The Exodus Towers: The Dire Earth Cycle: Two

by Jason M. Hough

  Really, was it any different than allowing Kip Osmak to handle the day-to-day operations at the climber port? A good leader delegates. Russell had read that, somewhere. Maybe Neil Platz had said it, in one speech or another.

  And in the meantime, Russell could get down to the business of finding Tania Sharma and her band of merry misfits.

  Later that day, he called everyone of importance to his office in Nightcliff and introduced them to the new prefect. Their shocked expressions told him what they thought of the arrangement, but they weren’t people whose opinions mattered much.

  By sunset Russell found himself on board a climber. He felt the weight of Darwin’s problems fade as his altitude increased, and understood then why all the world’s elite had fled the city as well, five years ago, rather than deal with the aftermath of SUBS. He’d stuck it out then, taken the reins and done what had to be done.

  No matter what anyone said, Russell had earned his place at the top of the food chain, and it was high time he enjoyed the perks that came along with it.

  Belém, Brazil

  30.APR.2283

  A SNAKE SLITHERED over his left leg, then under his right.

  Skyler guessed from the weight that it must be as thick as his arm. Confirmation would require looking, and he had no intention of moving a muscle. The creature took so long to finish its languid journey that he imagined it being more than five meters in length.

  Only when he felt the tail tickle his right ankle did he allow himself to breathe. He’d fallen asleep, stupidly, in the undergrowth east of the Elevator and base camp. The last two days had left him exhausted. The tenacious immunes were stubborn to the point of insanity and had chased him through the city for six hours. When they finally gave up, Skyler collapsed in the first place he found to sleep: on the couch inside a psychiatric office. Offices were less likely to be tombs for the first victims of SUBS as most people forgot about work when the end came, and that had proved true here. He’d dusted off the plush leather couch, lain down, and listened to the river through a broken window. A pack of dogs woke him three times, baying and snarling at one another as they roamed their masterless world.

  In the morning he’d begun to walk, each step a conscious effort, his mind clouded with scenarios and theories as to what was going on inside Camp Exodus. An organized group of immunes had rolled in and taken charge; that much seemed obvious. Everything else amounted to so much speculation and only distracted him, but when he tried to put it out of mind his thoughts turned to that bizarre cave in the rainforest and the creature he’d spied within. Part of him wanted nothing more than to gather a posse and head back out there, a desire these immunes stood in the way of. But there was another part of him, a part he felt guilty about, that welcomed any task other than returning to the home of that nightmare. The thought crossed his mind, more than once, to forget all about the things he’d seen.

  He’d walked all day. A long, circuitous route brought him around to the east side of camp, opposite of where he’d approached from before.

  By the time he’d crawled through the foliage to study the scene, night had long fallen. His legs were rubber from the day of walking, his feet raw and aching.

  He took a glance at his wristwatch. Three A.M. He’d slept for almost two hours. Eyes on the camp, Skyler reached down and grabbed his canteen. He swished the cool water through his teeth and then spit it out before taking a modest gulp. A growl from his stomach he ignored.

  The invaders, as Skyler had come to call them, were organized and taking no chances. Their vehicles were parked in a semicircle around the north and west sides of the camp. One pointed outward, the next inward, in repeating fashion. Their bright headlights bathed the camp in pure white and complex shadows. Most were aimed dead center on the base of the Elevator, where the camp’s improvised headquarters sat. A few, though, cast their light on the parking lot of aura towers.

  Those trucks pointing outward cast wan illumination on the surrounding trees and low buildings, giving swarms of moths a stage for their evening dance.

  Skyler’s strategy to approach from the east proved wise. He’d walked well past the camp and followed the riverbank back, turning in at the tributary that roughly traced the camp’s eastern border. The invaders were paying little attention to this side.

  From his position on the sloped bank of the tributary, Skyler saw no colonists abroad. They were either confined to their tents and mobile homes, or they’d been crammed into the bellies of the five armored personnel carriers he counted.

  Or killed. There was always that possibility.

