The Book of Olivia

by Paxton Summers

  Yes, I had made a secret treaty with the most powerful man in the world, even though I hadn’t intended to, and I felt elated. This was the way to fix our woes. I could embrace it for what it was or continue to fight, see my friends and family die. I would have to choose soon. Axel or Marcus.

  One I loved, owed my life to him. The other I needed if we were to repair the damage I’d caused, and I had caused a lot.

  I’d long since become weary of war. It was time for peace. Perhaps that day I’d already made my choice. Regardless, I’d inadvertently put the wheels of fate in motion. As the saying went, things would get worse before they could get better.

  I just wasn’t aware how bad they could get.

  5

  “You have to know how it looked to him,” Pilot said.

  I had an idea of what he hinted at—that Marcus thought I’d tricked him, but I decided to remain silent and not give Pilot the satisfaction of knowing I questioned that very thing.

  “I couldn’t have set it up better,” Pilot continued. “He dropped you off, and when he got back, an entire company of men was dead. It didn’t take much to plant the seeds of doubt, that his wife had betrayed him, kept him distracted while your boyfriend ambushed his men.”

  Pilot didn’t speak for a couple of minutes. I shifted on my bunk and leaned against the cool stones. Just as I imagined that he’d run out of things to say, he surprised me by speaking up.

  “You didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?”

  No! No I hadn’t. I banged the back of my head into the wall, hating the man on the other side more with every confession that fell from his lips. I would not take the bait he dangled before me.

  “Oh, he felt a fool to trust you, believe you were different. I could see it all over his face when I mentioned your name. The guilt he carries, the pain you inflicted.”

  “I’ve done nothing to harm Marcus.”

  “He believes you did.”

  I remained silent. I’d already caved and confirmed his suspicions I thought that very thing and the more Pilot knew, the more he could twist the truth to use against me. I flopped down and curled into a ball, exhausted mentally as much as physically. Pilot drained me of energy and hope and, in here, if I were to survive, I’d need both.

  “Tired of talking already, Olivia?”

  “I don’t care about what you have to say.” I threw my arm over my ear to block him. It didn’t prove to be as effective as I’d like.

  “Yes you do. You want to know what happened there, at the levees, while you were entertaining my brother. Where do I start? Oh yes, how about, once upon a time…” And so he began.

  * * *

  “What do you mean the levees are on fire?” Marcus barked into his headset.

  The levees were all that stood between us and the evacuation of the city and other land we’d recently reclaimed. We needed them if we were to remain through the rainy season. Marcus planned to farm the outside quadrants so he could feed his communities, and had the soil tested to ensure the safety of those who consumed the food. From what he’d learned, Aeropia could have farmed outside the conservatories fifty years ago, and he fully intended to move past the dependence on the hydroponic greenhouses.

  “Where were the guards when they set it on fire?” Marcus asked.

  “Dead.”

  “Dead? How can an entire company of men be dead?”

  “Why don’t you ask your wife?”

  “What?”

  “I know you’ve snuck her into the city. One of my scouts saw her,” I said as I watched a shuttle land and the hatch drop open. How was a man supposed to carry on a conversation with all this noise? Sand and debris blasted me, and I made a cutting motion with my hand across my throat. “One moment.”

  Marcus growled.

  The engine shut down, and I re-engaged the mic. “I have pictures, vid evidence, so don’t try to deny it, brother.”

  “They are my scouts. Aeropia’s men are not your men to command, and we’re going to have a long conversation later about you using them to spy on me. You might like to think you’re in charge, but you’re not.”

  “Whatever.” I glanced at the craft. “You might want to call in a couple more meat wagons.” Medics brought body after body off the shuttle, lining them up in rows.

  “Excuse me?”

  I laughed. “I don’t think one vessel will be enough. You’ve got quite a mess here, and you can forget about bringing doctors, I don’t see many with the living.”

  “There’s nothing funny about this, so stop laughing. I’ll be there shortly and you’re going to explain where the hell you were when this happened. I asked you to monitor the western sector and if you had, we might have seen this coming.”

  “I need to go.” I turned toward the levees where several rebels were also lined up, but very much alive. Someone needed to do something about that.

  “Stay put. This conversation isn’t over.”

  “I’m not leaving the levees, I need to go address an issue.” The com clicked off, and I started toward the prisoners. “Did any get away?”

  “We captured them all alive, except for the two over there.” A soldier pointed toward a couple of bodies.

  My com beeped. “Marc—long time, no talk.”

  “Sir, you will address me as sir. As well as staying put, I also want all squads from the western sector at the levee camp in five. Get men down there and put those fires out.”

  “Levees are gone. Damage is done.”

  “That is not acceptable.”

  “Well, I certainly can’t shit new ones. What about some of the blame falling on you, brother? That little slut wife of yours is the reason all your men are dead. Kept you occupied while the rebels killed your men and burned your levees, didn’t she? A little too convenient of a distraction, don’t you think?”

