* * * * *
Whatever it was, it wasn’t a root cellar.
He should have guessed that, of course. The soil depth up in the mountains really wasn’t that great, especially on a slope this steep. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he realized that he was on the heavily angled hillside that fell away under the level cabin, in a protected area where Kyle Patterson had stored everything from his tools to broken furniture—anything he didn’t want to have cluttering the cabin, but didn’t want to throw away completely. The cabin walls extended down to the ground on the north, east, and west unbroken. The south wall had a wooden panel which, he realized as he got his bearings, must open up under the porch.
As he listened to Manning and Maria exchange insults between random bursts from Manning’s assault rifle, he scanned the darkened area for better weapons, tucking a hammer in his belt and grabbing a coiled ring-saw—a serrated wire with finger rings on either end, used for woodworking in tight spaces—with his left hand.
As Manning charged in above him, Derek flung aside the panel to the area beneath the porch and made his way out as quickly as he could. He would have more surprise and a better ability to move coming at Manning from outside the cabin.
Suddenly, he heard the boom of the old man’s rifle and the sounds of a scuffle in the cabin above. He frantically pushed his way through the random junk hidden beneath the porch and out one of the open ends, slowing only long enough to peer over the edge of the porch before pulling himself up onto it as quickly and quietly as he could.
* * * * *
As they rolled along the floor struggling, arms and legs flailing maniacally at one another, Maria did her best to punch and press as much weight as she could into her attacker’s chest. Even with the blasted Kevlar vest she found he was wearing, there was a good chance that her shot had knocked the wind out of the maniac, maybe even broken a rib or two. It was a slim advantage in a brawl for her life, but she would grab at any straw, no matter how thin. She gouged and scratched and pounded with an apocalyptic fury she had only once before experienced, for she knew that Derek could not save her.
Even if he wanted to, even if he were willing to kill his comrade-in-arms, Derek was trapped in the cellar. Manning’s initial grab and throw had landed them square atop the blood-soaked quilt covering the trapdoor. The slick wetness of Kyle Patterson’s lifeblood coated them hideously as they struggled for purchase and advantage in their wrestling match.
Fortunately for her, at least in terms of survival, the ConFoe was trying harder to subdue and paw her, than to kill her. His blood-covered hands felt her up crudely, rather than pummeling her. He tried to pin her, not to kill her, not yet. He smiled maniacally, with obvious sexual arousal, as his red-smeared face lunged toward hers.
Unfortunately, the Kevlar vest protected the ConFoe’s torso from any punches she could provide and the two of them were too closely intertwined for her to knee him effectively in the crotch. Too small a target, anyhow, she thought as she butted him hard in the nose with her forehead. More blood, his blood, spurted out upon the two of them as they struggled.
Suddenly, a hammer glinted in the air above them, swinging down toward the back of her tormenter’s maniacal, crimson head. But somehow, Manning heard or sensed the attack. Maybe the widening of Maria’s eyes as she glimpsed the hammer of her salvation tipped him off. She would never know.
All she knew was that Manning threw himself hard to his left and the hammer hit a glancing blow off the back of his Kevlar vest and flew from what she now saw was somehow Derek’s hand and skittered away across the floor.
Manning abandoned her like a pit bull abandons its rubber bone when a fresh steak is tossed into its cage, charging up and into Derek’s bent-over body. The two of them crashed about, scattering the homey contents of the cabin helter-skelter in their violent frenzy. A knife flew through the air and was lost amongst the debris of battle. Then, somehow, each of the ConFoes gained purchase with both hands on the other’s throat and squeezed, beginning a race towards death by asphyxiation.
She looked about frantically for the ConFoe’s weapon but it was not in sight, lost somewhere in the commotion. She froze for just a moment in panic and indecision while the two squad-mates pressed the life from one another, their eyes locked in a death-grip stronger than that exerted by their hands. Suddenly, Derek broke off the staring contest and looked at her and then at the blood-stained floor beside him. A coiled wire with finger rings on either end lay there. Where it had come from, she had no idea. He looked at it and then back at his opponent.
