by Jake Bible
Lakshmi glanced at Raff and he didn’t crack any jokes or even smile. He gave a tiny shake of his head. Then Lakshmi looked back at Tressa.
“I am almost one hundred percent confident that we can stop the bubbles from expanding Topside and destroying our planet in the future,” Lakshmi said.
“I give us a ninety-eight percent chance, but that qualifies as almost one hundred percent so I will be quiet now before someone else tells me to shut up,” Brain said.
“Nice one,” Raff said.
“It’ll close the bubbles, though,” Tress said. “How will we get back Topside?”
“That’s not something we need to worry about right now,” Lakshmi said. “Brain and I have it all handled. Step One before Step Two. One unbelievably difficult task at a time.”
“Lakshmi, I’m not trying to pressure you, but it would be great to know—”
“I think you need to take your own advice and rest too, sis,” Cash said, gently taking his sister by her arm and guiding her over to a cot. “We sleep while they work. You can grill Lakshmi later after she saves the world. Deal?”
“Let go of me, Tre,” Tressa said with more exhaustion in her voice than anger.
“Letting go,” Cash said and did so. “Only if you get under those covers and sleep.”
Tressa started to argue then let out an exasperated breath and stripped down so she could get under her blanket and sheet.
“Your turn,” Tressa said as her eyes closed. “Get in your cot, Tre.”
“I will, just gotta go take a leak,” Cash said and caught Raff’s eye. “Be right back.”
Cash walked out of the armory with Raff right behind. As soon as they were outside, Cash turned on Raff, but the man was ready with a shaking head and a finger up.
“Don’t, buddy,” Raff said. “Just go get some sleep and we’ll talk later.”
“I saw the head shake, Raff,” Cash said. “I know that head shake. I’ve seen that head shake plenty of times. I’ve used that head shake. That’s the head shake that says you have bad news, but now is not the time to spill it. So, spill it anyway.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Raff replied.
“Bull and shit, brother,” Cash snapped.
“Cash, buddy, you’re tired and close to having a full system crash,” Raff said. “Get some sleep and we can talk later. After we kick some smeek ass.”
“Raff, I am not happy about—”
“Elvis!” Raff called and the dino came trotting over after scarfing up what food was left in the massive bowl someone had set out for him. He nuzzled his head against Raff’s shoulder. “Hey, buddy. I need you to guard this door.” He pointed at the armory’s open entrance. It had taken a good amount of damage from the combots and refused to close. “You lie down and guard it so no bad guys get our friends and family, okay?”
Elvis gave a snort then turned and looked at Cash. Raff smiled and waved toward the armory.
“You’re being paranoid, buddy,” Raff said to Cash. “Seriously. Lakshmi and Brain have it all in hand and when this is all over, and we’re back Topside, we’ll look back and laugh.”
“I’m not laughing about any of this,” Cash replied.
Raff’s grin slipped and he nodded. “Me neither, but I’m not going to torture myself in the meantime. You can’t either. It’s all going to work out.”
“How do you know?” Cash asked.
“Because it has to, buddy,” Raff stated. “It fucking has to. Go get some sleep. I’ll be back here in six hours to wake you up.”
“Or sooner,” Cash said. “You wake me up sooner if things start going south faster than expected.”
“What? Things go south here?” Raff said and held his arms wide. “Nah. Never. Not in this beautiful paradise.”
A flock of pterosaurs started to fly over the base, but rapid gunfire took down half of them and the rest climbed higher into the air until they could turn and flee.
“Nothing but warm fuzzies at Flipside FOB,” Raff said without even flinching at the sound of the guns or the dying pterosaurs. “Go rest.”
Cash began to argue then stopped and shook his head. He patted Elvis on the snout.
“Your daddy is being a dick and lying to my face,” Cash said. “So I’m going to take a nap before I snap his neck.”
“There ya go,” Raff said. “That’s the spirit.”
Cash walked back into the armory without saying another word to Raff. Elvis followed to the broken door, spun around twice, then lay down, his body blocking the entire entrance.
