by Morgan Cole
"Okay, I'm ready," he said.
After I glanced at the compass to be sure of our heading, we left the clearing.
We started to cross more and more frozen stream beds. On the map, Grandpa's outpost was near a small lake, one of the nameless thousands up here in Northern Saskatchewan. It made sense that there would be a lot of streams and small rivers. The whole area would be a swampy, mosquito-filled hell in the summertime.
We saw our first lake not long afterward. On the map it was a tiny, abstract bit of blue in amongst the green. In front of us in the real world, it was a flat plain the size of a football field. A perfect sheet of unblemished snow covered it. Our path would take us right over it.
I walked out a few meters. I could feel the difference in footing. The flat ice beneath the compressed snow felt relaxing after hours of walking over snow-covered roots, rocks, and holes. I smiled and when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw that Marty had stopped near the edge of the lake.
"What's wrong, Marty?"
"You sure it's safe?" he asked.
"It's so cold out here, this lake is probably frozen solid, man."
To demonstrate, I jumped up and down, hopping around like a mad rabbit in a wide circle. The ice beneath my boots felt like solid concrete.
"See?"
He came out to meet me, seeming to relax marginally when the surface of the lake didn't break open to swallow him. We crossed the lake in ten minutes and were back in the thick, leafless brush.
A few hours later the sun was getting low in the sky, and we had crossed what seemed like dozens more frozen streams and another, smaller lake.
"I think we're only a few hours away now. We'll get there an hour or two after dark," I said after studying the Maps app. Our pace was a lot slower than I had hoped it would be, but we'd get there.
"Great," Marty said, wheezing a bit.
That was when we heard the first howl.
Chapter Nineteen: Howling and Ice
IT WAS A SAD, GHOSTLY noise I'd only ever heard in movies. The howl was coming from our west and sounded far off. The hair on the back of my neck rose as ancient instincts kicked in.
Another howl answered, to our north. It sounded closer.
"Wolves? There are wolves here?" Marty asked.
"Seems like it. Let's get a move on. They're afraid of humans, I think."
"Are they though?"
Marty picked up his pace a little bit, although I could see that it cost him something. He kept his right hand near the pocket I knew he had the Glock in.
I didn't know anything about wolves except what I'd seen on a half-remembered nature documentary. Did they attack humans up here in the north? I didn't know. I knew they liked to take out the weak and the old, and right then Marty was putting on a pretty convincing impersonation of food.
As we moved through the forest I cycled my vision Augment's modes, trying to catch a glimpse of wolves tracking us. Nothing.
A faint yipping bark echoed through the trees, seeming to come from all directions. Several howls rose from the north, ahead of us. I couldn't tell if they were close or not.
"Shit," Marty said.
Marty pulled off his heavy glove and stuck his right hand into the pocket with the pistol in it. With his gloved left hand, he awkwardly chambered a round.
"If I see one I'm going to fire a warning shot. Maybe it will scare them off," he said.
Being stalked by wolves was more frightening than it should have been. I'd spent the last couple of weeks killing alien monsters in a derelict space station, after all. There was just something about their howls, the knowledge that they were out there. Something primal in my brain responded and urged me to get into shelter and light a fire to ward them off.
That wasn't an option right at the moment, so instead I unstuck my GN-75 and checked that it was ready to go. I didn't much like the idea of using the needler on a bunch of wolves just following their natures, but I'd rather it was them than me.
"Let's keep moving," I said.
We continued on and broke through the scrub into another large clearing, another lake. It was maybe twice the size of our first one, a long stretch of blank white snow before the treeline. I thought I saw movement in those trees, but cycling my vision modes, nothing stood out.
It must be my imagination.
Marty had paused when I did, looking around nervously with the pistol still gripped in his right hand. I gestured that we should continue and we jogged out onto the frozen lake.
I was constantly scanning around me the entire time, keeping my head on the metaphorical swivel. That's how I saw them when they came out of the trees.
