God of chaos built for w.., p.8
God of Chaos: Built for War: Book Two, page 8
“Quite the drought,” I said.
“Incoming,” Gareth said.
“You should try to lose them in the Elkhorn Mountains,” the voice said. “That’s where you’ll find us.”
“Who’s us?”
“The ones THREE sent you up here to meet,” the voice said. “You’re only a threat if you’re flying. The NUN won’t bother you once you put down.”
“If we put down,” I said, “we won’t be getting back up.”
“You’ll see a little ghost town tucked in a ways,” the voice said. “Bring her down there.”
“Mountain range northwest of us,” I told Gareth. “We’ll lose those fighters there.”
“How?” she asked.
“If the need arises,” I said, “we land.”
HOUR TWELVE
The Teton Range had exploded up from the ancient basin that held the Jackson Sea. Gareth could have sent those NUN fighters into any one of those young-mountain cliff faces, but this Elkhorn Mountain Range was old and lacking those sharp rises. Fast movers had no problem napping gentle foothills. Even when Gareth ducked us into the gullies and reversed course, the NUN Fighters had little difficulty maintaining target lock.
“Those fighters are going to lose their patience,” Gareth said.
“Keep us in the air,” I said. “I want to know what’s down there—a few more moments.”
“These hills are riddled with tunnels. Some go deeper than my sensors can reach,” Gareth said. “Landing feels like we’re stepping into a trap. I’d prefer we get back over the border.”
“Keep shaking them,” I said.
“I don’t have the fuel for that,” Gareth said.
“The tunnels don’t look like they were dug during the war. I’m thinking they’re old mineshafts,” I said. “This range is volcanic. Miners went deep looking for mineral deposits.”
As we passed over a small mountain lake and rose up a ridge, one of the fighters tried to catch us in its jet wash as it buzzed us. The turbulence knocked out our rear starboard jet.
“They’re circling back,” Gareth said. “If they kill another jet, we’re going to crash. Landing is a mistake you’ve forced on us. You’re comprising the mission, Lancelot.”
“I’ve picked up six civilians on the ground,” I said, “due south. Small settlement. It looks old and mostly abandoned. We’ll land there.”
“You’re serious about landing?” Gareth said. “That’ll give the NUN a nice easy target.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “The NUN doesn’t like dealing with collateral damage.”
“Who the hell were you communicating with on this shortwave?” Gareth said.
“We’re losing daylight,” I said. “Let’s find out.”
As we approached the little settlement tucked in the gulley, a man wearing a strange wide-brimmed hat and a jacket made from some sort of animal skin stepped out onto the little trail and began signaling us where to land, pointing into the shadows between two wood buildings fallen into disrepair. As Gareth touched us down, the man opened his skins to reveal a steal sidearm hanging from a holster.
“Six rounds,” I said. “Obsolete handheld weapon. The others have gone for cover. I’m not picking up any other armament.”
“This better be good,” Gareth said as she opened the cockpit door.
“You can leave those weapons systems behind,” the man said.
“That’s not happening,” Gareth said.
“You’re on a world heritage site—a nineteenth-century mining town. The NUN won’t risk targeting that A55 where you’ve parked it, but I can’t promise they won’t target you.”
“We’re here investigating the water,” I told the man.
“Lake’s just over the hill,” the man said. “My boys have just come back from fishing.”
“Who are you?” I said.
“You can call me Cowboy Dave,” he said, pulling off his hat to reveal a scar running straight across his bald head. “I used to be a pilot. That was some fancy flying, young lady.”
“Cowboy Dave?” Gareth said. “Cows are extinct.”
“Yes,” Cowboy Dave said. “I am aware.”
“The fighters are bugging out,” Gareth said.
“Where’s the water that should be in the NUN impoundments?” I said.
“You must be thirsty,” Cowboy Dave said. “In my day, they supplied those weapons systems with all you soldiers needed—water, nutrient-rich gel packs, medical kits.”
