“Samantha J. Pruett!”

  I sauntered onto the Time Trials field amid the roar. I hadn't been sent here by the need for blood or to claim a male. I was here for the Network… and I hadn't come alone.

  Book Three: The thrilling conclusion of the Bachelor Battles!

  The Survivors

  "This is Safe Haven Refugee Camp. Can anyone hear me? Hello? Is anyone out there?"

  Like most days now, the sound of the ocean haunts me.

  My name is Angela. I'm a mother, doctor, soldier, and now, in the year 2017, I've become a leader of men. Thanks to the end of our world to nuclear war, I'm the Guardian of an American refugee camp named Safe Haven.

  Surrounded by carefully watching guards, I sit beside the immense Pacific Ocean as my people work and play nearby, confident my Army will look after them while I tell you about the War of 2012…and how we were forced to leave our beloved Country. It was a nightmare from which we couldn't wake. Some of us still haven't, and soon, we'll be at the water's mercy again. In less than two months, we're going home.

  America waits for us to reclaim and to rebuild, but mostly, simply, for us to return. Before we undertake that perilous journey, I have to get the 357 souls here ready for the trip, and I only know one way it can be done - Adrian has to come back, and lead us home, as he promised.

  Adrian… That incredibly patriotic man has been exiled, even though he’s the only reason that we survived. His secret was the only excuse the camp needed to turn on him, but I won't. I can't. I swore myself to him the same as the rest of his Council, and like them, I still believe.

  I’ve gotten way ahead of myself, far beyond the beginning, when our future didn’t look as good is it does now. Most people here in New America won’t talk about the War or the long, ugly journey we made together. They say the memories have faded, but I know a lie when I hear one. Some horrors you never forget. Like our final battle with Cesar and his large band of ruthless Mexican guerillas.

  It's been five years, but I still see the deep red streams of blood running down rain-soaked trees. I still smell men burning alive in their metal coffins. I dream of it sometimes: of the cold, wet night when I was the bait, and I'm sure Adrian does, too. It was the moment we knew our people would live - because of one man’s dream and his lies.

  From the very beginning, Adrian kept us alive, gave us everything he had - and he always did what was best for the camp, no matter what it cost him personally. He taught us to be stronger than we thought we could be, to look out for each other, and ourselves, and through it all… he lied by omission, knowing these scared, hurting survivors would never have trusted him, would never have given him a chance, if they had known who he really was.

  We came a long way together in the year after the War, over thousands of miles of heartbreaking devastation, and it hurts those of us who remain loyal to see him accept their unfair judgment without a fight. It makes everything we went through seem less important than it was, weakens the magic somehow, and I can’t allow that.

  I’ve been seeing open doors again, and that sly ocean cautions me, says the return trip will be just as hard as the one we undertook to get here. If there’s a storm headed toward the flock, it’s our Shepherd we’ll need to see us through it.

  So, for Adrian and for those of us standing by him, still ready to die for him, and for the dreams he made me believe in from almost the first minute I set foot in his Refugee camp, I will tell our story and leave nothing out. Maybe then these people will realize what he did for our country, accept how much we owe, and allow him to reclaim what’s rightfully his. Us.

  Before I tell you about our harsh, ugly journey, let me show you what happened on that day, what they did to us and what we did to each other. This is how America’s story of survival began…

  The Survivors

  *Free on all Retailers

  Author’s Website Diesel iTunes Kindle Kobo Nook Smashwords Sony

  The Alexa’s Travels Series

  Prelude *Free!

  They came from the Zones in the West

  Seven merciless fighters to the end

  One stunning blonde warrior

  Leading six hard-ass men

  Years after the nuclear war of 2012 has devastated the world, a group of survivors have come out of the radiation zones in the West. On an impossible quest to find those who came before them, these warriors follow the remnants of Safe Haven and let nothing stand in their way.

  Safe Haven: A place of safety and light, of honor and duty. A Refuge for survivors.

  A place of darkness and death, where murder and magic go hand in hand.

  Alexa is a leader of men. She culled her companions from the dwindling herd of mankind because she sensed they alone might have the strength to make the journey and each battle fought at her side tightens their bonds. For Alexa, their quest is about more than finding a safe place. It's about the search for her missing family.

  Alexa's Travels

  Apocalyptic fiction

  An impossible quest

  & A Haunting new vision

  *Free Prelude to the series available on:

  Author’s Website Diesel iTunes Kindle Kobo Nook Smashwords Sony

  A Network History

  1

  What if… the male population was going extinct, and behind them, women… the world?

  That was the reason the Network had given for the laws that decreed all men must have an owner, someone to be responsible for their care. Enslavement was the only way to protect our species, they’d insisted… and we listened.

