Wild-Side
A flash of light erupted and a ringing filled my ears. I knew everything had changed forever when I blinked away the orbs floating in my vision. I immediately noticed the lack of physical pain. The head-to-toe burning that had accompanied every Transition was absent. At most, there was a slight disruption in my balance. There was no strange taste in my mouth, and the urge to vomit had vanished entirely. Perhaps most importantly, I was still dressed. I wore the same tactical pants with pockets lining the outside of each leg, the same t-shirt and hoodie I’d had on when I laid down and closed my eyes, and the same hiking boots I’d worn back home.
Fighting the fear that I was dreaming, I patted my chest, stomach, and the front of my hips—arriving on Wild-Side in any form other than naked was a win. It was almost too good to believe. My wrist brushed something at my hip, and my eyes widened as I felt the holstered gun. It should have been the first thing I checked.
A smile split my face.
“Hell yes,” I whispered to myself. “About damn time.”
I was fingering the point where the subcutaneous, rice-sized adapter had been injected into my forearm before I became aware of it. The device was designed by Cormac and Lacy and included in the packs stowed with the Airbike when it was sent to Our-World. The tiny device would log everything possible from the Transition and then help me better adjust physically to the Crossing I experienced nearly every time I fell asleep. The idea was that by making infinitesimally minor adjustments to my existing biorhythms, the device would allow some control over my shift between Branes. The first step was to reduce the physical discomfort associated with each crossing. The second was for me to cross with my clothes and any gear I was in close contact with before the Transition. Cormac suggested that the second part might be easier than the first since I’d somehow managed to bring Piper with me previously.
“Way to go, Doc.” I grinned.
Clothes, and I didn’t feel like horking my guts out.
The tiny device in my arm would gather additional data with each subsequent Transition, ultimately giving me greater control over my shifts between Branes. Although I didn’t understand what that would mean at the time, I hoped to manage how I brought Piper to Wild-Side and only assist her in crossing when it was intentional. There was a possibility that the device would ultimately grant her control over her own Transition.
A beelike buzzing in the trees overhead brought me instantly to my feet and heightened my senses to full alertness. I hadn’t been that distracted by a Crossing since the early days. It was a bad time for my situational awareness to falter, and my heart began to hammer in response to the realization. My pistol was drawn and shifting quickly as my eyes tracked the sky, visible through occasional gaps in the green tree canopy. The temperature and the sun’s position indicated that it was daytime or afternoon.
My HUD blinked to life and displayed the time as one twenty-four in the afternoon, with the temperature at seventy-one degrees Fahrenheit. I had never even noticed the minor indicators in the corner of my eye that were meant to show the status of my HUD as it booted.
A new auditory awareness kicked in a second later, enhancing my hearing to the sounds overhead as my nano augmentations activated. I moved laterally beneath the dense tree cover, trying to prevent the foreign sound from taking a position directly above me. I would have a clearer sight picture if I weren’t targeting twelve o’clock high. The sound was close and unusual, yet not completely unrecognizable. It sounded like…
My mind searched to connect the sound with anything familiar to Wild-Side, but I came up blank. No animals here made that sound. Suddenly, the image of the five-inch FPV drones I’d played with—the inspiration for the Airbike—popped into my head. The pitch of the buzz was small and reedy compared to the Airbike; it sounded much more like the radio-controlled quadcopters from back home.
The sound source emerged as it descended sharply through a break in the canopy. It swiftly moved about thirty yards ahead of me and hovered roughly eight feet above the mossy forest floor.
“Gray,” a voice called in my ear. I noticed the small articulated camera on the front of the drone. “Welcome back!”
Wes’s voice was unmistakable. I instantly knew he was looking at me through the drone feed, so I waved. “This is new,” I said, gesturing toward the unusual flying device. It resembled the dinner plate-sized racing drones from back home, though this one appeared much less homemade.
“Lots to tell you,” Wes said in a rush.
I noted the interval as it was displayed on my HUD. Three months and four days had passed since my last trip to Wild-Side. The offset between my Brane and Wild-Side was erratic and unpredictable. Maybe the sensor in my arm, acting as my personal black box, would help Cormac.
“Since you’re here, could you direct me to the nearest transport point?” I asked.
“No need,” Wes chuckled, just as I noticed the deep tones of prop wash approaching from the east. “Your ride will be here in seven seconds. Head to the clearing fifty yards south-southeast so it can avoid the foliage.”
The quadcopter drone shifted and darted in the designated direction as a visual aid. My brows raised, I shrugged, then jogged to keep the small drone in sight. A couple of seconds later, a riderless Airbike appeared just beyond the tree line in the clearing.
“Hot damn,” I bellowed and ran for the bike.
What Tripp could achieve in a short amount of time always impressed me. We had ideas about automating the Airbike so that it could be piloted by someone back in the city or could track my location by other means. Those other methods were still open topics when I left Wild-Side last time. Clearly, Tripp had been solving problems on his own.
I hopped onto the saddle seat, positioned my feet, and grabbed the handlebars. I blipped the throttle and the bike shot straight up into the sky. The moment I cleared the treetops, I scanned the skies. There was no sign of the flightworthy Elend, so I ascended to three hundred feet and put the bike into a hover. Retrieving my gear from the compartment on the frame, I began slipping the suit rings into place across various parts of my body. Ten seconds later, the nanotexture of the suit enveloped all but my head, and the armor protected me. A circle enclosing a green dot appeared on my HUD, and I immediately knew which direction would take me to Doc Cormac and the rest of the team.
Trip’s voice came over the communication channel. “Hey there, Gray. Welcome back. Do you want to keep control, or should we let the automated flight system handle it?”
Automated flight system. The words replayed in my mind three times before I could respond. Once again, I felt a wide grin splitting my face.
“Impressive work,” I said when I found the words. “Show me what you got!”
He laughed. “Alright. Hold onto your asshole,” he hollered.
I laughed so hard that I tipped back as the bike surged ahead. “Ass,” I chuckled, blinking away tears from my eyes while the wind lashed my face. “The phrase is, hold onto your ass.”
Tripp and Lacy were waiting for me near the entrance to the underground city when the Airbike touched down close to Garwin. Their faces were lit up with excitement, presumably at my return. I didn’t envy their perspectives. Even though I was only gone for a day or two, they experienced anything from a couple of days to several months every time I returned to Our-World. It was a lot of time to ponder whether I’d fallen prey to the Elend or was just back home tackling the Breslin problem from my side.
“Tell me about the mini drones,” I said as I stepped from the frame of the Airbike. “You were on me crazy fast. Was that luck, or did you manage to make it work?”
“Oh, you have to see this,” Trip said, waving me toward the corridor leading out of the common area. There was an unmistakable pep in his step, with Lacy attached to his right arm. I noticed right away that they were holding hands.
I’ve missed a lot.
“You’ve seen this little guy,” Tripp said, holding up a replica of the small drone I had encountered in the wilderness. The flight back to Garwin took just over an hour, even while traveling at one hundred thirty miles per hour, so there was no way it could have been the same drone I’d seen. It couldn’t have kept up.
“We have hundreds of these monitoring the skies all across the continent,” Lacy explained, handing over a device that seemed to duplicate the one in Tripp’s hands. “They’re all networked and communicating with each other as well as with us back here.”
The drone was about the size of the toys I’d used back home, but this one was significantly lighter—lighter than just the battery I used. That power pack could only keep the drone aloft for five or six minutes when I was piloting aggressively, executing flips, rolls, and high-speed maneuvers. “How much weight does the power source add?” I asked.
“You’re holding it,” Tripp said. “The power source is onboard, and it can fly in the dead zones,” he added.
