One Hundred Years: Chapter 6

Chapter 6

A Cold Wind Blows

It was dark inside Cooper's brain- because Cooper was certain that was where he was at the moment. He could see the light of brain impulses at the edge of his vision. He could see the cerebellum in the dim illumination provides by the brain impulses. He could hear the blood pumping into the skull and feel the rhythm of his body all around him. He did not know what peyote was, but he had chewed on it. Mister Poe had given him some of it and when Cooper had chewed it, he wound up in his brain.

It was dark.

Cooper wasn't claustrophobic and it wasn't the enclosed space, but something was making him feel uneasy. Was he supposed to be inside his head?

"This doesn't seem right. How can I be in my head. I'd have to kind of inside out to do that."

His voice sounded odd and kind of swallowed up by the sounds of blood pumping. Dark red pulses thrumming at the bottom of his vision, caused by his synesthesia, or maybe not if Mister Poe was right. Cooper was not certain that he believed old Mister Poe when the Ghost Dealer told Cooper that the colors he saw were signs of possession by spirits. The Redwing tribe was not terribly superstitious- especially not compared to other tribes.

Cooper didn't really believe in ghosts, but he maybe believed in spirits- although he did not really understand the difference, but there seemed to be one. Aunt Koko would laugh to hear him think things like this. She would laugh about him wondering about the aurora borealis as well, whether it was a piece of the sun or a dancing spirit or the mark of dragons in flight.

"She would probably laugh about me thinking I was in my head as well."

Cooper looked around again at the inside of his head.

"this can't be my head. I'm touching my head- so I can't be inside it. It's still attached to me. This means that I'm imagining this, but this is really real looking."

In the darkness ahead, Cooper saw something moving. Cooper walked in the direction of the movement, his feet sinking into the soft warm skin beneath his feet. He had the sense that walking towards movement in a dark and unfamiliar place was a very bad idea, but wasn't certain what else to do under the circumstances. He hadn't been trapped in his own head before, so he was on unfamiliar ground literally and figuratively.

As he closed distance with the movement he began to make out some shape and color. It was mostly black with a tiny bit of red and an even smaller stripe of yellow. There was also something reflective on the shape. The shape itself was small, about the size of his head- maybe smaller. It was moving in a way that Cooper now recognised as the movements of an animal, a bird in fact. Cooper was training to be a warrior scout and he was familiar with the movements of different animals so that he could spot them and notice their mood and especially the extent to which they were calm and nervous. He was also familiar with the movements of animals as they compared to the movements of humans. This was a blackbird- a red-winged blackbird from the swatches of color. It was perching on a protruding lump of flesh that Cooper decided was a nerve ending. His uncle was named after this bird: Redwing-Lives-Forever. As a result of this connection, Cooper felt confident that the bird was not a bad omen or a threat.

The blackbird cocked its head to look Cooper in the eye and then its beak opened.

"I see that nobody can knock on your skull and claim that nobody is home. But I wonder about your reasons for having your windows so tightly shut." The Blackbird spoke with a rich red voice that rolled around Cooper like smoke from a pipe.

Cooper froze. He had to be imagining this, birds didn't talk- except in the stories. Was he in a story? Was he dreaming? Cooper considered this option carefully, this certainly could be a dream- it had all the markings of a dream. The scenery was unbelievable and Cooper could not remember how he arrived. Things were happening that did not happen in the waking world.

"Peyote," Cooper said, "I was talking to Mister Poe and he told me to chew something called peyote. That's right! What is peyote?" Cooper looked at the blackbird for guidance.

"Peyote is a type of cactus that, when dried, causes hallucinations and draws the user inward. Quite literally in your case."

Cooper considered this carefully, studying the colors left by the blackbirds explanation.

"So I'm on drugs and none of this is real?"

"No, you are on drugs and your mind is constructing this based on the drug's interaction with your mind. It is real, although it is not necessarily physical."

"So I'm creating this dream out of drugged cactus biscuits, and you're just me talking to myself ?"

"If you like. But keep in mind that peyote tends to force introspection and in your case there are many things you wish to pretend that you do not know."

"What does that mean?"

"Its means that not everything that your mind creates from the mescaline will be as helpful and benign as I am."

As it finished speaking the red smoke that coiled off it continued to coil and the blackbird itself dissolved into the coils of red until there was nothing left. Cooper stared in horror, his colors had never done anything like that before. And even though he was fairly sure that the blackbird was telling the truth about the whole experience being a dream caused by drugs, the sight of his colors affecting something physical. Cooper had come to think of the colors as something akin to a sixth sense- even if they were something he saw with his eyes. It was like seeing two worlds at once, but seeing those two world overlaying each other was one thing and seeing them interact was another thing altogether. Cooper almost cried out in alarm at the sight of it.

The setting shifted before his eyes, there was a deep red rumble rising up from the bottom of his vision with the harsh blue tones of high pitched sound punching across his vision. And then the colors ran into the world around Cooper like dye leeching into water. The world before him swam like wet paint as sound and sight intermingled and then sorted themselves out again.

The world before Cooper was now an old building that looked like a city hall or a library. It was almost entirely grey stone with huge glass windows. The build looked old, and had probably been built in the twentieth century. The windows had been replaced with stain glass windows, probably because transporting large plate glass was difficult and expensive and only a few places still made such luxury items. The windows depicted scenes of war and violence- always between people in blue, depicted in large heroic forms, and people in red, depicted as small and always in retreat. Cooper looked around. He seemed to be in the town square, but it was an odd town square- empty of people and hustle and bustle that typified such community centers.

There was a blue, high pitched whistle to Cooper's left. The sound had been like a winter wind or the whistle of an arrow, both had a similar look to Cooper. He turned before the sound had faded from his vision, just in time to see something white or light blue passing behind two buildings. The blue whistle of another arrow passed on his right and Cooper turned to catch the same flash of white or blue disappearing behind another building. Then he heard and saw more whistling, to his left and his right, in front and behind him, things moving like a cold blast of winter air- too fast for Cooper to see clearly. He saw white, maybe blue, fur.

Cooper had heard his Uncle Redwing's stories, he was fairly sure that these were wendigo, spirits of winter, cannibal spirits, fast and hungry and almost impossible to see. And whether or not this was all happening in Cooper's head, Cooper was terrified at the thought of meeting one wendigo- let alone a dozen. There were at least a dozen, darting from building to building, with their whistling bursts of blue speed. Then strange blue green spines began to sprout from the ground as the wendigo began to speak, to call to Cooper in whispers.

"The orphan should come home."

"The orphan should eat his people and grow strong."

"The orphan is one of us."

"The orphan is a spirit of cold."

"The orphan will kill when hungry."

"The orphan is one of the wendigo."

"Wait for the cold of December, wait for the solstice and then the orphan will know its own nature."

The wendigo began to close in, flashing blue from building to building as the closed a net around Cooper. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't talk. He was too scared to do anything.Cooper was trapped in a net of blue and he could see no way out.

"The orphan should come home."

"The orphan should know its place."

"The orphan should show his fangs."

"The orphan is hungry."

The wendigo were so close that Cooper should have been able to see them, but somehow he couldn't. When they moved he could see the trails that the sound of their passage left, but he couldn't see them. They were all around him, less than ten feet away and their taunting whispers were bubbling green and blue around him.

"The orphan will remember."

"The orphan will eat fish and fowl."

"The orphan is hungry."

"No!" Cooper cried out in desperation, "The orphan is not hungry! The orphan has a home and the orphan will not eat his people!"

Cooper ran, barreling straight through the wall of green and the net of blue and charged headlong down the streets of the deserted town. There were guard towers and walls everywhere. Cooper had been mistaken when he described the area as a town, it was a fort. Cooper ran down streets and alleys with a speed borne of fear, but the blue whistles that marked the wendigo were always around him.

"The orphan knows what it knows."

"The orphan can't run from its own truth."

"The orphan can't outrun its past."

"The orphan can't outrun who it is."

"The orphan knows where it belongs."

Cooper rounded a corner and came skidding to a stop. He was looking at a dead end alleyway. He looked around desperately as the blue streaks of wind closed in on him. To his left was a door, slightly ajar- although Cooper was certain that the door had not been there when he first looked down the alley. He yanked the door open and slammed it shut behind him. The door had a dead bolt. Cooper slammed it into place as the blue hit the door like crossbow bolts- leaving sharp holes punched in the oak door- but the door held.

There was a yellow puff of air as somebody gasped behind him. Cooper turned and looked to see a woman crouched behind him. She was faceless, terrifying and beautiful at the same time, with a line for a mouth and two black almond shaped holes for eyes.

She was chained to the stone floor by a huge collar around her neck and dressed in a blue robe, though her features were a sunshine yellow.

She was crying.

Blue and red mixed as the wendigo beat an irregular beat against the oak door. Cooper walked cautiously up to the strange yellow woman.

"Who are you?" He asked carefully.

"I am a memory, not fully remembered by you because you were too young. I am your mother." Her voice was forest green leaves dancing on the wind.

The voices of the wendigo began to seep through the oak door and hung at the edges of Cooper's vision like a toxic vapor.

"Hunger."

"Outsider."

"Freak."

"Killer."

"Monster."

"Orphan."

"Orphan."

Cooper shook his head and looked at the woman before him.

"What else do I remember about you?" He asked.

"I am sad all of the time. I am afraid all of the time."

"Why are you afraid? Why are you sad?"

The pounding on the door was hitting every color in the spectrum now, with waves of color hitting like the beginnings of a great storm and knives of color shooting past Cooper's vision like birds of prey.

"I am sad because everything I love is being taken from me. I cannot hold anything I value, everything is stolen from me."

"Did that include me?"

"I valued you so very much."

"Why are you afraid?"

The door broke in, splinters flying everywhere, blue blasts of cold wind swarmed around him. The wendigos moved so fast that could not see them even as they were directly in front of him. Instead they were a whirlwind of blue that engulfed him.

"Why are you afraid!?" Cooper called as the frigid tornado pulled him into the air.

"I am afraid of the people I love!"

"But you love me!"

The tornado drew him up and engulfed him in bright loud blue and indigo sound so loud he couldn't see or hear anything. Finally everything when white and then stone quiet, and in the quiet Cooper heard his mother's voice, in deadly quiet yellow butterflies that moved across the middle of his vision.

"I do love you."

Cooper closed his eyes.

"But you're afraid of me. Everyone is afraid of me. What is there to fear?"

* * *

Cooper opened his eyes. He was laying on his back in middle of the village. He distinctly remembered being standing when the whole drama had begun.

"Why am I on the ground?"