  After the nuclear war, when the population fell below seven million world-wide, the birth rate slowly recovered to half of the pre-war averages, but less than 5% of those were male. The fallout damaged reproductive systems, making girls by the hundreds for every boy born, and those rare few were weaker, more susceptible to the toxins still in the air and ground. In small, scattered clans of survivors, this was more proof that by ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’, God had meant women.

  Within decades, the number of men had dropped drastically, and there were new wars, where whole towns of survivors killed each other for their sons. Huge groups decimated the smaller clans, absorbing the useful and disposing of the rest. Cities that had begun to rebuild fell again to unchecked violence as the remaining scientists confirmed the fears. Unless something was done, the human population was likely to die out within just two centuries.

  That’s when the Network took over.

  It must have been horrifying at first for all those who’d gone without contact for so long to suddenly hear life coming from the devices that still worked. Had they thought maybe it was all over, and for good this time? When the radio station blared to life on July 4th, 085 AW, it was with anthems for all the nations. Played over and over, it was a call that people answered. When the words finally came, the first signs of a civilization about to try again… they were spoken by a woman.

  Within ten years, the radio station had drawn nearly five thousand refugees from all corners of the planet and returned New York to some of its former glory. Renamed New Network City in 099AW, it became the first beacon of light in the darkness that hung over the new world. In 114AW, the United States was renamed New America, but there was little new about a world cursed by ghosts of the past.

  Now, five hundred years after the nuclear sabotage that had destroyed our planet, the country had been split into three parts. Directly in the middle was an unknown area called the Borderlands, where the Wild West had returned in a new version of hell.

  The sides of New America were each controlled by a division of the Network, though the West Coast outpost was as foreign to most as those mysterious Borderlands. People from the west preferred to stay there, but it was hard to imagine them attempting the four-month trek anyway, considering the odds of death along the way. Few places beyond New Network City were livable… and those in charge liked it that way.

  The Network hid from their subjects, ruling through cameras and audio devices. No one knew who was on the Council, only that it had ten members. There are no records or photos. From our history books, it seems no one cared. Rules, laws, and the foundations of a society that had existed solely inside the debris-laden walls of the Network City districts had spread around the globe and been duplicated by other lands, other leaders. It was easy to see why it succeeded.

  The Network was strict. More so than any of the previous democracies on American soil… but really, it wasn’t that, even from the beginning. They imposed the bans and the punishments, and we obeyed, even though the War of 2012 had been caused by the very same indifference. Why would we consent to it starting again? Didn’t the death of billions teach us anything? There could have been a world of hope, remade from the ashes of the pain. Instead… we got the Games.

  History books tell our female children that the Games came about because there were no jails for criminals. This is supported by the first ten years rolling by using all convicted criminals as the contestants. Mates hadn’t been the prize - only the return of their lives if they were the last one standing. All those who fought and died in the first decade were men.

  That’s the part that has kept the rebels fighting. If those in charge were genuinely trying to protect the population by enslaving the men, why kill them? They could have been set up as donors. Instead, the Network declared pregnancy to be illegal without a breeding pass, further cutting the number of male births. To the rebels, it seemed that the Network was intentionally letting the male population be wiped out.

  The rebels managed to come near to their goal of overthrowing the Network a number of times in those first 50 years, never bending on their demand for freedom. They were, of course, mostly male and were hunted for large bounties. Their determination drew women to their cause, however, and by the year 112AW, the Network was in real danger of losing control.

  Few believed the stories of protecting the males anymore; it was too lucrative for the Network and was being done too openly for the people to accept. Men had been picked up for the smallest transgression and thrown into death-battles as their wives and daughters watched in helpless fury. It might have gone on that way forever if not for the Change.

  During the War, different chemicals were released, some natural, most not. These toxins not only caused the women to bear only female children… it also Changed them.

  The first known cases came from a small pirate island in the south whose entire population was decimated by a mysterious illness that slowly transformed the residents into insane lunatics with a taste for blood. They called it Rage Walkers disease when it migrated to New Network lands in 148AW. By then, it had not only mutated but had begun to appear in the offspring. No one was immune, and if not for the continued mutations, humankind would have been wiped out.

  By the year 175AW, rather than driving the person straight into insanity, the disease had slowed. It became common to see someone suffer with it for years instead of months. After decades, it became like other incurable illnesses. Avoided and forgotten about… for a while.

  The post-disease birthrates hadn’t changed from that horribly low number of 5% male, and another, more dangerous pattern began to emerge. These rage-walker children were violent. Three years after the first one entered kindergarten, there was a decree in place for all infected children to be homeschooled to protect the rest. When it became clear that over half the population that had survived the first wave of the disease was infected, the Network took drastic measures.

