Jupiter Symphony

By A. C. Harrison

Ash is a lowly water scrounger doing his best to survive in a world warped by terrorism, technology, climate change, environmental destruction, and the elite one percent.
In the year 2120, he believes himself to be just one among millions scrabbling to survive in the harsh desert wastes and the endless urban sprawl ... until he gets trapped in the workings of a devious military conspiracy.
Suddenly forced to survive and fight back, Ash is drawn into a conflict that erupts into an all-consuming conflagration as he leads a team of warriors and outcasts to a second American Revolution, fighting against a rogue military unit, shadowy corporations, and a secret military weapon of terrible purpose, one which hangs in the heavens above,waiting to rain down merciless destruction.
Drawing inspiration from the works of such greats as William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, “Jupiter Symphony” is filled with tense, violent action, ultra-slick technology, gritty scenery, and savage enemies, including a sinister suit of power armor.
More than just a sci-fi action thriller, “Jupiter Symphony” holds challenging social commentary that speaks to anyone that is dialed into all that is both wrong and right with the America of today.
Now you can join the revolution and pick up “Jupiter Symphony” to experience the rush of the dark future with Ash as he fights to smash the system and discover just what terrible secrets are looming in the heavens above.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A. C. Harrison
• Release date: Sep 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310447273

A. C. Harrison

Author of "Jupiter Symphony," the first book in the Nomad Trilogy, A.C. Harrison was born and raised in the desert city of Phoenix, Arizona. He has resided in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, and Tempe, while also spending time away from the heat in hideaways such as Payson and Flagstaff. He currently lives in Mesa with his wife and a small farm of animals that includes two dogs and two cats (and no ark). Though he does suffer a day job, his passions have driven him to writing, ultimately culminating in a side career as an author and novelist. Though mostly interested in full-length novels, A.C. Harrison has also tried his hand at short stories and research papers, mostly stemming from his time spent in college.A.C. Harrison attended Arizona State University, where he earned a degree in Japanese language and culture. During his studies, he spent time in both Hiroshima and Tokyo, Japan. He has also spent time in Brazil, where several of his family members reside. In studying abroad, A.C. Harrison was able to live within other cultures, allowing him to step back from his own, gaining insight into just what it is to be an American in the modern world, as well as how his country is viewed internationally. As an author, Mr. Harrison would like to give special acknowledgements to John and Miko Ford of ASU, who facilitated the study abroad program which he benefited so greatly from.Outside of travel and the study of Japanese language and culture, A.C. Harrison's interests include working on turbo-era Japanese sports cars, fly fishing, playing music, and target shooting. He also is a fan of single malt Scotch Whiskey and fine cigars, his favorite brands being Rocky Patel and Gurkha (should any adoring fans wish to send gifts). He also believes that no writer can succeed without a trusty pipe to accompany him on those long sessions of writer's block, when blowing smoke rings is all that keeps the mind working.When it comes to authorship, the biggest influences on A.C. Harrison's writing thus far include the works of greats such as Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, John Scalzi, Joe Haldeman, Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein, and many others. Works such as "Snow Crash" and "Neuromancer" helped to shape the universe of the Nomad Trilogy, which includes "Jupiter Symphony," "Unto Persephone," and "The Long Night."Beyond great cyberpunk and science fiction, A.C. Harrison enjoys classic works by many authors, foreign and domestic. He has explored the works of Hemingway, Salinger, and Huxley. Aldous' "Brave New World" was, in fact, one of the principal books to ignite Harrison's literary passion, and helped to instill in him both a wondrous and yet contemplative look at the future and what it might hold for humanity. Catering to his Japanese leanings, he has also enjoyed the works of Ibuse Masuji ("Black Rain") and Yoshikawa Eiji ("Musashi," "Taiko"). He has also read large portions of the Heike Monogatari, as well as Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji, both in English translation and in classical Japanese.Future plans for his works include writing a book based in feudal Japan, which has led to him revisiting another of his most favorite works, James Clavell's "Shōgun." A.C. Harrison would also like to explore more contemporary literature, writing a novel set in modern times and dealing with the challenges of life of American's in the 21st century, from finding one's place in the world to such simple things as friendship, aging, and the experience of love and loss.As an independent author, A.C. Harrison wishes to thank all the people that have supported him in his fledgling career, giving advice and lending assistance while he continuously tortures himself over grammar rules and punctuation, including that most hated of enemies: the comma. He greatly loves the chance to explore society, technology, and culture through his writing, while also being allowed to throw in such entertaining things as suits of power armor, orbital WMDs, rebels from the desert, and passing references to Rage Against the Machine. Creating and exploring a universe is a great gift that has been given to him, and he counts himself lucky each time he sits down to work on his projects, even if it is doing something as abhorrent as editing.A.C. Harrison writes a weekly blog that deals primarily with his experiences in writing, but also delves into short stories (offered for free!), life philosophies, and other interests such as technology and music.You can support A.C. Harrison by checking out samples of his work on his website and by following him on Twitter or giving a Like on Facebook. He can be reached via email at [e-mail]. He is available online at both Smashwords and Kindlemojo.Once more, thank you for visiting and please enjoy.

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Copyright 2014 A.C. Harrison

http://www.acharrison.com/

Smashwords Edition

Cover art by Spiros Karkavelas

artofskar.blogspot.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold

or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,

please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your

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work of this author.

For my father, who thrust Huxley’s Brave New World into my hands at the age of 13, and forever instilled in me a healthy fear of the future.

Table of Contents

Jupiter Symphony

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Regards

Unto Persephone

Connect with Andrew Harrison

Chapter One

The lenses of the goggles were compound, like those of an insect, tinted a shade of golden yellow like a drop of amber with sunlight frozen through it. The frames were of an advanced carbon composite, the delicate lattice deceptive, hiding the amazing strength of the eyewear that wrapped around the face of the man who found himself puzzling over something. Reflected in those insectoid lenses, distorted by their curvature and stretching out into an amorphous blob, was a single droplet of water, suspended from the end of the faucet on a sink. The drop hung precariously, defying gravity. A miniature inverted version of the world was encapsulated within, shivering under the weight, before the drop finally broke free, plummeting to the bowl of the sink below and landing with a wet plink that was startlingly loud in the otherwise deathly silent home. The man behind the goggles, a desert drifter named Ash, had never actually seen a working faucet out in the wastes, though he had long heard stories from the nomad militia he had been raised in.

