by Kathy Miner
She touched the sketch of Sleeper, then straightened and gazed around at all three men. “He would recognize me. If you turn me in to him on Fort Carson, you’re in. There was a reward for my return after I escaped. You could convince him you’d kept me for yourselves for a while, then decided to cash in when you got tired of me.” She looked at Levi. “Like you said, they’ll want to make an example of me. I’ll be brought back to the CC campus, but you won’t need to worry about that. You find a way to get Tyler into one of those Apaches, and he can get the job done.” She fidgeted with her papers, thinking hard. “If I could find a way to keep a weapon on me, just a small knife, I might be able to get close enough to the Boss to end him. My dad was a Marine, too.” She glanced at Levi. “He always said you could kill someone with a toothpick, if you used it right.”
As she had talked, Tyler had abandoned the kitchen doorway and moved to stand beside the table, lifting her papers and examining them one by one. He looked up at her with an expression she couldn’t quite define. “Let me get this straight: You left Woodland Park, and you came here planning to both assassinate the gang leaders and destroy all of the helicopters?”
Grace lifted her chin. “Yes.”
“By yourself?”
Grace kept her chin high, though it took every bit of determination she had. “I know it sounds ridiculous. I had reached the conclusion that I couldn’t achieve both objectives, and I was in the process of analyzing which course I should choose. Which task I was the most likely to succeed at. Until they got the helicopters in the air, my original plan was to disrupt the behavior patterns in their power base, to create alternative beliefs over time, person to person.”
“You’ve studied Roszak,” Levi said. His expression, too, was impossible to decipher. “Unfortunately, ‘it is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.’”
“Voltaire.” Grace nodded. “People stay because they can’t see an alternative. The gang’s power is fear-derived, constructed on the mindless dependence of the masses. If I could have convinced those masses that they don’t need to be either afraid or dependent, I could have dismantled the gang’s power base without violence. But the helicopters changed everything. We’re out of time.”
Gently, she removed a notepad from Tyler’s hands, flipping to show them the timeline she’d originally projected. It had been such an elegant plan, and talking about it was satisfying, even if it was moot. “I had established just about the perfect cover for it. If there were more kids around, I’d have been talking to them, every chance I got. Children are very sensitive about injustice and very powerful agents of change. There was this kids’ movie, with ants and grasshoppers…”
She trailed off at the expressions on Adam’s and Tyler’s faces. Adam had laced his fingers on top of his head and was glaring at the ceiling like there was something there he wanted to kill. Tyler was staring at her, bumping his fist against his mouth as if trying to hide his expression, but his eyes said it all. Angry. And sad. Grace looked at Levi, but his face remained inscrutable. She looked back at Tyler.
“Did I say something wrong?”
Adam spoke. “How old are you, Grace?”
“Seventeen.” She shook her head slightly. “Eighteen. I keep forgetting. What does that have to do with anything?”
Tyler spoke. “You talk about kids as if you’re not one, but I’ve gotta tell you, we had you pegged at fourteen. Tops. Just-turned eighteen doesn’t seem all that different. Not to us. We don’t use children to fight our battles. Before this whole shit-storm of a plague went down, we saw enough of that on the other side of the world.”
Grace started to interrupt, and Adam tagged in. “No. Just no. You’re a tactician, we’ll give you that. Your plan is brilliant.” His eyes flicked to Levi. “But we won’t send you to your death. And that’s what your plan amounts to.”
Grace didn’t bother arguing. She turned to Levi. “Can I talk to you alone?”
Levi slid his eyes to both Adam and Tyler and tilted his head towards the door. They rose and left the house, both of them moving with graceful stealth that was automatic. Grace waiting until the door had clicked shut behind them, then met Levi’s gaze.
“How have you all changed? Since the plague, I mean?”
His face gave nothing away. He considered her for a moment, then answered. “Both Adam and Tyler have increased intuition. I wouldn’t advise playing cards against either one.” A much longer pause this time. “I see…future possibilities. What the outcome of the current situation is likely to be.”
