Thick Black Theory: A Symbiont Wars Book (Symbiont Wars Universe) Read online

  “Okay, what’s going on Kaitlin?”

  “That will be obvious when I get there.” She hung up and texted Razor and Calypso then lifted Roundston into the wheelbarrow. As an afterthought, she plopped the coyote and the chicken on top of him then picked up the handles.

  I’m afraid today’s meal is going to include a show... and a tell.

  Kaitlin left the alleyway and headed across the compound. Along the way, she picked up lots of stares, a crowd of folks following her and an escort from some of Kest’s roda group.

  Razor and Calypso must have been busy texting up some support.

  At the cafeteria entrance, Bernard held one door open and a girl from the roda ran ahead and pushed the other wide. Kaitlin bumped the wheelbarrow up the wheelchair ramp and into the cafeteria. The chatter and bustle of the noonday meal collapsed. A few exclamations broke out, but those died quickly, replaced by a shocked silence.

  Kaitlin put the wheelbarrow down and put her hands on her hips. “I’m sorry to interrupt your lunchtime conversation, but something has come up that requires your immediate attention.”

  She looked around the room. “It strikes me as odd that all of you have allowed a situation to develop that could mean the destruction of your lives here when you have worked so hard to build a better world—one that once included parts north of here—when there was a United States of America. I’m sure you remember that nation. It was the one destroyed by power-hungry, human lamprey who burned it to the ground with their scorched-earth tactics.”

  Kaitlin frowned. “This place was established by forward-thinking, visionary people, though not all of them were humans. Their goal was to find ways of working together to build a common good. I doubt it was their intention to turn it into a group of people who ignored the reality of the world surrounding them. A world only a few days journey by foot.”

  Kaitlin allowed herself a tight smile. “If you suppose that is a world that can’t touch you, I submit to you this.... I’m from that world. I’ve lived in it. Been hammered by it. Fought back. And survived. I’ve met a number of you, so some of you know a bit about me. For you others, my name is Kaitlin Sannhetsdottir. I’m from a territory in Texas whimsically named Wet Gulch, where I was elected sheriff by the people because of my peculiar talent for keeping the folks around me alive and well.”

  turned to the wheelbarrow. “But let’s talk about your world for a moment. This morning, I climbed the hill to the north of your farm community to see if it would be a suitable lookout post to keep an eye out for trouble from the sorts of groups I’ve encountered in the recent past. Marian, my ward, was with me. When we came back down, she wanted to see the chickens.”

  Kaitlin waved at the dead leghorn. “But a coyote was there ahead of us. It threatened my little girl, and I shot it.”

  She pointed to the wheelbarrow. “Now we come to Mister Roundston. I assure you he is alive and his vitals are strong. He objected to my legal possession of a weapon in this suddenly very dangerous world. With no legal authority, he pulled his weapon and ordered me to disarm. He was panicked, unstable and refused to listen to my explanation. He was a danger to Marian, and I boosted her over the concrete wall to get her out of danger. I followed her and watched him as he came down that alley ready to shoot anything that moved. This left me with a choice.”

  Kaitlin held out her hands to either side of her. “I could leave and never look back, leaving you all under his... illusion of protection, or I could present you with a choice. I decided on the latter and disarmed him, bringing him here for you all to make a choice. Do you want to be under the protection of a leftover, low-level bureaucrat and her thuggish, cowardly cronies who seem more intent on keeping all of you away from the armory rather than making sure your community is ready to survive a hostile world? Or, do you want to elect your own government and appoint a sheriff? Someone, not me. I already have obligations. But, someone you trust who is answerable to you? How is a community—founded by people dedicated to stopping this kind of so-called governance—in this position in the first place?”

  Kaitlin shook her head. “... because it’s easier to hide your eyes and follow the crowd than to stand up.”

  No one spoke, but the sound of high heels clicking on linoleum echoed from the hallway. Doris Schnelling, trailed by two security guards, entered the cafeteria. “There she is,” she said to the guards. “Get the security chief to the infirmary.”

