Flyover Planet Ch. 6: Cleanup, Two Ways.
Where to go from the Pockets? The Eds confer.
Chapters One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen Pt. 1, Fourteen Pt. 2, Fifteen, Sixteen.
(Non-SF Flyover Valley starts here.)
The only people in the Pockets to have clean whole clothes and unmarked skin were the girls and a younger boy or two, like Benjy Rotor. He was deeply ashamed and envious of Seti and Cheers, for the holes and the mended patches, just like the burns, were badges of honor. They had put washed the stuff out of people's skin and hair the best they could and patched up the clothes; the man who had collapsed was still in the infirmary room, and so was the old lady, Rogan Dhal's mother: they gave her nitroglycerine and tea with spices and hoped for the best. There were no defibrillators in the Pockets as they would not work there; and there was no Tia Doctor to diagnose and treat.
"But what were those scrappy things?" Cheers asked for the umpteenth time. He was scowling in the feeble light of the glowsticks; but of course Cheers was usually scowling.
"You heard Tian Teacher; he said they might be a kind of neurotoxin," XieXie said.
"That don't tell me any," Cheers groused. Neurotoxin was a word from a medical textbook to him, which of course he never read. "And it wasn't like he was sure, anyway."
"Yeah, that's why he said might, Cheers, use your noggin."
“Boyo, focus! I’m on cleanup tonight,” Forseti shifted to get a better grip on the cable. “Brains take forever to wash off.”
Benjy Rotor snorted. It was his brains Seti was talking about. Rotor was inching forward along a thin ledge, thirty feet above the ground, fifteen feet away from the small crevice in the jutting roof of a natural cave within a cave where the adults were ensconced. In spite of the kids’ vehement protests no one under the age of sixteen had been allowed to join them. Rogan Dhal had been able to tell XieXie that her father and stepmother had sent out a wave before all communications were dampened; so they had been alive and in Portside with Auntie. That was all any of the Pradeshi knew. Pradesh was on the other side of the Pockets, Wayside being west of them and Pradesh south. They themselves had started off to the Pockets right after getting a message from Portside. Then Tian Teacher and Tian Builder and all the grownups went away and shut the heavy thick door that had been fitted into the cave opening. So that was how Forseti and Cheers came to be holding onto a cable, the other end of which was tied into the harness they made out of two leather belts. Rotor was the lightest of them, so he was in the harness, while Cheers held on to the rope and Forseti to him.
“I still think we deserve to go to the council,” Cheers grumbled. “We ain’t little.” The angry red burns on the backs of his hands stood out like bites of a tiny evil insect.
“Shush!” Rotor was now lowering himself off the ledge of the upstairs gallery, one arm looped around a jutting piece of rock. The plan was to feed the cable till Rotor's feet touched the roof of the inner cave just above the crevice, and he would slither, lizard-like, to lay his ear against it. It had worked perfectly well in Beam in the Den of the Foul Five, and Forseti saw no reason why it should not work here. XieXie was sure something was going to go wrong but there had been no way to stop the boys so she just tagged along to watch.
“Junk he is heavy!” Cheers muttered. Rotor hissed something in return that sounded like “Scrap to you!” Forseti grinned. Sweat was plastering his hair over his eyes, but he was holding on like grim death. Rotor was gently swinging in mid-air. The roof looked very far away like that and seemed to slope downward like a playground slide, but Rotor was more elated than scared. He was floating downwards like a spider on its thread, his ears drinking in every slight noise, himself invisible yet aware of everything around them —
“You should really have had someone standing guard,” Tian Teacher’s calm voice said above.
Rotor’s own squeak of surprise was drowned by Cheers’s yelp. His grip slid and the rope jerked Rotor downward sickeningly and upward when someone yanked at the rope before Rotor struck the roof of the cave.
“Come on, bring him up, gently,” Tian Teacher said, making no move to help. Rotor began his ignominious ascent, twitching in the harness, tangling the rope as he tried to get back on the ledge and Cheers yanked a bit too hard. Finally Rotor was on his own two feet, all the kids shame-faced but a little defiant.
“You don’t need four people to get one spy on a roof,” Tian Teacher said sternly.
“We would not need to spy if we were in there in the first place,” Cheers muttered sullenly with the reckless abandon of one whose future is written.
“That’s true,” Tian Teacher agreed, “but you do know what the age of majority is.”
"Can you tell us anything, Tian?" XieXie asked. The teacher was quiet for a moment. He looked troubled. The white light of the glowstick highlighted the circles under his eyes, gave a harsh definition to the worry lines on his forehead.
"We don't really know anything," he said finally. "There was a similar attack on the Pradeshi, and all comms are d-down," he'd nearly said "dead," and that was not a good word to use to kids who did not know if their families were alive.
"Do you think our folks are ok?" XieXie asked as if reading his thought.
