As I left the outskirts behind me, I pulled on the throttle and forced the Helios ahead at full tilt into the wasteland. Through the dust I could see the tail end of the truck at last, peeking through the murk of its churning wake, and my fingers drew more firmly around the shotgun.
I wasn’t entirely sure how I was going to do this. There was no set plan that tumbled into my head, no brilliant strategies. All I could do was follow my instincts and hope that they led me to the right outcome. Those instincts had kept me alive out in the wasteland for years. They had guided me through some pretty tough times, occasions when I thought all was lost. I had to believe they’d carry me through this encounter as well.
I was close enough now to see that the side mirrors of the truck had been ripped off. With the cage mounted on the back, their rear visibility probably wasn’t great, assuming they had a mirror. I swung out to the side at a forty-five degree angle, hoping to stay out of sight should they turn to look at the cage through the window, and began to pull up alongside the truck.
Ellinan and Mish saw me then, and it took a moment for them to realise I wasn’t an illusion, a figment of their imaginations. They looked at each other, disbelieving, and as recognition dawned on their faces their eyes became wide as saucers. As one they crammed their arms through the cage, reaching for me, waving desperately and calling out, inadvertently jeopardising my attempts to approach the truck unnoticed. I lifted an urgent finger to my lips to shush them, and after a few seconds of confusion, understanding dawned and they did as I instructed, folding back inside the cage and falling silent. They crouched low in the cage, looking around uncertainly and hugging each other tight.
To the north, the Grid spire Arsha and I had seen from the city was only a few kilometres away, and closer, a dilapidated service station sat on the side of the road. It was surrounded by what must have been hundreds of rusted cars and trucks, sinking into the dirt like metal carcasses. A junkyard. I knew I would have to change course to the other side of the road and reposition myself if I didn’t do this now, and that would result in more wasted time.
I couldn’t afford that.
Do it now.
Edging in, I extended the shotgun to the open driver’s side window, where the bald clank sat with one arm slung over the wheel, mouthing off about something I couldn’t hear, still unaware that I was present. I coasted even nearer, holding steady, the shotgun almost at his ear. Then he turned his head, and seeing me for the first time he looked down at the muzzle of the shotgun like he was trying to spot a fly on his nose.
I pulled the trigger and his head exploded into shards of metal and wads of synthetic flesh, the alloy of his skull twisting and tearing apart and flopping backward.
The truck veered to the side, away from me, and I accelerated again, trying to get a shot at the skinny clank in the passenger seat before he could react. Levelling the shotgun at the open window, I steered the Helios closer, but by the time I caught up again the skinny clank was nowhere to be seen.
The passenger door had swayed open. He’d bailed.
“Dammit.”
I reached into the cab and straightened the wheel, allowing it to coast harmlessly down the road, then eased off the Helios’ accelerator until I was in line with the cage.
“Stay down!” I called to the children. They flattened themselves against the metal floor at my command, still not understanding what was going on, but obedient nonetheless.
Then I spun away and doubled back to find the Marauder.
I caught sight of him hobbling between the old gas pumps that sat under the sagging awning of the service station, casting a fearful glance over his shoulder as he disappeared inside the building.
Looking back at the truck, I considered just getting the hell out of there, right now. I could hop in and drive the children to safety, worry about getting them out of the cage when we were safe.
No. They tag their vehicles. They’ll track it down.
I had to get them out of the cage and onto the Helios. That was the only realistic option. They couldn’t track us on the Helios. We’d be able to make our escape back to the city, and the Marauders would be unsure of our location.
Before I could return to the truck, however, a shot rang out, whizzing past at close range. The skinny Marauder had found shelter inside the building and was taking pot shots at me.
It was too dangerous to bring the children out into the open with him blasting away at us. I had to take him out before I did anything else.
Sliding the Helios to a halt, I wove through the junkyard on foot, proceeding toward the building with my head low and shotgun at the ready. Another shot rang out, clanging into the rusted chassis of an old shuttle next to me and sending a puff of dust into the air.
“You know who you’re dealing with?” the Marauder yelled. “No one fucks with us!”
I changed direction, heading to the back of the service station. It was an old brick place with a jumble of metal antennae protruding from the roof. A faded advertisement for sunglasses was plastered to the side wall, a skinny brunette in a bikini lying provocatively next to a pool, the bright rims of the sunglasses so large that they took up most of her face, giving her the appearance of a fly. A rusted metal box sat near the front corner with the decayed lettering of ‘ICE’ emblazoned across the top.
At the rear of the place, I found the back door boarded up. I wouldn’t be able to surprise him that way. Edging along the side wall, I could hear someone moving around inside the building and possibly voices as well.
Did he have reinforcements in there?
I moved quickly, stepping lightly around the ice machine and hoping to catch him by surprise. Once inside the doorway, I could see that he’d relocated from his position at the front counter, where buckled and empty soda cans littered the place like an avalanche, and where a bar fridge had been rammed up against the wall, its glass doors smashed and its interior thick with dust.
There was only one door that led out the back.
