by Ken Barrett
*****
Their wrists were still bound by chains as they were pushed through the tumultuous crowd. Most people just shouted insults, but others fought to get by the guards to strike at them. The fearful and intolerant monkey at the root of their evolutionary tree was on full display.
They were forced up a series of ramps through a sea of angry faces until at last, they reached the vestibule. The massive inner and outer doors stood open. Beyond the far door, Liam saw heavy rain falling from thick black clouds that partially obscured a dark red sun.
Between them and the outside desolation, stood two tall machines, set apart such that he and his sister would be forced to pass between them to escape. Each device consisted of power cables attached to huge capacitors, that in turn were connected to tall coils of copper wire.
“What are they?” Rose asked.
“Your death,” Roxi said loudly, obviously showing off for Priestess Oxana and the crowd. “At my command, these instruments will create a powerful electromagnetic pulse that will destroy your memories and melt your crystalline microprocessors.”
“Just as I promised, they will rip your souls apart,” Oxana added. “And afterward we will burn your foul mechanical bodies to ashes.”
Behind the priestess’s words, he heard Roxi whisper. “Two-second delay after the switch. Good luck to you both.”
“I see,” Liam said, pretending to answer Oxana. Beside him, Rose nodded; she had heard Roxi as well. “So, if we can get through this final test and make it outside, we’re free?”
Roxi chuckled. “That’s simply not possible.”
“Unless the Stickman intervenes,” Rose said.
“The Stickman will never act on your behalf,” Oxana stated. “He is the God of our kind, not yours.”
“And you, a mere mortal, pretend to know what is in the mind of God?” Rose asked. “That seems pretty arrogant.”
The priestess glanced at Roxi. “You’re sure this will work?”
“Yes, it will,” Roxi answered. “Your people have seen the tests.”
The priests that stood by the inner vestibule door all nodded. “Alright then,” Oxana finally said. “If the Stickman allows you to live, you may flee and we will not pursue. Our God is wise beyond our knowing, so if you survive there must be a reason, and we are not fit to question it.”
“Remove their chains,” Roxi ordered the guards. “The metal might interfere with the pulse, and I want to be sure that these two are dead.”
Finally, unencumbered, Liam and Rose waited before the machines.
“Walk,” Priestess Oxana commanded. “Go and find your freedom, whether it be the burning death of the pulse, or whatever life you find beyond the outer door. Let the will of the Stickman prevail.”
Together, hand in hand, they stepped forward, then paused between the devices. A moment later Liam heard the clank of a mechanical switch, and they ran.
A terrible resonance hit them just as they passed through the outer door. From inside, the priestess shouted, “Demons, you are free to wander forever through the ruined world our God created!”
Liam began pushing the hatch closed, and at the last moment saw Roxi standing with tear-filled eyes. He smiled at her, thankful for her feigned betrayal that had saved them.
“Can they follow us?” Rose asked as the door slammed shut. “Oxana said they wouldn’t, but I don’t trust her.”
“We have some time before they can come after us,” he responded. “They’ll need the electric motors to open the door, and the pulse probably fried them.”
Rain thundered down from a glowering sky as the red specter of the sun partially hid behind tumultuous dark clouds; the earth had become a wet and forbidding place. “What do we do now?” his sister asked.
He shrugged. “Let’s get our things from the burial mound, and then find a place to live.”
Part 3: Disjunction
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
William Shakespeare
- The Merchant of Venice
Chapter 20: Alone
Rain fell heavy on their shoulders and pounded the black muddy earth at their feet. A shockingly cold wind blew from the high mountains to the north and west, bending the deluge to its will. Below them, the orchard and once verdant forest had been reduced to charred stumps and twisted black branches. Further away, the quiet creek, where he had first met Alice and her family, raged in a boiling torrent.
“Let’s pick up our stuff and get out of here.” Rose’s black hair stuck to her face and wound itself in wet tangles across her shoulders and down her back.
Liam nodded, and they walked downhill to the burial mound. He lifted the small capstone that covered the passageway to the mass grave. “Someone’s been here before us.” Their laser rifles were still there, but two large satchels had been added.
Rose set her rifle aside, then carefully opened one of the waterproof bags, and smiled. “Oh, thank goodness, someone left us some clothes… and hats!”
He donned a wide brim hat and grinned. “Yeah, this helps a lot, and it looks like I’ve got an oilskin duster coat too. This stuff reminds me of what we wore in Flatiron City.”
“Yes, it does,” she replied. “I wonder who left it here? Maybe Roxi?”
“Is there a note or anything?”
They both sorted through their bags for a moment, then Rose straightened up, holding a laminated handwritten message. “It’s from Keith and Denise.”
He stood behind his sister and started reading.
‘Dearest Liam and Rose,’ Denise’s graceful script began.
‘Keith and I are sorry it’s come to this. None of what has happened was planned or is in any way your fault. But everything got really complicated after you guys went into hiding. Everyone was just so angry because of what you both were, and we had to tell horrible lies about you to keep from being attacked. So, for our safety and to avoid suspicion by the priests, we moved in together.
