Warlord: Dervish (25 page)

Screaming to one another, the insurgents broke from cover, firing on the mechanized thing. In the process they presented their backs to the black kids and white men, who fired on them indiscriminately, felling them in scads.

“—my head!” Jason heard someone scream. “Get out of my fucking head!”

Kaku was down on his knees, behind a section of pillar. A man decked out in blood stained camos stood over him, his back to Jason. Kaku was yelling something back at the man, the doctor’s eyes crazed. As Jason watched, his brain struggling to keep up and process, the man fired a round from his rifle through the doctor’s head.

“No!” Jason roared, bringing the AK to his shoulder. Somehow, above the din of the battle, the man heard Jason’s cry and turned to face him. Like live coals, crimson orbs blazed in the man’s face. Jason took him out with a burst from the AK, the man staggering, dropping his own rifle, plopping down to a seated position before slouching over.

High-pitched zips and whines, a hail of lead driving Jason back around the corner. The intensity of the battle increased as something that sounded like a chain gun entered the fray. Jason knew it was a matter of moments before the war spilled around the corner to his position.

He retreated.

As he jogged away, his mind was racing…where had that robot thing come from? What the fuck was it? It was huge, three times taller than a man. Some of the mercs were alive and they were fighting
with
the African boy soldiers…Jason assumed they were African…the ones he’d encountered earlier had spoken Arabic… didn’t they speak Arabic in parts of Africa? Kaku was alive; well, not anymore. But why had that guy shot him, and why exactly had Jason shot that guy?

Jason remembered something Kaku had told him.
You will kill me
, Kaku had said, and
after you kill me, you will shoot yourself
. Eying the AK suspiciously, Jason held it out in front of him. Kaku had been wrong about Jason getting to drop the hammer on him. Ghost boy or whatever that guy with the glowing eyes had taken care of the doctor, but Jason would be damned if he tripped and misfired, wounding himself.

The street behind him filled with kids, children firing their assault rifles, boys yelling and dying. Jason reached the next corner and plunged around it, the route ahead barred. Rippling and seething, the sandstorm waited at the end of the block, its hungry sands eddying. Slowing, Jason approached the cumulonimbus cloud. Its tendrils reached out towards him, inviting. He looked into its depths, the storm threatening to seduce him into a torpor, to lull him into complaisance, and it was only the discharge of automatic weapons behind him that snatched him back from its spell.

He turned from the sandstorm, meaning to backtrack but coming up short as the chain gun sounded. The street churned up, the African kids on it disintegrating amid the geysering sand, a fog of red and severed limbs lifting into the sky and splashing down. As the mech clanked into view, Jason dodged back to where it couldn’t see him, the sand swelling and heaving a short distance away, waiting.

Oh yeah
, Jason understood,
I’m screwed
, and then the wall of the house behind him exploded outwards and he really was. Erupting from the concrete fragments, the knight burst into the street. Its rush knocked Jason down, inadvertently saving him from decapitation as the greatsword cleaved the space in which he had stood moments before.

Jason fired the AK from his side—

“Fuck you motherfucker! Fuck you!”

—the knight turning its shield towards him, rounds sparking off it until the AK locked open, empty. Letting the rifle go, Jason scrambled to his feet, sprinting away from the knight, towards the nearest door. When he found it locked, he dashed to the next, finding it locked also.

The knight extended its greatsword in both hands and lowered its arms, sizing Jason up.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Jason repeated the word, finding every door between himself and the dust storm locked. He came face to face with the rippling sand and halted. It ballooned inwards and outwards, almost like it was breathing. Individual particles of sand floating on the air around it were drawn back into the mass, as if by some magnetic force.

He turned to face the knight with his bare hands but his adversary no longer confronted him.

A roar as jet engines blasted and a Mech floated over the houses above them. It lowered down to the street, white flames jetting from its vertical takeoff and landing gear. Settled on firm ground, the nacelle mounted on its back retracted, sheathing the engine within. The machine stood eighteen feet from its oversized feet to its cockpit. Its armor was some alloy composite unfamiliar to Jason. The walking vehicle bristled with weapons: a multiple rocket launcher mounted over one shoulder; a flame thrower built into the armor of one lower arm; a chain gun built into the other.

Jason watched in awe as the mech straightened an arm, electronic intonations accompanying the motion, its four fingered hand ringed with a bladed gauntlet—

The knight closed with the machine, its speed belying its size and the weight of its armor, greatsword raised

—the Mech’s fingers splayed, revealing the muzzle of a canon embedded in its palm.

A high pitched whine and a visible pulse plumed from the weapon, displacing the air between the Mech and the charging knight, which just barely brought its Kite shield up. The endoatmospheric particle beam slammed into the shield, lifting the knight from its feet, its sword flying away. Landing flat on its back, the knight did not move.

Its elephantine feet remained stationary as the Mech’s pilot compartment swiveled, facing Jason.

It reached out to him with a gauntleted hand, splaying its fingers. Jason looked clearly down the barrel of the pulse canon in its palm. The high pitched whine kicked in and he steeled himself, wondering how badly this would hurt. Before he could find out, before the directed energy weapon discharged, Jason was snatched through the door of the house next to him.

