The wasteland was a merciless sprawl of desolation, a fitting canvas for the odd company we made—a trio of soldiers, a kid, a silent witch, and a war dog, all trekking through the apocalypse.
“Koog, how’s that leg holding up?” I asked, my voice barely carrying over the desolate wind.
“Feels like one of Sumo's chew-toys, but I’ve had worse,” Koog grumbled, shifting his weight onto his good leg.
Lux, perched in the belly of the hulking Decimator, stayed quiet, eyes flickering across the desolate views. The cockpit was raised so he could carry on conversations, but the kid was great at piloting and keeping alert. He had great instincts; I was beginning to see how he'd survived on his own just after Last Day. Sumo, ears perked, padded silently by my side, the perfect sentinel.
“Kovach…I mean, Joe,” Lux started.
I knew he had a lot on his mind, and my focus was on keeping us all alive, but I took the time, whatever time the kid needed. Honestly, he was my mission now. Everything else had taken a backseat.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
He looked down, then up into my eyes.
“I don’t know, I just feel weird.”
“About your mom?”
He nodded. “It just doesn’t feel right, you know, that she’s never coming back.”
I did know. Hell, it felt weird to me, too. I admitted it to him.
“Did you love her?” he asked.
Wow, I sometimes forgot how direct this kid was. “I…I don’t know, Lux. I think we were working our way up to that.” It was the truth, but love was never something I'd been looking for or been good at. Being a military brat, then a soldier, I just never got good at making deeper connections and generally managed to sabotage the ones that might have had potential.
He seemed to accept that, and I was glad because I hadn’t even tried to unpack those feelings.
“What was death like?”
Ouch, OK, now the shit was getting real. I’d only discussed this with Deb, and it hadn’t been an easy conversation then either. Lux knew I had died after the mission into the Nightmare Factory. Dead for several days, in fact, but Ada now felt like we were both in just an almost undetectable state just above death. Hell, I think the kid might have been in the room with me when I passed.
“My death was not peaceful. It was dark and lonely…a bit scary if I am being honest, Lux.” He seemed surprised by that admission. “Understand, though, I am not exactly a good person. No reason to expect the afterlife of Joe Kovach to be a paradise. Your mom on the other hand, she must be at peace. No better person anywhere.”
It wasn't the feel-good talk the kid might have wanted, but it was honest, and that was one of the only truths I could offer the boy.
I watched Lux carefully as he seemed to contemplate my words. The kid was wise beyond his years in many ways, having survived on his own after Last Day, but death was a heavy concept, even for adults.
"I guess my family didn't really believe in all that heaven and hell stuff," he finally said. "Mom said she thought there was something more after you die, but she didn't know what."
I nodded. "That's a reasonable way to look at it. No one really knows for sure."
"I just hope, you know…I hope it didn't hurt and all," Lux continued. "When the… the stasis field collapsed. I hope it was quick."
My heart ached for this kid. Too young to have lost his only family, and he’d seen so much tragedy already.
"I'm sure it was very quick," I reassured him. "She didn't suffer, Lux. And her spirit lives on through you now. That's what's important."
He gave a small smile at that, though his eyes were still sad. We walked in silence for a few minutes, the whirring of the Decimator's systems filling the void.
For a moment, I envied the simplicity of this kid's worldview. The innocence that allowed him to accept the inevitability of death without fear or doubt. In many ways, Lux was handling it far better than I ever could.
We hadn’t heard from Riker in hours. The uncertainty was like a stone in my boot, irksome and persistent.
“Riker, you out there?” I tried again, knowing it was a shot in the dark with the comms still spotty. I’d only given the man one of our spare MillCrypt comms earlier today. Wasn’t totally sure he knew how to use it yet.
Then it came—a buzz from the comm. Not Riker, but a different frequency. Voss.
“Kovach.” It was a text. “The Order is planning something big, and my people have come across a code name, 'Harbinger'. We think it may be the leader.”
Cryptic, just like her. I mused over her words. “What’s that supposed to mean, Voss?”
Silence answered back. Typical.
I turned to the others. “Voss has a warning for us: something called ‘the Harbinger.’ It may be the leader of the enemy. Mean anything to either of you guys?”
“The Harbinger?” Koog echoed, the word hanging heavy.
Lux chimed in, his youthful voice a contrast to our weariness. “Is it bad?”
“With a name like that, it’s not a damn unicorn, kid,” I replied.
Before Lux could retort, Sumo’s bark broke the tension. Riker’s figure staggered into view from around a crumbled facade.
“Riker!” I called out, relief fleeting. “Report.”
“Got tangled with some mutants. The bastards are getting craftier.” Riker's voice was strained, but he was intact.
“You see anything like a Harbinger out there?” Koog asked, half-mocking, half-serious.
Riker shook his head, a wry smile playing on his lips. “No bad omens either, just beasties. "
I missed Ada, she could help me make sense of Voss's message. I wondered what she and Hauk were up against over in France. She had no idea we were dirtside, probably expected me to get the intel to Xero and have her and Ada run it to ground. Wishful thinking right now.
"Something that foreshadows a future event," Lux said bent over the holodisplay inside the Decimator.
Yeah, I knew the definition, and it was still sending cold shivers up my spine.
Lux nodded solemnly from within his steel beast. “We’ll show this Harbinger thing, right?”
“That’s the spirit,” I said, mustering a grin. “For now, let's just find some shelter. I don't want to be exposed again tonight."
An hour later, the Witch, silent as ever, headed toward a distant outcropping of ruined buildings. Was it intuition or something more? Either way, her instincts had saved our hides more than once.
As we approached, the skeleton of an old shopping mall loomed above us, a monolith from a bygone era. Its walls were pockmarked from blasts, and the skeletal remains of advertisements hung like the banners of a forgotten kingdom.
‘Here,’ the Witch’s body language seemed to say, her voice as absent as her expressions.
We entered through a gaping hole where the glass doors used to be. Inside, the remnants of civilization whispered to us—overturned shopping carts, faded signs, and the husk of a once vibrant food court.
“This will do,” I declared, examining the structural integrity of the overhead beams.
Lux disembarked the Decimator, stretching his legs with a grimace. Sumo sniffed around, his enhancements giving him an edge in the desolate stillness.
“Kovach,” Koog called out, gesturing to a corner of the mall. “You might want to see this.”
I approached to find a graffiti mural; the paint looked recent. It depicted a towering figure, shrouded in darkness, looming over a crumbled city. “That looks ominous,” Koog said unnecessarily.
“Yeah, that’s new,” Riker observed, his voice tinged with caution.
“Damn street prophets,” I muttered. “Spreading cheer wherever they go.”
The Witch stared at the mural, her eyes narrowing as if deciphering its meaning.
“Anything?” I asked her.
She simply turned, walking away to find a spot to rest.
“Helpful as always,” I quipped with a sigh.
We settled in, establishing a perimeter. Lux huddled close to Sumo, seeking comfort from the dog’s steady presence. Koog and Riker set up a defensive position, while I tried to reach out to Voss again.
“Voss, if you’re listening, a little more to go on would be great,” I said into the comm, hoping for a miracle.
The static replied with mocking silence. Whatever was blocking our signal wasn’t keeping all signals out, or maybe we were just on the fringe of its range. In either case, we needed help, and I wanted my AI back in contact.