Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) by Milo Fowler (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Engineers-turned-soldiers. The men of Arthur Willard’s Eden Guard.

They finally have something worth protecting. These unborn test-tube children, rows of them, oblivious to the world outside their incubation chambers. Ignorant of their own value. They will continue to develop until the time is right to harvest them from their secure cocoons.

Will the cold concrete welcome them?

I sweep my gaze over the perimeter of the room, across the large generators that hum a rhythm with no melody, and follow the plastic hoses piped along the low ceiling and plugged into the fetal chambers, providing nourishment and carrying away waste. I close my eyes for a moment. This should be a nursery. I can almost imagine the walls painted with smiling cartoon animals and mobiles dangling above cribs with fresh linens. Again, my lips want to smile. But as I open my eyes, I see the room for what it is.

A factory with one purpose: manufacturing the future.

“They’re looking healthy, Margo.”

I stiffen with a short gasp. But I recognize the voice.

“You’ve got to stop doing that.” I exhale irritably and run my fingers through my tangled hair.

“What? Sneaking up on you?” Tucker sniffs. “Can’t really help it, things being the way they are.”

He is invisible—a weird side effect of his extended contact with the surface, breathing in the dust up there. But invisible does not mean he is transparent. From what I have been able to tell, his ability is similar to that of the chameleon, an animal extinct for over two decades. Somehow, his skin is able to blend into its surroundings. It seems to be an involuntary response; try as he might, he cannot revert to a visible form. And while the fluorescent bulbs cast no shadow from his figure, sunlight is a different story.

He can see his own shadow when he is on the surface. I am at a loss to explain that.

As for my own bizarre ability—

“What do you want?” My tone is sharp, perhaps more so than I intended. There was a time when I related better to others socially, knew how to employ vocal inflections to convey specific nuances of meaning. But that was long ago.

“Am I interrupting anything?”

Yes. He is. I treasure my time alone with them—these little ones. But I would never tell him this, nor anyone else. It is part of my secret inner life that I guard jealously, sharing with no one.

“Of course not.” I take a step toward his voice. Blink. And in the moment it takes for my eyelids to meet and part, I have already probed his thoughts. “He has sent for me.”

“Damn it, Margo.” He chuckles. “I can’t keep anything from you.”

“No. You can’t.” My tone is matter-of-fact. “Where are they?”

He shuffles his feet. “The apartment.”

I glance in his general direction without bothering to pretend I know where his face is. With a nod, I leave the room, calling back, “Keep an eye on them for me.” I gesture toward the chambers.

“What should I be looking for?”

“You’ll know.” If anything goes wrong, the alarms will deafen us all.

The fetuses will be fine in my absence. But this way, it appears that I expect Tucker to assume my post. It gives me control of the situation. A power play, perhaps; but he will have to get used to following my orders.

I will need him to, without question, when the time comes.

The apartment is located across the main floor of Eden’s central dome—a massive underground water reservoir once upon a time, but now the continent’s last bastion of all-natural humanity, untainted by the mutagens running rampant on the earth’s surface. For the thirty-odd men who remain just the way God made them, it is home. Willard’s Eden Guard, resplendent in their blue fatigues, fetching black berets, and the best weaponry hard-earned credits would have been able to buy prior to D-Day.

Sometimes it is difficult to imagine what these men were before: a bunker-full of brainy engineers itching to get out and build things, to make the world on the surface better than it was before all the bombs started falling.

But that was prior to the demon dust. Before the dogs and the sand freaks. Now these engineers make a habit of playing soldier, and they’ve gotten pretty good at it. They defend Eden with their lives. And whether or not they like Willard’s orders, they obey their commander without question. A few months back, they welcomed an invisible man and a mind-reading female into their ranks, despite serious reservations, despite the way of things at the time: a zero tolerance policy for mutos. Just because Captain Willard said so.

I climb the ladder to the steel catwalk above and the living quarters suspended from the dome’s soaring concrete wall. Two armed guards stand outside the unit’s door. They were talking, laughing even, before they saw me. Now they’re more subdued, eyes set straight ahead, avoiding any chance of contact. They seem to cringe inward as I pass, as though I am somehow contagious. Maybe they’re afraid I’m probing their minds.

Maybe I am.

“At ease,” I mutter, but they pretend not to hear me. I stand before the solid steel door. Neither one of them moves to open it. “You mind?” I gesture at the guard who makes the mistake of glancing my way.

His eyes dart away, but he realizes too late that I’ve caught him. Something human beneath his soldier facade causes him to turn in resignation and heave the door open, shoving it aside.

“Thank you,” I say icily, stepping into the apartment’s plush interior.

“Shut up,” the guard snaps at his snickering comrade as he hauls the door back into place.

I stop in the middle of a warm, simply decorated living room with thick carpet and comfortable sofas. An artificial fire flickers in the hearth, fueled by natural gas. I know this place well. It was my home, once.

Willard and I were lovers then.

“You got here fast.” Willard paces in front of the bookshelves. He