“Major’d probably shoot me for this…”
He tears the wrapper and pinches off a corner. The twitching noses draw closer, shrink back anxiously, and return. Each time they get nearer until one is bold enough to take the protein from Beckert’s hand. It bounds away with its treasure, siblings in hot pursuit. The larger one remains, however, studying him.
“You hungry, too?”
The large animal watches Beckert until growls and thrashing come from the shadows. The Geek breaks off the end of the bar and tosses it.
“Here, go feed your team.”
The large one snatches the protein and hurries into the shadows. Beckert rolls the wrapper over the remainder and stows it in his rack, a warm satisfaction filling him.
While the furred creatures tussle, the Geek opens his repair kit and fills in the scuffs on Argo’s armor. When finished, he assembles the armor into a complete set, helmet locked onto the standing torso, with sealed visor. It looks like Argo buried up to his waist.
That should keep them out, he thinks.
The Geek scrambles one more time through the corridor. As before, he announces himself at the end and steps through. Daylight streams in at a steeper angle, shining directly upon the jam of trains.
Argo lies near the entrance, his torso mummified in black rope. Thompson grips one of the Brick’s arms by the wrist with a boot planted on his chest.
“Remember…down and…forward,” the Brick says between pants. With his free hand, the Brick stuffs a wad of cloth into his mouth.
“Major, I’m ready to scout ahead. Is there anything else that needs to be taken through?”
Thompson takes his boot from Argo’s chest.
“Sure.” He lifts the harness over his head and passes the sacks of media records to the Geek. “Take these. That’ll be all, Sergeant.”
Beckert takes the damp sacks into the corridor. To keep them from bunching up, he turns backwards and tows them between his legs. Part way through, he hears Thompson’s voice counting down and a clunking crunch. The muted roars are unquestionably Argo’s.
The Geek’s stomach turns with sympathetic pain. He looks over his shoulder, hoping he can make it to the end before he hears Argo’s other shoulder dislocating. He almost makes it.
Upon his return, the ring-tailed animals welcome him expectantly. He smiles at them.
“No, that’s all.” He scoots from beneath the suspended slab, leaving the sacks with the rest of Argo’s gear. The creatures follow at his feet, cooing and reaching up to him. He steps carefully around them, but they follow, begging with insisting chirps.
Beckert looks into the tunnel depths, filling his lungs.
“Sorry, I have to go.”
The young operator draws a pistol and jogs into the darkness, his new entourage hurrying after him.
Arlington Cemetery
The jog through the tunnel is monotonous, yet soothing. Beckert’s mind wanders while his legs rise and descend like pistons. Subconsciously, his breathing falls into rhythm with his stride, and he chugs like a steam engine.
A long bend steers him north, around which the grade rises. The gentle slope glistens with moisture between the rails, flowing down to a tunnel-wide grate at the bottom. Furry patches of movement run from Beckert’s lights and dive through the rusted grating.
He lopes to a halt at the grate. Behind the bars, tiny red eyes shine at him. The skulking creatures flee from the light, dragging hairless tails behind them. Shrill squeaks cut the stillness.
Out of habit, Beckert checks the tunnel behind him. Far off, reflective green eyes bounce along in pursuit. As they get closer, he can hear their chortling. He shakes his head at their persistence.
“Glad you find me so interesting.”
Before his begging entourage can surround him again, he takes a step up the grade. His treads slide on the slick surface.
The young ring-tailed animals start up the slope behind him when the large one issues a scolding hiss. It races into the pack, growling and cuffing. The smaller animals hunch submissively and slink away into the darkness. Beckert watches the family retreat.
You know something about this place?
He faces the long incline ahead and grips his pistols firmly.
One foot in front of the other, he thinks to himself, and he climbs onto a dry rail for better traction. He runs up it with ease.
Halfway up, his nose wrinkles from a sulfurous smell. It grows pungent toward the top of the incline, and once the tunnel levels out Beckert hears the plip, plip, plip of liquid.
He runs warily toward the sound, slowing to a walk when he finds it. Glistening tendrils dangle from the high ceiling. Small pools lie beneath each tendril, and fat drops descend to the pools like lazy rain. Moving forward, he shines his lamps up at the phlegm-like hangers. One breaks, and the lower half slaps into the pool with a splat.
Staring at the ceiling, he wanders off the rail; and his boots crunch onto the slimy ground. He looks down in disgust at tread-deep slime, the skeleton of some small animal crushed under his heel.
The Geek steps back onto the rail and crouches for a better look at the delicate bones. The skull is only a few centimeters long with oversized, curving incisors. A hunched spine passes a thin ribcage and a narrow pelvis before ending in a thick tail. Clumps of matted fur stick to the bones.
Beckert pans his helmet lights over the area. Hundreds more skeletons are mired in the slime. Miniscule insects hover and buzz around them.
I see why the ringtails don’t come up here.
