Defiant: Quantic Dreams Book 2

by Elizabeth McLaughlin

  My ears perked up at the sound of breathing behind me but I didn’t turn. I didn’t need to see the person behind me to know who it was.

  “Come to kill me at last? Pity you’re choosing to do it in the middle of the night. Nobody around to watch the show.”

  “I’m not going to kill you, Jacob. That would be too easy. No. You’re going to go on a trip.”

  Pushing myself off the ground, I looked at him from the corner of my eye. Gabriel stood well back from me. In his hands were a couple of large duffel bags that he dropped to the ground. I heard the clanking of metal inside one of them. It didn’t take long to figure out what was in the other one.

  “You’re still killing me. But it won’t be your hand holding the knife.”

  “You got it, Jakey boy.” He sneered the last word with a crooked grin. The smile of a little boy who had outsmarted his father at long last. “What a horrible tragedy it will be, Fiona discovering her father chose to commit suicide rather than take control of the horrible epidemic. A coward’s end. Just what you deserve.” Gabriel bent down and unzipped the bags. He spread them open as if showcasing their contents as he spoke. “There’s three days of supplies in here. Water, food rations, a basic shelter, the works. There’s a first aid kit as well. I’ve also been so kind as to provide you with a couple hours’ worth of extra oxygen. Everything a human needs to stay alive...for a while.”

  “Because you’re kind like that.” I looked down at my body, clad only in the light sleeping garments issued to every shelter resident. “I don’t suppose you brought shoes and a jacket for me, did you?” I eyed the corridor behind him in a vain hope that someone had heard us talking and stuck their head out to investigate. Barring that, running might be an option.

  “'Fraid not. I guess you’ll have to make do with bare tootsies. Plus, no one would believe the story if I sent you out with absolutely nothing.” He giggled, his voice pitching ever higher. “Oh, and I wouldn’t try to do whatever it is you’re thinking of doing. In this body I can snap your neck as easily as ripping a piece of cloth.” Another twisted laugh. Deep down somewhere, I knew I should have felt afraid, but I felt a kind of perverse joy. However badly the odds were stacked against me, I had the advantage in this situation. Gabriel had never experienced the outside world. I had. Gabriel was impulsive. I wasn’t. Given luck, I might be able to hack it outside until I could reach someone inside. There was no way that Fiona, Eliza, and Marcus were going to believe a story about how I chose to leave the safety of the shelter. Or would they? I thought back to when Marcus had confronted me in this very spot. He wouldn’t have kept that to himself. I raised my head to meet Gabriel’s eyes.

  “Great. You win. Give me my supplies.” Thank god my voice didn’t quaver as I feared it would.

  Gabriel frowned and passed the duffel bags over. Clearly he was expecting a different reaction. Perhaps he hoped that I’d throw myself on his mercy and beg for my life. Maybe he expected me to pick a fistfight with his hulking host. Who knows. The thing that mattered was I could kill him with confidence.

  “Thanks. Let’s get this over with, then.” Gabriel said nothing and brushed by me to crank open the inner door. I kept my face neutral. No doubt the slowness with which he unlocked the door was meant to make me shake in my—well, lack of—boots. When the door was open, he swept up one of the duffel bags and tossed it over his shoulder. “You’re coming with me?” I quirked an eyebrow at him.

  “Only to the second door. After all, it would be too easy if I didn’t follow through and make sure you actually left. You’d pound on the door until someone heard you.”

  Oops. I hadn’t even thought of that, but now that he mentioned it that would have been a good plan. I stepped from the threshold into the patch of dirt that separated the staircase from the inner door and gasped. The soil felt so alien under my feet. It was freezing cold. That made sense, given that no sun had touched this patch of earth in over a century. Despite the freezing temperature I could still smell it, the dusty scent rising to meet me. Some instinct within me registered the smell as pleasant but anxiety roiled in my stomach. The urge to treat dirt with fondness was a hundred thousand years old, back when humans had some idea of their environment and how to survive. I was stepping into a world wholly unlike any I had ever seen. Blue sky and green grass be damned, I was a mouse stepping into the den of a predator. Gabriel might as well have tied a bow around my waist.