  A climber rested at the base of the Elevator, loaded with cargo. The construction crane they’d rigged to lift the thing still had truss lines attached to the frame of the spiderlike vehicle. Yesterday should have been the first real shipment of water and air to the space stations above. Having checked constantly for signs of the crawler rising above the city, Skyler knew nothing had gone up. Tania and the others would be rationing now, and the farms would be even more at risk than before. He wondered how much they knew of the situation here. Whoever the intruders were, Tania would try to talk to them if the comm functioned. A climber stuck at the base meant that nothing, and no one, could come down.

  Skyler needed hard information, and the longer he waited, the closer dawn would be, stealing any chance of a quiet foray into the camp.

  He allowed a half hour to study the invaders’ movements. Sentries manned each vehicle, either atop a mounted gun turret if available, or just sitting on the roof with an assault rifle across their knees.

  A few patrolled on foot, giving a cursory flashlight inspection of the waterway. Skyler took some heart at this. If he had it right, only a handful of the invaders had any formal training in such things. Despite their matching gear and professional attitude, they were not all experienced militants.

  When the next patroller wandered out of earshot, Skyler made his move. Running low, he went to the nearest friendly tent and ducked behind it. He waited, ready to bolt toward the river if any alarm rose. Hearing nothing, he flicked the canvas side of the tent with his finger. He repeated this a dozen times before he heard a whisper.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Skyler,” he said, voice low.

  “Thank God,” the person said. “We thought you were dead. Where have you—”

  “No time for chat,” Skyler hissed. “How many are there, who are they, and what do they want?”

  The person inside the tent swallowed audibly. “Thirty? Maybe forty? I don’t know what they want. We were shoved into random tents and told we’d be shot if we came out. I’ve heard three gunshots since then.”

  Whatever their goal, the fact that they’d kill for it told Skyler everything he needed to hear about. “Where’s Karl?”

  “I don’t know,” the colonist whispered. “I saw him talking to their leader, before they shoved me in here.”

  Skyler glanced around himself. Another patrol would come by soon. “Which one is their leader? Can you describe him?”

  “I … I’m not sure. Tall, your height I guess. Military hair, you know, close-cropped. Goatee and sunglasses. That’s all I saw.”

  “You’re sure he was their leader?”

  A pause. “I just assumed …”

  Skyler heard footsteps to the south. “Okay, stay put. If violence is the only solution here, you’ll know when I’ve started it. Follow Karl’s lead if you can; otherwise just fight. There’s no place to run.”

  “Take me with you?”

  “Sorry,” Skyler said, and meant it. “When they find you’re missing, they’ll double their guard and make trouble for everyone else. Right now they think I’m hiding deep in the city, and the longer they believe that, the better.”

  “Okay, okay. You’re right.”

  The footsteps sounded closer. “Quiet now,” Skyler said. He feared that a return to his place on the riverbank would take too long. Instead he moved farther into the camp, making use of every shad
ow he could. He reached a parked truck, the flatbed he’d seen on Mercy Road the day before carrying bed frames, and rolled underneath it.

  For a long time he lay still, inhaling the rich aroma of chipped wood. Mud and deep puddles had plagued the center of camp in the first days after arrival, so Skyler had led an expedition for decorative bark, of all things. Tania and the others had balked at first, claiming medical supplies and food were all that mattered. Once Skyler and a half-dozen volunteers blanketed the Elevator base in the ground cover, the complaints stopped. No mud in the tents, no bootfuls of cold rainwater to suffer. Tania even thanked him for being bullheaded about the idea, on one of her brief visits.

  That the material suppressed sounds and held no footprints proved an unintended benefit. Satisfied no one had seen him dive under the truck, Skyler allowed himself to relax, and surveyed the center of camp from his fresh point of view.

  One of the black-clad newcomers guarded the cargo container that served as the camp’s headquarters. Karl, Skyler knew, spent most of his time in there, carefully managing the logistics of the alien towers. Where they were, who had responsibility for them, and when they would return. He and Skyler spent many evenings huddled around the map of Belém taped to the wall within, plotting and strategizing.

