by S J Taylor
I took a moment to catch my breath, laughing at that idea. Three columns of Enforcers to destroy some data stores. Not likely. They came out in force because they knew there was something there. Something they would have to defend themselves against.
The monsters.
It was about time their own creations were used against them.
Like me.
I started off again. This far from the center of the city the buildings had thinned out. The streets were narrower. Instead of derelict highrises, there were houses. Modest, abandoned, and run down. Roofs had collapsed. Walls were scorched. Nobody lived out here anymore. Not even the Freemen. There was no way to defend an area like this. Not even with another big wall.
I had to wonder what I’d find even further out, in the worst parts of the Outlands.
Footprints in the dust were all I had to follow after a while. They led me straight to Jadran.
He sat on a pile of upturned rock in the middle of what used to be a street, his legs stuck out in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest. The expression on his face told me he’d been expecting me.
Beside him was a small collection of weapons. Pulse rifles. Two stun pistols. A stun stick, of all things. Packs of supplies sat with the weapons.
He wasn’t the only one waiting for me. Laria, her long blonde hair messy and still annoyingly pretty, glared at me with the intensity of a HoverHawk missile strike.
Of course she would survive, I thought bitterly, almost ashamed of myself for thinking it. Almost.
“About time you arrived, it is,” Jadran said to me with a smile. He picked up a metal flask from the stone where he was sitting and tossed it to me underhand.
The canister sloshed in my hand. Water. Just what I needed. “Where’s everyone else?” I asked them.
Jadran scowled. Laria’s expression was a little more obvious.
“They want nothing to do with you,” she told me bluntly.
“Worried about you, is what they are,” Jadran added quickly, trying to cover for Laria’s insult.
“More like worried for themselves,” Laria smirked, “is what they are.”
Jadran came over to me, and I’m pretty sure it was as much to get away from Laria as it was to be close to me. At least, that’s what I let myself believe. Maybe I just needed that kind of comfort. Or, maybe it was the twitch in Laria’s left eye.
He put his hands on my arms, his strength comforting and reassuring and—
I pushed back from him. My emotional nerve endings were still raw. Touching him was just too much.
Searching my eyes for what I was thinking, he took a long breath. “We saw the HoverHawk explode,” he said. “After you warned us and unloaded on the Enforcers, we saw you go down. Spectacular, the explosion was. We thought… well.”
He couldn’t finish the thought.
Laria didn’t have that problem. “We thought you were dead,” she said, and I could tell she’d been hoping for exactly that outcome.
“I made it,” I said, simply. It explained everything, and nothing, all at the same time.
“That is so wonderful,” Laria said with false sincerity. “Just wonderful, is what that is. You made it. Era Rae is alive. We are just so pleased to know that you will live, when a dozen and more Freemen died when their wall collapsed.”
“Laria,” Jadran said, his voice tight with warning.
“What, Jadran? She deserves to know the truth. After all, she started it. She started a war with the Enforcers. You heard her! Challenging them all, just before she… she killed…” It took a moment for her to remember what she was saying, while her eyes lost focus and stared at scenes of death from her memory. “After their flying machine crashed the Enforcers came after the Freemen. No mercy, is what they showed us. The ones who stayed behind to cover our escape all died. Suicide, is what it was.”
Jadran’s face had turned red. “That is enough.”
“She should hear what she has done!”
“Don’t you think I know?” I asked her quietly.
She crossed her arms under her breasts and it was then that I noticed she’d helped herself to another change of clothes. A red shirt with gold stitching along the sleeves. Very attractive. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d changed clothes, with their rips and stains. Or showered.
We glared at each other, me and Laria, and we probably would have stood rooted in place until the world ended or the Enforcers came up behind us and separated our heads from our bodies for easy compact travel. We would have stared each other down until one of us killed the other with our mutual hatred, if Jadran hadn’t said what I had already been thinking.
“Laria, it would not have mattered.”
“It matters!” Laria shouted. In the distance we heard an answering screech from one of the roaming Children. After that she kept her voice down even if it still reflected the anger written on her face. “She brought the Enforcers to Refuge, and our village paid the price. She brought the Enforcers to the Freemen camp, and now the ones not dead are running away. Nothing but pain and sorrow, is what she brings!”
I could tell his patience was wearing thin. Did he tolerate her because they really were the last two survivors from their village? I didn’t know. In the back of my mind I had to wonder if he still had feelings for her, no matter what he and I had told each other. Either way, he sighed out a long breath now, before trying to explain things that she should already know. “Era Rae did not start this battle. The Restored Society did. The Enforcers were always going to destroy the camp, our village, the entire blistered world.”
It was the first time I’d ever heard Jadran swear. Not that “blistered” was much of a swear word, but it was enough to make Laria gasp and finally grab her attention.
“Gone, is what our home is. Gone, is what the Freemen camp is. Neither of those things are Era Rae’s fault. The fault, is with the Enforcers and their Restored Society. They were coming through here anyway, Laria. We were just in their way. The Society kills what is in its way.”
