Fiction: Afterlife Volume 3 (Chapter 41)

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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 40

Where:
The attack on New Atlantis continues.
The resistance continues their attempt to infiltrate the city walls.
The Battle of New Atlantis comes to a close and the resistance wins.

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 41

The first thing Abby noticed was blue sky, but it didn’t look like the stark blue sky of the desert.  It was a soft blue sky with scattered clouds.  There were rows of skyscrapers that stretched dozens of floors above Abby, along with stores, houses, and other buildings.  And there were trees.  There were gardens and there was lots of grass.  It was the most green Abby had seen in once place anywhere other than Denver or the oasis.  At first glance, it looked like one of the legendary cities of ancient times, but when Abby looked closer, she started to see the cracks in the illusory façade.

Abby stepped through the doorway to see that the door was in the side of a stone wall.  It was the wall of a huge cavern, and as Abby looked at the blue sky again, she realized it was painted on an illuminated ceiling.  She looked more closely at the closest tree and realized that like the sky, it was fake.  It looked real, but appeared to be made of some sort of plastic.  The knocking sound was fainter here, but it was still there, and Abby realized it was an air ventilations system of some kind.  A sign by the road read “Welcome to Atlantis.”  Della and Ace were standing beside her, also in awe as they looked around.  “Somebody tried really hard to make this seem like the world above just before the apocalypse,” Della said.

“But it’s not perfect,” Abby said.  “It’s all fake.”  She walked down a stone stairway that led to what looked like the central road of the city and Della and Ace followed.  They walked past buildings on both sides, down the tree-lined road.  There was some green that was truly alive, but it was overgrown moss and mold.  The place smelled dank and musty.  Abby noticed some huge cockroaches the size of her foot scurrying into one of the dilapidated buildings.  Everything was in disrepair.  No one had set foot in this city for thousands of years.  Della was pointing his laser rifle at the buildings as they walked.  Abby could tell that he and Ace were both a little nervous.  There was no telling what they’d find in this ancient place.

There were rusty old cars parked here and there in the road.  Abby heard echoing drips, possibly from the ceiling, possibly inside the buildings.  A small drop landed on her forehead and the painted sky above gave it the illusion of being a raindrop.  There was nothing living in the city other than the cockroaches, the moss, and the mold, at least not that Abby noticed.  Who knew what vermin lurked behind the ancient doors of the buildings?  They continued walking until the end of the road was visible in the distance ahead.

The road ended at the bottom of a stone stairway which led to a huge gray mansion with columns and bay windows.  The columns were crawling with vines and the bay windows were cracked.  As Abby stepped up to the front door, cockroaches scurried away into the shadows.  Della aimed his assault laser rifle at the front door and fired, destroying the lock.  The door creaked open and Abby walked in, finding herself in a huge foyer with a rotting carpet.  The windows provided adequate light as Abby walked forward beneath a sprawling staircase to a doorway that led into a sitting room which was also lighted by several floor-to-ceiling windows.  The upholstered chairs were in decent shape considering their age.  Two paintings hung from the far wall.  One pictured a handsome middle aged man in a dark blue suit with a red tie.  He had a full head of wavy brown hair and his eyes and his smile radiated confidence.  The other painting pictured a severe looking woman with short hair.  Her piercing eyes betrayed both fear and sadness.  As Abby walked closer, she could see the names etched into the bottom frames of the paintings.  “Garrison,” she said, looking at the man.  “James Garrison.  The founder of New Atlantis.”  As she approached the woman’s painting, she said “Rand.”

Della shrugged.  “Gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

Abby noticed that the painting of James Garrison was slightly askew, and she saw what appeared to be part of a metal door behind it.  She took the painting down revealing a safe with a combination lock.  “If only I knew the combination,” she said.

Ace brushed her aside.  “You forget whose company you are in, my dear.”  He put his ear to the combination and slowly turned it back and forth until the safe opened.

Abby reached inside and pulled out the only contents, an ancient book.  The cover read “Journal.”  She sat in one of the chairs and opened the book.  “I’m gonna be a while,” she said.  “Feel free to explore this place, but don’t go too far.”  Della and Ace nodded and left Abby alone in the room.  She flipped the book open finding brittle yellow pages which she began to read.

“It’s getting bad,” the journal began.  “I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to preserve our way of life.  The looters have taken over our government.  We’re no longer a capitalist system.  We’ve been infiltrated by a gaggle of corrupt socialists who refuse to listen to reason.  While they claim to be looking out for the poor and the working classes, these elitist intellectuals are as far removed from the poor and working classes as any wealthy industrialist.  They claim to care about minorities and the downtrodden but theirs is an artificial empathy.  They claim to be helping starving children as they eat at expensive restaurants and sip rarified wine.  They talk about books they’ve read on socialism and communist principles though they’ve never done an ounce of real work in their lives.  They feed off of the backs of the very working class people they claim to be helping and they raise taxes and reap the rewards.  Their government programs they’ve created to help those in need are really nothing more than fronts to fill their coffers.  These so-called socialists are the worst sort of hypocrites.”