Something about that nagged at Grace’s memory, but she set it aside to be considered later. She leaned forward. “I haven’t changed.” She waved her hand at her stacks and notes and diagrams. “I could do all of this before. I didn’t evolve, like the rest of you did. I don’t subscribe to all of Verity’s talk of a Divine Path, but I do believe in fulfilling a destiny.”
She hesitated, then reached across the table and gripped his forearm. Without their help, she was dead in the water, and she knew it. Verity had brought them into this to help her. She was more sure of it than she’d ever been of anything. “I wasn’t selected by nature, don’t you see? This is the best thing I can do with my life. What higher purpose could I possibly aspire to? If I can use my brains to make something useful of the hell I survived, if I can take the circumstances they forced on me and use it to end them, then I’m good. I can call it a good life, and know that I did everything I could to leave a better world behind.”
Levi leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his huge chest. “Very altruistic. But you would have run and left Verity behind. That doesn’t add up.”
Grace rolled her eyes. “It will when you know her better. Ask her to touch you one of these days – just lay her hand on your arm or touch your shoulder. You’ll see first-hand why I wasn’t worried about leaving her.”
Levi looked away, and for the first time, Grace sensed subterfuge in him. “I may know what you’re talking about,” he said in a low voice. Then, he sat up straight and leaned forward. He grabbed Grace’s legal pad and flipped to a clean page. “The logistics shouldn’t be complicated, but we should have at least two contingencies. It’s just over ten miles to the northern border of Fort Carson. How fast do you travel overland?”
Grace swallowed. She swallowed again, and looked at the ceiling, trying to blink the tears away. They were going to help her. Just to be sure, she had to verbalize it. “You’re going to help me. You’re actually going to help. You’re not just speculating or considering?”
Levi’s hands stilled on the pad of paper. He stared at his hands, then stared at her. For the very first time, she saw something that looked like strong emotion move across his features. “We’ll help you,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve seen it. It’s my destiny, too.”
THIRTEEN: Piper: Maple River, Iowa
And so now she knew. At last. There was something Piper would not do to survive.
She had cut into her own flesh to keep her mind balanced. She had poisoned people. She had submitted to Brody’s rape, night after night. She had played people who cared about her like chess pieces, and she had put a bullet in a man’s brain. But she would not kill a child.
Not even when that child was giving serious consideration to killing her.
Death was there, in Trent Donnelly’s summer-blue eyes, though it was not a heated, nor even an angry thing. It was a calculation, and the coldness of it made Piper’s skin ripple with waves of fear. Only the year she’d spent under Brody’s tutelage allowed her to hide what she was feeling and meet Trent’s gaze head on.
“My terms are reasonable. Let me see my people, and I’ll help yours.”
Trent swung from side to side in his cushy office chair as he frowned at her. In the dim little man-cave behind him, an amalgam of gaming electronics slept under a thick layer of dust: the latest X-box and Playstation models, both hooked up to a huge-screen TV, stacks and stacks of games, and an Alienware laptop Piper
would have given her eyeteeth for in the time before. The walls were lined with posters depicting characters from the fantasy games he appeared to favor, and Piper deliberately mimicked the stance of a warrior-woman with impossibly huge breasts and an itty-bitty waist. She forced herself not to wince when Trent’s eyes snuck down her body. Until she figured out what his game was, she needed to use every weapon at her disposal.
Bright flags of color were flying on his cheekbones when his eyes returned to hers. “You’re a medic. A healer,” he snapped. He was flustered, and being flustered made him angry. He didn’t like being off-balance or out-of-control. She flustered him every chance she got. “I can’t believe you would just sit by and let people suffer when you could help them.”
