Future Reborn Read online

  “Where am I?” I asked again, and the result of my question was electric.

  “You speak our language. Pretty good,” growled the man on the right. He was shorter, but still athletically built under the array of survival gear. “Who are you?”

  “I do? No shit. I do.” I made a series of connections in my mind that led me back to the first shot Marsten gave me. Cold, my ass. I recalled the conversation between him and Dana as the term bots came to mind. Whatever the shot had been, medicine wasn’t in it. My vocal chords hummed with low-level pain, though it was fading with each passing second. I was adapting, and fast, which meant a lot of things to someone who was born with a healthy sense of self-preservation.

  “You do,” came the metallic grunt. They both spoke through filters, making me wonder just what I was breathing. I felt fine, if stiff and confused. Inhaling deeply, I took an experimental lungful of air and pronounced it safe. The smell was off, but it was clean air, free of the city smells I was used to. The voice came again, carrying a hint of irritation. “Who are you?”

  I crossed my legs to get comfortable, letting my arms fall to the sand but stopped midway. Something was wrong with my body.

  “Not wrong. Right,” I muttered, looking down at the expanse of my skin. For the tenth time in as many seconds, my heart skipped a beat as I took in my chest, arms, and legs. I had fucking abs. A year of booze and takeout food and I woke up with actual rippling abs. I hadn’t seen them since high school, let alone after I went into the Marines.

  The nanobots. Marsten’s voice drifted through my consciousness. He said I would be reborn. He wasn’t fucking lying. I continued to marvel at myself, lifting one hand and then the next, searching for a flaw. There were none. I glowed with health, that is if the sun didn’t turn me into a lobster first.

  The tube groaned and tilted sideways, lurching into the sand a few feet away. There were remains nearby, concrete walls of modern construction, but scarred from wind and weather. A trench surrounded the ruins. Someone had been busy exposing the structure to the air.

  “Jack Bowman. Call me Jack. Now it’s my turn. Again, where am I?” I directed my question with as much force as I could while sitting stark naked in hot sand, but I thought it came out fairly well.

  “In the Empty, but you’d know that if you looked around,” said the taller man. Okay, so wherever I was, people could still be sarcastic assholes. At least I had something familiar to cling to.

  “The Empty? And you are?” I pointed to them, inviting an introduction. I might be naked, but I wasn’t rude.

  The tall one jerked a thumb at his partner. “Bel. I’m Mira.”

  “Bel and Mira. Guess letters cost money when you got your names. What are you doing out here, other than hammering me out of my nap?”

  “Digging. Obviously.” This time, the short guy Bel made the funny. They were a regular comedy team.

  “For what? For me?” Heat rose in my cheeks, and it wasn’t just the sun.

  “For anything from the Hightec. It’s worth more than water, given the right buyer, and we have our ways of finding it. Like you, and whatever it is you were in.” After glancing at the tube, they both shook their heads in mourning. “It won’t sell now, except for metal. The light died when you fell out. Boards might still be good.” Mira stood, pulling his pack around to open it and rummage.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, hoping he was going to hand me the waterskin. I licked my lips and stared at the bulging skin. The sun was taking its toll with each minute.

  “You’ll get sun sick. This helps,” he grated. He handed me a loose shirt and pants, then looked at my feet for a long moment. “There are boots on the wagon, but they’re rough. You’ll need something better if you’re to get out of the Empty alive.”

  I slid the shirt on with some effort, bones creaking from disuse, but would have to stand to put the pants on. “Help me up?”

  “Fine,” they said in unison. Pulling me to my feet, it was a swaying minute before my body stabilized enough to let me attempt the pants. After three failed attempts, I lurched into the pair of scavengers while they pulled the pants on, one leg at a time. The material was synthetic, stiff, and lined with something that felt like silk. The pattern was desert camo, but a kind I’d never seen before. The shirt matched but was lighter by several shades, a neutral tan that faded into my skin like something at the edge of your vision.

