Gemini [WIP]

Chapter IX

We all gathered in the chapel of the building with the now-exploded statue on the steeple. Gingham women, bloodied and dirty men, fewer in number than this morning, sat quietly ruminating in the pews or milling about anxiously in the aisles. Even the children were quieter than usual, clinging to their mother's skirts. The elders stood in a tight group on the stage behind the pew, Samuel chief among them, talking quietly amongst themselves with worried looks on their faces. I stood, leaning against the back wall, favoring my arm and watching Jo navigate a group of women, touching shoulders and giving out sympathetic hugs. I was sure none of them knew the role she had played in their salvation earlier. I was thinking about stepping out for some fresh air before this all started when Duncan sidled up to me.

"I take it that was you who took out the Lurker? Nice work. Glad that contraption didn't blow up in your face."

"Wasn't my face it would have blown up in." I nodded towards Jo, who was holding someone's baby on her hip now.

"Her? The new girl?" Duncan's face was incredulous.

"I was as surprised as you. I made it to the stocks but took a bullet from a Hunter as I got in." I gestured at him with my immobile left arm. "She was in there, said she'd gotten separated from the rest and went in to hide. Patched me up and helped me find the crate, but there was no way I was going to be able to take the shot with that thing." I considered how much I wanted to tell Duncan about her for a moment. "She got a clean line of sight on it while I distracted it, took it out in two shots."

"Two shots, huh?" He said, after a moment. "Sounds like we have some tweaks to make."

"More than some, f***er smashed the thing on it's way down. Total loss. Don't think we have the lab space to make another maser out here."

He turned to look at me for a moment, clearly not believing my whole story, but something in his face changed and he shrugged. "Glad she got lost then. Guess we wouldn't be standing here if she wasn't."

I started to reply but was cut off by Samuel clearing his throat at the podium.

"Brothers and Sisters, thank you for joining me here. Let us pray."

Duncan and I moved to the nearest empty pew and sat, bowing our heads. Samuel gave a brief invocation, asking for protection and comfort from God. His voice, despite the circumstances, was measured and reassuring, with a powerful timbre. We raised our heads on "Amen", and he continued into a speech.

"Today is a day I think we all knew would come eventually, but had perhaps hoped it would not be so soon. The Lord sees fit to test us as we wander in the wilderness like the Israelites of old, seeking our salvation. We lost brothers and sisters today, husbands and wives. The sense of peace we had hoped was permanent is now shattered, once again. I know there is fear in your hearts, Brothers and Sisters, as there is in mine. Despite that fear, we must carry on, cleaving to the path of righteousness as laid out by the Lord."

"In the past, we have lived as refugees, chased out of our home in the mountains of Utah, following the tracks of our pioneer ancestors backwards, towards the east. However, I do not believe this was a retreat. The Lord has great plans for us and has led us to settle here for a reason. As my ancestor Brigham Young once said, 'This is the place.' I believe this land was set aside for us, brothers and sisters, as the final sticking point, our rock in these latter days. The Lord told Joseph Smith that this was the site of the Garden of Eden, and I believe he intends to restore that garden, under our careful stewardship."

"Before that day comes, however, we must drive the enemies of deceny, the harbingers of affront to the ways of God, yes, that very same den of degenerates called Central, out of this land once and for all. Stake our claim here and plant the banner of heaven high on the hill so that all who seek the light of God may see the beacon and be comforted. These are truly the latter days, Brothers and Sisters, and the time of the broken seals and the trumpet draws nigh. What the Lord asks of us now may be our greatest sacrifice yet, but if we are to persist against the forces of iniquity and sin then we must endure to the end."

"Go now, and be with your families, comfort those in need of comfort, and tend to the wounded. We will meet tomorrow and discuss what is to be done. Pray for peace in your hearts. Amen."

The crowd began to stand up and mill about, leaving the chapel to go see what was still intact in the compound. Duncan and I stood as well and began filing out with the rest when another one of the Elder's voices came on over the speakers.

"Brothers Paul and Duncan, and Sister Jolene, please come to the stand."

