Chapter 8

The rows of naked workers all had the same look on their faces: defeat. And the sentries holding guns and whips in their hands all had the same look on their own faces: hate. That’s what people had become reduced to. That’s what Todd had been reduced to.

Todd shuffled forward, carrying a basketful of strawberries down the line of hydroponic tanks to the storage bins where all the food he and the rest of his slave laborers picked would be packaged and sent to whatever was still left under the Coalition’s control, which Todd hoped wasn’t very much.

Unlike his coworkers, however, Todd’s ankles were shackled together, which severely limited his speed and ability to make it to the bins in the same amount of time as his nonrestricted brethren. The shackles were an excuse for the sentries to whip him, and the trickle of blood from the strips of opened flesh on his back left a trail of crimson on the floor of the farm camp.

The only events that played through his mind were those of the community in Wyoming. He kept looking back for anything he’d missed when he was talking to Alex. But in the end, he knew exactly what had happened. He let the urgency of the situation and the belief that everyone wanted to take down the Coalition as much as he did blind his decision making until it was too late. He was so focused on the end result that he was willing to sacrifice the integrity of the elements involved to get there. Which was exactly what the Soil Coalition did in the very farm camps where Todd was stationed.

Todd examined the sullen faces around him. The hollow cheeks, the pencil-thin arms and legs, the pronounced ribs ready to penetrate the very skin holding them in place. He wondered how long these people had been here. How long would he survive in here? There was no doubt that Gordon wanted him dead, but for whatever reason, he didn’t have the firing squad take him down after he was captured. Did Gordon want him to suffer more? Is that why he had been put in this place? Perhaps. Or maybe Gordon was waiting to see if the scientists were able to recreate his solution without him. Then, once it was confirmed they had what they needed, Todd would receive a bullet to the back of his head while on his way to drop off a carton full of berries.

There would be no ceremony for him after it was done. No burial. He would be scooped up, tossed into a pile of other worthless bones, and set ablaze. He wouldn’t get to see his wife again. He wouldn’t get to talk to his daughter anymore. The bastards wouldn’t even give him the opportunity to be buried next to her.

Todd suddenly became brutally aware of the circumstances of her death. He was transported back to the day she passed. She was so sick, her body ravaged by the effects of GMO-24, just like it had destroyed so many other children and elderly too weak to handle the strains of genetic mutations. Her intestinal decomposition had accelerated past the organ’s ability to process any type of food or nutrients. It didn’t matter what they fed her, her body just couldn’t handle it.

Todd had never spent so many hours in the lab leading up to that point. The moment he found out what was happening, he and Emma started working on a cure. But they just didn’t have enough time. And so Todd was faced with a choice. Let his daughter suffer through the slow, agonizing effects of starvation and dehydration, or relieve her of that burden.

The crate full of berries in Todd’s hands began to tremble as the strength in his arms gave out. She wasn’t much bigger than the box he was carrying now when it happened. She was so small. So weak and in so much pain. He just didn’t have enough time. He cursed the relentless hand of time that waited for no man or excuse. It just kept ticking forward, bringing with it the inevitable fate that befalls everyone. No parent should have to bury their child, and no parent should ever have the disgusting task of ending their child’s pain themselves.

He and Emma buried her the same day. The sentries weren’t as strict back then, and they were allowed a brief time of bereavement. Todd didn’t sleep for three days after he put his daughter in the ground. He didn’t eat. He simply watched the world around him continue in its decay. Just like his little girl, the world experienced a slow death. Brought to slaughter by some faceless enemy whose only goal was darkness.

But somewhere within those three days of sleepless misery, the faceless assailant began to take form. Todd could see the features pronounced more clearly the longer he was awake. Every second his mind and body grew weary was another stroke of the brush on the canvas, painting the masterpiece of death. The grim reaper himself was taking shape, and Todd reached out his hand to uncloak the beast underneath.

When Todd finally pulled back the hood, Gordon Reath’s face showed itself. He was the poster child for what happened. He was the face of the Coalition that had forced him to bury his own daughter. And in that moment, all the pain and apathy and fear and loss replaced itself with the honed, razor edge of purpose. One he hadn’t quit sharpening since that very day.

But now, all the tools he had used to wield the one weapon that could bring down the violent facades around him were gone. He no longer had a lab to mass produce his cure to the virus that now plagued the world. All he could do was watch as the virus harnessed the power of Todd’s cure to continue its conquest and stranglehold on everything he held dear.

Todd emptied the cart of strawberries into the bin and then returned to the hydroponic tanks to strip the plants bare of their yield. A man, probably no older than Todd, carried a bag of the nutrients used to keep the water in the tanks at a suitable level for growth. Todd watched the man’s knees buckle and bend, his frail body straining under the weight of the bag, until he stumbled and fell to the floor, spilling the opened sack onto the ground.

Terror struck the man’s face, realizing the calamity of what he’d just done and the repercussions that would accompany it. The sentries were already converging on him as the mindless zombies surrounding him stepped around the spilt nutrients as the man desperately tried to scrape them off the ground and return them to the bag.

The whip at the sentry’s side extended to the ground and dragged slightly behind him until he and his two crusaders of pain towered over the man.

“Please,” the man said, clasping his hands together, begging for any type of leniency that was pointless to ask for. “I can pick all of it up. I can fix this. Please.” The voice was panicked and filled with a desperate tone that accompanied inmates on death row, pleading their innocence to the stone-faced executioner who sharpened his axe.

The first lashing sliced the man’s shoulder, triggering a pool of red crimson to contrast over the pale-gray flesh. The man howled and crumpled to the ground, curling up into a ball, holding his thin arm up and exposing his palm to the sentries, repeating the words “stop” and “please” interchangeably and repeatedly. But the next quick crack of the whip that opened a gash on the man’s leg was the only answer he would receive from the brutes in front of him.

Todd rushed forward in awkward, restricted jolts, as the chains around his ankles only allowed him to travel so far before the metal cut into his skin, causing him to stumble. He managed to get his hands around the neck of the first sentry but was quickly placed on his back by another sentry and was administered the same whipping as the man he tried to save.

Lying there on the ground, feeling the harsh burn and sting of consequences rushing over him, Todd could see the confusion and pain spread across the man’s face. He couldn’t understand why Todd had risked his own well-being for the fruitless endeavor of trying to help him. But Todd didn’t do it for the man, he did it for himself. He needed to prove that no matter what the conditions, or how painful the consequences, he would continue the fight to show those around him that they are in control of their fate. They have the ability to stand up for what they believe in and challenge the harsh realities of the world around them. Even after everything that happened, Todd was still trying to show the people who were enslaved that they had a choice.