  “You can use the wheelbarrow,” Kaitlin said. “But tell him not to try coming after me again. Obstruction of justice and impeding a duly elected sheriff in the commission of her duty is a serious matter. I’ll let him off with a warning this time.”

  “I’ll have you know that I’ve spoken with the ambassador’s chief of staff, and she has already sent someone to deal with you,” Schnelling said, triumph oozing through her tone.

  “Really? How nice. Whoever it is can come find me. I’ll be with my family. Just tell them I’ll be eating lunch. Kaitlin snatched the leghorn from the wheelbarrow then looked around at all the people staring at her and walked toward the door, chicken in hand. “You can keep the coyote,” she said. “Are you coming, Bernard?”

  “Just a second, Sheriff,” said Bernard, his voice cut through the mutters in the room. “I think I see someone coming. Maybe we can get this cleared up now.”

  Bernard opened the door, and a man walked in. “I’m looking for Doris Schnelling,” he said.

  “Right here,” Schnelling said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  He turned and walked to her, holding out an envelope. As he passed Kaitlin, he nodded.

  Kaitlin nodded back. “Hello, Daniels.”

  Daniels held out the envelope and Schnelling took it. Then Daniels walked back to Kaitlin, holding out another envelope.

  Kaitlin took it. “What’s this all about?”

  “Thanks for having Brian call for help after you knocked me out, Sheriff,” Daniels said, turning to stand next to her. “But you should know that no good deed goes unpunished.... Now I’m working for you.”

  Chapter 43 — War cry

  Marian was working up her courage to jump off the three-meter diving board as Kaitlin tapped her fingers on the poolside table in thought. Bernard sat next to her, watching the pool as well. Daniels sat with his back to the pool.

  “So,” Kaitlin said. “Security from outside threats was never in the hands of Roundston,” she said. “But, now the clandestine resources that were handling that are being reassigned and we have to take up the slack.”

  “It’s more than taking up the slack,” said Daniels. “That team was only handling small threats. Now most of the backup forces from the tribal council that could swing here are stationed back with their home communities where the threats are more immediate since they’re closer to populated areas.”

  He shrugged. “You can’t blame them for focusing on their families. We still have a handful of trained soldiers from the Tribal Council here—the ones who brought their families along. They’ve had orders to stand down and watch developments here so troublesome elements could rise to the surface. Also, Kest’s friends from his martial arts group could be a resource, but I guess you already figured that out.”

  Kaitlin leaned forward. “What about everyone else? Were they ordered to let troublesome elements rise to the surface too? I swear, if I could convince Brian and Marlee to move to Mexico—”

  “I know.” Daniels said. “It’s hard to get people who dedicate themselves to finding peaceful solutions to think about armed conflict, but Tiana and Jonah say we need both kinds of people to get a society to survive internal and external threats.”

  “The behavior I saw here went beyond that,” Kaitlin snapped. “They wouldn’t even stand up for self-government. They chose to let someone take over their environment without challenge or insisting on input into a de facto rule.”

  Bernard shook his head. “Kaitlin, you’re right, but the majority of the people here are rule-followers.
They’re willing to sacrifice personal freedoms for a common goal.”

  “Not to mention their willingness to rationalize what they know is wrong.”

  “That too.” Bernard nodded. “You know, Kaitlin, I remember coming back from Vietnam. When I arrived back home, there were no grateful crowds waiting at the airport. Some people were embarrassed by that war. And though I now believe that conflict was ill advised and badly directed. It doesn’t mean that what the soldiers sacrificed was not worth the gratitude of the people back home. Most of the soldiers were not there by choice. Many lost parts of their bodies as well as their mental and physical health most would live the rest of their lives with memories of horror.”

  Kaitlin reached out and held Bernard’s arm. “I agree. But all the soldiers in that conflict knew that their friends and family at home were not in danger. But my concern is what happens to Marian while I’m gone? To Brian and Marlee? What happens if our flank is overrun while I’m at the front? Who will be here for them? All I know for sure is that it won’t be the people who wouldn’t even stand up for themselves.”

