The Phoenix Project Series: Books 1-3: The Phoenix Project, The Reformation, and Revelation

by Pritchard, M. R.

  “Everything will be fine,” he tells me in a smooth soft voice.

  “I hope,” I tell him. “I’m trusting you with them.”

  He steps forward, his tall frame bending down, and I feel my body stiffen as he wraps his arms around me. I know I should do something, maybe hug him back, but I can’t move.

  “See you in a few days,” he tells me as he releases me.

  I simply nod at him, then turn and run out of the house.

  Sam is waiting in the driveway. I get in the passenger side of his vehicle.

  “Wow,” he says, smirking.

  “What?”

  “You know, you’re not very nice to him. You could have at least given him a chaste kiss on the cheek. You two are married.”

  “Shut up, Sam.”

  Sam drives. Whoever has been training him has already shown him how to find the platform and how to run the train.

  We load the train ourselves. Me, Sam, two Guardians, that’s it. The train feels strange, empty. The Volker at the platform salute Sam. I listen as he gives them orders. It’s strange to see my little brother taking Adam’s place. When he’s done, he steps on the train and starts it. I sit in one of the seats. There is no send-off from Crane or Alexander. No strange winks from Ian.

  “Want to get some rest?” Sam asks me, motioning to the sleeping bunks.

  There’s no way I can go back there and remember everything, again. “I’m fine,” I tell Sam.

  “You sure? We’ll be there by morning. You can rest. I’ve got this,” he tells me confidently as he flips switches and checks gauges on the dash.

  “I’m sure you do, Sam. But I’d rather die than step foot in those sleeping bunks.”

  He nods, giving me a look of understanding. I know he doesn’t truly understand, but he saw what I was like when I came back from the tour: sick, seizing, exhausted from what Crane had put us through.

  Now, here I am again, headed outside the gates of the Phoenix District. It’s been two years. I doubt much has changed. The United States is still in ruins, according to Crane. The Survivors are still struggling, according to Crane. I find it odd that such a skeleton crew is being sent off, especially as this is Sam’s first time out. But since I’m sure Crane no longer wants me dead, he must think Sam is competent to be sending us off alone. I rest my head against the wall of the engine car and close my eyes, forcing myself to sleep and not think about what awaits us in Crystal River.

  --

  Sam doesn’t have to wake me up. The sultry Florida air does the job as it permeates the engine car. I stretch my neck, trying to work out the stiffness and move to stand next to Sam.

  “Up already?” he asks.

  “Yeah.” I look around the engine car to find the Guardians sleeping in the corners. “How much do you know about Crystal River?” I ask Sam.

  “Alexander debriefed me,” he tells me.

  “That was nice of him.” No updates for me, though. This is nothing new, the Entities like to keep me in the dark.

  “Sam,” I warn him. “Don’t eat the manatee.”

  “Who eats manatee?

  “The Residents here do.”

  “Aren’t they endangered?”

  “I’m guessing not any longer.”

  I watch through the window as Sam slows the train. The fence opens and we pull up to the train platform. Two years ago was the last time I was here. And it was storming like nothing I’ve ever seen. Should have taken that as a sign.

  Thankfully, we didn’t come during hurricane season this time. Emanuel Torres and Colonel Ramirez meet us on the platform. They smile when they see me. I do my best to smile back.

  “Welcome back,” Torres tells me in his familiar thick Spanish accent, shaking my hand. Ramirez does the same.

  “I’d like to introduce you to Colonel Salk,” I tell them, holding my hand out towards Sam.

  Torres and Ramirez greet him, both with hearty handshakes. Torres smiles, Ramirez does not.

  I look around. The last time I was here the place was in shambles. Their population was low, they didn’t even have their fence completed. Crystal River was the last District to be set up. And when we were here two years ago, it was a disaster. Their borders were not secure, their population was dwindling. And then I ate the manatee. I remember nothing else.

