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

“Not for a long while, by the looks of ’em.” Granger cursed. “The bastards.”

“We can’t just leave them here like this.” Morley stood beside the jeep, reluctant to take his place behind the wheel.

There is no spite in my tone, only a grim acceptance of the bizarre new reality we face, when I say, “What do you suggest we do? Bury them? Say a few words?”

“It’s the least we could do,” Morley said. “After all they’ve suffered.”

“Do not allow your emotions to interfere with what must be done,” Sinclair said, but even she seemed to have softened a few of her sharp edges. “We must leave this place before other hostiles return. By all appearances, these men have not been men for some time. The others like them may be out of their minds, for all we know. Lunatic cannibals who will not think twice about gunning us down and feeding on us—despite whatever soldier’s brotherhood you think you share with them.”

Morley cursed. “Leaving them to rot in the sun? It isn’t right.”

“Not much about this mission is,” I said. “But we’ll see it through. And then we’ll go home to our loved ones.” I paused. “So get your ass behind the wheel, soldier, and drive us the hell out of here.”

Morley obeyed orders without grumbling, but his reckless driving ever since has made it clear that he’s pissed off. I don’t mind the excessive speeds. As long as the hot-headed weapons officer keeps both hands on the wheel, he can’t threaten to shoot anybody again. But as Morley takes us sailing through the air over a dusty rise only to crash onto all four tires, testing the limits of the suspension, I realize the man could easily kill us all if he isn’t careful.

I can understand Morley’s sentiments. Those UW troops were sent to a diseased continent. Nuclear waste, a land ravaged by warfare—that’s what they were told to expect. They would have been prepared for pockets of radiation and bioweapon residue; they would have avoided confined spaces, stayed out in the open—even as their genetic makeup was altered by whatever mutagens remained trapped in the dust at their feet.

Somehow, the soldiers had been transformed into those fanged, oozing creatures that Harris inspected firsthand. No way they could have known what they were in for.

Just like us. I crack open one eye to see the flashing OFFLINE message stating the obvious inside my helmet. No change.

“To think...Children,” Harris breaks from his reverie as Morley takes us over a low outcropping of rock that sends the right side of the jeep lurching upward. “I had nearly given up hope!”

“Yeah. Kind of resigned myself to us humans dying out as a species, y’know?” Granger chuckles drily. “Hey, it happened to the dinosaurs. They had their time, and you don’t see many of them running around loose anymore.”

“Or any member of the animal kingdom, for that matter,” Sinclair offers. Then she pauses. “But we don’t know if this Arthur Willard fellow can be trusted.”

“Don’t get our hopes up, right?” Granger says. “That should be your motto. But c’mon, why would this guy lie to the UW?”

“Would you choose to live on this continent—or under it, as the case appears to be—if you knew Eurasia was waiting across the Pacific?” she counters.

“What are you saying? You think he just wants out? There aren’t really any kids? There’s no way the UW would fall for something like that.”

“We’re here, aren’t we?” Morley speaks up for the first time since he started driving.

“There must be some credence to his claims, some proof of life. Otherwise, our government would not take him seriously,” Sinclair allows. “But to have dozens of incubation chambers operational and just as many fetuses viable in a twenty-year-old fallout bunker? Highly unlikely.”

“So what, then? He’s stacking the deck in his favor?” Granger sniffs. “He’s got maybe a couple babies, if that?”

“Even two would be more than we’d ever thought possible,” Harris murmurs. “One male, one female—”

“Adam and Eve all over again,” Morley interrupts.

“The UW would be willing to send us through anything, hell or high water, in order to retrieve them. Our exalted government officials have grown desperate as of late.”

“What do you mean, Doc?” Granger says. “You know something we don’t?”

I’m sure he does. In recent years, the politicians and medical community have been working hand in glove, and lately it seems the genetic engineering firms are getting in on the same action—whatever it is—in a big way.

“I am not at liberty to say. But I can tell you this much: the United World government has not resigned itself to dying out as a species. Not by a long shot.”

Now it’s clear why the good doctor was assigned to this mission. More than a standard-issue medic, Harris is someone the UW governors can trust to see their interests carried through, fully to term.

“So you could say we’re their last hope. They’ve got a whole lot riding on what we’re doing here.”

“Don’t let it go to your head, Granger,” I warn. “We’re expendable. Easily replaceable. Don’t forget that.”

Harris grunts uncomfortably in response. “Not the best way to keep up morale, Sergeant.”

“He’s right,” Morley says. I can imagine him tightening his grip on the wheel. Wringing it. “If they cared about us at all, they’d send in air support. Not cut us loose. But it’s what they do. Same as they did to those poor souls we found. Left them here to rot.”

“We’re on our own,” I reiterate. “Period. We shouldn’t expect any help from Mutegi and the fleet. But if we do our job right—make it to Eden and bring back what they want us to—then we’ll be welcomed as heroes. More importantly, we’ll be allowed to go home. I don’t know about the rest of you, but that’s all I want.”

Granger chuckles. “You heard the man, Doc. Let’s git ‘er done. Hoo-rah!”

No one echoes his spirited cry. Sinclair releases a petulant sigh, of course.

Quiet for a