Fire, Ruin, and Fury (Embers Saga)

by Matthew Taylor

  They’re gonna get in, she thought in terror.

  “We need to get out of here, now!” she shouted to Brady, shaking his arm. She took a moment to focus on his disbelieving eyes and nodded determinedly to force the issue. He grunted something inaudible and nodded back in agreement, so she took his hand and started into the tangle of lichened boulders and weathered trees. Within a few steps, another massive concussion shook the ground, and a gust of hot air pressed against her back. She turned back to see the camouflage attack truck awash in flames, burning debris still raining down from the air. Black smoke gushed from the scorched metal hulk.

  In tandem, they turned to double-back to the path, but Brady wedged a foot under a tree root and toppled to the rocky ground, his knee gashed open on a rock.

  “Sunnova goddamned fucking bitch!” he shouted in agony.

  Victoria helped him back to his feet and wrapped his arm over her shoulder to help him hobble back to the ditch. Through the thick smoke and intense heat from the burning vehicle, she made-out the black attack truck just up the path—still firing madly towards the wall. Its two dismounted foot soldiers were nowhere to be seen.

  “We’ll take the ditch,” she panted, “along the tree line—all the way to the clearing. We’ll figure the rest out from there.”

  Brady pulled himself up on the tree that had felled him, and Victoria leaned into his arm-pit, straining to keep him upright. He shook with every step, and his pant-leg was soaked with blood.

  She willed herself forward. Rape and slavery. Rape and slavery.

  When they finally reached the clearing at the top of the path, the black attack truck came into full view, its front gunner strafing the wall, the rear gunner felling the civilians trying to cross from the forest to the gate. The razor-wire perimeter was in pieces, and farther on, and the wall’s main gate hung on one hinge. But the arched tunnel into the township was blocked by a burning school bus that someone had wedged into the space and set alight. Unable to get through, the marauding attack truck just sat idling, uncertain about what to do except shoot.

  A hobbled sprint across the clearing would surely get them killed, and they were spent. She wanted to vomit, as Brady had twice on the ascent. They paused at the crest of the ditch, out of view and out of breath. She could barely believe how long it went on, praying for the truck to run out of bullets, or take fire from her people.

  Finally, the PLINK-PLUNK of bullets traversed the truck, sending tiny spouts of dust into the air. The forward gunner slumped forward, and his weapon went silent. The rear gunner cried out in pain, his bloodied right arm falling limp at his side. He paused for a moment and struggled to tie a tourniquet around his arm with a small piece of rope, before swinging himself around and resuming firing at the wall.

  Without thinking, Victoria let go of Brady’s hand, leapt from the ditch, and raced headlong towards the truck. With its defender’s back turned, she scaled the small ladder on back of the truck, crawled onto its roof, and pulled her jack-knife from the leather case on her work belt.

  She crouched a few feet behind the gunner for a moment, casting a brief glance back at Brady, who stared at her in disbelief. She then opened the blade, charged ahead, and plunged her knife next to the marauder’s Adam’s apple. He flailed with his good arm to find her, finally grasping her hands and digging in his nails. She clenched the handle of her knife as tightly as could, trying to absorb the pain, and leaned back with all her might, ripping open the man’s neck. As his jugular sprayed blood onto her arms, she got to her feet and stood over him before pulling his head back by the hair so he might see her and feel alone and unloved in his final moment alive.

  When his wild, desperate eyes went blank, she let his lifeless body slither down to the metal floor, landing with a thud. She followed him down into the truck and took his pistol from his belt and his earmuffs from his head. A racket of bullets now clattered off the truck’s armor, and she made her way toward the cab, where the driver and navigator were squabbling up front. She cocked the hammer of the pistol just as the navigator got up to man their silenced machine-gun. His eyes bulged like saucers at seeing the ragged girl pointing a gun square at his forehead. She made it quick business, blowing a hole straight though his eye before planting a bullet in the base of the driver’s skull.

  Victoria swooned, doubled over, and vomited before things went dark.

