by M. R. Forbes
“The remains to be seen,” Sally said. “But I can guarantee with absolute certainty you’ll be put outside if you don’t come.”
Orion groaned but capitulated. “Meet me by the rigs in the morning, boys.”
The other Scrappers headed back into the stairwell, leaving the four of them alone with the guards.
Sally glanced at Jake. “What’s really going on here, Jake? You’re no Scrapper.”
“What?” Orion said.
“Can we talk about it in private?” Jake asked.
“Pozz, you a Courier for King or ain’t you?” Orion asked.
“No,” Hayden replied. He looked at Sally. “I’m not.”
“Who the grep are you then?” Orion asked.
“I don’t care if you are or aren’t,” Sally said. “My job is to get the truth about what was happening right here.” She looked at Orion. “Your boys did a pretty good job blocking you from the camera. You didn’t think she’d send us up?”
“Not that fast,” Orion admitted. “But nothing was happening. Like Pozz said.”
“Bullshit,” the woman said, getting Sally’s attention. “The truth is, this asshole was going to bring me to his room and do who knows what to me if this guy, Pozz, or whatever the grep his name is, hadn’t shown up. I blew the Road Enforcers’ checkpoint about twenty klicks out, and they chased me all the way here.”
“That’s our job,” Orion said.
“I made it here ahead of you,” the woman replied.
Sally put her hand up to hear ear again. She had to be wearing some kind of transceiver. Then she returned her attention to Hayden.
“Were you screwing around or not?” she asked.
He could tell she, or Wiz had already decided what the truth was. But they were giving him a chance to choose how to handle it.
Orion was staring at him, doing his best to use his eyes as a threat. They were safe in Crossroads, but they still had to leave sometime. If he helped get the Scrapper off the hook, maybe they would let him pass. Maybe.
The other option was to deal with the fallout in the morning. At least they would have time to prepare for the inevitability.
“Well?” Sally asked, getting impatient.
“It wasn’t a game,” Hayden said. “As far as I’m concerned, this asshole can rot in Hell.”
“Seconded,” the woman said.
“You little piece of shit,” Orion said. “Just wait until you leave, I’m going to-”
A single, sharp crack echoed in the hallway. A splatter of blood appeared on the wall behind Orion’s head. His body slumped to the floor against it.
Sally holstered her sidearm. She was calm and steady.
“Wiz wants to speak to you,” she said, looking at him. “All of you.”
10
“MY NAME IS HAYDEN DUKE,” Hayden said to the woman, holding out his hand.
They were walking beside one another with Jake slightly ahead, sandwiched between Sally and the other two guards. He still hadn’t gotten to see the first floor of Crossroads, because the guards had immediately started leading them up to the top floor.
She stared at it for a few seconds, trying to decide if she wanted to make his acquaintance or not. Finally, she took it. Her hand was tiny compared to his.
“Chains,” she said.
“That’s not a name,” Hayden replied. Her grip was firm.
“It’s the best you’re going to get. That’s what everyone calls me, anyway.”
“I can see why,” he said.
Chains was tiny, her head barely making his chest, her frame slight enough that he could probably pick her up with his single human hand. She had a shaved head, and a pair of thick silver rings in each of her ears, with rows of thin silver chains hugging her scalp and creating a fake hairline before connecting back to the rings. She was wearing a thicker pant than he had seen before, black and low slung. It showed off the bottom of her stomach before sliding over her hips and down. She was also wearing a dirty leather vest that left her arms exposed. More chains wrapped around them as well, starting at metal rings positioned just below her elbows and terminating at her fingers. He imagined she probably had more of them on her toes, too, though he couldn’t see them beneath her boots.
The look was definitely unique.
“Why’d you jump the Enforcer’s checkpoint?” he asked.
“Why’d you get involved?” she retorted.
“I don’t like the Scrappers much.”
“Does anybody who isn’t a Scrapper? Most people don’t intentionally start with them. Especially to help a stranger.”
“I’m different.”
“I can tell. You have a funny accent, too. Where are you from?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“I don’t know about that. I get around.”
“You haven’t been where I’m from.”
“You sound pretty sure of yourself.”
Hayden smiled. “I am.”
They reached the end of the stairwell. Sally pulled open the door and ushered them through.
The space was large and open, one huge room that took over the entire top level of the building. Dirty, cracked tile gave way to carpets and rugs of a number of sizes and shapes, arranged in a jigsaw pattern to direct traffic from the entrance to different areas on the floor.
The one that immediately caught Hayden’s attention was a line of displays against the north wall, and a second line of computers below them. A simple wooden table sat in front of it all, and he could see the red glow of a projected keyboard and a braid of long blonde hair spilling over a low-backed chair. The displays were feeds from a number of cameras arranged in and around Crossroads, giving the viewer an accurate picture of everything that was happening nearby. Hayden noticed one of them was showing them, standing at the entrance to the floor.
The braid moved, its owner getting to her feet, reaching up to the side of her head and tugging something from her ear. Then she started over toward them.
