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Paleface

11w

THE LAST DAYS OF THE OLD WORLD

A few years ago I compiled a collection of sci-fi short stories. The idea was to publish them and donate all the proceeds to the White Art Collective, but the prospective publisher disappeared from the face of the Earth and the collective turned out to rest on a single guy's efforts and ceased to exist as well, so it was never published. I loved the stories, though, and it's a shame that very few people have read them, so I decided to post them here so at least you guys can enjoy them. I'll post all of them under this post bit by bit.

Paleface

@Paleface@nicecrew.digital remote

Dreaming of Dawn

By turn_coat

Storm winds left traces of bittersweet ichor dripping from where window panes hadn’t been properly battened into position. Martin took a deep breath and watched huddled forms of hooded figures walking along causeways beneath the tall glass of his lab. He looked to his colleague and spoke as a gust of nascent wind-borne corruption smeared itself against the glass. “The storms are only going to get worse, the people out there will only grow fewer and further between.”

Constantine shook her head, “I can’t for a moment accept your assertion that this is in any way an ethical response.”

Martin sighed. “Do you have a better alternative? Further development requires sponsorship and fiscal support. The power lines have to be repaired, the techs have to be paid, and no one wants to try and scrape a living out of that cold soil.”

Constantine turned and looked at the enormous tanks and contraptions littering the laboratory. “I still don’t think it’s right. Aren’t you worried about some legislation or… something? Do you think your myriad of grand children will exalt you as a hero for this?”

“They’ll be alive, they’ll have their own problems to cope with. At least we’ll have a next generation. Besides, who would step in? It’s not like any government, even local, would act without approval from one of our operations officers.” Martin put a hand on Constantine's shoulder, turning her away from the window. “The problem isn’t out there, it’s in here. Those survivors out there aren’t our people. Honestly, they really never were. How many of us are actually active and productive these days? Five hundred thousand, maybe less? Imagine what a million dedicated workers could do to rebuild, imagine what forty million could do. Brilliant people who weren’t subject to those external stressors in their youth, a hundred million of our people. That’s what it is, we saw the decline in our younger days first occur slowly, then quickly. It has to do with basic biological function: when stressors are high, populations shrink, and we’ve been doing a damn good job keeping stress high in our population for a long, long time. You’ve got two or three generations now each with a lower standard of living than their parents had, each trying to scrape by. Even the migrant population numbers fell off years ago. Civilizations require people, millions of people, highly specialized people.”

Constantine shook her head, “I can’t believe I’m considering agreeing with you.”

Martin ran several fingers through his thinning hair, “I already have approval from the board.”

“Of course you do. You wouldn’t have brought it up if there was anything I could do to stop you.”

* * *

The brine-storm was getting worse and the windows of his glorified hovel were only scarcely effective at keeping the corruption out. Nël rummaged through his barren fridge, before eventually giving up. The harsh air whistling through the cracks of his window prompted him to use one of his last rolls of tape to place a new layer at the base of the pane where it intersected the ancient wood. The whole building had been slowly inculcated by heady ichor like a discoloring cathedral of wax. The overhead light in his one room apartment flickered for a moment as distant electrical lines distended in the storm.

Despite the irritation in his stomach, he couldn’t help but admire the storm that had drawn him from sleep like a drowning man gasping for consciousness. The brine-storms were a time of both opportunity and danger, and for the same reasons: patrol drones of the capital police couldn’t operate in the harsh conditions. Not only did the aerosol coat their props, it also halted all wireless transmissions. Something in the brine absorbed and scattered signals, even hardline connections were hampered during storms like this.

Nël brushed his teeth with acrid tasting water and wiped his face. As he stretched sore muscles he glanced at his router and attached a loose cable in the wall. “Piece’o shit,” he grumbled as the little light indicating a network connection stubbornly blinked a sickly red. No more talking online, at least not until the storm passed. Outside his window, he could see a few hooded figures moving between buildings whilst trying to avoid the wind, not that it did them much good. Even a light wind was enough to knock those tiny toxic droplets into the eyes and lungs.