"You fell, I caught you." Pike said from his left.

"I'm not afraid of you Coop." Malika said from his right.

"What?" Cooper said in alarm.

"You were really quiet, then you fell over and Pike caught you, and then you started asking what we were afraid of and saying that we were afraid of you. I'm not scared of you. You'd never hurt me. I know that Coop." Malika looked at Cooper earnestly, eyes wide with concern.

"You did not free yourself from the spirit haunting you, young hawk." Mister Poe said, suddenly looming above Cooper. "I suspect that you want this spirit."

Booker Freeman looked at Mister Poe, "You can keep your hands Poe," Booker said.

Charon the wolfhound walked up to Cooper and sniffed him over, then gave a mournful howl that started deep orange and ranged up to green at the end. Then the big dog looked back at Cooper and licked the boy's face thee times and sat down beside Cooper like a watch dog. Cooper was quiet for a moment, then finally he spoke again.

"I think the spirit was my mother, or the memory of my mother. I don't remember much of her and it wasn't clear, but I think it was my mother."

Pike looked at Cooper sharply, "What do you remember?"

Cooper thought carefully, "Her voice. I remember her voice and what it looked like. I remember that she was scared and sad. I remember that she lived somewhere with stained glass windows of some war. I remember that there was a lot of stone buildings. I can't remember what she looked like."

"What about our father- do you remember anything about our father?" Pike asked.

"No, I only met my mother in the... dream? Is that the right word for what I did? You gave me drugs right? It was in my head wasn't it? Just my own memories?"

Mister Poe looked at Cooper, and then around at the village. It seemed every tribe member in the village was gathered around Cooper.

"Peyote opens a gateway in your soul to the spirit world. It may have only needed your memories to show you what you needed to see, but you may have actually been talking to your mother just now."

Aunt Koko interjected loudly into the conversation, "Don't fill the boy's head with nonsense. Cooper, peyote works because it contains mescaline that creates hallucinations. Everything you experienced was created by your mind and was something you already knew on some level. You may have been remembering your mother, but you were not in contact with her."

"But Aunt Koko, I was a baby when we had to come here. How could I remember anything when I was that little."

"How indeed?" Poe said with a smile.

"The brain is an impressive organ, it doesn't need hoodoo or mumbo jumbo to explain the things it can do." Koko said firmly.

"And the spirit world does not need the world of the flesh to believe in it in order for it to exist. It does not matter if you believe in the gods, because the gods certainly believe in you."

Cooper was quiet as Poe and Aunt Koko stared at each other, neither pleased with the other's continued presence.

"If it was real," Cooper said slowly ,"then something is hunting me."

Koko and Uncle Redwing turned sharply to look at Cooper, while Poe simply looked at Uncle Redwing with a cold smile.

"What do you mean sweetie?" Koko said carefully.

"When I was in my head, I was hunted by wendigo who said I was an orphan who should come back. They said that I was hungry. It was scary."


The crowd of tribes folk broke into a mass of jumbled muttering. Uncle Redwing and Mister Poe just stared at each other. Pike looked at Cooper and finally whispered to him, "Coop, don't tell them anything more. Keep it to yourself. We'll deal with this together later."

"Why won't they tell me what's going on?" Cooper whispered back.

Pike said something, but Cooper couldn't hear it, instead the whispers of the wendigo massed around him for a moment again.

"They fear you. They fear your destiny, your heritage, your lineage, who you must become, will become."

"They fear your hunger, for you will devour them. The prey should never raise the predator as their own."

One Hundred Years: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"No One Expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

Lana Vershevin stood at the head of a growing crowd of angry Redwing tribe members and stared daggers at Mister Poe- the ghost dealer. Lana was a Freeman by birth and a Vershevin by marriage. She was lighter skinned than most of the Freeman's, showing more of her mother's European heritage. She kept her hair cut in a short neat haircut. Lana liked to keep things under control- especially herself.

Behind Lana were the several members of the  Freeman family including Koko and Layla, who was Malika's mother. Also behind Lana was Elder Fergus Wong, Sonya Jenkins, who ran the mill now that her father had passed on, and Edie Finch who was the senior bowyer of the village having learned from her mother an taken up the mantle easily.

Behind Mister Poe was Cooper Redwing- Lana's nephew- and Malika Freeman and Pike Vershevin -Lana's son. Pike and Malika were shaking and calling to Cooper, who was standing motionless behind Mister Poe.

Poe had a bright red bruise on his otherwise translucently pale face, courtesy of the slap Lana had given him when Mister Poe had told Lana that he had given Cooper the traditional hallucinogenic herb peyote to chew on.

Five minutes had passed since Cooper had chewed the peyote and gone eerily silent. In that time Lana had not been silent once as she screamed accusations, threats and insults at the Ghost Dealer. This was what had caused the crowd to gather behind Lana, and this was the reason that even the normally unflappable Poe was now looking a little defensive, having raised his arms in front of his body in the 'calm down' way that parents do when children aren't using their inside voices.

Lana was certainly not using her inside voice.

"You fed my boy a hallucinogenic drug! What were you thinking?" Lana had yelled this before, but seemed to derive some benefit from repeating it, because this was the third time she had repeated this phrase.

Mister Poe faced her with the expression that one uses when dealing with small but potentially rabid terrier- a combination of irritation, caution, frustration and amusement.

"The boy was possessed, he needed to confront the ghost that was travelling with him. And as sensitive as the boy is, he could not do that without help. So I..."

"So you drugged him up and sent him a trip! Because that will cure whatever crazy hoodoo you think he has!" Lana interrupted, her voice rising several octaves as she spoke.

"Child, before the fall peyote was studied and found not to have any long term negative side effects."

"You don't believe anything from before the fall unless it serves your own ideas. Why should I take any of that seriously?"

The crowd behind Lana began to murmur in support, and as Poe looked at the growing crowd of people behind Lana, he even spotted Redwing-Lives-Forever standing and quietly watching. This had become a circus event and he was the clown- not the ring master as he normally preferred.

Poe Looked back at Cooper. The eight year old had not moved. His eyes looked into the distance in and unfocused way, and his arms hung limply by his sides. His mouth was closed and he would occasionally chew on the peyote again. Malika was waving her hand in front of Cooper's eyes, looking for a response. Pike was trying to muss up Cooper's hair and was calling his name.

"The boy is deep into the trance and has entered the spirit world. Whether you object or not, he should be treated with more care and respect than this mob is currently managing to muster."

"He's eight years old! You shouldn't have fed him that stuff. I don't think you can lecture on care and respect after drugging and eight year old boy!"

Lana stepped closer and looked up at Poe so that she wouldn't be yelling into his chest. The Ghost Dealer looked straight down at her and then carefully took a single step back.

Lana stepped closer again.

"I have two boys! My son and my nephew! They are all I was left with, and you don't get to go around endangering them because you think you know better!"

Redwing-Lives-Forever moved slowly through the crowd to where Lana and Poe were facing each other. People stepped aside for Redwing without a word, and the elder moved with the slow deliberate grace of somebody who has lived long enough to feel rushed by nothing.

Lana and Poe noticed the crowd quieting behind them and looked back to see Redwing step out of the crowd.

"Honoured elder." Poe said, with a slight bow.

"Elder Redwing, he's poisoned my son!" Lana said, desperation creeping into her voice.

Poe moved to speak, and Redwing held up a hand.

"Lana, he has drugged your nephew. He has not poisoned him." Redwing then directed his gaze up at the much taller Mister Poe, "I do not think administering hallucinogens to a child is wise. But Poe is correct, to the best of my knowledge, peyote has never been shown to have long term side effects. Still this is my nephew, and this is Lana's nephew as well. His parents are not here. And thus, you should have consulted us who are his closest family before you did this."

The crowd was silent as Poe considered this.

"This needed to be done honoured elder. The Lady Vershevin would never have given approval- no matter the need. I do not know if you would have given approval. This needed to be done. I have consulted the bones. I have listened to the winds. Both have brought me here. This boy has trials ahead of him. Somebody must prepare him for those trials- none of you have had the courage to do so. So I did. You will thank me later."

The crowd murmured at Poe's speech, a ripple of fear and anger.

Redwing spoke again.

"Young man, this is not your tribe and not your people. I appreciate your efforts and your work on our behalf, but do not presume too much."

Poe stiffened, he looked around at the crowd assembled and then pointed a skeletal finger at elder Fergus Wong.

"Fergus! I remember you when we were in the prime of our youth. I was a journeyman away from my teacher for the first time. And you were a young warrior, traumatized by the horrors of conflict with the Winter Wolves. The Wolves had taken and raped your pregnant wife, and then slit her throat and left her for you to find. This broke you Fergus! It would break any man. The Wolves had bound the ghosts of both your wife and unborn daughter onto your soul. None of your tribesmen could heal you or free the spirits. Do you remember what happened?"

The eyes of the crowd turned to look at Fergus Wong. The elder looked at the ground.

"You fed me a tea, took me through a meditation and made me relive their deaths," Fergus choked back tears as he spoke, "You let me say good bye. You helped me move on."

The crowd was deathly silent as Poe continued to speak.

"You Layla Freeman! Three years ago your twin was injured in a battle against the Winter Wolves. He was left crippled, and your little sister was haunted by spirits that would not let her forget that her weapon had dealt one of the blows. Who banished those spirits?"

Layla looked directly at Poe, "You didn't banish any spirits, but you did help her deal with her guilt."

Poe continued.

"You who accuse me, Lana Vershevin! You say these boys are all that you have. Why do you have them in the first place? You were taken from this place, from your tribe and everything you knew. When you were pregnant with Pike, who delivered him into this world? When Cooper's mother was pregnant with him, who brought Cooper into this world in the first place? Think Lana, none of those idiots who passed for midwives or doctors there had a clue how to deal with any complications of birth. Would you have either of the those boys if I had not sought you out?"

Lana's head dropped and she started crying.

"You claim that I presume too much, but I say that this whole tribe presumes too much with regards to that boy." He pointed back at the still quiet Cooper.

"You know the path that will inevitably open before him. You know his heritage, who his parents were, and you have not warned him. Every day he faces this wall of silence and knows that something is wrong. His destiny is already calling him, and if he does not know his history how can you be sure he will make the right choice?"

"He's eight years old!" Layla Freeman said accusingly, "We are simply waiting until he is old enough to understand."

"You can wait, do you think his father will wait much longer? Or do you think that he doesn't know yet? I would not depend upon that hope, if I were you."

Lana had dropped to her knees and was crying into her hands by this point. Pike had run to his mother and was trying to comfort her. Malika was still talking quietly to Cooper in the hopes of waking him.

