Xenofall (The Wasteland Chronicles, Book 7)

by Kyle West

  Bunker Six: Bunker Six is a large installation located north of Bunker One, within driving distance. It houses the S-Class spaceships constructed during the Dark Decade – including Gilgamesh, the capital ship, and three smaller cruisers – Odin, Perseus, and Orion. While Gilgamesh and Odin are under Cornelius Ashton’s care, Perseus and Orion are still locked inside the fallen Bunker.

  Bunker Program, The: The United States and Canadian governments pooled resources to establish 144 Bunkers in Twelve Sectors throughout their territory. The Bunkers were the backup in case the Guardian Missions failed. When the Guardian Missions did fail, the Bunker Program kicked into full gear. The Bunkers were designed to save all critical government personnel and citizenry, along with anyone who could provide the finances to construct them. The Bunkers were designed to last indefinitely, using hydroponics to grow food. The Bunkers ran on fusion power, which had been made efficient by the early 2020s. The plan was that, when the dust settled, Bunker residents could reemerge and rebuild. Most Bunkers fell, however, for various reasons – including critical systems failures, mutinies, and attacks by outsiders (see Wastelanders). By the year 2060, only four Bunkers were left.

  Chaos Years, The: The Chaos Years refer to the ten years following the impact of Ragnarok. These dark years signified the great die-off of most forms of life, including humans. Most deaths occurred due to starvation. With mass global cooling, crops could not grow in climates too far from the tropics. What crops would grow produced a yield far too small to feed the population that existed. This led to a period of violence unknown in all of human history. The Chaos Years signify the complete breakdown of the Old World’s remaining infrastructures – including food production, economies, power grids, and the industrial complex – all of which led to the deaths of billions of people.

  Coleseo Imperio: El Coleseo Imperio, translated as the Imperial Coliseum, is a circular, three-tiered stone arena rising from the center of the city of Nova Roma, the capital of the Nova Roman Empire. It is used to host gladiatorial games in the tradition of ancient Rome, and serves as the chief sport of the Empire. Slaves and convicts are forced to fight in death matches, which serves the dual purpose of entertaining the masses while getting rid of prisoners and slaves who would otherwise be, in the Empire’s eyes, liabilities. Ritual sacrifices routinely take place on the arena floor.

  Crawlers: Crawlers are dangerous, highly mobile monsters spawned by Ragnarok. Their origin is unclear, but they share many characteristics of Earth animals – mostly those reptilian in nature, although other forms are more similar to insects. Crawlers are sleek and fast, and can leap through the air at very high speeds. Typically, crawlers attack in groups, and behave as if of one mind. One crawler will, without hesitation, sacrifice itself in order to reach its prey. Crawlers are especially dangerous when gathered in high numbers – at which point there is not much one can do but run. Crawlers can be killed, their weak points being their belly and their three eyes.

  Dark Decade, The: The Dark Decade lasted from 2020-2030, from the time of the first discovery of Ragnarok, to the time of its impact. It is not called the Dark Decade because the world descended into madness immediately upon the discovery of Ragnarok by astronomer Neil Weinstein – that only happened in 2028, with the failure of Messiah, the third and last of the Guardian Missions. In the United States and other industrialized nations, life proceeded in an almost normal fashion. There were plenty of good reasons to believe that Ragnarok could be stopped, especially when given ten years. But as the Guardian Missions failed, one by one, the order of the world quickly disintegrated.

  With the failure of the Guardian Mission Archangel in 2024, a series of wars engulfed the world. As what some were calling World War III embroiled the planet, the U.S. and several of its European allies, and Canada, continued to work on stopping Ragnarok. When the second Guardian Mission, Reckoning, failed, an economic depression swept the world. But none of this compared to the madness that followed upon the failure of the third and final Guardian, Messiah, in 2028. As societies broke down, martial law was enforced. President Garland was appointed dictator of the United States with absolute authority. By 2029, several states had broken off from the Union.

  In the last quarter of 2030, an odd silence hung over the world, as if it had grown weary of living. The President, all essential governmental staff and military, the Senate and House of Representatives, along with scientists, engineers, and the talented and the wealthy, entered the 144 Bunkers established by the Bunker Program. Outraged, the tens of millions of people who did not get an invitation found the Bunker locations, demanding to be let in. The military took action when necessary.

