Evolution (The Wasteland Chronicles, #3)

by Kyle West

  Makara held her head down on the dash, her shoulder shaking with sobs.

  Samuel reached for the transceiver. Makara grabbed his hand before he could pick it up.

  “Not yet,” she said, her voice shaky. “I have one more idea.”

  Samuel turned to her. “What do you mean?”

  Makara sat straight, dried her tears, and steered Odin east.

  “Where are we going?” Samuel asked.

  “There is only one person I know who might be able to help,” she said. “And one person only.”

  At first, I had no idea who she was talking about. Then, it came to me.

  “He said there was a time where all would seem lost,” Makara said. “He said to, at that moment, fly to the desert and seek those to whom injustice was dealt, and give them justice.”

  “The Wanderer said this,” Samuel said. “But who are we going to see, Makara?”

  “They will be first of the New Angels,” Makara said. “This is where we begin.”

  “East takes us to the Great Blight,” Samuel said, still confused.

  “You mean Marcus,” I said. “You’re going to find the Exiles. They’re in the Boundless, right?”

  “Yes,” Makara said. “They were kicked out of Raider Bluff, years ago, for going against the will of the Alpha. They wandered the desert, for years. And Marcus was right. One day, Char was going to need them. We need them now. If Char is anywhere, he’s there.”

  As we sped across the sky, I hoped that this wasn’t a dead end. I thought of the Wanderer, and how each of the prophecies had so far come true. Lisa was told she would have to give her life. Samuel was told he must remain true to himself. Makara was told to seek help with the Exiles, if her interpretation was correct.

  That left me and Anna. I knew what mine was. The Wanderer told me that it all depended on me, somehow. That the mission would fail without me. For a moment, I remembered the Wanderer, and wondered just who he was, with his clouded, alien eyes that couldn’t see one foot ahead of him but could somehow pierce the mists of the future. Had he been friend, or enemy? Would we ever see him again?

  I didn’t know what answers, or questions, awaited us in the Boundless, or among the Exiles. All any of us knew was that we had no other course. And Makara was now the leader of the Lost Angels, by our own admission.

  So, for now, all we could do was follow her.

  About the Author

  Kyle West is a science fiction author living in Oklahoma City. He is currently working on The Wasteland Chronicles series, of which there will be seven installments. Books 2 and 3 are already available. Find out immediately when his next book is released by signing up for The Wasteland Chronicles Mailing List. Stay tuned for a preview of the fourth installment, Revelation...

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  Revelation Preview

  It’s been three months since the fall of Bunker 108. In that time, I’ve survived raiders, gangs, empires, cold, hunger, and monsters. By all rights, I should be dead. We all should be. It seems impossible that we aren’t. Impossible that we are still fighting this.

  I just wonder how much longer we can last.

  The odds are stacked against us. At every turn, the xenovirus gets more deadly. The number of Blights in the Wasteland has tripled. The monsters it creates are more dangerous. Crawlers roam the dark, cold nights in packs, killing any they find. Anyone without a wall, without a home, is as good as dead.

  The Great Blight has expanded one hundred miles further west over the past two months alone – a rate which will see the entire Wasteland covered by this time next year.

  And, somehow, we are expected to stop all this. The four of us are expected to be the world’s saviors. We are all too young for this job. I’m sixteen. Makara is nineteen, Samuel twenty-three, and Anna is seventeen. That’s too much weight to rest on our shoulders – hell, too much weight for anyone’s shoulders. Maybe, we aren’t kids anymore. Responsibility is enough to make an adult of anyone.

  As leader of the New Angels, Makara is now in charge of the group. Samuel still leads the mission against the Great Blight, but as far as building the group, Makara calls the shots. First on her agenda is finding the Exiles, Marcus’s gang, somewhere in the Boundless. After we find them, they can lead us to the Raiders. Or at least, that’s what we hope.

  With the fall of Raider Bluff to the xenoswarm, we could only hope that’d been Char’s thought process. Overrun by crawlers and Howlers and worse besides, we could only hope he had laid down his pride to seek the help of the brother he’d exiled over a decade before.

