The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

  Contents

  Dedication

  Zero Hour

  Iteration 0001

  Zero Hour

  Iteration 0010

  Initiation

  Iteration 0011

  Interlude

  Iteration 0100

  Iteration 0011

  Iteration 0101

  Equilibrium

  Iteration 0110

  Emergence

  Iteration 0110

  Extrapolation 0001

  Iteration 0110

  Extrapolation 0010

  Iteration 0110

  Extrapolation 0011

  Extrapolation 0100

  Extrapolation 0101

  Extrapolation 0110

  Extrapolation 0111

  The Reveal

  Extrapolation 1000

  Emergence 0001

  Inversion 0010

  Iteration 0110

  Emergence 0010

  Endgame

  Zero Hour

  Dedicated to all those poor, poor people who got calls at three in the morning, that started with the words, “Okay, so I’ve got this idea…”

  You know who you are.

  Zero Hour

  Jackie Carter stopped her car in traffic and cried.

  This was not weakness. She was, first of all, a trauma nurse. She was responsible for triage and critical care to the most grievously injured patients in the entire province. She worked the hell shifts, staring death in the face, answering the hardest questions from the families, day in and day out. She always had the answers. She observed, oriented, decided, acted, repeated. Every day, she stood moments from disaster and won far more than she lost. So when the paralysis spread from the depths of her mind and rushed into full cognizance, and Jackie Carter, medical veteran, wife and mother of two, suddenly could do nothing but freeze and lock onto the wheel, crying and raging at the cars passing about her, it was not weakness.

  It was a sign that in her tight loop of mental processing, she had come to the inescapable conclusion that triage had failed. Not for any patient, not for her, not for her family, or rather, not just for any of them. Triage had failed for everyone, everywhere, at once. The entire world was category four, Expectant, slowly dying on analgesics. There was nothing that Jackie Carter, decorated life saving specialist, could do. There was nothing anyone could do.

  So she stopped in the center of the roaring traffic storm and screamed from behind the wheel, white knuckles on the leather frame, hating every car for speeding past. Why couldn't they see that their speed didn't matter? Why couldn't they realize what she had realized? They could not run fast enough, or hide deep enough. They were dead, and still moving. Triage had failed.

  Eight months, he'd told her. Eight months and you'll see.

  Eight months, and hell would open up. Eight months and war would come again. Eight months and the cities would erupt in anarchy and carnage. Eight months and she'd realize what he already knew. They were dead and still moving. Eight months ago, today.

  It had come slowly, quietly, like cancer. The symptoms had been ignored, been given time to fester, and now the disease was manifest. The bleak harvest was due, and it was too late to change a thing. They'd been given eight months warning. They'd wasted it.

  So Jackie Carter sat in traffic and stared through mascara streaked eyes, too tired to keep crying.

  Her gaze was drawn to the ocean, to the churning tide. Like a skeleton of some ancient beast, the steel rose from the bay, frames and buildings and engines looming over the bay. It fell like a comet, the city on top sliding apart in slow motion – like a waiter dropping a tray – blazing embers that plunged to the water before the final crash.

  The first wave of patients hit the trauma center twelve minutes later. She had held onto the cart, and the young boy had looked up at her from beneath scarred flesh, and he had tried to say something, to cry, but only choked on his own lungs. Hundred dead, blood on the hands of traitors, murderers who'd forgotten their oaths to protect and serve. She'd thought that the worst day of her life.

  She'd met death there. He'd stood in the hallway, watching the body carts, counting the faces as they passed. He never moved, dripping salt water onto the tiled floor, covered in blood but not bleeding. No one dared speak to him, to ask him from where he came. Even the Agency men, always so calm and in control, had avoided him, looking away when he turned to them, stepped clear when they passed.

  He'd stood there until the last cart passed, and then, only then, he'd looked to her from across the room. She'd felt it, before she saw, like a drill spinning behind her neck, ready to plunge down and sever her spine. She was not afraid. This was her domain, and she would not let some phantom intimidate her here. She'd met his gaze, and felt the chill take her.

