Untitled Agenda 21 Sequel (9781476746852)

by Beck, Glenn

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  * * *

  Steven backed off when he saw the ax in Julia’s hand, but he pulled his mouth tight into a snarl, teeth exposed. His large hand, curled into a ball of hard white knuckles, was just inches from her face. “I’m in charge of this team and you report to me. You’ll do as I say,” he hissed.

  “Really, sir,” Julia said as softly as she could, even though she was quivering inside. “I will report you to an Enforcer when we return. Sir.” The ax hung heavily at her side, the wrist strap cutting into her skin.

  “Big problem there. First, they won’t believe you, they’ll believe me. Second, there isn’t an Enforcer or Authority who wouldn’t do the same with you, given the opportunity.”

  “There are rules, sir, about pairing. The Authorities make the rules. You know that as well as I do.”

  “The rules are for the little people. Like you. The rules are not for people with titles. Like me.”

  He turned away to wake the other men. His back was straight, stiff, his shoulders squared and rigid.

  They were walking again, single file. Julia thought it would make more sense to spread out, side by side, to explore the ground beside the stream and in the woods beside it. But she wouldn’t make any suggestions to Steven. Besides, she wasn’t seeing any more clues or signs that this area had been disturbed.

  A band of salty sweat formed under the brim of her hat. It ran down her face, into her eyes, burning them. Her right heel hurt. She thought maybe she was getting a blister. Nourishment cubes would come later, when they took a break. Julia wondered if they would ever feel fully rested.

  Winston was in front of her. She watched his back as he walked. She saw the way his arms and legs moved in opposition, right leg swinging forward with left arm and left leg forward with his right arm. Everything about him was strong and balanced. His backpack was centered squarely between his shoulder blades. His neck was straight and his hairline clean, smooth.

  He turned his head once toward Julia and whispered. “Are you all right?”

  “Okay for now,” she answered.

  “If you ever need help . . .” He stopped. Steven had turned around, and was walking backward, looking at them.

  Her skin felt as cold as snow, but inside there was a soft pink warmth in her chest.

  They walked on.

  A snake, dull stone-colored, lay strewn like a curved rope across a rock by the stream, motionless, waiting for prey.

  Mosquitoes swarmed her arms and face, buzzed by her ears, landed on the back of her neck. She was glad then for her long sleeves and pants. Winston swatted the back of his neck. Ahead of him, Julia could see Nigel and Adam doing the same. They were all being bitten.

  Steven held his arm up for them to stop and pointed into the woods. They followed him, slipping their packs off their shoulders with relief. Julia sat on an uneven log, feeling the rough bark through her clothes. Hundreds of ants crawled in and out of cracks in the wood. Steven sat facing Julia, staring at her as she ate, his face flat, cold, void of all emotion.

  There were no mosquitoes in the shade, just cool, damp air, smelling of leaves. They ate their cubes without talking. The only sounds were the crunching of them chewing, the gulping sound as they drank water from their bottles, birdsong, and the rustle of animals in the shadows. There were no fences here in the Human Free Zone, but Julia still felt trapped.

  Steven stood but signaled with his hands for the rest of the group to remain seated. He was quiet for a moment, his eyes moving from one face to another, as though measuring them. No one moved; his gaze had the power to turn them into statues.

  “We’ll continue the rest of the day in the same direction. But if I see no further clues or signs, I’ll rethink my plan. They’re out there, somewhere, without supplies. They cannot survive and they cannot outthink me. I will find them, mark my words.”

  He made it all about him, Julia thought. Me, my, I. The man had no humility. Julia saw a small smirk on Winston’s face. Was he thinking the same thing she was thinking? Steven turned, and started walking. They followed.

  Walking, walking, walking. Julia’s heel was a burning hot blister. She longed to take her shoe off, pour some water on it. But she couldn’t. She followed, limping a bit, pulling her uniform up, feeling the sweat under her arms. Why pursue these escapees if they had no chance of survival anyway? Was punishment really all that important?

