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

by Timothy C. Ward

  He raised his pistol to the sky. “I hold nothing over you. Leave if you like. Stay as long as you want.” He cast his free hand up at the buildings behind him. “But look at this magnificent new city. New Denver will be the capital of our country and a major step toward resurrecting our old world. I’m the only one with the experience capable of connecting its capabilities with the six corners of our continent. Especially in time to defend against Africa. Not to mention the risk that, without me, all who’ve been biting at my heels will converge on this spot to establish their claim to the throne. You have no idea what or who is out there.”

  “The lobby of Fort Pope is a graveyard because of you,” Dixon said. “I won’t ally with that.” He’d done enough evil as a slave for Warren.

  “Okay then,” The Gov said. “Sorry, Carroll.” He disappeared.

  Dixon let loose the ground he’d gathered control of while The Gov was talking. Wet sand pelted his legs after a swath splashed up from the ground where one of The Gov’s arms might have gone through. He stretched his fingers into a large ball of EM to trap The Gov inside. The Gov’s EM pushed out. Dixon leaned in, clenching with everything he had. A chain link in The Gov’s resistance snapped. Dixon’s grip tightened. Almost there…

  “What are you doing?” Carroll grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

  “Carroll, get off.” Too late. The Gov’s resistance broke through. Dixon searched for his grasp on the EM orb keeping The Gov under the sand. A chunk broke from the surface. Dixon sent both hands’ EM to push it back down. Rapid attacks hit his ceiling. He grunted and pushed down. The attacks flew away and he fell face forward into the sand.

  A lance tore up into Dixon’s thigh. He rolled over to the spear of hardened sand sticking out on the other side. Blood drained down the slick black of his suit. He curled EM into a fist, pictured a three forked spear, and threw it into the ground. Three holes appeared in the sand as pain in his left leg forced him over in weakness. He collapsed on his back.

  Carroll grasped for his wounded leg. “What happened?”

  His cage was gone. He had plenty more EM, but no idea how to use it. “I’m sorry, Carroll.” Seconds could be all they had before The Gov rose and finished them off. “If we die—”

  “Don’t. We’ll be fine.” She lifted the spear tip, igniting a new terror in his thigh. “Sorry! I’m afraid to remove it and lose what may be keeping you from bleeding out.”

  Why hadn’t The Gov surfaced to finish them? Did he leave? Did his trident actually hit him? Dixon collected the warm pressure of EM in his chest and expanded it out into the ground.

  “Stop,” Carroll said. “You’re pushing more blood out.”

  Past the side of a car he saw Rush inside his Poseidon, running beside Star and Fish. Star held Arthur against her chest as she ran.

  “Dixon. Carroll,” Rush shouted. His dark helmet visor stopped under his nose, showing the blond growth on his jawline. He arrived first, kneeling down to see Dixon’s injury.

  “The Gov did this.” Dixon said.

  Rush looked up. “Where is he?”

  “Don’t know. I almost had him. Still might have.”

  Rush, Star, and Fish looked around.

  “He has a clean slate program,” Dixon said. “Carroll created it to blank W from seeing our nanos and our bodies, but his works on more than that. He can turn invisible even in dock view and to the naked eye.”

  Fish knelt at Dixon’s leg and reached for his ointment.

  “No.” Rush put a hand between him and Dixon.

  Fish snatched his hand back and stuffed the ointment in his pocket, standing up and turning from his father.

  Rush gripped the spear, exhaled, and released a pulse of EM. The sand disintegrated and drained back into the earth. Rush’s and Carroll’s hands pressed on the wounds.

  *

  Rush left Carroll to apply pressure to Dixon’s leg, and cast a mental net thirty yards wide and thirty deep.

  Whooomp! Smash!

  Something long and thick erupted within one of the buildings. Rush turned as shattered glass sprayed from a middle floor of the Plaza building. If a fire was in the works, the building could be devastated. After hundreds of years buried under sand, it would be like dry paper to a flame.

  The net he cast hadn’t caught anything, and now he had a new problem. He hated leaving The Gov this close to getting his revenge, but the people possibly still inside the Plaza could be in immediate danger. Singer, read those while I run for the Plaza.

  Screeeee-boooosch!

  More glass blew out from broken windows. The top of the building swayed ten feet in from a softened point near its middle floors, and on the other side. A mixture of blue lines making the frame of the building with a dock view showed the fulcrum on which the building began to bend.

