This Is the End: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (7 Book Collection)

by Craig DiLouie

  “Mulligan?” Andrews reached over the center console and shook the sergeant major gently. There was no response; he was out cold.

  “Guys, I need a hand up here!”

  Laird appeared almost instantly. His hair was wet, and he wore only a mustard-yellow T-shirt and his duty uniform trousers. He had apparently just stepped out of the small shower in the rear of the SCEV.

  “What the hell happened?” he asked, bending over Mulligan. He put his fingers against the bigger man’s neck, feeling for a pulse.

  “He just passed out,” Andrews said, unbuckling his safety harness after setting the rig’s parking brake. He pushed the seat back and got to his feet, crouching over the center console. “He still has a pulse, right?”

  “Yeah. I guess that means he’s really not a robot,” Laird said. He unfastened Mulligan’s harness and supported him when he slouched forward. “Hey, Sergeant Major! Can you hear me?”

  Mulligan made a small groan, but didn’t respond in a meaningful way. Laird looked over at Andrews.

  “Looks like a concussion,” he said. “Or maybe worse.”

  Andrews didn’t like that. Everyone onboard knew first aid, and both Leona and Kelly Jordello were qualified medics, but a brain injury was something they were ill-equipped to handle.

  “All right, let’s get him out of here,” Andrews said.

  ***

  It took almost an hour for Law to extract SCEV Four from the collapsed building that had encased almost half the rig. Law had thought for certain he was going to perish in the collapse; even though he had slowed his pursuit of SCEV Five to avoid being crushed to death beneath the mass of the small office tower as it pancaked, several upper floors had suddenly tilted over, falling directly onto the street. Law had thrown the rig in reverse immediately, but the vehicle had been caught inside the debris field’s leading edge.

  Remarkably, he survived.

  More importantly, so had SCEV Four.

  It took time to back the rig out of its near-tomb. Reversing, advancing, reversing again, the big vehicle shuddered as its tires sought purchase in its bid to retreat from the wreckage’s embrace. Finally, it did just that, and bright sunlight lanced through the dust covering the vehicle’s viewports as debris rolled off its snout in a small avalanche. Law continued to back the SCEV away from the mound of rubble until it sat in the middle of the next intersection. Only then did he relax and roll the engine condition levers to IDLE. The twin turbine engines slowly spun down to a low whine, and Law knew it was absolutely miraculous that they hadn’t ingested debris and destroyed themselves.

  Shapes surrounded the idling vehicle, approaching cautiously, fearfully. Law watched them draw near, and he chopped the fuel to the engines, shutting them down. Cool air whispered over him courtesy of the vehicle’s environmental system, and he sat where he was for a time, taking a moment to simply luxuriate in something he never thought he’d inhale again—clean, purified air.

  He unstrapped himself and pushed the pilot’s seat against the bulkhead, then left the cockpit. He cycled open the inner airlock and stepped inside the small room. The inner door closed and, after a moment, the outer clamshell doors opened, rising on well-oiled hydraulic rams. Law squinted at the harsh, unfiltered sunlight that greeted him, inhaling air tainted with dust. It was a warm day, almost eighty degrees now, and he pulled a filthy balaclava over his head. Direct exposure to sunlight was no longer a good thing; since the nuclear detonations had virtually eradicated the planet’s ozone layer, it was taking Mother Earth quite some time to replenish it. Prolonged exposure to sunlight could result in all manner of vicious skin cancers, so Law and his family avoided it as much as they could. Indeed, those who walked to the base of the airlock stairs looked like extremely scruffy mummies, wrapped up from head to toe in thick cloth. Not even fingers or noses were exposed. Law pulled on the pair of dark goggles that hung around his neck and checked to ensure his gloves were tucked under the wrists of his jacket. Satisfied there was no exposed flesh for the sun to attack, he stepped down the small stairway as a tall, reedy figure wearing a patchwork of old military uniforms stepped forward to meet him.

  “Xavier,” Law said.

