by Bryan Fields
Of all the surreal differences I’d found so far, that one took the cake. I sat back, feeling lightheaded. Back home, Eldorado Canyon was a playground filled with campers, rock climbers, and topless women basking on rocks in the middle of the river. It was a place of sunlight, hot springs, and pot smoke along the river banks. All the best things about Boulder, distilled down to a few square miles of Natural Wonderland. How could someone look at this canyon and decide it was a good spot for a secret weapons lab?
I made my way back through the room and pulled a chair over to the workstation Thirteen was using. Two of the security cameras showed Thain outside, making his way through thick undergrowth and around sections of ruined buildings. Another display showed him as a red blip on a map, moving deeper into the canyon.
“He’s coming toward us, isn’t he?”
Thirteen nodded and lit up a section of map, highlighting what I assumed was the entrance to the facility we were in. Two yellow blips flanked the entrance, both showing READY in blinking green letters.
Thain paused to investigate a greenery-covered troop transport. He had to write a very long spell out, but when he finished, the grass and scrub oak around him shook. Skeletons of long-dead soldiers, some still partially clad in shreds of clothing, rose from the ground and fell into formation. The majority carried either pistols or shotguns, but all had some form of weapon, from entrenching tools to some kind of Big Freakin’ Ray Guns.
The skeletons showed no signs of individual will or sentience, thankfully. Drone not always better. Thain would have no idea what most of the stuff he encountered could do, while I could at least take educated guesses.
Right then, the skeleton with the biggest energy cannon trained it on the wreckage of something resembling an Osprey. The cannon took several seconds to power up, but it produced an impressive blue-white ball of energy and blew the aircraft into scrap metal.
Even Thain would be able to figure that thing out.
He stopped twice to animate more bodies. Not all of them rose—it seemed he wasn’t able to sustain the energy required for mass reanimations just yet. He managed to pull up a dozen corpses and keep them moving, but that was the limit of his power. For now.
I nudged Thirteen and asked, “Can you put up feeds from some of the other external cameras? I’d like to get a sense of this place.”
He shrugged and flipped a few switches. I got cameras covering most of the canyon and looking out toward the east. I didn’t see any signs of a river, and there was a large, bombed-out building sitting where the hotel and swimming pools should be. The canyon had a decent amount of plant life, right up to the point where it opened out into south Boulder Valley. What should have been open grasslands was just rock-strewn dirt interrupted by ruined buildings and abandoned vehicles, long gone to rust.
No clouds. No trees. No grasses. Only haze and wind-driven dust as far as the cameras could show me. Colorado had recently been through a good eight years of drought, but even in the worst years things were never as bad as what I was seeing.
The vegetation in the canyon had to be due to the artesian spring. It couldn’t be flowing anywhere near as much as the one back home does, or this place would be a swimming pool. I’m not an expert on the geology of water supplies, but I’m guessing the aquifer feeding the spring was almost depleted.
Thain and his bony droogs were getting closer to the facility entrance. Thirteen brought up a new screen, showing the view from the main door. The entire approach was filled with mounds of broken skeletons, torn remnants of body armor, and vehicles half-melted into slag. If Thain needed recruits, there were enough here to give him a good-sized mob.
A metallic clang reverberated through the air shafts. I came half out of my seat, scanning the ceiling for…well, something.
Thirteen waved me back into my seat. “Drone away,” he muttered. He put a gun camera feed up, showing the ground dropping away as the drone gained altitude. It leveled out, giving me a good view of the canyon mouth. I could see the remains of good-sized wall stretching across the entrance. Judging from the number of scrapped vehicles littering the ground in front of it, the wall’s defenses had put up a fight Leonidas would have been proud of.
Without looking away from the screen, I asked, “What happened to the water?”
He shrugged. “Winter stopped coming. Too hot. Then, after everything went to Hell, dust blocked out the sun. Forests died. Crops died. Oceans died. Bad times.”
I couldn’t help myself. I asked, “How did you live through it?”
