Red crossed the Fence in roughly the same place we did, only a day or so before. He could have run into these same people, or at least a related group. The men might be able to point us in the right direction.
“Right,” Zane murmurs. “I’ve got this.” He bites his lip and brushes his hand against the gun strapped to his hip. Rain has soaked his hair, and it rests flat and heavy against his skull. His eyes are wide, alert, so big and round that he resembles a child caught in a corner with no way out. And he is a child, I remind myself, fresh out of college. A waddling toddler in a world of towering warriors. The FBI is not easy or kind to new agents. You learn to keep up with your superiors and kill your enemies. Or you are left in the dust and killed by your enemies.
Even so, I’d be the first to admit Zane shouldn’t be on this mission. He’s not ready.
He was forced into this because he fell to the unfortunate lot of being my new partner.
My old partner died, for the record, in a situation where we were sorely outnumbered. Like Zane and I are now.
But I learn from my mistakes. Unlike some.
I rest my hand on top of Zane’s and whisper in his ear, “I’m going to confront them directly. Startle them to shake their composure. Then I’ll question them. If they resist, we’ll subdue them, me from the front, you with a sneak attack from behind. Use the boulder and bush cover along the stream’s bank to slip around to the rear position once they’re within fifty feet. Activate your full battle mode with settings set for nighttime combat. And don’t forget to take the rain into account. The ground is soft. Your weapons will be wet. Adjust your tactile and balance settings to compensate.”
Zane eyes the riders, now two hundred feet off, and steels himself. “Yes, ma’am.” He maneuvers behind me and starts shuffling on his hands and knees through the tall grass and broken boulders. I watch for a minute, critiquing his movements, but he’s quiet enough with the pattering rain and the soft gurgling of the stream and the hoof beats growing louder, and he’s not exposing himself to the rider’s line of sight, so I let him go and return my attention to my targets.
Over the years, I’ve gotten good at waiting for the right moment.
So I don’t move an inch from my hiding place behind the boulder until the riders are twenty feet away. The instant the first hoof hits the surface of the stream, I switch on battle mode, activating all my super-sensors, super-strength, super-speed, and bound over the top of the boulder. I rocket through the tall grass, a blur to normal eyes, and slide to a stop, boots in the mud, directly before the horse at the head of the pack.
My coat billows out from a gust of wind as I rise to stand straight, and the effect must be nightmarish because the lead horse rears up, whinnying, and nearly throws its rider off. The man on top lets out a startled yell and grips the reins tighter, and though his form is skewed by my night vision, I see his eyes bug out, his mouth open to yell in fright, at the sight of the woman in black who appeared out of nowhere. A phantom.
Behind him, the other riders yank their reins, forcing their horses to stop short. Hooves splash in the stream water, sink into thickening mud, and a chorus of gasps and swears echo on the air. The lead man regains control of his horse and backs the animal away from me, his jaw now locked tight, a fury building in his glare. He’s realized I’m a person now, not some monster out of myth, and it ticks him off that any person would dare to scare a man like him. Broad shoulders set rigid. A thick beard, neatly trimmed. A scar running down his neck, thick enough to discern clearly even with the green glow of night vision. And weapons, many weapons, guns and knives and even a machete, strapped to the man and his horse.
He’s the head honcho of some roving band of raiders or mercenaries or something of the like. Short-tempered, cruel, and unforgiving, judging by the hatred in his eyes, the itching twitch to harm and kill in his fingertips. If I could see into his mind, even the barest hint of thought, I know I’d find a killer there.
But this man is not the killer I’m looking for.
So when he slides off his horse, into the shallow water of the stream, rips a revolver from his holster, and storms toward me, I respond by yanking out my own gun, pointing it as his chest, and saying, in the darkest voice I can manage, “I would reconsider, sir.”
