by Kyle West
All I had to do was follow them, until the end.
“They’re hoping to get past Last Town by tonight,” Makara said, breaking me from my thoughts. “From there, they’ll set up camp and begin the push into the Great Blight.”
The final battle was getting so close, and we were on the second day before the final evolutions took place.
“Do you think we can win?” I asked.
“We have to win,” Makara said. “Those men down there...” She pointed toward the gathering soldiers. “I can’t stand that I’m the one sending them to their deaths. They’re just bait and they know it. Still, they march.”
“They know what will happen if they don’t fight.”
“True,” Makara said. “And who knows? Miracles have been known to happen.”
She half-turned, ready to walk away.
“I’m off to Perseus. Sam, Michael, and I are going to Bunker 84 to get the nukes online. I have to fly, Sam can take care of the computer stuff, and Michael wants to see his family. We have to decide on targets as well.”
“Targets?”
“Well, with nine nukes, that gives us nine potential targets. We need to save some for the battlefield, in case things don’t go our way. Which is pretty likely.” Makara sighed. “Hopefully we won’t have to use them.”
“Well, good luck with that. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“You, Anna, and Julian can scout ahead of the army. We need to make sure our forces aren’t walking into a trap. It’s an important task, so don’t take it lightly.”
“You’re leaving now?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Samuel and Michael are already waiting, so all that’s left is to head there. The thing is getting back in time to power the railgun. We’ve picked a plateau to make our stand. It’s flat, but with sheer cliffs on every side but the west. If we can take the fight there, we can last a lot longer than we would otherwise.”
“And what about attacking the Crater?”
“Tomorrow, if at all possible.”
With that, Makara headed down the ramp and toward Orion. I stood there in disbelief. She wanted to attack Ragnarok Crater tomorrow. I really didn’t have to ask why. If there was some unknown evolution taking place in two days, it made sense to strike before that happened.
All the same, it was too soon. Any time would have been too soon.
As Perseus’s engines fired up, boots clomped down the ramp behind me. I turned to see Julian. He planted a hand on my shoulder.
“You alright?” Julian asked.
Perseus lifted off and circled above the buildings. Julian and I watched the ship’s departure.
“Yeah,” I said. I shook my head. “No, actually. The attack on the Crater is tomorrow, you know.”
“Tomorrow?” Julian asked. “I’ll believe it when it happens. Something will crop up before then. You’ll see.”
“It’s better to just get it over with.”
“Well, if it does happen tomorrow, these soldiers have to get moving. There’s no way you’re going near that Crater before the battle starts. The attack on the Crater can’t start until the army is fighting, until the Radaskim are distracted.”
“You don’t think the battle will happen tomorrow?”
“No idea,” he said. “I’d be surprised if they make it past Last Town today, like Makara hopes.” He looked at me. “You’ve got another few days, man. Go spend time with Anna.”
“What do you think is going to happen?”
Julian shrugged. “Don’t know. I’m just trying to do my part. I’m not as smart as Samuel. I can’t use a blade like Anna. All I’ve got is my willingness to help. That’s all I was given, so that’s all I have to give. That’s alright, though. I was always meant to play a bit part.”
“That’s not true.”
“I lived a lot of my life as a slave, so I’m used to helping out. Going unnoticed. Not saying much.”
“That’s not who you are now,” I said.
“It was who I was,” Julian said. “No getting around that. Back to your question, though...I have no idea when the battle will start.”
“I’m not ready for it,” I said. “I might have less than a few days to live.”
Julian smiled grimly. “That’s probably all of us, Alex.”
Julian and I both gazed down the city streets, seeing a lone female figure with a blade walking toward us. I headed in that direction. It wasn’t long before Anna and I stood facing each other.
“You’ve heard about what we’re supposed to do?” I asked.
“No, what?”
“Makara told us to recon ahead of the army, using Orion.”
She nodded. “Makes sense. I saw them take off.”
We turned back for the ship. I felt directionless, like there was something I was supposed to be doing besides waiting around. It would drive me crazy if it went on for much longer.
When we arrived, Julian had gone off somewhere. Down the street, men still gathered at the base of Reaper HQ. The railgun was with them now.
We stood there, watching, for the next ten minutes, as the army began to march. It was more people than I’d ever seen gathered in my life.
Still, I knew it paled in comparison to what we were up against.
It was a strange mix. Augustus’s legionaries were the most numerous, in their dusty leathers and spears and shields. Some carried rifles or handguns, but not many. Carin Black’s Reapers, by contrast, were equipped with rifles. They marched at the rear, after Augustus’s legionaries. Interspersed with the marching men were the vehicles – Recons, mostly, the lead one containing Augustus and a few of his Praetorians. The Reapers had their own Recons with machine guns mounted on the top. In the center of the Reapers’ procession was the halftrack and railgun, rolling slowly and kicking up a cloud of dust. Right behind the railgun, in a Recon painted jet black with skulls and cross-scythes on the door, rode Carin Black and his son, Onyx. Their eyes gleamed at us almost mockingly as the vehicle passed. Julian emerged from the ship and came to watch with us from the ramp.
