Dominion

by JL Bryan

  “We should have taken my computer,” she whispered. “If they can trace where I called, then the whole deal is blown. Wow. That was stupid.”

  “We should get moving,” Ruppert whispered. Already he could hear boots crunching through leaves as they descended the slope towards them.

  They crawled along the ground, moving straight downhill from the redwood, the only direction along which they had any hoping of concealing themselves. Narrow shafts of light streaked across the woods ahead of them, either flashlights or gun lights.

  Ruppert’s hand reached ahead into empty space, and he toppled forward. Lucia grabbed onto him, which slowed his fall but did not break it. They went over the edge of what he first thought was a ditch, until they slid down a muddy bank and splashed into frigid, running water, deep enough that Ruppert’s shoes only brushed against the pebbled bottom. They’d fallen into a creek.

  Ruppert grabbed onto exposed tree roots to keep himself from drifting away, though he wondered if drifting might not be the best option. Lucia clung to the bank a few yards downstream, and she was looking at him with wide eyes, pressing one finger to her lips.

  “Watch your step there,” a man’s voice spoke directly above them. Ruppert heard several branches snapping, and a clump of loose earth tumbled from overhead, between Ruppert and Lucia, and into the creek.

  The narrow beams played along the surface of the water, dangerously close to them. The police were about ten feet over their heads, and only the darkness of the waning night and the shadows of the forest protected them.

  “Kill the lights,” a voice said. Then, several seconds later, “I’m not reading anything on thermal.”

  Ruppert believed it; he and Lucia were neck deep in what felt like the runoff from a glacier.

  “We’re gonna need more feet down here,” another voice said. “Get some guys downstream, too. They might be swimming.”

  Then a sound like a clap of thunder boomed in the distance, echoing down all the ridges and canyons of the mountains around them.

  “The hell was that?” one of the cops asked. They muttered among themselves.

  The crackling crosstalk of the police radios ended, replaced by a single commanding female voice. “All units, all units, we have a possible T1 on Diablo Mountain,” she said. “Repeat, Diablo Mountain, possible T1. All units respond.”

  One of the cops began to speak: “Sir, we think we might have these hackers on foot.”

  “Forget it,” a voice crackled back. “Emergency boxes are lighting up all over the valley. It’s a distraction.”

  “Ten-four.”

  The boots and the beams of light retreated up the hill, and then they were gone.

  Lucia hauled herself from the cold water and climbed up on the creek bank.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get your car.”

  “What happened?” Ruppert began to climb the muddy slope.

  “They set off a bomb somewhere to break up the roadblock,” she said. “Terrorism takes priority.”

  “That was nice of them.” They hurried up along the steep hillside.

  “It’s a lot of trouble,” Lucia said. “And it could draw federal attention. Everyone’s going to hate me. I just hope no one gets caught.”

  They climbed back up to the emergency phone box, but Lucia’s computer had been severed and confiscated. They hiked back up along the road, keeping to the trees so they could jump out of the way at a moment’s notice. They found the car intact and undisturbed. The police probably hadn’t had time to find it, and it was not very visible from the road. Ruppert looked ahead, where the edge of flashing blue light had disappeared.

  “Let’s go,” Lucia said. “We’re as safe as we’ll ever be.”

  They drove for thirty minutes among winding roads, eventually turning off on an unmarked, unlined street that became a dirt track. Lucia stopped in front of an overgrown brick gate thick with vines. She stepped out of the car and approached the gate, where she pressed a button set into an ornate frame.

  “We’re here,” she said. “If anybody’s listening.”

  After several seconds, the gates creaked open, folded inward and squealing with the sound of badly rusted machinery.

  They drove through overgrown fields of wild vines and thorny brambles. At one intersection of dirt tracks, a young dreadlocked black man stood with his hand raised. Lucia stopped, and he climbed into the back seat.

  “Turn left,” he said. “We’re stashing the car in the old fermentation building.”

  At his directions, Lucia drove them into a long brick building with boarded windows. They parked among machinery draped in tarps, then got out, swept the tarp from one of the machines, and covered up Ruppert’s car.

