by R E Kearney
Forming a large circle with his hands, Rele lectures Rube. “Around the world, with a series of simultaneous, bold attacks, Sheriffs’ disciples shattered the Elite’s invincibility. I activated them and we showed them that we can destroy their power to control true humans...us Naturals. In the metrostates I select, we wipe out the genetically engineered gardens and false food of SPEA. Without SPEA’s food and SPEA’s protection, the Elites can’t subjugate Naturals. Starvation gives us the power!”
Rube squints and rubs his temple. “Wait! What? You’re starving the same people you want to fight for you.”
“Yes, some people will die…must die…so the majority can live. It’s my plan…my hope…that many people die…starve…especially children. Victims create rage…revolution. In 1789, the French peasants only revolted and destroyed the monarchy when they were starving. Did you know that?” Rele jerks and snorts.
Rube clenches his teeth. “No, I didn’t know that. I don’t like it, either. In my heart, I’m still a farmer. I farmed to feed people. Starving anybody, especially children makes no sense to me. Violates Sheriff’s code of chivalry, too. Crazy! I really don’t understand what you’re hoping to accomplish.”
“I…we…we do it again, again and again…as many times as necessary to create chaos. More attacks in more cities are already planned…scheduled. I communicated my orders to my embedded followers months ago.” Clicking his tongue, Rele blinks then twitches into a sneer. “Starvation is a tool. Starvation stirs anger…action…war, and that’s what I…we want…war. War is what we’re here for!”
Fearfully, Rube shakes his head. “And when we enter Denver, why won’t they attack us…or you…I hope not me…since you destroyed their food?”
Rele waves his hands back and forth negatively. “No, they won’t bother us. We haven’t attacked Denver. Besides, think for a moment, if I shut down SPEA’s Denver vertical gardens now, I cut off my…our food supply. My entire crusade is all about self-preservation…preservation of our natural species. So, I’m certainly not going to starve myself, idiot.”
Rube clenches his jaw. He refuses to look at Rele. With his peripheral vision, he watches Rele waiting for him to react to his insult. He is tired of being insulted, but he remains silent. Rele waits, but he cannot pass up another chance to brag.
“Where we have attacked, SPEA doesn’t know we did it. Nobody knows. The Sists blame their providers…the Elites. That’s my plan. Nobody suspects us, because we…I…” Clearing his throat, Rele smugly taps himself on his chest. “I set it up…me…I did it…to look like just another Agromafia attack. All part of my plan to confuse and confound.”
“Just Sheriff and you? Alone against SPEA’s Elites and their agricorporations?” Rube sneers. “Even with thousands of followers…no…I ain’t believing it.”
Snuffling then spluttering, Rube’s doubt is frustrating Rele. “You don’t realize how few Elites and genetically engineered cyberhumans exist right now. At this time, the Elite are vulnerable. We outnumber them today. That’s why I told Sheriff we must strike now…eliminate them now…before they gain more dominance and power. Before they realize…awake to the fact that we’re actually out to eradicate them…not their crops.”
“Not their crops? But, didn’t you just tell me…?” Rube massages his sweating forehead. Rele is alarming him with his angry rants about Elites killing Naturals and Naturals killing Elites. He has never heard of the Elites. He has never met the Elites. He holds no grudge against the Elites.
“Cut off the snake’s head and the snake dies. It’s not how many of the Elite we eliminate that’s important. What’s essential is that we terminate the critical ones. Remove the one or two cornerstones and the thousands collapse. So, we lure in the specific Elites we want and when they’re not expecting it…” Rele slices his throat using his finger as a knife. “…Sckrech! They’re done.”
Rube snorts. He is beginning to distrust Rele’s wild and bizarre proclamations. “Big talk. Still, I’ve seen only you and Sheriff and a few knights. There may only be a few Elite, but there are even less of you. So, I still ain’t believing it.”
Offended, his eye lids jumping, Rele retorts. “Believe it! There are hundreds of us…soon there will be hundreds of thousands…united, organized, trained and focused. Sheriff recruits and inspires new members daily. Then, I transform them into my minions. I know how to play on people’s emotions…play upon people’s fears by making them aware that their way of life is going to disappear. Use technology to spread the human-supremacist theology…radicalize them into action.”
