The Fall of Man: The Saboteur Chronicles Book 1

by J. V. Roberts

  “Nah, she wouldn’t, but it’s not like she’s out checking. She’s asleep herself.”

  “She’s got Zach working nights?”

  “Yep, that’s his penance, along with them missing fingers of his.”

  “A lot of bad blood there, I take it?”

  “Yeah, things are a bit sour.” They passed by Luis and Russ as they headed towards the gatehouse. The two men were still laughing. “Don’t be jerking around too much fellas, Mother is watching.”

  “Yeah, we’re on it.” Russ said.

  Dominic looked towards Mother’s house, towering above the rest of the settlement. He could feel her eyes penetrating him behind the cracked shutters, sipping her chalice, and clutching her book.

  “We keep all the rifles in here. We’ve had some spares come up lately. We’ve lost a few people. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories by now.” Jeb held the gatehouse door for him.

  “Not really, care to fill me in?”

  Jeb laughed and let the door swing shut. The darkness was pushed back by a single lamp burning in the far back corner of the room. “Nah, that’s not really my place. I try to keep my nose as clean as I can. You’ll hear in time, I’m sure. Word has got a way of traveling around here.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out the boundaries, so I know where to step.”

  Jeb loaded him down with a generic black rifle and two fully loaded magazines. “You’ll figure it out. Just take your post on time, keep your eyes up, and go home at the end of the day; you’ll get along just fine.”

  “You know, when I see Zach and his fingers… I mean, that was her son, right? Just spooks me a little. I’m of no relation to her, how easy would it be for her to chop me down?”

  Jeb pursed his lips and nodded, as if Dominic had made a valid point. “Pretty easy, I ain’t gonna lie to you. Mother cares about one thing; the Scriptures. There ain’t a bone in her body that bends. You do something to shame her or the Creator and there’s gonna be consequences; relation or not. Zach is a walking, talking testimony to that fact.”

  “I imagine he’s pretty bitter about that.”

  “You could say that.”

  “You think he’s a danger to Mother?”

  Jeb put a hand on Dominic’s back, moving him towards the door. “I think we’ve talked enough about this. Let’s get you up there on the wall.”

  Back out in the sunlight, Dominic took notice of the men walking the wall. They were slumped over, sweat pouring from their bodies, swaying as if they were half blind. Then he looked to Mother’s house, sitting there, staring down at him. There were two men at the bottom of the stairs; Toby and one other guard. How easy it would be to slice through them, kick down her door, and put one in her head.

  But no, that wasn’t the mission.

  That’s not how he worked.

  He was a Saboteur.

  He was death’s silent partner.

  Lerah walked small circles around the cramped greenhouse. Her clothes clung desperately to her skin. She kept pulling the cloth away from her torso, but it was a futile venture, the moment she let go of the fabric it recoiled and plastered itself to her skin again. The person responsible for showing her the ropes was late. She didn’t have the slightest clue where to start or what to do. All she saw were rows of sweating greenery. Did she pluck or water? Everything looked to be in order, bright and healthy.

  Just as she was devising her escape, the front tent flaps parted and a frail woman with red rings around her eyes came rolling in. “I’m so sorry I’m late. I slept a little bit longer than I intended.” She could’ve used a few more hours from the looks of her. There was a nasty gash on her face as well, not too dissimilar from the one worn by Dominic, except hers was fresh.

  “It’s okay. I was just getting a feel for the place,” Lerah said, the sweat dripping steadily from beneath her chin. “You’ve got a pretty good variety in here. We had a small garden back where I came from, but the choices were rather limited.”

