Gamma World: Tempus Fugitive: Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Cera felt herself start to blush and did her best not to because it’d be, like, embarrassing. The way this human was looking at her, with such open and honest admiration, well, it was the kind of flattering attention most girls appreciated. She had also been able to read his surface thoughts (at least some of them because his thoughts were chaotic) and words like gorgeous and breathtakingly beautiful had been in the forefront.
    They were his true feelings. The weasel girl stuffed her revolver into her waistband and walked forward to take his hand. “Hi, I’m Cera.”
    They clasped hands and a surge of energy ran through them like a jolt of electricity. Garadun cried out and staggered and fell to one knee, still gripping the weasel’s hand. His thoughts were jumbled and shocked; whatever was happening wasn’t his doing. In an instant she understood what was occurring: his system was in flux. It was like when she experienced an alpha mutation, only much stronger. More like when her telepathic abilities had first manifested. He was mutating right before her eyes.
    It’s all right, I’m here, she said telepathically and knelt beside him.
    What the?
    I’m telepathic, it’s my thoughts you’re hearing.
    Holy crap.
    Garadun, your body’s in flux, Cera told him and helped him lie down. You’re mutating. Is it your first time like this?
    “Mutating, what?” he said, then closed his eyes and gasped in pain.
    We all go through it, she assured him. I just don’t understand. This happens when we’re young. Then again, you look like pure strain human, so maybe–
    “Aaaaghh!” The human’s back bowed, his hands clenched in pain and his right leg spasmed. He started breathing rapidly.
    Easy, easy. Steady breaths. Don’t hyperventilate. The pain will pass.
    Jeez, what the hell? He stared at his hand. It had been burned in the temporal fracture, along with other assorted bits of him. But as he watched the burns faded to nothing. The pain went with it. His whole body felt energised and he sat up, looking at his hands. He touched his face and then looked at the weasel girl.
    “You’re regenerating,” she said with a grin and helped him to his feet.
    “I’m what?”
    “Regenerating.” Cera regarded him thoughtfully, then at her own hand. “You’re in flux. Somehow when we clasped hands you absorbed my own ability to regenerate and the mutation has made it part of you now. Can you read my thoughts?”
    Garadun squinted his eyes and concentrated. Nothing.
    “No, I don’t think so.”
    “Well, I’m sure whatever other abilities you’ve manifested will show themselves in time. Mutants can be unpredictable that way,” she added cheerfully.
    “I’m a mutant now?” he said, baffled.
    The weasel girl gave him a wary look. “Yes. Is that a problem?”
    “No, no problem,” he replied. “Just, you know, weird. Mutant.”
    “I’m a mutant.”
    “I meant weird for me,” Garadun told her, realising he may have insulted her without meaning to. “Look, go easy on me, okay? I just got here.”
    Cera frowned. “Just got here? You don’t live in the ruins?”
    “What? No. I came through some… I don’t know what the hell it was. One minute I’m in my apartment and ready to go out, and the next minute there’s all this light and I feel like I stuck my finger in a socket and then I’m lying on the sidewalk down there,” he explained, pointing. “And then some frickin’ zombies came after me!”
    “Hang on, that was you? The distortion bubble?”
    “I guess.”
    Cera looked at him with renewed curiosity. “Where are you from, if not here?”
    “Where is here exactly?”
    “Here? This is a ruined city of the Ancients, or maybe an omega one,” she told him. “West of the great inland seas. I flew here from my home town of Big Boat.”
    Garadun simply stared at her, then walked over to the edge of the roof and gazed out over the city. Cera strolled over and joined him.
    “Definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” he muttered.
    “Pardon?”
    “Nothing, forget it. What planet is this?”
    “Gamma Terra.” Cera cocked her head to one side. “You don’t know that?”
    “How could I?” he countered. “I’m not from here, remember? I’m from a place called Earth. Although this city looks similar to what was on Earth, but–”
    “Earth?” Cera looked at him in surprise. “That’s what Gamma Terra was called before the Great Disaster! Earth was the world of the Ancients.”
    The human turned to face her and she gasped, her eyes widening. No, it couldn’t be! But if the distortion had been a time fracture, well, then maybe it was possible.
    “Are you… are you an Ancient?” she asked breathlessly.
    “Uh, I don’t know. What’s an Ancient?”
    “Humans. Humans from the time before the Great Disaster,” she replied. “When the world was whole and cities like this were…”
    Cera looked at him solemnly. “May I have your thoughts?”
    “What?”
