Jason Sanford - [BCS299 S03] Read online

  Where the World Ends Without Us

  Jason Sanford

  Alexnya woke at midnight to the news she was to be arrested for murder.

  “That wasn’t me!” she yelled at the glowing face of Chakatie on the message pad by her bed. “Frere-Jones killed those anchors. You saw it.”

  Chakatie was sitting on the sofa in her house several leagues away—the message pad showed her wearing a warm wool sweater and holding a steaming mug of ale. From the melancholy look on her face, Alexnya guessed she had downed a number of ales before working up the nerve to call.

  “Doesn’t matter if you did it, Alex,” Chakatie said. “The grains want blood. Look at it this way—you get to be the guest of honor at our first judgment festival in decades.”

  Alexnya couldn’t tell if Chakatie was serious or sarcastic or a little of both. But she also knew it didn’t matter—she was screwed. No one was ever found innocent at a judgment festival. Instead, as they faced the hundreds of anchors who’d gathered to judge them, it was only a question of how quickly they embraced the fact that, to the grains, everyone was guilty of something.

  The message pad turned off and Alexnya’s house dimmed, with only the flickering red glow from the altar still fighting the darkness. Alexnya cursed and punched her pillow and cursed even more.

  Eventually she rolled out of bed and walked to her home’s altar. The carved stone pedestal and bowl, standing as high as her waist, was filled with countless individual nano-machines, each far smaller than a grain of sand. The mass of grains shimmered red as they flowed around the bowl, rippling like water against the three stone statues in the middle.

  Alexnya had never removed the statue of her predecessor Frere-Jones from the altar, or the statues of Frere-Jones’s lifemate and child. Frere-Jones had been a good anchor for many decades, protecting this land’s environment from damage, as all her kind did, around the world. But six years ago Frere-Jones had forsaken that mission and killed dozens of fellow anchors in a single night.

  Frere-Jones could no longer be judged—she and her lifemate were both dead. And Frere-Jones’s son Colton had been stripped of the grains that once powered his body and he now traveled with a day-fellow caravan.

  That left only Alexnya, this land’s new anchor, for the grains to punish.

  She lowered her hands into the altar. The nano-machines there connected with the grains in her own body and to the grains throughout her land and from there across the world, a never-ending murmur of conversation and memories and information that thankfully dimmed the farther from her lands Alexnya tried to reach.

  But that didn’t dim the grains’ anger, which surged into Alexnya. She saw a far-off land burning, tasted the use of forbidden technology, heard the screams of people begging for life as the Earth rejected them. The images rampaged through her mind, everything moving so fast she couldn’t make sense of most of it. But through the overpowering din of the grains’ memories she clearly saw her own land and heard the word “judgment” repeated over and over.

  She staggered from the altar, severing the flood of images and sounds. She breathed deep, forcing her mind to return to her own senses.

  Chakatie was correct—the grains were angry, and they wanted Alexnya bound and taken to a judgment festival.

  She burned to her own anger. She’d done every last thing the grains demanded—given up her old day-fellow life, abandoned her parents and friends, tried her best to be a good anchor and protect this land’s environment. She hadn’t even asked for this life! Instead, the grains had infected her body and ordered her to be Frere-Jones’s replacement.

  And now she was to be judged for her predecessor’s crimes?

  Alexnya ripped the tiny statues from the altar and smashed them against the tile floor. She cursed Frere-Jones’s name—that damn fool of an anchor, how dare she stick this on her! She powered up the grains in her body and wrenched the heavy stone altar from the floor and threw it through the window, showering the yard in red light as the nano-machines flowed across the grass.

  Red fairies buzzed the shattered window, their wings vibrating in anger as they shook their heads at Alexnya’s heresy of damaging this land’s altar.

  “Ungrateful little shits,” Alexnya muttered.

  The mass of grains from the altar spasmed and boiled on her front yard, desperate to be returned to their place of honor within Alexnya’s home. But she didn’t care. She reached out to the rest of the land’s grains with her mind. She was still their anchor. While she couldn’t command the grains, if she was to be judged she could order them to reveal the evidence.

