The Apostates

by Lars Teeney

  “Well, now that it’s clarified,” She said sarcastically, taking a drink to mask her wounded feelings.

  “What do you think our future holds? Like, what are we doing?” Gale had a general sense of uncertainty.

  “We’re going to save millions of people, and put a stop to whatever the fuck the Regime is planning during the B.A.G. We’ll probably be hunting down the Reverend to make him answer for his crimes.Then, we’ll link up with Graham and an organization called the Neo Railroad—they smuggle refugees overseas for a price. We’ve got quite a few goals, but we need to figure out what the hell happened to Graham. We’re handicapped without him.” Hades worried.

  “Hey, pour me another cider, will you, girl? Hades requested, handing her his pint glass. She did.

  “So, what are you going to do when this is all over?” Gale asked him with genuine curiosity.

  “Shit, that’s a loaded question. I have an old score to settle. Once that’s done, then it’s over for me. This goes beyond the Regime.” Hades looked serious; whatever he was referring to she thought she shouldn’t push the subject.

  “What about you? Are you and Ravine gonna try to salvage something?” Hades asked. Gale wore a sour look on her face.

  “Not sure I want to talk about him right now. I thought he was dead—didn’t figure I’d have posthumous relationship tussles,” Gale said dryly. She finished her warm vodka drink.

  “Fair enough. I feel you,” Hades said.

  Their conversation at the cantina lasted several hours and more than a few rounds. Gale asked him about Ranger stories, and she shared her experiences during her stint as a community peace officer and abusing her power to help Ravine sell ‘Base’. Hades had told her about his early days with the Apostates, members he knew who had lived and died, and about Regime and Church dirt. Gale had finally told him about the desperate situation she was left in after Ravine had flushed both their lives down the drain, and about how she committed suicide. She cried a bit, and he suggested they leave the cantina. The two walked outside onto the weather deck en route to the living quarters.

  As they passed by, Ravine and Blaze did not fail to notice them from their vantage point high up on the Conn tower of the Iowa. Ravine had walked up to the bulwark to watch them step through the hatch to the interior of the ship.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  “Control yourself, man! Don’t fucking do anything you’ll regret. You might be good, but let me assure you, Hades is better.” Blaze warned the now drunk Ravine.

  “I know, I know. But, isn’t he...?” Ravine was perplexed.

  “Yes, he is. So, you have nothing to worry about. Just two sisters having a good time,” Blaze reassured him.

  “Sit the fuck down and drink with me,” Blaze demanded. They were sharing a keg of ale, and quite enjoying it.

  “Shit, yeah, I should just enjoy myself and not think about it,” Ravine concluded.

  “What do you think I’ve been saying to you this whole time, you schmuck,” Blaze teased. She took a giant gulp from her stein. He followed suit.

  “So, you think she’s going to make it, doc?” Ravine inquired.

  “Unless someone intervenes, she should,” Blaze was certain because doubt didn’t help.

  ‘That’s good to hear.” Ravine poured some ale out onto the deck, “To Lore-Fiction, that rapist, rat fuck can burn in hell,” he growled.

  “Stop ruining the vibe. You did what you had to do. Just enjoy yourself,” Blaze scolded him.

  “Again, you’re right. I hope I did the right thing. Did Graham tell you that you had a special role in all this?” Ravine asked Blaze.

  “I guess. He did make me the resident physician,” Blaze said in confusion.

  “I’m mean, more than that. Did he tell you that you’d be the key to something?” Ravine was curious if his “destiny” was unique.

  “What do you mean? I don’t know. Are you really drunk?” Blaze asked him slightly annoyed.

  “No—forget it. It’s nothing.” It was something. Graham had reiterated that he would be the key to endgame.

  “Well, you sure are something special, Ravine-Gulch!” Blaze said sarcastically.

  “Why are you here? What was your story, Blaze?” Ravine suddenly had interest.

  “My story? You don’t want to hear that,” she tried to deflect the subject.

  ‘Yes, let’s hear it. C’mon,” Ravine encouraged.

