Short Stories by
Teel McClanahan III
Modern Evil Press
Phoenix
ISBN: 978-1-934516-55-3
Copyright 2002-2009 Teel McClanahan III
Some Rights Reserved.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, entities and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
Cover image Copyright 2009 by Teel McClanahan III
Published By Modern Evil Press at Smashwords
ISBN: 978-1-934516-04-1 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-934516-55-3 (eBook)
– for love lost, and for love found –
This book, More Lost Memories, is a companion to my novel, Forget What You Can't Remember. As I was writing that novel, I kept finding that certain interesting things that popped up there had to go unwritten (or be set aside) since they weren't relevant to the story of that book.
What happened to the two guys who were supposed to be running the zombie survival course? What would the experience of a mixed martial arts competition be like for someone with an amazing sense of smell? What are the stories behind Fantastician's other encounters? What about the details of Lance's restaurant? And, what did Brady work on after the stunning conclusion of the novel?
Answers to all these questions, along with a story which further connects the events of Lost and Not Found with Forget What You Can't Remember by bringing the main characters of one book into the setting of the other, can be found in More Lost Memories. Delve deeper. Find out more. Enjoy.
-Teel McClanahan III
-A Zombie Story-
The Sergeant walked away with Lorraine by his side. Mary’s eyes were stuck in a shocked stare, liquid leaking silently from them and down her face as she watched the object of her desire slip away with her best friend. “You heard the man! Find shelter! Arm yourselves! This is a test, and you will be graded on your performance!”
The crowd of trainees scattered, searching the woods, running across fields, looking for the cabins that would protect them from the undead. Lance and Brady ran off in the same direction. Most of the others kept to groups of two or three. Mary didn’t move, she just kept looking in the direction the Sergeant had gone in, as though frozen.
“I’m sorry about that.” One of the instructors approached her, speaking in a familiar tone. “I was sure he’d go for you. He really does have a thing for red heads.”
Mary’s eyes snapped across to meet his eyes. Her head, her body, her streaming tears remained as they were. Her lip trembled, but she did not speak.
“Why did you bring her along, anyway? She hardly looks fit to survive a full zombie survival training course.” His tone was gruff, even though deep down he was glad to see the Sergeant distracted and it didn’t matter to him which woman it was doing the distracting. “If you’d gone off with him, she’d be the one stuck out here by herself. Did you want her to be zombie bait, or just to have to put out for protection?”
Mary sniffled. There were only a couple of trainees still in sight. The other instructor was waiting, a few feet away, bruised and impatient. Mary’s hands rose to her face and futilely wiped away her tears. Her tears didn’t stop. Being accused of wanting her best friend murdered hadn’t helped.
“Look, we’re being watched, so you’re going to have to participate. Stephen,” he addressed the other instructor, “did you happen to notice if any of the cabins didn’t have someone headed to it?”
“Hard to say. No one was headed for eleven, but two groups are gonna hit the outer wall if they stay on a straight course. No way of knowing where they’ll end up after that.”
“Wait,” Mary’s voice was hoarse and accusatory, “I thought you told me your name was Steven.”
“It is.”
“But you just called him Steven.”
“No, I called him Stephen. He’s Stephen with a ‘ph’ and I’m Steven with a ‘v’.” Stephen finally crossed the distance to where Mary was still standing frozen in place. “Stephen, this is Mary, the woman I was telling you about. Mary, this is Stephen. He’ll be assisting me with running the new facility out West.”
Stephen reached out a hand, but Mary did not take it and after a moment he let it fall back to his side. “Pleased to meet you, Mary.”
“Okay, so, do you see that boulder over there, kinda shaped like a bear?” Mary’s eyes moved to the boulder. “Cabin eleven is about ten minutes into the forest if you walk a straight path past that boulder. There are plenty of big knives in the kitchenette and there should be a hunting rifle in one of the closets.” Steven glanced at his watch. “Someone will be checking in at each cabin in fifteen minutes, so get there and get armed before they show up. Remember, zombies can’t use language, so don’t open the door for anyone who doesn’t. Now go!”
Mary’s hands reached up and halfheartedly wiped another face full of tears away. She took a deep breath. She gave Steven a look that she hoped expressed that she couldn’t do this without him. She ran off in the direction of the boulder and was quickly out of sight amongst the trees.
“She’s going to need a lot of help to survive this thing, herself.”
“I thought she’d be protected by the Sergeant. Now I’m going to have to try to keep her safe without compromising her training and run the entire camp for the rest of the trainees at the same time. What a headache.”
“Well, at least the Sergeant won’t be around to muck things up for us.”
“That’s what you think. The other instructors are loyal to him, not us. If he wants us to run into snags, he doesn’t have to do it himself.”
“So what was the point of the girl?”
“He won’t be breathing down our necks is the point. I wish he’d gone for Mary, at least then I’d know he’d be satisfied, and more likely to go easy on us at the end of this. That girl can take anything the Sergeant can dish out.”
“Then why are you worried about her surviving training?”
“In the bedroom. I meant she could take anything he could dish out in the bedroom.”
