Future Days Anthology, page 29
part #1 of The Days Series
A light wind stirs the trees. That barn on the north coast seems a long way away.
The enemy commander studies the three troopers. He’s not a fool; a brief order turns three of his own squad around to face his flanks and rear, while the rest concentrate on these unexpected apparitions. His armor is workmanlike, practical rather than fancy dress. An experienced professional, then; at least a squad leader. His gaze tracks across the troopers, but stops when it reaches Sergeant Joel Edwards. He recognizes him: commander faces commander. Edwards nods back.
The man’s soldiers are clearly mystified by the enhanced troopers: how could they not be? But Joel Edwards and his men are equally baffled: where are they? When are they? Who are these people?
From twenty meters ahead of the enemy squad, Edwards selects voice amplification and bellows at them. “Drop your weapons! Now!” The commander doesn’t blink, but then he doesn’t yet know who they are, or what to make of them. Edwards wants to talk to someone; he’s concealed his force’s true strength, so these people can be uncertain about this new threat. They might talk, not fight. But he’s not surprised when they don’t cooperate.
Edwards would still prefer to talk rather than kill people, so he switches from English to Russian and repeats it. No difference. “Try your Latin,” he tells Popov, who shouts a couple of words.
One of the bowmen laughs contemptuously, and it spreads across the squad. They’re nervous, of course, and their laughter helps them. What threat can this trio of oddly-dressed monsters be to a squad like us? But when Edwards, Popov, and Mirza bring their rifles up into the aim, the enemy commander knows that he’s facing weapons.
An order, and the squad overlap their shields. Swordsmen are now behind a protecting wall. The archers step out to left and right flanks, raising their bows. Each is paired with a spear-carrier. Now they’ve deployed, their next command will be to engage their enemy.
And here it comes. The commander snaps out another order. This one is short, preparatory. Ready! Edwards doesn’t need to speak his language: the tone, the stress, the rising note are the same as he’d use. The swordsmen tense up, each advancing his left foot half a step. Spears are brought down to hips, right hand controlling, left hand supporting. The archers draw their arms back, ready to release.
There’s no way to de-escalate this. Before the commander can give the executive order, Edwards and his troopers open fire. Stepanychev and his force unveil from the bushes on the enemy’s right flank, firing economical aimed shots. Double-taps; no wasteful bursts when ammunition stocks are so low.
The effect is overwhelming. The spearmen, archers, and tightly-bunched swordsmen provide a massed target for the flank attack. The commander takes Edwards’ three aimed shots on the shoulder of his sword arm, and on the cheek guard of his shiny helmet. The impacts spin him about, and he drops him to the ground. Within thirty seconds, the enemy force is eradicated.
But it’s not without cost. Mirza is down, the chance target of both archers. Popov rushes to give aid, but Edwards knows the man is gone. As is Blount, victim of a twenty-meter throw by one of the flanking spearmen who now lies dead on the track.
The section regroups. Anwar attends to Ross, who has arm and leg wounds from a volley of thrown darts. The nasty little barbed weapons lie scattered around. Stepanychev, Ogareff, and Wallace prowl about, checking that the enemy are in fact dead, alert for further threats.
Popov returns, shaking his head. “An arrow in his throat, one in an eye. I’ve powered him down, but there’s no way back from those wounds. He’s gone.”
Better him than one of the others.
“Swords! Spears! Darts! Crucifixion! This is mad. Crap! Are we in some fucked-up training simulation?” yells Anwar. She’s had enough.
“This doesn’t feel like a simulation,” Ross growls.
Stepanychev comes up, displaying a handful of the darts. “All the enemy are dead, but everyone’s ammunition state is very bad. The darts are weighted. Each of these guys had a few clipped to the back of their shields. I hadn’t expected that.”
“Neither had I,” says Joel Edwards, removing his magazine of riot-control baton rounds. He reloads with full-charge anti-personnel ball ammunition. “Let’s have a word with this bloke.”
✽✽✽
The commander is flat on his back, stunned, but his eyes are open. The baton rounds have left him with at least a frozen shoulder, and perhaps a broken cheekbone. Stepanychev’s bayonet tickles his exposed throat. A rifle is a mystery, but the man knows the truth of steel. He glares hate at Edwards as the troopers loom over him.
