“See,” bragged Manning, zipping up his trousers. “I told you the bastard was still alive.” Sandoval looked away, muttering to himself, while Wires matter-of-factly reached for his equipment.
“I’ll set up,” he said quietly.
Derek had moved to rush at Manning as the twisted bastard had begun his barbaric method of bringing their prisoner to consciousness. An evil grin playing below Manning’s beady dark eyes had betrayed the prick’s intentions a moment before he straddled their captive to gratify his foul imagination. But a crescendo of pain had overtaken Derek as he tensed to move—he wasn’t capable of stopping Manning tonight, not with his hands.
Manning still straddled Joshua, his gun slung on his right shoulder and held by his right hand so that the barrel waved lazily in front of the sputtering mal’s contorted face. His left hand fingered the snap holding his hunting knife in its sheath on the left side of his belt. He nudged the partially bandaged wound in Joshua’s right side with his left, steel-toed, muddy, combat hiking boot.
“You know, don’t you, mal, that the first to convert, I mean after the techno-geeks, were terminal patients and those . . .” he dug the toe of his boot into the wound, pressing into the yielding flesh until he met the stiff resistance of a rib, “. . . with severe, chronic pain.”
“Back off,” yelled Derek, his teeth gritted with his own pain. “Wires isn’t even set up. You have to give him a chance to convert.”
Wires’ hands moved nimbly over his unpacked equipment, assembling it with precision in the dappled light filtering down between the swaying boughs of the thick trees. A steady northerly breeze snatched away any reply he might have made as he worked methodically and quickly at his task.
Manning glanced at Derek with undisguised disgust. “You’re the one that got hurt. Don’t you want to get in on the fun?”
Gasping for breath, Derek shook his head violently, both in response to Manning and in an attempt to clear the darkness caused by the pain searing through his body.
“You have to give him a chance to convert,” Derek choked out again.
Manning sighed heavily and looked down at his disabled prey. He smiled sickly and started to speak in his most sweetly sarcastic tone, “Do you know that heaven awaits you if you convert? Any heaven you want, if you convert.”
Joshua made no response, but merely stared at Manning leering maniacally down at him. Spittle hung from the corner of his tormentor’s mouth.
“He doesn’t understand! Orient him,” gasped Derek as he fought his own battle for consciousness.
Manning snorted in derision. “He understands,” he threw back to Derek over his shoulder. Looking down, he continued, “Don’t you, mal? You understand what conversion is, don’t you?” The mal continued to stare up at him, his mouth open, laboring to breathe.
Manning jerked his left boot hard, crunching through the rib-bone that had blocked it before. The ragged edge of the bone punched back and up, puncturing a lung and causing yet another wave of severe pain to course through Joshua’s trembling body. “Don’t you?”
Sandoval turned away and stumbled hurriedly into the woods. “I theenk I’ll take perimeter watch.”
Manning twisted his boot, like he was stamping out an extra-nicotine laced cig.
“Don’t you?”
“Yes,” hissed Joshua, “I know . . . I know what conversion is . . .”
Wires continued his efficient assembly of the conversion scanning equipment. “I’ll be ready in just a bit. Hold on, will you?” he said, without a clear indication of whether he was talking to Manning or the mal.
“He gets a choice,” Derek shouted weakly against the growing breeze. Still hazy, even Derek didn’t know if he was guided by moral outrage or simple military discipline in protesting Manning’s actions. “You can’t destroy a defenseless mal without giving him the choice.”
* * * * *
Manning didn’t know what he hated more, this pathetic mal, the stupid, coddling, pro-choice regulations of the Conversion Forces, or his own cowardice for not moving ahead of the squad and having his fun unencumbered by Derek’s implied threat of reporting him. A. K. would never have put up with this crap. He would just do what he wanted, and bad-boy A. K. was definitely pro-death. But, then, Manning wasn’t A. K.
Manning looked down at his quivering captive with detestation. “Then choose, asshole. Do you choose to let Wires here convert you?”
