Nellie and the Nanites - Bk2 - Ch.19

Chapter 19

The Endless Dark

The first Crush and Des knew of the problems was a month or so after they returned to the village. It was getting increasingly difficult to tell day from night without any changes in the thick black clouds above them. At least Crush and Des had their training to fall back on. The habits drummed into them in training still got them up at the same time every day.

The structured days of recon, keeping an eye on things in the base, as well as documenting the changes in the air and people were just what they needed to ensure that day and night still felt different. It helped, at least a little. By this point, Alli would ask every day why no one had come to collect them yet. Des always managed to come up with something, anything to tell her.

The reality was they were probably assumed to be dead. Des had told him that on their first night back. If they couldn’t make contact in the next couple of weeks, the forces would assume they died trying to stop whatever happened. A cruiser would still swing by eventually, but given the radiological reports… they would have to wait for a passing hazmat cruiser. That would take a while. Months at least.

In short, they were stuck here, at least for now.

The constant questions weren’t the only changes in Alli. She was constantly a mess the last week or so. Huge bags under her eyes told of her insomnia while she spent hours at a time trying to talk Crush into sex, or anything, to pass the time. He had been hurt the night she went to find Des instead, but not too much. He knew she was under stress. He had felt it himself as the endless night stretched on. More than once, Des had to call him out on improper dress or clumsy actions.

They were both doing calisthenics out behind Alli’s house to keep their muscle mass up when the fight broke out. It was time for the food delivery to the main base, and a small crowd had gathered to protest. Everything was grown under dones, the lights inside glowing during daylight hours in what felt more and more like a mockery of sunlight than anything else.

In short, the food was growing merrily even in all this mess. None of that seemed to matter to the crowd, who was convinced they had to horde every bit of it for the village. The other side of the argument was a contingent of miners who were there to ask for MORE of the crop as the supply ship hadn’t arrived. What started as a shouting match quickly turned violent. Des pulled his concealed pistol and fired it into the air as the brawl began to spread. The bright flashes of the beam and the sharp hissing sound made everyone freeze.

Just like that, it was over.

Only, of course, it wasn’t. That night, some miners returned and ransacked one of the domes, making off with the crops. The Farmers who had been watching the place had put up a fight, and one of them lay dead just inside the door, his head caved in. This should have started an investigation by the main base; instead, the only reply they got was to not fight back next time.

By the time Crush and Des got back from their recon later that day, the whole place was in an uproar.

Crush tried to tell Des to stay out of it and maintain their cover, but the veteran was sure everything could be fixed. He outed them, displaying his armed forces badge for everyone to see. At least with the villagers, it worked. They seemed to calm down some. With the main base, it was a different story. Their first response was to deny Des was really a serviceman. The next was to demand to know why they were there.

A month passed relatively quietly until the main base was due to get supplies again. They came in heavy, trying for a show of force. Dozens of miners and workers showed up with two trucks, piling out of the back and brandishing weapons.

One of the farmers threw a stone. Just a small stone. It didn’t even make it to the miner’s group. Some idiot fired a mining laser, and that was it. Three villagers were killed. Silence reigned for a second as the first two bodies fell. It was the third that escalated things. A child had come with his parents to see what was going on. It slumped to the floor with a glowing hole drilled right through its head.

Crush still woke up sometimes, hearing the mother’s scream.

Des had executed the man with the mining laser on the spot, but it was far too late at that point. Half the miners ran, horrified at what their comrade had done. The other half simply attacked. Five of them were killed, and three more villagers before the fight ended. Crush could remember sitting and cradling his weapon, shocked at the violence despite all his training. The first snowflake fell as he stared into the darkness.

From there, things only got worse. Farmers, it turns out, have a lot of fertilizer. They are also good at knowing how their chemicals interact. In short, they made bombs. The next truck down that road was supposed to be a peace envoy. It exploded before it even got in sight.

Something had changed in the villagers, Crush realized as he was walking the perimeter one night. They didn’t smile the same way and were hunched when they walked. Anyone trying to council for peace with the main base was beaten, or worse. Everyone was convinced it was the base or the village. A binary choice.