“How do you do that? Is that what you do in your Sat-com room?” Rube has wondered what he did in that room since watching him skitter into it.
Rele straightens, puffing with pride. “Yes! I’m the real power…the brains. Not her. Until I affiliated with her, Sheriff was nothing. Small time. Lost in her medieval fantasies. Content to control a few thousand fools stuck in the middle of the wastedlands. But, I changed all of that. I created Sheriff’s power.”
Having met Sheriff and received his own directions from Sheriff, Rube considers Rele’s boasting, suspect. He does not remember the Sheriff he pledged to support as being weak or easily manipulated. Rele’s insulting belittling of Sheriff, angers him. The Sheriff, he venerates is a leader and nobody’s puppet – especially Rele’s.
“I created Limos, too. Hundreds of disciples dedicated, determined and willing to die for our cause can accomplish more than thousands. All around the world, secretly tied together…constantly communicating…sharing quantum-encrypted data via the global quantum internet…my internet.” Rele jabs his right thumb against his chest. “Especially, when I’m directing them…uniting them. Now, we control the countryside. The small cities, towns, villages and beyond…where real people…natural-born people…like you and me still live…we are the law. We rule.”
Rube is growing increasingly concerned about Rele’s plans. Are they heading to Denver to secure some seeds or to escalate Rele’s personal revolution? What is Rele’s true mission? But, whether he trusts Rele or not, or even understands him, he knows the success of this operation is the key to his future, so he must complete it. He swore his oath to Sheriff.
For all of his doubts and apprehensions about Rele, the possibility of returning to farming drives Rube forward. But, he is not willing to commit himself to actions he cannot support. So, he decides to continue questioning and investigating hoping to understand Rele.
“Who is this we?” Rube continues exasperating Rele. “I don’t see me in this we.”
Rele raises his left sleeve to reveal a tattoo of the symbol Rube saw in Sheriff’s Shire court on his bicep. Beneath the symbol are tattooed two additional words – Limos Lives. Straining and grunting, Rele flexes his bicep in an attempt to demonstrate strength. He fails. Rube smirks and looks away.
With a growl, Rele yanks his left sleeve down. “Have you forgotten the oath you made to Sheriff? You became one of us, as soon as you finished swearing your oath.”
Rube remains dubious. “That still does not explain. Who is this we?”
“We is the hundreds of thousands of sheriffs, justices, military, militias, veterans, and true believers who I have joined together around the world as Guardians of the Original Dominion.” Rele’s right eye blinks repeatedly rapidly.
Rube chuckles, unintentionally insulting Rele. “Guardians of the Original Dominion? Sounds like a bunch of old Shriners. Do you wear hats with tassels on them and have secret handshakes?”
Rele’s face explodes into a blinking, twitching, shivering and quivering mess. Repeatedly, he breathes deeply to calm himself. Rube worries that he may have unnerved him too much with his mocking. Rele turns away from Rube and stares sullenly out the window. Rube hears him muttering to himself.
After a few miles of silence, Rele suddenly jerks around. He shoves his face close to Rube’s. Eyes bulging, nostrils flaring, he is afire – possessed.
&nbs
p; Hands raised above his head, his voice soars into a righteous wail. “God! God gave us…us…the Guardians of the Original Dominion our absolute power and direction. Sheriff teaches us that in the bible… Genesis one – twenty-six. Sheriff says God proclaimed, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ Everything!”
“Uh, well, uh…ok then.” Rele’s unexpected deep dive into the bible unsettles Rube. He has not seen the inside of a church for many years. None in his neighborhood. He wonders if he has badgered him too much.
Rele stabs at his own spirit-flushed face with both of his index fingers. “God created man in his own image. Sheriff read it to me from her bible. In the image of God he created him. Male and female he created them. And God ordered them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Fill the earth with Naturals…of women born. God’s children. God never said genetically engineer them. Never! Human created humans are unnatural! Satan’s children!”
