Tomorrows cost, p.1
Tomorrow's Cost, page 1
TOMORROW’S COST
Final Update: Book 3
ALLEN KUZARA
Copyright © 2019 Allen Kuzara
All rights reserved.
For Brad and all our stories
CHAPTER 1
NICK WAS LATE. It wasn’t like him to be, but today wasn’t like other days. Today was the day he had to say goodbye to a ghost.
He rushed up the concrete steps and opened the heavy wooden door to the Immaculate Conception Church. He paused there, holding it open, and looked back. From this vantage point he could see the bridge over the Chena river and the setting sun’s orange glow against the downtown buildings. He remembered what he, Lusa, and Jimmy had done only days ago there, how they’d wrangled the denizens of Fairbanks, helping Vaughn capture his drone army. Maybe it was from the nerve gas that had knocked him out for three days, but it seemed to Nick that those events had happened a lifetime ago. Everything was so different now.
He hesitated to go forward, to turn his back on this day, on this moment. He knew that the next time he stood here his life would be forever different. One way or the other.
Finally, when he felt he couldn’t drag it out any longer, Nick went inside. His eyes searched its interior after the door behind him closed. After a moment, his eyes adjusted, and the subtle light from the small windows above the front door was enough for him to navigate.
Nick was in the vestibule, and that same hesitating, procrastinating part of him that lingered at the front door now wanted to go through the double doors before him, into the sanctuary. He’d been there once as a boy, for a distant relative’s funeral. He remembered focusing on the stained-glass that depicted the story of Samson. He had heard the stories of the super-strong man before then, how he’d lost his strength when his hair had been cut by Delilah. But the glass hadn’t shown that part of the story. It had depicted the end of the tale, after Samson had had his eyes gouged out and was chained to the palace columns. His hair had regrown, and he displayed one last feat of strength by pushing down the columns, crashing the palace roof down on himself and all his captors.
Nick wondered why that story, that pane of glass, had stuck with him all these years. He wanted to see it again, to test if it still had the same resonance it had possessed ten-plus years ago. Not today, he told himself. Maybe never.
He turned left and grabbed the handle of a nondescript door. Again, he paused. This time, he wasn’t procrastinating. Instead, he was reliving a moment, a triggered memory from when he had been atop the Polaris building and had pulled open the door to the stairwell and looked into the darkness.
For some reason, it wasn’t the clamoring horde of crazies that gave Nick nightmares, it was images like this one that caused his heart to race and his face to become flushed and wet with perspiration. The darkness, the unknown malevolence that awaited him, that awaited everyone, had proven to be his worthy opponent, the foe he couldn’t lick.
In his less than twenty years on the planet, he had learned that tomorrow brought danger, unimaginable chaos. And the worst thing about it was that Nick couldn’t escape it and couldn’t forget it was there. It was the cost of being alive in a world gone broke, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could afford to pay it.
Nick tugged open the door, tired of his own pathetic weakness, and was suddenly blinded by lights. He squinted as he passed into the descending stairwell. Apparently, electricity had been turned on here after all, and he had just groped in the half-dark because he wasn’t smart enough to flip a light switch.
“Old habits die hard,” he said, giving himself a pass. The vault had had power from the generators, but he and Jimmy had quickly gotten used to the rest of post-civilization being in the dark. He wondered if Vaughn had a separate generator running for this building or if he had already fixed this part of the power grid.
At the bottom of the single flight of stairs, Nick pushed open a conspicuously squeaky door.
“There he is,” Jimmy said from down the hall.
“Keep it down,” shooshed Vaughn who stood next to him.
Nick approached the two of them and wondered how they could seem so normal. Didn’t they know what this was?
As he passed closed doors on both sides of the hallway, he noticed scraps of papers push-pinned to corkboards, a crayon colored collage of smiley faces, hearts, and Bible verses. He realized these had once been Sunday school classrooms, and the remaining artwork had belonged to children who all most likely had died unspeakably cruel deaths during the update. It was the kind of thing he actively avoided thinking of, how kids perished at the hands of their DataMind affected caregivers. But here, in the basement of a church, were reminders of the grim reality.