  “There’s not much to say. I hail from Texas. I was a Regime physician at one of their Church-run clinics. There wasn’t much money in it. So, I was selling to the black market on the side: organs from the freshly deceased. I was caught and I fled. Graham found me somehow, and we faked my death. I went through an operation where he had me disconnected from the [Virtue-net]. I’ve been working for him ever since,” Blaze-Scorch recounted.

  “Do you have any family back there?” Ravine inquired, as he filled his stein again.

  “Not really—I had a boyfriend, sort of. Nothing really that I’d go back to,” Blaze confessed.

  Ravine raised his stein to her stein, and gestured for a toast, “To failed relationships, and burying the past.”

  “You certainly have a way of raising the spirits around here,” she said sarcastically. When the dented steins collided the sound was lackluster.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  Gale-Whirlwind looked around Hades-Perdition’s quarters. Among the drab, sparse metal walls were old, pre-war photos of the San Francisco Bay Area. They were black and white and appeared to beof mid-Twentieth Century in origin. One of the photos depicted lines of cars down Market Street. Off in the distance was the Ferry Building clock tower. Another photo displayed an aerial image of an intact Golden Gate Bridge. Gale recalled that when the fleet had set out to sea, they had passed under the partial structure of the bridge—the southern span having collapsed some time ago. Gale observed how alien the Old World seemed to be: the secular consumer society was just some abstract concept from the past. She noticed the sword rack on the wall, supporting Hades’s Claymore. She touched the hilt.

  “I have to ask you: why do you still carry that thing around when everyone uses guns? I mean I know you’re skillful with it,” Gale asked him, thinking it strange.

  “Well, I could say something that sounds cliché-like, and I wouldn’t be lying if I said that I feel that it’s a more civil way of settling disputes, but the real reason is that the sword was given to me by a person who had saved me during a dark period in my life. He showed me that devoting my life to an art form could give me purpose,” Hades said while leaning against his bunk.

  “That’s pretty poetic,” Gale said while running a finger down the edge of the sword’s scabbard.

  “I suppose so,” Hades said, looking over at Gale.

  “I never got to thank you for saving my ass at the rail depot, and for showing me the ropes.” Gale moved closer to Hades, as she played with one of his locks of hair.

  “No problem there, just thought you needed a little tutorial,” Hades said, looking up at her. She put an arm around him and drew close. Hades looked in her eyes. He knew the look of a predatory bird when he saw one.

  “Okay, you know I don’t really swing that way, right?” Hades asked in a low voice.

  “It doesn’t mean it has to get in the way of anything, matter of fact, even better,” she breathed heavily, pushing some dreads back behind his ear as she whispered into it.

  “Alright, we can do this. But, it’s gonna be my way.” With that, he wrapped his arms around her turning her backside toward him. He held her tight against him and caressed up and down her body. Gale let out approving gasps of air; he was doing something right. Hades kissed on the back of her neck and ear, and his hands drifted under her shirt, caressing and rubbing. Gale arched her back slightly and nudged her head against his. Hades slipped one hand down below her belt, slowly manipulating her to loosen up. He unbuckled her belt and unfastened her pants and pulled everything down below her knees, he then l
et himself loose from his garments. Holding her steadfastly, he entered her from behind and filled her as much as he could. He worked at her until she submitted to the recurrent and confident motions, the two climaxed. Gale and Hades spent the rest of the night partaking in activities that a straight woman and gay man did not normally do together.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  Blaze and Ravine were fairly intoxicated on the observation deck, which had been used to direct fire in times past. The two had put a dent in a keg of ale. The sky was clear that night, and the lack of light pollution on the open ocean meant that the stars were blazing bright. The two laid on their backs looking up at the constellations. Ravine made out Orion. The ship was moving at twenty knots so the night sky shifted slightly above them as the ship moved. The ship’s steel groaned and complained, as the ocean’s waters battered it. Ravine hadn’t known that Blaze could drink like she did. It had been a while since he actually had some genuine fun. As he lay there looking up at the sky, his mind wandered to the encrypted message that was sent to him by Graham. Graham had told him he had been taken into custody by the Regime and that he didn’t expect to live. He had also told Ravine not tell the rest of the Apostates, as he didn’t want to be a distraction to them—no rescue parties. Then, he had specified what Ravine would have to do once the Apostates reached New Megiddo City. Ravine found out the stakes of the endgame, but he was okay with that. He felt a semblance of freedom as he lay there.

