By the Feet of Men Read online

  Cassady bent over until his fingers brushed the top of his boots. Something cracked in his back. It felt good. He headed for the bar. He wasn’t worried about leaving the Old Lady unattended. Invisible eyes kept watch from Faustine’s bunker and Sergei would step in if anybody was stupid enough to try to harvest the parts.

  People walked by in ones and twos, silent for the most part. Nobody paid Cassady a second glance. He pressed his abdomen to stop the hunger pangs. He hadn’t eaten since the hardtacks at daybreak. Still, they would have new rations tomorrow. The deal they’d made with Faustine was a good one. No danger, no pressure. The hands that had been twisting his insides since Verne relaxed their grip.

  The air in the bar was thick with body odour, dust and unrefined alcohol. Runners, traders and drunks who could pay their way collected around empty metal drums turned on their heads. One of the Runners recognised Cassady and called him over to trade news. There wasn’t much to be had: a group of fanatics was causing trouble in the south, a battle had been fought with the Agis somewhere on the Watched Road, a useful highway had been swallowed by the great lagoons in the north, and there were food shortages everywhere.

  ‘Same as always,’ said Cassady.

  ‘Not exactly. Joe’s got a story for ya.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  A tall man with a face caked in grime leaned over the barrel. ‘Took the Bull Bitch to the Russian Wall.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Call it curiosity. We was well stocked an’ close enough.’ Joe jerked a thumb at his co-driver. ‘I said to Ryman tha’ we should take the Bull Bitch an’ go for it. Dig around, maybe find summat to salvage. Wasn’t worth it though. Closed up tighter than the Alps an’ barren as the Bowl.’

  ‘What did it look like?’

  ‘Felt it ‘fore I saw it.’ Joe’s eyes shone. ‘Blocks out the sky. Swear. Metal an’ concrete, mostly. Far as I could see in both directions. Barbed wire an’ all kinds of traps along the top. Some kinda sandbag bunker for a cannon or suchlike. Gun was gone though. Give you summat to think about if you went an’ decided you wanted to climb up there. A few signs tha’ people had tried to get in. Wrecks all along the black, too. Pantechs, four-wheelers, heavy military rigs bigger ‘un the Bitch. All blown outta existence. Years ago, like as not.’

  ‘See anybody around?’

  ‘Naw,’ said Joe. ‘None. I even worked up the courage to shout an’ pump the horn. Got me wonderin’ if there’s anybody left inside. Eerie, it was. When we got there, it was jus’ gettin’ on for dusk, but we didn’t wanna make camp. Death was hidin’ behind every rock. Won’t be goin’ back, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Somebody told me the border’s open if you follow the Wall south.’

  ‘Sure. If you wanna try your luck pokin’ around down there, go ahead. There’s a reason scavengers an’ Runners an’ the rest never come back. Radiation hits hard.’

  Cassady withdrew and made his way to the bar. Wyler’s hulking form filled the far corner of the room, hands wrapped around a tin of pulque. He stared straight ahead. Nobody came close to him. Cassady swept his sweat-stained cap from his head and rapped his knuckles on the bar top. The owner, Teju, was hovering beside his tubs of pulque and fiddling with the casing of an old lamp.

  ‘Business so good you don’t need to serve your customers anymore?’

  Teju looked up, lips set in a grimace. When he saw the mismatched eyes flashing in the dim light, he clicked his tongue against his teeth and laughed.

  ‘What are you doing here? You look like hell.’

  Cassady smiled. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Where’s Ghazi?’

  ‘Taking care of something. He’ll be along.’

  ‘What’s the story?’

  ‘We were in the area and we needed a contract. Faustine had something for us.’

  ‘The Siren has something for everyone.’

  ‘True. And you? You look like you’re still in one piece.’

  ‘Many aren’t. It was a bad business, Cassady. Cleansing in the favela. People being chopped up left and right. Those damn fanatics decided we’d raped the Earth and had to answer for our sins.’

  ‘Sounds like they knew what they were talking about.’