As the stories were told, there once was a time when anyone could simply walk to a sink in their house, turn on the faucet, and water would come out. It wouldn’t just come out as one shot of brown slop and then stop, but keep coming out clean for just pennies, back when there still were pennies and no hyperinflation. Sure, there are still places where one can get tap water—Fortress Washington, for instance—but unless you are in the headquarters of a megacorp or part of the Fed, it wasn’t likely to happen without a ridiculously exorbitant cost. But if water were still cheap and considered to be as common as dirt, then Ash wouldn’t have a job, and then what would he do? He wasn’t a hired killer and he certainly wasn’t a suit. He was nothing more than a dirt sucking desert rat nomad, and his one great skill was sniffing out water for harvest. Most of his past jobs were dangerous and difficult, though this one had been nothing more than a stupid-lucky break. Out for a wandering walk one night, Ash had stopped to take a leak. Lo and behold, there were the remains of an old housing development stuck in mid-construction ever since the economy self-destructed so long ago. One of the many so-called ghost developments that littered the land. There existed a multitude of cheap, poorly constructed, planned neighborhoods that were suddenly interrupted in mid-build by the cataclysmic cave in of world trade and terrorist attacks. The poor rows of frames and partially finished structures had never had a chance to grow up to be among the many other rows of identical houses that were too large and too foolishly financed. At this abandoned site, they hadn’t even bothered to come pick up the equipment left behind when the workers quit or were killed, and so there were several water trucks that remained with the seals on their bulbous tanks intact. Sure, there was probably some mineral contamination inside from the time they had been sitting, but the filters on Vulture would fix that in a hurry.

Upon making his find, Ash had called in the coordinates to his partner Vasily back aboard the Vulture, and then decided to wait out the night in one of the houses until pickup could be made at first light. Vulture could, in fact, be flown at night, but it really wasn’t worth the risk of beaching the thing on a rock formation when you could just wait for a little sunlight. Besides, Ash would be there to guard the treasure. Walking through the neighborhood, he found the house that seemed to be most complete and let himself in. It wasn’t very difficult; there was no front door. Looking around the inside, he saw most of the interior walls were nothing more than open framing. There wasn't even any wiring yet, so there was to be no luck on any extra metal salvage. The nomad made his way upstairs and found that the rooms at the top were much further along. Finding the master bedroom too open, he holed up in one of the secondary bedrooms that was more defensible and which gave multiple options for escape.

With a tired grunt, he took off his dirty pack and set his weathered, heavy caliber rifle against the wall near the back. Electing to keep his autoloading pistol on him for safety, he proceeded to peel off his gloves, but left on his goggles. The skin of his hands was several shades lighter than the grimey filth that coated the rest of him and his ancient fatigues, which were made up of a primarily desert pattern, broken up by repair patches matched somewhat decently to the rest of his kit. From out of his pack he extracted a surplus MRE: Meal, Ready to Eat. It was a cold, formless gelatin of hardly digestible slop, but the prepackaged meal contained enough calories, fat, vitamins and minerals to fuel a soldier on the go for an entire day, or a nomad who spent most of his daylight hours scrounging for water. Ash gulped the food down, ignoring the flavor when possible and sipping precious H2O from his hydration carrier whenever the taste became too much or too thick. True, some MREs were moderately tasty, but those had been hoarded or used long ago. Now, private contractors, as Ash liked to fancy himself, had to make do with the leftovers from previous wars fought decades ago. He pondered if he should get a cybernetic stomach to process the garbage he was sometimes forced to eat out in the wastes, but ultimately elected to stay human.

The desert heat continued to bleed out of the surrounding terrain, carrying Ash deeper into the night. Outside, the sand shifted over all that was left of the once bright hope that people had carried with them to make a home in the desert, before financial ruin and environmental desolation had set in. The despair was an all-consuming serpent that slithered along with the march of time, but Ash just couldn't relate to those that felt the pain of loss. He had always been a nomad, born into a nomad tribe after the Long Night. Not knowing what had come before him, of the terrorist attack and EMP that had crippled the country, he could only look into the grim and dark future. Such speculation made him weary, and soon the sandman slipped in through the window, urging him to slumber. Curling up in the corner, he finally removed his goggles and shut his eyes, looking forward to the payday tomorrow would bring.

He had not been long asleep, however, before rumblings and murmurs crowded their way into his tired, addled mind. Finally realizing that the noises were real and weren't just going to go away, Ash cracked one bleary eye open. It was still dark outside, so he quietly reached for his goggles and brought them down over his head. Instantly, the world was transformed into brightness as the optical processors inside the goggles gathered up information from various wavelengths and compiled an image in front of the nomad's eyes, after which his human organs decoded the images once again inside his brain so that he could see. It was a tedious and inefficient process. With a glance, he switched the goggles over to thermal only, allowing him to notice thin wisps of heat moving at ground level out behind the house. Without enough of a signature to designate the items as human, the signals seemed more like heat radiating off of a roadway, or perhaps a group of small animals skittering about in the night. It was more noise than actual, hard data worth using. Slowly, he slipped on his headphones, though rather than music they streamed in amplified audio, simultaneously functioning as hearing protection for the rare occasions that required him to forcefully negotiate. He was greeted with the sound of what seemed like mechanical squirrels. The sounds, though muffled, were certainly of machinery, but not a kind he had ever heard. There was a certain urgent, organic quality to the noises that reached his ears.

