Age of Mystics is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Chris Walters
Design by Cathy Walters
THE DAY BEFORE DISASTER
“…on that day, no one will know. They will go about their business, their lives, their activities, unaware that life as they know it will no longer exist…”
-Dr. Neil Amarand, United Nations speech on global catastrophe
CHAPTER ONE
Adam Cross looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful clear blue dome over the city. It was also hot, but that is the way that things go in Colorado Springs in July. It was nothing like the sand, though, and for that he was grateful. Every day was pretty much the same, a horribly hot day followed by the afternoon showers that usually brought tornadoes to the plains. When he had been stationed at Fort Carson, on the south side of town, Adam had found the lightning shows of the everyday thunderstorms one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. But, on this afternoon, there was not a cloud in the sky. That meant that the temperature was sure to rise above one hundred degrees. As Adam walked toward the door of Pep’s restaurant, he was grateful to be working inside today. The smooth hum of the air conditioner was something Adam had come to relish while deployed.
This was a new job. Adam had only been out of the army for about three months, having finished fifteen years. He had been a good medic, but after all he had seen in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria, he had decided not to pursue that career field in his civilian life. Even the blood on a steak could start up his memories of the injured men and women he had worked on in country. Immediately after his release from duty, he had begun training in the corporate restaurant manager training program for the national casual dining chain, Pep’s. Even though he was the newest manager, only out of training for 4 weeks, he was probably the most well-liked manager in the restaurant. Adam liked the people also, he liked the staff and he liked the customers. He did not like the work very much. While very good under pressure, he did not like being placed in what he considered unnecessary pressure. Restaurant companies have a way of heightening pressure on their managers that Adam found unproductive. He figured he would stay about two years, then find something else more to his liking.
Holding the door for some patrons as he was headed into the restaurant, he waved hello to some regulars he saw at a table nearby. He was already known by customers in the short time he had been there. It made him feel at home.
“Hi, Adam.” The cute hostess, Sara, stepped in front of him. Adam had not been able to figure out how to tell her that he was too old for her, and she had been bringing the flirt on strong pretty much the whole time he had been there. Sara wore tighter and tighter work shirts every time she worked with him, and gave all the telltale signs of being interested. Has he been a different kind of man, he would have ended up taking advantage of the girl, but Adam Cross had no interest in using others.
“Hi, Sara, how are you today?” Pretending to see another guest nearby, Adam stepped deftly around the young lady. As he walked by, he couldn’t see the look of disappointment that covered her face, but he had seen it before and knew it was there. Adam walked into the back, stopping to greet all of the cooks on the line, and headed into the office to check the notes for the day. His cell phone dinged with a text, and he pulled it out to look at the message.
“Ward: Hey Doc, was thinking of coming by 2mrw cool?”
Adam smiled. Calvin Ward was a man for whom he had a great deal of respect. They had served together, including one difficult deployment in Iraq. He was also showing his age in his inability to properly text. SFC Ward had left the army a few years before and settled with his family on the north side of Colorado Springs.
“Me: snds gr8 cu then” Adam always tried to match Ward’s text in style, mostly because it was a hoot to see the older man try to be cool.
“Ward: time?”
“Me: btwn 2 – 4”
“Ward: done”
Adam put his phone back in his pocket and settled in for a ten-hour shift. It was going to be a long, busy night. But, it was going to be air conditioned, and that made it okay.
CHAPTER TWO
Jenny Martinez opened up her yoga studio and let in her usual practitioners, the collection of Moms, students and the elderly that had time to go to a yoga class on a weekday. Only twenty-seven years old, Jenny was probably the best known yoga instructor in all of southern Colorado. Her signs appeared everywhere in town, and the new television spots had begun to appear on all of the local stations. She was becoming a celebrity in her own right, and had even planned a yoga retreat for the fall to Thailand. She taught every day, appeared on a local TV morning show, and was in the process of writing a book. Things were going her way.
Jenny believed in intention. She believed in setting her goals, and moving toward them with purpose. This is also what she taught to every person who came to practice yoga in her studio. Earlier that day, she had met with a Denver-based publisher who wanted her to put this particular teaching down in print. She owned her studio in downtown Colorado Springs, she was becoming a household name, she had set up retreats for various places around the world and now she was to be a published author. Things were going her way in all areas but one. Even though she was an attractive Latino woman, she could not find a date to save her life. She wanted to be loved, but had no room on her calendar to make time for a mate. She also was not running into a lot of eligible men. Women were abundant in her classes, but the only men she saw regularly were either married or aged into their seventies.
