Damnation

by Ken Barrett

  Liam heard Roxi’s sobs. “Oh, Sam, it’s so good to hear your voice.”

  “The one you speak of has passed beyond the veil of flame,” Adar said. “Beware woman, do not open the door to the past and call him, lest he returns and brings others with him. There are demons in this world, false men and women that cannot be burned. They cannot die because the fire of heaven rejects them. They are tied to the old ways of hubris and sin, and must be cast out.”

  Still weeping, Roxi pushed away from the radio and stumbled into the crowd. Liam worried about her, then glanced at Denise, who stood with both arms wrapped around Keith’s waist, and thought he might know something of how Roxi felt.

  “More followers are arriving in Glenwood every day,” Adar continued. “Their passage through the wastelands is a test of their faith. They all follow the Burning Path, seeking to join our army of the Scarred Faithful. One day, the Stickman will return, pure and true in form, and he will restore the earth and make it fruitful again. I encourage the faithful among you to join us.”

  *****

  “That guy sounded kinda crazy.” Keith’s voice softly echoed through the room. “He’s gotta have some kinda angle.”

  “I dunno about that,” Jerry, the tall maintenance worker responded. “It’s a miracle that he survived outside during the firestorm.”

  “He said he was in a cave,” Denise said

  “Just that wouldn’t have saved him,” Jerry replied. “We were fifteen floors below ground and protected by thick steel doors, and we barely made it. How do you explain that?”

  “Coulda been a deep cave,” Keith countered.

  “I guess so, but what he said sounded right and made sense. The old world was wicked, and the fire cleared all that away. How do we know that a god didn’t make the sun explode?”

  “Yeah,” Nadine, the tall thin blonde woman said. “His story is crazy, but it kinda makes sense too.”

  Roxi stepped away from the crowd; she had regained her composure, but her eyes were still red from crying. “Don’t confuse fascism with faith,” she said. “Long ago, there were preachers spouting doctrines of fire and brimstone just like we heard today. They weren’t humble men and women though, all they wanted was power and glory. They made themselves rich off the backs of the poor by using pretty words and promises of heaven to their contributors, and eternal pain and suffering to everyone else.”

  “But what if Adar is right?” Nadine asked. “Everything he said about the old world was true. They destroyed the planet! Greed created pollution, and that warmed everything up; the poles melted and the oceans rose, then we lost farmland and people starved. But now, the fire from heaven, or solar storm if you wanna call it that, it cleared everything away. The earth is clean again and we can start over.”

  “Nah. You’re wrong Nadine,” Keith said. “Adar’s just a nut job. Remember, he was outside when the solar flare hit, and that probably made him crazy.”

  Nadine nodded. “Yeah, maybe so. Being burned by fire and then baked by the heat that followed would’ve made anyone nuts, but that don’t make him wrong. Thing is, according to his story, Adar was a city boy, probably living out in Pike City or Flatiron, so it ain’t likely he ever heard of the Stickman. That’s a folktale of the mountains, city people don’t know it.”

  “And don’t forget about the miracle of the firestorm,” Jerry said. “It came at just the right time. I mean, the whole world had gone to shit; there weren’t no cities or nations left, it’s like the fire waited until we ruined everything on our own, then it came along to clear it all away, just so we could start over.”

  The Command Center rumbled with countless conversations. People were forming groups as sides in the argument were being drawn.

  Liam stepped forward. “No. Just no,” he said as everyone stared at him. “The Coronal Mass Ejection, the firestorm you’re talking about, it’s been proven that these have occurred many times before, the evidence is throughout the fossil record. Furthermore, it’s never been proven that mankind caused climate change, there’s much more evidence that warming and cooling are related to solar cycles. The planet has been slowly warming for the last twenty-thousand years, so it certainly wasn’t industrial pollution that caused it.”

  “Don’t let yourselves get pulled into a cult,” Rose said as she stepped up beside him. “Millions, maybe billions of people have died throughout history due entirely to religious intolerance. After the last crusades they were banned by the World Government, and for good reason! Such beliefs always elevate some and diminish others, it’s a cruel and evil process.”

