CHOSEN: A Paranormal, Sci-Fi, Dystopian Novel (29 page)

In the Skies Heading to Southern AllegianceSantoria,
Southern Allegiance

Rupert looked out
the window at the clouds that gathered beneath. Puffy and white with just the
slightest hint of silver; they gave an illusion of pillow-like softness but in
reality they were just wisps of moisture that would never catch you should you
fall.
But we all fall, sometimes
, he thought
.
He was surrounded
by men and women he’d worked with for years, some of them for the entire time
he’d been on the ARC. 

Rupert’s mind drifted as he reclined his
seat and stretched his right leg into the aisle. She hadn’t said anything. He’d
told her how much he loved her and she’d said nothing back. He had hoped that
she would say something. 

Just once, she could have given him hope. He
sighed. Rupert knew Mave. She had her priorities and had always made that
clear, leaving no room for any uncertainty about what she needed to do and how
nothing would get in her way. He still loved her and he’d wait for her. He’d
wait his whole life for her if it came to that.

He rubbed just below his right knee. His leg
was beginning to ache now but he couldn’t risk removing the source of the pain.
The SEP Agent would check all ARC passengers one more time before clearing them
to leave. No one in the crew working the flight was familiar to him. He’d hoped
one of the pilots he trusted would be on this flight because what he had was
too sensitive to entrust to someone new. He would have to bear it for at least six
more hours as they made the remaining four local stops before his. 

If he were on the island it would be much
harder to get the information out to the mainland subsytems. He couldn’t just
connect to the old lines since he didn’t know anyone with access. He considered
his options for getting access back in Southern Allegiance. He could think of
one possibility, but it already felt uncomfortable and discomfited. 

He would need to call on someone he hadn’t
spoken to in fifteen years because she was unfortunate enough to have access to
two things he needed. 

He needed Marco. When he’d seen the location
of the communication transfers between Stephen and someone in Southern
Allegiance it made him curious. He’d gone to school with a man from that same city,
Santoria, east of the Amazon. 

Zura asked him to check on what the kids
were doing and so he continued to dig, until he found the class they’d logged
into and the names who’d logged in. It had taken a full week of searching, but
Rupert had finally figured out that Marco was who he thought he was. The last
time he’d spoken to his mother Teresa it was after his friend and college
roommate Sandro Garcia disappeared. 

Rupert never found out exactly what happened
to Sandro and Teresa didn’t want to talk about it. Despite knowing very little of
the truth, she tried to keep her boys much closer and out of trouble. Something
that seemed impossible given they had their dad’s adventurous and
indestructible spirit.

The only time he heard from them was a
periodic holiday greeting during the Winter Solstice. Over the years they’d become
more and more sporadic. The last one was after Marco had turned sixteen and had
a picture of him and his brother Locan, who’d become a pilot after serving as
an SEP Officer. 

Sandro’s disappearance was much harder on Locan
who was almost nine when it happened. Rupert had gone to see Teresa Garcia
after Sandro’s disappearance and he still remembered how hysterical she’d been.
She’d finished her training and become a nurse only a year before Marco had
been born, and then dealt with the stresses of his constant illnesses that
first year.

She hadn’t reported them but she knew it was
the serum. After the first year he hadn’t been sick more than a day in his
life, but it had taken a toll on her. He was barely through those challenging
days when their lives were turned upside down. Locan tried to be strong but his
eyes told a different story as he looked on at his changed world in silence.

Marco was barely more than a toddler and
just wandered around the room touching everything he could get his hands on while
his mother was distracted. He was indifferent to the fact that their lives would
never be the same. 

Even then, the photos on the walls and in
the displayer hadn’t been changed since Marco was a baby, still crawling. There
were pictures of Sandro, Teresa, and Locan together before Marco was born. Then
the photos seemed to stop, and after Marco there were only a few pictures of
his father at all and even fewer of Marco with his father.

Sandro’s disappearance had shaken Rupert
too. Whatever the cause, it didn’t happen overnight. It had been going on for
years until one day he didn’t come back, leaving behind a wife and two sons. Rupert
had felt so guilty sitting in her living room, eating her homemade fajitas and
sipping on guava juice. He always felt guilty. He still carried secrets with
him that in the dark of the night seemed to steal a piece of his soul, leaving
him with less of who he was when the dawn broke again. 

He couldn’t continue like this and he
couldn’t tell Teresa, Locan, or even Marco what little he did know about
Sandro. Though it wasn’t much, it was more than his family knew. He had to keep
that to himself, at least for now, but he still needed his old friend’s sons. The
pilot and the tech wiz could do something he couldn’t do on his own.