Redwing looked at Poe quietly, "Very well young man, you make a number of good points. I would consider it a personal favor if you would give Cooper's father incorrect advice regarding his son's location."

"I have done that already honoured elder, but I do not know whether or not he believed me."

Booker Freeman stepped forward. Booker was Lana's brother. Older by a whole generation than his sister, Booker looked terrifying even though he was over sixty years old. At six foot three, Booker was one of the few people who Poe did not tower over. Booker kept his head shaved, both for practical purposes and to show off the tribal scars that ran from the top of his skull down his neck and onto his back. He had another scar, this one not intentional, that arced like a crescent moon under his right eye and across his broad nose. Booker was what warriors dreamed of being when they became elders. Booker wore only the pants and knee high moccasins of the tribe- he didn't bother with a shirt. He weighted almost 250 pounds, and very little of that was fat- even now that he was an elder.

"Mister Poe. My family does not generally believe in your witchcraft. You are a capable surgeon, but your eccentricities make you dangerous. You are dangerous to yourself. If my sister's nephew does not recover, I will have my son Lamont crush your hands on his anvil as payment for your crime."

Booker then stepped past the Ghost Dealer and stood beside Cooper, with a hand gently resting on the boy's shoulder.

One Hundred Years: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The Arrival of Mister Poe

The Beginning of the End
From "A History of the 21st Century", by Zithembe Nkosi
Published by ZuluHeart Press, copyright 2120

Our ancestors built a grand global empire. Held together by a massive transportation network, a world wide computer network, and a global agricultural system, everyone in the world was tied to everyone else. Of course, it was not an empire in the sense of the old British Empire- there was not a single ruler, and no single group dictated politics. Recovered documents from that era suggest that most groups though their rival was secretly in control of the empire, but modern historians feel it is more likely that the bureaucrats were in control- and even they likely didn't act out of a sense of the big picture. In a sense, the global empire that dominated the mid and late 20th century and early 21th century ran itself like a mighty headless giant.

At it's height, the giant seemed invincible. And in many ways it was, being able to handle almost any one shock at a time. And so, it was many things all at once that killed the old world order. They should not have happened all at once, but they did. If one of the disasters had not happened or had happened at a different time, the old empire might have survived. I do not know whether this is a curse or a blessing.

In 2020, the Saudi Arabian government admitted that the Ghawar oil field - the largest oil field in the world- was functionally dry. The government admitted that they had concealed the true extent of the field's depletion, and now were unable to extract further oil even with the most advanced drilling methods available. Less than a month later the government was forced to admit that the Safaniya-Khafji Field, which was the country's second largest reserve, was also depleted. The Saudi Royal family lost control of the country in a matter of days following the second announcement, which further damaged the world oil supply.

This alone would have been bad enough- and records recovered from Wall Street computers indicate that the market went into a tail spin from the news- but a record storm season in the Gulf of Mexico had sidelined many offshore drilling operations for heavy repairs. This had become frustratingly common since the start of the 21st century, but together with the collapse of the Saudi Oil industry, the storm season was catastrophic.

The sudden loss of Saudi oil exports put huge pressure on other oil producing countries. Venezuela and Iran both fell quickly to military coups. The Venezuela coup is believed to have been an internal affair, but documents recovered from the site of the former Iranian government indicate that those in power when Iran fell blamed the United States for the coup. Consequently the oil production of both countries collapsed as battles were waged over who would control the flow of oil. Oil prices sky rocketed worldwide.

Saudi Arabia was the third largest supplier of oil to the United States at the time (formerly the second largest, Mexico had surpassed the Saudi's between 2008 and 2009), and the loss of the Saudi field put tremendous stress upon the US economy. Canada and Mexico, the two largest suppliers of oil to the United States struggled to keep up; but with the collapse of the Venezuelan government (the number four oil importer) the US economy was crippled. Driving become an economic impossibility for all but the richest people. airlines went bankrupt beyond even the ability of the government to protect. The Shipping industries ground to a stand still.

The USA sent troops into Kuwait to protect the Burgan field, and effectively annexed Kuwait in the process. Meanwhile the Cantarell field in Mexico, already declining at a rate of around 10% per year, was pushed to the breaking point by increased US demand.

This was the point of no return for the old order. At this point nations could be neatly divided into those who saw the writing on the wall and those who did not. Ironically, those nations who were then poor- and thus had less dependence upon oil- turned out to be in the best position of all.

This was the birth of Africa as part of the first world. It would not come to be for decades yet, but it was here that the winds first changed. As the USA, China, Russia and India fought over the dying scraps of oil, a few African leaders began planning and coordinating the greatest energy project in the history of the world.

This was the beginning of the end for North America as the first world.

* * *

... Twelve Years Earlier
May 4th, 2108

"Read it to me again."

Pike nodded to his brother. Cooper's eyes were closed as he spoke, and Pike knew that Cooper was doing so to concentrate on the colors that he saw when people spoke. Pike was fifteen now, and very close to being a warrior. Cooper was eight and although still unable to read at all- was quickly becoming brilliant in everything that he was allowed to do. Pike had started to cut his hair short and added bear grease to it in the mornings to shape the hair into spikes- a compromise between style and function. He rubbed his palms together and looked at his hands and the snowflakes branded onto his palms. One day he would have to tell Cooper about the what he had learned on his first vision quest- but for now Pike felt he could better protect his little brother by keeping it to himself. The brands still itched from time to time. He had only acquired them two years ago, and was still occasionally surprised when he looked at his hands and saw them there.

The children were sitting on a lightly wooded hill that overlooked the village and trail that led up to village entrance- a small trading post along the side of the road. The trail passed by the Trading Post as it snaked along the hillside heading north, but behind the trading post was a small foot trail that the led to the Edge Village itself.

Malika hung upside down from a tree branch beside the boys, trying to look disinterested. The brothers did not normally let other people watch while they studied. Malika was an exception, because she was Cooper's closest friend beside Pike himself.

Pike looked back to the book and read, "Synesthesia is a neurological disorder that causes the brain to perceive one sense as another. It is common for numbers and letters to seem colored even if they are not, and for sounds to generate colors and shapes before the eyes in people with synesthesia."

Coop was silent. It was a nice day, with a clear sky. But the wind was blowing and so it was a little cooler than normal.

"It said disorder," Coop said," So I'm broken in my brain. That's why I see colors."

That didn't make sense to Malika. Cooper was smart- too smart to have wrong with his brain.

"I think that the book is broken." She said aloud.

"Do yo feel broken?" Pike asked.

"No. Not really. I like the color thing most of the time. I mean, I didn't say that I was broken. The book said that I was broken."

"The book doesn't know anything. It's just a bunch of townee doctors from a hundred years ago."

"But synesthesia doesn't make letters move when you look at them, does it?" Cooper asked.

Pike scanned quickly through the whole section.

"Doesn't look like it."

Malika piped in, "Then maybe the book's wrong like I said. Just dumb townee doctors who don't know anything real."

Cooper shook his head, "It just means there's more than one thing wrong with me."

Pike looked at Cooper," I don't know if having this synesthesia means that anything is wrong. The way you describe it, it sounds like its useful even."

"Its also distracting, and sometimes, if it gets bad, the colors can block my vision."

"Okay, that could be a problem in the midst of battle."

"I get used to it."

Malika swung up to sit on top of the tree branch that she had been handing from, "I guess that's why you like it better being a scout."

Cooper nodded, "Its quieter."

"So how do you know this stuff is real?" Malika asked.

Pike saw Cooper wince and looked at Malika sharply, "It isn't real, that's the whole problem. Coop has at least two things wrong with his brain and how its wired together. One means he sees colors when he hears things, the other one means letters move around when he tries to read them. It's a problem because it means that Coop has to fight his brain to figure out what's real."

"It kind of weirds me out Coop, do you think its going to get worse?" Malika asked.

In answer, Cooper looked at Pike, who looked back down at the book. He scanned carefully for several minutes.

"It doesn't look like it gets worse."

Cooper was silent considering all of this.

"Okay," He said finally, "Let's move on to the memory book."

Pike nodded, " Well I looked at the table of contents already. There's a lot of stuff you already got hunted. The books starts with picture association and mental pegs. It does memory journeys and memory mansions. But they have something here that we've read about but never seen the system for before- the Major System"

Cooper nodded, "It used letters didn't it? We're going to have to adapt it for somebody who can't read."

"Can you use colors instead of of letters?" Malika asked, "I mean if your brain likes colors, shouldn't that make it easier?"

The two boys looked at each other, and Cooper smiled. Finally Pike spoke, "We'll need to read the section first to see."

As the children were struggling with the memory system at tall red capped figure swung around the bend of the trail below and into view. The children looked down at the figure on the path and stopped talking. They were quiet as the tall figure in the red hat and the black cloak swayed gracefully along the trail, a large dog at his side.

Malika spoke first, "It's Mister Poe."

Mister Poe was as tall at the chest as most men were at the shoulders and thin as a daddy longlegs. He wore a red top hat with a snow goose feather in the brim and and a rat skull sewn onto the black ribbon that wrapped around the base of the hat. Mister Poe was dressed otherwise in a midnight black suit that was carefully tailored to his unique frame- although threadbare in the extreme with a few obvious patches made at the elbows that were not quite the right color. He wore a long black wool hooded cloak with a white silk lining. Strange sigils were sewn onto the white lining with iridescent red thread. The cloak too had several conspicuous patches. He carried a long cane that was almost as tall as Cooper himself and had a big gaunt Irish Wolfhound at his side named Charon. Instead of a tie, Mister Poe wore a necklace of delicate bird bones spread out in an eerie sunburst across his chest.

Mister Poe was not a young man. Cooper suspected that he was in his sixties. Mister Poe was entirely devoid of hair and was gruesomely pale, and his translucent skin was pulled tight across his tall frame and face, such that his mouth seemed as though it was rip in his face rather than a natural opening. Poe's face had heavy scarring- a huge horizontal scrape from one side of the temple to the other. The scarring started just above where his eyebrows should have been and ended at his upper lip. The upper lip itself had been heavily ground away by whatever scarred him. His nose had been likewise scraped almost entirely away, adding to Poe's already skeletal appearance. The scarring also left his eyes looking oddly sunken.

Mister Poe walked everywhere. He carried very little, some travel food- jerky, dry rations, coffee grounds, salt, and dried fruit- all wrapped up in a burlap bag hanging at his hip, and a haversack full of his gear and his wares flung over his back. Finally, Poe carried an array of thin and clinical looking knives and scalpels in leather cases within his vest.