She had been in a relationship with a woman for about six months just three years before, and being a lesbian would probably give her more options. The problem was that she had discovered that she wasn’t a lesbian. Her girlfriend from back then, Karen, was a beautiful woman and a lovely person. Jenny loved hanging out with her, and still considered her a great friend, but Jenny was not particularly attracted to women. The saying is that love chooses, but preference is not a choice. She was happy for the experience, because she probably always would have wondered, but they had both figured out that Jenny was interested in men pretty quickly and the relationship just didn’t work out. Karen and her girlfriend, Kelly, came in for classes a few times a week, but it didn’t look like they were coming in today. Her desk help, Peri, did show up finally and manned the desk as Jenny walked into the yoga room, turned the lights down and the heat up and began her class.
“Take a deep breath and center yourself.” Jenny began, “Picture the tiny light that is the purpose at the center of your being. As each deep breath goes in, focus on that light. As each deep breath goes out, picture that light growing into your body, into your chest, your arms, your legs. Picture it filling up every part of your body.” Maybe in a few years she would find love, for now she was pursuing her business with passion and intention.
CHAPTER THREE
The two men stood across from one another, completely encircled by the watching crowd. Ted Craven felt the sweat pouring down his back, under the thick black gi he wore any time he represented the martial art he had studied for his whole life. Across from him was his brother-in-law and oldest friend, Calvin Ward. They had history and a great fondness for one another. This sparring match was one of the most fun events he had participated in for quite some time. It was a demonstration to market the opening of Cal’s new dojo and they had quite a turnout.
That he would support Cal in this was both unsurprising and extremely gratifying. They had
joined the dojo at the same time, around eight years old, in West Los Angeles. They had joined the army together, just out of high school, at the ripe old age of eighteen. They had married the two sisters they had met when both were stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. They had served in combat together, both in Iraq and in Afghanistan. And they had both settled in the north side of Colorado Springs, Cal after leaving the service, and Ted after being stationed for his final post before retirement. This was his thirtieth year in the army, and his last. On top of that, Ted would do anything for Cal. Cal had saved his life.
Cal grinned at him and attacked. To the outsider, standing and watching this display, it must have been amazing to watch the speed and precision with which each man attacked, blocked, parried and countered. But these two knew each other so well, that they could almost dictate the next move of the other. Considered great practitioners of the martial arts in their own rights, together they were a force to watch. After an impressive sparring match that ended in a stalemate, as was the case any time these two squared off, the two performed an intricate kata – a martial dance – in unison. In their art, it was a manner in which they could meditate through movement. Both men had practiced this art for forty years.
As they finished, the crowd erupted in applause and kids came running up to ask them questions. He looked over at his wife, Kayla and his sister-in-law, Kate, to see them forming a line to take sign-ups for the new dojo. This could not have gone better. Most people would not have noticed it, but when he looked at his best friend, he saw a shadow cross his face. As the crowd died down, he walked over to check up on him.
“What’s up?” Ted said as he closed in on him. They knew each other too well for deception, so it never crossed Cal’s mind to not tell his friend what was on his mind. However, he just shook his head.
“I’m not sure. I felt something odd while we were doing the kata, the memories and flashbacks never really end, do they?” Ted shook his head no; he knew just what Cal was talking about. “What are you going to do? It will fade in time, I guess.”
Ted took a long look at Cal. It was not wise to discard anything Cal said. Calvin Ward was uncommonly intelligent, had been a deductive prodigy as a child, and was a true whiz at predictive analysis. Though his statements were sometimes taken by others as psychic, Ted knew that when Cal spoke about matters, there was something he was analyzing, something real, something one could count on. It had saved their lives in firefights more than once. However, he had never seen Cal not know how to describe what he was perceiving. “Can you describe it?”
Cal looked up into his eyes and just shrugged. “Not really. It was just a feeling like something wasn’t right.”
“With the demonstration, or the dojo, or what?”
“With the world,” the tall man offered, “I can’t explain it. It was just a feeling.”
Ted was not perfectly comfortable with this explanation. Even in this intense heat, it sent a shiver down his spine. He knew Cal would tell him what was up when he figured it out. In the forty years Ted had known him, Calvin Ward always figured it out.
CHAPTER FOUR
Emma drove up the long winding road to what euphemistically was just called “the Mountain”, but was known throughout the world as the military base NORAD, built inside Cheyenne Mountain on the southwest side of Colorado Springs. The heat was a bit much right now, and it hit her as she rolled down her window to give the guard her ID.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Pare,” the guard said. Though she had worked here for two years and had come just about every day, they were a secure base in the truest sense and the guards went through protocol to check her in. They knew her well, but these were professionals and they did their job. After receiving her ID back, she pulled into the parking spot she had pulled in to so many times before, got out and began to unload some plants from her trunk.
“What kind of greens you got today, Doc?” said a tech that walked by. “You stocking up on weed for the end of time?”
Dr. Emma Pare just laughed. “That is something I should consider, I guess. Right now, I just need to make sure we have every plant in the lab.”