  Now, I turn my head towards the chain-link fence, hearing the hum from the electricity that runs through it.

  “How was your trip here?” Torres asks, eyeing Sam.

  “Fast,” I tell him. “Ramirez, perhaps you could show Colonel Salk around since this is his first visit.”

  Sam and Ramirez head off and I follow Torres into Headquarters. Everything looks the same as when I left. There’s still a short building with the wide porch that’s used for their Headquarters here. It still looks like an old town hall. There are still Volker guarding the door; they open it for us. The hallways are still sparse, empty. Torres opens the door to their Committee meeting room.

  The rest of the Crystal River District Development Commission are there: Richard Ruiz, still looking like an overdressed banker, Mateo Pena and Javier Vega, still looking like they could be related with their tan skin and dark hair and eyes. I notice Javier’s glasses are now being held together on the side with a piece of white tape.

  “Thank you for coming back,” Emanuel starts.

  “You don’t need to thank me,” I tell him. “I didn’t come here willingly. I’m sure that’s no surprise. So, Emanuel, tell me what your problem is here.”

  “Well.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Colonel Waters helped us secure the boundaries when you were here last.” He pauses, hesitant.

  “Colonel Waters is no longer with us,” I inform him.

  “I am aware. Sorry,” he says curtly.

  “Cut to the chase, Emanuel. What’s your problem here? Your boundaries are secure, you all look well fed, what’s the issue?”

  “You’re right, we are well fed, and that’s because our population has dwindled even lower.”

  “How many?” Last time there were only two hundred residents.

  “Less than one hundred,” he replies.

  “Any children?”

  “No.”

  I look to Richard, Mateo, and Javier. They watch me in anticipation. I know that a few of the other Districts are bursting at their seams, while this one is empty.

  “What happened to them all?” I ask.

  “Malaria, and…” he pauses. “Alligators.”

  I guess I deserved that pause. Last time I openly mocked him for losing so many people to alligators.

  “Have you let any Survivors in?” I ask.

  “No,” Emanuel replies.

  “Has anyone found your boundaries?”

  “No,” he replies again.

  “And why is the malaria so rampant here?” I ask not so nicely.

  Richard clears his throat. “We’re no longer allowed to use pesticides,” he tells me.

  Emanuel nods in agreement.

  “Is this some other rule from the Entities?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Emanuel tells me. “We are not to infringe on the wildlife, no matter how pestilent they may be.”

  “This is a problem,” I mutter to myself.

  The malaria is an ecological problem which I can do nothing about. But I can do one thing. Crystal River needs Residents and I know where to get them. From the same place the Tonopah District got them, from outside the gates. Let’s get this over with quickly.

  “Is your nuclear reactor up to full power?” I ask.

  Emanuel tips his head. “Yes.”

  “Has all the power been diverted to your fence?”

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “Because, Emanuel, we’re going outside the gates. We’re going to find you some new Residents.”

  He smiles. I don’t like his crooked smile just now. I don’t trust it. It’s like I just told him exactly what he wanted to hear. “You think it’s worth the risk, to go out
there and find people to bring back?”

  “What other option do you have, Emanuel?”

  “Crane won’t want you outside the gates with the feral Survivors, you’re too important to him. He’s already lost one important member of his team.”

  “Well, we’re out of choices for this place. What’s the motto? Failure is not an option.”

  Just then the door opens. Sam and Ramirez walk in.

  “Failure isn’t an option,” Emanuel responds. “But bringing in new Residents, going out to find new Residents, it’s risky.”

  “Where do you expect to get them from?” I ask.

  I know there are other Districts that are flooded with Residents, already assimilated Residents. But I’m not about to contact Crane and ask him to send people.

  Sam raises his hand to interrupt. “What happens when you bring these new people back here? What then? What if they don’t cooperate?” Sam asks.

  “They will be medicated,” Emanuel answers.

  “Still, we go out there,” Ramirez starts. “We risk our people, what little people we have left, and when we get them back here we risk an uprising.”

