《Ava Infinity》
Episode One: An Opening Cinematic
¡°She''s coming to,¡± says the man wearing the dusty poncho and the silver-plated dental grill and the jungle of black beard. These are the first words the girl has ever heard spoken and this biker or barbarian¡ªor just whatever the Hell he''s supposed to be¡ªhis is the first human face she''s seen.
Her head throbs and reaching up she expects to feel a swollen lump but her wrists are manacled in crude, iron cuffs connected to a heavy chain. She spreads her fingers and her hands are those of a child. Is she a child? When the wagon lurches over a rut in the road she must brace with all her might to keep her balance. These hands, this body ¨C none of it feels right.
The chains rattle and she realizes there are others here, captives, all shackled together by their wrists, caged in a prisoner cart like something out of a cowboy movie. A pair of hungry-looking buckskin stallions drag the cart along a desert highway which the girl does not recognize, driven by the whip of a man wearing a black hood and whose face she cannot see.
She is the prisoner of an endless slave caravan; a motley armada of irregular vehicles rampaging maniacally out of a perpetual dust storm, numbering in the hundreds, with primitive horse-drawn carts and wagons flanked by rust-eaten pickup trucks equipped with crude machine-gun turrets, dune-buggies kicking up rooster-tails alongside heavily-armored recreational vehicles, and motorcycles with side-cars, their passengers wielding long spikes like knights at a joust.
Everywhere there is dust and ash stirred up by their advance. Everywhere there are men in black hoods wearing black leather jackets emblazoned with the name of their gang: Human Resources. And more prisoner carts than she can begin to count. There''s no way around it: she''s somehow been plopped directly into an apocalyptic hell-scape.
The other prisoners are all staring as if they expect her to speak but she doesn''t know how to begin. There is nothing in this universe with which she is immediately familiar. There is nothing which has prepared her for a scene such as this. Is it amnesia? It''s almost as if she''s just been born. Is this brain damage? Her limbs tingle, simultaneously numb and raw.
The question is immediately more complicated and surreal than: where am I?
It''s more like: am I?
¡°I''m Sawyer,¡± blurts the shirtless, sun-burned, and whip-scarred man chained to her on the left, ¡°welcome to Big Traffick, courtesy of Human Resources.¡±
¡°Bach,¡± says the caveman with the silver grill, indicating himself by touching the chest of his poncho and bowing his head, polite gestures both oddly delicate and endearing.
Continuing clockwise around the wagon the others make their introductions. First there''s a middle-aged woman with her hair up in a gray bun and whose eyes are dark and tired. Her voice trembles when she says, ¡°I''m Ellie.¡±
And chained between her and the girl are a pair of fraternal twins, a brother and sister called Uri and Uma, respectively, who cling to one another inseparably. They''re only children¡ªteenagers at most¡ªbut it looks like they''ve had it rough. Their heads are shaved and their faces are dirty and their collarbones have been sharpened by hunger.
The girl with no memories manages a meek smile in answer to everyone''s introductions but it feels all wrong. These are strangers ¨C but they are essentially her clan now. This is everyone she knows in the entire world. And she''d like to tell them her name, too ¨C but she doesn''t know what it is.
¡°I''m sorry, I¡ª¡± hearing the voice stops her short ¨C she is a stranger to herself.
But the one called Bach quickly comes to her rescue:
¡°She''s Ava,¡± he says.
And the other prisoners gasp.
It isn''t simply: I''m who?
It''s more like: who''s that?
¡°You''re sure she''s Ava?¡± Sawyer asks. He leans in uncomfortably close to survey her face and he smells like dirt. ¡°I don''t know why, I didn''t think they''d be.... just a girl, I guess. How old are you, Missy? Fourteen? Fifteen?¡± She twists away as well as she can but they are still shackled to one another and he continues to invade her space until Bach jerks the chain and drags him back.
¡°Alright,¡± he barks, ¡°take it easy, Bud. I told you she''s Ava and now I''m telling you to back off.¡±
For a moment Sawyer seethes but Bach smiles and his silver-plated fronts are upon closer inspection revealed to be silver bullets implanted where most men have teeth. Sawyer takes a deep breath and sits back, blinking. ¡°Right,¡± he mumbles, mostly to his own feet and barely audible over the clip-clops of the horses'' hooves, ¡°sorry. I''m sorry.¡±
¡°How do you know my name?¡± she asks Bach ¨C but right then they are all deafened by an explosion ahead of them in the convoy. A fireball roils overhead and the prisoners instinctively hunch down and cover their heads as best they can while chained to one another. The heat is immense and the stallions shriek and rear.
One horse breaks free and dashes for freedom in the desert and the other also attempts to bolt but this time the harness holds and he strains and falls, taking the whole cart crashing down with him. The wagon thuds on its side in the sand and the driver is sent cussing and sprawling.
The prisoners smack together and fall in a heap, chains clattering. And now Ava can hear shouting and gunfire and another explosion. This is suddenly a war-zone.
¡°Who is it?¡± cries the woman named Ellie, ¡°say it isn''t!¡±
¡°Scums.¡± Bach grimaces, craning his neck to scan the road ahead. ¡°A whole murder of them.¡±
Ava looks in the faces of the siblings Uri and Uma and sees them both wearing the same blank expression, seeming to share a single mind as they disassociate together. Sawyer pulls at his chains frantic as a man on fire but it''s no use. He''s stuck. They''re all stuck. Ellie shrieks about God and what a bastard He is.
And then Bach, this freak with his bullet teeth, grips the thick chain in both hands and bites it. Ava hears it groan and pop and he thrashes his head once to the side like a junkyard dog and the links snap apart and he gnaws for a moment at his other wrist and the manacle crumbles. He grins and his eyes narrow.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
The hooded driver struggles beside the cart, pulling on the reins in an attempt to get his remaining stallion upright ¨C and when the moment is opportune Bach springs into action. Something begins to grind and churn within him, a sound like rocks in a tumbler. He stretches his arm out between the bars and snatches the hooded driver by his shoulder¡ªAva sees that Bach''s hand is some sort of fully mechanical prosthesis¡ªand then in the next instant there is a pulse of crackling electricity and the driver seizes and spasms.
