Across Burning Sands: Burning Sands, #2

Chapter One

Ultimately, it was the heat that woke Reggie. It was just enough that he was sweating, turning his coveralls into sticky pincers that dug into his crotch and armpits. He’d nodded off for a bit but only a bit. Now snores and even breathing filled the Reactor Control Room. Emergency amber lighting showed what remained of his team—six human bodies curled on blankets and sheets. Everything was finally soapy clean now that the reactor was supplying enough electricity to run recyclers, extractors, heaters, and distillers.

But the temperature regulation system wasn’t working. If anything, it was hotter inside Test Bunker 1 than it had been without the reactor running.

He pulled his sneakers on and got to his feet without waking anyone else. Maybe if Barb or Denise had woken, he would have asked one of them to come along with him, but he wasn’t about to disturb them otherwise.

The lever for the heavy aluminum hatch was stiff since the attempt to steam-cook the Cro-Magnons alive, but he opened it with practiced silence and slipped into the tunnel beyond with even less noise. The farther out he got from the Reactor Control Room, the less concerned he was about waking anyone. He popped the outer hatch open almost casually and let it groan wide on slightly warped hinges. It had only been a few days since the final battle against Kabalo and his tribe, and it would be at least that long before the damage done to the facility could be fully addressed. He closed the hatch tight.

The soft glow of a small LED strip was the only light in the Primary Access Module. Anxiety forced Reggie to quietly poke his head into the Storage Module opening across from the reactor tunnel hatch and scan the shadowy maze of niches, bins, and alcoves.

Nothing seemed out of place. No murderous giants leapt out.

Nerves. He was being silly. The Cro-Magnons were dead, and there was no way the sharpteeth could have found the underground facility. Based on what little Reggie knew from Jaka and Yigua, the sharpteeth sounded like some sort of werewolf: furry, with big canines and sharp claws.

Anything that frightened Cro-Magnons scared the crap out of Reggie.

He hesitated at the passageway to the left of the Storage Module entry and stared down its length to the Secondary Access Module hatch. It was too far away to make out details in the weak LED glow, but the hatch appeared shut—same as the hatches on either side of the passageway.

It was actually good no one else was awake. He was supposed to be their fearless leader, but he was shaking in his sneakers, straining to catch any hint of noise. His thick, black hair was damp with sweat, which trickled down the sunburned golden skin covering the short length of his nose. The sweat stung his eyes, eyes his mother had sniffled at when complaining they were too Chinese—meaning like his father’s and not Japanese, like hers. He was a wreck, a sloppy, sweaty, pudgy wreck lacking even the slightest hint of the style and sophistication he’d spent years at Harvard and Stanford cultivating.

Then again, Harvard and Stanford were long gone and he was still alive.

After a quick glance up at the surface hatch that led to the shack fifty feet aboveground, he hurried through the darkened Habitat Module to the Command Module. Lights flickered to life, washing the consoles in a bright, white glow. He glanced down at the ruined hatch into the Command Habitat Module that had been his home for fifty years of hibernation, then back into the long passageway of the Habitat Module. It wasn’t cowardly to feel alone and vulnerable considering all the violence their little home had seen.

He dropped to his knees and poked his head down into the darkened Command Habitat Module. The light revealed the rungs leading down and the jagged ruin that had been the hatch to his cabin, the place where he’d woken just a few days ago to the horror of a giant caveman trying to kill him.

Hello?

His voice bounced around inside the Command Habitat Module and died.

No one was down there. He was alone. Safe.

And sweating like a pig. The heat seemed to radiate from below, and he imagined there was the distant clank of machinery rattling around in the silence.

But that wasn’t possible. He’d been present for many of the foundation pours. He knew the layout of the complex better than anyone. There wasn’t any machinery below.

And yet, it sounded...

No. It was his imagination getting to him again.

He pulled the only remaining chair in front of the systems panel that allowed him to keep his back to the north wall. In that position, he could see the ruined hatch leading down and the open hatchway leading into the Habitat Module.

He pulled Arda’s interface device out from the panel and onto his lap. Arda—ARDA, actually—stood for Analysis and Research Data Assistant. It was a rudimentary AI that had been installed shortly before the team had gone into suspended animation, a resource he’d desperately wanted to explore more. The lack of power had prevented it while they fought the cavemen, and he’d been too busy with basic survival needs since they’d gotten the reactor running again. Now, though, with everyone else asleep and him unable to do the same, he had the time and privacy, and he had so many questions.

Arda? His voice shook.

A tinny voice replied, System activated.

This is Reginald Katsura Lee, project director. Please use voice recognition to grant full access.

