Milly had known there would be some kind of test, but she’d never expected it to be like this. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“They must know who you are in your heart, when nobody is looking and everything else is stripped away,” Peter said.
“Is this real?” she asked.
“Define real?”
“Can I die? Feel pain?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Why are you here?” Milly asked.
“Because you chose me,” Peter said.
“No I didn’t,” she said.
“You will,” he said.
Everything spun and snapped to black.
Milly stood in the forest. A three-quarter moon hung low in the sky, and the stars winked like a trillion eyes. Evergreens and oak packed in around her, the air redolent of pine and rot. Helga sat before her, her cloudy eyes staring up at Milly, who flinched and jumped back. Helga inched forward.
Milly held a club, and her fingers hurt from gripping it so tight. Helga cried and whimpered. Did she have to put the poor animal out of its misery again? Milly stepped forward, but the animal didn’t budge, but continued to moan and cry with pain. She couldn’t do it. Somehow it had been different the night she’d held the dying animal. She’d gone on instinct, and now those same instincts told her there was no way she’d beat Helga to death with a club.
The dog’s eyes bled, thin streams of red running down her snout. Helga shook, her reedy legs bending and almost giving way. Milly brought up the club, but looked away. Helga’s cries had reached a fever pitch, blood poured from her mouth, yet still Milly didn’t swing her club. She’d killed the animal once, but there would be no second time.
The scene shifted, a black tornado throwing Milly around like a palm leaf. She landed face down on the beach, sand jamming into her nose and eyes. She spit sand and got up. It was Respite; she recognized the shoreline, the rock formations, and the large chunks of the Oceanic Eco that littered the ocean like dominoes waiting to fall.
“Hi, mom.”
Milly whirled to find Randy.
“I heard your message,” he said.
Milly thought he looked to be in his mid-teens, and she smiled at his handsome face and mischievous eyes. Waves crashed, the sea breeze blew, and the intoxicating scent of gardenias brought her home. “Hello, sweet, you look good. So big,” she said.
He sat on the sand and looked up at her, so Milly sat before him.
“Give me your hands,” he said.
Milly offered her hands and he took them. He was cold, colder than a living person should be, and this reminded her that this wasn’t her son.
“Tell me about Axe,” he said.
“What’s there to say? He killed Vera and Peter, held me, Tester, Ingo and Robin captive for six years.”
Randy said, “And then?”
“Then we killed him and escaped,” Milly said.
“We?”
“Robin killed him.”
“But you tried and failed, yes? You had the opportunity to do it and you hesitated. Why?” Randy looked concerned.
“I… I’m not a killer. He was evil, but the end of the world made him that way. He was nuts and treated us all right. I…”
“You cared for him?” Randy said.
“I guess I did, though I can’t explain how.”
“Yet you had no trouble killing Helga, who you loved.”
“That was different. I did it because I loved her. I put her out of her misery,” Milly said.
“Did you?”
Randy faded, along with the beach, the sound of waves, and guilt flooded through her. What if Helga could have gotten better? What if she’d been wrong and Helga would’ve been all right in time? Who was she to take a life into her hands? She said nothing, and right before Randy blinked out, he said, “You did the right thing by Helga.”
Then she stood before Axe and Helga. Both looked fit and unharmed as they had when they’d first met, and each had a door behind them. White nothingness surrounded them and the air smelled of sweat. Helga growled, protecting her door, and Axe had a rifle pointed at her. Her Glock 19 appeared in her hand. She pulled the magazine free. Only one bullet. This was bullshit. She wasn’t a killer, and she wouldn’t let them make her one.
She dropped the Glock.
Axe shot her in the chest, and she crumpled to her knees, blood pouring from her mouth. She pitched over as the world spun, and all the challenges she’d overcome to get to this time and place were for naught because she’d been unable to kill a killer. Dizziness spun her world, and she was tired, so very tired. She’d close her eyes, go to sleep, and all this would be over. Her final thought before darkness took her was that she should’ve shot Axe, but it was too late.
