Plasma Frequency Magazine: Issue 14 (6 page)

The big one she referred to was slightly off centre and clearly fixed, since it had no trench to be dragged along. This must be the one our informant had called the central lithoid, which coordinated the whole complex.

"So what are you going to do?" asked Gazelle. "Huff and puff?"

"Better than that." I swung the hide bag off my shoulder and opened it, carefully drawing out the object inside.

For the first time, her eyes widened. "That's a death-gourd," she breathed. "I thought only the council of elders made those. No-one else even knows how they work."

"We do." Tempted as I was to brag to this woman who again seemed less self-assured, as in the cave, I didn't know enough about Gazelle to give away our secrets. "Just leave it at that."

She frowned, examining the dried gourd. "So how is it going to help? I've seen these things in use." She shuddered. "They kill a lot of people, but that's not what we want."

"We think it'll damage the stone, at least. At best, shatter it."

Baffled and wondering as she was, with wide eyes and on the edge of fear, Gazelle looked more like her namesake than before. I just hoped our assumptions would be justified. The gourd was filled with the crystals from the mountain quarry dedicated to their production for the megavillage government's stockpile. We'd liberated a large quantity from a convoy and been able to make our own death-gourds.

Any strong impact resulted in the crystals bursting out into fire and wind, and the hundreds of tiny flint shards mixed in with them could cause widespread injury. Our tests had shown that they could split a rock in half, but it was still a gamble that the same would happen to the central lithoid. A gamble worth taking, though.

"So..." Gazelle frowned, glancing from the stone to the gourd and back. "What are you going to do? Throw it?"

"It needs to be placed just right." I examined the great stone as I spoke, trying to identify the right place. "Then it depends whether my shooting's as good as it should be."

"Huh?"

"This..." I pointed to the pebble plugging a small hole in the gourd. "This has to be made to strike...what's inside. Best way to do that from a safe distance is with a shardcaster."

She raised an eyebrow which eloquently questioned whether I could really expect to hit the target, but all she said was, "So we need to wait till no-one's too near the stone or our route to it. Fair enough. And afterwards?"

"Well, disrupting the Engine should disorientate the stoneguards at least. Maybe put them out of action. And hopefully we can get out in the confusion."

"Hopefully?" She frowned. "Why don't I like the sound of that?"

A flash of anger stabbed me. "It's dangerous, obviously, but not suicidal. You want to go back?"

An impudent urchin's grin replaced the frown. "And miss the fun?"

It seemed the opportunity would never arrive, amid the comings and goings of the operators with their teams of beasts, and the stoneguards wandering the area. They'd be difficult to elude here, despite their lumbering gait. The way we were taught to give a stoneguard the slip was to keep it moving till it had to recharge its earth energy. Here, with the power crackling around the Engine, that would be a long time coming.

Then..."There!" Gazelle breathed, an instant before I could speak, and we were both up and over the bank, running for the central lithoid. Shouts came before we were halfway there, and I was aware of all the stoneguards in the place turning to converge on us.

The nearest operator abandoned his aurochs team and ran towards us, fumbling for a shardcaster that hung from his belt. Yanking my own out with my free hand, I sent half a dozen flints into his face and throat before he could draw. The man collapsed to his knees, scrabbling at the shards embedded in him.

"Go!" shouted Gazelle. "I'll cover you."

There was only time for a nod of appreciation as I sprinted for the menhir, whose grey, grainy surface towered far above my head. I knelt and placed the gourd carefully at its foot, in the spot I'd picked from the bank.

A shadow fell across me, and I turned to see a stoneguard reaching down, the blank granite where its face should be seeming to glare. I tried to twist under its grasp to get away, but a stone hand came down hard on my shoulder, trapping me.

I was dead for sure, but maybe...I made a lunge for the gourd, ready to slam the pebble in with my hand, but the guard's other hand fell on me, yanking me to my feet. I was surrounded by three of the stone creatures when a man came panting up, his elaborately tooled belt proclaiming him the manager.

"Don't kill him," he snapped at the stoneguards. "I want him alive. For now."

He turned away without waiting to check that the creatures had understood. Perhaps it was unthinkable that they hadn't. "Bring him with me," he added without looking back.

I managed to glance around as the stoneguards hustled me along after their boss. I was half expecting to see Gazelle lying dead, or else a prisoner too, but she was nowhere to be seen. So much for covering me. She must have bolted as soon as it looked hopeless. Unless...

