by Ric Beard
“Oh, these are those guys?” Sean nudged one with a boot and recognized Jimmy, the man who would’ve had his tongue. “Wow. Nice work. How did you—”
Lexi interrupted him. “Did you follow us here?”
Moss nodded. “Not the words I’d use.”
“Why not intervene sooner?”
“We didn’t follow you, per se. We picked up the radio signals from the trackers you’ve been putting on the trucks.”
“How did you know we were putting trackers on trucks?”
“Who else would have the tech to track the governor’s enforcers? Radio signals? It had Lucian’s fingerprints all over it.”
“Hm.”
“That’s what you were doing when you came back to town, right? Slapping a tracker on the troop transport?”
Lexi pursed her lips and wondered if she had any secrets left with this guy.
“We expected you about two years ago,” Sean said.
“We’ve been a little busy,” Moss said. “Besides, we figured your sister and Jenna would want to rest. I was in a similar situation since I’d blown my cover with OK City, lost my unit, and abandoned my post to follow you and Jenna. So I took a couple of months, myself.”
“Back home?” Sean asked. “Where they make weaponized vehicles?”
“No. Again, I’m not from there, anymore.” He gestured to the woman. “Lexi and Sean, meet Sasha.”
Sasha threw a curt nod at Lexi and pointed at the corner by the door. “Toss me my hat?” Her voice was low, warm, and carried the smooth timbre of youth.
Lexi grabbed it and pushed it through the bars.
Sasha snatched the hat and knelt down next to the unconscious man leaning against the cell door. Her fingers fumbled in his pocket and withdrew a slim metal key, which she used to unlock the cell with a harsh clank. The man slithered backwards to the floor as the bars slid open and Lexi cringed as the back of his head thudded on the concrete. Sasha didn’t seem to take any notice as she stepped casually over him, flipped the hat onto her head, and sauntered to the rack in the corner. She wrapped herself in a black trench coat of smooth, dull leather, which was considerably shorter than Moss’s, but still reached her knees. That made sense considering her head came up to his chin.
“We heard your gunfire,” Lexi said. “Thanks for helping to break us out.”
Sasha’s eyes traced Lexi’s form from top, to bottom, and then back up again. “My pleasure. Nice suit.”
“Thanks. They weren’t too hard on you, were they?”
“You kidding? It was almost like they were afraid to touch me. They approached me like I was some kind of wild animal. If I hadn’t been surrendering, I’d have easily taken all three of them out in the street.”
Lexi had little doubt, judging from their current states.
“So, you’re saying your reputation precedes you?”
Sasha shrugged. “I guess. Of course, your reputation seems to be tied to ours, wouldn’t you say?”
Sean’s head cocked to one side as his gaze fell to Lexi. “Your reputation?”
Lexi looked at Moss and then back at Sasha, parted her lips as if she would speak, and thought better of it.
“What’s that look?” Sean asked.
“We should get moving,” Lexi replied. “We’ll talk when we’re out of the town where they want to hang us.”
Chapter Four
QUITE THE SCAM
4
Thursday
January 20th, 2139
2 AM
The bikes were camouflaged by a mass of evergreen shrubs in the hills outside the city, where Moss and Sasha also stowed their own vehicles. The bike Sasha straddled bore a wide platform with open grids beneath her feet, allowing Sean to see a multitude of fans underneath. Considering the width and the lack of wheels, he wasn’t sure it could be called a bike or cycle.
“I recognize the material,” Sean said, tapping the frames of his glasses and zooming in to get a closer look. He doubted the dull finish of the thousands of tiny, diamond-shaped plates, reflected light. “The truck I drove from OK City to Triangle was like this. All those shards soak up solar, don’t they?”
Sasha tapped a black boot on the grid upon which it rested. “Yes.”
Moss cleared his throat. “Mister Stone. Is that what you’re calling yourself?”
Lexi interrupted because she liked doing that when someone asked him a direct question.