  Xavier nodded and looked past him at the towering SCEV. His eyes were unreadable behind his goggles, and after a moment, he pointed them back at Law.

  “Will you go after them?”

  “Yes,” Law said simply.

  Xavier looked at Law for a long moment. When he spoke, he kept his voice low. “I don’t mean to challenge you …”

  “Then don’t,” Law snapped. Xavier flinched slightly and stepped back. Law reconsidered his attitude an instant later and sighed wearily. “Speak your mind, Xavier.”

  Xavier swallowed, the action clearly visible behind the scarf he wore over his face and the hood covering his head. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why chase them?”

  Law snorted. “You know why, Xavier. No one outside the family is to be trusted. We’ve met outsiders before, and they’ve always tried to take what we have—murderers, all of them, half out of their minds, looking only to kill and steal and destroy anything that’s decent.”

  “They didn’t,” Xavier said softly.

  “What?”

  Xavier hesitated for a long moment. He was old now, but he was still a good soldier, and had served capably as Law’s second-in-command for quite some time. Even though he still had to be punished on occasion—everyone in the family had to be disciplined from time to time, and Law was hardly stingy when it came to inflicting pain—Xavier had studiously avoided doing anything that might upset Law. But as he grew older, Law had sensed a change in Xavier. While he had no desire to experience the fields of pain Law could inflict, Law could tell Xavier had reached a decision some time ago to stop living in fear. Law smiled beneath his balaclava. An admirable choice, but the man was still eager to avoid the pain.

  “They didn’t come to murder us, Law. They came here only for what they needed, things we had no use for.” Xavier’s voice was level, reasonable. Just the same, the others standing nearby slowly began to back away.

  “And what do think will happen if Andrews makes it back to this Harmony Base, Xavier?” Law asked. “He’ll report to his superiors, as any good soldier will do, and what if they don’t like what they hear? They’ll send a force back to destroy us. You know the code we live by, my friend—trust no one.” He waved at the SCEV looming over them. “And if they return in more of these, or machines capable of even greater destruction, then the family will fall.”

  “We have no proof they would do such a thing.”

  “No proof? How many brothers and sisters have we lost, Xavier? Forty? Fifty? That was just from a small detachment of these soldiers. Imagine what will happen when more of them arrive!” Law felt the rage boiling up inside of him, that festering fury that was always close at hand, the poisonous anger that his handlers had unknowingly unleashed during their operations. The drugs and selective surgery and the introduction of thousands of tiny, microscopic machines that reorganized his brain had made him at once more than and less of a man. “To them, we’re no longer men and women. We’re animals! That’s the mentality of Man, to destroy, to kill. It won’t happen this time. I won’t let it.”

  “But, Law—”

  “They destroyed the entire planet!” Law shouted with such ferocity that he feared he might damage his vocal chords. “Look around you, look at what’s left. We scrabble to survive here while they live in comfort, staying hidden for years until they were certain all of us had died. How many did they kill, Xavier? Billions! Billions of human beings died from that damned war, and now we’re next!”

  Xavier said nothing. After a time, he nodded slowly and looked down at the ground, his expression hidden beneath layers of protective clothing. Law stared at him, waiting for him to say something. He needed Xavier now more than ever, and he needed to get himself under control before he did something rash, something that could
n’t be undone.

  Xavier finally looked up. “What are your orders?”

  “Take two men inside. Remove all the food and medicine, the bedding, the water, anything the family could use. But be quick about it. I’ll need to leave within the hour.”

  “But how will you find them?” Xavier asked.

  “They need to return to their base as quickly as they can, so they’ll follow the same route they took to get here,” Law said. “Simple, really—I’ll catch up to them in the field and deal with them somewhere in the wasteland.”

  “And what will happen to us?”

  Law looked at Xavier for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he said, finally. “That will be up to you, Xavier. I’m leaving the family under your care. I intend to return, but I don’t know if I will. So you should do whatever you need to do to keep the family going. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Law. I understand.” There was a mournful quality to his voice that touched Law. He stepped forward and put his hand on Xavier’s thin arm. Xavier flinched at the contact, but Law held firm. He put his free hand on Xavier’s other arm and pulled him into an embrace. Xavier stiffened, but he didn’t resist as Law hugged him powerfully.

