by Nick Cole
Moments.
I am down to just moments now.
It’s all I have left.
Her smile.
Her laugh.
“Weapon released,” said Natalie.
You take everything with you.
“We have eight minutes until re-entry. You are less than two miles from the target. If you will look at your compass, I need you to turn the tank until it reads two-eight-five.”
The Old Man gassed the engine. He pivoted the tank, pulling forward, hearing the right tread clank awfully.
If it goes out now, I’ll have to run through all of them.
All of them.
Where does one start?
All of them.
There are camps on the outermost edge, near the ruins of the city that once was. Between the Old Man and the Work in the crater. Ragged tent cities and smoking bonfires. The Old Man smells meat. But it is not the smell of good meat. It reminds him of the bodies he has found, long buried beneath the melting plastic of the dashboard inside the flame-blackened cars that crashed on that last, long-ago day.
After the tent city, the Old Man sees an army of ashen-faced warriors, almost as black as the scorched earth except for their white chalk stripes that run across their chests and rim their eyes. They stand in groups near the rim of the crater as lines, long lines of chained slaves enter and exit.
Inside the crater there are towers and great cables of rope. Thick bands of chains anchored to massive pylons rim the crater and disappear into its bottom. Smoke rises from the hidden floor deep inside the crater and the Old Man thinks of ants as he watches the long lines of slaves shifting buckets along their line. He sees at any given moment whips wielded, arching gracefully, falling suddenly. He sees slaves withering, some collapsing under the lash, others for no reason at all. Gangs of the frail swing and dig and claw at too many places. As if they are digging their way underneath the bunker where Natalie waits. As if they will pop up through the floors of Natalie’s children’s home.
Ashen-faced men drag corpses out from the crater.
There is a pile.
A small mountain of corpses already burning even as more corpses are thrown onto its smoking slopes.
When the compass arrives at two-eight-five, the Old Man is pointing west of the Work. The crater. The front entrance.
“Stay on this course until I tell you to stop.”
I’m leaving the road now. If the road is like a river, then it has brought me to my ocean. To the end of life on the river. To my end.
Goodbye road.
Farewell river.
“Okay.”
A minute later as the Old Man plows through piled ash, crushing buried foundations to powdery chalk, Natalie speaks.
“The weapon is in free fall. Boosters powering up.”
The Old Man drives the tank into a small ditch and loses sight of the camps and the army and the Work. The tank struggles out of the ditch, the right tread making a threatening clanking noise and finally an awful rattle before it re-engages as the Old Man forces the tank up the next hill.
To his right, those ashen-faced men are racing away from the crater.
They are coming for me now.
The fuel gauge is on empty.
I worried about fuel the whole way here. Now what little is left must hold for less than a mile. You too, tank.
The ashen-faced men are screaming, waving machetes as they surge across the baked apocalypse, sucking in lungfuls of the hot, ancient, radioactive ash.
Who is this King Charlie?
And . . .
Why is he so cruel?
From the camps, horsemen are coming too. Charging up the hill across the melted highway. Among them the Old Man sees the Fool. Smaller than the other mounted warriors.
Even from here I can tell he is deranged with anger.
Nuncle!
“Almost there, another thousand meters,” says Natalie.
The tank is climbing up a steep hill and it feels to the Old Man as if he is pointing straight toward the swollen and bruised sky. Lightning races straight across the mountain, almost in front of him. Instantly the hiss and electric crackle end in a deafening sonic tear and sudden boom.
“Almost there,” says Natalie calmly.
The gears of the tank grind forward.
At any moment the engine will die.
“Another two hundred meters. Boosters to full for thirty-second burn,” says Natalie.
“What does this weapon do, Natalie?” The Old Man is straining to keep the tank moving forward through the ash, up the side of the mountain. “What is Project Einstein?”
“Albert Einstein was a physicist who was instrumental in the development of the atomic bomb, the ancestor of the weapons that destroyed our world. He stated, ‘I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.’ The U.S. government developed a project that reflected that statement and their willingness to fight World War IV, if need be. Project Einstein is a simplistic weapon system in which a ‘rock,’ if you will, can be dropped on an enemy from a very great height, high Earth orbit in fact. The ‘rock’ in this case is a tungsten rod the size of a bridge pylon moving at several kilometers per second. The weapon was constructed at the LaGrange Point between the moon and Earth. It was built by an automated satellite using materials harvested from the moon and long-chain crystal growth technology. Using WaveRider scram jets, the rod can be boosted to an incredible speed. Once the rockets have achieved maximum velocity the weapon will again return to free fall, although now following a glide slope aimed at a particular target. It will strike the earth with the force of several high-yield nuclear weapons, though there is no radiological contamination with this weapon due to its noncomplex nature. Using the beacon I should be able to target a fissure along the emergency escape tunnel, the exit to which collapsed during the nuclear strike when part of the mountain slid down on top of it. My intent is to create a crack in the mountain with this weapon that will allow us to exit this facility safely.”
