“Am I wrong?” Tris looked over at Zara again. “Unless my memory’s foggy, I look the same right now as I did when I got my diploma.”
“Nanites, Tris. The damn Nanites are keeping us healthy. Maybe they slow aging down too.”
Tris tapped her left foot. “Okay… I didn’t think of that.”
“Now I’m curious.” Zara sat up. “Where were you going with that whole creep show?”
Daylight intensified. The horizon to the left took on shades of pink and blue, illuminating endless fields of scrub brush and a few dead cars.
“A couple days after graduation, security forces showed up and brought me to a medical check.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. It’s routine. Part of getting certified as an adult.”
Tris held up one hand. “Bear with me here. They hooked us up to the scanner, right?”
“Right.”
“What if that wasn’t a scanner. What if the day we went in there, we got… I dunno… frozen or something. When we woke up, it was in VR. Everything that happened from that day until you got chosen to come kill me was all electrons.” A flicker of light up ahead in the oncoming lane caught Tris’ eye. “When I thought a hacker was helping me escape, he said the door to my cell would open at nine in the morning. I went to bed that night. Took me forever to fall asleep. When I woke up, the room had a toilet and my hair was damp.”
“You’re imagining things.” Zara leaned forward. “Headlights coming.”
Two white spots shimmered beneath a royal blue sky. A sedan-shaped pile of welded steel plating approached. A head and binoculars protruded from a hole in the middle of the roof.
“I see them.” Tris stared at the car, noting a pair of small miniguns on the hood. “I think I was in stasis, not getting older. When I ‘escaped,’ they let me out and put me in a fake cell. I met up with the resistance and they plugged me in to VR for combat training. Sometimes it was so real I couldn’t tell I was basically dreaming.”
Zara turned in her seat as the other car zoomed past them, watching it. “I think you’re brain’s been going off on a wild tangent. If you’re right, that would mean they put you on ice before you broke the law. Why would they do that?”
The car threw up a dust cloud as it whipped around and rocked to a halt. A second later, two geysers of sand spat out from the rear tires and it accelerated after them.
Tris shifted her gaze from the rearview mirror to Zara. “They’re chasing us, and… I don’t have an answer for that.”
Zara reached up and pulled the helmet down over her head. “Whoever installed this thing should’ve put in a chair on a rotating mount.” She got up on her knees to face rearward, the turreted .50 whining overhead as it followed her facing.
Tris checked the mirror again; the car raced up on her so fast she felt like the van wasn’t even moving. “Shit they’re―”
When the .50 cal fired, the air inside the van vibrated as though a pair of giants walloped the sides with hammers. Tris screamed from the surprise, though she couldn’t hear herself. The change from machinegun firing to car exploding behind them flowed in a seamless transition of roaring.
“I love this thing,” yelled Zara. “It’s like a wind-up toy version of the MM-90.”
“Hoplite?” yelled Tris.
“No, Gladiator or bigger. The ’90s got too much recoil for a hoplite. Why are you yelling?”
Tris leaned left to check on the rear view, eyeing a flaming hulk too far behind them to make out details. She let off a breath of relief. “That damn gun is loud.”
“What?” asked Zara.
Tris frowned at her.
Zara laughed and pushed the helmet off, letting the wires tug it back up against the roof. Sleep deprivation helped the mood go contagious, and Tris found herself almost in tears laughing along with her, and couldn’t even remember what had struck her funny after a while. Twelve minutes later, when the wonderful sight of a red Roadhouse sign appeared against the brightening sky, intermittent chuckles still broke the silence.
Tris pulled up to a charging port and stopped. She climbed down, shut the door, and walked around front. Zara zoomed by, heading for the building. The urgency of not having stopped for six hours got worse at the sight of her friend stiff-legging it for the entrance. Tris grunted as she stooped to plug in the cable behind the license plate, then hurried inside.
An athletic black man with a shaved head, white tank top, and broad smile looked up from behind the counter. A pair of MAC-10 submachine guns hung at his sides, on crisscrossed straps.
“Hey, Mac.” Tris raced across a room full of tables and square wood-paneled support columns covered in pre-war sports team memorabilia. “Be right back.”