Curious and cautious, he crept to the corner where his rifle was leaning and secured it, press checking the chamber in the process. With a desert camo coated stock on a black receiver, the firearm looked similar to the kind that had been produced for hundreds of years, and at its basic mechanical level it was extremely similar. On top, however, was an optic that departed markedly from previous iterations. Aside from the various electronic bells and whistles that included range finding, wind speed compensation, bullet drop, etc., there was a toggle recessed into the base of the scope, which Ash now activated. Instantly, the goggle lens over his primary eye—his right—added an additional picture in picture image to the already crowded view. With a quick hand toggle he maximized the rifle’s point of view and maneuvered the compensated, carbon wrapped barrel of the weapon to the lip of the windowsill. Seeing the activity below, the nomads eyes widened.

Fuck me, the profanity slipped his lips quietly before he stopped, forcing himself to stay quiet.

Looking out at the lunar landscape, Ash saw huge, menacing individuals that were in full body armor over dark fatigues. The men were positioning some kind of large machine in an open area behind the housing development, a couple hundred meters from Ash. Even though they were some distance away, Ash could clearly make them out through his optic. The object they were handling was a large cylinder, about the size of a passenger car standing on its end, the exterior of which seemed to be some kind of polymer casing. At the base were four large feet, and Ash could see that there was space beneath the device, a gap just large enough that a man could slink through on his belly. The entire unit was painted a dull, featureless gray, and the individual panels that made up the device were difficult to distinguish, blurring into one another with small seams. About the only features that could be seen were the bulky power and data cables that projected from one open panel, slithering through the desert sand, an inky serpent that traced its way further back to a tiltrotor craft that sat idle, the blades of each engine lazily spinning in standby.

A perimeter of armed guards could be seen around the equipment, but most disconcerting of all was something that Ash had only heard whisperings and drunken legends about, but didn’t believe was real. There, standing taller than the surrounding men and holding position directly in front of the strange device, was a sentinel demigod in matte armored layers and carbon nanotubes: a suit of military power armor. The head of the unit, if you could call it that, slowly swept over the area, monitoring progress and seeking out any potential threats. Ash felt reluctant to even breathe, knowing that as good as his sensors and skills were at seeking out men and machines, the augmented soldier inside the titanium chassis would be more effective by an entire order of magnitude. Ash didn’t know how he hadn’t been found out, but wasn’t going to question his luck. Perhaps, having arrived before the military and leaving no real signature while dozing off, his temperature had blended in with the rest of the structure, masking his presence. Now, however, he faced a conundrum: should he remain quiet and hope the men in black simply upped and left, or would it be best to try and sneak away? He could certainly escape a lone militia patrol, and even trained soldiers were doable with the right kind of ambush, but this was a whole different ball game. Everything about what he was seeing screamed special forces, from the gear to the posture and tactics, and that was without even mentioning the mechanical nightmare that stood front and center.

Mulling over his decision, Ash also grappled with his feelings towards seeing soldiers out in areas of the desert where they normally didn’t venture. His anger was at odds with his fear. For years he had heard tales of martial law and government abuse by his nomad brothers, and they still sounded warning bells in his brain. His few previous run-ins with soldiers had always ended poorly, but he had never dealt with this kind of situation, with shit this heavy and thick. His brain felt like it was cooking inside his skull as he ran through all the possible outcomes of his decisions. Why again were these armored thugs out in his territory?

Before Ash could act, his decision was made for him. Without warning, the unidentifiable machinery sprang to life, a dull glow visible from the base of the object before the optical feed from Ash’s rifle abruptly cut out, along with his audio and video inputs. He felt a low hum, felt it fill his bones and tissue. It was as if every single molecule of atmosphere was vibrating, every particle shifting, a torrent of elemental activity that couldn’t have carried on for more than a minute, but seemed to last an eternity. A huge shock wave passed through the ground, radiating out with the device as its epicenter, violently shaking the house Ash was in and causing dust to fall down from the exposed beams where a ceiling would normally be.

As quickly as it began, it stopped, and Ash’s electronics groggily came back online. Once again peering over the window through the rifle scope, the lone nomad saw the men begin to gather up pieces of equipment. The power armor suit, which previously seemed rooted to the ground, turned around and casually lifted the central piece of machinery. Ash was unable to even vaguely guess how much the device weighed, but the size implied great mass. The armored suit carried the piece over to the tiltrotor, the combined ground pressure of the armor and cargo driving the big feet deep into the sand. Setting the equipment on a pallet at the back of the aircraft, men scurried to secure the load while the perimeter guard fell back and began to board the transport as the rotors came up to speed. In the next moment, they were gone, leaving Ash with a series of questions burning inside his head as he listened to the sound of rotors fading into the darkness. Ash breathed a heavy sigh of relief, glad this wouldn’t be the night he would have to die like a dog in the desert.

That better have been a once in a lifetime experience, he muttered to himself.

No longer able to sleep, he spent the rest of the night finding the deepest and darkest hole to hide in until sunlight, praying away the tiltrotor and its deadly cargo.

Chapter Two

ETA is one-eight-zero seconds. Will do a threat scan on flyby and then ground. Ensure beacon is set to channel six, a voice chattered through the bones inside Ash’s skull via his headphones.

With the new day had come new confidence in Ash, who was trying to shake the shivers he still had from the previous night. Even though he had a job to do, he was nervous and knew he’d be in a bit of a rush to get it done and get moving. He was now in a wide clearing, several hundred meters from the neighborhood where the water trucks were located. The ground here was open and barren, save for a few small, scrappy bushes that persevered against the dry, cracked earth and scorching sun. As instructed, the nomad pulled out what appeared to be a metal stake from his pack, the top of which had a numbered dial and a small antenna sticking up from the top. He turned the dial to ‘6’ and drove the spike into the ground. A red LED at the top of the unit indicated it was broadcasting, helping Vasily zero in on Ash’s position through a narrowband signal. Though he had done a sweep of the area earlier, Ash couldn’t shake the feeling that the military was still hanging around. The fact that he and Vasily were openly chatting on radios only made him feel more paranoid. The sooner Vulture showed up for the cargo, the sooner he could get the hell out of here.

