by Jason Luthor
“Yeah. You’re right.” My eyes go back to the screen as I look over the cell displays again. “You don’t happen to know how I can get my cells to tap into Pocket Space energy at will, do you?”
“Judge was an engineer, but neither of us were scientists. Not like your Doctor Watson.”
“If I could figure it out . . . I might be able to tap into that energy without going feral. The science is just too much for me. How do you create an organic Pocket Space engine?”
“Don’t you think that sounds like the sort of question Apeiron would have been interested in?”
“It is,” I say with a look back at her. “And I can see why. If you could generate that kind of energy at will, then who knows what you could do?”
Last Testament of Ishara Suliman 06
I remember when I first met Tara. I wandered the Deadlands to the southwest for . . . weeks. During that time, it slowly dawned on me that I could control the Creep inside of me. That I could use it, as a force. I’d begun to play with my powers, wondering what I was capable of. Around that time is when I first saw her, beaten and bloody. She’d been attacked by militia members from Central Freedom. Somehow, she’d survived, but only just. Her ribs were broken, and she had nearly bled out. When she saw me, she asked for a mercy. She asked for me to kill her.
I chose a different course.
It occurred to me that, perhaps, I could use the Creep inside of me to heal her. After all, it had rejuvenating power. Her only alternative was death. And so, I purposely infected her. I gave her an injection of my own blood, allowed her to be infected with my cells. It was my hope that she would be healed but also that I could control the Creep inside of her. That I could keep it from overwhelming her. It turned out, I was right, but I also got something out of that bond I could never have imagined.
By sharing my blood with her, I achieved a bond with Tara that is almost impossible to describe. The bond formed between the Creep in her blood and in mine made it possible for me to feel what she felt, and for her to feel what I felt. It was the most intimate of bonds that any two people could feel. As she led me south over the next week, to reunite with her people, I came to understand Tara’s struggles in a way that would have been impossible without the blood we shared. We spent time huddled in the ruins of the Old World, watching for monsters and militia members. We talked about our history and how we had arrived there in the Deadlands. I told her my story. She told me hers.
Tara had always been an unusually large girl. Confused for a boy throughout most of her years. To listen to her tell me about her hurtful past, the tears she shed as she was mocked . . . It would have broken my heart even without our blood bond. She eventually come to embrace her size, spending every day pushing her body to its limits. Becoming stronger, until she could no longer be mocked. Until the world knew that her size was a strength, not a weakness.
She rose up the ranks of her clan because she had grown so strong. On the western edges of the city, at the Battle of the Short Hills, she earned her reputation as a brutish fighter. Standing head and shoulders over everyone else and stronger than any man, she’d led a fight to claim an old water recycling plant that had been overrun by the most savage of raider clans. Cannibals. People who had abandoned their humanity and become no different from the monsters of our world. Then she’d led her people in a fight for the Stirling, a fortified Apeiron base just 15 miles away.
Slowly, they created a route of small colonies and supply lines that stretched from the Short Hills in the north to Bridgewater in the south, where major highways from the Old World intersected and provided her people with the ability to quickly deploy throughout the city. Using that system instead of the roads along the ground, they could reach Central Freedom in just over an hour, the fastest they’d ever been able to travel around the Deadlands.
But Tara had a dream larger than simply surviving. She wanted to fight back against Yousef, who’d used his campaigns into the Deadlands to wipe out her people. More than Central Freedom, she hated Fort Silence, but she lacked the numbers to fight them in any meaningful way. For that, she needed the cooperation of the clans. Hundreds of different groups and nearly a million people spread out from the White Mills in the north to what we would eventually call Zone Delaware in the south. They were so thinned out that they would never be able to oppose him. Together, though, they had a chance.
Sadly, Tara was only a reluctant leader. Her people followed her because she was strong. She didn’t have the words to inspire others, and she didn’t understand how to talk to them and earn their trust. I was the answer she’d been looking for. I would write the words for her. When she spoke them, I would let her feel what I felt, give her the boldness she didn’t have when speaking. I would remain in the background, to avoid even the smallest chance that Yousef might learn I was still alive.
And that was how we began to win over the clans, men and women who had lived in terror of Nikola Dravic’s old regime in Central Freedom and who had for more than a year lived in fear of Yousef. We unified them under the idea of a single people, the Sha’b, an idea completely different to what Yousef offered. His vision of the future was of one people, with one set of customs, and few individual freedoms. We offered them a future with one set of laws, common customs, but also a future with room for individual expression and beliefs. It was an idea that was attractive to not only the clans. Around this same time, we began to find people abandoning the city. Running, for their lives. Not only people of Central Freedom, but soldiers and officers from Fort Silence who set out in hopes of creating a new home in the Deadlands.
We learned from the people leaving Central Freedom that people were going missing. At the same time, we learned from officers abandoning Fort Silence that my brother had begun a series of experiments. Nobody could tell me exactly what was happening, but I was able to put it all together on my own. My brother needed more. More power, more speed and strength. However, he couldn’t experiment on himself. He needed subjects. I never found out for sure, but from what we were told, I am absolutely certain that he came to some arrangement with Dravic, an agreement that he would get test subjects from Central Freedom. In exchange, he renewed his military support for the city.
