Nwella closed her eyes. His strong arms held at the base of her spine as she arched her back and bridged her head into the sand; his body curled over hers. She then gripped him and dug her nails into the back of his arms. Nwella felt like she was in the waves as the motion between them created its rhythm. She indulged herself in what she wished had been an eternity. The surf washed around them, pushing, then pulling their locked bodies against the firm beach. The warm breeze slid between the few gaps of their intertwined forms. Nwella felt a heavy thud that vibrated through her torso, and she lifted her head.
Opening her eyes, she was blinded by hot liquid shooting in her face. She turned away, tried to see again, and everything was red through her burning eyes. She smelled blood and screamed. She pushed away, and the man’s severed head was lying next to her, eyes wide and staring. The stump of his neck was pumping blood on her chest and face, and her father was standing over them. Synster was dripping with blood, and one shoulder was laid open, flesh hanging off. He was white as lime, his chest heaving as though he was drowning, and he collapsed on top of them both. Nwella was pinned and squirmed out from under the two blood-soaked men…
“Nwella! Nwella! Have you been listening to a single thing I’ve said? You’ve got to stop with your childish action…”
“Stop!” Nwella screamed as loud as she could. “I’ve had enough of this.” Her memories of that day had finally become completely clear. Her resentment surfaced, and she lost control. “The Project is failing, and you know it!” she shrieked. “We’ll end up in The Bowels, and everyone who’s watched me act superior during the protocols will jeer at me and treat me with contempt. I will be a joke in their talk!” Nwella screamed at him, losing control with the eruption of a building rage.
“Nwella, you little deviant, you don’t have th…”
“No! You don’t have control over anything!” Nwella was feeling vicious and wanted to hurt him for what he’d done on the beach. “Even your wife goes to that human at the sparring ring!”
Synster first looked at her in surprise and disgust. Then he lashed out with a lightning-fast strike to her face. The impact sent her crashing into the viewer and onto the floor. Spittle erupted from his mouth, “You should never talk…!” Synster stopped. He realized what he’d done. He could lose everything from the consequences. He looked around nervously as if to check if anyone had seen. He realized the threshold shield wasn’t working properly and someone might have been able to see in.
It happened so fast that Nwella knew she’d been struck only after she’d hit the floor. Her sprawled figure lay still for a moment. Then she slowly rose to her feet. She knew what this meant. They were done. All her anger seemed gone. As only a Provenger can, she rejected all emotions in the process of dissociating herself from the dominion of her parents.
Nwella stood erect, stared Synster in the chest, and tried to control her quivering voice. “I am declaring Disinterest in this family. I will be moving myself to the Lofts when there is an available cell. I am older and none will see it as unreasonable.”
She’d said it. Synster couldn’t believe it. His wife with the sparring human, his daughter leaving him. His world was quickly crumbling.
Chapter 15
Back on EartH
The musty smell of the desert was the first sensation Rick had. Then a thin rain fought for the attention of his senses as he roused from the trauma of a strange day. The sun had just set in Ruin Canyon with just a dim glow in the west, and he woke with the feeling that he’d suffered a horrible nightmare. But he paid little attention to his desire for it to be a bad dream.
As he grew more aware, the light rain slowed to a stop and Rick sat upright. He looked at the tag on his wrist and he knew he was not crazy. Now, the tag looked like a wristwatch but Rick could tell what it was. They must have changed it. It felt the same on his flesh and he couldn’t find a way to take it off. Rick leaned back on a rock and wished again he’d just had a bad knock on the head. He hadn’t. He thought about the things he needed to do since agreeing to Synster’s deal. The issues flooded his mind, the assassinations, the threat to humanity, the danger to his world. Rick vomited a mixture of stomach bile and Provenger water down his chest.
This made him feel a little better in the stomach but left him even more depressed, feeling pitiful, covered in his own mess. He was surprised to find his pack on the ground to his right and pulled it to his lap. He unzipped it and removed a water bottle. He took a swig, swished it around in his mouth, and spat it out. He then pulled out a sweatshirt. Feeling as if he were drunk, he took off the jacket with the vomit and threw it to his left. He put on the sweatshirt and thought about shooting himself in the head. Then he remembered his gun had been destroyed by Synster. He felt remorse over his two favorite guns being destroyed. These would be the first things he’d ask for under their agreement. He’d ask for replacements and more.
Rick knew he wasn’t thinking clearly. He was angry and wanted his life back, the normal, boring life where he would work, then retire, then grow old while supporting his son, and eventually die an obscure detail in history. He didn’t want to be involved in anything but fading away. This beast Synster the Provenger has got to come back in my lifetime to harvest his meat, he thought. What are the chances?