“Talk to him, Popov. Use your bloody Latin and ask him his name. Try and get a rank or something out of him.”
Popov kneels by the man, rests one hand against a tree trunk, reaches out the other, grasps the commander by his uninjured arm and pulls him up into a sitting position. The man winces at the pain, then gazes about himself. He stares at dead Blount, at Mirza still skewered by arrows. He watches Anwar bandaging Ross. His face becomes stony when he sees the bodies of his men. Stepanychev keeps the bayonet close.
Popov and the commander exchange a flurry of outlandish words. “His name is Flavius Afranius Syagrius. He’s Optio, Praefectus Castrorum. That means he’s something like the sergeant major in charge of the camp.”
“That’ll do nicely. Now ask him why he crucified those men.”
That earns Popov a shake of the head; it seems this Syagrius isn’t going to talk about that. Instead, he’s staring at Popov’s hand on the tree, his eyes widening as the skin changes color to match the bark. He looks intrigued, not scared.
Another burst of apparent gibberish.
“He wants to know how we do that.”
Edwards doesn’t want to waste time on non-essentials. “How the hell can you explain that in ancient Latin? Just tell him it’s fucking magic.”
When he hears that, Syagrius spits, laughs, speaks. Joel Edwards is impressed by his nonchalance.
“He says if we could do magic,” Popov says, “there would still be nine of us.”
✽✽✽
Up comes Ogareff. “You need to know this. These guys – they’re all clones, too. And they’re identical to the first ones.” She looks at Syagrius, then reaches into her pouch again. “What about him?”
He allows Ogareff to take a swab of his saliva. The exchange is that he gets to study her face. She nods agreement; he slowly reaches out his uninjured left arm. Warily at first, she lets him trace the silver lines across her forehead, cheeks, and throat, then press his fingertip very gently against the unyielding firmness of her eye. She shifts her focus, and he recoils a little as the artificial lens adjusts. Ogareff laughs. Stepanychev watches every movement, the bayonet never wavering from the man’s throat.
When she checks the test kit’s results, it gives the same answer. Popov tries to explain it by telling him, “You’re all brothers. Like twins – Gemini? Castor and Pollux?” Syagrius shakes his head. It’s incomprehension, not denial.
“His troops are probably five to ten years younger than him,” muses Ogareff. “They’re ages with the crucified guys. But he’s genetically identical to them all. So someone’s been cloning people here for a while.”
“Here?” says Stepanychev. “Why here? Why not somewhere else?”
They need so many answers. Edwards must talk to this man. It’s a slow process, relaying everything through Popov, but they get there eventually. Syagrius agrees to trade – you ask one, then I’ll ask one. Maybe I’ll answer, maybe not. You too, eh?
He’s the senior Optio in the castrum, the fort. “And who are you?” ‘Sergeant’ seems to equate; he’s content with the answer. Edwards remembers exchanging nods.
No, he won’t say how many soldiers there are in the fort. “But I know you’re seven, now, and I’ve not seen a sword among you. Just this,” waving a hand at Stepanychev’s ever-present bayonet. “So, tell me about your weapons.” Edwards shakes his head. “Why not? Do you fear I might learn to use them better than you can?”
You just might. For a slow, you’re pretty quick. “Who do you fight for?” Edwards wants to know.
“Civis Romanus sum, but there are some men in the castrum who give orders. They come and go. I think one may be a senator. He’s old, and he looks wealthy. There are others, but the officers treat him with the most respect. And who do you fight for?”
‘Command’ is meaningless to Syagrius, but Edwards realizes that it doesn’t mean much more to him.
“And why do you fight?” Syagrius asks Edwards.
“That’s the thing – I don’t know why we’re here. We can’t remember anything before... ach, what would he know about a lander? Ask him how far back he can remember,” says Edwards.
Syagrius recalls skirmishes during a slave revolt earlier in the year, but nothing before that. It troubles the man. Joel Edwards doesn’t want to feel any kind of association, but it troubles him too.
“Why did you crucify those men?”
The Optio shrugs. The crucified men were slaves. They rebelled; he can’t have that.
