Scorched Earth: Volume I

In 2024, civilization was consumed in the Rebirthing fires. Ninety years later, Gerti Alvarez just wanted to survive the impossible task she had been assigned. Instead, she finds a scarred girl, a repair team trying to hold their town together, and a mayor hiding more than political ambition.

Scorched Earth: Volume 1 is a gripping apocalyptic adventure about loyalty, survival, and the cost of doing what’s right

A long green sign hung from an old intersection. It had white letters on it that spelled ‘T.E.X.A.S A.V.E.’ Gerti couldn’t read what it said, but it swayed back and forth in the storm-darkened wind. She had never learned to read properly. She recognized the English alphabet but they all just looked like glyphs to her. Gerti understood they could be put together to make words but it never really helped with her job before so she never bothered to learn.
It was against the Council’s laws for outer wall citizens to read - that right was reserved for the council’s upperclassmen. Less than a handful of other outerwall citizens were allowed the exclusive privilege. Her dad and the pastor. The council had tried to crack down on the pastor but the people took up arms - so the council backed off.
Her employers gave her instructions to look for an item with certain symbols on them and that’s what she would do.
Gerti was still waiting for the sun to rise just a little further before she continued her search. She knew the ‘Trustee Bots’ could see in darkness and she didn’t want to give them an advantage - if she could help it. She had traveled ninety miles south through the scorched and arid lands of Texas. She’d be damned if she died this close to what she was looking for.
The building she had hunkered down in was an old diner that had fallen apart with time. The walls were scorched from the Rebirthing fires and the windows were blown inward. Shattered glass and sandy mud filled every crevice of the diner. The wind rustled down the street and filled the diner with the smell of rain. Small droplets began falling in through the open roof.
Rain had become a very rare thing but Texas still had hurricanes rolling in from the gulf every year so reliably you could set your watch to it. The rain droplets were followed shortly by a heavier shower that caused Gerti to grab her rifle and bag before retreating behind the dusty old counter.
Her rifle was old and prone to rusting. It was a larger caliber, bolt action rifle with a wooden stock and iron sights - Gerti only used it for dire circumstances. After a few minutes of rain, she wrapped her rifle in a long oilcloth and tucked it under her arm. The rain was a nuisance, but she needed to get a move on and she knew the bots wouldn’t be able to operate as well in the rain. She pulled her dirty black hair from her face and stuffed it under a baseball cap. It did little to keep her dry.
She was wearing a baseball shirt with long green sleeves and a gold collar that matched her hat. There was the face of a black bear printed on the gray front. It was the sigil of the council that hired her.
She made her way to “The University” as the council had called it. They treated it with an air of reverence that surprised Gerti - they were also based out of the carcass of a crumbling university. She weaved between what was left of the town towards the school through dilapidated and burned houses - many of which had completely collapsed. She went slow and easy like her mother had taught her - silent as a ghost. Each shadow and movement were suspect to scrutiny. Each loose framing board swinging in the wind was a possible bandit, mutant, or bot.
She came to a wide road with a row of old burnt out businesses along it. Across the road she could see the university. Massive brick structures filled the skyline across an imposingly open field of rain soaked ground.
She scrunched her nose at a foul smell. She followed the scent to a large creature that had crawled up next to a crumbling house before dying - several days ago by the smell. Gerti threw a rock at it and crouched behind a burnt out car. It didn’t move. She looked around and quickly ran towards the corpse. It was severely rotted but Gerti excitedly looked until she found what she was looking for.
Tiny crimson beads were suspended in its black fur. She plucked a few out - exposing a patch of blood that hadn’t completely dried. She watched the dark blood slowly form into the valuable crystals. She grabbed those and turned the creature over - it had the face of a man. She didn’t flinch. She was used to seeing these horrors.
Gerti’s mother had taught her most of what she knew about the wasteland: “Don’t whistle when you’re out there - you don’t know what you’ll attract,” was one bit of advice that always sent shivers down her spine. Her mother had never specified what the whistling attracted and Gerti never asked. The wind and rain howled through the dead city. “Don’t take the bait,” was another piece of sage motherly advice.
