Ghost With Cats ~ Book of Eloh #1.Draft

To Annie, the Eloh couldn’t have been more conspicuous if they were waving flags, but in a town full of tourist before Christmas, she prayed they would be able to blend in. It was Las Vegas after all. Annie knew that staying on the outskirts of the city was always safer, but unfortunately, the bus terminals were deep into the city. So, after Annie bought Matt a bus ticket to his home in Seattle on the western coast, she told him to claim he had never been to Utah, then she decided wandering with the crowds while they waited for Matt’s bus was safer than staying in one place. She would teach Tal and Matt agreed to teach Vorn about the dangers of a surveillance society.

One rule for a ghost: Be as invisible as possible.

The Eloh stared around at the place the humans called Las Vegas, gawking like the rest of the visitors from other countries. The buildings all twinkled and flashed like clusters of stars in the early evening light. Music and slot machine bells rang in the holidays as the desperately hopeful fed them tokens, praying for a windfall. It made Annie sad because she knew the math behind the profits and the social consequences of chasing the high of winning.

A woman shouted in joy as the others around her looked on with envy.

"Why are the others not happy for her?" Tal bent his head to ask over the commotion.

"Because they were not the lucky one, the odds of winning back the money they spent and more is very low. But the dream of it is a lure most can't resist." She pulled her scarf further over her reddened cheeks and nose. "We have to keep moving. There are at least twenty camera that can see us."

"Cameras?" Tal glanced up behind his sunglasses.

"Electronic visual recording devices, up in those domes... See, Matt is telling Vorn, like I told him to. You have to be extra careful in the cities. There are programs that will take anthropomorphic measurements of your face and compare it to others. It's how they find criminals. Never forget, there is always someone watching."

Vorn reached out to Tal and they shared what the humans were telling them, as Annie and Matt explained to their Eloh companions about surveillance. While they moved through the city, they taught the Eloh how not to look directly at the cameras which seemed to be everywhere and how to use cash currency.

Annie's anxiety was killing her, too many people, too many sounds and lights, too much risk. She didn’t want to abandon Matt and flee. She felt responsible for the younger man. Three hours to go then she could buy a car from a sale notice, and they could leave. She had decided hiding among the holiday traffic was their least dangerous option and she refused to doubt herself because her fear screamed otherwise.

After leaning about surveillance, Tal understood why Annie insisted they walked two groups on separate sides of a street away from the main city bus terminals. This place was unlike anything Tal had ever seen. Annie called it Sin City. All the buildings lighted up and flashed, crowds of people watched public entertainment spectacles. The noise from the casinos created a weird disjointed music as they traveled. Women were walking around almost unclothed in the freezing wind, offering slips of paper to people.

When Tal asked Annie, "Why do the females do this?" He held out a slip of paper.

Crumpling the paper promising a special discount for special services, she simply said, "They are professionals." But Annie did not say what their profession was because she didn't know if the Eloh attitudes about prostitution. Everywhere, people were gathering and moving. Music played from different venues. He had never seen so many females or children in one place. He was sure there were more females in this city than on the entire planet of Eloh and its three colonies.

While they were waiting on one of the many people selling cars to call them back, they ate dinner at a crowded buffet. Tal noticed Annie shaking as she sat with he and Bries across the food area from Vorn and Matt. She had guided he and Bries through selecting their meals and fetched whatever extras he or Bries wanted. The Eloh were amazed at the variety of food offered. The food on Eloh was plentiful, but it had been carefully cultivated for generations to be nutritious. The efficiency with which it was produced with meant it served its purpose, but the pleasurable aspect that the food of Earth offered was unlike anything they had enjoyed beyond the freshest blood kill.

Tal had noticed there was no fresh kill on any of the buffet tables and wondered about it. Vorn answered his master's curiosity after asking Matt. The Humans rarely at raw foods beyond fruits and leafy vegetables because of the risk of disease and parasites. Things the people of Eloh had not known for thousands of years. Matt recomended the Eloh try the prime rib if they preferred rarer meats.

By late evening the day after they escaped, they were standing inside the bus station again. But this time they were saying goodbye to Matt. Annie was nervous, too many people, too many cameras. Tal watched her constantly looking everywhere and wiping her hands on her pants or clenching them in fists.

“Are you unwell?” Tal asked.

