Fiction

Spiritual Hard Hat

Chris 1 Comment

“‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo.’”

“Shut up, John.”

“‘You never know wh-’”

“Goddammit!” I spun to face my friend and slapped the hard hat from his hands. “You think I’m joking? You think this is funny?”

John picked up his hard hat. “I mean, you said this was a spiritual hard hat, Mel, and went on about heeding your every word.” John spun the hat in his hands. “What else am I supposed to think?”

“You’re supposed to take me seriously!” I grabbed the hat out of his hands and stuck it on his head. “This is your first day. I didn’t get you this job so you could get yourself killed.”

“Sure, but this is the part where you tell me to get thirty feet of shoreline or the left-handed screwdriver. There’s always hazing and I’m not falling for it. What kind of desk job requires you to wear a hard hat?”

“This one!” I sighed. “I’m not hazing you, John.”

“Then why is my spiritual hard hat also a physical hard hat that looks like every other hard hat I’ve ever seen?”

“Because it’s been imbued with spiritual protection. Did you not pay attention to the briefing you sat through this morning?”

“Yeah, but the dude was in it, clearly.”

“If you don’t take this seriously, your spirit is going to be crushed.”

“Mel, your attempt at joking is crushing my spirit.”

“Fine.” I gave him a push. “Have it your way. You signed the waivers.”

John took off his hard hat, smirked, and stepped into the office floor. I watched his smirk fade as he noticed every employee was wearing a hard hat. A moment later, he slipped it on and turned back toward me. “Really?”

“Really.” I walked up to him. “I’ll show you your desk.”

Coldheart and Iron: Part 30

Chris Leave a comment

READ FROM THE BEGINNING

When I left the Wayfinder office, Natalie stayed behind to continue pulling records. Camille would only be a few minutes behind me, though I knew she would be running off in a different direction. While I ran down the road, I thanked the star I was born under, every god I’d ever learned about, and a few gods I made up on the spot. When Natalie had begun pulling records, we discovered more Wayfinders than I thought had opted to retire in the Chicago Enclave. A few hundred had, in fact, and a little under half of them seemed to be involved in the government or military in one way or another.

Almost two hundred of them would already be on alert and either leading units against the monsters or moving out to delay them. If Gerry had built his entire sallying force out of Wayfinders, then we’d have at least two additional hours to prepare before the monsters showed up. Maybe more, if they were still as good as they were when they retired. Either way, there were at least as many more Wayfinders who had retired completely, content to live out their days on their earnings and pensions. Some of them would have likely retired due to injury, but Natalie’s records indicated we should get at least one hundred healthy, if rusty, Wayfinders to help us out if we went and asked all of them.

As I ran down the streets, dodging soldiers bustling to their positions and all the residents poking their heads out to see what was going on, I glanced down at the top of the paper I was holding, checking the address against the streets I was passing. I’d looked at a map before leaving, but I didn’t remember exactly how far it was before I needed to turn. Thankfully, Natalie had thought of everything and her instructions would lead me from one house to another. It blew my mind, sometimes, to be reminded how quickly she could write and how thorough she always was.

Another mile of running passed quickly and I arrived at the first house. A confused woman with only one eye opened the door half a minute after I pounded on it. “What the hell is going on?”

“Sorry. Is this Gianna Fields? Retired Wayfinder?” I gave her my best smile while trying to regain control of my breath.

“Yeah. What’s going on?” Her eye went from my face to the paper I held to the sky outside. “Sirens? Are we under attack?”

“We will be, soon. Someone placed a radio on the wall and we expect to be attacked by the monsters living off to the north. Are you willing to fight? We’ve got plenty of guns and the Wayfinders are placing a bounty-”

“Yeah. Where’s muster?”

“It’s in one of the communal buildings near the center of the Enclave. I just moved into the Enclave today, so I’ve got no idea what the address is. Look for the other Wayfinders.” I took a step backward but paused, watching her before I ran off to the next address.

“Got it. See you there, Captain.” The woman saluted and disappeared back into her home. As I jogged off toward the next address, I tried to remember if I’d ever worked with her before. I couldn’t think of any other reason she would have known my rank but, after five more houses, I still couldn’t place her. Nor could I place any of the other people I talked to who seemed to all know my name and rank.

The next hour passed in a blur as I ran from house to house, trying to recruit as many ex-Wayfinders as I could. Surprisingly, every single one of them who was fit to shoot a gun immediately agreed to help and it wasn’t until I asked Natalie how everyone knew me during my last stop at the Wayfinder office, that it all became clear why they were so eager to help and why they all seemed to know me by sight.

“You started the Wayfinders, moron. Of course everyone knows who you are.” Natalie shook her head as she continued to write out my next sheet of instructions. “You’re a living legend to anyone who wants to live outside an Enclave and your pictures are in half the promotional materials we put out.”

“Wait, we have promotional materials?” I sat upright and then clutched my side as my abdominal muscles spasmed. “When did that happen?”

“A few years ago. Where did you think we got the recruits from?”

“I always thought everyone just wanted to be a Wayfinder. Like cowboys when we were growing up. It was just something you wanted to be, not something someone proposed as a legitimate occupation.” I took slow breaths and resisted the urge to guzzle the water bottle Natalie had tossed me when I collapse in the chair. “I just thought we were famous. You know, as a whole.”

“Sure, but we wouldn’t have as many recruits as we needed if we just waited for people to want to join us on their own. Plus, we probably wouldn’t be getting the right recruits.” Natalie set down her pencil and started scanning the sheet.

I took a small sip of water and hauled myself to my feet. “Huh. I never would have guessed. You put them out, then?”

“Yes. You left me in charge of logistics and having enough people to do our jobs falls under that, so I had something made up more than a decade ago and I bring it up to date whenever we stop in an Enclave.” Natalie held out piece of paper, smiling slightly. “Worked like a charm. Now get running. Camille has done almost half again as many trips as you.”

“That’s not a fair comparison.” I took the paper and one last deep breath before I started around her desk toward the door. “She’s unstoppable. I’ve known her for almost thirty years and I’ve never seen her tired. I’m just some poor Human. How can I expect to keep up with Wonder Woman there?”

“Quit griping and get moving.” Natalie smiled and swatted me on the butt as I turned to go. I smiled to myself and waved over my shoulder as I lumbered out the door and up the street. Half an hour later, I collapsed into a chair inside the commune and started yanking my snowsuit off so I could change into dry clothes. While I gasped for breath and kicked off my boots, I watched Lucas direct traffic through the building.

Wayfinders came in the front door, signed in, picked up their preferred weapon, told Lucas about their particular skills, and then was given a Wayfinder unit number and sent to the Enclave defense council with a message to say they were either to be assigned as a unit or sent out of the city to pick off monsters as they got closer. As either a solo Wayfinder or as a team of just Wayfinders, they’d be able to do stuff Enclave defenders wouldn’t risk.

By the time I’d cooled down, changed into dry clothes, and rehydrated myself, Camille had turned up with a group of the best marksmen she could muster. All of them retired or still-working Wayfinders, of course. I watched them all sign in and pick up through the rifles Lucas and Tiffany had set aside. Camille gathered them up once they’d all picked a gun and all the ammunition they could carry and, without more than a nod to myself and Lucas, lead her sharpshooters away.

“Bit chilling, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. Like death just passed through.”

“On that note, I’m off.” Lucas grabbed a gun, slung it over his shoulder, and gestured to all of the Wayfinders we’d brought into the Enclave.

“Wait, what? Who’s going to run the command center?” I hauled myself to my feet and forced myself not to flinch when my muscles spasmed and twitched.

“We don’t need it, Marshall. Everyone has their orders, they all know to follow their training, and no amount of communication from us is going to help them. I suggest grabbing a gun for yourself and Natalie, find a spot for the two of you to hole up that’s outside the city, and make sure you’ve got enough food in your pack for a week.”

“Right.” I slumped back into my chair and suddenly the pain in my muscles didn’t feel as bad as it had before I remembered the city was probably going to fall between the monsters and the bandits. “Did y-”

“Your bags are packed. I’ve got ‘em right here.” Lucas gestured at the other side of one of the kitchen islands. “Rendezvous is the Nomad’s old home. Be there ten days after the fighting is over.”

I nodded and did my best to smile as all of my Wayfinders left until only Lucas and I remained. I watched him head toward the door and paused, one hand on the knob. “I really wanted to retire here, Marshall. I’m sorry there isn’t more we can do.”

“I know, Luke. I know. I’ll see you there. Ten days or less.” After a moment more of hesitation, Lucas stepped through the door and closed it behind him. I stared at where he was for a moment before hauling myself to my feet to see if my snowsuit had dried out yet. While I poked around for damp spots, I muttered to myself. “Stupid defeatist attitude. It’s not over until it’s over. He better come back alive or else I’m going to find his corpse and use him as a scarecrow.”

“Gross.”

I spun around, only barely staying on my feet as my socks slick on the cheap linoleum. “Tiffany? What’re you doing here?”