We were nearly on the other side of the lake about twenty yards from the treeline when they emerged from the woods on our backtrail. Their natural grey-and-white coloration caused them to blend into the background of trees and snow quite well. It was only thanks to the unnatural sharpness of my Augmented vision that I picked them out. There were seven of them, of varying sizes. The one in the lead was the biggest, the alpha. Those golden eyes glinted in the setting sun as he contemplated us, his prey. I'd never thought that wolves would be scary. They were just dogs, after all, and I'd wrestled with lots of dogs. Seeing them like this, stalking me, I was no longer convinced the old me could have outwrestled one.
"Marty, it's time for that warning shot," I said.
I turned to face the oncoming pack and released the safety on the GN-75. If this didn't work and they charged us, I'd be forced to mulch them.
Marty turned too rapidly and yelped in pain as his cracked ribs made themselves known. The wolves reacted to that noise, focusing on him. Picking out the weak one in the herd.
"Jesus, they're so big!" Marty said, and raised the pistol for a warning shot.
Before Marty could fire, what felt like two hundred pounds of wolf slammed into my back. I flew forwards and fell heavily onto the snow-covered ice. Excalibur dug into my stomach as I fell on it.
Behind me Marty screamed and I heard two quick gunshots.
Powerful jaws scrabbled at the back of my neck, the impenetrable fabric of my parka's hood keeping the wolf's teeth from my flesh.
I rolled to my left, reaching up to grip the wolf by its neck and fling it across the ice. It yipped in surprise as it tumbled through the air and landed with a solid thud. I continued the roll and smoothly came up to a firing position on one knee.
Marty was screaming as a pair of wolves tried to get to his neck through the thick material of his parka and his shielding arms. One had his right wrist in its jaws and was shaking him. Blood spackled the snow nearby, and the Glock was nowhere to be seen.
I raised the GN-75 and fired, the first flight of needles tearing into the rear of the wolf trying for Marty's throat. A fine mist of blood coated the snow and ice behind it, and it sagged as nearly every organ in its torso was destroyed simultaneously. The needles were barely slowed by the wolf's flesh and dug deeply into the ice behind it.
The rest of the pack hit me like a hammer before I could kill the second wolf. They bowled me over in a wave of fur, a jaw clamping onto my right wrist while another latched onto my ankles. My shot went wide, missing the wolf still worrying Marty's wrist, impacting the ice nearby with a crackle.
The wolves' teeth were unable to penetrate my clothing, but they were doing their best to kill me even if they couldn't draw blood.
My left hand was free and I smashed my fist into the wolf hanging from my right wrist. The wolf's ribcage collapsed like a bridge made of toothpicks with a disturbing crunch. My fist left a deep indentation in its chest. The wolf yelped but hung on even as it died.
I steadied my aim with the wolf hanging off my arm through shear strength and put another flight of needles into the wolf on Marty. It slumped, the needles crackling into the ice behind it.
With a growl of anger, I threw the nearly dead wolf across the ice and kicked the other off my ankle. It yelped at my kick and let go, pelting away.
I stood in t
ime to see the pack's survivors fleeing toward the treeline, alpha leading the way. I raised the GN-75, sighting in on the fleeing pack. I lowered it again with a snarl. Despite how much they'd pissed me off, I still didn't want to slaughter them.
I turned to Marty, lying on the ice groaning. He was clutching his wrist, which was dripping blood onto the front of his parka.
"Marty, you alright, man?" I asked, sticking the GN-75 back to the front of my own parka.
His only response was a groan.
"Yeah, stupid question," I said. "You've got a first aid kit in that pack, don't you?"
"Uh—" Marty started to say, and then with a ripping, crackling roar the ice below him broke into pieces and he fell through.
I lunged forward, missing him as he disappeared into the black water. I slid onto my belly beside the hole, reaching into the black water. The freezing water burned my skin.
"Marty!" I yelled.
