The Age of Embers {Book 3): The Age of Reprisal

by Schow, Ryan

  Carver walked up slowly, looked around, saw eyes on him, not that he cared. When he looked down at the guy, he saw granola bar crumbs on his chin and mouth, then eyed that bar.

  It looked good.

  The guy’s eyes were closed, his breathing shallow, a crusty nest of hair and boogers in his right nostril. Slowly, carefully, he slipped the granola bar from the man’s hand, looked around like he’d just won something, then smiled and took a bite.

  The faces still watched him, but he was watching them back, and chewing.

  “You’re not crazy bro, you just don’t know, crackas like me need to grab a bite and go.”

  “Shut up,” he growled.

  But he had that rhyme. He went with it, spit his game, set his walk to the pace of the beat, then stopped when he saw Maria out in front of the school with a bunch of kids.

  This sobered him immediately.

  Maria somehow found a way to run the kids like a single unit. From what he could tell watching them through his binoculars, she had been very clear on how she wanted things done and that she would not tolerate insolence.

  He’d even watched her make examples out of a few of the kids.

  The way Carver watched Maria dispense of some of the riffraff along the journey that was leading them closer to downtown San Francisco for reasons unknown, he feared for the children.

  They’d fallen into line, though. They did as they were told.

  And as it was, it didn’t look like any of these six, seven or eight year old tots issued a word of complaint.

  “Amazing,” he thought.

  The crazy thing was, when they walked, Maria had them walking in a single file line, and though they weren’t belting out cadence as was often done in the military to coordinate a march, it was almost as if they were reciting lines aloud.

  When he took the chance and closed the distance, he thought he heard them telling the story of how when they met Maria she saved their lives and she was the kindest woman ever. It was like they were saying it to a rhythm.

  She was using the kids to insulate her for whatever group they encountered or she decided to infiltrate. Was she going to work her way up to the most powerful societal force? Was she going to be the Trojan Horse that delivered to the people a queen?

  He’d known enough about The Silver Queen when she was just AI in a quantum computer housed in a faraday cage/cooling unit. With the few discussions they had, it seemed she had her attention on world domination. Was it so far fetched for him to think that taking a body was part of the plan? In America, she destroyed God knows how much of the human population, the infrastructure, toppled the government, communications, a functional society.

  Perhaps that was Part A of the plan. Was she now moving toward a Part B?

  The way it was looking, there was enough food and water for people who knew how to survive, but precious resources were now being fought over. There were people lying dead in the street, no business to speak of, skies sometimes so gray from fires and entire neighborhoods burning it was hard to imagine the US was ever the bright and shining example of industry, innovation, technology and capitalism.

  Now it looked like the gates of hell had opened up and swallowed them all.

  The good news was, the granola bar he’d eaten brought some of his rational thinking back. He’d regained enough energy that he stopped passing the time by belting out stupid rap lyrics.

  For that alone, he was grateful.

  One of the consequences of his near starvation, however, was that he started to hate the sound of his own voice, even to the point where he began arguing with his own brain. He was hungry and pissed off and in need of rest.

  It took nearly two days of walking up Hwy 101 to reach the 92, which would take them to Half Moon Bay, but at that junction was where they ran into some serious issues. They stopped as a group, and by the look of it, Maria told the kids to either stay put, or stay close.

  Carver got a better position, shifted the binoculars, focused in on three cars and five men. They were blocking the road.

  When Maria started walking again, the kids started with her, keeping a bit of a distance, but not more than ten feet.

  They stopped the instant she signaled them.

  The twenty-something Hispanic beauty approached the men—guys who were leaning against a Dune Buggy, a four wheeler and an old lime green Gremlin. The Gremlin was a true hunk of crap, but being old, Carver wondered if they were able to modify it for post-EMP usage, or if they’d just pushed it in the road to create a barrier.

  He took inventory of the guys, then zoomed in on a girl inside the Gremlin. She wasn’t pretty, but she wasn’t clean either. And she looked harmless, chewing bubble gum and playing with her hair. The guys, however, did not look harmless. They looked predatory at best, filthy and malevolent at worst.

  Maria began a discourse that for a second looked a little tense, but then had a couple of the guys laughing. Then it got serious again, almost like negotiations were taking place, demands being made, payment being agreed upon.

  One guy said something, another chimed in and all of the sudden the guys were in stitches, belly laughing and jovial.

  “Didn’t see things going down like that,” he mumbled to himself. He expected more of a confrontation, but maybe Maria’s read wasn’t oriented towards coercion, force, or even death. Perhaps she’d found more diplomatic ways to solve problems like the one she faced.

  One of the guys then said something that looked like it might be a bit crass, brushed his chest, then pointed down at Maria’s chest. And just like that, Maria smacked this guy so hard his head shot sideways and a long string of saliva roped out of his mouth.

  “Oh, no…” he said.

  Two of the four scumbags on the Dune Buggy stood, almost like they wanted to see what their buddy would do, and would be there for him if this broad went off the rails for good.

