“O-M-G!” Ella whispered. Ella dashed through the opened balcony door and into his arms. “A pearl ring. How? We barely have enough Last State Credits for the rest of the month,” she scolded, slipping on the ring, admiring it in the October sunlight.
“It matches our earrings. A symbol of our never-dying love.” To this day, they each wore one of the pearl earrings he had given Ella on her sixteenth birthday, back when he had first fallen in love with the Mexican beauty in Vacaville, California. He often romanticized the earrings had sealed their love. Sometimes he believed the earrings had played a part in keeping them safe, reuniting them like a medieval talisman. Ye-ah, super corny. He had turned superstitious after months of searching apocalyptic America for her. And finding her against all the odds.
“Justin, it’s beautiful but—you should return it.”
Justin over-exaggerated a guilty smirk and let it linger on his lips.
“I know that look.” Ella put her hand on her hip. “What are you up to?”
“Oh, nothing . . .”
“Justin Luke Chen!”
“Estella Marie Vasquez-Chen—” Justin stopped. He loved saying her complete name. He still couldn’t believe they had been married for nearly four months. “I got a super-awesome promotion working in the Big Data Think Tank I told you about.” After weeks of sifting through tons of unstructured data, he had written a software program to correlate the data more efficiently. His supervisor had said he was a genius; he was just lazy. Work Smarter—Not Harder, that was his motto. He had received a nice bonus for that. Naturally, the money was long gone. Ella was super good at spending. Not so good at budgeting.
Ella let out a girly scream. “Really?” She cozied up to him.
“It pays like ten times more than my lame job.” He inhaled the scent of her chamomile shampoo. It triggered memories of those days living on the rooftop in Sacramento. The best time of his life until they had been accepted into Last State.
“I’m so proud of you. What did you do this time?” Ella nestled closer.
“Remember the awesome program I designed? I improved it, adding code for the Human Factor. The algorithm processes the real-time data instantly instead of taking months to filter out the junk data. You know, what I’m talking about, right?”
Ella pulled away and stared up at him with glazed-over eyes and a crooked-brow frown. “I’m sure you’ll geek-splain it to me whether I want you to or not.” She giggled.
“Uh, well it’s no big deal. Like they should have known.” He had learned about the often overlooked and misinterpreted Human Factor in his I.T. classes the year of the Super Summer flu. He wasn’t the mastermind they made him out to be; there was a shortage of computer geeks. He hoped his rudimentary program wasn’t as dingy as most virtual assistants and started doing wonky things like turning appliances on and off on its own. Someone with better knowledge would have written a more complicated and effective code. “I planned to beta test it for several months to tweak it out. But, the director’s in a crunch. They will work out the bugs along the way. Like the software companies used to do, using their customers as guinea pigs.”
Ella emphatically rolled her eyes.
Oops, too much info. He had lost her. “Think of it this way. Remember when your Internet keyword searches recommended something that was totally not what you were looking for? It’s because their A.I. was wacked. Their algorithms were off. If you write the code correctly, the A.I. continues learning with every click you make to ensure quality data.”
“So, when do you start?”
“That’s the problem. I start Monday. Here’s the cool part. We’re approved for a two-bedroom apartment in—wait for it. The K-zone! You can put a deposit down on your favorite apartment.” K-zone was way fancier, with awesome restaurants, theaters, libraries, museums, skating rinks, bowling alleys, and arcades. They even had a zoo. “I trust your judgment.”
“It will be fun. We’ll look on weekends.” Ella dashed to her electronic MeDevice sitting on the couch, no doubt ready to surf the Intranet for apartments.
MeDevices weren’t as awesome as iPads, but pretty cool for living in post-apocalyptic times. Every citizen in the A to Y Zones had one. For free. Apparently, Z-zone cits weren’t allowed to have them. Or maybe Last State didn’t waste their electronics on the lazy gypsies who preferred to slum their lives away in the Zhetto instead of working to rebuild a safe and prosperous society. Which, defeated the entire purpose of living in Last State. He had proudly vowed to make his contribution to society the day he had been given his citizenship.