My mouth must have been hanging open because Lacy quickly added, “That was thanks to an idea Piper had when she was here. She explained how hydrogen-based fuel is used back on Your-World. Tripp engineered a capacitor that allows our existing technology to run using hydrogen instead of conventional zero-point power.”
I was immensely amused to hear zero-point energy referred to as conventional. Back home, even hydrogen fuel cells were hardly the norm. Here, they were developing their far superior technology to run on something less powerful and less efficient than a fuel source they took for granted.
“The mesh network covers the continent,” Tripp explained. “And we’re receiving a lot of data. Monitoring you is just one of our successes. Doctor Cormac has also been tracking the movements of the Elend. We’re learning more about them than ever before.”
I had a dozen questions, ranging from how they were keeping the flight-capable Elend from decimating the drone network to how long the mini drones could run on hydrogen and even more inquiries about how the drones were deployed, maintained, and replenished. While Tripp would explain everything eventually, I was fascinated by what had changed during my time away.
Lacy stepped forward. “Doctor Cormac is waiting to see you. He was relieved to see that you Transitioned without losing your wardrobe this time.”
I nodded and tapped the pistol on my hip with my hand. “Not arriving defenseless is a big win, too.”
“The Doc is already reviewing your latest telemetry,” Tripp said as we walked. “It proved the Thonian fields of the dead zones are the result of the Transition.”
“Like the storms on My-World?” I had suspected as much for some time but had mixed feelings with the confirmation.
“Different Branes seem to create various atmospheric effects. Whenever you or Breslin cross, Thonian builds up in the atmosphere,” he explained. “Doc believes we can further refine the algorithm. That might reduce or even eliminate the side effect.”
I nodded. It would be great if I could Transition without harming the Wild-Side ecosystem. This was yet another reason to stop Breslin as quickly as possible. Even if we could mitigate my impact on the dead zones, he would continue to create invisible fronts that negatively affected Seeley technology.
I settled near the entrance this time, dropping through a break in the canopy and landing in an expanse of knee-high grass that was barely wider than the Airbike’s frame. I grabbed the pack from where it was strapped to the side of my seat and reviewed the drone telemetry one last time before swiping the display with my hand. I would be alerted if any movement was detected, and it was better to avoid the distraction that the constantly updating display brought to my field of view.
It was about a hundred yards to the bunker’s entrance, and I crossed the distance quickly. In the back of my mind, my senses tingled with concern over an Elend attack. They could approach without me knowing, what I understood about the facility buried in the ridge suggested there was only one way in and out. I was willingly backing myself into a corner.
The steel door set into the earth was almost hidden among the foliage, even when I was just a dozen yards away. In the dead zone, my internal tech was useless, so finding the entrance so quickly required a bit of luck. The door was slightly ajar. Closing it behind me last time had been impossible since I had been under attack.
I pushed the door closer to shut and examined the symbol etched in relief on the surface at eye level. The backward-facing letter R was pressed tightly against the letter B in the same, unstylized typeface. As my enhanced vision focused on the monogram, I noticed the logo was still only slightly covered with a film of lichen. Spitting on the wall, I was about to wipe away the green film but reconsidered. Pulling a black-bladed dagger from the back of my belt, I scraped the logo free of growth instead. To the right of the pair of letters, my effort revealed another character or shape. It resembled the number eight, elongated and rotated ninety degrees to lie on its side.
The symbol for infinity, I guessed. One loop connects to the adjoining loop in a figure eight. Tracing the shape with a finger, the loop on one side leads directly to the loop on the other through the confluence point at the center.
I didn’t understand what the additional character meant. It wasn’t part of the Radon Brucker logo I recognized from home. Maybe it represented a different branch or division of the company? I felt like this was meaningful in some way…, but I had no idea of its significance.
Realizing the imagery was captured through my enhanced vision, I didn’t linger with the logo or the door. I stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind me. When the door didn’t latch, it shifted back to its partially open position. A fist-sized gap separated the leading edge of the thick metal from the door jamb.
Once again, I was grateful for the drones above. With a nod of my head, I summoned the map on my HUD and confirmed that all but one of the drones had positioned themselves over the bunker and its surroundings. The last remaining device was expected to arrive on station in just over eight minutes.
My nanotech had been updated shortly after my most recent Transition back to Wild-Side. Most of it now worked in the dead zones. While it couldn’t pull energy from the zero point fields here, my parasitic experience with the technology had demonstrated an ability to operate for periods if I were the power source. The Doc had simply allowed me to disable the tech if it impacted me negatively.
I had become a human battery. It was a trade-off that increased my safety in dead zones—one that could one day save my life.
With that reassurance, I turned to the underground room and blinked slowly as my eyes adjusted to the inky blackness of the space. Shifting the pack off my shoulders, I pulled a golf ball-sized orb from the top of the main compartment. I gave it a slight squeeze, and light pulsed to life in my hand. I opened my palm, and the orb took flight. It positioned itself ten feet away, hovering five feet above the floor. The light dimmed when I looked directly at the device but grew brighter as my gaze shifted away.
I shook my head. The technology of this world continued to confound me. I had asked Tripp for a flashlight, and this had been his response. I had no idea how the device hovered or how it produced such bright light. I started to wonder if the hover mechanism could be adapted for use on the Airbike. If we could eliminate the rotors, the bike would be completely silent.
My attention focused on the matter at hand once again. The empty, booth-like structures divided the expansive floor into numerous aisles, and I was once more reminded of the milking floor of a massive dairy farm I had visited as a kid. I initially thought this was indeed such a place. Upon further observation, if this had ever been used for wildlife in the past, there was no way it could have been cleaned so thoroughly. Whatever the booths had been used for—
This is no dairy farm, I noted, and moved quickly to the wall at the far right of the space. Partway along its length, I found the pair of sliding doors I had observed during my initial visit. I dropped my pack to the floor and retrieved a prybar that I used to separate the doors. As before, I noted that the wide shaft had been flooded, with the water surface less than a foot below the steel floor beneath my feet. The floating light orb shifted into position over my shoulder, providing better illumination in the darkness of the shaft. The pale glow of the light turned the water’s surface into a mirror, and my optics were powerless to penetrate the dark surface.
I assumed there was an elevator down there somewhere. I could only wonder how deep the shaft went. The overall depth and what it provided access to directly influenced how long it would take me to learn what I could before exfiltrating. Although there was no reason to believe the Elend would eventually find me here, history suggested otherwise.
Oddly, the drones monitoring the area outside gave me less peace of mind than I had hoped. I concluded it was the single entrance and exit that added to my stress. For years, I had made every effort to identify multiple escape routes from every building I entered. This location clashed with the practices and traditions that had served me well for so long.
Eager not to waste any more time, I unzipped my pack again. This time, I retrieved a canister shaped like a thermos. One side of the cylinder was mashed flat, so I placed it against the shaft wall, just to the right of the open doors. When the device clicked into place using what I could only assume were magnets, a new icon appeared in the corner of my visual display. I blinked and waved my hand to invoke this interface.
The display confirmed that the device’s battery capacity was at one hundred percent, and a small green button was visible, marked Initiate. I reached out and tapped the button before swiping the display away. A series of tiny pellets dropped from the downward-facing end of the canister. The surface of the water rippled as they vanished like small stones into the depths.
