PART 2
Clara carried Andy inside the stairwell and waited there with the door open, gazing at the vampire’s ashen corpse as the wind eroded its detritus remains. Andy slept in her lap. Something unusual clinked under his shirt–a bag of silver jewellery. That explained why a grenade had exploded during the fight. Andy had unpinned it, intending to blow himself up along with the jewellery as shrapnel.
“Don’t be so eager to die.” Clara stroked his brow. His skin was as pale-white as ever, but hot to touch. The wound on his neck wasn’t bleeding–there was no obvious reason for his unconsciousness. Concussion, perhaps. Clara waited nervously, but was reassured by Andy’s shallow, steady breathing in her lap.
A storm of thoughts loomed over her, but it was as though she was sheltered by exhaustion… It had worked, she had used the Augmentation’s powers to light up the ultraviolet bulbs–synthetic tubes of sunlight radiation–and slain the vampire. How had she done it? Was the burst of electricity which she had summoned in a blast of rage inert to all newly Augmented warriors, or was it something specific to her archetype? What happened now? Had the programme finished installing? What was it doing to her DNA?
Each question pattered off the tin-roof of her skull, distant and confused, impossible to identify one question from the next in the rainfall, like counting water droplets… Where was Linton? Would he have bled out by now? Should she go help him? Should she return to Blue Eyes? Would he see her as a traitor? Would he put a hit out on their heads?
Pitter-patter.
It was raining outside, soaking the gravel of the rooftop, filling her nostrils with a murky wet scent. The rainfall poured over her frantic mind like radio static, tuning her mind to sympathetic frequencies, until morning came, and a ray of sunlight touched her cheek, rousing her from a tumultuous sleep. Clara’s questions pooled like puddles on the rooftop, but she chose to ignore them. Every moment was precious, possibly life saving, and she had bigger priorities.
Resting Andy’s head gently on the floor of the stairwell, Clara ventured onto the roof to retrieve Andy’s assault rifle and checked on the vampire’s corpse. It looked like a patch of tar had stained the rooftop. A coating of tiny flames licked at the substance, eating what remained of the purple colouration, leaving behind a black callous which faded grey in the morning sunlight.
Clara kicked the pile. A small plume of ash dissipated in the wind. Satisfied, she returned to Andy, slung their gear in a pile and carried him over her shoulder down the stairs and into the plaza. Corpses littered the floor. A white lab coat shone in her peripheral, but Clara made a point not to look over there. She wondered if Riddhi had a family. Was there anything she could do now to make things better? Sighing, Clara knew the answer to that already.
Sunlight streamed through the shattered archway entrance. An errant zombie shuffled towards her, meek and unthreatening in the daylight. Clara took Andy inside their fortified restaurant and into the stairwell at the back. She set him on the floor, shut the door behind her, and ran back for their gear. Her heartbeat was pounding by the time she made it back; it had been a long night. Andy’s heavy machine gun was discarded on the floor, but she had to leave it. She couldn’t carry it all.
Heading into the loading bay, Clara ferried Andy, and then their gear, towards the ground floor exit. Linton was gone, as was her marksman’s rifle. He must have stolen it, for what good it would do him. The magazine was empty, and Clara wouldn’t have been able to carry it anyway. A shame too, it was an expensive piece of gear.
“Tit for tat,” she said, spotting a trail of blood drops on the exiting the storeroom. She hoped that Linton would survive the gunshot and make it to safety, although that seemed unlikely. Even unwounded, the scientist seemed to lack the skills or strength to survive in the wasteland.
Opening the door into the outside parking lot, Clara set Andy against the wall and sat beside him, gathering her thoughts. They were alive, but they had failed their mission and had nothing to show for it. Nothing but the Augmentation flowing through her veins. Was it worth it? Assuming Linton survived long enough to make it back to Old Blue Eyes and tell the tale, they’d be outlawed, blacklisted throughout Quadra, likely with a bounty on their heads. The information about Andy, stored on Blue Eyes’ AMC, would be shared amongst bounty hunters–details about his Augmentation’s archetype, his abilities, every strand of his DNA right down to his dark blue eye colour and his allergy towards cats. Maybe she should have killed Linton. Tie up loose ends. Maybe she should track him down now. Murder him.
