Scavenger Alliance

by Janet Edwards

  “Enough will fight for me to win the battle,” said Cage, “and that’s all that matters.”

  “What about the people who’ll be injured or killed in the fighting?”

  “I spent four years preparing to take the leadership of Manhattan from Wall, and you wrecked all my efforts by making me look a fool in front of the whole alliance. I spent another six years preparing my bid to become an alliance officer, and you’re trying to wreck my efforts for a second time. Do you think I’ll burst into tears and abandon my plans because a few insignificant people may die?”

  “But we’re still short of food. If we start fighting amongst ourselves instead of hunting, then everyone will starve.”

  Cage’s smile didn’t falter. “The people who prove themselves useful to me won’t starve, and the rest don’t matter. Your arguments won’t work on me, Blaze, but you should listen to them yourself. Picture your Resistance friends dying to defend Donnell. Imagine their children starving after the battle.”

  He paused. “You can prevent all those deaths, Blaze. You can stop that pointless waste of lives. All you have to do is make Donnell give me the deputy position I was promised. Think about it while you’re on your supply trip. I’ll want your answer as soon as you return.”

  Cage limped off out of the door, and then Hannah stepped towards me. “Blaze, I …”

  I struggled to my feet, swaying with dizziness and pain, my right hand still cradling my left arm against my chest. “No, Hannah! Don’t try telling me again how this is all my fault.”

  “But it is your fault. When we talked on our last fishing trip together, you lied to me. You told me Donnell was going to throw us both out of the Resistance, and Ice wouldn’t take us back into London division. The best option for both of us seemed to be for me to agree to work for Cage. If you’d told me the truth, said that Donnell was going to make you an officer, none of this would have happened.”

  “On our last fishing trip together, I told you the precise truth, which was that Donnell had said he wanted to discuss my future with me. You’re the one that’s been lying to me. You’re still lying to me even now. You weren’t trying to decide whether to work for Cage that day. You’d already been working for him for years. You stole two boxes of painkillers. Not one tablet, but two boxes!”

  Hannah’s expression changed to something furtive. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do. Donnell told me the true facts about you getting caught stealing the painkillers. I knew you were scared of pain, so I thought you wanted to keep all those painkillers for yourself, but you’d actually stolen them for Cage. You’d probably stolen a lot of other medicines before that too. You’ve been working for Cage ever since we came to New York, haven’t you?”

  Hannah put a hand to her mouth, and chewed on her glove in the familiar mannerism that meant she was considering what to say.

  “Answer me!” I snapped.

  “I didn’t have any choice. After your brother turned traitor and left, you were out of favour with Donnell, and I was scared I’d be thrown out of the Resistance. I knew what it would be like struggling to survive alone. My mother and I had lived like that for two nightmare years in London, and I couldn’t face going through it again. When Cage said he could arrange the option of a place in Manhattan division in exchange for a couple of boxes of fever medicine …”

  She waved her hands. “It didn’t stop at that though. Cage kept asking for more things. When I refused, he threatened to send an anonymous message to Donnell telling him what I’d done, so I had to keep stealing. After I got caught, and didn’t have access to the stores on the top floor of the Resistance wing any longer, Cage started giving me orders about you. He wanted me to …”

  “Enough!” I interrupted her. “I don’t want to know how much medicine you stole for Cage before you got caught and moved downstairs. I don’t want to know how many of my secrets you’ve whispered to Cage. I don’t want to know how many lies you’ve told me to poison my relationship with Donnell. I just want you to get out of here. You belong with Cage and Manhattan now.”

  Hannah scuttled off through the door. I closed my eyes for a moment, fighting off the dual physical and emotional pain of my arm and her betrayal, and then turned to Tad. Only yesterday, I’d told Donnell that Tad couldn’t beat a five-year-old child in a fight, but he’d ripped Cage apart in seconds.

  “How the chaos did you do that to Cage?” I asked.

  “It’s mostly to do with balance,” said Tad. “You destroy your opponent’s balance while keeping your own. I’m a bit surprised it worked though. I’ve never been in a real fight before, just fought in training.”

  “You’ve been trained to fight?” I shook my head in bewilderment, and instantly regretted it as my left shoulder hit a new peak of agony that made me dizzy. “Why? I thought Adonis was civilized.”

  “Every world has its shady areas and its unscrupulous people, even Adonis. My family is very rich and that can be a mixed blessing. When I was six years old, my father was kidnapped. My grandfather paid the ransom, but all we got back was a dead body.”

  I was shocked. “So that was how your father died.”

  “After that, my grandfather doubled the guards, and hired experts to teach me to fight. I always suspected the instructors were letting me win to please me, but maybe they weren’t.” Tad shrugged. “Forget that. We have to go back and tell everyone how Cage attacked you and injured your arm. He’s planning to call general justice against you, but we can call general justice against him first.”

  I tried to ignore the agony in my shoulder and think what to do. “That won’t work. Cage will say that he never touched me, my arm has been like this all along, and Hannah will support his story.”

  “I’ll tell people what really happened.”

  “People won’t listen to evidence from an off-worlder, Tad. Even if they were prepared to give you a hearing, Cage could just point out that your life depends on Donnell protecting you, so you’ll obviously tell any story that he wants.”

