Rise of the Cinthians: Book 2 (Chronicles of Remedy), page 1
Rise of the Cinthians
Chronicles of Remedy
Book 2
MJ McCoy
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without prior written permission from the copyright holder, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. To request permission, contact the publisher at mikemccoy11@gmail.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, locales, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events are purely coincidental.
© 2023 Mike McCoy, All Rights Reserved.
First edition, May 2023
Cover design by GermanCreative
Published by Mike McCoy
Johns Creek, Georgia
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my wife, Kim, for supporting my desire to write novels, and my brother, Brian McCoy, for his insights in the creative process.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Forward
Chapter 1: Starving
Year 0 AE (After Evolution)
Chapter 2: Scavengers
Chapter 3: Barely Surviving
Chapter 4: Remedy Goes Home
Chapter 5: King of Atlanta
Chapter 6: Hover Boards
Chapter 7: Hanna
Chapter 8: Moving Forward
Chapter 9: Survival Incorporated
Chapter 8: Learning to Thrive
Chapter 9: Into the wilderness
Chapter 10: Rapid Innovation
Chapter 11: Helping the Dawson Zone
Chapter 12: Time to Scout and Prepare
Chapter 13: Weird Science
Chapter 14: Evil next door
Chapter 15: Doing the Right Thing
Chapter 16: That Looks Like a Wand
Chapter 17: Fight for Liberty
Chapter 18: Changes in the Dawsonville Zone
Chapter 19: Clemson Zone
Chapter 20: One night in Hendersonville
Chapter 21: Asheville under Siege
Chapter 22: Biltmore Estate
Chapter 23: Arms Race
Chapter 24: Justice
Chapter 25: Knowledge is Power
Chapter 26: Planning for War
Chapter 27: Sia
Chapter 28: Innovation
Chapter 29: Mental Attack
Chapter 30: Brother Against Brother
Chapter 31: Picking up the pieces in Asheville
Chapter 32: Something from the Future
Chapter 34: Home is where the Heart is
Chapter 35: The Forest is Dangerous
Chapter 36: Morfran
Chapter 37: Cut Out
Chapter 38: The Buford Zone
Chapter 39: Incursion
Chapter 40: Professional Soldiers
Chapter 41: Greed Makes You Stupid
Chapter 42: Rapid Improvement in the Zones
Chapter 43: Firepower
Chapter 44: Cyber Attack
Chapter 45: Morfran is Coming
Chapter 46: Free Atlanta
From the Author
About the author
Characters
Forward
This is the second book in the Chronicles of Remedy. The books are in chronological order but they can be enjoyed individually. Here is a brief description of what has come before.
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3 progressively larger dark energy storms from outer space hit the earth over 23 days and the unusual energy in the storms kills almost all life on the planet.
Some of the remaining humans and animals not only survive but rapidly evolve including Sia, the previously unknown, but sapient inorganic entity in the core of the earth. She evolves during the first storm and gains the power to manipulate all forms of energy on the surface of the planet.
Sia quickly recognizes that this unknown form of dark energy in the storms is a deadly threat and looks for some way to prevent the end of the world. She races against time to figure out how to redirect the destructive energy of the final two much bigger and more dangerous storms.
The final result after the last dark energy storm is that the earth, the atmosphere, its plants, and animals closely resemble the planet during the last ice age 12,000 years ago. 99 percent of humans have died, but a few human cities remain although with much smaller populations. The cities are completely isolated from each other by the massive resurgence of nature and the loss of all forms of long-distance transportation and communication.
Jay McKenzie is exposed in the first dark energy storm and is one of the first to evolve. After evolving he gains the ability to see and directly manipulate all types of energy. He sees kinetic energy as a red aura, electromagnetic energy as a yellow aura, gravity as a blue aura, black auras are chemical and atomic bonds, and a common form of dark energy as white.
The most interesting form of energy that he sees and the easiest to manipulate is green, life energy. He quickly learns to manipulate life energy to improve his body and his mind at the cellular and even genetic level. In just a few days, he gains both mental and physical capabilities that are well past the level of any human.
His changes are so dramatic that he now physically resembles a high elf from fantasy novels and summer blockbuster movies. After he completes his evolution, he adopts the new name Remedy to reflect his mission to heal and save others, his body’s transformation into something more than human, and as a way to protect his anonymity from the government who is relentlessly pursuing him.
Remedy’s dramatically increased intelligence allows him to figure out how to store energy in different gems. He eventually invents a new form of coding to program the energy inside the gems to follow the commands in the code. These coded gems can even be used by others who can’t manipulate aura energies themselves.
