Afterburn, page 8
He hobbled toward the weightlifting area on his mangled ankle, grabbed a small barbell plate, then looked around to make sure no one was watching. He spotted the Civvies huddled together in barracks alcoves, gazing anxiously toward the compound. He hoped they would be okay.
He also hoped he would never see them again as he splashed through freezing mud to the equipment shed. He didn’t pause to measure the distance as he approached, just clutched the weight with both hands and smashed it down onto the heavy lock until the pieces fell away into the muck.
Inside, the top setting on the helmet lamp blinded him, but a middle setting cast a soft glow. He wrapped as much of the rope piled in the corner as he could around his chest. Next, he hung a grappling hook from his belt. As he did, two enormous booms rattled the camp. A third boom almost knocked him over. No time to find more toys. He needed to go right now.
He hit the main drag to find the Nibelungs raising an unholy din of fear and rage as they fled a phalanx of stun-drones. Every instinct told him to retreat, but if he didn’t reach the Ed-Shell before the battle engulfed him, he might not have another chance. Just as he took off again, another explosion sent him sprawling.
He raised his head, spitting mud, and was transfixed by a phantasma of light and motion. Electric webs crackled, and blue stun energy lifted men off their feet and whomped them onto the ground again. Sprays of burning aspirate caused the men to claw at their eyes and skin.
Three Nibelungs had climbed up onto a barracks roof, and Alton watched as they sprinted across it and leapt toward a hovering drone. One missed it entirely and went hurtling into the fray, but the other two grabbed hold, and their combined weight began to force it down.
When it neared the ground, more crazed Neebs pulled it in and hammered it to pieces. The drone had one last defense at its disposal, an earsplitting alarm that forced the men to stumble back and clutch the sides of their head.
Alton jammed his fingers in his ears, but from out of nowhere a hot white blast obliterated the drone. A moment later, Lance emerged from the smoke, wielding an enormous railgun. He spotted Alton, and their eyes met just as the skirmish closed in around him again.
Seeing Lance propelled him to his feet. He lurched through the entrance to the Ed-Shell, not altogether sure in his dazed state if the man he saw before him was real.
“What?” Alton yelled.
“Your leg!” Simon yelled back.
He looked down to see that he had fallen onto the grappling hook. A barbed spear had plunged deep into his left thigh, and his pants were dark with blood. Simon sat him down and peered at the wound. Then he went over to the American flag on its stand in the corner, yanked it down, and tore a huge strip from it.
“Bite down on something.”
Alton stuffed a fistful of the nylon rope into his mouth as Simon twisted the spear down and out. Cold air rushed into the wound, and Alton was surprised it didn’t hurt more. Maybe he was just getting used to pain.
But then Simon cinched the wound with the strip of flag, and his howl was deafening. Simon wiped the blood from his hands on the tattered flag and heaved it away.
“I have to get out of here,” Alton managed to say.
“You need real treatment. More than I can give you here,” Simon said. “But I don’t know how we can get to the Med-Shell through this madness.”
Rage gave Alton the strength to yell. “Madness that you caused! Why did you help him?”
“The bastards took everything from me, Alton. I have the moral right to take it back.”
“But you murdered those men! You betrayed everything you swore to uphold!”
“It’s not murder when you’re at war.”
“Funny, that’s exactly what Lance said.”
But before Simon could respond, the door exploded, and then his chest cavity. The blast sizzled over Alton’s head, along with an enormous flood of viscera. Had he been standing, he would have been cut in half as well.
He wiped thick blood from his eyes and spat out Simon. He might have vomited, but there was no time because Lance was lumbering through the wreckage with the railgun. Once inside, he stepped over Simon’s split-open rib cage and pointed the comically huge weapon at Alton.
“Where are you going with that?” he asked, nodding toward the rope. “You’re going to him, aren’t you?” He leaned into Alton’s face, his red eyes bulging. “Aren’t you?”
Alton threw himself flat on the ground.
“Coward,” Lance said. But only because he hadn’t seen the drone silently appear in the crater that he had blown into the building. A bolt of cobalt energy launched him into the east wall, his vest and armor crackling as they absorbed it.
Figuring he was next, Alton rolled away, sending crippling pain through his thigh as he did. But he stopped when he realized that the drone had become wedged in the crevice. He was riveted by how alive it seemed, its roving eye scanning for targets as it tried to free itself.
Lance meanwhile had flattened himself against the north wall, out of its sight, and was edging back around with his railgun. But the drone registered his presence and hosed the area with burning aspirant.
“Motherfucker!” Lance screamed as the mist enveloped him. He lurched forward and fired blind. One blast opened a gaping hole in the ceiling; the other hit the drone square.
The roving eye pulsed and strobed, then went dark as the dead craft slumped into the breach, crumpling the shell underneath.
Lance dropped to his knees, hacking and coughing, clawing at his eyes.
“It’s burning through your armor! Take it off; take it off!” Alton cried.
Crazed and blind, Lance ripped away his vest and armor, shedding his weapons and gear as he did. As soon as he dropped the web gun, Alton grabbed it and fired. Lance fell back in helpless agony, unable to move his arms to reach his burning face, while Alton exchanged the web gun for the railgun, staggering under its heft.
