“But who are they? Where do they come from?” The eager, undying flame of curiosity burns in Lemuel’s eyes.
I look to my wife. “How many times have they taken advantage of our hospitality?”
“This is the third.”
“And always with the same song: Join us. Leave all that you have worked so hard for and follow. Like sheep.” I curse mildly, shaking my head at the audacity of it. “Fools. That’s what they are. It’s all you need know.”
I rise then, ducking my head to keep from hitting the whirling rotors of the fan above. I tower over everyone present. The top of Victoria’s blonde head reaches only my sternum.
“I won’t be long,” I tell the chieftains, who nod, mumbling that they will await my return. Of course they will. They have nowhere else to go.
Victoria leads me to the room’s iron exterior door and spins the hand wheel deftly, heaving it open. I squint in the glare of the sudden light outside and step over the lip of the doorframe, shielding my eyes with one hand.
“Where are they?” I reach for my goggles and dark cloak, dangling from one of many steel hooks beside the door. Similar garments left by the chieftains line the rusted wall.
“At the gate.”
“You didn’t let them in?” I glance at her as I pull on the cloak. It will shield me from the sun’s merciless rays, even at their strongest. I tuck in my braid of coarse, black hair before tugging the hood over my head.
“Not this time. It’s as you say. They have worn out their welcome.”
I smile. Sometimes the woman actually speaks sense. “Just the two of them then. Unarmed.”
“Yes. But the cyborg—”
“A weapon in and of himself. I know full well.” I strap on the goggles and adjust my hood. “How do I look?” I take a step backward, out of the shadows and into sunlight, my protected skin instantly warmed by the relentless heat. I flex my muscles for her, and they strain against my garments.
“Go on and strut, you big rooster.” She folds her arms across her belly, remaining in the shade of the ship’s hull.
I lick my lips. “Mmmm. Chicken.” My stomach growls at the memory of it. “Grilled. Fried. Or roasted?”
“Don’t torture me,” she pleads with a sudden wince and a hand to her stomach. “You have no idea what sorts of things I’ve been craving lately. But what do we have instead? Protein packs, vitaminerals, and let’s not forget the stuff that passes for water. So much to choose from!”
“I could roast you a goblyn.”
She almost vomits right there.
I chuckle. “Go back to bed. I will join you before sundown.”
With a tolerant flutter of her hand, she turns away, waddling along the side of the ship’s hull toward another door that opens into the women’s sleeping quarters. I watch her until she vanishes from sight, shutting the door behind her.
I hope for a son. I will name him Adam. Fitting for the firstborn of a new generation. Unless Gaia chooses another, of course.
“Lord Cain,” one of the guards greets me as I cross the meters of ashen sand between the overturned ships and the wall. “They’re back.”
With a grunt, I approach the rusted sheet metal driven deep into the ground, standing three meters high and topped with coils of barbed wire. I nod to the men at the gate.
“They’re nothing if not persistent.” I slow my pace, noting the rash of bullet holes piercing a large section of the east wall. “Those were to be plugged.”
“On it,” the guard says. He shoulders his rifle by its leather strap and beckons to a comrade farther down the wall.
I take a moment to survey the damage, cursing the goblyns and their bloodlust. While I am at it, I curse the nomads and their heretical beliefs. Under my breath, I also curse my men who neglected to do their assigned repairs. Dereliction of duty is not something I take lightly. It may as well have been outright insubordination. I will have to make an example of these two, scurrying about in their cloaks as they search for the bucket of tar necessary for the job.
Incompetent idiots.
I turn from the punctured metal and sweep my gaze along the shore, across the row of capsized ships rejected by the sea long ago, abandoned like a giant child’s playthings. I watch the breakers roll in, the murky water, the yellow foam. I stare out into the distance.
My eyes gradually adjust, focusing a kilometer out, then two, three. My jaw muscles tighten as my gaze locks onto the United World warship sitting there, patrolling this Forbidden Zone as if it owns the waters. The UW soldiers aboard it have yet to venture ashore. What are they waiting for?
