The Northern Star Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by Mike Gullickson

  = = =

  Aadil worked his way up toward the mouth of the cave. Kadir was somewhere behind him, but whatever interest the beast had once had in him had since passed. The crazed Tank Major mumbled to himself somewhere deep inside the catacombs.

  Aadil felt an air current—a good sign. He followed it upward, shuffling his feet to not trip over the dead. After ten minutes, he saw a faint light. He shuffled faster, and as he went, the dawn blossomed and the entrance to the cave became clear. He ran then, jumping over the bodies. He heard people yelling, faintly but clearly. They were yelling for Kadir.

  = = =

  Back in the recess of the cave, the walls acted like an ear canal, and the chants reached the Moldy Giant. He put down the pieces of his doll—she was impossible to put back together—and his face contorted when the boy whispered in his head, “Kill them all.”

  = = =

  Near the mouth of the cave, Aadil heard Kadir begin his ascent; he turned and saw a glow from the distant beams of his spotlights as the giant rose from the depths. That was enough. Aadil sprinted out of the cave to where he’d last seen Haq. He hoped Haq wasn’t dead. He was the only one who could stop what was coming.

  Aadil didn’t know how the Moldy Giant’s strength compared to Haq’s. He had always thought Haq was invincible, much like the wonderful delusion all children have of their fathers. But sooner or later you see something that proves otherwise.

  Everyone and everything can fall. It happens to nations, it happens to fathers, it happens to husbands and wives, and it happens to heroes. As Kadir howled and the boy’s voice told him to kill everyone, Aadil hoped it happened to monsters, too.

  Please, Allah, let Haq be alive.

  Aadil was a half-mile ahead when he heard Kadir burst from the cave. He turned back and watched the crazed monster zigzag through the buildings, blowing through them like a cannonball. Aadil quickened his pace through the alleys. His eyes were on the fresh wheel ruts that led from the collapsed house into town.

  = = =

  Haq’s father had been a great diplomat. Educated, articulate, and, most importantly, empathetic. He could relate to a beggar on the street as easily as he could relate to a president or king. Haq, however, had always lacked these tools; and right now he wished for them more than ever. He could hear Kadir charging into town, ignoring roads and leveling everything in front of him.

  Haq looked up and saw debris thrown hundreds of feet into the air like a fireworks display. A villager cartwheeled end over end along with it. The other villagers fled—except for the man who stood on top of Haq. He screamed for Kadir through a bullhorn.

  “What is your name?” Haq asked.

  “Quiet. Your time is near.”

  Far off, a woman screamed as Kadir trampled her.

  “What is your name?”

  The man dragged the tip of his knife down Haq’s cheek. “Kadir prefers dead bait. Maybe I should kill you myself.” He put the blade to Haq’s throat.

  “Before you do, tell me your name,” Haq said. He could feel the edge of the blade digging into his skin. One quick motion would end his life.

  “Tazeem.”

  “Tazeem. After you kill us, what will you do about the Coalition base attached to your shore?”

  Tazeem remained quiet, but Haq saw a shift in his eyes. He was listening.

  “They will continue to take your children. They will continue to kill your villagers at their whim. They will never let you leave.” Rage suddenly filled Haq. “They killed my sister, Tazeem! I gave them my life, and they took her from me! I will kill Kadir. And then I will destroy their base. I’ll end this.”

  Tazeem’s face hardened. “Kadir ate my sister. I’m not interested in your promises. How many lies come from men about to die?”

  The blade pressed harder. Blood welled. And then a gray blur ripped across the back of Tazeem’s head.

  GONG.

  Tazeem rolled off Haq, unconscious. And then Aadil—skinny, wonderful, frightened Aadil—was on top of the cart with a shovel in his hand. He threw it to the ground and worked on the tethers.

  Abdul Haq understood why Batrisyla had loved Aadil. He was kind. Haq had always known that, even though kindness had no value in his world. But reliability did. For the first time in over thirty years, a feeling—an emotion akin to affection—crept into Haq’s heart, searching for a warm place amid the squatting wreckage.

