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Happy Valley

Kilmo

    Gear was starting to worry. He’d done his best to glue the pack in place. But they were climbing into the hills along the old interstate, and half the time the truck was bouncing so much he was in the air.
    ‘You’re never gonna do it you wait any more.’
    He flicked the switch taped where the guards wouldn’t see it, and waited for the dust to clear. When it had half a dozen trucks were stopped nose to tail in his mirrors.
    ‘What went wrong? We’re carrying spares ten back if you need ‘em.’
    Morgue had appeared at the window with that grin stretched so wide it looked like it should be bleeding. All the first to be scrubbed looked like that.
    ‘Don’t know. I’ll miss extraction hour, probably be here the rest of the day.’
    ‘Alright, we can’t stay; you know that. I ain’t so sure these days there’s nothing out here to bother you, but...’
    Gear watched as Morgue raced to his cab pumping his fist for the others to mount up and listened to the engine. For a crew boss he was better than most; it was just the smile was a little off putting.
    ‘Be careful with that attitude Morgue they’ll scrub it from you next cycle if they catch you.’
    He shouted as the convoy began inching past with its passenger’s faces staring down from the grills cut in the container sides, ignoring the middle finger from the carb.
    ‘Too late heroes.’
    He was kind of pleased the cargo had already had their ears shot to pieces by snap shells.
    It was the quickest diff problem Gear had ever not fixed in his whole life, he thought to himself as he finished kicking debris away from the wheels. He glanced in the Frontiers direction where it looked like someone was trying to stitch the sky to the ground. He was only a few miles away now and the air was filled with the crump of exploding shells. These days there had to be entire zones camped along the fence. The guard posts worked twenty four seven just to keep the kill zones clean. Gear arrived just before dawn.
    ‘Quiet, now I said I’d get here didn’t I?’
    When the shouting had died down on the other side of the grid had died down a man with ribs that looked like they were in danger of bursting through his suit stepped forward.
    ‘You’re the first not to run.’
    ‘Don’t tempt me.’
    The spokesman must have carried water with him in his back like a camel, because he could still spit. Gear watched the flare as it fried into steam.
    ‘I don’t know how much longer we can last,’ The old man’s face twisted, ‘Our kids shouldn’t suffer like this.’
    Gear pointed at the grid, ‘Time to do what you promised then.’
    Something must have disrupted the flow further up the line, because the pylons were crackling everywhere he looked. The breach attempts doubled every week now.
    ‘Then watch, and remember what we did if you ever thinking about changing your mind.
    Gear had been expecting some sort of homemade bomb; maybe something clever with ropes and grapples, but he saw what it was they were going to do as soon as they joined hands.
    ‘Not like this.’
    ‘Tell the Therapist we made our own way through.’
    ‘The who?’
    ‘Goodbye companero.’
    ‘No wait.’
    Gear’s voice died as the crowd started to sing and his eyes went wide. It wasn’t long before he was wishing they were louder as the first ranks began to pop like seeds in a pan. Beams sizzled, and sliced, but they couldn’t stop the men and women pushing through as the refugees used their bodies to tear a hole in the fence.
    The Mills offspring arriving stopped that.
    ‘Hurry...for god’s sake.’
    Gear knew as well as anyone else in the crowd what those things up in the sky meant as the railguns opened up. Agony brought the Mills attention faster than flies to shit these days. But as the rounds hit home he breathed a little easier, anything was better than watching another hundred wailing mothers get their faces crisped like butter frying.
    He drove the rig as close as he could without attracting fire, back when it had been built they’d tried driving through, until what it cost in lives made them stop. No matter how much explosives you used none of them ever got more than a few feet the other side. He revved the engine as the first kids ran toward him.
    ‘Get up here now.’
    ‘Mi Madre.’
    ‘Mi Padre...’
    ‘I’m not arguing with you. Get in, or stay with what’s left of them.’
    They grew up fast in the zones. Gear had that to be thankful for. In fact they grew up fast pretty much everywhere these days now they had to watch their parent’s backs. Still half of them stayed to watch their families get torn apart. As far as he was concerned that was fine. He’d been paid already.
    By the time the gambling conurb’s ruins appeared in the windscreen he was rattling too much to drive further. Most people had had discomfort and annoyance stripped from them, along with love and lust and pretty much anything else. Gear popped the cap on another bottle and spilt as many of his pills into his mouth as he could. The truck and its contents would stand out like a sore thumb. Maybe the patrols looking for malcontents trying to fan even the smallest flame of adrenaline were elsewhere.
    ‘You OK in there?’
    He jumped out and pulled the pin letting his cargo blink in the sunlight as they replied. ‘Dame aqua senor.’
    ‘We need water.’
    The speaker was a boy, wide eyed and determined with pupils like metal. A girl next to him burst into tears.
    ‘You let them see you doing that and you’ll be dead.’
    He’d put an arm round the girl although he kept the rest of his attention on Gear.
    ‘He’s right,’ said Gear, ‘They can sniff you losing control from miles away. Come here sweetheart.’
    The bawling slowed to a snivel; those who couldn’t keep themselves in check had been cut from the pack long before they got to the fences outposts.
    ‘Where are we going? Why aren’t we there yet?’
    ‘You’re not worried about your people?’
    ‘I lost mine a long time ago.’ His scowl deepened, ‘You haven’t answered my question.’
    ‘We’re going to the undergroves, unless you want go get out here? The kids looked out the door at the broken slot machines and shattered neon. Gear grinned, ‘Thought not, they’ll be able to hide you there; for a while at any rate.’
    ‘Why are you doing this?’
    Gear was impressed; he liked it when they could think.
    ‘Because I get to play both ends against the middle... reminds me I’m still alive.’
    He’d let his contact explain how short their lives were likely to be. He’d been paid to get them to the groves not recruit them.
    ‘Be quiet this last stretch. Even the rats are careful where they tread.’

