36 - Denison

“This is too damn creepy,” Chu said watching as cagestuff marched out of the Cage. Maya didn’t respond as she was struggling at the control panel.

She felt like a drunkard trying to assemble Ikea furniture. Everything was slow, fumbling, and not working as it should have been. There was the mental disconnect between her and the Cage, that bit of melding that she had felt, but didn’t realize how important it had been. She had already expended all her cursing abilities on the control panel and now she just glared at the device as she struggled to move cagestuff around.

“Well, at least this gives us more time to get ready to beat those cannibal fucks into submission,” Chu continued. He pulled out a ration bar and chewed on it, watching as the cagestuff began crawling over a massive tank and machinery. “Those cannibal fucks are definitely trying something shady. I mean, they’ve been sitting still for a few days after trying to kill you with that poison, but now they’re just hanging out there and after we’ve finally talked to them, they say wait another two days? What’s up with that. They’re gonna try fucking us all over. Somehow.”

Maya didn’t disagree with Chu’s assessment. The Tarvana were up to something. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. The Tarvana army outnumbered her own people by nearly four to on now. Sixty thousand in the Flesh Army against her own fifteen thousand, all whom were all mercenaries of some sort.

Of the settlements that were allied to her, only five thousand had come to help, with another twelve hundred from her own recruits and penal brigade. That was all fortified by Asoltolia’s mercenary band, which she had personally arrived to lead. Asoltolia’s arrival was costing Maya over a million credits a standard day. It had been apart of the contract, that if shit hit the fan, then Maya could call upon the higher leveled mercenaries for support, of which a hundred had arrived and they were expensive as hell.

The experience shards were defraying the costs somewhat, but Maya realized she would be drained of credits in the next few days. It was a sobering thought, one that hadn’t been an issue for the last few months. She had been swimming in credits, from expanding the Alliance, to selling everything of value to Asoltolia, and from Bell’s homeward.

As it was, if the Tarvana were planning a surprise for Maya, then two could play at that game. Maya pushed the cagestuff forward once again and the figures on the other end of the threshold began flashing flags and mana lights, signaling contact.

She sighed and wiped the sweat from her brow.

“Care for a nip?” Chu asked, tossing her a flask. “It’s five o’clock somewhere,” he added at her look.

Maya unscrewed the flask’s cap and cringed at the bitter taste that hit her tongue. It was Asoltolia’s distilled home-brew. Strong enough to get even high leveled SIL drunk.

“You’re on duty,” Maya said, taking another sip.

“I’m not officially anything,” Chu said. “I mean, I’m a great American spy, but all I’ve been doing for you has been volunteer work. As we’re in radio silence after Canton’s little rebellion, I can’t really contact my bosses in LA.”

Maya rolled her eyes and began double checking the systems on the control panels. “We’re good here,” she said. She activated the comm unit. “You guys all good out there?” she asked.

A hundred men and women were swarming across machinery, they were a combination of soldiers and engineers and workers.

“We’re good, boss,” Tender’s voice replied. “Although I still do not trust George after his betrayal, he was correct in his assessment of this facility. It will provide us with what you requested.”

“Good to hear, buddy,” Maya said. “You’re got thirty minutes Multiverse Time and then you have to get your butts back in here.”

“Understood,” the answer came back after the usual delay.

There were plenty of times that Maya wished she could just set the Cage to multiverse time and function from there, but the mana requirements were too high for that. She sighed again and stepped away from the machinery.

“I don’t see why you don’t do more of this,” Chu said, gesturing to the screens of the workers rushing about. “You can go anywhere on this world and there’s still a ton of shit out there that we can use. I was talking with a couple of mechanics the other day, they’re hoping that you’ll open more business spots within the Cage. They’ve figured out a way to get some of the newer model vehicles running, without the need for mana batteries and motors.

“A couple of engineers from the ships we were repairing said the same thing. If you can push out the mana in a spot, they can get old electronics working again, that way they can begin manufacturing simple things needed on Earth again.”

“If we survive all of this,” Maya replied.

“See, now you’re being pessimistic. The fact that some dudes who’ve survived Integration and the mana mutations are looking toward the future, looking to start a new business, and finding ways to make credits, that says a lot. Means they’re optimistic that there will be a future. That couldn’t have happened if it weren’t for all the stuff you’ve been doing.”

“It seems a lot of people are suddenly tossing compliments my way,” Maya said, slightly annoyed.

“You’ve been a bit of a Negative Nancy the last few days,” Chu said. “Cranky, short tempered, and all ‘woe is me’ flopping about.”

“I do not flop,” Maya replied.