Sparks leap out of Bach''s mouth like a firework¡ªhe''s not real¡ªhe''s a machine or a figment from a dream. Could she be dreaming? Her head swims and the world dims and she watches him release his grip on the driver.
That man is suddenly a corpse, collapsed where he just stood, foam bubbling out from the mouth-hole cut in his hood. Electrocuted by Bach''s mere touch.
¡°What are you?¡± Ava asks under her breath, still feeling faint, too quiet for anyone on the battlefield to hear.
And that''s what it is now around them: a full-blown battlefield. A surreal battlefield like something out of a comic book. The caravan has been ambushed by weird wild men, hunch-backed and bearing all manner of injury and deformity. Impossible men with their tongues excised and their ear-cavities melon-balled to black pocks, galloping along on their knuckles like deranged gorillas. No two alike in their gruesome mutations.
She witnesses one with his arm missing at the elbow, a machete''s blade seemingly sprouted from the stump. He swings it and decapitates a man while she watches. Another freak comes swooping in suddenly, gliding through the air on what appear to be mechanical bat-wings, wielding a sub-machine gun in each hand.
And she sees a man breathing out a column of fire and when he is finished he is charred black from brow to breast and his flesh flakes off and his eyes melt out from their sockets and he roars triumphantly until his jaw crumbles off his face.
This murder of Scums, Bach called them, is rapidly overwhelming the caravan by their sheer numbers and capacity for ferocious and bizarre violence. Violence so incomprehensible it quickly becomes hypnotic, and Ava can only stare in shock.
Suddenly from the dull periphery Bach re-materializes with the key-ring he''s taken from the dead driver''s pocket. He unlocks the shackles on Ava''s wrists and then he unlocks the door to the wagon and throws it open.
¡°Come,¡± he says to her and her alone, ¡°we must flee if we are to survive.¡±
¡°What about us?¡± Sawyer begs.
¡°You can''t just leave us here!¡± Ellie screams.
The twins are silent and saucer-eyed. Ava hesitates, mouthing a silent plea, unwilling to abandon the others ¨C the family she''s just met.
¡°We have to go,¡± Bach insists, waving for her to follow as he crawls out of the sideways wagon. Plumes of flame erupt in the distance. Gunfire pops and flashes.
¡°We can''t leave them like this!¡± She shouts, staying put. He sighs. An explosive detonates nearby, pelting them with sediment.
¡°As you wish,¡± he yells above the din, tossing the key-ring to Ava. ¡°Get their cuffs off. Quickly!¡±
She starts with the other kids, Uma and Uri. They crawl away like dazed kittens. Then she frees Ellie, and she thanks Ava and then follows the children out to where Bach is inspecting a pistol he''s taken off the driver''s body ¨C popping and spinning the cylinder, peering down the barrel. Finally Ava comes to release Sawyer. The way he looks at her makes her skin crawl but she ignores it to get on with the task. She unlocks his cuffs and he rubs his wrists and thanks her and scrambles out of the wagon and she follows on his heels. Then for a moment they all just stand there in the center of the mayhem, dumbstruck.
Bach pops the cylinder back into his new revolver.
¡°Well, come on.¡±
They flee until the sun sets, Bach selectively gunning or zapping to death any who stand in their way, conserving his bullets when possible. They flee until twilight fades into darkness, until the desert plains become sloping foothills and beyond them black and towering mountains.
Bach leads the fugitives down into a ravine snarled with scrub oak.
They pass a capsized and burnt-out wood-panel station-wagon with its passengers still residing stiffly inside, a nuclear family mummified and scorched. Ava isn''t okay seeing dead people. She closes her eyes and holds the hem of Bach''s poncho so she won''t get lost. When it is safe he tells her to look and she sees that despite the dark he has brought them to a secret campsite. A log to sit upon beside a fire-pit for cooking outside a shallow cave for sleeping. He sticks his head inside the cave to have a look-see.
"Okay, no bears nor pumas,¡± he says, ¡°this is us for the night, so get comfortable.¡±
¡°It''s so dark.¡± Ava studies the sky. ¡°No moon tonight, I guess.¡±
¡°No moon any night,¡± Sawyer explains, ¡°can''t see it because of all that junk.¡±
¡°Junk?¡±
¡°In space¡ªall the old crap we launched up there and forgot about¡ªthose aren''t stars you see sparkling. Those''re old derelict satellites, space-trash, blocking out the real stars.¡±
¡°It''s weird she doesn''t know stuff like that,¡± Uri says, ¡°right?¡±
¡°Give it time.¡± Ellie lays her hand gently on Ava''s shoulder.
¡°But he''s not wrong,¡± Ava says, ¡°it is weird. I don''t know anything, seems like. I don''t even know what''s wrong with me.¡±
¡°Be patient, it''ll all come back to you soon.¡± Bach sounds so certain. ¡°But right now we''ve got other concerns. Don''t know ''bout the rest of you but I''m starving. I''ll forage up some grub, if you''ll be so kind as to gather us some kindling." He smiles, gun-mouth glinting with the reflected light of dead and drifting satellites.
And time just stops.
And we fade to black.
It''s like a dream. Or maybe a seizure. Her signal has been scrambled. She''s dreaming of infinite screens, cycling through them at ludicrous speed. She''s peering out from inside a machine. She might actually be the machine ¨C and she''s searching for something. She remotely views isolated places, far-away places, dreaming in footage from web-cams that must be all over the world.
For a fraction of a second she''s seeing the faces of normal, clean, non-traumatized people. People who haven''t been forced to survive an apocalypse. People who look like they''re having fun. It''s like she''s inside their devices watching them ¨C and ''monitor'' has more than one meaning. All at once she has this greater understanding. It isn''t a dream or a vision. She simply shares a connection with everything. She is everywhere.
The question isn¡¯t as complicated as: How did I get here?
It''s more like: I?
And then the cycling just stops and only one screen remains:
¡°Ava?¡± Bach kneels above her as she lays on the ground. ¡°Are you alright?¡±
¡°What happened?¡± In her fist she holds a bundle of sticks she does not recall collecting. ¡°What was that?¡±
¡°You lost consciousness. Must have a bad implant.¡±
¡°A what?¡±
¡°It''s like a microchip.¡± He helps her sit up. The others crowd around, just shadows in the dark. ¡°Whoever you belonged to would have installed modules depending on your purpose. All slaves have them, but one of yours seems to be malfunctioning.¡±
¡°You''re corrupted,¡± Sawyer says, ¡°need a reboot. Probably a de-frag. We better get her to a ''chipper A-S-A-P.¡±
The question isn''t as concise as: what?
