Page 4 of Genesis
“Let’s go.” I walked past them, my eyes open and my ears alert.
“Where?” Amelia asked.
“We can’t go south.” Cadoc nodded in that direction, planes visible in the air. “Our best bet would be to go further into the grey area and hope for the best.”
Ever since the war started in this area, a section of what used to be the border between Canada and America had been blocked off and defended by rebel groups and private sectors. We called it the grey area. Thank fuck we weren’t anywhere neara coastline because those areas were what governments went after.
“We go west and try to find my crew.”
“I thought we were scouting,” Amelia said. “Where’s Zan?”
Cadoc’s eyes watered, so he lit another smoke and walked ahead of us. Stealing a vehicle would be faster, but that wasn’t smart until nightfall. Plus, a lot of the roads were blocked with abandoned cars or they had craters in them from smaller bombs.
“Who is it?” I asked Cadoc as another plane was shot from the sky. “It’s no government.”
Cadoc shook his head. “Just rebel groups. Let them fight and kill each other.”
“Dad said there are no more governments,” Amelia said. She didn’t have the same hatred for our father as we did, but I still noticed she hadn’t asked about him yet. “He said the militaries fought each other until their numbers dwindled, and then the stragglers joined up with rebel groups and gangs.”
Maybe. There were probably still some organized armies left. But mostly, the entirety of North America had turned totalitarian—all except this part. One government now ruled every part of North America but here.
“I don’t know, Ames. I just know we have to get deeper into the grey area or we’re gonna get bombed.”
“What even happened to make the world like this?” she asked, stuck in the middle between Cadoc and me. “Dad said a billionaire did it.”
“A megalomaniac wanted a totalitarian world and had the technology to do it. A pissed-off billionaire megalomaniac wiped out all technology to prevent it. Chaos ensued.” Cadoc looked through the scope of his rifle to scout the way ahead.
“Outside of here, there is totalitarian control, Ames. We’re just stuck in the grey area by chance.”
“You want that kind of government?” she asked. “You want out of the grey area?”
Never. I’d put a bullet through my head before someone forced me to leave. I hadn’t sought out the grey area, we just happened to already be in it by the time the rest of the continent was under that kind of control. “No.”
“Then who is fighting?” she asked, motioning all around us.
“We’re in the only free area left on this continent, Amelia. People are going to fight over it.” Cadoc looked at her. “The only reason we haven’t been taken over is because there’s no technology anymore, and whoever is in control needs time to regroup. They’ll come for this area, just like they overtook the rest of the country, and by that time, hopefully we’ll have stopped fighting each other so we can fight for it.”
“Why here? Why didn’t this place get taken over?”
“Because we have nothing of value here. Shitty farmland. No coastlines. No refineries or anything they need right now.” There were oil refineries all along the border, and they'd come for them eventually, but for now, we were left to war with one another. “Someone got told they couldn’t make a choice regarding their own body, and it sparked an online debate that reached critical levels. Governments stepped in to control their countries, but by that time, some tyrant motherfucker had hacked them all and taken power from the governments. Another tyrant motherfucker wiped him out, and now we’re just living in a world that's fighting itself. Outside of the grey area, they’re fighting for individuality. In here, we’re fighting for safety and territory.”
“Mass manipulation. Mass control. Mass hysteria. That’s what’s out there,” Cadoc added.
“How is that any different than here?” Amelia huffed, not understanding the depth of the new world we lived in. I barely understood it. I barely knew what we were fighting for.
“Because in here, we still have a shot at freedom. Dangerous and criminal freedom, but it’s still freedom.”
Until they come for us.
Because I was looking, I saw Cadoc’s heartbreak on his sleeve, but he was doing a decent job of hiding it from Amelia. I’d keep my promise to my brother and protect him from dying, but I never promised to make his life something nice. I wanted him to suffer, and I’d stop at nothing to make sure he did.
A week later,Amelia was as hardened to death and destruction as we were. Just like that, her childlike innocence washed out, and in its place came dire acceptance. She’d seen a lot over the course of a week, including point-blank murder. Cadoc killed freely whenever someone tried to kill us, and Amelia became numb to it. I killed when necessary, and she’d stopped crying over it when I killed a scumbag who’d tried to rape her.
Ironic that this all started with ‘my body, my choice’ activists, and now we were reduced to barbarians who raped and pillaged with no remorse. The human race was hypocritical.
Cadoc stopped walking. He shook his head and his panicked eyes met mine. With unclear eye contact, but a message I could read within them, he begged me not to make him walk over there. We’d been on the road in all directions for a week, and somehow, we’d ended up back at Synner’s Lake.
I left him where he was and brought Amelia to the edge of the cliff. This wasn’t going to be easy.
