Days of Future Past - Part 2: Present Tense Read online

  "That got eight of them!" Heather called down from the roof, where she was lying prone and watching them through the scope on her rifle.

  "What about the rest of them?" Sarah asked.

  "They got the message and are running off to the south."

  "Think they'll come back?" I asked the two of them.

  Sarah shook her head, "Orcs are smart enough to know that if they come back, they will die. I am more worried about Riggs and his army however."

  "I don't think that was loud enough for them to hear," I told her. The rifles all had integral silencers, not that they were all that loud to start with, seeing as they didn't use gunpowder.

  "That will depend on where they have their scouts," Sarah said. "Also, offensive magic has an effect that can be heard, if any are listening for it."

  I sighed, "And Riggs' mages with definitely be listening for it, after the fight they've had the last two days."

  "Yes, I am afraid that they know we are out here."

  "Time to move camp!" Heather said and slid down off the roof, landing on her feet close by.

  We spent the next five minutes quickly packing up our gear and saddling the horses.

  "Do you think they'll investigate?" I asked after we'd finished and mounting our horses we headed off to the west.

  "I doubt it," Heather said, "but why take the chance?"

  I had to agree with that. To the west of us was a rather large estate, the buildings of which were now in complete ruins. We'd circle around the far side and find a spot to the north of it to spend the night. In the morning we'd follow Riggs and his army, once they started moving again.

  "You know, this would be a lot easier if we could travel with them," Heather said.

  "I suspect he thinks I'm dead," I grumbled at her, "and I'd rather not change that."

  "But he's failed twice now," she said grinning, "surely he'll stop trying now!"

  "I'd rather not go for three, okay?"

  "Stop teasing him, Heather," Sarah said, speaking up. "You know the Navajo do not use women warriors, and they would more than likely relieve you of Conan there."

  "Conan?" I asked looking over at Heather, who was now blushing, and then back at Sarah who was smiling faintly. "Who's Conan?"

  "She named her railgun Conan."

  I blinked, "As in 'Conan the Destroyer'?"

  Sarah nodded and Heather turned an even brighter shade of red.

  "You have heard of him?" Sarah asked.

  "I'm surprised the stories are still around," I admitted and then looked at Heather. "But who would name their rifle after a big barbarian with a sword and a penchant for slave girls? I mean...."

  "Okay!" Heather huffed loudly, "It was a bad idea and I won't bring it up again!"

  I looked at Sarah who was grinning at the two of us.

  "Gee, and here I was feeling bad for naming my rifle 'Red Sonja,'" I said and winked at Sarah.

  "Enough!" Heather grumbled and kicked her horse to move further ahead of us.

  "Well, I guess that survived too," I said with a smirk.

  "Apparently," Sarah agreed.

  - 2 -

  Sarah and I were lying on the roof of one of the few buildings that was still standing on the southern side of the Santa Ana River.

  "So, how much longer are we going to be following them?" she asked as we watched Riggs' army set up camp for the night at what I guess had been a park or something just on the other side of the river.

  "Until we get through the next pass. He's heading to Barstow."

  "What is in Barstow?"

  "The rest of his army apparently, he left them there before heading through the mountains. Coyote told me he has a large one, and he's going to be training them on all those weapons he now has on his pack animals."

  "But why Barstow?" Sarah asked, confused. "It would have been quicker for him to have gone south and come through the same pass we originally intended to use."

  I sighed, "He lived there once. I guess he wanted to see if he could find his old house."

  Sarah started a moment and then nodded slowly.

  "I have been to Barstow," she said slowly, "it is not a very pleasant place. Something very bad happened there a long time ago. But it left its mark; you can feel it as you ride through the town."

  "What happened?" I asked.

  Sarah shrugged, "No one knows for sure, but it was right after the big blow-up started. The story in our history books is that refugees apparently came there en masse from this area and from closer to Los Angeles. There was no food for them however. Nothing at all, and it quickly descended into barbarism, and some claim cannibalism.

  "So the locals started to kill them, indiscriminately. Then the military came in to try and restore order but ended up killing absolutely everybody."

  "Lovely," I sighed. "Good thing we're not going there. We'll follow them up into the pass, but we're going to turn off on a road going north about halfway through the mountains."

  I looked around, the sun was setting. It would be dark soon.

  "Let's go back down and join Heather and make camp for the night."

  Moving back from the edge and taking care not to expose ourselves, after all, if we could see them, they could see us. We carefully made our way down the decrepit stairway to the main floor. The building we were now in had once been the home of a bookstore. At least the first level had. The rest had been offices of some sort.

  The riot gates on the front of the building were still down, so the only way in was through a back entrance, which we had blocked after moving the horses inside. Heather had taken the time to set up our cooking gear in a corner, using an area that had obviously been some kind of coffee shop and had a stove with a hood over it.

  There were also several tables and chairs that had survived quite well and which we were now making use of. The nice thing about bookstores was that if they didn't get set on fire, no one looted them. So I'd found a rather nice set of maps for the state of California and Nevada in a road atlas and Sarah had done something with her magic to it, which allowed us to use it now, without it falling apart from being old and brittle.

