Tag: science-fiction

Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

The sergeant sat across from Christopher and studied his clipboard silently, flipping between several different pages. Then he looked over the top, into Christopher’s eyes.         

“We have the same name, you know.”

Christopher blinked.

“Excuse me?”

The sergeant lowered the clipboard and used his pen to tap on the name badge. It said “C. MEADOWS” in white engraving on the brown badge.

“Sergeant Chris Meadows,” he said.

Christopher took a deep, slow breath. After being imprisoned and tortured, he had not expected his captors to subject him to tedious small talk.

“I go by Christopher,” he replied at last.

Meadows raised the clipboard again.

“I’ve been chatting with the two deserters who came in with you. I think we both know that they have no idea what’s going on, but I still got some useful information about you out of them. And, of course, I have other means at my disposal for finding things out. I know an awful lot about you Chris, and by the time we’re done here, I will know everything. You can make it simple, or you can make it complicated, but we’ll get there eventually. The only difference will be how unpleasant it is going to be for the both of us. Your level of cooperation will have an impact on what eventually happens to you.”

Meadows waited expectantly.

“Okay,” Christopher said.

“Let’s do a little thought experiment. Take a good look around this room. This could be where you spend the rest of your life. Now, that might not be very long, but it could also be a very, very long time.”

Christopher shook his head. “You don’t need to threaten me. I’ll tell you everything I know. Strap me into the lie detector. Do whatever you need to do.”

Meadows smirked, and it was not a pleasant expression.

“We don’t need your permission, Chris. And I don’t need to threaten you. I work in facts. These are the facts about what is at stake here. If you’re smart, you’ll tell me the facts that I ask of you. I will evaluate what you say against my other sources, and I will determine if you are telling the truth. If you lie or omit things, those will be marks against you. Do you understand?”

Christopher took a deep breath. He felt like his lungs weren’t providing him enough air. The weight of his body was hard to hold up.

“I understand.”

“That’s fantastic,” Meadows said. “Let’s start with Alaska. How did you come to be here in our fine state?”

Christopher told him about the flight from the small town of Homer, about waking up alone, and the frantic minutes leading up to his terrifying jump. His instinct was to leave out the parts that made no sense, but he didn’t dare. Instead, he told the story exactly as he remembered it, without embellishment or commentary.

Meadows stared across the table intently, occasionally looking down to jot something on his paper, but never showing emotion or commenting. He let Christopher tell the story up until the point where he crawled out of the lake, found the hatch, and somehow guessed the code.

Christopher paused and took a deep breath. The lack of feedback from Meadows was almost worse than immediate skepticism.

“That seems like a good place to stop for the moment,” Meadows said, “as it does answer my initial question. Now think back through your story and tell me if there’s anything you left out.”

“Just the facts?”

“Just the facts.”

Christopher thought.

“When I tried to open the door, I wasn’t thinking very straight. I assumed I was going to die, but I thought I might as well try to guess the code. I was going to enter my birthday, but I fat-fingered it.”

“What’s your birthday?”

“November 11, 1983.”

Meadows shook his head a fraction of an inch.

“The code, I mean.”

“111183.”

“And what did you enter, instead?”

“122199. I wasn’t actually sure what I entered at the time, but I figured it out after a little trial and error later on.”

“Interesting,” Meadows said. “Those numbers are quite different.”

“I was freezing to death,” Christopher said. “My hands were shaking.”

Meadows eyed Christopher.

“You certainly look rough around the edges, but you have all your fingers and toes, don’t you? And your entire nose. I think you weren’t quite so bad off.”

“Well, it felt like it at the time,” Christopher mumbled, trying not to sound petulant.

“Let’s back up,” Meadows said. “Where did you come from, before you came to Alaska? Where do you live?”

“I have an apartment in Minneapolis,” Christopher said. “Or at least, I did.”

“Oh, what happened to it?”

Christopher shrugged.

“I don’t know. I just assumed I’ve been declared dead by now. It’s been weeks.”

“Ah,” Meadows replied, no sympathy in his voice. “You lived alone then?”

“Yeah.”

“And where did you grow up?”

“Same general area. Suburbs.”

“Family?”

“My parents and my brother.”

“Older, or younger than you?”

“…younger.”

For the first time, Meadows face betrayed some hint of emotion, the faintest narrowing of the eyes.

“You hesitated.”

“My brother was three years younger. He was adopted, if that matters.”

Meadows shrugged.

“Does it?”

Christopher wasn’t sure what to say. He shook his head.

Meadows wrote for several seconds.

“You said your job brought you here.”

“Yes. It was supposed to be a sales trip. I just moved into a new position at work. Sales for northern North America.

Mostly Canada, Alaska, and a few of the north-most states.”’

“And where were you going, specifically?”

“Golden Valley Electric Association.”

“Anyone in particular who was expecting you?”

Christopher pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t remember.”

“What about where you came from?”

“I…I stayed at the motel in Homer. I visited Homer Electric. I met a few people. I only really remember first names. There was Phil, Lisa…Sandy, I think.”

Meadows nodded, writing. Then he clicked his pen and stood.

“I think that’s enough to start with,” he said. “Someone will be along shortly to bring you back to your cell.”

Christopher blinked. “That’s it?”

“For now.”

“Look, I’m willing to tell you whatever you need to know.”

Meadows held up a hand.

“Be patient, Chris. We’ll get there, in time.”

“Can I please just sleep?”

“We’ll talk again soon,” Meadows said. He turned sharply on his heel and walked to the door. He didn’t even glance back as the door closed behind him.

