by Sean Platt
Adam stopped cold, his foot an inch above the stair. He fell back a step and tightened his grip, both on the railing and on his hammer. There was laughter above, but it wasn’t friendly. It held the edges of menace, the sort of laughter that Adam had heard throughout his lifetime, mostly from guys like Tommy, Morgan, Daniel, and all the other bullies he’d known in his life.
The part of Adam that had spent months in City Watch under Keller’s care, training hard to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a City Watcher, wanted to charge the stairs with only his hammer and confront the waiting danger. The rest of him, the part that cried when City Watchers took his books as a child, wanted to flee—down the stairs, out of the building, and into the street as fast as he could.
Adam finally listened to the coward inside him. He slowly turned, then took a step. He followed with a second, slower step; then his heel landed on the back of a bottle and sent him tumbling down the stairs.
Adam could feel himself flying through his life’s longest second, then his back crashed onto the concrete and his head smacked the wall hard enough to burst a melon. He bit his lip to keep from crying out, but even the sudden metallic taste of blood in his mouth couldn’t stop his yelp.
The upstairs fell silent.
A few seconds later, shadows fell on his body from above as he lay trembling and hurt on the landing. Adam forced himself to stand and face the strangers.
A group of men stood on the flight above. A half dozen it seemed, but with so many shadows he couldn’t be sure. The one in front, the shortest, must be the leader. He cocked an eyebrow, looked back to his group, grinned, then turned to Adam as he took a step down.
“Ay, are you one of dem Darwin players?”
Before the stranger had finished the question, he’d drawn a pistol from his coat and had it aimed between Adam’s unblinking eyes. It was an old-fashioned gun, the kind that shot lead. It took everything inside Adam not to turn or flinch. He knew they’d see it as weakness.
Gun on Adam, the leader said, “Ooh, we got ourselves a reward, folks!”
Adam cleared his throat as he stood, one fist balled, the other tight on the hammer. He’d rather die like a man than run like a dog. That didn’t mean he needed to charge heedlessly into his own death, though. He could use his words and maybe convince the men above to spare him.
Maybe they weren’t looking for blood.
Maybe he had a chance.
Adam opened his mouth to speak, then saw how much the stranger’s smile reminded him of Tommy, and all hope was lost. So instead he spun around and leapt to the landing below. He ignored the shock as it tore through his body, turned the corner, ran down another six stairs, then jumped the remainder. At the next landing, he ducked into the corridor and ran down the long hallway without looking back.
He kept running, racing down the hall as footsteps echoed behind him. He had no idea if the door at the end was locked, or what he would do if it were. He didn’t really have a choice, though. He could hear his pursuers rounding the corner behind him when he reached the door, and he grabbed the handle and gave it a twist.
No luck.
But as he frantically searched for something to smash the lock with, he noticed a hallway to his left that he hadn’t seen before.
He ran harder. He had only seconds. When they rounded the corner this time they’d send a bullet into his back.
The doors on either side of the hall were all closed, and he couldn’t take a chance to try any of them. He only had the window ahead.
Just 40 feet from the window, Adam had already made up his mind to jump. Death would be quick, his pain would be over as soon as it started. A leap from above would certainly be better than whatever was running behind him. He wouldn’t see Ana again or taste his revenge against Keller, but at least his rotten life would finally be over. Maybe he’d be reunited with his mother and father if something really followed death.
If . . .
Heavy breath harmonized with laughs of victory behind him as his pursuers realized they had Adam cornered. He pictured the leader raising his gun and tried not to imagine lead ripping into his flesh.
Now just 10 feet from the window, he steeled himself to do what he must. Maybe his bold decision would be rewarded by a soft fall. God knew there was enough trash littering every corner of The Outback. Maybe he’d get lucky this time.
Maybe.
A few feet from the window, though, Adam’s feet found something wet and sticky.
With his second fall in only minutes, he slipped in what smelled like blood and fell flat on his face. On the ground, Adam was shocked to realize he still had his hammer. He tightened his grip, got to his knees, and held it up in the air, turning to face his attackers.
“What are you gonna do with that?” one of the men chortled. “Build a wall?”
The leader laughed loudly, waited for the chorus of echoes behind him, then took a step forward, raising his gun. “Think it can stop a—”
The man’s head burst into crimson gore. The first shot was followed by many, until his attackers were painting the wooden floor with their bodies and Adam heard a series of clicks.
He flinched. Adam had been prepared for death and now feared facing something worse. The two men standing before him were garbed in City 6 blue. One was a giant of a man with a thick brown beard and long curly hair.
And the other was . . . the dark-skinned, green-eyed man from his youth.
Colton reached down and held out his hand. Adam hesitated, so his father’s old friend reached down farther, grabbed Adam gently by the arm, and lifted the boy to his feet.
“Come with us, son. We’re getting you out of these Games.”
CHAPTER 5—ANA LOVECRAFT
“Did you know my father?” Ana asked the young girl.
“Yes, he stayed with us when he was left for dead after The Games.” The girl spoke with an unrecognizable accent, slight but noticeable. Her speech was slow too, as if trying to get her words right. Ana couldn’t tell if she was nervous or normally spoke another language. She had never met someone who spoke anything other than English. Ana had heard of people speaking Spanish, French, and even Chinese, but no other languages were allowed in school.
