That had been imprudent of her. She had let her anger force words from her mouth she shouldn’t have uttered. “A moment of passionate jealousy,” she said, playing on Christof’s ego. “I don’t want to share you with anyone.” The last thing she needed was him questioning why Livy wouldn’t be useful in manipulating Jacey.
Unfortunately, her ploy worked. He beckoned to her, a sly, hungry look on his face. “Come, sit on my lap.”
Repulsed but resigned, she obeyed.
40
Something Closer to Nausea
They’d travelled nearly 900 kilometers over the past nine hours. The map Jacey had found in an abandoned car said they were in Missouri, a former state of the old republic.
“I think we’re just north of this town,” Jacey said, pointing to a spot on the map. “Tracy, Missouri.”
“We pronounced it ‘Misery’ where I came from,” Meow Meow said, pulling to the side of the road. “The heat. The mosquitos.” She turned off the truck. “Let’s scope it out. Just remember, we’re in scav territory, so keep an eye out.”
Jacey grabbed the binoculars. Her legs ached, but standing felt good after the long hours of driving. The sun broke above the horizon to the east. The still of the night remained upon the land, as if the world were too bleary-eyed to wake up and face the day. Jacey’s footsteps crunched on the gravel shoulder of the highway.
Meow Meow waved Jacey to follow and descended into a weedy ditch, keeping her head low.
They stopped to crouch behind a rusted out automobile. The windows of this one had been smashed long ago, the seats scavenged, the hood removed and hauled away. Probably to be used as a roof or doorway for someone’s home.
A storm was rolling in. Flashes of lightning fluttered deep in the bank of black cloud to the west. Below it hung a haze of rain. The faintest rumbles of thunder churned in the distance.
“Good,” Meow Meow said. “That’ll keep some of the scavs indoors.”
Jacey made a noncommittal noise and raised her binoculars to study the fence line. Considering how far they had come, all the discomfort they had endured, the famous fence certainly lived up to its reputation.
It was impressive, no doubt about that. Jacey had expected something like the fence at the Scion School, but this was much taller. And it wasn’t a single barrier. It was a series of fences.
Between their hiding spot and the first fence was a stretch of blasted land, brown and dead, with only bits of debris visible. Concrete rubble, part of a steel barrel, car tires, and random bits of pipe stood out in sharp relief and cast long shadows due to the low angle of the sun. Whatever had once stood here had been demolished.
“What happened to this place?” Jacey breathed, scanning the area and trying to imagine what could cause such destruction.
When she realized Meow Meow wasn’t answering, she lowered the binoculars. Meow Meow was staring at the ground.
“What?” Jacey asked.
The gaunt girl finally answered. “When the sickness first came, it wasn’t taken very seriously. There had been lots of epidemics before it, and they all burned themselves out eventually. But this one came in the wake of the Kille-Tine asteroid. People were already desperate. Crops failed, millions of refugees swarmed away from the coast and the south, all hoping to find dry land. Animals, too. So many dogs, birds, deer, wolves. Everything.”
She put her back to the car and sat on the dusty ground. “Two or three summers after the impact, after 18 months of nonstop rain—and I’m not talking just raindrops, I’m talking rain filled with mud—came a long drought . . .” She smiled vaguely, eyes unfocused. “The sickness arrived with the refugees.” She waved vaguely at the fence. “The Tent City of Kansas didn’t exist yet. Nobody had enough food or clean water. Bad hygiene. Bad luck.”
Jacey had never seen Meow Meow so—normal. Her whole act, the purring noises and overt sensuality, had all fallen away. She looked very young.
“Fever. Bleeding rash. Dysentery.” Meow Meow clamped her lips together momentarily. “But the Minnie-Indy corridor did a very good job identifying the infected. They quarantined them. The richest communities started building fences with armed soldiers at the gates and compulsory saliva tests to enter. There were whole swaths of infected towns.” She pointed past the car to the blasted land. “These were the northern suburbs of a place called Kansas City, but it’s been like this since I was two or three years old. Too many infected and nobody could provide them with what was needed.”
