Mobius

by Garon Whited

“Because I’m a moron,” I agreed, sighing. “Next time I want to try something new, ask me if I’ve gone down my checklist of safety procedures.”

  You don’t have a checklist of safety procedures, Firebrand pointed out. Bronze nodded. It was true. I didn’t.

  “I know, but by reminding me to go down my checklist, it’ll remind me I need a checklist, and hopefully I’ll take a minute to consider what should be on it!” I snapped, and broke off into a fit of coughing. No blood. Good sign.

  Not a bad idea. Bronze snorted agreement with Firebrand.

  “I’m so pleased you approve,” I wheezed.

  Hey!

  “Hmm?”

  Don’t go to sleep.

  “I’m exhausted. Living is harder than it looks.”

  And you might not wake up again.

  “Always a hazard,” I admitted, “but more pertinent in this case than I like.” I looked up at Bronze. She helped me scoot across the rocky floor and prop myself up against the more obtusely-angled of the walls.

  So, what’s the checklist for this process, Boss?

  “Are you trying to keep me busy?”

  Yes. Bronze told me to.

  I squinted up at her. She was unabashed about it. I needed to stay awake and recuperate. Stomping me back to life wasn’t something she was sure would work in the first place, much less a second time.

  “I’m too tired to argue,” I admitted. “I’ll probably make an iridium ring—a smaller one, this time. I can use it as a pilot gateway to target a shift.”

  Can’t you just tell it to only go places at night?

  “Not exactly. I can tell it to only shift if the light levels are below a certain threshold, but if the local geology has sealed the cave without rearranging it, I might still emerge into a daytime environment, even if I’m not exposed to the light—and with limited air.”

  You’re good at thinking up the worst-case, Boss.

  “Only because it happens so often.”

  I did not appreciate being weak and miserable for the rest of the day. I had only myself to blame, which irritated me. I enjoyed even less the opportunity for introspection. I did everything in my power to avoid it.

  One of my chosen distractions was a spell around myself to concentrate oxygen. My usual spell repels nitrogen—some nitrogen—and most carbon dioxide. This version wasn’t feeding a forge through a constant blast of air. Instead, I wanted a higher atmospheric pressure overall, as well as a higher-than-normal oxygen concentration. It gave me something to think about and I felt immensely better once I could breathe properly.

  Another distraction was scrying on the world. I have a small, steel mirror I carry around, since glass mirrors break. It’s already enchanted with my usual scrying spell, minus the user-friendly portions. You have to know what you’re doing to activate it. It keeps the uninitiated from marveling at it.

  I keep thinking I should get a frame for it and disguise it as a smartphone. I’ll get around to it.

  I dug it out and spent some time with it.

  As I suspected, this was a low-magic world. I didn’t get as much scrying time as I would have liked, but I checked a few spots. The world I’d just left teetered on the brink of war, so I wanted to check the local situation. I did a flyby on this version’s Moscow, Berlin, and London.

  They were a mess. Mostly, they were abandoned and/or burned down. New York was in no better shape. Dallas, San Francisco, and Los Angeles were similarly afflicted. Seattle wasn’t happy, either. At least the burned buildings burnt out long ago.

  During my high-altitude scrying flyovers, I did see people wandering around, generally rag-tag bands of survivors, wandering aimlessly in loose groups. There were also a few small groups of paramilitary or guerilla fighters trying to keep out of sight, but I didn’t have time to conduct a detailed survey. No doubt I missed a lot of important stuff, but I was only after a general impression.

  Okay, there are people around. Whatever war they’ve had, it appears to be mostly over. There was no nuclear exchange, as far as I can tell, so there’s a lucky break. It might be a biological war, though. If it was a biological warfare scenario, some people were obviously immune. Unless it killed in a single day, I felt confident my metabolism would eat anything foolish enough to invade it.

