by A. G. Wyatt
So this was it. Noah had known this choice was coming, but he’d expected to face it on his own terms. And now that the time had arrived, he realized that he’d been avoiding it. He’d kept working here, living here, making friends here, the whole time avoiding turning it from something that just happened into an active decision, into being someone who decided to settle down.
Now, he had to make a decision, and that meant he had to know what would follow.
“You mentioned the role that would be assigned to me,” he said. “So I don’t get to carry on repairing the walls?”
“If you stay then you will have a higher calling,” Sanni said. “The Oracle has seen your gifts – your resourcefulness, your courage, your inquiring spirit. In a matter of days, you understood the terrible threat of the Dionites better than some who have been among the righteous for years. Truly, angels guide you on your path.”
“And what if they don’t guide me down the path you want?” Noah said. “You want my skills, but what if I want to stay and use them in a different way?”
“That is not how Apollo works,” Sanni said. “The Oracle speaks, and the gods speak through it. We merely obey. For the sake of all, everyone who stays must play the part chosen for them. There can be no exception deterring others from that for which they were chosen.”
“And what have I been chosen for?” Anger grew inside him. This was what he hated about this place. Folks trying to boss him around, to tell him how to live his life. Crazies with their Oracle and their gods. This was why he’d spent so long away from people. They just weren’t worth it in the end.
“You will join the guard,” Sanni said. “You will keep Apollo safe and fed, maintain order and justice, protect these good people from the barbarity of a world sent to punish fallen humankind. And you will help in the search for Astra, the salvation the gods have provided.”
There was no denying the appeal of being in the guard. That was where his friends worked, where Molly worked. They were the people he’d fought alongside when the Dionites attacked, and the people who arrested folks like Blood Dog. But a demand was still a demand, and Sanni’s crazed ranting had him on edge, desperate to get away before the madness somehow infected him. He was on the verge of telling her where she could stick her carefully chosen role.
Until she mentioned Astra.
Iver had mentioned Astra too. It had been the hope, the dream, the thing the Dionites pinned their future on. If these folks were after it too, then maybe there was something in this Astra.
“Astra,” he said. “What is it?”
“Astra is the hope of the world,” Sanni said. “A place that holds the key to rebuilding civilization lost in the fall. It is out there somewhere to the north. And through obedience to the gods, we will find it. We will bring humankind through this dark time that has fallen upon us, this judgment for losing our way and our faith in the gods. We will find it, and the world will see the light again.”
“If it’s lost, then how do you know it’s in the north?”
“The Oracle guides us.”
“Yeah, right.” Noah snorted derisively. “Lady, I like this town. I like the people. I like the soft beds. I like the fact that I get my belly filled regularly and it ain’t all rabbit stew. But I ain’t never believed in mystical oracles or none of that mumbo jumbo, and I ain’t gonna start now.”
Some of the Elders began muttering to each other. Sanni just smiled and waved to him to follow her, so that they both stood in front of the computer altar, looking across it at the rest of the Council.
“Would you like to see the Oracle, Noah?” she asked.
The muttering grew, Elders frowning but not challenging Sanni.
“You want me to take my orders like the other good little guards?” Noah asked. “Then yes, I do.”
“You have already seen it.” She held out a hand, bangles jangling on her wrist, and tapped the altar. “You stand before it right now.”
Noah looked down at the gray box.
“This?” he said. “This hunk of junk is your precious Oracle?”
Sanni pressed something on the side. There was a click, a whir, and a portion of the top of the computer shifted back. Something slid out, a block a foot across and black as any pit, yet that somehow shone with an uncanny light. On second glance, it wasn’t so much a block as a sheet, thin as paper. The surface flickered with golden lines like the paths of a circuit board, splintering and growing narrower. It looked like the worst lightning storm Noah had ever seen, jagged bolts spreading and multiplying until they vanished into the consuming darkness in which they were set.
“This is the Oracle,” she said.
Noah stared at it, dumbfounded, as the side facing him faded entirely to black and then flickered into movement, letters and numbers scrolling across it in a muddled, abstract mass. Twenty years. Twenty years he had been wandering the wilderness that had once been the United States of America, and in all that time he had never once seen a working computer. Not even in the homes that had generators or the towns still running small power stations after the fall. These things just did not work.
And yet this one did. Not only did it work, but it worked like nothing he had ever seen. Like something from a sci-fi movie, not a real life computer made of crude plastic with a flat screen and a keyboard.
“How?” he asked and realized he was whispering. “How does it work?”
Sanni laughed.