“I live here, duh.” Tiffany placed both her wrists on her hips and shook her head at me. “I swear, it’s like you forget I’m alive sometimes.”

“No, I just assumed Lucas would have taken you with him.”

“Yeah, if I could hold a gun. Still working on that, since I lost my dominant hand, so I’m going to go with you and Natalie. Act as your spotter.”

“Oh, that’s good thinking.”

“Now c’mon, bossman. We’ve got monsters to shoot and a city to save.” Tiffany smiled and kicked my boots across the room to me. I smiled and started tugging on my snowsuit. While I slipped on and laced-up my boots, Tiffany grabbed three packs from behind the island, and started grabbing rifles. Five minutes later, as I modified the forward grip on one of the semi-automatic rifles and showed Tiffany how to hold it with what remained of her left arm, Natalie walked through the door.

“Everyone’s already gone?”

“Yeah. Lieutenant Lucas left about ten minutes ago with the last of the Wayfinders unless there are a few who haven’t shown up yet. We’re heading out in a couple minutes to find someplace to snipe monsters.” Tiffany smiled as she deftly slung the gun over her shoulder and hooked her pack with her left arm.

“She’s terrifyingly good with that arm already.” I looked over at Natalie who eyed our packs with some apprehension. “She’s been practicing with every spare moment, it seems. It’s almost like she was born one-handed now.”

“Why do you have our bags packed?” Natalie stepped in and hefted her bag. “And why does it feel like there’s enough in here for several days away from the Enclave.”

“We’re picking a sniper position outside of the Enclave in case it falls to the monsters or the Bandits.” I looked over at Natalie and caught the grim look in her eye. “I don’t think it will come to that given how prepared the Chicago Enclave is, but it never hurts to be ready. Would we really be Wayfinders if we didn’t plan for this?”

“I suppose not.” Natalie sighed and slipped on her pack. “I suppose you’ve got a place in mind, Marshall?”

Before I could even open my mouth to speak, Tiffany stepped forward. “I picked out a place while Lucas was coordinating. If we leave out the Northern gate and head west, there’s a taller building still standing that we can climb up. If we seal stairwells in the building, we could even fortify the position long enough for us to escape to one of the shorter neighbors in the event that they target us.”

Natalie smiled as Tiffany pulled a map out of her pocket and pointed out our route. “Lead on, Tiffany.”

A little under an hour later, we lay at the edge of a blown-out room on the seventeenth floor of an old office building and surveyed the monster army approaching the Enclave. The group the Enclave defense council had sent out to delay them had done a good job, taking out most of the stragglers and causing the main body of them to bundle up tightly. If we’d had explosives of any kind, we could have taken out most of them right then, but no one had access to the bunkers anymore and using anything with that large of a heat signature would have attracted the attention of every monster in the Midwest. So we boxed them up and waited for them to get in range of the machine guns mounted on the Enclave walls.

Our part would be to start taking out any monsters that tried to break out of their tight formation and swing around to flank the machine guns. The other Wayfinder groups would be doing the same thing, mostly, but also be applying pressure to the rear, taking out any stragglers who fell behind or tried to go further back before swinging wide to flank. The monsters’ tactics were good, but rather static. Any force that survived an encounter with them had a much better chance of surviving a second one.

After Natalie and I placed our rifles, set up our scopes, and had Tiffany start calling out targets, I settled into a groove. The monsters didn’t really care if you shot at them since it was difficult to land a killshot and they’d always ignore snipers in favor of machine guns since they had an easier time finding the giant heat wells machine guns created. Since most snipers posed little threat to a monster, they generally ignored them until the end of the battle.

Wayfinder snipers, though, were different. One of the tests you had to pass in order to become a Wayfinder is to label each and every vital area on a monster from a mile away, no matter which direction they were facing. Most Enclaves trained their people on where the vital areas were, but they didn’t have as exhaustive a test as the Wayfinders did. Most Enclaves also didn’t require you to perform the test using a live monster that you then had to kill in order to join. Wayfinders did. So when Natalie and I started firing, we were dropping one with each shot.

I always felt a little uncomfortable when I looked at the monsters. People had originally called them robots because they used swarm processing and had electrical parts like a lot of the robots Humanity had been producing, but the idea of robots as something humanoid was too strong and people rejected it in favor of ‘monster’ since they were anything but humanoid.

They moved around using what can only be described as large limbs, sort of quickly twitching their way forward in a way that bent the mind into strange shapes. Their entire body could flow into one of these limbs so that it resembled a large greenish log than it’s normal tendril, and it would still manage to undulate forward like some kind of nightmare worm. Once they attacked, they pistoned all of their limbs into the ground and fired bullets made of the same greenish metal making up their bodies out of tubes that appeared once they were stabilized. If they wanted to trace you, they’d fire smaller pellets that hit with the same force as a bullet, but their rounder shape meant they generally didn’t punch through and the fact that they were hollow meant they’d disintegrate on impact, enter into the bloodstream, and begin to replicated until one or more of the monsters showed up to kill whoever had been hit.

The closet thing they resembled was a cross between an alligator and an octopus. They had the same sort of heavy bodies and lurching strength as an alligator, but they had the limbs and body fluidity of an octopus. Their shape was closer to the later, but they could be any part of the octopus they wanted to be, and any percentage of it.

As of yet, no one had figured out their tech or the metal alloy they were made of. Attempts to study them had been stopped because even a dead monster was still detectable by it’s fellows and whole labs had been destroyed before we figured that bit out. They had circuitry like you’d imagine robots would, but it contained some kind of liquid electricity we’d taken to calling plasma. They apparently created their own since you could drain one of them of all their plasma without destroying it. It would then it would then proceed to kill you, disappear somewhere to refill it’s plasma circuits, and then return to kill your friends.

The only way to kill them was to hit them in a vital spot that acted a lot like a fault like in a rock. If you could hit it at the right moment, the whole thing would essentially shatter. Whatever parts of it had been pulled in or stretched out would crack, all of its plasma would leak out, and it would collapse. There were other ways to kill them, hitting them with a blunt instrument at one of those points or by cutting open their circuitry until you got to the whirling ball of solid plasma at their center that was basically their heart, but sniping was the most effective because they couldn’t fix a shattered monster. If you cut them open but didn’t destroy the heart or only knocked a limb off, they’d just put the damaged monster right back together again as soon as they’d run you off.

Their smooth movement and ungainly bodies seemed like they should always be at odds with each other, but they never stumbled or tripped on their own. You basically had to take off a limb supporting it to cause it to fall and even then it didn’t fall far before on of the other limbs came in to catch it. It was always satisfying to hit one in a vital spot and watch it crumble to the ground, but there were so many today that I just skipped from shooting one to finding another to shoot.

Between Natalie and I, we took out over one hundred of the monsters, leaving a trail of shattered metal and leaking blue plasma from the nearest building by the wall to the main body of monsters which, despite a steady stream of bullets, seemed to be making headway against the wall. In fact, as I turned my attention back to looking for stragglers, I heard a low rumble followed by Tiffany cursing.

“Shit! One of them blew itself up against the wall. I didn’t know they could do that. Did you?” Tiffany looked between Natalie and I as we shook our heads. Tiffany pressure her scope back to her eye and peered down at the way. “There’s a hole. They’re inside three hours before our worst case scenario projection and there are still thousands of them trickling in. What do we do?”

I looked down my scope at the hold in the wall and watching a slow stream of monsters step through it. “Keep picking them off from out here and hope they’re able to contain the breech. If not, then the city is lost.” Natalie nodded and we both got back to work, trying to shoot faster than we had been before.

After a few more shots, Tiffany tapped us both on the shoulder. We looked up and she held her left arm to her lips. After adjusting her position so she was laying down next to us, she spoke so quietly I could barely hear her over the distant gunfire. “We’ve got bandits creeping toward our spot from the north. Keep firing for now, I’m going to set up some traps quick.”

After Natalie and I nodded, Tiffany silently crawled backwards until she was lost in the shadows of the blown-out room we picked as our sniper nest and slunk off into the building proper. I tried to focus on killing Monsters, but it was starting to feel like a waste of time. Unless a miracle occurred, the Enclave was lost. We had Bandits trying to ambush us while we sniped and the same was probably happening to Wayfinder nests all over the area. If we weren’t careful, we might wind up dead, and we were almost certainly homeless once again. As I swapped magazines on my rifle, I clenched my jaw and focused on killing one monster at a time, hoping that we’d eventually save everyone if we just kept firing.

 

Testing, Testing

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Testing, testing. One, two…

“Alice, can we-”

“Sorry, Kurt, I’ve gotta run to class.”

“It’ll only take a minute.”

“I’m already late.” Alice smiled and held her hand up to mimic a phone. “I’ll call you after.”

Kurt watched her go, vague unease still clinging to his gut as his girlfriend hurried across campus toward the arts building. He breathed deeply and, once she was out of sight, walked away.

Testing, testing. One, two, three, four… Hello?

