Buch lesen: «Remember Tomorrow»

Remember Tomorrow

Death Lands_®

James Axler

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Mankind, by the perverse depravity of their nature, esteem that which they have most desired as of no value the moment it is possessed, and torment themselves with fruitless wishes for that which is beyond their reach.

—François de Salignac de la

Mothe Fénelon

1651–1715

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter One

“Whoever they were, they sure didn’t believe in housekeeping,” Mildred Wyeth said dryly as she surveyed the smoke-blackened walls and the piles of trash that littered the floor of the redoubt room. Once an office, the comp terminals had been ripped from the walls, the desks had been broken up for firewood. The garbage spread across the room had the look of something long dead, a fire extinguished by the smoke-triggered sprinkler system.

Doc Tanner stood in the doorway behind Mildred Wyeth, shaking his head sadly and making tsking noises through his teeth. “Truly, this is a sad sign of the madness that descended on people when the fires rained from the heavens. Consider it, my dear doctor. From the condition of the wreckage, and the perfect stillness that seems to surround us, I would be not in the least surprised to learn that this was perpetrated some decades ago. Possibly almost a full century.”

“Your point being?” The black woman sighed. She knew where Doc was going with this, but wanted him to take the shortcut rather than the scenic route: she was tired, ached all over and had very little patience for Doc’s long-winded perorations.

“Simply this, my dear doctor. This small piece of carnage must have been perpetrated within a few years of what the whitecoats lovingly termed ‘nuclear winter,’ that age of madness…. As if giving it a natural and seemingly innocuous name would, in some way, atone for the foul—forgive me, I’m moving away from my theme,” he added, catching himself, “I merely meant to make the point that within a few years, people seemed to be reduced to the level of unthinking savages. The knowledge of old tech would not be wiped out that quickly.’

“Yeah, I know what you mean, Doc, but it isn’t always that simple, is it?” Mildred replied. “Panic sets in, rad sickness maybe…. Who’s to know the psychological state of anyone who managed to somehow drag themselves here through what was happening outside. Who’s to know, even, the psychological state of whoever was inside?”

“Myself, perhaps,” Doc uttered, his mouth set grim as memories of his time at the hands of scientists fluttered at the edges of his consciousness while he fought them back from a full remembrance that would drive him into madness once more. He shook his head, half dismissing the memories, half sorrowful at what conclusions he could draw. “If they were military men gone mad, then they were no more than the next in a long, long line,” he said softly. “Pray let us leave this as a memorial to their insanity.”

“I won’t disagree with you on that one, Doc.” Mildred turned on her heel and followed the old man into the corridor of the redoubt.

They had jumped into this place a few hours previously and their bodies were still recovering from the rigors of the mat-trans unit. To be broken down into molecules and transported across vast distances in the blink of an eye before being reassembled was hardly the ideal way to travel. The stresses placed on the psyche—let alone the human frame—were incalculable. Doc was one of those who found it hardest to recover and his mind always seemed to lag a little behind his body. Mildred was inclined to let him ramble at these times, especially if there was no immediate danger. And it did seem as though the redoubt had been invaded, looted and long-since abandoned.

The companions had split into three groups. Usually, Mildred would go with J.B., while Ryan and Krysty recced together, and Doc would accompany Jak. The sharp skills and instincts of the wiry albino teen would cover for Doc’s occasional frailties of mind and body. But after a mat-trans jump, Jak was always one of the last to fully recover. Something about his body makeup responded poorly to having itself ripped apart and reconstituted, and he was always weak for a while after, needing more time to recover. Chances were he was sharp, as Ryan always allowed them time to get it together, but chances were something the one-eyed man never took, so J.B. would ride shotgun for Jak until the redoubt was secured.

Secured—that would imply that there was anything left in the empty military base to be secured. As Mildred could see, the place had been gutted. Either a fleeing army presence or invaders who had in some way been able to gain access and had taken anything with them that wasn’t nailed down and could be of any use.

