Fusion ba-5, page 52
part #5 of Beyong Armageddon Series
The phone buzzed.
“I’ll grab that since there’s nothing going on down here other than a whole bunch of circles being run.”
Shep eschewed the tabletop phone and walked over to one mounted on the wall beneath the stairs. The others took up the issue of re-invigorating fields poisoned by Voggoth’s version of farms, which sucked the nutrients from the ground exchanging barren wasteland in place of fertile plain.
“Jon,” Shepherd called and held up the receiver. “It’s coastal security.”
Brewer left the table and accepted the phone.
“Yes? When-how soon-okay, we’re on our way.”
He hung the receiver harder than he realized; the result of a jolt of energy delivered by the message.
“We need a transport right away.”
“We’re we heading?” Shep asked.
“New York.”
Nina Forest drifted along the short hall in her apartment. Denise and Jake left just minutes before after having spent a belated Mother’s Day in Annapolis. Nina had been thinking about the class she was scheduled to teach later that summer at the academy when the television-left on in hopes of catching a weather forecast-grabbed her ear.
An excited anchorman reported, “We are getting some news from New York City right now-one of our reporters is in the city taping a story on the re-opening of the Statue of Liberty after hundreds of volunteers spent the last month repairing missile damage. Apparently there is a bigger story developing right now. Our reporter is describing it as the most amazing sight she’s seen in a decade. We’re trying to re-establish phone contact and hope to have an update here in a moment.”
Nina knew.
Her wait was over.
During the initial invasion, New York City became infested with alien pack animals gorging and vicious monsters from Voggoth’s realm inflicting horror and pain. Law enforcement as well as neighborhood street gangs battled to survive against an estimated 200,000 extraterrestrial creatures; most hungry and dangerous. The strict fire arms prohibitions in the city, however, made civilians easy targets.
Within 12 months after the invasion, New York City transformed into a new ecosystem including prey animals and predators with humanity belonging to the former category. Pockets of people existed in skyscrapers-turned-fortresses and the best-protected evacuation shelters while National Guard troops held out at LaGuardia until the military brass could no longer airlift in supplies.
Then things got really bad.
The forces of Trevor’s Empire attacked Manhattan island nearly six years later and fought in an atmosphere described by those who experienced it as a modern day Stalingrad. However, instead of alien soldiers, artillery, and armor, the human force of liberation fought giant beetles, hordes of Jaw-Wolves, flying Devilbats, and scores of other nightmares all hiding and pouncing from the ruins of the Big Apple.
Only a handful of survivors-many reduced to a primitive, barbaric existence-were found and much of the city suffered from blast and fire damage. The bulk of the five boroughs remained relatively uninhabited in the years since, waiting for the time and resources to invest in rebuilding.
The harbor area served as the exception. Many ships of The Empire’s small navy called the area home while supply vessels sailing from docks at Newark Bay, Jersey City, and Hoboken carried food, equipment, fuel, and passengers up and down the eastern seaboard.
Furthermore, the fishing industry found new life; between eight and twenty trawlers left the harbor every morning and returned to sell their catch to the highest bidders at the historic old South Street Seaport. Refrigerator trucks would then spirit the haul away, some sending the fish back out to sea on those supply ships headed to points south, others driving in-land to rail yards for distribution to the west.
An important link in the eastern security fence or ‘Tambourine Line” was established on Governor’s Island and the old financial district of Lower Manhattan came to life again a few years after Continental dollars replaced an economy of barter.
Ellis Island eventually earned new purpose as a survivor processing center while several amateur playwrights and wannabe starlets re-opened two Broadway theaters and played for small audiences. At the same time, Battery Park became a popular recreation spot.
On the afternoon of May 28, the 10,000 or so people and military personnel working in and around New York harbor enjoyed a spring day beneath a band of white clouds.
The buzz started at about two o’clock with radio chatter coming in from Rockaway Point. Word spread through Internal Security. A half hour later a reporter for the National Broadcast Network on Liberty Island overcame a myriad of technical challenges and cleared a phone line to NBN’s main office.
Within minutes the construction crews, the fishermen, and the businessmen, left their jobs and headed to the harbor. Traffic on the Brooklyn bridge came to a halt as truckers parked their rigs to watch. Dockworkers stopped loading ships and soldiers vacated their posts.
They lined the Jersey coast, the ferry launch at the tip of Manhattan, the piers on Staten Island.
A helicopter flew in from the west, swinging around and set down hurriedly on the park at the tip of Ellis Island. Jon Brewer and Jerry Shepherd bound out onto the lawn, hurrying to the water’s edge.
On liberty island a father hoisted his daughter onto his shoulders to afford a better view but the best view of all belonged to the volunteer construction workers atop Lady Liberty’s torch.
The armada sailed up New York bay in haphazard formation. Hundreds of ships of every conceivable ocean-going kind: small to medium-sized military vessels from a dozen countries, a powered catamaran that once served as a ferry, 20 sea-worthy yachts with sails hoisted, a cargo ship, and a pair of small cruise ships.
