Josué nodded slightly, hoping Héctor wasn’t serious.
“I mean it! You must promise me not to fight, no matter what the circumstance.”
Josué looked in his Master’s eyes. The loyalty there humbled him. He knew these instructions came ultimately from his father and were for his good. “I promise.” Josué fought back a shudder at the words.
“If you get captured, you get captured. You must do everything you can to stay alive tonight – everything that is but fighting. Your survival is paramount. The future of the Trevino Family rests in you.”
A low rumble shook the ground. Josué looked at Héctor. The Weapons Master’s eyes widened. Black smoke curled up from the edges of the hidden panel.
Josué’s heart stood still. “The bunker!”
Héctor pulled a lever in the weapons rack. The panel swung open. Billows of smoke rolled into the room. Josué watched Héctor’s back disappear into blackness before putting his sleeve up to his nose and plunging in after his master.
Near the lift, Josué’s hopes rose as the smoke cleared. They fell immediately when he saw the shaft was a shambles. A twisted bar of painted yellow metal poked out of the rubble, all that was left of the lift.
“It’s caved in. Go back.” Héctor waved him to the training room.
Josué obeyed mechanically, wondering how they would dig out the shaft, and how long it might take. He bumped along the narrow passage to the training room. Just as he stepped onto the dojo mat he heard a high-pitched whistle then felt a push from behind. Héctor’s body slammed into his. A loud roar blew the wig over his eyes. The two of them landed in a heap on the training mat. Josué looked back as fire licked out of the passageway onto the ceiling.
“Up! Get out. They’re shelling us!” Héctor grabbed the back of Josué’s tunic and pulled him toward the glass doors then out onto the covered walkway.
Outside, flames shot into the night sky from the center of the manor. By the light of those flames a picture of chaos played before him. A dead body hung from a watchtower. Another lay along the wall. Laser flashes blazed in bright orange and green.
Héctor led Josué along the path toward the lab. As they crossed the bridge, the building exploded in a ball of fire. A deafening crash shook the ground. Josué threw himself down next to Héctor, covering his head with his arms. Rock and glass rained around his shoulders.
Before he could get back up, a dark uniformed arm grabbed his shoulder. Josué got to his feet and raised his hands over his head. The guard grabbed his wrists, forcing his arms down and around his back.
Héctor rose too, arms and legs a blur of motion. Two black-clothed bodies with the Omri Family insignia on their chest flew into the pond, their necks at odd angles. A third collapsed at Héctor’s feet.
One moment Josué smiled at the awesome display of his teacher’s ability, the next his expression turned to horror as the chest of the brave warrior, from whom he’d learned so much, exploded in bright light. Héctor’s body flew back, away from Josué, landing in a crumpled heap. Vacant eyes stared up into the dull red sky.
NO! Josué wanted to shout. He flexed against the restraints on his wrists, but they were secure. He wanted to send his captor flying and find the one who had slain his Weapons Master. Then he remembered his promise and forced himself to calm down. He had sworn not to fight. I must stay alive, he told himself. Tears found their way down the sides of his face. His body trembled.
Josué bowed his head and bit his lip. Shrinking beneath his curly hair and tunic, he willed those around him to see only his disguise. He was Aissa, now. His family must survive, he told himself. Héctor had just died for that.
The guard pushed him forward. “Move, Trevino scum!” he shouted in his ear. A kick sent him stumbling to the front walkway. A blow on the back of the head knocked him down into a kneeling position. A knee on his back pressed his face into the ground. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a line of bound women hunched over, spread out on both sides of the manor walkway. Was he doing the right thing?
The ground in front of him flickered red and orange. Snaps and pops like oil on a frying pan burned the air above him.
A hot ash landed on his neck, stinging like an angry bee. Josué closed his eyes and welcomed the pain, a small distraction from the horrors taking place around him.
His father was trapped – if he was still alive. Héctor was dead. The shrieks of men and women filled his ears. His lungs were heavy with the smell of burning oil.
