The Bluge

The Lone Order went all out for their Conversion Day Celebration. Five couples were married at an outdoor hall built for the occasion covered in flowers, which featured Abalone, Almas caviar, and a 10-foot-tall cake. The settlement’s leader, Juan Maria Mendoza, known as “El Condor,” served as the preacher.

The Lone Wolves, the settlement’s band, played songs with the word happy in them: “Happy Together,” “Oh How Happy,” “I’m Happy Just to Dance With You,” and “Love (Can Make You Happy)” among a dozen others.

The settlement’s brewery company, Lone Lager, gave away steins of light and dark beer.

At dusk, the members of the Lone Order gathered in the square to hear El Condor’s remarks.

El Condor often said his father’s death when he was a boy put him on a rough road toward redemption. Tall and slender, with intense grey eyes, the lantern-jawed leader possesses a deep, hypnotic voice.

“We have come a long way since we left our broken society in 2083 to live here at Lake Diablo. Our thirty founding members lived a stark lifestyle promoting independence from government interference while practicing sexual and spiritual freedom. We delivered the word at concerts, airports, and colleges. Within a few years, we had nearly five hundred followers. Today, we will indoctrinate another fifty members. Soon, the lies, greed, and political divisiveness destroying America will be replaced by the truth practiced by the Lone Order!”

Standing by El Condor’s side, Zion York, his loyal second-in-command, shouts, “Amen, brother!”  The crowd blissfully echoes his words.

Scrawny, with bad eyes, a hawk-shaped nose, and barely 5’ 4”, the highlight of Zion’s dubious career had been serving as an editor for a radical newspaper, which Juan Maria Mendoza happened to read upon his release from prison for bigamy and assaulting his second wife. The two founded a cult at Lake Diablo, practicing polygamy, selling crystal meth to bikers, and building a cache of weapons.

The government didn’t seem to care at first, sending a few messenger androids to the compound to shake their metal fingers at El Condor.

Then a Lone Order member escaped, claiming the organic beef being served at the compound was mixed with the flesh of former members who’d failed in their bid for freedom.

The Lone Order remained defiant about surrendering for questioning, even up to the moment the F.B.I., A.T.F., and several other heavily armed government agencies rolled up to the gates with a hundred heavily armed soldiers.

As the Lone Order prepares for the Conversion Ceremony – the moment when trainees become full-fledged members - the Army’s West Coast Division silently moves through the surrounding woods, preparing to take control of the compound.

Staring at the settlement through his field glasses, Colonel Oxnard “Ox” Freeman grumbles, “Do all the men have their gas masks on?”

Captain Malaya Erkin, one of the few female officers in the West Coast Division nods affirmatively.

“Permission to speak freely, Colonel? I’m concerned about the Bluge…”

“Our scientists said it tested successfully, Captain.”

“Yes, sir. On monkeys. Bluge has had mixed results on humans.”

“Well, it’s going to be tested now. FIRE!”

Silver canisters fall from the sky into the compound.

El Condor looks down in wonderment at one of the canisters as it emits thick grey smoke.

“We’re under attack!” he screams, but it’s already too late. El Condor’s followers swoon at his feet, and he begins to feel nauseous and dizzy.

El Condor’s vision blurs as he looks up at an inquisitive Colonel wearing a gas mask.

Colonel Freeman and Captain Erkin remain silent as their jeep bounces along the rutty dirt road.

“The Bluge gas was supposed to knock them out, not kill them,” Captain Erkin finally says. What are we going to do?”

Colonel Freeman holds his head high, clearing his throat.

“Take responsibility. They were a dangerous cult and had to be stopped. We have to maintain faith in our superiors and our government. They might even give us metals.”

“Or use the gas on us.”

El Condor lets out a loud, hacking cough, spitting out blue phlegm. Rolling over, he struggles to his feet. Steadying himself, he can feel blood circulating through his veins again.

He looks down at his hands, which, like the rest of his body, have turned blue.

El Condor helps Zion to his feet.

“We’re alive, Zion!”

