“Which means what for Wren?” I asked.
“I do not know. The Gulo Delta seemed safe, but there were no long-term studies. The effects, whatever they will be, won’t be temporary. Like with the Gulo Gamma, her genetic structure has been permanently altered.”
Wren rode up on her bike, and he stopped abruptly.
“Let’s get going,” she said.
Dread darkened my thoughts.
She saw it. “Don’t get scary on me, Cavvy. I know what y’all were talking about. I’ll be fine. And really, how much more violent can I get?”
I couldn’t answer. ’Cause I had no idea.
We returned to pedaling down I-70, keeping our eyes peeled for Aces or his men. We knew about him, but he didn’t know about us, which gave us the advantage.
I continued to worry about Wren, but then I got to thinking about Micaiah’s story. He said he’d stolen the chalkdrive and the Gulo Gamma from one of the ARK’s secret research facilities. Then he’d grabbed a zeppelin and took off across the Juniper. Where was that research center, and was it the same place where he’d grown up? He said it wasn’t on any map. What did that mean? He’d also mentioned mountain biking across lava fields. Maybe Hawaii? An airship could make it across the Pacific, but somewhere closer seemed more likely.
When we reached Rifle, we stopped. We were on full alert now, ready for a fight with Aces, whoever he was.
We talked about maneuvering around Glenwood Springs, but it was getting colder; autumn colored the aspens across the wide valley, fireworks among the evergreens. Snow was only a few weeks away ... if it waited that long. We didn’t have the time to find another pass through the Rockies, not with winter threatening. Already we were pushing it. An early autumn snowstorm could bury us, and I’d grown up hearing stories of people getting trapped in snow and dying. Or worse, eating each other to stay alive.
No, we had to hurry. Yet we also needed to rest. After weeks on the road, Pilate had started to fail. Most days, he’d be way behind us with Rachel, peddling slowly.
Stopping in Rifle was hard on Wren. Every part of her vibrated with the need to fight, and she only slept a couple of hours a night. The rest of the time, she rode the tires bare on her bike, scouting, hunting, running reconnaissance.
Rifle was another city picked down to its foundations, not by salvage monkeys looking to make a dollar, but by Aces in Glenwood and the people in Grand Junction. Nothing much was left. We set up camp in a strip mall next to the Colorado River.
We tied our tents across the top of an old roofless 7-Eleven to give us shelter. Funny, I stared at the cracked, dusty red 7-Eleven sign for a long time. I remembered Dolly Day Cornpone’s mug, and how she’d treasured it. While the franchises still thrived in the U.S., none of the 7-Elevens in the Juniper had survived the Yellowstone Knockout. I stood in a tomb—most of the shelves were gone; not even one package of Quincy Jim’s Bacon Qs remained.
Sharlotte and I swept out the convenience store while Pilate rested. Wren, Rachel, and Micaiah went out to hunt and keep watch. We were about forty kilometers from Glenwood Springs, practically knocking on Aces’s doorstep.
“You okay, Sharlotte?” I asked. We didn’t have brooms, only sagebrush branches.
“You love that question, don’t you?” she asked.
I shrugged.
She gave me her back, like always, then sighed, and spun around on her peg leg. She was getting really good at maneuvering around on it. “It’s a rough hand we were dealt. Not just my leg, but everything. Mama dying, the cattle drive, our escape into the desert ... everything. Why do you think God likes to torture us?”
Pilate might have had words for Sharlotte’s atheism, but I didn’t. I noticed she didn’t mention Crete’s death, and I wasn’t about to bring it up. Shame on me.
More shame, but I gave Sharlotte the party line. “Ain’t my job to question what God is thinking. I have enough of a chore just trying to get through the day. I’m worried about Aces, though. And Wren.”
“What about Wren?”
I told her about our sister’s teeth, but Sharlotte knew already.
“You think Wren wouldn’t brag about getting her teeth back? No, she just loves that she’s brand new, and I’m a gimp. I hate her sometimes. And we’ll see how long her sobriety lasts, her lovin’ Jesus, praise God.” She said the last words sarcastically. Nasty.
