Point Apocalypse (3 page)

The only known portal to Pangea was on the Kola Peninsula which had prompted a commercial approach as Russia started accepting convicts from other countries. The rapidly depleting oil supplies together with a chain of world crises had triggered a wave of riots and civil wa
rs in virtually every country on the globe, filling foreign prisons to the roofs with unhappy undesirables.

I hesitated, unsure whether striking up a conversation with them was a healthy thing to do. I could wait for the line-up call or just blend in with the crowd.

"I think I know who you are," the man said. "But I'm not a hundred percent sure."

The day seemed to be rich in surprises.

"If I could have a look at your back, that would eliminate many questions," he added.

"Negative," I decided to bid for time until the line-up call. "Any more suggestions?"

"None."             

"Think well."

The sallow-faced man gave me a vaguely guilty look. "Then you're toast."

The miner and two of the clones were an easy job: they stood too close to each other leaving
themselves little space to maneuver. The others could take a bit of time but overall, I should meet the combat training standards. But what would I gain - getting sent to the cooler?

That was one place I shouldn't be in. If I picked the fight, I'd give FSA agents the perfect excuse to lock me up and take me out at their leisure.

"Pointless dragging it out," the sallow face said. "We're attracting attention. You don't need it."

He rubbed his pale sunken cheek and added,

"Fighting is no good, either."

"Know your implants?"

He shrugged. On brief reflection, I said, "Back off."

I walked to the gate, all the time knowing this wasn't the best alternative, but I had no other option. I turned to the clones and the old man, "Gather around. We don't need the others to gawk."

When they shielded me from unwanted stares, I pulled the T-shirt up and glanced back at the man. "Well?"

"I told you, didn't I?" the old man glared at me. "Look at all them scars!"

Sallow face raised his hand, silencing him. Then he came closer as did the miner. Cold fingers touched my back and shoulder blade points and traced my spine down to the small of my back.

"You can get dressed...
Private."

I turned to him straightening my T-shirt and stated, "You're a neurotech."

"So he's not an-" the old man stopped short.

"No," sallow
face offered me his hand. "I'm Wladas Chabrov. Chartered neurotech."

I paused, then shook his hand. "I'm Mark."

Wladas nodded. No words needed: only chartered specialists had access to the military. He could see at once the placement and purpose of my implants. The miner, however, took time to take it in.

"Name, rank, sentence?" he asked me like the mind check operator.

"Quiet, Petro!" the neurotech mouthed.

I glanced at the
faces surrounding me. The clones watched me, still uptight. The old man fidgeted, his wrinkly hands trembling.

"Relax, Misha,"
Wladas touched the old man's shoulder and went on in a quiet voice, "Everyone, relax. Mark could have killed us all here in his own sweet time. With or without implants, his combat potential is high enough. I'd say, a couple units? Two point five, maybe?"

His words fell on deaf ears as our professional mumbo jumbo meant nothing to lay people.

"Allow me to translate," I said. "Combat potential is what we call a soldier's qualification levels. All of you put together might average two combat units. Not even. My potential equals three combat units. Four, with implants installed."

As I said it, I realized that
Wladas had just given me another check. FSA agents used a different qualification system. Had I been one of them, I'd have explained it differently.

His mouth twitched suppressing a sneer.

"What makes you stick together?" I asked.

They ordered us to line up. The crowd began to fall into ranks, quickly and efficiently this time. The miner, the neurotech and myself were in the first file, followed by the trip
lets. One of them shouldered away the Chinese who tried to wriggle in with us.

"He's weird,"
Wladas said.

"Yeah," I watched as the Asian took his place in the third file next to old Misha. "His buddy has
croaked in the air lock. Maybe not his buddy. They could've had nothing to do with each other."

"I saw it."

"So what do you think?"

"Nothing,"
Wladas shrugged. "No one can smuggle an implant to Pangea. The Asians tailgated you through the disinfection corridor like you had honey on your ass. One definitely did. The other could just be hanging around for all we know. We even tried to pick a fight with them - no way," he rubbed his cheek. "They didn't buy it. And you were deaf to the world, you! Schlepping along like a cyber trooper."

