The Last City (Book 3): Last Stand

by Partner, Kevin

  Hick shook his head. "I'm not going to excuse the butchering of billions. Men, women and children. It is genocide, plain and simple. And now you terrorize the survivors."

  Hickman watched Crawford's face as he said these words. Yes, he had hit a nerve. Deep within that planetary crust lurked a molten core. Crawford wasn't quite the robot he appeared to be.

  Now it was Crawford's turn to bring himself under control. His expression finally loosened and he unclenched his teeth. "Terrorize? No. We guide."

  "That's not what I hear. You force people to live like their ancestors. It sounds fine enough, but having to survive without technology is just another form of abuse."

  "Not if we don't want the same thing to happen again," Crawford said. "Don't you see? Two centuries ago, we lived in closer harmony with our planet. There were fewer of us, certainly, but the way of life was less exploitative. We wish to freeze progress at that point so that humanity can survive into the future."

  Hick shook his head. "Life might be less exploitative, but it's also likely a lot shorter."

  "It doesn't have to be. We haven't forgotten the lessons learned about hygiene, for example, over the past couple of centuries."

  "And vaccination? Or are you gonna let smallpox and polio thin out the population again?"

  Crawford looked pained. "We are investigating ways of making and storing vaccines that do not violate our rules on technology. It cannot be beyond us to find a method of refrigeration that does not require electricity."

  "And diabetics? How about them?"

  "We expect diabetes to be far less of a problem due to an improved diet."

  "Starvation, you mean?"

  Crawford smiled as he shook his head. "You are being deliberately provocative. There is no reason for people to starve. We have learned much from our friends the Amish and the Mennonites."

  "What about type 1 diabetes? A better diet ain't gonna help them much. They need insulin."

  Pulling the drawer open, Crawford found the book and waved it at Hick. "The answers are in here. This book was created by the best minds in our movement and it covers every eventuality. In principle, we can manufacture insulin from cattle and pigs as in the past. Doing so without electricity is challenging, but we will succeed."

  "And in the meantime, folks with type 1 will die?"

  "No, we secured stocks before the rebalancing. We haven't entirely abandoned technology yet. We know that some is essential during the rebuilding process—our vehicles, for example—and we maintain refrigeration facilities. But only for a brief period while we develop new techniques. Now, we run the risk of getting bogged down when we are here to talk about Hope. Can you not see that our way of life is better for all of humanity? Didn't Ward talk to you?"

  Hick leaned forward. "He's one of yours?"

  Crawford let out a strangled chuckle, theatrically choked and then patted his chest before pulling a pack of cigarettes from the drawer and lighting one. "It's above my pay grade to tell you everything I know about Ward McAndrew, but suffice it to say that he is a member of the Sons—or was. He had a change of heart before we acted. A change of heart that resulted in the unique survival of Hope."

  "What?"

  A gloating smile spread across Crawford's face. "You didn't work it out? Oh dear, Mr. Hickman, perhaps I overestimated you. Ward knew exactly the methods we were using to achieve the rebalancing, but he had some sort of ridiculous emotional attachment to your town, so he quit his position with our organization and, I later learned, drove a truck through the only power line into Hope, thus isolating it from the grid. Since then, he has attempted to bring the town under his control, believing that if he imposed our way of life on the people, then the Sons would be merciful when we caught up with him, as he knew we must. I'm sorry to say that he has again proven unworthy. And that brings us back to the present situation."

  "And the entire point of this charade," Hick said.

  Crawford shrugged. "If you wish to call it that. But your position is obviously hopeless. Come, let us go outside before darkness falls."

  Darkness. Suddenly, an image of Cassie leaped from its hiding place in his mind. He had to get back.

  But Crawford was gesturing him through the door and out into the compound. He put his arm around Hickman's shoulder and swept the other as if to encompass the entire camp. "I have nearly five hundred fighters here, and this is not our only fort. We have vehicles, machine guns and rocket launchers. Soon enough, we will be joined by artillery pieces. You see, Paul, there is no hope in resisting. A true leader would see that and do right by his people. This does not have to end in a bloodbath."