“We have been in the city too long. I am sure we have been spotted.” She revealed. “There are at least two people who I have now seen at three of the same places we have been.”

Tal looked around, there are several hundred people around them. He wondered how she could be sure. He queried Vorn, who has noticed a young man from the food buffet place and the dancing fountains. The human was here as well, watching them from above. Tal immediately recognized him, and a female in a small dress and fluffy jacket near the door. They were being surrounded like prey while around them, as people moved and conversed unknowing of their peril.

Tal spotted a strange line of light in the air. It would be mostly invisible to humans, but to his eyes, it was bright and glowing. It moved across the crowed and he wondered what it was. He didn’t get the chance to ask as it moved toward his sword pet.

Annie watched as Matt was teaching Bries how to make puns. Laughing hard, Bries dropped his candy bar wrapper. The sword pet loved chocolate. Matt had gotten him hooked on the stuff. When Bries bent to pick up the paper, a strange sound popped and Matt flew over the bench behind him. Annie saw the red dot on Tal and dragged him down behind a row of seats before the next shot came, drilling a hole in a plastic trash receptacle beyond them. Vorn reacted at the same moment, dropping to the ground, dragging down Bries who had just stood back up.

"MATT!" Annie looked at Matt’s face was twisted with pain, “Go...” he gasped out harshly as his hand clutched the spreading stain of crimson on his shoulder.

Annie froze, her mind filled with the image of blood spreading around her mother’s body. Another shot, people screaming, and suddenly, she was back, in the bus terminal, with Tal trying to shield her. Terrified people scattered like panicked animals or crawled or huddled. More shots came, but none of them seemed to hit anyone. Their attackers were trying to flush them. Annie tossed a smoke flare she had stolen from a road hazard kit at the truckstop. As colored smoke filled the lobby, they fled in the chaos. Annie hated that they had to leave Matt behind; she prayed he wasn’t dying. Annie tried not to think about it as they ran with the panicked crowd, she had to get the Eloh away from here.

As they fled, Tal realized they were not traveling randomly. He was glad Annie had insisted they all carry the backpacks she had provided as she had shouted at them to reverse their winter coats to change their appearance in a crowd. The moon was high overhead when they arrived near a large area with strange long transports moving through it. They had left the crowds behind.

“Bries, Gate.” Annie ordered, and the large guard easily separated the lock on the chain, then she quickly re-locked it with a new lock, dropping the keys on the ground.

“Why did you do that, Lady Annie?” Vorn asked as they went deeper into the train yard.

“If it is still locked, they won’t know we went this way, the fence is not climbable with that kind of wire on the top. To those who work here, it will look like a lock change was made and they dropped the new keys. Tomorrow’s shift will be angry at today’s shift, but they won’t report it. We have to catch that train headed east,” she explained as she ran toward a long transport vehicle.

They ran through the train yard toward the slowly moving train. A man hollered to them, he was holding a door open. Vorn vaulted up into the opening of a boxcar, like a high jumper, then Tal followed. Bries tossed Annie up to Tal, and then leaped up easily into the moving train car. They were safe for now and Annie was grateful the train was headed in the right direction.

The man was a hobo."Name's Winston."

"Thank you for opening the door wider," Annie panted, as the Eloh also thanked him for opening the door.

Winston nodded graciously, “Gregory told me to. Said you youngins needed a hand.”

“Gregory?” Annie asked looking around. A large, white feline just stared at them with blue eyes as Winston closed the door. The leather-stamped collar on his neck said Gregory.

“Vorn, you said you act as a physician sometimes?” Annie asked.

“Yes, Lady Annie. Were you injured?” They all looked at her concerned.

“No, but I need to you to take something out of my arm,” Annie responded.

“What’s wrong with your arm, little lady?” The hobo demanded in a gruff but concerned voice.

“I’m lo-jacked.” Annie answered with a frown. She pulled up her sleeve, and pressed on the skin of her inner arm, revealing a flat quarter sized disk.

Winston, mumbled something about spooks and big brother, and pulled a very old but well-kept Navy medical kit out of his bag. “Dang government wants to chip everyone, just like dogs and cattle. But we won’t let them, will we, Gregory? No sir. Sit down, little lady, I can help you.”

Annie winced as Winston cut into her arm, popped the tracker out, then pressed a pad over the hole as it bled a little.

“You have done this before,” Vorn observed.