“Sick people did this?”
A humorless laugh burst from Meow Meow’s lips. “You could say that. But I know what you mean, and that’s not what happened.” She made a whistling noise and her hands blew apart. “The North American Union destroyed Kansas City. And Atlanta. And Little Rock. And Dallas. And, and, and . . .”
Meow Meow said nothing more and Jacey realized why. The evidence of what happened next was right in front of her. “And then they built the fence.”
Meow Meow struggled to her feet, keeping low so that her head didn’t rise above the level of the car. “It follows the Mississippi River, which is another fence, of sorts. Other sections break off from the main barrier to carve out certain territories and to enclose others. Fortunately for us, it’s not perfect.”
“You’re saying there is a way through.” Jacey resumed scanning the fence line through the binoculars. The first section was chain-link, very similar to the style used at Scion School. But this was at least 40 feet high. It wasn’t topped with razor wire, though. And it seemed a bit rickety. A few sections leaned at a steep angle toward the infected lands. “That first fence looks climbable. But we’d need some rope to get down safely on the other side.”
Jacey turned her binoculars away from the fence and studied a cluster of ruins to the south. “There are buildings over there,” she said. “What are the chances we’ll find some rope?”
“We won’t know until we look,” Meow Meow said. “And that is where the cache of supplies used to be. Food. Protective gear. Other stuff.”
They returned to the truck. The thunder rumbled louder, the wind picked up. The air grew heavy with moisture and the wind carried the fresh smell of ozone. Meow Meow drove slowly toward the ruins, keeping her eyes on the road directly ahead. “Scav’s lay bump mines in places like this. I’d hate to lose a wheel.”
“What’s a bump mine?” Jacey said.
Meow Meow steered sharp left and skirted a hubcap lying on the pavement. “That’s one,” she said. “Low explosive, but full of nails. Designed to flatten tires. Then the scavs come in and take the rest of the vehicle.”
“And the drivers?”
Meow Meow gave Jacey a cool look. “They don’t take the drivers.”
They made it to the edge of the cluster of buildings without incident. Meow Meow parked the truck alongside the hollow husk of a larger semi trailer. “Our truck stands out among all this rusty crap. I wish we had a camo tarp to throw over it.”
But they didn’t, so they left the truck there.
“Step lightly and look brightly, darling,” Meow Meow said as they edged toward the buildings. “Scavs keep outposts in places like this.”
Rain fell in sheets, but Meow Meow wouldn’t let Jacey run for shelter. They proceeded painfully slowly, Meow Meow stopping them for five minutes straight once as she probed a tin can with a stick. It turned out to be another bump mine. “That’ll flatten your tires real good,” Meow Meow had said as they left it in their wake.
They slipped into the first building they came to, but only after Meow Meow had stood by the door, head cocked as she listened and looked. Jacey didn’t know what the girl expected to hear. If there were people in this area, surely they’d seen the truck approaching.
Finally, Meow Meow gave the go-ahead to enter the building. It was all of brick, but no glass remained in the windows and the roof had partially collapsed. A few scraggly trees grew in a lobby area.
“This was a bank,” Meow Meow said.
&
nbsp; Jacey didn’t know how a bank should look, but the floor had once been a marble tile, and there were desks here and there. The street-facing wall was mostly erect, empty window frames blanketed with velvety moss.
“Look,” Meow Meow said, voice quiet. She nodded to the east wall. A scraggly pattern of blue paint colored part of it.
“It looks like a word,” Jacey said. “I don’t recognize the letters.”
“Graffiti. Very stylized. It says, ‘KC Bitches.’ It’s a warning. Like a no-trespassing sign.”
“So it’s meant for people like us.”
“You’re a fast learner, Little Jackie.” Meow Meow added a wink, but a slight tremble in her voice stole the humor from the statement. And then the girl reached behind her back and pulled out the pistol she’d taken from Siggy. “There won’t be rope in this place. But let’s chill for a bit and see if anyone else comes onto the street.”
