Before doomsday hit.
Any chance of sleep fled, and when she heard someone knock on the kitchen door, be greeted and invited in, she hurriedly drew on her trusty cargo pants. The visitor had come to the back, which meant this wasn’t a medical emergency. But the fact he didn’t just barge in also indicated this wasn’t his normal hangout.
Lily tensed as a pair of voices came to her. Part of what they said was lost—but not all. Thrusting her arms into the heavyweight flannel shirt someone had donated to the infirmary, she reached for her boots, fingers flying to untangle laces knotted when she kicked the boots off last night.
“She’s not up yet. I haven’t heard a peep out of her—counting my blessings.” Bren, the night nurse-guard-caretaker-whatever you want to call her, was saying in an unnaturally breathy voice.
Must be Bannion with her after all, Lily thought, smirking a little as she decided the shoe strings could wait and she buttoned the shirt as fast as she could. She had no doubt of the identity of the “she/her” the woman referred to. The new arrival, whoever he might be, had come for her.
“Get her up, dressed, and ready to ride, Bren, please.”
Lily paused in the buttoning. To her surprise, the man wasn’t Bannion. Way too soft-spoken to be the forceful sheriff. She knew the voice, though. Nate Quick. A little shiver—anticipation?—ran through her.
“Has the fighting started?” The woman sounded fearful, with reason considering the to-do last night.
“Not yet. Bannion’s asking the lady to ride with us, is all. He wants her to take a look at this Cross-up fellow traveling with the Techs.”
“Now?” asked Bren.
“Yep. Right now.”
“All right. I’ll fetch her. You should wait in the kitchen, Nate,” Bren said. “There’s fresh tea in the pot. Help yourself. I doubt you’ve even taken time for breakfast.”
The man murmured again and Bren said wryly, “Sure you got time. This gal doesn’t move very fast without she has her tea first. Pour her a cup to cool while you’re at it.”
Lily’s lips twitched again. Damn right, she didn’t move fast. No point in letting the O’Quinn tribe know she could move quickly enough if she had to, or wanted to. Harrison and Jacob knew, but no one else. Go ahead and build a reputation that said otherwise. These people were not her friends.
She had no friends. That much was clear. A frisson of unease traversed her spine. But everyone wanted something from her, just the same. The memory of the Trader captain and his offer came to her, and she added it to what she’d heard about the Techs.
Bren pushed the door open without warning, and strode in as if thinking to take Lily by surprise. The lamp she carried turned back the gloom, showing the mussed bed, but no occupant. She sucked in a breath and called, “Nate!” on a panicky note as if ready to announce her prisoner had escaped.
Or that’s what it seemed like to Lily.
“Are you looking for me?” she asked from behind the woman. As if she didn’t know. “If you are, it would be polite to knock.”
Bren almost dropped the lamp as she spun around. Lily caught it with reflexes faster than she thought possible. These old wooden buildings, though. It wouldn’t take much to burn the place to the ground. Best not let a fire get started.
“What are you doing up?” Bren asked, taking back the lamp and inadvertently touching the clear chimney. She winced from the heat, glaring as though the pain were Lily’s fault. “How’d you know Bannion wants you?”
An imp of mischief, or maybe the fact she was fed up with the whole outlandish O’Quinn clan and their constant drama, made Lily smile smugly. “Guess the sheriff will have to get in line. I’ve got a hot date with Nate that takes priority.” She batted her eyes for emphasis.
Date with Nate. A cutesy catchy rhyme.
Grabbing her coat from a hook beside the door, she slipped past Bren and went to meet the man. Better to go for a ride than to hide away in this room.
A thinner, slighter representative of the clan, Nate radiated whipcord strength doing nothing more than standing at the stove. He wore heavy brown jeans, a jacket that looked too light for the weather, and a floppy-brimmed hat jammed over his longish brown hair. His hands must’ve been asbestos-lined, for he held the tea kettle with bare fingers as he faced her. Dark circles cast shadows under his amber eyes. She didn’t think he slept much the night before, either.
