The Podkind – The Final Chapters

The Podkind – The Final Chapters

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Chapter 37

The elevator doors in City Dome opened to the sounds of laser fire and explosions. The park they’d been expecting to see was all but unrecognizable. Its carefully manicured lawn was riddled with large holes and gashes. The trees, which had once stretched so beautifully and majestically to the sky, were strewn about like plucked and discarded flowers.

As the five friends spilled out onto the now cracked pathway leading to the center of the park, the statue of Jonathan Stiles exploded. Pieces of marble whizzed through the air.

Charleston dropped to a crouch next to Arkhangelsk. New York and Ragnar took point, while Paris brought up the rear. They surveyed the battlefield in front of them. In the distance in front of the Council of Nine Building, Charleston could make out a number of Cyclopes and soldiers in black. They were taking cover behind the remains of a fallen column and exchanging fire with several groups of people scattered about what remained of the park.

To their right, Charleston saw a handful of men and women hunkered down behind the massive root system of a fallen tree. They looked to be average citizens of New Washington, though they were in the process of attacking the guards of the city they called home.

To their left was another group of people clustered around the rubble of a destroyed wall of one of the buildings bordering the square. These people looked completely out of place. They were wearing animal skins and the men had large beards. They did, however, have laser rifles of their own. They, too, were taking aim at the city’s forces.

“Should we help?” New York asked.

Charleston hesitated. The soldiers were outnumbered and could use any help the five Podkind could give them, but Gala needed him too. The longer it took to get to Med Dome, the more likely she’d die. But how would Savannah get the ship here if there was fighting throughout the city?

“New York, Ragnar, Paris,” Charleston said, his decision made. “You take those weirdos over there,” he indicated the people who looked like they’d stepped out of the past. “Ark and I will attack the other group. Let’s try to surprise them, not rush in shouting,” he said, looking hard at Ragnar.

“Ragnar, son of Ragnar, move as quiet as death herself,” he replied solemnly, unsheathing his massive sword.

New York did the same, looking grim.

“Paris?” Charleston asked.

Paris pulled the two identical sticks from behind his back and gripped them tightly by way of answer.

“Be careful,” Charleston said, before stalking off in the direction of their target, Arkhangelsk moving silently next to him.

“What’s the plan?” she asked, her spear held loosely in her hands. They were darting from fallen tree to rubble pile, moving ever closer to the enemy.

“We sneak up on them and we kill them,” Charleston replied, his voice cold.

Arkhangelsk strapped the spear across her back and unslung her bow. “You go in and I’ll cover you.”

They were about twenty feet from the fallen tree behind which the group was peppering the soldiers with laser fire. There was no more cover to conceal their approach. Behind the torn up pile of earth he and Ark were crouching behind, Charleston counted ten enemies. Every so often, one would take aim and shoot, while the rest remained hidden. It wasn’t an all-out attack, but rather some kind of diversion.

“I think they’re waiting on reinforcements,” Charleston said.

“It’s going to be hard to sneak up on them when they’re facing our direction,” Arkhangelsk remarked.

“I have an idea,” Charleston said, sheathing his sword. “Be ready.”

“For what?” she asked.

But he’d already stepped out from behind their cover and, crouching, started towards the group. He wanted them to see him and think he was coming to their aid, rather than attacking. But he couldn’t just casually walk over. He had to act like he was trying to avoid fire from the soldiers and Cyclopes. It was a fine line between sneaking up to help and sneaking up to kill.

They didn’t see him immediately, even though they were looking almost right at him. Eventually, a short woman in all black spotted him and nudged a large man next to her.

If they shoot, it’ll be now, he thought.

“Jedidiah sent me!” he called out before either could do anything. Charleston saw momentary confusion on their faces, then relief.

“I hope you’ve come to tell us those war suits are almost here,” the man commented as Charleston approached. He sounded exasperated and tired.

“They’re coming around the corner now,” Charleston replied, nodding to the right of their position. He was almost in striking distance.

The woman went to peer through the roots, but the man didn’t take his eyes off Charleston. “Hey, you don’t look like…”

Charleston leapt forward and, in one motion, drew his sword and cut the man down. As the woman turned to see what had happened, he spun and sliced her head off.

Two men to either side of them shouted and brought their rifles up. An arrow thunked into the chest of one, while Charleston knocked the rifle out of the other’s hand with a tongue of energy. As the man looked at the fallen gun in astonishment, Charleston sliced open his stomach.

There were six left.

Five, Charleston thought as an arrow took another in the throat.

The remaining enemy soldiers turned to face Charleston. They hadn’t yet realized escape was the better option.

Charleston whipped his arm at a tall woman with blonde hair she wore in a pony tail. His throwing knife thudded into her right eye and she collapsed. The four remaining had their rifles up now. Charleston dropped to a crouch and brought up a shield of energy.

The burst of laser fire bounced harmlessly from it. Another arrow took down a man on the edge of the group, and Charleston grabbed the knife in his boot and flung it at a second one. It hit him in the shoulder. He grunted and dropped his rifle, but didn’t fall.

Charleston leapt at him, sword aimed at his head.

This time he fell.

The remaining two turned and ran from out of the cover of the tree. An arrow dropped one, while Charleston hit a second between the shoulder blades with the knife from his other boot.

“We’re on your side,” Charleston shouted in the direction of the Council of Nine Building and the soldiers there, waving his sword from behind the tree.

“Who are you?” came the response.

“The Podkind,” Charleston answered as he gathered up his knives.

Arkhangelsk was beside him now, her face calm. She hadn’t even broken a sweat.

“There’re enemy war suits coming,” Charleston yelled as he dashed across the park towards the second group of enemies.

“From where?”

Charleston ignored him. He’d already told him everything he knew.

New York and the others were waiting for them. The ground was littered with blood and body parts.

“Whoa!” Charleston said slowly, taking in the gory scene and sheathing his sword.

“The two-handed sword isn’t much of a finesse weapon,” New York remarked.

“Paris capture enemy,” Ragnar grunted as he wiped the blood from his massive blade on what looked to be a torso.

Paris was pressing one of the men against a particularly large chunk of wall, his stick against the man’s bearded throat. Blood trickled from the man’s dirty hair and mouth.

“What should we do with him?” New York asked.

Charleston looked at the man. He was filthy and thin, almost emaciated. His animal skin clothes were ragged and he wasn’t wearing any shoes. Charleston felt a momentary surge of pity. Life outside of New Washington had to be awful. No wonder these people had so eagerly followed Jedidiah.

“Where’s Jedidiah?” Charleston asked him.

The man, who looked rightfully scared, now smiled. He had numerous gaps in his black teeth.

“Where is he?” Charleston repeated.

The man said something and his eyes suddenly shown with a feverish light.

“What?”

The man spoke again, but the only word Charleston could make out was Jedidiah. The rest was unrecognizable, though there were some familiar sounds in them. It was almost English.

“Tie his hands behind his back and send him towards those soldiers,” Charleston commanded, waving a hand towards the Council of Nine Building. “We have to get to Med Dome.”

“Where is it?” New York asked as Paris forced the man’s hands behind his back and tied them with his own rope belt.

Charleston cursed. He’d never actually been to Med Dome in the city. “Arghh!” he shouted.

“Med Dome this way,” Ragnar said, pointing off in the opposite direction.

Charleston looked at him, waiting for the man to say more, but Ragnar just turned and started in the direction he’d pointed.

“Who’s Jedidiah?” Arkhangelsk asked as Ragnar led the way down one of the main streets running away from the park. It was cracked and covered in broken bits of stone and glass.

“Now’s not the time!” Charleston replied impatiently.

“It’s a long story,” New York said more kindly. “I’ll try to give you the short version.”

As they jogged carefully from building to building, New York filled the others in on the Underground, Violet and Green, and Jedidiah as best he could. Sounds of fighting and explosions interrupted the telling several times, but he managed to cover the basics.

Charleston ignored the exclamations and shocked questions the story elicited from Arkhangelsk. Ragnar and Paris were their usual stoically quiet selves and Charleston wondered how much they already knew. Savannah had probably told Ragnar about it all, as Charleston had Gala after the Prom. And he had long since quit wondering at the oddity that was Paris.

They were several blocks from the park now. There were signs of fighting everywhere. Charleston looked around in wonder and shock at what had happened to City Dome. Whole buildings were nothing more than smoking piles of rubble. Blood and body parts littered the streets. The hanging flower beds were mostly destroyed. Dirt and plants were everywhere.

“Are we almost there?” Charleston asked when they’d stopped to catch their breath behind a mostly intact wall at the corner of an intersection.

Ragnar pointed off to their right. As he did so, an explosion bigger than any they’d heard so far rocked the ground beneath them. A pillar of smoke and flame appeared where Ragnar had been pointing.

“How much further?” he asked Ragnar. “Use your words!” he added angrily.

Ragnar gave Charleston a hurt look before answering. “Ten minutes if way clear.”

Charleston growled in frustration. “Lead on!”

Another explosion, this one smaller, came from the same place. The sound of laser fire was now audible. The battle was about a block ahead.

“Careful now,” New York cautioned.

As one, they drew their weapons and stalked towards the battle. Shouts and cries of pain floated to them as they approached. A minute later, they rounded the final corner and saw what remained of a small square. It had once been lined with shops and restaurants, with a fountain as its centerpiece. Now, it was full of rubble and bodies. Many of the buildings had collapsed in on themselves. One three-story shop had a gaping hole running from the roof to just above the entrance. A gigantic slab of stone, part of the floor or wall, hung precariously above the doorway, ready to fall at the slightest touch.

“Is that Tank?” Charleston asked as they hugged the nearest wall and crept forward. He pointed at a hollowed out building that bordered their side of the square. Just inside the doorway, a large man was barking orders to three soldiers.

“Mark! Take your squad and see if you can get around those bastards!” Professor Thurmond shouted to a short, squat man with thick moustaches. “Dorothy,” he said, turning to an elderly woman with a large rifle strapped to her back.

Charleston did a double take when he recognized Ms. Dorothy. She was wearing camouflage and had dark streaks on her face. She looked much younger.

“It’s about bloody time you got here with your snipers.”

“You may have noticed, dear,” she replied calmly, “that there’s a war going on. Half the streets are impassable.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here. Now get to those rooftops!” he pointed.

She nodded once and disappeared.

“James,” Thurmond continued, turning to the remaining man, a lanky red-head who looked all too relaxed given the situation. Just then, Thurmond spotted Charleston and the others approaching. “Keep up the firefight from this end,” he said before brushing past the man and meeting the five teenagers as they entered the building.

“What in the hell are you doing here?” he asked, anger and shock mixed in his voice.

“Gala’s been injured,” Charleston said quickly. “We need to get to Med Dome.”

Thurmond looked from Charleston to the others, confused. “Where is she?”

“On our ship,” Charleston said quickly. “Can we get through here to Med Dome?” he asked sharply.

The sound of gunfire erupted just to the right of them, drowning out whatever answer Thurmond gave. Charleston looked to see what was happening, crouching low as he did so. Professor Duman was firing a huge mounted machine gun from between two piles of rubble.

He was laughing.

“Damn hedonists!” Thurmond muttered. “There’s no way through here,” the big man shouted between bursts of fire. “But it’s unlikely Med Dome is even in one piece.”

“I don’t care,” Charleston replied. “Gala will die if she doesn’t get help!”

Thurmond looked at Charleston, his face indiscernible. “Try backtracking and circling around that way,” he said finally, pointing in the direction they’d come. “From what I’ve heard, that section of the city is mostly quiet.”

“What happened?” Charleston asked as he turned to go.