* * * * *
Life ebbed out of Joshua. Blackness flittered through his consciousness. Even the pain seemed to subside, though it never really seemed to dull or lessen—it just seemed to no longer affect him. He almost felt as if he was watching himself. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. He wasn’t taking any of them with him.
“I . . . I . . . choose . . .” he whispered between ragged breaths.
* * * * *
Manning saw the mal’s lips move, but couldn’t really hear what he was saying. He bent low to try to hear. Whether the wretch abandoned his religion at the last instant or pronounced his own death-warrant, either way was a win from Manning’s perspective.
“I . . . choose . . .”
Joshua drew in a last breath, deep into his only functioning lung, coarsely dislodging the phlegm and blood in his throat, and spat toward the leering ConFoe’s face. Close as his target was, the green and red-streaked glob still fell short of the startled ConFoe’s visage and plopped onto Joshua’s chin. The mal didn’t even have enough strength for a last gesture of defiance, but the result of his effort was the same as if he had been successful.
A millisecond later a burst of automatic weapon fire smashed into Joshua’s face and neck.
“Fuck,” spat Manning as he wiped his now blood-spattered face with his sleeve and staggered abruptly away from the pile of meat that had been his prisoner. “He chose not to.”
As Derek slipped into unconsciousness, Wires calmly reversed his motions and started disassembling his equipment.
* * * * *
Damn, but that wisp of a girl was fast.
A. K. stopped on the southern slope of whatever godforsaken mountain he was on and looked down into a valley thick with evergreens and dry grass. Even without waiting for the more methodical pace of Digger and Pancek, he wasn’t sure the bitch wasn’t outrunning him.
He surveyed the valley from his vantage point as he caught his breath. His mouth was already dry from the increasing tempo of the arid mountain wind and the warmth of the afternoon as he moved into the lower elevations, but miles of thick brush and forest still lay ahead of him, crowded on either side by sheer walls of rock. The hard lie of the terrain dictated his tactics. She couldn’t move laterally, but he would have to be careful or she might double back as he tried to chase her through the forest to the opposite end of the valley.
He got out his digital ocular scope to see if he could discern a path leading out of the opposite end of the canyon.
He peered through his sophisticated equipment, toggling up the magnification and enhancement to full power. It was hard on the battery, but necessary given the haze of the mountains and the distance involved, not to mention the narrow and indistinct path he sought. Minutes passed as he scanned and re-scanned the area.
Finally, he lowered the scope and whistled softly. He stuck a finger in his mouth, then held it above his head in the breeze.
“Game over, baby. Game over.”
* * * * *
Maria gazed back at her pursuer. She did so from behind a tree, even though she didn’t really think that he would be able to see her in the dense brush, even with his superior ConFoe equipment. Even if it had infrared enhancement, she was okay. Now that they were no longer in the rarified air of the peaks and passes, the day was too hot for her body temp to stand out clearly, even in the shade of the trees. The needles of the evergreens were dry and brittle; the arid ground had warmed all day in the bright sun. Besides, he seemed to be looking well past her position. Maybe he thought she was even faster than
she was.
Despite her lack of imminent danger, Maria was still disappointed in her situation. She would surely make Sanctuary safely, but she had hoped to lose the ConFoes before they had followed her to this place. She could have moved past the valley in an effort to lead the loping gorilla following her to some other place, but then there was a chance that Sanctuary might not know that the ConFoes were in the sector, that there had been a firefight, that they were using lethal ammunition, and that Joshua was, at best, dead.
They had to know; they had to have warning. Too much depended on it. She would muster a force when she arrived at Sanctuary and ambush her pursuers. They had to die, all of them. No one could live to report back, to identify this valley, or the Believers all faced certain destruction or, worse yet, eternal damnation, should they be converted by the heathen ConFoes.
