by Brian Trent
brian trent
Ten Thousand Thunders
FLAME TREE PRESS
London & New York
Part One
Anomaly
Year 322 of the New Enlightenment
Tanabata City, Luna
Bluespace Jurisdiction
‘…dark and dread Eternity
returns again to me.’
Lord Byron
Chapter One
Reborn in the House of the Dead
Fourteen and a half hours after being killed in the shuttle explosion, Gethin Bryce found himself in a newly sculpted body staring at his hands.
The transition of locations happened in a single eyeblink. A moment earlier he was standing naked in the claustrophobic steel locker at Olympus Save with two hours to go before his flight, thinking of the ticket in his bag for VG Flight 3107. Thirty minutes of hot white light crawling in his head, capturing the position of every neural synapse and stored memory, and the green holoprompts changing configuration before his equally green eyes. He blinked. The backs of his eyelids were a map of blazing red veins in the probing luminosity.
Then he opened his eyes and the steel locker was gone.
Gethin squinted at a dull red ceiling globe. He caught a whiff of fresh-cut plastic. And he was naked, lying on a mattress, as if he were a corpse on a mausoleum slab, washed in ruby-colored gloom. It was like he had been teleported.
He felt his throat constrict as he recognized the place from brochures.
A Wyndham Save clinic.
But where? And what the hell happened?
Gethin propped himself up on his elbows. The sensor screen at his bedside flashed its annoyance.
“Please lie down,” the cool male voice said.
“Tell me where I am first,” he snapped.
“There’s been a fatal accident, Mr. Bryce, and we’ve downloaded your last Save from—”
“Olympus Station, I know. Where am I now?”
“This is the Wyndham Save Center in Tanabata City, Luna. Earthtime 0512.”
“What’s the date, damnit!”
“July 18, 322.”
Gethin rubbed his head, numbly staving off the rise of panic. Twelve days were unaccounted for. It was the length of time for a Martian shuttle, sailing brightquest to Luna. The abrupt transition was terrible, disoriented him like a fever dream, and he felt the impulsive twitch of needing to catch his flight…despairing of staying on Mars any longer. Twelve days! Luna! For an awful moment he wondered what would have happened if the machine had said six days, and his purchase signal would hover on that interplanetary threshold, calculating how many picoseconds he was to the point of no return only to ultimately decide to resurrect him on Mars, like a looping nightmare unwilling to let him go.
The sensor screen whirred away from his bedside, inviting him to stand with silent courtesy. And he did, right away and a little too quickly, so colored dots swam before his eyes. He pictured his life in them: blue dots for Earth, red for Mars, white for Luna. It made him think of an away-message he’d seen long ago, taken from an antebellum flatfilm in which a child was teleported across a room as lots of cheesy, noisy, beeping, colored dots in the air.
“What happened?” Gethin asked. “Tell me—”
“You will have all your questions answered, Mr. Bryce, if you would please fill out the post-regeneration paperwork.”
Gethin grumbled but obliged, not wanting to hear it from his insurance company. He reviewed his file on the monitor and signed off on the screens with a touch of his new fingertips, while invisible sensors studied his heartbeat, blood flow, breathing. He was able to review his credit charges, and tried imagining what the rosemary chicken with asparagus he’d eaten for his first meal on the shuttle had tasted like. Asparagus, even aeroponically grown, usually disappointed him.
Naturally, his nagging impulse was to fire up his newly replaced sensorium and check his messages. But he kept looking at his hands. Not the tanned mitts he’d sported on Mars. Gone was the ropy red scar on his left arm, when a skiing mishap sent him into a generator cable. The calluses from cold Martian hikes…gone. The tiny brown spots, even a beauty mark near the wrist…missing. His new body was virgin to the cosmos, molded from rapid-process flesh-gel grown from his DNA on file, imprinted with the data transfer, and sliced free of the amniocube. Then it was rinsed, like hosing down a rubber suit, while metal needles raped its tissue with quick incisions. Virtuboard circuitry imprinted onto his fingertips. A shiny new sensorium grafted into his skull. His blurmod and biocells and everything else specified by his Save-file.