  * * *

  I had the desire to scream it wasn’t Marcus’s fault or mine, but how could I? I’d learned long ago leaders were responsible for all their people. I knew this better than most, and I also knew the consequences of bad decisions.

  “I’m not a slut.”

  “Then why feel the need to defend yourself?”

  I snorted.

  “Marcus shirked duty. He’d gotten himself so wrapped up with you he’d failed to pay attention to business, and his men died because of it. Bleeding heart. Wants to make the world a better place.” Pilot laughed softly. “If he really desires that, he should start by executing you. You know he won’t be able to let what your boyfriend did, go.”

  Pilot was right. Axel had killed all those men, and Marcus would retaliate. He could not let it go; it had been the worst massacre to date, and I’d ended up in his crosshairs because of it.

  “Until the ambush, he thought you innocent of the violence. You fought for what you believed, and the fool thought it honorable. After his workers, who were cleaning up the city, discovered your holo-recording, he knew you had not perished in the uprising, and he decided to give you a chance. I also began to study you, knowing you were the key to bringing me the power I want.

  “Any belongings not destroyed were recovered, and everything from your baby book to term papers you’d written in classes were analyzed. You’re not exactly the helpless female my father thought he’d foisted upon Marcus, but a strong blood-thirsty, lying whore who will do anything to rule Aeropia in her father’s place, including helping a clone kill her family and people.”

  “You’re wrong. I didn’t intend for any of the slaughter to happen. I didn’t want innocent people, or my family to die…”

  “But they did.”

  I slammed my head back into the wall and growled under my breath. Why try to explain any of this? Pilot had already found me guilty in his mind.

  “When my father first told Marcus about the planned marriage, my brother refused to accept it. Then he told him he would ratify the marriage agreement or face execution. I wasn’t selected to marry you, but Father had his reasons.”r />
  “What would those be, Pilot?”

  “Tsk, tsk. You expect me to share all my secrets?”

  “But you ask for mine?”

  “Touché.”

  I often wondered if Aeropia was meant to fall and General Axis didn’t put all his chess pieces on the same board because of it. He’d told me himself, not so long before the revolt, that he considered me a backup plan. So, if General Axis had planned to hand Marcus Aeropia, what did he intend Pilot to inherit? I’d heard Pilot had always been the favored son, and, knowing Michael, I could believe it. They were two of a kind. Had he always expected Marcus to fail?

  From Eva, I’d learned how deep General Axis’s deception went, that he played both countries to gain what he wanted. Which led me to the conclusion Pilot was more than he seemed. I could only believe things had not gone quite as planned, and now the favored son wanted what he’d been promised, and, like his father, he’d do anything to get it.

  When everything went to hell in Aeropia, the mantle of leadership dropped onto Marcus’s shoulders because he’d signed the marriage agreement. He had no choice but to accept his fate. Reject it, and thousands would die or fall under the leadership of his brother, who could never be an option.

  All his father had ever wanted became his with the sealing of a contract and the spilling of blood, a responsibility he wouldn’t take lightly—never had taken lightly.

  “It’s odd the things that strike you in a disaster, that which you remember when you look back on a horrific event. For me, it was the skies,” I said. “The horizon appeared to be painted in pinks and reds, surreal and vivid colors that looked fresh squeezed from the tube, and I remembered thinking it was so beautiful. I later learned the fires which burned in the cities caused the strange atmospheric colors. I’d never felt the same about a sunrise or sunset. Every time I looked at a particularly colorful one, it made me sick, reminded me of how I’d failed and who died because of it.” Red sky in the morning… Bad weather on the way. Bad news. Bad decisions.

  “I thought the sky rather stunning that day.”

  “You would, but then again, you like the blood, guts, and destruction.”

  “Guilty as charged. Are you going to let me finish telling my story, or do you want to reminisce about the good old days?”

  Like I didn’t relive my past every single night when I closed my eyes, and I didn’t need to know what happened then, or discuss it, but I did want to know what happened at the levees. “By all means, continue.”

  “Marcus thought he’d sealed the sector, protected the levees. He’d thought the area impossible to breach. He didn’t want another conflict with the clones. So,” Pilot said, “it was up to me to make sure there was.

  The United Regions watched like jackals from the west, and Marcus knew it would only be a matter of time before they used Aeropia’s civil war to their advantage and invaded.

  It didn’t take a general to see the truth in Pilot’s statement. Both the rebels and Aeropian citizens were aware of the danger, yet we continued to fight, with no solidarity on which to find footing. Someday, the United Regions would take our land, and we’d have no one to blame but ourselves.

  Marcus had thought perhaps it was time for peace, that Axel and his people were as weary of war as he, that we could find a way to live together and move forward, farm the land again. Obviously, he thought wrong. I didn’t know at the time, but Axel didn’t want a new world; he wanted this one and had put a plan into motion to ensure it.

  He, however, wasn’t alone in his ambitions. Pilot waited for his chance to take what he felt was his birthright.