It''s more like: what the actual fuck?
¡°I don''t understand anything you''re saying.¡± Ava struggles to her knees, still too wobbly to make her feet. The twigs in her fist snap and crackle. ¡°I need a reboot? Someone enslaved me and put a microchip in my body?¡±
¡°In your brain,¡± Ellie clarifies, from the darkness.
Episode Two: Crafty Consumables
He lights her twigs on fire with a spark from his fingertip. The kindling crackles and pops. No one seems to care and so Ava doesn''t say anything. But of course it shouldn''t be possible. No man can fling sparks from his fingers. No man has bullets for teeth.
Except Bach in fact does, and the impossible is happening all around her: from the desolation of Earth, to the space junk blotting out the Moon, to the simple twigs found in her clutch after she fell unconscious, seemingly summoned by some internal programming she hadn''t knowingly controlled, a digital incantation she dreamed. The fire does little to warm her.
Bach forges out into the night and returns with his poncho repurposed as a rucksack, heaping with wild asparagus, mushrooms, and onions. He also somehow comes bearing broad fronds plucked from some alien palm Ava can''t fathom thriving in this non-tropical climate, and he fashions these into compact packets stuffed with the foraged vegetables. Shortly thereafter the fire has settled and the packets are situated on the coals. The refugees sit and listen to the ingredients sizzling inside.
Ava blinks her eyes and:
¡°Something just happened again.¡± She shakes her head, yearning for it make sense. ¡°But it was different. Faster, smoother ¨C just a flash, really. A recipe? Like it was written on the inside of my eyelids?¡±
¡°We better get her to a ''chipper,¡± Sawyer insists, ¡°or we''ll lose her.¡±
¡°A ''chipper?¡±
¡°A doctor to fix your chip,¡± he explains, ¡°so you don''t Scum out.¡± He points at his own head and twirls his finger derisively, indicating insanity.
¡°You think these visions mean she''ll turn Scum?¡± Ellie gets up from her seat beside the fire and slides back a step. Bach gently blocks her escape.
¡°She''s not going to become Scum.¡± He assures the campers, guiding Ellie back to her seat beside the fire. ¡°I know a safe-house with a good doctor just a couple days'' hike up the mountain and¡ª¡±
¡°You know a chipper, out here? In No Man''s Land?¡± Sawyer interrupts, scoffing. ¡°Well ain''t that a convenient turn.¡± He laughs. ¡°Full of surprises, this dude.¡±
¡°Would you just shut up?¡± The orphan girl Uma, silent this entire time, suddenly snaps. ¡°Just shut up!¡±
¡°It''s okay,¡± Bach soothes, ¡°he has every right to be skeptical. No Man''s Land must seem most lonesome to the non-native ¨C brought here through no fault of his own, mind you.¡±
¡°You sayin'' you''re from these parts?¡± Sawyer sneers.
¡°Aye.¡±
¡°There ain''t nothin'' but rattlesnakes and vultures out here.¡±
¡°And like them, I too am most at home,¡± Bach says. He reaches into the fire and retrieves one of the sizzling packets using only his bare, robotic hand.
The vegetables taste uncommonly delicious despite being stewed in nothing but their own juices. And while Ava knows it could merely be a trick of her memory loss, she suspects a simple meal has never been more satisfying. The party slurps up mushrooms and asparagus spears with such fervor she knows she is not alone in this sentiment, and for a peaceful interlude there is no sound except supping and contented sighs.
¡°Thank you,¡± she says to Bach when finally she has finished her portion, ¡°I didn''t know how much I needed that.¡±
¡°Don''t mention it. We''ll all need to be at full strength for the journey to come.¡±
¡°Where will we go?¡±
¡°Yeah, Boss,¡± Sawyer picks his teeth and heckles, ¡°where to?¡±
¡°In the morning we will rejoin the road toward the mountain. The safe-house is up the pass a ways. I estimate we will arrive by the third night, barring delays.¡±
¡°Let me get this straight,¡± Ellie''s voice rises in pitch, closer to a scream with each syllable, ¡°you mean to return us to the road we saw overrun with Scum?
¡°It is the only way.¡± Bach looks her in the eye. ¡°Fear not, I will protect you.¡±
¡°There''s no protecting anybody from them,¡± Sawyer spits in the fire and it hisses.
¡°What are they?¡± Ava wonders. ¡°The Scums, I mean.¡±
¡°The Simulacrum,¡± Bach explains, ¡°are blood-thirsty mutants, hellbent on the murder of non-Scums. They know no other purpose.¡±
¡°They''re everywhere,¡± Ellie whispers.
¡°What''s wrong with them?¡± Ava asks. ¡°Why are they like that?¡±
¡°They were more-or-less like you and I once,¡± Bach continues, ¡°but a game changed their brains and now they can''t remember how to be people.¡±
¡°A game?¡±
¡°Games were rule-bound contests or activities enjoyed by¡ª¡°Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
¡°I know what a game was¡ªis¡ªbut what kind of game could make them into monsters like that?¡±
¡°At the time,¡± Bach says, ¡°it was what they called a ''video game''.¡±
He says a lot of things that don''t make a lot of sense. Things she just doesn''t understand. All of them do. And they talk like it''s completely normal that she can''t remember any of this. Like her amnesia is mundane or to be expected.
And they know all these obsolete names: Colorado, New Jersey, West Virginia.
America.