“Cockroach!” Lance raged. “You tricked me.”
“And you killed Simon.”
“At least the doc finally did something for his people,” Lance said. “It’s more than they’ll say for you.” He spat glistening orange phlegm.
“Simon had nothing but contempt for you. He was just desperate to go home.” He winced at what was left of his former friend, imagining his widow alone in the world somewhere. “And I’ve got a different legacy in mind for myself.” He turned to go.
When Lance next spoke, it was in a beseeching tone that Alton had never heard from him. “I have to get to him,” Lance said. “Please take me with you. You’ll be rewarded.”
He turned back. “After what you did to me?”
“I didn’t know you knew him!”
“What the hell difference does that make? I’m a human being, Lance, which is more than anybody’s ever going to say about you.”
“I don’t want to be left behind,” he whimpered. “Please.”
“What about your army of children? Going to leave them behind to face the fallout on their own?”
“They fought for the cause, and they’ll be remembered with honor.”
“Cause, my ass. This was never anything but a means to get yourself out.”
And then he was outside the camp heading for the cliff edge in the raging storm.
PART II
CHAPTER 14
“Hurry up,” said Lena. “Do we have to go through this every Saturday?”
“I’m ready!” Alton protested, emerging from his room and slinging his backpack over his shoulder.
She gave him one of her looks. “What’s in the bag?”
“Stuff I got at the Stalls.”
“Leave it here.”
“Why?”
“Because God knows Bernardo has more than enough for both of you.”
You mean don’t let his mom see how shitty my stuff is.
“And stop pouting.” She looked at him as though she didn’t recognize him anymore. “You’re getting too old for toys anyway.”
It was already fiercely hot in the Valley at seven o’clock in the morning as they made their way through the crumbling, trash-strewn streets, trying to avoid the ever-sprawling encampments. Because they were poor and he was getting old enough to realize that his mother was unlikely to lift them out of their situation, Alton sometimes feared they might end up here. The thought made him pick up his pace, as though lingering there might seal their fate.
As he hurried along, sweat leaking down his neck, he glanced with envy at the new freeway system soaring above them. The rich, like Bernardo and his family, floated above the city; everybody else took the Hyperloop, which they arrived at after a few more minutes of walking.
They pushed through the crowded station, shuffled down two flights to the platform, and queued up for a pod, which accommodated thirty-five and left every two and a half minutes. When their pod arrived, they settled into their seats near the front of the long, cylindrical cone. His mother seemed dispirited as usual, but Alton loved riding the ’loop. There were no windows, so you couldn’t estimate speed, but the descent into the dark and the vague feeling of floating let him pretend that he was sailing through the solar system. Also, the pods were air-conditioned.
They emerged after a brief journey into a lush neighborhood. Beyond the pleasure he took from the ride itself, Alton looked forward to visiting the big house in the nice area of town where his mother worked, which he had done almost every Saturday for the last few years.
At fourteen, he was old enough now to stay at home by himself, but he liked to visit Bernardo, his only friend. And he enjoyed coming to East Los Angeles, with its clean streets empty of tents, bright refurbished murals, and bustling businesses with their cheerful storefronts.
The ’loop station let out near Belvedere Park Lake. Lena had sometimes let Alton play by the lake when he was younger, until she had had enough of the well-off mothers giving them disapproving stares. Lena, still young and slender with long sandy hair, was keen to avoid other kinds of stares as well. Alton was old enough now that both kinds of looks made him feel ashamed.
They walked to the east side of the little lake, shimmering in the oppressive morning sun, and then hastened south down Atlantic to Sixth Street, where the old neighborhoods had been “relocated” so the new estates could be put in near the new City Hall and the growing government complex.
Transplanted trees towered along the avenues, creating lovely shade and privacy that contrasted Alton and Lena’s sunbaked tower, with its congestion and noise and foul smells and sense of despair.
When she had first started to bring him along, Alton had asked her a few times why they couldn’t live over here. “I wouldn’t live here even if we could,” she snarled. He had been bewildered by her response.
When they came up the sidewalk to the Torreses’ estate, three stories and set back from the street on a half-acre of landscaped grounds, Bernardo was already playing out front. When he saw them, he pushed his thick glasses up his nose and waved. Alton waved back.
As they climbed the steep drive, a mini-rocket spurted straight up, hissing and spiraling through the trees. At its apex, the capsule lifted off, sprouted a parachute, and came rocking down. Meanwhile, the rocket itself began a flight down its original path, slowing, then settling onto the platform Bernardo had unfolded onto the lawn.
“Whoa!” Alton said. Bernardo grinned, beaming, and pushed his glasses up again. It was surprising how often they fell down his nose, considering how bulbous it was. “I just built this one,” he said.
“Do it again!”
But before he could, Bernardo’s mother, Camellia, appeared. She was still draped in a silky robe, open at the neck, but had applied elegant makeup and brushed out her dark, lustrous hair.
“Breakfast first, Bernardo,” she said.