  “Is everything all right?” Lucia asked.

  “It's all right,” the man said. “We just had to distract the police force of Sonoma County and get it away with it. Did I mention we had no time to prepare?"

  "I’m sorry,” Lucia said.

  “Don’t ever, ever do that again. Now we have to deal with Hartwell sniffing around. Through here.” The young man approached one of four giant cylinders against a long wall. He took hold of the circular pressure gauge, which was as wide as the man himself, and wrenched it around like a large dial. A section of the metal cylinder screeched as it opened outward, revealing brick stairs that spiraled away underground. He led them down, closing the hatch after them.

  “What is this place?” Ruppert asked as they stepped into an underground room made of brick and stone. Racks of dusty glass containers lined the walls, under rows of grow lamps with empty sockets.

  “Somebody used to have another operation going on down here, back in the 1970s, 1980s,” the young man said. “Plants more profitable than grapes. You should wait here.” He left through a faux-medieval door made of thick wooden slats and brass bindings.

  “Friendly people,” Ruppert said.

  “They’re cleaning up our mess,” Lucia said.

  “You don’t think they hurt anybody?”

  “I’m sure they just detonated an old building or something. Already wired in advance. They do have contingency plans.”

  “An old wooden water tower, actually.” A familiar face entered along with the young black man. It was the “Packers fan” Ruppert had met at Nixon Stadium. “No water was injured, I promise.”

  “Archer, I’m glad you made it,” Lucia said.

  “Your name’s Archer?” Ruppert said. "I thought it was Benny."

  "Benny's what I go by when I'm out among the sheeple," Archer said. "And Archer's what I'm going by this year. And this is Turin." Archer clapped the dreadlocked man's shoulder. "Because he's a miracle worker. Every call box for eighty miles--pow!"

  Turin nodded at Adam. To Archer, he said, “Big lady thinks we should go ahead now, since he’s here. They’ll keep watch for the Harty boys.”

  “Great,” Archer said. “Daniel, background. We’ve got him thinking that we’re doing it for him—like a final request before the cancer eats him up. He thinks you’re still with GlobeNet, and this is going to go large onscreen. The story he believes beyond that, too complicated, you don't need to know. Can you play along with that?”

  “Not a problem,” Ruppert said.

  “Should I come?” Lucia asked.

  “You’d better,” Turin said. “You go upstairs, she might rip out your throat for the storm you just stirred up. And we don’t need her distracted right now. Anyway, the man hasn’t seen you before, so we're calling you the GlobeNet camera operator.”

  “I don’t have any equipment.”

  Archer handed her a tall silver cylinder with a 360-degree lens band.

  “And you,” Turin said to Ruppert. “You need to look like you’re on the job. I’ll find you a suit upstairs, but maybe…” He pantomimed a few swipes at his own face.

  Ruppert touched the heavy stubble on his chin, then nodded.

  “Bathroom’s down the hall, fourth door on your left,” Turin s
aid.

  A few minutes later, having shaved his face and splashed some water in his hair, dressed in a dark brown wool suit that might have been fashionable in the 1920s, Ruppert met back with the others. Lucia had gathered her hair back into a ponytail and changed into a long-sleeved blouse and ankle-length skirt, the way a modern Dominionist woman dressed in the workplace, but they looked ridiculous on her.

  “Okay, Daniel.” Lucia powered up the holographic recorder. “Let’s go and make your life worthwhile.”

  Turin led them through a dark warren of rooms lit by a few spare bulbs, down another set of stairs, then unlocked a sheet-metal door. “Don’t let him rattle you,” he said to Ruppert. “And try not to mind the stink. He won’t sponge himself off, so we just have to hose him down every couple of days.”

  The door swung open, and Ruppert stepped into a cinderblock room dominated by a large iron cage, like a monkey house at an old city zoo. A man reclined on a heap of filthy cushions, his leg attached to one of the cage bars by a long chain. His hair was longer, grayer, and more scraggly, and he smelled like a rhinoceros, but Ruppert recognized the swastika tattoos on his flabby arms and bare torso. The man leaned forward and smiled at him through teeth clotted with dried, black blood.

