Winslowe clicked back out into the lobby and tossed a dingy cotton dress in her face. "That should come off and on easily enough."
The knight who'd cut off her jeans grinned. "Want me to give that a test?"
"Oh, Vincent. Don't you have enough toys upstairs?"
"They're getting worn out," he pouted.
"Women don't get 'worn out,'" Winslowe said without a hint of humor. "Though I've known some men to grow soft with age."
The man went red. The other knights laughed. Tristan returned to her mop, chains scraping the marble floor.
Colin watched from across the room. He'd seen the whole thing, of course. When she went to clean the lounge, he detached from the wall, keeping his eyes on the knights in case they had some urge or desire for him to quench.
"I heard they found a shiv in your room," he said.
Tristan rubbed at a stubborn smear on the otherwise shining tile. "You hear a lot."
"Question is, do I hear right?"
"They didn't chain me up for washing whites with colors."
He chuckled, rubbing his stubble. "Why exactly does a chambermaid need a shiv?"
"Roommate troubles."
He met her eyes. "For real?"
She snorted. "Do you intend to stick around here forever, Colin? I'm a little more ambitious."
"Oh, I'm not so content with my lot in life, either. Or hadn't you noticed I have a shadow, too?"
Tristan frowned. He nodded across the room. Another young man sat on a bar stool reading an old copy of National Geographic. She'd seen him before, and always around Colin, come to think of it, but hadn't put two and two together.
"Last question," Colin said. He leaned close enough for her to smell his Irish Spring. "Would you have done it?"
She stared into his sky-blue eyes. "Nothing will stop me from finding my brother."
He nodded, smiled at his shadow seated across the room, and turned away. A moment later, a knight demanded another "ale," and Colin disappeared into the kitchen, smile still seated on his lips.
She watched him go, allowing herself to hope, however guardedly, that he had something up his sleeves beside arms as leanly muscled as her own. A week later, and her hopes were as dead as the yellow corn stalks the peasants continued to clear from the golf course in preparation for the spring planting. Rains swept in from the sea. The temperature plunged to the high forties. Without warning, King Dashing ordered a party for the next day. Tristan's heart sank—had she grown so inured to the passage of time?—but when she consulted a calendar, she discovered Christmas was still a week away.
She and Yvette were conscripted to pluck chickens and prepare the dining hall for feasting. The old woman swore over pots of boiling stock, back door open to suck out the steam. Tristan lingered there, watching the sea, then returned to the hall to scrub down the walls. By the time they finished stringing bunting and whomping out the royal carpets, she was too exhausted to even think about slitting Yvette's throat.
The feast was scheduled for mid-afternoon. Tristan hauled folding chairs from a shed out to the patio, grass snarling her chains. Lady Winslowe demanded row after row of seating, concentric half-circles facing a wooden throne erected by the knights, who had been forbidden from drinking until completing their task.
"Just how many people does Dashing expect to show?" Tristan said. "What's he announcing, the resurrection of the NFL?"
Yvette wrestled another chair into place. "His Majesty has invited the peasants."
"I didn't think they were allowed within smelling-distance of the palace."
The atmosphere of pregnant excitement swelled through the morning. At noon, the knights broke out coolers of Budweiser and set up a ping pong table with Jose Cuervo and salt and limes. Ragged clouds streamed in from the sea. The humidity staved off the worst of the cold, but Tristan had left her coat in her room. Going back would mean convincing Yvette to come with her, trudging up the stairs in her chains. Instead, Tristan worked harder, keeping her blood flowing.
Shortly before two o'clock, a man in a pheasant-feathered cap walked to the throne and faced the palace of the clubhouse, a trumpet glinting in the thin sunlight. He piped a three-note blast, the final note dying in a blatter of spittle. Peasants filtered in from the fields, faces scrubbed and suspicious. The knights continued to joke, drink tequila, and ignore everyone else in sight. Even the harem was let outside, dressed modestly in sweatpants and jackets; some went to sit up front and take shots with the knights, while others sat alone in the back rows and pulled their jackets around their shoulders.
