“Sometimes,” said Margaret, “I hate you.”
We moved slowly, unwilling to use stealth mode and drain our last cells, but hoping we’d see anyone before they saw us. The forest was silent. Only the sounds of our feet, which crunched through a centimeter-thick layer of icy crust, broke the quiet stillness, making me realize just how silly it was to try and hide when we made so much noise. The forest ended less then a kilometer from where we had rested and we stood behind trees, shocked at what lay before us: an infinite field of destruction. Russian armor and APCs littered what looked like a frozen swamp, with stands of cattails bending under the weight of ice that clung to their ends. Smoke still billowed from the vehicles. The popping of ceramic plates sounded in the distance, their noise like firecrackers, which made Margaret and me flinch with each snap, and thousands of Russian bodies lay strewn in the snow, their armor shattered from flechettes or molten from plasma and thermal gel. Margaret was about to sprint out and I grabbed her.
“Their fuel cells, Catherine,” she explained.
“Not yet.”
And we waited. I don’t know what forced me to make that decision, maybe some premonition carried over the snow in a cloud of smoke, but we were about to break cover when we saw something move; it was far away, and almost immediately disappeared among the tanks. But it came again—then from other spots, more than one shape, slipping among the wreckage. The figures flicked in and out of sight, any one hard to see, but eventually different glimpses formed an image in my mind of men and women, covered from head to toe in what looked like padded clothing and who stopped only for a second to snap off fuel cells or gather weapons from the dead before disappearing again.
“They are so fast,” Margaret whispered.
“Snowshoes. They’re wearing snowshoes or skis.”
A flight of drones appeared out of nowhere and we saw the people dive under wrecks or bury themselves in snow, so that within seconds they were invisible. I flicked to infrared. Nothing. Whoever they were, these were humans trained in how to disappear and we watched in fascination, almost forgetting to take cover when the missiles and bombs fell, scattering snow, ice, and ceramic across the frozen swamp, sending shards of armor to embed themselves in trees. Within a few minutes the attack ended and we waited before seeing the people emerge again, continuing to scavenge. One finally came into clear view and I zoomed in to get a better look. A thick kind of fur hat protected his head and face with a flap that wrapped under his chin and over his nose, leaving only a pair of thin eyes exposed. He stopped. The man appeared to stare directly at me and then whistled so that the rest of them disappeared again, melting into the wreckage. We watched each other for a minute before I stepped into the snow, into the open, and held up both hands to show I was unarmed. At first he stood there, frozen. Then the man started a fast glide toward me, pushing off from side to side on thin skis. My heart pounded. I heard Margaret start to pull her pistol from its holster and stopped her with a glance before the man finally stopped, barely three meters in front of us.
I lowered one of my hands and waved with the other one, shocked when he waved back.
“What now?” I asked Margaret.
“You tell me. We might not have a lot of time before another attack. Who are they?”
The man cocked his head at the sound of our English and said something I didn’t understand, but Margaret stepped forward and answered, speaking something that sounded like Chinese before she turned.
“They’re Korean.”
“What are they doing here?” I asked “Unarmored?”
“They want us to come with them, and he says it’s not safe to stay here. I’ve explained we’re escaped American prisoners.”
I didn’t want to go. Not with them. These were humans and although the Atelier lessons had included the Koreans, all the Asian nations, and their wars, it was different to see one in person for the first time and feel his stare, an expressionless unblinking one. Unreadable. Margaret must have seen my hesitation and threw up her hands.
“What else are we going to do, Catherine?” She turned back to the man and said something else, conversing with him for a full five minutes before finishing. “They said the Chinese haven’t arrived yet but they will, either from the south or out of the west, but that they won’t bother them. They’re friends with the Chinese. Just like they’re friends with the Russians.”
“Is that why the Chinese just attacked them?” I asked.
“Catherine, you know those were drones. They can’t tell a friendly unit unless you’re wearing a transponder.”
