by Jim Rudnick
The dollies held big bins to carry something, and he strode over to look within one of those bins. The bin carried some of those retail food packs he’d not seen in years.
In about ten minutes, the six inside the Motor Pool came back, and each had something to offer. What he gathered was that almost all the trucks the group had tried to start had started—well, almost all of them.
One or two didn’t start. But a dozen had started up fine. Of those dozen, five had been army trucks, more suited to carry soldiers in the back. Seven had been bigger and longer and could carry heavy loads, they’d figured. Float trucks someone had called them, but he didn’t know what that meant.
He said, “Show me,” and off they all walked.
Two of them were not right, he thought. They looked like they had some specialized kind of infrastructure on the decks of the back end to carry special equipment. He did try to see if such steel extras might be disassembled, but it didn’t look like it to him. Three more looked right but were too short, he thought.
That left them with two prime candidates. Each was powered by a huge cab-over front end. The decks behind those drive units were wide and seemed to be just a flat bed of steel rails. Exactly the kind of thing we need to carry stones, he thought and grinned at the group.
“Bingo again and well done,” he said, and then he handed off the job of getting those two trucks out of the Motor Pool building and out front.
He went back out to the floater and gave instructions to the pilot and co-pilot to move the floater to take on the two trucks, and he knew, after pacing off the length of those two, that they’d all fit just fine.
It took almost another hour to gently float the U-3 into a space where the huge rear doors could be lowered and then to drive on the two trucks. He was glad the support crew had been smart enough to bring along the needed tie-downs and stanchions to help firm up the trucks on the ship.
He watched as they worked. His number two came and asked if he wanted to walk down to look over the zombies. He didn’t bother, but he did send a few of their armed mission members to do just that, and he asked them to gather anything they had and bring it back.
He also took a few minutes to go and get his tablet and take it into the floater’s hold. He positioned himself in front of them both as he recorded his report about being successful and that they were on their way back to Empire City within an hour. He knew he couldn’t sound smug, but he did thank the members of his team and the U-3 crew to the prime disciple.
They were loaded. All members were back on board the floater. The pilot said if they could get at least half of their top speed with the newly loaded trucks, they’d be home in about ten days.
He smiled. God was good, he thought. Very, very good …
CHAPTER SIX
Bixby was acting funny, Javor thought. Sometimes when he was spooked, he’d walk with stiff legs, like he was now, but it wasn’t the same as before. Every once in a while, he’d look to the left, stiff-leg walk, and then be okay for a few hundred yards. He’d look to the right occasionally, do the same stiff-leg walk, and then let it pass.
Javor had called a halt twice—he was on point—but each time he’d walked toward where Bixby was looking and found nothing. So they hiked once again.
If they could count on the general feeling of how far they had come based on the landmarks they’d met up with, according to the map, they were right on top of the Forest Empire city. But ahead was only more boreal forest, pines, spruces, and firs as far as one could see. Not, Javor thought, that that was far. The trees here grew so close it was like trying to walk through a solid bank of trees.
They pushed through the heavier spruces with a forearm braced across their faces and gave enough room in between to allow the branches to snap back before the next hiker went through. Pines were easier as they grew taller and their branches all started above their heads. Firs were much like the pines, Javor noted, and that at least got him some relief, as it appeared they were now in a huge patch of firs.
Bixby trotted alongside him, no weird behaviors, so that too was good.
He thought that all was well and that since this morning, they’d covered at least ten more miles and lunch was long overdue.
He found a small pocket of dead firs with some blow-downs on the needle-covered red ground, and he called a halt.
It took almost a full minute for them all to catch up, and he said, “Lunch?” and that got nods.
Doffing his pack, he laid his shotgun down beside it and then dug in for the kibble for Bixby. He put a good healthy handful into a pile on the needles and looked for the dog. Bixby was nowhere to be found, and so he whistled.
Instead of the dog bounding out of the firs around him, a dozen black-robed disciples stepped out of the firs, bows drawn on them all.
Javor said, “We’ve got company” as he slowly stood up and looked at the figures around him.
Sue and Bruce froze. Jon and his crew wheeled and went to pick up their arms. The bowmen stepped forward to warn them off. Wayne was still digging in his pack, and he said, “Company … what, we got bears here, do we?” When he finally looked up and saw the robed figures, his voice died away.
One of the robed figures, not carrying a bow that pointed an arrow at them, stepped out from behind the others and came to stand in front of Javor.
“I welcome you to the Forest Empire, and you must pardon our Shieldsmen who have you at a disadvantage,” he said, and he gave a small bow to them all.
The man who spoke looked to be about six feet tall and had a slight beard indicating he’d not shaved today. He wore the same robe they all wore, and he had a medallion on his chest of a triangle over top of a circle in what looked like gold perhaps.
The one in charge, Javor thought, so he stepped forward to meet their captors, but Sue held him back and moved in front of him to speak for their group.