Sleepier and with fuller bellies, they ring the campfire and talk about the end of the world. They tell ghost stories about the ones they loved, sharing histories rescued from the planetary pyre. They wax nostalgic about the ordinary world they all miss, reciting weird tales to eulogize the peculiarities of the Earth which went before, and how in the end it was impossible to pinpoint which compound catastrophe had swiftly vanquished civilization:
¡°The climate disaster? The global economic collapse? The Scums? Take your pick,¡± Bach laughs without humor beside the shrinking fire. His eyes are red and watery. He reaches inside his poncho and out comes a flask. He drinks and passes it to Sawyer sitting beside him. ¡°Cherry wine,¡± Bach explains, ¡°everyone should have a nip ¨C it will help keep you warm.¡±
The flask goes once around the circle¡ªending with Ava¡ªand as she receives it from Uma she sees something written on its side. There''s a small label, printed in luminescent letters like a hologram:
She looks at Bach and he winks. He must know what is written on his own flask, but no one else has given any indication they can see the weird script so once again she finds herself pretending the impossible is normal and thus makes no mention of it. Not knowing whether or not she should take the bit about the truth serum seriously, she tips the flask but keeps her tongue pressed against the opening so not a drop is drunk, and then wipes her mouth with her sleeve before passing it back to its owner. He smiles and thanks her and tips the flask himself and then sends it on another lap. The refugees drink and before long the camp begins to murmur with conversation.
¡°Libations,¡± Ellie snarls, pouring a bit of the sweet spirit in the dirt,¡±for the motherfuckas we call Gods.¡± She pours more of the wine into her own mouth before sending the flask on its way.
¡°There are no Gods,¡± Uri whispers.
¡°Please don''t say that,¡± his sister pleads.
¡°They exist,¡± Ellie insists, rising to her feet, ¡°and they are magnificently powerful. And gigantic. And from their underground lairs they manipulate all who dwell on the surface ¨C even Human Resources. They are the invisible hand which guides us to ruin. Those are the Gods.¡±
¡°And the Scum?¡± Uma asks, ¡°do they order them, as well?¡±
¡°Yes, even the Scum. The Gods control us all. And they are most insidiously evil.¡±
¡°You''re talking about dragons.¡± Sawyer is quick as ever to offer his opinion.
¡°Gods. Dragons.¡± Ellie gropes across the campfire for the flask. ¡°What''s the difference?¡±
¡°There are no Gods,¡± Uri repeats, but Sawyer talks right past him:
¡°The difference between dragons and Gods,¡± he stares at Ava suddenly and once again her skin crawls, ¡°is that dragons pay cash.¡±
For a fat, awkward moment the camp is silent. Finally it is Uma who speaks:
¡°You wouldn''t get away with it,¡± she promises, ¡°we''d stop you from taking her.¡±
¡°He knows that.¡± Bach swigs from the flask and offers it to Sawyer.
Sawyer takes the wine and tilts it back. He smirks and has another.
¡°I don''t trust him as far as I can piss,¡± Ellie swears, drunker by the second.
¡°What do you say, Sawyer?¡± Bach sounds cordial. Perhaps a little buzzed. He gestures for his flask back and Sawyer hands it over. ¡°Will you take Ava? Will you sell her to the dragons?¡±
¡°I will at the first opportunity,¡± Sawyer admits, and then he clasps his hands over his mouth and his eyes widen. Bach chuckles and Ellie squeals like a kettle. Uri quietly takes his sister by the arm and tugs her away from the fire, toward the safety of the cave. Sawyer uncovers his mouth and wonders aloud, ¡°are you going to kill me?¡±
¡°Do I need to?¡± Bach asks, corking his flask.
¡°Yes.¡± Sawyer leaps to his feet shouting, ¡°I don''t know why I said that!¡±
And Bach doubles over, slapping his knee and bellowing. Ellie finds the situation so riotously funny it''s hard to tell if she''s laughing or crying. And discovering himself still living, even Sawyer manages a relieved exhalation which could pass for laughter. But Ava can''t take any more. To her this is no laughing matter. According to label she saw on Bach''s flask they''ve been drinking truth serum and Sawyer just admitted he''d kidnap and sell her. To dragons! She stands and faces Bach, demanding to know:
¡°How do you¡ªall of you!¡ªhow do you know who I am? How do you know my name?¡±
¡°We don''t,¡± he says flatly.
Ellie hoots. ¡°A-V-A,¡± she spells.
Ava can only stomp her foot and huff. Her clan makes even less sense drunk.
And Sawyer makes a break for it, sprinting into the pitch black where the light from the campfire cannot reach. Bach un-holsters the gun he stole from their former jailer and points it out into the darkness. He cocks the hammer so the weight of the trigger won''t disrupt his aim but thinks better and eases it back.
¡°No,¡± he says, re-holstering the revolver, ¡°wouldn''t want to waste a bullet when we have so few.¡± And he gets to his feet and goes after Sawyer, not quite jogging, but purposeful and unrelenting like the monster in a horror movie.
The fire dies and that is when the cold becomes too much to bear. Ava and Ellie and the orphans huddle together on the floor of the cave.
Before long the others are asleep and Ava listens to their slow and peaceful breathing and wishes she''d imbibed some of the truth-wine, after all. And she wonders if perhaps drinking it might have given her some honest answers to the questions she has for herself:
Who are you?
What happened and why can''t you remember?
Do you have a family? Have they all been murdered ¨C like the families of your fellow travelers?
Just what are these weird visions?
Are you insane?
Out somewhere in the dark wilderness she can hear Sawyer pleading for his life. It''s far-off and difficult to decipher.
¡°You don''t have to do this!¡± She hears him cry. ¡°I''ll split the take with you!¡±
There is no answer from Bach.
He''s out their hunting this other man ¨C for her. He will kill him, simply to protect her.
The question isn''t as simple as: why?
It''s more like: why should I even feel guilty?
But she does. She''s done nothing to Sawyer, and despite that he has promised to do her harm she can''t fully comprehend. He is a conniver and from the first moment they met she has felt uneasy around him. And yet knowing that Bach intends to kill him she wishes she could go back and tell him not to drink the wine. She wishes she could tell him to keep his intentions secret, before they seal his fate.
In the morning she wakes up alone in the cave. Sleep had come suddenly and unexpectedly. She is covered under Bach''s poncho. The flask is there in the pocket. A cook fire crackles outside the cave and she hears the quiet murmurings of her company. She slides Bach''s flask out of the pocket and undoes the cap. It smells sweet. Seductively so. But before she can try a sip she hears footfalls at the mouth of the cave.
