For the next three days, they were forced to stay at the overgrown ranch, due to heavy snow and howling winds. It had come early in the morning of their first night, and had sent them scrambling to make sure the stable doors for Frieda were secure. John had gone out to the woodpile in the gale before the snow, and gathered as much old wood he could find. It had been there as long as the furniture inside, and so it was mostly decayed and covered in lichens – barely any was of use.
“The authorities must be using HAARP and any other parts of that array they built. This weather is too heavy for this low in the valley.”
“Yes, the Agent is likely to be the reason. He is strong John, but he is also weak. His is a maniac and that is his weakness.”
“It’s just he could do a lot of damage – a real lot, in the meantime.”
‘It concerns me too John. I think he will return here to the United States…or what was the United States.”
“Yeah, I suppose with Australia, he is far from this situation standoff here.”
“It’s not just that John. He will never be satisfied…”
“What Carmel, never be satisfied…?”
“I think until he gets me John.”
“Why?”
“Because I was condescending to him and I could see how much hatred that made him feel towards me. He is a maniac John, and he will never forget that I did it to him. It drives him and whilst he hasn’t found me yet, and is doing all sorts of other things, revenge on me is always there in the back of his mind. He will embrace it fully, if he is given the chance.”
“Oh, um…”
“Can we have the light please John? I think I want to. It has been so long since I heard it whistle. I do love its’ whistle John.”
“Sure Carmel…we can use some of the coal too. Most of that wood is pretty useless anyway.”
When the engine was running smoothly on a measured amount of steam, she sounded it once - only once.
Two feet of snow covered the ground on the morning of the third day, but at least the winds had gone. The early hours were a mix of cold and grey, with the soft white blanket of snow lost to the mist over distance. John had taken wood from some of the buildings at the ranch – there was not much, except for some beams and planks, which he had to strip bare so they did not burn the paint on the wood. He had spent nearly all of one of the days doing this, and now with the potential passing of the snowstorm, he felt his spirits lift at not having to fetch much more wood.
“If the sun comes out, we might see a bit of melt, as these lower altitude storms don’t hold the snow for long. We could be out of here tomorrow.”
“There is no hurry John, but I am thinking about moving on too.”
When it did come out and there was sufficient melt for them to continue as the snow had rapidly decreased to large patches, they left the ranch after having spent five days there. It had taken two days for enough snow to melt so they could drive Frieda and the cart.
Other people, much closer to the ranch than they had known, were suddenly upon them before they had travelled two miles. They were riders on horses and stopped to form a line to block their way.
“We don’t want your types in these parts,” a woman said to them. “Look at you. You are from the city. We don’t like city people around here. See your clothes. You are wearing those Geiga clothes. Fancy future suits…that’s how I tell you are from the city.”
“And you bring all that tech garbage with you. We don’t like that either,” a man said.
“We aren’t from the city and we just wear these because they keep us warm. It’s cold out here.”
“You must be. It’s only city people who come to these parts nowadays. Looking for whatever they can find, trying to survive. Well that technology isn’t helping them now is it?”
“We are not from the city. We are hardly from anywhere…”
“You see, vagabonds. Those types who always wander and get into trouble.”
“We ought to shoot them now and be done with it,” another man said. He began to remove an old combustion weapon from a holster on his horse, and he noticed John watching him. “See. We have weapons. They might not be those fancy modern ones from the city. But, we all knew there would come a day when we would need these – so we saved them and lots of bullets too. You going to leave or what?” He now began to level the gun and point it at John.
“Please put the gun down. My name is Carmel and this is John. We are not a threat to you. We are just travelling…a long way. We only want to pass through. You can keep on eye on us if you like.”
“We don’t trust anyone but ourselves around here…”
“You can trust us, really!”
The woman who had first spoke, was looking at Carmel and felt a sense of ease, much more than her male companions, “put the gun down, we don’t need to shoot them. Look at them, they have a cart at least, and a horse. They might not be too bad.”
“We’re going to watch you though. No funny business or I’ll shoot.”
As they drove on, the band of riders kept a horseshoe shape around them with only the way ahead clear.
“So, do you have any of that tech stuff, you know inside you?” The woman asked Carmel as she rode beside her.
“No. John hasn’t either.”
“Then you’re lucky. There are some about these parts who have and it isn’t pretty.”
“We have been told…and we saw one.”
“Lucky for you it was only one. We have seen groups of them – big groups. All wailing and moaning, like they were zombies, but they’re not. No they’re living all right, just a warped way of living.”
“The one we saw looked like he was disappearing and fading in and out.”
“That’s just the least of it. You wait…no you don’t want to see what we have seen. They go all twisted and out of shape and the like. Then they start getting bad.”
“How bad?” John asked.
“Real bad…hell bad.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, like I said hell bad. They are not the devil, but they look like they are related.”
“How?”