Between the total shut down of digital communications and his aching belly, Nël decided it was a good time to visit Mac’s. He could grab some food, and maybe see some old friends. Staying at home there was nothing to do but read some water stained books, and he wasn’t much one for reading. Nah, he’d much rather be chatting with some of his idiot friends online, or failing that, making plans with his other idiot friends at Mac’s. Besides, Mac’s had a better digital connection. From there he’d at least be able to look up how long this storm would last, maybe make other plans to take advantage of it if the storm was a long one. Having set his plans, Nël donned a heavy oiled canvas jacket and flipped the hood over his head. The canvas cloak had been a gift from his late mother when the storms had begun nearly a decade back… when times were still good, or at least better than they were now. It sat squarely on his shoulders with a wide mantle that helped separate the interior from the corrupting winds of the storm. The jacket also helped prevent the drones from seeing the little revolver he carried in an old holster near the small of his back.

Nël didn’t have a lot of positive memories of blue skies to look back on, fewer now. When his mother had died, she’d left him her home in the country, but those memories were colored by the fact that he’d been forced to sell the land just to pay for the estate taxes that had been levied against it. His one chance to move into the interior up in smoke like a burnt book because some one wanted an upgraded community server farm or city park. When Nël stepped through the red rusted door of his building, there was nothing to defend his face from the eye-watering storm but a simple bandana and a pair of glasses.

* * *

Buildings of the city rose like monuments to a time long gone appearing through the haze on either side of the street. Nël had grown up here, but sometimes even he found himself lost during storms; forced to resort to reading nearby street signs. It felt dead or overgrown, each of these gigantic structures of concrete and steel and glass discolored by dripping layers of ichor coating their outsides and slowly becoming embedded deep in the structure until it became difficult to tell where the waxy froth ended and the structural components began. It had been like this most of the last decade, the population mostly evaporating into one-room apartments or moving far inland. He’d never become used to it. Cars were a rare sight in the storm as the stuff coated cameras and windshields alike. Only a few drivers these days could afford that special anti-stick coating that sloughed off the corrupting ichor gel like oil would water. Nël listened to music while he walked through the wind blown mist, his eyes and lungs burning with every step. A quarter mile wasn’t that far in clear weather, but it was about the limit of the distance he was willing to walk during a storm. By the time he arrived at Mac’s, Nël could taste a bit of blood trickling down the back of his throat, and his eyes were bloodshot. He absently wondered if the putrid storms were the reason he’d stopped seeing cockroaches in any of the buildings he’d lived in over the last few years.

Mac’s was in a basement, and unlike the rest of the structure, well kept and with double-doors to keep out the worst of the storm. Nël passed a few vehicles and one large van before descending the windy old wood stair and entering. Lights here flickered the same as at home, but the company was better, and it was with relief that he once again breathed clear air. Nël immediately noticed the smell of fried food. Just over a dozen people were inside, many of them sticky and forlorn just like him. Groups of people congregated around a few different tables and the bar itself. Battery powered lanterns in the center of each table created hazy shadows against the ancient looking brick walls.

“Walked ‘ere again?” Marcine asked as she watched Nël hang his jacket and remove his completely ruined bandana. Marcine had been here since before Nël had begun frequenting the place. She was a scrappy old woman who, despite her small stature, commanded respect from the regulars. He knew she had some relation to Mac, but couldn’t remember what it was, maybe a cousin?

“Yea, I walked ‘ere,” responded Nël. “I’m not ‘bout to try driving in that mess. Every week they seem to get worse. Y’know how long this one’ll be?”

Marcine shrugged, “Kelly knows, think e’s planning something over there.” She gestured to a table set against one of the walls where a number of Nël’s acquaintances sat in conversation.

Nël waved to the small group. “Guess I’ll ask ‘em then.”

“You ordering a drink?” asked Marcine as Nël was about to walk off into the bar.

Nël sighed, “Yeah, and food too. I ‘aven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“Ye can pay for it…?” Marcine asked.

Nël nodded, “I should be set for the rest of the month. Not like I’m trying to support a family.”

Marcine shook her head, “don’t think no one is in a place like this.”

After receiving a mug and a fried chunk of meat and potatoes, thereby ensuring the continued operation of the tavern, Nël walked across the stained floor to where a few of his friends sat. Kelly, Monte, and some girl that Nël didn’t recognize, were conversing in quiet tones. “Planning to get into trouble without me?” asked Nël.