“I am Sue, and we are from the Regime—from Arlington, well south of here. We are seeking the city of the Forest Empire to discuss a matter of great importance with the prime disciple.”
The black-robed leader nodded. He said, “Un-draw,” and the whole group of archers around him backed off their drawn arrows.
Things got a lot more civil, Javor thought, with that simple action.
“We can help you as we are one of the Shieldsmen teams charged with the duty to protect Empire City,” he said as he pointed just off to the left, “which lies less than a mile in that direction.”
How he could know that when there were no landmarks other than the green branches of the thick forest around them was a skill that would be a great one to have, Javor thought.
Sue smiled politely at the leader in his black robes and said, “Then let’s get to the city as soon as possible so we can meet with the prime disciple.” She half-turned to pick up her pack once more.
“For your own safety, we would need to disarm you, you would need to realize that,” the leader said, and things once more got rather uncivil in the clearing in the firs.
Sue nodded, and slowly picking up her rifle by the barrel, she handed it to the closest archer to her. She was careful, Javor thought, to move her pack out of the way, though that made no sense to him.
The rest of the group then followed her lead, and while it took two of them to gather up and hold all the long guns, Javor noted he was still armed with his Colt. He assumed that others still had handguns in their control.
In a line, led by the leader of their captors, the entire group followed, and Javor noted that Bixby was back from wherever he’d gone. Bixby was friendly with members of the Forest Empire, it appeared, but had been trying earlier to let him know they were being tracked and followed too. Good to know and remember, he thought, and he mentally checked that box off too, like all good explorers would have. Not much of a human explorer anymore, but I’m determined to do better on a planetary scale. At least try, he thought.
The firs were still in the majority around them as they walked. Th
ey crossed a small brook that was only knee deep, but he noted it had some good size fish. He tried to kick one and almost got it, and one of the archers said, “Farmed trout … we run the whole stream with caged entries and harvesting too,” and he smiled at Javor. Fellow angler, he thought, and that made him feel like he wasn’t so much of a captive.
After just a bit more than a mile, they came through a heavy patch of spruce, and the coniferous trees that had blocked them from seeing for many miles parted ahead. And there lay the Forest Empire city.
Small low buildings that looked like they were all built at the same time was the first thing that he saw. The buildings were in neat rows, all laid out in surveys, around the center of the city. Taller buildings were downtown, which were probably commercial in nature though he couldn’t yet rule out some kind of industrial use too.
The main street led from just off to their right. In a perfect straight line, the road headed toward a pyramid being built. At the end of the main street, the pyramid lay in its shiny white glory. It was about four stories tall right now, he thought, and a ramp rotated around the whole structure. Even from here, he could see lines of slaves moving—pulling, it appeared—massive shaped blocks of more granite up those ramps. On one side, he saw what looked like a parking lot for stones that were quarried and not yet going up the ramp. And then he saw a truck.
It was coming down a small hill on the road, if it could be called that, and on it were six stones of great size. The truck was a cab-over, and behind it was a trailer that was only four feet above the road—a float trailer if he could count on his memory from years ago. Riding on the trailer, alongside the stones, even sitting on some, was a whole pack of slaves too, whose job, he thought, might be the manhandling of those stones off the trailer when it reached the stone parking area.
The robed leader let them just stand and watch for a moment too. As they all stared, Sue pointed past the pyramid itself and said, “What is that structure?” and Javor thought that, like him, she’d been able to figure out most of what she saw too.
She was pointing at what looked like some kind of an outdoor stadium or arena. There were some bleachers made of wood being erected on both sides. Long straight rows of seating went up at least now as high as the unfinished pyramid. Seating, he thought as he’d been inside that kind of stadium many, many times over his decathlon career, which would hold at least six or seven thousand fans. The question was fans of what, and while that was not so important, he too wondered.
“That will be, when it’s complete, our Equinox Games stadium. You can’t really see it well from this far out of town, but it’s where the Games will be run, where we give slaves the chance to escape. Or not,” the leader said as he turned away from the group and led them all down and into Empire City. “Once we arrive, you will be allowed to rest and cleanup, of course, before your audience with the prime disciple at tonight’s welcome dinner … so I’ve been told …”
#####
The smart zombie who was in charge of the base, Rita, leaned over and slapped her hand down on top of the pile of papers on the table. She obviously wanted to say something, but she just glared at the rest of them around the table.
Only ten days ago, there had been an event here on the Walkerville Army Base that had been poorly handled, and she wanted the guilty ones to step forward and admit that they had made a mess of an opportunity. But not one at the table spoke up, and her hand slapping the table only made them jerk up a bit in their chairs.
“Okay, let’s see if I can re-cap where we are—and who’s to blame here. About ten days ago, a blimp of some kind, black you all agree at least, appeared above the base. I was away meeting with the group that runs things over in Maxwell, and I didn’t get back ‘til this morning to learn what you have all done. Or some of you. Or one of you …” she spat her words out.
