The Crest

The defenders stood on the Crest looking out across the deep features of the land. Their geography was uncomplicated; the winding ridgeline where they perched, towered over the enclave in the valley below, while the land outside remained a no-man’s land.

As the defenders gazed out from their perch, they saw swarms of insects streaming across the hills like a dark veil.

“What do you think? Locusts?” Keegan asked his partner.

“No, they’re smaller, more like flying ants. They swarm when their colony reaches the right size.”

“Oh?” Keegan replied, curious about his partner.

“Once they get up in the air, they mate.” Margot replied.

“Wow, how do you know that?” He asked, intrigued.

“I just do, stop asking stupid questions. The natural world is out of whack if you haven’t noticed.”

As they spoke, the swarms of flying ants moved closer to the battlement. They stared in awe at the unique symmetry of the swarm, a beauty in its choreography. Unexpectedly, the horde swooped over the top of the Crest and blanketed the defenders. They swatted and brushed the insects off, but they kept coming, smothering the humans, biting, and flying into their mouths. Margot screamed, and they ran into the flanking tower and closed the door. They spent the next five minutes picking ants off their bodies.

“My god, they’re ferocious.” She shouted, out of breath. Her skin a red mass from ant bites.

“Never seen anything like it. Nature gone mad.” Keegan answered.

“In a Shift-induced world, warmer temperatures means insects breed year-round and expand their range.”

They waited until the scourge of insects left and they cautiously went back to patrolling. They saw thousands of glittery ant wings covering the concrete parapet.

The days were like that for the defenders. Intense boredom mixed with small episodes of climate-induced chaos, or an attack by the Antisis. They didn’t talk much about the Shift. Why would they? These were eighteen-year-olds drafted to stand on a wall and point a gun. They were deprived of their youth and as an afterthought, a habitable planet, so what was there to talk about? Besides, these young people had different priorities; they sought companionship, and above all, escapism was their stratégie de survie préférée — their mental reprieve from the Crest.

The world had gone from reducing carbon emissions to giving up on the thought altogether. A type of carbon amnesia ensued, emission fatigue they called it. Granted, governments fell like dominos and the strategy went from ecological restoration, to human-centered survival. Humans rationalized with inverse logic that they couldn’t save themselves let alone the natural world; the contradistinction blew the mind. The scientists at FORC knew otherwise. The scientists at FORC had a plan.

The plants and animals intuited this human modus operandi and started to communicate their thoughts to people on the delicate subject of extinction. Afterall, the plant kingdom had a saying that went like this: Never trust a human. In that regard the plants were spot on, humans were not hard-wired to think ten generations down the road, or for that matter, to know how to think. Plants required humans, but needed to figure out how to reach their slow-witted brains.

Keegan and Margot sat eating their Permafrost Corporation pemmican, a production of synthetic red meat, fat, salt, and artificial berries. They tore off tiny bites and chewed. Day in, and day out, it was Permafrost energy bars, a mundane fare, but it provided enough calories to cut the damp cold of the Crest.

Keegan thought it over. He moved his hands through his sandy hair as he began a philosophical jousting match with Margot. He aspired to act intellectual with her, but she was out of his league, but that didn’t stop him from trying.

“Most humans lost touch with their natural world over the centuries,” he said.

“How so?” Margot asked.

“Modernity is how.”

She questioned his logic. “So, you want to be like the Antisis?”

“That’s not what I’m getting at. I’m just saying we’re helpless as a society,” he responded.

“So, what, we’ve advanced in other areas, particularly science.” She held her hands in her pockets.

“True, we thought science was our salvation. We prided ourselves on clean air, water, and pristine Oregon forests, all the while it was changing from the Shift — for the worse. How bizarre is that?”

“It’s a wicked problem.”

“How so?” Keegan asked.

“Humans could never grasp the Shift or do anything about it. Scientists tried for decades, but nothing. I guess, in a perverse way, with the collapse of the world economy, emissions have declined too.”

“Yes, and no. You forgot one thing. Forest fires burn year-round now, putting even more carbon up into the air.”

The pair went back to patrolling their portion of the quadrant as the fog moved in. The most notable thing about the Crest is the battlement that sits on top of it. If you think about it, it’s impressive, a fifteen-to-twenty-foot rampart lying on a ridgeline sitting hundreds of feet above the valley floor. Authorities built the forty-mile structure along the length of the Crest, constructed of basaltic rock and cement. It resembled a dragon twisting along the mountain spine, accentuated by the crepuscular sky.

Strategic to the enclave was the watershed just to the northwest of the mountain known as Wy’east. It contained the moribund rivers, the Sandy, and the Bull Run, captured by two reservoirs that still possessed water, the lifeblood of the enclave.

After they removed the first wave of invaders from the enclave, the people of the Greater Portland Enclave grew patriotic, not ultra-nationalistic, and not political, but possessing a pride grounded on survival in their 200 square miles, pride in their counter-intuitive style of leadership. Of course, they left Old Portland City to fend for itself. Old Portland City was not happy.