  “And who the hell are you to tell us anything demon!” Jerry shouted as he walked to the middle of the room. “You’re the ones that Adar was warning us about! You’re made of nothin’ but wires and technology. By all rights, we oughta throw you both outside to burn.”

  Angry shouts of agreement and murmurs of disagreement echoed through the room as Commander Davis stepped to the center and took control. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ve listened to everyone’s point of view and will consider them all without bias. But for now, these two robots will remain with us; we need their continued labor to repair our shelter. Once that is complete, I will reconsider their fate.” The older man stared at them pointedly. “Human affairs are none of your business. So, get back to work.”

  Chapter 11: Rumors

  After midnight, the upper floors were always quiet. The few that remained awake were either maintenance workers or cooks preparing breakfast in the cafeterias. Liam and Rose had completed their assigned tasks and had, at last, crept down to their hidden sanctuary at the bottom of the shelter.

  Within the workshop, Liam sat hunched over his workstation, refining the code for a numerically controlled milling machine that would shape blocks of ceramic magnesia zirconia into their new battery cases. Beside him were several containers of dark but glittering radioactive diamonds, which would be the heart of their new power source.

  Rose sat nearby, quietly eating a dinner of unflavored tofu she had made from soybeans grown in the hydroponic gardens. “Whatcha doin’ Big Brother?” she asked playfully.

  He had to stop working and laugh. “You were such a brat as a kid.”

  Rose leaned back with her legs crossed and resting on the seat of a second chair. “But none of that really happened, did it?”

  He paused again. “True, but did anything that anyone remembers actually happen? Maybe all that exists in the universe is this single moment, and everything else is a dream.”

  “Ouch!” She rubbed her forehead. “You just gave me a headache.”

  “If you mess with me little girl, I get to play too.”

  “Sure.” She smiled. “But what are you doing?”

  “Getting ready to build our new batteries,” he replied. “They’ll float within our chest cavity beneath plate ceramic armor, but they still need to be resistant to impact and handle high temperatures. When the cases are complete, I’ll place the diamonds in the frame and will have a router wire them up. The density of the radioactive elements will be more than seven times that of our current configuration.”

  “Well, I’ve finished writing the code for the software upgrades to our autonomic repair system and am starting the debugging phase,” Rose said. “Everything will be set to upload when your batteries are ready.”

  “There’s my brilliant sister,” he said. “You just like to screw with me, don’t you?”

  “Heh,” she stared up at the ceiling and smiled. “When we were kids, I used to sneak into your bedroom and move just one or two things around.” She chuckled. “You had to have everything just thus and so, and if only one thing was a little out of place, you’d go crazy.”

  “Hey, I never got angry.”

  “I know, you’ve always been a good brother that way.” She reached out and lightly touched his arm. “You were just so funny, walking around and around in there, trying to figure out why your room was out of balance… that’s what you called it
.”

  “That’s probably a fault in the build of my core program,” he replied. “I get obsessed with trying to solve a problem and have trouble letting it go.”

  “Or it could be a feature; you know the old saying: if you can’t fix it, feature it.” She abruptly pulled her feet off the chair and turned toward the closed workshop door. “Someone’s here.”

  Liam sat up and listened. “Two people by the sound of their footsteps.”

  “I’ll check it out,” Rose replied.

  His sister was just as strong and fast as he was, but he still worried. “Be careful.”

  She smiled at him over her shoulder, then slipped through the door. Her footsteps faded as she moved away, and he resumed working at a slower pace so he could keep track of her. After a moment he heard the chatter of friendly conversation; Alice and Tiger had come down for a visit.

  He had just gotten to a breaking point in his task and was cleaning up his work area when his sister and the two young people arrived. It was surprising how much they had grown; such an interesting bodily feature, to be created small and gradually increase in size, and he wondered if it could be possible to create an android form that mimicked it.

