by T. K. Malone
The freeway was a mess, not that Teah had expected any different. It had already been neglected the last time she’d crossed it—all those years before—crazed with weed-filled cracks, and nothing could have altered that for the better. But even in the shadow of the city’s devastation, clear in the morning’s warm glow, Teah’s mood was somewhat brighter.
Byron Tuttle’s revelations had merely colored in parts of her past’s picture, and though he may have inadvertently caused her her torture, once she’d calmed, she’d seen his actions for what they were. She’d been a trade, a means to an end, no more, no less, and she couldn’t blame the broker for the actions of the buyer. She kept this conclusion to herself, though, for it didn’t hurt to have Byron treading carefully around her.
“You know,” Teah said, “I think Tuttle was telling me the truth.”
Kelly nodded, glancing at the ruins of Black City, then back at the road, its state becoming worse the farther they swept past the city. “Trouble with the sickness is that you don’t know yer done fer.”
Teah shrugged. “Too late now. What about Tuttle?”
“It’s all right fer you; you got an AI running around yer body, making you A1.” She chuffed a laugh. “AI…A1…funny that. Tuttle, he ain’t got the stones to lie no more—that’s the only reason he told you. Seen it before.”
“Before? You mean like he’s rinsed outta courage?”
“Almost that. No fight in him. Seen it loads. He’s battered, bruised, kneeling with his victor standing over him, and he’s willing the deathblow on. So, yeah, I think he’s telling the truth. He ain’t got the stones to do anything else.”
“Trouble is—”
“Trouble was, Teah. Stop thinkin’ so much. You now know he tried to sell you out, and he won’t do it again. You know Charm rescued you. You know Jake, Lester and Charm are working together. That’s something, ain’t it?”
“Suppose.”
Kelly huffed. “Suppose, schmooze, who cares; you’ve finally got someone who’s on yer side and who you can trust.”
“Who?”
“Charm!” Kelly shouted. “He arranged your rescue, got you out of the city and ensured you’d survive. What the fuck else does he have to do to get yer trust?”
“He…” But Teah couldn’t come up with anything. Was it that simple? Charm had saved her and so she was in his debt. She was in his debt and therefore had to be on his side. “But what does Charm want out of this?”
Kelly let out a long sigh. “What did you want? Ten days ago, twelve, twenty? What? To live your life with Clay? To find Zac? Nothing’s changed.”
“Yes, it has,” Teah muttered. “It has because I want more now. I want to be rid of these tyrants. I want a world that works. I want that world for Clay.”
“And you’re convinced the AI is the way?”
“Yeah, one hundred percent. I know all that shit and waste needs to be worth it.” Teah pointed toward the city.
“And Tuttle reckons Sable let that happen? Could have prevented it but then just let it happen?”
Teah shrugged. “Reckon so. He said she’d stay within her parameters to do what she had to. Never said she had a heart.”
“So…” But then Kelly was clearly still thinking her words through. “So…” She scratched her head, then smiled. “So, what we end up with is one coldhearted bitch who’s willing to do what it takes to get the job done.”
Teah pondered over that. “Sounds about right.”
“Then we gotta do two things.” Kelly wound the window down.
“Thought you were worried about the sickness?”
“Nope. I got me a god sittin’ next to me. What have I got to worry about? If I get sick, she’s just gonna have to cure me.”
“So, the two things?”
“Well, we gotta put her in charge first; that’s one.”
“And the other?”
Kelly laughed. “Keep on her good side.”
The road was clear, the sky the same, and they fell silent, the wind from the windows buffeting noisily around them, leaving them to their own thoughts. It wasn’t long before they pulled up in an abandoned gas station. Teah knew she’d been here before, knew it was where she’d holed up the day she’d escaped Black City, and so knew there’d be no way they could just drive up the central valley in the daylight. They’d have to trudge through the forest. It was the safest way, but it would cost them dearly in time.
When the rest caught up, they all geared up, Kelly, Trip and Max, in full combat gear and HUDs. Teah was reluctant to take the cattleman off and so stashed it in her backpack, but she put Lester’s coat back on, baggy enough to go over her combats. Connor and Byron hadn’t been allocated HUDs, so Teah kept her visor up so she could hear them.
Max, Trip and Kelly went ahead, all seasoned trackers, all more than capable of efficiently carving out a safe path. Though it was still morning, Teah urged Byron on through the scrublands and up into the shroud of the great redwoods that clad the first of the foothills. Once under their cover, they shadowed the route of the freeway toward the valley’s mouth.
Connor was silent nearly the whole time. He seemed to have regressed even further into himself, as if the coming confrontation weighed heavily on his mind. She wondered how much of the old Connor was left, as she sometimes wondered how much of her own mind remained. Even now, he was trailing through the forest, eyes down, as though miles away.
Byron was puffing hard, though, the old man clearly not cut out for the fast pace Teah was setting. Reluctantly, she slowed.
“Is this how you’re going to kill me?” he asked.
“Yeah, my fault. I blew the last gate,” Teah replied.