Manning had gotten the upper hand in their battle of oxygen starvation. He straddled Derek, sitting heavily on his chest while he strove to choke what little air remained out of the traitor. Derek’s grip began to loosen as his body screamed for oxygen.
Maria understood Derek’s eyes and before Manning could comprehend what was happening, she looped the bladed wire around their crazed attacker’s head. Derek flung his hands down and out of the way as the razor-edged noose tightened above Manning’s Adam’s apple. The astonished ferret-boy let go of Derek as his fingers sought for purchase between the saw and the tender flesh of his neck, but it was too late. Maria had grabbed a nearby wooden spoon and thrust the handle into the finger rings as soon as she had looped it around her sleazy, perverted enemy, twisting the handle around and around and around in a frenzy of retribution until the struggling stopped and the blood came gushing, spurting forth. She continued to tighten the wire until the spurting stopped and the wire met bone.
Derek, now standing above her, panting, finally put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s all over,” he told her simply as she continued to maintain the pressure on her makeshift garrote, her eyes wide and unblinking.
“It’s all over.”
* * * * *
“It is all over, Hank,” said Ali with a sigh. “Now number eight will not move, not one bit. The main drive is completely frozen. Cracked bearings, I would surmise.”
“Can’t you fix it?” replied Hank, looking up wearily. He was slumped in a worn, armless chair, his stained lab coat trailing down onto the floor, threatening to get caught in the casters as he pivoted and pushed back from the flickering row of computer screens in front of him. He surveyed Ali, the messenger of bad tidings. His assistant’s gray sweatshirt was stained with grease, grains of sand trapped in the thick, black splotches. “We’re between configurations. Our amplification and resolution will be shot to hell.”
“I do not think that number eight, she will ever move again. Our only alternative is to work around it. Could we not use a smaller array?” He wiped a gob of lubricant from the side of his thumb onto his denim jeans. “We must be grateful for what we have. We are, after all, most fortunate that the cells are still providing power. Without power, we will not be able to search at all, no matter what configuration is set.”
Moisture welled up in Hank’s eyes, but his anger and determination overcame the depression of this latest defeat. “We’re the only ones looking, Ali. You know I’ll never stop. The math can’t be wrong.”
Ali smiled, his white teeth contrasting with his dark skin. “You are preaching to the choir, boss. You know that I am a true believer.”
Hank turned back to the terminals and took up his task once again. “I don’t want to believe. I want to know,” he said softly, quoting his hero.
Outside, the flat desert warmed in the sun. Tonight it would cool under the twinkling of thousands of stars—the Milky Way cutting a swath high in the sky. The stars would speak to Hank again tonight. Their energetic hum would fill the sky, but, as always, they would say nothing.
Hank believed in the math, but he knew he would never really know. It was all over.
Chapter 13
She swam toward the shore of the mountain lake, then stood and strode to him, clean, fresh, and pure. Rivulets of bright water flashed and sparkled as they tumbled down her firm body. She made no effort to cover her nakedness and gave no disapproving lo
ok as he surveyed it. Instead she smiled and ruffled her hair with one hand to help it dry, laughing gaily in the rosy hues of the setting sun. A mischievous wink greeted him from her perfect face.
Derek smiled back and stood from the rocker to embrace her, his arms engulfing her and his clean plaid shirt soaking up the residual moisture from her swim. After a long, deep kiss, they sauntered arm in arm toward their cozy alpine retreat, isolated and safe from everyone and everything. There, they would make love on the big pine bed and, afterwards, she would whisper his name as they snuggled on the couch, looking out the big picture window at the moonlit valleys below.
“Derek.”
He smiled with contentment.
“Derek.” Her voice was harsher and louder than should be.
“Derek. Hey, ConFoe!”
