Chapter 1 Shelter
’Humans are extinct. The last died in peace, surrounded by their loved ones, us.
’Their natural evolution.
Thwomp!
Vrwooosh!
‘Good genes’ the title we started with when the mutations began.
’Mutants ran further, worked longer, got smarter, more skilled.
’We ‘talented’ few, with our ’Good g-”
Thwomp!
Vrwoooosh!
Sssssssss!
“Nati!”
’Then came the Final Crash. It wasn’t our fault. If there’d been more of us, we might have saved humanity.
’Instead, billions died to war, famine, climate.
’We adapted, evolved but our core was human. DNA adds, never removes.
“Dammit girl!”
’Humans, new and old, will always group.
’But how?
’Blood
Vhroosh!
’Blood revealed our roots.
’We couldn’t let it go. We grouped, which is very different from uniting.
“Nati! I swear!”
Nati’s sledgehammer lifted and rested on her shoulder.
A flickering image of a masked, towering, figure vanished. The talking cut, a multi coloured Heads-Up-Display winked out. A living visor became a sheet of baby blue sunglasses.
“Nati!”
“I hear you! I’m coming!”
She gave one last swing and the wall she’d been working burst as if hit by C4.
Rot flew out, dense enough to force her back.
A hand over her face, Nati pulled a metal cube stuck to the wall and stuffed it inside a heavy white fur coat.
She stepped out the shadow of a cave into a world of the purest of white light. Raw heat washed over her, the fur recoiled, and relented, smoke billowed, and sand burned after her every step.
In a silver coat, bouncing the light, waited Raditz, the last of the borderless Dutch White Heart tribe.
Bronzed skin, pale pink lost to the sun. Blonde dreads, long silvered, were pushed away from his face and warm green eyes fell upon her.
She joyfully tossed the sledgehammer, the cinderblock sized slab of metal spun awkwardly, making him jump back.
Thwomp!
A dense ripple bounced sand and rock, it spread out of sight.
“What is it Old man?” She complained.
“We got a hit.” He grumbled.
“Meat or mineral?”
“Both, starting with your pocket.” He said smirking.
Brown eyes glared, he kept smirking. She relented, pulling out the metal box.
“What do you smell?” He asked.
She sniffed it.
“Gold,” She said, hoping.
“Nickel?”
“…Yeeees” she groaned, crushed.
“Good.”
He walked away. She rubbed her finger on the box and her glasses lit up.
’We unite, and we can do anything, you are evolved, you are special and together we are unlimited.”
She turned it off when the old man came back pushing three large tubes on a long square wheelbarrow. Circuitry lined them like muscle.
“Come now.” He said opening the first tube.
Inside were millions upon billions of dots, in rows that spun erratically as if each row were a set of eyes, bouncing from side to side looking for her special box.
She pouted.
“This was getting good.” She complained.
He stared at her a moment before he relented, his face dropping.
“Fine, what was it?”
“A post human resurgence propaganda holoflic with only 40% decay.”
“Nati, you have enough. We need Aluminium, tungsten and as much nickel as we get, which that has.”
She looked at it, unmoving. Gnarled fingers reached up and cupped her dark coco cheeks.
His other hand lifted past her head and her smile deepened before he pulled the tungsten splinter that held her bun. A mountain of jet-black dreads tumbled to her waist in a landslide. A split second to destroy what had taken so long to make.
The pouting intensified.
“I detected paper,” He whistled.
Things changed.
An impish smile formed.
“Enough for a book?” She ventured, daring to hope.
“Maybe even a shelf.” The words bubbled out his mouth like a merry jig.
Her gawk was enough to free a grizzly chuckle.
He grabbed her wrists and spun her with an ease that made her feel as though she weighed little more than a gnat.
That did it.
She squeezed and pulled. The metal bent and warped; cracked and ripped. The insides shattered and spilled into the first bin until the shell was tossed into the second. Immediately tiny beams of white, red and yellow assaulted it painting them before the lid closed.
She beamed when he winked.
“I swear you’re getting harder to deal with.” He said.