She got low and looked at her surroundings. There was an apartment and a large brick building with gaping jagged glass windows nearby. She examined the windows until she was more or less satisfied she wasn’t sitting in an unsprung trap.
Her attention returned to the mutant but she moved faster. A deep circular wound surrounded in black charred skin and singed fur filled its torso. The inside of the fleshy crater was plastered with crimson crystals. She hastily chipped off as much as she could before stuffing them in a small bag she carried. She estimated there was, at least, a pound of crystal - maybe fifteen in total. That would be a hefty bonus to this job.
She left the dead mutant and carefully entered one of the burned out businesses facing the school. It had been some sort of cafe. Leather seated booths were torn, cracked, and faded from the endless onslaught of the oppressive sun.
She removed her rifle from its bag and slowly cleared the building, trying to make as little noise as possible. She eventually felt secure in the idea she was alone. She settled into a cracked booth and watched the field for any details that would help her.
On the other side of the field to the left, there was a truly massive square building with the insignia of the old university. Gerti recognized the symbol from her travels. There was an old wooden barn with it scrawled on the roof - it had collapsed but the letters were still legible. Gerti assumed this university must have been some kind of cult from before the fires.
She had seen their symbol on clothes, old cars, houses, furniture, and all different manners of things. She realized that thought was somewhat hypocritical as she looked down at her school attire. Whoever they were, they had something she needed. Gerti had been told it would be small - about the size of her thumb - and would have “V. 2.11” written on it. She was to retrieve this and take it back north for updating. She didn’t know what it was or what they would be updating but the job paid enough that she wasn’t concerned about it. That and she hadn’t really been given a choice. It was either this or execution.
Frankly, she was glad the council offered to pay her at all. Everyone knows this part of the world is extremely dangerous and few were willing to even look at the job.
When she was younger, the rest of the children fawned over the adventurers who would come home covered in scars and telling wild stories. Gerti however, assumed that if they were getting injured so often they were probably bad at their jobs. Or at least they didn’t come by their skills naturally - instead having to learn them in the harsh wasteland. Gerti had very few scars but the ones she had were pretty bad. She had one that spanned across her face, causing a gouge through her already rather flat nose.
These conflicting ideas and facts had always pissed her off because she felt she was fairly competent now. She had gotten the scar on her face from a chance encounter with a mutant in her teen years, when she was new to the wasteland, and she was lucky it hadn’t killed her. Her other scar was a gash on her left arm that she received in the same attack. Her arm was in constant pain and the wound itself would still get infected if she didn’t keep it clean frequently enough. It had been a mutant similar to the one she found just now - except its face had been more doglike with no features of a man remaining. For all she knew, it could’ve been an actual beast instead of a mutant. She tried to push those grim memories from her mind.
A group of Trustee-bots roamed the empty field. They were standard - four mechanical legs held up the mechanical torso of a human in the middle. They moved with spider-like grace - or at least she assumed they had when they were new. The torso being held up in front was supposed to look human, based on the posters she had seen of them hanging in various buildings and billboards on her travels.
This far gone, the fake skin had degraded and chipped off leaving nothing but the bare mechanical insides and support plates. Two of them were twitching in the rain as they walked their rounds. They all cradled long sleek rifles in their arms. She desperately wanted to use one but they only worked for the bots.
Groups of them continuously made rounds through the muddy field. She waited until she found a pattern in their patrols. A gap every fifteen minutes. The day had slipped away. Between the slow crawl through the city and now watching the bots navigate the fields.
Rain and cloud cover helped dusk arrive earlier than it should have. She either needed to get into the university or hunker down for the night. She waited for the Trustee-bots to cross a double-sided road in the middle of the field - heading north - before she made her way across the wide street and into the empty field. She traipsed through the mud and kept the patrols in the corner of her vision. She said a silent prayer of thanks for the loud rain to cover her noisy movement. She cleared a ditch that reminded her of a little creekbed outside Waco she would pass when hunting with her mother, and came up to a tall building.