  The man straightened up, his face full of rage. He tried to slap her back, but when she blocked his forearm, she did so with such force, the bones snapped, half his arm flopping over in a grotesque display that both horrified and scared everyone, including Carver.

  The man held his dangling arm up, looking at it like he could not believe what was happening. That’s when she moved in and struck his throat.

  One of the four went after her, the others holding back in fear. He understood their hesitation. Seeing her like this was what had kept him from trying to kill her.

  Maria adjusted position, her eyes on the man approaching. By virtue of her move, she put the dying, choking man between them, effectively slowing her attacker’s roll.

  The second he stepped around his friend, Maria moved in, kicked the guy’s knee sideways. He started to fall, but before he could even hit the ground, she whipped out her pistol and put two rounds in his head.

  The remaining three were a half second behind their dead friend, unable to contemplate the events unfolding, but unwilling to just stand by and watch.

  That’s when movement in the green Gremlin caught his attention. The otherwise harmless girl stood up through a huge makeshift sunroof with what looked like a fifty caliber rifle on a bi-pod.

  She didn’t aim for Maria, though. She had the weapon pointed at the children.

  Maria said something to the woman in the Gremlin, the verbal exchange brief. From the distance, Carver could hear her giving Maria orders. A longer exchange took place between them. It was killing him.

  If he could get to a closer location he could hear what they were saying…

  Then, lightning quick, Maria fired a shot, hit the next man—the one she deemed the biggest threat—and he crumpled over.

  Maria spoke to the girl in the Gremlin again, the threat real.

  The raggedy girl looked down at her dead friend in shock, then at the other guys Maria put down. And then she shifted the rifle just a hair and fired. One of the kids went down hard, the back of her head an explosive wash of gore.

  The breath fell out of Carver
as he sat there stunned, unable to comprehend this kind of violence on a child.

  Maria seemed to freeze, too.

  Just for a second.

  That’s when a burst of gunfire cut through the silence, the horror, and the girl in the Gremlin, along with her two remaining buddies. These scumbags shook and danced as a barrage of rounds riddled their bodies.

  What the hell? he thought. Who’s shooting?

  All the kids immediately dropped down, turtle-shelling themselves, almost as if they’d been taught the move should they come under heavy fire.

  The only person who didn’t move was Maria. She simply stood there, looking at the dead child.

  Two men and a woman emerged from wherever they were hiding, watching. They went to the child. They had guns with barrels that were still smoking from the attack.

  The point man was a bigger guy with a beard. He carried his gun like he was either active or ex-military. His friend was skinnier, his black hair curly and long, like he was a surfer, or a skater. And the girl…she was a brunette, attractive, but looking a little too skinny, like she’d been through some hard times and went a day or two without food.

  As he watched Maria respond to the child’s death, he wasn’t sure which shocked him more, the child being shot or Maria’s reaction. She fell to her knees in front of the fallen child, crying, while the other children stood around the body.

  To his utter amazement, Maria reached for the dead child’s hand, almost like it might bite, almost as if touching it would somehow, irrevocably change her, and then she took it, gave it a light squeeze.

  The gesture was so human, so unexpected.

  The thin looking brunette and the guy with the longer curly hair, they were on their knees before the girl as well, holding back emotions of their own.

  The girl whose parents she killed, the little girl who’d asked if she could come with Carver, she went to Maria, took the woman’s hand into her own. Maria looked up at the child, smiled. Then she did something so tender, so loving, so human, Carver began to wonder if what Maria’s head held was not AI and not The Silver Queen, but something else entirely. Maria brushed her hair out of her face, almost lovingly, like a parent. The stolen child didn’t look away once.

  Carver couldn’t watch anymore.

  This was debilitating to his soul, confusing as anything to his mind, and posing more questions than ever. When he looked up next, he saw the bearded guy and the curly haired guy arguing.

  He thought he heard the curly haired guy call his friend Marcus.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Brooklyn wasn’t sure how to take Draven. He was an enigma. Strong and confident in some things while insecure in others, able to hold her eye and smile, but also willing to be assertive and a bit commanding with her as well.

  She shouldn’t have admitted to thinking he was cute. And she sure shouldn’t have said she liked girls.

  She didn’t.

  It’s just, girls at school who said things like that seemed to drive guys her age crazy, but in a good way. Draven was not her age. He was closer to thirty than he was twenty. And he’d rebuffed her for her efforts.

  Just as she promised, Brooklyn found Eudora, told her what happened with Draven, then said “He’s going to infiltrate them.”

  Eudora’s response was pain-filled, but resolute. “If he said he can do it, then he can do it,” was her reply.

  “He seems capable,” Brooklyn said.

  “I trust him.”

  “Are you okay?” Brooklyn asked the older woman.

  Eudora extended an arm, made and unmade a fist, then said, “I am, thank you. I was just thinking this old ticker’s been giving me a spot of pain lately.”

  “I can find someone if you want,” Brooklyn said. “Or I can do something for you, if you need it.”

  “No, sweetie. I’m good. Probably just the nerves.”

