Highway To Armageddon Read online

“What can I say, you’re a natural at writing essays,” Blade says in an attempt to be cute. I have to admit it works.

  “You are such a ham,” I say. “But I’m not writing your paper again. You write it and Lance and I will give you a quick history lesson on the Horrible Depression.”

  Lance puts his feet up on the table and sticks his hands behind his head. “You can give him a history lesson, Firecracker. I’ll just sit back and enjoy the show.”

  I give Lance a dirty look, but I’m actually quite happy he’ll allow me to give the history lesson uninterrupted. Lance is a smart guy, but history is definitely not his forte.

  Blade pops up his holographic screen and prepares to type. His face appears distorted through the back of the quasi-transparent blue screen.

  “It’s probably best to start at the beginning,” I say. Blade types a few words and looks over the top of his screen, waiting for me to elaborate. Harpoon is busy typing away on her computer, but I see her occasionally glancing at me, eager to hear what I have to say. She reminds me so much of myself when I was her age, a young girl thirsty for knowledge.

  “Scientists started raising the alarm about climate change way back in the late 20th century, but no one really took it seriously until the catastrophic weather events of the second half of the 21st century. World governments poured trillions of dollars into geo-engineering projects to cool our rapidly warming world, but by then it was too late. The damage had already been done.

  “By the end of the 21st century the world population was well over 10 billion, but we didn’t have enough food, water, or space for that many people. This resulted in devastating famines, droughts, and eventually dozens of regional wars. Rainforests were decimated, deserts grew at an alarming rate, sea levels rose dramatically, the oceans became acidic, and people died off in droves. Famine, disease, war, and ultimately death… it was like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were walking the Earth, collecting scalps.”

  “Whoa, you’re right, history is awesome!” Blade exclaims, tapping away on his holographic screen. “I didn’t know history had death and destruction!”

  Harpoon grumbles that her brother is an idiot. I smirk and continue.

  “At the beginning of the 22rd century, things got exponentially worse as the global temperature skyrocketed. Giant chunks of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice caps collapsed and plunged into the ocean, raising sea levels even further. Billions of people around the world had to evacuate from coastal areas that were rapidly being swallowed up by the seas. Entire islands in the South Pacific simply vanished off the face of the Earth. The United States was forced to build a massive sea wall around coastal areas. The sea wall built around New York City was meant to withstand a direct hit from a Category 5 Hurricane. That, unfortunately wouldn’t be enough. The world’s first ever Category 6 Hurricane ravaged the entire length of the country’s east coast before slamming into Long Island. The sea wall was utterly annihilated by the monstrous storm, and most of New York was flooded. Tens of thousands of people died, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Wall Street was demolished, and with it trillions of dollars’ worth of wealth evaporated. The entire planet was plunged into a depression overnight. On a side note, that same hurricane flooded the Potomac, forcing Washington, D.C. to be relocated to the interior of Alaska.”

  I stop to give Blade a chance to finish typing. “Wow, who knew homework could be so exciting?”

  “It’s not exciting, Blade,” Harpoon laments thoughtfully. “Boom Boom is telling us about a horrible period in world history. It’s why things are so screwed up today.”

  Blade sighs and rolls his eyes. He hates it when his sister criticizes him.

  “So what happened next?” he asks eagerly.

  “Well, the hurricane was the catalyst that led to the Climate Change War. Millions of people began leaving the growing deserts of South and Central America and tried to migrate to the northern part of the U.S. So did Americans who lived in the western and southern part of the country. The government was overwhelmed. Canada and Alaska were the only parts of the North American continent that benefited from the changing climate. The warming temperatures thawed the frozen tundra and the climate there actually became quite pleasant. Mere months after the New York Hurricane, the U.S. military invaded Canada and overthrew the government. Canada became America’s newest and biggest state, and millions of people set up settlements there and in Alaska.