I switched to my thermal vision mode and could see Marty's form in the water, thrashing wildly. The weight of his pack and his sodden clothing were dragging him down. The difference in temperature between his body and the surrounding water was fading rapidly.
Frantically I began to rip the bags off my body and slide them away from the hole in the ice. I needed to go in and get him. My parka hit the ice, followed by the GN-75 and Excalibur. I thought about taking off more stuff, but the thought of Marty dying under the ice drove me forward. I jumped in.
The cold water was like a punch in the stomach. The shock was brutal, but I didn't have time to entertain it. I swam downward toward the fading thermal signature of Marty sinking into the black depths.
Marty was still struggling as the weight of his pack pulled him down, but his struggles were getting weaker. When I reached him he grabbed at me in panic, flailing wildly. I held onto him with my right arm while I put all my strength into getting us back up to the surface.
Without the thermal vision I would have died down there, I think. With it, I could see the hole in the ice as clear as day, even in the darkness under the ice. I rocketed toward it, Marty in tow. We breached, pushing large chunks of ice out of the way.
I gripped the ice with my left hand and threw Marty up and out of the hole. He skidded across the ice, coming to rest ten feet away. The ice burned my hands as I pulled myself out of the hole and into the frosty air.
Steam rose from me in waves. Despite everything, I didn't feel cold. I resolved to investigate that later. Marty was shivering weakly on the ice. My thermal vision could see that his temperature was falling. Hypothermia.
Not having time to screw around, I unsheathed my knife. I cut his pack off him with three effortless cuts. He moaned in pain as I stripped off his parka.
"Marty, we've got to get this off you. You can wear mine," I said.
The parka was more water than coat at that point. Soon it would be an ice sculpture. I dropped it on the ice beside him and quickly got him into my parka. His wrist didn't look good. It was still trickling blood and the bones were probably broken, but I expected it wouldn't kill him anytime soon. The hypothermia might.
"This isn't going to be enough. We need a fire or something."
Marty's pack caught my eye. I snatched it up and dumped it out onto the ice. There was a lot less stuff in there than there had been. A few MRE cartons fell out and a camp stove without the gas bottle. The rest was at the bottom of the lake.
I ripped the MREs open. What Theo had given us was the deluxe version, not just the entree. Each pack had a flameless ration heater bag. I ripped open the soggy cartons and pulled out three heater bags, discarding the meal packets.
"Thank you, Theo," I said.
The heaters were easy enough to use. Add water and the exothermic reaction would start. I added water to each of the three bags and stuffed each one into one of my parka's internal zipper pockets. They were water tight, so even if the chemical gunk was spilled it should be fine.
"Hopefully this will keep you alive until we can get to the outpost, Marty," I said. He didn't react. I could see that he was still breathing, but his shivering had stopped.
"Huh? What? Just let me sleep," Marty said.
I reclaimed my equipment from the ice, madly strapping bags and weapons to my body. The wolves I had killed lay on the ice nearby, and I could hear the occasional yipping bark in the forest to the south.
"This is going to suck, Marty. Sorry," I said. Then I picked him up and slung him over my shoulder in a fireman's carry. I'd only ever seen it done on television, but I was really strong and Marty was light, so it was easy. He groaned in pain but didn't otherwise protest.
With my phone in my left hand, I sprinted into the darkening woods.
Chapter Twenty: Over the River and Through the Woods
I RAN FASTER THAN I ever had, even with Marty draped across my shoulders. I leapt over or veered around thick brush, but the light stuff I plowed right through. When the branches scratched my exposed skin, the wounds would close up nearly immediately.
Steam rose off me as my elevated body heat evaporated the water in my soaked-through clothing.
"Brick, any idea why I'm not cold right now?"
"Your Transcendent Flesh is regulating your body temperature. Your body simply has more resources than Marty's. Check your power stats," Brick replied, his voice no longer coming over the phone's speaker.
With a thought I pulled up my status screen and drilled down into the details.