  This is no longer a time for enmity and blood. The power of the Great Blight grows by the day, and the Great Dragon of Raider Bluff has yet to make his next move.

  Yes – two months after we had left it, the Wasteland is a far more dangerous place. And the Wasteland is only the beginning. If we do not find some way to stop the Great Blight, the entire world will be swallowed by it.

  With Raider Bluff gone, it makes sense for Vegas to be next on the Great Blight’s list. That city is the closest to the Great Blight, and that’s where all our roads lead – whether we are Angel, Exile, or Raider. With the alliance between Augustus of the Empire and Carin Black of Los Angeles, it’s up to us to grab whoever is left and take the fight to Los Angeles – taking out Carin Black before Augustus can arrive with his legions – before the worst of winter is upon us.

  But before we can do that, we have to find the Exiles. We have to find the Raiders.

  It is our newest challenge. It is hard to tell whether this will be easier, or harder, than what we did in the Empire. Now back in the cold, bare reality of the Wasteland, I have a feeling it will be harder. Our mission is getting a bunch of people who don’t like each other to work together. We have to convince them to leave the safety of their walls, strike out across the Wasteland in the dead of winter, and take out Black and the Reapers before Augustus arrives.

  We have about two months to do it. Augustus’s army is far – but it could be here in as soon as two months. Winter might help us, but we are planning for the worst. Our success as a group depends on being prepared for the worst. Augustus said he was going to be here in two months. We will take him at his word.

  Even if such preparation seems impossible, we have to try. The entire world, literally, depends on it.

  I would say it is a lot of pressure, but we are used to that by now. We are a well-honed team. We each know our strengths and weaknesses. We have two spaceships at our disposal, meaning we can jump between points quickly.

  Even though we have new capabilities, so does the xenoswarm. The dragons are a game-changer that none of us could have predicted, and I’m sure they’re not the last thing the Great Blight will throw at us.

  First, we have to deal with the human opposition. Until everyone is standing together and on the same page, we can’t make our attack on the Great Blight. We can’t even protect ourselves from Augustus and Carin Black. If we do not unite, and unite soon, everything will fall.

  And that’s exactly what the Voice in Ragnarok Crater wants.

  ***

  Makara was still flying. It was night, and Odin hummed all round us, sailing through the air at three hundred miles an hour. She stared ahead as if her willpower alone could pierce the veil of darkness cloaking the Boundless below. Everyone else was sleeping. Anna dozed in the copilot’s chair, her head tilted to the side. Makara did nothing to wake her, taking the burden of both piloting and copiloting upon herself. It was very Makara-like.

  Behind his sister, Samuel also slept. I was fighting my own battle with weariness, a battle I was sure to lose. It was two in the morning, and Makara had yet to cease her search for Marcus and the Exiles. This had been the story of the last three days, and still her reddened eyes scanned the desert floor with Odin’s two floodlights, revealing nothing but dune, hi
ll, mesa, and the sudden pink of a patch of xenofungus. Periodically, Makara glanced at the LCD, which displayed topography, speed, and Odin’s location. We were somewhere in central Arizona.

  I felt it was all useless. This time-consuming search was eating away at us all, and we could only take so much before it was time to examine other options. Samuel had told Anna and me as much in private earlier today. He dared not tell Makara; not yet. And with each day that passed with no results, no clues, she became edgier.

  She still believed the Wanderer had wanted her to search here, when all seemed lost. And certainly, everything did seem lost. It was the four of us, and Ashton, expecting to stop an entire army that would soon be thundering its way north. And not only that army, but the army of xenolife readying itself to strike from the east. Everything depended on swelling our ranks, and all of us could feel the clock ticking.

  With a curse, Makara leaned back in her chair. She sighed, shutting her eyes. It was the first time she had broken her concentration for hours. Odin flew on in a straight line, due east, about a thousand feet above the surface.