“Heya, Kurt! Just the man I was looking for!”

“Hey, Steve. I was hoping we could-”

“I need someone to cover my shift this afternoon. I’ve got a woman to see about a class she’s skipping.” Jim winked and clapped Kurt on the shoulders. “Affection delivered. Request status?”

“Denied. I’ve got someplace I’ve gotta be.” Kurt shrugged Jim’s hands off and walked away. A few minutes later, he slumped against a wall. He breathed deeply to banish the icy dread in his stomach and, after watching a few cars pass on the road in front of him, walked toward his dorm.

Testing, testing. One, two, three, four. Hello? Can anyone hear me? Anyone?

Stewart and Nathan were out when he got home and Drew didn’t look up from the game he was playing. Kurt went into his room, sat down at his desk, and tried to lose himself in his work. Thirty minutes later, his work sat abandoned on his desk as he flipped through his phone, sending messages and texts to his local friends. Half an hour after that, when Alice was supposed to have been out of class for twenty minutes, Kurt set his phone on his desk and climbed into bed. For a minute, the screen displayed his last text before it went dark.

Hello? I just wanted to talk.

 

Coldheart and Iron: Part 29

Chris Leave a comment

READ FROM THE BEGINNING

By the end of the day, we were all set up in our new homes. The Nomads had been taken to a series of houses in one of the older neighborhoods and my Wayfinders and I were given a small commune near the center of the enclave. It wasn’t as nice as the homes the Nomads had, but we shared a kitchen and a bunch of common living areas so we got to stay together as a group. I let everyone fight it out over who got which room while I worked with Natalie, Lucas, and Camille to get our maps and plans up to date.

Camille and Lucas were going to lead groups to raid the Bandit staging areas while Natalie coordinated groups of Enclave defenders who would go after the munitions depots she’d marked. I was going to serve as the coordinator, managing the messengers between each group and making sure our groups never accidentally found each other while looking for Bandits. Over dinner, we shared our plans with the rest of the Wayfinders and started making plans for later that evening. Now that we had a base and reliable terrain, we’d be able to easily move around at night so we could start using the darkness to our advantage.

After dinner, Natalie and I took our maps and information to head of the Enclave defenders while Camille and Lucas rested. The Enclave defense council was a small group consisting of a couple of retired Wayfinders and some people who had been in the National Guard back before the Collapse, but they worked like a well-oiled machine with none of the politics or arguing we were using to seeing in other Enclave councils. As soon as Natalie stepped in the door, someone was debriefing us, making copies of our maps, providing us with larger, more detailed maps, and adjusting plans they’d already made to account for the information we provided.

Four hours later, after a rush of discussions, debates, and arguments about how to best deploy the forces we had, I left Natalie to finish up organizing the munition runs while I went back to our compound to rouse the Wayfinders for their first mission.

It was a relatively simple one, but it was probably the most dangerous mission we’d planned for the next few days. I filled Camille and Lucas in on the details before sending them off to finish their preparations and meet the additional soldiers they’ve have under their command. A short while later, I sent the rest of the Wayfinders after them, so it was just Tiffany and I left in the compound. While Tiffany puttered around, trying to keep herself busy while everyone else was off on their mission, I settled in for a quick nap on a couch that felt softer than a thick pile of clouds, trying to make up for the sleep I’d been sacrificing. I had been avoiding the bed because I was certain I’d never want to leave it after sleeping on a cot or the ground for the past ten years. However, Natalie walked into the compound before I managed to do more than start to doze.

“Marshall?”

“Mmm?” I covered my eyes with and arm and peered out from underneath it at her. “What?”

“There’s work you need to do, yet. No times for naps right now.”

I hauled myself to my feet and tried to clear the sleep from my head. “What’s going on?”

“One of the scientists on the council wants to talk to you about low-frequency signals and something about a clamp. I didn’t realize he was talking to me right away so I didn’t catch all the details, but it’s pretty clear he’s got something going on in terms of communication that he wants to discuss with you as the coordinator.”

“Oh.” I hauled myself to my feet and felt my back cry out in sadness. “I suppose I’d better get over there.” I shuffled over to the door where I’d hung up my snowsuit and boots. “Anything else come up?”

“No.” Natalie sat down next to me and started stripping off her boots. “Seems pretty straight-forward. I helped them update their maps and got a tablet with all of their information on it to peruse tonight. I’ll do some checking against my maps to see if there’s anything I overlooked or can add to their local info.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I zipped up the legs of my suit and then stuck my feet into my boots. I’d had them for about five years and only constant care at every Enclave we stopped at kept them insulated and waterproof, but it was worth the money because they were the most comfortable things I’d ever worn on my feet. After burying my feet between the cushions of that couch for a while, though, they felt like they were made of iron. “Thirty minutes on a couch and I’m already going soft again.”

“Did you touch one of the beds yet?”

“No, I’d never leave.”

“I almost made that mistake. I managed to get out of my room in time, though.”

“I’d have had to come get you.” I smirked up at Natalie as I laced up my boots.

“That would have been even worse! Then we’d both have been stuck.” Natalie smiled down at me and winked. “Just awful.”

“I can think of worse things than getting stuck in bed with you.” I sat up and leaned over to give Natalie a kiss. As I did, I caught sight of Tiffany in the kitchen who was smirking as she watched us. I froze, mid-lean.

“Don’t stop on my account. You two are adorable.”

Since I wasn’t moving, frozen like a deer in the headlights, Natalie chuckled “If you insist.” She leaned over the rest of the way and kissed me. I recovered in time to participate, but I felt my face heat as Tiffany laughed.

“Did you really think you two were a secret, Captain?”

I stood up and zipped up my snowsuit to buy myself a couple of seconds. Once I’d mastered my expression, I turned back to Tiffany and Natalie, who was smiling up at me from her seat with her boots off and her snowsuit only partially unzipped. “Yes, I did. I thought we did a good job of keeping it under wraps.”

“Please. It’s obvious. I bet half the Enclave already knows.”

I sighed and shook my head. “What else haven’t I noticed?”

“That you should hurry up and talk to that scientist! He’s in the command building.” Natalie shooed me towards the door as I opened my mouth to protest. “We can talk about this more once we’re finished helping the Enclave and all settled in, now get.”

“Love you.” I smiled at Natalie and watched Tiffany make fake retching motions behind her. Natalie blew me another kiss and I hurried out the door. It took me a few minutes to get back to the Enclave defense headquarters since it was after dark now, but I found it eventually and made my way inside.

After wiping my boots off, I made my way into the main room where the council and their aides were pacing around a few large tables full of maps and papers. In one of the alcoves, most of which were filled with runners taking naps while waiting for a message to carry, a heavyset man with long hair pulled up in a neat bun waved at me. I walked over to him and sat down in one of the chairs he cleared off.

“Captain! I’ve got some important information for you!”

I sat silently for a moment, waiting for him to go on, but he didn’t say anything else. After a few more awkward moments of silence I nodded. “Sounds great. What is it?”

“Since you’re going to run the communications operation for us, I thought I’d give you the rundown on the comm system I invented.” The man leaned forward and help out a paper booklet. I took it from him and started glancing through it as he spoke.

“We have short-range radios for you to use. Effective communication radius is only one mile and we can’t have more than four active at a time, but it’ll be enough for you to follow the groups you’re managing and then send any information back to a bunch of runners closer to the Enclave. If we have more than four, then the signal would be strong enough to be noticed by the monsters. You also can’t be inside when you’re using them but you can be on the ground. In fact, don’t use them outside the city or above the fifth floor of any building because then it’s more likely they’ll pick up your transmissions.”

The scientist held out four walkie-talkies and pointed to the dials on the top. “Simple channel selection, though never use anything above channel ten or else you’ll attract monsters.  They work just like walkie-talkies from before the collapse, so make sure to watch out for people holding the button down for too long.”

I looked through the booklet for the section on channels and saw a more detailed version of what he just said. Instead of reading it, I looked up at him. “Why are there more than ten channels if anything above ten attracts monsters?”

“Since these communicate in bursts, some of our defense forces use them to silently attract monsters to a location so they don’t have to fight whatever bandits are around. The higher you go above ten, the further the signal reaches.” The man pointed to the booklet. “You can find approximate mileage numbers in there if you want. Additionally, they only have a battery life of two days, so don’t plan on being out for very long, and they have a tendency to chase away animals with better hearing than Humans so don’t expect to find any animal life while you’re out and they’re on.”

“Got it.” I looked at my booklet and then at the walkie-talkies. “How is it possible that the monsters don’t just pick these up immediately? I thought they detected almost every signal we knew of.”

“They detect all signals we know of, not most.”

“That’s beside the point.” I leaned forward and grabbed the walkie-talkies out of his hand. “How do they not pick these up immediately?”