“What took you so long?” Jimmy asked.
Nick didn’t answer. “How is he?” he asked, nodding toward the door before them. Unlike the poly-fiber Wally’s-special doors he’d just passed, this door was heavy and substantial looking, and Nick believed Vaughn had had it installed recently. In the door at eye level was a recessed rectangular slat.
“See for yourself,” Vaughn answered coolly.
Nick reached forward and slowly slid the slat to one side, revealing an opening in the door. He stepped toward it, trying to peer into the dark room, his eyes unable to adjust from the bright overhead lights.
“Careful,” Vaughn cautioned.
Nick heeded the warning, slowly pressing each palm against the cold door before leaning his head toward it. His face now inches from the open slat, Nick noticed the first glimmers of light from inside the room. They came from cracks in the boarded-up windows, a consequence of this impromptu prison cell. Finally, after several moments staring, Nick made out a shadowy figure against the far wall, its back turned toward him. He watched it breathe, quick shallow breaths.
“Has there been any change?” Nick whispered.
Jimmy placed his hand on Nick’s shoulder and shook his head. “I wish there were,” Jimmy said.
Nick heard Vaughn breathe in deeply, and he sensed the doctor was tiring of their sentimentality. Nick looked at Vaughn, and Vaughn gave him a nod and a subtle hand gesture that meant, go ahead.
Now it was Nick’s turn to breathe in deeply, but this wasn’t because of impatience. It was more like the breath you take before diving into the deep end.
Nick cleared his throat, and he saw the figure stiffen.
“Dad, can you hear me?” Nick asked.
Immediately, Nick’s father twisted around and faced him. If Nick had seen him on the street, he doubted he would have recognized him. Gone was his father’s short buzzed haircut, replaced by a year’s tuft of matted mane. And his face was hidden behind a beard that Nick had never seen his dad wear before.
Nick’s father slowly cocked his head sideways, like he was trying to understand. Nick locked eyes with him, trying to see if anyone was home, if there was any recognition. But the darkness made that difficult—all Nick could see were shadows where his father’s eyes were.
“Dad, it’s Nick.”
Suddenly, Nick’s father rushed the door, slamming his whole body against it.
Nick fell backward, arms flailing. Jimmy caught him right as his head smacked up against the concrete block wall behind him.
As Nick righted himself, he reached for his Beretta M9 that was holstered on his belt. He stopped before drawing it, and then looked at Jimmy who seemed to have noticed his reflex. The boys stared at each other for moment. Then Nick broke away as their father continuing to pound against the door.
Vaughn reached a hand to his headset and whispered something Nick didn’t hear. Nick was too enthralled by the freakshow on display before them; in between incessant wheezing and snorting, Nick’s father’s face appeared in flashes through the slat in the door. One moment there was an eye, then gnashing teeth, then an ear.
Seconds later, the squeaky door at the end of the hall opened wide. Nick turned to see four drones march their way.
“Nick,” Vaughn spoke. “This isn’t your father. It’s his body, but the man you knew is gone now.”
The four drones reached them and stood next to Nick, waiting.
Nick thought about what would happen next, what he’d been troubled by all day. He tried to think about the greater good and about what his dad would have wanted him to do. He looked up and watched the snorting crazy that showed no sign of stopping his incensed rampage. Vaughn was right. It didn’t even look like his father anymore. Still, this wasn’t easy, and he felt like he was losing his father for the second time.
“It’s up to you, big brother,” Jimmy said. “He’s your dad.”
“He was yours too,” Nick insisted. Jimmy gave an aloof expression, but Nick knew his brother was just trying to be tough. He knew Jimmy cared deeply for his stepfather. It was true that they hadn’t had all the same experiences together, that by the time Nick’s father married Jimmy’s mother, many of the best father-son days were in the past. But Nick knew Jimmy cared; he just didn’t want to show it.