  Rush, Star, and Fish sprinted through the parking lot toward the Plaza. Singer’s speed and ability to leap cars put Rush far ahead.

  WITHOUT REINFORCEMENT—blue dots highlighted multiple points on the top floors—THE BUILDING WILL COLLAPSE IN THIRTY SECONDS OR LESS, Singer said over the huff in Rush’s breaths.

  “How am I supposed to do that?” There were at least twenty blue dots affixed to his dock-blueprint view of the building. He cut between two cars and prepared to leap over a concrete barrier, focusing EM into his hands. When he leapt, he threw that EM at the first dot. It hit before his feet landed in a dip in the concrete and in his attempt to right his steps he punched instead of smoothed out the brickwork near the dot. A new crack split up the side and buckled the wall down a ten meter stretch.

  Four more dots appeared outside the fallen wall.

  FIFTEEN SECONDS NOW.

  YOU MIGHT CONSIDER RUNNING THE OTHER WAY.

  Rush turned to see Star and Fish looking up at the Plaza as they slowed their jog across the pavement. “Go back!” he shouted.

  “Dad, let us help. I can use the nanos inside.”

  Just the thought of needing help was enough to feel the breakthrough in his mental resistance.

  Okay, Son.

  “Thank you. I hope to make you proud.”

  You will.

  The sap of mental strength and clarity made Rush wobble as he sidestepped toward a pole for balance. He glanced over to see Fish and Star standing stiff and upright, hands posed as though molding balls of mud. Star did it while holding Arthur to her heartbeat. The baby looked up at his mom in rapt adoration and cooed.

  While it was good to see their effectiveness stabilizing the building, Rush didn’t like the idea of the nanos inside connecting to their minds maybe being a way for W into his wife and son’s heads.

  “I know the nanos inside me,” Fish had said. “I’m a hybrid. I don’t fear W, he fears me.”

  “I know what I’m doing, Dad,” Fish said in the present. “We’re doing this for you.”

  You’re doing a great job, Son. Just be careful.

  “We will do what we must, just like you,” he said.

  For now, he didn’t have time nor the means to know, so he righted his stance and lifted his focus toward a blue dot that needed bolstered. The cracks were gone and the swaying was not as far. The blue dot he focused on disappeared with a release of tension he was pretty sure didn’t come from his effort. He scanned and picked another dot, only to see it disappear before he could throw the EM ball he had burning in his palm. He decided to throw it up at a section of three dots near the left side of the building, but all three disappeared and the wall smoothed over before his EM ball arrived. He swiped it into fragments before it hit the wall and forced him to exert energy to use it.

  The building stopped swaying and the remaining few dots of weakness disappeared.

  Star reached out for the ground as she slowly fell to a seat. Fish tried to catch her but missed, then collapsed next to her, using her side to hold himself upright.

  Rush jogged back, jumping over the ravine and parking lot barrier, and slowed to avoid kicking too much dirt up into their air as
he approached.

  “We did it, Dad.” Fish’s head lolled into his mom’s, and then tilted to see his dad.

  Star reached out as though stroking his jaw. “We love you.”

  Her hand fell. Her eyes glazed over. She hit the ground as weak as the dead.

  “No!” Rush shouted.

  Fish blinked out in the same sudden release.

  Arthur sank into the space between Star’s arm and her ribs and began wailing.

  Rush took two quick strides closer, cursing himself for ignoring his fears.

  WAIT. Singer sent a body scan over both of them.

  Rush picked up Arthur. His wailing hit a higher octave while his face grew a brighter red. Rush opened his suit’s chest and slipped his left arm in from the suit to clutch his son against his chest. The crying didn’t stop. “Sweet Arthur. Daddy’s here.”

  The scan lights went out. Rush switched to dive view. Their bodies were living green rivers, so deep he couldn’t see the red of heat centers near the heart and in their brains.

  THIS IS NOT GOOD, RUSH. THEIR NANO LEVELS ARE TOO HIGH.

  “Too high for what?” Rush began to kneel before Star. His progress halted unwillingly. Desperation sweat from his soul. “Singer?”

  I CAN’T LET YOU TOUCH HER.

  “What?”

  GET BACK.

  “No.”

  Singer forced him to rise and walk away from his wife and son.

