The Earth Has Died, page 14
He swallowed. “Do you think the people on Mars are still alive? The colonists?”
“It is probable.”
Samuel nodded. “Good. Maybe I’ll see them one day.”
“That is unlikely.”
“Yeah.”
“Samuel,” Kane said gently, “whether you plan on continuing your employment here, it would be wise if you took the time to rest. I am aware of the fact that a deal has been made with Greeley, and if you are not to stay here then I imagine you will be spending some time at least in the Silver City. Regardless of whether you stay or leave, a promise made should be kept. Please, Samuel, deliver the blueprints. I will await your return, but I do not expect it from you.”
“Alright.” Samuel muttered. No longer was he angry or suspicious; he was tired.
“Good. I have already programmed an update to their software. I suggest that you rest, and thereafter, deliver it to Greeley. Better to have it off your conscience.”
Then it all came back. All the hate, exhaustion, and bitterness erupted in vitriolic despair. This was it. Who was he kidding? Live in the Silver City? He’d be dead in a week, either murdered, or more likely, drunk in comatose nightmares. No. His life was suspended by a thread, and Kane was the one holding it. Could he truly forget all the times that Kane had done the impossible and saved him? Maybe he did care.
“Give me three days, and I’ll do it.”
Chapter 15
Summer was coming to an end. The snow sang tales of Autumn and whispered rumours of Winter.
The storm that had destroyed Samuel’s venerated forest had been but a symbol of things to come. He knew it. He felt it in the trees, each one a gravestone, and could taste it in the numbing air.
He could see it in the sky, where the clouds coalesced into a dreadful tempest, fighting for its life against the Sky Engine.
Worse was the sun. No matter how hard it tried, all light was scant and scattered; those thin rays that sometimes penetrated the veil in the brighter seasons could not muster the strength to do it now. In a month, day would become evening, and in time, night would become eternal. The succour of Spring would not be a reprieve, nor a time for people to emerge from hibernation and again wander into the lost world; it gave nothing but hope for Summer.
Yet spring seemed so far away.
But it would come. Eventually.
Samuel shuddered and shivered. The ointment Kane had given him had worked wonders for his injuries. After peeling red, crusty underlayers off himself and slathering his naked body in the stuff, the little scars that were quickly faded into white pencil lines on his skin, and the discoloured bruises were made invisible entirely. However, it had made him tingle uncomfortably, and he seemed more sensitive to the cold’s touch. Extra layers and thermal packs made no difference.
He’d spent three days in the bunker, following set rituals to repair and maintain everything he could get his hands on, all to the mantra of ‘Tomorrow.’
Tomorrow would be a new day, a new chance at it all. Tomorrow, Kane might come up with a cure, and Samuel might quell his nightmares.
As of late, the Man of Bones had been manifesting in his dreams. Less was the creature a man, nor any beast of any kind — it bound on hind legs and tore into flesh, rabid and wild, like the essence of despair and starvation and all other negative emotion left in the world had been diluted into a living being. The Man of Bones was hatred incarnate. A thing that hated the world and everything in it. Samuel hated it in equal measure.
Deep in the wilds, he could not stave off the symptoms of paranoia. The assurance that he was being watched was everywhere. It was the dead trees that watched him, in the little insects that lived no longer, in the rocks, and in the snow. All of it was watching him. All of it beheld him, Samuel Grey, and found him wanting.
After so much of sentimental value had been lost, Samuel had been repeating his name to himself. ‘Tomorrow’ was the first mantra. ‘Samuel Grey’, whispered into the mirror-terminal, as he traced the outline of his unfamiliar hideousness and stared into those unfathomably silver eyes, was the second.
Footprints. Samuel froze as he saw them on the trail. How many?
His eyes wandered to the mess of stumbling divots in the ground, torn up from heavy-footed steps. Too many. Then, he noticed the shimmer of silver in the snow, contained within glass bottles. There was hardly a sliver of moonshine left, let alone any dregs to mention, but it was enough for its natural luminescence to shine through a scattering of snow. If not for the darkness, he probably wouldn’t have seen it.
