Beyond: Book Four of the State Series

by M. J. Kaestli

  Hope nodded and tried to keep her face neutral but was wincing inside. Miriam had a way about her. Somehow she already knew Miriam would be over critical the entire examination because she was in a foul mood. There had been many times she felt the cold shoulder from Miriam since they started training. Now that she had part of her memories back, she wondered if Miriam could tell she was brighter than her and therefore felt the need to exert her dominance.

  One thing she said rang true. Hope would soon have a family of her own. She would still pick up sporadic work with Miriam as an assistant while having children to keep her skills and knowledge keen, but that would only be if she didn’t have a nursing baby and if Joshua could watch the children. As most women nursed their children until they were three or four years old, it was common they had their next child not long after. The only reason they trained women so young was to ensure the information wasn’t lost if something happened to Miriam. When Miriam either passed or just got too old to keep up with the work, there would be at least one woman who had finished having her children and could step up while they trained the next round of women.

  Hope began her examination. As expected, Miriam was more critical than average. Part of it was warranted as she wasn’t totally on her game. Her mind kept drifting back to the radio and who might make contact. She desperately wanted to go to Reuben immediately because she was afraid of what he might say in her absence. What if Reuben was talking to the dome people and now they knew about their community?

  It seemed the harder she tried, the more Miriam criticized her. After a time, Miriam told her to step away and she would demonstrate how it should be done. Miriam proceeded to give the slowest and most thorough examination of her life. Hope didn’t know if this was a punishment for being smarter or for speaking to another woman’s husband. All she knew was there was no way around this. Regardless of how anxious she was about what he was doing on the radio, she knew trying to leave would only make this drag on relentlessly. She did her best to look interested and grateful for the instruction. It was her only strategy to ever leave this room.

  ***

  “I’m sorry that took me so long.” Hope burst into Reuben’s shed. “I hope it’s not too late.”

  He immediately put down his blowtorch and closed the shop doors. He brought her back to the room containing the radio and moved a chair over for her.

  “He said he would stay by the radio and wait to talk to you.”

  She took a deep breath. “What do you know about him? What did you guys talk about?”

  He shrugged. “Not much. I told him we just figured out how to fix an old radio and were testing it out. He asked where I was and I told him I didn’t know because I didn’t know until recently anywhere else existed. Then I told him your name, and that you fixed the radio and that you really wanted to talk with him and see if you could learn from him.”

  Her face was pale and gaunt as she sat down at the radio. She cleared her throat and pushed down the button.

  “Hello. Is anyone there? My name is Hope.”

  There was a clicking sound and then a voice came through the other side. “Hi, Hope. I’m glad you made it. I’m really excited to meet you. My name is Clint.”

  “Hello, Clint.” She struggled for a second to think of what to say. She needed to have some sort of confirmation that this Clint character was, in fact, safe to speak to without having to reveal anything about her or the community. What if the dome or mountain monitored the airwaves to trick her into revealing too much, making this community vulnerable to attack? As it appeared the dome people wanted to exterminate any survivors other than themselves, she knew communication came at a high price.

  “So, I hear you are a wiz with radios. I was mighty surprised to hear from someone I don’t already know. A lot of radios have broken down. We have lost touch with some sects of the survivors. It is rare in this day and age for someone to fix an old radio and join us new.”

  Hope went along with what Reuben had already told Clint. “Others? How many? We only know of our own community.”

  “Where are you located? Do you know what the city or town used to be called?”

  “No, I’m sorry, that information has been lost to us.”

  “Yeah, that happens. We’ve been living like this for so long I think a lot of information has gotten lost along the way. Especially when so many of the people’s radios have gone down and we can’t pass information to each other. I’d be mighty interested to know how you fixed that radio. I don’t think I could pass the information to anyone, but it would make me feel more confident about keeping this one going.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. I simply took off the cover and checked the power cord, I don’t understand why, but it looked like they disconnected the wires. I think the person who owned the radio before didn’t want to talk to anyone.”

  “Oh my God. Can you see the dome from where you are?”

  “Uh, why do you ask?” She didn’t want to answer but also was highly intrigued why that would have tipped him off.

  “Because they were a group of religious nuts. They talked to us for a while and tried to convert all the survivors to Christianity. Mind you, there are other religious surviving groups just like the one you are at, but your group was the most vocal. They tried to convert everyone over the radio and I guess they decided their efforts were in vain. They told everyone they had one final chance to repent and then they said they were getting rid of their radio because God doesn’t want them to talk to heathens.”