Margaret was right. There was no other option; we’d revealed ourselves to them and even if we ran now we’d freeze to death in the open once our fuel cells finally drained, and one death was just like any other so what did it really matter? I pushed into the snow, moving toward the man, who motioned to the others. Within seconds they had surrounded us. The Koreans carried Russian weapons, probably ones they had just stolen, and trained them on our chests as the man took our pistols, then pushed Margaret and me southward, toward Chegdomyn. Their pace was relentless. One group sped ahead on cross-country skis, pausing every once in a while to wait for the remainder who guarded us; by the time we reached a road I had begun to see stars from exhaustion and the act of pushing through snow—deeper now that we had moved into the open—made my muscles scream. I wanted to lie down. At that moment if someone had offered to kill me I might have accepted the fate, but the road offered an easier path, one on which our feet didn’t sink too deeply, and soon the agony faded a bit, allowing me to catch my breath. They pushed us through another small forest, and then over a half-ruined bridge that crossed a frozen river; on the other side, a rusted sign declared in Russian that this was Urgal. But it wasn’t on my map display, and soon I understood why.
A thin steel cable ran through rusted pipes that had been driven into the ground on either side of the road, and hanging from the cable at regular intervals were small signs. Faded. Ice and snow covered most of what remained of old paint and lettering, but enough was there to see the radiation warning symbols, and almost at the same instant the warning beep came alive inside my suit. A dosimeter began reading my exposure. The Koreans didn’t have dosimeters or armor, but they sped up, pushing us even faster, until we reached the other side of the abandoned village where the radiation beacon flickered out. We continued south across an empty field, indescribable in its breadth; here and there large tree stumps sticking up through the snow suggested that a forest had once existed but had long since been conquered. The radiation and trees retaught another lesson we had absorbed in the tanks, described to me in more detail by Misha: that the Asian wars had gone nuclear, and had spilled over into Russia.
Ten minutes later the group led us into Chegdomyn. They pushed us into a low hut, most of it underground except for the roof, and then tossed us a pair of Russian fuel cells before saying something to Margaret and shutting the door.
“They said to stay here and to not come out. Or we die.”
Almost as soon as my helmet hit the cold earth, my eyes flickered, and I whispered. “Why would they kill us now?”
“Not them. The Chinese will be here soon and if we’re seen, they’ll kill us. He said they may already have forward observers in the town, sent from Khabarovsk.”
This time, I never felt the nightmare coming.
They needed a forward observer and there were no humans available. We would infiltrate. Megan and I crawled through Pavlodar’s rubble, moving down into craters and then up the other side on our bellies, flinching at the sound of aircraft booming overhead, their wreckage littering the rubble with blackened metal that fell without warning. The shaft of a broken water tower was close now. One hundred meters. Then fifty, and a few minutes later we sat at its base. The Russians had established an aboveground defensive line, and our intelligence suggested they would soon move out from it for another push, coordinating with underground forces. Megan and I would help stop it.
/> “Are you ready?” she asked.
I slung my carbine. “Yes.”
We climbed the remains of a ladder, hand over hand, careful to ensure that we moved slowly enough to evade motion sensors, watching power levels drain more quickly when our chameleon skin activated. It took us ten minutes to reach the top. Fifty meters up we crawled out onto a sheet of bent iron, its edges jagged as though God had reached down and torn it to pieces, where we lay still and watched.
The Russian positions extended for as far as we could see. Their forces had massed on the northeastern edges of the city, tiny figures in black armor, who, from this distance, resembled worker ants. Before radioing in, we mapped the positions, marking plasma cannon locations, APCs, and troop concentrations; our fingers moved quickly over forearm controls to lock in the data. After we sent the report, we had one last job: to wait. As soon as the enemy began to move out, we would call in the artillery and retreat to our underground position.
Megan was hard to see. The chameleon skin made her outline shimmer, as if she were an optical illusion, no more than a distortion in the air next to me so that this time I had to reach out and touch her. To make sure she was real.
