After the Winter (The Silent Earth, Book 1)

by Mark R. Healy

  “Take a look,” she said, almost sounding like a proud mother showing off her baby to a visitor.

  I dropped my face to the eyepiece and studied the round blob of tissue. The centre of it was nebulous and bumpy in texture, but instantly recognisable.

  “Five day human blastocyst?” I said without looking up.

  “Mmm-hmm,” she said, the pride and satisfaction thick in her voice.

  “No sign of ice crystal formation. Cells look good.” I stood and turned to her. “Cells look great.”

  She nodded, grinning, and reached for the sample again with the tongs. “They’re doing fine so far. Just the way we planned it.”

  She returned the embryo carefully to the cryotank, replaced the tongs and then stood and took me by the elbow. “Now. Let’s have a look at those wounds.”

  We removed the cleanroom suits and proceeded back through the glass doors. Out in the workshop, she sat me down in a chair and propped my leg up on the bench, carefully rolling my trousers out the way so she could work on my ankle. As she fussed around gathering materials and equipment I gazed out through the smashed windows at the bleak forms of skyscrapers along the street.

  “Do you ever get sandstorms here?” I mused.

  She stopped, thoughtfully adjusting the transparent safety glasses she had donned. “No,” she said slowly. “Can’t say I’ve seen them here.” She placed a couple of plastic bottles on the bench in front of me. “I take it you have?”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen my fair share.”

  “You get caught in any?” She kept her eyes on me, fascinated, as she rang her fingers through a long thin cleaning brush to remove any existing residue.

  “A couple. Tried my best to keep out of their way. The sand just gets everywhere. If I got caught in one, I had to scrape sand out of my eye sockets, my ears, my mouth for weeks. There’s probably some of it still in there.”

  “I’d say there’s a fair chance of that,” she jibed as she tied her hair behind her head with a band. “In fact, I’d probably just grab you by the ankles right now and shake you upside down if I wasn’t scared of what might fall out.”

  I grinned. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “All right now,” she went on, bending and carefully inserting the brush into my ankle wound. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.” She initially scraped carefully around the edges of the gash, then proceeded to insert it further up the inside of my leg, squeezing it between bone and muscle and sinew. It felt incredibly awkward and unnatural and I tensed. She paused and looked up at me. “Does it hurt?”

  “No, not anymore. When I first injured it, yeah, it hurt like hell for a few days. But the nerve endings went dead and now it’s just numb.” I flicked a finger down at the brush. “That thing feels weird, is all.”

  “Hang in there,” she said, somewhat unsympathetically. “We’ll be done soon.” She pulled the brush and it retracted, bringing with it some kind of wet black gunk that splattered on the floor. She screwed up her nose. “Brant, that is truly disgusting.”

  “It’s just... dirt and uh... moisture,” I said, even though I couldn’t help but agree with her. She continued to prod around in there and, satisfied that she’d gotten it all out, moved up to the wound on my neck. This time the brush felt even more strange, crawling up the inside of my neck like a prickly spider. I tried not to flinch.

  “Not as much crud in here,” she remarked. “Thank goodness.” With her face pressed in close I could smell the fragrance of her hair. It had a kind of sweet earthiness about it. Even though she was a synthetic like me, a machine, I couldn’t help but feel there was a certain womanliness to it.

  “Am I gonna live, doc?” I joked.

  “Might be touch and go,” she responded in kind. “So how did you get this one? A vampire?”

  “Thankfully, that’s one thing I never came across in my travels.”

  She straightened and put the brush down on the bench. “So what’s going on out there? Where did you go all this time?”

  I watched as she took a piece of cloth and dabbed a bottle of clear liquid on it. It smelled of alcohol. “I just wanted to lead the Marauders as far away from here as possible. I went in circles a lot of the time, just trying to stay one step ahead. I spent some time looking for human survivors, too. Hoping beyond hope that someone out there had done the impossible.” I added gloomily, “There’s no one out there but clanks.”

  “Sad, but not entirely surprising.”

  “I mean, there’s just... a wasteland. Desert. Empty cities falling to pieces. A few scant clanks wandering around with no future, and the Marauders.”

  “Were there communities? Of clanks, I mean.”

  “Not any that I found, until I ran across Ascension. Apparently there’s a leader out there who brought them together.”

  “For a while I wondered if you’d found something out there.” She dabbed the alcohol onto my ankle, avoiding my eyes. “Something better than here.”

  “There’s nothing better,” I scoffed. “Not a chance. Maybe the only remarkable discovery I found out there was a part of a jellyfish washed up on a beach.”

  “A jellyfish?”

  “That's what it looked like.”

  “Amazing. I wonder how much marine life survived.”

  “It could be thriving, for all we know. Anyway, I think it's a good sign that things are changing.”

  “Absolutely.” She poured some resin into a bowl and added a drying agent, then stirred it with a little trowel. “So, here goes nothing.” She continued to stir until it was the right consistency, then scooped it up and began to paste it into the wound. “I haven’t done this before, but I’m hoping that, when this dries, it will still give you a bit of flexibility. Either way you won’t be getting any more gunk in there.”

