by CJ East
He needed to infiltrate while they were scrambling, get to the safety of the bio lab, keep moving inside the colony, culling the bad guys one at a time. He’d have to use the explosives in his condition. The C-9 blocks would still be in the tunnel, who would move armed explosives?
The dust came in waves of low visibility to complete red out. He continued to the location he expect to see the elevator, but could see nothing. Pulling back on the throttle, the transport inched forward. A few feet ahead he could see something large, a dark stationary shadow in the storm. He stopped. It was TED.
The robot was always stationed outside the elevator for emergency procedures. Like a faithful doorman, suited up and ready to go. The elevator would be straight ahead. Kinch parked the transport and jumped out.
Before Kinch could get his balance, the wind propelled him forward, slamming his bad shoulder into the transport. He winced and pushed himself off. He grabbed TED’s back wheel, leaned forward and walked along the side to his front.
Kinch paused and raised his helmet to see the elevator a few feet away. He looked up at TED’s light and media tower. “Wish me luck,” he smirked.
Kinch aimed, let go of TED and was blown toward the door, a calculated impact into the steel structure. He reached and pulled hard on the handle, but the door did not open. He positioned his body closer, thinking the wind was too strong, but it didn’t give.
He spun backwards and rushed toward TED. He walked his length and reached for the transport, staggering to the bed and retrieved the long pry bar. He retraced his route with slow plodding steps until he reached the elevator door.
The media on his visor flashed on with an incoming com link. Viktor Volkov’s cold, hard face smiled at him not three inches away.
Viktor’s thick accent boomed in Kinch’s ear, “It is of no use, Mr. McGrath. I have insured the elevator is locked and guarded. It was a good trick you used, yes? But your non-conventional decisions are the one constant which can be depended upon.”
Kinch felt his face flush red with anger. His right hand wrapped around the pry bar, working it back and forth.
Volkov smiled, “I abstained from the temptation to rebuild the environmental platform as you had expected and instructed Venkat to lock down the elevator and rebuild the media platform. I believed it imperative to tell you two very important pieces of information you simply must know.” Viktor paused for a very long time as Kinch looked from the elevator to where the transport would be. “Are you interested, Mr. McGrath?”
The muscles in Kinch’s jaw clamped down hard as he ground his teeth into each other. He parted his lips and spoke through his locked teeth, “Go on.”
“Very good, I’m glad I have your full attention. The simple reality is you are locked out. Both doors are closed, locked and guarded and all network security accounts have been suspended, including your Mr. Venkat Jarial - his allegiances came under question as did his speed. There is simply no ingress to this facility. You are, sadly, without hope. And that, my comrade, is, finally, check mate.”
Kinch’s mind pushed aside the contempt he had for Viktor and focused a wild search for a path forward. He stared past Viktor at the elevator, then down to the iron bar in his hands. Breaking in would kill everyone and they would be waiting. He was out of options, but maybe Viktor’s arrogance would give him one. Kinch lowered his gaze to the swirling dust of the Martian terrain, “You said you had two pieces of information, Viktor.”
“Ah, yes! Excellent. The second is, what you American’s say, ‘Head’s up!’ Good bye, Kinch.”
Kinch focused on Viktor’s face searching for clues to his riddle. Viktor nodded as a solid blow crashed into the back of Kinch’s helmet, sending his display into exploding flashes and propelling him to the ground. He spun on his back to see TED advancing, his single long arm recoiling for another blow.
Kinch felt the doors of his rage break open. Fury filled his heart, soul and being. He offered no resistance to the wave as he sprung to his feet and grabbed his pry bar with both hands, ignoring the burning pain searing in his arm. “Traitor!” Kinch screamed in primal rage.
TED swung again, a horizontal swath directed at Kinch’s head. Kinch pulled the bar down hard, catching TED’s arm in mid-swing. The clash creased the end of TED’s metal arm into an upward ‘V’. Kinch shifted his grip closer to the midpoint of the bar and jumped onto TED’s front deck. His wild eyes flashed at the media tower. “After all I’ve done for you. I trusted you!”
