Serpent and the Sun, Chptr 2 – Xperience Fiction – by Liam Sweeny.
Jameson scanned the street nervously as they drove. Blake had his knee pressed up against the steering-wheel, rolling another cigarette. He was close to half-way finished with the one-pound bag he picked up on the way to New Rochester. There were only three places on the North American continent that he knew to have tobacco, and two were in the protected areas. Jameson periodically glanced over at his driving method.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m an old pro at this…”
“You’ll be a dead pro, you keep smoking those things.” Ever the wet blanket.
“They don’t have enough tobacco on the continent to kill any one person, trust me.”
They were going down the main road of the New Rochester Technical College. That’s what was etched into the granite sign they passed by. Blake couldn’t tell what it was by just looking at it; mostly rubble with an aura of dust.
“Damn.” He said as he flicked a match off the dashboard. It came to life with an umbilical cord of sulphurous smoke. Blake grunted, and drew it to his twisty creation.
“They did that a long time ago,” said Jameson, “with the first UEC consolidation. They considered it a high priority threat.”
“That’s weird,” Blake said, “why a school?”
“Before the devolution, they did nanotech,” replied Jameson, “The equipment was still intact afterwards.”
“They didn’t want the competition, huh?”
“Yeah, something like that…” Jameson turned on the fan, blowing the smoky air to the back of the skiff.
“Fuck them anyways,” he said, “We got most of it underground before-hand.”
They drove on in silence. They were headed to the greenhouse, the main center of food production for the city. Like most things of value, it was underground.
“Ya’ know, we could’ve just taken the underground,” said Jameson, “We have everything connected…”
“What, and miss such a beautiful day?” Blake looked over to see Jameson rubbing the side of his arm nervously.
“Look, J’,” he said, “This ride’s invisible to PEALE. If it wasn’t, I’d be dead right now.”
“It’s not that, I trust ya’ Blake,” he replied, “It’s just, I don’t know…”
They turned off the college street onto a maintenance road. Silence pervaded.
“His twenty-first birthday would’ve been Monday.”
“Man, I’m sorry about that. What actually happened?” Blake knew that question would either be a knife opening an old wound or a scalpel draining an infected one. He had to hope for the latter.
Jameson gazed out the window, pointing to the side road, little more than a dirt path. Blake pulled off on it, and the forest crept up along the sides of the skiff. He could hear the branches scratching along each side.
“He was out fixing a relay to the solar panels.” Jameson said, still gazing. “The Library’s the only thing we can afford to cloak. Everything else is wide open. It blew; it just needed some new wiring. But someone had to go out to do it.”
“Why Matthew, though?” Blake interrupted, “I mean, you got plenty of guys in there…”
“Oh, Blake, I don’t know,” Jameson groaned, “He was just fuckin’ cagey or something… I said the same damn thing to him. Pleaded with him, believe me.”
“Yeah, he was marked.” Blake said. “Just like us. What the hell was he thinking?”
“He wasn’t.” Jameson looked over to Blake. “It’s rough, man, being underground and all. Everyone gets cagey.” He said. “We got the patio cloaked, but there’s no view there. It’s surrounded by concrete. Matt couldn’t handle it.”
“I even stuck him on security detail, so he’d have a view of the front,” he added, “but he couldn’t leave his post; that just made it worse.”
“I feel bad for you, J’,” Blake put a hand on Jameson’s shoulder, “I hope I didn’t, ya’ know…”
“Nah, Blake,” he said, “Nobody in there’ll even talk to me about it, like it’ll go away if no one mentions his name. It actually feels good to get a little off my chest.”
They reached the end of the dirt road. There was a small building; didn’t look like anything more than a tool-shed, but Jameson pointed to it. Blake stopped the car, told Jameson not to get out until he had the cloak turned on, which he proceeded to do. When they got to the building, Jameson placed his thumb on a rusty No Trespassing sign hanging on the door. Blake was surprised to hear the sound of the lock release.