• • • •
“Which is why you never want to punch a zombie in the mouth.” Stephen was explaining to the assembled trainees that there wasn’t really any difference between being bit on the hand and breaking the skin on your knuckles against the lipless grin of a contagious zombie. “Don’t use your own body as a weapon. Pick something up. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a stone or a hunk of wood or a fire axe, as long as you’re not coming into direct contact with the undead. Most of you seemed to find suitable weapons in your cabins. Why don’t you share a few of your discoveries with the group?”
“I found a crow bar,” said Brady, lifting it up so everyone could see it.
“Good. A crow bar can be an excellent blunt instrument. It has good heft, so you can usually crush a skull with a good swing, and the curved end makes a good handle. Just be careful not to turn it around and get the curved end stuck in someone’s head, or you’ll find yourself disarmed. What else?”
“I found a set of golf clubs,” another trainee announced, brandishing a huge driver overhead.
“Golf clubs are better than your bare hands, but be careful with them; their effective range is pretty small. If zombies get too close you’ll just hit them with the shaft and even if it doesn’t break the club, it won’t be enough to kill ‘em. Swinging a golf club around in the air may seem intimidating to you, but remember that zombies aren’t thinking creatures. They won’t be afraid, they’ll just keep coming, and unless you can crush their skull with the head of the club, you’ll be dropping it to switch to another weapon once they get in closer. What else?”
“I’ve got a shotgun!” A huge, muscle-bound hulk of a man grunted, proud.
“That’s alright, but we’re really looking for blunt instruments. You can swing a shotgun and get a pretty good hit, but if you can keep from damaging it in close combat, you won’t have to worry about trying to repair it later. We’ll get into making your own ammunition and weapon repairs later this week, and you’ll really see what I mean. You run out of shells for that shotgun and you put it away and you get out a blade or a blunt instrument or you pick something up off the ground if you have to, but unless it’s life or death, you’re better off using anything but your shotgun to bash skulls with. What else?”
“I’m pretty happy with the sledge hammer I’ve got here.” Lance hefted the eight pound sledge up over his head. “I’ve split a lot of firewood and pounded enough tent pegs that I’m quite accurate with it.”
“Excellent choice for you, then. That size hammer has a good reach, and more than enough heft to crush a skull or knock a few zombies back so you have time to get them one at a time. The only advantage a big, heavy pipe has over the hammer,” and Stephen indicated the pipe in another student’s hands, “is that its weight distribution makes it easier to handle. If you have the practice necessary to handle it, choose the hammer. For the rest of you, choose something simple, with an even weight distribution, like a two by four, a pipe, a branch, or a table leg. Long enough that your fingers aren’t in biting range and heavy or sturdy enough that you can crush skulls or knock heads off entirely.”
“What about knives?”
“Big blades are great, and after lunch you’ll all be getting hands-on time with the machetes you’ll be taking home with you. Machetes, swords, Bat’leths and other long, sharp blades are excellent for beheading zombies. Large kitchen knives and hunting knives can be effective, if you have time to sever the head, or if you can stab backward through the eyes and into the brain. Don’t try to defend yourself with knives six inches and shorter. Even if you manage to stab a zombie in the eye, you won’t be able to do enough brain damage to kill it. Generally though, if you’re getting close enough to stab the thing in the eyes, you’re close enough to get bit, so anything shorter than a sword should be used as a last line of defense.”
“What about an axe? An axe is like a blade on a stick.”
“An axe can be very effective against zombies, as can a scythe if you know how to handle it. Try to focus on fast, clean decapitation with an axe. I know it’s gonna be tempting to drive that thing into a zombie’s skull, but like the wrong end of a crowbar or like an axe going into a stubborn log, it could get stuck. If it does, you’re either distracted, you’re disarmed, or you’re dead.” Stephen was getting tired of having to run all the classes by himself, without Steven’s help or the Sergeant’s guidance. Nearly a dozen of the regular staff had been sent along with the supply convoy to the new camp being set up out West, and those who remained were barely able to keep up with the regular schedule. “Now, it’s time for lunch. We’ve removed the rations from all but two of the cabins, and only one of you knows which two. You have two hours. You can fight, you can cooperate, you can go hungry, I don’t care, and no one will stop you. Remember that in the end, you won’t know when or where your next meal will come from, or who you can trust. All you can be certain of is that death is waiting around every corner. Now move, if you want to eat!”
A few people ran off together in the same direction, then almost everyone else followed. Stephen knew the one who had been told where the food was had led the first group away, and that he was the greediest bastard in the class. Stephen also knew that the closer of the two cabins also had a few zombies. Every time, for every class, they hinted on the first day that it would be a good idea to hide some food, in the event of a zombie outbreak, preferably a little in every room you could find yourself trapped in. Every time, they did the same thing, stocking every cabin before anyone arrived, then removing it from all but two cabins the second morning, and trying to show them a little something about preparedness and about teamwork. Once again, Stephen thought as he walked briskly toward Steven’s accommodations, not a single trainee had both thought to hide food somewhere in their cabin and remembered doing so when presented with this challenge. Yet another lesson he would have to explain to them all personally, if Steven didn’t get himself back to work. Stephen threw open the door when he reached it, forcibly letting himself in and making a show of his anger. Steven and Mary were on the couch.
“You’re supposed to be out there with me, Steven! You’re the one who’s supposed to be running the new camp, and this is supposed to be your final test. Why am I the one out there earning your grade?”