  "So," I said and spread the map out on the table, "tomorrow he's going to start heading up the hill and into the pass here, either using either two fifteen or sixty-six. As he came this way, he'll know which of the roads are in better shape. I want to take sixty-six, as there will be better chances of shelter along the way, then I want to turn off here," I pointed to a spot on the map, "and take the road marked one thirty-eight."

  Sarah and Heather both nodded.

  "That will take us away from the Navajo army," Sarah agreed.

  "And the things it's been attracting," Heather agreed.

  "Then what?" Sarah asked.

  "We head northwest along the foot of these mountains, until we hit whatever is left of interstate five, and follow that through, into the central valley."

  "And the inland sea," Sarah reminded me.

  I shook my head, the idea of the central valley being flooded now was one I was still having a hard time believing. But I guess I would see for myself soon enough.

  "What about your home?" Sarah asked me, looking at the maps and pointing to a spot on it. "You said you were from Sacramento?"

  I looked at where she was pointing on the map and shook my head, "If the stories of the inland sea are true, it's all gone now. It'll be underwater."

  "Wow," Heather said, "that sucks."

  I shrugged and then shook my head as I thought about it, "Honestly? If I could see it? Visit it? I'd spend too much time looking at it and trying to remember."

  I looked up at Heather, and then Sarah. "The past is dead and gone; I need to start accepting that and live in the present and just let it lie. So it's probably better that I won't be able to see any of it."

  "Seeing your name up there above the doorway bothered you, did it?" Sarah asked looking up into my eyes.

  "A little," I agreed, "but then I was only there for a few mont
hs. I'd hate to go back to the place I grew up as a boy and see it all ruined now."

  "I don't know," Heather said grinning, "I think it would be kind of cool. To see all that history and be able to tell everyone about it."

  "You would," I smiled back at her. "Now, how about we make some dinner?"

  "Go right ahead!" Heather said and motioned to the stove, "It's your turn."

  "Uh-huh, it's always my turn. And just what will you two be doing?"

  "Watching!" They both said, laughing.

  I chuckled and went to work. Sarah might be a great magic user and leader of expeditions, and Heather may be an amazing shot and experienced tracker, but neither of them could cook worth a damn.

  Once they had both discovered that not only could I cook, but I could make the things Heather shot for dinner taste good, my fate as the cook was sealed. Oh, I wasn't as good a cook as Lisa, the chef from the expedition, had been. Nowhere near in fact. However I could cook things without burning them, and I knew how to use the few spices we had without going overboard.

  As I had gone camping by myself many times as a youth, even if I hadn't had much of a choice in the matter, I had learned to feed myself back then. Neither Heather nor Sarah had ever had that lesson, as going off and camping by yourself wasn't very safe anymore.

  Both of the girls wanted to spend a little extra time enjoying the security of our current location, so by the time we'd gotten out of bed the next morning Riggs and his army had already moved on. So rather than having to wait for them to get going, we were able to able to get started as soon as we'd had breakfast and packed our gear.

  "Wonder why they're in such a hurry?" Heather asked as we finally got started.

  "He probably wants to get to Barstow tonight," Sarah replied. "If he broke camp just before sunrise, he could be through the mountains by noon, then it is simply a long ride across mostly flat terrain."

  "Well I hope we're not planning on pushing that hard!" Heather grumbled.

  I shook my head, "I'm not in any rush, but the sooner we're out of this area, the safer I think we'll be."

  Both of them nodded in agreement, we could already see the buzzards circling in the sky, looking to feed off the remains of the things the army was killing while it moved.

  The trip through the remains of San Bernardino was quick and fairly easy. We only had to pick off a couple of the more aggressive bullrats, most of the other predators and scavengers were either already dead, or were too busy going after the remains that were scattered about. While Riggs' army may be attracting attention due to its size, it was also clearly able to protect itself from anything that came around to investigate it.

  Once we started up into the hills on the way out of town, things settled down considerably. We could see that Riggs had taken route sixty-six, so that meant we'd have to be careful not to catch up with them, but I wasn't too worried. We'd hear and see them long before they saw us.

  "You know," I said looking over at Sarah, who I was riding besides, "I've been meaning to ask you about magic."

  Sarah looked back at me, "Really? Why?"

  I shrugged and went back to keeping an eye on what was going on around us. Heather was about twenty feet ahead of us, with her gauss rifle lying across her lap.

  "It didn't exist back in the past. It was considered a myth. What exactly is it?"

  "It is magic," Sarah said and then shrugged as well when I glanced over at her, "what else is there to say about it?"

  "So you don't know where it comes from, or how it works?" I asked, surprised.

  "Oh, I did not say that! It comes from the world around me. Some things, some places, they have more of it than others, but it is everywhere."

  "So how does it work?"

  "Well first you must be sensitive to it, if you can not feel it, you can not use it. Second, you must be able to affect it, if you are to use it."

  I nodded, "Well I guess that makes sense. So how do you use it?"

  "By focusing my mind, then once focused I open a connection to the forces of magic and I have a conversation with it."

  "You talk to it?" I asked her, somewhat incredulously I was sure.