  My father always said, “A man can have much silver and gold, but it’s the man with nothing who can sleep at night.” For this reason, my father never slept, because he sure didn’t want to part with his silver or gold. He always remained on high alert, worried those with nothing to lose would come for what he had, and he’d been right to worry. In the end, his wealth and power brought about the end of his regime and ultimately, his life. Axel, much like my father, didn’t sleep, but for an entirely different reason. To Axel, freedom was more valuable than silver or gold, and Marcus threatened that.

  We couldn’t have been more unbalanced on the battlefield. Aeropia had blasters, ships, and trained soldiers. We had none of that, very little to defend our positions. Marcus only considered modern technologies and warfare when it came to fighting us and thought that if he restricted our access to the power grid, forcing us to live by primitive means, we’d give up the fight, surrender. He certainly hadn’t foreseen us embracing our archaic existence or using a weapon as simple as a bee. And what an elegant message it had been, one that made me a hated target instead of the woman he’d desired.

  * * *

  Marcus pulled up and slammed his hand down on the hover’s console. “Pilot! What the hell are you doing?”

  “Handling the prisoners.”

  “More like getting ready to kill them. I told you to take care of the levees.”

  “Levees are gone and those bastards destroyed them.” Just how far could I push him without crossing the line? “You don’t want them executed?”

  “What I want is answers. It’s not your call, Pilot. We need intelligence, and dead men don’t talk. The only way to stop the rebels will be to take out their leader. The only way to do that will be to find him.”

  “Are you sure it’s just the clone you’re looking for, brother? They do follow one other.”

  “I am certain it’s the clone I want.”

  I laughed. “You’ve never been a good liar.”

  Marcus pointed at the captives. “If you shoot them, I won’t find the person responsible for this, and that is who I want.”

  “You’re looking at the men responsible.” I gestured at the captives. “Where do you think they got their uniforms?” The enemy soldiers staring back at us wore fresh uniforms from Marcus’s personal squad. “We should kill them now, to make it clear if you stand against us, we will finish you.”

  “They have information I need, and I’m not going to let you slaughter them before I get it.”

  I couldn’t fight the smile. My brother didn’t like the way I handled most situations, and yet here he was, suggesting we interrogate, a specialty of mine. “Why didn’t you say so? It’s about time we start torturing them for information.”

  “I don’t want to torture them, I want to question them. I won’t have you gutting them, or impaling them on poles, or whatever sick idea you have churning around in your head.”

  “At the very least we need to make an example of them.”

  “I’m more than aware you’d like to do that, but I’m not a fan of your methods, and I especially don’t want blood all over the place, in case any of them carry the infection.”

  “There are cleaner ways. I can do it without…” Some hot coals from the levees on their eyes and perhaps other delicate areas. I could be real creative, given the opportunity.

  “The answer is no. Take them into the city and toss them in a cell and we will interrogate them one at a time. If we need to use drugs we will, but no slaughter. We’re above their tactics. We have to be if we want to stop them—if we want to heal this country.” Marcus turned.

  I clamped my hand on his shoulder. “And where are you going?”

  “To give the families of these good men the bad news.” My brother pointed and the bodies lined up along the ground, as though I couldn’t see them. With that, Marcus knocked my hand away and mounted his glider, riding off.

  I eyed the first in line and nodded toward him. “Grab that one and follow me.”

  The soldier hesitated.

  “I said to seize him and come with me. That’s an order.”

  “Sir, are we taking them to the prison?”

  “Are you questioning my orders? Because I have to tell you it won’t end well for you.”

  “President Axis said…”

  I lifted my blaster. Ptttttth. The man turned to ash
. “Anyone else care to challenge my authority?”

  The men jumped, rushing forward to grab an enemy soldier following me toward the levees.

  “So, are you going to make this easy and tell me what I want?”

  The clone glared, but didn’t say a word.

  “Outstanding. Can’t say when I’m questioned I didn’t try my brother’s methods. Now we’ll do it my way.” I strode over to his hover and looped a cable onto it. “Get me another hover.” My men stood there, feet planted like roots in the ground. “I said to get me another hover!”

  I reached down to my hip; my fingers closed on the grip to my weapon. Men scrambled in every direction to get the hover for me.

  * * *

  “I am the general of his armies. You’d think Marcus would offer me more power than he gave me. He treated me more like a pet dog than his military leader. In that one public moment, he had my men disrespecting my authority, and I couldn’t have that. So, I decided right there and then, this situation would be as bloody as I could make it, to teach Marcus a lesson. I could no more catch the virus than those vaccinated against it. If my men became infected, I’d send them off on patrol until the disease finished them. If they didn’t, well, they’d never question my authority again, would they, or they might get a second chance to catch the plague?”

  “Did they get sick?”

  “Always the bleeding heart like my brother. No, they didn’t, but we did make a spectacular mess. You should have seen it.”

  “I’ve seen your handy work.”

  “A fan then?” Pilot asked.

  “No. And I seriously doubt he’d make you general of his forces.”

  “Well, that promotion came when my father died. The citizens of Aeropia knew my father and trusted him. Marcus didn’t want to create more chaos.”