by JT Dylan
The Dark West
J.T. Dylan
Copyright 2016 J.T. Dylan
ONE
An ice-cold gale whipped California's shoreline. Night was fast approaching and only a single gull braved the winds. The bird ventured a little deeper out to sea, skimming the swelling waves, waiting for her chance to take a bite. A dark shape appeared in the depths below her, much bigger than the swell's usual inhabitants. It rose quickly toward the surface, and the gull squawked in protest, letting the wind carry her away to more uneventful waters.
The shape crashed out of the waves, thrashing its arms to stay afloat. As the wind lashed at its face, its naked bipedal form shuddered and retched, emptying its stomach of salt water. Its muscles shivered and spasmed in the cold as it fought to stay above the surface. It looked around in the fading light and saw infinite blackness ahead toward the horizon, and only a faint smudge of something in the opposite direction. Its survival instinct opted for the latter, and it kicked and dragged its way towards the shore.
The animal did not consciously know what it was, or how to exist, but instinctively it swam.
The darkness was complete by the time the exhausted creature dragged itself onto the sand. The moon dominated the sky and the animal stared up in awe. It examined itself, curious of the world in which it had just arrived.
A memory flash. The creature cowered in defence, mistaking the memory for reality.
Another; Faces. Humans. Violence. He looked at his hands. He was human. He could think. He saw a big bear snarling at him. The bear's nose was bleeding. The bear opened its jaws wide and lunged at him...
Sheriff Jack jolted awake, drenched in sweat, still lying where he'd lost consciousness at the water's edge. The sky was a dark red now. Nearly daylight. He sprang up, and screamed in pain as the electricity speared his brain.
He was hit by a second attack, and burrowed his face in the sand in agony. His vision was a white hot blur and his gums bled. Pummelling the sand with his fist to focus the pain, he tried to remember the meditation techniques. Bullshit. They never worked. The only reason anyone time-travelled more than once was because they never remembered that it felt like dying.
The bear-man... The Ox. His memories were still swiss cheesed, but Jack's fog slowly cleared in short bursts. He dragged himself up, fighting against the ice-cold finger piercing his skull. He walked like a drunk on a ship, away from the open space, toward the safety of the cliffs. The sun was almost up and he needed to find shelter before he lost consciousness again.
His dreams were fragmented. Violent. He jerked awake with the low sun on his face. He could hear voices and instinctively pressed himself down against the cool stone of the cave. Through gaps in the foliage outside he could make out four men, Indians, looking for something. Looking for him?
They wielded sharp tools and wore nothing but fur and leather. He held his breath and listened as their voices faded.
Jack ventured out through thick undergrowth, saw only their tracks and exhaled. He was at the foot of a great cliff. At the top he could see grass, but down here there was only sand and weeds. His mouth felt like sandpaper. He looked around for a way up to a better vantage point. Gripping the rocks with both hands, he scrambled up a gradual incline and found himself at the top of the lowest outcrop. There was nothing but ocean to the west. Rocks and trees to the east. North and south only offered more coastline. He started east. Water would be first. Then some clothing.
TWO
The huge steel doors rumbled open and two silhouettes walked in from the hangar bay. One was a slim young brunette in a serious grey suit. The other was a tall African-American male in his late thirties. He scanned the entire area methodically as he walked. A security team fell in behind and covered all the exits points. Warm air and the drone of machinery wafted in after them.
A uniformed man on the wrong side of forty marched across the polished steel floor to greet them. 'Mr President! Welcome! How was the flight?' General Daniels smiled as he caught up to them, pumping the hand of his old friend without breaking stride. He nodded a smile to the attaché as the heavy doors rumbled closed in the distance. She blinked, and smiled back.
'You should know better by now, General.' President Benjamin Freeman stood a few inches taller and a few pounds lighter than the General. 'I would much rather have walked here, had we the luxury.'
The General laughed out loud. 'You always were our best man on the ground, Ben.'
'Let's walk and talk Jim. Any further news?' The President's long strides had the other two working hard to catch up. The General steered them toward an entrance hatch. 'Only from this end sir, there have been no further signals from our Alpha. We have Beta juiced up and ready to drop in on the source signal as we speak. If we hurry we'll be just in time for the show.' The President stopped. 'An extraction? That's fantastic. So why aren't we celebrating?'
'It's not that simple quite yet. Through here please. Mind your head.' They ducked into a long service tunnel that snaked deeper into the compound.
The long corridor eventually opened out into a small reception area, with large vacuum-sealed glass doors on each wall. A single potted shrub by the central desk only managed to magnify the sterility of the place. A man of about thirty looked up from his terminal as they entered. The CRT's glow coloured his face an artificial green.
He snapped to attention as he realised who had just entered. 'Please check your tags here sir, ma'am... and, Mr. President.'
The brunette removed her magnetic badge and swiped it across the terminal's camera. It bleeped and her badge lit-up green. She replaced it on her jacket. 'Sir, if there's nothing else, I have some clearance documents I need to go through for the return flight.' nodding toward the smaller door. In the room beyond, banks of white shirted office workers went about their day.