Turning to his stunned followers, El Condor announces, “Our misguided families, our corrupted government, have tried to kill us! Instead, they have made us immortal! They want war, let’s give it to them!”

“Yes, let’s give it to them!” Zion parrots. “The Lone Order will rule the earth!”

The crowd chants euphorically, “WE WILL RULE THE EARTH!”

Zion turns to El Condor, whispering, “There’s a little more than five hundred of us. We can’t take on the army.”

“We just did. And we won.”

“No, we died. But somehow, we’re alive again.”

Tinged with madness, El Condor’s hard grey eyes widen.

“It’s destiny, Zion. The Lord has marked us by turning our skin blue. How can you doubt that we’re the chosen ones?”

“What do we do next, El Condor?”

“Let the world know I’m the Messiah.”

“Dozens of men have said that before, and they’ve failed.”

“We’ll prove it when we get a supply of the deadliest gas on Earth to use against disbelievers. And we’re also going to have the Migrators.”

“I’m sure I can get us a supply of Bluge through our black market connections,” Zion replies. “But the Migrators we have don’t work. Anyone who tried them was burned to a cinder. Even the researchers who created them reported an eighty percent failure rate.”

“That means the Migrators worked twenty percent of the time,” El Condor says excitedly. “We need to get to the Blue Life Lab before our enemies do.”

“The laboratory is bound to be heavily guarded,” Zion replies.

“No doubt. But you’ll have a tactical advantage, Zion. You’re dead.”

The Lone Order declares war on America a week later. The state of Washington falls first, wiped out by Bluge gas. Oregon falls next. Swirling, noxious winds blow through empty streets where people once laughed and had a future.

The people who listened to El Condor and ate the cult’s organic meat were spared. They happily charged head-first into battle, proving El Condor’s mad theory that anyone who ate the organic meat and was gassed could be resurrected.

El Condor proclaimed that poison, bullets, and even bombs couldn’t kill the chosen people.

Most of the West Coast had fallen to El Condor’s increasing hordes when seventy-eight-year-old Macon Driswater fired a rusty bullet at a Lone Order member who had broken into his home.

The blue-skinned attacker fell backward onto the floor. Steam consumed his body, eating away at it as if it were acid.

All that remained on the floor was an outline of the body.

Roman Erthman and his family crowd around their TV watching the news.

“They’re attacking Los Angeles,” Norman Erthman notes, adjusting his glasses. The father’s normally placid, nerdy expression twists into a worried grimace. “We’re next.”

“And all we’ve got is rusty bullets to stop them,” Roman laments.

Flora Erthman protectively holds her daughter, Tara. Tara may only be twelve, but she’s the genius of the family, a historian who dwells in the past, who’s now very much aware she doesn’t have much of a future.

Unlike his sister, Roman’s genius lies in computer technology. He can fix practically anything. Twenty-year-old Roman has been spoiling for a fight with the Lone Order since his college in Cressy, Oregon was closed down, and his roommate and his family were massacred trying to get home.

 “I warned the Chancellor of the Airborne Weapons Agency that El Condor was dangerous,” Norman says. “I told them that the Bluge gas El Condor and his followers had inhaled had made them insane.”

“And they fired you for saying it,” Flora says bitterly.

“Given the number of people El Condor and his followers have massacred, It’d be in bad taste for me to take a victory lap and say, ‘I told you so.’”

The broadcast is hijacked by a transmission from the Lone Order’s headquarters. El Condor’s blue skin and grey eyes shine on the TV with reptilian treachery, his voice a sharp, commanding inditement that enhances his pronouncement.

“Citizens of Los Angeles, I’m offering you the olive branch of peace. Lay down your arms and report to our detention camps. Resistance means death. Acceptance means immortality. Eternal life!”

As Los Angeles burns, the Erthmans pack as many supplies as their SUV can hold, leaving their hometown of Furnace Creek. Norman brings a pair of rifles given to him by their neighbors, the Redferns, who are confident the army has enough rusty bullets to stop El Condor’s advance.