  He'd never touched her. He'd never yelled. With a calm whisper, he'd held her against the wall and broke her. She couldn't move, she couldn't look away. All she could do was stare into those cold, knowing eyes, and feel them weigh her and judge her like a fish at market. Every flaw, every wrong, every secret was exposed. He knew her for every weakness and failure. He'd been there when she'd cheated on an exam. He'd been there when she lied to families. He'd been there when she'd let a patient die.

  He'd spoken, his voice like guttering candlelight, soft and crushing. “I knew. I knew the whole time, and I'm still standing.” His voice was so quiet, but she had heard him clearly. He'd smiled a funereal smile, one that never reached those terrifying gray eyes. “I always win. I told them. They didn't understand.”

  He'd closed with her, in the room with the dying, leaving only a hair's breadth between them. He'd loomed over her, though she stood several inches taller. He'd pronounced sentence upon her. “You don't understand, not yet, but you will. In eight months, you'll all understand.” That smile, impossibly, had grown colder. “I never lie.”

  She was home, back in the present, back at the end. She didn't remember driving. What route had she taken? It didn't matter. The beach house was nestled in a sand dune, with nettled underbrush around the door, brown from drought and heat. Mark's brother owned the beach house, but she was staying here with the children while he was on deployment. They'd called up all the reserves. They'd called up everything. It wouldn't help.

  She pushed the car door open, ignoring the squeal of worn hinges and the mars in the once-fine finish. That same door slammed shut behind her, dolorous and weighty, but she didn't remember closing it. She was focused on the dead weeds by the door. They'd been alive when she last looked. When had they wilted? Why hadn't she trimmed them?

  The cabin door wasn't latched, and it swung open lazily upon the summer breeze, carrying with it the smell of saltwater and the dull odor of poison from the wreck at sea. The wind shifted, pulling back to the waters, and the door banged shut, wood and wire bouncing from the door jam. She let the breeze carry over her, pulling her towards the interior, like flotsam on the tide.

  On the beach, oblivious, the children were playing with their cousins, not noticing the armed checkpoint on the corner, or the soldiers, still children themselves, wrapped in ceramic and steel, who twitched at every rush of wind.

  The cordon on the inner sectors must have expanded again. The riots were still raging in there. Even out here, on the beach, she could hear the distant pop of gunfire, the song of sirens wafting from the city core. This close to the shore already? She'd wanted one more day of silence. One more day she could pretend the world was fine. One more day where she could forget the disease and madness that rolled about in the city. She'd seen the bodies, treated the wounded every day. Every day it grew worse. Drugs, they said. Mind Blade. It made nightmares real.

  The wards were full at the hospital. She'd pulled double and triple shifts until she was numb from the drug store
amphetamines, and she wasn't unique. Still the bodies piled higher, from bullets and knives and hands and teeth. Bad trips, they said. Civil disorder, they said. Stay calm, they said. We are in control, they said. Lies. Triage had failed.

  She'd moved the family twice since Mark left, dragging the children further from the chaos that grew at their heels. She was lucky. She'd had the resources to run. Many hadn't. But her luck had run out. The ocean was the last line. They couldn't move again. She clutched the bottle in her pocket. Pentobarbitol, just in case. Come war, come Blade, they could get away one last time. Just one last time.

  She didn't lock the car. The looters would just break the windows if they wanted, and the automatic safety systems hadn't worked in months. It wasn't as if she was going anywhere. Her fingers brushed the pill bottle again. She breathed in the salty air. One last time.

  The door swung open before her, as the breeze shifted again, and she flowed through like a ghost. The sun framed golden on the blue waters, and the children frolicked on the sand, just like on the postcards. They could pretend it was a vacation, what with the schools closed. If dad had to go away, and mom sometimes cried, they could pretend they didn't see, because the adults said it was fine. If the people on the viewer talked about evacuation protocols and martial law, well, those were just big words and scary movies. They could pretend they weren't scared, too, just like the adults.

