This Burning Man (Future Arizona Book 1)

by Kris Holt

  'You bringing supplies for the journey?' I asked.

  'Taking a little something that Jensen's men left behind when they hit the station,' she replied. 'I wouldn't want them to miss out on anything. You need any help there?'

  'Pretty much done here,' I said, leaving the others to move her to a quiet spot away from the crowd. 'Cassie's coming with us. Mar would never have agreed to anything else.'

  'I'm sorry for your loss,' Carter said, bowing her head ever so slightly.

  I kicked at the sand beneath my feet, looked over my shoulder. No-one nearby was paying any attention. Coming closer and stretching out in the distance like veins through flesh, Hole Town was filtering quickly onto the last transport home.

  'I didn't really know Cass that well,' I admitted. 'She was quiet, and at the start I thought she was aloof. I guess if she'd really been that way, they wouldn't have loved her the way that they do.'

  Carter nodded, and I could tell she was thinking about someone else, someone who was no doubt special to her, someone not here. We'd all been there – hell, you live a while on this squalid rock and that's what you get. Loss – but first, love.

  I wondered about Padre Reyes and the preachers from the celebration. Hopefully someone had loaded them onto the truck. I even thought for a moment about Waylon and Opie Boggs. No doubt they'd be here somewhere, crawling to safety on their hands and knees if need be. They were that type, but it would take a harder-hearted man than me to deny them today.

  Gregor appeared in the crush. 'Phoenix, I was asked to save you a seat up top.'

  I followed where he was pointing – to a small platform on the exact opposite side of the vehicle to the shattered space where Di Vio's bunker had been.

  'Are you driving?'

  'I leave that sort of thing to the professionals,' he said, and disappeared.

  'I'm coming with you,' Carter said, and we climbed together up the chassis, picking hand and footholds wherever the tortured metal allowed.

  When we climbed into the cockpit, it was empty.

  'I thought the driver would be up here,' I muttered.

  Carter laid her bag down. 'I don't see any seatbelts. How fast is this thing gonna go with a whole town's worth of people on it, anyway?'

  There was a metallic clang as a heavy plate shifted aside and a tiny figure jerked out of a hidden compartment in the floor. I was alarmed for half a second until the figure lifted the massive pair of goggles off her face and cackled evilly at the question.

  'Turned out it took a lot of fuel to power that damn cannon of his,' Jayci Clemence said, treating me to her most fiendish grin. 'Though it came in handy in the end. Gregor was able to refine some of the fuel to superpower the engine.'

  'He's using military grade weapons fuel in the engine?' Carter asked, shooting me the kind of look that she normally reserved for madmen.

  'Hey, we don't really have much of an option. But look at it this way - it got us this far. And if it all goes wrong, we're going to leave a crater the size of a city. So one way or another, history's gonna remember us!'

  Done with talking and bubbling over with nervous energy, Jayci turned away and perched on the very edge of the platform, where a tiller bar tapered down to a pedal with a strip of carpet across it. She was barefoot and her toes tapped impatiently at the pedal. They were painted, just as they'd been before, and I allowed myself a small smile at that.

  'C'mon, c'mon,' she murmured into the radio strung across her chest.

  'Belly of the Beast calling Crow's Nest,' the radio buzzed. 'The snacks are in the wagon and it's time for the main event. Repeat, the snacks are in the wagon.'

  '10-4, good buddy. This is Crow's Nest, taking us home.' Jayci's smile was the same one she'd pulled when she was perched on top of me in the tent in the desert. She snapped the googles down onto her face and called to me and Carter, 'Hang on tight. And I do mean tight, 'cos this thing is faster than you'd believe, and we ain't going back if you leave any bits of yourself behind.'

  Over the horizon to our left, the rising sun cut a fatal path towards us. To our right, the Burning Man roared with flame. We were the middle road, Hole Town's only hope. And we were ready for the final battle.

  Chapter 37 – End of the Line

  I leaned back into the hard metal surface of the monster truck as Jayci pressed her weight onto the pedal and tiller bar. I'd been expecting a slow accumulation of speed, building up as we skirted over the first dune, but we seemed to go from nought to Lord-knows-what in a heartbeat. My breath vanished in a gulp, my stomach tipped away from the rest of me and my eyeballs did their best to flee through the back of my skull. We didn't so much crest that first peak as glide.

  I turned my head side on to see Carter doing the same thing. 'Holy fuuuuuuuu-', she said, and then we were both pinned to the chassis by the movement.

  If the burst of speed pinned us where we were, that was nothing to what it did to Jayci. The burst tipped her over onto her back, so it looked like she was lying down, with only the tiller bar stopping her from being thrown up and over the roof. I could see now why she needed grip on the pedal. Still, that girl was made of strong stuff. She snarled back, using all her weight to turn the truck towards the distant lights of the Mount complex, twinkling on the horizon.

  We were in transit no more than a few minutes, but they were sweltering, soul-crushing minutes that seemed to last for hours. By the end, the speed was such that the stars in the yellow sky above were strobing. And let's not forget that I had the most comfortable seat in the house. Best hope those guys in the back were holding on tight.

