Another New Beginning...

Apparently my "ooooh shiny!" gene has risen to dominance lately as I can't quiet seem to finish any of the stories I already have in varying states of completion. The result, for better or worse, is a flood of ideas circling around in my head like a bunch of vultures. I thought maybe if I read something instead of writing it might slow my mind down, only to have it have the exact opposite reaction. I began reading The Hunger Games trilogy and already find myself, in less than a week's time, about a quarter of a way through the third book already. (Loving every word of it, by the way. I know I shouldn't be critical of other authors why I myself am only self published, but Suzanne Collins' writing in The Hunger Games trilogy is FAR better than some other, aimed at a younger audience writing I couldn't even choke through... which will remain nameless.) coughcoughtwilightcoughcough.

Ok, enough rambling. My point: Maybe I can give this dystopian society stuff a try. So with an hour to write in my mind each way to and from work today I came up with the following. Let me know your thoughts.

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Each morning he awakes in the same manner: First are the hysterical screams, deafening in his ears; then the flash. Convulsions consume his whole body next, resulting in his sheets being soaked through with perspiration. Unable to keep them shut, he can’t resist as his eyes shoot open as if his eyelids had literally been pulled apart. For a few moments he stares into the blinding light before his pupils reluctantly adjust. His quickened breath subsides slowly, and he finds himself staring at the sterile, white ceiling tiles of his room. Taking as deep a breath as he can, he closes his eyes and tries to wipe the memory away. He can’t. He’ll never be able to eradicate the pain fully, no matter how hard he tries. Such is his curse.

Looking around the small room, he laments the fact that the walls are as antiseptic as the ceiling he awakens too each morning. Everything in the room is that way. The bed linens. The small dresser and nightstand. The door. Everything. White is cleansing, the told him.

Slowly he pushes the covers away and shifts his legs over the side of the bed. His body, still stiff from the convulsions, initially refuses to obey. Eventually his strength returns and he walks over the small window and opens the white curtains. The sun casts an eerie, orange glow throughout the room. Once radiantly golden, its rays now consist mostly of auburn and ginger, blanketing the world in hues he thought would only be reserved for purgatory.

His eyes first travel downward to the sea below. There is no coastline to speak of, only the now rapidly deteriorating asphalt and concrete that disappears quickly beneath the water’s surface. Here and there the shore is littered with the rusted carcasses of vehicles, and in some cases the twisted and tangled remains of smaller buildings that had crumbled away in the Tsunami. Approximately fifty feet inland from the high tide line stands a twenty-foot tall, rusting metal fence topped with razor wire. Approximately every ten feet along the fence hang just as rusty and pitted metal signs, warning all those that approached to stay away from the contaminated waters beyond.

Sighing deeply, he tries to force from his mind what remains of the images that woke him. It is a twenty-five year old memory, born in the first hours of the Cataclysm, that haunts him daily. Barely five years old at the time, his mind had already expanded far beyond what one would call genius. His having already mastered complex calculus and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony 3 when most kids his age could barely spell their name quickly caught the government’s attention. Although permitted to live in his family home with his single mother and two older sisters, he attended a special school in Alexandria for the very few children of his age with such aptitude. Despite his advanced intelligence, though, he was still a child of five, and would never understand the implications of his genius until much, much later. The first glimpse he only began to glean the morning that they came for him.

No one knows how it started, really. Some said Iran launched a single nuke to start it. Others say the cumulative effects of global warming triggered the event. Others still claimed it to be the work of terrorists. Whatever the cause, the results were catastrophic. Earthquakes tortured the earth and angry seas swallowed nations whole. What was formerly Great Britain now constituted a series of small atolls in the North Atlantic. Venice, and with it centuries of history and beauty, was gone. Manhattan was a memory, and California had crumbled into the Pacific. The upper half of Mt. Fuji was now an island in and of itself and all that remained of Japan. The Panama Canal was no longer necessary as the Gulf of Mexico stretched widely into the Pacific. In a matter of hours nearly a third of the world’s population had perished, and in the succeeding weeks and months another third followed as a result of the toxic environment.

The warning systems helped and, within minutes of the first signs of the Cataclysm, a Blackhawk helicopter had landed in the street in front of his home. He remembered his mother’s wails as men in black military uniforms stormed into their home and tried to pull him forcefully from her arms. He was on The List. It was a short list of those to be collected and protected. They, whoever “they” were, had planned for this. His mother and sisters cried, and his mother’s grip was so strong. So determined was she to keep her son, she had dug her fingernails into the tender flesh of his hand as they tried to rip him away from her. Running out of time to get him to safety, the only recourse the soldier had to force her to release her grip was to put a bullet in the center of her forehead. She would have been dead soon, anyway.

