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

“How the hell do you plan to get me there? And what about these people? Don’t you think they could use a little help?”

Her shoulders lift and fall. “We have provided cover for their retreat. Instead, they choose to remain here and fight.”

“Luther’s people were taken against their will—”

“You do not know them very well—the fire that burns in each of their hearts. Some wish to rescue the infants from Eden. Some wish to have their gifts removed by Eden’s engineers. And some wish to destroy Eden and all that it stands for. But every one of them desires to see this journey to its end. None will turn from the path they have chosen.”

I turn away from her—it—to peer into the wall of dust. I see movement, but no figures I recognize. The truth is, I don’t owe these people anything. They’re not my team. I have a mission to complete, and whatever gets me there fastest is the way to go.

“Fine. Let’s move.” Reaching Willard and arranging the release of those infants is all that matters. With Mutegi providing back-up, I can afford to be optimistic. “Are you going to give me wings or something?”

“We will carry you through the air.”

“You can do that?”

She pauses. For the first time, she looks unsure of herself. “We believe so.”

“Let me guess. You’ve never done it before.”

“No. It would have killed anyone else.”

“But not me.” I frown, trying to figure this out. What makes me different? I lift one arm. “Because of the suit?”

“It will protect you from the dust. You will not smother in it.” As she speaks, the swirling murk around me grows denser, the sand and flakes of ash whirling around me like a tornado. I’m standing in the eye.

“All right.” I curl my gloved fingers into fists. “Let’s do this.”

“Try to relax.” She dissolves from sight. At the same time, I feel myself float upward. I can’t help reaching out to steady myself—only there’s nothing to brace against or hold onto.

Blind to the battle below but able to hear every gunshot, I’m carried up into the sky like a hot air balloon in a strong gust of wind. The altitude has to be over a hundred meters, judging by the sound of weapons fire beneath me. Then without warning, I’m hurtling through the air, surrounded by the swirling dust, flying over the scorched earth as fast as a jet.

It’s as though my mind has gone into standby mode as a way of protecting my sanity. I can’t think about this. I can’t question it. I just have to accept it. I’m flying, carried by a giant dust devil.

Should’ve thought of this before now. Would’ve saved some travel time.

There’s no way to tell how fast I’m moving, but it’s obviously quicker than staggering across the barren wasteland in my hazard suit.

Suddenly my wife materializes before me, floating in midair. I do my best not to be taken aback. What is this now—the third time she’s appeared? Fourth? I should be used to it. She smiles, somehow able to see my startled expression through the dark face shield.

“We will set you down at the easiest entry point into Eden. With your suit on, climbing through sewage tunnels would be difficult. So we’ll avoid that.”

“Thanks.” I’ll contact Captain Mutegi as soon as Willard shows me to his radio room.

Hey. I’m here. My team’s dead, but we’ve got some babies...

“We are not able to penetrate manmade materials.” She pauses. “So we will not be accompanying you into Eden.”

I wasn’t expecting her to. “Will you go back and help Luther’s people?”

She smiles again. “We never left them.” She laughs at my confused expression. She sounds so much like my wife. “There are many of us, and we share a telepathy of sorts. We know what each other is up to.”

The part of my brain that I put on pause is now warming back to life. “Is it true what Luther says? That you gave his people their abilities?” I regret asking as soon as the words escape. I won’t believe whatever she says. I can’t. None of what I’ve seen and experienced here makes any rational sense.

She dips her head forward slowly. “In a way, yes. Our essence, endowed by our Creator, remains locked in the dust of the earth from which we were made, and to which we returned. When Luther’s people—and Cain’s as well, though he chooses to believe in a false god—breathed in the dust of the earth, they were changed.”

“So you didn’t change them. Not intentionally. It was a biochemical reaction or something.”

She shrugs with a slight movement of her shoulders. “Semantics, James.”

As much as she looks and acts like my Emma, the sound of my name on her lips is somehow wrong.

The whirlwind around me dissipates, and my boots touch down gently on solid ground. As I turn to take in the view, I’m overwhelmed by the magnitude of this city’s destruction. The ruins extending in all directions were once a major metropolitan center, comparable to Eurasia’s Dome 1. Now caked in dust, they’re ancient-looking. Heaps of rubble where buildings stood before; cracked streets exhibiting signs of tectonic upheaval; twisted spires of iron and steel charred black where skyscrapers covered in mirrored glass pierced the skies long ago.

“There.” She extends a slender arm and points a finger I would know as well as my own—if it was actually my wife’s.

I pivot to find the substructure of a blown-out building behind me. It may have held hundreds of offices at one time, but all that remains now beneath its broken skeleton is an underground parking structure. Inside, burnt-out hulks of vehicles sit in various stalls. I note the slope of the main entry as well as the downward angle beyond. How many sublevels are there?

“So that’s the way into Eden?” Surprising. There are no guards stationed anywhere outside, and not one of the collared mutants Luther mentioned before.

“This