Alt.History 102 (The Future Chronicles)

by Samuel Peralta

  We won’t be able to find him before he reaches the Fence again. He’ll drop off the radar until the day he detonates his nuke in DC and levels our government. All in his insane quest to return to the pre-bombing world, where humans were “natural” and “normal,” as he puts it, where we didn’t rely on “grotesque machinery” to make our lives easier.

  I find it odd that he seems to ignore the fact we are only alive because of “grotesque machinery.” Without it, millions would have died from the multigenerational effects of nuclear fallout. Cancer rates were already skyrocketing when Dobbs and Bates introduced the first full-body cybernetic system in 1992. I can’t imagine how many would be suffering or dead by now if we hadn’t made our bodies resistant to deadly disease—and, of course, immune to radiation.

  I guess, to Red Matheson, horrible suffering and death is preferable to happiness and health. Simply because one is “natural” and the other involves technology.

  What a bastard.

  Zane and I take a short break in what I presume was once a small play park for children. There are half-melted swing sets and jungle gyms and monkey bars scattered about. We sit on the single surviving metal bench, slightly warped from the nuke blast that leveled much of the city around the park, and eat a couple of ration packs Zane’s been saving in his bag. Like most rations, they taste like cardboard and pencil shavings, but they’re still a few notches up from the bitter plants and half-cooked woodland creatures we’ve been scrounging up for food recently.

  Zane drains a bottle of water and tosses it into a twisted, empty trashcan resting against a tilted tree a few feet behind us. He stares at the desolate ruins beyond the park, hundreds of homes and offices and schools, grocery stores and shopping centers, all of them rendered dilapidated skeletons of their former glory. He interlocks his fingers and sighs. “This is a big city, Kara. How are we going to find Red here?”

  I stuff the last of the ration bread in my mouth and reply, “Find a stable high point. We can use our heat scanners to search for human life signs. Our friend in Utah said Red was in a bidding war for the nuke, probably with some of these ‘Warlords’ you always hear rumors about. I’d guess that the nuke is being housed in a fairly large building, somewhere big enough to hide it fully and open enough to act as an auction house. There could be hundreds interested in the bomb, if not in buying it than in seeing it. The building will probably be packed with all sorts of people.”

  I take a sip of my own water. “I suggest we seek out the largest crowds in the city inside expansive buildings. Make a list and go through that list as quickly as possible. Once we find the place where the bomb is being kept, we’ll disable it, take down Red, and get the hell out of here.”

  Zane considers that for a moment and nods. “I saw an intact radio tower a few blocks back. You think that’s tall enough?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  It turns out the tower is tall enough, and the two of us spend ten minutes scanning the majority of the city for heat signatures. I’m surprised how many we find. There are hundreds of people living in the irradiated ruins of Los Angeles, going about their lives as if the city wasn’t wrecked by Soviet warheads. From the top of the radio tower, I spot open markets, children playing in back yards, people going to and fro, as if they’re working day jobs. The people of this Ash Lands city have reformed a shadow of society.

  “I think I’ve got something,” Zane mutters.

  I crane my neck to follow his line of sight and spot the same thing he does: an eight-story office building, barely standing. Most of the windows are missing, the innards exposed to the elements, and the structure can’t have more than a few years left before it topples over sideways and takes out everything in a three-block radius around it. But despite its condition, it appears to be a hub of human activity. Inside what must be a roomy basement level are dozens of heat signatures.

  The way the people are arranged in the room—it could be an auction house.

  “Nice catch.” I pat Zane’s shoulder. “That’s the only contender I see from here. Let’s check it out.”

  The two of us creep through the streets, in and out of narrow alleys, avoiding the eyes of any lookouts the makeshift auction house might have. We arrive at the building a few minutes before noon, the sun high in the hazy sky, dim light cascading down. The office looks even worse close up, its foundation cracked beyond repair, and it’s a wonder the thing has stayed upright for over thirty years, a wonder a strong wind didn’t send it crashing down, or a minor quake. A wonder anyone is brave or reckless enough to use such an unstable structure as a gathering place for a significant number of people.