  When she came-to, as if from a dream, she couldn’t be sure how long she’d been sitting in the pool of vomit, mixed with the blood of the men she had killed. She thought of her mother, working a double shift in the infirmary. Paul and Emily, impossibly far away. Brady laying in a ditch. Despite this, and the lifeless and vacant eyes of the marauder staring up at her, she was unable to rouse herself. She broke down in sobbing hiccups and dry heaves until she realized that she was still very far from avoiding capture.

  Rape and slavery. Rape and slavery, she muttered to herself.

  After another dry heave, she pulled herself off the bloody floor and started to scale the steel ladder leading to the gun-turret hatch. Her blood-soaked boots slipped sickeningly on each rung until she came to the port hole, where she paused.

  Would her own people on the wall gun her down as soon as her head peeked out? How would she get from the truck to the ditch? Across the clearing to the gateway? Carrying Brady all the way? Then past the burning bus?

  Hope for the best, expect the worst. …But the worst is dying. Expect to die? It was just as little comfort now as it had ever been.

  OK. Just get out of the truck and run. …Rape and slavery. …Rape and slavery. Just get out of the truck. The first step is the only step. Get out of the truck, Vic. Get out of the goddamned truck, Vic.

  As her eyes filled with tears, she fought back a gag, took one last deep breath, and launched herself through the hatch. Atop the bullet-riddled truck, she realized she hadn’t been shot, and she paused without thinking to take in the sight of the battlefield around her. The tree line was a ragged mesh of shattered trees. Black smoke floated over the entire landscape—from the outer edge to the gates of the wall—and even inside the township. The stench of burning flesh mingled with reek of petroleum and gun-powder. Pale gray ash and glowing embers drifted with the smoke and haze on the breeze.

  WHIZ-CRACK! PING-PLUNK!

  That was all it took to get her to bolt across the top of the truck and leap off the edge—a ten-foot drop to the gravel clearing. She tumbled on impact, jarring pain radiating from her ankles, but the adrenaline rush was upon her again—a blind fury that would gladly cut a hundred necks open—and she charged to Brady, who still lay clinging to the side of the ditch. She grasped both his hands, pulled him to his feet, lodged herself in his arm-pit again, and set them off on their excruciating limp toward the burning gateway.

  She scanned the top of the township’s walls, looking for some sign of help. A guard on the wall met her terrified eyes and gestured to other Civ-Defs. They shifted their focus to her area, trained their machine guns, and opened fire over her head and into the tree line behind them.

  Tracers snapped over her head from behind, and two Civ-Defs dropped from the wall onto the clearing.

  Oh my God, we’re not going to make it, she despaired, trudging as fast as her aching legs and burning lungs would carry her and Brady.

  Two replacement Civ-Defs took positions on the wall, both sending red laser beams down the path and shouting into their helmet radios. A moment later, a flock of aerial drones emerged from behind the wall and bore down on them. Victoria crumpled flat onto the earth, Brady groaning in tow.

  Glowing orange slivers streamed from drones’ guns, along with a handful of explosive bursts, and the earth shook with a series of concussions.

  Chapter 41: Repairing Chaos

  (Emily Goldbloom)

  Emily Goldbloom and Dorian Lee trundled back to the auto-truck loaned to them by Baumgarten Industries, frustrated that her work wasn’t finished. They had been held back on the Baumgarten Estate for
only a day before being deployed again down the mountain to Harrisburg. The provincial capital still lacked power—along with most of the region—and the critical task of restoring power to the automated defenses at the security outposts still wasn’t done. Half of their progress on their last excursion had been destroyed by marauders soon after they had left.

  At last, her father had called Dorian Lee to summon them back to the Baumgarten Estate, so her day of drudgery, sweat, and insects was finished. Climbing into the passenger seat, waiting for Dorian to finish his chat with their security escorts, she took in the furious roar of the swollen creek, the rustling of the leaves, and the grumbling generators. She was so tired, wet, and miserable that her main interest now was just getting to wash up. She pulled off her soggy work gloves and took a swallow of tepid water from her canteen.

