by George Wier
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The nanites, which according to Hague were supposed to rebuild and heal, had apparently changed their demeanor as well. What Hank and I witnessed in Nunez's cave was an assault—an invasion.
As the two grappled, fingers of sand flowed from Nunez and into every orifice in Hague's head, beginning with his eyes, nose and ears. When he opened his mouth to scream, what had once briefly composed the meat of Nunez's mummified yet now very alive body, flowed in, even while Hague flailed at the monster of sand. The susuration sound became a chant which seemed to say “why, why, why” ad infinitum, but was probably no more than tides of nanites attaching every inch of Hague's exposed flesh.
“Are we in danger?” Hank asked.
“I don't know,” I replied.
Hague collapsed to the cavern floor where he writhed and fought his losing battle.
“I can't watch anymore,” I said. “Let's get Keithley out of here.”
By the time we had Keithley to his feet, the battle in Nunez's cave was over. The sudden quiet stopped us.
There was nothing left of Bertram Hague. Even his clothing was gone.
Nunez reformed before us, turned to face us.
The mouth opened. It spoke in that rockslide voice.
“That one,” Nunez stated, and pointed at the sleeping form of Keithley with a finger composed of scintillating dust, “has been repaired.”
“Well, that's ever so nice of you,” I stated.
“But we... are dying,” Nunez said.
Hank looked at me. He shook his head, as if to say: 'You talk to it, Bill. I'm not sure I can.'
“We're sorry,” I told Nunez.
“Must... destroy... the signal.”
“I can't help you,” I said.
Hank let Keithly back down gently to the cavern floor. He stood beside me.
“When you repair a... person,” I asked Nunez, “do you stay in the body? Or do you leave.”
“Leave. Always leave. Find... another.”
“What about the men who died? Freeman? Logan?”
“They were... not us. They were... the others.”
“Daniken,” I said. “Daniken's nanites.”
“Yes. The others,” Nunez stated.
“For a mummy, he sure talks a lot,” Hank said.
“Brief,” Nunez said. “We exist... so brief.”
“Time is like that,” I said. “It's that way for all of us.”
“Yes,” Nunez said. “We begin to die... now. Little time.”
Hank put his hand on my shoulder. “I can help him, Bill,” he said. “Or them. Whichever it is.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I have to try. I have the explosives right outside the cave. It's prima cord.”
“I thought you told Patrick you had no explosives. You told me all you had was brown rice and a gun.”
“I told Deputy Kinsey I had no dynamite. Prima cord is not dynamite. And you. I forgot to tell you about the rest. An oversight, that's all.”
“Oversight.”
The sound came again; the sound of sand seeking it's own level. Sand poured from between Nunez's ribs onto the cavern floor. And then the husk of the conquistador tumbled backwards to lay near where it had before.
“Neat trick, that,” Hank said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Come on, let's get this guy up and get out of here.”
Hank stood there and faced me. I could tell from his own demeanor that he had something else in mind. And whatever it was, I knew I wasn't going to like it.
“You heard him,” Hank said.
“Who?”
“The mummy. The nanites. Whatever it was. You heard what he—or they—said. We can't just let this go.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. But I knew perfectly well what he meant.
“You know exactly what I mean. Bill, I can read you like a book. I've always been able to.”
I waited.
“Alright,” he said. “If you're going to be Mister Cool-Calm-And-Collected, I'll tell you what we're going to do. First of all, for the moment, this is the safest place for Keithley to stay. That is, until he can walk under his own power. Second, he's going to need someone to stay with him. That's you.”
“Now you wait just a minute there,” I said.
“No. You wait, Bill. I'm not finished. I'm the explosives expert, remember? And I don't want you anywhere near the stuff I've got out there. And I do have the stuff. I have what it takes to take out that core.”
*****
In the end, I allowed Hank to be himself and to do what he felt he had to do. I told him about Hague's secret entrance into the plant. He went and retrieved his pack and moved by me without a word. Before disappearing around the narrow passageway, he paused, turned to me and dropped me a wink and a smile. And I didn't like that grin. Not one damned bit.
I stayed with Keithley. It wasn't an easy thing for me to do, given my nature to fly into the face of anything and everything that the world has to throw at me, but I stayed with Keithley and listened to him breathe. It was a restful sleep and a strong one, and I restrained myself from attempting to rouse him.
I then did something that is most completely not in my nature to do. I did the unthinkable, the downright despicable.
I waited.
And what seemed like forever after, my cell phone rang.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
My cell phone rang its rap tune and I hoped to God it wasn't Julie.
It was Hank.
“Yes?” I said.
“I'm at the core. The place is deserted. I think he's bugged out.”
“No doubt,” I said. “I would have turned tail and run, myself.”
“Give me a few minutes here,” Hank said. “I want to check something.”
“Fine. I'll hold on right here.”
I heard a grunt and then a clanking noise over the phone.
Then Hank swore. I imagine that the phone was on the floor a few feet away from him, but I still heard it.
“Well, all in a day's work,” Hank said after another moment.