  “My mom says stress is the number one killer of people. She told me this when she used to worry about my dad.”

  “My husband stressed me out when we lived in California,” she said with the kind of smile old memories sometimes elicit. “His death stressed me out, too. I used to think this heart of mine was encased in lead, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “You’re old, Eudora,” Brooklyn said. “That has to count for something, right.”

  She gave a genial smile and said, “I think it counts for all the wear and tear in this body.”

  Brooklyn reached for her hand, took it and said, “What hurts most?”

  “Everything.” she replied.

  “Seriously?”

  “Mostly my lower back,” Eudora said, giving in.

  Brooklyn leaned her forward, warmed her hands, then started to massage her lower back. She worked her way up to Eudora’s shoulders and neck, channeling all her energy down through her body, letting it pool in her arms and hands, then radiate out into the woman’s back.

  “Wow,” she said. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “My mother used to cry when my dad was gone. She cried a lot. I didn’t want her to be so sad, or later so stressed out. So I started to rub her hands and feet, then her back and shoulders. She said it helped.”

  Moving around the front of the woman and her wheelchair, Brooklyn took Eudora’s right hand and started to slowly massage it.

  The woman sighed, almost like no one had ever done such a thing for her before.

  “My mom had colitis once,” Brooklyn said. “It was like her body bowed over and she couldn’t understand why she couldn’t stand up straight. The doctor said when the body goes under that much stress, your colon starts to spasm. This affects all the other organs, making your body feel like it’s folding itself in half. She was severely hunched over when we took her to the emergency room.”

  “When was this?” Eudora asked.

  “A few months back,” she said. “That’s why I started giving her massages. To keep the stress at bay. That’s also why she stopped being sad that my father was gone all the time. She knew if she kept missing him, she’d end up at the hospital again.”

  When she was done, Brooklyn said, “Do you want me to massage your feet?”

  “If I had sensation in my legs, that would be wonderful,” Eudora told her. “But as it is, I couldn’t feel a thing if you did.”

  A little later on, when her father asked Brooklyn about Draven, she said, “We found the people who attacked us.”

  “Who did?”

  “Draven and I. One of the guys whose ear Draven half shot off, he was there. That’s how we knew we had the right group.”

  “Where is he?” her father asked, tension piling into his voice. Her uncle Ice was suddenly there, too. As was Eliana. That was big news and she was suddenly the center of attention for having it.

  “He said he’s infiltrating the group,” Brooklyn told them.

  “He what?” Eliana said.

  Brooklyn nodded.

  All three of them looked at each other, Brooklyn trying to get a feel for how this would go down, if they would try to help Draven or if they would trust him.

  She never stopped to think he wouldn’t be okay, but looking at the three of them, she began to wonder if she hadn’t been naïve.

  “He seemed confident he could do this,” she explained. “He’s a hacker, so he knows stealth. He said this would be a social hack.”

  “If he gets caught, they could use him against us,” Eliana said.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Ice said.

  “Eudora says she trusts him,” Brooklyn told them. “She said he could do it. I guess he can shoot and fight.”

  “You want to see how this plays out?” her father said, looking at the others.

  “At least we have eyes on them now,” Ice replied. Looking at Eliana, he said, “Do you want to run backup with me? We can keep an eye on him from a distance?”

  “He’s not who you think he is,” Eliana said, solemn.

  “What do you mean?” Brooklyn aske
d.

  “I underestimated him when I first saw him, but I…I think he’s capable. He has that look in his eye. It’s the same look my father sometimes got.”

  Her father and Ice appeared to relax a bit, giving affirmative nods. Xavier suddenly popped his head out from under the hood of the bus where he was working and called to one of us.

  “Will someone please give this thing a turn?”

  “I got it,” her father said.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  In the next two days, in between long bouts of worrying about Draven, and thinking maybe she had a crush on him, Brooklyn helped the others gather critical supplies. These were necessities for themselves for the journey ahead, but they were also gathering what they could for those staying behind.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about Draven, Eudora, the three boys and Morgan.

  In the end, would they all stay together, or was her father right? Would some of them be unwilling or unable to leave their homes?

  Regardless, for the first time in a long time, she felt like she was a part of something bigger than just herself, her mother and the few friends she’d had at school. This made her work harder, and it gave her a new level of focus. It also distracted her from thinking about the bad things that had happened to her in those last few weeks.

  When she thought of what the boys from school did to her, she also thought about how her father had hurt them. How they’d been torn to shreds by drone fire. How Eric had been killed on their porch. When she thought about the stupid things boys could do, she couldn’t help but also think about men and how awful they could be.

  The boys only wanted to see her body, maybe touch her. But Diaab Buhari wanted to turn her into a prostitute. She understood Buhari trafficked children to Africa. She also knew that was his plan for her, Orlando and Veronica. To sell them off as sex slaves.

  She tried not to let herself think of what they had almost been subjected to, for thinking like that would take a toll on her. Sometimes she couldn’t help it. Sometimes she just laid in bed at night, scared, shaking, wondering how all of this was even happening.