What did I really know about Gazelle? She said she was from the resistance, and she had the phrase, but the council of elders could have got hold of that. Perhaps I'd been led straight into a trap.

Not that I could do anything about it. The guards halted, and I found myself facing a stone I hadn't seen before: a level slab, about four feet high, covered with dark stains I wished I didn't recognise. What had Gazelle said about people—maybe including my brother—being given to the Engine? Was I going to join them?

"What's this?" I demanded. It would do no good, but I might as well let him know he couldn't scare me. Even if I wasn't entirely convinced of that myself.

"Our input to the energy-flow." His expression was distant and distasteful. "Your blood will help the Engine run more smoothly. Ironic, I think."

I struggled to stop myself shuddering, from more than fear for my life. Everyone knew that blood could strengthen earth energy, but equally everyone knew the corruption it caused, too. If they'd been regularly running this thing on blood...Well, perhaps that explained a lot.

"Tie him down," the man told the guards.

I struggled against the stone hands, naturally, but I was like a baby in their grasp. My sinews were about to snap as they pushed me down to the slab and fastened hide cords around my hands and feet.

The manager moved up to stand beside me, an obsidian knife in his hand. He raised it.

"Don't you have to recite some mumbo-jumbo?" I demanded, hoping I'd put all the contempt I felt into the question.

He raised his eyebrows. "It's your blood I want—some ingredient of it, at least. I'm a scientist, not a magician."

The knife started down, and I gritted my teeth, trying to prepare for the death-blow. A gasp, and the manager staggered back, clutching at his throat.

Whipping my head around, I found Gazelle, a few paces away, lowering her shardcaster. For a moment she met my eyes, and I thought she was going to come and free me. Instead, she turned and ran for the central lithoid. The guards pursued her, but she was still ahead when, only a couple of paces away, she raised the caster again and fired repeatedly at the gourd.

The roar was louder than a herd of mammoth, and the flare blinded me for an instant. When I could see again through the flashes in my eyes, Gazelle was face-down on the ground, arms covering her head, and a stoneguard was closing on her.

"Look out!" I yelled. I was about to add more, but what I saw dried the words in my throat.

Flipping over, Gazelle also saw the vast stone, at least five times my height, toppling towards her as the guard's arm rose to strike. Instantly, she dived under the creature's grasp, rolling several time out of the path of the central lithoid.

The guard only had time to turn after her before the stone crashed down onto its head. Both shattered.

Gazelle was on her feet in a single movement. I could see blood coming from several wounds, but it didn't slow her down as she ran over to me. I looked around at what the remaining stoneguards were doing, but they stood motionless. As I'd hoped, they were linked in some way to the Engine.

Her ivory knife made short work of my bonds. She helped me off the slab, and it was only when I was holding onto her that I realised she was shaking. Several of her wounds had shards embedded in them, though none looked too bad.

"Your wounds. I need to remove those shards, and..."

"Later," she snapped. "Right now, we need to get out of here."

Looking around, I saw she was right. Although the stoneguards were out of actions, several of the operators were running in our direction. At least two had shardcasters out.

"Race you to the fence," she suggested.

I could have outpaced her, wounded as she was, but I stayed back and helped her through the opening before we careered into the alleys of the megavillage. We finally stopped when I was thoroughly lost from the twisting and turning.

Gazelle pressed herself against me, making a noise somewhere between gasping and laughter. "We did it."

"You did," I told her. "But I need to get those shards out and bind your wounds."

She nodded. "There's a safe place we can go, not far from here. We need somewhere to lie low, before it's safe for you to get out of the megavillage."

"And you. They might have seen you."

She snorted, though it sounded painful. "They saw a huntress. I can be other people, too." The urchin grin returned. "Maybe you'd like to meet some of them."

"I...I think I would." My body seemed even more sure of that, and I hugged her.

She winced. "When it's a bit less painful. Come on, now."

Taking my hand, she led me away through the alleys.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nyki Blatchley graduated from Keele University in English and Greek and now lives near London.  He's had about forty stories in publications such as Penumbra, Lore, Wily Writers and The Thirteenth Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories.  His novel At An Uncertain Hour was published by 
StoneGarden.net
 in April 2009, and he’s had novellas published by Musa Publishing and Fox & Raven, among others. For more information on Nyki and his writing, please visit 
http://www.nykiblatchley.co.uk/

General Hardwick

By Nicole Tanquary

The on-board therapist, Dr. Russux, was watching me out of the corner of his eye. We were ascending the floors in one of the luxury elevators, with red velvet cushions softening the walls' harsh corners. The doors were steel, polished to a mirror-gleam. In the reflection, his gaze drifted towards me … I pretended not to notice.