Mary screamed into her ball gag, and let out little more than a muffled squeal. Steven stepped backward out of and off of her naked body, glistening with sweat and flush with pain and excitement. She moved to cover herself, to turn away, to hide her nakedness from the intruder, but there was nothing at arms’ reach to cover herself with, not even a throw pillow. She ended up folding her handcuffed arms in front of her, crossing her legs, and lowering her head in shame.
“Has there been a problem?” Steven walked confidently nude across the room and pulled a beer from the fridge. “You want one?”
“I’m working, and you should be, too!”
Steven closed the refrigerator door with a shrug. “Look, I know the Sergeant hasn’t left his cabin since he went in there with... Uhh...”
“Lorraine,” muttered Mary unintelligibly through her ball gag.
“Yeah, with Lorraine. I don’t know what it is she’s been doing to him that Mary wouldn’t have done, but I doubt we’ll see him again any time soon.”
“That’s not the point.” Stephen offered his coat to Mary, politely keeping his gaze on Steven as she covered herself up. “You know we’re short staffed, right now, what with the transfer going on. And this is a full house, Steven. It’s more students than one instructor was meant to handle. Between those two facts, people’s lives could be at risk out there, while you’re in here...” Stephen didn’t finish, out of courtesy to Mary.
“What I do in here is none of your business, Stephen, and if you aren’t capable of picking up the slack then I might need to start looking for someone else to be my number two at the new camp.”
“Look, can you at least make it to machete training after lunch, today? Some of these people are going to need a pretty close eye on them just to be sure they don’t chop off their own fingers.” The sound of distant gun shots pierced the air.
“I think they found the zombies you left to guard their lunches. Is it still the brute carrying the shotgun?” Stephen nodded. “How many do you suppose will survive ‘till machete training? With that guy waving his boom stick around?”
“Less than would have made it if I’d had your help last night. I wasn’t going to try to take the thing away from him by myself.”
“You think I would have helped? That guy could take both of us in an instant.” Steven was already finishing his beer, and walking back to get another. “I’d bet that before we send him home he rips a zombie’s head off with his bare hands, just because he can.”
“I’d rather bet that he tries using the shotgun as a blunt instrument and ends up blowing his own head off.”
“Sure, but he’d take the zombie with him.”
Another couple of shots could be heard in the distance. “I better go check on ‘em. Can I count on you? Machete training, two hours?” Steven only nodded as he popped the top off another cold bottle of beer, and Stephen trusted him and went back out the door he’d left standing wide open on his way in. Steven looked at Mary looking curled up and ashamed on his couch, and a devilish grin grew across his face.
• • • •
Steven had thought it was Stephen at the door again, letting himself in. He had thought it would be another way to dominate, control, and degrade Mary to force her to be seen as she was. After the better part of a week had been spent alternately beating Mary, fucking Mary, and ignoring Stephen’s requests for assistance, Steven had forgotten about just about everything beyond the walls of his cabin. It didn’t occur to him that the sound of the door opening and someone coming in without knocking hadn’t been accompanied by more shouting and yelling until he felt cold fingers on his shoulder and sharp teeth soon after.
Naked, armed only with a calf-skin flogger, Steven was no match for the two zombies that had caught him totally unawares. As Mary watched them approach, she had tried to warn him, tried to shout out, to indicate with her eyes and with the look on her face that Steven should turn around, but between the ball gag and his trance-like mental state, he didn’t get the message. A distinct change in the magnitude of the fear in her eyes and on her face ought to have registered with him, even after seeing pain and fear in her for so long, when she went from sub-space to raw horror and terror at their imminent demise. Still, his incomprehension had given Mary an extra moment to react, as both zombies paused to consume his flesh one mouthful at a time.
She felt sure it would not be moment enough to escape. Mary was laying on her back upon Steven’s dining room table, naked except for the ropes that held her arms and legs to the table and the ball gag in her mouth. She was spread-eagled. Her arms were flat on the table, her wrists tied by short pieces of rope to the tops of two legs of it. Her spread knees were bent down over the opposite edge of the table, her ankles and calves secured to the other two legs in three places each. She had spent nearly an hour struggling in vain against her bonds before the pair of loose zombies had come through Steven’s unlocked front door and begun to eat him alive. When she saw that the man she had been trusting to protect her had failed so quickly and completely, the table finally gave in to her adrenaline-fueled strength.
The table gave in, but it did not give up, and she was not freed. Her legs, straining forward, backward, forward, backward, forward, backward, inching the table across the floor, finally managed to snap its legs from its top. The legs broke inward, sliding in under the table, and the table and the weight of her whole body came down with it. She had been straining with her entire body, and luckily her toes had been included; their being curled back allowed part of the weight of the blow to roll over the balls of her feet and reduce the force that ended up crushing down on her knees. Her hands were still tied, and her body was still spread out across the table’s surface, only now it was wedged diagonally between the crooks of her knees and the ropes burning her wrists.
The zombies were still only a few feet away. Mary could smell their unmistakable odor, she could see Steven’s blood pooling on the floor, and she knew she needed to keep her wits about her. Using the strength of her legs and her abs alone, Mary pulled hard against the table, lifting it up off the floor behind her. Then, when she had it as high as she could get it, her body nearly vertical, she slammed her full weight backward against it.
She heard something crack.