  Then, on December 3, 2030, Ragnarok fell, crashing into the border of Wyoming and Nebraska, forming a crater one hundred miles wide. The world left the Dark Decade, and entered the Chaos Years.

  Elekai: The Elekai are the peaceful counterpart to the Radaskim. They seek the harmony and growth of all life, even if that means that the universe will eventually one day end. The Radaskim take the opposite viewpoint – that the destruction of all life is a fair price in exchange for controlling the destruction and reconstruction of the universe, called the Universal Cycle:

  Eternal War, The: The Eternal War has spanned hundreds of thousands of years across the cosmos. The Radaskim seek to infect and conquer every life-bearing world. The Elekai are always with them and fight the Radaskim at every turn. However, the Radaskim are more numerous and have always won on every world. The Wanderer and the Elekai hope to reverse this on planet Earth.

  Exiles, The: The Exiles are led by a man named Marcus, brother of Alpha Char. The Exiles were once raiders, but were exiled from Raider Bluff in 2048. Raider Bluff faced a rival city, known as Rivertown, on the Colorado River. A faction led by Char wanted to destroy Rivertown by blowing up Hoover Dam far to the north. Marcus and his faction opposed this. The two brothers fought, and in his rage, Marcus threw Char into a nearby fireplace, giving him the severe burns on his face that Char would live with for the rest of his life. For this attack, the Alpha at the time exiled Marcus – but in solidarity, many Raiders left to join him. For the next twelve years, the exiled Raiders wandered the Boundless, barred from ever returning farther west than Raider Bluff. The Exiles at first sought to found a new city somewhere in the eastern United States, but the Great Blight barred their path. Over the next several years, they hired themselves as mercenaries to the growing Nova Roman Empire. Now, they wander the Wastes, Marcus awaiting the day when his brother calls upon him for help – which he is sure Char will do.

  Flyers: Flyers are birds infected with the xenovirus. They fly in large swarms of a hundred or more. They are only common around large Blights, or within the Great Blight itself. The high metabolism of flyers means they cannot venture far from xenofungus, their main source of food. They are highly dangerous, and cannot be fought easily, because they fly in such large numbers.

  Gilgamesh: Gilgamesh is an S-Class Capital Spaceship constructed by the United States during the Dark Decade. It holds room for twelve crewmen, thirteen counting the captain. Its fuselage is mostly made of carbon nanotubes – incredibly lightweight, and many, many times stronger than steel. It is powered by a prototypical miniature fusion reactor, using deuterium and tritium as fuel. Its design is described as insect-like in appearance, for invisibility to radar. The ship contains a bridge, armory, conference room, kitchen, galley, two lavatories, a clinic, and twelve bunks for crew in two separate dorms. A modest captain’s quarters can be reached from the galley, complete with its own lavatory. Within the galley is access to a spacious cargo bay, where supplies, and even a vehicle as large as a Recon, can be stored. The Recon can be driven off the ship’s wide boarding ramp when grounded (this capability is the main difference between Odin and Gilgamesh...in addition to the cargo bay boarding ramp, Gilgamesh also contains a passenger’s boarding ramp on the side, that also leads into the galley). The porthole has a retractable rope ladder that is good for up to
five hundred feet. Gilgamesh has a short wingspan, but receives most of its lift from the four thrusters mounted in back, thrusters that have a wide arc of rotation that allows the ship to fly in almost any direction. The ship can go weeks without needing to refuel. As far as combat capabilities, Gilgamesh was primarily constructed as a reconnaissance and transport vessel. That said, it has twin machine gun turrets that open from beneath the ship. When grounded, it is supported by three struts, one in front, two in back.