Without waiting to see what happened next, I returned to the main compartment of my pack and retrieved a small box. It was a cube about five inches on each side. There were no markings on the silver-black surface, though a ring the size of a silver dollar marked the top. It protruded from the top plane of the cube by only an eighth of an inch. I retrieved a small, oblong silver cylinder from my pack and clicked it into place on the surface of the protrusion. When I did, the surfaces of the cube shifted. A mass of thousands of tiny holes appeared across the four sides of the shape. The air hummed softly with a barely audible vacuum-like sound.
I returned to the flooded elevator shaft and observed that the water level had already receded by several feet.
“Damn,” I whispered, swiping my hand through the air to summon an AR display in front of me. An air quality readout appeared, revealing nitrogen levels far into what was deemed my respiratory danger zone. With a twitch of my finger, I activated the helmet of body armor and blinked as it formed around my head with the soft rush of nanoparticles.
The device mounted on the wall of the shaft was operating faster than I anticipated, separating the fluid into its components, hydrogen and oxygen, at a molecular level. I drew a deep breath of the filtered oxygen within my suit and directed my focus back to the AR display floating in front of me. The levels of hydrogen in the air around me were already dropping back into the safe range as the cube on the floor next to me purged that element from the air and captured it in the attached canister. The capacity of the storage receptacle was under one percent, so the device wouldn’t require attention any time soon.
Looking back at the dark shaft, I noted that the water level had fallen several more feet. I grabbed another light orb from the pack, squeezed it, and placed it hovering just below the ceiling of the shaft. As I did, I noticed a pair of doors at the entrance to the shaft on the first sub-level had come into view. The water level of the shaft had reached equilibrium as water from the first sub-level flowed back through a finger-sized gap in the doors almost as quickly as the conversion pellets cleared the water from the shaft.
I decided that I could expedite the process. I just needed to separate the elevator doors so that sub-level one could be drained more quickly.
As I returned to my pack, I pulled a black rectangular box from where it had been secured with straps snugly against the bottom exterior. The device measured about three inches wide and tall, and eight inches in length. A small hole marked one side of the featureless surface. I recognized this as the front of the device, so I leaned forward and pressed the back of it against the wall directly under the open doors where I was kneeling. The elevator door below me was draining, with rushing water being the only sound in the confines of the long-abandoned space.
The oblong box snapped into place against the shaft wall with a clang and a muted echo. I ran a finger across the small hole on the face of the device, which was now oriented in the same direction as me across the expanse of the shaft. In response to my touch, a line began to unspool from within the box. It was led by a pair of inch-long, wafer-thin rods placed parallel to each other. I pulled the end of the line further into view and separated the rods. As I did, they shifted to create a rigid square frame that was a quarter-inch to a side. I knew it was essentially a small D-ring. It clicked audibly into place on a loop that had just appeared along the front of my belt.
Although Tripp had explained how the rappelling gear worked, time was short, and I left the underground city before he could demonstrate the integrated functionality to me.
I clicked a small, dime-sized module onto the wall beside the ascender and noted its activation when a green light pulsed in the corner of my HUD. This was a camera. I could use it to monitor the water level if I moved too far from the mouth of the elevator. While the water level was dropping, that could change at any time. Whatever had caused the space’s flooding could flood it once more, and while my armor would function similarly to scuba gear in a flood, it couldn’t save me from a cave-in.
Taking the integrity of the gear on faith, I shifted to the side of the shaft and lowered myself into space. My arms reached full extension as I lowered myself, and I felt my weight taken up by the filament-thick line latched to my belt. I let go of the floor edge overhead and spread my hands wide to touch the walls. Since then, an indicator had appeared in my HUD, allowing me to control the speed of my descent.
It took only a few seconds for me to reach the doors at the entrance to the first sub-level. The water level beyond the doors was about five feet high, as indicated by the spray still shooting from the lower part of the gap at a constant rate. Stepping into that jet, I slipped my gloved hands into the gap between the doors and pulled them apart.
As the doors separated, the force of the resulting water wash sent me crashing into the far wall of the shaft. The rappelling device reacted immediately, as if it had a mind of its own, pulling me higher and away from the torrent. I felt the wall of water strike the front of my body, but my head-to-toe body armor softened the potentially bone-crushing impact. Thanks to the integrity of the form-fitting gear, my collision with the opposite side of the shaft was jarring yet painless.
Several minutes later, the flow of water draining from the first sub-level slowed to a trickle. I activated an AR display and reduced the conversion of water into its component elements so that while the water level continued to drop in the shaft, it did so more gradually. I needed to expose the next sub-level, but doing so too quickly could lead to unexpected consequences. I had no idea how deep the shaft went or how many levels it would reveal. According to my HUD, the capacity of the storage receptacle was at six percent.
Confident in the technology, I lowered myself to sub-level one, kicked off the wall of the shaft, and grabbed the door frame leading to the lobby beyond.
The first sub-level resembled the one above, featuring a floor made of bare concrete covered in a sealant that glimmered faintly with moisture. My optics illuminated the pitch-black subterranean space so effectively that it was easy to forget I was relying on night vision technology. A series of horizontal, capsule-shaped devices lined the floor in front of me. They were about the size of single beds, perhaps slightly larger, and were shaped like empty gelcap medication. It was clear they were designed to accommodate supine human figures. The head of each device was slightly inclined, and some form-fitting padding appeared to have once conformed to an absent bipedal form.
Stepping closer, more pods came into view—row after row, organized neatly in ranks, disappearing beyond the limits of my optics. I walked slowly down the aisle between the first and second rows, my mouth going quickly dry, and I noted that every single pod was empty.
“What the hell happened here?” I muttered as I scanned the floor. Dozens—no, hundreds of pods were visible. The thought of the additional sub-levels flashed through my mind, and I waved my hand through the air to invoke my AR display. Sub-level two appeared half clear based on what I could see of the water level in the elevator shaft.
A blue glow caught my attention in the distance. It was pale and seemed to pulse dully. It was the first sign of functioning technology since I discovered the digital lock at the facility entrance was operational. For the first time, it occurred to me that I might be able to power up the facility’s lighting if I could find a control console. The thought had barely entered my mind before I dismissed it. The facility appeared deserted, but who knew? I’d left the door open on my last visit. Any kind of wildlife could have wandered in here, and while none posed a threat to me, it wasn’t impossible for an Elend to have found its way here since my last visit.
As if invoked by the idea, an alert flashed in my HUD. I froze mid-stride and waved a hand in the air. An AR display appeared, floating before me. It was a map of aerial imagery showing everything within a ten-mile radius of my current location, complete in every detail, thanks to the information gathered by the drones. A pair of red dots had just entered my established perimeter, triggering the alert. Their size and speed made it clear they could only be Elend.
It was strange that the creatures were moving together. In my experience, they were mostly solitary beings, particularly when hunting in the wild. However, they weren’t unintelligent creatures, so it was probable that they had begun moving in pairs—or even packs—recently.
The pair of dots moved steadily, but they did not vector directly toward my location. This meant they were either hunting or had been in the area since my flight in. I couldn’t tell if they were searching for me, but I had to assume they were. I also wondered if there were more beyond my established perimeter. I could push the drones wider, but without adding more to the formation, the tactic would result in coverage blind spots.
I decided to leave the drones as they were. Instead, I added a new warning perimeter. I would be alerted if the pair moved within a one-mile radius of my location or if more entered the ten-mile cordon. There was now a reason to search more aggressively, even if there wasn’t yet a reason to worry.
My attention returned to the pale blue pulse in the distance, and I swiped the display away. The color and glow instantly reminded me of something, but it took me longer than it should have to make the connection. As I moved closer, a softball-shaped object became visible. It rested atop a shiny round metal pedestal just below chest height, positioned without adornments at a gap in the endless ranks of empty pods.
