Saving Eden

by K R S McEntire

  Angela moved closer to Jesse to keep warm. He pulled her even nearer, allowing her to rest her head on his chest, and they fell asleep under the moon and stars.

  Chapter Four

  Angela was too excited to rest well that night. Fantasies of the journey ahead played in her mind as she drifted in and out of consciousness. At the crack of dawn, she stood up and stretched. Angela wanted to be well on her way before her father noticed her absence, but Jesse was still sleeping peacefully. She used her hand to brush some of his black hair out of his face, causing him to stir and awaken.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” Angela beamed at him.

  “Good . . . what?” He said groggily, blinking up at her. Slowly, he pushed himself off the ground and looked around to gain his bearings.

  He smiled at her, “Thanks for staying with me last night. I’ve been alone for so long, but I liked sleeping next to you.”

  “Enough sleep,” Angela said. “I’m ready to see Chicago.”

  Jesse frowned at her bare feet. “You really don’t have any shoes?” he asked.

  “No.” Angela was tired of this question. Why must he be so concerned with her feet?

  “This is going to be a painful journey then,” he informed her.

  Jesse stood, and Angela realized she may have overestimated his height on the first night she saw him race through her garden . . . he was only a couple of inches taller than Angela’s five feet, three inches. He smiled sleepily and took an unfocused step deeper into the forest. As he walked, it took Angela a moment before she realized that he wanted her to follow him. She rushed to catch up.

  “How old are you?” Angela asked as they walked.

  “Seventeen,” he said.

  “And the people who live with you in the city; how old are they?” she asked.

  “The people of Chicago are various ages, but the people who live with me are mostly older teens and young adults,” Jesse said. “Think of us as the anti-Watch. But you might be one of the youngest to join The Resistance.”

  “I’m not sure I want to meet these Wardens,” Angela said.

  “They are nothing more than Kane’s boy scouts,” Jesse explained. “I’d find them amusing if it wasn't for their love of public humiliation and murder.”

  This caused Angela to freeze in her tracks. She thought of the fates of the outlaws in her father’s Wild West novels.

  “Are all of the Wardens criminals, then?” Angela asked.

  Jesse chuckled, “Depends on who you ask. If you ask one of them, they might say that they are the law.”

  Jesse turned right, changing the direction they were going in. Angela knew that once they went too far, she would not be able to find her way back home without assistance. This was do or die. She was leaving.

  Angela tried to ignore the fact that her feet were tender with blisters. The dry soil was much harder than the dirt in her garden, and she didn’t usually have to walk nonstop while at home. Out here, the grass was brown instead of green, and covered in rocks and sticks. Flowers were few and far between. The roots of the trees worked overtime to suck anything out of the dehydrated and poisoned soil. Even the wind was still, a sudden change from last night. The silence around her reminded her of how few animals were left in the forest.

  “What’s wrong?” Jesse noticed Angela’s grim expression.

  “I thought the scenery would be prettier,” Angela said.

  “Surely you didn’t think the entire forest looked as magnificent as your garden?” Jesse asked.

  Angela shrugged. “A girl can dream.”

  “Have you ever tried to leave your garden before?” Jesse asked.

  “Once,” Angela said. “I was six. I didn’t get very far.”

  “I can see why you never tried again,” Jesse said. “With a home like that, you have no reason to leave.”

  “I figured it wasn't safe,” Angela said. “My dad warned me about the mutants in the forests.”

  “There are mutants out here, for sure,” Jesse said. “But most are harmless mutated critters.They tend to stay away from people, for the most part.”

  “Good to know,” Angela said.

  “It wasn't just the food that kept me around, you know. Your garden is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen,” he said. “In most places, that type of beauty is a part of history. I’m surprised you came with me so easily.”

  Angela smiled, “You sound like you were hoping I would come with you this whole time.”

  Jesse smiled sheepishly, “It’s a long journey. Gets a little lonely. I guess I didn't expect to be able to take some of the beauty I found back with me.”

  Angela chuckled nervously and smiled up at him.

  “Well, this settlement is two weeks’ walk away right?” Angela asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “We have plenty of time. So teach me history,” Angela said.

  Jesse ran his hand through his hair, brushing it away from the bruise on his face.

  “History . . . is a broad topic. What do you want to know?” he asked.

  “Can you read?” Angela questioned.

  He nodded, and she dug her hand into her dress pocket. She took out all of the old newspaper clippings she had been collecting on her many birthdays. Finally, she would know what they said.

  “All I know are fairy tales,” Angela said. “Can you tell me these true stories?”

  “The line between fact and fiction is shakier than most care to admit,” said Jesse.

  “What do you mean?” Angela asked.

  “I believe that most myths hold a little bit of truth,” he said. “Don’t dismiss your father’s stories.”

  He took the newspaper clippings and looked them over.

  “Oh, these are just random articles. Some of them are about things that happened in other countries,” he said, ready to dismiss the topic.