Mister Poe was older than most people in the Redwing Tribe, and not fully understood by even them. Uncle Redwing alone seemed comfortable with the old man, and referred to him as a 'fragile shell of a hero who understood too much' when Cooper asked about Poe. Poe was certainly a tribal, he knew the stories of the the free peoples and would tell them whenever he arrived in town. He also told other stories. Stories about far off places like Troy and London and Kyoto and Beijing and Bangkok. These were stories of blood, where the children's DNA sprang from, even if their heritage lay in the tribe.

But as much as Mister Poe liked the stories, this was not Poe's profession. Poe was a ghost dealer. He claimed that he exorcised demons and possessing spirits and purified places tainted by the spirit of the broken gods of Civilization. He was also an excellent doctor and knew more about obscure ailments than anyone in the area, although he had odd ideas about a number of illnesses. Malika's family did not much like Poe- calling him a deluded fool, but most of them still showed him respect to his face. Cooper's Uncle Redwing seemed to pity him, and the rest of the tribe's adults seemed to be somewhat afraid of him.

Poe cured those who seemed beyond help and fixed the most intractable of problems, all through his claimed dealing with ghosts. In his haversack was a collection of glass bottles, filled one quarter with salt and painted with odd symbols that Poe said held captured ghosts. He would- for a price- barter with, bribe, coerce, blackmail or torture his ghosts into helping the living when he arrived in town.

Malika's mother Koko was the most tolerant of the Freeman family regarding Poe. She described the man as equal parts surgeon and witch-doctor, psychiatrist and conman, genius and fool. He was not welcomed into town by most adults, but there was normally somebody who felt that they needed to talk with Poe privately when the tall specter ambled into the village.

The Children watched as Mister Poe walked up to the trading post, nodded gently to Uncle Lamont- now crippled by a badly healed hip- and swung around behind the Trading Post to head up to the Village.

"Let's go see why he's here!" Cooper said, standing up and bolting off before the others could object or agree. Pike was running behind him in a moment.

Malika swung down from the tree calling angrily after the two boys, "No fair, you got a head start."

"I'm little! Deal with it!" Cooper called back without looking.

"Fine then, I will!" Malika pushed herself into a run, her corn row hair bouncing in front of her eyes occasionally. Idly Malika decided that she needed to get a string to tie the rows back for when she became a warrior.

"I'm still going to catch you!" She called out.

"Big talk!" Pike called back.

* * *

When the children ran into the center of the village, Mister Poe was sitting on a log by the communal fire pit throwing what looked like the knuckle bones of a bear onto the ground and staring at them, then scooping them up and throwing them again.

Mister Poe had not yet unpacked his wares, which was strange. He seemed quite preoccupied by the knuckle bones. Pike put a hand on Cooper's shoulder as Cooper moved to approach Mister Poe.

"He isn't all there, remember Coop." Pike said.

"I see dancing letters and floating colors, big bro. I'm not all there either."

"He's creepy Coop. Why do you want to talk to him?" Malika asked.

"Because, he's who you talk to when you can't figure out what's wrong with you."

"Why don't we asked one of the Healers first. We have really good medical training here, you know that." Pike said.

"No! I can't do that. It isn't fair."

"You aren't making sense Coop." Malika said.

"I don't have to. I'm asking him."

Cooper approached the tall figure in the top hat, leaving Pike and Malika standing nervously behind him. He couldn't explain why, but it felt weak to tell the adults. It felt like making an excuse, and admitting that he wasn't normal. He knew he wasn't normal, but he wanted the tribe to think he was at least a little normal. At least normal enough to be part of the tribe. Cooper didn't want to say anything to endanger that.

"Well met young hawk, am I your quarry?" Mister Poe said without turning around.

Cooper jumped and his mind flailed about for a response.

"Umm. I have have a question, if you mean that. And why did you call me a hawk?"

"Cooper hawk, although its the chest that's red not the wing."

"Um, Oh. Redwing is my Uncle's name- he lets me use it."

"Strange to see a blackbird give a hawk a name. But your uncle is blackened by the ash of a hundred years of war and strife, so perhaps he is a hawk too underneath all that black, eh?"

"I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"Better you don't, people who stand under things tend to get crushed by them. What is your question? Or shall I tell you eh?"

"I want to know what's wrong with me. I want to know why I can't read."

Poe turned to face Cooper and then stood up until he towered over the boy. Poe looked Cooper over and then stepped in closer. He crouched in front of Cooper and opened the boy's eyes wide and looked at Cooper's pupils.

"Open you mouth, let me see your tongue."

Cooper stuck his tongue out. Poe made a clicking noise- apparently to himself as he looked at Cooper's tongue.

"They say that you can't read. Why not?"

"I don't know."

"Yes you do. All Redwings read. Why don't you?"

"I can't make sense of the letters."

"You said letters and not words. Why?"

"I can't put letters together into words."

"Why not?"

"I don't know."

Poe grasped Cooper's shoulders and shook him.

"Yes, you do!"

"No! I don't!"

"You do." Poe said with finality, "You just don't think an adult will believe you."

Poe paused.

"So I'll ask the bones." He twisted like a snake, snatched up the knuckle bones in a single swoop and tossed them at Cooper's feet. Poe examined the bones for roughly a minute and then looked back up a Cooper.

"Letters shift on you, don't they? They move when you try to read them don't they?"

Cooper's mouth dropped open.

"And they change color too." Cooper said quietly.

Poe's eye's widened and then narrowed.

"We'll deal with the colors later. The moving letters mean that you are dyslexic. Depending on how severe your case is, you may be able to learn to read, you may not. Even if you can learn to read, it will be very hard. It's the way you brain is wired."

Cooper shook his head, "So my brain is double broken."

"No! Your brain is not broken! Who told you that? You are simply not meant to learn by reading. You are a wide thinker, a body thinker. Nothing is broken. you simply think in a rare and little understood manner. Nothing in you is broken."

Cooper was silent for a long moment then. He closed his eyes and tried to process this idea. That there was not something wrong with him, but that he was simply a rare type of mind. It appealed to him- this idea that he might be rare and special. But it also made him an outsider, just as the synesthesia did, just as his arrival into the tribe did. More and more, he was a strange visitor. More and more, he was other than everyone else.

"Do you understand?" Mister Poe asked.

"I do, but I don't know if I like it."

"The mark of a brilliant person is the ability to accept uncomfortable truths. Most people prefer to see only what they prefer rather than what is actually true."

"I'm going to be lonely, aren't I?"

Cooper heard a clatter and a spattering of colored triangles flash in the darkness. Realizing his eyes were still closed, Cooper opened his eyes and saw Poe staring at his knuckle bones again. He pointed to spots where the bones touched as he spoke.

"This is the wolf pack. It means that you will have a family to fight beside you. This is sturgeon. It means you will lose something ancient and valuable. This is the spider. It means many things will draw together around you. This is the moon. It means you will lose a woman who loves you."

Cooper stared at the bones, and couldn't see any of the things that Mister Poe Described.

"This is a difficult life, but not a lonely one. Now, we must deal with your haunting."

Cooper looked up into the old man's eye's sharply. "My what?"

"You see colors. This is a classic symptom of ghostly possession."

"No it's not. It means I have synesthesia."

Poe sniffed is disgust. "Such and old city idea. People in the old days would be possessed for a lifetime because they didn't believe in ghosts. You are possessed. The only question of any importance is whether you are possessed by a good spirit or a bad spirit."

Poe uncoiled to his full height and began moving with alarming speed. He had his haversack completely unpacked before Cooper could finish processing Poe's bizarre diagnosis.

"Sit in the center of the circle" Poe instructed. Cooper looked down and saw that Poe had already placed thirteen mason jars with herbs and salts around him in a circle. Intimidated by the larger frenetic man before him, Cooper sat.

"Good now close your eyes." Cooper did so, " Now I want you to clear your mind. We are going to draw your ghost out and you will talk to it. You must find out who it is and what it wants. And you must master it. Even a good spirit is dangerous if it runs lose in your body. It could possess you when you sleep, or say things when you wish to remain silent. You need to show it mastery of yourself. Collect yourself. Are you ready to battle your possessing spirit?"

"Umm. Yes."

"Good, then chew this." Poe placed a small cookie sized thing in his mouth. Cooper began chewing, and discovered that it tasted awful. He wanted to throw up. Then slowly he felt something at the edge of his vision. He wasn't sure if he eyes were still closed. They felt open, but everything was dark except a slight redness at the extreme left and right on his field of vision.

He wasn't even sure if he was still chewing.

The last thing he noticed from the regular world was his Aunt Lana- Pike's Mom- screaming at Poe.

"What did you give to my boy!?"

He heard Poe's answer, although he didn't understand it.

"Peyote. He needed to enter the spirit world."

Then there was a loud sound, like fish's tail slapping the water and the regular world slid away.

One Hundred Years: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Blue Dragons

It had been midday when the Winter Wolves launched their attack upon the Redwing Edge Village. It was past midnight now. But most of the villagers were still awake as they waited in the hidden shelters, only the youngest children were sleeping. There was almost no light in each shelter- a traditionally built pit house with a earthen roof to hide it from prying eyes. The fires had long since burned down to embers. The night was still and the smothering black-blue color of an oil slick.

Cooper was not asleep.

Pike was not asleep either. The older boy was sitting cross-legged by the glowing embers of the fire sharpening his knife. He had been sharpening his knife for over an hour, but Cooper wasn't about to say anything to his half-brother. Before sharpening his knife, Pike had spent two hours unpacking and repacking his belt kit. When Cooper had asked- well into the first hour- what Pike was doing, the only response had been a string of distracted mutterings.

Cooper understood. Pike needed to think about something else. Earlier Fergus Wong- one of the elders present in the shelter- had told the story of the Oil Barons War. And he had told the long version, the epic poem version that took three hours to tell. It was a good story with a strong group of villains and good heroes and even a good ending.

Cooper understood the need to not look at things that were painful. But as much as Cooper understood, he didn't share the need. For as long as he could remember, Cooper had wanted to stare at challenges and not step away. His Aunt Koko, had told Cooper that he used to stare at the sun as a toddler, and had to be told repeatedly not to do so.

Some adults would still tell him not to stare at the sun, when he was persisting in trying to do something past when it was a good idea.

Cooper couldn't help it. It was in his nature.

"Know Thyself," was the first command given to the children of the Redwing Tribe. Children were to taught to question what they knew and what they did and why they did from the earliest ages. The Tribe's nursery rhymes were questions. Most of the stories taught to children under the age of five were about Munin the raven, and most of them were about self knowledge versus group knowledge and tradition. Munin taught the tribe to question everything.

