Beyond Armageddon V: Fusion (69 page)

What about the Ghouls? Barbaric monsters created from a formerly well-ordered society? The Mutants? Perhaps a civilization that prided itself on its caste system reduced to the equivalent of an alien biker gang?

The nightmares seemed endless. But the biggest nightmare of them all came from the feeling of failure. In the end Trevor had lost everything. Nina. His son. His people.

And so he spent that week in a semi-daze, barely eating and rarely speaking. He waited. He waited for his body to change; for a descent into Hell.

Despite vanquishing Voggoth’s monsters, the march west from the destroyed temple felt like a retreat. He tried to explain what happened. Alexander understood on some level although he could not comprehend the idea of spontaneous mutation.

Armand refused Trevor’s conclusion. He pointed to the physical evidence: the temple fell, The Order’s monsters slaughtered. Victory, no matter how you sliced it. Trevor did not argue. He could have pointed out to Armand that history was full of stories of wars won on the battlefield but lost in the halls of power.

On day six of the return trip, the convoy halted outside a large city in northeast Ukraine. While Trevor sat in the back of an armored Sherpa holding the last memory of his son—Bunny, the stuffed animal wrapped in a small blanket—Alexander walked forward to investigate the delay. Trevor expected a horde of Voggoth’s minions attempting to intercept the convoy. Such attacks were long overdue.

However, he realized he heard no gunshots; no sounds of battle. When Alexander returned he appeared grim-faced and hurried.

“What is it?”

Alexander replied, “We are needed in the town.”

“Here? Where are we—Kharkov?”

“Yes,” Alexander said and directed Rick Hauser to drive the vehicle around the main convoy and into the city. “Ukrainian and Russian partisans retook this area last year while Voggoth was hammering us. Tenacious people, they are.”

Trevor’s mind filled with negative thoughts. Did these people want tribute to allow passage? Or would they beg for food and ammunition? In the end he supposed it did not matter because at any second his world would change.

He soon found out how right he was.

The Sherpa followed a pair of Ukrainian or Russian motorcyclists into the heart of Kharkov with Armand and a small group of his followers trailing behind.

The city remained in surprisingly good condition, apparently spared from large-scale fighting. It surprised Trevor to see so many green trees in the heart of what had once been a metropolitan area.

“Things look in good shape,” Trevor muttered.

“They really put it back together nice. They told me they’ve got the Malyshev Tank Factory back on line. A lot of them survived most of the last decade in the underground subway beating up the Duass when they were here and The Order later but they went to great pains to keep from permanently harming the city.”

They drove into the heart of Freedom Square, a teardrop-shaped cul-de-sac with a park at its center as well as large and buildings around the perimeter, several of which were massive including one that occupied 300 meters of frontage with multiple skywalks between multiple towers. Trevor guessed it to be an older government building built in a Soviet style meant to impress with strength of design but lacking in ornate detail.

Whatever the case, the motorcade worked its way toward the Kharkov Hotel. As they made their way in to town, Trevor realized this was no band of partisans scraping out an existence. These people managed to rebuild a tiny bit of civilization, much like his people had re-populated Wilkes-Barre that first year. There may not be many of them, but they were on the right track.

All for nothing.

“Alexander, what is this about?”

“Someone here looking for us. Messengers, I think.”

Trevor, Alexander, and Hauser exited while Armand’s bikers came to a halt curbside.

Their hosts wore a variety of clothing that again reminded Trevor of his own people; summer casual wear, blue jeans, slacks, cargo pants, dress shirts, and military uniforms of various kinds. Several of the more stoic types guarding the main entrance carried AK-47s or similar weapons, apparently a part of the city’s militia.

Trevor eyed the people and they returned his glances with smiles and what might be laughs. Excited, friendly laughs. Celebratory, even.

“No weapons,” Alexander explained. “Not inside the hotel.”

Trevor carried none. He did not think a machine gun would provide any defense against the coming judgment. Hauser, however, dropped his MP5 in the front seat of the Sherpa and Armand left an entire arsenal of small arms with one of his biker brethren.

The crowd spoke in excited chatter as the travelers moved away from their convoy into the hotel. Trevor did not need a translator to catch Ukrainians and Russians speaking amongst themselves:

“Is that him?”

“How did he do it?”

“They mentioned him by name.”

While the exterior appeared dull, the interior was luxurious: marble floors, thick gold bands of trim, stately columns, and crystal chandeliers.

A large gathering of people—easily 100—crowded the lobby. The escorts pushed past. The crowd parted and they approached a meeting area of leather seats and sofas facing a magnificent fireplace. There they found the reason for their summons.

Gaston—Alexander’s lanky, black, Russian spy who had been scouting for the return convoy—stood by the couriers and explained, “They are spreading the message. Here, you should see it first,” and he handed a scroll to Trevor. “You are mentioned by name, Trevor Stone. They had to write all of it down. They are not very good with our language.”

A trio of couriers stood alongside Gaston.
Duass
couriers. The three-legged duck-billed aliens left to watch over a conquered Europe when The Order had withdrawn to attack North America. They wore cloth garments and some kind of wrappings around their legs that served the same purpose as hip boots on humans.

Armand pushed forward, his face turning grim and his fingers searching for weapons he had left outside. Gaston intercepted him with a raised hand.

“Easy, my friend.”

Trevor read the document. Alexander could not wait. He asked Gaston, “What is it? What is this about?”

Gaston told him, “It is over.”

Trevor regarded the Duass ambassadors with suspicion as they exited the lobby under Ukrainian protection.

