by Perrin Briar
“And yet… Perhaps disposing of you is the safest course,” the Controller said. “There’s no telling what trouble you might cause. Very well. I shall end you quickly. One of my soldiers shall feast upon your flesh and you will lose your power and you will live as one of my slaves forever. You shall exist as a living memory of my triumph here today.”
A gang of Undead rushed forward and seized Siren, holding her by her arms. The Controller nodded. The Undead bared their teeth in preamble to biting her. They lowered their mouths to feast upon her flesh. Siren screamed in preemptive pain…
But felt no bite.
She hesitantly opened her eyes, fearing the Controller was teasing her for his own pleasure, and would tell the Undead to bite the moment she opened her eyes. The Undead were frozen, teeth bared, saliva dribbling over her bare skin.
The Controller was stumbling back, like he was suffering from a battle with an invisible man.
“Go on!” he bellowed. “Finish her!”
But the Undead did not move. They dropped Siren, letting her fall to one side. They stepped forward and seized the Controller instead.
“No!” the Controller said. “What are you doing?”
He attempted to focus, but panicked, unused to the Undead not following his orders. Some of the Undead did hesitate, but still they grabbed him.
A figure stepped forward from amongst the Undead crowd. It was Quinn, his face bone-white, the lifeblood that had drained from him had formed patches on his clothes. He was no longer Quinn, but an Undead version. Siren searched his face, his body, for some sign of the flicker of life she associated with him, but found nothing.
Quinn stepped up to the Controller, still struggling to get free of his captors.
“You… can’t take my army from me!” he said.
“I already have,” Quinn said. “They are mine now. They belong to me.”
The Undead bit into the Controller at once. He roared and backed away, slamming into the barn wall. It was flimsy, and the entire building rocked under the combined weight of him and the Undead at his throat.
The barn’s struts creaked loudly. It was going to collapse.
“Quinn!” Siren shouted. “The barn!”
Quinn turned to look up at the barn walls. They were passing twenty degrees leaning over in one direction. Any farther, and they would be no stopping it.
“Siren!” he said. “No!”
He barreled forward and shoved Siren violently back. She sailed through the air as the barn finally gave up the ghost and collapsed on top of Quinn, the Controller, and the handful of Undead inside.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Siren got to her feet and ran toward the barn ruins.
“Quinn?” she said. “Quinn?”
As the dust settled over the remains, a silence filled the space like a thick blanket.
“I saw the approaching Undead army,” Gary said, rushing to her side. “What happened here? What’s going on?”
“The Controller…” Siren said. “The Controller was here…”
“Where?” Gary said, gripping Siren’s shoulders and shaking her. “Where is he?”
“There,” Siren said, pointing at the barn. “Quinn was in there too.”
“Quinn?” Gary said.
He didn’t know who Quinn was, that he was a part of his own guard. But that hardly seemed to matter right then.
“What happened here?” Gary said.
“The barn… collapsed,” Siren said.
There was so much to tell him, so much to keep concealed. Her mind was a scrambled mess. Siren couldn’t focus. She needed time to think this through.
“We have to get him out,” Siren said. “Rescue him from the wreckage.”
“Yes,” Gary said. “Without a leader, we are doomed.”
“Promise me you will find him, take care of him,” Siren said.
Gary searched her face.
“I will,” he said. “Where will you go?”
“I don’t know,” Siren said. “Somewhere far from here. Somewhere far away.”
“How will I contact you?” Gary said.
“You won’t,” Siren said.
Siren turned and ran as Gary and his guards began to carefully excavate the barn’s remains.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Siren headed back into busy Arthur’s Port along with her few possessions. Already, she heard whispered stories of the Controller having headed out of the city to fight the Undead by himself and save Second Chance. He was badly injured, but still alive. That rumor gave her the chills.
If it was true, and the Controller really was still alive, what would he do with Quinn? Another rumor spoke of how the Controller actually went to destroy the town of Second Chance. It never failed to surprise Siren how close rumors often came to the truth. The hardest part was knowing which part was the truth, of course.
With her experience of working the kitchens at Second Chance, Siren found work at one of the local kitchens easily enough. She got a great deal of questions and funny looks about having worked there, mining for the truth as people so often liked to do, but she gave nothing away.
Each morning and evening on her way back to the same hotel room she had shared with Quinn before, Siren passed the keep, running her ability to Sense over it. She identified hundreds of people inside and knew not one of them could possibly be Quinn. He was Undead now, and there was no way for her to trace him. But she could identify the emotions of all the other people, for someone who seemed distraught, worried or concerned about an injured man under their care.
So far, she had come up with nothing.
Even if she knew he was inside, trapped somewhere, how was she going to rescue him? The guards on the front entrance had been bolstered, refreshed every day. Even if she could work her magic, there was no way for her to compound her advancements with any single guardsman as they were constantly being changed.
