AFTER THE FLOOD: A NEAR-FUTURE SF TALE

Sienna watched the reeds for movement.

 May, 2052

Sienna watched the reeds for movement. She could see for miles in this drowned land. Much of what had once stood here—homes, stores, office buildings, gas stations—had been swept away by storm and flood. Over and over again, until the wetlands had come to reclaim the mud and rubble. Now only the wild things lived here. The things she hunted. The things that hunted her.

On the raised causeway that led past what remained of the city, the big shots reclined in their vehicles and let the comps guide them to their destinations. Holograms assaulted their senses from the very air around them, exhorting them to do their duty to God and Nation, to be fruitful and multiply, to buy and spend. Sienna could see the holos from here, even though she was a long way from the causeway. She ignored them. The people in those cars might as well live on another planet for all she had in common with them.

She certainly wouldn’t be multiplying. She had vowed to die before she would allow herself to be taken by the slavers coming up from the South to steal fertile women off the streets. So she had taken a year’s worth of pelts and scavenging treasures to pay for the illegal operation upstate that ensured she could never get pregnant. Now she would never be burdened with a child she couldn’t feed. And she was safe from bio-slavery.

The air around her already shimmered with heat, though the sun was barely above the horizon. The hazy sky told her it would be a scorcher today, a day to seek the shade in her home in one of the few concrete structures that still stood on higher ground. But first she had to find meat—a deer or a pig, if she was lucky, a groundhog or a muskrat if she wasn’t. She had learned the hard way that the shellfish that thrived in the swamp weren’t safe to eat. They were rotten, contaminated by poisons in the soil and water. She let them be.

The AR-50 rested easily in her hands, a weapon she was used to carrying. It wasn’t ideal for hunting—it often made a mess of a smaller target—but there were other reasons to pack the cheap automatic. Armed gangs and the police roamed the streets; feral pigs ran in herds in the swamp. Guns, unlike food or shelter or other basics, were easy to get. And though she lived with others, she hunted alone.

A splash off to her right caused her to whip around. But she saw nothing. No deer, no birds. A prickle of awareness raised the hair on the back of her neck. There were other things in the swamp that sometimes needed killing, wilder, more dangerous things.

When she heard the first coyote yip, she knew she might be in trouble. It was close, and on the right side, where she’d heard the splash. She eased silently to the left and back toward a raised tuft of grass. But an answering call came from even closer; the pack was circling. Then she heard the unmistakable sounds of something running through the knee-high water, splashing and grunting. The pack was after its prey now, yipping and warbling in the high, feverish calls that meant breakfast would soon be served. Coyotes never hunted strong, healthy individuals. Whatever they were after was wounded or sick or too young to survive. Not worth fighting them for it.

The chase ended almost before it began, with a high-pitched scream cut short and the triumphant coyote-party howls that always followed a kill. A feral human then. Sienna could tell from the scream. One of the many young ones that scraped out a life in the wetlands after those that were forced to bear them dumped them here. The series of foster homes where Sienna had grown up had been a horror show, but at least she hadn’t had to fight off coyotes. Just predatory males.

She cursed. The hunting in this part of the wetland would be ruined for the rest of the morning. All the prey would have gone to ground in the commotion. She decided to head back. Better to be hungry another day than dead.

She took the time to scan the marsh again as she slogged through the mud. Over on the causeway, the cars drove on, oblivious to the life-and-death struggle below them. In the sky, the holos filled the air with color and sound. “Only You can Save this Nation! Do your Duty Now!”

This mini-short story is a work of fiction in the long tradition of science fiction that places the issues of the present in the context of the future. Everything in it is directly extrapolated from the headlines of today. If the world I describe is not one you wish to live in, well, I don’t blame you. Me neither. Check the last line.

In hopes of change,

Donna

 

 

The Recruit: Part Five - An Adventure in the World of Draxis

This is the fifth--and final--installment of The Recruit short story, a companion story to my upcoming novel, Draxis (working title). 

This ending was a bit tricky to write in order to avoid major spoilers for the novel, but I will say that 'the recruit' is a major character in the book. As I mentioned before, the setting details and situation were taken directly from the novel, but it's told from a different POV. 

If you'd like to refresh with the last installment, you can see it here:

The Recruit: Part Four

If you would prefer to read the story in it's entirety, you can view it here:

The Recruit (short story)

I hope you enjoy the conclusion of The Recruit. Comments welcome.

_________________________________ 

I awoke to pain in Denarri Ranger Station, but the point is—I awoke.

Someone stood over my gurney, and after a fight to focus my eyes, I recognized Gallin’s creased face. My eyes dropped to his side. He didn’t carry a Blade of Duumarr.

“My recruit?”

Gallin huffed and his eyes shifted left. I followed his gaze and found the green eyes of my partner. Yes, partner. He’d earned it.

His back was to the wall, arms folded, his Death Ranger uniform tattered, but without major injury and the notorious sword parked in its scabbard.

I nodded to him—or tried.

“We’ve had a word,” Gallin muttered. “Now the two of you talk.”

I looked to the recruit, confused. “Talk?”

Gallin’s mouth skewed down in a grim frown and he left the room.

My attention moved back to my partner. “You carried me back?”

“Yes.”

I tried again to nod. “You saw what I did?”