The future of the Trevino Family rests in you, he heard in his mind.
What does that mean? he asked back. All that is good about the Trevino Family has been cast aside here. Why should I care? He wished he was with his father.
“Get down and stay down,” a guard yelled. The heel of a boot caught the back of his neck, pushing his face back onto the cement. The heat from the manor flames warmed his back. Tears choked his throat. He waited.
The electronic crackle of a sound system told him something new was happening. Josué’s turned his head to the front of the manor. A white light from a projector-bot illuminated what was left of the manor walls. The image of the control room fuzzed in and out, framed by orange flames. As it stabilized, Josué drew a breath in. His father’s battered figure sat in front of the control panel.
Blood and dirt spattered the man’s face. One of his arms hung useless at his side. Half-laying, half-sitting, he looked out with a bewildered expression on his face.
A squat, heavy-set man with a mop of black curls across his forehead strutted up the walkway to stand in front of the flaming manor. A tiger-striped jacket over a black T and loose, black leather pants gave him the look of an off-world tourist. Two guards flanked him.
“Porfirio! Is that you?” The man shouted to the image on the manor wall. “You should be more careful who you allow into your bunker. Or didn’t Leonard tell you about the bomb we surgically implanted in his body?” The man laughed.
“Ormand, you won’t get away with this!” Porfirio wheezed in the image on the manor wall before a cough shook his whole body.
“Who will stop me? The Ruling Families? What can they do? There are no witnesses. Enrique’s obfuscator kept you unaware of my troops and now it will keep any prying eyes from seeing what I don’t want them to. Besides, haven’t you heard? They work for me now. You were the only one to refuse my payroll!” Ormand burst into a wicked laugh.
Josué felt like vomiting. He hoped his father would level the manor and put an end to this man.
“But don’t worry – we’ll have a hologram to show them. We’ll share it with anyone who may consider following your example. Your death will not be in vain. You and your pathetic Family will serve a worthy purpose. They’ll all be glad they joined me after they see what happens to you.” Ormand’s shoulders shook in mirth.
Four Omri guards pulled two charred bodies up the manor pathway. They stopped next to Ormand. The first body Josué recognized right away, his old friend and trainer Héctor. The second body made Josué’s blood run cold – it was a perfect replica of himself.
Josué could see recognition in his father’s eyes. It’s not me! He wanted to scream. Josué tried to jump to his feet, but a sharp knee in his back forced him down and knocked the wind from his chest. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move.
“And now goodbye, Porfirio.” Ormand gave a sardonic frown.
Josué watched his father reach with his good arm for the red button. He hesitated for a brief second before flipping the protective cover open and mashing it down.
Josué cringed, expecting the entire compound to erupt in some kind of horrible explosion. Instead, there was a flash on the screen and a surprised look in his father’s eye. The image cut off. Another rumble shook the ground beneath them.
Ormand chuckled as he turned to walk down the manor path and out of the compound. Josué heard his boots pass. “Good old Enrique. He re-wired that switch too.”
Josué closed his e
yes and pressed his face to the cold, hard cement. His father was surely dead.
Chapter 7, Rice
Josué ducked as the tree-trunk sized tail swung over his shaven head. The other slaves, two natives and a settler, bent theirs in turn, keeping their shoulders to plow.
The dino rider’s whip cracked. The giant sauropod grunted and pulled. Josué stepped, knees to elbows, keeping up with the animal through thigh-high water. The Sonoran sun reflected into his eye from the murky rice paddy, blurred by the bead of sweat burning in the corner of it.
The tail was back. This one usually kept it higher. Josué reached up to touch the leathery skin as it swung over his head. Sometimes all a dinosaurs needed was a gentle touch to remind it there were humans behind.
Josué looked over the marshland and remembered flying his viper over this very spot. He had never imagined the silt-like sand that pushed between his toes or the overturned grass that scratched against his legs, leaving welts that could last for days.