“I hope the Blighters get him first,” Anna said.
“We might need him for a little while longer,” I said. “As much as that hurts.”
“It’s time we got going.”
For now, we were leaving Char and Marcus on the ground. They needed to be with their men. I hadn’t seen them marching in that teeming mass, but that wasn’t surprising. The numbers of Raiders and Exiles was a drop in the ocean compared to everyone else – and the strength of the entire army was just a drop when compared to the Radaskim.
“You coming?” Anna asked.
I realized I was still staring at the train of supplies being carried in a seemingly never-ending line of flatbed trucks. Food, ammo, guns, medicine, whole tanks of water...the hundreds of vehicles and personnel outnumbered even the soldiers of the army.
I turned and boarded the ship. The door shut behind as I walked to the bridge. Anna fired up the ship, and a moment later, it lifted from the ground. Most of the men looked up as we rose into the sky.
“Taking off,” Anna said, after setting the frequency to Makara’s line. “Proceeding with aerial recon. What’s your status, Orion?”
Makara’s voice came through.
“We’re a few minutes out from the Bunker. Lauren has things running smoothly, as expected. We’ll be touching down in thirty minutes or so.”
“Copy that,” Anna said. “We’ll be here.”
Anna then switched to Augustus’s line.
“Augustus, we’re proceeding with aerial recon. If we notice anything unusual, we’ll let you know right away.”
“Copy that,” he said. “Expand your reach farther than our line of travel. Don’t want anything catching us with our pants down.”
“Will do. I’ll see what I can find.”
Now, from well above the buildings, the marching men and slow-moving vehicles below looked like toys. It was hard to believe that this was finally happening.
“We’ll be there soon,” Anna said to me.
“Where?” I asked.
“My home.”
She followed the line of the highway, past deserted buildings that stretched beyond the hills. She angled down toward a mountain pass though which the highway traveled.
As we drew closer, buildings appeared on the road. A dilapidated wall surrounded the town and separated it from the rest of the Los Angeles Basin. It was all but abandoned. Dust covered the highway running down its middle, and its wooden buildings stood in shambles.
“There it is,” she said. “Home. Or what’s left of it.”
I touched Anna’s hand. “You going to be alright?”
“I think so. Last Town is just a reminder that nothing lasts in this world. We live each day expecting what we have to be there tomorrow. It’s funny how we think that, because most of the time, it isn’t true. When you expect to lose everything...it makes having anything all the more miraculous.”
“You’re here now,” I said. “That’s what matters. Despite everything you went through, you made it.”
“I’m still making it. I don’t care what either of us has to go through in the coming days. We’re going to make it. Somehow.”
We were nearly over the town.
“Which was your house?”
Anna smiled. “I can’t tell from here. But maybe I can show you.”
“How?”
She gave me a quick glance before angling the ship downward.
“By landing.”
Chapter 9
We landed in the center of the highway running through town, where the army would be passing through later this afternoon. It was still morning, so we had plenty of time to complete the recon, but all the same, I knew Augustus wouldn’t be happy with this hiatus.
We disembarked and found ourselves standing in the center of a town in shambles. Watchtowers on stilts rose from the eastern and western palisades. The wooden buildings were deteriorating into the dust. Most of the squat buildings lined the highway itself, or were even built on top of it. Last Town had arisen after Ragnarok’s fall – set in the pass connecting the Wasteland to the city, it was well situated to take advantage of the trade routes that arose out of the Chaos Years. For almost two decades, the town thrived, especially when protected by Raine and the Lost Angels.
However, after the Lost Angels fell, the Reapers had conquered Last Town five years ago. It had then been maintained as an outpost of the Reapers, but at the moment, the entire town was abandoned. Anna and her mother escaped this place five years ago, but her father had died in the fighting.
“This way,” she said.
She led Julian and me between two buildings. We climbed over piles of wood and rubble. Most of the buildings looked as if they could collapse at any moment. I began to wonder how Anna knew where she was going.
After I thought about it for a moment, I realized that I could close my eyes and see every angle, intersection, and corridor in Bunker 108. There was something about growing up somewhere that made that place stick with you for the rest of your life, even if you never saw it again.
It was the same for Anna; she knew exactly where she was going, and it wasn’t long before we stopped in front of a small wooden house.
“This is it,” she said.
Or, at least, what remained of a small wooden house. One of its walls had completely collapsed. Inside, I could see splintered chairs, an upturned table, and two cast-iron pots strewn among the debris.
Anna stepped over the shattered wall and walked on the debris-covered floor. The roof had collapsed some time ago.
“My dad built this place when I was little. He was good with that sort of thing. Putting things together. Making things work.” She paused. “Of course, it’s different now. I wasn’t expecting to find much here. My mom and dad both scavenged. The L.A. ruins, mostly. The Angels made it safe to do that sort of thing, and the town saw some prosperity for a time. There was plenty to eat.”
