The Roadhouse Chronicles (Book 3): Dead Man's Number

by Cox, Matthew S.

  18

  Resistance

  Worry raged like a tornado in Tris’ gut. She’d thought Nathan couldn’t find them in Ned, but he already had. A whole group of Enclave soldiers had ambushed them there once. If not for Zara and her rifle… No, Nathan damn sure knew where Nederland was. Maybe he didn’t know that they had decided to live there permanently yet. He could still be scouring the Wildlands trying to find them, but a good chance existed that the bastard knew Nederland held some value to them. Nathan had wiped out Amarillo without hesitation, even thinking the place had ten thousand or so people.

  All to get at her.

  While the few hundred who’d died there because of him were a far cry off the tens of thousands everyone believed had lived in Amarillo, she still bore some of the guilt at what had happened. She had no way to know he would do that, no way to stop it (aside from bringing the cure to Doctor Andrews, which turned out to be a lie), and… at least until an hour or so ago, no way to avenge them.

  I have to do this. For them. For Abby… for everyone in Ned. Everyone left in the world.

  Weakening light outside the dead Starbucks put Kevin on edge. Part of her agreed with him that only an idiot would stay inside San Francisco after dark. Yet that bit of her that had latched on to Abby, some nascent urge of motherhood that had come out of nowhere in high gear, wouldn’t stop gnawing on her brain. The mere thought of Nathan harming Abby made her blood rush, flooding her cheeks with heat. She covered her mouth and nose, breathing into her hands to calm down.

  “Tris?” Kevin drew her name out long. “Your face is red. Am I hanging out of my pants or something?”

  She barked a short laugh. “No. I’m feeling overprotective of Abby all of a sudden. I want to rip Nathan’s head off.”

  “Count me in on that action.” He stood. “I’m gonna walk outside and look for some place to stash the car. If we’re going to be here overnight, I don’t want some drone going overhead and spotting it.”

  Something scraped in the back room.

  Shit. Tris spun in the chair and pointed her AK at the door.

  “What?” He followed suit.

  “I heard something,” she whispered. “A scratch.”

  Kevin crept sideways to the right, rifle raised, and took cover behind a brick-faced column by the former window to the parking lot. Tris slid off the chair to kneel and edged to her left to a more defensible position behind the barista counter.

  The door to the back room swung open. A man in his middle twenties with paper-white skin like Tris and a matching white brush-cut walked in, his stride casual. Beneath a tattered green poncho, the shimmery black gleam of Enclave body armor caught the fading sunlight. The pieces of his suit had differing levels of scuff, suggesting he’d assembled it from multiple sets. He carried a boxy rifle like the one Kevin had in the car, a 4mm caseless.

  At the sight of Tris, he froze. His eyebrows climbed together, his mouth opened a touch.

  Another man, darker-skinned than Fitch with a short-cut afro, bumped into him from behind due to the abrupt halt. He also wore Enclave armor that had a piecemeal look about it, except for his right leg, decked out in Kevlar panels.

  “What’s the hold up?” asked a female voice behind the second man.

  “Holy shit,” said the white-haired man. “What’s one of those doing here? We’re fucked.”

  The dark-skinned man eyed Tris with the look of a gunslinger about to throw down, though dread fear shone clear in his eyes.

  “Wait,” said Tris. “You’re clearly not Enclave… at least not anymore.”

  Kevin lifted his aim to their heads, realizing the AK wouldn’t penetrate that armor.

  A woman with a snow-blonde bob squeezed past the men. While shorter than both men, she still had Tris by an inch or two. Beneath a dingy brown cloak made from a blanket, a newer suit of Enclave body armor fit her too well to be scavenged. Thin silver hexagons glistened from the polished black surface as she advanced into a patch of sunlight.

  “Who are you?” asked the woman. Though she contained it well, her body language betrayed no small amount of fear.

  “Is that coffee?” asked the white-haired man.

  Tris studied the trio for a few seconds more. Their gear is too dirty. They’re not Enclave. “Can everyone stay calm? I’d rather not get shot.”