“Oh,” I whispered as I stepped closer. The orb looked like a twin to the one I had seen in the storage facility Doc Cormac had taken me to not long ago. The difference was that the device was damaged. It had a crack, and a cleft in the pristine glass surface was unmistakable, as was the iridescent blue substance that had leaked from it.
This was significant. My brief interaction with the device in the warehouse was unsettling. Some of the things said that day continued to trouble me, not just because of what was said but also because of how it was said—and for what I would later come to believe had been left unsaid.
The blue fluid appeared to have leaked from inside the orb. It clung to the edge of the cleft, ran down the side, and puddled on the top of the pillar or pedestal. When I splayed my fingers out horizontally, the pool was slightly smaller than my hand. The substance must have once been liquid, likely gel-like in nature since it hadn’t spilled beyond the surface of the support. Only a tiny bit had dripped over the edge of the platform. It seemed to have solidified before it could reach the floor. The substance had long since hardened. It looked dry and solid, even though the room had been underwater until perhaps fifteen minutes ago.
Though dry and motionless, the blue substance emitted a slow, undulating pulse. It gave off a subtle, iridescent glow that was impossible to look away from.
At this point, I’ll admit, I don’t know what I was thinking, but I disengaged my glove and laid the pad of my finger on the glowing blue surface. The moment I did, my view of the room was replaced by visions that were much more immersive than augmented reality.
My view of the room was replaced by what immediately felt like footage from a camera mounted high on the wall somewhere in the underground facility. A tag in the corner of the feed read “SL1.” I interpreted this as indicating it was footage of the floor I was currently on. However, the scene was different. The room was well-lit, and the ranks of pods were far from empty. Each capsule contained a human form, each appearing pale and blurry beneath the slightly murky surface of the encasing material.
I observed hundreds of people, and row after row of devices containing them were visible. The expanse of the floor was much more apparent, likely due to the overhead light and certainly because of the camera’s position high on the wall.
Four figures in long white lab coats—two men and two women—moved slowly through the field of pods. Each carried a small handheld device that they swept over the upper half of each pod, appearing to make observations before moving on to the next capsule.
A timestamp appeared in the corner of the video feed, but I couldn’t be certain what it meant. The time and date format was unfamiliar to me. This was a new experience, as the translation capabilities of my internal tech had long become second nature, thanks to their incredible ability to translate the language of this world into my own.
Whatever I saw was unknown to Cormac’s tech, and this realization resonated with me. What I saw was somehow more relevant to the larger mystery of this world than I initially suspected.
The camera view shifted to another camera. Since this feed was also labeled SL1, I understood I was seeing the same sub-level. The timestamp indicated the same time and day, but the position of the coated figures moving slowly across the floor made it evident that I was viewing a more expansive area of the floor space.
Not hundreds, I realized instantly. Thousands of pods spread across this level.
As if in response to my thoughts, the camera view shifted to a new feed. This footage looked identical to the previous footage except that it was labeled SL2. Three women and one man were the figures moving slowly across the floor. If I interpreted the timestamp correctly, it indicated the same date and time.
When the view changed again, I was seeing SL3. It was virtually identical to SL1 and SL2—only this time, the date stamp had changed. If I understood the foreign format correctly, what I saw now indicated weeks had passed. The timestamp advanced by more than a week, and SL4 came into view. It was also nearly identical to the other levels and contributed to my estimation by calculating the number of pods: hundreds of thousands, by my best guess. Possibly more than a million. I was seeing flashes of the sub-levels, each from a different angle. This suggested that the sub-levels were more expansive than the ground level, and if that was true, it became challenging to estimate the number of figures in stasis.
I wanted to look at the floor around me again, but shifting my gaze from this first-person view was impossible. That thought suddenly made me aware that I couldn’t see my HUD or the sensor feed showing the location of the pair of Elends approaching my position.
During the ride here, I hoped the experience would be informative and brief. Once again, as if responding to my thoughts, the view changed. SL5 appeared for the first time. It mirrored the higher levels, but this time something different was happening. The timestamp showed it had been over a week since I last saw SL4. The camera seemed unsteady, as everything in the frame shook with a subtle quiver. Then, the view jolted abruptly, and I saw the field of pods rock in response to the disruption.
The feed jumped to another position on SL5, providing me with a clear view of the far concrete-like wall as a crack split its surface. The rupture appeared where the wall met the floor and spidered out in both directions. Its extent across the floor wasn’t entirely visible, but as the fissure spread above the halfway point in the wall’s height, it began to widen. An orange-red light emanated from beyond the wall, and seconds later, what seemed to be lava started to jet from the gap.
The gap widened in just a dozen seconds, and so did the flow of magma. I held my breath as the view shifted, and SL4 appeared. This time, I noticed what was clearly a different concrete wall. It ruptured, this time with a horizontal fissure that rapidly expanded before a section of the wall collapsed, sending a torrent of water that visibly rocked the camera. A second later, the feed went dark and was replaced by a view of SL3. That shot was quickly swapped for SL2, where I saw a dozen or more figures in lab coats sprinting across the floor. Though the video feed was silent, it was impossible to miss that the figures were talking as they ran; most of them waved their arms with wild gesticulations, making me think they were using some sort of augmented reality display of their own.
The experience that had captivated my entire view vanished, and I could once again see the expansive floor beyond the fractured orb. The crust of blue leakage appeared to have changed; it now seemed less gel-like and more liquid. Pulling my hand away from the substance, I tried to free my fingertips from the sludge but quickly realized none of the blue material had come off the central mass. My fingers were completely clean.
Somehow, I had just been shown a series of brief excerpts from the facility’s internal surveillance system. I knew this, even if I didn’t understand how.
An alert flashed in the corner of my HUD. I immediately activated an AR display and noticed that the two Elend contacts had crossed the one-mile perimeter I’d set for a follow-up notification. A wavy, zigzagging line marked the map’s surface, illustrating the route the contacts had taken across the forest before finally breaching my new perimeter. The creatures appeared to be searching, sweeping through the wilderness instead of aggressively approaching my position. If they were aware of my presence at all, they didn’t know where I was.
I had time, I decided. From what I could observe, they wouldn’t reach the facility for some time yet. I had time to explore further. It wasn’t lost on me that their ongoing search pattern would soon likely include the entrance to the underground facility.
I switched to the control interface for the water conversion technology and increased the rate to maximum. This triggered a notification, and I realized I needed to replace the storage receptacle to prevent hydrogen levels from exceeding the filter’s capacity to contain them.
With one more brief look at the fractured orb, I wondered whether I should take it with me. Considering how it had captured my entire awareness, even for a short period, I decided the risk outweighed the reward and left it behind. As I headed back to the elevator shaft, I reattached to the rappelling line and used it to return to the main level. There, I replaced the canister on the air filtration device.
My attention again on the elevator shaft’s receding water level revealed that most of SL3 was rapidly draining of floodwater. I now understood that some sort of geologic event had caused the flooding, though I didn’t grasp the specific event or how the blue gel had conveyed this experience to me. Since this was far from the most unusual thing to happen to me there, I took it in stride and quickly explored sub-level two before proceeding further down the shaft. The water level was receding quickly, and with no new floodwater replacing it, either the source of the flooding had ceased, or the hydrogen conversion technology was outpacing the onset of additional flooding.
Uncertain of the situation, I used the rappelling line to lower myself toward the pair of doors barring my access to SL2. They were closed more tightly than SL1 had been, so I forced the tips of my gloved fingers between the leading edge of the doors and pulled them apart. They separated, however, reluctantly, revealing a new expanse of damp concrete.
