Radio run, p.1
Radio Run, page 1
Radio Run
Eddie Generous
www.severedpress.com
Copyright 2018 by Eddie Generous
Prologue
Despite the senselessness of it, they went on, surviving. The oceanic air had been easier on the lungs and nose than the air had been to the southeast, on land. The world grew cleaner the further they went. Water splashing over short railings gave off equal parts hope—on the far side of their trek was clean Alaska—and terror. What hid in those droplets, and just how badly would they burn?
That extended dose of radiation had Gerald Dawson shaky and sick on the deck of the speedboat. It was nearly forty-feet in length and too much boat for two men who’d never commanded so much as a canoe.
Winter Colson sat up from where he’d stretched his frame. His hair had fallen out somewhere between the first and second checkpoints. “How do we know we can even trust that tin can?”
Gerald was on his side, peering into sun-bleached woodgrains. “What choice we got?” His voice whistled some, he’d lost two teeth four days earlier outside a flooded drug store in some pissant town they’d decided to check out because they needed water and the rations were too bland not to try for something else. A murder of crows, each the size of a typewriter, attacked the six member group.
They’d been down to two for the last day and a half, seeing those enormous footprints in a field had sent a third man named Drake Burkowsky into a fit. The prints aligned with his memory and all the extra bits he’d tacked on in his imagination. The fur, those black eyes, the huge hands, Drake Burkowsky had had enough, kicked out a window of a house, grabbed a chunk of glass and let the life from his wrists.
It hadn’t been all bad—Drake Burkowsky was a talker and his death opened the door to some general respite. Also, the scent of his spilled blood brought out a small lizard. Gerald nailed it with a rock, and never had meat tasted so good, poisonous and mutated notwithstanding.
Winter got to his feet, sighed, looked to the dark sky at the shriek of a bird flying beyond the nuclear fog. “Okay, what I do?”
The shiny aluminum drone had flown into the cockpit and hovered there, above the controls. A voice, male, not a hint of practiced TV tones, said, “This model’s just like a car. You the one who was driving the vehicles?”
Winter shook his head.
“What about that other guy?”
“I don’t think he’s doing so good. Just tell me what I gotta do.”
The voice from the drone hummed for a moment as if thinking or combing information. “So this model has a turbine generator built in. Wind should have charged the batteries constantly. Give that button to your right a push.”
He did and the engine growled. Winter ducked and looked around, waiting for one of those snake-like creatures they’d seen to jump up and crush the boat.
The voice from the drone said, “Got other eyes on you now, you’re good unless something comes from way deep. Now, to your left, there’s a handle, that’s your throttle. Push that forward to go forward and pull it back to go backwards. The wheel steers the boat, simple.”
“But how’s it I know where I’m going?” Winter pulled the throttle and the boat began backing from the shore where it had wedged in with three other boats. It made a short squealing noise as it freed, but was moving fine.
“That’s up to you. Like I said before, you can either listen to what I say or you can test your luck on the open seas. Let me warn you, try to keep dry. That water is not nice to people.”
“Already sick.” Winter automatically touched the gaping sore under his eye. It was hot and cold simultaneously.
“But you could be sicker. You could be dead.”
Winter backed up far enough that he could steer in any direction. “Where I’m going? Where I’m going, come on? This gotta end. Where I’m going?”
“It’s already set. See the red light?”
“Uh, yeah.”
The drone emitted a beam onto the left side of the console above the steering wheel.
“Steer until that light is dead center.”
Winter spun the wheel. That did nothing. He pushed the throttle and the boat began turning. The light shifted. He yanked the steering wheel when he’d gone too far.
The voice from the drone said, “It’s open water, easy enough to correct and watch out for icebergs, that’s what got the Titanic.”
“What the hell is a Titanic?”
“Never mind, there hasn’t been ice where you’re going for decades. Good luck.”
“Wait, what happens if the engine stops or something? Yo! Hey! What I do if something goes wrong?”
The drone was silent.
Winter looked back from the cockpit. Gerald was out and his body had slid closer to the gunwale where the propeller fired water out the back. It looked as if there was once a door over the opening, but something had broken it off…or torn it off.
Bow facing again, Winter tried pushing the throttle. The boat sped. Ahead were other ghost boats, hundreds of them within eye’s view. The further out he piloted, the blanker the ocean became. The waves grew higher as well, so he pulled back on the throttle some and let go of the wheel. It moved gently, back and forth, but wasn’t up to much, so he risked leaving the cockpit.
“Easier than it seems.”
He crouched down to look closer to eye level with Gerald.
“Yo.” He shook the man gently. “Yo, wake up.” He shook harder. “Yo.” Still nothing. He squat-stepped closer and pushed again. The man rolled from his side onto his back. Something crunched behind his head.
Winter flipped him onto his stomach. Collector card-sized crustaceans scurried from out of Gerald’s seeping skull.
“Uck, come on.” He back-stepped all the way to the cockpit. Inside, he slammed the door and took the wheel. He’d hide in there until the end of days if he had to.
