Block, the library Carpenter had filled with hundreds of thousands of volumes on every imaginable subject. In a southwesterly direction, one hundred yards along, was F Block, serving as the work area for the Tillers, the building they used for storing their farm supplies and for preserving and preparing food. Finally, an additional one hundred yards to the southwest was A Block, completing the triangle.
The large area between the Blocks was the Family’s primary area for socializing. Outdoor meetings were held there, worship services were conducted there, and the children often played their games there. More Family members could be found there at any given time of the day than anywhere else in the Home.
Dozens of Family members were engaged in varied activities as Blade and Spartacus jogged past them, making for the stairs leading up to the rampart above the drawbridge in the middle of the western wall. The drawbridge was the only means of entering and leaving the Home.
“We seem to be attracting attention,” Spartacus noted as they neared the wooden steps.
“It can’t be helped,” Blade replied. While they might be curious, the members of the Family knew better than to interfere with the Warriors when they were performing official duties.
Blade reached the stairs and glanced up at the rampart above the drawbridge. Plato, the Family’s wizened Leader, was awaiting his arrival, his long gray hair blowing in the wind. He wore a green tunic and pants made by his loving wife, Nadine. Beside Plato stood Joshua, one of the Family Empaths, an individual with exceptional spiritual ability. His shoulder-length brown hair and neatly trimmed beard mached his brown shirt and pants. A large Latin cross, an adornment he was seldom without, hung from his neck.
Spartacus was standing behind Blade, gazing upward. “I’m sorry to say it, Blade,” he admitted, “but he gives me the creeps.”
Blade knew whom Spartacus referred to, the thin gray creature looming above them, leaning against the stair railing.
Gremlin. Blade had brought him back from the trip to Kalispell, Montana. Initially enemies. Blade and Gremlin had become friends after a series of incidents involving troops from the Civilized Zone. Gremlin’s skin was light gray and leathery. His features were hawkish, his nose narrow and pointed, his mouth a narrow slit. A hairless head, combined with mere ringlets of flesh for ears and bizarre eyes with bright red pupils, conspired to produce a decidedly unnerving visual impact. Gremlin was attired in a leather loincloth.
Blade took the steps three at a time, Spartacus right behind him.
“Blade!” Gremlin greeted him as he reached the top. “Good to see you, yes? Your trap has worked, no?”
“So I hear,” Blade replied, moving to the edge of the rampart, carefully avoiding the coiled barbed wire placed on top of the wall.
“We received the signal,” Plato stated.
“So Spartacus said.” Blade peered at the cleared field beyond the wall.
Past the field was the forest. Three hundred yards from the drawbridge rose a sparsely covered hillock. It would be there, he knew.
“Should we alert the other Warriors?” Spartacus wanted to know.
Blade mentally debated the question. Geronimo was off somewhere getting his head together. Hickok was in the compound, but he was in one of his blue funks. No sense in calling him. That meant assembling Alpha Triad was impractical. Beta Triad, led by Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, was out on that hillock, about to engage in mortal combat. Gamma Triad was missing a member, leaving Spartacus and Seiko.
“Where’s Seiko?” Blade asked.
“He has guard duty on the east wall,” Spartacus answered.
Blade thoughtfully bit his lower lip. It wouldn’t be wise to recall Seiko from the east wall, leaving their eastern flank exposed. That, he bitterly remembered, was how the Trolls had managed to enter the Home months before. “What about Omega Triad?” Blade queried.
“They’re asleep,” Spartacus detailed. “They had night watch.”
“Doesn’t leave us many Warriors to work with, does it?” Blade casually mentioned.
“Now you can fully appreciate the reason I’ve insisted we add another Triad,” Plato said in his kindly voice. “Three more Warriors are critical if we’re to insure the Family’s safety.”
“You get no argument here,” Blade reminded him.
“I can’t believe they’re really out there,” Joshua chimed in, nodding at the hillock. “The Watchers must not know we’re on to them.”
No, they didn’t. Blade’s mind flashed over his recent experiences during the extended trip to Kalispell, Montana. Plato had sent Alpha Triad, minus Hickok, to ascertain the veracity of a report concerning a hospital in Kalispell. This hospital, so they had been told, had been left unscathed by the scavengers and the looters, its equipment intact and hopefully operative. The Family had needed certain scientific and medical supplies and instruments from the hospital. A particularly severe form of premature senility was affecting some of the older Family members. If the Family couldn’t isolate the source of the senility and then treat it, Plato projected that within several generations no Family member would live past the age of thirty-five.
While at Kalispell, after being captured and held prisoner, Blade had gleaned considerable information concerning the former United States of America. He had learned that the Government had evacuated thousands upon thousands of people into an area in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain area immediately prior to, and during, the Third World War.
This occupied expanse had become known as the Civilized Zone, and had been governed by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, a man named Samuel Hyde, the only Cabinet member to survive the war.
Congress and the Supreme Court had been obliterated in a preemptive nuclear strike on Washington D.C. Hyde had declared martial law and become, to all intents and purposes, dictator of the Civilized Zone. When Samuel had passed on, his son had succeeded him, becoming known as Samuel the Second. He now ruled the Civilized Zone with an iron fist, and apparently entertained the notion of reconquering the rest of the former United States. The Civilized Zone now embraced the former states of Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado, the southern half of Wyoming, eastern Arizona, all of New Mexico, and the northern half of Texas.
Samuel the Second planned to take control of Montana, North and South Dakota, and Minnesota first because they were the least populated and would offer the least resistance. His troops, the former military forces of the United States, had been entrusted with the task of discovering and monitoring all inhabited centers in the four states slated for reoccupation.
These troops had become known as the Watchers to the people in the Twin Cities, and some of the Family referred to them by that name as well.
During his trip to Montana, Blade had discovered that the army of Samuel had already attacked and defeated the Flathead Indians. He had learned that troops were periodically sent to eavesdrop on the Family.
They would set up their parabolic microphones and other sensitive detection equipment and position themselves in the woods surrounding the Home, in northwestern Minnesota near what had been Lake Bronson State Park.
“Shouldn’t you send Rikki the signal?” Plato inquired, intruding on Blade’s reflection.
Blade sighed. And that’s what Beta Triad was doing on that hillock.
Before he left, Geronimo had scoured the vicinity of the Home and discovered a small clearing on the hillock used frequently by a dozen or so men. Geronimo was the Family’s best tracker, and he had detected footprints and equipment imprints in the soil. Blade had decided to intermittently post Warriors at the clearing in the hope of capturing some of Samuel’s troops. Now, his plan was about to reach fruition, and he was worried that the Civilized Zone troops might defeat Beta Triad. The troops were well armed, their standard issue including M-16’s and automatic pistols. They were also well trained. Blade appreciated from bitter experience how very deadly they could be. Twice before Alpha Triad had fought the Watchers, and both times the Warriors had narrowly escaped with their lives.