Up on the Crest, they fought as pods, eight people in a pod, with seven pods per mile. That totaled 56 people a mile or roughly 2240 protectors scattered out along the entire Crest itself. It may seem like many people, but the defenders could barely see their partners on either side of each other. 91 feet was a long way away when you were being attacked. Poor eyesight or poor attention, or getting high meant you were likely to get your ass over-run.

A flanking tower sat in the middle of every mile of the Crest. At the top of each overlook rested a 50-caliber machine gun. The gunner, in theory, was supposed to hit anything a quarter mile away if they could see that far, which never was the case. When shit hit the fan, the fusilier was your friend. The gunner took on this mythical status among the defenders, this person would bail you out when you got over-run, bury the enemy in a hail of lead. At least that’s what the defenders thought.

A shift began at six a.m. and lasted twelve hours. The Crefor spent their time looking through that curtain wall with binoculars. The rule was every hour, you take a five-minute break. There were lots of rules up on the Crest, they crammed that into the heads of the unfledged eighteen-year-olds that had no clue what they were up against.

The two returned to the flanking tower. Keegan went back to his intellectual pontificating.

“What if we really did move back to the land?”

“We’re well past that scenario. We’re kind of screwed either way. The enclave can’t produce enough food for the population, even though every backyard and every city park has been converted into gardens, chicken coops, or some other agricultural venue. We need science to help us out of this mess.”

“Like the Permafrost Corporation?”

“Not like them. I mean real people growing their own food. At least people can smell the soil and appreciate their food supply.”

“And FORC is producing stem cell chicken now.”

“Correction, the Permafrost Corp is manufacturing it. The future is awesome, isn’t it? How do you think we even got funding for FORC in the first place,” he said sardonically.

“No?”

“Yep, that’s what I hear. Good old Permafrost Corp.”

“Perma-crap. That’s why the Antisis hate us so much.”

“You can’t blame them. The fog is out today.” She changed the topic, bored.

“The scientists didn’t predict this kind of fog. It’s the deep ocean kind,” Keegan said.

“Why not?” Margot asked.

“Don’t know, it just comes in fast and doesn’t let up. Dense as hell until noon.”

“It stings my eyes,” she said.

“The fog was supposed to dissipate with the Shift, especially when the ocean upwelling stopped, but not here along the Northern Oregon coast. Scientists missed that one, instead we got a condensed mini-upwelling off Astoria and then an even worse coastal fog that comes up the Columbia River gorge. When you mix it with emissions, you get acid fog, that’s what’s stinging your eyes.”

“That sucks, you really know this Shift stuff.”

“Kind of, and with forest fires, we get this shitty smog, ugh.”

“I never understood FORC,” she said. “I’ve heard they talk to plants there.”

“I’ve heard that too. Plants communicate in their own way,” Keegan said.

“I gathered they cracked some kind of plant code,” she said.

“What code?” Keegan asked, now intrigued.

“The communication code, you know, the one that allows trees to talk back and forth with humans.”

“I wouldn’t believe that gossip.”

“You can ask the director next time you see her,” Margot said.

“I will.”

The pair finished their five-minute break and returned to their precious 91 feet of real estate.

Keegan paced the wall. He recalled the swearing-in ceremony, the one that brought all of them here. They swore, “I promise to defend science, the enclave and the nursery.” God how contrived that oath was, he thought. Only now did it dawn upon him they were really defending the seedlings, five million of them.

The weird aspect of the enclave was the regular people; they held a higher-than-average reverence for plants. Some inhabitants even spoke with plants, conversed with them like their children and heard shit back, resonances, signals, some sort of cues. They supposedly understood the condition of plants and called them plant empaths, a freakish bunch. The empaths or planties, as they were called by the Crefor, migrated to the enclave. We’re talking hippies, scientists, herbalists, wounded soldiers, shamans, a mixed lot. Something brought them to the enclave, some signal, but nobody knew what it was.

The hour passed and Keegan and Margot met again for their five-minute break.

“Anything?”

“Nope. Word is that a bunch of ’em coming our way. Out of Idaho. Not looking forward to that day.”

“I know.”

“I still don’t get it. What do they want from us?” Margot asked.

“This is their medieval age, their Crusades. They fear the unknown. We are that unknown. Blame the progressives for their moral high-grounded intellectualism...or better yet, attack the environmentalists for having the audacity to want a habitable planet.”

“Duh? And your point, simply look at us, up and down the valley it is nothing but a ghost forest. Wildlife gone, watersheds on the brink, fresh water drying up.”

“They’re fearful thugs, unable to grasp change, especially the Shift. Really, they’re looking to pillage, just like the Crusaders. It’s simple really, their hatred of reason, and anyone with a modicum of sophistication different than theirs, unified them. Time’s up, back at it, see you in a few.”