  The steel of the staircase cut into my skin and I hissed. It was studded with small triangles that jutted upwards, meant to provide additional grip to boots as you climbed. My feet warmed as the cuts leaked warm blood over the soles. I had a suspicion that it was going to be the last warmth I was going to feel for a while. When we reached the top of the staircase Gabriel wrenched the lock open and pushed. Outside the wind howled, the pre-dawn light starting to peak through pale clouds. Gabriel tossed the duffel bag into the darkness.

  “Do me a favor, sunshine. Go ahead and step right there. Right there in front of me.”

  “What, you want to give me a goodbye hug?”

  Gabriel said nothing and took my bag from me, heaving it out onto the ground behind me. “Something like that.” He positioned my body in front of him and smirked. I barely saw the punch before it sent me spinning to the dirt. “Good luck, asshole.” He hauled the door shut with a slam. The wind whistled across the plains. It cut through me as if I was wearing nothing at all. I grabbed the duffel bags and hauled them around the opposite side of the cylinder housing the shelter’s outer door. The metal was freezing under my fingers but at least it provided a modest wind block. I unzipped the bags and ripped through them. My rapidly numbing fingers closed around a length of cloth and spread it out. It was just enough to wrap around my head and torso. Not exactly a functional garment but any air that got trapped between my body and the fabric would serve to keep me alive through the night. My disinclination towards religion was starting to wane as I wracked my mind for gods to pray to. Though dawn was a few hours away, I had doubts that I was going to see the sun again if I couldn’t keep warm. The thought crossed my mind that I could set up the tent, but the light was so poor that I couldn’t make sense of the interlocking rods that made up the tent’s structure. Being careful to not put a tear through the fabric, I pulled out the material for the shelter and pulled it over my head into a cocoon. Thankfully there was enough to cover my body. The remainder of the material formed a thin layer between me and the frozen dirt. I pulled myself into the fetal position and held on.

  Fear gnawed at the edges of my mind as the gale continued to blow through the remainder of the night. More than once I was tempted to peak out from the tent; I couldn’t always tell if the noise I heard was a gust or a wolf. Peeking out from the tent would be a death sentence either way. I couldn’t afford to break the delicate bubble of barely warm air keeping me alive. Better to play dead and hope that nothing came sniffing for me. After a couple of hours my bladder’s quiet protests became impossible to ignore and I cringed as I urinated on myself, hot liquid pooling around my crotch and backside. The momentary relief of the warmth would come to haunt me later. The urine would dry and pull heat from my body as it did so. The salt and waste from my kidneys would irritate the skin and compound the likelihood of wounds opening. Come morning I would need to track down a water source. Even unclean water would be better on my skin than leaving myself soaked as I was. I hoped that the stink of my body wouldn’t attract any predators. Being eaten alive was probably one hell of a way to go and I had no interest in experiencing it firsthand.

  My jaw ached from Gabriel’s punch and I probed gently at my mandible, hoping that he hadn’t knocked any teeth loose. The taste of blood lingered in my mouth. Sticking out my tongue I felt two small wounds along the side of it. The area was numb and I surmised that I must have clipped my tongue with my teeth on my way down. I tried to spit into my hand to assess whether or not the wounds were still bleeding but my mouth was too dry. It was hard to tell if th
e copper tang was because of the adrenaline coursing through my veins or the pool of dried blood that had gathered in and around my mouth. I decided to believe it was adrenaline, my body cheering me on to live another day. Just one more day.