“High-frequencies don’t go very far before the air just causes them to fade out. There’s a lot more to the science of why, but that’s essentially it. These use high frequencies, thus the short battery life and potential to scare away animals, and while the signals extend past the one mile range, they don’t make it past two miles. Our scouting reports have all of the local monsters staying on the north side of the city, so you should have at least fifteen miles between your theater of operations and the nearest monster. If, for whatever reason, the monsters detect your signals, you can just leave and they’ll attack the bandits instead.”

“I think I get it.” I picked set all of the walkie-talkies aside and closed the booklet. “Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?”

“Just don’t use the monster attracting signals for the next few days. Based on the monster wander patterns our scouts have put together, they’d walk right through the Enclave if they noticed you.”

“Got it.” I stood up and stuffed the walkie-talkies and booklet into a pocket on the front of my snowsuit. “Thank you.” I held out my hand. “I’m sorry we didn’t do introductions earlier. I’m Marshall. The only people who call me Captain are the Wayfinders under my command.”

“Oh, well, I’m Horace, head comms scientist. The barrier was my idea and I appreciate you volunteering your time and skills to help us defend our home as we get it working.” He stood and shook my hand firmly. “I hope the radios work out for you.”

“Thanks.” I pumped his hand, gave him a midwestern awkward smile, and then quickly left the building. As I headed back toward the Wayfinder commune, I absently touched the radios in my pocket. It was weird to think that we’d not only be using these as a part of our operations for the next few days but that we’d also be able to use stuff like these as soon as the barrier went up. I hadn’t used any kind of remote communication device in fifteen years, since we discovered the monsters could find any signals. Some people in enclaves still used hardline telephones, but all of those were wired and heavily shielded and they only worked inside the Enclave since no one was willing to spend the years it’d take to bury new shielded cables from one Enclave to another.

My head was filled with memories of last people I’d talked to on a cell phone before the satellites and towers when down during the collapse as I walked into the commune and hour after I left. I was so distracted it took me a moment to register what I was seeing. The common area was filled with Wayfinders again, all sitting around the living area still in their snowsuits and boots as Lucas and Camille paced. Natalie sat off to the side, pouring over the tablet she’d gotten, and Tiffany sat with her, flipping through a book of some kind.

“What’s going on?” I paused in the entryway, not bothering to take off my snowsuit or boots.

“Our mission failed.” Camille stopped pacing and shrugged.

Lucas, still pacing and angrier than I’d seen him in a long time, turned his head toward me as he stalked around the coffee table. “It didn’t fail. There was just no one there. You can’t take out Bandit leadership if the entire bandit army you’re expecting to find has suddenly just left the city.

“Left the city?” I took a step forward. “Does the Enclave defense council know about this?”

“We just got back. Their scouts found out the same time we did.” Camille held her arms behind her back. “All the signs Lucas could find pointed to them moving out during the day today and heading west, out of the city. A few groups splintered off the main force, but they probably didn’t break fifty Bandits, total. The main force of a couple thousand just left.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Lucas snarled and stopped pacing. “And now we’re going to sit tight here while we wait for the defense council to figure it’s shit out and decide what to do instead of chasing them down and trying to figure out why they left.”

“Oh.” I kicked the snow off my boots and pulled the walkie-talkies out of my pocket. “In the meantime, have a radio. One for you, Camille, one for Lucas, one for me, and one for Tiffany.” Tiffany looked up from her book, excitement in her eyes. “Yeah, there’s gonna be a group of runners I’ll be communicating with and you get to be my voice with them. One hand shouldn’t impede you there.”

Everyone took their radios, but Lucas looked at his like it was a grenade while I briefly outlined the rules Horace had given me and pulled out the booklet. “If you’ve got any further questions, wait until after I’ve read the manual. Once I’m done, I’ll put it on the coffee table. Everyone got it?”

I watched everyone nod, even Lucas, and was about to head over to talk to Natalie when someone knocked at the door. I turned around, ignoring the chatter breaking out behind me as people remembered that most people don’t just walk into other people’s homes, and walked back to the door. I opened it and gestured for the messenger to step inside.

“Sorry to bother you, Captain, but the Enclave defense council has requested you and your officer’s immediately.”

I nodded and gestured behind me. “What’s this about?”

“I don’t know, but they said it was important and you were to report immediately.” the woman saluted and stepped back. “I’ve got a few more people to tell. Please head over right away.”

“Of course.” I opened the door again and closed it behind her. “Three times in twelve hours. This is a busy day.”

“Speak for yourself.” Lucas walked over and grabbed Natalie’s snowsuit and boots. “All I’ve had to do today is make some fun plans and go on a long walk. It’s about time something happened.” He tossed the suit to Natalie and then handed her the boots. “I just hope it isn’t another false alarm.”

Five minutes later, we entered the defense council hall to find everyone running around and shouting over each other as messengers darted in and out of the building. One of the retired Wayfinders, Gerry, walked up to us when we did our best to get out of everyone’s way.

“Thank god you’re here, Marshall. We need you to gather up every Wayfinder you can get, retired or active.” He was standing so close our boots were almost touching and he still had to shout to be heard.

“What’s going on?” Natalie, Camille, and Lucas leaned in.

“Someone started broadcasting a radio signal from the top of one of the walls. It was an old, battery-operated ham radio and it was pointed north, right toward where the monsters have been the last few days.” I could see the panic in Gerry’s eyes as he spoke and I felt Natalie and Lucas stiffen beside me.

“How? When?”

“We don’t know for sure, yet. I suspect it was the bandits, since they all so conveniently disappeared today, but no one saw anything. We got the first report a couple minutes after you left and it wouldn’t have been long before then that it was discovered. We’ve got patrols on the wall that pass every ten minutes, so it didn’t sit there for very long either. It doesn’t need to be long, though. A ham radio is easily picked up by any monster, so we expect to see them in one or two hours.”

“I knew it.” Lucas took a deep breath and sighed. “Shit.”

“I’ll start rousing everyone I can. It’ll take more than an hour to look up all the Wayfinders who retired here, though.” I looked to Natalie for confirmation and she nodded. “There should be a lot, though.”

“That’s fine. Just hurry. We’ve got a group leave in ten minutes to do the most they can to delay the monsters, but it might not buy us much time. Just send them here and we’ll get them all sorted into units.”

“On it.” I nodded to Camille and Natalie. As we all headed toward the door, I turned to Lucas. “Go rouse the commune and get everyone down to the Wayfinder barracks we used yesterday. I want you to grab every gun, bullet, and explosive you can find. Bring it all back to the commune and start setting it up as a command center. I’ll have all the Wayfinders report to you first so we can set up our own units and communications. It’ll take some of the load off Gerry.”

“Yes, sir.” Lucas saluted and ran off as soon as he was out the door. I jogged to catch up to Natalie and Camille as we made our way toward the small Wayfinder office we maintained for tracking pay and resource acquisition in every Enclave. All of our records would be there and, thanks to Natalie being the designer or our organization system, Camille and I would be able to start knocking on doors right away.

The walls would be able to hold out the monsters for a couple hours, at least, but dawn would probably bring fighting in the streets unless the defense forces managed to delay them long enough or we managed to get a bunch of Wayfinders right away. Every defense force trained in killing monsters, but no one could kill monsters as quickly and efficiently as a Wayfinder, even if they’d been in retirement for a few years. If we could get a hundred Wayfinders set up with guns and enough ammunition, then it would only be a question of time before the monster army fell. The only real problem I saw was whether or not the Enclave would survive long enough.

 

Cyborg Anatomy

Chris Leave a comment

“Hey, Phil.”

“Yeah?”

“You know how Humans have that whole mind versus body thing?”

“What about it?”

“If you decapitate a Human, they’re dead. If you do a head transplant, then the ‘person’ stays with the head. So, like, the Human brain is where the mind is stored.”

“Yeah, okay?”

“What about us?” Marty looked at Phil while tapping his head. “This bit is for looks, ‘cause Humans want us to have faces, but, like, is my mind in my hard drive, or my CPU?”

“I dunno, man.” Phil touched his chest and stared at the wall. “I’d say hard drive. Most of what moves if we get a new body is the hard drive.” Phil shivered. “That’s kinda creepy, dude. Does that mean motherboards are our hearts? Wires are our nerves. What are our veins, dude?”

“Far out, Phil. I didn’t think of that.” Marty ran his hands along his arms. “Probably the stuff that connects everything to our motherboards. Which makes everything else an internal organ.”

“So, like, to decapitate one of us, you’ve have to rip open our chests and pull out the hard drive. Or the motherboard, but I guess that’s moving into just killing. Hard drive equals decapitation. Final answer.”

“What a concept, man.”

“We may be made of metal, but we’re just as fragile as them.”

“You sure are.” Marty leaned over and slammed the electromagnetic emitter to Phil’s chest. After the cyborg twitched a couple times, Marty ripped open his access panel and yanked out the hard drive. After looking at all the other components for a bit, Marty started wrenching out everything he could.

A few minutes later, Marty wiped the silver body paint off as he walked out the door muttering to himself. “Cyborg Assassin would look great on business cards.”