“It’s a coup of some sort,” Thurmond growled. “Well organized and well timed. Multiple attacks on the vital parts of New Washington, beginning with Military Branch. We lost half our ships before anyone even knew what was happening. Watch out for people dressed in animal skins. They’re the enemy, though there are others, too.”

“We know,” Charleston replied. “We ran into two groups in the park.”

Thurmond looked puzzled as he tried to piece together just how Charleston and the others were standing in front of him when they were supposed to be on a challenge thousands of miles away. Before he could ask, another huge explosion rocked the ground. One of the buildings on the square shuddered and collapsed. Screams and shouts followed.

Charleston led the group back the way they’d come. As they retraced their steps, he struggled to control his frustration and despair. It didn’t take combat training to recognize the improbability of their mission. The city was a battlefield, ravaged and torn by explosions and gunfire, and full of enemies. Even should Med Dome be in one piece, and even should there be any doctors there to help, it would take a miracle for Jax to fly to it.

“Ragnar,” Charleston said. They were back on the main street leading to the park now. “What’s…” he continued, but stopped.

Three war suits were swiftly approaching from the direction they needed to go.

“What are the chances they’re on our side?” New York asked ruefully.

As if in response, one of the war suits raised its arm and opened fire with its machine gun.

Charleston and the others brought up energy shields, crouching low as they did so. “There!” Charleston yelled, pointing to a side street. “We can’t fight those things with swords! We have to run!”

The others didn’t argue and they didn’t wait for further instructions. As one, they bolted for cover.

More gunfire pelted their energy shields. Charleston could feel the toll maintaining them was taking on his tattoo. They couldn’t go toe to toe with an enemy armed with lasers and missiles for long.

As the five dove behind the nearest building, the street behind them exploded, its hanging garden evaporating. Dirt, water, and chunks of pavement rained down on the group.

“Run!” Charleston shouted as he picked himself up off the ground.

They dashed down the street towards the next intersection. Just before they reached it, another missile hit behind them. Charleston felt an intense heat, then he was flying through the air. He landed hard on his shoulder and rolled limply across the pavement. Without the tattoo, he’d be dead. With it, he wasn’t far off. He struggled to push himself up, knowing he had seconds to find cover before the next blast obliterated him, but his limbs wouldn’t obey.

He heard the sound of another missile and braced himself for its impact, images of Gala flashing through his mind in what he assumed would be his final thoughts.

He heard and felt the explosion.

He wasn’t dead.

He peered around. Another missile fired. It was coming from a man dressed in black standing in the doorway of the closest building to his left.

Charleston half stumbled, half crawled towards the man. Whoever he was, he was fighting the enemy, which made him a friend. As Charleston neared the entrance, a familiar figure suddenly appeared from within the building. It was the tall, creepy man from Space Dome. He held a rifle in one hand and was beckoning to Charleston with the other.

“Hurry!” he whispered even though they were in the midst of a battle.

Charleston didn’t think, he just dove for the cover the building would provide. “My friends!” he said, as he collapsed inside.

“They’re safe,” the man replied, reaching an arm under Charleston’s own and lifting him. “We have to keep moving,” he said, his voice urgent and quiet. “We got one of the suits, but the other two will be blowing a hole through this building any minute.”

Charleston stumbled, then got his balance, shaking the man’s arm off. He looked around to get his bearings. They were in a cafe of some sort. Small tables and chairs filled the front of the room, many flipped on their sides. Towards the back, there was a counter with various kinds of food on display, while behind it were numerous appliances and a sink. New York and Arkhangelsk stood in a doorway to the right.

“Charleston!” New York shouted. “Let’s go!”

Charleston started towards them, then stopped. “Where are the others?” he asked, his stomach sinking. Had they been killed by the missile? Had he gotten them killed?

“They’re already downstairs,” New York said. “Now hurry up!” he shouted.

Charleston ducked into the doorway after his two friends, followed by the creepy man and the soldier who’d fired the missile. Just inside the door, there was a set of stairs.

“To the basement!” the creepy man said behind him.

Charleston followed New York and Arkhangelsk down the stairs and into a large storage room under the café. Ragnar and Paris stood in the middle of it, dirty and bloody, but okay.

Charleston looked around. There were shelves full of large boxes and bags lining the walls. In one corner, there was another sink with a mop and bucket. But there was no other door, no exit. There was nowhere to go.

“What the hell?” Charleston asked angrily. Had they walked into a trap?

“Relax, Charleston,” the creepy man replied, his voice absent of its usual obsequiousness. “We’re on your side.”

“Who are you?” New York asked.

“A friend of a friend, let’s say,” the man replied, striding over to the far wall and opening a panel in it. Another explosion shook the building.

“What are you doing?” Charleston asked. He didn’t know what he was more surprised at, being saved by the tall, creepy man he’d met years ago, or by the way the man now carried himself. He was a totally different person, confident and business-like, rather than fawning and pathetic.

“I’m saving your lives,” he said, not looking back. “Unless you want to go back out there and face those suits.” Now he did look at Charleston, one eyebrow arched in question. “That’s what I thought,” he said, turning back to the panel and pressing something.

“We have to get to Med Dome!” Charleston said, ignoring the disconnect between his memory of this person and the person standing in front of him.

Before the man could answer, the floor split open and an elevator rose up. It was just like what they’d seen in the kitchen of Dining Dome all those years ago.

“What is that?” Arkhangelsk asked.

“The tunnels,” Charleston and the man answered at the same time.

The man stepped into the elevator and signaled to the others. “Let’s go,” he said when none of them moved. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

Charleston hesitated just a moment longer, then entered the elevator. The others joined him looking angry and determined.

“Can this thing get us to Med Dome?” Charleston asked as the doors shut and the elevator descended smoothly into the tunnels.

The man went to the control panel and pressed another button. The elevator stopped abruptly and the doors opened. “No,” he said simply. “But we can get there ourselves,” he explained, raising an arm to usher the five friends out.

Charleston looked at the tall man, his black lanky hair now cut short and his face hard. He really was a different person. “Why should we trust you?” he asked harshly.

“I just saved your lives,” he answered coolly. “And besides, you don’t have many options now, do you?”

“We kill you and friend,” Ragnar said, gripping the hilt of his sword.

The man nodded deferentially, as if recognizing this to be a viable, albeit undesired, option. “Be my guest. But good luck finding Med Dome and saving your precious Gala,” he said.

Charleston didn’t hesitate. They had no time to waste. “Lead on,” he said coldly.

 

Chapter 38

 

“Where to?” Charleston asked the tall, creepy man who’d signaled them to stop at an intersection. They’d been in the tunnels for what felt like more than enough time to reach Med Dome, but they were still underground, now waiting on the man to signal which direction to go. “Hey!” he called. “Are you listening?”

The man cocked his head and sniffed, then pointed. “This way,” he said and started down the tunnel to the right.

“Shouldn’t we be there already?” Charleston asked. He was past impatient and well on his way to whatever feeling was impatience’s bigger, nastier brother. Desperation? Panic? He wasn’t sure, but it took all his training to keep the emotion from overwhelming him.

The heavy sound of something exploding above them prevented the man from answering right away. “Just a little further.”

“Do you know if Med Dome is still intact?” Charleston asked as he followed. Paris and New York were just behind him, while Arkhangelsk and Ragnar brought up the rear with the other soldier.

“I’m not sure,” the man replied.

Charleston cursed. Gala needed him and he was failing her. Again. Something triggered in his mind. He felt a prickle of fear and doubt grow suddenly in his chest. “You said you were a friend of a friend,” Charleston began, trying to control this new panic he felt building on the edge of his consciousness. “Which friend?”

The man stopped at another intersection and peered down the hall running off to their left. “This way,” he said, indicating the cross tunnel.

“What’s your name?” Charleston asked, taking a different approach.

The man barked a laugh. “Now you care to know.”

Charleston wondered if he’d made a mistake following this man, though he’d had no choice. They’d be dead right now without his help. “What were you doing in that café?”

“We’re here,” the man said, stopping abruptly and pointing at a set of doors in the ceiling above them.

Charleston looked at the man. “Who’s the friend? Why are you helping us?”

The man sighed heavily. “If you must know, I’m with the Dome Guard. I was working undercover to infiltrate Jedidiah’s people in New Washington.” He paused to judge Charleston’s reaction. “I was playing a part with you. I was supposed to be someone in love with the Podkind. We thought it would make me seem like fertile soil for Jedidiah’s fanaticism.”

“Did it work?” Charleston asked.

“No,” the man sighed. “They pulled me out a few weeks ago. Hence,” he said, pointing vaguely at himself, “the new look.”

Charleston thought about this. It sounded believable. He nodded, realizing it didn’t matter if the man was lying or not. They’d come this far and had little choice but to go through those doors and hope to find Med Dome intact and operating.

“Did I pass?” the man asked sarcastically, before turning to the door and pressing something on his wrist computer. A line split the section of tunnel ceiling in half, then widened as both sides of the door opened into the dark above. “Wait for my all clear,” the man ordered. In one smooth motion, he hoisted himself up and disappeared.

“It seems okay, doesn’t it?” New York asked. He and the others were gathered around Charleston waiting. The muffled sounds of explosions still reached them here in the tunnels, but those battles seemed far away. Charleston felt hope reignite in his chest.

A minute passed, then the creepy man’s arm appeared from the hole above them, followed by his face. He was smiling. “It’s all clear,” he said. “Take my arm and I’ll help you up.”

Charleston hesitated only a moment, then locked arms with the man and allowed himself to be pulled up to the floor’s edge, where he lifted himself the rest of the way. As the man helped New York, Charleston looked around. The storage room of Med Dome was large, larger than Charleston would have thought possible. Even in the dark, he could sense the vastness around him.

As New York went to help Arkhangelsk up from the tunnel, Charleston turned to the creepy man. “This doesn’t look like…” He stopped when he saw the rifle pointed at his head. The man’s demeanor had once more changed. The brusque and confident manner was gone. In its place, Charleston saw madness in his eyes.

Arkhangelsk joined New York as more rifles appeared from the darkness around them. It was a trap.

“Jedidiah,” Charleston spat at the creepy man. How had he fallen for this guy’s lies?

The man laughed a high-pitched, manic sound that sent a shiver down Charleston’s spine. “Not quite,” he said. “Though that would’ve been pretty neat, huh?”

Lights glowed on above them and only then did Charleston realize they weren’t anywhere near the storage room in Med Dome. They were in the entrance hall of the Council of Nine Building. There was that statue of Jonathan Stiles standing proudly among armchairs and couches, and, beyond him, a row of elevators. And people. The room was full of people, most with rifles.

The creepy man laughed again, spittle flying from his mouth. “Hurry up down there!” he shouted into the tunnel entrance, his voice frantic.

“It’s a trap!” Charleston shouted and lashed out with all the energy he could muster at the people surrounding them.

Rifles flew through the air and clattered to the floor as he, New York, and Arkhangelsk sprung into action. Charleston drew his sword and sliced at the creepy man’s midsection. To his surprise, the sword bounced harmlessly off.

Before Charleston could shift his blade to swing again, he felt an unseen force slam into his chest. He was flung past the tunnel entrance and crashed into something hard. Blinking to clear his vision, he scrambled to his feet and rushed back towards the enemy.

The man saw Charleston coming and laughed again. He sounded nearly hysterical. “I don’t want to hurt you, Charleston,” he cried and pushed at Charleston with more energy.

This time, Charleston was ready. He pushed back with his own energy and leapt the tunnel entrance, sword swinging at the man’s head. The blade froze in midair.

It was what Charleston had been waiting for. With his other hand he flung the knife from his sleeve directly at the man’s chest.