Siren headed back to the hotel. Lydia was still on duty, reading her novels. Siren had nothing to trade with, so she’d had to bargain hard for her room.
For now, she would wait. It turned out, she didn’t have long to wait.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Siren was on her knees scrubbing the inside of a large iron pot when someone entered the kitchen and spoke with Cook. The man asked about a young woman, matching Siren’s description, and answered to the name of ‘Siren’.
The guard did not look like good news. Cook was a good, honest woman, and knew sometimes people came to work in her kitchen to avoid trouble. She told the guard she’d never seen or heard of anyone called Siren before.
The guard peered around the kitchen. It was the first time Siren was glad she was half-buried in a cooking pot. The moment the guard left, Cook approached Siren.
“I don’t mind you staying,” she said. “But you might want to change your name and appearance for a little while.”
“Thank you,” Siren said. “But I think it’s time I beat it.”
“Take some food with you,” Cook said. “It might be a while before you get a good mouthful.”
Siren kept her hood and head down as she returned to Lydia’s hotel. The old woman was still reading when she moved up the stairs. Some people would never change.
Siren opened her room door to grab her things and immediately realized her mistake.
A guard was standing in the middle of her room, rifling through her things. She turned to run but sailed into an even bigger guard. She tossed a javelin of Compulsion at him, but it was no good. These men had dedicated their lives to following the orders of the Controller. Even with a million years she would never be able to change their minds.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The guards escorted Siren to the keep, through the main entrance, and to the stairs. They surprised her when they began leading her up them rather than down into the dungeons.
She went up and up and up, until she recognized the room they were taking her to. The Controller’s apartment. She wa
s ushered to the left, the room she and the other women had been held what felt like a lifetime ago.
The guards stood to attention on either side of the door. After a few minutes, the doors to the Controller’s apartment opened, revealing Hamilton.
“Siren?” Hamilton said. “You’re a hard girl to find.”
“Not hard enough,” Siren said.
Hamilton smiled at that. There was a joviality in his voice and demeanor, a far cry from the dour expression he’d sported when she’d first met him.
“The Controller’s been asking for you,” Hamilton said.
The blood drained from Siren’s face. So, he was still alive. Which meant Quinn was in the dungeons. At least now she was inside the keep. She might be able to influence them both out of there.
“Our best physicians are caring for him,” Hamilton said. “He’ll be fighting fit again in no time.”
“That’s a relief,” Siren said.
“He wants to see you now,” Hamilton said.
I’ll bet he does, Siren thought. The last time she had seen him, he’d made a threat that they would attempt to finish what they had started before, during their previous meeting. She shivered. It would never come to that. She would rather die first.
Hamilton opened the door so Siren could enter. Memories of the last time she was there brought a cold flush to her cheeks. A figure sat on the throne-like armchair in the middle of the room.
So, it really was true. The Controller had somehow survived the building collapse. Siren had been harboring a secret desire that somehow everything would work out, that the good guys would win. But with the Controller sitting here now… There was no hope. Second Chance would be destroyed.
The Controller raised a hand. Hamilton bowed and left. The doors behind Siren crashed shut with a finality like a guillotine blade slicing home.
Then the Controller grinned. A mischievous grin Siren knew only too well.
“Quinn?” Siren said. “But I thought… I thought…”
“That I’d died?” Quinn said.
Siren nodded.
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Quinn said. “After the building collapsed, the guards began to excavate. They found me and dragged me out of the wreckage.”
“They thought you were the Controller?” Siren said.
“Yes,” Quinn said. “They brought me back here and patched me up. With all this makeup on to hide the fact I’m Undead, I could be anyone.”
“Where’s the real Controller?” Siren said.
“Still buried under the barn,” Quinn said. “At least, he was. Now, he’s in the bellies of a dozen undead. I wouldn’t make the same mistake he did. He was still alive too when they came to him. But there is no fighting against an Undead horde when it’s hungry.
“My power, the influence I have over the Undead, has changed. I’m much more powerful now. It feels like before, I was using a dial-up connection. Now, I have high-speed broadband. And yet… There’s something else there. A darkness, a taint, that I’ve never felt before.”
“Do you think you can control it?” Siren said.
“Yes,” Quinn said. “It’s only a smudge, nothing to worry about.”
“With you as the Controller, we could do a lot of good,” Siren said. “We could lower the offering, give people more food and…”
Quinn shook his head.
“No,” he said. “People couldn’t be trusted in the old world to use what they had wisely. They can’t now either. Remember all the borrowing and debt people had? No. We’ll keep the offering the way it is.”
“But why?” Siren said.
“Because we’re going to build a new world,” Quinn said, getting to his feet. “We wanted to convince the Controller to tell the other leaders about our idea. Now, we don’t have to. We can do it ourselves. In just a few days, the other powerful community leaders will join us here. This is our chance.”
