A Warrior's Journey (17 page)

We were all ready to go when Larc went back
over toward the shop owner, who seemed to shrink away from him,
“One more thing I ask of you. Do you know where we might find the
Holy Scriptures?”

“Holy Scriptures?” Squealed the little man
on a panicked high note.

“Yes the words of the Creator written down
on paper.” Larc restated patiently.

“Oh you must mean the Bible. I haven’t seen
one of those in a long time, especially since the edict of San
Diego. It’s frowned on heavily by the government to have one of
those books, actually it’s illegal.”

Larc asked softly, “And why is that?”

“They say it’s full of hate speech and that
it’s judgmental. I wouldn’t know I’ve never read it.”

Things were worse here than I had imagined
they would be I thought to myself. The people had turned from the
very words spoken by their Creator. It was an unthinkable action to
do, but yet it had happened. Would my world become like this? The
people not even wanting to read the words of the Creator and then
darkly I had to admit to myself that many of the people of my world
had already done just that.

The little man was speaking again, “You
might find part of it intact not too far from here.”

“Part of it?” Larc asked skeptically.

“There’s a synagogue a couple towns over. I
think they still follow some of the practices of that cult.”

Larc’s menacing look had the shop owner back
pedaling, “I mean faith!”

“That wouldn’t help us any, we came for all
of it!”

“You might try the city. There used to be a
lot of churches there at one time. Maybe someone there still has
one.”

“What city is that?”

“San Francisco. If you stay on the main road
it’ll take you right to it. Just look for the signs.”

Larc nodded and we left the store and
approached the strange vessel. Larc saw the wheel inside at the
front of the vessel and grabbed my shoulder and moved me to the
door next to it.

Opening the door he pushed me into the
vessel forcefully handing me the small piece of cut metal in the
process, “You have experience. Make it work.”

Was he serious?

I didn’t know how to operate this
vessel!

Larc got into the seat across from me, while
the others piled into the seats behind me. This was so unfair!
Frustrated I turned to the wheel in front of me.

Where did the metal piece go? It seemed
somehow important to the process. I found a slot behind the wheel
on the side and the metal piece slid into it easily. I wiggled it a
little and the vessel made a noise. I turned it harder and the
vessel came alive with a shudder. I closed my door as did the
others.

Now what? There were knobs, buttons, and
indicators of something everywhere one looked within the cramped
space. Horses were so much simpler than this!

Oh how I missed Relentless!

“What about this thing? It looks like the
gear Torren has to engage to move our water vessel.”

I looked to where he was pointing at a knob
sticking up beside me. Okay it was worth a try. I grabbed it but it
wouldn’t move. I tried harder and braced my foot on the floor. My
foot hit something and the knob in my hand moved on its track
several clicks. I glanced under the steering wheel to see two
pedals that were somewhat similar to the ones that Torren had to
work with.

One would make us go faster and the other
slower, if this vessel worked on the same principle. I was pretty
sure that I had hit the left one and the vessel hadn’t moved. I’ll
try the right one. I pushed hard on it and the entire vessel jumped
backward and I hit the wheel hard, even as I took my foot off that
pedal to stomp on the other.

The vessel jerked again and I watched as
Larc’s head smacked off the window beside him. Served him right for
doing this to me. He turned to scowl at me. I shrugged and pointed
at the wheel meaningfully. He looked away; yeah that’s what I
thought.

I took my foot off the pedal and the vessel
drifted backward. I stepped on the left pedal again to stop. I
needed to go forward now. I was pretty sure that was how the vessel
was meant to move, forward. I glanced down at the knob beside me
again and reached down to move it forward a bit. Letting off on the
left pedal the vessel drifted forward.

The men behind me gave a shout of success
and Orhanin and Thanic, who were closest behind me along with Larc
began to pound on my back and shoulders until I thought I was
seeing double.

After they quit hitting me I pulled the
strange vessel out into the middle of the big black road and pushed
down more on the right pedal and was rewarded with more speed. I
stayed in the middle of the road. I was less likely to hit
something that way I thought.

The shop owner stood beside his counter
watching the jerky motions of his van going on outside. He watched
as the van traveled out of his lot with eight of the strangest men
he had ever met. When the van was out of sight he reached for the
phone on the counter. He was about to punch in the number he
needed, when his eyes caught sight of the fortune in gold that lay
on his countertop.

The money they used anymore was all but
worthless in value. They only used it because they were forced to
by the government that said it had value regardless of what the
economy said it was worth. But this gold, now it had value!

Why, with that much gold, he could charter
his way to South America, where things were better than they were
here. He looked back at the phone. If he called the police they
would confiscate the gold, of that he could be sure and then there
had been the threat given by the big blond haired man with the
probing blue eyes.

He didn’t ever want to look into those
intense eyes ever again. He paused for a moment longer and then he
put the phone back on its holder on the counter and gathered up the
gold before someone could see it. He was leaving tomorrow.

He had enough real money in his hands to
start all over again and get away from this sad place. He ran to
the door and flipped the closed sign over before then running to
his small living quarters at the rear of the store.

The General fumed in his office as he paced
back and forth in front of the windows that overlooked the bay. He
couldn’t say he was all that surprised by the turn of events, but
it didn’t make it any easier for him to swallow how he had been
relegated to a minor part in the operation, as if he was a
nobody!