Where Chains’ look was unique and exotic, Wiz’s look was ordinary. She wore a plain blue dress that fell to her knees, cinched by a black belt that also supported a sleeve of pockets, which were filled with tools of different kinds. A small face with a large nose holding up a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, leading to hair pulled back tight. The only thing that stood out on Wiz was a nasty scar that ran from her lower left lip all the way down her neck.
“Sergeant,” she said to Sally. “Thank you for escorting our guests here.”
“Of course, Madam,” Sally replied.
She took a moment to look over each of them. Her eyes lingered a little longer on Chains, but that didn’t surprise Hayden. The woman had a unique look worth spending more time on.
Then she fixed her gaze on Jake. “Jake. I don’t appreciate trouble at Crossroads.”
“I know,” he replied. He looked uncomfortable.
“How is your father?” she asked.
“Dead.”
Wiz didn’t apologize or offer condolences. She turned away from him, her expression flat. Her eyes fell on Hayden.
“You were in my home for all of five minutes, and you started a fight. Why?”
Hayden met her glare with his own. He could tell she wanted to intimidate him. That wasn’t going to happen.
“He didn’t start the fight,” Chains said. “Orion did. The Scrapper your girl capped downstairs. Didn’t she tell you that?”
“I’ll ask the questions if you don’t mind,” Wiz said. “Be a good girl and shut up.”
Chains’ face wrinkled in anger, but she stayed silent.
“He was carrying this,” Sally said, handing out the laser pistol.
Wiz took it, giving it a closer look. “Interesting.” She flipped it over in her hand, finding the switch. She was surprised when it turned on. “And it has a charge?” She looked at Hayden again. “Where did you get this?”
“Do you know what it is?” he asked.
She m
otioned for him to follow. They moved as a group, with the guards behind them, over the rugs and across the floor to a walled-in section of the space. It had a few tables on it, and some shelves that reminded Hayden of the USMC module on the Pilgrim. The shelves were lined with weapons of all kinds, most of which he didn’t recognize.
Wiz walked over to one of the shelves and lifted a familiar weapon from it. A laser pistol, just like his.
“I have four of them,” she said, showing it to him. “But I’ve never found one with a live battery pack. Until now.” She smiled. “Thank you for this.”
“That’s mine,” Hayden said.
“It was yours,” Wiz said. “Now it’s mine. Unless you’d prefer to spend the night outside?”
“Wiz,” Jake said. “Hold on.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Jake,” Wiz said. “Your new friend broke the only rule I have here. No grepping fighting. Orion paid for it with his life. You can pay for it with your gun.” She laughed. “Hell, I don’t even care about the gun. Just the battery.”
“He was trying to help me,” Chains said. “One nice guy in a sea of thousands of assholes.”
“Didn’t I tell you to be quiet?” Wiz said. She paused for a few seconds. “How about this? You tell me where you got it, and you can have it back. Fair?”
Hayden shrugged. “You won’t believe me.”
“You might be surprised. I haven’t always lived in Crossroads. I traveled extensively in my teens. I was one of the top Collectors in the area. I might look like a beautiful waif now, but I’m not one to be crossed. I earned what I have.” She motioned to her scar.
“Collectors?” Hayden asked.
“Artifacts of the old world,” Wiz said. “The world before the trife, and immediately after, when the United States Armed Forces were still producing high-end tech. I specialize in arms, in case you hadn’t guessed, but I also collect technology of other kinds. I’ve learned to restore it. I used it to make this place what it is. The guns outside are automated, activated when we lock up for the night. Anything gets too close; it gets obliterated. I wrote the software myself.”
“What about the goliaths?” Hayden asked.
“I don’t waste bullets on them, and as long as nobody makes too much noise in here, we don’t have a problem. It’s one of the reasons for my rule. The other is because nobody would pay to stay in a safe house that wasn’t safe.”
“How did you learn to write software for old tech?” Hayden said, curious.
“Let me show you.”
She led them out of the area and to another space, where a shelf of books were resting. Hayden’s eyes widened at the sight of them. It was an entire collection of manuals like the ones he had seen on the Pilgrim.
“Where did you get those?” he said, realizing his mistake as soon as he finished asking.
“You recognize them?” she said. “Interesting.”
“I’ve been around, too,” he said.
“And yet you don’t know what a Collector is?”
Hayden glanced over at Jake. He looked frightened.
“Let me ask you again, Mister?”
“Duke,” Hayden said. “Hayden Duke.”
“Let me ask you again, Mister Duke. Where are you from?”
Hayden hesitated.
“It isn’t a hard question,” Wiz said. “Where are you from?”
She was getting impatient.
“Where did you get these?” Hayden asked instead.
“I bought them from a man who said they were in his family for generations,” she replied. “He said they came from a starship that never made it to the stars, and the computer I took from him after I killed him backed that up. The ship was named the Wanderer. It was overrun with trife before it had the chance to launch. They killed everyone on board. I can show you the recordings if it would help you answer my question. But I already know the answer to my question, don’t I, Hayden Duke? You carry an old weapon that shouldn’t still function, but does, and you recognize manuals recovered from a generation ship.” She paused, staring at him. He still didn’t speak. “One of four constructed on the west coast. I had heard there was a launch site not far from here, but so far the Collectors I’ve hired to find it have either come back empty handed or they haven’t come back at all.”
