Greenhaus:Storm

by Reckelhoff, Bryan

  The lookout was cramped, so there was nowhere for her to go. Before her death, Ella’s mother explained to her this part of life in the camp, but until now, it was something she had never experienced. It did not seem so bad for her first time, compared to the tortuous screams she heard others making during their experience. Her mother explained to her that fighting would do no good. That much she remembered, so she relaxed at first.

  Her camp was not particularly aggressive in this nature, though some of the camps that passed through the area had their way with several of the younger girls. Ella’s current experience was nothing compared to the tales told by other girls. Multiple men and beatings that accompanied much more vicious and violent episodes. She lay there motionless, pretending to be asleep, until she blurted out, “No!” She began to wiggle her body out from under his, while he tried to hold her still. “No!” she repeated. “Stop! Get off of me you brute!” She kicked and threw a vicious elbow that landed square.

  Jeremiah was startled by her resistance. He rolled off and lay next to her completely quiet. In the awkward silence she slid her suit back on, pulling it together tighter than usual. Jeremiah was soon snoring loudly, and continued to do so until the sky brightened. Ella lay awake next to him, motionless until he stirred from his slumber.

  “You awake?” the grizzly man asked.

  She pretended to be waking from her slumber, feigning a tired voice with her reply. “Yeah, I just had the craziest dream. We had so many Beasts, we leveled the entire city.” It was a lie. The skirmish with Jeremiah kept her up and her mind stayed focused on the question posed the night before: What if they are trying to help us?

  Both of them ignored the previous night’s incident. Ella had heard of the pain first-timers endured, but for now she was spared. “We should get back to the camp. They will be waiting for us,” explained Ella. “We should not have left them this long.”

  “There isn’t anything for us to do except wait. I think we should stay here another night.”

  I bet you do, but now that I have seen this side of you, I have other plans for your future. “We must return Jeremiah. There is so much to do,” Ella calmly explained.

  Puzzled, Jeremiah asked, “Such as?”

  The reply was sharp. “Planning and training, for starters. Or how about just being there,” said the aggravated Ella. “Giving them hope. Inspiration. Even though we both know there is none,” she answered swiftly, exiting the bunker, Jeremiah in tow. Ella thought it odd that the crews had not started their day yet. By now they would usually be hours into their work.

  Jeremiah did his best to keep up with Ella’s fast pace. “How do you figure? If we can get more of those Beasts we saw running, we can level Glass City, just like in your dream,” he told her. His plan was simple, but….

  She wanted to tell him, but couldn’t. She never fully trusted Jeremiah, and his behavior the night prior certainly didn’t earn him any points. She didn’t want to risk losing the camp, or even dividing it. Again. Ella knew they would not get the vehicles running, and the fuel tanks were empty, long ago siphoned dry.

  Instead of coming clean, Ella simply countered every scenario he proposed. “We would need a dozen. And even then, our Oppressors would disable them before we advanced past the defenses. I have seen the blasts. The yellow wave stops anyone or anything it touches. It kills the engines, igniting the fuel inside. Look at all the burned hulls of vehicles in the fields surrounding Glass City,” Ella said this as she handed him the binoculars.

  “Yes, but these can stay outside the range of the coils, and if we can find what produces the disabling blasts, we can target them first.”

  The two argued, cussed, and discussed the topic for the entirety of the long walk home. Ella had thought Jeremiah was of a like mind regarding an attack, but now she wasn’t so sure. Guards waved them through the gates, the smell of grime invading her nose as she entered the fortress. Sounds of agony coming from the infirmary told her the Sickness has entered the final stages for several, and soon they’d have to make the final march.

  The Elder tent was empty. With the scouts due to return in a few days, everyone would be expecting them to plan an assault, even if they moved forward with just the Beast as the main offensive weapon.

  Once inside the tent, Jeremiah continued to counter her arguments. “I have seen what one of these can do. If we can get three or four more, we could knock down a whole wall.” Ella hoped Jeremiah was just grasping at straws. He had to know their outlook was bleak, and as a last resort was presenting every far-fetched idea that popped into his head. Maybe someone else is in his ear, or maybe he was trying to make up for the night prior, kissing up, telling me what he thinks I want to hear. Unaware that I have no plans to attack.

  Ella knew no more vehicles were coming. Silencing him once and for all would be easy if she told him that. Instead, she continued to hear his pleas and counter with the reasons his plan would fail. “You knocked a large hole in a glass wall. Overwhelmed in the counterattack, you ran and lost half your camp.” She kept returning to that argument, because it kept working.

  “But this time, we can breach the walls with our camp near the undefended area that is being built. And get inside before they power up the coils,” Jeremiah said.

  He might be right. If they had a few more Beasts and if they attacked as he suggested. But once they were on the Inside, they would be picked off one by one, trapped in an unfamiliar place, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Without help from the Inside, someone to lead them through the unknown, they would be helpless. Ella wanted badly to tell him, along with everyone else, the truth. That no attack using the available resources of the Storm Camp would be successful. The defense was too strong. They could do damage to Glass City, a great deal of it in fact, but in no scenario would the Masked come away with anything greater than a moral victory. She wanted to tell everyone that, and tell them that no attack would be forthcoming. But the camp would surely revolt against her, or at the least become divided, so she would keep spinning a web of lies to keep it all together.