Not really surprised, I found aisle after aisle of empty pods. They were all as neatly arranged as they had been one level higher, offering no further insight into what happened here or what became of the contents of the previously occupied devices. I moved swiftly among the empty capsules. I didn’t expect to discover anything new on this level, but I hoped to find another pillar with an orb, ideally undamaged this time.
After finding no additional orbs or anything that made the level different from the previous one, I returned to the elevator shaft and descended to SL3. It had been aggressively cleared of water, and before opening the doors for access, I was relieved to find that SL4 was nearly clear. The top of an elevator car had just become visible as the water receded on its way to SL5.
Unfortunately, my brief but rapid search of level four was just as fruitless as level three, except that I found what I believed to be the source of the flooding—or at least part of it. I located the section of the wall I’d seen rupture in the video. A concrete segment had collapsed, likely coinciding with the footage I’d viewed. At some point after the loss of video, the water on the floor had receded, at least for the most part. Earth had flowed in with the water. When this happened, dozens of the nearby pods had been swept across the concrete floor. Though they were now empty, I knew they were in use at the time. This contributed to the narrative forming in my mind. Whatever occurred, the people in lab coats certainly took care to extract the unresponsive forms from the equipment. And since I hadn’t found so much as a partial human body, they must have done it successfully.
Sodden earth appeared to have collapsed over the source of the water, either blocking it entirely or reducing it to a trickle. Although I couldn’t be sure, new water seemed to seep from the fresh, clear break in the earth at a trickle.
When I returned to the shaft, I faced a difficult choice. The pair of searching Elend had come dangerously close to my position, and the odds of them discovering the parked Airbike were about as likely as them finding the entrance to the underground facility.
Continuing my search would be a gamble, as the creatures would likely find me before I could escape. Complicating my choice was the realization that whatever geologic event had compromised the facility, part of it had occurred on level five. What I learned on the level below could be valuable. Balancing the scales somewhat, at least in my mind, was the fact that the pair of Elend closing in on my location were alone.
The chime in my ear and the pulsing red ring around my field of vision told me I was already too late. The pair of Elend I’d been tracking had just tripped the sensor at the installation’s entrance.
The sensor I attached to the bunker’s exterior door frame had been a last-minute decision. I expected to be long gone by the time the Elend tracked me to the facility. In hindsight, it turned out to be one of the wisest choices I’d made in a long time. However, while it prevented me from being ambushed, it also meant I was now backed into a corner. I always found it curious that the facility had only a single entrance. The door I used to enter, which felt more like a service access than a primary point of entry, reinforced this idea. The more I learned about the size of the complex further suggested that there needed to be a more conventional entrance.
There must be other parts of the underground installation I haven’t seen yet. The staff I saw in the video must live somewhere; it’s unlikely they slept in the pods. There should be a dormitory. I still haven’t found a kitchen or bathroom. While I haven’t seen SL5 yet, the lowest sub-level seems like an unusual place for those types of facilities.
Everything about the facility felt strange. Built into the ridge line and mostly underground, it struck me as improvised instead of intentionally designed. But that didn’t add up. Who accidentally constructs an underground facility?
Questions for another day.
It wouldn’t take the Elend long to find me in a place like this, especially since I had left a light pointing down the empty elevator shaft.
I rushed back to the elevator shaft and gazed up its illuminated, empty stretch. Ascending didn’t seem wise. The creatures were up there somewhere. Making a break for it felt foolish, and even entering ground level was perilous since, for all I knew, the pair were lying in ambush.
The now-exposed elevator car was one floor below me in the shaft. SL5. It was the bottom of the facility, at least as far as I knew. Since I couldn’t go up, I decided to go down.
With no time to spare before descending the line, I jumped onto the roof of the elevator car, about twelve feet below me. I struck with a clang that reverberated up the shaft. Something told me I had just rung the dinner bell. The car swayed unsteadily beneath my weight. It felt flimsy and insubstantial.
No, I decided as I felt the rusted and pitted surface of the access panel on the car’s roof. It was old and corroded, and years of submersion had taken their toll. Then, for the first time, I noticed no cables running between the car’s roof and the shaft’s top. The equipment supporting the car had long since deteriorated, explaining why the car was at the bottom.
With no time left to consider the car’s age or that of the facility, I flipped open the access panel, only to have to shear it from its hinges with my aggressive tug. I noted the ragged tear I’d left in the rusted hinges as I dropped past them and onto the soggy cabin floor. I was standing in ankle-deep water.
No one ever mentioned what would happen if I touched the water undergoing hydrogen extraction. That kind of atomic disassembly didn’t seem like something I would want to be exposed to directly, but it was too late to reconsider my choice. Firsthand exposure to a pair of Elend in a confined space would be far more dangerous to my health.
I heard a rustling in the shaft overhead and knew without so much as a glance that the creatures were hot on my trail. Thankfully, when the elevator fell, the impact and the resulting shrapnel had blown one of the car’s doors entirely off its track. It had fragmented the door outside SL5, and I was able to clear my way to the space beyond with some quick, urgent bending of flimsy, rusted-out metal.
I launched myself through the gap in the door just as I heard an inhuman howl. There was a crash, and I felt the lift’s car shake from the impact as one of the Elend struck its roof. The narrow hatch in the car’s roof would slow the massive creatures down, but it wouldn’t stop them. Similarly, the human-sized hole in the derailed doors would give me a brief advantage.
The expansive floor of SL5 resembled the others in that it was cluttered with capsule-shaped pods. However, this time, the tangled jumble of pods pressed randomly against each other in chaotic disarray stood out. Many of the glass surfaces were fogged and opaque. In just a few seconds, I noticed what was different about the level.
It looked as if a bomb had gone off. The pods were tangled and pressed against one another, and some had rolled atop others, indicating the disruption that had struck this level. Worse still, unlike the pods on the floors above, these were not empty. The intact modules housed withered and desiccated human forms of the occupants, while the cracked and crazed glass pods contained floating, misshapen forms that had long since succumbed to decay and rot.
Another loud crash in the elevator shaft indicated that the second Elend was now on the elevator’s roof. A breath later, an animalistic scream was followed by the shriek of tearing metal.
I vaulted over the logjam of crushed and tangled pods and ventured deeper into the area. If the level was similar to those above, I wouldn’t find more rooms or halls suitable for cover. This facility took the idea of an open floor plan to the extreme. I glanced at the pile of bones in the capsule beneath me as I stood and leaped from one pod to the next as quickly as possible.
The bodies were human, I realized as I ran. This didn’t come as a shock given what I’d seen in the video, but it still didn’t make sense. Whatever had transpired on this level was different from what I’d observed higher in the installation. The breach in the wall on four and the resulting floodwater had clearly made it impossible to evacuate level five before the water submerged everything. But if the pods on the upper floors were empty, what had happened to the occupants?
Understanding was already forming in my mind as I ran. While some things I’d encountered in Wild-Side began to take on a new and enlightening shape, others only left me more confused.
A pair of animalistic bellows echoed, followed by a crash that could only signal the breaching of the shaft’s doors. An open expanse of floor appeared a dozen yards ahead, and I crossed the pile of remaining pods in just two more strides. My feet struck the concrete floor with a wet slap, and I spun, ready to confront the creatures I was sure were in pursuit.
I would make a stand here. A couple of dozen yards separated me from the oncoming creatures, providing an easy shot. The automated targeting augmentation made what would otherwise be an impossible shot to an Elend’s eye socket less of a challenge.