The thought deflated her. To kill in battle was one thing, but to do so under the sunlight, cold and calculated, was a line she was unwilling to cross. She had stolen the Augmentation serum, that was true. She had shot Linton in order to steal it. She wasn’t ashamed of either of those actions, they had been necessary. But hunting the man was not. He deserved a chance in the wasteland, just like they all did, however slim.
Andy doubled over beside her and threw up. Clara held his hair back and tried to get his attention, but he was unresponsive. Leaving a bottle of water at his side, Clara ventured into the car park, searching for discarded vehicles. She kept her hand on her pistol, but there was no movement in sight, save for a few straggling zombies amongst the swathe of corpses beaching the entryway. Clara spotted a line of motorbikes leant against the wall; the previous occupants were probably dead inside the shopping centre. Two vans were parked beyond, but Andy had bust them up with his machine gun during the battle. They wouldn’t be road worthy.
Tapping the gas tanks of each bike, she chose one which seemed most full and wheeled it over to their ruined jeep. Clara opened the boot and unloaded a rucksack with basic survival gear: a tarpaulin sheet, two blankets, a first aid kit, three different types of fire starters, a large knife, rope, and food rations for one month. She tied it to the back of the bike, then withdrew an orange duffel bag: devices and gizmos which she had bought and scavenged along her journeys. She’d sooner leave a weapon behind than abandon her tricks. Closing the boot, she wheeled the motorbike around to the bonnet and paused beside the driver side window. Her CD was still stuck inside the player, it would take a screwdriver to get it out. She regretted leaving it behind, knowing that she would likely never listen to the elusive album again, but after all, she had always fantasised that the songs were her jeep’s spirit singing to her on long journeys; it only made sense to leave them with the vehicle in her final place of rest.
“See ya’, girl.” Clara patted the bonnet and returned to where Andy rested and took stock of their weapons. There had been a pistol stowed away in the boot carrying fifteen 9mm rounds, which she emptied into her submachine gun’s magazine, stuffing the empty pistol in her bag. She emptied the assault rifle’s magazine into her hand, counting the rounds, then reloaded it and tied it to the bike alongside Andy’s grenade bandolier. Finally, her .45 colt held the most ammunition, two magazines of ten rounds each. It wasn’t much at all, but she didn’t expect any more trouble from the cultists. Dozens of them were dead, their leader defeated, and what survivors there might have been were nowhere in sight.
She crammed her compact rucksack into the bike’s front storage compartment and sat Andy in front of her. He leaned over the front of the bike deliriously. She put her arms around his waist and took the handlebars, started the engine and drove slowly away.
It rained softly as she drove. The air was quiet except for birdsong in the trees along the roadside. She took the easiest way out of the shopping centre and down the motorway. The route took them outside of zombie territory, beyond the reach of the cultists and east, away from Quadra and all this mess. The bike bounced stiffly over cracks in the road. With all the weight on it, the suspension sunk low, making it uncomfortable to ride.
After an hour, she pulled the bike over on a country road for a break and unloaded Andy from the front seat, setting him on the ground beneath the canopy of a large tree. He moaned softly, but otherwise didn’t respond as she re-checked his wounds. He had several lacerations across his neck where the vampire’s claws had cut him, and two pin-pricks beneath his jaw. Clara wet a rag with a bottle of rubbing alcohol she’d managed to keep hidden away from Andy in their emergency first aid kit, and whipped the wounds. His flesh was pale and veiny. The sting of the alcohol didn’t wake him, nor did he blink when she opened one of his eyelids.