Voice recognition successful. Project Director Reginald Katsura Lee. Arda’s voice was clean and precise. There was a sophistication in the enunciation and clarity that made Reggie imagine a highly accomplished actress being used as the voice model. Someone who had a lot of awards to her name. Someone respected.

His mother’s clipped English ran through his thoughts. Do not lower yourself to the thuggish limitations of your classmates, Reginald. If you wish to rise above, you must speak with precision and authority.

He puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. Uh, are we seeing any system failures?

All systems are operational.

Operational. That was vague. Where is that on the scale of system functionality? I mean, are we seeing any inefficiencies? Like with the temperature regulation system?

Internal temperature is ninety-three degrees Fahrenheit.

That’s not really an answer. And something about the number was off. Hadn’t Tuesday said eighty-five was the standard temperature? Dale Robbins had died shortly after entering his hibernation tank, and he’d been healthy. Could the strange temperature problems be related somehow? Arda, is the printer still working? He glanced down toward the Command Habitat Module, where the printer was installed.

The output device is functional.

Would you print the history of the hibernation tanks?

Please specify which tanks you would like history printouts for.

Reggie repressed a groan. It seemed like the computer system was less concerned with specificity than it was trying to delay processing his request. All of them.

Printing.

He leaned until he was just over the coaming of the ruined hatch but couldn’t hear anything.

Wait. Was that something clattering and banging somewhere below?

He chuckled. It was perfectly quiet. Everyone else was asleep.

He put a foot on the top rung, then set his other foot on the next rung below.

Then he froze. The noise was real—he was sure of it! Somewhere below, maybe even below the Command Habitat Module. Had he actually been present during all the pours?

Clang!

He scrambled back up to the Command Module.

The printouts could wait! Um, Arda, are you sure the temperature regulation system is working properly?

Arda didn’t respond for a few seconds. The temperature regulation system is operating within acceptable standards based on programmed parameters.

Programmed parameters. That was definitely evasive. What are the parameters?

The acceptable temperature range is between sixty and one hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

One hundred... There was supposed to be at least an approximation of simulating the sleeper colony ships, and there was no way standard comfort would be assumed at eighty degrees and above. Is there a way to program a narrower desirable range? We have a fusion reactor running. We should be able to keep the temperature below eighty.

Parameters have been coded to account for emergency periods and—

Are we in an emergency, Arda? I’m just asking to get the temperature to a reasonable level for my team. He held up a sunburned hand, an angry red in the white light where it had once been pale gold. We’re cooking down—

A buzzing sound echoed through the Habitation Module.

Reggie moved back to the console panel and tried to bring an external video monitor up while straining to listen.

The buzzing was there still. A deep hum. Real. Drawing closer.

He stretched, flipped the lights off, and glanced down the Habitation Module passageway. It was pitch black with all the cabin hatches shut. The only light came from the LED strip in the Primary Access Module.

The buzzing grew louder.

Sweat trickled down his neck and into the damp T-shirt beneath his clinging coveralls. He licked his lips, still tender from chapping and sunburn. Griping about the temperature suddenly seemed stupid.

Arda, he whispered. Perimeter cameras. Um, could you pull up—? He backed to the chair and searched around for a functional display panel. Could you pull up—?

A deafening popping noise rumbled through the Habitation Module.

What the hell was that? Arda?

The lights went out.

Arda?

The lights flickered back on, now a dull amber and strobing.

Warning, Arda said. More like shouted. She had to if she wanted to be heard over the klaxons. Reactor failure.

Reggie’s entire body tightened into a massive, contracted muscle. Failure? What did that mean? There were a billion safeguards!

Warning. Reactor failure. Shutdown commencing. All personnel evacuate.

Arda... No. A reactor failure. What happened when a fusion reactor failed? Not a meltdown. Radiation leak? Nothing had happened the last time.

He hurried through the Habitation Module, arms outstretched like a blind man. His team was sleeping just above the reactor. The seal on the hatch leading down into the reactor hadn’t been replaced since they’d filled the chamber with pressurized steam. There hadn’t been time!

Warning. Reactor failure. Shutdown commencing. All personnel evacuate.

Something flashed through the Primary Access Module not twenty feet ahead of him and was then gone. It had been four or five feet wide, half as tall, and...flying.

The buzzing sound? Or imagination.

He hurried out of the Habitat Module and into the Primary Access Module. The thing was in the passageway, heading toward the Secondary Access Module, disappearing and reappearing in the strobing lights, moving faster than he could hope to.

Sneakered feet pounded toward him, skidded to a stop.