Duncan and I looked at each other with a mix of exhaustion and confusion, and turned around to walk against the current of bodies leaving the chapel.

...

I hadn't been in this room before, and I'm sure most of the others hadn't either. I glanced sidelong at Jo, who I'm sure felt even more out of place as the only woman in a room full of sweaty, agitated men. The rough plywood walls seemed to absorb the feeble light emitted by the candles mounted in sconces and on the table. The light failed to reach the corners of the windowless room and threw weird shadows on the walls as the flames flickered in the wakes of men passing by as they crowded in. The warmth of the naked flames combined with the body heat of roughly two dozen men crowded into the small room was overwhelming, but so total was the Flock's distrust of modern technologies that they eschewed even simple electric lights in their secure rooms.

Elder Samuel sat at the head of the table, leaning to his left where he and an elder spoke urgently in hushed tones. Jo and I were standing midtable, which earned us more than a few glares and mutterings from the officers we'd displaced. Their bodies crowded around us and I could feel the belly of the man behind me brushing against me. Before I could turn to say something, the loud thud of a crossbar slamming home in the door announced the arrival of the last man and the securing of the war room. Samuel cleared his throat loudly and stood, pushing back from the table.

"Brothers! I've convened this meeting of the Quorum because of the day's events. We have obviously been found by Central, that much is clear. Today was a difficult day for many of us, and tomorrow promises to be hard too, as we dig fresh graves for the fallen. Things could have gone much differently were it not for Brother Paul and Sister Joanna's valiant actions today. Some of you surely wonder at the wisdom of letting a woman sit in council here, but she has done more to earn her place here today than most of us have in the past decade. I'll brook no grumblings about her presence."

There was a low murmur of grumbling through the room that quickly died down. In the flickering candlelight, Elder Samuel's red beard was the color of flame, and his eyes glittered with resolve. He leaned down and put both palms on the table, shining the hot spotlight of his gaze across the room. For the brief moment it rested on me, I felt something slither in my gut and hoped he couldn't see the fear I felt.

"With that out of the way, we have a choice to make. For the past 4 years, we have lived as refugees, constantly seeking to hide from the unblinking eye of our enemy. We have been forced from one valley to another, losing our brothers and sisters to enemy attacks, and struggling to feed ourselves in the meantime. No more will we wander the wilderness, as the Israelites of old. No longer will we allow our women and children to live in fear and privation. No longer will we turn and run at the sight of our enemy's mindless, infernal soldiers. This is where we cease to turn the other cheek."

The men voiced a rowdy assent with a rough chorus of amens. After the din quieted, Samuel rolled out a geological map of California on the table. The map was vividly colored in a strange mange of colored cells that appeared patternless at first glance. Cities were marked with handwritten annotations, but the main feature the map highlighted was a large rift roughly paralleling the coast. Samuel spoke, his tone lower and less statesmanlike than his previous address.

"What's to be discussed here does not leave this room, under pain of death. Not only yours, mind, but the entire Flock's. If what we have planned is discovered by Central, they will surely eradicate us. We had planned to hold this in reserve, a Samson option, but I fear that with this latest attack, they have forced our hand. We are out of options. We had hoped never to enact this, but our discovery here in Jackson, while we are still rebuilding from the exodus of the past few years gives us little choice."

Samuel looked at us each in turn, eyes burning.

"Back in Provo, when the dust from the war was settling, we were contacted by representatives of a certain Asian country who sought to upset the global order that Central controlled. In short, they had the plans and the equipment to conduct a decapitating strike, but not the means or the manpower in the field. Under the cover of a missionary operation -" Duncan grinned widely at this - "we brought back a number of low-yield nuclear devices and the plans for their emplacement."

I heard Jo curse under her breath, which bought her a glare from Samuel.

"Language, Sister. Again under the guise of missionary work, these devices were covertly emplaced along the San Andreas fault. We still have active assets in the region, who have watched over them and assure us they remain undisturbed and operational. Brother Duncan, care to fill in the rest?"

