The Risen Storm (After The Rising Book 1)

by A. R. Daun

  The thing rose from the hard earth several hours later. It shed loose soil from its fearsome hide as it clawed its way up from its earthen grave, first on all fours like some new-born beast, then awkwardly on two legs. It was like some dark monstrosity, a hulking figure with sinewy muscles that wrapped around a massive skeletal frame, its rough-hewn face adorned with ridges and planes that hid deeply-recessed eyes. And yet, if one of the camping staff members had the chance, or the bravura, to come close enough to it, he or she would have no trouble identifying the figure as the camp's assistant cook, although one whose facial features had undergone drastic changes, as if underlying forces had buckled and warped the outlying bone and skin.

  It lurched forward, weaving from side to side along the path, and heading in a shambling gait back towards the ranch. Behind it, the wind blew the brown and withered plant apart, and silence descended once more on the high bluff.

  CHAPTER 33

  Year 5 A.R.

  Extract from the journals of Ammara Lewis

  I awoke to the sound of Little Alexander's yelps of excitement this morning. The boy may be be small for his age, but he hollers like a drill sergeant. I crossed the small living room in the one-story bungalow that I shared with him and Denzel and peered out of one of the many double-hung windows that dotted the home.

  Alexander was running back and forth across our small yard. It had rained yesterday night, and his red sneakers tracked mud from the lush lawn to the immaculate ribbon driveway in broad careless streaks.

  He has grown into a fine looking boy. He has his father's high cheekbones, deeply-set eyes, and a strong jawline that cup full lips, but his features are softened by the delicate button nose and fine lashes that he inherited from me. His caramel toned skin is an amalgamation of my darker chocolate color and his father's lighter complexion.

  Sometimes I just gaze at him as he plays with the other children and I am filled with a mixture of dread and wonder, one so strong that I feel my chest tightening. Perhaps this is a common state for new parents, but more than ever he...and his friends...are the hope for the future. As far as we can tell, as far as I can sense, we are the only living people in the country, perhaps even in the entire world.

  The non-avian dinosaurs died out during the K-Pg extinction event millions of years ago. This community we're slowly building, here and in Georgia, well...that's all there is standing between humanity and the Big Zero. And our children...my Alexander, Geordi Bennett next door...Adrian Mello across the street, and all the rest...the burden of repopulating this world will fall on their shoulders after we're long dead and gone.

  And I'm torn. On the one hand I would never wish this infection on anyone, much less my own child. But at the same time this abomination thriving within me is the one thing that keeps our little community from being overwhelmed by the scourges of nanotech that sporadically blast through the landscape, like deadly dust storms that strip anything genetically human in their meandering paths. What will happen when I'm gone, and Diwi too, and Marco?

  I had to shake my head Dear Reader, and a wry smile crosses my lips as I'm writing this. I must be getting old because even when I write I tend to go off on disparate tangents. Now, where was I?

  Oh yes, Alexander and his running around. Denzel had snagged a small photovore on his latest trip to Savannah, and it was an altogether cute little thing, being green and round, with stumpy little legs that kept windmilling in slow motion. It was about the size of a large man's fist, and besides the six appendages did not seem to have any other external features. Denzel had wrapped a thick impermeable plastic film around it in order to prevent my own stray nanos from attacking and dissolving the creature, and Alexander circled happily around him, jumping up and down and trying to touch it.

  I came out of the house and hugged Denzel tightly. He hugged me back, one arm encircling my slender waist, the other holding the tiny creature away from me, as if to protect it from big bad Mara. I said this to him, and we both laughed. Alexander looked up at us and giggled, then his attention shifted back to the nano.

  We all examined Denzel's captive as it continued to mindlessly wriggle in his grasp. Its body was as featureless and unmarked as a pre-formed plastic toy, and about as threatening as an old-style teddy bear. Looking at it then, my mind again wondered about the source of the continued evolution of these nanobot constructs.

