by Joss Ware
Theo saw about a dozen men climbing out of the Humvees, and watched as the residents of Yellow Mountain turned out to meet them, emerging from the buildings to gather in the very same area they’d sat for Vonnie’s stories weeks before.
Then he recognized one of the men as he swung around to give direction to one of his companions, his long blond dreadlocks flying around his shoulders. Sonofabitch.
It was the bounty hunter named Seattle. The one who’d shot a bullet into Theo’s chest—the bullet that had killed him.
Theo automatically ducked out of sight among the leaves. This definitely couldn’t be good.
If Seattle were alone, Theo would have liked nothing better than to get his ass out there and shake the asswipe’s hand. He could send a surge of his electrical power through his fingers and drop him like a fucking stone. Oh fuck. No he couldn’t.
Not any more. Sonofabitch.
That anger he’d banked began to simmer and he gripped the tree tightly, breathing steadily. Not the time to do something reckless.
Were they here, looking for him? Or for some other reason?
By now, Seattle’s companions had begun to pair off. They were holding guns and looked ready to use them.
Holy shit.
Theo watched as the bounty hunters lined up the residents of Yellow Mountain in rows. Two of them seemed to be checking a list and the others were spreading out, heading toward the various homes and workshops.
What the hell was going on down there? Was it some sort of census count or were they identifying everyone, marking them off for a different reason? Theo pursed his lips, his heart pounding. It was no secret to him and the other members of the Resistance that the Strangers used mortal humans for everything from slaves to entertainment to whatever they wanted. Whether this was some sort of selection process or other authoritarian event wasn’t yet clear. But either way, it smelled like shit.
Theo watched as Seattle and his companions continued to go through their list. At the same time, a group of Yellow Mountain residents began to carry out large vats. They set them on the ground in front of the visitors.
Seattle inspected the contents—clearly, he was in charge—and seemed satisfied. He barked more orders and gestured cockily with his rifle as he conferred with some of his companions. Others had emerged from one of the houses carrying what looked like another rifle and—Oh, crap . . . a computer. As Theo watched, the computer monitor—one of the big, boxy ones that had gone the way of the dinosaur even before the Change—was dropped onto the ground. Seattle stepped forward and used his rifle to smash the screen.
Niiiice, asswipe.
He continued to watch with rising fury as the invaders smashed what looked like some sort of car engine that they’d dragged from the back of some building. And another computer. Interestingly enough, there didn’t seem to be an issue with televisions or DVD players—at least as far as Theo could tell.
So he guessed that the invaders had come searching not necessarily for people, but for contraband. Or, at least, what they considered to be contraband: Weapons. Vehicles. Computers.
Things that would connect people and communities and allow them to protect themselves.
“What’s in the vats?” he wondered softly. The people of Yellow Mountain didn’t seem to have any resistance to turning them over to Seattle and his comrades.
Just then, he noticed one of the bounty hunters just climbing out of his vehicle. Theo recognized him, too, and his apprehension grew. Ian Marck.
Theo had had more than one run-in with Ian and his father, Raul. If Seattle was a stupid, cocky, bullying sort of danger, Raul Marck was a greedy, malevolent son of a bitch—and he was smart.
Though not, Theo thought, quite as smart as his son Ian.
He frowned, watching the cluster of bounty hunters, wondering what Ian Marck would be doing with the likes of Seattle—who was clearly in charge. Ian wasn’t the sort of guy to take orders from anyone. And yet it was clear from the body language of the other bounty hunters—including Seattle—that they not only respected but were wary of Marck.
And when Ian turned to speak to another of his companions, a slender, delicate-looking guy who tilted his head to look up at him, Theo froze.
He had a perfect view from his vantage point in the tree. That wasn’t a guy at all. It was a woman, with startling blue eyes and inky hair.
Not two months ago, she’d been pointing a gun at him, Sage, Wyatt and Simon.
The daughter of the infamous Remington Truth.
The man the Strangers had been searching for for fifty years.
Chapter 13
Selena brushed the hair from Sam’s face. He opened his eyes, curved his cracked lips into a little smile.
“Hi, Mom,” he said. The whistle of death was in his voice and Selena tried to ignore it.
“How do you feel?” she asked. “Are you in pain?”
“A little.”
“I’ll have Vonnie get the bong,” Selena told him. “Will you drink some of this tea?”
He nodded. “I’m thirsty.”
She lifted the cup and he sipped with her help. The silver-gray cloud hovered, and would soon change to blue. The zombie attack had not only slashed his skin and muscle, but also well into his organs. He was bleeding internally and there was nothing that could be done except to keep him as comfortable as possible.
“Mom,” he said, shifting his hand as if to touch hers. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t . . . have gone out.”
Sudden tears burned her eyes. “Sammy . . . don’t apologize to me. Please. I love you, and I just want you to get better.” A blast of anger churned her belly. It could so easily be her lying there with ganga wounds. In fact, it was a miracle it wasn’t. Or a tragedy. All the times she’d gone out, all these years, all of the danger she’d put herself into . . . The roles could so easily have been reversed.
And, God, she wished it had.
