ED3N- on the Brink of Extinction

by J P Whitney

  “So it’s just a coincidence that decades of research and GDP sized budgets went into the creation of this contingency plan of a city and all of us were moved here right as the outbreaks took place?”

  Terry was making a pretty convincing argument, but she still didn’t see the full connection. “Actually, I asked Shepard about that coincidence as well before he passed away. He said the Ark Project began in the 40s at the end of World War II. And when I questioned him about the virus, he claimed he didn’t start the outbreak but was ready to put the plan into action once it began. In his mind, it was only a matter of time before something like this took place.”

  “Or maybe you don’t want to see the truth. Regardless, I can’t tell you what to do. But you’re right. We now have conflict of major proportions within the walls. The safest thing is for me to take like-minded people with me. That should help resolve the situation. I just hope you’re not enslaved,” Terry stated.

  “So you think ED3N is in control and not just protecting us? If this is true why wouldn’t she detain all those opposed to the system or eliminate the threat all together in the name of maintaining long term peace,” Ruth questioned.

  “Please don’t give her any thoughts,” Terry said seriously.

  “ED3N, will you allow Terry and a substantial number of the civil defense forces to leave the city voluntarily?” Ruth asked.

  “Of course. This city is not a prison. All of you are free to come and go as you please. I’m here to ensure whoever is within the walls is safe. Even if that comes down to one person. I will protect and provide for that single human even if it means the end of the line for your species.”

  “In that case, we’ll leave for San Francisco in the morning,” Terry said.

  As though his statement signaled them into action, the bots began the horrifying process of cleaning up the rest of the human remains and started repairing the entrance to the building.

  Chapter 35

  City of Angels

  When Eli came back to reality, he found himself sitting in the strip of dead grass and litter that separated the north and southbound lanes of Interstate 5 as they ran through Los Padres National Park. He squinted up at the sun to confirm the direction he’d been pointing when he blacked out. South. Towards Los Angeles.

  A mile further down the road he reached the Vista Del Lago visitors center. According to the map mounted to the large welcome sign, only 55 miles separated him from downtown Los Angeles.

  He followed the road that led from the rest area, down to a boat ramp, and didn’t stop until the cool waters of Pyramid Lake reached his knees. He hadn’t realized how dehydrated he was … must have been unconscious in the middle of the highway for several hours. Cupping his hands, Eli drank the liquid life of the lake. The water was sweet tasting and immediately broke the spell he had been under. Dropping to his hands and knees, he slurped directly from the lake like a horse. Kept drinking until his stomach felt like it was going to burst. This was the first calm body of water he’d encountered since Shasta Lake nearly 400 miles ago. Getting back on his feet, Eli walked down the rest of the boat ramp until it dropped off and slowly rolled onto his back and floated in the silence while staring up at the blue sky and white wispy clouds. With his ears underwater, the world became instantly silent. Even the electric buzzing of his nerves and ringing in his ears stopped. The only sounds were the muffled swirling of water when he moved his hands and the words that continued to rattle around in his brain. The same words he’d deposited into his journal during the latest auto-writing episode.

  “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

  Why were these words coming to him now? They stood out in his mind as though he were reading them directly from the journal. Maybe his mind, or God, was telling him there was specific meaning hidden in the scripture. Eli started to dissect it.

  In the first part of the verse, God had commanded Elijah to travel to Mount Sinai. Similarly, Eli felt drawn. No, that wasn’t accurate. Eli felt as though he was being guided to ED3N. Was that the parallel? Both characters were given missions with destinations they didn’t understand at the time? But he’d already come to this conclusion. There were just too many insistent clues that kept pointing him in that direction. He didn’t understand why, but he had no doubt he had to go. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be walking down the I-5. So there had to be more meaning to the verse unless his mind was playing tricks on him, which he had to admit was a very real possibility. But if he was losing his mind there wasn’t much he could do about it.

  So he moved on to the question so innocently positioned at the beginning of the verse. “What are you doing here?”

  Surely Ruth would ask him that very thing when he arrived uninvited. But when it came to Elijah the prophet, he didn’t know why he was going other than following orders. Bible experts have guessed that God gave this task because Elijah had given up on his mission to help humanity find salvation and was too proud to admit he had lost his way. Elijah had needed to come in close contact with God to get recharged before continuing to spread God’s word and select the next prophet.

  But Eli had a difficult time seeing any similarities to himself. He wasn’t preaching the word of God. He hadn’t performed any miracles. He didn’t even feel compelled to share his spiritual beliefs with others let alone try to lead anyone to salvation. He certainly wasn’t ‘zealous for the Lord God Almighty’. Sure the Bible had felt comfortable and comforting to him, but he didn’t feel saved or baptized by fire. He wasn’t even sure he believed in the concepts of heaven and hell. This was so frustrating. Instead of the water relaxing him so he could find clarity and answers … his thoughts were random and he now had more questions and was even more confused.