[continues]

Replying to @Paleface@nicecrew.digital

Paleface

@Paleface@nicecrew.digital remote

“You weren’t ‘ere,” responded Kelly with a smile. “Good to ‘ave you though. Hardline says that the storm might last until tomorrow night. Makes for a good opportunity.”

“They’re gett’n longer,” said Monte. “Longer’n more frequent.”

“There’s no changing that,” said the new girl.

Nël eyed her. She didn’t look like she was from this part of the town, no stains on her skin and clothes that came off as just a little bit too nice and cosmopolitan. “Where’s you from?” he asked.

“Ay!” said Kelly, “she’s the one what got us this project we’re working on. So you be nice.”

“I’m from Metropol,” said the girl, “my name is Alescia.”

“O‘course you are,” said Nël acidly. “Come to stomp on the rest of us, or are you content to just sit here and drink like you belong ‘ere?”

“I mean, we’re all just people doing the best we can, right?”

“Best we can do is survive, best you do is make it harder for us. First yer votes went and destroyed where you come from then you come here destroyed our homes too?” asked Nël.

“We’re not all like that,” said Alescia defensively. “Some have left because—”

“Even if you didn’t vote for it, you did nothing to stop it. Just run away from your problems then arrive somewhere new like locusts because your shining city didn’t work out. Ye destroy the place you lived in, then you come here to destroy what little is left of ours.”

“This place ‘aint so nice either,” said Monte.

“It didn’t used to be like this, used to be able to afford a decent place to live. Used to be able to inherit the family farm without paying an arm an’ a leg in taxes,” Nël countered. “Idiots what like in Metropol destroyed what was built over generations because they wanted to be nice and take in the needy. Where did that take you? Here. To what’s left of our city while your old stronghold rots away. It was twits like here that brought the police drones because they were terrified of having to defend themselves. Now every move you make is watched by some algorithm while the place they used to live in has a tenth the population it once did, damn well would have done the same to us if these storms hadn’t started and driven out all those oversensitive self-righteous useless twats. Those police drones didn’t do so well in the brine out here did they?”

Kelly slammed his hand down on the table. “Nël, enough. Either you shut your trap and deal with it, or get out. We got a job to do. She had some useful notes on one of those warehouses from the Hersching site. They moved a good rock of gear in and out of it, might be our chance to find some high value goods before they’re placed under proper lock and key again. What do you think?”

“The Hersching site?” asked Nël. He looked at Alescia again, with her flowery clothes and cosmopolitan name. “What’s in it for you?”

“I was fired a few weeks ago. I still know the way in and they won’t update their security codes until the end of the month. It’s either that or live on the street, and all their external surveillance stops working in a storm. I get a cut of what we find. I think they have proper radios, cellphones, maybe even weapons or ammunition or masks. All that will fetch at least a months rent out here in the—” she stopped herself before completing the sentence and looked at Nël.

“The badlands,” Nël finished. “Unlike Metropol, we ‘ave no reason to be ashamed of who we are.”

“Her and I go way back. You can complain all day,” said Monte, “once we’re done. Right now, look.”

Nël looked as Kelly scooted his digital tablet over so that Nël could see it. Nël glanced over the device and then looked back at Alescia. “A building layout? And why should I trust you?” Nël pawed at the tablet display a little to get a good view of the structure.

Alescia nodded. “I worked in the Westend labs before they laid me off. Me and Montague grew up together, he can back me. We were cousins.”

Nël looked over at Monte who nodded his heavy jaw. “That’s why you’re ‘ere then? Need help salvaging one of the Hersching corporate sites?”

“It’s not fully abandoned,” corrected Alescia. “After some conversion to storage, this westside warehouse has been pretty much ignored for months now. Not much security inside or out, but you’ll find plenty of salvageable equipment inside.”

“Y’know what it’s like on a salvage run?” asked Nël.

Alescia shook her head.

“You’re talking about long hikes in the storm. Once the weather cleared unexpectedly and I had to spend an entire day laying face down in a ditch so I wouldn’t get caught. They think we’re just petty criminals, they couldn’t give two shits if we can get enough to eat or not. They thought they’d just give us a roof over our ‘eads and that’d be enough. That we would never want for anything. ‘Course then the storms started, and now everything gone to shit. We’re not animals,” Nël said angrily. “We can’t be kept as pets.”