“Justin, what are you not telling me.”
Ella always had a way of knowing things. “Um, ye-ah, I can’t leave during the project. Not for one freakin’ month. My unit will be in total lockdown. Employees live on sight. We even have to eat cafeteria food.” He gagged. He wasn’t looking forward to it. Ella spoiled him with her flair for cooking. They ate Mexican or Chinese food almost every day.
“Why do you have to start so soon?” Ella asked with wide, sad-puppy eyes.
“It’s a time-sensitive project in D-zone. High security.”
“Ew, what will you be doing?”
“Heck, I don’t even know what the project is yet. They aren’t risking any data breaches.” He hoped he wasn’t getting in over his head. The director had said he was the perfect fit for the job because Justin thought outside of the box, coming up with inventive ideas. Which actually worked. Sometimes.
Tears trickled down Ella’s cheeks.
He rushed to her. He held her in his arms again, treasuring the moment. He couldn’t stand that part either, the part where he couldn’t see her and hold her for an entire month. “It sucks. Once we get through this, life will be uber awesome,” he promised. He was counting on the pearl ring to help soften the bad news. “Get this, I got a signing bonus of ten thousand Last State Credits. With that many LSCs, you can buy all the fresh produce you want, stream all the movies you want, and read all the books you want. Without me bugging you.” Like bugging her did any good.
“I miss you already,” her forgiving eyes said.
Since Justin had started working with computers again, his brain was back to deciphering ones and zeros. Strands of binary code came to life with more clarity than ever before. Back before the Super Summer flu, he’d had an affinity with all things computer. These days, it was like the binary code spoke to him. Weird, but so were Zs and Last State’s dystopia lifestyle. It was amazing how drastically the world had changed in such a short amount of time.
His first job had been monitoring RFID CitChips. After a citizen had flatlined, it blipped red on his monitor. His job had been to tap into the available live feed to assess the situation. The tricky part had been calculating what streets to close, what trams to shut down, and how many citizens it might infect before Enforcers neutralized the situation.
It had been the worst job ever—living through a newly Infected’s horror while sitting on his ass and taking notes in his safe control room. He had written an algorithm based on the logistics of each Sector, calculating how quickly one Infected could escalate into a horde. His dickhead supervisor had taken the credit for that one.
Based on the big data he had sifted through, the pandemic’s mortality rate for children had been close to a hundred percent. It made sense. Children couldn’t defend themselves when their parent, sibling, or classmate suddenly turned cannibalistic. Women’s mortality rate came in second, for they were usually the caregivers. The brutal facts didn’t lie. Most women and children had died during the first two weeks of the pandemic. Texas had sealed off its borders within days of the Super Summer flu. They had seceded from the Union shortly after the U.S. Military had bombed the FEMA designated areas around the country.
I’ve got to start calling it Last State. His superiors frowned when he said Texas. Texas no longer existed. For a while, Last State had accepted immigrants fleeing the Lost States of America. The latest decree made him sick to his sto
mach. They weren’t accepting any more immigrants.
Ella and Justin were amongst the few immigrants who had survived the trip from Sunny-Z-light California to Texas, outrunning hordes and bad guys. The rest of America had been hashtagged the Lost States of America. Ella didn’t even have to find a boring job. Wives were considered a luxury. He was one of the few men in their twenties who had a wife. The downside—wives were treated more like property. But he would never treat Ella like that. Never. He had risked everything to find her, and he would do everything in his power to make her happy.
Luckily, he and Ella had only been required to go through a thirty-day quarantine; based on their bloodwork, they carried none of the virulent flu strains. Which was way weird. Ella’s special tea must have worked. Because, he had been bitten by an Infected. Don’t think it! Sometimes Justin had this uncanny feeling someone was reading his mind, keeping tabs on him. He shrugged off the stupid thought to his overactive imagination.