  The comm, their only link to Melville Station above, lay within as well.

  Skyler crawled forward. He could see the sentry up to the knees. He or she stood beside the door, casually leaning against the wall of the container, one foot crossed over the other. As Skyler moved toward the front of the truck, he saw that the guard’s arms were folded, an assault rifle nestled within like a cradled newborn.

  He hoped to find the person dozing, but when Skyler finally saw the face—a young man—the guard’s eyes were alert and actively studying his surroundings.

  An approach from here would be suicidal, as no cover existed. That the guard hadn’t seen him dive below the truck was something of a miracle.

  A rustling sound came from behind. Skyler shot a glance back over his shoulder and saw a colonist emerging from a tent, thirty or forty meters away.

  “Hello?” the man said, voice raised. “I need to relieve myself.”

  “Stay where you are,” the guard standing at the headquarters door shouted back. His voice carried a heavy accent. Brazilian, Skyler guessed. “I’ll get you an escort.”

  “I’m just going to go behind the tent here,” the colonist said. He started to walk.

  Skyler glanced forward and saw the guard standing alert. The man took a few steps forward, readying his gun.

  “Remain still!” the guard yelled. Then he slipped two fingers into the corners of his mouth and whistled three times as he continued to march toward the noisy colonist. His path brought him right next to the truck Skyler lay beneath, and he stopped just centimeters away. “I mean it, asshole, stop.”

  The camp began to stir. Skyler heard voices and the zippers of tent flaps. Some invaders, across the camp and out of view, were shouting queries about the whistle.

  “Stop, I’m serious,” the guard urged. Then he muttered, “Shit,” and started to run. Skyler glanced back again and caught a glimpse of the colonist racing off into the darkness, toward the river. The guard bolted toward him even as more of the invaders came from the other side of camp. Shouts went up and bleary colonists stumbled out of their tents.

  On pure instinct, Skyler crawled from beneath the truck and sprinted to the improvised headquarters. In a former life, the structure had served as a shipping container. A doorway and window had been cut out of one side, and given the darkness within, Skyler assumed the place was empty.

  As the commotion in the camp escalated, he ducked inside and closed the door.

  “Who’s there?” someone called.

  Skyler swung his gun around and flicked on the light. The bright beam lit up the face of a black-clad stranger, lying on the floor atop a sleeping bag. Halfway to a sitting position, the man froze at the sight of Skyler’s gun barrel just centimeters from his face. With the weapon so close, the beam from the mounted light only lit a circle around the man’s mouth.

  “Not a bloody peep,” Skyler whispered. He moved the light to the man’s eyes, and the off-duty guard squinted and blinked, turning his face partly away.

  “Okay, relax,” he said.

  “I need answers. Who are you people?”

  “Survivors,” the man said, his voice faltering. An American, judging by the accent.

  “Do better than that. Quickly now. How’d you come to be here? Who’s your leader?”

  Fear radiated from the poor man’s face. “Please. They’ll kill me.”

  “I’ll kill you,” Skyler hissed. “They don’t need to know we ever met.”

  Eyes closed, the man swallowed hard and managed a terse nod. “I ran a factory in São Paulo. Everyone started dying, or … worse. I hid for a while, and when things quieted down I decided to make my way back to Colorado.”

  “Skip the life story, okay?”

  The man went on. “Gabriel found me on the freeway, near Rio. I could barely walk I was so hungry.”

  “Gabriel?”

  “Our leader. He brought all us survivors together, ever since the … He’s building a new society from the ashes.”

  Skyler took a second to digest the information. The man’s voice held a reverence that could mean nothing good. “Why did you attack our camp?”

  The man opened one eye, trying to see Skyler and failing in the face of the flashlight. “What would you do, if you came across a scene like this?”

  “I’d probably cheer at the sight of so many more survivors.”

  “You spacemen are not true survivors.”

  Skyler had opened his mouth to argue when the blade of a knife flashed inches from his face. He leapt backward as the man slashed again. Blinded by the bright flashlight, the invader misjudged the distance on both swings.

