Splendid Apocalypse: The Fall of Old Earth (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure Book 5)
Page 9
She exited the main room and started to go through the corridors that led to auxiliary storage bay 4. She knew that she should probably have taken a guard, but the amphetamines told her different. Nobody was going to mess with Imelda ‘The Spike’ Blucher.
She unlocked the door to the storage bay with her ID badge, and walked inside. The space was dimly lit with a couple of small clouded skylights. She tried turning on the lights, but they had apparently been scavenged a while ago and nothing happened when she toggled the switches. She gave up with the switches and walked through a gloom like twilight.
At least she wouldn’t have to worry about rats. Mankind’s old competitor had only been able to coexist with humans because the humans hadn’t really been trying. Now that food was universally in short supply, the focused intelligence of 200 billion superintelligent and hungry great apes had ensured that there was not a crumb left for any rodent. Rats were now an endangered species, mostly surviving in zoos for the rich to fuss over.
There were racks of shelving, empty and covered with grime. Corroded machine parts that would never be used for anything lined one wall. A dozen man-sized blue plastic drums lay scattered around, brittle and cracked and caked with traces of whatever industrial chemicals they had once held. She was about to leave and report it as a faulty alarm sensor when she spotted something out of place.
On the surface, it was just another random assemblage of junk, but it didn’t look right to her. It was as if someone had deliberately tried to make it look random, but people are notoriously hard at that. She poked at it, and saw that underneath the rubbish were ordered ranks of electronic components.
“If I were you, I’d leave and forget that you saw this,” said a quiet voice from right behind her. Blucher turned around, but there was nobody there.
“Hello?” she said. “Who is it? Come out right now or I’ll call security.”
Blucher moved to access her data slate, but a hand grabbed her wrist before she could reach it. It didn’t squeeze hard, but it was solid and unmoving. It felt more like being chained to a concrete post than being grabbed by a person. She looked at the body that belonged to the hand, and saw only a tall, thin figure completely shrouded in rags.
“Please don’t,” said the figure. “I will only be here for a little while longer, and then I will leave and you will never see me again.” The voice was soft and musical, but Blucher looked at the hand that was holding her arm and saw that it had five ridiculously long and thin fingers, and two thumbs, one on each side of the fingers.
“What are you?” asked Blucher.
“Well, if you really want to know, I’m a ribhus. Not that anyone will believe you.”
“You look like an elf,” said Blucher.
"Please don't call me an elf."
"So what should I call you?"
"In our own invented language we call ourselves the people, naturally. But you can call us the ribhus. We took that from the skillful and dexterous gods of Hindu mythology."
"Ribus?"
"No, it's spelled "R I B H U S. Ribhus. The h is silent."
"But why is the H silent?"
"It's our ‘h’ and it can be silent if we want it to."
"But if the h is silent how can you tell that I didn't say RIBHUS in the first place?"
"We can tell. Trust me."
The figure laughed, and Blucher thought that it sounded like a high mountain stream from an old documentary. “You are surprisingly brave, for a human female.”
“I’m tougher than I look, and I am at the legal limit for amphetamines.”
“Ah, yes, that makes sense. Tell you what, if I let go of you, would you promise not to send an alarm? I assure you, I am fast enough to stop you should you try.”
“All right,” said Blucher. “Promise.”
The strange figure released her. “If you go away and tell nobody else, nothing will come of this. If you go away and call the guards in, I will kill them and then find you and kill you. Is that understood?”
“Perfectly,” said Blucher, “but what are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” The shrouded figure thought about that for a moment. “I needed a base of operations to scout from. There are few enough unused spaces in this crowded human hive of yours. It will be hard for me to find another, at least that is in such a good location for me. Perhaps we could come to some arrangement. Allow me to hide out here for a few weeks, and I’ll pay you.”
“Pay me? Cash is illegal, and there is no way you could transfer funds to me unless you could hack the central bank. The penalties for unauthorized money transfers are harsh, not to mention the tax consequences.”
“No, not even I can access your central financial institutions, at least not yet. I meant that I might bring you things of value. Extra rations, medicine, things like that.”
“You’re not planning on stealing anything from my center are you? The weights are checked at each end. Any shortfall and it would be my head.”
The figure shuddered a little. “No, I want nothing to do with your precious recycling center. I’ll be acquiring supplies from elsewhere. It won’t be traced to you.”
Blucher stared at the shrouded figure in front of her. “What are you, anyhow? Are you an alien?”
“No, nothing of the kind. I’m a different species, that’s true, but compared to the real aliens you and I are close cousins. Here, if you are so curious, take a look.”
The figure pulled the rags off of its head, and Blucher gasped. She had expected something hideous – like a leper with open sores, or maybe something with big fangs or a sucker mouth. Instead, it was a person that was almost ethereally beautiful, with pale skin, long white hair, delicate features, and large eyes that were expressive despite the fact that they were mostly black pupils.
“You do look like an elf,” said Blucher, “ but you don’t have pointed ears.”
