The wall, p.3
The Wall, page 3
That’s why Renatus created The Middle and herded all first-lifers into it. Once The Wall went up, second-life rights were revoked. But by looking around, you wouldn’t know it. I guess old habits die hard.
This is why my father, Silas, a former senator, opposed the implementation of second-life protocol. He knew human nature, he predicted it would come to this. He used to say, “No life is worth wasting, no matter how many you have. When life isn’t precious, no day is treasured.” It wasn’t until he discovered The Grand Lie, that he finally accepted my uncle’s pleas to become the leader of The Defiance. A position that cost him and my mother their lives.
I have to stop again as a walking skeleton trudges in front of me. Helldust now has jurisdiction over his vacant, black, demon-like eyes. He’s a walking zombie, a phantom of a man. Seems a strong wind would rattle his bones.
I drive past the remnants of a park. The children have tied a thick stick to a rope where a swing set used to be. The chains long since stolen for weapons or locks. The oxidizing tilt-a-whirl no longer spins. Needles litter the sandbox. The parents watch, their eyes muddled with despair and regret. They have spent the winnings of a promised lottery whose check never came. Now the innocent children are left with the debt of this generation’s improvidence. What chance do they have?
I leave town and edge closer towards The Wall. My gas needle quivers towards empty. My stomach not far behind. My hostel rent is overdue. I finally arrive at Sector 258 about four-hundred yards from The Wall; beaming florid images of wealthy, fat, contented Lazurites. Then I see it, a massive, compacted heap of trash freshly parachuted in compliments of Zion, which has been dumping their trash in The Middle for years. There are mountains of waste as far as the eye can see. But we Drecks are proficient at finding utility in what has been discarded by the privileged.
I park my pony and remove a pair of bolt cutters from my trunk. I snap the aluminum banding that holds the trash together, careful not to let them snap and whip me in the face. It has only happened twice before. I put on my face mask, rubber gloves, plug in my earbuds, and like a stray dog I start digging. A young couple trudges past and shake their head; they think I’m a refuse rat, which is fine by me, it covers the fact I’m actually a contraband mule. Boaz has people on the other side of The Wall that pack contraband into red, sealed plastic canisters and place them in the middle of the trash piles right before they are compressed. Once I procure the items, I deliver them, take a cut, and give the rest to Boaz.
Before working for Boaz, I was a customer. That is how I came to own the rare ricochet that hangs on my belt. My contraband weapon of choice. It is similar to what the aborigines of Australia called a boomerang, but with a wider angle. Its electric current is not enough to kill a Lazurite wearing exoarmor, but it will knock them to the ground, if not unconscious. The small receiver on my wrist sends a signal that the ricochet always returns to. It’s more elegant than a gun. And I don’t have to buy bullets, which cost more than gas, if you can find them.
I dredge through the muck, filth, and unmentionables for about an hour. From dirty diapers to rotting meat. As we starve here in The Middle, the Lazurites throw away surplus food. I finally find what I’m looking for. It begins to rain. Wonderful. I thought I smelled bad five minutes ago. I gag as the rain leeches the abhorrent stench from my skin and the odor now permeates through my mask. This won’t be the first or last time I vomit standing knee deep in Zion’s sediment. Maybe this is why those on the other side call us Drecks? Meant to be a derogatory term, we in The Middle now have affectionately embraced it.
I’m so consumed with the pungent aroma I don’t see the unmanned helidrone release a small green pallet three hundred yards above me. A narcdrop. Its parachute opens and it’s floating right towards my car. I trudge through the trash heap and gallop to my Mustang. Seconds before the large pallet crushes it, I fire up the engine and floor it. The thick tires spew rocks and dirt before jolting me back, the pallet just barely misses as it hits the ground.
I know the addicts will be swarming within the hour. Refuse isn’t the only thing deposited into The Middle. The green pallet contains the usual—helldust, speedrush, The Devil’s Syrup. It’s a form of control, along with the revocation of arms. Renatus keeps us hooked on substances, quelling our desire to resist or rebel.