    “Your thoughts,” she explained. “It would be so much easier to understand if you would let me into your mind. But only with your permission.”
    Garadun’s mind was his only place of true privacy; but until now telepaths had just been fiction, not reality. The girl had already been in his head, had talked to him. He had felt her concern and compassion, her kindness.
    And she was the only person he knew now.
    He took a breath. “You have my permission.”
    “Thank you.”
    The mutant weasel put her hands on his shoulders and gently placed her forehead against his. Her touch and closeness sent an instinctive and uncontrollable thrill through him that had his hormones doing the happy dance. It was embarrassing as all hell, made all the worse because she was about to read what passed for his so-called mind. But he couldn’t help it. She was just so amazingly attractive.
    Cera had hardly ever done deep telepathic scans, there rarely being a need to. The trick most times was not picking up other people’s thoughts. Most of the time she simply did not want to know. People could think some pretty sick stuff. Communicating via surface thoughts was fine among friends and was convenient, but deep scans?
    And what she was doing now went beyond even a deep scan. It was something she had learned about from her psychic tutor but had never attempted. This was a merger, a true intertwining of minds: sharing thoughts and feelings with a level of intimacy that only telepaths could experience. To say nothing of the fact that Garadun was a complete stranger whom she’d just met. On the other hand there was something… something she couldn’t quite put a finger on that made her trust him. He felt safe.
    He was also confused, frightened, and alone.
    How long the two of them stood on the rooftop together like that was unclear. In reality probably not very long. In their psychic trance with their innermost thoughts and feelings interweaving it felt somewhat timeless. Cera learned that he was an Ancient, that he had come from the past and into the present via a time-space fracture. One that had probably been created at the instant of the Big Mistake and only now had unravelled. She knew who his family and friends were, what his favourite foods were. The kinds of music he liked. She learned that Kahnahda was properly called Canada, and what she had flown over had been known as the Great Lakes. She learned this and more.
    From Cera, Garadun learned the basic history of Gamma Terra; as least as far as she’d been taught. He learned of the Big Mistake as it was called, of how countless realities and worldlines and timelines had come together and reshaped the Earth. Of how the world was populated and dominated by mutants of all kinds, and that hazards and dangers were everywhere. He learned about Big Boat and her life there. In merging his mind with hers he saw what a truly wonderful person she was: how smart, brave and adventurous. Of the pain she felt at the loss of her parents, murdered by a raiding group of badders: mutant badgers. Of how she was determined to go on.
    How could you not love a woman like that?

                                                                          *****

Gamma Terra was a changed Earth, but not changed so much that Garadun didn’t have a rough idea of where they were. The weasel girl’s home town of Big Boat was north of what she called Ott-Wah – in other words: Ottawa. She had flown her airship clear across the Great Lakes and they were now a few hundred kilometres inland from the west coast of Lake Superior, if his recollection of geography was correct. By the old maps that meant they were in south-western Ontario or maybe south-eastern Manitoba. She had been following what seemed to be the Trans-Canada Highway (he thought it interesting that its old nickname, the T-Can, had survived) and wound up here.
    But this city wasn’t part of any Canada he knew. Hell, nothing was. He was a century or two out of his time and in a world that had been turned upside-down and inside out and where reality had gone off on a long holiday. The old names and places didn’t mean much now. This was Gamma Terra.
    “Garadun, could you give me a hand, please?”
    “Sure, of course.” He turned away from where he’d been staring out over the city and joined the lovely young mutant. She had the bonnet of her improvised gondola open and was getting out some supplies.
    Cera passed him a handmade buckskin duster. “Here. You’ll need this.”
    “Thanks,” he said, slipping it on. All he had were his clothes: a blue t-shirt with KEEP CALM AND DON’T BLINK in white on it, a pair of faded jeans, underwear and socks, and Converse All Star high tops done in a Union Jack print. Perhaps not the best attire with which to tackle the postapocalyptic world, but there you go. Cera was in her usual attire of handmade shirt, pants and moccasin boots, and had added a thigh-length jacket of heavy leather with padding on the elbows and shoulders, and put her hair in a tight braid. She strapped plastic shin guards to her legs and had an Old West-style holster for her big revolver made from tan-coloured leather.
    “So where we going?” he asked.
    “Nowhere until I can fix the balloon,” she said with an irritated sigh. “Damned terls. First we’ll secure the airship to the roof and then we’ll do some looking around. Before I crashed I saw a large complex I wanted to explore.”