I heard the sound of footsteps, then a moment later the Marauder appeared at the door, looking to resume his place behind the counter. A look of shock came across his face when he saw I’d already entered the room and stood there waiting.
Marauders weren’t used to being hunted.
I let him have it. The shotgun report was deafening, and the round collected him on the shoulder as he tried to spin away. The handgun he carried fell from his grasp as he fled. I leapt over the counter, knocking cans aside, and followed him into the narrow corridor, putting another round into his back. He crumpled to the floor, falling out of sight around the corner. I kept moving, thumping down the hallway and finding him crawling across the floor of the back room, a cramped little kitchen containing a round wooden desk and three plastics chairs on a tattered linoleum floor.
There was no one else here.
The Marauder struggled and gasped, turning himself onto his back with great difficulty. He looked up at me with wide, fearful eyes.
“You don’t know who you’re fuckin’ with,” he said hoarsely.
I pointed the shotgun at his chest, right where his power core was located.
“Neither do you.”
I pulled the trigger and sent him crashing backward, his chest ripped open, a scream stifled before it began, and then there was silence. I stood over him for a moment as tendrils of smoke wafted from his midsection like coils of his filthy soul straining clear of his ruined body.
Turning to go, my foot struck an object and sent it spinning across the floor. It clattered to a stop at the foot of the oven, and it was only then that I realised the significance of the voices.
It was a radio.
15
My feet pounded on the dirt and I glanced to the horizon. I could see something out there already, an ominous murky smudge. Time was running out.
Using the key I’d found in the skinny Marauder’s pocket, I fumbled at the lock on the cage. Mish and Ellinan were crying, their relief perme
ating the horror of the ordeal they’d been through. They huddled against the edge of the cage, their hands reaching through the bars to touch my shirt, my hair, my face, as if to verify that I was really there, that their saviour wasn’t some hallucination or desert mirage.
They didn’t know that we were still in great danger.
“Have you out real soon, guys,” I said, trying to inject some cheer into my voice. As the padlock fell aside the kids pushed through the gate and swarmed over me, a tangle of arms and legs and sobs, their bodies trembling as they wrapped themselves around me. I took a moment to return the embrace, linking my arms around their backs as I lifted them away from the cage and placed them on the ground.
“Brant, how did you find us?” Mish said. She pulled back, her face crusted with dirt, blonde hair matted across her face like straw. Ellinan also drew away, scrubbing at his eye with the palm of his hand. His face had a vacant, traumatised look about it, a far cry from the mischievousness that he had possessed when last I saw him.
“No time to explain that now,” I said. “Come on, get on the cycle.”
My heart went out to the children as they tried to come to grips with what was happening. Although they had been alive for decades, they had been programmed with the personalities and emotions of ten-year-olds. No child of that age should have been subjected to this torment. I could only imagine what was going through their heads.
I steered them across the dirt with a gentle hand in their backs, moving them toward the junkyard as quickly as I could. They shambled stiffly forward, and I realised the synthetic muscles in their legs must be cramped after a spending a day or more in the cage. I reached down to scoop Ellinan up in my arms to move us along more quickly, but suddenly realised something was wrong.
I halted, my eyes darting to the north, to where I’d heard the noise of an engine. A sinister black vehicle glinted in the sunlight, bearing down on us rapidly.
We’d already run out of time.
“Quick, get on,” I urged, indicating to the rear of the Helios. It was going to be a tight fit getting all three of us on there, but there was no other choice.
“What’s happening?” Ellinan said tremulously.
I gripped the handlebars and prepared to swing my leg over the seat, but faltered.
The vehicle was right on top of us now, and recognition dawned on me.
Wraith’s off-roader.
I felt those fingers of ice down my back again, not the first time I’d reacted with such anxiety at the thought of him. In the past year I’d tried to forget him, to leave him buried in the past like just another relic of the wasteland. Now that he was here, thundering across the dirt at such close proximity, I couldn’t help but be reminded of his brutality. His viciousness.
I’d encountered him a number of times before and survived, maybe through good fortune more than anything else. But my luck couldn’t last forever.
Maybe today was the day it ran out.
In a split second, I weighed up the options. There wasn’t time to run. If I tried, Wraith would follow us in the off-roader. The Helios was fast, but out here in the open spaces of the wasteland he’d be able to keep a visual on me for a good distance. In all likelihood, I wouldn’t shake him before I reached home.
I’d be leading him straight to the one place I didn’t want him to find.
That didn’t leave me a lot of alternatives. In fact, I could only think of one: I had to try to take him right here, right now. I had to end this, even though every fibre of my being was telling me to run. I had to take this opportunity and destroy him once and for all.
“Off, off!” I barked, and the children scrambled down from the seat. “Stay low.”
I ushered them toward the back of the junkyard, my eyes scanning for a suitable place in which to hide them. An overturned car was the first location to catch my eye, but there wasn’t enough room underneath for them to wiggle inside. Further along I found an old grey shuttle, scattered red with rust, protruding from the sand like the great carcass of an elephant. I pulled the door open and peered inside. Rows of seats stretched into its darkened interior, and some decayed luggage had been dumped in the central corridor.
