After the Winter (The Silent Earth, Book 1)

by Mark R. Healy

  He was missing a lot of skin from his arms, and on his left hand, only the thumb, forefinger and middle finger were left intact, and they were devoid of skin altogether. The left side of his face was partially caved in, his skull plate having taken a nasty knock near the temple. Here he was missing skin and hair, revealing grey metal beneath, and he was also missing an ear as well as several teeth.

  His eyes, open and staring upward into the sky, contained inky irises clouded by a residue that resembled cataracts.

  He was garbed in a black T-shirt and denim jeans, ripped off just above where his legs had been amputated. There were scrapes all over him, as if he’d been dragging himself around. That made me wonder if perhaps he’d lived for some time after he’d sustained those leg injuries.

  I looked about. If I could drag him out into the open, it might distract the Marauders for a while should they come this way. They’d spend some time dissecting him, and every minute helped.

  I placed the satchel on the ground and leaned down, gripping his shirt with both hands. The synthetic lurched forward, swinging his right arm into my midsection with an audible crunch. I cried out in hurt and surprise and stumbled back, landing with a crash on a piece of wooden crate. I kicked and scrambled madly, stumbling again as I tried to get up and put more distance between us. Eventually I stopped in the middle of road, poised to flee.

  The synthetic’s milky eyes bored into me from his sitting position on the curb. The good side of his face registered a sneering hostility.

  “Get your hands off,” he grated. His voice was deep and gravelly. Menacing.

  With that, he casually resumed his previous position, slumping backward and staring up blankly into the sky.

  “What the hell, man,” I said shakily. “I thought you were dead.”

  He offered no reply. Feeling gingerly at my ribs where he’d connected with his fist, I couldn’t help but wince. It hurt like hell. If those had been human bones they’d have cracked for sure. The guy packed a punch.

  My satchel was still lying right next to him, and it was something that I didn’t want to leave without. Everything I owned was in there.

  “Hey,” I called again. “Who are you?”

  It seemed he’d already communicated everything he wanted me to know, for he remained there silent and unmoving, inscrutable. I had to assume that if I got near enough to him he’d take another swing at me, or worse.

  I took a few steps forward, confident that he wouldn’t cover much distance in the shape that he was in, but ensured I wasn’t within his wingspan should he take another swipe at me.

  “Where did you come from?” I probed. “Did the Marauders attack you?”

  He muttered something inaudible in reply but lay unmoving.

  “What?” I took a few more steps forward. “I didn’t hear that.” I was close now, and kept talking to let him know where I was, not wanting to surprise him again. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Waiting for the 1400 shuttle home,” he snapped. “What do you think?” He got up onto his elbows to regard me again. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  “I will, I just-”

  “What?”

  “Take it easy, all right? I’m sorry for startling you. I don’t run into other clanks very often, except for the Marauders. You’re the first I’ve seen in a few weeks.”

  “This must be a disappointment for you.”

  “Uh, to be honest, I’m still trying to figure out what to make of you.”

  He lay back again, the rubble below him rustling as he settled on top of it.

  “The name’s Max,” he said.

  “I’m Brant.”

  He lifted a few fingers in acknowledgement.

  “Is everything okay, Max?” I said. “Do you need help?”

  He laughed to himself. “Well now, that’s an interesting couple of questions. I’d say ‘no’ to both.”

  “How long have you been there?”

  “A few hours,” he said. “This is where I come to ‘unwind’. Exhilarating, isn’t it?”

  I looked about the crumbling street. “It has its charms. I guess good holiday spots are hard to find these days.”

  “How about you? You blow in with that storm last night?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “Where from? And where to?”

  I took a few moments to consider. “I’m trying to get home,” I said. “I’ve been trying to get there for a long while, but... I can’t go back there yet. So I guess, right now, I’m headed anywhere that keeps me out of trouble.”

  “Another kindred spirit, then,” Max said, sarcastic. “Another lost soul.”

