Ascension: Children of The Spear: Book one

by Rhett Gervais

  Gwen could see the old man wince in pain, but more, she could see indignation, the look he gave Arthur sending a surge of fear to her gut. This was not a man to threaten.

  “What are you doing, boy? Just because I show you the occasional kindness does not mean you can interrupt me. I will see to it that you are punished,” he growled, pale eyes never leaving Arthur’s.

  Gwen could see the struggle in Arthur’s eyes as he looked back and forth from the major bishop to her. His actions seemed to shock even himself.

  “I have never asked you for anything, I have followed every order without question. I am asking you now: don’t do this,” he said, hesitating. Steeling his resolve, he squeezed harder.

  “Arthur, if you do not remove your hand from my person, you will regret it for the rest of your life,” he threatened, his eyes smoldering.

  “I swear I’ll break your arm into a thousand pieces,” he snapped back.

  “For the last time, if you don’t take your hand off me, I’ll return you to the rat-infested hole I found you in, and I will empty my Remington into your bloated father and junkie mother. Do you understand me?”

  Gwen was not sure what was going on. She could see the painful struggle on Arthur’s face, torn between rage and sadness. He held the bishop’s gaze for a moment longer before releasing his arm with a frustrated sigh.

  “You’re a real bastard, you know that?” said Arthur, falling back into his seat and bowing his head, scrubbing a hand across his eyes. “I’ll go see about the driver and get us on our way,” he said, reaching for the door.

  “No, Arthur, I would like you to stay. This will be part of your punishment,” said the major bishop with a joyless smile before picking up the bottle and once again offering it to her. “Now, young lady, about that drink.”

  After a year hanging out at frat houses and college parties, Gwen understood. She had been offered “drinks” many times. She sighed, understanding that she wasn’t quite done spending time with dirty old men in the backs of cars, but the major bishop’s offer interested her. She had done a lot more for less. His SUV made it clear that he was far better off than any of the “friends” she had made since Brandon left her. She would make sure not to waste her opportunity.

  “You don’t need this,” she said, taking the bottle from his frail hands and tossing it to Arthur. Locking eyes with the small boy, she began, “I don’t need you to protect me, not that you seem able.”

  Giving the old man a coy smile, she straddled his hips, running her hands over his chest before lightly biting his neck. The major bishop’s eyes went wide, stunned for an instant before dropping his mask of kindness and giving her a predatory smile. “Now, my dear bishop, tell me what you like, and remember you said I would want for nothing, so show me what you can give me…”

  Chapter 6: In a New York Minute

  August 2073

  The stale air was filled with the stinking odor of sweat, and the stifling heat of so many bodies pressed against her was unbearable, making her skin itch. Rowen was small, easily swept up in the surging tide of the crowd, and had lost all sense of direction, her vision consisting of only legs and elbows as she fought to stay on her feet, the effort driving her past the point of exhaustion, her arms and legs like rubber, throat raw from screaming. She had tried staying near her fallen aunt, only to be tossed around like a rag doll by people desperate to find refuge from the hail of gunfire that filled the Square.

  She stumbled once, twice, then a third time before falling hard on the burning pavement. She curled into a ball, wrapping her arms around herself, trying to ward off haphazard kicks and stomps, enduring the pain of each sharp heel on her back, every boot tripping over her. Her vision dimmed, spots began appearing in the corners of her eyes from lack of air, darkness replacing light—

  “I got ya, hold on.”

  She gasped as strong hands lifted her high above the cloying mob, amazed at the feeling of sweet oxygen filling her lungs, surprised and grateful to see Jonah’s handsome face, creased with worry, dragging her into a storefront filled with cheap postcards, hats, key chains, and gaudy plastic replicas of the Statue of Liberty.

  Catching her breath in their small refuge, Rowen watched the chaos with her jaw hanging open, the fleeing crowd pushing, shoving, and trampling one another, all sense of humanity erased in the flight for survival. “Where’s Dad?” she asked, a pang of worry growing in her stomach as she glanced back at her brother.