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

The noise came and went over and over. Christopher counted five times, then began to wonder if he had miscounted. It never seemed to be more than an hour between sessions, and he didn’t trust his sense of time at all while the noise was happening. It felt like it went on for hours. He wasn’t sure how much sleep he got in between sessions, but he knew it wasn’t remotely close to enough. He had crossed into the hazy place beyond mere sleep deprivation and exhaustion, a liminal world of almost-sleep where the world around him felt less than entirely real.

As soon as the noise stopped for the fifth time, the door to the room swung open, and a soldier entered. It came as a shock, it was so sudden and out of keeping with the rhythm of Christopher’s imprisonment thus far.

The soldier walked stiffly to Christopher’s cell, eyes staring straight ahead. The man’s demeanor called to his mind the British palace guards who assiduously ignored the tourists. When the man arrived at the cell door, he pulled out a ring of keys. He unlocked and opened the door, and his eyes actually focused on Christopher for the first time.

“Stand up!” he shouted in perfect drill sergeant cadence.

Christopher rolled over and sat up shakily on the metal bed before hauling himself to his feet. Apparently the soldier was not satisfied with how quickly Christopher was moving, because the man swept forward and turned Christopher around to slam him against the wall before he realized what was happening. He twisted Christopher’s arms behind his back and snapped handcuffs onto his wrists. Then he turned Christopher around and marched him out of the cell, over to the stainless steel table in the middle of the room.

The man pressed Christopher down into the chair, then unlocked one of the cuffs to snap onto one of the brackets welded to the table.

The endless hours of noise torture had left Christopher dazed, and the sudden manhandling had caught him completely by surprise. He felt like he ought to fight back, but he suspected that these people wouldn’t be afraid to really hurt him. Besides, he was hardly in a state where fighting back would do any good.

At the very least, it seemed like he ought to say something.

“When do I get my phone call?”

The soldier didn’t so much as blink. His job apparently finished, Christopher did not merit being seen or heard. The man walked to the door as stiffly as he had entered.

“I’d like to speak to my lawyer.” Christopher’s tongue was thick in his mouth, his words slightly slurred.

The door swung closed, clunking shut with finality.

Minutes went by, the room silent except for the sound of Christopher’s shoes on the smooth floor and the clanking of the handcuff chain on the metal table. He felt the effects of adrenaline fade, and exhaustion crept in again. He was tempted to lay his head down on the table and try to sleep, but it was clear by now that if he did that, they would just do something to jerk him awake.

He didn’t have to wait long however. The door opened again, and a man in a sharp-creased forest green dress uniform and red beret stepped into the room, holding a clipboard under his arm. He let the door close behind him, but he didn’t walk to the table immediately. Instead, he stood just beyond the threshold, studying Christopher, his face impassive.

The man walked forward slowly and sat down across from Christopher. He set his clipboard down on the table with an audible snap.

“I’m Sergeant Meadows,” the man said, “and I’m here to decide whether you deserve to rot in a cell for the rest of your life.”

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

The sound was like a hammer on sheet metal. It resonated and echoed back on itself in the stone-walled room until it was an overwhelming roar of noise. First, it jerked Christopher from his half-slumber, spiking his heart-rate and triggering a frantic fight-or-flight response. In the steel-barred cell, he could do neither, and he found himself wide-eyed, hands over his ears, sitting on the metal bed with his back pressed against the wall.

As the banging continued, it enveloped him in sound so loud that he could feel it inside his organs. It felt like it was getting steadily louder, but it was possible that it only felt that way to Christopher as the overlapping waves of sound cascaded around the room and vibrated his bones.

He knew that sound was sometimes used as a weapon of torture, but he had never really considered how bad it could actually be. It made his teeth hurt. It was all around him, so there was nothing to focus against, nothing to push back against. He was unrestrained, but he felt trapped. As seconds and minutes ticked by, Christopher felt that he had to stand, had to find an outlet for the pent-up energy his body wanted to deploy against the pain.

He stood and moved to the bars of his cage, pulling on them impotently. They were firmly embedded in the floor and solidly constructed. He couldn’t budge them. They wouldn’t even rattle. Not that he’d be able to hear it.

He paced the too-small perimeter of the cell, his arms starting to ache from pressing his hands to his ears. He could feel the noise grinding him down. He had no idea if it had been going for minutes or hours. He wondered what kind of permanent hearing damage this would give him. He was beginning to think that he’d be willing to go deaf just to shut out the sound.

It stopped as suddenly as it had started, but the reverberations continued around the room for a few seconds, and even after they were gone, the echoes continued in Christopher’s ears, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. With the overwhelming sound gone, he felt like there was now an aching void between his ears.

He dropped his hands from his head. They were shaking. He stood, leaning on the bars, concentrating on the feeling of the cold metal against his forehead. Time passed, but his sense of time was too fuzzy to know how long. He sat heavily on the metal bed. Without the noise attacking him, the cell actually felt bigger, less restrictive.

He looked up at the cameras mounted high up the walls.

“What do you want?” His own voice sounded distorted and far away.

There was no response. He hadn’t really expected one. He didn’t see any speakers or obvious P.A. system, no obvious source for the horrible banging sound either. They had to be watching him, but what would they be looking for? Signs of a mental break? Christopher felt so exhausted at this point that he didn’t think he had the energy for a full-on breakdown. A catatonic state sounded like it might be nice.

