New Phoenix - Shorts (2) Read online

  In our time, the upper hundred floors of each megacomplex had been bursting with vegetation growing in hydroponic systems. When outside, you could imagine that the plants were growing out of the buildings like moss on a tree. The rest of the megacomplex had devoted its space to living quarters and utilities to support the self-contained habitat within.

  Now, some sort of black substance coated each building. We were driving through a graveyard—a giant monument to civilization, our civilization, which, as far as we could see, had finally kicked the bucket sometime in the last year.

  Above us, monorails joined one megacomplex to the next. The long rails stretched between and around the megacomplexes. The vehicles they carried should have been on automatic. They should have been speeding from one giant monolith to the next. Except they were dead. Same as the Nexus. Same as the guardian drones.

  I grew up in the Kings Megacomplex K23, which similar these Lincoln megaplexes. Same size, structure and facilities, but not quite as fancy. I was used to being surrounded by people. All the kids in the complex, some two thousand of us, would bathe together, eat together, and go to the school together. In 187 AO, it’s almost impossible to get away from people. Seeing no one around was just unsettling.

  The squad had never needed to leave Obsidian HQ during a Q-jump-and-retrieve before. The cargo had always been waiting for us. So I’d had no real idea of the state of the city.

  “It’s quiet. Too quiet,” I said. “And not the awkward kind of quiet. The other kind. The kind where scary clowns jump out at you.”

  My companions didn’t answer. We drove through the silent streets, our rifles primed and our eyes on the skies and road for any kind of trouble—or movement, for that matter. Our surroundings shifted as we drove out of Lincoln and into the Twain Office Centers. Ancient buildings and shopping centers, only a dozen or so stories tall, closed in on us between the larger megacomplexes.

  These were the homes and workplaces of the people in the Terran cities of the Downs who didn’t qualify to live in a megacomplex. Each looked as if it had been looted. Stripped clean like skeletonized roadkill.

  The further we drove, the denser the surrounding buildings became and the more on edge I found myself.

  Yes, we jumped through time, but only when we were told, and where we were told. We didn’t ask questions. But as I watched the deserted buildings and streets roll past, I wondered.

  Sometime in the last hundred years, something had happened to everyone. They’d either died or disappeared.

  The High Lords created Project Obsidian on the remains. The purpose of Project Obsidian was classified, but every year the skeleton staff who worked in this time would deliver their orange crates. We travelled through time, picked them up and took the back to 186 AO. What happened to them after that was above my pay grade.

  Yet, I couldn’t help but wonder - what had happened to the population here? What was the High Lords’ project all about? Did it have anything to do with the disappearance of the Project Obsidian staff, who should have been waiting for us? Had their disappearance been the work of rogue time travelers? No, that didn’t feel right. Something else was up, but what?

  “Can I ask you a question?” Chris asked in a private feed. I glanced across the truck at him. His helmeted head was turned to the sky, scanning for trouble. I didn’t say anything, but after a moment he took my silence for consent. “Anything going on between you and the sarge?”

  “What?” I said a little too quickly. “No, of course not. I have a girlfriend. The sarge’s best friend, in fact. I mean, she’s hot, but, you know, so not my type. I . . .” I took a breath. “We have a history, but it’s not what you think.”

  “OK.” There was an annoying hint of bemusement in his voice. “I was just sensing some tension.”

  “You’ll be sensing my foot up your ass in a minute.”

  “Yes, sir!” he said, and went back to staring at the surrounding city.

  Was he winding me up? Damned rookie needed to keep himself to himself. “Sensed tension” my smelly butt.

  Except, he wasn’t entirely wrong. Rainey and I did have unresolved stuff. It just wasn’t anything as mundane as love, or sex.

  “Stay sharp, Wet Ears,” I said. “You’re new to this. The sarge is a good soldier. Ain’t no one I’d rather have on my side. She and I toured and learned from the best, but even the best make mistakes.” The kid didn’t have a reply for that. Good. “You keep us alive, we keep you alive. That’s the job. Do yours.”