We are hemmed in before and behind. The wall the chieftains built months ago to protect us from the goblyn raids forms a semicircle around the overturned ships. The thick metal barrier does not extend far into the water. For some reason, the goblyns refuse to go near the crashing surf, as if it frightens them. Even so, I had the men plant the wall a hundred meters seaward so that, between the tides, there would be no absence of protection at our flanks. The ocean itself provides a line of defense behind us, one neither the goblyns nor the UW have dared to breach. Yet.
I scowl at the grey battleship. The UW Argonaus, according to its white lettering along the side. How long has it guarded the coast, ensuring that no one leaves this diseased continent? As far as we know, the naval blockade has been in place ever since All-Clear, when my men and I were released from our underground bunker. We left Sector 15 eleven months ago and headed due west to fulfill nothing less than a manifest destiny, guided by Gaia herself every step of the way.
Why do they watch us? I turn away from the sea.
“We meet again,” the man outside the gate calls amicably. He is the leader of the nomad heretics, and his name is Luther. He wears light, sand-colored garments that wrap him like a mummy. With the black goggles, he also resembles the Invisible Man. Perhaps I spent too much time in the bunker watching old horror films.
I step forward to grip one of the gate’s iron bars at eye level. “You don’t take no for an answer. What is this—your final plea?”
“If you accept our offer.” Luther nods.
My eyes flick to the figure beside him. Samson, the cyborg. A large man, close to my stature and well-developed musculature. In a fair fight, we might be evenly matched. But Samson has biomechatronic arms and legs, powerful prosthetics. From what I remember of such things, a cyborg can easily possess the strength of ten formidable men.
Blistering sunlight flashes from the cyborg’s naked metal. He stands with his mechanical arms folded across a massive chest, only his head and torso covered, protected from the sun. Luther’s bodyguard. Why does he think he needs one? My warriors and I have been nothing but genial in all our interactions thus far with these misguided people.
A wry grin twitches at the corner of my lips, hidden in shadow beneath my hood. Perhaps not entirely genial.
“The offer of which you speak,” I feign a temporary memory lapse. “Could it be the same one that sent you out of our gates last time, chased by our laughter?”
“The same,” Luther returns without pause.
“To join you. Wandering vagabonds of the desert. While we have everything we need right here. Protection. Food. Weapons. Company—strength in numbers. How many of you are there now?”
“Forty.”
I laugh out loud. “Compared to our ninety strong! If anything, you should be asking us to welcome you into the fold.”
The cyborg leans over to whisper something to Luther, keeping his goggles fixed on me. I would enjoy seeing what this Samson is made of. Pit him against two dozen goblyns and watch the blood fly.
Perhaps there will be time for that later. For now, I subdue my laughter, clear my throat. Wait with all the patience I can muster.
“It may appear that you are safe,” Luther says as Samson leans back, resuming his silent stance. “You have done well for yourselves here, I grant you that. Better than we have, in many ways. But your people are in grave danger
. They cannot remain in this place.”
I exhale harshly, dropping my hand from the gate. “We’ve been over this already. You have no evidence—”
“That has changed.”
I watch them for a moment. A cool breeze chills the already sweat-drenched cloak clinging to my back. “How so? There hasn’t been anything new on the radio—just that quarantine message on an endless loop. Don’t tell me you’ve got somebody who can overhear a conversation three kilometers away.”
Luther tilts his head to one side. “Actually, we do. But even she would be unable to hear anything on board the Argonaus or the other ships out there—too much interference. Suffice it to say, we have learned that a special team of soldiers will soon be dispatched ashore.”
“Finally decided to make contact, have they?” I cross my arms. “No idea why it’s taken them this long.”
“First contact, yes. But not with you.” He pauses. “With Eden.”
