The Changing Earth Series (Book 3): The Walls of Freedom

by Hathaway, Sara F.

  Erika glided across the frozen water remembering the glorious freedom of ice skating. She had taught Vince to skate before the Great Quake. Erika watched him laughing with his boys as they fumbled around on the ice. They were quick studies and eventually they even got a game of hockey going with branches and an empty tin can. They rested between periods by the fire, drinking beer and laughing.

  It was dark when they headed out of the woods that night. No one had wanted the day to end, but the night had come.

  The cold increased exponentially after their short reprieve. The old-timers that had lived through the Great Quake said they had never seen winters where the wind blew this fiercely and it was so cold. There was hardly any more snow after Christmas but the freeze set in so hard that it brought the world to a standstill as pipes broke and wind turbines froze. One of their windmills had already broken, cracking at the neck and falling to the ground.

  Heated debates were held in the main pod, trying to determine how they would save the other five turbines. One of Earl’s clients had informed him about a new bracket system that they were installing to insulate the thin neck of the shaft, reinforcing it. Five of the stabilizing brackets were purchased, but installation was delayed due to the high demand of the crane that was needed to apply the bracket.

  It was very late in the day by the time the crane made its way to the Moore Farm. The machine creaked from the cold as it rolled by Erika’s pod. Vince was headed out the door to go help Evan and Trevor.

  “You guys are nuts. It’s too late to start this project now, Vince,” Erika warned him as he left.

  “There’s supposed to be another storm on the way. What if we lose another windmill?” Vince asked her.

  “I know it’s important but you guys better be careful.” Erika had a bad feeling about this.

  “Will do. I gotta go. We’re burning daylight,” he concluded as he left, jogging to catch up with Evan and Trevor who were following the crane down the road.

  Erika sat alone in the house, trying to read her book. She shifted her legs and Jack whined at her.

  “What, Jack?” she asked the animal like he was going to answer. “I know, I don’t like it either,” she told him.

  She stared at her book absently. Then she set it down and started pacing the floor. Jack watched her walking rapidly back and forth.

  “That’s it. I can’t take this,” she said to him.

  Erika went to the storage closet and got the largest flashlight they had. Then she went and dressed in her winter gear. She opened the door to the freezing cold and headed toward the field with Jack. Crunching along the frozen ground, Erika saw the crane and the windmills in the distance. As she got closer, she could see Trevor’s silhouette climbing up the exterior of the metal support pole. The wind had picked up and ripped across the frozen air. It felt like Erika’s lungs would freeze despite her insulating apparel. As if in slow motion the blades slowly started tilting left. The crane was moving in with the bracket, bringing it to Trevor who waited on the pole.

  Once it picked up momentum the entire top of the windmill started tipping over. A deafening screech rose above the sound of the crane’s engine. The falling metal was going to smash Trevor like a nut in a cracker.

  Erika heard Vince and Evan yelling at Trevor, “Watch out! Watch out!”

  Running across the field, Erika saw Trevor jump away from the pole just as the windmill cracked and folded in half. He leapt out and grabbed hold of the bracket that was dangling from the crane. It swung wildly with his momentum and Trevor lost his grip. He flipped through the air and landed with a thud on his back.

  By the time Erika reached them Vince, Evan and the crane driver were already hovering over him.

  “Is he okay?” Erika wondered.

  “He’s alive,” Vince declared. “Go get some help. We gotta get this done.”

  “Are you serious, Vince? Look what happened,”

  “Yeah, look what happened. We lost another windmill,” Vince argued.

  “I’ll go up,” Evan said, indicating to the crane driver to get back in the cab.

  Erika took off across the field, headed for Earl’s pod. His medical skills would come in handy and they could put him in the car. Flying through the door, Erika told Earl all that had happened. Earl worried about using the car because he wanted to keep Trevor flat. They decided on using a board that they could slide in the back seat; even if they had to keep a door open, they could get him back to his pod with less injury.

  They set off, headed back toward the turbines. Erika watched them growing in the distance, knowing that somewhere over there Evan was now putting himself at risk. She was shocked to see Vince on the post of the windmill as they approached.

  “What’s he doing up there?” Erika questioned Evan, who was catching his breath.

  “We can move faster if we alternate posts,” Evan explained, heading off to climb the next pole.

  Earl was already attending to Trevor who was still knocked out. Supporting his neck, Earl rolled him onto his side while Erika slid the board they would use to transport him under his back. They carefully lifted him, and Erika helped Earl get him safely back to his home. Throughout the night Earl attended to him. During the night Trevor regained consciousness and luckily he still had full use of his body.

  The efforts of the brave men paid off. The wind challenged the strength of the new brackets, but they held and no more windmills were lost. The lack of clouds and snow meant the solar power was still being collected, but heaters struggled to keep up with the freeze that gripped the Northern Region. In a strange way Erika hoped it would last through February so that the central meeting would have to be canceled. Much to Erika’s dismay, in the last week of January the cold finally warmed enough for folks to get outside and start repairing the damage.

