Alisa Hope Wagner Wagner

Straight to Eternity

Onoma Series Book: A Prequel Novella

Alisa Hope Wagner

Chapter 1

Jonah stretched his fingers. The wooden stool under him groaned as he tried to make his body comfortable after sitting for hours. Grabbing hold of the tiny wires on the motherboard was getting more difficult each day. He could easily manipulate them a few years ago, but his body had grown like the big pecan trees that he used to climb when they didn’t live in the factory. Now his fingers were thick and the skinny blue, red and yellow wires kept slipping through his grasp. His mama said that he would be bigger than his papa soon, and she would often give him some of her evening food portions because the hunger pains hit him hard at night. He couldn’t sleep when his stomach gnawed on the inside. He was tempted to steal a bit of ration when the guards went to sleep—that is until his friend was caught. They never saw him again. They must have sent him back to the colonies.

He eyed his little brother and sister on the other side of the assembly line table. His brother, Isaiah, was twelve and his sister, Maureen, was ten. They both had brown skin like himself, but his sister’s coloring was a shade lighter matching their mama’s skin tone. Mama tightly braided his sister’s hair every week, using the stray rubber bands that tied the skinny bundles of wires together before they set them in place. He knew his brother and sister would be growing just like the pecan trees too. But now they could still easily pinch the wires and clamp them in place to the different cartridges. He figured soon he would be working next to his father placing the large plastic lids over the encasement and fixing them in place with sturdy screws as fat as the brown roaches that scurried across the floor of the sleeping quarters each night.

Papa reminded him nightly that he would be leaving when he turned eighteen. He needed to plan where he would go once he left. They promised his papa. If they came to work for the factory, the kids could leave when they became of age. Jonah didn’t know where he would go. Maybe back to the pecan trees they lived near before Papa decided to work for the factory. After the terrible freeze years back, many of the trees died. Then the rains stopped, and his family didn’t have enough food to eat and no pecans to barter. That’s when Papa brought them here. He wanted to make sure his kids could eat. Jonah rubbed his rumbling belly. He longed to eat pecans now.

He looked upstairs to where his mama, Mary, sat on her own wooden stool at the women’s assembly line. He couldn’t see her, but he knew where she sat with the other ladies. She cut the plastic sections that would fit inside the big sleeping machines. He didn’t know how the machines worked. He’d see the Runners as they carried them away in big boxes with dollies on route to the city. Why would city folk sleep in plastic cases when they had soft beds? He shook his head. His family had never been to the city. It held too many scary tales. He even heard that nobody went outside. The government forced them—who they called the Efficientists—to work all day on big computer machines and then they slept at night in big computer machines with hundreds of tiny, thin wires. He’d rather be in the factory than in the city. He heard that those Efficientists only slept about three hours a night. He was thankful for the seven he got.

A guard with his rifle started making his way down Jonah’s aisle. He quickly went back to work. Whenever one of the guards caught him daydreaming, he would shove the butt of the rifle into his lower back. Not too hard to make him cry out, but with enough force to cause a bruise. He didn’t care so much about the bruises, but his mother did. He didn’t want to add to her worry. He would hear her quietly crying to his papa some nights when they thought he was asleep. She didn’t like the factory. She wanted to go back to the pecan trees, but Papa insisted that they would die of starvation if they went back. Jonah disagreed. Spring had just begun, bringing with it new rains that saturated the drylands.

As the guard passed behind him, a girl’s scream ricocheted across the factory floor. Then a cacophony of screams rang out as wooden stools tumbled to the ground and children began jumping onto the assembly table.

“Rattlers!” a guard yelled. “They’re coming out of the vents!” Then riffle shots fired like a thunderstorm scaring the grey walls and concrete floor with pockmarks.

Jonah stood and scanned the ground where the large, unused AC floor vents were located along the walls of the factory. He saw flashes of grey and black slithering out of several vents onto the concrete floor. The snakes were huge. Jonah felt his heart beating hard against his chest. The rattlesnakes must have taken the unused vents as a den for their brumation time. He stood, pushing his stool to the grounding adding to the chaos of the moment.

