by Rick Jones
Air and anything not tacked down was sucked out the hole. Those attaching themselves to the hull of the Banshee like barnacles were stripped clean and pulled into space as the entire bay depressurized, the temperature going from 70°F to -454°F within seconds.
Bodies froze, being no match for the powers of deep space, and drifted with the course of the mausoleum.
The behemoth became a monolithic statue that froze until it was completely immobilized, and then it was lifted off its feet and carried through the hole.
Skully then throttled the handles forward, worked the pedals, and the Winged Banshee began to move ahead, rolling slowly at first, then picked up speed as the thrusters fired off and gave it momentum.
Then it was free and flying clear of the mausoleum, the Winged Banshee then banking to make its way back to Earth.
Inside the ship there was a collective sigh.
They’d made it.
For now.
#
It could not bellow.
It could not scream.
The behemoth simply drifted in deep space, watching its kingdom float away.
For a short period it had been king in the hierarchy of the undead, and for the moment it relished these thoughts, until these memories eventually faded away.
In time it became numbed of mind and thought, having no recollection of the mausoleum at all, but watched the ship float away all the same without having any concept of what it used to be.
Others like it had floated about, often bouncing gingerly off one another in slow motion, these small collisions causing them to be redirected into different paths throughout space where they would forever float freely while perfectly preserved.
And the behemoth lay witness to this—watching its kingdom of the mausoleum and its subjects scatter across the universe.
It watched.
It floated.
And it was completely powerless to do anything about it.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Inside the Winged Banshee, a small monitor above the door leading into the airlock was offering a view of what lay in their wake as they drew distance. They had watched Mausoleum 2069 spin its way slowly through space until it became a speck silhouetted against the colorful backdrop of interstellar dust.
People remained silent and lost within their own thoughts. Especially Jim Schott, whose disdain for Earth and the New cities were so great that he decided to drop anchor onboard 2069 and make it his home, which was for several years. So his memories were bitter sweet.
The mausoleum continued to spin and drift until the pinprick image finally disappeared from view. Mausoleum 2069 was gone.
#
Skully manned the controls of the Banshee with his surroundings covered with the drippings of blood and gore. The smell of copper reeked, but they were surroundings he had grown numbed to with all the slaughter and killings he had done in the Wastelands.
He had programmed the navigational computer to steer them straight to New DC. So the Winged Banshee followed the course of a straight line, the shortest distance between two points. Once the ship entered the mesosphere, it peeled back slightly so that its underbelly would deflect the fires from friction when entering Earth’s atmosphere.
The area inside the cabin became heated, but tolerable.
And when the Banshee leveled off, he could see nothing but blue sky with a heavy tinge of sulfur-yellow blanketing the surface like ground mist.
“Banshee 7033 to New DC. Come in, New DC.”
The return signal was nothing but static and white noise.
So he tried again: “Banshee 7033 to New DC. Come in, New DC.”
Same thing: static.
Skully flipped additional switches to a new frequency. Then: “Banshee 7033 to New DC. Come in, New DC.”
Nothing.
He sighed with frustration. Then louder, as if the stern measure of his tone would get him through to base command. “Banshee 7033 to New DC. Come in, New DC.”
Still nothing.
So Skully gave up and continued to cruise the Banshee over the plains of the Wastelands to New DC.
#
“Banshee 7033 to New DC. Come in, New DC.”
Vice President Schaffer recognized the voice over the intercom system to be that of Lieutenant Commander Skully of the Force Elite, but when Schaffer attempted to contact him, he found it difficult to manage the communication’s console. So, he sat in his chair in defeat as the monitors around him played out the current events going on within the Fields of Elysium.
The cities were on fire.
People were being slaughtered.
And Schaffer wondered if President Michelin was onboard the Winged Banshee as well.
“If you are onboard,” he murmured to himself, “then welcome back to your Kingdom of Flames.”
Not too far from where he sat, metered banging continued at the door of the chamber’s vault, the undead having saintly patience.
. . . Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .
Schaffer closed his eyes and damned the world around him.
EPILOGUE
While over the Wastelands of what used to be the city of New Orleans, the ship began to shudder and shake, the pilot’s yoke hard to control as it seemed to take on a life of its own.
Skully swore under his breath as the yoke turned within his grasp, the Banshee trying to compensate for loss of some functions. Skully tried to steady the yoke but failed, then a feminine voice of warning sounded off: “Danger: There is damage to the left wing aileron and wing strut. Danger: There is damage to the left wing aileron and wing strut.”
“Son-of-a-bitch!” he hollered, struggling to maintain control. There was no doubt in his mind that the ship had been damaged by the undead onboard Mausoleum 2069 during the final wave of attack. It just took the entry and friction of the mesosphere to finish her off.
The Banshee began to tilt to one side, threatening to flip.
“Danger: There is damage to the left wing aileron and wing strut.”
“Shut up, you Bitch!”
“Crash is inevitable . . . Crash is inevitable.”