  For a moment I thought he was going to say something else, but he remained silent. So we drove and drove. Each of us lost in thought.

  The further out from the city center we went, the more the quality of living decreased. Soon the environment became monotonous and depressing, and it took all my will to stay alert. An ambush could come at any time.

  Rainey drove around discarded vehicles and historically significant litter that could have been lying on street corners for the last hundred years. I half expected to see homeless pwned on the streets, their blank faces staring into their static-filled Nexus goggles. But even they were gone.

  We wove between high-rises two hundred stories tall and buildings packed so tightly together they might have been a wall. Then, at last, the buildings thinned out, and we entered Babylon-East. The nearest megaplex was a mile away, and we were surrounded by factories. Rainey pulled the truck into a narrow driveway leading to the Stackdale Warehouse, one of four giant warehouses located side by side inside a fenced compound.

  I expected to see a fleet of familiar-looking trucks parked near the factory. Nothing.

  The sky was darkening and looked as though it might storm. After Rainey had parked, Chris and I leaped to the ground. There was a resounding thud as our metal boots struck the pavement. Weapon armed, I spun in a slow arc, surveying the area. Nothing.

  “Private,” Rainey said. “Check out the loading garage over there while Specialist Tombs and I try to access the main computers. They delivered the shipment this time last year, so something has changed since then. Good chance the computer knows what.”

  “With respect, ma’am,” I interrupted. “Let me check out the loading garage. I know a lot of the boys who usually do the delivery. If they are around, they’ll be less likely to panic if they see my suit.”

  The boss lady stared at me without a word. From the corner of my display, a private-message request started blinking. I accepted the request and spoke before she could.

  “The kid’s green, Boss Lady. Better if he stuck with one of us.”

  “Martin, do we have a problem here?” Rainey replied.

  “Dunno. You’re the one in charge, Isa.”

  “Damn right I am. I earned this.”

  “Hmm,” I grunted. Earned it, huh. I wouldn’t have phrased it in quite those terms. It seemed she sensed my skepticism.

  “Martin, what happened with Gregory—”

  I cut her off. “If you don’t want me to go to the loading garage, give the order.”

  “I did give the order.”

  I bit back a retort. Rainey was the boss now. I might not agree with it, but the best way to get out of here alive was to follow orders, support her, and watch her back. Even if they were stupid-ass orders that might get us killed.

  “Fine,” Rainey said, after a pause. “Do it, but this isn’t over.” She switched back to team chat. “First sign of trouble, you know what to do.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.” Chris and I said together.

  I was surprised she’d backed down. She thinks I’m challenging her, I thought sadly. I was actually on her side. We’d both seen how dangerous all this was. I was just worried about whether she was ready for this.

  I shook my head. Focus on what you can control, Martin. Do your job and let her worry about hers.

  In a slow jog, augmented by the Q-suit, I crossed the square toward the nearest cargo bay. I couldn’t shake an itch at the back of my neck. Despite myself, I kept che
cking behind me. If only the Nexus were working, I’d be able to access some decent surveillance features and wouldn’t need to worry about my six.

  A moment later, I almost Q-jumped. The compound’s lights came to life. Then a moment later, all the lights in every room in every surrounding building lit up at the same time. A chessboard of white squares flickered, lighting up the evening sky.

  “You getting this, Sarge?”

  A faint beeping noise sounded in my earpiece. Rainey’s calm answer followed a second later. “The building lighting is on automatic. Looks like the Nexus is back online.”

  “Praise the High Lords!” I muttered to myself. My heart was racing, and I could feel the sweat dripping from my head. It might have been automatic, but it had still scared the crap out of me.

  “Moving into position,” I replied. Rifle ready, I stalked closer to the loading garage. It took a few minutes to find a way in. The vehicle entrance was locked up pretty good. There was a door around the back, but someone had blocked it with an abandoned rota-cycle. Slinging the rifle over my shoulder, I used the Q-suit’s strength to push the two-thousand-pound vehicle out of the way.