I glance from Luther to Samson. “Eden is not our concern.” My tone is cool, detached, even as my heart rate surges. “From what you’ve told me, they should be able to fend for themselves well enough.”
“It’s not them we’re worried about,” the cyborg mutters in a low baritone.
“It speaks.” I smirk, noticing my guards now hard at work with a tub of tar and a spatula. “Every last one,” I order. “I don’t want to see any daylight through there.”
They nod, slapping thick gobs of the black muck onto the wall. Will they have enough? Damn those goblyns and their submachine guns.
“Eden’s survivors are expendable. As are we,” Luther says. “The UW is only interested in—”
“The children.” I think of my own on the way, all four of them. The mothers I sleep alongside every day. I should be with them now. Not out under this hot sun, shooting the breeze with these infidels.
That is the truth of it. They worship a false god, one Luther calls The Creator. Ridiculous. Gaia is the earth spirit of creation itself, and she has no rivals. When asked for a sign of his god’s power, Luther was unable to call forth a single one. Pathetic and impotent, this god he serves.
“Yes.” Luther nods. “The children.” His words hang in the air, unfinished.
I glance at my guards. If they are listening, they give no indication of it. They know that if they spread a word of what is spoken between Luther and me, they will die by my hand.
“And you know this how, exactly?”
“One of us, he is blessed, gifted with the ability to—” Luther falters. “To cross great distances with great speed, to—”
“Fly,” Samson says bluntly.
That earns another laugh. I can’t help it.
Gaia has given all of my people special powers which vary from my own ability to sense a body’s heart rate and temperature to my superhuman vision that spans distances of five kilometers. Then there is Lady Victoria. Her prowess, prior to pregnancy, was diving into the depths of the sea in a fruitless search for ocean life—without the need to come up for a single breath. Old Justus is able to see clearly in the dead of night. One of the chieftains can make himself invisible to the naked eye. Another can leap over the wall with little effort; he doesn’t even bother using the gate. There are many others like them, each blessed by Gaia with abilities no human has ever possessed before in the history of the world.
But to fly? It is ridiculous, even to think it. There have to be natural limits to what is possible, after all. Despite our plethora of supernatural blessings, not one of my people has managed to soar like an extinct eagle.
“Like a superhero, you mean?” I hurl my fists into the air and lock my elbows. I mimic the sound of rushing wind and guffaw. “Nope. Haven’t seen him around lately.”
There was a wide variety of films in the Sector 15 bunker, and I watched them all—repeatedly. Most seemed alien to me at the time, being from a world so unlike my own, created long before the Sectors existed. Hollywood, it was called, the city that made such films back in the days of the United States of North America. It must have been their only purpose at the time, no other function than to entertain the masses. So unlike the digital propaganda used solely for United World indoctrination. Many of the old Hollywood films were perhaps juvenile and crude, but I always found myself enjoying the hero tales. There was something in their essence I could easily relate to, being the alpha male of my bunker.
“Yeah.” The cyborg watches my impression with no humor in his tone. “Just like that.”
“Does he have a little red cape, as well?”
“He has been aboard the Argonaus and has heard their Captain Mutegi speaking via radio to his Eurasian commanders,” Luther continues as if he hasn’t been interrupted. “Eden is only their first stop. They have also discussed coming here, to your people, on their return trip. To forcibly take away every woman with child.”
My hands curl into tight, broad-knuckled fists.
“Your wives,” Samson drives the point home.
“Who is he, this man of yours? Why is he not here to tell me this himself?” I curse, growling, “You have no evidence. Only hearsay—from someone I have no reason to believe even exists.” Gaia would have warned us, if any of this were true. She would not have left my people in danger, not after doing so much to aid in our survival. It is not her way. “This talk of a flying man does little to support the credibility of your claims, Luther.”
