Zero World (58 page)

“I’m sorry,” the man replied, “but this is nonnegotiable.”

“It’s fine,” Samantha said. “I’ll stay. I’m not going anywhere with this, am I?” She patted her bandaged leg.

“And when it’s healed? What if there’s still only us four?” Skadz asked.

Sam could only shrug.

“We’ll figure something out,” Skyler offered.

“Like what?” Skadz asked.

Skyler thought about it, finally gave a shrug that matched Sam’s.

For the first time since Braithwaite entered, Jake spoke up. “Easy,” the sniper said. “Priority one: Find more like us.”

The airport buzzed with activity. A few dozen aircraft had landed during the chaos of the first days of the disease, adding to an already crowded tarmac. It was an old airport, built long before the ultracap-fueled VTOL revolution. Instead of the modern array of heat-shielded launchpads, it had a three-kilometer-long runway plus all the usual ancillary taxi paths. Grafted on to this maze of concrete were dozens of hangar buildings and retrofitted launchpads. A new terminal to replace the original had been planned but construction had only ever proceeded as far as demolishing the original. Skyler gathered the shift in focus to Nightcliff, along with dozens of private launchpads atop buildings all across the metropolis, had alleviated much of the need for the new structure. Politics had probably gotten in the way.

In the aftermath of the disease the situation in and around the airport was chaotic, to say the least. Skyler once again let Skadz take the lead, this time in navigating the politics of the place. Residents, both old and new, claimed ownership of the various structures along the runway. Things evolved by the hour, with old recreational pilots showing up to claim their hangar and aircraft from squatters, then leaving a short time later with a payment that changed their perspective, or perhaps not leaving at all, having either rousted whoever had tried to claim their property or finding themselves at the wrong end of a gun for their efforts.

This all changed, somewhat, when the immunes arrived. News spread like floodwater, partly because of the rumored capabilities of the three men, and partly because they’d arrived with a sizable military and police escort. The legitimacy of such organizations
might be in doubt, but the capability of their weapons no one questioned.

Skadz had a mandate from Nightcliff to pick a hangar, whichever he liked, and Skyler did not envy the task. There was not a place along the entire runway someone hadn’t claimed as their own. Whichever one Skadz chose would ultimately require an ousting.

“That one,” Skyler suggested, pointing toward a modest hangar. The building had a sign above the massive door that read CROC TOURS!

“Why?” Skadz asked.

“Near the middle, so we don’t feel like outsiders here. Plenty of room inside for the
Mel.
And look at the roof.”

“What about it?”

“Toward the back. That big flat section, like a sundeck or patio or something. We could grow some food up there.”

Skyler kept one last observation to himself. Of all the hangars they’d passed, this one seemed to have only a single occupant: an old sour-faced woman. She stood in front of the hangar door dressed in a dirty shift, arms folded across her chest and a dark scowl on her face. Scowl or not, she stood alone. And through the gap in the door behind her, there was no aircraft.

“The owner doesn’t look happy,” Skadz observed.

“Yeah, but she’s alone and I see no plane inside. Let’s talk to her.” The woman resisted at first. Told them to leave, that she wasn’t leaving, that she wouldn’t sell or be bullied. Skadz proved adept once again in dealing with people. Charm seemed to radiate off the man, and inside five minutes they were sitting inside with the old lady, sipping iced tea, as the escort of soldiers waited outside.

“My husband and I ran this business for twenty-two years,” she explained, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“He was out there when…?” Skyler trailed off, silenced by the look in her eyes.

She held his gaze for a moment and then something broke inside her. She began to sob. Skadz moved to sit next to her and put his arm
around her. A minute passed before she could speak. “Hal took four students out that day. Made him coffee that morning, and he didn’t say thanks. We’d fought the night before. About money, same as always. I never…I never thought the last time I’d ever see him we’d be angry at each other. It’s not supposed to end like that.”

“No, it isn’t,” Skadz said. The tenderness in his voice was genuine.

“You’re a pilot?” the woman said to him, suddenly.

“Nah, I’m just me. He’s the pilot.” Skadz gestured toward Skyler.

The old woman looked at him, then back to Skadz. “And it’s true what they said? You’re immune to the disease?”

Skadz nodded.

She gathered herself then. “You want my hangar. The hangar my husband and I ran our lives out of for so many years.”

Skyler held up his hands defensively. It was Skadz who spoke. “We did, but there’s no way—”

“It’s yours,” she said instantly. “On one condition. Bring him back. Bring Hal home so I can bury him.”

The rest was details. She needed a place to stay, and though Skadz offered to let her live on in the hangar, her desire to do so had vanished. Safe passage to her sister’s house in the Narrows was her request, and Skadz got one of the soldiers to agree to take her there.

Skyler didn’t know it then, but the return of remains from beyond the aura would be a constant request in the years to come. One that often led to trouble, and disappointment, and heartbreak. And, eventually, such a request would lead to a mission that changed the world, again.

“First things first,” Skadz said. “We need a safe house. Somewhere outside, stocked and secure. A place we can go if the shit goes down.”

Skyler shook his head. They’d been at it for hours, all through the afternoon and past a meager dinner. Heavy rain drummed against the thin sheet metal of the hangar roof, almost drowning the distant
sounds of gunfire in Darwin’s anarchic slums. Almost, but not quite. Part of him wanted to be out there, helping. That part felt shackled, though. Hidden away beneath the shock of everything that had happened, and the distance of hope for what would come. The city was stratifying into the sort of place one would never willingly choose to live, much less thrive. It had become a prison for the last vestiges of humanity. At the airport’s lone functioning tavern someone had speculated it would take a few thousand years for humanity to return to its former glory, and that assumed the disease was cured tomorrow. Every day spent trapped here was a day closer to extinction.