He lay down on the uncomfortable slab of metal, turning to face the wall. If they thought he was trying to sleep, would they start up the noise again? The thought of enduring any more of that was enough to raise his heart rate.

He wondered if they could measure his vital signs without having him hooked up to a machine. Could they monitor his heartbeat? His core temperature? Maybe he wouldn’t be able to fool anyone.

Eventually, he got his breathing to slow. Surprisingly, even on the cold metal bed, knowing that some unknown torturer was probably just waiting for the right moment to inflict some new suffering on him, he began to feel the weight of exhaustion. He didn’t know if it was better to resist sleep or give in, and perhaps get a little bit of his strength back.

His body decided for him. He didn’t know how long he slept, but he woke to the heart-stopping sound of the metallic banging blasting into the room once again.

Christopher rolled over, laying flat on his back, eyes closed, and began a list of every expletive he knew, shouted uselessly into the sonic chaos.

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

God-Speaker found that his eyes were welling up. The voices were right. They were always right. He hated them.

“Don’t walk this path,” God-Speaker said. “Give me some other choice.”

“Step aside,” Strong Shield said, even as God-Speaker side-stepped his spear-thrust.

God-Speaker’s hands were empty. There was nothing on the table except papers.

“You are no match for me,” Strong Shield said, the head of his spear bobbing and thrusting. He approached carefully, ready to strike, making it impossible for God-Speaker to do anything but move backward, away from the doors.

God-Speaker blinked and a tear ran down his face.

“I trusted you. You think you can lead these people? Nobody should follow someone who would betray his own brother.”

Strong Shield only lunged again.

God-Speaker knew these steps, these thrusts. The voices knew much about fighting, but little about human bodies. God-Speaker had synthesized their knowledge into something practical: a fighting style he developed himself. He had taught their first warriors, long before Strong Shiels. His techniques had been refined and passed down. Strong Shield was adept, but his skill had limits.

God-Speaker threw up his arm. When Strong Shield thrust again, he sidestepped and brought the arm down, capturing the shaft under his armpit. He wrapped his arm around it as Strong Shield tried to pull it back, the barb cutting into the flesh beneath his shoulder blade. Wincing, God-Speaker brought his other hand to bear, shoving the spear down. Strong Shield was caught off-balance, brought to one knee with the butt of the spear touching the stone floor.

God-Speaker brought the other end down to his right knee. His other knee fell on the middle of the shaft. It bent, then broke under his weight.

Strong Shield staggered, now holding only the broken butt of the spear and still off balance. God-Speaker held the sharp end under his arm, but he had been forced to throw his weight downward to snap it. Instead of fighting this momentum, he leaned into it, tucking his chin to his chest and rolling forward onto his left shoulder.

He somersaulted, intending to come up onto his feet. Before he could get all the way around, Strong Shield’s hand lashed out and grasped his arm at the elbow. Instead of trying to regain his footing, the man had lunged after him, turning the fight into a grappling match on the floor.

It had only been a few months since God-Speaker had taken on this new body. It was young and strong, but not as muscular as Strong Shield, and God-Speaker was still learning the feel of it. He felt just a little too slow, a little too weak. Strong Shield took hold of his wrists as they tumbled, both men fighting to come out on top.

Strong Shield feared the spear tip that God-Speaker had pried away from him. God-Speaker held it in his right hand. He let his left arm go limp while he struggled to press the right toward Strong Shield’s face.

Strong Shield’s face had shown fear for a moment. Now he smiled, confident in his control of the situation. He held God-Speaker’s right hand firmly, elbow locked as they rolled to a stop, the larger man on top.

“This is meant to be,” Strong Shield said, twisting God-Speaker’s wrist.

“I’m sorry,” God-Speaker said. “I should have seen this coming. I should have been able to stop it.”

Strong Shield cried out in wordless victory as the broken spear fell from God-Speaker’s twisted hand. He scrambled to grab the half-spear. God-Speaker twisted underneath him, but Strong Shield straddled him, grabbing God-Speaker’s right hand with his left.

His body half-turned, God-Speaker bent his left knee, bringing his foot up to his hip as Strong Shield raised the spear point for the killing blow.

God-Speaker’s free left hand slipped a thin flint blade from a hidden pocket on his boot. The blade came up at an angle across the man’s exposed abdomen, cutting a clean line through skin and muscle, only stopping when it struck the bottom of his sternum. The blade was as long as a finger, just enough to wedge under the ribs and press into the beating heart. God-Speaker felt the twist of his wrist, the snap of the razor-thin tip of the blade, buried in Strong Shield’s chest. Then he felt the wave of hot wetness as Strong Shield’s lifeblood poured over him. The head of the spear came down without any force. The arms were already limp. The black irises were dull and empty.

For a moment, God-Speaker could do nothing but sob silently. Then he shoved the body away. He was soaked in blood. The smell and the taste of it was overwhelming. For a moment, he thought he would vomit, but he suppressed it. He stood.

The blood drained off of him, onto the floor. There was a rhythm to it, dripping, like the beating of drums. His heart beat with it, a cold rage building. Underneath it all were the voices of the mountain.

God-Speaker let his breathing slow. His anger and sadness didn’t diminish, they only concentrated to a white-hot point in his chest. He walked to the closed doors, knowing that he left footprints in blood every step of the way.

He opened the doors, letting the cold autumn wind blow over him, and looked down the small flight of stone stairs. There was a wide, flat gathering space below, where his remaining war councilors waited and talked amongst themselves. They looked up at him in shock.