Leaning his shoulder into the worn brown wood, he eyed the girl next to him. She was slumped over, arms hanging from her shackles, forehead resting where her shoulder should be.
A tearful cry sounded in his mind.
“Look sharp, Felisa,” Josué said under his breath. “If the dino-rider catches you, it’s the whip.”
“I can’t make it, Aissa.” Her tired yellow eyes turned to look at him through half opened slits. “I can’t feel my toes.”
He peered into the marsh waters. “Do you have a sucker?”
Her hand dipped to search along her leg. A stifled hiss escaped her mouth. She shifted her stance. “Yes!”
“Rip it off. Here.” He leaned into the plow to give her the slack she needed.
She struggled to keep her balance as she yanked the long slug-like creature out of the water.
“Pinch its head off so it won’t come back.”
Ugh. He definitely heard that word mentally. Josué cocked his head to the side. He’d never heard any of the other natives in his mind. He wondered what was different about her.
“How come you never get these?” she asked as she threw the pieces into the water behind them with a plop.
“Don’t know. Luck I guess.”
He had seen more than one slave fall from the blood loss of a sucker. They were usually dragged to their death. Dino-rider slave masters prohibited anyone from helping them. “One less mouth to feed,” was how they put it.
The dino-rider caught his eye. “No talking!” The man cracked his whip and left a burning sensation five inches long across Josué’s back.
The slave master aimed another at Felisa’s face, but Josué lifted his arm to stop it. The whip curled around his shackle and held fast. Stumbling to keep his balance, he arched his back, feeling the whip tighten then go slack. Startled, Josué watched the slave master fall into the water with a splash.
His heart raced. Yanking against the plow, he backed away as far as he could, in vain. He had nowhere to go. Giving in to the inevitable, he looked forward and waited for the punishment in whatever form it would take.
The others stared at him, their shocked eyes riveted.
The pointed mustache of the slave master leered down at him. The man’s red cheeks were framed by dark matted hair. He spit in Josué’s face, raised the whip like a club and slammed it down on his head. “How dare you touch the whip of a Master!”
Josué watched stars dance before his eyes as the man’s arm moved back for a second blow. Then his vision turned yellow. He lifted the plow, the curved blade coming with it. Hard metal struck soft flesh. Red swirled where the guard’s knee should have been.
Curses and threats rained over Josué’s head. A gloved hand grabbed him by the neck; the crushing grip folding his throat and cutting off the air. His eyes bulged. Sun glinted from the man’s iron breastplate. He wondered if this were the end and felt a strange peace about it. Perhaps he should have died with his father the night of the attack.
A sudden wind passed before his face and the dino-rider’s hand was ripped from under his chin. Air rushed back into his chest. His eyes focused.
A deafening roar erupted from the sauropod. Josué couldn’t ever remember hearing a sauropod roar. There was blood in that cry.
The dinosaur’s tail lifted the Slave Master in the air before casting him into the marsh. Then the great beast rose on hind legs and landed square on the slave master’s chest. A cloud blossomed in the water where the man had fallen.
Felisa put her hand to her mouth. Josué watched the others. Their gazes were fixed on the angry dinosaur’s sinewy neck.
It settled down as if nothing had happened. And they waited. Unsure what to do. Not able to do anything.
***
A steward on a hover lorry flew in a lazy arc over to where they stood, sweating in the hot sun. “Where is your slave master?” he demanded.
No one spoke.
The man’s eyebrows tilted at a dangerous angle.
Josué imagined only the dino-rider’s bones were left by now. The marsh would strip a dead body of its flesh in less than an hour. Once a sucker smelled blood it was hard to keep it away. With the suckers came other undesirables in the marsh waters.
“I’m not going to wait forever for you pieces of filth. You’re wasting my time. Someone will talk or I’m going to shoot.” The man pulled a blaster from his belt. “I’ll start with the youngest.” He glared at Josué and Felisa, trying to decide which was the youngest.
