Outskirts of the Great Midwestern Delta State - 12 November 2066
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One of the most terrifying parts of living through the First Material Rapture was the fact that they were calling it the “First,” which meant they were expecting more. In the first World War, they didn’t even call it the “first,” it was just the Great War, and everyone thought it would never happen again. After the First Eucharist wiped out most life in the northern Atlantic last year, and the United New States government failed to prepare or evacuate anyone from the coast, leaving over sixty million dead, another revolution began.
Parker Slolley had fought in the last revolution, where the unpredictability of newly developed node technology wrought new horrors upon the resistance every day, but that seemed like child’s play compared to the landscape of this war. The Internal Defense Agency had been refining node weaponization in secret laboratories for the last three decades, and the National Nodal Array Administration had been their tool since before the transubstantiations started last year. This time around the establishment wasn’t limited to roughly estimated vaporizations, they could evaporate the water in your skull in the middle of a crowd as long as you were within an arrayed node field. The only solace was that each day more nodes fell out of the National Array, but that comfort was limited by the reality that every unarrayed node was contributing to the Second Material Rapture.
Parker believed this Rapture was arguably worse than the First, for a number of compounding reasons. For one thing, it was not confined to the air over the ocean, so as its so-called “Delta State” was growing, it was less avoidable. Sections of the air above the great lakes and further north into the canadian nations were being converted into that familiar red crystal, but massive tracts of land in the midwest as well as Greenland were being converted as well. The land wasn’t being converted into crystal though — apparently there were a few recorded instances of transubstantiation that should have foreshadowed the land conversion — the land was turning to pure, unblemished white marble. Just like the Delta State of the First Rapture, the growing blocks of marble and red crystal were impervious to any drills or scientific instruments. As they were constantly growing, it was impossible to drill to discern how deep the conversion went into the earth.
The bright side from a humanistic perspective was that people were being evacuated from the conversion radius every day, and the lakeshores were evacuated as well, but the land conversion wasn’t growing as consistently as the air conversion had before. Occasionally, a new patch of marble would appear in someone’s backyard, or on the outskirts of some town, and within a few days a few miles surrounding it would be converted. Parker had witnessed firsthand the start of the conversion in Ohio, as it started in his friend’s front lawn. It seemed to start perfectly even with sea level, extending downwards into the earth. Any solid material would be converted to marble, and anything above sea level would remain the same. Being cleanly severed from their foundations many buildings remained standing, but when storms came many structures, even whole hillsides and forests, would be swept away— smeared across the marble surface like a stain on a countertop.
The resistance was operating in a series of mobile camps, in the backs of various trucks and vans, sticking to the shifting borders of the growing Delta States. These areas were generally clear of the National Array as any nearby nodes were involved in the generation of the Rapture, which meant the rebels were safe from IDA node attacks. They were not safe from physical military efforts, however, and those attacks could be even more insidious. The IDA’s main method of attack was not to use any weapons against the resistance, as they were actually never equipped with lethal weapons, per the New Constitution, but to use their armored vehicles to separate resistance vehicles from the caravan and force them into pits or valleys alongside the expanding Delta State. The IDA would force the isolated caravan vehicles to get right up against the growing marble, where they would be converted if they were not able to get above sea level before the block expanded through their position.
Today, Parker was at the front of a small caravan, driving a small electric motorcycle, leading them in a cross-country maneuver from the center of the west side of the Ohio Delta State in Indiana around from the south and then up the east side to the northeast corner near Columbus. They would be joining up with a larger mobile camp and finalizing a plan to assault the NNAA headquarters, where they had received reliable intel that the IDA task force was developing a catastrophic new node weapon.
Parker radioed back to Dr. Stein, one of the resistance leaders who was in charge of their caravan and would be the main strategist of the NNAA assault. “We should be within six hours of the main caravan, about a mile ahead there’s a wide spot where the land goes above sea level. We could cut across the corner of the Delta State and save half that time.”
Dr. Stein radioed back immediately. “Last we heard, the whole east front is above sea level, so it should be a pretty safe bet that we’ll be able to get off the Delta no problem. My concern is this: there is still no telling what the driving conditions might be in between here and there.”
Dr. Jacqueline Stein had fought in the last American Civil War alongside Parker, at that time neither a general nor having completed her doctorate. She had gotten him out of more than his fair share of scrapes and close calls, and when he heard she was starting up a cell of the present revolution, he was quick to join. Parker knew that if she was voicing concerns, they were not to be taken lightly. That considered, he had also been living in this part of Ohio for the last fifteen years. “There’s a highway not far off from where we’d be getting on top of the Delta. It only expanded this far within the last week, so what’s left of the road should still be pretty stable. It goes to Columbus - or it did anyway - so if we take it most of the way across, we can find a reliable enough detour once we’re close to the eastern edge.”
“Okay Slolley, I’m trusting your judgement on this one. Are you sure?”
“As I can be,” the immediacy of his reply was somewhat at odds with his tone, so he continued, “I believe it’s the best choice, we want to join up as soon as possible, this will save us hours, and we won’t be intercepted by the IDA.”
Jacqueline didn’t respond to Parker again but instead switched to the broadcast frequency for the whole caravan and announced, “we’re going into uncharted territory folks, Slolley is on lead, we’ll be going on top of the Delta State in three quarters of a mile.”