  “Show me the killings,” she demanded as she walked outside.

  Dozens of ghostly figures lit the fields around her, roaring as they charged the house. The figures in these holographic projections were anchors like herself but far bigger, their bodies engorged on the grains’ anger and power, their massive fangs and claws ready to rip apart anyone who defiled the environment. And six years ago they had attacked this very house, to kill the day-fellow family hiding inside.

  Another grain projection flickered on her home’s sod roof—the ghostly image of Frere-Jones holding a laser pistol, forbidden technology no one on Earth should possess, let alone an anchor. The laser lit the dark land in a pale green light as Frere-Jones burned down the charging anchors. Those running across the sunflower fields flashed and ignited, causing the remaining ones to howl in fury. But Frere-Jones burned them all down without mercy. She killed two by the barn, more on the dirt road near the house. She sliced a giant anchor in half next to the house’s front door.

  The projection of Alexnya’s predecessor burned and killed until the remaining anchors fled. She then chased down every one of the survivors and killed them even as they begged her to let them live. Alexnya hadn’t realized Frere-Jones had been so ruthless. She looked away as one holographic anchor fell to his knees and cried, which didn’t stop Frere-Jones from burning a hole through his skull.

  Despite her pain at watching the projections, Alexnya ordered the grains to replay them. While the ghost anchors again charged and died, she walked around the outside of her house to her bedroom window.

  The firing of the laser reflected off the glass, just as it had when this battle took place six years ago. On that day Alexnya and her day-fellow family had been hiding in the room behind this very window. Her memories from then were cloudy, uncertain, her body at the time still adjusting to the grains’ infection. But she clearly remembered the laser’s reflected light. How her little sister had clung to her in fear as their mother and father guarded them with knives.

  It’d been a futile gesture for her parents to think they could fight anchors armed only with knives, but she loved them all the more for their willingness to die protecting her. Luckily no anchors had reached the house. Frere-Jones had slaughtered them all.

  Without Frere-Jones defending Alexnya and her family, she wouldn’t be alive right now. But the grains didn’t care. Just as they didn’t care that they’d ripped her from a family who loved her, or that she was to be judged for a crime someone else had committed.

  Alexnya cursed and grew her claws, finger bones erupting from her skin into diamond points of hardness. She scratched the outside of the window, trying to calm herself down, but couldn’t. She powered up her body even more, muscles stretching like steel wires. She ran at the projections, attacking the long-dead anchors who’d threatened her family. She swiped claws impotently through the light show, then howled and ran at the next wave of ghost-like anchors.

  But nothing changed the past.

  She swiped at another approaching hologram. But to her surprise her claws bounced off.<
br />
  What the hell?

  Solid. A female anchor twice her size and glowing red, looking like the other projections but... rock hard.

  Alexnya stepped backward, uncertain what was going on. The glowing anchor reached out astoundingly fast and grabbed her around the neck and slammed her to the ground. The field’s new-plowed furrows exploded in mud and seeds. Alexnya punched at the anchor’s massive body, to no effect.

  She couldn’t breathe. She powered her body up to full-strength, but she still couldn’t free herself from the anchor’s massive claws squeezing her throat. The grains in her body kept her conscious well after she should have passed out, but even they had their limits.

  The red-glowing anchor leaned over until her face was nearly kissing Alexnya’s, opening her lips to reveal massive fangs. Alexnya could see through parts of the anchor’s body. This anchor wasn’t a holographic projection from the grains, but she also wasn’t flesh and blood—and she appeared to be fading away before Alexnya’s eyes.

  “You like history lessons?” the red anchor asked, nodding her head at the projections flickering around them.

  Alexnya tried to speak but couldn’t. She felt blackness snaking into her mind. She punched the anchor in the face, refusing to give up, but the punch made no difference.

  “Despite what the grains are desperate for us to believe, their history isn’t the truth,” the anchor whispered. “They only reveal what they want us to know. But that doesn’t mean we have to simply surrender to their views.”

