Kingdoms of Sorrow

by JK Franks

  The Prophet came down from the podium and made a show of touching many of those gathered near the front. While much of it was theater, the effect was still mesmerizing . . . people wanted to believe; they wanted someone to follow. It was a shame that money no longer had any value, he thought, as it would have been a great moment to pass around the collection plates.

  Seeing the young girl waiting outside his tent, Michael felt confident the night’s offering would be just as pleasing as the previous.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  “Fuck! I don’t need this,” Michael paced, his face livid. No matter the adoring crowds, all he could focus on was the losses.

  “Your Holiness, we just lost too much at Memphis. The fuel, the food, the vehicles. The men are exhausted. Best estimates are we have about 3,500 men left in camp. We only have food for about half that each day. Even on half-rations, it’s going to be tough. If you also want to keep the women fed…even less.”

  Michael fumed. “Bring him to me.”

  Leaning out the tent flap, Hawley yelled for the Judges to bring the new convert. They pulled him roughly into the tent, and a quick kick knocked him to his knees. The fresh, black ink of the tattoo mixed with the blood on the man’s hand. One of the men calmly ate a pickle as he watched.

  “New converts are not usually permitted to view me privately,” Michael said in a papery voice. “I am granting you . . . an exemption. I want to see your eyes. I want to ensure that what you say next is truthful. Is that clear?”

  The man made no move to respond. Hawley kicked him hard in the ribs and he doubled over, winded. Michael continued. “My disciples picked you out of a river near Vicksburg. They said you were towing several empty boats. My friend, I require the identities of the people who left you those boats, and to know where they are headed.”

  Michael walked over to the table and picked up a pair of gleaming, steel pruning shears. A small brownish stain on the blades was the only sign of wear. “If I believe you are deceiving me or withholding anything, you will be judged. I’m afraid it will not be particularly quick. Is that perfectly clear?” His final words were almost a whisper as they fell on the fearful man’s ears.

  Hawley met with his Judges later that day. He and Michael had gotten tired and left the heavy-duty torture to them sometime in the afternoon.

  “You were right,” one of the henchmen said, “he was with him. The river rat didn’t know much, but he said the traitor has family down toward Mobile.”

  Hawley nodded, “That jives with what our other man said. Word is they have lots of supplies down there.” Gingerly, he touched the raw burns on his face. “I think a beach vacation will do us all good.” He smiled at the prospect. “Get some seafood, work on our tans, kill us some non-believers. A little rest and recuperation. Put the word out. We’re going to start moving south in the next few days. We’ll take as many as we can in the trucks and buses. The rest will be on foot until they find other transportation. They are to keep looking for the marked man. He should be heading the same way, and now he has a woman and a mute boy with him. They should be easy to find.”

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  USS Bataan, Gulf of Mexico

  Two members of the SEAL team extracted on the first boat came back to the aid of their brothers in arms. They gently lifted the badly injured Perez out of the Barracuda. Todd had managed with great difficulty to get the small boat back to the ship and then into the tender garage. The waves were so large that he had not seen the aircraft carrier until he was nearly on top of it. The burning wreckage of the Devil’s Tower had been the beacon he had used to navigate. The stored oil in the tanks there would burn for days, fanned even larger by the hurricane force winds.

  He had come across two floating bodies in black fatigues: both dead SEAL team members. He had managed to recover the bodies, although it hadn’t been easy. An officer helped Todd out of the stealth boat. “Lieutenant,” he said shakily, “we need to launch an SAR. Can I speak with your Commanding Officer?”

  “Sorry, sir.” The man’s patch read Garret. “The CO has his hands full right now. Someone on the rig must have sent an alert. We’re now battling unmanned craft and have radar tracks on multiple incoming bogeys. Command is aware of your man and the medical subject missing, but no teams can be sent out now due to the rough seas.”

  “That’s bullshit, Lieutenant, you—we have to get those men.”

