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Published by Twit Publishing at Smashwords
Blowing off Some Steam
Copyright © 2011 by David M DeMar
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
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The following work is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Publisher’s Note
This story was originally published in Twit Publishing Presents: PULP! Winter/Spring 2012. David M DeMar has published two stoies previously with Twit Publishing, namely “The Interview” and “A Reason for Living.”
We here at Twit Publishing love David, and so it is with great pleasure that we present “Blowing Off some Steam.” It’s a sci/fi, futuristic tale of people taking freedom into their own hands on a world riddled with EMP storms that have destroyed all the basic necessities we take for granted: things like the radio and the cell-phone.
So, enjoy.
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Blowing off Some Steam
I hate this place sometimes.
The young bucks like Charlie have no idea what they’re missing. Charlie, bless his empty little head, was born here; I wasn’t. I still remember making landfall here like it was yesterday.
Landfall, I thought. That was definitely the right name for it. Once the Aristeia passed through that damned magnetosphere, we plummeted like a rock. Thank goodness the crew evac pod had good old-fashioned explosive bolts or we all would have been smeared across the northern face of the Hesperus range like a banana cream pie across the forehead of a circus clown.
Speaking of clowns . . . “Dammit, kid, get your head down!” I grabbed the seat of Charlie’s pants and yanked him back behind the embankment. He brought a shower of pebbles down with him. “You tryin’ to get yourself plugged or what?”
“Aw c’mon Sarge, I just wanna see!” The teenager scowled petulantly, pushing his stringy hair out of his eyes. He looked like a dilapidated scarecrow amidst the rest of us. The grubby blue jumpsuit he was wearing hung from him like a coat off a push broom.
“You won’t see nothin’ if we’re spotted,” I growled. “Now sit down, shaddap, and pay attention if you don’t want this to be your last night out with us. Wachowski!”
A squat fireplug of a man scrambled up the rocky slope to me, his jumpsuit as muddy as Charlie’s. “Here, boss.”
“Take your squad around the left of this embankment when that gorilla suit patrol rounds the corner. You’ve got a thirty count before we come after you.”
The man nodded, his features creasing in a familiar grin. “This used to be a lot easier when we had radio, boss.”
“Don’t remind me.” I looked up at the sky. The stars had been snuffed out by a dark, roiling cloudbank. Sickly green lightning bolts had begun to arc in between and the wind had begun to kick up. “Another EM storm rolling in,” I said. “Let’s move, before we get flattened by buckets of hail.”
Wachowski took his squad left; I started counting in my head. What I wouldn’t give for a damn chronometer, I thought. At thirty I signaled the rest of us forward and we silently scrambled over the embankment.
Before us, in a small hollow, was one of the supply depots of the New Herculaneum Mining Company. A small warehouse stood at the left side of a gravel lot, constructed of reinforced pressure-alloy; to its right was a collection of administrative buildings cobbled together from scavenged wreckage and corrugated steel. The distinctive amber glow of gaslight emanated from in between the storm shutters of a dozen or so windows.
I led my squad across the rocky expanse and across the depot’s perimeter. We slipped into the shadows surrounding the warehouse and then skirted around its length to the side entrance to meet up with Wachowski, who had his handful of grubby grease monkeys keeping an eye out for the guard patrol. All of us scrambled inside the open door and then eased it shut just as the gorilla suit, emblazoned with NHMC across its broad pressure-alloy shoulders, came lumbering around the corner.
We waited, panting, in the darkness as the patrol passed by outside. The thin loading bay door shook as it trudged by, and we all listened in silence as its heavy footsteps disturbed the gravel outside, steam escaping in sharp hisses from its actuators. The boredom of its operator was evident from the sound of his tuneless whistling.
After a moment the patrol rounded the next corner. Its footsteps faded, and soon the only sound was rain as it began to patter softly on the roof of the warehouse.
“Alright,” I hissed, “spread out and load up on whatever you can carry. Rations, steam cores, spare parts.” I pulled out my old Zippo and sparked it. Others did the same. At least there’s enough oil distillate in this hellhole for naphtha. “Charlie, stick by me.”