'Sure, thanks Cal. I'll see you at the de-brief.' He smiled and turned his attention back to the General.
Daniels waited until Caroline's long legs were through the door and it had hissed shut behind her before speaking. 'You still hauling that old data recorder around with you Ben? Christ! She's probably logging everything you say.'
'She's actually much quicker than most of the new ones. Besides, the company insisted. The public love synthetics. Hell, she's probably worth forty percent of my votes by now.'
'Shit, it seems we've come a long way since the wars. People are too damned quick to forgive.'
'Not everyone it seems.' The President smiled. He swiped his own badge. It flashed amber and buzzed. The President looked puzzled and tried again. Red light. The receptionist looked flustered. The General seemed unshaken.
'It's okay folks. Just a simple security measure. High ranking officials need double-clearance to pass through the doors from here on in. Prevents any kidnap attempts. You'd thank me if you were being dragged through at gunpoint by some nut job right now.'
The receptionist flinched a little.
The General spoke into his badge, pressing the pad of his thumb against the outside as he did so. 'Double-clearance required for primary entrance. General Jim Daniels requesting.'
A female voice, electronic, spoke over the room's speakers. 'General Daniels, recognition confirmed.'
A few seconds passed and an older bespectacled face appeared at the door, making visual contact. He spoke into his badge, his voice amplified through the room's speakers. 'Double Clearance response. Lieutenant Adams responding.'
Again, the same female voice. 'Lieutenant Seymour Adams recognition confirmed. Guest to confirm within 10, 9, 8...'
'Swipe your card please Mr President, or we'll have a damned Swat Team on their way here in just under 6 seconds.'
The President looked bemused and swiped his card. It blipped and turned green. The door u
nlocked with a hiss of warm air. General Daniels ushered the President through into the dark corridor, before following him in. Lieutenant Adams stood to attention as they passed, then sealed the entrance behind them. The reception area went back to its calm air-conditioned normality. The receptionist blinked and tried to remember what he had been doing earlier.
'So where exactly are you stopping the bad guys from taking me?' The President grinned as they walked through the maze of dark brushed steel and black rubber. Warm yellow pin lights followed their progress through the corridors.
'Not where Benjamin, but when.'
The President shuddered as he considered the possibilities; A whole new breed of terrorism.
They arrived at another set of large plate glass double doors. The General swiped his card then requested double clearance for the President. A short man in a lab coat confirmed the clearance from inside the locked room, and the female computer started her monotone countdown again. The President swiped his card quickly this time, turning it green. As the doors slid open, the President looked thoughtful.
'How do you decide who's a high enough risk to warrant additional security?'
'Well, we run a series of algorithms. Each iD card as you know is personal to the individual, so it's just a matter of deciding who's at risk. With you, it's easy. Top priority. No question. Then we have various diplomats, royalty, even celebrity names crop up on the protected list. Aside from that it's an automatic green light for all official personnel and their vetted guests. Then it's back to red light for the regular folk. We want to keep them out for different reasons of course.' The General grabbed an electronic clipboard from the wall and signed in with his thumbprint.
President Freeman scanned the area, and saw people milling about with a hushed urgency. 'Simple but effective solution I suppose. Can't it be compromised?'
'Not easily. They'd need someone with access to walk them in and an accomplice to confirm clearance on the inside. And we screen our personnel from birth. We know more about them than their own mothers.'
They walked into a long, bright room. Lined against the furthest wall were glass tubular booths, like upright sleeping pods. Maybe ten in all. Banks of electronic lights and cables hummed quietly between them. The pods were all empty, except one. In the nearest were two men. Both strapped in at the midriff, facing outward through the glass, back to back, with only a sliver of plate glass between them. They were naked, clean-shaven and greased with what looked like petroleum jelly. Electrodes linked their heads and chests. One of the men looked to be of native American descent. His eyes were closed and he was breathing regularly. His chest muscles spasmed intermittently as he meditated. The other was a bear of a man. He stood almost a foot taller than his companion, and his viking-like frame filled his half of the pod. He breathed rapidly, his chest rising and falling quickly. He was huge. The President thought he looked bigger than any soldier he'd ever worked with. He looked more like an Ox.
'Mr President. Meet our Beta Soldier.'
'Which one?'
'Both.'
The President raised an eyebrow.
'This stuff isn't throwaway like we had during the wars Ben. Plus, as you know, The Company doesn't have deep pockets these days. No spoils of war to keep us constantly funded. Cost exceeds a billion per pod per launch, if it works or not. We have to minimize the risk of errors any way we can.'
'Two Betas, in case one wastes your money by not surviving?'
'There's a little more to it, but essentially... yes.'
The President whistled softly, 'I'm glad I got out when I did. That doesn't exactly boost morale. Why stop at two? Doesn't it make sense to launch four, five, ten guys?'
The General smiled. The President still had the same dry humour. 'Believe me, we've considered all the options Ben, and two is just fine. After that, it gets too expensive to house them during the launch.'
The President shook his head in awe. It had been years since he'd been anywhere near a time pod. He massaged his upper arm from habit, calming a phantom pain that had long gone. 'Stats?'
