by SD Tanner
Giving his departing brother’s back a look of disbelief, he was about to point out he’d just said that and then thought better of it. It had already been a long night and they really did need to talk. Sitting in the beaten looking room on the dirty chairs, they stared at one another unsure where to start. A lot had changed, and he didn’t know what to make of recent events or how to explain them. TL had only just returned, so he didn’t even know what he and Pax had already learned. Usually he and Pax would be trying to irritate one another, but even his energetic brother looked worn out.
Blowing out a deep breath, hoping it would give him some energy, he started to try and explain what had happened. “I’ll go first. The gates to hell in the UK are opening. Tens of thousands of people have been captured, including our survivors. They’re destroying the land from the north to Stonehenge, and I think they’re gonna use the prisoners to fully open the gates.”
Pax nodded. “The Water of Life is like acid to the hunters, and Gears says the gates to hell don’t like it either.”
TL gave him a questioning look. “How do you know that?”
“I threw some in and it exploded,” he replied nonchalantly.
Rolling his eyes, TL shook his head and said in a resigned voice, “Of course you did.”
“We’re gonna take a slingshot full to the UK and dump it on the gate,” Pax added with a wide grin.
While TL gave Pax a perplexed look, he said, “The hunters are in two camps. Some wanna kill us and some are with us. About four hundred of ‘em turned up at the Ranch this morning. Benny thinks they were the people living in that town we went to in Alaska. We didn't know it, but Ip called ‘em to our side and now they’re an army.”
To his surprise, Pax laughed loudly. “You’re kiddin’ me. We’ve gotta a huge hunter army? Shiiit, they’re probably better fighters than our rookie army.”
“It’s that what we’re calling our army now? The Rookie Army? And no, Pax, the hunter army ain’t better than the Rookies. We’ve only got four hundred of them, and unless we start infectin’ people, we’ve got no way of gettin’ anymore.”
TL raised his hand and his voice. “No, no, Gears, we’re not doing that again. Lydia would have been really upset about killing perfectly healthy people like that.” Jutting out his chin at him, he said, “You’re not infecting the living again. It was never a good idea and you killed a lotta people doing that.”
“Hey, you can piss on me about the shit I am doin’, but if ya start gettin’ cranky over the shit you think I might do then we’ll be here all day.”
Ted had just walked into the room with Angel and heard his final remark to TL. “Is this family only or can anyone piss all over you, Gears?”
“Shaddup, Ted. You and Angel are family, so sit down.”
Pax grinned happily at Ted. “You’re just in time to watch TL and Gears punch one another again.”
Ted smirked appreciatively. “Good, I missed their last brawl.”
“No one’s punchin’ anyone unless it’s Pax. We’re jus’ getting up to speed here.” He looked at TL pointedly. “And I ain’t proposin’ we infect anyone to make more hunters to add to their army. Even if we did it, we’d be creatin’ enemy hunters as well as friendlies. It’s a stupid tactic.” Continuing to glare at TL, he added, “More to the point, how the fuck do you expect me to defend eighty towns across the country with an untrained, undersupplied and undermanned army?”
TL gave an irritated snort. “I dunno. Building armies is Pax’s problem and fighting wars is yours. You asked for resources and I got you what I could.”
With a brisk shake of his head, Pax said bluntly, “It ain’t doable. The troops aren’t trained well enough yet, and even if they were, we ain’t got enough of ‘em.”
“Exactly. We need to move the towns to a central location. Somethin’ we can defend.”
TL’s eyes widened and he spluttered, “How the hell do you expect me to convince people to move from their towns?”
He gave TL a smug look and tilted his head. “Convincing civvies to do shit is your job.”
Pax had already bounded to his feet, and he was studying an old map of the U.S. pinned to the wall in the meeting room. He jabbed a stubby, thick finger at Florida. “There. We could set up a perimeter across the top, and people can live in Florida. It's surrounded by sea on three sides, plus it's big enough to farm, has infrastructure, and we can keep ships in the ports for a fast exit.”
