Fire, Ruin, and Fury (Embers Saga)

by Matthew Taylor

  “No,” Minister Goodwell insisted. “No one else can know—and certainly no one from the Gang of Seven. As far as we know, Rashid is part of whatever is going on.”

  Alias wanted to dismiss the insinuation against Rashid, but he had to acknowledge the possibility. He also knew it was a gesture of trust from his family to even include him in this conversation, and he would be cut off from the inner circle if he defended Rashid any more than he already had.

  “OK,” Alias relented, rubbing his forehead. “What about Colonel Shikai?” Shikai’s time in North America had left the soldier-executive prone to depression and existential wandering. Minister Goodwell had invested untold hours since the Nautilus meeting listening to the man’s struggles—struggles between duty to his country, his people, his God, and his family. Minister Goodwell had even baptized Shikai and flown to China to officiate the marriage of his oldest son.

  “Colonel Shikai has his own moral transgressions,” Anderson insisted, “which will be repaid before this is all done.” Alias caught his father gazing at Anderson with a furrowed brow, but Anderson was undeterred. “Shikai cannot be trusted any more than Rashid. And almost certainly less.”

  “None of the Ellies can be trusted,” his sister added.

  “Another upheaval is coming, and they’re not ready for it,” Minister Goodwell opined. “They may even unleash it.”

  “And we could well be swept away along with them,” Camila muttered. Alias stiffened at the sound of his mother’s agreement with the conspiracy theories. “The investigations into the death threats against your father have been slow-moving at best—”

  Death threats? His look of surprise betrayed him, and his father nodded an affirmation.

  “And God know who was really behind your shoot down,” Camila added.

  “Shoot-down?” Alias replied incredulously. “They told me it was engine failure.”

  “Oh Jesus, Boy,” Anderson snapped. “It was a missile that brought down your ship.”

  Alias was glad when the discussion with his family finally ended, and he and Jasmine resolved to sneak away to visit Minister Joshua, despite the weight on her shoulders. She was every bit as excited to hear Joshua was living in Troy Township as he had been. The visit wouldn’t be like the old days—lounging in the ancient school bus on the road, watching movies and taking lessons—even a few stolen moments with their godfather would be a welcome respite.

  Or so he hoped. As they waited for the door to open, Alias realized their reunion might not be as welcoming as he hoped. The last time they saw Joshua was the undoing of the big-top ministry, and it wasn’t amicable.

  Joshua would never hold that against us, Alias assured himself. Though we had our part in doing the deal with the Ellies. …And we’ve really made no effort to stay in touch. …And Uncle Joshua didn’t reply to the messages we sent. This could be bad. Maybe we shouldn’t have come.

  He took a step backwards, just as the door opened.

  Chapter 22: Joshua’s Narrative II

  (Joshua Goldbloom)

  Joshua Goldbloom sank down in his fraying tweed armchair and let out a long exhale. He flopped his arm across the table and opened his hand to his sister, Nessa, sitting in the chair next to him. She took his hand, threading her fingers in his, and offered him a half smile.

  “I always wanted you to meet ‘em, but I can’t say I ever expected it to be like that.”

  “Can’t say anything’s ever turned out the way we expected,” she answered softly, keen to respect the quietude that had finally wrested control over the day. She took a sip of Shay’s moonshine from the small, cloudy plastic cup on the table between them and passed it to him.

  Joshua hadn’t anticipated anything more than a quiet supper with his sister and niece when he came home from work that evening. So, he was more than surprised to hear a knock at his door when they had just sat down for the small meal of stew and drought oat rolls.

  The villainous summer sun cast the sky peach and purple on its descent over the horizon, a beautiful offset to the wall of hot air that hit him when he opened the door. But it was seeing Jasmine and Alias Goodwell on his doorstep that nearly knocked him over. His heart beat hard in his chest as he tried to reconcile his joy and fear in the instant he had to decide whether to slam the door shut or leap forth and hug them both. Looking into their beaming, youthful faces, he did neither.