“I am here,” Megan said.
“It’s strange.” I shook my head and scanned the line again.
“What?”
“Us. The only time we get time to be alone is when we cannot afford to pay attention to each other.”
Megan laughed quietly. “This is war, Catherine. Sometimes I wonder if you are human, the way you think and talk. We have but one purpose. ‘To serve him and—’ ”
“ ‘And to kill any enemy who stands in our way, any who block the path of His holy word,’ ” I finished the scripture for her and sighed. “They show no sign of moving out yet.”
“This bothers you?”
Clouds had gathered overhead and the suit temperature indicator had been dropping steadily since we came topside. I shivered. “It will snow soon. This will cause trouble.”
“Why?” Megan asked.
“Because it covers everything, conceals the true nature of things, making it all seem quiet and peaceful when there is no such thing. Snow is deception.”
I sensed, rather than saw, Megan turn toward me. For a moment she was silent. “You are not like us, Catherine. There’s something special, maybe better than us, as if you’ve been chosen for—”
But they came before she finished. First we heard, then felt, the booming of their cannon, containment shells screaming just over our heads to illuminate the rubble well to our rear with plasma. Russian APCs roared to life. Like a wave of black dots, the lines move forward, toward us, and I froze, unable to think in the face of such a massive force. Megan slapped my helmet. She had already reported the attack and I hadn’t even noticed the sound of our artillery tearing the sky above us, hurtling into their lines to explode in white hot hemispheres of plasma, turning into beautiful greens and reds as the heat dissipated.
We didn’t bother to move slowly. As we slid down the ladder several of them locked onto our movement despite the chameleon skins, so that Russian tracer flechettes snapped past us or pinged into the tower’s structure, sending a shower of sparks over our shoulders. We ran. Several times I slipped and fell, the vibration of artillery and Russian APCs making the ground shake as we did our best to scramble over rubble and wreckage. After we made it to the airlock, I popped my helmet and tried to kiss her.
She pulled away. “Not now.”
“Why?”
“We are under attack, Catherine!” And with that she stepped into the elevator, motioning for me to follow. “Later.”
The elevator banged its way down the shaft while plasma artillery impacted on the rock above, but the motion put me to sleep because it was important to rest any time I could, and when it finally reached the bottom, Megan had to shake me—to get me to wake up.
“Catherine, wake up!” Margaret had slid the locking ring open and began to pull my helmet off when I pushed her away.
“I’m awake.”
“They’re here. The Chinese.”
I sat up and reached for my pistol before remembering it wasn’t there, and then looked where she pointed. Megan had opened the door a crack, letting in a fierce wind and making me grateful for the armor, but through it we saw a portion of the street outside where a line of Koreans stood at rigid attention. They looked cold. Zooming in I saw that some were women, and that one woman in particular wore several medals, which swung in the wind, clinking under a flag that flapped so wildly it looked about to rip free from its wooden pole.
A line of Chinese soldiers faced them. At first I thought all of them wore armor, similar to the powered suits I had seen in the laboratory at Zeya but more sleek, and not as large, the carapace a deep green with a single red star on its shoulder and the faceplate half glass, a thick mirrored gold. But one wore nothing except a uniform and winter coat. The shoulder boards indicated he was a general, but above the collar began a horror of skin, its surface mottled by hundreds of scars that fused, one into another, making me wonder if I looked as terrifying as he did. The general approached the woman with medals, and they hugged.
“Smallpox,” Margaret whispered.
“What?”
“The scars on the Chinese general’s face. I’m guessing smallpox. All of them probably have it, a strain that everyone is worried will one day find its way out of China and into the world. It mutates incredibly fast and is resistant to all antibiotics; that’s why they imposed such a strict quarantine on China.”
“How do you know of this strain?”
Margaret turned to look at me. “They taught us this in the tanks, full training on biochemical defense and recent data on information obtained from sources inside China. You didn’t get this?”