"I hope so," Tian Teacher said simply. "Now, the three of you have some extra cleaning duty tonight," the boys looked resigned, Cheers perhaps a bit more gloomy than usual, "and there is a lot to be done in the kitchen. XieXie, you go and relieve Fenny in the infirmary and ask Tia Dhal if she needs an extra pair of hands in there. Downstairs in five, you lot."
He started making his way down, favoring his bad leg; his limp was worse after the mad scramble at the gates.
“Set watch next time!” he shouted before turning the corner.
XieXie laughed.
The Shelter stayed in lockdown for fifty-one hours and twenty minutes, give or take a few seconds.
There were sentries set at windows. Nothing moved around the Pockets, and everywhere they could see the grassy knoll had turned black, a viscous blanket covering the ground; only the occasional lump here or there told of a lost sack or maybe an abandoned blanket.
But there was plenty to do inside, cooking and cleanup, housework and homework. Cheers and Forseti and Rotor had to write essays describing the correct way to scout and set watch in enemy territory, with examples.
There was enough food to last them a few weeks, though some supplies had been lost at the last; and plenty of water, cans of it stacked everywhere there was space. Wayside had long been ready, though not for this. There was gas for cooking and heating if need be. Garments had been mended and patched, some with the bright purples and greens and oranges of the Pradeshi, some with the more familiar and common browns and blues of Wayside work-clothes.
When there was nothing to do, one of the Pradeshi ladies set anyone idle to drawing some odd-looking but pretty flowers with pointy petals on each other’s skin. Only the girls were allowed to do this for some reason, and so they went around with petals, loops and swirls and stars adorning the backs of their hands, green and rust and cocoa against rosy or olive or brown skin. Forseti once caught sight of XieXie draped in vibrant shimmering green, Pradesh-fashion, her long hair that came down past her wrists being braided by some Pradeshi women and girls. He turned a cartwheel when she saw him, just to see her smile.
The sun rose again and purpled the Pockets and gilded the grass, for all that no one from Wayside was outside to see.
And in the shelter, Linder and Acharya, a tough young Pradeshi, were getting ready to take a tunnel leading north, out of the Pockets. Acharya was the fastest runner amongst the Pradeshi party, they said; it was his father lying unconscious in the infirmary. Linder was the fastest amongst Waysiders; no one could outrun Linder, and he did not tire easily. Both were good at tech stuff.
Neither Tian Teacher nor Rogan Dhal liked the idea of sending them out but that was the only passage that had stayed uncharted by outsiders; it was discovered late the previous cycle when there hadn't been any science missions around Wayside, and Tian Teacher was reasonably sure they had managed to keep it a secret. Even the Pradeshi had not known about it.
“I still don’t see why Linder can go and we can’t,” Cheers groused.
“Can you put a transmitter together?” Fenny asked prissily with a toss of her blonde hair. She had been making eyes at Acharya and the giggling of the other kids had put her in a bad mood.
“Maybe not but Guns sure can,” Cheers shot back. Gunnara smiled. She hardly ever got mad.
“I cannot outrun Linder though,” she said. “And the probability of having to run —”
“I know, I know, you can give us a number,” Cheers wrinkled his nose. Guns was about the only one who got as nice an attitude as he could manage.
“I could, but I don’t think you want me to,” Guns said seriously.
"Leave off, Frown Town," XieXie said. "It doesn't look like they want to send anybody at all."
Tian Teacher really didn’t look happy, standing there with a worried Rogan Dhal. They had thrashed the thing deep into the night; but though the old lady was awake, she was not getting better, and the man was not waking up. The black viscous stuff had been cleaned off his skin but they couldn't get rid of it completely; he was unconscious but clearly in pain. And this was no ordinary raid from somewhere outside: the Eds' pillaging was not going to stop. They were not going to just leave them alone; it was not what the Eds did.
"Keep your eyes and ears peeled," Tian Teacher said for the hundredth time. "No noise, head down. The first way cabin you come to —"
"If anything seems off, do not go there, retreat; if one of us is lifting the floorboards the other is standing guard. We know, sir," Linder said, his usual grin absent.
"The true man is not eager for glory," Acharya said quietly.
Ammo, guns, water; they would have to come back in twelve hours; if they did not come back in fifteen, something was wrong, and Tian Teacher would never forgive himself. He wished now, with a heart-destroying acidic bitterness, that he had had a turn for strategy; that he knew more; that he had not been slow and lame and could have gone himself in their place.
Linder came over to the knot of kids, milling about, some looking excited, some scared. Forseti bumped fists with him, biting down on his own disappointment. He was smaller than Linder, and slower, and just a little younger; he could not have been chosen.
“You go-come, you hear?” he said.
“I go-go-come, you won’t even see me,” Linder smirked.
Cheers opened his mouth, felt XieXie’s elbow in his kidney, shut his mouth, bumped fists too.
“Don’t let the guy from Pradesh have all the fun,” he said instead of whatever he’d been going to. Linder gave XieXie a little grin.