Such demonic control started before The Wall went up. The first step in what was then an emerging dictatorship was to take away means to defend yourself, then force the population to become dependent on your provisions, then mollify them with drugs and booze. Soon they no longer care that The Wall even exists, perhaps they don’t even notice it anymore. Like living next to a noisy freeway. Overtime, the cacophony of cars is no a longer a nuisance, the familiarity of it might even become soothing. It reminds me of a quote by the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky. “The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.”
Other than the plasma and pulse weapons of the Lazurites, all other firearms have been banned. At least attempted so.
At the beginning of The Defiance, my father would send out patrols to find as many narcdrops as possible. The opiates would be rounded up, then destroyed. My mother started clinics to help the addicts overcome their addiction. But it soon became too much, the frequency of drug and booze drops were overwhelming. When my Uncle Cephas took over as leader of The Defiance after my parents’ deaths, he deemed The Defiance no longer had the resources to destroy narcdrops or run rehabilitation programs. In his defense, he is probably correct. So flooded are we with addictive substances that half of The Middle is now hooked on Renatus’s Demon Tonic. What is free has cost my people everything.
Certain no one is watching, I drag one of the red plastic containers from the smelting heap into the trunk of my car. I put two more in the backseat, and a smaller one sits shotgun. I need a truck. And air fresheners. I fire up the throaty V-8 and stare at the green pallet. I exit my car, cut the banding from the pallet, reach in and grab a bottle of Renatus’s finest. It’s not for me as I rarely touch the stuff. Just as I’m leaving the helldusters and tonic swillers begin to arrive. They go from a mindless stumble to an awkward jog as they get closer to the drug pallet. You can see the avaricious in their insatiable eyes as each one of them wants to be the first to arrive to pick their vice of choice.
I have three stops to make, the last delivery is for my Uncle Cephas. I do a quick scan for any Lazurite patrols then I turn on the radio and tune to a pirated signal of Zion’s central news: “We have been informed the sultana wasn’t seriously injured when her convoy of drones was bombed from what was yet another terrorist attack by The Defiance. Renatus has promised to ramp up his patrols in The Middle to eradicate the terror group.”
My heart pauses as the oxygen is sucked from my lungs. Shades of crimson sheathe my vision. I turn a hard and screeching left. Uncle Cephas will be my first stop.
The rain has fizzled. My pockets are drained, but my gas tank is no longer impoverished as I pull away from the black-market mini refinery, hidden within a steel warehouse. Since Renatus has elevated his patrols, the price of gasoline has tripled in the past nine months, vastly hurting my bottom line. Boaz has not kept up with inflation. I could complain, but as he reminds me that I’m easily replaceable.
I wind my way through the long and dusty road until the asphalt ends and a dirt road begins. Rain batters my windshield, and my wipers can barely keep up. Sentries hide within the trees and the bushes. I can’t see them, but I know they are there. A rickety barn rests in the dirt field just up ahead. The red paint has faded into the wood. It looks like a building made of rust. I flash my lights four times, count to two, then twice more. Three Defiance guards armed with double-barreled shotguns approach my Mustang. Most of the turn of the century firearms that remain have been procured by The Defiance. Which isn’t a lot. They don’t ask for any identification or pass codes; they know who I am. They wave me through. One of them opens the creaky barn door and I park inside.
Two more armed Drecks help me carry the red containers down an earthen stairwell underneath the barn. This is one of many underground compounds Cephas has built throughout the twenty-four reservations. It’s dank and muggy, adding to my repugnant aroma. The dull lighting of the fire lamps instantly depresses my soul as I trudge down the dirt stairs. I helped dig this tunnel as a teenager, but not by choice. We continue down the vestibule until we reach a wide opening. A ragged Dreck careens past me singing The Dreck’s Dirge. His voice is raspy and dysphoric.