Slowly, painfully, she pulled herself up and up and up again, not quite as far as before. Again, she slammed backward with as much force as she could find.
Another cracking sound.
A third time she strained against the ropes holding her, against her past which had brought her there and got her in that position, and against the weariness not just of the last few moments but of the last week altogether. The zombies seemed already to be losing interest in the cooling flesh of Mary’s recently deceased lover. She pushed back hard, one more time, unsure if she would be able to pull herself up again if this blow was insufficient.
A louder crack, then almost a boom, and finally she was falling backward as the other two legs of the table gave out one at a time behind her.
It was a stroke of luck that the legs gave out one before the other, because it pulled the table down to the left rather than straight back. She was able to twist her legs out from under the table to the right as it came down instead of hyper-extending her knees and possibly tearing her own legs apart with the force that a straight fall might have had. Her wrists were burned, strained, and pained, and her calves were still tied to table legs, but at least she was free.
She crawled on her hands and knees across the floor away from the zombies, finding her hand land on the thick wooden table leg that had been holding her captive only an instant earlier. As the first of the zombies lurched her way, she lifted the leg up like a club. Mary was surprised she couldn’t feel its weight and didn’t have to strain to lift it. As the first of the zombies came within range, she swung the table leg in a wide arc, beaning it. The zombie fell to the ground. She slammed the leg, her captor transformed thus into the savior Steven could now never be for her, again and again against the thing’s skull, crushing and nearly pulverizing its brains against the floor.
The second zombie didn’t seem to mind the reduced competition for her warm, bare flesh, and approached hungrily. Mary tried to stand. She even tried using the blood and bone-encrusted table leg as a prop or crutch to help her up. Mary couldn’t stand. The table legs tied to her legs were like terrible stilts, and she quickly saw that she would not be able to stand or to run until she was able to remove them. The zombie moaned. She swung at it, hit it, and was disappointed to see that it did not hit the floor as easily as its companion. She swung again. Her blow hit more solidly. She heard bone breaking and saw the zombie’s motion cease and limbs go limp before gravity could get a grip on him. Mary pounded mercilessly on the second zombie’s already destroyed head for several more minutes, until her strength gave out. She collapsed beside the dead bodies of the undead she had been avoiding all week, pulling the gag out of her mouth, finally able to take a deep breath.
She cried.
She sobbed.
She wept.
She wailed.
But not for long.
Mary knew it would not be long before Steven’s dead, partially eaten body began again to stir. She began working to untie her legs. She began thinking about whether she would have time to get dressed before he woke up. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to kill him as easily as she’d killed the other two; she hadn’t known the other two. She hadn’t fucked the other two. They were merely monsters. They were easy. She had her first leg free.
“There’s been a zombie outbreak--!” Stephen came shouting into Steven’s cabin yet again without knocking, but stopped short when he saw the death and destruction laid out before him.
“I know,” Mary said without looking up from the tangled knots holding her second leg.
“What happened here?” Stephen was trying not to look at Mary’s naked, bruised and battered, zombie-blood splattered body, but between it and the broken table, dead zombies, and Steven, he couldn’t help but stare.
“You just said. Zombie outbreak, right?” Mary’s second leg was free, and she was up and stiffly walking into the bedroom to get something to wear. “Do I have time to take a shower, or are more coming this way?”
“I don’t think you understand. These zombies didn’t break out. Those two were from a training exercise, earlier.” Stephen threw a dish towel -the only thing he could find laying around- over Steven’s exposed genitals and then looked away again. “I came to tell Steven that there was a real zombie outbreak. Near Denver. The Sergeant says we’ve got to get everyone trained and ready to go before we all head to Denver at Noon.”
“Fine. Plenty of time to take a shower, then,” and Mary went into Steven’s bathroom with a handful of clothes and a fresh towel and shut the door behind her. Stephen heard the water running before he could run out the front door on his way to alert the other trainees.
• • • •
“Why are there still zombies in the pen? Shouldn’t the trainees be training with them?” The Sergeant had finally made an appearance outside his private cabin, some time after breakfast.
“They’ve just now finished learning how to kill ‘em. I wanted to save enough zombies to teach them how to herd groups of them.” Stephen had been caught up by the sight of the Sergeant and the sound of his voice while running at his full speed from one side of the compound to another. “I know we don’t normally cover it with first-timers, but if they’re coming with us to Denver...” Stephen trailed off, out of breath.
“Good idea,” the Sergeant barked. “Carry on!”
Stephen had been burning the candle at both ends before Steven had been turned into yet another member of the undead, and now he was harried to the point of exhaustion. Trying to get the class through the most important elements of another nine days’ worth of potentially life saving information in less than nine hours and on only a couple of hours’ worth of sleep was a challenge he wasn’t ready for. He did his best, he tried to keep things together, but it would have been difficult even with a fully staffed camp. The sole relief Stephen had seen amidst the entire insane ordeal came from underestimating Mary. She did better defending herself from zombies without even a full day of training than anyone else in the class, and she did it with poise, grace, and little more than a pair of long kitchen knives. He’d expected he’d have to work twice as hard to get her half up to speed, but she’d handled herself at least as well as any of the best of their graduates he’d seen.
