The Fires of Yesterday (The Silent Earth, Book 3) Read online

  “I remember. It was like that everywhere.”

  “Y’know, Lunn had the idea of bringing clanks together to fight the Marauders years ago. He just didn’t have the same charisma as Cabre, the same way with words. That’s really what it took – not just the idea, but the one who could inspire others and make them believe. I guess that’s what Cabre does better than anyone.”

  “And how did Lunn get mixed up with these guys who are on the wrong side of Cabre?”

  “That’s a long story,” she said. “Let’s just say that not everyone is happy with the way Ascension run things. There are those in the precinct who don’t agree with their methods, and they’re trying to change things. Some of them associated with Lunn in the past, and he got dragged into the whole mess.”

  “If Ascension are calling the shots like you say, these sound like dangerous people to be around. Maybe you should reconsider helping them.”

  “Have you ever loved someone?” she said suddenly.

  “Uh…” I shrugged. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  I thought of the children back home, imagined them huddling together as the world grew colder, staring out the window and hoping that I would soon return.

  “Yes, I have,” I said.

  “Then you’ll know that sometimes you don’t have a choice about who you spend your time with, or even the choices that you make. Sometimes those decisions are just made for you.”

  I mulled over what she’d said for a few seconds. “So you love this Lunn guy?”

  She seemed to hesitate. “Yeah, I do.” She looked away. “We’re lovers.”

  “Uh… I see.”

  “What?” she snapped, fixing her gaze on me again. “You got a problem with that?”

  “No. I couldn’t care less.”

  “Let me guess,” she went on, “you’re one of these clanks who think that physical relationships between synthetics is unnatural, or some big waste of time.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You probably think clanks don’t have the right to do it.”

  “Hey,” I said defensively, “I really don’t care. You can do what you want.”

  “Just remember, the humans made us exactly like them,” she bristled. “There’s no reason why we can’t do everything they did. We have the same needs, after all.”

  “Calm down,” I said. “I agree with you. I’m not going to argue with you about that.”

  She seemed placated at last. “Good.” The familiar lightness returned to her voice. “So you ever have one?”

  “One what?”

  She fixed me with a very direct stare. “A lover.”

  I shook my head at her dismissively. “Oh, come on. We’re not going there.”

  “So you haven’t.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Well, reading between the lines, it seems pretty obvious. You haven’t.”

  I lifted my hands helplessly. “Why the hell are we even talking about this?”

  “Hey, you wanted to know about me. So I’m telling you.”

  “Okay, so you need to rescue Lunn because he’s your lover–”

  “No. I need to rescue him because we always looked out for each other. Through the bad times we were always there to help each other out. I can’t just leave him there locked up.”

  We came to a steep embankment and the female stood looking up the slope despairingly.

  “Goddamn. This is gonna hurt.” She hobbled over to a steel picket that was jutting from the dirt nearby and tried to wiggle it free.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I said. “Get your hands off that.”

  “Calm down, man. I just want it for balance going up here.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, kicking it roughly from her grasp and making her wobble and almost fall.

  “Hey! What the fuck?” she complained.

  “For all I know you’ll crack me in the head with that thing as soon as I turn my back. I’m calling the shots here, just like you said. So I’m telling you – make it up without it, or you don’t make it up at all.”

  She grudgingly complied with my demands, pulling her back straight with effort and staring up at the slope. Then she collected herself and began struggling her way upward, knocking loose mounds of dirt aside as she floundered.

  “I hope you’re getting a good laugh out of this,” she said miserably.

  I followed. Despite falling and jarring her arm a number of times, she kept getting back up, her jaw clenched in determination and her eyes set on the top of the embankment. This one had spirit, I had to give her that. Her discomfort was obvious, but she kept pushing onward through the pain, not stopping even once to complain or beg for help.

  When we reached the top, she dropped to her haunches and remained there with her eyes squeezed shut, her dark hair hanging down across her face.

  “The pain eases,” I said, a mote of sympathy stirring within me. “I’ve taken hits and I know what it’s like. After a while it goes away.”

  “You think I’ve never been hurt before?” she said, scowling up at me. “I know how this works. In fact, I’ll bet I’ve been banged up more times than you.”

  “Maybe you have.”

  She rose to her feet and stumbled slightly before gaining her balance, reaching out for me instinctively before drawing her hand away again. “Over there.” She pointed off into the distance. “The bridge is that way.”

  By the time we reached the bridge it was almost dark, so I directed her down along a narrow path that led underneath the rusted steel supports. Further down, a stream gurgled unseen in the gloom, alleviating the oppressive silence that was present in most parts of the wasteland.

  “We’ll wait here until light,” I said, indicating with the knife where I wanted her to sit.

  “Whatever you say.”

  Gathering a few desiccated pieces of wood from nearby, I used the flint and the knife to get a little fire going under the concealment of the bridge. In a few minutes there were enough flames to illuminate the dirt and the underside of the bridge above.

  “How cosy,” the woman said, lying back stiffly. “You really know how to treat a gal.”