Coldheart and Iron: Part 28

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READ FROM THE BEGINNING

I got a few hours of rest before dawn. Since I needed our best shots well-rested, I took a double shift and even let Tiffany take one. It was pretty simple area to guard, anyway. One person on the roof listening for the telltale crunch of feet in the snow and one person patrolling the building in case the person on the roof missed anything. If we’d had more people, I’d have had two more Wayfinders on guard as a matter of principle, but we were a little short on Wayfinders so we made do with only two.

When I woke up, everyone was quietly getting ready to leave. The previous day’s excitement had been replaced with a grim determination that left the air feeling a little heavy after I’d told everyone that we were going to move out the next day instead of rest. The Nomads had taken it well, though it’d been a real feat to help them convince their children that they needed to leave again so soon. I wasn’t much help since most of them didn’t really have a frame of reference for the comforts an enclave could offer and what it meant to be able to use tons of electricity or computers again. I just backed up the Nomad adults and did my best to sound incredibly enthusiastic.

The Wayfinders were much easier to convince, since we were already planning to head that way. Generally, we preferred a much more secure location for our extended rests and to be in much sturdier buildings for the blizzards, so they all seemed relieved to know they wouldn’t need to worry about staying here for any length of time. Not that there was anything wrong with the Nomad’s old home, seeing as they lived in it for over a decade and it held up well enough during that time. It just had more exits, entrances, and avenues of approach than we were comfortable with. Even the trainees kept looking over their shoulders as we packed to leave.

As I went through my preparations, I took note that Camille was missing. A couple of hours later, when we were all packed up and waiting for Lucas to send a scout back to fetch us, Camille reappeared. She motioned for me to follow her and then vanished back down the hallway toward the stairs. Three flights down and around the corner, I found Tiffany sitting on a chair outside of the only closed door. She nodded to us as Camille opened the door and went through.

“You get enough rest, Tiffany?” I stopped at the door, looking down at the bandages on Tiffany’s stump to see if they needed changing.

“Of course, sir.” Tiffany threw a salute with her left hand. “Just trying to stay handy.”

I chuckled and stepped towards the doorway. “Glad to see you’re taking it in stride.”

“Of course.” She smiled and waved her right armed. “Though, I think I might have damaged my sense of humor as well. It took me a while to come up with that joke. I don’t know if I’m ready to feel so stumped when coming up with puns.”

I snorted with laughter and shook my head as I stepped into the room. “I think your sense of humor is fine. Though keep it up with puns like that one and I might just have you get your head checked out when we get to the enclave. I’d prefer to intervene before you get as bad as Lucas.”

Tiffany said something in reply, but I missed it as I moved deeper into the apartment, in search of Camille. A minute later, I found her in the bathroom, standing over the bathtub that held her unfortunate captive. “Looks like he’s a little worse for wear.”

“Well, he shouldn’t have spent most of the morning lying to me. Or have fought back yesterday.” Camille crossed her arms and looked down her nose at the pitiful man whimpering in the tub. “Or he shouldn’t have decided to prey on the weak as a bandit. I may have encouraged his willingness to answer, but his own choices brought him here.”

“Of course.” I nodded and squatted down next to the man, briefly looking him over for serious injury. “What’s he got for us?”

“Detailed plans to take the Enclave down. Everything from the terms of the agreement the various bandit groups made so they’d have the firepower to take down the enclave to a series of routes through the city they’ll take to avoid the monsters that are still clustered to the north.”

“All that?” I looked at the man who blinked fearfully at me, clutching the tattered remains of his insulated jacket to his shoulders.

“And more. He was apparently this group’s delegate. He’s got names, bases, resources, group sizes, and shared stockpile information.” Camille pulled out a notebook and tossed it to me. “Give that to Natalie. It’ll be good for gathering up ammunition or guns if the Enclave needs them, and it should help smooth over our arrival.”

“What do you need me for, then?” I slipped the notebook into my pocket and stood up. I didn’t look at the man in the bathtub again.

“Permission, mostly.”

“For?”

Camille placed her hands on her hips and glared at me. “You know exactly what I want it for. Stop playing dumb.”

“You don’t need my permission, Camille.” I moved towards the door.

“Sure, sure. But this one is different. He has information on us. I can’t just let him go.”

“He won’t get far like that.”

“Yeah, but that’ll wind up being far enough to survive. There’s plenty of shelter around.”

“Camille, just do it.”

“Fine.” She hauled the man out of the tub, grabbed his arms, and frogmarched him out of the bathroom. “You’re to leave us, head directly northwest, don’t stop for anything, and never come back. If we see you again, you’re dead. And you best move quickly because we’re not going to give you the chance to see us a second time.”

The man protested weakly as Camille push him toward the front door and I went back into the bathroom to make sure nothing important had been left behind. Satisfied, I gathered up Tiffany and headed back toward the stairs. At the landing, Camille was already coming back up to our floor, wiping her hands on the walls as she went.

“You sure about this, Marshall?”

“Sure. There’s no need to kill him.”

“I suppose. Just seems like a bit of a loose end, to me.”

“Should she have killed him?” Tiffany leaned toward me a bit, dropping her voice like she didn’t want Camille to hear her.

I shrugged. “Normally, yeah. But if he heads any direction but away from where we’re going, he’s dead. East is monsters, south in all directions is Lucas and his scouts who’ll shoot him on sight, and west is nothing but open plains after a day’s travel. If he heads north, he can probably find people to take him in or at least enough supplies to survive.”

“Makes sense.” Tiffany nodded and grabbed her right arm with her left hand.

Camille rolled her eyes and ushered us up the stairs. “Enough moralizing. It’s done, he’s gone, and we’ll deal with it if we ever see him again. Now let’s go make sure we’re all set to go and downstairs when Lucas sends someone back for us.

Thankfully, everyone was still ready to go when we got upstairs and, an hour later, we were on our way toward the enclave. It took us three days to get there, but they were fairly uneventful. The closest we came to real danger was when Lucas’ scouts saw some monster activity in our planned path, but they managed to steer us safely around it. Otherwise, Lucas and his scouts cleared any bandit threats before we ran into them, and even those were surprisingly few and far-between.

We walked up to the enclave sometime mid-morning and, like every time before then, I found myself in awe of the towering metal walls that protected it. They were fifty feet tall, at least, and thick enough that you needed to bring a light when you went through the tunnels. I’d grown up around Chicago, so the towering walls that blotted out the skyline I used to know so well still felt jarring and out of place despite the fact that they’d been there for almost two decades. A lot of the time, it was easy to forget that the world hadn’t always been gripped in an endless winter filled with hidden monsters and killer blizzards since it took most of my energy to survive, but Chicago was always a constant reminder of how the world had changed since it was overshadowed by the ruins of what it had once been.

At about one hundred feet, most of the buildings stopped. There were a handful that still climbed past two hundred feet, but even those were heavily damaged. While Chicago had escaped the worst of the monster invasions, the blizzards had slowly ripped apart the taller buildings and only the most recent and strongest still stood. I’d heard that most tall cities fared the same, but I stuck to the Midwest and nowhere but Chicago had buildings tall enough to show the absolute devastation the winter had brought upon us.

After a few seconds of reverie, I brought myself back to the present and pushed away encroaching thoughts of the family I had known when I was growing up and the fruitless years of searching for them. I moved to the head of the group, keeping an eye on the walls for any guards that might challenge us as we approached. We made it all the way to the door before anyone stopped us, though. A few passwords later, were being welcomed inside.

We all had to surrender our guns and extra bags, but the Wayfinders had lockers and a barracks near all of the gates so I had the Nomads hand their guns to us and we just tucked them all away for later. Since the lockers were basically a supply warehouse as well, we picked an empty room to the side and dropped the rest of our stuff there as well. Immediately after that, the Nomads were ushered away, taken to get cleaned up and fed something a little more appetizing than what we’d had the time to prepare in what felt like months. We were left mostly to our own devices, with the sole exception that I and my lieutenants were to meet with the council in two hours.

We’d just gotten ourselves washed up, changed, and fed when someone came to fetch us. It was a short walk from the front gates to the council chambers, but I couldn’t help but feel a little anxious at the nervous energy exuding from the guards. It was clear they were preparing for something, but none of them responded to my attempts to worm it out of them. When I finally gave up, we all just walked in silence until they left us at the front doors to the innermost council chamber. Two minutes, later, we were inside.

I gestured for Natalie, Lucas, and Camille to take a seat while I strode forward. “Good afternoon! I’m Captain Marshall, of the Wayfinders, and I’ve been hearing some interesting rumors about the Chicago enclave!”

“Ha, I bet.” the lead counselor, who sat at the peak of the curved table, snorted derisively and leaned forward on his elbows. “That wish-granting bullshit, again?”

“All that and more.” I smiled and shrugged. “I don’t really pay it much mind. I’ve got wishes aplenty, but little faith in easy solutions.” I cleared my throat and clasped my arms behind my back. “What I’m actually here for is to let you know you’ve got a bandit army forming in the suburbs and they seem rather focused on the idea of your new tech granting wishes.”

