by Lars Teeney
“Thanks for reminding me of the obvious, Aqua-Deluge,” the middle-aged man said snidely.
“You’re welcome, Lore-Fiction. Someone needs to keep you from slipping up all the time,” Aqua-Deluge mocked as she finished assembling her rifle and inserting a full magazine.
“I don’t need your shit. I’ve been doing this since you were a child being brain-fucked by the Reverend,” Lore-Fiction retorted angrily.
“Quiet! We can’t stay at this camp for very long. As soon as it’s nightfall we’ll need to move on, all the noise will get us killed.” A man of dark complexion and medium-length dreadlocks stated as he peered through a gun scope scanning the horizon. He was wearing mostly black garments; a gray, fitted ballistic cuirass, black fatigues, combat boots and large faded, black duster coat. Everything on the man spoke of modernity, except for the imposing, double-edge bladed, Scottish-style Claymore sword, in a scabbard on his back held by a strap across the chest.
“So, did either of you get anything new from that broadcast?” the duster-clad man asked.
“No, Hades-Perdition, not exactly. The Reverend just told the congregation to be on the lookout for non-believers,” Aqua-Deluge replied.
“That could mean that the Regime is planning an operation,” Lore-Fiction added.
“Your analytical skills are truly astounding, Lore-Fiction!” Aqua-Deluge prodded sarcastically.
“Hey, shut the fuck up, before—” Lore-Fiction was interrupted.
“Can it! We need real intelligence. Anything else?” Hades-Perdition demanded.
“Well, the Reverend did mention an official with L.O.V.E. Said his name was Rodrigo. That’s the first time he ever mentioned anybody from L.O.V.E. by name,” Aqua-Deluge stated.
“I can confirm that,” Lore-Fiction added needlessly. Aqua-Deluge sighed in exasperation.
“This correlates with the reports of increased Regime activity here, around the Great Lake area of California. Normally they are kept busy in the Eastern half of New Megiddo, around the capital,” Hades-Perdition announced.
“Who the fuck names their secret police L.O.V.E anyway? What is it with this Regime?” Lore-Fiction asked.
“You gotta understand where they are coming from. The pre-war religious culture of the U.S. was awash with this milk-toast shit. However, all of this is in the historical record. Wherever the Regime origins lay it must be from some denomination of an Evangelical church. The succeeding generations just carried on those traditions,” Hades-Perdition concluded.
“Turned them into a bunch of freaks,” Aqua-Deluge said with disgust.
“I wouldn’t take L.O.V.E. lightly. I have some insight into the organization. They are probably the worst of the Regime. Anyhow, we should get moving. It’s getting dark. We need to finish and get back to the Fleet,” Hades-Perdition stated. He was collecting his gear and checking the suppressor on his rifle while cycling through various screens on the ‘heads up display’ overlaid on his retina. This data was located on a masked sub-network. When needed they would monitor the [Virtue-net] via a node that was disguised as a living person fitted with a neural implant.
Hades-Perdition was the one with the most training out of the trio and had been with the resistance longer than Lore-Fiction and Aqua-Deluge. Both were assigned to him for scout training because they were excellent marksmen and because both did not have personalities that suited sitting in one place for very long with people around. Numerous incidents of conflict with others had taken place and so other Apostates were eager to transfer them to Scouting.
The trio of scouts had finished breaking camp and had moved out. They were on a mission to complete a perimeter sweep around the Great Lake of California and were near completion save for two more waypoints.
It was a cool, mild night and the sky was clear. The stars that had emerged in the sky this evening were reflecting off the surface of the Great Lake, which was not a great lake at all, but rather an enlarged San Francisco bay, San Pablo bay, Suisun bay, and river delta. In the past as Climate Change advanced so to did the sea level rise. Coastal settlements had been swallowed. After decades, entire towns disappeared off the map, Fremont, Oakland, Port Costa, San Rafael, and Larkspur were some of the cities that vanished beneath the waves. San Francisco was a series of islands now, consisting of what were the hills of the city—Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Twin Peaks, and various other hills and outcroppings.