With a bull’s diplomacy, Katrina said, “Jonah stayed with you? Where?”
Calla looked back at the eldest boy, a tall, skinny kid still in his mask.
The boy nodded. Calla said, “We’re 15 minutes away in an old train station.”
“How many of you are there?” Katrina asked.
The boy interjected, “Enough.”
Ana met Katrina’s eyes, trying to communicate that the woman should drop her gruffness, lest they scare off the group.
Katrina seemed to get the message. She shut up, reached into her backpack, and pulled out some gauze, tending to Liam’s still bleeding socket. Ana cringed as he winced in pain.
She turned to Calla and her crew. “You did this? To the orb?”
“Yes,” the boy said. “But please don’t destroy it. We can take it back home and tinker with it. Use The State’s tech against them. We picked up on a City 6 transmission, instructions to draw you out. They suspected that you might try to save your brother.”
“So you came to save us?” Ana asked. “Why?”
Calla met her eyes, “Because I owe your father.”
Ana was about to ask for details, but she had more pressing questions, chief among them about Adam. “Have you heard anything else . . . about my brother?”
The boy shook his head. “They didn’t say anything, but we can check back home to see if Egan’s heard more.”
Calla looked at Liam, who hadn’t spoken. He seemed like he was having trouble standing.
“How badly is he hurt?” Calla asked.
“Besides his eye, I think his eardrums might have burst. Can you help him?”
“I think so, if you come with us.”
Ana turned to Katrina, and whispered. “What should we do? Do you think w
e should continue to the Halo? Or get Liam some help first?”
“We need to regroup. The State was expecting us to make a move for Adam. We need to figure out what’s happening and make sure we don’t walk into any more traps. Plus, Liam needs to rest and heal.”
“Come,” Calla said, impatient. “We’ve got a skidder waiting.”
“A skidder?” Katrina asked. “How the hell did you manage to get one of those?”
The boy laughed as he went over to the orb and leaned down to pick it up with both hands. He stood there, the orb concealing most of his chest and torso. “You think you’re the only ones causing trouble for The State? We stole it from ’em.”
This made Katrina laugh too, and supporting Liam between them, she and Ana entered the woods and climbed into the back of the large floating war truck.
***
They arrived at the underground train station without incident and stepped from the truck into a cavernous bay, oddly stacked with parts from seemingly every sort of vehicle, orb, and robot from the present to what looked like the ancient past.
Bright lights hummed above as they made their way toward a set of red double doors where a young man in gray coveralls stood guard with a blaster rifle.
The man, who couldn’t have been older than 24, looked Ana and Katrina up and down like a dog eying a roast. Ana looked back at Liam to see that, yes, he had noticed despite holding rags over his left eye, and no, he wasn’t pleased.
Calla ignored the guard, though, and led them through the doors. She took them on a tour of The Station, which is what they called their home, explaining that it had been an underground train station built before The Plague. She said the tunnels stretched for miles, though Station residents had sealed most of them to prevent bandits from raiding their home.
The tunnels were mostly industrial gray, some blue, and plastered with old posters announcing THE MAGLIVE TRAIN with travel photos showing wide open vistas—brilliant swaths of green beckoning you to lands lost long before. Most of the halls were dimly lit by wide squares of light, which only flickered on as they entered.
The place felt claustrophobic and lifeless, save for their own echoing footsteps and voices as they walked.
After turning another corner in an endless series of The Station’s maze, Ana smelled something that both pulled her back to her childhood and made her stomach growl.
“Is someone baking . . . bread?” It seemed like forever since she’d smelled fresh bread.
“Yes,” Calla said with a smile. “And through these doors ahead, we are home.”
Two more guards stood at a set of blue double doors, one a young woman of about 20, the other an older, heavyset man. Both wore City Watch uniforms, though they’d patched over The City Watch insignia with skulls, and neither wore the visors, likely useless without the associated City Watch tech. A shock stick dangled from each guard’s belt.
“Hello, Calla,” the woman said with a smile. “And hello, newcomers.”
The older man, while not smiling, wasn’t unpleasant. “Welcome,” he said as they opened the doors to what Calla called home.
Ana stared, wanting to believe her eyes, hard as it was. There was a large central space with people talking to one another and children playing, which was surrounded by what looked to be former offices turned into homes.
The walls were alive with earth tones: warm terra cotta that swirled into an almost chocolate brown. Up top, maybe to mimic the sky, there was a line of icy blue that smeared into a smudgy sunset of yellow and orange at the room’s edges. Two walls were covered with curtains, one deep green and the other a rich burgundy. Neither really matched the rest of the room but both were somehow warm. Ana felt suddenly safe, seemingly inhaling their color.
In addition to the vibrant colors of the walls, children’s paintings lined them and decorated the windows of the homes. Many of the windows were also covered with curtains, and there were wooden doors with numbers like addresses, like many homes in City 6. Strings of colored lights ran along the ceiling and lined the place in a beauty that could only come from somewhere called home.
