The war torn hills of ea.., p.24
The War-Torn Hills of Earth | Flashback, page 24
“Well doesn’t this just take the cake,” said Lazaro, and spit.
“I take it we aren’t what you expected,” said Atticus. He leaned on the axe as though it were a cane. “I must say, neither are you.” His good eye, which was a pale, piercing blue, dropped to our weapons. “You came well-armed. What are those—M4s? Not exactly an easy thing to come by—since Big Green fled the scene.” He raised his chin and cocked his head, studying us. “And that helicopter. I mean, damn. What did you do? Raid a small airport? Got a pilot, even.”
He began pacing, slowly, methodically. “That’s better than a doctor. So, to summarize: You got a helicopter. You got military-issue rifles. You got, well, plumbing—I mean, you’re clean, all of you. You even got ...” He stopped dead in his tracks, dead in front of Sam. “You even got—a girl!” He screwed up his face suddenly and leaned back, staring at Joan, who glowered at him. “Make that plural. Sorry. It’s just that ...” He looked Sam up and down. “It isn’t always this easy to tell—”
“Look, what do you want?” I snapped.
Atticus reared his head back as though he’d been wounded. “Jesus! Tone. I was just going to say how important it is for the fairer sex to be represented in any post-apocalyptic scenario. You know, women.” He leaned close to me, I have no idea why. “My boys call them tassels—fuck if I know. Something out of Williamsburg, I suppose. Like putting crayons in your beard, or whatever.” He stepped back to address us all. “All of which is just my way of saying—you have a home. A base. A place to hang your hat. And because of that, I’ve only got two questions.” He hefted the axe suddenly and decisively—before switching it to his other hand and touching it to the ground. “Where? And why, since you have your own turf, would you come prancing onto ours—a crime punishable by death? I mean, just, holy bugfuck. It had to be for something good, right?”
“What’s it matter if you’re just going to kill us anyway?” protested Lazaro. “You said it yourself: ‘a crime punishable by death.’ So why should we tell you anything?”
“Because information is currency,” said Atticus flatly. He added quickly: “One I might just accept in exchange for your lives. Along with your guns, of course. And maybe the girl. It really all depends on the quality of your—”
But I’d stopped listening: focusing instead on the darkness behind him, behind his men. Because something had moved there. Something amongst the cars.
Several somethings.
“The pharmacy,” I interrupted quickly, almost breathlessly, “the one on Madison Street. B-Bartell Drugs. That’s—that’s where we were going.” I looked sidelong at Sam as sweat beaded along my brow. “We were going to Bartell Drugs—for prenatal vitamins. I’m sorry, Sam.”
“That’s very interesting,” said Atticus, matter-of-factly. “But considering we’re on Marion, I’d say you overshot the mark.”
I stared at Sam intensely, trying to communicate in secret, trying to communicate with my eyes alone. “We—couldn’t get to it from there. There were raptors between us and it; at least, that’s what I think they were. They—they were in some kind of utility tunnel, which was dark. I’m the only one who saw them. The others—they, they had to take my word. We we’re looping around the building to bypass the tunnel when you opened fire.” Sam faced forward again and squinted, her expression a mask, her composure unwavering. That’s when I knew she knew.
“As for the guns—take them,” I said, trying not to look into the dark. “Just let us get the supplements. Please.”
I looked to find Atticus staring at me, his head at an angle, his mouth hanging open. Then he guffawed—once, twice—and paced away, raising the axe head as he did so, slapping the flat of its blade against his palm. “Man. You are one noble fuck. All of you. And here I thought you were just a bunch of hardened, cutthroat survivors—come to take a slice of our purloined pie, no doubt.” He stopped suddenly and turned around. “You, with the wire-frame glasses. Raptor-spotter. What’s your name, son?”
I glanced at Sam on one side and Nigel on the other.
“Jamie,” I said, and looked at my shoes. “Jamie Klein.”
“Jamie,” he repeated, and approached to within a few feet. “Jamie Klein.” He pinched the axe between his knees as he began to swing and stretch his arms. “Damn. That suits you, you know? I mean, you seem like a nice guy. A real mensch. Are you Jewish?”
