Anne Winchell - The Last War

Seattle was a ghost town ever since the Last War. After the atomic bomb struck Vancouver, in Canada, a massive earthquake had destabilized Mount Rainier and sent torrents of mud down into Seattle, completely destroying much of the downtown and killing thousands of people. A few people still lived there, but it was a shadow of its former self. The only thing that still remained of old Seattle was the Space Needle, a small bulwark against time and nature that stood in an abandoned field of twisted metal and abandoned buildings. Sometimes kids from Kaela’s high school would go up to Seattle on a dare and see who could last the longest standing in the field at night, when the ghosts were said to roam. She had never gone. It seemed disrespectful, somehow. And now they would be going to the dead city to meet with Atheus and see if there was any way to save Nalia’s life.

Kaela looked over at Raven. His face was drawn as he stared at the road ahead of him, and his knuckles were white on the steering wheel. For his sake, she hoped Nalia recovered. But if the girl did die, perhaps there would be a time when Raven turned to her. After all, they had gotten so close. Just for a moment, but there had been a connection between them that couldn’t be mistaken. She knew it was love, but he seemed to shy away from it. Kaela had never connected with anyone before, certainly not since she had killed the man in Portland, and she would do anything to feel that connection again.

“Kaela,” he said. “There’s an old laptop in the back of this car. Can you get it and check on the moon shuttle?”

“There probably won’t be any news,” she said. “I checked earlier today. But I’ll try.”

She twisted in the seat and retrieved the computer, getting to the internet quickly and going to the page she had been visiting for the last several days. It wasn’t the public moon page that had the shuttle status displayed; this was the private page for administrators only. She had some perks after working on the moon base for so many years. The shuttle had been injured in the blast but had survived into space. Now it was just a question of whether it could reach the space station in time. Other shuttles had been sent to retrieve the passengers, but the docking equipment had been blown away along with the communication. There was no way to know who was on board, if anyone, and no way to retrieve them. They would just have to wait until the shuttle crashed onto the moon and could be safely evacuated, but that wouldn’t happen for another week at the shuttle’s current speed.

She related all of this to Raven, whose hands tensed on the steering wheel.

“So no idea if there are survivors?”

“None. The outside of the shuttle is smashed pretty bad, but the inside might be completely untouched. We build our shuttles to withstand a lot.”

“How many people know about this?”

“Only a few. To everyone else, it just looks like the shuttle is still in an undetermined state.”

“I have to tell Scott. He’ll be worried.”

“Do you want me to drive for a while?”

Raven hesitated, as if wondering if he could trust her or not. She didn’t know what he thought she would do, exactly. She couldn’t turn him in to Atheus since he was on his way to Atheus, and she wouldn’t return him to Lethe since she would be in just as much trouble. Finally, he nodded and pulled the car over. They switched places and she pulled back onto the road, accelerating until she hit the same speed he had been driving.

“Why don’t you sleep, too? I’ll drive as long as I can, and then you can take over. That way we won’t have to stop.”

“Are you sure?”

Again, suspicion tainted his voice and cut into her heart. How could he possibly doubt her when she was sacrificing everything to be with him?

“Yeah. We’ll get there a lot faster, and the sooner this is over, the better.”

He agreed, and then his fingers began flying over the keyboard. She remembered how easily he had broken into the moon base and wondered what other information he was hacking into while he spoke with his friend. His face slowly relaxed as he typed, and then he sighed and leaned back.

“If you’re sure you don’t mind...”

“Not at all,” she said, pleased when he closed his eyes and leaned his seat back.

It was nice knowing that he felt safe enough to sleep around her, and she couldn’t help but gaze over at him occasionally as he slept. After a while, his breathing evened out and she knew he was truly asleep. She kept driving into the afternoon sky, wondering what horrors Atheus had in store for them when they reached old Seattle.

Medane sat at his desk and tried to remain calm. He knew Raven was about to do something impulsive. He had seen that reckless look on Raven’s face too many times in the past not to recognize it. He just hoped Kaela could stop him from leaving the embassy, because once he left the embassy, there was nothing anyone could do to protect him. The girl’s condition worried him as well, especially since Lethe didn’t seem surprised to find out that she was in a coma. Lethe seemed to know about her condition just as Raven had, and it troubled Medane.

The monitor before him snapped back to life and he composed himself as the African minister appeared on the screen. The people of Africa were responding to the attack on NeoLondon with panic, since many of their cities had been destroyed in the Last War, and Medane knew this man was exerting all of his considerable influence to maintain peace and keep the government functioning without a president to make final decisions. It was amazing how little the people trusted their ministers and how much they trusted the president, even when the president lived thousands of miles away.

“Medane,” the man said, his voice graveled and heavy with strain. “We find your course of action and choice of appointee acceptable. You have our vote.”

Medane nodded and they spoke for a time of the troubles in Africa, and whether or not an appearance by the díamont could make a difference and put an end to some of the in-fighting going on. Inwardly he was celebrating. Africa had agreed to stop the retaliatory strikes and they were prepared to accept Raven as the new president. It was a major victory. He already had China and Australia on board, and now he just needed the rest of Asia to persuade Europe to follow suit.

He was most concerned now with the retaliation—Europe had independently attacked Los Angeles, a once-bustling metropolis that was now abandoned like most of the cities in old California. The heat and rising water level pushed most people inland, but a few remained and they had suffered the consequences of that decision when Europe attacked. They had also bombed old Seattle, more as a message than anything else since no one lived there.

At least they were holding back from attacking the major cities, Medane thought. If they attacked Portland, there would be millions of deaths. Instead they were choosing low casualty targets, as if to show the Western World that while they meant business, they had restraint. So far, Atheus and the West had not struck again, but Medane knew it was only a matter of time. Soon, the entire world would be under siege again, only this time it wouldn’t be Soren against the humans, it would be díamont against díamont with the humans as innocent bystanders. The thought sickened him.

With Africa taken care of, Medane took his private jet to the slums to see how Nalia was doing. He tried to visit her every day, despite the danger. He entered and left in díamont form but when he sat with her, he was in human form. Surprisingly, the rebels were beginning to warm to him, perhaps because of his persistence in making sure their leader was surviving.