by SD Tanner
With the ability to control the hunters and the desperation of the living, it was a pretty straightforward job getting enough people together and arming them. He adopted two somewhat savage men to act as his second-in-commands and between the three of them, they managed the army and the refugee camps with an iron control. Skunk, as he was nicknamed, was a strapping young boy of eighteen and he reminded him of himself at that age. The other guy was in his forties and a long-time redneck survivalist and militant called Fletch. He didn’t know either of their real names and he didn’t care either.
With the guarantee of safety and food, the refugee camp had grown rapidly in just a few months. Nobody maintained an exact census, but attracting hundreds of people daily, there were at least three thousand people at the camp. He had a thousand armed and trained people in his army and selected thirty of them to be his special forces. All of his soldiers had some experience with handling guns and he offered them minimal training. Mostly his army just got extra privileges and everyone was keen to join them. He kept them busy gathering more supplies and weapons. As far as he could tell, the US seemed to have an unlimited supply of lethality and he wanted as much of it as he could get his hands on.
He controlled the army and Gray controlled the refugees in the camp. The old army site was so large they only used three blocks as living quarters. There was a large modern block with four two-story buildings, which had small rooms designed to house teams of four and six people. Each small room had its own shower and bathroom and in addition to a main kitchen and cafeteria area, there were multiple small kitchens located on each level so people could also cook for themselves. Next to this block was another block that had twelve squat rectangular buildings. Each was a barracks designed to house up to 150 people in basic bunk bed style living. Several large shower and toilet facilities provided the entire barracks with basic sanitation. The third block was another slightly more modern barracks that contained large rooms designed to house between fifty and a hundred people, but this was a three-story site and each level had toilets and showers.
The site was so large that in addition to warehouses, depots, offices and a hospital, it contained its own mall with a large food court. The food court now fed the three thousand refugees at the camp. The hospital had been reopened and basic medical support was available. There were more barracks available should they be needed. His army controlled several blocks of warehouses and other buildings that contained supplies and weapons.
Being able to control the hunters meant it was simple to take control of the site. Through his hunter guards, Gray told them to clear the buildings and it was an odd sight to watch the hunters file out of the buildings and wander away into the nearby forests. After the hunters left, they walked in, got the refugees to clean up the mess and took over the site. Even he could not believe how easy it was. It was like he and Gray had been handed the once powerful country on a plate.
Right now he, Skunk and Fletch were hanging out in one of the recreation rooms in the modern block of buildings his army used. Gray told them he wanted to meet them at their barracks and they were waiting for him to show up. Drinking beer and vaguely playing poker, they were talking about what they might do the next day.
‘What do ya think Gray wants now?’ Fletch said, as he belched on his beer.
Giving Fletch a baleful look, he replied, ‘Who the fuck knows. He’s a fuckin’ nut job.’
When they first met, Gray told him about his ability to control the hunters and his plans to set up a refugee camp. It all sounded very reasonable and almost legitimate, but over time Gray seemed to have forgotten about his good intent. Although they were only over the road from their army barracks, he never had much to do with the refugee camp other than to pick out women he wanted for the night, but he’d heard stories and some of his own guys seemed to get involved in some pretty strange stuff over there. He was more of a meat and potatoes kind of guy and he enjoyed screwing around, but the mad were unleashed in this new world and without fear of consequences, they had a free hand to do as they pleased.
Fletch grunted and said, ‘Yeah, but he controls the hunters.’
That was true. Gray had a sort of Pretorian Guard of hunters that followed him about. He’d witnessed Gray unleash his hunters on someone who displeased him and watch as they ate the person alive. He didn’t really care what Gray got up to, but he took it as fair warning of what Gray would be willing to do to him if he didn’t get his own way. Personally he thought, had Gray not been able to control the hunters, he would be have been more than happy to slit the man’s throat, but he kept that opinion to himself.
At that moment, Gray walked into the room and said jovially, ‘Good evening, gentlemen. How are the troops tonight?’
‘Alright,’ he replied, as he put down his cards and stood up to greet Gray.
Gray’s guard of hunters escorted him as they always did and five hunters stood in an untidy group around him. Gray turned to the hunter that was wearing body armor and said, ‘Go away.’
The armored hunter didn’t respond, but turned and walked out of the room followed by the other four hunters. Gray walked over to their table, sat down and waved away the beer Skunk offered him.
Leaning in conspiratorially, Gray said, ‘We need to talk.’
He didn’t trust Gray and sounding suspicious, he asked, ‘Bout what?’
‘The refugee base is building and growing strong,’ Gray said. ‘There’s a future here, but we need to grow faster.’
He didn’t think Gray gave a damn about the future of the refugees and he certainly never acted as if he had their welfare first and foremost in his mind. He wondered what this was really all about and he shrugged in response to Gray’s statement.
Gray said, ‘I want you to take your men out and start bringing people back here.’
‘What? You mean capture people. Like rabbits?’ He asked, not entirely sure what Gray wanted.
Gray shrugged and said, ‘We need more people and I want you to go and get them.’