  And he was right. They couldn't oppose this force, let alone the others that he knew to be at large across the country. There were enough well-equipped soldiers here to beat down any pitiful defense Hope could mount. A squad jogged by, all in combat uniforms with black caps that could be rolled down their faces. They held assault rifles to their chests and were shadowed by a drill sergeant counting out a beat. Impressive indeed. And then one soldier tripped over his own feet and went sprawling, sending the well-choreographed unit into utter chaos. Hick watched as the sergeant leaped into the middle, baton swinging, pushing through to where the fallen soldier lay. For a moment, Hick switched his glance to Crawford who was watching the scene with mounting anger and, perhaps, something else. Something approaching fear, perhaps?

  Choreography—was that what this was? For his benefit? To convince him not to resist, presumably. But there was more to it than that and the mind of Paul Hickman began to whirr as he was directed away from the scene and toward his pickup. He tried his best to ignore the screaming of the soldier as he was beaten on the ground.

  "You have two days, Mr. Hickman. In forty-eight hours, we will move north and we will come to Hope. Be ready to submit, or suffer the consequences."

  Chapter 14: Council of war

  He could have gone straight back to Hope to raise the alarm. He probably should have done. But that would mean leaving Cassie to spend the night alone in the cave. The flashlight he'd left her wouldn't last forever and while he'd piled up a little firewood, he doubted that it would be enough for the entire night. He thought of her lying there, straining for any sign of his return. Believing in him.

  So, he took the pickup off the highway where he'd been hijacked by Libby and headed across the scrubland. He knew he was being stupid doing this in the dark. There was every chance that he'd end up at the bottom of a gulch or gully if he wasn't very careful.

  And being stupid wasn't confined to the attempted rescue of Cassie. What was he going to say to the people of Hope when he returned? Crawford was right about one thing: if Hick wanted to reduce the bloodshed, he'd have the city surrender without a shot being fired. He couldn't be sure what would happen afterward, though he doubted it would be wholesale slaughter. He imagined that Crawford and the organization he belonged to would see the Hopers as a ready-made labor force—at least those who were fit. So, it was death or indentured servitude.

  But Crawford had made one huge miscalculation. Had Gil Summers still been mayor, then the surrender document would be on its way already. There was no doubt in Hick's mind that Summers would have weighed the calculation and quickly come to the conclusion that bowing down in the face of overwhelming force was the humanitarian thing to do. In all likelihood, far more people would end up dying if they resisted.

  The problem for Crawford was that Paul Hickman was of a different breed entirely. Oh, he was not quite the calculating machine he'd been mere weeks before—this crazy ride across the desert to rescue someone he barely knew was evidence enough of that—but neither was he exactly a member of the bleeding-heart brigade.

  When it came down to it, he still cared about the same things that had mattered most before the firestorm. Himself and Sam. Everyone else was a piece in the puzzle. He didn't mean any malice to most people—he simply didn't care. Because if there was one thing Paul Hickman hated more than being told what
to do by anyone, it was losing.

  Crawford had expected to be able to reason with a rational politician, but in Paul Hickman he faced a mean, self-centered son of a female dog who, as long as he could work out an escape route for himself and his daughter, would fight to the last. Because, above all else, Paul Hickman had to win.

  "Ow!" he spat out a gob of blood, then felt his head where he'd hit the roof of the truck. His tongue felt as though he'd bitten a corner off it and the ground was only getting rougher as he went. Any normal man would have given up before now. But Paul Hickman had to win. Lucky for Cassie Miller.

  The steering wheel swung right as the slope fell away and he grunted as he pulled it back again, dreading the telltale slide of the back tires losing traction. He watched as the headlights revealed a forty-five-degree angle but, somehow, he managed to wrench it up the slope.