“Yeah, we all kept our cover names, except Lucian.”
“You use the same cover name on all your missions?”
“I actually use it at home, now, too. I like it better than my given name. After six years of being called something and introducing myself as that, I just adopted it. Of course, Lucian kept his old name; he has to be different.”
“But Triangle City knows you as Lexi Shaw. Seems you’re garnering quite the reputation,” Moss said. “Some women there are dying their hair red and cutting it like you did.”
The mention of reputation by the man wearing black brought Sean’s mind to rumors pervading MidEast towns. Though the details surrounding the circumstances of how a lawman died were inconsistent, the common element in all the stories was the presence of a figure adorned in black seen leaving town in the middle of the night, just after the lawkeeper had been murdered.
“Don’t remind me,” Lexi said. “Feels like I can’t even go back to the place.”
Sasha shrugged from her mount. “At least you’d blend in.”
Sean searched for the merest hint of a smile on the mysterious woman’s face, but her full lips gave no such indication.
“Funny!” Lexi said.
She wasn’t smiling either. Instead, Lexi wore the same relaxed expression that shrouded her disposition.
Gone was the girl he’d grown up with.
“Now that we know each other’s names, should we ride?”
“We?” Lexi asked.
Sasha pushed forward, rested her elbow on her bike, and tapped the handlebars restlessly.
“Why should I trust you?”
Especially considering the stories of the dead lawkeeper, Sean thought.
But the question flipped the situation in his mind. He walked through the scenario inside his head.
Assuming they killed the lawkeeper, they probably had reasons. If sentiment is turned against the people in black, that’s really their problem. It has nothing to do with us. Maybe we should consider the things we know to be true, instead of entertaining conjecture from superstitious people in small towns.
Right. Though the last thing he wanted to do was undermine his sister, he couldn’t very well pull her off to the side to discuss it.
Sean cleared his throat. “I don’t need an explanation. We can trust them.”
A twitching eye betrayed Lexi’s former, stony expression. “Why is that?”
“Because Moss saved Jenna’s ass out on the interstate too many times to count. Her words. Because he saved your ass on the backstreets of Triangle City, the way I recall it. What’s more is, she—” he thrust a finger at Sasha “—seems to fit the description of someone who freed Lucian from a badlander camp and, as Lucian tells it, practically had to carry him out of there. Then she loaned him a vehicle with which to escape.”
Though Moss’s umber skin contrasted her porcelain complexion, Sean noted how his stony expression matched Lexi’s perfectly, except for the way Lexi’s jaws were working as she processed his argument.
“My mouth often forgoes my brain. Apologies.” Lexi threw Sean a nod. “Thanks for the reminder.”
“Accepted,” Moss said. He leaned on the strange vehicle that looked like a buggy inside a hard shell, with two rows of hard wheels framed by tracks.
“So, what’s the plan?” Sean asked.
Moss folded his arms across his chest. “As I mentioned in town, we figured out you’re tracking the trucks to find out where the drugs used to enslave these people are coming from.”
Thanks to Lexi’s infiltra
tion and reconnaissance of the MidEast early the previous year, The Foundation knew that the new governor of the region, Sampson De Le Court, was distributing some medium-grade formula of methamphetamine to the workers of the MidEast. They showed up for work and got a free high. Plus, they could work longer hours and would do so to keep their fix.
So messed up.
It was quite the scam. The governor distributed the junk via the lawkeepers he’d posted throughout the region. Moss’s characterization regarding the use of the drug to force servitude on the people closely resembled comments he’d heard from Jenna Clark’s own lips.
It was for that reason Jenna was currently up north, in a town called Ripley, helping people withdraw from the substance on a voluntary basis.
“So, you’re telling me you saw radio signals bouncing around and figured out it was us?” Lexi asked.
“It wasn’t that simple, no. We were trying to isolate all the signals used by the OK City military for other purposes.”
