c. 2024 Rod Ice
All rights reserved
(10-24)
After the last round of cyclical storms before winter, Dr. Judson Baines emerged from the makeshift bunker at Evergreen Estates to find a first hint of morning peeking through the trees that surrounded his temporary home. Red leaves dotted the foliage, indicating that a seasonal change was at hand. Organic debris blew across the street, as he walked from the abandoned maintenance garage, back to the trailer home of his great grandfather. Having survived a long summer without any cooling or forced-air ventilation, it was slightly amusing to realize that he felt cold. Temperatures had dipped overnight, low enough that condensation formed on the windows of mobile dwellings up and down the broken boulevard. He zipped up his woven, university hoodie, and huffed while making the short trek to Lot 13.
His belly grumbled for a protein square, and some coffee, upon arriving at the boxcar hovel. Yet neither were available. He had long ago exhausted the Digger shuttle’s store of provisions. So instead, a chew of crude, corn meal flapjacks sufficed. With a mixture of roots and berries boiled in water, for his wake-up beverage. Everything was prepared on a cookstove improvised with appliance parts, and pallet wood for fuel.
Guilt humbled him with thoughts of fouling the air. Yet he had no other options.
Through his com-link, he streamed information about the drone swarm moving east from Calimex. This teeming mass of autonomous, wheeled vehicles was traveling at a deliberate, but unhurried pace. The caravan had barely covered 200 miles since leaving its western point of origin. In modern times, the continental middle was messy and overgrown. A geographical nightmare for anyone interested in exploration. But the Ranger vehicles were able to survive frequent bouts of environmental rage, left over from the Great Uprising. Smaller aerial craft had failed to endure such harsh conditions. Though they offered more speed and a better overview of the terrain.
Baines shrugged at the report of overland movement. He was unconcerned about being approached. Yet a slight mood of anxiousness lingered in the background.
He spent hours cataloging the journals found at their property center. In the last of these, a final revelation made him sit up straight, and fiddle with his thick spectacles. The handwritten log of his ancestor at last described what he had suspected, for weeks and months while studying artifacts.
Now, he could honestly observe that the entire mission had proved to be worthwhile.
“I’ve always been considered to be a crackpot here, never part of the MAGA defense. I’ve never had a snake flag in my yard, or the pine tree banner. I never felt any interest in joining the local militias. Never gave a damn about looking trendy or stylish with the political crowd. But today, it dawned on me that things have gone far beyond quieting this rebellion. There were federal agents roaming around the whole development, today. Not people with kind dispositions, you know? A lot of the instigators got rounded up, like Aimes Hefti and his amateur brigade. I won’t miss those bastards! The dragnet was cast wide though, they took some neighbors that were really just trying to avoid any grief with the park association. That fat fuck Linn Speck bailed out months ago, he’s on his way to Mars. The rest of us get to fend for ourselves. Coping with power outages and empty shelves at the supermarkets. Plus, watching people get dragged away in handcuffs. I might’ve finally lost my nerve here, usually my mouth has no filter. I keep everyone at a distance. It’s getting eerily quiet though, so many residents have bought a ticket for a Larman transport, to go see the Red Planet. The rest are wearing chain bracelets, courtesy of the authorities. Only a few of us have escaped. I’m old and drunk, and crippled. Nobody takes me seriously, anyway. So, I guess they figure I don’t rate getting thrown into a jail cell. It’s like that Rock & Roll song Roger Daltrey used to croon. ‘Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.’ Nothing has changed, it’s just shit in one hand or the other...”
The professor sighed heavily, after reading through his trove of yellowed pages. Across the generations, he could hear his progenitor’s voice. Speaking candidly about the desperate era that had birthed their new world, on a distant orb.
“T.C. Lincoln, you finally solved the riddle!”
While surveying this junkyard oasis, later that afternoon, he whistled the anthem to himself. The Who had always a favorite group from British history. Raucous and rebellious, but ultimately, sober in assessing the futility they faced. He had inherited a similar vibe from the written record penned by his predecessor in the family bloodline.
From the communications array, in his Digger craft, squawks, beeps, and whistles continued to emanate. The coastal republic persisted in directing its swarm with technological efficiency. Yet their capabilities were hobbled by distance and limited resources.
Lotharian Gardino, a narcissist and would-be king, had actually stumbled onto a correct assumption about the separate societies that inhabited parts of North America. Cooperating together, pooling ideas and assets, would make all of them stronger. But his notion of implementing such a plan was to have them kneel before a grand throne upon which he would sit. This divergence between logic, and a loathsome self-interest, damned him to fail.
Atlantia and Torontara had already rejected overtures for forming an alliance. Neither group wanted to sacrifice their independence.
In a sense, the old habits of human beings still cast a curse over Planet Earth. Mankind was a race of superior and creative beings, able to learn and process, and innovate. All with skill and forethought. But as a species, they were still stained with the animalistic traits of brutes and beasts. Never far from spilling blood and seeking vengeance.
This was the conundrum which Dr. Baines faced, when reading scribbled notes left by his genetic sire. Lincoln had been on the brink of a genuine epiphany. His Libertarian bent was akin to having a revelation from the heavens. His nation, and world, needed to rise above their own identities. And climb to a higher plane of existence, through a philosophical evolution.
But they were still very much in the dark. And unwilling, or unable, to navigate through that unlighted corridor of consequence, toward the glimmer of tomorrow. For them, sadly, the next sunrise never appeared.
When Sol projected its golden glow of inspiration, that blessed event came over the horizon, for settlers on Mars.
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