She passed out.
When she woke, she had no wound. Her chest hurt where she’d been shot, and tiny stars danced before her eyes, but otherwise she felt fine. Images of her life flashed through her as the Argarthians flipped through the pages of her life. She stood with Randy and Curso by the sea, watching her mother’s funeral barge disappear on the horizon. Peter’s kiss, the boat, the trip across the sea, Hansa, Stadium, Axe, the guidestone—it all crammed into her brain at once and made her head ache.
Suspended in blackness, cold piercing her joints, her head pounding in rhythm with her heart, she floated alone in a void. For an instant she thought she’d died, then there was a voice coming from the nothingness, calling her name.
“Yes. Yes, I’m here,” Milly said.
“Hi Milly, it’s Jerome. Can you hear me?”
A shudder ran through her. “Yes.” After all this time, hearing his voice made her cry.
“It’s all right. It wasn’t your fault I died.”
Milly said nothing.
“I have but one question for you, and then you’re done, one way or the other,” the voice echoed through the stillness.
Milly said nothing.
“There may come a time when it is necessary to give your life for another, for the common good. The needs of the many are greater than the one. But, someone may also give their life to save yours. Sacrifice everything they are to ensure you live on, and that you fulfill your destiny. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Who do you choose? Who would die for you?” Jerome said.
Milly started to say Peter, then remembered the start of the test. She’d already chosen Peter. If she chose someone else, she might get to start again, reset things and fix her mistakes. Who to pick? Mom. Tell Jerome mom and start again, but what if it didn’t work that way? What if that was the test, accepting who you are, and not letting failure dominate your decisions? Showing compassion and making sure the right thing is done? You don’t get a reset in life.
“Peter,” she said.
The world blinked out.
Milly came awake face down in the snow. She rolled over, spitting ice and gasping for air. Tye lay beside her, and next to him was Robin. She didn’t see Tester. Pepper and Turnip waited beside her, watching. “It’s OK,” she said to the animals. Pepper rushed forward and licked her face and Turnip mewed.
None of her weapons were returned, and all her possessions had been taken. She wore clean jeans, a white sweatshirt, boots, and a heavy green army jacket.
Snow came on hard. The back of the guard station rose up behind them, the rear door of the building closed. They were on the inside of the brown fence. No soldiers were visible, as if they’d abandoned their posts. Tye checked the door and found it locked. The road they’d been on continued upward into the mountains before them.
“Everyone all right?” Tye said.
“Any sign of Tester?” Milly said.
There was none.
A signpost stood beside the road with an arrow pointing north, and above the arrow, Argartha was printed in clean white lettering. Atop the pole a camera rotated back and forth, watching, reporting.
“We might as well get going,” Tye said. His feet sunk deep into
the snow as he walked down the road. Robin followed.
Milly looked down at Pepper and Turnip who walked beside her. What choice did they all have? They only had one way to go, and that was forward.
“You think Tester got kicked out?” Milly said.
“Seems like it,” Tye said. “Though it could be he’s just on a different path like Ingo. Perhaps he’ll be waiting for us when we get there.”
“Maybe,” she said.
They walked all morning, and most of the afternoon, following the road up into the mountains across the expanse of Fort Hill. The snow got deeper the higher they went, and wind tore at their every step. They saw nothing except white and the tops of trees; there were no animals, soldiers, or people of any kind. The snow came on harder, and they slogged blindly forward, Tye leading and the others following in his footsteps.
“Stay close,” Tye yelled through the maelstrom.
The snow let up as the sun fell, and the three remaining members of the original fellowship came over a rise and a valley stretched out before them. They saw nothing but mounds of snow on the floor of the vale below.
“Are you shitting me,” Robin said. If Argartha was out there somewhere, it was still a long way off.