¡°Good morning.¡± Bach smiles silver bullets. ¡°There''s breakfast out here when you''re ready.¡±
¡°Did you find him?¡±
¡°I did.¡±
¡°And he''s dead now?¡±
¡°He left us no other option.¡±
¡°Who am I, Bach?¡± She sits up, wrapped in his poncho. ¡°Why would anyone, let alone a so-called dragon, want anything to do with me?¡±
¡°You''re Ava. And that scares them.¡±
Episode Three: Cue the Battle Theme
"Bach, did you always do.... that?" Ava asks while they march. The others lag behind.
¡°Do what?¡±
¡°Well, kill people, I guess ¨C like last night with Sawyer. It seems to come easy for you. Killing. Back before the world ended, were you a soldier? Or, I don''t know ¨C were you just some kind of.... killer?¡±
"No, Ava,¡± he chuckles, ¡°I was a salesman."
"A peddler? Or a trader? Like one of those evil men that call themselves Human Resources?"
"Well, in a roundabout way, perhaps ¨C but I didn''t traffick in people. My ware was a thing called ''insurance''."
"What''s that?"
"It was a service ¨C like a promise to help if things took a wrong turn."
"And you made folks pay for that?"
"Not just me. It was a major industry, with many thousands of people doing the same work all over the world."
She snorts. "Sometimes it''s a lot easier to see how things got this fucked up.¡±
When they arrive at the road upon which Human Resources had been traveling it is a mass grave and the sun has nearly set. A dirty green sign designates the road as: HWY 50. They''re passing through a place which was once called Canon City. Everywhere Ava can bear to look, she sees stalled cars and trucks and motorcycles and motor homes, burnt-out and riddled with bullet-holes. Tires beyond flat; disintegrated. Dead bodies on board.
This isn''t the caravan they escaped. This isn''t what''s left of Big Traffick, as Sawyer had called it. No way. These vehicles aren''t outfitted for war ¨C these were just regular folks. And they have been decaying here for a very long time. A crumbling egg-shell of gray ash sticks to everything like the aftermath of a volcanic eruption. Skeletal drivers sit behind their steering wheels with smaller skeletons in the back, still strapped into their car-seats.
Ellie shambles along zombie-like. Uma and Uri navigate the treacherous landscape hand-in-hand and with their eyes shut. Ava wonders how they manage not to trip ¨C do they echo-locate like bats? Whatever the case, she''s jealous. Her eyes sting with tears and she can''t stand to look anymore and she seizes white-knuckled upon Bach''s poncho.
¡°Don¡¯t stare,¡± he warns her, ¡°for your own well-being.¡±
¡°What is this?¡± she asks, her eyes now closed. ¡°Do you know what happened here?¡±
¡°A hopeless exodus,¡± he explains, ¡°similar horrors occurred everywhere.¡±
¡°But, why this place?¡± she wonders. ¡°Why did they all come here to die?¡±
¡°This is a highway. They didn''t come here, per se. They were going.¡±
¡°Bach, sometimes you talk like you''re an alien.¡±
¡°There is no evidence aliens exist.¡±
¡°Yeah, like that''s exactly what I mean.¡± She laughs half-heartedly. ¡°That right there.¡±
He smiles down at her though she can not see it with her eyes tightly shut.
Mile after mile the road is clogged with the evidence of a decades-old massacre. Ava counts her steps in an attempt to control the nervous impulse to open her eyes and for a while it''s working ¨C but her foot kicks something and she can''t help but sneak a peek. It''s a stray segment of skeleton¡ªan arm or a leg or length of spine¡ªsent skittering ahead along the cracked asphalt, crumbling as it tumbles. She squeezes her eyes completely shut again and tries to imagine anything else. And without warning Bach abruptly halts her march with his outstretched hand and in a single motion sweeps her behind him.
¡°Let us pass,¡± he demands of someone Ava cannot see, ¡°or we''ll do this the fun way.¡±
¡°There''s a toll,¡± shouts a man, some distance away.
¡°No exceptions,¡± says a woman, much nearer, a smirk in her voice.
¡°We have nothing to give you,¡± Bach explains. Ava peeks and sees the woman standing a few car-lengths ahead, a sawed-off shotgun held on her hip. She wears a tall mohawk and a sleeveless vest which reveals wires festering into the flesh of her biceps. She''s like Bach ¨C some sort of cyborg.
¡°We just got off Big Traffick yesterday,¡± pleads Ellie. She reaches out to take both Uri and Uma by the hands and starts leading them back the way they just came, never turning her back.
¡°That''s a sad story, but a toll''s a toll. There are no exceptions,¡± the woman explains, gesturing with her sawed-off. ¡°But I mean we''re reasonable brigands. I''m sure we''ll find something for you to pay with.¡± Then for a moment it''s like time has frozen. The woman is that fast¡ªa veritable blur¡ªand suddenly she''s standing right beside Bach, stroking Ava''s cheek before she even has a chance to flinch. ¡°Oh, what is this?¡± she purrs and in the next moment Bach snatches her by the wrist and Ava hears the weird grinding, groaning from within him and the sparks begin to spit out from between his lips.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
¡°Get back,¡± he croaks.
¡°Earl!¡± the woman shouts, ¡°they''ve got one! An Ava!¡±
¡°No shit?¡± Earl shouts back. He''s another twenty or thirty feet beyond his accomplice. He''s standing up through a hole cut in the roof of a school bus, holding a rocket launcher on his shoulder, pointing it in their direction. ¡°We''re rich!¡±
¡°Get away from the girl,¡± Bach snarls but the woman snatches Ava by the arm.
¡°If I won''t let go,¡± she cackles, ¡°you gonna zap us both?¡±
¡°Nope.¡±
Ava''s ears ring painfully. The whole world is suddenly silent except for her own breathing, shallow and fast. Bach holds the pistol in his fist, its barrel smoking. He has drawn and fired before anyone could react. The woman goes slack and collapses straight down the way a building implodes during demolition, smacking against the hood of a car as she falls and spattering Ava with blood. It is warm on Ava''s cheek and it is all surreal and suddenly the sensation is of floating free from her body, dispersing into a trillion bits too small to feel anything ¨C let alone terror.
Bach deftly strips the shotgun from the woman''s grip as she falls and pivots and fires a blast at Earl in the school bus to keep him from using that bazooka for at least another second and then he grabs Ava and they duck behind a car. He attempts to pass the revolver to her but she pushes it away.
