Gears of war, p.20
Gears of War, page 20
Anya slowly nodded. Even in the military, she had always been aware of politics, and had begun to understand aspects of it—but only because they impacted how she was trying to do her job.
It’s not enough to put together a solid plan. We have to battle against those who know it’s a good plan, are willing to accept it, but want their own rewards for going along with it. The tedium pressed down on her as if a heavy cloak, but she forced herself to stand tall.
“Message received.”
“Good.” Jamila turned to Damon. “I hope, Mr. Baird, that you have more good news, or shall we just move to the bad?”
“More good. Yields on the algae farms are better than expected. The stuff’s not all that tasty, yet, but it’s a great nutritional supplement. Once we scale this up, unless we have a blight that kills off our wheat or corn, malnutrition shouldn’t be an overwhelming issue. And having an ample supply of low-cost food will encourage people to come to New Ephyra.”
Jamila smiled.
Then Damon sighed. “There is some troubling news. Someone made another run at cracking security on the MilNet last night. Not certain who, but they were trying to hook into the satellites. They didn’t get in, but I think, Anya, you were talking to Marcus at the time?”
“I was. He and Brandon made it to Harkness Falls. There’s a settlement, and they were attacked by a trio of Locust. If Marcus hadn’t been there, it would have been a slaughter. As it was they had a dozen killed, eight more injured. Marcus found the Locust’s lair. Nothing there. He said the grubs were sick, probably dying. It looks as if they just didn’t get enough of the ICM to kill them outright.”
“They’re going to backtrack them, make sure there aren’t any more?”
“That’s the plan.” Anya frowned. “You think the hackers are going to get in?”
“Definitely, It’s a matter of when, not if. I’ll add some layers of encryption, but you can’t count on your comms being completely secure.”
“Got it, best practices. Keep the calls short, go light on details.” Anya shivered. “If I had thought things through beforehand, I would have set up some code words.”
Jamila clasped her hands behind her back. “You believe this is likely Seradyne’s work?”
“They have the equipment, and likely the expertise.” Damon shrugged. “I don’t know any other major players. Who else should I be looking at?”
“Everyone?” Anya tucked blonde hair behind an ear. “Once we make things stable, people are going to be less anxious, and think more rationally. So chaos and fear are the allies of anyone seeking power. We know what they’re trying to do, but we don’t want them to know how much we know. We want to keep them in the dark so that they overstep.”
Jamila nodded briefly. “As for this plan to assess and allocate wealth, we will protest—not on the merits of the concept, but on the minutiae of the proposal. Let them believe that we might accept it, if the details could be worked out. That will surprise them, trigger their greed, and make them sloppy. They’ll fight to create a complicated system which they can game to their advantage.”
Anya winced. “Won’t that leave us open to the charge of fighting over crumbs, while ignoring the things vital to our survival?”
“Not entirely. We’ll continue to oversee all essential rebuilding.” Jamila began to pace. “At the same time, in the ‘interest of working together,’ we’ll commit to dealing with the proposal’s details, to make sure the outcome will be equitable for all. Also at the same time, we can begin negotiating with other groups to oppose the general concept, and build a majority opinion.”
“There’s logic in that, but it also seems a waste of time.”
“True, Anya, but politics is an exercise in speeding things up, then slowing them down. The idea is to maintain momentum without having anything run out of control.” Jamila brought her hands together, as if in prayer. “One other thing… we cannot let people know that Locust may still exist. With luck, Marcus has found and destroyed the last four on the planet. Were people to learn of the threat, however, the panic would destroy our efforts at stability.”
“It would encourage a military state, that’s for sure.” Damon Baird shook his head. “I’ll suit up again if we have to, but the last thing we want is for people to die because they’re panicking.”
“Agreed,” Anya sighed. “I’ll find a way to let Marcus know that this has to be kept as quiet as possible.” She glanced at her old comrade in arms. “It was a lot easier when we were just shooting things, wasn’t it, Damon?”
“Seems like, but then we were trying to kill things.” He shrugged. “Now we’re trying to keep people alive, in spite of themselves. That’s never been easy, but someone has to do the heavy lifting, and just our luck it’s us.”
3: RAZEK INDUSTRIALS
HARKNESS GLEN, SERA
5 FROST 18 A.E.
Marcus and Brandon remained in Harkness Glen for two days following the Locust attack. The deaths burst the bubble of invincibility which had served as a dome over the entire population. Marcus organized the local security forces—some of whom had been children on E-Day—doing his best to turn them into an effective response force that could counter any other incursions. What he taught them would certainly hold off any human marauders, and likely enable them to neutralize at least a handful of Locust.
If the grubs are as bad off as the others were.
Brandon scouted for an indication of the direction from which the Locust had come. “I found some signs that something came in from Char, but nothing definitive. Another trail came from the west. Bark clawed off trees and the like, all recent.”
He showed the signs to Marcus, who agreed with his assessment. “So we head west. If we’re right and they were dying, maybe we’ll find the remains of others that went down along the way.”
“It’s a plan.”
