The Exodus Towers #1

The Exodus Towers #1 By Jason M. Hough

If a heathen on the ladder

Raise your gun high.

Take his place, make it matter

This is our time.

—Lyric by ~/funk, Cape Town, 2270, inscribed into

the Testament of the Ladder by Sister Haley, 2281



Builders? That’s a laugh.

All they did was drop a cable and a nasty bug.

You want to call someone a builder,

I say look at Neil Platz.

—Skadz, Darwin, Australia, 2280



Belém, Brazil

27.APR.2283

THE GIRL DANCED for an audience of ghosts.

She twirled in a slow, graceful motion, sending ripples through the pristine white dress that draped her lithe form. Her outstretched arms glided through the humid air with a poise and balance Skyler had not seen in many years.

She’d yet to notice him. She was a mirage under the bright sun, and he’d tucked himself in the shadows at the edge of the secluded square. Her focus lay entirely on movement and footing. The cobblestones beneath her bare feet were cracked and uneven, like everything in Belém. Aside from Skyler’s motionless form, two skeletal corpses lay in one corner of the courtyard, locked in an infinite embrace, grass sprouting up through their hollow rib cages. She paid no attention to them, either. Ghosts, all.

The looted remains of boutique shops hid the square from the wide avenue beyond. Skyler had only stepped in to find a defensible, quiet place to prepare his midday meal. If that had been one minute ago or ten he couldn’t say. For now he stood, whisper quiet, beneath a stucco awning that gave some respite from alternating bouts of glaring sunshine and torrential rain. Pillars, once white and elegant, supported the partial ceiling. They were nearly encased in flowering vines now, just like the walls and surrounding rooftops. Even the statue that stood watch over the woman had succumbed to the embrace of the rainforest’s green, tentacular limbs. In a few decades the whole city would be engulfed, Skyler thought. Just like everywhere else.

Except Darwin, of course. A different scourge consumed that place.

He leaned against the nearest pillar, wholly absorbed in the fluid motions being performed. The girl was not beautiful, not in the classic sense. Not like Tania. She had short auburn hair that flared as dramatically as her dress, but it was dirty and matted. Her deeply tanned skin showed traces of scars on the forearms. When her skirt billowed on the more enthusiastic turns, Skyler could see welts and scrapes on her toned legs. Despite her exquisite movements and dancer’s figure, she was a survivor.

She was an immune.

Moving with great care, Skyler slipped a handheld radio from his belt. He kept it switched off when scouting, lest the frequent anxious calls from base camp give away his presence to the forbidding wilderness around him. On any other day he’d wait until his return to camp to give an account of his findings, but the sighting of an immune was worth breaking that pattern, he thought.

Skyler thumbed the power switch.

“—it’s urgent!” boomed a frenetic voice from the speaker. In one heartbeat the serenity of the courtyard vanished.

Skyler had had the volume on maximum during an earlier downpour and forgotten later to dial it back. The crass sound echoed off the walls, sending a trio of parakeets fluttering from the tangle under the awning. The girl stumbled and caught herself. Her eyes found Skyler and widened.

He started to raise his hands, a universal sign of noble intentions, but he’d scarcely leaned away from the pillar when the girl turned and ran.

“Camp Exodus to Skyler. Come in!” Karl’s voice blared from the radio.

Skyler’s hand flew to the device, knocking it loose. It fell to the ground in a plastic clatter. He knelt, snatched it up, and wheeled the volume to zero, all in one motion.

When he glanced back up, the courtyard was empty. “Wait!” he called out. She’d darted into an open archway on the opposite side of the square, and he ran toward it, not bothering to swing his machine gun off his shoulder.

He rounded the corner into the arched tunnel and almost had his head blown off.

The crack from the handgun blotted out all other sound. The bullet passed so close to his earlobe he felt a tickle. Skyler skidded to a stop and dove back the way he’d come, only just rounding the corner again when another shot rang out, sending chunks of cobblestone into the air mere centimeters from his feet.

“Cease fire!” he shouted, barely hearing himself over the high-pitched whine in his head.

And she did. The yard fell silent again.

“I mean no harm,” he called out. “Just … relax.”