“What happened?” asked Aoyura.

“I was betrayed,” God-Speaker said. “Strong Shield believed that he could lead our people better than I. He thought he could kill me. He is dead by my hand.”

A few others who had been nearby began to gather, staring open-mouthed at God-Speaker’s blood-soaked body.

“I am Tutanarulax Qatqa. I am the one who speaks to the gods of the mountain. I am the one who does not die.”

The gathered people, the councilors, all of them averted their eyes and bowed their heads. Out of respect? Fear? In that moment, God-Speaker did not care.

“Come,” he said. “Bring water. We must cleanse this place of the blood of the traitor. Then I will tell you the future I see for our city in the mountain.”

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

Strong Shield paced around the room, his hand first trailing across the maps on the table, then the carvings on one of the pillars. He was clearly agitated.

God-Speaker organized his thoughts before speaking.

“I always listen to your council, but it is council only. I will not act on advice that I know to be wrong. I gave you your name because I know you want to protect our people. You are a great warrior. What you propose will not protect them. You must look beyond one fight, beyond one enemy.”

“That is what I am doing.”

“You have never seen an empire,” God-Speaker said.

“You have?”

“The gods of the mountain show me many things. The idea of empire is new to us, but it is not new to them. Those we subjugate will hate us, and they will do anything in their power to destroy us.”

“What do you propose then? Let them attack us? That is not looking beyond the fight at hand.”

“No,” God-Speaker said. “You said yourself, we are strong and we have what we need. When we trade with outsiders, it is often better for them than for us. For many years we wanted to bring people in, to grow. Now, we are a city.”

God-Speaker gestured to the room. The cleverly slanted windows high above let in the afternoon light while keeping out the weather. Strips of golden light shone across the room, revealing sparkling motes of dust.

“Let us hollow out the mountain. We will continue to live here, but let nobody in. When we go out, we will go out in secret. Let the stories of a city in the mountains become legends. Leave a few burned remnants scattered across the valleys below. Let those put the lie to these stories that bring enemies here in search of treasure. We will make our doors and windows so cleverly that they will never suspect we look down on them from above. They will go home and tell the story of the legendary city which turned out to be nothing but spirits and burned rocks.”

As God-Speaker spoke, Strong Shield’s eyes narrowed.

“You would have us hide away from these weaklings who have no hope of defeating us? You would have us be remembered as a tribe that was utterly destroyed?”

“What do the stories of other tribes matter to you? We will be safe in the mountain. We will have what we need, and we will keep our knowledge and our wealth to ourselves.”

Strong Shield shook his head.

“You are pitiful.”

“Do you truly want to fight so badly?” God-Speaker said. “Can’t you see that it is better to not fight at all?”

“No,” Strong Shield said. “I want us to be led by someone who isn’t afraid of the outside world.”

The conversation had taken a turn God-Speaker had not expected. He realized now that the voices in the mountain were agitated. Their susurration was like a wind blowing in the depths. They saw the signs. They knew what could happen.

The sound was only audible to God-Speaker. There might be one or two others on the mountain who would feel a faint uneasiness. Strong Shield would think that God-Speaker’s sudden change in expression was a response to his words.

“You are like my brother,” God-Speaker said. “You know I want what’s best for our people.”

“Of course,” Strong Shield said. “But you can still be wrong. You are not a strong leader.”

God-Speaker clenched his jaw.

“I came to the mountain alone. I was here before you were born. I gathered the people to me. Everything we have built is because of me.”

“So you say.”

“Only I hear the voices of the gods.”

“Given enough time, perhaps another can learn to hear them.”

Strong Shield reached behind the pillar and pulled out his fine spear, tipped with a sharp barb of whale bone.

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

The lord’s chamber was freshly hewn from the gray rock. It was new enough that the walls still showed the tool marks, and in places there were cracks and openings left behind by the caves they had widened for the construction. In time, these blemishes would be smoothed away and covered over. It was an astonishing task, the work of years and many hands, cleverly trained and carefully guided. It was a needless expenditure of effort, compared to work that could have been done on the smithy or the farms or a dozen other construction projects that would have more direct effect on their day-to-day lives. Its value lied in its beauty. Nowhere else in the world could such a place exist. It was a monument to the people of the mountain city and the knowledge they took from the gods.

The long room had large doors of heavy timber banded with bronze, marked with symbols of protection and warding. Four ornately carved and painted stone pillars told spiraling stories of the founding of the village and the many achievements of its people. The furnishings in the room were moved in and out depending on the occasion. Long tables could be brought in when it was made into a feasting hall. Ornate wooden thrones could be arranged for God-Speaker and his advisers when it was a court for the visiting emissaries of distant tribes. Today, it was a war room, furnished only with a large round table, strewn with durable parchment maps and scrawled notes on the rougher paper made from local reeds.

“Tutan, the scouts report a war party. Less than fifty people. They will come up along the deep river valley, to the place where it splits. They mean to attack the city.”

 God-Speaker’s name had changed with the language his people spoke, a creole of the varied dialects spoken by those who made the mountain their home. “Tutanarulax Qatqa” was the one who spoke to the mountain, but it had become more comfortable for him to go by Tutan, “one who speaks,” in all but the most formal situations.

“Who are these people?” God-Speaker asked. “What quarrel do they have with us?”

A woman across the table, Aoyura, lifted a piece of paper. “One of my people took meals with the traders who came just after the new moon. They said they had passed a group like this, a group girded for fighting, and the fighters bragged that they were going to take plunder from a great tribe of the mountains. The traders said they spoke little to the fighters, for fear of them and fear of arousing our anger.”

