Apocalypse Machine (45 page)

ONE YEAR LATER

Epilogue

Abraham

“Did you ever think this would be possible?” Mina asks.

She’s standing beside me atop Raven Rock Mountain, overlooking New Washington. It’s not much as far as cities go, resembling a medieval fortress more than a modern city. But its tall stone walls protect a modern-enough neighborhood, with streets, running water and electricity, supplied by Raven Rock. Our territory stretches for miles, and the Scionic predators in the area have already learned to avoid humanity. There are still roving packs to worry about, but we have safe houses scattered throughout the mountainous region, not to mention modern weapons. Fuel and ammunition is limited, and will one day run out. We’re using what we have to give civilization a kick start, but we’re under no illusion that we’ll be able to live at a twentieth century comfort level forever. But we’ll use it while we have it, and not just to grow our small city, but to reach out to others around the world.

Let them know the Machine is defeated.

That humanity carries on.

That they are not alone.

“I never really thought this far ahead,” I reply, smiling down at my wife, dressed in a black military uniform, long straight hair tied back—her preferred hunting garb. Since freeing the world from the Machine, Mina has been working hard at adapting to the New World. No longer hiding beneath a mountain means learning how to defend yourself, how to fight and kill. She’s efficient at all three, from a distance, preferring the bow and arrow to close up combat. And with a compound bow, there isn’t much game that can escape her. She’s become one of our best hunters. And she’s no longer President.

That title has fallen to me.

There was no election. No coup. Everyone, including Mina, agreed to put me in charge. I didn’t ask for it. But I didn’t fight it either. I get it. I know a lot about a lot—Old World and New—and with so much at stake, there’s no room for misguided leadership. So I took the job, and the first thing I did was retask the Secret Service. New Washington needs more protection than I do. And I’ve got three deadly shadows nearby at all times. I told Graham, Mayer and Ike that I didn’t need protecting, but Graham and Mayer pointed out all the times they’d saved my life over the years. I have yet to need rescuing, but I do feel safer knowing they’re lurking nearby, keeping watch.

I smell Bell’s arrival before hearing or seeing her. She’s fragrant. Earthy. From working the farms, where we now grow crops and raise livestock, which requires the most guarding. We’re domesticating wild pigs and turkeys that managed to survive and later thrive. We’ve also got a few different Scionic animals, which show promise of domestication and are somewhat tasty. Bell is in charge of it all, working the land and finding the peace of her old self again.

“Thought I’d find you two up here,” Bell says, as she steps from the woods and onto the ledge overlooking the town. She steps to my right and takes my hand in hers. I look down at her fingers. At the ring. Funny thing about being a leader in a new world without formal laws, bureaucracy or squabbling councils? You can pretty much do whatever you want, within reason. So I married Bell, no wonky religion required. And I’m not alone. The end of the world has left humanity with a two to one ratio of women to men. And since repopulation is one of our goals, men—especially the younger generations—are making like it’s 1700 B.C. and marrying multiple women.

Not Graham or my sons, though. Of course, Ishah and his wife, with their sixth on the way, could probably repopulate the planet on their own. While I’m technically in charge, my focus is mainly on growth, infrastructure and defense. Ishah has become a man of the people, using his mind to better people’s lives, and keep them healthy. Especially the children, of which there are now fifty-three, more than half of which are under a year old. He’s also in charge of our outreach program.

It sounds corny, like something an Old World church might have done, but it now involves trying to contact other pockets of humanity around the world. Most communication is via radio, but since Graham and Ike led a team to Cheyenne Mountain, home of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), we’ve been able to reconnect with several satellites. And we use them to find people by looking for the one thing humanity always seems to generate: heat. Fires mostly, burning at night.

We now know there is a tribe of people living in Australia. They survived the end on Uluru, that massive red rock rising out of the desert. It’s an island now, but they recently managed to create an outpost on the coast. Like us, they’re using Old World skills and knowledge to push Scionic life back, while at the same time, preparing to join the New World, not as conquerors, but as part of the new order.

The Amazon is home to one of humanity’s largest outposts. First World people fled to the rainforest when civilization fell apart. Many of them died, but those who didn’t were adopted by tribes. Some were enslaved, or at least indentured, but from what I understand, as Scionic life encroached on their land, the tribal peoples were eager to learn about modern technologies that would help them fend off the savage new threats. Nothing unites people like monsters.

Perhaps the strangest of all New World civilizations is a place called Red Sky Flotilla. It’s a floating island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, formed by what was once the Great Garbage Patch, which I wrote about eighteen years ago. They’re a collection of ships and their crews, who survived the end of the world by fleeing to the sea, along with a Scionic lifeform living symbiotically with people. I suspect it’s something like the Redwood Forest. On the surface, we see separate trees, but beneath the ground, their massive roots are connected to form a single, massive organism. And with the disappearance of the Machine, Red Sky is now the largest living creature on Earth.

We have returned to Yellowstone just once. Volcanic activity is at an all-time low. Even old Faithful lacks the pressure to erupt. The heat, it would seem, is being absorbed by something...something large, beneath the surface. But perhaps the most poignant reminder of what the world faces should it be thrown out of whack again, are the six, twenty-foot obelisks rising from the ground. They look like structures erected by some ancient civilization, but we know better. The Machine is watching. Testing the air. Listening to our broadcasts. Maybe even sensing our thoughts. We know very little about the creature, including where it came from, but we do know why it’s here. We’re going to make damn well sure future generations understand that there are rules governing the planet, and a Machine—a literal machine—that is judge, jury and executioner when the world is at risk.