Jameson smiled as he pointed to the sign. “Not bad, eh?”
“Biometric?” Blake asked. Jameson nodded.
“Stealth,” Blake responded, “I likey…”
The room was a front, of course. Blake was surprised, however, by the scanning equipment that lined the side-walls. Straight-green laser light crisscrossed the small room, setting off LEDs as the lines passed over them. He made mention of it to Jameson before they went down the stairs.
“It can tell the difference between human and,” he paused, “humanesque presences.”
Blake chuckled. “What’s it consider me?”
“Blake Chaplin.” Jameson said. “You’re programmed in.”
“Good ole’ northeastern hospitality…”
“It would kill you otherwise,” Jameson noted as they reached the lower landing.
“No offense,” he added, “We’re happy to see you and all…”
“Yeah, I’ll bet…” Blake looked around the landing, wondering where that death would’ve come from. The room looked pretty plain.
The landing opened up into a huge underground cavern; the greenhouse. Arranged in a grid along the ceiling were evenly-spaced, high powered LEDs. They were red, green, blue and white, angled to cross paths at plant-level. A slight mist sprayed from the ground beneath, creating a fine haze. The plants themselves were lush, their growth far more pronounced than anything grown on the surface.
“How long did it take you to clone these?” Blake asked.
“They’re not cloned,” he replied, grabbing an apple from one of the trees, “First generation.”
“How the hell did you guys manage this?”
Jameson motioned Blake to a smaller cavern; he wouldn’t even have seen it had Jameson not pointed to it. They went in, and Blake noticed that the side walls were lined with overstuffed canvas sacks. Seeds.
Blake walked over to touch one of he sacks. “Are these UEC?”
“No,” Jameson said, “UEC’s have terminator genes. We couldn’t feed New Rochester with those.”
Blake scratched his chin. “I thought UEC had a monopoly on seeds…”
“These started out as UEC stock,” Jameson explained, “But remember how I told you we got all the important shit outta’ the college before they wiped it out?”
Blake nodded. Jameson dug his hands into a sack of soybean seed.
“It was a bitch getting the terminator gene out of the first batch, but once we did…”
Blake was impressed. “Not bad…”
As they went back into the main cavern, Jameson tossed Blake a small bale.
“It’s cured,” he said, “You just gotta grind it up. I don’t know what you’re gonna’ do for rolling papers…”
Blake smelled the bale. “I’ll figure something out,” he said, “You can always find shit in the barrens. Thanks, J’.”
“De nada’.”
Jameson started to head for the stairwell. Blake stopped him.
“J’, I’m here for two reasons.” He said.
“Okay,” Jameson replied, “I’m assuming the first was Adam,”
“Yeah, that was the first reason. The second was to tell you something.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“You might wanna’ sit down…”
Jameson smirked. “I’m not sitting down on guano, Blake. Tell me; if it’s that bad, I’ll just drop…”
“Mike’s dying, J’.”
Jameson looked at Blake like he was crazy.
“That’s impossible, Blake; he’s just like…”
“…me. I know.” Blake responded. “But he’s sick. They got to him somehow.”
“How do you know?” asked Jameson, “What are his symptoms?”
“His vitals are weakening,” Jameson replied, “It’s a small effect, but it’s consistent.”
“Can’t he just correct it? Re-program the nanos or something?”
“We’ve tried.” Blake said. “The nanos don’t work. It’s almost like whatever it is, it’s infecting the nanos.”
Blake and Jameson were silent for a moment. Jameson squatted by a pear tree, scratching at the bark listlessly as he spun his gears.
“You think UEC’s behind it?” He asked.
“Who else?”
“Well, couldn’t it be something natural?”
Blake let out a laugh. “Nanos aren’t natural; you know that.” He said. “They have a programming, and they stick to it unless the programming’s changed.”
Jameson got up and stared at the ground, arms folded. Blake knew this would be hard for him; the three of them had decades of history. Mike and Blake were partially responsible for New Rochester.