“That’s a long perimeter,” he observed.
“If we use the rivers as a barrier, we only need to wall off about sixty to seventy miles. There'll be a way to secure it. The Chinese built the Great Wall.”
Raising his eyebrow, TL shook his head. “You should read more, Pax. The Great Wall of China didn't keep the Mongolian hordes out.”
Giving him a confused look, Pax asked, “The what hordes?” Without waiting for TL to answer, he screwed up his face and said decisively, “Jus’ ‘cos the Chinese couldn't build a decent wall doesn't mean we can’t.”
“Well, don't do what the British did. Hadrian’s wall was even more useless at keeping the Scottish out,” TL replied dourly.
“That's probably a good thing. I met some Scottish guy in the UK, and he's been rescuing people from the collaborators.”
Ted was studying the map. “We still need the refinery town to stay where it is.”
Joining him to peer at the map, he pointed at Fort Benning. “That was a huge army base. It’s only about a hundred and fifty miles from the refinery town. We could set up a military site there.”
Pax nodded confidently. “Yep, that’ll work. It can be a Forward Operating Base monitoring anythin’ outside the perimeter. We can use the troops there to guard the refinery town.”
He nodded back at Pax. “We need to get Wolfie and Mike to move in with us. Wolfie has good shooters, which’ll help with the training, and Mike can’t keep the New Yorkers so far away from us anymore. He's pretty undefended in Pennsylvania. We need to warn both of them the game’s changed.”
“Where will the hunter army be based?” Pax asked.
He shrugged. “They wanna live at the Ranch.”
Pax turned to Ted. “Are you okay about livin’ with hunters?”
“Nah, we’re gonna move everyone to Gears’ new country,” Ted replied.
“What?” He asked in surprise.
“That’s what you’re doing,” TL replied. “You’re setting up a new country. Anyone who wants to team up against the enemies of man will live there.”
It wasn’t what he meant to do and he studied TL thoughtfully. “And exactly who is the enemy of man?”
TL snorted cynically. “Man is his own enemy.”
In his experience, the biggest problem for mankind was always man. They were always their own worst enemy, but under the right leadership, they could also be their own best friend. Man was always conflicted between doing the right thing and being weak. If they followed the wrong path, they were capable of the worst acts possible. Thinking about the strengths and weaknesses of mankind reminded him of the one creature that was always able to tempt man down the wrong path. “Where does Ruler fit in all of this?”
“Oh, I think he’s involved somehow, but he’s not pulling the trigger this time,” TL replied confidently.
He agreed with TL that Ruler was pulling the strings, but he was staying well hidden this time. Since returning from the grave, he'd only seen man behaving badly towards one another. What he'd witnessed in the Crusaders and in the UK wasn't led by super hunters or Ruler. This time the Devil didn't need to do anything other than to tempt man to follow the wrong path, and it seemed there were plenty of people willing to behave badly in what should have been paradise.
He shook his head unhappily. “Collaborators. I saw them in the UK. They were the ones taking the prisoners to the gates to hell.”
“It doesn’t matter what you call them. Fact is, these are people killing their own for a perception of power or control
, or just because they’re assholes.” Giving him a worried look, TL added, “This isn’t about Ruler. He’s just taking advantages of man’s weakness.”
Despite what he'd seen in his lifetime, he had a great and enduring faith in the good men could do. Maybe it was how Mom and Pop took them in and raised them, or perhaps it was having the support of his brothers since he was ten years old. Whatever was the reason, he still believed mankind was worth saving. “Last time we ruled man should have another chance.”
“And we’re giving them that chance, Gears. Now we’re waiting to see what they do with it.”
“And if they screw it up?”
TL gave a shrug. “Overwatch says everything is happening for a reason. He said we need to keep doing what we believe is right. If you think setting up a new country is the right thing to do, then we should do that.”
“Overwatch?”