No answer came. Cautiously, he poked his head around the corner, enough to clear one eye. The hall beyond was empty. “Dammit,” he muttered, and bounced to his feet. He ran ahead, his machine gun instinctively in hand now, pointed at the ground five meters in front of him. He slapped the flashlight attached to the barrel and bathed the hall in a pale blue beam, warming to white a second later as the bulb came to full strength.

Her bare feet left obvious tracks in the grimy tile floor. She’d taken a turn, then another, moved around a thick root that had wormed up through a crack, and jumped a spate of broken glass. Skyler repeated her route, wondering absently how long she’d lived here, and how many times previously she’d danced in the noonday sun without a care in the world.

Often, till I came along, he thought.

At the end of the hall he came to a bedroom. Her flowing white dress lay in a heap in the doorjamb, a portion of the skirt hooked by a nasty splinter that jutted from the wooden frame. She’d shrugged out of the garment and left it like the meaningless trinket it was.

The window on the far wall had been thrown open, and he could see the wide, churning waters of the Rio Pará beyond.

In another corner he saw a green bedroll, upright and neatly tied in a circular bundle. A lantern sat on the floor next to it.

His ears still rang from the woman’s failed attempt to shoot him in the face. She could be screaming taunts at him from outside and he doubted he’d hear it. Nevertheless he chanced a look out the window.

The young woman was sprinting across a parking lot toward a row of cottages that fronted the swift river. She was naked save for a pair of hiking boots on her feet. In one hand dangled her pistol, and she clutched a heavy olive-green backpack in the other. As he watched she shimmied the full bag over one shoulder, then the other, before disappearing from view.

Not once did she look back.

Skyler sighed. “I’m the least of your worries, dear.”

Remembering the radio, he switched it on and immediately heard Karl’s frantic voice.

“—in now. Urgent!”

“What? What?!” Skyler growled into the mic. Everything was urgent. The word had no meaning anymore. “You just scared off—”

“Skyler, thank God. Some colonists are missing, along with a tower.”

He closed his eyes and willed himself to relax. “They stole it?”

“No. God, no. They were working on the reservoir perimeter and reported hearing something in the rainforest. They’ve made no contact since.”

“What did they hear?”

“The leader said it sounded like a choir.”

“A choir. As in singing?”

“Those were his words.”

Skyler pinched his nose between his eyes to stem a coming headache. “Did they mention if they ate some wild mushrooms, or wandered too far from their aura tower, or anything like that?”

“I know how it sounds,” Karl said, “but this is a reliable group that has been building that perimeter barricade for two weeks.”

“Okay, okay,” Skyler said. “I’ll head over there. How long ago did they go silent?”

“Two hours.”

Skyler swore. “And you’re just telling me now?”

“You had your radio off!”

Skyler glanced at the device. “Fair enough. All right then, uh, send a team to meet me there. People who can shoot—”

Karl spoke over him. “Sorry, friend. Tania doesn’t want to risk another tower.”

“Oh, for f*ck’s sake.” His frustration with the frugal use of the aura towers fell on deaf ears, unless he spoke to Tania alone, a scenario that happened rarely in the last two months. She kept to orbit mostly, after an initial wondrous week of exploring the bizarre alien towers. The logistics of survival took precedence, and Skyler couldn’t begrudge that. Still, a weekly visit might be nice, for the colony’s morale as much as his.

“If they were moving,” Karl added, “and something happened to them, the tower could be adrift.”

Skyler grunted. If true, the tower might reach a river or pond. No one had yet tried to send a tower into deep water. They were as likely to explode in world-consuming hellfire as they were to simply float, sink, or stop. As such, Camp Exodus ratified a decree, put forth by Tania, that the towers should be kept away from any water deeper than ten centimeters. For his part, Skyler had chuckled at the arbitrary number and counted himself among the few “no” votes. Now was the time to experiment, he thought. In private Tania chastised him, if gently. “Your survival doesn’t depend on the aura, Skyler.” A fair point. He still voted no.

“Skyler?” Karl asked.

“Give me their last coordinates,” he said, “and I’ll see what I can find.”

The base camp leader rattled off the numbers.