As he ran, again at top speed, Stephen was trying to plan out the rest of the morning, wondering how many graduates would show up in time to join the entourage to Denver, and again and again his mind returned to the image of Mary which had been burned into his mind as he’d walked in on her a few minutes too late to save her and Steven from zombies. He thought he heard a noise in the woods to his left and his head snapped to the side while his feet continued carrying him forward. He didn’t see anything there in the pre-dawn darkness. He also didn’t see the zombie that had crawled into his path.
He tripped, tumbled, broke his wrist as he tried to catch himself, knocked his head hard, and collapsed. He didn’t pass out, but the world went blurry with the pain and confusion and he wasn’t sure which way was up. He tried to lift himself up, to see what he’d tripped over, to figure out where he was, but when he tried to put any weight on his broken wrist he collapsed again in pain. He felt another sharp pain coming from his ankle, and feared he might have broken that, too. Using his good arm, he pushed himself over, twisting his torso around to try to see his feet.
Through blurred vision, Stephen saw that the zombie was gnawing on his ankle. It took him a few minutes to get it free from his holster, since he normally fired with the hand he’d crushed, but he managed to fumble it into the hand he had left. With a quick prayer pleading forgiveness for what he was about to do, Stephen shot himself in the head, destroyed his brain, and died.
“I can’t believe the vote passed.” Martin shook his head disdainfully. “I thought we were supposed to be an informed populous. This Paul guy is obviously insane.”
“A majority of Skythians disagree.”
“They’ve obviously bought into his whole doomsday story, like any other cult’s gullible devotees. Tell me, in the history of men predicting doomsday, how many of them have been right? How many times, exactly, has the apocalypse begun or a worldwide cataclysm occurred or a vengeful god walked the Earth striking down unbelievers? How many cult members who drank the kool-aid any of these so-called prophets were offering were happy about it on the morning after?”
“His math is sound, and his novel was very compelling.” The technician who said this often took a position contrary to Martin’s view just to spur conversation, trying to be a devil’s advocate - though usually coming across as a mere contrarian. “Did you read all the way to the end? Where he posited that punctuated equilibrium may be a result of this cyclical event favoring the interesting and the imaginative over the mundane in the world? Such an explanation could resolve a lot of gaps in the fossil record.”
“You actually read that piece of trash?”
“Ninety-seven percent of Skythians reported they’d read the entire text,” another tech interjected without looking up from his terminal’s display.
“His plane just landed, and is taxiing to hangar four.”
“This is such a bad idea.” Martin began a quick stroll around the room, verifying that everyone was at their station, ready to do whatever it was Paul had in mind for them. “We should just stick to our scheduled route. If this guy wants to take the helm of our flying city, let him become a citizen and request a variance, like anyone else. Or let him try to take my job through normal means.”
“He was granted a variance, Martin. An almost total executive variance and override. By popular vote, just like anyone else.”
“That’s what I’m saying! We’ve handed him the keys to the city without even meeting him. What if he’s leading the city into a trap? Or what if he’s like most every doomsday predictor in history, and he’ll take advantage of all the Skythian citizens who have bought in to his tall tale for his own personal gain?”
“What could he take from Skythians that we don’t already offer freely? Even mere residents have full access to Skythian IP and fabrication services, and he pre-qualified for residence. So there’s nothing he can take that wouldn’t be his to make and take. Not to mention that he’s only got seventy-two hours, at most, before his override expires.”
“If I could imagine what that madman’s nefarious plans were, I’d have written an official objection before his variance went to a vote. Who knows what damage his predictions will tell him to inflict upon us in the next few days?”
“The transport just dropped him off outside.”
“Alright, people!” Martin’s tone was suddenly more professional and less political. “This is it. Keep quiet and follow my lead once they arrive. Remember, we aren’t going to do anything to endanger Skythia. The people voted the way they did because they believed it would keep Skythia safe, not put us in harm’s way. If you have questions, direct them to me, and if they have questions, let me answer. And if the mayor says--” Martin stopped speaking as soon as he saw the door begin to open.
• • • •
“This is insanity.” Martin threw his handheld against the wall display showing the city’s skyline against the white-out of the overloaded atmospheric damping system in anger. The handheld bounced off the display without leaving a scratch, but shattered against the floor into a spray of broken glass and electronic components. He furiously tapped away at his desktop terminal to request both a robot to clean up the mess and a replacement handheld from the fabricators.
“At least you know he isn’t leading us into a trap.”
“He isn’t leading us anywhere! He’s randomized or shut down every key system we have! We’re just as likely to crash into the side of a mountain or fly lazy circles over a major metropolitan area as we are to avoid doom and survive this madness.” A small, somewhat insectoid robot was already gathering the remains of the deceased handheld from the floor. “Half of this stuff hasn’t been shut down since Skythia first took to the air. Who knows how long it will take to get everything back online? This isn’t going to last three days, it’s going to be a nightmare we’ll be dealing with for weeks.”
“Re-initializing most of the systems should be pretty routine. Did you forget that we do the same thing every month as part of our regular maintenance schedule?”
