The snake slithered around him further, toward his neck and face. It was the exoskeleton’s weakest protection, to allow for head mobility. Landon bit down hard on the rebreather to keep it from being knocked out of his mouth. He extended the battle staff and started jamming the end into the snake’s body, activating the stun function. He stunned the creature over and over with no effect.
The creature’s head spun to face Landon as if it were trying to speak to him. Through the dark water all he could see were the eyes. A moment later it bit into his shoulder. There was a grind of metal, but the suit held. The rebreather chirped it was down to a minute’s worth of air. He continued to stun the body of the beast. In the murky water he could see the sparks and flashing from the end of the battle staff. A moment later the rebreather clicked empty. He was going to die alone in a dark, watery tomb buried deep beneath the Sacramento River.
The massive mouth of the animal opened in front of him as if it were going to swallow his head. In one motion, Landon collapsed the battle staff, stuffed the baton-sized tube into the snake’s mouth vertically, and hit the extend button. The animal seemed to compensate as its jaw unhinged, allowing the staff to open more, but the staff pressed it further. There was the crunch of bone and ligament.
As soon as the staff was open enough, Landon fired the stun blast into the animal’s skull several times. Within moments the body of the snake loosened. He squirmed out of the heavy wrap and pushed off the bottom. With the exoskeleton’s extra strength, he shot out of the water by a few feet, landing on his side on the cement platform. He gasped for air and vomited dirty water onto the ground.
The small drone from the sled floated down to sit in front of Landon’s face. Jane’s voice yelled from the microphone, riddled with static, “Are you okay?”
“I hate snakes,” he muttered as he crawled into the sled and closed the door. The space inside the sled was tight with the added bulk of the exoskeleton.
Jane’s voice now came out of the dashboard in the sled. “That thing looked like a monster from a horror movie. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’ll have a few nightmares, but I’m fine.”
“I’ve never known a snake to grow that big.”
“The thing probably lived down here unhindered since the wars. Reptiles grow their entire lives.”
The sled rose up and dropped into the water. He found the leviathan squirming on the muddy bottom in its death throes. He powered up the sled’s laser and did not hesitate to press the fire button, severing the beast’s head from its massive body. With the sled’s grapple, he retrieved the battle staff from the river bottom.
After landing back on the cement platform, he powered down the sled and said a long prayer of thanks. A systems analysis of the exoskeleton confirmed it was still working. His shoulder was sore from the pressure of the snake’s bite, but the armor had held.
Landon loaded up his pack and, with a jump augmented by the exoskeleton, reached the ten-foot height up to the smaller tunnel. He activated all of the micro-lights along the exterior of the suit. Tiny blue-white dots fired off laser-like beams into the darkness of the new tunnel, making it as bright as noonday. The water flow in this tunnel was ankle deep and slow-moving. Bones of creatures littered the dank concrete pipe, mostly rats and other rodents, and some Landon didn’t recognize. Either the snake made its way into this tunnel when the water table rose high enough, or it had relatives living there. Just in case, Landon positioned the rifle forward in the low ready position.
There was nothing but a long runway in front of him with a rivulet of water running down the middle. He started to trot at a slow pace. Then he slung the rifle so he could run faster. The suit allowed him strides that would rival the sprint of a deer. He ran from the memory of the monster he had just vanquished. He ran from the memory of his young wife dying in front of him decades earlier. He ran from the horror of returning to the Atoll without his son and being detained. And he ran from the doubt that chased after him, whispering the small percentages of getting his son home alive.
He ran like a madman into the darkness, chasing after a dream of going home. Not to the underwater Atoll, but to the home he lived in as a boy in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. To the loving protection of his parents in a house where his ancestors had lived for hundreds of years. He ran toward a place that no longer existed. A place he could never return to.