But when I slapped my hand against the holster on my hip, I found it empty. That’s when the odd crunching and clattering I’d heard in my rush to cross the field of damaged pods flashed in my mind. Although I only recognized the strange clattering in hindsight, I instantly understood that I’d knocked my pistol loose while trying to run and maintain my balance on the macabre, uneven surface beneath my feet.
“Swell,” I groaned, watching the two dark shapes rapidly approach my position.
The tall, slender forms of two Drakes barreled full speed toward me. They were bounding on all fours through the tangle of pods, the sound of shattering glass accompanying each aggressive stride.
The biggest problem I recalled with this suit was the inability to carry a backup pistol. Additionally, the blade I typically carried horizontally across the back of my belt was likewise gone. The suit might shield me from impact and even offer some protection against claws—but if these creatures knocked me unconscious in this tight space, they would likely just bite off my head and suck my guts out from inside my gear’s protective outer shell.
A tingling sensation in my hand made me long for my trusty knife, prompting my mind to flash back to one of Piper’s innovations I’d never had the chance to test.
The left-most advancing Drake tangled a limb as it closed the last two dozen yards. I watched it faceplant among the wrecked pods, its forelegs plunging into the uneven surface while its back legs and short tail went airborne in the tumble. This reprieve allowed me to focus on the creature moving in from my two o’clock position.
I backpedaled across the open expanse of concrete just in time for the lunging Drake to land exactly where I had been standing. It lunged again, and I ran the thumb of my right hand across the tips of the fingers on that glove. This was the emergency gesture Piper had settled on. A two-and-a-half-foot-long straight blade lanced from the sleeve of my right arm. It formed quickly, with less than a heartbeat passing between the unusual gesture and the moment when the swordlike blade extended past the back of my hand and fully took shape. The blade was about three inches wide, extending from the back of my closed fist. The jet-black material tapered to a razor-sharp, dagger-like point and narrowed to the menacing tip.
It happened so fast; I don’t think the Drake registered the weapon as it swiped at me with a powerful, talon-tipped paw. I raised the back of my hand defensively and braced my feet. The creature swung its arm against the edge of the double-sided blade, and I watched as the slim figure seemed to separate from the monster in slow motion.
I saw the Drake’s eyes widened with surprise while its momentum carried it forward. Ducking low, I witnessed the thousand-pound creature cartwheel, propelled by its accumulated inertia, helpless to stop its forward velocity without the now-missing limb.
A shriek unlike anything I’d ever heard tore through the air as the monster tumbled behind me. I looked up just in time to see the second Jay launch from the remains of the demolished pods and lunge high in my direction. Still crouched low, I countered the attack with my own lunge. I tucked a shoulder and somersaulted to close the distance. As I came out of the roll, I raised my blade and sliced it down the length of the creature’s belly as it passed overhead. The sickening slice of the blade through the tough, scaled hide was visceral. I turned just in time to see the creature’s belly flop onto the wet floor, sliding fifteen feet into a motionless, supine position.
I knew I’d cut the creature deep. But before I had a chance to look more closely, the three-legged Drake lunged at me from the side. I backstepped just in time to miss the jagged tips of the swiping talon, if only by an inch or two. My legs tangled beneath me, so I wasn’t fully prepared when the creature’s backswing caught me square in the chest.
I felt the distant impact of the Drake’s knobby knuckles and heard a crack that sounded like a tree branch snapping while I registered my own corkscrew-like tumble. As I hit the floor in a bouncing roll, I already knew the armor had saved my life. I wasn’t sure I would have fared as well if caught by the talons.
I needed to finish this quickly, preferably before I found the limits of the suit’s integrity.
Rolling onto my hands and knees, I vaulted to my feet just in time to see the monster lunge, which could only be an attempt to tackle me. Ducking into a shoulder roll, I shifted to the Drake’s limbless side. I had just regained my footing and started to run when I heard it crash into the wall of pods behind me.
At least I’d eviscerated one of the creatures at the onset. I like my chances in a one-on-one fight. But as I dashed past the sprawled form of the creature on my right, it staggered up from the floor with a mulling howl. I slowed my run, glancing back over my shoulder as the creature leaned back on its haunches and ran a pair of scaling open palms across its forward-facing belly. The slash from stem to stern down its belly was stitching itself shut before my eyes.
I swallowed hard and focused ahead as I ran. As unbelievable as this was, it clarified why a bullet to the eye was the most effective way to kill these creatures. No matter how many shots I fired into the body of one of them in the past, it seemed like they had no effect. They weren’t bulletproof, I realized at that moment. They just possessed some supernatural ability to heal.
When the far wall of the sub-level came into view, I knew instantly what I was looking at. Sometime in the past, a split had formed through the wall. It had parted the concrete and flooded with what had certainly been molten stone. The flow had washed in and spread across the floor for almost twenty feet before halting. This was evident by the now smooth, tapering surface of the hardened cascade.
The memory of the video footage showing the moment of the rupture filled my mind, quickly followed by what I had witnessed on sub-level four. Some kind of seismic disturbance had also caused magma to breach this level. Simultaneously, a split in the wall one level higher had allowed water, likely from the same source as the nearby lake, to rush into the facility’s lower sections. As catastrophic as it must have been for everyone in the pods on SL5, the influx of water from SL4 likely prevented more molten flow from inundating the lowest level of the facility. This flooding space halted the flow of liquid stone.
Even as I studied the surface of the now-hardened flow, I realized that the draining of the water from the lower levels had negatively affected a very delicate balance. The surface of the flow glowed faintly, a pale orange. Turning my back to the flow, I directed my attention to the pair of Drakes. They were the more pressing concern. However, as I observed the pair approaching me, I noted the temperature display in the corner of my HUD.
One hundred twenty-eight degrees.
“Crap,” I whispered. I could suddenly feel the heat intensifying with fury behind me. As much as I knew the suit would protect me from the temperature, I realized it couldn’t insulate me from direct exposure to molten stone.
The creatures advanced toward me from my eleven and two o’clock positions. The three-legged Drake was on my right, while the one with a now-healed belly was on my left. They were moving more cautiously this time, both appearing to have realized that I was dangerous in my own right. Interestingly, while one creature’s torso had healed quickly, the other, with the severed limb, seemed to show no signs of regeneration.
Cormac would find this fascinating—if I survived to explain what I’d seen.
The three-legged creature grew impatient and rushed toward me. I taught Tripod the lesson his friend had already learned when I dashed for him to close the gap faster than anticipated. Stepping to its limbless side, I drew my blade along its flank. This time, I was sure to plunge the edge deeper and was satisfied to hear what could only be the slicing of organs in addition to flesh.
A wet gurgle hushed a grotesque howl, and without pause, I turned to face the remaining four-legged version. It was already pressing what it perceived to be my distraction. Rather than ducking low as I’d done a couple of times already, this time, I jumped. Cognizant that the nanotech augmented my strength, I ducked my head and calculated the spring I put into the jump. Even so, I felt the back of my shoulders brush against the concrete ceiling as I reached the peak of my spring. Committed to the lunge, the creature passed beneath me.
I missed the chance to rake this Elend again with my blade, but it turned out not to matter. The creature landed belly-first, halfway up the surface of the hardened lava flow. As it got onto all fours and shot me what could only have been a contemptuous glare, I heard what sounded like cracking ice—fissures formed in the stone, spidering from each point where its feet met the surface.
There was a moment of stasis, in which the Elend shot me what must have been its version of the oh shit expression—then all four of its legs plunged through the top of the hardened lava flow. The rock seemed to shatter when its belly struck the last solid face of the heated stone. I watched as jets of liquid, yellow-orange rock burst into the air while the Drake’s body sank into the mire. Its head was the last to disappear, jaws wide open in a silent scream even as strands of vapor spiraled into the air. No supernatural healing could save that creature. I was sure the drifting vapor was all that remained of it.