  ‘We hoped they’d move on once they’d finished their business in the slums, but they raided the town. That’s when Faustine raised a militia with a few of the other entrepreneurs and put them down. We had three days of hell and then it was over.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Things have been quiet. Traffic passing through has dropped off. Fewer Runners and refugees. Faustine and the others have been spreading the word, but it’s taking time.’

  ‘We’re here.’

  ‘You are.’ Teju grinned again. ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘A meal if you’ve got it.’

  ‘All I have is Gro-crop and a few strips of meat. Tough as hell, but it’s edible.’

  ‘Where’s the meat from?’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘As long as it’s not human, I’ll eat it. Will you do some for Ghazi too?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Cassady reached into a pocket on his utility belt and took out the fire steel he’d liberated from the thief in Verne and a few other trinkets. ‘Will these cover it?’

  ‘Works for me.’ Teju took the fire steel and the other items and poured Cassady a tin of pulque from the tub. Then he disappeared to prepare the food. Cassady grabbed the tin and walked over to Wyler’s corner. The wild man continued to stare straight ahead, seeing nothing.

  ‘Your beard’s in your drink.’

  Wyler looked up. He blinked several times and the muscles around his jaw loosened.

  ‘Cassady,’ he said, as though remembering a name he hadn’t heard for years.

  Cassady took a seat across from him. ‘Tell me what happened at the farm.’ He swallowed a mouthful of milky pulque and blanched.

  ‘You want to know?’

  ‘I’m asking.’

  ‘Fine, but you ain’t going to like it.’ Wyler took a deep breath. ‘I took the car out to collect supplies and while I was gone, some bikers came to the farm. They’d been watching the place. They murdered my poor sweet girls, Cassady. Raped them, beat the hell out of them, cut them up and hung them from the walls while they were still alive. I’ve seen some things, but that was a new kind of evil, brother. Afterwards, they burned all my crops.’

  Cassady stared into his drink, sickness rising in his chest. He’d known the girls. Not well, but enough for it to hurt. ‘Did you know the bikers?’

  ‘No. They were young guys, feral almost. Didn’t speak any language I’d ever heard. More like grunts. I went after them, found their camp in an abandoned town.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I took care of them. All of them. Some were young. Children. When I got back to the farm, I cut down my girls and buried them. I couldn’t stay there any longer. I burned what was still standing, packed up the heap and hit the blacktop.’

  Cassady waited a few moments before he spoke again. ‘I’m sorry. The girls were good people. They didn’t deserve that.’

  ‘It’s the hand they were dealt.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘It was a long journey. Not just the distance, if you dig me. I don’t know if I made the right decision. You know what’s naïve? I always believed in, like, a core of goodness in every human being. We’re all creatures of the same family, I thought. But after seeing what those bastards did, it ain’t true. Some people are born evil and die evil. Some learn how to become evil. Others react in evil ways as a response to evil. This is how we murdered the only world that was given to us. A pure, beautiful gift and we tore it apart. If there were two people left on the planet, they’d end up fighting just to take what the other has. It’s in our nature, man.’

  Cassady sipped his pulque. ‘Maybe you’re right. But I have to believe in more than that. Not every human is good, I get it. But some are. Ghazi has helped me to understand th
at. The good ones are those who turn life into something greater than scrabbling around in the dirt, knifing each other in the back for half a canteen of water.’

  Wyler looked at him. ‘And what about you, babe? Are you hacking at the branches or striking at the root?’

  ‘I don’t know. Both. Neither. I took a man’s life just last night. Maybe I didn’t need to, maybe I did. All I have is what I do now. Running. It gives me purpose. Somebody needs water, I bring them water. Somebody else needs grain, I bring them grain. And I get enough in return to survive and keep going. That’s the cycle.’

  ‘And you ain’t looking for more than that?’

  ‘If I am, I haven’t found it yet.’

  ‘Amen to that.’

  Their tins rang against one another and they drank until the pulque was gone.

  ‘This stuff is something,’ said Wyler.

  ‘Helps you see in the dark, too.’

  ‘Good job. Ain’t much more than shadows out there. How long are you hanging around here for?’