Sia observes Remedy as he uses his new power to cure humans with cancer and other terminal conditions. She takes a chance that Remedy has similar goals to her own and shows him how to protect humans from the approaching apocalypse by rapidly creating prehistoric forests filled with life energy. These Groves used that excess life energy to protect any people inside the Grove from the final dark energy storms.
In the 23 days between the first dark energy storm and the last, Remedy became famous on the internet for healing thousands of people while on the run from the federal government.
Many people that come to Remedy’s Groves before the final most dangerous dark energy storm have their evolutions directed by the newly sapient trees inside the Groves. The sapient trees model the survivors’ evolutions after Remedy and many of them become elves. The elves are 6 to 8 inches taller than humans. They are more athletic, with the speed, strength, and agility of world class athletes. The survivors become younger and all appear to be in their late teens or early 20’s. Their clear complexions, balanced facial features, and graceful movements combine to make these survivors stunningly beautiful.
Their evolution also affects their intelligence and many of the survivors gain some of Remedy’s ability to sense and manipulate different forms of energy with just their mind. These former humans who are so completely changed, become known as the Cinthians.
There are other evolved humans around the world. Some are at least as powerful as Remedy but they have wildly different evolutions. Many of them are straight out of myth and legend. Most of the truly powerful become corrupted by their new power, but there are a few like Remedy that vow to protect the remaining humans and the planet.
Chapter 1: Starving
Year 0 AE (After Evolution)
Dr Williams is exhausted. They have been walking through the Appalachian Mountains for two days from sunup to sundown with only short breaks every 2 or 3 hours. He has bloody blisters on his feet and his legs are so sore that his muscles ache with the effort of taking each additional step. He begins to despair when he realizes how much further they need to walk in order to reach safety. How is he going to make it through the rest of today and another full day of hiking tomorrow?
Lost in his own thoughts, he realizes that it’s a miracle that they even made it this far. He and his wife, Cindy, survived the apocalypse by following the advice in an online post from Remedy the famous healer and fugitive.
The internet post provided directions to a particular location in a remote part of the North Carolina mountains that was supposed to be safe from the final massive dark energy storm.
When they arrived at the location, there were thousands of other people already there.
As soon as they arrived it was obvious that this particular forest was special. The most obvious difference was that there were massive ancient trees that were much larger than California redwoods scattered through the normal Appalachian Forest. Dr Williams couldn’t explain it but the forest also just felt different, almost welcoming.
Dr Williams had never heard of this unique forest before, but when the dark energy storm hit the earth, he, Cindy, and the thousands of others nearby were protected and even physically enhanced while almost everyone else on the planet died.
Cindy is walking beside her husband on the trail. She notices that her husband’s thoughts have drifted away from the arduous hike and he has slowed down even further. She nudges his elbo
He estimates that there were 20,000 people who followed Remedy’s advice and went to “the Fontana Grove”. They were saved from the dark energy storm but with no food or other resources in the remote location, most of the survivors decided to hike to the relative safety of the closest city, Knoxville Tennessee, where they hoped there would be enough food and other resources available for them to survive.
Sara Richards, the leader of the Fontana Grove, sent a group of 50 military veterans with them to provide protection and act as guides. The veterans have been invaluable and as the doctor looks out over the valley he has just entered; he sees the veterans scattered along the outside of the long column of survivors. The veterans have saved hundreds of people already, but he is still not sure exactly what to think about them or their technology.
The soldiers that are traveling with the survivors are using some new technology to create a huge protective barrier of aura energy around the survivors. Doctor Williams isn’t one of the few evolved humans that can see the barrier, and he was initially very skeptical that it even existed, but constant failed attacks from the newly evolved dire wolves, ancient lions, and massive prehistoric bears have proven that it is there and it works.
Dr Williams’ tired thoughts are interrupted again when he trips on a small rock that is sticking out of the forest floor and he falls painfully to his knees. He curses his own clumsiness and lack of focus as Cindy helps to get him back on his feet.
He grumbles irritably, “These mountains are so steep. If they were any steeper, we would need climbing ropes. And what happened to all the roads and trails?”
“Come on John, I know that you are tired, but you know what they said at the Fontana Grove. The dark energy that the Grove protected us from was redirected so that it didn’t kill us all. It sounds like their only choice was to create this old growth forest and the prehistoric animals in it.”
“I know. I’m sorry Cindy. I just wish they could have saved us and still left the roads and trails. It would have made this hike much easier.” He gives her a small wink and Cindy chuckles. It’s good to hear a little bit of John’s spirit is still with him.
As they continue down the steep hill, Cindy takes in the forest around them. It is made up of red oaks, pine, sweet gum, poplar, and hickory trees that grew incredibly fast as they evolved and now look like they have been undisturbed for hundreds of years. The trees tower over the forest floor, easily reaching 30 meters (100 feet) or more in height and their trunks are at least 3 meters (10 feet) in diameter.