“You want her to fail, Shar?” I asked. My question echoed Rachel, asking Wren why she wanted my plan to fail back in the Utah territory.
“No,” Sharlotte whispered. She itched at her leg. “But I wish I had my leg back. Maybe we can get some more Gulo Delta for me.”
I told her what Micaiah had told me about the Gulo Gamma and the mutations.
She sat quietly for a long time. “None for me then,” she said. “Poor Irene. I might stay a cripple, but at least I’ll be human. But I’m beginning to think my missing leg isn’t the real problem. There’s weeds in my heart now. I keep trying to clear ’em, but the more I pull, the more that grow. I’m trying to be a voice in the silence, but at times it feels like my insides are scratched to pieces by buckhorn, and cactus spines fill my throat. In the end, I’m afraid they’ll mute me. The silence will win. God will die forever.”
I sat next to her and put my arm across her shoulder. She didn’t stiffen but relaxed into me.
“I won’t let the silence win,” I said. “And God won’t either. The wind will always blow in this world. There will always be noise.”
“But what if we’re not around to hear it?”
(iv)
That evening I walked through the town with Rachel. Well, couldn’t really call it a town. I’d seen pictures of First Nation ruins in school: Mesa Verde, Anasazi cliff-dwellings, places like that. Could’ve been pictures of Rifle, Colorado, only a more modern version. Instead of rock, Rifle had the skeletons of cinderblocks and the chipped concrete foundations of buildings. Every year the wind, the snow, and the rain ate away more.
Without warning, Rachel took my hand in hers. Surprised me.
“Tell me about Pilate,” she said.
“He’s sick,” I said, sighing like a leaky balloon.
“I know that.” She paused. “I want to know if he likes me.”
I stopped. “Rachel, he’s a priest. He took a vow of celibacy.”
We’d reached the edge of the ruins. A chill wind blew down, and I kicked myself for not bringing my coat. We turned and walked down to the river. In most places it was more rock than water. A small blackbird flew from the river bank and headed up toward a pine. I looked for red on the wings, but the redwings would’ve already flown south. One more reason for us to hurry through the Rockies. The bird sent out a tweet into the fading day and flew onward.
Rachel jumped onto a boulder and turned, smiling. “Father Pilate is a lot of things, but he’s not celibate. We have files on him. He has many children. You yourself are an example of that. Besides, I find him attractive, and I’m hoping he feels similarly.”
“Really?” I asked her before I could stop myself. “You want to talk about romance now? Aces is just up the way, we have the ARK searching for us, and you only have two more doses of emotions. Micaiah gave you the syringe and vial, right?”
She nodded.
“So,” I said, “as you can see, your timing is kinda off.”
Rachel shrugged. “I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t want to be logical. I want to be in love. Micaiah loves you. Pilate might love me. Or are he and Wren together?”
“No,” I said firmly. This was familiar ground for me. We’d all thought he and Wren had fooled around, but no, definitely not.
“So what about Pilate and me? Should I take him and kiss him? Or should I give him a present? What could I give him?” She let out a heartsick breath. “I don’t have a single thing. I could give him my Desert Messiah. Would he like that?” She touched her big, brutal pistol.
I was speechless. There she was, balanced on a river rock, s
unset painting her face aglow, her nose red from the wind, eyes a little dazed.
Well, she might not know how to sing, but she was learning how to be human, all right. Falling in love was one of the most human things you could do. Romance at the wrong time? Now that was really human.
Her hair had grown into a mischievous pixie cut. She smiled at me under the bangs that had grown out. Where was the battle-robot that had almost murdered us all?
Long dead, it appeared. I’d given her a chance to be human, and she’d grabbed on with both hands and all of her heart.
“Pilate’s my biological father, but more than that, he’s like a daddy to me,” I said. “This puts me in an awkward position.”
