15 Oct 2327 0122 GMT / An abandoned complex underneath Lewisham, London
Z-4Q woke and sat up. The room hadn’t changed much. It was dimly lit by emergency lights on the walls. There was a pile of rubble in one corner. There was, of course, no time portal and no team of technicians bustling around. A thick layer of dust covered the floor. He stood up, but was immediately struck by nausea and headache, so he sat back down. He would have to spend a few minutes recovering from the jolt of time-travel. There was a mild feeling of pulling from the inside, all over his body. He knew that this feeling was a result of his connection to his own time, and that the feeling would fade after a few hours, although the connection itself would remain.
He took the opportunity to calibrate his Universal Positioning Watch. After about a minute and a half, it told him that he was exactly when he was supposed to be. He tried to get up again, and found that he was well enough to walk, so he began slowly and unsteadily toward the door of the large room.
By the time he reached the door, he was no longer feeling any ill effects from the time travel. In the corridor outside, he found the door to the stairwell, and entered. The door clicked behind him, and he knew that he would not be able to return to that place while he was in the future. He ascended seven flights of stairs before reaching the labeled ‘ground level’. He pushed open the door, and found himself in what looked like a medical supply storage room. Again the door behind him clicked closed, and was locked to him. He turned around and looked at the door. A sign read simply, authorized personnel only. Z-4Q smiled to himself, knowing that the men and women who worked in this hospital must have made jokes about that door, as none of them were ever authorized to use it, and none of them knew what was behind it. He looked around quickly to see if there was anything in the room that he might be able to use, but most of the supplies had already been broken, spoiled, or otherwise ruined, so he moved on.
He found his way quickly to the exit, not wanting to stick around in case there were survivors still occupying the building. He realized that he knew from experience that survivors of a war living in a ruined city become very territorial. He idly wondered where and when he had learned that. Outside, he turned around and looked at the building. It was a simple brick structure, only two stories high, and the second story obviously built many years after the first. The building was covered in a fine black ash, just like everything else that he could see. The sign on the front of the building read, University Hospital Lewisham. Z-4Q turned toward the street, and began to walk as he pulled down the boom mic from his PHUD.
“Display last complete map of London before current date,” he instructed. The map came up right away; a small compass rose in the center indicated his current location. “Zoom to five-hundred meters.” The display refreshed at a closer vantage, labels appeared on the streets and buildings. He saw the street he was on: Crescent. The map on his display turned and moved as he moved toward the main road, nearby. As he walked north toward central London, where the signal was going to appear, he looked at the labels on the buildings in his vicinity. After a few moments, he found a possibly useful building. “That might work,” he said aloud to himself. Text appeared across his map, command not recognized. He reached up, and pushed the small button that allowed the boom to retract back into the PHUD.
He walked down the road, and turned into a small police station on the left, past the hospital. He tried the door, but it was still locked. Perhaps there were no survivors living in this area. Z-4Q forced the door open with a kick, and entered. He walked past the reception area, and found an equipment closet. Here, he found what he was looking for. He took the police issue bicycle out of the closet, and out onto the street. He disconnected the optional motor from the frame, and set it on the road. In a small kit behind the seat, he found oil and a wrench. In a few minutes, he had a working bicycle. He turned the bike onto the main road, and continued north toward the river.
He followed the motorways toward Tower Bridge, which he felt was the most likely to still be standing. As he rode, he began to notice increasing signs of habitation in the blackened buildings. Some buildings had even been scrubbed of their ash coating. Any people who saw him, however hid quickly away back inside the buildings. It made sense to him that habitation would increase closer to the river. The original settling of the area moved from the river out, why shouldn’t that be the case again? As he approached the site of Tower Bridge, he was relieved to see that it was indeed still standing. Soon however, he noticed that crossing might be a problem. A small cluster of buildings had been built at each end of the bridge. They looked like they had been built recently, but still they were covered in that same black ash as everything else. Suddenly he was conscious of how much of the stuff he might be breathing in.
Z-4Q stopped his bike about two-hundred meters from the entrance to the bridge. He could see that he would need to pay some kind of toll to cross. He briefly considered the bike, but didn’t think that he would be lucky enough to find another one on the other side of the river. He had nothing else on him that was not from his own time, so couldn’t leave any of his other equipment with them. His present mission’s purpose was to find a piece of equipment that a previous team had left behind. It would be counter-productive to leave another piece behind on his way. Then he remembered the spiders that Sanchez had given him. They had several different uses. One of them was ensuring that a particular piece of equipment, that was no longer needed, could be sent home. He reached into his pocket where the small pouch was resting, and fished for one of the devices. It was a small red disk, with eight ‘legs’. He palmed the little machine and walked his bike toward the bridge.
