Plaguelands (Slayers Book 1)

by Jae Hill

  The chairman’s face didn’t change expression once. He didn’t ask any questions. He just let me spill the beans. I finally started running out of things to say, and just stared at him.

  “It’s interesting times,” he said quietly, shifting in his chair, “when the machines pick a boy to save the planet. When they abandon their homeworld.”

  He stared for a moment off into space, rubbing his hand on his bald head, then stroking his beard.

  “Why you?” he asked me.

  “I still don’t know for sure,” I said. “They said they needed someone to lead their biologic division. But that was before Cheyenne Mountain. Now I’m leading the whole damn thing and they’re watching from a distance as they pack up everything worth a damn and shipping it to Mars.”

  “Peculiar, indeed, Commander Faustus,” the chairman said pensively. “And now you tell me that our only rival on this planet is leaving it for good, and that’s most interesting news.”

  “Rival?” I asked, startled.

  “Oh yes,” the chairman nodded. “We’ve been imprisoned here for centuries. We’ve never been allowed to expand too broadly or restore too much normalcy in our relations with the outside. There’s always been ‘intervention’ on the part of the Republic. A sunk ship here. A lost aircraft there. A curious meteor impact that was too precise. And we’ve never been able to prove a thing, but it was always far more than coincidence. Too opportunistic.”

  I stared at him, stoically, waiting for him to continue, because I had nothing.

  “You know they stole all our achievements from us,” he scolded. “The space elevator was ours. We fought against the Colombians on behalf of the Ecuadorians in 2042 and were given the Galapagos to build our elevator. We built the Low-Earth Station. We built the Geosynchronous Station. We built the first base on Luna. We built the first temporary colony on Mars. We built our island nation to be powerful and influential so we could get off this rock called Earth when the shit hit the proverbial fan. And then when the virus broke out, like we knew it would, we were trapped here. We never abandoned anything. We withdrew our forces to defend our lands from the onslaught of invaders who sought refuge here. We sank ship after ship and shot down hundreds of jetliners. For decades we were just trying to protect our borders. Our plan to ride out the apocalypse only worked for the number of people we had on the island at the time, and any amount of refugees or any exposure to the Plague would have compromised that.”

  He cleared his throat and leaned in toward me.

  “We gathered up every relic and every artifact we could find. We stored up supplies. We built all the components to build world-ships and send our population to Mars for a new start. And then when we got back to our elevator, you were there.”

  “I was there?” I asked, sarcastically.

  “No of course not you specifically, but your ancestors. Your father, for all I know. Republic forces, claiming sovereignty over our lands and our greatest technological achievement to that date. And then you stood on our shoulders and reached for the stars and kept us imprisoned on this planet. We fought to take back the Galapagos. Twice. Robot warriors annihilated our forces. We fought bravely and had technological superiority but you had the main deterrent—your goddamned starships. MAC guns, I was told. Poof! Our base on Agalega was vaporized to prove a point. We were told if we ever raised a finger against the Republic our island would be sent to the bottom of the rising seas. And so here we are, four hundred years later, having accepted our fate.”

  He paused.

  “I can’t say it was the worst thing to have happened. We’ve mastered cold fusion in a way that you could never imagine. We’ve made metallurgy an art form, as you’ve likely seen from our buildings and aircraft. We’ve perfected language. We’ve developed our own version of the ‘enhanced form’ but ours is still human. We’ve extended the natural human life-span to one hundred and fifty good, quality years. And we’ve learned everything about the known universe by spying on you.”

  I looked at him puzzled. “Excuse me?”

  “You forget that it was some of our scientific minds that fled the old world. They built the first tachyon-communications array in Colorado, yes, but they built the second one here. We’ve been listening to everything anyone has ever transmitted back from the far reaches of the galaxy for centuries now. Including learning about your father, the great Herodotus Faustus, the first man to step outside the Milky Way galaxy by navigating a wormhole to the edge of time itself. Brilliant man. It’s shame he’s in the scrap pile with the rest of your kind.”

  I was furious. Livid. I wanted to reach across the table and squeeze my hands around this little mans’ throat until he pleaded for air. Morgana didn’t look much more forgiving than me, as she ground her teeth angrily.

  “You may have come looking for friends, Pax Faustus, Commander of the Fleet,” he sneered, “but you won’t find any here.”

  FACTIONS

  My cell was nice. Comfortable, actually. More like a hotel room at a resort back home in Smithers than a jail. But there was no way out, and even if I had managed to escape the room, I was trapped on the fiftieth floor of a blue-glass skyscraper, in a city I didn’t know, on an island I’d never get home from. The police and security services were headquartered on the lower floors…that’s all I knew about where I was.

  Morgana was locked up in the same room with me, and it had been three days. I don’t know why—it was as if they thought it’d be easier to keep an eye on us together.

  The Kergueleni sent a military aide every day to check up on us. She was a petite blonde specialist named Ariane Summerland, and she enjoyed telling us about the history of her nation.