Trevor Stone stood on the deck of HMS Cornwall, a British frigate that survived the invasion and fought for the court at Camelot. He stepped forward on the deck as the mixed crew of English and American seamen guided the ship inland.
In a fit of spontaneity, Trevor pumped his fist in the air and let loose a shout of joy. He did not know if that joy came from the sight of his homeland, from the understanding of what he had accomplished, from the war’s end, or from relief at knowing his personal journey neared conclusion.
Whether they saw his joy or heard his shout or merely felt the energy radiating from the fleet, the crowds along the shore and on the bridges burst into a frenzy of celebration. A magnificent ovation of clapping hands, victory cries, and tears.
In their celebration, Trevor felt something greater. A sense of gratitude. Appreciation. For all their suffering, he had taken the responsibility upon his shoulders. He had done what needed to be done, no matter the personal cost. A decade-long act of sacrifice.
The fleet dispersed to the various docks around the harbor bringing the representatives from a thousand human settlements and enclaves; representatives elected not on the basis of political boundaries, ethnic backgrounds, or religious manifestos, but on their ability to speak for the ones left behind.
The Cornwall slid into port at Ellis Island. The crowd at the base of the gangplank roared with approval as Trevor led a procession to shore.
The crowd parted. Jon and Shep approached.
“Permission to come ashore, General.”
Shepherd tipped his Stetson to Trevor then shook Rick Hauser’s hand vigorously.
Jon stared at Trevor with no expression at all for several long seconds before admitting, “I can’t think of anything smart to say.”
“Well-why start now, right?”
Jon took his hand but the handshake turned into a hug. When they released, Jon asked, “Jorgie?”
Trevor’s jubilation hesitated.
“He-he went away.”
“So we won,” Jon laid it out. “But paid a hell of a price.”
Something in the inflexion in his tone-Trevor’s heart thumped hard.
“Lori?”
Jon shook his head and repeated, “We paid a hell of a price.”
The crowd at the pier would not let the mood sour. A wave of cheers carried among the mob. Trevor let a smile-an unsure smile-flicker on his lips.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll remember the dead. Today, we celebrate life.”
29. The Fourth Gift
“I have often thought that in the hereafter of our lives, when I owe no more to the future and can be just a man, that we may meet, and you will come to me and claim me as yours, and know that I am your husband. It is a dream I have…”
— the character of King Arthur in Excalibur
Trevor stared out the closed sliding glass door on the second floor of the estate, watching a gaggle of geese float across the lake waters as midafternoon turned to late afternoon. He saw the dock where Jerry Shepherd used to fish during that first year, before he had moved south as the armies of liberation marched.
He spied Omar Nehru-rolls of blueprints under his arm and a cigarette between his lips-walking hurriedly to a waiting car. Trevor knew that Omar’s wife, Anita would never regain all of the sanity she lost in the bowels of Red Rock.
Nonetheless, the estate felt peaceful. Relaxed. And, admittedly, a little dull.
I could use a little dull for now.
Dull did not describe Trevor’s trip to Montreal the day before where he addressed the global congress of hundreds of representatives from around the world; the people who responded to his invitation to build a better future.
And what did they do?
They bickered. They argued. They demanded. They protested. Some proposed and some rejected. One big mob shouting and pointing at one another.
Trevor had felt certain that the relief of having survived the invasion would result in cooperation. He hoped for a communal spirit that would lead almost immediately to all kinds of treaties, a commitment to one world government perhaps based on a global federalism, and a format for electing representatives: a post-Armageddon constitutional congress that spoke for the entire world.
He had given a speech saying as much, detailing how the old world’s political in-fighting and an overbearing bureaucracy failed man’s nations when the invasion began. He spoke of our common bonds, the insignificance of superficial differences, and the need to reject the pre-Armageddon divides that had made civilization susceptible to outside attack.
They smiled. They nodded. They clapped at the right moments and in the end roared with a standing ovation. So moved were they that a vote to create a ceremonial position of ‘Emperor’ passed without a single objection.
And then the arguing began anew.
All the old ‘isms’ made the rounds: socialism, capitalism, communism, despotism, along with monarchy, oligarchy, and anarchy. Trevor heard them all. He sat in on the discussions for three hours until a headache forced his retreat to a transport. He left Jon Brewer behind.
Trevor had realized as he fled the convention center that he did not know how to handle the debate because debate had never been a part of his mission.
Evan Godfrey, where are you when we need you?
And there was the irony. If only Evan had been patient. This could have been his moment. His ability to inspire with speeches, to boil politics to their essence, to find common ground-it would have been something to behold and Trevor would have gladly handed the reins to him now, with the world safe.
Instead, chaos ruled in Montreal. The old lines of divide reared their ugly heads: nationalism, ethnicity, religion, tribal loyalties and a plethora of other excuses to divide groups into further divisions.
Trevor came to realize that the concept of one great world government providing peace and prosperity for a re-building planet would not arise from the conference. Still something would come of it. Something better than the old status quo. Something that would recognize the common interests of humanity.
It had to. It must.
Or we did not learn the lessons of Armageddon.