Barb stood at the reactor tunnel outer hatch, gasping, her dark bob cut swaying. Her brown eyes were wide, wider than Reggie could ever recall seeing, and her lips seemed paler in the flashing light. Something’s wrong, she said.

Arda’s evacuation warning and the klaxons drowned out Reggie’s misguided snide comment about stating the obvious.

He followed Barb down the passageway to the Reactor Control Room, still wondering whether he’d actually seen the flying thing or not. Sean’s skinny frame was surrounded by the others, bathed in the light of the handheld lamps he’d made from some of the emergency LED lights. His afro shook as he slumped over the control console, tapping frantically, fingers lit by a lamp set on the console itself. In the lamplight, his mocha skin seemed sickly pale.

Reggie sprinted across the room, nearly losing his footing on a sheet.

Warning. Reactor failure. Shutdown commencing. All personnel evacuate.

Barb glanced overhead, as if she could see the desert above them. He can’t shut it down, Reggie. It’s some sort of pressure buildup.

Steam, Sean said. The same thing we used to cook our Cro-Magnon cousins, I’m afraid.

Reggie looked through the plate glass that rose from about three feet up to just short of the top of the wall that separated them from the reactor chamber below. Real strobe lights flashed down there. It didn’t look like an imminent disaster at all. What’s going to happen?

Sean turned enough to cock a thick eyebrow, dark against his gold-brown skin in the crazy lighting. Something gives: a pipe ruptures or a valve blows. Steam will fill the room down there, and if we’re lucky, that’s it. No more reactor.

Just as they were getting used to having power! And worst case?

Sean jumped at the sound of a distant boom, then seemed to realize it wasn’t the imminent explosion. He pointed down into the reactor room. Worst case is the containment system is ruptured.

Arda screeched her warning again.

Reggie gulped. He needed to know what a ruptured containment system meant. And?

Sean looked away. And the bunker has to be abandoned. We have to live topside.

Chapter Two

The pleasant, clean smell of the Reactor Control Room was gone, replaced by the heated panic scent of people facing imminent disaster. Arda’s blaring evacuation warnings only worsened things, and Reggie began to wonder if the oppressive heat hadn’t been something the AI had actually caused.

Denise stared over Sean’s shoulder at the console, as if she might be trying to solve the puzzle of the reactor’s failure. Where his coveralls hung off him like a bag, hers clung to curves Reggie had a hard time ignoring. One of the LED lamps was braced on her shoulder, lighting her sharp cheekbones and the dark tangles of her hair. The deep beige of her flesh was washed out in the light and cast a shadow from the crook of her nose. To her left, Malik held a lamp overhead with one hand while his other arm wrapped around the shoulder of Yigua, the blond, half-Cro-Magnon, half-human fitness model who had joined them after her family had been wiped out. Malik was tall, but standing between Denise and Yigua, that wasn’t immediately apparent. His coveralls bunched over his rounded shoulder muscles, and light reflected off the warm brown of his shaved head. His lips were pursed so that his perfectly trimmed mustache and beard seemed uneven. In what light they had, Yigua could have just been another member of Reggie’s team. Her coppery skin and wavy, dark gold hair were somewhat unremarkable, but her slightly oversized head, large eyes, and broad shoulders would have caught some attention in the old world. The world of fifty years ago.

Somewhere beyond them, Yigua’s brother Jaka must be huddled over Pete’s comatose form, watching over his gaunt features for any sign of life. The young Cro-Magnon had taken to Pete in the same way Yigua had taken to Malik.

Well, not exactly the same.

It was easy to feel small in their presence. Reggie was barely taller than Denise and no taller than Jaka and Yigua. And Reggie still felt pudgy, despite the effects of the accelerated awakening process fading and taking with it much of what had seemed like flab.

He heard his father’s voice, first snorting, then providing a grating reminder: Focus on your body instead of your mind, you give those beneath you undeserved victory! Command them, you command respect!

Command. Like Pete had done. Bossing them around and blundering into war.

Reggie cleared his throat. All right. We need to grab critical gear and get out. Prioritize water containers, weapons, medical supplies, clothing... There was no use salvaging the protein powder. If they couldn’t live inside the facility, they were going to have to find a way to survive in the desert, and that included gathering food.

Denise shifted her weight and crossed an arm over her stomach. Where, exactly, do you propose we should go?

Uh, for now, let’s move to the garage. Sean, the radiation shouldn’t reach there, should it?

Sean seemed absorbed in the console for a moment before saying, It shouldn’t.

That seemed promising.

The team needed more than general suggestion. They were confused, frightened. Reggie pointed to Malik and Yigua. Could you two help Jaka get Pete to the surface? Once that’s done, we’ll need to start with water containers. Barb can help prioritize which ones to get out first.

