Scavenger: Evolution: (Sand Divers, Book One)

by Timothy C. Ward

  He blinked back to dock view to see Viky and the rest of the group stretched out on top of the rubble, moaning and reaching for their injuries. The space outside the elevator had become an uneven pile of rock slabs and broken bits of computer equipment and furniture. The few brigands he could see were trapped under the pile. The one with the dark red head wound had his eyes closed and wasn’t moving. The other strained for something buried out of his reach. The Twin Suns cast its revolving glow down onto all of them.

  What happens if its wall collapses as well?

  He should have thought of that, but hadn’t had much time to escape.

  Star was running the other way. He switched to dive view, but couldn’t see her. His limited power blurred his vision past fifty meters—much less through the condensed packing of rock. He didn’t have time to help all these people. But Cool was underneath. His power was down to eight percent. He focused what he had on a scan and parting of rocks toward Cool’s still form. He reached in, grabbed the boy by the wrist, and pulled him out as he mentally pushed the rocks’ weight away. He set him near his mother, who sobbed and winced as she reached out to take her son.

  Jen felt her son’s pulse.

  “His life signs are strong,” Rush told her. “He’ll live.”

  She looked up at Rush, her face a collage of greens, blues and reds. “What happened?”

  “I had to stop Warren. I’m sorry.” His vision into the rock was too shallow to see if Warren was still alive. He can’t be. Not under all that.

  “Oh, Cool.” She pressed his head to her neck and cried. “He better be okay.”

  Rush stepped back over the uneven red stone, hoping this was the end of Warren’s threat on all of their lives. “I can’t stay.”

  Viky held her ankle and sucked in at the pain.

  “I’m sorry,” Rush repeated. “I can’t let Star escape.”

  Jeff had been moving toward the brigand who was reaching for something. He picked up a rifle and fired a deafening report. Bullets cut bloody holes into the brigand’s chest. His eyes closed and he relaxed back against the rocks behind him.

  “Jeffrey!” Jen shouted. “No,” she cried.

  Jeff turned toward Rush, his rifle down. “Go. We don’t want any more of your help.”

  “I’ll come back. I’m sorry. Glad you’re all mostly okay. Those who can walk, go up to LL3. Use the stairs. Wait for me in the clinic and use what you can to heal up.”

  “Go get your wife,” Viky said, voice straining.

  “Yeah.” Rush pushed his sore body through the double door and after Star.

  The tunnel wound left, straightened out, and about fifty meters in a room appeared on the left. He slowed before the wide room with long tubes twice his height and as wide as a single-hulled sarfer. Three of them. The Tank Room.

  A click sounded inside the door. The handle moved freely under his force and he entered in dock view. An alarm sounded from the back of the room.

  “Star?”

  Blue plasma poured from a hanging tube into the far tanker straight ahead, sloshing into the thick belly of its near-to-capacity hold. Stark white lights on the ceiling revealed his path between the other two tankers. Ladders scaled the front and back of the receptacles where tubes aimed their deposit from hanging locations on the ceiling. The tubes for the two near the entrance were empty.

  His sight locked on the stream of precious plasma from the thin plastic tube. Its sweet scent awakened a new kind of thirst. He climbed the ladder. The aroma of the open bath of blue heaven wafted into his nose and cooled his insides with its chemical elixir. He no longer wished to drink, but to bathe. If only the opening were wide enough.

  Instead, he leaned out over the tank from the top of the ladder and opened his mouth. A flood of plasma coursed into his throat. He gulped down a mouthful. His neck cooled to the depth of its tissue. He opened his throat for another and choked on the surge. Precious fluid sprayed from his mouth and burned up his nose. The liquid washed over his gums. Its tang absorbed through his teeth, sent a ripple of pleasure into his cheeks, and drained down his throat. Power hummed into his ears. Numbness overcame his face and in its wake, a tingle seemed to open his pores to shoot rays of heat. The sweet aftertaste traveled as a shivering pleasure into the depth of his bones. A new source of storage and need formed within, demanding attention he was more than willing to give.