  This was Hollis Westerly.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The underground room was floored with a concrete slab, but a few worn rugs and swatches of carpet softened the interior of Westerly’s cage. Scattered inside the cage were a small chemical toilet, a few bottles of water, a cot, and a few highly illegal magazines of the kind that featured people performing sex acts. Westerly rose from the pile of cushions at the middle of the cage and approached Ruppert, his chain skittering along the floor behind him.

  His smile was crooked, missing teeth.

  “I know you,” he said. “I seen your show before.”

  “Always nice to meet a fan,” Ruppert said.

  “Didn’t say I was a fan or not.” Westerly looked at Turin. “Now give me one.”

  “That’ll be three today, Hollis,” Turin said.

  “You said I could have one when he got here.”

  Turin shrugged, then produced a crumpled pack of Chesterfield cigarettes. He passed one of them to Westerly through the bars and lit it for him.

  Westerly took a deep pull, then hacked loudly. It sounded like gravel being ground to dust inside his chest. He looked back at Westerly with watering eyes.

  “They got a colored boy deciding when I smoke, when I eat, when my shitter gets emptied,” Westerly said. “How do you like that?”

  “It must be difficult for you,” Ruppert said. The muscles in his arms and fingers twitched as if they had a mind of their own. He wondered if some part of him was still programmed to murder Westerly, despite Smith’s efforts.

  “Difficult, hell,” Westerly said, then coughed again. Blood spattered out from his lips. His eyes drifted to Lucia, who was setting up the cylindrical silver holorecorder on a tripod a few feet outside the cage wall. He took a long, slow look up and down her body. “Whose ‘at?”

  “Oh,” Ruppert said. “This is, uh, Karen. Karen Andrews…son…Anderson. My camera tech.”

  Westerly continued to leer at her. “She don’t look like no Karen Andrewston to me. She looks more like a Maria Gonzales. That your name, Maria Gonzales?”

  Lucia ignored him and spoke to Archer, staying in character: “Can we get any more light in here?”

  “Tell that Maria to come over here,” Westerly said. “Tell her come right up here and onto her knees.”

  “She’s busy right now,” Ruppert said. “Mr. Westerly—is that correct? Mr. Hollis Westerly?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m Daniel Ruppert with GlobeNet-Los Angeles Nightly News. We understand you have a very important story to share with us tonight…this morning.”

  “Ragnarok.” Westerly smiled his bloody grin again.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Ragnarok. The end of time. When the wolves eat up the sun and the moon,” Westerly said. “We recording yet?”

  “Are we ready?” Ruppert asked Lucia.

  “Best we can do in this light,” Lucia said, giving Ruppert half a smile.

  Ruppert sat in a folding lawn chair Archer had brought in for him. Westerly hunkered right at the cage wall, sucking down the last bit of the cigarette before grinding it to pieces on the concrete floor.

  “What all did they tell you?” Westerly asked.

  “Very little,” Ruppert answered, honestly. To be even more honest, he said, “Everybody thought it would be better if I walked into this without much information.”

  “That’s all right,” Westerly said. “To tell you the real story of Ragnarok, I got to tell you about Brother Zeb."

  "Who is Brother--"

  "You just shut up and listen, cause I want my goddamned blue pill. I got picked up in Detroit back, oh, twenty years ago now, winter of 2014, 2015. Me and a buddy of mine knocked over this Korean liquor store. It was supposed to be quick, you know, grab up the cash and a few bottles and get out. Then the little yeller creep starts gabbing at us, all that crazy kinda talk they have, so I hit him once or twice with the butt of my shotgun just to quiet him down some. They said I broke his jaw in five places, but I didn’t believe ‘em, cause his jaw was so small it didn’t look like he’d have five places to break.

  “Anyhow, just cause of this little Korean squirt, they gave me forty years up at Ionia. Don’t know what happened to my buddy. But anyway, so I got up to Ionia about the middle of 2015, almost summertime, and I got up with some of my brothers there.”