  “I don’t really understand what a country is,” Angela admitted. “Beyond the fact that it’s a place.” Her father said that when the borders closed during the Bio Wars, people were not allowed to enter or leave the country. Some people were afraid of terrorists getting in and biological warfare increasing. Not long after the war ended, people needed permission to venture beyond their state boundaries as well. She knew there was a lot of talk about keeping track of how many survivors were left in the U.S. and securing borders from threats, but he had never defined a country or a state.

  Jesse shrugged, “A country is just a place that adheres to a specific government system. By that definition, I’m not sure if we truly still are one.”

  He moved on to another newspaper without further explanation, “This one happened in our country. This girl was a survivor of an experimental medical study, and apparently someone kidnapped her a few months before this article was published. This is just reporting that they found her body.”

  Angela froze in her tracks. The blood drained out of her face, “You mean someone killed her?”

  “Killed or drowned, they found her in a lake,” he said. “She most likely was some type of mutant.”

  “But why would anyone do that?” Angela asked. She felt like someone was squeezing the air out of her lungs.

  “I don’t know, ask the psycho who did it.” He shrugged.

  Angela felt a wave of sadness and fear. How could Jesse be so calm about murder? His reaction angered her, and tears gathered in her lashes to spill onto her cheeks.

  “Don’t cry. They aren’t all bad,” Jesse’s voice was soft with compassion.

  “I’m fine,” she said, hoping she wouldn’t run into any people like that in Chicago. “Read another one.”

  “This one is about how twenty percent of people still identify with a religion,” he said. “It’s irrelevant. Religion is outlawed now.”

  “What’s a religion?” Angela wanted to learn everything, but was still thinking about the dead child.

  “I’m not sure how to explain,” Jesse said, looking at the next newspaper with a grim expres
sion. “It’s something you believe. The people who had them mostly lived before the wars, but I've heard some people still practice in secret. I don’t think you need to hear any more of these stories.”

  “I want to know,” she insisted. “I want to learn.”

  Jesse looked unsure, but did as she asked.

  “Well, the next one is an editorial about how racial inequality can impact treatment for mutations,” Jesse said.

  “What’s a race?” Angela asked.

  “It’s like, your ethnicity? Where your ancestors are from,” Jesse explained. “Is the man you live with your biological father?”

  “Of course,” Angela said. “Why wouldn't he be?”

  “You guys aren’t the same race, so I was curious.”

  Angela thought about his question. It had never occurred to her that Nathan could be anything other than her biological father. He had raised her for her entire life.

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” Angela finally said. “If you are talking about why we look so different, I take after my mother. She died when I was a baby, but I’ve seen photos of her. She was beautiful.”

  Angela hand instinctively found its way into the pocket of her dress. She clutched her mother's photograph.

  “She must have been,” Jesse said.

  Angela looked Jesse in the eyes, not attempting to hide her nervousness.

  “I’m worried that people in Chicago are going to think I’m stupid if I don’t learn about all of these things,” she confessed.

  “They will understand,” Jesse assured her. “I mean, it’s not like you had a way to get to school, living all the way out here.”

  Jesse noticed the confusion on Angela’s face.

  “School?” he asked. “I’m guessing you don’t know what a school is.”

  Angela shook her head.

  “Okay, I can’t teach you the history of everything, but I can tell you about my life.”

  Angela learned that Jesse was born in what was once an affluent neighborhood on the outskirts of Chicago, but by the time he was thirteen most of his neighbors’ homes were abandoned, so his family moved to the heart of the city. She questioned him about his race and religion and learned he was Asian and Agnostic. He grew up with his parents and his little sister, but had always felt out of step with his family. As a young teenager, he met a girl who told him about a group known as The Resistance. The government viewed this group as a threat because members spoke out against citizenship cards. Jesse told Angela that the penalty for being on American soil without a CitCard was death.

  “I don’t understand why it would be so important,” Angela said.

  “There are so few people left in America. They want to keep tabs on us, our purchases, and our locations,” Jesse said. “The cards track everything we do. They say it's to keep out terrorists, to rebuild the country. But what Kane wants is control. Without the CitCard, you can’t get food or medicine from your settlement's Wardens. Heck, you can legally be killed on sight. They will treat you like you are not human and leave you to die. But not everyone can get citizenship cards, and for the ones who can't, not being carded is a death sentence. The Resistance provides food, shelter, and safety to mutants and others that, for one reason or another, cannot get carded. We are growing in strength and numbers. There are Resistance chapters in other cities. But this movement got its start right here in Chicago. Hopefully, you will decide to help us.”

  “I would love to help in any way that I can,” Angela said, excited to start doing something productive with her life.

  Jesse smiled at her offer. “That's what we want to hear.”

  That night, as Angela lay on the ground and tried to ignore the stones and sticks that clawed at her skin, she heard yowling in the distance. It was an unnatural, shrill sound that rattled her nerves. She looked over at Jesse, who swiftly sat up from where he was sleeping. His hand fell to his waist and pulled out a small black object. Angela gasped when she realized he had been hiding a pistol at his waist.

  “Is that a gun?” she whispered.

  “Wait here,” he responded. Before Angela had a chance to reply, he ran off into the wilds.

