Erika cringed as she heard him take the Lord’s name in vain. Her mother would have smacked her across the face for that.
“With the oil shortages, the landowners need hands and people need homes. It’s a win- win situation. The landowners adopt refugees; together they grow food; a certain portion of the harvest goes to feed the refugees in the camps; it works,” Mathew finished, as if it was all such a black and white process.
“For who? Certainly not me. If we’re not slaves, then why can’t my children have children?” Erika spat these words hatefully at him. “You ‘fix’ all the refugees at thirteen. Where is the freedom there? Are landowners even limited to the amount of children they can have? No!” Her face was fiery red with anger and the veins on her hands bulged as she gripped the chair he had made her sit in. This had been the reason she had agreed to raise up in arms against her captives. This had been the reason for her family’s imprisonment, and it was not something she was going to just forget. She had another son to think of. A son who hadn’t yet reached the age of thirteen.
“That’s just how it is! Accept it!” Mathew spat back, completely discouraged by her inability to conform even after all the years that had gone by and the consequences he had rendered against her and her family.
“No,” Erika retorted defiantly.
“Look, we have too many people and the land is gone, Erika. You have to understand. You should have seen Texas after the quakes, all the refinery fires and chemicals spilling everywhere…” He was speaking now as if to himself and his eyes glossed over like he was looking into some nightmare he had lived nine years ago. “Thousands died in the streets, millions were left without homes, and we had to do something. There were just too many, and the people who were lucky enough to survive with their land had to put it to use for the good of all the survivors.” Mathew finished with a deep, painful look in his eyes. “FEMA has always had a fallback plan. You must have known that.”
“You forget, Mathew, I made it out of California. I left that place even though your awesome government shut the borders and didn’t tell anyone what was going on. You instituted radio silence and sentenced all those people to death. When I barely escaped with my life, I thought I was entering a brave new world of freedom but I walked right into the arms of soldiers I thought were there to protect me. We were rounded up at gunpoint like cattle. They took my horses, and God knows what happened to my dog. They told us we were going to live at this ‘happy’ camp where we would be cared for until the country was stabilized.” Erika’s eyes were filled with tears. “Well, we’re still here and your system sucks! And this place sucks!”
Erika was done with this conversation. Nothing was going to come from it. She felt the pain Mathew had lived; she knew his excuses for defending the ‘system,’ but in her mind there was no excuse. There was no excuse for the way their family had been treated for the sin of surviving. There was no excuse for what they were doing to all these people, and there was definitely no excuse for what they were doing to these children. “So…why don’t you just dole out the punishment for our family being so ‘disobedient’ to the mighty landlord and let’s be done with this.” She glared spitefully at him ready to face anything he could dish out.
Mathew sat down in his chair, shaking his head back and forth in disgust. He pondered this fireball in front of him. He couldn’t understand why she just couldn’t accept this new system. So many others had.
“You know,” he said softly, “I had nothing to do with California.”
“But you knew, didn’t you? You had a big government job then as well. You may not have been in charge of the decisions, but you knew and you did nothing.” Erika was fiercely bitter over this topic.
“Look, I need to talk with your husband. He will probably be on the water line for a while instead of in his precious gardens, but you guys need to conform.” His eyes gleamed directly at her. “I can’t have you training and teaching your martial arts and self-defense techniques to refugees. That will just create unrest. We need order, and I need my refugees ready to accept any work they can get. By God, Erika, if I find out you are doing it again, you will pray you were in that hotbox in the warehouse.” Mathew finished.
“Your refugees? Really?” Erika was so annoyed.
“Erika, I am fucking serious.” Mathew looked away in complete frustration.
“All right, whatever,” Erika replied, unwilling to find out just how serious he was.
CHAPTER 5
DEEP DOWN, SHE kind of understood why this had been the government’s solution to such a huge problem. The world was a very different place now. Erika glanced over at the map that hung on Mathew’s wall. All that remained of California were islands that used to be the old coastal mountain range. The states of Oregon and Washington had been cut in half by the rise of new Pacific Ocean coastline. The water had inundated the New England states and cut the states on the Atlantic coast in half as well. The water had surged up the Mississippi River, devouring Louisiana and expanding its width into all the neighboring states, straight up to Lake Michigan. The land on the new East Coast was one big island now, made up of the Appalachian Mountains and its foothills. It was wedged in between the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Mississippi to the west and the Great Lakes to the north. The Great Lakes themselves had swelled out of control and turned the state of Michigan into a little-bitty point sticking out of the water. Erika stared at the point and thought of all the friends and family she had that lived there, before. She prayed daily for their safety. Hopefully they were in some refugee camp raising hell as well.
Mathew watched her staring at the map and followed carefully where her eyes went. He had to find out what made this woman tick if he was ever going to get her to behave. “You can go and send your husband in.” He shot his words at her like a dart and then watched her gaze snap back to him. Mathew was done with her as well. They had this argument far too often, and neither side was going to budge. He would need time to stir over what kind of example he wanted to make out of her.