The creepy man twisted, but not fast enough.

The knife hit him just to the right of his heart. He spun backwards and fell to the ground.

Charleston was on him a second later, his sword poised to deliver the final blow.

“Enough, Char,” a familiar voice stopped him almost as effectively as the sudden binds of energy he felt wrap themselves around him. His sword hit the ground as his arms were forcefully pinned to his sides.

Green stepped out of the shadow of the statue of Jonathan Stiles a dozen yards in front of Charleston. The boy hadn’t aged a day.

“You?!” Charleston shouted, too stunned to say more. In the corner of his eye, he saw Arkhangelsk and New York still fighting.

“Chrome, Violet,” Green said, turning to the two children who’d appeared at his side. Chrome was wearing all black and had a rifle slung over his shoulder and a nasty looking pistol at each hip. He wore a strange hat on his head, too, its round brim hiding his eyes. Violet was in her familiar brown cloak, its hood down to reveal her still-young face. She had no weapon Charleston could see.

“Hiya, Charleston,” she grinned, giving him a small wave wildly incongruent with the situation. She, too, hadn’t aged a day since he’d last seen her. “Long time no see.”

“Go help subdue his friends,” Green commanded.

As Violet and Chrome loped off in the direction of the battle, Charleston managed to twist enough in his invisible bonds to watch. As long as his friends were still fighting, they had a chance.

Where are Ragnar and Paris?!

New York and Arkhangelsk were surrounded, but they were putting up a good fight. New York’s sword was cutting large swathes into the dark-clad people around him, while Arkhangelsk’s spear darted in and out of the group encircling them, dropping an enemy with each strike.

But now Violet stepped calmly into the fray, deftly dodging New York’s sword before blasting him across the room with a burst of energy.

Meanwhile, Chrome went for Arkhangelsk. He immediately put her on the defensive, both pistols firing faster than Charleston could keep up with. She deflected the shots with a shield of energy, but then Violet turned to help. Arkhangelsk leapt into action. Dropping her shield, she whirled her spear to deflect Chrome’s fire long enough to get in reach of a strike at Violet. The girl deflected the blow with a forearm, then struck out with a kick at Arkhangelsk’s knee.

Just then, Charleston heard someone clamber out of the tunnel. It was Paris.

“Paris!” Charleston cried, struggling hard against the invisible bonds that held him. “Do something!”

Paris didn’t respond.

“Don’t just stand there!” Charleston cried.

Arkhangelsk was a blur of movement now, her spear spinning to block Chrome’s laser fire, then darting out to keep Violet off balance. And she was using her energy, as well. But instead of just increasing the speed and strength of her blows, she was lashing out with pinpoint accurate energy blasts. One caught Violet just above the eye and the girl fell backwards with a loud cry.

“757-83C,” an unfamiliar drawling voice sounded from somewhere behind Charleston, “take her out.”

Charleston had no idea who the man was talking to, but he knew it couldn’t be good. “Ark! Watch out!”

He never could have foreseen what happened next.

Paris raised one arm and fired a massive beam of light from his fist directly at Arkhangelsk. Charleston saw the shimmer of the energy shield she threw up to protect herself, but it was useless. The beam crashed through it.

Arkhangelsk careened into one of the armchairs strewn across the entrance hall to land motionless on her stomach. She groaned, but made no move to get up.

“No!” Charleston shouted, stunned by Paris’ betrayal. “What are you doing!” he yelled, though the deed was done.

“Don’t be too upset with him,” that drawling voice spoke again from behind him, “he’s not in control of his actions.”

Charleston turned to face the speaker. He didn’t need the man to introduce himself. This was Jedidiah, the crazed would-be prophet responsible for so many deaths. The man who had sent Jambon after Gala. “Jedidiah,” Charleston snarled.

Jedidiah smiled. He was a tall man with angry red scars around his eyes, though he wasn’t eyeless. He had metallic looking orbs that reminded Charleston of 10-16. He had short blonde hair and dark skin, as if he’d spent a lot of time in the sun. He was dressed in animal skins, much like his followers, and he had a neatly trimmed blonde beard.

“So this is the famous Charleston,” he said in a low drawl Charleston thought he’d heard Violet use once or twice. He stepped closer as he spoke to stand next to Green, who was still by the statue of Stiles in the center of the massive foyer. “I’ve heard an awful lot about you,” he continued. “Mostly bad things, I hate to say, but I think my source was just a touch biased.”

Charleston struggled against the energy keeping him motionless, then relaxed, remembering what Duman had taught them. You didn’t have to move to use the tattoo. Imagining the flame once again to calm his mind, Charleston lashed a whip of energy at Jedidiah’s head.

The man flinched, bringing an arm up to ward off the blow, but too late.

Before Charleston could strike again, something hard smashed into his face.

“Now, now, now,” Jedidiah tisked, wiping blood from his nose. “No need to be discourteous.”

Charleston blinked hard to regain his vision and twisted and turned as best he could to loosen the chords binding him. It was useless. He was completely enclosed by Jedidiah’s energy now. He felt helpless and angry. Thoughts of Gala threatened to send him into a desperate panic. He had to get her help.

“Go get the other one,” Jedidiah told Paris, who moved off towards the tunnel entrance.

“You bastard!” Charleston shouted at him. He couldn’t believe Jedidiah had gotten to one of their own.

“Again with the rudeness,” Jedidiah said, shaking his head like a disappointed teacher. “Don’t be so hard on him,” he continued. “It really isn’t his fault.”

“What are you talking about?” Charleston spat.

“That’s the thing about androids, Charleston,” Jedidiah smiled. “The computer that functions as their brain can be hacked and controlled.”

Violet and Chrome were dragging New York and Arkhangelsk’s limp bodies towards Charleston, while Paris hauled an unmoving Ragnar out of the tunnel.

“What?” Charleston asked again, confusion momentarily overriding anger.

“They are remarkable, aren’t they?” Jedidiah asked by way of answer. “They look and act totally human. They even grow and age like humans,” he continued, “but they’re robots. My creation, by the way,” he added proudly.

Charleston stared hard at Paris, his mind revisiting all the boy’s oddities.

“Designed and built by yours truly as a fail-safe,” Jedidiah continued. “Each pod has one, you know. Did you really think your precious Planners and Council would send you off into the depths of space without any way of keeping tabs on you?” he asked, his tone one of amused disbelief. “Oh no, Charleston, your mission is too important to them and their plans to risk letting you off the leash.”

“What? What leash?”

“You’re their hound dog, Charleston,” he answered, his drawl thickening. “You were born and bred to follow a scent, to pursue a quarry. But despite all that breeding and training, they still couldn’t trust you completely. They wanted a way to make sure you didn’t go astray, should you suddenly wake up one day and realize you’d been programmed almost as much as 757-83C here has been,” he indicated Paris, who was now standing next to his creator.

“You’re not making any sense,” Charleston shot back. “You’re saying Paris is a robot built to make sure we complete our mission? Why not make us all robots then?”

“That’s what I said!” Jedidiah replied happily. “But, I’m curious,” he continued, bringing a finger to his chin, “how do you know you aren’t one?”

A pit opened in Charleston’s stomach. Was he a robot? How would he know it one way or another if he was?

Jedidiah burst into a loud laugh. “Got you!” he said, pointing at Charleston like a child would. “Don’t worry, you’re human. They didn’t want to put all their faith in a machine. Something could go wrong. Too many variables, they said. But having just one? They thought they were geniuses when they came up with it,” he laughed, “though even then their imaginations were limited. I’m the one who made their eyes cameras that would send us sound and video of everything they saw and did. Seems obvious, right?” he asked Charleston. “But they hadn’t thought of it. And they call themselves Planners,” he scoffed. “Of course, all this was before they decided to leave with you instead.”

Charleston said nothing, only strained against the energy holding him.

Jedidiah smiled again. “This peresilium mixture is a thing of beauty, isn’t it? It’s unfortunate they didn’t give you more time to learn all you can do with it.”

Charleston struggled to move, to leap forward and wrap his hands around Jedidiah’s throat. Nothing happened. “I’m going to kill you,” he said, forcing his voice to sound calm.

“What a thing to say!” Jedidiah replied, looking shocked. “What have I ever done to you?” he asked.

“You killed my friends!” Charleston yelled.

“Come now, Charleston,” Jedidiah replied in mild shock. “They’re not dead. Just unconscious. Shall I wake them now?” he asked all deference and politeness. “757-83C,” he said and Paris bent next to New York.

“No shame, by the way, in losing to warriors who’ve been training for centuries,” Jedidiah continued as New York groaned and sat up, rubbing his chest. “They acquitted themselves very well. You, on the other hand,” he chastised, “you’re letting your anger at me get the better of you, I can see it.”

“You sent Jambon to kill us!” Charleston snarled. “Gala’s going to die because of you!”

Jedidiah smiled and held his palms out in apology. “Yes, well, that is true, I suppose. But I thought for sure you’d get to Jambon first. You’ve bested him every time you’ve fought, after all.”

“He didn’t come for me,” Charleston snarled. “He ambushed her, then lured me to him.”

Jedidiah chuckled, the sound threatening to flood Charleston’s mind with black rage. “Just when you think you know a person. I never would have guessed Jambon could be so clever. Cruel, yes. That boy has…had?” he raised a questioning eyebrow at Charleston. “Had a cruel streak a mile wide. Even I was a little wary of that one.”

“I thought you were on our side,” Charleston said, looking now at Green. “I thought you said you weren’t working with this monster.”

Jedidiah laughed a deep belly laugh.

“I am on your side,” Green replied. “We,” he waved an arm at Jedidiah, “are on your side.”

Charleston barked a laugh of his own at him. “Is that why you let Jambon try to kill us?”

“That was,” Green paused a moment, “an unfortunate misunderstanding between Jedidiah and myself.” He shot the man a quick look, but Charleston wasn’t able to read it. Was there bad blood between them? Could he use that somehow to escape?

“So you are working with him!” Charleston said, stating what seemed so obvious to him now. How could I have been so naïve? he chastised himself.

“Yes and no,” Green replied, spreading his arms wide, as if asking Charleston for his understanding on the matter. “We are both working towards the same goal, but our methods differ.”

“What do methods have to do with anything when what you want is to destroy New Washington?”

Arkhangelsk was awake now, though still dazed.

“I was against this all-out assault,” Green replied. “Too many innocent lives have been lost. I much preferred assassinating Planners. Cut the head off the snake, you know.”

Charleston didn’t, but he guessed what the boy meant.

“But when we failed to steal all your ships, I was outvoted in favor of a different plan,” he finished with a sigh, glancing at Violet who had returned to his side.

“You’re damn right you were,” she said heatedly. “A peaceful coup never would have worked.”

“And,” Jedidiah added, “we thought you’d appreciate the violence.”

“What?”

“You’re a warrior, Charleston. Born and bred to fight and to kill, as much as to hunt. It’s only fair you get to right the wrongs done to you by those in power with the very skills they gave you. Poetic justice, if you will.”

“What wrongs? What justice?” he asked.

“Bring him out,” Jedidiah commanded to someone in the shadows behind him. A few moments later, two of Jedidiah’s followers dragged a portly man into the light by a rope tied to his hands. It was Professor Slive. He looked haggard and scared. A line of blood ran down his forehead and into the corner of his left eye. “This man betrayed you and your friends, Charleston” Jedidiah said.

“What? How?”

Ragnar was awake now and Paris went to stand next to Jedidiah, Violet, and Green. Chrome stood off to one side, as if he were only a casual observer. His hands rested lightly on the guns he wore at his waist.

