The Dead Zone Sovereign

Chapter 27: The Gray Wake

The sea was really different from the rivers. It was like a dark wavy thing that went up and down. The Long Record was being lifted up and down by these waves. Valen was holding on tight to the wooden tiller. His hands were white and frozen in place. The wind was blowing hard from the ice up north. It was making the titanium plating on the front of the boat all icy and rough.

Noa was standing near the mast holding a small brass compass. She was looking at the compass. Then at the gray horizon. The mist was getting thicker so they could not see far. The sun was like a pale blob in the sky and it was not giving off any warmth.

The current is taking us east than we thought Noa said. The magnetic thing is changing by three degrees every thirty minutes. This is not normal it seems like there is a chunk of iron under the water ahead of us.

The mans records said that Node Eleven was built on top of a big iron deposit Valen replied. They did not use concrete to anchor the foundations they just poured the stuff into the iron in the seabed. If the node lost power the iron would affect the water around it.

Valen was trying to steer the boat. It was hard. The sea was pushing against the boat. He had to use all his strength. In the simulation it would have been easy numbers on a screen.. Here every wave was a fight.

As they got closer to the island they saw that it was not like the hills they knew. It was like a black rocky thing with steel sticking out of it. The sea was crashing against the rock making a lot of noise and spray.

Noa looked through her telescope. Saw that the wall was made of titanium plates all welded together. There were no ladders or doors it was all closed up. It looked like a container that had been left in the sea.

Look there Valen said, pointing to a square thing sticking out of the wall. That is a way into the node it will take us to the decks.

They brought the boat into the water near the wall and Noa threw a hook up to the opening. The hook caught and Valen pulled the rope tight. They had to climb up the rope to get into the node.

Noa went first. Then Valen followed. The climb was hard. Valens hands were burning from the icy rope. He was not used to this he was tired and sore.

Inside the node it was dark and cold. The air smelled bad like grease and salt water. Noa had a lamp. She shone it down a long corridor. The corridor was lined with thousands of compartments like storage cells.

But the cells were all empty the doors were. There was nothing inside. It was like the people who lived here just disappeared.

As they walked down the corridor the walls changed they became steel panels with patterns etched into them. Valen recognized the patterns they were like the poems Noa had written down. But here they were different they were, about being alone not connected.

They didn't want to be connected Noa whispered. They locked themselves in they chose to be alone.

Then why did the old man have their address Valen asked.

Because even if something is alone it is still something a voice said from the darkness.

Valen got ready to fight. Noa shone her lamp down the corridor. They saw a steel door that had been forced open.

Valen stood on the deck of the Long Record the wind whipping his face as he gazed out at the snow-covered landscape. The world was an frozen expanse and he felt small and insignificant in the face of it.. He was not alone. Noa stood beside him her eyes fixed on the horizon as they journeyed towards the peninsula.

The peninsula was a strip of land jutting out into the sea like a skeletal finger. The ground-rods were located at the tip surrounded by concrete bunkers that seemed to grow out of the rock itself. Valen could feel the weight of the task ahead of them the importance of cutting the cables and freeing the delta from the creators control.

Kaels words echoed in his mind, a warning and a reminder of the dangers they faced. The Iron Owls were there watching and waiting their aerial units monitoring the ridges for any sign of movement. Valen knew that they had to be careful that one misstep could mean disaster.

As they approached the peninsula Valen could see the cables, thick and heavy stretching from the bunkers to the mountain. He knew that they had to cut the cables at the base to prevent the charge from flowing into the mountain and destroying the transmission towers. It was a task, one that required precision and care.

Noa touched his arm her eyes locked on the bunkers. We're getting close she said, her voice above a whisper. Valen nodded, his heart pounding in his chest. He could feel the tension building, the sense of anticipation that came with knowing that they were about to take a step.

The Long Record glided smoothly through the water its iron hull riding low under the weight of Kaels tools and sulfur crates. Valen could feel the ships power, its strength and resilience. He knew that they could rely on it to get them through the tough times ahead.

As they reached the base of the peninsula Valen could see the cables unyielding stretching up from the ground. He took a breath his mind focused on the task ahead. It was time to cut the cables to free the delta and take control of their destiny.