And then the Winged Banshee flipped and went into a horizontal spin, the ship rolling as it angled toward the floor of the Wastelands and far from New DC.
“Crash is inevitable. Crash is inevitable. Crash is--”
The flat underside of the Winged Banshee hit the desert surface of the Wastelands and continued to skim along the landscape like a flat stone across the surface of a pond. The ship bounced across rugged terrain that bore large outcroppings of rocks and granites, the ship being dismantled along its journey. Its wings were sheared off when passing boulders, leaving the body of the fuselage that drove through the sand like a plow, until it finally came to a stop.
Plumes of dust clouds rose, expanded, and took time to settle. The surrounding sky was blue and sulfur-yellow, and the overhead sun was white-hot.
People inside the Banshee coughed, undid their straps, and got to their feet. When they exited what was left of the Winged Banshee, the only real damage appeared to be Jim Schott’s arm, which was badly broken and twisted at an awkward angle at the elbow. President Michelin and Sheena Tolbert came away with minor cuts and abrasions, but Skully was not among them. So when Eriq went to the cockpit door, the area was so badly damaged that there was no way to get through.
So he called out to him: “Skully?”
No answer.
So Eriq left the wreckage, felt the hot sun above him, and raised his hand to his brow so that it would act like a visor to protect his eyes. When he rounded the point of the vessel he got his answer as to why Skully didn’t answer.
The nose of the Banshee had been pushed in during impact, the driving force crushing the man until everything from the chest down was like paste. Eriq then climbed onto the accordion-shaped cone, reached inside, and grabbed Skully’s assault weapon. For last measure he looked at the GPS coordinates. They were in what used to be Louisiana, a former st
ate, and about 1100 miles away from New DC.
Though they survived the crash, they were certainly not in a good spot. They were more than a thousand miles from a safe haven and deep inside the Wastelands.
Eriq returned to the rear of the craft with the weapon.
As Schott was being tended to by Sheena outside the Banshee, Michelin was standing on top of a hillside looking in all directions. Then he threw his arms up.
“I don’t see anything for miles,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
“That’s because we’re about a thousand miles from New DC,” he told him, racking the weapon to see if it still functioned.
“We’re what?” asked Michelin, knowing that he heard right.
“I said—”
“I know what you said. You said that we were a thousand miles from New DC.” The president ran down the hilltop with a look of alarm. “Do you know where we are?”
Eriq nodded and spoke as if it was no big deal. “The Wastelands.”
“Well, you have to get me back to New DC.” He noted the gun that Eriq was carrying belonged to Skully. “Apparently Lieutenant Commander Skully can no longer command.”
“Well, you’re right about Skully. And no, I don’t have to do Jack for you.”
“I’m the president of the Federation of the Fields of Elysium. I command you—”
Eriq raised the point of the weapon’s barrel until its open mouth was inches away from Michelin’s face. Seeing the hole, Michelin shut up.
Better, thought Eriq, lowering the weapon. “New DC is no longer my home. You saw to that,” he told him. “But I’ll do what I can . . . as long as we do them on my terms.”
The president nodded. “Yes—yes, of course. Your terms, Mr. Wyman. Your terms.”
“Rule number one: no whining. It’s going to be a long and difficult journey.”
“No whining, yes. And number two?”
“I’ll think of it when the time arises.”
“When the times arises. Yes—yes, very good.”
“And so that you know, Mr. President, we’re deep inside the Wastelands, which means that there will be no love for you at all coming from the savages. If they catch you . . . ” He let his words hang.
Then Michelin looked around worriedly, seeing nothing but expanses of rock and sand in every direction of what used to be a land filled with swamp grass as tall as a man, and sheets of moss hanging from the limbs of giant trees. Now it was a land of blight harboring savages. “If you get me back to New DC,” he told Eriq, “I promise to reinstate you to your former position.”
“Not interested,” he returned quickly. “I will not be a part of your system of genocide.”
Michelin bit his lower lip a moment before stepping away.
Eriq, now the bearer of a firearm and an assault weapon, knew that getting his people to safety through the Wastelands was next to impossible. But deep down inside him was a leading warrior, and as a member of the Force Elite, not only was ‘loyalty above all else, except honor’ their credo, but whenever a task appeared impossible, the word ‘impossible’ didn’t mean that something could not be done—to them it only measured the degree of difficulty.
So he would try.
Eriq walked to a mound, sat down, and watched the sun set.
The journey would be long.
And difficult.
With impossible odds to overcome.
And in time they would find out that the Wastelands held no savages at all, but scores of the undead, a far more brutal enemy.
The apocalypse had finally come.
They just didn’t know it.
What happened onboard Mausoleum 2069 would be a cakewalk compared to what Earth had become . . . and what it would offer them in the future.
But he would soon find out.
They would all find out.
And they were few against many.
THE END
Read on for a free sample of AntiBio
Coming in 2015
BOOK II:
The Kingdom of Flames
BOOK III:
The Last Outpost
Antibiotics.
They have failed.
All that's left are the Strains- bacteria so strong they have brought the world to its knees.