Skyler spread out his map on the floor of the bedroom. From his breast pocket he pulled a pen that included a convenient ruler along the side. He traced a route through the city from his current position. “I’m all the way over on the west side of town, near the hospital. I’ll go northeast until I hit Water Road, and follow from there.”

“That’s a hell of a hike. Please, hurry.”

“Oh, I plan to,” he said.

He drew a mark on the group’s last known position. Then he traced a circle around the area he currently occupied and wrote IMMUNE in bold letters above it.

The dancer would have to wait.

Outside on the street, Skyler picked up his duffel bag and glanced east in the direction of the reservoir. He turned south instead.

The sack weighed heavily on his shoulder. He’d filled it that morning, in the dingy back room of a touristy gift shop, with eight hundred palm-sized packets of water purification tablets. Iodine and something else, a vitamin he suspected, but the Portuguese label offered no specifics. The partially collapsed store had little else to be scavenged. Shelves of snacks were long rotted, save for a few Preservall-laden candy bars, which he’d bagged. The toiletries he left behind, knowing the hotel found close to base camp had a stockroom full of such things.

He walked one block south and then another east until he reached Mercy Road, so cleverly named by the colonists because it led to the nearest medical facility to the Elevator base, a few kilometers west. The aura “road” twisted and turned down many of Belém’s original streets, but all that mattered to the colonists was the trail of Builder towers placed along the path, providing safe passage to those bringing supplies back to camp.

In less than a minute he heard the hum of a truck coming down the street. Skyler waved and the driver pulled to a stop. After a terse explanation, Skyler hoisted his bag onto the flatbed and shoved it under a stack of folded mattress frames bound for the camp. Then he smacked the passenger door twice and gave a friendly wave to the tense driver.

Skyler had to remind himself of the peril being undertaken by anyone working the aura road. Stray too far from a tower and you might never return. If you did, the chances were good it would be in a psychotic, primal rage.

Orange traffic cones had been placed in rough circles around the towers that linked the Elevator to the hospital, indicating their safe zones, but the markers didn’t always stay put. A stiff wet-season storm could wash them away if they were placed carelessly, a situation that happened with surprising regularity considering the stakes involved.

Word of strange sounds and a missing crew had undoubtedly spread, which could only add another dimension to the fear among the colonists.

As soon as the truck moved off, Skyler jogged south down an alley. He crossed the next street diagonally to a row of mansions near the waterfront. His aim was a large house tucked behind a three-meter-high wall. A week earlier he’d explored the place after hearing the faint hum of electricity coming from somewhere within. He’d found some portions of the villa had power, likely coming from a small thorium reactor buried far below, a luxury all the mansion owners along the avenue pooled their money for, no doubt.

Skyler jogged down the crumbling driveway, hopping over clumps of wild grass that knifed through the bricks. He hoisted open a garage door at the end of the path and found his discovery still sitting within, practically begging him to hop on.

The motorcycle would have been expensive a decade ago, and even now, despite five-odd years of neglect, it looked like it had never been touched. Sleek red paint covered the carbon-fiber portions, surrounded by either polished chrome or brushed aluminum arranged as much for aesthetics as functionality.

Unlike the other five bikes in the long garage, this one had knobby tires and ample ground clearance. The others were all low-slung, built for racing just like the row of sports cars that shared the space. Useless on the cluttered roads of Belém, so full of cracks, sinkholes, weeds, and worse.

Skyler ran a hand along the bulging pack at the center of the bike’s frame. “I’ll call you Takai,” he said with sincerity. The bike had an Italian pedigree, but he didn’t think it would mind.

Tucked within that central red shell were the important parts: a fully charged Zigg ultracap and a powerful electric motor.

He yanked the charging cable from the receptacle on the side of the bike and tossed it aside. Depleted when he found it, the gauge cluster showed a full cap now, and Skyler grinned from ear to ear. One small Zigg could run a bike like this for a thousand kilometers, easily.

A helmet rested on a nearby workbench, but Skyler ignored it. He needed his senses more than he needed the protection it offered. He did, however, grab the pair of sunglasses that lay next to it. Wiping away the dust, he studied the reddish lenses and then slipped the pair over his nose. Driver’s glasses, in good condition. He smiled again.