“He was all too eager to join us when we approached him with our plan,” Jedidiah explained. “This useless excuse for a human being swore to protect you, to teach you, to nurture you and yet he betrayed the Podkind the first chance he got. And all for a little power.”

“You lied to me!” Slive shouted, twisting towards Jedidiah. “You promised!”

One of the guards slammed the butt of his rifle against Slive’s face. Blood splattered the ground. Slive collapsed in a heap.

“Why use him at all?” Charleston asked. He needed to keep the man talking while he figured a way out.

“We needed a way to divide New Washington’s forces and we needed one of our own in charge of the Planners to do it. Slive was the greediest of the bunch.” Jedidiah clucked his tongue and kicked Slive in the side. “You see, Charleston, greedy people are easy to manipulate,” he continued sagely. “Find out what they want, dangle it in front of them, and voila! So we offered Slive what he wanted and he sent you and the Podkind away from New Washington. Doing so split New Washington’s forces, as we needed, while also safeguarding those ever so valuable ships of yours and ensuring you weren’t here to fight for your city. It was a brilliant plan, if I do say so myself,” he smirked, clearly proud of himself for thinking of it.

“It was a simple thing to destroy your escort since more than half of them were on our side,” he continued with a self-satisfied smile. “Once that was done, they returned here and the assault began. It was over almost before it started. Those fools didn’t even bother to change the programming of the policing units in New Washington, even after we began turning their war suits off. You’d think they’d have taken more steps to protect themselves, but they were arrogant or stupid. Or both. Having written most of that code myself, it was a simple thing to hack into the central computer and shut Ale down.”

“Why does New Washington look like a war zone, then?” Charleston countered harshly. “Must not have been that simple.”

Jedidiah smiled. “Those armored orbs, Cyclopes you call them, posed a bit of a challenge,” he admitted. “But what’s a bloody coup without at least some blood?” He looked pleased with that turn of phrase. “Speaking of blood,” he continued, kicking Slive in the back again. “Here’s a gift. From me to you. Consider it a peace offering. An apology for Jambon.”

“What?” Charleston replied. His three friends had finally regained their feet, though from what Charleston could tell, they were being held in the same energy bonds he was. Jedidiah wasn’t taking any chances.

“Slive didn’t just betray you by sending you on that challenge, Charleston,” Green took over from Jedidiah. “He betrayed you when he and the other Planners created you and deprived you of a normal life. Just like with us,” he indicated Violet and Chrome, “they don’t care about you as people. You’re nothing more than a commodity to them. Do you really think they’d just let you live happily ever after on whatever planet you found for them? You’d be a constant reminder of the lengths they’d gone to to save themselves. And just like they left us in the Underground, they’d abandon you along the way as well.”

“Or put you down, a hunting dog with nothing more to hunt,” Jedidiah drawled.

Charleston shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense, Green,” he replied. “We’ve had good lives,” he indicated his three shipmates, who still seemed out of it from the fight, “we’ve been treated well. They threw us a parade!”

“A parade you say?” Green scoffed. “That’s some reward for nearly two decades of day-in, day-out training to perform a mission that serves only them! They robbed you of a normal childhood, Charleston, just like they robbed us of a normal adulthood. They trapped us in the bodies of children! We age but we don’t grow up! Do you know how many friends I’ve lost to suicide and madness because of that? Do you really think people capable of that kind of evil will treat you better?”

For the first time, Charleston heard pain in Green’s voice. There was a hint of something else there, too, something eerily similar to the madness that laced Jedidiah’s speech. “What they did to you and the others was horrible,” Charleston replied, trying to sound sympathetic, “but that was a long time ago. Those people are dead and their replacements learned from their mistake.”

“Learned from their mistake!” Green nearly shrieked. “That implies we were their only mistake and that they viewed us as such. But you’re wrong on both counts. We weren’t the first time the Planners and Council did something heinous for their own self interest. No, Charleston. We were one of a long line of cruelties and abominations, a line that continues to you and the Podkind.”

Charleston shook his head. “I’ve read the histories. I’ve studied Stiles’ life. What abominations are you talking about? How Stiles saved everyone from a dying and polluted Earth? How he shared the blueprints for his dome and the formula for peresilium with other countries so they could save their own people?”

On the blood-stained floor, Slive groaned and tried to turn over. Jedidiah kicked him hard in the side and he stopped moving. “You’re too old to be this childishly naïve,” he said before Green could respond.

“What?” Charleston asked, looking at New York, then Arkhangelsk. They were both bloodied but alert now.

“Haven’t you ever heard the old adage, history is written by the victors?”

Charleston didn’t reply. Now that his friends were conscious, there had to be some way to escape, some way to help Gala.

“I told you this one wasn’t so smart,” Violet said with a smirk.

“I thought you taught them history?” Jedidiah asked, then kicked Slive again in the side. The fat man groaned on the floor. “Pathetic,” he spat. “I’ll give you a little life lesson, then,” he turned back to Charleston. “When you win, you get to decide how your victory is remembered.”

“I understand the concept,” Charleston snapped, remembering an earlier conversation he’d had with Savannah and New York about this very idea when they’d been studying for their Test. “So, you’re saying Stiles wasn’t as helpful as he was made out to be? That he did bad things, too?”

“What I’m saying,” Jedidiah replied, his metal eyes piercing into Charleston’s own, “is there was no Jonathan Stiles. He’s a fabrication, a myth designed to hide the truth.”

“But every year we honor what he did!” Charleston shot back. “He saved everyone. He built domes all over the country.”

“What you honor is a fiction,” Jedidiah replied, “the story the Planners and Council wanted you to know. A beautiful narrative about a beautiful man who never existed meant to mask what actually happened.”

Charleston shook his head again. He was no longer thinking of a plan of escape. He was too confused by all he was hearing. “That’s what you meant by, ‘their eyes shall be opened’? That was the dark secret?”

“‘And their pillars shall fall,’” Jedidiah finished his own quote. “What greater pillar than the Founder himself?”

“It’s not true,” Charleston said, though even to him it sounded lame. “It can’t be.”

“Do you really believe just one man could do all those things?” Jedidiah asked in response. “He foresees the end of the world as we know it, designs, tests, and discards one solution, only to design and build another. Meanwhile, he travels through space to extract minerals with which he then discovers peresilium. And in between these amazing feats, he visits world leaders to convince them of the Earth’s impending doom. Oh, while also perfecting the Cure. Any one of those accomplishments would have been something a person could spend a lifetime working towards, and yet he manages them all.”

“Let’s say you’re right,” Charleston began after a moment. “I don’t see how this proves the Council is going to abandon New Washington.”

“Ah,” Jedidiah answered quickly, “but it’s all connected. The creation of Stiles was their way, her way, of rewriting history, of covering up the truth of what actually happened.”

“Okay,” Charleston said, confused. “What’s this truth then?”

“For that,” Jedidiah replied, “we need to take a trip upstairs.”

“Upstairs?” Charleston asked, puzzled. “What’s up there?”

“The final truth you need to truly open your eyes!” Jedidiah answered almost ecstatically. “And my revenge,” he added with a gleeful smile. “But first,” he turned, grabbed Slive by his hair, and yanked him to his knees, “we have this one to deal with.”

Charleston’s former professor groaned, his eyelids flickering.

Jedidiah gave Slive’s head a vicious shake, forcing the man to open his eyes.

Charleston could see pain and fear in them. “What are you going to do to him?” he asked.

Jedidiah met his gaze. “It’s not what I’m going to do. It’s what you are. I told you he was a gift. You can right the wrongs he’s done to you with one swing of that sword,” he nodded to the weapon lying on the floor at Charleston’s feet.

Charleston felt the bonds of energy disappear. He took a deep breath and stretched his aching limbs. The wound in his leg and chest throbbed painfully, and he focused his energy to strengthen both areas. He could sense it running lower than he’d ever let it, but he couldn’t worry about that right now. He bent down and retrieved his sword, then looked at Slive. He’d hated this man for much of his childhood. He was petty and cruel and delighted in other people’s misery. But he didn’t deserve to be executed. That wasn’t justice; it was murder. “I’m not going to kill him,” he stated firmly.

“Ha!” Violet laughed. “I told you!”

“Shut up, you!” Jedidiah snarled. “Has anyone ever told you how annoying you can be?”

“Being right all the time tends to get under people’s skin, yeah,” she shot back at him with a grin.

Jedidiah muttered something under his breath, then turned to the two guards holding the ropes binding Slive. “String him up,” he commanded, indicating with a glance the statue of Stiles.

“Wait!” Charleston cried out. “You said he was a gift! That means he’s mine. I get to do with him what I want!” If he wasn’t going to kill Slive, he wasn’t going to let Jedidiah murder him, either.

Jedidiah turned to Charleston while the two guards did as they’d been told. “That’s not how it works, I’m afraid,” the would-be prophet said, sounding genuinely upset about this fact. “He must be punished. Justice must be served.”

The two guards threw the rope tied to Slive’s hands over the outstretched arm of Stiles. The statue was supposed to depict him delivering his code of laws to the Council. In one hand he held a book, while the other was gesturing out in some kind of declamation. The two men hoisted Slive into the air. The large man became more fully conscious at this point and began screaming.

“Help me! You promised me!” he said over and over.

“Jedidiah!” Charleston yelled. “Let him down! There’s justice in mercy, too!”

“Ooh la la,” Violet crooned. “Look who’s all grown up and sounding wise!” she teased.

“You rejected my peace offering, Charleston,” Jedidiah said. “You denied the spirit of my gift.” He turned to Slive then and whipped an arm across the man’s stomach.

Slive let out a horrendous scream as his lower abdomen burst open from the weight of his legs and his intestines began spilling out. Only then did Charleston see the knife in Jedidiah’s hand. Charleston looked away. He heard Ragnar curse softly to himself.

“Char!” Ark whispered, taking advantage of the commotion. “Are you still free?”

Charleston didn’t reply right away. Slive’s screams filled his ears.

“Let him down,” Jedidiah commanded. Charleston glanced back, hoping the man would put Slive out of his misery.

“Char!” Ark whispered again.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Then do something!”

Charleston brought his sword up.

“Not that! Use your energy to hit those two,” she indicated Chrome and Violet with her eyes. “They’re probably the ones holding us.”

Charleston looked over at the two children. Violet was eagerly watching as Jedidiah pulled the intestines from Slive’s torso, the man’s screams growing weaker and weaker with each tug. Chrome was stoic and unreadable while he looked on Slive’s suffering. Meanwhile, Green had turned his back on the scene, his face ashen. With a sudden rush of anger, Charleston sent three separate and pointed lashes of energy at their heads. Caught off guard by the attack, the children were slammed backwards to the ground.

“Attack!” Arkhangelsk yelled. Jedidiah crashed into the base of the statue, his arms covered in blood and guts.

Slive’s guards, as well as the remaining soldiers and fanatics, came at the Podkind, rifles blasting. But without the help of Green and the others, the four friends made short work of them, deflecting laser fire with their energy shields long enough to get in range of their more traditional weapons. Cries of pain and blood filled the entrance hall.

Charleston cut down two soldiers, then leapt towards Jedidiah, who was picking himself up from the gory ground. Charleston punched him with the hilt of his sword, the blow infused with as much energy as he could muster. The man’s head smashed against the statue, blood pouring from his temple. He slumped back to the ground, unmoving.

Charleston turned to the larger battle. New York and Ragnar were hacking through the final few soldiers, while Arkhangelsk was again engaged with Chrome in furious combat. Charleston scanned the room for Green and Violet.

They were gone.

