by Simone Pond
“I was stationed in Denver.”
“Is it happening everywhere?”
“Most places have been burned to the ground—big cities, towns, farms. Almost everything’s gone except for the city centers. I don’t know how many there are.”
“And the people?” she asks.
I think about the show, America 2.0. “Most of them are gone.”
She wipes away some tears.
“I better get moving. I’ll make sure this gets to Lillian.” I pat her shoulder.
She grabs my hand. “Thank you.”
I shuffle through the crowd, switching the sack back and forth on my shoulders. After a mile, exhaustion starts to take over and I want to rest, but I’m anxious to get back to Dru and Sarah. Not only to ease their concerns, but to voice my own about Zach.
“There you are.” Sam comes up from the left flank and approaches me. His forehead flashlight blares into my eyes, blinding me for a few seconds. He rubs the top of my head. “You made it, Morray.”
“Don’t call me that out here.” I throw the sack of grains at him.
“You did good, kid,” he says.
“Yeah, doesn’t feel like that.”
“Look around. You helped free these people. Good on you.”
Sam moves on ahead and even with the sack he’s still faster than me. I continue trudging, stopping only for water. I want to get to the bunker before the masses arrive. They’ll be working all night, getting organized and figuring out systems. I want to find a place to crash, away from everyone. Though my ankle’s in bad shape, I force myself to run the rest of the way back.
Lillian is by the fire with Zach and Sam and a few other men. She runs toward me when she sees me coming. I avoid making eye contact with Zach. He respects my space and continues talking with Sam and Dan. They’re celebrating the big win.
“You made it,” she says, hugging me.
“Is Aaron back yet?”
“He’s in the bunker resting. Said you saved his life.”
“I don’t know about that. Did anyone else get hurt?”
“We lost a few guys,” she says.
“I hope you’re prepared for what’s coming over the hill.”
“Yeah, it’s gonna be a long night.”
“How are the girls?”
Lillian smiles. “They’ll be happy to see you.”
“Not as happy as me.”
Inside the bunker, Dru and Sarah are sitting on a cot, focusing on a laptop. Aaron’s passed out on a bed in the corner. I barely make it through the doorway and collapse onto the closest cot. Dru runs over and helps get me situated. Sarah stays put.
“I’m good. Just a sprain. How’s that shoulder?” I ask Dru.
“Lillian’s a miracle healer,” she says.
“You both look a lot better than when I left you.”
“Wish we could say the same for you,” says Sarah.
“Did you hear what happened out there?” I ask.
Dru doesn’t say a word and wipes down my face with a cool rag.
“You freed hundreds of people and took down the big house,” says Sarah.
“We also took out a lot of blameless people.”
“They were elites, William. Those families were responsible for enslaving all those people. They weren’t blameless,” says Dru.
“Don’t you see—we all are. It’s my father who isn’t.”
“It’s not that black and white,” says Dru.
“My father wants me dead.”
“Your father wants everyone dead. Don’t take it personally,” says Sarah.
“I want the digi-pad,” I tell Sarah. “I’m the one with the chip. I should have control over it, don’t you think?”
“No,” she says.
“No? Why?”
“We can’t trust you,” she says.
“You can’t trust me?” I sit up. “Zach’s the one on a killing spree.”
Dru sits down next to me. “It’s not that we don’t trust you, William. We don’t trust your father. He’s gonna do whatever it takes.”
“No kidding,” I laugh, even though nothing about this is funny.
“We gotta take out his people to get to him,” says Dru.
I turn away; I don’t like seeing this side of Dru.
“It’ll be over soon.” She leans down and rests her head on my chest.
Sarah looks over, glaring. “And, for the record, we don’t trust you,” she says.
I push Dru off me and get up, limping toward the door. “Screw you.”
“William!” Dru tries to stop me, but I keep walking.
“Got your note, by the way,” says Sarah, as I reach the door.
“Yeah?” I hold the door handle without looking up. I know what’s coming. Sarah’s going to drop the bomb right in front of Dru.
“I’m staying here,” says Sarah.
“In the woods?”
“Where else? There’s nowhere left to go.”
“What about…”
“Our baby?” Sarah’s voice fills up the entire bunker.
Dru stands back and begins biting her nails.
I avoid looking at Dru and glance over at Sarah. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Not the best timing, it being an apocalypse and all, but yeah, I’m not going on with you guys,” says Sarah.
Before I say another word, two guys carrying in a wounded man burst into the bunker. He’s moaning and calling out for God. I move to the side. They drop him on a cot and Lillian runs in and gathers her medical supplies. This is my cue to exit the bunker.
The plantation refugees have started arriving. They’re setting up their areas and building fires. I’m delirious and paranoid that the chip might start malfunctioning if I don’t rest soon. I grab a blanket and walk over to a group of people huddled around a smaller fire along the perimeter of the campsite. I curl up on the ground without saying anything.
I need to figure out if I am supposed to stay behind with Sarah. She should be my priority, but I don’t want to stay in the woods. I want to go to L.A. and finish our mission. I need to get to Dickson so he can remove this chip before it destroys me.