“Didn’t. Down to four lives, now.”
I snickered. “Seriously, though.”
He ignored my comment. “Open the medical kit on the post behind you. Look for a blue box labeled RadZero. Drink one of the vials.”
I found the bottle, but didn’t drink. “What does it do?”
“Makes your piss glow electric blue.” When I didn’t react, he sighed and added, “It keeps you from dying of radiation exposure. You do want kids someday, right?”
I chugged it and slipped a second bottle into my pocket. “Someday. Bet I could make a fortune selling this stuff to the doomsday-prepper crowd.” I sat back down and said, “Seriously, if it’s not too personal a question, I’d like to know what happened to you.”
Thirteen looked sideways at me, tail lashing back and forth. His lips curled back partway as he muttered, “You did.”
He activated another screen and brought up a series of technical journals dealing with something called homeostatic exclusion. That made me sit up—it’s the process Loseitall works off of. In simple terms, the drug worked with the body to expel specific compounds when they exceeded a certain concentration. Eat too many fats and sugars, and the body excreted them rather than absorbing them.
According to the articles, the same process worked with cancer cells, excessive hormone levels, blood alcohol level, and a host of other issues. It also worked with radioactive isotopes. Distribute it early enough, and you could essentially vaccinate your population against radiation sickness and fallout exposure. The person responsible for this discovery was David Fraser.
He’d found a series of unexpected biological changes while running a query on the Loseitall trial database. That lead to the radiation vaccine, and the radiation-proof population convinced the Republic’s government that nuclear war would be survivable. And in that arrogance, they put a bunch of bombs on a hair-trigger automatic response.
David Fraser died in a single-vehicle accident during a snowstorm. His sister received his entire estate, and donated it to her church. For a moment, I wondered if this world’s Audrey knew how to cut brake lines.
I managed to grab a trash can before I lost my lunch. Even if this wasn’t my world, the enormity of the death toll was too much to bear. Finding a simple pattern in the database was exactly the sort of thing I would do. Just me being clever, hoping to get a raise or a bonus to show everyone how clever I was.
The line from my dream made sense now. Fear keeps insanity away. Without fear, Mutually Assured Destruction wasn’t a deterrent any more. It becomes an acceptable risk. I looked up and asked, “How many—”
“Nine billion.” He flicked his ears toward me and added, “Not to mention uncounted millions of non-Human lives, both sentient and not.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. “That didn’t make it worse at all.” I moved to the cramped tiny restroom and gagged all over again. Some sick bastard had painted the walls to look like a field of flowers in the mountains, and then pinned butterflies to the blue latex sky. I also found two stuffed and mounted skunks hiding behind the toilet. You couldn’t see them until you sat on the floor and assumed the position. We had a staring contest for a while before I rejoined the cat.
On the main door video feed, two turrets had popped out of the ground and were blasting Thain’s skeletons into bone meal with some kind of bright blue energy beams. The beams punched through Thain’s protective barrier, ripped him in half, and knocked him a good twen
ty feet. The turrets retracted. Thain twitched a little, fingers scrabbling through the sand. One foot flexed, inching toward his torso.
I watched him crawl toward his legs for a bit while I got my head together. I wound up asking the question I was most afraid of getting an answer to. “What did survive? Just the cockroaches?”
Thirteen zoomed the view in on Thain. “Prairie dogs, extinct. Coyotes, extinct. Plains jackrabbit, extinct. Homo sapiens, verging on extinction. I hear one group in Uganda on shortwave now and then. They have twelve thousand survivors on a cattle ranch. They might make it. Domestic shorthaired cat, extinct. Sapient domestic shorthair, effectively extinct.”
“Twelve thousand Humans? Didn’t the radiation vaccine save any?”