“I was . . . stupid. Just wanted . . . to see . . . Jennifer.”
The anger flared hotter and Selena forced herself to hide it. It wasn’t the girl’s fault that her son had made a bad choice. Although she really didn’t think she’d be able to look at the little bitch any time soon without wanting to strangle her. She’d definitely led him on.
“Love her . . .” Sam said, and gestured to the mug for another drink of tea. Selena helped him, working hard to keep her expression calm and composed. “Where is Jennifer? . . . I want to see her,” he said. “Tell her . . .”
Selena swallowed and nodded. “I know, Sammy.” She wasn’t going to lie to him. She wasn’t going to give him false hope.
“Before I die,” he continued. “I’m dying, Mom . . . I know. They’re waiting . . . for me.”
“Sammy,” she said, blinking hard against the tears.
“It’s okay . . . Mom,” he said. “You know . . . it’s okay.”
It’s okay for you, but it’s not okay for me!
But she didn’t say that; she just nodded.
Then his eyes lit on something behind her, and they brightened. “Jennifer.” He struggled to move, his mouth curving into a smile.
“Sam,” the young woman said, moving quickly to the other side of his bed. “Oh, Sam, what did you do?”
Selena stared in shock, watching her son’s face light up and his full attention move from her to Jennifer. Even the gray-silver cloud wavered and thinned for a moment. It wasn’t until a gentle hand rested on her shoulder that she turned to see Theo standing there. He met her eyes briefly, and then his gaze moved to watch the young people.
Comprehension flooded her, followed by another prickle of tears. Gratitude and something else, something stronger than affection, compelled her to go into his arms—the need for comfort, for something solid to hold on to . . . but she didn’t move. There were too many other emotions warring within her: shock, anger, disbelief, and something darker. Hatred.
She didn’t think she could soften.
But when he came closer, h
is hand strayed along her arm and he gently curved his fingers around her biceps, coaxing her up. She did stand then; and before she knew it, he had his arm around her and was leading her away.
“Thank you,” was the first thing she managed to say once they were out of earshot and sight of Sam and Jennifer. “Theo . . . thank you.”
“It had to be done,” he replied. His hand was gentle now, sliding over her hair. But there was something else in his face. Tension, a hardness that she hadn’t noticed before. “It was the least she could do.” He focused his dark brown eyes on her. They were concerned, but there was something else lurking there. “How are you doing?”
“A little better. Thank you for taking me away this afternoon too,” she said. “I really needed that. I’m beginning to accept the inevitable,” she admitted. Her mouth trembled and she told herself that now was not the time to cry. “I’m going to get through this. I’m grateful that I’ll have time with him, but I pray that he won’t be in pain for long.”
“You’re not going to have to go through this alone,” he told her. “I’m going to be here.”
“Thank you,” she said, meaning it, wanting to cling to someone—to him—during this time. He gathered her against his chest and she just let the feel of his embrace soothe her. It was hard to believe that less than a month ago, she hadn’t even known him. And now she was clinging to him for sanity during this awful time.
“The snoot came when I was in Yellow Mountain today,” he said after a while. His voice rumbled deep in his chest next to her ear.
Selena pulled away and looked at him, suddenly glad to have something else to think about than her dying son. “How bad was it?”
He made a sharp, short gesture. “I don’t know. How bad is it usually? They smashed up an engine, found some guns, took away something in big barrels, and searched every house from top to bottom. But no one was hurt or taken away.” His voice dripped bitterness.
“That’s good.”
“That’s good? Is this normal? How often does this sort of thing happen?”
Something about Theo had changed. He seemed to age before her—not literally, of course, but in his eyes. She replied, “It happens often enough. A few times a year. Those things they take—it’s for our own protection; it’s like a cleaning out—”
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” Theo said in a low, dangerous voice. “They come in and just take things? Search? Destroy things? And it’s for your own protection?” His eyes flashed with fury and shock. “Explain to me how that’s for your own damned protection!”
Selena didn’t know what to say at first; her brain was still mushy from shock. “Well,” she began, searching for the words to help him understand. “It’s for the best. Guns are dangerous. They’re left over from the Change—no one makes them now—and the world before it was filled with violence. Everyone used them back then and people were always being killed. They’re unpredictable and deadly and we don’t have any need for them now.” The words tumbled out, words she’d heard over and over. Words she’d tried to make herself believe, and, more importantly, to impress upon Sam.
It was safer that way.
Theo was staring at her as if she’d grown three heads. “Is that what you believe, or what you’ve been told?” he whispered. His face looked raw and savaged. “I had no idea . . . ” He shook his head, jamming a hand up into his hair and ruffling it into spikes. “Do they ever come here?”
“Sometimes. Not for a while. There’s one of them who’s spooked by me.”
“What do you mean? Because you’re the Death Lady, you mean? Or the other . . .”
“They came here once, a couple years ago. Four of them. One of them had a death cloud around him and it was turning blue—but there seemed to be nothing wrong with him. I was angry that they were here, disrupting things and searching, and I told them that the guy was going to die any time now. When the leader—his name is Seattle, and he’s a— What? Do you know him?”
