Chapter 1

The ancient, multicolored bus creaked to a stop in a cloud of diesel-scented dust. Nic woke up from a drowsy half-nap, partly due to the sudden lack of jolting and crashing but mostly because all the passengers wanted to get out at the same time. Some enterprising parents even handed small children down out of the windows, which might also be a safety measure to prevent them from being trampled.

Nic waited for the crush to clear. She was taller and bigger than the local Vietnamese and would only block the aisle completely. The rooster in a string bag that had been giving her the hairy eyeball all the way from Lai Chau continued to stare unblinkingly, daring her to commit any nefarious deeds while it was on alert. It was as colorful as the bus, with amazing silky feathers in shades of brown and amber.

She gave the rooster a smile of complete innocence and made her awkward way out of the cramped bus. Waiting was good, but not if someone tried to walk off with her gear. The bus was surrounded by other passengers, people expecting deliveries, and random locals. Nic didn’t speak any of the local dialect and pointing and waving wasn’t going to get noticed in the noise. She located her pack and duffel in the pile on top and grabbed hold of the edge of an open window nearest to it, pushing off from the rear bumper until she could grab the frame of the luggage rack.

Dropping the duffel and jumping down with the metal-framed backpack, Nic put her back to the bus and checked her belongings. The truly important gear was all in a small pack that never left her, but losing anything in the bags would make her task much more difficult.

The rooster wasn’t entirely wrong about her ulterior motives. She was doing something technically illegal, definitely dangerous, and had been planning it carefully for months. Everything up to now—landing in Taiwan, playing spiritual eco-tourist in Vietnam—was to give her actions plausible cover. Her actual goal was getting into the Unnamed Border Area.

She shouldered the frame pack and picked up the duffel. It seemed to be the same weight. If anything had been stolen, it wasn’t much. Nic glanced about the market area where the bus had stopped. Everywhere in Asia had stands with the yellow radiation amulets for sale but she’d never seen so many before. They even had carved and painted wooden amulets on a rope for putting on livestock. She was definitely near the UBA now.

Her own rad-alert was also on a string around her neck and switched to vibrate instead of audible mode. She’d been warned the Western radiation detectors were a hot item on the black market and to keep hers out of sight. So far, it had only shown a slight increase, nothing to worry about.

Nic hiked a few miles into the town until she found a seedy-looking travel hostel. The sign and the building matched the pictures she’d been shown, and after pretending to check her guidebook but actually observing the local surveillance team, she went inside.

The interior was even more grimy than the outside, and so was the desk clerk. He didn’t speak. Nic just held up one finger, and he pointed to a plastic-covered multi-language sheet with the prices. Nic pulled out enough for the “special tour” option, and he pushed over a key with a numbered tab. She wasn’t sure where to go from there, but the clerk absolutely refused to speak or even make eye contact so Nic took a wild guess and eventually found a grimy stairwell.

The room that matched the number on the tag was on the third floor. Nic looked around the tiny room with the sagging metal cot and took a deep breath. This was where it really started. She could still back out now. But that would mean giving up on the whole reason for the trip: to prove to herself, and to her Uncle Jim, that she had what it took to come in as an outsider to the Special Forces teams.

That was the deal. If she got inside the UBA, operated there for two weeks, and got out all without getting caught, Uncle Jim would help her get in to Special Forces through the Special Accessions program for non-military candidates. She smiled wryly. Had it never occurred to him she would do that after listening to all his stories? Shock, anger, followed by grudging and reluctant acceptance as Nic met every requirement he set. This was the final one. “Get in and out without getting shot or making the news,” Uncle Jim finally said. “Do that, and I’ll pull some favors to get you a recommendation.” She could tell it cost him to make the offer, and he would hold up his end of the bargain despite that reluctance. No, she couldn’t quit now. Succeed or fail, but not quit.

She dropped the duffel and pulled out everything inside. At the very bottom was a large nylon zippered bag. Nic opened it to check the contents: antibiotics, powdered baby formula, potassium iodide tablets, and single-use radiation cards wrapped in lead foil. She packed the duffel again, leaving the zippered bag on the cot.