It took convincing, but Tara was able to get the clans to agree to take in the refugees. We were getting too larger for Bridgewater though. With clans seeing the power that Tara was concentrating, more and more came to her side. With me guiding her, she also put into place a system of justice. No more raiding the colonies. We had to be better than the people of Fort Silence and Central Freedom had been to us. Of course, that led to conflict. Fighting broke out between some of our people, but Tara didn’t need my help putting an end to those. She had always been best in a fight. But, when it was over, we created a new peace. We were merciful as much as we could be, though the most violent of our people, the ones who had slaughtered children without remorse . . . We couldn’t allow them to live and do it all again.
Of course, we could not unite them all. Though the Deadlands were filled with countless numbers of clan leaders, there were at least four leaders who held the loyalties of dozens and dozens of lesser clans. At their word, they could pledge the loyalty of tens of thousands of fighting men and women. We needed them. Of them, the Wild Forest clan was the strongest outside of Tara’s forces. Daniel Pearson, leader of the clans, had spent almost every year of his sixty years of life fighting both Central Freedom and Fort Silence. Of all the great clan leaders, only he had been present at the battle at Fort Silence, at the Butchering Field. He’d only been 18 then, at a time when Fort Silence and Central were still one nation, and he witnessed the deaths of tens of thousands of his people. So long as Tara pledged herself to destroying the fort, Pearson was willing to commit his armies to her cause, including her prohibition on raiding the colonies and innocents of the Deadlands.
Though many of them pledged themselves to our cause, we never won the full loyalty of all of the clans loyal to Ashanti Bonsu.
That was expected. Ashanti’s people had always been scavengers more than raiders, more dedicated to finding supplies in Pocket Space and carving out homes where they could. They wandered the Deadlands by the thousands in four or five separate groups, always sweeping east to west and back again before settling down for long stretches in any place that could support them. It’s said that of all the leaders, only she ever saw the Wastes, the dead places beyond the edges of the City. Even I never saw those places.
Marc Lopez was the least difficult to sway to our cause. He loved his drink, and he loved his women. He also loved the security he had behind the weapons of the clans loyal to him. He was a drunkard, but nothing worse, and he’d maintained the loyalty of the clans by always being there for them when they needed his support. He was faithful. Loyal. Those are difficult traits to find anywhere in the Deadlands, and particularly among some of the clans, where violence and betrayal have long been a way of life.
But of all the great leaders to whom Tara and I owed our thanks, it was Ned Whitney Lancaster we were most grateful to. He was no nomad, not like Ashanti. He did not hide in the hills and mountains in the far north, like Pearson. He was also sharp and aggressive, unlike Marc. Of all the leaders, only he realized that Tara wasn’t leading our forces. Only he recognized that there was someone behind her, guiding her words. This was the same man who’d carved out the largest area of safe land to be found outside of Central Freedom and Fort Silence. I met with him because we needed him, needed a place to call a home for the thousands and thousands who were joining us. He never trusted me though. His people, who had been loyal to his father and his grandfather, who had been loyal to the Lancasters for generations, never committed their loyalties to Tara and I. They would never have done so without Ned approving it, and he never did. He told me he could not commit the lives of his people to what he believed was a personal vendetta. He feared that I would lead them to destruction in my desire for revenge against Yousef.
Perhaps it will turn out he was right.
Ned did not commit his people to us, but he opened up his lands to us. He gave us a home large enough to settle all of the Sha’b. And, even though he never committed his men to us, he committed himself to our cause. He was a brilliant strategist and a strong commander. He was also a fighter like few others, just like the stories say his father was. His father was the golden bear, but he was the bear of the south.
He wore the same armor his father had worn into battle. And with him helping us lead the Sha’b, we defeated the vilest of the clans that existed out there. The murderers, the cannibals, the cruel, those willing to kill innocents as easily as the guilty. That was also the first time we began to earn my brother’s wrath, the first time his forces began to feel defeat at the hands of the Sha’b. A silent war, waged between brother and sister, kept far from the eyes of Central Freedom. They knew of our battles, but perhaps not of the scale. This was at the same time that they began to lose their grip on their colonies, along the Raritan River. Central and its colonies were never my target, but in war, it is often impossible to avoid involving bystanders.
But the battles were only a distraction, meant to keep Yousef’s attention while I worked on my grand plan. Our success would begin by unlocking the military cache system my father had discovered. It would end when we marched the Panzer on Fort Silence to destroy Yousef’s forces. It would end with me killing my father’s murderer. My own brother.
Jackie’s Recording 33
Blood. Sweat. And muscle.
There hasn’t been a time in human history when those three things didn’t make the difference between winning and failing. Putting in the effort, the work to make sure your plans succeed. Even then, with all of that work, there’s no guarantee that you pull it off. But, you keep working anyway, because there’s no winning without putting in the effort.