Regime forces in the western half of the former United States, now New Megiddo, had always been fairly light. Previously when the Regime was stronger all it took was the [Virtue-net] to keep control over the population. In the last couple of decades, their grip on power had been slipping away. Innovation had long ago been stifled by the authoritarian system put in place by the Schrubb Administration. Restlessness in the population had lead to more people subverting the [Virtue-net], and to others searching out the black market for drugs like ‘Database’ and other banned goods. The West was a hotbed for the illicit trades and for resistance activity because of the light Regime footprint. As of late that had slowly changed as more Regime forces had been transferred to the West. Also prominent was the increased presence of L.O.V.E. Rangers. Regime forces had been conducting operations to find the resistance operating bases but were not having much success. Hades-Perdition knew that scout groups like his were crucial to this effort.
The trio was hiking through rough terrain across the water from ruins of a sugar cane factory under a collapsed bridge that used to span the Carquinez Straight. They had hiked for hours from where they had previously camped and were coming upon one of their waypoints. The waypoints were locations of small remote sensors and camera traps that monitored traffic around traveled routes and trade networks. The infrastructure of the West was very different to that of back east. In the West, the population had fallen more drastically during the course of Climate Change and its effects. Drought was rampant and changed much of the West to desert. Previously productive farmland shriveled to wasteland. Cities that sprang up in the desert in previous centuries had relied heavily on water being piped in from other areas. These cities became ghost towns within a few decades after the snowpack disappeared in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Cities like Reno, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and many of the cities of the Central Valley in California had long been abandoned. The populations that remained moved closer to coastal cities. These coastal settlements were sustained by aging desalination plants. The East by contrast became wetter in climate, and never suffered the water shortages that the West endured. Although many died in the East due to the effects of Climate Change, it was not as severe, so after a time the population stabilized.
The scouting party reached the waypoint, which consisted of an intersection of two trade routes. The pavement on these roads was torn up and riddled with potholes and weeds escaped to air at the edges. In a hollowed-out log just off road was a camera trap set up to monitor traffic. Hades-Perdition approached the log as the other two members of the scouting party took kneeling positions facing opposite directions. They scanned the approaches through scopes on their automatic weapons. Hades-Perdition began reviewing the footage caught by the camera trap on the flex screen. The footage had revealed that a Regime party had traveled through the area several days ago. He pulled a small object from out of the camera, which was filled with a miniscule amount of a solution composed of synthetic proteins encoded with data of recorded footage. He pocketed the applicator.
Lore-Fiction scanned the horizon through his rifle scope for the slightest movement. Suddenly, a flash appeared on the horizon. A split second later Lore-Fiction’s scope shattered into pieces of shrapnel that lodged into Lore-Fiction’s right eye, shredding skin from his face. He recoiled in pain, and instinctively grabbed his face and shrieked.
As training kicked in, Hades-Perdition and Aqua-Deluge rushed to Lore-Fiction, and each grabbed one side of him and dragged him to cover behind the log that housed the camera trap. Lore-Fiction’s cry had given away the scout’s position.
Without the need of verbal communication, Hades-Perdition took the right flank and Aqua-Deluge the left, with the wounded lying in the middle protected by cover.
Hades-Perdition used his neural implant to ping Aqua-Deluge to open a line of communication. She accepted the invite and instantly they were sharing perceived data of the battlefield, positions of muzzle flashes, vital signs of the opposition, directions of attack from the flanks. They surmised that they were under attack by five.
An assailant was approaching the right flank of Hades-Perdition’s position while he fired his sub-machine gun. Hades-Perdition trained his sights on his opponent, took a deep breath and fired off a round, which struck the target in the forehead. The man promptly dropped like his strings had been cut. More rounds were fired down range and hit close to Hades-Perdition, churning soil around him. Hades-Perdition attempted to acquire a new target, looking for heat signatures on the horizon.
Aqua-Deluge broke open a morphine ration from her pack and shoved it into Lore-Fiction’s shoulder. He immediately went slack. She then trained the sights of her thermal vision scope on a hunched down heat signature of a man, moving from cover to cover roughly one hundred and fifty yards ahead of her position. She zeroed in on the figure. As soon as the heat signature’s head peered out she took the shot. Aqua-Deluge watched through the scope as white-hot pieces of head separate and fell out of view. The man stirred no longer.