“The Jackson Sea,” I said, “the Hellgate Sea, Yellowstone. The impoundments are intact. What happened to the water?”
“Drought,” Cowboy Dave said. “We haven’t seen snow in three years, but that’s not where most of the water went. I suppose the West needed it more than the people of the upper Wastelands. I suppose the West had the easements or found another way.”
“The West has been stealing NUN-controlled water?” I said. “That’s not true.”
“Not stealing if it’s politics,” Cowboy Dave said. “Cooling off. Let’s go inside and talk.”
“We’re fine right here,” Gareth said.
“I don’t have fancy climate-controlled body armor,” Cowboy Dave said, “and I’m getting hungry and cold. My boys do a mean fish fry…you’re more than welcome.”
“Who are you?” I said.
“I told you,” Cowboy Dave said as he backed from us. “I’m Cowboy Dave. I was just one of many pilots who flew the Northern Passage campaign.”
“That was thirty years ago,” I said as I gestured to Gareth that we would follow.
“I was younger,” Cowboy Dave said as he led us to a little shack jutting up against the side of the hill. “You know I’m not lying. You’ve done the biometric scans. You also know I’m not lying when I say you’re safe here. My kids are nervous. They’ve never met folk like you.”
“Soldiers?” I said.
“I got the retinal implants,” Cowboy Dave said. “Even had targeting goggles, almost like yours. But calling yourselves soldiers? You’re a bit more than that.”
“How long have the water levels been so low?” I asked.
“Ever since I’ve been here,” Cowboy Dave said as he opened the door for us. “Doesn’t matter much though. Farmable land in the Wastelands is gone and will be for a thousand years.”
The five bodies we saw scattering before we landed were the boys who inhabited this rickety shack. An older boy reached into a wooden barrel to pull out a fish by its gills. The fish fought, but out of water, the fish could do little to stop the boy from flopping it on a pine board.
“Those fishes in that barrel are alive,” Gareth said, backing from the barrel.
“Alive is how they come when we get them from the pond,” Cowboy Dave said.
One of the boys pulled a knife from a wooden block. I was quick to grab Gareth’s wrist before she could engage a weapons port.
“The knife is for preparing the fish before cooking?” I said.
A knife stroke up the fish’s belly stopped its struggle for survival. I had to assume the gutted fish would end up on the iron pan above the stove that another boy stoked. The two boys looked familiar, but when I thought I had their faces placed, my thoughts returned to water.
“You don’t eat the internal organs?” Gareth asked.
“Fish guts?” Cowboy Dave said. “You’re welcome to them if you want.”
Another boy was working out simple math on a slate with chalk, and a fourth boy had stopped sketching a fallen pine tree to start sketching Gareth. None of these boys looked like Cowboy Dave or each other, but they all looked vaguely familiar.
“Your boys?” I said. “You’ve been around. How many continents?”
“Rescues,” Cowboy Dave said, “ranging in age from four to thirteen as far as I know. Recognize any of them?”
My thoughts ran straight back to water. I ran a hand across the wood of one of the chairs and tested the seat’s sureness with a boot. Even though the chair was carved from wood, it held.
“Jerod’s becoming quite a woodworker,” Cowboy Dave said. “Never seen so much made from wood, have you? Nothing digital or quantum around here. Our radio’s even analog.”
“You get what you need from these mountains?” I said. “What about the drought?”
Gareth linked with me to ask if they truly fed on once-living creatures. Gareth broke the link when she saw Cowboy Dave’s smirk.
“I have no way of hacking into your link,” Cowboy Dave said. “I just know how to read faces. Fact is, the only real technologies we have here are the fishing poles and what you see strapped to my hip. And the radio. And the truck. I always forget about the truck.”
“Boondoggle. We need to figure out how to get the A55 in the air,” Gareth said.
“Give me a bit more time for my proposition,” Cowboy Dave said. “If you do that and still want to get airborne, I’ll fuel you up and help you get launched.”
“What proposition?” I asked.
“That’s the million-dollar question,” Cowboy Dave said. “Let’s go to the basement.”