  This might actually be a better spot than the last one. The lack of organized law enforcement would keep me out of trouble, while the salvage available in a post-technological society can provide the materials I want. Plus, people will be less fussy about finding any corpses I leave behind. All in all, this might not be a bad place to stay, once I settle in. It might be a good place to build a gate for shipping the Orb via express missile. First, I’d need to scavenge a portable generator, of course, and fuel…

  What were their computers like? Could I build a new Diogenes? What sort of robots were there? Where were the powerplants? Was the hydroelectric station at Boulder or Hoover Dam still there? How about Niagara?

  Mentally cursing the low magical environment, I put my mirror away when it fizzled. It needed time to recharge. Come to think of it, so did I. Pity. I don’t usually sleep, but I certainly felt like taking a nap. Neither Bronze nor Firebrand thought it was a good idea, though.

  For the record, playing “I Spy with My Little Eye” is not worthwhile if you’re stuck in a cave.

  Shortly before night fell, I discovered my cleaning spell had not affected my helmet. It spent most of the day drying out, at least, but the smell—especially to me—was still indescribable. I didn’t have the time for another cleaning spell with sunset fast approaching. With much regret, I put my helmet on and lowered the visors.

  There are few occasions when I was so grateful to stop breathing.

  Once the sun was down and the tingling gone, I whipped off my helmet and shook dried flakes of something disgusting from my hair. I felt completely better, one of the advantages to being an undead monster with regenerative properties. I went ahead and cast a cleaning spell the hard way, gathering power up manually to save the crystals. It’s a trade-off between the expenditure of personal energies and the use of external ones, but it was worth it.

  Now what, Boss?

  “Now, we come down off this mountain and see what we find.”

  Aren’t we going back?

  “We may, but at least this place doesn’t appear to have the risk of imminent world war. I’m guessing it recently had one, so being surprised by an atomic weapon is unlikely. I’m fond of not being surprised by atomic weapons. They’re rude, loud, and generally pushy. They always show up uninvited, too.”

  Says the man with the pocket nuke, Firebrand sneered. I suppressed the momentary urge to snap at it.

  “I’m the poster child for personal failure,” I admitted.

  I went down first, gauging the exterior slope. It appeared much the same, albeit lacking a hoofprint or two in the rock. Bronze corrected this when she leaped from the cave and planted all four hooves forty feet downslope. Her landing was somewhere between a deep gong and a small explosion. Rock chips went everywhere while her body rang. One at a time, she pulled her hooves from their impressions in the rock. She shook her mane, tossed her head, and galloped down the rest of the mountainside.

  I worked my jaw, popping my ears. The next generation helmet will have much better hearing protection. It has the standard stuff, but, clearly, nowhere near enough for my ears! It’s one of the few things I know I’ll remember to tell Diogenes in a thousand years or so. I may have to improvise something in the meantime.

  Once we were past the major obstacles, we headed down the mountain at a good pace. Bronze beats any wheeled vehicle when it comes to cross-country travel. Even with track-laying vehicles, I’d race her against anything short of a Bolo. We headed south, making for the ranger station in Paradise and assuming, of course, it was still there. I recalled it on the other world’s map of the area as the closest point of approach for a real road, a hotel, and a place to park. The car wouldn’t be there, but analogou
s buildings and a parking lot might.

  We hit a disused hiking trail and followed it to the Paradise Inn. Very woodsy, very rustic. All the comforts of home with a veneer of log cabin. The staff, sadly, were nowhere to be found. No rangers, either. There were a couple of cars in the parking lot. Judging from the needles—fir and pine—they hadn’t moved for quite some time.

  The hotel was mostly intact, although it also showed clear signs of abandonment. Broken windows let in animals and weather. There was no water pressure, no electricity, and no phone service.

  The ranger station was in slightly better shape. The windows were also broken out and let in unnecessary moonlight along with the weather, but the interior was less luxurious and more durable to begin with. Someone had smashed in the door, though nothing seemed missing. I thought it odd, since the station had a number of items useful in a post-war environment. It had an emergency generator, for one thing, and some radios—short-wave, police-band, CB, all the usual stuff, I suppose. There was even a locker, unopened, clearly marked “Emergency.” It had blankets, first-aid kits, and similar gear.