  Dexter was one of the only family members that went into town regularly on these miserable days. He still had his patrol to do, despite the lack of visitors in town. Frustrated by the cold that had stalled their efforts, the warmth brought out the copycat graffiti artists. Dexter successfully brought these boys in and they were charged with all the crimes.

  It was a freezing night when Dexter stood in front of Mayor Gardner and received recognition for having made the arrests. Dexter worked up all of his courage and asked the man for his blessing with his daughter.

  Mayor Gardner chuckled at him. “Private Moore, you’re still a young man with many years to determine the young lady you want to settle down with. I can assure you though, Private, that my daughter may fancy you now but when she marries it will not be with you. I mean, with your family’s current proceedings, do you really think I would even consider such a thing?”

  “I love your daughter, though, sir,” Dexter responded, appalled at his response.

  “I’m sure you may think you do, son, but the idea is just preposterous,” the mayor chuckled. “Now let’s not dampen the mood, son. Congratulations on a job well done. I’m sure you need to get home before the cold of the night sets in,” he said, politely showing him the door.

  Dexter was devastated. Leaving the Mayor’s office, he ran into Caroline at the front door. Dexter passionately explained what her father had said.

  “Run away with me, Caroline. We can run away and never look back. I know how to survive out there,” Dexter pleaded.

  “Run away with you and your dog?” she asked. “And do what, Dexter?”

  “And be together,” he replied.

  “Oh please, Dexter, don’t be so dramatic. It’s not like I was ever going to marry you or anything. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed spending time with you, but seriously, Dexter, you can’t even have children. How would my family maintain landowner status?” she replied.

  “We could always adopt,” he rebutted.

  “Oh please, Dexter, that’s just silly. I always wanted babies and...look at your family,” she snapped.

  “What about them?” Dexter was getting upset now.

  “T
hey’re all rebel sympathizers. My family can’t be associated with that,” she insisted.

  “My mother was right, you’ve been playing me all along.” Dexter spat the words at her.

  “Maybe you should run home to her,” Caroline hissed.

  “My mother is more of a woman than you could ever dream to be,” he said to her as he left with Trucker into the icy night.

  Erika was still up, reading, when Dexter entered the pod. She knew immediately the truth was out from the horribly depressed look on his face.

  He looked sadly at her and declared, “You were right.”

  He shuffled by and flopped on his bed.

  Chapter 40

  As the date of the meeting approached, Cole started filling Erika in on small details about how ready to mobilize the resistance was. He didn’t want to tell her too much because the less she knew, the less she could give up if her position was threatened.

  Erika needed to pore through the law books one more time so she could see if she missed something. There were other cases of found lost-loved-ones, but none with the circumstances or the time period of theirs. Most refugees had been cross-referenced with the search database when they were adopted out, but Erika’s family had never been.

  She headed out in the cool of the morning with Corporal Avery to catch a ride into town with Earl. Earl sipped his coffee and talked about a giant abscess on a bull’s scrotum that had to be lacerated. Buckets of pus had come pouring out all over his new shoes. Erika tasted vomit in the back of her mouth as he carried on and on about the details.

  She jumped out of the vehicle at the library. Corporal Avery took his post at the door as usual. She had really come to like the Corporal. He was an honest young man of Asian decent. His family were refugees, and he’d decided joining the mercs would be more fun than working in the factory his family was assigned to.

  Erika headed to the fiction section, as she always did. After she picked a new adventure book for Dexter and Daniel she went to peek on Corporal Avery before sneaking over to the governmental law section. Peeking around the edge of a bookshelf, she saw him lying there dead.

  Her heart pounding in her chest, she rapidly spun around into the arms of a gigantic man. He squeezed her tightly, pinning her arms to her side.

  “I got her, guys,” the man yelled.

  Erika swung her leg back and kicked out the man’s knee. It snapped sideways and he fell to the ground reeling in pain. She reached for her knife but it was at home. Finish him, she heard Master Sergeant Bennet saying in her head. She went to kick his head but she hesitated. Another man flew around the corner. He grabbed her by the arm and then went flying as Erika swung under him and used his momentum to flip him over.

  A third man watched her movements and slid into her legs as she fled. She fell hard, face first into the wooden floor of the library. Her skull bounced but she rolled over and backwards, getting back on her feet.

  The man she had flipped was back on his feet as well. The man who had slid into her approached her from the front.

  “Calm down, little girl, we’re not going to hurt you...much,” he said, lunging at her.

  Her block missed and he grabbed her collar. He shook her fiercely and smashed her face with his fist. Blood ran down into her eye, causing her to go half blind. The other man stood watching his buddy dominate her. Erika took a step under his arm with her arm extended. She wrapped her arm around his like a snake climbing up to his neck and caught his momentum just right. Forcing him to bend at the waist, she smashed his nose as hard as she could into her knee. His nose lodged back into his brain and he slumped to the floor.

  But the man watching was on her in a flash and the giant man with the hurt knee hobbled over to help. The man feinted a right punch and hit her hard across the face with a left punch. Erika staggered into the arms of the gigantic man. He gripped her tightly, squeezing the air from her body. The second man approached but she saw him coming. Her body was exhausting itself in this frantic fight to survive, but she had to dig deeper if she was going to return home to her family tonight.