¡°You can do this,¡± he says, ¡°I know you can.¡±
¡°I can''t! I can''t!¡± she screams, ¡°I don''t know how!¡±
¡°Just hold it in both hands, like this,¡± he steadies the gun out in front of him with two hands and pretends to aim, ¡°line up your target in the sights, inhale, and squeeze the trigger.¡±
¡°How did you do that?¡± she asks.
¡°Ava.¡± He passes her the gun once more, and this time she takes it. ¡°There is nothing in this world which you cannot learn to master.¡±
¡°It''s like a game¡ª¡± she muses to herself, turning the pistol over in her hands. ¡°Like you''re my class trainer and you just taught me a skill.¡±
Bach doesn''t pay her any attention. He peeks out from their cover just for a fraction of a second and then he tells Ava, ¡°I will draw his fire and lure him out from his cover.¡±
¡°And then I will gun him in the back.¡±
¡°Yes, if you are able.¡± He crouches like a sprinter. ¡°In the back is safest.¡±
And he bolts out into the open, firing off another shotgun blast mid-stride.
Ava sits with her back against the car, trying to stop her whole self from shaking. She replays Bach''s instructions in her mind: hold it in both hands, line up your target in the sights, take a deep breath.
And squeeze the trigger.
Can she do it? Can she kill a man? She looks at the gun and there¡ªsuddenly¡ªis a flickering label, similar to that which she saw the night before on Bach''s flask:
There''s no time to make sense of it. There''s no time to wonder if experiencing these various video game elements in the real world means she''s turning into one of the lunatic Scum like Sawyer had suggested. Bach is on a dead sprint with Dirty Earl''s bazooka trained on him. Gut-check time. Ava raises up with her elbows planted on the hood of the car. Bach veers sharply and Earl is forced to lean out wide to continue tracking him. Ava holds the gun in both hands. She''s steady. She peers down the sight. Breathes in.
And squeezes the trigger.
The muzzle flashes and for a fraction of a second it''s all math falling like rain before her eyes¡ªangles and trajectories and the roll of a die¡ªand it''s all too fast to make sense and then in the next instant Earl''s head is blown half off and the bazooka tumbles from his grip and clangs on the ground. His torso bends wickedly and his top-half flops against the roof of the school bus like a jack-in-the-box with his brains eking out onto the highway below, glob-by-glob. Beyond the carnage she sees Bach pop up with his eyes wide, and then she sees him exhale from relief and he jogs toward her. She looks at the gun in her hand with terrible awe. She has killed a man and it was so easy.
¡°Critical hit,¡± Ellie says, having suddenly reappeared with Uma and Uri beside her. She looks at Ava the way Ava looks at the pistol. ¡°You really are Ava.¡±
¡°Are you okay?¡± Bach asks. He kneels beside her.
¡°I don''t know. Guess I''m better off than Earl over there.¡±
¡°You did great,¡± he says, ¡°I knew you would.¡±
¡°It doesn''t feel great.¡±
¡°I''m sorry.¡± He scans the area. ¡°But the gun-play will draw their accomplices. We gotta get outta here.¡±
¡°You think there''s more of them?¡± Ellie looks around as if she''ll see more assailants any second.
¡°It is an absolute certainty there will be more.¡± He turns to Ava and offers the sawed-off. ¡°Do you prefer to keep the pistol or would you like to try the blunderbuss?¡±
¡°I can''t do anything with that,¡± she laughs at the thought of it ¨C her, wielding a shotgun!
¡°Then here,¡± he unstraps the gun belt and its holster from his waist, ¡±you should take this.¡±
Bach leads them off the road and over a fence and through an alley and Ava and the others can hardly keep up ¨C let alone look around. But when she does manage to take in her surroundings she sees that everywhere is devastated, burned, ashen, dilapidated, and foreboding. Not a window unbroken or un-boarded up. Bach halts their advance to peer around the corner of the alleyway. Ava inches up close to him.
¡°It looks like a nuclear bomb went off,¡± she whispers.
¡°That is one possibility,¡± he answers without affect.
And then he hears something. He cocks his head and holds one finger up to silence them and Ava and Ellie and Uri and Uma all stop breathing.
Suddenly there are voices closing fast from the far end of the alley¡ªback from where they''ve just come¡ªand Bach grabs Ava with his cold steel grip and drags her so that her feet can barely touch the ground as he sprints ahead. The others clamber after, panicked. And Ava tastes the salt before she even realizes she is crying.
Bach hurries them across a street and around back to the rear entrance of a mother-in-law''s cottage and he tries the door but it is locked. Kicking it open would be too loud ¨C their pursuers would find them easily. The windows are all boarded but they scramble around looking for one they can pry open and instead Bach finds a window un-barricaded and with its pane intact. It slides upward smooth and easy ¨C almost too good to be true. He braces with his back against the cottage wall.
¡°Climb me like a ladder,¡± he says, and he boosts the others up and in, one-by-one. Then he lifts himself inside and carefully slides the window shut behind.
Inside the cottage it is dark and the stale scent of dust clogs their noses. The only light is from the window through which they''ve just crawled. As her eyes adjust, Ava sees trash in the corners and a mattress on the floor. Outside, the muffled voices of their pursuers, a conversation which is indecipherable but gut-wrenching all the same.
¡°They''re going to find us,¡± Ellie whispers, ¡°I don''t want to go back to Human Resources. I won''t go back!¡±
Bach moves to her and holds his hand over her mouth but it is too late ¨C they''ve heard her from outside.
¡°There''s a window over here,¡± one of them says.
Bach clutches the shotgun.
And on Ava''s hip the pistol weighs heavier than ever.
Episode Four: Known Bugs
Here: some human teeth. And there: a shriveled tongue, lonesome ¨C its mouth and head nowhere to be seen. Looking around, the floor is littered with human detritus: fingers and toes and rib bones. Mounds and pools of other, less distinguishable viscera.
¡°Out of the frying pan,¡± Uri whispers, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with his sister, their backs to the wall, ¡°and into something much worse.¡±
¡°The Scum have been here.¡± Ellie''s eyes widen in the dim room, her pupils huge. ¡°Might still be.¡±
In this kind of scenario there exist involuntary reactions common to every human being:
Fear originates in the brain and proceeds into the nerves, the muscles, the bones. But a brain never really knows anything for absolute certain. Best it can do is guess what is real and what is not. Guess at the danger and guess at the best way to survive.