  “That doesn’t tell me who you are,” said the woman.

  “I’m not a Persephone. I just look like them for some damn reason.” Tris lowered her rifle a few inches and stood. “You’re Resistance, aren’t you?”

  “This is the contact?” asked the dark-skinned man.

  “That’s…” Brush Cut stepped forward. “Tris?”

  She relaxed a little more. “Yeah.”

  “Damn. We got a message months ago saying you were on the way. What the hell happened?”

  “That’s a yes by the way,” said the dark-skinned man. “We’re Resistance.”

  “We’d given up on ever seeing you.” The woman’s tension ebbed a bit as well.

  Brush Cut offered a hand to shake. “Printer spat out another message saying a contact was coming here with some data that’s absolutely vital to our efforts. Name’s Zoryn.”

  The guy’s height made her feel like a tween standing in front of him and looking… up. “Hi.”

  “Uther,” said the dark skinned man. “Before you ask, no it’s not supposed to be Luther. My mother’s got tons of books.”

  “Pendragon?” asked Kevin. “I think I read that… or at least a wad of paper I found in a Roadhouse once.”

  “Yeah, that.” Uther nodded.

  “I’m Naomi.” The other white-haired woman approached and shook Tris’ hand. “So are you here by chance, or did that message tell us to find you?”

  “Are you sure we can trust these three? They came out of an empty room.” Kevin stepped away from the brick-covered column since it offered no cover from their angle now that they’d walked into the room.

  “Maybe this will help.” Naomi held up a hand in a ‘wait’ gesture, and reached into a hip satchel. Kevin twitched. Despite his almost raising the AK at her face, none of the three reacted. She removed a folded paper and handed it out to Tris.

  Kevin relaxed.

  Tris opened the paper, which contained a color printout of a photograph. She turned it right side up and gasped. A tiny white-haired girl in a plain white dress sat on the floor by a desk. Circuit boards, wires, and tools littered the rug around her bare feet. A man with frazzled light brown hair smiled at her from the desk chair, wearing a lab coat and radiating a kindly, almost befuddled presence―the scientist who everyone assumed ‘got lucky’ whenever anything worked, but masked true brilliance with a blasé attitude and a sense that having fun was every bit as important as getting results.

  Dad.

  Her lip quivered and she found herself crying in silence.

  “Tris?” Kevin lowered the AK and ran over, putting an arm around her back. He glanced at the paper. “Is…”

  “Me and my dad… I think I’m five here… maybe six.” She traced her fingers over the paper. The office around them looked like it belonged in a school or something; a thought backed up by a Stanford banner half out of frame. All sorts of techno-clutter lined the walls; robot parts, mostly transparent plastic over thin aluminum. The robotics, early, early prototypes, made Bee seem like alien-level technology by comparison. She looked up at Naomi. “Where did you get this?”

  “It came out of the printer… right after the message saying we should expect to meet a contact here with information. Didn’t expect you to beat us here.”

  She folded the paper. “Can I keep this?”

  Naomi glanced back at Zoryn, who shrugged. “Yeah, sure. So what do you have?”

  Tris returned to her chair. She sat with the AK between her knees, stock on the floor, and pushed it back and forth between her hands while explaining about the music files, the hidden data, the phone number, the call… and waiting here.
/>   The three listened, nodding intermittently.

  “Dad said he needed me to get inside. I’m supposed to help him with something he can’t do on his own.”

  “Wait. Inside?” Kevin stared at her. “You want to go… inside the Enclave? How’s that going to work? They’re kind of trying to kill you.”

  “Maybe we can help with that.” Zoryn peered out the window. “It will be dark soon. Get in your car and follow us.”

  Kevin’s expression said he still didn’t trust them.

  “I believe them.” She took his hand. “The same way I knew the vaccine would protect me; I know these people are the right way forward.”

  “The overlay.” He bowed his head, eyes closed, and sighed through his nostrils. “Are you sure?”