Aha. So they'd kept an eye on me. Tried to get into a fight. Now what would they need me for? Or - why did
he
need me?

"You didn't answer my question," I glanced back at the triplets. Their glares were lasering a hole in my head.

"They're Petro's clones," Wladas whispered.

"I've worked that out. Are they miners?"

"They are. I helped them adapt after implant removal on the way here."

It made sense. A certified neurotech meets a few fellow convicts in transit. He helps them. The tribulations of trial and prison followed by deportation can be too much even for a specially trained man. Some clam up, others seek contact hoping for some support or try to secure a place in the prison hierarchy. If you looked around you could see that the crowd consisted of smaller affinity groups. They tried to stick together knowing they had to survive the ultimate tribulation: life on Pangea. The old man didn't look as if he belonged in
Wladas' group, but I left it till later.

"Why did you follow me?" I asked. Their attention worried me a lot.
First the Chinese exploded in the air lock, then the mind block freeze, followed by the software in my head. I couldn't help connecting the morning's events looking for a trend and an explanation.

"It was Misha. He's a political prisoner, been rioting against the system. He pointed you out. H
is idea was, you were an FSA agent. Planted by the Feds to stir the shit. We meant to check you out in the corridor but couldn't. The Asians were constantly in our way."

"Which was-?"

"They just didn't let us close. Like they were covering you or something."

I didn't have time to think it over. The electric motors whirred within the walls pulling the doors in front of us open. The white-hot midday sun hit our eyes. I shielded my face with my hand and squinted at the thin strip of rocky land past the gate. Beyond it, the surf washed against the shore driving turquoise waves onto the rocks. The sky far overhead was clear and equally turquoise. The wind smelled of brine as it splattered me in the face. The ocean lay before me. Far beyond, rose the shores of Pangea.

Chapter Two

The Ferry Boat

"F
orward march!" bawled from our right.

Four Feds guarded the exit. They wore heavy Centurion suits with integrated exoskeletons and jetpacks on their backs. The men held combined weapon systems. Diodes gleamed on their television sight unit
s mounted on the barrel housing, ready for action. The red dot of a laser sight slid across my chest and jumped onto Wladas. I could almost see target markers flash as the ballistic calculators sent their data back to the guards' helmets, and nearly ducked aside to escape the estimated field of fire. I put out one leg and swayed to my left.

"Keep in line!" the nearest guard barked.

I stepped back cursing my army instincts. A Fed with corporal's insignia walked in front. On his shoulder I could see two dark stripes covered with some strange substance. It emitted a colored light when seen through an infrared device: same as the army friend-or-foe system. The other three stayed put but didn't lower their weapons.

The corporal led us to the pier. The sun was at its zenith - and it wasn't our Earth sun, either, but a blinding ball of fire, scaringly larger and whiter than the one we're all used to.

The tall L-shaped pier projected a good fifty meters into the sea. There, safe from the bulging waves, was moored the ancient hulk of a ferry boat. The ocean breathed fresh and vital. This wasn't the continent yet: there, the further you were from the sea, the harder it was to breathe. The desert air tasted dry and bitter, and the swamps left a sweet and sticky aftertaste of toxic vapors...

I got out of step, then realized that my brain had soaked up the information from the software unpacking in my head. I'd never been to Pangea before and couldn't have known any of those desert and swamp things.

I relaxed and marched on with the other inmates. I licked my salty lips, took a deep breath and shielded my face from the sun. Far beyond, several miles away from the base, the Continent Anomalous stretched out its brown southern shore.