  “Come in,” he rasped, “quickly, quickly!” He pulled them each by the arm and shut the door immediately behind them. “What in Heaven’s name are you doing here? —Do your parents know you’re here?”

  Alias and Jasmine just stared at him, as if waiting for him to calm down.

  “Joshua, who is it?” Nessa came up behind him and peered over his shoulder. She did a double take at seeing Alias

  “Nurse Nessa,” Alias greeted. He then took notice of Emily, still sitting at the small table in the kitchenette. He waived hesitantly.

  An uncomfortable moment of silence descended over the group. They all looked at each other, trying to make the connections.

  “Well come in, you two, and sit down with us,” Nessa invited. “You sit right down here, Alias. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but if you bust my stitches, I’ll bust you.”

  Alias and Jasmine looked for approval from Joshua, who had only just recovered from his shock. He promptly agreed, embraced each of them awkwardly, and shooed them in from the doorway.

  With his two former pupils safely inside and out of sight, Joshua shifted his eyes between Alias, Jasmine, Nessa, and Emily and stammered, “How—”

  “Well,” Jasmine volunteered, pointing at Alias, “he’d prob’ly be dead if it weren’t for Nessa and Emily.”

  Nessa replied, gesturing at Alias. “And he was the one who got us our residency passes.”

  “Wait, Alias is the Ellie from the crash?”

  “Ellie?! Now wait a minute,” Alias objected. It was only then that Alias replied that Joshua realized that his protégé had been staring, entranced, at Emily the entire time.

  “I don’t mean Ellie,” Joshua corrected. “—you know what I mean.”

  “This is the boy from your old ministry?” Nessa interrogated Joshua.

  “And this is my sister Jasmine,” Alias replied. “Am I the only one who’s figured all this out?” Alias joked, but his attempt at humor fell flat, as it usually did. Everyone already knew his tendency toward arrogance, but he was eternally deaf to his audience.

  “So, I guess we owe you thanks for our—well, our everything,” Joshua said to Alias. But Alias, still satisfied with his quip, was already transfixed again with Emily.

  “You owe him nothing, Minister Joshua,” Jasmine chimed, nudging Alias to pay attention. “We’ll always be in your debt.” Joshua gave her a wink of appreciation for her long-standing role as Alias’ diplomatic spokesperson. Jasmine nudged her brother again.

  “Ye-yeah,” Alias finally acknowledged, breaking the stare he and Emily were sharing.

  Joshua sat silently, still puzzling over the odd turn of events that had brought his two former mentees to his door.

  “Well kids,” Joshua said, “it’s wonderful to see you, of course. …But, but wh—”

  “Why have we come to see you?” Jasmine finished, sensing his unease. Joshua nodded. “Well, of course, we wanted to see you. We’ve missed you.” But the young diplomat had overreached, and Joshua let her know it with a skeptical look. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and the atmosphere turned serious.

  Alias finally turned his focus back from Emily. “Our father came today—with mom, and Jasmine, and George Anderson,” Alias began. “Oh . . . no,” he corrected, seeing the expression of distress on Joshua’s face, “they don’t know you’re here. They just came to make sure I’m Okay. But Jasmine never would’ve forgiven me if she found out you were here and I didn’t bring her to see you.”

  Joshua gifted Jasmine a kindly smile, but still unnerved by their presence, he was keen to get to the p
oint. Every moment they stayed—with their father and George Anderson casting the shadow of the Consortium behind them—was a risk to his well-being, and possibly the well-being of his entire family. Joshua cast a quick, worried glance at Nessa, then at Emily.

  “More to the point,” Alias continued, clearing his throat. “They came with some . . . some troubling ideas, and you’re the only one we trust to help us sort it out.”

  Joshua rubbed his forehead with his fingertips, trying to settle himself. “Are you two in danger?” he ventured.

  Alias and Jasmine exchanged worried looks and then tried to recap the discussion they had just had with their parents and George Anderson. As they did so, Joshua listened as intently and patiently as he could, though waves of anger and anxiety washed over him.

  “Anderson’s always had an admirable ability to see the forest, despite the trees,” Joshua said grudgingly after hearing of the conspiracy theories. He fought the temptation to rise to his feet in righteous sanctimony and tell them that he told them so.