My mouth was dry, and I blinked slowly at the sight. It was a way to kill these things I’d never considered before. More useful information for Cormac and the team, I concluded.
The sound of talons scraping concrete drew me to the haggard, remaining Drake. Tripod was struggling to find purchase with its three remaining legs. The long gash on its flank had taken the spring from its step but hadn’t put it out of the fight as I had hoped. Still, the glassy sheen in the big dark eyes suggested this creature was holding onto life through sheer stubbornness.
Tripod shook its head slowly on a stout neck as if trying to regain full awareness. I didn’t give it a chance. Stepping quickly forward, I severed the head from the body in a single, apelike downward swing.
The body toppled more than rolled, and viscous fluid guttered from the stump size opening between head and shoulders. Until that moment, I hadn’t truly noticed the short segment of neck, much less thought of it as a weak point.
I breathed deeply, drawing oxygen into my lungs. I was winded and puzzled as to why I wasn’t drenched in sweat. It was the tech, I concluded. The armor was excellent at wicking perspiration away from my skin and keeping me comfortable in the heat of the lower levels. I noted the ambient temperature was just crossing one hundred and seventy degrees and rising. Looking back, I was more than a little surprised to see that the shell atop the lava flow had almost completely dissolved. More concerning was the pool of superheated stone, which was expanding and creeping slowly in my direction.
“One thing after another,” I told myself as I returned to the elevator shaft.
Stepping gingerly across the field of destroyed pods, I fought the urge to touch my ear. My ears rang, but removing my helmet in the heated space would be disastrous. Losing my balance on the uneven surface below, I realized I’d taken a blow to the head at some point during the fight. The ringing sound seemed to bounce around inside my helmet.
As I dropped to the floor just outside the fragmented elevator doors, the realization hit hard. I noticed the red pulsing notification along the left side of my display and wondered how long it had been there. The message indicated that hydrogen levels had exceeded the suit’s filtering capacity, making the air hazardous to breathe…
…and a single spark would launch me to the moon.
Then, the second part of the situation dawned on me. The ringing in my ears was actually the ringing in my suit. I checked the perimeter alarm and cursed as I saw the alert the drone network had been trying to send me. Dozens of Elend were closing in on my position from all directions. They seemed to be moving in packs, the first of which would reach me in three minutes.
I grabbed the line and activated the ascender, returning to ground level moments later. After grabbing my pack, I glanced at the air filtration device. In augmented reality, a gauge appeared just above the containment canister, indicating that it was at one hundred percent capacity. I pulled the canister from the top of the extractor and rushed toward the exit. Hydrogen levels inside the complex were catastrophic.
As I slid through the cracked steel door at the exit, a buzzing sound in the air made me hesitate. Then, I froze at the sight of the dinner plate-sized drone hovering at eye level about ten yards beyond the door. The camera’s cycloptic lens was unmistakable.
“Move faster!” Tripp’s voice stabbed at my ear. We knew I would lose reception deeper in the complex. His tone made it evident he had been trying to reach me for a while. “You have dozens closing in on you from every direction.”
I grasped the drone’s underside and pulled it from the air. The rotor struggled to adjust to the change in orientation and buzzed with an aggressive pitch.
“Kill the props,” I said flatly. He would see me struggling with the drone, so I didn’t explain further. “I need you to override this thing’s safety systems, and I need it done fast.”
I hit the seat of the Airbike hard enough to bruise my manberries, but it was the least of my problems at that moment. The small screen mounted on the handlebars lit up in response to my presence, and additional information pulsed into the edges of my HUD a heartbeat later. I ignored all of it as I activated the flight system with the pad of my thumb against the touchscreen. All four rotors sprang to life with a muted buzz. The craft shot up into the air so quickly that the edges of my HUD flashed red with a silent warning. The display registered five Gs, and the dismal surroundings became a blur as five turned into six and continued climbing.
My stomach plunged, and my genitals tried to change places with my eyeballs, but again, these were trivial in comparison to what was about to happen.
I blew past fifteen hundred feet before my eyes had a chance to adjust. Easing off the throttle, I pushed the handlebars forward and squeezed the sides of the saddle seat with my knees to hang on as the bike surged forward like a shot from a rifle. Two thousand feet in the air and going from zero to one hundred and twenty miles an hour so fast I could have been riding a bullet. The rolling expanse of green below me seemed to shimmer with distortion—
Then I realized it wasn’t an optical illusion. A mass of movement stirred on the ground beneath the trees. Dozens, probably hundreds of Elend swarmed around the bunker entrance from every direction.
I heard Tripp’s voice again and understood he’d been speaking for at least a few seconds before I registered the words. My vision was blurry, and my breathing was ragged. I’d taken off far more aggressively than I’d ever attempted. Blood had pooled in my extremities, apparently to the detriment of my higher functions.
“—Can you hear me?” Tripp was nearly shouting.
My voice croaked in a tone I had never heard before. I was already revving up, fully intending to discover for the first time just how fast the machine could go.
“Your bio readings are redlining,” Lacy’s sounded over the comm channel. “Ease up!”
What must have been a dozen or more jays swept in just over the treetops from the north and west. As one, they adjusted their course and veered in my direction. I was outpacing them, but I didn’t want them to alert the ground force to my escape.
“—can’t,” Tripp was saying. “Telemetry shows thirty-four Jays adjusting their course in pursuit,” he added. I had no idea if he was talking to me or arguing with Lacy.
“What about the Elend on the ground?” I asked with the driest mouth I had ever experienced.
I felt pressure in the legs of my armor. The sensation traveled vertically up my body. “I’m adjusting the suit for better blood flow,” Lacy said. Judging by her tone, I was sure she was speaking with Tripp.
I felt as if my armor was treating me like toothpaste at the end of an empty tube. As my mind cleared, I realized Lacy’s adjustment to my gear was meant to return blood from my extremities and push it back to my brain. Even my vision seemed to sharpen in response.
“The ground force is leaving the structure even faster than they entered,” Tripp said. “They’re onto you.”
A picture-in-picture feed appeared in the far corner of my vision. In it, I could see what could only be a view from a stationary drone positioned high over the entrance to the underground complex.
“Trigger it now,” I said, my voice finally sounding normal.
“He’s nowhere near the minimum safe distance,” Lacy said in a voice that sounded like she had her hand over the microphone.”
The bike’s nose dipped forward at thirty-five degrees as I cranked the throttle to full. The motors powering the props screamed, and the fans moved so fast they became invisible. The motors could adjust their inclination in response to acceleration, but only by a maximum of five degrees. For the props to push me forward so aggressively, the entire airframe angled more steeply towards the ground, even though my altitude remained unchanged. I lowered my chest and tried to minimize my wind resistance by ducking behind the handlebars.
“Overload now,” I tried to yell through clenched teeth. I could hardly hear my own voice over the roar of the props. “Do it now!”
“He needs more altitude and distance,” Lacy was saying.
Going for altitude would mean sacrificing ground speed, and from experience, I knew that the thinner air would slow me even more. Every second I hesitated would save Elend lives.
“Now!” I groaned.
A breath later, the sky behind me lit with the intensity of a newly birthed sun. Long seconds passed before I was struck by a concussive force that felt like a runaway train. More warnings than I knew existed cluttered my HUD, and the Airbike spiraled into an uncontrolled tumble. I sensed the automated restraint system at my hips half a second before everything went black.