Derek awoke on the rocking chair. His body ached. His clothes were covered with dirt and caked with dry blood. His neck was purple with bruises from his recent battle with the ferret-boy. Maria stood over him in clean, practical clothes scavenged from the cabin after the battle. The hermit’s cabin loomed unpleasantly behind her, the doorjamb splintered, a gaping maw ringed with sharp talons of glass where the picture window once was, and bloody boot-prints tracked across the boards of the once-pretty porch.
He blinked twice, but the grim harshness of reality would not blink away. The soft focus and golden hue of a few moments before would not return. He had been dreaming. He rubbed his face with his hands. At least it had been a pleasant dream, much more pleasant than he had dreamt in a long, long time. Even his dreams were shitty since he became a ConFoe.
He looked up at Maria, his eyes squinting in the morning light.
“Your turn,” she said, gesturing with her head toward the lake, out of sight to the side of the cabin. A few scrapes and bruises had joined the older scar on her face, but the new badges of battle were clean and none looked to leave any permanent mark. She continued, “You might want to scrounge whatever you want before you wash up. Me, I’m never going into that charnel house again.” She strode away to a stack of food, clothing, and other supplies she had gathered before her bath and began loading them into a backpack that used to belong to Kyle.
And there it was. Another moment that decided his fate without any real input from him at all. All dreams of leaving the troubles of both the real and virtual worlds behind and taking up with Maria to live in Kyle’s and Henrietta’s cabin safe from the ConFoes and the mals vanished in the blink of an eye, like a magician’s flash paper. As he shuffled his aching body back into the chaos and stench of the cabin battleground and started picking through it, looking for useful items to salvage for whatever lay ahead, he realized that his life, such that it was, was merely a series of unhappy journeys from one random nexus to another, all set in motion by that damnable recruitment vid and its incessantly annoying jingle. Induction, training, assignment—all within the control of the ConFoes and their nameless leaders. Mission after mission after horrific mission—all within the control of A. K. and his testosterone-charged, macho-bullshit sadism.
This mission was a microcosm of it all: a surprise ambush; a painful chase; a second, more destructive ambush which failed to kill him only because he lagged behind from weariness and a desire to escape the vulgar banter of his squad-mates; and a series of unexpected meetings, each one fraught with the specter of death. Now, fate—no Maria—had snatched his dream of a life happily-ever-after and he was gearing up for yet another trek into the unknown.
Mankind had found a way to control the universe—to control all universes.
Derek couldn’t even control his own life.
He was trapped in a box, the kind they apparently put mimes in. He couldn’t see it, but he felt it all around him every time he reached out for happiness. Duty. Contract. Circumstance. Cowardice. Inertia. The choices of others. They closed in upon him, until he was afraid to reach out for joy, or even comfort, lest he find out the box defining his existence had shrunk even smaller.
He shook off his despair as best he could, comforting himself with the belief that he had, at least, made Katy happier by joining the ConFoes, that every misery he suffered was matched by an equal and opposite measure of joy in her life. But thinking of Katy was also painful; he couldn’t yet share her joy and he feared that something he did might still take it from her. So, instead, he turned his thoughts to the minor tasks that faced him immediately, small things within the confines of his box, things he could still control. He snagged some clothes, found a cache of elk-jerky, and grabbed some other useful items, dumping them near his knapsack before heading to the lake to wash up. He brought some of the salvaged clothes with him—his ConFoe uniform was in sorry shape. Still, he washed the uniform out as best he could, figuring to fold it up and bring it along after it dried, just in case he might need it in his unknown future.
Neither Derek nor Maria ever found their weapons, dangling on a thin rope hooked under the seat in the privy, but they had the old man’s rifle and Manning’s weapon, along with three full magazines of ammunition and several grenades. It would have to do.