“They are preparing a team in Eurasia to be sent aboard the Argonaus,” Luther replies evenly. “It will be only a matter of time—weeks, perhaps—until they arrive.” He pauses, his goggles staring without expression. “Please, Cain. Will you not reconsider our offer of friendship? There is indeed strength in numbers. Just as your people outnumber ours more than two to one, the UW troops who eventually land on these shores will greatly overpower you. You will not—”
“Gaia will help us.” The words escape my lips before I have a chance to weigh them.
The cyborg snorts in derision. Luther clears his throat and prepares to continue, but I will not allow it.
“You do not share our beliefs, and so you cannot know. But we serve a God who is alive and active, and she will not allow harm to come to us.” We are her chosen people. I nod to myself; she has told me so. “While I appreciate your concerns, Luther, I cannot share them. We have nothing to fear. If we did—”
“Then she would have told you.” Luther’s voice is quiet, as though he is reliving a distant memory.
I regard him silently for a moment. “Yes.”
The two guards finish their repair work. It should hold. They even have some tar left over for next time. And there will be a next time, I have no doubt. The goblyns are insatiable devils.
“Return to your posts.” I dismiss them, and they move quickly to obey.
“Your word is law,” Luther observes.
“I run a tight ship.”
“They will follow you to their graves.”
“We all die someday.” I sniff and half-turn toward the massive vessel planted upside-down in the sand behind me. “Tell me, Luther, who is protecting you out there? In that barren wasteland you call home? Does the god you serve keep you from harm?”
“He does. In His way.”
“He helps those who help themselves,” the cyborg rumbles.
I glance at him with mild interest. “A platitude from your holy scriptures?”
“My mother,” Samson retorts.
I chuckle at that. “Well, Gaia is our mother. She is the life force of this planet—what remains of it. So let the UW come. Let them try to breach this Forbidden Zone they’ve quarantined. If they set one foot on our soil, they will find Mother Earth is still a force to be reckoned with.” I step back from the gate with a mock salute. “Tell your god he’s welcome to switch sides if he wants. Because this, right here—” I stretch my arms out to the sides, taking in everything around me. “We’re the winning team, Luther. Think it over. My counter-offer still stands: you’re welcome to join us a
nytime. We can be friendly folk, believe it or not.”
“As he keeps us locked outside,” Samson mutters under his breath.
“Need an oil can? You’ve got some squeaking going on there. No?” I shrug. “You should be careful, my friend. This climate wreaks havoc on steel parts.”
Before Luther can restrain him, the cyborg throws both mechanical arms into an unmistakable uppercut gesture. “Go to hell!” Turning to Luther, he growls, “Why do we keep wasting our breath on these people? They don’t want our help!”
I wave broadly and back away across the sand. “Goodbye, gentlemen. We’ll have to do this again sometime soon. I do so enjoy our conversations.”
Luther steps forward suddenly and grasps one of the gate’s iron bars. “Who gave you your name?”
I frown, my face still a hooded shadow. “What?” I despise being caught off guard like this.
“From the Book of Genesis, in the Holy Scriptures—Cain killed his brother Abel. You’ll be doing the same if you remain here. Your people will die because of you!”
The guards stare at me, awaiting my command. The quick, whip-like motion of my arm sets them into action. They converge on the gate with rifles at the ready, laser sights targeting the two nomads outside in jittery red pinpoints.
“Back away!” they shout, almost in unison. “Move!”
Luther does so, his hands raised in reluctant surrender.
“Be on your way.” One of the guards glances back at me for approval, which I provide with a nod. The guard adjusts his grip on the gun. “Go on. Clear out of here now. You are no longer welcome.”
They have the situation under control. Luther and his bodyguard will leave. If they are wise, they won’t bother to return.
I turn to face the ship’s hull looming close to the lapping water’s edge. How many souls sleep within the shelter it provides from the sun? I cross the grey sand, backtracking the trail I made earlier nearly stride for stride. It will be good to get this sweat-drenched cloak off. If only there were some way to reclaim the moisture, like those hydration suits before they started malfunctioning.
Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) Page 41