Fiction: Afterlife Volume 3 (Chapter 22)

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Afterlife is a sci fi/western action serial published every other week. Join us in a post-apocalyptic journey through a future where life has become little more than a struggle for survival. However, where there’s life, there’s always hope.

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Read the previous chapter here:

Afterlife, Volume 3, Chapter 21

Where:

The IAO leadership meet to discuss the resistance.
Ayman and Wild Joe meet with General Rodriguez and Foxtrot in Rose City.
Green Horizons is attacked and Abby escapes.

Find the Volume 3 Table of Contents page here.

View the Map here.

Check out Afterlife on Goodreads and don’t forget to rate it.

 

Afterlife, Volume 3, Chapter 22

Ayman wasn’t sure what condition he’d find Ava in as he entered her hospital room.  The nurses said it was okay for her to have visitors, so she couldn’t have been too bad off.  He closed the door and approached the chair at her bedside.  Ava was under a white cover, but she was awake.  She was staring out the window at the buildings and the dunes beyond them.  “How are you feeling?” Ayman asked as he sat in the chair.

“I’ve been better,” she said, “but I’m alive.”  She turned and smiled at him.  Her long, black hair was strewn across the pillow and her brown eyes looked a little droopy, but Ayman still found her beautiful, especially when she smiled.

“I’m glad of that,” he said.  “I have to say you had us worried.”

“Thanks for helping me,” she said.

Ayman smiled.  “If any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.  Besides, when you were wounded, you were trying to save me.”

She shrugged.  “Still, you didn’t have to help me.”

“Like I said, I was worried.”

She nodded.  “I lost a lot of blood.  They had to do a transfusion when I first got here.  And they stapled me up real good.  But I’ve stabilized and I’m obviously feeling much better.  The morphine helps, of course.”  She nodded to the bag her IV was attached to, hanging above her bed.

“Don’t get too excited about that stuff,” Ayman said.

“I know,” she said.  “It’s haram.  Still, I have an excuse.”  She smiled.  “I have drug use exemption, at least for a few days.”

Ayman nodded.  “He has explained to you in detail what is forbidden to you, except under compulsion of necessity, as the Qur’an says.  Have you had any other visitors?”

“Joe was here before your meeting,” she said.  “He told me about that meeting.”  She chuckled.  “I’m sure you loved hanging out in a bar.”

“It wasn’t my first choice,” Ayman said.  “Wild Joe seems to have a made a left turn since we’ve gotten to Rose City.  He didn’t seem excited about joining the resistance when I mentioned it to him before, out in the desert.  Now he’s all about it.  He must have some ulterior motive.  I don’t imagine it’s because of his big heart.”

“Well,” Ava said, “of course he’s seen the prestige and the high rank involved.  I think he said they were thinking of making him a major.  And the IAO’s taken away a lot of the territory where we used to play shows, making it unsafe.  I’m not sure he really has a choice.”  She frowned.  “And don’t underestimate Joe’s heart.  He has issues like we all do, but he’s a good person.”

“Really?” Ayman asked.  “He’s a fraud leading a troop of frauds.  And how’s he going to be able to be a leader or even a soldier in a real army?”

“Real army?” she asked.  “Have you seen these people around here?  Anyway, he’s a showman, not a fraud.  It’s his job to embellish things a little bit.”

“You can say that after the way he’s treated you?” Ayman asked.  “Making you act like something you aren’t.”

“Things are never so simple as that,” Ava said.  “If things seem simple, it’s probably because you don’t have all of the facts.”  She smiled at him.  “Joe’s not perfect, but like I said, he has a good heart.  And we aren’t frauds.  There’s at least some truth to the façades we all put on.  I’m not Native American, but I’m a great shot.  Maybe not as good as we make me out to be in our shows, but better than most.  And Jimmy Thumb’s obviously not the shortest person in the world.  Big Bob obviously isn’t the tallest.  The Chief isn’t as old as he looks.  He’s actually only sixty seven.  He just looks so old because he’s worked out in the hot sun most of his life.  And he’s an Indian, but the kind that comes from India, not Native American.  His name’s actually Raj Abbas.  Buckaroo Billy is a good bull rider, but Joe pays off all of his competition to make sure he wins.  Mary Cassidy’s as good with horses and animals as she appears.  There’s no lie there.  But she isn’t descended from Butch Cassidy like Joe says.  At least not that can be proven.  It’s a made up story like a lot of the rest of Joe’s embellishments.”