“Being the strongest woman, no human, in existence still don’t mean you don’t have to look after your own mental health. Mental stats aren’t everything, Maya.”

“Jesus, when did you become a therapist?”

“Eh, you get to learn the rigamarole when your CO is all about combat stress control,” Chu replied.

“I’m fine,” Maya replied flatly. “I’m good.”

“Sure, you are,” Chu said, but didn’t push it any further.

Maya’s com beeped and she was thankful for the diversion.

“What?” she demanded, Chu raised and eyebrow and she gave him the middle finger salute.

“You need to get up here,” Marcus said. There was excitement in his voice, which was something Maya hadn’t been hearing in the last few days. “Quick.”

“What is it?” Maya asked. It didn’t seem like an emergency and as things were, she didn’t have time to rush about to see what Marcus had found. He had been spending time with George and his whole spy network, getting a hang on spotting things they might be able to use to combat the Tarvana and the mana mutations on Earth.

“They’re alive!” he announced, nearly shouting. “I’ve found where Pops, Mom, and Malcom are!”

***

Marcus was practically bouncing around the room when Maya and Chu entered. He flashed a grin at her and pulled up a screen.

Months of viewing the devastation wrought by Integration had steeled Maya’s heart to the state of the world. Everywhere there was destruction, as if all the buildings in the world were targeted by the changes effecting the planet. Roads were torn up, anything above five stories had a good chance of being toppled, and trash, burned out wrecks, and scattered bones dotted the land.

The sight before her was a hospital plaza seen from above. There were several multistory white buildings that were surrounded by parking lots. The hospital plaza was located along a highway, from what Maya could see was torn up and cracked. She peered at the plaza and saw the defenses that were built up in and around it, the milling of people as they went about chores or other activities.

The land was slightly forested, but Maya noted that there was a largish lake to the north of the hospital and several small towns dotted the land.

“Dennison, Texas,” George said. “It’s on the border of Texas and Oklahoma. What you’re looking at is the Texoma Medical Center.”

Maya looked at Marcus flatly, her expression was unreadable.

“It’s them, Maya,” he said. He waved at the floating screen and it began to zoom in on the hospital plaza. A man and woman were walking on the scarred asphalt of the hospital parking lot.

Two figures formed in holographic relief before Maya. One was a large man, over six feet tall with wide shoulders and short cropped hair. Gray peppered his hair and the beard he now sported. There was no doubt who that person was. Pops Sullivan. Beside the man was a tall lean woman. Her hair was pulled back in a bun.

There was no denying who they were. There was no mistaking them as anyone besides her parents.

Maya blinked at the image, trying to figure out how she should feel. They were dead, or so she thought. Their entire neighborhood was a torn up wreck, all of Dallas was a hellhole that not much survived. Yet, there they stood. Her mother’s hand wrapped around her father’s. They weren’t smiling though, instead they looked stressed, concerned, and exhausted. The new normal of the post-Integration world.

“Are you sure?” Maya spoke without even thinking.

“Of course!” Marcus laughed. “It’s them! Malcom is even with them!”

The image changed to a young man riding a horse. He clutched at the saddle horn too tightly and bounced about like a sack of grain. Yet his eyes were scanning everywhere, a rifle over his back and a sword at his hip. Behind him moved more men and women on horses, they were similarly dressed and armed.

One man caught Maya’s eye. A wide shoulder young man with a dour expression. His dark eyes were staring into every shadow and peering at every rock and tree around them. An AR-15 was across his back and a shotgun was in the crook of his arm. He wore what looked like plate armor, but without a helmet on.

Bobby Neville, the last person she had spoken to before the dimensional instability had taken her. Maya stared at the figure. They were all the people she knew, but there were differences about them. They were leaner, harder, and their eyes betrayed the fact that life had not been easy in the last few weeks.

“They’re alive,” Maya said. She steadied herself against a chair and then sat down heavily in it.

“We have to open a doorway for them!” Marcus said. “We gotta bring them in and take them somewhere safe.”

They were alive. The thought reeled her in head. They had been alive this entire time. For months she had thought they were dead, ever since she had returned home and saw the devastation. They had been alive this whole time. Fighting against monsters, surviving when so much of the world hadn’t.

“We nee to get them,” Marcus said, he was laughing and grinning like a moron.

“No,” Maya said.

The joy on Marcus’ face immediately subsided. “What?”

“We can’t do anything for them now,” Maya said. “We’ve got only two days before we have to meet with the High General again. We don’t have the mana to be opening doors and we don’t have the time to bring them all here. It would take too much explaining and talking. Five hours in the real world is two standard days here. We’re already using twelve hours on the project.”

