Out of Exodia (3 page)

Mira is full of questions. “Why doesn’t
Malcolm have to be in front? He’s just over there and the cloud
looks like it’s a mile further ahead. How does that contraption
work? Is that one of Ronel’s inventions or did you have something
to do with it, Harmon?”

My brother answers her with math
equations and technical terms until her eyes glaze over. Lydia
smiles at me and we share a silent understanding. She’s on my left
and as she focuses forward again I study her face. The early
morning sun hits her right cheek, glints off her eye, and sends a
tingling sensation to my heart that explodes in my chest. I swore
to myself that I’d tell her how I felt as soon as we crossed the
bridge, but because of Barrett’s passing I’ve waited.

* * *

Some people walk briskly while children
skip alongside, but after four hours many slow considerably and the
smallest kids hitch rides on wagons or fathers’ backs. The Reds
have spread themselves miles apart with the quickest ones twenty
miles closer to our promised destination. The stragglers are miles
behind. It’s easy to see the electronic cloud, but following it
means choosing individual paths. As some keep a straight course
others look for easier routes. For those pulling carts choosing
between forest path or rough road means catching up if they guess
correctly or falling behind if the road veers right or left. I
haven’t seen Harmon and Mira in a while.

* * *

Lydia tried to keep her mind off
Barrett’s sudden death by alternating between trying to draw a few
words out of an extra quiet Bram or chatting with the two women who
had latched on to her mother. Onita, whose hands were always
telling a story, and Marilyn were in their mid-twenties, unmarried,
and roommates ever since their families had been exterminated by
Truslow’s soldiers in 2094. Both wore their hair too short to ever
be mistaken for Blues. Lydia’s mother, Jenny, knew them from work
and had a relationship with them that alternated between friendship
and mothering.

“
I’m out of water,” Onita
said. “You have any left, Marilyn?” Her fingers moved as if
reaching for an imaginary bottle.

Her friend shook her head. She glanced
at Bram who kept his eyes on the silver cloud ahead which seemed
balanced over several acres of untilled farmland. Then she tapped
Jenny and whispered, “Are you as thirsty as I am?”

Jenny nodded. Lydia pulled out a small
bottle from her belt sack and handed it to Onita. There was barely
an ounce left.

“
Oh, I couldn’t take your
last drop.”

“
Go ahead.” Lydia thrust
the bottle at her with a half smile. To Bram she said, “I wish we
had that camp well I gave you. Remember? We could have used it
about now.”

Bram tightened his lips and nodded his
head. He looked over at Onita who was tapping the bottom of the
upturned bottle to get the last drop. “We’ll come across a river or
a lake soon and everything’ll be fine.” Onita handed the empty
bottle back.

Close by a fight broke out. The
argument over a full jug of water had brought three men to their
neighbor’s defense, but hot heads and quick tempers escalated the
disagreement. Soon there were twenty, then thirty, then more
brawling across the brown fields they were trampling.

Harmon came stumbling out of the fray.
“Bram. You have to do something. I can’t stop the fighting by
myself.”

“
Where’s Mira?” He had lost
track of her mid-morning when he had noticed a handsome man pulling
the supplies for her. He assumed she was no more than a half mile
behind.

“
Mira? She can’t help with
this.”

“
The box. She has it. You
need to put together a new rod. I don’t think I’ll get any respect
without the authority that weapon will give me.”

Harmon nodded, “Right.” He looked in
all directions until he spied his sister’s familiar frame stepping
around some old machinery rusting in the field. “There she is.
Wait. Look.” He pointed to the south. “Another fight.”

It was clear that people’s tempers had
reached the breaking point. No one had brought enough water. Food
supplies were dwindling, too.

Harmon dropped his bags at Bram’s feet
and took off toward Mira. He skirted the angry groups of fighters
and felt his own body cry out for liquid.

He reached his sister, ignored the man
who was helping her, and tore at the rope binding the boxes and
bags together.

“
Hey, Buddy,” the man
grabbed at Harmon’s shoulder, “get outta her stuff!”

Mira pulled his hand away. “It’s all
right, Josh. He’s my brother. What do you need, Harmon? Hope you’re
not looking for water, ’cause I’m out.”

“
I was looking for this.”
He eased the small case out. He set the box on the ground, opened
it, and carefully assembled the ten sections. They snapped together
to make a rod identical to the one he and Bram had used in Exodia.
“There. This ought to get their attention.”

He ran his fingers down the shaft and
found the recessed tab he needed. A quick click and the end he had
pointed skyward erupted in sparks. He held the rod aloft and
shouted for the attention of those around him. The rod sent a
stronger stream of laser-like embers into the air. When they shot
up like fireworks Harmon had everyone’s interest.

He moved the rod above him in wide
circles sending showers of bright cinders in all directions. He
paraded across the field back to Bram, planted the rod in the dirt
at his feet, then moved aside. The umbrella of light made Bram look
unearthly, but every eye was on him and every ear listened as he
spoke.

* * *

“
Enough fighting,” I say,
unsure what my next words will be. Perhaps it’s sufficient to
simply glare at them one at a time. I turn a quarter to my left and
then another and another until I’ve made a circle. I hear a distant
voice, a child’s, asking her mother if what I hold is a rocket from
war. And now I know my next words. Rocket from war.
Water from rock
.

“
Stop your bickering!” I
set my eyes on a mound of rocks that some long ago farmer heaped up
in the corner of his field. “Bring your bottles and jugs. You’ll
have water from those rocks.”