These trees are truly impressive, but they are completely dwarfed by the giant American chestnut trees that now dot the forest about 200 meters apart from each other. The chestnut trees are so tall that Cindy can’t even see their tops and the trunks of the trees are as wide as an 18-wheel tractor trailer is long. The roots of the giant chestnut trees run along the forest floor and in many cases are 2 meters (6 feet) thick. As they hike through the forest, they have no choice but to walk all the way around the giant tree roots or climb over each of them.
After walking around another giant root, Dr Williams bends down with his hands on his knees to catch his breath and rest for a minute. His newly evolved body is both younger and healthier than it ever was before the apocalypse, but the hike is easily the hardest thing he has ever done as they are forced to keep up with the thousands of other people making the same journey. He knows that moving together provides some protection from the prehistoric predators that are now common in the forest, but he is having trouble keeping up.
Originally the journey sounded like it would be a tough hike, but in their younger, evolved bodies, Doctor Williams and his wife were confident that they would be fine. Unfortunately, Dr Williams was naive. The trip is treacherous, the woods are overgrown and mountainous and even though his body is younger, his physical conditioning is horrible. Their problems are further exacerbated by the fact that they haven’t had anything to eat for several days, and the only water they find is from the small mountain streams that they occasionally cross.
Even with all of those challenges, the biggest problem the survivors have is staying together. There are experienced hikers in the crowd who are impatient to complete the journey and tend to move much faster than the average person. There are others like Dr Williams who led sedentary lives before the Evolution and are moving much slower.
The result is that the 15,000 people keep spreading out into a long winding column instead of sticking closely together. The veterans are constantly coordinating with each other using radios but they are having a very difficult time keeping all 15,000 people inside their defensive shield.
The incredibly large herd of humans moving through the forest has attracted predators from miles around. Packs of dire wolves, prides of prehistoric lions, lone panthers, and other predators are stalking the herd, and pounce on any human that doesn’t stay inside the shield. The attacks are so prevalent that the sounds of screaming humans being dragged into the woods is nearly constant during their long hike.
As the hike progresses into late afternoon the entire column of humans moves a little slower. Everyone is tired, hungry, thirsty, and mentally exhausted. Dr Williams is well past his physical limits and walks along like an awkward automaton. The doctor’s slower speed has brought them to the very back of the herd of humans when the soldiers call for another break.
Doctor Williams immediately slides down to the ground with his back to one of the roots of a giant chestnut tree. The doctor is tired and frustrated and not aware of his surroundings when he grumbles, “I am a doctor, not a mountain man.”
When the herd of humans starts forward again after the short mid-afternoon break, Dr Williams, in a haze of exhaustion, decides “I need to rest for 5 more minutes before moving on.”
Cindy immediately panics. “John, you need to get up! We are being left behind! Please John. Please!” Despite his wife’s frantic urging he does not make any attempt to stand.
Cindy looks at the retreating line of people who are slowly moving away from them through the woods. Her fear and indecision make her hesitate for a second before she says. “John, I don’t want to die. If you don’t get up right now, I am going to leave you here.”
“Cindy don’t be so dramatic I am getting up. Just give me a few seconds for Christ’s sake!”
Before Cindy can respond a tan blur leaps out of the tall weeds and pounces on Cindy instantly knocking her to the ground. Cindy screams as the huge 3-meter (10 ft) long; 300 kg (700 lb.) lioness reaches for her throat. Cindy feebly tries to fight it off but the lion’s razor-sharp teeth are instantly on her throat. Dr Williams looks on in horror as the lion’s teeth tear into her throat in a disgusting display of blood and gore.
Dr Williams is initially frozen in terror as his wife dies just feet from him, but he quickly realizes that he is also in danger and tries to scramble to his feet. As soon as he tries to stand, he hears a deep menacing growl directly above him. He looks up over his shoulder just in time to see another lioness that has quietly climbed up on the tree root that he is resting against.
The lioness is crouched on her haunches looking down at him and barring her teeth. The doctor doesn’t even have a chance to scream, when the lion pounces on him and swiftly drives him to the ground.
He lands on his back and all of the wind is knocked from his lungs. He doesn’t even have a chance to breath before the lioness pushes past the doctor’s struggling defenses and uses its massive jaw to clamp down hard on his throat. The lion’s bite pierces his tender flesh of his throat while also forcing his windpipe to collapse. As the doctor suffocates, the lion lifts his body in her mouth and violently shakes him until his neck breaks with an audible snap. The massive lions then silently grab the dead couple in their mouths and effortlessly carry them further into the woods to move their meal away from other predators following the human herd.