“They get ugly…real ugly. Their faces and their bodies begin to fade in and out so bad each time when they fade back in…well, the parts that do, they get all messed up.”
“How messed up?”
“It’s like a horror show. Their bodies and insides turn out and around, they look like they are melting in places…yes, melting. But they are still alive. We seen them haven’t we?” All the other riders nodded in agreement.
“They look dam ugly and they still moan and wail – that sounds like a horror show too.”
“And they gather together so they can survive,” another rider said. “You should see them then. They get all mixed up with each other.”
“Why is that?” Carmel asked.
“I reckon is starts because they are in such bad shape, they literally gather together – like a pile of people. It’s then they get the runoff – that’s what I call it.”
“Runoff?”
“Yeah with their bodies melting into those weird shapes, they start to join together. They all get mixed up and there are those holes.”
“What holes?”
“Those black ones. You can’t see in them and they look bad. All the flesh starts to disappear when it gets to the edge of them. Worst I saw was this woman, young thing, not more than twenty, and she was on that brink. Her face…her eyes were disappearing and going to hell or oblivion or wherever, but she was still alive. The look in her eyes – makes your skin crawl right off you! That look was bad. I hope I never see that again.”
“Sounds like the unstable vortexes are not reforming tissue and so it gets worse with each phase.”
“Do you know this stuff then. Have you seen it?”
“Only the one man about a week back.”
“It’s the Agent. He is ruining peoples’ lives everywhere,” Carmel said.
“Yeah. He i
s bad but those technology people cannot stop him. All that stuff is their undoing.”
“The Agent is undoing.”
“You’re not brining it with you?” The entire group suddenly came to a halt and two riders positioned themselves at the front.
“No. I haven’t got any of that,” John answered as the question was directed at him. He was lying of sorts as he was carrying the necessary equipment to still work on flux mechanics, but it is stable and so in part he was telling the truth referring to the unstable vortexes now consuming people.
“Maybe we’ll check. Have a look you two,” he directed two riders to dismount and check through the cart. A minute later they held John’s bag open and had pulled the cover off Carmel’s engine. “What’s this then?”
“Just some gear I have – tools and stuff that might help us.”
“It doesn’t look too much like that other stuff, let him keep it,” the woman said.
“You just be careful won’t you. No using this stuff to trick us.”
“Never.”
“So what’s with the steam engine? It’s a mighty fine piece.”
“It’s mine. I restored it after I found it in a derelict museum. It’s my only thing.”
“You did a good job. Does it work?”
“Lovingly.”
“Ah, I guess that means good. What else is it for? What are these bits?” He was pointing at the solenoid and the alternator.
“I connect those up to the light there so we can run the engine and power the light.”
“What do you want that for? Just use fire, or a candle, and if you are lucky, you might have old kerosene lamps and fuel to run them like we do.” He seemed please with this.
“Sometimes we can’t and we want a light. So we use that.”
“You need wood and there isn’t much of that around. Fuel is precious see? And the trees, they are wet most of the time now with winter and all, so they are no good.”
“We find bits here and there…and we have the coal.”
“That won’t last. Ha…you must have had some pretty long nights sitting in the dark then?”
“You could say that. But not as long as those people you describe…” This last sentence brought all of them to silence. The riders said nothing and parted to allow them to continue, but still rode in a horseshoe around them.
“So Frieda. Your horse. I can see its nametag. She yours then?”
“Um, well yes. We found her. Where we came from, most of the people were suddenly killed – a virus by the Agent. She was hungry and we fed her and she liked us, so I guess she is ours. There was nobody else around for miles.”
“You’re not a thief are you?”
“No.”
“I’m not either,” Carmel said.
“How far you driving today?”
“As far as we can. We won’t give you any trouble…”
“Yeah, we figured that. You best be coming with us today. Our place is another nine miles. We can make it easy in time for you all to settle in.”
“Why?”
“Why? We told you all. It’s those people you see. They are about these places more than even we know, that’s why we go out riding. To make sure they don’t get too close.”
“Are they worse south of here?”
“Oh yeah, much worse and much uglier. I haven’t seen them myself, but I hear from other riders they are bad. They even said they had seen them eating each other. There is hardly any food but yeah, can you believe it! Now what did he say? Yeah…they looked real desperate, worse than that girl he reckoned. It was like the Agent had turned them mad…insane, and they had turned into scavengers off each other, like they were trying to hold on…or something. He even said he saw one eating some of those melted bits like a wild dog that was crazy with rabies. People can exaggerate – but it won’t work though. Anything they eat is infected like them and all they do is make a bigger mess.”
Carmel was visibly sickened with what she just heard. Unspeakable horrors were beginning to unfold and they were so much in opposition to how she felt in her own life - and it was because of a person who she had once supervised. John felt sick as well. Not physically…he was thinking about what the Agent was unleashing with his unstable vortex amplifier.