“There,” I said, pointing. “Get down behind the seats at the back and stay quiet.”
They scrambled inside and the old wreck creaked nosily under their weight. Concerned about Wraith closing in, I didn’t wait for them to settle. I kept moving. The last thing I saw as I closed the door was a look of terror and despair creeping over their faces again as they glanced over their shoulders at me.
I only hoped they weren’t seeing the same thing reflected in my own countenance.
Outside the service station the off-roader had stopped, and Wraith emerged from the cloud of dust kicked up from its passage, shotgun swinging at his side. His flicked casually at the dreadlocks on his shoulder as he strode across the dirt in the measured gait to which I’d become accustomed.
“Brant, can it be true?” he shouted companionably. “Was that really you running off to hide? I thought I’d lost you, my friend.”
I kept quiet and hunkered down behind the nearest wreck, keeping one eye on my adversary as I scanned the environment for anything I could use to my advantage. I felt like I was entering the fray with death itself, a totally calm and self-assured killing machine, and had to fight to keep my panic under control.
He stopped, taking in the view of the junkyard. I could partially see him through gaps in the tangle of metal, but he was still too far away for me to take a clean shot. Drawing a few shells from my backpack, I slipped them into the shotgun as silently as I could manage, then pumped a round into the chamber with painstaking carefulness.
“What’s the matter,” Wraith went on, “not in a talkative mood today?”
His voice echoed and bounced among the empty wrecks, and the wind sent dust devils cavorting between us, obscuring him momentarily from my view.
I shifted in the dirt, trying to scan for a place that would provide better cover, or from which I could surprise him. I considered climbing to higher ground, to a cluster of wrecks that had been stacked nearby, but couldn’t see a way to get up there unobserved.
“Well, not to worry, Brant,” he called out. “I’ll have you singing by the time we’re done. You and whoever it is you’ve got there with you.”
I began to circle around toward the service station in an attempt to flank him. I kept low through the gaps between wrecks, crawling on my belly, choking on sand. Confident as ever, Wraith kept talking at me.
“You know, I thought I’d never see you again, Brant. That’s the truth. Ever since Ascension interrupted our last chat I’ve been waiting for you to poke your head up in my turf again. Never really thought you would, though. Thought you were too smart for that. And yet, here you are.” He began to move about. “And it’s only fair, isn’t it? That you’d come back to me. Give me this chance to set things right.”
I’d lost sight of him momentarily, but by the sound of his voice I knew I was closing in on him.
Just keep talking, you dumb shit.
“It’s not like I never tried finding you, you know. I figured you had a bunker around here somewhere. I even went looking for it now and again, whenever I could get around those Ascension fucks. They really are keeping us busy these days.” His voice took on a mocking, wistful tone. “It’s not as much fun as it used to be out here, Brant. Not unless someone like you turns up.” His voice shifted, and I stopped. “I live for moments like this. You could say this is the only time I even feel alive anymore. When I grab someone like you and hold them in the palm of my hand… and squeeze… and feel the fucking life dribble out of them. That’s the only thing worth waiting for on this miserable pile of sand, wouldn’t you say?”
He laughed quietly to himself. “That's really the only thing warriors like you and me have left in this world, Brant. The thrill of taking down one more kill. To keep doing it time and again, all the while getting closer to that f
inal combatant. To one day feel the satisfaction of being the last man standing. Isn’t that right?” He raised his voice to a yell. “What else is there to live for?”
I stopped and crouched as his voice echoed about the junkyard, tried to pinpoint his movement.
“I’ve been across this whole country, and I’ve seen everything it has to offer – from sea to shining sea. I’ve seen everything that’s left. It doesn’t amount to a whole lot,” he said, laughing again, but, oddly, I thought I could hear desperation through the bravado. He was fraying at the edges. “I don’t even hope for a future anymore, Brant. I just live to collect my dues from those who owe me. That’s all.
“So come on. Stand up, and we’ll square the ledger.”
I took a few more steps, certain I had his location. Ducking around the edge of a ruined truck, I swung the shotgun up, but he wasn’t there. The echoes were toying with me.
“You remember the last time I saw you, how I offered you the chance to join my crew?” Wraith said. There was the sound of metal rasping on metal nearby, in the opposite direction to which I was facing. I shifted my focus that way. “Consider it revoked. I’ve come to realise that… well, you’re a worm. You’re a weakling. You don’t have the willpower to take me out. You could do it, you know. You could step out right now and end this. You could protect whoever or whatever it is you’re hiding, and you could leave me buried in the sand, if only you had the courage. But you don’t. You don’t have the courage, and you don’t have the strength.”
I realised that he was making his way toward the location where I’d stashed the children. In fact, he was undoubtedly looking for them right now, knowing that, should he find them, this fight was over. He’d have me at his mercy.
That was his advantage. I had to concentrate on protecting the children as well as winning this fight, while he had nothing to protect.
The Seeds of New Earth Page 12