Did he have an illness, a disease? The vampire had bitten him during their fight. Perhaps he was infected, or mortally wounded. She wasn’t very familiar with vampire lore. Aliens were more her thing. Maybe it was black magic, maybe the vampire had sucked out some of his soul. Clara shivered. Andy didn’t have much of a human soul to begin with, maybe this was all that was left. But, he seemed alright on the rooftop before falling unconscious. Despite his peril, Clara just couldn’t imagine him dying–couldn’t fathom him giving up to such a tiny wound.
Attention. The voice came out of nowhere. A rush of adrenaline seized her. Clara jumped up, thumbling for her pistol, looking for the intruder. He sounded nearby, but there was no one around them. On one side of the road was an empty, overgrown field, on the other, a dark pine forest.
Installation complete. Version one active. Configuring language interface.
“Hello?” Clara said. “Are you the AI?”
Affirmative.
“So, you can hear me speak?”
Yes, I can. The voice had adapted to become more human-like, imitating an older man with a smooth tone. Does this manner suit you?
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“It’s fine.” Clara phrased a question in her mind: Can you hear me think? The AI was unresponsive.
“Well that’s a relief.” Sitting on an old wooden fence, Clara considered what to ask the AI. She knew there would be limitations before she calibrated her Augmentation for the first time, but wondered to what extent? She had used some rudimentary abilities while fighting the vampire, it granted her some sort of electronic affinity. She had powered the UV light bulbs just by touching them and pushing a buildup of static into them. It had felt like taking a deep breath and squeezing the air through her throat to sing a musical note. Though, she had been clumsy with the energy, and forceful, like driving thirty miles an hour in first-gear. Still, it had gotten results.
She looked at her hands. There was no static lightning around them. She couldn’t detect any static buildup in her veins. Her bicep twitched rhythmically. What was that? Some effect of the Augmentation, or simply exhaustion?
“What are my abilities?” she asked aloud.
Initial calibration is required before your Augmentation can completely synthesise with your DNA, and conceptualisation of abilities can be rendered. I am unable to decrypt the programmer’s files any further than installing rudimentary abilities.
Clara shook her head, willing the voice to stop. It was too much, too unusual. The voice was quiet enough that it didn’t interrupt the sounds of the environment around her. It had no acoustic qualities at all, as though it emanated from the centre of her skull. Hearing it talk about her DNA so mechanistically made her uncomfortable. The serum had its hooks in her, and it would endeavour to make of her a genetically enhanced soldier, whether she liked it or not. She had dreamed of being more powerful, and admonished Andy for being so reluctant to let the Augmentation Serum modify his DNA, but all of a sudden, Clara had a sense of dread. A feeling of mourning. She would never get back who she was, never be a normal woman again. In the space of one dreadful night, she had changed forever. It wasn’t the first time she’d had the feeling, and Clara doubted it would be the last.
She had always wondered what it would be like to become Augmented. In some ways, it was frightening, in others, it was ordinary. There was very little verified information on Augmented soldiers, and many more rumours as to how the technology worked. Those who possessed it, guarded the secrets. Clara had come to learn a little from Andy’s experience, but not enough. One thing was clear: the sooner she could find an AMC to calibrate at, the sooner she could get some answers. Clara’s arm twitched violently, then went limp at her side. She clenched her fist to test her strength. Let’s hope that didn’t happen while she was on the road.
Andy coughed, the first major sign of life he’d shown in over an hour. Clara wondered if he was just exhausted, or whether developing so many new Augmentation abilities in such a short amount of time had taken its toll on his body. They had been on the road for exactly one week now, and already Andy had developed three new abilities, as far as Clara could tell. That was more than in six years previously. She had been right to push his limits with more difficult work, test his strength, but had she gone too far? Though he was unconscious, Andy’s hand drifted to his revolver at his hip. His rapid advancements in strength had something to do with that gun as well, and his fixation on it. He personified the gun, gave it a girl’s name, and pretended to have conversations with it. Or perhaps, the gun talked back, just like the AI implants in his head… in both their heads now. Regardless, if it encouraged him to get stronger, she was glad.