Finally, with what felt like the hardest words Nick had ever pronounced, he said, “Do it.”
Vaughn spoke to the drones. Rapidly, and with fearlessness that Nick wouldn’t have dreamed of, they opened the door, grabbed Nick’s father and tranquilized him.
Nick’s dad slumped to the floor, succumbing to the nerve toxin. Nick watched what seemed like pallbearers closing the casket as one of the drones reached into his pocket and pulled out a chip. He turned Nick’s father’s head to one side and placed the metallic chip on his temple.
& nbsp; The drone lifted his hand away quickly, and in the dim lighting, Nick saw a small spark and heard an unappetizing crunch as the chip inserted itself into his father’s scalp.
“You did the right thing, Nick,” Vaugh said. “It’s time to move on. We’ve got a world to rebuild.”
CHAPTER 2
NICK TOSSED AND turned. His attempt at taking an afternoon nap was going poorly. Finally, he sat at the edge of the bed. He examined the upstairs apartment that had become his temporary abode—where was home now? This old brick building was probably a hundred years old, he figured. And though Vaughn had outfitted the room with a bed and a couple of pieces of furniture, this was no more a proper bedroom than was the crude barracks he’d slept in at Fort Greely. For some reason, he couldn’t shake the memory of that place. Maybe it was because he had been there, thinking about Lusa the same way he was now.
Knowing sleep was impossible, he stood and went to the window. Outside on the street he saw formations of drones, exercising and doing drills. He wondered if his father was one of them, and whether or not he would recognize him now. Which was harder—seeing your father as a wild-eyed crazy or a soulless drone?
Nick dressed and went downstairs. The old building had once been a storefront, back when Fairbanks’s north side of town was the downtown. Now it was Vaughn’s center of operations, or at least it was when Vaughn was on land. His permanent base was the destroyer which Nick understood had recently been moved down to the port of Valdez to winter in the ice-free waters.
Passing by empty shelves, Nick wondered what goods this store used to sell. He guessed it had been a feed store, or maybe just a grocery store. Heck, knowing how unsophisticated life in Alaska was, it might have been both once.
“Feeling better?” Vaughn asked.
Nick was surprised by the question. He walked up to the giant screen on the wall where Vaughn stood with arms crossed.
“I’m fine,” Nick answered. “Why do you ask?”
“Jimmy said you might be coming down with something.”
Nick scrambled. He started to simply deny it, but then he realized Jimmy had lied for a reason—maybe he didn’t want to disappoint Vaughn. So, Nick played along.
“Yeah, I must have slept it off, whatever it was.”
“Good. Glad you’re up and running now. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and I need you and your brother’s help.”
Nick had heard all this before, but until now, it had seemed that Vaughn had used Jimmy extensively and had given Nick only light duty. Maybe he was giving Nick time to rest up, to get over the trauma of Fairbanks and of losing his father.
“What’s on the agenda?” Nick asked.
Vaughn pointed to the big screen on the wall. On it was a map of North America. It was a familiar one, and soon Nick realized it was the same map he’d had on his wrist display.
“We’re making significant headway,” Vaughn said. “But we’re running into a bottleneck.”
Nick didn’t understand his meaning. “You can’t shut them down?”
“Oh, no. We’re shutting the reactors down alright.” Vaughn zoomed into the tip of one of the cones. As the image grew larger, Nick saw drones highlighted in blue moving away from the reactor site.
“Here’s one that we recently shut down,” Vaughn said with a touch of pride in his voice.
Nick looked at the twin cooling towers with steam boiling out. “They’re back online? You’re making electricity?”
“Hardly,” Vaughn scoffed. “The steam you see is just from the cooling ponds that now have sufficient volume to actually do their jobs. But,” he said, raising his finger upward as if he were lecturing a class, “some day soon when the temperature comes back to normal, we’ll be able to go back in and get it running.”