The situation worried the woman. They were short on supplies and the kitchens, sick bays and armories of these bases had come in useful in the past. It was especially reassuring when you had no idea which part of the continent you were currently walking under. Until they found a reliable map source or actually surfaced, they had no idea where they were geographically.

Mildred suddenly stopped and rubbed her eyes. She had to be more tired than she had realized, starting to let her thoughts stray in such a manner. She was aware of Doc at her elbow.

“Mildred, are you feeling quite yourself?” he asked solicitously.

“No, I don’t think I am, to tell you the truth,” she replied.

Doc’s next comment disarmed her totally. Shaking his head sadly, he said, “Madam, I fear you now know how I feel most of my life. Come, let us secure the area and report back,” he added, moving off and leaving her to gape at his bony frame receding down the corridor ahead of her.

They finished their recce, finding nothing to show any signs of life, and then returned to the anteroom adjoining the mat-trans chamber, where they were due to rendezvous.

The others were already waiting for them when they arrived. From their relaxed body posture and the fact there had been no audible signs of action, Doc and Mildred knew that theirs hadn’t been the only fruitless search. Briefly, she filled them in on what she had Doc had found.

“Guess we can rest up here for now—still daylight up top, though,” J.B. added, checking his wrist chron.

“We’re too exhausted to go into unknown territory right now,” Ryan said, shaking his head. His shaggy black mane came down over his forehead, almost but not quite obscuring the beginnings of the jagged scar that ran into his eye, continuing along his cheek beneath the eye patch that covered the empty socket. It only served to accentuate the penetrating ice-blue of his remaining orb, always focused on the task ahead. “Break out some of the self-heats we’ve got, then find one of the dorms that isn’t trashed and get some rest. We’ll have a watch rotation, even though this seems safe.”

“I figure the only thing that would chill us in here is the boredom,” Krysty added, “Which, come to think of it, wouldn’t be such a bad way to go.”

“Mebbe, but not yet,” Jak interjected.

The mood had lightened a little. Although the redoubt had yielded nothing, it seemed a safe place for one night’s rest, and rest was all they really wanted after the jump.

Moving from the antechamber to one of the dorms on another level, Mildred began to get a fuller picture of the redoubt, which seemed to be built on a smaller scale than some of the others in which they had landed. There were no levels with bays for transport beyond a few small wags and the levels seemed to be less spread out, with fewer rooms before they ascended. Mildred mentioned that and Ryan grinned.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t bring you this way just for fun,” he ventured. “Take a look in this room up here.” He led them into what had once been an office, indicating a room plan on the wall facing the door. It showed the full layout of the redoubt, with all the storage and habitation areas clearly marked. “It doesn’t look like this carried much in the way of heavy-duty equipment,” he remarked. “Mebbe it was just a kind of way station between two larger posts, carrying a few supplies and acting as some kind of lookout. Not many sec here and not many pickings for whoever got in here…unless it was them trying to get out.”

“I wondered about that—we both did,” Mildred added, catching Doc’s look. “If it was someone from outside coming in—”

“Don’t worry about that, Millie,” J.B. cut in. “Me and Jak took the top level. The main sec door is secured and we couldn’t find much in the way of damage to account for entry. No one can just hack their way in unless there’s been some kind of earth movement or they knew the sec code. And there’s only a few stress cracks in the tunnel walls near the top. If they knew the code, they haven’t been back for a long time. And if they were on their way out, they thought to close the door behind them.”

It was as close as the taciturn Armorer ever came to a joke and one of the longest speeches anyone had heard him make for some time. If nothing else, it signaled how relaxed he felt with the situation.

“So it’s okay for us to rest up here for a while before moving out,” Ryan stated. “But I wouldn’t want to hang around too long.”

“Why not?” Krysty asked. Her hair formed a titian-red halo around her head, even the cold blandness of the overhead neon was transformed into a warm glow of fire as it reflected the aura around her head. The curls and waves cascaded over her shoulders, running wild and free. This helped explain her question: the mutie genes running through her veins made her hair sensitive, and prehensile, responding to imminent danger by curling up protectively around her. The fact that it was so loose and free bespoke the complete lack of threat in the redoubt.

