It's Better This Way (7 page)

“Thanks to scenes like this that have played out all over the major metro areas of California, we have perfected both the methane compound as well as the delivery system. The bulls know what human weapons of war look like, and as you know, they’ll vaporize you on site if they see you with one.

“However, they have no idea what this weapon is. Since it isn’t feasible to attack each bull individually and on foot, we’ve also created a hydraulic-magnetic launcher, better known to some of you older folks who like science fiction as a railgun, as well as a kind of shrapnel bomb that explodes with methane-filled and methane-coated projectiles. All it takes is a single microgram and you have a dead bull.”

Colonel Hardaway gave the crowd a couple of minutes to discuss this revelation amongst themselves before going on.

“The complexes, as far as we’ve been able to determine, are some kind of molecular forge. The crushers from the cities unload whatever they’ve collected that they didn’t spit out the rear end onto dropships, and the dropships unload the substance at the forges. Once per month an orbital freighter picks up the refined substance from all of the forges in the area and takes it back upstairs to the main alien vessel.

“Same goes for the giant mining vehicles and the massive pit mines. We believe their crushers eat up our cities to extract raw materials that get separated in the crushers and then further refined at the forges. We still don’t know how accurate this theory is, but over the last seven years we’ve been watching closely, and we believe that we’ve got the right idea.”

“What I’ve called you all together for is to tell you that the United States Army is recruiting able-bodied men and women to train at our Crater Lake complex and begin taking the fight to the bulls. They nearly wiped us off the planet twenty three years ago, and we’ve been unable to do a single thing about it until now. We have, as you can see, gained a sliver of their technology during our incursions to their areas to test our weapon delivery systems.

“We don’t understand most of it, but we understand enough of it to build power packs like the one powering this projector. We also have full amenities at the Crater Lake facility. That means clean, hot, running water, electricity, hydroponic gardens, weapons manufacturing, climate controlled underground housing, computer and media systems including advanced instruction modules for learning both your Army job as well as a civilian skill, and a real network that doesn’t rely on word of mouth, horses and bicycles.

“I know that you people have done the impossible with your setup here in the central wastes. I saw a lot of farmland on our way up here. I saw a lot of good sentry and scouting activity. You people have done everything right to survive in a world gone mad, and have done it without a baron or a lunatic leading you at the point of a rifle.

“I know you have strong trade ties with the Reds and the Kaisers. I’m here to let you know that it wasn’t all for nothing. You’ve survived, had babies, kept the peace, and have done it by keeping your baser, more animal pleasures at bay. Instead of a region full of murderers, thieves, and rapists, you’ve transformed the wastes and surrounding areas into a safe haven for other civilized humans to migrate to.

“I’m here to let you know that the time has come to take the next step and join us to get these alien bastards off our planet and back to wherever they came from, preferably hell so they can’t go home and tell the hive or their government or whoever they answer to that humans kicked their asses!”

If he expected a massive cheer to drown out his last words, his shout of triumph, he was disappointed. A hundred or so cheers went up, those doing the cheering obviously being part of the Colonel’s target audience. The rest of us who were gathered on the south lawn began talking all at once to those nearby. The whole time, Hardaway stood on the platform at parade rest with his hands locked behind his back. Hackett packed up the projector and carried it back to the case. The swell of voices in the crowd rose until it sounded like one long continuous shouting match.

Jerry, then Dana, then most of the council got up on the platform and held their hands out asking the crowd to calm down, to be quiet so we could do what we did best at these gatherings, which was ask questions and make decisions. Their efforts were futile. The soldiers, the thought of a base with all the creature comforts that anyone that had been alive twenty three years ago had all but forgotten about, and the rallying cry that backed the video clips we’d all watched were too much distraction for the masses. I was just about to get on the platform to plead for calm and orderly discussion when Mom climbed up and walked out to stand next to Colonel Hardaway.

The crowd became silent within seconds. Everyone knew about Mom, and everyone had spoken to her at some point in their lives on The Farm, but she never took to the platform during the votes. She never made herself a voice of The Farm in public. That she was standing on the platform meant something very important was happening.

CHAPTER 10 - Unlikely Debate

“Thank you, Colonel Hardaway for showing us that,” Mom said. “As a community, we have a certain protocol that we’ve developed. We will open this discussion to a debate in a moment.”

“A debate?” Hardaway asked. His face looked confused, mistrusting. “What is there to debate? You people have a duty to your country. You can’t tell any of these people here that they can’t leave and do their duty.”

“Oh no, Colonel,” she said, “We aren’t going to debate whether or not anyone can go with you. Everyone here is free to leave if they please. They know it, even if you don’t. What we are going to debate is whether or not we agree with what you’ve just said. As a community.”

“I don’t understand,” the Colonel said, looking more confused than ever. It looked like he thought there was some trick he hadn’t factored into his plan. He’d thought he would come to The Farm and give his speech and we’d all pack up and run for their base. He hadn’t factored in the part about how it had been twenty three years since there had been any real law and order, state or country boundaries, or any harassment from the bulls beyond dumb humans trying to attack them.

“Listen, people!” Mom shouted, and the crowd quieted back down again. “Who has a question for the Colonel about what he’s said tonight?”

Hundreds shouted and waved their hands to be the first one to ask a question. Hardaway looked upset, Waters actually seemed nervous for once, Hackett didn’t look at anything except the gear he’d been stowing away in the black suitcase, and David was downright scared.
Surely he informed the good Colonel how The Farm goes about business?
I thought.

After Mom pointed to him, the crowd around a man twenty feet from the platform moved back, letting him ask the first question. I didn’t know his name, but I’d seen him around for a couple of years.