  “That won’t happen,” I assure him.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because if there’s one thing I learned in Tonopah, the medication combined with the strong desire to survive at all costs overrides everything. A speech to unite the new Residents won’t be necessary, they will trust anyone.”

  The room is silent, each man contemplating this plan in his heads.

  “Do you have one of those magical lists?” I ask Emanuel.

  “Yes,” he replies, giving me a hard look.

  It’s the list of people they didn’t have time to pull from society before the bombings. Each District has one. They use it to find new Sovereign, who will enrich their population. We aren’t to speak of the list.

  “What’s the plan?” Ramirez asks.

  “Let’s start today. Get supplies ready, houses in order, what’s left of your medical team.”

  “How will you know where to look?” Javier asks, adjusting his glasses. “Are you just planning on searching the woods, the abandoned cities, the swamps?”

  “They don’t need to,” Emanuel tells us as he makes way for the computer. He sits and types a few things into the laptop. “Come here. All of you.”

  We walk to where Emanuel sits. Standing behind him, I look at the computer screen and see an image of North America. As Emanuel scrolls with the computer controls, the screen zooms in over Florida to give a bird’s-eye view. He moves the screen to the West, stopping over a cleared area. I make out the train instantly.

  “Is this live?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he responds.

  “How?” Javier asks, placing his hand on the table and leaning closer to the desk.

  “The satellites still circle the earth,” he tells us. “They are still live, they still run, and some of us still have access to them.”

  I glimpse at Sam, whose forehead is currently wrinkled in thought. Emanuel just relayed a potent piece of information. With his revelation, and his deceptiveness to his own people, he must be an Entity. Who else would have this ability and keep it from the Sovereign for years?

  Javier walks to a filing cabinet and pulls out a large map. He rolls it out on the table. Emanuel spins the laptop around, so we can all see the screen. Ramirez pulls the top off a red marker.

  “I guess the first decision is whether to go by train or by foot?” Ramirez asks.

  “By train we are limited to the direction we can go,” Sam speaks up. “The tracks only connect the Districts. They don’t meander around the states.”

  “Even if we tried to use the old tracks,” Mateo speaks up, “we run the risk of getting stuck if the tracks were damaged in the bombings.”

  “We could use the train, and scour a radius around the tracks, that would make it easier to get people back here,” Sam suggests.

  “Let’s see what we can see,” Emanuel tells us. He moves the screen north along the tracks, he scrolls out so we can see a twenty-mile radius. There’s nothing. No houses, no trails, no movement. Just nothing.

  “Make the radius larger,” Ramirez urges.

  Emanuel scrolls out to a forty-mile radius. We watch the screen for anything.

  “What’s that?” Javier asks, pointing at the corner of the screen.

  It looks to be a cleared area with a dark figure walking. Emanuel follows the figure. The person walks further north, through tall brush and grass. He zooms in. It’s a man; young, with tan skin, dark hair, a backpack, two dead squirrels hanging off a line attached to his bag, and a knife attached to his belt.

  The image is crystal clear. Disturbingly clear. Deceptively clear.

  “So,” I ask, on a hunch. “Which one of you worked for NASA? Or was it government intelligence?” Mateo and Javier turn to look at me. “Just you two?” I ask, pointing at them. Emanuel taps his finger on the table. I’ll take that as a yes also.

  So, here we have a town Sheriff, three NASA scientists, maybe, and Richard Ruiz, whose background I have yet to figure out, running Crystal River.

  I turn my attention back to the computer screen. The man we are following walks across a small stream and slows when he comes to a fence. He climbs, swinging his legs over the short wooden fence. He walks across an overgrown lawn and up to a house. Emanuel scrolls out. We can see what was a small housing development, a cul-de-sac with five houses. We wait and watch as people trickle in and out of the homes. Some seem to stand guard at the opening to the street. There are small gardens and what looks like chickens in a fenced area.

  “How many do you think are there?” Ramirez asks.