Fearing El Condor’s dictatorship will suppress literature, Tara packs up her collection of classic novels, and Roman brings along his laptop. Flora chooses to bring a box of seeds, knowing that wherever they settle, their lives will depend on what they can grow.

“We’re going to Roseland in Indiana,” Norman declares.

“Why Roseland?” Flora protests, her cheeks turning as red as her hair. “It’s already been abandoned.”

“The Migrators are at the Blue Life Lab in Roseland.”

“You can’t pin our survival on failed technology,” Flora protests. “You told me that test subjects who used the Migrator went insane, or wound up in the wrong time period, reappeared trapped in walls, or never came back at all.”

“What does it do?” Tara asks.

“It’s a form of transport,” Norman answers. “It uses our individual brain waves. In essence, if you think about someplace, it’s supposed to take you there.”

“You mean it could take me back to the year before El Condor established the Lone Order?” Roman asks.

“That’s the concept, yes,” Norman says, adjusting his glasses. “You’d try to stop him, wouldn’t you?”

“With my bare hands if I had to.”

Norman bangs his hand off the side of his laptop. Eighteen-year-old Alvin Redfern’s face fades in and out of the picture.

“It’s not a TV, genius, you can’t get the signal back by abusing it,” Tara teases.

Norman looks at Roman in the rearview mirror, his tired eyes reflecting concern.

“Are the Redfern’s all right?”

Alvin’s face appears on the laptop screen.

“They’re here…,” Alvin whispers. He turns, his body trembling as he looks at the basement stairs.

Alvin begins to cry when a terrified scream echoes through the house.

“That was my grandmother. I hope she died quickly,” Alvin says.

Two blue-skinned figures move down the stairs, licking their lips when they see Alvin.

Alvin takes a brief look behind him, sighing with resignation.

One of the creatures grabs Alvin’s head, twisting it. The second tears Alvin’s arm off, biting it like a savory spare rib at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Roman shuts the lid of the laptop so his sister’s curious eyes can’t see any more of Alvin’s gruesome death.

The Erthman’s SUV gives out in Sunnyvale, only twenty miles from Roseland. Like their destination, Sunnyvale is deserted.

Norman sends Roman out to scout for another vehicle while he tries to revive the SUV.

Roman passes a devastated Dunkin’ Donuts with a battered Acura sitting in the doorway. Next door at the hair salon, broken hair dryers, sinks, and crushed hair supplies lie in a useless pile on the sidewalk. The local liquor store, its front door twisted off its hinges and its windows smashed into dust is empty save for a few empty and smashed bottles.

With its banners promising “Monk’s Money-Saving Deals of the Century” torn down, and its stock of brand-new Jeeps missing or destroyed, Johan Monkman’s Jeep dealership offers little hope for a salvageable means of transportation.

Roman spots a Jeep in the garage that was being repaired when the dealership was abandoned.

Roman is pleased to discover the Jeep only needs coolant. Roman finds a crushed, half-full jug of anti-freeze.

Roman sees smoke rising ahead as he drives back to where his family is waiting.

He locks up the brakes at the sight of a group of blue-skinned men celebrating over the family’s burning SUV.

Norman’s body lies crushed and broken near a supersized pickup, his blood smeared across the pavement.

Yelling, “Eternal life!” two of the men charge at Roman. Jumping from the Jeep, Roman aims his rifle at them, embarrassed that his hands are shaking.

“Here’s a rusty bullet for you, creep!”

One man goes down, the bullet passing through his lungs and out his back. The second man scampers off, yelling, “Eternal life!”

The sound of his mother’s tortured scream sends Roman rushing toward the pickup.

Three screeching men drag Flora toward the pickup. One stops to tear her dress to shreds. Wrapping a rope around her neck, he pulls her naked body through her husband’s blood.

The three men toss her in the back of the truck as if she were a sack of produce.

Roman fires his rifle, and one of the men falls from the truck. Two others continue to paw at Flora as the pickup begins to pull away.

Roman lines up another shot. The rifle jams.

Flora’s eyes lock with her sons.

She mouths, “Kill me.”

Roman’s next shot strikes his mother in the head. Her body slumps in the truck as the men ride off, cursing at Roman.