  After an eternity of waiting, I could feel the air starting to warm around me. The smell of the earth started to reach my nose, as did the stench of the urine, now dry and clinging to my thighs. As light started to creep through the fabric of the tent I risked a look. The sky was a multicolored spill of colors, pinks mixing with reds that overlapped with yellows and purples, the like of which no rendering could come close to replicating. I bundled the tent fabric around me and watched the sun rise. Though it was unlikely I’d see another, the majesty of it all made my imminent demise almost worth it. I shut my eyes and tipped my chin skyward, half-remembered memories of childhood flooding my mind. The glare of the sun through my bedroom window as a child. The way that Mom and Dad used to slather me in nanite-enhanced sunscreen that I couldn’t rub off no matter how hard my little hands tried. The halo of gold that surrounded my mother’s hair as she smiled at me.

  I slowly unwound the cocoon of tent I had gathered myself in and folded it before setting it gently back in the duffel bag. I wasn’t sure exactly how long daylight was going to last outside and it was painfully obvious to me that my working hours were likely shorter than anticipated. There were three priorities I needed to settle before nightfall; water, and food were the orders of the day. If I had any extra time I would try to figure out some luxuries. Shoes would be a good start.

  I made the decision to stay within range of the shelter for now. The short structure of the shelter’s entrance afforded me some minimal protection from the elements and it wasn’t likely that many animals would approach the manmade structure. The tent Gabriel provided me was extremely simple; one simply connected a series of rods together and connected fabric over it. A zippered door secured the occupant away from the elements. It took me a couple of tries to put it together but I managed. In front of me lay a neon orange capsule, thin and impossibly light. Despite the structure’s simple appearance, the fabric was designed to shield those inside from heat and cold. I took four thin metal spikes from the duffle bags and drove them into the corners of the tent, anchoring the shelter to the ground.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Shelter taken care of, I sucked down the first packet of my short food supply and washed it down with as little water as I could stand. With no guarantee of a fresh water source I was going to have to conserve. The landscape before me bore no trees or shrubs. Difficult to gather water. I unfolded the small tarp from within the bags and laid it out in front of my tent. Any dew that formed overnight would collect on the tarp and provide me with a meager supply of potable water. That was assuming that the rain out here wasn’t made of sulfuric acid. I was comforted by the memory of Odysseus, returning to the shelter what felt like so long ago, covered in water. He certainly didn’t seem to be suffering so I had to make the assumption. The rest of my meager supplies were placed inside the tent. Given my minimal nutrition and water intake, exploring the area would be the best option for ensuring that I could survive more than three days.

  The grass was damp under my feet, soothing the angry cuts that had festered overnight. The silence was deafening. The wind that had been so fierce overnight had died to a gentle breeze and the scene was almost idyllic. I estimated that I had gone about half a mile when I heard a strange noise, like laughter. Thinking that Gabriel had snuck out behind me, I whirled, but saw no one. I continued on and the laughing grew louder. I took a deep breath and smelled something odd. The scent dimly stirred a memory of going to the beach as a little boy. Water. A stream lay before me, clear water running swiftly over sand and pebbles. The banks of the stream were covered in the same long grass I had been hiking through. I put my hand in the cool water and spread my fingers to let stream flow through my fingers, my eyes slipping shut as I did.

  This was like being a child all over again. Every sensation, every smell, every sight, every texture was brand new. Unlike the storm Gabriel had walked me through in the simulation, this was peaceful. I dug my fingers into the sand of the stream bed and pulled a handful of gravel upwards. Sand. Real sand. I probed the little hill with an index finger and yelped, yanking my hand back as I did so. From the tip of my finger hung a small creature, its claw firmly clamped around the fatty tissue on the pad of the digit. I lifted the animal to my face and watched as it swung back and forth, its other limb waving wildly. Two eyes jutted from minuscule stalks on the front of its oblong body above gnashing mouth parts. I brought my other hand underneath the creature and shook it gently to dislodge it. It fell on to my palm and scuttled off the platform of my hand to tumble into the long grass. I examined my finger and noticed a little drop of blood had welled up where the thing had pinched me. The pain of the cut brought forth a word.

  Crab.