  The creatures that attacked the Coral Odyssey five years ago were only slightly differentiated compared to the former human bodies from which they were derived. Oh, they had densely packed keratinized skin laced with carbon nanofibers that pretty much made them invulnerable, but the basic body plan and organs and tissues were similar if not identical to those in human beings. I call these manifestations of the nanobots Class 1 macrostructures, and it's rare to see these nowadays.

  Now our expeditions beyond the settlements are more likely to come across creatures that seemingly have no close analog to anything that ever evolved on this world. Fragile beings that unfurl diaphanous one cell-thick wings stretching kilometers on either side of a tiny cylindrical body; towering conical structures that look like the strange habitations of Macrotermes termites in Africa, though their ultimate origin is revealed when they raise themselves on thousands of cilia-like appendages, their glacial movements noticeable only to the most patient of observers; photovores like the one Denzel caught, their bodies teeming with organelles that seem to have the capacity to soak up the sun's rays and power their activities; and a thousand more permutations of every shape, size and color, some of which are there one day, and then gone the next.

  They come and go across the landscape, like fleeting shadows cast upon the world for a brief moment by some demented puppeteer. These I have termed Class 2 macrostuctures, and I have far too many questions about them that will take a lifetime to answer. How did they evolve? Do they reproduce? Do they think or feel? Where do they go when they suddenly disappear?

  But the most important questions are ones that my former colleagues at the university would have scoffed at me for even proposing. Why are the nanobots creating such things? Why don't they just lie as inert dust for lack of living human tissue to infect and assimilate? What is their ultimate goal, if they have any? And who is the director hiding behind the creation of what is seemingly a growing alien ecology?

  More and more my thoughts converge on the most frightening scenario: that all these changes are just the beginnings of a vast terraforming project by some alien race that has yet to show itself. A race that perhaps is even at this moment approaching our world across the empty light years of space in gargantuan colony seed ships, their populations resting in deep slumber while our world is molded into their new home.

  So many questions and not enough answers.

  All I know is that the nanos that live within me are somehow different than the ones that have cleansed the world of humankind. As far as I can tell they have not caused any noticeable physical changes in my gross anatomy, nor have they interfered with any neurological functions, with the notable exception that I can now interface with their sensor network.

  They are also utterly and fanatically antagonistic towards their brethren. They will attack on contact and dismantle any foreign nanobots, although as far as I can tell this behavior is not reciprocated and the latter go out of their way to try to avoid their aggressors. It is this one fact that allows our community here in the Settlements and in New Savannah to survive and grow.

  I have to go tuck Alexander to sleep Constant Reader, and so I will end this entry with a quote from my favorite Lebanese poet, who once urged us to embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

  I can certainly do the first. All of us here are in some way still mired in the past, all entangled in memories of our lives before the fall. Even the most mundane of tasks have now gained the vividness of an exotic trip to some faraway land. Pushing a rickety shopping cart as I do groceries at the local Pathmark store, the aisles laden with packaged m
erchandize all neatly sorted and labeled; watching a movie, popcorn and $5 soda in hand, the faint light revealing a theater full of hushed and enthralled people, their daily problems stilled for the moment by the images on the big screen; reading a book as I dine on California sushi rolls in the tiny Japanese restaurant across my apartment, the place awash in cheap plastic and formica and the smell of tempura batter cooking; all these and more keep bubbling to the surface as I go about my life in this new world, and I realize that my longing is not for the future, but for the past, and that for me the future is fear, and uncertainty, and the vision of a looming storm swirling in the far horizon.

  Yours in Time,

  Ammara Lewis,

  Miami Beach Settlement,

  August 2, 2025

  CHAPTER 34

  Year 150 A.R.

