The Core

by Jack Robuck

  She stood there for a moment, eyes closed, reaching, reaching into the expanse of the sky, like the mother of the night, like the statue. They watched her run her hands gently over her shorn head, lightly down the goose-bumped flesh of her full breasts, across the proud bump of rosy nipples, and down, around, over the divine ark of her ample hips, to the taut skin of her thighs.

  She reached slowly down to pick up the blanket. Her feet together, the twin spheres of her white buttocks perched wide and firm in perfect counterweight to her reaching torso.

  As she slowly rose, her big, full breasts swayed into place, her back arched, and for a single moment the double fullers down the center of her back formed what Matthew was sure was the only straight line her body would ever know. She was at once small and rubenesque, short and shapely, her delicate wrists and ankles adorned with simple wooden trinkets on string.

  A necklace of big beads hung impossibly long, disappeared in the gravity well between her breasts, and reappeared swinging a turquoise pendant somewhat above her flat stomach. With her wide hips and hairless mound, she looked like the mother and the daughter of all men. Matthew noticed a tiny pink tongue protruding from her mound, just as a sudden movement drew his attention up to where she was licking her lips.

  She wrapped the blanket around her, its ragged, loose woven edges fringing like the robes of a queen.

  Without looking away, Matthew grasped silently for Charlie’s sleeve. "Who is she?"

  "Her name is Ella."

  "She’s beautiful." The burn of alcohol and the haze of smoking were at once making Matthew see the world with a clarity beyond his years, and causing him to lose specific control of himself.

  "Quiet, little one. The air is thin up here."

  "She’s beautiful..." Matthew blinked and grabbed the railing hard, leaning out. "You’re beautiful!"

  Ella pointed her cheekbones at them sharply, her delicate brow furrowed. She wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders and walked back inside, shutting the latticed doors, blanket swinging high about her pale thighs.

  Charlie turned to Matthew, for the first time with a look of judgment. "Very young, my friend. Very stupid." Charlie paused. "A woman like that is like a deer. Soft, and gentle. The words do not matter much. Just stay still, speak softly, and wait. But even kind words, loud, from the dark, send them jumping away."

  "Are your deer giant too?"

  "What?"

  "Nothing. Rachel isn’t like that."

  "I didn’t say women. I said women like that. Rachel is a hawk."

  "What is Sydney?"

  "None of your business. Come, my little friend. We must eat something now. You are overstimulated, and me, I'm fat. So we must eat. And sleep. This floor is us. We’ll find you a room."

  *

  The perpetual wet night eddied on around Luna, smoldering like a city at the bottom of the sea. Matthew burned in a fever dream of intoxicants and emotions, of a pair of birds mating, entwined, falling, of himself reaching out for a moon and finding himself in the vacuum of space, in an airlock, as a shadow figure pushed the button and he was sucked out into the freezing void.

  He shivered and awoke in just his trousers on a cot in the corner of a common room. The moon filtered through the shuttered door and for a moment he was back in the corridor, alarm blaring, hands reaching for him. "Stop! Stop!"

  It was Rachel. "Calm down, cowboy. It’s me."

  Matthew sat up in the dim light, getting his bearings. Rachel immediately began thrusting his belongings at him.

  Matthew grabbed his shoes and belt in his lap. "What did I do?"

  Rachel frowned at him distractedly. "What? Nothing. They’re coming."

  "The Fleet?"

  In answer, a pop! A flare trail arching through the sky silently lit up the plaster wall. The rumble of a hovering craft. A crash from the distant ground floor. Scattered assault rifle fire.

  Matthew dressed quickly. "They didn't just bomb the place? Are you sure it’s the Fleet?"

  Rachel was peering down the hallway, loading a revolver. "They’re here for us, not to burn down the whole city. Luna is important to the Fleet. Up to a point."

  She turned to him and handed him the revolver. "Here."

  He looked into her eyes expectantly. "I’d be better off with my rifle."

  "This isn’t for now. This is for you. I’m assuming you know what side you’re on by now? If we live, I’ll need your help."