Two other people sat at tables at opposite ends of the room. A dark-skinned man in a puffy Jamaican hat who looked in his middle twenties near the back hallway, and a weathered, bearded man with a reddish tan hunched over a plate two tables in from the door.
Unfortunately, Mac’s Roadhouse had one bathroom. Fortunately, someone kept it clean. Tris bounced in the hallway for a little while, waiting. When the door opened, she grabbed Zara, pulled her out, and rushed in. Tris dropped her jeans and leapt onto the bowl, ignoring Zara’s laughter.
“Okay, maybe I should’ve stopped on the side of the road.” She groaned with relief.
Soon, they helped themselves to a table against the wall opposite the bar, about halfway between front and back. A pretty girl of about fourteen, her skin as dark as Mac’s, emerged from a bead curtain behind the counter, in a denim dress, white apron, and flip-flops. Reedy and graceful, the girl made Tris feel less skinny.
“Hi. I’m Denise. Can I get you anything to eat or drink?” The teen smiled, baring teeth too perfect for anyone in the Wildlands.
Tris blinked. “Are you Mac’s daughter?”
The girl nodded. “Yes.”
“What’s good?” asked Zara.
Tris smiled at her. “Food definitely sounds good. Need a charge on number four, and beds.”
“One room is fine,” said Zara.
“Umm.” Denise tilted her head side to side. “We’ve got deer and goat steak, chicken soup, bean soup, bread, cheese…”
“I’m not sure I could eat goat. They’re too cute.” Tris fidgeted. “Deer steak I guess and some bread.”
“Cute?” Denise laughed. “Try living around them… For you, ma’am?”
“Goat’s fine. Haven’t had that before.”
Denise nodded. “Drink?”
“Water,” said both women at the same time.
The girl offered a quick bow and hurried back to the counter.
“One room?” Tris blinked. “Uhm…”
“While I absolutely can’t wait to get you naked,” whispered Zara, “I’m thinking more in terms of defense. Better not to separate.”
Tris stared, open-mouthed.
“I’m kidding.” Zara winked. “Unless you really want to.”
“Stop.” Tris stuck out her tongue. “Now I know you’re messing with me.”
Zara snickered into her hand.
Denise returned with two plastic cups of water, set them down, and headed over to the guy in the rainbow hat.
Mac wandered over. “You’re who I think you are, right?”
“Hey, Mac.” Tris shook his hand. “Yeah.”
Mac joined them at the table. “So you really think Amarillo is…”
“I do.” Tris kept her voice quiet. “Have you heard anything on the radio?”
“Nah. Whole lotta nothin’.”
Tris put a hand on his forearm. “You’ve got a beautiful daughter, Mac. I hope we can put this back together so she’s safe.”
“Thanks.” He patted the guns. “She’s why I got me these.”
A woman who resembled Denise in twenty years appeared in a passé-plat similar to Kevin’s, and put up two plates. The girl took them with the grace of someone who’d been waiting tables for years, balanced them both on one arm,
and grabbed a pitcher to refill their waters.
“Is this the goat?” asked Zara.
Tris looked at the meat on her plate and shrugged. “I can’t tell either, but I’ll trust the kid.”
Mac chuckled. “Yeah, she got it right. So. I been’ checkin’ my hardware. Everything you say be right. Damn thing busted to hell. Only the radio and the panels work.”
The venison steak had a hint of spice Tris wasn’t expecting, but the explosion of flavor stunned her mute for a few minutes. “Oh wow, this is amazing.”
He smiled. “My dad’s the best cook there is. So what’s your plan?”
“Right now, we’re just trying to get there fast enough to maybe find some survivors. Hard to plan anything without knowing what’s going on there.”
“Yeah.” Zara waved a fork bearing a block of goat at Mac. “If there’s a hundred Infected, maybe we can clean them out. Thousand? Better waiting for them to die off on their own.”
“That hasn’t been happening the way it should.” Tris cut off another piece of meat. “There’s some kind of symbiote. Nanotech. Somehow keeps them alive.”