She locked the door when she left, more as a formality and to prevent someone else from taking the goods, and went to take a long walk around the local sights. She wasn’t wearing her eco-hippy disguise any more. That, and all the touristy junk she’d bought as part of her cover, had already been shipped back to the States. Now she was wearing a generic Western outdoors enthusiast look. Plain T-shirt, cargo shorts, mesh panel hiking shoes, and sunglasses. She moved truly crucial items to pockets with zippers. Things that were more bulky but still needed to be kept close got put in a fanny pack.

Officially, five miles up the road was the Chinese border. In reality, the border was more like ten miles, and the country on the other side wasn’t really China any more. Everyone referred to it with the euphemism  Unnamed Border Area. In some places it was truly utter, violent chaos, but in this section there was someone, or a group of someones, in control, and there were enforced rules.

That was one reason Uncle Jim had suggested the trip here. While dangerous, it wasn’t suicidal for a newbie who kept her head down. She’d argued and pulled out all the proof that she could handle the physical skills, but he still was hesitant. When she asked what would convince him, he’d come up with a trial run as close to a real mission as a civilian was allowed.

The Special Forces were extremely interested in what was going on beyond the New Great Wall. Most of their operations focused on the region, and they didn’t have enough capable existing troops. She had a chance to get in with the special accession program, especially if she could show she had language skills and in-country experience.

 By the books the UBA was illegal, but in the practical reality of 2031, the real Chinese border was the one the remnant junta enforced, the New Great Wall, which could be hundreds of miles from the old border. Even the junta had given up on the Unnamed Border Area. But old habits died hard, and most Western countries still did not permit their citizens to trade there since the trade ban against China was still officially in effect. Politicians of the brainless type would also bring up radiation hazards as well as the risk of offending the junta, ignoring the fact that the only nuke strikes of the Big Fry had hit Pyongyang and Beijing, or as close as North Korean guidance systems could manage. She’d heard rumors through Uncle Jim’s military friends that North Korea had dropped a nuke on its own territory, which was a grim joke if accidental and truly obscene if deliberate.

When she got back to the grimy hostel, the bag on the cot was gone. In its place was a carved wood tag, about four inches long and an inch wide. The characters and symbols probably weren’t the important part, but nobody knew for sure how they validated things. It looked like a carving a tourist could pick up. This meant she hadn’t pinged any of their security checks, whatever they were. First part of the assessment—pass.

Then it was a matter of going to the section of town where the few taxi-equivalents waited, holding up the pass until one of the drivers nodded, and getting in the vehicle. The not-a-border still had remnants of the past, but the security station was unmanned—more precisely, not visibly manned—and there was a complete dearth of red flags anywhere in the vicinity.

After an hour’s drive, Nic was dropped in front of another ratty bunkhouse. She handed the driver a wad of cash and, because she wanted to be on his good side and not get reported, a tube of the antibiotic cream. Money was always welcome in the UBA, but what they desperately wanted was medicine. The local areas were poor to begin with, and travelers were their only connection to the outside now. She had brought extra antibiotics for bribes.

And she was probably going to need them. Now she needed to set up her new cover persona, a hard-core hiker/climber, but before doing that, she took out her phone. It was a model designed for outdoor use, rugged and with built-in GPS and other useful features. She sent a brief message to a memorized number. Party starting, going out to get some beer. That went to a burner phone with Uncle Jim, and it started the official countdown clock. The message was a code indicating Nic was inside the UBA and preparing to move out.

The next morning, she was up early and planning her next move. The bunkhouse didn’t have much space in the rooms, so Nic took out her climbing gear in the little courtyard inside the front door. While she was inspecting a coil of rope for any sign of fraying or damage, a shadow fell over her. She looked up to see a small, wiry man of indeterminate age bobbing his head. He pointed at the rope and mimicked a climbing motion. She wasn’t entirely confident of identifying the ethnic groups here, but she suspected he was Miao.

Nic nodded and smiled, wondering if he was just friendly or saying he was a climber too. Some other interested bystanders started accumulating, arguing and gesticulating, and Nic glanced quickly around to locate escape routes. They didn’t seem angry at her, but something was on their minds. Eventually they pooled their English together and, with some assistance from a sketch on a piece of paper, Nic finally understood what they wanted.