  Somewhere near, Kadir was coming, driven by insanity, and fueled by rage—but the feeling of hope in Haq grew, and it was all because of this little man who was frightened to his core, who should have cowered, who should have found a way home and lived out his insignificant life, but who had, instead, come back to save him.

  With great effort, Aadil placed Haq’s helmet on his head and clamped it tight. Upside down, Aadil looked at him, concerned.

  “Are you okay?” Aadil asked.

  Haq could only nod.

  = = =

  Kadir and the three others who resided in his head walked into the town square. In his hands he held two dead villagers he had sworn to protect. The mold on his body was a metaphor for his mind; the fog in this city, his lost judgment.

  He had come into town like a freight train, but now he moved more slowly, slightly confused. His one eye was glazed as if he was high. He didn’t remember how he got into town.

  WAKE UP, a voice thundered in his head. It was God. WAKE UP!

  It wasn’t calling to Kadir, but to the others who resided in his head. Kadir was ripped down by his own subconscious as the others pressed upward, the boy leading the charge.

  He saw his food stare at him from the alleys. They moved from one to the next as he walked into the square. Piles of beady eyes watched him from the houses. They reminded him of caviar, and he began to salivate. He would get to them soon. He had found the cart that made the wheel ruts. It was empty. Below it was fuel.

  = = =

  Haq had turned off his stabilizers to quietly slide around the buildings to Kadir’s back. He had just gotten out of the square when Kadir arrived. He immediately saw the damage to the giant’s leg; Aadil had told him of Renfro’s last stand. The knee joint, three feet wide and equally deep, was badly warped, bent inward and twisted, so that it caused Kadir’s right foot to pigeon-toe. The thigh was badly damaged too. Kadir was leaning noticeably on his left leg.

  In their moments before Kadir’s arrival, Aadil had devised a plan. Aadil would stay and light the explosion under Kadir. Haq would then come around and finish what was left. Haq didn’t like it, but he also knew he couldn’t defeat the Chinese Tank Major head to head, even with the damaged leg.

  Aadil would die. The explosion would be too great, and the wick too short. Haq didn’t say it, but when he looked in Aadil’s eyes, he saw that there was no need; Aadil already knew. Aadil’s eyes said something else, as well:

  Avenge Batrisyla. Avenge my wife.

  Haq and Aadil parted ways with a nod.

  Pressed against the wall, his heart beating wildly, the giant so close he could smell him, Aadil struck a match. Kadir immediately turned toward him. Aadil dropped the match into the stream of fuel that led to the cart—and ran.

  But he was too close. And when the fuel bomb detonated, he blacked out from the concussive blast that threw him down the alley, and he caught fire when the flames followed.

  = = =

  Haq saw everything: the match igniting, the Moldy Giant turning, and Aadil’s face—stern and without fear—as he dropped the match, assuring his own death.

  The fuel caught quickly. Before Kadir could run, the gunpowder and petrol had ripped a crater fifty feet wide—with him in it.

  Haq spun up quickly, the drive chains like some medieval invention, and he charged Kadir just as the giant pulled himself out of the crater.

  Kadir saw the American Tank Major charge, but there was nothing he could do. His right leg was gone below the knee. The armor and the stabilizer pistons had been sheared off by the one-armed Tank Major’s
attack, and now the explosion had gotten inside, completely decimating what was left.

  He raised his hands as Haq charged him. The kid in his head began to cry.

  BA-BAM!

  Haq’s hydraulshock evaporated both of Kadir’s arms and carried through to his chest. Kadir slammed to the ground and flipped over the crater. He landed on his stomach, facing Haq.

  Kadir looked up, and saw that his food had come out of hiding and into the square. The American giant walked around the crater and stood over him, his waist chains still spinning furiously, a sign of battle like the spread hood of a cobra.

  Haq had only heard Kadir over the military comm, but Renfro was right: whatever he had once been he was no longer. He was covered in mold; it ground in his gears like a lubricant. Even without Haq, he didn’t have long to live. A fate that cursed all of them, apparently.