Go onwards and risk company, or risk a detour? Samuel thought them over.
Continuing the trail ran the risk of running into whoever had made the tracks. By the signs, they were drunk and careless, a dangerous combination. However, a detour meant spending more time on a more dangerous route, and given the weather and light conditions, that was also dangerous. Neither were good.
Ultimately, Samuel went on. It was in his nature to be quiet and stealthy, and so he trusted his competency in both to guide him, rather than hope that the ice was thick and the wind weak.
Who had left the tracks? Legionnaires? There was not another group of people so large and foolish that Samuel knew. Yet, there was no reason for them to be here, unless they had wandered to the Silver City from Caelkirk in search of a different kind of glory, but that didn’t make sense. No matter how lightly it snowed, their tracks should’ve been covered in an hour. Had they followed him? The footprints pointed towards the Silver City; they might’ve trailed him from Caelkirk and… left before him?
Maybe they’d grown bored.
Samuel didn’t know.
Whatever the case, it didn’t matter. If they were there or following him, so be it. They had toyed with him, then let him go, perhaps as a sadistic predator might do to its prey, but Samuel believed otherwise in their case.
Maybe the footprints weren’t left by legionnaires at all. Caelkirk had been both a bonfire and a beacon to anybody nearby. Retreating to the city was a wise idea, and as Samuel moved on, he saw more footsteps. Delicate ant lines left by lonely travellers, clumsy stampedes of reckless herds emboldened by force of numbers, and the swaying wide trots of those who clearly had been drinking in excess; it mattered not who was walking or how, for all converged onto the wider trail, following the solitary fake-fires, and all leading into the tin warehouse with its doors swung wide open.
There were no crossbows peeking from the water tower. No security that Samuel could see.
Cautiously, he peeked his head inside the warehouse. The hatch to the Silver City was wide open, almost inviting. Above it, and pointing to it, hung a huge neon pink sink arrow.
Seeing no alternative, Samuel inched a toe into the building, and the moment he did the ghostly apparitions of enforcers materialized all around him. Yet instead of their usual display, they welcomed him with open arms. They handed him a vial of moonshine – the good stuff that didn’t burn – and waited for him to drink it before sending him down the tunnel. Fairy lights lined the way. Posters of Greeley in patriotic posters plastered the walls.
At each checkpoint, they handed him another dram of moonshine and sent him along. Each time, the moonshine tasted sweeter, and the enforcers were friendlier. “Don’t forget: a vote for Greeley is a vote for moonshine,” they told him, parrots all. By the time he reached the Bazaar, Samuel decided to do just that.
It was election day.
Years ago, when the foundations of the Silver City were first being set and the idea of a nation built upon the dying planet was beyond hope, Greeley had come. Some said he emerged from the stone itself; the miners, mistaking his gleaming white teeth for gemstones had unearthed him expecting riches, and found instead a man more wonderful than any diamond. Others say he led the first band of enforcers to safety. That he had made order out of chaos, and all he’d saved declared him the honourable mayor, their stalwart leader, their prime force against savagery. Samuel had heard other fiction from Eli and Dom, most often after they had shared drinks, and Greeley himself was the only thing that had linked the legends.
What was fact was election day. However Greeley came to power, he had made sure to keep it. His first order as Mayor was to declare the law of ‘snap-elections’, whereby the presiding Mayor could call for an immediate election, every year, to lengthen their Mayoral term by two. Every election day, Greeley would serve up fresh, high-grade moonshine for free, with the constant reminder that it was his supply that he was offering up.
That free moonshine had afforded the Bazaar an uncanny liveliness. Like a coiled spring squashed between fingers, there was an energy that could not be heard or seen, but felt. The comforting glow of fake-fires and fairy lights alike seemed softer, and that softness was reflected in the people. They chattered in ecstatic, whispered tones, no longer hawking, but talking of the mayor and of moonshine. They mumbled and spoke without saying anything, as if they were putting words in a jar and shaking it to find the next one to say.