“No,” I said. “We didn’t get that. Unless my mind has eroded to the point where everything is beginning to fade.” Which was possible, I thought. Even as I spoke I felt the threat of hallucination lurking on the edge of my mind, and I reached over to Margaret’s belt pouch, unsnapping it to remove another tranq tab, my hands shaking so badly that it was difficult to pop my helmet. How much longer until my life became one long dream? Even my hatred of men seemed to have faded, for as I looked at these ones I felt nothing, searching the Korean faces for something that would spark it, reignite the one thing that had kept me going for the past year—maybe for as long as I had lived. But nothing came. These people were different, subdued, and what I could see of their faces, which was mostly the eyes, suggested a level of suffering that equaled mine, and none of their expressions reminded me of our creators. And the Koreans had women in their ranks. Real women, who hadn’t been manufactured and who carried weapons, their narrow eyes exuding the same resolve for which I now searched. There was nothing about these people for me to hate.
“Can you hear what they’re saying?” I asked Margaret.
“The Chinese are recounting a history of the wars in which their people have fought together, as allies.” Margaret waited until the Korean woman spoke and then continued translating. “She is saying that the Democratic People’s Republic lives, and will always come to the aid of their Chinese brothers and sisters.” Margaret turned her helmet to the side, to try to pick up more, but then she sighed. “It looks like the formalities are over, and their voices are too low for me to pick anything up now.”
Their ranks broke then, and the Koreans led the Chinese away from us, down the street and out of view.
“What are they doing, Catherine?” Margaret asked.
“I can’t see them anymore, they’ve left.”
“Not that,” she explained. “I mean with us. Why are they holding us here and will they give us to the Chinese?”
I thought for a minute, trying to swallow the fear the question brought, and then shook my head. “Does it matter anymore? We have nothing left, Margaret, and I still believe in God. I don’t like him, but I believe in Him. Let’s see his plan unfold and deci
de what role we’ll play in it—decide for ourselves. This is the fog of war, and right now only He has a clear line of sight.”
We stayed in the hut for almost two weeks, watching Chinese troops and vehicles move northward through Chegdomyn, continuing their advance into Russia’s east. Every once in a while, a Korean girl visited us. Her name was Yoon-sung, and she delivered us food, and buckets to use for toilets, taking away the buckets that we had used for the previous two or three days. At first she wouldn’t look at us or speak, no matter how hard Margaret tried to engage her in conversation. But a month later Yoon-sung glanced at Margaret, who had popped her helmet to make her voice clearer, natural, instead of having it sent through helmet speakers. When she saw Yoon-sung staring, she pulled off her hood.
“Do you speak Russian?” Margaret asked.
Yoon-sung nodded.
“Why are you holding us?”
The girl’s Russian was hard to understand and heavily accented, but I caught most of it—enough to follow the conversation. I wanted to say something. But I feared that if I removed my helmet, my scars might suggest that I had been infected with smallpox, and I didn’t want to do anything that might end the discussion early.
“We are not sure what to do with you,” she said. “You are Americans, the first we’ve ever seen, but you are also our sworn enemies. Devils.”
“Then you will give us to the Chinese or kill us?” Margaret asked.
“We do not know. You are…” her next word sounded like Russian for artificial, something created, but I couldn’t be sure.
Margaret nodded. “Genetically engineered. We are not your enemies, and my friend,” she pointed at me, “has killed American men.”
“That is good,” said Yoon-sung. “We need fighters. In the spring we ship our stocks into Korea and the way is difficult. Our train will come under constant attack and all our Russians are gone now.”
“I don’t understand. The Russians would protect your train? What do you ship?”
Yoon-sung glanced toward the door and shook her head. “I must go. I will tell my superiors what you told me; it may help your case. But nothing will be decided until the matter has been investigated thoroughly and until after your trial.”
Subterrene War 02: Exogene Page 18