The sound of gunfire paused as both camps attempted to probe for the position of the opposition. Aqua-Deluge and Hades-Perdition began to move forward crouched while searching through their scopes as they advanced. Aqua-Deluge took a few more steps just as she found another sign of opposition. The figure stood upright with his gun trained directly on her, but before he could pull the trigger Hades-Perdition shot him in his side below the right arm. Aqua-Deluge fired a short burst of three rounds which caught him; two in the chest and one in the head. The man dropped, lifeless.
Aqua-Deluge let loose another round at one of the remaining targets striking his weapon as it is dropped to the ground. The startled man turned tail and ran. The last target began to fire wildly as he panicked. Hades-Perdition scoped-in center mass and with a quick volley, which struck the target one after the other in a clean grouping, hollowing out his core.
Hades-Perdition dropped his primary weapon and set off at full sprint in pursuit of the remaining opponent that had fled the scene. His Olympian tier fitness became apparent as he traversed the obstacle course of uneven land and piles of rubble. Jumping over big rocks and scrub, he caught up to the fleeing figure.
“Halt!” Hades-Perdition yelled.
The figure stopped, turned around, and pulled a bayonet knife from its scabbard. “Come get it, you infidel piece of shit!” the man sneered. He approached Hades-Perdition in a methodical manner.
“Thank you, this is what I was waiting for,” Hades-Perdition stated, with a crooked smile plastered on his face. He reached behind him and grasped the hilt of the Claymore on his back. In one fluid motion, the Claymore was pulled from its scabbard and flipped around tip forward. The man with the bayonet knife charged Hades-Perdition with it in a dagger grip. Hades-Perdition drew his sword overhead, sidestepped the attack, then, brought his blade down on the base of the neck of his opponent. The blade found a gap in the armor, passed through the clavicle and embedded deep in the chest of the man, which left a gaping wound and a wellspring of blood spilling into the dirt. The man dropped to the ground mortally wounded. Hades-Perdition withdrew his sword.
The man was choking on his own blood but was still conscious. He was rapidly repeating what sounded to be a prayer with short breaths, “Lord in Heaven, and Reverend Wilhelm, deliver my soul to the Glorious Light…Lord in Heaven and Reverend Wilhelm deliver my soul to the Glorious Light.”
Hades-Perdition drew his sidearm and put an end to the man’s suffering. He noticed the man was wearing a familiar uniform with a patch on the shoulder. The patch depicted the seal of L.O.V.E. The seal consisted of a red heart shape overlaid with the negative space forming a cross. The acronym of L.O.V.E. was displayed over the top. Underneath that was a line that read “Law of Virtue Enforcement Rangers”. In some circles, the personnel was known as ‘Lovers’. Lovers were the elite scout units of L.O.V.E. Hades-Perdition took the bayonet knife that had belonged to the man and cut the L.O.V.E. patch away from the uniform and tucked away in his pack.
Aqua-Deluge caught up to the scene, slightly out of breath. “I reported that Lore-Fiction has been severely injured. He’s not going to last long out here. Did you learn anything?”
Hades-Perdition stood upright and turned to face her. “I didn’t really give him a chance to talk. However, he’s a ‘Lover’. They all are,” Hades-Perdition concluded.
“It figures. They were good,” Aqua-Deluge said.
They headed back to Lore-Fiction who was still laid against the log. He was muttering incoherently about something sexual. Aqua-Deluge checked on Lore-Fiction’s face, she pulled a first aid kit from her pack and selected a roll of gauze. She observed that there were two metal shards embedded in the right side of Lore-Fiction’s face and one lodged in his eye. Aqua-Deluge bunched up some gauze and pressed it around one of the pieces of metal, she grabbed the end of it and yanked a piece out of his facial tissue, applying pressure to the wound. Lore-Fiction yelled in pain then grumbled some profanity. She applied some disinfectant and taped gauze over the wound but could not treat his eye, lacking medical expertise. Both Hades-Perdition and Aqua-Deluge supported a side of their wounded comrade, to move on. They surmised that one of the Lovers probably summoned reinforcements and were probably en route.