  Finally, dusk fell. The sun slipped away slowly, reluctantly, trailing the last bit of daylight behind it like a backward glance. It was time to bivouac.

  “Same teams as before. Same time slots.”

  Shouldn’t we switch time frames, Julia wondered, so the middle team could have uninterrupted sleep for once? Shouldn’t a good team leader have considered that? But she knew that Steven wouldn’t.

  They settled in, one team on watch, the rest leaning against trees. Julia dreaded the night that wrapped around them, making the world murky, full of dark shapes and sounds. She didn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep. Steven slept. She heard his breathing, and could picture the way his mouth hung open with an occasional puff of air moving his lower lip. She pulled her pack closer, between her legs, and waited.

  And then it was their turn to keep watch.

  Steven surprised her and didn’t try to touch her for the longest time. Not until shortly before dawn, right before the edge of the sky turned a rosy red, and the stars one by one tiptoed away. Then it began. She was ready. She knew what she was going to do.

  She would scream and run to Winston. He had said he would help her. At least he had started to say that, until Steven turned and stared. Julia knew where Winston was, off to her left, past some small rocks, leaning against the middle tree of three large trees and just several footsteps away.

  Steven started to move and Julia instantly stood up. With lightning speed he put his hand over her mouth before she could scream. Then he grabbed her arm, trying to pull her down. She resisted, pulling her arm away, trying to push him back, but he was bigger, stronger than her, and she felt herself slipping backward. In desperation she buried her teeth in the fleshy part of his hand. It tasted of dirt.

  Furious, he shoved her. She lost her balance and fell, her ankle twisted under her. That’s when she screamed.

  The others woke immediately. Winston ran to her; Steven stood, looking down at her, his arms folded tight across his chest. Winston bent down to help her up. She tried to stand, to bear weight, but pain like lightning shot up her leg from her ankle. She crumpled back to the ground. Winston took her shoe off and felt her ankle with his fingertips.

  “Probably just sprained,” he said. “You’ll need to elevate it and rest it.”

  “Just like that? You decide what she should do?” Steven stared at Winston.

  Julia tried again to stand but couldn’t.

  “That’s it, she’s worthless. She’s a weak link. A weak link puts us all in danger,” Steven said to the men standing around her. “We’ll move on without her. That’s the way it works. She’s not worth a bullet.” He smirked.

  Winston’s mouth dropped open. “Leave her behind? Alone?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Dawn had pushed itself higher on the horizon; the pale light reflected off dewdrops on the leaves and shimmered on the stream.

  “I’ll stay with her,” Winston said, standing and facing Steven, his arms across his chest, mimicking Steven.

  “I think not.” Steven reached for his waistband.

  “We can’t leave her alone here.”

  “I say we can and we will. We are no better than our weakest member. My job is to rid the team of any weak member for the sake of the rest of the team. I have an assignment. I do it. If things go wrong, if the team is weakened, or worse, attacked and killed, no Authority will send help or come to our rescue. You hear me? No one. The Authorities will never come to our aid, acknowledge our destruction, or take responsibility for it. We’re on our own.” That was the most Steven
had spoken since the beginning of the mission. His face was flushed an angry red. And he wasn’t finished. “I’ve seen other teams disappear. No one ever finds out what happened to them. I won’t let that happen to my team.” He pulled the gun out and pointed it at Winston. “She’ll be just as alone if you’re lying dead on the ground beside her. Now move out.”

  Guy jumped back a step when he saw the gun. His left eye twitched more than usual and he put his hand over it. Nigel and Adam showed no reaction. After all, they had been on missions with Steven in the past—they knew how it worked.

  Winston didn’t flinch at all but kept his arms folded across his chest and stood firmly facing Steven. “I’m going to refill her water,” he said. He didn’t ask permission. Julia admired him for that.

  “Do it fast.”

  Winston sprinted to the stream, filled all her bottles, and ran back. He laid them, wet and cold, against her ankle.

