Earth Thirst (The Arcadian Conflict) - By Mark Teppo Page 0,58

I may have staved off the worst of the poisonous effects, there are some lingering malignances that are causing decay.

Remember your priorities. The voice in my head isn't mine, and it isn't Talus's either. Who said that to me first, or was it something beaten into the meat of my brain by years of soldering? Know your mission. Make it to the next checkpoint. Don't think about the big picture, son. You're not trained to think. You're trained to kill. Kill one of the enemy. Find another one. Repeat. Keep it simple. So many variations over the centuries. Don't think. Mind the plan.

Memory is insidious. It can become a burden too heavy to carry. That is why we let Mother leach it away when we rest in her embrace. There. There. Let me take care of everything. Let Mother take away the pain.

Remember your priorities. Survive. Kill everyone else.

No, that's not true.

I remember the boat and the storm. Aeneas holding on to the tiller. His eyes forward, not looking back. “Remember our families,” he shouts at me.

Remember those we left behind.

I slump against the trunk. It's a Surian cedar. Australian Red Gold. Our boat was made from cedar planks, though the cedars of the ancient Mediterranean were much different from their Australian counterparts—not even the same family. But the wood, the wood was the same: strong, resilient. So much of history was built from trees like this. So much history was… burned.

I jerk upright, startling Mere who was reaching out to shake me.

“Smoke,” I say. “I smell smoke.”

It's faint, the sort of distant aroma of a wood fire a thousand yards away, and it's not from wood. There are chemicals in the smoke too. Plastics. Synthetic fibers. Paper. “You saw a heat bloom,” I remind Mere.

She fumbles for my optics, puts them on, and stares at the building. “It's the whole building,” she says, “but it's more yellow than red now.”

“Because it is cooling off.”

I walk out into the open area that has been cleared around the building. Mere squeaks behind me, but when nothing happens—when the motion-sensitive lights don't flash on—she follows. I walk up to the front doors of the lab and touch the panels gingerly. They're warmer than the outside air, but not by much. “There's been a fire,” I tell Mere as she comes up behind me. “The building is a hermetic environment. Nothing gets in or out.”

“Wait,” Mere says as I grab the handle of the door. “If the fire has burned everything inside, then it's an oxygen starved environment. What happens when you open that door?”

“Nothing.” I tap my ear. “Do you hear it? There's a generator running somewhere. And I can smell the burn. It's faint, but it's there. An environmental system is still running. There's a tiny leak somewhere.”

There's a keycard reader next to the door, but the activity lights on it are dark. I brute force the door, and for a half-second, I fear Mere is right. The fire is waiting for us, and I've just given it a big dose of fresh air. But all that comes out of the lab is a foul commingling of everything that has been burned.

TWENTY

We prop the door open and wait a little while, just to be sure. When nothing seems to change, we venture inside.

The lab is dark, both from a lack of light and from the layer of ash that covers everything. The fire burned while it could, and the more combustible materials went up quickly. If there was a fire suppression system, it never went off. The walls are scorched black, the paint and wallpaper gone. Metal struts for movable walls and desk units are still there, but the synthetic and plastic overlays are all melted or gone. There's a large planter—several meters in diameter—in the center of the lobby that held a few flowering shrubs, but they're nothing but blackened sticks poking out of char-covered dirt.

There are a few bodies too, twisted in unnatural positions. Mere gags when we find the first one, though she doesn't vomit. “Were they dead before the fire reached…?” she mumbles through her hand.

“From smoke inhalation?” I shrug. “Let's hope so.”

There are four wings off the central hub: the entrance, where the few rooms off the central hallway seem to have been administrative; two research wings, though it is difficult to tell exactly what sort of research was done—the lab equipment (what hasn't been melted and charred by the fire) is used for chemical analysis,