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

That’s what you’re saying.” Vincent tilts his head to one side at this revelation. “So they are coming to take what is ours. Well, if that isn’t an attack on our people, I do not know what is. We have to stop them.”

Luther holds up a hand. “Now is not the time. We can use them, once we have convinced them to help us. We can’t risk turning them against us. Not so soon.”

“What do you mean?” Vincent softens my exact words: “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You are expecting children in your settlement, correct?”

“Of course,” Vincent replies.

Luther already knows this. All four of my wives are with child, and I also planted my seed in the fertile wombs of half a dozen other men’s wives. I alone hold that right, being my bunker’s alpha male—now the only one with virile seed to be found in the Shipyard.

“And you all have been exposed to the dust on the surface?”

“We have breathed this air since All-Clear,” Vincent says. “Gaia has blessed us for it.”

“But the United World does not see blessings as such,” Luther cautions. “They see us as subhuman freaks of nature. Any children you bear will be viewed in the same way.”

Vincent raises his chin. “We are Gaia’s chosen people. Let the UW call us what they will. It means nothing.”

Luther pauses, collecting his thoughts. “They will exterminate all of us once they have what they came for. Your people as well as ours.”

“Gaia would not allow such a thing!”

“Gaia again,” Samson grumbles, but Luther silences him with a glance. The cyborg exhales loudly through his nostrils.

“We are immaterial to them. They have bombed other settlements since All-Clear, obliterating them. On our journey west from Eden, we passed through many scorched ruins bearing signs of recent ballistic missile attacks. The UW doesn’t see our kind as human beings. All they want are the unborn children growing inside incubation chambers deep in Eden’s sublevels. My children. Samson’s.”

I narrow my gaze. “He is saying the UW doesn’t want any of my offspring, only his own. Is that it?” Victoria relays the message, but Vincent appears uncomfortable sharing it.

“Your children will be exposed to the elements when they are born. Your wives breathe the air while your young grow within them. Willard has convinced the United World government that the fetuses protected within Eden’s walls have not been contaminated.”

“These children in Eden—how can they possibly be yours?”

Luther’s shoulders sink. “When we were captured by Willard almost a year ago, he experimented on us. Samson and myself, as well as two women. Their ova were extracted, and multiple sperm samples were taken from us—against our will.”

“Not as much fun as it sounds,” Samson adds. “Believe me.”

“That was when they…robbed you of your gifts?”

Luther nods. “They amputated Samson’s powerful arms and legs. Tore out my claws. Removed Shechara’s eyes. All the gifts bestowed upon us by our Creator via the spirits of—”

“We haven’t come to listen to your heresy,” Vincent interrupts. “Only to ask that you do not interfere with our interception of the UW team. Nothing else concerns us.”

“And all that we ask,” Luther reiterates, “is that you allow us the time necessary to talk with these soldiers, to convince them to help us get our children out of Eden.”

I frown, glancing at Victoria. “Why would the UW ever agree to help them? They’re here to take the children for themselves!”

Victoria relays this to Vincent.

“It may seem counterintuitive,” Luther replies, “but we have reason to believe this team of UW personnel may be willing to see things differently. Two of them no longer wear their protective suits. They should begin to notice changes in their physiology within a matter of days. During that time, we will keep them here with us, and we will show them the two incubation pods that were smuggled out of Eden—”

“What?” This is the first I’ve heard of it. “When did this occur?”

“We have reason to believe,” Luther continues, “that the woman driving that armored vehicle has defected from Eden. She sent two of our unborn children to us a few weeks ago via a gifted courier, one who is able to make himself invisible to the naked eye. We will show them to the UW doctor and allow him to run certain tests on them.”

“What will these tests prove?”

“The United World government has yet to ascertain that these children are one hundred percent human, unaffected by our gifts.”

I shake my head. “This changes nothing.”

“You have not met Arthur Willard,” Luther says. “He is not planning to simply hand over these unborn children. They are little more than a means of leverage for him, to be used as he sees fit. He won’t think twice about exterminating them if things don’t go his way. He only wants to leave this continent.” Luther pauses at the gravity of the situation. “Willard is an unpredictable man, and he may very well destroy the tenuous relations he’s established with the UW.”

“But if he is able to bargain with them, then what?”

The crease in Luther’s brow relaxes for the first time. “The children will be safe, free from Eden. Our people can join forces to take them away and then, together, we’ll protect our shores from the United World’s retaliation. We won’t be alone in this. The spirits of the earth will be with us, of course.”

More heresy! To Victoria, I growl, “Our warriors should kill these infidels—a holy slaughter in the name of Gaia our one true mother!”

She watches me. “I doubt you’d want me to share those sentiments, my lord.”

“Their children do not concern us!”

Or do they? If the fetuses in Eden truly are the UW’s only hope for the future, then to destroy every last one would be a surefire way to bring the United World to its knees. While my descendants continue to reproduce in greater numbers and multiply in the decades to come, the people of Eurasia will die out as a species—if Eden’s incubators are