  The heat signatures are all underground.

  If the building came down, they’d all be crushed or trapped inside.

  If the building comes down while we’re in there…

  Zane must have the same thought, because I feel his nervousness spike again, a jolt of fear brushing against my mind. I reach up and grip his shoulder reassuringly. “You don’t have to go in there,” I say. “In fact, I have a better role for you to play. There are too many people inside to make for a comfortable fight, and since they’re all in the same room—near the nuke, I guess—it would be time-consuming to mow our way through them all. And if we spend too much time tossing the small fries out of our way, Red could escape. So I suggest a diversion.”

  We’re ducked behind a wide piece of broken flooring across the road from the office building’s main door, and the angle of our cover also gives me a great view of the building next door. It looks to have been a three-story department store, and it’s in even worse shape than the office, tilted at a forty-five degree angle. Which, I imagine, is why it’s totally abandoned. The slightest tremor could send it over. Which is exactly what I’m planning.

  I nod toward the department store, and Zane catches my drift immediately. “You want me to knock it down?”

  “Yep. There’s nobody in there, so you won’t have any resistance. Take out whatever supports remain and let the thing collapse. The commotion should draw a significant number of people from the auction house, simply because of the department store’s proximity. It’ll sound like they’re under attack.” I track a finger from the office’s main door to a loading bay entrance around the side. “Meanwhile, as soon as I see which door people like to use, I’ll sneak in through an alternative route, disable the nuke, and take out Red.”

  Zane purses his lips. “How do you know Red won’t run too?”

  “Because he’s Red Matheson, and he wants that nuke. And that nuke is too big to be carried by a single person. So he’ll stay with it.”

  “And if some of the others stay as well?”

  “I’ll take care of the stragglers, kid.” I flick his ear. “Don’t you worry.”

  “All right.” Zane glances from the department store to me. “I think I can do this.”

  “I know you can.”

  Zane smiles. Thanks, Kara.

  Then he’s off, crouching behind overturned cars and shuffling across the broken asphalt as fast as he can go without making any noise. He slips into the adjacent department store through an empty window frame and vanishes into the darkness. When I flip on my heat sensors again, I spy his red-hued form exploring the bowels of the building, until he comes across what must be the key support beams holding the structure at its dangerous angle. He tests them with a few pushes, and at least two of them wobble, the entire building groaning in response. Zane pauses for a moment after that, collecting his courage.

  He attacks. He launches himself at the first beam and kicks it so hard it splits in half, and, as the building begins to scream, Zane dashes the other direction and gives the other beam the same treatment. A series of deafening groans echo through the silent streets, and the entire building slides off its foundation, splitting into four massive pieces as it falls. Zane leaps out of the same window he entered through a millisecond before it’s blocked by a slab of stone and bounds away to the safety of a n
earby alley, out of the path of the debris raining down onto the street.

  The first piece of the building careens into the side of the office, destroying what few windows were left and gouging a huge chunk out of three floors. The second piece collides with the ground so hard it shakes the entire street for miles around. The third piece lands atop another nearby building, a two-story residence, and the shoddy wooden structure, rotten and wrecked by a long-ago explosion, implodes, collapsing into splinters. The fourth and final piece of the department store, several tons of steel and plaster and stone, lands atop a rusted tractor-trailer, which must have been carrying fuel. Because it explodes.

  A huge cloud of fire and smoke and dust plumes into the air, and even from a block away, I hear people inside the office building scream in terror. I don’t know what a nuke attack sounds like from a realistic standpoint. I wasn’t alive last time nukes went off on American soil. But if I had to guess, I’d say a ground-rocking explosion is part of the mix, since dozens come running out of the front entrance of the office. They take one look at the devastation next door and panic, fleeing every which direction into the maze of ruins all around them.