‘It was only me and Keith against everyone else, and with no one else to turn to, I guess it was inevitable that we fell in love. To make everything even more complicated, there’s a baby involved now. I’m pregnant, about three months along, and Roxi says that it will be a boy. That’s why we had to tell the priests where you guys were living. They knew we were once together with you, and they threatened my baby. We had to do something, and there just wasn’t any other choice. We’re so very sorry we hurt you.
‘We will always love you both, and wish we could have told you all this in person, but that would have put us and our baby in danger. We really hope you two can find a nice safe place to live that’s far away from the craziness of our kind. We want you to have a good life and hope that we can meet up again someday.
‘With love always, Denise and Keith.’
Rose slumped against the stone wall surrounding the burial mound and stared sightlessly at the wet earth at her feet. She might have been crying, but the torrential rain washed her tears away. “I always knew that I wasn’t good enough for him.”
Liam sat down beside her. “Why do you say that? You’re beautiful, smart, and fun to be around; any guy would be lucky to be your partner.”
“But I can’t have babies.” She took a deep shuddering breath. “This stupid body that I’m stuck inside of isn’t real. I’m not a real woman. That’s why Keith loves Denise, and not me.”
He was completely out of his depth and at a loss for words but knew he had to say something. “Rose, you and every other woman out there are far more than baby incubators. People want partners to share their life with, and babies could be a bonus, but those kids will grow up and move away. They’ll find their own partners and have lives of their own. In the end, we’re always left with the person we’ve chosen. Relationships are about the journey we take together and the bond we build along the way. Having b
abies can be a part of that, but it’s not everything.”
“In my head, I know that, but this still hurts,” she answered. “But aren’t you mad that Keith could put a baby in your partner when you couldn’t?”
He frowned. “Maybe. Yeah. Now that I think about it, sure; I feel inadequate I guess.” The rain was pooling around his glossy black boots and his feet were getting wet. “There are too many emotions for me to sort through, so I guess I really don’t know what I’m feeling. Like you, I’ve always known I was infertile, and the women I was with didn’t seem to mind. Denise had said that it didn’t matter because she loved me, but now I wonder if that was a lie.”
“Before learning that I wasn’t human, I always dreamed of having babies and felt horrible about myself because I couldn’t.” Rose looked up and let the rain wash her face. “It was like I wasn’t fully a woman, but then I met Keith and we were so wonderful together that I thought that I could be enough for him. I guess I was wrong.”
“Yeah, maybe we both were, but that speaks more about them than it does us. We were loving and honest, and they weren’t.” Liam pulled an oilskin duster out of her satchel and laid it across her wet shoulders, then plopped a wide brim hat on her soggy head. “Come on.” He stood up and offered his hand. “Let’s get out of here. We need to be gone before any of the nut cases inside open the hatch and come after us. We’ll talk more about this mess tonight.”
Rose’s smile was good to see. She took her bag and slung her L80 rifle over her shoulder. “We’ll head southeast,” she said. “In the opposite direction that the Scarred Faithful Army is coming from. I studied the local maps and saw that there are some small cities out that way where we might find shelter.”
*****
They slogged through deep black mud along the side of a churning river for several kilometers. Talking was impossible in the pounding rain, which might have been for the best because it gave them both time to quietly work through their grief. After the river turned west, they came upon an ancient tarmac highway and followed it south, away from the old town of Steamboat Springs.
He recalled their arrival at the shelter after the fall of Pike City. All four of them had sat in the bed of an old truck, blissful in their companionship but woefully ignorant of the persecution that lied ahead. Could any of their current troubles have been avoided if they had chosen differently? No, probably not. There was no way they could have anticipated the twists and turns of the last few months. At every occasion, they had made the best decision, but only a few of them had gone right.
What would happen to their friends and former partners when the enemy army arrived? Speculation was fruitless, but he worried anyway. Could the resistance overthrow the priests and drive them outside before the invaders showed up? Even if they succeeded, the shelter could not hold off the army for long.
He still believed the safest thing was for everyone to pretend to comply with Adar’s cult, then look for a way to escape when outside conditions improved. When would that happen though? Mountainous black clouds continued to roll in from the west; the ground was already saturated, how much more rain would it take before mudslides rolled down the mountain and buried their shelter entrance?
The deluge wasn’t their only problem though. Dark clouds were blocking the sun, and the temperature was already hovering just above freezing. The rain could turn to snow, and if that continued long enough glaciers would form. The colder climate might bring a new ice age which would resurface the planet and end all human life. That would leave only him and his sister to roam the icy wastelands, forever alone. He sighed. That was a bleak prospect, but maybe he was being overly pessimistic.
He quickened his pace and came alongside his sister. “Where are we going?”