  Each second lasted an eternity as she waited for him to return. She sat still as a board and held her knees to her chest until the crackle of twigs snapping nearby caused her to stand and look around. A jolt of primal fear seized Angela as she saw a large, gray creature moving swiftly towards her. It had characteristics that reminded her of a deer and a fox, with long, skinny legs and a bushy tail. It growled as it charged forward, showing off teeth as sharp as thorns. Its eyes were a blazing red.

  Before she could run, she heard the crack of gunfire and a bullet flew past her head. It struck the beast in the skull and the creature shrieked, attempting to retreat before collapsing, blood forming a puddle around it as it died.

  Jesse came up behind Angela, enveloping her in his embrace. Angela realized that she had been holding her breath and allowed her lungs to deflate.

  “Are you all right?” Jesse asked.

  “Of course not!” Angela exclaimed. “You said there were only critters in the forest. What type of animal was that?”

  “That, like many mutants, are a product of bioengineering. I don’t think the government took the time to name all of their new creations,” Jesse said. “Come on, we should get out of here before any of its friends show up.”

  As the pair looked for a safer spot to sleep, Angela realized how little she knew about the war that had destroyed the world. As they set up a new camp, she decided to ask.

  “It started the way every horrible thing starts, with good intentions,” Jesse said. “Scientists said they were close to unlocking the secrets of immortality and releasing humanity's true potential. They were pioneering a new wave of advanced bioengineering that promised beauty, health, a longer life, and increased intelligence. People signed up in droves. A couple years into the studies, they started doing all kinds of experiments on people who signed up. The most common side effect was death, but others started developing unique abilities. Some of the side effects were straight out of any superhero comic book: increased strength, skin as hot as fire, the whole shabang. These studies were sponsored by the government. I think they wanted to give powerful abilities to soldiers. Other countries saw all the people who died and felt it wasn’t humane, rightly so, or maybe they were afraid of facing mutant soldiers, who knows. The first Bio War broke out over it.”

  “That’s awful,” Angela said.

  “My great-grandfather actually signed up for a study, secretly hoping to end up with a mutation. Crazy guy. Ended up dead, with no powers to speak of,” Jesse said. “The people who fought America in that war did so to save the lives of individuals like my great-grandfather.”

  “I can’t believe my father never told me any of that,” Angela said. “If all that happened before the war, what happened during it?”

  “People don’t like to talk about it, so it’s hard to get all the details. Much more fun to speak of a time when everyone thought they were about to become Superman,” Jesse chuckled to himself. “I do think the government finally realized that enemies make better guinea pigs than citizens. They continued their studies on prisoners of war and started to use biological warfare to poison the enemy’s food and water supply and kill them with disease. The rest of the world decided to fight fire with fire. In the first Bio War, the global population was cut in half.”

  Angela let out a breath. “Well, now I’m adequately depressed.”

  “Not the fairy tale you were hoping for?” Jesse asked.

  “Not at all.” Angela shook her head. “It’s amazing that after all of that chaos, humanity survived.”

  Jesse shrugged. “Barely, but yes.”

  Angela looked down at the watch ticking on her wrist. Something broken had been mended. The tiny object gave her a spark of hope. There was still time to fight for a better world.

  Over the course of their journey, Jess
e shared more about his life. He talked about the music, movies, and books that he loved. Angela thought her father might like Jesse due to their shared love of Westerns.

  Angela learned that he and his friends converted an abandoned warehouse into a home hidden from the Watch's vigilant eye. He was proud of the fact that there was a working television at The Resistance. The world was harsh, and simple pleasures were hard to come by. It took him almost an hour to describe a television to her, because he had to explain how color and light made its way to the screen and how sound found its way out of the speakers.

  “Now that I think about it,” Jesse said, “there is so much I don’t understand about how the technology we used daily actually works. No wonder it’s taking what's left of humanity so long to rebuild. It’s easier to use the leftovers of yesterday.”

  They ran out of food a few days sooner than they had projected, but luck seemed to be on their side. On the twelfth day of their journey, Angela woke and realized she had fallen asleep beside a blueberry bush. It had been barren the night before, but berries seemed to grow overnight.

  “Wow,” Jesse said as they examined the bush, “I guess the soil out here isn’t as bad as we thought.”

  Angela shook her head in disbelief. “I saw that this plant was dead last night! It’s almost like it sprouted just for us.”

  Jesse shrugged. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. I guess you’re my good luck charm.”

  “Come to think of it,” Angela added. “Have you noticed that the grass in our camp is always a little greener when we wake up than it was the night before?”

  Jesse chuckled nervously. “Maybe the environment is healing?”

  “That would be something,” Angela said.

  After two weeks, as promised, Angela could see a city skyline in the distance. The decaying skyscrapers were taller than the tallest of trees, but she could tell they were not nearly as grand as they had been in the past. The closer they got to the city, the easier it was to see that the sides of walls were collapsed and few buildings had proper rooftops. Many looked as if someone had been in the process of tearing them down, but stopped halfway through and let the rubble fall over into the streets. There was a finality to approaching this new land; though her mind was full of wonder, her pulse quickened.