"Certainly." I knew Duncan well enough to recognize the manic gleam in his eyes. I'd seen it before when I'd entered his office unannounced as he quickly minimized windows on his workstation. I knew he supervised the Flock's intelligence, but I couldn't have imagined something this monstrous could have been in the works. "Now, before you start thinking this is a repeat of what happened to the East Coast, these are low-yield, low-fallout fusion devices. There'll be no glowing sea of green glass like DC. It's much worse than that." His smile was wicked. "The detonation squence for these devices are specifically tuned to push the San Andreas fault over the edge. People have been talking about the next Big One in California since 1906. We're just turning pushing fast forward on the geologic clock."

"When the devices go, they'll set up a standing wave that will destabilize the entire fault line. Not only should it create the largest earthquake since Krakatoa, it'll break off the whole damned coast, and set it sliding into the Pacific. The entire Californian megalopolis will disappear like Atlantis."

I felt cold, icy fear sliding into my guts and coiling around my spine. I knew the Flock and it's entire way of life, it's philosophical vision, was at war with Central, but I didn't think they were capable of something like this. Skirmishes and even battles were one thing, but this? This was genocide. Before I could gather my thoughts into a cogent string of words, Jo spoke up through the murmuring confusion of voices.

"Ok, so this takes out LA to the Bay, but there's plenty of silicon left in Portland and Seattle." She gestured to the sharp right turn the fault line took at the northern extent of the state. "Can't kill a hydra unless you take them all out at once." I was shocked at how calmly she had come to this conclusion.

"Wow, not bad for a woman." I heard the sound of a boot impacting a shin under the table, and Jo crossed her arms and glared at Duncan. "Ow, ok, point taken. Look at this." Duncan peeled back the first map and revealed a map of the north Pacific. Long lines were drawn from the coast, showing radiating waves. "Dropping a coastline into the ocean is going to create a megatsunami. Most of that energy is going to go out and pass more or less harmlessly through the South Pacific," I grimaced, "...but a significant amount is going to ride up the coast. The degenerates seem to hate living away from the shoreline - 99% of their population lives within 5 miles of the shore. By our calculations, it should generate hundred foot waves that will inundate the entire north coast, sweeping all of Portland and Seattle, even Vancouver, away into the sea."

Samuel must have seen the look on my face. "Brother Paul, you've not said anything, and the look on your face belies dark thoughts. Speak your mind."

"This is, ah, well, this is just a lot to take in." I sensed I was walking a tightrope. "This goes beyond war, you'll kill millions - women and children, innocent as well as guilty. Is this Christlike?" I knew the last line was a gamble, but I didn't have a lot of cards to play.

"Brother," Samuel rumbled, "have you not seen the carnage outside today? Have you not buried children and washed our women's blood from your hands in the aftermath of their attacks? The drones don't discriminate between combatants and civilians. They may not preach from a holy text, but make no mistake, they are waging a holy war on us, as surely as we are on them. You've been with us through the Exodus, you've watched our numbers dwindle. Maybe once we had the luxury of only attacking military targets, but this is beyond war - this is a fight for the soul of humanity. God flooded the world and eradicated Sodom once, and now we are called on to be His righteous justice, the blade of his fearful sword. Would you not heed His call?"

"Do not take me for a fool, Paul. I know that you do not share our faith and convictions. I do not know your past, nor do I need to - you've proven yourself a valuable member of the Flock many times over. But non-believers join us largely because they've nowhere else to turn, and I believe that's your situation as well. Do you want to live in the shadows forever? Our numbers dwindle Paul, and the window for action is closing. If you won't help us in this, there can be no place for you here, and I can't let you roam free with the knowledge of these plans. I am sorry to say it, but God's work is larger than one man. I cannot let you live if you won't join us in our most desperate hour."

Jo looked at me pleadingly, trying to communicate something with her eyes that I couldn't decipher. My hands shook.

"I understand the stakes, Elder Samuel." I sighed, not seeing a way out that didn't end with a gun barrel at the back of my head, whichever side held it. I held out hope I would find a way out later on. "What do you need me to do?"

...