“How long?” He asked.
“How long does he have?” asked Blake. Jameson nodded.
“It’s hard to say for sure, J,” he answered, “But it’s looking like a month, maybe less. And that’s just extrapolating. There’s no real answer.”
“Was he planning on stopping here at some point and telling me himself?” Blake could tell Jameson was angry to hear it second-hand.
“I’m sure he’ll get here, Jameson,” Blake said, hoping that he wasn’t lying, “You know how he is…”
Jameson laughed. “Yeah,” he said, “and no offense to you, Blake. I appreciate you coming, I do.”
Blake held up the bale of tobacco Jameson gave him.
“Offend me all you want, J’,” he said, “We’re even.”
***
Elle looked out across the typhoon from her father’s office. It never ceased to bring on the nostalgic feelings of her youth, when she’d sit on daddy’s lap as he told her stories about the phenomena. She could remember him correcting her when she came home from school;
“They’re called typhoons, dear,” he said, “In the Pacific they’re called typhoons.”
“But daddy, Billy said,”
“Billy’s family is a lower tier, honey,” he said, “They don’t know any better…”
That was long before Elle met Gerhardt. She was in University, studying politics. She didn’t like politics, but the political history of her family actually preceded the UEC. On Terrestria, before it was contaminated, her grandfather was a Senator in the United States of America. He was among the last group of senators in the USA before it dissolved.
Gerhardt was studying music. They met at one of the many social functions the University held during the year, a Golden Age theme. Gerhardt was in charge of the music for the evening. He was merely orchestrating, directing the machines that actually played the instruments, but he was phenomenal. Every time he raised his arms to bring the composition to a crescendo, Elle could just feel the energy wrought from his spindly fingertips.
Gerhardt was as much a firebrand as his stage movements would indicate. Unlike Elle, Gerhardt was interested in politics. Elle learned that very quickly, after hearing him comment on that year’s hurricane. She corrected him, only to hear a damn-near dissertation on the social stratification of the Sanctuaries. Elle found his venom to be a delicious poison.
They had what friends on both sides called a whirlwind romance. Elle was ever the picture of refinement and naivety; Gerhardt the raw, practical counterpoint. They were perfect for each other in every way except for one. Their addresses were different. Gerhardt’s was on the Second Tier, and Elle’s was on the Third. She was upper-class, and the gate-keeper to that class, her father, was due back in his office momentarily. A creak at the mahogany door told Elle the moment had arrived.
“I don’t care how many of them you have to kill,” he said to his staff-member as he walked through the door, “I’m not going to have a supply line hijacked during an election season!”
“Hi, father…”
Elle’s father blushed a bit, and motioned his staffer off. After he shut the door, he glared at Elle, who was sitting in his seat.
“Oops,” she said with a smirk, “Sorry…” She got up and slid over to the guest armchair.
“I’ll bet.” Her father unloaded his large frame onto the chair, dumping his attaché on the desk like a grain sack.
“You know, it’s not right to kill people, father…”
“It’s also not nice to listen in to people’s private conversations.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” she replied, “I didn’t know your office was an honesty zone.”
“I imagine you’re here to ask me something?”
“Can’t a girl just visit her dad?”
“Elle,” he said, “You’re style of flattery is just like your mother’s. And since you haven’t bothered to come up to our Tier in the last month, I’m assuming you want something.”
Elle stared silently out the window. “You know what I want.”
“And you know my answer.” He said.
“I can do it anyways, you know…”
Her father looked her straight in the eye. “Does he mean that much to you?” He said. “That you’d be willing to risk everything to live down there?”
“I love him, father.” She replied. “I’d die for him.”
“You’ll die with him,” he said, “I take it you heard the conversation he recorded of me.”
Elle broke eye-contact. “No; he told me about it, but I didn’t listen to it?”
“Oh? And why not?”
“Because…” She said. “It just; it just wasn’t right.”
Elle’s father got up from his desk and moved over toward her.