  “Hey, you lug, give me some of that warmth.” Blaze snuggled up against him.

  “Alright, alright, take it easy.” She laid her head on his chest and he put an arm around her. That night they slept on the weather deck in the perfect, night air. The rhythm of the ship rolling on the waves made it quite easy to drift to sleep.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  The Southern California sun was beaming down on Ravine and Blaze as they lay on the weather deck. The sound of a sea bird’s call could be heard in the distance. It was a peaceful alarm clock to wake up to. Ravine pulled himself out from under Blaze, which woke her. He stood up and took stock of the view. Ravine could see the Apostate flotilla stretching back some miles to the horizon. Various smoke pillars rose into the clouds. He looked toward the shore and spotted some old skyscrapers. They used to be office space but had been converted to housing for the massive, sprawling ghetto that was Los Angeles. The fleet was coming upon the Port of Long Beach, what once was called Terminal Island and used to be a U.S. Navy facility. There was an artificial, protected harbor that been constructed during the hay day of the U.S., behind a breakwater were a group of ships, some military and some commercial in nature. Ravine wondered if these ships would be joining the fleet, and if their supposed allies were in control of the ships.

  “Hey, Blaze. Take a look at this. Long Beach, we made it.” Ravine pointed out the ships at port.

  “Ugh, I have a mean headache right now,” Blaze confessed. She cringed in the sunlight and struggled to catch a glimpse of the ships, “Wow, I’ve never been to L.A. before.” She looked up and down the coast and all she could see were ancient skyscrapers and city blocks of slums, stretching back to the hills farther inland. It seemed to Blaze that everything around had long been paved over. She had no desire set foot into these slums.

  “Well, I better go get a shower and check in on Aqua in the infirmary. I’ll catch you when we disembark. Thanks for the fun night, doll.” She picked up some belongings and headed off through a hatch.

  “Alright, Blaze, see you soon,” Ravine responded. Ravine decided he’d head to the bridge and check in with the captain. Each of the ships had been assigned someone to direct the ships, but the Apostate personnel were not organized like a militant organization. They were paid mercenaries, but the group was run more like a co-operative, than a military. The captains had an understanding that they worked for the core Group of Apostates. Before Graham had been captured he had transferred vast sums of capital to Apostate control for compensation of the large group of personnel.

  Ravine walked through the entrance hatch to the bridge. Captain Eldridge was instructing the communications foreman to try to raise the ships in the harbor. The foreman had attempted to make contact to no avail. Ravine stepped toward the Conn and the Captain turned to face Ravine.

  “Cheers, Ravine-Gulch. How is the morning treating you? As you can see we have made it,” The Captain reported, gesturing toward the silent port.

  “So, I take it no one has responded to your hails?” Ravine surmised.

  “Correct, no response. But, it’s understandable. If I saw an armada of ships descending on my position, I’d be cautious too,” the Captain judged.

  “Thanks, Cap’. We’ll get the Apostates together and check things out on foot,” Ravine informed. He turned around to leave the bridge. Ravine figured he would rouse the rest of the group. He figured everyone had been drinking since that’s all there was to do on a ship at sea. Ravine just hoped that everyone wasn’t in too bad of shape. He descended down the steep metal stairs into the bowels of the ship toward the living quarters.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  The mid-Twentieth century Charger blazed down the rugged and battered highway. It moved at its near limit, the motor roared, burning a trail over the fractured pavement. It was covered in dried mud and splatters of unlucky insects. The wipers had left a pattern from where dirt had been cleared away on the windshield. The Charger had passed through an old, abandoned town that, in times passed, had been called Bakersfield. The surrounding land was a wasteland of desert and tumbleweed.