  I shrugged. “So it seems.” Uncertainly, I said, “Look, I really need to get going. If I can-”

  He sat up and looked at me for a moment, then reached for the satchel with his ruined left hand. Pinching it between thumb and forefinger, he twirled it around, making no attempt to open it.

  “You want this back?”

  “Please.”

  “Travelling light, Brant?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  He let it spin for another half turn, staring at it apathetically, then tossed it toward me. I snatched it out of the air.

  “Don’t let me hold you up,” he said, and lacking even a shred of tact, he lay back down once again, adding sardonically, “Nice meeting you.”

  I gave the satchel a quick once-over, performing an impromptu inventory check. Everything was where it should be.

  “Are you sure you...?”

  “Fuck off,” he interrupted.

  “Uh... okay then.” I hitched the satchel on my shoulder and turned away, but before I could take more than a few steps I heard a humming, rattling sound in the distance that made my blood curdle. “Oh shit.”

  I saw it appear down the street, slicing through the air and buzzing like an angry hornet: a Marauder drone. It was moving so damn fast.

  I ran, lurching forward like a madman, but the debris was so thick it felt as though I was running in quicksand.

  “Max, get out of here!” I called without looking back. “It’s them!”

  The drone grew louder with every step, and I looked about wildly for a place to hide, for a weapon I could use against it. With no better option, I clutched at a chunk of concrete and turned, preparing to hurl it at the drone, but it was already upon me. A spear-like appendage shot out and pierced my outstretched wrist, knocking the concrete from my grasp and driving me backward against a jagged arch of brickwork that had fallen across the street. I screamed in agony as the lance slammed into the wall, sending a spray of brick and mortar into the air and leaving me pinned against it with my feet dangling in the air.

  Cutting through the blinding pain was the thought that the drones only operated in short range. The Marauders wouldn’t be far behind.

  Reaching across with my free hand, I tried to wrestle against it as the pain threatened to overwhelm me, but I was stuck fast. I screamed again, writhing in anguish. The rusted chassis of the drone hung in the air just out of reach, and I flailed at it uselessly. Smaller than me but ferocious and unyielding, it had me trapped, the black, disc-like sensors it used for eyes twitching about on the end of stalks as it examined its prey.

  Over the grinding noise of its engine I could hear machinery in the distance. The Marauders were closing in.

  4

  The first one appeared, and I knew him by sight, if not by name.

  He coasted down the street on a tattered sand bike, its thick tyres easily rolling over the debris, its engine a menacing, throaty growl. He took his time as he savoured the kill. The broad slash of his teeth was the first distinguishable feature as he approached, his exaltation at having tracked me down evident even from a distance. He rumbled to a halt nearby, the snarl of the engine quietened suddenly like an obedient beast. Swinging his leg over the seat, he sauntered toward me triumphantly amid a wash of black exhaust fumes.

  “Well well,” he leered, calling out over the
noise of the drone. “Now this really is a pretty sight. It’s been a long time I’ve been chasing you around the place, yeah?”

  He wore a black bandana on his head, a filthy scarf around his neck, and, like all Marauders, the synthetic skin on his cheeks had been carved in swirling patterns, revealing the glinting silver of his alloy cheekbones and jaw beneath. He wore no shirt, and through the grime I could see an intricate dragon tattoo etched across his chest and belly, its wings spread wide.

  “Screw you,” I spat.

  “Aww, now don’t be like that. It was a fair fight, and the best man won.” His mouth split apart again in a vicious smile, his teeth starkly white against his unwashed skin.

  I clutched at my wrist but tried not to let the pain mar my face. “So where are your friends?”

  He looked back to the west casually. “They thought you’d headed north. You fooled ‘em, I guess. But you didn’t fool me, yeah?” He laughed. “Wraith is gonna be pissed. He really wanted you for himself.” He pulled a machete slowly from its scabbard, allowing it to rasp as he dragged it out, his eyes boring into me as he savoured the moment. “Better this way. I get to keep all of your juicy parts for myself. They’ll fetch a nice price.” He looked me over hungrily, like a piece of meat, then pointed the blade at a wire cage that was mounted on the back of the bike. “But I’m going to have to dice you up pretty good to fit you in there.” He laughed. “Hope that’s okay, yeah?”