"Citizens of the Kingdom of Better San Diego!" the trumpeter hollered from before the throne. "Be seated, one and all!"
Tristan sat at the edge of one of the back rows. Yvette sidled past her and took the next seat.
"Now rise for your king!" the herald said. Tristan rolled her eyes and stood, chains scraping. The crowd craned their necks toward the palace doors. Dashing emerged onto the patio, a knowing smile embedded in his face. He strode down the strip of AstroTurf carpet and took the throne.
"So kind of you all to come." He smiled at himself, eyes glittering from within the dark circles surrounding them. "Yesterday, a messenger came to me with a little bit of news. I've spent the last day deciding how to break it to my loyal subjects. With the pomp and drama it deserves? Teasing you, one hint at a time, bringing you closer and closer to understanding until you're screaming for me to finish?"
King Dashing smiled again, absorbing the laughter of the knights. "But sometimes you've got something so big you just can't hold back. So here it comes, people. We took down the fucking aliens."
His words struck the crowd into total silence. A moment later, they rose and roared. Caps flew into the air, feathers flapping. Knights grabbed harem-girls and swept them into deep kisses. Colin caught Tristan's eye and grinned.
"We knocked their mothership right into the sea," Dashing said once the crowd quieted enough to hear him. "It's sticking out of Santa Monica Bay. Smashed. Wrecked. The bodies of those monsters tumbling in the breakers. We got the bastards. Earth is free."
They cheered again, voices climbing so high they thundered in Tristan's chest. She remained cold. Since her escape from the camp, the aliens had been a peripheral concern. A link to Alden, little more. Now that the invaders' power was broken, what would they do with their remaining prisoners? Execute them, flee into the remote corners of the world, isolate themselves from humanity? That's what she would do. Their efforts to finish humanity with a second plague had failed. It was time to cut their losses.
And she was trapped by madmen.
The knights passed out beers. Someone switched on a stereo, blasting Snoop Dogg and Deadmau5 and Boston. Tristan tried to go inside, but Yvette, wanting to dance, complained to Winslowe, who reminded them the celebration was to be enjoyed by all. She ordered the knights to chain Tristan to a post while the others drank and danced.
Cleanup took two days. There was trash to rake. Chairs to fold up. Great chunks of turf to reseed. Post-alien life at the country club went on with little difference besides a few more visitors from the roads and more numerous sojourns of the knights into the surrounding lands. Tristan scrubbed sheets and floors and plates. She grew used to the gait required by her chains, which were never removed, even when she bathed. Yvette stuck to her as closely as the shackles.
Dashing seemed content to screw his harem and boss around the peasants, who cleared the old cornstalks from the golf course and seeded it with new kernels. A clean slate, all the world's resources at his disposal, and this was what Dashing chose to do with it. Construct a pleasure-pen, laws enforced by half-drunk men with horses and guns. Keep some servants in chains and others imprisoned through simple fear. This was how it would always be, wasn't it? Even if Dashing had the vision, splitting the spoils of the land equally among his free people, it would collapse as soon as he died—or, more likely, was assassinated. All it took was one selfish or venal or mad leader to rot the whole
fruit from the inside. This rot was inevitable. Unstoppable. Every bit of good would someday be undone. It didn't matter if King Dashing would rather lead a life of easy leisure than struggle to shoulder a better way. Even if he built a city on the hill, it would only die like everything else.
Tristan began to consider suicide.
Colin came to her while she was hanging wash from the lines. Yvette had gone back for more water, trusting Tristan's chains to keep her in place. It was February, but no one had told the weather; hot sunlight poured from the sky, slicking Tristan's bare shoulders with sweat.
"How's life?" he said. "Everything you would have wanted?"
"I've been having a tough time lately," Tristan said. "Should I hang myself? Or kill Dashing first, and let the knights end it for me?"
Colin laughed, then covered his mouth, blue eyes gone wide. "You're serious."
"I'm a slave, Colin."
"Well, that answers my question."
She could barely bother to ask. "Which is?"
"Do you want to leave?"
