How have I allowed us to go so long without hugging her? Alias admonished himself. I’m such a fool. Never again.
Minister Goodwell, red-eyed and visibly exhausted, approached and wrapped his arms around them both, placing a kiss on the back of Alias’ head. It was the most heartfelt gesture Alias could remember from his father, though probably not for want of Minister Goodwell trying. Alias, tentatively at first, returned the hug. It felt oddly stabilizing, until Alias noticed on the coffee table more of his father’s doodles of the strange symbol. Connecting lines inside a circle, like an upward staircase, or an arrow pointing up and back. Or a globe as seen through the lens of a crazy person.
What the fuck is that?
Alias’ parents then led Alias and Ben’s crew into the church, where they sat them down and scrambled to prepare food and some basic medical care to the injured.
Alias, who now kept his distance from Ben and the mercenaries, asked about Jasmine. Comms were still spotty, but his parents were trying every hour to reach her at the Baumgarten Estate in the Mid-Atlantic Province. He had assumed Jasmine would be back in Park City, or perhaps in Oregonia with the Templeton family, but he was relieved to hear she was at least with Patrick. He also knew there was fighting in the Mid-At since the storm, so he was again desperate for comms.
“No news of the stabilization campaign there either,” Camila said with a sigh. “They’ve probably had their hands full with the storm.” She was visibly anguished at how far away Jasmine was, and presumably how hard it would be to get to her, or get her back.
Stabilization campaign, Alias mused. The Ellie euphemism for the brutal crackdowns they waged to restore order—and preserve their power. He was struck that his mother would use the term.
Camila then relayed everything she knew about the violence still gripping large swaths of the Commonwealth. Ben offered them no news when asked, and Alias was too uncomfortable to give any specifics of what he had seen on their return trip. He kept it to the information his parents already knew—sans the incriminating acts of his escorts. He added what he knew about their churches, including the grim fate of Minister Olivia Sanchez.
His father seemed oddly detached, tracing the line-and-circle symbol, until Camila became teary-eyed at the account of the massacre at the MAC. She couldn’t constrain her tears at the news of Minister Sanchez, and she got up from the sofa to make herself busy preparing more food, if only to escape from being seen so broken. Minister Goodwell went after her—giving Alias a modicum of solace that his father wasn’t so completely nuts that he had lost touch with his mother.
Alias wanted to follow his parents into the kitchen to help and offer some comfort, but he knew they’d prefer he not see them weep. He was too tired to get up anyway. So, he and his exhausted posse of mercenaries started to settle in and decompress.
They had enjoyed a full five minutes of quiet before the rattling rumble of trucks approached the small courtyard in front of the church.
Minister Goodwell hurried to the door, prompting Ben and Felipe to rouse themselves and make for their rifles, which they trained on the front door. Minister Goodwell paused to ensure Ben’s crew was ready before opening the door to reveal Gilbert Calden on the porch, flanked by two armed guards. Calden stiffened, unprepared for the sight of machine guns already fixed on him.
“Minister Goodwell, thank God you’re here,” Calden said, recovering from the shock and assuming his characteristic false airs.
Alias’ father said nothing in response, and the room was quiet and tense for a long moment.
“Ehhhh, yeah,” Calden stammered, noticing the armed standoff. “Right.” He glanced around the room until his eyes landed on Ben, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “Mr. Holland,” he said, again straightening his posture. “My understanding is that you are needed elsewhere—are you not?”
Ben signaled his people to lower their weapons as he nodded nervously. He stood up and gestured for his troops to gear up and start back to the vehicles.
“Hang on a sec,” Minister Goodwell objected. “These soldiers are our designated security, are they not?” The protest had no visible effect on Calden, now standing tall and indignant in the foyer. “By contract,” Minister Goodwell added. “As near as I can tell, we need security more than ever.”
“We have arranged security for you,” Calden answered, still glaring at Ben to ensure he obeyed. “But this group has an onward assignment, and they are already late.”