“Bren says you need tea to crank your engine in the morning,” he said, filling a mug and holding it out to her.
Surprised, Lily took the cup. Sipped. Swallowed. Oh, for a simple cup of coffee instead of these bland herbal concoctions. She needed caffeine.
“You used that phrase once before. What do you know about engines?” she asked. “A little before your time, weren’t they? Or are you...?”
Nate shook his head. “Nope. Not me. Born in 2082 right here in this building. I read the old books is all, when I can get hold of one. I wish there were more. Lot of them have been burned over the years.”
Lily shook her head. “What were people thinking? Books are the repository of all knowledge. Didn’t people need them to get civilization going after the Event?”
“People were too busy trying to stay alive to think about books at first.” Nate smiled as he used another of hisoldisms, as Lily soon learned he called them. “But now you’re preachin’ to the choir. I take it on myself to scout for old texts.”
Left out of the conversation, Bren’s face turned sullen. “Preach to the choir? What are you talking about, Nate? You’re not making any sense.”
“I know it, Bren. Sorry. I’m here for a purpose. Guess I’d better mind my manners.”
Lily slurped from her cup, relishing the bite of the herbal tea. His cool humor reassured her, though she couldn’t think why. “So, where are we going, Nate?”
“Boss thinks you can help us with a little problem.” Showing no reaction to Lily’s use of his first name, he set his empty cup on the drain board of the sink and buttoned his jacket. “We’re going to take a little ride out to where the Techs and the Cross-up are. See what you think of him. Cold out, though. You got a hat? Gloves?”
Excitement quickened Lily’s pulse even as she shook her head. “I’ll be fine. My coat has a hood. I’ll pull it up.” Ride out of the compound to meet the Techs and the Cross-up man? Why? Much as she longed for the learning experience, she wondered just what Bannion O’Quinn and the clan wanted from her. One way to find out, she supposed, wordlessly zipping her jacket.
“Let’s go, then,” Nate said. “Bren, thanks for the tea.”
“Come back anytime, Nate.” Bren’s voice purred, heavy with a more meaningful invitation.
The big red roan gelding hitched to a post was the one Nate had been riding the last time she saw him. Pigeon. She remembered its name. Next to it was another animal that looked like his horse’s little sister. Evidently, Nate had provided her with a mount from his own stock. She stepped forward, longing suddenly to be in the saddle, journeying into the frosty dawn.
“They say you can ride.” Nate handed her the reins to the smaller mount.
“Huh. Last time I checked.” And when Lily put her foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle, she knew nothing had changed. She felt comfortable, as if this was where she belonged. Only then did she discover the saddle was her own, the leather worn, but soft with soaping and oiling.
Although she wanted to thank Nate for this unexpected kindness, the words froze in her mouth and they’d traversed the short distance across the compound before she had a chance.
Bannion was waiting outside the headquarters main house where Selkirk lived, scowling as she and Nate rode over. “Took you long enough,” he grumped, stepping up onto Nog. “Let’s go.”
Wearing a worried expression, Selkirk waved them off, his eyes fixed on Lily.
More distrust, as if afraid she could, or would, do something to harm them. But why would she? What were they so afraid of?
The ho
rses moved quietly over the soft earth, leaving Traders and clan members still asleep after last night’s excitement to rest undisturbed, provided they could sleep at all. But once the three of them were on the trail, an old and overgrown secondary road, Bannion urged Nog into a trot. Lily gigged her horse into a matching gait, Nate riding a stride behind.
“She gonna fall off that nag?” Bannion called past her to Nate, like he didn’t care if her feeling were hurt at the insult.
Nate grinned when she scowled back at him. “Don’t look like it. Let’s step on it, boss. Sun’ll be up before we make Wolf Point.”
Their speed kicked up to a lope, Lily ignored the hunger gnawing in a stomach she just couldn’t seem to fill lately. She breathed in air moist and fresh from the lake below the winding trail. Their route took them through forested rolling foothills. Except for the pounding of the horses’ feet, the woods were quiet, if not silent. Once they startled a deer from the underbrush, a nice five-pointer. Other than that, Lily noticed birds, lots of them, maintaining a constant twitter as they swirled like blowing leaves in the sky above the rider’s heads.
