by Ric Beard
He must have swung it at someone.
Though stationed on the other side of the tent, where it wouldn’t likely have gotten in the way of the scuffle, the portable heater lay on its side as if someone had kicked it over for good measure.
Nina stared across the dark space at a small metal cabinet.
God, I wish Lucian was here. She clenched her fists. What a shit storm! Dammit!
Though they’d all welcomed her and taken on different roles in her training, Lucian had been her most dedicated mentor. She knew from the first, easy smile the day he gave her a tour of the underground complex designed by cigarette manufacturers in the old days to grow weed, that they’d be fast friends. Though talkative people tended to annoy Nina as a rule, his incessant jabbering was somehow endearing. After all, his continued enthusiasm about the vast numbers of technologies he’d invented and implemented to make the compound self-sufficient, was warranted.
Nina crossed to the cabinet, swung it open, and started shoving items into duffels. After she’d cleared the upper shelves, she tossed two sacks into the lawkeeper’s hands.
“Get those to LuAnn.”
“Drugs?”
“Yeah, Jenna already cut them down. They’ll at least supply the rehab efforts for a few days.”
“There ain’t gonna be rehab anymore, Nina. You don’t understand. He might burn the town to the ground for all I know.”
“From what I know, Sampson doesn’t like to show that side. He wants the people to think he’s decent, civilized.”
He thrust a rigid finger at her. “I work for him, Nina! I hear how he talks. Trust me. It’s not going to be good. I screwed him over and he knows it.”
“Then what will you do?” Nina asked.
“People are packing now. They’re talking about migrating.”
“Migrating? Where will they migrate?”
“Only place they can—Blacksburg.”
Nina nodded.
Blacksburg. The lone holdout in the MidEast. The one place with walls high enough to keep Sampson and his people out.
“That could take weeks. On foot. Y’all don’t have the vehicles.”
God, I’m starting to talk like them.
“Are you going with them?”
Jones looked down at his feet, past the packages in his hands, and shook his head.
“This was my doing. I brought you all here, and I stand by the decision. I just feel bad your people got taken. I’m gonna stay behind and buy my folks some time.”
Nina raised an eyebrow, gazed into his eyes for a second, and stepped forward. “So, you’re going to fall on your sword? Is that it?”
He shrugged. “Guess so.”
“Run. Turn tail and haul ass out of here.”
“Can’t.”
Nina flipped up a palm. “Why the fuck not? If the people are going to migrate…”
“I never said I wanted them to migrate. This is their home. I know you don’t think it’s much Nina—”
“I never said—”
Jones raised his own hand. “You don’t have to say much. You don’t have your friend, Lexi’s, stone face. It’s okay. We know where you come from and how you grew up, so we don’t blame you.”
“You are too good for this, David.”
“Nope. They’re too good to pay for my failure. So I’ll do what I gotta.” The lawkeeper shot a glance over his shoulder at the tent opening at the front. “You gotta go!”
Nina gripped his arm. “I’m sorry, David.”
He nodded.
“Give LuAnn the drugs. We have people ready to transition today. If it’s like you say, best they go on. LuAnn can use that mix to keep them steady as the four of them walk southeast to the farm.”
“Good idea. Good thinking.”
“Do you have any idea where they might have taken Jenna and Scruff?”
“If they kept ‘em alive, they want information. Sampson would’ve sent ‘em to Augustus for interrogation. But no one knows where Augustus’s place is. They keep it on the quiet side.”
“Well, shit. Damn it all.”
“Nina, your people are keen. You can find ‘em. They won’t want them dead as long as they have useful information. Jenna’s tough, right?” His hopeful tone matched a pleading expression.
“Tougher than nails.”
“Then go and get Lexi, Lucian—whoever can help you—and find some other way. Something tells me you’re going to need a show of force to finish what you all came to the MidEast to do. I’m sorry it came to that.”
Nina led him outside and dropped her bag on the ground. Her eyes wandered up to the few, fluffy white clouds that had replaced the black blanket of the thunderous storm front that had woken her the night before. Rifling through the bag, she pulled out a round, black disc and thumbed a switch. The device hummed in her hands as she stepped away from the tent and into the clearing at the center of the mud-packed road. Shaking it in her hand, she felt the fan spin up and tossed it over her head. Pulling her handheld from her holster, she tapped the screen a few times and watched as the drone hovered higher and then zipped off to the southeast.
“If I can say anything about you people,” Jones said, “It’s that you have some nifty toys.”
Nina tapped her Tab deftly with her thumbs. “Lucian’s brainchildren never cease to amaze.”
“You know you can’t be here when it gets back with his reply.” It wasn’t a question.
Nina grabbed his shoulder. “I know. I won’t be. It’ll find the signal on my Tab and come back to me.”