  ‘We’re leaving tomorrow morning. Back in a couple of days, I think.’

  Wyler’s face became serious again. ‘Then good luck, brother. And don’t look the devil in the eyes if you see him.’

  4

  Warspite rolled out of Prestige just after daybreak, her cargo hold laden with explosives, water and 24-hour ration packs. Ghazi was tense. He hadn’t managed to find a piece of metal in good enough shape to patch up the gash in the side of the truck. As Faustine had suggested, he’d left the broken battery with one of the more reliable mechanics and asked her to do what she could. The plan was to deliver the explosives to the Gaean camp, recharge overnight, and return to Prestige to check back in with the mechanic. Then they would take a break for a couple of days. He’d insisted on it. A single evening spent drinking pulque wasn’t enough time for either of them to get their heads screwed back on properly. If anything, it had made things worse.

  Now they forced their way along a track being slowly consumed by a near-black mess of roots and branches. It was a typical post-Change situation. Areas that hadn’t been scoured by drought, desertification or flooding now thrived in sub-tropical conditions. Entire towns had been swallowed by the natural sprawl, and roads and tracks sometimes abruptly ended in a wall of brambles and undergrowth, never to be used again.

  Ghazi raised his voice over the grumbling tyres. ‘Do you see how the forest looks?’

  Cassady, one hand on the wheel, stared through the windscreen with listless eyes. ‘So what?’

  ‘Sometimes it gives me the feeling we don’t exist. Do you know what I mean? Or that we’re echoes of lives already lived.’

  ‘So maybe we don’t exist,’ replied the other Runner wearily. ‘Maybe this is all part of a dream in somebody else’s head. The road, the forest, Warspite, us. No way to prove any of it’s real. In which case there isn’t much of a reason to keep going on like this, is there?’

  ‘I’m being serious. Anyway, what about doubting your existence being proof you exist? The thought itself has to come from somewhere. That somewhere is you. A being that thinks and feels.’

  ‘That’s nothing new. One of your philosophers in the container out back said that.’

  Ghazi glanced across at Cassady, who wiped his mouth with his hand. The hint of a smile remained on his lips. ‘I never remember the names when I read your books. But I do read them. What do you mean by us being echoes?’

  ‘Well, let me take the Old Lady as an example. She’s tied up with the road. The way we understand her, how we see her, what she does, depends on how we see everything else around her.’ Ghazi paused, struggling to order his thoughts. ‘It works the same with us. For so long our understanding of the world was tied up with our position compared to everything else. We were the rulers. Humanity’s a grand word, isn’t it? We were the subject at the heart of the universe and everything else was just an object or a resource to be used. Take nature in general. It was a store where we could buy anything we needed. We needed shelter; we chopped down trees. We needed fuel; we dug holes in the ground. We needed food; we dipped a net in the ocean or grew it in factories. Like the Old Lady driving from A to B, our identity was based on these things. But what about now? Nature is turning its back on us and we’ve fallen. That means we aren’t the subject anymore. We’re an object. So what does ‘human’ mean now? Do we need to redefine what we are?’ He pointed to his left and right, colour rising in his cheeks, his voice louder. ‘Look at this forest. It doesn’t need us and we don’t fit into any ecosystem. We’re surplus to requirements. Perhaps we’re no longer human.’

  Cassady sighed. ‘Yeah, and maybe a hundred years from now, there’ll be nobody to ask these questions. Are you trying to make me depressed?’

  Ghazi shook his head and caught his breath. He did his best not to sound irritated. ‘If you don’t want to talk, just say so.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk.’

  They fell into a silence that held for the next couple of hours. Leaving the larger issues to one side, Ghazi focused instead on making an inventory of Warspite. Aside from the gouge in her side and the broken battery, they were in fairly good shape. The engine was sound. They’d been lucky enough to find a pantech on the road a few months back and cannibalised it for parts. The suspension needed an overhaul, but it would keep until they had enough time and supplies to work on it. They also had plenty of sub-oil, water and grease to keep her ticking over.