  I curbed the urge to shake my head again. “After that, everything would happen exactly the way Cage described. Everyone will believe Hannah because she is … she was my best friend, Donnell gets drawn into defending me, and Cage uses that to start his leadership battle.”

  “So what do we do?” asked Tad.

  It was pure folly to carry on with the trip upriver when I was injured and helpless with pain, but if I went back then Cage would start his war right away. Donnell needed time to talk Major into changing sides, and I needed time to think. The foundations of my world had just been shattered. My best friend had been betraying me for years, and my enemy had fought Cage in my defence. Where did that leave me now?

  “We’re going upriver,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  I expected Tad to argue with me, try to insist on us going back to get medical treatment for my arm and shoulder, but he just accepted my decision. There were four boats of varying sizes in the boathouse. I chose the largest one since we had so many stasis boxes, and Tad spread out the thermal mattresses in the bottom of the boat and said I should rest while he loaded the supplies. I told him I was perfectly fine, which was a lie. He told me I looked like I was about to pass out, which was probably true.

  I gave in, and Tad helped me down the steps and into the boat. I lay down, and he covered me with our sleeping bags. It felt strange having an off-worlder taking care of me.

  Now I was lying down, the pain in my left arm and shoulder eased a little, but I was panicking that Cage would come back before we left. I watched impatiently as Tad piled the supplies and stasis boxes at the back of the boat, and finally went to the controls.

  I explained to Tad how the controls worked, and he manoeuvred the boat out of the boathouse and turned upriver. I’d have been happier if I was the one driving the boat, but that wasn’t physically possible.

  “Make sure you stay in the centre of the river,” I called out. “There’
s a fallen crane near the bank just ahead of us, and any number of sunken boats.”

  “I’ll …” Tad’s head suddenly swung round to look at something. “What the chaos is that?”

  I tensed, hastily lifted my head to look over the side of the boat, and then relaxed again as I realized Tad was looking at the elegant white shape by the nearest riverbank. “That’s the Spirit of New York. She’s far too big to fit in any boathouse, so we keep her moored to a pier.”

  “I’ve never seen a boat on that scale,” said Tad. “Why does she have huge wheels on each side?”

  “The Spirit of New York is a reproduction paddle steamer,” I said. “She was built as a novelty pleasure boat to take people on river cruises from New York up to Albany and back. The reproduction engines are far easier to maintain than modern ones, so we use her to bring wood and other supplies from upriver, though we can’t go as far as Albany.”

  Tad nodded. “Donnell mentioned the Hudson River was blocked by wreckage at Bear Mountain.”

  We were passing the Spirit of New York, leaving Cage behind us at the Americas Parliament House. We should be perfectly safe now. There was no reason for Cage to chase us upriver, when he just had to wait a few days for us to return.

  I sank back onto the thin thermal mattresses, and focused on my conversation with Tad to try to distract myself from the shooting pains in my left arm and shoulder.

  “The river isn’t blocked by wreckage, but by guards on the Bear Mountain Bridge. There’s a settlement just past there. The citizens keep guards stationed on the bridge, and shoot at us with laser weapons if we get too near.”

  “It’s totally irresponsible of them to shoot at people like that,” said Tad.

  “They wouldn’t think we counted as people.”

  There was a brief pause before Tad spoke again. “When you leave in the spring, could you take the Spirit of New York downriver, out to sea, and round to the Delaware River to reach Philadelphia? That would be much easier than making the journey on foot.”

  I was hit by a dizzy spell, and had to wait for it to end before speaking. “The Spirit of New York might not survive that sort of voyage. She was never designed to go to sea, and she’s an elderly ship. We wouldn’t be able to fit everyone in the alliance aboard her anyway, let alone the basic supplies we’d need.”

  We were heading under the Unity Bridge now. I stared up at its ridiculously ornate design of linked hands. The bridge was built back in the twenty-third century, to mark the opening of the United Earth Americas Parliament complex, the renaming of the Union City area to be Unity City, and its formal recognition as a new borough of New York. The Unity Bridge was supposed to be an everlasting monument to a united city in a united world. It was already falling apart.

  As we came out from under the bridge, I saw a movement in the sky to my right. A falling star had launched itself from one of the Manhattan skyscrapers and was gliding across the river. Tad noticed it too, turning his head to look at it.

  “Falling stars won’t bother us on this boat, will they?”

  “We’re perfectly safe out here in mid-river. The adult falling star population is all concentrated around Lower Manhattan and the old Midtown area, and even the baby ones haven’t spread upriver as far as the Presidents’ Bridge. The boat batteries are suffering from age, so they don’t hold their charge well, but they should last until we’re past that.”

  “I’m looking at some old images of the river,” said Tad. “Is the Presidents’ Bridge the massive thing with lots of faces on the side?”

  “That’s right.” I closed my eyes again and shifted cautiously on the mattresses, trying to find a position where my left arm and shoulder were comfortable. I couldn’t. Cage had nearly ripped my arm out of its socket. I remembered the snapping sound that I’d heard. I wasn’t sure if it was the bone in my upper arm that had broken again, or something in my shoulder.