Marcus put a call in to Anya to bring her up to speed, but before he could speak, she cut him off. “We’ll have to be careful. Wouldn’t want any eavesdroppers to get the wrong idea.”
“Right.” So security has been compromised on the MilNet. “I’ll behave myself.”
“Good. Even so, it is wonderful to hear your voice. You sound good.”
“I am. We are.” Marcus’ mind raced as he sought a way to let her know what they’d found, without revealing anything of value to those who might be listening in. “So far we’ve found three graves, and marked them. That seems to be all of them.” He hoped she’d connect ‘graves’ with ‘grubs’ and understand what their investigation had yielded in Harkness Glen.
“Good. That will make work easier for the repatriation teams.”
“How are things at the Ministry?”
Her weariness survived the trip up to the satellite, and back down again. “Remember how bad the red tape could get in the military? Well, the dancing we have to do now is so much worse. It’s not just laying out a plan, but the need to justify things that ought to be common sense. But we’re making some headway. Damon is building a settlement out near the plant and we’ll be convincing people to relocate there. We’re calling it New Ephyra.”
“New Ephyra. That sounds promising. Do the plans include a Thrashball stadium? That’s the only way we’ll get Cole to visit.”
Anya laughed, and Marcus felt a wave of relief pour over him.
“I’ll make a note to ask. And so you know, the greenhouse is fully repaired and you have tomato seedlings just beginning to peek up out of the soil.”
“That’s great. How about the starter?”
“Carol Hahn has it trained like a dog. Oh, and we have two of those, too. No cats yet.”
“It sounds as if things are going well there, Anya.”
“They’ll be better when you’re here. Any idea on timing?”
“At least two weeks. I’d like to be home by year’s end, but we’re determined to mark every grave.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.” Marcus sighed, wishing he could see her in real time. “I love you. Always thinking of you.”
“I love you, too, Marcus. Call me when you can. Be safe.”
“You, too. Bye now.” Marcus set the receiver down but kept his hand on it. He just wanted to maintain that connection a little bit longer. I never want to be away from her again. Long-distance isn’t enough.
* * *
Marcus informed Karima Razek of the decision to travel west, and to his surprise, she greeted it with a smile.
“I’m hoping that you will allow Isadora and me to accompany you. She comes from Westbrook, which is a settlement to the west. It began as a small town and they’ve done an admirable job of consolidating it. Harkness Glen is going to need more people, and I would like to negotiate with the townsfolk to see how we might ally our communities.”
Marcus recalled how she had stepped up the night of the attack. “I’m not going to say no to another gun. How good is Isadora?”
“We’ve made this journey before, and survived it.” Karima pointed toward the setting sun. “It’s about five days out, though, so we’ll need to carry enough supplies for ten, in order to track the Locust.”
When Marcus informed Brandon of the plan, he had no objections. “Isadora is easy on the eyes. Do you think my sister would like her?”
“Wow, I don’t think I’ve seen that healthy an ego since I last laid eyes on Damon Baird.”
“That’s not an answer, Marcus.”
The Gear shook his head. “I think Adira would like it if you find some Locust.”
“Understood.” Brandon sobered. “Focus on job one.”
Marcus slipped a hand into his pocket and ran his thumb over the smooth stone Nick had given him. “And finding Sierra. That’s right up there on our priority list.”
* * *
They set out the morning of the third day. Each woman had two horses, plus an additional one carrying a variety of trade goods for Westbrook. They plotted a course west and stuck close to the trail left by the Locust. At first this proved to be slow going, but as they got used to spotting the signs of clawed bark, or finding small caves or hollows within the roots of trees, it became easier.
The Locust seemed to range widely to the north and south of a line that would have taken them directly west. It wasn’t something Marcus had seen before, but the grubs he’d fought in the past hadn’t been sick and dying. I hope to hell they weren’t following an urge to go somewhere and breed.
The second day out, they found a body. The grub had curled up into a ball and died at the bottom of a small cliff. Marcus measured the distance with his eye.
“If it fell, that fall shouldn’t have killed it.”
Brandon dismounted and squatted next to the corpse.
“I’d bet the fall stunned it, and it didn’t have the strength to get up. I can see what I think are sores, but nothing else that could have done it in.”
After a couple more hours they camped on the trail. Everyone took turns performing chores and standing watch. Because Brandon happily helped Isadora as much as he could, Marcus and Karima shared sentry duty. The evenings had started turning cold, and halfway through the night snow began drifting down.
The next night they found a small cave and built up a big fire at the front. Marcus and Karima sat near the mouth, wrapped up in blankets, watching for anything that might challenge their right to shelter.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you, Marcus, what you first thought of Harkness Glen?” She watched him closely. “Brandon was not pleased with what he saw, and did nothing to hide it, but I couldn’t read your reaction.”
He thought for a few moments, then replied. “I didn’t expect you to be as squared away as you were. The lawn bowling, that had me thinking one thing, but your industry and trading, and how your people had pulled together, revealed more there than I would have expected from folks who had mostly avoided Locust attacks.”