The Garden

A hood was yanked over his head and face, the fabric abrasive. Manhandled along, hands under his arms, voices barked at him in Arabic, cursing, threatening. As he panted for breath, the material filled his mouth, threatening to suffocate him. Jason had to spit it out.

“
Ijliss
!”

Pressure against his temple, cold and hard through the hood. He didn’t need to guess what it was. Jason sat. The pressure relented, disappeared.

He waited for someone else to speak and eventually they did. The man’s English was impeccable, although the language was not his native tongue.

“Was this one of the men who accompanied you?” The question wasn’t meant for him.

“Yes.”
Letitia
. “His name is Jason.”

“Very well. That is all.”

The man waited until she had left the room.

“You are Jason.”

“You bin Laden?”

Bemused. “Most certainly not.”

“Then what do you want?”

“That would depend. What can you offer us?”

“I can’t give you anything.” They had not tied his hands or bound his arms. All Jason had to do was stand and remove the hood. “I feel like—I feel like I’ve been running…” He assumed there were other men in the room besides himself and this man. “…running and fighting ever since this whole thing began.”

“Yes. We have been watching.”

“How long you been here?”

“We have always been here. We will always be here. Or so it seems.”

“What is this? What’s happening out there?”

“Ask your government, Jason.”

“What does that mean?”

“Your government built this. Had this built.”

“
Built
?”

“Yes.”

“This is,
what
, some kind of weapons system?”

“Yes.”

“Which part—the Knight? The scorpion? The house—the house was moving around, wasn’t it? It was.”

“All of it, Jason. And yes, it was.”

“Then where’d they get the Romans? Where’d they get the gladiators?”

“Where do you think?”

“The past? They travelled back to the past?”

“Perhaps. Or they could have traversed an alternate dimension.”

“Meaning?”

“It means the world you see is only one miniscule, insignificant portion of a whole, Jason, and that whole is incomprehensible to our minds.”

“What are those things in the sand?”

“‘
And that we sought to reach heaven, but we found it filled with strong guards and flaming swords
.’ What do
you
think they are, Jason?”

“Ghosts. And what was that?”

“The Koran, Jason, and they are not ghosts. They’re genetically engineered
uber
-soldiers.”

“Genetically engineered from what?”

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. That is from your book, not mine. You are familiar with the notion that we are all star dust, each and every one of us?”

“No.”

“Our building blocks, the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen that comprise us, these were all cooked in the heart of stars, massive stars that exploded, flooding the cosmos with these elements.
Masa Allah
. And here we are.”

“So what are those things made of?”

“The same things you and I are made of, Jason, the same material that comprises the sand and dirt, the walls of this building, the planets around us.”

“You don’t know.”

“I don’t know.” Chagrined. “But, ultimately, I know I am right.”

Jason couldn’t argue with the conviction in the man’s voice. This one was a true believer. “What are you going to do with me?”

“I am going to trade you.”

“Trade me?”

“Our rivals hold several of my men. I will swap you and the woman for them.”

“So you’re not going to kill me?”

“I will do no such thing.”

“How do we get out of here?”

“If I knew the answer to that question, you and I would not be having this conversation.”

“There were mathematical formulas all over the tower—the obelisk.”

“A key to the puzzle, I am sure. Tell me, Jason, have you done much post-doctoral work in theoretical physics?”

“None.”

“Neither have I. And therefore the mathematics will remain unknown to us. There’s a red building. That, I suspect, is one of the keys to this situation.”

“I can help you, help you attack it.”

“We have assaulted it on numerous occasions. Each time our casualties were extreme.”

“That’s what we are then? Test subjects?”

“No better than rats in a maze.”

“I don’t think the rats in the maze try and kill one other.”

“As I told you, Jason, I am not going to kill you.”

“What
are
you going to do? When you get your men back?”

“’We are stardust. We are golden. And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.’”

“The Koran?”

“No. Joni Mitchell. Good bye, Jason. I hope you die well.”

The other men in the room hauled him to his feet, thrusting him forward, hands on his arms and back. A door opened and dirt was under his feet, road. Men spoke and Jason was pushed from one set of hands to another, these new hands pulling, then pushing. He was forced into another building, fresh voices snapping at him, swearing. A door slammed. The muzzle of a weapon jabbed into his back. The butt of another rifle rammed him between the shoulder blades, knocking Jason into a room.

They tore the hood off his head.

The main room of the house was washed out from portable halogen lights on telescoping stands. Cords ran from the lights, jumbled on the floor, plugged into power packs. A dozen men flitted about the room, a flurry of activity. They wore an assortment of dishdashas, trousers and shirts. Some had hidden their faces under ski masks or kaffiyehs. One wore a garish purple scarf over his nose and mouth and kept screaming at Jason: “
Anta kalbee
!”

Lightning flashed in his head—he’d been clubbed. When Jason looked up, red-and-white checkered aquals, a woolen, bright red skullcap and several bare heads bobbed to and fro. All of them seemed to be cursing at him and another man, a white man who knelt in the center of the room. He plead in Chinese, begging them. Beside the man lay the corpse of a black child. Beheaded, blood leaked from the neck stump to puddle on the floor.