Alescia didn’t say anything, it was hard to read her expression in the dim light, but Nël thought he could see a hint of pain there. Good.

The following hour was spent making plans as the wind lightened outside. Of course that didn’t reduce by one iota the rate that ichor accumulated on the outside of the high windows. The airborne malaise stuck to it like warm wax and slowly dripped down leaving stained trails. Monte’s van could take them to the edge of the industrial district where they could conceal it in an abandoned garage. From there they’d be on foot to try and rescue any valuables they could find. Mac’s front was the tavern, but he was also a friend that could help them turn over any illicit equipment they found. What few taverns like his remained were all closely tied to the underground economy.

Of the old sites in the city, most had been picked clean in the last year or two. A fresh poorly guarded warehouse though? That would be like the good old days, back when Nël was practically swimming in cash compared to now. He used to be able to walk into the tavern with a girl on each arm; of course eventually the big corporate heads got wise and moved their warehouses away from the coast. The girls and money quickly followed. Of the original population, scarce few remained out here in the shells of cities, too stubborn or too poor to leave. Nothing left now but lost souls like him and Monte, and the freelancer gangs between cities. Every one of any class had gone up onto the mountains to escape the acidic storms welling up from the sea and slammed shut the tolerant and accepting doors behind them. Nël wondered how they’d weather the ever-worsening storms and wondered what would become of them all. It didn’t matter, there was a payday on the table, worry about the here and now.

A raised voice at the door of the tavern roused the four of them. A pair of men in ichor-stained jumpsuits entered the establishment and removed a pair of respirators. Security forces, the pair of law men could be after just about anyone in there for any myriad of reasons. “Hell,” said Nël, glancing at the three sitting with him. “Y’think they’re after us?”

Monte shrugged nonchalantly, but carefully moved his heavy frame to the edge of his seat while Kelly lithely did the same. Alescia withdrew the tablet from the table and sealed it inside a plastic case on the off chance they’d have to make a sudden egress from the establishment. The two security officers walked into the room as nearly all of the dozen or so inhabitants halted their conversations and watched, wondering who it was that had gotten caught with their face on camera.

The two security men walked up behind a scrawny fellow who was sitting at the table next to Nël’s coterie. The entire room silently observed as the man glanced between the security officers and the door.

“Don’t try it,” said an officer gruffly.

That’s all he managed to get out before pandemonium erupted in the Tavern.

* * *

“How mad do you think Marcine and Mac will be?” asked Monte as he drove the heavy van down narrow roads between buildings that looked like decaying sculptures slowly sinking back into the earth.

“Well, he won’t be mad at us,” said Kelly. “We had nothing to do with it.”

“… this time,” mumbled Nël. “Who the hell hides a flashbang in their pocket?”

“Apparently Tom does,” said Monte.

“Did you see if he got away?”

Alescia looked up from the digital tablet she was holding in the back of the van, “I didn’t, did any of you?”

Kelly shook his head. “Don’t think he did.”

“Fuckin’ idiot.”

Nël was sitting in the passenger seat, his eyes still watering, first from the explosive flash in the Tavern, and now from the heady ichor fumes spilling out of the broken air vent of the van. Him and every one else had scattered once the fight began. Nël was just happy that they hadn’t been the target of the investigation. Whatever trouble Tom was in, it wasn’t their business, and if they caught him, he’d end up in the penitentiary as a corporate terrorist for a long god damn time.

Monte’s normal rugged look was even worse for wear as he’d caught a punch in the nose as smoke and light filled room. A little blood dripped down from a cracked lip into the stubble on his chin.

“Laws are just for when the sky is clear,” said Nël to no one in particular.

“That’s what they say.”

“Wait we’re doing this now? Don’t you need to prepare, get equipment?” asked Alescia. “What about the brawl?”

“Got ‘erything we need’s in the van. Anyway, a brawl’s the perfect time to go,” said Kelly. “If the capital police are all called because one of their guys got wounded, it’ll eat up half the officers in the city sorting that mess out. They won’t be done finishing paperwork for hours. Heck, the remnants of the city police might even show up to a crowd that big, what little remains of them.”