  “Just get it over with.”

  “Oh, no. I don’t just get it over with. You made me chase you a long time, yeah? Only fair that I return the favour.” He ran his finger along the edge of the machete. “I’m gonna take my time with you.”

  He came and stood looking up at me, and I kicked out at him, narrowly missing his face. He didn’t so much as flinch. He just stood there giggling to himself, shaking his head.

  “Is this about your girlfriend?” I yelled, making my voice clearly heard over the drone. “Because that bitch deserved to die.”

  The smile was gone in an instant, replaced by indignation and rage. His lips pulled back against his teeth and he took an angry swipe at my legs. I swung them upward, the machete scraping against the brickwork, and as I brought them back down I crunched my boot into his nose, hearing the rewarding smack as it collected him flush and sent him tumbling backward into the rubble.

  “You fuck!” he screeched, picking himself up. “You should have left her alone!”

  “Well, she was trying to rip my head off my body,” I said. “Not much I could do. Oh, and by the way, she had to be the ugliest clank I ever laid eyes on. Face like the grille of a garbage truck!”

  He made a gurgling, wordless sound of rage in his throat, climbing to his feet with the blade raised. I readied myself for his charge, hoping that if I couldn’t somehow overpower him, that I’d at least goaded him into making a quick kill. He moved forward.

  Then he stopped, his face a mask of shock and surprise as a large hand appeared at his shoulder, then a second. He shouted in terror as they pulled him downward like massive anchors.

  Unheard by either of us, Max had crawled across the asphalt, his movements masked by the buzzing of the drone.

  “What the...?” The Marauder called out, and he swung the machete over his shoulder, where it embedded in Max’s upper arm. Unperturbed, the big clank moved one of his massive hands to the Marauder’s neck, and dug the other under his collarbone. Gritting his teeth, he began to pull.

  “Ahhhhoooohhgghhhh!” screamed the Marauder in terror.

  Max strained, the cords in his neck standing out and his teeth bared, the one good side of his face scrunched demonically as he exerted himself. There was a wet tearing sound and I heard something pop, and the Marauder’s scream intensified, his eyes so wide they looked as though they might pop out of his skull. He struggled and kicked out his legs, giving up his hold on the machete as he tried to pry Max’s fingers away from his skin. It was no use. Max’s fingers only dug deeper, past the bones and sinking into his synthetic flesh. A ragged tear appeared along the Marauder’s torso, his skin splitting from shoulder to navel like an earthquake welling up from inside his body, and suddenly, with a more accentuated rip, the screaming ceased. His mouth continued to work soundlessly, his limbs thrashing, and then with another calamitous crack he began to tear apart, the muscle and sinew and wiring and silicon pulling taut and then snapping like strands of spaghetti. A gout of black fluid squirted from somewhere inside his chest.

  Then with a jolt he went limp, a rag doll in Max’s hands. Max continued to pull, shaking with the effort, and the Marauder was torn asunder, the upper half of his body peeling away like a banana skin. Finally Max relented, heaving the body aside where it lay motionless in the street.

  “Noisy fucker,” Max muttered, waggling the machete loose of his arm and dumping it on the road. “That should keep you quiet.”

  At the death of its master, the drone suddenly withdrew the lance and tried to flee. I swung out with my free hand and grasped the lance, hanging on as the drone groaned and laboured in the air, attempting to pull my weight.

  If this thing escapes it’ll bring the others, was all I could think. Kill it.

  We skimmed along the road, the drone veering and swerving as it tried to climb. I gripped both hands to the lance as we crashed over a steel girder poking up from the ground, jarring my knee painfully. Off-kilter, it careened into the wall of a building, and kicking out with my feet, I managed to send us spiralling haphazardly in the other direction. Pulling with all my might, I swung the drone faster and faster, and as we reached the other side of the street I used the momentum to propel us sideways. With a yell I slammed it heavily into the wall, and the thing broke apart in a shower of sparks and bits of metal. I was sent flailing through the air to land in a heap amongst the debris below, broken parts of the drone raining down around me like apples shaken loose from a tree.

