Dream, Waking, Departure

Buddy groaned. He held a cupped palm to his side. “Damn. That assassin’s knives had something on them. I—” a fit of coughs stopped him from finishing the sentence.

He was a sorry sight. His gun lay by him, dented and scratched where it had met the assassin’s blades. His red and gray poncho had a large dark blotch where his escaping blood stained it. The rest of his clothes, and his wide straw hat from the east, were shredded, torn, cut, and stained as well.

Jean watched him, pinching the flesh between his fingers in a nervous tick. “You can make it to town, can’t you?” he asked.

Blood dribbled down Buddy’s lips, then the stubble of his chin, as he spoke. “I think… I think the blades were… poisoned,” he managed through labored breaths, each successive one becoming more ragged, not really listening to the scientist.

Hound tugged at his pants sleeve, growling desperately, sensing the situation in a way only animals can. Mixed in with the growls of effort were slight whines of desperation.

A gust of wind blew through the gorge. The entrance of the vent caught some of the rich wind, making the ventilation shaft they’d escaped from moan like an off pitch singer. The trees rustled, the tall grass sighed, and the little birds nesting in their holes in the rockface ahead watched in silence.

“Wait a minute…” Buddy whispered. His eyes were fogging over. Something was wrong.

“What is it?” Jean asked.

Hound pawed at Buddy’s legs, whining, yelping, trying to make the bounty hunter stay awake. Buddy didn’t feel the claws dig into his legs. He didn’t feel his legs at all. Everything was clouding over.

“Why’s—” a cough. “Why’s it so… green?”

Buddy raised his hand: the tan skin was covered in blood. A cold sensation from his gut was pulling him in. As though a black hole had opened inside of him and was sucking all the warmth and sensation from his body. Hound met his weak hand and let the bounty hunter pet his furry cheek.

Then, as Beaufort Limbo lay dying, he saw Hound’s face rapidly blink between two extremes. One face was that of the German shepherd he’d found just days ago, the other was a hairless, mottled thing with bright green eyes locked in shiny metal sockets.

The rich, verdant environment, and the scientists they had rescued, weren’t spared from this strange hallucination. Jean flickered between the khaki overalls he wore, and a strange green robe. The gorge with its trees and hanging vines flashed between paradise and desert. Each flicker caused latticed geometric afterimages to flash in Buddy’s clouding retinae.

What the hell was going on?

Darkness pooled from his peripheral vision; it too flashed with the strange geometry. His vision shrank into a small circle, then a pinprick. Before there was nothing but black, Buddy saw a man standing by the rockface of the gorge. He couldn’t make out his features, but his hair, it was flowing as though it were underwater.

Hound was barking.

All went black.

Jean was calling out his name.

They were so far away.

They were—

“Buddy!”

With a snap, Buddy Limbo shot up, weapon drawn.

The people around him, sharing the long, cramped, rumbling compartment, bathed a faint red by scant lights, held on to their weapons, edges of their little seats, restraints, or some of the tubing on the walls. All of them looked nervous; terrified, even.

“Buddy,” a familiar, polite voice said from below.

It was Hound. He was standing, legs apart, head partially down in expectation of violence.

The atomizer was whining up and eager, aimed straight to point between Hound’s chrome eye sockets.

“There’s no need for that, Buddy. Holster the gun,” Hound said politely.

Buddy blinked, then did as the canine said, and returned the sidearm to its hip holster, much to its annoyance.

“I… I’m sorry,” the tall cyborg said, returning to his seat. The restraint harness was too small for him, so he’d forgone its use since they’d left the no-name town. That had been several days ago. And the stark interior of the land-crawler, with its faint red lights, had been the only thing the party had seen for all that time.

“Looks like you’ve gone cabin crazy,” one of the red clad See soldiers called out after the tension subsided.

Lucia, the young squire mechanic, who’d been sitting near the front of the land-crawler, removed her harness. “Be silent,” she hissed.

She rolled up the sleeves of her white frock and opened the latch of the tool satchel strapped to her belt. It flopped open, revealing many little instruments, both delicate and crude. “What was that?” she whispered once she was kneeling beside the bounty hunter.

Hound was beside them, silicone ears perked and attentive.

Buddy worked his copper jaw. “You tell me, sister.”

“What do your internal systems readers say? Any warnings, any software malfunctions?” Lucia asked, hooking a cable from her wrist socket to one of Buddy’s many ports.