As he continued to mull over the activity from last night, a distant drone began to fill the air, growing into a booming, roaring howl and approaching fast. Turning to the south, Ash finally saw Vulture crest a low hill, a massive cloud of billowing dust being kicked up by the eight engines mounted at the fore of the gigantic vessel, a real subtle vehicle to have out in such open and exposed territory.

Vulture was an airplane in the same way a turkey was a bird. The old Soviet ekranoplan was technically a ground effect vehicle, meaning that it was designed to operate at low altitudes where the interaction between the ground and the wings created enough lift to generate flight in an otherwise flightless craft. The prow of the aircraft looked more like it came off a naval vessel, but immediately aft of the cockpit were eight massive jet engines, four per side, that most certainly would make the pilot deaf in a day. About halfway down the vessel, stubby wings seemed to erupt randomly at right angles to the fuselage, while the top of the airframe had what appeared to be six missile tubes in three rows of two. These were originally designed to carry nuclear capable warheads, but on Vulture they were repurposed as water storage tanks. At the back of the craft, a massive tail stretched up several stories, featuring swept back horizontal stabilizers nearly as wide as the actual wings. A bulbous series of radar domes protruded from the front and back of the vertical stabilizer, adding to the strange collection of shapes that made up the craft. When the entire package was taken in, it was bizarre, alien, and ugly. Seeing it in flight made one question Newtonian physics in a way that seriously argued for a parallel universe.

Ash quickly pulled his shemagh up over his mouth as Vulture passed by low overhead, the dust cloud instantly turning day into night. His headphones dropped the ear piercing screech to a tolerable level, while his goggles automatically sealed to his skin, keeping any dust from entering. Vulture lazily banked over the desert, drifting over the landing site in a huge ellipse as Vasily cut back on the throttles and began his final approach. The Lun class vessel was originally designed to land in water, the fuselage being too massive to function on land. Vasily had spent a long time modifying and upgrading the chassis and engines, which was why the Lun now sported multiple sets of massive, composite skis on the underside that were slowly swinging down into position beneath the plane. As Vulture touched down on the sand, Vasily applied the flaps and reversed the thrust on the turbines, bringing the huge bird to a short stop, the fine sand doing its part in helping as well. For all intents and purposes, it looked like someone had just dropped a steel sperm whale out of orbit which just so happened to slap onto the desert floor.

After a few moments of nothing but dry desert wind clearing the dust, the front hatch on Vulture opened with a mechanical clanking, the cacophony ending when the door swung free and promptly slammed to a stop on its hinges. Standing in the hatchway was a younger man, sturdy, with a wide face and dusty brown hair that was cropped short, exposing a cybernetic device implanted at the base of his neck, consisting of a vanity plate and several I/O ports. His build suggested he would be portly later in life, but for now he had a healthy weight and handsome features. Ash crossed over to Vasily and exchanged a handshake before getting down to the business of moving valuable water. Tons and tons of it.

The two men spent the remainder of the morning unwinding water hoses and connecting them to pumps located in Vulture’s main cargo hold. The lines were then connected to the water trucks in order to fill the tanks on Vulture. By the end, the entire project was a mess of hoses, wires and ropes, resembling a cyborg octopus from hell. Half the hoses had been patched a number of times, and the other half needed to be patched, small leaks trickling water out onto the sand. Still, when the switch was thrown, the old Russian pumps noisily kicked on with faithful reliability, using Vulture’s batteries for power, and began the arduous task of relocating thousands of gallons of water for transport. While the pumps did their work, Ash and Vasily went further inside Vulture in order to converse away from the racket. The interior of the ekranoplan was cramped and gray, in that special way that only old Soviet hardware could be. The accent color seemed to be a sort of baby shit green, splashed liberally over any surface one’s gaze might risk lingering on. All in all, it made one focus on the job at hand, since eyes to the front was the safest bet.

Ash stood in the narrow passage leading up to the cockpit, one arm of his slender frame slung over a rung of the ladder leading to the dorsal machine gun turret. Vasily chose to sit in the old, now defunct radio operator’s chair. Since Vasily had chosen to refit the aircraft with an MMI, a Machine/Man Interface, what was once handled by a crew of twelve could mostly be handled by a crew of one. In order to fly the vessel, Vasily directly plugged his brain and spine into the controls, linking him to the plane’s upgraded avionics. Of course, saying the link was direct was a bit of a misnomer, since there were a bunch of hardware adapters necessary to achieve a connection; doubly so since the flight computer was Chinese and Vasily's plugs were Russian, adding a whole new set of pieces to the scavenged-tech puzzle.

Ash was itching to pick Vasily's brain on the events of last night, hoping his comrade had heard or seen something in the past 24 hours that could hint at what was going on, but knew his friend would want to steer clear of any sign of trouble.

God damn, if these aren’t the slowest pumps this side of the Sonoran, Ash started in, trying to get his friend warmed up.

I thought maybe you would want break after spending too much time in desert sun. Brain probably is fried, Vasily fired back with his typical wry wit.

Ash looked up the ladder he was dangling from.

Not so fried that I don’t notice interesting activity in the middle of the night, he said.

I cannot be blamed for your choice of women, Vasily countered.

If only. Look, Vasily, Ash now looked down at the deck, unable to make direct eye contact with his friend, last night some Feds, some Spec Ops kind of guys, they showed up in their tiltrotor gunship and did some weird shit.

I fail to see how this affects our water, Vasily replied, crossing his arms.

Ash finally looked at Vasily directly. They had some nasty power armor with them.

Good for them! Vasily made as if to go back down to the pumps, but Ash stuck his leg out to cut him off, the desert camo of his pants heavily weathered, dirt falling off his boot onto the decking.

Dammit, Vasily, this is important. The Federals are up to something on our turf and I want to know what it is. I need to know what I saw, Ash confessed.

I don’t care what you saw, tovarish. I do not want involvement with Federals, his friend said.

Yes, but...