“What is it?” I asked.
The silence stretched out.
“What is it, Hank? What are you going to do?”
“I'm going to blow this place sky high.”
“I know,” I said. “But before you do, you've got to pull some fire alarm or something. Anything to get the rest of the workers out of the complex.”
“There's one close by,” he said. “Don't worry. I'll pull it on my way out the door.”
“How long can you set the charge for?”
“Sixty seconds. Now, ordinarily that would be plenty of time. Only—”
“Only what?” I asked.
“Only, there are these damned storage tanks of liquid oxygen. They're all underneath the core. I picked up one of those floor tiles and looked beneath. I'd thought it was one of those false floors. It is, but it's not a crawlspace down there. It's a basement. And there are three... six... twelve of the damned things. About five hundred gallons each. Even the smallest charge I have would be enough to make at least one them go up. And if one goes, they all go. And in that event—”
“No,” I said. “Hank, you'd never make it out of there in time. I can't let you do that.”
“And how are you going to stop me?”
I tried to swallow the sudden lump in my throat.
I lowered my voice, making it soft and quiet. “By asking you kindly not to. Because, truth is, I need you. I need you to watch my back. You're the best partner a guy ever had.”
“I know,” he said. “But I have to do this, Bill. I can't let this place go on doing what it's doing. It isn't right. I can image an outbreak of zombies. I'm not right if I don't stop it.”
“I know what you're saying,” I said. “But—”
“No. No buts. This has to be done. And I was made for this. All that work to come back from the... to come back. I'll do my best to get clear. I promise. I
don't see how I can, but—”
“You'll do your best,” I said.
There was a momentary pause. Too long of one.
“Don't say anything else,” Hank said. “Especially don't tell me goodbye.”
“I wouldn't dream of doing so,” I said.
I waited.
“Thank you, Bill,” he said. “Thank you for letting me come along. I was right. You did need me. Take care of Dingo for me. That is, if you have to.”
“I'll do that,” I said. “If I have to.”
“Now if I were you, I'd duck and cover. Sixty seconds and counting. From... now!”
The phone went dead.
Keithley was still unconscious. I knelt over him, covered his body with my own. I tried to think. I tried to see the interior of the complex with my mind's eye. I tried to see Hank Sterling, the new Hank Sterling, running hell for leather for an exit. But I couldn't see any exits.
The sand sifted down into the hole from above, sprinkled my head and back, worked its way into my shirt. Were there nanites in the sand? Maybe it didn't matter. According to Hague, they were supposed to be all dead or dying. In a way, Hank was possibly saving them.
“Run, Hank,” I breathed. Beneath me, Keithley moaned.
Then the Earth shook and Keithley and I were thrown into the air and tumbled from the far wall of the cave down to the floor.
The roof groaned. I glanced upward to see the stone shifting. Chunks of rock rained down around us.
Then came the sound—a series of reverberations moving over and through me.
And I watched as the large chuck of rock directly above me came loose and fell. For the life of me, I could swear that it fell slowly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Shaking. Shaking in the darkness. But there was light in the darkness. Bright light. The shaking continued.
“Mister,” a voice said, and the voice could have been spoken through a mattress held against a radio transceiver on the far side of the moon.
“Mister,” again. “Say, Mister. Wake up, alright?”
I opened my eyes and was met with a shaft of intense sunlight directly in my eyes. I blinked away brightness and dust. My eyes slowly adjusted.
Missouri Keithley's eyes were fixed on mine. He was hunched over me.
“Mister,” he asked. “Who are you? And what am I doing here?”
I tried to raise my head but then pain washed over me, did unpleasant things to my vision and to my stomach.
“Take it easy, Mister,” Keithley said.
“Help me up,” I croaked to him and tasted blood and dust. I tried to feel my head, but when I moved my arm it hurt something awful. I hurt... but after a moments assessment I found it wasn't broken. To the side of me was a stone of perhaps twenty pounds in weight. Had I deflected it with my arm? I couldn't remember. I touched my head, felt the pain of broken skin under my touch.
“Okay, then,” Keithley said. He took me by the other arm and began pulling me up. I did the best I could to help him, but it was slow going.
I stood on shaky legs and peered ahead of me into the brightness of morning. The way out of the cavern was clear, the roof having collapsed to reveal a blue sky. To the west stretched the illimitable West Texas and Southern New Mexico desert. But I was eager to see what there was to see behind us and above. I had to find Hank Sterling.
“Help me out of here, Mr. Keithley,” I said.
“You know my name!” he exclaimed. “I don't know why, but that makes me feel a little better. You can imagine my shock at coming awake in a cave in the middle of nowhere. What's today?”
“I'm not sure,” I said, and I was telling the truth; I wasn't sure. Not one damned bit. “Later,” I said. “I'll answer all your questions later. I think maybe I can walk, but all I can feel in my legs is hurt.”
“That's funny,” Keithley said. “I've never felt better. I wonder what my doctor would say. He told me I had six months to live and wanted to start me on chemotherapy, but I told him to get stuffed. You know, I made a list of all the things I was going to do before I died. I was going to go skydiving, I was going to write a book—”
“Mr. Keithley,” I said. “You sure talk a lot.”