“Embellishments,” Ayman said.  “If that’s what you want to call them.”

“And then there’s Belle,” Ava said.  “Belle is transgender.  She was born a biological man who identified as a woman.  Joe paid for her to have male to female sexual reassignment surgery.  Do you know how hard that sort of surgery was to get with Rennock in control?  He didn’t look very kindly on transgender people, or anyone else different from him for that matter.  So Joe put up the money for Belle’s surgery.  Something she needed for her psychological wellbeing.  But he asked her to keep her facial hair.  For the show and all.  That was the tradeoff.”

Ayman scowled at her.  “There’s some major exploitation going on there.  And not just with her.  With all of you.”

“We all agreed to it,” she said.  “Joe didn’t force any of us to do anything.  We were all outcasts.  Most of us were poor and didn’t have jobs.  Do you know how hard it is for a dwarf like Jimmy to find work out here?  Especially when a man like Rennock was in charge?  Or for Big Bob?  Joe gave us lives.  He gave us family.  He gave us a place to fit in.  So we have to pretend some things, lie about some things.  That’s what actors do.  Joe has a way bigger heart than you give him credit for.  And besides that, he’s not a fraud.  He’s really done a lot of the things he’s said he’s done.  He’s led a small army of soldiers before.  He’s been a soldier.  He exaggerates and embellishes things, but that doesn’t mean a lot of it isn’t true.  All of us are very good at what we do.  We didn’t become such a successful traveling show for nothing.”

“What about you?” Ayman asked.  “Why have you stayed with him?”

“There’ve been times I wanted to leave,” Ava said.  “I won’t lie.  It really gets to me sometimes.  The pretending.  The fakeness.”  She looked into Ayman’s eyes.  “But Joe helped me when no one else would.  I was outcast from my own people, my own family.  My own father wanted to stone me to death because I loved a man he didn’t approve of, as I told you before.  My father had the man hanged because my father had clout with the Holy Warriors and they didn’t like my lover, either.  And the day they were going to stone me to death, I managed to run away.  They were chasing me, but Joe and his traveling show came across me and he took me in.  He fought off the Holy Warriors with the help of his companions.  And they took me in.”  She smiled.  “He saved my life.  In some form or other, he’s saved all of us.  You would have probably been killed out in the desert if it wasn’t for him.  So like I said, Joe has his issues, but he’s a good man.  Deep down, I truly believe that he is.”

Ayman nodded.  “I didn’t know all of that before.  You’ve opened my eyes today.”

“I’ll be proud to serve under him in the army once I feel better,” she said.  “You should also be proud to serve under him.”

“If that’s how things turn out,” Ayman said.  He sat with Ava for a while.  She eventually seemed really tired so he left so she could get some sleep.  He walked back to his hotel room with at least a somewhat a changed opinion of Wild Joe Rodeo.  Maybe Joe had a heart after all.  Maybe there was more to him than greed and lies.

<>

When Colonel Frank Fife entered the meeting room with General Javier Rodriguez, there were already four other people seated at the table.  A large map of Rose City and the surrounding area was spread out across the table, with insets picturing both the Undertown and the Overtown.  All of the officers were dressed in tan uniforms with varying numbers of medals on their chests.  One older man had the most of the four, but even his didn’t rival Javy’s.  From the star insignia on his shoulders, Foxtrot recognized the older man as General Robert Howell, the leader of Rose City’s defense forces.  With the deaths of General Crenshaw in Primrose and General Anderson northwest of Rose City, General Howell was one of only two generals, along with Javy, remaining in the Southwest Resistance.  General Howell looked like a harsh man, with a square jaw and angry eyes, short-cropped gray hair, and a cleanly shaven face.  He was quite the contrast to Javy, who’d carried a flask of whiskey into the meeting and took a swig as he sat at the table.  The other three officers in the room besides Foxtrot were a woman with gold leaf insignia on her shoulders signifying that she, like Foxtrot, was a Colonel, a black man with silver leaf insignia signifying that he was a major, and another woman who was a major.  Foxtrot smiled at the faces in the room and sat down next to Javy.  “So,” Javy said.  “Let’s get started.”

