Revelation (8 page)

Michael gave a slow nod, and just like that, the meeting was over. We got up from our chairs and followed Michael out of the restaurant, toward the bank of elevators we had passed earlier.

“At least he agreed to set something up,” I said. “We got what we wanted.”

It was hard to tell if Boss Dragon was friend or foe, but for a gang lord, he didn’t seem that bad. Michael led us up some stairs, taking us to the third floor. The interior was dirty, smelling of dirt and must. I guess that’s what happened when a carpet hadn’t been properly cleaned in over thirty years. The doors – at least most of them – were still intact.

Michael led us to the end of the hall, opening a door on our left.

“You can stay here,” he said. “I’ll come back for you in the morning.”

Makara was going to be wondering where we were tonight. “Is there any way you can give Makara word about where we are?”

“Give me the right channel, and I can try contacting
Odin.”

I gave him the channel, and he brought the radio to his mouth.

“Odin
, you have a copy?”

He waited ten seconds or so, before trying again.

“Odin
, do you have a copy?”

“They must be off the ship,” Anna said. “You can try again later.”

“I’ll try to let her know what’s going on by tonight. As far as you guys stand, you have nothing to be afraid of. The Boss sees you as messengers, and he won’t do anything to provoke Makara. Stay here until morning. We’ll meet by the fountain. You can catch me up on everything then.”

Michael reached out a hand. I shook it.

“Alex. It’s good to see you alive. Try to stay that way.”

He nodded to Anna, and walked down the hall.

We went inside the dark hotel room, and locked the door behind us.

Chapter 8

The next morning, Anna and I sat on the edge of the empty fountain out front while Michael went to find breakfast. He came back a few minutes later with some corn bars and water.

“Sorry for the small portions,” he said. “We’re being careful about food around here with the Blighters around; our supply could be cut off at any time.”

“When is this meeting supposed to happen, specifically?” Anna asked, taking a big bite of her bar.

“Not sure, yet,” Michael said. “Probably sometime this afternoon. I’ll have my radio on me, so Boss Dragon will let me know the details when he arranges something.” Michael turned to me. “Now that we have some time, maybe you can catch me up on everything that has happened. How’d you get out of Bunker 108?”

So I told him – the whole thing. I started with the fall of Bunker 108, and getting out with Khloe. That all seemed so long ago. The memories were distant, but all the same, the cold fear of that night was still there, along with the pain of losing Khloe and my father.

“Me and my family must have gotten out just before you,” Michael said. “We headed for the motor pool and took one of the Recons.”

“Smart,” I said.

“It was one of the Recons that was already prepped with some supplies, so we were able to set out into the dust storm. We didn’t make it far that first night. I only went far enough to feel safe before parking near the mountain.”

“How’d you end up here?”

“I knew L.A. was bad, because of the Reapers, so I set off for Vegas from the start. On our way we ran into raiders and Blighters. We ran out of juice halfway, not able to find water to fuel the vehicle. We ditched the Recon and walked the rest of the way, making it to the Vegas outskirts a week after leaving Bunker 108. There, a Dragon patrol found us. Before they could do anything, they were ambushed by some Reds. I helped fight them off, and the Dragons right then and there led us into the city. They gave us food and water, and then I met Boss Dragon himself. He asked me to join up with him. So I did. Since then, my wife, daughter, and I are all staying here.”

“Where are they now?” I asked.

“Everyone works in Vegas,” Michael said. “They’re out in the fields, on the lake. I don’t want them to be out there, but there’s little choice. Anyone who can’t fight, works. I see them at night, though, when they come home.”

I picked up the story where I’d left off. I had to tell him about Makara first.

“Do you remember when you were with me on my first recon, and we came across the man from Bunker 114?”

Michael nodded, his brown eyes haunted. “How could I forget? That’s what started it all.”

“Well, at Bunker 114, they were studying the xenovirus. One of their test subjects escaped, infecting the first person it encountered. The xenovirus just...spread. That person we found – he had escaped from Bunker 114, and was coming to 108 for help, or to warn us. I still have no idea why Chan let him in that night.”

“So, what is the xenovirus?” Michael said. “I know from what you’ve said so far that it causes the Blighters.”

“It’s an alien virus that was buried in Ragnarok. It spreads the xenofungus. And now, it infects humans, turning them into Howlers. It created the xenodragons you now see flying around.”