  In the early-to-mid 2000’s, a group of scientists and scholars got together and proposed building a nation at the edge of the Earth to ride out what they considered to be the impending climate and socioeconomic apocalypse. They recruited twelve of the wealthiest families on the planet and offered them lands and titles in exchange for providing the fledgling nation with needed infrastructure and an endowment toward its continued maintenance. One family built the airport, another the seaport, another the navy, and so on with the army, air forces, the data processing center, the university, the power plants and dams, the transit system, the roads, the schools, the hospitals, and the government buildings.

  By imposing no taxes or tariffs on goods or currency passing through the country on the way from one nation to another, Kerguelen was able to quickly become the trade and financial capital of the world. They financed their entire government and developed a huge nation based entirely on port fees and bank surcharges. The volume of business, even with such small fees, led them to have a surplus of wealth. It was then, in the late 2000’s that they built the elevator and stepped gingerly into space. The nation prepared to escape the planet, but the Plague spread too quickly and the Kergueleni were marooned on their island—separated from their prize asset by endless hordes of zombies, as well as rogue states and pirate fleets. It was all they could do to maintain their own borders and stability.

  I asked Summerland about everyone’s unusual last names: Silverlake. Summerland. Westerwind. Skygard. Winterfall. She told me that everyone who moved to the islands had given up their old last names and chosen new ones based on some type of natural feature or event; this way genealogy couldn’t be traced back much further than the Pilgrimage—their term for the settling of the island.

  The history lessons were interesting, and Specialist Summerland was one of the nicest people we’d met during our captivity. Strangely, though, she barely had any questions for us—as if she already knew everything she needed to know.

  I watched a building growing across the street. Literally, growing. I asked Summerland about it one day and she explained how all of their construction and fabrication was accomplished by “botswarms,” millions of tiny, lobster-shaped robots that worked together—like termites building a mound. They received instructions wirelessly from a central control
module, navigated to the source material of alloy granules, and then ingested the alloy. They would digest it chemically during their climb to the top of the building, ship, or aircraft and then regurgitate the molten alloy in a fine layer which would cool almost instantly. Then the bots would climb down, recharge, and repeat. With millions of bots each laying a fine layer, they could in essence 3D-print a forty-story building in a matter of weeks. I was fascinated. But I still wanted to leave.

  By day four, Morgana was pacing regularly like a jungle cat in a cage. I simply sat on the bed, staring out the window at the magnificent city around us. It was more beautiful than the capital ever was. Canals snaked along below. Huge squares and plazas. Ancient looking castle walls separating the relatively squat central city from the towering skyscrapers around it. The scenery was like a fairy tale, or something out of an old Japanese anime movie.

  “We don’t have a lot of time left until Persephone reaches the capital,” she grimaced.

  “It’s not the capital anymore,” I reminded her.

  “If we don’t get back and get the army ready we won’t stand a chance,” she countered.

  “If we do get back,” I said solemnly, “it probably doesn’t make much difference. Without other allies, we can’t win.”

  She joined me on the bed and we sat there quietly for a moment.

  “Maybe we should have gone in stasis to Tharsis,” I said. “Mars is so much like Earth nowadays. We might have liked it there.”

  “Don’t give up, Pax,” she said with tears welling in her eyes. She leaned in and put her arms around me. I started to pull away and she squeezed more tightly.

  “Please, Pax,” she pleaded. “Don’t let go. Let’s just make the best of this.”

  Her hand rubbed my thigh and stayed there, squeezing tightly. I felt that awkward feeling of my pants getting much tighter. I didn’t know much about mating still, but I was pretty sure that it was only supposed to be between one man and one woman. Rebekah might be angry if I did anything with Morgana. Frankly, though Morgana was beautiful, I didn’t want her.

  “No, Morgana,” I said, quietly. “I have Rebekah.”

  She grunted and pushed me backwards on the bed, straddling me. I tried pushing her off but she was really strong for her size.

  “No,” I repeated.

  “Yes,” she grinned evilly.

  She pinned me for another second before licking my cheek and then letting me up and standing in front of me, challenging me.

  “The old rules are gone, Pax. We can all be animals now. And you want to keep yourself for that zombie bitch when you should be with a real woman.”

  I don’t even remember backhanding her. I felt horrible the second I realized I had done it.

  “I…I’m sorry,” I stammered.

  She seemed shocked more than anything. A trickle of blood dribbled down from her lip. Then she looked angry. Then she smiled, licking the blood.

  “I’ll have you before this is over, boy,” she laughed. “And even if you don’t give yourself to me, I’ll tell her that you did anyway.”

  She leaned forward to whisper something in my ear. “I was genetically engineered for reflexes and strength. You won’t beat me, but it might be fun trying.”

  She stepped back and squared off like she was going to pounce. The door clicked open and she spun around. I could have taken her down right then, if I hadn’t been so surprised myself.

  Two of the black-camo clad soldiers walked in, and the short balding Chairman Winterfall came in behind him.

  “Did I interrupt something?” he chuckled.

  I wanted to choke his scrawny neck.

  “Oh, please continue,” he laughed. “Don’t mind me.”

  I stood tall in front of him and the smirk dropped from his face. Morgana was nearly two meters tall and I was two-point-two. We were engineered to be a tall people.

