CICADA: A Stone Age World Novel (16 page)

Please keep your eyes open, and be aware for anything, especially some sign from me.

I love you with all my heart and soul.

Carr

“Oh, no,” she worried out loud. She shoved the note into her pocket and moved to their bedroom. In a box in the closet is where he kept the bombs, and she was hoping they were still there. Moving away the few pieces of clothing from on top, a natural cover for the box, she unfolded the edges and looked in.

She stood up, but her head drooped like she had no ability to hold it up. She walked to their living room and fell into their couch, reading his note again, and cried. She cried for her husband and what she was forced to do, what she had to do.

Max paced back and forth in the back of the lab. Preston was practically slumped over on a stool, staring at his shoes and occasionally at Max. The rest of them argued openly about who was responsible and why this was happening. Magdalena noticed Max wasn’t participating in their discussion anymore, and she wanted to confirm a suspicion. Watching him only made her more anxious. What was he thinking?

Max wanted to kill something. He had been mentally avoiding the other Cicada, focusing instead on the chaotic crisis of the day. After changing their policy, leaving the message with the Squatts outside, and taking out the man responsible, he felt a small sense of relief, like he had some control over the threats outside of Cicada’s walls.

But now, the evidence was unavoidable: theft of their scientists, by guiding them away from Cicada to another location; the plans of the other facility, which were a virtual copy of Cicada’s; the mystery phone taps when he communicated with Cicada from his Mexican ranch; the military hardware getting into the hands of the squatters outside their gates; and now the revelation that the other site may be the cause of the apocalypse that was slowly destroying their world. All signs led to one conclusion, and that conclusion was that Bios-2 was their enemy. And that enemy had to be stopped.

Stopping Bios-2 would be the only way they could be safe. What’s more, stopping Bios-2 might even stop the permanent solar storms, which might just give the Earth a fighting chance before time ran out. Stopping them meant killing them all. He would make them pay for all the death and pain they had caused and were causing to the billions of Earth’s inhabitants.

The more he thought about it, the more anger consumed him.

He felt a soft tap on his arm.

“What!” he yelled.

“I-I’m sorry.” Magdalena reeled back a few steps, afraid of the violence in Max’s face.

The others all looked up at Max.

“Wait, Magdalena. What do you want?” he offered more calmly but still seething inside.

“I just wanted to know what you were going to do, now that you know who’s causing this.”

His eyes went black. “I’m going to kill them all!”

Magdalena backed up a few more steps. “But what if they don’t know what they’re doing? Are you still going to…”

“Kill them? Yes, I am. Someone needs to pay for what they’ve done to our world.”

Max couldn’t take it any longer; he got up and strode to the back of the lab. “Preston, are you coming?”

Preston didn’t say anything. He just hoisted himself up and trudged after Max, out the door, dreading what he had to tell his boss next.

Max headed to the Library to see if he could find Bill. Lisa told him that he had left early that morning, saying he wanted to help out the scientist working on the hovercraft. She added that Sally was getting a tour from that nice young man, Webber.

Max thanked her and then walked briskly with Preston, who was very quiet.

“We need to get everyone to Comms in two hours. I think it’s time to tell everyone what we’re up against and to ask for volunteers.”

“For what?” Preston asked softly, still staring at his feet.

“For the assault teams, of course.”

“Isn’t that a little… aggressive?”

Max just glared at Preston, not believing this was coming from him and angry that he had to justify his actions to someone who should be fully supportive.

“I’ll also need all the personnel files. We need as many bodies as we can get with military or police or even hunting experience.”

Preston nodded.

“Preston, what the hell’s wrong with you?”

He stopped in the middle of Max’s Court, halfway between Comms and the Library. “I need to tell you something.” He looked up at Max, shoulders sagging. Then, seemingly jarred by something, he looked around like he was sure someone was watching, “But not here; at my office.” He marched forward, and this time Max followed him.

“I did it!” Preston blurted out after Max had closed his office door on both of them.

“You did what?”

Preston dumped a stack of folders on Max’s desk: the personnel files Max had asked about on the way here. Then, he sank onto the side chair.

He swallowed hard. “I sold Cicada’s plans to a man named Lunder Gufstafson over fifteen years ago. I didn’t keep the money and in fact donated it to the foundation, making it look like it came from an anonymous source. At the time, I didn’t think you really cared about Cicada. I thought your only concern was the Kings. Plus, I was worried that if any of this came to pass, there should be another Cicada in the US. I know there are other facilities around the world, but I thought the US should have another one.

“He approached me and knew all about our facility and threatened to report us. Then, he said that they had the resources to build something similar and duplicate our efforts. I did a little investigating on my own and was pretty sure that his boss was a Colorado senator. But I never found out which one. I also suspected later that they were trying to take our scientists, but I had no idea they were so close and that they were causing the problems with the sun.

“I would have told you sooner, but I thought for the most part they were benign.”

Max was very quiet for an uncomfortably long moment. Then he smiled and said, “Preston, I knew all about this a long time ago.” He held up a rolled set of blueprints. “How do you think I got a copy of the plans to their facility?”