Roman picks through their belongings. The only usable item is one small strawberry seed, which he places in his shirt pocket.

Engrossed in his grief, Roman nearly jumps out of his skin when someone taps him on his shoulder.

Tara jumps into his arms.

“…How?” he manages to say, wiping away the tears.

“Lone Order animals. They came out of nowhere. They ran Dad down like he wasn’t there. I ran off and played dead in a dumpster. I thought Mom was behind me.”

“They’re not going to hurt her anymore.”

“What do we do now?”

“We’re still going to the Blue Life Labs.”

“No! The men who attacked us were wearing Blue Life uniforms. Do you know what that means?”

“That the people we’re relying on for help are probably dead.”

The gate to the Blue Life’s facility is twisted, and the security station has been smashed into kindling, but the main research building appears to be intact.

Roman and Tara cautiously thread through the empty hallways strewn with papers, overturned carts, and wrecked equipment.

Entering the main research wing, Roman checks his rifle to ensure it's ready for use.

A blue-skinned, small man with broken glasses jumps in front of them.

“They left me alone here! I couldn’t get the Migrators to work, so they mutinied! Then they destroyed everything!”

Roman raises his gun. “Stay back. We know how to kill you.”

“Then do it! I’ve cheated death for too long!”

Roman pushes his sister behind him.

“Do it! I see the truth now! The Lone Order means disorder!”

Zion lunges toward Roman, who instinctively fires his gun.

Smiling as his body burbles and disintegrates, Zion says, “…At last, eternal peace...”

Crushed boxes and broken headsets litter the laboratory floor.

The pair searches through the debris, finding a pair of slightly damaged Migrator headsets.

“That man must have tried to use these. It drove them mad,” Tara notes. “The same thing may happen to us.”

Roman smiles. “I can fix them. And we still have a twenty percent chance of success.”

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”

Roman and Tara shake their heads, hoping to quash the wringing in their ears.

As their blurry vision clears, they realize they’re in a field of sunflowers.

“This isn’t Furnace Creek,” Roman observes.

“Maybe we should be thankful it’s not,” Tara replies, removing her headset. “But where exactly are we?”

Roman points to a log cabin in the distance. “Let’s ask them.”

The woman who answers the door is as perplexed by their outfits as they are with hers. She’s wearing a white bonnet, a thick full-length wool skirt, an apron, a petticoat, and plain leather shoes.

“Can I offer thee aid?”

“Where are we?” Roman asks.

“Germantown, New York, of course. In the year of our Lord 1786.”

“We’re from a town far away. We seek asylum,” Tara says.

“I am certain our Governor will grant it, particularly if ye can help till the fields. Are thee hungry?”

Roman fiddles with Tara’s headset.

“It’s out of power.”

“Then it’s a one-way trip for me,” Tara replies.

“Are you sure you want to stay here?” Roman asks. “I’ll give you my headset. You can go someplace else, and I’ll stay here.”

“No, you know how much I love colonial history. Now I can live it. Besides, I read a book about our family history not too long ago. One of our ancestors was named Tara and she established the library here.”

“Are you telling me you’re her?”

“I’ve always felt out of time like I didn’t belong where I was,” Tara replies. “You’re on a mission, aren’t you?”

“If this device works properly, it’ll send me to El Condor’s compound before the war, back when he only had a handful of followers.”

“Killing El Condor may not change history. Someone else may take his place,” Tara says.

“And they’ll meet the same fate... It’ll be nice to see Mom and Dad and the Redferns again. Even you.”

Reaching into his pocket, Roman shows her the strawberry seed.

“What’s that?”

“Hope.”

Victor Mendoza sees his son talking with a teenager on the street corner.

“Hey, you! Get away from my boy! What are you a pervert?”

“No. But he has to come with me,” the stranger responds.

“I don’t think so, hombre.”

Victor lunges at the teen, who reaches for the knife in his pocket, thrusting it into Victor’s gut.

Juan wails as his father falls into the gutter.

Cursing, Roman runs down the street, knowing history hasn’t changed one bit.