  “Not exactly. It’s so I can see what you’re doing in the dark.”

  “You don’t trust me. That hurts my feelings, man.”

  “Tough shit.”

  She slid her good arm across her face to cover her eyes. She sighed. “Can’t blame you, I guess.”

  “What’s your name, anyway?” I said, taking the compass in my hand and running a finger along the roughened edge.

  “Malyn.”

  “Okay, Malyn. How long is it going to take us from here?” I tilted the compass in the firelight, watching the needle sway slightly.

  “Half a day. Maybe a bit more.”

  “Good. Ascension aren’t going to shoot us on sight, are they?”

  “Not unless you give them a reason to.”

  “I’ll try not to.” With her singlet wrapped around her arm and her midriff exposed I could see a little scar on her hip, a dark streak against otherwise pale skin. “How did you end up under their protection?”

  “That was a fun little episode,” she said. “Didn’t have much choice in the end. We managed to get ourselves caught by Marauders, and ended up in a cage on the back of one of their transports. The Marauders tried to run through an Ascension checkpoint on their way back to the enclave. Didn’t make it. There was a few in that cage who got caught in the crossfire and went down. Lunn and me were lucky. We got out, made it over to the Ascension soldiers. That’s all it came down to in the end, just luck. After that, Ascension took us back to the city, gave us the chance to live there. And that’s where we’ve been ever since.”

  “Why do you stay there? It doesn’t sound like they treat the population well.”

  She drew her arm back from her face and looked at me. “I know I’ve said some bad things a
bout Ascension, but really, their intentions are good. They’re trying to stop the Marauders and remove them from this place forever. I mean, look at the alternative to living under their protection. Without it, you’re on your own in the wasteland, at the mercy of the Marauders.”

  “Is it worse being in a Marauder cage than it is being in an Ascension one?” I said.

  “For most, that isn’t a concern. You play by Ascension’s rules and there’s no reason they’d ever lock you up. I agree, they do some things that I don’t agree with now and again, but as it stands, they’re our only hope for the future.”

  I considered that statement for a moment, and realised that I was beginning to feel the same way. Heading out here into the dark was still a dicey proposition at best. In reality I was pinning my hopes on Ascension just as much as she was, although for different reasons.

  “I hope you’re right,” I said. “From what you’ve told me, you might have been better off just staying in the wasteland and taking your chances.”

  “Well, there’s more to it than that. I’ve lived in AC for a while now. I know how to get around and how to deal with Ascension. I know the things they expect, and what they want. I feel I have a place there. Before we were caught by the Marauders, we weren’t really doing anything other than surviving. Y’know what I’m saying? We weren’t accomplishing anything. Our only thought was to stay hidden, stay alive. That’s not a very fulfilling existence, right?”

  “Yeah. I know what that’s like.”

  “So that’s what Ascension represent to me. They’re out there trying to change things. They’re trying to make a difference. And that’s attractive to me, y’know? I’ve spent so many years hiding, just wasting away the hours. I don’t see much difference between wasting a life and dying. What I really want is to do something, to be a part of something that matters. To have a reason to be on this goddamn ball of dirt. So yeah, Ascension can be assholes. I don’t deny that. But they’re also something I can believe in. If I play even a small part in getting rid of the Marauders, that would be something to be proud of. I could look back at the end of my life and feel that it wasn’t wasted.”

  I scratched at the dirt with the knife. “You trying to make me feel sorry for you?”

  She pursed her lips. “Maybe a little. Is it working?”

  “No.”

  “Fuck. Oh well, I’ll think of something.”

  “You just get me to Cabre. I’ll like you a whole lot more if you can do that.”

  In the morning we got going again, emerging from the bridge and making our way across its flaking span as quickly as Malyn could manage. She was moving better today at least, and it seemed the rest had alleviated some of her soreness.

  “Did you ever wonder why they programmed us to feel pain?” she said as we proceeded up the hill that led away from the bridge. “It just seems unnecessary. Sadistic, even. They could have made us perfectly serene beings without any of the bad stuff if they’d wanted to.”

  “So you want to be able to feel love, but not pain?” I said. “It doesn’t work that way. If you want to understand and act like a human, you have to be built to feel the same things they do. If you want to truly comprehend the greatest joys in life, you have to understand what it means to hurt as well.”

  “Normally I might agree with you, but right now it seems like a goddamn stupid concept.”

  “You’ll live,” I said unsympathetically.

  I reached the top of the hill and looked out toward the north. The sky out there was intensely black, even more unwavering than it had been further south. Beneath, the horizon glowed in malevolent and seething hues of red that stretched out as far as the eye could see. The suddenness of it stopped me in my tracks.

  Malyn struggled up beside me and nodded at the horizon. “There’s your fires,” she said.

  10

  I lifted my pace even though the glow in the sky filled me with dread. It was both a beacon that drew me inward and a warning to stay away, and internally I felt that conflict only too keenly. Even though I wanted desperately to know the nature of the fires, to understand, I also feared what I might find.