  “Sir, my father is Commander Garret, I understand fully. But you just came through that storm, sir. You know it would be suicide to send more men out there right now, even if we could. This ship is not designed to weather these conditions. Sir, the CO feels we have lost enough men for today. Our returning boats dropped dye-packs with radio markers. We will track the current and drift rates and return when the storm passes. Right now, we need to get you to medical and get that chin sewn up. You’re also going to need to have blood drawn.”

  “Fuck that,” Todd was desperate. “I need a ride, Garret. I know damn well you have choppers with thermals. They can travel above the storm and we can use the infrared to look through the cloud cover. That man out there is the mission! And the other one is my best friend.”

  “Sir, I’m afraid we don’t have that. None of the FLIR equipment survived the CME. The electronics were too sensitive.”

  “Where’s Garret senior? Get him here now. He planned this mission, he asked us to be on it.”

  The young man placed a hand on Todd’s shoulder. “As I said, he has his hands full. Trust me, sir, even if it was me out there, he would be doing the very same thing right now. Please, I have to get you over to screening.”

  Todd was upset but didn’t object further. He was at heart a sailor and knew the protocol. Anyone who stepped foot on that rig had to be screened. Todd looked at the slowly closing bay door at the angry, gray sea beyond. Scott, my friend . . . what have I done?

  Todd was led into the medical bay where the younger Garret turned him over to an orderly. Quietly, he began treating the wound and drawing blood, saliva and tissue samples. The ship rolled and swung as it tried to get out of the range of the attacking craft and the hurricane. The up and down movement of the deck let him know that conditions outside were not improving.

  In a nearby room, sealed off by reinforced metal and glass walls, he could see Dr. Colton and her team carefully moving equipment and supplies into place. She looked up at him, deep concern etched in her expression. Todd could not meet her eyes.

  As the med tech finished up, he advised him to stay put until the test results were back. Gia approached from the lab. She was still in the same clothes and as soaking wet as he was.

  “Scott?”

  Todd looked straight ahead before shaking his head.

  “He . . . he didn’t make it?” she asked. “Is he dead?”

  Still looking at the floor, Todd forced his eyes to meet hers. They were a most amazing shade of blue. “He and your patient went into the ocean.” He felt as though he were under a microscope and dropped his eyes. “I tried to find them, but it was . . . it was impossible.”

  “Oh, God, Scott is out there? In that?”

  “Yes,” Todd admitted with resignation.

  “No one could survive . . . could they?” Her eyes were beginning to water.

  “I want to say yes, but . . . no. The current is too strong, and the waves are enormous. If they haven’t drowned, hypothermia will get them.” The reality of this hurt Todd to the very core. “The Navy will launch search and rescue when it’s safe, but I’m afraid it will be too late by then. In that regard, they will probably only look for your patient. His body is the only one that’s essential.”

  Tears streaked the doctor’s face. “I am so sorry,” she said. “We never thought of Skybox as a threat. He was so easy going and friendly. Over the weeks, we forgot that he was a soldier. He was just our patient.”

  “He was a Grayshirt?” Todd asked.

  “What?” She remembered that was what DJ and some of t
he others had called them on campus. She nodded. “He was a Praetor commander.”

  “That man was a Praetor 5 commander?”

  “No, he’s in Praetor 9, which is, I don’t know, a higher rank, I think? A more elite unit? All I know is that he lost his entire squad to the Chimera outbreak at the originating bio-lab. And somehow he survived.”

  Todd thought about that. He didn’t think he had ever heard or read anything about Praetor 9. “So, he would know everything they were up to?”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think so,” Dr. Colton considered for a moment before continuing. “I believe he had full information concerning his mission, but he seemed fairly clueless about anything else we asked him.”

  “What kinds of things did you ask him?”

  She pursed her lips. “All kinds. We asked him what he knew of what was going on in the world, what the president was doing to solve the crises, how long it would be before things were back to normal . . .”