Nick stared at the image. He’d never really liked nuclear reactors. Even as a kid, he’d always imagined the worst happening. And now, the worst had happened, at least in part. He wasn’t sure if the reactors should ever come back online, especially now with a much smaller population to serve. All that was conjecture, though. And it was a problem for another day.
Something in the satellite image caught his attention. Nick moved closer, squinting to make it out.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing at a dark blotch. “And that?” he added, pointing to another.
Vaughn didn’t move for a second, as if he hadn’t heard Nick’s question. Then, softly he said, “There are always casualties in war. Just be glad it’s not us out there.”
Nick took it in and realized the blotches were dead drones that had been left behind on site. His mind raced to explain what had happened—it must have been radiation poisoning, he surmised.
“Are we running out of drones?” Nick asked.
Vaughn looked insulted, like Nick should have known better than to ask. “Not exactly,” Vaughn answered. “Casualties were expected. The real bottle neck is happening on this side of things. We have an insufficient number of handlers. You see, up until now, Jimmy and I have split duties controlling the drones, training them, etc. The problem is there’s only two of us. I’ve been waiting for you to grab the reins and clock some hours.”
Nick felt himself perk up, challenged by Vaughn’s words. He was no freeloader, that was for sure.
“And your girlfriend,” Vaughn added, “hasn’t been any help at all.”
Nick started to correct Vaughn, to tell him that they weren’t really boyfriend and girlfriend, but then he realized he didn’t know what they were. And he wanted to defend her, but he was also frustrated with her taking off the way she had.
“Just tell me what to do,” Nick said.
Vaughn exhaled loudly, and Nick couldn’t tell if it was a sigh of relief or of frustration. “If I could simply tell you what to do, I could have programmed the computer to do it. Or just have one of the drones take over. But I can’t. I can teach you to use the controls and guide you through a couple of reactor shut downs, but ultimately I need your critical mind. I know you have one; I noticed it the first day we met.”
Nick understood what he meant. “I’ll do my best.”
“I’m sure you will,” Vaughn said in a way that didn’t make Nick feel good, like Nick’s best wasn’t enough but would have to do.
“Here,” Vaughn continued. “Let’s have you initiate a shut down. It will take some time, several hours most likely. Do you need to hit the head or anything?”
Nick shook his head and walked up to the control panel beneath the wall screen. Vaughn kept watch over Nick, visually scrutinizing his every move.
“Here?” Nick asked, pointing at the console.
“Go ahead,” Vaughn confirmed.
Nick tapped the touchpad that he had seen Vaughn use to zoom in and out. But as soon as he did, the wall screen in front of him flashed red.
“What’d I do?” Nick asked, pulling his hand off the controls.
“Nothing,” Vaughn answered as he stepped forward, pushing Nick aside. Vaughn punched keys and buttons until a new screen appeared. It was a different part of the map, somewhere in eastern Alaska. A yellow beacon flashed on the screen.
Suddenly, Nick heard static and hiss over invisible speakers. “Lusa, is everything alright?” Vaughn asked with a deliberate tone.
“I’m in trouble,” came her response. “Emergents came out of nowhere, and now I’m pinned down.”
CHAPTER 3
VAUGHN DIDN’T REPLY to Lusa’s call for help. Instead, he punched more buttons on the console. Right when Nick’s exasperation at Vaughn’s poor communication skills was peaking, a new overlay appeared on the screen. It was still eastern Alaska, and what Nick had figured out was Lusa’s yellow beacon still blinked in the same place. But now there were red-white blotches all around the yellow beacon.
“Are those…” Nick started.
But then Vaughn waved him down before speaking to Lusa. “I can see them,” he said. “They’ve got you surrounded.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” came Lusa’s response. “The villagers and my team are holed-up here; we’ll be able to last for some time because we have the high ground. But there’s too many of them for us to punch our way out of here and run. We need reinforcements.”