“Yeah, they try to keep track of all us old vets, but we are smarter than they are. We just keep taking ’em out, 'till they find us and put a new one in.” Winston grumbled. “Big brother can’t catch us all.”

Tal noticed Annie made the strange swallowing motion with her throat again as Vorn bandaged her arm, her head turned so she couldn’t see the blood. He had never seen anyone react like that to the sight of blood.

Annie wanted nothing more than to start vomiting. Too much stress, too much blood, too much of her past horror coming back to visit her in the last day. Her mind reeled, had it only been a day since she woke at the latest Pandora development site, and less than two since she was snatched from her hotel? She rubbed the sore spot on her arm where she had been injected with something while they moved her, the two spots where she was tasered still hurt too.

God, why does it have to be this crap again? Why does it have to be this time of year? Can’t Omni-energy research try to end the world in the summer when it's warm? Her stress and fear demanded.

A hand touched her and she realized, Winston had asked her something, she opened her eyes. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I asked why they lo-jacked you, you’re pretty young to be a spook,” Winston repeated.

“Because of who my late parents were,” was all she answered. The less the man knew about her, the safer he was.

His large, dirty white cat butted her hand and she scratched it’s head absently. Winston just grunted something about the government being in everybody’s business and dropped the tracker into a small metal cigarette box, the kind with a magnet on the outside. When a train passed them going the other way, he threw the box onto it.

Smirking, he muttered to Vorn, “They’ll be searching in Arizona or California tomorrow. Not as smart as they think they are, are they, Gregory?”

The cat meowed in answer.

Later, Annie and Vorn cooked for them. Annie showed Vorn how to use canned fuel to heat something called stew in cans. It was flavorful for a preserved food. While she was cleaning up, Tal watched Annie out of the corner of his eye, she quickly wiped away several tears. She was a very emotional creature, unlike anyone he had ever met.

Winston talked about the old days as they rode overnight. Vorn was fascinated by Winston’s stories about the history of the railroads and the humans who had built and traveled by them. Bries fell asleep first. Annie dozed, with Gregory the cat in her lap. In her sleep, she leaned over against Tal, it made him feel strangely comforted. Soon he also dozed, and dreamed about the last Lottery. He had been lucky to survive, the female who had chosen him had been determined to kill him.

(The Lottery)

Only a few generations ago, Eloh females just stopped being born, what had been 1 in 20 births was now just one in 300 births. These females were hard, cruel creatures who refused to be mothers, or spouses. Females held much power and influence, but expressed it only through cruelty. Mandatory participation in the lottery was required for all ranked males every seven years hoping for viable pairings and children. But rarely did they prove out and often males were killed by their prospective female mates, almost for sport. Many males had begun suspecting the females were terminating their pregnancies to continue in the lottery. The animosity between the genders had grown so great that males were being given a drug to force compliance, but the drug made death far more likely for the males.

Tal had survived three times, at age 16, at age 23, and last year right after he turned 30. It had taken almost a month to recover from the wounds he had received, he was lucky to survive. His second Cypher had not been so fortunate. Females could choose who they wanted four times a year until they were pregnant, but it was more like the females wanted to kill them as much as mate them. The lower tiered houses were being decimated as powerful females simply chose a male from the lottery list to force into submission, mate, and kill for their blood and property. The higher the rank of the female, the more likely her choice would be allowed, and the more she got to kill. It was becoming a sign of prestige to kill males, even though the males were forbidden from harming a female or do more than just defend themselves.

Now, the highest ranked females demanding that the highest ranked males, such as himself be forced to participate every three years, instead of seven. Tal kept his brothers and those tiered under his command out of sight by staying off-world as much as possible, and trying not to draw attention to themselves from the predators who inhabited their world. But Tal’s rank and family prestige made it impossible for him to remain invisible.

These same females, who killed every male they mated, demanded support entitlements from the kingdom, but contributed nothing except their token fertility every third year to the entire civilization. Every year, there were fewer children born naturally. They were as different from the females of old as they could be.

Tal remembered his grandmother’s kindness faintly, it seemed like a daydream. Tal had barely known his mother who had agreed to be joined to his father, Tarif who was 6th tier, only because his cousin was the king. Every third year Tal gained another brother, but never a sister, finally his mother had killed his father in a fit of rage. Then she went on to another mate who also gave her only sons. His half-brothers were all 10th tier or lower.