  The plants seemed to be the furthest thing from the woman’s mind, but she suffered Lerah’s commentary nonetheless. “It’s pretty unique out here. My husband and my… well… it’s just me and my husband. We hadn’t seen anything like it until we got here. It’s a pretty simple system. The temperature is controlled by the airflow coming through the tent. It gets hot in here, but the sun doesn’t touch anything directly. These are all hot weather plants, too. It took a lot of scavenging to come up with the seeds, a lot of trial and error.” She motioned Lerah over. “Come here, I’ll take you on a quick tour. Over there you’ve got your gourds,” she took Lerah by the elbow and pointed across the room, moving left to right, “then you’ve got your hot peppers, beans, basil, spinach, and then, Mother’s personal favorite, nopales.”

  “Nopales?”

  “To be honest, we don’t yield much of it. It takes a long time to grow and most of it goes to Mother. I’ve never tasted it myself.”

  “Seems like a raw deal.”

  “We do what we must, I’m here to serve and multiply,” the woman didn’t sound especially convincing. “Oh, how rude of me, I didn’t even introduce myself. I’m Belinda Zulma.”

  “Lerah Adams,” she said, wrapping the woman’s spindly fingers in her palm. “Sorry, I’m pretty sweaty.”

  Belinda gave a threadbare smile. “It comes with the territory. You’ll get used to it. One thing is for sure, you spend a day in here and you’re guaranteed a good night’s rest.”

  “That’s something to look forward to, at least.”

  “If today doesn’t do the trick, I can always work you harder tomorrow.” Even with the smile and the warm words, there was something incredibly sad about Belinda. “So, I guess there’s no better way to learn than to just dive on in.”

  “I’ll follow your lead.”

  Belinda led her to the first row of planters. She took one of the leaves delicately between her fingers. “It’s important that you develop a philosophy about plants.”

  “I don’t quite follow.”

  “It’s easy to get lost in the misery of the heat and the monotony of this job. Trust me; I’ve been in and out of here for a long time. But if you develop a philosophy on it, a perspective, then it makes all of this a lot easier, it gives a sense of importance to what you’re doing.”

  “So what’s your philosophy?”

  The woman massaged the leaf with her thumb as she spoke. “Without plants there is no life. What we do in here, it’s the heartbeat of this settlement. Those guys out there may never recognize it. They’ll probably never thank you. But as long as you recognize the importance of what you’re doing, it makes the day go by a little faster.”

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “Good. So, what do you say we start pruning?”

  “You follow, I’ll lead.”

  It didn’t take Lerah long to learn her way around. Before long she was out in front of Belinda, running the show. Time flew by, daylight faded, and soon it was time to head home.

  38

  Dominic hung around the gate after his shift ended, chatting it up with the incoming night crew, regaling some of the younger guards with stories of the war. Zach appeared, dragging his feet towards the ladder behind the lockup.

  He stopped him before he could hit the rungs. “Hey, Zach, how’re things?”

  “What are you still doing here? Didn’t your shift end? Didn’t get your ass licked enough by the day crew?”

  “I feel like we’ve really hit it off on the wrong foot.”

  “We didn’t hit it off on any foot. I’m not looking to make friends.”

  “Ah, come on, everyone needs a friend.”

  “No, big shot, they don’t, friends just end up dragging you down in the end.”

  “Or chopping off your fingers?”

  Zach pushed him. He didn’t move. “What the hell is your problem?”

  Dominic didn’t react to the aggression. “I’m just saying, I get where you’re coming from.”


  “So you’ve had your kin turn on you? You’ve had them hold you down while some guy lopped off pieces of your body? You think you know about that?”

  “Yeah, I think I know a little something about that.”

  “Yeah, well, I ain’t looking to make no friends. So just get on out of here.”

  “But you are looking to get revenge, right?”

  “What’d you say?”

  “If someone did that to me… humiliated me like that… I’d want payback.”

  “I ain’t you.”

  “I’m betting me and you have more in common than you think.”

  “You bet wrong.”

  “Did I? That’s why you’re working so hard to shoot straight again, isn’t it? Payback? You want to put one right between the eyes of Toby and Mother.”