Chapter Twenty-Two
New York 2040
Josiah and Clarke walked down the sidewalk, passing by well-dressed as well as poorly dressed people. Trash clogged gutters, creating stagnant pools of water in areas of the street. Some people stood around talking, others slept on blankets and cardboard in the shadows of buildings, but all of them left the two men alone. Clarke walked with a confident stride and carried a baseball bat against his shoulder like a kid going to a Little League game. The day was warm, and the only things in the cloudless sky were a few government surveillance blimps drifting overhead. Josiah recalled that he had paid a tremendous amount of money to keep both the blimps and drones from going near his building. Privacy had become a privilege reserved for the wealthy.
Occasionally a beat-up car would drive by, but the most common vehicles on the road were scooters, which used little of the rare and expensive gasoline. It was the primary form of transportation in the city. Josiah gazed at the broken-down buildings lining the street. He always knew the world was a wreck, but had no idea it was this bad. It was all data points he read on computers from his plush office or heard firsthand from his personal concierge reporters.
They reached a subway stairwell and descended into the underworld. A warm breeze greeted them, carrying with it the smell of mildew and stagnant water. Josiah kept spitting as if the action could get the taste and smell out of his mouth. They found a busy platform and waited.
The next subway car came by and everyone piled in, leaving Clarke and Josiah alone. Clarke put on a headlamp and gave one to Josiah before jumping down to enter the railway tunnel. They walked the dark, lifeless railway system and soon found the small platform and the clinic’s steel door.
Clarke tapped on the door with the bat. An eye-level hatch opened and closed. A moment later the massive hulk of a door creaked open. A few seconds later they were in the clean, bright clinic. A baby cried in a corner. A few staff were ministering to some of the patients in the two-dozen beds that were full. Clarke led Josiah back to the single operating room that he once occupied. Josiah stopped at the doorway. A flood of hazy, morose memories and emotions overwhelmed him. Pain, rage, fear, and violation.
“Josiah, you okay?”
“I’m not ready to step back in there.”
Clarke nodded as if he understood. “This—” he pointed to the room, “—does not dictate, or remove, your salvation. It holds no power over you.”
Josiah nodded, took a deep breath, and stepped over the threshold. The nervousness left. It was just a small room. Nothing more.
For eight hours he helped Clarke treat patients. Bones were set, stitches administered, and one baby was delivered. Josiah’s expertise was engineering, computers, and math. In this setting he was near useless and resigned himself to clean up after Clarke and the medical staff. He watched at how good Clarke was with patients, and felt shame at having fired the younger man he now looked up to as a spiritual mentor. The noise of people was constant, but Josiah no longer found it annoying. It was the sound of life.
Hours later, the two men faced each other over bowls of soup. “Where’d you get your medical training?” Josiah asked.
“My wife and the internet before it became highly regulated for us lower-class citizens.”
“Amazing. I’d have thought you were a full-blown doctor with those patients.”
Clarke did not respond to the compliment, which was something Josiah had rarely given. “Things are stable,” Clarke said, “so we should go before the night crawlers come out. You know where you’re going?”
Josia
h shook his head. “I was too out of it to remember. Do you have access to a data pad with any mapping capabilities?”
Clarke left the table and returned a few minutes later with a beat-up data pad. The device had a cracked screen and duct tape on the back.
He handed it to Josiah. “We have no web access on it, but enough maps are cached that you might be able to figure out something.”
Josiah’s hands floated over the screen. Had it been so long since he held technology? He loved the ability to manipulate computers and software. He often wondered if this excitement was how Bach felt at a piano. All the businesses aside, at his core, he was just a programmer.
Josiah found a subway map from the mid-twentieth century and made an educated guess where the safe room’s location was. Josiah handed the data pad back to Clarke and pointed to a blinking spot on it. “That’s where I need to go.”
Clarke whistled. “Tough area. My only shotgun is at home, but we have a stun gun here that I can bring.”
