by Jordan Rivet
“I always suspected the other bunkers were operating by their own rules,” the woman said. “Didn’t expect them to wake up so early, though.”
“We didn’t do it on purpose,” Blake muttered.
“There was an accident,” Garrett said calmly. “You can see for yourself if you look around the cryo chamber.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Levi said. “So you’ve had eighteen years on the surface. Hear that, Dani?” He flashed a triumphant grin at the woman, who seemed to be his second-in-command. “They must have built a settlement by now. They haven’t been living underground all this time.”
“They could have a whole town,” said the linebacker man with an unpleasant grin.
“We’re a peaceful community,” Joanna said quickly. “Take the weapons if you want, but then you’d better be on your way.”
“I don’t know if we will.” Levi looked Joanna up and down with renewed interest. “If you’ve survived this long, you must have a nice set-up.”
“Could save us a lot of time.” His companion’s grin widened, becoming hungry.
“Yes, indeed.”
“Please, just leave us alone,” Joanna said.
Levi’s face hardened. “That stopped being an option when your friends attacked us. It was quite the welcome when we exited cryosleep.”
“Our people were just trying to make contact,” Garrett said. “Your early risers killed them unprovoked.”
The other man snorted. “Who told you that?”
Joanna and Garrett both looked at Blake.
He grimaced and probably would have tugged at his collar if Dani weren’t still pointing a gun at his head. “Uh, I may have glossed over part of it.”
“You attacked them?” Garrett said. “Their first moments out in the new world that we wanted to keep peaceful, and you attacked them?”
Blake mumbled something unintelligible, eyes downcast.
“They thought they could move right in and take over our bunker,” Dani said.
“The BRP officials warned us about this.” Levi glanced at the weapons Joanna had pulled from the cave. Then he leaned down to speak directly to Garrett. “It was too much to hope we’d wake up to a completely peaceful world. And now we know for certain what your cohort is like. We’re here to make sure you never threaten us again. I think we’ll start with this settlement of yours.”
Garrett’s face went gray. Joanna knew he must be thinking about his family back in the village. Chloe. His children. The people who’d worked so hard to build a life on the ruins of the old world.
“Please, don’t do that,” Joanna said, trying desperately to think of a way to sway the newcomers. This Levi character might be dangerous, but she got the sense that he was intelligent too. Perhaps reason could still prevail. “BRP went a little crazy in the end, but people just got scared. That’s not how the program started. We’re humanity’s last hope. We have the chance to make the world better than it was before. You must remember that part of your training.”
“Dunno what they taught your group,” the linebacker man said. “That sort of idealism didn’t hold up for most of us. All lies, just like that random selection stuff.”
“This one couldn’t be expected to understand what it was like at the end, Josh,” Levi said. “She’s what, seventeen?” He turned to address Joanna directly. “You must have been born in the future. Whatever you were taught might not match up to the real story. The end was a lot messier than your parents probably want you to believe.”
“I’m two hundred and eighteen,” Joanna said through gritted teeth. “I remember what it was like. Messy. Terrifying, even. But we stuck together to build something better. And now you’re ruining it. Please, just go back to your own bunker and leave us alone.”
Josh laughed, but Levi gave her a thoughtful look. Before he could speak, a jangling sound announced that the two people he’d sent into the weapons chamber were coming back down. They emerged covered in ash and dust, and Joanna realized for the first time how much she looked like a nineteenth-century chimney sweep after her own expedition into the weapons cavern.
“The arsenal’s in bad shape, Levi,” one of the newcomers reported, “but the cave is stable. We can start carting out the weapons.”
“Good.” Levi turned to his second-in-command. “Dannika, you’re in charge of bringing everything to the surface. Keep a team of eight. Josh and I will take the rest.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
Levi looked at Joanna. “These good people are going to show me their village.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
The strangers bound their hands and hoisted them out of the bunker one by one. When Joanna reached the surface, two youths dragged her out into the sunshine, where the rest of her party had been tied up and spaced safe distances apart. Her friends knelt in the ashes by the shaft house, a few with split lips and the beginnings of bruises. Three dozen heavily armed young men and women stood guard over them.
The little salvaging party from the village hadn’t stood a chance against so many. It was surreal to see people filling the camp Joanna had occupied alone for so long. The last time this many people stood in this spot, they’d been preparing to enter cryosleep, with the comet burning bright above them. These newcomers had also won the cosmic lottery, chosen for cryosleep by BRP. They’d simply slept beneath a different patch of earth.
The strangers explored the ruined processing plant and scouted the surrounding hills, as if they feared an ambush. They moved like a team, comfortable with each other in a way that was all too familiar. The pair guarding Joanna exchanged quiet banter despite the tension of the situation. She wondered if they’d ever gone whitewater rafting together.
She sought out Ruby and found her kneeling beneath the watchful eyes of two women half her age. Soot covered all three from head to toe, as if the strangers had needed to wrestle Ruby into submission despite their weapons. Ruby met Joanna’s eyes with a grimace. She didn’t appear to have any ideas either.
