Home Planet: Apocalypse (Part 2) (20 page)

“Get off me you sinners! I know who you are. You’ll die for this and so will you families!” Valdus ranted.

I shut him up with a right hook to the jaw.

“Thanks, guys, I’ll take it from here.”

“Do you need some help?” asked the guard, blue uniform, number
60
on it.

I looked back at Laetitia.

“Err, yeah, maybe that’s a good idea. Help us escort this piece of crap to our shuttle,” I said and went back for my ailing android ally.

I picked her up and was surprised to find she weighed no more than an equivalent sized human—less water, more metal, much of it lightweight alloy and graphene. The trek through the underground passages and derelict buildings was met with looks of incredulity from onlookers as the Great Marshal was escorted out at gunpoint. He was in no way dressed for the blizzard conditions outside, but the walk was only two miles and he’d survive. The guard and the two civilians helped secure Valdus in a passenger seat at the front of the shuttle. None of them had seen anything like the shuttle before and it lent credence to our story about coming from an advanced civilization from the distant past. Valdus ranted about us being heretics and sinners and criminals, but the three locals had stopped listening by the time the guard found a gag to shut him up. Laetitia recovered within minutes of being back within range of the shuttle’s power grid. We thanked the three escorts and bade them farewell before reclosing the cargo door, shutting out the foul weather.

“Right, let’s go have a little chat with everyone’s least favorite dictator,” I said.

“I may have some question too, Mr. Luker,” said Laetitia, back to her old self.

I smiled.

“That’s fine... and thanks for your help back there,” I said as we walked down the central aisle.

We reached the front row and stood in front of Valdus. I looked down at him bound to his seat by some nylon rope the men had found in the cargo hold, his mouth still gagged. He looked back with tired eyes and a swollen red mark where I’d punched him.

“That’s sure gonna hurt in the morning,” I said pointing to his face and chuckling. “But hey, at least you get to see morning. My guess is your subjects—now citizens—would’ve meted out some of your own medicine. Now, I’m going to remove the gag. Tell me what I want to know and I might even feed you.”

I removed the oily rag from his mouth. His eyes were downcast. He said nothing, just sat with sunken shoulders in his loose-fitting burgundy shirt and pants, wet from melted snow. His game was up and he knew it. I took off my marine-issue helmet and stood my assault rifle against the wall.

“Let me put those somewhere safe,” said Laetitia.

She gathered them up and took them to the cargo bay.

“So let’s get started, Val. You don’t mind if I call you Val do you?”

He waved his ascent. Like I cared.

“Right, so tell me about Hawaii. I want to know everything. Leave out
nothing.
If it goes well maybe we won’t drop you out of the cargo door from a great height.”

Laetitia returned having removed her marine gear, freeing her shoulder length blonde hair. As she strutted up the aisle in her catsuit, I couldn’t help being distracted for a moment. Too bad she was just a robot and someone else’s robot at that.

I chuckled and shook my head.

“It’s been far too long,” I muttered.

“What did you say?” said Valdus.

“Not you, asshole. Speak, when you’re spoken too,” I said, frowning.

“Now, you were saying, about Hawaii,” I said, as Laetitia joined me.

“What do you want to know?”

“What did the two men that flew here from Hawaii tell you? You know, the guys you
murdered
.”

“They came from a city—one far larger in population than here. They told me of their technology—their radios and boats and flying machines—”

“So they have ice-free seas?”

“Why else would they need boats?”

“Don’t get smart, it doesn’t suit you. Now, continue...”

“Yes, for half of the year their seas are unfrozen.”

“What else?”

“They told me their flying machine was one of only three. That they had planned the expedition for years. They said the two previous attempts went missing without a trace. They also spoke of the
United States
and said Hawaii was once part of this nation. That is why they sought to come here. To establish links and form an alliance. But my father would not ally with sinners and heretics.”

“Your father sounds like an asshole, too.”

He went to protest but bit his lip.

“I know you took their radio and broke up their plane. What other technology did they have?”

“It was a machine using electricity. They explained it as a calculating machine of great power. It could simulate the world too—a clear breach of God’s law. Only this one reality is permitted. Yet another crime for which the Hawaiian outlanders paid—”

“Save me the dogma. What did they call this machine? Was it a
computer
by any—”

“Yes, yes, that’s what they called it.
Computer.
”

“So they said they had computers?”

He nodded.

“They show you one?”

“Yes,” he said, looking ashamed.

“What happened?”

“When they showed my father and I this computer—there was something connected to it. Yet more wizardry—there were no visible wires—but the outlanders told us it was connected nonetheless.”

“
What
was connected to the computer?”

“It was a helmet with eye holes that looked into another world and ear speakers allowing one to
hear
it. I saw what they said was here—Angels Station—many years ago. But it was nothing like it is now. There was no ice, the sun shone and people—hundreds of people—wore strange clothes as though it were indoors. The three great towers we now use were freestanding. There were myriad other tall buildings and wheeled vehicles—some driven by ghosts, for they had no one in them. People looked so very different to us. They seemed
taller
, although not as tall as you, Outlander. But I knew their game. It was their ruse to show us this false heaven and take us into their confidence. My father smashed their magic helmet and denounced them as heretics. There is only one heaven, as we all know. Even showing us their lies tainted our minds. What they showed us—”

“What they showed you was how this city used to be when I lived here. Come on, you’ve mined through the ice and seen some of these buildings. Surely you’ve found other stuff that convinced you it was real.”