Clara whipped rain droplets off her wrist terminal’s screen and checked a map of the surrounding area. The battery icon flashed red and empty–she only had a few hours of juice left in it. The device was extremely power efficient, but nothing electronic lasted forever. Clara didn’t have any data on the surrounding apocalypse zones. The only map that was useful was a pre-cataclysm one, which showed a lot of countryside with a few towns dotted around most likely deserted. It was difficult to tell where new civilisations had sprung up in the wasteland just by looking at old maps. In some places, it was easier to build a community inside the ruins of the old world, however, in many, it was more perilous.
They wouldn’t be welcome back in Quadra, so they’d have to find a new employer. A new base of operations. Clara rubbed her temples and sighed. What a waste of time and ammunition. So many people had died to retrieve the payload. Abigail, Sax, and the other Hogs mercenaries. Dozens of cultists under the command of that vampire. A young man’s face appeared in Clara’s mind; it took her a moment to recognise whose it was: Carrion–the moment before she shot him between the eyes. He shouldn’t have had to die like that. Clara rubbed her small silver watch back and forth over her wrist’s knuckle. At least they’d saved Robert’s life. The merc had driven off god knows where. Perhaps they’d meet again one day, on a job, or in a bar somewhere.
Clara took a deep breath then got up. She lifted Andy back onto the front of the motorbike and set off down the road. It wove between hills, then over a small brick bridge which spanned a river. She spotted buildings ahead, and slowed the motorbike to a purr. An old road sign read: ‘Welcome to Moltengarth County.’ There was a more recent sign planted beside it, made from wood with an arrow painted on it and the words: ‘Milltown - 12 miles.’
The road ahead led through an old village. As she drove through, she peered into their overgrown gardens, filled with weeds and thorn bushes. The buildings themselves were covered in creeping vines, cracked and crumbling. A small stream flowed down the road, as the rain continued to fall around them. Clara pulled the brim of her cap over her eyes and continued at a steady pace. At the centre of the village, the road came to a T junction with a small park overlooked by a large apple tree. A broad pond stretched the length of one road, spilling cattail reeds over the edges onto the concrete. Ducks quacked and scattered as her motorbike broke the serenity, flying overhead, disappearing behind rooftops.
Clara found where the river met the pond, splashing over a tiny rocky waterfall. Wheeling their motorbike into a patch of tall grass, she laid it down so that it was hidden from sight of the road. She did the same with Andy, making sure he was comfortable, and slid down the small bank to fill their flasks from the running water. Taking a sip, she swilled the water in her mouth, tasting it for any impurities, then satisfied it was clean, quenched her thirst.
A frog leapt from its rock nearby and splashed in the pond. The air was almost silent, save for the brush of wind in the reeds and the announcement of a blackbird in the large apple tree’s branches. Beneath the tree, wooden tables were covered in a layer of rotting fruit. Some tables bore sapling spires, which poked above the wild grass. A bin shaped like a toad sat with its mouth agape beside the path. A rusted metal climbing frame and swings lingered silently beside the apple tree. Clara had distant memories of climbing across monkey bars just like them in a park when she was a kid. It felt like a lifetime away, like the memories weren’t hers–they were far too abstract, like a fairytale of a dead world–bestowed to her to fill in the blanks.
Aside from the ducks, there was nothing living in sight. No recent tire tracks or horse excrement that might indicate people using the road. No litter, or black patches of grass where a campfire had been. There were a few cottages with windows facing the pond, dotted about on little hills. She could scout each of them out and check that they weren’t occupied, or she could undress now and take a very short wash in the running water. It was a little risky, but she didn’t care.
Clara undressed, piling her clothes behind the riverbank with her wrist terminal and pistol on top.