  Altamaha River, Georgia

  100 km south of New Savannah Colony

  It strikes me as odd and perhaps a bit disconcerting that some of the manifestations of the Risen bear a striking resemblance to creatures of our ancient fables and tales. Is this sheer coincidence, or a pattern preordained into the nanoswarms, their evolution powered by hidden algorithms beating to the drums of the programming code nestled deep in their inner core?

  - Lady Ammara

  Pham Nguyen grimaced as he eyed the frenetic activity from his perch atop a small hillock.

  Below him swarms of men and harnessed oni labored to wrest a small cypress swamp from the grasp of the Altamaha River. The sounds of axe and shovel and hoe echoed in the still air as the workers dug ditches, constructed banks, and cut down trees and roots that stood in the way of setting up another rice field for the growing New Savannah Colony.

  It was hard work. The men stood in mud up to their knees, and the stultifying heat and humidity of the mid-afternoon sun quickly drained the most hardened of them. Even the harnessed female oni, who had been blessed and made meek by Lord Marco and were used as draft animals, seemed lethargic and irritable.

  “Watch it! Watch it!” Pham yelled as an unleashed oni who had been tugging at a large protruding cypress root suddenly flew backwards and smashed into a nearby laborer as the root gave way. The man went down into the muck, his arms flailing. Pham pointed to two nearby men, who were chortling at their friend. “Taylor and Sung...fish him out of there and get him to Doc!”

  “Sure Chief,” the taller man said, grinning. He nodded to the other and they each took one arm and helped their friend up the banks.

  Pham belatedly realized that the oni had not bothered to get up but instead lay face down in the mud. The oni had a full head of fine dark shoulder length hair, slim arms that belied the strength in them, and long shapely legs, and it crossed Pham's mind that from his present angle the beast looked almost human.

  “Oh for Lord Marco's sake!” He muttered and shook his head. The wild oni were not exactly smart, but the process that converted them to tamed beasts of burden also took away some inner fire within that made them the intellectual equivalent of lumps of clay.

  “Drake, Martinez...and you Cho...yes, you.” He gestured at a group of workers nearby. “Get that oni upright before she drowns.”

  The three reluctantly surrounded the animal and grasping arms and shoulders tried to leverage it up, but to no avail. They might as well have been trying to move a wedged boulder. Pham shook his head in exasperation and walked down to help them.

  “Let's just roll it so it's face up,” he said to the gasping men, indicating that they should align themselves all on one side. “On one...two...three!”

  The oni flopped onto her back. Its face was covered completely with mud, but a pair of bright green eyes stared up at him unblinkingly. It opened its mouth and breathed in some air, revealing a double row of canines, and Pham flinched at the sight.

  “Give me a rag here,” he told one of the men, and when he was handed one proceeded to carefully wipe the muck from the oni's face, being careful not to come too close to the sharp rows of teeth. The female looked up at him expressionlessly the entire time, its eyes blinking only when the rag got too close to them. It had a delicate patrician nose which flared as he wiped the last bit of mud above its thin lips.

  Pham stood up and looked down at the oni, who continued to stare back up at him.

  “Up now, get back to work,” he prodded, wondering how silly he must look trying to talk to it. He noted the sturdy leather collar that encircled its neck and looked around.

  “Who's its trainer?” He shouted, pointing at the fallen oni, then gasped in surprise as he felt a hard callused hand slip into his. He felt the tug of its weight as it slowly stood up, its lean body slowly unwinding as it towered over him. Its hand felt unnaturally warm, and he quickly released its grip.

  A man hurried over, brandishing a leash.

  “Sorry Chief,” he said, standing on tip-toe to re-attach the leash to the oni's collar. “Had to go to help with another charge, and Tara here has never been a problem.”

  He tugged on the leash. “Let's go Tara.” He pulled again, but the oni stood fast, its large green eyes fixed on Pham. There was a directness to its stare that Phan found disturbing. He had looked into the eyes of tamed oni before, and their gazes tended to be vacuous and bereft of any intelligence.