General Daniels studied his notes, 'Nano cells enable them to use 67% of their muscle power instead of the usual 20%. Night Vis brain patches as standard; Infra red and UV. Synthesised blood cells allow 58% increase in oxygen concentration. Big Red here can lift close to four times his own weight, stay underwater for 7 minutes at maximum exertion or see a man blink three miles away in the dead of night.'
'Impressive. And the little guy?' He nodded toward the Native American
'Those were the little guy's stats. His real name's Wolf. Big Red to his buddies. Never call him that to his face. Anyway, no stats for the big guy. File's classified. Fast tracked from The Company's special ops. Apparently the best there is.'
The President studied the soldier. Through the thick glass, the Ox's chest looked like a slab of armour plating. A small oriental man with snow white hair scurried past and flipped a selection of intricate switches on the Ox's side of the pod.
'We'll be ready to initiate their launch in a few minutes Ben. Want to settle in for the ride?' the General motioned to a separate viewing area staged a little higher within the room.
As the President made his way up the gantry stairs, the two-storey steel wall behind the pods buzzed down, revealing a secondary glass wall to be the only thing between them and the vacuum outside. The President's breath caught in his throat as he saw the view. Millions of stars pricked a black sky, and looming large and centre, a thousand miles away, the dying planet Earth.
He'd seen pictures of course, and holographs, but never like this. The wars truly had been brutal. He released a breath he hadn't even realised he was holding. Outside, a smooth piece of debris the size of a football floated upward past the window, bumped gently against the glass and resumed its path into deeper space.
The President dropped himself into a leather chair as the station rumbled on its ever-constant orbit. No one knew whose side had struck Earth's final blow. Some said a hole had been drilled far into the Earth's core by the synthetics, and a thorium bomb released inside. Others thought it was a targeted surface blast from the American lunar estate. Whatever the cause, the effect had been devastating. It had ended the wars, but at the greatest possible cost. The millions who weren't killed had to be relocated to already overpopulated colonies.
A third of the Earth's spherical area now floated in fragments above its orbit. The planet looked like an apple core just after a firecracker had been detonated inside. At ground zero, the surface mantel had evaporated as if it were nothing, and the molten core had exploded far out into space, cooling into a perfect freeze-frame of the atrocity.
The President forced his attention back to the mission. He watched the General suggest a few last minute adjustments, saw the familiar restrained excitement in the personnel's faces. They were close now; He remembered the electric atmosphere all too well.
Inside the pod, the Ox's breathing calmed to match his co-pilot's, and the President watched him close his eyes as he prepared himself for the countdown.
THREE
The dog was a mongrel. Jack was sure of that. The damned thing could smell him. He was sure of that too. Jack crouched behind the thick roots of a tall old oak. Two miles east were some primitive wooden structures, an outhouse and a dog on a long rope. The dog was barking, looking straight toward him. Couldn't see this far maybe, but his nose seemed to work just fine. No one had paid any attention to the animal yet. But they soon would. There was a fresh water stream about halfway between them. It cut directly in between him and the dog. There was no way to skirt around to it either. No trees, no rocks. He'd be totally exposed if he went any further. Unless he wanted to crawl through the grass for miles like a god-damned snake he was going to have to shut that dog up somehow. He was already feeling nauseous. He had to get hydrated soon or he'd be in trouble.
'Where are your trousers?' The boy, six, maybe seven, had been in the tree above him all along. So much for years of r
econ training.
'Who taught you to sneak up on people like that? Get down here boy. Quietly.' Jack kept his voice low. The wind had carried his smell to the dog, it would surely carry their voices too.
The boy giggled and climbed down. His poncho snagged firmly on the last branch and the boy yelped in panic, his neck suddenly pulled upwards by his own weight against the rag, his feet kicking only air.
Jack sprang up, hoisted the boy out of the overcoat and put him down safely on the grass. Somewhere in the distance the dog stopped barking. The lad wiped a tear from his eye and shrugged off his calamity. Jack grabbed the Poncho off the tree and tore the neck line a little more.
'Hey! You can't do that mister, that's mine.' The boy's fists were already tight balls of fury.
'Calm yourself son. I'm only borrowing it,' Jack stepped into the poncho like a woman would her skirt, 'Besides, if it weren't for me, you'd likely have no neck left to put it around. So quit your hollering.' Jack winked, and the kid seemed satisfied with that and sat down quietly.
Jack felt ridiculous in the garb but suddenly a lot less vulnerable. 'Now tell me, was that your dog hollering over there boy?'
'That's Barkuss. He barks.' The boy smiled, his straw hair and toothless grin sending a shiver down Jack's spine. A memory? Already gone. It happened a lot these days.
'Who lives with you and Barkuss? Is your Pa home?'
The boy shook his head resolutely, 'And I don't have no Ma either, so you can save your askin.'
Jack knelt beside the boy, 'Who feeds you and your dog son? Who looks out for you?'
'The man does.'
'Which man?'
'That'll be me, sonny.' A sturdy looking old timer stepped out from behind the tree. He was aiming a rifle directly at Jack's head, and his hands weren't wavering. 'What's your opinion on that?'