  “So, what makes them think this is worse than the normal?” Joshua knew it was better to gather more information than to lash out, and he knew Alias and Jasmine didn’t deserve being castigated, regardless of the part they played in setting up the PetrolChurch deal.

  “Maybe it’s just the scale of it,” Alias answered. “I dunno. Maybe we’re just closer to it.”

  “What do you think?” Jasmine asked.

  Joshua considered his response, realizing that he was rusty in thinking about weighty matters. He’d put so much effort and attention into the details of the family business—trying to prove his worth—that he had all but forgotten about the ills of the world beyond. That was an epiphany that arrived with a realization that he was fatigued to his bones, but somehow happier now than he had been in a long time. He’d spent months oblivious to the plight of the world and the burdens of others. The ache in his heart at being separated from the Goodwells and the big-top ministry had vanished, with only the faintest residue of regret.

  Joshua admitted that he hadn’t seen news of so many people moving en masse since the pig flu epidemic. He pursed his lips and muttered. “More of them, and in more places. Chinese moving away from the seas consuming the coastal cities. Middle Easterners fanning out from the ever-expanding deserts into the Caucuses, the Russian Imperial Republic, and the European Union. South Asians fleeing the same ways to escape drought, pestilence, crop failures, and pandemics. Africans pushing northward into Europe and across the oceans to the Southern Cone and the North American Commonwealth. South and Central Americans flooding northward and southward.

  The patterns were the same as they had been for decades, but the volume was ticking up again, at least based on the snippets of news about packed migrant ships hitting the mine fields and the gun battles along borders and in ethnic ghettoes.

  “This whole region was once a breadbasket,” he sighed. “But with food and water shortages came poverty, famine, and disease. The migration and nativism. Then fighting. You know all about that from your lessons, and you’ve seen it firsthand. If the Ellies are planning ahead for the next round, then it may just be one of the moments when they actually have their act together.”

  Jasmine leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper. “They’re funneling weapons—and drugs—through the church.”

  Joshua wanted to answer her with a look of surprise, but he couldn’t.

  “You know the Ellie families and the Pharma Consortium are practically one in the same. What they don’t sell to heal, they’ll sell to anaesthetize. An addicted population is a servile one, for the most part . . . with some notable revenge effects.”

  He knew of a few of the locations of the PetrolChurch facilities—the ones collocated with the construction sites that employed them—and he tried to resist asking to see where the rest were. But when Alias pulled up GEO and illuminated the layer with all their locations, the pattern seemed obvious. Joshua rubbed his whiskers with his grime-stained fingertips.

  “This kind of network under the protection of the most important Ellies gives them pretty much everything they need. Defensible locations for manufacturing. All situated on what’s left of the of the old road system. Most near MACs. Easy distribution to willing customers. Logical transshipment hubs.

  “Same with guns, I’m afraid.” He glanced up to measure their reaction.

  Alias and Jasmine leaned in with furrowed brows to see the pattern on GEO.

  “Unfortunately, with most of the worst drugs technically illegal, the narcotics trade is still a major tool the Ellies use to exploit, blackmail, and incriminate one another. Guns too. So you’re now spreading the message of God in close proximity to the worst, most vicious elements of the Commonwealth. At least they’re not trafficking people through the churches—I hope. That’s the third leg of the Black-Gold Stool.”

  The expressions on his audience’s faces became even more grave, including Emily’s and Nessa’s. He resolved to press on without sugar coating it, though conscious of his temptation to go too far out of spite.

  “More than likely, you’re on the radars of the Big Five. The clergy’s as inseparable from the Twenty-Eight Families as the narcotics trade—and just as dangerous. You know this from our days in the Wilds. We were just one of thousands of gnats, but their tolerance for competition is low, especially if someone is siphoning off revenues. You remember what happened to Brother Jamison?” They nodded reluctantly. “Beaten within an inch of his life and was never the same. Too afraid to carry on, he left the church, and killed himself months later.

