by neetha Napew
“I’ll lay down some fire once you guys get rollin’.”
“Right.” Rourke nodded to the younger man. “Natalia—get the bikes started.” Natalia moved away from the air lock door, Rourke throwing his weight hard against it now— it was the first time he had realized how strong Natalia was, despite her size.
The roar of one of the Harley’s coming to life. The sound of an engine being gunned again and again.
More pressure against the door.
The sound of the second Harley starting, Rourke shouting to Paul Rubenstein.
“Run for it—go on!”
“Count of five?”
“One—two—three—four—FIVE!”
“See ya,” and Paul Rubenstein jumped back from the door, running, Rourke looking back once as the younger man mounted his machine, the engine revving once, then the bike tearing off across the mountain top.
“I’m ready,” Natalia shouted.
Rourke looked back at her—both M-16s were leveled at the doorway. “Now!” Rourke released the door, half stumbling back, hitting the rock surface, the door flying open, cannibals starting to pour from inside, Natalia’s M-16s firing over his head, Rourke dragging himself across the rock surface, clear of her guns now, to his feet.
He straddled the Jet Black Low Rider, shouting to Natalia as he rammed fresh magazines into the little Detonics pistols, then stuffed them back in his side pockets. “Now!”
The gunfire ceased, shouts and the bizarre speech of the cannibals filling the air—the pressure of Natalia on the bike, her hands tapping his shoulders, the pressure of her arms around his waist as he gunned the bike, away, the blur of a stone axe as it crossed the edge of his peripheral vision, shouts, the explosive sounds of the Hai-ley’s exhaust system as he let the machine out, the chatter of subgunfire from ahead, Paul Ruben-stein firing the Schmeisser into the air to hold them back.
Then Rourke was even with Rubenstein’s bike, Rubenstein’s machine charging ahead as well, the twin exhaust systems deafening in the clear, thin air. Ahead the mountain seemed to evaporate, to drop away. “To the left—hurryl” It was Natalia shouting from behind him, Rourke twisting the Harley’i fork, balancing it out with his combat-booted feet, wrenching the bike into a hard left, following along the edge of the flat expanse of rock. “Just ahead—a sharp right and you’re clear of the mountain top, John!” Rourke nodded, clamping the cigar tighter between his teeth, squinting despite the dark-lensed aviator-style sunglasses he wore, Natalia shouting loud now. “Twenty yards—then turn.” Rourke slowed the Harley, then Natalia shouted, “Here!
Here!”
Rourke wrenched the bike right, blind, not seeing the trail, but trusting Natalia as he had so many times before. The Harley lurched under him, bounced. Before them, running steeply downward but not so steeply as to be unnavigable, was a trail, the valley spreading out below.
Rourke slowed the bike again, balancing the machine with his feet as the trail dodged right then left then right. He glanced back once—Paul Rubenstein was coming along the trail and the cannibals were already gone from sight. John Rourke remembered to breathe then.
Chapter Sixty-One
They had intercepted Michael and Madison in the valley, Natalia’s route across the mountain and then down, despite a greater distance, faster than Michael’s navigating the bike down the steeper trail by walking it. They had ridden long into the night, the moon bright, traveling on until nearly dawn to be far gone from the Place and the ones Madison had called Them. A sparse meal—Madison had tried meat again and Michael had patiently explained to her that the meat of domestic animals or wild game was all i lght to eat. She had not eaten much, John Rourke had noticed.
They had slept a few hours, Rourke, his son and Paul Rubenstein each taking a two-hour shift on guard, then taking to the trail again without breakfast, by midmorning.
They settled into a schedule, reaching the Retreat the prime objective, stopping once to leave the route and locate one of the strategic fuel sites to gas up the Harleys and the spare gas canisters, then to move on. John Rourke and his son had agreed—to return to the wooded area where Michael had found the parachute, then to fan out and search for the wreckage of the aircraft to learn its source.