The rain of sparks ends and I pull the
rod out of the ground and carry it like a lance to the rock pile. I
jab at the topmost rock, strike it harder, and wait. A thin trickle
of water runs down the rock face and moistens the ground at my
feet. Those closest to me gasp and a shout goes up. I move out of
the way as people scramble to be first.

I look to Lydia and let the corners of
my mouth lift. I wave her forward, but before she moves another
shout, an angry one, splits the noise. And then another.

“
We can’t drink this. It’s
stale. Or polluted.”

“
It’s bitter!”

“
Where’s the fresh water?
Do something!”

I push through the crowd and strike the
rock again then hold the smoking end of the rod in the water. It
tingles in my grasp, grows sharper in pain, but I trust my
power.

“
Look!”

Like a gusher the water begins to shoot
out from between the rocks. Out and up and back to earth. The
people hold their mouths open to the rain. It tastes fine to me.
Sweet in fact.

I walk to every pile of rocks around
the field, twelve in all, and do the same. Those who walked ahead
turn back to take their turn at filling bottles; those behind run
to catch up, afraid the water will run out before they get
here.

* * *

“
Well, we can’t camp here,”
Harmon says. “The ground is too soggy now.” I nod at him as if I
have a plan. I don’t, but I have a seed of an idea.

I tell him to hold on a minute and I
look around for Malcolm. He’s easy to spot because lots of kids
have thronged around him like a little entourage. They beg him to
make the cloud change colors, ask to touch the box, or offer to
carry it themselves. He’s patient with them.

“
Malcolm?”

“
Yes, sir.” He waves the
closer kids aside and gently suggests they let me come through.
“It’s Bram O’Shea, kids. Make way, make way.”

The younger ones scatter. Some of the
boys cross their arms and stand where they are; a hint of defiance
shared makes them seem older than they are. I’m fully aware that
the girls are giggling and not at all in awe of me.

“
I
wondered
—
” My
words stop, my breath catches as I read the words carved onto the
side of this miraculous machine:
theistic
love tone
. “What on earth?” I squint at
the letters then touch them.

“
Godly, ain’t it?” Malcolm
snickers. He kneels and gently rests the machine on the ground,
lifts the shoulders straps off, and frees himself of the heavy
burden. He has a smaller pack on his back. Personal things, I
suppose, and he takes that off too and stretches. He shows me a
secret compartment he discovered in the side of the box, big enough
to insert something rectangular, like a book, but that doesn’t
interest me now. I am captivated by those letters.

I squat down and stare at
the words, but I can’t come up with a prophecy. Thousands of
individual words pop into my head, each a part of this strange
phrase:
vote, net, tithe, teeth, thine,
ethics, echo, elect, violence, honest.
But
nothing more takes shape.

I’ve forgotten that the kids are
watching me until a girl, a gemfry girl, puts her small hand on my
brow and smooths away my frown. She gives me a hint of the puzzle
with a whisper, “Listen.”

Theistic love tone. I see
the word
listen
and then the whole phrase forms:
Listen to the voice.

Malcolm’s head is cocked toward the
machine. “Hear it?” He taps the top. “Pretty sweet hum, huh? Drove
me crazy at first. Kind of soothing now.”

There must be a deaf spot in my hearing
since I can’t detect any hum at all.

But I hear the voice.

Do what is right. Pay
attention to my commands. I am the Lord. One mile. Twelve springs.
Camp there.

* * ** * ** * *

Lydia walked alongside Bram as they
followed the cloud one more mile to a place they would’ve easily
missed had they kept to the wide path. The parking lot had been
bulldozed into mounds of broken asphalt. Concrete bumper blocks lay
in piles against faded walls. Crumbling signage designated the
century old shopping depot as Twelve Springs Mall. The cloud
settled itself over the south entrance and didn’t move even as
Malcolm approached, finally setting his equipment down near the
boarded up doors.

“
Are we breaking in?” Lydia
asked Bram.

“
We’re supposed to camp
here. We won’t need to break in. It’ll be open.” Bram was positive.
Lydia noticed the change in his self-confidence.

“
It certainly should be,”
Malcolm agreed. “And this should help with any electronic locks
that haven’t rusted shut.” He knelt over the box and ran his thumb
over a small read-out window on the side. “There.”

Bram gave him a quick nod and checked
around him as more and more of the Reds crowded closer. He directed
three men to help him pry off the rotting boards and expose the
metal gates completely. They muscled the gates apart and tried
pulling on the thick glass doors. The locks were disengaged, but
they had to scrape the doors hard against the floor tiles to open
them completely. Children ran in ignoring the shouts and cautionary
pleas of their parents.

“
It’s light inside,” Lydia
said, stepping through with a throng of mothers. Bram nodded and
followed right behind her.

Once through the entrance the space
opened up to the right and left. Skylights above, mostly broken,
let in shafts of daylight as well as birds. The brick flooring was
splattered with fresh droppings. The interior atrium gardens were
either overgrown jungles or desiccated graveyards depending on
whether a broken skylight had allowed enough rain in to water the
trees and plants. Lydia commented about the creepiness of the place
over her shoulder to Bram. He gave no response.

It took nearly an hour for the first
group of Reds to funnel into the mall and explore. The individual
stores had roll down security grilles whose locks were set to open,
thanks to Malcolm’s electronics. Men pushed them up, claiming the
space inside for their families.

“
I didn’t expect to find
merchandise here,” Lydia said, turning back to Bram. “What do you
think happened? It looks like they had time to clear out half the
inventory and then locked up.”

Bram speculated aloud, “The
Suppression.”