So they waited, eating handfuls of nuts from Meow Meow’s backpack. No one stirred in the town. The stillness had a hollowness to it. And an ache, as if the town still suffered the old, old wounds of its destruction. Twisted rebar jutted from crumbling concrete walls like the feelers of some weird insect. But there was nothing to feel here except the phantom pain of loss.
An hour passed, but nobody came onto the streets. “Looks like we lucked out,” Meow Meow said.
They started down the crumbled street, peering into the windows of abandoned shops. Meow Meow stopped at one and shouldered through a swinging glass door. “This was it. An old hardware store.”
Ten aisles of shelves held nothing but dust and fading price cards. Their footsteps scuffed on grit-covered tile as Meow Meow led them toward the back.
She found a locked door, yanked on the handle. “This is good. The cache was in here. We should try the back door.”
They exited the building and found the narrow alley that ran to the back of the building. A huge rusty trash bin on wheels was pushed up against the back of the brick building next to a loading dock. The overhead door was bashed in on one corner, providing a narrow gap. Meow Meow peeked in.
“Dammit. Everything’s gone.”
Jacey and her pop star friend sagged, spirits deflated. Jacey asked the question that had been burning in her mind. “What’s a hardware store?”
Meow Meow started to laugh. Soon she was sitting on the asphalt, wiping her eyes and gasping for breath. Eventually she composed herself enough to answer Jacey’s sincere question. “Hardware stores sell tools and materials for building stuff and fixing things.”
“So now what?” Jacey wandered to the garbage bin. Its hinged lid was closed. She lifted it and peered in.
The thick, hot stench of decay sent her stumbling back. The metal lid clanged, sending rude echoes off the surrounding buildings. Jacey covered her mouth and fought to keep her stomach from rebelling.
“What was it?” Meow Meow asked.
Jacey licked her lips, which were suddenly very dry. “Dead person.”
“The sickness?”
Jacey shook her head. “I don’t think so. Unless the sickness puts a bullet through your head.”
Meow Meow eased the lid up and peered into the bin, grimacing at the sight. She set the lid down gently. “This is a murder. And only a day or two old. We need to get out of here.”
A gunshot rang out.
Jacey reflexively dropped into a crouch. Meow Meow did the same. She twisted all around, aiming her gun. But there was no one in sight.
“Stay right where you are!” The voice came from somewhere above Jacey. She scanned the roofs and spotted a man dressed all in black, a black scarf wrapped around his face, goggles masking his eyes. “Put the gun down.”
Meow Meow did not hesitate. “Don’t try anything,” she hissed to Jacey.
“I hear you.” Jacey stood slowly, her hands out to show she was unarmed.
The man barked, “Hansen, get out there and check them.”
“Hansen?” Meow Meow said, her face transforming from fear to something closer to nausea. “Oh shit.”
A man the size of four Dantes trundled out of the alleyway. He wore a sleeveless shirt, stained with sweat. His muscles were so defined, and so huge, he looked inhuman. Even his jaw was muscular. Tiny eyes, black as ebony, peered from a muscular face.
He carried the largest gun Jacey had ever seen. It had four barrels and was fed by a chain of shiny brass bullets that draped around his neck and fed from a satchel hanging from his shoulder.
“On the ground,” he said.
Meow Meow and Jacey obeyed instantly.
41
Began to Morph
Belle floated over the forest, eyes not really seeing the trees below her. The trail she’d been following had run out. There were no more clues to be found in the simulated world. Wherever Jacey was, she was leaving no evidence in the real world that Socrates could find. In the real world, another ten hours had zipped by.
“Try Siggy’s numbers again,” she ordered Socrates.
“Starting at the top of the list,” Socrates said, his voice coming from everywhere. “By the way, have you considered how you want to appear if he answers?”
“What do you mean?”
“You have maintained your appearance in the simulation as it was in real life. But since Senator Bentilius has come forward in the real world in your body, I don’t think you want to appear like her to Sigmund.”