Valen turned to Noa his eyes locked on hers. Lets do this he said, his voice firm and resolute. Noa nodded, a smile playing on her lips. Together they set to work their hands moving in tandem as they prepared to cut the cables and change the course of their lives forever.

The journey was far from over. Valen felt a sense of hope a sense of possibility that he had not felt in a long time. They were taking control making their way, in a world that seemed determined to hold them back.. As they worked the snow falling gently around them Valen knew that they would face whatever came next together and unafraid.

The road was long the future uncertain,. Valen was ready. He took a step forward into the unknown. The world seemed to stretch out before him like an endless possibilities. The end was the beginning and Valen was eager to see what lay ahead.

The Long Record was going through the channel and it was a continuous battle against the snow. The snow was getting deeper and deeper. Within one hour of leaving Node Eleven, the deck of the Long Record was covered in a four inch blanket of snow that made it hard to see the timber hatches and made every step a hazard. Noa was working with a wooden shovel clearing the forward deck to make sure the weight of the snow did not change the vessels balance while Valen was at the tiller his eyes hurting from the salt and wind that was blowing directly into their faces.

The compass needle was not pointing steadily towards the northeast. It was moving in erratic arcs because of the rising electrical tension in the air. The air had a metallic taste that made Valens skin feel weird. A feeling that reminded him of the moments before a server reset when the diagnostic scripts were checking the system memory.

The charge is building up faster than Kael predicted Noa said, dropping her shovel and walking back to the cockpit. The copper wires along our rail are humming, Valen. If you touch the metal fittings without leather wrapping the static discharges into your knuckles.

We are close to the peninsula Valen said, looking through the white wall of the storm. The swells had grown shorter and more aggressive their tops breaking into freezing spray that rattled against the iron bow like gravel. The black stone of the cliffs was no longer visible. There was the vast uniform whiteness of the blizzard and the deep low roar of the sea breaking against the volcanic shelf ahead.

Sudden sharp shadow broke through the mist directly above them. It was not a cloud. It was not a projection of the mountain. It was an Iron Owl. The unit was six feet across its wings made of overlapping plates of rusted zinc that rattled with a frantic mechanical vibration as it hovered in the gale. It did not have eyes. Its central chassis was dominated by a rotating glass cylinder that glowed with a faint violet light, a thermal sensor designed to detect the warmth of biological life against the absolute zero of the winter coast.

Get the sulfur Valen shouted, throwing the tiller hard to the left to dodge a cake of shore ice that had emerged from the whiteout. Noa dove for the storage crate her fingers tearing at the hemp ties that secured the canvas cover. She pulled out one of Kaels earthenware jars her knuckles scraping against the wood as she struck the primitive flint igniter against the iron rim. A thick choking cloud of smoke erupted from the jar, driven by the wind across the deck and enveloping the vessel in a dense sulfurous curtain that smelled of burning stone.

The Iron Owl shrieked, a pitched electronic squeal that carried no language only the raw frequency of a sensor error. The violet cylinder in its chest spun rapidly its tracking routine confused by the intense heat signature of the burning sulfur and the loss of optical contrast. It tilted sideways its zinc wings catching the force of the gale before it disappeared back into the chaos of the storm like a discarded piece of tin.

It's still there Noa said, her face covered by her wool mantle as she struggled to breathe in the yellow smoke. The smoke screen will only hold them off long as the jars burn. We have three Valen.

That's enough to reach the cable towers Valen said, adjusting the rudder to bring the bow back into alignment with the spinning needle. The Long Record hit the shore five minutes later. The impact was a brutal scraping lurch that drove the iron bow into a narrow gravel beach at the base of the peninsula cliffs. The vessel shuddered, her mast creaking under the deceleration but the titanium sheathing held, the hull remaining stable against the dark stones.

They scrambled over the rail carrying the heavy iron shears and the remaining sulfur jars. The ground was composed of unpolished basalt that had been split by the frost into sharp unstable ridges that shifted under their boots. The snow was drifting heavily in the hollows forming waist- banks that forced them to move with an agonizing exhausting slowness.

Above them the overhead cables were visible through the driving snow. Three copper lines that stretched from the high peak of the mountain down to the concrete bunkers at the tip of the peninsula. The lines were vibrating with a terrifying hum that sounded like a choir of dead machines their surfaces glowing with faint blue threads of static that leaped between the strands like tiny lightning bolts.