...

    Usher was waiting when they got there. Gear ground the rig into neutral and let it come to a halt.
    ‘What took you so long?’ The man with burn marks on his face flicked his eyes over the container checking for damage, ‘We were expecting you months back.’
    ‘Pining for your new recruits? I thought ops we’re going well? It’s not like they can get to you with those everywhere.’
    Gear pointed to a tree that had nudged its way from the top of a hole cut into the ground near their feet. You could smell the citrus from the genegeneered wood even up here.
    ‘How many now?’
    ‘Ten hundred maybe more,’ said Usher the wrinkles round his mouth deepening for a moment, ‘some of the tunnellers went a little loopy after so long digging. We had to stop.’
    ‘Then the area’s covered.’
    ‘Dunno if covered’s the right word; even the tallest only sticks out above ground an inch or two, but it’s not bad. It’s too hot for anything more right now.’
    ‘Impressive.’
    ‘It works, that’s all I care about. No one’s seen a nightmare in months. The trees swallow them same as rain.’
    Gear looked at the rubbery leaves. If you didn’t know what lay below you’d have thought it was just another desert bush.
    ‘You going to tell them yet? They’re smoke Usher; at least half of them are more skin than bones.’
    ‘That’s the problem, we need them calm. We can deal with the machines, but that nth dimension shit is still way beyond us.’
    ‘Well, I’ve the cargo’s ready for the schools. They should give your fighters a chance.’
    ‘It’ll stop them shooting themselves before they go up top at any rate. Where are they?’
    Gear gestured at the container standing in the sun.
    ‘I’d let them out, but a signature that big is going to be picked up for sure. Even here with all the interference.’
    ‘I’ll have one of the lads come up and get them.’
    ‘Ok, but first tell me why I’ve never heard of the Therapist before.’
    ‘He’s the architect, one of the last. He designed the Mill; before the regime killed his comrades.’ Ushers grin got wider. ‘You shouldn’t worry so much. Last I heard he emigrated somewhere nice off world. The kids will be fed here at least and we don’t send them out to do the fighting until they can handle it.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    Usher looked at him with cold eyes, but all he said was, ‘we don’t turn them into vegetables anymore.’

...

