Chapter 36: J.S.U.
“Shit, Vivi!” Eli almost dropped his rifle while he hung out the passenger window, shooting at the sprinting, screaming ferals coming at them from the side. “Give me a heads-up before turning next time!”
“Sorry!” She cranked the steering wheel to straight them out, following behind Hailey as they weaved between fragmented houses in the small town ruins, kicking up plumes of sand as their rear wheels skidded around the corner. “On the left!”
“I see ’em…” Eli leaned further out the window and took aim at the four screeching runners barreling out of an ancient house just ahead of them.
He couldn’t aim well enough while hanging out of a moving vehicle, trying not to choke on the cloud of sand in Hailey’s wake, to go for any headshots. But he didn’t need to. They just had to get away from the ferals without their van being stopped, not kill all of them in the defunct small town the were passing through. With four quick, short bursts, he cut their rotten legs out from under them, blowing out knees and shins, and blasting chunks of putrid flesh to the sand. The ferals clawed at the ground, frantically dragging their useless legs, screeching single-mindedly as they refused to give up the chase. But crawling ferals weren’t a threat to a speeding van.
Managing to drop back inside and onto his seat before Vivi took took a hard left turn, Eli dumped the empty mag from his rifle and grabbed the radio.
“Hailey?” He asked as they hit a straightaway and rapidly gained speed, leaving the crippled ferals behind. “How’s it looking up there?”
There was a brief pause, then Hailey’s voice came through his handheld receiver. “It looks clear. We should have a straight shot to the forest from here.”
“Nice work. Keep an eye out for more hazards, and don’t miss any check-ins.” He relaxed his shoulders.
“Okay.” Hailey said, “Uh, I mean, roger that.”
Eli chuckled to himself as he set the radio down on the console. He’d told Hailey she didn’t need to worry about using proper callsigns and radio etiquette, since it was just the two of them in communication, but she liked it, even if she didn’t fully understand or know most of it.
Vivi reached down to grab her pack of supplies that had fallen over during their rapid maneuvering, set it upright between her and Eli, then one-handedly fished a canteen out of the bag and wordlessly passed it to Eli.
“Thanks.” Eli took a drink, swished it around, then spit the sandy water out the open window. “Ugh. I should’ve grabbed the face mask from our car….” He spit out another mouthful of gritty sand.
He splashed some of the water over his head to wash the sand from his wounds, sucked in a pained breath from the sting of it scraping against the raw injury, then sighed from the cool relief that followed. Of course, his shirt was soaked and matted with wet sand as a result, but it was already ruined anyway, so he didn’t give it a second thought.
“Think they’re ready to talk yet?” Vivi asked, tipping her head toward where their captives were gagged in the back of the panel van.
“We can find out.” Eli shrugged.
The older man had woken up first, about ten minutes after they left the lab, and was unbearably petulant. His shouting and ranting was obnoxious enough to wake his female comrade, who wasn’t quite as unruly, but Eli didn’t feel like dealing with their nonsense at the time. He’d found some rags in the van’s built-in tool chests, gagged them, and left them alone in hopes that their little tantrum would burn out and they’d calm down before he questioned them.
Passing Vivi the half-empty canteen, Eli crawled over the center console, grunting at the pain in his ankle from where his wound re-opened during their assault on the research lab. White-hair’s eyes still raged with indignant fury, but the redhead looked much more collected, and more curious than angry. He ignored the seething old man and opted to try his luck with the ginger giant. Crouching down beside her, he tugged the thick brown cloth away from her mouth and slid it down past her chin.
“Where…” She worked her stiff jaw up and down before speaking further, “Where are you taking us?”
“You’ll find out when we get there.” Eli said in a low, no-nonsense tone. “What is the JSU?”
“….I’d like to sit up…” She spoke unnervingly calmly.
“You answer the question, and I’ll consider it.”
She held his gaze for a few seconds, her hazel eyes unwavering, until she finally took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh of resignation.
“An expeditionary force of the Jericho Federation of New Nashville; Jericho Salvation and Unification.” She answered.
The old man made some muffled protests into his gag and struggled against his bindings. A swift fist to the gut shut him up before Eli removed the steel wire attaching the tall woman’s wrists to her ankles behind her back. She was still restrained, but no longer fully immobilized as Eli lifted her to sit with a shoulder leaning against the van’s sidewall. Interestingly, she didn’t look at Eli when he moved her. Instead, she fixed a disgusted frown on the white-haired man groaning in pain on the floor.
“Did you kill everyone else?” She asked, turning her attention to Eli.
“If there were only twenty-four soldiers at the lab, then yes.” Eli confirmed, taking note of the way her gaze dropped to the floor and her shoulders rolled forward slightly. Apparently she was holding out hope for a rescue before getting the news that everyone else at the lab was dead.
Good. That means we’re probably not going to be followed any time soon.
“Heh.” She laughed, humorlessly, self-deprecatingly. “The red Lancaster militia roller, a young blonde woman named Vivi…you’re the ones who raided the mines last week, aren’t you?”
“No. Your people raided the mines.” Eli growled. “What’s your name?”
“Celine.” She was suddenly defensive, seemingly offended. “And the JSU doesn’t raid anyone. The people of Lancaster were liberated from their useless government. Now they’re citizens of the Jericho Federation, and their lives will finally have a higher purpose beyond simply surviving.”