“Tunnel system below us. I don’t like this,” Gareth said.
“If you can survive being buried under a building in those contraptions,” Cowboy Dave said, “what harm could I do?”
“You could bury us under a mountain,” I said.
“The point of going below is that down there, you can’t be tracked by the NUN,” Cowboy Dave said. “One of you can stay up here and keep my kids hostage if it’ll make you feel better.”
The little one, the one who walked with a crutch and looked a bit like the half-breed I sometimes dreamed, pointed at Gareth. “Can we get her?” he said. “We don’t ever get girls.”
“That’s because I’m the last girl left,” Gareth said, making the little boy’s eyes go wide.
“We need to make babies then,” the little boy said. “You and me.”
“Knights can’t have babies,” Gareth said.
“Never know until you try,” the boy said.
“Joshua,” Cowboy Dave said. “Don’t be a flirt.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Gareth said. “If I do have a child, I’ll name him after you.”
“Have a girl instead,” Joshua whispered. “That way, there’ll be another just like you.”
“The tunnels and shafts look structurally sound as far as I can see,” I told Gareth. “I’m not detecting explosives. There’s a drum of liquid hydrocarbon two hundred meters east.”
“Gasoline to make the truck go,” Cowboy Dave said. “Or your A55.”
“I’ll still be able to maintain contact with the Infiltrator, but I may have to boost the signal with the A55,” I told Gareth. “From this position, the NUN could intercept and decrypt those transmissions. There is a risk. Agree the risk is minimal?”
“Agreed,” Gareth said. “But I still think this is a bad idea.”
Cowboy Dave pushed aside a table and opened a trapdoor. The wooden ladder led down to the opening of a mineshaft. Two hundred meters into the side of the mountain, we came to a vertical shaft with a hand-crank elevator. The boys above shut the trapdoor, little Joshua giving us a wave goodbye.
“Probably not as fancy as you have back home,” Cowboy Dave said, stepping onto the platform, “but it still works.”
“Does this lead to an aquifer?” I asked as we stepped onto the platform.
“Nope,” Cowboy Dave grunted as he released a handbrake to send us down.
Cowboy Dave traded his cowboy hat for a helmet with a directional light on top. When he engaged the lamp, Gareth engaged a weapons port. I again lowered her hand.
“We’ve mapped sixteen miles of drift,” Cowboy Dave said. “About half are stable.”
“Why are you showing us this?” Gareth asked.
The elevator came to a stop in a large, rough room carved in the rock. A dozen bunks sat stacked against the far wall. Airtight water barrels sat next to shelves of vacuum-sealed foodstuffs and medical supplies.
“What are those things on the top shelf?” Gareth asked.
“Books,” Cowboy Dave said.
“Why do you have them?” Gareth asked. “To collect mold?”
“To read,” Cowboy Dave said.
“His children aren’t neural laced,” I whispered to Gareth. “They acquire knowledge by other means.”
“What you call inefficient, we call enjoyment,” Cowboy Dave said.
“You’re expecting insurgent encroachment,” I asked Cowboy Dave, “or an attack from the West? If you’re expecting an attack from the West, it wasn’t a good idea showing us this.”
“Word has it that the war is coming to an end,” Cowboy Dave said. “How can you have a war when weapons are few and far between, right?”
“The formation of the NUN did one good thing,” I said.
“What are your plans for after the war?” Cowboy Dave asked.
“We protect the border,” Gareth said. “We protect the water.”
“You’re an expensive tool for that,” Cowboy Dave said. “Drones and simple geography can do your work for a fraction of the cost.”
“Not as well,” I said.
“What happens if the Knights are decommissioned?” Cowboy Dave said.
Gareth looked to the elevator. Neither of us liked being down here with this stranger, but he was not presenting any sort of threat.
“What happens to the two of you?” Cowboy Dave said. “I bet you have no clue.”
“The water will always need protecting,” Gareth said.
“And I just told you the West will find more cost-effective means,” Cowboy Dave said.