  Great Blight, The: The Great Blight is the largest xenofungal infestation in the world, its point of origin being Ragnarok Crater on the Great Plains in eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska. Unlike other Blights, the Great Blight is massive. From 2040-2060, it began to rapidly expand outside Ragnarok Crater at an alarming rate, moving as much as a quarter mile each day (meaning the stretching of the xenofungus could actually be discerned with the naked eye). Any and all life was conquered, killed, or acquired into the Great Blight’s xenoparasitic network. Here, the first monsters were created. Animals would become ensnared in sticky pools of purple goo, and their DNA absorbed and preserved. The Great Blights, obeying some sort of consciousness, would then mix and match the DNA of varying species, tweaking and mutating the genes until, from the same pools it had acquired the DNA, it would give birth to new life forms, designed only to spread the Blight and kill whoever, or whatever, opposed that spreading. As time went on and the Xeno invasion became more sophisticated, the Great Blight’s capabilities became advanced enough to direct the evolution of xenolife itself, leading to the creation of the xenovirus, meaning it could infect species far outside of the Blight – including, eventually, humans.

  Guardian Missions: The Guardian Missions were humanity’s attempts to intercept and alter the course of Ragnarok during the Dark Decade. There were three, and in the order they were launched, they were called Archangel, Reckoning, and Messiah (all three of which were also the names of the ships launched). Each mission had a reason for failing. Archangel is reported to have crashed into Ragnarok, in 2024. In 2026, Reckoning somehow got off-course, losing contact with Earth in the process. In 2028 Messiah successfully landed and attached its payload of rockets to the surface of Ragnarok in order to alter its course from Earth. However, the rockets failed before they had time to do their work. The failure of the Guardian Missions kicked the Bunker Program into overdrive.

  Howlers: Howlers are the newest known threat posed by the xenovirus. They are human xenolife, and they behave very much like zombies. They attack with sheer numbers, using their bodies as weapons. A bite from a Howler is enough to infect the victim with the human strain of the xenovirus. Post-infection, it takes anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours for a corpse to reanimate into the dreaded howler. Worse, upon death, Howlers somehow explode, raining purple goo on anyone within range. Even if a little bit of goo enters the victim’s bloodstream, he or she is as good as dead, cursed to become a Howler within a matter of minutes or hours. How the explosion occurs, no one knows – it is surmised that the xenovirus itself creates some sort of agent that reacts violently with water or some other fluid present within the Howlers. There is also reason to believe that certain Howlers become Behemoths, as was the case with Kari in Bunker 114.

  Hydra: A powerful spawning of the xenovirus, the Hydra has only been seen deep in the heart of Bunker One. It contains three heads mounted on three stalk-like necks. It is covered in thick scales that serve as armor. It has a powerful tail that it can swing, from the end of which juts a long, cruel spike. It is likely an evolved, more deadly form of the crawler.

  Ice Lands, The: Frozen in a perpetual blanket of ice and snow, the northern and southern latitudes of the planet are completely unlivable. In the Wasteland, at least, they are referred to as the Ice Lands. Under a blanket of meteor fallout, extreme global cooling was instigated in 2030. While the glaciers are only now experiencing rapid regrowth, they will advance for centuries to come until the fallout has dissipated enough to produce a warmer climate. In the Wasteland, 45 degrees north marks the beginning of what is considered the Ice Lands.

  L.A. Gangland: L.A. Gangland means a much different thing than it did Pre-Ragnarok. In the ruins of Los Angeles, there are dozens of gangs vying for control, but by 2060, the most powerful is the Black Reapers, who usurped that title from the Lost Angels.

  Lost Angels, The: The Lost Angels were post-apocalyptic L.A.’s first super gang. From the year 2050 until 2055, they reigned supreme in the city, led by a charismatic figure named Dark Raine. The Angels were different from other gangs – they valued individual freedom and abhorred slavery. Under the Angels’ rule, Los Angeles prospered. The Angels were eventually usurped in 2056 by a gang called the Black Reapers, led by a man named Carin Black.

  Nova Roma: Nova Roma is the capital of the Nova Roman Empire. It existed Pre-Ragnarok as a small town situated in an idyllic valley, flanked on three sides by green mountains. This town was also home to Augustus’s palatial mansion – and it was around this mansion that the city that would one day rule the Empire had its beginnings. Over thirty years, as the Empire gained wealth and power under Augustus’s rule, Nova Roma grew from a small village into a mighty city with a population numbering in the tens of thousands. Using knowledge of ancient construction techniques found in American Bunkers, Augustus employed talented engineers and thousands of slaves to build the city from the ground up. Inspired by the architecture of ancient Rome, some of the most notable construction projects in Nova Roma include the Coleseo Imperio, the Senate House, the Grand Forum, and Central Square. An aqueduct carries water over the city walls from the Sierra Madre Mountains north of the city. The city grows larger each passing year, so much so that shantytowns have overflowed its walls, attracted by the city’s vast wealth.