“You’ve left me no choice. You won’t tell me why you’re holding us, and you won’t let me see my friends. Jack is injured. He needs treatment.” After Jack had been shot, she had gotten a brief look at his wound before they’d been separated. The bullet appeared to have creased his skull just above his right ear. She was sure he was concussed, but with care and luck, he should make a full recovery. Problem was, she hadn’t seen either him or Owen since they’d been brought here to the little town of Maple River, Iowa, five long days ago.
The first day, they had left her to pace and fret in a tiny, airless, second-floor bedroom, a little boy’s room, once upon a time, judging by the Thomas the Tank Engine décor. First thing the next morning, she had been brought here to see Trent, and the parry and thrust of negotiations had begun. Trent wanted information and the use of her medical skills – no one here even knew how to do CPR, he’d told her. Piper wanted to see Jack and Owen, and she wanted all of them to be released. Stalemate, until this new crisis had occurred.
Piper leaned forward, bracing her hands on the table that separated her from Trent. He leaned back before he could catch himself, and she counted that as a victory. “Your people are dying. Many of them are already seriously dehydrated, and soon, they’ll start having seizures. Without proper medical intervention, they’re not going to make it.”
Good old Sulfur Tuft mushrooms. She’d hidden the last of her supply in an empty tampon applicator, and thanks to good, old, reliable male squeamishness, she had been allowed to keep the plastic tube on her person. Two days ago, she’d finally gotten a chance to dump them in a communal soup pot. Now, she was under the gun. Without additional doses of the mushroom, the people she’d poisoned would begin to recover, and her leverage would disappear.
Trent folded his arms across his chest. “And you’re trying to tell me this is some kind of follow-up to the plague. Some kind of – what did you call it?”
“A second-wave lethal infection.” So lame, but it was all she’d been able to come up with under pressure. “We saw it in towns all across the plains as we traveled.”
“If there was going to be another plague, I would have seen it, like I did the first one.” One heartbeat. Two. “I think you’re lying to me.”
It was easy to forget this kid was only fourteen; he wielded menace like a machete. Piper kept her features still, and her shields at maximum. “Why would I lie?”
She was lying, of course. The trick in these times was to do so without hesitation or remorse. Like Brody and Owen, Trent claimed to be able to see future events, but he couldn’t tell truth from lie. Piper had tested that hypothesis thoroughly. But Trent kept at least one of his inner circle around at all times, and it was safe to assume one of them was a truth-seer. She sent up a prayer that the man standing in the shadows behind her wouldn’t cry foul, and went on.
“And it’s not a plague. It’s an infection caused by exposure to the plague pathogen. Even in people who didn’t get sick, contact with the bacteria that caused the plague altered their immune function. Weakened it. A simple infection can kill.” She could use loaded pauses as well as he could. “Unless they’re treated.”
Trent made a disgusted sound and spun away from her. When he whirled back a moment later, his youthful face was ugly with the rage he never had completely under control. “I’ve taken good care of you. I’ve given you food and shelter, and I haven’t let any of the men touch you.” His eyes flickered to the man behind her, and his expression shifted subtly, animated by the titillation of the thoughts she knew he was stroking. “They want to, you know. It’s all they talk about. They think I don’t know, but my ears are everywhere.” Those ears turned pink. Trent might be one of the most terrifying individuals Piper had ever met, but he was still just a boy. It was as heart-breaking as it was disturbing. “They think you’re hot, and they want to…to… You know what they want to do. I’ve protected you from that.”
Only because you’re saving me for something else, Piper thought, though she hadn’t figured out what that something was. Nor did she have any illusions about her value to him. She was a commodity to be used. He wanted access to her skills and experience, and when he’d used her up, he would discard her. The question was, why? Somehow, she needed to ascertain what his objective was. If she could figure out what he wanted, she could figure out a way to leverage that information and bargain them out of here. She kept her face neutral and chose her next words with great care.
“I understand my situation.” She would not thank him, by thee Gods, she would not. “I just want you to understand yours. Your defenses have already been compromised. If more people get sick, you won’t be able to maintain your perimeter. If people start dying, other people will start leaving. Word will get out that you’re vulnerable, and when that happens…”
Piper shrugged and let him walk that line of logic out to whatever conclusion he wanted to, then switched gears. “What could it hurt, to let me see them? A guard could stay with us the whole time.”