“The heretics are clever. Their lies had elements of truth to convince us. They arrogantly peddled their false truths expecting we were dumb enough to believe them. Well, we are not!”

He was clearly too indoctrinated to be convinced otherwise. Anyway, what did I care about his worthless opinion? As long he kept on telling me something useful about these Hawaiians then that was fine by me.

“What you were using was a
virtual reality headset
. What did they tell you about this virtual world they showed you?”

He looked up, accessing thoughts. The mind remembers the extraordinary, forgets the mundane, and he was doing a pretty good job, despite his misguided feelings about it all.

“I remember the point at which my father’s fury boiled over. It was what they called their false heaven ...”

“Which was?”

“The
Forever World.
”

The words took me aback. I froze, my eyes wide, eyebrows raised.

I cleared my throat, looking at his face for signs of artifice.

“Say that again.”

He rolled his eyes as if dealing with a cretin.

“They called it the
Forever World.
This is why my father smashed their machine,” he said. He chuckled and continued, “We all know that heaven is the eternal world and you certainly cannot visit using a magical helmet!”

“No... right,” I said, absently.

“Are you okay, Mr. Luker?” said Laetitia.

“Err, yeah fine. Laetitia, please set a course for Hawaii. Use main engines and go suborbital.”

“Certainly,” she said with a curt nod.

She disappeared into the tiny alcove where a cockpit would’ve been before shuttles could fly themselves. A minute later, the soft hum of the thrusters announced our vertical departure. Valdus grasped his seat handles with white knuckles, his face racked with fear.

“Come on, Val. It’s not that bad,” I laughed. “Hey, wait ‘til you feel the main engines.”

Laetitia and I strapped ourselves in behind him, and moments later, the main engines exploded into life, forcing us into our seats with their raw power.

I looked through the headrest gap. Valdus just gave out a whimper and looked like he was going to wet himself.

“Enjoying the ride, Valdus-the-coward?”

He said nothing.

“Half an hour and we’ll be over Hawaii. This is what we call
extradition.
You admitted murdering two of their citizens to a police officer. I’m sure they’ll have something to say about that. And it should buy me and Laetitia here a little good will. If not, well I guess Reichs’d like another servant.”

Laetitia turned to me.

“Mr. Luker, your reaction to the
Forever World
was curious, to say the least. Does it mean something to you?” she said, earnestly.

“My fiancée, Juliet... Her company made the
Forever World.
It was her brainchild, but... but she died before it came online. She was setting up something in Hawaii—a secondary facility from the one in California. What Valdus just told us proves that at least part of the
Forever World
survived the apocalypse.”

“I see...”

“You know, all those people he saw walking about twenty-first century LA... That wasn’t just some movie. Each and every one of them was a sentient avatar, an upload of someone’s mind living on in a virtual world.”

“
That
is a curious notion, Mr. Luker. But why do you care?”

“I
care
because if the
Forever World
survived then... Then maybe my Mom and Nikki were uploaded and live on.”

As the words left my mouth, the thought sent waves of positive energy through my body, only to be tempered by fear of disappointment.

As we leveled off, I felt the weightlessness of sub-orbital space. Valdus sat petrified, mumbling what might have been prayers to his god. None of them sounded familiar. I unclipped my harness, floated through to the control room and activated the cabin’s display surfaces. The entire ceiling and most of the fuselage walls appeared to go transparent as they presented video feeds from outside. The view of the white planet and its atmospheric haze were spectacular, although I preferred how it used to look. Somewhere above, the giant sleeper ship orbited with its sole inhabitant, no doubt eagerly awaiting news. If Hawaii turned out to be another hellhole, then maybe I’d live out my days trying to fix the
Juno Ark
on some fool’s errand.

Fifteen minutes later, the shuttle descended across the cloud enveloped Pacific and the first fire of re-entry grew from nothing. Valdus closed his eyes. He probably thought we were taking him to hell. He deserved nothing less after the countless lives he’d destroyed. But, with any luck, the Hawaiians had a judicial process. And if they didn’t... Well, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

It took just minutes to reach the troposphere and the ubiquitous cloud of twenty-sixth century Earth. Gravity had made itself apparent once more and we’d traveled from the hellish fires of re-entry to the heavenly clouds that were thinning before my eyes. Once the veil lifted, the sight took my breath away as the blue Pacific, punctuated with sparse icebergs, stretched to the curve of the horizon.

“The ocean... You see that! That’s the
ocean
down there!” I said, beaming.

Laetitia returned the smile.

“A significant find indeed,” she said, unemotionally.

Through the haze, the islands grew from the distance. The shuttle closed in rapidly, revealing more detail with every passing second.

“What’s our destination,” I asked Laetitia.

“The island of Oahu, home of the capital Honolulu. 2070 status, Mr. Luker.”

Other islands lay in the distance to the northwest and southeast—just green smudges on the horizon. Through the display surfaces, Oahu resolved into far more detail than that. The green of its lowlands and the darker green of forests covered much of its undulating terrain. A ridge ran across the eastern side from north to south, a light covering of snow capping its heights. The shuttle rounded the southern tip of the island on its approach to Honolulu. There were no signs of cities or much else that spoke of civilization. My spirits started descending from their heady heights, but then something caught my eye to the right. A crater, close to the ocean, near the island’s southern tip, the northeast wall partially gone.