  I wait until I have an opening, and then I zip across the street, to the loading dock entrance, so fast I’m no more than a blur to the terrified auction-house goers. There are two doors at the entrance, one the large rolling sheet door that allows people to carry in deliveries, the other small and red, made for people only. Since the large door is chained up and the red one propped open, I enter via the latter. Into the dimly lit domain of the man I’ve been sent to kill.

  There’s a rickety, squeaky metal stairway that leads down to the basement level where I need to go, but since that would announce my presence, I keep searching for an alternate route. Half a minute later, I find a maintenance shaft that has enough room for me to slip into the inner workings of the ceiling above the basement. I crawl on my hands and knees along the ceiling grid, dodging vent shafts and dangling wires and all manner of spiders and creepy-crawly bugs, until I find a good position over the room below.

  A number of the ceiling tiles are missing, so I’m careful to avoid putting myself in a place where anyone left in the room could glance up and see me. Then I peer down at the remaining enemies I’ll need to overtake if I’m to ensure the safety of the NAR, ensure the defeat of Red Matheson, and ensure that honor is restored to the government humiliated by a man who wants to drag us back to the dark ages.

  There are fifteen of these enemies.

  More than I was hoping for.

  But not too many to handle.

  And, as an added bonus, none of them are anywhere near the nuke, which is sitting on a big wooden pedestal at the far end of the room, half-covered by a blue tarp.

  Surprise—Red is the one closest to the bomb. But he’s still twenty feet away.

  He’s standing at the head of the murmuring group left behind after the stampede to escape, trying to placate them with wide hand gestures and smooth words. “It’s not an assault force or a bombing. I promise you, people. It was probably a building collapse and nothing more. You have all lived here long enough to know these things happen. Now, if we can get back to our negotiations on the price for—”

  “And what if is the NAR?” says a dark-haired older woman with burn scars on her face.

  Red rubs his own scarred face and replies, “It’s not them. They wouldn’t send a strike team here. Too risky. They know the population density in the old cities, well enough to avoid a stupid decision. The gangs and such would descend on them in minutes. Come on. Think logically.”

  The woman turns around to consult with two men behind her, and I realize most of the members of this remaining group, if not all, must the ones in control of the nuke at this point. Perhaps they’re salvagers, who uncovered the nuke by accident when digging through a pile of trash and rubble in search of rare treasures and valuable goods. Or perhaps they are buyers, who bought or stole the nuke from those who did discover it. Whoever they are, Red obviously needs them in order to acquire his bomb. And since he’s focusing all his energy on persuading these people to stay put and finish the auction, it means he’s not focusing on anything else. Like the FBI agent shimmying down a thick plastic tube in the far left corner.

  I’m half-hidden behind a hanging sheet of plastic as I descend, slow and quiet. I land on the dirt floor with nary a sound and then crouch down behind a row of short boxes. As I move toward the dud nuke on its raised platform, I use my ViFi to send a search request via satellite back to home base: the schematics for eighties-era Soviet nukes. I don’t, off the top of my head, know how to mangle the bomb beyond repair, as nuclear weapons have been globally banned since 1985. Nobody gets any training for handling nuclear missiles these days. There aren’t supposed to be any left.

  There’s a gap between the line of boxes and the nuke platform. I peek around the corner of the last box to see Red still arguing with the auction group. But they seem calmer now, and I know it’ll be five minutes or less before they’re back in business talks to sign the bomb over to Red’s dastardly hands. Thankfully, my search request receives a response, and I start to download the instructions I need to disable the large, unwieldy missile on the platform next to me. It’s slow, coming down via satellite, but I download the information directly into my brain as it comes, so I learn what I need to instantly.