Ava guesses they''ve come through the cottage window into what was once a small bedroom. There is one door and it is boarded shut from this side. The walls are gouged, trenches torn in the drywall when someone long ago made off with all the copper wiring. A filthy mattress coughs out its foam guts on the floor against the far wall. There are stray bits and parts of human bodies scattered like dice and the only light to see them by comes in through the window and it is suddenly blocked by one of their pursuers. Bach crouches beneath the window sill, the shotgun angled up, waiting to ambush the first killer who might try to creep inside. Ava unsnaps the strap on her holster, hand trembling on the butt of the revolver.
¡°It''s open,¡± someone whisper-shouts outside, and then a scratching sound as they lift the window.
Now it''s not simply that her hand is shaking.
It''s that the tremors traverse her entire body.
But Bach looks like he could fall asleep any second. His breathing is normal. He''s not sweating. He has the shotgun propped almost lackadaisically, like he might yawn while disintegrating the first intruder who climbs through that window. It opens halfway but then stops. Bach waits. They all wait. Then, one of the gang members outside laughs. And another. And the window slams shut.
¡°What the?¡± Uma whispers, and Bach holds his finger to his lips and cocks his ear. And then suddenly he whirls one-hundred eighty degrees and brings the shotgun to bear on the mattress across the room. But it''s not a mattress. It''s some kind of monster ¨C it must have been hiding among the stuffing. The mattress mess rumbles and Ava can see a creature shaped mostly like a man rising up from it but something is off¡ª
¡°Scum!¡± Ellie shrieks and stands and tries in her mindless panic to open the window and dive back out there with the killers but they''re holding it shut and the leader is there facing her and he does a mocking impression of her terror and then he throws his head back and laughs.
¡°Stay behind me!¡± Bach shouts and he steps toward the creature.
The shotgun lights up the room like high noon. Every little piece of carnage casts a tiny shadow. Every mote of dust flashes bright as a meteor. Ava sees the fiend''s face etched in the strobe of the shotgun. This may have once been a man, but at some point his jaws had split open and a pair of enormous mandibles burst through the skin, wickedly jagged and oddly mechanical. His eyes: black and reflective from corner-to-corner but for the faintest hint of light-emitting diodes flashing behind them. A pair of spindly, rusted metallic insectoid appendages fester out from each side of his torso. He''s more machine than man, the modifications mutating him into some sort of monstrous bug.
The shotgun blast sends him staggering backward until he crashes against the far wall. The whole place rattles. The blast has not killed him, but it has revealed a rust-colored carapace beneath the human skin. He emits a piercing, electronic shriek and the party instinctively cover their ears. Then he sinks down into the mattress ¨C or into a pit concealed beneath it!
¡°Antlion!¡± Bach shouts. ¡°Antlion!¡± He whirls back around to face his comrades and dives to the floor. ¡°Down, now!¡±
They obey, everyone hitting the deck at once, just in time for the fiend''s top-half to reemerge from his pit. He rears back and then the skin of his human face sags and sucks in and is swallowed grotesquely into a dark and churning opening between the mandibles ¨C his new mouth. And with the skin gone his new skull is clearly made of metal and it is angular and features segmented antennae which protrude from his forehead, dripping translucent goo. He is coming apart like an old scarecrow and where the flesh sloughs off his true self is revealed in increments to be less human and more electronic insect. In a way his transformation is mystifying and the party is entranced and then suddenly the creature projectile-vomits its former face back out across the room along with a torrent of viscous, milky liquid:
The pale slime misses high, splattering against the window they just came in through, the ooze dimming further what meager light filters inside.
The instant the paralytic acid attack has passed, Bach reacts. He army crawls forward with astonishing speed, slithering right up to the creature in its pit. It lunges and seizes him by the back of his poncho with all four of its arms, the struggle causing its human skin to split like soft, rotten gourds, wires worming their way out, fingers cracking off and becoming mechanical claws¡ªall the while still aiming to drag its prey down into the killing pit¡ªbut Bach is too strong.
He rises to his knees and now he has the upper-hand in the grapple, snatching the antlion by its suddenly insectoid arms and pinning them to its sides. He pulls it up out of the pit and slams it onto the floor, kneels on its torso and in the next moment Ava hears the grinding groan she imagines is some sort of motor inside Bach, and the sparks begin to spit from between his lips. Electricity crackles and the hairs on Ava''s arms stand on end but in the moment before Bach can electrocute the antlion a second Scum creeps over the rim of the pit and into the combat.
This fiend is different. His mutation is less advanced. He still looks mostly like an ordinary man but his expression is distant as though something far away possesses his attention. He stares straight forward at nothing in particular before suddenly jerking his head like he''s demon-possessed, spewing a stream of the same viscous liquid as the first, covering both Bach and the antlion with whom he''s wrestling in the goo.
Immediately the sparks cease spitting from Bach''s lips. He slumps limply to the floor, face-down in the dust and the sticky gore which has sloughed off his opponent. But the antlions are immune to the acid''s paralyzing effect, and in the next instant they grab him in tandem and drag him toward the edge of the pit. They will devour him down there.
They will devour us all.
Unless Ava can stop it:
Stolen novel; please report.
It happens as soon as she simply thinks of the AbilityID ¨C a number which seems tattooed on her brain now, perhaps the way a memory feels.
Her hand goes to the revolver and in a single smooth and automatic motion she slides it from the holster, brings it to bear upon the more humanoid Scum, and squeezes off a shot. The bullet strikes him in the gut and there is no carapace beneath his skin to protect him. He grunts, clasping both hands upon the wound and falling to his knees. Dark blood seeps out between his fingers. Uri races forward suddenly and performs a spinning kick, his heel crushing against the Scum''s jaw.
The villain thuds to the floor, unconscious, and just like that¡ªjust by observing Uri executing the kick¡ªAva has learned another attack. There are terms like Action Points and Base Melee Damage seeded in her mind now and while she doesn''t fully comprehend their meanings what she does understand is that if she wanted to she could, right now, perform a spinning kick like some sort of trained martial artist. For a split-second she feels empowered¡ªdownright invincible¡ªbut then she realizes a roundhouse won''t rescue Bach from being dragged into that pit. She''s going to need something with even more kick.