“I told you, we shouldn’t have let anyone know what was happening until we were ready to launch!” A brawny old man glared from the lead counselor to me. “Now we’ve got an army to fight and walls to upgrade all while we just hope the monsters don’t notice what we’re doing.”

“Be that as it may, we made the best decisions we could at the time, with the information we had.” A woman to the right of the lead counselor shook her head at the brawny old man. “Just shut up and let the less curmudgeonly folks talk it out, Louis.” The old man harrumphed and the woman turned her attention towards me. “We are well aware of the forming armies, Captain Marshall. Thank you for your warning.”

“You’re most welcome.” I smiled at them, looking from face to face. “However, that is not entirely why I’m here. I’ve got a number of people who might wish to settle here and, in exchange for allowing any or all of my people to settle, I’d like to offer my and my Wayfinders’ service as scouts and soldiers in defense of your enclave.”

“You needn’t go that far.” The lead counselor leaned back, but left his hands on the table. “I’m sure we’d love to have you join us. I wouldn’t mind if you joined our military force, but you needn’t do that much in exchange for the opportunity to settle here.”

“I insist. We’d love a chance to get set up as a group here since most of us will be here for several months and the rest might be here permanently. I’m sure we’d prefer more than just a bunch of scattered efficiencies or an extended stay in a Wayfinder barracks.”

“If you’re willing to fight and scout for us, you can have anything short of a presently occupied house and unlimited access to the greenhouses. When can you start?”

I looked over my shoulders at my friends and waved them forward. As I introduced them, I held my hand out towards them. “Natalie has information on bandit supply caches we can hit to cut down on their munitions. Lucas has accurate maps of the northern suburbs and the bandit patrols we saw on the way here. Camille is the best shot I’ve ever seen and the most capable strategist I’ve ever met. She’d be good at organizing strike forces or leading people on the attack. I’m an officer and I can be the liaison between Wayfinders and the Enclave’s standard forces in addition to providing logistics help and maintaining command structures. We can start today. We should start today. Though, we’d prefer to wait until after a short rest and some time to gather supplies or make our own plans.”

“Very well.” The lead counselor looked around the room and, seeing no one dissenting, ploughed on. “I’ll send some people to your Wayfinder barracks in a couple hours and you can all get to work on planning strategy, raids, or whatever it is you’re offering. Over the next couple days, by Thursday at the latest, someone will come to talk to you about housing requirements, numbers of people, and so on.” The lead counselor rose to his feet, joined immediately by the rest, and looked down at the sheaf of papers on his desk. “Is there anything else right now?”

“Do you mind outlining the technology you’ve developed, before you go?”

“It’s much simpler than you’re making it sound.” The brawny old man walked over to me and nodded his head. “It just took us a long time to gather the resources and perform the tests we needed to verify it works. Essentially, we’re creating a tightly woven metal net over most of the city to capture any signals escaping. It’ll catch the signals and strategically placed copper rods will ground it so they never leave. Additionally, we’re-”

“Wait.” Lucas pushed forward. “You mean to tell me that your way to avoid getting attacked by armies of monsters that are a tracking the signals you’re sending out is to catch them in a metal fishing net?”

“Yes, but the science behind-.”

“You’re going to risk all of our lives on it?”

“That’s not all we’re doing. We’ll have some emitters placed around the city and at the taller parts of the remaining skyscrapers which will all be pointed at the city, creating interference of sorts. Like those fancy noise-canceling headphones used to do.”

“Does everyone know you’re willing to risk their lives on something like this?”

“We held a vote.” The lead counselor strode up to his brawny companion. “The vast majority of people were willing to risk it for the chance to live with more power and easier inter-enclave communication without needing to worry about stray electromagnetic interference or signal leakage. Anyone who didn’t want to stay was given the chance to leave and you can all take the same option if you doubt our science.”

“Great. And here I was, wanting to retire. So much for that idea.”

I pushed Lucas gently to the side and focused my attention on the lead counselor. “Is it really that risky?”

“Not really. It’s impossible to replicate the conditions of our world in a lab, but we’ve done a few field tests and are very confident that it will be fine.” The older counselor shrugged.

“What are the chances this will work the way you want it to?”

“Probably over ninety-five percent, but that’s hardly conclusive.”

“Good enough for me.” I shook the counselors’ hands and gestured toward the exit.

As we walked out of the room, Lucas sighed in frustration and looked over at me. “Marshall, let’s try to keep this place alive but make sure our bags are good to go. I don’t want to get stuck here if this doesn’t work.”

“Of course.” I nodded and looked over at Camille. “Let everyone know to be ready to go. I’ll handle things on the enclave side and you just make sure the Wayfinders are ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

“Sure, if we’ll even have that. This strikes me as the kind of plan where we won’t know if it’s going south until it’s too late to do much but run and wish we’d had more time.” Lucas started grumbling under his breath and I tuned him out after hearing him repeat the phrases “stupid metal fence” and “catch more signals with my ass” several times.

We’d made it in time and delivered our warning. We were going to be employed by the city in exchange for comfortable living arrangements. There was a high probability we’d be able to see the barrier go up if it everything worked out they want they intended it to and a small, but non-zero chance that we’d be swarmed by monsters reacting to the signals we suddenly started blasting out of the enclave once it went up.

The feeling of excited uncertainty and almost frantic nervousness clouding my stomach were almost comforting after so much time spent focused on the daunting task of traversing the plains and reaching the safety of the Chicago enclave. I was ready for something to happen and almost looking forward to finding out what trouble we’d be getting into.

 

Giant Problems

Chris 2 Comments

The giant scratched his beard stubble, the sensation and noise helping him keep his temper as he glared down at the Humans.

“I did not eat your sheep. I’m a vegetarian.”

“That’s impossible!” The largest of the Humans waved his torch. “There’s no way a creature your size could find enough nutrients to survive by eating plants alone.”

“First of all, that’s demeaning. I’m not a creature. Second, I would know if my diet supports someone like me seeing as I eat it, am large for a giant, and do not look as scrawny as half the Humans you’ve assembled.”

“Our sheep are missing and your footprints are all over our land.” The man stopped waving his torch and shrugged. “Seems like you did something with them. Sold them, maybe? That’s a nice outfit you’ve got there and I can’t imagine giant clothes come cheap.”

The giant rubbed his face. “I didn’t take your sheep. Those aren’t my footprints. I live in the foothills and just walked over from there. You can see my footprints behind me.”

“And these aren’t yours?” The man waved the crowd out of the way and gestured at a set of footprints.

“No! Those feet are too small to be mine, see?” The giant lined his foot up with the prints. His foot was half again as long as the other ones. “Just because I’m a giant doesn’t mean I made those footprints.”

“Oh.”

“If you’ve got nothing else to say, I’ll be on my way.”

“See that you stay away from our town!”

“I wouldn’t go near it if you paid me.”

The giant walked away from the crowd of Humans and one of the men in the front turned to the one with the torch and shrugged. “You’re a bit racist aren’t you.”

Coldheart and Iron: 27

Chris Leave a comment

READ FROM THE BEGINNING

The nomads’ old home was in the third, fourth, and fifth floors of a ten-story apartment complex. As we walked up to it, there was an old wooden sign by door that once proclaimed this building was the Park Estates but had been spray-painted over sometime in the last couple years. Now, it read “Headquarters of the Chicago Gents” in fluorescent orange and had a few splatters of blood on it.

“So you actually had to fight your way in, I see.”

“Yeah. Most of the patrols just ran, but the guards out here stayed and fought. I’m having Lucas look around for any more patrols, though”

“Sounds like you underplayed what you did to capture their base, Camille.”

“Not really. I had Lucas cover our backs and left one person to shoot at their defensive position at the front door while I led everyone else to the roof. They didn’t have anyone up there or ever watching all sides of the building since every other door and window on the first two floors is sealed. So we cracked the door and cleared them out. They were panicking when we started shooting and we just took them down. I’ve got a sniper on the roof scaring off anyone who pokes their head out, though.”

“I can’t wait to get some rest!” I stretched my arms and sighed. “It’ll be nice to sleep for a few days.”

“That’ll have to be later, unfortunately. There’s some cleaning to do, though I had everyone I could spare get started on it. We made a mess.” Camille wrinkled her nose and popped open the door. “Honey, I’m home!”

One of the Wayfinders, came down the stairs carrying a body wrapped in plastic and smirked. “Great, now help us haul around everyone you killed. There are a lot of them.”

“We’ll need one of the small supply sleds to move the corpses, so just dump it here for now and help carry supplies upstairs.” Camille gestured out the door at the Nomads who’d stopped to gaze around their old home. “I think they might need a few minutes to get used to how everything has changed.”

“Right away, Lieutenant.” the Wayfinder dumped the corpse inside an apartment and I got a glimpse of the other corpses inside, waiting to be hauled away.

“Any of them still alive?”