  Hope had a hard time keeping her facial expressions neutral. She felt confident she wasn’t talking to anyone inside the dome. As soon as Clint told the story of the radio getting disconnected, it felt a little too familiar. This radio would provide new possibilities for her. There was a whole new community of people she could speak to—a group who might accept her—a group where she could belong. There could be people who were intellectually her equal.

  “I think we might be the group you are describing.” She could not keep all hints of sarcasm out of her voice while she spoke. “This is very much a god-fearing community and a story like that wouldn’t surprise me.”

  Reuben leaned in a little closer. “They kept this radio at the church until they brought it here.”

  “Clint, do you know if the people you described kept their radio in a church?”

  “Hope, if you can see the dome, I’m talking about your people. If you can’t see it, then I never had a record of your community. The fact they kept the radio at a church would mean it was probably in use after the great war, which would mean I would have a record of it.”

  “Is this your job? Do you keep a record of everything? That is pretty sparse evidence to draw that conclusion.”

  There was an unexpected silence on the other end for a moment. “You’re not from there Hope, are you? You don’t speak anything like them.”

  She hesitated for a moment before responding. “No. I come from a neighboring village.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “You came from a neighboring village which I have no record of and you fixed a radio which your people wouldn’t have had since they never made contact.” He paused, letting the accusation sink in. “My people have kept a record of every single tribe of survivors who made contact. I do believe there is something about your story which doesn’t add up. I think you are one of them. I just don’t know if they sent you out as a spy to help them destroy what’s left of us, or if you somehow escaped on your own.”

  Heat flushed throughout her entire body. She looked at Reuben to see his response. He was standing stiff as a board, his eyes slightly bugged. He took a moment to realize she was looking at him. “Is it true? Are you a spy?”

  She realized there was nothing she could do to diffuse this except to talk. It would take a lot of time and energy to persuade either of them of her innocence. If Reuben didn’t trust her, she could never use the radio again—and that was if
the community didn’t reinstate witch hunts first. If she could get Reuben on her side but Clint didn’t trust her, she wouldn’t get any valuable information from him. She needed answers. This had to work.

  “I’m not a spy. I can tell you that much, but I cannot tell you specific details about myself because I lost my memory in an accident. I will tell you everything I can remember. I will also promise to tell you anything I remember as it comes to me.”

  Reuben turned to leave the room, and she was certain he was running to get a member of the town council. She winced and took in a sharp breath which she held until he walked back into the room with another chair. He got settled in, apparently expecting a suitable explanation from her.

  “Tell me what you remember of the accident. Is that how you got out?”

  She let out a heavy breath. “There are the people inside the dome, and the people inside the mountain.”

  “Yes. At first, the people they chose to survive were inside Cheyenne Mountain while they built the dome over Denver Colorado. Most of the population lives in the dome, but they keep the mountain running with teams of scientists.”

  Hope was momentarily stunned. How did Clint know that? “Where are you located? You also would have to be near the dome to have observed them to know that.”

  “I’m not convinced you are safe to disclose our location too. The only reason we have survived is because the dome people have never figured out where we are. But, I can tell you that originally we were in contact with the community you live in. We were in regular contact and they were acting as our eyes and ears. They observed the dome being built and the movement between the mountain and the dome until they shut us out.”

  “And you think they shut you out because of religion?”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t quite that simple. We had a good network of survivors and had the numbers if we could get everyone to gather together.”

  “The numbers for what?”

  “We wanted to destroy the dome. Your community shut us out because they believed God would take care of the people in the dome. Their role was to survive because they were supposedly God's chosen people. They tried to convince everyone to convert to their beliefs so we could also be saved. When we kept talking about the war, they shut down their radio. It, unfortunately, crippled our efforts. We needed intel from them and trust me, we looked for others nearby. The only reason your community exists, to begin with, was Genoa—that was the name of the small town of yours—had a few families who were religious survivalists and built bunkers. They had supplies when the war broke out. If the dome people knew they were there, then they would have killed them already.”

  She nodded. “My husband told me the dome people are bad. Reuben says they have killed some of the community here just because they tried to talk to them.”

  “Yes, I heard about that. That happened when we were in contact still. It was the opinion of my people that event was part of the reason they shut down their radio. They wanted to stay hidden until their God sorted this all out.”

  “Do you remember it happening?”