We stood with our hands behind our backs and our feet shoulder-width apart. My hair had been tightened into a braid that curled against my neck, and my eyes stared straight ahead, shining a thin, glassy blue in the steel's reflection. A curl came loose from my braid, and I hurriedly tucked it behind one ear, the movement unusually clumsy. I was nervous.

A medal was pinned to my chest. The elevator empty of anything else to examine, I studied it for a moment. It was gold-plaited … did Vicky like gold? I couldn't remember. Her likes and dislikes had been fluctuating so dramatically between our conversations that it felt like I hardly knew her at all anymore.

After a while, Dr. Russux murmured, “General, are you sure you can keep a handle on things?” He had only been my therapist for the past month or so, but already he was beginning to sense my warning signs.

What could I say to that? 'Yes' would have been a lie. I had no idea
how
things were going to go. I was full of ache; it tightened my chest and my bone marrow, pinching in the joints of my spine so bad that I had a desperate urge to lay down on the elevator floor and stretch myself out. It was the sort of ache that could turn into anything. Tears, or screaming, or worse; the awful, acidic, eating-away-at-you feelings that didn't have names.

At my silence, his mouth formed a thin line. But he didn't question me further.

The mirrors blew open, and I found myself swarmed by hordes of scientists, other officers less well-known than myself, the other members of the General Quintet, and, of course, the reporters. I tipped the helmet over my eyes, and allowed General Keenan to grab my arm and lead me across the floor, to the Transmission room. There were flashes of cameras. Questions fell against me like droplets in a mist.

“General Hardwick, why is it that you are permitted to send messages to your child while others are forbidden to send transmissions to Earth?”

“Do you think your actions in this crisis make you a more deserving person?”

“Is the government still going ahead with the plans of demolition, or is the General Quintet having second thoughts?”

“In your personal opinion, do you think that Earth still has a chance?”

A door shut, and the reporters were left behind with the officers, who shooed them back into the Civilian quarters of the ship.

I could not keep in a growl. “When I find the soldier who let this leak, I'm going to personally ship him to the Sun and watch him burn.” General Keenan released my arm. The wrinkles around his eyes had deepened since our last meeting. His own medal gleamed in the light of the Transmission machines, whose screens, at the moment, were blinking a cheery yellow.

“I still don't understand why the Hell we're doing this,” he muttered. Dr. Russux put a hand on his shoulder, leaning in close to whisper in his ear. Of course, I could hear him anyway. Dr. Russux has the deep sort of voice that reverberates, no matter how quiet he tries to be.

“She needs some closure before we go ahead with the plans. If we don't do this, the combined guilt and grief would have devastating effects on her mental stability.” Then, even more quietly, “You know as well as I do how crucial she is to this entire operation.”

That's right, I thought to myself, the yellow screens burning like fire in my eyes. In military school, I had been classified as a brilliant strategist and coordinator, and sent flying through the ranks until I was pulled into the nose-bleed heights of the General Quintet.
I
had been the one who had gotten the ships up and running so quickly, once we realized the danger on Earth.
I
was the reason four billion people's lives had been saved.

And
I
was the reason that the other five billion had been left behind.

I cracked my neck to one side, as a team of scientists scuttled about and readied themselves for transmission. We had sent a message to Earth about ten minutes ago, so that Vicky's machine would be up and running by the time we were ready to transmit.

“Ready,” one of the lab coats squeaked. I came forward, adjusting the hem of my suit as I stood to stiff attention. The screen flickered closer to life. The four Generals and Dr. Russux retreated respectfully off-screen. Their eyes were hawk-like and watchful.

I held my breath as blizzards of pixels tumbled across the screen, before shrinking to make up shapes. Vicky's face came into view, and I exhaled, slowly. She had thinned since a week ago. Her skin was tight across the cheekbones, sunken around the mouth, shining with infection. Her eyes were the hollow and distant holes of a skull.

“Vicky?” I called, after taking a moment to clear my throat. Her eyes slid back to the screen, the thin lips splitting open in a smile. Her teeth were smaller than I remembered.