The trio stumbled to the base of a hill and took cover behind a grove of trees. They waited there for most of the night. In the distance, they could hear the sounds of L.O.V.E. forces recovering the bodies of their dead. The sounds of patrols continued for hours, searchlights beamed across the horizon and the hum of vehicle motors tore through the silence of the night. At long last the L.O.V.E. forces were gone. The trio was able to relax for a time before their comrades located them for evacuation.
A pre-war Humvee was the cavalry that met the three scouts. Such an old vehicle provided less than a smooth ride back to their refuge. The trip took a couple of hours because of the condition of the roads leading back to the Mothball Fleet at the edge of the Great Lake. They unloaded Lore-Fiction and supported him from either side so that he could be taken to the water’s edge. The view that greeted them was that of hundreds of derelict ships moored in the Great Lake. Some—massive rusted-out hulks, others still in working condition. They were battleships, cruisers, destroyers, cargo ships, sealift ships, and myriad other types of vessels.
They approached a gangplank connecting to the side of a tug vessel and boarded, then they shoved-off en route to a row of larger battleships, bristling with massive gun turrets. The tug pulled up to the starboard side of one of the battleships and thick ropes linked the two. A rope ladder was lowered down to the tug as well as a stretcher that was secured to a pulley and winch system. Lore-Fiction was lifted onto the stretcher and raised to the deck. Aqua-Deluge and Hades-Perdition ascended the rope ladder. Lore-Fiction was whisked away into the bowels of the vessel to the infirmary. Hades-Perdition and Aqua-Deluge proceeded to the bridge. When they entered the bridge there was a man standing near the helm. He had long hair, shoulder length on the top of his head, but the sides and back were cropped to the skin, and jet black in color. He was wearing a white wife-beater and black fatigue pants. The wife-beater exposed tattoo sleeves on his arms and a portion of the tattoos that covered his back. He turned to meet the two of them as they entered the bridge.
“Ravine-Gulch, how are you? Hades-Perdition asked.
“It’s more appropriate for me to be asking you two. I heard you caught hell out there, and that Lore-Fiction is going to lose an eye. I arranged a search party as soon as I heard…” He trailed off.
“We pulled through. There’s not mu
ch you could have done without being there yourself. Lore-Fiction is a tough old fart—he’ll pull through. The Regime has stepped up its efforts to find us. They sent in L.O.V.E. Rangers—that is who tried to ambush our patrol,” Hades-Perdition recounted. He took a seat in one of the stations near the helm.
“Well, not good. We’ve had the occasional patrol out this way. They are far out of their normal operational area.” Ravine scratched his head and then took a seat at an adjacent station.
“They must have been on to us for quite some time. They waited until we had stopped before they attacked. It’s like they received information about our patrol route,” Aqua-Deluge added. She was staring out the window at the Great Lake.
“It wouldn’t be the first time that L.O.V.E. have infiltrated their targets. The Regime is getting desperate to stay in power. We’ll need to get in touch with our inside man to see if he knows anything. We can ask him today,” Hades-Perdition stated.
“Anyway, I just thought I’d let you two know that we were successful in procuring the new recruit. It was quite an operation, but we were able to pull it off,” Ravine said with a troubled look on his face.
“Ravine, that is great news—don’t you think? How are you feeling about it?” Aqua-Deluge asked. She put her hand on his shoulder.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know how I feel about it. I didn’t exactly leave on good terms, you know?” Ravine looked out the window as he spoke.
Aqua-Deluge maintained contact with Ravine. “Well, we will be right there with you when the time comes to face it,” she offered.
“Thanks, I appreciate it. Everything should work out,” Ravine responded.
“Has ‘Sam’ made contact yet? He said he needed to speak with the new recruit,” Aqua-Deluge asked.
“Yes, he is actually on standby. We were waiting for you. The recruit is in the infirmary. We should probably head down there now,” Ravine answered.