She raised her knee, jangling her chains. "Turns out my wants aren't as strong as steel."
Colin nodded, rubbing his stubble. "Well, if you ever want out of those, just let me know. I know where the key is. Oh, and one more thing."
"You can get me the keys?' Tristan said. "What more could there be?"
"Nothing much." He grinned broadly, enjoying his moment. "I found your brother."
27
Troops in black trained matte black machine guns on Ness and Shawn. Roan bound their hands behind their backs with nylon zip ties. She turned her reptilian gaze on Nick, reached a snap decision, and tied him, too. A guard pulled a black hood over Shawn's head.
"What the hell?" Shawn said. "Like we don't know where we're going?"
Dark fabric slid over Ness' face. He tossed his head. Hands yanked him into the back of a van. Shawn swore. Doors thunked closed. The engine grumbled to a start.
"Don't move," Roan said from nearby. "I will shoot."
Shawn snorted. "No seatbelts? Don't get too itchy on the trigger when I start sliding across the floor."
"Don't speak."
Ness could imagine Shawn's face curling in contempt, but for once his brother stayed silent. The van's wheels scraped on the asphalt, shifting tone as it entered the bridge. No one spoke. The van stopped on the other side, engine idling. Roan exchanged words with a man outside the car. The gate buzzed open. A minute later, the van stopped for good. Someone grabbed Ness' wrists and marched him through a series of echoing halls.
Someone seated him. Yanked the hood from his face. Fluorescent light blinded him. The rumble of the core shook the floor. Ness was seated between Shawn and Nick in a windowless room. Daniel and Roan sat across from them. Roan had a pistol on her lap. Guards fidgeted at the closed door.
Daniel frowned at his collared shirt, smoothing it. "You boys have committed some serious crimes."
"Taking our own jeep for a spin?" Shawn said. "Sorry we didn't ask permission, Mom."
"You willingly attacked a foreign species. You put the entire settlement at risk of reprisal."
"Who cares? The aliens are all dead, ain't they?"
"You didn't know that," Daniel said.
Shawn shrugged. "No harm, no foul."
"Not all are dead," Roan said. "We don't know how many weren't in the ship when it crashed."
Shawn sniffed. "Either way, sounds like they got much bigger worries than what we might or might not have done to two aliens so lowly they got assigned to mountain farmhouse duty in BFE, Idaho."
Roan rose while he was still speaking. She waited for him to finish, then struck him in the face. Shawn grunted, head snapping back, blood spurting from his lip.
"We are at war," Daniel said gently. "The terms of that war are to be decided by the commanders. Not two rogue actors. What you have done is treason. Treason, in the United States, is a crime punishable by death."
"Is that where we are?" Ness' heart pounded. "I haven't heard from the President in a while."
"It doesn't matter where we are. What matters is that you have betrayed us." Daniel removed his glasses, huffed on the lenses, and swabbed them with his shirt. "But while you have caused harm to our settlement, it isn't logical to execute you. Not when you can work to heal that harm instead."
Ness smiled, sick to his stomach. "You want me to keep making ethanol."
"We have a use for Shawn as well."
"What about me?" Nick said.
Roan didn't glance his way. "Be quiet."
"We never should have come here," Ness said. "I choose exile instead."
Daniel pressed his lips together. "Exile isn't among your choices. You can repay your debt one of two ways: with sweat, or with blood."
"Starting with Shawn," Roan said.
"Oh please," Shawn said. "You're not gonna shoot me any more than you're going to grow wings and fry yourself from dinner. Shoot me, and what have you got left to threaten him with?"
Roan stood and moved behind them. Ness twisted around, adrenaline setting his nerves on fire. Roan lifted her pistol. Before Nick had time to show his fear, she shot him in the head.
The bang clapped across the room. Ness jerked away, falling to the tile floor and clawing from Nick. Shawn kicked back with a scrape of his chair. Nick lolled from the chair, blood pumping from the hole in his skull.
"Sweet Mother Mary!" Shawn yelled. "You shot him!"
Roan leveled the pistol at his face. "Choose."