  “Soon the U.S. started building Sanctuary cities for rich people who could afford to live there. We now have 50 Sanctuary cities scattered throughout Canada and Alaska. This was in response to exploding crime rates all over the country. The depression forced the country to radically slash their budgets, laying off thousands of police officers. This allowed crime to flourish, a problem that exists to this day.

  “War erupted in the east, too. The Chinese Empire was reeling from the growing Gobi Desert and receding coast lines. Their population was (and still is) much larger than ours, so they decided to invade their massive neighbor to the north, Russia. That’s why the news is always filled with reports of Russian terrorists waging a guerrilla war against their Chinese overlords.

  “The entire continent of Africa basically transformed into a giant desert, forcing hundreds of millions of Africans to migrate up through Europe. The Middle East became a barren wasteland as well. Europe quickly devolved into a bastion of hatred and discrimination, as the traditionally white population grew resentment over the influx of African and Arabic immigrants. Germany became gripped in the same racist, fascist fever that propelled it to world war in the 20th century. Great Britain and other surrounding countries followed suit. Immigrants were rounded up and routinely beaten, jailed, and massacred. The entire continent of Europe is now basically a Neo Nazi-esque wasteland cut off from the rest of the world. No one knows how many ethnic immigrants have succumbed to this new Holocaust, but it is rumored to be in the tens of millions.”

  “Omigosh, that’s terrible!” Harpoon cries.

  “Yeah, this isn’t exciting anymore,” Blade says, looking a little sick in the face.

  “History is saturated with such atrocities,” I say sadly. “100 years ago such crimes would have been condemned by the international community. There was a coalition of nations called NATO that helped overthrow genocidal regimes. Alas, that was a long time ago. Now genocide is met with a shrug.

  “Pretty soon the U.S. and China had invaded all the available arable land on Earth, with the exception of Europe, which, like I said, became cut off from the rest of the world. During those tumultuous years billions of people perished, most of it from famine and drought. America controlled the entire Western Hemisphere while China ruled the Eastern Hemisphere. For years it looked like both empires were headed for war, but then Angela Klaxton was elected the 65th president of the United States during the 2128 presidential election. She knew war with China would end all life as we know it, so she signed a peace treaty with Empress Xing’s parents a few months after taking office. The world has been relatively peaceful ever since, save for Russian and Canadian terrorist activity. Of course, things between the U.S. and China have grown heated over the past several months, mostly due to Mikhail Rasputin’s terrorist attacks, but a new war is highly unlikely. Both empires must realize a world war would lead to the end of all life as we know it.”

  “My teacher says President Klaxton has been in power longer than any president in history,” Blade says. “Is that true?”

  “Yes, it is,” I say gloomily. “She altered the 22nd amendment halfway through her second term, allowing unlimited term limits. She’s won in a landslide ever since. I fear the days of America being a representative democracy are over. Klaxton is more of dictator nowadays than a president.”

  I look over to see Blade typing feverishly. “Uh, why don’t you leave out the part about Klaxton being a dictator,” I say nervously. “I don’t want to give the government a reason to investigate us.”

  Blade grumbles as he de
letes some of what he wrote.

  “So what’s going on with the climate?” Harpoon asks. “Isn’t the planet getting better? That’s what my teacher says.”

  “Yes and no,” I reply honestly. “While a lot of the destruction to our planet is irreversible… mass extinctions, razed rainforests, vaporized glaciers and ice caps… a lot is being done to stabilize Earth’s fever. Millions of artificial trees have been planted in deserts throughout the world, most notably in the Amazon, the Sahara, and the Gobi. These trees suck carbon dioxide and methane gas out of the atmosphere, and that gas is then injected underground in limestone formations. We also have thousands of sunlight-reflecting mirrors strategically placed in orbit, deflecting just enough sunlight to help lower temperatures by a few degrees. In recent years there’s been a mass infusion of algae in the oceans. This algae sucks even more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Giant sulfur generating machines in the Arctic and Antarctic also help put a dent in rising temperatures. And of course we’re all aware of the artificial rainstorms the U.S. and China are continuously churning out. All of these geo-engineering projects have stabilized temperatures somewhat, but we are a long way from getting them back down to early 20th century levels.”