But humanity has fought on, carving out pockets of civilization in a wasteland known as the Sicklands, creating the super high-tech Clean Nation cities.
And from the cities GenSOF has been born- Genetic Special Forces Operations. An elite military branch of the government that enlists men and women with specific genetic anomalies that allow them to be hosts to bacteria that even the Strains cannot defeat. Under the watchful eye of Control, GenSOF protects the Clean Nation cities from the ever encroaching Strains and the diseased inhabitants of the Sicklands.
But now Control has other plans for GenSOF, and possibly the Clean Nation cities themselves, and it is up to the operators of GenSOF Zebra Squad, and their cloned Canine Units known as bug hounds, to find out what those plans are.
Or die trying.
1
Genetic Special Operations Forces (GenSOF) Lieutenant Courier Class Alton “Ton” Lane lurches from his bed, staggering about his quarters, desperate to reach the toilet, the incinerator, or anything other than the floor.
He doesn’t make it.
Halfway across the room Ton falls to his knees, retches, retches, retches, vomits. Long strands of pink slime spew from between his lips, the remnants of last night’s meal. He hunches over, his hands planted on the cold metal floor, careful not to get in the sick, and takes a few deep breaths.
“Worm?” Ton asks.
“Yes, Lieutenant Lane?” the robotic voice replies in his left ear.
“Did you do that?”
“Yes, Lieutenant Lane,” the voice replies.
“Please don’t do that again,” Ton orders as he gets to his feet and stumbles into the galley section of his quarters. “That’s not how I want to wake up my first morning of leave.”
“I am sorry, Lieutenant Lane, but your blood alcohol level was above acceptable norms,” the voice responds. “Expelling the contents of your stomach was required. As is the nutritional shake I have provided for you.”
A small section of the galley wall slides up, showing a tall glass of thick, green liquid.
“Required? Why?” Ton asks.
“There are various disturbances across the city, Lieutenant,” the voice says. “Protocol requires me to waken all GenSOF operators and have them ready for duty if called.”
“Right,” Ton says, taking several breaths. Then he sees the glass being offered. “Green breakfast?”
“Yes, Lieutenant Lane,” the voice says. “Your electrolytes are dangerously low, as well as iron, calcium, and magnesium. This will replenish those. I have also increased your adrenaline levels to counteract the effects of the alcohol. Please note this does not mean you are sober, only functional should you need to be.”
“I’m on leave for the next three days, Worm,” Ton sighs as he picks up the glass. “I have zero intention of spending those days sober, let alone functional.”
The voice, GenSOF Courier Squad Zebra’s Artificial Intelligence Support Personality (AiSP), doesn’t respond. Ton waits for a second then plugs his nose and downs the green drink. It’s only slightly better than the vomit taste it replaces.
“While your allotment of alcohol is above civilian rations, Lieutenant,” the AiSP, which the squad calls Worm, explains, “you are not allowed to overindulge. Each amount is carefully calculated to keep the bacterial cultures in your digestive tract at optimal levels.”
“There’s nothing optimal about being woken up to puke, Worm,” Ton responds as he finishes the drink and tosses the glass into the incinerator bin. A quick flash and it’s vaporized, its bacterially contaminated molecules gathered for recycling.
Ton walks slowly from the kitchen and taps the wall. A metal chair slides free, as well as a small dining table. He slumps i
nto the chair and rests his head in his hands.
“How about instead of making me puke, you do something about this headache, okay?” Ton asks.
“The alcohol has already occupied your pain receptors,” Worm says. “The addition of an analgesic would not be prudent.”
“Worm?”
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Fuck you.”
“That is not physically possible, Lieutenant Lane, as I continue to remind you.”
Ton smiles at their inside joke, even though he’s the only one between the two of them that gets it.
It takes a few minutes before Ton is up to standing, but he finally pushes away from the table and steps to the far wall of his quarters.
“View screen,” he commands and the wall turns transparent, showing him the bright, glittering nightline of Caldicott City. “Let’s see this disturbance.”
Named after the founder of the city, and inventor of the process that drives the Static Reactor Shield, Caldicott City is home to more than a million citizens of the Clean Nation- a network of sterile and shielded cities that dot the landscape of the Sicklands. Rainier, MorganTown, Oasis, Beachside, Peaksville, Borland City- just some of the other Clean Nation cities erected before, during, and after the Unseen Wars.
Ton watches as hover cars zip across the sky, their blue-white skids illuminating everything around them. One bearing the GenSOF insignia speeds past his screen, only feet from his quarters. If the view screen were a true window, instead of a digital facsimile, he would have been able to reach out and run his fingers along the gold embossed words. But windows can become breaches, and after all that was lost and won during the Unseen Wars, breaches cannot be allowed.
Each Clean City boasts the ability to keep its citizens safe from the antibiotic resistant bacteria known as the Strains. But since human beings are symbiotic hosts to billions of microorganisms, complete eradication of all bacteria is not possible. Humanity lives in a dangerous balance between health and all out disease.
