The Dead Zone Sovereign

Chapter 29: The Tundra Trace

The fire in the stove had almost gone out three hours before it started to get light outside. This left the inside of the box they were in feeling really cold. Valen woke up because his left shoulder hurt from the cold not because of an alarm or a warning on his screen. He just lay there for a bit listening to Noa breathing and the wind making a dry rattling sound against the concrete above them.

The world outside their shelter was very different from the one they used to know. In the past when it was time to wake up the lights would just turn on. It would be morning. Now it got light more slowly. Valen sat up. His joints made a loud cracking sound. He touched the stove. It was cold. There was a pattern of crystals on it from the moisture in their breath.

Noa woke up too. She got out her book and a small compass. The compass needle was not spinning around like it was before. It was pointing towards a ridge about eight miles away. The ground was even colder than before Noa said. The water inside the concrete had frozen, which made the box they were in a bit stronger.. They needed to get moving before it got too light. If they got caught in the wind the sleds would freeze to the ice.

The three hunters with them were already up getting ready to go. They did not talk much used hand signals to communicate. They packed up the stove. Got the sleds ready. When they went outside the world felt really big and empty. There were no trees, a lot of white ice and a dark shape in the distance that was Node Fourteen.

Valen got into position to pull the sled. The runners made a scraping sound at first but then they moved smoothly over the ice. Noa walked behind him writing in her book and counting the markers they passed. It was work and Valen was getting tired. In the past moving things around was easy. Now they had to do it all by themselves.

After a while the wind started to pick up. It was cold. Brought sand that hurt their skin. They could not see far so they had to rely on the compass to guide them. One of the hunters Tor said that one of the sleds was not moving properly. The iron plate on the bottom was bent which could break the wood if they did not fix it.

Valen. Went to look. Tor had already turned the sled over. They could see the problem. They did not have a fire to fix it. Valen had an idea. He used some sulfur and coal dust to make the metal hot. Then Tor hit it with a hammer to straighten it out. It. They could continue.

As they got closer to Node Fourteen Valen could see that it was a circular building made of dark iron plates. It was built into the side of a cliff. The walls were very thick. The gate was a round door with steel leaves that could open and close. It was all covered in a layer of rust. There were no lights or sounds coming from inside a low ticking noise.

Noa looked through her telescope. Said that she could see some machines outside the node. They were not hidden behind the walls. Out, in the open. Valen. He could see them too standing along the lower part of the node.

Valen looked where Noa was pointing and felt a chill run down his spine. On the side of the fortress there were rows and rows of Node Fourteens vanguard units. They stood frozen and still covered in a layer of white frost like an army of statues. There were over four hundred of these machines each one six feet and made of heavy gray iron.

These machines were different from the ones they had fought before. They did not. Respond, their optical slots dark and empty. Valen walked along the edge of one of the units running his hand over the metal. He thought about what they could use these machines for. They could take the iron from these machines. Use it to build new ships.

They are harmless Tor said, as he walked up to one of the machines and hit it with his ice pick. The metal rang out. The machine did not stir. Valen corrected him saying that these machines were a resource. They could use the iron and copper from the machines to build things.

Noa asked, where are the people? She looked around at the machines and then at the small maintenance hatch at the base of the main gate. Valen said they should find the input terminal. He unhooked his harness. Let it drop into the snow.

They walked over to the maintenance hatch. Noa knelt down to open it. She used an iron wedge to pry the hatch open and it creaked as it swung open. Inside they saw a pipe that sloped downward into the darkness. The air that came out of the pipe was warm. It smelled bad like mildew and unwashed skin.

Valen called out into the pipe saying that he was Valen from the node. He told them that they had followed the trace through the magnetite vein and that the mountain was dark and the gates were open. The ticking sound. There was silence.

After a minutes a faint light appeared in the distance and a woman climbed out of the pipe. She was pale and thin with hair and a coat made from canvas. She held an oil lamp and her voice was thin and high.

You are Subject 402 she said. The records said you had been formatted. Valen said that the archive had been redefined and he was no longer a template. He introduced Noa, the record-keeper of the delta.

The woman, Elena climbed out of the pipe. Valen gave her room to stand up. She looked around at the machines and the sleds and she told them that she was the log-keeper for the fourteen sector. She said that there were seventy-two people living in the drainage vaults and they had been surviving on seed reserves.

Noa said that they had brought grain from the delta and they had tools to open the gates. Elenas eyes widened as she saw the grain. She invited them to come down into the vaults.

As they descended into Node Fourteen Valen saw that it was a kind of place from the mountain. The walls were wet. The air was thick with the smell of mildew. They walked through pipes and maintenance galleries and eventually they came to a large room where the survivors were gathered.

There were seventy-two people, pale but with bright eyes. They were huddled around fires and they did not seem to be afraid of Valen and Noa. Elena introduced them as the survivors of the purge. She explained that they had come down into the drainage lines to escape the formatting routines.