  “I know you,” Kadir crowed. “You’re—” A strange tic stopped him from talking. His head stuttered as if someone were slapping the back of it. He shook it violently. “Let me speak!” Whatever craziness had tried to take hold, it now released him. “You’re Haa—Haaaq,” Kadir said. “Why are you here?”

  “Chao killed my sister, and he took a boy,” Haq said.

  “He took him back. The orange boy. The boy who should not be hurt,” Kadir said. He almost sounded normal.

  “He will kill you,” an old woman said from Kadir’s mouth.

  “He is our father,” a boy said.

  “He takes what he wants, Haq,” Kadir resumed. “It is for the good. He is a god. He has told me.”

  “He is a monster, Kadir. And so are we. But he is worse.”

  “He is a god. And he cannot be beaten. He sees everything. He is everywhere. FATHER!” Kadir yelled, all the voices combined. “WHERE ARE YOU, FATHER?”

  Haq felt something push against his finger. He looked down and saw a woman, matted and filthy like the other villagers. She gestured for him to come with her.

  “Your friend,” she said.

  Aadil.

  Haq turned back to Kadir. Like a prehistoric crab, Kadir dragged himself away toward the ship-base. Let him go, Haq thought. He won’t find his father and he won’t find his god.

  Haq followed the woman.

  = = =

  Aadil was smothered in black. I must be dead, he thought. But if I were dead, how could I think such things? He wasn’t sure. His hearing was gone. In its place was a high-pitched hum.

  And he couldn’t tell if he could see. His eyes felt open, but—were they? He remembered striking the match, he remembered the giant. That was all. He heard—felt?—thudding footsteps approach. Did he? He wasn’t sure. He heard others noises beneath his ears’ feedback. It sounded like people talking in a distant room. He moved, he thought, but the darkness constrained him, and he wondered if this is what it would be like for eternity.

  = = =

  Haq watched Aadil as he crawled around underneath a blanket that the rat people had used to smother the fire. They had saved him. They circled the moving blanket, looking to Haq with uncertainty, but also with a glimmer of hope. The blanket undulated up and down between them, deforming sideways as Aadil moved from his back to his belly. He called for help, and the rat people answered, but Aadil didn’t acknowledge their response.

  “Aadil,” Haq said. The glob in the blanket kept moving around, now in a circle, like a dog about to bed. Haq lifted the blanket, and Aadil rolled out of it.

  Eyes wide, Aadil surveyed everyone around him. “I’m alive?” he croaked.

  Haq smiled, and Aadil read his lips. “Yes, Aadil. You’re alive.”

  = = =

  Tazeem woke to find his people in the open and unafraid, their backs a little straighter, the weight of their burden somewhat lighter. He was told by the others what had happened.

  He approached warily, expecting retribution.

  Instead Haq apologized. “I would have done what you did too,” he said.

  “But your ear.”

  “It hurts like hell. But maybe now I’ll remember to listen.”

  The sun had begun to rise. Overhead, birds cried.

  “What about Kadir?” Tazeem asked.

  “Come with me,” Haq said.

  Everyone followed Haq toward the gated bridge that spanned the waters to the military ship. The rising sun revealed deep lines, like the blade of a plow, marring the beachfront ahead of them. The bridge disappeared into the fog, and while they couldn’t see Kadir, they could hear him.

  He screamed for Lindo to let him in. Each voice, different and defeated, howled obscenities at their would-be god who had abandoned them.

  The child’s voice sent shivers down Aadil’s spine. No longer was it evil and shrewd; it was just a child crying for a father that was never really there. Without having seen the monster that lay just beyond his sight, it would have been easy to feel sympathy. But those voices had been the bell tolls of impending death.

  Haq turned to the crowd. “Stay here.” He walked onto the bridge and into the fog.

  Kadir sat against the gate. Hydraulic fluid pooled around him. A clanking noise came from his chest. His body was failing. Kadir quieted his pleas when Haq approached, and like a victim he tried to push himself closer to the gate, but there was nowhere to go. It was the end. His head jerked and stuttered, and cold, calculating eyes looked up at Haq.

  “In the psych report used to determine a Tank Major candidate’s viability, yours said ‘stern but always follows orders.’” Kadir’s mouth moved, but the voice was Lindo’s. “I’m going to have to update that.”