  “Well at least things won’t get worse,” Harpoon replies gloomily. “It still sucks all those awesome animals died, like tigers, polar bears and pandas. We learned about them in science class, and they look neat.”

  Blade continues tapping away on his holographic keyboard. “Gee, thanks Boom Boom! I’m gonna sound smart when I read this in class tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell Ms. Taylor that Boom Boom told you what to wrote,” Harpoon says smugly.

  Blade pushes her, and of course Harpoon shoves him back.

  “Knock it off, you two,” I say curtly. “And Harpoon, don’t rat out your brother. No one likes a tattle-tale.”

  “Oh alright,” Harpoon grumbles. I almost feel bad for ruining her fun.

  I try to make up for it by asking, “So what is your paper about again?”

  “Oh, I was just writing about how bounty hunters are now being used to fight crime, where back in the day it was left to cops.”

  “I can actually help you with this, squirt,” Lance says. “Back in the day we had giant police forces that were able to keep crime under control. After the depression hit, local governments went bankrupt. Now they can only afford a handful of cops, and since they can’t pay them well, most of them are corrupt. The federal government decided the best way to handle the exploding crime rate was to outsource crime-fighting to bounty hunters. The government decides who has broken what laws and, if they can’t capture the crooks with the local police, they put a bounty on their heads. The bigger the crook, the bigger the bounty.”

  “Wait a minute,” Blade says as he finishes up his report. “If the government can’t afford to pay for cops, how can they afford to pay you guys?”

  “Good question,” I say. “Think of it this way. The U.S. would probably need close to a million cops to handle all the crime plaguing the nation. They would have to pay untold billions for all those salaries, health benefits, and pensions. Instead, they can charge $100,000 to capture say, a major drug lord, and leave all the work of capturing that drug lord to thousands of freelance bounty hunters.”

  “Oh, I get it,” Harpoon says. “The government basically gets thousands of people working for them for free.”

  “Yep,” I say. “Sure the government has to pay a large fee when one of us finally nabs a crook, but it’s a fraction of the cost they would have spent on a massive police force. It’s basically a clever way for Klaxton to get the country to police itself.”

  I spend the next several minutes looking over Blade’s paper while Lance heads into his room. (I don’t bother helping Harpoon, she gets straight A’s.) I just finish fixing all of Blade’s typos when Lance walks by with a joint in his mouth.

  “Lance, I told you to stop smoking that crap!”

  “Get off my back. I use this for medical purposes. I was set on fire, you know.”

  “You can at least not do it in front of the kids!”

  “Fine, I’ll go up to the roof.” Lance presses a button on the wall and stairs descend from the skylight. He jogs up the stairs, opens the window, and steps out.

  “I better never catch any of you doing drugs,” I say to the kids.

  “We won’t,” Harpoon and Blade grumble.

  I’m so furious I storm into my room and slam the door. I’m angry at Lance for smoking, but I’m also mad at myself for being a hypocrite. He uses marijuana to ease his pain, while I use pain pills. If Lance ever found out I was addicted to them, I’d never hear the end of it.

  I type in the password to the lock on my drawer and open it. Inside are several pill bottles. I pick the strongest ones and gulp down three of them.

  I feel myself fighting back tears. I always get like this after a big mission, especially if we’ve all been beaten up. I don’t know how much longer I can take this. It can’t be healthy for the average person to constantly be strangled, beaten, and shot. If only we could find an easier way to make money. Or even just make enough from one apprehension to take a one or two year break. Caesar was supposed to be that break, and of course that didn’t work out.