Rupert hoped that the agents would
understand his desire to stop on the mainland before heading home. As he sat
looking out the window, he cooked up a plan to use the excuse of buying food
and supplies. He honestly had nothing back home and things took longer to get
to the island.

If he could get Marco to load the info into
the subsystem, he would find a way to get Locan to take him home. It had to
work and if he could do it, that meant Zura wouldn’t have to and no one else he
loved would have to risk their freedom and their lives to get the information
out.

***

Teresa’s mind had
been racing all day since she got the message that Rupert wanted to come by
while on an overlay. She had been trying to figure out what was behind the
sudden contact. Fifteen years had passed since she’d last seen him.

It felt like a lifetime and she wasn’t’ sure
she wanted to resurrect the past. He said he wanted to see the boys too, but Locan
rarely came home anymore. If she saw him twice a year she felt lucky, but Marco
was home and he wouldn’t have any idea who Rupert was. 

She didn’t talk much to Marco about Sandro. When
he was younger she tried to tell him stories of his father, but as time passed
it felt useless and only caused her more pain and anger. The few memories Marco
held of his father came in flashes, like damaged photographs. He could never
place the scene or what was happening in the brief images he got. A look on his
dad’s face, a smile, a slight movement captured with no frame of reference.

He didn’t miss him like Locan who’d gotten
him for eight years. He missed him in other ways though. He never had a father
and Teresa could see the difference in how it affected Marco who never even
knew what he was missing.

Marco heard the unfamiliar voice through
their entry system and ran to the door. His mother looked at him as she opened
the door to greet Rupert. She wore her hair pulled back and away from her face,
barely any different than she’d worn it the last time he’d seen her. Marie’s
eyes were tired and it looked like she’d just gotten home from work. 

When Rupert arrived at her door, she knew
him immediately. His face hadn’t changed much but his hair had grown and there
was now grey in it. They’d both changed, mostly in ways that didn’t show on
their faces. Time and circumstances had given some age to their appearance
, hers more than his. She’d been busy working and
raising two boys while he had the easy life of being single with no kids.
That’s how she saw it.

“Who’s this?” Marco asked sticking his chest
out and trying to make his voice sound deeper.

“I’m Rupert Charms. Your father and I went
to school together. Sandro and I were actually roommates and good friends. You
wouldn’t remember me though, you were only knee high the last time I saw you.”

“You knew my dad?” Marco asked curiously, as
he took a step back to let Rupert in the door. His knee still ached but he was
now safe.

“I did. Good man,” Rupert said eyeing Teresa
for her reaction.

He never knew what she thought about
Sandro’s vanishing. She didn’t know if he’d left them, been killed, or
something else. She never got answers from anyone. Instead, she was left to her
own overly active imagination. That imagination had gone through every scenario
from him running away to the southern tip of Southern Allegiance with another
woman, to him being kidnapped and tortured, to him being killed and dumped in
the ocean.

If she ever found him alive, he’d better
hope he’d been through hell already because otherwise she’d send him straight
there.

“Do you mind if I use your restroom? The
ride over here was long,” Rupert asked. Teresa pointed him down the hall to the
restroom and watched him, her eyes unwavering until he was in, door closed.

“I don’t know why he’s here. Fifteen years
and suddenly he wants to see us?” She rubbed the back of her hand over her
head. 

“Us? He said he wanted to see me too?”

“Sí. You too.” Teresa sat down on the chaise
by the window. 

The window was open, showing a screen in
need of cleaning, but it served the purpose of keeping the bugs out. It was
almost too warm outside already but she liked to wait as long as possible to
close up the house for the artificial cooling. It cost money that could be used
for Marco’s school when he finally went to university.

Marco looked at his mother. He wanted to
know who this Rupert was and decided it would be easy enough to find out. Within
seconds he found an old profile of him. Same man but the picture must have been
from at least ten years before. He was a scientist and data analyst and the
profile said he was in Antarctica at the time. Antarctica. 

There was only one real reason for
scientists to work in Antarctica. Marco stood, his back against the wall as he
waited for Rupert to come out. He had an idea what this might be about and
wondered if Stephen and Stella had put him up to it.

“Why do you have that silly look on your
face?” Teresa asked Marco just as Rupert came out of the restroom. He was
walking with less of a limp now and his leg was already feeling better.

“Do you know Stephen and Stella?” Marco asked
once Rupert was almost back to the living room.