“How do you know all this?” Michael asked.

“Makara, Samuel, Anna, and me...we’ve been through a lot. After Khloe died, I wandered the Wasteland for about a week before running into Makara. There’s something I need to admit – I saw her there, Michael. When we found that man, I saw her watching in the distance from behind a rock, but I didn’t say anything.”

Michael hesitated a moment, then finally understood what I was saying. “Why did you stay quiet?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Something kept me. I guess it was the shock more than anything. Makara ended up hiding again, and it was only later that I learned that she, or at least some of the raiders she was with, killed that man. Makara said they found him on the road, and that he was sick at the time.”

Michael’s expression darkened. “If she hadn’t had done that...” He looked at me. “If you had just said something...”

“I’ve thought about it a lot since then,” I said. “I’m not sure if anything could have been prevented. I think CSO Chan might have been expecting that guy from 114. He sure let him in quickly enough.”

“I don’t know about that,” Michael said. “I mean, wouldn’t Chan have said something to us? He probably would have said something to me, the senior patrol leader. I knew nothing about a visitor from Bunker 114.”

“Maybe not, then,” I said. “Whatever the case, I feel like the CSO knew something we didn’t. He might have known what happened at Bunker 114 even before we did.”

“So, it really is gone?”

I nodded. “Yeah. There’s nothing left. We’ve tried contacting other Bunkers, but nothing.”

Michael was quiet for a moment. “I was hoping for some good news, there. I was hoping that me and my family could leave here, one day, and find another Bunker, somewhere. I guess that won’t happen now.”

“Whatever happened,” I said, “Chan allowed that man inside Bunker 108. Maybe he saw it as a way to increase our understanding of the xenovirus. I didn’t see that at the time, but looking back, I think that might be why he let him in. He wanted news of Bunker 114’s fall. Both my father and Chan had no idea what would happen that night.”

“And the rest is history.” Michael shook his head. “It’s amazing we survived. Without my family, I don’t think I could have found the will to carry on.”

“I was the same way, until I met Makara. Long story short, we ended up in Bunker 114 not too long after, when Makara learned that her brother, Samuel, had gone there to investigate its fall. He led a team out of Oasis, and all of them ended up dying except for him. Well, we got into the Bunker, and discover something in its digital archive called the Black Files.”

“The Black Files?”

I nodded. “It’s just as bad as it sounds. The Black Files hinted at what the origins of the xenovirus were. And if we knew the origins, we might be able to find a way to stop it. But the Black Files weren’t in Bunker 114.”

“Where were they?” Michael asked.

“Bunker One.”

“And you
went
there?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t easy.”

Michael smiled. “Damn, it seems like you’ve seen more fighting in your first week out of 108 than I’ve seen in my life.”

“I’m surprised I’m still alive,” I said. “But we discovered the Black Files in Bunker One, in Cheyenne Mountain.”

“You just flat out
went
across the Great Blight?”

“Yeah,” I said. “We had no idea what we were in for.”

Michael shook his head again, eyes wide. “You’ve got brass balls, buddy.”

“Well, it was Samuel’s idea,” I said. “I wanted to just hole up in Oasis, to be honest.”

“So you crossed the Great Blight and found the Black Files. What happened after that?”

“Well, between all that I met Anna. She was Char’s personal bodyguard in Raider Bluff, and she agreed to guide us to the Great Blight. She ended up keeping her path crossed with ours. Now she’s here, helping us.”

“Anna,” Michael said, “all I have to say is, I’m sorry you met this guy.”

Anna smiled. “Yeah, well, I’ve decided to just roll with it at this point.”

“She’s an expert katana user,” I said. “Just wait until you hear about our vacation to Mexico.”

“Interesting choice of word there,” Anna said.

“I’ll fill in the details later,” I said, “but yeah, we made it to Bunker One, found the Black Files, and learned about the xenovirus. If no one stops it, the xenovirus will take over the world. So now, it’s kind of our crazy mission to stop it. What’s worse, there is this alien consciousness, located in Ragnarok Crater, called the Voice. We don’t know exactly
where
it comes from, but it seems to be directing all xenolife.”

“Well,” Michael said, pointing westward, “I don’t need any Black Files to tell me the world is being taken over. I see it every day.”