Zara choked on a mouthful of mashed potato. “What?”
Tris set her fork down and held her hands up about two feet apart. “It looks like an… eel. About this long. Comes out of the mouth when you kill the Infected it parasitized. Tries to go down the nearest throat it can find, even a person clear of Virus. We think it’s using nanite technology to repair the host’s body enough to keep the Infected alive past when the disease should kill… provided it eats.”
Zara shivered. “Thanks for that nightmare. You’ve seen this?”
“Yeah. I’ve also met Doctor Andrews. He confirmed it.”
Her eyes widened. “You found him? He’s like one of the most wanted…”
“He’s dead. Shot himself in the head after getting hopelessly surrounded by Infected.” Tris stabbed the little bit of meat she had left. “Nathan sent me out here with what I thought was a cure for the Virus, but it turned out to be music. A band called The Cure.”
Zara cringed. “Asshole.”
Mac stifled a chuckle, then held up his hand. “Sorry. I… That’s some cold ass shit, but dayum. Kinda funny.”
Tris exhaled. “Yeah, I can see how that would be funny… if the entirety of humanity wasn’t at risk of being wiped out by the virus I can’t cure.”
Mac stared at her. “Damn, girl.”
She scooped mashed potatoes up, dropped them, scooped, dropped. “Nothing to be done about it now. It was a lie. Kevin keeps telling me I shouldn’t feel guilty about failing because I didn’t fail; I never had a chance.”
Mac’s lips curled in an appraising frown.
“I still can’t believe that bastard was operating rogue.” Zara scowled. “I thought it was an official…” She cringed. “Sorry. I mean… I’m not like saying I wish I succeeded or anything but…”
“I know. Now you’re stuck out here too.”
Zara’s amber eyes flickered with something… doubt? “It’s not your fault.”
“Hey Mac. Can you throw us a couple extra volts? We’re kind of in a hurry. Also, if you could send a wake up our way in six?”
“You got it.” Mac stood.
“How much for everything?”
Mac grinned. “You’re not gonna let me say on the house, are you?”
Tris shook her head. “I’ll take the bed and power for free since that’s not using anything up. At least let me pay for the food.”
“Eight then.”
“I’d say ouch, but that food was damn good.” Tris handed over eight coins. “You need to try Sang’s fried potatoes one of these days.”
“Maybe I will.” Mac made finger guns at her, winked, and returned to the counter.
Denise came by to refill their water and drop off a room key.
After chugging the water, Tris headed past the bathrooms to a stairway leading up one floor. The bedroom made the ‘small rooms’ back home in Rawlins seem large. It wasn’t much bigger than a closet an inch or three larger than the mattress packed into it, but she didn’t care.
She kicked off her shoes and collapsed before Zara even got the door closed.
Tris dreamed of being trapped in a small octagonal room with white walls. She spent hours and hours searching for a door, but couldn’t find anything resembling one. Soon after she curled up against the wall sobbing, Zara’s voice came from the speakers overhead.
“Tris? Come on… it’s time.”
She awoke curled on her side with Zara sitting up behind her, as if they’d been spooning.
“That didn’t sound like a good dream.”
Tris stretched until her limbs quivered, went limp for a few seconds, and sat up.
Zara massaged her shoulders. “Mac knocked about ten minutes ago.”
“Ugh. Sorry.” Tris yawned.
“Hey, don’t sweat it. My turn to drive now. Shall I carry you to the mattress in the van?”
“Heh. Tempting.” She stood with a grunt, the muscles in her legs as responsive as pudding.
“Tris?”
“Hmm?” She glanced back.
“I’m not sure if there was a toilet.” Zara bit her lip. “I… It’s a blur.”
“Later.” Tris rolled her right arm around to stretch her shoulder. “My brain isn’t on yet.”
Zara led the way downstairs, but Tris darted ahead into the bathroom. She waited for Zara afterward, and they entered the main room together. Based on the angle of the sunlight, she guessed it to be after noon, likely closer to one. Zara headed for the door, but Tris snagged her arm and pulled her over to the counter.
“Hey Mac.” Tris smiled. “You got any like sandwiches or burgers… something we can walk out eating?”