The next attack by the base was a bloody affair. Explosions split the dark as glowing mining lasers raked the village. Over half the growing bays were destroyed in the process. Even if peace was possible at this point, there was no longer enough food to go around. It was a dark couple of months as the villagers deteriorated. A couple killed each other in an argument one night, and a man went crazy and ran into the darkness completely naked, yelling about the pixies chasing him.

After five months of darkness, Crush could barely stand being in the village anymore. It was like something out of a horror movie. Abbi barely left her room, rocking back and forth on her bed and muttering. Someone had blown another of the growing houses, so food was even tighter. They didn’t even know if a miner or a villager had done it.

Most people staying in their houses now, screaming and threatening anyone who came near.

After days of trying, Crush convinced Des to let him go out on a recon of the main base. The veteran was starting to show the strain. He was becoming ever more jumpy, staying armed even when he slept.

Being out of all of that felt like coming up for fresh air. Creeping through the darkness was no longer a challenge, and he was up to his overlook spot before a couple of hours had passed. He had no choice but to go on foot… there was no way a vehicle could get passed the bombs.

Once he was in position, it was almost another hour before he even glanced at the main base. Just being alone was too good to waste with peering through a scope. He made a mental note to be sure Des came with him next time.

As soon as he played the scope over the main base, he knew things had gone badly wrong.

The main base looked like a holiday park by comparison. Bodies were staked to a wall with the word ‘thief’ above their heads, fires burned in places, and several of the stores looked broken into or boarded up. Worse was the few people he could see. They were emaciated, listless, barely alive. He watched for three hours, but almost no one moved. He even sent a shot into the center of the open square to see if that got a reaction.

Nothing.

Crush scrambled down from his perch and made his way back to the village. There was no way he could let this go on. Even the smallest amount of food would save a few souls in that horrific place. He carefully picked his way through what was now a minefield and raced back to Alli’s to report to Des.

It was not a pleasant report to give, and Des seemed to hesitate for a while before he went outside and started to bang pots together to gather everyone. Only about half of them came, and they did not favor helping. Crush repeatedly told them how bad things were, but they refused to listen. In the end, Des stepped forward and told them they needed to go anyway, to see for themselves. They could bring a few back who deserved help and save them. That way, they would be stronger as the months stretched on.

It wasn’t much, but it worked. About five came with Des and him to see the state of the main base for themselves.

If Crush thought things looked back from up top, it was so much worse on the ground. The smell of the base hit them before they even got to the half-open gates. Burns from mining lasers mixed with blast marks from slug throwers around the entrance. Someone had tried to get out, and the dead bodies were still where they fell. It didn’t get any better as they moved past the massacre. All over the place, skeletal-looking bodies lay, most without a mark on them. Some had teeth marks or missing bits. Crush looked away from those ones hurriedly.

They found more walls like the one Crush had seen from above. One of the mining tunnels was sealed off at the entrance, from inside, from the looks of it.

After almost two hours, they found the first sign of life. A light burning in a window. Des opened the door, and his head snapped back as his visor lit. A spent slug dropped to the floor as a thin woman in stinking clothes screamed at him to get back. She waved the weapon wildly around as Des slowly talked her down. She lowered the weapon slowly as he stood, still keeping his voice calm. Crush was busy curing himself for not wearing his helmet when it happened. Just as he thought that if he had opened that door, he would be dead, the woman handed Ded her weapon.

Des thanked her and shot her in the face with her own weapon. Everyone stared at him as he shrugged and hooked the slug thrower onto his belt. Crush asked why before he could stop himself.

Des just sneered at him and stepped over the corpse and into the house. More gunfire followed. When Crush got inside, he found seven dead bodies, all sporting the signs of the slug thrower and Des with his helmet under his arm.

“Take everything you can find for the village,” Des called to the others, who started kicking in doors. “Kill anyone you find!”