“Wait, do you see the pattern?” Milly said. The mounds of snow below were in ordered rows, like someone had built neat piles every twenty feet. In the center of the valley, one of the snow mounds had an open front, and someone sat before a fire, light spilling from a snow-covered structure. The flames glowed in the dusk of the falling sun as the snow backed-off.
The path was clear, even if what they were heading toward wasn’t.
“Let’s go,” Tye said. “This is it.”
Chapter Thirty-four
Year 2076, Fort AP Hill, Virginia
Tye’s toes were frozen, the tips of his fingers ached, and the fire in the distance still appeared far off. They’d made their way down the hillside into the valley, but with no frame of reference in the white world, they’d greatly underestimated the distance. The company waded through waist-high snow for two hours as they fought toward the glow of fire, the gray of dusk hiding the blizzard. They’d been given no supplies when they were unceremoniously dumped in the snow, and Tye’s stomach rumbled. Milly and Robin walked before him, and they stumbled and fell as the wind and ice pelted them. Pepper was a giant snowball, and Turnip’s head was a white orb with black diamonds for eyes. Both animals walked beside Milly, struggling through the deepening snow.
Tye’s spirits rose when darkness settled over the valley and the storm let up. Stars peeked through holes in the thinning cloud cover, and it looked as though the storm had blown out. The glow of the fire grew closer, and the pop and crack of wood burning, and the deep scent of smoke was like coming home to the Womb.
“Oy, there,” Tye yelled through the wind.
A man sat beside the fire and lifted an arm, beckoning them to come to him. Tye doubled his pace, and when he reached the old man he looked up and smiled. “You’re not from around these parts, are you?” he said.
Tye laughed. “No sir, we sure aren’t.”
Behind the old man an open bay door revealed a large garage lit by a sodium arc lamp, which looked like an orange candle within glass. Supplies of all types were stacked along the walls: clothing, food, equipment and bunks. Tye headed for the food and the old man raised a gun. “Not yet. You and your friends have a seat.”
“We’ve come a long way with no water and food. Can we please have a drink?” Milly said.
“Sit down,” the old man said. “I’m just a gatekeeper. You listen to what I say, and do as I tell you, and you’ll be on your way lickety-split if you choose. Savvy?”
“Yes,” Tye said.
Pepper and Turnip edged closer to the fire, and both looked like drowned rats as the snow melted off them. Robin sat next to the fire and slumped over. She was done.
“My name’s Calvin, and I’m not highborn or reborn or newborn or any of that crap. I hid out in the mountains as everything fell apart. Me, a hundred cases of my best friend Jack Daniels and some supplies, and I waited for everyone to kill each other. Where you been?”
“The greenies didn’t tell you about us?” Tye said.
“I don’t talk to the squires. They’re not allowed here,” Calvin said.
“Why?” Tye said.
“When you train someone to kill, they want to fight. That was part of the old world’s problem. Economic wars. Someday, when all the rogue military stations have bent the knee to Argartha and the reborn, perhaps they can become citizens. Where you folks coming from?”
“An island in the South Pa…”
Tye cut Milly off. “What about our friend, Tester? You know where he is?”
“No, sir, I do not. Don’t worry on it though; people get separated during processing all the time. It don’t mean nothing,” Calvin said. “I’m sure he’ll come through.”
“Are there other ways to get to Argartha?” Tye said.
The old man looked dumbfounded. “Why, of course there are. What? You think there’s one path?”
“What is this place?” Milly said.
“These are kind of like vacation cottages. People come here in the summer to get away from the clutter of the city,” Calvin said.
“Sure doesn’t look like a cottage,” Milly said.
“All these mounds have the same thing under them; storage bays with access to an underground tunnel system. This was an ordnance facility back in the Cold War days and was converted into a survival community. It was designed to house five thousand people for twenty years.”
“This where you live?” Robin asked.
He looked at Robin as though she’d just appeared. “I do, little lady,” Calvin said.
“Alone?” Tye said.