“You want me to look at a cave?”

Chapter 2

Dirt and gravel skittered past her face, dusting the bright green-flecked yellow climbing rope. Nic closed her eyes and shook her head to dislodge the dirt, spitting to get the grit out of her mouth, and continued her descent. Someone, probably Keej, was shouting either encouragement or warnings, but she had long been defeated by her minimal Chinese vocabulary and his Miao accent. Mostly they smiled and nodded, and in extreme emergencies drew pictures if nobody else was around to translate.

Don’t descend too fast. Check your bearings and don’t dangle. Have an emergency grip located if the rope fails. Oh yeah, and watch out for snakes.

This wasn’t exactly a tropical area, but it was summer and snakes didn’t read maps much. It only took one lost and grouchy habu to really ruin her day, and she was having too much fun right now. The climbing class had really paid off, and so far she hadn’t hit anything she couldn’t handle.

The cave itself was spectacular, and she could see why Keej was excited about it. The entrance was pretty straightforward, a hole in the deep forested hills between Gejiu and Mojiang. Keej and another man had been hunting and discovered the cave three months ago but didn’t know how to climb down to investigate it safely. And then Nic and her gear had shown up when Keej was in town for supplies.

It was, or had been, a huge cathedral cave. The roof had collapsed a long time ago, judging by the size of the trees growing over boulders in the middle of the open space. Down on the floor of the cave, she looked up at the jagged edge of the opening at the bright blue sky, enjoying the view, before gripping the rope and climbing up again.

“Pretty, pretty,” she said to Keej and the crew at the top in fractured Chinese. They broke out in wide grins, most missing a tooth somewhere. “Tourist like.”

Tourists that didn’t mind crossing a fluid and what Uncle Jim would call “politically tenuous” border, that is. Even though she was not actually one of those tourists, she could see plenty of the adrenaline addicts being willing to come visit.

In the few days she’d been here, she had learned quite a bit about Keej and the people he worked with. This area was definitely part of the old China but was ruled by a group of former military, smugglers, and shady business types that had banded together for survival and had managed to form a surprisingly polite gang. They were reluctant to annoy the South Asian countries on their border that they depended on for trade, and they definitely didn’t want to come back under the power of the insane asylum in control of what was left of the PRC. So everyone played nice and didn’t ask awkward questions about all the gear and equipment with hastily painted out People’s Liberation Army insignia.

While this section of the UBA was stable enough to have some level of trade, it still wasn’t much. They needed access to Western markets, and tourists were the fastest way to get that. Keej wanted to know what tourists would think of the cave, and she was the only experienced Westerner on hand. The area was dirt poor even before the Big Fry, and now they were desperate.

Nic found her pack and strapped it on, then leaned back with the rope to descend again.

“Why you go?” One of the younger crew looked at her, worried.

“Little caves, path. Tourists like walking caves. I look more.” She waved her ruggedized phone. “Pictures! Show you.”

What she really wanted to do was test her abilities climbing with a loaded pack. Nobody in the Special Forces was going to be climbing rock faces without a load, and the real purpose of this trip was to find out if she could do it.

They’d already gone over carrying weapons before she left the US. The local government-or-equivalent would definitely view an armed foreigner as potential trouble, even a woman, so to stay off the radar, she didn’t bring any firearms or try to buy them locally. She’d picked up a local variant of a khukri in a market, though, fancy enough to count as a souvenir but well made and functional. She’d run into a few incidents when she was glad she had it but she hadn’t needed to use it. Yet.

Going with Keej and his guys was a risk, but you had to trust your gut at some point. She wouldn’t have agreed to an overnight if she hadn’t met his old grandmother, the true owner of the truck they borrowed to get here. Gramma clearly wouldn’t put up with any shenanigans that could damage her precious truck. Nic trusted Gramma completely.

The pack, and the weight, were making the second trip quite awkward. Nic had to hug the rock face more for balance and earned more scrapes and cuts as a consequence. Keej had mentioned an old inn with hot springs in Mengzi. She should check them out to maintain her cover as a tourist, right? Not because she was sore and filthy. Definitely not.