Cash found his cot and lay down on top of the blanket and sheet. He stayed fully dressed and his hand dangled off the side of the cot, only inches from his .338.
“He fess up?” Barbara asked from her cot. She’d been quiet the entire time.
“No,” Cash said, not even trying to deny what she was referring to.
“You think there’s less than that ninety-eight percent chance of success and they’re hiding it from us?” she asked.
“No, I think that’s true,” Cash said, his eyelids heavy. “It’s what comes after that has me worried.”
“Well, maybe the smeeks coming our way will kill us all and we won’t have to worry about what comes after,” Barbara said. She was quiet a moment then cleared her throat. “You want to come share my cot?”
“Really?” Cash replied.
“No, not for that,” Barbara said. “It would just be, you know, nice to be close to someone.”
Cash thought for a second then scooted over on his cot and held up his arms.
“Too tired to move and my rifle is over here,” Cash said. “You come share my cot.”
“I’ll take that,” Barbara said.
Cash’s eyes had already closed by the time she’d managed to force herself up off her cot and walk the couple feet to Cash’s. She lay down and nestled in against his body. He wrapped his arms around her.
“You stink,” she mumbled.
“So do you,” he mumbled back.
They both drifted off to sleep in seconds.
Seventeen
Cash came awake with a start and sent Barbara tumbling off the edge of the cot.
“Hey!” she exclaimed from the floor as Cash grabbed up his rifle and was on his feet almost faster than he opened his eyes. He tapped at his ear.
“Report,” he called over the comm.
“Report what, buddy?” Raff said. “And welcome back from sleepy land. You’re an hour early, but right on time as always.”
“What’s up?” Cash asked as he walked away from the cot and headed straight out of the armory. “What did I just hear?”
“The finishing touches, buddy,” Raff replied. “The finishing touches. Come have a look.”
“Where are you going?” Barbara asked, hurrying after him. Then she looked down and realized she was only in a T-shirt and underwear. Also, she didn’t have boots on and bare feet would have been a very bad life choice considering the state of the base. “Shit. Don’t you go anywhere!”
She ran back inside the armory. Cash didn’t wait and maneuvered around a sleeping Elvis until he saw a couple of operators standing by a four-seater ATV with a .50 cal belt gun bolted to the top of the roll cage.
“You two. Take me to Raff. Now,” Cash said.
The two men cocked their heads like they were listening then nodded. One of them got into the ATV’s driver’s seat and motioned for Cash to join him in the vehicle.
He said something that Cash didn’t understand then a voice in his comm said, “Get in. I’ll take you to him.”
Cash’s comm had translated whatever language the man had spoken. Their comms must have done the same for him. Cash got into the ATV’s passenger seat and looked at the driver. He had a Middle Eastern look to him, same with the other operator who was staying behind to watch the armory, so Cash figured the men were Iranian. But he didn’t want to ask and offend them. He also didn’t want to talk to anyone really. He needed the ride
to Raff to wake up a little. His head was very foggy from the five hours he’d slept.
“Hey!” Barbara yelled as she hop-ran to the ATV, struggling to get her boots on. She had jeans on, at least. “Do not take off without me!”
The driver paused then looked at Cash. Cash sighed and nodded. They waited until Barbara had climbed into the rear bench seat before the ATV took off, spinning around in a hail of gravel and dirt.
“Where are we going?” Barbara asked. “Why did you wake up like that?”
There was a loud ka-chunk that came from across the base. Cash held up a finger.
“That,” he said. “That woke me up. Thought it was a gunshot.”
“You woke up for that? That’s been going on for a while,” Barbara said, rubbing at sleep-filled eyes. “I’ve been in and out of sleep for the past hour because of that. Did I jump out of bed and send my bunkmate falling to the floor?”
Cash looked back over his shoulder at Barbara. “Bunkmates?”
“I figured that was the best way to describe whatever this is,” Barbara said, pointing back and forth between herself and Cash. “Bunkmates.”
“Bunkmates,” Cash repeated with a smile. “That works. Bunkmates.” He laughed. “But we’re going to need a bigger bunk. You move a lot when you sleep.”
“And your stomach gurgles,” Barbara said.