  He stopped the car when it reached level ground and drew in a deep breath. Getting out, he leaned back against the door and stared into the night. As his eyes adjusted, he gazed at the star-speckled velvet above, transfixed as he always was by the pristine majesty of the heavens. Behind the car, in the direction of the highway, an opalescent river of the celestial milk emerged and flowed above his head. He followed it until his eyes settled on a bright red pinprick of light sitting just above the black-on-black silhouette of the mountain. Mars, god of war. How appropriate.

  Hick hugged himself to keep all his body warmth from escaping. At least he knew roughly where the cave lay. Head for the red planet, and try not to fall down a mine on the way.

  His luck was in that night as he picked his way across the scarred landscape, somehow avoiding the gullies and dried-up creeks he knew to be there. By the time the vast black bulk of the mountain loomed over him, he was exhausted and he knew there was no sense in fumbling around in the dark trying to find the cave. As he was hunkering down for the night, a beam of light bounced off his rear-view mirror and he swung around, grabbing for his handgun. How could they possibly have followed him out here?

  He jumped out of the car and looked west to see the moon emerging from below the eastern horizon. Cursing himself, he breathed out a thick fog and got back inside to wait until it had fully risen.

  By the light of a waning moon just past full, he picked his way along the face of the mountain until he came to landscape features he thought he recognized. He got out of the car and turned the headlights off so his eyes would adjust properly. As he squinted into the darkness, he heard coyotes yapping and the sound of a cow mooing.

  The first thing he saw as he peered into the darkness of the cave was a blinding light that swept away immediately.

  "Oh, thank God," she gasped.

  Hick pulled aside the rocks, turning every now and again to breathe a lungful of fresh mountain air rather than the corrupt stench coming from inside. Ermintrude and her calf looked up at him disinterestedly but, as he scrambled down the inside of the wall blocking the cave, Roger the cockerel popped up from behind Cassie.

  She was pale and shivering. The fire had gone out.

  "The calf … kicked it out … couldn't light it again … So cold …"

  Hick wrapped his coat around her shoulders, instantly feeling the earthy cold of the cave leaching warmth from his bones. Farther inside, he could hear a frantic, ghostly crying.

  "The coyotes … they're panicking …"

  Hick put his arms under her shoulders. "They're the least of my problems. Now, I'm gonna lift you up and I sure could do with your help gettin' you back to the car."

  "What about Ermintrude and the calf?"

  Hick cursed under his breath. "We'll send someone back for them. Right now, all I care about is gettin' you somewhere warm and safe." And he very nearly meant it.

  She groaned as he lifted her, and collapsed as soon as she tried to straighten her leg. So, he was forced to carry her in his arms, expecting at any moment to register that subtle pop that would herald a full-on back spasm. And then he'd be no use to anybody.

  He hauled her over to the rockfall and helped her climb up hand over hand until she could use gravity to get over the other side.

  "You ain't comin'," he said, looking straight into the cockerel's yellow eyes as he crawled out of the cave.

  "Bring him. Please. He's been a good pal these past hours."

  Hickman snorted at that. "The only pal he's any good for is a handful of roast potatoes and a blob of cranberry jelly." But he let the creature follow Cassie into the pickup anyway.

  He blocked the entrance up again, sealing the cow and calf inside, then reversed the truck and used the light of the rising moon to supplement his vehicle headlights as he picked his way back across the desert. Cassie yelped at every bump—and there were many, however hard he tried to avoid them—but they finally made it onto the highway and headed north.

  It was close to midnight by the time he left Miller's Farm. Old Elwood Miller had emerged from the barn he was living in with a raised shotgun, and his mood hadn't improved much when he'd seen his daughter unconscious on the passenger seat.

  Hick gave as speedy an account as he could of what had happened to them since they'd left together a few days earlier, but the farmer wouldn't allow him to go until he'd wrung every last detail out of him. It was only when Cassie finally woke up and confirmed that Hick had saved her that he let go of the matter and allowed Hickman to tell him about the invasion force gathering to the south.

  "I'm sorry, Elwood, but I don't think we can hold the line down here. The only place I can think of that we could defend is the bridge over McGill's Gulch. You should pack your stuff and come north tonight—Cassie needs to get to Doc Pishar so he can fix her leg.