“None,” Buddy whispered, searching himself, feeling the invasive pressure in his mind as Lucia’s consciousness melded with his machine body’s software. He was glad that she couldn’t access his wetware.

“Your internal chronometer is still stuck,” she said, looking at a small screen on her wrist, “otherwise nothing’s wrong.”

“Something happened,” Hound said, opening his maw to let his tongue loll out.

“Is there any trace of the assassin’s virus in my system?” Buddy asked.

Lucia shook her head and removed the cable. She raised the poncho and checked the air intake vents under Buddy’s armpits, inspecting the overhaul work. “Your systems were cleaned, checked, updated and troubleshooted several times before you woke. Your synthetic components, drivers and software are perfect, apart from the chronometer. No signs of viruses or malware. Can you control your nervous system and pain receptors?”

Buddy nodded.

Lucia removed her white and red skullcap, tucking it into her belt. Her tonsured hair revealed the many scars on her scalp where the See had done incision, implant and graft work. Other than that, her face was still fully human. Sharp, small, and pale features with dark brown eyes with a coy light glinting in them. Permanently pursed lips that were a little blue below a tapered nose.

She scratched her bare scalp, already stubble had begun to grow. “My guess is that it was something in your brain. It still is the primary operations center of your body. Diagnosing any organic system damages would require surgery.”

“You have a brain?” Hound asked.

Buddy raised an eyebrow. “I do, thank you very much. Not everyone swaps them out, you know.”

“I do too,” said a strained voice from the back of the crawler, where Jaques, the former bank teller, sat alone.

The attention of all three shot to him. He blanched, hugged the sack of his belongings closer to his chest, and looked down. Only after the incident with Tom had the See mechanics found the Conclave spyware embedded in Jaques’ eye. It had been removed, of course, but suspicion was hard to rinse from one’s reputation.

Everyone in the passenger compartment jostled as the land-crawler began crossing some rocky plain in the desert. The sound served to drown out further eavesdropping.

“No offense,” Buddy began, voice lowered, “but I don’t want you going around my fleshy bits with a knife in this turbulence.”

Lucia giggled. She did that a lot, and Buddy couldn’t parse what set her off.

“Well, we should be arriving at the drop off point soon, take it easy until then,” she said, and returned to her seat.

Hound remained. “What happened, Buddy?” he asked.

Buddy raised an eyebrow, then looked at the teller, the Grower, and the mechanic in turn, then at the soldiers, making sure everyone was minding his or her business and not listening. He bent down. “I think I had a dream,” he said in a low voice. Not quite sure why Hound was the only one he felt comfortable confiding in.

Hounds ears perked. His tongue returned into his maw. His head cocked. “A dream?”

Buddy hissed and raised a seven fingered hand. “Not so loud. I know how it sounds. But I swear to God it was a dream.”

Hound’s head cocked the other way. “You’re not lying. What did you see?”

“Well, I was flesh and blood for one, so were you. Then I died.”

“Strange.”

“I’d say.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, Jean was there too, and some strange fella. Also, there were trees and grass and other organics all around us.”

“Organics? Did I say anything?” Hound asked.

“Well, no. I think you were just a regular canine.”

“Regular?”

“Haven’t you watched any vid-chronicles from the pre-cataclysm days?”

“I’ve not.”

The two were silent for a time. The creaking and groaning and hissing of the land-crawler had calmed a bit.

Hound padded in a small circle, then lay down by Buddy’s feet. “Maybe the assassin’s virus is eating your brain,” he suggested.

Buddy poked the canine with one hemispherical foot. “The hell’s wrong with you. Don’t say shit like that.”

“I apologize.”

Like some giant beetle the land-crawler trudged along, climbing over dunes, rocks and the remnants of ancient buildings, their creators long lost to memory. Inside the crawler all were silent and uncaring of the lost cultures they were trampling. All were tired, most ached from the long journey, some were sore. Buddy was troubled; he shouldn’t be able to dream. No one should.

---

Water… Darkness… A light far above… Pain… It growled; bubbles escaped from between its teeth… It was damaged… Badly damaged… It wanted to kill… Pain… It needed repair… Murder/vengeance.

It grabbed the muddy soil beneath its claws. It dragged, pulled, hauled, and screeched at the pain the motions caused. More bubbles gushed up to the surface. Then, after an eternity of anguish, there was grass, soil, and recycled and filtered air, even trees. It breathed, and in each breath was pain and hurt.

It sent the signal. Someone would come, because it had been an expensive investment, and the master didn’t like waste. It would be repaired.