Barb held a hand out to Yigua. Gimme your lamp. Come to the infirmary when you’re ready.

Yigua gave Barb her lamp, and she jogged for the opened hatch. Then Malik guided Yigua away. His light revealed Jaka squatting patiently next to the litter that held Pete.

Reggie turned to Denise. Anything you can think of that could be used to supplement what we have?

She fixed him with a cool stare. Wouldn’t Malik be better suited for something like that?

I thought he’d do better helping move Pete.

Denise glanced at the comatose security chief. She didn’t say it, but Reggie got the sense she wanted to suggest maybe it was time to abandon Pete. She was still sporting a nasty gunshot wound, and that was partly Pete’s fault.

Rather than antagonize her, Reggie said, I’ll check the Storage Module. Could you gather the weapons we have stored in here?

She shrugged and walked away, her lamp tracking along the floor until it showed the piled spears taken from the Cro-Magnons.

Reggie turned back to Sean, who just blinked at the console.

He could be cracking. Reggie tried to sound calm. What do you think? Is it worth grabbing all the coveralls? If we have to travel, maybe underwear would be more important?

Sean didn’t look up. He didn’t so much as move.

Sean?

It’s not making sense, Reggie. Not a single aspect of it. Why would it suddenly do this? It’s practically impossible. We had it working.

Reggie tentatively patted the techie’s shoulder. We can figure that out later, right? Once we’re safe? In the garage?

Sean straightened. It looked like a tear formed in his eye, but he quickly wiped it away. We won’t last a month up there.

Maybe if we work together. Refuse to give up, and your chances improve.

I guess. Sean took the lamp from the console top and strode out.

Reggie followed Malik and Jaka as they carried Pete’s litter through the passageway, closing the hatches behind them. At the Primary Access Module, Reggie left them for the Storage Module.

The emergency klaxons were less noticeable in the stacked bin maze. Weapons weren’t going to be an easy find in a module stuffed with gaskets, receptacles, seals, and similar minutia. That Frontierza had managed to find so much to fill the module with and to have sorted and classified everything with such exactness was almost disturbing. Modeling the models of the sleeper colony ships with such detail seemed excessive. Reggie pulled a few drawers, shifted things around in their bins, then sealed the drawers shut again. It was a waste of time.

He stepped back into the Primary Access Module and froze.

What were they going to carry all their gear around in?

The bedding!

He hurried back to the Reactor Control Room and gathered up sheets and blankets, then stuffed them inside pillowcases. He spotted the radios and grabbed them as well. On the fourth set of bedding, a flash of light from inside the reactor chamber caught his eye. He stumbled forward, hypnotized.

Lightning. It was lightning!

Streamers of it coiled around the top of the metal enclosure that held the reactor.

It was beautiful and terrifying. And he was sure it was a bad sign.

He ran through the tunnel, sealing hatches again, trying to blink away the afterimage burned on his retinas.

Lightning. Lightning! On top of the reactor. How?

He shot through the passageway to the Secondary Access Module and sealed its hatch, then hustled up the rungs to the shed above, where he sealed the final hatch.

The others were gathered not too far outside, waiting in the relative cool of the late night desert air.

No. They were huddled around something, looking down. Had Pete died?

Reggie jogged out to them on quivering legs, dashing past the first few rows of solar panels. Sean, there’s lightning in the reactor—

They looked up, silent, eyes wide, almost like shock victims. Pete’s litter was beyond them a few feet, surrounded by water containers. He could be alive or dead, but he wasn’t what had their attention. The thing on the ground was. The flying thing that Reggie may or may not have seen inside the facility when he came out of the Command Module.

It was matte black beneath the pure white of an LED lamp, the skin alternately smooth and textured. Reggie moved close enough to touch a side—cool, plastic-like, a foot-long panel buckled and cracked, exposing circuitry. He pried open a shattered sub-panel on the bottom and rocked back on his heels. Thin robotic arms with delicate claws were folded in on themselves inside a small compartment. It was like a larger version of the parts Pete had found in the shack above the Primary Access Module. Smaller panels were made of a semi-translucent black plastic reminiscent of security camera bubbles. Or sensors.

A drone. It was a drone.

There were four rotors, one of them warped, coated with gore, and with the tip of a blade snapped off.

Reggie looked around to be sure no one was injured. Did it—?

Sean pointed his lamp at something closer to the solar panel arrays. Not us. Look.