Rick hadn’t realized he’d fallen asleep, waking to the sound of a man yelling at him. Some guy was leaning over him, had him by the shoulders, shaking him, and it was annoying.
“You okay? You okay? I was just across the wash and I couldn’t find you. I was zigzagging back and forth in the dark and eventually I found you from over there.” The man pointed somewhere into the dark. “I saw you when you were taken and waited all afternoon. I was about to leave when I saw a small light in about the same place where I saw you disappear. I came down as quick as I could. You okay?”
Rick looked at this man and after his eyes cleared, he realized it was Tony with the flat tire, the guy who was following him. Rick rubbed his eyes slowly and held the sides of his head. “What time is it?
“About nine, nine thirty,” responded Tony. “I saw the guy take you.”
“What day is it? Is it still Friday?”
“Yeah, it’s still Friday. Where the hell were you?”
Rick tried to stand but felt stiff and decided to sit for a while longer.
“Would you believe I was on a spaceship orbiting Saturn?”
“I don’t know what to believe, but after what I saw that guy do, and you still went over to him; you’ve got some kind of balls! What happened?”
Rick continued to rub the sides of his head with both hands, still wanting to believe he’d had a bad dream. Slowly Rick took his phone from his pocket, activated the camera app and looked at his recent pictures. His smiling face stared back at him from the screen, a “selfie” he had taken while holding his camera with his outstretched arm, alone in Synster’s office. The picture wasn’t bad. He was standing in front of a window, the planet Saturn in the background outside. “Yep.” He casually showed it to Tony and immediately remembered the tag on his wrist. Shit, he thought, I don’t really know what this thing does. It could be monitoring everything we say. If it knows the words that I’m thinking, well, I’m just screwed. The least I can do is try to prevent it from hearing us.
With this thought Rick quickly dug a shallow hole in the loose sand, stuck his wrist in, covered it, and then pulled a medium size rock over it. And there he lay on his side.
Rick was tired and had expected to die numerous times during the last eight hours. He thought about concocting some story for Tony but was just too exhausted. He knew he couldn’t pull it off. He needed to tell someone, to show the picture, to confirm for him that he was not insane, to believe him. Tony had already seen his abduction and was already talking about what happened. Rick caved to his weakness.
Rick put his finger to his lips. “Shhh. You’re going to think I’m insane. He took me to a ship,” pointing up to the sky, “orbiting Saturn, of c
ourse,” Rick said in a low-toned whisper, but slowly and clearly, “…told me all mankind is a feedlot to be harvested for them to eat, and he wants my help to do it.”
Tony looked at the picture. “I don’t know if you’re fuckin’ with me or not, but I know what I saw. That guy took down a mountain lion with his bare hands.”
“Knives actually.”
“Then he destroyed your guns and both of you disappeared in a circle of light. I’ve never seen anything like it. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t run off and tell anyone. No one would believe me. So I waited all afternoon ‘til now to try to find out what the hell was going on.”
Being with a fellow human again made Rick drop all pretenses. “Hey, why the fuck are you following me, anyway?”
“Where did you go? What’s going on?” Tony ignored Rick’s question.
“I already told you. They want to eat us.”
“Who wants to eat us?”
“The aliens who came here twelve thousand years ago. They started agriculture for us. Gave us grains so we’d be freed from hunting, so we could settle down, specialize and populate Earth, so they could have enough of us to eat!”
“Why don’t they just eat cows?”
Rick rolled his eyes and poked him hard in the chest with his free hand. “I asked the same thing! Apparently cows don’t explore and settle new places like we do.” Rick flopped his head back and sighed. “No ships…something about not being able to grasp a hammer with a hoof.”
Tony smiled. “Well, that makes sense.” There was a brief silence. Tony stared off into the desert. “I’m going to have to totally rethink my crusade against the NSA.”
“Yeah. That’s what I said,” Rick replied, poking Tony in the chest again. “Kind of.”
Rick started to feel a little vulnerable with his wrist buried in the sand and a rock over it, in an indefensible posture. He assumed Tony was a run-of-the-mill militia sort, but then realized he may have been there to do him harm. Or maybe he worked for Synster. Rick just wanted to be alone. If he couldn’t have that, then he just wanted another human he could trust. The need overwhelmed him. Tony already knew what was going on because he saw Synster take him, so Rick wasn’t telling him anything new. Rick figured that help from Tony was a possibility. Who else would he, alone, be able to convince of the whole alien story? No one. Besides, he was desperate, he was tired, and he wasn’t thinking clearly.
“Okay, I get it.” Rick started, wanting to define their new relationship before Tony made any confessions of a more sinister nature. “You’re an antigovernment type. And you’re following me because you figure I work for the government, and you want to know what I’m up to. Well, I’m not up to shit, other than wanting to retire sometime soon. So you can just forget about there being some evil government conspiracy against Joe Citizen. It just isn’t there. The government couldn’t find its thumb if it was up its own ass. We’ve got a real problem here, and I could use your help.”