Shit. Vivi said they were crazy, but I though she meant normal post-apocalypse raider crazy, not full-on, indoctrinated, drank-the-Kool-Aid, cultish.
“What’s….” Eli sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to push back the headache he felt coming on. “What were you doing at the lab?”
“Saving the world…” She gloated, condescendingly. “…before you got there. The Prophets told us about sixteen locations, all across the continent, where we can find the keys to saving humanity. Eliminate the feral plague once and for all, and restore the natural male birthrate. The Federation is tasked with bringing safety, salvation, and prosperity to the entire world.” A strand of red hair fell across Celine’s face as she tilted her head, and her pink lips spread in a snarky smile that looked almost comical when juxtaposed with her broken nose. “Your pointless little revenge attack delayed humanity’s ultimate salvation. Ferals will continue terrorizing and slaughtering people until we find the next intact location. Months, maybe years, of human suffering is now on your hands.”
Eli’s raised an eyebrow, not buying into her misguided provocation, and not missing how she’d unintentionally hinted that the bunker he’d seen was the first one they’d found intact.
“Seriously? Do I really look that dumb to you?” He scoffed. “The JSU killed more people in a single day than ferals did in my entire lifetime. You might be able to fool yourself into thinking you’re some kind of saviors, but you’re not fooling anyone else. No, you assholes are clearly a bigger threat than ferals, and the only people who’ll suffer because of me are the JSU.” Her smug attitude dropped almost instantly. “How many soldiers does the Federation have in the Wastes?”
Celine’s upper lip twitched, an air of superiority seeping into her attitude. “Our numbers grow with every settlement we liberate. Jericho’s forces are more than four thousand strong.”
“Okay, but that’s not what I asked.” He wrapped the fingers of his left hand around the handle of the knife on his belt. “How many soldiers are in the Wastes?”
“What makes you think the Federation isn’t from the Wastes?” She jeered.
Eli pointed at her large chest. “Military uniforms are always camouflaged to their environment. Lancaster’s sweepers wear black and gray to stay hidden in dark areas. Our vehicles are red so they blend in with the desert sands. No one in the Wastes wears green and khaki, and you’re vehicles are mostly black or bare metal. This isn’t your home turf, and your leaders are either too shit or too proud to change your uniforms.” He tightened his grip on his knife handle. “Now, how many soldiers does the Federation have in the Wastes?”
Apprehension filled her hazel eyes as she watched his hand on the knife, her head rocking gently with the motion of the van driving along the derelict highway. “I….I don’t know. We had around eight hundred members when we left New Nashville last year, but we’ve probably doubled that number since then.”
“How many are occupying Lancaster?”
She glanced at the white-haired man hesitantly, then took on a defiant expression toward Eli. “…..I’m done talking now…..”
Without warning, Eli grabbed her by the jaw, clamped onto her crooked nose with his other hand, and violently wrenched it back into place with an audible crunch of resettling cartilage.
Celine thrashed and jerked her head away from his hands, biting back an impulsive shout, kicking her bound feet against the floor. She squeezed her eyes shut, made awkward lip movements to wiggle her freckled nose, and shook her head while muttering a string of colorful curses.
“How many?” Eli repeated.
“S-six….” Celine’s eyes opened enough to glare at Eli. “Just over six hundred.”
“Where’s the rest of the JSU?”
Celine’s hazel eyes lingered timidly on his hand that was once again resting on his knife before she reluctantly answered. “Most of them went north a few weeks ago, to another location revealed by the Prophets. The rest are holding new Federation settlements back east, maintaining supply lines to the capitol.”
Eli kneeled down to get eye-level with her. “Who are these…. prophets?”
A faint smile tugged at her rosy lips. “No one knows their real names. They just showed up in New Nashville one day, about two years ago. Four women with twisting double snakes tattooed on their arms. They helped dozens of sick and injured people, gave history lessons to some children for a few weeks, then told a congresswoman about the sites of salvation the night before they disappeared.”
“And the congresswoman just…believed them?” Eli was justifiably skeptical.
“The Prophets knew things no one else did, things no one could explain. They healed people the doctors all said were beyond saving, including the congresswoman’s youngest daughter. There was no reason to not believe them.” Celine shrugged dismissively.
“Mhmm.” Eli rubbed his jaw, contemplating how the new pieces might fit into a puzzle he’d been struggling with for eight years. He tempered his expectations, though, wary of falling for any false hope. His own curiosity could wait, there were more urgent concerns that needed to be addressed. “How long will the JSU stay in Lancaster before continuing their campaign?”
Celine’s nostrils flared, her breathing was rushed, and her eyebrows furrowed. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face, along her delicate jawline, and dropped onto the strap of her olive green tank top. Panic, or anxiety, filled her eyes.
“Look…” Eli’s voice had a gentleness to it Celine hadn’t heard from him before. “Just answer this last question, and I’ll leave you alone. I won’t even gag you for the rest of the drive. And, as an added bonus, I’ll tell the next person in charge of your questioning to do it as painlessly as possible.”
Celine glanced down at the white-haired man, “….what about him?”
All semblance of goodwill evaporated from Eli’s demeanor. “I won’t make any deals for him. Not after what he put Lela through. Even if he tells us everything he knows, he’ll find out what ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ really are.”
A cruel grin slowly spread across Celine’s face before she looked back at Eli. “The JSU won’t move out of Lancaster until the city’s been fully incorporated into the Jericho Federation. Two, maybe two and a half months from now.”