  Star walked into view at the bottom of the ladder. “Are you yourself now?”

  He became lightheaded and shivered with an outer-body motion that made him heavy and floating all at once. Even as he fell from the top of the ladder, he had no fear. Not even that he’d fallen on the wrong side and Star would not catch him. He was finally satisfied.

  He reached out with his cast arm to break his fall. A warning whispered from the back of his mind, but need and confidence ignored it. His hand hit the ground and he pushed off, held up for a split second to rotate and land softly on his back.

  My hand…

  It did not snap. He should be shouting in agony. The bone was broken. No way should he have been able to absorb his weight nor that kind of fall without any pain. He raised his hand. The cast’s white insides had broken through the dirty yellow outer layer. He rotated his hand in a circle, breaking through the rest until the cast had two parts, hand and forearm. How does this not hurt?

  Star crouched at his side, unworried as she examined his wrist. “I knew it.”

  “What?”

  “That it would heal you, too.” A light stain of blue rimmed her lips. Her eyes blazed with the power of the plasma inside. She showed him her severed finger. Pale skin covered the nub above her knuckle. No bandage needed.

  He ripped and tore off the hand part of his cast, but had to use his dive knife to get the forearm section off. The sweat-soaked section of skin stank, but it felt good to rub and return circulation to without the cast. He rolled the sleeve down over his forearm to the wrist and sat up.

  Delicious blue plasma poured from the tube into the third tanker.

  You can get more later.

  His fatigue had vanished. His eyes were wide open and his body flowed with energy capable of lifting boulders. He was ready to work. “What have you been up to?” he asked.

  “The Gov made me set up an access code, but he must not have realized our body’s attraction to the plasma and what it would do to his hold when I drank it.”

  The blue shine in Star’s eyes rolled behind her eyeballs and then orbited back up from under her eyelids in a mesmerizing display. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. “I unlocked the door so you could drink and be free as well.”

  Star produced the bolter. “Now we’re going to kill Warren.”

  “I think I already did. I dropped a big section of floor on his head.”

  Star lowered the bolter. “You did what?”

  “Yeah, this suit is really strong.” The power gauge read one percent. “But I’m out of power. Maybe there’s something in here to recharge it. I need to read…” he thought of Nedzad’s warning not to show her the book.

  “Need to read what?” She stuck the bolter in her pocket, stood, and looked over at computers set into the wall at the end of the room. The source of the alarm. “That’s been on since I woke up, leaning over the tank like you did, throat tingling from a long gulp of plasma. You’re saying you woke up before drinking from the tube?”

  “Yeah. I woke up when one of his lackeys stunned me. But the plasma helped, too. If I had doubts before, I don’t now. Well, not really. It doesn’t matter. I just hope we stay this way. Stay us.”

  He still wasn’t sure she was telling him the truth. Drinking the plasma had changed him, but he’d already freed himself from Warren, so he couldn’t verify the theory.

  Star had a seat and rolled up to the keyboard. “The Gov gave me an access ID and directions to steal something, but I’m still a bit foggy. You were saying something about reading?”

  On the top left corner of the screen read ‘rJur
3.1’. If he was going to get out of this place with his wife, he needed to share what he knew. “Nedzad gave me a manual for Fort Pope.”

  Her eyes lit with hope. He took Nedzad’s book out of his pouch and opened to the intro sections and listed page numbers. At a glance, he knew the whole page. He flipped. Glanced left. Glanced right. Both pages memorized. Wow.

  Star slid over, the chair’s wheels rattling. “What does it say?”

  He pointed at ‘rJur system’ under the header: ‘Plasma Circulation,’ on page 81. In twelve pages, he read the maps and the details of the mechanical systems, such as how they stored and delivered the plasma from Twin Suns to the three main tanks, and then over into a long rectangular room on their floor. The Depository was twice as large as the room Twin Suns was stored in and two levels high. Eighty terminals lining the oval floors housed the machines Fort Pope’s engineers created to utilize the plasma pellets: Poseidons.