I’ve never eaten, Gethin thought, steeping in the new experience. Never slept, made love, gotten a paper-cut, lifted a coffee mug, read a book, skinned a knee, or climbed stairs.
“You may experience some muscle pain over the next 48 hours,” the voice told him. “This is entirely natural and can be countered with simple pain relievers. Wyndham Pharmacies are ready to supply you if you wish.”
“No,” he grunted, prodding his leanly muscled arms, the knobs of bone in his sinewy shoulders, his firm neck and the sharp contours of his jawline, and then he cupped the face he hadn’t yet seen. Like a blind creature, he explored his high patrician nose and traced the pattern of his thin eyebrows. He caressed his ears like a child handling seashells for the first time. In his mouth, his tongue moved like a pink tentacle over perfect teeth.
Okay, he thought. Now for the important part.
Gethin cautiously pressed behind his left ear, afraid that nothing would happen, that he’d be truly naked, cut off from the webwork of humanity, amputated from the chorus of media, friends, ancestors, and email.
He pressed it again.
“Please be calm,” the machine warned, concerned by the wild acceleration of his heart rate.
Gethin swallowed in dread. Nothing was happening.
He pressed the subdermal button a third time, harder than before. There! His access screen swirled into focus like a lavender pinwheel over his left eye. Program tabs hugged the circular perimeter of his Heads-Up-Display: Map, Notes, Contacts, Charge, Messages, Wetware, Web, Cave, and Special. The gentle thrumming of his active sensorium filled his head.
Gethin stood, naked but no longer feeling it. The reflective basalt created a glassy doppelganger under his feet, like a reflection in a crimson pond.
The screen flashed. “You have been cleared for checkout, Mr. Bryce, at your convenience. Do you wish to order replacement luggage? Wyndham Supplies has 89 percent of your registered inventory in stock, and will gladly send them to whatever address you designate. Your insurance policy will cover the expense.”
Gethin shook his head. A black robe was hanging from a hook; he garbed himself in it, slid his feet into its black magfiber slippers, which, like all Lunar footwear, bonded molecularly and magnetically with the floor to counter the low-G. He went to the door, placed his fingers on the handle.
And hesitated.
He had left Earth – a youth in London, a career and marriage in Athens – to become a Martian. He would be returning as a virgin creature.
“Wyndham Save advises you to have a calm, relaxing week while you adjust to your reconstructed body,” the voice told him. “You should avoid stressful encounters as much as possible.”
Gethin grimaced. “I’ll try.”
Then he left the room.
* * *
Luna was the most successful colony in human history.
Almost right from its founding in 84 NE, the moon had become the symbol of humanity’s new ascendancy, the tangible achievement of a species
that had shaken off the radioactive dust and made a long-delayed return to the stars. Spearheaded by Earth’s new zaibatsu in the first years of the trilobed Republic, seedling colonies sprouted in the gray Lunar desert, spread their glossy petals, and attracted a hive. The mining camps were first to come, followed by swarms of industry, commerce, and tourism.
Luna still bore the cultural fingerprints of its founders. Even Tanabata City, long the mixing bowl of Sol system, sported the circular doorways of Han Dynasty China, the Thai fondness for gold on stairwell rails and storefront awnings, and the distinctly Japanese minimalism of rock gardens offsetting lobbies of jet-black granite. There were even aeroponic greenhouses that exclusively grew cherry blossoms, to be carted off to the many atriums of New Tokyo, Tiangong Palace, and Zhejiang.
Yet Gethin felt like a dazed pharaoh, of all things, as he emerged from the red-lit recovery chamber into the center’s lobby. The black robe clung loosely to his body like funeral cerements. It was an odd, giddy thought:
Egyptian Osiris himself, renewed and ready for the afterlife’s endless delights!