The man halts but doesn’t lower his weapon. He is even taller than Zane, but where Zane is still lanky, still filling out as he heads toward thirty, this man is well into his middle years, well muscled and solidly built. Were I a woman with standard civilian tech, I would be no match for this man, despite the fact he has no tech at all. From the way he spits onto the muddy bank before my boots to the way his scar warps when he sneers at me to the way his finger holds steady on the trigger of his weapon, even as a powerful gale shrieks by us, I know he is not an enemy to underestimate. A hardened fighter.
For forty seconds, we point guns at each other’s center mass, while the rest of the riders look on, some anxious, some angry, some confused. Then the leader grunts, dips his chin at me, and says, “Tell me, what’s a little woman doing out here all by herself on a night like this? Ain’t no camps or communes out this way. Ain’t no nomad groups roaming these parts. Ain’t no ruins for miles around. So what’s your business, woman? This is our land here.”
My muscles, in full battle mode, itch to move, reflexes dialed up far beyond normal human levels. I know the man is playing games, word puzzles, because he can clearly see I’m no inhabitant of the Ash Lands. My weapon, too new for an old wasteland relic left to rot when the bombs fell in ’83. My clothing, unlike any that existed when the West fell to the fallout. My complete lack of fear in the face of eight men twice my size, unconscionable for a woman trying to survive in the violent ruins of yesterday.
The man knows where I’m from, if not exactly who I am.
No point in pretense then.
I pluck a flashlight off my belt and toss it to the man. He catches it with one hand, flawless, and figures out how to switch it on in a couple of seconds. Some technology hasn’t changed much over the years. He shines the light at me, to see me better, to get a load of the beings from the other side of the world, the living side of the world. Not that I look much different from him in the general sense. All my tech is internal, hidden from view. Except my eyes. I look like a young woman with alien irises, glowing a dim green from the use of night vision.
The man waves the flashlight over my entire body and huffs. “You some government mook, woman? Come to invade our lands? Come to cause trouble with your strange inventions, your unnatural modifications and such?” His eyes linger on mine. “Yeah, I know all about you. I hear things from the people who go to and fro. Who sneak over that wall you claim is impenetrable. Who mingle with you freaks with your wires in the brain, chips in the skull, cameras in the eyes. I hear enough to know you’ve got no business being here. You need nothing here. Not from us. Or the nomads. Or the communes. So why, woman, have you ventured out this way?”
I slowly stick my hand in my pocket and pull out a folded piece of paper. My other hand doesn’t let my aim budge. The gun is pointed at his heart. A kill shot. Twelve seconds to total death. Though I hope I don’t need to use it. I don’t like leaving bodies lying in the mud.
I unfold the paper, aware the growing rain might disintegrate it if I leave it exposed too long. I turn the paper, so the man can shine the flashlight beam on the printed picture. I say, “I’m looking for this man. His name is Red Matheson. He’s wanted for murder.”
The leader examines the picture for a moment, thoughtful, and I can see the moment where he decides to lie. His bottom lip twitches. It’s a tic. He shrugs his shoulders and replies, “Can’t say I know the fellow. He one of you, living over in your fair Republic?”
“He was.” My finger tightens on my trigger a fraction of an inch. “He snuck over the Fence a few weeks ago. I’m here to exact justice for his crimes.”
“Justice?” The man chuckles. “What do you Republic bastards know about justice? A
fter leaving us on this side of the Fence to die from radiation, from cancer? If you call that justice, I’d hate to see what you’d do to that fellow on the paper if you found him.”
“We did what was necessary to protect as many people as possible.” I refold the paper and slip it back into its pocket. It’s raining even harder now, each drop cascading down my face and neck. “It’s unfortunate and unfair that innocents were left behind. But that is the nature of cutting your losses, which I would suggest you do now before this ends ugly, sir.” I take a step closer, but the man holds his ground. “I know you know Red Matheson. You recognized his face. He passed this way a little while ago, didn’t he, on his way to California?”
The man’s confident sneer falters, and he reasserts his grip on the gun.