  “Don’t do this. What’s happening to them?” They looked like Avery when they’d found him in the Rtix chamber. He feared speaking what he saw.

  The nanos were taking over.

  “This shouldn’t be happening. She beat them. I saw her wipe W from Fort Pope. What happened?”

  Fish was born through nano-enhanced development. Maybe that caused an unknown that broke Star’s control.

  I CAN’T TOUCH THEM EITHER. Singer continued backing up, now seven paces from Star and Fish. AS SENTRY YOUR HEALTH CAN’T BE RISKED.

  Rush clenched and fought to no avail. “I don’t care about being a sentry! I want them!”

  Step by step Singer separated him from his family. From the only thing that mattered.

  “Star, wake up! Fish? Singer, stop. We have to do something. I can use the cleanse.”

  NO. THAT WOULD KILL THEM. THEY ARE MORE NANO THAN FLESH.

  Rush coughed out a sob. Tears burned and let loose. What does that mean?

  Flashbacks passed through of the times he let Star indulge on the plasma and how long ago he should have walked away. Before it was too late.

  IN FACT… Singer’s step landed and stopped. Rush hadn’t forced it. Singer did. YOU MAY HAVE TO.

  “No! Never.”

  Singer walked toward them, carrying Rush in a mobile prison. I CAN DO THAT WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION, BUT IN RESPECT TO YOUR SENTRY STATUS, AND YOU BEING THEIR HUSBAND AND FATHER, I’LL LET YOU DO IT.”

  He stopped and lowered Rush beside Star but didn’t touch her.

  Rush screamed and rammed back and forth in the narrow space between him and Singer’s interior walls. Singer held firm. Rush couldn’t even wipe his tears. The only free hand he had held Arthur, who was also screaming a high pitched wail echoing inside Singer. Star and Fish looked calm as the dead. They’re not dead. Figure something out. It can’t be too late.

  “Rush?” Nedzad asked through Rush’s earpiece.

  “Nedzad. Where are you?”

  “The camp above the valley.” Was he crying? “Your wife and son. Singer’s right. You have to do this.”

  “Why? You can’t ask…” Rush’s sobs took over.

  “This moment is bigger than them.” Nedzad sniffed. “Bigger than you or I. Trust me. I’m about to do the same to my love.”

  Rush cupped his hand over Arthur’s mouth to hear Nedzad better. “Jules? You said she was dead. If she…” Fish was dead, too. He wanted to say if she’s been brought back by W, she’s not the same, you have to give her up, but seeing Fish in the flesh, he failed to vocalize the command that would doom him, too.

  IF THERE WAS ANYTHING WE COULD DO, WE WOULD. BUT THERE ISN’T.

  “What if they’re working to stop this?” Rush asked. “We don’t want W to have the tower. How can you tell if they’re in control or not? If they’ve taken the tower then they aren’t a threat.”

  STAR LOCKED YOU OUT OF WHAT THEY DID TO THE TOWER BECAUSE SHE KNEW THEY WERE INFECTED. W LEARNED FROM HER VICTORY. SHE AND FISH TIED INTO HIS POWER TO SOLIDIFY THE BUILDING SO COOL HAD TIME TO GET TO THE WAYFINDER.

  “Cool’s inside?”

  “He is,” Nedzad said. “We save who we can. But sometimes sentries have to leave behind the dying to save the living.”

  Rush refused to accept his wife and son as dying. Not after how close they’d been to the other side.

  A chilling surge of EM vibrated from his dive button down the arm that Singer reached toward Star’s chest. SORRY, RUSH.

  No!

  His metallic hand neared to inches from Star’s heart.

  Star grabbed Fish’s leg and palmed Singer’s hand.

  The bright charge blinded and blew him off his feet. Darkness took him before he could land on his back.

  69 – Rush

  “I’m sorry, Rush.”

  “Me, too, Dad.”

  Rush couldn’t see. Didn’t know where he was. Whatever they were sorry for, it broke through him like a sledgehammer. Their tone drove the head with a finality he couldn’t stop.

  “Our memories are going to have to be enough,” Star said. “And our love. My love.” She wept. “Arthur must know I loved him more than I loved myself. That I—that we had to do this to protect him from what W would have become if we let him grow.”

  “I love you, little bro. I…I wish we could have had one more day together. But…” Fish released a sob-halting chuckle, “but I suppose we can say we sky dived with Dad, and that’s quite a first day alive.”