“But they made no mention of an attack to me,” God-Speaker said.

“No, I think they only hoped for good trade and were happy to stay out of it. Strangers offer no kindness to one another in these days.”

A tall, muscular man close to God-Speaker thumped an open hand onto the table. It was Kuoemanuna, who took the name that God-Speaker had given him meaning Strong Shield.

“We were gracious hosts! We gave them good food and warm beds, and a place at the storytelling fire. We gave them good trades, even for the things that are not very useful to us. The least they could do is warn us of this war party.”

“I did not say we were unkind to them,” Aoyura replied. “But the people from far away speak differently, act differently. They do not trust easily and they keep their kindness for their own.”

“Then we should treat them no differently,” Strong Shield said.

God-Speaker put a hand up to halt the line of conversation before it got any more argumentative.

“It has always been our way,” God-Speaker said. “It is what brought many different peoples to the mountain, and why they have stayed.”

“Yes, but are we not our own people now?” Strong Shield asked. “We must protect ourselves.”

God-Speaker loved Strong Shield like a brother, but he was often too eager to solve problems in the most direct and confrontational ways. Aoyura was the opposite. She was known for changing people’s minds, getting what she wanted by making other people think they wanted it too. She had taken charge of a group of talkative women who gathered information within the city and amongst the traders sent out to other tribes.

“Let us focus on the problem at hand,” God-Speaker said. “These people come to take from us. How shall we stop them?

“I think it is best to let them use up their energy and food climbing the mountains. They will have to cross the river at the mouth of the valley to the south. We prepare our defense there. Away from the city, and where the terrain is most favorable. When they arrive, we give them a choice: turn away, or face our sharp spears and swift arrows.”

Strong Shield shook his head. “We have better weapons and better tactics. They have no chance against us. We should meet them further south, where the valley is wide. Show them that even in the open, they cannot defeat us. If they fear us, they will not return.”

God-Speaker nodded. “Our people are strong, that is true. But I do not want to spend our peoples’ blood to simply make a point. If we prepare our strongest defense, that will be enough to show them how outmatched they are.”

“They will learn their lesson best on the point of a spear,” Strong Shield said. “Even if they are shamed and turn away, do you think that will be the end of it? We should at least capture them.”

“For this season, it will be the end of it,” God-Speaker said. “If they dare to return next season, they will find that we are still strong. And I will not keep prisoners on the mountain.”

Strong Shield sighed. “May I speak honestly?”

“Of course,” God-Speaker said. “Speak.”

“We have strength here, but it is wasted. Others hear stories about the city in the mountains, where the people never go hungry and have many amazing things. They grow envious of us. More and more of them will want to test themselves against us, and perhaps take these treasures as war prize back to their own people.

“And yet, the stories they tell of us only guess at what we can do. You know this. This city is a miracle, built on the knowledge of the gods. We should show them that they cannot take what belongs to us. Anyone who comes to us with spear raised should be destroyed. Then, we should send our own warriors to their people. We offer them death, as they would have given us, or the chance to become like us. New villages, just like ours, under the rule of our people. In return, we ask only that they never raise arms against us, and that they send some small fraction of their new bounty back to us.”

He stared into God-Speaker’s eyes, his own black like the water at night, but holding a glint of fire.

God-Speaker shook his head.

“You speak of an empire,” he said. The word was strange in his mouth, a guttural, foreign word that came to him from the voices deep in the mountain. There was no word for it in his people’s language.

“We will have more resources,” Strong Shield said. “Our people will be safe. And others will receive the same miracles we have received.”

God-Speaker held up a hand.

“Everyone who is here chose to be here,” he said. “No miracle comes out of blood. Our people will not be safe. Everyone in these villages, from oldest man to youngest child, will hold their hatred of us in their hearts. Our food and drink will taste sour and rancid in their mouths. They will tell themselves stories of the way we spilled their blood.”

“They deserve it for attacking us,” Strong Shield said, brow contorted in anger.

“Maybe so,” God-Speaker said. “It will not change what is in their hearts.”

“Why won’t you listen to me?” Strong Shield shouted, slamming a fist on the table.

The booming resonance of it filled the chamber, leaving behind a heavy silence. The only sound was God-Speaker’s calm, even breathing.

“Let us speak alone,” God-Speaker said. “Everyone, please go outside.”

The others nodded, walking quickly to the door. None of them had any desire to get involved.

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

Time was difficult to judge in the cell. There was no window to observe the cycles of the sun and moon. The bright lights set into the high ceiling were unrelentingly bright. Every cough, sniffle and movement echoed back at him from a room full of hard surfaces.

At first, he sat quietly, assuming that someone would eventually come to interrogate him. He tried not to think about what they might do to him, but was mostly unsuccessful. He thought about what he ought to say, how he might word his story so that they would believe him. There would be evidence of his stay in the bunker. The ruins of the crashed plane would still be scattered across some nearby mountainside. The airlines would have records of his ticket. His company could vouch for him. Unfortunately, day jobs and plausible excuses were probably the sort of thing a real spy would also have.

There was also a long list of unlikely events that he could not explain. Why had the plane gone down in the first place, and where had the other passengers gone? How had Christopher managed to survive the fall? How could he have guessed the code to the bunker while almost delirious and verging on hypothermia?

Could someone have set him up? Maybe he was a distraction to turn eyes away from something or someone else. Maybe he was a contestant on the world’s most sadistic game show. So far he hadn’t liked any of the prizes behind the doors.

