The Test

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Book excerpt

Chapter One

            Katia Wynter woke up that morning with a terrible hangover.

            It was the aftermath of yet another Friday all-nighter where the kids got together at Stewy McBride’s barn, dancing to live music and drinking microbrews and moonshine. They partied the night away without a care in the world, and would probably do it again tonight before sleeping it off Sunday. Monday morning would begin another work week in TrC (*Truth or Consequences), and once again the kids would be reminded that they still depended on their parents’ world for survival.

            After the War on Terror and the rise to power of the New World Order, America was still in process of rebuilding its society along with the rest of the global community.  Nuclear attacks had plunged the world economy into a Great Depression, and the government was doing all it could to keep Americans from starving to death. Food drops were being made on a monthly basis in cities across the country, just as the US had delivered food to starving nations over the past centuries. Families were disintegrating in record numbers as fathers abandoned their families to avoid watching them suffer. Teenagers drifted off to Sixties-type communes to live off the land and search for a better future outside the world their parents destroyed.

            Katia lived in a tent on the edge of camp, having moved away from home against her parents’ wishes. Her father, like most of the men in what was left of the city, was self-employed in the salvage industry. It was just another way of saying that he dug for recyclable items in the ruins of downtown TrC, selling waste by the pound for whatever the Government buyers would buy at the daily rates. She was sick of watching her Mom and Dad waste away, sharing their food with her while they grew skinnier each week. Besides, all the kids were moving away, and they were enjoying their freedom while coming into town to visit on weekends. Considering the thousands who had been killed or maimed by terrorist attacks, everyone was mostly glad just to be alive.

            She knew her father was going scrounging this afternoon (he hated the term), so she would drop by about six PM with some baked bread and have some lentil soup with her parents. She knew her mother hated her being out of the house but was slowly getting used to it. She would stay overnight and come back Sunday evening before sundown so she wouldn’t have to risk running across any Zodiacs. The rival biker gang from Elephant Butte would not risk a direct confrontation with the Excelsiors, but still roamed the night looking to steal, kill and destroy as the opportunity presented itself.

            Katia felt very secure in knowing that Devin Kilrush had his eye on her. Devin was a year older than her at seventeen, and was the Vice-President of the Excelsior Motorcycle Club. It was well known that he and the club President, Mark Excelsior, were best friends, which placed the full might of the Club solidly behind him. He wasn’t like the other bikers, though. He was shy and polite in a day and age when being a jerk was the coolest way to act. Yet you didn’t mess with Devin, because that was like going up against Excelsior himself.

            Part of her routine on Saturday mornings was taking a ride out to the Eastern Outland on her dirt bike to clear her head after Friday night partying. She was thrilled to see jackrabbits, birds, lizards and even snakes that had survived the nuclear blasts and the wind-driven radiation. It made her feel like there was hope for a new tomorrow, a chance that they could return to yesterday, back when everything was normal. No one wanted to live in the present, because the present was all about sickness and death.

            There was an abandoned church about a mile away from the commune. There had been a work camp out there before the Terror Wars, and it was deserted after the terror gangs began setting up headquarters in the desert to conduct campaigns against the cities. They perfected the strategy in the Middle East and Africa, and it worked perfectly in the Southwest USA. It was said the US Army won the war but lost most of the battles. It didn’t really matter anymore, the Wars had ruined everything. At least this little church was still standing. The little church had survived. It was like a monument to peace and love that Katia liked to come out and admire.                       She thought she saw movement as her bike crunched across the glazed sand about a hundred yards from the Church, and it caused her to break out in a cold sweat. It could not have been Zodiacs because there were no bikes around, although the bikes might have been hidden around back. It may well have been a mirage, but it could be a fatal error to misjudge. Yet if it were survivors, it was everyone’s patriotic duty to bring them back into society, or what was left of it. They could be treated for radiation sickness, given food and shelter, and help them re-enter what was left of the American community.                                                                                                          Radiation sickness had superseded genetic cancer as the number one killer in America. Cancer caused by radiation exposure exceeded all other forms of cancer by 500%, death rates in America had gone up proportionately, and infant mortality had reached 90%. Hospitals were overcrowded, most of the major insurance companies worldwide had gone bankrupt, and most people self-diagnosed with cancer simply stayed home and died. Alcoholism and drug abuse was rampant in a society wanting only to make the pain go away.

            All these things were ricocheting around her head as she rolled the bike ever closer to the church. Once again she thought she discerned movement inside the church past the half-open front door. She froze in her tracks, listening intently for any sound, but all Katia could hear was the desert wind whistling through the cactus and the sagebrush. She felt like turning tail and going back to the commune for help, but then the outsiders might return to the desert where they would surely die. America had sworn itself to bring all its citizens back from the wastelands, and Katia believed in the Vow as she believed in her country itself.