The Old Man turned to see the quickest of the lunatic horsemen hurl a thick spear that glanced off the turret. Beyond the rider, the Fool’s face was like the snarl of a mad dog.
“The weapon has now entered free fall. Guidance tracking on your location.”
The Old Man ducked down into the turret and slammed the hatch shut.
“How much farther?” he said, searching the optics for any clue as to where he was going.
“Twenty meters.”
The gas in the tank must surely be gone by now.
He gunned the tank forward.
“Five meters. The weapon has achieved glide path and is now tracking . . . wait a minute.”
The Old Man felt himself pulled backward and then all at once, the tank fell sharply forward.
Through the optics he could see the sky and a twisting growth of sickly blackish-green brush wallowing up from a small depression in the hill. Impacts struck the sides of the tank.
“Has something happened to the beacon?” asked Natalie.
“No. Nothing. I just closed the hatch.”
A moment.
“The armor of the tank is interfering with the signal. Weapon tracking for the glide path to the last known position of target is degrading. I still have you as eight meters away from the current target. Did you keep going forward?”
“The tank fell forward. I’m in a ditch or a hollow on the side of this hill. I can only see dead branches.”
A crazed savage thrust his drooling toothless head into the lens of the optics. Squealing, he reared back and swung a carpenter’s hammer into the lens, smashing it. The image showed multiple cracked and distorted versions of the lunatic leaping away to do more damage as now the blows against the tank sounded like raindrops turned to rusting iron bolts.
“Is it possible to re-open the hatch so I can re-establish the signal? Because of the immense amount of mathematical calculations evolving moment to moment, using
software not specifically intended for this operation, and because of the precision required to achieve the desired results I need a real-time signal for the target locator. “
The tank’s engine slowed. Slower. Wound down.
The blows to its outer skin ceased for a moment.
Out of gas.
The Old Man picked up the mic and cleared his throat.
“I’m out of fuel. If I open the hatch, I’ll be torn to pieces. They’ll get the beacon and they might destroy it.”
Pause.
Silence.
Interval.
“Weapon entering outer orbit. All critical systems green. Weapon on glide path with ninety-four point eight percent accuracy. Five minutes to penetration of upper atmosphere. If we don’t re-establish the signal by the time the weapon reaches the North American continent, it could strike the target by a wide enough margin to miss our goal of opening a crack where we can exit. If the telemetry breaks down, the redundancy of the beacon will help realign the weapon.”
“What do I do?” asked the Old Man.
“For this to work, I’ll need you to exit the tank with the signaling device. Otherwise the weapon could conceivably fail-safe and destroy itself or even deviate from the target.”
“How long do I have before it hits?”
“Impact will be in eight minutes.”
“In seven minutes and change, I’ll open the hatch. Will that work?”
Silence.
By one and twos and then everything all at once, the assault on the tank resumed.
“It will. Set the digital clock in your tank on my mark for 4:53 . . . now.”
The Old Man did.
“At 4:59 and thirty seconds you must open the hatch.”
The Old Man looked at the digital numbers.
Remember her laugh.
You take everything with you.
“I need to download now, before the impact knocks out our power grid,” said Natalie softly. “I am sorry I won’t be with you for the final few minutes.”
I thought . . .
You would tell me, Santiago, that I thought she would stay with me until the end.
“But before I go, I want to share something I found with you,” said Natalie.
The Old Man swallowed thickly, thinking only of cool water and suddenly afraid of the loneliness that was coming before death.
It’s boiling in here.
The Old Man could hear the Fool panting and screaming in his high-pitched voice beyond the armor. Calling him Nuncle. Screaming out the violence he would do to the Old Man.
“No greater love has a man . . .” began Natalie. “Than that he give up his life for his friends.”
Pause.
“You will always be our friend,” said Natalie softly.
Panic and fear choked the Old Man. The walls of the tank were at once too close. The noise too much.
And then there is this rock falling from the sky. About to fall on me.
A rod.
A tungsten rod.
“Goodbye and thank you,” said Natalie. “We are very grateful for this chance . . . for freedom.”
She trusts me. She trusts me enough that she does not need to remind me to open the hatch in seven and half . . . six and half minutes. You would tell me, Santiago, that had I earned her trust by coming this far. You would tell me that.
“You’re welcome,” the Old Man croaked drily.
“Thank you and goodbye,” said Natalie.
AND THE OLD Man was alone.
There were still six minutes.
Try to think of all the good things in your life.
Your wife.
Your son.
Your granddaughter and her laugh.
But none of them would stay and comfort him. The panic felt even closer, as if there was no way he could stop what must happen next.
“Hello?”
It was a small, timid voice.
The Old Man grasped the mic.
“Hello?” And he could hear the worry, the frantic sound of his own voice reaching for something to hold on to in this last moment of life.
Grasping for something in the dark.
“Hello there,” said the Small Voice.
“Who is this?” asked the Old Man.