I shook my head.
“No. Well, it’s not important. What is important is that we establish a baseline. Something that, well, will get me the truth—when I ask a simple, goddamn question. So, I’m going to ask you one more time, before I give the word. Where is your base-camp? And why—you need to think about this, you might even say your life depends on it—have you come to Pioneer Square?”
“I told you,” I said. “We needed medicine and supplements for—”
“The girl,” he said, and took a step back—even as two of his men (who weren’t training rifles) grabbed Sam by the upper arms and forced her to the pavement.
“Sorry about this, troops—I really am. But I did say it: You needed to think about this one. Carefully.” He took up the axe and tapped its head on the pavement. “I mean, you don’t get to be the Big Dog without keeping your word, right?” He raised the hatchet slowly, confidently, the leather of his half gloves crinkling. “And believe me when I say: When it comes to south Seattle, we are the Big Dog ...”
That’s when something leapt up in the darkness and my eyes darted to the blur—in time to see a blue and red velociraptor pounce the farthest Skidder back: its sickle-foot claws latching firmly into his abdomen, its fore-talons gripping his broad, flannelled shoulders, its jaws closing about his head. And then all was screaming and gunfire—which lit up the garage like the fourth of July and thundered, cracking, off its walls—as I piledrived Atticus and wrested the axe from him; as everyone scrambled for their weapons and the raptors pounced upon more Skidders.
“Lazaro!” I remember yelling—knowing his shotgun could blow the gate, knowing he’d opened locked doors with it before—before a man screamed nearby and I looked: and saw his attacker biting off the top of his head—just opening it like a watermelon, taking everything but his long, full beard.
And then there was a shotgun blast and we were falling back, still firing at the velociraptors, still firing into Atticus’ men—lighting up everything and everyone as we ducked beneath the gate and burst into the rain. As we hustled down Marion Street with Roman thundering above us and the screams of the Skidders still echoing in our heads.
Toward the Exchange Building and a gutted triceratops in the window of a Starbucks. Toward the research and development lab of Roman’s former employer ... and something we knew only as Gargantua.
Someone needed to say something, anything. The danger in silence was that, post-Flashback, one inevitably heard the emptiness, the melancholy: the sound of the world just breathing in and out, dreaming. So, I said: “For her, the Flashback is over”—hoping it would break the spell of her liquefied eyes and deeply sunken sockets, the pale, wispy hair, the fuzzy white fungus in her nostrils and mouth. Hoping, I suppose, that it would drown out the Nothing—if only for a moment.
“No more power lunches for this babysan,” said Lazaro, and spat. He kicked the spilt attaché case at the base of the cycad, where her feet should have been, and paper and cash swirled. “Here one minute—melded with a tree the next. Shit sucks.”
Sam stepped closer, examining where the woman’s face merged with the tree. “Initial Flashback, you think? Or an aftershock?”
I watched the rain—which had lessened to a drizzle— dribble down the corpse’s face and neck. “I don’t know, she seems pretty well preserved. Could have been an aftershock.”
“Probably suffocated,” said Nigel. “Tree manifested and her lungs couldn’t expand. Jesus. What a horrible way to go.”
I looked at Joan who was white as a ghost. “You all right?”
“Yeah. It’s just that ...” She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
She jumped as our walkie-talkies squawked; it sure looked like something to me. “Go ahead, Sea One,” I said. “What’s your twenty?”
I looked to see the Bell 206 arching over Elliott Bay.
“Just west of you—monitoring pack movements near the Colman ferry terminal. Carnotauruses, by the looks of it. I take it you’re at the Exchange?”
“Affirmative—and awaiting instructions.”
“Through the double doors, left at the first hall, all the way to the end. Austin Dynamics and Land Systems. They’ll be a secure door—you’ll have to blow it. And hurry, because there are predators of the human variety on the move in Pioneer Square.”