[continues]

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Replying to @Paleface@nicecrew.digital

Paleface

@Paleface@nicecrew.digital remote

Nël kept his eyes on the road as the old vehicle clanked and rumbled around him. He was in a particularly sour mood given that he’d only had the opportunity to finish eating about half of the food he’d paid for. Hot meals weren’t cheap these days as government relief packages grew fewer and further between. Stupid useless capital government, all they were good for was guarding warehouses of their goods. When he’d been a child whole ships the size of skyscrapers had carried trade goods daily and now he hadn’t seen one in months. Nël wondered if they’d found some other method of transporting the stuff, or if they just gave up on long distance trade. Didn’t really matter, he was sure he could find out if he cared to look it up. But he didn’t. This was his home now, for good or ill, mostly ill.

What would have been a twenty minute ride in fair weather was nearly an hour in the storm. They had to stop a few times to clear the windshield and check the street signs to make sure they were where they thought they were. On the occasion Monte would utter empty promises to his old engine to get it fixed soon as the parts were available. While traveling, they only passed eight other cars, and two of those had been security vehicles heading for Mac’s. Alescia seemed to grow progressively more nervous during the ride, made sense, thought Nël: this was her first time. For the rest of them though, they’d been living this life so long that they were almost following a routine. What had started as a few crimes of opportunity became a method of survival when the life of the city was slowly bled white by the cancerous mists and storms.

“I think… yeah, that’s it. I found this place on street view a while back, and it was a bit run down even back when the pictures were taken. What do you think?” asked Kelly as the van approached a shelled out husk of an old garage.

Most of the buildings collected a sheen of ichor over time, but generally it dripped down the windows and inculcated the wood and stone, unlikely to have permeated within. This building looked like it was made of the stuff, a pitted pustule that was never touched by human craftsmen, instead having grown out of the dreary storm winds like some malignant tumor. All the rough edges had been rounded by layer upon layer of waxy sheen. A dim streetlight, itself half obscured in the fog, flickered in front of the structure.

“That big door is just barely hanging on,” Nël observed. “Knock it open ‘n we’ll have a good spot to put the van. What’s the backside like?”

“Same as th’front, I think,” said Kelly. “Big door in the back, half crusted over. See that fence line there? That’s the normal security line, during a storm this’s about as empty as it gets. From here it’s less than a half mile inside their wire to the warehouse.”

Nël looked at Alescia and Monte before turning around to talk. “Listen, new girl, Alescia, this life is rough. I don’t know what business you got hammered by to end up with your cute ass dropped by the oligarchs, sure sucks when you have to work for your supper don’t it? Places like this ‘s mostly abandoned, but not always. You do what we say, when we say it. You don’t ask how, or why. You shut your mouth and do as you’re told, and you won’t end up in a penitentiary or labor camp for the rest of your days. It’s dirty work, you’re gonna bleed, and if you complain, we’ll leave your ass out there. The outsides are abandoned in storms, but there’s drones and security trips all over in the wire. That’s why we don’t go in unarmed. Some cagey catches us or some ticker tags us, and we’re done. So you do as you’re told. ‘Aight?”

Alescia briefly glanced around the interior of the van and swallowed before nodding. “Yeah, I think I can handle that.”

“Good,” said Nël, “now let’s kick down that door.”

It took only a few minutes for them to wedge a crowbar into a crack in the decaying metal and force it open enough to climb through and unlock it properly. Then Monte pulled the van inside and shut off the lights. After slamming the big garage door shut, the lot of them were left in darkness with only the rumble of corrupting wind outside.

“Won’t they see tracks that some one pulled in here?” asked Alescia.

“Only if they’re lookin in the next fifteen or so,” responded Kelly as he groped around for a flashlight. “Storms out here on the coasts aren’t like those little ones you’ve seen in the continent, love. They’ll wipe clean all trace of passage right quick.”

Nël squinted as Kelly switched on a flashlight. “We gonna have enough room in here to put together the wagon?” he asked.

Monte shrugged, and opened the rear doors of the van and pulled out four inflated wheels.

“See here, Alescia,” said Nël. “When we head out we try to nab all we can get our hands on, but it’s a long walk. Can’t follow the paths neither. Would be nice if security was so lax we could drive up, but we can’t. So we—”

Kelly and Monte began arguing over the wagon setup. Nël rolled his eyes. “Just… hang on. You need me to hold the light? Alescia, go hold the light for ‘em. I’m gonna pull the packs out. Anyway, going out there is easy, gett’n back with the loot’s the hard part.”