  “Hmmm, might be better he didn’t give you those answers.” She looked puzzled. He continued, “So you’re saying that this commander—Skybox—is immune from the disease?”

  “No. Not exactly. He carries the pathogen—he is definitely infected—but he’s asymptomatic. The Chimera agent is almost completely dormant in him. We were trying to find out why and how to replicate whatever’s working in his immune system to possibly help slow the spread of the outbreak.”

  Todd processed all this silently for several moments. “He certainly didn’t appear to be diminished. In fact, he seemed . . . superhuman. My jaw was nearly broken by him, and he almost killed one other SEAL. He fought three of us with ease.”

  The doctor looked thoughtful. “Well, some of that could possibly be symptomatic emergence. The pathogen is having an effect on him, just not like it does on most others. Certainly not to the level of being infectious, at least not yet. See, the last few weeks we have been attempting to jumpstart the virus in his system so that we could study it in action. That could be part of what is happening. If so, it may be that he possesses increased speed, more intense emotion, higher testosterone levels . . . but what I assumed is that he is just a typical Praetor 9 soldier. I’ve heard some of the other guards talk about them. They are the ultra-elite—the most intelligent and most capable.”

  “I see,” said Todd. “Considering the normal Praetor 5 troops were apparently elite Special Forces soldiers, that would make Skybox an exceptional weapon without any enhancements. In other words,” he sighed, “Scott never had a chance.”

  Drying her eyes with a tissue, she asked, “How long has Scott been a soldier?”

  Laughing, Todd checked his watch and said, “That would be just over three days.”

  Her face scrunched into a slight frown. She wanted to know more but had to check on the progress with her team. Suddenly, she was completely composed and fully back in control. “Todd, I’m sorry about Scott, and I appreciate what you two did for us. But we have to find Skybox. Convince the captain. Nothing else matters—nothing.” She walked away, her still wet bare feet leaving a trail on the hard floor.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  It was several anxious hours before the storm had eased enough to launch a search and rescue. Todd sat in the briefing room with the surviving SEALs. Also in attendance was the Deputy Air Wing commander, Air Intelligence Officer, Chief Medical Officer, and the CO, Commander Garret, was linked in by radio.

  The AIO, a woman by the name of Howard, spoke first. “Gentlemen,” she greeted the room somberly, “We had significant loss of life in today’s operation, which saddens us greatly. Despite that fact, however, we were successful in all original primary mission objectives. If what Dr. Colton and Mr. Hansen say is true, though, we now need to find the missing patient. It seems the Catalyst bio-researchers were essentially at a standstill until he came along.”

  A young man seated at the table spoke up. “With respect, sir, there is no way anyone could survive that.” He motioned to a steel bulkhead, but everyone in the room knew what the young officer meant. The massive waves, the undercurrents and the water temperature all combined to spell death to anyone caught in its grip.

  Todd leaned in. He had been silent, but he decided it was time to state the obvious. “One of those people out there is one of my best friends. He is strong, resourceful and very smart, but I’m no fool. I was out there in it, and I have no illusions. I realize this is probably a recovery mission now, not a rescue, but we have to try. The other subject is a Praetor commander. He may hold the keys to treating or curing this pandemic disease. And Scott . . . well, the Navy owes him that much.”

  Garret spoke up. “I echo Todd’s sentiments. We lost some fine soldiers out there today. Let’s not take their sacrifices lightly. In order to complete this mission, we must recover the bodies and search for survivors. As soon as flight paths clear, let’s get more birds in the air.”

  Howard spoke again, “The civilian on the SEAL team—Scott?—wouldn’t he have an active pinger?” The pingers were water-activated and sent out an emergency distress beacon.

