by Chris Fox
“Wow.”
“Yeah, I know,” Liz said. She took his hand and he gave her a squeeze. “How do you want to play this?”
Blair considered that for a moment. “I think we should meet with them.”
“Are you insane?” Alicia asked, her voice rising half an octave. “You have to know this is an ambush. They want to kill you and take the key to the Ark. You’re just going to walk into their trap and let them take it?”
“You’re right about it being a trap, but if we decline they’ll just come after Santa Rosa. We need to respond with a show of force, let them know that we can’t be pushed around,” Blair said. He rose from the railing, turning south to peer in the direction of San Francisco. “A war is coming. A big one. We need to get our house in order, and that means one way or another we need to deal with these deathless. As soon as possible.”
“If you want to go, I’ll support you,” Liz said. She gave him a tentative smile. “I don’t mind admitting I’m afraid, though.”
“I knew you’d leave again,” Alicia snapped. She spun around, stalking toward the stairs to the second floor.
“Alicia, wait,” Blair called.
Alicia, much to his surprise, stopped and turned to face him.
He followed her into the house. “Come with us. We’re going to go down, deal with this threat, and then come back here to talk about whatever Windigo is. Liz and I are not going anywhere. We’re going to help set things right.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Alicia muttered, but at least it was under her breath. She sighed, raising her voice. “Fine, I’ll pack a bag. The messenger said tomorrow at noon.”
“That makes sense,” Blair mused. “That’s the height of their power, after all. Where do they want to meet?”
“San Francisco. The Hilton in the Financial District,” Liz said.
“Then I definitely like our chances.” Blair smiled. “I think the deathless have no idea what a fully powered Ark can do, especially one that close.”
Chapter 24- Hades
Nox smoothed his slacks, admiring himself in the suite’s mirror. It had been a long time since he’d had access to the creature comforts of the business world. He hadn’t realized how much he loved a good suit until he’d been without them for five years.
“Thank you for the use of your tailor,” he said. “Do you have anything of note to report about your efforts in the jungle?” He didn’t face Camiero, instead pulling his tie into a perfect Windsor. The humidity here would normally make a suit impractical, but since he no longer sweated he could wear a suit in any climate.
“Of course,” Camiero replied. “I am happy to see you suitably attired. Regrettably, I have little progress to report. You have set a near impossible task, and I warned you that it would take a great deal of time.” His eyes narrowed. “If I were a mistrustful man, I might assume that I was being set up to fail. But that would make me paranoid, would it not?”
“You’re not paranoid,” Nox said. “You failing is one possible outcome, and if it happens you’ll be blamed for that failure. Honestly? I would prefer that it play out differently.” He finally turned his full attention on the deathless and smiled, as warmly as he could manage. “There are two ways this plays out. You succeed, and I give you access to power you can only dream of. Or you fail, and I have to replace you. I have no desire to do that, Camiero. I have other tasks to attend to, and I cannot afford to get bogged down in an endless quest. We need to find the city, and we need to do it soon.”
“If you are so interested in success, then why do you allow your pet demon to wreak havoc? She plays my lieutenants against each other, egging them on to kill one another. That thing is crazy, and you are a fool to let it run loose,” Camiero raged. He leaned forward, stabbing a finger at Nox. “I also know that you’ve been meeting privately with my lieutenants.”
“Kali is…a chore. I’ll grant you that,” Nox said, nodding sympathetically. “I’ll try talking to her again, but I doubt it will do much good. She loves chaos, Mr. Camiero. And it is true that I’ve taken meetings with some of your underlings. If things do not go well, one of them will likely be your replacement. I won’t lie about that. At the same time, it’s important you understand that I do want you to succeed. Let’s discuss your problems in more detail. Tell me about the invasion, and how we can speed it up.”
“Very well,” Camiero allowed. The deathless walked to a pair of plush chairs, sinking into the one closest to the window. It afforded a specular view of the ocean.
Nox took the seat across from him, crossing his legs and placing his hands in his lap. “You have my full attention.”