He closes his face plate and walks under the dripping tendrils. Drops splash over his goggles, smearing them with fine strands. After swiping the strands away, he lowers his head to keep his eye wear clear of the cloudy rain.
Ahead, individual pools merge into a singular pond. The train rails, well-eroded beneath the languid drops, disappear completely at the pond’s edge. Beckert picks his way around the shallow, rust-colored water, his boots making a sucking sound with every step in the slime.
The wall beside him shimmers with sheets of cascading water and gelatinous bacterial colonies. Minute flies swarm at his approach, surrounding him with the nasal scream of tiny wings.
Glad I sealed up. I’d be inhaling these things.
The dripping tendrils end at the pond’s far edge. Beckert steps through, grateful to get past the revolting area. Just clear of the slime and dampness, he looks back at the bizarre ecosystem.
The flies thin out enough that his lights shine to the ceiling. Water seeps through large cracks, feeding the hanging tendrils and wall mats downstream.
What a world…
When the Geek turns, he notices beads of water on his pistols. He gives the weapons a shake, but the beads remain. He looks closer and rubs them with the heel of his gauntlet. What look like beads of water are rings etched into the metal.
“Acid!”
Frantically, he gets down on all fours and shakes like a dog, flinging corrosive drops from his armor and rack. Getting to his feet, he looks into the big pond.
“What if I had walked through that?”
Realizing he is talking to himself, Beckert gives himself another full body shake, lifts his faceplate, and runs into the dry tunnel.
With no more signs of life and no branches to either side, the lengthy tunnel feels desolate to the young operator. Kilometer by kilometer, he begins to miss his ring-tailed friends.
The train rails merge from six to four, and the tunnel shrinks around the narrowed railway. All thoughts of his furred companions disappear when his lights shine into a dense group of rail cars packed into the bottle neck. The Geek runs on his toes for less noise and he diverts to the tunnel wall.
Upon reaching the nearest train car, he drops down to the ground, clicks off his lights, and listens. The silence is so perfect his racing heart sounds like a drum thudding in his chest. For long moments he waits in the total darkness, listening to his pulse and breath. Never before has he experienced so little s
ound with the complete absence of sight.
Cadre training did its best to simulate such an event. A room was totally darkened and the Geek was instructed to negotiate an obstacle course by touch only. The background noise and hum from Cadre One’s machinery filtered into every space, however, and Beckert discovered the sounds helped give him his bearings in the darkness. Despite the assistance of the background noise, the course was extremely difficult; and at the end of the exercise, Beckert understood how heavily he depended on vision to define and to navigate his environment. He revisited the exercise frequently.
Applying that experience, Beckert clips his pistols and reaches out with his hands. They glance over the granular flooring, bumping the rails. He presses up to a crouch and waits, listening. No sound.
Hands outstretched, he moves forward and touches the hitch of the rail car before him. Feeling its shape, he progresses to the rear of the car. Hands trace the outline of a deck and railing. He takes hold and climbs silently.
The deck lists to the right. Arms out to each side, he finds his balance. Reaching up, he locates the roof of the car. Like a cat, he hops up on the railing then onto the top of the car. He crouches in darkness and waits. Again, no sound.
The Geek slides forward stealthily, using his toes as much as his finger tips to sense his surroundings. The train car’s smooth roof plates continue for about ten meters before rolling off at the car’s front end. He pauses at the edge. Still, no sound.
Beckert clicks his lamps on low. At his feet is an accordion-like collar joining the car ahead. Rips in the pleats allow him to see metal planking inside which bridges the two cars.
The ceiling of the narrowed tunnel is much closer than he realized. No longer the vaulted arch of the main tunnel, it has closed to only a couple of meters above the train.
Behind him, his boot prints track his progress in thick dust. Ahead of him slump columns of listing train cars. The rails are so close in the narrowed tunnel, many of the cars lean against one another. Beckert hops from car to car, each small jump carrying him closer to some unknown place.
A popular destination, from the number of cars packed in…
The low tunnel bends left, opening into a wide space. Beckert brightens his helmet lamps and they shine out into a vast, semi-circular rail station. More tunnels feed in from the left and right, likewise clogged with slumping trains. Colossal pillars prop up the flat ceiling, and long piers run between the tracks like spokes in a great wheel, leading to a circular platform at the hub.
Fueled by excitement, Beckert grabs his pistols from their clips and jumps down to the nearest pier. His boots crunch through stacks of brittle bones and cobwebs. He gasps in horror, up to his knees in human skeletons.
Nearly panicking, he leaps back to the train roof and stares down at the human wreckage. The bones continue the full run of the pier, draping over each edge. Dusty veils blanket them and billow softly at his disturbance.
He turns away and hops to the adjacent train. Anxiously, he peers over the edge. This pier is also covered in dried bones. Everywhere he looks, the ancient dead pile upon one another: between the trains, inside the cars, on the piers and platform, even at the sides of the tunnels leading into the station.