He picked up their bags and handed the baseball bat to Josiah to carry. When they left the clinic, the steel door was sealed behind them with a clang. They walked in silence for an hour. Clarke led with the beam of a headlamp. They reached the platform that housed the bathroom that Josiah had been attacked in. A sick feeling returned, and Josiah fought the urge to vomit. He grabbed Clarke’s arm.
“I know,” Clarke said.
Josiah repeated Clarke’s previous words. “It’s just a room. It holds no power over me?”
“That’s right,” Clarke said, pointing to the subway tracks. “Let’s keep moving.”
“No. I need to go in.”
“Why?”
“I just do.”
Josiah jumped up on the platform and pushed open the door with the baseball bat. The tile floor was covered with water and urine. The smell of excrement came back to him. The second stall was where it happened. He took a step in and walked up to the stall. It was just a room, nothing more. It held no power over him.
Josiah wiped a tear from his cheek. Rage gave way to fear, but fear gave way to relief. Had he never been attacked, his vanity would never have been broken, and he never would have been reconciled to God. Clarke patted his shoulder. Josiah took one last mental picture of the place where his soul was crushed, then nodded.
Josiah pushed the door open. Instead of a dark subway platform, there was a pale face. A familiar face.
“Oi.”
Josiah’s breath left his chest. He blinked, wondering if it was a nightmare or a real person. The man wore the same ragged dirt- and sweat-stained clothes he’d had on the first time. The baseball bat fell from Josiah’s grip to the broken tiled floor with a crack.
“I remember you,” the man said with the same thick British accent.
Josiah’s heart raced as if it would tear out of his chest. He was just a man. He held no power over him.
“Back for more?” the man said with a smirk that showed missing teeth. He pushed Josiah, who crumpled to the ground, no longer having the strength to stand. The man raised a tire iron in his hand and looked at Clarke.
A moment later the man screamed and the tire iron fell from his hand. From the ground, Josiah noticed the stun gun in Clarke’s hand and followed the two filaments of wire to the man’s stomach, where two electrodes were embedded. The man fell to the filthy ground and writhed in pain a mere two feet from Josiah, who continued to stare in shock. Josiah wondered if the man’s screams were the same kind he’d once drawn from him. The cries and wriggling ended. A moment later Clarke walked over and pulled the electrodes from the man.
“I take it he was the perp who attacked you,” Clarke said.
Josiah nodded, crying. After a moment he grasped the baseball bat and rose. He held the bat up ready to strike the man lying in front of him. One stroke with the bat and his skull would open. Were it a month earlier, revenge would be easy. The weapon of hate Josiah wielded in the past was now inaccessible. The man held up a hand as if to plead for mercy.
“Please?” he said.
“Josiah?”
Josiah slammed the bat down next to the man’s ear. The ceramic floor tile cracked, and the man screamed as if Josiah had hit him.
“I’m fine, Clarke.”
“You sure?”
“Jesus didn’t come to call the righteous but the sinners to repentance.”
“Amen,” Clarke said.
Josiah leaned down and could smell the man’s familiar rancid breath. Somehow he found the strength to whisper the words, “Find God.” The man screamed and started to weep. Josiah said one final sentence to the creature in front of him. “Ask Jesus into your heart.” The man screamed again and curled up in a tight fetal ball.
“Please forgive me,” the man wailed over and over.
Josiah stared at the fallen figure for a moment. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
New Sacramento 2077
The countless soldiers Kyle and Maria encountered on the stairwell treated them like archangels with the power to kill with a glance. Kyle rushed into the com center and past staff buried in computer terminals. Charles looked like a corpse sprawled in the hospital bed. A heart monitor and IV were the only things hooked up to him.
“Talk to me, someone?”
A young male doctor came over and handed Kyle a clipboard. “He spiked a fever. We tried to keep it under control, but it’s now at 103. No signs of infection at the wound.”
Kyle took the next five minutes inspecting the wound and checking the monitor and IV. “I don’t get it,” he said to Maria. “Does he have any preexisting conditions I’m not aware of?”