In their eyes was a glassiness familiar to Samuel. Not quite blindness, it was a refusal to focus one’s sight, and so, entranced, they walked as they talked, bumping into tents and others alike in a slow, ricocheting dance that had no rhythm to speak of. Yet they did not fight. Nor stab. Nor cut. Nor wound. They danced.
Popping out of holo-screen televisions, Greeley swanned over and within each tent and upon every surface of the cave wall that the projectors could cover. Cinematically bathed in a spotlight and embracing a microphone in both hands, the lamplight eyes of the Silver City all fell on him. ‘… We all know moonshine is the cure-all to all ills and evils, that much we all know. Now, I shouldn’t need to remind you who gives it to you, but…’ the subtitles at the bottom the screen ran on.
One enforcer, in the middle of their patrol, stopped Samuel, and held an eccentric piece of Bloomtech up to his lips. “Breath,” he commanded.
“Thanks,” Samuel said, wiping his lips from another vial of moonshine the enforcer had handed to him afterwards. Around his chest, he wore a bandolier of the stuff. Captured stars. Samuel eyed them greedily, then refocused. “Where can I find Greeley?”
“The announcement chamber. He’s giving a speech. Remember, a vote for Greeley is a vote for moonshine. Got it?”
“Yeah, yeah. Can you take me there? I’ve got something to give him,” Samuel asked. The announcement chamber was small and often moved to deeper layers of the city, making finding it hard.
. The enforcer moved on and began testing others, newcomers to the city and regulars alike. Samuel bit his lip, then licked them, envious. Whoever was deep in their stupor was given no moonshine, and those who still had some vitriol to their steps were forced plenty. To all, the same message was given: ‘a vote for Greeley…’
Whilst the bazaar was a hive of dopey activity, the streets of the second layer were abandoned. Not as before, when news of the afflicted had frightened the populace into hiding. Scattered around the empty streets were hundreds of empty bottles of moonshine thrown aside and smashed into pieces, and the people throwing them.
Instead of closed curtains, boarded up windows, and locked doors, there was light and life alike rushing from the drunkeries. Through a window, with his hands cupped against the glass, Samuel could make out figures dramatically dancing, swaying, and drinking inside, all the scene of an alcoholic theatre. How enticing. He considered joining them, but his obligations got in the way; after, for what felt like the thousandth time, he had delivered the blueprints, he would join them.
Some people wanted to drink, and Samuel didn’t blame them. The smart ones, consumers, and alcoholics, however, knew they could do it for free if they saw Greeley speaking in person, and a great deal of citizens, patriots, and proud supporters of the booming moonshine industry, actually wanted to gaze upon the visage of their honourable leader. No matter which side they fell upon, they all left a trail of bottles.
From none, to few, to many, each molten silver slice of moonshine glinting, the bottles gathered in mounds piled up, resting in reflective pools. Neon arrows pointed the way to the announcement chamber.
Darkness grew as Samuel followed the arrows deeper. He didn’t care. All the signs pointed him onwards, down ladders and stairs, and over walkways. He followed bottles like breadcrumbs. Intense blues, greens, pinks, and reds, strips of neon, and slices of silver, all led him deeper to the dark. Something whispered faintly. Samuel hurried. Shadows moved with him. Before he had even thought of turning back, shadows surrounded him, and Samuel was lost.
Moonshine had given him the liquid courage to wander the labyrinthian streets of the Silver City’s dark underlayer in search of a chamber which he knew moved more often than any other, but, as payment, it had dulled his senses; his sight was blurry, every light a faraway star; his hearing was deafened by a drone; and his mind had slowed to a crawl. Why had he not lit his fake-fire?
He heard it then, through the moonshine haze.
Harmonic, and yet disconcerting, it was the constant sound of gently oscillating humming intersected with long wet slurps and heavy panting, like a shy, dying songbird between water and air.
He saw them then, emerging, shadows revealed. Bone-thin wretches hidden in the dark and feasting upon the dregs. With eyes that were not lamplights, nor pricks of silver, but utterly, despairingly colourless. They caught no light, nor emitted any of their own; they were blank, starved of pupils, affixed to skeletons wearing pallid skin.