“I do!” he said, and laughed. “Why, I sure as hell do.”
I have no idea why it struck him as funny, but the white-haired fellow laughed uproarously and even slapped his leg. And then I realized that it was maybe because he could laugh.
*****
There wasn't much left of the facility. Mostly there was a large crater and a tremendous amount of damage. I invented a word on the spot: blastage. All there was, was blastage.
There was no way that Hank could have survived.
I climbed down and into the wreckage. Twisted metal, broken and mangled plumbing, a billion pieces of concrete and incongruously-shaped and unidentifiable metal.
“Oh, Hank,” I said into the stillness.
I turned and looked up and back behind me. Keithley stood looking down at me, his hands on his hips and a smile on his face. The sonuvabitch whistled some tune. Of course, he had no way of knowing about Hank. He had no clue as to the lengths Hank and I had gone through to find him. But he sure struck a pose up there with the sun behind him. Keithley's silhouette appeared iconic.
I came upon a section of wall that looked virtually untouched. I walked around it and discovered it was a cube of some sort, about eight feet in height and slightly over three feet thick.
I stood there, regarding it, and tried to think what it could be, or of what it could be composed. It appeared to be metal of some kind, or possibly high-impact plastic. I shook my head. Any plastic would have disintegrated from the blast and any metal would be pitted or partially melted.
I wrapped a knuckle on it and the thing rang like a bell.
A second later there was a corresponding thump that reverberated into the stillness of the desert.
There was someone in there.
I wrapped it again, hard.
I heard a voice then, muffled yet insistent.
“Hank?” I shouted.
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
I recalled a North Texas jail cell and a certain drunk banging on the inside of the cell door.
“Hank!” I shouted. I don't know why, but my voice broke and my eyes were blurry. Possibly it was all the dust.
The surface of the cube lost its lustrous sheen. The light wind etched away tiny fragments of it, and for the life of me, I could swear it was all sand.
At the last Hank's hand busted upward through the wall. I grabbed his fist and held it. My God, but that hand was strong.
“Bill? Get me the hell out of here,” he said.
“Patience,” I said, quietly. “Patience, old friend. You're being hatched.”
We waited, our hands locked. And there came a moment while I held his hand that the walls of the cube fell into a cascade of nothing but white desert sand.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“He saved me, Bill,” Hank said.
“How far did you get away from the core?” I asked.
Hank hung his head for a moment. “That's just it,” he said. “I knew there was no way to get out of there alive. I ran as far as the other side of that clump of trees in the center of the complex... and I guess there I stopped. It seemed like a good spot. Sort of like a little jungle. I jumped into the middle of those trees and waited.”
“Waited to die, you mean.”
“Yeah. But then this wall sprang up around me. I was fully enclosed before the explosion came.”
“You said 'he'. Who saved you?” I asked.
“That conquistador. Or maybe it's supposed to be 'they'. The nanites. I didn't see him, but I knew. It was the same feeling I had in the cave when that mummy... Well, I guess you know about that, too.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But you don't seem overjoyed by being alive. Why?”
“Because,” Hank said. “Somewhere along the way I lost my phone.”
I laugh
ed. “The small androids saved your life, but they didn't save the big Android.”
Keithley stood beside us where the desert hard pan met the Sand Hills. “What the hell are you two talking about?” he asked. Keithley frowned at us in disbelief, as if the two of us had just escaped from a mental institution. In a way I couldn't blame the fellow.
“Mr. Keithley,” I began, “can you say a few words in Spanish for me?”
He turned to look at me even more strangely.
“Spanish? Spanish, did you say?”
“Yes. Spanish.”
“I never did learn a word of it, except maybe 'tamale'.”
Hank laughed at that and I couldn't help but join in.
At that moment we heard the whirring of helicopter blades. A look to the east revealed what looked like the chopper that had dropped us off the night before.
“The cavalry,” Hank said. “Always late, but thank God for them.”
And when it circled overhead a familiar face was there. Patrick waved and we waved back.
The complex security guard came walking up at that moment. He was covered in sand.
“Do you fellows know what happened?” he asked.
“Are you alright?” Hank asked him.
“I—I'm okay, I think. I was on the other side of the parking lot when the place went up. It knocked me down and I think I was out of it for awhile. But I'm... alright, I guess. First, all these guys came running out, and one of them was yelling 'Abandon ship!' Then Daniken came right after. He never said a word. He just went flying through the doors like the hounds of hell were after him. I was sitting there wondering what to do or who to call, when this guy,” he gestured to Hank, “he comes running out and says maybe I should leave. Then he runs out and I don't see anybody. So I wait a bit. And the damned fire alarm went off! So...”
“You abandoned ship,” Hank said.
“Damned right I did. What went wrong?”
“I think,” I said. “There was a small explosion in the core that set off the liquid oxygen.”
“Yeah,” Hank said. “I think that's pretty much what happened.”