The lobby bustled with forty other people wearing black robes. They looked like he felt: disheveled and glassy-eyed, a dispossessed band of resurrectees grappling with their born-again life. Some were chatting to friends via comlink, or typing on virtuboards. Most, however, were transfixed by the overhead holopanel showing the leading news item.
VG Flight 3107 on approach to Tanabata City, beginning its descent…
…and then a brief splash of light, the shuttle vanishing into debris like slow-mo footage of a rupturing balloon.
The image was suddenly interrupted by vivid blue letters:
DURING YOUR RECOVERY
The human brain is the most complex device in the universe. While regen technologies can replicate your neural pathways with perfection, the fact is that brain balance doesn’t restore immediately. This is nothing to be concerned about. Your biochemical and neuroelectrical levels will balance themselves. Typically this happens within just a few days of regeneration. Think of it as jet lag. A week of good rest is all it usually takes.
The practical consequence of this is you may experience excessive tiredness or hyperactivity, fits of hunger or sexual energy, moodiness, emotional imbalance, dizziness, nausea, fever, itchiness, numbness, depression, or excitability. This is perfectly normal in most cases and will pass. Allow your body and brain to find their balance.
Thanks for choosing Wyndham Save, and welcome back! Your life is waiting for you once again!
The advisory vanished, replaced again by the looping shuttle explosion.
Gethin went straight to the lobby’s narrow security booth. An unpleasant-looking Wyndham officer stood there, blocking the doorway with his bulging Teutonic body. His wide mouth twitched in the whiskery tangle of a golden goatee. Gethin could practically smell the Wasteland on him.
“Make sure you have everything you need from the recovery room,” the guard barked. “You won’t be allowed back in.”
Gethin looked him over, from ID badge to shoes, and comfortably held his hostile gaze. “Tough day for you, is that it?”
The guard’s face turned purple. Over his shoulder, the lobby of the spaceport was a mirage through tinted glass. Gethin watched spaceport foot traffic shuffling about. He noticed, too, that just on the other side of the door stood three Faustian monks. They were unmistakable: long flaxen hair, sleeveless tunics displaying circuitboard tattoos, and glowing amber eyes of their acolyte class.
“I’ve told them to keep away,” the guard said sullenly, following his stare. “Port security should be here any minute.”
Gethin nodded absently. Behind him, a young girl emerged from a recovery room, looked at the others, and burst into tears.
Gethin sighed deeply, took a breath, and left the facility.
Instantly, the crowd beyond engulfed him. Live-journalists eager for the story, news of the shuttle accident having drawn them here like worms to a corpse. A glance was all they needed to match him up with the passenger manifest. Not that the black robe left any doubt. His public history would follow in a speed-of-light instant.
“I’m declining all interviews,” Gethin said, making sure they heard the severity of his tone. IPC regulations revoked web privileges for up to three years if a citizen journalist harassed someone. “But see Officer Fran Allaire over there? He sent me out to explain that he’s now taking your questions, and will arrange one-on-one sessions with the other survivors on a first-come basis.”
In a whoosh they were gone, crossing the distance to the befuddled security officer in seconds.
The three Faustian monks remained. One nodded amicably at Gethin.
“Nicely done, Mr. Bryce.”
Gethin smiled coldly.
“Keep your distance from me,” he warned, his grin as welcoming as a sickle.
The monk studied him. “We have been waiting for you, Gethin. We have a special message that will help you during all that is to come.”
“I doubt it.”
Gethin ducked into the nearest department store. He took the escalator down one level and bought a gray-hooded reversible jumpsuit and satchel. He changed into the jumpsuit right there in the store, stuffing the regen robe into his new bag, and then hopped onto a people-mover. Pulling the hood down to defy any patmatching gazes, he melted into Tanabata’s Southern Wing of bustling markets and shoppers.
He found a little café shaped like a Buddhist temple. Hastily, he grabbed a curtained booth in the back and collapsed, breathless. A smiling Japanese waitress took his order for coffee; he paid with a tap of his fingertips on the shaded tabletop.