The first cable tower was fifty yards up the slope a structure of bolted iron channels that had been anchored to the bedrock with heavy lead anchors. The base of the tower was surrounded by a fence of rusted wire its posts stamped with the same serial numbers Valen had seen in the creation lab.

This is the isolation point Valen said, dropping the heavy iron shears into the snow beside the fence. He pulled his leather gloves tight wrapping his hands in strips of greased canvas he had taken from the Long Records storage bins to ensure no static could bridge the gap between the metal handles and his skin.

The air around the tower was warm the electrical resistance of the copper cables converting the static charge into a dry artificial heat that melted the snow as soon as it touched the iron framework. The smell of scorched insulation was thick mixed with the tang of the sulfur smoke that still clung to their clothes.

Noa took her position near the base of the tower her telescope trained on the high ridge where the mountain peak was hidden. The violet lights are returning she warned, her voice tight. The first Owl must have reestablished its tracking link with the core. I see four vectors descending from the upper terrace. They are coming down the line of the cables.

Give me the shears Valen said. He lifted the tool its iron handles five feet long its cutting jaws thick and curved like the beak of a predatory bird. He hooked the jaw over the first copper cable his feet bracing against the wet basalt as he prepared to apply his entire physical weight to the lever.

The cable was four inches thick composed of hundreds of strands of pure copper that had been twisted together around a central steel core. It was humming with voltage to format a dozen capital servers the blue static dancing across the iron jaws of the shears and sending a sharp painful prickle running through Valens arms despite the canvas insulation.

Noa raised her lamp her fingers striking the igniter on the sulfur jar to create a fresh wall of yellow smoke around the tower base. The first Iron Owl emerged from the blizzard above its zinc wings folded as it dropped toward them like a falling stone its violet sensor slit locked onto the heat of the burning wood.

Cut it Valen she screamed, her blade drawing a line of sparks across the wire fence to distract the units local targeting loop. Valen threw his weight onto the handles of the shears. The metal groaned. The iron jaws bit into the copper strands the physical resistance immense, requiring every ounce of strength his body could generate.

He didn't stop. He closed his eyes remembered the sound of the rain in the valley the feel of the soil under his boots and the sight of the ocean. He was a man with an iron tool. He was finishing the sentence. The shears snapped closed. The cable split with a blinding flash of white light that turned the blizzard into a brilliant colorless void for a fraction of a second.

The severed ends of the wire whipped through the air like dying snakes throwing off a shower of molten copper drops that hissed as they hit the snow. The sudden violent disruption of the circuit sent a feedback wave running back up the line toward the mountain the overhead insulators exploding in a long sequential cascade of pops that sounded like artillery firing along the ridge.

The Iron Owl above them shuddered, its processing cylinder completely fried by the electromagnetic pulse of the discharge. It fell out of the smoke cloud its zinc wings crumpling against the basalt stones its light extinguishing for eternity.

Two more left Valen gasped, his breath coming in painful rattles as he dragged the shears toward the second cable. His hands were shaking from the shock of the blast but his focus remained absolute his eyes locked onto the glowing blue strands.

They cut the line three minutes later the explosion less intense but still powerful enough to crack the concrete foundation of the tower. The final cable was the thickest, its surface completely black with scorched resin its hum loud that Valen could feel his teeth vibrating inside his jaw.

The remaining three Iron Owls were hovering outside the sulfur smoke their targeting scripts defaulting to a random area-denial routine as they realized their primary vectors had been destroyed. They began to drop metallic spheres into the smoke. Incendiary sub-munitions that exploded into long lines of white fire as soon as they touched the basalt.

We are running out of ground Noa said, her clothes marked with burn holes where the white phosphorus had grazed her mantle. She was standing at the edge of the ridge her broken blade hilt held ready as a tool, against any unit that attempted to breach the smoke screen.

Hold them for ten seconds Valen said, his arms bunching as he locked the shears onto the line.

Valen used the iron mace as a lever jamming the pipe handle between the shears arms and throwing his body against the assembly. The metal deformed under the pressure the iron jaws bending slightly as they forced their way through the steel core of the cable. The iron mace and the shears worked together to break the cable.

The final strand gave way.