“What we consider right and what they consider right are two different things, Elle.” He said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “You must understand that.”
Elle shrank back.
“He only did it because he told me you’d never accept him, father,” she said, “And I told him he was wrong.” She paused, her thoughts again caught in the typhoon outside. “I guess he was right after all…”
“The board would never accept him,” he said, “even if I did. They see everything in terms of business, Elle.”
“You’re the Vice-President, father!” Elle said, “They’ll make exceptions for you!”
“No, Elle,” he replied, “they won’t. They’d sooner see the loss of you than the gain of someone like Gerhardt.”
Elle looked at him with raw intensity. Throughout her life, he was always an icon of decency that she placed upon the highest pedestal. The wrinkled man she saw now wasn’t deserving of even a soap-box.
“They’re trying to remove me, Elle…”
“Why, because of Gerhardt and I?”
“Honestly, that’s a part,” he replied, “but there’s more to it than that.”
He sat down next to her, in the second guest chair.
“Elle, I love you more than anything; you have to know that” he said, “And were it up to me, you’d have my blessing, no matter what I thought of Gerhardt.”
“But you don’t understand the consequences of your marrying him.”
Elle sulked, folding her arms. “I think I understand, father,” she said, “If I marry a plebian, you lose political points, is that it?” Her father was silent.
“Well!?!”
“If you marry him, you lose your life, Elle!” He yelled.
Her father was a large man, and many times she heard him yell. As a young girl, she likened it to what a grizzly bear must’ve sounded like. But she’d never him yell like this. From a man who could barely define the word, she heard fear in his voice.
“They’ll never allow Gerhardt to pass up,” he said, “he’ll never be allowed to be like us.”
“It’s not fair!” Tears bubbled up in the pools of Elle’s eyes.
“Elle, they’ll strip you of your birthright.”
“I don’t care!” She screamed. “I love him, father, and if I have to die for him, I will!”
“Elle, be reasonable!”
Elle turned to him. “Be reasonable? You mean marry Frederick Fitch, don’t you?”
“He’s a gentleman, Elle.” He said, “He’ll treat you right.”
“He’ll treat me as his property.”
“Now, you don’t know that…” He said. “He comes from good stock.”
“I’ll never love him, father.”
“It’s not always about love.” He said. “Sometimes you do what is prudent.”
Elle couldn’t speak. She came into his office expecting a showdown with father, and as she looked in his eyes, she saw something she’d never seen before. A broken man. Perhaps it was there all along; she’d just chosen not to see it. But she could no longer avoid it. She understood. It truly was out of his power.
She got up to leave, but her father tugged at her sleeve.
“Please Elle,” he said, and again she saw desperation, “Think about this. For God’s sake, think about this!”
She might have said something mean, or told him she was going to marry Gerhardt anyway. But the look in his eyes drew only pity.
“I will, father.” She said before she walked out of his office.
***
They went north on highway 89 in silence. Mike didn’t expect Sarah to be in a talkative mood, but she sat there, arms folded, staring every direction except his, so quiet that the only thing puncturing the silence was Mike’s periodic coughing.
“Where are you taking me?” She asked blankly, not looking at Mike as she said it.
“We have to pick up your son.”
“How do you know about him? About me?” she asked, “Have you been stalking me?”
“Yes.”Mike replied. He pushed a button on the steering wheel, and a holographic display appeared at the bottom-left corner of his windshield.
“You could’ve just lied to me, ya’ know…”
“All in good time…” Mike smiled. Sarah rubbed her shoulders as if she were cold. Just nerves; the vehicle had climate control set on biofeedback.
“Asshole.”
“Look, Sarah,” Mike flicked the burnt matchstick into the ashtray to join the pile, “Whether you realize it or not, I just saved your life back there. Now, once the guard in your protectorate hits the club, they’ll check the records against the body count, and guess who won’t be accounted for?” Sarah didn’t acknowledge his question, but she knew the answer.
“As soon as they determine you to be MIA, where’s the first place they’re gonna go?”