Kinch reared back and brought the bar crashing into TED’s tower. He brought it down eight more times until TED’s tower was torn, crushed and ripped apart.
Kinch stood on the deck of the destroyed robot, his head down, shoulders heaving as he hyperventilated. He felt hot blood running down his left arm inside his suit. He heard the scraping of the sand on his visor and his tired panting as he raised his head and looked into the howling nothingness to his left and his right. He had never felt so much alone. He had never felt so small and empty.
He staggered to the transport, the bar skipping on the rocks behind him, threw the bar in the bed, and slid into the seat. The wind roared around the transport, rocking it as Kinch listened to the white noise of the storm.
TED stood before him, laid to waste beyond repair. “I’m sorry, TED.” As Kinch spoke, his voice cracked and a wave of hopelessness and despair rolled over him. The transport swayed into reverse and headed in the direction of the far Cliffs of Orestes.
He hoped the wind would blow away his tracks. He knew no one would follow. The dam of the boy’s resolve broke open wide and poured out into the empty, swirling red dust.
Exile
The transport jostled a slow plodding over the occasional hill and ravine. He stared vacantly into the storm, dispassionate about the few feet of flat dust he could discern. All connectivity to the colony had been severed, even the guidance system of the transport.
He had been driving for hours in the general direction of the largest geographical formation in the area. He had no idea why, other than to be in motion. His soul was crushed, defeated and humiliated. But some training long ago forced him onward, surviving even when he was dead inside.
Events had all happened so fast, he reflected. A spasm caught Kinch, and he coughed like a man held under water at the recollection of the murder of Jeff and Sully.
Jeff knew Kinch’s background and knew his life was near isolation within his guild. He had been so kind to him, helped the boy, and taught him how to relate to people within a civilian team. Sully mentioned Jeff had lost his son to a drug overdose. Kinch felt honored to fill the void.
Sully was not jealous of the relationship. The colonel had other intentions. Kinch thought of Sully’s explosive laugh, contagious and loud. He had served with his father and told Kinch heroic tales. A few of them had to be true, pieces of his past his Grandfather never mentioned. Sully said he owed many debts to Nial McGrath. He would settle his account with his son, Cullum McGrath.
Kinch coughed again, wishing he could wipe his nose. He missed Sully’s laugh, his directness, and, most of all, the self-assuredness of always knowing what had to be done. Kinch snuffed forcefully.
Sully did make good on those debts beholden to the McGraths. He extended his credibility to get Kinch into the Mars program. The guild was anticipating problems at the International Mars Colony and needed an inside presence to deter any escalations.
Kinch’s Grandfather sat him down and explained the opportunity to serve the country and the guild as a robot tech. Kinch could tell it was important to his Grandfather.
Anticipating the need, Kinch taught himself his first computer language in a week with a ‘Dummies Guide’ he lifted from a shelf at the university. Excited to learn, he found the language rudimentary, not as complex and robust as Latin or Greek. He expected it to be much more difficult. There was no nuance at all, the syntax was simple, present tense command memorization with some basic math.
Robotics was a little more d
ifficult, but vastly more interesting because of the interaction with the physical world. He excelled at the skill. Building wasn’t inventing anything after all, he was assembling pieces and writing commands for it to follow. He planned to show his Grandfather and Sully he could do what was required before they even asked.
When Sully came to the farm for the first time and explained to Kinch the position and the requirements, Kinch shocked both men buy demonstrating a miniature bot he had created with parts pilfered from the university labs. He remembered his Grandfather had looked at him strangely, as if frightened of something. Sully had laughed his open, hearty laugh, pleased with it all. Sully later told Kinch his Grandfather’s first description of him - “Obedient, brilliant and deadly.”