Julian and I listened as Anna walked to one of the corners.
“My bed was here,” she said. “We called it a bed, but it was really more of a pallet. And it got cold. We had a chimney, but firewood was hard to come by. A man named Harold would chop some for us.”
“Would chop it?” Julian asked.
“Yeah. Pun not intended.” She frowned. “I didn’t realize it then, but we had a nice community here. You always take what you have for granted until it’s no longer there. When you’re a kid, you don’t think about the future. We are free to enjoy life, each moment, at least until something goes wrong.” She paused again. “It was all snatched away in a single night. And everything changed.”
Even though I was married to Anna, there was so much I still didn’t know about her. So much I wanted to know. When you were running and fighting for your life, it was sometimes hard to find the time to just...talk. Be still. Listen.
“I remember always wanting to have brothers and sisters, growing up.” She paused. “But looking back, maybe being alone wasn’t such a bad thing.”
“I thought the same thing,” I said. “After my mom died, my dad never remarried, even though I wanted him to.”
“I think...my parents might have tried. But for one reason or another, it never happened. Such things can’t be explained. We had no doctors, and few knew how to use medicine. They were precious, always guarded. The property of the Wise.” She sighed. “You never realize when you’re happy. Until you aren’t. I was happy, until the Reapers came. They killed, they raped, they burned. The dream ended, and somehow, my mom and I were spared, but after the next few years of our life, death might have been preferable. We lived through hell, on the edge of starvation and sanity. I was only twelve. Twelve.”
There were now tears in her eyes. I went over to her, and held her in my arms.
When she had gained control, she continued.
“Sometimes, I wonder how I made it. There were so many times I should have died. But I never did. Even when mom died. I’d survive, keep feeding myself for another day, and wonder why I was doing it. You ever have that?”
I nodded, saying nothing. Julian was also nodding.
“That house, right there,” Anna said, pointing past the crumbled wall. “That’s where Jason and Gwen lived. They were family friends. He kept an orchard, on the heights, in an old greenhouse. Gwen was a scavenger, like my parents.”
“How many lived here?” Julian asked.
“Two hundred, maybe. Of those two hundred, I don’t know how many died. I don’t know how many were taken as slaves. And I don’t know how many of those are still alive today. There’s me, so there’s that.”
“You made it,” I said.
“Yeah. I did. For the longest time, I didn’t believe it was worth it. Especially when mom died. Some disease took her life, but in the end, that’s not surprising. Finding food was hard, and when we did find it, a lot of the time it wasn’t good to eat. We ate it anyway, because we had no choice.” She paused. “We would read to each other, at night. It kept the darkness at bay. Books were the only escape. We’d find them everywhere. Of all the items we found, they were the most ignored, except when people needed something to light a fire. We never burned books. It seemed a travesty, to destroy all these words from a better time. A wiser time. And one day, they might all be gone.”
“What did you do?” Julian asked. “When she died?”
“What any of us would do. I cried. I cried until nothing came, until every ounce of my soul was emptied and dried on the cold, harsh rocks. And I walked. I ate. I did not smile. I did not remember. By that time, I’d found the blade, and books that showed me some basic forms. I practiced endlessly, moving only when I had to. I...killed my first man, when I was fourteen.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I’m saying all these things,
things I told myself I’d never relive.”
“It’s alright,” I said.
She looked at me in a way that said she wasn’t sure if that was true.
“We are the sum of our experiences,” Anna said. “No more, no less. But I’d like to believe there’s something more to all of us. That we have the strength to defy our experiences and rise above them, to push back against the world that has treated us so cruelly. To hold out arms and make it a better place to live. Sometimes, all that gets lost in the madness. It all gets overwhelmed. Yet, here we are. Still standing.”
Julian and I merely stood, listening.
“There are things we’d all rather forget,” Anna went on. “But we can’t. The pain becomes a part of us. There were times where that was all there was. That’s the way the world is. You can see beauty, or you can see ugliness. You can even see both, if you want to. Even without the Radaskim, this world would be a dark place. But even in the ruins, a flower can bloom. Even in a land without the sun.”
“It will,” I said. “It’s what we’re fighting for.”
I followed Anna’s gaze, and was struck to see what she was looking at. Her word choice turned out not to be merely metaphorical.
In a crack of the concrete, a green stem rose, studded with thorns; at its end a red bud bloomed. A rose in the ruins. How it existed or even grew here, I had no idea. But there it was.
“Some miracles do exist,” she said. “Jason grew roses like these, and even five years later, they’re still here.” She looked at me. “Life is as fragile as it is resilient. We’re built to survive. We’re built to endure. No matter what happens, as long we don’t quit, we’ll find a way. Even if we cry...we don’t cry to quit. We cry to go on.”
We stayed in the house another few minutes. Anna just stood, looking with reminiscent eyes as if seeing through time. She saw things far beyond what Julian and I could see. Ghosts. Memories. Laughter.
She turned, taking my hand.
“Alright. We’ve seen enough.”