Gethin opened his HUD and accessed the blueweb. Flight 3107’s explosion was, unsurprisingly, the top story. Three A-list actors were among the deceased, returning from Mars for the filming of Cry of an Alien Midnight. Big names too – press favorite Salvor Bear, Gong Li IV, and Angelica Shivanand. The women were already resurrected, but Bear’s absence was now the lead headline:
BEAR ESTATE CONFIRMS: NO DC ON FILE. WILL NOT BE RESURRECTED
Gethin skimmed past this and hit pay dirt. There was a breaking companion piece to the shuttle explosion story: officials were reporting an accident at a Prometheus Industries lab just seconds before 3107’s explosion. Two employees were confirmed dead, and there was rumor of a survivor.
Coincidence?
Gethin smiled for the second time that day. His drink arrived and he sipped it eagerly. It was the first drink of his reborn body, outlining his esophagus in a hot trickle and pooling into his new stomach. The porcelain cup burned his fingertips slightly.
Cool blue lights flashed in Gethin’s vision, signaling the arrival of a message.
For an instant he thought it might be Lori. But she was all the way back on Mars. Did she even know of the accident yet?
Would she care?
He opened the message with an eyeblink. The blue-and-gold header of InterPlanetary Council official letterhead unfurled in his optics.
TO: Gethin Bryce
FROM: Lt. Donna McCallister, Colonel Leon Tanner
DATE/TIME: 07/18/322, 0507 ET
SUBJECT: Welcome back
ATTACHMENT: CodeKey Shiva
MESSAGE: Anomaly
Gethin glanced around the café.
“Anomaly?” he whispered.
He hadn’t investigated one in nine years. He’d even figured that the IPC was done with that nonsense.
Except this one wasn’t nonsense. Gethin promptly forgot about his coffee as he began reading the attachment.
Not nonsense, he thought.
This anomaly had killed him.
Chapter Two
The Wastelander
Celeste Segarra didn’t think the heist would be easy.
From the remains of an old concrete divider that in time
s past had been used to separate lanes of highway, she waited in her CAMO suit on the road’s western side. The dawn sky was a witch’s brew of overcast, bubbling clouds spilling from the south, and the suffocating humidity gave the world a glassy residue. Grass burst from cracks in the divider, bees darted like fuzzy choppers, and moisture turned the corrugated steel garage ahead of her into a glistening dome.
A bee hovered by her ear, sensing her but unable to see through the CAMO’s real-time optic camouflage. She swatted at it; to an outsider, it was as if the bee were walloped by the unseen hand of Zeus. It skittered across the asphalt and twitched. Then it flattened into a yellow pancake under the invisible shoe of her nearest squadmate.
We have the advantage, she told herself, and hoped it was true. She noticed the pale orb of Luna between clouds, like a cold eye studying her.
Celeste felt damp moisture where she breathed against her facemask. She closed her eyes and her squad appeared like green phantoms, arranged like trapdoor spiders on both sides of the overgrown road.
There was no longer any doubt that the missiles were real. Celeste didn’t know what resources King D. had tapped to locate the buried antimatter mill of the old Carolina coast, yet she was no longer surprised by such things. The man had a way of ferreting out data. And all under the Republic’s greedy little nose.
A sound like thunder caught her attention. For a second she worried that it was real thunder – weather reports promised rain. Celeste was gambling the attack could be carried off before her entire camouflaged team became visible in a downpour’s outlining splashes.
But the thunder was coming from the garage.
“Get ready,” she whispered, and the subvocal command transmitted instantly to her squad. The steel portcullis over the garage’s entrance lifted in a rattling cacophony, and two men in forest fatigues jogged out, automatic rifles cradled in their arms. They both wore dark green caps and black boots. One was a grizzled, hawk-faced guy who passed so close to Celeste that she could see a pimple where his ear wasn’t covered by wooly gray hair. His boots crumpled a patch of sun-blanched grass as he went.