  “Wow, what are those Liam?” Tiger stared at the containers of darkly glistening stones. “They sparkle.”

  “Those are the radioactive diamonds we’ll use to upgrade our batteries,” he said.

  “Radioactive?” The young man’s eyes grew large and he took a step backward. “Will they kill us?”

  “Only if you eat a whole bunch of them,” he answered. “They’re manmade, created from the graphite shielding that was in old nuclear fission reactors.”

  “What are they for?” Alice asked.

  “Our current batteries don’t produce enough electricity to keep us alive if we get thrown outside,” Rose stated. “Our crystalline processors are efficient and don’t use much power, but our repair systems are energy hogs, especially when we're in a harsh environment or under attack.”

  Alice looked worried. “Will the commander do that to you?”

  “Probably not,” Rose lied with an assuring smile. “But enough of that, I hear that you guys are living together.”

  Alice’s cheeks flushed as she smiled and looked down. “We are, yes,” she whispered.

  “Oh, that’s wonderful.” Rose stepped forward and gave the young woman a hug. “And you both are happy?”

  Alice nodded quickly as she looked at Tiger. “Yes, very happy.” She glanced around the workshop. “And you guys are staying down here now, right?”

  “Well, not right here in the workshop,” Rose replied. “We’ve cleared out a couple of extra rooms, that’s where we sleep, but we mostly hang out in here.”

  “Are you lonely?” Alice asked. “I mean, do you miss your partners, Keith and Denise?”

  “Yes,” Rose answered as she bit her lip and looked away. “But everyone has their own path, and we hope they’re happy.”

  “So, is this a social call, or is something else going on?” Liam asked.

  “Roxi wants you guys to come up to the Command Center,” Alice said. “She told us that she’ll be alone, but I think my parents and some others might be there too. But anyway, she says that you’ll be safe.”

  “I wish you guys didn’t have to hide,” Tiger added. “After all the things you’ve done for us, treating you this way is wrong.”

  “A fear of technology doesn’t have much merit,” Liam said. “Industry didn’t destroy the planet, people did. Objects never kill anyone on their own, murder and destruction only happen when they are guided by human hands.”

  “What does Roxi want to talk about?” Rose asked.

  “There have been more sermons on the radio,” Tiger answered. “A lot of people are listening and starting to believe in the Burning Path, and she thinks that will cause trouble.”

  *****

  Alice and Tiger led the way up the shadowy ramps. The few people they saw didn’t seem to notice them, but they were still relieved when they reached the Command Center on level seven.

  They hesitated when they heard several voices echoing across the expansive floor. “Are you sure it’s safe?” Rose asked.

  “Yeah,” Tiger answered. “Roxi probably invited a few others.”

  All of the open spaces, whether they were in the Command Center, or Engineering, or even cafeterias, always appeared to be dimly lit. The dark granite ceilings, floors, and walls seemed to soak up the light, making the open area appear eerie and foreboding. They cautiously walked toward the sounds of conversation.

  “Liam!” A young girl shouted; her reddish-brown hair bounced on her shoulders as she ran toward them.

  “Hi Jackie!” Liam lifted her into his arms. “It’s good to see you kiddo.”

  She tightened her grip around his neck. “Oh, I’m so sorry. All of the bad things that have happened to you are because of me.”

  He lowered the girl to the floor, then knelt down and gazed steadily into her eyes. “Now you listen to me,” he said gently. “None of the crazy things that have happened is your fault. You were scared, just as anyone would’ve been.”

  “So, you forgive me?” She glanced at Rose hopefully.

  Rose knelt down and smiled. “You didn’t do anything wrong, so there’s nothing to forgive.”

  “Are you living with your Aunt and Uncle?” Liam asked.

  “Yeah, and they’re here today too,” Jackie answered. “I miss my parents, and especially my brother, but otherwise, I guess I’m ok.”

  “Oh, I know all about brothers.” Rose made a funny face and tilted her head toward Liam, and Jackie smiled.