  And he had ammunition for his pistol again. He didn’t like the vulgar lump of metal hanging by his side, but it had saved him more than once. Five cartridges sat in its single-stack magazine, his reward for poking through a deserted, disintegrating camp whose stench had saturated the surrounding area. He’d also found a pile of yellowing bones in a pit inside one of the buildings and a vicious dog he’d had to put down. They’d left before any nearby scavengers or gangs had arrived to investigate the sound of the pistol shot. It never paid to hang around in one place for too long.

  In mid-afternoon, they emerged from the forest. Grasslands stretched out into the distance on either side of the cracked, faded road. The Runners switched places. Ghazi coaxed Warspite along, his gaze sweeping the tarmac for potholes, rocks and other obstacles that might damage the vehicle. Once in a while he had to swing the steering wheel around, jolting both men from the hypnotic state they fell into most days. At one point, a motorcyclist approached from the opposite direction and sped past Warspite without trying to make contact.

  A station broadcast was due at three o’clock, and Ghazi insisted on listening in. They stopped at the side of the road, and the sun scoured the top of the mechanic’s head as he attached the antenna. Back inside the cab, he waited with his hand on the dial as Cassady pulled the ledger out. Reams of code had been jotted down, scratched out and rewritten so many times there was almost no space left on the pages.

  ‘Laika-3,’ he said. ‘Frequency 15.867.’

  Ghazi tuned the radio in. The familiar unsettling soup of white, thermal and electronic noise filled the cab. Cassady glanced at the timepiece above the juice meter. ‘She’ll be on in five minutes. Enjoy the music.’

  They waited, listening to the howl that heralded the slow death of the universe. Ghazi kept his eyes on the road and the mirrors. The timepiece ticked off five minutes and then five more. Cassady drummed his fingers against the ledger and checked the list again.

  ‘Maybe the frequency’s changed,’ he said.

  ‘Unlikely. Faustine would have mentioned it.’

  ‘Somebody could have retired it, then.’

  Ghazi frowned. Once in a while a station was discovered and the operators were murdered. But finding one was more luck than design. And the sites were well defended against that kind of threat.

  Something whispered to them between the static. It was almost inaudible. Cassady pressed his ear against the transmitter and then reached over and dialled up the volume until they could both hear it. It was a human voice, male, a
ccented and nothing like the synthesised messages sent by the stations. The words were clear.

  ‘…must find the intruder. All agents have been activated. They understand the importance of the task. This technology could restore nature’s balance and repair the damage wrought on a global scale. It is imperative for us to seize it. The threat is—’

  The broadcast went dead. Cassady’s hand leapt to the dial, but Ghazi grabbed his wrist.

  ‘Leave it on for a minute.’

  White noise ricocheted off the cab walls. Outside, heat waves made the air shimmer and the road became a shifting, drifting river of bitumen. Finally, Cassady switched off the radio.

  ‘That wasn’t Laika-3,’ murmured Ghazi.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what was it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Sure it’s the right frequency?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Cassady turned to the back of the ledger and wrote down the message.

  ‘So what happened to the station?’

  ‘I don’t know. Pick a reason. Maybe it was a rogue signal from a settlement that interfered with the broadcast. Or tropospheric ducting bent the signal hundreds or thousands of kilometres from wherever it was sent. Happens once in a while. Or a geomagnetic storm ate up Laika’s message. Or the fool in the operator’s chair flicked the wrong switch.’

  Ghazi sat back, staring at nothing. ‘Did you get it all down?’

  ‘I think so. “This technology could restore nature’s balance and repair the damage wrought on a global scale.”’

  ‘What do they mean? What kind of technology can do that?’

  Cassady’s voice was strained. ‘How should I know? We don’t even know who ‘they’ are. Maybe somebody’s making a bad joke.’

  Despite the heat, Ghazi’s skin was cold. ‘If it’s a joke, why are you writing it down?’

  ‘Just in case.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘What do you mean? We’re going to the Gaean camp. And we keep quiet about whatever this was until we find out if anybody else heard it. No use drawing attention to ourselves.’