Erika walked down the hall looking at the pictures that hung there. The Statue of Liberty adorned one frame that was hung next to a picture of old New York. The other side of the wall was lined with photos of all of the monuments that were lost in Washington, D.C. They were haunting images of yesterday’s world. She finally reached the door. As she walked through she looked at Vince with her eyes full of love, “It’s your turn in the principal’s office,” she jested.
“I can hardly wait,” he teased back. “You didn’t fire him up too much, did you?”
“Who, me? Oh no, I was a good girl,” she replied with a sly look in her eyes.
“Well, here goes nothing,” he said, giving her a kiss as he left through the door.
Erika had plenty of time to think while she sat waiting for Vince. She thought back to the times before all this mess began. Life had been so simple in their tiny house nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Dexter was so young and full of wonder before a life of survival and containment had dampened his spirits. She remembered his blond hair bouncing in the California sun. Now it had turned to brown, like his mother and father’s. They had worked hard then to earn a little money to enjoy the extra things in life, like going to concerts or amusement parks. Now they just worked hard to keep the landlord overseers off their backs. She remembered how fast time had passed when you had some kind of electronic device buzzing in your hand. Whether you were playing a game, surfing the Net or catching up with your friends on Facebook. She wondered if these things still existed somewhere outside of the refugee camp. It was clear they weren’t going to receive access to anything like that in this dust hole anytime soon.
It was true that they had plenty of landowners interested in “adopting” them, but Vince and Erika had never felt comfortable with going to work for any of them. The whole situation seemed so wrong that they decided to just stay here in this piecemeal society. At least they were all together. Many of thei
r friends that they had escaped California with had chosen to stay in Las Vegas and avoid adoption as well. Of course, the authorities had not looked favorably upon this tight-knit group that was bent on staying together and rejecting the new system, but Erika and her group from California had been some of the first refugees placed here. They were here before the “adoption” policy had been started, and were not as easily convinced to surrender to the situation as the new refugees that were shipped in regularly.
Erika watched the brass doorknob start to turn and the room filled with the sound of Vince and Mathew’s laughter and loud chatting. Erika’s face froze in a look of surprise. Vince said his goodbyes to Mathew, and then Mathew disappeared back through the door without a word to Erika.
Vince smoothly strolled across the open space with a jovial bounce. He immediately saw the shocked look on her face but remained quiet and simply bent down to give her a sweet kiss on the cheek. As he recoiled from the motion, he saw the look on her face turn into a sinister gaze of accusation.
“What?” he asked sarcastically.
“What was all that about?” Erika inquired.
“Oh, it’s really no big deal, Erika. Mathew understood our decision and he really values having me as a manager at the farms, so…” His teasing was cut short.
“So, so? Sew a button on a shirt. You little brown-noser!” Erika gave him a shot in the arm with her balled-up fist. “He told me you were going to be punished by being put to work on the water line.”
“You know Mathew, Erika. He talks big but he’s realistic.” Vince was still shrugging it off.
“You’re such a schmoozer, Vince.” Erika looked at him lovingly and kissed him.
CHAPTER 6
THE COUPLE WALKED back to the brightly lit lobby. It glimmered in the afternoon sun. They pushed open the heavy glass doors and exited onto the bustling street. There were no cars, but there were folks on the streets attending to their daily tasks. As clean as they were after the meeting with the landowner, Erika and Vince could blend into the crowd better. It was obvious they were out of place, but at least they didn’t look like dirtballs in a sea of cleanliness. Erika looked down onto the corner and saw the dilapidated bus sitting there, waiting.
“It’s such a nice afternoon, why don’t we just walk home?” Vince suggested.
“Sounds good to me,” Erika replied. It wasn’t very often they could just meander around together with no particular time frame to fulfill. It was hot, sunny and dusty like most days but it was just the two of them and they wanted to enjoy it.
The two walked down what used to be the Strip of Las Vegas. Vince and Erika had come to this city before the quake, before it was a gated community. Erika had been a participant in a Taekwondo competition. Vince and Greg had tagged along to support her, help with the driving and enjoy themselves in the “city of sin.” Erika thought fondly about the huge buildings that once towered here. They had dazzled her eyes, beaming with neon and L.E.D. lighting. Erika and Vince had gasped at spectacular water shows of unbelievable scale and grandeur that made the tourists “ooh and aw” in wonder. Erika remembered how the people had lined the streets both day and night, amused with drinking, casino gambling, larger-than-life stage shows, prostitution, and breathtaking amusement rides for children and adults. She thought about how this town had been a playground for the wealthy, with fine dining restaurants boasting the latest delicacies and suites that could tickle the fancy of any person of status.
Now, looking out over the city as they walked along, Erika could only see a faint shell of the former city of wonder. There were some buildings surrounding the Luxor that had been rebuilt to some kind of useable condition. It wasn’t very glamorous from the outside, but Erika wondered what the inside condition was like. Most of the landowner stores and restaurants were in there, and one was clearly set up for the military personnel housed within the city. The rest of the buildings that had composed the strip had been gutted. They had not been that badly damaged in the quake, but the chaos that had raged on these streets following the quake devastated what had remained. Vegas had kept its power on, even after the quake, due to the unwavering strength of the Hoover Dam, but many cities had not. People flooded in, and with the world oil trade obliterated, the supplies stopped coming. Food ran out and people panicked. Many died in battle with one another over the last remaining scraps and many more fled the city, only to find a devastated county that could offer little help.