The driver chuckled. “You two make funny couple.”
“We’re not a… Never mind,” Cash replied.
He looked up at the sky and the bright blue that was quickly being overtaken by massive cumulonimbus clouds that were far from looking like fluffy marshmallows. More like burnt marshmallows that were ready to drop some serious rain. The far-off sound of thunder rolled toward the base, and Cash caught sight of some lightning flashes within the cloud bank.
“How soon is that supposed to hit us?” Cash asked the driver.
“Four hours and fifteen minutes,” the driver said.
“That’s a little precise,” Barbara said.
“Brain,” was the driver’s reply.
“Right,” Barbara said, nodding. She leaned forward and patted Cash on the shoulder. “You think I can get an interview with Brain?”
“What? What do you mean?” Cash asked. “Brain doesn’t do interviews.”
“Is that a Topside Industries policy?”
“No. It’s me saying Brain doesn’t do interviews. It’s an artificial intelligence housed in a machine. You don’t interview AIs like Brain. Not that there are any other AIs like Brain.”
“Which is why I want to interview him,” Barbara said.
“It,” Cash corrected.
“Male voice, male prefix,” Barbra replied.
“No interview.”
“Fine. I’ll ask your father.”
“You still want to be bunkmates? Because going over my head to ask my father is how we stop being bunkmates.”
“Okay. Then we stop being bunkmates. You think I’m going to let a guy stop me from doing my job? Wake the fuck up, Cash.”
She leaned back and rolled her head on her neck, working out the kinks from sleep.
“Plus, I’m not going above your head. You’re technically still only a security consultant. I don’t even have to recognize your head in the TI hierarchy.”
“She got you there,” the driver said.
“Shut up,” Cash snapped. “I don’t need your commentary, pal.”
They drove on in silence. Cash studied what Raff had done to the base just in the few hours he’d been asleep. Quite a bit of the debris had been moved into mounds that looked considerably more secure than the mounds the debris had formed on its own. They wove their way through the debris mounds until they came to the main gate. Which, to Cash’s surprise, was an actual gate again.
“There he is,” Raff said as the ATV pulled up. “Thanks for bringing them, Tommy.”
“No problem,” the driver replied in English with a thick Persian accent.
“Tommy?” Cash asked the driver.
“That is American translation,” Tommy said.
“And you speak English,” Cash stated.
“So so,” Tommy replied, tilting his hand back and forth in a weighing motion. Then he pointed to his ear. “This work better. Much better.”
“Roger that,” Cash said and extended his hand. “Good to meet you, Tommy.”
“You as well,” Tommy said and shook Cash’s hand. Then he looked back at Barbara. “If you need new bunkmate, you come find me.”
Barbara was halfway out of the ATV and she paused with one leg still in the vehicle. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Funny,” Cash said as he got out and walked to Raff.
Barbara joined the two men as Tommy turned the ATV around and drove off.
“Ms. Chin,” Raff said, giving her a short bow. “An honor.”
“No,” Cash said and jabbed a finger under Raff’s nose. “Business.”
“Jesus Christ, buddy, calm down,” Raff said. “Just being nice.”
“Which I appreciate, Mr. Bellows,” Barbara said, giving Cash a sharp look.
“Raff, please.”
“Okay. Raff.” Barbara pointed at the gate. “That couldn’t have been easy.”
“Wasn’t exactly hard,” Raff said and turned. “Come on, I’ll walk you through what we’ve done.”
Cash glanced up and down the fence line and whistled. “You’ve done a lot. This only took you five hours?”
“We planned ahead,” Raff said.
Men and women were hurrying around, hauling steel beams, handing each other tools, arc welding beams to sheet metal. Then there was the ka-chunk again and Cash stopped.
“What is that?” Cash asked.
Three more ka-chunks filled the air.
“That is our secret weapon,” Raff said. He stopped and looked left then right then decided to head out of the gate. Two operators worked two separate winches and the massive gate doors, which had been cobbled together with whatever was at hand, began to slowly open outward. “You’re going to love this.”