  Zach was frantic, head spinning as he searched for any ears that may have heard Dominic’s words. Then his panic turned to anger and he had Dominic backed against the lockup, a rifle barrel planted firmly in his ribs. “What you just said is heresy. Mother will have you taking the Fall before sundown tomorrow, you and your lady.”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think you’re going to tell Mother about any of this.” Dominic stole a glance at Zach’s trigger finger, just to be safe; it was resting flat against the body of the rifle.

  “You sound confident for a man standing at the wrong end of a gun.”

  “I’ve been at the wrong end of plenty of guns, but that’s not why I sound confident.”

  “You go on then, stop talking in riddles and half truths before I lose my patience.”

  “You go to Mother with this and it’ll be my word against yours. She’s so paranoid she’s just as likely to chuck you over with me. Aside from that, I can see in your eyes that you want revenge. You want to make them answer for hurting you, for humiliating you, for betraying your loyalty.”

  Zach stepped back and lowered the rifle, spitting into the dirt. “Even if what you’re saying were true, which it ain’t, there ain’t nothing to be done. Even without my fingers, I like life. I like breathing.”

  “There’s more to be done than you think. I can help you. It’s not just me. The girl with me, she’s quite capable. Blake is with us too.”

  Zach started laughing. He laid his maimed hand against his forehead and fell back against a support post. “Holy shit, you’re Union. You’re damned Union. You people just don’t learn. We throw two of you over the edge and two more show up. Oh, wait till Mother hears—”

  Dominic’s hand closed around Zach’s throat. “Enough with the threats. You go to Mother and I’ll tell her you’ve been working with us all along. I’ll tell her about your little revenge fantasy. You’ll go down with me.” Dominic slowly relinquished his grip. “Or we can come to an arrangement.”

  Zach sagged forward, cherishing the free air, coughing and spitting. After a few deep breaths he straightened up, clinging to the little dignity he had left, holding Dominic’s pitch black, nightmare gaze. “What sort of arrangement we talking?”

  “How would you like to run this place?”

  “Oh yeah, really? What’s next for me? Lord Marshal of the Union?”

  Dominic just stared.

  “Hot damn, you’re serious. Did a mortar round go off too close to your head? These people hate my guts. Mother has made sure of that. Ain’t no one gonna follow me.”

  “When they hear your story they will, especially if you got a witness or two to back you up.”

  Zach lodged his tongue in his cheek as if he were trying to hold something in place. “So you and the Doc been talking.”

  “We had a small heart-to-heart.”

  Zach turned his head towards the neon stars. A whole new realm of possibilities had just been opened to him. He looked to be actively checking the weight of each one, trying to decide if they were too heavy to bear. “I’m losing my edge. It used to be that I could see stuff coming before it got to me. But with Mother, what she did, and now you, I didn’t see none of it coming.”

  “Happens to the best of us.”

  “That how you got that beauty mark on your face?”

  “This old thing?” Dominic ran his hand over the familiar indent sullying his features. “Yeah, it was something like that. An old colleague gave me this; we had a bit of a falling out.”

  “He cut you pretty good. Least he didn’t try to kill you.”

  “Oh no, he tried. He tried hard. He got a few good pokes in on me.”

  “I’m guessing you got the upper hand.”

  “I managed to get to my pistol. That backed him down.”

  “You didn’t kill him?”

  “Nah, I’d had my fill of killing at that point. We went our separate ways.”

  “I don’t really got that option.”

  “No, you really don’t.”

  All of the hostility seemed to have vanished. “Don’t leave me hanging here. What crazy plan are you folks working up?”

  “We’ve gotta figure out a way to get all the people here gathered together at the same time.”

  “Most likely way to do that would be during a service. Mother ain’t usually around for those either. It’ll be my brother leading the thing.”

  Dominic began playing the step-by-step in his head: seizing the stage from Toby, crowd control, trying to ensure that no guns were fired in the process—that was the main concern—if a shot went off every guard with a gun would converge on the place. “No Mother means less guards, right?”