“You’re eavesdropping.”
“Yes. When we stumbled onto your signals, I thought about Jenna.”
“Why?” Sean asked.
“Her team was constantly under threat on the interstate. My unit moved between hers and the crew who worked a week behind them clearing the smaller vehicles. When we worked with the Tail Sweepers and Jenna’s crew came under attack, she left trackers in the bandlanders’ camps that emitted similar signals for us to go clear them out.”
“Like the place where you found Reagan,” Sean said.
Reagan was a kidnapped special forces soldier who’d been raped and tortured by a group called the Crows. Sean drove her back to Triangle City after his first encounter with Moss.
“Yes, exactly like that.”
Lexi nodded. “So, how long have you been in the MidEast?”
“We’re all over. I’ve had people in the area since you left Triangle City and went home.”
“Did you follow us home? Do you know where we live?”
Moss pushed himself off the strange vehicle and gestured with one hand for emphasis.
“Absolutely not. That would be inappropriate. We never tracked you past the Asheville township.”
“You understand, I had to ask. You know a lot more about us than we know about you. Seeing as Sasha here pulled Lucian off that pole, you knew about him. I think I saw one of your people the day Lucian brought down the building in Triangle City—after someone tapped into my Tab, I might add. Since you were with Jenna out on the interstate from day one, it seems your organization has been tracking us for years.”
“Jenna was a coincidence that led us to the rest of you. My mission was to help establish the route between the two cities.”
“Which mission?” Lexi asked. “The one for OK City or the one involving whomever you really work for?”
Sean blinked, trying to figure out where the conversation had just turned to.
“Both. I’d been enshrouded in OK City for ten years, working for my organization. I immigrated, much like you did in Triangle City. My mission then was to help resist The Horde. Opening the interstate served that mission by joining two cities.”
“Then how did you figure out who Jenna was?”
“We intercepted a text communication sent by Jenna across the Triangle City clearing crew’s drone network, to Miles Copeland.”
And there it is, ladies and gentlemen.
“To Lucian,” Lexi said.
“Yes. I hacked into her handheld device after that and we got a fuller picture. We followed that chain and found Lucian’s involvement in the underground movement in T.C. Then we traced his compatriots and found out you were Labyrinth.”
“Great handle, by the way,” Sasha said.
“Um, thanks?”
“The rest is history. Now, do you think we can work together?”
“And how might we do that, exactly?” Lexi asked.
“It seems you finally got a tracker onto the right truck.”
“What?” Sean asked, feeling his pulse quicken.
“We picked up a signal from one of the trackers heading toward your old stomping ground.”
Lexi’s eyes met with Sean’s for a long moment. “So, you were right.”
Sean shrugged, though it was a nice reprieve from recent history to hear his complaint-filled sister acknowledge it.
“Right about?” Sasha asked.
“I presumed the drugs were coming from OK City. I saw how the workforce used them. It’s part of why I smuggled gems—I didn’t want to get hooked and I didn’t want to go back outside the walls.”
Lexi set a hand on Sean’s shoulder and squeezed. “So, if a truck is going for a delivery, phase two is on.”
“Right,” Sean said. “We need to intercept that truck.”
“Then take out the others.”
“So, you have a plan?” Moss asked.
Sean nodded. “Snag the truck, take the drugs, and move them to our compound, so Lucian can cut them down.”
“Cut them down?” Moss asked.
“Lucian is cutting them with plants we harvest in the mountains. Jenna uses a less-concentrated version to reduce peoples’ dependency.”
Moss smiled. “That is so Jenna.”
“Right?” Sean asked.
Sasha drummed her fingers on the handlebars one last time and sat up.
“We want to help you.”
“Help how?” Sean asked.
Moss answered. “You and I used to live in OK City. Though I don’t plan on going into the city itself, familiarity with the area qualifies us for that job. I have some experience disabling vehicles. Lexi, you mentioned your second phase involved disabling the trucks?”