He wondered if there was something he should have done differently. Even now, he couldn’t say it would have been any better to stay in the bunker indefinitely. If he had been found there, it was just as likely that it would be the Razor Mountain people doing the finding. Staying there, completely passive, might look slightly less suspicious. Or it might look odd. After all, who would simply accept their fate and decide to stay in a place like the bunker without making any effort to be rescued.

Instead, he had gone out questing, a sad little knight-errant in strange lands. He had let himself be guided by Amaranth. He had accepted imprisonment by her people. He had gone along with Harold and Garrett in their doomed scheme to curry favor with their superiors. Was there anywhere he could have gotten off that path once he had followed Amaranth through the frozen doors to the ruined underground office building? Could he have tried to escape? All along he had felt a deep unease, like he was a train headed for disaster, but unable to jump the tracks and turn away.

Christopher stood and paced in slow rectangles, walking the perimeter of his cell. He took deep breaths, trying to fight down the rising panic in his chest. He studied his surroundings. The slight dents in the stainless steel toilet. The metal shelf: a bench or a bed. The table in the center of the room, the brackets welded to the top hinting at darker purposes than facilitating friendly conversation.

When he had entered the mountain, the air had been warm compared to the outside. Now, a clammy chill gripped him. He rubbed his arms with his hands. His skin certainly felt cold.

He rubbed his eyes. Had the lights gotten brighter as well? The white walls and glaring stainless steel suddenly felt blinding. He sat on the “bed” and pressed his back to the wall, eyes closed. He breathed, feeling his heart thumping.

The room wasn’t actually silent. Though the small noises he made still seemed abnormally loud, there was some ubiquitous noise, an almost imperceptible whine. As soon as he noticed it, it grated on him. He felt a headache coming on.

As he breathed deep, he felt his panic subsiding. It was overcome by a wave of misery and self-pity. How long had it been since he had last been able to actually relax? How long since he had been free of the nagging knowledge that the universe had turned against him, that he had to fight to stay safe, or even alive?

It felt somehow childish to be so miserable. Hadn’t he led a perfectly mundane life before this? He had been comfortable. He was hardly the first person in the world to be subjected to such hardship. How many people lived through wars? How many refugees were left to fend for themselves and their families for months or years? How many lived their entire lives in abject poverty? It seemed only fair that he take his turn.

He felt petulant. He didn’t want to do this anymore. He wanted to throw a tantrum. He wanted to go home.

Even the bare comforts of the bunker would be luxurious compared to this place. The barely-discernible whine pierced his brain like a dentist’s drill.

Christopher held his breath. In all of his misery, there was one thought he hadn’t let himself think. There was another way out, an exit that he had been studiously looking away from. The ultimate exit. The idea filled his guts with lead. No, he wasn’t ready for that.

And yet, he felt the strange realization that the idea of death no longer terrified him quite as much as it once had. Out in the woods, when the snow had fallen and he knew he didn’t have the supplies to make the trip back to the bunker, he had been forced to look death in the face. Christopher knew death, at least a little. They were old friends, even if they hadn’t seen each other in quite some time.

He thought back to that moment in the woods when he made the choice to keep going. It was terrifying, but also oddly freeing. He wasn’t sure if it was fatalism or nihilism or something else, but it was a peaceful feeling. For the moment, he gave up his expectations for the future, his desperate belief that the universe owed him something.

He didn’t realize that he was slipping into sleep until he was jerked awake by a violent banging outside his cell.

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

The entire group marched without speaking. Boots crunched in the thin layer of snow. One of the soldiers’ radios squawked to life momentarily, issuing a series of staccato beeps familiar to Christopher from his time manning the radio in the bunker. The soldiers weren’t particularly rough, but Christopher felt corralled, like cattle, and if he stumbled in the wrong direction, there was instantly a gloved hand on his arm, shoving him back into the center of the formation.

He glanced at his ersatz companions. Harold’s face was as impassive as ever, revealing nothing about what he might be feeling. Garrett’s brow was creased and his narrowed eyes flicked back and forth, but Christopher could see that he was focused on his own scattered thoughts rather than his surroundings. Christopher suspected a battle raging inside the man’s head: would his risk be rewarded, or had he voluntarily ruined himself and his brother?

The soldiers marched them up a shallow ravine between hills, then into a deeper gorge where the ground was rocky and steep on either side. Now they were coming to the base of the mountain itself. The gorge led to a dead end, a broad stone face that had sheared cleanly from the mountain. Christopher could see the worn path where the water would run over the rocks above and into the gorge where they stood, but for the moment it was dry.

One of the soldiers walked up to the rock face and did something, his body blocking Christopher from seeing. A rectangular seam appeared as the man pulled at a section of the stone. It turned on concealed hinges, silent and perfectly camouflaged. Behind the stone facade was a heavy metal hatch, similar to the one on the bunker that was so familiar to Christopher. A lever was set within a little alcove in the door, and the adjacent keypad was also set flush with the surrounding stone, so the facade could close tightly against it.

The soldier took a step so he was between the keypad and the prisoners and punched in a code. Christopher listened to the sound, trying to guess the number of keystrokes, though he realized such little scraps of knowledge were unlikely to do him any good. He suddenly felt like his brain was buzzing, taking in everything around him.

