“I get you a great deal on fifty caliber rounds,” he said. “You know, I wasn’t kidding about the paint job.”
“You never are.”
“At least let me camouflage it.”
“No,” I said. “I like red. It’s a threat color for predators.”
“That’s a lot of bullsheet, Baxter. Everyone knows Rex are color blind.”
“Twenty years ago, everyone ‘knew’ dinos were extinct. No body knows shit, Cooter Kahn. Least of all about dinos.”
“I know this work order’s gonna cost you plenty,” he mumbled.
“For once, I’ve got the money,” I mumbled back. “Call me when it’s ready. I’ll be in the bar. C’mon, Steve.”
As we walked out of the bay, a young man wearing vintage leather and sitting on a bio-diesel Smart Hog nodded at me. I gave him the once over. Bad enough that he was riding a motorcycle that cost as much, if not more, than Cee Cee, but he’d modded it out with bones and a skull. The empty sockets of some medium-sized ripper stared, slack-jawed, at me and I felt a pang of sympathy. I nodded in return and kept walking, but he took this tacit adherence to the social contract to start a conversation.
“Hey man, is that your Hummer?” he said.
I stopped and considered the smart-ass answer. But I was tired, hungry, and I’d left my shotgun, so instead I said, “Yep, sure is.”
“She’s a beaut, man,” he said.
“Thanks. She gets the job done.” I turned with a smile and a nod, sure that we were done, but the dino-punk had something else in mind.
“You know, she reminds me of therapod, man.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well,” he said, smirking, “the way she’s brown on the top--on the hard top, and on the hood--and then it’s all dark red on the sides, and then black at the bumper and wheels. Looks exactly like the Rexs, especially the males.” He nodded again and crossed his arms.
Steve was alert, just waiting for a sign from me. I couldn’t see anyone else in my peripheral vision, but dino-punks rarely traveled alone. I forced myself to relax and made my grin a rubbery thing on my face.
“You don’t say? I wondered about that when I bought it. Therapod, huh? Well, that’s something, ain’t it?”
The dino-punk gave me a humorless smile. “Yes, it is.”
“Have a good one,” I said, and started walking.
“You, too,” he said to my back. Grateful that the encounter was over, I pushed it into my “Weird Shit that Happens to Me on the Road” file and walked over to Cooter Kahn’s Take ‘Er EZ Cantina, formerly known as Seven-Eleven, and bought me and Steve our first solid meal in two days.
#
I spent the night in Cooter Kahn’s, mostly to get a hot shower and a chance to stretch out. Being on the road, jarred this way and that on jungle ruts, and clenching the steering wheel as you drive for your life to avoid charging trikes can really screw your body up. Even though the pit stop was knocking most of my expense money out, I sprung for a solid breakfast. Steve thought he’d died and gone to heaven. Biscuits and gravy. Shit. I made sure he popped a squat before we hit the road. Bad enough I’d have to endure his egg farts for eight hours.
Pulling out of New Larado, I was grateful to see the town get smaller in my side mirrors. I tried the Soviet Common Remote Operated Weapon System and the twin fifties on the roof chattered, splitting a helpless mesquite tree in two. Gorgeous. Cee Cee was rumbling along, smooth as you please, and I nudged her up to sixty miles an hour. Any faster and I wouldn’t be able to steer around the massive holes and divots in the road, even though I knew them practically by heart now.
I should have been in a good mood, but I wasn’t. Something didn’t feel right. Maybe it was that dino-punk from the night before or something else I couldn’t put my finger on, but I was antsy and keyed up. Steve felt it too; ordinarily, he’d turn around three times and lay down for a snooze, but he stayed up, nose pressed to the window, alert. He even ignored the Mexican dog biscuit I offered him. “More for me, Steve,” I said, crunching one between my teeth. He looked over his shoulder at me, disdainful, as if to say, “I know what you’re trying, and it won’t work,” and then he went back to watching the road.