“Because of the gods,” she said. “They left it to us as a beacon, a guide towards the future. It grants direction, wisdom, a way forward. This town was not rebuilt through the leadership of men, Noah. It was rebuilt through the miracle of the Oracle. That is why the gods must be appeased, why order must be upheld, and why we must do as it says and seek out Astra.”
Noah watched, hypnotized as words appeared on the screen and then crackled to life.
“North by northwest,” a voice said. An artificial voice -- tiny, metallic, and buzzing -- but clearly a woman’s. “North by northwest, distance indeterminate. Please provide further data.”
He took a step back needing to sit down, but there were no chairs. He needed a drink, but he had none on him, and this didn’t seem like a place where that would be allowed. This was the group that kept order in Apollo, that kept it clean of drunkenness and lude behavior just as much as it kept it clear of Dionite attacks and wolves wandering out of the wilderness.
He just stared, trying to make sense of it all. A computer. A working computer. A working computer that claimed to be a guide to some kind of salvation, some way to rebuild the world. Who knew what that might be. A bunker maybe. A secret base. A supply depot. Even some Garden of Eden set up by the gods for their loyal followers – he was so shocked he was ready to believe almost anything right now.
“Time to decide, Noah,” Sanni said, squatting down beside him. She jingled as she moved, jewelry cascading up and down her arms. “What will it be? Are you with us, with the Oracle, with Apollo? Or should we turn you back out into the wild?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
BELIEVING
NOAH’S HAND SLID down to his side, fingers resting on Bourne. The familiar feel of the gun’s grip grounded him, gave him something to cling to amid the tumult in his mind.
This was insane. He’d thought he was choosing between living alone or with others, between Molly and solitude. He’d thought the choice was about him and his unbreakable defiance.
But now there was so much more to it. There was a computer, a real computer, still working decades after the rest had fallen silent. A computer with no power source, no generator or electrical grid to keep it going, feeding guidance to who knew where, with who knew what option for the future.
There was the mysterious Astra, sought by both the Apollonians and the Dionites, a mystery all its own. And he hated to leave a mystery untouched.
He rose to his feet and peered more closely at the side of the Oracle. It wasn’t like any kind of computer he’d ever seen.
There was no keyboard, no mouse. It didn’t look like the laptops he remembered. The screen seemed to merge with the rest of the device, its shape and size changing to fit the information being displayed. There were no power sockets or inlets for cables, just a thin slot for some kind of electronic key.
He reached out and ran his fingers over that slot. He’d seen one like it once before, just after Mama died. Pa was home more then, for a little while at least. He always had work stuff with him, mostly an odd tablet computer Noah was told not to touch. But at age seventeen, forbidding something made it all the more intriguing. He’d waited a week for a chance to get hold of that tablet, to work out what was so special about it.
“You ever meet a man named Tom Brennan?” he asked.
Sanni shook her head.
“Is he a relative?” she asked.
“My father,” Noah said.
“We all lost so many people.” Sanni placed a hand on his shoulder. “But now we have found each other, just as we have found the gods, here in Apollo.”
Noah had never really known if his father believed in God, but good people didn’t say no when the pastor called round for coffee, and that distraction had given Noah his chance. He’d gone into the back room and picked up that tablet. He brushed at the screen, tapped the buttons on the side, tried anything to stir it into life. He ran his finger again and again along its key slot, sure that this must hold the answer. But it remained just a question, one more mystery around Pa’s work. When he’d heard the pastor saying his goodbyes, Noah whipped out his own phone, took a photo of the tablet and the key slot, and left.
He asked around with the focused determination of a young man trying not to think about his emotional burdens, but he never did figure out what that tablet was, or see another one even remotely like it.
Until now.
Noah ran a hand across the top of the Oracle. The casing didn’t have the same style of coating as his father’s tablet, but that didn’t mean much. His father’s tablet hadn’t been paper thin or glowed, but there was a similar sheen to the screen and, of course, the key slot. That was just the same and that had to mean something. Especially after what Iver had said, how he’d known a Tom Brennan, and how he’d known about Astra. There were too many connections for it to be chance. Noah didn’t put much stock in chance.
He needed answers, and that meant spending time with the Oracle, exploring how it worked, finding some way to question it, not just about Astra, but about his Pa too. No way they’d let him do that here. No way he wanted to share whatever he found out with these lunatics either.
“Do you know who built this?” he asked, part curious, part playing for time while he examined the Oracle and the room around it.
“Does it matter?” Sanni said. “Whoever it was, they were ultimately guided by the gods, given a way to see us through this wilderness, this bleakness after the Fall.”