Vasily cut him off with a wave. Look, long ago you said ‘Vasily, you have a plane, I have a rifle. We work together and be friends.’ And I said, ‘Okay, we are friends, but only move water, no American hero bullshit.’ I’m not even a citizen.

Ash kept looking at Vasily intently, not moving. Finally relenting, his gaze fell and he dropped his boot encased foot back down to the metal floor. The big Russian shouldered past without comment.

Ash sat in quiet as Vasily got out of earshot.

Nobody is anymore, he muttered.

Refusing to dwell on his setback, Ash gathered himself up and went off to find work around the plane, of which there was always some that needed to be done.

After several hours, the ekranoplan’s dorsal mounted tanks were full to the bursting point, and Ash and Vasily were working together reeling in the hoses and storing them with the pumps. Because they were such a small team, Ash had to simultaneously move gear while also keeping a lookout for any hostile raiders, Federals, or even feral, starved animals. All the cities of the American desert had mostly collapsed, and plenty of dangerous creatures had now expanded back to pre-human population levels, including large packs of coyotes, mountain lions, and feral hogs. Ash’s goggles were in a scanning mode that relied on the picture in picture setup. His direct view was unimpaired, but also overlaid was a scanning system that captured and directed him to radio waves, magnetic disturbances, thermal signatures, and other signals of interest. The inputs appeared as a ghostly image over his normal vision unless he directly switched over to the new signal. The last of the equipment was stowed and latched without incident, allowing Vasily to make his way to the cockpit as Ash secured the many hatches of the vessel.

As the heavy steel hinges swung closed, creaking all the way, Ash heard the old bird start to come to life. From above and a little aft, a low whine slowly increased in pitch as the eight engines spun up. Vibrations filled the capacious chamber while the lights flickered and dimmed before suddenly kicking up to full blast as the generators fired and started producing their own electricity. Ash climbed up from the bay, continuing up past the command deck and proceeding to the upper level where a forward facing turret allowed him to look out through armored slits that were placed four stories high. As he was climbing, he heard flaps being tested, whining and groaning as if a great creature was shrugging off a mythical slumber. Since the Russian pilot was now plugged directly into the flight computer, this was literally Vasily stretching out, preparing for flight. Ash lacked any kind of linking cybernetics, and could only imagine what it must be like to suddenly occupy a different body, to have your senses altered and dimensions shifted to accommodate the new home of your conscience. If someone could plug their brain into a machine, could the soul follow?

Realizing he wasn’t brave enough to find out, Ash shook his head and realized that Vasily might be right, that he might have been out in the sun for too long. With the pre-flight checks complete, Ash was suddenly thrown back in his seat as Vasily fed full power to the turbines in a single, great push. The original configuration of the Lun-class weighted 286 tons unloaded, and produced 28,600 pounds of thrust, coming out to 100 pounds of thrust per ton. In comparison, high performance fighter craft of just over 100 years ago often produced over 1,000 pounds of thrust per ton. The Lun was a fat turkey that Vasily had put on a diet, but even with the new engines the ratio was still only about 200 pounds of thrust per ton when factoring in the pumping equipment and cargo. Vulture was by no means a high-speed, low-drag machine, but at least she could take off under her own power and operate at moderate altitude. By contrast, and with a laughable sense of Soviet logic, the original aircraft of yesteryear could only operate on water and had to take off into the wind or it would fail to gain altitude, leaving it to flounder in the Black Sea as nothing more than a glorified, nuke toting, power boat.

The massive craft continued to gain speed until the skis, layered with an ultrafine, self-lubricating coating of titanium nitride, finally lifted off the ground and then tucked in under the vehicle, reducing drag to an extent, but still remaining exposed to the elements. Vasily continued to climb, though in keeping with tradition he leveled off at around 500 feet and stayed there, barring any cliffs or steep hills. Ash didn’t need to look behind to know that a gigantic dust cloud, their signature calling card, was trailing in their wake. Nor could he, as the turret he had positioned himself in was only forward facing and, in what must have been the most nerve wracking seat of the Soviet Union, directly under the most forward pair of nuclear capable missile launch tubes. Having reached cruising altitude and airspeed, Ash turned to one of the computer terminals Vasily had installed throughout the craft. It was a basic GUI, devoid of any fancy deep diving gear, but it was significant in that the terminal was network capable. The new sensor suite installed on Vulture made the old massive radar domes obsolete, so Vasily had repurposed them to be long range broadcast/receive antennae for accessing the remnants of the global data network that had once been the internet. By the mid-21st century, satellite and ground based infrastructure had made the W3 almost completely ubiquitous. After the Long Night, the nuclear generated EMP attack on the United States had caused relays and access points to be destroyed or disabled, and areas like the drought filled desert had fallen into disrepair. Still, enough coverage was available, if you had a radar dome the size of a compact family sedan broadcasting at nearly 3000 MHz.

Ash quickly connected and logged in to one of the local BBSes that several nomad tribes used for long distance communication. While Vulture cruised at five hundred miles per hour over the scrub brush filled desert below, Ash searched for messages from tribal leaders looking to buy or trade for water. He lined up several high priority (read: not destitute) contacts and then strung them together based on location and demand, allowing Vulture to make a single twisting path of efficient water delivery, minimizing fuel consumption and exposure, while getting them back to water searching as quickly as possible.

Damn, I’m good, Ash said as he kept at his work.

For security reasons, none of the nomads posted their exact location; instead, everyone operated on a set of code words and passphrases, which Ash read without difficulty or hesitation. Ash forwarded the information to Vasily in a format the Russian would understand, then shifted his focus to what he deemed more important: reports of military activity in the area. He was sure that such a distinct task force would have been noticed by someone else in the wastes, but no matter how hard he searched he couldn’t seem to locate any information on the group he had witnessed the night before.

