His face took on a sad expression. “Unfortunately, the universe had other plans. About a year after he took over, Jeffries died. He developed a bad case of pneumonia and just didn’t recover.”
“That wasn’t the plague we heard about, was it?” asked Nick.
“No, that came later. For some reason, I was asked to take over as president. Don’t ask me why.”
“No need to be modest,” said Lila. “I bet you did a great job.”
“We’ll never know. That plague you mentioned happened after I’d been in the job about a year. A man showed up in Washington one day, delirious and with a high fever. He said that communities north of Washington were being devastated by a plague. So of course, the idiot, who was obviously infected, brought it to us. The city was wiped out in days. And some of our people left and probably infected other areas.”
He sighed. “Well, the writing was on the wall and the only thing left to do was leave town. There were about a half dozen of us who hadn’t yet been infected. We left individually and promised to meet at a spot on the Potomac in a week. Anyone still alive by then wasn’t going to catch it—everyone who picked up the bug died within seventy-two hours. After a week, the six of us met up. We hadn’t lost anyone. We decided to leave the country and see if the rest of the world was in as bad shape as America. I’m a good sailor—had been sailing all my life—and there were all of these beautiful sailboats moored on the Potomac. We just had to find one that was big enough to make a transatlantic journey, but one that wasn’t completely reliant on computers—which, of course, were useless. It took a few days, but we found one. We loaded it with supplies and started on our way.”
He looked at Ben. “Someone you know was with us. When you left Washington, do you remember running across a middle-aged black man and his young daughter? He said you saved him from getting hanged by three racist assholes.”
“I do remember. He seemed to be a college professor-type and I directed him to Washington.”
“He came with his daughter, and I ended up working with him. He and his daughter survived and made the sea journey with us. They stayed in Scotland and are very happy. You never know what effects a good deed might have on another person. He told me when I left to thank you if I ever ran across you.”
Ben was pleased. His gut feeling had told him that the man was one of the good ones. He was happy to know that he hadn't been wrong.
“Anyway, it was a rough crossing at times, with storms blowing in constantly, but we made it to Europe. After days of travelling the coast of Great Britain—which fared no better than America from the event—we ended up in Scotland, where I met Angus.”
He motioned toward his Scottish friend, and in dramatic fashion announced, “Angus here, is almost single-handedly providing the world with power.”
Chapter 21
Ben and the others let Dan’s comment sink in.
“Okay, you have our attention,” said Jason.
“Sorry,” said Dan, grinning. “I wanted to say it with a flourish, but the fact is, Angus can help us rebuild the world.”
“You are being dramatic again,” said Lila, with a smile.
“I guess I am. But it’s true. Angus is—was—the chief engineer of a massive combination solar and wind farm company on the coast of Scotland. Angus was under the water inspecting some of the wind turbine bases when the catastrophe hit. Many of the others in his company were in their underground offices. In fact, the group you see here are only a third of the employees that survived. The rest are still in Scotland, running the facility.”
“Weren’t the circuits fried in all of the wind turbines and solar panels?” asked Nick.
“They were, but most of the company is located below ground, including the manufacturing and storage facilities. They chose to do it that way to allow for more space for the solar panels above ground. Also, that part of coastal Scotland doesn’t have the most hospitable weather. It just made it easier for everyone. Anyway, because everything was below ground, they had replacement circuit boards for everything and—best of all—the capability to manufacture more. Within months…”
“Within weeks,” corrected Angus.
“Within weeks, they were up and running to almost full capacity. Over the years, they have supplied much of Great Britain with the tools to regain power, and have expanded into France and Germany.”
“How have you been able to get the materials to manufacture enough of them?” asked Lila.
“We already had them,” answered Angus in his thick brogue.
“You have to understand,” said Dan, knowing that Angus’s explanation would be lost if he spoke more than a couple of sentences, “Angus’s company supplied wind and solar power units to countries and large corporations. Their own wind and solar farm also provided power to the local region. They had—and still have—large supplies of premade solar units, as well as the materials to make many more. What they are supplying to their own and neighboring countries is a drop in the bucket compared to what they used to ship out every week. Their supply isn’t endless, but it’s close to it.”
“And you’re here to share?” asked Sean.
“Exactly. Britain and parts of Europe have a good start. There are whole towns now that are running on solar or wind power. Angus and his people have even adapted solar power onto vehicles, as you will see. We brought a few with us. They look like oversized riding mowers. They fit them with large balloon tires to make it over the rocky terrain. So we loaded up as many solar units as possible onto a ship and headed to America. We found deep tributaries off the California coast, some that extended hundreds of miles inland, so we followed them in.”
“The California coast still exists?”
“In places. California didn’t fall completely into the ocean, but it may as well have. It’s pretty unlivable.”
Nick was puzzled. “You came from Scotland, but ended up on the western side of the U.S.? How did that happen?”
“America was meant to be the last stop on the journey. We’ve been gone almost eight months. The ship dropped us off on this coast and is going to meet us on the east coast, sailing around the tip of South America. We have some seasoned sailors running the ship. We have enough units and parts to leave with quite a few communities—assuming there are some.”