  The door was locked, but I’d always found that the butt of a rifle could double as a useful skeleton key.

  With a word, I accessed the Nexus and added a night-vision feature to the suit. This, combined with the proximity sensor, would likely give me a fair warning of any movement in a hundred-foot radius.

  With luck, Rainey and Chris would already be checking the local and recent history files to find out what had happened to everyone. Well, they had their job and I had mine.

  Gun raised again, I stepped slowly and carefully through the now-open door. I checked the corners of the room before sweeping the rifle in a long arc. My visor showed the place in different hues of green and shadows. The floor was covered in gadgets and gasoline canisters. Behind the litter of silicon, metal, chrome, and fabric rested a giant, familiar-looking orange crate.

  Jackpot.

  “Yoo-hoo,” I called out over the speakers. “Anyone order a pizza?” No one answered. The proximity sensor pulsed steadily away and reported faithfully that all was still.

  Treading carefully over the debris, I flicked my gaze back and forth between the room and my proximity sensor. Still nothing. Why, then, couldn’t I shake that itch between my shoulders? Splitting up had been a bad idea. Q-suit or no Q-suit.

  “Knock, knock.” I crept through the room until I’d circled around to the crate’s doors. I wasn’t authorized to view the contents of these crates, but the situation was so far outside our operating parameters the normal rules couldn’t apply.

  I flung the door open and stepped back, pointing the rifle inside, my gloved finger tightening against the trigger. The shape of more rubbish glinted green in the night vision. Droid remains, for the most part. Except these were no ordinary broken-down droids. Something had ripped them apart. Torn their heads off. Punched holes in their chests. These had been destroyed, and violently, too. Like the buildings we’d seen earlier, they’d been stripped away until nothing but a skeleton remained. Nothing moved. The proximity sensor was clear.

  I downloaded a VR recording feature from the Nexus and added a dictation feature. “Specialist Tombs’s log: I’ve got a bunch of torn-up droids here. Might have been Hull rats, maybe not.” My eyes narrowed. “There’s something else.”

  Against the walls and roof of the container was some sort of gunk that was difficult to make out using night vision. I discarded the feature, and the room went dark. The only light came from a window near the top of the room. I switched on the torch attached to my rifle and swept the crate.

  “Fuck me.”

  I only just managed to get outside and pull my helmet off before vomiting all over the rota-cycle.

  The voice on the intercom returned. “Rainey here. Tombs, you all right?”

  I chucked up again in answer.

  “Martin, we’re coming to you.”

  “No, no, ma’am. I just . . . I need a minute.”

  “Specialist Tombs, what’s going on down there? The security systems here have been smashed to pieces. We can’t even access the Nexus. What are you seeing?”

  “I’ve got some grade-A Clive Barker shit going on down here, boss.”

  “Who’s Clive Barker?” Chris asked.

  I ignored him. “Recommend we Q-jump.”

  “Understood. We’re on our way.”

  The fresh evening air chilled my cheeks. I wiped my mouth clean and replaced my helmet, rifle ready. I couldn’t tear my eyes off the door leading into the cargo hangar.

  The proximity sensor alerted me to my companions’ presence well before I saw them.

  “Report?” Rainey asked.

  I shared the VR file with them both. They watched it in silence until they reached the part where I switched on the torch. The walls, floor, and crushed remains of the droids were coated in blood. A pulverized mess of something that looked like charred and rotting meat decorated the walls and machinery. Shattered bone had been pounded into a corner of the metal container. The gore couldn’t have come from a single creature, though whether it had formerly belonged to a human or animal was impossible to tell.

  “By the High Lords!” Chris said.

  “Something bad went down here,” I told Rainey. “We need to—”

  The proximity sensor beeped. Something was moving inside the hangar. I glared at the screen. Three blips became active—no, wait—another. Was that four or eight? It was hard to tell. There was some sort of distortion. The blips shuddered, almost as if they were dancing or jumping.