More than upset, she also had five smart zombie corpses on her hands, which was the real issue today.
“Someone saw the blimp and walked outside to look up. Someone forgot that anyone and everyone can be an enemy of ours, and that someone is sitting at the table, I take it. Someone just had those five, and perhaps some of you just stood there and let the blimp float over the base and take two trucks out of the Motor Pool, I understand,” she finished up and looked once again around the table.
That did get some nods.
One of the zombies present named Barb said loudly, “We were all so surprised that we just went out to see what the noise was—the engines of that blimp were loud. The blimp made a small circle, and then it shot at us—and we all ran but some not as fast as others,” she said.
That got nods from all at the table.
“So let me see if I understand this. We are the smart zombies here on Ceti4. We are the ones who, yes, were affected by the Boathi virus bombs, but we did not die, and we did not only partially recover like the dumb zombies. In fact, the only difference between us and those who were not affected at all by the Boathi virus is that we eat flesh only. Our brains supposedly were not changed at all. So that means that you all—every single one of you—forgot that we have enemies, and you went out onto the street to be a target. I’d call that dumb …” she said, and she glared at them all once again.
Barb said, “They’re terrible shots—they had like a dozen of us and got only five …”
Again, heads around the table nodded, and again, Rita slapped the table, and they all jerked once more.
“Thank God for that … you idiots. I should put you all out in the barracks with our bitten cousins … as I doubt there’s much brain power at the table,” she said as she rose and went over to the window in the low, one-story building.
She looked across the base street to the rows of barracks on the other side of the street. There, in the first three of the buildings, their dumb zombie cousins were being held for delivery to other jurisdictions. The army base was used to hold dumb zombies, gathered by their smarter cousins, and then once bitten, they were taught to use language and arms again. Once trained, they were sent with a smarter cousin to new towns and cities. It was a chore, she knew, to try to even train these zombies to be smarter, but it could be done, and all it appeared to take was time. And effort. And more time.
She turned back to the table and stood behind her chair looking at her charges at the table.
“The Motor Pool and its cache of trucks is no longer a secret. We must protect it from all further incursions, and we must be forceful too. I want there to be new security details out at the base entry points, at the Motor Pool doors, up on the roof of the Motor Pool as well. Plus, we do have two guard towers, and I want them manned all three shifts every single day from today and on wards.”
Barb partly raised her hand to question her, and Rita nodded to her.
“Would I be correct to think that each of these new security details would be manned by our own bitten zombies—plus at least one of us too?” Barb asked.
She had done the math—will have to watch that one, Rita thought and realized they just didn’t have enough smart zombies to watch their bitten cousins. Not nearly enough.
Rita nodded to her. “Yes, you’re correct, Barb. We’ll all have to pitch in while I get more help from our communities and more personnel. ‘Til then, it’s up to us. But not a single truck will leave this base. That’s a fact. Get to it,” she said, and the remaining smart zombies on the base rose and left hurriedly to get the new security details up and running.
Rita had other tasks however. They’d always known the trucks inside the Motor Pool building were there because the government had used them to hoard as much food items as could be trucked to the base in those days during the bombardments just after the Boathi attacks. The food items brought had been much more than whatever storage areas lay behind the huge closed doors inside the building, and it had been left in hundreds of dollies at first.
Someone, maybe via some kind of gossip, had made the Motor Pool a target for local tribes, however, and usually o
nce or twice a year, groups of tribesmen and women stormed the base and made off with the contents of a few dollies.
No big losses, Rita thought, but someone involved in those raids might put two and two together and realize that the rows of doors inside the building held more food. So far, no attempts had been made to pry open the doors—there were some small marks on one of the doors and a crowbar had been left on the floor … but no entry had been made.
If they knew those doors were controlled from the console over in the guard shack at the entry point to the base, it might have been different. If zombies could eat what was inside might be different too, but the food items being held there are of no value to us … but we do have some chips to play with the normals—those Ceti4 citizens who were unaffected by the Boathi virus.
We protect the Motor Pool. I’ll send out a pickup truck with a couple of bitten cousins and Barb to gather some new smarts, and we’ll get by…
#####
Vera came down the final flight of stairs into the sub-basement of the big Regime Armories building and turned to her right to go toward the armory itself. She’d been summoned and it had been a summons that meant there was a problem with the new team.
She strode down the hallway and then turned to her left to go into the huge room, loaded with all kinds of weapons. It was one of the real strengths of the Regime, in that they had inherited the whole city of Arlington, and it had a large armories building stocked with just about everything one might need to govern—by force, that was.
She almost grinned at that, and she was happy that such a task was hers to help govern.
At the doorway, Gemma and Nixon of the Circle group that ran the Regime awaited her.
Gemma nodded and spoke first. “We’re getting some real feedback—negative feedback—from some of the team members, Vera. Thought you might like to listen in and offer up some arguments that counteract their POV,” she said quietly.