That hadn’t escaped the one-eyed man’s notice. “There might not be anyone around to harm us, but there are still some things I don’t trust.”

“I’m with you on that, boss man,” Mildred muttered, running her finger along the surface of the room plan and examining the gray residue that gathered on her fingertips. “Look at the dust on here,” she added.

Doc furrowed his brow. “Your logic escapes me, my dear woman. This has been uninhabited for a long while, I would guess. Naturally, there would be some kind of dust gathering.”

Krysty kissed her teeth, annoyed with herself at having missed the obvious. “Yeah, but this isn’t natural, is it, Doc? These redoubts have air conditioning and temperature and humidity control. They have some kind of weird antistatic device that keeps dust out of the atmosphere. So if there is dust, then it means that the air-filtration system isn’t working properly.”

“Exactly,” Ryan added. “If that part of it is down, then how do we know that our air is being recycled efficiently. How long will it last? Long enough, hopefully, to get some rest,” he continued, answering himself. “Mebbe it’s fine. I just don’t want to take chances.”

“Once more, I defer to your powers of observation,” Doc bowed. “Where we would be without you, I dread to think.”

“I could say the same about you,” Ryan answered with a grin. “So let’s eat, get rested and get moving.”

The companions left the room, taking another look at the one clear streak illuminating the plastic covering of the room plan beneath its tawdry layer of dust as they did so. Once they had ascended to a higher level in the redoubt and found a dorm that was relatively unscathed, they stripped down the equipment and bags that they carried, those things that were their lives and survival.

“Pity it has to be this shit again, but at least it keeps us going,” Krysty said sadly as she handed out the self-heats. The packages—cans or foil containers—contained within them all the nutrients they needed, heated by a mechanism within the packaging that was instigated by the act of opening. Unfortunately, the contents were tasteless and bland, the only traces of any flavor being colored by the chemicals that were used to preserve the contents. They were a last resort when there was nothing else to be found, but they did their job: they kept the companions alive and nourished.

The friends ate in silence, trying to keep their food down. It wasn’t easy. When they finished, Ryan was the first to his feet.

“I’m going to see if the showers are still working on this level. Mebbe it’ll wash away the taste of those fireblasted self-heats.”

Shower rooms were attached to each of the dorms and it took only a few moments for the one-eyed man to ascertain that the hot water systems and pumps were still in a roughly working order—roughly, because the temperature of the water fluctuated, despite the setting, and a couple of times the man had to be sharp enough to dodge red-hot or icy blasts of water as the old pumps faltered. Nonetheless, he felt refreshed when he emerged. Warning the others, he searched for fresh underwear in the dorm, hoping that whoever had looted the redoubt would have been looking for blasters and food, not clean clothing. They were lucky; there was enough for all of them.

It was a relaxed time; something they needed after the jump and before heading out into the unknown. They’d found one map in the redoubt, and perhaps they would find others if they looked in the morning, maps that might tell them where they had landed. But now, the only thing that mattered was to rest.

“I’ll take first watch,” Ryan announced. “Then we work it in shifts, alphabetical order,” he continued.

“Pray tell, friend Ryan, do I count as D for Doc, or T for Theophilus?” Doc questioned with a mischievous grin.

“Hell, I can’t remember the last time anyone called you anything but Doc,” Ryan laughed.

It answered the question and emphasized the relaxed mood. It was to prove an uneventful night, the only disturbance the changeover of watches. J.B. succeeded Jak, noticing that the albino youth seemed loathe to leave his post.

“Best to get some rest, Jak,” he said softly as he sought to relieve him.

“If can rest with nightmares,” Jak replied. “Always bad after jump. Not able to really rest until on outside, when need to be triple red.” Jak shrugged as he walked away and left J.B. to his post. Not for the first time, one of the companions found themselves wondering what really went on behind Jak’s impassive exterior.

Krysty snuggled in next to Ryan, feeling the warmth of his hard, muscular body. It was a rare occasion when they got to be this close, with this much security around them. He responded to her touch and moved in to fit closer to her. They didn’t talk as they joined together. They had a closeness that Ryan had never known with anyone else. Love was a word that had little value in the world in which they lived, but if there was anything between them, it was love.