What I said didn’t matter. She’d made up her mind. “I’ll give him flowers. I’ll kiss him. I’ll give him my heart, and if he rejects me, I’ll weep.” She said it all with a wonderful smile on her face, as if either way she’d win.
“So are emotions a liability?” I asked, feeling a little mean.
She waved a finger. “What a thing for you to say. You don’t believe they are. And to tell you the truth, I’m beginning to wonder at them, too. I feel so full inside. The world is so beautiful.” She looked away at the mountains around us, the river under her, the yellowing aspens catching the red glow of the sunset. “This is why you believe in God. This feeling. This beauty. The vastness inside and out. At first it was empty, but the beauty of life has filled the spaces in me to overflowing.”
I finally had to smile. And I was grateful for Micaiah. He’d given up feeling to give Rachel a chance to fall in love.
“Go for it,” I said at last. “I don’t know what will happen. Pilate generally only ...” Words left me. I searched for a euphemism. “He generally only breaks his vows to give women children. But you don’t want a baby, do you?”
She shrugged coquettishly. “Who knows? I’m not sterile. I’m a fully functional female, and the thought of Pilate and me, together, with a family ... well, I have fantasies. In some ways, it feels like a new imperative.”
I reached out a hand. “Well, Rachel, I was worried about what might happen if you lost your emotions, but I think we’ll be just fine.”
“Maybe.” She frowned and took my hand. “I remember my old orders. I can feel their pull. Am I bad? Was I created to be bad?”
“I don’t think so.” I pulled her off the rock and onto the shore. Her hand felt good in mine, warm. “But if you believe in the concept of Original Sin, you’re just like me. And every day we don’t follow our old orders, we are choosing to be good.”
She brightened at that. “Yes. You’re correct. I’ll always care deeply for you, Cavatica. You saved me. You are my sister.”
That made me smile. “Well, out of all my sisters right now, you are about the sanest. Sharlotte is having trouble getting her shakti back online, and Wren can’t sit still long enough to sleep. I’m so glad we saved you.”
“Me, too,” she murmured. “It’s comforting to have a family. I saved Sharlotte in Green River. She’s my sister. Even Wren has been nice to me. She’s my sister. And you, I owe you everything.”
We hugged and walked back to the 7-Eleven. We ate Grand Junction fruit and some deer jerky ’cause we didn’t dare start a fire.
Not with Aces so close.
(v)
That night, I watched Rachel with Pilate, but all she could muster was a flirty daze, which Pilate seemed to smirk away when he wasn’t coughing. His face was pale. His fever had returned.
We divided up watches, like normal, but the night passed quietly.
We were back on the road while it was still dark.
Our plan was to make it to New Castle by dawn, hole up, and then scout the highway up to Glenwood to see if we could get a bead on Aces or his men. I found that I couldn’t quite believe we’d stumble on a town full of men. Could Aces be Juniper gossip? Maybe the ARK’s intel was wrong.
Like always, Pilate fell behind, and Rachel stayed with him.
Micaiah, Sharlotte, Wren, and I hit New Castle, and it mimicked Rifle and the other towns we’d gone through. Deserted, picked through, only trash and concrete left around to greet us.
We stopped in front of the ruins of another 7-Eleven. For one long moment, I got homesick for an actual convenience store, like the Juice Plug Junction near the Academy back in Cleveland. I wanted a Twinkie. I wanted my old life, however gone and buried it was. We didn’t have a dime to our name, and if we couldn’t get the reward money from Micaiah, we’d lose the ranch to Dob Howerter. Mama had taken out massive loans, and we had to pay them back.
I only hoped June Mai Angel hadn’t blown our house off the map.
But first, Glenwood Springs. We had to make it through Glenwood Springs.
We got off our bikes and went to stow them in the concrete stalls of the strip mall, when out of nowhere, a man came walking down the middle of the dirt street cutting through town.
He wore an old down coat, patched with silver duct tape. His boots were just as duct taped. Filthy jeans, never washed, painted his legs. Long hair and a grizzly bear beard hid his face. Across his back was an L85 assault rifle, a junk weapon if there ever was one. A bayonet tipped the muzzle. Which was about right—better to use it as a spear since it was as likely to jam as not.