The red light was six inches from center and he focussed on holding alignment. This simple act had a calming effect. Being alone in the Western Wastes was a terrifying thought, being along in the Pacific where it spilled over the Western Wastes was infinitely scarier.
The red light slid back and forth, almost hypnotically. The thought of an iceberg popped into Winter’s head like a bad memory and his chin lifted. He gasped and tightened his grip. The grey hump jutting out of the water had to be at least as long as a school bus. There was no time to avoid it. He pushed the throttle all the way down.
The thing rose higher, bringing an eye above the surface—tiny and reflective amid the huge mass. The speedboat hit the thing and took to the air. It landed and cracked. The floor gave way under Winter and the black, irradiated ocean sucked him down.
He thrashed and paddled his arms and kicked his legs. The water was like the wound in his face searing and freezing. An orange and white ring bobbed and he grabbed for a rope connected to it, dragging it close.
Fear stole in as he looked around the horrid blank canvas that was the Pacific Ocean. There he bobbed and watched, clinging to that life preserver. His skin burned and his legs became rubbery, but he persisted, trying to move, unsure of which way took him to shore.
Chapter One
Apollo Williams crouched amidst the shadows between the former Shoppers Drug Mart and the former Sng Salon. Both were from the old days. The before times. The buildings were stone and in the modern world, stone was old hat. Stone crumbles. Stone cracks.
Of course, Apollo was too young and ignorant to know much more than what he’d figured out during his life as a scavenger, existing somewhere in the middle of the two worlds.
The authorities frowned upon visits beyond the final checkpoint and demanded a pass as well as training. There was also the radiation proof suit to rent and the tour guides. If it didn’t pull in so many credits and create jobs, the government would’ve outlawed it entirely.
Scavenging the outskirts was illegal, as the outskirts were too close to the contamination line and brought too much of the past into the future. Apollo knew this, but life was life and he only did as his mother and grandmother had.
Picking through discards for crumbs of value was in his blood.
Twice the authorities had caught him. The first time, he’d burrowed into the former MTS Center arena and discovered a wealth in body protection. He didn’t know what hockey was or that the blocky white thing he’d draped over his head and let fall to his shoulders would not stop bullets unless they were rubber. The sticks lining the walls and the protective goodies in the stalls, it looked like police locker for cops who couldn’t pass the grade at the firing range.
High and low, digging through gloves, skates, elbow pads, cups, shin pads, and helmets he sought the guns he assumed must exist. They had to be there, what could a force needing bulletproof body armor do without the matching weaponry?
Dressed as if about to begin the 2069 season, one that had never happened, and only forty years late, he bent over a bench, shoving around fallen ceiling debris, he stopped and sniffed. The air was different. Everything in the old world smelled musty or dusty. Smelling grease and steel was a curious change.
“Citizen, you are in the forbidden zone. Hands over your head. You are under arrest.” The voice boomed and echoed. Most of the ceiling was still seemingly miles overhead. “I will now approach and apprehend you. You will have a court date set for six days from now and if you cannot afford law representation, law representation will be afforded to you.”
On the repeat of the word representation, Apollo was moving. His legs were strong. His mother used to say it wa
Which was good. Rumor was that the security detail blew off heads without worry, but he had the gear and he felt like a warrior and a red fox pressed together in a single fleshy shell.
Twenty feet away, the Jumbotron had fallen and crumbled into a heap of electronic discards and glass. Apollo would get on the far side of the smashed mess, use it as protection, and work his way through to the maze of hallways and dressing rooms.
He took three steps and the cotton and plastic of the left arm of the goalie equipment he wore exploded. Blood mingled with the floating and falling bits. Flesh burned and partially detached, bones broken, tendons severed, limb dangling like a pendulum ball, Apollo screamed. The world went grey and he blinked at the tall, slim robot leaning down over him.
“You are under arrest for trespassing and resisting detainment.”
Three years after that, Apollo was back in the former Winnipeg and not far from MTS Center. Scavenging had become significantly more difficult since that day. He had a new nickname at some of the trading posts, but he laughed it off. One Arm was better than most of the names the filthy bottom of humanity had at places where the old world met the new world.
Losing a limb made everything tricky, from zipping his pants, to climbing a ladder, but it also made him a smarter scavenger. Before, he sought the big and shiny things, looking for museum exhibit items to sell for instant retirement coin.
With only one arm, he couldn’t carry big things and learned to look differently.
The word RECHARGEABLE became his goal. The words SOLAR and PANEL became his glory. In prison, that’s what he did and that training carried into the real world once he got out. Everybody used electricity and some people wanted to do so with no trail of purchase or government request form reaching back to them.
In the caved in mall, the skinny brown man with long rusty black hair tied in a ponytail with a scrap of copper wire straightened his back, smiling. The world was being good to him for once.
Trapped in a time warp, the last days of the old world, before things went sour with quakes and nuclear snafus that destroyed more than half of North America, solar stores made up two of every five storefronts in the malls around the globe. Carbon exploration was a thing of the past and the Earth had been healing itself for more than a decade; harnessing the sun had not only become necessary, but fashionable. Wealthy people donated power instead of cash, the tax write-offs remained the same, and no matter how poor a body was, they had all the power they’d ever need—even for the ancient Apple and Microsoft products that munched energy like pigs at a slop trough.
