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

pull the bundle of maps from my belt and quietly unfold them beside Milton's mattress. My thoughts have turned to the future as they so often do, to a time beyond our present hardships. My finger traces a nameless mountain range, a series of jagged lines crossing the paper from north to south. On the west side is a large circle and SECTOR 43—LABOR FORCE in bold print. The scale, mm to km, has them approximately one thousand kilometers west of these mountains. Milton came a long way indeed if these maps are still accurate.

But we have our doubts. The scientists who downloaded them to our bunker database lived in a different world, after all.

My eyes drift to the SECTOR 50 circle—FEMALE PROGENITORS. Daiyna said their bunker was located in the foothills on the east side of the mountains. I slide my finger east slowly, tracking the distance, 70km, to the circle marked SECTOR 51—MALE PROGENITORS. Years ago, people would have spent their entire lives in search of their purpose, their reason for being. And here we have ours, spelled out clearly in black and white.

If only it were that simple. If only everything had gone according to plan.

The scientists could never have predicted the shifting sands or the spirits of the earth or the daemons. What sector do they hail from, these mutant men from the east? I slide my finger in search of a Sector 52 or 53, but the map ends fifty kilometers east of our bunker. I was able to print out the sectors north of ours before the database went offline, and I arrange them now, lining them up. Like a child with a favorite puzzle, I've done this many times before. The mountain range extends to the north another two hundred kilometers. On the west side, northwest of our current location, nothing is labeled. But one hundred fifty kilometers due north of the Sector 51 bunker is SECTOR 31—TRADE WORKERS. Fifty kilometers beyond that is SECTOR 30—ENGINEERS. These two bunkers would have held all the supplies and skilled tradesmen necessary to start rebuilding. Undoubtedly, the engineers would have chuckled at the sight of those shelters my brothers and I constructed. I'm certain we would have done far better with the proper tools and materials.

Why were we divided this way? Did the United World government actually believe the world of the future would function in the same way as their own? The North American Sectors had been governed by the nations of the UW for decades, ever since the collapse of the United States of America following the second cold war. Each of our sectors had its own specialization, whether that be the arts, sciences, labor, engineering, trade, human reproduction, peace-keeping, or anything else the UW deemed important. We supplied them with everything they needed. In turn, they kept us divided, yet thoroughly efficient. They didn't want to see us unite as a nation again, but they wanted us to continue contributing to the world as our ancestors had for centuries. Most citizens were content with the arrangement. But there were, of course, dissenters who called themselves Patriots. No one took these rebels seriously.

Until they released their toxic bioweapons, and the UW governments unleashed hell on earth, retaliating with nuclear strikes intended to annihilate every trace of the toxins as well as those who were infected, both human and animal. The scientists, sociologists, and psychologists in charge of the North American Sectors Survival Program rounded us up and sent us below to the bunkers they'd prepared for us. Everything was carefully planned and executed. No glitches.

For twenty years underground, I looked forward to the new life we'd build together upon leaving the bunker. I never questioned our purpose. But now? All I have are questions. Perhaps I'm no longer the man I was.

I tap Sector 31 with my index finger. How many of the trade workers have survived? Are their supplies and materials still intact? How far north do the daemon raids extend?

Plato, Daiyna, and I have discussed various options for the next few months, and we've agreed on few. But one thing we know: we're stronger now together than we ever were apart. When we eventually decide it's the right time to make our journey northward, we'll go together, all of us. Or we won't go at all.

I line up the remaining two portions of the map and smooth out the wrinkles of the uppermost page: SECTOR 1—PRESERVE. A lush, heavily forested wilderness interrupted by flower-speckled meadows, gurgling streams, and windswept lakes of fresh water. On D-Day, no bombs were dropped in the Preserve—off-limits in times of war. The rebels' bioweapons decimated all animal life, but everything else would have remained.

So we were told by the bunker database.

Plato has his doubts. Even if world leaders had managed to protect the Preserve, the nuclear winters that ravaged the earth after D-Day would not have halted at the threshold of Sector 1 and proceeded no farther, regardless of any energy field in place. The atmosphere would have carried fallout for years as ash and poison drifted down into the soil and groundwater below.

I have to believe the Preserve still exists, in one form or another. How else would we be able to breathe? Nothing grows in these southwest sectors. The oxygen must come from somewhere.

Once we're able to subdue the daemons, we'll leave the caves en masse in the solar-powered vehicles we obtain, invite the engineers and trade workers from Sectors 30 and 31 to join our ranks, and then make the trek northward to begin living off the land as did the pioneers of old: building homes, planting and harvesting crops of real food, raising families. A good life, one unlike anything we've ever known. There in the Preserve, we won't be divided; our sectors will no longer have any meaning.

My eyelids sag, and I catch myself before I nod off. As soon as day breaks, we'll send a group east in our newly acquired