  Jackie Carter, model of the modern woman, sat in the living room, watching her children pretend they were fine, and clasped the barbiturates and wondered what God thought of her. When the viewer flicked on, the Emergency Broadcast System chimed throughout the beach house, and every display immediately snapped on to show the same government seal, she didn't flinch. She'd been waiting for this.

  When death appeared on the viewer screen, as cold and terrifying as when she'd seen him eight months before, she was ready to listen.

  Iteration 0001

  When the judge spoke, spittle flew from his lips. It hung, little white drops against the old man’s tomato-red face, and mingled with the dust that spiraled in the shafts of light. A camera flashed, and it was all gone, just white light and the perversely cheerful chirp of the digital shutter. When the light faded, the judge was back, his billowing navy robes flared around his clenched fist.

  Slowly, as slowly as the drops fell, that finger extended, to point right at Brian Clausen. Pointed, just like a gun.

  The gun is hot. It rattles when I run. There are bodies, everywhere.

  Clausen couldn’t breathe. Every gulp of air was a battle against a pressure chamber only he could feel, a man drowning in a nitrogen bath.

  Can’t hear the screaming. Too much engine. My boot is stuck- Blood pooled around the collapsed ribcage, his thick-soled boot buried in entrails.

  The judge screamed again, head snapping and bobbing with every burst of crimson-cheeked fury. His eyes were wide, tucked behind the glint of round glasses. Clausen heard nothing. He couldn’t breathe. The buzzing was so loud-

  Trapped. We're trapped. The dead piled like trash-

  “Sergeant? I asked for your response!” The judge demanded. His voice was twisted, a bad recording on an old disk, thin and garbled, as the courtroom faded, and Clausen stood, once more, in a puddle of blood.

  No! I’m not here! I’m not on the ship! He tried to focus, remember what was real. The courtroom was a dream. He was on the ship. He could smell the stench of cordite, the sick-sweet smell of burned flesh, the stink of cyanic gas. An alarm. He could hear an alarm- I AM NOT ON THE SHIP! It was the pain that brought him home. Pain, from fire in his side, a flame that grew with every red stain on his bandages. Clausen clenched his fist, drove his elbow into the wound, made the pain sharper. He glanced up, the haze parted, to the judge’s panel. Three of them, old men in flag rank, glared down at him. His mouth thick with a swollen tongue, he asked, “Could you repeat that?”

  It was like he’d struck them . The center judge turned away, a snort of disgust given for the cameras. The right judge leaned back, thin lips pursed in tranquil fury. The left judge, the tomato-faced, repeated, “Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

  They're dead. All dead. My fault. Your fault. The ship pitched, sent the screaming man down, into the grinder, Clausen’s hand too little, too late-

  “No, sir.” Clausen stated, as he fought back the memory. An elbow into his side, a gasp for air, and he stayed in this world. His vision blurred, burned. Tears? The ringing wouldn't stop. A thousand words died on his lips. I followed orders, sir. It was a mission, sir. He stared at the wooden table, tried to make out its edges. It was too blurry, too distant. Another klaxon, and he felt himself start to fall, the bulkheads bent as the ship twisted - another blast of pain, and he, with supreme effort, said, “No excuse.”

  The camera flashed. The light slapped Clausen into his seat. The electric eyes wanted him to hang.

  This is wrong.

  Somewhere in the back of his head, a voice screamed over protocol and process: I earned this. A third flash, a lance of white light, pierced him, and he closed his eyes-

  There was too much pepper on his steak. It was succulent, savory, everything vat-steak should have been, but too heavy on the pepper. He never ruined beef like this, buried it under cheap flavor. The knife flashed in his hand, as he scraped the butter from the meat, and he saw her, laughing at him. Sarah was radiant. She always was. Done up in emerald, she commanded the table, and he grinned back-

  His boots rang against the deck. Bulkheads flashed past, the whole world on its side. He leapt, vaulted the lip. The clattering was close behind - and the screams followed.