Another one of the soldiers took out his radio and punched in another code in the keypad on its face. The soldier at the door watched him, waiting for a few beats afterward before he pulled the lever. The lever’s action was smooth and silent until it hit the far end of its arc with a satisfying clunk. The door swung open, and the soldiers immediately pushed the prisoners forward.

The entrance was too small for more than one person to enter at a time, so they had to go single-file. One soldier went through, then a second grabbed Harold by the arm and pushed him in before going through himself. Garrett went next, and Christopher was ready when the soldier next to him sent him through.

Even though it hadn’t been bright outside, it was dark beyond the door, and it took some time for Christopher’s eyes to adjust. The air was warm and carried a faintly mechanical smell, like oil and metal.

They navigated a series of long, branching hallways. Christopher couldn’t tell if the paint on the walls was a light green or a dull gray. It might have even been the naked rock, polished smooth. He wasn’t given time to stop and investigate.

He wasn’t typically prone to claustrophobia, and they couldn’t possibly be that deep underground, but he physically felt the weight of the mountain above him. It was as though the air got thicker as they went, syrupy and hard to breathe. Christopher felt dizzy, then nauseous. Sparks flashed across his vision. When it passed, his eyes were better adjusted and he no longer felt ill, but he still felt jittery and too-aware of his surroundings. He felt like he had downed too much coffee. He could differentiate the rustle of each piece of clothing as the soldiers moved around him. He could hear the tread of their boots on the smooth floor. He wondered if it was the lack of food and water over the past day catching up with him. Or just the shock of everything that had happened.

They reached the end of a hallway and moved into what looked like a separate section of the compound. The walls were brighter here, off-white. More halls branched off in three directions, but they were shorter and lined with wooden doors. At the intersection, the group split without warning or any apparent signal. One of the soldiers continued straight, fast-walking on his own. A pair of them took Christopher to the right, and the rest took Harold and Garrett to the left.

Christopher turned to look back at the brothers as they were marched around the corner. He thought he heard Garrett’s voice saying something about “bringing in an enemy spy” before the soldier behind him gave him a firm push to turn him around and keep him walking.

“I’m sure it doesn’t do me any good,” Christopher said, “but I’m just someone who got lost out here in the wilderness. That guy is determined to try to use me to help himself, and he’s going to say whatever he thinks will help him. I’m really not anyone special.”

The soldier ahead of him barely glanced back. “Please be quiet, sir.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Eventually, they stopped in front of a doorway and ushered him inside. On the other side of the door was a big, high-ceilinged room. In each corner of the room was a jail cell made of bright metal bars. Each cell contained nothing but a metal toilet on one wall and a narrow metal bench on the other. The four cells left an open, cross-shaped central space. In the center was a metal table. On either side of this was a metal chair. All of them were bolted to the floor. The desk had four brackets welded to the otherwise smooth surface.

The soldiers brought him to one of the cells and opened the door with a small key. He felt them cut the zip tie around his wrists, before shoving him into the cell. The door closed before he could turn around. The soldier turned the key and tested the door, then the pair turned and went back out the way they had come.

Christopher grasped the bars and took a moment to study the room. Then he sat on the bare metal bench that was apparently supposed to serve as a bed. He stared at the lines on his hands, then up at the ceiling.

He had never been in jail before. He had certainly never had an experience like this. Even so, he felt a jarring sense of familiarity. He closed his eyes and pressed his head back against the wall.

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Razor Mountain is a serial novel, with new parts published every week or two. For more info, visit the Razor Mountain landing page.

When the sun was above the horizon, they continued walking. Harold took some jerky from his pack and gave a piece to Christopher and another to Garrett. They walked in silence.

Christopher noticed that Garrett seemed to be scanning the ground as they went, and he finally stopped and picked up a straight stick about three feet long, with all the bark missing. He paused to take a plain white tee-shirt from his pack, and using his pocket knife he cut a square of fabric from the torso with two extra strips hanging off. Then he used the strips to tie the fabric to the stick. Finally, he tied the flag to his backpack so that it stuck up just above his head, hanging like a dead thing in the still air.

He also unloaded the rifle and slotted it onto the opposite side of the pack, through a series of straps that seemed to be designed for it. He pointed to Christopher and looked at Harold.

“Keep an eye on him.”

It didn’t seem to matter much whether Harold kept an eye on Christopher or not, because Garrett also made Christopher take the lead while the brothers walked behind. That meant Christopher would be the the first thing any sharp-eyed resident of the mountain would see, and the first thing they’d be likely to shoot at. Christopher thought about asking if he could wear the flag, but he already knew what Garrett’s answer would be.

“It won’t be long now,” Garrett said to Christopher. “We’ll either run into a patrol or be seen by a spotter. If you want to stay alive, don’t do anything that could be construed as remotely threatening.”

“That’s actually my standard operating procedure,” Christopher replied.

“Cute. If you’ve got any info that we could use to negotiate, now’s the time.”

Christopher shrugged. “Even if I did, wouldn’t it be better for me to hold onto it? Why would you do anything to help me? All you’ve done so far is kidnap and insult me.”

“What helps us helps you,” Garrett replied. “If they have reason to believe you’ve been cooperative, it might make you look a little better.”

“You think they’ll be lenient on the supposed spy who collaborated with the traitorous deserters?”

Christopher glanced back in time to see Garrett’s irritated frown. Harold looked oddly unperturbed for a man who had very recently suggested they might all be murdered before they had a chance to realize what was happening.

Christopher sighed.