The government had instituted martial law immediately following the devastation, but their resources had been spread out across the world. It took them years to get most of the country back under some kind of control, but it did not take them long to realize the value of the city that still had power and water in the middle of the desert. Quickly, they swooped in and took over control from the factions that were dominating the city sects. The climate refugee camp was established and filled with any of the city dwellers that posed a problem, and the rest of the people were organized into the network that ran the climate refugee work system. There were minimal housing, restaurants and stores rebuilt for them to get started on the program. They had been a thriving little community ever since.
Erika and Vince had to walk south for a couple of blocks before they reached the street in the landowners’ gated community which led to the road where the gate was to return to the refugee camp.
As they turned the corner, Erika broke the silence. “Those meetings are never going to work, Vince.”
“I know,” Vince admitted.
They continued to meander down the street. On one side of the road was the southern edge of the airport. The other side was lined with massive warehouses that had been rebuilt from the city that used to exist here. Most of the warehouses that were reconstructed with any kind of care were located on the landowners’ side of the containment gate, but there were some built on the refugee side as well. The railroad ran right through the middle of these warehouses so the goods could be easily loaded and unloaded from the train. Steam engines ruled the day again.
“Then why do we bother going at all? Why put the kids through that?” Erika wondered as they stared aimlessly at the buildings they were walking by. These were storage buildings used to house clothing and materials that were scavenged from the western United States. Erika had watched week after week as truckload after truckload came in to fill these warehouses. She often pondered the state of the outside world and where they were collecting all that stuff.
“Matt came to me personally at the gardens the other day and said this one was a great opportunity. I thought since he came himself maybe it really would be different but no—same old, same old.”
The next storehouses were used for food that was “donated” by the landowners or grown at the gardens on site.
“I’m done, Erika. I never want to go again but I don’t know how else to get us the heck out of here,” Vince moaned.
“Don’t you want to stop by the gardens?” Erika asked.
They were passing by the spectacular buildings that had been built to house the food-producing aquaponics systems. Their importance was paramount to both the landowner and refugee side of the camp. These buildings were 90 percent of the reason anyone could still live here. Row after row of them were behind the ones that were on the main road. Their metal frames and sparkling glass shined in the sun. They had been carefully planned and no resource was spared to erect their frames. Everything about them was meticulously cared for and monitored. This was also the place that Vince came to work daily.
“Nope, I’ve got the day off and I’m spending it with you,” Vince teased, giving her a tickle in her side.
“Oh, lucky me,” Erika said, acting coyly.
The next warehouse they passed was an “eating station,” or the place they actually ate the food. It was quite different from where they grew the food. These ragtag buildings were made to resemble a cafeteria of sorts. Buildings just like this one were scattered throughout the refugee camp. This
one was only used for refugees who had positions in the gardens or other warehouses during the day.
The last warehouse they had to pass made Erika cringe every time she passed it. It had been built here for a reason. The refugees eating at the food station had to look at it and be reminded of what happened if you stepped out of line. It was an ugly place of steel. It was designated specifically for solitary confinement of “difficult” refugees. Erika remembered, painfully, her days spent there.
No one was going to get out of control and start a fuss here. The refugee camp’s inhabitants were told their “placement” here was for their own “survival”. With less land and so many people the government had put strict population controls in place. Erika deeply resented the fact that in a free country the refugees never had a say in the policy that took away her children’s ability to reproduce. Four years ago, it had been decided and voted upon by the landowners. A quick scratching of a pen and a few signatures had signed “the Sterilization Bill” into law. Anyone not currently entitled to land and over the age of thirteen was surgically made sterile, and any children younger than the age of thirteen would be sterilized when they had their thirteenth birthday.
She and Vince and the rest of the refugees had rioted fiercely, but they were silenced by the oppression of the guard. They had been no match for showers of pepper spray raining down on them. They were trapped like animals and eventually had to relent to the power of the landowner-backed soldiers. Her family had been separated, and she and Vince had been put into small metal boxes. Her children were put into a metal room.
Erika had never been so assaulted. The blood from her wounds during the battle encrusted her skin and the airless space compressed her body into a lifeless blob. Even though it was November, the heat was still the final weapon of disaster, and it had crushed her spirit into a fine powder ready to be blown away in a slight breeze. The endless chatter of an unknown soldier told her over and over, day after day, how she should behave. His voice ate into every pore of her body. She finally relented to the noise and told the unknown man what he wanted to hear, and then she stood before Mathew’s pompous face and told him she would no longer be so rebellious. Those refugees who did not were left to die in the boxes. She was utterly ashamed and humiliated. The soldiers came and took anyone over the age of thirteen off to the doctors, who did their work.
The Changing Earth Series (Book 2): Without Land Page 3