Drawing his bow, Charleston got a bead on Chrome and let fly. His arrow was true. The boy dropped to the ground, Arkhangelsk’s spear piercing his side as he fell.

That only left Paris, but he hadn’t moved once during the fight.

The others joined Charleston, who was still standing over Jedidiah.

“Is he dead?” New York asked, his tone hopeful.

“No,” Charleston replied, kicking the man and eliciting a groan.

“What now?” Arkhangelsk asked.

“New York, call Savannah and tell her what’s going on. Find out where they’re at.” He cursed. They’d wasted so much time here. But at least they’d captured Jedidiah. He only hoped their victory hadn’t come at the price of Gala’s life. “Ragnar,” Charleston continued, turning to his large Viking friend, “can you keep him bound with energy?” he asked, indicating the unconscious and bleeding prophet. “Ark, you too,” he said after a moment. “I’m running pretty low with these wounds and I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Char!” New York interrupted excitedly. “Savannah says they’ve got Gala to Med Dome!”

“What?” he asked, surprise and happiness welling inside of him. “How? Is she okay?”

“She says the other ships joined them soon after we left,” New York replied, relaying back what Savannah was telling him via the communicator, “and they were able to fight their way to Space Branch and land. They took her to Med Dome there, rather than in the city,” he said. “She says some doctors had set up a triage there and were treating the wounded from both sides. She’s alive and in good hands.”

Relief flooded his chest. He felt like laughing and crying. Gala was safe. She would be okay.

“She and Jax are on their way here,” he said, having finished relaying the situation to their captain. “The tide has turned and New Washington’s forces have regained the upper hand.”

Charleston nodded, his decision made. They’d come too far and risked too much to stop now. Jedidiah hadn’t told them everything and he wanted to know the whole truth. “Let’s finish this.”

“What do we do with him?” Arkhangelsk asked, pointing at the crazed prophet, still slumped unconscious in Slive’s blood.

“What he wanted,” Charleston replied grimly. “Let’s see what’s upstairs.” He turned towards the elevators when a ragged voice called out.

“Charleston,” Slive said weakly, his head lolling on his chest.

Charleston started. How was the man still alive? His intestines were strewn all over the floor.

“Help me,” he said.

Charleston looked at him and thought of Gala, strung up between two trees, her insides hanging out.

He turned and left.

 

Chapter 39

 

“You’re going to have to tell me the long version after this is all over,” Arkhangelsk said to Charleston as he led the way to the elevators. She looked grim and unhappy, blood on her face and a burn spot on her chest. New York and Ragnar followed behind, each holding one of Jedidiah’s arms, half-dragging, half-carrying the still unconscious man to the elevator. The pair didn’t look much better, bloody and bruised from the battle.

At least we won, Charleston thought, wondering just what he looked like. His leg throbbed and he felt a sharp pain in his chest every time he breathed. And those were just the wounds he’d sustained at the hands of Jambon. His face felt like mush and his head ached. He was finding it increasingly difficult to embrace the pain and keep moving.

“Charleston,” Paris called from where he still stood near the statue of Stiles.

Charleston hesitated, then turned to face their odd friend. “Is that why you wanted to come?” he asked. “To betray us?”

Paris shook his head. “I wanted to help.” There was emotion in his voice, more emotion than Charleston had ever heard from him. “I thought my,” he paused awkwardly, “unique skills would come in handy.”

Charleston didn’t know what to say. He felt all the hurt of watching someone he’d thought was a friend help the enemy. Still, if Paris truly was an android, could he really have stopped himself? “How long have you known?” he asked finally.

Paris shrugged, a flash of pain on his face. “I wasn’t sure until Jedidiah took over.”

Before Charleston could reply, Arkhangelsk stepped forward. “What are you waiting for?” she asked brusquely. “Let’s go!”

Paris smiled hesitantly, then joined them.

New York dropped Jedidiah a moment and gave Paris a hug.

“I’m sorry,” Paris said, his voice muffled by New York’s shoulder. “I’m really sorry.”

“It was me you blasted halfway across the room,” Arkhangelsk said, rubbing her chest.

Paris pulled back from New York and smiled apologetically at her. “I had no idea I could do that!”

“Well, hopefully it’ll come in handy,” Charleston replied, trying to hide the mixed feelings he had about bringing Paris along. Who else could hack into his brain and take over? “Now let’s get upstairs,” he said, ignoring the warning voice in his head.

The elevator glided to a halt and opened to reveal the upper level of the Council of Nine Building. The entrance hall that had been decorated for their dance now looked bare and dark, the alcoves ringing the room lost in shadow.

Charleston felt disappointment blossom in his chest. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but an empty waiting room wasn’t it. He went to Jedidiah, still limp between his two large friends, and slapped him in the face.

The man groaned.

Charleston hit him again.

The man’s eyes fluttered, then opened to slits. Blood was smeared down his face and side.

“Okay, Fred,” Charleston said, emphasizing the man’s former name, “we’re upstairs. Where do we find this last big secret?”

Jedidiah swallowed hard and closed his eyes. “Claire,” he finally managed to grunt.

Charleston didn’t know what to say. “Claire?” he finally repeated. “She’s your big secret?”

“Council of Nine,” he managed, nodding towards the set of double doors opposite the elevator, the place Claire had taken him all those years ago to face his punishment for sneaking into Space Dome. Charleston turned and led the way, pushing through the doors and into the room with the large round table and nine dark screens.

Except there was no table. There were no screens.

It looked like a different room all together. In place of the windowless, closed space he remembered, he found himself looking out through a wall of glass at the city below, an intricate chair in place of the circular table. Claire stood alone at the glass, her back to them. She didn’t turn when they entered, though Charleston saw her shoulders tense.

“Mom?” Charleston called softly. What was she doing here by herself?

“Mom!” the others, except for Ragnar, all began calling out. They hurried to their mother, more relieved than they would like to admit to see her.

Claire turned and smiled at them. It looked as if she’d been crying. “Ark!” she said, hugging the young woman. “Char! And Paris! New York! Arizona!” she said when she registered their presence. She’d either forgotten Arizona was now Ragnar, son of Ragnar, or she was seeing them as she remembered them, her children. “What are you doing here? Are you okay? You look horrible! It’s not safe right now,” she added before they could answer. Her eyes then took in Jedidiah slumped in the chair in the center of the room where New York and Ragnar had deposited him. Her face went hard. “What’s he doing here?”

“I think he came to confront the Council!” Charleston replied. “We just defeated him and his people downstairs.”

Something dark passed over Claire’s face, then vanished. “But what were you doing downstairs? You’re supposed to be in the South Pole!”

Charleston told her what happened to bring them to the Council of Nine Building as quickly as he could. “It’s insane out there,” he finished. “We almost died.”

Claire smiled at them, though it appeared somehow sad. “I’m glad you didn’t,” she said, then turned to look through the glass wall. Charleston followed her gaze and gasped. New Washington really did look like a war zone. Even though they’d fought in the park and knew it to be in ruins, it was still shocking to see from this height just how bad the damage was. It was barely recognizable, its trees uprooted and the ground riddled with large holes and gashes. The statue of Stiles that had stood in the very center was nowhere to be seen, its base all that remained to indicate it had ever been there. The sidewalks that shot off from it like spokes on a wheel were cracked in places, completely gone in others. Beyond the park, Charleston saw pillars of smoke billowing up from multiple locations. Entire buildings were rubble.

As he took in the sight below him, a small crowd of people clad in colorful, clashing clothing rushed from around a crumpled building, rifles held tightly in their hands. A moment later, one of the Cyclops orbs zoomed after them, the blue light of its single eye dark and angry. The people fired a few shots at the orb over their shoulders, but to little effect. In response, the blue of the orb’s eye deepened, then a burst of light erupted from it. A second later, the small group was nowhere to be seen.

“Such beauty,” Claire said, ignoring the battle that had just played out before them. “So much planning and work. So many years devoted to this place. And now it’s being destroyed.”

“Good riddance,” Jedidiah’s clear voice sounded. Charleston spun to see the man standing and looking much too healthy. He smiled a bloody smile, his eyes alight. “Hello, Mother! I’m home!”

Charleston didn’t wait for Claire to respond. He leapt towards the false prophet and sent a wave of energy at him, drawing his sword as he did so. He sensed Arkhangelsk and Ragnar close behind him.

Jedidiah didn’t move. He didn’t even flinch. But his smile widened.

Charleston slammed into an invisible wall and slid to the ground. Arkhangelsk skidded to a halt to avoid doing the same, but Ragnar crashed into it so hard he bounced back and hit the floor, his head snapping back with a sickening thud.

Just then, Paris raised his arm and blasted New York square in the chest before turning it on Claire. Arkhangelsk, who had so far managed to avoid serious injury, lunged at Jedidiah with her spear. The man deflected the blow with a forearm, twisting his hand at the last second to grip the spear’s shaft. He yanked Arkhangelsk towards him and slammed his forehead into her nose with a crunch. She dropped to the ground motionless.

Charleston groaned and rolled over, his chest throbbing from the arrow wound. It felt like something had torn when he’d crashed into Jedidiah’s energy field. He struggled to get to his feet, but another blow sent him sprawling.

“Stay there,” Jedidiah said coldly as he strode between the fallen Podkind, “and listen. The adults are talking now.”

“Hello, Fred,” Claire said, her voice icy and calm. She hadn’t moved during the battle and still stood by the window overlooking the city. “I had a feeling you were playing opossum.”

Jedidiah laughed. “They’ve been trained well, I grant you that,” he remarked. “That punch to the head really rang my bell for a minute, but they have no idea what these tattoos are capable of.”

“I’m sure they’ll take great comfort in your praise, Fred,” she replied dryly.

“There is no Fred,” Jedidiah snapped, his voice rising. “Only Jedidiah!”

“Please,” Claire replied. “I’m not calling you by that ridiculous name.”

“But it’s my name,” he said possessively. “I chose it after I was reborn by the grace and mercy of the Lord God Almighty, who put me on this path to you.”

Claire scoffed. “That nonsense may work with your flock of morons and inbreds, but I know it for what it is – a carefully constructed lie to flatter your own ego as much as to gather an army.”

“Ah!” Jedidiah said, pointing a finger to the sky as if he’d just remembered something. “I’m so glad you mentioned that carefully constructed lie. I was just bringing young Charleston and his friends to you to hear about your lies before they so rudely killed all my people and knocked me out. But they were kind enough to drag me along anyway.” He smiled. “You see, I didn’t want to rob you of the opportunity to unburden your soul by telling them your secrets. Confession is the first step towards redemption, after all. And your conscience is full to the brim with sins,” he finished gravely.

Claire smiled a tight smile. “Whatever weights rest on my conscience have nothing to do with these children,” she replied.

“But they do!” Jedidiah fired back, sounding as if Claire’s response had been just what he hoped she’d say. “They wouldn’t be here if not for your many, many misdeeds.”

“Drop the prophet façade, Fred,” Claire snapped. “Unless you’ve actually convinced yourself of it,” she added with disdain.

“I am a prophet!” Jedidiah nearly screamed, taking a step forward, his metal eyes gleaming in the reflected light from above. There was madness in his voice now. “I’m the prophet who foretold the fall of New Washington! And I will be the prophet of your unmasking and demise!”

As Jedidiah spoke, Charleston managed to crawl away from him and towards the chair in the center of the room. He needed something to support him. He was exhausted and hurting.

“You see what they’ve suffered because of you?” Jedidiah asked, sweeping an arm out to indicate the fallen Podkind.

“I believe their wounds are the direct result of your actions, Fred,” Claire replied.

Jedidiah laughed. “I’m not speaking of wounds of the flesh,” he answered, “but wounds of the soul. Of the mind. Of the heart.”

