The Crest

Agathe looked up and down the length of quadrant 28. She entered the lower chamber of the flanking tower and pulled out a joint and lit up. She took a long drag on the elixir and held the smoke in her lungs. She gasped, laughing, and letting out the smoke from her lungs. She passed the roach to her partner Emilio. He took a long hit on the joint and held the effluvium in his lungs and then let it out in one giant gasp. He passed the joint back to Agathe. Outside they heard the buzzing of insects. Another swarm of flying ants, nothing to worry about, Agathe speculated.

“We’re screwed if we get caught. Wild Bill can smell weed a mile away,” Emilio said.

“To hell with wild Bill. Besides, we’re still keeping up on our watches.” Agathe said defiantly.

“Where’d you get it?” Emilio asked.

“Everywhere. Plentiful in Old Portland. Weed will always be in the old city, my friend. No food, no law and order, but always weed.”

“Funny, it takes a lot of water to grow cannabis."

"Yea, but not this kind, it's a different strain, drought resistant, resilient as hell. They call it the "Shift Buster."

Emilio laughed. "If that's all it takes to get us through, then I'm in." He changed the subject. "They treat us different because we’re from Old Portland,” Emilio said.

“I’ve picked up on that vibe. They’re elitist bastards in the enclave. You can tell when they ask where we’re from,” she noted bitterly.

“We can’t help it; our parents couldn’t get out. Hell, we’ve barely started our two years here,” Emilio added emphatically.

“Jesus man, you need to mellow out, you’ll make it,” she said.

“I know, but—I’m afraid, when they come.”

“And, your point? I’m a woman if you haven’t noticed. Do you think I want a thousand bloodthirsty hounds crossing the Crest? I’m gonna blow their brains out of the water, or die trying.”

“How do you maintain control?” he asked.

“One day at a time, man and of course, ganja calms the nerves,” she said. “Time for patrol, man, let’s go.”

Outside they heard the pitch and hum of the swarm, it sounded different this time, not like flying ants…there was a metallic tone to the buzz. They scanned with their field glasses and found a black cloud of insects on the horizon. The flight was bigger than the others, spanning a couple of miles, the insects seemed bigger, more sinister. They walked their 91 paces up and down the battlement, keeping an eye on the mass.

The operation of Crefor relied on pods. One pod of eight people for every 1/7 mile of wall. That 1/7th mile of real estate, their quadrant, was their responsibility, their charge. They ate, worked, and trained in pods. Shitty people, or bad actors, that’s bad luck for a pod because up on the Crest, they fought as a unit. One’s pod mates bailed you out in a firefight, en principe. You confided to your pod mates. This particular pod defended quadrant 28: that’s Keegan, Margot, Ben, Lenore, Agathe, Emilio, Markus, and Beatrice.

“Get to know each other well. You’re going to be with each other for two years,” Wild Bill, the sergeant said to the trainees during basic training. They stared at each other the first time they met.

I may as well die now, Agathe thought at the time.

Every morning their platoon sergeant awakened them at 5:30 a.m. They had only 15 minutes to get ready and by 5:45 they ate breakfast. Breakfast consisted of oatmeal, toast, coffee, and Permafrost Tastes Like Eggs artificial eggs. Anything but the best for the guardians of the Crest. After breakfast at 6:15, they went to morning briefings to find out about what happened the night before. Morning briefings were interesting affairs. They got the security reports on attacks and threats.

On this particular morning, Wild Bill made the announcement. “The stalker has knocked off a second defender. We found a body hanging out beyond the Crest, this time from quadrant 86. The goal of the perpetrator is to scare you, and to fear the Antisis. I guess it’s safe to say that those of you who leave the barracks at night and stroll around the nursery, you are forewarned.”

After the security report, they listened to the autotrophic report, the term they used for the nursery seedling health. The report came over the loudspeaker from the plant headquarters.

“This is your morning report from FORC. Today, cloudy, and dry. LAL, lightning activity level, 9. Fire danger is extreme. Air quality is extreme. Photosynthetic rate average across NORC is 4.79 micromoles per meter squared per second…. poor. Nitrogen dioxide is 1450 ppb, ozone–one hour reading is .405 ppm, while soil moisture remains at 4.5 kPa.” He continued on.