  Tris leaned against him. Rational-brain screamed at her to run back to Nederland. That’s what pre-Detention, pre-VR training Tris would do. Something threatened her, she’d hide. As much as she’d have loved nothing more than to race home, dread that faltering now could kill Abby (and everyone else there) in the most horrible way imaginable, made her choice―albeit terrifying―the only one she could make.

  “Yeah. I’m sure.”

  19

  Amaranth

  Driving the Challenger at walking pace felt wrong in every way imaginable. Too vulnerable, an insult to a car built for speed, boring. Had they not packed the back seat up with shopping bags, perhaps the supposed resistance people would’ve climbed in and they’d be wherever they wanted to go by now. He debated tossing the stuff, but Tris had been so happy to find such a pristine stash of children’s clothing, getting rid of it would feel like kicking her dog.

  The sun continued to slip off to the west, fanning the fires of his worry. Tris at least appeared to share in his concern, as the darker it got, the more she kept twisting around to watch for Infected.

  At long last, some twenty minutes after leaving the Starbucks, Zoryn gestured at a right turn. The overall design of the buildings around them had gone toward commercial properties: old warehouses or unlabeled large, plain structures. Signs of warfare remained: barricades, bullet strikes, scorch marks from explosives. The damage could’ve happened in the immediate aftermath of the war when chaos ruled, or yesterday.

  He’d heard plenty of stories from elders in his days running jobs for Wayne. Once people believed no more nukes were on the way, those who hadn’t died went crazy. Some ran about raiding things they could never have had in organized society: expensive cars, boats, fancy clothes. Others got testy about more practical concerns like food, clothing, and shelter. Degrees of violence varied depending on population, but he’d heard some horrible stories.

  Hate groups, long restrained from overt acts of criminality, ran amok with the collapse of order. People shot each other for silly things like skin tone, believing the wrong mythology, or speaking with an accent. Of course, not everyone needed an excuse. Some simply enjoyed killing. It hadn’t taken long for the ‘flares to burn down’ as Wayne said. The idiots burned hot and fizzled out fast, leaving the ‘honest folk who just wanted to live’ behind. So began the people Kevin thought represented the bulk of humanity. Everyone trying to survive, willing to help others who weren’t shitheads.

  And the Virus fucked them all.

  Zoryn directed him at an alley between two buildings that resembled aircraft hangars. He followed it to the end where it opened into an area full of white gravel. The three Resistance people sank out of view as they descended below the level of the ground, again waving for him to follow. Kevin nudged the car up to the side and peered down at an angled concrete wall that led to some manner of manmade river path―only massive. As far as he could see to the right, the channel continued with a slight leftward curve, spanned by a handful of overpasses. Zoryn and the others headed left toward a wall about a hundred yards away with six square tunnels.

  “Will the car make that grade?” Tris peered at the bottom.

  “Not without pain.”

  He figured it would scrape at the least, and ruin the bumper―possibly bend the frame―at worst. About a quarter mile to the right, he caught a glimpse of an access roadway and decided to go for it rather than drive straight down the angled concrete. With a spray of gravel, the Challenger took off, reaching the ramp in a few seconds. Though the turn at the bottom proved sharp, nothing scraped. He straightened out and drove along the artificial riverbed back to where the three waited for him. Their initial confusion at him going in the wrong direction gave way to expressions of understanding as he rolled to a stop nearby.

  “Maybe I’d have gone straight down if I had a truck.” He smiled. “Didn’t wanna thrash the frame.”

  Naomi nodded.

  They led him into the third tunnel from the left, one of two not blocked off by walls of shipping containers. A minute or so after driving into the tunnel, Uther waved at him to stop.

  He rolled down the window.

  “Can leave the car here. We’re close enough to the door.” Uther smiled.

  Once the headlights went out, the three Resistance people turned on flashlights.

  “You sure you trust them?” Kevin glanced at Tris.

  “Mostly. I got nothing else though. And they had that picture.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Would Nathan have sent that picture?”

  “If Nathan knew I was here, and sent them, there would’ve been gunfire already.” She opened her door. “Not saying we should drop our guard, but I trust them enough to see where this leads.”