Charleston made it to the chair and tried to pull himself into it, but failed.

“More prophet nonsense,” Claire said dismissively.

“NO!” Jedidiah yelled. “You’ve robbed them of their innocence!”

“You sound like Green, now,” she snarled, “whining about living forever.”

How does Claire know Green? Charleston wondered as he tried his best to follow their strange conversation through the pain. How does she know Fred? Why did he bring us here?

Jedidiah smiled. “You’ve ruined their capacity to believe, Mother,” he continued, ignoring her jibe. “You’ve jaded them to actual truth by building their entire world on lies.”

Claire shook her head. “And I suppose you possess the actual truth?” she asked contemptuously.

“I know your truth,” he said, his voice suddenly quiet.

Claire made a disgusted sound. “You’re speaking in useless riddles, Fred. Let’s end this.” She made no move, but something in her changed. She compressed inwards somehow, as if filling herself with an unseen force.

“Not yet!” Jedidiah shouted. “Not until you tell them the truth about New Washington! About you!”

“What’s he talking about?” Charleston murmured from where he half-lay, half-sat propped against the base of the chair. He was so tired. Each breath was ragged and bloody. “And why does he keep calling you mother?”

“Because she is my mother!” Jedidiah laughed. “She’s all of our mothers, aren’t you, Mother?” he asked harshly.

“I knew your mother, Fred,” Claire shot back. “Actually, if I’m not mistaken, she’s still alive.”

Jedidiah laughed again.

“Could you please just get to the point already?” Arkhangelsk said. She was leaning heavily on her spear. Blood stained her mouth and neck from Jedidiah’s headbutt. “You brought us here for some big reveal, but you’re talking nonsense. Tell us or kill us, but do something!” She sounded exasperated, offended even.

“Kill you?” Jedidiah asked, sounding surprised. “Why would I kill you?”

“For the same reason you killed the Planners.”

Jedidiah laughed. “They had that coming. No, I don’t want to kill you. I can’t say the same for Claire, though.”

Claire scoffed. “I raised these podlings from birth, Fred! I have no wish to see them come to any harm.”

“And yet,” he replied quickly, “you were planning on leaving them here in what’s left of your precious city at the mercy of the invaders. Seems an odd way to show your love and devotion, Mother.”

Charleston looked at the chair he was leaning against and understood. It was a captain’s chair, similar to Savannah’s, only more complex.

Jedidiah laughed when Claire didn’t respond immediately. “Yes, I know all about your little hidden ship here. What do people say about this out-of-place oval perched atop a spire? It’s to remind them the Council is looking over them and protecting them at all times? What a joke!” he said. “If only they knew there was no Council and that this hideous thing was really your escape plan, should you ever need to leave New Washington behind for good.”

Charleston wasn’t sure he’d heard Jedidiah correctly among all the wild things he was saying. “What?” he asked stupidly.

“He’s a false prophet, Char,” Claire said quickly. “Don’t believe what he says.”

“Come now, Mother,” Jedidiah replied. “No more lies. Tell them the truth and let them decide.” He paused, but Claire said nothing. “No? Well, you had your chance,” he continued smugly, clearly enjoying the moment. “Charleston, Arkhangelsk,” he paused and looked at New York and Ragnar, but only the latter was moving, though he wasn’t fully conscious yet. “There is no Council of Nine. Claire is the Council of Nine.”

Charleston shook his head, though he immediately regretted it as a wave of dizziness washed over him. “That’s not possible,” he said a moment later. “There are nine members of the Council. I’ve seen them.”

“Have you now?”

Charleston thought back to the many Founder’s Days he’d been to and the Council’s speeches, always delivered through Claire. He never saw anyone in those screens, only silhouettes. It was the same when he and his friends were brought before the Council by a still living Slive.

“Are you putting it together now?” Jedidiah asked, his metal eyes sparkling.

“So Claire rules the nine domes?” Charleston asked. “She’s not the Council’s voice, but the one in charge of it?”

“Oh, children,” Jedidiah replied, mockingly disappointed. “You look all grown up, but you’re still so young. There is no Council because there are no other domes.”

“What?” Charleston felt his confusion increasing with every new revelation. “The Council of Nine has one leader from each dome in New America! Everyone knows that.”

“Claire?” the man said, offering again for her to explain. She remained silent, however, grimly staring at Jedidiah as he spoke. “That’s what Claire would have you think, yes,” he continued. “But there are no other domes in New America. Claire made sure of that.”

Charleston said nothing, trying to sort through what he was hearing and the growing fuzziness in his head.

“But why lie about Stiles and the other domes and the Council?” Arkhangelsk asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Yes, Mother,” Jedidiah said. “Why fabricate so much of New Washington’s history, the history of the world, really?”

Claire looked as if she was ready to kill Jedidiah, but still she said nothing.

“Because you needed a really big lie to cover up the truth you were hiding. It was my discovery of this truth that sent me fleeing New Washington as soon as I could. It was this truth that inspired me to raise an army and attack.”

“So what is it already?” Arkhangelsk asked, again trying to hurry Jedidiah. “You talk too much.”

Jedidiah gave her a grin, relishing the moment. “Let me tell you the true story of the founding of New Washington,” he said, sounding pleased with himself. It was clear to Charleston even in his current state that Jedidiah had been anticipating this moment for a long time. “Just around the beginning of the Time of Troubles when the world was dangerously hot and people were already migrating inland, the government finally listened to the experts who had long been predicting that, within a generation, the majority of the United States would be uninhabitable. It was too late to stop the temperatures from rising, so they commissioned a group of engineers and scientists to find another solution.

“And they came up with the idea of the dome modeled after a tree. Brilliant, really. The only problem,” here he paused for effect, “was there wasn’t enough peresilium to build more than one dome. They hadn’t figured out how to make it artificially yet and it was no simple task to harvest other meteoroids, even should they have the minerals needed to make it. So what could they do? They knew everyone in the country, if not the world, would want a spot in their proposed dome once it got hot enough.

“Construction had begun at this point, and whole make-shift cities full of would-be inhabitants had already sprung up around the site. The government did its best to feed them and keep the peace, but fights began breaking out on a regular basis. Crowds of angry citizens claiming elitism and deceit on the part of their government continued to grow by the day. Soon, chaos and mob mentality ruled to the point they threatened the construction of the very thing they sought.”

“The Time of Troubles,” Charleston said, caught up in the story despite himself.

“Yes,” Jedidiah agreed, “but not quite like you learned about in school.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “It was quickly becoming clear to those in power that something would have to be done to solve the problem. So the government changed tactics. They announced the discovery of the means to make peresilium artificially and revealed plans to build domes all around the country, enough to provide shelter to all who sought it. The hordes of angry people were appeased. Everyone was assigned a dome and told to move there immediately to help with the construction.”

“That’s exactly what we learned about in school,” Arkhangelsk interrupted.

Jedidiah laughed cynically. “Wrong! There were no other domes built. It was all a carefully crafted fabrication,” he repeated the phrase, smirking at Claire as he did so, “designed to disperse the mobs of refugees and get rid of them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” Jedidiah said smiling. “They weren’t sent off on a vacation! They were killed!”

“What!?” Arkhangelsk and Charleston exclaimed simultaneously.

“That’s right,” the man replied, looking pleased at their reaction. “The mass of people who weren’t accepted to live in New Washington were put on buses and taken to various undisclosed and uninhabited places. A team of engineers and scientists went along with them. Once there, they were told each individual would be given an inoculation that would prevent the toxic air from killing them long enough for their new homes to be completed. A cure for polluted air, if you will,” Jedidiah smirked. “Only this cure killed them.”

“What?” Arkhangelsk asked again, shocked.

“They were executed,” Jedidiah answered simply. “In the largest mass killing the world has ever seen, millions upon millions of people were put to death simply because there was no room for them in New Washington.”

Charleston’s mind raced, or attempted to, with all the new information he was hearing. There were two cures? One cured death, while the other dealt it? Was this what Charles had been referring to before he threw himself from the top of the observatory?

“The logistics of it are quite interesting, actually,” Jedidiah continued as if he were talking about the weather. “Can you imagine how difficult it must have been to keep the growing pile of corpses a secret from those still waiting to get the so-called cure? I have some theories if you’d like to hear them. Or maybe you’d just like to enlighten us, Mother?” he asked.

“What does Claire have to do with any of this?” Arkhangelsk asked. “You act like she was there or something, injecting people with this fake cure!”

“But she was there!” Jedidiah beamed.

“How?” Arkhangelsk asked in disbelief. “That’d make her thousands of years old!”

“And the Cure wasn’t perfected until after New Washington was complete,” Charleston managed.

“Lies within lies!” Jedidiah said gleefully, his sparkling metal eyes staring hard at Claire.

“The Cure, as you know it,” Claire said, finally breaking her silence, “was discovered by my wife while she was working on a solution to the polluted air.”

“But Green said the Cure had to be perfected on generations of children before it worked!” Charleston protested.

Claire shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

“No time like the present!” Jedidiah chortled.

“I still don’t understand what you had to do with all of this,” Arkhangelsk said from where she still slumped against her spear.

Claire sighed. “I was the president. I signed the order to kill those who remained outside of New Washington.”

Charleston blinked in disbelief, unable to speak.

“Fred makes it sound so cut and dry, so maliciously cruel, as if I took any pleasure in ending those people’s lives,” Claire continued.

“Ha!” Jedidiah laughed. “What a euphemism! Call it what it was – genocide.”

“It was a mercy!” Claire retorted, her voice rising. “Those people were doomed to die a slow, painful death from starvation or exposure or something worse.”

“But they would have had a choice,” Jedidiah fired back. “They would have been able to decide how to live out the rest of their days.”

“And they would have decided to attack the only place they knew could offer them salvation,” Claire shouted, finally giving vent to her anger. “They would have stormed New Washington, just like you and your people have, and we would have all died! It was the lesser of two evils! Either kill ninety percent of the population or kill a hundred percent! The choice is clear and my conscience is as well!”

“Who were you to play god?” Jedidiah shouted back. “Who were you to decide those poor people’s fate?”

Claire snorted. “Those poor people,” she mimicked Jedidiah’s tone. “Those poor people decided their own fate when they doomed this planet to death! Whose fault was it carbon dioxide was pumped into our atmosphere at unprecedented rates? Whose fault was it temperatures soared and the oceans rose? Whose fault was it people chose to deny the evidence in front of them because it was more convenient than not buying a second car? To depict those people as anything other than murderers is to rewrite history, as you accuse me of doing. It is to deny their culpability in their own demise. They murdered our planet and they murdered each other because of it. I just made sure they didn’t murder the entire human race along with them!”

Charleston closed his eyes. He was so tired. He was losing blood and with it his interest in the conversation. All he wanted to do was sleep. A hand on his shoulder caused him to jerk. It was Claire.

“What are you doing?” Jedidiah asked, a note of suspicion in his voice.

“Comforting my child,” Claire said angrily.

As she spoke, Charleston felt a warmth spread from his shoulder down through his body. The pain dulled and his mind sharpened. “What are you doing?” he echoed Jedidiah.

“Sharing,” she replied with a smile.

“Did you really kill all those people?” he asked.

“Not personally, no,” she answered. “But I ordered it.”

“Why?” he asked. “I mean, how could you doom millions of innocent people to death like that? It’s, it’s…” he struggled to find the right word, “unjust,” he finally said. “They didn’t deserve to die.”

“Survival isn’t just or unjust, son,” she replied. “It just is. It’s a law of nature and nature is outside of morality. It doesn’t know good or evil.”