Sure enough, my Zeropoint Energy Augment was feeding some of its energy into regulating my body temperature. A relatively tiny amount of it, actually. With a thought, I dismissed the status window. Sure is nice to have superpowers.
It was fully dark now, but my low-light vision mode was serving me well. It was possible the pack was still tracking us, but if I saw them again they wouldn't live to regret it. The point on the map came closer, agonizingly slowly. I pushed myself to run faster.
"You should Induct Marty as soon as possible, Jake. Hypothermia is a serious condition for unmodified Humans."
"No shit, Brick."
"What's happened to Marty? Have you let him get hurt, Jake?" Metra asked.
"I didn't let him get hurt. We had a fight with some wolves and he fell through some ice," I replied.
"You know he hasn't been Inducted yet. It was up to you to keep him safe!"
Metra sounded genuinely upset. I wondered what I had missed after falling asleep the previous night.
"I'm doing my best here—" I hissed in pain as a particularly sharp branch opened a long cut on my right cheek just under my eye. "Dammit! I'm doing my best, Metra. A little busy here."
"All we can see here is the output from the phone's camera, Jake. It's not much but it's clear from the phone's inertial sensor that you're moving quite quickly. We will let you concentrate."
"Thanks, Brick. I'll let you know when I get to the outpost."
The next thirty minutes was just me running faster than any Earthing ever had through dense woods with Marty on my shoulders. I almost missed the shack. The low roof was covered with a thick coat of snow and the structure blended in well. An iron chimney stuck up from the snow, not quite buried.
I stopped in front of the shack, and my phone announced, "You have arrived at your destination."
It was a one-room wooden shack in the middle of the forest. Any paint or siding that may have been on the exterior walls was long gone, leaving bare grey wood. The clearing it had been built in was hardly large enough to contain the rickety-looking structure. The front door was a simple wooden one, slightly ajar. An old-fashioned four-pane window was the only visible window, and one of the panes was broken.
I pushed open the door. It stuck slightly and then gave, brushing aside the small pile of snow that had blown in through the crack and built up inside the shack.
The inside of the shack was a disaster. Trash was piled in the corners and empty bottles and cans were littered around the wooden floor. Mostly beer, but two bottles of a partic
ularly nasty rye whiskey as well. One corner had been turned into the ashtray, holding an impressively large pile of cigarette butts.
Three scarred wooden chairs were arranged near the potbellied iron stove in the corner, the only furniture remaining in the trashed shack. A heap of dirty blankets was wadded up against the wall nearby.
"Damn, you build your secret lair way out in the middle of nowhere and even then you get teenagers using it as a place to drink and fuck if you leave it alone too long."
"Jake, you've arrived. You must find the entrance into Mattias's outpost."
"It's just a one-room shack, Brick. There's not a lot of places to hide something," I replied.
I kicked the pile of blankets relatively flat and laid Marty down on them and covered him up as best as I could. I eyed the stove, contemplating lighting a fire in it. The only easily accessible wood left was the chairs, and I'd happily sacrifice them. I didn't have any way to light a fire, though. The survival tools had all been in Marty's pack. The teenagers hadn't left anything either.
I flicked through my vision modes, not seeing anything helpful. Everything in the shack was cold and dead, except Marty and me. I'd hoped with my Flow Component Visualization mode I'd be able to see the circuitry to reveal the hidden base, but nothing was visible.
"Fuck it, it's got to be under us," I said, and pulled Excalibur free.
It's amazing what inhuman strength, a super-science wrecking bar, and a ton of motivation can do. I ripped up the wooden flooring like a tornado through a 1930s dustbowl town. It came up nearly effortlessly. I flung the shattered pieces out the open door of the shack.
It was only minutes before Excalibur hit something that didn't immediately yield. It looked exactly like the wood flooring, but it sure wasn't. I pulled and although Excalibur had a good bite into it, the "wood" didn't come up.
I brought up the Salvage UI and targeted the wood.
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Imitation Wood Flooring