Outside, he flew down the driveway, taking the bumps and dips in stride, swelling with juvenile delight at the high-pitched whine of the motor-and-cap combination. Out on the main road, Skyler twisted the handle to full acceleration and nearly fell off as the motorcycle came to life, its front wheel lifting off the ground as it surged forward.

As he weaved his way through the streets of Belém, the speedometer kissing 100 kilometers per hour in some stretches, he thought of Samantha. She would kill to ride a bike like this. Over the years they’d brought a few back to Darwin, but the price offered always outweighed her desire to keep one.

The thought of her dampened his mood.

Flying past the vine-choked buildings of Belém, Skyler wondered if Samantha was having anywhere near as much fun, wherever she was.
Darwin, Australia

27.APR.2283

THE FIST CAUGHT Samantha squarely on the temple.

A solid blow, and she might have fallen had she not expected it. Fallen and lost.

Instead she let the guard’s punch assist her in a shift of position, her weight moving to her left leg. She pushed with that leg and brought her right arm around in a vicious uppercut to the guard’s abdomen. Air rushed from the man’s mouth in a gasp.

A few of the onlookers groaned in sympathetic pain.

Fueled by their reaction, Sam pressed the advantage. A left jab, again to the midsection. Then a right hook that caught the poor bastard on his jaw and produced a loud, sharp crack.

He spun a half turn, his eyes rolling back in his head, and toppled to the floor. Just like that, Sam’s first bout ended.

Shaking the sting from her knuckles, she walked over to the guard and leaned over him. “Can you stand?”

He coughed in response. Then the Nightcliff goon turned his head and spat blood onto the dusty concrete floor. “Damn well try,” he muttered.

Sam extended her hand and he took it. Conversations embroiled the room as bets changed hands. Fistfuls of stamped notes here, a half bottle of cider there, and all the bravado and excuses that went with such things.

“That was fun,” she said, rolling her head from side to side. “Who’s next?”

“Take a break,” someone replied, handing her a labeled bottle of vodka, quarter-full. “No one fights twice in a row. That’s a rule.”

She shrugged. “Advantage, me.”

Another bout started and the fifty-or-so gathered Nightcliff personnel returned their attentions to the fight, bets, and drinks. She pushed through the crowd, noting the icy stares of potential opponents as she passed. Each wore their thirst for revenge like a badge.

Her handler waited at the back of the room near the only door, billy club resting across his knees. His face betrayed a hint of admiration as Samantha handed him the bottle.

Sam had learned his last name, Vaughn, from the handwritten label on his helmet. She’d yet to learn his first. A field of even stubble grew on his face, framing a wide nose and narrow eyes. The brown hair atop his head he kept shaved as close as his young beard. “I’ll eat like a king this week thanks to you,” he said.

“Told you,” she replied, taking the spot on the wall next to him. “Should’ve brought me here sooner.”

“No kidding.” He took a polite sip from the bottle and offered it back.

“That’s yours. I need my wits.”

He grunted. “Well, I’m on duty, so I guess we’re both staying dry.” He handed the bottle to his right instead, and the spectator there took it without hesitation.

As much as she hated to admit it, she was warming up to the bloke. He’d become her target for seduction on the first night of her imprisonment. The look in his eyes the first time he’d brought her food marked him as possible prey. A way out if she played her cards right.

Seduction had never been her strong suit, though. She knew from past experience that being too overt usually killed her chances, and that most of the men who sought her company liked her for her toughness and robust curves, not for her feminine wiles. So she’d skipped the batting of eyes and licking of lips bullshit, and taken a more subtle strategy: tough talk, opportune lack of modesty, and what she hoped came across as a genuine interest in his miserable, mundane life.

A month on and all she’d managed to do was get Vaughn to admit her into the informal boxing club that met once a week in the mess. Still, she counted this as a big milestone in her escape. She was out of her cell, step one in any prison break.

Next on her list was finding Kelly. Vaughn occasionally answered her inquiries about the woman, with reluctance. Blackfield had ordered the two of them held separately, he’d told her. No contact whatsoever. Kelly was doing okay after a short hunger strike, kept in a similar cell to Sam’s but on the other side of the fortress. That’s all he claimed to know.

