by Xander Boyce
“We need to figure out where we’re going.” Drew broke the silence, looking at the sky, “I think it’s around 1600, so we’ve probably got a few hours of daylight remaining. Water, food, and shelter are the priority in that time.”
Katie nodded her head as she looked up the hill, “Base Exchange then? It’s the only place nearby that we’re going to be able to take Sarah.”
Drew followed her gaze up the hill as well. The exchange was only slightly larger than a small convenience store, but it would have food, drinks, and spare clothing. “Other option would be to see what we can grab from cars.” He gestured towards the parking garage next to them. “It’s closer, and we wouldn’t have to move Sarah as much.”
“We could, but I think it’s a better long-term move to go to the exchange. We might not find anything in the parking garage, especially with how few people were in the building when it happened.” Katie turned again and sized up the hill: it rose a couple hundred feet, and the grade was steep.
Drew glanced at the garage--there were only a few vehicles within, mostly from people that found it easier to store their extra vehicle here than somewhere within the district. The odds of them finding food beyond their own vehicles was minimal.
“Well, I have a gallon of water and a 72-hour kit in my car, but you’re probably right, we’re gonna need to raid the exchange either way.”
About halfway up the hill, they switched and Drew carried Sarah. The open nature of the terrain made them feel more comfortable that no pressing attacks were forthcoming. “It’s weird. It’s been a couple of days now, and yet...everything looks like nothing happened. There are no crashed cars, no burning buildings. Look at Arlington; it’s the same as it always was, just quiet.” The hill they were on afforded a decent view of the Potomac from the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to the 14th Street Bridges, centered around the Dulles Airport.
“What’s been happening out here while we were inside?” Drew mused as he pulled Sarah up the hill.
“Do you always talk when you exercise?” Katie asked with a half-smile, but when Drew glared at her, it morphed into a full smirk. “Who knows?” She looked out at the quiet city so different from the loud, busy 5 o’clock traffic that normally beset it. “Holy shit,” she exclaimed, as a turtle surfaced in the river. It was hard to tell from this distance, but it looked to be as big as some of the airplanes near it.
It pushed itself along the river for a few seconds before sinking back down under the water. Now that she was looking, she could see several other gigantic turtles. She had previously taken them for hills, but they were sunning themselves on the riverbank. “Well, that’s...disconcerting,” Drew said as he caught sight of the creatures as well, drawn to look by Katie’s exclamation.
It took them thirty minutes to crest the hill and make their way around to the other side of the building, where the entrance to the Exchange was. The building itself was four stories, but the exchange only took up a portion of the bottom floor, and Drew had no idea what was on the upper floors. A barber shop and dry cleaner took up a portion of the lowest level of the building, completing the three staples of military shops.
The front doors were locked, but a single hit from the new and improved major acid dart was enough to eat away at the lock and allow entry. Katie set Sarah down and built walls around her, protecting her, while they went off to ensure it was safe.
The inner section of the building had a small landing before turning left into the barbershop. To the right were bathrooms, and straight ahead was the Exchange itself. Katie summoned a new glowrock, these ones being much brighter than the earlier ones, and handed it to Drew, both of her hands returning to grip her spear.
Drew held it up high. The Exchange only had a few windows, and in the dying light, it was filled with shadows. He had never realized how dark it was without the ever bright fluorescent lights to illuminate everything. The doors into the exchange were locked by a chain. Another acid dart opened the lock and the clanking sound of the chain being pulled off the door and dropped filled the noiseless atrium ominously.
“Probably more rats or cockroaches if anything; hopefully, it’s rats,” Drew said, as he pulled the door open. Without a weapon, and without Mitch’s enhanced melee blows, there wasn’t much they could do against cockroaches.
The Exchange was somewhat large and divided into four different parts. Directly in front of them in the front right section of the store was the electronics and hardware section. Going clockwise around the store was the coast guard branded civilian clothing section, the uniform item section, and then the convenience store area. Glancing around the room, Drew threw a couple of the old glowrocks into the various corners, waiting to see if anything responded to the intrusion of light into the semidarkness.