Bernardo struggled to his feet on ungainly legs. Alton suppressed a smile. He loved the kid, but he was such a doofus.
“What about Alton, Mom?”
“Are you hungry, Alton?”
“He’s not hungry,” Lena said. “But if he would like to join Bernardo, that’s fine with me.”
While Lena polished the cherrywood balustrade in the foyer, the boys sat at an island in a palatial kitchen. Alton marveled at the platter of glistening orange slices, kiwi, and strawberries. The only time he saw fruit this fresh was at Bernardo’s house. The fruit hawked at the Stalls was as crummy and ancient as everything else.
“Hello, Alton!” Bernardo’s father, Fernando, boomed as he entered the kitchen. Alton noticed how handsome he looked in his sleek suit. “How’s things?”
Alton mumbled a shy response.
“My dad’s company gave him a prototype of the new augmentation,” Bernardo said, eggs spilling from his mouth. He nodded toward some glasses on the counter.
“Yeah, check this out,” said Fernando. He put on the glasses, and images immediately flitted across the kitchen. Fernando made some adjustments to center the image, then cycled through content, which blazed in a riot of high-res color and 3D motion. He paused on a video of a dog farting and jacked the volume. He and the boys cracked up. Camellia sighed.
Alton was impressed. “Is everything inside the glasses?”
“No, it’s tiny silicone implants,” Fernando said. “Just inside of the skin, so they’re easy to remove. I can access and see everything in my own vision. The glasses are just for projection. But the engineers told me that a few versions from now, my eyes will be able to do the projecting. It will be virtual reality without the hardware. Pretty cool, huh?”
“If you think becoming somebody’s Frankenstein experiment is cool,” Camellia said, sipping her espresso from its tiny mug. “What happens if something goes wrong? I hope you don’t expect me to support you.”
“Dad said I can get them too!” Bernardo exclaimed, and Camellia gave her husband an evil eye.
“In time,” said Fernando. “The implants can’t be made until your brain and eyes have mostly stopped growing. By that time, you’ll be almost old enough to make your own choices.”
“I want to get it!” Alton blurted out.
“It’s very expensive,” Camellia said.
Fernando gave her a look. “But maybe someday. All right, I have to go!”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked.
“Oh, right! Bernardo, since I’ll be traveling on your birthday, I want to give this to you now.”
He put the glasses back on and projected a holo-vid from Cosmost, which played dramatic launch footage followed by grinning space tourists floating weightless through their kitchen.
After a minute, the CEO of the company appeared on-screen. “Hello, Bernardo. We can’t take you to space until you’re sixteen, but for your fourteenth, we’d like to invite you to view a launch here at Cosmost. Happy birthday!”
“Wow!” Bernardo squealed. “Thanks, Dad!” He ran over and hugged his father. As it was the only reality he had known, Alton didn’t often think of not having a father in his life. But he felt the absence now as he watched them embrace.
“Can Alton come?”
“Of course!” said Fernando. “I expected he would!”
“Back to the launchpad!” Bernardo cried, and the two ran out of the room before Alton doubled back, remembering that he should thank them.
As he neared the kitchen, he heard Camellia say, “Should you really encourage them?”
He stopped and listened.
“Bernardo needs friends,” said Fernando. “And Alton is a good kid.”
“They’ll be at different schools next year.”
“You and I were living in different states when we started dating.”
She sighed. “I’m just saying, sooner or later, Bernardo is going to run in his own circles. Private school, college prep. Clubs that require parents to pay for trips, equipment.”
“We can worry about that later. For now, please ask Lena if he can go. I’m sure she’ll be fine with it.”
“Of course she will,” Camellia sniffed. “It’s free.”
“Jesus, Cami. I remember when you used to resent your mother for that kind of snobbery.”
“She’s not perfect, but I’ve come to realize that she recognizes the natural order of things.”
“I’ll never understand how you can think that way after what happened to you.”
“It’s because of what happened to me that I think that way,” she said. “The gringos are simply reaping what they sowed. It’s our turn now.”
By ten o’clock, it was well past a hundred degrees, and the boys swam in the pool with the retractable shade. As Alton splashed around, he saw his mother inside the house, washing the enormous windows. He felt shame about what Bernardo’s mother had said, and pity. He knew his mom worked hard—the Torres family was only one of several in the neighborhood who employed her—but he also felt resentment for what they didn’t have.
When she had begun working for the Torreses two years earlier, Alton had switched to the junior high in the neighborhood, which was attended by mostly upper-middle-class Hispanic kids. He had been an outcast.
Even though he was from one of the wealthiest families in the neighborhood, Bernardo was also an outcast. He was teased because he was unathletic, because he could be slow on the uptake, because his defective genes forced him to wear glasses when most kids could get laser, and because he had befriended Alton, the outsider.
One day at recess, when the bullying was especially bad, Alton escaped to the empty fields behind the main buildings. Kids were supposed to stay in sight of the teachers, so Alton was surprised to see the typically obedient Bernardo at the far end of the field, his back up against a fence, engrossed in his VR set. Alton went and stood over him. “How come you never leave your room when my mom brings me over?”