  “Can I have some of that?” I pointed at the waterskin closest to me, on the taller man’s hip. With a sigh of disgust, he unhooked it and passed it over.

  “Small sips. It’s not water,” Mira explained.

  “It’s not?” I held the open skin a few inches from my mouth, waiting for more information. It seemed like the smart move, given the entire situation. “How do I know I can trust two men in the desert who dig up rust for a living?”

  “Drink it and see,” came the reply, again in unison. They must be brothers or just spent too much time in the desert with each other.

  I drank. It was cool and tasted like a plant I couldn’t recognize, neither sweet nor bitter. It was amazing. “What is that?”

  “Heart of the cactus. Tough to get to, but a lot better than water. We climb to find entry points up in the highest parts. They’re taller than that.” Bel pointed at the two-story building that had once been a clinic.

  I whistled in appreciation. I felt a hell of a lot better, and the flavor was growing on me. “That’s a serious task. Takes balls of steel to try it.”

  With snorts of laugher, they knelt down and began prying their masks off, unwrapping the cloth and breaking the masks away from their faces.

  “No balls. But it does take guts,” Mira said. She was taller than her sister—or cousin—they looked nearly identical except for hair color—their long hair beginning to blow in the desert breeze. Both had dark blonde hair—although Mira’s had a golden undertone, reminding me of honey—olive skin, and freckles. They were beautiful. Not the kind of processed beauty I’d know before my big nap, but a natural, visceral beauty brought about by good genes, sun, and work.

  “Surprise,” came Mira’s musical voice, as Bel smiled, revealing even, white teeth. I thought scavengers would be anything but gorgeous women. I was wrong. Both women were stunning, their green eyes radiant in the sun.

  After composing myself, I regarded them in turn. The situation had changed, and fast. I was no longer marooned in a desert without pants. I was marooned in a desert with pants and two beautiful women who knew their way around a hostile landscape. A fountain of questions came to mind, but I settled down on the sand and waved them to join me.

  “Very funny, but you still haven’t answered my question,” I told them as they sat down.

  Mira held up a finger. “But we did. You’re in the Empty, and you’re damned lucky we found that—whatever that Hightec thing is that you were wrapped in. It was under three feet of sand, by the way. We never would have found it if a storm hadn’t blown through last night. It broke off the wall and blew enough sand away to show us the lid.”

  “The blue light means money. Thought it was a treasure,” Bel said.

  “It is. You found me,” I told them, waving grandly. It never hurt to be confident around women who’ve already seen you naked, and I still needed boots. And food. And answers.

  Mira laughed, while Bel groaned. It was better than open hostility, so I pressed my luck. “What’s next?” I asked.

  “For you? I don’t know. We haven’t found nearly enough to go to trade. Got enough supplies for another week, and now we have you,” Mira said.

  “We have to keep digging, fast as we can. The sun will set, and we can’t work at night. Too dangerous,” Bel said, looking out into the distance. She reached for one of her blades out of habit, a motion I recognized at once. When the sun went down in Iraq, the night became something different. My rifle became my rosary; always in hand and a great comfort.

  “What’s out there, Bel?” I asked her, one soldier to an
other.

  She took a long time to answer, but when she did, her eyes were flat with worry. “Everything.”

  3

  Night fell with a purple sigh.

  One moment, the last smudge of light fell into a bruised sky, and then it was dark. The wind died, the temperature dropped, and the air grew still. We set camp inside the tallest wall that looked stable, mere feet from the office door I’d walked in to begin my adventure of sleep study some time ago. As to exactly how long that was, I intended to find out, but not until after eating. My stomach was painfully empty, and Mira started a small, hot fire of dried sticks, placing long pieces of jerky over it to sizzle.

  “What is that?” I asked. I’d eaten far worse in the military, so my question was idle curiosity.

  She uttered a word I didn’t catch, then put her hands together like the fins of a fish.

  “We’re eating a mermaid? I didn’t exactly see any water around here,” I told her. I didn’t have a problem with eating mermaids, as long as they removed the scales. I have standards.

