Tap Sapiens, page 1
part #1 of Reign of Sapiens' Evil Series
Tap Sapiens
(Reign of Sapiens' Evil [R.O.S.E.] Book 1)
Robin T.T. Poon
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual historical events, real locales or real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Robin T.T. Poon
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Front cover design by
Angie Alaya
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
Acknowledgements
About The Author
CHAPTER
1
“Fresh meat.”
T HE DUST IN THE PAVEMENT ROSE VIOLENTLY as the wheels of the bus passed by the desolate streets. The route of the vehicle was like a puzzle – crosswords, to be more specific. Because you would find yourself moving through Financial Stability before you took a left turn and find yourself in Poverty and Despair. A little further up north was Luxury and Comfort, but mostly it was all a surprise. That was how the entire world looked. It was perfectly represented in the bus that left behind the abandoned ruins of a city and was now heading towards a residential area, a few cars moving around as well. Inside the vehicle around fifteen people sat mostly in silence, looking through the windows wearing whimsical expressions or doing everything in their power to avoid looking around, simply content strolling through the mazes of their minds in peace.
At the back seat, worn-down and tainted, sat only three people that required that much space for themselves: two young men, muscular with tanned faces and a middle-aged woman with an angry expression. While the men so obviously were of working class, headed to or from a construction of sorts, and seemed physically able to move the entire bus on their own, the woman was not too far behind. She was tall, broad shouldered and wore black pants and a shirt; nothing about her would give her profession away, but you would know, just by looking at her that you should not step in her way. At the seats in front of them, different yet similar people were sitting. They were a lot like the seats themselves. They were clearly parts from various vehicles yet they served the same purpose. Their occupants were of the most diverse backgrounds but moving in the same direction, at the same speed, in the same space.
The population of the bus varied in no apparent order. There were unhealthily slender men that were probably headed to a different construction site than the strong men from the back. In front of them was a clearly overweight woman and beside her was a woman carrying a sick child. A nun was sitting beside a window, her head turned towards the glass but her eyes firmly closed. The rest were sort of variations that would hate to be considered as such. For example, the overly excited little kid that was running an errand farther than ever before, sitting right behind the driver because that was where his mother told him to sit. Beside him, a girl that, like the woman at the back seat, was of an indistinct social status. You couldn’t guess, from her ripped jeans if it was fashion or accident. The white t-shirt could be comfort or the only clean thing in her closet. Her luggage, however, almost gave her away. Her backpack was full, entirely filled in the way that someone who was not planning on coming back to the place they had left.
This girl was Brandi Perry and her entire body was buzzing with energy. From her feet that kept jumping on the floor of the bus, even after the little boy asked her to stop, to her nervous eyes that were looking at everything and her turning head, complacent to her curious stare. On her fingers, several rings kept being pulled on and off, turned again and again in a nervous habit. Her heart was beating out of her chest, but her lungs were taking deep breaths every other second, as much as possible, as much as necessary, it was the same thing. One interesting fact was the smug smile on her face. She was proud of noticing the little things no one else probably even thought of. Beginning with the dust at the corners and the badly put-together pieces of other vehicles. How it stood out against the dirty but still brand new, sophisticated, almost automatic system that ran at the front of the bus. The uniformed driver was holding onto a sturdy wheel, the panel in front of him was bathed in a soft blue light. Displayed in there were precise numbers and many little buttons capable of performing actions not fitted for the old and torn seats towards the back.
Only Brandi was able to accurately look through the facades of the people around. The lady at the back of the bus was a politician, well-fed for being important, irked for representing the poor. The men by her sides were bodyguards. The lady with the sick baby was the mother of the boy beside Brandi; he was just pretending to be on his own. The nun had just arrived from the airport; the first sights of abandoned cities depressed her enough to close her eyes and dream of the sunny village where she had probably grown up, far, far away. And to summarize the rest, Brandi just assumed that everyone who wasn’t overweight was simply headed for the same place that she was. There it was, in the distance, coming closer now that the bus was entering the treacherous deserts that didn’t fit the binary of rich and poor of the last few zones they had traveled.
The heat was immediately palpable, the sun relentless and the wind hit the bus with anger, an obstacle in its merciless path. Most of the bus passengers left by then. Every building came and went without any importance at all, lived in or not, abandoned or hiding the riches, it didn’t matter in this place. In a world that was rapidly losing its population, leaving most of the planet barren and a small percentage of cities overpopulated, the middle ground was pretty much meaningless. On one extreme, there was the absolute poverty that although present all through history, now was more pronounced than ever while simultaneously disappearing at a high rate. Every little sickness and illness humanity had known still existed and new ones seemed to appear every day, taking thousands and thousands of lives. On the survivors’ side, depression and suicide rates were at an all-time high, after everyone on the planet lost a loved one at least. Things on the other extreme were much less interesting. Most of the populations were overweight and ugly. That was exactly the only way Brandi could describe it, maybe she was biased, maybe she just didn’t know better.