Crouching and slinking, they padded from pool to pool, draining up the remnants of whatever rotting bottles they could find, fighting for the last drop like thirsting cockroaches, until the cobblestones were wet with their trickling saliva and nothing else.
Samuel did not stop to watch them, but tried to wrangle his fake-fire from its fixture to his bag. Drunk, he couldn’t get a hold of it.
More of them came. Scampering along on all fours, never straying too far from their shadows. Damning the fake-fire, Samuel unsheathed his machete. Hearing its screech, they shot back, and came again. Still, they hummed, yet now, they whispered between their slurps. An eldritch tongue. Devoid of humanity. They were closing in, their curses infectious. Samuel brandished the machete; they recoiled, and returned, emboldened by his inability to use it. How many were there?
“Hey!” Barked an enforcer, his magnified voice booming down the decrepit alley. In the time it took Samuel to glance his way then look back at the horde of shadows pursuing him, they had disappeared, leaving their puddles and pools; the only trace that they had been there at all was a single bottle left spinning, glass grating against stone. “What are you doing down here?”
“Hey! Do you know where the announcement chamber is? I can’t find it” Samuel replied, slurring slightly, still wondering what those creatures were. “Think I’m lost.”
“Ah, what are the odds? Because so am I,” they said, slowly padding towards Samuel, their mismatching armour all obscured and watery. Except for their peacekeeper, and the red gauntlet holding it. Samuel stiffened.
“I’m wondering, though, why you’re down here,” the enforcer continued, “because nobody comes down here, unless they’re looking for trouble. Are you – “
“I’ve got blueprints to give to Greeley, and I got lost trying to find him.”
“Blueprints huh? Show me.”
Samuel rubbed his forehead through the shawl covering it. “Look, it’s been a long week. Take me to the announcement chamber – “he started, and the enforcer hastened his pace. Samuel backed away until a wall stopped him. “– and let me talk to Greeley.”
But the enforcer did none of what Samuel asked. He sparked his peacekeeper. A half-ruined metal helm rolled up and down as he looked Samuel over. Then came the strike.
The metal rod of the peacekeeper cracked through the air like a whip. Samuel, nimble, tried rolling to the side. Yet with moonshine weighing him down, he tripped on nothing and fell. “You idiot!” He barked, upright again, just as the second swing came flying by his head. “I’m Samuel Grey! Scan me!”
Grunting, the enforcer swung again. Sidestepping it, Samuel did not account for the fist that followed, crunching his nose.
Staggered and off-balance, he fell back. Pressing the machete against his forearm like a talon, he waited. The helmet’s cracked. That’s a weak point.
Blood dripped from his nostrils.
For the fourth time, the enforcer swung. Arm falling like a felled tree, aimed for Samuel’s head. This time he was ready.
A scorpion, he unleashed the stinger hidden in his palm, he whirled forwards. Jumbled electricity stood his hairs on end. His machete jammed into a crack, one hand guiding, the other driving the blade deeper. Raw force rocked his arms and shook the bones in both hands, but it had worked. Chipping like an egg, the crack in the enforcer’s helmet had split and grown. Pushed backwards by the sheer force of impact, Samuel panted and smiled. He could see chips in the armour, and underneath them was a bald head.
He had broken Bloomtech with a blade. Bloomtech heavy assault armour, gifted a gaping hole, by simple steel. Wielded by him. Yet that momentary and mutual amazement, pride, and awe, soon turned to horror.
He had just tried to kill an enforcer.
“I’m sorry,” he stuttered, letting his arms drop a little, but not so much to leave himself undefended. One palm went outstretched, and he sheathed the machete. “I – I didn’t mean to.”
This time, he let the enforcer clip him, only he underestimated the hatred poured into the attack. What he felt next was a sledgehammer cracking his kneecap and spreading venom through his veins. Convulsing, he fell to the ground, crying from pain. What he felt afterwards was nothing. He saw the sparks come closer, metal arcing in slow motion.