  “I know what you mean, but no. This is fish. A bad one. It can attack on land as well, which is why they kill scavengers and caravans,” Bel told me, turning the cured jerky.

  “A fish on land? How big?” I took a piece from Mira, biting into it without waiting. It was scorching hot. It was also the best thing I’ve ever eaten. I finished it in three bites and looked at the rest. When Bel nodded toward the fire, I took another, settling back on my haunches to eat.

  “Bigger than you. A jaw full of teeth, and bony armor. They’re fast and quiet. Black as night and can wrap themselves in mud for years at a time. Only when you hear them rasping, that’s when—”

  “Lungfish, we called them, but they were the size of my fist. Very small.” I wiped my hands, swigging cactus water and thinking. Things had changed, of that much I was certain. There were so many questions to ask, I decided to start with what would help me. “You say you’re out here finding Hightec, old things, right?”

  “Very old,” Mira answered.

  “So, they’re not made anymore, but people still understand some things about them?” I asked.

  “Few people understand the old things at all, and no one works with metal, or chips, or even wiring. Not even glass unless it’s salvage. The world is broken, but a few of us pick through the leavings of a people who lived before the virus. Before the shattering of everything. What’s left is what you see. Almost nothing,” Mira said. She was stunning in the firelight, her face a maze of angles and emotion.

  “Mira, what virus?” I asked. The word made a chill crawl up my spine, and I feared the answer.

  Turning to me, her eyes were wide and clear in the dim light. Bel settled in to sharpen her knives, facing away from us in quiet dismissal. I knew she liked speaking less than Mira, so I let her be. I would find my answers with her sister.

  “There are many kinds of life, Jack, and none of them good. Some say it was a virus that changed the animals and people, reshaped the world, but I don’t know,” she said. “Before that, there was a great war of some kind, but I can’t say for sure. No one can.”

  I peered up at the stars, and to my relief, recognized the same constellations. “How long?”

  “The virus?”

  “Yes, and no. How long was I asleep?” I hoped that my eye would flash an answer, but there was nothing. Only the dark sky and blaze of stars.

  “Long enough that you were under twenty feet of sand,” Mira said.

  I was quiet for a moment. “Where did it strike first?”

  “Mar-surrah, I think, but legends are lies. Who knows? Could have been at a place called the Arch—that’s where most of the stories start,” Mira said. “But again, these are all just rumors and fables. In one version, there is a dragon and fallen gods. Another speaks of the sky cracking in two with a hot light, tearing a hole so deep that it opened a path to Hell. It depends which people you ask, but they all lead to where we are today, here in the Empty.”

  It looked like she was combing through memory to tell me the story, and a jolt of recognition hit me. Missouri. The Arch. Had to be a bioweapon. I felt sick for a place that no longer existed, and grief came home to roost. I wondered if my ex-wife had died badly. She had been a quiet woman, prone to depression and loneliness. People like her wouldn’t have done well in a global crisis. No one would have done well.

  “I want to know where else, but there’s something more important to me, Mira. When? Do you know when this happened?” I asked. I had to grieve for my world, and I needed a number.

  “I don’t know. There are liars who say they know, but they tell fortunes and pretend to use Hightec like magic. It’s all a show of falsehoods. The only thing that truly matters is tomorrow, and surviving the night,” Mira said.

  The bottom of my stomach dropped like I was thrown off a cliff. The night spun, then grew still. Bel sat up, and Mira took my hand. Everything I knew was dead. Ashes. Gone, buried under sand and forgotten things.

  “How long were you trapped in the tech, Jack?” Bel asked from across the fire.

  It took me time to compose myself, not from sadness alone, but wonder. I was dumbstruck by the slip between times, all while I slept because of an unscrupulous doctor and my own need for money. Neither could help me now.

  “Depends on when the virus—or whatever it was—struck down my people, but I aim to find out.”

  “You should let the dead stay buried. Move on and live,” said Mira.