  “Is this funny to you?” Haq said.

  “Parts. You did well, and I don’t fault you for why. But you are making a grave mistake.”

  “What I’ve become is a grave mistake. You can’t get me to turn back. I’m not stopping. I won’t let you take more children for whatever fuck reason you need them. This is why the Coalition took away our radios, isn’t it? When you started taking the kids. If the Tank Majors knew, we would have fought.”

  Lindo cocked his head. “You’ve lived in the same five-mile block for over three decades. You lack perspective. The civilized world is placated by their whims more than they have been at any other time in the history of man. No one cares about this place. Few even know about it. And if they ever do happen to uncover what went on here, or the others places like here, the outcry will be like a fart passing in the wind. A day later, when another headline replaces it—and they’d have to use a minimal amount of effort to investigate further—they’ll stop caring. And a day after that, they’ll forget. They’ll go back to their jobs. Their families. Their porn and games. They’ll move on with their lives as if the atrocity—which had pained them so much just days before—had never occurred.”

  “Not true. No one would let this stand.”

  Kadir’s eyes smiled. “When news became entertainment, it became fiction. The people of this world are disappointing, selfish dreck. Full of principles until it affects their day. The collective of society—rich or poor, it doesn’t matter—have no problem feeling the sun on their face by climbing on the shoulders of slaves, as long as it’s out of view.”

  “Is that what we are? Slaves?” Haq asked.

  “You? No. But you have forgotten your place. You have forgotten your mission. And like most people, you don’t understand your value. The Coalition came for the oil. The oil is gone. But I can still use the children. There is a cost to everything, Haq. As a soldier, you know this better than anyone. There are laws—not mine, but universal—that even atoms must abide by. So too must societies. And if you take away my reason for absolution, and offer me no other value in return; if you threaten my hold on this world and the other; why would I let this place exist?”

  Haq looked past the broken giant to the pier. Everything on it was in disrepair. The ship had lesions of rust covering its hull and cabin. “Because your empire is rotting, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” He thought of Batrisyla dying in fro
nt of him. Her face slackening to an inanimate calm. The soulful eyes being replaced by the dim.

  Haq reared back, his right arm zeroed in on Kadir’s head. “We don’t want you here.”

  A crack of thunder rumbled onto the beach, past Aadil and the rat people.

  Haq dragged Kadir’s decimated body back to the village, a shredded carcass of metal and flesh. He left it in front of the rat people. Then he went to Tazeem and gave him the key to the boroughs.

  “Go. This opens all doors. Two boroughs over is mine. Ask for Khayr, the doctor; he will aid you. Beyond that most of my kind are dead. Those that aren’t, let them know what has happened here.”

  The rat people walked up to Kadir’s giant corpse in something resembling a bizarre wake. Only instead of a friend or loved one, the deceased was the greatest evil they had ever known.

  Haq’s face was white.

  “What happened?” Aadil asked.

  “I asked too many questions.” He paused. “Renfro deserves a proper burial.”

  VII

  Renfro had been pounded feet into the sand. Haq dug a deep hole and he and Aadil buried the pieces they could find. “He was brave,” was all Haq said. After a moment of silence, they walked back to the town square to regroup before they moved on to their final destination: the ship-base.

  The explosion that had decimated Kadir had also left fiery debris scattered across the square. Haq pushed it together into a makeshift bonfire, and he and Aadil sat beside it. Aadil set up Haq’s feeding tube. The ringing in his ears had subsided. He could hear again.

  “That’s the last canister,” Aadil said.

  “It’s all I’ll need.”

  Aadil ate food given to him by the rat people as they prepared to leave the borough. Only a few hours had passed since Kadir’s death, and already, the transformation in the residents was incredible. The insanity had left their eyes; the scowls, their lips. He had even seen a few of them laugh. Their life had been given a new purpose. Khayr would greet them, Aadil knew this, and the town would accept them. Aadil sensed that a great exodus was about to begin, where the people here, and in the other boroughs, would build like a tsunami, purifying this region of the atrocities that had befallen it.