by Julian Miles | Jun 10, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Even before everything came apart, I hated hills. And, back then, I had gears. This old clunker only has one cog at each end. So there’s nothing for it but to push down on one side while hooking the other side under the pedal to pull up. If that isn’t enough, it’s time to walk.
Which is a bit of a bugger with forty kilos of scavenged stuff in the panniers. Then again, I’m going back to Racehill Fort, where sanity still exists. I have three people with me, and we chat about things and laugh as we go. Most of the south coast is a feral wasteland. If pedalling harder is the tariff for being part of civilisation, I’ll happily do it.
“Chargers!” Cindy’s cry is hoarse with fear.
Damn and blast. I’d hoped that the new equivalent of mechanised cavalry hadn’t spread this far. Should have guessed it – electric motors do good work on smooth going, but off roads, they’re shite. The mountain bikers, foresters and horsefolk make short work of them. Which means they are bound to the roads, and roads delimit the old urban territories. Like the one we live in.
“Push on! There’s a dip we can use to help with the long up to the fort!”
True enough, but the sounds I’m hearing are not servo-driven bicycle tyres. They sound like –
A black-helmeted rider shoots from a side road, his e-motorbike sporting armoured fairings, spiked leg guards, and a pillion with a hand crossbow.
“Stand and deliver!”
You can hear the amusement in the bastard’s voice: he’s enjoying this.
I raise my hands: “We’ve not got much, just some canned goods.”
He points at me: “Dump it all.”
We do so.
Pillion dismounts and stretches with a groan. Unlike the compact frame of the rider, this one’s a bit of a monster. I note that the crossbow does not waver while the stretch and audible bone cracking occurs.
After the stretch, he waves the hand that doesn’t hold the crossbow as he speaks: “Here’s how it goes, kids. You’ll not be scavenging anything until our conditions are met.”
Mark’s face betrays his bafflement: “What?”
Rider shakes his head: “If you leave the fort to get stuff, we will stop you on the way back. Every time. If you keep trying, we’ll slash your tyres.”
We are faced with a man who knows his threats.
I raise my arms: “What conditions?”
There is no hesitation: “Vegetables.”
Mark beats me to it: “What?”
Linda gets it: “You’ve lost your farmer, haven’t you?”
The rider laughs: “Good guess. So, here’s how it goes. We want fresh veg, and you grow loads up there. But you need people who do the brute force thing. We’ve watched you, and you’re either shit at it, too squeamish, or both. We are very good at violence -”
Linda interrupts with: “But shit at gardening.”
Pillion grins and stops pointing the crossbow at us: “You’d be right, lady.”
I start pushing my bike: “You wouldn’t happen to have any bicycle sized motors would you?”
Rider scratches under his helmet: “The sort that helps pushbikes up hills? I’m sure we could find some.”
“Then I think you’ll be welcomed with open arms. Providing you bring the gear to fit ‘em as well.”
Both of our erstwhile highwaymen burst out laughing, and I know an alliance has been formed.
by Julian Miles | Jun 2, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
There’s a spade stuck in a pile of earth, and Harry would want it so. We’ll not disturb it, letting wild plants grow and moss run riot. He loved digging. Said it made a man of him when he first did it in the trenches, and lamented the fact that politicians didn’t have to spend a month of every year ‘getting their hands honestly dirty’.
We’ve used his ashes mixed with compost and loam to bed in the tomatoes, and we hope that his crop will be a bumper one. And, by being in the tomato troughs, he’s next to Maggy in the marrows and rhubarb. He always said it would be good if they could be together again.
Consider it our little contribution to that wish, Harry, my old friend.
The shop’s doing well and the council has approved our grant to revive the old greenhouses. I think it had more to do with Beatrice being the Mayor’s grandmother than ecological reasons, but a win is a win, and these days that’s so rare no-one will say a thing to endanger it.
Losing Harry is a sad landmark. He was the last of us who remembered retirement. Even during his last years, there were people who scoffed at him. A period of your life when the government paid for you to have time off? Nothing but myths spread by scroungers to hide their parasitical lifestyles, living off the back of hard working people. ‘Cradle to grave labour, the only way for the good of all’. That was the credo, these days. You only got your cremation for free, and a little memorial service at your local temple if you’d served in the emergency services or armed forces.
Harry said that the Merger Temples were heartless, like supermarkets for gods. When Edith pointed out that the Merged Places of Religion Law reduced fundamentalism, Harry only laughed, and said that all it reduced was the amount of prime real estate owned by the Church.