Thirteen shook his head. “It wasn’t intended for high concentrated doses. The vaccine did what it was supposed to. It rid the body of contamination. Skin, organs, muscle, body fluids, whatever. It was horrible, but mercifully quick. Those with a lower exposure changed. Dried out, like I did. All but one or two in a thousand went insane. They’re monsters now. They’ve killed most of the surviving Humans. The ones who didn’t go insane are like me. Just mostly dead.”
I put my head between my legs. “So my discovery—his discovery—killed off the Human race?”
“Yes. Along with virtually all animal species.”
On the screen, Thain was almost whole again. I took a deep breath and asked, “Did you come to Earth to kill me?”
The cat laughed, which is a really freaky sound you don’t want to hear. It gave me visions of crippled mice begging for mercy. “Bastet, no. I came to kill him.” He nodded toward Thain.
“Why?”
“Because Grover Trenton Page had a cat. He was a friend of mine.” Thirteen tapped his claws on the console. “On Thain’s homeworld, killing a cat carries the death penalty. He killed Jayne for the thrill of it, believing the Mother of Cats wouldn’t see him.”
“He must have killed cats before, conquering four worlds.”
“That was war. This was murder.”
On the screen, Thain was standing again, casting spells to analyze the entrance. I said, “So, what’s the plan? He’s not stupid. He’ll figure out the weapons out there, and he’ll find a way to get in here. And by the way, if you could talk this whole time, why haven’t you said something before now?”
“No need. You’re very well trained.”
Frakking cat.
Maybe he heard me. He hopped off the console and padded over to the door. “This way. Inventory.” Motors whined in the ceiling and the blast door lifted. I didn’t move until it was fully retracted and the supports were locked into place.
The security robot in the hall gave me a start. It had a wide, conical base, topped by a spherical control unit with three cameras spaced around it. Three manipulation arms, two for heavy lifting and one for detail work, emerged from a rotating fitting at the peak of the cone. The outside of the cone had dozens of narrow, vertical access panels, each suitable for concealing a folding arm. I didn’t see any weapons, but I still made sure the badge Thirteen had given me was clearly visible.
It didn’t roast me, so I edged past it into the corridor. As I moved past it, I saw an identification plate listing its manufacturer as Lovecraft Droneworks of Port St. Louis, Plymouth Commonwealth. I started to say something, but changed my mind and followed the cat. As long as I didn’t think about it too much, I could save myself the sanity loss.
The hallway reinforced the feeling of being on a submarine. It was low and dark, with lighting panels every thirty feet or so. The floor grating had layers of oil and dust ground into the recesses, and as I walked along my footsteps jarred pieces of dirty grey sludge loose from the underside. Nothing responded to the falling debris, or our footsteps. It made me wonder how much of this facility was still online. That was when I realized there weren’t any bodies in here.
“Where did everybody go?” I asked.
“Most left and died outside. Couldn’t take the new world. Some stayed here. They starved.” He looked back at me. “I didn’t eat them. I farm mice.” He turned right and stopped at a door with a very official warning on it, threatening dire consequences if procedure was not followed. He leaped up on the wall ledge and touched his paw to the palm scanner. As the door creaked open, Thirteen hopped down and led me into the armory.
The air was stale and rank with the smells of oil, acid, Cosmoline, and WD-40. Thirteen perched on an ammo crate and said, “I don’t come in here much. Nothing in my size.” He jumped onto a shelf and nosed the radiation-marked stainless steel box next to him. “Could try this. Compressed-yield shoulder-fired nuclear missile. Not sure how far away you have to be, though.”
I suppressed a shudder of revulsion. “How many more species would it wipe out? No, thanks. Besides, he could still hang around in spirit form.”
The cat moved on. “Plasma incinerator? Short range, low shot limit, but it can slag a tank.”
I shook my head.
“Laser minigun? Tesla cannon? Hypersonic kinetic-kill linear accelerator sniper rifle?”
“Great for wasting his ass. Keeping him from coming back, not so much.” I found a handy crate, shoving the tarp to the side so I could sit on a clean spot. “We need something magical. Something capable of capturing his soul in a bottle, or chaining him in Hell forever.” I waved my hand at him, adding, “You can go to magic-using worlds. Can’t you just steal something we can use?”