✽✽✽
“We have two problems. Our memories have been stolen, and we’re being deceived by our leaders. How about you?” says Corporal Stepanychev. He’s sheathed his bayonet; he sits down next to Edwards and Popov, facing Syagrius.
They’ve learned the trick of it now. Edwards and Syagrius speak in short sentences, eyes fixed on each other. Stepanychev does the same when it’s his turn. They all wait quietly while Popov translates, switching his gaze between them.
“My first two problems are the same as yours. You say my spit and my soldiers’ blood makes us brothers to the dead slaves. You’re poor magicians, so I doubt that you’re good liars. And that gives me my third problem. They rebelled, but I’ve crucified my brothers! If this is truth, I must kill the men who did this to me.”
And now, Joel Edwards can see a way to his objective. “Will you join with us?”
✽✽✽
The stream winds down through peaty soil, trickles past scrubby copses, tumbles over rocky ledges below the path, loiters in tarns, swells into a river that will lead past the castrum on its way to the distant coast. Edwards and Stepanychev scour the dead drone’s data, scan the near-useless maps, drain Syagrius of information, decide that the obvious route is their only route. They take it.
Bringing the clothing and weapons they need, they leave the dead lined beside the path. No burial, but a gesture at dignity. Flavius Afranius Syagrius recites a long sequence of tripartite names; “Blount, Mirza,” adds Joel Edwards, baldly. The little force presents arms; Syagrius draws the sword he’s been permitted to resume wearing, extends it painfully in a silent salute. Popov mutters prayers. Nobody mentions the crucified men.
Stepanychev takes point with Anwar and the heavily limping Ross. Edwards and Popov share turns dragging the laden cart, Syagrius still in pain but helping; they use the time in discussing options, negotiating, planning. Wallace keeps the rear with Ogareff, warily watching their flanks.
After a few hundred meters, Stepanychev halts them. “Look at that.”
Around ten meters below, the stream cascades over a fall into a white-flecked bog-brown pool. Something shines in the water.
“Keep your eyes forward and flanking,” says Joel Edwards to the rest as he zooms his vision onto the spot. He studies the things in the river, waves Ogareff forward. “Bring your kit.” He clambers down the slope.
Syagrius shades his eyes with his good hand, glances at Ogareff, follows. She moves more quickly than either man; she reaches the stream first, steps into the water, gasps at its cold. Edwards follows her; abruptly he turns back, reaches out a hand to Syagrius. The man waves it away, acknowledging the offer with a brief nod.
Water up to their knees, they stand and stare at the corpses locked together in death. A man lies on his back in the stream. He’s fully armored: a now-rusting full suit of steel plate. His helmet has been crushed by some heavy blow. A feathered lance has been driven up under his breastplate. Either of those wounds would have killed him, but in any event the water is trickling through his helmet; likely that he was wounded, fell, couldn’t rise, drowned. A rusty sword lies by his side.
His killer is sprawled face-down on the steel man’s torso, gray-skinned by water decomposition. Ornately-feathered headdress, long hair tied back, bare-chested, he wears fringed trews and moccasin sandals. An empty quiver is slung over his shoulder, bobbing about in the water. The bow is nowhere to be seen. His right-hand rests near a short axe. Ogareff bends, turns him over, recoils as a silver fish exits the gaping sword wound in the man’s belly. She recovers, begins her analysis, turns to the steel man. The helmet’s fastenings are hidden in the water. She persists, removes it, reveals another bloated gray face infested by crawling things. The eyes have been eaten away.
Edwards’ brain offers him the words knight, cuirass, Native American, tomahawk, but adds nothing else of use. Without context, his memory is stubbornly blank. All he knows is that these men shouldn’t coexist, shouldn’t meet and fight each other. Just like enhanced special forces troopers and Roman soldiers.
Syagrius glances at the feathered and bare-chested warrior, dismisses him as of no interest; studies the knight closely, admires the armor. “Lorica segmentata.” He kneels in the stream, ignoring the cold on his bare legs; removes his own helmet, picks up the knight’s, compares the weights and the protection given by each.