Justin hoped their dear friend, Scarlett Lewis, had made it in. He hadn’t been able to find her on CitChat. With his new high-security clearance, he planned to explore the dark belly of the Intranet to find the Zone Scarlett and Twila had been assigned. She had probably been forced into marriage and went by a different name. That was what they did with unmarried women in Last State. Disgusting.
Still, they were super lucky to be living there and not outside Last State’s borders where the hordes hunted humans with their un-dying hunger for human flesh. He got the willies just thinking about it. I’m back to being a regular computer geek. He no longer took pride in being an awesome Z-deactivator. He was sick of it. Sick of slaughtering those unfortunate people who had succumbed to the Z-virus. What shitty luck.
Oh, there were still outbreaks. The Z-virus hadn’t gone away. And there still wasn’t a cure. That was what the White Coats were for. Scientists and doctors who had been extracted from around the world during those first few weeks of the super-pandemic occupied every available medical research facility within the Zones. They even allowed women scientists.
To this day, Justin often questioned how he had survived the Lost States. The odds were nearly impossible. The real miracle was how squeamish Ella had survived. He thought about all those scary but super-fun days living on a flat-roofed house in Sacramento and all those times teaching her to de-activate Zs. But he shouldn’t go there. They were going to live a cush life in the K-zone. It was more than he had hoped for.
So what if Last State was crazy-weird with big brother always watching and telling him what he could and couldn’t do. He constantly worked on stifling his outspokenness. He had learned to roll the dice in this all too scary game of life. And, it was all worth it to be with Ella and to keep her happy and safe.
Chapter 4
Scarlett Lewis gripped the reins tighter as the address shimmered brighter in her mind. The stallion galloped ahead. They had an obvious cosmic connection. She no longer doubted the sporadic psychic abilities bestowed upon her since the undead had taken over the earth.
She had spent the last four nights straddling Onyx with Twila between her arms as they rode across the flat grassy lands of the Texan panhandle. The humid October days and chilly, windy nights had been tolerable. At least they didn’t have to deal with the summer heat or a snowstorm.
They had rested during the days, out of sight. There wasn’t much in this part of Texas, mainly abandoned oil derricks, fallow farming land, and deserted homesteads and ranches. Onyx had always found them a water source near shelter by the time the rosy light of the sun greeted the dawn. But their luck was running out; they were out of food. Her compelling intuition told her they were close, so today she risked traveling during the day.
“Mommy, we’re almost there!” Twila shouted with glee.
The brown, grassy terrain abruptly changed to tufts of blue-green grasses dotted with proud prickly pear cactus poking through the sandy barren land. Ahead, the noon-day sun highlighted a valley of trees. Trees indicated a water source. The stallion raced faster, smelling the water. Twila leaned into the stallion’s silky mane, and Scarlett followed suit with eager anticipation.
Scarlett pulled on the reins and approached the grove of trees with caution. “Everyone, shh.” She spoke to Twila and Onyx. She needed to concentrate. A building flashed beyond the trees. With her inner vision, she zoomed beyond the trees for a clearer picture. The vague outline of a three-story building appeared.
“It’s Zac’s house!” Twila announced.
Scarlett’s heart skipped a beat. Was Zac there? From what he had said, he spent most of his time on the trails as a guide, bringing people into Last State. A shallowness left her heart hollow. He wasn’t there. But, someone was. Shit!
“It’s safe,” Twila assured.
Scarlett needed to know for herself. The child’s inner vision was usually more accurate than hers; however, Twila didn’t always interpret it correctly. After Onyx quenched his thirst in the sunken creekbed, she led the stallion up the creek’s embankment. She spotted several cabins amongst the golden-veined leaves of the cottonwoods. In the clearing stood a rather large three-story building. The landscape resorted back to grasslands. Scarlett stopped. Beyond the wind’s wails, she listened to her internal warning system. A calmness took over. Quietude. Safety.
“Twila, stay on Onyx. I’ll check it out. And see if Zac’s here.”
Twila shook her head. “He’s not here,” Twila burst with disappointment. “But there’s a nice lady. Ooh, she bakes pies!”