Once we got out onto I-35, away from the border, I was surprised at the number of dinos I spotted. Big ones, stompers, mostly, but there was an actual herd of honkers taking water by the frontage road. I always liked the big prong-head dinos. They sound like trumpeting hell when they’re agitated; that thing on their head makes a sound that’ll vibrate your sternum. But for all of that, they are pretty even-tempered. Reminds me of cows. I miss cows. Anyway, I painted them with the auto-targeting system, which registered their heat signatures. My onboard computer’s ID tracker told me they were parasaurolophuses, which I already knew. Then, I uploaded the coordinates to the satellite, where it would bounce down and show up on the Ranger’s mainframe, flagged by all of the regional hubs and local outposts, to be analyzed for threat assessment. Based on what the computer models said, a squadron of rangers would be dispatched to deal with them or, if it were something bigger, the army would send out an armored helicopter to blow the monsters up. I watched them out of the right side mirror as I shot by and hoped they’d leave the honkers alone.
#
I was an hour outside of San Antone when Steve suddenly went nuts, barking like mad, his hackles up. I was baffled. We were alone on the road. I swung over to a wide spot on the shoulder, which was relatively free of debris, and stopped. The gun sights were empty. I gave them a full sweep, just to make sure. Steve was watching me intently, his eyes big and pleading. “You need to go, buddy?” He made a noise in his throat. I popped the locks, pulled out my Ithica, and got out of the Hummer. I smelled the air and figured out what Steve was barking at. There was something around here--a former nest, a carcass, something--because it stank to high heaven. Against my better judgment, I let Steve out of the car, and he immediately lifted his leg and peed, marking this turf as his.
The terrain around the interstate was nothing but grassy field. Perfect for rippers, but anything bigger than six feet tall would stick out a mile. Just past the shoulder was a low, sloping embankment made of dirt, gravel, and a vast accumulation of trash and rubble. There had been two decades of bad weather and accidents, but no one to clean it all up. Off to the left, about a half a mile away, was the burned out hulk of an old school bus. I pulled my pistol out and looked through the scope, checking for movement. I wasn’t expecting to see anything, so when a human head popped up and then back down again, it startled me so much that I dropped my sights.
Then I heard the crack of what sounded like small arms fire.
“Let’s go, Steve,” I said, running around to my side of the Hummer. Steve jumped in and I followed. I floored Cee Cee. She skidded around in the gravel for a minute before grabbing the road and catapulting us forward. Steve was barking frantically, but I was too busy driving to deal with him. Turns out, I should have listened.
The road exploded on my right, and I watched as the mud and the grass rose up, like a giant ribbon of earth moving right alongside the Hummer. As it moved, it took on a more familiar shape, and I understood a number of things all at once. I knew how the theapods were crossing the border, and I knew they were being helped.
The Rex was big—huge--one of those thirty-five footers, with the horned ridges over its brows--and really pissed. It was literally sprayed down with a layer of mud, crap, and what looked like camouflage flocking, more than enough to disguise its heat signature for the infrared scanners. Someone, or a group of someones, had somehow managed to knock this big fucker out and stealth him, for no other reason than to create a weapon of mass destruction.
The Rex had been laying in wait by the side of the road, and I just stuck my ass out in the wind. Now it had my scent, and Steve’s too. I was stan
ding on the gas, but Cee Cee wasn’t built for rapid acceleration, and the tyrannosaur was more than able to match my speed. It roared, a sub-sonic scream that was designed to scare prey into bolting. It was working.
I idly wondered who those assholes in the bus were, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it. The CROWS was locked up in a futile attempt to target something. I disengaged the paint program, manually spun the guns around, and opened up. The overhead chatter was reassuring. I wasn’t helpless. I saw the Rex disappear, dropping back; I had a brief, fleeting thought that I’d survived the encounter. Then the roof thundered, bent inward, and the bastard was on top of Cee Cee, trying like hell to get to me.
I swerved to get it off, but Rex have sharp claws, strong feet, and a firm grip. I heard Steve yelping as I wrenched Cee Cee around into a skid, hoping that my rudimentary understanding of physics would serve me well. Sure enough, the weight of the carno was enough to send it forward, even as the Hummer went sideways. The only problem was that the Rex refused to let go of my roof. There was a lip where the tortoise shell joined the chassis and I heard it rend and pop. Cee Cee tipped, pulled down by the weight of the dino, and went tumbling over as the Rex rolled down the road.