  I spun and aimed my gun at the door. A half a second later, Rainey and Chris raised their weapons as well. The sensor beeped again and then a third time before falling silent. “Do we Q-jump?” Chris asked, the barrel of his rifle shaking slightly.

  “Might be a civilian,” Rainey answered.

  “Might not be,” I retorted. Rainey tightened her grip on her rifle in response.

  A new blip appeared on the proximity sensor. This one on the other side of the warehouse. Except it was coming toward us, and fast.

  “Incoming!” I yelled, but it was too late. Something struck Chris in the back, and he fell flat onto his belly and skidded across the concrete floor in a shower of sparks and noise.

  At first, I thought he’d been hit by some sort of warhead. But it wasn’t a missile. A ragged-cloaked thing stood on the private’s back. Even hunched over it stood eight feet tall, and it had long, insect-like metallic limbs. It brought one metal arm down, and the ax it carried exploded against Chris’s Q-suit.

  The armor all but shattered the blade, but the blow had been delivered with such force that it broke through the mesh and sundered flesh. Chris’s screams filled my comms.

  Rainey and I opened fire. Bullets thundered into the monster, and it jerked in a series of violent spasms. I unleashed two short bursts and Rainey triggered a hellish round of her own, which should have been enough to drop a tank—but somehow the figure was still standing.

  The thing screeched defiantly at us. Then, with frightening speed, it grabbed hold of Chris’s helmet. Its robotic hand had only two fingers and a thumb, but each finger was long enough to wrap around Chris’s head. It lifted him up and dangled his body toward us, using him as a shield.

  He was still screaming, but I had to block it out.

  We paused, and the figure shuddered. Our weapons had hurt whatever the thing was but hadn’t killed it. It hunched forward, and I got my first good look at it.

  It was unlike anything I’d ever seen. It wore a metal mask that had two large goggles, which covered its eyes, and four smaller open tubes around the nose and mouth. Both the goggles and the tubes glowed an angry orange, like lava.

  It’s body, bent forward and misshapen, was for the most part hidden beneath a collection of rags attached together into a black patchwork cloak.

  It bounced softly on thin robotic legs that appeared to have
been attached the wrong way. Its thin thighs curved back under its body and then bent forward at the knee joints, as if it was some kind of locust or grasshopper.

  It charged toward us; Chris dangled limply in front of it. Rainey and I broke off in opposite directions to flank it on each side. I unleashed a round into the thing’s leg while Rainey clipped its shoulder.

  Seemingly frustrated, the monster waved Chris to-and-fro like a dog mauling a rag doll. Then a cybernetic arm, too thin to be human, grabbed Chris by the shoulder and ripped his head from his body with disturbing ease.

  It threw the head at Rainey. She raised her arm to protect herself from the blow but staggered backward and screamed in pain and shock. Red splattered her armor.

  “No!” I screamed, before releasing hell. A moment later, Rainey was shooting too. Under our combined onslaught, it shuddered several times and then hit the ground. Before it could get up, I launched a small grenade into the thing. It struggled back to its feet and looked ready to rush me.

  Rainey and I spun away a moment before the explosion took it. The force of the grenade hit the back of my Q-suit, and I tumbled forward. My training taking over, I tucked into a roll and got back to my feet. The creature didn’t get up again.

  I rushed to the sarge’s side but froze halfway there. She was clutching at her arm, which was covered in blood. The damn thing had used the kid’s head as a weapon. It took me a moment to steady my breathing.

  “You alright, boss?” I managed to get out. She nodded, but her eyes weren’t on me. They were staring at her wrist, where the helmet had struck her. Despite being covered in gore, the arm of the suit seemed to be functioning, but the mask had damaged her stabilizer.

  “Go,” she said. “Q-jump now.”

  “You can’t . . .” I shook my head. “Without your stabilizer—”

  “Go. That’s an order.”

  “Ma’am . . . Isa, without your stabilizer you can’t jump.” This close, I could see her face through the suit’s visor. She smiled bitterly.