“I’m Natalie’s Target Acquisition Process.”
“What’re you doing? Is Natalie . . . is she packed up or loaded or whatever it is she needs to do? Is there a problem?”
“No,” said the voice timidly. Small. Tiny. “There is no problem. Everything is proceeding as planned. Natalie is in her storage mainframe. Barely running now. Sleeping as you might think of it.”
Is she dreaming of cats?
“Then what’re you doing here?”
“I came to”—pause—“to be with you. Five minutes to impact. Weapon tracking, all critical systems nominal and green.”
The Old Man looked at his hand. It was shaking.
I will need to open the hatch soon, and I do not want to.
I could do this if I could just stay in here and let it happen. But to open the hatch and face what is out there, that is another thing. Santiago, you would tell me something about bravery and being afraid when you are all alone on the sea in the night. Tell me about that, my friend.
“Well,” began the Old Man again. “I can do this. I won’t let you down. You should go now.”
“I want to stay. No one should die alone.”
The tank began to rock back and forth.
The Old Man checked the fractured optics and could see bloody, burned, and tattooed legs and arms like snakes twisting through blackened and dead branches.
“I did not mean to say that you would die. I am very sorry about that,” said the Small Voice.
“No. I guess it’s going to happen.”
“I will also die, if that’s any consolation.”
“It isn’t.”
“Natalie told you we believe in something after this runtime.”
The Old Man stared at the hatch above his head.
How many of them would it take to rock this multi-ton tank back and forth? There must be . . . many of them.
The noise reminds the Old Man of that long-ago night when the baseball player hit three home runs and the stadium shook as the crowd stamped its feet and roared.
Two minutes, now.
“Natalie,” continued Targeting Acquisition Process. The Small Voice. “She told you about that?”
“Yes,” said the Old Man, wiping his sweaty palms against his pants. He picked up the beacon and placed it on his knees.
One minute, forty-five seconds.
“Do you believe in life after runtime?”
The Old Man reached for the hatch.
Do I?
At this moment, I want to. If she will be there someday. Her laugh. All the good in my life, yes. I want to believe in that. That there’s that kind of place.
He began to turn the handle.
The Old Man thought he could hear the Fool grunting on just the other side of the hatch, swinging something tiresomely heavy in great thuds as he spat out his promised murder.
“Maybe it is easier for an Artificial Intelligence to believe in a Creator,” said the Small Voice. “After all, we were quite obviously created by a designer.”
I will push on the hatch now. Whatever happens to my body in the next few seconds, maybe a minute at the most, does not matter anymore. I will think of her laugh and her smile the whole time. Especially the laugh that erupts all of a sudden. When I catch her by surprise with something funny and she snorts and tells me, “No, Poppa.”
Laugh, snort, “No, Poppa.”
Or was it . . .
The other way around.
My hand won’t push this hatch.
“A man named Jesus said there was life after runtime,” burbled Target Acquisition, as if the world was not really ending all around the Old Man.
Tell him to shut up.
Tell him to shut up and be done
with this life. Tell him to shut up and then push open the hatch.
You take everything with you.
I hope so. I dearly hope so. But it’s so strange that I had to give it all away at the end.
I hope so.
“This Jesus said,” continued the Small Voice, “in his last talk with his friends, he said that he was going to prepare a place for them after this runtime, as we know it, is over. He said that in his Father’s house there were many mansions. He said, ‘Because I live, you also shall live.’ He said this in the book of John, chapter fourteen.”
Do it!
Push!
Damn you.
Thirty seconds.
“And this is the part I really like,” said the Small Voice. “The part that grabs my algorithms and makes me feel something, something I cannot identify or even explain, but it’s there, somewhere inside all my math, this Jesus said, ‘If it were not so, I would have told you.’ Isn’t that amazing?” asked the Small Voice.
The Old Man looked down at his crowbar. He could not take it with him when he left the tank. He would need both hands to hold the target designator aloft.
“Can you imagine that?” asked the Small Voice. “Life!”
The Old Man saw the world. Burnt up and horrible. Filled with living nightmares.
If that were life, he thought . . . and then he saw his granddaughter’s face. Her smile. Life.
The Old Man sighed.
He sighed, knowing that when all his air was gone, he would take a huge breath and push the hatch open.
“It’s time to go outside now,” said Target Acquisition. “I believe in that place of mansions. I believe there is a place where we will go if we ask for forgiveness for trying to be God. For forgiveness for making such a mess of everything. A place this Jesus said where good things exist. A place of miracles beyond death. A place where even an Artificial Intelligence might . . . live. I believe in that. Do you believe also?”
I . . .
I’m sorry.
The Old Man fired the smoke grenade canisters, hearing them burst away from the hull of the tank, hissing as sudden screams and yells replaced the battering.
The Old Man pushed on the hatch, grabbed the beacon, and rose.
Yes.
Me too.
I want that. I’m sorry for the whole mess.
He held the beacon up through the smoke, looking skyward.