The man who approached him was not large, but he was well armed. His clothing was tattered, and a handkerchief was tied around his face. In his right hand he held a sawed-off shotgun. There was a smaller gun in his belt, and a rifle slung across his back. He looked young enough that this post-apocalyptic world was the only one he had ever known. Z-4Q was suddenly conscious of the fact that he also looked that way. He and this other man had some difficulty communicating. The agent lost some points with the man by refusing to tell his name or where he was from, but he didn’t feel like he knew enough about this world to make anything up that would have been even half-way convincing. The man’s name was Jonathan, and his father owned the bridge and most of the surrounding land. At first Z-4Q thought that it was a bad thing that the people in this area were being ruled over by a probably very corrupt militaristic leader, and that his son seemed like the type who would simply continue the despotism. Something in the back of his mind, however, told him that this was simply the way that these situations always develop. The despot leader was a necessary step on the road to a new civilized society. This militaristic rule would continue for two to three generations before one of several things would happen. Either a good man would finally be born into the rulership, who would improve the situation; a revolt would be held that pushes out the despot; or a better ruler from another area, which has already improved, will take over with his better organized and more loyal soldiers. Of course, it will be a lot longer before something other than monarchy rules the area.
Jonathan’s dialect was reminiscent of what Z-4Q knew as cockney, but was extremely thick. At long length, the two finally agreed on Z-4Q’s boots as payment of the toll. As he removed his Marine issue, steel-toe boots, he pressed the spider against the underside of the arch of each one, where it could be hidden, but not crushed. Carefully, and inconpicuously, he activated the eight clips, which dug slightly into the hardened rubber sole, then twisted the plates away from the top of the clips.
Jonathan gave up his own boots in a surprisingly friendly gesture. They were tattered nylon, and very dirty, but they weren’t part of the original agreement. Perhaps Jonathan would not be a bad ruler. He stomped around in his new boots, and seemed very pleased. He urged Z-4Q to put his boots on, and this made the agent feel a little bit guilty about tricking the fellow, but he complied, and after shaking the man’s hand, he got back on his bike and began to cross the bridge. The old tattered boots were actually better than his stiff military boots for peddling a bike. This made him feel worse still.
Ahead, he saw a spot-light shining toward him from a building at the other end of the bridge. It began to blink without rhythm. He stopped his bike, and twisted on his seat to look behind. There was another similar light aimed this way. He realized that they were communicating with the other side of the bridge, probably letting them know who is crossing. The men at the other end could have stopped him and demanded another toll, but they did not. Jonathan stuck to his deal. Z-4Q rode past quickly, while two men on rooftops kept rifles trained on him. He rode around a corner, and came to a stop again. He placed his feet on the ground on either side of the bicycle, and pulled down the boom mic from his PHUD. He then reached up and pulled down a small wire with a universal data plug on the end. He plugged this into the small box on his belt. He spoke into the microphone as he pulled out one of his ration packs and opened it.
“Analyze data from external pack. Then, combine with present map display,” he said. Text flashed across the screen: Incorporating QSD pack data … Wireless connection established, please disconnect multi-cable … thank you … After a few moments, a green diamond appeared at the edge of the map before him. He gave instructions for the map to zoom out. The green diamond was right at the convergence of five streets, east of Mayfair. Between bites, Z-4Q whispered to himself, “ Piccadilly Circus.” Picking up his whisper, the PHUD began to draw him a possible route to reach the location. He pressed the buttons which wound the boom and multi-cable back into the headset, “I already know how to get there.”
Before he rode off again, he looked at the small red disk, which was still in his hand. A small light in its center shone green. Reluctantly, Z-4Q squeezed the disk until it made a popping noise. He dropped it on the ground, and chewed silently as he watched the light turn orange before the device disappeared. He knew that it had returned to his own time, and that, if found, it would look like just a small red game piece. Idly, he wondered if anyone in 2045 would think it odd that there was now a pair of abandoned boots in the middle of Tower bridge; probably not. Hopefully, Jonathan’s day wasn’t completely ruined. Z-4Q liked the man for some reason. He had a nice name.
Look for Chapter 3 of Zeta Disconnect next Monday on Short-Media. In the meantime, comment on this chapter in our forums.
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