  What worried me most was the collection of bones outside the ranger station. They were human bones, somewhat scattered by scavengers. I counted nine skulls.

  I also found a ranger, judging by the uniform, or what was left of it. Mostly, he was bones, spread around the room and somewhat gnawed on. Judging from the looks of them, something—or several somethings—had ripped him apart before eating him. I couldn’t find his name tag, but I did find his belt, complete with holster, handcuffs, and the like. His gun was not in the holster, but lay on the floor well to one side, near the bones of his right hand. It still held three rounds in the magazine. I also found two empty magazines and a lot of crushed brass.

  There was a hole in the back of his head, toward the top, as though a bullet exited up and out. Say, from under the chin?

  Did a group of survivors try to raid the ranger station? Then why leave everything? Did the ranger have something more important they wanted, rather than his supplies? Even so, why would a ranger kill himself? Despair? The radios would have let him know just how bad things were back in civilization. How many sleepless nights did he sit by them, listening to people as they tried to reach out and find some bright spot in a world gone mad? Until the power failed? Did he fire up the generator and continue to listen until his fuel ran out?

  I checked the fuel generator’s fuel tank. There was nothing but a faint odor of fuel. Which died first? Him or the generator? I have no idea.

  I didn’t find anything I wanted to bring. Besides, Bronze is already carrying a lot of stuff in her built-in saddlebags. As long as I wear my armor, we have space behind the saddle to lash things, but the only thing I really wanted was food. I may not need to eat during the day, but I strongly prefer not to go without. Like anyone else, I get hungry. None of the food we found was in any condition to be eaten. Even the cans had swelled, a sure sign the contents weren’t really food anymore. Things less well-protected had suffered from the animal scavengers.

  Well, the animal scavengers I could also turn into food, if I had to. It’s not my favorite way to dine, but needs must and all that. I don’t know how Firebrand-broiled badger tastes, but I have spells for that.

  I mounted up and Bronze rang thunderously along Paradise Road, headed west.

  “Why west?” I asked.

  Because the last time we came this way, there was a gas station in Elbe, and Elbe was to the west.

  “Gasoline makes you sneeze.”

  But if they had kerosene or a diesel pump, that would be perfect. If not, then she would sneeze away from anything we didn’t want to burn.

  “If I make another comment about horse sense, will you forgive me?”

  She would.

  “Consider it made. To Elbe!”

  And we were off.

  We paused on the way, at the Cougar Rock campground and the ranger station there. It was in better shape—no one broke the windows or forced the door. The building was livable, although still powerless. Since it was night and I don’t need lights to look something over, I took a stab at getting the emergency generator going. It still had some diesel fuel, but the battery was dead. It had a pull-start, and if a strong pull could have started it, I would have started it. Sadly, whatever was wrong with it was not readily apparent. Rather than tinker with it, we pressed on, passing through Nisqually—a wide spot in the road—and Paradise Road turned into National Park Highway.

  Elbe, in this world, was never what I’d call a town. Maybe it’s the modern equivalent of a village. It was small enough. It’s a scattering of homes behind the front row of buildings where people passing through can fuel up, buy camping supplies, go fishing on Alder Lake, and get a hot meal after “enjoying” their outdoors experience.

  I’ve got nothing against the outdoors, in and of itself, but I have a preference for toilets, showers, and kitchens. I’m a homebody by inclination and an outdoorsman only by necessity. The more I rough it, the more I appreciate the little comforts of civilization.

  Elbe also had some tourist traps—excuse me, “attractions.” They had a railroad museum, complete with an ancient steam locomotive and a couple of cars on an old section of track. There was something labeled “The Elbe Mall,” but I’d call it a gas station and large convenience store. They had a couple of tiny churches, four different places to eat, a post office, and, hidden behind the frontage, two real streets and the local houses.

  It was all abandoned. The only thing moving through the darkness was us and the wind. I listened. Firebrand listened. Bronze perked up her ears swiveled them around to listen.

  “Anything?”

  Not for me, Boss.

  Bronze didn’t hear anything, either.