He had only met one of his half-brothers, when he had run into his mother quite by accident at the age of twenty-two. She had not even recognized him, until Truh had introduced him. She had certainly been surprised about him being made a 3rd tier Admant. Boasting about his rank afterward to further her prestige, but she had never once showed him the slightest affection or acknowledgment except after learning his ranking. She had never visited his younger brothers after she killed their father. She was as far from the definition of mother as she could be. He did not even know if she knew of Truh’s death over six years earlier.

Most of the lower caste warriors and workers like Bries were clones. He had once thought they were lucky not to have mothers. Their entire empire was on the verge of collapsing because of something his brother had called the loss of heart and Tal had to agree; Eloh females had no hearts.

The sound of a passing transport startled Tal awake from his unpleasant dream. Vorn and Winston were still talking quietly, Bries snored slightly. He shifted and the cat started making a strange rumbling sound, but it did not seem to be a hostile sound. It was then he realized his arm was around Annie who was asleep against his chest, her breath making small clouds in the cold air. She shivered and he wanted to comfort her, but he did not know how. Vorn touched his mind, informing him to hold her against him the way he had his little brothers, and to keep the blanket around her. Human females were susceptible to cold.

Tal shifted her to his lap and tucked the blanket around her tiny body to share his warmth with her. The cat climbed back onto her lap as she was settled. Annie moved in her sleep, pressing her stocking cap into the bend of his neck with a small murmuring sound. The weight and warmth of her and the cat, soon had Tal drifting back to sleep. This time he didn’t dream, when he woke, his arms were empty.

Gregory the cat was securely in Bries’ lap while Winston showed Vorn and Annie, what he called the fine art of making hobo flapjacks. They were high in the mountains, a cold whiteness covered everything. Annie said it was called snow, their translators revealed it was a type of frozen precipitation. The Eloh had never seen anything like it. It made the landscape very bright and they were glad for the sunglasses they wore to shield their eyes. This world was so much more beautiful than Eloh with it’s manicured landscapes, and mild, controlled weather.

As the train slowed down on the approach to a city called Pueblo, they said goodbye to Winston and Gregory. Annie had given the old train rider what was left of their food and bottled water, assuring him that they could easily acquire more without breaking any laws. Bries had effortlessly jumped off first, holding Annie in his arms, followed by Tal and Vorn. As they walked through the outskirts of town, Annie sent messages through her device.

Suddenly, she stopped in front of a house, looking at a vehicle. She went to the door and a short while later, she was telling them to get in the vehicle, and thanking the woman at the house profusely. They drove away and headed to a store with the same name as the one she and Matt had gone into in St. George. It was all so strange to the Eloh, all the people, especially women and children coming and going. It was like the marketplaces of the Echadel, the One City, that surrounded the equator of Eloh like a belt. He wondered why the humans had chosen to have their population separated into sectors with great tracts of wilderness between.

Annie came out with a large cart filled with food items and more clothes and strange chain and cable circles to go on the tires she explained to Vorn as he helped her put the items in the vehicle. They stopped at a place and Annie ordered a large amount of food from a pictured wall. It was many of the items, they had chosen from the buffet in Vegas. Tal noticed that the plastic card she gave the clerk and the ID she gave with it, did not have her name on it.

As Vole handed out the food, Tal asked, "Your name is Anneliese, but the payment card says Lesley. Why?”

Annie smiled as they drove south on a wide divided road. “Banking transaction can be easily tracked. Lesley is an alias, a false name. I keep accounts in few different names, just in case I need to be invisible, like now. If I used a card with my real name, those looking for us would come here. But no one is looking for Lesley Green.”

Tal nodded, “Navigating your world is very difficult when one does not wish to be noticed.”

Annie shrugged, “It can be, but we have made it across two states undetected and now, all we have to do is wait for your retrieval ship. My great-grandfather’s cabin is completely isolated and has no traceable ties to my real name. We will be safe there.”

Tal nodded, as he chewed a double cheeseburger, it was good but all the food here had a preserved flavor that he could not get used to. “What will you do when we leave?”

“I’ll do what I do best, be invisible. Don’t worry about me.” She smiled as she took a bite of her fish sandwich. Tal hoped she was correct, he did not wish for harm to befall her.

The rest is being edited a coming to Amazon Kindle Dec 2020