There were some quick introductions.  General Howell introduced himself.  His second in command was Colonel Clarissa Trent, a short, pale woman with a shaved head.  She wore rectangular wire frame glasses.  The other two were Major Jean Perry, a muscular black man who seemed the most jovial of the group with a welcoming smiled on his face, and Major Amy Rainer, a beautiful olive skinned woman in her forties who had a blonde bob that went down to her chin.  General Howell sneered at Javy.  “Drinking at a meeting?” he asked in a gruff voice.  “Not very professional, General.”

Javy grinned.  “Talk to me about being professional once you’ve won a few battles, Bobby.”

“Let’s get something straight,” General Howell said, raising a finger.  “This is a serious matter.  We need to be professional.  Refer to me as General Howell and stop drinking your damned whiskey or get the hell out of my conference room.”

“Okay,” Javy said, putting his flask away.  He smiled comically.  “General Howell.”  He emphasized the rank with exaggeration.

General Howell shrugged it off.  “First off, we received news from Green Horizons.  The installation there was attacked, and we can only assume from what we’ve learned that both Bernard Parks and Winston Cooper have been killed, and all of the robots and other technology housed there has been destroyed.  Bernard was able to get a message out to us during the attack.  He stated that he hasn’t sent transmissions to us since Averil Jones, that traitor, defected, out of fear that their location would be discovered, especially with the recent murders of other Lead Council members by IAO operatives.  However, since they were under attack, they were desperate to get the message out, since it was obvious the IAO had already somehow figured out where they were.”  He cleared his throat.  “Their loss is a great hit to the resistance, but they were able to send some information that will help us prepare ourselves so that perhaps we won’t suffer a similar fate.  With the destruction of Green Horizons, we were tipped off to growing IAO forces in the area, and our scouts have discovered evidence of armies forming in nearby towns.  This means that an attack on our location here in Rose City is most likely eminent.  We must prepare ourselves.”

Javy nodded.  “Do we have any ideas of numbers?”

“We estimate their forces could be anywhere between twenty and fifty thousand,” Colonel Trent said as she adjusted her glasses and scratched her bald head.  “And they appear to be growing.  There’s no real way to be more specific than that.  Not with our limited intelligence.  And we currently have twenty thousand fighting men, though we’re working as fast as we can to train more.”

“Now,” General Howell said, “General Schmidt’s army is also still out there somewhere.  They have at least five thousand men left.  Possibly more.  Could be twice that for all we know.  There are rumors that some scouts of his were spotted northwest of here, but that’s only rumor.  I haven’t been able to verify this information.  We aren’t sure whether Schmidt will be against us or on our side regarding the war with the IAO, with the downfall of Rennock Enterprises.  However, some who are most familiar with him here believe he’d join us before he’d ever join them, as he’s a stickler for rules and regulations.”

Javy cringed.  “That inhuman bastard.  He’d never fight on our side, even if he is an enemy to the IAO.  He’s killed more of my young men than anybody.  He’s heartless and evil.  When Rennock told him to kill civilians, he never hesitated to pass the orders on to his men.  Never got his own hands dirty, though, of course.”

General Howell glanced at him.  “We can’t turn away a possible ally.  Not in our current situation.  If he was acting on Rennock’s orders, being a soldier, than that’s what he was doing.  But we can worry about all that later.  For now, we need any ally we can get.”

Javy rolled his eyes.  “Schmidt will never be an ally.  If I ever see him, I’ll shoot him on sight.  He’s nothing but a murderer.”

