by Mark Lingane
“If we have time before we leave, you can have a go. But first we check out the town.”
The center of Bronwyn had suffered the same fate as Forgen. Buildings lay in ruins. Signs of fire blotted every structure. Skeletons of buildings were stark against the clear blue sky. Bodies lay in the streets, a combination of cyborg, normal, and infected. The stillness set their nerves on edge.
“Something bad went on here,” Michael said. “The church is still standing.” He indicated the large building at the end of the street.
They made their way in through the grand front doors. It was only half a church. The rear of the building had caved in, exposing the interior to the weather. They made their way among the rubble, discovering a stairwell leading down under the church. They continued down into the gloom and were confronted with an exposed wall of vials, glinting in the sun. Many had been destroyed by the rockfall from above. A table lay on its side, with more chemical equipment smashed on the ground. Two cyborg bodies lay face down, their bodies twisted.
There was a file under the broken glass, its cover stained in various colors. Michael picked it up. Inside was familiar-looking handwriting on pages torn from a notebook. Sebastian looked around the devastation, while Michael read from the notes.
“‘@bioMass challenged today. The battle was long and painful. It has had its price. The others have fallen back into line once again, and assist with the experiments. The results are still poor, the cure is too weak.’”
“I’m guessing @bioMass lost,” Sebastian said. He kicked a body, which rolled over exposing a badly beaten face. He ran his hands over the vials. “I wonder what the point of all this is?”
Michael continued reading. “‘It has gone wrong. They have stolen the cure. We shall all perish. They come for us. They come for me. They come for me. I can hear the screams.’” He let out a heavy sigh. “Then the pen mark seems to fall off the page like he has trouble holding up his arm, defeated by the realization of good deeds gone wrong, tortured by his own guilt and regret.”
Sebastian gave him a dark look.
“Just saying.”
“Where did he go after here?” Sebastian said. “There are no clues.”
A small rock fell to the ground, unsettled by a fleeing animal. It startled both of them. There was a low, sorrowful groan. The two stared at each other, and instinctively took a step closer.
“Maybe there wasn’t a next place,” Michael said.
They ran over to where the noise had originated. Beneath an avalanche of rubble and timbers, they heard another sound. They scrabbled at the debris, throwing it aside. A foot was quickly uncovered, then a leg. They frantically dug away, revealing more and more of the body. With two-thirds exposed, they pulled the body free of the rubble. It cascaded to the floor as the face was revealed.
“My god,” Michael said. “Oliver?”
“Mr. Stephenson?” Sebastian said.
54
SEBASTIAN LOOKED AT the sorry state of the man and added, “Sort of. What’s happened to you?”
“Michael … Filbert? What are you doing out here?” His eyes shifted to Sebastian. “Oh, Sebastian, I’m so sorry for everything. It all went wrong.”
“We can see that,” Michael said.
“I need to warn you of the terrors ahead. Your lives are in jeopardy.”
Sebastian sighed. “I look forward to the day when someone’s happy to see us when we turn up. It’s not as if we smell.”
Michael turned to Sebastian. “This is what you’ve been waiting for. Check to see if the train actually works. The ’Siro has good medical facilities. We need to get Oliver there now.”
Sebastian nearly burst with excitement. He turned and dashed back to the train yard.
Michael returned his focus to Oliver. “We need to talk quickly,” he said, “without distraction.”
“I tried to develop an antidote to the poison in the cyborg parts, so I could cure myself. Then I could cure all the others. We found the church where someone had been working …” Oliver burst into a coughing fit that ended with him spiting a mouthful of blood on the floor.
“On a cure for the infected?”
Oliver shook his head. “On weaponizing the poison. Distilling it, making the infected ones stronger, faster, and longer living. Designing it for an army. Someone with the initial ‘I’ had been conducting the research. But they left before we got there.”
Michael frowned. “Did you continue the experiments?”
Oliver coughed violently, and shook his head.