“Marcus said the exact same thing.”

“So, where does the spaceship come in?”

“About now, actually. After we discovered the Black Files, the Voice recognized that we were there, and sent an entire swarm after us. We managed to make it to Bunker One’s runway alive, but we were completely surrounded. We were about to die, when out of nowhere, a spaceship came down from the sky, extending a ladder for us to board.”

“Alright,
that’s
a little bit unbelievable...” Michael said.

“Well, it’ll make sense in a second. I’m leaving out a lot of details, but the spaceship turned out to be piloted by a man named Dr. Cornelius Ashton – the very author of the Black Files we had found. He had contacted us in the lab beforehand about getting to the runway. Anyway, we got into the spaceship, escaping the snapping jaws of death. Soon, we found ourselves living in a space city called Skyhome.”

“Skyhome?”

“The U.S. Government constructed it during the Dark Decade,” I said. “It was top secret, and intended as a backup for the President in case things on Earth went to hell. Which they did, but President Garland couldn’t escape Bunker One in time. However, Dr. Cornelius Ashton did, back in 2048. He has lived there with a community of Bunker survivors since then, continuing his research on the xenovirus – such as he can.”

“So, you’ve been in fallen Bunkers, the Great Blight, outer space...and then, Mexico?”

“That happened after. We were attempting to negotiate peace between Raider Bluff and Nova Roma. We had to meet Emperor Augustus to do that. But that didn’t work out. Mixed in with all that were slavers, gladiatorial matches, and finally, the dragons.”

“Holy shit,” Michael said. “You are seriously a badass among badasses. You’re not that same sixteen-year-old kid I took on his first stroll in the Wasteland.”

“I’ve changed a lot,” I said. “But all of what I told you leads up to why we’re here in the first place. Augustus is moving out with his army to conquer the Wasteland. The bulk of it won’t get here for a while, but there’s a good chance that the faster part will – the part that has vehicles and horses. Ashton has his own spaceship, called the
Gilgamesh
. He has his own errands to run right now, otherwise you’d have met him. But Ashton keeps us up to date on Augustus’s movements.”

“So, that’s why you’re recruiting?” Michael asked. “To stop Augustus?”

I nodded. “We won’t stand a chance against him unless we are united. Adding to the complexity is the fact that Carin Black is on his side.”

“The Black Reapers are allied with the Empire?” Michael asked.

“As far as we know. Augustus led us to believe as much, so that is the current thought process. We hope to have all the Vegas gangs behind us, at which point we’ll pick up anyone else willing to help along the way.”

“Along the way? Along the way to
where
?”

“To Los Angeles.”

Michael whistled. “That’s a little ambitious.”

“It has to be done,” I said. “We need to take out Black before the Empire arrives. Together, they will be unstoppable. And if we free the L.A. slaves, we’ll have a much larger army for it.”

Michael didn’t say anything for a while. I had given him a lot of information, and it would take time for him to make complete sense of it. Indeed, I had left a lot of information
out
, but I felt that I had given him enough to go on – at least, for now.

“I will do whatever I can to help you,” Michael said. “But it won’t be easy. If everything you say is true, then we need to get Makara to that meeting.”

“We should go, then,” Anna said.

We got up from the fountain, and walked away from the MGM Grand. Now lit, albeit dully, the ruin of the city was all more apparent. Las Vegas Boulevard was empty – we were the only three walking along it, though it was midmorning. It was something to be thankful for. For now, the gangsters were in their fortresses, which meant we could walk unimpeded down the dusty Strip. The hotels and casinos fell behind us, empty, forlorn, abandoned, layered with grime and dirt.

A massive, faded advertisement spread above the Strip itself, covering an enclosed bridge over the street between two of the newer casinos. It showed a man and woman wearing IUI glasses. IUI, shorthand for Immersive User Interface, had become increasingly prevalent beginning in the late 2010’s. Such technology of the past was amazing to think about – glasses that displayed information, in real time, about whatever object the user happened to be looking at. Such power seemed unreal. If I found a pair of those glasses today, even if they hadn’t been stripped of the batts, they would be useless. There were no more wireless networks to feed that information, no more information clouds to store all human knowledge. The only clouds now were the ones above, angry and red and perpetually blanketing the cold, bare Earth. If Ragnarok hadn’t come, who knows that kind of world I might have been born into?