When Derek had dressed and returned to the front of the cabin, he saw that Maria had stowed his gear for him and laid out a couple of metal plates with potatoes and jerky. He sat cross-legged and started to chow down without waiting for any benediction by his mal compatriot. He tore off a piece of the leathery elk meat and began to chew. It didn’t have the savory taste of Kyle’s stew, but it was still light-years ahead of the now depleted MREs.
Maria chewed on her jerky, avoiding Derek’s gaze. Neither spoke for quite a while, focusing instead on Kyle’s last batch of jerky. Occasionally, Maria would glance furtively at Derek, her eyes quickly moving away and narrowing. Her muscles were taut as she ate, chewing with an almost military cadence.
Derek’s dream of living happily-ever-after with Maria had been just that, a dream, but he couldn’t help but feel the tension and it sure wasn’t the good kind of first-date tension. It smelled of fear; perhaps the day’s events had been more traumatic on the girl than he had thought.
Finally, Derek could stand the silence no longer.
“Look, I’m not going to hurt you.”
Maria looked at him, her eyes softening a bit, but fear and uncertainty still shining through. “I . . . I guess I know that. I mean, after all you saved me. You attacked your own squad-mate.” Her eyes searched his face for answers to questions yet unspoken. “I . . . I should thank you . . . I do thank you . . . for that. I just don’t . . . well I don’t know . . . why.” She hesitated, staring at Derek intently.
“Look, Maria,” Derek replied. “The guy was a sick, vindictive psychopath. You saved me at the end, you know, and I thank you for that.”
He waited for her to acknowledge his thanks or agree that Manning was a monster, but she obviously still had something on her mind.
“I just don’t know what your expectations . . .” Her voice quavered and trailed off into silence.
Derek started in realization. Did she really think that little of him after all of this? Was it the legacy of the ConFoe uniform? He cringed inwardly as he thought of the stories of terror and rape that the mals undoubtedly indoctrinated into their women, not without some truth, to steel their resolve for the battles ahead. Whatever fantasies he might have, he would never do that.
“I’m . . . not Manning. He was a vicious little ferret. I . . . won’t . . .” He stopped exasperatedly, then gathered his thoughts. “Your . . . virtue . . . is safe with me.” He continued in a rush of words, “I only wish you’d killed the bastard on the highway. It would have saved us both the trouble and kept him from trashing a perfectly nice cabin.”
She nodded as he spoke, a certain amount of relief apparent in her eyes, but the uncertainty still lingered in her manner and her voice. She looked past him toward the silhouetted cabin, once again looking peaceful and innocent in the growing darkness
“But, it wouldn’t have saved Kyle, would it?” she said,
her voice hardening near the end.
This girl, this mal, was made of sterner stuff than he had imagined. She did not fear for her body; she feared only for her soul. She did not fear him, at least not in that brute way; she feared only his scanning equipment. At the same time, he realized, she could have escaped her fear at any time. She could have killed him as he dreamt of her naked body. She could have shot him as he strode, defenseless, from the lake. She could have left in the gathering gloom and returned to the Believers, her people, and left him behind.
But she had not.
Derek’s ego and his still-aching gonads longed to believe that it was because she was attracted to him, but his brain told him that it was either because she was too moral . . . too good and too polite . . . to kill him or to suddenly abandon him after they had mutually aided one another . . . or that, like him, she had duties she had not yet fulfilled and didn’t know how to fulfill in the current situation.
His reverie was prolonged by the fact that he didn’t really know how to answer her question.
“As I said . . . before . . . to Kyle. My training teaches me that a member of the Conversion Forces can leave no mal survivors.”
Maria looked at him with an expression of mixed sadness and resolve. “My training also teaches me that the ConFoes leave no survivors.”
He quickly interjected to forestall her from any precipitous action or conclusion. “But I will not kill you or forcibly convert you.”
She almost smiled. “And I will not kill you, but cannot leave you free here to return to the ConFoes.”
“I would never . . .”
“Not willingly. But you know them. You know they could make you tell . . .”
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