Chapter 327: (Eternity) (1/2)

The computer system's cooling system turned on first. Pumps pressurized gas, turning it into slurry, which was then pumped through superconductor wrapped piping. The superconductor made sure all of the material was the same temperature as the superconductor that was wrapped around the piping.

Hardware began to power up, going through self-checks and self-diagnostics. Temperatures immediately began to rise as electricity flowed through circuitry that had been dormant for thousands of years. LED's, neon strips, and fluorescent tubes began to light up different colors, a combination decorate and early warning system.

Herod watched as the human woman stayed fixated on the dataslate that was connected to the system. She was watching the POST messages, checking the voltage readings, watching temperature. Herod noted that she'd already started using split-screen in order to keep track of the data-sheet on one side and the actual readings on the other.

She was humming to herself, rocking back and forth slightly on her heels, a slight smile on her face.

The system beeped and all of the components went live, bringing the system to full operation.

Herod still watched as Dee monitored the software and firmware messages as the system booted up.

”Looks like replacing that last crystal platter drive did it,” she said, tapping the checksum pass. ”The repair system is online now. It's already dedicating repair drones to the systems we prioritized.”

She turned off the display and turned around. ”Now where, Speedy?”

”Primary Soul Uninterrupted Disaster Storage System,” Herod said, sighing. He put his fingertips to his temple, even though it didn't do any good in reality. ”Sam?”

”Yes?” Sam's voice was still heavily synthesized.

”How do we get to the SUDS?” Herod asked.

”Take mag-lev, it's another Gen-Two Startram, so you won't be in transit for too long. A day or two. I'm having it loaded with food and drink now,” Sam said.

Dee nodded slowly, looking up at the floating orb that Sam was using to speak. She looked down at Wally, then at the orb, then at Herod, her eyes flat and unreadable.

”I'll give you a guideline,” Sam said. He made a groaning sound. ”I will be with you momentarily, please, wait. I know it's been a long time but I just need a little more time.”

The blue line showed up in Herod's vision and he adjusted the strap on his tool kit. ”Ready?” he asked Dee. She just nodded, her face expressionless. Herod looked down at Wally. ”Ready?” Wally beeped and held up his little clawed hand.

They walked silently through the massive forms of the equipment that Herod barely understood.

Several times Dee just walked through flickering apparitions that appeared, took a few steps, and vanished.

Usually on contact with Dee.

”Can't you see them?” Herod asked after a Treana'ad with chainsaws for arms, large spikes driven through his head, and a mouth full of sawblades ran down the corridor waving his arms.

”I can see them,” Dee said. ”They're impressions, and impressions have no more powerful than a hologram.”

Herod didn't say anything.

The phasic residue was thick enough that he could feel a chill, sometimes taste a memory, remember a touch, when he grazed the images of the dead.

”Why?” Dee asked as she stepped onto the moving sidewalk.

”They're dangerous,” Herod said.

”If you say so,” Dee said. She looked at the landscape that was moving by faster and faster. ”They're dead, and the dead no longer matter.”

Herod shook his head, leaning on the rest bar next to Dee. ”We stand upon the edifice built by the dead of years past, they matter in their deeds and how they have effected the world.”

”Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay,” She quoted. ”Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away.”

”Ozymandias,” Herod said softly.

”Yes. Although Kansas said it better,” she said.

”How? And who is Kansas?” Herod asked.

”A musical group. Hippies. But they said it better: we're all just dust in the wind,” she quoted. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes, looking at the remaining few in them. She sighed. ”I'll be out soon.”

”Give Wally one,” Herod said. Wally opened the port in front of the strange matter creation engine Herod had installed in his frame.

”What? Why?” Dee asked.

”Trust me,” Herod said.

”Yeah, that means 'fuck you' in Yiddish,” Dee said, but she handed one over.

”What's Yiddish?” Herod asked.

She shook her head. ”Nothing that matters now.”

Herod tossed it in the creation engine's open port and waited. ”Print us out a box of twenty,” Herod said.

Wally shivered for a moment and the box popped out. He picked it up and held it up. Herod took it and handed it to Dee. ”Here, try these. They'll all be identical to the one you gave him until one of us sits down and does some randomization in the template.”

Dee took it, replacing her unlit cigarette in the old pack and opening up the new one. She took a cigarette out and put it in her mouth, lighting it. She closed her eyes, obviously tasting the smoke, and exhaled a cloud of it.

”Huh, can't tell the difference,” she mused.

Herod broke the silence after a moment. ”I owe you an apology,” he said.

”What for, Speedy?” Dee asked.

Herod sighed. ”You're from eight thousand years ago. Even though I'm surrounded by technology I barely understand, doing things I can barely comprehend, I wrongfully assumed you were stupid.”

”Like I was a caveman you thawed out?” she asked.

Herod nodded. ”Yes. I was hoping that, at the most, you could be like Wally there and help me out by handing me tools and materials.”

Dee was quiet for a long moment. ”I get it. You're used to a world full of humans so goddamn stupid you wonder how they breathe and walk at the same time.”

”Well,” Herod started.

”I get that feeling. Everyone around you is barely intelligent monkeys, unable to comprehend a single thing about the world around them beyond hot and cold, wet and dry, and you're supposed to act like they matter, that they're your equals,” Dee's voice was cold, hard, tight. ”You have to be polite to your inferiors who, many times, are in positions of power over you.”