  The handler pulled again, this time with as much force as he could muster, and the oni was led away. It looked back again one last time at Pham before disappearing into the midst of a mixed work crew of men and oni.

  Pham grunted and walked back to where he could readily survey the field. The work had been going slowly but steadily, and he had no reason to doubt that they would have the field ready by tomorrow. Once the banks and ditches were in place, the rice trunks would be used to control the flow of water from the Altamaha river in preparation for next year's rice crop. It would be a fine addition to the other acreages devoted to rice cultivation along the Ogeechee and Savannah rivers, and would ensure a continuing food supply for the rapidly growing population of the New Savannah Colony.

  Pham knew the old Long Ago saying that pride always comes before a fall, but he nevertheless felt a deep sense of satisfaction from doing what he loved best. It was Pham's great-grandfather who had first implemented the old techniques of wet rice cultivation from torn books that he had unearthed while trolling burned and abandoned libraries in search of forgotten knowledge. He read that vast rice plantations once thrived in the area, and he had convinced Lord Marco that the colony needed a stable food supply in order to continue to grow. Armed with resources and men authorized by the Lord, he had set up the first rice fields along the tidal swamps of the nearby Savannah River, and ever since then the Nguyen family had been responsible for managing the growing rice holdings of the colony.

  The family had prospered as the colony itself had grown and flourished. Pham had been named in honor of his great-great grandfather, who had held a position of responsibility in the First Ark, and he was forever being reminded by his parents about their honorable family lineage, and his filial duties as their eldest son.

  Sometimes Pham thought he could feel the weight of history pressing down on him, its mass of responsibilities and expectations suffocating whatever shred of independence and rebellion he may have once treasured as a youth. Gone were the days when he had seriously been thinking of becoming an oni wrangler, or one of the explorers who ventured into the Deep West, most of them never to be seen or heard from again.

  When he was young he used to pore over old maps that his great grandfather had collected. In an awed whisper he would murmur the curious names of places that he knew he would never see during his lifetime. The Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Las Vegas, California, Venice Beach, Hollywood, The Arches. The words flitted from his lips like a melody, an incantation to bring up visions of the world that existed before the Risen had wiped the slate clean.

  Pham signaled one of the workers to him.

  “Yes Chief?” The man said, wiping perspiration from his broad forehead.

  Pham ges
tured to a group of men and oni who stood apart from the group. “Tell Martinez to ready the rice trunks.”

  The man turned towards the group, and Pham tapped him on the shoulder. “And Don, tell them to be careful. We don't want another damaged trunk.”

  “Sure Chief,” the man replied and hurried off.

  Rice trunks were the technological marvels that made rice cultivation possible. They were used to control the movement of water in and out of the rice fields, which had to be flooded and drained in sequence as the rice crop matured. The Nguyens had based the construction of the first prototype on vague descriptions from the tatters of an old manuscript about slavery. Each rice trunk had two floodgates which were placed on either end of a rectangular wooden pipe. The pipe stretched up to 6 meters in length and was secured under the bank, connecting a field with its water supply. An expert trunk minder could control the level of water within the field to within centimeters by raising and lowering doors which could swivel to let water in or out.

  Pham glanced at the slow moving Altamaha river, just in time to see something large break the surface, then disappear from sight. He shaded his eyes with one hand and looked worryingly for any other signs of the identity of the submerged object, but the murky water remained still and unmarked. This far from the colony, it was always possible that certain of the untamed Risen would be tempted by the gathering of so much potential prey, even in the light of day.

  Then he saw it again. It had a silvery sheen in the light, a broad hump that moved languidly towards the shallows, where several men had gathered under the shade of a cypress tree. Pham fumbled behind him for a weapon and started running towards the group, shouting frantically for them to move away from the water, just as the shape emerged fully and a thick scaled serpentine form rose with an almost lazy unwinding motion.

  “Drakon!!!!!” Pham screamed as he ran, and the men scattered, like birds taking to flight.