The 6th of Six (The Legend of Kimraig Llu) (2 page)

NUCLEAR WINTER——SUPER VOLCANO ERUPTION

Now those were headlines—your guarantee to 15 minutes of instant fame.

Digital enhancements failed to repair damage to notebook. Computer interpretation follows:

The experts predicted an Army General in India would smuggle nuclear bombs to terrorists in lead-lined containers. One had shipped to America. At least five more turned up missing and apparently broken down into suitcase bombs by Islamic extremists.

One large puncture damaged the remaining notebook pages. Cause, a possible projectile appears responsible for this jagged hole, which passes through all remaining pages. Entire area contaminated with organic matter—human blood (positive match.)

End Computer interpretation.

Oh, it happened all right, violently prophetic. Information from the area was sketchy at best, so those experts hemmed and hawed, but human chromosomes let them know immediately.

You cannot write headlines about X’s and Y’s in humans. There is nothing exciting about these letters unless you describe the sexual act. A couple mixing male semen with some slick-um from the girlfriend then add a roaring good time and you got maybe a 50/50 chance of a boy.

Normal. No, not here in this place. If, I repeat, if there is a birth, then you get a girl baby. In Vitro Fertilization...a fool’s game...did not work. Artificial insemination got more girls then stopped working at all. The only method for making babies is that old semen stew. Not every couple makes stew with strong swimmers.

Consider this! The XX chromosome is female, and the XY is male. So, in the XY, what if the Y has one arm bent, or if part of a leg on the X got mashed? Could boy babies stop? We should study the Right Eye Flounder and the nuclear contamination in its DNA. We cannot; this species died years ago, before A. B. *** their fishy egg packs developed females only. Then, no more fishy egg packs.

Now to muck this up some more, there are only two genders, male and female. There are people who do not fit neatly into those two genders. Yes, I am talking about the “Others.” Are they a third, fourth or fifth gender? Maybe they are the “Alternate Genders,” which is more politically correct. Those experts could not make that decision either.

There had been a nuclear power plant on the north side of Manhattan. Did it play a part?

Computer addendum from outside source:

*** A. B. (after the bombs,) originally A. V. B. (after the volcano and the bombs) altered by formally removing the “V” first month of year 001 to give credibility to the ensuing nuclear retaliation against the known world.

End Digital Scan

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The old librarian chuckled. If that reporter knew, it would not be long before everyone in the Builders five buildings would know. Yes, the bombs we dropped on everyone else in the world caused the birth defects we live with now. He understood why she wanted it gone.

Here already? That was quick. His Superior knocking on the door, had hardly left him time to read before she is banging, banging, banging. He hit
send to
and selected archive, toggled the keys to wipe any record on this hard drive, and prepared for another argument with her.

His old creaky legs hurt when he dropped them back to the floor. He hobbled to the salvage bin, stacked the computer drive with the rest of them, and walked to the doorway to let her in.

Soon as he pulled the door open the spears got him, one high one low. He knew he was dead before he hit the floor.

Chapter 1. Cut off his name

Two lines of young trainees snaked their way through the rubble, marching at double time. Chunks of buildings, the old asphalt roadway, and fatigue threatened to crush them. Surf boiled faintly far below the cliffs on their right side.

Half-empty water canteens taunted them from bouncing hips.

Wind punished them with salt crystals blown into open pores oozing sweat. Lungs labored to process breathable air. Harsh midday sun hacked their tattered gray uniforms, threatening to finish them. Feathered predators hovered against the wind current. Food was waiting.

“Newday, keep that column straight,” their old training instructor shouted yet again. “Llu, if I have to tell him again, the two of you will be doing push-ups till dawn.”

“Jake, just a little further I think,” Kimraig Llu said as he reached to pull the older boy along. “That old bat will yell enough to spit ten buckets and pull out all her gray hair if we do not set a perfect pace.”

The humor helped and Jake Newday managed. Just a few steps more before their acting Queen, at the rear, croaked her order. “Prepare to halt, on my mark...” and then stumbled, fell and could not finish.

“Halt!” The order echoed to the front of their lines from their three female training instructors. They had finished for her. “All right, all right, take a break. Fill those water canteens before anything else.”

The instructors shook their heads as if they could not believe the pathetic creatures they were training. They yelled again as their charges sought any handy bump to sit or lay on.

“They are not making these ten-year old kids like in the old days,” the three of them groused almost in unison, like a lament from the old songs they sang after an evening with forbidden alcohol.

“Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em,” followed like a second lament. If tobacco plant seeds would grow on the rooftops or window boxes in the Lower and Middle levels of their high-rise buildings, all would have smoked. The seeds refused to sprout. That old taunt, directed to the trainees as a group, let each show their relief in their own way. To female and male alike, the thought of sucking fire smoke into their lungs horrified all of them.

Without thought, they had stayed grouped together in their three training units of twelve. Ten females, future Troopers, and two males, future Hunters—the dry cement, sand, and gravel—for three Battle Groups. In days, a trained Queen would join each group, providing the moisture to form the concrete of smooth fighting units. She would lead while they fought.

With a Queen, they would number 13, their ruling Wicca’s ritual number.

Their Leaders relied heavily on symbolism.

After only a few minutes rest, one future Trooper rose. “Come on Jake,” young Macy said. “I want to explore and you have to help me get down the cliffs.” She did not need help with anything. Macy was needling Jake for the weakness he had shown. She knew all too well that just the sight of her slim boyish figure in her tattered uniform would yank Jake Newday along by his nose.