She was lost in her own thoughts and seemed startled by his arrival. “Oh!” Rose looked at him and smiled. “The army is coming from Glenwood, which is on the banks of the Colorado River to the west, so we’re heading east. There are quite a few towns out this way, but I think our best bet is the small city of Granby. There were people still living there when we were taken from Pike City to our shelter. Hopefully, there’s enough of it still standing that we can find a place to live.”
“How far away is it?”
“Granby’s about 130 kilometers from Steamboat, so we’ve got a long hike ahead of us.”
“The further away, the better,” he replied.
“Yes,” she agreed. “We need a place where we can start over.”
They walked at an easy pace following the ancient highway as it wound its way up into the mountains. Occasionally they spotted animals within the tortured forest on either side of the road. Most were small burrowing creatures such as rabbits, but they also saw a few foxes, and once they caught sight of a bear. The sightings were a promising sign, and the hills around them were riddled with caves, which might shelter other beasts. It was good to see so much life, and he hoped that some of it would survive the coming winter.
Surprisingly, a few homes and barns had endured the conflagration, but these were mostly made from stone or concrete. Wooden supports had burned, and aluminum and steel were left warped from the intense heat. If structures in Granby were in a similar condition, they might find a comfortable place to live. Maybe there was a good future waiting for them after all.
After climbing a long straight stretch of highway, Rose stopped and turned around. He looked back to see what had caught her attention as he joined her. In the distance, he saw the ruins of old Steamboat Springs surrounded by a vast blackened forest, the serene and oddly pretty scene was faintly illuminated by a dull red setting sun that managed to briefly peek through the troubled clouds.
They stood together for a time, silently reminiscing about their lost home and the future they might have had there. He thought of Denise and his friends and worried about everyone’s fate. Regardless of the pain he still felt from their betrayal, he missed them. Their lives would be difficult and dangerous, and he hoped they could prevail and find a good future.
Rose looked at him and smiled. “The way forward is ahead of us, not behind.”
He nodded slowly, then together they turned away from their past and continued their journey.
*****
Liam was surprised to have found enough wood for a fire. At first, the wooden beams within the old stone farmhouse and the blackened forest outside had seemed a lost cause. Beneath the charcoal though, the wood was unmarred and ideal for building a fire. Their bodies provided more than enough energy to keep them warm, but the golden flames were comforting and would keep the animals away.
They relaxed before a large stone fireplace within what was once the main room of a home built with thick and sturdy stone walls and a steeply inclined metal roof. Several wooden tables and chairs had survived the conflagration with only minor scorching, but most of the furniture hadn’t fared as well. None of that mattered though; although still heartbroken, they were warm and comfortable and felt safe for the first time in a long while. Fear of discovery had become the pervasive background of their lives. Once away from humanity that unrealized weight had lifted and they felt lighter and more relaxed with its absence.
He sighed contentedly as he leaned back against the ragged remains of a leather sofa and stared into the golden flames. His coat, hat, and boots were strategically placed such that they would dry. Rain still fell outside, but the force of it seemed to have lessened. Maybe the earth would avoid an ice age after all.
“Do you think we’ll ever find love?” Rose asked.
“Huh,” he grunted. “Does it matter? Humans are a bad choice for mates. We’ll always outlive them, and our hearts will break when they die.”
“Maybe pain is the lesson of love,” she said. “In olden times, humans kept little animals with them for companionship. Those beasts were short-lived, and people were heartbroken when they died, and yet, they always found another creature to care for. Could the pain of loss be what gives meaning to love?”
“Huh. I’m out of my depth Sis.” He sat forward and stared into the glowing flames. “I used to think that the bond between partners was an evolutionary necessity. Babies are born completely helpless, and it takes at least two people to feed, support, and keep them alive. I thought that love was merely the glue that held the parental bond together for that purpose, but now I’m not so sure.”
“A lifetime alone would be pretty awful.”
“Yeah, it would,” he replied. “But the alternative is pain like we felt today. Human partners will either leave us to have babies, or they’ll die and we’ll be left to go on alone without them. Is love worth suffering that pain over and over?”
“Yes, I think it is.” Rose nodded slowly. “We both remember our Mom and Dad, don’t we? They’re not with us anymore, but those memories make me feel good.”
“But Sis, those memories were implanted by our builder, they aren’t real.”
“Maybe, but the feelings I have when I think of them are real.”
“I suppose so; illusions can have the same impact as reality.” He smiled. “It’s the ghosts of our past that give life meaning.”
Rose was silent for a long while, then finally said, “I still worry about them. I mean, how crazy is that? Keith betrayed me, and here I am obsessing about his safety.”
“Yeah, I’m concerned about Denise too. The Scarred Faithful will come to Steamboat soon, and I can’t see anything good coming of that.”
“Can the Resistance hold them off?” Rose asked. “Remember all those laser rifles we found? They might be able to fight the army with those.”
“It won’t work,” he responded. “There are too many believers inside the shelter that would gladly open the doors and let the army in.”
“What about their baby?” she whispered. “Yes, Keith betrayed me and got another woman pregnant, but I just can’t wish any harm onto an innocent child.”