“Hey,” Wren said. We all let our bikes drop and armed up. Wren held an AZ3, Sharlotte had Tina Machinegun, and both Micaiah and I raised hunting rifles we’d found in Green River.
The man’s boots crunched over a bit of gravel, and he stopped abruptly. He didn’t say a word, nor did he ready his own gun. He stopped and stood there, as hairy and frowny as a daddy bear.
“Hey!” Wren called out louder. “You with Aces? That’s one jacknasty I’m dyin’ to meet.”
Sweat and adrenaline hit me. It was wrong, the whole situation was as wrong as snow in July.
The bearded man pointed—behind us.
Another big man, as rough, as hairy, as taciturn, walked out from behind some debris.
It was early morning, the light still milky, the air still cold.
Down the way, a fire lit up. A big bonfire, soaked with some kind of propellant, took light. A warning beacon to alert others that Aces had new prisoners.
So much for our plans of hiding out and sneaking around.
Mr. Beard in front of us spat onto the street. The one behind crossed his arms and glared.
“Only two of you?” Wren asked. “Well, two and whoever lit the fire. But I got so many bullets I wanna use.”
Sharlotte frowned at our sister’s bravado. I wanted to run back the way we had come, but the big bruiser blocked my way.
Mr. Beard grunted. “We got snipers. You try and do a thing, we’ll lame ya. Won’t kill ya, just lame ya.”
Before Wren could fire, her AZ3 skittered away from her. Took me a second to realize some unseen rifle had shot it out of her hand. The gunshot echoed across the valley.
Mr. Beard stuck two fingers into his mouth and whistled loud.
Another man meandered out. Then another. And another. In moments, we were surrounded by at least a dozen men. All those men unnerved me. I’d never seen so many full-grown men in one place.
They closed in. Wren continued to grin. “Now, this is a fight. I ain’t never killed a man before. Skanks, sure, but not some Johnson.” Like a magic trick, her Colt Terminators appeared in her hand.
Fast, but not fast enough.
Someone grabbed me. Strong arms, smelly with man stink, held me fast. Another guy crushed Sharlotte in tattooed arms.
Wren had waited too long.
Chapter Fourteen
Honkytonk me up
And honkytonk me down,
Dug up a dog of a man
Gonna bury him in town
— Pearl Cornell
(i)
I WAS TRAPPED IN THE arms of an unwashed man, stifled by his smell. Sharlotte shared my fate. Only Micaiah and Wren were free.
Mr. Beard ambled up to my sist
er.
“Ain’t no one going to go for me?” Wren asked, smiling. Her dazzling teeth were fully restored, ready to bite if her firearms failed her.
I thought of Pilate and Rachel. Had they been captured? If so, what would happen to Pilate? And would Rachel be able to control her fear enough to fight?
Micaiah eased up to Wren and touched her arm. “Baby, let me do the talking.” He enfolded Wren into his arms, and with everyone watching, he kissed her long and hard, lips and tongue.
I’d have rather died than watch Micaiah kiss Wren like that. My heart turned to shrapnel in my chest.
Micaiah moved off, leaving Wren’s cheeks the color of roses. Not even my cold gunslinger sister saw that coming.
He slid over to Sharlotte and touched her face. “Oh, are you jealous, Shannon. Well, I have one for you too.” He turned on the man holding my sister. “Let go of her. Now.”
He spoke with such a command in his voice, the tattooed man stepped back. Then Micaiah got close and kissed Sharlotte just as passionately as he’d kissed Wren.
I closed my eyes. Couldn’t watch it. Couldn’t do it.
All the men watched, obviously caught off guard.
The man holding me let go, and Micaiah took me in his arms and kissed me, but I couldn’t cage my fury at his betrayal. I punched him in the nose. At the time, I just didn’t understand.
Micaiah laughed. “Oh, all my girls are real wildcats.” Blood trickled down his lips, but it was like he didn’t feel a thing.
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