Byron shuffled on, grunting and groaning with every stride. “It must be hell in there,” he said between heavy breaths. “Still, they should be safe enough, as long as they blew the stairwell.”
“Strikes me that safe enough don’t apply when you’re buried underground. Strikes me, enemy soldiers on two sides means a lot can go wrong.”
“Only one side,” Byron muttered, slumping down on a fallen tree trunk and taking a much-needed breath. “They must blow the military area soon, and that’ll be heard from here to Timbuktu. It’ll send Meyers' men into a complete panic.”
Connor reluctantly slumped against a trunk and lit a smoke. “Every hour we waste, more folk die. Every hour we waste, the chances of the plan working, fail.”
Byron Tuttle perked up a bit. “What do you mean?”
“You really think we’re the only ones? What about the others? The Cossacks. What about them? If they know about Sable, won’t they be cutting all their side of the links? Couldn’t they have their own AI? We need to get this done, and we need to get it done fast.”
Byron pushed himself off the trunk. “All right, all right, I’ll keep going.” He went over to Connor and pulled him to his feet. “But tell me—is that you talking, or Sable?”
Connor smiled. “Haven’t a clue. I just know what’s right and what’s right, and it’s right that we keep moving.”
“Do you really think she’ll find a way?” Teah asked.
Shrugging, Connor took her hand. “I think she found a way to get this far, so I guess we’ve just got to have faith.”
“More and more like a god,” Byron muttered.
They fell as silent as the forest as each returned to their own thoughts, plodding on but making steady progress. It was late afternoon by the time they made the valley that led up to Project Firebird, and there they paused to get their breath back while still within the safety of the forest.
“There are patrols,” Max said, pointing at the ridge opposite. “At least two posts over there, then a checkpoint just before the freeway. They own this place, really settled in.”
“Gonna make it difficult to get through,” Kelly added, all eyes then settling on Teah.
“Over there,” she said, pointing to a small house beyond the forest that sat in fields divided by a trail and that lay mi
dway toward the river. “I holed up there last time.”
“Last time?” Byron asked.
Teah shot him a look. “Yeah, last time, when I was escaping Black City.”
“Oh.” He shuffled away, sitting on a raised slab of rock. “That,” he mused, and then fell silent.
Kelly’s eyes darted between them both, then she started nodding. “This can’t go on, you know,” she said. “We got enough problems without falling out.”
“No problem here,” Teah muttered. “Done is done.” She walked over to the rock Byron was sitting on and rested her boot on it. “Smoke, Byron?”
He looked up at her. “Smoke.” He took one.
“Let’s make a run fer the house,” Trip said. “Two at a time. I’ll take Connor. Teah, you take Byron, and Kelly on point with Max bringing up the rear. We go fast, we go low.”
To Teah, the fields looked overgrown and abandoned, but she reckoned Trip was probably right; splitting up would be a safer precaution, but then Byron barked, “No. Teah and Connor must not split up. They’re the goal; nothing else matters.”
“Then you’re with me, old man,” Trip said, easily.
“We gotta preferred route?” Kelly asked.
“Straight, short and fast,” Trip told her.
“Amen to that,” said Kelly.
When it came to their turn, Teah asked, “You set?” Connor only nodded.
She let her gaze linger on him. He’d grown, of that she was sure. Not in height but mind, yet he’d become distant, clearly retreating into himself more and more.
“What’s it like?” she asked.
“You know,” he dismissed.
“No, I don’t think I do. I don’t have her consciousness in me.”
“She’s fit to burst,” Connor said softly, and then matched her stare. “I’m not sure I can hold her any longer.”
Teah nodded. Connor was clearly struggling. She offered him her hand. “You and me, then.” She pulled him after her.
“I wish it were,” Teah heard him say before they were scrambling down from the forest’s cover and out into the first scrubby field, running low, trying to follow Kelly’s trail.
<’Bout a hundred yards in. Gonna bank right before the end of the first field, before holding then dashing across the trail into the next. Suggest you bank left. Just in case anyone thinks they saw summut. Trip, you head down valley a bit. Max, mirror me. Over.>
They made the far edge of the first field, the house still a good half a mile away. Teah decided to focus only on their target and Connor, and forget all else. She pushed him over the trail between the fields and into the next.
It was a scruffy cornfield, left to grow wild years before, but provided high and easy cover. She pulled Connor along, her route mimicking that of a wild animal so as not to drawn attention. Halfway across, Connor collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.
“I need to stop,” he groaned, and Teah knelt beside him.
“What’s wrong?”
His eyes gave away his panic. “I don’t know.” He was hyperventilating now, sweat pouring off him.
“Is it Sable?”
Connor shut his eyes, clamped his mouth shut and blew his cheeks out. He appeared to muster another burst of determination and rolled onto his front, pushing himself up.
This time she trod more slowly, nudging Connor ahead as he listed this way and that. It was like walking with a drunk, or someone high on shine. Teah guided him nearer toward the house, where the others were likely already gathered.