  Maybe he should just focus on how to answer Ruth’s question. Why was he there? He had no idea. He had dreamt of her. He’d written down her name countless times. Beyond that, he had no mission. No goal. Nonetheless, he was drawn to ED3N, and Ruth, like a moth to flame.

  Maybe that was it. The last part of the quote spoke of being the last remaining prophet and threatened with death by Queen Jezebel. But by definition, a prophet had a message for the people from God. Did he have a message for Ruth? Would she, or others, try to kill him for it? But all he had was a destination. It all seemed so pointless when he laid it out like this.

  Floating in the lake with all his clothes on felt as though he’d woken from a really long dream. The untold miles of interstate that passed beneath his sneakers was a foggy blur of days and weeks. He had flashes of different scenes but couldn’t really remember looking for food or water or even pondering where he was going or why.

  That veil seemed to be lifting now, the water washing it away. Reason and logic were functioning in his brain once again. He felt hungry. And though he must have just drunk a gallon of water, he was thirsty again. He pondered the 55 miles to LA. Another two days of travel to reach the heart of the 2nd largest city in the US. Finding food and clean water was going to be difficult once he reached the metropolis.

  Eli’s stomach was almost painfully full of water, but he knew he needed to eat something. He slogged out of the lake, water poured from his pant legs, and began rifling through the trash cans of the picnic area near the boat ramp. He uncovered a partial bag of Doritos. Thank God for preservatives. They looked perfect and only half of them crushed. Finding the food unleashed hunger pains beyond anything he could ever remember while on the streets of Portland. He needed fuel now! Grabbing a fistful of chips, he shoved them into his mouth and barely chewed the stale crumbles of corn and powdered cheese. The flavor and smell didn’t register with his senses until he tried to swallow. The putrid contents of this particular trash can had infused the chips with a noxious mix of rotten food, fermented beer, dog shi
t, cigarette butts, and motor oil. His gag reflex resulted in a violent ejection of half the water in his stomach. The vomit taking the rancid chips with it.

  On a positive note, his stomach no longer felt like it was going to pop and the trash receptacle provided something of value. Five empty soda bottles and a gallon apple juice container. At the shore of the lake, Eli rinsed and filled the containers with water and topped off his own internal reserves. Might as well start the next leg of the journey fully hydrated. Food would just have to wait.

  The straps of his pack, which had been so light just a mile ago, now dug into his shoulders from the twenty pounds of additional water he was now carrying.

  How had he walked so far without any adverse effects? Lack of awareness must have been his prior blessing because he was now all too aware of his load, hunger, and tired muscles. Thinking ahead to the horrors he’d find in LA, all he could do was pray. It became a mantra as he marched southward.

  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

  Eli’s stomach grumbled, loud enough to snap him out of his inner chanting session. How long had it been since he’d last eaten? The last he remembered was eating grapes in an Oregon vineyard. He’d been sipping water since the Vista del Lago stop hoping that a full stomach would keep his mind from dwelling on the toll being paid for depriving his body of nutrition for so long. But the mental trick wasn’t working and didn’t trick his body. His legs felt like cement and various atrophied muscle groups took turns getting painful cramps as he struggled up the incline of a small hill on I-5. Dark spots floated in and out of his field of vision. The smudges were overlaid onto the world as a reminder of the slow death his body was enduring at the hands of starvation.

  His stomach grumbled again. Much louder this time and continued for so long that Eli wondered if his body had finally had enough and decided to eat itself, starting with his stomach.

  What he thought was grumbling turned to a low rumble. It was coming from all around him. The road was shaking and grains of grit danced on the hot asphalt. An earthquake, really? After all, he’d gone through, this was how this ridiculous mission was going to end? With the highway cracking open and swallowing him? Well, if that was his lot in life so be it. He was so very tired that ending it all sounded quite appealing compared to walking several more days. His internal fuel gauge had clearly reached ‘E’ and Eli wasn’t sure he even had the strength left to search for food if he reached LA. How many houses would he have to break into and search before he found morsels of food? But those thoughts wouldn’t help him reach his destination. All he could do was put one foot after the next and hope his body had enough stores left to get him to San Diego. From there, it would be up to Ruth. But sitting down and waiting for the earth to crack open would put the burden on someone else. If this crazy mission really was from God, his life was out of his hands. Maybe God deemed him too weak and unworthy to carry out the mysterious task and Eli’s recent doubts were all the reason the higher power needed to snuff him out … as though his life was nothing but a solitary candle out in gale-force winds.

  Eli collapsed onto all fours in the middle of the southbound lane. He’d never experienced an earthquake before and the power behind moving the earth was both awesome and frightening. He partially hoped the quake would end his miserable life, but the other part of him wanted the tremors to end so he could continue the endless plodding that would lead him to the ocean. He was in pain but his body could hold out a few more days as long as he stayed hydrated.

  The rumbling didn’t stop, or even slow, it intensified. The sound was almost deafening, but his senses couldn’t figure out why the movement of the pebbles on the ground didn’t match the pressure on his eardrums.