With a glance at Katie, who shrugged, they moved forward, heading to the food area. Finding nothing, they began moving less cautiously until they had cleared the entire Exchange. Drew found a broom and took a moment to knock the dropped ceiling tiles down so that nothing could be hiding up above them. They did find several regular spiders, which Drew killed with the broom handle, not wanting to take any chances on them becoming mana twisted while they weren’t watching.
The next hour was spent clearing, using the toilets, and then eating what Katie sarcastically called, “a very nutritious dinner” of jerky, nuts, and warm sprite. Then they began the process of fortifying the area. Katie summoned walls to block off the windows and door, while Drew raided the clothing area for bedding. They made a spot for Sarah on the most comfortable bed they could make for her. Drew had cast refresh on both of them again, and they both changed into clean clothes, giving them a sense of revitalization, they hadn’t had since the advent.
Katie moved to block off the last window at sunset, the hill providing them with a great view to the west where the dying light tinted the city in gold. When it finally set, and the city turned dark, Katie started to block the window.
“No, wait. Let's see if there are lights anywhere.” They stood at the window and watched for thirty minutes before Katie shook her head.
“Nothing.” She raised the wall and they retreated to the two chairs they found, placed near Sarah, Drew casting refresh on her sleeping body.
“So, what do we do next?” Katie asked. Sarah’s state was still pretty much the same...slow, shallow breathing. They had given her some liquids earlier while they ate, but they didn’t have any way to give her more substantial nutrients.
“Well, we need to find where the rest of the people are. I think our best bets are going to either Bolling or McNair,” Drew answered, glancing towards the now-blocked window. Fort McNair was hidden by the slope of the hill they were on, but Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling was across the freeway from Coast Guard Headquarters where they were, and it was one of the places that had remained dark.
“Either way, we’re going to need a better way to transport Sarah. Or wake her up,” Katie responded, looking at her silent form. “I don’t really feel like dragging that litter all the way to McNair.”
“Yeah, but I guess that leaves another question: what do we do if there’s no one there?” Drew didn’t say it, but both were thinking it. What if there was no one anywhere? “I need to check on Zoey. I know logically that she’s probably dead, but I need to make sure either way.”
“I don’t have anything I really need to do, but I’d like to go home and get some things…” Katie trailed off with a shrug, “I live in Kingstown.”
Drew nodded, “I’m right near the Air Force Memorial in Arlington.” Sort of opposite directions. To get to Katie’s, it would be better to go south and take the Woodrow Wilson bridge west into Alexandria. Whereas for Drew’s, it would be faster to go northwest across the Frederick Douglass Bridge and into DC proper before crossing the Potomac on the 14th Street Bridges. Both were on the other side of the Potomac though.
“Well, what are our transportation options?” Katie asked, trying to break the problem down.
&nb
sp; “We can try to find an old car, something from...I dunno, the 70’s or earlier? I’m not sure when they started using electronics, but an older car would probably still work. The other alternative is a cart? Maybe we can find a horse?” Drew shrugged, “And what do we do with Sarah while we are out looking for transportation?”
“The Commissary on Bolling would have shopping carts, but the loading dock here might have something better than that media cart you used,” Katie offered.
“Commissary would be a couple hours there and back at least, while the loading dock is a possibility. That would be a short trip.”
“But not one with a guaranteed result. Worth a stop though since it’s on the way.” Katie was using a brush to untangle her hair as they talked; days of fighting with only the replenishing rain to clean had left it a tangled mess, but she paused for a moment. “I’ll have to stay here with Sarah.”
Which meant Drew would have to go out alone, “Yeah, we’ll need you to seal it up again and we shouldn’t leave her alone, just in case she wakes up.”