He sobbed and convulsed in the soldier’s arms as the metallic clang of the helicopter’s door closed him off from his family forever. It was the memory of that final moment, watching his sisters huddled over their dead mother’s body as he was involuntarily lifted into the sky and stolen from their lives, that woke him each and every day for the rest of his life.

Looking down, he examined the three scars that streaked across the back of his hand from where his mother’s nails had torn his skin. In the days after they had taken him, he would rip the scabs from the wounds each time they began to heal. Even then he wanted to assure he had a physical reminder of that moment. He didn’t know why. Perhaps it was just to have something, anything to remind him of his mother, and how much she loved him. He ran his fingers along the jagged fissures in his flesh and remembered his mother’s face with longing. It was Celeste’s voice that brought him back to the present.

“Morning, Brayden,” she said cheerfully as she entered the room. There was no privacy here. Brayden stood before her in nothing but his boxer shorts without any embarrassment. Celeste used to blush when she’d see in such a state, but she had become so accustomed to seeing his muscular frame it not longer fazed her. She was his appointed assistant and she knew that any form of affection or intimate contact with him would bring swift and sever punishment.

“Morning, Celeste,” he replied without looking away from the window. “What do we have this morning?”

“The usual.”

“Wonderful,” he said with disdain as he turned and moved across the room to sit down at the small table in the corner. His breakfast consisted of powered eggs, oatmeal, a blueberry muffin, and glass of vitamin water. He had eaten the same thing nearly every morning for what seemed like a decade. Grains were still relatively available in the Interior, but meat was scarce and expensive. What he wouldn’t give for single slice of bacon and glass of juice. He hadn’t even noticed that Celeste had left the room after bringing him his meal. He seldom noticed her anymore unless she made her presence known. In and out of the room she’d flit like a hummingbird, bringing him meals, changing his bed linens, bringing him clean laundry.

Brayden ate quickly and dressed himself in the same uniform he wore every day: White cargo pants, a tight, white, long-sleeve, heat and moisture-wicking shirt, and white hiking boots. The only contrast in the entire room came from his short, dark hair, chocolate brown eyes and stainless steel chronograph watch he wore on his right wrist. Glancing at the watch he realized it was nearly nine o’clock. Time for briefing.

The descent in the high speed elevator always left his stomach in his throat. When he reached the ground floor he strode through the lobby of the old hotel in which he now resided, and out to the waiting shuttle. The brief time he spent actually outdoors, the time it took to cross scant twenty feet or so to the shuttle, informed him that the atmosphere scrubbers were doing little to remove the thick haze that had replaced the ozone layer. It was already over a hundred degrees and the temperature would continue to climb throughout the day. He tried not to think about it. He tried not to think about anything, a virtual impossibility for him, but he tried nonetheless. The shuttle lifted off, hovered for a moment and then sped away. As it did Brayden peered out the window at the water below. It was grey and dark and had a chemical sheen to it. The brown foam that collected as it lapped its new shore reminded him of the fat that boiled to the top of the pot when his mother made corned beef and cabbage. He found it revolting. In the distance he could see the tops of buildings poking from the water from the former city sunken below. Once the mighty peeks of the city’s skyline, they now served as perches for thousands of mutated seagulls that had adapted to the new environment. How they survived subsisting on toxic fish was beyond him.

It wasn’t long before the shuttle touched down and he was whisked into the rotunda of the Center. From there he meandered through a corridor to the right, down a set of stairs, and to another elevator that would take him well below the surface. The Center’s underground complex was a city in and of itself, its high, domed ceiling awash with artificial sunlight. An air car met him and he darted away down a transformed subway tunnel to the security complex where he would learn of his next mission.

Brayden waited in the small, white room impatiently. He hated waiting. It gave him time to think without having something to focus on. When that happened, his mind always wandered back to the day of the Cataclysm. Closing his eyes tightly, he tried to force the images from his thoughts. Luckily, Shadow arrived shortly to distract him.

“Hey Shadow,” he said. His cheeks flushed immediately in her presence. Brayden knew her only as Shadow, and often wondered if that truly was her name or some codename given her by the Agency. He didn’t really care.