“Whoa, Rele. Settle down, now.” Rube repeatedly raises and lowers his right hand gesturing toward Rele in the manner he used to calm his horse. “I hear what you’re preaching. Ok? Now no doubt, Sheriff and you’ve given this sermon to lots of people many times before, but it’s just me and you in this truck, here, and you’re really making my ears hurt.”
Rele gulps a deep breath. His eyes ease to normal. The blazing, spirit-flush fades from his face. He slides back from Rube. “In Luke ten - nineteen, we… the Guardians of the Original Dominion…Sheriff says we are given invincibility. For God proclaimed, behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.”
“Well you know, Rele, that’s good to know. I’ve never been a fan of scorpions and snakes…or serpents, anyway.” Rube again attempts to soothe Rele. “Since nothing can hurt us, we have no worries then. We’ll just march in, get that special seed for Sheriff and my farm and…”
“No.” Rele vigorously shakes his head. A regular rhythm returns to his voice. He is his abnormal normal, again. Then the heat of his religious fervor freezes into the ice cold calm of a killer. “I find my direction in Second Corinthians, ten-three that tells us, for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.”
“Divine power, you say? Like lightning…a bolt of lightning?” Rube seeks to palliate him.
Rele clenches his fists. His jaw tightens. “In my hands, I hold the divine power. They may resist, Rube, but with the power I wield…we Guardians of the Original Dominion…we will destroy SPEA and the Elite and their devil children. Annihilate them all! I know them all…all of their names.”
Shaking his right index finger beneath Rube’s nose, Rele’s voice climbs into his personal pulpit. “Failure is not an option! Consider each of your missions a suicide mission. As Sheriff informed told you when you swore your oath, if you fail, an honorable suicide is expected…no demanded. And if you fail at suicide, then I, or another vassal, will conclude the appropriate action. Death before Dishonor!”
Rube sneaks his hand down to his pistol and slides his fingers around the pistol’s grip. Spying Rube reaching for his weapon, Rele instantly goes silent. He slithers away and into the far corner of the truck cab. He glues his attention to Rube’s hand.
KERSY
A hiss rises above his engine. Sizzling soil surrounds the blistering, black, pavement snake slithering into the scorching sun squatting on the horizon. Shimmering heat wraiths dancing across the scorched desert are stealing Rube’s sanity. Far ahead, but close he sees the sand sparkle.
“I must be suffering sun stroke…” Rube raises his hand from his pistol to wipe his eyes. “…or maybe, I’m seeing a mirage…a twinkling mirage.”
“No, this is no mirage. What you see are the remains of the outpost of Kersy. Last hope home of the unwanted and unneeded. Means we’re entering the Transition. We’re ten miles outside the Greenly gate.” Rele jerks his thumb upward. “Every move you make is now being monitored and documented. Don’t do anything stupid.”
Abruptly, Rele covers his head with his hands and ducks. Hiding himself with himself, he scrambles off his seat and onto the floor. He cowers.
“What are you doing? What is wrong with you?” Rube frowns at the cringing Rele.
Keeping his eyes glued to the truck’s floor, Rele shakes his finger skyward. “Spaceplane! Didn’t you see it? Spies in the sky. Always watching. Always scanning. Didn’t you feel it? My brain is still pulsating.”
“Spaceplane? Where?” Squinting, Rube leans forward. He scans the horizon and the sky, left and right, up and down. “Nothing, I don’t see nothing.”
Rele hesitantly climbs off the floor and back onto his seat. “Oh, it’s gone now. You don’t see them unless you’re near the Spaceport in the Wattkins zone where they takeoff or land. By the time, they pass here, their rocket boosters have ignited and they’re entering suborbital flight. So, I don’t actually see them, myself, either. I sense them.”
“You sense them?” First his religious ranting and now this, Rube is increasingly questioning Rele’s sanity.
“Superior intelligences…we can perceive events that the less intelligent, like you, never notice. It’s not your fault, you just don’t have it. You’re just dull witted.” Rele sneers, quivering.