”I was wrong about you,” Herod said. Beyond the crysteel tube the autowalk was moving through were fields of grain being tended to by robotic tractors.

”I noticed you changed your mind about the time you had me start working with the software,” Dee said. ”I'm familiar with the language and it showed.”

”I've found myself having to adjust to reality quite a bit in the last year or so,” Herod admitted. He opened his mouth to further apologize when Dee reached out and roughly shoved him.

”Good enough. Don't fuck this up and keep talking,” she said.

They were silent as the autowalk kept moving, the agricultural fields streaking by.

The autowalk was slowing down and she straightened up, pointing. ”The trains often look like that?”

The maglev train had broken windows, smears of paint on it, and was obviously suffering from oxidation.

”No, they don't,” Herod mused.

”Huh,” Dee said, turning to stare at the oncoming terminal. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes, squinting. ”Platform's clear.”

”Might have happened right after the Glassing. Probably Screaming Ones,” Herod said. He'd explained the Glassing and the Screaming Ones and the Sleeping Ones to Dee while they had walked to the Phasic Energy Buffer System.

”How long has it been since the Glassing?” Dee asked, straightening up and stepping back from the railing, which would retract to allow Herod and her to step out onto the loading platform for the maglev.

”Eight thousand years and some change,” Herod said.

”Hmm,” Dee said, her eyes still narrowed and her attention on the train, which had just come to a stop at the station. The autowalk was slowing, less than a hundred meters to go.

”There's nothing living here,” Herod said.

”If you say so,” Dee said, cracking her neck. She shook out her left arm.

”Sam, is there anyone alive here?” Herod asked.

The channel was dead.

”Damage,” Dee said. She pointed at several half collapsed towers, a building that had burnt out a long time ago, and slagged machinery. She squinted and pointed at several figures hidden by shadows. ”Those look like giant robots.”

She turned and looked at Herod. ”This is a battlefield.”

”It's from the Glassing,” Herod said. He winced as he heard a scream off in the distance. ”Nobody's here.”

The autowalk came to a stop and Dee stepped off of it and onto the platform, looking around with quick, sharp motions.

”Head on a swivel, Speedy,” she said, her voice tight. ”Does this train go through vacuum?”

”I don't know,” Herod said. ”He said it's a Gen-Two StarTram, meaning it goes up above any atmosphere to reach supersonic speeds.”

”Then, yes, it does,” Dee said, she slowed down slightly, looking toward the engine of the tram then slowly toward the back. ”Fifteen passenger cars, two engines on each end, two tenders, one on each end, probably with reaction mass or fuel,” she said. ”Based on the previous maglev we were on, there are one hundred seats per car, two rows per side of twenty five. Each passenger car is thirty meters long, four point two meters high, and three meters wide.”

Herod managed not to show surprise that his optics did the measurements with him, showing that she was essentially right, just off on a few decimal points.

”Assume each person needs five square meters of living space, that's sixteen per car, that's two hundred forty living areas, add in one third again for doubling up, that's three hundred twenty, subtract half for violence, that's one sixty, pull one third for debris and material storage, round to the up to the nearest five, and we're looking at fifty-five possible combatant,” she said, stopping right before the doors. She looked at Herod. ”They'll come at us from one direction first, then from another.”

”I'm telling you, the Great Glassing was eight thousand years ago, there's nobody on that train,” Herod said.

”If you say so,” Dee said. She touched the doors and they folded to the side, revealing the train interior.

Seats were torn up, the stuffing ripped out, the Neo-aluminum frames torn apart, piled in nests, with the tubular frame sections in piles. The lights inside flickered.

”Tell your friend we're in trouble,” Dee said. She looked to the right and left. ”Can't you feel them looking at us?”

Herod shook his head. ”No.”

Dee turned and looked at him and Herod managed not to step backwards.

Her eyes were glowing. A soft reddish amber glow that almost hid the gray of her eyes.

”Remember: there's no such thing as cheating,” she said, her smile reappearing. She looked at Herod and frowned slightly. ”You have my eyes.”

”I'm sorry?” Herod said.

Dee just shook her head, exhaling smoke, and stepped into the car.

Herod followed, almost gagging at the smell.

Human urine, body odor, blood, rotting and roasted meat, Treana'ad death stench, other smells that Herod couldn't recognize. They all flooded his olfactory senses.

Dee lifted up a cloth, looking at it closely. She sniffed it, then touched her tongue to a long thin dark spot as Wally clattered on board the train.

”Urine. Fresh. A female took a piss and wiped her gash with this,” Dee said, tossing it. She looked around. ”No children, no weapons. They saw us coming.”

Herod wanted to tell her she was wrong, there was no way anyone was on the train.

The train started moving with a hum, the slight jerk making Herod and Dee sway slightly.

The lights flickered and Dee moved to the middle of the walkway. ”Get behind me, face the other door. Don't get in my way,” she warned.

Herod had a sinking feeling as he turned away from her and faced the far door.

They're all dying. All of them. We're losing interlock, signals are bleeding cross channel, he heard a woman say in head. Christ, look at that overflow. Shut down Phasic Nine! Shut it... her voice devolved into a scream that went on and on and on.

”Here they come,” Dee whispered.