  “Oh, God no. That is recorded in our history logs. It is my job to keep a record of any contact made. We keep information on contact and our efforts against the dome.” He paused for a moment as though he had said too much. “Hope, I can’t tell you my location, but I can, however, tell you we have never given up on the dream of destroying the dome. No one can build or be safe as long as it exists. There have been groups who moved out of their underground living and then disappeared. We had one group speaking to us on the radio while the bombs were dropped on them. They monitor images of the world through satellites in orbit. Every time a group of people becomes big enough to create a threat, they suddenly disappear.”

  “They want all humans other than themselves dead?”

  “Yes. If you’re not inside the dome, then you are a threat to them.”

  “But why?”

  “It will expose them. During the war, a lot of bombs were dropped, and they told the world they were nuclear, but no one we’ve ever spoken to experienced a nuclear winter.”

  Panic took over her as her mind tried to comprehend his information. She couldn’t quite get through the fog to make the connection.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means they built the dome and moved into the mountain for no reason. There was no nuclear holocaust. They dropped bombs, the government blamed it on terrorists and said it was nuclear. They gathered up all the people they genetically screened and chose for survival and brought them to the mountain, abandoning everyone else to die. They made their selections beforehand and were ready to create their supreme race—you.”

  Sweat glistened on her brow as the gravity of his words sunk in. “I’m not a bad person because I am from there. I lived in the mountain and was a scientist. We were testing something near here and it exploded. I was on the other side of the vehicle which is why I wasn’t killed like the three others I was with. I hit my head really hard though, and Joshua was there when I woke up. He brought me home to take care of me. I remember small bits here and there but there is still a lot of fog around the accident and my life before.”

  “Do you know what you were testing?”

  “I can’t put my finger on it enough to describe it but I know it had something to do with colonization. They want to set up a colony on a new planet and they need the thing I was building to do it.”

  A bitter, sarcastic laugh came through the radio. “They told you that? They would colonize.”

  “Well, as I said, my memory is still slowly coming back. I can’t give definitive statements, but it just feels right.”

  “Oh, I believe you. You see, they tried to convince the world there was a nuclear war so they could shut down all of civilization and bring it into a one world government. And now, they have to convince everyone in the dome they can’t live outside. I have no doubt they told you they need to colonize because it’s only the next logical step for a planet which is supposedly uninhabitable.”

  “But the world is inhabitable.”

  “Exactly. That is why you have to help me start a war.”

  She glanced nervously at Reuben. “I, um, I don’t know what I am capable of but—”

  Just then, the door to the workshop flew open. Reuben jumped up to see who would force their way into his workshop and quickly met Miriam. She pushed past him until she saw Hope sitting in the room at the table. Hope quickly shut off the power to the radio as she stood to avoid Clint’s voice coming through.

  “Miriam, what are you doing here?”

  “I came to see what you think you are doing in here for so long with a man who is not your husband.”

  Her jaw set firmly, and she squared her shoulders. “Exactly what I said I am. I am looking over this,” she gestured to the radio on the table. “He wanted my expertise, and we are working on this together.”

  “You know we haven’t had someone in our community who understood electronics, Miriam,” Reuben interjected. “If we have an opportunity to make things work again, instead of just melting it down for parts, I think it’s in our best interest to try.”

  She looked back and forth between them. “I think the Lord will provide what he wants us to have.” Disdain dripped from every syllable.

  “I agree.” He nodded. “And the Lord sent Hope here to us. You know what happens when the Lord gives you a talent and you choose to bury it in the sand.”

  She looked at them sternly for another moment then turned on her heel and left. They both sat frozen and silent for a few minutes to make sure she was really gone before Hope switched the radio back on.

  “Knowing where I come from, are you still willing to keep this radio our little secret?”

  He nodded. “I think they will take it from us if we tell anyone. Apparently, the town doesn’t approve of this.”

  She leaned closer. “Then why are you doing this?”

  He smiled softly. “It is exactly what I
just said. The Lord doesn’t approve of being wasteful. The thing I don’t understand is why our community would be against war when there was so much of it in the Bible. I think if God was going to take down that dome, he would have done it already. I think maybe he needs an army, as he often did in the Bible. Maybe the problem was our people were too frightened to hear the call. Maybe that’s why the Lord sent you to us.”

  Hope may not have fully understood or agreed with this community's religious sentiments, yet she was deeply moved by his words. After being treated poorly since she arrived, it was incredible to have this man she hardly knew believe in her. Her eyes welled with tears but she took a deep breath to contain her emotions. She pushed down the button to talk to Clint once again. “Hi, Clint, are you still there?”

  “Oh, you’re back.”

  “Yeah, we were disrupted. We have decided to keep this a secret, and so I need to go home for the night.”