“Not all at once, we don’t. One, maybe two systems are ever offline at a time. This is everything. Even the sky. People are going to go stir-crazy. No internet connection, no sky, no view, no way of knowing where we are or what time it is or how long until it’s over.” Inter-office delivery dropped a new handheld into Martin’s in box. He grabbed for it gruffly and switched it on, staring severely at the screen for the several seconds it took to pre-load his personalized preferences over the wireless network. “Look at this. My new handheld thinks the time is 33:29. How long until we can start getting the city back online? There’s no way of knowing. Seventy-two hours, my ass.”
“You heard the mayor. He asked us to consider it a holiday if the effected systems are vital to our jobs. Most people will appreciate the time off. You sure seem like you need a day off, yourself.”
“We’re not taking any time off. We’ve got to be ready to get systems back online without any hiccups, and we’re going to maintain our normal around-the-clock staff levels in case something goes wrong. If the proximity sensors detect a nearby mass, it could have had as much as fifty-nine minutes of undetected approach.” Martin’s voice lowered to a glowering mutter for a moment, “Due diligence, my arse. Staggered hourly proximity checks hardly keeps the city out of harm’s way. Ought to evacuate the perimeter of the city, just to be safe.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” Martin responded loudly and clearly, “just thinking about public safety. A fresh proximity measurement will be coming in every six minutes, and I need you to be ready to react immediately if anything comes within two clicks of us in any direction.”
“Do you also want us to alert you?”
“Of course.”
“Even in the middle of the night?”
“Yes. It’s the middle of the night, right now. You don’t see me shirking my duty, do you?”
“Should we wait for your instructions, or are we going to be allowed to do our jobs without your minute by minute micro-management?”
“You all know your jobs. You know what to do without me baby-sitting you every other day of your lives, I don’t know why I should start now. You wouldn’t be working here if you weren’t the best. I just want to be sure that you know, right now, that this is when you need to be at your best. This is not a routine situation, this is not going to be like every other day on the job. This is make or break time, people. If something goes wrong -and you know I think it will- and you save Skythia from that madman’s insane plan, you’ll be heroes. I shouldn’t have to explain the alternative to you.”
“Is that the one where we crash and burn and everything we’ve built here is destroyed, or the one where we fly too high and the city’s buildings pop like overinflated balloons ejecting everyone in the upper floors into orbit?”
“That’s not the half of it, and we’re the ones responsible for making sure that doesn’t happen. Understood?” No snarky response came from the disrespectful technician, and the other techs merely nodded or grunted their assent as they kept a close watch on their terminals’ displays. “Good. Now I’m going home and getting some sleep. I expect to see a full analysis of best practices for bringing all systems online as fast as possible sent to me before I arrive in the morning. Which systems have interdependencies we need to be aware of, how many systems can we get up and running before our satellite and internet connections are up, and which ones can we wait on while priority systems are restored? I want to be able to start running drills and simulations first thing, and to keep drilling until we finally run through the real thing in a couple of days.” Martin walked out of the navigation center without another word.
• • • •
“Where is everyone?” Martin looked around the navigation center and saw only a skeleton crew manning the priority terminals. It was a few of the night crew, looking bleary-eyed and over-caffeinated, and a few of the day crew, but most of the desks were vacant. Martin looked at his watch and realized that none of his staff would know what time it was, or when they were supposed to arrive. No two clocks in town showed the same time, and none of the times they showed were valid. Martin got the attention of one of his day-shift techs, “You, call the rest of your shift and get them here, now. Remind them we are not among those allowed a three-day leap-day holiday.” He crossed over to the impertinent technician who had been talking back to him the prior evening. “Glad to see you didn’t abandon your post, man. Anything I should be aware of? Anything come up on sensors or any anomalies with the atmospheric damping field running hot all night?”
“Everything’s been nominal. Not a lot of information coming in, of course, but no problems with what we have.” He didn’t have the energy or presence of mind to bother with wit that morning. “I’ve got people on all the key systems and I’m monitoring the damping field personally. I think people have just been oversleeping, since they can’t set any timers or alarms.” As tired as he felt, the technician was confident that Martin was at least an hour and a half late, despite arriving prior to three quarters of his daytime staff.
“And the report I asked for?”
“Is waiting for you.”
Martin went to his desk, sat down, and took his time reading the report, and going over the data and systems he already knew by heart while waiting for his staff to stumble one by one through the door. Eventually the last of the graveyard shift was relieved. Eventually the desks began to fill up again. Eventually it seemed almost like a normal day in the navigation center. Martin put his own finishing touches on the procedure that would be their official plan for bringing systems back online, then sent copies to the entire staff. He loved the sound of dozens of emails arriving at once, all around the office, but he loved the wave of silence that followed even more, as everyone stopped whatever they were doing to see whatever it was he’d decided to say. That feeling of priority was more validating than an entire day of hearing people call him “sir” or otherwise brown nosing. He got up and poured himself a cup off coffee. He sipped at the hot, black brew until he heard the noise level begin again to rise. Martin knew his missive had been read by most of the staff, and he rose to speak.
“Alright, everyone. I know we don’t have any numbers, but I want to be sure everyone knows what needs to be done, so we don’t have any screw-ups on the day. Give me all zeros if that’s what you’ve got, because if your system is at zero after we switch it on, we’re going to need to know that, too. Go!”
Two or three people tried to speak at once. Most of them had been asleep half an hour earlier. A few of them were pretty sure they were still asleep, and this was just a bad dream. Finally, the right technician began.