“Isaiah! Maureen!” Jonah cried. “Get on the table!” He watched as his sister and brother jumped onto the table and wires and cartridges scattered onto the floor. More stools tumbled across the floor as the rest of the smaller kids began jumping onto the table.

“What is it?” the guard behind him yelled. His rifle was against his left shoulder aiming toward the sea of kids.

“Don’t shoot!” Jonah yelled. “It will only make the snakes madder, and you might shoot someone.”

“How'd they get in here?” he screamed.

Jonah felt the palpable fear of the guard. “There must be a den in the old AC vents. They’re awake. They just want to get out.”

Jonah scanned the ground. The snakes were heading toward them. They probably felt the warmth coming from the open factory doors behind them at the front of the factory. He looked up. He could see his mother holding onto the balcony railing looking down at them. Two guards stood at the top of the staircase, not letting any of the women come down. Jonah leaned onto the assembly table to jump on, but the flimsy table complained under his weight. “Just stay up there and don’t move,” he told his brother and sister. “The snakes are headed to the entrance. Don’t give them a reason to bite you.”

They nodded. His sister held tightly onto his brother’s hand.

Jonah heard a loud thud and men’s voices shouting. He looked to where is father was working in the smaller room to the left of the main area. They shut the huge, metal doors to his working section. His papa’s deep, booming voice could not be muffled by doors. “Let me out! My kids are over there!” he shouted. A few shots of a rifle sounded off behind the doors and the yelling stopped. Suddenly, silence fell onto the factory floor and the rattle of snake tails vibrated from the ground. It sounded like hundreds of rattlers, but Jonah knew that the hard, factory walls echoed the sounds. He hoped only a dozen snakes were trying to make it out. Jonah grabbed his wooden stool from the ground. If one came up to him, he’d block an attack with it.

“Where are they? Where are they?” the guard behind him said nervously, still holding his rifle out.

Jonah wanted to tell the guard to shut up, but the man was liable to shoot him. Then a click Jonah recognized sounded from the speakers overhead. It was the voice of the factory director, Neil Elder. “As you all now know, a den of snakes was discovered in the old central AC station in the basement. My guards were dissembling it for renovations when the snakes awoke. Please stay calm. Don’t move. The factory doors are open. Let the snakes pass by. Guards, do not waste your ammo.”

“Easy for him to say!” the guard behind him said. “He’s safe up there in the watchtower!”

Jonah tried to inch away from the man, but he grabbed his shoulder. “Oh no! You are staying right here!”

His sister screamed. Jonah turned to see a huge rattlesnake rear up on his long body and slide his face onto the tabletop. His black, forked tongue scanned the air for scents. Jonah hoped that the snake’s stomach was full of roaches and mice from the basement. He looked fat and fed, so hopefully, he wouldn’t attempt an attack. The snake began to slither passed the feet of his siblings coming toward him. He held up the stool and inched back slowly. The guard let go of his shoulder and held the rifle back up to his shoulder.

“Don’t shoot,” Jonah whispered. “You’re too close. That’s for long-range.”

“He’s going to bite us,” the guard squealed. “And they didn’t give me a pistol! They don’t have antivenom here. I’ll die!”

Neil Elder’s voice broadcasted again from the speakers. “Officer Taylor. Put your rifle down. That’s an order.”

Jonah looked at the small camera attached to the entryway to the main area of the factory. Director Elder must be looking at them.

The snake raised his head and stared at Jonah over the stool. It seemed to grin sinisterly like he was about to steal from him. Jonah had nothing but his family. He didn’t understand why, but at that moment, he knew the snake would strike. His heart began to pound faster, and he tried to control his breathing. He looked to his left and right. More snakes slid down the aisles on either side of him. There was nowhere he could go. The rattlesnake that singled him out caught onto one of the stool legs and began to wind its way up toward him. He wanted to throw the stool, but most of the snake’s long body was still on the table next to his brother and sister.