  Tad had gone quiet now, so I lay listening to the steady humming sound of the boat’s engines as we headed slowly upriver. Even the pain in my arm couldn’t distract me from brooding on Cage’s threat.

  He was going to use me to attack Donnell’s leadership of the alliance. That would be bad at any time, but for it to happen now, at the very moment when Donnell had to convince everyone that New York was going to burn and they should follow him to a new home, would be disastrous.

  I groaned. I was going to cause Donnell more trouble than my traitor brother had ever done. I couldn’t give in to Cage’s demands. It wasn’t just that I’d rather be eaten by a falling star than marry him. Giving Cage the deputy position would mean he’d automatically succeed Donnell as leader. As Machico had pointed out, Cage would probably murder Donnell to speed up his rise to power.

  I had to find another way out of this, but how? I was still trying to find a way to solve the unsolvable problem, when I noticed the sound of the boat engine had changed to include a faint hiccupping.

  “The boat battery needs recharging, Tad. You’d better take us in towards the bank. Remember to watch out for underwater obstacles.”

  A few minutes later, I felt the jolt of the boat bumping gently against the bank. I opened my eyes, looked round, and saw we’d stopped by an area of grass and trees just past the Presidents’ Bridge.

  Tad cut the engine, and tied the boat up to an old signpost. “How do I recharge the battery?”

  “You don’t.” I struggled up into a sitting position, holding my injured left arm with my right hand to stop it moving. “I have to do this myself. Tie the aft mooring rope as well to make sure the boat keeps perfectly still while I connect the cables. I don’t want the power storage unit exploding and …”

  I broke off and pulled a face. “Or perhaps I do. Getting blown up would solve all my problems. Cage couldn’t use me to destroy Donnell if I was dead.”

  “I feel there has to be a better way to deal with Cage’s threats than blowing ourselves up,” said Tad. “I’ve strong objections to dying.”

  He tied the aft mooring rope to a jagged spike of metal. “Will that keep the boat still enough?”

  “I think so.”

  “You aren’t seriously considering drastic measures, are you?”

  “No. Donnell says that dying is a bad tactical move, because being dead severely limits your future actions.”

  Tad laughed. “He’s right.”

  “Donnell is usually right, except about his drinking. Help me make my scarf into a sling for my arm.”

  Tad carefully wrapped my scarf round my left arm, and knotted it at the back of my neck to form a sling.

  “Now fetch the power storage unit and put it next to the boat controls.”

  He obeyed my instructions and grinned. “If we’re going to use this to blow someone up, I suggest we blow up Cage.”

  I shuffled closer to the boat controls. “I’ll give that idea serious consideration. Quiet now. I need to listen to the power storage unit talking to me.”

  Tad gave me a bewildered look, but shut up.

  I opened the flap that covered the boat’s built in battery, and took out the charging lead and several short lengths of cable. It took me two attempts to plug the charging lead into the socket in the top of the power storage unit, because it was awkward working one-handed.

  “Safety system auto block engaged,” said the power storage unit sternly. “You have connected an incompatible device to this unit.”

  I plugged both ends of a cable into sockets on one side of the power storage unit. It started beeping. “Warning,” said the voice. “Safety system has been overridden.”

  I concentrated on counting the beeps.

  “Danger. Power instability.”

  As the power unit beeped for the twentieth time, I braced myself ready to bring my left hand into use. There was a moment of agony as I simultaneously plugged both ends of another cable into the other side of the power storage unit. The bleeping instantly speeded up.

  “Danger. Critical power instability.”

&
nbsp; I yanked out all the cables with my right hand. “I’m afraid this can get rather boring. You have to make the final connection at precisely the right instant for this to work, so it usually takes a few attempts.”

  “If you’re doing what I think you’re doing to that power unit, there’s nothing remotely boring about it.” Tad sounded close to panic.

  “Don’t worry. You get one more message before anything bad happens. Something about explosion imminent. I’ve never heard it myself, but …”

  “Let’s try not to hear it today,” said Tad. “How the chaos did you people work out how to do this?”

  “Kasim discovered it by accident years ago. He was rigging a power unit to explode, but it didn’t. Quiet now while I try again.”

  I went through the routine of connecting cables again. I must have made the final connection at the right time because the beeping stopped.

  “That’s done it.” I nodded at the flashing green light on the boat controls. “The boat battery is charging.”

  I slowly settled back on my mattresses again, careful not to jar my shoulder. “We haven’t had any food yet today. My arm hurts too much for me to eat anything, but you must be hungry.”

  “I’m starving,” admitted Tad.

  He got a plate of food out of one of the stasis boxes, and wolfed it down before moving to sit beside me. “Blaze, I want to ask you something.”

  I was feeling sick from pain, but I still laughed. “You’ve been asking me things ever since you arrived in New York.”

  He frowned down at me. “I know, but … You said the Spirit of New York could go upriver as far as the Bear Mountain Bridge. Would this boat be able to make it there as well?”

  “Yes, but I told you it’s far too dangerous. The citizens have some fancy, long-range, laser rifles, and shoot at any boat they see coming from New York.”