Cooper worked very hard to know himself. One day he would be an important part of the tribe. One day he would be able to protect people and responsible for the safety of the tribe. So Cooper worked hard at everything he did. And that meant that he spent a great deal of time studying who he was.

He knew how much sleep he needed in order to feel rested. He knew how fast and how far he could run. He knew how far he could throw and under what conditions. He knew what food his body worked the best on and how different activities changed things. He knew what made him angry and what made him sad, although knowing these things didn't allow him to manage his emotions as flawlessly as he had first hoped. He knew what he knew and he attempted to keep track of what he didn't know.

Aunt Layla said that Cooper was born an elder. Uncle Redwing said that Cooper had the eyes of an immortal.

This was who Cooper understood himself to be. He wasn't the fastest. He wasn't the strongest. He wasn't the most knowledgeable. He didn't take naturally to many of the skills of the tribe- although he could do them. Cooper was not naturally good at anything as far as he could tell, except thinking. Cooper was a thinker and a learner. This was who he saw himself to be.

He could learn. He could break down what he knew and what he didn't know. He could determine what was needed and how he needed to go about learning those things.

Reading still intimidated him, and Malika didn't let him forget it. Her taunts irritated Cooper. The letters didn't sit still on the page. They shuffled around like children lining up for a meal, and they even changed color. Cooper didn't mind the color changes. He was used to color changes in his vision. Cooper saw colors at the edge of his vision when he heard certain sounds, those happened a lot and he could interpret what they meant. The shuffling letters frustrated him. He had found other ways of learning though. He had learned memory tricks from the elders and used them excessively. Pike helped Cooper in this, reading too the younger boy so that Cooper could listen and sort the information into packages that he could remember.

He would rather have been a warrior, or a leader, but he didn't seem to fall naturally into those things. He could learn them, but he was not them. No matter what he learned, it would not come naturally.

Cooper was intent on learning now. In the gloom of the pit house, as the people around him consoled each other and dealt with their grief in their own ways, Cooper sought to learn- to teach himself and know himself.

He was five years old. Once he hit puberty he could begin to undertake the warrior tests and become a man. Most people became warriors by the age of seventeen. Cooper was determined to do it before he was fifteen. He was certain that he would have hit puberty by then. He couldn't be sure when it would hit. The minimum age a child was allowed to take the tests was thirteen. Very few people become warriors before the age of fifteen. That was not a lot of time. Cooper couldn't add above 100 easily yet. But he could add five and five and five together to get fifteen. He was five now, that left five and five years- just ten years- to be ready for the warrior tests. And so he sought to know himself.

He had panicked at the sight of Rikki's body. He had frozen and only Pike's declaration that he would not leave without Cooper had snapped the younger boy out of his panic. Cooper didn't like this. It was something that he would have preferred not to have to learn about himself. Rikki was already dead. People died, especially when at war. His panic and shock had endangered living people around him, and the reaction did not help Rikki- who was already dead. Rikki had been Cooper's friend, but Cooper had been unable to do anything to help Rikki. And his reaction after was even less helpful.

So that was something to work on. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't panic.

His aim had been off when he had sought to help Aunt Koko and Uncle Lamont with the rock he had thrown. He would need to practice his throws further. His aim hadn't been off by much, but it had been off by enough.

So that was something to work on. Get better, don't let down your family, practice more.

Pike had brought Cooper out of his shock by appealing to the mutual loyalty the boys shared for each other. That was good, Cooper could use that. He would work on remembering that. He would work on keeping that in his mind to drive him to action.

Cooper stood up. he walked over to one of the narrow openings that served as doors in the shelter and sat down. He looked around at the pit house. There had been no sounds of gun fire for hours now. The adults were largely talking to children and trying to console them. Cooper knew that there were two guards outside the pit house hidden in the trees watching and listening.

Cooper also knew that he did his best thinking alone.

He moved slowly, trying not to make a sound, practically hugging the ground until he was outside the pit house. Once outside, he continued his inchworm movement into the trees and up to where he knew was a hill with a good view of the sky. He could feel grass and moss against his belly as he undulated along the ground. Cooper knew that there was very little chance that the Winter Wolves were still in the area. The remaining adults had not returned, but the alarm horn had sounded a pursuit call roughly two and a half hours ago. So both the adults and the Winter Wolves were not likely to be nearby. But Cooper was still nervous. There might still be raiders around, in hiding. And if an adult caught him outside, Cooper knew he would be in trouble.

But he needed to talk to the sky. Uncle Redwing talked about spirits of the earth. Great Uncle Luther and his children always claimed that there was no such thing as spirits. Cooper wasn't sure, but thought he should be polite just in case. Beside that, it helped to talk to something as vast and eternal as the sky.

As he inched out of the trees, Cooper looked up and almost gasped. The aurora borealis was twisting through the night sky, sea greens and deep blues hanging above the earth. Aunt Koko had said that the aurora was made when bits of the sun came loose and burned up as they entered earth's air. Uncle Redwing said they were the dance of the spirits. Pike said that he had heard that the aurora was the sky writing of dragons. Pike swore that the color was how he knew which type of dragon it was that had left the aurora. Blues and greens were left by the Northern Dragon, also called the Great Norwegian Blue. Cooper had heard adults talk about the Norwegian Blue Dragon, and had not decided if they were trying to trick the children or being serious.

Still, Cooper was impressed. Maybe, if there was a Great Blue Dragon, the Dragon had left its writings in the sky to honor the dead of the Redwing Tribe. Cooper felt a little silly when he thought this. But he also felt a little better, after he thought it.

If even the sky can honor the dead, Cooper decided, then he could as well.

He spoke quietly to the sky, "I don't know if you are real, I think it would be nice if you were. I hope you don't mind if I don't know for sure if I believe in you."

"I lost my cousin Rikki today. He died. He wasn't just my cousin. He was my friend. And I couldn't help him at all. And I cried, and I almost hurt by brother too. And my Uncle got hurt really bad. He hasn't come to the shelter yet. I think he might be in the medical hut, but I don't know for sure. I don't want to have somebody else die today. But I don't get to choose that. And I'm scared, and I don't want to be scared. I'm going to take the warrior test one day, and then I'll be a warrior. A warrior has to fight and defend the tribe and people around him die, like friends who are warriors too. I get scared. But, they're my family. My Mom and Dad aren't here. I don't know who they are even. The adults won't tell me, but I think something bad happened to them. So I don't know who my Mom and Dad are, but they let me stay here. And they like me here, and its almost like I belong here. So I want to prove them right. I want show them that I do belong here, that I am part of the Redwing tribe. I'm not theirs, they didn't have to take me, but they did. And I have to pay them back. I owe them that, for letting me have a home. I have to look after them. I have to look after Pike, 'cause he looks after me. I have to look after Malika and I have to look after Uncle Redwing, because he's really old. I kind of want help, because sometimes it seems like I'm all alone, and I'm not alone, because everyone is always around- but I feel lonely anyways. I don't want to be alone."

The sky looked down at Cooper, dark and open. Cooper could see constellations, the False King's plow, the rabbit Martagas, the great serpent, the wolf Gygas. Cooper watched the the trails of the aurora and was quiet for a long time. The sky was a good listener, but rarely offered obvious advice.

"You're going to get in trouble if the grown ups find you out here." Malika hissed from behind him. Her words caused a burst of deep blue lines to snake across his vision.

Cooper didn't turn around, but noted that he needed to work on paying attention to sounds.

"You'll get in trouble now too, you know."

"Why are you out here?" Malika asked as she shuffled in beside him, nuzzling against him as she did so.

"I needed to be alone and think."

"I'm sorry." She said quietly.

"It's okay, I think I'm done now."

"Elder Fergus is telling the story of the Seven Siblings now."

"I know the story, none of them were orphans."

"We don't know your parents are dead."

"Something happened to them or Uncle Redwing would have told me."

Malika was quiet for a long time at this point. She was quiet for so long that Cooper started to wonder if she was okay. Finally she spoke again in a small voice.

"It doesn't feel like Rikki's dead."

Cooper considered this. Rikki certainly felt dead to him. But Cooper had seen Rikki dead on the trail, and wasn't sure if Malika had seen this as well.

"It doesn't feel fair that he's dead," Cooper finally answered.

"It isn't fair! Rikki wasn't a warrior yet. Why would you attack us? We're kids! It doesn't prove anything if you kill us. That guy was a total loser coward! He wasn't a tribal, he was a total townee! No tribal would attack kids like that."

Cooper noticed that Malika was crying. She was quiet about her crying, but when she tried to hide a sniffle or control a hiccup the color of her words changed.

"It isn't fair. But I'm going to make sure its not fair for them either. I'm going to be a warrior."

Malika wiped her nose and nodded, "Me too, and I'm going to make all the Winter Wolves pay for all of us they killed."

Cooper could feel the pain of seeing Rikki's body rising up in him. He found himself wanting to cry. Cooper didn't like crying in front of people. He tried to hold the tears back, but the best he could manage was to cry quietly beside Malika.

They were quiet then, crying softly beside each other. Then Cooper's thoughts got the best of him. He didn't mean to say anything out loud, but suddenly he was saying it anyway.

"I don't want to be alone." He whispered, and instantly wished he could take it back.

Malika looked at him in surprise, "Coop, you're Redwing Tribe. None of us are ever alone."

Cooper couldn't talk for a long time after this. The emotions were too strong.

"The grown ups are going to kill us if they catch us out here." he said finally.

"Yeah," Malika agreed.

Neither of them moved.

* * *

PIke sat before the fire, sharpening his knife. He hadn't actually been sharpening the blade for quite some time. He was aware of the damage that his constant filling against the blade was doing on some level, but it didn't matter to Pike at the moment. Pike didn't want to think about Uncle Lamont and the man's broken hip bone. He didn't want to think about Uncle Lamont's knife wound- inflicted accidentally by Aunt Koko. But Pike really didn't want to think about his cousin Rikki.

The event had happened so fast and so slow at the exact same time. One moment the path ahead of the children was empty, the next moment a pitch black giant was looming ahead of the children and firing two guns. Pike remembered seeing RIkki freeze- his mouth open. Pike remembered grabbing RIkki, and he remembered dragging RIkki to the cover of a tree as the children around them scattered. Pike could remember how slow it had seemed, and how desperately they needed to move quickly. The event had seemed to occur in a nightmare where molasses wrapped around his ankles and slowed him down to prolong the horror.