“We found a boy before we got to Three Rivers,” Michael said. “He gave us a solitary vial. When we went into the church, we found one vial missing. I thought it was an antidote for the poison. It behaved like one. We injected some of it into Melanie. She was cut by one of the infected.”
“What happened?” Oliver asked.
“Can’t you guess? It cured her a bit, but she wasn’t in a good place. We’ve brought what was left with us.”
“Why?”
“We’re going to make more. I’ve got your notes. I’ve picked up a couple of errors.”
Oliver waved his hand in dismissal. “You should forget about it. It’s cursed.”
“The cure you were working on, what happened?”
“I wanted to create a super-antidote that would cure the infection and the cyborg chemical imbalance. But nothing ever seemed to happen. @bioMass found out about the original research and injected himself with the trial cerium. He couldn’t handle the morphing, and he went insane. The chemicals unbalanced his neurological functions. He started to receive guidance—he called it voices in his head.”
“But you were all gone when we got there.”
“The infected came back, looking for the solution. Two guards from the east led a pack of infected. We managed to defend ourselves because they had no weapons, but the men shot us. So we fled.”
Anger flashed in Michael’s eyes as he recalled the two soldiers they had encountered on the road. “Don’t worry about them; they got what they deserved.”
“@bioMass has taken the solution notes. He plans to mass produce it and deliver it to the dictator in the east.”
“Has he gone to the ’Siro at Four Trees?”
Oliver nodded.
“Well, it looks like we’ll have to follow.”
“You need to be careful; he has followers. I wish you all the best in your endeavors and hope you have greater success than I—and have a nobler spirit than I.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Oliver, you’re coming with us.”
A few minutes later, Michael staggered up the steps with Oliver and stumbled out onto the street. Oliver’s cyber parts were leaking, and he winced with every step.
Sebastian ran up the street, covered in soot. “What’s happening?”
“We’re going to Four Trees. The ’Siro awaits us, as does @bioMass. Won’t that be fun?”
“Oliver’s coming with us?”
Michael nodded. “We need to do something for him. We can’t leave him to die.”
“I’ve got the train ready. It’s just like a big steambike. It’s going to be epic.”
They made their way down to the rail yard, where Sebastian had managed to move the train out onto the main rails.
“We’re going to need a carriage for the bikes,” Michael said, “and a tender behind.”
Sebastian snickered.
“Behind the engine. For the coal.”
By the time they had managed to get the tender and carriage attached, and the boiler in the engine appropriately stoked, the sun was dipping down below the horizon.
“Should we be worried about traveling at night?” Sebastian said.
“I’d rather be moving at breakneck speed so no one can catch us than be stuck in a box with no chance of escape.”
“We’d better go fast,” Sebastian said, grinning from ear to ear.
55
THE TRAIN ROARED along the tracks. Sparks flew over their heads, tumbled over the t
ender and carriage, and disappeared into the night.
“You don’t have to blow the horn every thirty seconds,” Michael said. “I’m sure Oliver would appreciate the break. The carriage isn’t the most comfortable place to rest, even without the constant horn blasts.”
Sebastian gave Michael a look of indignation. “Fine, be a spoilsport.”
They settled into a steady rhythm, rocking gently as the train clickety-clacked over the sleepers through the darkness.
Michael watched the skies, looking at the stars rolling past and enjoying the soothing motion. He was staring over the tender behind the engine when a large ball of cinders blew past, the light startling his eyes. They burst on something black, almost invisible, on the roof of the carriage. He squinted, but couldn’t make out anything in the dark. He stood and watched. Another large clump of cinders flew past and burst against the dark obstacle.
He turned to Sebastian. “Hey, can you see anything on the roof of the carriage?”
Before Sebastian could make a move, a cyborg leapt off the tender and down into the engine cab. He barely had time to blink.