  Seeing that Alexnya didn’t understand, the red anchor smiled gently.

  “I look forward to meeting you, Alexnya.”

  How did this strange anchor know her name? Alexnya punched her weakly one more time, fear now mixing with puzzlement.

  What the hell is going on?

  But before she could wonder any more, she passed out.

  “For such a powerful young lady you leave yourself deliciously vulnerable,” Chakatie said.

  Alexnya woke to Chakatie staring down at her in the middle of the sunflower field. The night was gone, the morning sun already shimmering through the fog rising from the nearby river.

  Alexnya rolled away from Chakatie and sprang into a crouch. She was still powered up, her large claws and muscles ready to fight. But she’d spent too long in this form, and her body ached and felt as stiff as a fallen tree. She was also coated in mud. And even though the grains had already healed her body, her neck throbbed from being choked unconscious.

  She glanced around the field. The giant anchor who’d attacked her was nowhere to be seen. Had fighting the anchor been a glitch by the grains in her mind? Were they playing tricks on her?

  Chakatie, despite being the matriarch of these lands and the most powerful anchor for a hundred leagues, wasn’t using her own grains’ power. She looked like a simple older woman in a neatly pressed three-piece yellow suit and yellow bowler hat. With irritation she brushed a spot of mud off her yellow pants.

  Even crouching, Alexnya when powered up was taller than Chakatie. One swipe of her claws and Alexnya could decapitate her.

  “Well?” Chakatie asked impatiently. “If you’re going to kill me, do it. Don’t twaddle away my time.”

  Alexnya sighed and powered down, her muscles and bones shrinking back to normal size. She’d always liked Chakatie—didn’t totally trust her, but liked her.

  Chakatie slapped Alexnya on the back, hurting even though Chakatie was also powered down. “Let’s get you cleaned up and packed. Then we’ll deal with this judgment thing. Don’t worry—we’ll think of something.”

  “It’s not ‘we’ who’s going to be judged,” Alexnya muttered.

  “I was being polite,” Chakatie replied. “And you’re correct—it’s not fair, being judged for something you didn’t do. But surely you’ve sensed it? The grains are angry. When the grains get angry, they are rarely fair.”

  Chakatie spoke the truth. Even though Alexnya was a new anchor and still learning how the grains worked, she’d felt their anger over the last year. Something had happened, a few hundred leagues from here. The grains weren’t sharing what had happened, but according to rumor a large number of anchors had been killed and a massive explosion had damaged that distant land.

  Maybe forcing Alexnya into a sham judgment festival was part of the overreaction by the grains to that disaster?

  “Will you defend me?” Alexnya asked. “Tell the anchors at the festival that I tried to be a good anchor?”

  Chakatie smiled. “I’ll do my best, Alex. But I also won’t lie to you—if the grains have decided you must die, I won’t risk my family or our lands in a futile attempt to save you.”

  Alexnya nodded. As usual, Chakatie was both blunt and fair.

  Alexnya glanced across the sunflower field. The only footprints here were from her own feet and Chakatie’s—no giant imprints from the anchor who’d strangled her. She would have suspected the grains had made her imagine the entire thing if her neck wasn’t still tingling from her grains healing it.

  Through a gap in the trees she saw the peak of the biosphere over twenty leagues away, the glass of the distant mountain-sized habitat glistening in the morning light. The judgment festival would be held at the biosphere’s base. As a child Alexnya had visited that very biosphere with her day-fellow caravan. She’d tried to peek through the biosphere’s opaque glass to see the perfect, grain-free world inside but couldn’t make out anything. Still, at the time she’d yearned to go inside and see what it was like to live in a world without the stupid grains monitoring her every movement and deed.

  Guess I’ll get that wish, she thought. People being executed at judgment festivals were gifted the boon of living a single day inside a biosphere’s perfect environment.

  She chuckled to herself—did the grains really believe living a day without them made up for being executed?

  “You ready?” Chakatie asked.