We fanned out and began ransacking the warehouse. I picked through the laden shelves and began loading Charlie’s pack with torque wrenches and pressure gauges. “Sarge,” he whispered, “what’s a radio?”
“Pre-landfall tech, kid. Back when we didn’t have to worry about the EM storms constantly turning all our fancy equipment into paperweights.” A peal of thunder split the silence, rolling by overhead as if to emphasize the point. The rain intensified, and the louder, more insistent pounding of hail began thudding against the roof like buckshot from a scattergun.
I picked up a heavy, eighteen inch long pressure-alloy cylinder and checked the gauge on the front. I nodded and slid it into Charlie’s pack before lashing it shut. “There’s a steam core in there,” I told him.
He stiffened. “Uh . . . is it full, Sarge?”
I nodded. “Don’t drop it.” His expression crumpled and in the light thrown off by the dancing flame of my lighter, he suddenly looked very sick — and very, very young.
Wachowski sidled up to me as Charlie wobbled on his feet under the weight of his pack. “Boss, we’ve got something,” he hissed, hooking a thumb back over his shoulder. “You better come see this.”
I double checked Charlie’s pack and clapped him on the shoulder, motioning for the kid to fall in behind me. The two of us followed Wachowski through the maze of shelves to the back of the warehouse, where he stood next to a large loading door. Slumped against the wall like a row of drunks was a whole platoon of empty gorilla suits. “Boss, take a close look at these,” Wachowski said. He raised his lighter up to the shoulder of one of the suits. A round insignia was painted there — a streaking comet on a field of stars. “These are Colonial Authority suits!”
I hunkered down next to Wachowski, listening to my knees pop. I winced. My ass, 1.15 times Earth gravity has no long-term effects. Running a hand across the pressure-alloy torso on one of them, my grease-stained fingers explored a raised mount on the steam core powered exoskeleton’s right hip. “Well I’ll be damned. Wachowski, look at these hardpoints.”
Wachowski craned his neck around my shoulders, holding his own Zippo close. “Boss, there’s no way these are civvie surplus. We’re lookin’ at military rigs here, for sure.” A violent thunderclap shook the walls of the warehouse, making us all jump. Wachowski dropped his lighter, cursing colorfully, and bent over to search for it in the sudden murk.
“Sarge!” I looked up to see Charlie standing next to a huge corrugated steel crate covered by a heavy plastic tarpaulin. He had the corner of the tarp in his hands, revealing a stenciled CA insignia on the side of the crate. I leaned a hand on the gorilla suit and pushed, regaining my feet with a grunt. I never should have let Diomedes talk me into this, I thought as I steadied myself.
I walked over and grabbed a handful of the tarp, giving it a yank. It slid off and pooled on the floor with a sibilant hiss. The crate itself was large — about the dimensions of a coffin but twice as deep — and after Wachowski sent one of his men to find a pry bar to jimmy the padlock, we had the top off before you could say Jack Robinson. I had to clamp my hand over Charlie’s mouth to keep him from letting out a whoop once we saw what was inside.
There, nestled in polystyrene foam packing peanuts like a collection of pressure-alloy Easter eggs, was an anarchist’s wet dream. The entire crate was packed to the brim with military-grade weapons. Large bore rifles, scatterguns, even a heavy semi-auto with a flamethrower attachment. “Jiminy,” Charlie hissed, “there’s enough stuff in here to start a war!”
“Or end one,” said Wachowski. He looked over as one of his men pulled up the tarp on a second crate to reveal another CA logo. “What do you think is behind door number two, boss?”
We pried the top off this one and blinked at the cornucopia of full-jacketed ammunition staring back at us, glittering in the dim light. Someone reached in and pulled out a heavy .80 caliber slug. “Damn, these are heavy duty! What’s the NHMC doing with this hardware?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, but whatever it is, it can’t be good. I think the CA is involved too. We’ve got to get out of here and warn Diomedes about this.”
“Sarge, we’re just gonna leave this stuff here!? We should take these gorilla suits and do some serious damage!” Charlie pointed at the line of inert war machines. “These ain’t gonna be used to haul rocks!”