  “Not enough,” I reply.

  “It’s a place to start,” Sam says.

  “We need more than a few people. We need a few hundred,” I say, watching as Ramirez marks the map where we spotted these people.

  Emanuel scrolls in and out, moving to the east. There looks to be a large cluster of people at an old shopping mall. We can see people moving by the glass windows, and milling about in the parking lot.

  In another area to the south there’s a camp near a small pond with six tents. He continues searching. Each time we find a cluster of Survivors, Ramirez marks the map. By the time we are done there are just over a dozen marks on the map, the furthest point is almost ninety miles to the south.

  “We could use the train to go north,” Ramirez points out.

  “Yeah, but what about to the east and south?” Javier asks.

  “You have Volker SUV’s here, we could use those,” I suggest.

  “What happens if we run out of gas, or get a flat tire?” Sam points out. “Then we’re sitting ducks, drawing attention.”

  “And safety?” Richard asks. “What happens if the Survivors don’t want to come, what if they attack, or…”

  “We have guns,” I say. “They’ve been picking through the ruins for four years. I doubt they have many weapons.”

  “We’ll have to go by foot to pick up people from the east and south,” Sam says.

  “That’s a long trek,” Ramirez points out.

  “Don’t they have helicopters in the Hanford District?” Richard asks.

  “What are you planning on doing? Dropping flyers, Richard? They won’t send a helicopter, and even if they did, we couldn’t use it. That would draw too much attention,” I dismiss his suggestion.

  “You think they’ll come with us?” Sam asks.

  “What Survivor wouldn’t want a hot shower, a clean house, fresh food? From what I saw in Tonopah, the Survivors were begging to get in their gates,” I tell them.

  “So when do we leave?” Ramirez asks.

  “How long to get some weapons together and a few supplies?” I ask.

  “It’s too late,” Emanuel interrupts. “It’s late afternoon. By the time we get out, even if we get the train to the north, we won’t get to those Survivors until evening or later. I think st
arting in the morning would be best.”

  “I don’t see why we can’t start now. What easier time to make a decision like this when the Survivors are settling down for the night, stomachs empty, fearful for what the night might bring? For what tomorrow might bring?” I respond. The truth is, I’m pushing it. I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to.

  “Say we go tonight; bring back a few Survivors, then what?” Ramirez asks.

  “They get fed, assigned houses, test them in the morning when the medication has taken its full effect.”

  “Don’t you think we’re moving kind of fast?” Emanuel asks.

  “I don’t want to be gone from home any longer than I have to, the sooner we get started the better.” I tell them, all of them. I even make eye contact.

  “Okay,” Emanuel agrees, “let’s get moving.”

  Ramirez and Sam leave to collect weapons and a crew of Volker.

  Javier rolls up the map and leaves the room with Mateo on his heels. I start to follow, but Emanuel stops me, holding his hand out.

  “What?” I ask him.

  “You’re not going with them,” he tells me, shaking his head.

  “Why not?” I argue. “I’m not going to just sit around here and wait. I need to do something.”

  “There’s plenty for you to do here.”

  “Why are you telling me I can’t go? We’re pretty much equals now.” Well, almost-Morris hasn’t died. I haven’t taken his place. If anything I am acting as his apprentice.

  “Not yet, Andie, and I won’t have Crane lunging for my neck if anything happens to you. So you stay here and wait for the men to bring back the Survivors.”

  “So what do I do, pace at the gate?”

  “No, you get ready for an influx of Survivors to categorize and sample. You’re going to have to analyze their genetic data and pair them when you get home. And you still have a problem to solve here.”

  “I’m solving it for you,” I tell him.

  “If you think that the lack of Residents is the problem, I’ll give you a hint: it’s not.”

  I stare at him. I know their problem is the population. But malaria is also a problem here. But without pesticides I can’t do much about that. Perhaps it’s a combination of the two. I need a bit longer to think. Maybe staying behind is a good idea.