The urge to drive his fist deep into Rele’s smug face explodes inside Rube. He locks his eyes on the road rather than look at him. Several more, empty, uninhabited miles pass in silence. Barren mile swallows barren mile, sucked into the blazing, bright sun searing sky. His eyes burning, his head aching, Rube yearns for his journey to end.
Cattle skulls and sun bleached bones scattered around an abandoned feedlot signal Rube and Rele’s arrival in Kersy. Seconds later, they enter its dead heart. Kersy was never much and now it is nothing.
Rele points up and down the street. “Kersy is a ghost town where thousands of specters live. These old, boarded buildings may be crumbling around us, but they aren’t empty. If you look carefully, you’ll see they’re stuffed with Drifters, Culls, Ejects, and climate refugees. The Drifters, Culls and Ejects have nowhere else to go. Abandoned towns like these provide their only shelters. They’re not criminals, but they’re no longer welcome in civil societies, so they’re hiding inside them.”
Rele points to Rube’s left. “On the other hand, the climate refugees are here waiting and hoping for approval to enter the Denver Metrostate.”
Looking through a dirt smudged window to his left, Rube glimpses a disheveled little girl appearing and disappearing. She was thin and phantom pale. Seeing such an innocent child suffering tears at Rube. Immediately, he needs to help her. “This is terrible…cruel living. How long do these climate refugees have to stay out here?”
“For climate refugees, the wait is long and usually futile.” Rele waves toward a woman nursing her baby in a tiny spot of shade next to what was once a hotel. “Most of them will never enter Denver, because only after a sufficient number of Denver Metrostate citizens are culled or die is a climate refugee even considered for entry. The Denver Metrostate AI government strictly enforces a slightly less than zero population growth policy.”
Rube poses a questioning frown. “So, that little girl…she could die out here? Waiting? Wishing? Just because she was born…like me…outside a Metrostate in the wastedlands? No. Children are precious. Children must be loved and protected. Never hurt. Never left out here to wither and die.”
“Zero population growth…zero chance.” Rele forms a circle with his thumb and index finger. “Additionally, every entry applicant’s character, skills, knowledge and genetics are rigorously researched and tested during their consideration period. Because most of them are country
poor, a refugee rarely meets the Denver AI’s requirement that they be a genetically desirable cosmopolite.”
“A what? What’s a cosmo…?” Rube wonders if Rele is creating another fantasy.
“Cosmopolite.” Rele contemptuously sneers. “Surely, you know. No, you probably don’t. Cosmopolite. To maintain Denver’s social structure, the refugee applicant must not only be genetically acceptable, but an educated citizen of the world. Denver requires that they must be free from local, provincial, or national bias or attachment, so they will adopt Denver social laws. There are other requirements, such as amygdala size, but I only know for certain that climate refugees must be certified as cosmopolite. Just as I also know for certain that you’d never get in…so certain.”
Gritting his teeth, Rube ignores Rele’s snide insult. “And how do they survive out here while they wait?”
From a window, a middle-aged man stares at Rube with empty eyes. “I don’t see any source for food or water. Why don’t they rebuild this town? Do something to help themselves?”
Rele looks skyward. “Weekly supply drops. Denver provides them just enough food and water to keep them alive, but not more than just alive. As far as establishing an actual town, industry and life, Denver won’t allow them to. After all, Denver doesn’t want to encourage them to stay, although they do and will.”
Frowning, Rube shakes his head. “Seems to be the same story all around the territories. Just like me…my life…before Sheriff returned me my dream. In small towns and rural areas, people have no work…no future…no hope...no dreams. They’re searching for reasons to live, while waiting to die. That’s their hope…hoping to die. Living on drugs, so their days pass in blinded blurs. A drug a day until their lives fade away. Too bored to live. Just wanting to die. I wanted to die before Sheriff saved me…gave me purpose…gave me a family…a reason to live.”
“Yeah, that’s too bad. Real shame.” Disregarding Rube’s mental meanderings, Rele points toward First Street, Kersy’s single major road. “Keep your mind on driving. Turn left here.”