“Then stop it. Pull those guys back and open a door to Denison. We can’t just leave them there. Not now.”

“We’re preparing for a battle, Marcus,” Maya said. “In less than two standard days we’re going to be faced with some hard fighting. We can’t bring them into that.”

“They can help,” Marcus said. “Look, there’s thousands of them. They all look to be decently armed and from what we’ve seen, they’re organized and able to fight.”

“Why would they fight for us?” Maya demanded. “They’ve been fighting since day one and now you want to throw them into a bigger fight? No, leave them be.”

“Damn it, Maya. They’re our parents. We need to get them.”

“We don’t. They can survive on their own. We don’t have to interfere until everything is resolved.”

“Pardon me,” George said. “You also have to see this.”

George pulled up another image. He overplayed it with the screen and Maya saw that the two spots were only miles apart from one another. Roughly ten or fifteen miles.

“What’s that?” Chu asked, peering at the image.

“Orcs and Crows,” Maya said. “An army of them.”

***

“Seriously, Maya?” Marcus asked. He pulled on the tesseract pack and rolled his eyes. “I think they’ll figure out that I’m not crazy or not telling the truth without all these examples of what you can offer them. They’re our parents. Not idiots.”

“Well, we don’t have much time,” Maya said briskly. “You need to wow them and get them to abandon all they’ve created in only an hour. That means show them everything, tell them everything, and get them ready. They’re not going to abandon all they’ve built just on your say so.”

“I suppose,” Marcus muttered. “I can understand giving them weapons and tools, but some of this stuff is just strange. Why do I need to carry so much black goo and some of those defense turrets you’ve made.”

“Just in case, cowboy,” Maya said. “It might only be an hour but it’s twelve hours for us. We have to be on our toes if the Tarvana do something unexpected.”

“With Pops and Mom on our side, we can’t kick those fuckers asses,” Marcus grinned. Maya smiled back and nodded. “I’ll get them to come, Maya. Even if its just to see that you’re doing right by them and humanity. I’ll get them into the Cage and then we can find some place safe for all of us.”

“Yeah,” Maya agreed.

Yosi entered the room, she glanced at Marcus and all the gear he was carrying. She didn’t say anything. “We’ve got the coordinates ready,” she stated. “You’ll have to be stripped of mana before you leave and that might leave you sick and disorientated for a while. Bell has provided a low-grade mana potion that will ease the transition.”

“Yeah, forgot about that,” Marcus said as he was handed a small blue vial. “It sucks you can’t come with me, Maya. I can’t imagine the look in their eyes when they see us both together.”

Maya grinned. “Pops is gonna shit a brick.” She paused and checked the time. “Alright, cowboy. We need to do this quick and dirty. We still have to grab more mana from the 4S and then it’s gonna be rush, rush, rush time until we meet the High General.”

“Alright, let’s do this.”

They exited the room and entered the large welcome chamber. There was no actual need to enter the room, as even Maya could use the control panel to open a threshold in the small room they had been in. But she led him out of the small room and into the chamber. There was a gathering of men and women, watching the proceedings. Many were armed, carrying packs and weapons and tools. They all looked prepared to go on a long journey.

“Who are they?” Marcus asked.

“Your backup and the welcoming committee, just in case you need it. They’re some of the Suds still hanging out here. They’ll be able to bootstrap some system tech if its required. Never know what’s gonna happen.”

Marcus nodded and greeted the dozen men and women. They looked to Maya and she grinned at them. They were all Americans, gathered from various settlements and now given the chance to get back closer to their homes than ever before. “Off you go now. Say hi to everyone for me.”

Marcus gave her a hug. “I’ll bring them back,” he said. “Don’t you worry. We’ll be together in less than an hour.”

“Totally, cowboy,” Maya said.

Marcus and the group headed toward the threshold. Yosi stood beside Maya and watched as one by one, they passed through the Mana Stripper and into Denison, Texas.

“Why didn’t you tell him you’re abandoning him there?” Yosi asked.

“He wouldn’t have gone if I said that. He’s a decent soldier, but he’s not going to make or break this fight. He’ll be better off with our family.”

“Shit, how about me?” Chu asked. “I’ve got shit all for family, but I’d like to get a one way ticket to Hawaii, if you don’t mind.”

Maya chuckled as Chu only grinned at her.

“Alright,” Maya said. “Let’s get to the the 4S, grab those tesseracts, Veskari, and then have a little meeting this with army of Orcs and Crows.”

Yosi rolled her shoulders and stood up a little straighter. “I won’t let you down, Maya,” she said. “I’ll get their support.”