A week later on a stifling morning, I was helping Jo tie down the last of our equipment into one of the Flock's dwindling fleet of 4x4s when I heard someone calling my name. I finished cinching down the ratchet strap and looked over my shoulder to see Duncan running towards me, waving a white sheet of paper overhead, Elder Samuel trailing in his wake and waving dust away from his face.

"Paul! Paul! You've gotta see this!" He handed me the paper and bent over with his hands on his knees, wheezing. I flipped it over and was startled to see my own face, bloodied and twisted in anger, staring out from the page. "WANTED:" a large banner read at the top. It continued below: PHILLIP [LAST NAME] WANTED ALIVE FOR QUESTIONING IN RELATION TO MURDER AND ANTI-DEMOCRATIC ACTIVITIES. REWARD FOR LIVE CAPTURE ONLY. Jo had circled around the truck and was looking over my shoulder.

"Hell of a mugshot there, Phil," she said, enunciating my name. "That angle, and your, uh, getup, that must be footage from the Lurker we took down. Must have gotten you on camera when you were going full caveman on it."
I looked around, nervously. "Please don't call me Phil. That name is from a long time ago, better left dead." I turned to Duncan, who was red-faced but breathing normally. "Did you show this to anyone else? Where did it come from?"

"No, I came straight here after printing it off. Well, Elder Samuel saw it too, obviously." Samuel had approached at a more dignified pace and now joined our little circle. He looked at me appraisingly.

"Murder? Not what I would have guessed. Duncan tells me this hit the network and went global this morning. Anyone with an interest in bounties has seen it by now."

Duncan chimed in. "They must really want you too, did you see that reward?"

Central had long done away with physical currency, internally circulating carbon-offset credits as a modicum of exchange. Basic quarters, data, food, water, all the necessities of life, while rationed, were freely given to all their citizens, but additional amenities and luxuries like travel could be purchased by trading COCs to pay for the additional environmental impact they caused. However, when dealing with external parties who didn't obsessively track their carbon footprint, they had to deal in harder currency.

"10 kilos of gold!" Jo whistled. "You must have knocked off somebody important, especially if they're still that mad about it this far down the road."

"Please, I don't want to go into it." I reread the sheet, disbelievingly, and flipped it over to see if there was anything further.

LAST SEEN IN VICINITY OF JACKSON, MISSOURI, CENTRAL ZONE. PARTIAL AWARD FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO CAPTURE.

I looked up to see Samuel nodding. "That's why I came out here to see you. I'm not worried about our people seeing this, since only Brother Duncan's online, but that reward's going to bring a lot of people sniffing around. I think you'd better get moving as soon as possible. Your job just got a lot harder."

I turned to Jo who had clearly made that connection before I had and was marking off items on a clipboard.
"Yup, I got us all loaded up last night. We are fueled up and ready to go, unless you want to get a Big Gulp and some trail mix for the road?" She grinned. "Did you remember your toothbrush?"

I flailed internally, feeling like the world had dropped out from under my feet. I knew I was leaving, of course, but the reality of it all hit me suddenly. I was suddenly on the run again, this time without even a cover identity.

"Well, I don't really know what to say. I guess this is it? See you on the other side?" I stuck out my hand awkwardly to Duncan, who returned my handshake with a surprisingly firm one of his own.

"Been good working with you, brother." He said it without the capital B, which meant a lot, in a weird way. "Stay safe. I tucked a present for you in there," gesturing towards the truck bed "hope you like it." I smiled, and pulled him into a sweaty hug.

"Thanks man, I don't know what to say." We broke the hug and I turned to Samuel.

"Elder, thanks for taking me in, I hope to see you again."

Elder Samuel smiled and shook my hand in his giant meaty paw. "Godspeed, Brother ..Paul. May the Lord watch over you."

He released my hand, which throbbed a little, and I turned to Jo, who was awkwardly shaking hands with Duncan.
"Well, let's hit the road. I'll take first shift driving."

As I stepped towards the truck, Samuel's voice called out.

"Brother Paul, one more thing."

I turned around in time to see a huge fist crash into my face.