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The Locket

By J. Speer

By Janea SpeerPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
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Part One

It wasn't supposed to happen like this...

That was the last thought entering Dawn's mind as her shocked eyes pulled away from the rear view mirror. In the reflection, she could see the slow pool of blood flowing out from her sister's abdomen. Liz was crumpled in an unmoving heap on the ground 15 yards behind her. That was as far as Liz had gotten before the robots fired lasers at her fleeing the vehicle.

Liz was dead for certain. Dawn knew this already in her shattered heart. The shadows of drones flew overhead targeting her renegade F390 truck.

Her eyes darted to the glove compartment briefly and then drew back to the gathering robot border patrol guards. Dawn thought of the only weapon she had, an ancient Colt 1911 that had belonged to her father before he was euthanized by the People's Republic in 2064. This was 17 years prior to this moment....her Dad euthanized at 50 to fertilize soil for the republic crops......euthanized by state mandate like all the other 50 year olds that surrendered their bodies for the greater good. State survival...it was necessary.

The laser sights flickered briefly to show the robots were on to her movements, armed and deadly. Dawn swallowed harshly.

A brief text appeared before her.

"You know what to do." scrolled the incoming message left to right above her briefly on the digital windshield.

There was another pause as she considered the weight of the silver heart locket on her heaving chest.

"You know what to do." the message repeated only this time it was followed by a slight command strong enough to stop her beating heart.

"Remember your family back here in Teyhanna."

A solitary tear fell down Dawn's right cheek as she continued to stare at the border crossing now filled with reinforcing robotic sentries. No more messages appeared.

Dawn reached quickly for the heart-shaped locket with her left hand. The laser lights flickered again. Four robots forcefully came forward.

"Halt!" They ordered. "You are in violation of ordinance 517."

She thumbed open the tiny clasp on the locket. Her eyes were glued to the robots coming forward now, fast approaching the vehicle.

She felt the small pill fall into her cupped hand. She remembered what the cartel man had told her. You can't allow yourself to be captured. If you do fall into their hands, you will wish you were dead anyway. They'll never let you go. Slavery...prison....fertilizer....worse. You know what to do.

The robots slammed their fists into the hood of her car. Dawn closed her eyes and brought the little pill to her mouth. Then, she swallowed it down. Cyanide. He had said it was cyanide. It will be quick he had said as he had handed her the lockets and walked away from her little brother's graveside in Teyhanna, the brother that was executed by the same cartel. He had gotten in over his head with the wrong sort of people.

Minutes later, robots yanked open the locked driver side door of the truck. Dawn's limp, lifeless body fell in a crumpled up heap onto the dry, parched desert ground. When her head hit the ground, her soulless eyes stared towards her sister. A sort-of bluish foam pooled out from Dawn's breathless lips.

Part Two

One week prior, Dawn was heading out the hatch door of her apartment flat in Drose. She was going to be late for work if she didn't hurry. She activated her truck from her watch and noticed an emergency alert intercept from her older sister, Liz. Liz - the wise and strategic one who had married into wealth and fortune despite her upbringing.....despite the days of their youth trudging illegally across the desert wasteland between Drose and Teyhanna to reach the promised land. Days without food and barely any water.....days they survived by each holding tight to the hands of their father who kept the little girls safe, alive, and kept them going.

Drose, or rather The People's Republic of Drose established in 2036 after the nuclear wars and eventual climate change desertification of 3/4 of the Earth's top soil, depletion of the fresh water sources, and final death, destruction, plague, and general famine of the Great Eradication of 2041 through 2043. It took 3 years for nearly 7 billion people to be wiped off the planet.

Gone.

Drose had survived and so had the badlands of Teyhanna, south of Drose through the searing hot desert. Anything goes in Teyhanna...so they say. It was the wild, wild west of drugs, prostitution, murder, mayhem, black market deals and so on. Teyhanna fueled the abundance of Drose. Drose, for its part, drove the decisions of the overlords of Teyhanna.