“There are,” said Ben. “We can give you a pretty accurate map of the locations of many of them. I should warn you that in the middle of the country in particular, there are quite a few crevasses.”
“We’re prepared. Remember, I lived here too. I had to deal with them back east. We have a lightweight portable bridge.”
“You’re not walking, right?”
“No, like you, we travel by horseback. That’s how most people travel in Europe. We brought horses with us on the ship. One question: I was surprised to run across this bunch. Is there still a lot of violence here?”
“No. We were also surprised. We ran across them a ways back. I’m anxious to find out who they are. But no, I can’t see you running across any other trouble. That died out years ago.”
“As it did in Europe. It was bad for a while, but slowly civilization caught up with them.”
“How has it been in some of the other countries you visited on your way here?” asked Lila.
“We didn’t venture inland too far from the coast in most of them. Unless we had someone on the ship who was familiar with the country, we stayed on the coast. Spain, Greece, and Italy had small pockets of people. The African countries the same. South Africa was surprisingly well populated—by that I mean a few thousand. On the opposite side of the spectrum was Japan. We didn’t find one soul. Not one. Doesn’t mean they weren’t there. We just didn’t find any.”
He continued. “Anyway, we’ll make Yellowstone our first stop and leave you with a couple of solar units and a tractor. The solar units are connected to generators. We’ll also leave instructions on how to build simple, but effective windmills and leave you with materials to build ele
ctrical circuitry.”
“Given the working parts, Aaron and I can do that,” said Sean. “That was our specialty in the Marines.”
“Good. Hopefully our instructions are simple enough so that people in other communities who don’t have the background you have can build them. Many of the larger parts needed can be scavenged from cities and towns. We will drop our units off at as many communities as possible before we run out.”
Aaron looked at Ben. “Paradise?”
“Dan,” said Ben. “Could you leave us enough for another small town? I’d like to take it to them myself. I kind of owe them.”
“Done. I’m hoping that by leaving all of this with certain communities, America can slowly get some of its power back and build from there. The power will help with so many things.”
“We’ve kind of gotten used to life without electricity,” said Ben.
“Not much will change for a long time, but slowly you will come to appreciate some of the benefits of having power again.”
Lila looked at Angus. “Thank you for doing this. You could have sat on it yourself, and there are many who would have, but you’ve chosen to share it with the rest of the world. It’s very generous.”
“It’s what humanity is all about,” said Angus.
Chapter 22
It was time to check on the prisoners. As much as he was enjoying his talk with Dan, Ben was anxious to learn about Cat and her friends. He, Aaron, and Sean walked into the woods to the clearing where the men were being guarded by Wade and Simon’s fathers.
“They haven’t said a word, not even to each other,” Wade’s father said quietly. “Don’t get too close to them. They stink.”
Ben nodded and approached the prisoners. The man wasn’t kidding. The odor was enough to make him vomit. He breathed shallowly, hoping it would help with the smell. The men were filthy and their clothes were even worse. They were barefoot and had strangely misshapen feet. He was getting dizzy from the smell. He’d have to make this fast.
“You will talk,” he announced. “There is no way you are leaving here without talking to us.”
One of the men gave a snort, then went silent. Ben went over to him and kicked him in the side. The man cried out and fell over.
“Anyone else want to laugh?”
“Ben.” Aaron was at his side. “Let’s talk.” He pulled Ben away and out of the clearing.
Ben was seething. “I can make them talk. I have to. Cat’s life is at stake.”
“It’ll be dark soon. There’s nothing we can do tonight to help Cat. We know she got away. You just have to trust that she made it somewhere safely. These guys will talk. Let’s just give them a little time. We’re not feeding them—and they can smell the food—and we’re not giving them water. It’s just a matter of time. Go talk some more with your friend.”
Ben knew his brother was right, so he walked back to the group and sat down next to Lila. She looked him questioningly. He shook his head and mouthed the words, “not yet.”
Someone had just asked Dan to describe the world they’d seen in a little more detail.
“Angus’s people had traveled by land through France, Belgium, and into Germany early on. Things were bad.”
“Worse than bad,” said Angus. “We lost a few people.”
“They had sent people out to find clusters of survivors, not so much to set them up with power, but just to find out how bad it was out there. Angus had about eighty people in his group, almost all of them fellow workers. Angus was chosen to be the one in charge, partly because he was the highest one in the company to have survived, and partly because people trusted him. And having spent a lot of years with him, it’s no wonder. He’s a natural leader. Anyway, two of the scouts never came back. The group he sent out to find them discovered their bodies, but also discovered the people who killed them. It was a vicious group, and his people just barely made it back. They let several years pass before they tried it again. By then I had arrived and I volunteered to go out.”