“Yes. I’ve known them pretty much all their
lives,” Rupert answered with a smile.
This is a smart kid. I like him
already,
he said to himself.

“What is this about? Who are Stephen and
Stella?” Teresa asked walking over to where Marco had stopped Rupert in the
hall.

“Nothing, Mom. Rupert works on the ARC and
knows one of my classmates who lives there half the year. It’s a small world,
that’s all. Hey, can I show you something?” Marco asked. He grabbed Rupert’s shirtsleeve
and pulled him away from his mother’s view before Rupert could answer or Teresa
could protest.

From down the hall she heard them
whispering, Rupert talking more than Marco, both barely audible. After several
seconds of trying unsuccessfully to eavesdrop, she decided she would just go
and ask what this was about - as was her right.
Her son. Her house. Her
business.
She marched down the hall towards the two men. The moment they saw
her Rupert stopped talking. He smiled and began walking towards Teresa.

“Teresa, I know it hasn’t been easy, but you
seem to be doing a fine job with them. How’s your oldest boy Locan? Is he still
flying?” Rupert asked trying to shift her attention away from his business with
Marco.

“He’s still flying for both the World
Consensus military and private charter but he never visits me. What is going on
here?” she asked waving her hand back and forth between Rupert and Marco.

“Oh, he just wanted to talk to me. I guess
he doesn’t meet many people who actually knew his father,” Rupert answered with
a genuine smile on his face. Teresa pursed her lips together and let her eyes
go back and forth between Rupert and Marco, before walking off into the living
room.

Marco didn’t meet many people who knew his
father. Besides giving him the data and instructions for what needed to happen,
Marco had taken the rare chance to ask about the man he barely remembered. Was
he alive? The only thing Rupert could say was that they’d never had any
confirmation otherwise. 

When Rupert finally left the house, Marco
contacted Locan and told him what happened. He’d met someone who personally
knew his father and who was willing to say something about him. He also let
Locan know that Rupert needed his help - a flight to his island. 

Santoria, Southern Allegiance

Marco watched Rupert
walk out of the door and followed him with his eyes as he headed down the
sidewalk. He looked worried. Marco felt his pocket for the small microdot that
had wedged itself into the corner. He would have to take his pants off and turn
the pockets inside out to get it.

“What was that about?” Teresa said sitting
down on the sofa that had seen better days. The seams frayed on the arms, where
her sons had spent too many hours sitting even after she’d told them not to. The
once vibrant red was now faded and the wooden feet and trim were scratched and
banged. She cocked her head to the side waiting for Marco to answer this time
with more than ‘nothing’.

“It wasn’t’ anything you need to worry
about. He told me some things about dad, I never knew. I didn’t know how high
ranking he was, Mom, in Southern Allegiance’s COPS program. Teresa shook her
head and stood up. She’d never talked much about Sandro’s life to Marco after
he’d disappeared. It was pointless then and still was.

“Was that it?”

“No. He needed my help and Locan’s with a
flight. I guess since he was asking for a flight he felt he could at least tell
me something about my dad. No one else seems to want to,” Marco added for
effect. He needed his mother to stop asking questions and bringing up his dad
usually worked.

“Fine. Dinner’s in the kitchen. I’m not
feeling up to eating right now, so go ahead and eat if you’re hungry. I’m going
to go lie down.” Teresa took the apron off and hung it on the kitchen door
before sauntering to her bedroom, her body looking tired.

Marco felt guilty. It wasn’t her fault that
things were like they were. Either his father had been killed or he’d abandoned
them. Marco preferred to think he’d been killed in action to the alternative. After
his conversation with Rupert, his visions of his dad’s death were no longer as
a regular officer or agent but as someone who had more rank and power. He had
new questions,
“Did he die? If he did, how? And why did no one ever found
his body?”

Marco made a plate of rice, beans, and
grabbed a protein packet. He picked at it half-heartedly as he considered what
Rupert had told him about Sandro, and what Rupert had asked him to do with the
data he’d given him. There wasn’t much he could do with the information about
his dad, but he could do something with the microdot.

Marco scraped the rest of the food into a
small container and put it in the refrigerator. If Teresa came out and saw it
in the trash, she’d ring his ear. He pulled out a slice of pizza wrapped up in
a paper towel and left the kitchen.

The stairs to his loft bedroom seemed to
creak more than usual. He attempted to move quietly and not disturb his mother
as she escaped to her room. She had to have heard him, but wasn’t calling out.
Perhaps
she’d had enough of him tonight.