  She bent at the waist, lifted her legs and kicked the man in the jaw as he went to hit her. Then she swung her leg back and kicked out the gigantic man’s other knee. With both of them down, she bolted for the door. She had almost made it when the man grabbed her by the neck of her shirt and she snapped violently backwards. He swung her around and hit her hard in the belly. She reeled over in pain, dropping to the floor. Turning over, she scrambled backwards on the floor as the man approached her. Erika never let her facial expression change as she watched Earl quietly creep in the library door behind the man. Earl grabbed a bronze bust of Isaac Newton and cracked the man over the back of his head with it. He slumped to the floor.

  “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” Earl exclaimed. He went and hugged Erika tightly, leading her out of the library.

  “It’s okay, I got you,” he told her as she bled in his arms.

  The soldiers arrived on the scene and extra soldiers were brought in from the mercenary base. Master Sergeant Bennet was with this group.

  He found Erika at Earl’s office. He was stitching her head up.

  “How we doing, cupcake?” he asked, poking his head in.

  “A lot better than Corporal Avery,” she sighed.

  “How’s she doing, doc?” Master Sergeant Bennet asked.

  “I figure about ten stitches and maybe a broken rib, but it’s hard to tell from the x-ray. It looks like she’s broken quite a few in the past,” Earl frowned.

  “Sergeant Bennet’s broken a few of them for me, haven’t ya, Sergeant?” Erika teased, thinking back to the first time she had been in a ring under Master Sergeant Bennet’s command.

  “I didn’t break them,” he defended.

  “Don’t worry, doc, she’s one tough cookie, aren’t ya, cupcake?” He smiled at her proudly. She had saved herself after all, he marveled at this small woman.

  “I’ll wait in the lobby for you to finish up, doc,” he announced.

  Erika could hear his boots clopping down the hall as the pain meds took over and fogged her brain. Master Sergeant Bennet helped Earl load her into the vehicle and they drove home. Vince was on the computer watching videos when Master Sergeant Bennet brought her through the door.

  “Holy shit, Sergeant, what happened?” Vince asked, gently taking Erika from him and cradling her in his arms.

  Vince carried her into the bedroom, stripped off her clothes and put her into bed. He quietly closed the door.

  “She was attacked at the library,” Bennet answered as Vince walked into the room.

  “By who?” Vince inquired.

  “I don’t know. The merc soldiers were only brought in as backup. The government boys are in charge of this,” the Master Sergeant answered, pacing the floor. “Just one more week and we are headed to the capital. We have to stay vigilant.”

  “If Erika looks like shit, what happened to Corporal Avery?” Vince asked.

  “He’s dead,” the Master Sergeant replied.

  “I was afraid of that,” Vince admitted sadly.

  “Erika’s lucky to be alive herself. Three on one, Vince. That’s one tough chick you got there. Your dad took out the last one. Newton statue to the dome!” the Master Sergeant filled him in on the details.

  “Way to go, Dad.” Vince was thankful he had been there. “What do we do now? Do you think they’ll try again?”

  “It’s only a week, Vince. We have guards here and Erika’s gonna be down for a few days,” he said.

  Vince raised his eyebrow at him.

  “You think so?” Vince said sarcastically.

  “You got a point. She’ll take a day off and then she can come back out to the base during the day. She’ll be safe there. Sean and Star are headed to Wisconsin to do a show. Johnny’s team is headed into the badlands and could use a K-9 unit,” Master Sergeant Bennet explained.

  “Do you think that’s safe?” Vince asked.


  “Vince, this is Johnny McClintock, the son of Dwayne McClintock, General of the Mercenary Forces. Do you think he’s sending his son’s unit into danger? Plus, you crossed the badlands as a fugitive. It’s really not that bad of an area to patrol now,” the Master Sergeant assured him.

  “Erika might not be as hip on the idea,” Vince commented.

  “Well, you’ll just have to convince her, Vince,” Bennet patted him on the back and winked at him.

  “That’s easier said than done,” he laughed. “What about Daniel?” Vince urged the Master Sergeant to continue sharing his plan.

  “I think he should stay with your parents,” the Master Sergeant said.

  “We really hate splitting up,” Vince admitted, considering Bennet’s plan.

  “Yeah, but Vince, even I don’t know what’s going to happen on this adventure. We’re going into the lions’ den and I don’t know if we’ll come out,” Bennet admitted, looking out the window. “Wouldn’t you rather know he was safe?”

  “Would I really know?” Vince asked. “What if something happens to us? What if they rule against us and come for my son? How would I live with that?”

  “They’d do it either way, Vince. I tell you what. Let me talk to Major Virgis, and as soon as the decision is made we’ll get a communication to him indicating whether he needs to get your boy to a safe house or not,” the Master Sergeant pondered.

  “Major Virgis is staying here?” Vince wondered.

  “Yes, General McClintock will be there,” Bennet explained.

  “Seriously?” Vince wondered.

  “All the bigwigs, Vince. Your story created quite a stir, and they think the only way to put it to rest is to have a council vote in front of the public. That way the citizens will have to respect their decision,” he explained.

  “What’s our odds looking like?” Vince jested.