Crush stared at his mentor, his partner, his friend as he grinned at the dead bodies around him. Crush didn’t make a conscious decision; he just drew his pistol and shot Des between the eyes.

What else could he have done?

The hazmat cruiser arrived almost three weeks later. Crush met their shuttle as it landed and gave a full and detailed report of everything that had happened. They gave him two weeks off and a medal.

He put the medal in the recycler before the service even ended.

===<<<>>>===

Nellie watched the readout change as she walked across the yard again. The temperature was at minus five, a point colder than it had been a half hour ago. The clock told her it was just coming to the middle of first shift. This whole shift thing was going to take a bit of getting used to. The day was separated into three shifts or eight hours each. The first shift took up what she thought of as eight am to four pm, and so on.

Windspeed was shown, as well as direction, and she had arrows pointing to where the drones were, as well as a little circle thing that allowed her to access the menu system. She could activate a lot of things from there, but she was going to take a bit longer to get used to it.  Looking over at Paren, she could see details of her mental state, health, and any injuries. If she concentrated, she could see everything from the status of her adrenal system to the replacement rate on her nanites, as well as drone abilities.

In all, the H.U.D. was looking really impressive. The weirder thing by far was the new senses. She could feel each of the drone's relative distance and direction from her. If she concentrated, she could even give exact measurements on each one, down to the centimeter. He could also now sense the nanites. Not just the ones in her but the ones outside of her as well.

She couldn’t control them or anything, although Lucy promised she could learn, but she could feel where they were. It was a strange sensation, like having an arm cut off but still feeling it as it went around doing things independently.

Her newest trick, learned only a few minutes ago, was tapping into the drone feeds. She could now bring up the screen in front of her that showed the direct camera feeds from each of the scout drones.

Technically, she could do the same with Paren and the synthetics, but that seemed like an invasion of privacy, so she hadn’t tried it yet. It could come in handy in an emergency, and she made herself a promise to only use it if she had to. She was just looking over the options for her own body systems when she decided it was time to stop procrastinating.

Lucy.

She had to talk to Lucy.

“I’m sorry!” Lucy said as soon as Nellie got into the room. “I know you didn’t mean it, but you did say I could!”

“I was just relieved you weren’t dumping me,” Nellie said, crossing her arms angrily.

“I would never!” Lucy protested. “How can you ever say that?”

“I’m still lost in all of this!” Nellie yelled, unsure why she was even yelling. “I was yanked away from everything I know, dumped here, and almost died more times than I can count. I’ve killed people, Lucy. More than one! How did that even happen? Then I go and fall in love with a woman who lives in my head. Pardon me for feeling a little emotional!” She stopped, shocked at her own words. Nellie hadn’t even realized how much it all had affected her until just as she said the words. “Ostie, that’s a lot for one person,” She muttered and sat down heavily in the chair next to the bed.

“Uh-huh,” Lucy nodded. “You love me?”

Nellie flushed as she realized what she said. Thinking about it, she did mean it, however it came out. She was still angry, however.

“Don’t change the subject!” Nellie protested. “You tricked me.”

“Just a little bit,” Lucy admitted. “But you are so touchy about your wetware. It’s frustrating for me.” She smiled. “Also, I love you too.”

Nellie’s thoughts crashed into a wall, and she just stared at Lucy.

“You can’t do that again. I need to know you will let me choose,” Nellie said eventually.

“You would have said yes, eventually,” Lucy said. “I just skipped a few steps.”

“No skipping steps,” Nellie countered. “I need you to respect that.”

“Okay,” Lucy nodded. “I promise.” She held up one finger, “Unless it will save your life. I won’t promise not to do that.” She said, her face serious. “I didn’t even know A.I. could love, so I’m not losing you to respect your boundaries. I’d rather have you alive and hate me than dead.”

“Fair enough,” Nellie sighed. “So what do we do now?”

“Well, we should analyze those cloud samples and come up with a plan… but how about we make up properly first?” She winked and pulled her top down a little.

Nellie was extremely frustrated that worked, but the feeling vanished along with Lucy’s clothes.