“Oh, yes. I know the asswipe. He’s the one who put the damn bullet in my chest and nearly killed me.”
“Well, actually, he did kill you,” she reminded him.
“True.” A bit of humor flashed through his eyes, but it was gone in an instant. “What happened to the guy with the blue cloud?”
“He died, of course. While they were here, in fact—though I hadn’t expected that. It was just a coincidence. He had a heart attack or something, and just dropped. The snoot left shortly after that, and we haven’t had the pleasure of a visit from them since. I think Seattle’s afraid that I’ll foretell his death,” she added wryly.
“Even so, Frank’s taken steps to make sure they don’t find the things in the arcade with that fake door. And . . . What’s he hiding in the back?”
Selena felt her eyes widen. “So you know about that?”
Theo nodded. “Yeah. If I had to guess, I’d think he was growing something back there he didn’t want them to find.”
“You’d be right,” she said. “Those big barrels the snoot came for—it’s cacao pods. The Yellow Mountainers were given the task to grow cacao trees for the Elite, and that’s the harvest. I guess it’s for something—”
“Chocolate. That’s where they get the chocolate,” Theo said. “They use it for bribes sometimes, the Strangers. I’ve seen them do it. Where is it all? I haven’t seen any chocolate here.”
“We don’t get any of it. The people in the settlement grow it and give it to the Elite. They’re told it’s poison; very dangerous. They have to use gloves when they harvest it.”
Theo gave another one of his sharp, bitter laughs. “Cacao is used to make chocolate, which I’m sure Frank and probably even Vonnie remembers. It’s not dangerous in the least. It’s—”
“I know that,” Selena interrupted. “That’s what Frank’s doing back there—trying to grow his own trees. He managed to sneak a few pods—as you can imagine, everything is very carefully protected—and has been nursing a few trees on his own. So far, they haven’t produced much, but he babies them like they’re the last ones on earth.”
“Smart. Good for him.”
Selena looked at Theo. “Maybe. It’s dangerous, you know. If the snoot catches someone with anything they call dangerous . . . there are always consequences. People disappear, most often, if the snoot think they’re in too deep—they take them away. Or they take the stuff away and destroy it. That’s why I think you’re taking a big risk, Theo, playing around with those things in the arcade.”
“I’m not afraid of them,” he said. “I know a lot more about them and what they stand for than they realize.”
Selena was taken aback by the ferocity in his face. She would have asked more, but Vonnie appeared. “Sammy’s asking for you,” she said.
All other thoughts fled and Selena rushed off, terrified that the death cloud had changed and she had missed saying goodbye to him.
But when she got to Sam, she found him looking better than he had since he’d opened his eyes earlier. Jennifer was gone; and although the death cloud still lingered, he was animated and seemed more comfortable.
Selena turned back to thank Theo for his intervention, but he wasn’t there.
Lou heard the footsteps on the threshold of the door and turned back to the computer screen.
It was either bad-ass Theo returning for another round, or that bossy woman with the curly hair who kept trying to feed him while giving him the hairy eyeball at the same time.
He had work to do, trying to figure out how to get into Blizek’s deepest secrets. And his damned eyes were tired, because his glasses had been smashed in the rout with the gangas last night.
“Hey.”
It was Theo. Lou turned from the computer to look at him. All of the last bit of anger he’d been holding on to evaporated when he saw his brother walking across the floor.
“Geez, that was a stupid argument,” Lou said, at the same time as Theo spoke: “What the hell were we fighting about?”
“I was out of line,” Theo replied, shaking his head as he stepped away. “The things I said were stupid.”
“Yeah, but I was even more whacked. I never realized you felt that way about being . . . the way you are.” In fact, Lou had been beating himself up about it for the last few hours. How could he have missed that? How could he have been so dumb? Fifty years of being in his brother’s head and he didn’t get that he felt like a freak of nature. Fucking idiot.
Theo shrugged. “Whatever. It’d just be nice to know if I was going to die, or live forever. You know? And the way things are going, I’m starting to get the sense that someone up there doesn’t want me to die.”
“Well, I’m seeing a lot more stubble on you,” Lou said. “And a few more gray hairs. So I wouldn’t worry too much about living forever. Pretty soon, you’re going to look like me.” He swiped his hand over the ponytail that reached just past his shoulders.
“So you figure that out yet?” Theo asked, gesturing to the computer. “You had all afternoon.”
Lou snorted. “No. Blizek’s security’s ridiculous. Whatever he had on them, he had to have buried it deeper than China. But did you see those prototypes and screencaps in there for Jolliah’s Castle? That game would have been sweet.”
“I know. I wonder if we could figure out how to build it,” Theo said, pulling up an extra chair. “Maybe even improve on it.”
“Improve on UniZek? That’s blasphemous!”
Theo gave a gruntlike laugh. “You hear anything from Sage or Elliott?”
Lou sobered. “Not yet. She’s trying. But I don’t think there’s much chance of getting him here in less than a week, even if she gets in touch with him. Jade knows how to log on to the network, but I’m not sure where she and Elliott are.”