  “They’re yours to tend to, Xavier. I don’t think we’ll be seeing each other again, so lead them as best as you can. Be what I could never be. Be strong always, but also be what I never was. Compassionate.”

  “Are you certain this is the only choice we have?”

  Law released him and stepped back, motioning to the SCEV. “Get started,” he said, then turned and walked up the ramp and into the waiting rig.

  20

  As the sun descended and slipped past the horizon, SCEV Five made its way across the former state of California, picking its way across the Sierra Nevada mountain range, sticking to roads wherever it could. Day died and night was born, but the rig continued its trek, bumping along through the darkness, unimpeded by the utter blackness thanks to its array of infrared devices. By the next morning, the burly machine had descended from the mountains and accelerated across the mostly flat deserts of Nevada. It then turned on a southerly course, aiming for New Mexico, where it would cut a path across the lowest part of the Rocky Mountains. Once clear of the rugged spires of rock, the SCEV would change course again, this time northeasterly, where she would return directly to Harmony Base.

  It would take six days. If all went according to plan, the rig would deliver its precious cargo of replacement supports thirteen days after the Core had gone offline.

  Andrews oversaw the SCEV as it sped into the glowing gloom of another night, and he wondered how many more friends might have perished waiting for them to return. As the lights grew dimmer inside the base, as the CO2 scrubbers slowly failed, how many of the people he had known for the last decade had slipped away? None? A dozen? Fifty?

  Bathed in the cold glow of the instrument panel, he found he didn’t want to contemplate such things. Instead, he urged the SCEV onward, putting his trust in its computer systems to get them back to where they needed to go, to propel the hulking machine on the course they had mapped on their outbound leg.

  The cockpit door slid open behind him, and he glanced back as Rachel slipped inside. She handed him a cup, and it was warm to the touch. He regarded it in the glow of the instruments as she settled into the copilot’s seat and strapped herself in. She held a cup of her own.

  “It’s coffee,” she told him.

  He nodded and reached across the center console so he could squeeze her hand. “You’re the bestest, hon.” He was happy to have the caffeine. Shifts were longer now that Mulligan was out of commission. Everyone was already dog-tired from the voyage, not to mention the stress of dealing with Law and his people. Now that he had some time and distance separating him from the events in San Jose, Andrews marveled that several hundred people there had managed to survive. From the deformities he had witnessed, he knew Law hadn’t been idly boasting when he said the survivors were fertile. Even though Law was obviously a psychotic madman, he had done an incredible job of keeping his people alive over the years, scavenging whatever they needed from the corpse of the shattered metropolis. It was truly a commendable feat.

  Of course, that also included eating other survivors, he reminded himself. Viewed in that light, Law’s accomplishment seemed a little less warm and fuzzy.

  “How’s Mulligan?” he asked, sipping from his cup. The coffee was hot and bitter, so strong it was almost overpowering—just how he liked it.

  “Still out, but it looks like he’s in a normal sleep, now. Kelly’s keeping an eye on him.” She paused and shook her head. “Well, whenever Leona isn’t, anyway.”

  “Come again?”

  Rachel looked at him and rolled her eyes. “Babe, you really need to pay more attention. Lee’s got the hots for Mulligan.”

  “Eklund?” Andrews chuckled at the thought. “No way!”

  Rachel shrugged and sipped from her own cup. “I can’t imagine why, but it sure looks like it.”

  Andrews didn’t know what to make of that—the two most disconnected people in Harmony Base had somehow managed to find one another after practically living on top of each other for years. Well, at least Leona saw something in Mulligan. It remained to be seen if it was a two-way street, especially since Mulligan was twice Eklund’s age.

  That ought to be something to see.

  “Anyway, what are you going to tell Benchley about San Jose?” Rachel asked.