“Yeah, he’s the…entity watching over the game. He says I know him, and now I can see him, he gets to join in.” With a little more thought, he added, “I don’t think he can help us other than to assure us everything is okay and to keep going.”
“How did you meet this guy? Is he the reason you left?”
Shaking his head, TL replied steadily, “No, I left ‘cos Faith told me Cain killed Izzie, and you said we needed to get creative to work out what's really going on. I followed my gut and I ended up in the Appalachians. Overwatch was there and he's got our next graves ready. He made the ones in Ip’s home in hell.”
Giving TL a look of mock alarm, Pax complained, “You met the guy who builds our graves? That's kinda creepy. I think I'm gonna have to kill him for bein’ a freak.”
Rolling his eyes, TL sighed deeply. “You can't kill him, Pax, he’s not really here.”
“Whatdaya mean he's not really here?” He looked around the room and asked, “Is this Overwatch guy here now?”
“Yeah, he kinda follows me around, but only I can see him.”
Pax roared with laughter. “Aren’t you a little old for an imaginary friend, TL?”
“It’s not a big deal, Pax. Through Ip, we can see Max and other dead people, so I don't see why TL can't see some guy called Overwatch.”
“Maybe so, but when Ip shows us Max and ghosts, we can all see ‘em.” Smirking at TL, Pax added smugly, “But TL has a special friend only he can see.” Narrowing his eyes, he asked skeptically, “Are ya sure he's real? Maybe you're jus’ crazy, is all.”
“Shaddup, Pax. You've been doing stupid shit your whole life.” TL leaned closer to Pax and narrowed his eyes back at him. “If anyone of three of us is nuts, it's you.”
Ignoring their slanging match, he studied TL thoughtfully. “What Overwatch said is interestin’. We ruled man deserved another chance, and now we’re gonna find out if we were right.”
Clearly forgetting his argument with TL, Pax asked, “And what if we think man doesn't deserve another chance?”
“Then I guess we can change our minds. It’s our right to rule, but we can do it more than once and we already have.”
“But what if we don’t think all of man deserves to live in hell?” TL asked with a worried frown. “They're not all the same. A lot of the people we know are decent folk. Why should they all suffer the same fate?”
TL had raised a good point and he shook his head unhappily. “I dunno. I don't understand the rules we live by, and the job didn't come with a manual.”
Harrumphing sharply, Pax added, “Oh, I think it did, but Ip’s the manual and she never makes any goddamn sense.”
He sighed in agreement. “True.” Looking at TL, he asked, “Can Overwatch tell us how this works?”
TL shrugged. He obviously wasn't sure what Overwatch could do for them. “He did tell me we get to end man, but he gets to end the universe.”
Pax gave a low whistle. “Woah, your imaginary friend has some clout.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: Cain
“Four hundred people infected or dead?”
Ruler smiled contentedly. “I watched through the eyes of my demons. They did quite well.” He paused and added smugly, “Even the drunk one did a pretty good job, and it didn’t even get out of bed.”
He’d expected more from the attack. Hunters used to be able to destroy an entire camp just by infecting one person. Every victim would instantly be turned into a hunter. There should have been a cascade effect as the newly turned hunters infected more of the living. With the virus infecting people at a slower rate, not as many were immediately turned into hunters and not all of the newly born hunters were willing to attack the living.
“It’s not that good. In the past the whole town would have fallen immediately.”
“The virus is slower and the results are not the same.” Ruler gave a dismissive wave of his large, clawed hand. “We don’t want too many hunters anyway.”
“Why not?”
“There’s not as many people left now. If we turn them all into hunters, what good will that do?”
Ruler had a point, there wouldn’t be anyone left for him to control if they were all turned into hunters. There were supposedly three million people left in the country, but he suspected there were more. His Crusaders were combing the country for survivor groups and they’d yet to run out of targets. Despite the larger towns, it seemed there were more people happy to live in significantly smaller groups. With an oversupply of food and shelter, there was no need for them to band together and for the most part they didn’t. Troy had estimated there might be three or even four times the number of people than was commonly believed. In addition to the original survivors, since Eden had arrived people were breeding like rabbits, and a significant proportion of the living were children.