“How come no one knows about it?” he asked.

“Because she’s a coward,” Jedidiah interrupted. “She doesn’t want anyone to find out she’s a mass murderer.”

Claire smiled her gentle, sad smile. “Is this really your big, dark secret, Fred? The truth that sent you fleeing in search of some means of retribution?” She shook her head. “You’re a fool. I hid the truth to protect you, Char, to protect everyone in New Washington.”

Jedidiah laughed sharply.

“Silence!” Claire snapped, leaving Charleston and walking back towards Jedidiah. “You had your chance to talk!” She took a breath and continued more calmly. “Can you imagine how it would impact people to know they were alive at the cost of millions and millions of others? That this wonderful home was built on the bones and ashes of countless corpses?” She paused to let her questions sink in.

“Because I do. I watched it eat my wife alive until she couldn’t take the guilt any longer and ended her own life. And she wasn’t the only one. The people in my inner circle who knew what we’d done couldn’t live with it. Their lives seemed cursed to them and they slowly disappeared, many following my wife’s example, but some leaving New Washington as a kind of penance to find a slower death outside.”

“More half truths,” Jedidiah said. “Tell the whole truth, Mother!”

Claire sighed. “I think it’s time we put an end to our little reunion, Fred,” she replied. “Your revolution has failed and so have you.”

Jedidiah’s eyes widened. “We’ve destroyed Military Branch. We control City Dome itself! And now we can finally provide justice to all those millions of people you killed.” He signaled to Paris, who once again raised his arm and aimed it at Claire.

Nothing happened.

Claire smiled. “Do you really think you’re the only one who can interfere with the programming of these machines?”

“Then I’ll just have to finish you off myself,” Jedidiah replied and leapt forward.

Without thinking, Charleston lashed out with the energy Claire had given him hoping to knock Jedidiah back. From the other side he sensed Arkhangelsk doing the same. Regardless of what this crazed would-be prophet had said, they weren’t going to let him kill their mother.

But they weren’t fast enough. Before their energy could strike the man, Paris turned and blasted Jedidiah out of the air with a beam of light brighter than any he’d fired before. The man slammed hard into the wall opposite, then slid to the ground, broken and bleeding.

“Again, your arrogance and foolishness betray you, Fred,” Claire said, striding over to stand above him. “Paris is programmed to protect me at all costs, as are all the machines in New Washington. Any danger posed to me will override any other command or directive.”

Jedidiah groaned but still didn’t move. He looked twisted. Blood oozed from his nose. Charleston and Arkhangelsk joined Claire.

“And now your time has come to an end,” Claire said.

“You can’t kill him!” Charleston protested.

“Why not?” Claire asked, genuinely surprised. “He’s a traitor and a murderer. He deserves to die.”

“Not like this, though!” Charleston said.

“How then, if not like this?” she asked.

“Take him before the Council!” Charleston said without thinking.

Claire smiled. “I assure you the Council will condemn him to death, as well.”

“You murdered those people,” Jedidiah said, his voice slurring, as if he controlled only half his mouth.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Claire said. “We covered this already.”

“NO!” he forced out loudly, then gasped from pain. “The secret,” he continued, each word a struggle. “She kept…the secret…by killing…by killing the people who knew it.”

“More fantasies,” Claire said.

“But I…I told my people…everything,” he managed. “Everyone…knows…”

With a suddenness that caused Charleston to gasp, an unseen force twisted Jedidiah’s head around with a sickening crack.

 

Chapter 40

 

“Jedidiah was right about one thing,” Claire said sadly, turning from the broken, contorted body of the man who’d brought New Washington to its knees. “I didn’t want anyone to learn the truth.”

“What do you mean?” Charleston asked. He couldn’t believe Claire had killed Jedidiah right before their eyes…and so gruesomely.

“The truth about the Council and the other domes,” Claire replied, walking over to New York’s still body and placing a hand to his neck. “About what I had to do for us to survive.”

A pit opened in Charleston’s stomach as he looked on. “Is he…?” But he couldn’t finish.

“He’s alive, though his breathing is weak,” Claire replied. “Arizona,” she said, looking at Ragnar, who’d managed to stand during all the commotion. He was bloody and haggard, but no longer seemed dazed. “How are you feeling?”

Ragnar didn’t reply.

“Arizona!”

“His name is Ragnar,” Charleston said, wondering why Claire didn’t know this.

Claire straightened up from New York and walked back to the window overlooking New Washington.

“How have you kept it a secret this entire time?” Charleston asked. “Surely the military and their pilots have noticed there aren’t any other domes.”

Claire sighed. “Yes, our generals know some of the truth, though even they think there is a real Council.”

“What about the people from back then?” Charleston asked, remembering what she’d said about how most committed suicide one way or another. “They didn’t confess to anyone what they’d done?”

Claire turned to look at Charleston now. Her face had darkened again, as it had when she’d first seen Jedidiah. “So many questions,” she said, her tone cool.

Charleston felt the hair on his neck stand on end, and he glanced at Arkhangelsk, who looked exhausted.

“I’m sorry you fought so hard to make it back here,” Claire continued, her tone a mixture of resignation and kindness. “It would have been better had you returned after Jedidiah’s forces had been defeated.”

“From the looks of it,” Charleston replied, “I’m not sure they would have been.”

Claire smiled, though her eyes remained hard. “It was a trap, Charleston. I needed Jedidiah to commit all his troops, the ones from outside New Washington and the ones he’d turned on the inside. I needed to flush out all the rats. Otherwise, whom could I trust? How would I have known who’d been loyal to Jedidiah but pretended not to be once he was no more?”

“You let New Washington be attacked?” Charleston asked incredulously, though something clicked. This explained why Claire had done nothing about Violet or Jedidiah when they’d told her. “You could have gotten to Jedidiah at any time?” he continued.

“Sometimes when you cut the head off the snake, it just grows another one,” she replied, her words an echo of Green’s. “I couldn’t risk one of his followers picking up his banner. I had to get them all.”

“But who knows how many people have died?!”

“They died for the greater good,” she replied. “Don’t you understand this yet, Charleston?” she asked, striding past Ragnar and towards him, as if the others weren’t even in the room. Her tone reminded Charleston of Jedidiah’s own fanatic ravings and this had him on edge. “All there is anymore is New Washington! We have to preserve it! We have to keep the people safe!”

“Even if it costs the lives of some of those very people?”

“Their sacrifice has not been in vain,” she replied.

“But there had to have been another way!” Charleston argued, his voice rising. He again looked at Arkhangelsk and was relieved to see she was on guard. Ragnar, meanwhile, had edged around behind Claire, hand on the hilt of his sword.

“You act as if I’m to blame for this,” she replied, gesturing to the carnage inside and outside the room. “Yet you forget it was Jedidiah who attacked. He’s the reason so many have perished.”

“But you knew about him!” Charleston nearly shouted. “You could have captured him before he attacked!” Gala’s dead because of you, the thought flashed through his mind. He felt anger flood through him as completely as the energy Claire had given him earlier.

Claire sighed and shook her head. “You’re not listening, Charleston. Your belief in justice, as you so childishly invoked earlier, is a naïve luxury that allows you to feel some sense of rightness. But justice is just as much a created concept as old Earth’s belief in god. It’s a construct men created to justify their actions, their decisions, their very existence. But it isn’t real,” she said passionately. “There’s no justice in what your ancestors did to this Earth, to the mass extinction of virtually every known life form on the planet. I learned this lesson in the harshest way possible all those centuries ago when I had to decide between killing the majority to save the few or letting us all die.”

Charleston saw her eyes go distant, as if she were reliving that decision.

“No, Charleston,” she continued, still seeing the past. “There is no justice. There is only the greater good and that greater good is survival, is living! Back then, I spent months seeking another way, listening to the voice inside of me that called for mercy, kindness, and, yes, justice, for all people. After I came to the only rational decision, agonizing as it was, I struggled with my guilty conscience for years, decades probably. I didn’t know how I would be able to keep living with all those deaths weighing me down. But I survived. We survived,” she continued, her eyes now focused and full of a feverish light. “Morality, justice, goodness,” she scoffed, “are all useless if not in the service of the greater good, of survival, of life! But the reality is they more often than not only get in the way of the greater good while claiming to serve it. I understand that clearly now.

“I no longer struggle with these types of decisions,” she continued after a moment. “I don’t lose sleep over them or feel guilty. But I am also not a hypocrite,” she said, her voice suddenly angry, “like this one,” she nodded towards Jedidiah. “Do you really think he wanted justice served? Ha!” she barked a laugh. “He wanted power! He wanted to serve his greater good and, let me assure you, that greater good was his own survival, not New Washington’s. Look at what he did to my city! But I care about New Washington!” she continued, and her voice was full of passion once more. “I love it because it is mine, my creation! And I will do whatever it takes to preserve it, to protect it.”

Charleston was silent, unsure how to respond to Claire’s tirade. For much of it, she sounded as if she were arguing with someone else entirely, as if Charleston, Arkhangelsk, and Ragnar weren’t even there.

“Which brings me to the problem of you four,” she said, her voice turning hard and emotionless once more. “I can’t risk the truth of the Council, of the Cure, and of New Washington’s origin getting out.”

“But Jedidiah told everyone already!” Charleston replied.

Claire scoffed. “The words of a mad man. Some will believe him, but most will not. But if the Podkind support their claims…”

“What does it matter if people know?”

“Not everyone would understand what I chose to do and those people would suffer unduly from this knowledge,” Claire answered.

“You mean, you would suffer! You would be held accountable!”

Claire shrugged. “Perhaps. I can’t take that chance. I can’t risk losing control of New Washington’s destiny. The last thing it needs is for an actual Council of Nine to run it.”

“Why?” Charleston asked. “Stiles set up New Washington’s government to be a democracy for a reason, didn’t he?”

Claire laughed. “How quickly the lie takes hold again,” she said. “There was no Stiles, remember? I created him!”

“Then why pretend to have a ruling Council at all?” Charleston asked. “Why not just come out as emperor or queen or…”

“Dictator?” she asked and smiled. “This country has a long tradition of opposing individual rulers. It’s not England or Russia, after all. It’s the United States. Even its name suggests democratic rule. No, I had to preserve the image of democracy, even though it’s the most useless and ineffective means of governing. Just look at your ship. You don’t take a vote on what to do. No, you have a captain who makes decisions and gives commands. If you ever want to see how democracy works, try making a decision as a ship and see what happens.

“No,” she continued, “democracy is what people choose when they fear granting power to one ruler. But what they don’t realize is that dividing that power among each individual citizen results in no one having any power. And then smart and clever people find a way to seize that power under the guise of democratic rule. So rather than choosing one ruler, the people effectively leave their governance to whoever has the brains and the courage to take charge.”

“But there are systems in place, elections, representatives,” Charleston replied, “all meant to prevent corruption.”

“All meant to lull the common citizen into thinking they have a say, that their government represents them, answers to them. But it’s one big farce.”

“So you’re saying those who ruled on old Earth were all corrupt, out only for power?”

“No, not all, but most, particularly towards the end. For those few who genuinely wanted to serve the people, they allowed your misguided notions of justice and fairness to get in the way of actual governance. Democracy is best at maintaining the status quo for the majority, while allowing the elite to become richer and more powerful. That’s not what I wanted for New Washington. No, New Washington needs a sovereign to guide it. And I can’t let you stop that from happening.”

Charleston heard the threat in her voice, but there was something else there, too, something familiar. She sounded like Jedidiah and Green had when they’d gotten worked up about New Washington.

Green, he thought. She knows about Green.