* * * * *
Pancek and Digger weren’t loafing, they just didn’t have the same joy in their work as A. K.. Still, once A. K. stopped chasing the elusive mal, it wasn’t too long before they caught up with him. They were a bit wary all the same, though, as they approached. Their squad leader was squatting near a deadfall yards into the thick of the forest, his rifle slung over his shoulder. He was looking down and appeared to have something small in his right hand. Digger motioned for Pancek to fan out to the right in case there were unfriendlies about, but as he did A. K. started to speak, without turning back to them.
“Hell, Pancek, I don’t know which is louder, your boots scrambling over loose rock or Digger’s shovel banging into his canteen every other step.” He stood and turned, casually tossing a grenade in a wide arc toward Digger’s feet.
“Incoming!” yelled Pancek instinctively, as he dove into a depression to his right. He reflexively began to sight his weapon on A. K. even as he hit the dirt.
Digger started to laugh as the grenade angled toward him. He had been around A. K. longer than most of the squad and was used to the jerk’s sense of humor. Then he noticed that the grenade had no pin in it.
He lunged to catch it and fling it away, but he moved too late and with too much panic. Instead of catching it, Digger’s callused hand merely grazed the grenade, deflecting it downward as he became entangled with his shovel and fell face-first into the dirt. As he closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable, he realized, to his confusion and grateful relief, that the grenade not only had no pin in it, it had no top to it at all.
* * * * *
Pancek kept his face low, waiting for the explosion before popping up to waste their traitorous squad leader, but the thunder never came. All he heard was the thud as Digger hit the ground coincident with the grenade and the guttural, barking laughter of A. K. When Pancek finally dared to look up, Digger was sitting on the ground, holding the topless grenade upside down, as A. K. strode up the hill toward them roaring at his own joke, a wad of gray cloth in his beefy grip.
He tossed a pair of regulation briefs at Digger. “Here, you probably need these.”
“Pardon the crap out of me, sir,” said Digger with venom disguised as disgust, “but what the hell are you doing?”
“Needed the powder,” remarked A. K. jovially. “Opened it up . . . carefully . . . and poured it out in a line just short of that deadfall.”
Pancek took his finger off the trigger of his assault rifle and toggled the safety back on. Apparently he was not going to die today, at least not at the hands of his maniacal squad leader. At least not at the moment. He stood up and brushed the detritus of his dive off his fatigues as he scanned the woods behind their approaching leader. Someone ought to be paying attention to their enemy. Someone ought to take their mission seriously.
“Okay,” said Digger dejectedly. “I give up. What for?”
A. K. jerked his thumb back toward the wooded valley behind him. “Box canyon. Plenty of dry grass and sap-filled wood. Good stiff breeze from the north.”
Pancek understood, but Digger still hadn’t parsed it out as A. K. reached him and extended a hand to help him up. In the opposite hand, A. K. held up the ancient Zippo that he used to fire up his nicotine chubbies.
“Time for a barbecue.”
* * * * *
Maria made the appropriate birdcalls at the appointed places as she approached the entrance to Sanctuary. First a magpie, then a lark bunting, then a Steller’s jay.
She received no response. The watchmen and guards never responded. It could give away their position.
Finally, she arrived at the camouflaged entrance to the mine-shaft, set low into the eastern cliff-face of the canyon. She entered Sanctuary and quickly set off to assemble a military force to eradicate her grinning, loathsome, government pursuers.
* * * * *
Pancek thought that A. K. enjoyed setting the forest fire just a bit too much. Of course, A. K. seemed to revel in all forms of mayhem more than a bit too much for Pancek’s taste. It was just a job. Put in your time, do your duty, then convert and get the hell out of Dodge, that was Pancek’s approach. He looked around uneasily. He didn’t really like being this far away from Wires and his equipment. What if something were to happen?
Pancek was glad to see that Digger didn’t make any effort to help A. K. with the blaze. He didn’t need it and he didn’t deserve it.
The small line of black powder from the grenade touched off the fire nicely, but hadn’t really been necessary. Fast upon ignition, the grass burned fiercely, driven by the wind. Then, the burgeoning fire reached the deadfall and the tangle of branches flared up, giving the flames access to the branches of the trees. From there, the hot storm grew with exponential speed.