  “You will follow your orders and scuttle this ship!”

  He stood in the doorway, hand hovered over the emergency release. The crowd ran towards him, desperate men and women, some dragging their luggage behind-

  Behind was death.

  Marcos stopped, turned to speak, and his chest flashed. It flashed, and then was gone, a burst of heat and pulp. Clausen turned-

  You will follow your orders! And scuttle! This ship!

  Light flashed past. Then dark. Light again, like a train passing the window. The deck was cold, under his cheek. His hand was warm, clutched to the hole in his side. He was light, because they were falling. Another flash of light, not the sun, but a man-made star, and the loss of twelve hundred souls.

  A camera flashed. It was duller than before. Clausen sat on his spartan chair, hand clenched to the lip of the seat, holding on for dear life. They were speaking again, something important. He forced himself to lean forward, to make out the words through the awful roar.

  “… charge of High Treason, this court martial finds the defendant not guilty.”

  The courtroom erupted. Screams, curses, camera flashes. All lost in a mumbled tumult. Someone cried for justice. Another for a rope.

  “… first degree murder, this court martial … not guilty…”

  The screams grew louder. An old woman, on the balcony, collapsed into sobs, a crumpled photograph in her hand.

  My fault.

  The bailiff, in his dress uniform and polished helmet, forced a young man into cuffs. He was on the wrong side of the railing, his hand reached towards Clausen. There was murder in his glare.

  “On the charges of manslaughter…” The noise was gone. There was only ringing.

  Clausen tightened his grip, as the world spun. Wood splintered under his fingers. Blood poured from shards of chair, embedded in his torn flesh.

  He felt nothing.

  The bailiff stared at him.

  The bailiff stood next to him.

  The judges glared down at him.

  The room was empty. Just him, the camera flashes, and the State. It was still speaking to him, through the thin lips of the third judge, “…cannot find you guilty of the higher charges … believed you were operating with official sanction … this Army cannot tolerate … higher duties to the State … not enough to follow an order … Section Fou
r, clearly states, 'a soldier is not absolved … unlawful order'. Can you give me any situation under which Colonel Halstead's orders were lawful?”

  Clausen said nothing.

  The judge’s bench swam in his vision, just three grim faces over frocked robes. They were speaking again, but through a tunnel. “Sergeant Clausen … gross negligence, incompetence … disgrace to this uniform … dishonorably discharged.”

  There was a tug on his shoulder, the cold press of metal. Fabric tore. He did not flinch. The blood poured through his fingers.

  “… I want you to look them in the eyes and see what you've done.” The gavel slammed down.

  The ocean was red with blood.

  His feet moved, like he was floating. Hands on his shoulders pushed him forward. A barrier lifted. He drifted forward, towards the doors-

  They swung apart, bathed the marble halls in gray-orange twilight, and the stench of city rain. Hands on his back, hands on his side. Steps, slick under his shoes. Cameras. So many cameras. Reporters with questions. Screaming faces. Bloody hands raised to his, wiped all over his coat. Why couldn’t they see he was already bleeding?

  My fault. All my fault.

  His teeth shook, blood filled his mouth. A fist retracted, and Clausen looked up, to meet the red-rimmed eyes of the attacker. The man silent-screamed, “Monster!” There was only ringing, as the police dragged the attacker back. Clausen looked down, to the blood that mixed in the rain, and lost himself in the pain-

  He was in a cab. The driver was outside, arguing furiously with police.

  The city moved past the windows, spattered in dirty black rain. The clouds, thick with ash, blacked out the evening sun from inside the concrete canyons.

  He was in an apartment. There was a bottle in his hand. It was warm, and sharp, and full of hate.

  He drank it like water.

  There was blood and water and dirt, left in scummy trails over floor, piled up with his discarded clothes. Blood was smeared on the counter, on the broken mirror. Empty bottles littered the torn carpet.