  I closed my own eyes. My conscious mind faded under the weight of drowsiness. Makara’s voice snapped me to attention.

  “Let’s call it a night.”

  She slammed the controls, the sudden sound doing nothing to wake either Samuel or Anna. Out in the Wastes, both of them would have been up in a heartbeat at the disturbance. But Odin was a safe place, and there were allowances here that didn’t exist on the surface. Makara returned to the controls, angling the ship toward the surface. Again, the change in trajectory did nothing to shake either Samuel or Anna from their slumber. How I was still awake, I didn’t know. Even a week out of Nova Roma, I was exhausted from the entire ordeal. Makara’s side, which had been injured in the Coleseo, was still tender, but healing. But our time in the Empire had taken it out of all of us.

  I would have thought sitting all day in a ship would be relaxing, but it wasn’t. We had to stay alert, for either the Exiles, the Raiders, or the ever-present threat of the xenodragons. None of those had ambushed us – at least, not yet – but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t at some point.

  Makara guided Odin down, toward the top of a mesa that rose above the desert floor, its massive shape shadowy in the darkness. The dunes below were discernable around the mesa, but just barely. Now that we were back in the Wasteland, the atmospheric dust from Ragnarok had returned. I was already missing the feel of the sun on my skin. The sunburns I had received while in Nova Roma were still peeling.

  Odin hovered, giving a tiny lift as it alighted atop the mesa. Powering off the ship, Makara unstrapped herself from her seat and immediately left the cockpit. Anna and Samuel slept on, oblivious to the fact that we had stopped. Samuel snored lightly, his head leaning back against the headrest. Anna’s head was still cocked to the side, a dribble of drool dripping from the corner of her mouth.

  I touched her shoulder. “Hey. We’ve stopped.”

  Her eyes fluttered open. She gave a nod, wiped her mouth, and unstrapped herself from the seat. She stood, and we left Samuel where he was, walking down the corridor toward the bunks in the back. I knew Anna would prefer sleeping in her own bunk, and would have been upset if I had left her in the copilot’s seat like that. Samuel, however, could probably sleep on a pile of rocks and not notice the difference.

  When we got to the crew cabins, we were alone. Makara had appropriated the captain’s quarters off the galley to herself.

  “Sleep tight,” I said, leaning in for a kiss.

  She kissed me – not too enthusiastically, I must admit. She turned for her bunk, and I watched her lie down. Before she even covered herself with her blanket, her breathing became even with sleep. I’d always envied people with the ability to do that – fall asleep as if there weren’t a million things wrong with the world.

  I sighed, turning for my own cabin, which I shared with Samuel. I lay down on my bunk, closing my eyes. The hum of the ship, on low power, lulled me to sleep, a sleep none too fitful.

  ***

  The next day I awoke early, stepped out of bed, and got dressed. I ducked out the doorway, went through the galley, and headed to the kitchen. The air was cool in Odin’s metallic hull, automatic lights flashing on as I passed under them. I found the coffee pot and filled it with water, placing coffee grounds inside. Now back in civilization, I had the means to nurse my caffeine addiction with Skyhome’s own brew.

  As the water heated and filtered through the grounds, I went to the fridge, grabbed some fresh grapefruit, and then opened the cabinet to get some granola, the latter sealed in a reusable, airtight bag. By the time I’d prepared my breakfast, the coffee was done. I’d made a whole pot, in case someone else wanted some later. The resources provided by Skyhome were almost as good as what I’d had back in Bunker 108.

  I grabbed both my food and coffee, and walked to the table in the galley. I sat, the first steaming sip of coffee warming me up. The stuff was like an elixir. Though Makara and Anna liked to sleep until the last possible moment before we left (in fact, Makara usually just rolled out of bed and headed straight to the pilot seat), I liked to be up an hour earlier than everyone else to have some alone time. It was great to have the entire ship to myself, to be alone with my thoughts, my food, my coffee.