But after Christmas,
They had ridden hard through the day, and long into the night now, the Retreat so close and the date December twenty-fourth. Christmas—always a time Sarah had at once enjoyed and found somehow sad. John Rourke had no desire to make this Christmas sadder. ‘s They had crossed the remains of a paved road and started up the long mountain road toward the main entrance of the Retreat, John Rourke rolling hack the cuff of his bomber jacket to read the face of the Rolex—it was smudged with the light snow as soon as he rolled back the cuff and he wiped this away to better read the watch face. It was nearly midnight—and very soon, before it was actually Christmas morning, they would be “home”. He felt a smile cross his lips. “Home,” he murmured.
“John!”
It was Natalia’s voice from behind him, muffled sounding, his back shielding her from the wind.
“What is it?” he said over his shoulder, slowing the Harley Low Rider under them.
“For a moment—stop and look up there.”
Rourke slowed the Harley even more, making a wide arc with it, Michael with Madison behind him stopping just ahead of them, Paul stopping beside them. “We’re almost home, Dad—what’s up?”
Paul Rubenstein stopped beside them, laugh-ing. “You didn’t remember to wish me happy Hanukkah, but I’ll wish you Merry Christmas anyway.” Rourke reached out and clasped his old friend on the back. “Happy Hanukkah then.”
“You can remember me on May Day,” Natalia laughed, “but look up there—all of you.”
The snow was a shower, the sky surprisingly clear, a wide opening in the clouds to the east.
Light. One. Then another, then another, and still more, pinpoints, moving, “The radio—we can signal them!” Michael shouted. ^”Holy shit—the Eden Project, it’s gotta be,” Paul Rubenstein murmured. “Yes.” John Rourke nodded. “I doubt they’ll be able to read our signal—but, maybe, we can try to—“ But the clouds covered the opening in the sky now and the pinpoints of moving light were no longer visible. Had the atmosphere been the way it was when the Eden Project fleet had left the Earth five centuries earlier to travel in cryogenic sleep to the edge of the solar system and back, the shuttles would never have been visible at all, Rourke realized. “They will find us—or we’ll find them,” Natalia said from behind him. It would be a long night, Rourke knew—listening for radio signals, alternately transmitting, observing in the cold from the top of the mountain to attempt to get a fix on the crafts if they passed overhead again. Coincidence or providence, Rourke wondered. He dismissed the question. Rourke twisted in the saddle to better see Natalia’s face. He took her face in his hands, the wind catching at her hair, her cheeks cold to the touch, her lips drawing out into a smile. “Merry Christmas, John*” He smiled, wondering—but he drew her face toward him, kissing her lips, holding her there.
Chapter Sixty-Two
All was ready, his meager things prepared for the journey—an historic journey, he had told himself.
The old wounds bothered him not at all.
His speed with a gun was fast—very fast. Faster, he wondered? Faster than John Rourke?
The vial of the cryogenic serum he had paid so much to obtain when he had first learned of the Eden Project long before the Night of The War. The gunfight—he had lost.
But some few of his faithful—he would sing their names to the pages of history—they had taken him, found him the best of care in secret and when the inevitability of it had been known, helped him to survive. He closed his eyes tightly, a pressure behind them he could feel, then opening them, staring at the sky—it was already Christmas. And the present he so much wanted to bestow—the gift of death— he could not yet give. “Soon,” he whispered to the morning stars, to the hor
izon beyond the mountain top where he had forged his plans, begun it all. Footsteps crunched in the snow behind him and he turned around. “All is ready. But there are strange signals coming over the radio—it is perhaps the time. The words are garbled—but I think they are English. It is a signal like none I have ever heard.”
“The Eden Project. So much the better—so much the better.”
“There is no way to be certain.”
“I am certain. When the pain was all that consumed me, it seemed somehow to deepen my perception, to heighten my awareness—I could feel their presence before you spoke of it to me. We leave, then.”
The other man, swathed in arctic parka and ski toque, raised his right hand in salute, “Yes, Comrade Colonel.”
The snow through which he trod had been virgin until he had made his imprint on it, he thought as he walked, the subordinate following him. It would be that way with this new world as well.