That’s how I end up in the training room that night, pushing myself as hard as I possibly can. A dozen Johns, all attacking me. Not John himself, but copies of him. His robotic shells running through fighting programs, all leaping at me, their punches swinging through the air and their kicks flying at my legs. I step over one John that tries to sweep my legs and come back down with a punch that sends it flying to the ground. But it’s a robot. It doesn’t have stamina and it doesn’t get tired, so it’s immediately back on its feet.
I don’t have time to process it, because I’m ducking under the swing of another punch before bringing my elbow up into the stomach of a second John, then spinning past him and landing a kick to the knees of a third. The pace keeps moving faster, the robots adapting to me and learning my moves and habits as the fight continues. It’s not too different from what Yousef does, and soon I’m struggling to keep up with them. Punches start to land, slamming into my stomach or clocking me across the mouth.
The whole time, I feel the anger building up inside of me. It’s half human instinct, the old need to fight or run away. The other half’s the Creep, getting agitated in response to the danger around me. I can feel my eyes bleeding red fire as my heart starts pumping harder, my moves coming more quickly and my punches landing harder. But the Johns get just as fast, moving to keep up with me, until I’m screaming with every punch as I rip into them. The whole time, I’m allowing my moves to flow faster, letting my punches land harder, but using every bit of self-control I have to keep my humanity. I’m trying to let myself ride up against the Alexander Limit, feeling that verge of becoming feral, and somehow, I just keep going a little bit faster, reacting a little more quickly. It’s like a part of my feral form is bleeding into my human side. It’s not by much, but I can feel the reactions, the nanoseconds shaved off of my reactions as the pace keeps accelerating, until I’m feeling a surge of energy rushing through my body like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
Then, it happens. For just a second, I go into some kind of flow state. It’s like the whole world slows down to a crawl. The Johns are moving faster than they ever have before, but I can see it all happening in slow motion. I can tell where all of their punches are going to land and all the dodges they’re going to make. It’s almost like I can see the future. And, just, with a blink of my eyes, it’s suddenly all over. I don’t even know what happened. One second, I’m seeing all these possible futures, and the next, I’m looking back over my shoulder, at the destroyed shells of the robots. Sweat’s pouring down my face, and it feels like my muscles want to explode, like whatever I just did pushed my body to a limit it’s never hit before.
“What the hell just happened?”
“You crossed the Alexander Limit,” a familiar voice says as a crimson light starts to fill the room. I look up, and he’s standing there. The Stranger. “For just a moment. I doubt it will be enough to beat a man like Yousef, though. His strange technology gives him a greater advantage than you think.”
“I think I know what he can do. He fired a beam right through my stomach,” I tell him as I get back onto my feet, my legs wobbling as I’m standing there. “Why are you here? I’ve only seen you once in a year, back at the Panzer before I saved Kali. You told me a long time ago that you wouldn’t be around anymore.”
“Things have changed, and there are some potentially incredible things we may be about to learn. In other words, I thought it would be more interesting if you lived. If I pushed a little to adjust your fall, it’s because I saw more interesting things to come if you survived.”
“So, you did help me when I dropped off the side of the Panzer.”
“I also did away with the Baby Boy that was following you. Only I get to watch you so closely while you sleep.”
I shake my head at him. “Creepy but . . . fine. Thanks, I guess. Alright then, you thought it would be interesting if I lived. Why are you here now, thought? To say goodbye before I go on a suicide mission to kill Yousef?”
“I have a gift for you, Jackie Coleman.”
“Your gifts aren’t exactly ever . . . fulfilling.”
“You decided it would be better to
ask your friends, Judge and Sally, for help than it would be to ask me.”
“You never know anything! Or at least nothing you’ll tell me.”
He smirks as his arms open wide. “What I know is that today, I’m going to lift a burden off of you. What would you say if I told you that you’ll never go feral again?”
“What?” It honestly makes my heart stop for a second when he says it. “What are you saying? And none of your circular talk you love so much. It’s really not as endearing as you think it is.”
“Jackie Coleman, what I’m giving you is the gift of your humanity. The only way that you will ever turn feral again is if you want to.”
For a second, I have to step back and try to digest what I’m being told. “If I want to? Why would I? I don’t get it. So, I can go all out without having to worry about becoming a monster? I can just fight?”
“Yes.”
“Will I be able to beat Yousef?”
“No.”
My heart drops in my chest a little when he says it. “Is there . . . anything I can do? Any way? I’ve seen the video and what I’m doing when I’m fighting. I’ve seen myself opening Pocket Space windows. Doctor Watson’s told me there are some people who can pass the Alexander Limit without turning. You just told me right now that I did it. But you can’t tell me what’s going on or if there’s some way to tap into that?”
The Stranger is silent for a long time as he floats there, that red portal of light swirling behind him. The whole time, he’s smiling, but he also looks . . . like he’s considering something? Finally, after a long minute, he nods. “I’ve learned one thing about humans in my time with you, Jackie Coleman. You often accomplish what some might consider the impossible. Your friend, Mike, helped free up more of my memories and powers when he gave his life to wipe out that Creep colony. So, I will give you one more gift, since I can’t give it to him.”