Regardless, near the middle of the desert a new set of buildings was approaching. Brandi’s pocket was burning at the back of her pants. Her application form felt alight on fire, knowing she was reaching her destination: Fort SC1902 – newest and brightest fort of the SC, Supremo of the Confederacy. The Supremo was the ultimate leader of … the world – the entire world. Before the bus reached its last stop, Brandi had enough time to ponder about the world she was living in. This entire century, the state of the world had started going downhill at an alarming rate. The amount of deaths across the globe was rising uncontrollably, leaving even the brightest scientists dumbfounded. When entire countries almost became cemeteries, the need for a new order of things became apparent. To the distaste of many, this was resolved by five overweight people making the decisions, supported by dozens of slightly less overweight people, and affecting the hungry humans left behind to fend for themselves with barely enough help from those leaders. This was called the Confederacy.
Brandi’s train of thought was stopped by the doors of the bus opening. The bus was parked in the middle of a large parking lot. The few people that got off the bus with her immediately moved towards other buildings, save a couple of pale and confused-looking boys that stared at her as if she knew what to do. Brandi rolled her eyes and began moving. In front of the bigger building right in the middle of the facility, a few tables and tents were set up with many people moving around and actually starting to take everything down. It was the last day of registration for the army. She knew she was late still, she walked with confidence to the first table where an older woman was waiting, seemingly irritated by their presence. Her face was covered in enough scars to scare anyone new to the place who hadn’t heard the real, non-war related, stories for the scars. In contrast, her dark hair was styled nicely in waves and she wore the slightest hint of make-up allowed.
“Good morning.” Brandi said, almost cheerfully.
“Name and application form.”
The impersonal tone and lack of greeting from the woman immediately put a frown on Brandi’s face. A frown that continued to grow and grow substantially as the registration process moved tediously. She answered question after question and looked enraged as some stranger dug into her personal stuff. She was sent to a halfway put-down tent to go through with the basic medical test and more questions that were already answered on her application form.
“Yes, Brandi Perry, July 4th, 2017.”
“Yes, sir. No, sir.” playing on a loop, again and again. She was furious by the time it was all over.
“Reception week is almost over. Hurry up and get ready, Basic Combat Training starts
“Fashion!” Brandi whispered under her breath but an annoyed tone of fake enthusiasm.
“What did you just say?”
“Oh, nothing. This is just so pretty.” Brandi answered while looking at the plain white t-shirts, cargo pants and a pair of boots.
“Civilian, are you disrespecting a Sergeant?!”
The woman basically shouted at Brandi and she was already double-thinking her plan of joining the army …
“I was just wondering whether lunch is ready or not.” she answered with a playful smile.
However, her charm didn’t help. The angry Sergeant took the cap that Brandi was to use and slammed it onto her head, it fit painfully well.
“Shame. You missed it. Don’t be late next time.”
Pleased with herself, the other woman left Brandi alone. The younger woman took a second to take a deep breath and slowly lifted her cap to a right position. Finally, she turned around, ready to walk away. In that instant that it took her body to turn, someone else passed by and slapped the brim of her cap, effectively pushing it over Brandi’s eyes again.
“Don’t look so hungry.”
The smug voice of a woman, probably a high-ranking personnel, reached Brandi’s ears with a violence. She simply stood still for a second, absorbing the severity of her situation.
♠ ♥ ♣ ♦
It was true that Brandi had arrived late. While all the other new additions to the army arrived whatever number of days ago and were now relaxing or looking for things to do around the facility, Brandi was lost. She got lost in three different buildings, she moved through seven wrong hallways and entered two wrong rooms. To be fair, she wasn’t hurried to reach her destination, she was delighted in getting lost, exploring new places, maybe places where she shouldn’t have been, maybe getting lost on purpose. Still, she ended up reaching her new home. A large room filled with fourteen beds, fourteen night tables and fourteen girls with which Brandi was going to share her space for God knows how many weeks. Only a couple of girls were in there, taking naps, reading something, silently crying. Brandi took the last bed available and was ecstatic to find it being close to the door, just one bed separating them.
For a few minutes she just lay there, regret and excitement fighting a battle within her. She allowed herself to rest, get over the long trip on the bus and think about everything she had seen that day. It could be overwhelming, catching sight of so many different angles of the world in turmoil. She came from a small city, a surviving town, where people stayed alive and hungry but healthy enough. Without a doubt, her neighborhood was to be considered of extreme poverty. But, being still alive, were they really that bad? Then there were the deserted towns, the empty skyscrapers, the burned-down houses of entire cities that disappeared as if taken down by a mysterious plague that no one could fathom. Next, flying by big gates of residential areas reserved for people that owned the wealth of the entire planet, the food and most importantly, the health, it was all dizzying.