“Here, slot the gravitas, it’ll help you get over the highway faster,” Katie said, pulling up her interface and giving the xatherite to Drew. “Should probably slot that and the mana sight, might help you see anything dangerous.”
“You sure?” Drew asked, looking at the two xatherite. He then traded metallurgy and heat shield to Katie, “Here, take these. That way we each get two. We’ll owe Sarah.” If she woke up, otherwise they couldn’t risk losing the xatherite.
Katie said, “Wait, where are you going to slot them?”
“Gravitas in the constellation with storm; hopefully it will give me a gravity storm spell. It’s the only linked skill I can think of.” Drew says glancing at the grid. “Maybe something with mana guard, but I don’t think that’s really likely.”
“As for mana sight...I can combo it with either blink step or mana guard and blade barrier. I don’t see any of those last two creating a linked skill. So, it’s kind of a tossup, I guess. Whether I want to try to complete a constellation or go for an improbable linked skill with blink step.”
“You’re probably right for gravitas; gravity storm sounds useful. I can’t think of anything for mana sight either.” Agreed on his course of action, Drew cast refresh on Katie again, “Bedtime.” He laid down next to Sarah and slotted the two xatherite, confirming the prompt as everything then went dark.
Chapter Seventeen — Sight
Drew awoke to a world vastly different from the one he had previously known. He remembered the day they’d bought his father color correcting glasses, allowing him to see the reds and greens that he had never been able to see before. He had been in sheer awe at what he had been missing, and this was like that.
He spent seconds just looking around him, amazed at all the things that he’d been missing. His jaw was slack as he watched the ebb and flow of mana in millions of different colors that he had no names for.
Katie laughed behind him and he turned to look at her. Lines of color were radiating away from her, creating an aura or nimbus around her. He stared, not really seeing her, just the light around her. The colors were present everywhere, but they seemed to twist when they got within a few feet of her, pulled into her body as they disappeared. Her body seemed darker and less real than he remembered. Most of her aura was blue, with different shades of purple and green acting as secondary colors.
“You look like you’ve never seen a girl before,” Katie said with a grin.
“I’m not sure I have, everything is different,” Drew said, looking away from Katie to glance at Sarah’s prone form next to him. Her aura wasn’t as bright as Katie’s, and the predominant colors were different: oranges, yellows, and greens all swirling in equal number, but like Katie, her body itself was devoid of the color granted by his new vision.
“How long was I out?” Drew continued to look around; underneath them, he could see massive white lines of mana flowing through the Earth. The movement was like watching rivers flow, several of them converging and creating a glowing light directly under the building they had just escaped from. Another, larger line surged out of that node, and from there into DC proper, joining with other lines and then splitting chaotically. It created a vast, intricate web. Every point seemed to fill with light and then when it was full, passed it forward into other lines and nodes. As he looked, he realized that sitting in the middle of all the various webs was a single node that didn’t have an outlet. He couldn’t tell exactly where that node was, but it was many times deeper than any other node he could see.
“A long ass time. Sun rose awhile back. What the heck are you staring at?”
“Mana, I think. I can see these lines under us. They converge under the HQ building and then head into DC, and there is one massive node there. I’m guessing that whole knot is the central nexus, and it’s huge.” Drew stood up with a groan, his body stiff from hours of inactivity.
“Cool. Well, your turn to be on watch, I’m going to slot heat shield.” She laid down on the spot Drew had just vacated. It was only as she did so that Drew realized she had changed clothing again, out of the ODUs she had been wearing and into a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt. She had been pretty in uniform, but she was beautiful in normal clothing. He blinked at her. “You know, it’s really not polite to stare,” she said with a grin and then grabbed her head in pain.
“Mother fucker,” she grunted but remained conscious. “Cast refresh on me please, I don’t think I’m gonna get to sleep, just feel like I have a migraine.” Drew wisely kept his laugh to himself while he created the hand seals to cast the spell on her.