Valen said that the permissions were gone and the server was deadlocked. He told them that they could clear the iris and open the gates without needing a code. One of the men, Cor spoke up saying that if they opened the iris during the freeze the wind would clear the vaults of their heat and the water, inside the pistons would freeze solid.

Valen and the people did not leave the gate open. Noa explained this spreading her slate maps on the iron floor between the fires. They used the iron plates from the machines outside to build a secondary wind-break across the entrance ramp. They could create a double-lock system. One gate opens while the shield remains closed. This was the way they protected their foundry channel from the sea mist.

Cor looked at the slate his fingers tracing the chalk lines that showed the wind-break structure. The design was simple and strong. It was an engineering solution that used weight, gravity and the natural resistance of the metal. It did not use an automated balance loop.

It will work Cor said, nodding slowly as he looked up at the men who sat behind him.. They would need the heavy sledges from their sleds. Their tools were light. Meant for adjusting valves not for breaking casting pins.

Valen said they had the tools. Lets start the work.

The work to open Node Fourteen began during the hours of the night. The people climbed out of the maintenance hatch in groups of ten their coats wrapped tight against the sand that was still drifting across the field. The people moved with an energy born of exhaustion. The machines stood in their ranks like monuments to efficiency that had no purpose left.

Valen led the team at the gate. The gate was made of twelve overlapping steel leaves that had been driven together by a hydraulic ring. The green oxidation had formed a crust across the seams turning the assembly into a single block of metal.

Tor placed the titanium wedge into the central junction where the twelve leaves met. Gar raised the heavy hand sledge his boots finding traction on the gravel as he brought the iron mallet down with a blow. The sound was loud. A note of defiance that broke through the wind and carried across the plain.

Again Valen said, his hands steadying the wedge.

Gar swung a time then a third his breath rising in thick clouds that were torn away by the wind. On the strike a deep groan vibrated through the gate. The sound of the internal hydraulic seals fracturing. A stream of fluid erupted from the center seam.

The leaves are moving Noa said, her lamp held close to the guide rail. The weights inside the wall are pulling them back. The lock is broken, Valen.

The circular gate began to rotate its leaves clearing the rim of the portal one by one. The wind rushed into the opening with a howl carrying a cloud of frost into the corridor. The team was already moving, hauling the iron plates to form the wind-break.

By the time the first light of the morning broke over the peaks the double-lock shield was complete. The fortress was no longer a sealed vault. It was a place where people lived its gates controlled by the people who lived within its walls.

Valen stood on the entrance ramp his mace resting against his hip. The people did not look at the sky with fear. They looked at the machines with the gaze of people who had just discovered a mountain of iron. They were already moving between the rows with their wrenches and hacksaws their movements systematic and coordinated.

The network is growing Noa said, walking up to stand beside Valen. The signal from Node Eleven is stable. Node Fourteen is unlinked. They had three nodes connected through the stone.

It is a beginning Valen said, his eyes tracing the line of the track lanes.. There were fifteen sectors left on this shelf. Fifteen directories that hadn't answered yet.

Then they would stay on the trail Noa said, her hand touching Valens fingers.

The road ahead remained wide and cold. As Valen took his next step into the morning light he knew that they were in control now. They were the ones who decided what happened next.

The journey continued.

Valen took a step then another and the world was finally his.

The integration of Node Fourteens people into the network occupied the four days. The crisis of food was resolved by the distribution of barley from the delta. The kitchen teams used the stove to prepare cauldrons of porridge that restored the peoples energy.

Cor supervised the modification of the pump systems. Valen worked with the salvage crews on the field his body adjusting to the labor of shearing titanium plates from the machines. Each machine required three cuts to release the chest armor. The thickest metal available.

Noa established a monitoring station inside the communication office. She had cleared the glass from the consoles replacing the dead screens with her own hand-drawn charts. The copper wire was grounded directly into the pylon creating a secondary receiver.

The stone is crowded with echoes today Noa said, not looking up as Valen entered the room. It isn't their signal Valen.. It isn't the ticking from the core. There is a vibration coming from the northwest. From Sector Seven.

The agricultural node Valen said, setting the basket down. The node was running a loop that produced nothing but mold. What is the frequency?

It isn't a sequence Noa said, her face pale. It feels like a machine that is tearing itself apart. The pulses are fast irregular. Carry a heavy weight. If those turbines don't ground out within forty-eight hours the core housing will collapse.

They are stuck in a production script Valen said, his ear finding the vibration. The sensation was distinct. A purr that ran through the metal like the heartbeat of a panicked beast. The master core is dark so Sector Seven doesn't have the permission to close the intake gates.

We have to clear the line before they move toward the reefs Noa said, her fingers packing her ledger. If Sector Seven collapses the chemical runoff will drain into their river channel. It will turn the water into a sludge that will kill the fish and ruin the soil.

Valen said they would take the sled and Cors heavy wrenches. If those turbines are running hot they won't be splitting iron plates. They will be dropping the counterweights, into the intake slots to choke the flow manually.