  Ella wanted to say all the things she was thinking. If those living inside really were the Oppressors, like we are taught, then why are attacks only in response to our initial advances? Why wouldn’t they just wipe us all out at once? They certainly have the means to do so. Tale after tale had been passed down about unsuccessful Masked camp invasions on Glass City being routed by Ranger counterattacks, but none of a preemptive Ranger attack.

  I have turned into Elder Stone, afraid to attack, finding any reason not to do so. Ella couldn’t decide if she and May Stone were smart to discover legitimate reasons not to attack, or if that made them soft. One thing she knew was that Elder Stone was dead, and Ella wanted to avoid the same fate. Doing as Elder Stone suggested, learning to harness the rage, was step number one. Realizing that attacking was futile was next, keeping her and many others alive. Ella wondered at what point in May Stone’s life she had the same epiphany.

  Ella believed that eventually a camp would be big enough to overrun a city, after amassing the weapons and manpower to do so. Could have happened by now if we hadn’t shot ourselves in the foot so many times. If my father’s camp didn’t decimate itself against the glass when I was young. If the failed coup attempt and resulting massacre hadn’t happened at the fortress. If the Blood camp hadn’t sacrificed three-quarters of its population to the White Army of Newer Orleans. So many mistakes made, and many more that Ella wasn’t aware of. History was filled with camps wiping themselves out against the defenses of Glass City.

  Ella understood why it kept occurring, and at least they died supporting a cause. A foolish and hopeless cause, but a cause nonetheless. That was certainly better than living a pointless existence. It still bothered her that lives were wasted, lives that if accumulated and allied together would be quite a formidable army.

  What stuck in her craw more than anything else were the power seekers on the Outside, like Elders Fire, Sky, and Clou
d. What was their cause? What were their motives? What did they hope to gain, control of a rotting wasteland?

  Elders Stone and Ashe had been waiting for the other Elders to return from a distant camp, hoping to find new allies. Instead, they were ambushed and paid the ultimate price, something Ella worried would happen all over again if she announced her true intentions. History had a funny way of repeating itself, for those not paying attention.

  Ella had something else she felt may have led Elders Stone and Ashe to be tentative about attacking Glass City. The contents of the letter may hold the reason, but they had no one to read it. Part of her wanted to know what it said. Part of her thought it unwise. She often pondered tearing it up, throwing it to the wind, but something made her keep it safe in her backpack, next to her most prized personal possessions.

  Elder Stone’s comment, “There is always more than one war to fight, more than one move to make,” finally made sense. Those on the Outside are not all united, so she had to be on guard for raiders. She needed to formulate a plan against those on the Inside. For now, that did not include attacking them. There has to be a better way.

  The Masked camp agendas are not aligned, and had no common ideal to bond them. Some want power and will attack other camps. Ella lost her second mother, Elder May Stone, this way. Some want to attack the Glass City, and that’s how she lost her father. Some want to be left alone and die in the wasteland, generations lost while waiting for the Earth’s rebirth to save them before the Sickness sets in, and the rotting disease that took her birth mother.

  She was now unsure which path to take at this fork in the road of her life. No end seemed any less gruesome than any other. The Sickness was coming for them all eventually. The fevers, the shakes, the weakness and loss of appetite, coughing up blood, and the shivering fits were just part of the excruciating process. Finally, she understood that some sacrificed themselves to the defenses of Glass City, to receive a merciful end to their unbearable pain. If it wasn’t the Sickness, it would be death at the hands of another camp or the Rangers. Based on the screams of terror she cataloged in her head, no option was painless.

  While Jeremiah blabbered on, Ella mostly ignored him. It was hard to concentrate on her thoughts while he kept repeating the same things again and again. None of these plans of attack would work, no matter how many times he presented them. Sometimes, she thought her best option might be to run away and leave it all behind. She was close to losing her cool when she very calmly said, “Out.” Jeremiah did not hear her hushed tone and continued to make his argument, until Ella finally snapped, cutting him off. “Out,” she yelled. “Out, out, out!”

  “Huh, wha-“

  “You heard me. Out,” she repeated as she jumped over the table, grabbed his crotch, and forcefully ushered him to the door, the simmering rage coming back to the surface once again. “And after that stunt you pulled last night, be glad you are leaving in one piece. There is no place for that crap in my camp.”

  She pushed him outside of the tent, and yelled, “Guards! See that no one interrupts me until I give the word.”

  Ella drew the flap to the tent closed, and retreated into her thoughts. She enjoyed the break, not just from Jeremiah’s constant chatter, but from all interactions. Solitude. It was why she enjoyed the job of spotter. No one to entertain, no one to talk to, no one to worry about when it was time to run.