  She strapped a holster on him, shoved his assault rifle in his hands, and slipped an extra clip under his belt. She grabbed him by the shoulders before picking up her weapon.

  "This is probably gonna suck."

  They sprinted through the door and down the hallway. Matthew checked the safety on his rifle. "Where’s everyone else?"

  "Dunno. Little busy last night. The good news is we’re surrounded. There’s only one way to run."

  "The bad news?"

  "Anybody we don’t run into on the way out of town didn’t make it."

  Gunshots from below, now a few floors closer. They picked up speed, and Matthew’s cracked rib groaned from the activity. As they passed open doors in the corridor, the red flare light filtered through from outside. Rachel looked back over her shoulder at him, her hair flying, her face strobed bright in each lit rectangle.

  One doorway. Another. The glowing rectangle of light on the plaster wall exploded with shots from the hovering gunship now spotlighting the windows. Rachel stopped short, her spine arching far back to keep her head and torso out of the light, but she couldn’t stop, and at the last second she jumped, falling into a shoulder roll and coming up graceful in the shadows on the other side. She turned back to him, beckoning him on.

  He shook his head. "Fuck that!"

  But the airship had moved ahead, circling. The next doorway down the hall was closed, but a hail of bullets exploded through it in a shower of splintered pine. Matthew raced to catch up with Rachel, where she waited, poised at the edge of the light.

  "My turn to go first, lady!"

  "Yeah, I think we go at the same time."

  They jumped. Matthew landed hard on his side and grimaced at the pressure on his ribcage. Charlie appeared down the hall, bare to his waist, his globulous torso swaying. Tattoos of unknown tribes danced in the glow of the flare, and he waved them forward as he pulled on his shirt.

  "Come on!"

  They ran down four flights of stairs. In the vertical shaft of the stairwell, an enormous paper lantern in the shape of a dragon had been partially shot down and was burning. The glow spun Matthew’s head as he spiraled down around the flaming beast, chasing after Rachel and the surprisingly swift Charlie.

  They reached the bar. Chairs and tables, velvet hassocks and hookahs along with several bodies, were strewn across the room. By the door, Jimmy, Natalie, and the top-hat were firing, holding the entrance against the strike force outside. Glazier was bent over one of the few standing tables, busily sewing up a wound in the gasping Gusset. Gusset turned his head at their entrance, his greasy beard dribbled with spittle and blood.

  "They blew the heavy fighter, the mother fuckers. They’re dead! They're dead!"

  Sydney appeared from another staircase. "You’d never get out of here that way anyhow." She looked around. Charlie went behind the bar and came up with a shotgun. "There’s only one way out of this building. You know that."

  Jimmy fired and pulled back into cover. "Rach! The terminal. The train."

  Rachel put both hands on the table where Gusset lay, looking down at her feet. "We don’t even know if that train will move. It’s never moved."

  Matthew looked from face to face. "I’m sorry, what are we talking about?"

  Sydney came over to the table. "It will move. You know this. We never fired up the reactor because we never had a good enough reason."

  "And as soon as we do, the Fleet is going to detect it, and they're going to want it. Bad." Rachel paused, thinking. "Once it’s out of the tunnel, we don’t even
know exactly where that rail leads. But I guess that's not important now."

  Jimmy came over from the fight, pointing to the top-hatted man. "Kid! Go help Winston and Natalie! Rachel, we do know that train puts us in the right direction out of town. The further it goes, the closer we get."

  A grenade hit the floor near the door, bounced and rolled toward the bar. Natalie grabbed it and gave it a quick toss out of the window. It blew just outside, and in that same moment, a rocket screeched through the window, hitting the bar, blowing up the bottles, the mirrors, and the wall in a crystalline shower that made Natalie throw herself down.

  Glazier rushed over to her. "Natalie?"

  "I’m fine, Doc. Just scratches."

  Rachel pulled herself together. "Okay, Jimmy, Natalie, Sydney, tear down the stage wall. Get us in the terminal. Matthew, Charlie, Doc, and I will hold them off."

  Gusset rolled to his feet. "I can fight, damn it, give me my gun."