General Howell rolled his eyes and cleared his throat.  “Well we can cross that bridge when we come to it.  So our current plan is to hole up in the Undertown and use the buildings there and the natural terrain surrounding Rose City for cover.  We could last a long time there, and even with inferior numbers, we could hold them off for quite some time.”

“Quite some time?” Javy asked.  “Until they continue to reinforce themselves until they can eventually defeat us?  With unlimited access to supplies and food?  They could easily just starve us out.  I’m sorry, General.  They have time.  We don’t have time.”

“Well what do you suggest?” General Howell asked.

“They could have fifty thousand or more men for all we know,” Javy said.  “And if we wait, there will be more.  They’ll build their forces up until they can beat us.  If we want to win this, we need to attack while they’re still weak.  And we need to surprise them.”

General Howell frowned.  “We’ve seen them in towns and villages to the north, south, east, and west.  All directions.  They’re likely going to surround us.  If we hit one part of their army, the rest of their men will surround us and destroy us.  That leaves the city open to attack.”

Javy nodded.  “Which is why we send our men out in a circle pattern.  Spreading out from the city under the cover of darkness.  Our men can’t allow themselves to be outflanked.  If they face trouble, then they can head back to the Undertown.  That will be our Alamo.  Then and only then do we go on the defensive.  But just long enough to fend them off and plan a new attack.”

General Howell shook his head.  “I don’t like it.  It’s too risky.  Leaves us too open.”

“But it’s the only way we can win,” Javy said.  “No one has ever won a war being on the defensive.  Look at Ulysses S. Grant and General Sherman and George S. Patton.  They were successful leaders because they had a militarily philosophy that involved always being on the offensive.  Always attacking.”

“Are those old world commanders?” General Howell asked.  “I’m not familiar with them.  The old world is dead.  It was unsuccessful.  I only study modern military leaders.”

“Then what about General Maddux and Winifred Mitchell?” Javy asked.  “They’d also agree with me on this were they still alive and here with us today.”  He frowned and looked directly at General Howell.  “If we want to win this thing, we have to attack.  Otherwise, like I said, they wait.  They get reinforcements.  They starve us out.  And once we’re weakened, they attack and this whole thing’s over before it started.”

General Howell looked around at the other officers.  “What do the rest of you think?”

“General Rodriguez is a great strategist,” Foxtrot said.  “He’s never lost a battle.  I think you should at the very least give his plan careful consideration.”

“Never lost a battle?” General Howell asked.  “I hate to bring up a possible sore subject, but what about what happened with the IAO near Vulture’s Pass.”

Javy glared at him.  “That wasn’t a battle.  It was a slaughter.  They killed my men while they slept.  They didn’t get me, though.  I showed a few of them what was what.  With Foxtrot’s help, of course.”

General Howell nodded.  “Still, when it comes to the IAO, neither you nor I have ever won a battle against them.  We’re on equal footing.”  He looked around at the other officers again.  “So everyone else, what do you think?”

“I’m with you, General Howell,” Colonel Trent said.  “We need to use the terrain and the cover provided by the buildings in the Undertown to our advantage.  Attacking is just too risky.”

“We can also use the terrain to our advantage if we attack,” Foxtrot said.  “Use the dunes as cover.  General Rodriguez and I have done that on many an occasion.  Use the dunes as cover for our attacking units and surprise the enemy.  It just takes careful planning, that’s all.  And our heavy artillery can provide cover from the Undertown.  So we’ll also use the cover of the buildings to our advantage.”

“Those advantages are greater from a defensive position, though,” Major Rainer said.  Her voice was far more commanding than her beautiful appearance suggested.

“I have to be honest,” Major Perry said.  “I’m a little torn.  You both make good points.  But I think General Rodriguez is right when he says if we want to win, we have to attack.  Being defensive basically just puts off the inevitable.”

“Attacking could just speed up the inevitable,” General Howell said.  “If we hold out and wait, an opportunity might present itself.  We might find some new reinforcements somewhere.  Or we could discover a weakness and exploit it.  Or some of their men might defect.  They aren’t seasoned warriors.”