    When the Therapist clicked off the screen; the fence and its outposts played out their tricks behind his eyes well after he’d leant back into the dark.
    ‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this.’
    He rubbed his knuckles in his sockets and grimaced. He wasn’t supposed to be in a prison uniform either. Except you didn’t have a lot of choice when empty faced men knocked on your door in the middle of the night. That had only been part of the journey that had brought him to station 400. He’d never gotten to see his baby blossom, all that had been done by remote, but through the cameras he’d left behind he’d seen what it did to people.
    ‘The New World Order. We did it.’
    The Therapist switched on another display letting static wash over him.
    ‘Built to last, and it took two hundred lives in as many days.’ He said with a paternal smile on his face, ‘that thing stands on enough blood to fill a sea.’
    A grin flickered about his lips as another convoy headed toward the Mill. The view was one of his best. He stared, hypnotised, as the Mills fans cut arcs across the screen. It was hard to imagine he’d ever tried to hurt it.
    ‘You worked too well though didn’t you? Got us all, well all except me.’
    That had been a close run thing though. Its servants hadn’t wasted any time removing him once they’d turned the power on, and the result was plane to see. There hadn’t been so much as a bar fight in the territories since then, hardly a child born either. There wasn’t much call for it when all most people could be bothered to do was get up and work.
    The Therapist cocked his head listening to the hiss from the blades he’d built as they put the first of the POW’s into cages.
    ‘Not long now. Then all your problems will be over.’
    He shook himself. He should be worrying about himself. They’d get round to him eventually even here right on the frontier amongst the other traitors.

...

    ‘Must have stuck a tracker on me back at the fence.’
    Gear held up his hat and watched a dozen rounds punch holes through it.’
    ‘Bit late for that.’
    They were lying against one of the catacombs trees waiting for enough cordite to accumulate for them to make a move.
    ‘How many did you count?’
    ‘Twenty, the kid with half its face hanging off is the worst.’
    ‘That was the first. They must have got to them en-route while they slept.’
    More bullets tore a crevasse in the wall opposite and Gear felt wood shudder against his back as they mined their way towards its heart.
    ‘This isn’t going to protect us much longer. We need to get out of here, they won’t stop till they’re killed everything with a heartbeat.’
    ‘And run where? Up above isn’t going to be any better if the groves are dead.’
    ‘Not if we do what we aren’t supposed to.’
    ‘The Usher turned bloodshot eyes on Gear.
    ‘We can’t; there’s nowhere near enough of us; especially after this.’
    ‘There doesn’t have to be, we’re not coming back.’
    ‘What do you mean we?’
    ‘You’ve seen what they brought out of the zones.’
    Gear would have like not to. The footage the boy had given him had been out of focus half the time. But he’d seen the numbers. The valley must be filled to overflowing by now whoever the Therapist was he was important enough for someone to drag that information from the zones. He’d be out there now somewhere amongst the graves and girders.
    ‘It’s time we talked to the traitors.’
    ‘You mean the border ghouls? They hate us almost as much as we hate them.’
    ‘Maybe so, but they’ll help us for a real chance at knocking out there employers.’
    ‘I never understand why they don’t just leave?’
    ‘Neural inhibitors, the regime put some of their best surgeons on it. They can look at the border, but they can’t cross it.’
    There was a crump as machinery blew deeper in the tunnels. The Usher noted Gears expression, ‘They’d have found a way to get to us eventually; you were a tool that’s all.
    In the end the desert swallowed ten rigs as a storm blew up. Ten trucks against an army.

...

    ‘Proximity alert; targets approaching.’
    The Therapist frowned; the windows were rattling.
    ‘Another breach?’
    He’d watched a hundred die last night; scrabbling for a piece of the freedom they thought lay behind the wire.
    ‘No, targets are moving at approximately sixty miles an hour.’
    Data scrolled down the monitors in front of him.
    ‘What do they want?’
    ‘Establishing contact.’
    The voice fell silent until a burst of noise brought the Therapists hands to his ears.
    ‘This the Therapist?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘We’ve been wanting to talk to you.’
    Engine roar blatted back and forth across the stations dirt yard, you could hear them even above the noise from the fence.
    ‘What do you want? You’re not welcome here. In ten minutes your vehicles will activate limpet mines, a few seconds after that you and them will be so much flying junk.’
    The Therapists boots hit the ground as he reached the bottom of the ladder, and the convoy’s systems locked on; pretty soon he had more sights zeroed on him than a coyote in hunting season.
    ‘Your mines are already dead.’
    A man was standing by one of the trucks and a light clicked on in the cab illuminating a kid with a control pad in his lap and a nasty grin eating its way over his face.
    ‘We need something we can use against that thing you built.’
    The Therapist was quiet a moment.
    ‘And that would be?’
    ‘Codes, a virus, a back door at least.’
    ‘Assuming I’m the man you want, why would I help you?’
    ‘Because it’ll bring the border down if we remove it.’
    ‘I already know that. Can’t be done unless...unless you use what you’ve got in those trucks. We can implant codeware in them, terminal scrap sequences. Yes, little viruses aren’t they? That will fuck with it enough to shut it down.’
    ‘Get in.’
    The Therapist was headed in their direction when the first searchlight found him.
    ‘You are in breach of patrol. No permission was given for visitors.’
    A round burst through his shoulder before he’d even opened his mouth to scream. Gear was running back to the trucks in moments dragging the man with him as round after round spattered dirt against his heels. Usher began to pump fire into the nearest drone’s body. Gear could hardly hear himself speak, but this was too important to let die with an old man.
    ‘Get them to the Mill. Switch it off,’ the wrinkled thing in front of him grimaced, ‘It should never have been built. We thought we knew what we were doing. Let it try with kids.’ Bloody bubbles popped from the Therapists lips as he began to laugh. He was still doing it when the Drones finished zeroing in.
    Gear was fast, but he only just made it out of their LOS in time wiping the blood of his face with the back of his hand. When he reached the nearest truck the bullets were bouncing off its roof like hail.
    An explosion made him look up. The Usher was standing on top of the truck SAM planted on one shoulder with the flames of the first drone turning his face red.
    ‘We need to get to the Mill.’
    ‘Thought you said you didn’t want to do that without help?’
    The Usher was opening his mouth to reply when the shell took his jaw off.
    ‘Usher...?’
    But Gear was talking to empty space as the rounds churned the man into mist. When someone slammed into his side he didn’t resist as he was bundled into the nearest truck.