The side was filled with windows and openings created by a century of neglect. She knelt down by a car, in the parking lot outside the building, and watched for patrols. Then she turned her attention to the windows. There was no sign of anybody watching. She hoped if there was anybody, she would be concealed enough by the rain.
“Do your duty, stay inside,” said one of the Trustee Bots from an onboard loudspeaker. Gerti jumped. She knew this didn’t mean anything but she was tense about being in the open.
From what she had gathered from her parents and the council, there had been a quarantine before the fires. The Trustee Bots had been conscripted and programmed to enforce the draconian laws. Anyone out past curfew would be shot on sight. After this long, the robots began to think anytime was past curfew. She made it across the field and into the lobby of a hopefully abandoned building.
The crevices of the space were filled with dirt and old world detritus. She found a placard on the wall that displayed a map of the university grounds. She traced her fingers along the glyphs until she found ones that included “D. O. R. M. S.” There was another word in front but she was told it didn’t matter. She was to find a room inside that building by the numbers two, zero, five. Inside she would find what she was after.
She thought about the layout of the buildings she had seen and used that to orient herself on the map. She then realized there was a star in that location and no other. She tucked that information away in her mind and left the lobby towards her next marker.
The announcements were still being made throughout the complex by unseen Trustee Bots. “D-d-do your d-d-d-uty, st-t-t-tay insid-d-de” - “Leisure hours are from nine A.M. to seven P.M.” - “Please have a valid Government ID, along with Vector ID cards, available for inspection at all times.”
One Trustee Bot tried to make an announcement but its speaker was so fried it came out as a buzz that sent shivers down Gerti’s spine. According to her mental map, she was approaching the correct building. She stopped and hunkered down when she saw firelight flickering from one of the rooms on the third floor. She watched for a moment and only saw one shadow against the far wall. It was small and rocked back and forth rhythmically. It reminded her of the stories her mother had told her of witches.
She shook her head - she always did this to herself. She was tired from being on the road for so long. This was by the far, the furthest she had gone from home.
Again, she tried to push these thoughts out of her mind so she could think. She needed to reach the second floor and the rain should cover the sound of her movements from the floor below. Gerti watched the firelight and waited for any more movement.
The shadow eventually stopped rocking. The silhouette of a figure stood and walked to the window. It stood unmoving as it watched the black stone field where Gerti hid behind a burnt out car. Gerti thought there was truly no way it would be able to see her where she was.
After a few very uncomfortable minutes, the figure moved away from the window and disappeared out of view. Gerti let go of the breath she was holding. There were no stairs on the outside of the building but she saw an archway leading to a courtyard in the center. She cautiously entered.
“Please report any unsafe activity you may see from your fellow students,” said a bot very close to her.
The words echoed from the courtyard and into the dark tunnel. Gerti froze. She could hear the clacking of the mechanical legs on the stone pavement. It was extremely close. She quickly drew her rifle from its cloth and leveled it at the exit of the tunnel. Her vision tunneled on the darkening evening light. She got a hold of herself and dropped down behind a bin that was against the tunnel wall. The rain was deafening. She peered past the bin and saw three Trustee Bots move past the opening - totally unaware.
“Please show identification,” a cold voice said from behind her. She lost her balance and fell into the trash bin she was hiding behind - the plastic shell cracked when her shoulder rammed through it. As she fell, she got a look of the bot that had snuck up behind her.
“Please show identification and Vector ID” Its voice was cold and mechanical as it simultaneously raised its rifle. The weapon already had pinpricks of energy shimmering on its sides.
It was about to fire.
Gerti reached for her rifle to shoot back, or to run, or just do something. Her hand blindly grabbed it, accidentally pulled the trigger. A fireball lit the tunnel as the wayward bullet smacked into the stone wall across from her.
She felt something grab her by her shirt and drag her through an opening in the tunnel wall. A half second after, another flash of light exploded in the tunnel and the trash bin was a pile of molten plastic. The heavy door slammed shut in front of her and blocked her view. She was in complete darkness.