Abby was getting bored with the rant, so she flipped several pages ahead.  “We’ve tried to infiltrate their government.  We’ve placed moles who have tried to destroy it from the inside.  We’ve tried to win the country back for the true hard working people.  We’ve tried to win the country back for those of us who’ve grown wealthy through our innovations and great ideas, our hard work and ingenuity.  We won the house and the senate as well as the presidency and proceeded to pull apart their corrupt machine, but they fought back hard.  They’ve achieved the favor of the people through corrupt means and it has been decades now since capitalists and our allies have had any say in this corrupt system.  They control the media and the arts.  They use these systems to spew their messages and their political agendas.  We tried to fund alternative news sources and though they worked for a while, the socialists have skewed the masses against us.  The socialist machine is so entrenched now that I fear there is no way we’ll be able to win our government back.”

Again, Abby flipped ahead several pages.  “Many of us throughout the world who stand against the socialist looters have formed isolated communities where hard work and ingenuity still reign supreme, where a man’s work and ideas can reap financial benefits that place him above those who are lazy and unproductive.  We’ve created such a place and named it Atlantis. It is an underground city the likes of which the world has never seen.  Our nation’s greatest thinkers now reside here.  Those of us who believe in capitalist principles and who have used these beliefs to amass great fortunes now live in Atlantis, and throughout the world in similar hermitages.  We’ll see how long the looters last without those of us who drive their machine.  We produce everything we need here and no longer have any need to be bothered by the outside world.  Let them be lazy and starve.  Let their children die rather than be brought up only understanding need.  Only understanding the principles that they should be given everything.  That those of us who have the means and the wealth should give money to the lazy poor and the spawn they produce.  The looters only take, and we’ve given too much already.  So here we are in Atlantis, only producing for ourselves, and trading fairly with one another.  The way it should be.”

Abby flipped several more pages ahead.  “There are, of course servants here with us.  We needed people to do our laundry, to mow our lawns, to clean our toilets.  They are still hard workers, and we’ve found those who strive to be the best at these tasks, even if they are menial and beneath the concern of the exceptional.  Yes, we still need them, but they are causing a bit of controversy, as could be expected.  Walter Brevington and some others argued that we should only allow whites in our great city since they are the hardest working and most intelligent of the races.  But these inferior races are best suited for the menial tasks described above, and there are some non-whites in our inner circle, such as Chae-won Seong.  Some families even have servants of African descent, against the wishes of Walter, but what can be done?  Ours is still the closest to a perfect society, even if there are some blemishes.”

What Abby was reading was starting to make her sick to her stomach, though she was interested to see another of her ancestors mentioned.  She flipped ahead several pages, though, to get away from the racist ranting.  “Our community is thriving in our underground paradise.  It’s a shame the looters have found us and according to our investigations, they are preparing an attack.  Of course they see us as a threat.  There are rumors of them amassing weapons to the west of here.  If asked, I’m sure they’d claim these weapons are for self-defense purposes, but I know the looters well enough to know that they plan to take what we have.  Their people are starving.  They’re falling apart without us and they know they need us, so rather than reach out to us diplomatically, they’re preparing to take what we have by brute force.”

Abby flipped ahead again.  “We knew there was only one way to solve the problem.  We knew it all along.  Some of us had pretended that there could be another way.  There were those who’d hoped that we wouldn’t need to do what we did, but this was foolishness, and many of us knew all along.  That’s why we put the plan in place from the beginning.  It was our failsafe.  Of course, there’s the problem with Denver.  And there are other survivors in the mountains.  We’ve made a pact with them.  They can never tell any other outsiders about us.  If they do, we will have to attack.  They must stay hidden.  Some of us, included myself, wanted to destroy Denver and the other survivors, but alas, many felt sorry for them and this pity is what has brought about our current deal.  It’s the best we were able to come up with.  It’s been ten years since my last entry.  Fifty fears since the big event.  Seventy five years since the beginning of Atlantis.  I was so young then and I’m so old now.  It’s time for me to leave the care of the city to others.”

“What happened?”  Abby asked.  “What did you do so long ago?”  She dreaded that she probably knew the answer.  This time, she flipped backwards several pages, hoping to find the big event Garrison was writing about.