“You want real truth? The truth is that, as far as I can tell, all of you have been wildly misinformed about what the outside world is like. Nobody has been very eager to share much with me, but it seems like you think it’s a lot worse out there than it really is. You’re all worried about Russia and I can’t tell if you think the Cold War is still going. I suppose it makes sense, being right next door to them, but you all still seem way too concerned.

“I realize it doesn’t really matter what I say. I’m an outsider, and everyone here has a lot of trust issues. I don’t know whether that’s justified or not, but the fact that your people are on the run from the military and might just go to prison or get shot makes me think at least some of the fear is reasonable. Meanwhile, I’m stuck out here, having been dropped down the shittiest rabbit hole this side of wonderland, and I’m more and more of the belief that I’m going to end up dead because of you. So thanks for that.”

“Just walk.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

They kept walking, a thin, hard layer of snow crunching beneath their feet. Despite the talk of being shot, Christopher couldn’t stop his mind from wandering. The human brain could only keep up the tension for so long in the face of sheer boredom.

“So what’s it like up there?” Christopher asked, pointing at the mountain that now dominated the sky in front of them.

“More like down there,” Harold said.

“What, underground, like that office where your friends were?”

“They’re not our friends,” Garrett said, “and we’re not here to play tour guide.”

“I was friends with a couple of them,” Harold muttered.

“What’s the point of all the secrecy anyway?” Christopher said. “Your people already told me that there’s this base here, and there are certainly enough other buildings littered around here to make even someone as clueless as me start to wonder what’s going on. Other countries must have satellite cameras. These places must be visible in infra-red or something.

“Knowing there’s something is a lot different from knowing what that something is,” Harold said. “You’ve heard of Area 51, right? Everyone has.”

“Sure.”

“What exactly do they do there?”

“Okay, that’s a pretty good point.”

Christopher gave up his questioning and marched in silence for a while.

The trees began to thin out. The land rose in fits and starts, hills piled upon hills, with unexpected little dips and gullies hidden by scrub bushes. They had to find narrow places to jump across or scrabble down and up. A few of these low places had ice at the bottom, and one had a thin trickle of dirty water. Christopher imagined them flooding with snow melt in the summer, the water carving up the land into little puzzle pieces, the inexorable pull of gravity doing its work over hundreds of years. Once again he was captivated by the beauty of this lonely landscape. It felt like a place outside of time, like he could walk these paths a thousand years before or after and see the same things in only slightly different arrangements.

They came up a slope and found themselves on the edge of a wide open, treeless expanse with a clear view of Razor Mountain. Perception was tricky: the roots of the mountain might only be a few hundred meters away, or still miles distant. For the first time, Christopher could see the entire vast mass of rock in all of its glorious crenulations and textures. The sunlight glinted here and there on facets of the rock and gilded the deeper ridges with liquid gold. There was very little foliage visible among the shattered boulders and jutting rock, and the nearly vertical faces made the mountain look almost as though it had burst from the ground in a single violent incident. It was a mingling of dull reds, grays and blacks. The broken twin peak was dusted with snow, but even in the bright sunlight the dull black rock looked as though it had been scorched from above by heavenly fire or some unruly dragon.

Garrett stopped and adjusted his makeshift flag. Christopher saw a meaningful look pass between the brothers before Garrett looked to him and motioned him forward. They stepped out into the open space, completely devoid of cover.

A stiff breeze blew through, whipping and cracking the flag dramatically, then everything went quiet. Christopher felt the tension hang between them. He stepped carefully; his footsteps in the gravel seemed loud. Off to the side, somewhere in the low brush, unseen birds chirped and chattered at one another. The breeze blew over the rough grass in uneven waves.

Christopher felt certain that something was coming, the crack of a gunshot or a shout from some hidden spy. His muscles were tight, vibrating with nervous anticipation. He glanced back and saw the fear in Garrett’s eyes. Harold studied the landscape around them, but he still looked calm. Whatever he thought would happen, he appeared to have made peace with it. Christopher felt a faint pang of envy.

Christopher didn’t see where the soldiers came from. He only saw the sudden change in the brothers’ expressions. He turned, and found himself facing six men in gray-green camouflage, helmets and body armor. They shouted orders as they surrounded Christopher and the brothers, though Christopher didn’t process exactly what they were saying. Something about not moving and getting on the ground, he supposed, because they immediately pressed their captives face-down to the earth. Christopher heard a thud near his head as Garrett’s backpack was removed and tossed aside. The tee-shirt flag lay on the ground nearby.

More voices and footsteps joined the others. Christopher kept his face in the rough, sharp grass, adjusting his position only to avoid getting jabbed in the eyes. He half-expected to hear the sound of gunfire or Garrett making some desperate excuses. But the guns and the brothers remained silent.

After a quick, whispered conversation among the captors, Christopher felt hands firmly grasp his arms and haul him upright. The soldiers weren’t rough or cruel; they exuded an aura of professionalism. This was what they did, and they’d do it efficiently and with a minimum of fuss. Christopher saw that Garrett and Harold now had their hands behind their backs as well, bound with black zip-ties. Two soldiers held their backpacks.

The soldiers gathered in a loose formation around the captives, weapons held ready, and they began to march, once again, toward the mountain.

Though he still had a tight knot of fear and worry lodged just below his heart, Christopher couldn’t help a slight smirk at his situation. He had swapped captors three times in as many days, but he was still headed toward the mountain. In opposition to the seasonal flow of water, pulled by gravity toward distant lakes and oceans, Razor Mountain had its own gravity, and no matter what he did, Christopher couldn’t escape its pull.

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