  Rush paused on the diagram of the Poseidon, described at the top of the page as ‘A fusion powered, nano-infused exoskeleton extension of the sand diver suit. Stable enough to swim a mile under water, sand, or rock, but thin and flexible enough to maintain fighting mobility.’ The suit fit over the dive suit, adding a shielded helmet and torso with metallic braces down the arms and legs, including an extension below the human model’s feet, adding half a foot of extra length. ‘Increased swimming and jumping power’ was written in a small box beside the model’s calves. In a view from the back, where the exoskeleton covered head to backside, was written ‘12 hours of stored oxygen.’ Beside the enlarged front view of the helmet was written ‘Supplemental systems to the visor controls. Connected to base computers for thought communication between host and Poseidon, as well as outside systems as needed.’

  Fort Pope could have won the war with one battalion.

  But they’d kept them secret, then created an order of Sentries to ensure only the right people found out about them. And now Rush was given that task. He hoped his wife wouldn’t make him regret trusting her with this information.

  The screen continued to flash and an annoying chirp sounded from the dash. ERROR 1793C. CHECK IMMEDIATELY.

  Star stood and looked down at the blueprint of the Poseidon. “Wow. I want one.”

  “First, this error.” Rush checked a bullet point list of error messages in his book. “A hinge is blocked between here and The Depository.”

  He typed on the computer keys and the screen showed a map where a small red dot flashed down a few turns of the hall outside their room. “Let’s go.”

  In the back of his mind, he warded off concerns for his group and Warren’s status as dead or alive. He could only do one thing at a time. Hopefully, they were well on their way to the clinic by now. He needed to check on the blocked hinge, then see about repowering his suit and finding out if any Poseidons were still around for his use.

  Star paused at the room’s back door, looking over at tank three. He wanted to go back for another gulp, too, but put his arm around her waist and led her through the open door. They entered a hallway lit by flickering lights that came on as they walked. As they did, Rush could still see the whole map in his mind’s eye, as well as every word and their placement in the sentences from the book.

  This is incredible. Not just the power of his mind, but the way his nerves felt like bubbles in a beer mug.

  They tracked the path on the map to a hall ankle deep in a glowing blue river. Star’s knees splashed the plasma as she dropped down and slurped handfuls as though they’d found an oasis in the middle of No Man’s Land. If he weren’t already high, he might have joined her.

  Star gasped with pleasure. Plasma dripped off her chin as she stood and turned to Rush. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t take my clothes off and splash around for awhile?”

  “Yeah, maybe later.”

  She didn’t seem to be joking, so he took her elbow and they sloshed through the flooded hall together.

  At the end, he pushed a door open to leak plasma into a secondary hall. As they walked, he switched back and forth from dock to dive view, seeing how much of the structure’s blueprint he could memorize in a blink.

  Star slipped her right hand inside his left. Not long ago, those parts of their bodies were broken. But now they were healed and he wasn’t sure if it should make him glad.

  “Is that water in your pouch?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” He offered it to her and glanced up at the SUPPLY tube that ran down the ceiling. He considered the hundred meters of free flowing plasma. He could cut it open and let the glory pour into his mouth…

  She finished a swig and handed it back, beginning to walk the other way before he took it.

  “Are you planning to tell me what you took from the safe?” he asked, putting the bottle in his pouch and zipping up.

  She slowed to a stop, but didn’t look back, the way one would stop and prepare to retort an insult. Instead, her posture eased and she glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t know what it is. I only remember The Gov wants it, so I’m keeping it.” She took the thin silver case out of her pocket. “You want it?”

  There was a challenge in her gaze, any more questions?

  “Sorry, you didn’t volunteer that info, and I don’t know. As much as I need to trust you and be open with you, we don’t have the same nanobots inside us. I don’t know what that plasma did to our bodies or minds—”

  “And if I’m yanking you along by your rope?” She squared her shoulders to face him. “You don’t think I have the same fear? That my theory didn’t work and you’re just waiting for me to turn my back so you can shoot me and take my case, or whatever it is that Warren would want.