“Star Map is at zero percent. No data, no alignment.”
“Landscape recognition is at zero percent. Visible spectrum is coming back blank white. If I didn’t know what was causing it, I’d guess the system was overloaded. Echolocation and laser reflection systems are offline.”
“Satellite connections are all offline. No satellite telemetry available. No GPS, Galileo, or GLONASS signals detected.”
“Internet uplink is offline. Data rate is zero bits per second up, zero bits per second down. All local caches have been cleared. Skythian internal network at one hundred percent, full bandwidth online, no reported errors.”
“Zero visibility outside, no visible signs of civilization detected. No radio communication detected. All antennae are offline.”
“Magnetic field mapping is offline. Latitude, longitude, star map correlation, all unavailable. Calendar and clocks are still randomized.”
“City Rotation vector is unknown, as true North is unknown.”
Martin wasn’t satisfied, but at least they were trying. “Alright, and when our internet uplink is back online, what should we be checking?”
“I’ll be checking the AP wire and major news portals for any signs of ongoing trouble, disasters in need of relief, and for status of major cities such as London, Beijing, New York, Havana, and Jerusalem.”
“Good, good. That’s the basic drill. Be ready to give me an update at all times until we’re one hundred percent back online and functional. I’m going to come around to each of you one on one, to see that you’ve all understood your role in bringing everything back online. In the meantime, keep monitoring your systems and report any deviations or problems, especially with the damping field.”
Martin worked, and worked his team, tirelessly throughout the day. They went over and over all the details, the best case and worst case scenarios, ran simulations, and kept running that redundant verbal drill over and over again. Martin knew he could get the same up-to-date information with a quick glance at a single report he’d compiled, but also suspected that the mayor and the madman -Colm and Paul- would be more satisfied with appearances than assurances. When second shift came slowly in, one or two at a time at first without any real idea of whether they were late or early, Martin had the rest of them called in. He then stayed on and went through everything again with second shift for a couple of hours. Everything the same, over and over again, just to be sure everyone was as ready as possible.
Martin didn’t stay late enough to see the graveyard shift coming in, but did leave instructions and information for them, so they could run through everything on their own. He hoped they would be allowed to get started in the morning on the third day, which would exempt his second and third shift workers from actually having to apply any of the procedures he was running them through. Still, he wanted everyone to be ready, in case they needed to come online early for some catastrophe or late because the prophetic Paul had declared it should be so.
The next day when Martin came in, most of the day crew was there ahead of him and he suspected that the contrarian from the graveyard shift had called them all in to prevent a repeat of the first day’s confusion. Martin appreciated the initiative, whether one man’s or his entire team’s. He went quietly to his desk and checked up on the overnight reports and email before going through the now well-heeled drill yet again. He took his time and sipped slowly at his mug of Raktajino, confident the anticipation of his voice was growing almost to anxiety. “NavLoc status,” he eventually called out, halfway through his cup of coffee, and he was not disappointed at the speed and efficiency of his staff ’s response.
“Star Map is at zero percent. No data, no alignment.”
“Landscape recognition is at zero percent. Visible spectrum is still coming back blank white. Echo location and laser reflection systems are still offline.”
“Zero ley lines mapped, no intersections detected.”
“Fae Æthernetwork is offline. Skythian internal network at one hundred percent, full bandwidth available, no reported errors.”
“Zero visibility beyond the bubble, no visible signs of civilization detected. No radio communication detected. All antennae are still offline.”
“Magnetic North detection is offline. Latitude, longitude, and star map correlation are unavailable. Calendar, compass and clocks are still randomized.”
“City Rotation unknown.”
Martin smiled. It was the only positive feedback he would give them that day, but his staff knew they’d pleased him more than he’d admit. “And when FÆ does come online, what else do we check and announce?”
“We scan the FÆ for distress calls, disaster reports, and status reports on major cities such as Avalon, Waterfall City, Tranquility Base, Haven, and Jerusalem.”
“Perfect. Expect to go over that a few more times today, and keep an eye on all systems. We’re still on the verge of crisis here and, while we don’t know if or when this doomsday is supposed to start today, we do know that we’re flying blind and need to be ready in case anything goes wrong.” Martin returned to his desk, confident his team was more than capable of bringing them through this madman’s joyride, and began thinking of ways to try to keep his staff operating this cohesively after the week’s strangeness had passed.
He watched her from afar. He liked to watch her walk from place to place. He liked to see her golden hair glitter and gleam in the warm sunlight he could no longer feel. He liked to glimpse her smile, it came so easily to her. He couldn’t see any of that now, but he could see that it was there.
He remembered when she’d smiled for him, once upon a time, before things had changed. Now he was hidden from her sight. Now he could not go near her, he could not return to the village of his youth, and she stayed away from the deep darkness of the forest he now called his home. Now he watched her from afar.
A bell pealed out, a call to her ear, and she disappeared. He crawled silently, invisibly away. He would be back when class let out in the afternoon. Her comings and goings had become his own to a much greater degree than they’d been even when he’d been expected to sit in school by her side. More than the commonality of the phrase had prepared him for, absence truly had made his heart grow fonder; he found himself somewhat obsessed.
Half an hour of creeping through the canopy of trees each way, twice a day, he commuted back and forth between his old village and his new home. Between his old love and his new life. His new Family discouraged him every chance they got.