Katie grunted and sat back up. Then she smacked his leg, “Hey, what was that for?”
“Because of how stupid you were to slot blink step in the middle of a fight,” Katie replied, “How did you even stay awake?” She rubbed her forehead and shifted a few feet back so that she could lean against the wall.
“I don’t think I did,” Drew said, as he went in search for food, “You want anything?” He asked, grabbing a bag of chips.
“Chocolate, dark.”
“Nuts?”
“God no.”
Drew laughed, and he grabbed some M&Ms and candy bars for Katie while he grabbed three ravioli packages in a microwaveable bowl and a spoon. Not that he had a microwave, he just wanted something more solid than snack food. Handing Katie the chocolate, he popped the top on his ravioli and began to eat it cold.
Katie gave him the weirdest look, “Men are so gross.”
Drew shrugged, “First real food I’ve had in a week, even if I have to eat it cold.”
They ate in silence for a few moments, Drew getting lost in the new colors around him. His eyes never really stopped moving as he tried to take in everything. He glanced over at Sarah, then back at Katie, who just shook her head with a sigh.
“I can tell what colors your xatherite are with this sight. Well, I have a hard time distinguishing between the indigos and violets, but I think that’s just my refusal to acknowledge they both aren’t purple.”
Katie frowned slightly. “Well, that will be helpful if we encounter any other humans, and it might hold true for the other stuff that has been mana twisted as well. Oh, I know.” She hopped up to the wall with the window looking out to the southwest, unsummoning it with a thought, “Can you see the turtle’s aura?”
Drew looked out the window and frowned, “No, I can see the ley lines, but anything past about 50 feet, I can’t see the mana around.”
“Right, there was some sort of range limit on it right?” Katie asked.
“15 meters, yeah.” He looked around again. Outside, the mana seemed to flow in a normal pattern, pulled slightly towards the node in the basement of the HQ building. But he realized that the sun was already a quarter of the way through the sky, “Let me try out gravitas a bit and then I’ll head out. I’d much rather do this with lots of light to spare.”
He shifted to a spot where there were no pipes in th
e ceiling and then activated the spell. Unlike all his other skills that were always at full power, he could sense how to change the potency of this one, and a slight change in his intention turned it from negative to positive gravity. He also realized that he couldn’t change the direction the gravity was pulling from; it was all either straight up or straight down towards the center of the earth, and thus his hopes of being a windrunner met an early death.
Drew’s first mistake was using it on himself instead of an object near him; his second mistake was that he activated it at full negative power, which meant he fell to the ceiling at half speed. It didn’t hurt him, as he slowed himself with his hands and then rolled into the ceiling. A feeling of disorientation overcame him as he looked down at Katie with his back against what felt like the floor. He frowned; he needed to get to the floor before the spell wore out or he’d fall at full speed the entire ten-foot distance.
Changing the force of the spell to negate all gravity on him, he floated down away from the ceiling for a moment, lost in freefall. He pushed gently against the ceiling and floated down parallel to the floor until he was eye level with Katie.
“Having fun?” She asked with a grin.
“A little,” he said, reaching out a hand to her, “Hey, hold me against the floor for a second.” Katie grabbed his arm and he shifted his body so that he was oriented with gravity again, and then let the spells manipulation equal zero. “Okay, more than a little,” he said with a grin. He had just flown on his own, eat that Wright brothers! Well, technically he had fallen and floated, but that was close enough.
“You wanna try?” he asked Katie.
She laughed and shook her head, “No thanks, maybe if we find another one and I can control it.”
“Yeah, that’s fair. It would’ve been much scarier if I wasn’t in control.” Drew frowned, pulling up the spell again, “Oh, can’t use it on other people anyway, only myself and inanimate objects.”
“Try making my shoes heavier,” Katie said, “That would be a huge advantage in a fight if you could make it so Chakri couldn’t dodge or make a weapon twice as heavy to wear them out faster.”