Pike remembered all of this. Pike could remember looking down at RIkki once Pike and Rikki had reached the tree. And then? And then Pike couldn't remember anything. It wasn't until PIke found himself staring at Cooper frozen on the road that Pike could remember anything again. Pike couldn't even remember what he said, or what his little brother had been looking at, although in both cases PIke knew what he couldn't remember- at least on some level.

Pike also knew that he had to deal with this. He was being eaten by a slow creeping amnesia. He could feel it. Any time he got close to a memory that might draw up... then it changed and he couldn't remember that either. Pike could feel his sense of self trying to drown itself to hide from the pain. Pike couldn't allow that.

His Mom needed him and Cooper needed him. His Mom could maybe get by on her own- she was strong. Pike could vaguely remember her fleeing from the dangers that one night with him and baby Cooper in tow. He couldn't remember who or what they were running from, and he suspected that these memories too had been buried by some survival mechanism to help him go on. His Mom would be okay, PIke thought, Cooper wouldn't be so good.

Cooper was smart. Most Redwing children began to read around five years old. Pike knew that this was considered early elsewhere and he liked that. Cooper was therefore a slow reader. The grown ups thought this mean Cooper wasn't quite as sharp as the others. Pike knew better. He read to Cooper and knew how much his brother could memorize and learn and keep and even sometimes improve on- already at five. Cooper said the letters would move on him. Pike didn't know why this was, but he believed his brother. So Cooper was smart, very smart. But he was little- even for his age. And he would never be able to read if the letters didn't stop moving on him. Cooper was fast. But being little and feeling as though he had to help everyone, Cooper was always getting in over his head. And PIke was certain that no matter how good Cooper got at what he did, and Pike suspected Cooper would get good at virtually anything except reading, Cooper would still end up in over his head. It wasn't hard to notice- Cooper headed for deep waters every time. Without Pike there to pick up the slack, Cooper would be in trouble.

Pike wasn't going to let Cooper down. Mom and Cooper were all Pike had. During the scary weeks when they were fleeing the dangers, Pike's mom had always stressed that it was her job to look after Pike and Pike's job to look after Cooper. Pike had taken that seriously and never forgotten it. If something happened to him, there would be nobody who knew Cooper well enough to look after him and keep up with him.

And so, Pike had to find a way to beat this overwhelming devouring amnesia that was stealing any memory that might... be bad from him.

"Rikki." He said the name aloud to test the results. It hurt him mind, because he could feel the guilt and the loss and pain pushing at the edge of his mind. He could feel another part of his mind trying to steal the word to protect him.

"Rikki is dead." He said, still quietly.

"I didn't kill Rikki. I tried to save him. But because I tried to save him I almost didn't save Cooper." This worked for him. His need to be there for Cooper was more powerful than his guilt over Rikki's death. If he looked through the eye's of Coop's big brother, he could deal with his failure as Rikki's cousin. Rikki didn't matter, because RIkki could not save Cooper. This wasn't a good way to look at things, on some level Pike knew this, but he could think about things through this lens. His mother mattered, and Cooper mattered, nothing else was worth worrying about. Through this lens Pike could manage himself again. his world contracted in other ways as he got used to this lesson, but that was acceptable.

Pike looked up and around the darkened. He paused.

"Elder Fergus. Where are Cooper and Malika?"

One Hundred Years: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The Scars of History

The alarm horn echoed through the dense trees of the Pacific Northwestern forest. As soon as the alarm horn had sounded, everyone began moving. Cooper and Pike and the other children in the Soccer field clearing immediately began running for the hidden shelters. Adults already carrying weapons ran in the direction of the alarm horn. Unarmed adults ran for their weapons. Those adults on guardian duty ran alongside the children collecting stray youngsters who hadn't learned what the alarm horn meant.

As Cooper ran he could hear the sounds of battle. He could hear a lot of gunshots. The Redwing tribe didn't use firearms unless the other side did as well, firearms and ammunition were hard to get a hold of these days- especially for the tribes of the Great Alliance. Cooper was certain that this meant the attacking force was a city folk force. He was almost certain that it was the Winter Wolves. They knew Redwing territory better than any outside group.

This was a edge village, one designed to be found-by traders and raiders alike- and thus protect the hidden central village where food was grown and most of the tribe lived. Edge villages were populated by dedicated warriors and their families- people willing to act as a human barrier for the rest of the tribe. Cooper was scared now that he was faced the reality of an attack, but also very proud to be one of the people living in an edge village.

The Winter Wolves had been a tribe once, and still claimed that they were to all who would listen. They had even been part of the Great Alliance. The Great Alliance was not the only tribal group in the Pacific Northwest. Many other groups had opted to avoid civilization after the horrors of the collapse. And many of those groups that survived had opted to stick with the quieter existence offered by a less technologically complicated existence. Inevitably these groups came into conflict with city folk as the latter tried to expand and re-establish the roads and farms and vast networks of resource extraction needed to maintain any large industrial population center. Cities didn't trust tribals and tribals didn't trust cities.

It was mostly a clash of ideology- the ideology of progress versus the ideology of simplicity. The Winter Wolves followed the ideology of power. Cooper understood the need to acquire a certain amount of power- enough to protect one's self, one's family and one's tribe. What Cooper didn't understand was the desire for power over others. Cooper had learned a fair amount of the tribe's history and the history of life before the collapse. Leaders had built great cities on the backs of everyone else- human and non-human alike. Cooper knew this was the way of the False King, the dark tempting force that offered short term power in exchange for long term poverty. The False King's deal was simple- you take from the generations of the future in exchange for power and luxury in your own generation. The city folk followed this bargain, but most didn't seem to realize it. The Winter Wolves seemed wholly devoted to it. It made Cooper sick.

Cooper had been allowed to go with his Uncle Redwing to an Alliance Council meeting at the Summer Solstice, and the Winter Wolves had sent a party to the meeting. The council had not thrown them out, as his Uncle had requested, but had also not allowed the Winter Wolves to have a vote. They were on probation- too many complaints had been made against them and too many suspicious things happened along their borders.

An attack like this, in broad daylight with guns, was against the code of the council. Tribes frequently had disputes. If those disputes couldn't be settled by conversation, then the tribes would raid each other. But tribes generally raided at night, and normally with only short staves as weapons. This would prove who were the better warriors without the need for armed wars- the point could be made without bloodshed. The Winter Wolves seemed to love bloodshed and were experts at creating situations where they needed to 'defend' themselves.

"Come on little cousin" Koko Freeman-Singh said, snapping Cooper out of his thoughts. He looked at Malika's mother, nodded and picked up the pace. As he ran, he fingered his belt knife. At five he was only just allowed to start carrying a tool knife. It would be eight years before he was allowed to carry anything large enough to be an effective weapon.

Ahead of him Pike and Rikki had drawn their belt knives and quickly concealed them by palming them with the meat of their thumbs and keeping their palms facing their bodies. Other older children had done likewise. Cooper knew how to do the palm in theory, but his hands weren't big enough to pull the trick off, and so he left his knife in its sheath. He hated being little, and he hated feeling helpless.

As the group ran, weaving in and out of the trees and heading for the shelters, Cooper heard the crack of a firearm ahead of them. Children at the front of the group screamed. Cooper strained to see over the crowd, but he was too short. Instead the five year old worked his way around to the left to see what was happening at the front of the line.

A monster of a man had charged the group and was firing a pair of nine millimeter pistols at the assembled children and their protectors. He was clad in full body Kevlar with a black snowflake inside a wolf paw print blazoned on his chest. Fear and adrenaline ran through Cooper and he instinctively dropped to the ground to minimize the size of the target he presented. Ahead of him he could see that several children and an adult had been hit by the bullets the attacker was firing- three people in all. Cooper wanted to cry, but he also wanted to live. The tribe's teaching had been clear on this. There is nothing wrong with fear and there is nothing wrong with grief, but don't die because of them. Cooper sought the the shelter of the nearest tree for cover and watched as most of the children did likewise. A few of the really little ones didn't and adults were hauling them along as the little ones screamed and cried in panic. Cooper was focusing on not panicking, repeating a mantra to ward off total surrender to fear.

"When I am older I will fix this. When I am older I will fix this."

He could see Pike dragging an injured Rikki behind a tree as well, their knives discarded in the middle of the trail. Cooper noted that even Rikki and Pike hadn't been big enough to do anything about the attacker. On the other hand Pike had probably saved Rikki's life- and that was something.

The attacker was now grappling with Aunt Koko and her brother Lamont. Uncle Lamont and Aunt Koko weren't armed except for their machetes and Lamont didn't have his out of its sheath. His Uncle probably hadn't taken the time to draw his machete, Cooper realized, before rushing the attacker. Lamont had put himself in harm's way, even at a disadvantage, to save Cooper and the other children. Auntie Koko had her machete out, Cooper thought he remembered it in her hand when she had spoken to him- but he wasn't sure. The machete was helping significantly in the struggle. The attacker had dropped one of his guns to grasp Koko's wrist in an attempt to keep the blade from killing him. Lamont had both arms wrapped around the gun the attacker still held and was fighting the larger man, trying to prying the gun loose without letting the gun point at the children or himself.

They weren't far away, Cooper realized. Closer than the goal had been. In fact, now that he was thinking calmly, Cooper realized there were within his accurate throwing distance. His Aunt and Uncle weren't gaining any ground on the attacker and the free gun was still very dangerous. Cooper knew what he was considering was dangerous, and that there were risks involved. But Cooper wasn't going to let any tribe members -especially his Aunt and Uncle- fight alone.

He cast around for a weapon, something he could throw. There was his knife, but he wasn't willing to risk the consequences of accidentally injuring his Aunt and Uncle with a badly thrown knife. He just needed something that would distract the attacker. He picked up a stone from the ground. The stone was round and polished and clearly very old. It was a little small, but close enough that Cooper felt it would do the trick.

He stepped out from the behind the cedar tree and watched the struggle for a moment more. Watching the flow of the fight, Cooper tried to guess how much the attacker would move. Then he saw the attacker twist his hip and kick into Uncle Lamont's stomach. And he saw his Uncle lose his grip on the attacker's gun hand.

Cooper knew he couldn't wait any longer. He stepped and threw, aiming for the faceplate on the Kevlar armor the man wore. The stone arced threw the air and knocked loudly off the helmet top of the attacker. Cooper winced in frustration at his aim. In the next second the attacker turned his face and gun towards Cooper and Lamont Launched himself bodily into the attacker. Cooper dove behind the tree and heard three gunshots as he did and the unmistakable wet chopping sound of a machete carving through flesh and bone. There was a pause and then two more wet chops.

And then there was silence.