Chapter 10
The Agent watched with macabre interest as he saw people drawn into the maw of their oblivion. It was pleasing to him how those last looks of desperation were so pathetic as he undone their grip on humanity, and they fell in to the darkness of futility. He could see their blood and he hated his own. Their flesh would be torn and distorted, as people began to blend into heaving masses of semi-consciousness, bound and to be fraught with the utter despair of irrelevance…of nothingness. And oh, the elegance in his mind of how in their last few seconds, as they confronted their consumed fate – their eyes darting feverously side-to-side, up and down in a desperate plea at the moment of finality. As lives infinite, he was driving them to the finite. He was driving them to the end, and no new beginning, no progression and no elemental integrity on any level. He was their atomic undoing, as the viruses bombarded with instability and so broke down the vortexes elemental in nature…to now be forgotten.
The entire holographic array was alight with these visions of demise as he flew in his spaceship across the Pacific Ocean, higher than any HyperJet. He was flying alone as he always did on these missions, and would be there in a few hours, and so took to watching as he was waiting. His patience with the authorities was fast diminishing, as was his character, if indeed he had any. Their stupid weather manipulations had cost him too much in recent years, and so now to ensure his plans to physically destroy cities as well as lives, he had set out to rid himself of that nuisance HAARP array. He knew where it was – everyone did. It had not been hidden to be kept a secret, but its operations had very much been kept secret. He didn’t care for it then and certainly not now. It was a stupid instrument in his mind.
This time, this mission – he felt more confident than ever. They had fought him off previously using schematics they held for his spaceship, making him temporarily lose control before his viruses attacked them. Their HyperJets and Mothership aircraft bases in the sky had been futile deployments on their part, as again he would fire unstable virus weapons to interfere with their controls, until the viruses broke down. And so back and forth, the battle had raged for over five years. His weapon this time was different and he knew they had no counter attack.
As he swung in low over HAARP, he fired a volley of laser pulses, each deflected by the force field the authorities had built over the array - but not entirely. It was designed to fend off attack from the air. They responded with a few of their own, to no avail. Under the guise of the lasers, he had sprayed the base with his latest weapon, and in no time it would take shape. At two thousand feet, he brought the ship to a hover position directly over the array, to watch it all unfold.
At first, those officers who were stationed around the facility, outside, and in the control room, thought there had been a slight haze in the air. Very quickly they realised it was much more than that. Billions of tiny nano technology bits were coming together to form larger machines. As each one took shape, the personnel could see this happening, making them nervous. Some tried to shoot them with laser pulse rifles, only for the pulses to be consumed by the robots forming in front of their eyes. As they finally manifested into hundreds of small robots, each about five inches high, they commenced an attack in unison.
He had programmed them with all the hatred he could in designing their methods of destruction. The first personnel affected were quickly reduced to dust as the robots fired microscopic nano robots that would land on their bodies and immediately begin changing their very fabric of their existence. At first, it was as if they were being coated in something, but then it developed into a state of flux, and then they fell as dust. The nano tech were changing their entire atomic nature, almost in an instant, turning them and their weapons, into the
atoms the Agent had programmed them to become. The unfortunate ones who took a little longer to transform during the heat of the battle, experienced the agony of their bodies changing whilst they were still alive.
Others had been programmed to infiltrate the base and destroy the array. They were already inside before those present could really determine what was happening. Their holographic control panels were disappearing – even the walls were coming down. They were witnessing a quantum level destruction and began to panic and run from the building. For those who placed a foot on, or a hand against something already in flux, they quickly were afflicted with the same condition, only to entirely disappear a few seconds later. Any who escaped, were instantly set upon by the robots outside, which had now transformed most people at the base. And to his insane type of glee, the Agent saw his robots destroy the array before they too began to decay due to their own instability. After the passage of ten minutes, it was over and all lay silent. The buildings were gone. The people were gone. The array was gone. And the robots were gone.
But the Agent stayed. He remained there hovering for half an hour as he thought about what else he could so – whilst he was in the area. He considered playing a few games with Anchorage, but that was not enough. He thought about going east and doing similar, but again, it was not enough. Then he thought about Seattle and decided that was the next place to go. He engaged the thrusters and the spaceship quickly departed the scene. It was equipped with magnetic anti G force technology, so his ride was smooth, and very fast.
When he arrived just under half of one hour later, he landed at the HyperJet manufacturing plant on the outskirts of the city. It was under his control now and he was welcomed with open arms. ‘Pathetic, the lot of you,’ he thought as he was led to the main office at the plant, now a control room for his pathetic minions. They took him to their holographic bank, “Right. Get out. Leave me alone. Make yourselves useful and service my ship. And do it right or else.”
“I guess the authorities just did not account for the consequences of their crack down. Such disruptions can let more disruptions in.”
Höllenbadt: Book two of the Torus Saga Page 6