  “Okay.” He held her hand for a few seconds. “If this goes south, I’m going to be selfish and die first. I don’t want to have to deal with the pain of losing you.”

  She thumped him on the arm. “Ass.”

  Kevin got out, shut down the car, and engaged the security code. The dry riverbed below the ground level would make a decent place to sit and wait for the portable chargers to work. Probably even leave the car in the tunnel and run the panels outside.

  “In here.” Zoryn walked up to a pale grey door with some rust spots.

  Uther opened it with a key and walked in.

  The other two followed.

  Kevin relaxed a little bit at their not wanting to flank them. He went in ahead of Tris.

  “Close it, please,” said Naomi.

  Tris backtracked to shut the door behind them.

  A short hallway led to a ninety-degree turn to the right, another door, and a long massive room thick with a pungent odor somewhere between seaweed and foot. The last vestiges of the setting sun leaked in from a narrow strip of windows near the ceiling, some two and a half stories overhead. Six massive machines that resembled boilers dominated the left three-quarters of the space. Pipes large enough for a man to crawl inside of connected them to the ceiling and the wall behind. Opposite the enormous machines stood a wall full of dials, buttons, and gauges. The repetitive nature of the pattern suggested each machine had a separate, identical control panel. Rust blanketed most surfaces, and the majority of the buttons and whatnot on the control wall had been smashed.

  Zoryn approached the panel opposite the fourth machine and typed a code on a keypad of silver buttons resembling those of an ancient phone.

  Kevin chuckled. This place had to be obsolete before the war.

  A loud click sounded from another cabinet covered in gauges and lights. The yellow, orange, and red bulbs looked as though they hadn’t seen electricity in a hundred years. Uther grasped the corner of the cabinet and opened it like a door. The interior had scorch marks from recent welding, where most of the guts had been removed to make space for a passageway containing metal stairs.

  A silver box about the size of a fist near the top left corner didn’t appear to be part of the original mechanism, and the new wires leading from it into the wall confirmed that feeling.

  “Interesting doorbell,” said Kevin.

  “Enclave sometimes comes looking for us here,” said Naomi.

  “What if they find the car?” asked T
ris.

  Zoryn smiled. “They don’t usually enter the tunnels unless we’ve kicked them where it hurts. They haven’t been doing much lately around here though. You should be long gone before any Hoplites come by.”

  “Those things wouldn’t fit in the tunnels anyway.” Kevin finally felt comfortable enough to sling the AK over his shoulder. “They’d have to come in on foot.”

  “I doubt they’d think anything of that car if they found it.” Naomi shook her head. “Just some ballsy Wildlander exploring.”

  Uther entered last, pulling the hidden door closed.

  Naomi and Zoryn jogged down the stairs to a catwalk, lighting the way. Three dark pipes ran along the middle of the curved tunnel ceiling. Dirty concrete patch jobs decorated the bare cinder block walls. Kevin coughed on the taste of wet dust, straining to make out details in the dark.

  Their guides stopped again for no apparent reason. Before Kevin could open his mouth to ask why, Naomi spotted her flashlight on a partially concealed door to the left and pounded her fist into it twice. A tense moment later, the door opened inward, flooding the area with bright light.

  Kevin squinted, grunting from the surprise. Zoryn stepped in past another pale man in a grey shirt and pants, who looked at Tris as though he’d seen a ghost. Naomi followed. Kevin entered behind her, still cringing at the change in light. Near the door, a flat panel monitor offered a green night vision view of the hallway outside, evidently from a tiny fiberoptic camera overhead.

  As his eyes acclimated, he looked around at several long tables with attached bench seats, a row of bunk beds arranged between freestanding lockers, a larger table without chairs that had a hologram of tunnels hovering over it, and one hallway leading deeper in.

  Eight more people, none of whom had armor on, froze in their tracks and stared at Tris.

  “Oh, please tell me that’s not what I think it is,” said a tiny girl who appeared around twelve or so. She could’ve been Naomi’s kid sister; they had the same white bob, only this girl had blood red eyes instead of green.