  “Brothers?” Ruppert asked.

  “You know, the white freedom movement. I was in the Social Nationalists down around Mississippi, but this group up in Michigan called themselves the Aryan Whitehammers. Anyhow, they followed after this big bastard named Trace McCully. So I settled in up there.

  “Well, I’d been there two, three months when Brother Zeb first checked in. Nobody knowed at first what they got him for, but it turns out, the story went, he gunned down about six gang-bangers right out in open daylight. They say he only had five bullets in his gun when he did it, which is just the kind of thing you could believe about Brother Zeb.

  “What I mean is, Brother Zeb weren’t one of your regular felons. He was real quiet, almost so you couldn't hear him when he walked, if he didn't want you to. He had like a puddle of quiet all around him. I remember just a couple days after he first come to the prison, one of these big homeboys decides Brother Zeb needs to be taken down a little, not that Zeb was a big mouther, not one bit, but you got this feeling he could turn water into ice if he pissed in it.

  “So this big colored man, I mean four hundred or more pounds sort of big, he moves on Zeb on the way from the cafeteria. And Brother Zeb, who’s about half his size, don’t even look over to see who’s after him. He just reaches out one hand and takes that boy’s arm and rolls it up like a newspaper. I swear, right up to the shoulder. I never seen nothing like it. And Brother Zeb, he just kept on walking, didn’t even look back to see what he’d done.

  “Brother Zeb, we knew he was one of us, had the marks, like this Viking swastika right over his heart. And most of us never met anyone like him. I thought I knew some things myself, back then, but Brother Zeb, he’d quote chapter and verse from big people like Darwin and what’s his name, German fella, Nietcheese, and like that, and he’d go on explaining how history all fits together and how the white race is supposed to rule the world. I mean, he was deep, he musta read a hundred books or more.

  “Well, some of us got to hanging around Brother Zeb, listening to all his ideas, and that made old Trace McCully more than a little jealous, because here’s all these people start listening to this other guy, who everybody knows is smarter than Trace. Question is, is he tougher than Trace? Trace was all gut and muscle.

  “Finally Trace tells us we can’t talk to Brother Zeb no more, cause he’s trying to mess with our heads and all, but everybody kn
ew Trace was jealous about maybe he wasn't alpha wolf no more. And the day after that, the guards find Trace tied upside down on the door of his own cell, all cut open and bled out, kind of like Jesus only with his feet in the air. And nobody could prove Zeb did it, not even them guards, and it told us a couple things about Brother Zeb. First off, he was tougher than Trace, by a long sight. Second off, he was sneakier than oiled shit to pull a trick like that without getting caught. And third, the way he done Trace, it was almost respectable, not like shiving a man in the back at lunch or what have you. It was an honor killing, if you understand.”

  “Sure,” Ruppert said. At the moment, he felt particularly grateful to have metal bars between himself and Westerly.

  “After that, we spent lots of time with Brother Zeb, listening to him preach about the white man's natural rights over all them mongrel races. He talked about how the liberals and Jews control the media, and they used it to confuse us about our real place in history, and to hide all the animal ways of the lower races. He was a good talker, Brother Zeb. That’s why we got to calling him Brother, anyhow, cause he was like a real holy man. A white prophet.

  “The whole time, it was like being in prison didn’t matter none to Brother Zeb. He could get what you needed. He talked against drugs, said we ought to keep ourselves pure for the upcoming race war, but still, if you needed a little something, he could always get it for you. High-grade stuff every time.

  “Brother Zeb was always going and having long talks with his lawyers. He was only there about five, six months before he got out. I guaran-damn-tee ya these weren’t no public defenders, cause those fuckers never want to talk to you about nothing but signing some deal with the prosecutor.

  “Then we started to see how there was more to Brother Zeb than he let on. In the three months after he left, those of who was closest with him, about twelve of us, we each got out of prison one way or another. Some folks got paroles they wasn’t expecting, and things like that.”