  Nova Roman Empire, The: The Nova Roman Empire (also known as the “Empire”) is a collection of allied city-states that are ruled from Nova Roma, its capital in what was formerly the Mexican state of Guerrero. The Empire began as the territory of a Mexican drug cartel named the Legion. Through the use of brutal force, they kept security within their borders even as other governments fell.

  Following the impact of Ragnarok, many millions of Americans fled south to escape the cold, dry climate that permeated northern latitudes. Mexico still remained warm, especially southern Mexico, and new global wind currents caused by Ragnarok kept Mexico clearer of meteor fallout than other areas of the world. At the close of the Chaos Years, Mexico was far more populous than the United States. Many city-states formed in the former republic, but most developed west of the Sierra Madre Mountains. Language clashes between native Mexicans and migrant Americans produced new dialects of both Spanish and English. Though racial tensions exist in the Empire, as Americans’ descendants are the minority within it, Americans and their descendants are protected under law and are entitled to the same rights – at least in theory. The reality is, most refugees that entered Imperial territory were American – and most refugees ended up as slaves.

  Of the hundreds of city-states that formed in Mexico, one was called Nova Roma, located inland in a temperate valley not too far east of Acapulco. Under the direction of the man styling himself as Augustus Imperator, formerly known as Miguel Santos, lord of the Legion drug cartel, the city of Nova Roma allied with neighboring city-states. Incorporating both Ancient Roman governmental values and Aztec mythology, the Empire expanded through either the conquest or annexation of rival city-states. By 2060, the Empire had hundreds of cities in its thrall, stretching from Oaxaca in the southeast all the way to Jalisco in the northwest. The Empire had also formed colonies as far north as Sonora, even founding a city called Colossus at the mouth of the Colorado River, intended to be the provincial capital from which the Empire hoped to rule California and the Mojave.

  Because of its size and power, the Empire is difficult to control. Except for its center, ruled out of Nova Roma, most of the city-states are autonomous and are only required to pay tribute and soldiers when called for
during the Empire’s wars. In the wake of the Empire’s rapid conquests, Augustus developed the Imperial Road System in order to facilitate trade and communication, mostly done by horse. In an effort to create a unifying culture for the Empire, Emperor Augustus instigated a representative government, where all of Nova Roma’s provinces have representation in the Imperial Senate. Augustus encouraged a universal religion based on Aztec mythology, whose gods are placed alongside the saints of Catholicism in the Imperial Pantheon. Augustus also instigated gladiatorial games, ordering that arenas be built in every major settlement of his Empire. This included the construction of dozens of arenas, including El Coleseo Imperio in Nova Roma itself, a large arena which, while not as splendid as the original Coliseum in Old Rome, is still quite impressive. The Coleseo can seat ten thousand people. By 2060, Augustus had accomplished what might have taken a century to establish otherwise.

  Oasis: Oasis is a settlement located in the Wasteland, about halfway between Los Angeles and Raider Bluff. It has a population of one thousand, and is built around the banks of the oasis for which it is named. The oasis did not exist Pre-Ragnarok, but was formed by tapping an underground aquifer. Elder Ohlan rules Oasis with a strong hand. He is the brother of Dark Raine, and it is whispered that he might have had a hand in his death.

  Odin: Odin is an S-Class Cruiser Spaceship built by the U.S. during the Dark Decade. It is one of four, the other being Gilgamesh, the capital ship, and the other two being Perseus and Orion, cruisers with the same specs as Odin. Though Odin’s capabilities are not as impressive as Gilgamesh’s, Odin is still very functional. It contains berths for eight crew, nine counting the captain. It has a cockpit, armory, kitchen, galley, two dorms, one lavatory, and the fusion drive in the aft. A cargo bay can be reached from either outside the ship or within the galley. Unlike Gilgamesh, it is not spacious enough to store a Recon. It contains a single machine gun turret that can open up from the ship’s bottom. Odin, in addition to being faster than Gilgamesh, also gets better fuel efficiency. It can go months without needing to refuel.