Adventure tugged them all down the ragged cuts in the cliff’s face toward the spit of sand below. The long, heavy descent was made doubly tough by constant dead ends and switchbacks that continually forced them lower. The view of the ocean disappearing to infinity, did not register as the roiling surf line appeared and disappeared like a dream. Half way down the odor of decaying sea kelp came and went with the dream.

In time measured by youth, perhaps a heartbeat or two, they finally reached the beach. Waves smashed packed sand sending warnings from legs to chest. Childish exuberance pushed the warning aside. Still, they stayed well clear, only splashing in the trickle and foam of the receding tide.

Tiring of the squealing girls, the six males moved up against the cliffs and began throwing their spears at clumps of the green-black weed slithering along the shoreline. Being boys, they picked the furthest target to test their new skills. No one hit the clump with his first throw.

Smoothing his copper curls back from his deep russet brow, the biggest boy threw his spear and scored a direct hit on his second throw of the day. He whooped down the sand in triumph and stopped dead when he reached to pull the spear from the target.

Three sharp whistles coming from the top of the cliffs could only mean danger.

Kimraig Llu jumped to attention.
May the Wicca spare me,
he thought. It would take the intervention of the entire government to stop what their training instructor was threatening as she thundered down to join her brood.

He gulped as she slid to a stop and her livid mouth spattered droplets into his eyes from far above.
Even her gray hair is turning purple.
Kimraig fought hard not to flinch away. “You dense or something baby boy?” Boomer shouted. Like any good training instructor, she ignored his given name, Kimraig, in favor of his family name. “Listen up Llu. Tell me why you chose not to put your morning lesson to use in the field?”

The “baby boy” caused sniggers across the ranks of youngsters milling around on the sand. He glimpsed his friend Rachel, her blond hair, as always swirling from shoulder to shoulder with disapproving shakes of her head. By her side stood Char, worried once more that he would put himself needlessly in harm’s way.

Well, I am not a baby any...

“Attention! Attention!” Boomer yelled toward the girls at the top of her lungs, once again earning her nickname. Then she turned to her captive. She did not care about his answer; whatever it was, punishment would follow. “Now you baby boy...down and snap me a hundred.”

Kimraig hated pushups, but he was on the ground with his nose dripping sand and already past five numbers before that fact registered.

Next, she turned her imposing bulk to the three Battle Groups in-training.

“It seems all of you claim to know the answer. Tell me, why the morning lesson should have warned baby boy here.” Boomer faced only quiet. “No. you do not know the answer? God, I love this part. All of you down and snap me fifty.”

“Why, we did nothing wrong?” one complained, alone.

“Stop where you are baby boy.” Boomer dug her boot into Llu’s side. “Well, another country heard from. Okay queenie, join baby boy here,” pointing to the ground next to the boy. When she was sure the girl assumed the position next to him, she turned to her group.

“Please join queenie here with her pushups,” she yelled at the group. “Quickly, or you do a hundred.” As they dropped, she continued. “Listen up. Begin the count when these three call each number.” This time she nudged the offending Trooper with her boot.

“The bunch of you, no grumbling; the extra snaps are courtesy of queenie here. You can thank her later.”

“Call it out baby boy.”

“11, 12, 13...”

“Now, because I am above all a ‘lady,’ I will repeat this morning’s lesson,” Boomer paused and smiled, her thick arms jamming fists into muscular hips.

Not one of them wanted to guess what a “lady” was, but given the manner in which Boomer delivered the word, they probably did not want to know.

“17, 18, 19,” three voices echoed now.

“You do not go near the Choker weed,” she recited.

The weed had first appeared as a putrid green stain on the horizon. When was not certain, since most of their history was undated.

“23, 24, 25,” two voices a little out of breath.

“You do not touch the Choker weed.”

No one knew when its tendrils crawled out of surf and took over parts of the beach

“29...30...,” slowing down as their effort continued.

Boomer paused, longer this time, keeping track of their count with sharp smacks of her palms. She finally walked to the edge of the surf and reached to grab a dead fish washing up to the sand. In four quick strides, she was back in front of them.

“This is why you do not give the Choker weed one chance. Observe.”

One voice only, “42...” Kimraig’s voice trailed off as he watched.

She dropped the fish in the middle of the Choker weed-target the boys had been using. Like morning meat in a frying pan, the fish popped and hissed. The weed wiggled and pulled the meat in, covered it and went still.

Another two sharp whistles from the top of the cliff took Boomer’s attention. A series of different tones followed, drawing a pensive frown across her furrowed brow. She knew her brood hated those little sharp trills all of their instructors used to communicate, which was exactly the reason they used them.

Trouble on top, authority had arrived, authority with a clear purpose.

“Hunters, to me,” she said speaking with the strong even voice she used when she confronted a miserable exercise.

Kimraig looked around to see if Hunters had joined them while he had stared at the sand. Then he remembered he would be a Hunter someday. Only Jake, hopping to stand in front of Boomer, got him moving in that direction. They formed at rod stiff attention in three rows of two.

The old girl spoke in the clear concise voice she reserved for graduation day.

“Hunters, march straight to the top of the cliff.” She met each boy’s eye as her measured words continued. “You will march in column, with all the dignity Hunters show on parade. You will keep that dignity no matter what happens.”

Six new Hunters stiffened when a series of giggles swept through the ranks of females behind Boomer. Each boy, in his own way, elected not to register the hanging motions and choking sounds the girls used to image their predicament.

“Remember Hunters, they cannot eat you. About face...March!”