Rubbing his hands over his bristly face, he let out a sigh of frustration. He didn’t have the patience of a hacker to sift through mountains of information for a tiny detail. He was very much more on the monkey do level of data mining and research. Still, he was too worried by what he had seen to let it rest. Expanding his search to encompass more than just nomad ramblings, he tried to ferret out whatever information he could, but still to no avail. Frustrated, he realized that he might have to outsource this one. Resigned to his fate and aware that he had barely slept the night before, Ash got up and headed to his bunk so he could recharge both his equipment and his brain.

On his way down the ladder he yelled to Vasily over the engines, Spokoĭnoĭ nochi, or goodnight, or whatever, tovarish.

Vasily didn’t respond, so Ash shrugged and moved on.

The nomad’s head hit his tiny pillow as he killed the lights inside his diminutive bunk. Outside, the angry yellow orb above them started its fall from heaven, glaring off the eggshell hull as Vasily flew to the east.

Ash came out of his slumber just as Vasily began to bring Vulture in for the first landing along their route, early morning rays barely glinting over the horizon. The nomad felt the deceleration and change in pitch, along with the telltale drop in turbine RPM. With nothing to do while in the air, Ash made his way to the cockpit to watch the approach. Stepping over the threshold, he took in the bizarre sight with fascination. Vasily’s interface with the plane never ceased to intrigue Ash. Possibly for aesthetics, possibly because it didn’t matter, the original Russian consoles for the pilot and copilot remained unaltered, the Cyrillic writing that was far beyond Ash’s understanding still splattered liberally under every switch and dial. Both pilot’s seats had been removed, though, and in their place was Vasily’s harness web: a modern composite shell seat with adaptive gel padding and dynamic shock absorption, through which a series of ballistic nylon straps retained not only Vasily’s torso, but also his arms, legs, and head, as his central nervous system was temporarily functioning as the flight control system for Vulture. What used to be the station of the flight engineer had been ripped out, and in its place were banks of consoles and adapters which were used as the junction between Vasily’s brain stem outputs and the various inputs from the sensors and cameras mounted throughout the fuselage. The most absorbing and disturbing piece of equipment was the large primary cable which ran up the back of the command chair and then connecting to a series of jacks on the back of Vasily’s neck . Laypeople liked to believe that this was where metal met flesh, but that would be a recipe for disaster by exposing internal tissue to a disease ridden environment. In truth, the plugs connected to a sterilized housing inside the body, beyond which the actual nerve connections were made through a protective membrane.

Looking out the forward glass, Ash could see the landscape had been transformed overnight from scrub brush to high desert. A multitude of rocky washes splayed out in zigzag patterns, dead veins which once carried the waters of life, now instead cutting lines into the massive desert that had formed after the Texas drought had expanded and settled into a permanent state. Coming in low over a particularly deep wash, Vulture buzzed the rocky outcrops before pulling up and banking away to the right. Looking out the starboard side, Ash saw a sequence of flashes coming from the ground: a signal mirror flagging them down. Vasily dipped the starboard wings in a signal response and then banked away to land in a clearing a few miles to the north. Not soon thereafter, the ekranoplan skidded to a dusty halt atop a plateau, the sound of the dying engines rolling across the open space as waves of sand washed over the aircraft.

Now on the ground, Ash finally had a job to do, and so he moved to secure the area as Vasily brought the aircraft down to standby and before he began rigging up one of the gravity feeds used to distribute water from the dorsal tanks. From the south came the ancient sound of internal combustion engines. The noise was primarily made up of diesel clatter, rocks perpetually falling in a tumbler, but also including punctuations from gasoline engines which growled and barked through open and illegal exhaust systems. Enforcement just didn’t exist in the desert. Triggering a transmitter on his goggles, Ash switched his PIP viewpoint over a channel to the camera mounted to Vulture’s rear dorsal gun. From the two-story high vantage point, Ash could see a small dust cloud approaching, the rising dirt swirling and mixing with the massive haze that the ekranoplan had already generated. At the fore of the cloud, the tip of a iron spearhead, was an ancient muscle car from a bygone era. The blacked out grille sported a dashing pony, pitted, weathered and worn. Flanking the car on either side was a collection of dirt bikes—scouting units which fanned out around the perimeter. Further behind the vanguard, obscured in the dust, were motorhomes and station wagons, all in various states of disrepair, but somehow still running on duct tape, cable ties, and good intentions.

As the procession drew up behind Ash and Vasily, the convoy abruptly came to a halt. It was only the old muscle car that came forward, the pace not unlike a wary horse coming to drink. Ash stepped forward, his slung rifle dangling in front of his narrow chest. Reaching out with his right hand, he made a series of signs that collaborated with the current date and time, as well the primary atmospheric conditions. It was an encrypted all clear, stand down message, designed to let the nomad troop know that they were safe. Ash had been taught it years ago in the tribe he grew up in, when even as a young boy he had to do his part and pull his weight so that those less fortunate could live.

The signals completed, the door to the Mustang’s darkened interior opened with a pop and a creak, rusty hinges protesting as the door swung open, sagging under its own weight. A stout, mustachioed man with leathery skin climbed out to stand before Ash. The man had tattoos visible on his arms and neck, while the rest of his body was covered by a worn flannel shirt and jeans. His name was Antonio Calderon, but people just called him Pancho, and he was the leader of the Black Raven nomads. Part Native American tribe, part biker gang, part eternal RV-based family vacation, the nomads came into existence after the Long Night when the federal government, already reeling from the brutal terrorist attacks and economic uncertainty, withdrew from the public purview and left the dying middle and lower classes to fend for themselves. Without the centralized direction everyone had become so dependent on, chaos flooded into the power vacuum. Many in the American Southwest found themselves wandering into reservation land, turning to the people they had once marginalized and left forgotten. The Native Americans, who could have cast aside the hungry and desperate, instead chose to welcome in their new sisters and brothers, teaching them how to fight and how to survive in a world they no longer owned.