The pair walked their patrols and gazed into the vacuum with their binoculars. Nobody wanted a breach on their watch. A break meant that you got extra time added on to your two years, not good. The enemy used mortars and RPGs. The Crefor had 50-caliber machine guns mounted on the flanking towers that kept the enemy at a distance, that is—when the guns worked. The guns were old, and it depended on the gunner and how quickly they could clear a jam. Lately, the 50-caliber guns were jamming more frequently. That was disconcerting to Keegan.

They rotated up to that 50-caliber position, each day a new gunner. Each day, a new position in the quadrant; it kept the monotony down. Keegan and Margot were but two of thousands on the Crest. Two long years of mandatory service, just like the South Koreans and the Israelis, except they served three in those countries.

The defenders lived in concrete barracks fifteen minutes away from the Crest. Every day they walked to the battlement and then did the five-minute climb up the steps to their assigned patrols on the Crest. That’s twenty precious minutes of time during the shift change. The Antisis knew that.

On a typical day, they arrived and exchange notes with the outgoing shift. What happened at night, what did you see? Anything suspicious? Mostly nothing happened, the routine became monotonous.

Keegan and Margot got together for their morning chicory coffee break in the flanking tower. The chamber always had a fire going inside, that was the responsibility of each pod, to keep the hearth going. Not that the fire helped, they shivered inside the dank chamber, but it brightened their spirits. Two other members of their pod, Lenore and Ben joined them.

“Fancy meeting you guys,” Ben said.

“Good morning. Any news?”

“No action last night,” Ben said.

The rule was that only two members of a pod could get together for the 10 am break in the flanking tower, but they broke that rule often. Today it left Emilio, Agathe, Markus, and Beatrice, out on the battlement looking for the bad guys with the other four on break.

Each defender had their own thoughts about working on the Crest. Lenore was motherly, one of the few that liked being a defender; no negative chat about Crefor on her watch, she wouldn’t stand for it. She was a black-belt, focused, driven to help her family back in the Old Portland City. Yes, they had it bad, but not as bad as most. Her family put the best possible spin on the Shift. If it was God’s will, then so be it.

Ben was the gentleman of the group, kind, polite, articulate. He’d wanted to become an environmental engineer — before the Shift. He liked to solve ecological problems and wanted to build human infrastructure with technology that restored natural habitats. He wanted to study design principles based on nature. Nowadays, when he wasn’t standing on the Crest, he sketched his ideas in notebooks. When the Shift hit, he was not surprised.

Emilio was a barista and gamer — before the Shift, unquestionably the least athletic of the group, tall, lanky, and always cold. The man had difficulty shooting a gun and his courage compensated for his lack of strength. The Shift to Emilio, was like a hoax, a bot, an internet software that created conspiracy theories. Despite the Shift being real, Emilio stopped believing in the science. Fact and fiction blurred in his world. They assigned him with Agathe.

Agathe was the extrovert, homeless, living on the streets of Old Portland City before being conscripted into Crefor. She was intelligent but not well-matched for the rigidity of the Crest; she seemed the most undisciplined and not suited for the loneliness. Her family tried to get into the enclave but failed. They bounced from raunchy neighborhood to raunchy neighborhood. At least by being a defender she could send money home, that saved her relatives from more misery. Agathe knew something was screwed up with the climate when the Portland sidewalks buckled. God, she was an urban rat, able to survive in the most obscure places, but there was no place to hide from this kind of torridity.

The militias regularly attacked the enclave. A confederation of enclaves now existed in the Pacific Northwest, with Oregon no longer being a state, or for that matter, no states anywhere. They signed a mutual defense agreement, but they couldn’t even defend themselves. The enclaves were pitiful and unorganized.

Then there was Markus, a member of his Baptist church back in Hood River. He sang well and played the guitar. He longed for something more in his life. He sought spiritual guidance, love, anything. He wanted a regular home with a wife, family, and children. He thought the whole of the Crefor lot were heathens. Much like Emilio, Markus couldn’t grasp the Shift, but that’s where the similarities ended. Markus believed the end-time had arrived and the second coming was near. God’s wrath would end all things, but couldn’t excuse him from serving on the Crest.

Beatrice, the quietest and plainest of the eight, was the final member, dressed and acted the same. Her father was a logger before the Shift, worked for the big timber companies before he was laid off. She was a girl that did everything in old Oregon: fish for salmon, catch crabs, hunt deer, collect mushrooms. Her dad taught her well. All of that disappeared after the Shift. The emptiness in her life was palpable, like the last salmon in the rivers. Her father blamed it on the enviros. There was always that chasm between the working class and the enviro-progressive types.

After the break, the defenders went to their stations. The sun exhibited an unearthly glow, giving off an unusual aura. Out in the void, all smoke trails died off as if a ceiling descended on the land. The humidity increased noticeably; it was going to be a long day.