  “Not really,” Alexnya said. “But might as well get going.”

  As they walked back Alexnya saw ten powered-down anchors—all members of Chakatie’s family—standing in her front yard around the destroyed altar. Several of them glared at Alexnya. She’d never liked Chakatie’s family and they hated her. They had never accepted that a day-fellow girl could become one of them.

  All of them wore fancy suits and hats, as if preparing to go to a delightful party. Which Alexnya guessed they were. Only the large backpacks they carried indicated this was more than a simple trip to the neighbor’s for a potluck.

  One anchor stood out from the rest—Pinhaus, Chakatie’s oldest son. Of all Chakatie’s children and grandkids and in-laws, Pinhaus was the only one who approached the power of Chakatie herself. Even with his body powered down his eyes flickered yellow to the anger of his grains. He smirked at Alexnya, as if daring her to challenge him.

  “Be on your best behavior around my family,” Chakatie whispered to Alexnya. “I don’t feel like dealing with drama on the way to the festival.”

  “No.”

  “What did you say?” Alexnya felt the grains in the old woman’s body click together as untold powers prepared to be unleashed.

  “I said I won’t do it. If I’m going to be judged for someone else’s crimes, I get to act any damn way I want.”

  Chakatie growled softly before a smile filled her face. “I like it when you’re defiant,” she said. “I hope you show the same attitude when you reach the judgment festival.”

  “I’ll do that,” Alexnya said. She glanced again at the biosphere on the distant horizon, where she’d be judged. Any happiness at standing up to Chakatie fled at the realization that no matter how defiant she was, the grains were determined to make an example out of her.

  They hiked two days to reach the festival. Chakatie didn’t tie or bind Alexnya’s hands as they walked, but the other members of Chakatie’s family continually surrounded her on the dirt road, preventing any escape. They even followed her into the damn trees every time she took a cr
ap, no matter how much she protested.

  Worse were the holographic rainbows and fireworks and dancing cartoon animals the grains projected into the air as the group walked down the road. When they passed homes on neighboring lands, little kids from anchor families squealed with delight and ran to watch.

  “I’m just a fucking parade for people,” Alexnya muttered.

  “Aw, don’t be down,” Wren, Chakatie’s teenage granddaughter, said. “This is going to be fun! I’ve never been to a judgment festival.”

  Wren was one of the few of Chakatie’s family Alexnya could stomach. Probably why the family ordered her to hike beside Alexnya.

  “You do realize I’ll be executed at this festival,” Alexnya said.

  Wren grinned, her irritatingly happy face looking as if she couldn’t imagine Alexnya being concerned about anything as trivial as pending death. She wore a red-flower sundress and sandals, a cute outfit that was totally impractical for hiking two days to the festival. But then all of Chakatie’s family had dressed up. Only Alexnya had worn walking boots and jeans, not caring how she looked.

  “You’ll be fine,” Wren said. “All you have to do is convince people you didn’t do anything wrong. The grains won’t hurt someone who’s innocent.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever been a day-fellow.”

  Wren clapped her hands together. “That’s what’s makes this exciting!” she said, her voice so high-pitched Alexnya flinched. “We’re traveling just like a day-fellow caravan! I’ve always wanted to do this.”

  Thank you, world, for letting her get even more irritating. Wren was only a few years younger than Alexnya and constantly bugged her for stories of her day-fellow times. Of living in horse-drawn wagons and traveling in caravans, always taking care to never harm the environment or stay in one place longer than a few days. Wren seemed to love how day-fellow caravans created deep bonds among friends and family—understandable, given how shitty many of Wren’s family could be.

  But if Alexnya mentioned the bad things that anchors did to day-fellows, Wren always rationalized that talk away. When Alexnya told Wren about one caravan being destroyed by anchors, leaving Alexnya’s wagon as the only survivor, Wren shrugged and said the day-fellows must have harmed the environment in some way. When Alexnya described watching an anchor kill an elderly day-fellow because he was too ill to travel and the grains had ordered his caravan to leave, Wren said the grains had their reasons.