The continent non-existent on Earth, one that
had come to life during a daring scientific experiment. It had been nearly forty years since Boris Neumann, the then-emerging prodigy of military physics, had carried out trials of a new type of non-lethal weapon. Supposedly non-lethal, that is. His electronic bomb was designed to scorch soldiers' implants which was why the Feds only equipped their special forces' men with them. From what I heard, these days the Feds tended to experiment with chemicals to see if they could affect the human brain - so that they could abandon neuromodules altogether. Anyway, what had happened was that they'd exploded an electronic bomb at their Kola Peninsula test site. But its air blast emitters, instead of targeting the enemy's simulation command center complete with working communications system and a tracking station, had born down into nothing creating a wormway that led to Pangea Anomalis.

I'd no idea why Neumann had dubbed it so. Never asked myself why. I'd heard, of course, that Pangea was the
name given to the ancient protocontinent that had broken apart creating the Earth's continents as we knew them. Only the Earth's Pangea had been enormous, and Pangea Anomalis was half the size of Australia although its wild life looked similar to that on Earth.

Pangean tigers live in prides hunting not by night but during daylight
, the Information's voice resounded in my head. I kept walking trying not to betray the fact that I had an illegal piece of software working in my head. The Information kept going on about the tigers: apparently, if you intruded into their territories, they would hunt you down and kill you. My brain was soaking up the data. My head boomed, blood pulsating in my temples and sending a hammering pain to the back of my neck.

Then, blurred and unstable at first, a map came into my mental view.

Sketchy but clear, it collided with reality and hindered my perceptions. I stumbled, causing the corporal to swing around. His weapon system's barrel jerked toward me.

"Keep in
line!" I heard from under the mirrored visor.

Finally, the map faded away. I gave a sigh of relief. The corporal led the group onto the pier and ordered us to stop, then walked down the gangway onto the ferry's lower deck. It was barred all around and formed a large cage slightly rocking with the waves. The corporal crossed the cage inside, looked around, then headed back and started climbing the steep stairs that lead to the captain's bridge.

The ferry was quite big - bulky and squat - with spots of rust here and there. Two sailors stood aft, wearing light-colored canvas shorts and orange safety vests. Positioning themselves under the arm of the crane, they argued with a third crew member overhead who was tugging at the levers of the hoist trying to land a rusty ten-ton container onto the slipway.

A fat bald man came out of a deckhouse that rather resembled a riveted armored pillbox. He scratched
his suntanned belly which hung above white shorts, stretched and yawned, then noticed the prisoners' column down at the pier. For a couple of seconds he stared at us, as if unable to grasp what he was seeing, then grabbed at the railing and leant over the stairs. The corporal shouted something, and the fat one hurried toward the sailors lurking under the crane.

"I have a funny feeling they brought us out earlier than usual,"
Wladas said.

"Could be," I agreed. "The sky above the base is getting dark."

"Where do you see that?" the burly miner said next to me. "It couldn't be clearer."

"Petro, wait. You don't know about this,"
Wladas turned to me. "I can see it, too. It's getting very murky right above the Fort. Have you any idea what's going on?"

The island was oblong, by the looks of it. The fort
that had been built around the portal was surrounded by towering walls that ran the island's entire perimeter. Above it protruded a few segments of ancient parabolic dishes. I knew too little about Neumann's experiment: just bits of trivia of what had happened forty years ago. The wave from the electronic bomb that had created the wormway to Pangea had also caused the test site to collapse, together with its tropospheric station and part of the Kola Peninsula. Later, they had erected the inward-sloping wall around the base. Keeping the wormway stable demanded a shitload of power so they'd been forced to build a nuclear power station right on the base. The concrete top of its reactor peeked above the wall to our left. Rusty mesh parabolic dishes, several hundred square meters each, stood on tall steel supports behind the walls. The dishes had been mounted close to the center of the island and were oriented toward the cardinal points at opposing angles to each other. They were the only old installations left intact. The rest had been encased in steel and concrete, turning the base into an impregnable sarcophagus. Our scientists couldn't forecast the consequences of the wormway's collapse. The wave's nature was still classified research. I remembered a geek from our army school tell me that if they tried to shut the wormway down, it could cause a major catastrophe. Apparently, our continuum would collapse turning the entire Solar System into a new black hole...