Time and again, they called her, concerned at her delay, but each time she just said they were on their way and didn’t need a hand. With the house only fifty yards away, Connor finally collapsed for good and this time, she had to call for help. Dusk was falling toward night by the time Kelly got to her, and between them, they carried Connor the rest of the way.
Laying him on the kitchen floor, Max soaked his brow with a wet cloth. He was burning up. Teah felt panicked and threw her HUD down.
“Is she killing him?”
Byron darted her a look. “I’m not—”
“You made her. What the fuck is happening?”
“I think… I think she’s expanded. Something must have been triggered when she melded with you. She may well have begun exponentially growing again.”
“And what the fuck does that mean?” Teah screamed, desperate to do something, but Byron sighed.
“I think it means we’re in deep, deep trouble.”
Teah scooped Connor up and carried him into the front room, laying him on a dirty, and threadbare, couch. Moonlight barely scraped in through the filthy windows, but what did gave Connor’s face a ghostly hue.
She placed her palms on his cheeks, cupping his boiling head.
She made to whisper his name but realized she’d not spoken, only thought the words. Then she did the same again, but this time addressing Sable.
At first there was no response, but then she felt a thought form in the back of her mind.
“Put your thumbs over his eyes, your fingers on his temples. I must spill into you, Teah.”
She nearly cried with relief, and quickly did as Sable had bidden her. Warmth gushed through her, filling her entire body, expanding and flexing. Teah felt elated at first, as though discovering something new, but then she felt a pressure build, as though she’d sunk too deep. Then it receded and an equilibrium seemed to have been reached, but she felt dog-tired and her eyes snapped shut, before she slumped to the floor.
She blinked her eyes open. It was pitch-black, but somehow, she could make out everything. It was as though she was wearing the HUD. The room had a green tinge to it and her mind was alive, not like she’d just woken up. Getting up from the floor and flexing her limbs, she felt good; better than good. She felt strong, infused and alive. Then she realized she was looking down at a sleeping Kelly, and for some reason she felt a little sad. Grabbing the woman’s HUD, she deftly programmed in a set of instructions and then put it back down.
Connor still lay on the couch, motionless, and she went and swept him up into her arms and then settled him over her shoulder. Reaching into her backpack, she pulled out the cattleman and dumped it on her head, and without a sound, she left the house.
The night sky was clear and studded with a myriad of stars. She traced the constellations, noting that Jupiter was shining bright. The smell of spoiled corn was in the air, and that wouldn’t do. With the DJ slumped over her shoulder, she walked briskly along a lane that led to the river. It was a good couple of miles, but she never once took a break, never really got out of breath.
The cattleman felt good. It gave her a sense of power, though why, she couldn’t at all fathom. Looking up the valley, she marvelled at its beauty, perhaps more so now in the dead of night. The road delivered them at a small gathering of dwellings, all clustered around a bridge, at the entrance to which two trucks had been parked, forming a roadblock—a couple of soldiers guarding it. She could easily have taken them out had she brought her machine gun, which she now realized she’d forgotten. She'd gotten within fifty yards of them before the first spotted her.
At first, he just stared at her, as if seeing a nighttime apparition. She’d gained another twenty or so yards before he finally snapped to, and leveled his gun at her.
“Stop right there,” he shouted.
“Just out fer a stroll, soldier,” she replied, still walking toward him, calculating the exact distance between them all the time.
“Stop right there or I’ll shoot,” he barked at her.
Others were stirring now, flashlights blinking on and lights glaring out from the houses. The electricity must still be functioning, she thought, and that made her smi
le.
“I’ve an injured man,” she hollered. “Needs a medic.” But all the while she was closing the distance.
“Stop right there!” the stock phrase came again.
“What’s going on?” another voice barked. Twelve degrees, zero elevation, she noted to herself.
She was soon noting the exact positions of every other emerging soldier.
“There’s a medi-facility up at the camp,” she shouted, now within spitting distance of the guard; now up close.
“I said…” But Teah bent and laid Connor on the ground before him, then came the clicks of a number of machine guns being armed—exactly twenty-three, she noted.
“He’s sick,” she said as she straightened, then, in the blink of an eye, she’d grabbed his gun and fired off twenty-four precision shots.
Picking Connor up, she laid him in the back of one of the trucks, then got in and drove it away, over the bridge and onto the old road that led to the Meyers' retreat. And just then, a huge explosion rang out, echoing around the valley, and for some reason, Teah felt immense sadness flood through her.
18
Zac’s Story
Strike time: plus 14 days
Location: Project Firebird
Kenny had managed to get one feed up and running and focused on the tunnel that led to the sole remaining Hell’s Gate. It didn’t make for great watching. It appeared Banks’ troops had their system down pat now. Diggers moved the latest blown gate’s rubble onto trucks, which drove away—returning not long after, laden with explosives. It was typically militaristic, precisely coordinated, and highly efficient.
“Tomorrow, I reckon,” Kenny said, turning from the screen.
“Sure?” Zac asked.
“Sure as I can be. I’ve timed their runs, and they’re still bringing in more explosives. So, yep, I think we’ve got a day left.”