“It was the only way, but now we’re dealing with the consequences.  I knew all along that bringing the servants was a bad idea.  They’re starting to show traits similar to those of the looters.  They’re trying to organize against us, at least some of them are.  They think they’re being treated unfairly, even though here, each man’s worth is dependent on his own accomplishments.  We are all our own responsibilities.  Alas, there are apparently some who disagree, so we’ve had to act.  Many were banished to the outside world.  I suggested executing them in a more direct but painless way, but many of the women and the weak-hearted, or weak-stomached, went the easy, passive-aggressive way, and chose to banish them.  They claimed if people are worthy of life, they will find a way to live on the outside.  I know these sorts will only die out in the radioactive deserts, but I suppose I need to appease the others here.  We’ve come to a sort of agreement.  Those unable to pull their weight will be banished.  We won’t allow looters to take without giving.  No uneven trades here.”

Abby swallowed and flipped back further, dreading what she’d find.  “We are all in agreement.  Today’s the big day.  Today’s the day of the final solution, the true final solution, when the looters will be destroyed once and for all.  Those of us worthy of life will be safe miles below the surface.  We have everything we need to survive for centuries down here.  And there are underground cities like ours all over the world.  The exceptional will live and the looters will be destroyed.  Some here are upset that so many children will have to die.  So many so-called innocents, but it is the only way to preserve our society.  It’s the only way to preserve what’s right, so today we will go through with it.  I only hope it is successful.”

“What was the plan?” Abby asked flipping back several pages.

As if to answer her, James Garrison had written, “We will live several miles underground and be safe.  We have spent decades buying nuclear weapons form the looters.  They wanted our money so badly they were willing to sell us their own destruction.  We’ve planted a system of hydrogen bombs throughout the world.  It’s enough to destroy everything on the Earth’s surface several times over.  Once they’re gone, we’ll be able to live in peace.  Everyone doesn’t have to know.  Only those of us with the most power, and we won’t even tell our children.  No one will ever know what happened.  We’ll just kill all of the looters in one fell swoop, and those of us who are deserving will survive.  We’ve saved animals down here, plants.  Just like Noah’s ark.  We’ve saved food.  We have a zoo, even.  So we’ve preserved enough of the world here that what’s up there will no longer be needed.  It can all burn with the looters in hell.”

Abby was feeling sick to her stomach.  She flipped back to the part she’d read previously.  “All signs point to the destruction of Earth as being a great success.  And here in Atlantis we noticed nothing.  It’s like nothing ever happened.  We live down here in guiltless bliss.  Meanwhile, above, every city, town, every human and animal was completely obliterated in thousands of nuclear blasts.  It’s a wasteland of dust and ash.  Perhaps life will return one day, but it doesn’t matter to us down here.  We have everything we need.  It was an ingenious plan, and now we can finally be happy.”

Abby closed the book and tears dripped down her cheeks.  “They killed billions.  Seven, eight, who knows how many billions.  Adults, children, animals.  And no one was prepared.  No one knew.  People were incinerated on their way to work.  Children in classrooms blasted to pieces.  Babies died in their sleep.”  She stared at the smiling, confident man in the painting.  She stood and spit in his face.  She pulled the painting down and kicked it with her cybernetic leg, ripping a big hole in his face with her foot.  She ripped another hole through his chest.  She pulled the painting of the woman down and put her foot through the woman’s forehead.  She sat down in the chair and sobbed for a few minutes, then wiped her eyes.  Della and Ace were in the doorway, staring at her.

She looked at them and smiled, shaking her head.  “I’m sorry.  But it was Garrison.”

“What do you mean?” Ace asked.

“They destroyed the world.  James Garrison and his people.  To get rid of socialism.  To rid the world of the burden of the poor, the scourge of the downtrodden, they destroyed it with nuclear weapons.  It wasn’t a war.  It was genocide.  It was murder.”

Della nodded.  “Any nuclear war is murder.  The murder of innocents.  That’s what it is by default.”

“But this wasn’t a nuclear war.  They just killed them.  Wiped out everyone on the face of the earth, while the wealthy were safe down here and in similar places throughout the world.”  Ace and Della stared at her.  “But it wasn’t really James Garrison and his ideas and allies who destroyed the old world and murdered billions,” she said.  “It was hatred. Years, decades, centuries, millennia even, of building, growing hatred. Hatred that spreads like cancer. It spreads through a person until it overtakes them and then moves from them to another person or group of people through their words and actions. It spreads through groups and then entire populations. Nazis hating Jews. Racists hating blacks. Intellectuals and the uneducated hating one another. The rich and the poor hating one another. Atheists and religious people hating one another. Men hating women. And women hating men. People hating gays and transgender people. All of it. All hatred.”  She frowned.  “Every person who ever hated was partially responsible for every murder, every genocide, every awful event that had ever happened in the world. Hatred eventually causes people to see the objects of their hatred as something less than human. And that allows them to do horrible, evil things. Our hatred will always destroy us. And only love will sustain us. Divine, unconditional love. That’s the only antidote to hatred.”