  “Everything we know. Those … people back there might not be what we were hoping for, but it’s a start. And Law mentioned something about survivalists from the north, so that’s something else we’ll need to look into—”

  A tone sounded suddenly, and the rig began to slow down. Andrews looked at the engineering display as he disconnected the autopilot and took control of the vehicle. He didn’t like what he saw—a gear chip warning in the number two differential. The computers had automatically disconnected the faulted system, essentially placing the system in neutral to preserve the complicated array of meshing gears.

  “That doesn’t look good,” Rachel said, looking at the same display.

  “No, it’s not,” Andrews said. “We’ll need to shut down and check it out. Without it, we’ve lost the center set of wheels. They’ll still roll, but they won’t provide any power, and that’s going to screw us up big time.”

  “We could get stuck,” Rachel said.

  Andrews nodded, slowing the rig until it came to a halt. “Yeah. And getting stuck out here would be a permanent duty station.”

  ***

  While they didn’t have Spencer’s skills to draw from, both Laird and Andrews had enough technical smarts to figure out what had to be done, assisted by the SCEV’s electronic system manuals. Rachel was able to pitch in as well; while her forte was not vehicular transmissions, she knew enough about them to be able to assist the two men as they pulled up the floor in the SCEV’s center compartment to gain access to the differential. When they opened the case, they found that one gear had been partially stripped. Fishing around through the fluid in the case, they were able to find a few fragments, but were unable to recover all of them.

  “It’s definitely FUBAR, Mike,” Rachel said finally. “I think we can still keep going, but we’ve got to be careful. Like you said, we get stuck now, it’ll be permanent.”

  Laird regarded the failed gear. “I guess there’s no chance of fixing this, huh?”

  “Not out here,” Rachel said. “We don’t have any spares aboard, and I’m not familiar enough with these systems to jury-rig something. If I blow it, we might wind up worse off than we are now.”

  “You know, I don’t think that would take a lot of doing,” Laird said. He handed the gear to Andrews, who turned it over in his hand. It was still slick with lubricant, but the metal around the stripped teeth was sharp enough to cut skin. He sighed and wrapped a paper towel around the warm circle of alloy and placed it in a drawer by the engineering station.
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  “All right, let’s button it up and get moving,” he said.

  “How much will this slow us up?” Kelly asked.

  Andrews sighed. “Well, we’re not going to be able to cruise as fast as we might, and we have to be damned careful about where we put the wheels. Getting stuck out here, especially in the mountains, would be a total bag of day old dicks. We’ll have to be on our toes for the entire trip, and that means we’ll have to take it slow.”

  “Mike, Harmony doesn’t have a lot of time left.” Leona looked at him with a grim expression that had nothing to do with the painful injury to her leg. Even under the numbing effects of the oxycodone Kelly had given her, she was still alert enough to understand the risks of arriving late.

  “I know that, Lee,” he said.

  “You guys are all tired,” she said, looking around the compartment. “Mulligan’s still out, but I can pitch in and help out.”

  “Not while you’re half in the bag from the pain meds,” Laird said as he bent over the opening in the compartment deck. He matched up the seals they had disturbed opening the differential’s casing and prepared to seal it up again. His hands were filthy with glistening, gray lubricant.

  “I’ll stop taking them,” Leona said.

  “Probably not an awesome idea,” Andrews said, looking over Laird at Kelly.

  Kelly shrugged. “It’s not like she’s going to be doing calisthenics, Captain. She’ll be in some measure of discomfort, but as long as she takes it easy and doesn’t tear open the sutures I put in her, she’ll be fine.”

  “I can deal with it, Mike,” Leona said.

  “How long ago did you take your last dose?” Andrews asked.

  Leona looked down. “Just before we came to a stop,” she said, which meant a little over an hour ago.

  He looked at Kelly. “How long until it gets processed by her system?”

  “Six hours, to be safe. It does tend to make her a bit loopy, but that’s an expected side effect for some patients. We can substitute it with acetaminophen, which won’t be as effective at managing the pain, but there shouldn’t be any side effects that could impair her performance.”