He closed his bedroom door and pulled his
pants off. He turned the pocket inside out and pushed the small microdot out of
where it was lodged. He needed to know what was on it as much as Rupert needed
him to get it out to those it could help.

He pulled his wooden chair over to the
matching desk and slid his reader out from behind his keyboard. He put the
microdot in and waited for whatever was on it to come up. A single file
appeared that read ‘To Send’. Marco touched it and it opened two documents.

The first one read ‘Science Report’ and the
second ‘Science Data’. He touched the file and a ten page report appeared in
front of him. As he scrolled through the pages reading the headings, his
breathing changed. Summary, History, Current Issues, Future Issues, Possible
Solutions, Actions Taken, Cover Ups. 

He jumped back up to read the section on
current issues and saw that the earthquakes in Southern Allegiance were just an
example of what was happening in all the areas with tectonic plates. The future
issues section didn’t look better. Things would only get worse at the rate they
were going. 

He needed to know if there was information
being withheld from the citizens in Southern Allegiance. He skipped to the end of
the report to read the section on cover-ups. Marco read about the restrictions
placed on every person who had any legal information of the issue. The
non-disclosure agreements were meant to be enforced. Anyone with information
had been reminded of this and threatened with treatment as traitors and
criminals if they violated the agreements.

He thought about what he and Alexis had
gathered and wasn’t surprised. What he’d done with Alexis was minor compared to
this. This was more than just his region. It dealt with all the regions from
the World Consensus level. UniCorps and the World Consensus had no intention of
telling the truth. He wondered what their end game was, if they were willing to
risk millions of lives to avoid the costs of relocating people. He felt the
knot form in his stomach as the feeling crept in that he was missing something
important.

***

Rupert planned to
spend a few days on the mainland before heading home. Unfortunately, Teresa
said it might be a week before Locan could make a special trip home, but she would
still ask. It would give her an excuse to get her son home, even if it was just
for a few hours.

A week was longer than he’d planned. He had
to get his affairs in order back home and this whole break was only scheduled
to last four weeks. At this point, he had no other way back that didn’t leave
him traceable. He’d intentionally made the request midflight to get off on the
mainland in the hopes that no one had updated the passenger list. 

Unfortunately, he wouldn’t know for sure
unless someone called to check on him and ask why he hadn’t gotten off at his
scheduled stop. He given his excuse and would use it again if necessary. He
preferred not to use it again and hazard leaving a longer trail.

Rupert checked into a small hotel that
accepted lubles as payment. It was one of the few around, located at the edge
of Marco’s town, where dust swirled in the Spring air, carrying with it pollen
and bugs. The paint peeled from where it tried to cling over stacked stones.
The windows looked as if they hadn’t been replaced in more than fifty years,
and the smell of dampness wafted through the air and into his nostrils, causing
him to sneeze. 

The worn carpet under his boots was stained
and ragged around the edges from having more than its fair share of weary
travelers. When he’d stayed in this hotel fifteen years before it was nice and
comfortable, but time and circumstance had taken its toll on this old place too.
He’d been in worse places and his stay here would only be a few days. He was
grateful it was even an option.

Rupert hoped that Marco was as good as he
thought he might be, based on the communications he’d found. Rupert had
carefully and thoroughly scrubbed those same communications off the system
before leaving the ARC. No one else needed to be sullied by seeing them, not
even Zura, Johan, and Mave. If all the hands were dirty, there would be no one
left to clean them.

Tomorrow he would get food, water, and a few
other supplies. When he got back home, he would take care of his business there
and prepare to leave again. He looked in the mirror as it warped his image,
making his face stretch long and accentuating his nose.

He had to do this. There was no choice. Everyone
has their moment. Mave would understand - she had to. There were some things he
could try to make right. There were some things that all the trying in the
world wouldn’t change. He knew the difference. Looking at the reflection of his
face, he accepted that this was something he could try to make right, despite
the costs.

He couldn’t control the dual powers of the World
Consensus and UniCorps. They had chosen not to act, and by their inaction, they
had forced his hand. He would not have blood like that on his hands. He’d done
enough in his life he had to make amends for already.

The data was in Marco’s hands now, and he
had to trust him. It was all he could do and now Marco had to get the
information out and warn the people of Southern Allegiance. He’d made Marco
promise not to send it until he was back on the island and not to mention it to
Stephen. 

“The less any one person knows about what is
happening, the better.” It was what Rupert told Marco before leaving. He
believed more people would be kept safe that way. 