The pond water was relatively clear near the mouth of the river. At first, the pebbles dug into her soles, but once she got underneath the small waterfall, it felt soft underfoot like she was stepping into piles of flour. The water was icy cold. She breathed deeply, trying to relax her body. Her arms and legs were covered in bruises–small knocks she’d accumulated during the mission. She held her breath and leaned back against the waterfall, letting it flow over her hair. The stone felt slippery on her spine. Reluctantly, she had left a wash bag in the jeep. Necessities only. There wasn’t even a bar of soap in the survival rucksack strapped to the bike. Fresh water and scrubbing would have to do.
Clara jumped as something splashed on the other side of the pond. She shrank under the waterfall, arms crossed over her chest, searching for what had caused the disturbance. A fish coming up for air? Somebody throwing stones? There was another splash, then more. Within seconds, she was caught in a downpour. Yelping, she slid her back up against the rock face as the sky filled with pellets, falling from the heavens. One of the objects bounced off the rock above her head and landed in the water beside her. She grabbed at the slimy ball and held it at arm’s length. A small green toad lay limp and dead in her palm.
“Eww.” She shook her hand and the dead toad plopped back into the pond. Clara glanced upwards, holding her hand up to deflect any incoming froggy-missiles. A small black cloud shaped like a disk passed over the village, raining toads across the park and the pond, pelting off rooftops. As quickly as it had come, the amphibious cloud moved on, releasing its load on the village below, gradually fading from black to a more normal cloud-like grey.
“What the…” Clara shivered. She’d been in the water for too long. Wading back to shore, Clara climbed the bank and kicked a dead toad off her clothes. The road was coated in their bodies, like the decaying fruit beneath the apple tree, squashed on impact.
Clara knelt beside her wrist terminal, enjoying the feeling of fresh air on her wet naked skin. She highlighted their region then created a note: ‘A raincloud of toads. Exactly what it sounds like.’ This sort of information would be valuable to a cartographer unfamiliar with the region, and possibly themselves, if they ran into trouble.
A noise distracted her. A vehicle engine. Clara threw her vest on and fell onto her back, yanking up her cargo trousers. She lay on the bank, aiming her submachine gun at a road opposite the park. A compact lorry appeared towing a wagon on a hinge, driving past the apple tree towards the junction. A dozer blade jutted out the front of the lorry, painted with canines to resemble a wolf’s snout. Armoured mesh covered the driver’s windows and barbed wire encircled the wagon’s roof. Ferocious eyes glinted in the top corner of the wagon, its flank was painted in flowing grey triangles, like flames, to resemble furr. At the wagon’s rear, the paint job faded to black where erratic grafiti took over, as though the wolf was wearing a stylised collar around its neck. Amongst the random names and symbols, Clara recognised one tag: three white lines of slightly varying heights like a silhouetted skyrise of the old world, imposed on an upwards-trending semi-circle. She’d seen it before, painted on the battlewagon of the other mercenary group who had abandoned the mission a few nights ago when the zombie horde got violent at the research lab. Alister’s Boys. Was this battlewagon part of their group, or were the aesthetic similarities just a coincidence?
The lorry stopped at the junction, its breaks creaking against the load. A man excited the driver’s side and strode towards the pond. She thumbed the safety off and crawled backwards, obscuring herself in the pond-side weeds. As she watched him approach through her submachine gun’s iron sights, she noticed something unusual about his appearance–it looked as though he was wearing a mask. Odd angles jutted out of the elbows and spine, as though he was wearing plate armour beneath the baggy hooded jumper.
Clara kept him in the corner of her eye as he relieved himself into the reeds, choosing instead to focus on the parked battlewagon. How many more men might be in there? Ten? Twenty? More than she could take alone. She wondered how Alister’s Boys would take it if they knew that she had essentially stolen the payload for herself. She figured they didn’t have a right to an opinion after they had abandoned the mission back in Marsay city.
The man finished up and started to walk away when suddenly he stopped, eyes fixed on something in the reeds near Clara. Her heart stopped. The man turned and strode towards her.