  Kaitlin sighed. “Let’s meet in thirty minutes in the conference room with the satellite maps. I need to look at our surroundings and how they affect overall strategy. I’m dropping off Marian with Calypso for self-defense class. Did any other girls sign up, Daniels?”

  “The class is full.”

  “Baby steps, I suppose,” Kaitlin said, standing and heading for the three -meter board.

  “EEEEYAAAAH!” Marian’s war cry sounded as she sprinted down the board. At the end, she launched into the air and tucked into a ball and crashed into the pool, leaving a momentary crater and waterspout on the surface of the pool.

  “Did you see me, Mommy?” she crowed as her head broke the surface.

  “Just like Super Girl,” Kaitlin called back.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  Kaitlin and Bernard watched as Daniels ran through the setup commands that brought the satellite photos and map overlays onto the screen top of the 1-meter by 2-meter table in the conference room. On Kaitlin’s left, the Bay of California formed the western border. The outskirts of Tucson colored the right side, and the southern half of Phoenix filled the top of the screen while the yellow line marking the border with Mexico dipped from left to right across the bottom.

  Kaitlin studied the map. It helped to have the visual to clarify her thoughts—even though the outline was the same as the one in her head. “As I see it, the three most likely vectors for trouble are.... from the direction of San Diego if desperate refugees attempt to skirt the Mexican border where it’s heavily guarded near Calexico, or a threat could come from Phoenix to our northeast. The least likely danger is from Tucson. That covers the civilian threats, but those aren’t the only possibilities. Rogue elements from the US military could also cause trouble. I won’t even go into what would happen if the US military attacks.

  The upside is that any ground-based attack would have to go through or avoid the more heavily armed Native American tribes that lie in those three directions. Sun Sea sends food to those places, right? How important is that supply to their survival?”

  Daniels nodded. “That’s a good question.”

  Kaitlin tapped the table to enlarge the area around Tucson. “Because a key part of our defense could be just to ramp up food production to make Sun Sea a more valuable ally.”

  Bernard stood and leaned over the map, tracing the rivers and water sources around Phoenix with his finger. “In this part of the world, people aren’t going to leave a water source if they don’t have to,” he said, tapping some of the larger bodies of water. “I think we need to have the intelligence people from the embassy and the tribes brief us on what they are dealing with and have in their projections.” He turned to Daniels. “Can we set that up?”

  “That depends, doesn’t it?” Daniels said.

  “On what?” Bernard said.

  “On whether the sheriff is taking the job or not.” He turned to Kaitlin. “You don’t really need to know all the details before you decide, do you?”

  Kaitlin turned from the map to Daniels. After a moment, she shook her head. “No, but I need to think this through. I’ll be back in a few hours. I’ll check on the sentry post while I’m doing that,” she said and picked up her rifle from where it leaned against the wall and opened the door.

  “Wait a minute,” Daniels said. He reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a rough ceramic pendant on a leather string. “Jonah and Tiana told me to give you this.”

  Kaitlin took it from where it looped over his fingers. Shaped like a teardrop, the pendant bore a stamped imprint of a circular labyrinth with a human stick figure at the top yet within the maze. The symbol was one she recognized; she’d used it in some of her stories. It was a Native American life symbol. Its ridges whispered across her fingers as she transferred the leather cord to her neck and tucked it inside her shirt.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  The trip up the lazy switchbacks the sentry team had cut into the south side of the hill with their mountain bikes felt like walking a maze to Kaitlin. On the ground, there was only one path, but, in her head, there were many.

  When Kaitlin reached the summit near the pop-up shade, the sentries had placed close by the game board, Calypso was taking her friend Rogue, an Apache girl about her own age, through using the rifle scopes. Calypso nodded to Kaitlin, but didn’t stop her training.

  Kaitlin turned to the East and considered the blunt point of Ajo Mountain about forty kilometers away then turned further south. The taller mountain, Baboquiveri, lay that way—a hundred kilometers further, but it didn’t show on the horizon. The clay pendant pressed into her breast. Kaitlin pulled it out and followed its curving paths as they looped in to touch upon the center at different points in their journey—the journey of the human soul. As she looked closer, she noted a curving point above the shoulder of the figure that could represent a tail. Kaitlin smiled, this was an alternate version of the maze, a bit more inclusive.