I peered at the sky, at what Roman called the Mesozoic Borealis, watching the colors bleed in and out of each other, watching them shift and change shape. “Yeah, ah, about that. Requesting alternative escape route—Over. We have had contact with Skidders. I repeat, we have had contact with them. We—they’re all dead. Over.”
But there was nothing, just the sound of the helicopter.
At last Roman said, “That’s unfortunate. But it doesn’t change a thing. Escape route is still 1st Avenue through Pioneer Square to Edgar Martinez Drive—then I-90 to Issaquah. Do you copy?”
That’s when I saw it: him, the kid, dirty-faced and wild-eyed, his hair like an unkempt mane, listening to us from the nearby stairwell—like the feral boy in The Road Warrior, I swear.
“Hey!” I shouted, drawing the attention of the others, “Hey, kid! Hold up!”
But he was already gone—climbing from the well at its opposite end, bolting up the shattered sidewalk like a gazelle. Weaving right at 2nd Avenue—where he vanished into the primordial mist.
“Jesus,” said Lazaro, before the overheads had even finished flickering on. “I mean ... Who was this thing even built for, Godzilla?”
I stared at the vehicle, which was the length of a small yacht, say, 50 feet. “Well, not to put too fine a point on it, it was built for us. Or whoever survived whatever apocalypse Dannon had dreamed up.”
I approached the rover and slid my hand up one of the tires—which was taller than I was, by about a foot. “Welcome to the world of big tech billionaires and their passion projects.” The rubber felt stiff, unyielding, like polished wood. “His was to build a fully self-contained armored expedition vehicle—a kind of mini-Noah’s Ark—something that could not only sustain life but go about exploring what was left of the world—if and when the shit ever hit the fan.”
I circled the big rig while gazing up at its slanted cab and wide, black grill, its array of lights, its giant push and roll bars. The thing was like a van-version of the Cybertruck but on fucking steroids. “Reckon he was like Mr. Musk—in need of a challenge, but also a moral imperative to justify it. For him that was this apocalypse he saw coming.” I paused to examine the roof turret and what appeared to be a .50-caliber machine gun. “A virus, maybe. Or a war. Dinosaurs probably weren’t in his game plan.”
“Looks they were getting ready to test it,” said Sam. “Look.”
I looked to where a massive steel ramp (we’d descended stairs to get to the production floor) ended at an equally massive door. “Good. Looks like this might be easier than we—”
There was a rattle of weapons followed by Lazaro shouting, “Stop! Get on the ground!” —and I hurried to see what the commotion was; at which instant I saw a man in a blue shop-coat standing by a huge sphere and holding what looked like a small, olive-colored ball over his head—a ball with a ring attached, through which he’d looped a trembling finger.
“He’s got a bomb!” I shouted—but resisted raising my rifle. “Everyone just chill! Okay?”
No one did—chill, that is—but no one fired either, and a moment or two passed in silence.
At last, the man said, “See this big tank here, this round monstrosity?” He indicated the white metal container next to him, which was taller even than he was. “That would be propylene gas—enough to level this entire floor, maybe the building itself. See this?” He nodded at the olive-colored ball. “That’s your standard military-issue hand grenade, courtesy of the kids who were stationed here before they and the city fell. See those?” He nodded at some handles and hoses near the floor. “Those are the valves I loosened as you were making your way here. If you don’t smell it yet, you will. It’s strong. Now. Any questions?”
“Only one,” I said, and pushed up my glasses. “What do you want?”
He shifted his footing as though preparing for a long standoff. “I want you to lower your weapons,” he said, and wiggled his fingers near the pin—keeping himself on his toes. “Lower them and kick them toward me, all of you. Then we’ll talk.”
Nobody said anything.
At last, I set down my rifle and motioned for the others to do the same. “Do it,” I said, and slowly raised my arms. “You too, Lazaro. Let’s go.”
The weapons clattered as they were placed on the floor and punted toward him.
He lowered his arms cautiously. “There, see? We’re still capable of it—rational thought. It hasn’t gone the way of the dinosaur.” He laughed at that but kept the grenade close to his chest. “Yet.”