  I placed the last of the bits of the destroyed drone into the cage on the back of the bike, clutching painfully at my wrist where the lance had gone through. There was no blood, a benefit of being a synthetic, but it still hurt like hell.

  “There’s your ride home,” Max said amiably, having resumed his place in the rubble on the street.

  “Unfortunately, no,” I said, sizing up the bike. “They tag everything. The bikes, the drones. Even their own people. They can track it if they get within a few kilometres. I have to dump it. All of it.”

  Max nodded. “In that case, follow this street here. It’ll lead you to a river in a couple of clicks.”

  “Yeah, that should do it. Thanks.”

  Hastily, I searched through the Marauder’s pockets, but he carried nothing that was of use to me. On the bike, three spare fuel cells and a scanner had been stuffed into a backpack. The scanner was calibrated to track down synthetics, homing in on the unique energy signature given off by our power cores. This was how they’d kept finding me even when I was hiding out in the ruins of the other cities I’d been through. I briefly considered keeping the gear, but it wasn’t worth the risk of them being tagged. This was the best chance I’d had of losing the Marauders altogether, and I wasn’t going to trade that for a few gizmos.

  Hauling the Marauder across the rubble, I dumped him unceremoniously in the cage, leaving his legs sticking out like antennae. Then I gathered up my satchel and got on the bike and pushed the starter. The engine made a choking sound and then fired up. Pulling on the throttle, I started along the street, finding progress difficult owing to the combination of the uneven surface and the weight of the machine parts in the cage. I overbalanced and almost fell a number of times.

  It took me a lot longer than I’d hoped, but ten blocks later I reached a bridge spanning a small river. The water churned slowly past, brown and sludgy and with barely a sound, almost as if it dared not break the quietude of the city. A car tyre drifted into view, bobbing gently to and fro. I watched it bump softly against the concrete bridge pier and continue downstream unhi
ndered.

  I rode the bike up onto the bridge and only stopped when I’d reached its midsection, where the water would be deepest. Once there I yanked the Marauder out of the cage and levered him over the concrete railing, watching him spiralling to the water below. He hit with a loud splash, his body carried slowly downstream as he began to submerge, twisting languidly. I saw his face bob up, mouth frozen in that scream of agony, eyes sightless, and then he was gone.

  Dispatching the drone parts one by one like coins in a wishing well, I then gripped the bike and hoisted it up over the barrier, flipping it into the air and over the edge.

  With that done, I stood and considered what I was going to do next. The immediate danger might have passed, but the Marauders would eventually be back. They’d come looking for him in the last direction he’d travelled, and that would invariably lead them to this city. This was a long way south, and a long way east for them, but they’d made a special project of me, and I had no doubt they wouldn’t just allow me to walk away.

  I’d bought myself a week or two, but that was about it.

  I could head east, follow this bridge to the other side and then just keep going, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to thank Max. I owed him that at least. Most likely he wouldn’t be happy to see me return, but I still had to do it.

  Turning back down the street, I realised the day had moved well into the afternoon. It had gone so quickly. My wrist was throbbing but there was nothing I could do about it. Not out here, with no supplies. I articulated it back and forth and wiggled my fingers, and luckily it seemed the damage was not too extensive. Maybe once the nerves went dead, the only thing I’d have to worry about was keeping sand out of there.

  During my walk there sounded a deep, resonating groan from somewhere out in the city, an ominous and foreboding noise that shook the very ground. Sand tinkled down all around me, loosened from its resting place in the buildings above, and I could hear things crashing and falling over inside the structures. After a few moments it eased, the sound fading away in the distance, and the quiet was restored. An image in my mind formed of some huge machine out in the city, a thing of massive gears and pistons and treads the size of houses rumbling forward across the ground, crushing the wreckage of the city beneath it and spewing out nothing but sawdust behind. A fanciful, unreal notion that I quickly discarded. I could only wonder at the true nature of the noise and what might have created it.