  Then they were gone. Julia thought she heard Winston whisper that he’d be back. Or did she want to hear that so badly that she had imagined it?

  She knew one thing with certainty. At least for now, she was completely alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  * * *

  JULIA

  Days 9–10

  She couldn’t believe they’d left her like this in the wilderness. Surely they could have found a way to help her bear weight and walk. She knew it wasn’t they who made the decision to leave her. It was he. Steven. Julia believed the others would have helped her, somehow. Winston would have. She had seen the look on his face. Nigel, Adam, and Guy would have, also, if Steven had given the command. But they wouldn’t say anything. Steven had a gun. They didn’t. It was that simple.

  Command and control was what it was all about. And the only ones who have the power to command and control are the ones with the power to kill.

  Julia took her hat off and let her hair fall down over her shoulders. She pushed it back, tucking it behind her ears. Robert had liked it when she did that. Sometimes he would reach out and do it for her. She hoped he was in a safer place than she was. The woods, the stream, the day stretched before her and she sat there, helpless. She pushed her fingers against the side of her swollen ankle. Two dents, like fat dimples, were left when she took her fingers away. Pushing on it didn’t really hurt. That was a good sign, she guessed. Maybe it would heal quickly. But she didn’t like the bruised blueness of it. The water bottles Winston had left were no longer cold. At first they felt good. Now they just felt heavy.

  She tried to stand. She rolled onto her knees and gripped a small, low branch on a nearby tree. It bent, but didn’t break, when she used it to pull herself up. She stood on her good foot unsteadily. The branch creaked an objection to her weight. She swayed a little with it, like a one-legged dancer.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, she put her right foot down, testing it. Again lightning-white pain streaked from her ankle up her leg. Not quite as bad as when she first fell, but still painful. She raised her foot, rested a moment, then tried again, but the pain was intense. Unbearable. Maybe, she thought, if I can get down to the stream and put my foot in the cold water, that would help. Sitting back down, she grabbed her backpack and slid, using her good foot to pull herself forward. The fallen leaves were damp and slippery. That made it a little easier. Her uniform bunched up around her hips; she didn’t care. There was no one here to see her. No one here to help her.

  The stream was shallow. She rolled her pant leg up to her knee. The only way to get her ankle into the cold water was to turn it sideways and lean it on a smooth, mossy stone underwater. Not bad. The moss was soft. The cold water felt good, washing over her ankle, rippling between her toes. Rummaging through her pack, she counted her nourishment cubes. She still had the ax, the change of clothes, and the water bottles. Everything she was issued, except the ammonia spray, but nothing that would help her walk. Only the cold water could help her with that.

  Maybe when it didn’t hurt so much to move around she could make some sort of a crutch from a tree limb.

  The sun changed slowly from pink dawn to full golden daylight and moved from peering shyly over the horizon to its lofty position overhead. No clouds today. A small brown deer came to the creek, splayed its spindly front legs and dipped its head to drink, but spun around and raced off when she moved, the white patch on its raised tail visible before disappearing into the shadows of the woods. She pictured herself leaping onto its back and riding away somewhere. Anywhere but here.

  Her head hurt, both temples throbbed. She cupped some water in her hands and splashed her face. Water was such a simple thing, but so important. If the people in the Compounds only knew how much there was, they would be outraged. Instead, they accepted their humble rations of water without a murmur. Julia promised herself that if she ever got back there she’d tell them. I’ll whisper it to one or two people, she thought, they’ll whisper it to others, and it will ripple out. Ripple out like water itself.

  But someone might report her.

  Risky business, whispering the truth.

  A dark green bullfrog croaked, its throat puffed out, making it look bigger. It reminded her of the Enforcer who gave the orders to go into this Human Free Zone. All puffed up and loud with its own importance.