  I wracked my brain for more information but the more I sat and wondered, the more time I was wasting. I scooped some water out of the stream and sipped it. It was impossibly cold, as if originating from a mountain. There was a mountain range a couple of hours’ drive from my home. If water was flowing from it again, it meant that weather patterns had returned to an approximation of normal. I could work with that. Gabriel hadn’t been kind enough to leave me a container so trips to the watering hole would have to be done every time I was thirsty. A pain in the ass to be sure, but not the worst thing. I could pick some of the grass and plant matter from the banks and dry them out to burn them later.

  There was a time when I was doing maintenance on some hinge or other in the shelter, something Gabriel could have easily accomplished, but I didn’t have anything better to do. The details didn’t matter. What did matter was the fact that I dropped a wrench right as I was tightening a bolt above my head. The heavy tool skittered down the metal surface I was working on and sparked, scaring the heck out of me. Sparks.

  Theoretically all I needed to start a fire then was metal. Only one substantial piece of metal had accompanied me out of the shelter courtesy of Gabriel-the spade. If I could scrape the metal against something hard enough, I could make sparks. Most stones in the area should have been tough enough to withstand the force, but I had no idea which ones would do the job. Trial and error would have to sort that out. I hoped.

  As for the stream in front of me, if there were more crabs, I had a food source. Food, water, and the possibility of fire. Not bad.

  I returned to my meager campsite and set about the next important task. A latrine. I had a vague recollection that the toilet needed to be so many feet or yards from where you slept but no clue as to how far it should be. Far enough that there was no possibility of it poisoning your food or water supply, I guessed. I grabbed the utility spade from the duffel bags and put one foot in front of the other until I counted a sixty foot distance downwind from my tent. The ground had softened a little in the morning warmth and I dug a hole about a foot long and a foot deep. When I had finished it looked like I had dug a small grave. Romantic.

  By now the sun had crossed the meridian of the sky and was headed westward. There was no way to pin the hour but it was probably early or mid-afternoon. Time was running short to start a fire and I needed one. Preferably a bath of some kind, too. After a lifetime of daily showers, the stench of my body was overpowering. I tore off a strip of fabric from the bottom of my pant leg and wandered back to the stream. Before attending to my own cleanliness, I set about gathering as many plants as I could and set them on the bank of the stream. The two largest rocks I could get my hands on accompanied them. Fire-starting supplies secured, I wet the strip of cloth and took my pants off.

  Out of habit I looked around, knowing full well there was no one to see my nakedness. I dipped the already soiled cloth into the stream and scrubbed gently at my skin. The urine had dried my skin out and a rash was already starting to form. I had waited too long. Once I was satisfied that this was as clean as I was
going to be, I balled up the cloth to deposit it in the latrine and went home. The armful of plants I had gathered looked promising; the tall grass would make for decent kindling and I resolved to test the leafy greens out as a possible food source. The biggest problem with starting a fire wasn’t lacking the ability to get it going, it was that it would die out as soon as flames formed. Even without wilderness training, I knew that I wasn’t going to sustain a fire overnight without wood. My only choice was to keep feeding the fire as it burned.

  Several more trips to the river later and I had a sizable pile of kindling. There was no way to guarantee that the rocks I had gathered were hard enough. I needed a lot of force to create sparks and if I had chosen incorrectly, I would end the day with rock shards in my palms. The kindling I had gathered was mostly dry; anything that looked like it could burn I took with me. I lay the kindling as neatly as I could, the longest pieces of grass forming a neat base as I worked my way upwards. The sun was low in the sky—too low for my comfort—and the wind was starting to pick up again. I knew that I had the basic ingredients for fire in front of me, but my mind was too exhausted, or too anxious to put the pieces together.

  Putting my back between the breeze and my meager foundation I hunched down and struck two of the rocks together as hard as I could. For a millisecond my eyes caught the sight of a spark but it hit the grass and faded. I struck the rocks together again and this time was rewarded with more sparking, but one of the rocks shattered. I cursed. Too many hours had passed since my last meal and there was no time to make it back to the stream for more rocks. Hauling the tent so it was perpendicular to the shelter’s entrance, I broke down my kindling assembly and started over. This time I wedged my remaining rock under my bare foot and lifted the spade high.