“Colonel, thank you for the video. I thought I would die before ever seeing something like that again. But my question is how do you know that killing a few, or even a lot of the bulls won’t suddenly bring down retribution on you? On us? On all humans?” The crowd closed in around him again.

“They haven’t exacted revenge for any of the ones we’ve killed so far,” the Colonel answered matter-of-factly, like it answered everything.

“And how many have you killed, Colonel?” Mom asked, taking over the question from the man in the crowd.

I’d learned in my years that this is why Mom never lost control of The Farm. She was too smart, too wise, too able to see things objectively no matter how much emotion was involved.

“Uh… at last count I’d say somewhere around eight thousand of them.” He began to look nervous as well, and the commotion that ran through the crowd at such a number made him rock on his heels a little.

“And has that body count resulted in any perceptible good on the humans in the areas where you’ve killed these bulls?” she asked.

“Well, there are no more bulls in some of the areas now, and the numbers in the major cities keep falling and keep being replaced after a couple of days of not showing back up to their base or wherever they go.”

“Right,” Mom countered, “but the bulls don’t actually harm humans in the first place, correct?”

“Sure they do, lady,” the Colonel said, realizing in an instant that he’d been the one to get emotional, the one to let his professionalism slip, and he quickly locked his hard-ass Colonel facade back into place. But the slip let Mom and the rest of us who are good at reading people know that he hadn’t been prepared for such a question. He’d fooled himself into thinking he could wave the patriot’s flag as he walked through The Farm and everyone would follow him as if he were the Pied Piper.

“They only attack humans with weapons, humans that show threatening tendencies to them, or for some reason humans that are stealing whatever it is they are after in the cities. And now we also know that they attack humans who get too close to their forges and their towers.” She said it in a conversational tone, no sneering, no sarcasm, just a statement.

“Look, I understand that it has been over twenty years and people have learned how to live differently, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that these are the beings responsible for the collapse of humanity,” Colonel Hardaway said, matching Mom’s emotionless tone.

Mom looked out into the crowd, and immediately hands shot up. She pointed to a woman about a hundred yards away. Nicole Bronson I think, but it was hard to tell at night and at that distance with a crowd between us.

“Isn’t what the towers are doing actually good for us? Removing methane was kind of a goal back then, and after twenty three years of no factories, no pollution, don’t you think that has been good for the planet?” Nicole shouted towards the platform.

The Colonel looked for just a second like he was going to come unglued.
The nerve of Oregon hippies
is what I imagined him thinking, except with a lot more cursing.

“That’s all well and good,” Hardaway replied in a loud voice, making sure the damn hippie heard him, no doubt. “But as long as these alien invaders occupy our planet, we can never rebuild what we had. They won’t allow us to have electricity or tanks or planes or…” I thought he was going to say nuclear weapons. I was sure that he and his surviving army or whatever they had built up under Crater Lake were wishing they had the ability to launch nukes at that behemoth sitting in orbit above the planet. Instead he said, “…hospitals, medical equipment, pharmaceutical drugs.”

Fifty feet to my left another man was alone as the crowd parted around him. “Why would we want to go back to the old days? It was those old days where the people in power, our governments, still had people like you around. Fighting wars that sent our young to die for some cause known only to those who sent them! Who wants to go back to greed, money, power, classes?”

More buzzing and the crowd parted around another woman, Sheila something or other, who shouted, “We’ve learned how to live without electricity and your tanks and planes and bombs. Even hospitals and pharmacies. But the aliens have never once come to this valley. They’ve never attacked any of us. They don’t interfere with our farming, our trading, or reproducing.”

“They have come to your valley!” the Colonel thundered, his emotions finally breaking back through. “We shot down one of their transports five weeks ago and it crashed just northwest of here! Or did your ‘leaders’ not tell you this?” The way he said leaders made it sound like
dog asses
or
piles of shit
.

This got the crowd riled up. I tried to find Tony with my eyes, but I only caught Mom’s attention. She motioned for me to get on the platform. I climbed up and stood next to her. Mom stepped forward and put her arms out, and when the crowd quieted down again, she turned to me and smiled, and stepped back. I guessed I was up.

“We found this ship two weeks ago,” I shouted a little too loud. I cleared my throat and started again. “My partner and I found the transport and two dead bulls. They crashed into the ground about thirty miles northwest of here. There was no sign of what caused the crash, and no available tech or useful items to scavenge. We reported it to the council on our return. Nothing was said for two reasons. One is that we’ve all heard through the network about crashes and other things like this involving dead bulls. The second is we don’t want curious eyes making the trip to see it. Thirty miles is getting a bit beyond our protective coverage, and we don’t even know what might happen if the bulls finally come along to collect their dead and their equipment while a human is there rooting through dead bodies and smashed ship parts.”

This quieted the crowd. Colonel Hardaway looked like he wanted to slug me in the guts as hard as he could, mostly because he couldn’t be happy that my sensible explanation had seemed perfectly normal to the gathered crowd. And that they accepted it without arguing or shouting. But I was worried. If the Colonel and his army had the ability to shoot down bull ships…

“Listen, people,” he said in his loud voice. “I get it. You all love the commune. You get to grow your dope and smoke it while you eat your bountiful harvests of tomatoes and steaks and chickens and apples. You get to teach your children how you want. You’ve socked away enough supplies and weapons and good people that you can survive any warlord that tries to set up shop within fifty miles of here.

“But what about the rest of humanity? If you are so in touch with your humanity, why would you not step up and help the rest of your brothers and sisters who haven’t been as lucky to be part of something like you’ve built here? There are millions of Americans, probably billions of your fellow humans, who haven’t fared even one percent as well as you have. Don’t you think you owe it to them?” Hardaway shouted, thinking to appeal to our touchy-feely hippie natures. Apparently David Hamida hadn’t told him just how dark we could be.