*
Someone shakes my shoulder.
“Leave me alone. I’m sleeping.” I pull the blanket over my head.
“It’s morning and we need to discuss next steps.” It’s Dru.
“I’m not going on with you guys.”
“Come on. Don’t be like this.” She nudges me. “I need you.”
“For what? Future missile attacks?”
“We’re going to get your father. It’s time.”
“You can go on without me. I know I’ve ruined everything between us.”
She peels back my blanket. “No you haven’t. We all make mistakes.”
The sun is just coming up over the hill and misty dew settles over the campground. The fire is still going and there are a few other bodies strewn out on the dirt next to me. I sit up. It takes me a few glances before I can look directly into her eyes. The shame over Sarah feels like an anchor sitting on my chest.
“I betrayed you. But, I didn’t mean it. It just happened. You know I love you, right?”
“Of course. Sarah and I talked. I understand… Don’t worry, I’m not leaving your side.”
“I can’t leave Sarah alone out here,” I say.
“She’s better off out here with Lillian and her people.”
“You mean without me?”
“No. You know that’s not true.”
We both know Sarah’s better off without me. “Look, Dru, I appreciate you coming over here, but I need some time to think.” I get up and head into the forest. My ankle is much better than last night, but there’s still some remnant pain. I keep walking until I can’t hear anything except my own breathing. Absorbed in the stillness, I trip over a root and fall against a tree, scraping my face on the bark. A force of energy rises up and I start kicking the tree and keep kicking. I want to knock it to the groun
d. It doesn’t budge and now my good foot is throbbing. I stop kicking and lean back against the bark. I stare off at the thin rays of sunlight beaming through branches. It’s springtime. This is a time for rebirth. I think about Sarah. I think about the mission. If we don’t stop my father, the bearer of death, there will be no more spring.
I don’t know how much time has passed, but enough for Zach to track me down. He comes up to me, carrying Sarah’s digi-pad. “Here,” he says, sitting down next to me. “You can have it.”
“So you guys trust me now?”
“If you grew up like me, you wouldn’t trust anyone either.”
“At least it wasn’t your own father messing with you.”
“I never knew mine.”
Zach looks up to the branches and we linger in the soundless moment. I don’t know his whole story, and I don’t pry.
“I feel like damaged goods.” I break the silence.
“We all are.”
I’m not used to Zach being philosophical so I change the subject. “When are we leaving?”
“Got a ride waiting.”
“What about…”
“She’ll be fine.”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“Gotta be more careful, Morray. Keep a level head.”
He stands and reaches down to help me up. Our talk is over. We’re on a mission and the next phase is what we’ve been working toward—the end game—taking down my father.
Ava
Ava comes up out of the recesses of her mind, leaving Morray’s archive files. She comes to and sees Joseph disengaging her from the mainframe. Her heart rate races, and she waits for it to slow down before getting up. Joseph hands her a glass of water and raises the chair to upright. The water feels good going down her parched throat, helping to settle her back into a conscious state. She wants to tell Joseph everything, but it would take hours to give him a detailed account. Bullet points are probably best. Top-line notes of the most essential findings. The most important information she extracted from this last search: Morray had a child who most likely lived on the Outside.
“Are there any other records besides Lillian’s journals?” she asks Joseph.
“We have tons of journals chronicling everything, starting with hers.”
“Did anyone keep records of births?”
“You mean like family trees?”
“I don’t know what that means,” she says.
Sometimes Joseph would forget that Ava was born and raised inside the City Center and wouldn’t be familiar with the concept of bloodlines or family lineage. Her acclimation to her new life on the Outside in the last twenty months had been seamless and natural. She fit in so well that sometimes Joseph would forget her origins and use a phrase or terminology that threw her off. There’d be no use for a family tree inside the City Center, since people were created in labs.
“It’s a way to keep track of family lines,” says Joseph.
“So, do you have records?”
“We keep them locked up in the library.”
“We need to go to the village.”
“Good. I’m ready to get out of the city. Been feeling claustrophobic.”
Ava’s intentions are to do some quick research and return to the city. She’s on her own mission to decipher Morray’s past. But she doesn’t say anything to Joseph for fear of upsetting him.
Joseph packs up the Jeep and Ava climbs into the backseat, holding Grace close against her chest. Grace loves to ride in the Jeep, but Ava worries about her safety. When the monorail system is finished, traveling between the city and villages will be faster, safer and more comfortable. For now, they’ll have to drive the rugged unpaved path through the mountains to their village in Ojai Valley.
Along the drive Ava updates Joseph on what she discovered about Morray.
“So he had a kid?” says Joseph.
“I think he or she might have grown up on the Outside with Lillian’s people. You know what that means, right?”
“That Morray’s blood is in my people.”
“That would explain why he kept the Outsiders alive.”
Joseph listens as Ava recounts other details about Morray’s life. It’s close to midnight when they pull into the village. Grace is asleep in Ava’s arms. Joseph takes Grace and starts to head toward their cabin.
