The Last Mayor Box Set by Michael John Grist

Author:Michael John Grist [Grist, Michael John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-06-15T06:00:00+00:00

21. HOME

It had been almost a year since Anna left New LA.

In that time so much had changed. Now they were in regular communication with three bunkers; Gap in the French Alps, Brezno in a Slovakian national park, and Istanbul. There were seven more out there, and they were pressing steadily eastward to meet them, while work on the cure continued.

Some eight thousand people were with them underground; the tally of those three bunkers. It felt good, like a powerful prevailing wind filling her sails and driving her home, like Odysseus in his final stretch home to Ithaca.

In the last six months Peters had been tutoring her in the ancient classics, and she'd found in both The Iliad and The Odyssey much that was familiar. Odysseus' story was of a war between two peoples at irreparable odds, of a ten-year journey through the wilderness before finding a way home, with giants and great armies, an impregnable citadel and a voyage through the land of the dead.

She smiled to herself and pulled the plane around to the landing trajectory. Things were getting better all the time, and finally, after a long and winding journey, she was returning home, carrying two new survivors with her. They'd been drawn by cairns she'd left behind as they'd crawled across Europe, describing the cure in development and a homeland in New LA. Their names were Magnus and Rilla; survivors who'd escaped from their settlement in Latvia when a demon swept through.

Now they wanted to see New LA. They wanted to meet Amo, and Anna was happy to oblige. It was time for her to see Ravi too.

The Pilatus spiraled into position over New LA through the glorious, hazy winter sun. The Pacific spread away for miles, sparkling like a night sky full of stars. This was the only kind of ocean left in the world now. All the zombies were contained in Bordeaux, along with all the demons, lodged in each other's eternal embrace.

Peters, Jake, Lucas and Wanda remained behind. Feargal and Macy were coming with her, but others would go to replace them. Sulman, she expected; he'd wanted to be at the cutting edge of Lucas' experiments for most of the year. Josiah had been a civil servant in Utah, he'd expressed an interest in joining the bunker team, who moved across the map and initiated first contact. Jonathon wanted to be with Wanda again.

It was a good trajectory.

She took the plane down and landed smoothly on the LAX runway; recently scrubbed of weeds and repaired in places with branch-like lines of tar spreading along old cracks. It was an effortless run, and she pulled up to the main concourse where a small crowd was gathered, cheering and waving. They'd erected bunting and streamers, each adorned with the symbol Amo had taken to using for their new civilization, the new flag of New LA; a large white five-pointed star on a light blue field, ringed by thirteen smaller white stars.

"The blue's for hope," Amo had explained to her once over their video chat, "like a clear sky, full of possibility.

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