  Matthew hadn’t noticed the ornate backdrop of the stage last night in the relative darkness: an intricately hand painted garden scene looking out on a green expanse. A little pond with an island that supported a single plum tree. In the distance, an orchard, a temple. All of this had been graffitied over at some point with the words "Pre-War is Pre-Freedom," along with various expletives in smaller scrawls. Jimmy and Sydney began tearing the canvas from the wall with their bare hands, and Natalie quickly caught on.

  Matthew took up a position in cover by the window. He peeked out, and just as quickly pulled back his head. There was a platoon of Fleet Troopers, at least three large vehicles and two hover-planes all pointing a hundred barrels and lights at the big statue's nether region. He'd hardly have time to take aim before someone shot his head off. He looked around at the others. Winston was firing blindly, but at least he was making a lot of noise.

  Doc had taken up a position on the far stairs, shooting with his sniper rifle from the advantage of distant darkness. Charlie swung shut the heavy wooden door, closing off the curtained archway, and sat down. He appeared to be meditating with his back to the door.

  "Charlie, what the fuck?"

  Charlie opened one eye from his cross-legged position. "Very young. Very stupid. The time will come. Or they will blow us up. There is very little I can do from here. Except be fat. I'm holding the door shut."

  The three rebels across the room had torn down the backdrop, and were pushing open a set of dusty green-glass doors. Gusset turned out the main light strip, leaving the faint glow of some paper lanterns from the rafters, and took up a position near Winston, the top-hatted man, at the far window. He quickly popped up, took aim, and fired; once, and again. Rachel was reloading some weapons on the table, and putting them in a bag.

  She called over to Matthew, "If you're not fighting, see if there's any food left in the bar cabinets."

  Matthew rolled his eyes and crawled over. He gathered a few questionable-looking cans and packages and, ducking down, brought them over.

  "Thanks for leaving me alone with the drugged-out giant last night."

  Rachel frowned at him. "He's not drugged out. Charlie's on the level."

  "Fine, whatever. Did you have a good time?"

  "Seriously? Or are you being pissy? Because now is not really the best time."

  "I thought you weren't trying to manipulate me."

  "I wasn't, and I'm not. I'm not marrying you either, cowboy." She looked at him with a smile and, reaching over, smacked him on the ass.

  Matthew gritted his teeth.

  The front of the building exploded with machine gun fire from the hover-planes. The door and its surrounding wall shattered. A hail of bullets and foot-long splinters ripped through Gusset's midsection. The floor was drenched in his blood before his body slumped wetly against it.

  Natalie screamed, "Fuuuuck! Let's go!"

  Matthew twisted, staring at Gusset's body. Rachel grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him forward. “He's gone, Matthew. Move!”

  The entire group rushed the stage, climbing up and over, pushing through the glass doors, and pulling them shut behind.

  Jimmy sprinted ahead down a long doorless hallway. "That won't hold them! Sydney, Natalie, help me out up top!"

  The three raced through another door, turned left, climbed a set of steel stairs to a long curved gantry, and raced around the enormous brick rotunda that soared overhead ten stories.

  The others were just behind. Matthew stopped short and whistled. "What the hell is this place?"

  Winston grinned a blackened, crooked grin. "Roundhouse, boy. Train lived here, don't know why. But that's what the building's named after, and the statue. Look." Winston pointed up ahead, just as Jimmy slammed a giant knife switch. Flood lights lit up an ancient bullet train, sitting crooked with two cars attached in the center of the giant dome. It was high chrome, and along the side of the engine was painted the words 'The Silver Lady.' Around the far walls, five giant tunnels intersected the space.

  Jimmy punched some buttons on a control panel and nodded to Sydney, who stood by another console a dozen yards around the gantry. An electric snap, a whirr, and Matthew jumped back as the three train cars shuddered and straightened into line, rising visibly to hover over the monorail they'd been resting on. The doors to the rear car slid open, and Jimmy beckoned to Sydney and Natalie.

  "Come on, that’s all we can do remotely!"

  Glazier and Charlie, Rachel, Matthew, Winston, Natalie, Sydney and Jimmy raced aboard the Silver Lady just as several Troopers rushed through the doorway.