“They kill their mistakes, too,” I added, as Laria humphed and turned her face away from us. “Jadran, I know why the Enforcers are out here. There’s a research facility, or a factory, or whatever. They were making monsters there. Those Children of the Event. They made them in that place. That’s their target.”
He stared at me in disbelief. “But why?”
“For the same reason they sanitized your Colony and killed everyone there,” I insisted. “They can’t tolerate anything that interrupts their perfect world. You saw how quick they were to obliterate the Children back at the JEA tower. These bastards won’t stop until the entire world is cleansed of everything that isn’t them—”
“Not what I meant,” he interrupted me. “I mean, why were they making the Children in the first place? I always thought those poor creatures were the result of radiation mutating normal humans after the Event.”
I shrugged. “They probably created those things to kill off any survivors left after the bombs dropped. I don’t know. They mutilated my friend, Jadran. They took Saskia and they butchered her and experimented on her and turned her into an obedient drone. I know she’s not the only one, either. This is what they do. They take everything good and they pervert it to serve their own purposes, and I… I just…”
A trembling shook me. It was almost like I could feel the little pieces of programmed DNA that the Society had put into my cells. Crazy, I know, but I was a stranger in my own skin. They had created me, too, and I had turned on them. Just another monster gone out of control. What they couldn’t control, they killed.
I clenched my fists and squeezed my eyes shut. They hadn’t killed me. Which meant they thought they could still control me.
That was their mistake.
His hands were on my shoulders suddenly, his lips pressing up against mine. His breath was my breath, and I felt myself slipping into him, two people becoming one. My body folded up against his. I touched his face—
<
br /> The remembered feeling of Saskia’s scars under my fingertips was so real that when my eyes snapped open I was sure I would see her standing there with me.
It wasn’t her. It was Jadran who held me in his embrace.
And I just… couldn’t.
I stumbled back and wiped at my lips that were still moist from his kiss. My head was spinning. My heart was pounding fiercely and my usual breathing tricks weren’t slowing it down. I loved Jadran. I did. I had opened myself up to him and let him inside and I should just let him love me back. It would be so easy.
For anyone else.
But Saskia was dead, and a part of my ability to love had died with her.
Because I had loved her, too.
Hellfire.
“I am sorry,” he whispered, stepping away from me. “I have done something wrong.”
“No. It’s not that.” I caught Laria’s look of triumph at seeing me turn him away. I tried not to let it get to me but I really wanted to slap that wicked smile off her face. “Look. Jadran. Please try to understand. I can’t.”
He lifted an eyebrow, an unspoken question, and I wished to God that he didn’t look so cute when I was trying to break his heart.
“Tell me you understand,” I said, raking my hands back through my hair and staring at my feet.
“You do not wish to be with me?”
Men were so dense. “No. I mean, yes, but no. I can’t love anyone right now. I just can’t. It… hurts too much.”
I watched him carefully, and I saw the light dawn in those deep brown eyes of his. “Your friend,” he said to me. “Saskia. The one you went to save.”
I nodded.
“She died,” he guessed.
I nodded again. “Just give me some time. Please?”
His smile seemed more distant than it had before. “If time is what you need, Era Rae, then time is what you shall have.”
In the distance, the Children of the Event scrowled and called to each other. It was impossible to know where the sounds came from, or how many of them were out there.
Jadran’s eyes searched the horizon. “At least, you will have as much time as any of us has here in the Outlands. The Children are not the only threat now. The Enforcers will take time to regroup now that you killed their leader, but regroup they will. You are sure they will go to this research facility?”
I nodded, grateful that we were talking about something other than my love life again. “I know they will. I’m going there too.”
Laria gasped. “What? Are you insane? Never mind. I know the answer. Of course you are. We need to get away from the Enforcers, not go to their secret monster factory with them!”
“You don’t have to go with us.” I threw the words at her, and I saw them hit their mark. “Why didn’t you stay with the Freemen?”
She looked at Jadran when I asked that, and then turned her head aside again, but the answer was pretty clear. She was here for him.
And by pushing him away from me I might just have pushed him into her arms.
I shook my head to clear it. There wasn’t any time to worry about that now. Especially because it reminded me of Saskia thanking me for saving her, just before she died, and it made me want to claw my heart out of my chest.
Instead, I helped Jadran pick up the weapons and the gear. “Look, I have a plan. There’s a way we can use this to our advantage.”
“There is?” he asked me, clearly not convinced. “Perhaps you should tell us about this plan of yours.”
“Um. Can I tell you on the way?” I hoped he would say yes. Especially since I hadn’t figured it all out.
After a moment, he nodded. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to earn that kind of trust from him. Whatever it was, we shared a secret smile, and for a moment the world was better.
Reaching into one of the packs he took out a small leather-bound book that I recognized immediately. “I thought you might want this,” he explained.