He had to admit, the aliens demonstrated great courage. The three entered the city with merely a promise of safe passage from the people they had brutalized for more than a decade. Apparently many such Duass patrols—and those from other alien groups except the Witiko—sought out human leadership with the same message.

Trevor hoped, for the sake of peace, that other human enclaves proved as honorable as Kharkov, although he could not entirely blame any mob that chose retribution over reconciliation.

Regardless, they delivered a simple message: The end of war. Cooperation in rooting out any remaining entities from the realm of Voggoth. Retreat to specific outposts until such time as travel through the runes (something unknown to most humans) could be arranged through consultation with Trevor Stone, the man who had brokered this resolution. Release of all prisoners by both sides and assistance in re-building necessary infrastructure to ensure the survival of the human populace as well as extraterrestrial forces until their evacuation from the planet.

The duck-like Duass disappeared from the hotel and the commotion carried outside. Alexander sat across the lobby in deep discussion with the representative of Kharkov; a big man with a deep voice.

Another leader of men.

Trevor’s mind considered Kharkov and the people there. He wondered if the weather was harsh here. He thought about the return to Europe and what manner of transport he would secure to re-cross the ocean. He…

He stopped thinking about all that. A wave of weakness traveled across his body and he slumped deep into a leather chair.

It hit him. Not like an explosion or a powerful force, but with the exact opposite effect. As if his muscles had been tight and tense for a decade and now relaxed. Not quite calm. Exciting on some level.

Relief.

Gaston had said, “It is over.”

It.

What exactly was ‘it’? Constant fighting. Always thinking ahead to the next battle. Counting casualties like taking inventory. Speeches to rally. Providing direction for the people even when Trevor could not be sure of what to do next. Serving as symbol, and facilitator. Worries. Concerns. Desperate measures. Brutality and stoicism in the face of tragedy. Sacrificing his sense of right and wrong and replacing it with a blind focus on completing ‘the mission’.

‘It’ was finding his parents torn apart so badly that he mistook them for shaggy, rolled rugs; feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders; killing the man named ‘Richard’ and replacing him with the icy leader known as ‘Trevor’; sacrificing his innocence on an altar of bloodshed in the name of the bottom-line equation of survival; carrying on alone because destiny chose his path and allowed choices only between evils.

He suffered no illusions. In the Armageddon war Trevor did not fight for a greater good; he fought to save his species. An ends justified by any means and the responsibility for those ‘means’ lay squarely on his shoulders. His responsibility.

It is over.

“No. It’s not over. Not yet.”

“What is that?”

Trevor realized he spoke aloud and disturbed Alexander’s conversation.

Trevor repeated, “I said, it’s not over yet.”

“I do not understand,” Alexander’s mouth hung open in what appeared to be a pang of fear. Perhaps he worried the dictator had not yet tired of wielding power; a power born from the fires of this conflict.

Trevor wondered if his doppelgangers on parallel Earths would refuse the order to stand down. Would they—
would he
—accept the end of the war that gave him his power in the first place? Would the despot walk away from the throne so easily?

He envisioned settlements all across his Earth waking up tomorrow to find the war over. How many petty warlords had Trevor’s Empire found in North America alone? What would happen to the isolated islands of survivors struggling to live another day? A lack of adequate food and medicine could kill as efficiently as Hivvan guns or Witiko rockets.

The war against the invaders had ended. The purpose given to the survivors by the goal of victory now gone. What will fill that vacuum?

“There’s something more left to do. Alexander, let me borrow your clipboard.”

He tentatively handed the board and pen to Trevor who wrote feverishly on a blank page.

“Armand,” Trevor called as he scribbled

The gallant motorcyclist stood near the hotel’s front desk sipping a glass of something-and-vodka in celebration of the day. He quickly discarded the drink and walked fast to the rows of furniture near the fireplace.

“Yes, Trevor?”

“I need you to do something. You and your cavalry,” Trevor glanced at Alexander and added, “With your permission, of course. I have a message that needs to be sent.”

Alexander—still wary—asked, “One last order from an Emperor?”

“An invitation. My last—my last act, if you will.” He turned to Armand. “Will you and your riders deliver it?”

“Where to?”

Trevor told him, “Everywhere.”

The messengers began their journeys in convoys of 100 or more but divided into smaller groups as their paths branched off in different directions. The larger cruiser models were vital to each mission due to the cargo capacity for extra provisions, but eventually almost all the riders needed to live off the land for weeks at a stretch despite fuel trucks sent along major routes to top their tanks as often as possible.

Many fell victim to the extraterrestrial predators roaming the wild lands or bandits of various species. Others lost their way never to be seen again. The world remained a dangerous, unforgiving place with pockets of civilization—alien and human—surrounded by vacant cities and barren wastelands. Plenty of the riders failed to find fuel reserves and ran dry, changing them from riders to walkers or other means of transportation. Nonetheless, they searched for pockets of humanity and carried Trevor’s invitation to the world.

The second week in July, couriers stumbled upon a community of Ukrainians, Russians (mainly former naval personnel), and Tartars living around the harbor and old fortresses of Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. Nearly a thousand fishermen, farmers, and children of the new age gathered to hear the invitation.

By the end of that month the message found tribes surviving in the mountains outside of Almaty in southeast Kazakhstan—boat people hiding in the fjords of Finland—and nomads herding goats and hunting in the Carpathian ranges of Romania.

During August, the word reached far across Asia where remnants of the Russian and Mongolian armies had battled the Geryon Reich’s garrison at Ulan Bator for a bloody decade. Hostilities had ceased nearly two months before as part of the general armistice but Trevor’s invitation brought post-war direction to the combatants and they eagerly accepted the invite.