  The group leapt on board, firing behind them, racing toward the engine of the train. The Troopers chased after. At the junction to the next car, Sydney and Natalie took cover and began firing back down the long length of the end car. Troopers crouched behind the black leather seating units and began working their way forward.

  Sydney cursed as her weapon jammed. "Fuck! We don’t have much time here!"

  Some Fleet Troopers were already on the gantry, at the control panel. Matthew grabbed Jimmy’s sleeve and pointed as they raced through the second car. "Look! What are they doing?"

  Just then, the train began to shudder, the long monorail spinning like a clock hand in the circular confines of the giant domed terminal. Jimmy pushed past Rachel. "Move! I’ve gotta get to the engine. They’re turning us away from the tunnel!"

  The train turned past one of the big dark voids in the distant wall, and proceeded to align itself with the third on the left. They were now side-on to the entrance where a half-dozen Troopers were firing at them through the windows of the train.

  "We’re in a freaking shooting gallery here!" Winston screamed over the shattering smash of window glass. The four Troopers at the rear of the train were still advancing on Sydney and Natalie.

  Glazier was calmly firing from the high window in the engine near the driver’s seat where Jimmy was trying to take over control of the roundhouse. He directed Glazier to fire on the gantry. First one then the second Trooper fell to his fire.

  "Good job, Doc!"

  Glazier reloaded. "Turn us back toward the center tunnel!"

  Jimmy grimaced. "We only go one way around. We’re gonna have to take the scenic route! Wait a minute...but I can do this!"

  As the monorail turned with a sandy grinding sound, the train spun further around, and Jimmy switched on its massive spotlight. As it came to bear on the entrance to the roundhouse, the Fleet Troopers took cover, one holding up a hand over his eyes. Rachel and Charlie shot through the front windscreen of the train and killed two of them in a hail of rifle and shotgun fire.

  Glazier repositioned to fire his sniper rifle down the long length of the whole train, and took out one of the Troopers at the back. The remaining Troopers ducked into cover, and Sydney and Natalie leaned into the doorway, waiting. All three popped out at once. Natalie dropped the one who popped up on the left; the one on the right sprayed wild, making them duck. Matthew took careful aim and shot him in the neck.

  The third
Trooper rolled out to the center of the aisle, on the floor. He and Glazier sighted each other and fired. The Trooper’s face shield cracked, and he slumped. Glazier grabbed his left shoulder where his sweat-stained shirt was spreading red under his suspender strap.

  The remaining Trooper made a mad dash for the door of the moving terminal; the train had nearly swung around to the opening again, but the Trooper went the wrong direction out of the back of the train. He scurried under the train car, and tried to heave himself up onto the platform, but the remaining Troopers couldn’t lay down enough cover fire to keep those on the train from shooting him in the back.

  The remaining force retreated, and the large brick room that had blistered with the reverberations of gunfire fell silent. Rachel moved from window to window pointing her gun at the distant door. "Is that it?"

  Charlie reloaded his shotgun. "Hover planes can’t get in here. We’re under a thousand tons of rock. Don’t worry. They’ll be waiting for you on the outside."

  Matthew furrowed his brow at the big man. "You’re not coming?"

  Sydney, Charlie and Winston gathered near the door to the third car. Rachel answered Matthew. "They have responsibilities here. And if they can finish off the Fleet presence, even better. Sydney, take Glazier with you. He needs help from the town doctor, and I’m sure the town doctor will need his help tonight too. I don’t want to think about how many townspeople may have gotten caught in the crossfire."

  Glazier shuffled down from the engine, holding pressure on his wound. He leaned into Matthew’s ear. "You alright with this, son?"

  Matthew was touched by the camaraderie, and truth be told, he wasn’t thrilled about leaving the last person he knew from The Waverly behind.

  Rachel was hugging Sydney and Charlie goodbye. "We’ve got to pass back through when we’re done out there. You’ll see each other again. Come on."

  Jimmy and Natalie ripped the assault vests and weapons off the dead Troopers, and dragged their bodies away from the train.