  She continued at it for a couple of minutes, then attempted to smooth the outer edge with the trowel. Once she was satisfied, she did the same with the wound on my neck.

  “I feel like a new man,” I grinned as she cleaned off the trowel.

  “But you look like an old one,” she teased. She grabbed my chin firmly and adjusted it this way and that, examining every corner of my face. “You scratched yourself up pretty good over the years. There’s not a lot I can do for superficial cuts and abrasions like that.” She took my wrist, checking the wound left by the Marauder drone’s lance.

  “I’ll live.”

  “Yeah, I guess you will. Let me stitch this up.”

  She wired up the wound as best she could, then fussed over the plastic bottles and other gear she had used, stalking about the lab as she returned them to their homes. She was the type who never did anything at a slow pace. She made her way around the room, tidying, wiping away at things with her hands, straightening boxes. I pictured her doing this day after day, year after year, a routine deeply ingrained within her. As she went about it she seemed to have almost forgotten I was here.

  “Arsha?” I said finally. She stopped and looked over at me, a plastic container held limply in one hand. I fidgeted, twisting my fingers about uncertainly. “I’m heading out to the Displacer lab tomorrow.”

  She stood quietly, unmoving, her face unreadable. She just stared at me as if she were trying to decipher those words, find some hidden meaning beneath them. Then she snapped back into action, busying herself with her chores.

  “Sure. I’ll come with you,” she said evenly.

  I turned my head to the window. The resin in my neck was stiff, like a rock lodged in my throat, constricting my movement. Outside, the city lay in darkness. I stared out into it as I pondered what tomorrow might bring.

  33

  We crossed the West Street Bridge on our way out to the lab. The distinctive architecture of it immediately brought memories flooding back to me, the bold curves of its arches criss-crossing high above as we walked on the deck beneath. I’d always found it reminiscent of a colossal steel dragon poised above the roadway, the latticework of beams that fanned out across i
ts sweeping breadth like scales on its back. Indeed, every time we’d driven past Zade would cry out that he wanted to ‘ride on the dragon’. It brought a smile to my face now as we made our way across.

  It had taken a few hits during the conflict. In at least three places I could see gaps in the framework where ballistics had ripped and torn at the steel. Cars were littered about in no particular order. They were not aligned together in any sort of formation, but instead pointed in all directions, their sides bashed in, as if they’d participated in some end-of-the-world style smash-up derby. I peeked in through the crumpled door frames and windows as I passed but could see no sign of the dead.

  “What are you looking for?” Arsha said as I completed another one of my inspections.

  “I don’t know. Just looking.” I rubbed at my neck as I re-joined her.

  “How is it? Stiff?” She leaned in to take a closer look at her handiwork. The resin had set quite hard, but I could feel it freeing up the more I moved it.

  “It’s okay. You did a good job.”

  Across the river, the city flattened out and became far less vertical, with no skyscrapers to be seen. This was an industrial district, a place that had not seen a lot of change over the years. Functional square grey warehouses and brick factories dominated the landscape. They’d seen their fair share of the Summer as well, with many crumbling and bearing the scars of war. I remembered some of them from the old days, but having spent less time in this neighbourhood I didn’t feel the difference quite as keenly as I did over the other side of the river.

  There was something different about the air here. I stopped as I sensed something acrid on the breeze, raising my face and sniffing loudly.

  “What is it?” Arsha said.

  “I think I smell something burning.” I sniffed again.

  She did the same, turning slowly in a circle, trying to locate the source. “Yeah, I smell it too.”

  “Smells like chemicals.”

  “There have been so many fires of late,” she admitted. “It’s started to get hotter again. Everything became so dry and brittle during the Winter and all the moisture was just sucked right out of the timber. Now this city is like a big pile of kindling waiting to go up in flames.”

  “So how do you handle that?”

  “What, the fires?” She shrugged. “There’s not much I can do. It’s not like I can call the fire department or plug a hose into the nearest hydrant. There’s no water services here anymore. One person with a bucket of water isn’t going to put out a massive building fire.”

  “Well, when you put it that way, I can see your point.”

  She sniffed again. “I wouldn’t worry about the smell. We don’t have any resources in this part of town that could be damaged, and one empty factory burning to the ground isn’t going to hurt. Let’s keep moving.”

  Arsha set a good pace and I followed her along the wreckage-strewn streets. My anticipation began to grow. Soon I’d be there, standing outside the place where my human body resided, just a few metres worth of steel and concrete away from my goal. A slight knot of trepidation was forming in my stomach, that gnawing doubt that somehow my destiny would be snatched away from me at the last minute. That we would arrive to find the lab demolished or raided by Marauders. I tried to put those doubts behind me and concentrate on the present.

  “Have you been out here much?” I asked.

  “To the lab? Not really,” she said in a matter-of-fact way. “I have my research, and I have safe houses and plantations all over the city. Maintaining those keeps me pretty busy.”

  “So what are these safe houses that you’re talking about?” I said.

  “They’re storage locations. I’ve distributed my resources across the city as the years have passed. I figured that leaving them all in one place could be potentially dangerous. It creates a single point of failure. Everything could be taken out in one hit, if you know what I mean. One building collapse and it’s all over.”