Trent cocked his head to the side. Innocent. Curious. “How do you know they’re not dead already?”
Little shit. She should have seen that coming. By some grace, she didn’t flinch, though she couldn’t speak for a few moments. She double-checked the bond-lines that still connected her with Jack, Owen and Ed, and trusted what they told her. “They’re alive. I know.”
Trent’s gaze turned sharp. “Tell me exactly how you know, and I’ll say yes.”
“No.”
She didn’t know how her skills might be used against her, but she was sure he’d find a way. That, she was beginning to suspect, was Trent’s real “gift.” He manipulated the people around him into doing what he wanted. Logic and her own instincts suggested that he used their intuitive skills against them. She hadn’t gathered enough data to confirm her hypothesis yet, but it explained how a teenage boy had come to be the leader here.
The red grid of bond-lines surrounding him had alerted her to his Brody-like influence in this community, but she hadn’t been prepared for the bond-lines that went the other way, from Trent to these people. Like vines, they were, penetrating tendrils that pulsed with energy when people did what he wanted, and constricted when they defied him. Not that she’d seen much by way of defiance; the people here appeared to be both well trained and oblivious to what Trent was doing.
Piper wasn’t sure Trent knew, on a conscious level, the nature of the power he wielded. He appeared to be some sort of energetic parasite; when people pleased him and did as he asked, he rewarded them with his approval, which Piper saw as surges of energy along the bond-line connecting them. She had only witnessed one instance of dissension, but it had been highly instructive.
A man named Paul had been here the day before yesterday when she arrived. He’d been petitioning for permission to leave the community, to head farther north in the state to see if any of his extended family had survived. Trent had stared at Paul as he spoke, his face cold. Paul’s voice, so confident and sure when he started talking, had quickly wobbled into uncertainty. When he finally trailed off with a series of half-mumbled apologies, Trent was silent for long moments. What Piper saw in those moments, she was still trying to process.
The vines connecting Trent to Paul h
ad writhed over the man like hot orange snakes, sliding up his spine to penetrate the base of his skull and locking around his lower back, glowing hot over Paul’s kidneys. The physiological effect on Paul was immediate: his breathing quickened, a sheen of sweat appeared on his flushed face, and every muscle in his body tensed. He glanced at Piper, and she could see that his pupils were abnormally dilated, nearly eclipsing his iris.
Trent spoke. “I thought we could count on you, Paul.”
As soon as the words were out of Trent’s mouth, the orange vines constricted to a tight, cold, black. Paul gasped and leaned forward to brace a hand on the table, his limbs now tremoring and his sweat-slicked face grey as he gasped, open-mouthed, for air. Piper’s own mouth dropped open. If she was assessing the situation correctly, Trent had just fired Paul’s adrenals, triggering a fight-or-flight response. Then, somehow, he’d induced an adrenalin crash.
Paul had excused himself then, and Trent had accompanied him to the door, pouring out hypnotic, soothing words as he held the stricken man’s elbow. “You get some rest. When you’re feeling better, I’m sure you’ll see how valued your skills are here. No one is as attuned to danger as you are, Paul. We need you. We won’t be safe without you. You’re vital to this community…”
Trent had returned to his seat, and Piper hardly remembered stammering out her “second wave lethal infection” story, so busy had her brain been trying to analyze what she’d seen. Trent had listened politely. When she finished talking, he had sent multi-colored vines questing in her direction – as he had every time she’d met with him – red and orange predominantly, with traces of yellow. Before, Piper had thought he was trying to make a connection because he was attracted to her, and she’d toyed around with the idea of letting him succeed. “All the better to control you with, my dear,” she’d thought. Now that she’d seen what he could actually do with those vines of his, she needed to rethink.