The oily sap of the wood and the low flash point of the needles quickly turned the peaceful trees into hellish candles of death. The spruces burned white-hot, the growing north wind driving the arson forward into the valley, flames leaping heavenward as thick, sweet smoke billowed up into the clear blue sky.
And, while the spruces burned with vigorous intensity, the occasional Ponderosa pines interspersed in the forest literally exploded when the now fast-moving wall of fire hit them, showering flaming debris in shooting arcs, ensuring that the path of the conflagration widened to cover the canyon wall to wall.
As twilight fell, the ash and sparks and flames made for an apocalyptic vision. Spinning, wheeling vortices of smoke and flame writhed outward from the advancing wall of superheated annihilation, spreading the main furnace of the fire in erratic and explosive thrusts.
“Hell,” said Digger and A. K. nodded and grinned in agreement before Digger could even continue his thought. “How do you know this fire’s going to stay contained in this canyon? I heard tell of these things rushing up-slope faster than a horse can run, then jumpin’ fifty, sixty yards over rock and water or whatnot to move onto the next ridge.” He stared at the firestorm as he spoke.
A. K. shrugged his shoulders unconcernedly. “Who gives a shit? Ain’t no Sierra Clubbers about no more, now is there? They’re all off in their little Sierra Club world where no one pollutes with their cars, ‘cause there ain’t none, and no one has to worry about where they put their garbage, ‘cause they don’t produce any. Hell, I don’t think they let cows fart in their world. So who the fuck cares if the whole state of Colorado goes up in flames?” He reflected on the possibility a few moments. “It would probably optimize satellite reconnaissance. So, you tell me, who the fuck really cares?”
Pancek hesitated, then spoke up.
“The rest of the squad might care. Any guess where they are by now?”
“Crap!” growled A. K. “You suck the fun right out of everything, you know that?”
Chapter 3
It took a few moments for Maria’s eyes to adjust to the dim light inside Sanctuary, but she didn’t slow at all. She moved past the defensive positions near the entryway without needing to see or think; she had been this way countless times during her life in this place, this abandoned mine. She bore left along the main gangway to the large, carved room where many of the largest mi
neshafts and tunnels converged. They called it “Grand Central,” but it also served as the main barracks for the Believers’ fighting forces. It was close to the main entrance and stood between the outside and all that they treasured in the rooms and tunnels below—their knowledge, their religious items, and, most importantly, the living areas for the mothers and children.
Maria walked briskly toward Grand Central, the sweat from the heat and exertion of her flight back to Sanctuary chilling quickly. A cool breeze flowed out of the depths below as the mine exhaled due to the natural changes in the barometric pressure outside.
The abandoned mines were a perfect place to hide from the ConFoes. The steady, cool temperature refreshed the Believers in the heat of the summer and protected them from the harsh coldness of the winters. The hard bedrock shielded them from the prying eyes of the ConFoe satellites and the dangers posed by any heavy weaponry that might be brought to bear. A dependable and inexhaustible supply of clear water could be found deep in the flooded lower levels of the mine, far from any source of tampering or contamination from their enemies. Lights and generators and first aid stations and the like had been installed in days bygone at some mining company’s expense. There was even some mineable ore left from which spare parts and weapons could be fashioned. The wilderness outside provided berries, roots, and game.
Over the years, they had made quite a hospitable place of the old mine, bringing in scavenged furniture and fixtures for living quarters, kitchen facilities, and the like. There was even a cavern large enough for recreational and sporting activities, with plank bleachers along one wall for spectators.
The most spectacular room in Sanctuary was a natural cave that intersected with the mine shafts. The room had a towering ceiling and glittering quartz walls. It was quickly and unsurprisingly designated the chapel for the Believers. The chapel couldn’t hold quite everyone at once, but there were plenty of services. Besides, some people had to be on guard at any given time.
Forced Conversion Page 3