  Zach shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, if she’s not there, it’s just one guy with a gun and then Toby; he’ll probably have his pistol.”

  “We’re gonna meet up at Blake’s place tomorrow night and really map this thing out, think you can pull it off?”

  “Yeah, no problem, there’s no one out here counting heads. I’ll be there.”

  Dominic extended his hand, “We good?”

  He set his rifle down and accepted the gesture. “You’re really gonna make me the leader of this place?” he asked, shining his front teeth with his tongue.

  “That’s the plan.”

  He nodded. “Then yeah, we’re good.”

  39

  The next morning Dominic was walking the wall with the sun on his face and the sweat on his brow. He saw Jeb but not Zach. They’d apparently forgone their daily target practice. He was hoping that the bastard hadn’t gotten cold feet.

  Nah, he’s in.

  He’d seen it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. He had that hunger for power and revenge; a potent cocktail that couldn’t be diluted by logic and common sense.

  Dominic took slow deliberate steps, there was no reason to rush it; he was going to walk the same square of wood countless times before the day saw its end. He was watching the people below him in the settlement, observing the meticulous way they went about their business, each well practiced in their craft, each guided by routine. Lerah was among them, carrying a row of plants in each arm, her hands gloved up to the elbow, looking downright miserable. He called out to her. She raised her middle finger discreetly and disappeared into the greenhouse.

  Plodding footsteps approached Dominic from behind. They shook the entire walkway; the world’s slowest stampede. “New guy, how’s the heat treating you? Wanna puke yet? We’ve had guys puke,” Toby sounded rather hopeful.

  Dominic turned on one heel, doing his best to work up a convincing smile. “I’m feeling right at home.”

  “Are you, really?”

  “Born and bred in it.”

  “Well good on you. Don’t wanna be hauling you off the wall.”

  “I don’t think I’d want you hauling me anywhere either.”

  “Well, I’m glad we’re of a like mind.” Toby wrapped his hands around two of the wooden spikes and leaned out over the wall, looking east. The Wastes were stretched out before him, the merciless embrace of the Outland. It glittered like diamonds. A thin haze hung in the air, distorting the images. In the distance, black claws spr
outed from the earth, running across the horizon like jagged teeth. “Have you been there?”

  “The Glass Mountains?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “You know what’s on the other side, right?”

  “The irradiated seas and the Rebel armies; that’s the rumor anyway.”

  “They say, out there beyond the mountains, that bolts of lightning tether the earth to the sky. That creatures, not man and not beast, roam the lands, feasting on human flesh.”

  “Well, I don’t know how much of that is true. Could just be men spinning tales over tall glasses of hard drink.”

  “Folks got a tendency to let word of mouth keep them in line. They don’t wanna risk it, they’re happy to let other folks go before them and test the waters.”

  “Folks do have a knack for playing it safe, its self preservation.”

  Toby unhooked himself from the view. He had his hands perched on his hips. He was a good deal shorter than Dominic and a good deal wider around the waist, but that didn’t dissuade his confidence. “You probably heard a story or two about this place.”

  “I’ve heard talk, but I like to figure things out for myself.”

  “Oh yeah, talk they do, they most assuredly do,” Toby squinted up at the sun, clicking his rotten teeth together. “But you may want to think about that whole self preservation thing as you go about your business here.”

  “Think about it?”

  “You know, mull it over, good and hard.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I’m of the mind that if enough folks say something, there may be a bit of truth to it.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not”

  “I think it’s best we go with perhaps. What do you say?”

  “I say, how about we stop doing this little dance and you get to the point of your visit. You don’t really strike me as the most social sort, so what’s your purpose with me?”

  “Dominic, you wanna make this hard, I’m happy to.” Toby raised an index finger and looked as if, for a moment, he was going to jab it into Dominic’s chest. He stopped just short. “You stay away from Zach, you hear?”