  I stared at her for a second. “My entire world is dead, but yours is struggling to breathe. From what I’ve seen so far, it ain’t much better.” My words fell like stones. Neither sister moved, silenced by the gulf of time that existed between us. I was another life form to them, as alien as if I had fallen from the stars.

  They were quiet at that, then Mira took my hand again. Her grip was tight but kind and feminine, and I felt a second jolt in as many minutes, but this was far more welcome than the first. “We have to dig tomorrow, and we will continue to answer your questions if we can. I’ll take first watch. You need sleep, Jack.”

  “Been sleeping. I’ll stand watch with you if that’s okay.”

  She laughed, sliding closer to point into the sky. I followed her finger just in time to see a silver streak overhead. “The Travelers. Something left over from your people, maybe?”

  I raised my brow. “A satellite still in orbit? That would be almost impossible. They came back to earth after decades, not centuries.” Thinking it through, I revised my opinion of the silent light that burned southward. “I thought sleeping my life away was impossible. I thought healing was a lie, and the end of the world was a fantasy. Who knows?”

  She leaned against a section of fallen masonry, stretching her legs closer to the fire. With a metallic ring, she drew a long blade, the wicked edge gleaming in the firelight. “Tomorrow, we find you a weapon. You’ll need it. Can you fight?”

  “I was a soldier,” I told her. When she lifted a brow, I explained. “Soldiers are good at certain things. We dig. We complain. We’re expert drinkers and given the chance, we—” I stopped myself before I mentioned how fun we were in bed. Better to save that bit of info for another time.

  Her smile was knowing. “Soldiers are all the same, no matter what world they come from. I’m a soldier, too.”

  I let my eyes linger over her body, and knew she was right. Together, we listened to the night, pretending not to notice how close we were to each other as Bel slept under the wheeling stars.

  4

  Dawn broke, and I opened my eyes, reluctantly. There was something soft touching me. Something warm.

  It was Mira. She curled near me, Bel tucked behind her—both sleeping quietly. I’d heard Bel lay down as the night ended a half hour earlier, her watch complete. I let my eyes adjust to the dim light, watching sunlight begin to spill over the horizon. There were hills to the east, low and drab, a smear of dull brown rising from the endless dunes. The last stars fl
ed while I stood, uncertain at first but growing stronger with each second.

  I stepped out into the morning air, looking around for someplace to piss. “We have a winner,” I muttered, stepping over to a pile of rocks that looked like it would give me some privacy. I’d been naked yesterday, but old habits die hard. When I finished, I looked down at the rocks and stopped moving.

  There was a brick. Next to it, another one, and then dozens more in the growing sunlight. I stood in ruins that I’d thought were mere rocks the day before, an idea blooming in my head with the new day.

  “Feel better?” Mira asked, smiling through her tousled golden-blonde hair. She looked even better in the morning than the moonlight as I stood to admire her before answering.

  “You could say that. These are bricks,” I said, pointing.

  “Bricks covered in piss, but yes. And?”

  “Fair enough. You found me there? Didn’t move the tube at all?” I waved at our camp, the walls glowing with sunlight at the top.

  “Too heavy,” she said. A noise in the background gave me pause—Bel was awake. I decided to wait and explain my thoughts all at once.

  “I thought so. I’m hungry and thirsty. Can we eat and talk?” I asked.

  “Yes. We need to plan what happens next, but not just for us. For you,” Mira said.

  Bel and Mira moved like a well-oiled machine, stoking the fire from embers to set jerky and some kind of root to cook. They passed me the canteen, then picked up their masks, shaking out sand and cleaning every part of the primitive devices.

  “Why do you wear them?” I asked. They slept without them, and the air seemed clean.

  “We wear them when digging. Sometimes we hit gas, dust, even insects,” Mira said.

  “Anything out here that won’t kill you?” I asked, taking a bite of jerky. It was just as good as the first time.

  “You, we hope, but other than that, no. Everything kills. Everything eats,” Bel said.

  “There are pack animals and small creatures that hide, but the Empty is a hard place even on the best day,” Mira said.