  All at once, Jayci shifted weight off the pedal and locked her legs around the tiller bar, swinging it rapidly to and fro, causing the drag that would slow us down. The wheels were throwing up enough sand that you could have seen us coming half a country away.

  Four hundred yards of heat and flying sand to the compound, and we'd slowed just enough that Carter and I could stand upright. There was no respite in the approach. Di Vio's men opened up with everything they had, and the chassis around us rattled with blind-fired automatic rifle rounds.

  'Down!' Jayci slid across the surface and hit the hatch she'd emerged from earlier feet first, popping it open. With the truck now lurching across the sand with no-one at the helm, we took cover inside the small space. The truck rocked from several blasts as Di Vio's army targeted it with missiles and then finally stopped with a massive thump as it careered into the gate at the edge of the complex.

  Jayci slipped on and laced up a pair of boots that were nearly the same size as her. Outside, the furious onslaught continued, with multiple bursts of light tearing up the invisible horizon.

  'Looks like they've got a nest above the entranceway,' Carter said, kneeling by the hatch and squinting through the gap. 'Pass me my bag.'

  I did as she asked, and she pulled out a long tubular device with a twin stock and sights. A few seconds passed while she methodically moved through the controls, ending by screwing a round into the end that looked like a potato with flights.

  'Lend me a shoulder,' she said, and I did so. We waited a few seconds longer for a brief lull in the assault, and when one came, Jayci rolled clear. Carter kicked the hatch door open and fired into the hellstorm below. A huge flare went off in the distance, accompanied by screams. Before the first shell had even landed, Carter had calmly reloaded, and then she fired again, reloaded and fired again. By the time of the third impact, the nest was silent and the approach was clear.

  Meanwhile, Jayci had scuttled down the chassis ahead of us and jogged towards the compound. An enemy soldier came screaming out of a nearby hut with an axe, and Jayci tased his ass back to Christmas before he'd taken three steps. It was a moment of beauty.

  Finally, the sand cloud broke and Mar emerged on her trike at the head of a spear-shaped crowd of Hole Town's finest, armed to the teeth and shouting their rage loud enough for it to echo off the sky. My heart began to beat double-time. We're coming, Nate Di Vio, coming for
you. Over you and through you, and we're taking back what's ours.

  The fighting was already well underway by the time I got down there. Di Vio's men had been busy, barricading internal walls with whatever they could find. They might have proved useful in the face of a casual skirmish, but Hole Town was good and angry, and no metal sheet will stand up long against a laser.

  I bypassed the main defensive lines and followed the natural curve of the cavern around to where a low-roofed cave led deep into bedrock. Carter had followed me all the way, and now she pointed down the stairs.

  'The reservoir is that way. There's a couple more chambers before you get there. The scientists use them for testing and quality control.'

  'Thanks,' I said, checking my gun one last time.

  We had a moment of mutual respect there in the corridor, two soldiers of fortune set to play two different roles in the final battle to come.

  'You want me to come down there with you?' she said.

  I shook my head. 'Find Mama Smokes. Some of her people are still missing. Jensen's men must have brought them here and stashed them somewhere. Other than that, the Hole Town army could use another leader, I'm sure. Ain't no-one better than you when it comes to crowd control.'

  She nodded and her lips softened, though not quite as far as to smile. 'And you're sure you'll be okay down there?'

  'Our bad's a pimply no-good from an Ivy League college. How hard can it be?'

  Carter looked all kinds of skeptical, and I wasn't about to blame her for that. Nevertheless, she headed back up the stairs the other way.

  After she was gone, I started to make my way downstairs, leaning into the wall and scanning the shadows, but nothing was moving below. In the distance, somewhere way above, gunfire echoed in the chambers and I could hear shouting. That shouting would make its way down here eventually, but the quicker I got done, the quicker I could come back up to help my friends.

  As I stepped downwards, I could see rows of dusty shelves leading down to machinery designed to pump and filter water. A chemical smell leaked out of the chamber, and the sound of water rushing underfoot grew as the sounds above faded away.

  The last of Di Vio's scientists was here, shifting crates onto a hovertrike. He glanced at me twice before he seemed to see me, and then he quickly raised his hands.

  'Enough,' he called. 'I'm done here. I never wanted anyone to get hurt.'

  'Little late in the day for that,' I said.

  'Are you going to shoot me?' he cried.

  'You're safe if you stay still and show me your hands.'

  He offered them out in front, before adjusting himself and raising them above his head. 'Is this it? Are the townspeople coming down? Is it over?'

  'Looking more and more like it,' I said. As we talked, I scanned the room, ceiling to floor, careful to keep one eye on the man at all times. 'What are you doing down here anyway?'

  'Water testing. Keeping the machines running and ensuring quality. The water here has some unique trace qualities, a product of the rocks in the mesa. Of course, you're probably not really interested in that.' He looked down at the floor sadly for a second, reminding me of the way Gregor sometimes looked when things he mentioned went over my head.