  A gunshot here would have the whole lot of them bearing down on the room, so Skyler flipped his gun around and smacked the butt into the man’s face. He heard the sound of bone breaking as the weapon hit.

  The man roared and fell back, clutching at his ruined nose. Skyler darted forward and lunged with his weapon again, then a third time, until the American fell silent.

  He had no doubt the entire camp heard the man’s anguished shout. Skyler turned and fled, stopping just shy of the door. Linked pairs of handheld radios lay in a tray bolted to the wall. He grabbed a set and knelt, placing his gun on the floor so he could work with the light it provided.

  A strap of Velcro held the two devices together. He ripped the material apart and set one device aside. Fingers dancing, he turned on the radio in his hands and then wrapped the Velcro strap around twice, pulling it tight so that the transmit button remained down.

  He turned and scanned the room. Prompted by a nearby shout outside, Skyler knew he had to leave. He slid the modified radio across the floor and it vanished beneath the table where the comm terminal sat. He could only hope it would remain unfound.

  Skyler snatched the other radio and ran from the room. He ignored a cry of warning from somewhere behind him, taking a zigzag pattern around the truck he’d hidden under before. A deafening report from an assault rifle made him duck and change directions again, as bullets thudded into the side of the truck.

  He didn’t bother to turn and look. There were too many of them. Instead Skyler kept running, straight back the way he’d come, pumping his legs as hard as he could. He stuffed the radio into his pocket and flicked off the flashlight on his gun as he went.

  When he passed the tent where he’d spoken to a colonist, the man was emerging from the flap, brandishing a folded umbrella.

  “Not yet,” Skyler said as he raced by. The colonist, an older man, ducked back inside as more gunshots rang out. Skyler crouched and altered his angle twice more before finally reaching the sloped bank. He leapt into the tributary at a narrow point, hoisting his weapon above his head, landing in k
nee-high water with a huge splash.

  Out the other side, he turned and knelt. When the first invader’s head appeared above the sloped bank, Skyler fired, killing the person instantly.

  He spun and ran up the far bank, diving over the top and rolling in the tall grass beyond as more bullets traced paths through the vegetation around him.

  In any other scenario he would have fired wildly in return, hoping to send the enemies diving for cover. But with the colony as a backdrop, the risk was too great. Instead he flipped the holo-sight on and took aim at the closest invader. Skyler squeezed the trigger and sent the person sprawling, clutching their leg.

  The others took cover as their second comrade hit the ground.

  Satisfied, Skyler began to crawl through the meter-high grass. He went east, or so he hoped, moving to a bent-over run as soon as he thought it safe to do so. Twice he tripped in the darkness. On the second fall his head smacked into a rock buried in the deep grass, cutting his forehead. He bit back a groan and ran on as blood began to trickle from the wound.

  The immunes chased him through grass fields and rainforest for an hour before Skyler happened upon a flimsy boathouse.

  Double images blurred before his eyes. He swayed on his feet and needed every ounce of concentration to keep his legs under him. Throwing caution to the wind, he kicked his way into the feeble structure and turned his flashlight on again, finding the single room empty. A concrete channel full of black water held a tiny, two-man fiberglass boat, tied down with a single nylon rope.

  The water went out through the wide-open fourth wall, ten meters out through a mangrove cathedral to the swift Guamá. Whatever smugglers used this place in the past hid it well from above.

  Blood still trickling from his forehead, Skyler lumbered forward and stepped into the boat, his foot splashing in stagnant water that had pooled in the hull. He ignored the foul smell and lay down on his back. After three tries to grab the yellow rope, which swam and blurred in front of him, he finally found it and undid the simple knot. Fighting the searing pain in his skull, he reached over the side of the boat and probed with his hand until he found concrete. Using just his fingertips, he pushed with all the strength he had left. After what felt like an eternity, he cracked his eyes open enough to see the roof of the hidden boathouse pass above him, giving way to tangled mangroves and dark sky beyond. The pain soon became unbearable and he let his eyes close.