    “Uh, you do know there’s zombies down there, right?”
    “This is an omega city, Garadun,” she said and handed him a leather knapsack. “Here: there’s food and water and some supplies. I’ve waited my whole life to explore a place like this and I’m not letting a few zombies stop me.”
    “A few zombies,” he said dryly.
    “There’s a lot worse than zombies. Besides, they’re slow and brainless. We can handle them.” She took a nylon pack for herself as well as a big bowie knife. From the back of the car she drew out an old aluminium baseball bat wrapped in leather strips and handed it to her human friend.
    “I know it’s only a club, but it’s very sturdy.”
    “This isn’t a club, this is a baseball bat,” Garadun told her with a grin and gave it a few swings. It felt good in his hands. “I know how to use it.”
    “Baseball?” she said curiously.
    “An old game from my time.”
    “And this ‘bat’ was used for what?”
    “To hit a ball.”
    “Interesting. Well, that’s yours now.”
    “Thanks.”
    “By the way, I love your shoes,” she said, smiling. “Back home you could trade shoes like that for, oh, quite a lot. Intact Ancient clothing is highly prized.”
    “I guess.”
    “Come on, help me with these ropes and then we’ll get going.”

                                                                          *****

The two new friends hovered inside the building’s exit, using the shadows as cover while they searched the street for zombies. Garadun had a good grip on his baseball bat and was thankful that Cera had a revolver. He was alert for danger and the bat in his hands made him feel a bit more confident. But what really boosted his morale was Cera. Knowing that he was no longer alone did wonders for his state of mind.
    Cera nodded to him and they cautiously made their way out of the building and into the street, turning east. Garadun looked around in fascination. The city really looked like the ones shown in Life After People: windowless buildings overgrown with flora, rusting cars in the streets, weeds everywhere, birds in the sky, everything. Both of them were watching not only for trouble on the ground but in the air as well. In the uppermost reaches of the city terls could be seen flying this way and that, but they seemed content to stay there. Given how dangerous they could be, this was a good thing.
    So where we headed? he asked.
    That way, she replied, pointing. She was keeping them telepathically linked so they could communicate silently. It looked like a large complex.
    And this is, what did you call it? An omega city?
    I think so. The weasel paused and looked at him. I’ve never actually seen one before, or a city of the Ancients. From the air it just kind of looked, I don’t know, not right. Like it didn’t belong. Does the architecture seem right to you?
    Garadun studied the buildings. Sort of, I guess. Every city in the world had its own style and I was well-travelled. But with everything in ruins it’s not easy to tell. I mean, if this is from a parallel world, there might not be any visible differences.
    Yes, I suppose you’re right about that.
    Garadun made for one of the ruined cars and Cera followed. He rested his bat on his shoulder and began examining it. The door windows and windscreen were smashed and the rear window was heavily cracked. The paint was faded and covered with dirt, and the tires were badly decayed, as was the interior. He moved around to the back of the car and knelt down, trying to clean off the logo emblem.
    What’re you looking for? she asked curiously.
    Trying to see what brand this is, he replied. Your car, the one you’re using in your airship? That’s an old Scion, a make of car from my timeline. I want to see what make this is. I can’t tell what kind of car it is with the shape it’s in.
    As Garadun was cleaning the logo it snapped off the boot and fell to the ground. He picked it up and wiped it some more.
    No, I don’t recognise this, he told her. He stepped over and saw there was a name in raised letters on the right side. He rubbed the dirt off. It read MAXWELL. He looked at Cera. Maxwell? This isn’t any car manufacturer I’ve heard of.
    So it’s from another world?
    That would seem the likeliest explanation.
    So, logically, this could be an omega city, she said excitedly. Come on.
    Cera led her new friend along the street and they kept close to the buildings instead of walking out in the open, using cars and anything else big enough as cover. As they went along Garadun would pause at junked cars to check for brand names. Some he knew but there were others he didn’t. The problem was that the cars of his era had all looked the same. Take the brand badges off and you couldn’t tell the things apart. If these were from an alternate Earth, then they’d had the same problem: they all looked alike. Being from a parallel dimension didn’t necessarily mean things would be radically different.
    “Garadun, look out!”
    He yanked his head out of the car he’d leaned in to examine and spun around as Cera jumped onto the car’s boot. Coming at him from a nearby alley that opened onto the main street were five fungus-ridden zombies, arms outstretched. The weasel glared at the nearest deadun and hit it with a bolt of raw psychic energy. Its head exploded in a burst of green fungus and radiation and collapsed onto the ground in mid-step.
