Untitled Agenda 21 Sequel (9781476746852) (21 page)

“Are you really an Earth Protector?” Joan asked.

“Just a trainee.”

“A trainee? Really. When did they start using women in the military?”

Julia responded with a shrug. She continued to glance at John frequently, watching to see what he was going to do. He stood erect, feet apart, with his arms folded across his chest as he had seen other men with power standing. The uniform gave him the right to do that.

Joan took her own shoes off and put her feet in the shallow water. “Oh, this feels good! My feet hurt from walking.” Julia's face softened a bit and she smiled at Joan. Joan reached into the water, just as Julia had done, and splashed water on her own face.

“So, if you're a trainee, where are your trainers?”

“Last time I saw them, they were headed that way.” Julia pointed upstream. John turned and looked but saw no one.

“When did they leave you?”

“Yesterday at dawn.”

The sun was high, nearly overhead.

“Why did they leave you?”

Julia didn't answer.

“Because you can't walk? And no one stayed with you?” Joan laid her arm across Julia's back, pulling her closer. Julia didn't resist. She leaned toward Joan, her small frame resting against Joan's side.

“Winston would have stayed. But Steven had a gun and wouldn't let him stay.”

“Steven?”

“The team leader.”

Bit by bit, Joan was drawing out the information they needed.

“How big was the team? Surely they could have spared someone!” John saw Joan give Julia's shoulder a little squeeze. A squeeze that said
You're important and I'm here to help
. Seeing this, John knew that Joan would have been an outstanding manager at the Children's Village if only she'd been allowed to actually care for the children.

“Six of us, counting me. I don't think I counted very much. Look at me. I'm not much of a team member.”

“Who else was on the team?”

“Steven was the team leader. He's the one with the gun. Winston.” Her voice softened, then moved briskly on. “Adam, Nigel, and Guy.”

So, Winston meant something to her. John, too, was absorbing as much as he could from her short answers.

“And what is the mission of your team?” Joan asked this as though asking what the weather was like, without stressing any importance to the question.

“You probably already know this, him being an Enforcer and all.” Julia nodded toward John.

“Oh, he hadn't been briefed on your team, just on his mission.” She smiled up at John. “Communications are difficult out here, aren't they?” she asked him.

He nodded in response.

Joan took her headscarf from her neck and dipped it in the water. “Let me wrap this around your ankle. It might help reduce the swelling.” With quick, sure motions, she wrapped the ankle. “There. How does that feel?”

“Good. Thank you.”

“So, what was your mission?”

The long pause was filled only with a soft breeze, and a white moth fluttering on a small purple flower.

Joan smiled patiently.

“Our mission was to find and return people who escaped the Compound.” Her words were flat, her facial features flat, as though she was emotionally detached from her words.

“People? More than one?”

Julia nodded.

“That's impossible. How in the world did that happen? How many?”

“Two men, two women, a boy, and a baby.”

“Children? Out here in the Human Free Zone? How will they survive? Have you seen them? Has your team seen them?” For the first time, Joan's voice had urgency.

“No, we haven't seen them. There were clues but no people.”

Joan managed to look shocked at this information. Her hands flew to her cheeks, her eyes opened wide. “That is truly unbelievable!”

“I have no reason to lie to you. You asked about our mission. And I told you.” She paused and gave John a cold, brave stare. “Now I have a question for you. What are you doing in this wilderness? What is your mission?”

There it was. The question John dreaded. He gave a long pause, then answered it the only way he could.

“My mission is to enforce whatever needs to be enforced.” He knew it was not much of an answer, but a citizen would never dare push an Enforcer any farther.

“W
hen is your team returning for you?” John asked Julia, still scanning the area for any movement.

She shrugged. “I don't know. They might never return for me. The mission is more important than any single member. Steven made that clear from the beginning.”

“How could a mission be more important than a person?” Joan asked her, sincere concern on her face.
Dear God, Joan
, John thought.
You know people aren't important to them. Who are you trying to convince here? Yourself or her?

“He had no use for what he called ‘weak links.' My ankle made me a weak link. I made myself a weak link by running and falling.”

“Let me rewrap that brace. Make it a little tighter and more supportive.” Joan removed the dirty headscarf and rewrapped it, starting at Julia's foot, crisscrossing it above the ankle, and finally tucking the loose end neatly into the top. “There. Is that too tight?”

Julia shook her head no.

“Why were you running?” John asked her. “Was there danger? Did an animal try to attack you?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. An aggressive animal.” She lowered her eyes.

John had tested her and she had failed. She wasn't telling the truth. If, indeed, she had been running from an animal and fell, she wouldn't be sitting here talking about it. The animal would have killed her. She fell for a different reason. Joan looked at John with puzzlement, eyebrows furrowed close together, mouth downturned. She must have been thinking the same thing.

“What kind of animal?” Joan asked her.

Julia turned to face Joan. “If I told you, you wouldn't believe me. So what's the point?”

John didn't like standing there, in the open, visible. He didn't like answers that led to more questions. Frankly, he didn't like anything about this situation.

John spoke directly to Julia, his eyes never leaving her face. “Here's the point. I don't believe you were chased by an animal. I want the truth. Then I'll decide if we should help you or leave you. What we do depends on what you say.”

“Was it a man?” Joan asked, in a soft, knowing voice.

Julia nodded. “Yes. It was a man. Steven, the team leader. But he said no one would believe me, I had no witnesses, and any other man in a position of power would do the same thing. I would rather die out here than be back on his team. So go.” Her face hardened into a fierce scowl. “Leave me. My ankle will get better. I have some supplies. I don't want to be near any man who thinks he's more important than me just because he has power.” She stared at John as she talked, her eyes narrowed.