Kinch was familiar with the guild’s political warrior archetype Sully followed. Sully dealt in the commodity of favors, kept order and even intimated physical consequences to those outside the warrior guild in order to press the guild’s interests. The political warriors were the protectors of the guild. Sully was grooming Kinch for a bright future.
Kinch tightened his eyes, heartache burning through his chest like lungs full of hot coals. Sully did not receive a warrior’s death. It was appropriate to mourn the murder of these two men now the battle was over.
He had lost the two people he had allowed to get close to him since he lost his parents. Now everything was lost.
Kinch let his left arm drop from the steering wheel. He felt the caked blood crack in protest. How much blood had he lost? It didn’t matter, he thought, he was drained bone dry.
The storm was raging now, visibility was zero. More out of curiosity than need Kinch flipped on the external lights. It made no difference. Only a red-black moving river of dust, the color of old, dead blood, could be seen through the windows.
“My friends did not abandon me,” he said aloud to the elements of Mars. “They were afraid.” The silence he heard echoed through his suit. It felt as if silence and isolation was surrounding him and closing its grip. It sounded like death.
“Sashenka did not cower. She fought, she was willing to be destroyed for the others. She was right, too. I should have detonated those explosives, it would have been better for the others. They would have had freedom.” The words pushed back the silence.
Kinch tried the voice activation of his system, “Music on.” The Dropkick Murphy’s wailed through his suit speakers. “Johnny Cash, shuffle.” An abrupt change occurred with an acoustic guitar and a low, baritone voice as it started a haunting tale of “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town.”
The transport plodded forward for hours through the storm with a few feet of visibility. Kinch stopped scanning the windows. Seeing nothing but deep, red darkness, he resigned the transport to decide his fate. He was asleep when the transport careened down into the ravine.
The transport flipped onto its side, then again, until it rolled onto its right side. Kinch moaned, hanging from a seatbelt. He twisted his legs from under the steering column and strained squatting on the opposite door. Releasing the belt, Kinch threw open the door above him and straightened himself through the opening. He could see now, the dust storm had past, leaving isolated rivers of wind blowing tributaries of rust swirling overhead.
He pulled himself onto the toppled transport and reached his hand up into the blowing current. Dust sifted down into his hands and floated into the protective eddy of the ravine.
To his back the ridge rose above him a few feet, but ahead he could perceive distance and depth. Ahead was a long, pale shadow stretching across his field of vision. The Cliffs of Orestes waited in front of him, three times the height and length of Ireland’s Cliffs of Moher.
Kinch surveyed from left to right, no details could be seen through the haze of blowing dust as he attempted to grasp the enormity of the landmark. He remembered his Martian geography - over 2700 feet tall and 15 miles long, it consumed half of the horizon and was miles away.
A faint excitement sparked deep in his cold soul. He stood silent taking in the view for he knew not how long, for time was irrelevant now. There were no hours, minutes or even seconds of importance at the pending doorstep of inevitability. All of the distractions and desires of his troubled mind had melted away like heated wax. He had only one focus, one purpose for his existence - Orestes.
One last meaningless goal, one last hollow achievement to crown his failed and purposeless life. He would be the first to lay his hands on this amazing structure and claim it as his own. If possible he would scale it - conquer it.
He searched the ground from his height in preparation for a last journey. The three aluminum oxygen canisters were strewn throughout the ravine. He brought up his visor display. It flashed, popped and protested into operation. He turned off the music and checked his environmental stats. The oxygen gauge showed canister A was empty and B was at ten percent.
He looked past the oxygen readout in his visor and spied the six foot iron pry bar. It would help him flip over the transport. He leapt down and leaned the bar against the transport. He removed the first canister from its protected slot on his back and flung it aside. He left the B for primary use, replaced the spent canister, and sought out the remaining two.
When he rounded the transport, twisted angles pulled his eyes to the undercarriage of the vehicle. The bottom front wheel was crushed under the weight of the transport and the front axle was bent to the breaking point.