The sounds of people at work, building and growing, echo through the valley below. I smile and close my eyes, my face warmed by the sun. The scents of pine and flowering Scionic trees fill my nose with the odors of a world remade. My hands are held by the two women I love, the mothers of my sons. There has never been a time in the Old World or New, where I was more content. That urge to run and hide from my life is gone. I’m fully immersed in it, reveling in it, and thankful for it.

Something crashes through the brush behind us.

Mina spins, nocking an arrow.

Bell holds her spear at the ready.

I raise my sound-suppressed AK-47 to my shoulder, taking aim at the sound. At my son.

Weapons lower as Ishah emerges from the forest, looking winded. He’s run the whole way here.

“Why didn’t...you bring...your radio?”

Three figures slide out of the trees behind him. Their approach was completely undetected. Even now, as Ike, Graham and Mayer step into the light of day, Ishah hasn’t heard them behind him.

“You’re too loud,” Ike says, surprising his brother. “You might as well run through the forest ringing a dinner bell.”

I agree with Ike’s assessment, but I also know Ishah wouldn’t have run all the way here without a good reason.

“What is it?” I ask, leaning down to look at Ishah’s face. His hands are planted on his knees as he catches his breath. “Is something wrong?”

He shakes his head, showing a slight smile.

It’s good news.

“We made contact,” he says. “With a new colony. Their leader said he’s been expecting to hear from you.”

“They know about New Washington?” I ask, wondering if word is spreading on its own.

Ishah shakes his head. “About you.”

“Where is this colony?” Graham asks.

“Iceland.”

“Iceland?” I reel back from the word like it’s some kind of reanimated voodoo corpse. Iceland was ground zero for the Machine’s rise. Between the volcanoes, flooding and remote locations, not to mention a small population, I would have never thought to even look there. I work through the problem. The volcanic ash was blown away from the more densely populated western coast. The flooding could have flowed out to sea, following natural gorges and rivers carved by ancient glaciers. There were no nuclear weapons or power stations on the island nation. And it’s located north of where Greenland’s ice sheet plowed into the Atlantic. The wave that scoured countless other nations would have missed Iceland entirely. And the island’s height above sea level means it would be mostly unaffected by the rising oceans. “I suppose it makes a strange kind of sense. What was the man’s name?”

Ishah’s smile widens. He knows the name. Knows it means something to me. I’m about to shout at him to spit it out when he says, “Árnason. Kiljan Árnason.”

I break into a run, heading for the nearest Raven Rock entrance. The others follow close behind. Only Ishah has trouble keeping up, but he manages, and we reach the entrance as a group. I move through the complex with some urgency, arriving at the communications room with enough speed to panic the people manning the radios. I raise my hands to put them at ease. “Are you still in touch with Iceland?”

One of the men vacates his chair. “He’s waiting for you.”

I fall into the chair, snatch up the microphone and push the call button. “Kiljan, you son of a bitch! You’re alive! Over.”

“You are son of bitch,” Kiljan’s deep voice replies. “I have been waiting many years to hear from you. But you keep me waiting.” He lets out a hearty laugh. “I should not have doubted. Over.”

“Your family,” I say, remembering Kiljan’s desperate quest to save them. “Did they make it? Over.”

“All of them,” he says. “But I knew they would. Over.”

“How? The last time I saw you... The water...the earthquakes.” I pause for a moment, reliving the last time I saw him. All this time, I believed he’d died shortly after we flew away. “Over.”

“I was shown how,” he says. “Like you. Was difficult. But I am Icelander. Naturally resilient. Not as hard for me as for you.” He gets in a good chuckle, and it brings a smile to my face. It’s been a long time since I got a ribbing like this, and I suspect it’s because the man Kiljan is picturing is skinny, out of shape and a bit nerdy. He probably wouldn’t even recognize the man I’ve become. “Over.”

“What do you mean, you were ‘shown?’” I ask. “Over.”

“The vision,” he says. “When you touched it. Over.”

I nearly fall out of the chair. “But you... You said you didn’t see anything. Over.”

“Didn’t want you to think I was crazy.
You
looked pretty crazy. I didn’t really understand it was real, until I found my family where he said I would. Over.”

“He?” I ask. “You mean the Machine? The monster? It told you where to find your family? Over.”

“The Machine? Is that who you think you were speaking to?” he asks. “It wasn’t the Machine. It was never the Machine.”

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Dear Reader,

Thank you for taking a chance on this new and somewhat experimental Kaiju Thriller. With the Nemesis books, I’ve been exploring traditional Kaiju stories and themes, but with
Apocalypse Machine
I wanted to take you on a very non-traditional, and epically proportioned monster story. I hope you enjoyed the results.

If you
did
enjoy the book, and want to help the Kaiju Thriller genre continue to grow, please show your support by posting reviews at Amazon and Goodreads. Amazon works on algorithms, meaning the more people review
Apocalypse Machine
, the more the Amazon will recommend it to other readers. And the more people buy
Apocalypse Machine
, the more Kaiju books I will be able to write, and the more Hollywood will pay attention.

If you run a review blog, Kaiju website, or podcast, I’m also available for interviews. You can connect with me at
[email protected]
, or on Facebook at:
facebook.com/JeremyRobinsonAuthor

Thank you!

—
Jeremy Robinson