Beckert kneels on the dusty roof plates. He closes his eyes and concentrates, allowing the operator conditioning to take over. His mind focuses and centers. His breathing slows. He opens his eyes.
The Geek strides to the front of his train and surveys the wide platform. Vague trails meander through the remains, marked by crushed bone and dark stains. At the wall of the station hub, skeletons pile atop one another like cords of firewood. The lower most skeletons appear compacted.
Beside the stacks, a fabric tent stands intact. Though covered in dust and dark splotches, the emblem of a red cross on a white field is visible on the closed flap.
Aiming for the makeshift trail through the bones, the young operator drops from his perch and picks his way to the tent. Cautiously, he throws the synthetic fabric aside, thrusting his pistol in at the same time.
Inside is a stainless steel table, supporting its final patient. The patient lies on its back, scraps of a square-cut v-neck shirt draping the collapsed rib cage. Ragged drawstring pants clothe the lower pelvis and legs. Only the pant cuffs are free from stains, retaining their original sky blue.
Perched on the table’s edge is a white porcelain bowl, speckled with dark brown dots. Desiccated fly husks crowd the bowl, resting on their wings with curled legs in the air. As Beckert looks around, he sees the floor and most surfaces are covered in them.
Medical instruments line the back wall of the tent: a canister of oxygen, a diagnostic cart, stacks of paramedic’s bags, trays of cutting and injecting implements, and a trash barrel overflowing with drained ampoules and plasma bags. In the corner, a skeleton sits in a folding chair wearing the rags of a spattered white smock. A surgical mask hangs around the neck bones, and a head wrap still clings to the skull. An injector rests in its bony lap.
Beckert looks in the trash barrel and selects one of the empty ampoules.
Morphine.
Every glass phial reads the same. He tosses them back to the barrel where they clatter noisily. He stares at the seated surgeon.
“Guess you saved the last for yourself.”
Beckert leaves the tent, confronting death on a scale he can not comprehend. From the platform looking out, he sees almost all of the skeletons are slumped in the same direction, facing him. Their thin bones reach over one another as though the dying were dragging themselves across the dead, all to reach the medical tent for a painless release from life.
For the first time in his life, Beckert slumps to his knees and weeps.
Worthy Shelter
Thompson sits on his rump, legs straddling a narrow corridor. A massive slab of concrete hangs overhead, suspended by the arms and shoulders of a rusty load lifter. Between the Gun’s knees extends a taut rope of carbon fiber. He hauls on it with all of his strength, and Argo, mummified in the black rope, scrapes through the corridor another centimeter.
Perspiration rolls from Thompson’s eyebrows, soaking into the mesh cushions at his cheeks. He scoots forward, sets his back, and hauls again.
Argo alternates his pain filled grunts with each pull. He nearly fills the corridor, wedged in tight.
“Brick, try moving your shoulders,” Thompson says through gritted teeth. As the Gun strains against the rope, Argo’s head swings back and forth in the corridor. The Brick’s dislocated shoulders scuff forward millimeter by millimeter.
“Gun Thompson, sir.”
Thompson drops the rope and whirls, snatching up his rifle. The wild look on his face drains when he sees Beckert kneeling at attention and saluting.
“You are stealthy,” he says, laying his rifle beside him. The Gun picks up the black fiber rope and hands the free end to Beckert.
“Brick’s jammed up. Here, help me pull.”
The men take position and set their postures.
“Brick,” Thompson says into the corridor, “like before.” Thompson looks over his shoulder. “On three. One…two…three!”
Both men haul on the rope. The added strain, with Argo’s head rocking, pops the big man through the bottleneck like a cork. The Geek and Gun stumble backward and march away from the corridor, towing their companion into the open. Argo’s face is deep red and dripping with sweat. The rope binding him is frayed into fine wool like a puffy sweater.
“Get it off!” The Brick demands between rapid, shallow breaths.
Thompson cuts the knotted rigging with his bayonet. Beckert spools the freed cord around his arm. The rope is heavy with perspiration.
Argo’s glassy eyes shut tight, and his jaw clenches as he waits for the constricting rope to uncoil. Beckert, seeing his comrade’s agony, moves with speed.
Argo’s undershirt is soaked, and dark purple bruises show through the transparent fabric. His shoulders and upper arms are rubbed skinless, seep
ing a thin mixture of blood and sweat.
“C’mon,” the Brick begs. Finally, the compressing rope slackens enough for Argo to take a full breath. His huge chest rises and falls. The redness drains from his face, but the discomfort is still there.
“Thompson, my shoulders. Put ‘em in. Put ‘em in, please.”
Thompson kneels beside his friend and grips a beefy arm. Gently, he raises the arm and lifts firmly at the wrist while rotating. The bone reseats with a clunk.
Thompson hops to Argo’s other side and repeats the process, rotating the opposite direction. There is another clunk, and Argo exhales in a rush. The Brick sits up and crosses his arms, massaging his aching shoulders.
Black Hawks From a Blue Sun Page 15