Chapter Two: Candoria Z

Chapter Two: CANDORIA Z.

The Chairman of Lunar Expedition and Entertainment, L E E for short, insisted upon independence from a single company on the nation Earth. Officially the Moon, too, was a rich and powerful nation. The Earth and Moon were former partners because commercialization increased the Lunar population and made money for Earthlings and the Chairman. He began to conduct dubious experiments on people under his all-knowing eye. The Moon base annihilated most of humanity discreetly, and then proceeded to tear itself apart as a consequence of a failed coup d'etat.

The Earth turned gray for many years because of pollution. Then the remaining people rebuilt the planet from world war and catastrophe and began The Government, a loosely constructed base of order within the Democratic Union of Earth. Because of a major civil insurgency the Democratic Union is tumbling once again. Most of the first world is bombed daily, an unknown but scarce amount of humanity survives. Cells and animals thrive; but mankind crawls along. Sloppy and desperate graffiti artists who left their marks on old city ruins like New York City and Shanghai hope there is an otherwise solution.

Mars or The Party of Red Reign (P R R) is the youngest and most established of the human civilizations. People began to migrate there after world war on Earth and tyranny on the Moon. The Party members isolated themselves from the two and smuggled weapons from Earth and sold them back to the Moon. The Martians knew a military expedition to Earth was inevitable; they needed resources and too many family members were separated and thus outraged by The Party’s isolation tactics. The political link broke when fifteen special troops, the first outside military presence, crashed on Earth; civilians were outraged by the secretive measures taken by their new government and anarchy ensued within the Party. Regardless of the civil war taking place on Mars, the Lunar and Earth populations frequently call The Party “Red Hope” for obvious reasons.

Jeremiah is from Mars. At the early age of nine, he escaped slavery on the Moon and was raised as an orphan in The Party. He never knew his parents but assumed he was born on Earth because that’s where most of the Lunar slaves were from. After the political unrest inside The Party, Jeremiah boarded the last of the space shuttles to leave the planet. Jeremiah speaks, with patriotic delight, for The Party, the ultimate power in the midst of the three.

Jimmy was raised in a poor village in the former United States. Refugees in desperation accidentally killed his family as they were fleeing air strikes. They were trampled when Jimmy was seventeen. It was chaotic during the twilight of the end of the world and Jimmy had seen death many times before. He enlisted in the remainder of the Union Army because he had “nothing left.”

He spoke, “Ten-Hundred-Hundred,” to answer Tim’s last question, “No, time; run!” And Tim looked down and felt weak when he saw the red ooze, “blood,” he thought. He thought of the dark memories that never can be faced by the conscience. He thought, “death is today?” – And dropped. Quiet.

“Charlie, he’s gone!” – The buzzing helicopters brought a hellfire of bullets and Jeremiah left his best friend to die. He barely escaped the rapid firing himself. It was the ugliest moment of the soldier’s life. And little did he know he would forget everything on the exact date: 10-101-104. Looked up and he found himself running as fast as his legs could take him. Thinking about what he noticed, “Green, red, and black. I can’t believe I’m dyin’ in a shitty Jungle.” He saw figures form around the underbrush, friends: “Charlie here.”

(Jeremiah was wrong and only saw one man, his Specialist Jimmy, scanning the perimeter. The two are in the old Amazon, now Oil River II.)

Jeremiah: Hey, Tim’s dead, man. (He hesitated, not knowing what to say.) I couldn’t do anything. (He sits on a stump after stumbling towards Jimmy, a tall male raised from a place he did not know.)

Jimmy: No. (A long pause) Where is he? This ain’t funny man. No. (Stumbling and weeping, he grabbed Jeremiah’s hand among a suffocating ring of trees, amongst the downpour of dark liquid.)

Jeremiah: I’m sorry. (He sat, and appeared to be gazing and spacey.)

Jimmy: When can we go home?

Jeremiah: Now. We are still soldiers. Tim was my friend too, we march or die.

Jimmy: But sir – (He looked into Jeremiah’s eyes and tearfully pleaded.)