“Why doesn’t your future mother-in-law have something useful in her hoard?” He crouched down, tail lashing. “If a device of some kind were available, I’d find a way to get us one. Know of a world with the technology to trap ghosts?”
In the distance, I heard the turrets at the entrance open fire. The clamor lasted longer this time. Thirteen brought up the main door video feed again, giving us a great view of the energy bolts blasting holes in a giant scorpion aggregated from the skeletons littering the canyon. Thain dismissed the spell holding the beast together before it could be pulverized. As it collapsed into piles of broken bone, Thain looked at the door camera and waved.
“I feel your presence, David. Congratulations on having the courage to follow me here, but you should go home now. I know there’s something in there. I can feel it. I hear it calling to me. Whatever artifact these people have stored in there, I want it. Bring it out to me, and I swear, never again will I walk your world. I’ll leave this one, and I’ll even stay away from Rose’s world. Do you understand? Give me the artifact, and all three worlds live in peace.”
He gave us a moment to allow the ideas to sink in. “Of course, if I have to do this the hard way, I will. I’m calling my armies, David. I will have this mountain torn down, stone by stone, until its secrets are laid bare. Choose.” He turned around and began writing spells on the air.
I looked at Thirteen. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”
The cat nodded. “Possibly.” He tapped on the monitor, and the exterior speakers squealed into life. “I’m coming out. Return my hat, and we’ll look for this artifact of yours.”
Thain nodded, setting Thirteen’s hat on the ground. “Agreed.”
Thirteen jumped down and headed for the door. “Be right back,” he said.
Frakking cat.
Chapter Nineteen
Who Wants to Live Forever?
While Thirteen went to pick up his hat, I paced the armory floor. It was a crap offer, but I couldn’t ignore the idea he might be serious. Safety for three worlds, in exchange for…what, exactly? Something powerful, obviously. Something rare, possibly unique.
Fine, hand him whatever he’s after, my conscience said. What if it turned out to be the Cauldron of Cerridwen? Or the Spear of Longinus? Or any one of half a dozen fictional artifacts? Could you still look at yourself in the mirror?
What if this thing is worse?
I looked back to the video feed, and thought about the things Thirteen had said. Coyotes and prairie dogs driven ex
tinct. Entire biomes wiped out. An eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano would have been disaster enough, but the nuclear exchange sealed this world’s fate.
Because I—because he, this world’s version of me—was clever, this world died. This is his fault—the other David. I’m not the one with the blood of an entire world on my hands.
Yet.
If I let Thain go, I’ll be as much of a monster as he is. Worse, since I’m neither crazy nor dead.
The only choice was to stop him. Find the artifact he wanted, find out what it does, find out how to use it against Thain, and find an opportunity to get close enough to take him out.
On the video feed, Thirteen walked out, reclaimed his hat, and walked back the way he came. Thain ignored him. He had moved away from the facility entrance, out onto the widest, flattest area available. He was busy directing a group of twenty-foot behemoths as they moved massive assemblies of green stone and black steel into position. Whatever they were building, it was too large to bring through in one piece. The most logical thing for Thain to build would be a permanent gate to his homeworld. That could complicate matters.
Getting to him should be manageable. I took a look at the laser minigun Thirteen had pointed out. According to the manual, it had a rotating array of six five-megawatt solid state lasers, each firing a twenty-nanosecond pulse. Power switch, shot selection, trigger—all pretty self-explanatory. Power cables leading to an empty backpack. Requires two 25,000-volt fusion batteries, sold separately.
Fusion batteries? Oh my hairy dancing gods…
I didn’t see anything that looked likely on the shelves. I started looking at the crates on the floor, and discovered I’d been sitting on them. I’d parked my ass on forty football-sized fusion reactors that hadn’t had a safety evaluation in almost eighty years. Pucker factor was high.