Remembering her gambit, Sam began to tug at the collar of her tank top. Men loved a wet shirt—she knew enough about seduction to know that—but the bout had ended quickly. In hindsight it might have been a good idea to drag it on just to get her white shirt nice and sweat-soaked. She settled for stretching the collar in and out to fan herself, giving Vaughn an eyeful with each pull should he bother to glance.

All you have to do is ask, you idiot, she thought, and we’ll be rolling between the sheets. A good time for both of us, though the last time you’ll ever see me. I’ll make it worth your while.

The crowd erupted as another match ended. Someone was dragged from the makeshift ring, feetfirst.

“My turn, jailbird,” came a rough voice nearby.

Sam stood to face her next opponent. The swarthy giant of a man stood a few centimeters taller than her and had a bushy beard that came down to his chest. Faded tattoos laced his neck and arms. “I’m not sure if that’s drink in your beard,” she said, “or drool.”

He glanced down at her chest, then back. “Bit of both. C’mon, prisoner. If your owner don’t mind …”

Vaughn gave the slightest of nods, and folded his arms. Sam knew where his wager would fall.

They walked to the center of the crowd, where an open space formed the boxing ring. Samantha flexed her hands and then did a few quick jumps off her toes. The resulting bounce of her breasts caught the attention of half the room, though if Vaughn saw from his place at the back, she had no idea.

Her opponent noticed, though. He licked his lips. “Nice big targets,” he said with a drunken grin.

“Sorry, mate,” Samantha said. “If I can’t hit below the belt, you have to stay away from the twins.”

Laughs went up from the audience.

The big man tilted his head to one side, looking genuinely wounded. “Christ, woman. Wasn’t gonna punch them.…”

Vaughn guided her by the arm through Nightcliff’s dreary yard.

He hadn’t bothered to cuff her, a good sign, in her view. Still, he kept his black baton in hand. He would put up a hell of a fight if she picked one, and besides, there was still the issue of Kelly. Patience.

“I’ll find you something to put on that eye,” he said after a time.

“Don’t bother. It’s not that bad.”

“It’s purple.”

Samantha sighed and gave a terse nod. Her skull pounded. She had to keep her right eye closed for fear it might bulge right out of her head.

He led her between buildings and through narrow, fenced-in spaces. Clouds kept an otherwise bright moon from providing much illumination, but it was enough that Vaughn didn’t bother with his flashlight. Their wet footfalls almost drowned out the loading work going on at the climber port.

She took a chance and feigned a stumble. Righting herself, she groaned and stepped wide.

“You okay?” he asked.

“A little dizzy. It’s fading.” After a second she tried to rest her head on his shoulder, but her height made the position awkward, so she simply leaned on him.

Vaughn caught the hint and slipped an arm around her waist.

Perfect, she thought. A nice romantic stroll.

“So,” she said, “what’s the news outside?”

Vaughn shrugged. “I don’t pay it much attention.”

“You must have heard something.”

He fell quiet for a dozen steps. She imagined he must have orders not to share any news with her. The fact that he now wrestled with that she took as a very good sign indeed.

“I heard,” Samantha said, “they tricked Russell into going to Africa, then dropped a bomb on his fleet.”

“Wasn’t a bomb,” Vaughn said. “They pushed an old satellite out of orbit, or something.”

“And missed? Well, obviously.” Russell had paid two visits to Samantha, peppering her with flirtatious small talk and vague threats. Mercifully he’d stopped coming a few weeks ago, finally convinced she did not know the whereabouts of the “traitors.”

“Still took out a bunch of the scavenger planes Russell brought along.” Vaughn let that settle. He knew of her past, knew she might have had friends out there. “They also tried to drop a satellite on Nightcliff, but missed. The thing fell outside the aura over in Old Downtown, took a few landmarks with it.”

Two misses? Skyler’s new friends either had horrible aim or Vaughn had things wrong. Sam couldn’t see what they’d gain by nuking Nightcliff anyway. Even if the alien cord of the Elevator survived, the infrastructure would be annihilated beyond hope of repair. No, it must have been a warning shot. Blackfield might not comprehend it, but she saw the angles.