“He’s suggesting we would be decommissioned,” I said. “Permanently.”
“THREE survives, decoupled,” Cowboy Dave said. “They tried to decommission her.”
“She’s an early generation of soldier,” I said, “as old as you.”
“The programming has advanced,” Cowboy Dave said, “but the hardware platform is not all that different. I know other soldiers who’ve had that technology entirely removed.”
“Without brain damage?” I asked. “You were right, Gareth. Boondoggle.”
“Do a biometric scan,” Cowboy Dave said. “I’ll say it again so you know I don’t lie.”
“How could anybody survive having their neural lace removed?” I said.
“There’s always some risk,” Cowboy Dave said, “but a simple decoupling is just a matter of setting the software up with a halting error and making sure it doesn’t reboot.”
“The neural lace protects against that,” I said.
“Are you so sure?” Cowboy Dave said. “What if it gets confused? What if you ask that computer on your back to run a diagnostic? What if the computer found a problem?”
“At worst, I’d fall asleep,” I said.
“The neural lace would fall asleep,” Cowboy Dave, “not necessarily you.”
“One in the same,” I said.
“I’m not sure I want to hear any more of this,” Gareth said.
“I understand that the proposition sounds frightening,” Cowboy Dave said.
“Not as frightening as living off fish,” Gareth said. “Succumbing to the elements. Guided by carnal impulses.”
“I do like a good fish fry,” Cowboy Dave said.
“You lack free will,” Gareth said.
“I’m not the one who can be shut down with a few command codes,” Cowboy Dave said.
“I could hack into those optical implants and render you blind,” Gareth said.
“We could all three succumb to that,” Cowboy Dave said as he backed up to one of the shelves. “Let’s look at what we have to eat down here—ham, chicken, bear, freeze-dried. You haven’t lived until you’ve tried real meat, even freeze-dried meat. We have fresh fish upstairs.”
“Can you hold your breath?” Gareth said.
“Not as long as you can,” Cowboy Dave said.
“Can you go without food?” Gareth said.
“Not as long as you can,” Cowboy Davie said.
“Go without water?”
“Not as long as you can,” Cowboy Dave said.
“What Gareth means is the neural lace allows us to override carnal instincts,” I said.
“That’s not what I meant. I meant you’re made from meat,” Gareth said. “We’re something more. If we are ordered to shut ourselves down, we will shut ourselves down.”
“What about you, soldier?” Cowboy Dave said. “You willing to follow orders like that?”
“We came to investigate threats to the water,” I said. “You’re telling us water that should be held in Montana impoundments is gone due to drought. I don’t believe that. Who caused it?”
“The West did,” Cowboy Dave said. “Hoarding and overuse of resources.”
“No,” I said. “Sustainability is a central tenant of—”
“You’re what—eighteen, nineteen?” Cowboy Dave said. “She’s what—seventeen? Between the two of you, you two must know just about everything.”
“We need to get home,” Gareth said. “I’ve heard enough.”
“You came here looking for answers,” Cowboy Dave said. “I’m giving you answers to questions you have never had a chance to ask, and I’m also offering you asylum in NUN-controlled territory. Best deal you’ll get. This is wild country. Forgotten country.”
“And what do you get?” I said.
“Peace of mind,” Cowboy Dave said. “The knowledge that something good came out of what they did to you kids. The knowledge that you can do something good with all your gifts.”
“You’re a humanitarian?” Gareth said.
“You’re being set up, Lancelot,” Cowboy Dave said. “You have Knights in the air, don’t you? You have orders still under lock. Whatever happens out east will be pinned solely on you.”
“THREE went dark,” I said. “How are you communicating with her?”
“I’m not,” Cowboy Dave said. “I’ve been alive long enough to see many peace accords. When both sides get together to argue over resources, the strongest side usually wins.”
“That’s war,” Gareth said.
“What I’ve never seen is peace negotiations occurring anywhere other than on neutral ground,” Cowboy Dave said. “As I recall, previous negotiations have occurred in Winnipeg.”