The departure from Node Fourteen was done in the simple way that they had arrived. Elena said she would stay and watch the monitoring station while Noa was away. Elena was good at keeping track of things so she could watch the signals. Write down any changes on the slate tablets. The seventy people who were still alive had everything they needed and their wind-break was keeping the cold out. The teams that worked with fire were making tools from the scraps to use during the coming winter.

Valen, Noa and Tor left Node Fourteen. Went northwest at noon. They had a sled with tools and jars of sulfur smoke to keep them safe from any bad flying things that might still be around. The ground changed as they went past the basalt ridge. The hard shiny marble of the land gave way to a big low area where the ice was gray, thin and not safe.

This was the Great Sump, where the people who made things used to get rid of chemicals. The air was different here. It did not smell like the clean ocean wind. It smelled sweet and like something was rotting. It made Valens skin itch under his wool coat. The ice was not flat. There were wide channels of black water that did not freeze even though it was very cold. The water had a shiny layer on top that looked like oil in the pale sun.

Noa said to keep the sleds on the concrete paths. The ice between the channels was not strong she said. If the sled broke through the ice the bad chemicals under the ice would hurt the sled. So they had to be very careful. Valen guided the sled along the concrete paths but his boots were slipping on the green slime that had frozen on the concrete.

The wind was not strong. It was cold and wet and it made their breath look like white mist. They heard a noise before they saw the walls of Sector Seven. It was a rumbling sound that made the concrete paths shake. It was the sound of the machines that made things and they were working very hard.

Through the yellow fog they saw the node. It was a ugly place with concrete towers and open tanks. The buildings were covered in a gray mold that was moving slowly in the air. The mold had grown out of the tanks. Was covering the walls and the air pipes.

The main building was in the middle of the complex. It was almost buried under a big pile of gray sludge. The machines were still. They were making a lot of white blocks that were piling up in the courtyard. The smell was very bad. It made Tor feel sick.

The gates were. The mold had grown into the tracks. The door was. The sludge was coming out into the road. Valen said they did not need the door they needed to get to the room with the machines. The vibration was coming from under the towers.

They went inside. Their boots sank into a warm sticky layer of starch. The lights were not working,. The walls were glowing with a faint green light from the mold. It was a light and it made the concrete look like living tissue.

The room with the machines was a big underground room with three huge iron cylinders. The machines were working fast and they were making a lot of noise. The floor was. Noa had to hold onto Valens belt to stay standing.

The governor lines had been. The machines were working too hard. Noa said they had to stop the machines or they would break. Valen looked for a lever to stop the machines. Noa said there was no lever. The only way to stop the machines was to drop a weight into the gears.

The weight was on a platform forty feet above the machines. They had to climb a narrow ladder to get to it. The air was hot. The ladder was slippery. Valen and Noa climbed the ladder and Tor stayed at the bottom with the sleds.

When they reached the platform they saw that the weight was held by two steel cables. The cables were hot and vibrating. Valen said they could not cut them. Noa said they had to loosen the cables not cut them. They used a wrench to try to loosen the cables but it was hard.

Noa got the iron mace and she hit the wrench to make it move. The impact made a noise and the wrench moved a little. Valen used all his strength to turn the wrench. The cables started to loosen. The weight started to tilt. The cables were about to break.

Tor called out from, below that the cable was fraying. They had to get off the platform. Valen said they had to make one turn and then the weight would fall into the gears. Noa used all her strength to help Valen. They finally loosened the cables. The weight was about to fall. They had to get out of the way.

Valen gave the wrench one big push with his body his feet lifting off the floor. The turnbuckle sleeve broke, spinning fast as the threads came apart under the weight.

The cable slid out of place.

A huge three-ton block of iron fell into the main drive gears in Sector Seven. It made a noise that shook the whole place. The sound was not like a bomb going off it was like a loud crunch of metal tearing metal a very loud screech that lasted for three seconds as the big teeth of the turbines broke off. The drive shafts stopped working away their hot surfaces bending and throwing off sparks that lit up the whole room like fireworks.

The noise of the machinery. It was quiet for a moment. The only sound was the metal cooling down in the damp air of the room. The green mold on the walls seemed to slow down like it was affected by the machines stopping.

The turbines were not working anymore. The agricultural loop was broken.

Valen was lying on the platform his chest moving up and down his hands dirty with grease and blood. He looked down at the machines below the engines were all bent and broken they would never work again. The western river was safe now the mold would stay in the basin it had no power source.

We stopped the machines Noa said, putting her hand on Valens shoulder. Her face was dirty. Her eyes were bright and clear.

We did not just stop them Valen said, standing up with Noas help. We got the materials back. There are forty tons of steel in those shafts Noa. That is enough to build twenty engines for the delta foundries.

They climbed down the ladder to where Tor was waiting with the sleds. He was very tired. He was happy and raised his hand in victory. They put their tools back on the sled turned away from the courtyard of Sector Seven and started walking back, to the northern ridge.

The road ahead was long and hard. Valen knew that they were not alone anymore. They were a team of survivors. They were making their own way.

Valen took a step another and he felt like the world was his now.

The journey was not yet.

The road was long. Valen was ready.

He took another step. The world was finally his.

The end.