“Yeah. Be a minute or two. Chicken or burger?”
“Chicken,” said Tris and Zara at the same time.
“Hey pops?” Mac leaned toward the window behind him. “Two chicken burgers.”
“Four coins?” asked Tris.
Mac opened his mouth, hesitated, then nodded. “Yah.”
She put down six. “It’s okay. If it’s anything like the steak.”
Something crashed in the back with a cacophony of ringing tin.
“Goddamit,” yelled a woman.
“Oy! What ya doin’ back there?” Mac held up a ‘wait a sec’ finger before darting past the bead curtain.
Tris let her eyes droop closed, leaning on the counter for support. More sleep waited only a few yards outside the door. Whiskey fumes washed over her face a few seconds later.
“Hey there,” said a slurred male voice. “You two available?”
“No,” said Zara, her voice cold.
Tris looked up. Three men covered in road dust and dark leather jackets loomed over them. The nearest one looked closer to forty, with a thick, black moustache.
He stared at Tris’ crotch. “C’mon, bitches. You’re always workin’. Give ya five apiece. There’s three of us so’s that’s fifteen.”
The man on the left, who looked even more inebriated, raised two fingers. “Five’s with anal.”
“No, it isn’t,” said Zara. “We’re not ‘for hire.’”
Shit. Her fatigue melted. “Go away.”
“Bodies like that?” asked number three, a dark-tanned blond with about a month of facial hair. “You can’t keep that shit all to yourselves. You two are like the hottest pussy I’ve ever seen. Hell with it, I’ll give ya fifteen coins mah dam self for both y’all at once.”
“We’re not prostitutes,” said Tris. “Look. Just go away, I’ll buy you all a shot apiece.”
“I’ll give them shots.” Zara narrowed her eyes.
Tris grumbled. “We need ammo for Infected. Don’t waste it on these shitheads.”
“You ladies is pretty funny,” said the middle idiot. “Don’tcha just love it when a girl talks all sorts’a tough like she gonna do somethin’?” The other two chuckled. “Look…” He belched in
her face. “We’re gonna”―he attempted to point a finger between her eyes but couldn’t quite hold it steady―“gonna… fuck yas. Now’s your choice if’n you get paid or we take it on the house.”
Tris glanced down at his belt, a pair of handguns on his hips. “You are drunk. Go away or I’m going to kill all three of you.”
The center man reached both hands forward, going for her shirt.
Tris’ neuralware dragged the man’s lunge into a slow creep. She drove her right foot into his crotch hard enough to lift his boots from the floor. Before the look of pain registered on his face, she swiped his sidearms from their belt holsters, raising them upside down with her pinky fingers on the triggers.
She got three shots off from each at the two men standing behind him before the enraged man dug his fingers into her shirt and hauled her off the ground. The other two careened over backwards. The one grabbing her roared, a demonic, distorted sound emanating from slow-motion flapping jowls. Sweat and saliva flew from his lower lip as he pivoted and hefted her around to ram her headfirst into the bar.
Tris started to scream at the countertop rushing toward her face, but gurgled when her trajectory lurched upward before contact; his grip released, flinging her into the air away from the counter. She sailed over him, getting a perfect top-down view of Zara’s leg completing a sweep takedown. Tris let the guns fall from her grip and braced her hands outward, catching the floor and guiding her body into a somersault.
Fatigue caught up to her; rather than land on her feet, she rolled sideways, her left shoulder slamming into one of the posts. A football helmet fell from a nail and cracked her on the head. The two she’d shot writhed and moaned on the floor. Tris sat up, rubbing where the helmet landed and cringing with one eye closed.
Ow. Son of a bitch.
Zara recovered from the foot sweep and spun into an arm-lock takedown that drilled the man’s skull into the front of the counter hard enough to crack the wood and leave him unconscious. The blond man, bleeding from two wounds in his right leg, yanked a handgun from his belt. Tris grabbed for her Beretta, aiming in the slow motion world of combat boosters. Before she could fire, Zara’s foot made contact with his hand, launching the gun up into the air.
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