“Step one of our plan is complete,” Siren said. “Even if we didn’t achieve it the same way we expected.”
“Yes,” Quinn said. “Now comes the hard part.”
Part Two
Prologue
Across from the mainland was Staten Island. The bridges had been severed and though the Undead pressed against them, they did not attempt the small jump necessary to get to the other side. Some fell, sailing into the water below, getting swept off by the ocean, never to be seen again. At least, not in this part of the world.
At the Staten Island end of the bridge was a contingent of Chinese soldiers. They kept a lazy eye on the Undead as they played games of mahjong. They looked up when they saw someone hacking through the Undead, forcing them over the side.
A man on horseback. If there was proof of someone not being infected, it was that. The rider waited patiently as the Chinese soldiers lay the board across the gap for the horseman to cross it.
He got down and reached into a saddlebag. The Chinese soldiers were armed, guns aimed at the figure, ready to fire at a moment’s notice. But there was no need, as the messenger took a letter out of the pocket and handed it to the lead guard with a slight bow of respect. Nothing soothed the ego of a Chinaman than paying the proper respect.
The Chinese leader appraised the message and the man who had delivered it, then uttered a command. They turned and headed toward their community.
****
High in the Mount Mitchell mountains lived a tough, capable people. Currently, they were embroiled in a melee battle with a small horde of Undead. The bearded leader whirled his great hammer around, scything through a pair of Undead, knocking their heads clean off their shoulders. He roared like a Viking, and wore animal skins in a type of cape.
After the battle, he turned to the others and raised his hammer with a single hand, bellowing a cry of victory. His men—many of them women of sturdy breeding—yelled in response, pumping their fists in the air.
“Sire,” one of the fighters said to the leader.
He nodded in the direction of a cliff face. The leader turned to see what his fighter was pointing to. A man on horseback.
****
In the desert of Utah, the leader of the Desert Rats walked through town, discussing their problems. Water shortage was always the key problem. Half of it evaporated before they could get it back to their community. Each day they moved closer to the well, fearful the Undead might stumble past their defenses and fall into it, poisoning their water supply for good. So far, that hadn’t happened.
One of his guards led a messenger toward him. The messenger handed him a letter, before being escorted somewhere else to rest and relax. The leader broke the Arthur’s Port seal and read the message. Afterwards, he thought for a moment, before tossing it in the fire. He turned and walked away, his entourage on his heels.
****
The same message was being delivered all over the country. At sea, to the community that survived floating on a collection of boats, to a fort occupied by the Blacks, to a prison, where the Hispanics dwelt.
It was the end of the world, and people naturally gravitated toward what they knew, toward those who looked like them, who thought like them, just when they should have been mixing and sharing ideas and opinions to develop new ideas. But there was no fighting human nature.
Now, their time had come.
Chapter One
The streets were silent, a single street dog padding toward an alley where it would sleep for the night. It licked at its paws, bloody and pained after a long day of walking. It started when a man stepped into the alley from the dark recessed shadows.
The dog was surprised because it had very sharp senses and always knew when someone was there. Its very survival depended on it. It lowered its head, unable to run fast on its injured feet and prepared for its own end.
But the man did not harm it. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a black mask. He put it on over his face and stepped into the street. The dog lowered its head and slept. The man had a dangerous smell to him
. The dog was only too glad he’d moved on. He wasn’t his target. God help whoever was his target.
****
The man hooded man looked up at the wall of the great keep. It was sheer, but had been made with large bricks, which would give him all the grip he needed to scale it. He took out his twin blades and held them firmly in his hands. He approached the wall, looked left to right and, content no one was there, began to climb.
Shink shink. Shink shink.
The blades were diamond-edged, as sharp as anything the old world had produced. Not everything from the old world was lost. His skills had been developed in the old world, and rather than see a decline in his abilities, he had seen an uptick.
While there were people, there would be politics. There would always be a need for someone like him to dispose of their enemies quickly and effectively. He slammed the blades into the mortar between each brick, pulling himself up with his torso to slice the blade into the next crease in the wall. On the tips of his boots were similar blades, and those too he used to slam into the wall, ascending.
Within minutes, he was at the top. He did not pull himself up yet. There would be guards on duty. But he had observed the way they moved. Though their system was uniform, there was an element of randomness to it too, and that was something he simply couldn’t exploit.
He would have to rely on that most unforgiving of elements of any plan: luck. He would have to roll the die and see what he came out with. If he had to kill a guard, he would do so, but he wouldn’t do it if it was not necessary.
He listened, but heard no one on top of the wall. It means someone was coming, or else leaving, and he would not move until they had turned and were heading away. He’d noticed from his many observations that the guards began coming before the guards leaving had even gotten halfway back to the doorways. He would need to be quick.