  Dragonflies with silver-blue bodies and black wings skimmed above the surface of the water. Other frogs, smaller than the bullfrog, their faces green, bodies brown, floated in a still section where the water wasn’t moving. On the edge, great reeds and other plants grew. A bird, black with splashes of red on its wings, kept some kind of vigil, flying from tree to tree, crying out shrill warnings. It must be protecting a nest from her. Little did it know that Julia was more helpless than it was.

  Her mind wandered, her thoughts random. Looking at dragonflies, listening to frogs, she was doing what Robert said she always did. Daydreaming. What good was that? She had to focus, had to think.

  Could she crawl back alongside the stream to where they had started three days ago? How long would it take to crawl all the way back to the Compound? And if she did make it, what would the Enforcers or Authorities do to her for not being part of the team, for not being productive?

  She knew sitting here was not a solution. She had to try something.

  She pulled her foot out of the water, forced her shoe on over her wet, swollen foot. She slipped her backpack onto her shoulders, got onto her hands and knees, and tried to crawl.

  Immediately, the backpack slipped off her back and dangled by her side, the weight of it pulling her off-balance. One canvas strap pulled tightly against the side of her neck. She took it off her shoulders.

  Dragging the pack beside her, she tried again to crawl. The pack bounced beside her. She could hear the ax banging against the water bottles inside and against the ground. Rocks and pebbles dug into her knees, ripping her trousers. She kept trying to go a few more feet, then a few more feet.

  Soon her knees were bleeding.

  She couldn’t go on. It was too painful. Reality swept over her, trailing cold fingers up and down her spine: she was going to die here. Alone.

  The sun made its predictable journey across the sky while she passed a long day sitting with her foot in the cold water. Then the sun sank below the horizon and she spent a long night in restless sleep.

  Finally, dawn erupted all around her again, waking her with the sounds of the forest.

  As the day passed, she tried several times to stand, but the pain was too great. There was no sign of Winston or the team. She felt helpless and, more than that, hopeless.

  A wail rose in her throat, a burning rush of air that poured out of her.

  She screamed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  * * *

  JOHN AND JOAN

  Days 8–10

  They had walked upstream for eight days. John decided they should walk two more days in the same direction, dropping clues, then cross over to the other side and follow the water back downstream. He was hoping they
had thrown off any search teams and that he and Joan would eventually catch up with David, Emmeline, and the children. In Joan’s opinion, he was hoping for a miracle. If they each walked for ten days in opposite directions then, by her math, it would take them nearly a month—assuming they walked much faster than the children—for her and John to catch up. And she honestly didn’t know how much longer she could do this.

  How far had they walked that day? The terrain was so rough. Rocks and logs and little black bugs, hard to see, nipped at their faces and arms.

  They had scavenged for food as they walked, things like berries and even grass. They left clues, scattered along the trail like flotsam. Their shoes were wearing thin. Their nerves were wearing thin. The stream was growing thin. And so were they.

  They only talked when they took a break or stopped for the night. But they had lots of time to think between dawn and dusk. Joan pulled her memories out and looked at them, thought about them. Some were like precious stones, pretty to look at, the kind of memories that made her smile. She thought of their farm back then, in the before-times, with long, straight rows of corn, standing still as sentries in the field, and bushy green tomato plants that hid their bright red fruit under the leaves. Standing in the field, picking one of those perfect, sun-warmed gifts of food, the juice running down your chin, made you feel childlike and carefree. They’d had picnics with neighbors and the children caught fireflies and put them in canning jars with holes punched in the lids. Sometimes they’d take the children to the zoo. She thought of her rose garden, and the little stone bench in the middle. John had laid a stepping-stone path so she could walk among the roses and tend to them. Her roses won prizes at the county fair. That was long ago, back when she thought roses were important.

  Other memories were dark. The way their lives changed, slowly at first. A little regulation here and another one there. Nuisances, but they tolerated them. Then came bigger rules and regulations rolled out at what later became known as “reeducation meetings.” They weren’t called that at first, of course—they were called “sustainable development meetings.” Sustain this, sustain that. Protect this, protect that.