  "What are you gonna do?" Miller had asked as Hick climbed back into the truck.

  "I'm gonna wake everyone up. We got plans to make."

  Roger made himself comfortable under the passenger seat.

  "This'd better be important," Rusty Kaminski said as he followed Joe Bowie, who'd returned from Miller's Farm with Hick, into the living room still dominated by Martha's bed. "I ain't as young as I used to be and spendin' a night locked in the jail ain't exactly conducive to old bones."

  "Oh, stop your belly-achin' and sit down." Martha, who was sitting in her king-size divan, put down her oxygen mask and gestured to the couch and chairs arranged in an arc around the bed.

  Hickman put out his hand to Kaminski who, after a momentary hesitation, took it. "So, you got back safe. Bring the cattle with you?"

  "Not exactly, but I reckon it's best we all catch up with each other's news. Devon here's gonna summarize the expedition to Springs, and you can tell me how in the name of all that's holy you let Ward McAndrew get one over on you."

  Some of the people there knew much of what Devon and Rusty said, but no one knew everything. When they'd finished, Hick turned to Gert Bekmann who'd sat in an easy chair silently listening to the accounts. "You got nothin' to add, Gert?"

  "Not at present, Paul. I'm waiting to hear what happened to you. I suspect you have saved the best for last."

  So, Hickman told them what had happened since he, Libby and Cassie had set out from Miller's Farm in search of breeding cows to secure Hope's food supply. He told of the accident in the mine, the betrayal of Libby and, finally, his meeting with Crawford.

  He watched them all carefully as he spoke, as he laid out the hopelessness of their situation and his answer to Crawford.

  "Now, you all might think I should have surrendered there and then, and maybe you'd be right. I confess he got on my nerves, and I don't deny that he outguns us plenty. But I didn't give him my answer, though I knew it in my heart."

  Joe Bowie stirred from his place next to his wife. "Seems to me we don't have much of a choice. If we stand up to them it'll be a bloodbath."

  "Just you shut up, Joe Bowie," Martha said, digging him in the ribs. "This is a council for folks with more'n one brain cell to call their own. You don't qualify for speakin' rights, so hush it."

 
Kaminski wagged his finger. "I dunno, Martha, he does have a point. We gotta think about what's best for the people."

  "Maybe it's a case of deciding whether to step on a rattler or a scorpion," Hick said.

  "I'm the only one here who's seen what happens to a community when the Sons take over," Devon said. "All that stuff McAndrew was preaching about a simpler life closer to nature is true enough as far as it goes. But step one inch out of line and they will crush you. And it goes harder for women than men. They want to go back to the seventeenth century, with all that means." He looked around the room, making certain that everyone there understood what he was saying. "I've got one question, Paul. Why didn't you invite Gil?"

  Hick, who'd been pondering the dark pathways of potential futures, started, then shrugged. "Gil's part of the past. And he's an old man who needs his sleep."

  "We appointed him temporary mayor, until you got back," Martha said.

  Hick scowled. "Well, I'm sure it must have been a relief that I'm in one piece. Truth is, when there's too many voices, it's hard to make decisions and we ain't got the luxury of time. We either accept their terms or, day after tomorrow, they'll be rolling up the highway and we'll have the fight of our lives on our hands."

  "So, how many men do you reckon he has?" Kaminsky asked.

  "I'm no scout, but I guess there was at least five hundred in the camp and he said that wasn't the only one. And they're well equipped. Seemed to me they all had assault rifles; I saw Army trucks and Crawford said they had mortars and rocket launchers."

  Devon shook his head. "It's odd. The impression we got was that they were stretched thin. We only ever saw a handful in any one place. How would they have gotten such a big force together. And why bother? Why is Hope so important to them?"

  "It did seem to me that Crawford was puttin' on a show for my benefit," Hick said, scratching his stubbly chin. "We turned up a bit ahead of schedule and I got the impression they wasn't quite ready. One poor sap fell over in the middle of a drill. Got beaten black and blue."