“We sent a platoon of our best soldiers to seven different locations along the border of the forest. Each platoon had helmet-mounted cameras, and all were experts in stealth,” Camiero explained. He reached into the end table next to the chair, removing a cigar from a mahogany box. He offered one to Nox, but Nox shook his head. “At first those platoons encountered nothing. They explored the jungle, looking for any champions, or any villages. They found no one. Nothing. Not a single sign of man, anywhere in the trees. They proceeded deeper, and the platoons broke into squads as they explored. The night after we changed deployment, we lost forty percent of our troops. The helmet cams show nothing, but there were ghostly sounds in the trees, and occasionally a scream. We’ve heard sounds consistent with werewolves, but we expected that.”
“What happened after the first day?” Nox steepled his fingers, staring passively at Camiero.
“Our troops withdrew and fortified their positions. They prepared for night assault, and set both automated and living sentries. They knew what the werewolves were capable of, and were prepared for it. None of them need to sleep, as you know. They were as alert as they’d ever been in their lives.” Camiero stopped. He scowled at the cigar, setting it on the end table. “The next morning everyone was dead, except for the sentries. The sentries heard nothing.”
“Unsurprising.” Nox sighed. “The werewolves know the jungle too well, and they have indigenous allies. We will never find El Dorado as long as they can keep us from the jungle.”
“So what would you have me do then? If we cannot enter the jungle, then the task is impossible.”
“You’re thinking far too small, Mr. Camiero.” Nox leaned forward and lowered his voice, smiling cruelly. “If we cannot fight them in the jungle, then we need to remove the jungle.”
“Respectfully, I do not think that is possible,” Camiero said. He shook his head sadly. “You do not understand the power of the jungle. Five decades of deforestation was reversed in the first year after the CME. The jungle is magical. It grows too quickly. If we burn a swath, that swath will return in days. Within weeks the trees will be the same height as before they were burned.”
“I didn’t say you had to burn the jungle,” Nox said, “just that you had to remove it. Again, you are thinking too small. You are using the tools of an old, dead world. Tell me, Camiero, you are a shaper aren’t you?”
“I have some powers, I suppose. I do not know that I would call myself a shaper,” Camiero replied, shrugging, as if the ability to reshape the world around you were of absolutely no interest. It was one of the man’s greatest failings.
“Then find me people who are. I want every deathless who is capable of shaping gathered and brought to this building. The first class will begin tomorrow morning, and I expect this place to be full. Am I clear?”
“Very,” Camiero said. He paused, then cocked his head. “What will you be teaching them?”
“To use this,” Nox said. He picked up the obelisk from the table, and tossed it to Camiero. “Hades, the god I serve, had them created. This will cause any plant life near it to shrivel and die. The more power you give it, the larger an area it affects. Gather another army, Mr. Camiero. I’m going to teach your shapers to kill the jungle. Then you’re going to march all the way to the heart of it, and you’re going to find me my city.”
/> Chapter 25- Lima
Jordan lowered the binoculars, handing them back to Rodrigo, the Latino man that Roberts had assigned to help him. He focused on the city itself, seeing it as a whole. Lima didn’t look all that different from the last time he’d been here, except that there was far less traffic. Most of the cars had been removed, giving the city an open, quiet feel. Any pollution had long since dissipated, and the salty breeze smelled amazing.
Mankind had been reduced from a teeming mass to an exhausted remnant that couldn’t quite fill the walls of a medium-sized city. Still, there were signs of progress. A crane clung to the side of a building, hefting a bundle of steel girders to a group of workers wearing hard hats. Towering over the workers was a white-furred Ka-Dun, who gestured at the girders. Jordan felt a faint stirring in the distance, as the Ka-Dun telekinetically lifted hundreds of pounds of steel. He maneuvered the girders into place, and the other workers swarmed around them with tools.
“Why did Roberts assign you as my liaison, Rodrigo?” Jordan asked. He turned to size Rodrigo up, and the man wilted under the scrutiny.
