James Decker - Fallout

As we walked, I moved closer to Nix so I could talk to him without the gonzos hearing.

“What did you mean back there?” I asked him. The pupils in each of his eyes swam through the mellow light to fix on me.

“When?”

“You said that Qian was right.”

“I said there is some truth to what she says.”

“You said that our world doesn’t have much time.”

One of the gonzos glanced over at us, and Nix switched to the 3i chat.

Each universe has six potential fundamental forces, he said. At least as far as we know. Your universe has four, and ours shares those four—gravitation, electromagnetic, strong, and weak force. The relationships between these forces are complex, but—

Nix, just get to the point. What did you mean when you said “our world doesn’t have much time”?

The four forces were nearly the same between our two universes, but not identical. A small but important variation in the weak force mediated by particles your people call “weak bosons.”

Nix…

The end result is that the natural radioactive decay occurs more quickly here than in the universe you came from. Over the past fifty years, the levels of radiation on this planet have increased. It hasn’t become problematic, not yet, but it will. It is only a matter of time before your planet can no longer support plant and animal life in its current form.

I didn’t exactly understand what he’d said, and it annoyed me that I couldn’t really verify it, but I got the gist.

If that’s true, I said, then how was there life on your planet?

Because it evolved in that universe. Everything that did was well suited for it.

And we’re not.

He nodded.

I’m sorry, he said. But as I said before, there is some truth to what Qian told you.

So you… changing us—this was the plan all along?

Not because we wanted to. You have to understand—unlike your world, ours never suffered any mass extinction. We’ve had millions of years to evolve, to even take control of and perfect our own evolution. We had achieved resonance hundreds of thousands of years ago with a perfectly functioning ecosystem. That luxury doesn’t exist here. You will not adapt, or evolve, to this new environment. Without some kind of external push, eventually you will die.

He noticed that I’d begun to back away, and turned. When he made to take me by the arm, I pulled away.

I don’t believe you, I said.

I can sense you, he said, as you sense me . On some level, you know what I’m telling you is true.

Shut up.

By the time we arrived at the next marker, another six robed men and women waited and as we continued more and more joined the group, each carrying picket signs. By the time we’d reached the halfway point, we were completely surrounded by a procession of worshippers, their bodies and signs forming a shield around us that concealed us from any security officers or cameras.

I drifted back from Nix, not sure whether or not to believe him but feeling anxious at the thought of it. Could it be true? Could the haan, and even Sillith herself, have had our interests in mind all along?

I took Vamp’s hand and squeezed it as we walked. He glanced down, uneasy, and I shared that unease. The gonzos provided an excellent cover, and no one bothered us at all during the trip, but the fact that Gohan had gone to such lengths worried me.

“This feel like a trap to you?” he asked.

“We don’t have much of a choice at this point,” I said, then messaged him, privately.

Dragan is coming. We’ll be okay.

The procession stayed with us the whole time, ignoring Vamp and me for the most part in favor of fawning over Nix, who seemed willing to put up with them as they touched him like some kind of good luck charm. When we reached a keyed metro tunnel, they followed us down and the first woman we’d met stepped from the group to meet a lone gonzo standing by the platform’s glass door. As she approached, he spoke into his phone.

“…Three of them. They’ve arrived,” he said. He hung up and then slipped the phone back into his robe.

“Here they are,” the woman said.

“Thank you,” he responded.

She bowed, and smiled. “Only He can move the stars.”

The procession then retreated, heading back up the stairs in a crowd of white robes.

“They’re expecting you,” the man at the door said. A key card appeared in his hand from his sleeve like some kind of magic trick. He touched it to the turnstile’s scanner and the door unlocked with a metallic click. “You should get off the street.”

He went back to meditating or whatever it was he was doing as one by one we passed through the turnstile to a set of stairs that led down to a semiprivate monorail platform, shared by key members of Hangfei’s upper crust. I’d seen the entrances around town, but I’d never been in one of them before. There was no graffiti, not a single piece of trash, and instead of a dirty concrete floor the platform was covered in shiny ceramic tiles that were colored red and gold.

“There they are,” Nix said.

I looked down the platform and saw two men heading toward us, their shiny black shoes rapping on the tiles as they came. These guys weren’t wearing robes, they were wearing suits, and they didn’t look like your run-of-the-mill, doped-out gonzos, they looked like they might be dangerous. When they stepped under one of the overhead lights and I got a good look at them, I realized I actually recognized them. They were the same two thugs Gohan had with him in the aircar when he set Dragan up.

“Watch these guys,” I said under my breath.

“Both men are armed,” Nix said.

“It’s okay,” I said, “just stay cool.”

As the men approached us, one of them spoke into his cell phone but his words were swallowed by the low clack and rumble of an approaching train. The rush grew louder as a light appeared from down the tunnel; then a short, three-car bullet train whooshed up to the platform and stopped with a loud, hydraulic hiss that made the two goons’ pant legs ruffle.

They split up as we met on the platform next to the train, one approaching me while the other approached Vamp and Nix. He motioned for them to move away from me as the doors on two of the train’s cars opened with a soft chime.

“Hold still,” the one in front of me said. He held some kind of tablet up between us, and used it to scan me up and down. While he watched the screen, the other one checked out Vamp and Nix.

“Let’s have the pistol,” the one in front of me said. I took it from my pocket where I’d stowed it, and handed it over to him.

“They’re clean,” the other goon said. He’d begun to herd them back, away from me.

“Hey,” I said. “They come too. That was the deal.”

The guard with me dialed, then spoke into his phone again. “We’ve got them,” he said. “We’re bringing them on now.”

He nodded toward his partner, who signaled to Vamp and Nix.

“You two,” he said, “rear car.”

I took a step toward them and the other guard grabbed my arm.

“Not you. You’re up front.”

I jerked my arm away from him.

“Bullshit. Why?”

“Because that’s how it is,” he said, his voice turning hard. “Is there going to be a problem?”

“It’s okay,” Vamp said.

“We stay together,” I told the two men. The one with me shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Gohan’s only taking them because he wants you. They ride in back or not at all.”

“Sam, it’s okay,” Vamp said. “We can take care of ourselves. We’ll see you in Xinzhongzi.”