“Go away!” she said again while reaching into her backpack, trying to pull something out. Whatever it was caught on the fabric; she shook her head violently and her dark hair fell forward. With an impatient gesture, she smoothed it behind her ears.

“Can I help you?” Joan asked. “Do you want something out of your pack?”

“Leave me alone!” And then she crumpled forward, her face in her hands, back bent, shoulders shaking. Joan laid her arm across Julia's back and patted her shoulder.

“We're not going to leave you alone. We're going to help you.” Joan looked up at John, her eyes begging him to agree. He knew Joan would never leave this woman alone in the wilderness, and he respected her for that. But his wife looked so tired, her face pale and thin, dark shadows under her eyes as though smudged by ashes. He nodded his head at Joan and was heartened to see a faint flicker of a smile play across her lips.

“But he's an Enforcer. Why would he help me? Why is he even helping you?” She said
Enforcer
with a fiercely disdainful tone.

Joan was quiet for a moment, then said with quiet confidence. “It isn't the uniform that makes a man evil. It's the man that makes the uniform evil. They want and get uniforms because they crave recognition, prestige, and, of course, power. But I think this Enforcer may be better than the others.”

Well done, Joan
, John thought. As long as she thinks I am an Enforcer, she'll never be able to disclose that I'm not. And it might be important in the future that I be seen as an Enforcer to anybody we come in contact with.

Julia looked at John, her eyes swollen from crying, her face streaked with dirt and sweat. “Are you really different?”

John nodded. “Yes, we will help you. The first thing we must do is get away from the stream into some cover. You can lean on us.” John saw a faint smile on Julia's face. “Stand in the water,” he said. “I'm going to erase any signs that we've been here.”

Joan supported Julia and they moved into the stream. John filled their trash bucket with water and poured it over the dirt bank several times. All traces of their footprints melted away into the mud.

With Joan on one side and John on the other, Julia laid her arms across their shoulders. She was fragile between them, and hobbled the best she could without putting weight on her right foot. Together they
made it to the other side of the stream, up the bank, and into the darkness of the woods. John was relieved that they were no longer out in the open.

“Wait here,” he told them. He went back and, using the bucket again, erased their footprints from the bank.

When he was satisfied that all traces of their presence were gone, he returned to the women and they began walking. Deeper into the woods he saw what must have been a road at one time. There were traces of asphalt, black splotches among the grasses and ferns, a road long neglected, no longer useful. He decided to follow it.

“We'll stay on the asphalt as much as we can. We'll still be able to see the stream, and we'll leave less of a trail on a hard surface.”

Julia was breathing hard from the effort of leaning on them and mostly hopping on one foot, but she didn't complain.

They walked because they didn't dare stop. Julia's arms ached from reaching up and across their shoulders. Joan was breathing hard; Julia was a heavy burden for her, even with John to help. They walked until their shadows grew long in front of them, the sun low behind them. Dark clouds were gathering on the horizon. A storm was brewing.

In the distance John saw a familiar shape. As they got closer, he realized it was a rust-colored vehicle of some sort, abandoned.

He pointed it out to Joan; she nodded and they headed toward it.

Finally, they were close enough to see that it was an old, abandoned school bus, with bits of faded yellow paint hanging along the bottom like fringe on a skirt. The tires were flat. The bifold doors were frozen open, and the two steps up to the bus were lying useless on the ground. Joan pulled herself up into the unexpected shelter, then reached down for Julia's hand. She pulled, John pushed, and then Julia was on the bus. John pulled himself up and surveyed the interior.

Most of the seats were torn, probably chewed by animals. A forgotten lunch box lay in the aisle, decorated with cartoon characters
from long ago faintly visible through the rust. Incredibly, none of the windows were broken. John walked the length of the aisle, looking for useful items. but there was nothing of value. Vines grew up through holes in the floor, twining their way up the seats toward the light of the windows.

Julia sat in one of the seats, her leg propped beside her, her head against a window. Joan sat across from her and mirrored her position. The fading sunlight that came through illuminated them, Joan's light hair with streaks of gray, and Julia's pale porcelain skin. Both women looked exhausted. John knew they needed to rest.

But first, he had some questions.

He slid the pack off his back and held it out to Julia. “What's in your pack?” he asked her. Surely, they would have supplied her with nourishment cubes, water bottles. Who knew what else? Things they might need, things that might save them. Things that would help them survive.

Slowly and carefully, Julia pulled out the contents.

The sunlight faded, the skies darkened even more.

They each ate one of Julia's nourishment cubes, not even letting the smallest crumbs drop from their lips. Every morsel counted.

“Don't you have packs with supplies?” Julia whispered to Joan.

“We did. But they got ripped apart by foxes or coyotes or something. Stuff like that happens out here.”

Joan hoped her explanation satisfied Julia's curiosity. There was no further conversation.

Julia and Joan fell asleep, but John couldn't. David, Emmy, and the children were still out there somewhere, and Earth Protectors were out there, too. John peered through a window, but it was too dark to see anything clearly.

A storm began, slow at first, distant, then closer, and rain and hail raged against the fragile old school bus. John was grateful for the shelter. It was like a gift left there at the side of the road just for them.
Gusts of cold air swirled through the open door, plastering wet leaves on the driver's seat and windshield. Lightning flashed with the fury of nature gone insane.

John could only sit, helpless, weighed down by an overwhelming sense of futility.

W
inston had no choice. He had to do as Steven commanded and leave Julia behind. No doubt Steven would shoot him if he disobeyed orders. Steven would destroy any lower person who got in his way or challenged him. But Steven was the right man to be in power, at least by the Authorities' standards, because he would do whatever it took to meet, even exceed, their orders just to retain his position, or better yet, get a promotion. It was all about him. If this low-level man had an ego so big, Winston hated to think how big the ego of the ultimate, allpowerful Central Authority was.