Not everyone had fled to the wilderness, though. Filling the power void in the surviving urban centers were corporate entities, ones with money and resources. They quickly bought out, parlayed with, or otherwise removed local government, carving out their own medieval fiefdoms, their skyscraper castles standing in contrast to the wandering nomads. The large urban centers—Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and several others—were transformed into corporate dominated regions which lorded over a massive lower class. As survivors began to pour into the cities in droves, the corporations feared they would lose control and be overwhelmed by the refugees, so they made a pact to lock down the cities and execute any nomads that tried to get in. By the time the federal government returned from self-imposed exile, the corporations were too entrenched in their respective urban centers to be brought back to heel. Wisely, the Feds chose to grant the corporations limited sovereignty, and so everything from health services to police forces were privatized. The corporate rich became a minute population percentage, and everyone below floundered and gasped in abject poverty. The Fed turned outward and used the military as a mercenary army to remain fiscally liquid, but quickly became tied down in several wars of attrition. Almost overnight, the world had changed dramatically, millions having suffered and died in search of a new way of life.

Now the survivors carried on, getting by on jobs like growing fuel or trading water, as Ash was now doing. The water trader took a few steps towards the car, then stopped at a safe distance, waiting while Pancho came around the front to greet him. The scorching sunlight from above accentuated the deep eyes and high cheeks of the nomad tribal leader, dark pupils under a squinting brow of tanned skin that was shaded by a classic cowboy hat. Ash, as usual, kept his goggles on, not that anyone who knew him expected otherwise. The number of desert survivors that knew what his eyes looked like dwindled with each passing day.

Rain Man, Antonio called out, using his nickname for Ash.

Pancho, Ash answered. You put in a call for water?

The older man looked back towards his waiting people.

Normally we are able to sustain ourselves, but it’s been getting harder and harder to survive. This land is dying, Pancho shook his head. No matter what we do, we can’t turn back what has been done. Every time we think it can’t dry up more, it does.

Well, we’ve got a solution to that, Ash said. What do you have in trade?

Antonio frowned. All business, as usual. Some sympathy would benefit my dying people.

Ash remain stoic, his face not betraying his actual grief at what he saw happening to the nomad survivors.

Shrugging at the lack of response, Antonio continued. I have MREs, ammunition, and some morphine. That’s about it.

Any aluminum? Ash asked.

Not that I could afford to give up, Pancho said.

Damn, Ash cursed. Alright, we’ll take the MREs and the morphine at the normal rate of exchange. Tell your transports it’s safe to come up and we’ll bring down the tubes.

Without waiting for a response, Ash turned and started walking back towards Vulture. Still keeping watch from the turret above, he had an early warning to hit the dirt when the shadow of a scout quadrotor, a type of short range government UAV, made its first attack run on the two parties. A horrible, fearsome tearing sound filled the air as dozens of rounds of explosive, armor piercing ammunition raked the convoy, spat out by the turret mounted LMG slung underneath the chassis of the drone. A split second later the aircraft had already blown past by hundreds of feet and was banking hard to come around for another pass. In that time, Ash was already up and sprinting towards Vulture as Vasily was yelling into his radio.

What the fuck is happening?

Federal drone! Get us moving! Ash’s voice was ragged as he charged over the terrain as quickly as he could, trying not to tumble in the deep sand.

Why is Fed drone attacking? What did you do? I told you not to meddle! Vasily shouted accusingly.

Get! Us! Moving! Ash ordered.

Ash dove into the open hatch as the drone made another pass, the nomad crashing hard on the metal deck plate. Dust and gun smoke filled the air as quickly as the screams of several nomads. Rolling onto his back and looking down past his boots, Ash saw that several small trailers were now perforated husks, flames licking at the bullet holes as if they were the open wounds of pack animals. Several bodies littered the ground, the high velocity rounds making short work of anything that wasn’t reinforced with armor, something the nomads didn’t have in any great supply.

Though the nomads had been shocked and scattered by the sudden attack, they were by no means defenseless, and they certainly didn’t survive in the wasted desert without their own firepower. As families quickly started their engines and got rolling, the scout bikes started guiding them to rock outcroppings for shelter. Several trucks and SUVs moved to the center of the formation as swarthy looking bearded individuals loaded belts of ammunition into ancient lead slingers. They didn’t have the sophisticated targeting apparatus of the drone, nor did they have the special caseless, electronically ignited ammunition, but they did have a rolling museum of seized and rebuilt firepower. All things being equal, a .50 BMG round travelling at nearly 3,000 feet per second was not something to argue against. Several hundred of these rounds now filled the air, arcing over the chattering machine guns. The volley of fire, coming as it was from a multitude of moving targets, seemed to give the drone a digital aneurysm as it tried to narrow down which target was the highest priority. Before it could make up its mind, several dozen rounds smashed through its polycarbonate wings and rotor housings. It hung in the air momentarily, then plunged towards the earth, its flight computer throwing up its hands in surrender at the lack of lift being provided. Moments before it struck earth, the unit’s self-destruct system ignited and a shock wave erupted, carrying with it hundreds of pieces of shrapnel which decorated several nearby nomad trucks with razor sharp souvenirs.

By this time, Vulture was already speeding towards the end of its takeoff cycle, and Vasily was nearly ready to lift off.

Clear, clear, clear! Ash radioed in, the hatch still open and giving him a view of the chaos.

Too late, no room, Vasily advised him.

The nose came up and they left the ground while Ash looked through his turret cam, checking for any other incoming threats, half expecting to see an armored column following in on the work the drone had started. Instead, the surrounding sky and ground seemed calm and clear, though the nomads on the ground didn’t look all too pleased with the chain of events that had just transpired.

Vasily, circle around and bring us back down, but be careful. I think they want to blame us for what happened, Ash radioed his friend.

Then better idea is to keep going. Many other buyers, the Russian argued.

No, not this tribe. They’re good people, and they’ve been dying of dehydration, stuck as they are in one of the most arid regions. Just...keep your eyes open this time.

Silence. Then, Affirmative.

Vasily brought the big bird in low and slow, once again touching down on the sand. This time, the nomads took no chances, forming up in two columns on either side of the plane, their guns pointing inward. Ash and Vasily were completely surrounded.