Sarah sighed. “Why me?” she asked. “There were at least thirty fucking people in there! If you knew about it ahead of time, why didn’t you warn anyone?”
“You were the only one worth saving.”
Without warning Sarah slapped Mike across the face. He could’ve stopped it; he was far faster than she was, even sick. But he knew she needed to do it.
“Some of those people not worth saving were my friends, you bastard!” She cried.
“I’m sorry.” Mike replied. “That came out wrong, I know. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Well exactly how did you mean it?”
“Sarah,” Mike said, grabbing another match from the tattered cardboard box, “I had kids myself; four of them. A wife too.” He flicked the match over the edge of the steering wheel, blowing it out as it came to life. “I said had; they’re all dead now.” He put the clean end of the matchstick in his mouth, spinning it around.
“I’m sorry,”
“Don’t be,” Mike said, “That’s not why I’m telling you. Just listen.” He twirled the matchstick, bringing the faint smell of burnt wood into his nostrils, bringing him back.
“We lived in Alaska,” he continued, “The name of the place was,” Palmer, “…unimportant.”
They reached the end of Highway 89 and took a right. Sarah lived a few miles from there, off 191.
“Ten years ago, the place was sanctioned,” he said, “Our sanction was drought. We were able to survive the first year on what my city had on its store shelves, but even then it was chaos.”
Mike was silent. Sarah looked over to him, the first time since they’d started driving.
“We fought back, a few of us,” he went on, “The reputation I have in the protected areas was forged then.” Mike again went silent.
“What happened?” asked Sarah.
“Food got scarce,” Mike responded, “real scarce. By the time the drought was in its third year, it wasn’t chaos; it was hell. People left, many of them went to seek protection. Some died of starvation, others went to desperate lengths; eating pets; hell, cannibalism wasn’t unheard of…” Sarah stared at him wide-eyed.
“I never did that, if that’s what you’re thinking…” He said.
Sarah nodded. The road ahead was dark, Mike’s vehicle illuminating in phased UV to avoid detection.
“They were trying to smoke us out; those of us who fought.” He said. “One day my daughter Carlie brought home food she found just outside the camp we had set up.”
Mike paused for a moment. He rarely spoke about it, and even then never a full recounting. He felt himself reliving it. He took a deep breath.
“Adelaide knew it was poisoned,” he said, “Kids probably knew it to.”
“They ate it?” Sarah asked. “Why would they if they knew it was poison?”
“We were starving, Sarah,” Mike said, “You’d have done the same God-damn thing, believe me.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-,” she said. Michael waved it off.
“So what did you do? Did you eat any of it?”
“Yeah, I ate some of it.” Mike replied, “Just not as much as they did.”
Heavy silence separated them for a few minutes; Mike stuck in the past, Sarah stuck in confusion.
“Do you still wonder how I can be so cold about your friends in that club?” He asked.
He could see a chill prickle up the flesh of Sarah’s arms.
“Look, I’m sorry your family was killed,” she said, turning to him, “but it doesn’t give you the right to be a callous asshole.”
“No, it doesn’t give me the right.” he countered, “Just plenty of reasons.”
They finished the drive to Sarah’s apartment exactly how they started it. In silence.
***
Kenny walked quietly down Taft Street. He wasn’t wearing his uniform, nor would he dare do so to the place he was going. He had a small directed energy device tucked in his pocket, a necessity in that neighborhood. Overhead he could hear the hum of transport skiffs. He looked up, and could see the ultraviolet haze coming from two strips along the bottom. He knew the color was an additive; the skiffs, like the floats and other vehicles ran on ultra-fine magnetic fields. The fields, though only protruding a few inches from the strips, were very powerful, hence the ultraviolet additive.