  The screeching tires and blaring horn snapped him out of the spell. Looking up, Eli realized his nose was a mere two feet from the bumper of a dark green vehicle. The turbo diesel engine roared and a blast of heat washed over him as the backwash generated by the vehicle caught up with the sudden stop.

  Moments later, twin columns of vehicles crested the hill in unison. One line in the northbound lanes, the other in the southbound, on their push out of Los Angeles. Eli couldn’t count all of the Humvees, troop and cargo trucks, heavy armor assault vehicles, and transporters loaded with tanks. Finding the scout vehicle stopped and tending to a civilian, both columns came to a halt and numerous soldiers jumped out of idling vehicles to get a better view.

  Two men with their pistols drawn and a third that looked like he’d been chiseled from granite stepped from the lead Humvee. His sunglasses and dark-haired flat top added to the overall picture. This man was a bad-ass. Maybe the vehicle had stopped short of running him over but Eli expected this man’s polished boots to stomp him into the ground like a bug.

  But the voice he heard wasn’t harsh or angry. And while full of authority it also had compassion.

  “Sir, are you OK?”, the man in the polished military boots asked.

  The boots were all he could see now. Trying to look up into the man’s face from his position of hands and knees was too tiring. Eli’s head hung but by straining his eyes he could just look up enough to make out the boots. Maybe they’d kick him into unconsciousness and he could forget about all this madness.

  But the voice was persistent.

  “Sir, are you all right?”

  “No,” Eli croaked. “I think I’m starving to death.” Damn, just speaking out loud took more energy than he could spare.

  “Charlie, Mitch. Help this gentleman into the back of the vehicle. Let’s get him out of the sun and get some food into him. Start with one of the energy packets.”

  “So tell me,” Terry asked when the man looked like he’d regained enough strength, “where is it you’re heading all alone? Los Angeles seems like a horrible destination after all this world has gone through. Wouldn’t you be better off looking for a cabin or ranch somewhere off the beaten path?”

  The carbohydrate-rich energy gel had done wonders to get Eli’s blood sugar levels kick-started and his brain functioning again. He didn’t know how to answer the question so he offered up as much truth as he could muster through the hunger pains. “I don’t know exactly. I think it’s a place called ED3N.”

  Terry’s jaw dropped open for a split second, his eyes going wide. “Could you repeat that please? It sounded like you said, Eden?”

  “That’s right. I think it’s a secret base near San Diego,” Eli said.

  “And why are you trying to reach this secret base?”

  “I need to speak with someone I believe is there.”

  “And would this person’s name happen to be Ruth?”

  “Y … ye … yes,” Eli stammered. “I’m trying to find Ruth. But how could you possibly know that?”

  “Holy shit. You must be the fabled Eli I’ve heard about,” Terry said with a smile while shaking his head. “You’re as crazy as ED3N said you were alright. You walked all the way from Oregon?”

  “How do you know all this,” Eli blurted out. All of a sudden he felt cornered. Like he was playing a lead role in an elaborate plan he knew nothing about but others had plotted behind his back.

  Multiple puzzle pieces clicked into place for Terry as he watched the confusion wash over Eli. Throwing him a line, Terry offered, “We left ED3N this morning. But while we were there I’d seen the Olsen blog correspondences. We know you’ve been having strange dreams about Ruth and ED3N. Interestingly, The Shepherd also said you might show up someday.”

  “The Shepherd … who’s that?” His fuel deprived brain was already struggling to find meaning in his trek to ED3N and with this new information, he was desperately hanging to sanity by the thinnest thread.

  “He was Vice President Shepard,” Terry said. “And the Ark Project, now called ED3N, was his brainchild. His last orders to me were to kill you if our paths ever crossed.”

  “Kill me,” Eli pract
ically screamed, “but why? I haven’t done anything and I don’t even know you or this Ruth person.”

  “So why are you trying to find her?”

  “I really don’t know. I think I have a message for her,” was all Eli could share. The rest of his jumbled thoughts bordered on insanity. He’d keep the biblical theories to himself for now.

  Terry burst out laughing. A full-body, uncontrollable fit of hilarity that brought tears to his eyes. When he finally managed to gain control enough to speak again he said, “Oh, that is rich. A message for her,” just as another bout of laughter took over. Eventually, the spasms started to subside and he used the bottom of his olive-green tee-shirt to dab his eyes.

  Eli stared at him dumbfounded. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out the joke let alone what was so funny it could reduce this hardened warrior into a quivering mass of comic hysterics. Especially, if his life was on the line.

  “I’m terribly sorry. That was very unprofessional of me,” Terry said chuckling again. “This is going to be so good, I almost think it is worth turning around this battalion of soldiers to hand deliver you to Ruth myself.”

  “So, you’re not going to kill me,” Eli asked as relief washed over him.

  “Oh heavens no. As far as I know, the VP is dead and his last order is one I have no intention of following. You, my friend, are going to meet Ruth after all. And I’m thrilled to have the pleasure of introducing you to her. In the words of today’s youth … this is going to be epic!”