These were things they taught Apollo in prison. A few bits stuck, but not in the way they were intended to. The idea of teaching in prison was to enlighten minds, not show routes to illegal creds once released.
The sign for the place had fallen, draped across a table, protecting the stock pushed below. Apollo bent at the knees and lifted the first of what appeared to be dozens of solar rolls. They were thin polymer and steel, each weighed four pounds and would fetch him enough to live for a week. At a glance, he guessed there were more than fifty rolls. That’s a year’s earnings in a single haul.
“Citizen, you are in the forbidden zone. Hands over your head. You are under arrest.” The voice was muffled in the closed space of the caved in building.
Apollo hadn’t smelled the grease or steel, too interested in his find. His hand went above his head, solar roll gripped tight. He pleaded internally for them to let him keep the rolls, arrest him, but let him realize the value of this trip underground; pleaded to keep his remaining arm. He said nothing.
Robots have no hearts.
“Open your hand.”
Apollo was too scared to think straight and released his grasp. The solar roll did a half-spin before colliding with his eye. He dropped and awoke in the grasp of the robotic security unit.
Eighteen more months in labor camp custody soldering government solar panels ended and Apollo left a man in need of money. The government offered him a living and he’d tried that route, but he was a bird, as well as a fox and a warrior, and though he’d never admit it, one unlucky dumbass.
One-armed, one-eyed, long rusty black ponytail dangling behind him, wearing coveralls paled to blue grey, he scavenged from a quick fill battery location on the eastern edge of Winnipeg. Apollo was back in the city, looking for an El’ Dorado, still thinking he might revisit that one special place just for a peek. Once he was back into the groove of scavenging.
This time he smelled the security before it got close enough to arrest him, and from where he hid in that dirty alleyway, he listened. He wore a messenger’s bag and a backpack. In the backpack was a spool of copper, and in the messenger bag were three bottles of murky water—filters were expensive and looks weren’t everything, even if you ingested those unsettling looks. Apollo knew nothing in particular about radiation, but knew if he bottled water in the city and drank that water, he’d carry a sickly gut and become thirstier than he was before drinking. Radiation did things to people and he had enough strikes against him.
But a man has to drink. Just like Apollo had to scavenge.
Silent and without telltale scents lingering, Apollo stood and stepped out into the grey morning, hand in his bag, feeling for a bottle. It was December in Winnipeg and that meant the temperature would reach into the high forties in centigrade. Apollo knew zilch about old world Winnipeg or the thousands who’d frozen to death on her streets in the Decembers stretching back into the late nineteenth century. He might’ve laughed had anyone ever told him such a thing.
Sweat dripped into Apollo’s eye and he rubbed his face on the small portion of limb he had just below the shoulder. At least he could still do that much.
Suddenly, he stiffened, was about to leap back into the shadows, but it was too late.
“Citizen…”
“Damn you.” Apollo dropped his gaze and lifted his right arm, lifted the ghost of his left.
—
Hospitals and factories, most things could be automated, but life was nothing without tasks. Walter ‘Doc’ Coleman sat in the lunch room thinking that if it wasn’t for a few little jobs that take a human touch, he’d be obsolete. Even then, if you could train a machine in compassion, maybe he’d go out to pasture—not that those who had slotted him in his position did so for the sake of compassion.
The hospital cafeteria covered two meals a day and Doc was on his lunchbreak, spinning noodles in broth and carrot slivers with engineered beef. He had no way of knowing if the stories the government peddled when he was a kid were true. Did engineered beef taste better than real beef? His grandfather, a man who’d spent most of his life eating real beef had an opinion, but at sixty-three, Doc Coleman didn’t recall what it was.
Not that it mattered. Cows were rare and travel shows suggested that only third world barbarians still kept cows at all. As animals, they polluted too much and the meat caused heart problems, and real leather hadn’t mattered since about 2045.
He was the only one working this shift in his wing of the hospital and had the breakroom to himself, not that he would’ve minded some company. His day job was nothing short of monotonous, bordering on painfully so. He didn’t keep at it for the job description, not the one on paper.
Finished, he recycled the paper bowl and paper spoon, and took a sip from the water fountain that jutted from the wall like a hillbilly under bite. Door locked behind him, he took his time getting to what passed for his office. The halls were empty and devoid of decorations or warmth. The rooms were full. Nearly everyone was asleep, four hundred patients, but only one mattered that night.
Doc pressed his thumb to a pad next to the door. It opened. He entered and the scent drove a shiver through his bones, like whiffing smelling salts. Bleach and ammonia. He dumped degreaser into a yellow bucket, lifted the bucket to the big sink, and filled it until the bubbles reached for the bevelled lip. Mop stuffed into the squeeze tray riding above the belly of the bucket, he rolled it to the door on silent castors. It was important to be silent. The folks in that part of the hospital were only delaying the inevitable and that might make anyone mighty irritated over just about anything.