He laid a disappointed hand on the mangled underside of the transport. His life expectancy was now cut in half, requiring twice the amount of oxygen walking as riding. Orestes would not be scaled, but Kinch would shake hands with him, make peace with him, and rest at his feet.
He dug through the cab and the bed looking for useful articles for the remaining three hours. A coil of wire was pushed aside, the iron bar could be used as a scout stick, its chiseled point and weight useful on the long walk. He’d take a pack for carrying the two canisters, but tossed aside the supply kit and food and water rations. The suit couldn’t be opened in the near-vacuum of Mars, debasing the value of food and water to be as worthless as Confederate dollars and gold.
Kinch crested the ravine, adjusted the shoulder straps of his pack and took in the enormity of the sprawling cliffs which crowded out the land and sky. It was beautiful, like the painted landscape of the American Southwest. He rested his metal clad hand on the top handle of his bar and felt small in the sweeping grandeur of this magnificent dry corpse of a planet. He stepped forward in the direction of his fate.
Sand
With each step Kinch took, his goal seemed more attainable and his steps grew lighter. He could focus on the practical, the work at hand. The oxygen canister at ten percent capacity had been exhausted and replaced. In his suit he had loaded an hour and ten minutes of oxygen. One additional hour carried in his pack.
Kinch halted and thrust the iron pry bar deep into the rocky terrain with both hands. He concentrated with keen eyes, passing through the bar to a thin, dark wall of rock forming a small underline to the bottom of Orestes. He focused to the left side of the marker as his destination. He sidestepped around the bar and looked backwards to the trail of stacked rocks he had left every ten minutes. The cairns were small pyramids about three feet high purposed to track his progression along a straight line. The closest three of the seven could be seen. He sidestepped back to his position behind the bar facing the cliff. Yes, he would make it if he stayed on this dead reckoning path.
“Dead reckoning,” he laughed to himself. A twinge of dark humor captured his mind as he threw himself forward towards the goal. The slow lie of lessened expectations would carry him through to the end.
He could see the long dark line of his destination and decided he would not to build a cairn when he passed the next ten minute interval, he would not wander now from the destination. He relaxed his focus and looked to the sides. The cliff walls stretched to the horizon in both directions.
His thoughts wandered back to Earth, to hi
s home. The news of global war was yet to be assimilated into his reality - was there still a home? Was his grandfather alive? He had mourned Sully and Jeff, but did he lose his grandfather too?
Everything was lost now - the Earth, Mars, his life - almost. Why was this happening this way? The empty feeling he had covered over with the activity began to invade his mind when he thought of next steps. The abyss swallowed him whole as he relived every mistake he had made in last few hours. He was responsible for the disaster which had unfolded.
If only he had done more help to Sully when he had come to him, he could have joined him then. Why didn’t he listen to Sashenka, about humility and just doing what you are told? At least he wouldn’t be sentenced to death out here.
If only he could have controlled his anger by not killing Hong Li, anger which put Sashenka in jeopardy. His entire life of training pointed to the decisive moment with Hong Li and he had fallen short. He let everyone down. His failure sentenced his friends to living under a dictator. A monster who had murdered Sully and Jeff.
He pulled the iron staff from its deep lodging, set his gaze on the cliffs and started forward. The terrain was a desolate rocky field, worn smooth by the millennia of storms and temperature extremes. Ahead in the distance a ten foot rock stood in solemn witness of the desolation.
It would be a good resting mark - respite from the long march. It was a mere 20 wards from his course, and there was no need to follow the plan now. He was within a line of site, the objective was tangible.
As he approached the rock, he could see it was warn smooth. “Ichabod,” he thought, “the old Jewish name for the glory of the Lord has departed.” As he approached he turned his iron staff with the bevel upward in his right hand. Of course there was no danger near a dead rock on a cold planet, but he was the soldier he was trained to be.