Ace walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder.  “Abby, you’ve been through a lot.  I think you need some rest.”

“Love is humanity’s only hope,” she said.  “It always has been.  And we’re always too dumb to see it.  Over and over.  People think it’s a joke or they don’t take it seriously.  But love really is the only way.”  She closed her eyes and prayed. She prayed for herself, for her friends, and for the world.  She prayed that hatred would never again cause such destruction, but she knew it would.  It was an endless cycle.  Still, the knowledge of what had happened would always be a part of her now, and it would always affect her.

Della walked over to Ace and Abby.  “Maybe we should leave.”

Abby picked up the journal and nodded.  “I need to bring this with me.  I’ll study it later.  It has a record of history, a story that’s never been told.  Until now.”

Abby was lost in her mind as she followed Ace and Della through the mansion and down the street past the fake city, the fake skyscrapers.  They walked through the cavern with the columns and got in the elevator once again.  As they rode up, everything seemed surreal.  Abby was tired, but she also felt like she’d been hit by a ton of bricks.  “The killing ends now,” she said.

Ace nodded.  “Wouldn’t that be nice?  A nice dream world, but it’s not reality.”

Abby grinned.  “Always so skeptical.”

“And you’re always the idealist,” Ace said.  “But that’s why we love you.”

They reached to top and walked out into the damaged lobby of Rennock Tower.  A colonel walked up to Abby and saluted her as she held the journal.  “Ma’am,” he said, “we’ve been looking for you.  What’s down there?”

“A tomb,” Abby said.

“We’ve taken the city,” the colonel said.  “We’re rounding up the rest of the prisoners.  What should we do now?”

“We should celebrate,” Della said with a grin.

“We should mourn,” Abby said.  “Mavery and I am going to be making a huge announcement.”  She held up the book.  “This journal explains how the old world ended and why.  I hope we can learn from it.”

The colonel nodded.  “You look tried, ma’am.  You could use some rest.”

Abby turned and watched as several military police officers marched familiar faces through the lobby, pointing laser rifles and RLR’s at them.  Abby recognized them from their file folders and video footage of messages they’d broadcasted.  The first was Little Nicky, a large, angry-looking man with a black goatee.  He was dressed in a black suit which Abby figured would soon be exchanged for a jumpsuit.  He glared at her as he walked by at gunpoint and Abby glared right back.  The next was the Duke of Weston, dressed in his fur coat.  “The Duke is happy to make your acquaintance, Miss Abigail Song.”  He smiled and winked as he was marched past with two women in white dresses whose wrists were also in cuffs.

“Get out of my sight,” Abby said.

The last was Long John, the tall Hispanic murderer whose reputation followed him like the plague.  He smiled at her as he walked past in his metal and leather outfit and his gray cowboy hat.  Abby found him the scariest of the three.  He seemed to be undressing her with his eyes as he walked past.  She glared at him also.  The IAO leadership were marched out of the building to the jeers of resistance soldiers.  “We may need to execute them,” Ace said.  “They’re dangerous.  If they escape, all of this could start right back up again.”

Abby shook her head.  “I’m done with killing.  We don’t have a death penalty.  They’ll be in prison for life, though.  Maybe one day they’ll find a way to be productive there.”

Ace shook his head.  “I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to,” Abby said.  “But it’s the way it is.”

Della smiled at her.  “So what are you going to do now?”

“Rest,” Abby said.  “Like everyone says I need to.  Then I have some unfinished business in Rose City.”

“What’s that?” Ace asked.

Abby smiled.  “I’ll tell you when we get there.  For now, I need to find a good bed.  Or at least a good cot.”  She left the lobby through the front doors and made her way down the front steps of Rennock Tower as Della and Ace followed her.  There was an American flag fluttering in the breeze in front of the tower now, standing next to a toppled statue of Herman Rennock.

 
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21z-K5ChWbE]
 

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Continue on to the next chapter:

Afterlife, Volume 3, Chapter 42
Chapter 42 is the final chapter of the Afterlife series.
Thank you for reading.

Where:
The leaders of the United Federation meet.
Mavery and Abby attend the Dance of Nations.
Our heroes say their goodbyes.

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.
Follow Afterlife on Twitter to get updates on new postings and other news.
Follow Afterlife on Tumblr for access to supplemental material.