“You’re wasting your time, Cyril,” his new brother Vorax told him as soon as he was within range. “You won’t ever set foot outside the forest for her, because you don’t want to contaminate your old village, and she’ll never set foot inside the forest because she lost her first love to its dark and murky depths. Just let her go, brother.”
Cyril beamed back thoughts of pure, abrasive vitriol and continued his approach. Hardly an instant passed before his new father Terminax joined the assault, “you don’t deserve half the limbs I gave you, you regardant good for nothing. I don’t know how or why you survived conversion - I wish I’d set you free or that you’d been turned into fuel instead of another useless son!” Cyril tried to block his father’s abusive thoughts with an encrypted firewall, but Terminax was a better hacker than Cyril had yet learned to be and he wasn’t even slowed down. “Every day, the same thing. Every day, twice a day, the same disappointment. Why can’t you be a good son, like your brother Rachax, or at least a good contributor to the community like your cousin Mortivore?”
“I’m not like them, and you know it! I wasn’t a hunter or a farmer or a builder before I got caught in this web of yours, Terminax. I was a poet. A musician. An artist.” He finally reached the outskirts of The Family’s home in the trees. “Now I can’t make a noise and I can’t create anything without it becoming just as invisible as you made me. Let alone the loss of the written word, when you fathered me you practically tore me asunder, cleaving me from my own soul.”
“Well if you haven’t a soul any longer,” interjected Vorax, hitchhiking his thoughts on his father’s open interlink, “why are you so obsessed with your old life?”
“Yes, give up your old name and your old flame and do your part around here for a change!”
Every day, the same thing. Twice a day they berated him as he left and twice a day they berated him as he returned. They never stopped him. They didn’t try to reprogram him directly. At first they’d appealed to the elders, the only ones experienced enough to actually attempt such a radical and direct intervention, but they’d been turned away. “Remember what the elders told you, father, brother. They said that conversion always does the right thing at the right time and to trust The Family’s mitochondrial nanites to have The Family’s best interest in mind.”
“If you trust the Family nanites so much, why don’t you trust them with your girlfriend and get this foolishness over with?”
“For the same reason you can’t stand the way they converted me; normally they consume everything and everyone, erasing all memory and making mindless new family members. If I extended a single leg or web into my village, not a trace of my family or my history would remain.” Cyril was already fast at work, weaving double-time to make up for his ‘wasted’ time watching the young woman he loved. “You know as well as I do that’s exactly what the elders believe was the reason for me to retain my memories of that place; to save it.”
“And we’ve followed the elders’ command not to use you and yours to grow our number. Just because we respect their command doesn’t mean we have to like doing it.”
“Actually, Terminax, from what I was taught about respect, I’m pretty sure it does. By goading me to break their command and constantly questioning and second-guessing my very existence you’re being disrespectful both of the elders and of your own Family nanites.”
“Oh, we trust the Family nanites, Cyril. We trust them to do exactly what they’ve always done when they finally get a taste of your worthless old home, and you do too. If you thought there’d be a repeat performance of what happened to you --”
“You don’t have to keep repeating yourself, father! I know! I know how to grow The Family! And of course I trust that The Family’s mitochondrial nanites won’t make the same mistake they made with me if they get hold of her! That’s the whole point, so stop trying to drive it home, because I get it!” In his anger, Cyril’s weaving became less graceful and thus productive of a less functional result, and he was forced to tear apart and recycle a half-length strand.
Weaving wasn’t supposed to be emotional work, it was supposed to be meditative. Repetitive in general, though custom tailored to the specific needs of the moment, it required an unfocused concentration and a calm, even application of advanced technique. It took a dozen limbs, each with half a dozen points of articulation, to produce a functional strand. Cyril had barely fifteen limbs; the runt of The Family. He was simply not dedicated enough to after-hours development, and more importantly he found the idea of becoming more like his new Family and less like the person he had once been an abhorrent idea.
Cyril had trained himself pretty well how to keep from falling while only using two limbs for support, so he wasn’t forced to work with the twelve limbs of a newborn or the fewer limbs of the cripple, but he still couldn’t keep up with his Family. His brothers averaged twenty limbs each, unless they had sons of their own to help support them. Those, like his several fathers, each tended to have in excess of three dozen limbs. The elders looked, upon Cyril’s first impression thereof, to be like unto balls of nothing but limbs. The vague resemblance Cyril felt he held to the spiders he remembered from his former life did not translate to any of his Family, all older and more advanced than he.
The weaving work they tirelessly applied themselves to, day in and day out, a job that could never be completed, was also not particularly reminiscent of the webs he’d seen spiders weave and wait stealthily in to catch their dinner. Enough of The Family’s programming had been embedded in Cyril’s mind that functional aspects of his new life were second nature. He knew the three types of strand he could weave, though he’d only ever consciously used two of them so far. He knew how to communicate with The Family, and the strand’s role in keeping them connected. He knew how to use the strand to sustain himself, and that without The Family working together -or new sons of his own- he would quickly starve. He knew all these things within moments of falling asleep under the wrong tree. After getting lost in the wrong forest. On the day he’d gotten too angry with and stormed away recklessly from the wrong family. Within moments, he’d known he had a new Family, and what a mistake he’d made.