“What?” I continue. “Did you think we didn’t know where he was going? We found a wealth of information in his apartment. Including his maps with a path drawn to Los Angeles. So if this is your land, and you ride it all the time, and Red Matheson would have had no choice but to cross this land, if only for access to reliable water, in order to follow his designated track to California”—I kick the surface of the stream, splashing water the man’s direction—“then you likely came across him at some point. He couldn’t have moved but so fast, seeing as he’d removed all his tech.”
And boy, what a sight Red had been during the assassination. Bloody grooves and holes in his skin from where he’d pulled the wires out. His skull a mess of stitches from backstreet brain surgery. If he wasn’t so cunning and strategic, I’d dare to call him crazy. But Red Matheson is not crazy. He’s a killer in control. Of himself. Who wants to be in control of everybody else. To roll us back to the dark ages before the advent of cybernetics. Which he calls a return to naturalism.
Naturalism.
From a man who made himself look like a lab experiment gone wrong.
The leader sucks in a deep breath and then shakes his head. “Sorry, honey. You might be a pretty little thing, even with the creepy eyes, but old Red paid me damn good to stop anybody asking questions before they pass through to Nevada. So I’m going to have to ask you to turn tail and run back the way you came, go back to your ugly wall and your society of robot freaks.” He adjusts the aim of his weapon, points it at my face. “Red ain’t your problem anymore.”
Behind him, each of the other riders pull their own guns, a mix of revolvers and shotguns and even a rifle. Behind them, there is the glint of metal half-hidden in the tall stream grasses.
“You’re wrong, sir.” I frown. “According to my superiors and my conscience, Red Matheson is my only problem.”
The leader points his gun right between my eyes. “You ain’t counting us, honey?”
“No, I’m not.”
I drop my gun to my side.
And say to Zane, out of sight, Shoot now!
Shots ring out, one after the other, cracking the windy quiet of the night. The riders at the end of the line fall first, dead before they slip from their horses. Bullets in their brains. The noise spooks the horses, and they panic, rearing back, throwing another two riders. One man lands in the stream, and his own horse tramples his drowning form, crushing his spine and killing him instantly. The other lands the wrong way on his arm, and it snaps in half, bone piercing through his skin so far it rips a hole in his shirt.
The other three riders whip their steeds around to point their guns at Zane, but my partner is already out of the grass and halfway to them, moving twice as quickly as any base human can go. He reaches the closest rider and leaps six feet off the ground, kicking the man from his horse. As they both tumble over the panicking beast, Zane lands another headshot, and the rider goes down in a spray of blood. Before the other two shocked riders can respond, Zane is on them as well.
The leader glances at the commotion for two tenths of second, then snaps his attention back to me.
But his wayward look is enough.
I lunge, grab his wrist, break it in half, wheel around behind him, kick his left leg out, and pin him to the muddy earth. He screams into the ground when I tighten my grip around his ruined wrist, his bones grinding into dust underneath his skin. His revolver has fallen into the stream, far out of his reach, but he tries to wriggle out of my iron grasp anyway to retrieve what must be a trusty weapon. One that has never failed him until now.
Poor fool.
I jam my knee into his back, pressing him so hard that his face starts to sink into the mud, threatening to choke him. He gasps and shrieks and starts to plead. “No, wait! No, wait! I’ll talk.”
With the rain pouring over us, wind screaming across the night, and my partner killing the last two riders with one swift shot and one quick stab to the neck, I bend down, close to the leader’s ear, and mutter, “Then talk. No lies.”
“Red passed through here three days ago. He’s far ahead of you.”
“He taking any detours?” I twist his wrist.
He screams. “No! No! He’s following his map. It’s the shortest way to LA on foot. He needs to get there fast.”
“Why?” I add an ounce of pressure. “One thing Red didn’t leave behind was a motive for his trip. He killed a Republic Senator and then skedaddled. But why California? Why Los Angeles? What’s waiting in the irradiated ruins of a city in the Ash Lands for a killer with an anti-tech agenda? Did he tell you?”
