Lifeless (Lawless Saga Book 2)

by Tarah Benner

  Lark felt all the blood drain to her feet. There was a peculiar rushing in her ears that hadn’t been there before. She could hardly hear anything over the howling wind, but judging from the third agent’s herky-jerky movements, Axel was putting up quite a fight.

  “Son,” said the lanky one. “Son, can you keep your hands where I can see them?”

  Soren had just reached behind his back for the gun concealed in his waistband.

  “This doesn’t have to go that way,” said Reuben. “We just want to talk.”

  “Yeah, right,” growled Soren.

  Suddenly, two rusted-out SUVs came blazing down the road. They looked as though they’d been wrecked or abandoned, but clearly they were still operational. Lark and Soren watched them turn down the driveway in silence, slowing to a halt and blocking the truck in on both sides.

  “We’ve been tracking you people for quite some time,” said Reuben, following Lark’s gaze to the SUVs. “We nearly collared you up near Sonora, but I said we should wait to see if you’d lead us to the other two.”

  Lark’s mind was racing. He had to be talking about Bernie and Portia.

  “You wanna tell us where your little friends are?”

  Lark didn’t move or speak. If they hadn’t found them yet, they might still have a chance.

  “Looks like we lost one of ya’ll in the process,” said the skinny agent. His name was Durant.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Reuben in a confident voice. “We’ll round ’em all up. We knew ya’ll would end up here eventually. Not many ex-cons manage to cut all their ties.”

  “Where are they?” Soren snarled. “What did you do with them?”

  It took Lark a moment to realize that he wasn’t talking about Bernie, Portia, and Simjay. He was asking about his family.

  The agent called Durant glanced up at his partner, and Lark could have sworn she saw a flicker of regret in his eyes.

  “One thing at a time.”

  “Where — is my — family!” yelled Soren.

  “Why don’t you tell me what I need to know, and then we’ll talk about your family,” said Reuben.

  But Lark had had enough. The men were so busy waiting for an outburst from Soren that they weren’t paying much attention to her. Before she realized what she was doing, Lark had snatched the stolen handgun out of Soren’s waistband and pointed it at the agents.

  In a flash, both men had drawn their weapons, but Lark was so deadened by fury that she didn’t even flinch. The gun was vibrating in her hands, but her grip was strong and steady. Blood was pounding in her ears, and her chest was on fire.

  “Drop the gun!” yelled Reuben. “Drop it, now!”

  “Not until you tell us what happened,” snarled Lark.

  “Put the gun down, and we’ll talk about it,” said Durant. Beads of sweat had sprung up all over his forehead, and Lark could tell that they hadn’t expected it to go this way.

  “Just set the gun on the ground, nice and slow . . .” It was Reuben again.

  “And then what?” snapped Lark. “Then you’ll haul us back to prison and throw away the key?”

  Her subconscious brain had latched on to Durant, and she was pointing the gun at him.

  “No one has to go back to prison,” said Reuben. “We just want to talk.”

  Lark didn’t bite. “I’m done talking to you people. You’re gonna tell us what we want to know, or your friend here is leaving in a body bag.”

  Soren didn’t say a word. They had nothing left to lose at this point, and both agents knew it.

  “All right,” said Durant, his voice shaking slightly.

  “Don’t do it,” said Reuben.

  “Oh, what difference does it make?” Durant was trembling in earnest now, not accustomed to being on the receiving end of a holdup. “There was a hurricane about six months ago . . . a superstorm, actually. The emergency alert systems in the area were down, and lots of people didn’t have much warning.”

  Lark’s mouth went very dry.

  “Most people who were left made it out all right, but some . . .”

  Lark was breathing hard and fast, and her hands were suddenly very sweaty.

  “They found a car registered to one Naomi Hensley after the flood waters receded,” he continued. “Three individuals were found inside. Your neighbor identified the bodies — your mother, your brother Micah, and a man named Clint Reeves.” He sighed. “All three of them drowned.”

  Lark had no recollection of lowering the gun, but a moment later, it was hanging uselessly at her side. Her ears were ringing, blocking out any further explanation.

  She felt as though all the life had been sucked out of her at once. She didn’t have the strength to hold it up anymore. They’d come all this way to reunite Soren and his brother, and Micah was dead. The agents had been tailing them for ages, and there didn’t seem to be any way out.

  “What do you want?” asked Soren. His voice was low and husky. He sounded dead to the world.

  “We just want to talk,” said the thicker agent. “I’m Special Agent Reuben, and this is my partner, David Durant. We work for the Department of Homeland Security.”

  “What do you want with us?”

  Lark was only half listening. She’d expected to be picked up by the San Judas private security detail — maybe even a state trooper — but she had no idea what they might have done to pique the interest of Homeland Security.

  “We’re doing everything we can to mitigate the current food crisis,” said Reuben. “We need access to the crops GreenSeed has been working on, but they’re claiming those seeds are their intellectual property.”

  “Same with the inmates under their control,” added Durant.