Cooper counted to ten and then looked at the site of the confrontation. As he did so, he could hear Koko calling for help.

"Medic! I need a Medic!" She cried.

Cooper stared in horror at the situation. Uncle Lamont lay prone on the attacker. He had a large gash in his left leg and he was bleeding from a gunshot wound in his hip. The Attacker was twitching beneath him, his neck almost separated from his body by an awful ragged cut that split the attacker's face width-wise just above the lower jaw. The attacker's helmet and face plate were a few metres away from the body, and the blood on the face plate made Cooper think that the face plate and helmet had been knocked loose by the first machete blow.

A moment later a medic ran into the clearing. Cooper could still hear the sound of gun shots off in the direction of the main camp. This wasn't over yet. Cooper was pretty sure that the attacker had stumbled upon the children by chance, but that didn't mean that they were safe.

As if reading his mind, Koko stood up and faced the children and the adults who were again shepherding them onto the trail.

"Children, I know you're afraid. This has been a very scary day. I need you to be brave, to be good warriors and look out for each other like Pike and Cooper did just now. I need all of you to be strong."

Cooper felt uncomfortable with the praise. he wasn't sure he had helped and wasn't sure he hadn't been the reason that his Uncle was shot.

His Aunt continued, "We need to hurry now children, I need you to be fast and quiet. I now you're scared. And if you need to cry when we get to shelters, you can cry- even warriors are allowed to cry, but you must wait until we reach the shelter."

Cooper nodded, as much to himself as to his Aunt, and fell into line as the group began to move towards the shelters again. He saw most of the other children doing similar. Most of the children were able to deal with such situations by age five or six. One of the realities of the Redwing tribe was that you were always at war.

The Winter Wolves craved power and luxury, but they would not get this from destroying the Redwing tribe, and yet the Winter Wolves had been at war with the Redwing tribe for decades. No adult had ever explained the reason for the war to Cooper in a way that satisfied him.

Cooper understood why the Redwing tribe was at war with the Winter Wolves. They were a tribe who had decided to follow the path of the False King. This alone meant that they must be expelled from the Great Alliance. They were constantly attacking the Redwing Tribe. Cooper understood why his tribe was at war with the Winter Wolves, what made no sense to him was why the Winter Wolves would seek to attack the most secretive and deliberately ascetic of the tribes. The Winter Wolves gained nothing that they seemed to value from this war, not power, not useful land, not influence. Indeed, the war had cost the Winter Wolves influence and power as they had to spend much of both in the war effort. So why would the Winter Wolves go to war and remain at war with a people from whom they could not plunder anything useful?

Looking back Cooper saw that the group was leaving Aunt Koko and the medic behind as the two tended to Uncle Lamont. Neither smiled, and Cooper was not encouraged by the look of agony on his Uncle's face.

Then Cooper saw Rikki's body. Rikki "Slow Train" Singh, lay prone on the ground. His eye's looked glassy and Cooper could now see that a gun shot wound had punched through his cousin's neck like a pick axe blow. Cooper gasped and dropped to his knees.

He could feel tears on his cheeks. His mind was reeling. This was war, this happened in war. This was the Winter Wolves' fault! he had to get up. He had to be strong!

But he couldn't.

A moment later, or maybe and hour (he couldn't be sure), he heard Pike's voice.

"Come on little brother, I'm not losing you too." Pike hiccuped as he spoke. Cooper looked back and up at his half-brother. Pike was crying too, and his voice was ragged when he spoke.

"Come on Cooper. I can't run if I have to carry you and I'm not leaving you behind."

That did it. Cooper clenched his hands into fists until his nails dug into his palms. The pain helping him focus. He hauled himself to his feet and grabbed Pike for support. Together they ran. Cooper could still see Rikki in his mind, laying on the forest floor. The gaping hole in the boy's throat and the unnatural angle at which his head lay tore at Cooper's heart. He could his Uncle Lamont as well, the man's hip shattered and leg cut open from the battle. But he kept running.

"One day I'm going to fix this big brother. When I'm a warrior, this war is going to end."

Pike looked down sharply, and Cooper realized how fierce and angry his voice had become.

"The laws of Gygas say we can destroy the guys who follow the False King, that it's the only way." Cooper reiterated.

Pike spoke as they ran, "Some adults say we used to be friends, you know. I don't know how. None of the adults will talk about how it started."

"I was never friend with them! I don't care how it started. I just want it to stop."

One Hundred Years: Chapter 1

Book 1

The Tale Cooper Redwing

 
The History of the Pacific Northwest
From "A History of the 21st Century", by Zithembe Nkosi
Published by ZuluHeart Press, copyright 2120

The roots of the Coast Mountain range that acts as a border for the Democratic Republic of Oregon rest one hundred million years in the past, in the Late Cretaceous period. It was then that the land began to awaken and volcanoes began to form. The great tectonic plates of the Pacific ocean began to press against North America. As the great Kula and Farallon plates pushed beneath the continental plates, the edge of the continental shelf was pushed upwards forming the great Coast Mountain arc of what would eventually be Western North America.

It was this great natural barrier, combined with the protection and trade advantages offered by the Pacific Ocean that allowed the Democratic Republic of Oregon to form in the years after the Great Collapse, and those same natural wonders that allowed the DRO to survive the War of the Oil Barons, which pitted the early Oil Baronies- still rich in energy and technology against the all out lying areas with arable land. It was the Coast Mountains that afforded the DRO geographic protection necessary for them to leverage their position as the primary trading partners with the surviving Asian nations.

As time passed, and the multi-racial population of the DRO began to merge beliefs, nobody was surprised when the Coast Mountains themselves were named as a Kami- or great nature spirits- by the Unified Church of Healing which emerged as the standard religion of the region.

Respect for the Coast Mountains is found everywhere today in the culture of the DRO. Most politicians begin their speeches by giving thanks to the mountains and the sea- generally in that order. Even in Victoria, the infamously independent 'free port', visitors can see great wall murals of the Coast Mountain Range.

The Mountains serve as a diplomatic zone today as well. All Meetings with the Republic of Northern Territories or the Oil Baronies are held at Council Pass, the site of the Pre-Collapse toll both on the Coquihalla Highway, rebuilt in 2089.

Any storyteller speaking of the DRO would find it very hard to tell their story without paying their respects in story to the Mountains that are the father and the protector to the six or so million people who live within DRO territory.

The DRO was founded in 2040- fourteen years after the collapse of most North American Nations- when the more powerful villages and surviving cities in the region banded together for mutual benefit and protection. The Democratic Republic of Oregon was designed to maintain the independence that many of the communities had developed during the intervening years since the collapse. The Republic still operates as a collection of communities, some cities, some farming collectives, some villages, some large ranches, each with a representative from the community and a single vote- and decisions have to pass with an eighty percent majority. Larger communities have no extra weight, but the Republic itself only has the right to convene on matters of collective defense. Everything else is decided at the local level. The capital of the DRO is the walled city of Astoria, in what was originally Oregon state.

Astoria was a town of about ten thousand people when the collapse occurred. A local resident and librarian, Virginia Marshall, managed to convince the city to begin preparing for a large scale governmental collapse when the oil markets fell apart in 2020 after the fall of the Saudi Arabian royal family. by 2026, the town had food reserves, an official militia, independent partial electrical supply and was far better prepared for the chaos that ensued than most cities. When the United States Government did collapse, the town elected to build a medieval style wall around the town as defense against the already burgeoning bandit population. Astoria is now a prosperous city state of nearly forty-five thousand people.

Astoria built their reputation by sending help to other communities. The didn't send food (they didn't have extra), but rather education and training. They helped communities rebuild infrastructure. They trained teachers and nurses and medics and farmers. They set up a system of alerts to warn neighboring cities of bandit armies or hordes of looters. It was from this start that the seed of what would become the Democratic Republic of Oregon grew within the confines of the Pacific Northwest.

DRO is, in essence, a large assortment of strangers who have agreed to circle the wagons against outside threats. But inside threats exist as well. Not everyone who lives within the territory claimed by the DRO is under DRO protection or control. The Squamish Nation has lived on the land that lies between The Vancouver City State and Whistler County for as long as anyone can remember. They made agreements with the DRO, and tolled DRO citizens when they passed through Squamish territory, but they have always maintained their diplomatic distance. Likewise, to the north, the island of Haida Gwaii (the Queen Charlotte Islands) is once again an independent nation- who occasionally raids the coast line as they did hundreds of years ago. To most people living in the Northern half of the DRO, the Haida are the bogeymen and the stuff of nightmares.

Seattle is also not associated with the DRO. Seattle was built on a swamp, and during the great collapse an earthquake decimated the city's foundations. The once prosperous city suffered the fate of many large cities- abandonment. In the years following its abandonment, Seattle was claimed by a warlord calling herself Lilith. Leading a horde she called "The Demon Children", Lilith lined the city with corpses on spears and practiced human sacrifice. In the chaos between the initial collapse and the rebuilding that began near the end of the century, Seattle was a place other community leaders simply didn't have he resources to deal with appropriately. By the time leaders were willing to turn their eyes towards 'the Demon City', Lilith and her group had become well entrenched both militarily and culturally. Lilith, it seemed, was quite a leader beneath her ghoulish exterior. And so Seattle- The Demon City- was denied a seat in the DRO council. The City sits like a tumor near the geographic center of the DRO and is the elephant in the room that few council members like to mention at meetings.

Another ongoing problem for the DRO is the ongoing blood feud between DRO member: Fort Winter Wolf, and the non-DRO member: The Redwing Tribe. The feud has been going since before Fort Winter Wolf was even a DRO member, more than fifty years. There is no love lost between the two sides, particularly amongst the leaders. Whatever the cause of the feud was, neither side was sharing with outsiders. But both sides were certainly enlisting the aid of outsiders. Fort Winter Wolf has expanded its influence in the DRO council by forming an unofficial alliance with nearby members to create an unofficial voting block. Other members have whispered that Fort Winter Wolf actually conquered these members covertly, but nothing has ever been proven. The Redwing Tribe was one of the founding members of a group that called themselves the Great Alliance. Including many of the first nations groups and other groups that had embraced a less technological solution to the collapse, the Great Alliance is hard to find, and harder to talk to- but its members run as far east as the Rocky Mountains- outside even the control of the DRO. Some sources claim that Fort Winter Wolf was once a member of the Great Alliance, but this is disputed by multiple other sources.

The Great Alliance has no leader, but the founder of the Redwing tribe was as close to a leader as one could get during the 21st century. His name was Redwing-lives-forever, and although he was not chief or king or president, when he spoke it carried more weight than when others spoke. Redwing had no children of his own, but most outsiders believed that his unofficial successor would be his nephew Cooper Redwing.