“How do you know about Green?” he asked, trying to buy more time. He really didn’t want to fight his mother, no matter what atrocities she’d committed. More realistically, he didn’t think they could beat her, particularly with Paris on her side.

“Who do you think had them born?”

“But why if not to perfect the Cure?”

She smiled a dark smile. “Charleston, you are very, very naïve,” she said, though it didn’t sound like the accusation it had been earlier, but more a statement of fact. “All children are. It’s what makes them so malleable, so controllable. You’re like blank canvases waiting to be painted.”

Charleston felt his face go hot as he remembered the conversations he’d had with the others about the Council viewing them as a commodity.

“I thought about using androids like this one to work the mines,” she continued, indicating Paris, “but we humans have something unique about us, something that can’t be recreated in robots.”

“What’s that?” Charleston asked.

“Tell me, Charleston,” she said instead of answering, “when you thought the Council and Planners were corrupt, when you believed Jedidiah knew some dark truth about New Washington, what did you and your friends do?”

Charleston thought back to their conversations over the years and the decision they kept coming back to – keep working, keep training. Their mission was still important.

Claire’s eyes danced as she read Charleston’s thoughts. “You kept your mission first and foremost in your minds. You continued to work to see it through. And that’s what’s so amazing about children, about humans as a species!” she continued. “Give us something to believe in, something to give meaning to our lives, and we’ll cling to it against all odds. We’ll fight for it until our last breath. And do you know what the best part about humans is? If there isn’t a way to win, to survive, then we’ll invent one,” she said, waving an arm at the dome around them.

“And that’s what your mission is to you. I created you and programmed you better than any computer to fulfill it. Even when you didn’t know what it was, you trained for it. Once you found out you were going to save New Washington, there was nothing I could’ve done to stop you from completing it. Even now,” she said with a laugh, “even now that you’ve found out these so-called dark secrets, you’ll still board your ships and fly off into space to save the rest of us.”

“And yet Green and Violet rebelled,” Charleston remarked.

Claire laughed again. “Only after they’d served their purpose. The painting that was their life had been finished. They were no longer needed. I could have had them exterminated at any time, but I thought it admirable, entertaining if you will, to watch them and the others struggle to make a life down there. It only reconfirmed my decision to use children rather than robots.”

“How many generations?” Charleston asked.

“What?”

“How many generations of children have you created and programmed?”

Her smile widened. “All of them, Charleston.”

“You’re playing god, even while proclaiming him dead.”

“Yes, and now I know what God must have felt when Eve ate the apple,” she replied.

“What?”

“When His creation rebelled against Him. My creation has rebelled, has risen up against me. But not all of them,” she added. “I’m still in control, I’m still the god of this place. Which is why I’m afraid I must eliminate you. I can’t risk losing that control. As your creator and your god, it is my right, though I’ve been closer to you than to most of my children. I meant what I said earlier. I wish you hadn’t returned to New Washington until after the battle was over. I really am sorry to have to kill you.” With that, Paris raised his arm at Charleston and fired.

Many things happened then and seemingly all at once.

Charleston leapt to his left to dodge, lashing out at Claire with a tongue of energy as he went. Arkhangelsk flung her spear straight at their mother at the same time Savannah and Jacksonville burst through the doors, laser rifles firing.

None of their attacks worked. Claire brought up a wall of energy to block them all.

Charleston hit the ground and rolled, narrowly avoiding the beam of light from Paris that cut just above his head.

Just then, though, an unseen force flipped him into the air and flung him across the room to smash into the wall next to where Jedidiah lay.

A wave of energy tore the rifles from Savannah and Jacksonville, then slammed them back against the doors they’d just came through. Claire then turned on Arkhangelsk, who appeared frozen, bound by invisible cords.

Before Claire could do more, however, Ragnar’s sword erupted from her stomach. She gasped and looked down, then weakly clutched at the bloody blade.

“Mom!” Charleston cried out despite himself, struggling back to his feet and stumbling towards her.

Claire sat down heavily on the ground, the sword still protruding from her belly. Blood was coming out of her mouth. “All the technology in the world,” she managed between gasps, “and I die by the sword.”

“How could you?!” Charleston yelled, looking up at the Viking.

“Ragnar, son of Ragnar, slay evil witch,” he said looking confused. He reached down and yanked his sword free. Claire cried out as blood gushed from the wound in her stomach. Arkhangelsk reached out a hand to keep Claire upright. Meanwhile, Charleston leapt at his Viking friend.

“What are you doing?!” he shouted, reaching for Ragnar’s throat. He wasn’t thinking. All he knew was that their mother was dying.

Ragnar twisted out of Charleston’s reach and Savannah grabbed him by the shoulders, roughly spinning him away from her boyfriend. She was dirty and bloody. “She’s not his mother!” she said harshly. “He did the right thing! He did the only thing!”

Tears welled up in Charleston’s eyes. “What?” he replied stupidly, the fight leaving him.

“He doesn’t have any memories of her like we do,” she explained. “Thankfully,” she added, looking at their mother with sad eyes. “I don’t think we could have stopped her. She would have killed all of us to keep her secret safe.”

Jacksonville came to stand by Savannah. He, too, was smeared with blood.

Charleston knelt down beside Arkhangelsk and reached an arm out to support Claire. Her eyes were glossing over and Charleston felt the weight of her press heavily against his outstretched arm. He gently lowered her to the ground.

She was dead.

Chapter 41

“We need to get New York to Med Dome!” Charleston said suddenly as if coming out of a trance. The shock of seeing his mother die, not to mention everything he’d learned about her, had made him momentarily forget where he was and what he was doing.

Savannah and Ragnar hurried over to their still unconscious friend and began examining him.

“And Gala!” Charleston cried. “I need to get to Gala!”

Ragnar stood, pulling a groggy New York up into a sitting position as he did so. “New York fine,” he said.

“Looks like a pretty serious concussion,” Savannah explained after Ragnar didn’t. “But he should be well enough to walk in a few minutes.”

“Great!” Charleston said impatiently. Now that the battle was over, the need to see Gala was causing him physical pain. “I’m going to Med Dome!” he said, turning towards the foyer and the elevators.

“Char, wait!” Savannah said. “It’s still a war zone out there. We’d have been here sooner if it wasn’t.”

Charleston didn’t understand her point. “I’ll be careful,” he said, starting off once more.

“Just wait a few minutes, Char, and we’ll go with you,” she said hurriedly. “It’ll be safer that way.”

“Arkhangelsk,” he said to the young woman still kneeling by Claire. “Paris,” he turned to the android who hadn’t moved since Claire’s death. “You two can come with me.”

Savannah made an unintelligible sound and approached him. She put her hand on his shoulder. There were tears welling in her eyes. “Char,” she began. “I didn’t want to tell you over the communicator…”

The edges of Charleston’s vision suddenly went black.

“Gala’s dead. She died before we could get to Med Dome. We tried…”

Charleston no longer heard her.

 

Epilogue

 

Savannah stood at her captain’s chair on the bridge of Crocodile Ship as they hurtled through space at a speed approaching that of light. Ragnar was next to her, marveling at the spectacle of space travel, despite the fact it had been several months since they’d left New Washington.

They were alone on deck, all but Paris having entered the cryogenic sleep that would make the trip to their first potential new home go by in the blink of an eye. Soon, she and Ragnar would join them, leaving the man-android the only one awake. Paris had assured her this was one of the things he’d been programmed to do, and Savannah had marveled at the Planners and their foresight, even while wondering how Paris wouldn’t get lonely.

Twelve years was a long time to go without speaking to another living being.

In reality, he wouldn’t be alone the whole time. Each of the others was scheduled to wake for short intervals, both to monitor the effects of the cryogenic sleep and to keep Paris company. He’d only be on his own for months at a time.

Ragnar placed a hand on Savannah’s shoulder. “Ready?” he asked.

She reached up and squeezed his hand, but said nothing.

“Charles Town okay,” Ragnar replied, as if reading her thoughts.

Savannah nodded, but still held Ragnar’s massive hand with her own. She wasn’t convinced Charleston was okay. After she’d told him at the top of the Council of Nine Building what had happened to Gala, he’d gone mad. He’d bolted from the room before any of them could stop him and disappeared. She and Ark had given chase, but they hadn’t found him until that evening, after the final skirmishes were over and New Washington was little more than a smoldering heap of buildings and bodies.

He was in Gala’s cabin on Shark Ship, sobbing into her pillow. He’d been to see her in Med Dome, where Savannah had taken her even though she’d died along the way, but he hadn’t stayed.

“Char,” Savannah said gently, putting an arm around him as she sat next to him. Arkhangelsk stood in the doorway, silent sobs racking her body. She and Gala had grown close over the years. “Char,” Savannah said again. “We’re here.”

Charleston had turned then and buried his face in Savannah’s lap, his shoulders shaking. Arkhangelsk had sat down next to them, and the three had held each other and cried.

Afterwards, after the fallout among the Planners and their professors when Claire’s secrets became known, after a real, albeit provisional, Council had been elected, and after Gala’s ashes had been scattered in Podkind Forest, Charleston quit talking. Not that he never said anything, but speaking to him reminded Savannah a great deal of what talking with Ragnar had first been like – lots of one-word responses and grunts. He turned inwards and, in doing so, cut himself off from his shipmates and friends. He was impossible to help this way, as he would barely acknowledge you, much less the substance of what you had to say. It infuriated Savannah that he wouldn’t let her and New York help him, but, if she were honest, she was most upset that she didn’t know how to help him. They hadn’t been taught how to deal with grief in their coursework, despite the danger of their mission.

Their mission, Savannah thought grimly. They would need Charleston for it. He and Arkhangelsk were the vanguard. They were to explore their potential new home and provide Savannah with the information necessary for her to decide if it was suitable for New Washington.

9And New Washington needed them to succeed sooner rather than later. Jedidiah’s attack had devastated the city, destroying more than half of the domes and threatening the delicate ecological balance that allowed its citizens to thrive. By the time the Podkind’s ships had departed for deep space, enough essential repairs had been made to keep the populace alive, but it would be a long time before New Washington returned to its former state, if it ever did.

But it wasn’t just the physical damage that had the new Council worried. The sheer number of people who had betrayed New Washington to join Jedidiah – two more ships of their own even, had vanished in the battle – coupled with the revelation of Claire’s lies, undermined people’s faith in their city and their new ruling government. Professor Thurmond, who’d been voted to serve as one of the council members, confided in her that he thought another civil war would break out sooner rather than later. There were still too many factions in the city and too many unhappy people who would seize this opportunity to take power.

It didn’t help matters that it became known there weren’t enough ships to transport everyone to their new home once it was found. When people learned this, another war nearly broke out as many of the survivors panicked and fought to enter Space Branch. It was a miracle more people weren’t killed as Thurmond and what remained of the Dome Guard stopped the rebellion before it could get fully going. And who knew how many more such attempts to steal the Podkind’s ships would have occurred had Thurmond and the Council not decided to send them on their mission that very week?

Now Crocodile Ship and seven of its sisters were traveling to investigate distant planets while the Council in New Washington sought to keep the peace, repair their home, and build enough ships to ensure every citizen would have a place.

“I want to be awake when he is,” Savannah finally said to Ragnar. “He needs his friends now more than ever, even if he doesn’t think so.

“We wake together,” Ragnar said. “We help Charles Town together.”

Savannah squeezed Ragnar’s hand once more and led him from the bridge to sleep the sleep of the near dead. Hopefully when they awoke, Charleston really would be okay.

 

The Podkind is a science fiction/fantasy novel written by Johnny Cycles. This wraps up Book 1. Stay tuned for the second book in the series!

Photo by Ruslan Valeev on Unsplash

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