I’ll miss Harry. He had a way about him. Like he carried truths he had fought to find, and they are what gave him ‘weight’: the gravitas we are lacking.
by Julian Miles | May 23, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Sarraled stared through the viewport as the lander spiralled down through the thin atmosphere.
“Looks like this place was inhabited.”
The pilot nodded: “They died out just before we established the base. Sad, really.”
“That good?”
“Yes. Although innately aggressive and stuck in capitalist societies that were decaying towards several flavours of dystopia, they had the most wonderful art. There’s a display in one wing of the centre.”
“I’ll check it out. Thanks.”
He toured the ‘Earth Works’ gallery and was moved to tears of awe. Such élan. Such verve. Such a shame they were gone.
“Deputy Director Sarraled? Welcome to Kruptos.”
He turned to face a dryland-caste Chutfen.
“Thank you. And you are?”
“Director’s Assistant Edrumel, Deputy Director. Please follow me.”
The Director’s office was sparse in furniture but rich in art hung upon the seven walls. Director Nodrunj perambulated across to clasp Sarraled’s hands warmly with his manipulator fronds.
“Sarraled! Delighted to have you here at last. Ready for the posting that will ensure your career?”
“I am, Director. Although a little bemused by the distance.”
Nodrunj wove his fronds into a worryknot: “It is unfortunate, but the founders of Kruptos thought it fitting.”
“For what?”
“‘To’ what, actually. As Deputy Director, you are privy to the information. We – as in the Galactio Primul – killed this planet.”
Sarraled near fell off his chair in shock.
“But why? How? There was no record!”
“Be at ease, Sarraled. It started with a false assumption by the scout group, which led to an erroneous decision.”
“Erroneous? I’ve seen the Earth Works. To destroy a race capable of those marvels is a Dust Level offence!”
The fronds shifted smoothly from worryknot to peaceweave.
“Steady, Deputy, steady. The scouts thought this world was a single territory under a governing body called ‘United Nations’. It wasn’t. So when a fanatical nation fired nuclear rockets at the Galactio Primul ambassador’s craft, the warning given was acted upon. As fission attack is Dust Level, you know what followed.”
Sarraled took a deep breath. He knew: a Scorch/Freeze Retaliation.
Nodrunj slid his fronds into honourtwine: “In the aftermath, the scout group was executed. All mention of Earth was removed. Earth became ‘Kruptos’ – a word taken from one of its ancient languages. It means ‘to hide or escape notice’.”
Sarraled nodded, his face pale.
Nodrunj relaxed his fronds: “We have a twofold remit: the overt one is to ensure that every reconnaissance of inhabited planets is conducted with absolute rigour. In effect, ensuring that the horror perpetrated here is never repeated. The covert one is to ensure that certain Dust Level Threats are kept hidden, buried deep beneath the ruined surface of this planet.”
Silence stretched until the Director of Kruptos slapped a frond on his desk.
“Deputy Director Sarraled, do you still feel ready for this posting?”
Sarraled looked out of the window, where what had been a towered bridge drooped, partially melted before the sudden cooling by glacial winds solidified it, forever caught in the act of collapse.
“I am ready. Ready to hide what must remain hidden, and discover what must be known.”
By the time Deputy Director Sarraled became Director Sarraled, his words of acceptance had become the motto of Kruptos.
by Julian Miles | May 17, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
There’s a smashed petri dish in the sink, the splashes of water on the pieces syncopating with the drumming of the water pouring into the steel basin. I look down at a hundred moving reflections of my face as the water rushes away. The flow carries an occasional crimson blossom with it as my grip slips about the gash I’ve inflicted on my right hand.
“Simon! Put this on it.”
Limala hands me a clean cloth. The wound is soon staunched in layers of blue-striped cotton.
“What were you thinking?”
“Fredor’s Hall.”
Her eyes drop. I met Agoryn Fredor after I got mugged in Gagra. He was the translator the police called to make sense of what the battered Englishman was ranting about. Over the subsequent years, he and I corresponded about many things. Mostly based around our mutual fascination with alternate history.
I have always been claustrophobic, otherwise I would have accompanied Agoryn and his wife on their expeditions, including the one that made their name and caused their deaths.
Deep in the Krubera cave system, they found a narrow chute off the passages between Big Junction and Perezagruzka. They kept the base camp informed as they plunged deeper and deeper, heading beyond 1900 metres. Then they went suddenly, awfully quiet. It took the rescue teams a week to find them, lying at the bottom of the hundred-metre-high chamber they had plummeted through the crystalline ceiling of. The walls were carven with diagrams and glyphs in a language unknown to man.