  Realizing their population was about to become highly aggressive, the Network began cracking down, forcing people to swear loyalty and work for them. For more than a hundred and fifty years, they’d been providing everything for their people, and now they began using them to gather what was needed to keep the city going while they worked on a dome. And the Games kept rolling. Only now it was all women in the matches; as the children grew up the Network had to do something with them.

  By the year 199AW, a good portion of the Eastern lands had been cleared and returned to use, providing homes and farms that the Network controlled ruthlessly. It became almost impossible to get a breeding pass, and the impotent fury behind the eyes of those females may have driven the Network’s next choice. They began to allow innocent citizens to enter the Games. If they won, they would have riches and power. If they lost, it was one less violent person on the streets… and it was incredibly popular.

  Everyone was tired of living in the dark, and the Games were vivid, brutal, attention-keeping entertainment. The year the first ‘good’ female won it, she asked for what all of the population wanted – a mate and a family. In that moment, the Network seized an opportunity. They already owned most of the healthy males on New American soil and charged outrageous prices and demands for the purchase or use of one. When that bloody blonde asked for a mate, the Network changed the rules. From the next Game on, the prize was a man. After that, they could pass any law they wanted…

  …Because the rage disease was still mutating. Over the generations, it had stopped killing its host, but inflicted them with so much torment that they wished for death. Many of those first women to go through it killed themselves just to be free of the pain. It hurt on the inside, burnt and stabbed, and jabbed at their control until only the sight of blood would pacify it. And, for some reason the scientists couldn’t even guess about, a mate was the only cure.

  Once contact with a male was made, it sent the disease into remission. It might be minutes, it might be days, but eventually, it eased enough to let the person lead a normal life, free of the blinding rages and the need to see blood spraying across the walls. Even there, though, it was hard. Once the fire burned out, it was gone, leaving a sparkless woman with only the will to be with her mate. It was the rare female who kept her man for very long after finding this peace because she was too content to stay alert and fight for him.

  The riots of 230AW were all about the men. The disease was changing the women, making them angry and vicious. The Network, safe in their dome-covered complex, sweetened their deal, promising pure bachelors at special times and even Games with all twins as a double award. They changed the arenas and the weapons, played with the lighting, and managed to keep the violence swirling, confident in their control through the ugliness that offered a small hope to the post-war females.

  By 275AW, the Network had complete control, reinventing many of the old terrors to get the rebels under control during the sporadic raids and attempts to free their fellow-enslaved males. Always worried about the women joining these few brave men, the Network cut off communication between its various cities and censored anything that was broadcast. It became illegal even to own a hand radio, and the only media reports the people saw were scripted ones.

  The bloody battles kept us ignorant of the pieces being put into place, and there was little protest when other programs disappeared to be replaced with a different version of the Games. Soon, there was no music, no outside news, nothing but the never-ending lineup of vicious death matches.

  Even now, in 512AW, the Games are on every wall screen, in every home in Network Land. We kill ourselves by the thousands each year - live, for the chance, the mere possibility, of an end to this pain…

  Amended Rules of this episode

  *15 Contestants will fight to the Death for their choice of one Bachelor. Mercy is discouraged.

  *A single viewing of the Bachelors will be provided. Only one contestant is permitted in the Cells at a time. Light sampling is allowed.

  *Attacks and battles are forbidden in the halls or private rooms. Everywhere else is fair game.

  *Anyone can kill a contestant, including friends, family, and outsourced labor.

  *Battle loot belongs to the winner to be disposed of as they see fit.

  *Broken rules will result in the contestant being arrested and replaced.

  The Fine Print...

  *A week before each episode, the contestants are required to run time trials to determine their rankings for the start of day one. The top time will receive the Network logo patch and an extra one million UD credits.

  *Each contestant must submit to an interview a day.

  *Once a contestant has entered, they cannot withdraw from a match or the game.

  *When Round Two is achieved, the remaining contestants will be given larger, private rooms in a more secure wing of the complex.

  Stars & Guards

  *Stars are given for each kill, high popularity and by Network decision.

  *Each star gains the contestant one Network guard (only in the halls and private rooms) and a fresh cache of food and medical credits.

  *Stars cannot be lost, but can be given away to protect someone else, such as visiting family.

  Matches

  *Round One (Days 1-3)

  Battles are chosen by Luck of the Draw. One contestant is chosen to face three randomly drawn matches in a row. If they fail, the Network will choose who takes their place with a second Luck of the Draw. The survivor moves on with fresh credits and more guards. No other battles are held during this time, but attacks and assassination attempts are encouraged.

  *Round Two (Days 3-6)

  There are now three matches a day, chosen by the viewers, until eleven total contestants are gone.

  *Round Three (Days 6-7)

  The remaining contestants will endure a Network-picked challenge, and the winner gets a set place in the first elimination match. The challenger will be chosen by the Network computer. An elimination match will be held if there are enough contestants left at this point to warrant it.