Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 27313 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 109(@250wpm)___ 91(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27313 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 109(@250wpm)___ 91(@300wpm)
It failed because humans can’t agree on the color of shit let alone how to build the great wall of the not-so-United States. The strangest part is the orcs became a part of my world with relative ease. While other people were screaming apocalypse, I saw them as displaced beings trying to come back home.
Sure, they forged swords and axes and burned out a few subdivisions, killed their share of humans and took over cities, but they were pissed. I heard of a few mass murders, which is horrible, but mostly they were just reacting to what came their way and I get it. Being plucked from your planet and zipped across the galaxy to be enslaved and genetically mutated is hard core.
Their rebellion on Iriaza left even more dead but they got their freedom finally. The stories told us there was a small group of Moban that hated the enslavement. They assisted the orcs, there was a coup and they set them on a three-year journey back to earth. When they got here after something like two hundred and seventy years, they no longer recognized the world they left, with humans running the show and calling them monsters.
They are a grouchy bunch and who can blame them. But, apocalypse?
It’s more like apocalypse lite if you ask me.
Physically the orcs have ogre like physiques, grunting voices and surly personalities but characterizing them as stupid or low intelligence is just prejudice. They have a justice system of their own, which includes heads on stakes and bloody hand to hand combat which few humans could survive. Even at fifteen years old when I saw them for the first time, I didn’t recoil. I wasn’t scared. In my own childlike way, it seemed like a fairy tale coming to life.
Since then, I’ve had my share of less than pleasant experiences with them. But, most ignore me and I do the same right back. In more recent years, I chuckle when I’m in the more progressive integrated areas and I see one of them riding a modified Harley or wearing a three-piece suit, talking on a cell, as stressed as any other human Millennial back in the day.
There are growing divisions within their own race. There are those that want to stay separate, primal and steeped in their old ways, and those that embrace the possibilities of modern conveniences and lifestyles. They’ve looked upon the golden calf and greed has taken root.
I down shift and slow to a stop then shut down the engine and swing my leg over the peeling vinyl seat, walking it to the side of the house I staked out this morning. I lean the motorcycle against the red brick behind a cheerful, if not overgrown, blooming Forsythia bush. Then I make like a hippie ninja in my black and gray tie die and leather boots, my black hair pulled back in braids and secured in a leather orc-style hair band I picked up at a fair a few weeks ago, then move toward the rear entry.
Sliding my expired driver’s license down through the crack of the back door, I wait until it hits the bolt then angle and wiggle it the way experience has taught me for this type of 1980’s Schlage brass door lock. The deadbolt isn’t set, thank goodness, so with a few more seconds of manipulation it clicks and I shoulder it open.
The last hint of orange and pink in the sunset is fading as I pull down my night vision goggles and ease into the darkened house. I’m optimistic. This one didn’t have any broken windows and the doors were still closed so I may have hit the jackpot. E. Poplar Way used to be a very new-money gated community, so I might find some high-end shit.
The city and a good portion of the subdivisions surrounding it are nothing more than empty wastelands. Some have blocks of burned-out structures; other areas are time capsules. Bicycles lie on driveways; barbecue grills stand open with abandoned beer bottles full of rainwater sitting on picnic tables next to the ketchup and mustard. Lawns are overgrown, vines snake upward to peaked roofs. Nature is taking back what is hers and the occasional black bear sighting on Main Street isn’t out of the question.
I ease inside into a vacuum of silence. It roars around me as I press against the wall and relock the door using the deadbolt instead of the flimsy knob latch. I’m far from the only scavenger around and a diamond in the rough like this usually draws attention. Probably only its position, out of the way on the outskirts, helped keep it the way it is, but with my luck, some crew of scrappers will be rolling up on it any minute.
“I’m inside,” I whisper to Chloe. The low sound of breathing in my iPods tells me she’s still there.