Steve was whining and I was trying to get my bearings. Upside down, I saw the Rex right itself and regard us with alien hate. It roared a challenge, crouched, and then I lost sight of it for a second. Then, it landed on the exposed underside of Cee Cee, and I cursed the day I took the belly armor off. The Rex was ripping through the transmission, scrapping the Humvee in huge bites. I couldn’t see or hear Steve. This was bad. It wouldn’t be long before it would punch through the floor, and then, that would be that. I undid my belt and fell heavily on my shoulders. I still had the Ithica and my pistol, but neither one would be much good against the Rex.
Behind my seat was the Remington VK. Twelve rounds in the magazine, fifty caliber, incendiary. Capable of stopping almost anything without armor. I yanked it free and held my breath. I had one chance, and I had to time it just right or that was the end of my run. It seemed to take forever, but finally I saw serrated claws punch through the floorboard, and then sunlight and the meaty stink of carno flooded into the cab. I waited until I saw its head lunging in, and I rolled out of the window and popped up, barely a dozen feet away. Its head was still inside the ruined Humvee, seeking me out. I raised the Remington and fired once, twice.
The bullets were designed for long distances and large prey. The Rex jerked its head free and roared at me. I put a third bullet into its open mouth and saw the mist of blood spray out at the base of its skull. The Rex stepped off of Cee Cee and staggered towards me, wobbling on unsteady legs. The damn thing was huge. I didn’t take any chances. One more shot into its ribcage and the Tyrannosaur veered off, into the ditch by the side of the road and fell forward.
“Sonofabitch,” I said. It was very quiet in the wake of the attack, and I heard a ruckus off to my left. I was more or less parallel with the bus, and I could see men running out of it, getting onto bikes that were laying down in the grass, and riding away. I recognized one of the bikes with the skull on front, and I raised my rifle to fire, but pulled my shot when I saw the streak of white knock the rider off of his expensive toy.
Steve made it out of the crash, after all. By the time I covered the distance between the road and the burnt-out bus, the dino-punk was a bloody mess. I whistled for Steve, and he detached himself and ran up to me, wagging his tail and grinning proudly.
“Good boy,” I said as he ran over. “Good boy.” The dino-punk was moaning and crying for help. The rest of his crew had scattered, already way down the road. I plucked the sat-comm off of the bike and called for help on the Ranger emergency channel, using their numbered code to more or less describe what had happened. I was told that an evac team was en route. Then I turned to the bleeding dino-punk.
“You bastard,” he said. “That goddamn dog nearly killed me,” he howled.
“Shut up,” I said, leveling the Ithica at him. “Your little liberation project nearly killed me. I’d say we’re even.”
“Those creatures are beautiful and deserve to live their lives without interference,” he said through gritted teeth. “You’re the monster, not them.”
I spat on the ground. “But now that you’re bleeding out, you wouldn’t mind a little civilization, right?”
“Hey, I’m human, too, asshole!”
“The jury’s still out on that,” said. “Come on, Steve.”
“Where are you going?” he yelled.
“I’ve got Rangers coming in the next half hour. If you’re still alive by then, we’ll see about getting you patched up. But here’s an interesting fact that you may not know,” I said, scanning the rolling grass. “Those big Rexs have their own ecosystem of sorts. For example, there’s almost always a crowd of little biters that follow them around, living on the scraps of its kills. Carrion eaters. Great sense of smell.”
I watched him go pale. “Don’t leave me here alone, man!”
I put the Remington on my shoulder. “You got a new bike, you bought the jacket, probably found the skull, and suddenly, you’re an activist. You don’t know shit. My Hummer’s trashed. You nearly got me and my dog killed.” I turned away. “We’re more important than them.”
I walked back to Cee Cee, Steve trotting along beside me, so proud of himself. I surveyed the damage. It would cost a hell of a lot to fix, but the reward for bringing down the Rex--plus the extra information about how the dino-punks were getting the carnos over the border--would fix her up, better than new. Maybe.