The infected cyborg swung at Michael, knocking him over. He tumbled to the side of the cab, toppling out. He grabbed onto a handrail with his legs dangling out of the cab.
Sebastian ripped out his knife and stabbed into the cyborg’s side. The blade bounced off the substantial armor. The cyborg’s hand shot out, grabbed his throat and squeezed. Sebastian kicked hard into the cyborg’s midriff, and then smashed his hands into the cyborg’s ears. He wrapped his hands around the cyborg’s head, cleared his mind, and released a dagger of electromagnetic power.
The cyborg staggered backward, dropping Sebastian. The cyborg shook his head and steadied himself.
Sebastian looked around for anything he could use as a weapon. There was a stoking shovel on the far side of the cab, but the cyborg was in the way. Sebastian cleared his mind. He jumped up, sensed the electrons in the shovel, and flipped the magnetic field. He felt the invisible shovel in his hands, and brought it down on the cyborg’s head. Sebastian leaped up and grabbed hold of the edge of the cab roof, planting both boots in the cyborg’s chest. The cyborg reeled backward and fell out of the cab.
Sebastian watched the body tumble onto the desert sands. He released the molecular structure and the shovel dissolved into rust.
There was a delicate cough.
Sebastian wheeled around and spotted a rapidly paling set of fingers wrapped around the handrail.
“In your own time, lad.”
Sebastian leaped over and grabbed Michael’s slipping hands. He put his foot against the cab wall and heaved Michael back in. As Michael securely gripped the sides of the cab, his eyes widened. Sebastian looked into his face and sighed. His shoulders sagged.
“There’s another one, isn’t there?” he said.
Michael nodded.
Sebastian spun around. “It’s times like this I wish I had a gun. Or a Melanie, which is the same thing.”
Once again, a dark form was standing on the roof of the carriage. Sebastian leaped up onto the tender and stumbled over the coal toward the second infected cyborg, drawing his sword from across his back. He reached the end of the tender and looked up. The cyborg was standing above him, staring down from the carriage roof.
“Uh-oh.”
The cyborg reached down, grabbed Sebastian and hauled him up onto the roof. Sebastian’s sword bounced out of his hand and lay, vibrating, tantalizingly close to the edge. He tried to scramble away from the cyborg as he stepped toward him. The cyborg drew his sword and swung it down. Sebastian rolled desperately to one side, and the sword narrowly missed him. He received a hefty kick in his side that knocked him over the edge of the carriage.
He flailed at the railing on the roof, managing to grasp it with one hand. The ground sped past. He hung by one hand, banging against a window on the side of the carriage. His feet searched for purchase. The cyborg looked down at him and smiled. He placed his foot on Sebastian’s hand and started to press.
Sebastian tried to focus on the air, ionizing it, but the train was roaring along too fast for him to stabilize. The pain in his hand was excruciating and there was nothing for his other hand to grab onto. He slapped against the window, searching for its edge. His hand slipped off the railing and he was caught for a split second, hanging in midair.
The window opened.
He grabbed onto the window ledge.
Oliver’s face appeared, so drawn and pale he looked near dead. “Is there a problem?”
Sebastian released his grip on the ledge and the air spun his body up, twisting him, onto the roof again. He landed with a heavy thud.
In the cab, Michael was shouting something and pointing at the sword.
“What?” Sebastian screamed.
“Your sword is metal. You can attract it. Think of electrons and magnetic fields.”
The cyborg swung down with his sword. Sebastian cleared his mind and felt the magnetic field. It aligned the electrons between his sword and his hand. His sword zipped across the roof and into his hand. He brought it up and parried the blow. The two were locked together face-to-face, sword against sword.
“Hah! Didn’t expect that, did you?” Sebastian said.
Sebastian didn’t see the punch coming in from his right, which knocked him reeling toward the end of the carriage. The cyborg swung down again as Sebastian dodged to the side. He kicked into the cyborg’s leg, knocking him to one knee. Sebastian twisted, raised his sword and thrust it deeply into the side of the cyborg.