  Sarah smiled, "In a way, yes. I talk to it. I tell it what I want it to do, and then it either does it, or it does not."

  "That sounds rather simple."

  "The theory is rather simple. The practice, however, is not. The conversation takes willpower and physical energy. The stronger you are, or the more skilled in conversing, the more you can make magic do for you."

  "So, what language do you use? And why all the hand waving?"

  "The language of magic of course," Sarah winked at me, "as for the 'hand waving' as you call it, that is part of the language as well as part of the physical aspects of enacting it. I am showing it what I want it to do, in ways that it can understand."

  "It can think? It's alive?"

  Sarah shook her head, "It is not alive in the manner that we are alive, as to whether or not it can 'think', well there have been many discussions and debates on that subject. Some believe that any thought involved comes from the mind of the magician. Others believe that it is a primal force and the only thoughts it may have are just echoes of the creator, or perhaps the gods of magic, if there are any such involved."

  I recalled something from a conversation we once had many weeks, or was it months, ago.

  "You once told me that magic comes from the gods? Is that true?"

  Sarah nodded, "Yes, their existence requires magic. I do not know however if they brought the magic with them, when they came back, or if it was magic that came back and brought the gods along with it."

  "So, the chicken or the egg question?"

  "Very much so," she agreed.

  "So, is that why you always talk funny?" I asked, with a wink of my own.

  Sarah nodded, "Talking with magic requires you to speak in a certain manner. There are no contractions, and you must be clear. Otherwise it can interpret your words and intentions in a manner other than what you requested."

  "And I suppose that's a bad thing."

  "Often enough to worry about it," Sarah replied with a nod.

  "Guys? Trouble," Heather called back to us, and we both looked up ahead.

  "Ahhh, shit," I swore. There was a group of six people ahead of us, about a hundred yards, on horseback and armed. Obviously Navajo.

  "Are there any others in hiding?" I asked, looking around.

  "Two on either side of the road," Sarah said. "The group on the right is about forty yards; the group on the left is a little farther.

  "I guess they don't like us following them," Heather said.

  The six on the road started to slowly walk their horses towards us.

  I jumped off my horse and slung my gauss rifle and pack from the pommel.

  "Take my horse and ride off, both of you. I'll talk to them," I said and tossed my reins to Sarah.

  "Paul, are you crazy?" Heather said, backing her own horse up to where we were.

  "Look, I have something in my backpack that I can't allow Riggs to get his hands on. I need it, and he'll take it away. So take the horses, ride off, and I'll meet up with you later. You know which way I'm going. Just don't let them catch you.

  "Now go!" I said.

  "Come, Heather," Sarah said and leading my horse, she took off back the way we came at a gallop.

  "You asshole!" Heather swore, and then took off after Sarah.

  I turned to look at the six approaching Navajo, they broke into a gallop as the girls took off, but I started to wave my arms above my head, and the four in the center rode straight for me, while the other two went around me, one to a side to continue after the girls.

  I noticed who the man leading them was immediately.

  "Atsida, call your men back. I'd hate for anything to happen to the two of them."

  "Paul?" Atsida said, stopping his horse and looking down at me. "What are you doing here?"

  "What I'm told to, of course," I said w
ith a grin. "Now, unless you want Heather shooting your men's horses, or worse yet, them, I suggest you call them back. Now."

  Atsida put his fingers to his lips and let out a series of loud high-pitched whistles.

  "What are you doing?" the man riding to his left demanded in Navajo. I was happy to have picked up that much of the language from my time with them.

  "Paul has never lied to me," he said in English, no doubt for my benefit. "If he says the girl will win, the girl will win. Besides, we were only told to find out who was following us, and why. Not to engage them."

  "That is not what the Chosen meant!"

  Atsida smiled, "But it is what he said."

  I heard the other two horses come riding back, behind me.

  "So, tell me, Paul. Why are you following us?"

  "Because this is the only pass through the mountains around here, and you got here first," I said with a shrug. "Anymore than that, I'm not allowed to say."

  A brief argument followed then, the two of them speaking too fast in Navajo for me to follow, considering my limited vocabulary. I looked at the other four on their horses, and recognized three of them from my lessons.

  "Nitl'ah, Atsa, Hayoi," I said nodding to each.

  They all smiled and nodded back to me, but they didn't say anything.

  I turned back to Atsida as the conversation ended between him and the other man, who didn't seem happy.

  "Paul, Tsosie here says we should take you to see the Chosen, and I must agree. Will you come with us?"

  "You ask?" Tsosie grumbled, but Atsida waved him to be quiet.

  "If it will keep you from getting in trouble, I'll come along," I told him. "Though I suspect Riggs will be unhappy with me for being discovered."

  Atsida and the other three laughed, "The Chosen is always unhappy with you, Paul. It is the one thing constant with him. Now, I if you would please give me your weapons?"

  I grumbled about that a little bit, but I was outnumbered and I really didn't want to get into it with Atsida and the others, even assuming I might win. I undid my gun belt and handed it to him, along with my boot knife.

  Atsida stuck his arm down, "You can ride with me, it will be faster than walking."