“Because he knows we’ve already met, and because there wasn’t anyone else,” Rodrigo explained. “I don’t really expect you to remember me. We met back in the jungle, near the border to Columbia. You and your friends took one of our Jeeps.”
Jordan’s eyed widened in recognition. “I do remember you. We sent you to Isis, at the Ark.”
“Ah, you do remember. Yes, I worked for the Mother, journeying with her when she sailed to Easter Island. I saw her confrontation with Sobek, though I was cowering in the hold at the time. After we returned, I asked her for the gift. Seeing that monster terrified me, and I vowed that I would help defend my people from things like him.” Rodrigo straightened his baseball cap, a battered black thing with a faded gold police shield. “El Medico made me a kind of police chief, I guess. I’m not really cut out for it, but I’m what we have—well, had. Now that you’re here, we finally have a real leader, someone who can put this place back together.”
“Isn’t that what Roberts is doing?” Jordan asked.
“Medico is a great administrator,” Rodrigo said, “but he’s a terrible field leader. He doesn’t do well with the day-to-day stuff, but he’s great at planning a future for our people. He relies on me to take care of most trouble, but I’m just not that good at it. People respect me, but I think a lot of them secretly pity me too.” He avoided Jordan’s gaze. “I’d like to learn to be better at this, but I haven’t had anyone to teach me.”
“I can definitely relate to that,” Jordan said. “Most of being in command is about solving problems you’ve never had to solve before, all while making it look like you’ve done it a million times. I can’t stick around, but I can spend the next few days helping you get organized.” He shared the kid’s feelings of inadequacy. “Listen I’m not really any sort of administrator, or leader. I was a boots on the ground kind of commander, who looked after squads, or at most a small installation. I’ve never done any of this before.”
“You seem so confident,” Rodrigo said. He looked confused. “I don’t get it.”
“That’s the real secret,” Jordan explained. “In America we had a saying: fake it ’til you make it. You act like you belong, and do your best to make that act become reality.” He put a hand on Rodrigo’s lower back, pushing to straighten his posture. “You need to look the part. Think and act with confidence, even when you don’t feel confident—especially when you don’t feel confident. You’re going to make mistakes. Acknowledge that, but don’t let decisions paralyze you. No leader is worse than an indecisive one.”
Rodrigo nodded eagerly and squared his shoulders; if it looked a little forced, it was still an improvement over his previous slack posture. “I’d love some help with our biggest problem. I guess that would be the docks. Sobek will be coming in a week, and El Medico said we need to look as impressive as possible. I have no idea how to do that.”
“We do that by showing Sobek that we’re ready to fight,” Jordan said. He peered out at the iron-grey waves, knowing the crocodile god he’d heard so much about was out there somewhere. Coming closer. “When he comes, we show him strength and organization. That’s the only thing a predator like him will understand.”
“The last time he was here, he told El Medico that he thought the Mother was dead,” Rodrigo said. He adjusted his hat, pulling it down to shade his eyes from the harsh sun. He peered out from the brim, studying Jordan for a reaction.
Jordan gave him nothing.
“Is she? Dead, I mean.”
“I don’t know.” Jordan sighed. “I think she is. I can’t possibly see how she survived. But I didn’t see her die, no.”
“I like you already, sir. You give straight answers.” Rodrigo smiled, starting toward the Jeep they’d arrived in. He slid into the driver’s seat, waiting for Jordan to join him. “Do you have a title you’d prefer that I use, sir?”
Jordan considered that as he opened the door and slid into the Jeep. How did he want to be addressed? He knew what the Director would have said. Mark would have pointed out how much respect the right title carried.
For once, Jordan agreed.
“You can call me Ark Lord,” he said. He glanced sidelong at Rodrigo as they sped along the empty road toward the dock.
“Yes, Ark Lord, sir,” Rodrigo said. He guided the Jeep toward a large freighter laden with hundreds of metal storage containers. A crane was lowering one onto the dock, where a handful of people were waiting to unload it.