Wachowski glared at him. “Keep your voice down, kid. These are military suits, they’re not the kind you’d run when you’re feeding coal into a steam cracker.” Wachowski turned to look at me. “He’s right, though, boss. If we leave this stuff here it’ll just end up being used against us.”
“What the hell are we supposed to do? We can’t take them all with us. I haven’t operated one of these in years, and the rest of us are just grease monkeys.” I fell silent for a moment, pinching the bridge of my nose between a thumb and forefinger. “All right, here’s what we’ll do,” I said, beckoning Charlie over. I pulled the steam core from his pack. “Wachowski, did you get a good look at that NHMC security guard on his way through?”
He nodded. “Yeah, boss. Refurbished civilian model, like always. Just a .50 cal revolver, probably not even enough to punch through reinforced pressure-alloy armor.”
“Alright.” I looked over each of the military suits. “Let’s go, you apes. Pull these steam cores out. Be careful, for Pete’s sake, I don’t wanna end up as little Sarge chunks thawing out all over the floor.” I watched the team scramble, disengaging the long cylinders with care and pulling them from their housings.
We all froze again as the security patrol passed by outside. This time the operator was grumbling to himself about the rain. Once he had lumbered around the corner again, I slid the steam core I had in my hands into the waiting gullet of the gorilla suit next to me. It clicked into place; the pneumatics made the suit vibrate until the pressure equalized. Tiny puffs of steam escaped from the primary and secondary bleed valves.
I turned around and leaned back, settling into the open suit. “Pull me a sidearm and a rifle from that crate, and plenty of ammo. Take the firing pins out of the rest of those weapons.” I slipped my feet into the leg stirrups of the suit and clamped them shut around me. Then I slid my arms down the sleeves and into the control gloves. It felt like I was putting on a snowsuit. “This thing’s gonna make a lot of noise once I kick it into gear,” I said as I straightened up from a slouch, the steam actuators translating my movements into the suit’s movements. The chestplate clamshell closed around me and I flexed the fingers of each hand. The pressure-alloy gauntlets wriggled. “Well, let’s hope I remember how to work one of these things,” I said. “Now let’s get me armed.”
Wachowski came over, carrying a .50 caliber revolver. It looked huge in his hands, but it was sized just right for the gorilla suit I was wearing. I thumbed the chamber open and loaded in six large pressure-alloy jacketed shells clumsily, cursing as I nearly dropped one.
“You’re not exactly filling me with confidence, boss.” Wachowski took the revolver from me and made sure the shells were seated properly before snapping the chamber closed. I took it back from him and attached it to the hardpoint on the suit’s right hip as Charlie and another of Wachowski’s men came over with a huge .80 caliber repeater. I took it from them easily, ratcheted the toggle open, and began carefully slipping the massive shells into the magazine.
“I’m getting the hang of it; relax.” Pushing the last shell into the repeater’s magazine, I worked the lever closed, chambering the first round. I slung the rifle over my gorilla suit’s shoulder and slid it into place, and it clicked as it latched on to another hardpoint. The boys held out two grenades, which I clipped to a pair of D-rings on the suit’s waist, but I waved off the bandoliers of ammo they held out to me next.
“I’m not going to have time to reload,” I said, reaching up to lower the suit’s helmet into place. I rapped the thick, pressure-alloy glass faceplate with a steel-sheathed knuckle. Speaking through the grill on my helmet, I said, “We’ll wait until that security gorilla is at the far end. I’ll create a diversion and leave through the loading door here, leading the patrol off while Wachowski gets you all out the way we came in. Then we’ll meet up at the rendezvous point. Now toss those bandoliers back into the ammo box. Push it up next to those gorilla suits and move out.”
“All right, you bums, you heard the man. Let’s move!” Wachowski rounded up the two squads and herded them towards the side door. “Watch your ass out there, boss.”
I waited another thirty count, testing the feel of the suit. Just like the old days. At least my damn knees don’t hurt in this thing. I shook my head and strode forward to grab the loading door. The actuators in the suit’s hand and wrist hissed, emitting minuscule puffs of steam as I slid it open with one quick jerk.
The howling rain and hail began to pour inside. I cursed as the faceplate of my stolen suit completely fogged over and flipped my lid back up, the wind tearing at my eyes and sending my hair whipping about. What I wouldn’t give for a damned heating element, I thought. Well, time for that diversion.