“Water plants are on strike,” the guard went on, opening up. “Platz people over there, you know. They’re the only ones who can work all that machinery.”

“A strike, eh? What do they want?”

He hesitated. “Doesn’t matter. Blackfield is sending in a few squads to put an end to it.”

“That’s our Russell. Way of the gun.”

“He’s got no other choice.”

“Give them what they want?”

Vaughn tightened his lips. “No,” he said. “No, that he can’t do.”

“They must be asking a lot,” she said.

“I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

There it was. A line, and Vaughn was tightroping it. Another week, she thought, and he’d be telling her all about it in the afterglow of a good romp.

“What else, then? How are the Orbitals handling their new generalissimo?”

He paused and let go of her. For a split second she thought she’d gone too far, but he made a twirling motion with his index finger. Sam turned her back to him and clasped her hands behind her back. She held them low, against her buttocks, so that he couldn’t avoid incidental contact in order to replace the handcuffs. Some small part of her didn’t mind the brush of fingers there.

For the first time since she’d attempted this tactic, he didn’t jerk her hands to the small of her back. In fact, he took longer than usual getting the cuffs on.

Shackled again, he led her back into the brig. A pair of guards on patrol wandered by them and grunted their hellos to Vaughn. The cuffs were a show for them, she realized. Vaughn didn’t want them to know he’d broken protocol. She knew, though, which meant they shared a secret now. Not long now, she thought, and you’ll be snared in the web.

The low jailhouse building butted against Nightcliff’s north wall. She heard waves crashing on the rocks beyond, as reliable as a beating heart. Unfortunately that calming sound didn’t reach her windowless cell. Nothing reached there except cold meals and her mirthless guards. Vaughn at night, an ass named Saul during the day. She called him Paul, just to piss him off, which was easy enough to do.

Vaughn guided her back into her makeshift cell in the makeshift prison. The bars had been welded together from rebar and old pipes. It worked well enough. The bed, a flimsy foam mattress that left her feet hanging, lay upright against the back wall. Someone had swept the place while they were gone. Probably searched for contraband, too, not that she had any.

“See you tomorrow,” Vaughn said after the cuffs came off. He closed and locked the gate behind him.

“You were telling me the news,” she said to his back.

“Tomorrow,” he repeated.

Samantha folded her arms and leaned against the wall by the door. “Vaughn …”

He paused.

“C’mon, man,” she said. “You don’t know what it’s like, trapped in here, no way to know—”

“We’re both trapped in here, Sam.”

The words tripped her. His voice held more than a hint of wrath. Not for her, she thought. “So talk to me, then. What’s the harm?”

“I have orders.”

She snorted a laugh. “Hell … Orders. I’m not going to squawk.”

The guard stood in the outer doorway, half-in, half-out. Without looking back, he said, “Food’s scarce. The traitors took the farms, I heard, and Nightcliff’s reserves are either used or spoiled. So Russell needs the roofers to share theirs, but no one is playing along and he doesn’t have enough manpower to force the issue.”

Sam swallowed and kept quiet. “The traitors took the farms.” The words almost brought tears to her eyes. If Skyler were sitting here, she’d crush him with a hug. Stealing the farm platforms, what a damn brilliant move.

The guard sighed. “Water plants are on strike. The bloody scavengers are on strike.”

“Hey! I was a scavenger, you know.”

“Everyone wants a part of Russell’s pie,” he said, ignoring her, “before they’ll throw in with him. That’s what I hear, anyway.…”

“And Russell’s not the sharing sort.”

Vaughn laughed at that. “No, no he is not. Besides, all he cares about anymore is finding the runaways. He hardly ever comes down here now. See you tomorrow, Sam.”

“Night.”

Half an hour later a kid came in and handed her breakfast through the bars. Inside the parcel she found an ice pack, still frozen.

Samantha lay down on the thin mattress, ignoring her aching arms and knuckles, and placed the frozen block against her swollen eye.

“Another week and I’ll come for you, Kelly,” she whispered to the ceiling. “One more bloody week.”

She drifted off to sleep as the sun rose over Darwin.

Not that she could see it.
Belém, Brazil