Unit Five-One howled.

---

Once they reached the drop-off point, Buddy had all but forgotten the dream vision. He was presently enamored with the six-wheeled buggy that the crew of the land-crawler were unlatching and rigging to crane down from atop the massive machine. By it was a two-wheeler, but the See had only authorized one vehicle, and thus it remained behind.

Hound sat by Buddy, tails gently slapping the sandy and dusty ground, sharing in the expectant glee the bounty hunter emanated. Lucia was by the heavy boarding ramp to the troop compartment, receiving last minute instructions from her elder Sandra about the test of proving. The young squire mechanic had changed from her frock to a skin-tight, black enviro-suit. A cream and red tabard with the sigil of the See medics emblazoned on the chest hung over it, her toolbelt and an added sidearm belt were cinched around her waist, and a pair of welding goggles combined with a filtration mask hung around her neck. Nearby, Jean and Jaques were conversing, saying their farewells, the latter looking glum.

Once all was done the boarding ramp rose on humming hydraulics, closed and latched, and the crawler recommenced its slow march away from the orange sunset. Probably towards Roma Tertia.

Buddy sat in the driver’s seat of the buggy, seven-fingered hands around the large wheel. Hound sat on the passenger seat beside him. “Oh, I’ve waited for this for so long! No more bare-ball treading in the sands. No more hibernating out in the open. No more slow going,” Buddy said with a wide grin. “This baby can go as fast as a hundred kilometers an hour.”

“How fast,” Hound said.

“No driving either,” said Lucia from outside.

Buddy leaned through the open window to look down at the mechanic, eyebrow raised. “What?”

“I’m the driver on this expedition and I’m responsible for the proper functioning and repair of this vehicle. I drive.”

“Now, Miss, ain’t it a little too demanding for you to be driving non-stop? Shouldn’t we take turns?” Buddy offered with a grin, his glinting metal teeth catching the waning light.

“If I need a break, we’ll stop. We only have this one Buggy. If it gets busted due to reckless driving then we’ll be on foot for the rest of the journey.”

“I ain’t reckless!”

“Have you ever driven something like this, moreover, do you have the piloting program?”

Buddy looked to Hound, who, by means of cocking his head, shrugged.

“I thought so. Now, hop out. Our first stop is the outpost three hundred kilometers west,” Lucia said.

She clambered up the side of the buggy, opened the door and tilted her head to indicate the sand below, a calm, passive look on her face.

Buddy groaned and hopped down. “Then I ride shotgun,” he said.

“I called it already,” said Hound.

Buddy cursed, then entered and flopped down onto the backseat. Leg room was minimal, so he spaced his long legs wide to accommodate. There was an inch of air between his cable hair and the canvas top.

Jean was already sitting on the other side, not suffering from the same problems. “Why the outpost?” he asked.

“It’s by the coast. From there we’ll charter a ship and cross the Mediterranean Gulf. Your map does say the Pathogen is located somewhere in the Eurasian continent, right?”

“But it’s far to the northeast, wouldn’t going through the Red Desert be far quicker? We could go through Neo-Ur straight across to the Caspian Lake.”

All three turned to the Grower in astonishment.

“What?” Jean asked.

Hound spoke next. “The Conclave purchased Neo-Ur a decade ago. All nearby satellite towns are under their thrall as well. They strictly monitor anything that comes and goes. There’ve also been See and Conclave skirmishes on the border.”

This time everyone looked quizzically at Hound.

“Now how’d you know so much about that?” Buddy asked.

“That is where I woke up, and from where I escaped,” Hound said matter of fact.

A cold ball dropped into Buddy’s mineral processor. Before he could ask for further elaboration, Lucia chimed in.

“Hound is right. Going that way would definitely put us in the Conclave’s crosshairs. The safest way is across the gulf to Roma Prima, across the alps. and from there through Gallia,” she said, and gunned the engine, “but we need to get going before we’re out of light. We need to be at the outpost by midnight.”

Buddy’s protests were drowned as the engine came alive. Lucia slammed down the pedal, and the buggy was off, spitting up sand, dust and ash from its six massive wheels. Even with enhanced auditory receptors, it was impossible to hold a conversation in the loud vehicle. So, instead, Buddy crossed his arms and watched the ochre and orange desert sprawl out before the windshield, occasionally glancing at Hound, who sat calmly, tongue lolling and bouncing as it hung out from his mouth.

 

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