Levi emerged from the bunker last and delivered crisp orders to a lanky fellow with a pimply face who’d been left in charge on the surface. He chose a handful of people to watch the prisoners and a few others to help Dannika loot the bunker. Then Levi assembled his remaining followers around Joanna, Garrett, and Blake.
“You three will show us the way to your settlement,” he said, “seeing as how we’re already acquainted.”
“No, we won’t,” Garrett said.
“We’re going to find it anyway,” Levi said. “You didn’t bring overnight supplies, so it has to be within walking distance. But you could save us a bit of time.”
“I’d rather die,” Garrett said.
Levi raised his gun and pointed it at Garrett’s forehead. Gasps came from the men and women tied up on the ground.
“That’s fine,” Levi said.
Garrett glared straight at him. “Go ahead and shoot me.”
A slight frown crossed Levi’s face. “Maybe I will,” he said. “Or I could kill this young woman instead.” He shifted the gun so it pointed at Joanna, still holding Garrett’s gaze. “After that, I’ll systematically eliminate the rest of your friends until you show me the way.”
No one moved. Joanna could have heard the birds singing a mile away, if there were any birds left. She felt as if she were watching the scene from outside her body, too scared to feel scared.
“I’m waiting,” Levi said softly.
Garrett met Joanna’s gaze, his hazel-brown eyes full of sorrow. And remorse.
Holy shit. He’s going to let him kill me!
“I’m not giving up my family,” Garrett said. “I’m sorry.”
Levi made a soft noise in his throat, a grunt of surprise and perhaps dismay. He didn’t move, didn’t pull the trigger.
The silence stretched. One beat. Two.
Then Joanna’s voice broke the quiet.
“I’ll show you how to find the village.”
“Joanna!” Garrett said.
“Don’t say my name.” She inched slightly away from Levi’s gun and looked up at him. “I’ll take you there right now, but only if you let me join your cohort.”
“Done.” Some of the tension went out of Levi’s shoulders, and he lowered his weapon. Joanna got the distinct impression that he hadn’t wanted to pull the trigger. He might not have followed through on the threat, but she couldn’t risk it. She wanted to live—and she wanted all the others to live too.
“Don’t do this, Jo,” Garrett said. “Please.”
She didn’t look at him.
“Are we going or not?” Joanna said.
“Wait!” Blake jumped to his feet. “This is my fault. Leave her out of this. I’ll take you.”
“Blake,” Garrett growled.
“Sit down,” Levi said. He nodded to Josh, who forced Blake to the ground and tied up his legs as well as his arms. Blake struggled against him, shouting that this was all because of his mistake, that he would go instead of Joanna.
Garrett craned his neck as much as he could, trying to catch Joanna’s eye. “I deserve this, but they don’t. You can’t do this.”
She didn’t respond.
Levi gave Garrett a quick, searching look then knelt to untie Joanna’s hand.
“Just you, then,” he said quietly, helping her to her feet. “Lead the way.”
Avoiding Garrett’s pleading gaze, Joanna caught Ruby’s eye for a second, trying to communicate without words. She had an idea after all. She just needed them to hold on for a little while.
Then she turned and led the two dozen strangers away from the mine.
She retraced their steps from that morning, heading in the direction of the other mineshaft. Levi strode beside her, his gun held low at his side, while the others fanned out to form a loose circle around them. The foliage veiled them, making them appear and disappear as they marched through the wilderness. It was impossible to tell whether there were any breaks in their circle, any weak spots she might slip through.
Levi kept looking over at Joanna as they walked, his eyebrows drawn low in concentration. She tried not to fidget, not wanting to give anything away. But he studied her with piercing intensity, making her heart thud anxiously. She wished she could tell what he was thinking.
“Okay, I’m confused,” he said at last. “That old guy said you’ve all been awake for eighteen years. The others look old enough, but you don’t. You said you went through BRP, but you don’t look like you’re—”
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Joanna said. “I woke up on schedule. The others came out of their cryo tanks early.”
“Are there more like you?”
“Not here,” Joanna said.
“Huh.” Levi fell silent again, still watching her out of the corner of his eye.
“What?” she said when his scrutiny didn’t let up.
“Is that why you’re so willing to turn on them? They didn’t get you out of cryosleep along with everyone else?”
“It wasn’t their fault,” Joanna said. And for the first time since reuniting with her team, she actually believed that. Yes, Garrett had betrayed her, failing to keep his promise never to leave her, but he couldn’t have known she was still alive. He was doing the best he could to protect the whole cohort. They had let her down, but they were still her family, and she would do everything in her power to protect them too.
She glanced at Levi. “It’s complicated.”
Long shadows slanted across their path now. Joanna imagined what would be happening in the village. She pictured Vincent carving on his porch, basking in the late-afternoon sunshine. Priya and Vashti sorting through the medicinal herbs and bandages, preparing for the coming winter. Chloe watching her children play, perhaps chasing little Joanna Beth across the grass. They wouldn’t stand a chance against two dozen heavily armed strangers, especially with their strongest men and women tied up back at the mine. This had better work.
“How much farther is it?” Levi asked after a while.
“A ways,” Joanna said. “We haven’t even reached the river.”