“They took our freedom, and with that our soul
With Zion’s Tonic, we are no longer whole
One day it will finally fall
The oppression that is The Wall
As Drecks we have no more hope
We hung ourselves with Zion’s rope
Second-life used to be for all
That was before The Wall
Now we live in a giant cage
Where no one can hear our rage
There was a day we used to stand tall
That was before The Wall
We are now deemed a lower class
Forced to live with Zion’s trash
Happier times I can recall
That was before The Wall”
Some say my father wrote it. Others say my mother; the latter is more likely.
“Wait here,” a guard orders me.
I watch as the guard approaches Cephas. He is fifty-seven, burly, stout, and barrel-chested. He has three massive scars wedged into the left side of his face. Some say it is from a scourge. Others say he fought off a grizzly bear with his bare hands. I can believe both. His cleft chin and crooked nose peer down at his frayed Bible. He and his leadership are in a circle around a small fire. The irony is not lost on me that most of them attending this Bible study don Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath T-shirts, both heavy-metal 80’s bands. To them it’s free clothing, and they probably have never heard their music. Cephas’s smile is like a mouthful of pebbles; his yellow teeth have been ground down to almost nothing. Surely from the stress of being the leader of The Defiance.
Cephas is concluding an anemic attempt at a rousing speech. “We all know that second-life protocol was an abomination,” he bellows in the raspy voice of an ex-smoker. “Yes, we all miss our loved ones, our fathers and mothers, our sons and daughters. But God had called them home, who are we to snatch them out of His hands?”
Speeches weren’t his thing. He has a way with words, but his delivery is stale and languid. A deathly skinny man with overgrown eyebrows that have grown together spots me and sniffs, “Is that the sweet stench of the prodigal son?” His name is Jude, Cephas’s right-hand man.
They all stop and stare at me with acrimonious eyes. I don’t blame them, nor do I resent them. These people are the salt of the earth. The last remaining remnant of a people who used to be free. People unaffected by the narcdrops. Undeterred by The Wall. People who still have hope. Even if it’s that of a mustard seed.
Cephas lumbers towards me, “Bearing gifts nephew? Or do you need something?”
“Was it you? The drone bombing?” I ask accusingly.
A pelican is tattooed on his right arm—the symbol of The Defiance.
“The attempt on Sarai’s life? You know that isn’t our modus operandi.”
“Then who was it?”
“You know who it was.”
“It was The Sons of Levi,” Jude shouts.
The Sons of Levi is a rogue offshoot of The Defiance. Their methods are radical, bordering on terror. They will do anything to stop Renatus and his army, even if that means the killing of innocent civilians.
Cephas places a stumpy dirty hand on my shoulder, “You need to forgive yourself son.”
But I can’t, nor him.
“Let’s see what you got.”
His men bring him the red contraband containers. He opens them. Inside are a stack of tattered Bibles, a few pistols, along with ammunition. Inside the other one is the crown jewel.
“You found one?” Cephas asks jubilantly.
To the exuberance of his men, he holds up a black and gray exoarmor suit.
“That one will cost you,” I say plainly.
“Excellent,” he says and hands it off to one of his technicians.
Exoarmor suits were designed to absorb the energy of Zion’s plasma weapons. With traditional weapons outlawed, they make Renatus’s army near invincible. They are light and ambulatory. What they won’t stop is a bullet, making conventional firearms worth more than gold. The rub is that each one is manufactured to the DNA of the specific Lazurite soldier it was created for, rendering them useless to us—unless Cephas can find a way to hack into the suit’s operating system and activate the protection mechanism to make them universal. If he can accomplish that, he can then find a way to procure more of them, leveling the playing field.
Cephas’s placid eyes cannot mask the pity bordering on disdain he feels for me. He disagrees with my day job. Unless of course when it behooves him as it does now.
“Come back to us Asher, stop wasting your God-given talents and join us. You have a chance to do something meaningful.”