Josué caught sight of the oldest woman on their team. Her eyes were fixed on him as if in contemplation. Would she tell the guard what had happened? All at once he decided he should be the one to tell. His mouth was half open when the elder woman spoke loudly, “The slave master left. Into the jungle!” She pointed to their left. “He made us swear to say nothing or he would kill us.”
Josué looked at her in amazement. She had told an outright lie.
Felisa caught his glance. Her eyebrows furrowed and her gaze shot to the ground. Josué looked down too and closed his mouth. Anything he said now would only make things worse.
The steward keyed his radio. “We’ve got a deserter. Alert the search teams.” The guard put his radio away and turned back to the four of them. “You sucker scum wasted my time. If we weren’t running out of slaves, I’d kill all four of you and feed you to this lizard here. Instead, I’ll personally watch while they beat you. Then, I’ll place you in the stocks myself. Consider yourselves lucky.” The guard turned his lorry around and flew away.
When he was gone, Josué searched the faces of the others. Silent dread filled their eyes.
He nodded to the oldest. “I’m sorry . . . I got you into this . . . I didn’t mean . . .”
The older woman’s gaze was focused on the dinosaur. She smiled. “I can’t go against the will of an ancient one, Josué. You will survive this day, even if we do not.”
His heart skipped a beat. How had she known his name!
Chapter 8, Felisa
Josué awoke to moist dirt pressing against his cheek. Cold metal gripped his ankles somewhere above his head. Stars gleamed down through the dark outlines of the buildings around him.
He didn’t remember falling asleep on the quad. Come to think of it he didn’t remember falling asleep at all.
He struggled to sit, but his muscles protested. His back erupted in a fire of pain. Under his shirt, skin cracked. It was easier to give up. He lay still and closed his eyes, unable to think from exhaustion.
In the dim light of pre-dawn he saw Felisa next to him, lying with her feet up. Her tunic was a pattern of dark streaks and oblong-shaped shadows, reminding him of raptor stripes.
A heavy chain hung from his arm leading to shackles on hers. The stocks! They were in the stocks.
A dim memory of being forced over a waist-high post, ankles tied to wrists came back to him. Then the whip had started and his memory became fuzzy as though it had all happened in another lifetime. br />
He remembered wondering when it would stop before a soft, black nothing. Someone must have carried him here.
His foot kicked involuntarily, sending a shudder down his side. This was going to be a day.
With considerable effort he pulled himself up to sit on the bench, gritting his teeth as he did it. Felisa stirred and woke next to him. He almost mumbled an explanation before he heard the snort of a guard sitting in the dark off to their right.
Lifting the chain between them, he helped her up.
Ugh! he heard her say mentally.
Memories of Elder John came back to him. He wondered if Felisa had the same ability as the blue-robed elder. Hadn’t he heard her in the marsh?
Ugh. He found himself saying in his own mind.
Felisa looked up. Josué watched her eyes narrow. She hunched forward, searching the quad without looking like she was searching it.
He looked away to hide his smile. It was obvious she had heard him ‘speak,’ and it was also obvious she didn’t know he had been the one who’d spoken.
Finally, she gave up and stretched her back gingerly. He marveled at how elegant she looked even after she’d been beaten to a bloody pulp. Her back was straight, hips perfectly balanced on the narrow bench.
Next to Felisa, the elder lady lay slumped forward. Josué stared at her, wondering how she could breathe. Her skin looked as gray as the morning sky.
Oh! he said, not meaning to make it a mental word.
At his thought, Felisa turned to look at the woman. Then she glanced back at Josué, frowned and sat forward. She avoided his gaze after that.
The door to the sleeping quarters opened. A mess hall worker slipped across the quad as the first light of day crept over the horizon. Josué caught a glimpse of white sheets tucked around wooden cots as the door squealed shut. Even the hard beds of the dorm looked enticing to his stiff limbs.
More slaves came out, crossing to the mess hall. Their stares and questioning looks made him feel exposed. He hunched forward.