed onto his naked rear, relieved. The cold floor did little to break through the thick numbness holding his limbs together. He’d almost died. How didn’t he? They were in his lungs…

  The door unlocked.

  He stood. He’d need a new suit, then he’d go back to Jules. But first, Avery.

  Nedzad turned out of his doorway to peer into Avery’s Rtix chamber. White smoke filled the view of the glass circle framed at eye level on the door. The chamber would go through an exhaustive chain of Rtix doses, from gas to injections if need be. When he’d dropped Avery inside, the man’s body had over seventy-five percent coverage of M-MANs. If the Rtix worked, he’d be shocked. Avery meant a lot to Rush, and Nedzad trusted Rush’s judgment, but Avery had shot him. As he moved from the door, his twisting tugged on his stitches and still sore wound.

  There was nothing more he could do for him.

  The smoke’s concentration dissipated.

  Nedzad didn’t wait to see the results of the first stage. He needed a suit.

  His muscles loosened up as he jogged through the narrow corridors and chambers of the prison built for the infected. He reached the doorway at the end and typed his passcode. A light beside the keypad lit green and the lock disengaged, relieving a fear he may have lost control of the base to Star and her M-MANs.