Alescia nodded and took hold of Kelly’s flashlight.

“I don’t think there’s windows in here,” said Kelly, “but if there are keep the light away from them.”

“How long ago y’think this place was abandoned?” asked Nël.

“Well, it was run down when I found it on street view, so quite a while. Maybe three or four years? Most of the buildings out here ‘re abandoned, every one concentrates into the city core because the storms make driving so damn hard.”

“Yeah, figure so,” said Nël. He looked at graffiti on the walls. It was unsteadily illuminated by Alescia as she attempted to hold the light on where Monte and Kelly were fiddling with the cart frame and attaching the wheels.

“Dammit!” exclaimed Kelly as he was knocked into a chunk of the wall which promptly cracked and fell to the ground.

“The hell’s that?” asked Nël, looking at the newly revealed crevice.”

“I dunno,” replied Kelly, “why don’t you have a look while we get this damn pin in place?”

The grotto only extended a few feet into a rear-facing false-wall. It looked like some sort of closet or other room. It wasn’t until Nël located a door to the outside of the garage that he realized he must be standing in some sort of gardening shed or something. The outer door had been so thoroughly covered by years of ichor resin that it hadn’t even been visible from outside. It was while he was thinking about what else might have gotten lost in the city, buried under countless layers of profane matter that he noticed a number of old gardening implements stacked in the dimly lit back corner.

“Ay, Alescia, hand me the light for a minute,” shouted Nël.

“Don’t you dare!” said Kelly, “we’ve nearly got it done.”

“Jus’ shine ‘er in here a second.”

After some more cajoling, Nël finally got some light to see by. “Holy shit guys! Ye see that?!”

“What, Where?” asked Kelly, poking his head in the alcove. “Holy shit, are those proper masks?”

“Looks like,” said Nël. “Couple of filters. Too. Hell yes. This’ll make life easier. I think these are the old K-25s from when those were still in production.”

Monte grunted approval to the group. “How many?”

“Looks like two, ‘nuff for a few of us anyway, an’ filters too. This is going to hurt a lot less than last time,” said Nël. “You remember on the way back you started throwing up?”

Kelly glanced at Alescia and then unconvincingly shook his head, denying the claim.

“Like hell man,” said Nël, “even I nearly puked, I was coughing up blood for a few days after our last run, eyes was all bleary too.”

“That storm was awful, don’t know what the hell’s in the air make it that rough on the eyes,” said Kelly, changing the subject.

“Don’t matter to me now,” said Nël. “We got us something worth wearing for the first time in months. This one’ll be a cakewalk. Just like those security guys have.”

There was some disagreement over who would get the K-25s they’d just located. Alescia made the discussion easier by revealing that she had a modern respirator of her own sitting in her heavily stretched backpack. Eventually it was decided that, since Monte had actual goggles, that Kelly and Nël would wear the outdated K-25s as they were the ones expected to do the heavy lifting.

* * *

The K-25 masks were a little bulky as far as respirators went, but they covered the entire face, eyes included, though the gunk from the storm still stuck to the glass goggles here and there. Nël had to keep pulling out an old piece of cloth to regularly wipe clean his vision in the storm. The respirators made the walk more pleasant than Nël had experienced in a year. Heck, this was probably the first time he’d breathed clean air in longer than that. Some family had probably put those in the back of the garden shed and forgotten them when they’d left after the storms had gone from a freak rarity to a regular occurrence.

In the hazy wind, the four of them looked like strange inhuman apparitions. Most of the land was barren, some long forgotten construction project of steel and concrete abandoned ages ago. Kelly had told Nël that the project was going to be some big research site for Hersching before they’d decided to relocate it inland five years ago. Amazing how much info Monte could pull off the internet, even with the decayed state of the city. Monte had clearly been working on this raid for a little while. Nël and Kelly were just the muscle, and they both knew it. The wagon had a harness on the front that could be pulled by two people. Nël had the thing attached to his waist while Kelly stood behind to help push when it got caught in mud or nearly tipped over by the wind. Monte and Alescia took point, with Monte keeping an eye out for any potential trouble holding an illegal short barreled rifle.

[continues]