Interesting. “If I don’t make it back, I want you to ride Onyx to the shack we stayed at yesterday. Promise,” Scarlett said sternly.
“Don’t worry about me. Onyx knows the way.”
Onyx nickered and shook his silky mane from side to side.
“Ooh, he’s so happy to be here,” the girl elated.
Twila was usually oblivious to danger. Scarlett, however, was always prepared for the worst. She attempted to smooth out the grungy jumpsuit she had scavenged from the fairgrounds. Then she re-stuffed her braids under the tattered straw hat. Feeling like a starving Okie migrant from the Dust Bowl era, she gulped down her angst and walked toward the lone figure removing sheets from the clothesline. Hoping for the best.
***
Shari O’Hara scampered about, unclipping the billowing sheets she had smudged while they dried on the clothesline. Her last set of guests had left her with a cloud of negative energy. She could always count on wild sage to cleanse unwanted energies.
Last night’s guests had been Zhetto residents. It had been evident, for they had paid with gold. No names. No questions. Last State had recently forbidden non-elitists access to gold. Those fascists were always coming up with some new ruling. Their radical authoritarian suppression reminded her of 20th-century Europe. Was the same thing occurring in other countries?
Shari fought a wind gust for a bedsheet hell-bent on racing off the edge of the plains. The sight brought on a whimsical thought of The Council of Elites declaring Earth was flat with everyone agreeing without questioning. That was it; the people had flocked to the Zones like sheep while the Elites culled the herd to their advantage. Society had traded their hard-earned freedoms for safety. . . Until the day they woke up and recognized the true enemy: a totalitarian one-party state.
Stop harping on lost causes. My activist days are long gone. Still, it rattled her cage that only Elites were permitted to trade with gold in this Monopoly game to see who could own the most of Last State the fastest. Once the Elites owned every ounce of gold, would they turn on each other?
Citizens used a system of electronic credits, reminding her of Bitcoin. She didn’t trust the digital currency. It could be wiped out with the flash of the sun or when a disgruntled Elite pulled the plug and decided to start over. Despite the new ban on gold, most Zhetts still traded with gold or goods since it couldn’t be tracked. What did it matter? Last State considered everyone living on the fringes of their obedient Zones as dissidents.
Stop with the negative thoughts. Shari relit the sage stick and smudged her etheric body while envisioning love and light flowing into every cell of her body. That’s better. She bent down to lift the clothes basket. Her aching back seized, reminding it was time for another dose of her homemade arthritis tincture. Sometimes she forgot she was sixty-something.
Her peripheral vision alerted her of movement. She snatched the Remington leaning against the clothesline post. A man in a filthy jumpsuit and ragtag hat approached with raised hands. Shari racked the shotgun with a not-so-friendly welcome. No horse, no vehicle, not even a travel bag. The traveler was more than the usual dissident; he was on the lam. That meant trouble.
A gust of wind ripped the straw hat off the traveler’s head. Long, black braids flailed as the woman chased after the hat in a hysterical scene right out of an Abbott and Costello movie. Each time the woman reached for the hat, the wind whisked it beyond her reach. After several attempts, the woman dove for the flight-bound hat. She held up her hat in the air as if she had accomplished a major feat. They both looked at the raggedy hat and then at each other. They broke out in an unexpected bout of laughter.
“Folks ’round here call me Shotgun Shari,” she blabbed in the well-practiced bad-ass voice she had learned to use since the End Times. She unracked the shotgun and offered a wrinkly hand for a shake.
“I go by Lewis,” the young woman said.
“You look about as lost as a blind prairie chicken,” Shari cackled. Intuition told her the young woman was in trouble or was trouble. Sadly, Shari had lost her Gift of Sight after coming down with a mild case of the Super Summer flu three summers ago. Since then, her metaphysical gifts had withered away, making her feel like a blind prairie chicken herself. Despite that, her intuition usually didn’t fail her, and answers often found her dreams.
Only The Dead Don't Die (Book 3): Last State Page 4