  The Prelate Inoguchi was at the steering wheel, guiding her metal steed across the desert. There was no gripping the steering wheel at “ten and two” for the Prelate, as she had lost a hand in the fight with Ravine-Gulch. The wound had been cauterized with her plasma knife, and a rough stump remained where once a hand had grasped.

  Once the Prelate was ordained with a contract she would see it through to the end. Losing a hand would not deter her. She had a singular purpose that drove her to carry out the Lord’s retribution on the wicked, but now it was personal for her. Church leadership was hailing the Prelate. She answered the hail. She cursed under her breath, as now was not the best time for disturbance.

  “Prelate Inoguchi, the Lord’s tidings be upon you. How do you fair in the progress of your contract?” Cardinal Zhukov pushed for a progress report. He was short and to the point.

  “Cardinal, Pleased to hear from you,” She lied, “It is not really the best time for this discussion as I am at a crucial stage.” Inoguchi was audibly annoyed.

  “Prelate, we have paid good money, and one of the stipulations of your ordainment was that you provide regular briefings to the clergy. Now, we appreciate your punctual reports, they help the Church justify its budget to keep you on retainer—” the Cardinal was cut short by the Prelate.

  “Right now is not the best—” the Cardinal interrupted the Prelate.

  “Listen to me, Prelate. You must comply with Church directives or the leadership will have to review other options, such as—” The Cardinal was interrupted again.

  “Shut your fucking trap! I lost a hand to these Apostates, and if you say anything more about budgets and reports, the Lord as my witness, I will hunt you down and remove that vile worm you use to violate children and make you swallow it! I will get back to you.” The Prelate closed the channel. She pushed down on the gas pedal harder and the black Charger picked up speed. The rage she felt inside pushed new boundaries, as she felt like she could drive off a cliff to relieve the burning hatred in her skull. Inoguchi willed herself to calm down and reserve this homicidal drive for the enemies of her Lord.

  The Charger had passed through the mountains of “The Grapevine” and was entering the outskirts of the L.A. slums. Vast stretches of shanties and improvised structures were splayed out and faded off, into the smog. Everywhere, trails of smoke could be traced from the sky to its origin point, being used to cook dog and squirrel for hungry families. Ch
ildren climbed heaps of re-bar and broken cement. Burnt out car shells littered the streets. The suffering of millions was on display for the Prelate to see, but all she could think of was completing her mission.

  “Within weeks all of these peasants will be in the Lord’s presence. Then their suffering will be at an end.” Inoguchi consoled herself with this knowledge. So it was easy for her to ignore the day-to-day hardships of the lower classes. It was a tool that the clergy used to keep focus on the ultimate goal: the Return of the Lord. The old freeway had ended and merged onto the broken and bruised arteries of the slums, wrought with the congestion of motorbikes and carts attached to sickly animals. She swerved around them like a demon possessed. The Prelate spied a sign directing traffic to the port of Long Beach and followed its lead.

  ⍟ ⍟ ⍟

  Ravine-Gulch approached the bulkhead to Hades-Perdition’s quarters. He pounded on the door with a closed fist.

  “Hey, Hades! We’ve reached Long Beach! Up and at ‘em!” he yelled through the rusty metal door. No answer came. He pounded again and repeated his announcement.

  The latch on the door rotated from the inside and the creaky hatchway opened a crack.

  “Alright, just a minute. I’ll be coming out.” Hades had opened the door and looked disheveled. Ravine caught a glimpse inside the quarters. He spied Gale still passed out on the bunk. Ravine boiled up inside with rage and jealousy but kept himself in check. He had to promptly leave before he resorted to violence. When Hades looked back out the hatchway he could see that Ravine was gone. So, he shut the door.

  Ravine stormed up the metal stairwells toward the weather deck of the battleship. He questioned how Gale could sleep with another member of the group, and one that was gay at that. He couldn’t wrap his head around the act at all. She would not get a relationship out of it. Would Hades have even gotten pleasure out of the act, since he wasn’t attracted to women? The confusion made Ravine want to break inanimate objects. He had realized he needed to keep a clear head. He didn’t want to be careless when investigating the port.