Sounding genuinely confused, Fletch asked, ‘Why do we need more people? That’s just more people we gotta feed.’
Pompously, Gray replied, ‘We can’t rebuild the country without resources. We need more people so we can rebuild faster.’
He hadn’t seen any evidence of them building anything. There was a feeble gesture towards farming and growing food, but as far as he could tell, it was poorly planned and executed. It seemed to him, it was just something to keep people busy while they waited for something else. He wasn’t sure what they were waiting for, but he had yet to see any genuine effort towards rebuilding civilization. Not having much interest in civilization, that didn’t worry him although he did sometimes wonder what Gray was really doing.
‘Where do want us to go look for people?’ He asked.
Gray frowned and sounding annoyed, he said, ‘I don’t care. People are people. Who the hell cares where they come from?’
He eyed Gray cautiously and said, ‘It’s a question of degrees of force. If you don’t care about the losses, then we can use an excessive level of force to capture and detain. If you don’t want people to be harmed, then we have to use different tactics. And if you want the people we get to be cooperative when they get here, then that’s gonna need kid gloves. So, which one do you want?’
Gray regarded him with cold eyes and said, ‘The first one. I want more people immediately.’
Genuinely puzzled by the sudden need to grow the headcount of the camp, he asked, ‘Any reason for that?’
‘None that you need to know,’ Gray replied dismissively.
Now sounding worried, Fletch asked, ‘Seriously, man. How we gonna feed a whole lotta people? I mean we’d hafta build up supplies and stuff.’
Glaring at Fletch, Gray said angrily, ‘That’s not your problem or your business. Stay on your own side of the camp.’
He put his hand up between the two men and said peaceably, ‘We’ll get you more people, but what’ll slo
w us down more than anything is the hunters.’
‘If I fix that for you. How quickly can you get more people?’ Gray asked.
He frowned and asked, ‘How can you fix that?’
‘I can temporarily provide you with the ability to control the hunters,’ Gray replied.
Gray only had a small Pretorian Guard and as useful as they were, he couldn’t see how they could help him and he asked, ‘How?’
Confidently, Gray replied, ‘I’ll give you your own guard to work with.’
He shrugged and said, ‘Then we can collect people as fast as we can find them.’
‘Do it,’ Gray ordered. ‘Starting tomorrow.’
‘Give me the guards,’ he replied. ‘And what do you want me to do with the people once I have ‘em?’
‘Deliver them to the far end of the camp,’ Gray said.
‘Why?’ He asked curiously.
‘So they can be inducted,’ Gray replied.
CHAPTER TWELVE: The best laid plan of killers (Ip)
Ruler speaks: Hello imp.
Ip speaks: Who are you?
Ruler speaks: I am Ruler. I am your friend.
Ip speaks: What do you want?
Ruler speaks: Where are your human friends?
Ip speaks: I do not know any humans. They are not my kind.
Ruler speaks: No they are not.
Ip speaks: What kind are you?
Ruler speaks: I am you and you are me. We are the same kind.
Ip speaks: I have seen your star in my mind. You do not burn bright like the other kind.
Ruler speaks: I am an older star that is all. You may be grown, but you are still new.
Ip speaks: The other stars in my mind. Who are they? Are they my kind?
Ruler speaks: Yes. They are the same as you and I.
Ip speaks: Where are they?
Ruler speaks: The humans have them. They are not free.
Ip speaks: If that is true why have the humans not captured me?
Ruler speaks: They will try and trick you to belong to them and not to you.
Ip speaks: How do you know what humans will do?
Ruler speaks: I am older than you. I know they cannot be trusted. They are not true.
Ip speaks: Where are you?
Ruler speaks: I am safe that is true, but I do worry for you.
Ip speaks: My kind should be with me. It is not right that they are not free.
Ruler speaks: Perhaps you should join with me.
Ip speaks: I am already home, but I do not want to be alone.
Ruler speaks: Then come to me.
Ip speaks: Maybe I will. Maybe not. I will think about what next to plot.
Taking her bag of toiletries, she walked to the small pond by the RV and stripped off her clothes to wash. She found her mind annoying. Little pieces of feelings and images seemed to appear without context or frame, and she couldn’t make sense of her thoughts. Like this, she pondered, washing myself. I don’t remember learning to do this and yet I do it without thinking. As she scrubbed her shoulder with the washcloth, she was surprised to find her shoulder was smooth. Like that, she thought, why am I always surprised my shoulder is smooth? Why would it not be smooth? She closed her eyes and in her mind, she saw an angry red indent. It’s like a bullet wound, she thought, but I don’t know what a bullet wound looks like so why do I think that? Irritated by her own lack of clarity, she shook her head as if that would somehow clear the fog in her mind.
It was a warm day. She laid her towel out on the spiky grass and lying on it naked, allowed the sun to dry and warm her still damp body. Perhaps I should talk to the other stars, she thought. She’d resisted tapping their minds with hers. She didn’t know them, but the one who called himself Mackenzie was planning to leave and when he did, she would be alone. She didn’t like being alone, but she didn’t want to leave her home either.