  Her eyes roamed back to the north then settled on rocks of the game board, noting their placement. Large, light-colored stones were framed with darker pebbles casting shapes behind them like shadows.

  Not shadows. Blindspots.

  Kaitlin flicked her eyes back to the north. The high points of the terrain matched the light-colored stones. The dark outlines were the ground the high points hid.

  Kaitlin was about to step forward and show Calypso and Rogue her discovery when a tiny flicker of movement at one of the four legs of the shelter stopped her cold. “Calypso, Rogue, stay away from the fabric on the shelter and move out of there. Stay on your feet.”

  The two girls moved out of the shade with graceful gliding steps, bringing the bullpups with them.

  “What is it, Sheriff?” said Calypso.

  Kaitlin pointed to the edge of the piece of fabric that stretched the canopy of the shade across the square frame and down to the brush the ground where metal stakes tethered it to the desert floor. A yellow-brown scorpion about the length of her little finger crawled upside down along the edge then ducked under the canopy where they could see it through the fabric as it climbed to the peak.

  “Fucking bark scorpions!” Rogue growled. “The inside of that canopy probably has a dozen of them hiding in it, and it’s almost the same color they are. Who brought this shade up here without treating it first?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Kaitlin said. “I shouldn’t have assumed everyone would know to do that. We have people here from all over and not everyone knows the danger. I expect the maintenance staff treats the grounds frequently and people haven’t seen them much inside the compound.”

  “I should have checked it myself,” Calypso said, frowning.

  “It’s easy to get distracted with threats that are far off and ignore the ones that are close at hand,” Kaitlin said. “I’ll send someone up with a tank of Permethrin. Don’t try to kill them yourselves; some would just get away.”
/>   Rogue shuddered. “My youngest cousin nearly died from one of those.”

  “Just keep an eye out. There might be a nest of them nearby,” Kaitlin said. “Here is something you can spend a few minutes on before you get back to your watch though.”

  Kaitlin pointed north at the desert below. “Look there.”

  Then, she moved her arm to point at the game board. “Then look there. When you see it, don’t tell anyone, but text me and tell me what you think it means. I want everyone to find it themselves. I’m not certain what to make of it.”

  She put the pendant back inside her shirt then took her phone from the pocket of her shorts and called Bernard. “Have Daniels set up that conference call,” she said when he answered.

  Chapter 44 — Another offer

  Kaitlin stomped the sand out of the treads of her boots and pushed through the door to walk down the hall to the conference room for the second time that day. When she stepped inside, her eyes flicked past Bernard and Daniels to the tabletop holographic-projector. The 3D projection of the nii ambassador, complete with formal cape, bowed. Her tail, the same striped pattern as her body, showed more clearly from the slit at the rear of the cape as she bent forward.

  “That was fast,” Kaitlin said, returning the bow, since shaking hands with a half-meter holograph was bound to be disappointing. “So is this the latest version of Skype? I guess I’ve been out of the social media scene for a while.”

  The ambassador laughed. She sounded human.

  She’s had centuries of practice at it.

  “Events are moving quickly,” said the ambassador. “This is a high priority for us. And I confess, I am curious to hear what you have to say.”

  “I’ll take the job, Ambassador Tiana” said Kaitlin. “But there are conditions.”

  The miniature ambassador on the table nodded. “Call me Tiana, please. What are the conditions?”

  “We all know the Sun Sea Farm is going to grow. It’s already outgrown the laissez-faire approach to self-governing it adopted when your management team went to Mexico with you. I want Bernard to manage the transition to a real government and focus on what is going on here so I can concentrate on threats from outside. Both of those are huge jobs, and I want someone I trust making sure the people I care about have a home worth defending while I’m concentrating on defending it. Scorpions can sneak into a house easily. And, so can bad rules and rulemakers..”