People congregated in the halls, conversing. Children played, many smiling at Ana, Katrina, and Liam.
Ana asked how many people called The Station home. Calla ignored the firm look from the boy who’d helped rescue them and said, “Sixty-four.” Then, after a moment, as if realizing she’d slipped with such a dangerous confession, added, “But we’re all very well trained. So don’t think of trying anything.”
Ana tried not to laugh at the girl’s attempt to carry a swagger she couldn’t quite manage. As Calla led them down the wide hallway, they were greeted by numerous people. Many seemed to recognize her. She assumed they’d somehow watched The Games down here, though she had yet to see a screen besides the Orb’s.
Katrina and Liam looked uncomfortable as they smiled and waved. Ana reached for Liam’s hand and squeezed it. She smiled and mouthed, “I love you.”
He mouthed the words back and seemed to relax—though not entirely. Old habits die hard.
They turned with the hallway and reached a single black door at the end.
“This is my father’s office. He’s The Station’s leader.”
Ana noticed that the girl had said “office,” not “home,” but didn’t question her.
“He would like to talk to you first, Ana. If you two don’t mind waiting.”
Katrina turned to Ana, her lips pursed, looking like she minded quite a lot.
Ana spoke up before the other woman could voice her concerns, though. “OK.”
“And I’ll take you both to see Father Truth so he may help you look better, mister,” Calla said.
Ana couldn’t tell if Liam understood the girl’s mouthed words or not. But he didn’t resist when Katrina took his hand and nodded as Calla led them back the way they’d come.
Liam waved goodbye.
Ana turned and stepped into the office.
A man stood to greet her. “Happy to meet you, Miss Lovecraft. My name is Charles Egan, but everyone just calls me Egan.” He extended his hand.
“Pleased,” she said, shaking his warm palm.
He was a short man in his 40s with dark, wild hair and tired eyes. He was wearing a dark-brown coat, black shirt, beige pants—and a relaxed look, as opposed to the more formal clothing she’d seen other leaders wearing.
“Please, have a seat.” He waved to the chair opposite his own, which stood behind a large wooden desk piled with a small mountain of papers. She sat, noticing that there wasn’t much in the office to indicate what sort of man Egan might be. No photos, paintings, or even old books like Ana had seen in the few offices she’d ever been in. She wondered how much time the man actually spent in the room. Maybe he was more of a people’s leader, spending community time in the living area rather than tucked away in his own space all day like those who ruled The Cities.
“I hope your journey here wasn’t too eventful,” Egan said.
“Not after your daughter and the others took out the hunter orb. How did you all know we’d be there?”
“Because I intercepted a State transmission. They were planning on you trying to get your brother. They want you and Liam dead . . . for real this time.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. Thanks for saving us.”
“You’re most welcome. But I must admit that my motives weren’t entirely altruistic.”
“Oh?” Ana said, a nervousness stirring her stomach.
“Yes, you see, I understand that you may hold a cure to this zombie plague.”
She shifted in her seat, suddenly wishing that either Liam or Katrina were in the room. She felt like the situation was about to get quickly out of control.
“What do you mean?” she asked, playing dumb.
“It’s OK, Miss Lovecraft, your secret is safe with me. I know you were infected, and that you were also cured. That makes you the only known person to come back from infection.”
“What makes you say
that?” she said, not willing to concede the information just yet. Ana wondered if that was also overheard in The State transmission. And if so, how did The State find out?
Egan just smiled at her hedging and said, “Relax, Ana. We have a mutual friend. Dr. Oswald has been staying here since he fled Hydrangea.”
“Oswald is here?” Ana said, feeling a bit more at ease, and eager to see him.
“Yes, and I’ll bring him in a bit. But first, I wanted to ask you a favor. I need you to help the doctor work on his cure.”
“I’m not a doctor or a scientist.”
“I mean that I need you to stay here until he finds the cure. We believe we’re close, but he’s run out of your blood and needs more to continue his experiments.”
Ana shook her head, “I’m sorry, Mr. Egan, but I need to leave here as soon as possible. My brother, Adam, is in The Games. I need to save him. He’ll never make it out on his own.”
“I know, and I’m sorry to ask you, but at the same time, I can’t just let you leave.”
“What do you mean you can’t let me leave? I am not staying here.”
Egan swallowed, ran his hands through his hair, and blinked back tears. “Believe me, Miss Lovecraft, I would not ask if it weren’t so important for us to find the cure.”
“Why?” she asked, something about the tone of his voice giving her pause. “Are you infected?”
“No,” Egan said, “my daughter, Calla, is. And you’re her only hope.”
CHAPTER 6—PROVISIONAL LEADER OF THE STATE KELLER
City 1
Keller knew he was dreaming: life hadn’t been so kind in a while.
The sky was too blue for reality, the clouds too white, and the air too sweet. The music was loud and bright but in no way grating to his ears.
He wanted more. Here, the music made him happy and filled his son with joy. Keller planted his hand on Joshua’s shoulder and let it rest, lightly squeezing, telling himself it was okay to inhale the dream. He would wake to it missing—the sky, the clouds, the too-sweet air—but he wouldn’t leave before savoring as much of it as possible.