  “Makes sense.”

  She came to the wreck of a car blocking the way and placed her hands on the roof, springing up and over it with ease as if it were a knee-high fence. I clambered after her, stomping and grasping with far less grace. She bounced down on the other side and stood watching for me like a parent patiently waiting for their child to negotiate a set of stairs.

  “To even out the odds of a catastrophic loss of assets, I’ve found locations across the city where I can store things,” she went on. “Warehouses, suburban homes, you name it. Just anything that looks sturdy enough to stay upright and keep things safe.”

  “So where are they?” I finally slid over the edge of the car and we kept moving.

  She made a broad sweep with her hand. “All over. A few on the north side, one or two here in the west, some in the city.” She gave me a little smile. “Don’t worry, I’ve mapped them all out. I’ll show them to you in time. After all, you’ll need a good knowledge of what is stored, and where. But we’ll get to that.”

  “And what about the plantations?” I said.

  “They’re little plots where I’ve begun to re-introduce vegetation. My crops.”

  My ears pricked up at that. “You’re growing crops?” I said, incredulous.

  She laughed. “Well, that word might be a little strong. I would call them vegetable patches, really. They’re mainly over on the north side.” She pointed vaguely back over her shoulder. “The homes are more spread out there, and there’s more room to plant. Plenty of sun. I tried growing a few bits and pieces in the city, closer to the workshop, but there’s too many shadows there. Too much concrete to grow anything more than weeds.”

  “So how much are you producing?”

  She sighed. “Not as much as I’d like. Things are still really slow on the up-take. I’ve been struggling with pH levels, too. Plus, I don’t have any organic material to use as fertilizer to kick things along. I’ve started creating my own compost but it’s coming along slowly. I’m also being cautious about sowing too many of our plant reserves at one time. I mean, if I did that and they died off....” She dragged a finger across her throat stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth. “If that happened, we may not get another chance to try it again.”

  We were getting closer to the lab but I tried to ignore the proximity. My edginess only grew every time I thought about it. Instead I kept talking to keep my mind on other things.

  “So you’ve been doing soil analysis?” I said.

  “Yeah, I’ve done what I can.” She shook her head. “There’s issues with certain mineral levels, mostly potassium. Those are really affecting the growth rate in a bad way.”

  I thought back to my days of studying biology. They were foggy at best, but a few memories glimmered through.

  “Have you tried adding wood ash into the soil?” I suggested. “That’s generally a pretty good fix for potassium, isn’t it? I’m sure there’s still plenty of wood around that could be used.”

  “Yes, I know that,” she said curtly. A frown creased her brow and her mouth tilted at a disapproving angle. “There’s only so many hours in the day, y’know? And besides, that isn’t going to help my pH problem. You can’t just take one solution and apply it in isolation, Brant. You have to look at all the variables.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. “Just a thought, anyway.”

  She didn’t seem placated, and kept up her healthy pace, falling quiet with her eyes dead ahead. I hadn’t intended to upset her or suggest that she’d been failing at her task. She’d been lumped with everything while I was away, and I had no right to do that. I was merely trying to offer her my long overdue help. I hoped she understood that.

  She stopped suddenly and turned to me, her hair flicking over one shoulder. “We’re here,” she said simply.

  Surprised that we had arrived so soon, I turned to see the familiar shape of the lab. Nestled between two larger buildings, from the outside it was ostensibly an unremarkable grey single-storey place, one that looked like any other s
torage facility in the area. In truth, the passageway from the front door led downward into a bunker of sorts that afforded a much higher level of protection than one would expect from its exterior. There were a few signs of wear and tear on the outer facade, but nothing to cause alarm.

  I stood staring at it, struggling to rein in my emotions or to even think coherently. It was overwhelming. One simple grey block of concrete that contained perhaps the only two human beings left on the planet. Inside was not just the flesh and blood of a race on the brink of extinction, but an almost limitless potential, the power to shape the entire world. To return it to its former glory. An unimaginably important duty for such an unassuming little building.

  “Well?” Arsha said eventually, interrupting my reverie.

  “Huh?”

  “Well, are you satisfied? We came out and we saw it.” She poked a thumb over her shoulder. “Now let’s get back to work.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” I nodded, and Arsha’s boots scraped on the asphalt as she turned to leave. She took a few paces but stopped when she realised I wasn’t following.

  “What is it?” she said impatiently.

  “Just one minute.” I hastened over to the door of the lab and scraped my fingers across the wall, searching for the access panel that was discretely embedded there. Arsha’s hand appeared from nowhere and clutched at my wrist, snapping it away from the concrete.

  “What the hell are you doing, Brant?” She pressed in close, her eyes intense.

  “Calm down, Arsha,” I said, pulling my wrist free. “I was going to do a check on some parameters. Is that okay?”

  “You’re not going in there,” she stated flatly, even though I’d stated that wasn’t my intention. “This place was sealed for a reason. Don’t even think about it.”

  “Of course not,” I said, although I had to admit to myself that the thought had crossed my mind. The urge to return to my human body was almost overpowering.