The second trip down was not as quick or as graceful as the first, but it was under control and no snakes. Nic unfastened the climbing harness, re-shouldered the pack, and waved to the crew before going exploring. She took some pictures of the entrance, with Keej looking down at her and the trees growing out of the rubble like a tiny forest in the cave.

The main section of the cave had a stream going down, probably what had hollowed it out millions of years ago. From what she barely remembered of her geology classes, caves like this in karst stone usually eroded from water movement. They’d passed a good-sized river not far from here on the trip up, which made sense. The stream led to what looked like a gallery with large boulders and ferns growing near the edge of the stream. Nic scrambled over the rocks, finding a way down to the long gallery. It was completely enclosed, so she got out the LED flashlight to see her way.

“Better leave a trail of breadcrumbs,” she muttered to herself. She had a coil of the yellow climbing rope clipped to her pack, and she tied one end to a good-sized root of the large trees before continuing into the dark.

She wasn’t a big fan of dark, damp places and only intended to take a look around, maybe take a few pictures for the crew to use for the tourist brochures, since none of them had modern phones or cameras. As caves went, it was very cavelike. Someone, hopefully several rich someones, would no doubt adore it. Nic was less excited. She may have majored in geology, but that was only to have an excuse to get outdoors more. The major, and college itself, was her mother’s idea.

When she reached the end of the rope, she took a few more pictures of the strange rock formations on the floor and walls, and went back, rolling up the rope as she went. There were several side passages, but she knew better than to try them with no training and no gear. That was how you got on the news as a rescue operation and not the kind of thing a wannabe SF candidate needed on her resume.

She could still look, though. Which is how the light from her flashlight caught on something shiny that wasn’t a wet rock, deep inside one of those passages. Nic peered into the opening. No, definitely not a rock. It seemed … formed. Metallic. She looked at the rope in her hand, then at the mystery object. OK, she could look as long as she still held on. The ground was solid, and there was no sign of loose rock ever falling. She just wanted to check it out.

But even when she was standing right in front of it, she couldn’t tell what it was. Artificial, from the looks of it. Metal, probably. It was also embedded in the very solid rock wall. She took a picture, wondering if that was a good idea. What if it were some secret government project and she’d get disappeared for finding it? The Chicoms are not in control anymore, and it’s theirs if it’s anybody’s. Should be safe.

Another gleam of light, and not where her flashlight was pointing. It was also a deep blue. Nic shuffled closer. Part of the curved surface jutting out of the rock had strange raised symbols, or designs, along the top edge. One of them was the source of the light. She reached out, intending to just brush the surface with her fingertips to see if it was warm or not.

The light disappeared.

Nic felt her ears pop. She touched the symbols again, lightly, but nothing else happened. She took another picture of the symbols, close up, and turned to go, pulling at the rope to gather it again as she went.

The rope hung loose in her hand. One end was cut clean—in fact, it was fused. Not melted, but fused and hard as glass, yet still showing the individual strands.

Oh, this is not good. Nic took a deep breath, unslung the pack to get the khukri, then moved out.

There was no rope on the gallery floor. Also no footprints, not even hers from when she slipped and stepped in the stream. If Keej was playing a joke on her, it was an extremely elaborate one. And why? She would have heard anyone following her down since the stone walls reflected sound. Even someone already there would make noise getting close enough to cut the rope in the side passage.

Nic shook her head. No time for theories or speculation. She needed to get out and assess the situation first. She changed the flashlight to low intensity, and held it so it only shone on the ground. No point giving any potential enemies the exact location to shoot. Walking carefully and as quietly as she could, she went back up to the gallery. Still no sign of her rope. When she reached the boulders near the main open cave, she got her second shock.

The trees were gone. The large root she had tied the rope to … wasn’t there. The boulders were the same, including the one with the odd square chip on one corner. They were the same color stone. So she hadn’t gotten turned around by accident—this was the same route she had taken.

In the main cavern, the opening was unchanged, but the view wasn’t. It was a dark, starry sky. The climbing ropes weren’t there. The harness she’d dropped wasn’t there. And when she shouted for Keej, there was no answer.