  A group of perhaps twenty people slowly approached from the communication alcove, their murmuring conversations rumbled through the room. Alice’s parents came forward to greet them. “This wee one lives near us,” Kelly stated as she placed a hand on Jackie’s shoulder. “We keep an eye on her; she’s a lovely child. All the good people are looking after each other these days, that’s what neighbors do.”

  An odd thing about human beings was that just when he was about to give up hope and believe they were all wicked, they would unexpectedly do something to redeem themselves. They were a quandary, and he couldn’t decide if they were basically good with some bad qualities, or evil pretending to be good. Liam stood up as the group gathered around them. “So, what are we here for?”

  Rose touched his arm and gently pulled him away. He frowned, but then saw what concerned her. Keith and Denise were also there. “Oh. Hi,” he managed to say.

  “Yeah. Hi,” Keith said. “Sorry. I know that you guys haven’t seen much of us lately, but we were worried about what folks would think, so we’ve been kinda keeping our distance.”

  “That’s probably a good move,” Liam responded, knowing that Keith’s words were just an excuse, and not a good one either.

  “Are you guys ok?” Denise asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” Liam answered, then glanced at his sister; her eyes were filled with daggers. “We’ve been staying on level two when we’re not working.” Rose glanced at him and nodded slightly; their former partners couldn’t be trusted with the truth.

  “I’m glad you came,” Roxi said as she stepped out from the small crowd that had greeted them, and he felt the tension ease. “There have been some developments concerning Adar’s cult, the Burning Path.”

  “I don’t suppose people have come to their senses,” Liam said.

  “No. That would be an anomaly these days,” Roxi answered. “I’ve established radio contact with the shelters in Salida and Buena Vista, and learned that the Stickman cult is spreading.”

  “Oh no,” Rose whispered.

  “Those beliefs have also gotten a foothold here too,” Roxi replied.

  “Yeah, that’s not good,” he mumbled. It was ironic how bad ideas quickly took root and spread, whereas good ones always struggled to find acceptance. The growth of evil within any population mimicked a disease, but that
’s where the similarity ended. A sickness of the body could be cured, but when evil ideas became cherished, they were impossible to eradicate.

  “The cult will think that both of you are demons,” Denise stated, and beside her, Keith nodded.

  “Which makes being associated with us really unsafe.” Rose shook her head. “We get it.”

  “But why is everybody buying into it?” Tiger asked. “I mean, the whole idea of praying to a fire god is crazy. I hear they’re burning themselves too, only someone completely off their rocker would go along with that.”

  “They’re seeking reason in an unreasonable universe,” Roxi stated. “The solar storm was a random act of nature that was out of our control, and that’s unsettling. It’s a more comfortable notion to believe that we somehow caused it because if that were true, we can keep it from happening again by behaving differently.”

  “That’s delusional,” Liam said.

  “Self-deception is at the core of human nature,” Roxi replied. “And now fights are breaking out, not just here but at the other shelters too. In Buena Vista, some are branding themselves as an act of faith and are making a pilgrimage to Glenwood.”

  “I doubt many will make it,” Liam answered. “We’re still hauling a lot of fallen masonry outside, so we know that it’s still hot out there, it’s pouring rain, the ground is muddy, and the little creek that used to run through the orchards has become a river.”

  “There’s also the animals,” Rose added. “There are bears, wolves, and mountain lions still alive out there, and they’re all hunting for something or someone to eat.”

  “Yeah, it’s a good thing we’re not edible,” Liam said. “But on a long trip, humans will either starve or get eaten.”

  “Blind faith always trumps common sense,” Roxi stated. “And Adar is sending out missionaries to spread their faith.”

  “And they’re coming here.” Alice gripped Tiger’s arm.

  “It just ain’t right,” Keith said as he shook his head. “I mean, we made it through the firestorm, and now some assholes are coming here to force some weird ideas on us. Fuck man, we just aren’t catching any breaks.”