“What’s the matter with those starlings?” she asked Nate, pointing at the small black birds. They’d reached a place she could slow and let him pull in at her side. She’d noticed right off that while Bannion took the lead, Nate formed a rearguard, keeping her sandwiched between them. Somehow, she doubted it was for her safety.
“The birds?” He nodded to Bannion. “Ask him.”
She didn’t think she would. The sheriff’s expression was too grim for her to break his concentration. No one spoke for the next hour, not until they broke over the ridge into the open.
“Wolf Point,” Bannion said. The main highway still ran here, the asphalt long since eroded and broken into a choppy one-lane trail. “We beat them.”
Nate squinted against the sun, glaring in orange and blue glory through darkly billowing scattered clouds. “Break out the checkered flag. It was a close race. See their sails?”
Sails? Lily peered into the distance, where activity stirred beneath a cloud of dust. What was he talking about?
Wolf Point was an intersection notorious, she recalled upon recognizing the place, for a horrific number of high speed collisions and resultant fatalities. There’d been a convenience store and gas station here last time she passed by. All that remained was a tumbled pile of broken concrete and cinder blocks, mostly obscured by encroaching box elder and scrawny Jack pine trees.
Hearing voices before she saw anyone, she discovered Bannion’s patrollers hidden with artful concealment in the ruins. But although the patrollers were well camouflaged and spoke no more than necessary, she imagined any halfway competent leader would expect ambush at this site.
“How many fighters do you have?” she asked, eyeing the dust cloud in the distance.
Nate answered in a vague sort of way. “No fret, Lily. The boss figures we have plenty of warriors on hand to take care of these Techs. If it becomes necessary.”
Cagey, she thought. “They’re not as bad as Mags, are they?” Bad? Scary? Fearsome? Please, no more mutants with filed teeth and three eyes.
“Mags?” he asked, as if surprised. “You think they’re bad?”
“Don’t you?”
“There’s worse.”
Lily could only stare at him in astonishment. “Worse than Mags?” She didn’t miss the glance Bannion shot Nate. A warning?
“Get her under cover, Nate,” Bannion said abruptly. “Keep her quiet and don’t let Screenmaster see her. You can hand your horses over to Carina. She and Jacob have the rest of them corralled down in the draw.”
Lily held back “Wait a minute. What do you mean, get me under cover? What kind of trouble are you expecting? And what do you want me to do about it?”
Bannion’s cool gaze scraped against her, raising the hair at the back of her neck. “Depends,” he said.
“On what?”
“Screenmaster. This bunch of saiclers. You.” Turning his horse, he rode off to where a second squad of his patrollers were busy erecting a road block out of downed logs and some large pieces of broken concrete. They greeted him with cheers.
Nate reached across and took control of Lily’s reins. “Come on. Might as well do as he says. You’ll find my cousin is an immovable force when he’s got his mind made up about things.”
“Me being one of those things.” Lily made no attempt to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Regardless of my actions.”
“Afraid so. Unless you can prove he doesn’t need to worry.”
“I thought I did that the other day,” she said, to which Nate didn’t reply.
A few minutes later, Lily found herself squatting in a cramped space between a couple of rusted off gas pumps, watching the aforementioned saiclers approach. For the first time since awakening from her long sleep, Lily laughed aloud
Saiclers, she discovered, followed precedents set by the creation of words like smog and blog, taking their name from a combination of cyclists and sailors. Their method of locomotion looked especially funny as they approached the crest of the barren hill, with the riders standing on their pegs and pumping hard. A light tail wind pushed against a small square sail rigged from a mast attached to the rear fender. They looked absurd.
“What so funny?” Nate asked, and one of the nearby warriors peeked around a fallen wall and stared at her.
Lily’s laughter ceased. “They look ridiculous with those silly little sails flapping in the breeze. Do those things actually work?