“And you think our men are?” Foxtrot asked.

General Howell frowned at him.  “We do have lots of bandits and outlaws here these days.  I won’t lie.  And a lot of our best fighting men, the real veterans, are gone.  We’ve had to accept recruits we would have turned away a year ago.  A lot of them are too old.  Others are too young.  Still, I have faith in our leaders, our training techniques.  When push comes to shove, one of our men will be worth three of theirs.  We need to wait, like I said.  Wait for a good opportunity to attack.”

“But the time to attack is now,” Javy said.  “While they’re still weak.  Before they have all of their forces ready.  When we can surprise them.  Believe me.  They won’t expect us to attack.”

General Howell bit his lip, deep in thought.  “Let’s vote on it.  General Rodriguez, you and I are both generals of the same rank.  Since neither of us outranks the other and we disagree, I think a vote would be the best course of action.”

“You have three of your officers here,” Javy said.  “I only have one.  And there are six of us.  What do we do in the event of a tie?”

“Continue the discussion,” General Howell said.  “So let’s vote.  All in favor of my plan, raise your hands.”  General Howell and Colonel Trent raised their hands.  “Come on, Amy,” he said to Major Rainer.  “What’s going on?”

“You both make good cases,” she said.  “I haven’t decided yet.  I just don’t feel comfortable voting right now.”

Javy smiled.  “You suggested we vote.  So anyone in favor of my plan, raise your hand.”  Javy, Foxtrot, and Major Perry all raised their hands.  Javy grinned.  “Looks like my suggestion is the winner.  Three to two with one undecided.”

General Howell frowned.  “We need to get down to tactics, then.  Maybe Colonel Fife is right.  Maybe we can stage an attack that still uses our advantages.  The Lead Council will ultimately need to approve our course of action, but for now, at least, I guess the matter is settled.”  Foxtrot wondered if General Howell would try to sway the Lead Council.  He’d have to make sure Javy also made a good argument to them.

Javy nodded.  “Let’s get to the planning, then.  I’ll stay, but I should tell you, when it comes to tactics, Foxtrot is more your man.”  He put his arm around Foxtrot’s shoulders.  “I’m more a strategy guy.  Strategy and training.”

Foxtrot nodded and looked at the map.  The Undertown map was drawn out building by building and the map of the outer area was topographical, showing exactly where each dune was.  He rubbed his hands together with a smile.  “So let’s get to it, then.”  He was excited to once again be planning a battle.  He’d grown tired of being on the run.

<>

Razor woke up and yawned.  She got out of bed, put on her gray jumpsuit, and looked in the mirror.  Her hair looked awful.  The middle was longer and it was black, but the sides were no longer shaved and they were her natural sandy blonde, since she didn’t have access to any sort of razor.  Ironic, given her name.  The hair on the sides of her head was a centimeter or two long and the hair in the middle was a few inches and raggedy.  She didn’t feel like washing it, though.  What was the point?  The long sleeves of her jumpsuit covered most of her tattoos, but the snake head on her neck was still there.  Her right eye socket was covered with an eyepatch.  The scars were still visible, as they would always be, on her forehead, cheeks, and chin.  She chuckled as she looked at herself.  “What a fox,” she said sarcastically.

Razor did one hundred pushups and two hundred sit-ups like they were nothing.  Just her daily exercise regimen.  She had a fight later that evening and she had to make sure she stayed in shape.  She thought about Jenny as she walked to the door, ready to go out and get some breakfast.  Jenny was beautiful and sweet, but there was something missing in the relationship.  Razor couldn’t stop thinking about Ramona Perez, the fueling station attendant she’d spent the night with in that sleepy town near Easterville.  And she couldn’t stop thinking about Bobby and her unborn child.  She needed to find a way to escape the mines before she got too far along in her pregnancy.  Razor opened the door to see something hanging in the hallway in front of her quarters.  It didn’t take her long to realize it was Jenny, her neck hanging from a rope, her feet dangling a few feet above the floor.  She was bruised and beaten, still in her gray jumpsuit.  There was a paper with a knife stabbed through it and into Jenny’s bloody chest.  The paper read “This one’s for you.”  Beneath these words, kissing lips were drawn in blood.  Razor gritted her teeth in anger and her blood boiled, erasing any thoughts other than killing.  She had to kill everyone who did this.  She had to kill Phillip Brevington.  She rushed down the hallway, pushing other workers out of her way.  She noticed two guards in gray uniforms.  Both were holding old-style rifles.  They turned to see her running towards them and tried to aim their weapons, but before either could fire, Razor had ripped the rifles out of their hands and hit both in the face with a spinning motion with the butts of their guns.