“
Kol khara
!”

Their hands on his shoulders, their rifles in his face, they forced Jason down, next to the kneeling man.

“Hey—hey—come on!” he shouted back at them ineffectually, his voice drowned out in their din, by the sandstorm that raged against the door.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Jason attempted to ask the man next to him, but the guy ignored him, imploring their captors, his hands clasped in front of him.

An insurgent stuck a video camera in Jason’s face and without thinking he batted it away with his hand. “Motherfuck—”

A rifle cracked him in the head, knocking him down. They didn’t let him lie there. Reaching down, they took him by his elbows and righted him, screaming incessantly.

When he tried to turn his head to look around the room, someone behind Jason clasped his face between their hands, forcing his head to remain still.

“
Báng wo
!” The white man next to Jason spoke rapidly between his tears.

The cameraman focused on a bearded man who stepped in front of the two captives. Blood streaked the blade of the oversized knife in his hand.

Oh Jesus
, Jason thought. Images of his kids’ faces flickered in his mind.

—an insurgent was reading the other kneeling man his death sentence—

What kind of guy am I
?
I’ve got a wife
—
an ex-wife
—
I drove her away from me
.
I’ve got two kids

—the cameraman panned from Jason to the man next to him—
I’ve got two beautiful little kids and I don’t even fucking think about them

—the man was still babbling in Mandarin, crying hysterically, the corpse of the dead kid next to him—

instead I think
—
I think about
what?—
about some bullshit relationship that ended twenty years ago, when I was a freakin’ kid myself for Christ’s sake

—Jason remembered the video, he knew what was coming and felt giddy

what’s wrong with me
.
The fuck is wrong with me
?

—the man with the blade stepped behind the guy kneeling next to Jason. The cameraman yelled something encouraging.

“Hey—hey!” Jason got attention of the prisoner beside him. “It’ll be okay. Trust me.” The insurgent with the purple scarf hammered Jason in the shoulders—“
Us kut
!”—with his Kalashnikov.

Jason refused to go down.

“You’re not going to cut my head off,” he told the man with the knife. He settled on his knee pads, confident, waiting. “No, you’re not.” He started laughing, which further incensed the armed men. “Just watch.”

The window shutters burst inwards, shards of wood and sand flooding the room.

A tumultuous, revolving column swept inside. Jason lost no time, thrusting himself forward, away from the hands that gripped his face, away from the AK muzzles that lifted from him.

A squall of sand, AK fire, and screams.

Jason regained his feet, rushing across the room—

The purple scarved insurgent was lost in the gale, the camera man down, a crash as one set of halogen lamps shattered on the floor.

—shouldering past a mufti-capped man, the man screaming futilely as the dervish spiraled into the room, insurgents bouncing off its whirlwind, AK rounds deflected from it about the confines of the room, striking men’s flesh.

Jason tore down a hall, fleeing the room, the sand and battle behind him. The man with the purple scarf ran directly in front of him, turning once to yell at Jason and shake his AK, which he didn’t fire. A door to their left slammed shut behind another frightened-insurgent and the purple-sashed man punched it with his fist, cursing the man inside.

Jason passed them, more gunfire barking from a room at the end of the hall, near a stairwell. He risked a look through the doorway before taking the stairs. A giant camel spider filled most of the room, battling insurgents. Ochre-colored fluid ran from the arachnid, dozens of wounds where bullets had impacted its segmented abdomen. Behind the men a whitish glow churned in mid-air. As Jason watched, one of the men went down, braying. The last man standing emptied his AK into the spider, which then snatched him up in its chelicerae. He wailed, flailing at the beast with his hands.

Jason was knocked onto the stairs, the purple-scarved insurgent tearing past him, firing his rifle back down the hall. The man ran into the room with the camel spider, unloosing a new salvo.

Scrambling up the stairs on his hands and knees, Jason saw the bearded man with the knife rush from the front room, a spinning dervish trailing him. The man went to scream, the breath sucked from his lungs as he was bodily absorbed within the demented circumvolutions. Blood jetted from the tornado, spraying the walls and ceiling as if a blender had been left open. The knife clattered across the floor.

The dervish was bouncing against the walls as Jason made the top of the staircase. He watched as the thing in the hall slowed, then stopped rotating, a vaguely human form composing itself, standing there. Vermilion eyes gleamed from the grime-encrusted, blackened bandages that encased it. A Spanish conquistador boarding ax was in its hand. The spectre-like thing spied Jason on the stairs. As he scrabbled to the second floor, a detonation in the room with the camel spider rocked the house.

Jason took the stairs to the roof, the door there ajar. Moats of sand floated between the houses, blanketing the streets and alleyways, obscuring the buildings. The roof of the insurgent’s house stood alone, disconnected from its neighbors, an island in a sea of loess and sand. A massive, luminous orange ball hung in the sky. The sand rose and fell, pulsing, eerily quiet within its depths, in marked contrast to the house below where men howled as wraiths rebounded off walls, hunting them down.