  “Just up the street in another storefront, last I saw,” said Jonah, wringing his hands. “He was looking for Aunt Vanessa.”

  “She’s out there,” whispered Rowen, swallowing hard. “She was bleeding, and I don’t think—”

  Without warning, Jonah wrapped his arms around her, pulling her deeper into the storefront, his breathing sharp and fast in her ear. She didn’t understand, struggling against him at first, until she recognized the deep thrum of compressed fuel exploding from a rocket turbine, the high-pitched spinning of a rotary cannon spraying thousands of rounds. She only caught a glimpse of the drones that roared by. Dozens of them, matte black, flat and angular, designed for stealth but firing indiscriminately at the fleeing people, painting the hot August concrete red.

  She pushed Jonah aside, about to speak when she heard it, like a pounding heart, the deep thumping of helicopter blades closing in on their location. She poked her head out from undercover to see a black-clad helicopter drifting over the Square, weapons bristling. Her spirits lifted suddenly at the possibility that the deadly war machine would save the day, only to have her hopes dashed moments later when thick, black smoke billowed from its tail. She watched in horrid fascination as the drones circled back, like wolves hounding wounded prey.

  Rowen covered her mouth in shock as drones stratified once again, almost too fast to see, cannons spitting fire and fury at the chopper, cutting without effort through its armored plating, bullets diving deep into the heart of the faltering beast. Rowen felt her gut wrench watching the engine compartment suddenly explode in a torrent of twisted metal and smoke. She flinched as the machine spun in a wide circle, its tail shattering billboards and holo-projectors all across the area before impacting hard on the side of the building, sending shockwaves throughout the Square and knocking her and Jonah from their feet.

  “What do we do?” asked Jonah, eyes wide, struggling to his feet.

  Rowen took a deep breath, amazed at how quickly it could all change, the bright lights, the towers of glass and steel reduced to rubble and debris in the blink of an eye. Gazing out at the dead or dying that filled the Square, she swallowed hard, tamping down her feelings. “We have to find Dad. Check your phone, he may have tried calling.”

  Nodding, Jonah fumbled with the device, shaking his head a moment later as he showed her the blank screen. Peeking out of the storefront, Rowen could see that things were dying down. In the distance she could hear sirens, the crowds escaped or dead. The drones had moved on, and she decided they should too. The last thing she wanted was to die in the entrance of a souvenir shop, much less in this city. “We find Dad, get somewhere safe,” she said, locking eyes with her brother. “We stay alive.”

  Chapter 7: Clean and Sober

  December 2075

  She’d forgotten something. She didn’t know what it was, only that it was important, like she was supposed to meet a friend and couldn’t quite remember where. She only knew that there was this empty space that needed to be filled. It was like this all the time now that her head was clear. She couldn’t understand how normal people went their whole lives like this.

  “Ms. Stone, are you listening?”

  Gwen flinched, blinking away the cobwebs. “What? Yeah, sorry, can you start over? Not sleeping so good since you folks messed me up.”

  The greasy-haired man gave her a yellow-toothed smile, making a note on his tablet. “We made you better, Ms. Stone, don’t forget that! As I was saying, the testing we will do today will create a baseline for the future, allowin
g us to track your progress.” Gwen forced a small smile onto her face, one she used with clients when she thought they were gross. With his bad hair and blotchy skin, the reverend was definitely in the repulsive category. The way he leered at her made her want to vomit. She had met lots of older guys like him during her last few months in Ann Arbor, men who’d stopped trying a long time ago and couldn’t be bothered to wash properly. She swore she could almost smell the stale sweat from his balls.

  “You expect me to move this shit?” said Gwen, fingering a stack of weights taller and wider than she was. She had spent time in the weight rooms before—Brandon’s frat-boy friends like to show off how much they could bench or curl—but nothing compared to this. The dumbbells and metal plates looked like they were made for giants, every piece of dull gray training equipment built to a massive scale, almost cartoonish, each piece bigger than the last, every machine bolted to the floor as if they expected someone to run off with them.