I pulled one of the grenades from its D-ring and pulled its pin. Hefting it in my hand, I gave it a hard toss, the suit amplifying my movements and sending the thing a full fifty yards. It smashed into the rocky mountainside behind the supply depot and exploded in a roar.
The entire complex boiled over like a beehive poked with a stick — NHMC employees came pouring out of their buildings into the stormy evening, shouting and running. The security suit jogged around the corner, the operator having drawn his revolver. I watched him level it at me, the muzzle gleaming in the frequent flashes of lightning, and turned away from him as he thumbed back the hammer.
There was a roar and I was kicked hard in the back of the shoulder. The momentum spun me around and sent me down to my hands and knees. I looked over at the shoulder of the suit and shook my head at the scorched dent the slug had left in the armor plating.
“Right,” I growled, pushing my suit’s hands down into the ground and getting my feet under me. Another shot rang out, sending a spray of gravel across my path, and I pawed for the repeater on the back of my suit as I stumbled to the cover of a nearby rock outcropping.
I finished struggling with the rifle and peered around the edge of my cover. The security gorilla was circling around, trying to flank me, so I put the repeater to my shoulder and squinted down its sights in the hail. My ears rang as I pulled the trigger and the massive shell went spiraling out the pressure-alloy barrel.
The mook operating the security gorilla dove to the side as the shell screamed by and gouged a long, deep furrow in the gravel. I cursed and worked the lever, ejecting a spent shell casing the size of a coffee cup and slamming another one home. After taking a moment to enjoy the feeling of sending him scrambling, I poked my head out, waited for the next flash of lightning, and took another shot, this time tagging him right in the gearbox humped up between the suit’s shoulder blades.
The operator went ape as his suit began to vent its steam pressure explosively. Screaming in fear, he rolled over on his back and frantically tugged on the harness holding him in place. Unlike my stolen suit, he didn’t have the extra armor of a chestplate, but it probably saved his life, as he managed to break free and leg it before the steam core breached and shattered the entire suit into a million little frost-covered pieces, blasting gravel everywhere.
I think that’s a pretty good diversion. I slung the repeater back over my shoulder and got moving as another security gorilla came around the corner of the far administrative building, revolver in hand. “Oh, the hell with this,” I said, picking the second grenade from its D-ring.
I pushed myself into a long-striding lope, letting the suit do most of the work, and skidded around the corner of the warehouse as more shots rang out behind me, ricocheting off the building. I ran by the open loading door and, with a little salute to the handful of mining company stooges gathered inside, tossed the second grenade. It rolled over and went clunk against the open crate of ammunition.
I heard a chorus of panicked yells as the workers ran for cover, and I spared a glance over my shoulder as I saw them pour out of the warehouse in terror. Coming up on the embankment, I planted my feet and vaulted, sailing through the air like a rag doll as a dull thump went off behind me, followed by a series of more explosions. I hastily pulled my faceplate back down as I careened to a stop on the rocky soil, landing with a bone-jarring thud and barely avoiding cracking my skull open on a jagged-looking boulder.
I regained my feet, my suit’s bleed valves hissing like a cat, and loped around the perimeter of the depot to meet up with the rest of the squad. “Nice one, boss,” a rain-soaked Wachowski told me as he helped me out of the gorilla suit. I disengaged the steam core and pulled it halfway out, then wrestled the oversized revolver from the suit and pulled back a good fifty yards.
“Wait, we’re not keeping it?” Charlie looked even more bedraggled in the flashing lightning. He winced as hail bounced off his shoulders. “Think of the damage we could do with one of those military suits, Sarge!”
I shook my head. “Too much maintenance,” I yelled over the howling storm. “I’d rather just keep ‘em out of the hands of the mining company!” I thumbed the hammer back on the revolver. The chamber ratcheted into place and I took careful aim at the exposed steam core, bracing my feet. “Besides, I can’t operate one of these things for shit.” I squeezed the trigger, winging the canister. The cylinder decompressed in a hurry, turning the stolen suit into a ton and a half of steel wool. Me and the boys legged it into the ubiquitous scrub underbrush.