“What are they unloading?” Jordan asked. He leapt from the Jeep, using his telekinesis to carry him to the top of an already emptied cargo container. Below him, four people were unloading rough blocks of stone in a variety of sizes. The black rock looked fresh quarried.
Rodrigo leapt onto the crate, landing next to Jordan with a loud clang. “We call it the Mother’s rock. Not terribly inventive, but it stuck. Sobek sends it four times a year, to honor an agreement he made with the Mother.”
“El Medico mentioned that the stone had interesting properties,” Jordan said. He hopped down, walking over to a pile of stones. The four men looked up at him curiously, but when they saw Rodrigo they just shrugged and kept working.
“I don’t understand it. You can see a few of the ways we’ve employed it, though.” Rodrigo pointed to the obelisks ringing the docks, about a hundred feet apart. “It’s a security system, of sorts. It can detect the dead, and will alert any shaper in the area. There are other practical uses, too. Some shapers carry them as a sort of battery they can draw on.” Rodrigo withdrew a smooth rock that fit in the palm of his hand. Jordan could feel a trickle of energy in the rock.
“You have champions guarding the entrances to the city, right?” Jordan asked. He’d seen patrols, but wanted confirmation.
“Yes, they move across rooftops mostly. They’re both an early warning system and a mobile defense force.”
“I want to set up better fortifications at every major freeway entrance to the city. I want a store of these batteries and a squad of unblooded at each. Make sure they’re well armed. In the event of combat, they’re to ensure that shapers are protected, and given access to the batteries.” Jordan rattled off the instructions as they came to him. “Who coordinates patrols right now?”
“Uhh, I guess I do. We have people who watch over certain districts, but I only really check in with them if something goes wrong. I don’t really have time to talk to them all,” Rodrigo admitted.
“We need a command structure in place. I want you to get me a list of twenty-five people who you think can be taught to be leaders. How soon can you get that together?”
Chapter 26- Blur
Jordan pulled on a black t-shirt, enjoying the feel of the clean cotton hugging his skin. It had been a long time since he’d had fresh clothes, much less a real uniform. He picked up the long-sleeved camo shirt from the bed, then set it back down. It would be too hot for that today, though he
would have enjoyed the stylized black pyramid patch on the shoulder. A sign of his rank, Rodrigo had said when he’d dropped it off.
Jordan picked up his sunglasses from the nightstand and exited the room to the hotel’s courtyard. Before the fall this hotel would have cost several hundred dollars a night. The locale had been set up to cater to tourists, but the same qualities that made it a great hotel also made it a suitable command location.
The building ringed a wide courtyard, completely enclosing it. That courtyard was mostly manicured lawn—or had been once. Now the grass was patchy and brown. The olympic-sized pool was dry and covered in debris. The courtyard was large enough for troops to run laps or spar. He could drill here, and that made it perfect.
The building was also more secure than most hotels. There were only five ways in or out; four of those were heavy steel doors at the corners of the building, and the fifth was the lobby. The lobby was the least defensible, but also had covered positions for snipers. Anyone who walked through those doors would be picked off, and if the place was breached they could evacuate in any direction.
“Good morning,” Rodrigo called from the yard below, waving up at Jordan. “The men are assembling now, Ark Lord.” He’d dropped the “sir,” as Jordan had requested.
Jordan understood the habit, both in the military and local police. The word was one they knew, and calling Jordan “sir” would be comforting—but only in the short term.
They were building a new world. He needed to teach them a new way of looking at it.
He gave an approving nod and leapt from the balcony, landing in a crouch near Rodrigo. It still amazed him, his ability to do things like that. Any normal person would have broken a leg, or worse. He rose, joining Rodrigo as the younger man started for the field where the others were gathering.
As they approached, Jordan studied the arrivals, a mixture of men and women. Most were dark-skinned, which made sense given where they were. A blond woman stood out, and an Indian man. There was an Asian couple who stood almost back to back, glaring at their neighbors as if daring them to say something.