Besides, Rupert was confident that when Stephen
made it home he would be busy with investigating the ARC. He hoped Stephen
would find whatever he was looking for. Stephen was also doing predictive
modeling of the earthquakes, which might not help for the one coming to
Southern Liberty, but Southern Liberty was just the beginning. The data was
clear on that.

Rupert waited a couple of days before trying
to call Mave. As the call tried to connect, he thought about her reaction to
what he’d said. He wouldn’t take it back even if it made her uncomfortable. It
was the truth. He did love her, but maybe she needed space or time to think. 

The light on his watch blinked as it tried
to connect unsuccessfully. He wondered if his phone function was still working
since he’d talked to Marco the day before. He attempted the call to Mave once
more, and again it didn’t go through – this time the attempt to connect
suddenly ended. He couldn’t imagine she was sending his calls away, but he had no
other explanation.

***

Two days before
Rupert thought he’d be able to head home Marco called again. “Locan is on his
way. He’s coming a day early because there is danger coming, Rupert.”

“I know. It’s why I gave you the report, to
get the warning out,” Rupert responded.

“I think it’s worse than you might think. I
started looking at the data you gave me Rupert and comparing it with some that
I got hold of from Southern Liberty. They don’t match Rupert. What you gave me
isn’t all the data. It’s like someone randomly plucked out maybe ten to fifteen
percent of the activity in the fault lines and took it out of your data set. So
what I have looks even worse than what you have,” Marco said reluctantly. 

Rupert looked at his watch. Even they at the
ARC had been lied to. He wondered how much more data they were missing and just
how serious the problem was.

“To make things worse, Rupert, based on what
you show and what I show, I think we’ve got two fault lines, both active and
converging. It wouldn’t look so bad with just one fault line, but the second
one isn’t showing up in your data. I hadn’t gone in really to look at the stuff
I had until you sent your report. Honestly, it just wasn’t that interesting
until now.”

“So something changed?” Rupert asked wondering
what Marco knew.

“Yeah, between these two reports, we are
looking at a major disaster on the northern coast and it looks like it could
happen anytime within the next month. If I had to guess, I’d bet it’s going to
be as bad as or possibly worse than Southern Liberty. Rupert, you can’t go back
home. You need to stay here, inland, where it’s safe.” The sound of concern was
sincere in Marco’s voice as he waited for Rupert to respond.

Rupert was silent for a moment. Staying in
Santoria was dangerous in other ways, given he was presumed to be home and the
air transport would expect to pick him up there. If there were no earthquake he
would have no excuse for not being there. If there were an earthquake, he’d be
trapped on his small island home with little chance of survival without
evacuation. He already knew there were no plans for warnings or evacuations.

“Are you there?” Marco asked into the
silence on the other end.

“Yes, Marco. I’m here. I’m just thinking. Neither
leaving nor staying is favorable at this time. Did you already send out the
report?”

“No, you said to wait until you were gone. I
figured I’d check with you since you may not be going. Do you still want me to
wait to send it out? The longer we wait, the less chance our folks here have to
save themselves. The danger in the Rift Valley seems on part with what’s
happening right here. From the data we both have, it’s likely to wrap right
around to your home in Trinabago. We have to do something, fast.”

Rupert thought about his little island. At
one time the risk was considered low or very moderate but since they’d put
pumps in the northeastern parts of Southern Allegiance the whole area was
experiencing more activity. More activity than had been reported to him and the
others on the ARC.

Rupert was a scientist and could see the
data, but he reasoned that anyone who was paying any attention had to know that
the tremors and minor earthquakes weren’t normal and the excuses and rationale
given to the public weren’t realistic. Now they had more information that put
the region at risk and no one was telling anyone anything.

At that very moment, they were evacuating
the Rift Valley, and though no full reports of how it was going left Southern
Liberty, he was pretty confident it wasn’t going well. The same could happen in
his home but this time there was information – facts and data – that could be
used to convince people to get out of the danger zones.

“Send it Marco. We do what we must,” Rupert said
and clicked off the call.

The tremors and small earthquakes were the
rumblings of a giant slowly waking, with its moaning, groaning, and stretching.
They needed to know that over the centuries, they had managed to awaken a
sleeping giant.

Marco pulled the reports and data he’d
gotten from Rupert together and then added what he and Alexis had taken from
their local government’s science division. He worked them both into a secure
file and encrypted them before sending them the same way he and Stephen had
sent files just a couple weeks before. It had to work. The subsystem was the
only way to get the information out and he hoped someone was paying attention
to it.