  Ella hated having to worry about all the other lives in the Masked camp. All of them hanging on her every word and command, waiting for her signal to initiate war. Though there was idle background noise and people all around her outside, she was alone in the tent, just the way she liked it. It was as much silence as she would probably ever get to enjoy, so she soaked it in and relaxed. The anger receded. Ella tried not to focus on the thousand thoughts running through her head, opting to chase them out instead. As the thoughts drifted out of her mind into the tent all around her, she naturally gravitated to the cot in the rear of the tent.

  As she became more relaxed, even the background noise muted and her hectic world seemed to calm. Ella’s eyelids blinked heavy and slow. It was a rarity to feel this comfortable. Her mind was blank. Finally the quiet darkness took her. As commanded, the guards let no one in to bother her and she fell into a deep slumber, lasting the rest of the day and well into the night, until it was rudely broken by a distant rumble.

  Chapter 17 (Jacob Niles)

  Dear Recruit,

  You have been selected to join a resistance group. Our primary duty is to uphold the Green Constitution to the letter of the law. We are individuals that have sworn an oath to this objective for the entirety of our lives. We have undertaken this duty freely. Things will be revealed to you when you are deemed fit to hear them or as you yourself uncover them.

  ‘They’ are a group of separatists, who have re-interpreted the Constitution, twisting its true meaning for their own gain. They have misused the bounty given us by Mother Earth and made a mockery of the mission laid out by our Founding Fathers. Our opposition has not revealed themselves or their true cause. Uncovering information and reporting it is the main task of all our recruits.

  Our society calls itself the Whisperers. It’s probable that you’ve never heard of this group or our opposition, despite the fact that many close to you may already be members. Also assume that many you know could be part of the operation we are attempting to infiltrate and overthrow.

  Today is the day you are lifted from your slumber. Your eyes are open, but you must at all times remember this phrase: Through the clear glass, things are not always as they seem.

  Jacob reread the line five times, pausing each time. He scrolled to the bottom of the page for the final disclaimer.

  The breaking of this seal to the Charter is a decision on your part to join. Return the seal unbroken to remain neutral. It is wise to take some time before deciding, but either way complete confidentiality is required. We are watching. We are listening. And so are they. Escape from the eyes and ears of the ‘Haus is not possible. There is only one way out.

  Without thought or hesitation, Jacob impetuously broke the seal on the new recruit packet and thumbed through the first few pages. Page one was a flow chart of names, starting with a single redacted name at the top and filtering down to the bottom, where the name ‘Jacob Niles’ was circled in red. The majority of the other names were redacted, leaving in secrecy most members in the group he had just joined.

  Jacob scanned the names left, recognizing many of them. Doyle Carpenter was the highest on the tree of names not redacted. Below him, but above Jacob’s name, were several others in Engineering, including Drew from Maintenance.

  He flipped to the next page, which detailed the basics of the veiled form of communication he was to use in order to avoid being discovered. Hand gestures used to hide his moving lips, as well as his introduction into ventriloquism. This took Jacob back to his school days. The excitement he felt from learning new things had been gone for a long time. He flipped back and forth, looking at the flowchart and the instructions to keep his spoken words from hidden enemy ears.

  The next page listed where the safe houses, or ‘speakfreelys’, were in each zone in his home city. A map of Newer Orleans, with restricted areas highlighted, listed his safe zones there. He studied the page fervently to get the lay of the land. All the information he needed as a new member was contained within the packet, and Jacob read every line of every page as fast his brain would allow.

  The rules were strict. They governed everything about a new recruit’s life, including what he could say and to whom he could say it. All of Jacob’s future actions would be closely monitored, as were those of his loved ones, to ensure compliance with their rules, though no specific punishments were delineated.

  There is only one way out. The last sentence from that first page stuck in his mind. He was now a Whisperer. Even though it was not explicitly stated, death had to be the way out. His mother was his only surviving kin. He would fully comply with th
e Whisperer’s Charter if for no other reason than to keep her safe. Jacob had plenty of reasons to join, with finding out what happened to his father being chief among them.

  After reading it fully and committing many laws, procedures, and names to memory, he arrived at the last page. It was mostly blank, except for two words, boldfaced in caps, centered in the middle of the sheet. STAY SAFE. On the backside a single word in a larger font and landscaped across the page, directed at the jokester in him, proof that they were watching, and had been for awhile. FOCUS, it screamed.

  Jacob made short work of the packet, and then reread it twice more. Then the documents were shredded, compacted, and sent to Recycling, as instructed. For the entire night, he tossed and turned. Sleeping in an unfamiliar place was just the beginning of his night terrors, his brain was addled with many conflicting thoughts. Have I joined the side of the righteous, or simply signed my death warrant?

  After his restless night became morning, Jacob returned to the desk. The knots in his stomach had loosened only a bit since waking. He took a deep breath and hit the call button. The floor behind the glass desk opened and a pod emerged from it. A man stepped out and asked, “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “Uh, yes, um, is Cole Sutter around?” Jacob didn’t know this man’s name and wasn’t sure if he was a Whisperer or not. He wanted to make sure he followed protocol closely. All the new rules made him nervous and uncomfortable. Worst of all, he knew it was showing, though he tried his hardest not to tip off any that would be spying on him. Am I doing this right?

  “Who?” the man replied, answering Jacob’s question with another question.