Behind me, the grass was rustling and making little scritchy sounds. The dino-punk started screaming. I didn’t turn around. Steve barked once, but he didn’t leave my side. Good boy, Steve. Good boy.
The Chambered Eye
Jessica Reisman
Jessica Reisman’s imaginative,
coming-of-age tale introduces a truly alien society.
Sebira, a mind reader in a traveling show,
fears for her future as her abilities go awry.
“Sebira! Wake up!” Gilley’s voice called me out of sleep that morning. Peering out the semiperm window over my bunk, I saw her standing by the seatrain car, where I lived with Ben, Hassif, and Mika--my pod, with whom I’d been born and raised in one of the sector crèches.
I pulled on pants, a skirt, tunic, and vest--all bright and clashing--and came out, stepping down onto the long dock. Our seatrain, bellied up longwise to the dock slip, rocked slightly with a low hum as it recharged, taking in farmed krill through feed vents all along the undercarriage.
Gilley was tall and gangly back then, her long, pale hair shining in the dim. A follow-cart hummed behind her, lights blinking in the dawn. It was Gilley’s special cart; she’d painted extravagant, soulful eyes on one end, affixed a rag of rope tail to the other, and named it Wulf.
“Supply run for Zadey; you said you wanted to do the shill,” she said. Zadey is the show’s owner, boss, cook, and Gilley’s mum. Gilley comes from a real family, that rare thing. Most of the rest of us--the aerialists, tumblers, duelists, and dancers, musicians, and reader-tellers, like me and the others in my pod--we all came from the sector crèches.
The Gamboges Vivant, the show with which we all lived and traveled, was still mostly asleep, our old seatrain and the grounds beyond shrouded in rain and mist off the sector’s inlet. The vivid orange yellow, lemon yellow, and old sunflower gold of the tents and canopies, all the signs, and the glint of the gearwork of the rides dimmed and slumbering. I loved the show like that, quiet and ghost-like.
Our seatrain, an old Doysen maglev skimmer--the distributed neural net of its light, flexible, ceram-steel body was latticed with manta ray and bowhead whale code--pulled in late the afternoon before, from another sector. It had been some other sector before that, all of them so alike that they tended to b
lur. Most sectors are built on artificial sandbars in the endless sea, pressure sand made from centuries of refuse. Each sector rises out of the sea plains, a proliferation of towering garden-terraced structures. All of them are laid out mostly the same, with a water conversion plant and a market at sector’s edge, and then the seatrain yards and docking slips.
Between these hubs of human life, there was only sea and the web of float tracks on an endless beading of amber bladder bubbles, stretching in all directions. The sectors--they had names, but I generally couldn’t remember one from another--were strung like gaudy baubles on the lace ribbon of tracks around the world. Except where there was no sea at all, just dust and the empty; they say there are towns there, too, and nomad bands, but it’s just what they say.
For the nine and some years of my life after Gamboges adopted my pod when we were five years old, that was the world: horizons of sea, deep color in sky with the wink of stars in the nights, the float tracks an endless stitching from sector to sector, joining it all together, my pod of four, and the folk of the show, our family.
It was a rainy, sweet-throated morning. At the sector market, there were pussy willows, lilacs, and morels like tiny pale brain trees in trays, wondrous things. While Gilley moved to the more prosaic stands to trade for vegetables, fruits, honey, seaweed flour, and spices, I picked a spot near the lilacs--the smell makes people happy--and did the shill.
My flash gear earned looks. I wore colors that ached in the peripheral vision, mirrors, and holo-bead designs in my layered rags; the show performers all made sure to be a walking advert for Gamboges Vivant when we hit public places.
A woman walked by me with her gaze down, a worried expression tightening the lines of her face. “It will be today,” I said, easy and just ever so singsong. I can’t really tell you what else I sensed, but I sensed, and I read what I sensed. “Today--and in your favor, don’t worry.” Her wary expression dissolved into a smile as she took in my appearance and what I was saying.