  “No, of course not,” smiled the reverend, looking down at his pad then back at her. “You’ve been ascended for less than two weeks, so I doubt very much you will be able to move it. The track the weights are attached to will guide you, and make sure everything stays stable so that you don’t hurt your pretty, little head.”

  Gwen bit her bottom lip, stopping herself from telling him to go fuck himself. Instead, she gave him a half smile and turned to face the stack of weights, only to see Arthur at the far end of the gym, watching as always, his face painted with the idiotic grin he had whenever he looked at her. Sighing, she gave him a half salute and returned her attention to the heavy plates of steel.

  Arthur was a constant presence from day one at this place, her own personal shadow. When she had awakened from the nightmare of what they did to her, she found him at her side, worrying like a mother hen. He made himself her official guide, saying that he had gone through the process alone and didn’t want her to suffer like he did. The smart part of her supposed he was right, and most of the time he was kind, helpful in smoothing things out for her, and if she was honest, she enjoyed getting lost in those dark eyes, often having to control the twitch in her fingers that made her want to run them through his thick curls. The other part of her—the crazy part, her mother had called it—wanted nothing more than to use the metal plates from the gym to bash in his teeth every time he prattled on about some ridiculous rule or fact.

  “Anytime, Ms. Stone. We don’t have all day!”

  “Yeah yeah, fuck you, asshole,” she muttered under her breath. She leaned against the stack with her eyes closed and her palms flat against the metal, bracing her feet.

  “What was that?” asked the reverend, his voice inching higher.

  “Nothing, just...nothing,” she said over her shoulder. She took a deep breath, wanting nothing more than to slap the yellow teeth out of his mouth, put him in his place. She would have done that in the old days. Some people just needed a good cuff to the mouth, and she enjoyed being the one to make it happen, but she knew it would probably be a bad idea. Instead, she pretended the stack of weights in front of her was him, gums flapping away. She closed her eyes, pouring all of her annoyance into the task, and pushed with everything she had, hoping to prove the asshole—

  She gasped in shock. She stumbled forward with her arms flailing wide to keep her balance, the weights suddenly having vanished. The terrible sound of metal tearing was followed by a deafening, hollow crash that made her jump back.

  Gwen opened her eyes to the sight of heavy plates scattered across the gym, individual weights drilled deep into the far wall. Arthur was standing with eyes wide, his caramel-colored skin suddenly white as a sheet. She looked back and forth between her hands and the torn metal track on the floor where everything had been bolted down, a smile widening on her face. “Fuckin’ aye, I could get used to this,” she said, nodding to herself.

  “What did you do! Stupid girl!” The reverend was running up behind her, panting like a dog, the stink of his breath making her gag.

  “Who the fuck are you calling stupid?” said Gwen, suddenly taking a step toward him, her smile growing wider when he flinched back. “You said push, so I fuckin’ pushed!”

  The reverend raised his hands, palms out, lips twisting with a simpering smile. “Sorry, sorry, I was just shocked, not thinking. No one’s ever done that before,” he said in a shaky voice before furiously tapping on his tablet.

  “Just how much weight did I push?” asked Gwen, raising an eyebrow. The greasy-haired man shook his head, not meeting her gaze.

  “It’s just under a metric ton,” said Arthur from behind her. “Even after six months, I still can’t move it all.”

  “Bullshit,” she said, looking him up and down, sure he was playing with her. She waved her hand toward the damaged equipment. “Did you see that!”

  “Yes, I saw it a little too close for comfort. I’m lucky to have my head attached. You’re amazing.”

  Gwen couldn’t help but smile. Sometimes he was ok. She just wished—

  “Ms. Stone, you will need to come to the infirmary with me,” said the reverend. “We need to run some tests.”

  She frowned, not wanting to go back, not wanting to do anything with the creepy reverend. She had spent enough time in the last few weeks being poked and prodded, his filthy hands spending way too much time grabbing and groping her tits. “Why? I feel fine, better than fine,” she said with a laugh. “Why don’t you go somewhere, anywhere, and fuck off!”