Across the dorm, the same thing was happening for Mildred and J.B. For Millie it was a difficult thing. She had known the predark world and had some inclination of what the word love had come to mean. J.B. was from a different world—one into which she had fitted rather than buy the farm, but still one that was alien to all she had learned in her formative years. It wasn’t often that there arose the opportunity to stop and think about it—only occasions such as this. As she lay with J.B. nestling against her, she did stop to think about it. It was just as well that there was so little time, as any amount spent pondering on this would be enough to drive her insane. Mebbe she was insane. How else could you get by in this world?

It wasn’t a pleasant thought on which to drift into a—mercifully dreamless—sleep. If only the same could be said for Doc, who murmured and muttered to himself, twisting and turning beneath the sheets as his mind replayed incidents from his past, confusing the three centuries into which the man had been mercilessly born, dragged and thrown. Images and people, half-memories blended into fictions, wild dreams from the edges of reason: all these assailed him as he slept.

And so they passed the night, each in their own cocoon of silence.

“TIME TO GET TO IT, people,” Ryan said as he rose from his bed. He left the dorm to find Mildred, who had taken last watch and had been glad of the wakefulness to keep her darkest thoughts at bay.

“Five o’clock and all’s well,” she said with a grin as Ryan came into view.

The one-eyed man looked at his wrist chron. “It’s past eight,” he replied in a puzzled tone.

Mildred shook her head, rubbing her eyes as she did. “Forget it Ryan, it was just some old joke that would have been funny if you were as old as me. What’s the agenda?” she added, without giving him time to respond to her previous comment.

“Eat—if we can face more self-heats—then try and find something that’ll tell us where we are when we hit the surface. Mebbe even take another chance with that shower system. Last chance we may get to stay clean for some time.”

“Y’know, even the thought of a self-heat and getting scalded is good right now,” Mildred answered with another shake of the head. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

Ryan laughed. It wasn’t often that the one-eyed man had the opportunity to do that. Far, far too often there was nothing whatsoever to give him cause for laughter. But these snatched few moments, underground and secure, gave them all time to relax momentarily, just enough to stop their minds snapping with the tension of living outside.

After breakfast Ryan and J.B. mounted their own small recce of the office units in the redoubt, leaving the others to shower and get ready to leave. Neither man knew if he would find what he were looking for, and both would have been grateful for just a sign.

“Ryan, back here,” J.B. called after a short while, sticking his head through the doorway of an office unit where Ryan was breaking open a filing cabinet. The comp terminal stood useless on the desk, long since fused and failed. “I’ve got a comp that works and is tied in to what Mildred calls the mainframe.”

Ryan left his task and followed his comrade along the corridor to the office in which he had been scavenging. Finding remnants of what had been before was always a problem: much of the information in all the redoubts had been stored on computer, but these were erratic now, prone to either break down, be broken, or be inaccessible to people a century or more on who don’t have a password. There was some paper information, but then it is a matter of hoping that it could be found or that it hadn’t been destroyed by looters or by the original inhabitants before they bought the farm.

To find a comp terminal working anywhere other than a low-level, sealed chamber was rare; one that was still connected to the redoubt’s mainframe comp was even more rare.

Maybe they were about to get lucky for once.

The two men hunched over the desk, the terminal casting a glow over their faces, shadows and light accentuating the crags of Ryan’s weathered face and the lines of worry and battle that etched the Armorer’s visage. Their mouths were set in grim concentration. There was nothing to be happy about until they actually found some useful information.

“Got it,” J.B. declared in triumph as he managed to call up an outline map of the area surrounding the redoubt. A couple more keys punched and the map pulled back to reveal the larger area.

From the outline, they could see that they were in the middle of what had been Arkansas before the nukecaust. There was a large town within a day’s walking distance to the northwest of the redoubt.

“Worth checking it out?” J.B. queried.