“I thought I just did.”
“Boaz has plenty of contraband mules I can contract with. You have a different purpose son.”
“Is digging through trash not noble enough for the son of Silas?” I say bitingly.
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Your brother used to say that every job mattered, none more important than the other.”
“True, but we also all have our callings.”
“And you think you know what mine is?” I say flippantly.
Cephas claims he is a changed man, and maybe he is. But I still remember the man who tried to raise me after my parents died. The inebriated man who would slurp the devil’s syrup and beat me for the slightest infraction. The polluted man who had me bore tunnels day and night until my callouses bled and my spirit withered. The man with the indurated soul who forced me to clean his muddy boots with my own spit. “I want to be able to eat off of them!” The man who would stumble home and pull me from my slumber to fix him whatever slop our barren cupboards might have held while butchering old-world songs at a pitch much too loud for that ungodly hour. The sloven man who convinced my parents to join The Defiance. He is the reason they are gone.
“Can you get more of them?” Cephas asks, referring to the exoarmor suits.
“Maybe.”
“You wanna stay for dinner?”
I’m hungry, but I don’t.
“I almost forgot, I have something else for you,” I reach into my faded acid-wash jean jacket and pull out the bottle of DemonTonic and place it next to his sullied boots. “Your boots are dirty.”
He sighs, then gapes at me in disappointment, at my pettiness, as I know he hasn’t touched the stuff in almost three years.
“Goodbye Asher.”
Cephas regards the bottle of DemonTonic. “Buckethead,” he says to himself. He can’t blame Asher considering their past. It’s true, he was an addict, a vicious one at that. It started soon after he lost his wife to the hands of Zion. A drink here or there turned into a bottle here and there. They didn’t have children, she was barren as the stomachs of half of his people. He didn’t know how to raise Asher, or any teenager for that matter. What he did know was that Asher was a born leader and a skilled warrior. Cephas had setup a training camp for young new recruits. Asher was always at the top. He was grooming him to eventually lead as his father had.
But when Renatus siphoned Sarai away from Asher, everything had changed. Asher had lost interest in their cause. He disengaged and withdrew into isolation. Receded into his own little world of sifting through trash for money. Cephas was angry at himself for not reaching out, for not doing more to bring Asher back into the fold. Truth of the matter was that Asher hadn’t forgiven him for being abusive, and he hadn’t forgiven himself for abandoning his father’s cause.
Cephas grabs the bottle, clutches it. He closes his eyes and it speaks to him. One drink never hurt anybody. Before he falls for its seductive snare he smashes it against the rock wall. Glass shatters at his feet. He watches the dirt swiftly guzzle the bronze liquid like a zealous addict. He takes his long boot and stomps on the broken glass, as if tamping down temptation. He made a promise to himself, God, and the people he now leads to never again touch the stuff.
“We’re ready,” Jude informs him staring at the shards of broken glass.
Cephas turns, unaware he wasn’t alone. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to know you weren’t thirsty.”
Cephas nods at the shattered bottle. “I wanted to.”
“I know. But I wasn’t about to let you.”
“You think you can take me now huh Ace?” Cephas says with a grin.
“Dang skippy!”
“Thanks for having my back.”
“A shaggy one at that!”
Cephas shakes his head and rubs the dimple in his chin as he stares at his gaunt second in command. “Why do I feel this is a desperation play?”
“Definitely a Hail Mary pass sir.”
“For the love of Pete, stop calling me sir.”
“Of course sir.” Jude smiles; he loves to rip on his friends, especially Cephas, who is an easy target.
“Can this really work? Or do you think its wishful thinking from an old man ill equipped to lead?”
“Yes to the second part.”
“What? That I’m not qualified?”
“No, that you’re old.”
Cephas won’t admit it, but he quite enjoys the banter.
“Ha! Let’s get going buckethead, before I change my mind.”
“Forgot to tell you, Mark is out, broke his leg yesterday.”