Tripp initiated the overload as requested and against his better judgment. The battery pack enhancing the zero-point power system of each drone went critical and flashed with a tiny explosion. The drone was lying in the weeds a dozen yards from the entrance to the underground complex. The small detonation instantly breached the containment of the hydrogen storage module Gray had placed beneath the belly of the crippled drone. Compressed hydrogen gas mixed with oxygen and flame, detonating and vaporizing the wilderness within a two-hundred-foot radius. Beyond that, trees were reduced to particulate matter, collapsing the landscape for another two hundred yards.
The containment vessel’s detonation only catalyzed a much larger explosion. Inside the underground facility, the hydrogen had displaced nearly all of the breathable air and flowed from the entrance in an invisible river of fog. The surface detonation back-fed into the facility, igniting five sub-levels in a multi-megaton explosion that vaporized the surrounding concrete as a concussive wave rippled through the strata. The ridge over the facility undulated like an ocean wave, sending debris hundreds of feet into the air.
Fissures spidered across the forest floor as if it were a sheet of plate glass struck by a mortar shell. The detonation reached the magma pocket that had once breached sub-level five, hundreds of years earlier, sending molten stone flooding into the newly formed crater. Several fissures reached the teardrop-shaped lake to the south, and the lake’s contents flooded the crater. Water and molten earth collided, sending gouts of superheated steam shooting into the sky with an ear-shattering scream.
The concussive force of the blast annihilated every drone in the sky over twenty-five miles in all directions. The feed seen by Tripp and Lacy went dark in a wave that traveled faster than the speed of sound.
Tripp waved his hands at the array of AR displays that covered the far wall of the control room, finally locating surviving drones nearly forty miles from the epicenter of the detonation.
Lacy’s hands covered her mouth as she stared wide-eyed. A mushroom cloud of superheated steam stabbed at the distant sky, slowly coalescing into liquid water before raining back down to earth. Miles-wide dust clouds roiled over treetops fifty miles from the epicenter.
“Where is he?” Lacy asked after an eternity of silence.
Tripp sank into a boneless heap on a stool, his eyes unblinking and watery. “Gone.”
I woke up to the sensation of someone tugging at my shoulder. Blinking through a hazy, foggy mind, it took longer than it should have to notice I was lying face down in thick field grass. The tug at my shoulder brought the first indication of situational awareness, and the high-speed escape from the Elend rushed to the forefront of my brain.
My fists tightened in my armored gloves as I rolled, prepared to confront whatever was prodding at my back. My vision swam from the rapid shift, and my backside got tangled in something as I tried to roll to my feet. Thankfully, no Elend greeted me. I gazed at a tangle of what seemed to be slack, pencil-thin lines extending into the distance. I followed the cords to a wispy, matte black sheet flapping among the branches of the shattered tree canopy overhead.
“Parachute?” I mumbled, wrestling with the lines tangled around my legs. I traced them back to attachments just behind my shoulder. There was no harness, at least not a conventional one. Thin ropes with the texture I’d come to recognize as nano-particulate material fastened at dime-sized eyelets that had formed directly from the surface of my armor. The chute fluttering gently in the breeze was made of the same material, I noted.
“Neat trick,” I grunted and attempted to get to my feet. That’s when I noticed the three tree limbs crushed into the grass beneath me. The thickest one was as wide as my biceps. Each limb was a web of smaller branches and was thick with green foliage. Each ended in a savage, sappy breakpoint that had clearly separated from the canopy due to great force. The bald spot in the tree cover told the rest of the story.
A voice came through my ear, and I noticed my helmet was still on. “Gray? Are you there?” It was Tripp.
I dabbed at the controls on my wrist, and the helmet vanished. “Alive and kicking,” I said, rolling my head slowly on my neck. A few pops and crunches were likely audible on the channel.
“The suit telemetry shows no broken bones and no internal bleeding. How are you feeling?”
As I scanned the surface of my torso, I observed barely visible scuffs on the armor. Then, I looked up and saw what I assumed were dark clouds scattered hundreds, perhaps thousands, of feet above the forest canopy.
I realized by the smell in the air that it wasn’t clouds. It was smoke.
“You built an incredible flight suit,” I said softly. With a pull, the lines hanging from my shoulders detached effortlessly from my armor. The line and parachute canopy hanging in the tree limbs above appeared to dissolve. A light drizzle of sandy particles fell onto the grass.
A new voice broke into the comm channel. “Are you okay?” Doctor Cormac asked, his tone dry yet full of unbridled concern.
“Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.” I got to my feet and looked around slowly for the Airbike. My vision seemed to jitter, and I felt a bit nauseous. “What the hell happened?”
“…detonation,” Trip was saying. I had missed the first part of the statement. Clearly, I had taken a hit, no matter how protective the suit had been. “You were about a mile short of minimal safe distance when we overloaded the drone.”
A grin spread as memories slowly permeated the fog in my mind. Hundreds, maybe thousands of Elend. If I almost didn’t make it, they must have fared worse.
Shit.
That didn’t mean I’d gotten them all. Before I knew I was doing it, I’d reengaged my helmet. My gaze was already scanning the surrounding wilderness. “Where’s the bike,” I whispered.
Tripp seemed amused as he replied, “About two hundred and twenty yards to the north.” He then added, “and roughly three hundred yards to the northeast. A significant portion of the airframe is seventy-three feet behind you if you want to see just how lucky you are. Generally speaking, it’s spread across a half mile.”
Wow.
I closed my eyes and took a breath. When I opened them again, my gaze returned to the sky. “Did any of the drones survive?” None were visible through my limited view of the area sky.
“Eleven,” Lacy said. “Six of them made it to safety. The others reached your position over the past twelve minutes.”
I figured they’d redeployed nearby drones to cover me. “Wait—how many minutes?” I cursed. “How long was I out?”
“One hour, twenty-three minutes,” Cormac said. “Don’t worry, the area around you is clear of Elend, at least within a radius of ninety-eight miles. Beyond that, the drone mesh is inconsistent. We’re still redeploying assets to enhance coverage.”
I sagged and dropped to one knee. Flopping flat on my ass, I took a deep breath and blinked slowly in an attempt to clear my vision fully.
“You seem a bit confused,” Lacy said, as if somehow aware of my ongoing personal inventory.
Not wanting to dwell on my discomfort and confident in my tech’s ability to heal me much better than my body normally could, I asked, “How many hostiles did I take down?”
“It’s hard to be certain,” Tripp said.
“We’re still crunching the numbers,” Cormac added.
“Just over thirteen hundred confirmed so far,” Tripp said. “That number is very likely to rise. The analysis is still assessing the Elend presence in the blast zone a few seconds prior to denotation.”
I heard something mumbled in the distance and realized there were more people in the control room. Not everyone was on the comm channel. “What was that?” I asked.
Lacy spoke next. “Mara said you had twenty-two Jays, all airborne and chasing you when the detonation got them. We’ve confirmed that none of them made it.”
I was thinking about getting back on my feet while calculating time and distance in my mind. The math was tougher than it should have been, and the idea of walking just wasn’t an option at that moment. “How far is it to the nearest farm?”
Tripp laughed. “Buddy, you don’t want to know.”
Buddy?
I grinned. Tripp binge-watched programming from Our-World at every opportunity. New slang continued to pepper his conversations.
“No worries,” he said. “I have a replacement bike on the way. ETA…” His voice trailed off. “Just under five minutes.”
That made me laugh. “Who’s bringing the new one?”
“No one,” he said. “Lacy and I have been working on that. More automation is involved. It’s tracking your position in real-time. Thank you for clearing the overhead canopy. It will make landing easier.”
I pushed against one of the thick branches in the grass beside me and shook my head.