My journal.
I took it from him gratefully, leafing through the pages to look at all the entries I had made so far. That many? Really? I looked back through some of them, realizing how naïve I had been when all of this started. How innocent. I suppose that was one more thing I’d lost to the Restored Society.
As we walked, I thought about things lost, and chances that might lead to salvation or death. Taking out the broken pencil piece I had stuck between the pages of my journal, I started a new entry.
I miss my dog.
Era’s Journal, Entry #3105
One day further into the Outlands.
Jadran thinks he knows where the Restored Society’s research facility building is. He’s never been this far from home but the Freemen have, and he’s heard them talking about what they find out here. He’s been telling us the stories to pass the time. I have to believe a lot of it is made up by Freemen trying to look brave in front of their friends. Earthworms the size of a man’s leg. Black plants that spit toxic smoke. Birds the size of HoverHawks.
Then there was the one about people who survive by eating dirt and drinking blood.
It all sounds a bit farfetched, but then again I wouldn’t have believed that mutant people called Children of the Event could exist either, back when I’d been sitting safe and sound in my little room on Colony 41. So some of it must be true, right?
Hopefully, the stories of a building in the middle of a dry lakebed protected by landmines and lightning that strikes from clear blue skies is true, too.
Because that’s where we’re going.
Jadran plans on following me wherever I lead us, apparently. If I’d asked him if he knew the way to Hell, I have a feeling we’d be on our way to meet Third Marshall Amicus and the rest of the damned right now. First Marshall Avin Blake, too. I wouldn’t mind killing that bastard again.
For now, we have a head start on the Enforcers, and we’re going to make use of that time. We need every advantage we can get. If we can make it to this facility first, to where the monsters were made, then I’ll find some way to turn the tables on the Enforcers for good. I’ll let the whole world see what the Restored Society is like. Everyone still living in any of the Colonies will know the truth.
Now there’s a plan.
Let’s see how the Society likes it when their dirty little secrets get out.
Book Five – Shadows of Shadows
Part I
Chapter 1 - All Fall Down
Era’s Journal, Entry #3117
I don’t even know why I’m doing these journal entries anymore.
It’s not like anyone is going to be interested in my story. I’m a wanted fugitive. Wanted by half the world for crimes against civilized society and life itself—long story—and to everyone else, I’m a complete unknown. Everywhere I’ve gone since leaving Colony 41, all I’ve done is bring death and destruction. I don’t mean to. It just happens.
Nobody’s going to read this. Ever.
And yet… you’ll notice I’m still writing.
I guess, in a lot of ways, these journals are for me. I need to remind myself. I need to remember. Not just what I was, or who I am, but what I want to become. Someday.
If I’m not dead first.
The Restored Society told me I was one thing. My heart told me I was something else. I figure somewhere in the middle of those two things is where the real truth lies. Maybe I’ll find it in these pages if I look long enough.
Will I have time to figure that out? I doubt it. Does it even matter? That’s kind of the real question. Where I’m going… what I’m planning on doing… I doubt I’ll live long enough to see a future.
Because I really do ruin everything I touch. Refuge. New Merica.
Saskia.
Me.
There. That’s what I am right there.
I’m a plague.
I am destruction.
I guess I was right about the truth coming out in these pages, after all. Because that’s what I am, right there.
Kind of a lot
for one sixteen-year-old girl to say about herself. Unless you’re me.
I am Era Rae.
I am a living weapon.
A weapon about to turn on its creators.
The Outlands got worse the further we went. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.
Even my instruction back at the Academy—a lifetime ago, back when I was preparing to become an Enforcer and patrol these forsaken areas of the world—hadn’t prepared me for this. All the holo-images and immersion trainings I endured hadn’t even begun to capture the reality of what had been done to the Earth by the Reformed Society.
The Event burned the world. Literally, with nuclear fire.
The Society used to be the good guys. In my mind, I mean. That’s what I’d been taught my whole life. Then I learned it was them that unleashed the Event.
The good guys were the real monsters.
We had been travelling for two days across ground that was dry and cracked and in some places, bleeding a black oily substance that Jadran warned me not to touch. When a little of the bubbling ooze burst out from a crack near my feet, with a sickening splurg sound, Jadran grabbed me by my elbow and yanked me away from the spot.
I found myself up against his chest before I could react, in his arms, feeling the thud of his heart in his chest. My breath caught in my throat. Maybe that was just the heat.
Looking up into his deep brown eyes, I saw emotions I wasn’t ready to face.
More time. I needed more time. Even then, I might never find my way back to him.
I was still hurting too much.
Pushing myself back from him, I raked a hand through my short brown hair—lighter now, bleached by two days in the unforgiving sun—and thanked him for saving my boots from getting sticky.
“If that stuff had touched you, then you wouldn’t have boots to worry about,” he told me in a dry voice, leaning on the long pole of a stun stick. “Or feet either, for that matter.”