“Our talk ain’t over, XieXie,” he said, for her alone, heedless of the ears and the giggles.
“We'll see,” XieXie said demurely. “Take care, you.”
Linder grinned, ran to join Acharya. A few moments later both were gone.
The Chief Medical Officer was understandably annoyed.
“We started the cleanup on the understanding that we had all the data,” shon said, pointing at the screen with disgust evident in every feature. Probably had emo treatments recently, Anais thought uncharitably. With all the other modifications required for high-ranking medics emo updates sometimes backfired into a period of emotional instability. Anais had always thought that putting CMOs in charge of a cleanup mission instead of a Negotiator was one of the less successful upgrades to the chain of command. Most Negs felt the same way.
The blue flames of the cleanup had burned down most of the buildings around Wayside. Medics liked using satell drones for faster destruction but there were also plenty of other cleaning agents: missiles, gases, surprise eggs, the lot.
“Don’t give me that blank Neg look. Why did we miss the target group being exposed, accessible, and placed at the edge of the geo abnormality? They’ve had this sunrise ritual for the last two hundred cycles, and it never came up in your logs?”
It had, that's why they had been sure they would have enough time. Also they had been sure that the children would panic, and there would be nowhere to go for them but westward, to their homes or to Portside. We should have cleaned up the school first too, Anais thought bitterly. That Teacher creature had been too awake, too fast, in spite of being a useless deformed cripple. Anais said:
"There were developments, Sirt."
“Developments. Where are we with Portside?” the CMO asked irritably. The Chief Developer wiggled his fingers at the projection to magnify it.
“They are holding,” he said, grudging respect evident in his voice. “They don’t have much in the way of offense, but the defense capabilities are utilized to the max. They’ve got a holding forcefield, well-protected generators, constant watches set... We’re blanking the comms, but other than that we can’t do much without a broader permit for a proper development of the area. If we have to take assets," developers always referred to the local population as assets once the job started, "we can't shell too hard or use surprise eggs, even if they make it through."
"What about a mild-grade clearing?" Anais asked. The Chief Developer pointed at a little cloud in the top right corner.
"We’ve tried that, but their air filters are up-to-date and well-maintained, and I guess they've got masks, so no Class 1 chemicals are getting through. They’ve got supplies, and they are a bunch of determined unmodified freaks.”
“Now you have a Psych Eval badge?” the Chief Medical Officer’s voice could have cut tungsten.
The Chief Developer glanced at the Chief Counselors. “Am I wrong?”
The CCs were always a hetero man/woman team, subvocals tuned to each other on a closed frequency. These two had even chosen to go and have sexual inertia installed; apparently it heightened the awareness hum that they needed to sync-diagnose with each other.
Now, after a second’s pause, the female Chief Counselor nodded at her counterpart. He said, modulating to gentle apology:
“Wayside tested out a solid four on the scale. There were the usual indicators of occasional social tension. The only anomalies was the high adoption index, and that fell within the mild fluctuation parameters, being rooted in a major disaster a decade ago where a number of adult settlers perished; and the lack of a permanent government that could be identified readily.”
“So you are confirming the Chief Developer’s assessment,” the CMO said with heavy humor. “I no longer need a select pro team. We can all do each other’s jobs. Perhaps our Chief Negotiator would like to be the CMO and I should go, oh, perhaps "deliver babies," eh?” Shon's quotes around the deliberately crude phrase were audible. CMOs were notoriously foul-mouthed though, so they gave a dutiful laugh at the bad language and the absurd idea. A Chief Medical Officer as a doctor was really pretty funny if you thought about it.
The CMO drummed shons fingers on the desk.
“All right. Tell me something useful.” Shon looked at the Chief Developer.
“Chief.”
“The gases and the strafing are getting us nowhere. They might, in a few weeks’ time, but that’s too long for the op,” there were nods around the room, “and the Geos are still creaming over that hideyhole your target’s inside of, so we can’t bang that either. We need new instructions in Development.”
The CMO gave him a minute muscular contraction that could have passed for a grin under a microscope with a twisted lens.
“Useful.”
“It is what it is, Sirt.”
The CCs ran their subvocal routine again. The woman spoke.
“Perhaps a waiting period of — “
“No waiting.” The CMO turned to Anais.
“They really do have capabilities,” Anais said, threading a mildly rueful note through her voice. “They are fast, they are multi-protocol,” she allowed a little warmth to infuse her voice. “This is going to be a most beneficial project.”
The CMO cocked her head.
“We have overspent on the budget and we will need to invest in ground support, apparently,” the Chief Developer nodded, hearing what shon meant: heavier ammo. “How will this be anything but a dead loss?” And that was when Anais saw it.
She smiled, allowing a hint of triumph to creep through, relishing the puzzled looks. She knew they were trying to scan her right now, seeing that an area of her brain was lighting up like a gaming arcade right now. The counselors’ fingers were twitching.
“We have got them,” Anais said, and her voice was sweet like a drug.