Alias liked Calden’s imperious demeanor even less than Calden’s obsequious persona, and despite his new mistrust of Ben, Alias wanted to make a more forceful case to keep him close.
Fucking Calden, he thought derisively. You piece of shit. You’re the boss of no one.
But Ben and his crew had picked-up their pace in packing, and several were already making their way outside. Alias realized there was nothing he could do; he couldn’t even really make too much of a stink. Ben cast a maudlin, over-the-shoulder look back at Alias and marched out the door. Alias went to the window to watch in disbelief as Ben’s convoy fired up their engines and rumbled back onto the road and out of sight.
Alias wasn’t sure how long he’d stood there gawking, but when he finally turned back around, his father and Calden were in a heated argument.
“I insist on knowing what in tarnation is going on, Gil,” Minister Goodwell snapped. “Every scrap of news I hear is insane, I see company jets leaving with arms, and you all have been incommunicado while our churches are apparently getting wiped off the earth, our ministers killed. Then you show up here insisting I—”
“Minister Goodwell,” Calden interrupted, without any trace of his normal obsequiousness, “You are needed elsewhere too. Please come with me.”
Minister Goodwell was thrown. “What?—Where?—Why? My son just got back from what sounded like Hell, and—”
“Minister,” Calden sighed, rubbing his forehead impatiently. “I don’t have time to explain everything right now. We’re going to Salt Lake City. Our people need you.”
“Whose people, Gil?” Minister Goodwell spat. “The ones being mowed down on the roads? The ones being massacred in the MACs and refugee camps? …Or do you mean the ones I saw in Consortium gunships, armed to the teeth?”
Calden answered only with a furious stare. “Get your gear, Minister,” he snarled. “You work for the Consortium.”
There it is, Alias thought, choking on his Adam’s apple.
Calden shifted his stare to Alias and Camila, trying to contain his bile before turning back to Minister Goodwell. “You’re needed on the battlefield—”
“Battlefield?!” the minister shouted.
“Your flock needs you, Minister!” shouted Calden in return. Calden took a deep breath and closed his eyes to regain his composure and start again. “The fighting is worse than we expected.”
“Than you expected?” Camila insisted.
Holllly Hell, Alias fumed.
But Calden was forced to acknowledge his slip. “We think the Portello Cartel sent fighters from Meso-America against us late last night. We’ve heard the Meso-American army even sent special forces and weapons into Free Texas.”
“Free Texas?” Minister Goodwell interrogated.
Calden paused, realizing his second slip.
“You need to practice your talking points, Gil.” Minister Goodwell pressed.
Calden paused and lowered his voice. “We want this to stop. Do you want it to stop, Minister?” He paused, as if waiting for an answer, but then growled. “I’ll give you ten minutes to get your gear, say goodbye to your family, and get in the fucking truck. Pack like you’ll be gone a while.”
“How long will we be gone?” Alias asked.
“We?” Calden quipped dismissively, all of his former respectfulness gone. “Your father will be gone for several days, at least.” He then rolled his eyes. “I suppose if you want to come along, the more the merrier.”
Minister Goodwell interjected and faced Alia
s. “I’m not comfortable leaving your mother here all by herself.”
“I’m not the one going into a battle zone, Dear,” Camila answered.
Alias loved that his mother was forever the bastion of common sense, and therefore his most natural ally in making hard decisions. Whereas Jasmine took after their father—loving, empathetic, kind hearted—Alias liked to think he took after his mother. Minister Goodwell would never have entertained the same argument from Alias himself, so he was glad his mother recognized that his father would need someone to help him make the cold, calculated, rational decisions in that would be required in whatever fucked-up situation lay ahead.
“Seven minutes,” Calden inserted. “I’ll leave two guards for whomever stays here. Seven minutes,” he repeated and signaled his escorts to stay as he turned and left through the open door.
Alias and his father were soon ready to depart as well, stopping to say their goodbyes to Camila. Alias’ heart almost broke, and he questioned his own judgement at the sight of tears in her eyes. He hugged her tightly, her short, portly frame feeling like home.