“There’s a river? That’ll be helpful if we move up here.”
“What’s wrong with your bunker location?” Joanna asked.
“It’s okay,” Levi said. “But it’s too close to the Northern California bunker.”
“Worried they’ll do to you what you’re doing to us, eh?”
“Look, we don’t want to hurt anyone,” Levi said. “But we have to look out for our own.”
“By stealing everything we’ve built?”
“I thought you haven’t even been here long,” Levi said. “What do you care?”
“Everything they’ve built, then.”
Levi gave her one of those searching looks, and she held in a scowl. Her bluff wasn’t working very well on him. She walked a little faster, conscious of the armed men and women all around them. They were just passing a familiar fallen tree, its exposed roots knotted like a fist.
“Your people should have kept a better watch, you know,” Levi said. “It was too easy to surround them.”
“They haven’t had to worry about stranger danger much over the past eighteen years,” Joanna said. “And taking over another bunker is a low move.”
“Well, they’ll have to get used to it,” Levi said. “The bunker groups all have different ideas for how the world ought to be. It’s survival of the fittest now.”
“Wasn’t the point of BRP’s training to avoid all that?”
“It was.” Levi glanced at his companions and lowered his voice a notch. “It would be nice if everything had worked out the way it was supposed to. I actually liked the BRP ideals. But when the clock counted down, things regressed even faster than expected. All I can do is take care of my own family now.”
Joanna wished he hadn’t used the word family. Aspects of his BRP training still lingered, clearly fresher than they were for most of her team. She looked him over. He wasn’t much older than her, and for a moment he didn’t feel like her enemy. Perhaps he would listen to reason.
She took a deep breath, but Levi spoke first.
“I don’t know why you’re all so shocked, to be honest. I heard your bunker was the worst of the bunch.”
Joanna frowned. “Who told you that?”
“It was this man—”
“Levi!” one of the others called. “I found some kind of structure.”
“What is it?”
Levi looked down at Joanna, and she shrugged theatrically. “Oh, don’t worry about that. We should keep walking.”
“Sure.” Levi snorted. “I obviously trust you.” He waved his men toward the second mineshaft. Then he took Joanna’s arm, keeping her close as they approached the cracked shaft house.
“You don’t want to go down there,” Joanna said. “I mean—never mind.”
Levi raised an eyebrow. “Down there?”
“Maybe it’s a storage cellar,” one of his companions said. The others were beginning to look excited.
Joanna clamped her mouth shut and folded her arms tightly around her body, which only made the others more eager. They broke open the door and climbed over the roots and vines to where the mineshaft opened into the earth. Levi kept a tight grip on Joanna’s arm, watching the proceedings with interest.
“It’s deep,” said one of the men. “Shall we check it out?”
Levi studied the fading light. “We’re running out of time,” he said. “We can always come back.”
“Yes!” Joanna made an exaggerated effort not to look at the second bunker entrance, all but tugging Levi away from it. “We should leave it alone.”
Levi narrowed his eyes. She met his suspicious gaze, praying he’d take the bait.
“Actually,” he said. “Let’s have a quick peek. I don’t want any surprises at our backs.”
Joanna did her very best to look worried rather than elated.
The others gathered closer around the mineshaft, discus
sing how many people the ladder would hold.
“Send a light down first,” Levi said, “in case she’s trying to trick us.”
No one had any rope left after tying up all their prisoners, so there was a bit of confusion as they searched for a long vine to secure to one of their flashlights. Joanna took stock of her situation. Some men worked on the light, their weapons set aside. Others watched their surroundings, guns loose in their hands or slung over their shoulders. Unfortunately, none stood too close to the mineshaft. The hydrogen sulfide wasn’t concentrated enough to knock them out. How soon before someone noticed the rotten-egg smell?
Levi kept his own gun in hand, but his grip on Joanna’s arm relaxed a bit as he focused on his men. She twisted her body slightly, reaching toward her jacket pocket, her crossed arms hiding her hands. The butter knife she had slipped into her pocket when Blake threatened Chloe yesterday was still there.
Holding her breath, she inched her fingers closer to it.
Levi felt her moving and looked sharply at her. She froze, noticing the deep-brown shade of his eyes as he narrowed them at her.
“We’re sending down the light, Levi,” one of the men called.
He broke her gaze.
“Good. Proceed.”
They clicked on the flashlight and lowered it on the vine. Down. Down. Shadows danced on the mineshaft walls. The light flickered.
“Do you smell something?” one of the men said.
“No,” said another, “but I feel kinda dizzy.”
Joanna’s fingers closed on the butter knife in her pocket.
“Stop!” Levi said. “Don’t lower the light any—”
But it was too late. The flashlight with its tiny burning coils dropped a little lower, and the pocket of gas ignited. An explosion roared up the mineshaft like a blast of dragon fire. Everyone jumped back as flames burst out into the fresh air.
Joanna whipped the knife from her pocket and slashed it across Levi’s face. He yelped in surprise, his grip on her arm loosening. She wrenched free and dashed headlong into the woods.
Chapter Thirty-Five