* * *

This is his story.

Chapter 1

The Meaning of Prophecy

Fifteen Years Earlier...
August 2nd, 2105

Cooper gave the soccer ball a sharp kick, sending the ruddy brown leather ball tumbling towards his half brother Pike. The ball bounced along the pockmarked field towards towards the older taller boy. The ball had nearly reached Pike when his cousin, Malika Singh, darted in like a dark blur and snatched the ball from its course and took off running.

"No little kids allowed on the field!" She called back at Cooper as she ran.

"I'm not little! I'm five now!" Cooper called back in frustration at his cousin.

Pike broke into his usual loping run, an odd animal-like trot that looked slow until the watcher saw how much ground Pike was covering with every step.

"If little kids aren't allowed, then I'm going to evict you until you turn at least ten." Pike called as he rapidly closed the distance between the two."

"No!" Malika called back, "Five is little, eight isn't little!"

Cooper struggled to keep up. He'd been playing soccer since he could walk, and could run practically forever, but Pike could run faster than anyone Cooper had ever seen- even most adults. Malika wasn't terribly fast for an eight year old, but she was noticeably taller at eight, and had longer legs than Cooper. Still Cooper could sprint very well for his age, running was a highly praised skill amongst most of the tribes of the Great Alliance. Horse ownership was rare, and car ownership was almost unheard of amongst the tribes. Elder Janet Pattinson still owned an old electric car that she had to keep plugged into a waterwheel full time just to use it once a month in emergencies. In the tribes, running was freedom. If you couldn't run, then you were unable to travel.

Cooper didn't like being last. He didn't like being left behind. It made him feel like an outsider, and he felt like that too often anyway. People were nice to him, but he hadn't been born here, and he didn't have a Mom or a Dad here. He called Pike's Mom: 'Auntie Lana', but she wasn't really his Aunt. Pike and Cooper had the same Dad, but their Dad didn't live here. Pike didn't talk about that to Cooper. Even Pike didn't talk about their mutual father, though Pike told Cooper almost everything else. And so, even though people were nice here, Cooper often felt like an outsider. Cooper didn't like feeling like an outsider. He pushed into a sprint and began to close the distance between himself and the spot of grass where Malika and Pike were struggling for control of the soccer ball.

Pike noticed Cooper closing and winked at his little half-brother. Cooper grinned and nodded back. Pike was twelve, a whole seven years older than Cooper and seemed so much smarter and cooler than Cooper himself. Cooper thought though, that Pike felt a little like an outsider too. It gave the two boys a strong bond. Cooper idolized his big brother and Pike was always there to look out for his little brother. And so Cooper pushed himself even faster to make sure he didn't let Pike down.

"You play soccer like a townee!" Pike taunted Malika abruptly.

Malika's face opened in shock and then tightened into a snarl and she pushed the bigger boy with both hands, "I do not! Take it back!"

Pike easily gained control of the ball and shot it to the incoming Cooper, who scooped it up with his moccasin clad feet and continued passed without pausing.

"Okay, I take it back, but I take back the ball too." Pike said with a grin.

Malika glared for a few seconds and then bolted after Cooper. She was faster, even when Cooper was sprinting, and was closing ground quickly.

Cooper was close to the net, but he knew exactly how far he could kick accurately, and he was still too far out.

"Coop! Kick it now!" Pike called from behind him.

Cooper nodded. Trusting his big brother, he shifted his weight a let go the hardest rocket of a kick he could, aiming the ball at the nearest upper corner of the net. A half moment later Malika plowed into him. She had been running so hard that she couldn't stop in time, and the two children tumbled to the grass together.

Cooper heard a familiar dull thud that he knew meant the soccer ball had bounced off the trunk of the oak tree that they used as a goal post, and his heart sunk. Then, he suddenly heard the sharp smack of a foot hitting a leather ball. Then Cooper heard the rest of his team cheering.

"Not fair! You're too good Pike!" Rikki Singh called out. Rikki was Malika's older brother and always played goalie. Rikki was possibly the best distance runner amongst the children Cooper's age, but was also the slowest. His grandpa Booker called him: 'Slow Train'. Cooper knew what a train was- although he'd never seen one, much less ridden on one. Most of the working ones were way out east.

Pike laughed, "Then maybe next time you should be on my team Slow Train."

"Next time I'll bring a fishing net and have you for dinner, fishy Pike boy." Rikki shot back, grinning.

"Only if you catch me!" Neither boy sounded angry. Rikki was almost Pike's age and the two were good friends.

Cooper sat up and checked the straps that wrapped up the length of his mocassins, to make sure they had survived the fall. Malika was doing likewise.

Abruptly Malika turned to him, "You're good for a little kid."

Cooper blushed, "You're only two years older than me."

"When we're old enough, I'm going to marry you." Malika said with a wicked grin.

"We're cousins, that's gross." Cooper said, not looking at her.

"We're only cousins 'cause you and Pike have the same Dad. We aren't related by any blood. I checked with Mom. So I'm going to marry you when we grow up."

Cooper looked studiously at the floor, unsure what to say. The topic embarrassed and confused him.

Abruptly Malika changed the subject, "Do you think I should keep my hair short like my Mom, or let it grow out and do corn rows like my Auntie Layla?"

Cooper looked up at Malika and considered it. She was a darker chocolate brown than her mother more like the deep near black of her Aunt Layla, but also showed a strong edge of her father's Indo-Canadian heritage in her almond eyes.

"Go with corn rows," Cooper said eventually, "Corn rows are cool."

"Thanks!" She said with a grin as she stood up, "I need to know what my husband likes!"

And before he could object, she had giggled at her joke and darted off.

Other children were milling around the field. The children always played first to three points, and the game was now over. Pike walked over as Cooper stood up.

"Good job Coop."

"I missed." Cooper said in frustration.

"You were too far out to have a good shot when I told you to shoot."

"I still missed."

"Yeah but it was that or lose the ball. You almost scored, and I was able to rebound it 'cause you hit the oak."

"I still missed."

"Okay, yeah. You missed- but we didn't. I'm your brother Coop. I got your back. You got mine. I couldn't have scored if you hadn't been there to pass to. You're only five Coop, that means you're still little. Malika's right. But you won't be little forever. Uncle Redwing always says that forever is slippery. You won't be little forever, and you're good now. So when you're big, you'll be great."

Cooper nodded, then stopped.

"When I'm big, I'll be the best."

Pike shook his head, "Nah, 'cause I'll always be bigger than you. You can be as good as me. But you're never going to be better than me."

"That's cool too. I can share."

An alarm horn's sharp triple note cut through the quiet air. Coop and Pike's heads cocked as one and listened. The first three notes were followed by a pause and then three notes again.

Pike looked to Coop, "It's a raid. Who do you think?"

Coop looked back, "Who is it normally?"

Pike nodded, "The Winter Wolves."

One Hundred Years: Prologue

Prologue

December 20th, 2120
Sunshine Coast, Democratic Republic of Oregon

"My name is Redwing-lives-forever, and I am dying."

The old warrior gently touched the scar on his right cheek as he spoke to the children of the Redwing tribe. Redwing had protested the name when it had been chosen, but he was only one elder on the council and- at Redwing's own urging- the tribe would never willingly have a chief or king.

"I have seen one hundred winters, and I do not expect to see any more. The Winter Wolves are coming, and it is time to end this blood feud. It is time to pass leadership on to the younger generations."

Light from the clay fireplace flickered across Redwings leather worn skin. His face showed his mixed heritage. His features were unmistakably Coast Salish, with a strong nose, high cheekbones, and eyes that seemed to look into eternity. His features contrasted sharply with his dirty brown hair, kept long and braided down his back. The children around him bore similar indications of mixed heritage. This close to the Pacific coast, after centuries of immigration through the old port cities, most people could trace their lineage in at least two directions on the compass.

"My son, Cooper, will take my place on the council when I am gone. And likely one day, one of you will take his place. That is the way of life and the way of inheritance."

Redwing kept talking in a low calm voice, keeping the children focused on him and not the deathly quiet activity going on behind them. Warriors moved in and out of the story hall collecting weapons and helping each other put on armour. Most of the armour was brigandine- metal rectangles wrapped in leather to make it quiet and reduce shine. Some of the armour was Kevlar, most of which had been purchased through trade with Japan at great expense. The North American nations still able to fabricate Kevlar did not generally sell it to 'tribals'.

"But that is for tomorrow. Tonight we must be ready. The Winter Wolves have been spotted two hours hike from here. The Redwing tribe must engage them before they reach the village. The Winter Wolves, alone amongst the Tribes and Cities, know the location of our village. Your mothers and fathers will go out and meet them and engage them. Your parents will attempt to kill their leaders and break their spirits. They will seek to route them and destroy them as a tribe."

Behind the children a group of three young warriors were loading rifles. The eldest warrior was slapping a clip into her AK-47 Kalashnikov. The youngest was carefully ramming a bullet into a homemade muzzle loading flintlock rifle. The middle warrior was dropping a pair of slugs into a double barrelled sawed-off shotgun. Their short bows and machetes lay on a bench beside them.

"It is bad karma to kill another tribe entirely, but this is what we must do. The way of Sargas is not always appropriate; sometimes we must call upon Gygas to deal with other tribes. When another tribe breaks the laws of the Great Alliance, it must cease to be a tribe lest it destroy us all."

Cooper Redwing walked into the Story hall and approached his father. Cooper was twenty years old and built like hungry wolf, thin and lean and muscular. He wore the standard clothing of a Redwing warrior: knee-high cord wrapped leather moccasins, loose leather breeches, and a brigandine coat. His hair was bright auburn orange and cut into a long flowing Mohawk. Like most of the warriors of the tribe, Cooper was scarred. The young man's scar was a nasty discoloration on his neck that looked like an exploded tangerine.

"Father," Cooper said as he drew near to Redwing, "It is time to move the children to the safety."

Redwing nodded and stood slowly and gracefully. The old warrior reached out and gently spun his walking stick into his hand from where it had been leaning near the fireplace. He put his weight onto the stick and began to move in a deliberate manner.

"We shall finish this story as we travel young ones, because you should know the whole of why your parents fight. Not all of your parents will return to you. Some of them will die. And it is important that you know why they have died and what brought us to this dark solution."

The children dropped into line behind the old man. Cooper walked beside his adoptive father, a hand gently resting on the heavy hand-axe sheathed at his side.

"Tonight Father, we end this forever."

"Forever is slippery my son. It's found me already after all."