  One of the other SEALs, a man they called Ladybug for some odd reason, answered her. “Scott was kitted out the same as the rest of the team. He has on a new thin-skin drysuit, which offers some protection and flotation, but his kit did not have the active pingers. Only the swimmers routinely get those. He does have a dye pack and a UV flasher, though, which will last about twenty-four hours before the battery dies. The good thing is that the water temperature is relatively warm, so hypothermia won’t be a threat yet. If he has somehow survived the storm so far, he has a chance. We have enough reason to look for him simply because the Praetor commander will likely be in the same vicinity.”

  The airboss gave the orders for all remaining mission sorties to launch a full search and rescue. The drift and wind coordinates had narrowed the search to a seven-by-twenty-two-mile path. That was over 154 square miles, which put the odds of finding them somewhere close to the same as winning the national lottery. Back when lotteries still existed, that is.

  The massive movements of man power and equipment were impressive, especially when it came down to finding just two men. Sadly, the SAR missions were doomed to fail from the very beginning; the time span between when Scott and Skybox went into the water and the Navy released a tracer dye package was thirty-seven minutes. In that time, the direction of the storm winds and intensity had changed slightly. Despite the Navy accounting for the shift, they overestimated the intensity. The error meant the search grid’s beginning was six miles farther west than it should be, and almost thirty miles off-target at the far end of the grid.

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Harris Springs, Mississippi

  “My God!”

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” laughed Jack. “Who would have thought, people actually pay attention to disaster warnings now.”

  Angel and Jack watched the growing line of farmers, helped by the residents of Harris Springs, move various animals and belongings onto the ship.

  She looked nervously out over the assembling mass. “Will we have enough space? Enough food and water?”

  “We have plenty of space,” he soothed her. “And they’re bringing food with them. But water, we are going to need to watch. Bartos has got the pools working as cisterns and all the tanks are full of fresh water instead of salt brine. We’ll be fine for a fair while.”

  “Let’s hope that’s all it is. Any word from Todd or Scott? Or Kaylie and Bartos?”

  Jack scratched at the stubble under his chin before answering. “Bartos should be back in just a few hours. We got a very short message from him earlier. Still no word from the other two. DeVonte is monitoring the comms, though.”

  “You’re worried, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “I’m concerned, dear, that’s all. Scott’s always talking about cascading failures—how one problem can lead to another and so on until everything breaks down. Essentially that’s what’s been happening to eve
rything since last year. Right now, we need to be concentrating on the crops we’ve planted, preparing supplies for the winter, and getting crews over to the dam to continue working on power generation. Instead, we have to prepare for a major storm with flooding and wind damage, we are in the path of an attacking army and most of our leadership is AWOL. So, in answer to your question, yes, I am concerned.” He paused, then added. “Ok, I’m a little worried.”

  Angel put her hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Preacher, keep that to yourself. Everyone around here is looking for us to keep them safe. Don’t give them any reason to doubt. We have the people moving in well ahead of the problems. Bartos and his guys have a good defensive plan, and with luck, Todd and the Navy will be here to help us when it comes to the crusaders. Stay positive and help these people keep the faith. It’s going to be a long few days, and we’re going to need everyone’s help. Let’s go get them started.”

  Jack and Angel had their hands full dividing up the new arrivals into teams. Some of them secured the animals and supplies. Others went to help set up defensive measures for the storm. Everyone coming aboard knew of the pending arrival of the storm and the Messengers. Each was expected to pitch in to help prepare for one or the other.

  Bartos’ old shop foreman, Scoots, was just finishing connecting the hoses to water cannons. Originally, they’d been installed for firefighting on deck, but Scoots had made it so they could be directed outward—and with lethal force. Under Bartos’ instructions, he had also added a secondary supply hose into which fine sand could be introduced into the jet. The sand, which they had an endless supply of, would be propelled with a tremendous force out of the small nozzle and would act as a strong abrasive to anyone unlucky enough to get caught in the blast. Much like a sand-blaster removing old paint, the water-and-sand cannons would be a painful, if not lethal, experience. As soon as he finished showing the men looking on how to do it, they went to modify the others on deck.