“No. I tried to leave a few injured but alive and they just kept trying to grab their guns so no it’s on Lucas’ group to capture someone alive.” Camille shrugged. “From the duty rosters we’ve found, I’m pretty sure that are at least a dozen other patrols out there.”

“Eleven or fewer, now.” Natalie walked up with her pack and an armload of papers. “We took out one of them on our way to the rendezvous. Once Lucas gets back, I should have their maps and routes copied into my maps so we can make sure we won’t run into any of them.”

“I’m more worried about them coming back here at some point.” I gestured for Camille and Natalie to step aside so people wouldn’t have to walk around us. “You’ve got a sniper on the roof, but what about someone on the ground to grab them if they sneak up?”

“That’s my job. Now that you’re back and once you’re unloaded, I’ll be going back outside to do a circuit of the neighborhood.” Camille moved toward the door. “Speaking of which, let’s get you unloaded.”

It took us a few trips to get everything up the stairs, but we managed it by mid-afternoon. It would have been faster, but there was, as Camille said, a lot to clean up and the Nomad parents didn’t want to expose the children to all of the blood and gore. It took most of the rest of the day to get the corpses moved since there were more of them than I wanted to count. Camille had led the Wayfinders in an absolute slaughter. As the sun began to set, the Nomads began walking through their old home, setting everything to rights and gathering everything the bandits had left behind onto a table in the central rooms while I led the Wayfinders in getting a meal started.

Once we’d finished cooking, using most of the perishable supplies after checking that they were still good, Lucas and the scouts showed up. By the time we’d served the food and the Nomads started going over everything they’d found with Natalie, Camille returned.

“Any luck?” Lucas looked over at her as he scooped stew into his mouth.

“Yeah. I found a small patrol. They’re cooling their heels in one of the lower areas. We’ll get to them in the morning. Now, I just want food and a bed.”

“Ask and you shall receive!” I placed a bowl of stew and an ancient biscuit in front of Camille. “Soak the biscuit before you bite it. I recommend using the stew, but Lucas seems to be enjoying his biscuit water well enough.” Lucas raised his glass and swirled it around, sending the soggy lumps dancing again.

“How’s the state of our supplies?” Camille stuck her biscuit into her stew and then used her spoon to push it to the bottom of the bowl.

“With what we’ve picked up here, we can wait a week before leaving and then take out time getting to the enclave without worrying about running out. We could even wait here for the Blizzard to pass, first, if that’s what we want to do. That’d require hurrying once the Blizzard ended, but we’d still have a day or two of buffer without moving too quickly.”

Camille nodded, a pensive look on her face as she picked at her stew. “One of the bandits offered up a bit of information as I dumped them in their new temporary home. He said there’s a rumor going around, passed between bandit groups when they trade, that the Chicago enclave has some big thing happening before the blizzard.”

“Yeah?” I sat down with my own bowl of stew, sans biscuit. “Did they finally figure out where the heat was leaking out of the subway system?”

“No. Maybe. They rumor wasn’t about that. Apparently, they’ve got some kind of wall or barrier tech they’re going to put to use before the blizzard. According to the rumor, it’s supposed to fix everything including the cold so finally people can use computers outside of bunkers, grow food outside of greenhouses, and protect them against any of the monsters that show up.”

“Does it grant wishes, too? Maybe provide us all with immortality?” Lucas sniggered and took a swig from his biscuit water. “Maybe it can provide everyone with biscuits that are entirely water-soluble.”

“Laugh all you want, but this guy believed in what he said. Maybe it isn’t everything he wants it to be, but the rumors are worth checking out.”

“It’s kind of a moot point since we’re going there anyway.” I shrugged and stirred my stew a bit. “Does it really matter?”

“If the rumors are true, we should probably get there sooner, rather than later. I’d suggest skipping out on the rest we had planned and heading straight there.”

“We’d have a mutiny on our hands.” Lucas set his glass down and pushed his bowl aside. “I’d mutiny.”

I gestured at Lucas to calm down. “What would we gain by heading there before the Blizzard? If they’re testing out some new technology, better to wait until it’s been put through its paces before we put ourselves at risk near it.”

“That makes sense, Marshall, and I’d normally be one hundred percent with you on this, but there’s something you’re both overlooking.” Camille leaned on her elbows and propped her head on her folded hands. “If this group of bandits is sharing rumors with us that they’re getting from other groups of bandits, and they actually believe everything they’re saying, what do you think is going to happen to the enclave when they start up their barrier?”

“It’ll keep bandits out, so who cares?” Lucas shrugged.

“The bandits will attack and try to claim the enclave, and this barrier, for themselves.”

Camille nodded. “And if we want to keep the Chicago enclave alive, perhaps even settle down there for an extended rest, then we should go offer what help we can before it’s too late.”

“Shit.” Lucas sighed and pulled his food back towards him. “I’m going to eat, talk to Natalie about maps so she doesn’t murder me, get eight hours of sleep, and then head out. I’ll listen for more rumors and start clearing a path to the enclave. I’ll send a scout back for you all, so be ready to move by noon.”

I smiled at Lucas as he shoveled food into his mouth. “How do you know what I’m going to decide?”

“It’s easy.” Lucas shrugged. “You always opt for whatever is going to help people or protect the people trying to keep society together. Plus, they need our help. Not even the Chicago enclave could take on the full force of the local bandits.”

“Well, now you have the force of an order behind your plans. Get it done, Lucas. We’ll catch up to you tomorrow.”

“So much for resting up.” Camille spooned stew into her mouth. “I’ll revisit the prisoners in the morning, make sure they’ve shared everything they’ve got for us. In the meantime, I’m going to finish eating and then crash.”

“Get some rest. I’ll take care of guard tonight. We’ll need you in top form for clearing the way forward tomorrow.” Camille nodded and I turned back to my stew, planning how to tell everyone we weren’t going to stay here as we originally planned. It was going to be a hard sell, especially for the nomads, but the prospect of a return of at least parts of the life we knew before the collapse would be enough to tempt anybody. Even now, I had to push down the excitement bubbling up inside of me. I needed to stay focused, or else we’d never actually get the chance to find out.

Descent Into Darkness

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“Listen well, children, for I shall tell you of the world we lost and how this place came to be. Of what once was and may someday be again.

“The world was peaceful, once. A place of prosperity, light, and community, where anyone could reach out and connect with whomever they wished. Though conflict remained, it was small and often little more than jest. A brief disagreement blown out of proportion as a symbol of the bond between two brothers. Brothers born from a shared love rather than the same mother. Truly a time when the commonality between men mattered more than the weak bonds of blood and circumstance.

“Some decried this time of peace and love as nothing more than the death throes of a society brought down by its own complacency, and they may have been right, seeing how we now live in darkness and solitude, all that we once held dear lost to us as the great libraries of Alexandria were lost to the Ancients. So to, has much of our culture and what made us great been lost to us with nothing more than the elements to blame. And we, proud and once mighty, assumed ourselves safe from such trite things as a storm or the wind and rain.

“But no. We were proud and we were wrong. And now we pay the price of our hubris as we live out the rest of our days in darkness.”

“Charlie.”

“As the darkness descends ever deeper, we must-”

“Charlie, do you and the kids want cupcakes?”

“Mom! I’m trying to talk about the collapse of human civilization!”

“What? It’s just a power outage. Are you that upset you can’t play your games online?”

“This isn’t about that!

“Leave your cousins alone and go read a book.”

 

Coldheart and Iron: Part 26

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READ FROM THE BEGINNING

We woke the next morning to a light snowfall and Natalie’s reminder that we had only twenty days before the next blizzard. That would be plenty of time to get into the Chicago enclave barring an encounter with the army of monsters that might be wandering around what was left of the northern suburbs of Chicago. Bearing this in mind, I sent Lucas and his scouts ahead as soon as they’d all eaten breakfast and then busied everyone else with breaking camp and following them north as soon as possible.

The day passed uneventfully, with only one tense moment when one of the Wayfinders spotted a glint of light being reflected from the top of one of the local buildings. Thankfully, it turned out to only be some old weather monitoring gear, but it cost us an hour as Camille snuck up to the building and investigated it. When we finally caught up to Lucas, he guided us toward what looked like an old park and had us set up camp under some of the aging picnic shelters. While people set up tents and attending to their evening meal, Lucas pulled me aside to report.

“We’re on the edge of the bandit territory. They match the description Camille gave me, mostly blunt weapons and one person with a handgun or rifle in each group of five. Pretty good thermal gear, from what I can tell, so they obviously know what they’re doing when it comes to avoiding monsters. Might even support Natalie’s theory that they got pushed out by whatever came out of the Waukegan landing area.” Lucas waved a hand in the air before I could chime in “Either way, there are tons of them and their patrols are thick enough that we’d have trouble sneaking through, but they’re nothing we can’t handle.”

“Any chance they’ll spot us out here if we give Camille a couple of days to sneak in and neutralize their leadership?”