He looked at our weapons as though running calculations through his head. “There’s Neanderthals roaming the streets, did you know that? Real ones—not supporters of President Tucker.” He paused, seeming to size us all up. “Remember them? With their little red hats and faces all puffed in rage?” He chuckled. “Fell off the flat earth, I guess. No, these are genuine Homo sapiens neanderthalensis—right beside modern man and triceratops; right beside honkers from the Jurassic and Cretaceous and Triassic. Just sort of one big medley—like Time itself was put in a blender, or a concrete mixer, or a cream separator, and churned.”
He seemed to relax a little and even lowered the grenade.
“I’m Ewan, by the way. Ewan Homes. I—I was Gargantua’s chief engineer. Before life put us all in the blender.”
“Jamie,” I said. “Jamie Klein. This is Sam.” I indicated the others. “That’s Lazaro, Nigel, and Joan. We—we’re from Issa—”
“Jamie, don’t,” interrupted Sam.
“It’s all right,” I said—and meant it. I trusted him; I don’t know why. “We’re from Issaquah. Got a camp there in what used to be a drive-in theater; it’s got walls, vegetable gardens, some chickens and goats—there’s even some generators, if you want to watch a movie. The thing is—Ewan—it’s not overcrowded. And what I’m going to suggest just now is that—"
“Nothing leaves this facility,” he snapped—simply, with finality. “That includes me.” He raised the grenade tentatively and reached for the pin—then hesitated, his eyes searching mine, or seeming to. “No ... no, I don’t hear it. It’s not there.” He lowered the olive-colored explosive slowly, tentatively. “The guile of the predator, the cunning of the fox. It’s not there. You speak ... earnestly.”
I let down my arms carefully, incrementally, maintaining eye contact. “I speak as someone who has sought Gargantua while not knowing it had a guardian, a sentinel, who is yourself, or at least how you see yourself. I speak as someone who has faced the Big Empty alone just as you have—and knows it is not for lack of bread that a man dies, but lack of purpose, and that you have found yours in the guarding of this machine, this vehicle—a vehicle that, for whatever reason, you cannot even drive yourself, or you would have done so already. And I’ll offer you another way—Ewan, chief engineer at Austin Dynamics and Land Systems, whose budget was 8.5 million per fiscal year and who’s assistant was named Roman Daystrom, your best friend—if you’ll just turn off that fucking gas.”
By the time I’d reintroduced Roman and Ewan via radio, and the former had convinced the latter to not only come with us but to let someone other than himself drive Gargantua (Ewan, we were told, was blind as a bat), and Nigel had escorted the engineer to his quarters so he could retrieve some of his effects, the clock on the wall of the shop read half past one—more than enough time for the Skidders to have organized some type of counter-strike; a fact that weighed heavily on my mind as the women and I began gathering up specs and schematics and Lazaro paced the room impatiently.
“What the hell’s taking them so long? You heard Roman—carnotauruses, heading this way. Oh, I forgot. Nigel’s on Jamaican Time.”
“They have been gone awhile,” said Sam. “Maybe we should—”
“It’s no good splitting us up,” I said. “There’s no telling how quickly we might have to leave. Nigel’s got it—everyone just chill.” I looked at Lazaro. “Can you give us a hand with these? They’re going to be heavy.”
“Why the hell are we carting them along, then?” He snatched up one of the boxes with a huff and headed for Gargantua. “Or him, for that matter? Dude is definitely a few sandwiches short of a picnic.”
“You going to fix this thing when it—” began Joan, but Lazaro was already up the ramp.
We continued working in silence.
At length Sam said, “Who was he, you think? That kid?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Just a kid. Probably been on his own since the Flashback, who knows?” I heaped some manuals into a box—which created a cloud of dust. “He gave me a start, that’s for sure. I didn’t really get a good look at him.”
“I did ...” She paused as though visualizing him. “He had bones around his neck, did you know that? Or teeth—like, really big ones. He’d strung them together as a sort of necklace. Isn’t that odd, you think?”