“Old villes like that are never totally deserted. Usually some kind of life attaches itself. We just have to be triple red until we find out what kind it is.” Ryan paused, his brow furrowed in concentration. Eventually, he added, “Arkansas—that name’s familiar. We ever come this way with Trader?”

J.B. blew threw his pursed lips as he racked his memory. “Think we might have at one time. Weird land up there, part dust and part sand. Gets real dry and then they have monsoons that sweep everything away. Yeah,” he said suddenly, snapping his fingers, “there was that time when one of the wags got driven off the road in a mudslide after one of the rains. We had to chain War Wag One to it and pull the bastard back onto the blacktop. Trader cursed all the while about the fuel it was taking, then cursed about losing the wag when we said he should just leave it if he felt like that.”

Ryan smiled wryly. “Came out with some shit about a rock and a hard place.”

“Yeah, and you told him that he wouldn’t be having this trouble if there had been some rocks and a hard place ’stead of all that mud.”

Both men laughed at the memory. J.B. shook his head. “I thought the old buzzard was gonna blow you away where you stood, he looked that mad. ’Stead, he just started laughing.”

“Crazy man and a wise man,” Ryan said softly, remembering the wily old man who had taught them so many of the things that were still keeping them alive. Then something clicked in his brain. “Got it!” he exclaimed. “Listen, I think I remember something. If this is where I think, then there’s a ville near here on one of the surviving blacktops. It was about one day away from where that fireblasted wag hit the mud. Mebbe about two days from the remains of the old ville—About here,” he added, pointing to an area on the screen that was to the west of the predark conurbation.

“That’s good. It’s somewhere to aim for.” J.B. nodded. “Only one thing, though…”

“What’s that?” Ryan asked. J.B. grinned. “I hope it ain’t mud season. I just had another shower this morning.”

The two men left the office and returned to the rest of the companions. They were in the dorm, preparing for the trip outside. Ryan and J.B. outlined their position and destination, giving everyone—including themselves—a half hour in which to be ready to leave. By their wrist chrons, they could see that it was light outside and without knowing how hot the sun got during its peak, Ryan wanted them to make some distance and scout out any shade or shelter should it be necessary.

Such was their efficiency and experience in getting ready to move out that long before the half hour had elapsed, the companions were making their way to the upper level and the sec door that exited onto the outside world. As J.B. had said, the walls, floor and ceiling of the tunnel leading to the highest level had taken the brunt of whatever earth movements had occurred during and immediately after the nukecaust. Cracks ran along the concrete that constituted the tunnel and, despite the concrete’s thickness, some were large and deep enough for moisture to have seeped through over the decades. Spoors of mold and fungus peppered the areas around these cracks, small pools of stagnant water gathered on the floor.

“Can’t have been too bad, as the walls are still pretty sound,” J.B. commented. “Figure the door should work okay. The mechanism on all the others has, so it’s only gonna be a warp that jams the bastard.”

“Let’s hope not,” Krysty added, almost to herself. Some of the upper level sec doors had been shut when J.B. had recced the day before, but had responded when he had punched in the sec codes scratched on the metal plates above the keypads. One of the plates had “Help me” scratched on it, and another “Next stop hel.” The sec man had either been interrupted or he couldn’t spell. Not that it mattered. J.B. wasn’t much of a reader and it was too long ago for him to care. All he was worried about was whether or not the doors would respond. Fortunately, whatever damage the earth movement had caused, the electrics on the doors were still working. So the only thing that could prevent the exit door rising was if the earth movements had buckled the frame, jamming the door.

All this went through Krysty’s head and the anticipation of potential danger made her hair start to move gently, the flowing curls tightening almost imperceptibly.

Almost, but not quite. Ryan caught sight of her. “Everything okay?”

She smiled ruefully. “Yeah, everything’s fine, lover. It’s me getting nervous, not any immediate danger.”

Ryan didn’t answer; it wasn’t like Krysty to get nervous, but if she was sure there was no intimation of danger—No, he wouldn’t take chances.

“Okay, J.B. When you hit the lever, I want everyone back in a defensive position. Can’t be too safe, right?”