Emma was a renowned botanist. She was a government contractor and most people assumed she was doing genetic experiments with the plants, but her job was much simpler and much more serious than that. Dr. Pare’s top secret job was to repopulate the earth with plants in the case of a thermonuclear war, or a meteor strike, or any other extinction level event. As such, she had to continually check on plants and replace those that refused to grow in the conditions provided. Most people heard Dr. Pare and confused her with her deceased husband Mark Pare, a geneticist who was best known for his work on the human genome project. Since they were both Dr. Pare, she understood the confusion. It had been three years since he passed and Emma’s thoughts drifted to him at least every hour or so. Their love had been a deep and lasting one, unchecked by the stumbles that many marriages suffered. She wouldn’t have liked anyone to find out, but when it was just her and her plants, she sometimes talked to Mark as if he were there. She missed him greatly.
Emma had to present her ID again to get past the huge door and into the facility, then down two floors, across an entire floor and up three floors into the Mountain to her lab. She was well-liked and was greeted by a steady flow of acquaintances as she made her way through the maze of passages to her place within the giant facility. She had two labs really, one was the main lab, a huge room with watering features, misters, UV lamps and every conceivable plant and the other was up another two floors into an exterior concrete section with two one foot holes that allowed air and light into a medium-sized garden. It was to this area that she brought her plants today.
The nature of the extinction level event could not be known, since it was hypothetical, so they had allowed her to maintain the two different environments. However, due to the nature of the facility, the “outdoor” garden had two solid feet of concrete on all sides, as well as the top and the bottom. The air/light openings also had steel bars that ran through them that would not allow anything larger than a mouse through. Emma had once mused that it would take years for someone to break through, but the truth is that she didn’t really even know where on the mountain this garden came out. One could not make heads nor tails of location by looking out the holes, and talking about such things was a red flag to base security, so she never asked. After planting the specimens she had brought for the day, she did what she always did. She pulled out her tools, began her work in the middle of the garden, and thought of Mark. Then she began her conversation with him by telling him about her day.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ronnie Jones had been everything. He had been a thief, a scammer, an outlaw biker, and now he was a drug dealer. Ronnie supplied the entirety of Southern Colorado with Meth. From his house on the south of town, he oversaw the production and distribution of product for a cartel that included his biker brothers, but was mostly a subordinate enterprise of the Mexican drug lords. Ronnie was good at what he did, and his life showed it. He did what, and who, he wanted. He was sanctioned to kill anyone that got in his way, but Ronnie was smart enough to not pull the trigger himself. He had more than thirty people who worked directly for him, and he was feared throughout the southern part of the state. Ronnie sold the best shit available, pure high, and he worked it like the multi-million-dollar business that it was.
On this blistering hot day, he had just come from a meeting with his supplier. This new batch was supposed to be amazing, but Ronnie had never used, and would never use, any of his product. He was careful and checked to be sure no one was watching as he opened a panel in his dining room that hid a storage spot for his dope. He packed pounds of it into the wall before locking it up. Ronnie didn’t like having product on hand. For one thing, it did him no good in his wall, instead of being sold on the street. Secondly, it was the time he was most vulnerable to the cops or someone coming to rip him off. It was also the only time he carried a loaded firearm
on his person. Ronnie made sure his Glock was ready to go when he heard the sound of someone walking up his steps. A moment later, there was a light tap on the door.
Ronnie opened the front door to see Charlene, a local girl from down the street. She was a case that proved all too well why Ronnie’s product was bad. She had been a gorgeous High School cheerleader the year before and had been to a party that Ronnie’s boys had provided the product for. After bad choices, and progressive use, Char was a far too skinny girl with bad teeth and aggressive acne, who was known for her willingness to put out for a hit. Ronnie knew why she was there.
“Not tonight, Charlene,” he said as he started to close the door.
She blocked it with her foot. “No wait,” she pleaded, “my friend here is looking to score.”
Ronnie opened the door a little bit more and saw the young girl standing behind Char, she had to be barely eighteen, and she was hot. Ronnie opened the door wide and talked directly to the girl. “You better have cash, because I don’t take layaway.”
The girl looked at Charlene and then back at Ronnie. “Do you take barter?” she asked and pulled her top up to show her perky little breasts with no bra on.
Ronnie thought for a quick minute, stepped out and looked up and down the street, but no cops were there. He walked back and grabbed the girl by the hair. “If you do well, you will get the shit for free” and he shoved her into the house. Charlene smiled, showing her messed up teeth and ran inside also. Ronnie took one more look around and walked into his house, locking the door behind him. He knew the way this night would play out; it would be like all the other nights played out with all the other girls. He would make sure she was hooked, and then get her to do things she never thought she would do. It was the power that got him off, and he planned to work that power tonight.
Age of Mystics (Saga of Mystics Book 1) Page 1