The gate doors stopped when there was just enough space for Raff, Cash, and Barbara to squeeze through. Then the gate doors closed behind them as soon as they were through.
“A little overly cautious,” Cash said.
“No such thing anymore, buddy,” Raff said. “We’re living full Flipside now.”
“Full Flipside?” Barbara asked as Raff led them to the right of the gates.
“It means we are no longer transients,” Raff said. “We build like we’re staying here. Mainly because we have been staying here for over a year.” Raff pointed at a crew that was handling what looked like a jackhammer built into a heavy-duty frame. “Those guys? The Dutch have been living Flipside for two years now. I’ve learned a lot from them. Same with Tommy’s guys from Iran. And Angatha from Iceland. You want to know how to survive in severe weather conditions? Angatha is the person to know.”
The crew put a thick strut that had to be a foot wide on each side into place. They set another strut down crosswise then moved the machine over both and ka-chunk.
“Bolt pounder,” Raff said.
“Is that its real name?” Barbara asked.
“What? Hell no,” Raff said. “I call it a bolt pounder. Sounds cool.”
Raff walked out from the fence line about twenty yards then turned to face the work being done. He spread his arms wide for a second than patted Cash on the shoulder as he and Barbara stood on either side.
“Listen, buddy, most of these folks never saw combat until their own bases were overrun by Russian teams and combots,” Raff said. “With the help of the other operators from the different bases, we’ve turned techs and support personnel not only into fighters, but into builders. Living on the coast for a year has taught us that you build fast, you build strong, and you hold the line. Three tenants of surviving Flipside.”
“So you came here knowing you were going to have to build this fence back up?” Barbara
asked.
“Pretty much,” Raff said. “We know how the Russians operate. We know the destruction those combots bring down on a base. We didn’t expect our people to somehow travel back before the scheduled turn. That was different. But then, let’s face it, everything Flipside is different. We’ve barely scratched the surface of this world.”
Ka-chunk.
“The bolt pounder lets us create frameworks in minutes what would have taken us hours or days before,” Raff said. “You can thank the Swedes.”
“Swedes? What do you mean the Swedes?” Cash asked.
“They are part of the Icelanders,” Raff said. “Eight Swedes and six Norwegians. You’re looking at decades upon decades of Ikea know-how there, buddy. You want shit built fast and right, you make sure the Swedes are in charge.”
“Does it need to be that permanent?” Barbara asked. “We’re fighting a herd of smeeks. It’s not like they’re going to lay siege for months.”
“Do it right or don’t do it at all,” Raff said and his smile slipped.
“What?” Cash asked. “You’ve dealt with this before, haven’t you?”
“Flipside is a mess and the animal life is very aware of that,” Raff said. “We lost seven good operators thinking we could handle the smeeks with guns alone. We were wrong and the only way we didn’t lose everything is because a herd of herbivores saved our asses.”
“Herbivores?” Barbara asked.
“About a hundred Triceratops and Torosauruses,” Raff said. “Came out of nowhere and slammed into those smeeks like pissed-off freight trains.” Raff sighed. “Then they demolished what little defense we had in place, trampled the agriculture we’d started, nearly toppled every single dwelling, and acted like total dicks. Luckily, being herbivores, they bailed as soon as they were done throwing their tantrums. We learned a lot from all of that.”
“A hundred?” Barbara asked.
“Listen, Ms. Chin, you’re gonna have to start taking what I say as fact and stop questioning every little detail,” Raff said.
“It’s just that I—”
“Hold on, let me finish,” Raff said. “The reason you’re going to take what I say as fact is that it saves time and also, I didn’t know shit about Flipside until I was forced to live out in it. We didn’t know shit about this period of time and the creatures that live here before the bubbles. We thought we did, but we were proven wrong again and again. Giant carnivores hunting in packs instead of singly. That was a discovery. Pterosaurs intermixing species within flocks. Didn’t know that before we were able to come back here. Same with the small raptor species just bumbling around all the other dinos like fucking pigeons. Those little shits are everywhere and they fuck with tech. Little bastards. So, massive herds of herbivores kicking some smeeks ass is not outside the realm of possibility.”