“What about Troy?”
“Your bald friend is fine. He’s traveling back here now with his super hunters. It seems he might have met War at the Ranch. He’s lucky he’s not dead.”
“Why would Gears recognize Troy?”
“He didn’t which is why he’s not dead,” Ruler replied in a deadpan tone.
It was a relief to hear Troy was safe. Friendship was something he valued. Miguel had been a wonderful mentor and he’d learned a lot from the man, and Troy was the only other person he’d felt a connection with and he would hate to lose him. “I suppose we can send the rest of the super hunters and hunters to the towns, but we need to wait for Troy.”
“Why?”
“He wants to send some to the towns and others to execute the hunters that aren’t with us.”
Ruler gave him a skeptical look and it only added to his ugliness. “Why does he want to kill them? They’re harmless.”
He snorted. “Troy’s old school. If you’re not with him then you’re against him, in which case you’re dead.”
With an appreciative nod, Ruler replied, “I like his style, and he should do that, but you have another job to do.”
Ruler controlled the game, and he already knew there wasn’t much point arguing with him. To collaborate with the Devil, and then to negotiate how far he would go was like trying to be half-pregnant. He was either all in or all out. “Really? What’s that?”
“I need the Horsemen to change their ruling. They believe man deserves another chance and I don’t.”
“Do you ever?”
“No, but that’s beside the point. For as long as they believe man deserves another chance then they’ll help them.”
“How do you convince them to change their minds?”
“I won’t, but you will.”
To his surprise, the meeting room in the prison disappeared, and he found himself sitting in a large, gold and velvet-covered chair. The chamber was dimly lit with burning torches, and shrieks of pain faintly reached his ears. He was elevated about four feet above the floor of the room, and shadowy figures with no substance slowly moved by him. The walls were made of stacked broken bones, and human skulls were packed tightly to form a dozen large pillars on either side of the chamber. Each pillar had a large torch hang
ing at an angle with a three-foot high flame, giving the room a gloomy ambience. In the middle of the wide hall was a stone platform like a bed, only it was tall enough to be standing height. Chains were lying across the flat surface as if waiting for a victim to join them.
“Where am I?”
Ruler was sitting in an identical gold and velvet chair, as if they were the king and queen of an absent congregation in the empty chamber. “This is where I live.”
He gave him a puzzled look. “This is hell?”
“Part of it, but you’re only seeing what you expect to see. Hell is the worst part of a person’s mind, so it’s an individual experience.” He pointed to the stone table. “That’s your worst fear.”
“How is that table my worst fear?”
With a cunning smile, Ruler leaned closer to his chair until he was almost touching him. “Being chained to a table and killed the way you kill others is your greatest fear.” Only inches from his face, he could smell Ruler’s foul breath. “Don’t you understand why you like human vivisection? You do to others the thing that frightens you the most and that will be your hell. Every day for eternity you will die over and again in the same way you kill for pleasure.”
An eternity of being torn apart, organ by organ until he died, only to be reawakened to endure it again was his definition of hell. An icy fear clutched at his gut. “Is that what you’ll do to me?”
Ruler snorted contemptuously. “No, of course not, that’s what I have demons for. Do you really think I have the time to kill you forever?” As if outraged at the idea of wasting his time on him, he added bluntly, “This is your destiny whether you work for me or not. You’ve already done the crime, and as you freely admit, you’ve no desire to repent. All you can do now is ask me not to assign you to one of my demons.”
“What happens if you don’t?”
“No one will torture you. You can exist here amusing yourself.” Ruler winked. “I might even let you work with my demons. They quite like vivisection too, and you could learn a thing or two.”
He knew Ruler was playing both the carrot and the stick. The threat of an eternal existence in hell, combined with the opportunity to continue his craft. It made him wonder what Ruler wanted now. “So, how do I ensure that’s my future?”