Back in the moment at the flanking tower, Agathe and Emilio passed a joint back and forth.

“Smoke is unbearable today. I could barely see Lenore to my right,” Agathe said.

“Thanks for looking out for everyone,” Emilio said.

“Someone’s gotta do it,” she replied. "I was worried I’d get some dickhead in our pod, but I got you,” she jested.

“No one has seriously attacked us yet. Who knows how we’ll stand up.”

“Stay alert and don’t get caught smoking weed, especially during an attack.”

Back on patrol, the Agathe and Emilio forgot about the swarm of insects. They carried carried their M4s for twelve hours a day. On the wall, the M4 was the weapon of choice but it was also the only rifle available. The crowded parapet on the battlement was a problem and required a highly maneuverable weapon with a collapsible stock and a shorter, 14.5-inch barrel. The M4 was ideal for the tighter spaces of the Crest.

Suddenly they heard the insect buzzing again up close, reverberating across the battlement. It caught them off guard.

“Where are they?” Agathe yelled above the fray.

“Don’t know, but it’s getting scary.” Emilio shouted back.

The pair continued their patrol, anxious. They scouted the void outside, but saw nothing.

Back then, when the Antisis attacks started, the Greater Portland Enclave was one of the hundreds in the west, the rest of the land in between — a non-man’s land, devoid of civilization, inhabited by hordes. You had the Salt Lake City, Pullman, and Boise enclaves, but everything else was Antisis land until the next enclave. The Antisis went after the enclaves.

The first order of business for the governor-general of the Greater Portland Enclave was shelter for the dispossessed, and then fresh water. Made sense. Later, it became growing food for the population. It worked, they pulled off the hippie-commando vibe, and the public loved it. Then came the attacks by the anarchists. That ended any semblance of representation and the enclave became authoritarian. Authorities blocked the residents of Old Portland City from entering, and that pissed off a lot of people. Later, law and order were restored and the enclave became something like a farming autocracy, like the old Stalin farming collectives called kolkhozes. The Antisis thought the enclave was an easy target. They were correct at first, but their thought process remained the same. Western Oregon contained dens of heathen scientists, havens of communists. Pillage the fucking enclaves. Destroy them all.

Now back on the battlement, Agathe and Emilio saw the deadly enemy and it wasn't the Antisis. Out of nowhere, hundreds of giant three-inch long Asian hornets, swarmed around the pair. They froze, knowing their lives were in danger. The hornets possessed a quarter-inch long stinger, with venom that incapacitated a human. Multiple stings meant death.

Emilio's voice shook. “Should we run for it?”

“Not yet. Don't make wild movements, and try not to breathe heavy. They can smell your breath. If you get stung, they're on to you, so run like hell to the flanking tower.”

Agathe watched the hornets buzz inches from her face. She felt the whirring of its wings, the sound of a small helicopter; she perspired, and fear racked her body. She noticed the stinger. She didn't want to die like this.

Emilio could barely contain himself, he thought he might pee his pants. They pair needed at least five seconds to reach the bottom of the flanking tower. Agathe was gauging their chances of making it as the hornets circled her head.

Asian hornets were the product of a Shift-induced brave new world. These tenacious inter-lopers from Asia could out-breed, out-feed, and out-kill everything else, even in the harshest conditions. They possessed a paralyzing neurotoxin in their venom, and these hornets were able to spray venom into a person’s eyes.

The first hornet stung Agathe; it felt like a hot nail hammered into her arm. She bolted. Emilio got hit at the same time on the top of his head and sprinted to the flanking tower, dropping his weapon. Now the giant hornets attacked mercilessly. They stung the pair, three, four, five times. Agathe could no longer feel her arms, and her eyes were swelling rapidly. Ten feet from the flanking tower, Emilio stumbled and received several more stings by the orange and black demons. Now, he began to go into shock. Agathe grabbed him by the arm and they stumbled into the flanking tower and slammed the door shut.

Outside, they heard the hornets pounding against the door.