"Why are you doing this?" Ness cried.
"Because we have to!" Daniel stood, face strained, and paced to the wall. "Paradoxically, the aliens kept us safe. None of the other settlements were willing to risk war when it could draw the invaders' attention. Now that the aliens' back has been broken, what's keeping the barbarians away from the gates? Threats and bribes, that's what. Without the fuel to back up both these prongs, this whole place will be put to the sword. One of mankind's last candles will be snuffed out."
He planted himself in front of Ness. "This is what you must believe: there is nothing I won't do to prevent this place from falling."
Blood pattered from Nick's slumped body, bright red on the dirty white floor. Ness picked himself up, dizzy, and looked to Shawn for answers, but his brother was too scared to speak.
"Please don't shoot him," Ness said.
Daniel raised his gray brows. "Do we have a deal?"
Ness nodded. The world shrank to a small gray hole.
* * *
This time, he was to stay on the plant's side of the river. Roan showed him to his new lab, a broad clean space that smelled like rubbing alcohol. Steely stills gleamed under the fluorescents.
"Shawn has two guards with him at all times," Roan said. "If you try to run, he gets shot. If you try to sabotage, he gets shot. If you try—"
"I get the picture," Ness said.
"Then get to work."
He was surprised to find himself left largely unattended. A guard or two milled around outside the lab, and they locked him in a converted closet every night, but for the most part he was free to move and work as he saw fit.
Because they were right. They didn't have to keep him under close watch. Not when escape or sedition meant a bullet in his brother's brain.
He worked numbly, mashing, boiling, and yeasting the increasingly withered and rotten corn castoffs hauled across the river. The first snow fell overnight and melted in the morning sun. Often, he heard gunshots to the west, where Daniel's Umatilla-hired mercenaries had set up a firing range. Twice, he heard shots to the east, across the river at the farm.
Day by day, a fence crept around the distant fields. A watchtower climbed into the sky, followed by three more, simple things with wooden frames and corrugated aluminum walls and roofs. They hadn't thought it through. Come summer, the heat would boil the guards alive. Dogs bayed across the fields.
Soon, the bushels trucked to him switched from frost-withered mold-dotted cobs to drie
d, healthy kernels. Daniel was tapping into the food supplies.
"Experiment," Roan ordered him. "The watchword is efficiency. Get the most from what we've got."
"Fruit."
She cocked her head. "What did you say?"
"Fruit is more efficient than corn."
"And corn is what you have."
"Where's Larsen?" Ness said.
Roan went to the door. "Get to work, Ness."
For several weeks, he saw no one but Roan, the guards, and the man who drove the truck with his grain. Shawn was kept locked in another room elsewhere in the facility. Ness had made no mention of Kristin; he didn't want her to become the next person put to the gun to push him to work. He had asked about Volt, once, but Roan had paid him as little mind as his question about Larsen. Ness knew Volt would be all right. She was a survivor. She'd seen far worse winters in the mountains of Moscow. Here in the desert, it was hardly cold enough to snow.
Once in a while, between testing temperature, pH, and alcohol percentage, his work engrossed him enough to forget the hole in Nick's face. The rest of the time, he thought about drinking half a gallon of pure ethanol in one go. He'd never been happy, not really. Even his old life with his mom had been a waiting game. Fifty-some years whittled away by computers and TV shows until he'd be allowed to die. It would not have been so bad.
There had been one exception. The cabin in the mountains. That had been good. That had been fun. Allowed to pursue his own interests without the pressure, expectations, or fear of failure that had always cowed him into inaction elsewhere in life, the days had reeled on with the pleasant exploration of a limitless world. If he could do it over, he would never have come here.
A part of him yearned savagely to walk away into the desert and leave Shawn to his fate. Better one of them find happiness than both staying enslaved.
But he was tipping self-serving poison into his own ear. For all their fights, Shawn had always been there for him. Protecting his back. Trying, in his own way, to push him forward. Ness couldn't leave him behind to be shot. But he couldn't see a way out of the woods, either.
The Breakers Series: Books 1-3 Page 60