“It suits me, and I’m not alone. Like I said, there are tunnels. I’m on duty so I’m dug out and fired up, but there are others living beneath the snow.”
“Duty?” Milly said.
“I help people get through the outer lands to Argartha. In the summer it’s a beautiful walk which brings us to the business we share. A few rules before I pass you off to Orientation,” Calvin said.
“How do you know we’re supposed to be here and didn’t sneak in?” Tye said.
“A fly couldn’t get through the squire’s perimeter. Listen up, this first part is just advice. You are a second-class citizen here. Act like it. The reborn rule Argartha. You guys have any idea what superheroes are?”
General nods and agreement.
“Imagine living in a town where Superman strolls down every block. That’s why some of us choose the outer lands. It’s wild, but the perimeter is maintained by the squires. So, pay attention when they ask you to select where you want to live,” Calvin said.
“I won’t be staying,” said Milly.
“You’re here for a year, minimum. That’s the deal. You can’t come and go as you want. You may travel home one day, but you’d need to earn that right.”
“I’ll leave when I want. I have a child,” Milly said.
“That you left behind?” Calvin said.
That shut Milly down, and Tye said, “So we’ve already agreed to a one year minimum when we passed the guard post?”
“Yes, sir. None of the greenies told you that?” Calvin said.
“No,” Tye said.
“Did you have a reborn with you?” Calvin said.
“Yes, Ingo,” Tye said. Pain shot down his back. They hadn’t been told because the squires didn’t want to risk Ingo not going to Argartha.
“Well there you have it. You guys are lucky. Your friend will be able to jump you a few steps, if you know what I mean?” Calvin said.
“Like get me permission to go home?” Milly said.
Calvin holstered his gun. “Probably not, unless he can turn piss into wine. They went and kicked Ozzie out, and he was one of the best ever.”
Silence fell, and the crack of the fire and harsh scent of s
moke brought Tye back to the Womb again. The swirling snow bit at his face. Snow. What the hell had he been thinking? He could be enjoying his elder days lying on the beach being served by the young turds. This wasn’t how he’d envisioned his retirement.
“You’ll be given a set of rules, and I suggest you read them as many times as you need to until you fully understand what you can and cannot do. The reborn have their own set of rules that most of them follow most of the time. You must follow every rule, at every moment, or you’ll be banished, or worse. When in doubt, don’t do it and ask for clarification. That said, don’t fret. If you know the tenets of Argartha, follow the law, and show up for duty, you’ll live in a world you can’t possibly imagine. One that makes the rest of the world look like the stone age by comparison. Well, maybe the old fossil there can remember the days before the end. You from the gone world, old timer?”
“That I am,” Tye said.
“Where you from?” Calvin said.
“Halfway around the world,” Tye said.
“Shit. Why’d you come here?”
“To see my world live again,” Tye said.
Calvin stared at the fire, sparks zipping around the darkness like fireflies. “You all can stay in the bunker with me tonight and eat dried rabbit stew, or I can send you on your way through the tunnels. There’s much better food and nicer accommodations awaiting you in Argartha. And they have wine.”
“We’re pretty shot to the wind and frozen. How far?” Tye said.
“Not far. Two hours walk if you follow my directions right. Couple of days if you get lost,” Calvin said. “Take water and bread with you.”
Tye looked at his beaten crew, then stared into the bunker, and said, “Let’s push through.”
Calvin gave them some bread, water, an oil lantern, and a copy of a hand-drawn map. “You follow this, and you’ll drink fine wine, eat whatever you want, and sleep in a soft bed tonight,” he said.
“How will anyone know to look for us if we get lost?” Tye said.
“We’ve got old copper phones lines,” he said, pointing to a black phone that hung on the wall. “I’ll tell them to be expecting you. If you don’t show, they’ll mount a search and come get you. Just like a momma duck gets her chicks. Plus, some of the emergency phones in the tunnels still work.”
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