Then there were the people themselves. She couldn’t imagine, for example as a child trying to comprehend how some people, so different from each other, were part of the same species. Because Brandi saw little kids with their skin nearly sticking to their bones, their stomachs perpetually empty until she didn’t see the kids again. Then, she grew older, seeing them all in her dreams and understanding what had happened. The thought dampened her mood, she felt sober with a heavy responsibility on her shoulders. Brandi closed her eyes tightly but still, it wasn’t enough to blur out the memory of home, of lost friends and missed family, her parents would long for her homecoming and they would think of her bravely to join the army. However, it hurt and made her ache for a different reality of which she wasn’t hungry and that, she was home.
For the remainder of the day, Brandi hopelessly held onto that sour mood, so unlike her. It was like she had her eyes shut but still, she organized her personal belongings, she ate dinner with all the newcomers and she went to bed – working on autopilot. If anyone would pay enough attention to her, they wouldn’t worry. The frown on her face and her distant attitude were to be expected, a homesick, scared kid. She, however, would have fought that idea with all her grit. Maybe there were ranks in the army, but apart from that everybody was the same, following the same orders and eating the same food under the same roof.
Once she was in bed, lights out and all the girls around her were soundly asleep. Brandi was frightened by the realization that she probably wouldn’t remember her first day in that place very well. The silence calmed down her thoughts, the stillness irritated her and before she knew it, she was on her feet. Without previous warning, a spark had been set alight in her heart. The passion and determination that had brought her there were back. Gone was the dark cloud of insecurities and loneliness, back was the hunger for justice, respect and something else she couldn’t quite name yet but certainly felt like a beast inside her.
She tiptoed around her bed, wearing the army’s pajamas, composed of another white t-shirt and some surprisingly comfortable sweatpants, skipping the boots and moving around with her white socks on. Brandi was holding her breath, as a precaution but mostly because she couldn’t help it. She loved the feeling of her heart beating wildly like that inside her chest. She was also crouching down, amused for a second thinking of how ridiculous and otherworldly suspicious she would have looked had anyone turned on the lights in that second. Instead, what really happened was Brandi forgetting there was a bed separating her from the door, unknowingly running right into the soft mattress and stifling a gasp, feeling uncovered and about to be caught.
“Hi.” – called out an extremely soft voice in the dark. – “Going somewhere?”
For an entire second Brandi thought of not answering, but the kindness in the other girl’s voice somehow inspired certain sense of immediate trust. It was like a tug to your heart when you met a stray dog, you just wanted to take it home, naively and impulsively assumed it was healthy and friendly.
“Bathroom?” was Brandi’s whispered response.
“Right. The bathrooms are through a door in the completely opposite direction of where you were going.” the voice said. Brandi was confused, that was it. She didn’t have time to be worried about the stranger was going to snitch on her, because the mysterious voice sounded so amused, so friendly.
“Well? Go on. I’m asleep!”
Then came the sound of rustling sheets, the stranger getting comfortable to really resume sleeping. Brandi smiled and made a mental note to look out for this girl once the morning light came.
Finally, Brandi made it to the door of their dorm. She stood there for a long second, suddenly being anxious, realizing she didn’t think out this part of the plan very well. Should she scurry out quickly before the light of the hallway woke any of her roommates? Should she move slowly and carefully in order to get out as noiseless as possible? It was a useless debate. With her heart beating as fast as it was and feeling as if the friendly stranger somehow supported her, Brandi acted on instinct, opened the door and slipped outside in one swift move. With the door closed behind her and already having broken a rule, Brandi felt she could breathe easier, she smiled brightly.
Next, Brandi started roaming the hallways of the entire facility with the agility and slyness of a cat. She was upbeat than ever, as if every step she took was literally taking her a step closer to a very precise goal. The building where she began was pretty simple, so Brandi was content in moving like a shadow. However, she did risk it all and slip into another building through a dark alley, already questioning the security of a place that was … literally, militarily guarded. But if they were overconfident, then she was ready to exploit it. In this new building, most of the hallways were dimly lit, almost entirely dark. Brandi wondered if that would be to her advantage or if it would conceal whatever she was trying to spot.
Soon enough, Brandi heard footsteps moving towards her. It was just the first day, getting caught was so not part of her plan, so she continued to risk everything and actually went through a fully lit hallway. Inevitably, because that was how fate wanted it to be, she knocked into someone else that was just rounding the corner. A big and strong body caught her before she could fall, yet she stood completely still, her eyes closed impossibly tight, until the footsteps faded, then she looked up. Staring back at her was a man with pale skin, light brown hair and icy gray eyes. He smirked at Brandi but when he opened his mouth to speak, it was another voice that broke through the midnight air.