  “But since you all escaped” — Reuben sounded annoyingly proud of himself — “you are no longer intellectual property assets.”

  Lark shook her head. She felt as though she were wading through very cold water. Her limbs felt numb and useless, but part of her was still determined to escape.

  “You’re not goin’ back to San Judas,” said Reuben. “You belong to the federal government now.”

  Author’s Note

  Thank you so much for reading Lifeless. I was unprepared for the wonderful response Lawless received, and that enthusiasm from readers made writing book two even more gratifying. There’s nothing quite like working on a project that you know people are waiting for, so thank you. Your excitement has been infectious.

  If you enjoyed this book, please visit your favorite retailer and leave a review. Reviews help readers like you discover my books, which makes them one of the best ways to support me and my storytelling endeavors.

  A big part of my job as a writer is dreaming up fantastic end-of-world scenarios. I’ve done nuclear annihilation, an uncontrollable virus, and the AI revolution, but as a thinking person, I couldn’t deny that the biggest threat we face as humans is climate change.

  I know, I know. Climate change just isn’t sexy — at least when Soren’s not involved. And if you ask me, that’s one major reason why scientists and policymakers have had such a hard time persuading the public to care.

  Climate change is happening everywhere at once. The effects can only be observed gradually over time, and they haven’t yet created a commercial that uses a Sarah McLachlan song to raise awareness.

  Then there’s capitalism. Fossil fuels still drive our economy, and to big businesses, the need for change is a huge inconvenience. With that in mind, it’s not surprising that various foundations funneled more than half a billion dollars worth of dark money to climate-change-denial organizations from 2003 to 2010.

  Today nearly three-quarters of Americans don’t think we’ve reached a scientific consensus on the role human behavior plays in climate change, but the evidence is incontrovertible. Yes, the earth goes through natural cycles of heating and cooling, but natural changes cannot explain the temperatures we’ve seen in the past half century. In addition, the spike in carbon dioxide — the gas rele
ased by human activities — is drastically outpacing the spike in other greenhouse gases. (For a nice succinct breakdown of the evidence, check out the Union of Concerned Scientists’ website.)

  As someone with a platform to reach an audience of smart, conscientious people, I thought it would be a missed opportunity not to address this looming catastrophe. If we do not make some dramatic changes — and soon — we are going to experience extreme climate-related hardships within just a few decades.

  Despite what the political blowhards on TV would have us believe, climate change is not a political issue — it’s a survival issue. And even though we’re living in an era where everything is politicized, I can’t just not write about things I find important — even if I make some people angry.

  Toni Morrison said it best: “This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

  I know, I know — it sounds a little grandiose for a sci-fi writer. Maybe I take everything too seriously. But if I can raise even a little bit of awareness as I entertain you, then I’ve done my job.

  Here’s why we should be concerned: As global temperatures rise, so do sea levels. The deadly cocktail of thermal expansion, melting ice caps, and ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica has caused global sea levels to rise 4 to 8 inches in the last 100 years.

  That doesn’t sound like a lot, but the rate at which the world is warming and sea levels are rising is accelerating. Future predictions for how quickly sea levels will rise vary, but some scientists say that coastal cities like New York and London could be underwater by the end of the century.

  Climate change is also driving more extreme weather events, such as more intense and frequent heat waves, stronger hurricanes, devastating wildfires, longer and more extreme droughts, and increased threats of flooding.

  One of the areas hit hardest by worsening drought conditions will be the American Southwest. Water usage has always been a contentious issue in California, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico. Unusually dry conditions combined with outdated laws and ever-increasing demand has put undue strain on the region’s already fragile water supply.

  The problem hinges on the Colorado River, which provides water to approximately 40 million people. Unfortunately, the estimates used to draft the Colorado River Compact in 1922 were wildly overblown, and although the compact has been revised over the years, it’s still built on inaccurate projections of water flow.

  In the past 50 years, the population the Colorado River serves has more than doubled while the flow of water has actually fallen. (Some estimates say that global warming could cut its flow in half by the end of the century.)

  Lake Mead, a reservoir on the Colorado River behind the Hoover Dam, is currently at 39 percent capacity. It serves about 20 million people in Arizona, Nevada, and California, but by law, Arizona will be last in line for water in the event of a shortage.

  As of the publication of this novel, a generous snowpack in the Rocky Mountains has delayed the necessity of massive water cuts in Arizona, which relies on the Colorado River for 40 percent of its water. However, Arizona is working with California and Nevada on a massive Drought Contingency Plan that would ask California to surrender some of its water and trigger cuts in Arizona and Nevada. Arizona is working on even more dramatic austerity measures, but it needs federal funding to “purchase” water from farmers and tribes.

  The concept of selling water rights is particularly popular and controversial in New Mexico. The state has the longest continuously traceable history of human water use in the United States, spanning back to 800 A.D.

  As you can imagine, that much history comes with a lot of baggage. To fully understand Walter Bailey’s obsession with water, you have to know a little bit about the region’s history.