Tony gave him a blank stare during his rant and without changing expression said, “Go on.”
“If you’ve got time to follow me all day long, you either don’t care about working a real job, or you’ve already got some resources socked away. Judging from the look of the truck you drive, the rifle on your back, your dandy outdoor gear and nice boots, I’d say money is not a particular problem. Would that be accurate?”
Tony nodded and said, “Well, we all tend to live up to our means.”
“So you’re well-funded and following me. I don’t know what you’re planning, but as you can see, we’ve got bigger fish to fry. Are you on statins by any chance?” Rick asked.
“What?
“Are you on statins?” Rick asked again.
Tony just stared.
“Well, you might want to start,” Rick said sarcastically. “I’m gonna forget your stance against me ‘cause I understand; I can’t stand the government either. Except for my day job, we’re probably on the same side.”
Tony’s blank stare continued.
“What’s your deal? What are you up to?” asked Rick. He held his gaze on Tony and waited for his answer.
Tony cracked easier than Rick would have thought. “I have a website under a different name.”
How amusing, Rick thought.
“I want you to know I support the Constitution and will fight to support it.”
“Me, too. Why were you following me?” Rick asked again.
“I advocate the disruption of government attempts to control our lives…communications, surveillance, healthcare. I have quite a following.”
“How do you make a living? Donations?”
“No, family money. But I served in the Army,” Tony replied, trying to legitimize himself.
“You live in Mancos, right?” Rick had already checked him out…knew his address, vehicles, and what his house cost.
“Yeah.”
“What kind of a network do you have? People, I mean. Can you contact some Army buddies and put together a squad of armed killers?”
“Maybe. What do you have in mind?” Tony was intrigued.
“I’m going to work to earn these assholes’ trust; meanwhile, you put your group together. If I can figure out how to get access to their ship and we have a group of committed people, we might be able to figure out a way to stop them. I know it sounds crazy. We’ll communicate through dead drops. It’ll help keep us from exposing each other. Do you know what that is?”
“Kind of, it’s when…”
“Shhh, find a book on tradecraft and read about it. It’ll even help you with your antigovernment work.” Rick gave him a quick smile and lowered his volume to be as quiet as he could and still make a sound. “The signal location will be the U.S. mailbox outside the Cortez Walmart, a piece of chewing gum on the south side. The drop area will be…”
Rick fished a pen out of his pocket and wrote the drop location on Tony’s hand. “Do you know where that is?”
Tony nodded.
“Under it,” Rick said. “Check Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 6pm. Follow the instructions you find. Good?”
“Yeah. How many of them are there?” Tony asked.
“Not sure.” Rick rolled over to his back and sprawled as if to rest, his tagged arm still in the sand under the rock. “The most I saw at any one time were hundreds; I think this guy said they were millions. But numbers aren’t the problem. It’s technology; they’re way ahead of us.” Rick took a long pause and let his mind wander. “But get this. Their women walk around with bare chests.”
Tony’s eyebrows went up. “Are you sure we really want to kill them?”
They both smiled and Rick replied, “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“What did you mean about taking statins? You mean the cholesterol drug?”
“Yeah. Apparently it makes our flesh bad. They don’t like the flavors or something. Synster, that’s the guy’s name, said that we’ve poisoned ourselves with medication and destroyed their product. Now this is the important part,” Rick realized, “they have to succeed, for a while, at least.”
“What?”
“Yeah, they have to succeed until we can plan something. If they don’t get their quotas covertly, then they will take over to make certain no one takes drugs so they can get our flesh clear. You know, we all live in gulags, concentration camps of the organic.”
“Why do they have to be covert at all? Why don’t they just take us?”
“This is a business for them. They don’t want the expense and problems of the war it would start…civil disruption, people killing each other…or the costs of guarding, feeding, and housing a confined and belligerent mass of condemned humanity. Do you have any idea how badly that kind of stress taints the meat?” Rick said in a grim tone.
“So how do we stop them?”
“I have no idea, but when I figure something out, I’ll let you know. Until then, I’ll work my end, and you work yours. Get as many men together as possible. Quality is better than quant
ity. We aren’t going to accomplish this by numbers.” Rick paused. “You can’t tell anyone. First off, no one would believe you, and you have no proof. Second, I think these guys can probably get access to anything on the internet, maybe even over the phone, so use the mail or talk in person.” Rick paused again. “No wait…tell them you’re training them for a variety of survival scenarios, something you could justify. Train for that and use whatever communication you normally would. But these guys have to be the type that when you get them together for the real thing, they won’t back down. Can you find those types?”
Primal Estate: The Candidate Species Page 17