Karima shifted around, picked up a thick stick, and laid it on the fire.
“We didn’t have Locust attacks, but that doesn’t mean we were without challenges. We had fended off roving bands of survivors. They acquainted us with the harsh realities outside. We set up our security force to keep them out.”
“Yet you never trained anyone else with the guns in your armory.”
“That is my failing.” She returned to the cave mouth and huddled there. “We had some residents who didn’t want to acknowledge what was going on outside, so I didn’t make training mandatory. The social order harked back to the gentler days when we hired well-trained servants and left menial duties to them. Our residents frowned upon training with guns—though they approved of skeet shooting because it was a sport. And then, when we learned that the Locust menace had been eliminated, well…”
“The political battle wasn’t worth the energy?”
“Again, my mistake.” She exhaled a thick plume of steam. “It is one thing to understand that the world has changed fundamentally, but quite another to grasp what all the changes might be. In keeping the Glen together and trying to accommodate a level of normalcy, I was able to avoid many unpleasant realities. I made it my job to focus entirely on the Glen, in the hopes that other people might straggle in.”
“But you reached out to other settlements…”
“In chasing off marauders, we encountered similar hunting parties from places like Westbrook. We established relationships, exchanged goods, exchanged people. It was from Westbrook that we learned the Locust were gone.” She shook her head. “I allowed myself hope when I heard that news.”
“There’s still a lot of work to be done before we can relax.” Marcus glanced over at Brandon’s sleeping form. “His sister is the sole medical provider for a refugee camp of probably five hundred, with more people coming in all the time. One little boy lost his sister to marauders, and I’d have to guess that’s not a rare occurrence.”
Marcus rubbed his gloved hands together for warmth. “There’s a lot of evil to undo. My better half, Anya, she’s in Ephyra working to set things to rights. They’ll form a government, which will help us organize, deal with man’s darker side, and start us on the road to a new world.”
“Is forming a new government good or bad?”
Marcus shrugged. “I have my issues with authority, but she’ll make certain the government is a force for good. There are people who stand in her way, of course, but Anya wants as many people represented as possible. You representing the Glen, for example, or a union of the Glen and Westbrook and some of the other places around here. That would be a great help.”
“It’s been a very long time since I’ve been to Ephyra.” Karima gave him a smile. “I’ll think on that. I probably owe it to my people to ease them back into the world. Getting in at the beginning would be better than not. Thank you.”
* * *
The snow made finding more Locust remains impossible, but the trail was still visible and moved down onto the remains of an old highway route. The Locust had used it, suggesting some higher brain functions before they fell too ill and just headed out cross-country. The group still found evidence in caves and abandoned buildings where the Locust had taken refuge.
The road looped south of Westbrook before turning and heading east. It appeared as if the Locust had bypassed the settlement. And with good reason. The citizens of Westbrook had systematically deconstructed all but the biggest buildings outside of the city center, and used the salvage to create tall siege walls with towers and what looked like searchlights mounted on them. Barbed wire rimmed the top of the walls, and sharpened iron stakes studded them, all pointed toward the ground. Each tower boasted a good field of fire and could support its nearest neighbors. Entry came through a stoutly built tunnel, and the citizens had welded together tons of scrap metal to create massive gates at each end.
Fortunately for the travelers, one of the women guarding the outside gate was Isadora’s cousin. She sent word of their arrival, and members of the town council arrived quickly. They recognized Karima Razek who, in turn, introduced Marcus Fenix.
Once again, Brandon was admitted based on the company he kept.
Inside the towering walls, Westbrook appeared as it might have before E-Day, with the dusting of snow making it that much more beautiful. Marcus couldn’t tell if the town had avoided damage, or had been painstakingly reconstructed. The buildings all appeared to be in perfect repair, and even the signs that hung from businesses showed not even a hint of fading or peeling paint. The stores themselves seemed to be understocked—at least with the items they’d once sold. A couple of buildings had been converted into grain and feed warehouses, and a couple more into livestock barns, but from a distance the exteriors did not betray their new uses.
Nigel Izawa, the town’s mayor, welcomed the visitors to his office and dispatched a clerk who went with Isadora to inventory the load of goods the travelers had brought with them. He thanked Karima, then turned to Marcus.
“I find it hard to believe you’ve been reduced to guarding travelers, or that anyone in Ephyra would think they have any authority out this far. They didn’t think that before the Locust, makes no sense they’d think it now.”
“Brandon and I are tracking down rumors of Locust sightings.”
“That’s strange.” Nigel frowned, got up, and walked over to a hand-drawn map of the area. “There haven’t been any around here for four or five years, best I can remember. Westbrook claims about five miles in any direction. Growing season we cultivate feed for the livestock, other crops for us. We send Karima most all of our wool, about half of our linen.”
“Does everyone live in town year-round?”
“No. Folks live on the farms during the summer. Saves them the walk to work each morning.” He indicated areas outside the walls. “There are a few families that live further out; at least one commune worshipping something or other. They come in a couple times a year to trade, but if we don’t see them until spring it won’t be a surprise.”