  Looming like a great red spectre across the sky, the radiance was somehow even more awe-inspiring than the bleakness had been before it. There was a power to it that made me feel small and utterly insignificant. Perhaps I hadn’t even really comprehended the magnitude of what I was confronting until now. I’d envisioned any number of possibilities of what I might find out here, but now that I was upon it, none of those even seemed close to the enormity of the real thing.

  Malyn began to lag further and further behind. Each time I looked back she was seemingly more distant than the last, and even though I waited several times for her to catch up, she only proceeded to drop back again a few minutes later. In all likelihood, if she’d decided to drop into a ditch in order to escape me, I wouldn’t have gone back for her. Not now. Not when I was so close. I had to push on, and nothing was going to stop me.

  Over the next few hours we progressed across the plain, and here the earth itself seemed to be tainted a deep arterial red, as if the glow was leaching out of the sky and into the soil. The sun became less visible as the clouds thickened, but the world became steadily brighter at the whim of these ghostly infernos.

  “Listen,” I said, striding back toward Malyn. “You’ve done your part of the deal. You said you’d bring me here and you did. I’m going to push on now. I can’t wait for you.”

  “Ditching me, huh?” she said with a smile that didn’t touch her eyes.

  “No, just releasing you from your obligation. It’s all right, I–”

  “Screw that, man,” she said, shouldering past me. “I said I’d take you to Cabre. I’m not going back on my word.”

  “Malyn, you don’t have to do that. I’m letting you go.”

  “Yeah, and I’m not going. I’m seeing this through to the end.”

  I grabbed her by the arm as she tried to stalk away and swung her back toward me. She overbalanced and bumped into my chest awkwardly, then reeled back.

  “Hey, what gives, man?” she said.

  “Let’s just get something straight, here. If you still have plans of presenting me to Cabre as some sort of trophy–”

  “Fuck you,” she spat. “I told you I wasn’t going to do that, Cleanskin.”

  “My name is Brant.”

  “I’m not a liar. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it.”

  Her eyes glittered with all the intensity in the red glow above. She seemed genuinely offended.

  “All right. I believe you. Just… put yourself in my position. We haven’t exactly had a trusting relationship up until now.”

  “Yeah,” she said, flicking her hair out of her face irritably. “You could say that.”

  “If you say you’re telling the truth, that you’re honourable, okay. I accept that. But I haven’t lived as long as I have by trusting everyone who spoke those words.” She stood with her hand on her hip but said nothing. “So if you want to come with me, fine, but I’m not stopping again.”

  “Fine. You won’t have to.”

  I got moving again, and, grunting loudly, Malyn made a better effort of keeping up. She still lagged a little way behind, but nowhere near as far as before. True to my word, I didn’t stop, but each time I looked over my shoulder I saw her there glaring at me and struggling onward. It seemed to have become a matter of pride for her more than anything, that she could keep up with me even while injured and in pain. She was stubborn, but there was also an inner strength about her that I couldn’t deny.

  Eventually we crossed another smaller rise, and below us a plain spread out in all directions.

  We’d reached the fires themselves.

  Great gouts of flame erupted from the earth as far as the eye could see, littering the plain like bonfires. Slate-black smoke billowed from each of them in turn, churning into the sky like poison. The air all around us was thick with it now, clogging my nos
e and stinging my eyes. I could taste it in my mouth and feel it on my skin, as if it might be chewing away at the very fabric of me. Around us, black droplets of precipitation fell from the sky, creating oily puddles in places and leaving the very ground under our feet tacky.

  “It’s putrid,” I muttered, horrified.

  “What did you expect?” Malyn said, shambling past. “A nice sunny beach? You were the one who wanted to come here, remember?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “You’ve seen them. Can we go around them, now?” she said.

  “No. I need to get closer.”

  “Come on, man. Really? Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “I said no.”

  She kept walking. “Oh well. Your funeral.”

  We made our way down the slope, the fires looming ever larger, and now I could see movement out there in the plain, dark smudges against the brightness of the blazes that cast indistinct shadows as they flitted about.

  “Are those Marauders?” I said.

  “It’s too hard to tell from this far away. Ascension control this area, but there are still plenty of skirmishes going on. Could be either.”

  “Wait here and get down on the ground,” I said. “I’ll keep low and get in closer to see if I can figure it out.”

  Malyn dropped down awkwardly as instructed, and I scurried on ahead for a couple of hundred metres. There were two vehicles patrolling in the distance, headlights blazing, and periodically they crossed each other’s path as they cut across the plain. Now and again I thought I heard raised voices over the roar of the engines, but I could not discern enough about them to determine their allegiance.

  I realised that the most prudent course of action would be as Malyn had suggested – to simply leave the fires and continue on to Ascension City. Observing the fires from this proximity, I knew with certainty that there was nothing I could do to rein in power such as this. There was nothing more for me to gain by being here, as any action I took would surely be futile. To risk confronting those out on the plain seemed pointless.