He took a sip of coffee. “What I found was peace. As in America, things had settled down and the few survivors left had formed communities, just like here. We found seventeen communities across Great Britain, France, and Germany. Now we know of nearly a hundred more. We spent a few years getting the equipment to the towns, and as I said before, a lot of that part of Europe now has power. People have been good about sharing. I think we’ve all realized that the only way we’re going to survive is by cooperation. Once we felt we had gone far enough by land, we decided to take to the sea. Angus’s company had a massive ship, and they spent a year converting it to solar power. We took off with what we hoped would be enough equipment to get several countries started. The sad part is that we have more equipment left than we thought we would by this time.”
“And the rest of the world?” asked Ben.
“Depends where you are. We found two small communities in Northern Ireland, and one in Ireland. In both cases, they knew of no other groups. We went down the coast to Spain and Portugal—a little more life—and then through the Straits of Gibraltar to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, and some of the African countries. We encountered people in all of the countries in various stages of survival. There were fewer people in the Northern African and Middle-Eastern countries. We were told that famine killed many of those who had survived the initial event.”
Nobody talked. It was fascinating for them all to hear what was going on in the rest of the world. Assumptions and wonderings were put to rest.
“We then came back out past Gibraltar—which, by the way, had a thriving community of more than sixty people—then down the African coast. There were a lot of the countries we avoided, mostly because we couldn’t find a clear path to dock. Sometimes it was questionable shoals, and sometimes the harbors were just filled with too many derelict ships for us to enter. As I said before, South Africa was doing very well and we rid ourselves of quite a number of the units. I think as the years pass, South Africa will become one of the leading countries in the world—if we ever get that far. We then went part way up the eastern coast of Africa before heading across to India. Yes, there were a lot of countries we missed, but we couldn’t do them all. And frankly, after South Africa, we weren’t finding an awful lot of people.”
“How about India?”
“You would think that India, with the population it had, would be thriving. Nothing. We didn’t find one soul. We also had a rule that we wouldn’t venture far into the country. If we didn’t find people in a few days, we moved on. Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and even Taiwan all had communities, but not many. The scariest part of our trip was when we hit Japan. I mentioned before that it was devoid of people, but what I didn’t say was how spooky it was. A number of our people said they had visions of dead people calling out to them. It wasn’t like anything we had ever seen or experienced. We couldn’t wait to leave.”
He took a breath. “Then we came here. We maneuvered in as far as we could and we started on our way by horseback. It was exciting for me to be back here, and I think it was exciting for many of the others because they had heard so much about the States. And so here we are.”
“I think you will be happy with what you find,” said Lila. “After a rough start—one that you remember well, I’m sure—things have settled down nicely. There are a lot of good people out there. Other than this crew—and we still don’t know anything about them—we haven’t heard of any violence in many years.”
Ben stood up. “Speaking of this crew, now let’s go see what those men have to say. And I’m in no mood to have them stay silent.”
Chapter 23
Darkness settled in, and Ben, Aaron, and Sean used the opportunity to observe the four prisoners without being seen. The prisoners were in front of the fire, which was blinding them to anything else. None of the prisoners had spoken, either to their captors or to each other.
“What do you think?” asked Ben.
“Let’s see what you’ve pic
ked up over the years, little brother,” said Aaron. “What do you see?”
“God, always the big brother,” said Ben, rolling his eyes. “Okay, I see three of them staring directly into the fire. They are sullen. Their eyes are vacant. I think we could talk to them until we turn blue in the face and would get nothing out of them. Even if they talked, I don’t think they’d have much of anything to say that would be helpful. The fourth guy is different. He’s looking around. He’s trying not to stare into the fire. He probably suspects that we are watching him, but he can’t do anything about it. He’s older than the others and looks like he’s more intelligent—which isn’t saying much. I say we go after him.”
“Let’s do it,” said Aaron. He called Nick and Jason over and asked them to take away the other three. When they were gone, Ben, Aaron, and Sean entered the circle of light and sat facing the man. To be fair to him, they sat off to the side of the fire rather than in front of it, so he could view his interrogators.
He watched them with a combination of fear and curiosity. Nothing they did escaped his eyes. When they first approached him, he drew back in fear. The kept their distance. The smell emanating from him was overpowering. Sean likened it to a combination of rotting fish and rancid meat.
From a safe smelling distance of twenty feet, Ben watched him. He was older than most of the rest he'd seen—maybe his early sixties—and unlike some of the dead ones they had examined, he had most of his teeth, a fact that would help if they could ever get him to talk. His shaggy, gray hair extended past his shoulder blades, and his beard lay flat on his chest. There were signs that he had cut both his beard and his hair at various points in the past, as the ends were squared off in places, but ragged nonetheless. He wore ill-fitting glasses that were scratched and cracked. He was barefoot, and his misshapen feet had inch-deep callouses. Ben figured that he hadn't worn shoes in many years. His clothes were ill-fitting as well, probably taken off one of his group who had died long ago. With the number of holes and rips Ben observed, it wouldn't be long before the clothes fell off him altogether. One of the dead ones had been wearing newer clothes, probably once belonging to Clete.
Eden's Legacy (Eden Rising Trilogy Book 3) Page 14