Huxley approached from the darkness. He waved Kyle over like a kid about to share a secret. Kyle approached. “He has diabetes. He’s tried to keep it under control with his diet but—”
“And you didn’t tell me that, you fool?” Before Huxley could respond, Kyle punched his fist into the palm of his other hand. “Never mind, I should have run tests. My tech on the Atoll has rendered me lazy.”
“What can you do?” Huxley asked.
“If I were home, I could fix everything.” He rummaged through a glass cabinet next to the bed, which held a stockpile of medicine. He took out a vial and injected it into the IV with a needle.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve been giving him the wrong antibiotic.” Kyle pointed to the male nurse. “I want cold compresses on his forehead. Maria, stay close. I may need to do some spelunking inside the wound in case tissue has died.” Kyle realized Maria had disappeared. He spoke to another nurse. “Prep the anesthesia.”
“Is he going to die?” Huxley asked, his lip quivering like a reprimanded child. He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt.
Kyle was surprised the man even had tear ducts, but he respected Huxley’s loyalty to his master. “I have no idea. I need you to keep the area clear and give me anything I ask for.”
“Done.”
“Start with clean sheets and opening all the doors. I need some air in here to cool the place down.”
Huxley snapped his fingers, and a young male soldier appeared at his side. He passed on the instructions, and they were carried out like the young man’s life depended on it. Kyle changed the saline and continued to monitor Charles's vitals. Maria reappeared an hour later when Kyle was cleaning up.
“How is he?”
Kyle pointed. “Temp’s down to 99 and he’s alive. Where’d you disappear to? I could have used your help.”
“I had to take care of something. You look exhausted,” she continued as if to change the subject. “You need sleep.”
“I need to leave,” he whispered.
“Charles will never let it happen.”
“Charles may not live to have a say.”
She pointed toward Huxley working at a computer terminal. “You better hope that doesn’t happen for both our sakes.”
“He’s that bad?”
“He’s
that bad,” she repeated.
Muffled popping noises interrupted the conversation. It took Kyle a moment to recognize the muted sound of automatic weapons. Huxley rose from his computer and rushed toward the main door. He pulled out a walkie-talkie and started yelling orders as he exited the room.
Kyle had seen so much violence that his heart rate barely spiked. “Thoughts?” he said to Maria sitting across from him, looking as tired and unfazed as he was.
“No idea. Could be gangs. An attempted coup. Don’t worry, both always fail.”
An explosion rocked the space, knocking most everyone onto the floor. Kyle jumped up and rushed to keep Charles from falling off the bed. Small pieces of concrete fell down around them. Kyle laid his body over his patient to offer some form of protection. A moment later the lights went out. Red emergency lights blinked on. Sirens sounded in the building. Even in the darkened room Kyle could see Maria’s deep brown eyes widen. Charles stirred a bit.
“What’s going on?” Kyle asked.
The building shook again. Maria started to walk away. “I need to go check on my son.”
“You can’t go out there.”
A giant guard stepped in front of Maria to block her exit. Kyle could see her finger wag in the man’s face and her mouth move, but the sirens drowned out her message. The guard stood aside. Kyle checked on Charles’s vitals to confirm they were stable before he rushed to catch up with Maria. The same guard let him go. Kyle saw Maria’s bright jumpsuit as she ran down the stairs toward the main level and exit door.
Outside the building was chaos. People ran in every direction. Random shacks and buildings were on fire. The sound of distant planes echoed in the city. Someone yelled that a bombing had just occurred. Kyle climbed on top of a dilapidated pickup truck. His boot broke through the rusted metal bed. He removed his leg, making sure not to cut his skin with the sharp, rusted metal shards. Maria’s white jumpsuit showed up fifty yards out. She approached a plain brick apartment building with a half dozen soldiers guarding the perimeter.
Mission Trip_Genesis and Exodus Page 14