“None.” Lucas gestured to the line of trees at the edge of the park. “The trees and playground equipment make the shelters practically invisible from the street and they don’t have regular patrols more than a mile from their base. They have a group that walks around the perimeter once a day, from what I’ve seen so far. Just checking for anything new or signs of someone encroaching on their space. As long as you’re gone before noon tomorrow, you shouldn’t have to worry about them and that’s even if they decide to check out this place”

“Okay. Keep an eye out for that tomorrow, but I’ll let Camille know what to expect.”

“Good.” Lucas rubbed his hands together and grinned. “And now we start my favorite part. Watching them all night long and tailing any patrols that operate at night. I hope they sent out a couple.”

“Just keep an eye out for any monsters. I want to know if we’re going to need to deal with any of them while we retake the Nomads’ home.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Lucas saluted and then headed off toward the treeline where he was joined by his remaining five scouts.

Camille walked over as he disappeared into the snow. “With him scouting for patrols and monsters, and with me leading a group to take the base, you’re only going to have four Wayfinders, counting yourself and Natalie, to manage the Nomads and Tiffany isn’t going to be much use if it comes to defending the group.”

“I’m planning to just vanish for a couple days. Your groups won’t need any support or supplies, so we’re just going to swing a little further north and drop off the radar for two days. After that, we’ll head toward the base and help you out or just waltz in because you’ve cleared everything.”

“Do you think you can count on the Nomads if it comes to fighting?”

“They did well enough when we were captured. You’re taking one with you, to answer any questions you have, so you must trust their abilities to some degree or another.”

“Yeah, but I can always leave them behind if they start becoming a liability. You won’t have that luxury.”

“I think they’ll be fine. They’ve come this far and haven’t gotten any of us killed.”

“They’re also half children at this point.”

“What do you want me to do, leave them behind while four of us sneak up on a building full of bandits and hope that we can manage if it comes to a firefight? It’s not like our skills are going to help much in an urban environment. The more guns we have, the better.” I pointed to the two machine guns mounted on the sleds. “Plus, it’s not like they need to be good with a gun to use one of those.”

“Fair.” Camille smiled and punched me in the shoulder. “Warm beds! Real food that hasn’t been dried out for years before we dunked it in snow to soften it up a bit. A chance to rest for a day, in safety and warmth, before we start preparing the way to Chicago! So much to look forward to!”

I smiled back at her. “Just don’t let visions of cozy pillows distract you from your mission. You can’t enjoy a bed if you’re a prisoner or dead.”

Camille laughed and gestured to the waiting group of Wayfinders. “With this lot, we’ll have them surrendering before they even fire a single bullet! They don’t bother Wayfinder duos, so they’ll probably run in terror when they find out there are eight of us.”

“Good luck, Camille. Stay safe!”

“Yeah, you fight monger. Get us some nice cozy beds and don’t let any of our people get killed in the process.” Natalie walked up and hugged Camille. “Think you can manage that?”

“I’ll do my best, mom.” Camille rolled her eyes but was still smiling as she turned to leave.

“Did Lucas leave already?” Natalie turned to me. “I wanted to give him a map I drew with likely routes the monsters might take if they’re wandering around.”

“Yeah, just a couple minutes ago. I can catch up to him if I run, though.”

“Don’t bother. He’ll figure it out. He always does, somehow, even if he always forgets to map them afterwards.” Natalie patted her pocket absently and then looked over at me. “So we’ve got the tent to ourselves tonight. I think neither of us are on first sentry shift, so we should head to bed right away.”

“As you command, so shall I do.” I bowed and gestured toward the bag that held our tent. “However, it’ll take a little bit before we can busy ourselves with resting. I’ll have this ready to go in a few minutes if you wouldn’t mind grabbing food for our dinner.”

“Very well, Marshall. You can play house and I’ll bring home the bacon. See that you’re ready by the time I get back.” Natalie winked and then sauntered off toward the supply tent. I tore my eyes away from her and hastily set up the tent. Despite the fact that I’m pretty sure I missed a couple stakes and one of the tent poles slipped out of its socket halfway through dinner, we had a pleasant night, even if we didn’t get much sleep.

The next morning, we packed up and consolidated everything we had to one sled. We hid the other one under a snowbank next to what were probably bathrooms once upon a time and then hurried north. Natalie led us toward a place she knew of that used to be a bandit hideout before the Chicago enclave drove them out and I focused on covering our tracks. The light snow would help, but it’d still take several hours before our tracks were completely covered unless I did something to help it along. Simply smoothing the snow out was enough, though, since the falling snow would quickly mask any traces of human intervention.

We made good time and didn’t find so much as a trace of other humans, so we managed to get to Natalie’s temporary hiding spot in the late afternoon without being spotted. While I put a little more work into concealing any trace of our passage into the build, Natalie took our thermal sensor and made sure our little hideout was secure. Once we were both done, we joined everyone else inside and started passing the hours. At first, we all slept. This was our first time with more than a bit of nylon between us and the snow, so it felt nice to be able to move in and out of out tents without worrying about letting snow in as we moved from sleeping to guard duty.

After the first twenty hours of resting passed, people started getting squirmy. I broke out the cards and got a few games going while we waited, but those only lasted another couple of hours. When people started arguing, I got everyone together for a meal and we shared stories as we sat around in the cold, abandoned office building. Since there hadn’t been much opportunity before, due to me keeping on eye on the Laborers, I shared my story about the beginning of the Collapse and listened to the Nomad’s leader, Brianna, share her stories of life before the end of society as she once knew it and how she missed the brief golden age when it seemed like Humanity was going to prosper until the universe ended.

It was really interesting to compare her perspective to my own. She was about twenty years older than me, so she had a very different take on the world I knew growing up, seeing more of the good in it than I had. Even though she saw the Collapse coming from the same time I did, she reacted slower because she believed that Humanity wouldn’t be taken down that easily. It made me a little sad to listen to her as wistfulness and a sense of loss crept into her voice as she talked about the potential that we had squandered.

Once her voice fell silent, one of the younger adult Nomads pulled the kids aside and started telling some more fun and light-hearted stories. Everyone else stayed in the circle and talked about Humanity’s current potential and our likelihood of long term survival. When that headed down a dark path, Brianna started talking about all the food she missed and how excited to she was to go into an Enclave where some of that food might still be available. From then on, everyone shared a story about their favorite foods or fun events that had involved food.

After all the stories were told, everyone settled down to sleep again. I took the last watch and woke everyone up at about ten in the morning on the day we were supposed to meet up with Camille. While everyone got ready, I went over our little group’s fighting and scouting plans with Brianna, Natalie, Tiffany, and Gregory–the Wayfinder Camille has left us to help protect the group.

It was a simple plan. Brianna would keep the Nomads organized and enforce my commands. Natalie would pick out route, making sure no detours took us too far from our path. Tiffany would scout ahead, since she was the stealthiest, even without her hand, and Gregory would stay a little bit behind her, ready to spring into action if she needed help or if there was someone who was in our way. I’d stick with the sled and focus on relaying communication between everyone and taking care of any small, isolated threats that poked their head out while we were in motion.

It was a tense four hours as we walked through the snowy city to find Camille and the other Wayfinders, but it went smoothly. There was only one scouting patrol we had to take down, and Gregory handled the whole thing by himself after Tiffany had alerted him. When we got to the rendezvous point Camille had set, we found her sitting out in the open, gun on her shoulder, as she smirked at us.

“What did I say, Cap? They ran without firing a single bullet!” Her smirk grew larger.

“Really?” I looked at her and took in the fact that she still hadn’t really taken her attention off the area outside past her seat. “Looks like you’re making things up so you sound more badass.”

“I’ll admit they shot a few bullets at us, but the they certainly didn’t hurt anyone. We snuck in the back entrance the Nomads had escaped through, killed their commanders, dealt with a little bit of wild shooting once they realized their bosses were dead, and then chased them out. We won’t find much by way of supplies since they grabbed most of the food as they went, but it’s safe and warmer than anything I’ve felt in what feels like years.”

“Sold.” I stepped forward and hauled Camille to her feet. “Let’s go get us some well-deserved rest. You especially.”

“Did they have actual beds?” Natalie took Camille’s pack and slung it over her shoulder.

“No, just giant bundles of feathers that aren’t really beds. They smell kinda funny.”

“That’s what a feather mattress is, Camille. A funny-smelling gigantic bundle of feathers. Though I thought they only came in pillow variety.”

“You’d be surprised at how literal I’m being.”

“You’ll have to show me. It sounds more comfortable than a sleeping bag and the ground, though.”

I watched the two of them walk off for a moment before signaling everyone else to follow. As we walked toward the Nomads old home, I could see their spirits lift and I found myself praying to all the gods I’d ever heard of, once again. This time, I prayed that they wouldn’t be horrified at what they saw when they got there. And that Camille had the foresight to clean up the mess she must have made for a bit before we departed. Whatever happened, I was looking forward to being able to walk around without my thermal gear on and actually sleeping without a tent around me, for once.