“You humans always say that. Please stick with ribhus.“
“You’re not a human being.”
“Obviously. I am a biologically engineered soldier-caste.”
“I take it you’re on the run from something? Escaped from a lab?”
“Yes, that’s it. We didn’t much care for our employment prospects in the regular military – not much room for advancement, you see, and the retirement plan was laughable. So we decided to forge out on our own and become… entrepreneurs. Yes, that’s the word, we are entrepreneurs!”
“You‘re a bioweapon? You won’t turn around and try to kill us all, will you?”
“Oh please. We have zero interest in killing humans, well, except in self-defense. Besides, why should we bother to kill you when you humans are all doing such a good job of wiping each other out on your own? No, we just want to lay low, and wait for you all to die, and then we’ll see if we can build a civilization that is a little more, well, civilized. Although, if you lot muck up this planet too badly we’ll probably have to travel somewhere else. That could take a lot of work.”
“You’re not afraid that I’ll tell people about you?”
“No, not really. If you did most likely you would not be believed. You would be fired for being mentally unstable and perhaps you would get to experience your recycling center from a more intimate perspective. However, if you were unlucky, and people believed you, they would torture you for months to learn all that you know, then execute you for possessing classified information. Even then the odds are that the word would not get out. You see, that would mean that someone in the administration would have to admit making a mistake, which would be unthinkable.”
“I suppose. But if you are some kind of super weapon, how did you manage to set off the alarm in this storeroom? Not very stealthy of you.”
“Oh, that alarm? I didn’t set it off. It must be malfunctioning. You should see about getting it fixed. Ironic really: if it had been working properly, it would never have detected me. I was only discovered because it wasn’t working.”
“Back up a
bit,” said Blucher. “What was the part about us all dying off?”
“In about five years the planet Earth will undergo a runaway thermal meltdown and between 99.7 and 100 percent of your species living here will die. Why, what’s it to you?”
“Um, why haven’t I heard about that? Does the government know?”
“I suppose you haven’t heard about it because you are a lowly serf whose head has been filled with irrelevant nonsense and you’re too busy working your disgusting job to even notice that nothing makes sense and yes the government does know but it’s got better things to do than waste its time informing a nonentity like yourself. Sorry, that was a run-on sentence, and I suppose a little insulting, but you – as the human expression goes – pushed one of my buttons.”
Blucher looked dubious. “Why should I believe you?”
“You shouldn’t, I suppose. There is nothing you can do about it in any event. Forget I mentioned it. Anyway, to business. I’ll be back and forth for the next few weeks, then I’ll be out of your armpits for good. Drop by every other day. I’ll bring some stuff for you. If I’m not in I’ll leave it over there, under that old pot. Please don’t go mucking about my other stuff, some of it is delicate, and some of it is dangerous.”
“Well, OK then,” said Blucher.
“Then we are agreed,” said the ribhus. “Before I go, any specific requests?”
“More food, of course. Something with chicken in it, if you could manage that. I’ve got problems with a low-level chronic fungal infection in my feet. My health plan only covers first-generation antifungals, so something second- or third-generation would be nice. My neck hurts now and then. I don’t dare take a narcotic because they would catch me on a drug screen, but if you could find me a better anti-inflammatory that would be wonderful.”
“I will see what I can do. Perhaps you would also like a pony?”
Blucher didn’t get the joke at first. “Oh, right, humor. No, I’ll pass on the pony.”
Blucher was going to ask the ribhus another question, but he disappeared during a blink. He can move that fast? She thought. I only blinked, and he’s out of sight. Is that physically possible?
She was left alone in the old storage room, wondering if what she had seen was real or if she was finally losing it. There was no sign of the ribhus, no sound of footsteps in the distance. Her data slate buzzed – it was her assistant, wondering if she was all right.
“Yes Martinez, nothing here. The alarm must be flaky, what else is new. Have someone replace the sensor, if you would. And how are those production reports coming along? We’ve still got a quota to meet!”
8. The Records of Power
The old man was peering intently at the shelves. “I'll have to admit that he's a very competent scholar.”
“Isn't he just a librarian?” Garion asked, “somebody who looks after books?”
“That's where all the rest of scholarship starts, Garion. All the books in the world won't help you if they're just piled up in a heap.”
- David Eddings, King of the Murgos, 20th Century
David Parker woke up in a clean hospital bed, groggy from anesthetic. He waited for his vision to clear, and tried to sit up, but pain flared in his chest and stomach and he felt dizzy so he fell back onto his pillow.
“So you’re up,” said a Sister wearing a long white medical coat and holding a clipboard that was overflowing with paper notes. “How are you feeling, Mr. Parker?”
“Fuzzy,” said Parker. He recognized the woman as Sister Halstead, the head of the medical division of the library branch. “And my chest and stomach hurt. What happened? Where am I?”