    With his baseball bat leaning against the car, the human instinctively put out his right hand in a defensive gesture while he groped for the bat with his left. Power surged through him, unlike anything he’d ever experienced, and a wave of pure force exploded outwards from his hand. It struck the two lead zombies and hurled them a good four or five meters away where they smashed into a wall, fell down, and didn’t rise.
    “Holy crap!”
    The remaining pair of zombies rushed him with outstretched, skeletal hands. Garadun raised his bat to ward them off. They hit some kind of invisible barrier that had suddenly manifested around him, then used their undead strength to push past it and claw at his face with their rotting hands. He yelled in fear and anger.
    “Get off him!” Cera stepped onto the car’s roof and kicked one of the zombies in the face. Her blow knocked its head clean off and the body fell in a heap. Garadun jumped to the side and swung his bat with all his might: he whacked the last zombie’s head off its shoulders and it burst apart when it hit the street. The corpse fell over on its side, lifeless. Well, more lifeless than usual anyway.
    “Sonofabitch.” Garadun was panting in fear and excitement. Cera hopped down from the car roof and looked at him in concern.
    “Are you all right?” she asked.
    “Yeah, I think so,” he said, then frowned and touched his face. Cera smiled when she saw the deep scratches the zombies had given him stop bleeding and start to heal. There was no question that he was, like her, a regenerator.
    “You’re healing, don’t worry.”
    “Cool.” Garadun lifted his right hand in wonder. “The hell was that?”
    “You’re telekinetic!” she said happily. “When you were in flux and we touched, your body absorbed my regenerative powers. You obviously also went psychic. But instead of telepathy you developed telekinesis. A friend of mine back home has it.”
    “No kidding,” he said, waggling his fingers.
    “Try it. See that rock over there? Pick it up with your mind.”
    Garadun took a breath, concentrated and held out his right hand. He focused on the small rock and it suddenly quivered and then lifted into the air and flew across the intervening space into his waiting hand. Cera laughed and clapped.
    “You did it! Congratulations!” She gave him a hug, which of course he didn’t mind one damn bit. Highlight of his day. When she let him go, he released his grip on his bat. It hovered in mid-air. He sent it around in a circle and then brought it back.
    “Well I’ll be buggered,” he said with a laugh.
    “Nicely done, my fellow mutant.” The weasel chuckled and patted the human on the back. “And see? Those zombies were nothing. We tore ’em apart.”
    “We did, didn’t we?” he said, beaming. He made an exploding gesture with his hands next to his head. “You were amazing, Cera! I mean, you just blew its head to bits.”
    “Thanks. I hate zombies.”
    “Hey, who doesn’t?”
    “Good point. But come on: let’s get going before any of their pals turn up.”
    “I hear that,” he said, then suddenly choked. He winced and spat something into his hand. It was an old filling. He gagged and then spat out more fillings. He looked at Cera helplessly. “The hell?”
    “What are those?”
    “The fillings from my teeth.”
    “Open you mouth.” Cera looked inside. “Yes, I can see one of your missing teeth growing back. Don’t worry, it’s normal. It’s the regeneration. It doesn’t only heal wounds but replaces lost bits, like teeth and fingers. In a couple of days all your old scars will be gone. You won’t get sick either, not unless it’s some omega bug.”
    Garadun explored inside his mouth and felt the teeth coming back. “Cool.”
    Cera grinned and rubbed his head. “The grey in your hair will go away, your eyesight will become perfect and your body will fight poisons.”
    “You’re kidding!”
    “Regeneration is one of the best mutations there is, and we both have it,” she told him while looking unashamedly smug.
    Garadun couldn’t believe his luck. “That’s amazing!”
    “Yes, it is. Come on, let’s go.”

                                                                          *****

Using an ancient minivan as cover, the two explorers studied the area laid out in front of them. It was a sprawling and mostly empty parking lot that had shrubs and grasses growing up through the cracks, as well as the occasional tree. The corpses of a few dozen cars were scattered across the entire lot.
    In the middle of all this was a good-sized shopping mall. The architectural style was just odd enough to make Garadun think it was probably from what Cera called an omega world, but it still looked like a mall. No matter what the worldline, a mall was a mall. There were metal and plastic stores signs on the outside, rusted and faded after so many decades of exposure but still legible. He didn’t recognise the names.
    Do you know what it is? Cera inquired hopefully.