...

    ‘Mr? You have to look where we’re going. We’ve never been this far in before.’
    Gear listened to the sound of pebbles bouncing off the trucks chassis. At least it wasn’t the rattle of expended ammunition.
    ‘Who are you?’
    ‘Mind.’
    ‘You look about sixteen.’
    ‘Seventeen Mr, ready to rock and roll.’
    The kid gave him a salute that looked like he’d been practicing it in the mirror. To his credit he only looked a little startled when Gear laughed.
    ‘You shouldn’t even be out of training.’
    ‘Don’t think it matters. We all heard the man.’
    The kid gestured at the dash monitors; every one of them was on and he could hear the garbled mass of voices as the drivers kept themselves awake. The sound of the Mills rotors was close now. He had to be the only one not to have been scrubbed clean as slate to have gotten this near since they’d switched the thing on.
    He was still thinking about what that meant when they stopped on a ridge and saw what lay below. From up here it looked like a welder was using a human being as a rod. The figure in its cage guttered to a husk in seconds.
    ‘They still alive after that Mr?’
    ‘They can still walk about, but ‘alive’ means something a little different.’
    The kid was silent for a moment, and he didn’t look at Gear when he spoke next.
    ‘When do we move in?’
    ‘Now.’
    The trucks starting up must have sounded like an avalanche breaking free to the crowd below, but not one of them turned around. Gear doubted they could even if they’d wanted to. There was so much to look at as the Mills fan’s went round, and round, never stopping, never pausing. By the time the trucks reached it Gear had lost count of how many bodies he’d heard bounce under their bumpers.
    ‘What’s up with you?’
    He grabbed the nearest kid as they leapt from the trucks back. It was Mind, and his eyes looked like they were starting from his head.
    ‘It’s Ok.’
    ‘Jesus, what’s happened to you?’
    Mind laughed, ‘Nothing that can’t be fixed.’
    He had the hand of the girl that had talked to Gear back at the undergroves buried in his fist, and they were headed toward sparks tearing men and women into scraps.
    ‘Wait, don’t...’
    Gear didn’t know why he cared so much, it wasn’t his life he was throwing away. The Mill had to be destroyed. Maybe the kids walking toward it would clog its arteries; make the life bleed from it like pus.
    ‘Go then; see if you like what’s in there.’
    He stared as the fans beat through the air skimming the hairs off the figures that had begun to appear from round its base. The crowd of scrubbed began to fall to their knees and Gear barely had time to realise what was happening before the Mill trembled.
    A sphere had punched a hole through the crowd and there was the imprint of two small shadows at its heart, a boy, and a girl, flaring like sunspots bursting amongst the flames.
    There’d been something Usher had said before they’d left the undergroves. Right at the end before they’d pushed the last of kids onto the trucks.
    ‘They’ll never take it all from us Gear. They don’t know how.’
    The Mill chased itself across the rock as its fans met the ground one by one.

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