  “All right, first things first. Let’s check the gas station.”

  They had a diesel pump, which was a relief. They had no power, however, so the pump didn’t work. I searched the “mall” to see what was available. Garden hose was to be had, so once I got the lid off the underground tank and fed the hose down, Bronze lowered her head, took the hose in her mouth, and used it like a giant straw.

  She doesn’t like low-magic worlds, for obvious reasons. She likes them even less when she isn’t in a vehicle. Animating a metal statue isn’t easy. Admittedly, it’s a magical superconductor and its internal structures are set up to make it as easy to use as possible, but I don’t think it’s as easy as, say, making an engine start. The fuel does all the work directly, rather than going through some mysterious conversion process.

  While Bronze drank all their diesel fuel, I searched for a vehicle. If we were going to be on roads a lot, something with wheels would be delightful. I did find several cars, but, as with the parking lots at the hotel and the ranger stations, they were all at least a year old, possibly longer, and abandoned to the weather. For the most part, the batteries were the obvious problem. There simply wasn’t power to start them. When I lifted the hood on one and found some sort of nest atop the engine, I wondered which ones would start even with a jump.

  No doubt Bronze could possess any of them and get them to run, but what would be the point? The idea was to use less of her magical force. Still, gasoline wouldn’t make a car sneeze a fiery cloud…

  Bronze was content to remain a horse, which settled matters as far as I was concerned. If we found a place to stay and a decent vehicle for her to occupy, we could park her statue in the garage and she would nap in the car.

  In the meantime, I searched the Elbe Mall again, this time for food I could eat during the day. I knew I was going to be hungry in the morning, but there wasn’t a lot to be had. I opened one of the not-bulging cans, but my nose is sensitive. Come the dawn, I wouldn’t be hungry enough to eat what was in there.

  Should I hunt down something? Deer? Elk? What do they have in these forests, anyway? It’s night, so there aren’t a lot of ducks, geese, or anything else in the air. Owls? Technically, I suppose owls are edib
le. Mice? Fish from the lake?

  Hang on a minute. During my search for cars, I spotted one house with a roof full of solar panels, bars on the windows, and an impressive fence. Part of the fence was torn down and the garage door was bashed in, but the security and solar power made me wonder if the owner was prepared for disaster in other ways. If nothing else, cans stored in a basement wouldn’t suffer as much from a summer or two without air conditioning. We went to check it out.

  The interior of the house was a mess. Furniture overturned, windows broken from the inside, dust, animal tracks—whatever he prepared for, it wasn’t this. The house had central heat, but it also had a fireplace and two small wood stoves. There was charcoal as well as small woodpiles beside each. I found the gun safe—open, with two magazine-fed, semi-automatic rifles still in it—and a variety of other emergency supplies. The place wasn’t a bunker by any stretch of the imagination. It didn’t even have a basement. On the other hand, it was stocked to be reasonably comfortable and safe despite a temporary breakdown in government.

  Obviously, the breakdown wasn’t as temporary as he hoped. They hoped, I should say. I found lots of stepped-on shell casings and more bones, lots of them. How many were defenders? How many were attackers? Hard to say. Again, the bones inside were plentiful and mostly gnawed on. Once the animals get in, they’ll eat almost anything.

  Speaking of eating, I did finally locate several boxes of brown, plastic bags, still sealed—full MRE rations, complete with entrée, side dish, dessert, spoon, matches, and toilet paper.

  Chili with beans… chili with beans… chili with beans… I checked another box. Still chili with beans. Another box. Chili with beans. Either he got a really good deal or he loved his chili with beans. I don’t mind chili and beans, as such, but I know they made lots of other entrées. Even a little variety would be nice.

  As I continued my search of the house, I wondered what bashed in the garage door. Someone in a vehicle? Possibly. But why? To raid the place? Fine, but why leave guns, ammunition, food, and other supplies lying around? If the residents beat back the assault, why did they die here? Did they kill their attackers and drive the battering-ram vehicle away? Then why return here and die? Or did they drive the vehicle away, leaving behind their supplies? It made no sense.