The
Melville
rested in the center of the large hangar, her engines exposed, halfway through the laborious cleaning process. She’d be ready to fly in two days, Skyler thought. Whether or not he, Skadz, and Jake would have agreed on a first mission by then remained to be seen, but the chances seemed dim. Everything seemed dim. He felt a bit jealous of Samantha, still lying in that hospital bed. The token stay-behind, waiting for new skin to grow along her leg. Four weeks, the doctors estimated. He hoped they weren’t poking and prodding her too much.

“Hmm,” Jake managed to say at the safe-house idea. In the man’s parlance this constituted a stiff rebuke. Skyler liked Jake a lot.

“From my perspective,” Skyler said, leaning back in the folding chair in which he sat, “everything beyond the aura is our safe house. Why settle on one? If things get ugly here, we fly to an island. Somewhere isolated. And wait.”

“What if that island has no supplies we can use?”

“Not an issue,” Skyler said. “Stock the
Melville
with a week’s worth of food for three, and all we need is a place to charge her caps. We can do that just about anywhere.”

“Long as the grid remains up,” Jake interjected.

“Yeah,” Skadz agreed eagerly. “What he said.”

“There’s mini-thors everywhere. They’ll run for decades unattended. Power won’t be a problem for us for some time.”

Skadz folded his arms across his chest. “I’d still feel better if we
had a place to go. Maybe something walking distance from the aura, in case we don’t have an aircraft to use someday.”

There was some wisdom in that. Skyler couldn’t bring himself to outright agree, not after so many hours of arguing, so he said nothing instead.

“Gentlemen, good evening,” a new voice suddenly said, from somewhere near the
Melville
.

Skyler fell over in his already-leaning chair. He scrambled to his feet. Skadz and Jake had fanned out to either side of the newcomer. Jake had a pistol in his hand, and stood with the sort of semi-crouch a trained killer used when cornered.

“Who the hell are you?” Skadz demanded. “How’d you get in here?”

“Relax, I am unarmed. My name is Prumble,” the man said. He had a mild New Zealander accent and a booming, jovial tone, like a journeyman playactor who never knew when to turn off the stage presence. “As for entry, that was trivial. The locks on this building are pathetic.”

“You broke into the wrong place, friend,” Skadz said.

“On the contrary,” Prumble said, “I didn’t
break
anything. The lock—and I use that term loosely—on your back door still functions just fine. In fact even the most astute forensic investigator would never know it had been tampered with. I was a locksmith in my past life, you see.”

Skadz, weaponless, glanced somewhat nervously at Jake and then Skyler. The three of them had been pestered endlessly about their unusual status since arriving. A number of people, from curious to downright crazy, had already come calling at the airport gate for them, only to be turned away.

“Be that as it may,” Skadz said, “you still came to the wrong place. Piss off.”

“I’m exactly where I want to be,” Prumble replied. “You’re the immunes, are you not?”

“So what if we are,” Skyler said. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here to offer my services,” Prumble replied. “Everyone is talking about you. And once people realize you’re able to move around outside the city they’ll never leave you alone.”

“Offering your services as a locksmith?”

“For a start.” Prumble came to stand between the three of them, his hands splayed out to show their emptiness. He bowed slightly. “I propose a trade.”

“What trade?” Skadz asked.

Prumble swiveled his head from speaker to speaker. “I will perform a full upgrade on the security of this building for you. And in exchange, I require something from beyond the aura.”

“What exactly do you need?” Skadz asked.

Skyler leaned forward, interest piqued. Lured in by the stage actor voice or the promise of something important, he didn’t know, but he already liked where this was going. It was one way to settle the argument as to the nature of the group’s first excursion, at least.

“There is a factory,” Prumble said, “in Perth, wherein a company called Kastensauer manufactures lock mechanisms. Are you boys up for a little adventure?”

Many thanks to my team: Sara, Mike, Sarah, Jerry, Wayne, Beth, David, Greg, Keith, Joe, Dave, and everyone else who helps bring these stories to life. And, of course, my support staff here at home: Nancy, Nathan, and Ian.

Thanks are due as well to all the readers who helped make my books successful. I’ll never quite get over the idea that people out there are reading the stories I’ve written, much less enjoying them. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Also, my gratitude and boundless admiration for all the authors I’ve met in the last year. Thank you for welcoming me into the community.

With love and tacos,

Jason

ZERO WORLD

THE DIRE EARTH CYCLE

NOVELS

THE DARWIN ELEVATOR

THE EXODUS TOWERS

THE PLAGUE FORGE

NOVELLA

THE DIRE EARTH

J
ASON
M. H
OUGH
was born in Illinois but grew up on the mean streets of suburban San Diego, California. In 1978, when he was six, his parents took him to see
Star Wars,
and so began a lifelong love of sci-fi and all things geek. He later worked for a decade in the videogame industry as a 3D artist and a game designer. Today he lives in Seattle with his wife and two young sons. When not writing, Hough enjoys building LEGO spaceships with his boys and other similarly grown-up pursuits.

jasonhough.com

Facebook.com/hough

@JasonMHough