Two days later, the team and I had made it back to New Herculaneum. Holed up in a dark back-alley slum in Cogtown, I looked up at the roof as another EM storm raged overhead.
A dark, powerfully-built man, with bushy brows and a thick, black beard was pacing back and forth in front of me, the gaslight sending his shadow dancing across the walls. “You’re absolutely sure all of those suits were CA military?”
“Without a doubt, sir.” I leaned back up against the wall and fished a cigarette from my pack, flicking my Zippo to light it. I took a deep drag, savoring the feeling of my lungs filling with smoke. “Military hardware, all identical to the gorilla suit I hijacked to get us out of there. And that ordnance was not for clearing rock from mineshafts. The mining company’s gotta be gearing up for some sort of antipersonnel engagement — probably to get rid of people like us.”
“And the Colonial Authority is in on it,” he said, pausing and scratching at his chin. His eyes glittered in the gaslight as he cast his gaze around the room. “This goes deeper than just Hesperus District, Sergeant — you know as well as I do that things have been getting worse and worse since the Corporate Autonomy Act. The NHMC is out of control, and there’s nothing to stop them if they’ve got the CA in their pocket.”
I flicked the ash on my smoke and took another drag. The cheap, planet-side grown tobacco was harsh, but I didn’t care. “We can’t possibly stand up to the mining company and the Colonial Authority at the same time, Diomedes, not by ourselves. We need to start talking about building a coalition, sir. The Sons of Argos don’t have enough manpower and equipment, but if we spearhead a larger resistance network throughout all of Hesperus, we could make a difference.” I sighed. “You know, this used to be a lot easier when we could just call in the cavalry. This back alley homing pigeon shit is way too much Old Earth Victorian for my tastes.”
Diomedes nodded. A small, exasperated sigh escaped his lips. “I know, but we’ve got to make do.” He leaned up against the far wall and crossed his arms. “You’ve given me a lot to think about, Sergeant. Keep an eye out on the dead letter drops in your precinct; I’ll be sending word on our next move soon. Until then, keep your head down.” He broke into a grim, humorless smile. “And good work out there.” I saluted him and took my leave.
I had made my way back to Main Street, the lapels on my cheap coat turned up against the wind, when a bedraggled newsboy darted around the corner. “Extra! Extra!” he shouted. “Terrorist attack on mining company depot!”
I flagged him down, buying one from him. “Thanks, lady!” he said before running off down the street. I ducked into a nearby doorway to get out of the rain. There, right above the fold, was a sketch of the depot. It depicted the warehouse doors blown open and clawing at the sky like a pair of gnarled, skeletal mitts, and black, foul-looking smoke had been drawn pouring from the dark yawning opening. “TERRORISTS!” read the headline, and underneath it, “MINING OPERATION MARRED BY SENSELESS VIOLENCE.” I shook my head and started reading through the article:
Late in the evening on the 23rd a terrific blast rocked the eastern Hesperus range. The New Herculaneum Mining Company’s Hesperus Depot was devastated by an improvised explosive device of some sort, destroying vital pressure-alloy mining equipment, including several Real Motion Replication miner suits. “This was no accident,” NHMC’s Chief Investigative Officer, Horatio Cadlington, said in a prepared statement. “The destruction of these RMR suits was a deliberate act of sabotage, and the perpetrators of this act will be sought out and punished for not only their destruction of NHMC property, but for their disruption of our community and the valuable career opportunities NHMC brings to the Hesperus District.” No organization has come forward to claim responsibility for the attack, but several insider sources point the finger at the shadowy terrorist organization that calls itself the Sons of Argos, led by the notorious anarchist known only to friend and foe alike as Diomedes. By some stroke of luck or perhaps an indication of the ineptitude of the members of those involved in the incident, no loss of life occurred.
I laughed bitterly. “Mining equipment, my ass,” I said and tucked the paper under my arm. I stuck my head out of the doorway, casting my eyes up and down the muddy street before dashing off into the rain. I was supposed to meet the boys tonight down at the Torch and Goggles for a few pints, after all, and I wasn’t about to leave ‘em hanging, now was I?