The others followed his command without question. Too many times they had walked straight into danger. They knew the wisdom of the one-eyed man’s words. The tunnel was supported by a series of buttresses that formed a semicircular arch from floor to floor, arcing over the ceiling. Some of these housed sec doors, others stood alone. The companions drew back so that they took cover by these arches, blasters ready if there was a need to fire. J.B. stood alone by the final sec-door panel. Ryan stayed nearest and gave the bespectacled Armorer the nod when J.B. cast him a questioning glance.

J.B. blew on his fingers, tapped in the code, pressed the lever and brought his Uzi up to waist height.

The outside atmosphere had obviously had some effect on the outer door, as it rose far more slowly than the interior doors. There was a grinding in the mechanism and the shriek of metal scraping against protesting concrete as it began to move. The earth movements had caused the frame to warp a little. The redoubt had been looted. At some point, someone had to have got in through the outer door. The question was, had the earth shifted any more since then?

The light of midmorning was intensely bright as it began to show itself under the shuddering, slowly moving sec door. Compared to the bland fluorescent light that lit the redoubt corridor, it was incandescent. More than one of the companions cursed as the brightness made them squint, unable to see any dangers that lay beyond.

By the time that the sec door had fully opened, they had adjusted to the light and could see that the entrance to the redoubt lay in the side of a shallow valley, with a dirt track running up around the edge and over into the land beyond. The earth in front of them was dry, sandy soil, littered with small rocks and pebbles. Whatever else, they could see that it wasn’t rainy season and it looked like it had been a long time since it had been.

The area looked deserted. Ryan signaled them to wait, listening intently for any movement beyond, stretching the tension to a point where he hoped that any waiting enemy would lose their nerve and force an attack, showing their hand.

There was nothing. Ryan looked back at Jak and at Krysty. The red-haired woman shook her head, her hair now flowing free. If there was any danger out there, she would sense it. Jak also shook his head, his white, stringy hair framing his impassive face, red eyes glittering in the new light. Although he had no mutie capabilities, he was a natural hunter whose abilities had been honed to an almost preternatural degree. If someone was out there waiting, he could sniff them out.

Ryan gestured for his people to move out, still keeping their defensive formation. The one-eyed warrior himself was in the lead, with Jak, Krysty and Mildred fanning out to scan the area surrounding the narrow valley. Doc came out before J.B., who kept to the rear and guarded their backs.

They would have felt faintly absurd, if not for the fact that they had seen people buy the farm for less caution over the years. Absurd because the area was deserted, with no signs of life beyond a few lizards and scrub plants that struggled to survive in the harsh environment.

Ryan gestured to J.B. that it was clear and the Armorer tapped in the sec code, the door grinding ponderously shut behind them. He followed the others until they were gathered on the highest ridge of the valley. It was only about eight feet above the valley floor, but it still afforded them a decent vantage of the land surrounding.

“Dark night, it’s bleak,” J.B. said with admirable understatement as he joined them, casting his eyes over the terrain. The valley walls had to have been higher at some time, but the nuclear winter and the harsh climate changes over the past century had beaten them down to the dry husks of hillocks that they now were. The topsoil and any grasslands had long since blown away, only the hardiest of scrub remaining, shallowly rooted in the powdery dirt. The land had been flattened by the intemperate climate, leaving nothing but a flat, despairing landscape that tried and failed to support life.

“Sure as heck won’t be many folks trying to eke a living round here,” Mildred commented. “And not much shelter from the elements for us, either.”

“I figure that ville me and J.B. were talking about must be north-northwest from here, so if we head in that direction…” Ryan looked to J.B., but the Armorer was ahead of him. Taking the highest point of the land and using the sun and the mini-sextant he always carried with him, J.B. was sighting their position and plotting their direction. “It might be a couple of days hike from here,” Ryan stated, “so we need to keep a sharp eye for water and shelter.” He looked up—clear skies with nothing to shield the sun as it beat down. “I don’t like skies this clear when there’s land this dry. It gives me a bad feeling.”