“Stop it from coming!” the guard yelled.

“I can’t!” Jonah yelled. “If I move, he’ll strike!”

“Then I will!” the guard yelled.

Jonah felt a fierce push on his lower back and he tumbled forward with the stool. First, he felt the stool punch his gut as it crashed against the assembly table. Next, he felt a strike on his chest just below his neck. The snake’s jaws clung to his body as he fell to the ground, and shots of a rifle pierced his ears. The last thing he saw as he lay on the ground with venom saturating his veins was his sister’s body falling to the ground next to his. Blood poured out of her wounded chest in the same location of his snake bite. He watched her body shake as his chest began to burn and tighten. Finally, her quivering body stopped, and scarlet spewed out of her mouth with her last breath. “No!” he screamed and reached for her. The snake detached itself from his chest and struck again on his arm. He heard men shouting and more gunfire. Just before everything went black the voice of his mama called out his name. Then all went silent.

Matt Coughlin shuffled into the spare bedroom of his small cabin. He stared at the young man sleeping on the bed. His skin was a little darker than his umber-colored tone, but the boy’s hulking body was much bigger than his thin frame riddled with arthritis. It took all his strength to drag the boy away from the piles of dead bodies during the night with one of the wheel barrels he found. He still had the wheel barrel behind his cabin, and he hoped the security guards wouldn’t miss it. The boy had been bitten twice by a rattler and left for dead along with all the other bodies strewn with bullet holes. A massacre. Over one hundred people, including women and children, lie dead on the free side of the fence of the forced labor camp. However, they weren’t free at all. They were all dead.

He returned to the camp early that morning and witnessed the security guards burying lifeless bodies into shallow graves. He was looking for the location of one particular family. They buried the family right where they lay, not noticing that one body was missing. They had organized the bodies into families for a headcount after the massacre. That’s when he found the young man still breathing and feverish. Before he wheeled him away, he marked his family’s location with a large reddish stone he had found. The boy would have questions, and Matt needed to give him the answers—regardless of how abysmal they were.

Matt felt anger rising like scorching air through his cheeks and face. He could still hear the bullets and screams booming through the forest. The World Government had to be stopped. If they could get away with this monstrosity, they would get away with all sorts of evil. They had already stolen his life, as he whittled it away trying to embrace a meaningless purpose. He walked over to the young man and examined the bite marks on his chest and arm. He had uncovered the wounds, so they could dry and heal. Thankfully, he thought to bring vials of antivenom when he left the city to live here almost a year ago. After he had administered two vials to the boy, he only had one left. He wouldn’t use it for himself even if he did finally get bitten. He was ready to die. His aged body ached nonstop. He had to use drugs to sleep, and they were also running low.

It was time for him to pass the baton. The first part of his plan was ready. He helped create the Kill Switch that was located in the watchtower of the forced labor camp, and he knew how to use that knowledge to his advantage. He reached into his pocket and felt for the five silver cartridges that rested between the fabric. These cartridges had the virus implanted in them and the anchor. Only one was needed, but he made five copies just in case. If implemented correctly, the virus on the cartridge would eradicate the World Government’s systems. He spent his entire life working for Arthur Pallue, the founder of Life Efficiency, trusting his decisions for a better, safer New America. But it was all a lie. Arthur Pallue was a hypocrite, and his daughter was following unwaveringly in his footsteps. She would ultimately lead people into a life of slavery to the World Government by living a life of production. Eve Pallue was the epitome of enslavement for the Efficientists where production equaled purpose.

He looked at the young man’s face. Like all the prisoners at the forced labor camp, his parents had gone willingly. That was another sort of enslavement but for the Colonials—giving up personal freedom in order to live with a sense of security. But what was so secure about the grave? The World Government had developed two methods of control—production and comfort. The devastation caused Old America’s collapse from the public-school rioting had caused New America to rebuild in a spirit of servitude to an all-powerful World Government greedy to dominate. Instead of freedom, America was now built on fear.