  “Commander Faustus, I’d like to take you on a bit of a tour. Your pilot can stay here and continue to enjoy our hospitality until we return.”

  I felt awkward about this, but didn’t have much of a choice. I followed him through the door to the elevator, and to my surprise, we went up instead of down.

  We stepped out onto a landing pad probably sixty floors above ground, suspended from the side of the building. There was a half dome over the top of the pad, making me feel like I was in some kind of fishbowl tipped on its side. One of the large black butterfly craft was waiting, its wings delicately folded, and its cargo door open.

  As the door closed, I could hear the wind roaring above us. The wind was what gave this island a nearly unlimited clean source of energy in historical times, and part of why it grew to be such a world power when the rest of the world was fighting over the last drops of fossil fuels.

  The craft lifted off gently and then rocketed skyward. I could see through the semi-transparent walls. The metal couldn’t have been thicker than a cardboard box.

  “Where are we going?” I finally asked.

  “To a monastery,” the chairman smirked.

  We glided swiftly over the island, its narrow fjords and wide harbors below us. Most of the main island was unpopulated and left as habitat for wildlife. I saw a gleaming white city to the south as tall as a mountain.

  “Callastire,” he pointed, and then we turned north, over an ice field.

  We descended rapidly, toward a stone castle built into the side of a mountain. The craft landed outside the main gate, scattering a herd of reindeer.

  We stepped out into the wind, whipping at our coats. The chairman didn’t even seem to notice, as I’m sure this was a very common occurrence in this part of the world.

  As the chairman, the two guards, and I all passed through the heavy wooden gate, the wind died down. I was in a courtyard, and in front of me, were several hundred figures in black bodysuits, conducting calisthenics. They kicked the sky. They punched the dirt. It was a combination of ancient martial arts.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “This is the home of the Cerulean Order,” he said proudly. “Five hundred strong and ready to defend the Dominion against all enemies. Sure, we have the Navy and the Marines, but the Order are specially equipped and devastatingly lethal.”

  I wasn’t sure that there were five hundred people training in front of me, but his statement didn’t exactly say they were all right here, and right now.

  A black-helmeted man in a blue cloak, similar to those I’d seen at their Citadel, called the group to attention with a Kergueleni command that sounded very similar to “attention.”

  The chairman led me down an aisle in the middle of the soldiers and then circled one.

  “They’re raised from teenagers to be the best, the fastest, and the smartest,” he boasted. “They’re trained to be lethal with every type of weapon, from stone to fusion bomb. They’re outfitted with these suits. It’s woven nanofiber. There are billions of sensors controlling billions of tiny motors tugging on billions of tiny carbon threads. It detects the impact of a bullet and tightens the material so the bullet hits a solid mass and drops to the ground harmlessly and the fabric goes back to flexible in an instant. The fabric contracts to help them run faster and jump higher. They have those black balaclavas that purify the air and concentrate oxygen to help them perform. They wear contact eye lenses that contain tiny heads-up-displays. They have matter-disruptors built into the palms of their hands so they can literally destroy anything they touch. They are superior to any fighting force ever.”

  “Ever,” he reiterated.

  “That sounds impressive,” I said admiringly. “But why would you show me this?”

  He snorted. “I want you to see that one of my Ceruleans could rip a handful of your Vanguard to pieces. I want you to see that I have hundreds of them at my command. I want you to be able to return to your leadership and tell them that we’ve sat here in our island prison for too long and that we’re coming for them.”

  “Wouldn’t a surprise attack be more pru
dent?” I queried.

  “Probably,” he laughed, “but I’m the first chairman in our four-hundred-year history to get to rub this in their faces and I want to enjoy it.”

  “I didn’t come here to make war with you,” I said stoically.

  He waved at the helmeted man, who yelled another word in Kergueleni and the suited people commenced their training.

  “You may not have chosen war, but they have,” the chairman scoffed. “Hundreds of years ago, they started this.”

  “When, sir, was the last time that they showed aggression toward you?”

  “That’s inconsequential,” he said dismissively. “There’s hundreds of years of bad blood that we’re about to spill once more. You tell them we’re coming. You tell them we’re prisoners no longer. You tell them if they try any of that orbital cannon crap we can not only defeat them but also erase their ships from the sky.”

  “I will relay your message to FleetCom,” I said, as diplomatically as possible.

  “You might not be as stupid as you look then, boy,” he snapped.

  He led our party back to the waiting craft. It gently lifted off into the wind and flew north over a naval base, then east over some smaller settlements, then over another naval base, and another, before coming over the mountain and back to Aeterna. He clearly wanted me to see the dozens of ships at anchor.

  “I’m releasing you and your pilot. We’re giving you an old surplus scramjet to fly home, since your current one is beyond repair.”

  “Thank you, for that,” I said, with a double meaning.

  The chairman was puzzled for a moment, trying to discern my intent, then dismissed my statement entirely.

  “Go home and tell them the things I’ve told you,” he repeated. “This is the only condition for your release.”

  I nodded. There were a lot of high-ranking people in the world giving me conditions. And with the zombies on one side and the Kergueleni on the other, I was surrounded by threats. Maybe I should have heeded the marshal’s advice to evacuate.