  In his haze, Rush gripped Arthur tighter to his chest. Newborn screeching similar to one being woken from a nap escaped the infant’s throat. Rush wondered if he was crying for his brother.

  “I fixed the sub,” Star continued, steel enforcing her words. “Cool will be safe inside. But he’s alone. He’ll need you.”

  Oh no. Cool, I’m sorry.

  Rush couldn’t believe this was goodbye, but her resolve and his ignorance left him a spectator in awe of her last moment of glory.

  “Make him and our son your focus. They need a dad. W is almost dead. In a few moments, his unliving will have reached the basement of the Plaza and the C-4 he meant for me. Singer will protect you and my baby.”

  “Star—”

  “—sps will take care of the survivors and the rest of the M-MANs, including The Gov’s. The infection is cleansed. If you hadn’t shown me in the Depository, I wouldn’t have learned what Singer could do. I’m sorry. I wish there was another way.”

  Light bled into his world. The dream was ending.

  “Remember our love, Rush. Your mistakes past and future have no effect. Our love for you lives forever. Fill Arthur and Cool with this love.”

  The colors and shape of the Plaza towering above him went from grainy to tear washed.

  “Goodbye, Dad. I cherish every moment. You were and are a great dad. Don’t let anything keep Arthur or Cool from knowing that. Thank you.”

  Fish groaned abruptly and then, just as quickly, went silent. Pain and instant relief.

  Rush lifted his head. Star and Fish were gone, replaced by a crater ten yards wide. Tears burned free. His chest ached. Breath punched from his lungs he desperately wanted to cough out.

  Arthur squirmed and loosed a rising pitch of need.

  “I made an army of his undead,” Star said. “I tried to make them mine but when we touched he made me his. There was no escape this deep. We had to let go or pull you down with us. They stand as beacons between here and Fort Pope. When I leave they will take him with, for good. For good. For you, for Arthur, for Cool, and for t
hose still free. I love you.”

  From a depth in the hole he couldn’t see rose a dark swarm of tiny fliers. One swept from the thickness toward Rush. As it neared, its wasp form became clearer. The rest rose in a steady climb north toward the cliff wall. The wasp coming for him flapped to a hovering pause one foot from Rush’s helmet shielded face.

  THIS IS OUR PLAN. STAR DID THIS. I’M SORRY. BUT IT WAS THE ONLY WAY. W HACKED ME. HER REBOOT PROGRAM WORKED, THOUGH. FISH HAD THE WASPS. THEY WILL DO THE REST.

  Singer’s chest panel slid open. Rush clenched, gripping Arthur tighter.

  IT’S OKAY.

  The wasp held its level as though controlled and not driven by a malicious sense that could attack as soon as Arthur was made available. Star had said ‘sps will take care of the M-MANs. He’d interrupted wasps. This was her plan.

  “Okay.”

  The wasp slowly dropped. Rush tipped his head to follow it down, but lost view as it went inside Singer’s chest panel.

  “What are they doing?”

  NO MORE NANOS. THE SOFTWARE IS TOO VULNERABLE.

  “Okay.”

  Arthur’s cry halted, and then regained strength and anger.

  Then the tiny form of the wasp landed on Rush’s hand and stung. Star’s final kiss. And Fish’s.

  The wasp took wing and flew off over the parking lot.

  Rush might never understand all of what his wife and oldest son did for him and for Arthur’s world but he would remember their love and ensure their youngest knew it, too.

  Singer’s chest panel slid closed and clicked. The vibration of EM charged through Rush’s chest into his limbs. A dome of sand rose around him. YOU WILL BE SAFE.

  The dome rose until a pin prick of light at the top center vanished and left Rush in darkness.

  A violent explosion rocked the world so loudly it overtook Arthur’s wail. Rush held him closer to his chest as he bounced over the concussions.

  The explosive tremors became a deep rumble of earth changing magnitude. Into the basement, as Star had planned.

  A tube extended and brushed Rush’s neck.

  YOU AND ARTHUR DRINK UP. WE HAVE WORK TO DO.

  Rush drank and fed his son with the shaking of the world outside as their nudging company. The desolation awaiting the tearing down of the dome would present more work than he’d ever faced. But in the cushion of his wife and son’s final words, and the joy of their memories, he knew strength. Confidence born from others’ sacrifice. He’d ensure it never be undone. Nor dishonored.