Fractured: Tales of the Canadian Post-Apocalypse(15)

Yes, Father, I called them, I coaxed them, I promised them the greatest raid of their miserable lives, the sack and pillage of the fabled riches of the island of Quebec. And they came, no doubt as unsure as young newlyweds, and just as unable to resist their lust.

“Where did they come from?” Carolin asked, appalled.

“Out West, of course.”

They were far more numerous than expected. Fraser had played it very close to his chest indeed… The tribals had to know that Quebec’s gunboats would keep them from fleeing toward the mouth of the St. Lawrence. They presumably planned on heading up the Appalachian rivers and following mountain trails back to their hideouts… But numbers didn’t matter, not for a man who had all the dome’s lasers to play with!

The cameras allowed Darrick to pick out scenes of carnage amid the ongoing sack of Port-Sillery. Bodies shot with a blunderbuss or a tribal bow littered the streets. Houses burned. A few tribals were already heading back to their boats with a first load of loot.

Others turned their back on the port to flood the streets of Upper Sillery. Darrick finally identified Fraser as the leader of a heavily armed band of Newfs.

“This fish is too big for you, old man!”

He selected his targets and triggered a volley at the first row of oncoming Newfs. Five times his finger squeezed the button and five times human torches burned.

But not the sixth and then the seventh time. He squeezed tighter, but the laser refused to fire. While the tribal ranks had wavered for a moment, Fraser called them back to him and they marched with new resolve. Were they now looking for the way to the dome?

Darrick tried to switch lasers, even though other angles were suboptimal. The first laser might have overheated, fallen victim to accumulated wear and tear, or broken down when it had tried to swing too fast…

He used the screen to change the number of the laser linked to the joystick and he selected the targeting function again. Fraser’s face filled the screen and Darrick fired.

Once again, nothing happened.

A quick glance at the secondary monitors showed him the reactor was still generating more than enough power. He tried the other lasers. Not a single one still worked. He finally gave up, staring at the pillars of smoke rising from Sillery’s streets. Somewhere, a chip in the control circuit of the lasers had failed. Obviously, most parts were long past their design lifetime. He should have expected it. Yet, he had come so close…

“And now?”

Carolin’s voice trembled, but it was shaking from anger, not astonishment as before. Darrick understood: the young man felt betrayed. Just as the ironbearer had been betrayed by his father.

“That was your plan? Killing all your enemies with the dome’s lasers and then replacing your father as our ruler?”

“Why not? He killed my older brother.”

“That’s because your older brother had the son from his first marriage assassinated.”

“I’m ridding you of a monster!”

“Did you really believe that the population would tolerate a new governor with a trigger-happy finger and an all-powerful weapon? Especially if he took power after killing his own father and dozens of guards? Most of these men have wives, families, kids. Do you actually think they won’t hate you for it? That we won’t fear what you might do? You’ve already made yourself into a new monster. Like father, like son!”

“But…”

He bit his tongue. He had been on the verge of confessing that he was behind the Newf attack, that he had expected to repulse it with the dome’s lasers to show the population that he would be their protector.

Only one thing left to do.

“Believe what you want. As my father’s heir, I’m leaving this reactor to the city of Quebec. So that you can dream of a better world.”

The surveillance screens showed guards and musketeers heading for Sillery. News of the Newf landing had finally reached them.

Carolin did not keep him from leaving. His arms crossed, the student stood in front of the controls, ready to prevent Darrick from trying to use the lasers again. By force, if necessary. Not that the ironbearer still wanted to.

Once he made it back down, Darrick used a whistle to gather his men. He would join the Sillery men fighting the tribals, along with anybody willing. Whatever happened next, he doubted that he would ever see his brothers again.

As he walked down the nave, his gaze wandered over the statuary erected along the side aisles. Each statue illustrated a vice or sin, both the ancient ones and the modern variants proscribed by the Church during the dark years.

There was a naked man standing erect and holding his own genitals torn off at the root. The carver had rendered its stance with a disturbing attention to the gory details: the ragged edge of the torn flesh, the dangling edge ends of veins and ligaments, the improbably gaping wounds of the groin, and the first signs of unbearable pain dawning on the lustful masturbator’s face.

Other statues condemned pollution and abortion, greed and jealousy.

Yet, Darrick now regretted bitterly the absence of one additional statue. After the dark years, though, nobody had thought it necessary to remind survivors of the dangers of the sin of pride.





KALOPSIA


E. Catherine Tobler

So, they had an elephant.

We had a roller coaster.

Didn’t matter how they got they elephant, did it? Zoo is a fair distance from our Playland in ’Couver, but I don’t know. You ride that elephant up they broken Trans-Canada Highway like a jaguar? You ease over to they rubble-shoulder should someone come up behind you on a camel? Camels outpace elephants mostly because they sleek, but come now. Those zoo walls fell with every other wall when they bombs come and it’s just a wonder they elephant doesn’t glow in they dark with they rest of us. Maybe him wandered up here. Don’t tell me they went all down zoo-way to get he. To intimidate us?