Excerpt from “Monsters on the Mount’” by Robert Jeffrey II, featured in “Terminus 3”, edited by Milton J. Davis.
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The sisters sat watching the news, the days tragic events flooding the small room. Footage of pitched gun battles over Stone Mountain Park rolled across the screen, while reporters and citizens rushed to cover. Taliyah held her tears in check; Lizzie let hers drop. Grandma sat next to them, her prayers rising to roof above her small Conyers home.
That’s when a blinding blast erupted miles away at the park, forever changing the world.
Lizzie sat, her knees pulled up to her chest, looking out the room’s window. She’d put in her earbuds, as the sounds of Anita Baker filtered through her ears. The young woman let the music take her away from the loud preparations taking place in the adjacent hangar.
Starlight filtered in through the thick pained window, shining down on her. Outside sickly gray looking craters lined the Moon’s surface. Many of the settlers found the terrain to be harsh, unforgiving, and “straight up ugly” as one of Lizzie’s colony classmates had remarked when their contingent had arrived at the lunar base.
For the young woman there was something beautiful about looking at the craggy indentations that made up her home’s surface. What she saw always reminded her of when her parents would take her hiking back home in Georgia. Sandy Creek Park. Sawnee Mountain Preserve. Ivy Creek Greenway.
Stone Mountain Park.
“Lizzie! You in there?”
She smiled, hearing the concerned hitch in her sister’s voice over the music.
“Come in, sis.”
The door whooshed open, allowing the tall frame of her sister to step through the doorway, carrying a tablet. Taliyah always joked she got the height from Daddy, and Lizzie got the short stack, frizzy fro’ genetics from their Momma. Taliyah’s sinewy frame was pushed into her jumpsuit, covered by the standard issue Seeker armor. The nano fiber combat bodysuit came replete with malleable insulation for protection from extreme environments, an adaptive camouflage layer, and enhanced plasma shielding against most types of weapon fire.
Taliyah had opted for bantu knots the last time they’d done each other’s hair. Though Lizzie had done a good job following the lead of their mothers’ lessons, she always admitted that Momma had always been better at doing hair. Lizzie remembered when she’d visit Taliyah for hair styling/ braiding sessions on base at Fort Stewart when she’d first enlisted. Lizzie would tag along, her attention alternating between her latest engineering class textbook, and Momma showing her the finer points of doing Taliyah’s hair.
It wasn’t just the height Taliyah had taken from her Daddy. She’d gotten the same dark skin, full lips, and hazel eyes as her father. She’d more than grown into the “imposing looking lady” their dad had always called her, pride rising in Taliyah whenever he said it.
Lizzie pulled out her earbuds. “What’s the word?”
“The team’s still prepping,” Taliyah replied. She placed the tablet on a nearby table, typing in a set of figures. A holographic image of Earth appeared in front of them, glowing blue. Taliyah typed some more on the tablet, and the image zoomed in even further, showing the point of interest in greater detail.
Lizzie looked back outside, watching a lunar rover shuttle a group of settlers to an awaiting transport. The Jemison class vessel had become the standard ferry to their new home on planet Kamaal. The ship was cylindrical in shape, sleek in overall aesthetic, with FTL engines jutting from the end of the vessel. Convoys of the Kamaal bound travelers had slowed as of late, as ion storms on Earth had increased over the past few months preventing Seeker operations.
“I keep thinking, “When’s our turn”? Lizzie asked.
“When the job’s done,” Taliyah replied. This conversation had been a constant and showed no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
“Taliyah, you say that every time they push our launch date back. There’s always another mission,” Lizzie said, frustration mounting.
Taliyah gave her a look, the “the serious stare”.
“What’d I tell you when you joined up?” Taliyah said.
“Taliyah…”
“Nope. Like Grandma used to say, you want to have grown folks’ conversations, let’s do it. What did I tell you?”
Lizzie looked at the spectral image her sister’s tablet was projecting, as if to escape from the escalating argument. Miniature holographic clouds rolled across the vast part of North America. The area was a wasteland, where ion storms appeared with extremme frequency and above ground living was fast becoming no longer possible. As a consequence of The Fall, the world had become almost uninhabitable, most of the planet now a scorched wasteland. Oceans had become charged glowing pools where sea life no longer existed. Cityscapes stood as burned and hallowed out testaments to the destruction wrought by the ion storms, constantly getting struck by the electrical tempests.
Back on the blighted Earth, Lizzie could hold her own with the other Seekers. She was one of the best Tech operatives the program had produced. Retrieval missions, search and rescue, and Scavyr strikes. She’d done it all on Earth. But confrontations with her sister: she hated them. She wasn’t scared of Taliyah. In fact, she loved her sibling fiercely. Arguments with Taliyah though had become tedious over the years at the Tycho Alpha colony. And she did everything she could to avoid them. She’d often find ways to lose herself in the constant engineering work on base, avoiding Taliyah and showdowns any way she could.
And why? Taliyah was all the family she had left. Their entire world had gone to hell and swallowed everyone up in it. She couldn’t afford to lose her.
Still looking at the hologram, she whispered, “The colony comes first. We come second.”
“Exactly. So, if the Collective decides to push our settlement orders back again, we don’t question it. I’m tired of having to repeat myself. Maybe it’s a military thing. Momma and Daddy would’ve understood, us all being Army.”
Lizzie’s head jerked up. “No. You don’t get to do that. I know Momma and Daddy would never back down from helping people who needed it. So don’t throw that in my face like I don’t give a damn about responsibility. That’s some passive aggressive shit, and low coming from you.”
Taliyah realized maybe she’d crossed a line. “Lizzie…”
“What’s the mission?” Lizzie said, ending any further conversation.
The older sister took the hint and typed a few new commands on the tablet. Zooming further into the image, Taliyah brought up the Southeast region of the former United States of America. More zooming. Georgia. More zooming. The metro Atlanta area. More zooming.
Lizzie’s breath caught in her throat.
“Taliyah, tell me this is a joke.”
Taliyah looked up at her sister, the blue of the hologram illuminating the concern etched on her face.
“It’s not,” Taliyah replied.
Lizzie stood up, walking around the table, as if seeing the light construct from different angles might make it more real. In front of her, the bombed out husk of Stone Mountain stood in front of her. As if hollowed out by a frustrated deity, the top of the mountain had been ripped off, creating a hollow chasm which led to God knew where.
“Hell,” was all Lizzie could muster.
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