  Dorian turned on the MediaStream, catching the voice of Operetta describe the storm’s path of death and destruction from Wilmington to Arlington and on to Baltimore Heights, Old Philadelphia, Newark, New York, and beyond. The estimated body count had already risen to twenty thousand. Two million homeless. Hundreds had been washed away in Arlington alone, including fifty children sheltering in an orphanage stupidly located in the Crystal City flood zone. Emily choked on her aching Adam’s apple, forcing back the mental images of terrified children being pulled into a torrent of water.

  As they started out down the gravel road, sandwiched between two of Baumgarten’s attack vehicles—aerial drones buzzing overhead—she was struck by how quickly nature’s fury had unfolded. Floods battered nearly every city, town, and township. The devastation reached all the way into Appalachia Province, where mudslides swept down the withered and denuded mountainsides. Despite all the water, so desperately needed over the past five years, fires raged uncontrolled up and down the coast.

  The shell-shocked masses wandered through the rubble, foraging for food, clean water, fuel and shelter—and anything else they might salvage in the chaos. The aid sent in by the authorities and the Ellies fearing civil unrest, including Baumgarten Industries, was nowhere near enough. So the lock downs and curfews continued. But, as the ranks of the dispossessed swelled and aid became scarce, looters and raiders rampaged up and down the coast. As with every superstorm, they would stubbornly refuse to relinquish their spoils.

  This trip outside the walls of the estate, like the last, was set against a backdrop of fear. She took some comfort in having the “Baumgarten Industries” brand on their truck. It was a small thing that might make an attacker think twice. The Baumgartens also provided armed escort, though even the soldiers appeared anxious as they waited for her and Dorian to finish their work.

  “It’s only a twenty-minute drive,” Dorian reassured her, though she already knew exactly how far they were from the estate. “We’ll be fine once we get out of town and cross the bridge. We’ll take Forest Lane to avoid the city center.” She realized he was reassuring himself as much as her. Emily replied only by opening the glove box to take out the revolver she had secretly placed before they left the estate. “I don’t think we’ll need that, Dear.”

  “Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.” I think you ‘n dad have said that to me, what, two or three times a day? …Since I was five?”

  “Fair enough,” smiled Dorian. “But we’re coming up on the bridge, so keep it hidden, and roll up your window.”

  So much for Patrick’s promise of no more dangerous excursions,” Emily fumed.

  Their tiny convoy rounded a corner to see the narrow mouth to the bridge over the Susquehanna River. On either side of the entrance, fires burned in steel drums and ramshackle rings of smashed concrete. As they approached, groups of faceless silhouettes began getting to their feet and shuffling into the street. The lead vehicle slowed a little, and the soldier in the turret descended inside and closed the hatch. But they made no signs of stopping. The autovan rattled and clanked through the crowd of people, who reluctantly parted to make way.

  Dorian reached for his comms stick and signaled to Bully. “Uhhhh, Bully, Wade Bridge doesn’t seem to be under provincial control anymore.”

  “Nah,” crackled Bully’s reply. “Just some scrappers we hired to mind the bridge for a while. They get some tolls; we get to put our troops where they’re needed more. They won’t be a problem as long as you’re in a marked vehicle.”

  Dorian nodded, as if he were satisfied with the answer—and understood it was none of his business.

  Despite the reassurance, Emily trained her eyes straight ahead, trying to ignore the dirty, gaunt, and angry faces glaring at her through her window as they passed. She slid the pistol under the rain poncho on her lap, aiming it at her door. Her sweaty fingertip tapped the metal beside the trigger.

  Their security escorts lit up the gold flashing lights on the roofs of their vehicles. Dorian followed suit, flipping a switch on the console.

  Hurting us hurts you, thought Emily. You want light or heat or water?

  The crowd of waifs stepped back from the convoy’s path and started filing back towards their fire pits.

  “Get our goddamned power back on, motherfuckers!” yelled a large man with a rifle as he turned to flip a panel-switch. Green lights blinked at both ends of the bridge, and her convoy accelerated over the still fire-scorched span. At the other end, another large man waved them through a makeshift checkpoint.

  Careful not to make eye contact, Emily noted that both men wore military fatigues, but neither showed any insignia.