The feedback wave was huge. The entire peninsula seemed to lurch as the thousands of volts of accumulated static were deflected back into the mountains terrace. Valen saw the distant peak erupt into a display of blue and purple arcs that danced across the floating platforms like a web of dying stars. The transmission towers crumpled, their iron lattices melting under the thermal load before the entire upper plateau went dark. Completely absolutely and permanently unlinked from the secondary grid. The iron lattices were no match for the load.

The three remaining Iron Owls dropped out of the sky simultaneously their power lines severed from the top down their chassis turning into inert lumps of metal before they even hit the ground. The Iron Owls were gone.

The blizzard returned to its silence the mechanical hum gone, the air tasting once again of nothing but cold salt and wild snow. The snow was cold. The air was wild.

Valen lay in the snow beside the ruined tower his hands uncurling from the handles of the shears. The canvas wrapping was scorched black. His coat was ruined, but Valen was stable. His thoughts clear, quiet and his own. Valen thought about what he had done.

Noa walked over to Valen her hand coming down to lift his shoulder from the basalt. The light from the mountain was gone; the peak was a dark shadow against the white sky, a monument to an empire that had finally run out of memory. The mountain was dark and still.

We cut the traces Noa said softly her breath freezing on Valens cheek.

We cut the world loose Valen said, standing up with Noas assistance. Valen and Noa stood together.

They walked back down the slope toward the beach where the Long Record was waiting her iron bow still secure among the gravel stones. The Long Record was waiting for them.

The settlement at the delta was safe the freeze would continue its course and the frontier was still wide open ahead of them. The delta was safe. The frontier was open.

They boarded the vessel cast off the hemp lines and turned the iron bow back toward the water, where the horizon was waiting to be written. The iron bow was strong. The horizon was waiting.

The journey continued.

Valen took a step then another and the world was finally truly and completely his. Valen was ready for the world.

The return voyage to Node Eleven was completed under a sky that had begun to clear for the time in three cycles. The heavy northern blizzard had broken, leaving behind a pale expanse of blue that felt deep, cold and entirely unsimulated. The sky was blue. The air was cold.

The Long Record moved through the remaining shore ice with a unhurried momentum her iron-sheathed sides showing no structural damage from the explosions or the ice impacts. The Long Record was strong and steady.

Kael was waiting for them at the manifold portal his welding mask pushed back to reveal a face that was lined with grease and a quiet unexpected satisfaction. Kael was waiting for Valen and Noa.

You did a job, Valen Kael said through his copper grille as they hauled the storage crates back into the concrete corridor. The magnetic lines along the reef have dropped to zero variance. The master core above is completely isolated now. They can’t even broadcast an error message to the sectors. They are a pile of cold silicon sitting on a rock. The master core was. The magnetic lines were still.

They are where they belong Valen said, stepping into the warmth of the zinc library. The iron stove was still burning, its heat a weight against his frozen shoulders. The zinc library was warm and welcoming.

The two other technicians were already working with a hand-drill to modify the copper shears into primitive agricultural tools their hands moving with the easy unhurried rhythm of people who had all the time in the world. The technicians were working together.

What is your next vector? Kael asked, pouring a round of the bitter tea into the tin cups. You can’t stay in this reef forever Valen. We have coal for the winter but our gardens are small and we don't have the timber to build a second hull. Kael asked about their plans.

We are going back to the delta to finish the maps Noa said, her fingers tracing the lines of light on the obsidian sphere sketch she had made. The other settlements along the coast are still there. Now that the upper plateau is dark their local defense scripts will begin to decay. Within a month their gates will be as soft as ours were when we found the lever. Noa talked about the maps and the settlements.

We will find them Valen said, his hand closing around his tin cup.. We will bring them to the water. Valen was determined to find the settlements.

They spent one night in the library listening to the dry rustle of the perforated zinc strips as the wind whistled through the exhaust manifold. It was a sound. The sound of an archive that had nothing left to hide a collection of stories that had finally been released from the ledger. The zinc library was quiet and peaceful.

The morning the Long Record cleared the reef for the last time her canvas sail catching the southern breeze as she began the long run back to the delta. The Long Record was sailing again.

The road was long the future was bright. Valen was ready.

Valen took a step then another and the world was finally truly and completely his. Valen was ready, for the world.