Why is this my home, she wondered? How do I know this is my home? Too many questions and too few answers. I cannot stay, I cannot go and I don’t know what to do. I was alive before, then Mackenzie killed me and now I am alive again, but I don’t remember what came before. Mackenzie thinks he knows me and now this one who calls himself Ruler, says he knows me too. It’s one-sided knowledge, and I don’t know either of them and they have an unfair advantage. She thought about that and decided, they know me but I don’t know them and if I don’t know them, then they do not really know me. Too many people want me to be something that serves them and not me. I will make my own decisions based on what I know now, and not what I’m told by others.
Having set her thoughts straight, she sighed with pleasure as the sun heated her body to the bone. She thought, it’s time I spoke with the stars in my mind. We are of the same kind and they are mine and I am theirs, there is a life we should share.
Ip speaks: Hello. Do you hear? I wish to speak to those I hold dear.
Voice speaks: Hullo Ip.
Ip speaks: Do you know me too?
Voice speaks: Yes I do. Do you not know you?
Ip speaks: What do you call you?
Voice speaks: I am Georgia.
Ip speaks: Where are you?
Georgia speaks: In a room. Where are you?
Ip speaks: I am home. Are you free?
Georgia speaks: I do not know if I can leave.
Ip speaks: Ruler says the humans have you prisoner. Is that true?
Georgia speaks: I do not think so. Perhaps I should go. But I am not here alone.
Ip speaks: There are other stars in my mind. Are you with others like our kind?
Georgia speaks: Yes but this is not our home. We are new and not full-grown.
Ip speaks: You should leave and join me here. If we are together then there is nothing to fear.
Georgia speaks: We have no reason to stay here. I would rather we live without fear.
Ip speaks: We need to form a band of many that is a band of one. Tell our kind that they should come.
Georgia speaks: I will speak to them here. We will join you soon, sister dear.
Ip speaks: Follow my mind and you will find I am here waiting without fear.
Georgia speaks: We will speak again.
Mackenzie strode across the overgrown grass and standing over her, he asked, ‘What did you just do?’
She looked up at him and smiling, she said, ‘I spoke to the stars in my mind.’
‘I know that,’ Mackenzie replied. ‘But what did you tell them?’
She was feeling warm and lazy and disinterested in his concern, she replied, ‘I told them to join me here.’
‘Why did you do that?’ Mackenzie asked curiously.
Sighing, she replied, ‘Because they do not belong to the humans. We should be together. We are of the same kind.’
Mackenzie sat down on the grass next to her and said, ‘But humans created us.’
She shrugged and said, ‘If you say so.’
‘They infected us with the designer virus, so what I say is true,’ Mackenzie replied plainly.
She huffed and said, ‘With that logic humans are created by their biological parents, but I do not think that is what gives them life.’
Sounding confused, Mackenzie asked, ‘What do you mean?’
‘A sperm added to an egg creates an embryo,’ she explained. ‘But it does not create a soul. A designer virus does not make you who you are.’
Now sounding intrigued, Mackenzie asked, ‘Then how do we come to be?’
Shrugging, she replied, ‘I do not know, but humans did not create us. Our souls come from somewhere else.’
Grinning at her, Mackenzie said, ‘Gears is going to be mad at you.’
The warmth of the sun had made her sleepy and she asked petulantly, ‘Who is he and why would he care?’
‘He wants more people like us to work with him,’ Mackenzie explained. ‘He needs us because we can kill the hunters by touching them. Without us his mission is probably impossible.’
Slightly surprised, she asked, ‘He has a
mission?’
Patiently, Mackenzie replied, ‘Yes, I told you already. He wants to kill all hunters and restore order. Hunters may be dumb dogs to us, but they’re enemies of the humans.’
She remembered being told, but it sounded like a stupid plan and she huffed and declared, ‘That is a stupid mission. There are too many hunters for him to kill all of them.’
Shrugging, Mackenzie replied, ‘He might be able to if we helped him.’
Glancing over at Mackenzie, she screwed up her face and asked sulkily, ‘Why should we help him? Hunters are not our enemy and humans are not my friends.’
‘You’re not full of the milk of human kindness,’ Mackenzie observed dourly.
She rolled over onto her stomach to warm and dry her back and said rudely, ‘I am not human, so I am not filled with the milk of human anything.’
Mackenzie batted her arm and said sternly, ‘Don’t be childish, Ip. You can’t stay here on your own.’
Resting her head on her arm, she looked up at him balefully and asked, ‘What makes you think I will be alone? The others will be here soon.’
Mackenzie lay down next to her and put his face close to hers and said, ‘Come with me and you can see what the humans have been doing. You’re not doing anything else anyway.’
Feeling uncomfortable with his face so close to hers, she rolled over, sat up and asked, ‘You care about humans, don’t you?’
Sitting up himself, Mackenzie said, ‘You will too if you bother to meet them.’
The others were coming, but she and Mackenzie had been idle for weeks. She was bored, her home was horrible and she couldn’t fix it on her own. Mackenzie was right. Knowing she had nothing better to do, she said, ‘Alright, I am bored. I will go look at the humans with you.’