  After downing the last of my coffee and finishing off my grapefruit and granola, I got up and headed for the blast door. I pressed the button. The door slid open, letting in a rush of frigid, dry wind. I stepped outside, ignoring the extreme cold. It was winter now, and it showed in every way imaginable. The darkness was near absolute, and though I could not see it, I knew the cliff’s edge was just a few feet away from the edge of the boarding ramp. Nevertheless, I stood on the ramp, weathering the harsh wind as it buffeted against me. I peered into the sky, trying to discern where the moon was. On the western sky, there was a milky glow of cloud. Such was the effect of the meteor fallout – we all might as well have been in a cave deep in the heart of the Earth.

  I took out my digital watch, and lighted it up. I went to the temperature tab. It was minus nineteen Celsius. Two below zero Fahrenheit.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Time to go back inside.”

  I entered Odin, the door shutting behind me. The ship’s interior, once cool, now felt warm by comparison, tingling my skin. To my surprise, Samuel sat at the table, a cup of coffee in hand. His handgun was partially disassembled, its parts lying neatly at the table’s center. He was brushing the action of the handgun. I noticed several other guns sitting on the table corner.

  “Put yours in line, if you like,” Samuel said.

  After two months of heavy use, my Beretta was probably much in need of a cleaning. I set the gun down, removed the magazine, and checked the barrel to make sure it was empty.

  “You can use an AR, right?” Samuel asked.

  I nodded. “It’s been a while since I’ve used one, but yeah. Chan, the CSO of Bunker 108, had everyone trained on a variety of things.”

  “Good. I’m thinking of having everyone diversify a bit. We’re seeing a lot of action, and there are points where it would be useful to have a rifle. We have an entire armory on Odin that is hardly getting any use, except when we need to restock on ammo.”

  “If you give me some time to practice, I’m sure it’ll come back quickly.”

  “You’ll have to show me a few things too, then,” Samuel said. “I’ve always wanted to fire one of those things.”

  “Will do.”

  Samuel moved on to Makara’s handgun. His movements were deft, methodical. Within moments he had the essential parts disassembled and was already brushing the interior with the cleaning solvent.

  “What’s our next move?” I asked.

  “We keep going, until we find the Exiles.”

  “I mean, if we can’t find them. It’s been three days, after all.” I hesitated a moment. “You said it yourself, yesterday. If we can’t find them...”

  “We’re all he
re because Makara believes the Wanderer told her to find the Exiles,” he said. “And until we do, I don’t think she’s going to want to move on.”

  “I want to know what that guy’s exact wording was. Maybe she’s just interpreting it wrong.”

  “I’ve interpreted nothing wrong.”

  Makara glared at me from the doorway to the captain’s quarters. I hadn’t heard her come in.

  “I know that’s what you believe,” I said. “But...”

  “Alex...” Samuel said, low. “Careful.”

  Makara was still staring daggers at me. She walked up to the table and placed a hand on its edge. She looked at me, her green eyes blazing.

  “We will find them. And what the Wanderer said...it’s between me and him. Got it?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  Makara walked off to the kitchen. I heard the sounds of her digging in the fridge, then filling a cup with coffee.

  “What’s up with her?”

  “She’s just stressed,” Samuel said. “Don’t take it personally.”

  From the kitchen came the sound of Makara cursing about something. Apparently, she had burned herself.

  “You’re up early,” Samuel called.

  “A lot to do,” she called back. “Today’s the big day. We’re going to find them. I feel it.”

  “I hope so,” I said, low enough so that Makara wouldn’t hear.

  Makara returned to the table with two slices of cantaloupe, toast, and coffee. She sat down, her eyes red, dark underlines set deeper than ever.

  Makara dug into her cantaloupe, as if her mission were to get it down as quickly as possible rather than enjoy it. While she ate, Samuel finished cleaning the last handgun, which happened to be Makara’s. Anna’s saw so little use that it probably didn’t even need a tune-up. After putting the brush and solvent away in the kit on the table, Samuel closed the kit, then slid the gun over to Makara.

  While Makara finished her food, Anna walked in. Dreary-eyed, she looked at all of us before heading for the kitchen.