“You take care of your father,” she whispered to him.
Alias nodded that he would before picking up his duffle bag and making his way past Minister Goodwell, who stepped forward and calmly kissed Camila’s wet cheeks, stroked her hair, and rocked her gently in a tight embrace.
“Take care of our son,” she whispered to his father.
In that moment, Alias realized that his mother’s concern was not so one-sided. He couldn’t help but wonder what situation she was envisioning when he might need his father’s care.
Doesn’t matter, he sighed to himself.
Minister Goodwell followed Alias past the guards at the doorway and to the trucks waiting outside. It was a quick, and thankfully uneventful trip past the remnants of the old ski lodges to the Nautilus Compound, where they boarded a bull-shark jump-jet.
In minutes, they were aloft and thundering down the mountain pass toward Salt Lake City at speeds that made Alias feel another gastro-intestinal malfunction in the offing. They rocketed along the twisting road, passing over Ben’s small convoy and skimming Sherman’s secret base camp, where he had spent the night before.
They slowed on their approach to the landing pads in the foothills above the old capitol dome. Alias scanned the area to discern as much as he could from the air. Through the haze and destruction, he sensed an undercurrent of organization. Flocks of aerial drones flying in formation. Airships flying bait-and-strafe maneuvers in the distance. Sandbagged walls lining artillery positions in the foothills. Armored vehicles massing in the rear.
As they touched down, aerial drones circled above, and rattler attack buggies and snake-eater assault vehicles ringed the landing pad. Exiting the ship, Alias again noticed the total lack of sigils or insignia on anything—including the airship they had just disembarked. He heard different languages among the soldiers scurrying past and saw foreign scripts on crates and boxes. He recognized the distinctive Chinese and Russian characters, as well as their unique helmets and rifles from the MediaStream programs Minister Joshua had shown him growing up.
“We’ve set-up a field hospital behind the capitol building,” Calden finally said, his first words since departing the Silver King Cathedral. “You’ll start there. The Joseph Smith Brigades are close, so we’ll move you to the next point early tomorrow morning.”
Cripes, the fucking Mormons, Alias groaned to himself. The Legions of Joseph Smith would kill him and his father if they caught them—a reality that always made him skeptical of the decision to headquarter the PetrolChurch so close to Salt Lake City.
“Do you understand me, Minister?” Calden demanded in his most formal tone.
“Too well,” Alias’ father snorted, reflecting on the warzone that was downtown Salt Lake City. “I understand you’ve unleashed wholesale slaughter. I don’t understand how or why, but the ruins of this city and the blood of the people in it—and God knows how many others—are on your hands.”
“Well, if you manage to live through the next few days,” Calden answered indignantly, “you can file another grievance with the Gang of Seven.”
Did he just say ‘the Gang of Seven’ out loud?
“The med-tent’s just a short drive from here,” Calden continued. “You can start there.” Calden keyed a few commands into his wrist-plat, and Minister Goodwell’s wrist-plat bleeped a second later. “Talking points for you to give to the men.” Minister Goodwell looked down at his screen with a furrowed brow.
“You’ll be staying in a yurt in the foothills up the road,” Calden added. “Right next to mine. Private Nixon here has your schedule and itinerary, and he will escort you everywhere,” he added, gesturing at a thin, dirty-faced soldier no more than sixteen years old. Minister Goodwell didn’t look up from his reading, and Alias could see frustration building on his father’s face. “You’ll both be far enough away from the fighting,” Calden persisted. “Now, I’ll take my leave. Business starts again at 0-Eight-Hundred tomorrow.” Without another word, Calden—so long dismissed by Alias as a fool—turned and left them.
“Minister Goodwell,” the young soldier started, trying to contain his excitement, “it’s a pleasure to see you again.” Seeing the minister’s blank expression, the young man cast a questioning look at Alias before continuing. “I—I’m Buzz. I—I came to some of your sermons. …bunch of times. Once even at the Silver King Cathedral in Park City.”
Alias could tell his father had no memory of the young soldier, and the boy was disappointed.