“Yes.”

“But still you did not kill me.”

“No.”

“But you are Duumarrakhan.”

He unfolded his arms, moved nearer. I might have been intimidated if he hadn’t been shaking his head. “No.”

“Then who-” I realized my blunder. A Tahila Death Ranger never asks that question of another. That was The Code.

“Just another who defies senseless laws,” he said.

In this realm, such rebellious words are never spoken. Not even here. Laws are absolute, and the punishment for breaking them is final and universal. Death. So I was left pondering the enigma of this man who wielded the blade of the Order, but spoke against its black justice.

When a person came to the Green Death he came knowing that, sooner or later, the great forest would take him…and his past. But I knew that would not be the fate of this one, even if he did not know it himself.

“I was trained by a Duumarrakhan,” he volunteered. “He was the last of his kind…or so we believed.”

I grunted softly. “This explains much.” Although his admission raised many more questions than it answered.

I didn’t learn until much later, after we’d ventured out together on many campaigns into the Green Death, who my partner was and why he was here. Much was revealed when the One the Ancient Legends Speak Of came for him and the recruit left the Green Death at her bidding to resume his former life.

I did live to see my ninth season. And even my tenth. I rose through the ranks to head ranger, and trained more recruits before my time in the Green Death came to an end.

No. I didn’t die.

The recruit summoned me out of hell’s jaws to take my place at his side. Yes, I--a doomed Tahila Death Ranger invited to serve in a place of high esteem. In the thousands of years the rangers had patrolled the Green Death, never before had one been plucked from the ranks in such a way as this.

The age of prophecy was truly upon us.

But that, my friend, is another, much longer, story. My part of this tale, this small thread in the greater legend, ends here.

The Recruit: Part Four

Here's Part Four of the ongoing short story that's a companion to Draxis (WIP).

This one comes with a major TRIGGER WARNING!

This snippet involves a life-or-death situation with hunting beasts of prey and somewhat graphic descriptions of the struggle. If you are a sensitive reader in regards to animals (even monstrous predators who love to eat humans) then please don't read on.  

If you prefer to read the entire story to date, including this installment, please click here:

The Recruit (All Parts Posted to Date)

Otherwise, here's a brief refresher from the last post:

From Part III:

It crept up on the recruit from the forest gloom. I knew from experience it would launch without warning from heavy-muscled haunches and twist its head mid-flight, driving upper and lower saber-toothed fangs into the recruits back, crushing or severing his spine. Then, he would lay paralyzed as the beast began to feed and the rest of the pack closed in to tear him apart.

This recruit would pay the price of overconfidence, and Gallin would have his prize. But more than that, a burden would be lifted from my shoulders and a threat eliminated. I might yet see my ninth season.

 _________________________

 The Recruit: Part IV

So why this troubling feeling I was not in the right? The Duumarrakhan was doomed to die anyway. What did it matter how and when?

Because there was something about the man…

“At your back,” I wolfed, but he was already in motion.

The man bounded sideways the moment the farratora lunged, planted a foot on a massive trunk as he drew Gallin’s prize from its scabbard. He kicked off the tree, inverted horizontally over the surprised predator, and drove his blade down through the beast’s opposite shoulder. Gravity pulled the man back to the ground, and the embedded sword sliced down diagonally like a paper blade, severing the beast’s spine. The farratora collapsed in a heap and lay still, pike-like fangs still bared. It was a mammoth male, probably the pack alpha.

I rose to my feet, heart-pounding. Farratora forgotten.

I knew I had just witnessed something few alive had seen. The kill of a Duumarrakhan.

And I was not going to see my ninth season.

A chorus of growls in the darkness confirmed that thought. The dead alpha’s pack was preparing to charge.

I drew my blade and used the tree to thwart a rear ambush. From my peripheral, I saw the recruit edging in my direction. His artful blade pierced deep through the eye of one large male, dropping him. He stepped to the side, blade humming low, to severe the legs of a smaller, charging female. She tumbled head-over-tail with a look of confusion when her stride shifted to missing paws.

From out of the blackness to my right came a flash of fang in flame-red jowls as the first of many rushed me. Four more came behind him. Big pack of them! I couldn’t fight them all with a mere sword. I reached for my belt, glanced at the recruit, then hit the pulse button. The four dropped from the shock wave, and I finished them off before they recovered.

The recruit fell to his knees, hit by the fringes of the concentrated energy ring, and knew what I had done. Shock weapon—cursed and taboo. A religious abomination. If he was a Duumarrakhan, and a farratora didn’t finish him first, I was dead. He’d never let me live after committing such an atrocity. He didn’t yet understand the rules. Most Tahila Death Rangers were capital criminals already, and breaking religious laws to survive was of little matter.

My moment of distraction allowed a farratora to reach me. He made one pass, raking his claws down my sword arm, before turning back to finish me. I hit the button at my belt again as I shifted the sword to my offhand and ran him through where he fell.

The recruit had dodged out of the range of the energy ring, but then he was beside me, scowling down at my belt. Blood flowed down my arm, and my head was spinning. The wound was bad. In a moment, I’d lose consciousness, and the recruit would finish me. Beheading was the price for my crime—by guillotine or blade.

He didn’t have a guillotine handy. His sword would do.

To be continued...