  I wait for the exact moment where all the group members are looking a different direction and quietly roll across the gap, landing in front of the access panel I need. The panel is screwed on, but I have plenty of tools on my belt, including a laser designed specifically to destroy screws and nails. I hold the laser rod up to each screw and burn through all six in under thirty seconds, the laser emitting no sound except a hiss too low for most to hear. As the last screw melts away to nothing, I place my other hand on the panel to hold it in place. After I stick the laser rod back on my tool belt, I pop the panel off carefully with both hands and set it next to me.

  My ears are glued to the conversation on the other side of the room the entire time. Red has brought the auction group around, and they’re discussing his final bid, which he must have submitted a few seconds before Zane trashed the adjacent department store. The auction group members sound very pleased by Red’s insanely high offer: a number of military vehicles, including helicopters, hummers, and even two tanks. Where Red got all this equipment, and where he’s storing it, I don’t know for sure. I imagine they’re with his other anti-tech terrorist friends, on the other side of the Fence. He’s probably not planning to ship them over here until after he bombs DC.

  I rise up to my knees to take a look inside the nuke, and my ViFi pulls up the schematics I need as an overlay on my vision, key pieces of the bomb’s wiring highlighted blue. My brain, now armed with all the knowledge I need, immediately figures out why this bomb didn’t explode with the rest of the nukes the Soviets chucked at us. There’s damage to the wiring that should have sent the explode order to the part of the bomb responsible for blowing people and places to kingdom come. My guess is that it was an overlooked factory defect. It was made with the damaged wiring and nobody noticed before they stuck it in the silo to launch.

  My ears pick up Red and the auction group stepping closer to the bomb. “Trust me, friends. The NAR wouldn’t dare come out this way, at least not in any number big enough to make an impact on my plans. Last I saw of their so-called top FBI agents, those cyborg freaks with their wire-filled brains, they were on their knees before me, sitting in the blood of their precious senator. Even the famous Blackbird, that stupid bitch, could do nothing but stare at me in fear. The Zuckerman job may have been a ‘statement piece’ and not a death blow, but it emboldened my allies and shook the NAR’s confidence. People are scared now. Losing faith in their government. Once I get this thing up and running again”—I hear him gesture to the nuke—“I’ll have the whole NAR cowering in terror, all their robot monstrosities included. If nukes built this brave new
world, then nukes can certainly destroy it. Drop this thing over their capital, and it’s over. The Fence comes down. The cybernetics come out. And we can make this country, this world, what it should have become after the Soviets attacked. Not this unnatural society of computerized people.”

  Not this society of people immune to deadly radiation.

  Not this society of people safe from killer cancer.

  Not this society of people made smarter and stronger through technology.

  Not this society of people who move toward the future without fear.

  Not this society of people who have risen from the ashes of the country they called home and formed a society of implicit trust and compassion.

  No, Red Matheson doesn’t want that society.

  And that’s why he killed a senator and is now threatening to kill us all.

  In the past, in my younger years, I would have stood up right now and started shooting in response to Red’s words. I would have slaughtered everyone in the room, ripped off limbs and kicked off heads. I would have done what I needed to in order to protect the Republic and its people, and I would have done those things in the most violent way possible. Because I used to think that type of violence was the most divine kind of retribution in any situation.

  But like I said, I learn from my mistakes.

  That type of violence is best on a small scale, like with the ruffians back in Utah.

  And I realize, ducked behind a nuclear warhead, that this is not small scale. This is not the personal fight with Red I wanted it to be. This is not simply my response to him laughing at me as I sat in front of Senator Zuckerman’s bloodied body those short weeks ago. This is not the time or place for me to follow through with a personal vendetta.

  This is an event that will impact the world.

  Sometimes, with such events, “subtlety” is the answer, a lesson I reinforce when I try to figure out the best way to disarm the nuke permanently. I don’t have the time to dismantle it, and I can’t take it with me—it’s too heavy for even my enhanced muscles to carry—and if I try to smash it to death, I could screw up and set it off—