As soon as they came to a stop, Ash jumped down from the open hatch, putting his hands up and walking carefully forward. Antonio stayed back this time, choosing to shout.

Rain Man! What have you done? How much did they pay you?

It’s not like that, Ash said, cursing himself. We didn’t know we were being followed. We saw some—

Antonio cut in. It’s not hard when your aircraft makes a cloud miles high. Can’t you be a little quieter?

Ash grit his teeth. Look, we saw some Fed activity recently, but that was hundreds of miles away, so why the hell would we worry? As far as we could tell, they didn’t realize we were aware of them.

Antonio listened, his facial expression skeptical as he let Ash run his mouth, seeing if he would hang himself with his own words.

What do you want me to say? Ash asked, frustration creeping into his voice. It’s not like I have an obligation to tell you when we see Feds doing weird shit in the desert. You understand that my partner isn’t too keen on getting involved until he has his green card.

Antonio lowered his voice. What kind of ‘weird shit?’

Huh? Ash asked.

You said they were doing weird shit. I suggest you elaborate, Antonio said menacingly.

Looked like they were surveying or digging. Something like that. It was at night, so it’s hard to say. Seemed pretty random, but they had some real exotic looking equipment, Ash explained.

Digging, Antonio repeated, repeating the word a few times and letting it roll around in his mouth under his thick mustache.

Finally he turned around and yelled back towards the RVs. Bring him here!

A few confused moments passed before a ragged looking boy was brought forth. His hair was in matted tangles, his clothes mostly shreds. A deep gash ran across his forehead, blood still trickling down from the open wound. Ash did his best not to look, the sight sickening to him.

What the hell did you do to him? Ash asked accusingly.

We didn’t do anything, Rain Man. We found him like this after he broke into our food stores in the middle of the night. After that, he kept crying about drones killing his nomad tribe, Pancho said.

You’ve seen this before, Ash said, realizing his counterpart had more to say.

Why should I trust you?

If you don’t then shoot me, Ash said, tossing his hands wide. Nobody obliged. Yeah, like I was saying.

Yes, we’ve seen it before, Pancho nodded. Not often, but more and more frequently.

When did you find the boy? Ash asked.

Three nights ago. I’m worried about his cut. It hasn’t stopped bleeding and we don’t have the supplies to handle something that deep, Pancho admitted, his stance relaxing. I know it’s a strange request, but would you take him? All we can offer him is death, and not even a very comfortable one.

Ash wrinkled his brow in thought as the sun beat down on the two men.

Yes, he answered. Hurry up and bring him over, then get your water. The Feds will probably be by soon for their lost drone.

One more thing, Pancho said.

Yes?

The Rain Man opened up one of the myriad pockets on the front of his vest, extracting a small memory card, no bigger than a thumbnail.

You should watch this.

Ash stepped forward, taking the card and stashing it in one of the open drives in his goggles.

I will, he promised.

With the situation defused, the nomads quickly filled their water tanks and moved on, heading off into the afternoon, waves of heat dancing over the horizon as they faded away, becoming dark and ghostly figures in the distance.

Ash and Vasily packed up the last of the hoses, then Ash strapped the wounded child into a chair in the cockpit, making sure he was secure. With everything stashed, the nomad sealed the hatches while Vasily brought the engines up to speed. Soon they were airborne, once again catching sight of the nomad convoy as it quickly dispersing into the wilderness, finding cover to avoid potential Federal patrols. Why the Feds were openly attacking nomads was a question Ash couldn’t figure out, and the problem stewed in his brain as they flew, mixing with his earlier run in with the special forces unit. There was no love lost between the two factions, certainly, but nomads were nothing more than a hassle that was out of sight, out of mind. For Federals to shoot on sight meant they were in a no witnesses mood, and that agitated Ash. He fingered the memory card in its slot, praying it would shed some light on the situation. Soaring along, the sun finally slipped below the horizon as Vulture left clouds in her wake.

Chapter Three

Colonel James Edward Matthews sat in his field office, the swirling dust outside constantly blowing, causing the semi-rigid flaps of the prefabricated structure to wrinkle and fold, wind noise seeping in through numerous gaps. A small data display was perched on his knee, upon which the lean man was intently focused, his dark eyes reflecting the images flashing on the screen. The unit was playing back data collected by a scouting drone that had been operating a few hundred miles to the north-east, just one of many such drones he had patrolling the area, keeping an eye out for potential problems. This one had found more than just a potential problem, it had located a very large snag.

The snag was displayed before him in a particular portion of the feed, a thirty second segment that he had looped for his analysis, allowing him to become intimately familiar with the important details. The drone, set incorrectly to its aggressive patrol mode, had detected electromagnetic and radar signatures just off its route, and so it had proceeded to investigate. As the drone descended to a lower altitude, it switched to the visual spectrum, displaying a desert plateau covered in scrub brush and bushy trees. In the middle of its view was a modest clearing where a collection of vehicles, a nomad tribe, had gathered around what had to be one of the strangest vessels Colonel Matthews had ever set eyes on. At this point the drone, being too far to transmit a request for orders, made a judgment based on the supposed capabilities of the nomads below, determining that a close strafing run was in order. Unfortunately, the drone failed to detect the obscene number of concealed machine guns below, and soon the video cut out as the drone self-destructed, having been sliced to ribbons by lead knives.

Before that point, however, Matthews was able to dissect the close pass frame by frame, allowing him to take in tiny, important details. The high quality optics gave a crystal clear image of the chaos, but Matthews stopped on a particular frame to have a closer look. What he saw was a nomad of a different variety, one outfitted with attire and attitude that suggested he was a survivor of one of the now extinct, large militias that had been stamped out years ago by a combined effort of the corporations and the government. The man was a survivor, trained by the families of discharged military members that had banded together for protection after the Long Night. Colonel Matthews had spent a lifetime sizing up the opposition, and his instincts were setting off warning alarms over this one. Worse, the man was mobile, possessing a military aircraft, even if it was a bizarre relic. Looking at the data again, he