    It’s a shopping mall, Garadun replied, nodding. Inside will be lots and lots of stores selling all kinds of merchandise. Everything from clothing to electronics, to food and toys and books – you name it, they’ll probably have it.
    Cera beamed at him. That’s fantastic! I’ve heard stories about places like this.
    Mind you, after all this time who knows what’ll be left. Garadun shrugged. Time and the elements will have taken their toll, not to mention anyone else who might’ve gotten here before us and looted the place.
    Well, I still think it’s worth a look.
    I agree. I mean, it can’t hurt to have a look around. Just don’t get your hopes up.
    A sudden call in the sky above took their attention away from the shopping mall and they immediately looked up for danger. Given her previous encounter, Cera’s first worry was that it might be more terls. But what she saw was far, far worse than a bunch of flying predatory fish. She let out a wail of distress.
    “My balloon! Those bastards have my balloon!”
    Drifting through the sky was the damaged, colourful balloon from her airship. All the tethering ropes had been cut, their ends dangling in the breeze. Flapping around the wayward balloon were two huge creatures that were trying to get hold of their elusive prize. They looked like oversized lions with orange fur and massive batwings nine or ten meters across instead of forelegs. Big insectoid mandibles jutted from their fanged jaws and there were clawlike hands on their wings at the first joint.
    Cera jumped up and down in outrage. “That’s my balloon, you bastards!”
    “Oh shit,” Garadun muttered.
    “Get back here right now, you hear me?!” She drew her revolver and fired at them. “Give me back my balloon, you thieving scum!”
    But the creatures were well out of range. If they heard the weasel or the gunshot then they didn’t care because all their attention was on the balloon. They were batting it across the sky in a north-easterly direction. She fired at them again in sheer frustration.
    “My balloon…” she said miserably. Garadun had no idea what to say to console her that wouldn’t sound stupid, so he just laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Cera hung her head and then turned and clung to him. She started to cry.
    Dammit.
    If there was one thing Garadun couldn’t stand, it was seeing a woman he cared about cry. It broke his heart and all he wanted to do was help, to do anything that would make the pain go away and stop the woman crying. He held the mutant girl close and rubbed her back, deciding that the best thing to do was not to say anything at all and just be there for her. That she wasn’t human didn’t mean a damn thing. She was a woman, and she was his friend, and she was in trouble. That’s all that mattered.
    Besides, he wasn’t overly fond of the human race anyway.
    Cera eventually stopped crying, her emotions all fizzled out. Despite the loss she was still able to feel grateful that she had a friend to comfort her. They’d only known each other a few hours but she liked this human a great deal. It was as if they’d been friends all their lives; they got along that easily. Calling him by a shortened version of his chosen name already seemed natural. She knew from their telepathic merger what a sensitive, caring person he was, what a big heart he had. She felt proud of him, too. Here he was, a man ripped from his time and his world and all he knew, dumped down in the wilds of Gamma Terra and he was holding it together. He was adapting quickly and despite being an Ancient he accepted her and her world at face value.
    “Thank you,” she said softly.
    “No problem,” he said, stroking her hair. “You okay?”
    Cera nodded. “I will be. But dammit, Gar, that was my balloon! Do you have any idea how long it took me to make that? Years! The hydrogen alone took like forever! And now those scum have flown off with it! Not to mention that now we’re stuck here with no way out! How am I ever going to get home?”
    “I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “But we’ll figure something out, I’m sure of it. If you’re the kind of girl who’s smart enough to build her own airship from the ground up, then I’m sure you’ll figure something out. And you got me. I know I ain’t much, but I’ll do anything I can to help.”
     Cera looked at him fondly and kissed him on the cheek. “I know you will. Having you beside me means a lot. I feel like I’ve known you forever. You know?”
    “Yeah, I know, me too,” he said, giving her a warm smile.
    The weasel glared at the now-distant balloon and its thieves. “Bastards.”
    “Any idea what those things were?”
    “Not a clue.”
    Garadun took a breath and let it out. “Well, there’s still the mall to explore. Maybe we can find some useful stuff in there.”
    “Let’s hope so.”
    He raised his fist and offered it to her. She gave him a puzzled look. “You make a fist and bump it against mine,” he explained. Puzzled, she made a fist and lifted it up. He gently rapped his knuckles against hers.
    “What’s that for?” she asked.
    “It’s a gesture of solidarity, old school,” he told her with a smile. “Between friends. On par with a handshake, only cooler.”
    Cera grinned and bumped fists again. “Friends.”