“Hey Brayden,” she answered with a smile and a hug. He breathed her scent in deeply. Had circumstances been different, he’d have been far less diligent in his efforts to suppress his feelings for her. He suspected, and hoped, that she did the same when it came to him. His social awkwardness prevented him from ever asking. Their jobs were far too important. Still, he couldn’t help sneaking a glance as her shirt pulled tight across her chest when she sat down at the table next to him.

Shadow was a stunning woman. She stood tall at 5’8”, five inches shorter than Brayden’s 6’1” height. She had been on The List, like Brayden, at the time of the Cataclysm, but the government wasn’t quite as swift in collecting Shadow as they had been with Brayden. By the time they reached her, the heavy winds had already swept fallout from the meltdown at the nuclear power plant near her home through her neighborhood. Shadow, like Brayden, had an IQ that was off the charts, but also possessed a physiology unlike any other. Radiation that would have killed others had a much different effect on Shadow. While she did experience some sickness, it faded quickly. The only lingering effect it had on her was the tattooing.

Somehow the radiation altered the pigment in her skin, leaving her otherwise creamy complexion mottled with plum colored patches of skin. As she aged (she was a year older than Brayden at the time of the Cataclysm), the spots grew with her, but generally lightened in color. Her once blond hair was now highlighted with strands of lavender, and nearly half her face was awash in pale violet. Her entire right hand was the same color, and Brayden often wondered what the rest of her body looked like. Despite her oddity, there was no questioning Shadow’s beauty. It was all Brayden could to do to keep himself from getting lost in Shadow’s indigo eyes.

“Where do you think they’ll send us this time?” she asked, truly curious.

“I don’t know, but I swear to God I am not going back to Tokyo.” Brayden hated the mission that kept him captive on a submarine for more than three months. From time to time he did leave the ship, but only in another, smaller submersible to search the sunken wreckage of the city for the bits and pieces of desperately needed technology hidden within its depths. He had never been claustrophobic before that mission. Now, confined spaces gave him hives.

Shadow laughed. She too hated that mission. Still, that was the price they paid for survival. With their skills Shadow and Brayden were two of the Agency’s top Speculatores, officers of post-apocalyptic espionage. The Guild had shortened the CIA’s former name to simply the Intelligence Agency, and took the name for its top operatives from the ancient spies of Rome. In delusions of grandeur, those that comprised the Guild’s ruling party fancied themselves the harbingers of a new Empire. Worldwide food was scarce, and technology at a premium. What nations remained, or emerged, in the aftermath of the Cataclysm were constantly warring with each other over control of the world’s remaining, unpolluted natural resources. It was up to Brayden, Shadow and the rest of the Speculatores to keep the new United Guild of North America ahead of its competitors by gathering intelligence whenever, wherever, and however they could.

Brayden, like many others of his intellect, had difficulty with one on one human interaction. When he was in the field however, it was a job, a mission with a singular purpose. That was something he could easily process. To see him in action, interacting with his marks or otherwise attempting to blend into a local population, you’d never know he was borderline autistic. Here, now, sitting alone with Shadow, however, his skin crawled as he both loathed and craved her closeness. Shadow knew it, too, and understood. Over the years she had become quite adept at adjusting her behavior to Brayden’s idiosyncrasies, and quite frankly found them endearing.

Luckily for Bryaden their commander entered the room shortly and passed two portfolios across the table,

one to each of them. They opened the folders and Shadow couldn’t help letting a short gasp escape her lips.

“Sir, with all do respect, you can’t be serious,” she said. Shadow was forthright in everything she did, and refused to do anything but speak her mind when prompted. It was doing so when she wasn’t prompted, like now, that usually got her into trouble.

“Shut it, Lieutenant. They’ve developed a new energy source, one that is allowing them not only to thrive but in some cases to expedite their fallout reclamation. We need to know what it is.”

“But sir,” Brayden added. “We have agents of Asian descent. Surely they’d be better for this assignment.”

“No,” the commander said. “In fact it would be worse. No, if their dialect wasn’t spot on, or their appearance is just off enough, they’ll stand out like bigger sore thumbs that you two will. That’s why you two are going in as traders. Your traveling dossiers will indicate that you are there to negotiate grain shipments. You’ll hide in plain site.”

“Sir,” Shadow objected, gesturing to her appearance. “I can’t exactly hide anywhere. That's why we usually run covert ops, remember?” The commander smiled.

“That’s why they’ll never suspect you. There’s no debating this. Get packed. You two are going to China.”

© J.J. Goodman 2012. All rights reserved.