  'What about military?' I asked.

  'The last of them went upstairs a few minutes ago. I guess things are going badly for them.' He inclined his shoulders away from me.

  'Doesn't sound like you care that much,' I said.

  'I'm not here to fight. I'm here to do my job and survive the perihelion. Long as I do that, I don't care who's in charge.'

  'Talking of the man in charge, where's your boss?'

  He pointed at the door on the far side of the chamber. 'He's down there in the reservoir.'

  'How many of his men are in there with him?'

  'None,' and he flinched for a moment that made me think he might be lying. 'He's...been having some trust issues since he got back from the Oasis. His injuries were serious, and his temper's been...severe.'

  I waited for a moment to see if he'd say more, but the silence just lengthened long enough for him to shrug.

  'Can you get me through the door?' I said.

  He paused and then nodded. 'I know the code.'

  'C'mon then.'

  I jogged out of the entranceway towards him. Instead of moving for the door, he looked past me and I heard a distinctive click from a spot in the wall that stopped me in my tracks and left me cursing my carelessness. I looked over my shoulder to see Jensen standing in an enclave laid well back from the chamber itself. Where he was standing, he was invisible from the doorway. Still, there he was, and he had the drop on me. Betsy seemed to rise up in his hands, like she recognized me.

  'End of the line, kiddo,' he said.

  Chapter 38 – The Dark Angel Rises

  'End of the line, kiddo.'

  'Looks like it,' I said.

  'It's real good timing you came down here now,' he said. 'I could use a man like you. Most of the guys I got left here are cattle thieves and mine rejects. They talk a good game but some of them ain't never even fired a gun. It's fucking amateur hour, I'm telling you.'

  I wasn't in the mood for light conversation. 'Shouldn't you be down in the reservoir, guarding the boss man?'

  'Not any more. When you pitched him out of his truck, he fell pretty hard on his head. All the genius is still in there, it's just got kinda...scrambled. But whatever, it don't matter, not anymore. If we lose, there's a million tunnels in here for a man to hide in. If we win, well, we don't really need him anymore.'

  'You'd kill Di Vio yourself?' I said.

  'If I had to. Getting here was the hard part. He might have money coming out of his ears, but that ain't gonna mean shit when the world burns. Going forward we're gonna need men that can build and men that can fight...and we're gonna need women to help us repopulate.'

  'There are plenty of women upstairs just dying to meet you.'

  'They can die just fine without me. I got a pile more in the barracks that we pulled from the battlefield back at the oasis. They're a bit anxious just now but when they see what's going down outside, they'll come round to my way of thinking.'

  'I doubt that very much,' I said, with feeling.

  'So here it is,' Jensen said, while Betsy probed for my heart place. 'You can still come over to the winning side. You trot yourself back upstairs, acquit yourself well and when things are all over and done, I'll give you a commission in my private army. You can pick any girl you want out of the barracks and play your part in rebuilding the world. What do you say?'

  'I say you haven't got a hope in hell of beating Hole Town. All of that, and it's pretty damn sad that you can't even give away tickets to the last safe place at the end of the world.'

  'Well, if that's all you got.' Jensen sighted his rifle on my chest with a final, deliberate movement. 'You'll forgive me, but I got places to be.'

  'I'd hate to miss the end,' I said.

  He clicked the bolt on the rifle. 'Go ahead of me. You can fill me in later.'

  'You're gonna shoot me in the front?' I was playing furiously for time. 'Isn't it more your style to shoot someone in the back?'

  It was the right ploy. Or at least, the rifle lowered just long enough for him to snarl, 'Don't try to shame me. I spent my entire life in the army, travelling the world, fighting for your freedom. I don't owe you shit.'

  'Whose freedom were you fighting for when you killed Cassie?'

  His face twisted, like he didn't know whether to laugh at me, yell abuse or apologise and beg my forgiveness. Then his features relaxed.

  'The bitch in the crane,' he said. 'I see now. Well, I'm sorry if she was precious to you, but Betsy and me have killed a lot of precious people in our time.'

  'And your time ends here,' said a voice in the doorway.

  Mar stepped into the chamber with all the grace of a furious cat and immediately began to circle around. Her hair glowed eerily in the low light, and her long coat tails splayed out beh
ind her like wings.

  Jensen was distracted enough for me to pull out my pistol as he bought the rifle around towards her. I sighted him and he backed away slowly so he could keep wary eyes on each of us.

  'Now, boy, you must have fired at least a few shots with that thing just getting down here,' he said. 'Ain't no sun this deep for you to go recharging it, so it could just be that you're pointing that as an empty threat.'

  'Try me,' I said.

  He was a cool one, Jensen. 'If you can fire it, maybe you should. Otherwise, it's just bravado, ain't it?'

  'Phoenix, if you kill him while I'm still alive, I'll cut your balls off.' Someone who had spent less time with Mar than I had would surely have believed that she meant it.