Socrates’s point stumped Belle for a moment. She hadn’t given her appearance a moment’s thought. But if she did communicate face-to-face with Sigmund, it certainly wouldn’t help to look like the new Senator Bentilius.
Belle caused a mirror to appear before her in mid-air. She studied her snowy hair, her sharp cheekbones. As a Scion, one didn’t spend much time worrying about one’s looks. She had never had any particular opinion about it. She neither liked nor disliked her face. But now that she considered how Senator Bentilius was speaking through her mouth and doing unspeakable things with Dr. Carlhagen with the rest of her body, Belle shivered with revulsion at the sight of herself. In the simulation, she could look however she wanted.
But what did she want?
She thought for a moment and her face shifted, lips growing more plump, pouty and sensual, eyes going from ice blue to aqua.
“No.” It would help no one for her to appear like Jacey. “Socrates, can you randomly combine facial features? Show me some different versions of a female my age. No. Make me look 10 years older.”
Belle’s features began to morph, the color of her hair, the shape of her brows, and the width of her nose, cheekbones, chin, skin color, eye shape, body proportions, height, weight, everything. Belle smiled, frowned, crossed her arms, stood straight, touched her hair. But none of the looks felt like her.
“Stop.” This was good enough. She retained her usual pale complexion, but now her face was rounded, older. Instead of snowy, her hair was black and cut into a fringe that just covered her ears.
“Just in time. I’ve got a Sigmund on the line,” Socrates said.
A new voice cut the air above the forest. “Hello?”
“Hello, Sigmund. Can we go to video?” Belle asked, hoping this was the Sigmund she needed.
A video rectangle appeared in the air in front of her. A bald, mean-faced man stared out at her. He had a black bruise across one temple that seeped a sickening greenish around both eyes. “Only my grandma calls me Sigmund.”
“What should I call you?”
“Depends on who you are.”
“I’m an associate of Captain Wilcox,” she said.
A flash of fear crossed the man’s bruised face. “Ah. Call me Siggy.”
Belle restrained the impulse to pump a fist in victory. She’d found the right Sigmund. Finally.
“I need to contact Captain Wilcox, Siggy. But he isn’t answering my calls.”
“He never mentioned you.”
“He wouldn’t mention me,” Belle said. “But that’s neither here nor there. I
need to get a message to him.”
The man said nothing, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Are you IPA? You look familiar.”
Belle knew that stood for International Police Agency, and found it interesting the man considered she might be part of that organization. “I work with Captain Wilcox.” She thought it was the safest answer she could give. If she said she worked for Wilcox, this man might think he had seniority. If she said Wilcox worked for her, he would question why she didn’t have other means of contacting him.
Her calculation proved accurate. The man chewed his tongue for a moment, then gave in. “I loaned him one of my tablets. Here’s the number.” A string of digits appeared across the video window.
The man opened his mouth to ask a question, but Belle cut the call.
“Call Wilcox,” she commanded Socrates.
Moments of silence went by. Then more.
Socrates finally said, “No answer.”
42
From the Verge
Somewhere above, hidden by the green canopy of the St. Lazarus tangled forest, the hateful sun was trying to cook the world. Humphrey and his two companions trudged steadily down the slope, battling the undergrowth that sought to twine around their ankles and scratch their skin, leaving painful wounds to receive their salty sweat. The sting, the itching, the incessant attack of biting insects, made the steamy morning pure hell.
“I’m out of water,” Leslie said, her voice hoarse.
Humphrey summoned enough energy to nod an acknowledgment. He was out, too. The irony was that the air was thick with moisture. No sea breezes cut this deep into the forest, and the air itself was made visible by suspended mist. All their sweating did nothing to cool them as it drained them of precious water.
There was no alternative for them but to keep going. Their march had started before dawn, and over the hours had ground down to a slow crawl. “We’re almost there,” Humphrey said. He had no real idea how far they were from the clearing they’d spotted the night before. But it was a leader’s job to keep spirits up. Even when he had none left.
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