The cyborg dropped his sword and pressed a button on his arm that started to flash rapidly.
Sebastian kicked the cyborg as hard as his strength allowed, knocking the cyborg to the back of the carriage and over the side, where he exploded. Sebastian was thrown backward. He landed on his back, looking up at the stars. Cinders from the engine blew over him. He glanced down past his feet. The carriage was on fire. He sighed. He rolled over and stamped out the flames.
The end of the carriage was missing, open to the elements. He lowered himself down inside. Oliver was at the far end, lying quietly on the makeshift bed next to the steambikes with his eyes closed.
“Thanks for the window, Oliver.”
“No problem, Sebastian.” He pulled the blanket up over his shoulders. “Could you do me a favor and close it? It’s a bit drafty in here.”
Sebastian looked back over his shoulder at the gaping hole. “Umm …”
Sebastian and Michael discussed events as they took turns shoveling the coal.
“But how did they get on the carriage?” Michael said. “Surely they weren’t on it back in Bronwyn.”
“What I can’t figure out is why I couldn’t detect them. Normally, they give me a headache when they’re nearby. And these two were really tough.”
“I wonder if they have the infected super-cerium?”
“What’s that? It sounds really bad.”
“Oliver explained it to me,” Michael said. “He said the stuff we injected into Melanie might not have been a cure. There was an attempt to weaponize the infection. But before you panic—and I can see by your face that warning comes too late—it is a partial cure. She was infected and we put in more, sort of. We can cure—oh, great.”
Michael bent over Sebastian’s unconscious form. He waited until the fainting spell passed. “She means a lot to you, doesn’t she?”
He nodded. “She’s my friend.”
“We can save her. Oliver was working on it, and considering he’s just a general-knowledge schoolteacher, he’s done an amazing job. In fact, I think he worked it out, but made some errors in the final equations. I have specialist knowledge in this stuff. I think we can finish it. She’s going to be all right.”
Sebastian’s insides twisted with turmoil. He felt so sick with worry it hurt.
“She’s going to be all right,” Michael repeated, seeing the expression on Sebastian’s face.
56
> AS SOON AS they got to Four Trees, they wasted no time finding the ’Siro building. A great glass wall ran across the front of the building. It was covered in grime and mold. Occasional cracks were visible, but the glass remained intact.
The door creaked open. Michael ducked through the opening. He waved the other two through, once he had established that the coast was clear. Sebastian entered, supporting Oliver, who limped alongside. The room was large, with a blue desk in the center next to a thick pillar. Across the dust-coated floor was a distinct set of solitary footprints.
“Are you sure this is the place? It looked tiny from the outside,” Sebastian said.
“It’s a subterranean facility,” Michael replied.
“How long do you think it’ll take?” Sebastian whispered. He struggled to maintain his grip on Oliver.
“I’m going to need a few good hours. Maybe four.” Michael took one of Oliver’s arms and draped it over his shoulders.
“How long until the sun goes down?” Sebastian asked.
Michael checked his fob watch. “About three.”
“Are we absolutely certain @bioMass is here?”
Michael sighed.
“Great,” Sebastian said.
The three made their way to the center of the great room. Michael wiped his hand over a sign screwed to the wall. It displayed the word CSIRO at the top, then listed several research areas beneath.
“First floor: communications. Second floor: medical. Bingo,” Michael said. “Oliver, can you walk down the stairs?”
Oliver nodded slowly. Off-colored drool hung from the side of his mouth.
Sebastian pointed at the sign. “Wonder why the sixth and seventh floors are blank.”
Michael shrugged. “Could be secret stuff.”
The trio took off toward the sign signifying stairs. The footprints led in the same direction, much to Sebastian’s concern. They forced open the heavy door to the stairwell and started to descend. The door slammed closed; pitch black surrounded them. Sebastian reached for the door handle, but found none.