“Yep,” Nate said. “Sure do. Saiclers can move pretty fast when conditions are right. Faster than horses over a long run.”
Lily spared a thought for the Tour de France. Those guys hadn’t needed floppy canvas sails. “Do you take them seriously?”
“Don’t pay to discount anybody, Lily, when they got a sword at your throat.”
“Cripes, all they need are tight little Speedos,” she muttered. “What a picture.”
However, as the bike riders came closer, she saw short spears, and bows and quivers of arrows bristling from carriers fixed to the saicyle’s fenders. In a bin in front of the handlebars, chains with spiked balls on the ends were coiled like rattlesnakes. The riders wore helmets, fashioned in a medieval manner, leathers, and what looked like chain mail vests. A half dozen massive dogs ran alongside the leaders. Pitbulls, she thought. Supersized ones. Sliver would have a hard time with one of those. Her fit of humor subsided.
Some distance from the O’Quinn’s roadblock, the cyclists formed up in ranks four abreast and drew to a halt. There were a lot of them, she decided, making a try at an accurate count. They were waiting for a rig that looked like a camp trailer with an outside driving seat. It was pulled by four white horses straining to catch up. On the seat, reins in hand, was a little person, a rotund little man person, garbed in clothing like a roman centurion plus baggy pants. Except, Lily thought, her eyes going wide, this person was not so benign.
“You’re not laughing now,” Nate whispered out the side of his mouth.
“No.” Shock effectively dried Lily’s ability to speak beyond the monosyllabic croak. She’d seen this little man before, and the context did not thrill her. Chill her, yes. If she wasn’t mistaken, in the weeks before the…the so-called Event, his trial and sentencing had made big headlines in newspapers across the country. CNN, CNBC, FOX, all the television channels and the internet news had carried lurid stories about him. That he had survived the catastrophic event had to be some kind of cruel cosmic joke.
Except, as Nate said, she wasn’t laughing.
Chapter 18
“Fifteen, eighteen, twenty-one…” Nate enumerated softly. He was counting the forces lining up against the O’Quinn clansmen when Lily’s breath hissing in and out in a disturbed fashion claimed his attention. His hand went to his knife as he spun around, only to find her hunkered against the rusty debris surrounding them as if wishing to disappear. Her face had drained of color.<
br />
“What’s the matter?” he asked, loosing count. No big deal. The saicler group was almost past anyway. They numbered somewhere around forty.
Her breath released. “You’re right. There are worse things than Mags. They, at least, have the excuse of genetic mutation screwing with them. Your Screenmaster has always been a mutant—a man without conscience.”
“Screenmaster?” His narrow-eyed gaze followed the dwarf riding high on his wagon. “You mean you know that runt?”
Peering around the edge of the concrete shelter, she squinted for a better look at the little man in question. “Not personally, thank God. But if that’s who I think it is, everybody knows his story. His picture has been shown non-stop over every media outlet known to man for the last six months.” She swallowed. “Was shown, I mean.”
“Eh, Lily, remind me. What’s media?” Hating to stop her flow of information, Nate nevertheless asked the question.
She made a little throwaway motion. “Television, newspapers, the Internet, phone services.”
He nodded in semi-understanding. He’d read the terms, and even seen some of the equipment, but the concept still boggled his mind. His attention snapped back as she said, her expression sad, “Technically, I guess that was a hundred years ago.”
“Not many people remember back that far.” Even he knew the quip was weak, and that the humor failed to move her.
“This Screenmaster, do you know his given name?” She asked as though she hoped for a different answer than the one she had percolating in her mind.
They spoke together, one voice overrunning the other. “Phil Barnes.”
“That’s who he says he is, all right. So what did he do? Back then, I mean. Rob a bank?” He spared a thought for banks, one of those old time institutions almost forgotten in time. His people had no need for such. Hell, they had no money, though Pike said gold and silver coins had begun circulating in the city and larger towns and a Cit had brought up the concept of monetary loans.
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