“You are in the medical section of the library. The reports are that you and Brother Mahalanobis had quite the time taking out a squad of assault troopers. You got hit twice in the chest and once in the abdomen. Your vest mostly stopped the rounds, but there was a little penetration and a lot of bruising. You’ve got some broken ribs, a sore abdomen, and a few stiches, but nothing that won’t heal. I’m recommending that you stay in bed for a couple of days, but then you should be up and about.”
“Oh. Well, thank you, then. How is Brother Mahalanobis?”
“He’s fine. He was winged in the left arm, taking out the fed’s local command post with Brother Subotai, but it’s minor. He asked after you; I’ll send word that you’re up. I expect he’ll be around in a bit. In the meantime, let me check your dressings.”
Sister Halstead poked and prodded Parker for a bit, and scribbled notes on her clipboard. His chest and stomach together was almost a single large bluish-black bruise, but the Sister assured him that it looked worse than it was. Eventually she left to check on the other wounded. Parker dozed off for a few hours, and when he woke up, he saw Brother Mahalanobis sitting at the foot of his bed. The older man’s upper left arm was bandaged, and he was reading a thick leather-bound book.
“Brother Mahalanobis,” said Parker. “Have you been waiting here long?”
“Me? Oh, not so long, not so long. You were sleeping so peacefully that I could not bear to wake you, therefore I took the opportunity to do a bit of reading. It’s always refreshing to go back over one of the classics. Renews your faith.”
“What are you reading?” asked Parker.
The Librarian held up the book so that Parker could see the title. It read: “Schizomats, Psychotropes, and the other Neuroleptic Weapons: A Retrospective Survey”, by Brother Encarnidine.
“Interesting. I’d like to borrow that when you’re done. In the meantime, what happened?”
“What happened? Well, we were attacked by elements of the federal police - 47 in total. We got them all, although we lost two of our own. Brothers Hertz and Stevens, they will be missed. Many other Brothers and Sisters were injured, five of them seriously, but all should live. Then we captured the local command post of the federal police. That was easier than repelling the initial assault: it’s been so long since the federal police faced an organized opponent that they never imagined that someone might loop around behind them. Brother Subotai persuaded them to send out confused messages, and we have avoided retaliation. So far.”
“I vaguely remember Subotai yelling something about Brothers to me.”
“Oh, that, “said Mahalanobis. “In these times we are fortunate to have a Brother that is so knowledgeable about warfare, so we must overlook his eccentricities. He apologized to us later: he said that he’d always wanted to say that during a combat action.”
“Military scholars or not, you took on 47 heavily armed and well-trained members of the federal police, professionals all of them, and you wiped them out with minimal casualties. You’re just a bunch of eccentric scholars, and yet you fought like an elite infantry unit. This should not be possible.”
“Ah. I was wondering when you would notice.”
“But how was this done?”
“We are librarians and scholars. We have studied warfare in all its forms, and sifted the records for the true picture. Why should we not be formidable at anything we choose to do?”
“But,” said Parker, “there is a difference between book-learning and practice! You can take a bunch of scholars and have them study military history all you like, but put them in a real combat situation and they will panic, freeze, not work as a coordinated team at all. I don’t get it.”
“My dear Parker. We are the Librarians Temporal. We are dedicated to the preservation, evaluation, and cataloging of knowledge. And using such knowledge for practical ends. Over the centuries the brothers and sisters of the library have researched many topics. It’s really just distilling the data down to the essence so that an intelligent man can read and instantly comprehend it. A skill is only knowledge, one must simply have access to the correct references – one must be careful to sort the precious grain of wheat from the megatons of chaff – and one must have a strong and disciplined mind.”
“That’s… astonishing,” said Parker. “But what if others learn your secrets?”
“Then why aren’t these techniques in more widespread use? Why aren’t they common knowledge?”
Mahalanobis sighed. “Such excellent questions. Partly, I suppose it’s that most people don’t believe that such a thing is possible, and thus they give no credence to any reports of its existing. It is also the case that most people today are so terribly busy and focused on their day-to-day jobs that nobody has the time to think carefully. And also, I think, because the techniques require a powerful and disciplined mind that respects the truth and holds few illusions about itself. That sort of mind is currently in short supply.”
“Wow.”
“Wow, indeed. In the old days people used to fantasize about magical books. Books that would talk to you. Books that had secret powers. Books where you only needed to read the words and demons would appear or chasms open in the Earth or suchlike. I suppose that people still do dream of such things.”
“Weakness,” said Parker. “Indulgence. The belief that you are a special snowflake destined for greatness for no other reason than you possess a magical talisman.”
“Correct. This book has nothing supernatural about it. It’s just ink on polymer, but it, and those like it, are far more powerful than any book of legend. Because it is real. The powers it and those like it grant are far greater than anything from bad young adult fantasy novels. Supremacy in combat. The ability to tell lies from truth, or spot sociopaths from a kilometer off. Being able to control your sleep pattern, or to be immune to fear, or to run a successful catering business.”
“I still don’t see how simple books can give people such practical skills without years of study.”