  With as many churches as you’re building, they’re certainly aware of you, and they’d have the motive and wherewithal to take you down. If someone other than random marauders shot down your ship, my guess it’d be them—or at least mercenaries working for ‘em.”

  “We figured they’d leave us alone ‘cause Francesca Carroll is on the Gang of Seven.”

  “The Gang of what? Oh, the little cabal they set up to oversee this thing?” Joshua couldn’t help but be impressed by the Minister of Religion being in the steering group. The foresight and seniority it showed.

  The Chief Regent must be a silent partner, he concluded, a thought that was both reassuring and alarming.

  “Well, that’s something.” That was all he could manage in reaction. “I hesitate to ask who else is in this Gang of Seven. Same as the names I sent you on Christmas Eve?

  He didn’t know much about Colonel Yuan Shikai, though participation by a Chinese military officer was suspicious.

  Why would the Chief Regent want the Chinese military involved?

  He knew only a little about the ring-leader, Ali Ibn al-Rashid, except his place in the recent history books as a cruel and ruthless leader of the Caliphate’s military expansion, along with his prominence in building detente with the Commonwealth after decades of fighting.

  A terrible risk he’s taking. If the Caliph ever finds out . . . someone must be making it worth his while.

  Josephine Thomson, Minister of Information. Another impressive choice. Control the messaging and squash any leak of the church’s affiliation with the Consortium, the Senators, or the Chief Regent.

  It was the revelation of the roles of Ashley Templeton, Thomas Baumgarten, and Xavier Mosino that troubled Joshua the most, especially with his deduction that the Chief Regent had to be somehow involved. The family rivalry between the Templetons and the Baumgartens went back decades and was among the most thinly veiled fissures in the façade of Ellie unity.

  Joshua had direct experience with Xavier Mosino, who governed the Desert Plains Territory, where the big top ministry had spent virtually all of its time sermonizing. Born with all the power-lust of an Ellie, Mosino faced the added pressure of coming from a falling dynasty and the challenges of ruling a lawless and violent region that brimmed with dispossessed and heavily-armed groups. The combination, in Joshua’s view, had produced a uniquely gifted opportunist with despotic ambiti
ons and violent tendencies. Teetering on sociopathic, Mosino has no trouble embracing routine assassinations, water and aid deprivation to quell troublesome groups, and small-scale massacres.

  Being the nephew of the Chief Regent gave him a certain latitude in managing (or instigating) tensions with the neighboring provinces and territories, but it was obvious to almost everyone in the Desert Plains Territory that he thirsted for more autonomy over a wider fiefdom. His enthusiasm for the PetrolChurch made perfect sense to Joshua, not only as another means of social control, but also a vehicle to undermine rival families and extend his influence into neighboring regions.

  How this cabal held itself together was completely beyond Joshua’s imagination, except that the stakes had to be high enough that these competing interests all thought it worthwhile. Like Alias, Joshua saw the PetrolChurch as a long-term gambit for social control, but one with only short-term financial payoffs to be had from drug and weapons trafficking. The troubles brewing domestically and abroad were nearer-term crises.

  “Then there are the challenges of the Chief Regent himself,” Joshua continued. Rumor is his plan to nationalize solar farms, shale fields, coal plants, and dams—nominally to save what’s left of the environment—has put him at odds with key Ellie families. Increasing the tax on provincial militia forces for the Expeditionary Force and Domestic Security Service—powers controlled by him—has also rubbed some Ellies wrong. Reducing the Senate’s rulings on water distribution to merely advisory measures for the Chief Regent was widely seen as another power grab. The Agricultural Consortium chaffed at his dictate to increase the nutritional value of drought-oat biscuits and raise contamination standards on drinking water, though publically the Ellies applauded the changes.

  “It’s hard to make any sense of the shifting alliances among the Ellies and the international consortiums. They are all intertwined by family and financial ties, despite their endless schemes to undermine each other and elevate themselves. I’ve only heard the broad-brush strokes of it. Baumgarten versus Templeton. I had always heard they would sooner die—or at least kill one another—than work together. That, to me, is the most befuddling of all of this.