Kenny grew up in Anchorage. His father drove one of those transport skiffs throughout the diamond of Anchorage, Fairbanks, the Denali Sanctuary and the HAARP complex. The whole area within the diamond was supposed to be protected, but the center of the diamond was slowly losing its status. The Denali Mountain was a Sanctuary, and HAARP was a critical area, one of only four in the world. Anchorage and Fairbanks were protected due to their proximity to the former two. Fairbanks more so; Anchorage had better general geography, thus serving actual purposes. However, as Kenny grew up, he saw the level of effort dwindle.
He turned left on West 48th Avenue. He passed by the ruins of the Anchorage Tabernacle, though all he could see was its jagged silhouette in the night sky. He didn’t need to see it; he could remember the day it was destroyed; the day he and his friends were no longer allowed to ride their bikes in the parking lot. That was seventeen years ago.
With a current population of just over one million within the security perimeter, land in Anchorage was at a premium. Yet the land that the Tabernacle stood upon was not developed. No one was allowed to. The congregation of the Tabernacle resisted the UEC when religious affiliation was banned. The Tabernacle was destroyed on Christmas Day, with a full congregation worshiping inside.
Kenny cleared his throat as he passed the Tabernacle. The place always gave him the creeps. He could never figure out why they had to meet a hundred yards from there. He wasn’t the only one of the group freaked out by it. But Jim owned a small building underneath the old Minnesota Drive overpass. Oddly enough it used to be a house of worship, abandoned long before the UEC solidified.
He was late. He could see the floats in the parking lot. Jim recently had the parking area converted for UFM vehicles. Before that everyone walked there; no one wanted to scuff the hulls of their floats on the cracked pavement. He and Dalton had gotten wasted at the Apep the night before. He woke up only a few hours ago, and it was nearly four a.m. The lights were on in the front, the pale red light peeking through the drawn blinds of the front windows. The front wall was the only wall. The sides and back were built into the earth. Kenny scanned the street, slinking over to the front door. Hopefully he could get in without interrupting the service.
Kenny opened the door silently, and as he stepped into the front-room he abruptly stopped. Something wasn’t right. It was quiet, too quiet, and the smell of blood was in the air. Kenny knew it well enough. He grabbed the directed energy unit from his pocket, thumbing the trigger hook open, trying to hold it like his regular side-arm. He hung to the edge of each wall, using his tip-toes as he closed the distance between himself and the thick synth-velvet curtain separating the front room from the chapel. He took a deep breath and threw open the curtain, prepared to blast if he had to. What he saw grabbed the breath from his chest.
Jim was slumped over the make-shift altar, his figure casting a shadow of blood seeped into the white linen. The congregation, all eight of them, were in various forms of contortion, buckled over or hung back, and the blood was everywhere. Kenny walked back and forth, checking his friends for any glimpse of life. It was pointless and he knew it. He could smell something else, too. It was faint; the smell of acid rain and oil mixed. Kenny had smelled it before; Dalton had a weapon that left people in this condition, and they’d used it once. It was UEC issue.
Kenny sat down on one of the pews, light-headed in disbelief. They were so careful. They never met for long, never spoke publicly of the service, and not once did they ever meet together outside of that chapel. Kenny couldn’t understand it, but a buzzing sound behind the altar took away his time to think.
Kenny hopped up quickly, again gripping his weapon as he walked over to investigate. He didn’t see anything the first time, but when he turned the corner, he saw a video-film. It was the size of a playing-card, and just a hair thicker. This is UEC issue, Kenny thought to himself, too thin to be homegrown… The screen was bright blue, and Kenny covered his fingers with his shirt before picking it up. Some of them had networked biometrics, and he didn’t want to take chances on leaving a print.
When he picked it up, the blue screen changed into a familiar scene. It was a head-on shot of Kenny and Dalton in Apep. It kept repeating something over and over again, something that put a queasy feeling in his gut.
“They don’t have to starve,” Kenny said, “if the UEC gave a God-damn…”
Kenny dropped the screen like it was hot. He knew what it was. It wasn’t about the church service, or worship. The murders were calling cards; the video-film was Kenny’s death warrant.
More from Liam Sweeny…