Drose, The People's Republic of Drose, on the other hand was a model of thinly veiled democracy underlined by totalitarian extremism. There were no families, so to speak, in Drose....not according to the state. Bioparents birthed children who were sent immediately to boarding schools of advanced technology, science, and medicine. Rules were strictly enforced. Slavery and debtor prisons were re-introduced. From the age of 10, all were expected to work together for the greater good of survival and all were expected to help the crop cultivation and soil/water conservation through all means necessary...ALL means necessary.

It was a harsh reality but one much better than life in Teyhanna. Dawn knew this, so she grew up to service the plant industry cultivating seeds in lab work. She was a hard worker...like her father. LIz, on the other hand, due to beauty and charm...caught the attention of one of the higher class. She was not completely like Dawn, a proletariat citizen.

Dawn checked the message. Liz seemed upset which was rarely her outright nature, given that she was quite guarded emotionally.

"John has......I'm sorry to say this, Dawn......John has passed away." There was a pause on the line. "Mom...she wants us to come home, to come back to Teyhanna for the funeral and to see the family. The funeral is Wednesday." Another pause on the line followed.

"He was executed by gunshot. Bullet to the head. I've decided to go....to go back. I know it's dangerous. I know this already. I'm going anyways. It's been years. We need to be there for Mom and the others."

Liz sighed. "Dawn, I want you to come with me. I need you to come with me."

Part Three

She could see them from the graveside, the men in black. Everyone was dressed in black at the funeral but they stood out from the rest, these men that had murdered her brother. They had pulled up their entourage of vehicles 100 yards away from the little service among the crowded tombstones of the clustered graveyard. The preacher gave a brief sermon. Others cried tears of hardship and loss feeling the injustice of a life taken violently and too soon.

But Dawn watched the men quietly.

They eventually approached. They offered their condolences to the grieving mother and family. Dawn and Liz looked cautiously at each other as the leader of the group motioned them to follow him to a more distant spot to converse. Knowing this was Teyhanna, knowing the way of life here.....they reluctantly followed. The others from the family were leaving group by group back to their little homes and little lives in the barren, crowded wasteland slums of Teyhanna.

"My condolences to you for the loss of your brother," he offered in feigned respect. "We had concerns regarding this situation...your brother's allegiance and fealty to our....operations."

Dawn felt a rising anger inside herself that she knew not to expose. Without missing a step, the two women fell in line with the overlord's assistant. He walked a ways in silence and then turned abruptly.

"Our needs have not been met yet," he said deliberately, cocking his head to one side. "When you return to Drose, you will be required to carry something onward for us....a gift for the magistrate....a package. Do you understand?"

The women said nothing.

"Consider your brother's debt to the organization cleared when and if you cross the border successfully," he stated.

He continued to walk and they followed.

"This package will come to you," he said in a low voice as he motioned to one of his bodyguards holding an assault rifle near the vehicles.

Then he smiled. "You will deliver. Your family here will be counting on you. Understood?"

"It's simple really. Just deliver the item. If however, you face....opposition...," his voice trailed. "We will need you to wear these." He gave the women each a silver plated locket. "There will be no compromising of the course of action. Come, follow me further and we will discuss in more detail." He motioned once again to his men.

Liz and Dawn continued to listen quite carefully as was to be expected in a violent, notoriously black market place like Teyhanna. A few days later, the package arrived at their mother's house. Shortly afterwards, the two said their goodbyes and made their way with the package to the border of Drose. Both women had a deeply unsettling feeling of fear but they did exactly as they were told.

They just didn't anticipate what would soon occur. The package was hidden carefully in the truck undercarriage. But it was not secret enough to avoid exposure to the vehicle imaging scans of those silent, deadly drones overhead.

Sci Fi
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About the Creator

Janea Speer

Janea writes interesting fiction in the evenings as her hobby. She goes by the name J. Speer on Amazon where she sells 5 small books currently.

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