  “The worst is over,” Dorian said unconvincingly, stiff and wide eyed. “But keep that pistol handy ‘til we get home.”

  “Those guys look as likely to kill Baumgarten as to protect him,” she muttered.

  Dorian only nodded, staying close to the lead assault vehicle.

  Up the rough, winding mountain road, they finally emerged from the forest to the clearing in front of the Baumgarten Estate. The flood lights atop the wall clicked on, blinding them and bringing the convoy to a stop. Emily stealthily slid the pistol back into the glove box, and they rolled down their windows. They swiped their badges on the guard post’s console, entered their access codes, and submitted to the guard’s bio-scans. The flood lights then dimmed, and the massive gates—black steel spears with gold-tipped spades—swung open.

  Their escorts departed, and their auto-truck unexpectedly maneuvered to the mansion, instead of the guest house. Bully Bladstone and Latonya Pryor were waiting for them on the steps.

  “Welcome back,” Bully grunted with as friendly a tone as he could muster. He informed them they would be going to the command center as Latonya steered them first to side rooms to freshen up. Emily looked for some of the hospitable kindness she had experienced from Latonya days before, and although Latonya smiled, her demeanor was serious.

  Emily closed the door and shivered as she peeled off her sweat-soaked coveralls. She wiped herself down with a rag that was damp with the standard mix of soap, insecticide, and fragrance. She slipped into the fresh, dry clothes waiting for her on a bench.

  At least I won’t stink. The thought struck her as odd, all things considered. She had never been so conscious of her odor since meeting Thomas and Patrick Baumgarten.

  When she and Dorian had dressed, Bully led them to the Baumgarten’s command center. She took some pride in seeing its bright with lights and its glowing V-plats, computers, and monitors—knowing they lived because of her work. Emily swallowed the contrast of her success here with the darkness that consumed millions beyond the estate until she noticed Senator Baumgarten intently focused on a massive V-plat map with Shay and her father. Their faces were grave. Bully joined them at the V-plat, and Latonya took her leave with a pat on Emily’s arm. Emily looked around for Patrick, but she didn’t find him.

  Baumgarten, Shay, and her father were still oblivious to their arrival, and she held back from announcing their presence in hopes of overhearing some unfiltered news. The chaos following the superstorm, coupled wi
th comms losses and news fragments of fighting all over the Commonwealth, had them all worried for the past two days. The rumors of the assault on her cousin Paul’s firebase in faraway Indonesia—and half a dozen other Commonwealth outposts in Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia Pacific—also had everyone on edge. But the MediaStream was notorious for downplaying bad news, and the press of work kept her out of the loop.

  “Em and Dorian’ll stay here while we’re gone,” her father said to Senator Baumgarten, “but we’ll need them to have more security.”

  Senator Baumgarten nodded in agreement.

  “Yer sure you can’t get us there by air?” Shay asked. “We got vehicles there, so we can make our own way back.”

  “I wish I could,” Baumgarten replied. “But the only airships that aren’t grounded are trying to get things under control… or on their way to our firebases overseas. I can’t get the Goodwell girl back either. Best I can do is give you some ground vehicles and a few guards. …Food, ammunition, and supplies, of course.”

  Emily couldn’t believe her ears.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” she blurted out, startling the men. Baumgarten looked at her with a raised eyebrow, but she didn’t care. She shot lasers from her eyes at her father, who warily stood up and approached her. He reached out to hug her, but she shook off his gesture to move them to next room with him to talk more quietly.

  “This is a joke, right?” she spat. “You can’t possibly be talking about driving to Troy with everything that’s going on.”

  Her father cast a glance back at Thomas and Shay as if to apologize for the scene about to unfold.

  “Don’t look at them! I’m right here. Look at me.” She had never spoken to her father with such a tone, but her anger had her firmly in its grasp.

  “Em, you need to sit down.”

  You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, she thought, determined not to surrender to the tears welling up inside her. But her father’s eyes had started to shimmer as he looked at her, and she had never seen him cry in her life. She knew there was no escaping whatever was coming next.