Trevor felt his fingers instinctively moving to pinch his nose and forced them away. He did not need to worry. These problems belonged to someone else. Perhaps Alexander would form a consensus. While not as political savvy as Godfrey, Alexander’s track record at Camelot proved he could bring disparate parties together.
Trevor’s problems had finally changed to a more personal nature. Humanity would need a new leader for this new age.
He lived in the estate by himself. Ashley’s things were long gone, her bags somewhere with Gordon Knox’s bags on a well-earned respite to someplace south. Probably Miami. Trevor had not asked. He had met with Ashley long enough to convey the events in Russia the previous year. She accepted his account without comment although her contempt for Trevor’s actions came across in the glare of her eyes. He could not blame her. She was a mother, and a mother would gladly let the world die instead of sacrificing her child because that’s what mothers do.
He could not hold any of that against her. She had played her part. Indeed, she may have suffered more than he. Now she reached for a life of her own. He wished her well.
Trevor eyed the view. How often had he gazed out that glass over the years? In the early days he had pulled the curtains shut at night to hide. He had stood on that balcony on one fateful morning and watched sunrise knowing his canine soldiers did his dirty work at New Winnabow. And he had returned from another Earth to the surprise of Evan Godfrey in that same room.
The old world might have been a dream. More than a decade past since he changed from Richard to Trevor yet-yet it felt like yesterday and like an eternity ago at the same time. A contradiction, but also a truth.
He heard the creak of a floorboard and turned his head expecting to see a courier bringing tidings from either the politicians in Montreal or the hunters on the frontier.
“Hello, Trevor.”
She stood there on the far side of the room in jeans and a casual black shirt, not the usual military uniform. Something else appeared amiss, but he could not tell exactly what.
Nonetheless, he hid his surprise and answered with his best, formal voice, “Oh, hello, it’s good to see you Captain-“
Trevor stopped as he realized what else seemed different about her. Instead of a ponytail, her hair lay to her shoulders.
He tried again, in a quieter voice.
“Hello, Nina.”
He watched her close; studied her blue eyes for signs of ice or warmth. Nina strolled slowly-drifted, nearly-around the desk and toward him with her eyes focused on the sights beyond the closed glass door.
Trevor’s skin erupted in goose bumps, a reaction to an energy that came into the room with her.
Nina stopped and eyed the sun sparkling off the lake waters.
“I remember. I remember standing here-watching the sun rise that last day. I remember being- feeling…” her lips pressed together tight to control the echo of an intense emotion. “I remember envying you because you would remember for the rest of your life and I would remember for only a few more hours. I remember the night before, we sat together and talked about a dream world all of our own with no obligations, no titles.”
Trevor stumbled for words: “How-that’s not possible…”
“You said once that memories make us who we are. Maybe the reverse is true, too. What happened last year was part of it. When I-when I helped you, images came across the bridge to me. Feelings. Emotions. The things you lost. The people.”
She turned and faced him. His lips parted, but he found no breath.
Nina said, “After that day-that last day-I woke up without a year of my life. In all the time since, I felt something missing. But I didn’t know what. I could never open up to anyone. I always pushed people away. My daughter was a help. With her I found a little part of what went missing, but I always knew there was more.”
Her brow crinkled. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second and then opened them wide again, fully focused on him.
“And there you were, my Emperor. My commander. Those times when you came to see me yourself, for a mission or whatever. I–I felt special. You respected me. I could feel the trust you had in me. When I looked at you I saw a man who had a purpose like I always had a purpose. I saw-I saw…”
“What did you see?”
“I saw a man imprisoned by that purpose,” she said in less sure words, as if worried he might take it as an insult. “I was always afraid that soldiering and killing and fighting were all there was to me. And there you were. I could see determination and strength-and loneliness.”
Her hand reached and tentatively touched his cheek as if the touch would serve to prove the image real.
Nina said softly, “I saw a reflection of me in your eyes. Then when I thought you had been assassinated-that missing part of me hurt. I felt robbed. Cheated. Something personal had been taken away.”
“You brought me back,” he pointed out. “Without you I would be dead or insane.”
“Yes,” she agreed, withdrawing her hand and speaking in a surer voice. “When all that confusion and fear came from you in to me, I realized how hard a life you led. And I realized that I could help you. Not anyone; you. When we came together I felt whole. What I’m saying is, for the first time in my life I felt like a complete person. That’s when I finally started to understand what that missing part of me was. It was you. It has always been you.”
She tilted her head and confessed, “Look, Trevor, do you understand? I fell in love with you a second time. They stole my memories. You sent me away farther and farther and I still fell in love with you all over again.”
Trevor trembled from head to toe. He swallowed hard.
Nina spoke in the mother’s voice she honed raising Denise, “I’ve waited nearly a year for you to come home and before that I spent months trying to understand what we once had and why it was taken from us. Now I know. But for you-oh, Trevor, you didn’t have the luxury of forgetting. I know how you felt about me. I can feel it,” she held a hand to her heart, “in here. I can only imagine how hard that must have been for you. All those years…”