  I wait for the pain pills to take effect. They finally do, numbing the pain that seems to wrack my entire body every second of every day. But even though the physical pain has receded, the emotional trauma still lingers. Every day I feel like I’m losing more and more of my mind. I’m not sure if it’s the pills, our insane lifestyle, the stress of caring for Blade and Harpoon, or a combination of everything. I do my best to hold myself together, but it’s been so hard without Dagger. He was like a father figure to me. Whenever we had problems, he knew how to fix them. Now I don’t have anyone to go to… no one to ask for advice, to hold me when I’m on the brink of despair, to tell me everything will be okay. Lance tries to fill that void the best he can, but unfortunately the void is too large… too deep. No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop the tears from pouring down my cheeks.

  I’m not sure how long I sit there with my head in my hands, sobbing quietly, but I finally look up when there’s a knock on the door.

  I wipe my eyes and sniff repeatedly to clear my congested sinuses. “Come in!”

  The door slowly opens and Lance’s head appears.

  “What?” I snap. “Can’t I have a little privacy?”

  Normally Lance would respond sarcastically. Instead he says, “You need to see this.”

  He then walks away.

  Lance isn’t good at hiding his emotions. When he’s in a goofy mood, he acts goofy. When he’s mad, he’s mad; when he’s sad, he’s sad; and when he’s serious, he’s always serious. And this time, he’s serious.

  I jump up and glance around the room. My heart skips a beat when I notice the pill bottle sitting on the dresser. I wonder if Lance saw it. I shove the bottle in my drawer and lock it.

  I rush into the living room and almost run into Krystal, who is standing in front of the holographic TV in her bathrobe. She has her goofy new wig on. Blade and Harpoon are on the couch, looking bored. Lance, however, has a grim look on his face. The live newsfeed is paused. He must have stopped it for me.

  “I rewound it to the beginning,” he says. “It just came on a few minutes ago.”

  Lance waves his hand and the newsfeed unfreezes. The young, blonde reporter is sitting in front of the camera, with her finger near her ear. After a few seconds of awkward silence she looks directly at the camera and says, “Sorry folks, I was just being fed some breaking news. We have received word that wanted fugitive Caesar Dominguez has released a video.”

  The screen goes black for a few seconds, then Caesar appears. The footage is grainy, but it’s obvious it’s him. He is sitting in a chair, and Maxwell is by his side.

  “Greetings,” Caesar begins. “Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know who I am. I would hat
e to waste everyone’s precious time, so let me get straight to the point. Unlike our worthless government, I understand people are hurting. I know times are tough. I’ve done my best over the years to employ people, but the government has made that exceedingly difficult by cracking down on my very popular business ventures. They view me as a criminal, even though I think most of you would agree that the government is far more cruel and sadistic than I could ever hope to be. We all have had friends and family members arrested by Klaxton’s secret police. A lot of those arrested are never seen from again. The few that are released are never quite the same. Merciless torture can do that to the strongest of individuals.”

  Caesar pauses for a moment before continuing his fiery diatribe. “Despite Dictator Klaxton’s sanctioned crackdown on me and my fellow business associates, she is not what this video is about. No, this video is about the three individuals who tried to assassinate me earlier today. I’m referring to the infamous ‘Teenage Bounty Hunters’.”

  The screen cuts away to a picture of me, Lance, and Krystal. Our faces are plastered on ‘Wanted’ posters.

  “Dear God…,” Lance mutters in a barely audible whisper.

  “These are the people I am after… Lance, Boom Boom, and Krystal,” Caesar says as the camera zooms in on our faces. “I want them captured and delivered to me. Dead or alive, it does not matter. Although if they are brought in alive, I could be convinced to add a significant bonus to the reward. I would love to perform the same sort of ‘interrogation techniques’ our government uses against us.”

  That, of course, is a thinly veiled reference to merciless torture.

  The video flickers and Caesar and Maxwell appear once more. This time Caesar’s face is a hideous mask of pure, unadulterated, deformed rage.

  In a quivering voice that builds to a mighty crescendo, Caesar bellows, “I want these pieces of scum brought to me, and I am willing to pay a handsome reward for their capture. As I said in the beginning, I realize times are tough. That is why I am more than willing to pay ten million dollars for their heads!”