¡°AbilityID0007322,¡± she whispers, the digits buzzing in her ears, the gun humming with inexplicable energy:
It''s like muscle memory. She grips the pistol in both hands, peers down the sight, big inhale, and the trigger almost squeezes itself.
>>>Target''s Armor Rating exceeds attacker''s maximum Attack Rating.
The words are telegraphed into a part of her brain she wasn''t aware of until just then. The bullet strikes the fiend in the chest but ricochets off into the ceiling. Drywall dust sprinkles down from above and the mechanical antlion wrenches Bach the last few feet and over the edge ¨C into the darkness below. Uri rushes to the pit''s rim and Ava scrambles over on hands-and-knees.
Bach is slowly regaining some control of his body and down there in the trap he fights for his life. He keeps the antlion''s mandibles pried apart by wedging the shotgun in between them ¨C he''s all out of shells, anyway. The pit is as deep as several Bachs would be tall ¨C too deep for Uri or Ava to climb in and help. She takes the pistol in both hands¡ª
¡°Watch out!¡± Uma screams, and Ava looks up just in time to see the gut-shot Scum tackle Uri, slamming him to the floor.
AbilityID0007322, Ava envisions the digits but nothing happens. Uri and the humanoid continue to wrestle for position but the fiend is a grown man and Uri is overpowered.
¡°AbilityID0007322,¡± she recites aloud ¨C but still, nothing happens. It''s like something''s missing. Still, Ava knows what to do. She can perform this ability all on her own, without any outside help. She takes the gun in both hands, peers down the sights, inhales deeply, and squeezes the trigger.
Click.
The fiend tosses back his head and howls. A razor-sharp mandible erupts from his jaw. His mutation seems to be accelerated by the violence and Ellie shrieks hysterically. Uma sprints forward and pounds on the fiend''s back but he is unfazed. Ava rushes in and:
It''s as if she is a marionette for some invisible hand. Suddenly her footwork is not of her own doing and it is graceful and she leaps and it feels like floating and she spins and it is dizzying and her foot cracks sickly against the villain''s jaw. She lands, feeling so strong and satisfied. She whirls about at once to witness the damage she''s done ¨C and sees instead that his jaw has simply split open on the other side and a second mandible suddenly springs out from beneath the skin. The specialized slicing appendages scissor together, sinister and self fascinated, like a killer playing with a new knife.
And then the pit explodes with lightning. Hunks of metal and globs of flesh are ejected like puss from a pimple. The decapitated head of the first antlion thuds and rolls across the floor, trailing wires which still spark and then suddenly do so no longer. And then Bach also comes leaping from the pit, crackling with electricity. In a world of awesome monsters, he seems to Ava to be the king of them all.
The second fiend abandons Uri on the floor in order to engage the greater threat. He charges at Bach with his arms extended and his fingers twisted into claws but Bach catches him by both wrists and then the electrical charge is so intense Ava has to look away.
The Scum jerks and twitches. The rags he''s wearing incinerate. Bach roars and finally the light-show ends when the Scum collapses, a charred husk. He has been mostly cremated except for the thickest parts of his torso and skull and the mechanical components which had been contained within him. Ava sees one such part, cylinder-shaped and with a pump and bladder attached:
¡°William Cobb,¡± she repeats absentmindedly.
¡°What''s that?¡± Uri wonders.
¡°I think his name was William Cobb.¡±
¡°What? Who cares what his name was?¡±
Bach stumbles forward and falls on the floor. He is utterly exhausted.
The window is still covered in the viscous venom but it is running down the wall, thinning, and soon the killers who have been waiting outside will be able to see in again.
¡°We''ve got to hide,¡± Ellie says.
¡°There''s nowhere,¡± Bach mutters, barely audible.
¡°The pit?¡± Ava asks.
¡°I''m not going into the pit of some Scum.¡± Ellie shakes her head emphatically. ¡°I''d take my chances with the body-snatchers outside. I''d take my chances with them selling us back to Human Resources.¡±
¡°Join hands,¡± Uri advises, ¡°with Bach, too ¨C get him by the hands.¡±
And they link together, one-by-one, until a circle is formed.
¡°What are you going to do?¡± Ellie pleads.
¡°Hold perfectly still,¡± Uma insists, ¡°and be perfectly quiet. We must concentrate.¡±
She bows her head and her brother follows suit. They chant or hum, perfectly synchronized, too fast and quiet for the others to decipher, and then Uri snatches a handful of dust from the floor and blows a plume of it into the air above them and as it settles down on Ava''s hands and arms for a moment there is a shimmer like a desert mirage and then she becomes the same ashen hue as the dust.
And they''re gone, hidden in plain sight, the five of them having become dust and bits and pieces of humans. It''s a flawless illusion. Ava doesn''t move a muscle, doesn''t even dare to breathe. Outside she hears the muffled voices of their pursuers. They''ve decided it''s been long enough, they want to have a look. The window scratches and slides open a crack. Laughter, quiet and nervous.
¡°Looks like the antlions got ''em alright,¡± says one of the killers, ¡°ain''t nothin'' left but some fingers and toes.¡±
¡°Oh shit,¡± says another, ¡°is that a tongue?¡±
[WARNING] Launch Imminent
Due to Amazon''s rules for enrolling the book in Kindle Unlimited, I''ll need to take down 90% of the manuscript from here. That means that sometime Tuesday I''m going to be removing all but the first four episodes. It makes me sad, but I suspect most of the folks who are going to read it here on RR already have -- and if you haven''t please hurry and finish!
If you''ve left me a review here I''d so appreciate it if you could leave another on Amazon, but I understand that''s a lot to ask.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
As for the future of the story, it will be going straight to ebook from here on out. I will, however, be publishing a different story here on RR hopefully starting this week. It will still be LitRPG but a little bit lighter, hopefully funnier, and it will take place in a fantasy setting. The MC is a sapient lute. It''s called "Lute Ninja." And that''s all I''ll say about that for now.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who took the time to read my work on Ava. I hope I haven''t let you down too much by moving the story off this platform, and I hope you enjoy the work I share in the future.
Till Next,
Kile