I took it upon myself to translate the writings in the Hall, in memory of my friends. Three years later I married my research assistant, Limala. Two years after the honeymoon, we succeeded. Two days later we publically conceded defeat and published our research to help others in the field – all bar one item: it was sheer chance that allowed us to crack the strange alphabet, and it is unlikely that ‘serious’ linguistics specialists will come across what we used for a while, at least. It’s just a document from some long-defunct alternate history site – we’re not hiding anything; we just don’t want to be the ones to have to tell everybody.
I’ve read the creation myths of a hundred cultures, and listened to the ravings of more alien conspiracy theorists than most. Not one comes close.
We’re a small planet at the edge of the Milky Way, once used as a waypoint on a great journey. They built an infrastructure here to support the vast starships passing through. That infrastructure was salvaged by the last vessel. As a final act, they purged the grounds they occupied so nothing would taint the evolution of the planet.
But they missed some of the primates they had modified to assist. These were initially sickly and scared, but smart enough to adapt. Their descendants were the legendary prehistoric giants who interbred with the early Denisovans. After that, they ravaged the dawning world, scaring early man so badly he either banded together to drive them out, or worshipped them as avatars. But eventually, each civilisation they haunted no longer had a place for monsters. Routed from the societies they depended on, their last mention is as the Fomori of Irish myth.
We’re the bastard descendants of something that should not have survived. I reach out and turn off the tap, looking down at the petri dish. When we’re done, we sterilise them. I cannot shake the fear that those who went on that journey may eventually come back. What then, for that which has grown, unwanted, from their leavings?
by Julian Miles | May 9, 2016 | Story |
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I don’t get to see Grandma Spoon as often as I like. What with the economy, austerity zoning and riots, cities can be difficult places for those unable to use or reach civil transit lines.
She wouldn’t move. Her home was the one she’d shared with Grandpa Kev, and there was no way she was going to quit it in any other way than the way he had: feet first in a coffin.
I saved up to charter an armoured private hire from a company with a solid rating. I was a little concerned when it turned up with driver and guard, but they assured me it was a precaution: one of the reasons they had such a good rating.
When I asked about the lack of bulldozer blade, they explained that it had become unnecessary for the area – they would follow the bus route!
Quite frankly, given the money I’d spent, I lost it: “There haven’t been buses since they enclosed and secured the rail lines! What’s your game?”
“Sir, please take a seat, and we’ll explain as we go. Standing around is still chargeable.”
I settled into the seat and the driver dropped the privacy screen between compartments. He talked as we wove our way through the morning traffic.
“It started eight months ago. A regular run reported a clear route into one of the worst areas. Video showed the road had been properly cleared, too. The wreckage was back from the carriageway. We wrote it off as a Domestic Army intervention.
But over the next few weeks, other routes were cleared. Also, some of our regular pickups on those routes stopped calling. It was strange. We checked with allied firms, and they had the same problem.”
The guard took over the story: “One evening, one of ours was limping back after an ambush when another mob finished the job. With the driver KO’d, my mate Abel is down to praying. Suddenly, the crazies leg it. He hears a big noise, then a bloke in honest-to-god platemail knocks on his window and asks if they’d like a lift!
Turns out the armoured geezer works for James, who runs the bus. Now, don’t get the wrong idea. This ‘bus’ looks more like an armoured locomotive on dump truck wheels. Got a bucket and jib up front to clear the way, steam cannons to clear the bandits, and a passenger compartment with hand-stitched curtains and a craft stall! And the ‘knights’. Bunch of mad women and men who act as enforcers. James likes his routes clear, and not just the roads. He says: ‘a bus is useless without passengers. People need to get on safely’. The knights come down hard on anyone who messes with the route or places nearby. He’s got a decent run, from town centre to Bluewater Fields. People pay what they can. He gets a subsidy from the retailers in the Fields and the borough councils. He says he’ll have a second bus next year. All built local, from salvaged bits, like the first one.”
Grandma introduced me to Elgin, who’d taken the bus to ‘pop over’ for tea. I contacted the hire company and cancelled. Elgin and I took the bus back. I was dropped off at a civil transit station. Got cookies and lemonade from the craft stall, too.
I’m going to be seeing Grandma more often. I’m also toying with the idea of helping with the Bus Three Project. Grandma laughed her head off when I said that community was coming back, and was bringing armoured steam-buses.