After a few moments, he stands, tosses the helmet aside, puts his own back on, turns to Joel Edwards. With Popov far above them on the path, this could be tricky, but he makes his meaning clear. Pointing at Ogareff’s test kit, then at each of the bodies: “Fratres? Brother-brother?”
Ogareff nods. “Yes. Gemini. Twin brothers.”
Syagrius considers this. “Gemelli,” he corrects her. He points at the dead men again, then at himself. “Brother, brother?”
“Yes,” says Ogareff gently, nodding.
Syagrius stands silently in the stream, looking at the knight, the Native American, at his own hands. He studies the bare-chested man with greater interest now.
He draws a deep breath, stares into Ogareff’s artificial eyes, points at her and then at Edwards. “Brother, brother?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
He points at Edwards and himself. “Brother, brother?”
Another shake. “No.”
Ogareff and himself. “Brother, brother?”
She smiles slightly. “Sister, brother. No.”
✽✽✽
Out of nowhere, Joel Edwards remembers advice heard in some tactics class: where, when, he has no idea. When things turn to rat shit, break contact fast. Then as soon as you’ve stopped running, take an inventory of what you’ve got left. People, weapons, knowledge. Know everything. Facts are weapons, too.
“None of us should be here; none of us should have met each other, let alone fought. It’s a combat theme park. Someone’s playing at war, using us all as pieces in the game.” The troopers are gathered around, listening to Edwards; Popov gives Syagrius a low-voiced translation.
“Let’s recap. Wallace has vague memories of being here sometime in the past. Right?”
Wallace confirms it. “It’s nothing clear, but I keep having flashbacks about this place. It’s like I’m remembering dreams. Horsemen in leather armor, little guys on ponies. They were carrying crossbows. And there were biplanes. I was firing my rifle at biplanes. Somehow, I keep forgetting to think about it. Whenever I try to, it gets vague again. But I’ve been here before.”
Edwards resumes. “Syagrius remembers drilling his troops in the castrum this year. Skirmishes with rebels, a slave revolt. Nothing else.” Syagrius nods. “This morning, we all woke up in the lander. We knew our weapons and tactics, but that was it. I knew Stepanychev, Popov, and Anwar faintly, but nobody else. Blount recognized my name; no one else knew anyone.
“And then the clones. Syagrius has never seen anybody like the two guys in the river, but they’re genetically identical to each other, and to him, and to the slaves he crucified, and to his soldiers. I bet if we found one of Wallace’s leather-armor horsemen, they’d be the same.”
Syagrius speaks through Popov. “All of my soldiers in the castrum have the same face, the face I see when I shave. Somehow, I’d never noticed that before. But I know now that they are my brothers.” After the translation finishes, he continues. “But some of the centurions aren’t my brothers, nor is the senator, nor are a few others. In time, I’ll think further about what this means for me. But for now, I want answers. Answers and blood.”
Ross cuts in. “Say that you’re right: theme park, with human toys. Someone’s breeding toy soldiers. But how did we get involved?” Syagrius snarls when “toy” is translated.
Stepanychev beats Edwards to it. “Somebody wanted to raise the game.”
“And they’ve been wiping our memories. I think we should have a chat with the blokes in the fort who are giving the orders,” says Joel Edwards.
Syagrius joins in, through Popov. “Know this, Edwards. Within the castrum, I have another two hundred brothers. I will not squander those lives.”
✽✽✽
When they leave the last straggly remnant of the woods, the castrum is still several hundred meters further north. From here they’ll be crossing open ground all the way to its wooden walls. Now Syagrius leads, Edwards and Popov with him in helmets, tunics, and armor. They carry spears, shields, scabbarded swords. They know them as pilum, scutum, gladius.
Stepanychev and Anwar pull the cart; inside, Ross, in combat clothing, lies inertly over the hidden rifles. Ogareff and Wallace march behind the cart. Everyone’s face is smeared with mud. The armor, the helmets and tunics: this simple deception might just get them into the fort. Dealing with whatever follows will require fast thinking, rapid action. Edwards feels a growing tension.
After a short lesson, Syagrius has pronounced their sword handling tolerable; the gladius feels familiar to Edwards, and he wonders if he’s forgotten some of his own capabilities, or been caused to forget. But their instructor is less impressed by their skills with bows and spears.