“I don’t trust them,” John announced to the Teacher and the remaining ten apostles sitting in a circle in the entry room of the Teacher’s tent. The Teacher had just described all that he had been shown and told by the leader of Bios-2. He often didn’t reveal everything in these times when he convened his apostolic counsels, which were designed to help him make and carry out big decisions for his followers; he usually saved his doubts and worries for his private counsel times with John. Prior to this session, he’d made his decision, but he wanted his apostles to speak freely before he had them commit their lives to it. Free will was important during these times because his fighters needed to fight with passion and be completely invested in the cause to ensure victory.

“We have no choice, with weapons like theirs,” said Frank, his face drawn and serious. He replayed the image of his friend Stephen being charred like a piece of meat and looking like he had been tossed onto the hottest fire for many hours. He could still feel the prickles on his skin as the lightning from this devilish device came so close to him.

“I know, Brother Francis. I’m sorry about Brother Stephen.” The Teacher’s eyes were watery, seeming genuinely moved by Stephen’s martyrdom. He shifted his attention. “Brother John, I agree with you about these people. This is why Francis and I will take three-quarters of my warriors and go to Cicada.”

Frank nodded but surprise and uncertainty clouded his features.

The Teacher uncrossed and re-crossed his legs and turned back to Frank. “You will lead our forces to conquer Cicada.”

John fidgeted where he sat, betraying his unspoken discomfort with the Teacher’s plans. “John, I know you want to lead the takeover, but I need you here. Your job is to protect our women and children; all of us will depend on you for this, and no one would I trust more with this task. But you are to watch them and be ready for their treason.”

“Where will you be, Teacher?” Frank asked, still a little unsure that he heard this correctly; he was shocked that the Teacher wanted him to lead their advance on the Promised Land, the home the Teacher had been prophesying about.

“I will be with you, of course. Cicada has been given to us by God and I must be there when they fall.”

John punched his fist into the carpeted ground. “I’m sorry, Teacher, but why are we going to do nothing about these petulant infidels at Bios-2? They murdered our brother and they stand against us. They must pay with their lives.”

“John, they will, in time. We must first secure our home at Cicada. Then we will assimilate the people we choose from Cicada. Finally, we will plan to take over Bios-2. But that is why it is so important that you watch what they do. They will show their weaknesses, then we will conquer Bios-2, and Brother Stephen’s martyrdom will not be for naught. This I promise you.”

His apostles were quiet; they were pensive but seemingly satisfied.

“If there is nothing else, I want to try out some more of the flesh from this tribe.” The Teacher rose and all the apostles looked up, waiting for their sign to leave. “Go and be with your wives and families. We will leave in two hours.”

He peeled open the curtain leading to his bedchamber to see what awaited him. Two women lay naked in his bed; one had passed out from the drugs she had been given, the other was bound and gagged. She looked at him as he stepped in and let his robe slide off him, and she tried to scream. Tears poured from her already red, swollen eyes.

As Frank watched Zachary play with his other children, he couldn’t help but beam. All were from different women, but he loved them as if they had all come from him. His wife was barren, and so they raised others who were orphans alongside the children of his two mistresses. Camilla was a fiery red-haired beauty who had been following the Teacher since the beginning. She had been one of the Teacher’s mistresses as well, but when she became pregnant with the Teacher’s child, the Teacher asked Frank to care for Camilla and the child too.

Frank loved Camilla, just as much as he loved his wife, Sam, and his other mistress, Zoe, but in different ways. Camilla and Zoe were children really, barely in their twenties, whereas Sam was mature and his equal in most ways.

Camilla was not only fiery in look and personality; she was bright and took on the responsibilities of teaching his now eight boys and six girls. She also organized (at John’s suggestion, Frank figured) some of the other women to copy pages of the Book so that others could read it and feel its importance. Because of the ongoing nature of the revelation, they were told, this was a job that would never be complete.

Daily, Camilla would teach from one of the copied pages. Zachary, Frank’s middle child, was the brightest of her students; he always asked questions, always wondered whether something was right or wrong and he always loved stories, often play-acting them out in front of the rest of the children. Zachary could read as well, which was pretty good for an eight year old. He even read difficult texts, like the Bible. Unfortunately, this text was forbidden, so it was the one secret they kept from the other followers.

After the Book was established as the sole sacred text of God’s Army, the Teacher declared that all other religious writings were forbidden: “There is only the Book; No Follower can be in possession of or quote from any other religious text.” Frank and others collected up the Bibles, Torahs, Korans, Books of Mormon and other religious-based texts and gave them to John, who burned them all.

Frank kept his portable military Bible for himself. He hadn’t opened it in years, but he couldn’t let it go, as he had written notes in it and read it so many times. It was more of a keepsake—he’d stopped believing. But he just couldn’t part with it. So, he kept it hidden, until one day Camilla found it and asked if she could read it. Frank allowed it, but said she must keep it quiet. And she did.

Today, with his stomach grumbling as he prepared his mind and body for war, he watched with pleasure as Camilla gathered his children and had them sit in a circle around her as she taught from the Book.