Sure enough as soon as the Committee had
been informed of the incident they had sent their ‘black hands’ as
they were termed, to take over the investigation. All he was yet
tasked with was the finding of the alien vessel that had landed
offshore. His forces were not to participate at all in the search
for the occupants of the two boats a search patrol had found
concealed in the dunes to the north, which in his opinion was sheer
lunacy.

The more available resources brought to bear
in the capture of these aliens the better, in his opinion. It was
an uneasy time for his fledgling country and its new leadership. A
leadership he did not approve of.

The military could do a far better job of
running the nation than the sadistic freaks on display over at
government house were doing. It was hard to keep his thoughts of
the new government to himself. People that talked to loudly in
opposition to the Committee had a way of showing up dead or missing
soon after. It was how they stayed in power.

There rule was based out of fear by those
they were supposedly tasked with serving.

A knock sounded at the door, “Yes?”

An aid came in, “Sir, the Eastern Colonies
have noticed our heightened state of alertness and are demanding to
know why!”

“We no longer run joint operations with
them, but go ahead and forward their request to the Committee. Let
them deal with it.”

The door closed and the General stared
sourly out the window at the bay and reflected on the sad state of
affairs of their once proud nation. Weakened by social issues and
economic downturns the nation had been unable to cope with the
magnitude of the natural disaster that had struck the middle of the
country ten years earlier, let alone recover from it.

A series of earthquakes of unpreviously seen
severity had completely destroyed much of the heartland of America.
Whole areas had been wiped out beyond recognition and millions had
died.

The effects were felt for thousands of miles
away. As bad as the initial event had been, even more had died in
the aftermath of the quakes, when rescue didn’t come or from the
harshness of the environmental factors.

Everyone had been affected by the quakes and
communication was so disrupted that no comprehensive relief effort
was ever able to be mounted on behalf of those affected by the
quakes the most, as everyone had needed relief of some kind.

The bad news had only continued for the
fractured country. Not even a year after the disaster had occurred
the final death knell of the once great nation was sounded.

Religious fanatics or at least so it was
claimed, had planted dirty bombs in all the remaining major east
and west coast cities. The bomb plots had been caught in time along
the west coast, but the east hadn’t been so fortunate. Most of the
bombs had gone off and millions more had died or suffered terribly
from the aftereffects of the bombs.

The cities full of residual radiation were
abandoned and for a while all communication had been lost with the
east.

The people in the western half of the
country had been thrown into a panic at the lack of order and
resources to be had. Virtual chaos had ensued. That was when a
group, self termed the Committee, had stepped in to restore order
to the panicked masses.

By using whatever means they had to, they
put a stop to the endless riots and brought about an unsteady
peace. They instituted themselves as the governing body of the west
coast, in place of the former control of the nation by the elected
heads in Washington DC, which was now nothing but a ghost city.

Their rule of iron had controlled the
Western Confederation for the last eight years unchallenged, but as
of late cracks had been showing, as a result of their heavy handed
tactics and many corruption scandals.

It was a tumultuous time to be living in.
World wide it wasn’t much better. Europe had collapsed financially
under the weight of its long term cradle to grave socialism
schemes.

The populations of entitled youth within
their borders had revolted and countries had burned in anarchy, as
governments had toppled. It was everyone for themselves as
lawlessness rose unchecked, along with the sins against humanity
that it racked up with the passing of every new day.

Russia instead of capitalizing on America’s
downfall had fallen into its own combination of chaos of social
issues and homegrown terrorists.

The Middle East and Africa sank back into
the bitter inner struggles of the dark ages, without outside
intervention keeping them from each other’s throats. Only South
America and Asia weathered the global collapse. China’s strong arm
government had fallen, after being weakened by the global economic
downturn and its long time oppressed people had risen up clamoring
for freedom.

They had ushered in a new era of freedom and
had succeeded in the stabilization of their country in the hard
times the world at large faced. They had with the other large
players in the area, including Australia put together a coalition
that became the strongest militarily and economically in the
world.

They termed themselves simply as the Asian
Alliance. The Committee was at odds with them and there was all but
open conflict between the two factions, when there should have been
peace. The conflict between China and America had never gone away,
even after the two nations had switched ideologies of rule, china
embracing the will of the people, while the Western Coalition
favored iron handed control in place of freedom.

The only other bright spot in the world was
South America, where nations were flourishing in the face of
stability brought on by there being no more market for the drug
trafficking that had torn their communities apart for years on end.
For them at least the fall of America was a good thing.

The General couldn’t help but feel depressed
over the fall of his country into the parted out state of ruin that
it now was. America once the center stage of the world scene and
the bearer of supreme power was no more. Unless…..

This incident could be the very thing needed
to turn everything around. The advanced technology laying out there
in the ocean could be the ticket that his beleaguered remnant of a
once proud nation needed to reclaim its place in the sun.

It was a chance where he had expected there
to be none. He was not about to let the selfish and self centered
ambitions of the Committee undermine this opportunity for salvation
out of the pit that the nation had been thrust into!

The Committee’s agents were good at what
they did though. He would let them ferret out the strangers among
them first before he would make his play, which meant that he had
to continue swallowing his objections toward them for yet a little
while longer.

Driving in the middle of the road on this
planet had been a mistake and I now clung to the right side of the
road. People on this world had an odd way of expressing extreme
anger with just one finger.

After a harrowing journey of surviving the
open road we entered what must be the city, the shop owner had
spoken of, in the late afternoon. Five minutes later, after the
lives of everyone in the vessel had been jeopardized several times
over, I swung the vessel over to the side of the street and turned
the key off and with a relieful shudder the machine was blessedly
silent.