(They marched. Jeremiah was a well-built man slightly taller than Jimmy with a piercing on his left ear and a tattoo on his forearm reading, “Bring me to the Kingdom of God” in small, fancy cursive. He had short blonde hair and did not look like a man to worry, but he was troubled during this mission. Jimmy was following in the march on the steep hills of the jungle, both talking about what only soldiers talk about; their lost lives. Jeremiah talked about women. Jimmy wondered why they were fighting a war no one knew existed.)

“What happened to our government,” Jimmy asked. Jeremiah glanced; grunting behind his shoulder and asked if it were appropriate timing, being probably surveyed by the Intel. Jeremiah ended the argument after this quick rebuttal. The two finally found their team after an unknown time; they knew of no days or nights, or hours, or minutes. And it consisted of two other men, looking dreadful and poor. They wore nothing but their underwear and malnutrition clearly took hold of their bodies. The two looked like a painted farce contrasted to the army-trained Jeremiah and Jimmy. The two in underwear were ordinary men, turned into careless soldiers trained in a hasty and recklessly assembled militia.

Two meters behind Jeremiah laid a guerilla fighter, aiming his pistol at Jeremiah’s head. Jeremiah heard a branch snap and dove, tackling Jimmy, and instinctively pulling out a new age pistol. He took aim and fired. It missed. Jimmy asked where the other two men were. Jeremiah exclaimed, again, that: “Now is not the time.” Jeremiah heard the plastic water-powered weapon gurgle. “Empty,” he thought. He looked at the scared Jimmy and yelled over the AK-47 shots crackling around his head. “They’re too close. Pull out your gun!” A sniper shot rang and, finally, silence broke the deafening cackle of judgment. Two war cries of a high pitch reverberated and echoed in the never-ending forest. Jeremiah and Jimmy knew they could be targets any second and found new cover behind a monstrous bush. Jimmy reminded Jeremiah that they can be fired on regardless of their hiding spots.

An unrecognizably calm voice spoke. She said, “What language do you speak?” She proceeded to speak in dozens of different languages, all saying the same word, “Peace.” Jeremiah understood most of them. (To understand a language at all makes a person an outsider, for languages began to disappear as people did. Inhabitants of Mars, the last civilization, saved their native tongues.) He revealed himself cautiously and whispered to Jimmy to cover their flanks. He saw a young woman who wore long and haggard pants and spoke in a beautiful whisper. Jeremiah glanced at the red Party insignia stitched to her blouse and questioned suspiciously, “Where did you get that?” She smiled and said it was from her village. Jeremiah fumed about the impossibility of such a peaceful community and she smiled again. She played with her long brown hair and handled a long old-world rifle that Jeremiah forgot the name of. Jimmy had his gun raised, covering Jeremiah’s back in the meantime.

Jimmy heard a radio noise in the distance. “Must be close,” Jimmy thought. He screamed with all of his energy: “Air strike!” The lady dove under cement rubble, Jimmy grabbed Jeremiah and threw Jeremiah and himself into a ditch. The next second explosions shook the earth for about a minute. There was nothing to do but wait. Jeremiah prayed to himself. Jimmy closed his eyes when a moment like this fell upon them. A tree toppled and the ditch blocked it, as the unnaturally big tree burned. The bombing ended. The lady sprang from the barrier to help up the two soldiers. She gasped for air after pulling Jimmy out, the smaller one. Jeremiah helped himself. She smiled again and told them that she knew they understood. They nodded, yes, and began to follow her casual pace. They heard more yelling from a mile ahead and knew it was a different tone. Jeremiah remembered how markets sounded from Mars and he could tell that the shouts were bargaining calls or notices that stores were closing. Jeremiah started to find himself stepping on a stone pathway. He looked behind him and saw the contrast of broken buildings (earlier storm shelters) with the gigantic forest, deformed trees with raining pollution. The woman welcomed Jimmy to the last human niche on Earth, Candoria Z.

“I am in All.”

TO BE CONTINUED