  Before the Spanish settlers came, the Pueblo and Navajo peoples had created a system of gravity-fed irrigation ditches, or acequias, which relied on centralized authority and shared community responsibility for their maintenance. When Spanish settlers arrived in the 1540s, they recognized many of these practices from their native land and brought with them a formal system of water laws that helped shape the region’s legal culture.

  When New Mexico became a U.S. territory following the Mexican-American War, things got much more complicated. The U.S. government sought to impose American water law and ideals of land distribution that held the rights of the individual above all else. The problem was that American water law was developed east of the Mississippi, where water for farmland was plentiful. In other words, the U.S. government had no idea what it was getting itself into.

  This clash between Anglo, Pueblo, and Spanish values has been at the heart of many bitter fights ever since, and today the laws governing water use in New Mexico are complicated and fascinating. The traditional ideals of community responsibility for New Mexico’s acequias are experiencing a major resurgence, but it may not be enough to sway the capitalistic tides that threaten the state’s fragile water supply.

  Prolonged drought conditions have caused many New Mexican farmers to fall on hard times. To pay the bills, some have been selling their water to the oil and gas industry to be used for fracking. Some residents claim that there are private individuals who are over-pumping, and many farmers north of Carlsbad have seen their wells dry up.

  Unfortunately, things are about to get a lot worse. One recent study concluded that if the level of carbon emissions continues at its current rate, there is a 99 percent chance that the American Southwest will experience what’s known as a mega-drought — probably between 2050 and 2099.

  If you’ve never heard of a mega-drought, that’s because we haven’t seen one in North America since medieval times. The effect that a 20-plus-year drought could have on the desert’s fragile water supply, crops, and economy is obvious, but what’s less obvious is the potential ecological fallout.

  Consider what happened during the decades-long drought that struck Mexico in the 16th century. In 1545 and 1576, a cocoliztli epidemic ravaged the indigenous people, killing 80 percent of the local population.

  Scientists have hypothesized that cocoliztli was some animal-spread virus that was typically contained in the highlands of Mexico. They believe that the prolonged drought reduced the available food and water supply, causing the virus’s animal hosts (rodents) to congregate closer to people. When climate conditions improved, the rodents experienced a massive population boom, accelerating the spread of the virus.

  If you don’t believe that global warming could have such a strong impact on a region’s ecosystem, all you have to do is take a drive through the Rocky Mountains, where mountain pine beetles have denuded millions of acres of forest. Formerly beautiful mountain vistas now resemble a post-apocalyptic landscape. Dead trees stand like skeletons, and multimillion-dollar homes once tucked away in the snowcapped pines now stand brutally exposed along the scarred mountain face.

  Rising temperatures have allowed the beetles to spread to higher elevations, and longer periods of warmth have lengthened the beetles’ flight season and begun to allow them to produce two generations of offspring per year instead of one.

  To make matters worse, the heat and unusually dry conditions have stressed trees to the point where they are unable to withstand a beetle attack. The forest die-off has hurt local economies that rely on timber, as well as the bears and birds that depend on the trees for food.

  As you can see, I did a lot of research to make Lifeless as realistic as possible. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein and Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman have been sitting on my end table for months now, but the threat has felt most real to me in my everyday interactions with people who have lived on the Front Range long enough to witness the dramatic changes to their home.

  When I first moved here, the man who came to set up our cable noticed our Australian shepherd and
got to talking about the dogs they’d had on his family farm. He told me about the drought’s crushing impact on Colorado’s cattle ranchers.

  In dry conditions, the grass doesn’t grow, and ranchers are often forced to reduce their herds. The drought was so bad in 2012 that the USDA designated 71 percent of the United States as a disaster area due to drought. To help Colorado ranchers survive, the government allowed farmers to graze their herds on contract acres enrolled in the USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program.

  Despite the gloom-and-doom reality that Lifeless is rooted in, I had such a great time building the story universe. I love developing a problem, painting a realistic setting, and dreaming up ways for the characters to overcome obstacles. It’s the best kind of creative challenge, but I don’t remember the last time I had so much fun with any one cast of characters.

  Bernie, Axel, Simjay, and Portia made book two such a blast to write that I felt as though I flew through the first draft. I hope you enjoyed getting to know them as much as I enjoyed creating them.

  Writers often talk about the characters taking over a story, and that is truly what happened in Lifeless. I always begin a series with a rough outline of each book, but by the end of book two, Lark, Soren, and Axel had hijacked the plot and forced me to reevaluate the direction of the series.

  Originally I’d planned on making Lawless a trilogy, but I no longer think that three books will be enough to tell the full story. I hope you’ll stick with me for the entire journey.

  If you like the series so far, make sure you join my Reader Army. Members receive periodic updates about my new books and the first glimpse of unpublished manuscript chapters. When you sign up, you’ll gain access to exclusive Lifeless bonus content, including brand-new character bios and a sneak peek at book three.

  Thanks again for reading Lifeless. I couldn’t do this without your support.

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