Lexi nodded. “Right.”
“So, we could move up your timeline. Instead of going to disable the truck first, Sasha could go with you. You’re both stealthy. Formidable. I think you’d make a good team.”
“Are you saying I’m not stealthy and formidable?” Sean asked, though he kept his tone light.
“All due respect, Sean. You’re about as stealthy as a grizzly bear wearing spurred boots.” Lexi chuckled. Sean smiled. “But formidable? Having read what you survived in the West over the last hundred years, I’d say you’re formidable…and resourceful.”
“Wait!” Sean said. “Read?”
Moss’s eyes snapped to Lexi and then back to Sean’s. “You didn’t know?”
“Know what?”
“About the book?”
Sean wanted to growl, but suppressed the urge. “What book?” Though he was afraid he knew the answer.
“A man named George DuPont has written a history from interviews of the people you knew in the West,” Moss said.
“Then Morgan was telling the truth,” Sean said. “I’d kind of hoped DuPont was going to drop off the face. My life isn’t very interesting.”
Sasha chortled into a cupped hand.
“What’s funny?” Sean asked.
“That you think your life is uninteresting. You’ve lived a hundred years.”
“Advocate,” Moss said.
Sasha’s head ticked toward him. “C’mon, boss. It’s true. I don’t mean to make the guy uncomfortable, but how many times do you have to be a quantifiable hero before you just own it?”
Lexi’s head jerked in Sean’s direction. “Hero?”
“Shut it, Sasha,” Moss said.
“Okay, boss.” She might have stopped laughing, but the wide smile held position on her face.
“I’ll transfer you a copy,” Moss said to Sean. “What about the plan? Sasha with Lexi? Sean with me?”
Lexi was wearing the smirk that indicated the discussion wasn’t over. Sean sighed, but, to his surprise, her next question had nothing to do with the hero thing.
“But how does your chronicler know you’ve lived over a hundred years? He certainly couldn’t trace you going back that far.”
“Legend goes a long way in the west, but you’re right, collecting a century of
data would be challenging.”
“Right, and Sasha just said Sean has lived a hundred years. How does she know that?”
“How about I let her tell you on the road?” Moss asked.
Lexi and Sasha glared at each other through their SmartGlasses. Though Lexi had come around on the point of trusting them, Sean knew it didn’t mean she’d signed off on the sudden change in mission.
For more than sixty days, his sister’s desire to move to phase two and been unmistakable. She’d argued with Jenna via the comm drones that taking out all the trucks was just as effective as finding the one carrying the drugs into the region. Jenna had stuck to her guns, like usual, reminding Lexi that they needed the drugs to withdraw thousands of people over the long term. Besides, taking out the trucks one at a time would set off an alarm and increase the difficulty of the mission.
Short of finding a warehouse full of them to work with, a truck shipment of the drugs was their best bet. When the MidEast decided it was time to get out from beneath Sampson’s thumb and choose their own leader, the road from addiction to self-sufficiency would be a lot longer if The Foundation wasn’t there to help them through it.
Shit. My world has changed so much since I left OK City.
“Are we sure that the truck is going there for drugs?” Sean asked.
“No.”
“At least you’re honest,” Lexi said. To Sean’s surprise, her face curved into a genuine, disarming smile.
“It’s a calculated risk,” Moss said. “Sure, they could be going to trade other commodities with the city, but what would they need?”
True. They have a lumber mill and factories, now. Food production and distribution is somewhat better, even if the food is being taken from the farmers, often by force. What else would they need from OK City?
“I’d like to work with you, Lexi,” Sasha said. “Those truck fuckers have run free for long enough. It’s high time someone gave them a view from the other side of a gun barrel. What do you say?”
Lexi smirked.
“Sean?” she asked. Her left eye winked while the rest of her face was still. He didn’t think Moss and Sasha would’ve been able to see the signal from their perspectives.