“Well,” Buzz said uncomfortably, “I’ll be your guard. I got a side arm for you, just in case. Do you know how to use a weapon?”
Alias nodded and gestured for Buzz to hand it over.
This is why mom sent me.
“Right, well if you’ll just follow me then. …Our vehicle’s right this way.”
Buzz stopped first at their tent in the foothills and unloaded their gear before driving them down a bumpy dirt road, paved once upon a time, to a makeshift hospital. He led them through the tent’s double door-flaps. The sun was setting, luminous pink rays of the gloaming filling the tent through its small portal windows. The lights dangling from the tent’s ceiling dimmed and surged intermittently, an unwelcome reminder of their precarious situation.
“Well, this is it,” Buzz sighed, gesturing toward a cavernous tent room, lined with three rows of cots filled with the dead and dying. Men and women sat along the walls in chairs and on the floors as a handful of doctors and nurses in blood-smeared aprons scurried from one writhing body to another.
Alias gave his father a gentle rub on the back to signal he would follow and assist. Minister Goodwell’s frustrated expression released, his normal compassionate determination taking hold. Minister Goodwell then unpacked a portable V-plat in the center of the room and activated it, casting peaceful images of nature around the tent. The injured men and women reacted immediately. The display had its desired, calming effect, as it had hundreds of times before.
Alias then followed Minister Goodwell, who began making his way around the room. Alias listened to his father’s gentle words soothing the anxious—sometimes ebbing—souls in the hospital. Buzz stared admiringly at Minister Goodwell—a look Alias had seen from parishioners more times than he could remember. The minister didn’t flinch in taking the outstretched bloody hand of a wounded woman, who lay dying on a cot.
Minister Goodwell administered last rights to a dozen men and women. He whispered prayers and reassuring words to others. He led a small group of more lightly wounded soldiers in whispered group prayer. He took a satchel of syringes from the doctors, handing some of the blue-capped ones to Alias and set about administering pain killers. Alias Sr. kept the red-capped ones for himself, solemnly euthanizing the ones who were beyond saving. As the doctors and nurses passed in the aisle, they occasionally gave him grateful touches.
Alias felt a new appreciation—a gratitude—for his
father’s gifts. Maybe this is why mom sent me.
It went on like this for hours until Alias signaled to Buzz that the long, painful day had to end. Buzz nodded, and together they intervened in Minister Goodwell’s work, leading the exhausted minister to the exit. Stepping into the dark evening air, a dry wind blew over them, its dust, sand, and soot sticking to their sweaty hair and skin.
Alias and his father followed Buzz to a waiting battle truck. Minister Goodwell seemed trapped in a silent daze, a state that was rare and disconcerting given the minister’s usual desire to interact with people. Noticing his father compulsively tracing the line-and-circle globe symbol on his pants, Alias worried about his father’s mental state, but also felt the need to engage Buzz, who was clearly still coping with the experience of the hospital—and possibly with the confusion of interacting with Minister Goodwell. Buzz wasn’t seeing the warm and steadfast minister from the church, and Alias could sympathize with the feeling that left.
“Buzz—it was Buzz, wasn’t it?” Alias hoped Buzz might have some answers to his innumerable questions about the fighting—questions which had only gotten more complicated and troubling since the trip home with Ben and subsequent conscription by Gilbert Calden. Buzz nodded, grateful to be acknowledged.
Buzz knew little beyond the Salt Lake City battlefield, and he wasn’t completely clear on goings-on in the city either. “Well, we got called in after a riot in the MAC got outta control. I heard there was some coyotes or marauders mixed in, ‘cause somehow the migrants got guns. …Broke the barriers, killed the guards, and took up positions ‘fore reinforcements got there. Back-ups got bogged down by barricades and sabotaged roads and bridges. The vehicles that made it to the MAC got hit with anti-tank rockets straight away. Then, not sure why, and the Territorial Militia and Joe Smith Legions went at each other.”
Fire, Ruin, and Fury (Embers Saga) Page 52