“Humor me,” Noah said. “Do you know? Any of you?”
He looked around at the Elders, who all shook their heads.
“It came from the gods,” one of them said. “What more is there to say?”
Noah sure as hell didn’t reckon this was from the gods. Probably not the government either. His Pa had always been secretive about who he worked for, but he had strong opinions on the government, opinions that didn’t fit with working for them.
“Are you with us Noah?” Sanni asked. “You have seen our most holy of treasures. You have born witness to the Oracle, that which will guide us back to the light. You have heard what it has planned for you in our town. Will you stay with us? Will you help us find Astra?”
It was so much to process, so much to take in. The Oracle itself, a piece of technology that would have been strange even before the rest died. The link to his father, who might still be out there somewhere, alive and connected into whatever this was. The consequences for the people he knew, people like Molly and Dimitri, that they were being led not by mere superstition but by technology, by knowledge, by some kind of guide to humanity’s survival. A guide their enemies wanted so badly that they’d tried to storm the town for it. If they both wanted Astra, then surely that was what the assault had been about, what Ferguson had died for?
He didn’t know that he wanted to stay – the lies, the strange technologically led religion, the plans they had to dictate his future…that was all too much. But he couldn’t leave, not now, not until he knew more.
Not until he’d found a way to get ahold of the Oracle, to get it away from these lunatics and put it to better use. Like finding his father.
“Reckon I will,” he said.
“In a month’s time the Hand of Apollo will come,” Sanni said. “Then you will be baptized. You will become one of us.”
She smiled, a wide, gaping smile to match the strange gleam in her eyes.
Noah smiled back, but his attention wasn’t on Sanni. It was on the placement of windows around the room, the distance from the Oracle to the door, the way the Oracle bent when Sanni picked it up meaning maybe it could be rolled up and stowed in a bag for an easy getaway.
“Lookin’ forward to it,” he said.
As he walked out of the Council Chamber, he paused at the top of the steps and rested his hand on Bourne. He looked out across Apollo, at the people, the buildings, the bustle of life. Then he looked up into the sky at the bright band glowing in the south as dusk closed in, a band that had once been the moon before the world fell apart and places like Apollo arose from its ashes. A place that might be civilization reborn, or might just be a dozen crazies praying to a computer. But at least it was a place more comfortable than wandering the wilds.
“Looks like we’ve found a place to stay, buddy,” he said, patting Bourne. “Now we just need a plan.”
DEAR READER,
Thank you for letting Noah (and Bourne) take you on an adventure in this crazy and desolate landscape. I hope you had fun! More post-apocalyptic action awaits you in Book 2 of the MoonFall series, MoonFire.
If you want to know when the next book comes out, sign up for my free newsletter. I will also be giving away freebies and other exclusive content to my newsletter subscribers in the future.
Enjoy the apocalypse!
Sincerely,
A.G. Wyatt
Copyright 2014 by A.G. Wyatt
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the author and the publisher.
All trademarks and brands referred to in this book are for illustrative purposes only, are the property of their respective owners and not affiliated with this publication in any way. Any trademarks are being used without permission, and the publication of the trademark is not authorized by, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owner.
Editing: Bridgette O'Hare
Cover art: MadHouse
Asteroid icons: MotoTsume
eISBN: 978-1-63230-036-2
Contents
Chapter One - A Rustling in the Trees
Chapter Two - Distant Company
Chapter Three - Dumpsville
Chapter Four - What Passes For Civilization
Chapter Five - A Place of Safety
Chapter Six - Beauty and a Beating
Chapter Seven - Making Friends
Chapter Eight - Living in Hope
Chapter Nine - Chain Gang
Chapter Ten - A Helping Hand
Chapter Eleven - Last Night
Chapter Twelve - Small Worlds
Chapter Thirteen - Blood
Chapter Fourteen - Amidst the Ruins
Chapter Fifteen - Going to Town
Chapter Sixteen - Tagging Along
Chapter Seventeen - Fight the Good Fight
Chapter Eighteen - Fight or Flight
Chapter Nineteen - Applied Intelligence
Chapter Twenty -
The Hunting Party
Chapter Twenty-One - Kill or Be Killed
Chapter Twenty-Two - Last Gasp
Chapter Twenty-Three - After the Deluge
Chapter Twenty-Four - Something More Beside You
Chapter Twenty-Five - Or Should I Go?
Chapter Twenty-Six - The Elders
Chapter Twenty-Seven - Noah’s Choice
Chapter Twenty-Eight - Believing