“Hey, mom.” Absently, she ran her fingers through her hair, not seeming to notice the clump she pulled out in the process. After a moment of deliberation, her expression twisted into a frown. “Why is your hair in a braid? I can't even tell how long it is.” Hurriedly, I slipped off the hair tie, releasing cascades of brown curls over my shoulders. Her grin returned. “See? You look pretty now.”

My throat closed up. I swallowed, and forced myself to return the smile. “So. How is Earth today? What color is everything?” The screen fizzled for a moment as she spun in a happy circle.

“Oh, mama, today it was so
lovely
. Orange grass, blue buildings, and the trees were this pinky sunset-orange-red. And the sky …” She spread her hands apart, as if gesturing at the atmosphere's awesome magnitude. “It was this brilliant, fluffy
white
. Like Heaven was being wrapped around us.”

I nodded, slowly. The colors of things changed every time I talked to her. Hallucinations were one of the symptoms that came from being infected.

Now, a more important question: “Are there any kids with you today?”

The infection has spread most widely in the youngest generation … almost everyone under fifteen years of age had been deemed too thoroughly diseased to be saved. They made up the bulk of the population that had been left behind.

The corners of Vicky's mouth pinched down, and her gaze went even glassier. “The rest of them fell asleep today.”

Behind me, I could hear the scientists whispering at each other. They had predicted that little more than .005% of the population left on Earth were still alive, at this point. They were probably pleased that their prediction had been correct.

“Aw, I'm sorry, honey.” Vicky rotated her shoulders in a shrug, accompanying the movement with a lopsided smile.

“That's okay. The Diddies are keeping me company. Look, Mom, I even made a necklace with them.” I tried to keep the frown out of my eyebrows. Last time I had spoken to her, Vicky had told me about Diddies; little furry purple creatures that lived in trash heaps and liked to make arts and crafts. She held up the necklace to the screen. Pieces of green and blue plastic bottle had been poked with holes and strung on metal wiring.

From their place behind my back, my hands were beginning to shake. I couldn't keep this up much longer.

Vicky's gaze snapped back to me, and for a moment, a golden clarity shone in their gray-brown depths. “Momma, what's wrong?” She had said this many times in our earlier conversations. Like, after I had asked her what two plus two was, and she had joyously responded, 'Nine.'

“Nothing, sweetheart,” I muttered, wiping a hand across my eyes. The silence from behind me was deafening. I couldn't stand this. My mind was swelling with vivid, painful memories … when she was born, the little jewel she was, how perfect, and knowing that
I
had grown her, me and Mike. Even when there were complications, even through the pain, the little baby was still so perfect. Victoria …

“I love you, baby,” I said, finally. I could hear the Generals' feet tapping, and knew that the moment of demolition was rushing closer. Vicky was staring at me, her eyes so, so beautiful, even in the hollowness.

“I love you too,” she said. Then, almost as an afterthought, “That's an ugly medal. Don't you know? I hate gold. It’s like the color of pee.”

Last week, I remembered, she had commented on how pretty and shiny the light gleamed off of the engravings.

A hand tapped my shoulder. “General, we're ready to close up,” a voice whispered in my ear.

I raised my hand in a stiff motion that could pass as a wave. The flash of anger passing, Vicky grinned, and waved one hand at the screen. Then her image faded into yellow.

I put a hand to my head.

“I'm sorry for your loss,” said General Keenan. I swallowed the urge to punch him in his fat belly. His children were all grown up. HIS children were safe on the ship. Besides, he had never given
birth
to any of them. Never
grown
any of them, never
suckled
or
cuddled
or
LOVED –

One of the Generals asked if I wanted to watch the demolition. I declined, and instead retreated to the elevator and, eventually, my room. The mattress was a plush comfort beneath my legs. I dimmed the lights until the ceiling was only a few faint blue degrees above black.

For a moment, in my head, I was watching Earth. Seeing red fire shoot out from the center, blowing off layers of atmosphere as they burned. The fire grew, the oceans were vaporized in a salty haze … then the ground cracked apart and blew outward, boiling deep red. And then it was over.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicole Tanquary is a writer who enjoys working with the 'speculative' genres. She has had pieces published by a menagerie of venues, including Something Wicked, The Colored Lens, Isotropic Fiction, The Again, Kzine, and, most recently, Plasma Frequency Magazine. She lives in central New York State, where she attends school and spends a lot of time in her head, which, fortunately, is an interesting place to be.