She stepped up to him, her face nearly level with his.
“Who are you, really? A Courier? A Collector? A stranger, for sure.”
Hayden stared back at her. Did she know he was a colonist?
“Let me tell you something about myself,” Wiz said, taking a step away from him when he didn’t answer. “I’m not afraid to go to extraordinary lengths to get what I want. Sally.”
Sally grabbed Jake, throwing him to the floor. Wiz held out the laser pistol, putting it against his head.
“Wiz?” Jake said. “You know me.”
“Do you know him?” Wiz asked. “One of you tell me the damned truth, or I swear there’s going to be a corpse in this room in the next ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven.”
She ticked off the time, giving them both a chance. They shouldn’t have come here. He should have stayed down and out of sight and not attract attention. There was nothing he could do about it now.
“Three. Two.”
“The ship is called the Pilgrim,” Hayden said, not waiting for her to get to one.
Wiz smiled, immediately pulling the gun away from Jake’s head. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? I already know the name of the ship, and now I know you’re telling me the truth. I’ve never been sure if the Pilgrim had launched or not. Some of the ships made it, some of them didn’t. The ones that didn’t, they hold treasure beyond imagining. Relics of the world before the trife brought us to this. Ever since I learned about them from that old man, I’ve been hoping I might unlock their secrets one day. And now here you are.”
She reached out, grabbed at the robe covering his mechanical hand and pulling it back.
“Where’s your hand?” she asked. “Your real hand.”
“I lost it,” he replied.
“Jake?” She whirled back toward the Borger. “This is Hank’s. You replaced his hand. Where is it?”
“Wiz, I-”
She put the gun back to his head. “Where is it?” she shouted.
“It was already missing,” Jake said. “Damn it, Wiz. This man didn’t find the Pilgrim, he’s from the Pilgrim. The colonists are still inside. They don’t know the ship never left Earth.”
Wiz glanced back at Hayden. Then she started to laugh.
“You can’t be serious,” she said. “They don’t know they never left? That’s the most adorable thing I think I’ve ever heard.”
“The Scrappers found the Pilgrim first,” Hayden said. “They beat you to it.”
She stopped laughing. “What? Did they get inside?”
“They can’t get inside. Nobody can.”
“You can,” she said.
“I can’t,” Hayden replied. “If you wanted to see my hand, you know the colonists have an identification chip. Only the Governor's chip can open the outside doors to the colony. I wasn’t the Governor, and I don’t have any chip at all. The Scrapper, Pig, cut off my hand trying to get in before I killed him.”
“I see,” Wiz said, surprising him by not insisting that he could do what she claimed.
“You killed Pig?” Chains said.
He wasn’t going to tell her a trife had helped him do it.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“There has to be another way in,” Wiz said. “Is the bridge still intact?”
Hayden nodded.
“Then I can figure out how to bypass the door controls.” She walked over to the bookshelf, lifting a thick manual from it. “I’ll need some time to study this.” She carried it back to Hayden. “Who were you on the inside, Mister Duke?”
“I was the Sheriff,” Hayden said.
“Sheriff? I’m impressed. But then, I should have guessed, shouldn’
t I, the way you tried to rescue the damsel in distress like any good lawman would do?” She laughed again. “Damn King for being who he is. I liked him better before he started claiming control of this area, but what can you do? I want what’s on your ship, Sheriff. Anyone who knows anything about the Generation ships does. How did you wind up out here, anyway?”
“One of the hatches glitched and opened. Pig grabbed my wife before it closed again. She’s on her way to King.”
“And you came looking for her?”
“Yes.”
“How sweet.” She put her hand on his face, touching him gently. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Sheriff, but she’s going to have to wait. I need you to bring me back to the Pilgrim.”
“I can’t,” Hayden said. “She needs me.”
Wiz laughed. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did that sound like I was giving you a choice? You will bring me back to the Pilgrim. Once I’m inside, maybe I’ll let you go try to pry your wife away from King. Though it would be better for your health if I didn’t.”
“I can’t stay here,” Hayden said. “Bringing you back there won’t change anything. You need the master code, and there’s no way to get it from the bridge. Only the PASS can print it, and the PASS is on the inside.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Wiz said. “Jake, you’re free to carry on with whatever it was you were doing before you crossed paths with this one.” She turned to Chains. “As for you, I think it’s best if you stay here for a few days. The Enforcers are going to blame you for getting Orion killed, and it would be a shame for someone as beautiful as you are to be killed as soon as they left in the morning.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Chains said.
“No, you won’t,” Wiz replied. “Sally, take these two to a room for holding.” She held up the manual again. “I need to spend some time with this before we go. We’ll leave in two days.”
“I can’t wait two days,” Hayden said.
“I don’t care,” Wiz replied. “You haven’t learned enough about our world yet, Sheriff. But you’ll come to realize there are two kinds of people in it. Those who take, and those who give. You gave of yourself, and look where it got you. I take what I want, and look where it’s gotten me. The sooner you change your worldview, the better off you’ll be.”