Nati pulled the old man’s silver dreads to stare into his eyes. It was impossible not to smile with a lighter heart, his every laugh was an event. And she wouldn’t be cheated of the experience.
“I know.” She said.
He grinned, his teeth were slightly off from perfect, gleaming whites with cracks and chips, far from mangled but off enough to be uncanny.
“You’re too clever for your own good.” He said.
“I’m supposed to be. It’s how you made me. That’s why I should have your name.”
“You have one. It’s not just a word. It’s who you are.”
“But-”
“I’m happier being the last White Heart.”
“I will never understand.” She said, letting it go.
There’d be another chance, maybe catching him drunk.
He kissed her forehead like she was still a toddler.
“You’ll understand soon, you grow so fast.”
She crossed her arms, shoulders dropping with a heavy breath.
“It’s not enough. Get revenge for what those tribes stole… if you have two people instead of one…”
“You’re what now? Sixteen? It all happened fifty years before you were born. It’s beyond you.”
Old man Raditz sighed but Nati didn’t ease up.
“If I can still feel its effects, how can it be beyond me? It has to do with me because it’s a part of you, your history. You’re my father.”
Nati stopped, the old man’s eyes widened. Her body pulled in, recoiling, bracing.
“Shut up girl!” The old man snapped. He sighed, freeing a deep and heavy breath. “Just shut up. Okay? You never, ever listen but this time you must. I’m not all. This world, this life, is not all.”
The tubes hummed; the crunch of metal followed; powder sprinkled into beakers.
Nati uncrossed her arms before crossing them, her fingers reached for her sides before re-crossing and uncrossing. Unsure of what she was trying to grasp. Her fingers dug into her hair and shielded her face with them.
“Bah! I hate it when you do that. There’s only us but you act like I’d judge you if I ever saw you cry… Fine, come. We have work.”
She hadn’t looked back.
He hugged her from behind, she tried to shake him off delicately, but he wouldn’t relent, swaying until she laughed.
“Okay,” She groaned, “I’m done.”
“You promise?” He breathed into her ear.
“I promise.” She whispered.
“Then… what can you tell me about the cave?”
“Former outpost.”
“How big?”
“Tiny, but the shell protecting the home was too tough to be anything cheap or slapped together.”
“Bones?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Together?”
“No.”
“So… meat?”
“I guess so.”
“You didn’t see it?”
“No, was it near me?” Nati exclaimed.
He chuckled. “And that scares you, of all people?”
“Phobias are still a thing.”
“What’s yours?”
Nati shut up, pulling a face he could somehow detect well enough to laugh at.
“Fine, keep your secrets. Can you kill?” He asked.
“Of course.” She said prideful.
“But?” He teased, rocking her from side to side.
“I’m never allowed to kill.” She bemoaned.
“Heroes don’t kill people.”
“I don’t even have people, just ‘person’.”
He squeezed her hard enough to push out a giggle.
“Killing starts small. You kill bugs, because they’re small and are crushed easily. Then what about lizards? They’re small too and go squish just as easy. Birds? They’re delicious, so why not? All your attempts at keeping a pet? They broke, might as well put them out of their misery. And then why not people? Things, one day, will get hard, and then; after saying ’why not’ so many times, you’ll break the rules once and because… Life… Is… Hard… you’ll break it again until the rules start to look like a chain. Your biggest enemy will be the rules and not the bad guy. All because you wanted to kill once. Don’t ruin your life just to make a hard destiny more comfortable. So, I’ll do the killing. My limited time-”
“Don’t say it.”
“Shush girl. Anyway, my time’s limited so I’ll do the killing until I can’t.”
“Then what?” Nati said, already smiling.
“Then eat potatoes.” He said without missing a beat.
He was letting go, she held his arms but would never so much as add pressure. That was trouble. She just touched his arms feeling them pull away.
Work time.
He walked away and Nati waited, bending deep enough to hug her knees until a large Xhosa shield hammered down next to her. It was a large oval with veins that, when picked up, lit up in ten squares in front shining in the man’s face.
“Off you go.” He said, putting on a visor of his own.
“No killing.” He warned, wagging a finger.
“Naturally” She groaned.