“What about the library?” asks Ava.
“It’s late. Can we deal with this tomorrow?”
“Don’t you want to know?”
Joseph glances up toward the black sky and the millions of stars above. He lets out a sigh. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”
“What are you worried about?”
“What if my bloodline stems from the most evil human in the history of man?”
“I don’t think he’s the most evil. His father was much worse.”
“Apples don’t fall far from the tree…”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Let’s just get this over with.”
Joseph leads Ava to a cabin a few doors down from the medical hall. He takes the lantern off the hook near the door and lights it up. The room is wall-to-wall bookshelves. Ava inhales the scent of musty paper and smiles. “I love it here.”
“The records are in the back, locked up in a safe.”
Joseph sets Grace down on the floor nestled in a mound of blankets. The two head to the back of the cabin toward the walk-in safe.
“You sure about this?” he asks.
“I need to know.”
“Once we know, we can never go back to not knowing.”
Joseph’s words strike Ava—Sarah said the same thing to Morray before they broke into his mother’s rooms in the Subterranea. Joseph enters the combination onto the keypad and spins the chrome tri-spoke handle until the lock clicks. He opens the door and they walk into the safe. The shelves contain hundreds of journals and binders. They go back to the earliest ones and search the dates.
“Here,” says Joseph, pulling down a binder.
They sit at a table and open to the first page.
“These are the accounts of the first survivors of the Santa Barbara plantation,” says Joseph.
“Look,” Ava points to the bottom of the page. “Denver Unit members… Zach Roldan, Drusilla Phelps, Sarah Broad, William Morray, Samuel Merkin, Daniel West… It says they assisted in the liberation of three hundred and twenty-two plantation workers from Santa Barbara. There’s no mention of the baby.”
“Keep going,” says Joseph, turning the pages. “Here’s something…”
Part 3
The End Game
Chapter 19
Zach arranged for one of Aaron’s men to drive us through the woods and toward Topanga where we’ll get out to make the rest of the journey on foot. The driver takes us through back roads and obscure streets to keep out of view and avoid possible run-ins with officers or anyone else patrolling the main roads. We pass through scorched neighborhoods, some places still smoldering. Piles of wood and debris that used to be schools, local shops, and homes shroud the bleak landscape of endless wreckage. The elites have wiped out everything, painting the world black with their brushstrokes of fire. I feel like we’re already too late to make things right. There’s not much left to save from destruction. I can’t imagine the lies they told the demolition corps to get them to level these places on such a mass scale. I’m relieved when we reach the Santa Monica Mountains. I don’t want to see another blackened car left on the roadside or another charred lawn.
The driver lets us out in Topanga and we begin our hike through the mountains to Getty View Park. It’s only a five- or six-mile trek, but we’re going off the trail and the terrain is grueling. Crossing over the 405 is the toughest part. Somehow they’ve uprooted the entire freeway and turned it into deep caverns that we have to climb down, walk across, and then scale up the other side. By the time we reach the checkpoint it’s dark and we’re beat. Using his high-powered flashlight, Zach signals west do
wn a slight incline. We wait by some trees until the return signal flashes. Someone’s coming to take us to the campsite, where we’ll hold our post until we’re ready to head to our final destination a couple miles out—my father’s lab.
A tall lanky dude approaches, wearing a t-shirt, shorts and combat boots. How is he not cold? It can’t be more than forty degrees. He’s smiling like a class clown and I have no idea what’s so amusing.
“You must be Zach’s crew,” he says, standing a few feet away.
“I’m Zach. I take it you’re Brian.” He approaches the man, keeping his right hand on the gun in his waistband.
The two talk in low voices and I can’t make out what they’re saying, but after a few minutes Brian motions over to the rest of us. “Let’s go.”
He takes us down the hill to a small campsite with a few tents and a fire going. Two of Brian’s men stand watch nearby and nod to acknowledge our arrival. Zach brings Sam and Dan over to make introductions. Dru and I drop our gear and sit down by the fire. She can’t keep her head up and takes out her blanket to sleep by my feet. I double-check my bag—Sarah’s digi-pad is safe and the program is running without a hitch. No interference from Denver or Dickson.
“They blasted the Getty a few days ago. Half the mountain went with it.” Brian laughs, taking a swig from his flask. He offers me some, but I decline.
“How much more are they planning to blow up?” I ask.
“Until it’s alllll gone,” he sings out, then says, “and for the encore… they’ll wipe out the military forces and any remaining government officials. Gotta remove all those potential threats. Don’t want any buggers coming back to sting you in the ass.”
“What about the plantations?”
“Bye-bye birdies.” He lifts his chin and uses an affected tone. “They served their purpose well, and now we must move to the next level.”
“Next level?”
“Only the proud, the few, and the brave new world will make it to the City Center.”
“You know Morray is my father, right?”
“Yeah. Must be rough.” He takes another pull from the flask.
“The more I see out here, the more I want to take him out.”