The man twists his face toward me and sneers again. Even caked in mud and on the ground, pinned beneath a woman half his size but twice as strong and fast, he still clings to some pathetic shred of pride. His laugh is haggard and short, but it’s a laugh nonetheless. And then he says, “There’s a bomb. Some diggers found it in the rubble. And Red’s up to his neck in a bidding war to keep it for himself. He don’t get to LA on time, he’s out of the running. He does get to LA on time, well, let’s just say he has plenty of friends who can get a nuke up and running again.”
The man spits in my face.
So I shoot him in the head.
Zane walks up next to me a minute later, as I’m letting the rain wash away the mess. He peers down at me with his blue doe eyes, his clothing covered in blood, and says, “Do you think it still works? A Soviet nuke? After all these years?”
“It could have been a dud for a number of reasons. Odds are, the payload’s fine.”
In my head, I edit our mission file, expanding the parameters to include the nuke info. I send the update back to base via the satellite uplink. The brass will want to drop reinforcements in for sure, but they won’t have the time to organize a strike force fit for combat in the Ash Lands. The old cities, despite the radiation, are still the most heavily populated areas beyond the Fence. At least, that’s what the intel says. Which means any flashy helicopters landing on their streets would attract too much attention. They’d be mobbed. It’d be a bloodbath. Red could escape in the fracas.
It’d be a cleaner, quicker strike to send in only two on foot. That’s the recommendation I make in my file update. And that’s the recommendation I’m going to take.
Best not to wait until the brass have had their morning coffee.
“So the nuke can still…?” Zane wrings his bloody hands and begins to tremble. This time, it has nothing to do with the cold. “But if Red gets a nuke over the Fence, what’ll happen to the Republic?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I reply, as I rise to face the stormy night. “He’s not going to get it over the Fence.” I pat Zane’s cheek and turn around. “Keep battle mode on, kid. Drop strength. Enhance speed. We have a lot of running to do.”
* * *
THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE
Web Archive
Top Headlines — October 18, 1989
1) Tech Giants, Bates and Dobbs, Join Forces to Forge New Era of Medical Advancement by Joanna Carpathian
2) Is a Border Fence the Best Way to Protect Ourselves from the Lawless West? by Allen Sikes
3) Cybernetics: Our Path to Salvation after Radiation Devastation by Alice Patrice
&nb
sp; 4) “The Way to Save the Future is to Change Ourselves!” Proclaims President Morris by Michael Francis
5) Top Analysts Cheer, “We’re Back!” Republic GDP Recovers to Pre-Bombing Levels by Gordon Marshall
* * *
3
Former State of California
August 14, 2015
Our arrival in the ruin of what was once Los Angeles is met with silence and dust. Crumbling husks, half of them toppled in the initial nuke blast, rise up on either side of us. Slabs of cracked stone litter the street, along with overturned, rusted cars, a fine layer of crushed plaster, and the bleached bones of those who were far enough from the bomb to avoid disintegration but too close to avoid the crushing shockwave or the dooming burns. Scraggly grasses and shrubs peek up through the broken asphalt, the only living things in this ghost town on the edge of the Ash Lands.
The only living things out in the open.
Zane shuffles along the sidewalk beside me, swaying on his feet. Dark bags hang under his eyes, and his skin, normally a rich tan, is washed out, as if he’s ill. His bright blue gaze is glassy, as if he’s on a mind-numbing drug, and I’m sure if we hadn’t stopped for a nap earlier in the day, he’d have passed out by now. He’s not used to extended periods in battle mode. It amps up speed and strength by an exponential degree, but the cost is that you crash much harder than you do at standard enhancement levels. I’ve done this so many times on previous missions that the bone-tired weariness is no more than wriggling annoyance in the back of my mind. But for Zane…
We’ve been running for days on end in order to reach LA before Red disappears into the ether with his hard-won dud nuke. He took a “short” route to get to the old Californian city, but that doesn’t mean he’ll take the same way back. In fact, I know he won’t. He’ll do anything in his power to avoid detection on his return trip to the Fence, and he’ll cross said Fence at what he believes to be the weakest point. The point with the fewest guards. The point with faulty defenses. The point with the most worn materials.
Alt.History 102 (The Future Chronicles) Page 29