Nemecene: The Epoch of Redress (2 page)

Carefully, she guides her body through the underbrush, its tentacles claiming the hem of her coat as it floats over the landscape, reminiscent of the countless small hands begging for time as they sink into the void. She forges on into the valley, unconcerned, for the branches, like the timid, freely bend to her sway. The distant tranquillity assures her that her silhouette is not plainly visible against the steep violet tapestry. Her choice of dress has succeeded in masking her well, leaving her immediate approach unencumbered, and despite the drop in ambient heat, her legs have managed to garner speed. She attains her destination with a few minutes to spare and borrows the light to move swiftly in the shadows of the village.

Here she pauses, contemplating the scene she is about to influence. Several events have transpired since their initial encounter, and there is no guarantee that expectations will not follow. Her best hope of breaking the dubious bond of trust between the twins and their father is to listen closely for clues and hence uncover the pursuit to unfold, then tail them and fulfill her and their destiny. Failure to comply is not an option. The phase has begun in which she must justify the means and usher the twins to their appointed fate.

As she points her feet in the direction of their home, she removes her multi-panel coat, shakes any lingering twigs onto the ground, inverts it, and promptly slips it on again. The backdrop has refashioned, as must her camouflage. Her eyes scan the surroundings for trouble and she proceeds prudently towards her target, perking her senses for signs of interference. The desolate track blows a cloud of dust with her every step, relinquishing but a hint of her trail, each puff a reminder of a past she remembers quite vividly, a past bathed in the powdery residues of an experiment gone terribly amiss.

It was early morning when the storm hit. Although it appeared to breach the threshold without warning, it was known in advance to some. Regardless, the extent of the carnage eclipsed all expectation. The arrogance of a smattering of handsomely paid bureaucrats, touting the virtues of their equally anointed scientific advisors, chose to repeat the shortcomings of their 21st century ancestors. Even after a dozen or so ill-fated attempts at circumventing the instinctive retaliation of Earth's intricate ecosystem, from shading the ice sheets of Greenland with enormous reflective tarps, to desalination and glacial harvesting projects, to cooling the seawater off the coast of South Africa, politicians recklessly persevered with futile efforts. After trillions upon trillions of combined personal hours spent laboring to patch a spoiled habitat with feeble intellect, the planet was drained of her vitality and had just a single avenue accessible to her.

The road to recovery was onerous, and the prices demanded en route even more so. City after city was engulfed, land after land was swept into oblivion, species after species became extinct, and child after child was orphaned, often dying of starvation or disease. The battle for sustainability was also fierce. The oceans rebelled, sometimes gradually over the course of months, other times violently, in barely a few hours. As much as the pride of man could not admit accountability, he was somehow able to harness his courage and do everything in his capacity to survive. Cities graced with advantage were fortified and transformed as countries united to evacuate others not as blessed, rebuilding more modest towns at greater elevations. Unfortunately, ventures to preserve the heritage of the people fell short, and crucial historical records were lost.

Nevertheless, on that fateful morning of the ocean's ultimate wrath, history repeated itself, as it often does. When the wake of the first wave subsided, broken nations sought to regain their prosperity, as they previously remembered it. Concluding that the planet had adjusted itself and was starting to stabilize, the ambassadors of the new order presumptuously declared the rehabilitation complete and embarked on a mission to repackage faulty public policy and sell it to the masses. The glaciers had obviously melted and the impact had been thoroughly absorbed by the hydrosphere, they reasoned, therefore fossil fuels were not likely a recurring hazard. Evidently, the rash conclusion that the earth had finished her metamorphosis was false, and a radical age of human conceit emerged, unleashing the most formidable catastrophe in their abrupt saga.

Temperatures were progressively rising, and a 21st century concept that was formerly dismissed was attracting an audience. After a brief reprieve, hardly lasting a hundred years, global warming resumed its destructive agenda, and intelligent simulations from reputable institutions across the globe predicted a grim prospect for the near-term world economy. Forever seduced by the delusion of human brilliance over nature's perfection and subjugated by the whims of an unrestrained ego, society found that the captive sparkle of its disillusioned existence had suffocated and perished. Plans to use geoengineering to reverse the damage caused by the resurgence of greenhouse emissions became the recycled trend, and in this revision, the chosen poison was stratospheric sulfate aerosol, a solution aimed at producing atmospheric particulates meant to reflect the ultraviolet spectrum, thus mimicking the effect of volcanic eruptions.

The pungent imprint of the aftermath is still faintly discernible as her tattered silk brushes the ground while she surreptitiously sweeps across the inner courtyard of the cluster, leaving tiny puffs of yellow-tinted dust that harbor the memory playing in her mind's eye.

For decades the toxin lay dormant, patiently expectant. Meanwhile, the few who staked a claim to the patented technology raped the earth of its coal and profited from its ravenous consumption. The oil wars of the 21st century switched to futuristic carbon wars under the guise of freedom, sovereignty, and religion.

The blatant hypocrisy of those hungry for dominance haunts her journey, as she sprinkles her path with tears, reliving the agony of the innocent, who unwittingly bore the consequences of a breed that had learned nothing from the mistakes of its forefathers.

In the end, the inevitable manifested, and the supply of black gold dwindled. A vocal minority assembled and lobbied the world leaders to brace for a violent climate shift, but their recommendations were left unheeded. Fortunately, this forward thinking union gathered supporters and successfully raised fortunes to construct enclosed havens in the high meadows of the disjointed continents.

The rings of multi-family dwellings and dedicated generators, mostly intact in the hills, are testaments to these endeavors, some of them still boasting a fully functional emergency biowall, whilst others waver in disrepair, making their masters vulnerable to reawakening sulfuric activity, albeit no longer a crippling threat. Nonetheless, of all the inhabited circles amongst the vast collage of mountain glens, it is this circle, the one in which she faithfully travels, that holds the key to the future.

The fluttering breeze caresses her tensing cheeks and temporarily relaxes her as she detaches herself from those distressing thoughts. That day belongs to the past. The day the blistering winds off the coastal waters propelled the fireless smoke onto the awaiting shores was the ocean's final fury.

Centuries of burning, to manufacture immense quantities of sulfur dioxide artificially injected into the stratosphere, suddenly stopped. The fuel was spent. The arising sulfuric acid and drizzle, designed to scatter the sun's nourishing energy and chill the atmosphere, disappeared from the straining ecological system. A brutal backlash shortly ensued that infected the planet with a debilitating fever. The formless gases, enjoying their reign for years, malevolently hovering atop the tallest peaks and destroying the ozone layer, digested the insulating blanket protecting Earth's beauty from cosmic radiation, and many magnificent creatures vanished. Life expectancy dropped sharply for those fortunate enough to have outlasted the worst.