It was a slice of flesh about the size of a palm. Bloody. Fur-covered. The light tracked over to the nearest solar panel array. Dark shards of glass lay on the sand, and blood trailed away, deeper into the fenced-in renewable energy farm.

The boom he’d heard. The drone must have crashed. Or been taken down. By something.

Malik flicked the glass shards aside and plucked something from the sand. Looks like that piece of the rotor blade. He set it against the warped blade; it matched.

Reggie dropped the stuffed pillowcases and shuffled over to the bloody piece of flesh.

Barb knelt down next to him. Close. There’s tracks, too.

There are tracks, he thought, but in his mother’s voice. She would have died like that, making some sort of pointless correction.

Human? he asked.

Sort of. Her voice trembled.

Fear. Even Barb could feel it. And why not? They were supposed to be done with the threats. They were supposed to have time to craft better weapons with the 3-D printer.

He picked the piece of flesh up with quivering fingers, turned it over in the lamp to get a better look at the fine coat of hair covering it. The blood looked human enough—dark red, darker with the absorbed sand. But the look wasn’t human. Not completely. It was like a pelt almost, except for the feel of the skin. That felt human.

Whimpering drew Reggie’s attention back to the others.

Yigua hugged Malik and hissed, Sharpteeth.

Sharpteeth. Werewolf.

The lightning in the reactor suddenly didn’t seem all that important.

Chapter Three

After the bunker’s heat, the night air felt chilly. There was a breeze, and it carried a strange, almost mineral, smell that got up into Reggie’s sinuses and turned his saliva bitter. Creosote. Humming from the windmills reminded him they weren’t completely free from the bunker. He shivered, and not because it was so much cooler than down below. It suddenly seemed way too dark to have everyone standing around outside, unprotected and exposed. He could see the same fear he was feeling in everyone’s eyes. Even Jaka was affected. He’d finally left Pete’s side to stand beside Yigua. That was the impact of her mentioning the sharpteeth again.

How had they found the bunker? Had they gotten inside? Were they connected to the drone somehow?

The tracks!

He reached for Barb’s lamp. Could I borrow your lamp? I want to see where these tracks go.

She groaned and pulled one of the printed-out guns from her coverall pocket. You’re not wandering off on your own with my lamp, hero. C’mon.

There were a few sets of tracks deeper into the solar power array, so they were fairly easy to follow, but the wind would fill them in before long. To Reggie’s untrained eye, they seemed normal at first, then Barb crouched lower and ran a finger a couple inches over one of the deeper tracks.

See how long this is? She pointed to the arch impression. And narrow. See the distance between the ball of the foot and the toes? That’s freakish. And those are some fucked-up toes, too. Look how far back that big toe and pinkie toe is. Impression points along the ball...you see these? Like pads on an animal’s paw?

Are. That big toe and pinkie toe are. It was his mother’s voice again, always correcting grammar. Always correcting everything. But Barb was the one who was right. The foot was weird, and not huge like some of the bigger Cro-Magnons.

He followed her deeper into the solar panel arrays, suddenly aware of how dark it was with just the one lamp. They should probably stay together as a group or two.

It hit him then: She’d called him hero. Hero! And she hadn’t meant it ironically.

Shit, look at that. Barb ran the light the length of the row, toward the opening to the ramp down into the Maintenance Module. The prints stopped at the opening. She edged along the solar panels and dropped to her knees at the opening. They were the same panels he and Malik had replaced with Tuesday’s help. The opening looked almost like any other solar panels in the daylight, even more in the dark. Barb pocketed the gun and poked her head in, blocking off any hint of light from the lamp. Could that drone thing fit in here? Her voice echoed and was distorted by the chute walls.

Reggie avoided the prints the way she had and dropped down next to her. Her shoulders almost filled the opening. It was certainly too tight for him to squeeze in without brushing against her. Um, I can’t—

She twisted around, and he thought she might have rolled her eyes. Shit, Reggie, I’m not gonna bite or anything. Not like these guys probably do. She pulled out.

He took the lamp when she offered it and poked his head in. It was a square chute, stainless steel, reinforced with concrete below, and coated with something to protect against sandstorms.

All of a sudden, her hand was on his back See those scratches? On the wall to your right? She squeezed in against him. Tight.

Um. He twisted the lamp around, doing his best not to brush against her chest, suddenly more nervous about how close she was than about any sharpteeth threat. Even if he wasn’t her manager anymore, there was still the chance she could misconstrue physical contact as inapprop—

Reggie, my God, relax. She grabbed his lamp hand and twisted it around until the light caught scuffs on the wall. There, see it? Like maybe the rotors might have hit it?

Yeah. He stretched downward and rubbed at the marks, pulling his hand