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Parker pushed the throttle on his bike to gain some ground, separating himself from the caravan slightly, so it would be easier for the vehicles at the back to tell when they were turning. A minute later, he took the turn. Up a gravelly hillside and they were above the Delta. The part they came up to was apparently an out of season agricultural field of some sort, so it was primarily a large swath of loose dirt. Where there would be irrigation channels, the pure white of the marble below could be seen instead. Ahead, the field sloped upward as it turned to grass, and the ground became more solid.
Looking back over his shoulder as he crested the hill, Parker saw that the whole caravan had made it on top of the Delta. The last few vehicles had some trouble getting through the field as those ahead of them had torn through the earth enough to reduce their traction, but as they got toward the edge of the dirt they gained traction and speed. Turning forward again, Parker pushed on across the grassy expanse atop the hill. Ahead he could see the highway through a thin line of trees. Within another few minutes the full caravan was on the highway and picking up speed. They travelled on in relative silence for an hour or so. At least, it was relative silence for Parker, alone on his bike; within the various vehicles behind him the other resistance fighters were probably holding conversations or sharing jokes or singing along to whatever radio stations might reach out here. Or maybe not, maybe their reality was too dark for jokes or singing right now. Parker thought of a quote from a classic movie he saw as a kid that had stuck with him as a teen in the last civil war, “revolution without dancing is revolution not worth having,” or something like that. He hoped the younger members of the resistance still had positive ideals like that.
Jacqueline’s unyielding voice came over the radio and interrupted his uncharacteristically codgerly thoughts. “I’ve got to hand it to you Slolley, this is really working out quite well. Would you say it’s about time to be looking out for our detour back into natural territory?”
Parker smiled a little to himself, even after all these years it still felt good to get praise from Jacqueline. “Yes, sometime within the next half hour we should bear east or else we’ll overtake the main caravan and be on a direct route to Columbus ourselves.”
The radio activation tone played as though Jacqueline was about to reply again, but there was nothing. In place of her voice, through the radio and also aloud all around, was a faint rumbling. Suddenly pavement was cracking beneath their vehicles, and looking ahead, the horizon line was rising. Parker thought that this section of land must have been affected by rain or something and now the weight of the caravan was causing it to collapse, and he was about to communicate as much to the others when Jacqueline finally spoke over her open frequency.
“By God, it's happening right now. The Second Eucharist. Slolley, we’re out of my breadth here, what’s our move?”
Parker looked around wildly as his bike stuttered over the crumbling roadway. He was trying to confirm Jacqueline’s conclusion, and seeing a spot of white far to his left, he did. The sun still reflected almost the same off the pure white sand as it had off the marble, but there was a shifting quality to it, and at the edges he could see the ground slipping into the white. “I don’t know Jacqueline, I hadn’t even considered this possibility. I don’t think we have any other options: we just have to floor it.”
“Okay then, you have lead right now, tell the caravan.”
He switched to the broadcast frequency and said, “This is the Second Eucharist everybody. Space out to decentralize our weight and then floor it, or we’re all getting beached. We’re heading due East now!”
He switched off his radio, pushed the throttle all the way, and zipped out ahead of the caravan taking an arcing path off the highway over a collapsed noise barrier into the shifting ruins of an unfinished housing development. There was little that could be done for now but to keep driving and pray that they all made it back to solid ground.
Parker led the charge over broken roads and sinking hills, weaving a little north or a little south when necessary but ever heading eastward, checking back at every opportunity to see if the caravan was still all there. He didn’t think they had lost anyone yet, but in their current disorganized formation, it was hard to be sure. Eventually, they were finally nearing the edge of the Eucharist. In the distance, Parker could see trees and buildings on the horizon that were not shifting and collapsing before his eyes. But as they approached, he also saw something that could have stopped his heart.
About two miles ahead, fifteen or so black armored vehicles were forming a blockade at the end of the only patch of solid land remaining between the caravan and safety. Somehow the IDA had figured out where they were coming from and had laid a trap. Not only that but either they knew the Eucharist was going to happen or they had live intel on the caravan, but there was no time to consider the implications of either possibility. The IDA squadron was probably going to try to force the caravan off into the sand where their vehicles would stop and they could all be easily rounded up and arrested.
Parker considered stopping the caravan here to try to figure something out and hope the IDA force wouldn’t risk coming out onto the unstable land, but the ground between them and the sand below was thin here, and sinking ever more quickly. If they stopped moving, their fate was sealed. Their only option was to barrel ahead and hope to smash through the blockade, but whichever vehicles took the front position were almost guaranteed to die.
Parker switched on the radio. “We’re out of options everyone. Our best bet is to ram through the blockade, but we’ll need two sturdy trucks or vans to get out in front to do it, and likelihood of surviving that is slim. I can’t ask any of you to do that, but if there are any volunteers, you would be saving us all.”
“Now hang on a minute Parker Slolley,” came Jacqueline’s voice in swift reply. “I am in charge here, and my orders are to look to the south.”
Confused, Parker turned his head to the right and scanned the horizon. At first he saw nothing that stood out from the distant tree line, but then a glint of sunlight reflected on chrome hit his eye and he realized there was somewhere in the range of a hundred vehicles rushing along the edge of the freshly formed desert toward the IDA blockade. It was the main resistance caravan, arriving not a second too soon to aid them.
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