  “You know what?” She thrust the case flat against his chest. “Take it. I doubt there is anything else Warren wants from me. I suppose a vial of my blood, maybe? We can go back to the clinic right now and I’ll give you as much as you want. If you’re not you, then I don’t know what else to do to fix this. You always knew how to cut me deeper than any blade.” Her eyes glossed with the verge of tears. “I don’t care how strong or smart I feel right now. I’m not smart enough to…does your book say anything about removing nanobots? I’ll give mine up in a second if we could be normal again.”

  The book did, but he wasn’t as willing to give up his nanobots.

  “I just want you to look at me with love. The kind that makes me feel more important than anything else in that head of yours. The kind that says you’re not holding back. That you trust me and that you want me more than any fear that says we can’t be together.”

  Rush opened his hands beside hers and waited. Her upward stare threatened him with the last effort she had to make it right between them. Throw it away and it would never be offered again.

  Her fingers brushed inside his. He folded his pinky over the extended knuckle where hers had been, before one of his many mistakes had cost her pain and blood. “I want exactly the same thing. I’m sorry for my fears. There is so much I still don’t understand. Warren said he slipped a nanopack in my beer, but how did you get yours?”

  She looked like she had no idea either.

  “How can I know if we’re free or still puppets? We have plasma coursing through our veins. Nedzad said that would kill us. If we give up our nanobots, he could be proven right.”

  She slipped and pried her fingers free, throwing her arm out as she turned around and began walking away, her case still in her hand. “You haven’t changed. Still putting your toys above our marriage.”

  “That’s not what I said at all.” Rush stepped forward, ready to force her back to face him.

  She spun around with a glare of molded hate. “If you’re so afraid of being a puppet, why don’t you do something worthwhile? At least that way it won’t matter.”

  “I’m not afraid of being a puppet. I’m afraid of acting without you beside me. I’d let someone guide my strings if I knew the real you were dancing with me.”

  “Nice try. Are we going to y
our toys now?”

  “Stop. You want me to read this whole book right now? I will. Then we’ll remove our nanobots and see what happens.”

  “Yeah. Read it and then make up a good, logical excuse why we won’t do what I want.”

  “You don’t want revenge on The Gov?”

  Star folded her arms. “He’s not the first person to come to mind.”

  Rush sucked in a breath to issue a sharp retort, but thought better of it. Instead, he unzipped his pouch, took a drink and stuffed the bottle back inside. She turned away and started walking.

  “Please know the last thing I’m trying to do is fight with you. I may be confused, but I’m not giving up.” He opened his book and walked after her. “Give me a little more time. I’ll find a way to give you what you want.”

  They walked in silence. By page fifty-six, his time needed per page had quadrupled, more so when he tried to think of passages in the twenties or thirties.

  “What’s wrong?” Star asked.

  “The plasma’s wearing off already.”

  “You want to go back?” She seemed more than happy to oblige him.

  “I’m not sure we should be ingesting that much. It might be best if we try and stop.”

  “You can do whatever you want. More for me.”

  “I’m looking out for both of us, Star.” He moved ahead in his book to page 121 on the nano physics lab.

  Star turned to read with him as he flipped the pages. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve never felt better.”

  He read on, afraid of how much he agreed with her. He’d seen firsthand the ups and downs of addiction. The patron crawling up onto his whore never saw the bucket of refuse under the bed, but Rush knew. Someone would have to clean up the mess.

  SCAVENGER: Twin Suns

  Chapter 5

  Rush read how Fort Pope had researched and developed theoretical uses for the nanobots they captured from the terrorists and reprogrammed to do all kinds of functions. Most involved engineering, such as digging and building this base, while also sorting out the lithium from the Earth’s crust and the deuterium from the ground water for use in making the plasma.