  “No! Right now,” he said with a squeal, “or do I have to call the major bishop to remind you that you need to follow my orders?”

  Folding her arms across her chest, she stared at him, enjoying the sudden redness in his face, his nostrils flaring as he tried to stare her down.

  The reverend opened his mouth to speak, only to have Arthur silence him with a raised hand. Giving her a tight-lipped smile, he began, “Maybe it would be a good idea to find out how any of this is possible.” Moving closer to her, speaking in a low voice, he said, “Reverend Carmichael is an idiot, but if he tells the major bishop you’re not cooperating, it could go badly. Just play along for a bit. I’ll come with you to watch your back, ok?” he finished, nodding at her.

  With a deep sigh, Gwen blew out her cheeks. “Ok, just ‘cause you asked nicely,” she said, her smile returning as she slipped her arm around his, motioning to Carmichael to lead the way.

  Chapter 8: Seahawk Down

  August 2073

  Rowen glared at her smart device, fighting the urge to smash the stupid thing to bits. It was fully charged, everything green across the board, as her mother used to say, but whatever she did, the power failed every few minutes. Not that it mattered anyway—the city still had a communications blackout with no signals getting in or out. It was the oddest feeling. She had lived her whole life being able, at any time, to use her smart device to get any information she needed, to communicate at will. She felt as though she was missing an arm or a leg. Clearly, whoever the invaders were, they were in complete control.

  They spent the remainder of the day holed up in the souvenir shop, peeking out every few minutes in vain hopes of seeing their father. The sounds of sirens and gunshots echoing in the distance made them think twice about leaving, so they barricaded the door and stayed put. Directly outside, it was quiet. They hadn’t seen any more drones, and the Square was empty, at least from what she could see. The whole area was a wild mess of fallen debris making it difficult to see anything, and the fallen helicopter precariously leaning against one of the buildings drilled home the stark reality that they were trapped in a war zone. The tiny store was little more than four walls packed to the ceiling with junk, things meant to sit on tables collecting dust or given as gifts that were quickly discarded. She wanted to do something, but a quick search of the place yielded nothing interesting, just a scratched and faded aluminum baseball bat that sat beside the cash. Rowen sat with her clothes drenched, sweat dripping down her forehead, miserable in the August
heat, suffering the stale air that only seemed to get worse when the sun went down, humidity playing havoc with her wild curls.

  Beside her, Jonah snorted and snored. “How can he sleep at a time like this,” she muttered under her breath, envious as he slept away on the cool floor, clueless to the world around him. Rowen knew she should do the same; her parents had told her that in the field, sleep was a luxury never to be missed. Jonah had learned that lesson well, but for some reason she was being hardheaded, knowing that just outside the window bodies were haphazardly strewn around the Square, regular people cut down in cold blood by enemy drones, her aunt one of them. Every time she closed her eyes, she could still see her vacant stare, the pool of blood spreading beneath her.

  She rubbed her tired eyes, wanting to forget. With a sigh, she curled up next to her brother in the vain hope of catching some sleep. The cool floor against her cheek was a welcome relief, the steady rhythm of Jonah’s snoring working like strange magic to calm her racing mind. It only took a few moments before she was drifting, enjoying the dreamy comfort between sleep and wakefulness, her eyelids heavy.

  The sound of crunching glass outside brought her fully awake, her heart suddenly pounding out of her chest. Not bothering to be subtle, she rolled into Jonah, shaking him hard by the front of his shirt. “Jonah, get up. Someone’s coming,” she whispered loudly.

  Jonah came awake with a start, pushing her off and bolting to his feet, eyes darting in all directions before his shoulders suddenly slumped. “If you’re waking me up for nothing, I’m gonna kill you!” he said, seeing nothing amiss, nearly falling as Rowen pulled him back into a crouch beside her.

  “Someone’s on the street, really close.”