“Hey!” someone shouted.  “It’d be a shame to get bloody before your fight tonight.”  Razor wrapped her arm around the closest guard’s neck and started squeezing.  They fell to the floor and the guard gasped for air, flailing his arms and legs as Razor squeezed tighter.

“Don’t kill her!” someone shouted.  “We can’t kill her!  She’s too valuable.”  She felt something sting her neck and she lost consciousness.

<>

Della was seated in the courtroom with the other witnesses.  He was wearing a black suit with a white shirt and a blue tie.  He wanted to look as respectable as possible in order to support Ace.  The walls were plain white and there were no windows.  The judge was in the front of the room, seated behind a large faux wooden desk, and the jurors were seated to either side of him, six on each side.  Della had gotten so used to seeing real wood in Rose City, the faux wood came as a surprise.  Perhaps the courthouse was a newer building.  The prosecutor was seated towards the front of the room to Della’s right.  The defense attorney and Ace hadn’t arrived yet.  There were no media in the courtroom, as the judge closed the case to the public.  He’d been worried all the hype around Ace being captured could possibly affect the outcome of the proceedings.  Della was to be a witness called by the defense.  He’d thought about what he was going to say.  He was mostly going to be a character witness, but he was also going to talk about the time he’d spent with Ace robbing banks.  He was a little nervous that if he wasn’t careful, he’d also be prosecuted in the near future.

The door to the courtroom opened and the defense attorney, an attractive young woman with short, black hair, walked in followed by Ace, who was wearing a gray jumpsuit.  Ace was smiling and looked confident.  His bald head was cleanly shaven and his brown goatee was trimmed.  He looked good despite the awful clothes he was forced to wear.  He and the defense attorney, who was wearing a gray skirt and jacket with a white blouse, took their place in front of the judge and to the left.  “Court is now in session,” a male android near the jurors to the right said.  He was solid silver, with a sculpted face and camera lenses where eyes would have been.  “The honorable Judge Harris Culpepper residing.”

The judge looked like a no-nonsense sort of guy.  He was bald, wore glasses, and had a glare that looked like it could burn holes through lead.  Della hadn’t seen him smile since he entered the room.  “Ace McCoy,” the judge said.  He spoke with a strong southern accent.  “You are on trial, accused of twenty nine counts of armed robbery, two counts of manslaughter, and five counts of murder.  How do you plead?”

Ace McCoy stood, trying hard to look serious.  “Guilty.  Guilty of the armed robbery.  Though the banks all belonged to Herman Rennock, so it could be said that we were working for the Southwest Resistance.  As far as the manslaughter and murder go, I plead not guilty.  They were all self-defense.”  He smiled and nodded towards the judge, who didn’t seem to be happy with Ace’s nonchalance and confidence.

“Very well,” Judge Culpepper said.  “Then let’s get started.”

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm6xCwNKtnQ]

 

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Continue on to the next chapter:

Afterlife, Volume 3, Chapter 23
Where:
Ace’s trial continues.
Razor faces a new opponent in the arena.
The Warriors of Freedom fulfill a promise.

Find the Volume 3 Table of Contents page here.

View the Map here.

Check out Afterlife on Goodreads and don’t forget to rate it.

Check out Michael Monroe’s page on Amazon to find other stuff he’s written.
Like Afterlife on Facebook to find out when the next chapter is posted.
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