“Good. Go say goodbye to LuAnn and then get off with yourself.” She might have laughed at the tail end of that comment if it hadn’t been for his nervous gaze down the road in the direction from which the truck filled with Sampson’s enforcers had come the previous day. “It was nice knowing you.”
Nina hugged him and, as if he’d been surprised, it took a moment before he returned the embrace.
“Thank you,” she said. “I hope you change your mind and run.”
“I won’t.”
She released him and took a step back, searching for any signs in his eyes that he might be lying.
He wasn’t.
Chapter Twelve
NO CAN DO
12
Making a note to oil the squeaky hinge on the heavy, airtight door as he stepped into the dimly lit vault, Lucian Gray pulled the drawstring on the cloth bag as he paced across the concrete floor. Although there was no refrigerant, the air bit at his skin as he transitioned across the threshold. A compressor hummed nearby. His heels clicked at uneven intervals on the smooth surface as he paced at a slow gait, allowing his eyes to adjust since he’d left his SmartGlasses on their charging station. Only after he spotted the reflective top of a stainless-steel table all the way at the other end did he pick up the pace. His foot struck something and the sound of granules littering the floor and sliding beneath the racks on either side filled the space.
“Shit.”
Lucian shrugged.
Either side of the aisle was lined with desiccant aimed at pulling unwanted moisture out of the room, and he’d have to stop on his way back with a dustpan to sweep it up and drop it back into its box. The hundreds of clicks reminded him of the sound kitty litter made back in the old days. He dropped the bag on the stainless table and wriggled his fingers into the opening on top, spreading his hand to loosen the tie. Pulling out a square of paper with folds on all four sides, he pushed the bag to the side.
Pinching carefully at the tabs created by the folds with his fingernails, Lucian unwrapped the contents and turned the paper at an angle so they rattled neatly onto the table. Up on one side next to the table was a set of plastic drawers resembling an old-world library’s card catalogue. Scanning the tiny, handwritten labels, Lucian selected a drawer and pulled it out. A transparent tube inside held the seeds. He pinched each of the tiny seeds he’d dumped from the paper one at a time and dropped them carefully inside.
Th
ese were orange seeds and one of the oldest strains The Foundation held, dating back over 100 years, constantly recycled from the hydroponic crops grown on the first level. Since real oranges grew on trees that wouldn’t fit in their bays, they’d opted for the dwarf variety. Lucian wasn’t much for citrus, but Jenna loved the shit. The woman had an iron stomach and it seemed no amount of acid could upset it. Two oranges and genetics-experiments-be-damned, Lucian’s digestive system complained. Citrus sucked a lot of power, but they had more than a surplus, now that Lucian had performed maintenance on the myriad solar panels and wind turbines that dotted the land around the high-altitude compound.
Jenna’s worth it.
They’d had a good foundation for the seed bank, since the tobacco companies that secretly built the compound had intended on holding marijuana seeds on-premises anyway.
The lights overhead flickered on suddenly, and Lucian almost dropped the seed drawer as he cringed. Setting it gently on the table, he spun around and scowled.
“What the hell?”
The lights flicked back off.
“Sorry, Lucian.”
He recognized the voice instantly as belonging to Killian, the compound’s jack-of-all-trades who’d been manning the comm station in the cabin when Lucian had breakfast that morning by the bay windows as he gazed out at the foggy Appalachian mountain tops. The light from her Tab washed across the concrete floor as she held it at shoulder length, like it was a torch, and she an explorer in a cave.
“No, it’s okay. Sorry. You just startled me.”
“Sorry,” she repeated.
A twinge of regret caused him to purse his lips and shake his head at himself. Killian was a long-time member of The Foundation rescued from an abusive father in an Eastern township over fifty years before. Since she’d had the treatments a couple years after arriving, she’d stopped aging at twenty-five, like Lucian.
“Why are you standing in the dark? Where are your glasses?”
“I like to use my eyes sometimes. I think we depend on tech too much.”
“That’s the most ironic thing I have ever heard in my life, coming from you.”
Her form was a shadow as she stepped past the doorway, holding her Tab at shoulder height, its light washing the concrete floor in shimmering white.
“Sorry, though.”
“Stop apologizing. I’ve been on edge lately.”
“I don’t think this is going to relax you any,” she said. “I got a message from Lexi. They’ve started phase two.”
“Already?” He slid the drawer back into the rack and crossed to meet Killian half way. “What the heck?” She slapped the handheld computer into his outstretched hand, and he perused the text on the screen. Mutters danced on his lips as he read. “Moss? OK City? Who the hell is Sasha?” He read on, and to her credit, Killian stood quietly, waiting for him to finish. “Sasha! The woman who pulled me off the pole in Statesville.”
“I wondered what ‘old acquaintance’ she was referencing,” Killian said.
The woman in black had appeared after her knife point jabbed a slot into the Adam’s apple of one of Lucian’s captors in Statesville, a couple hours west of the compound and east of Triangle City. After his last day posing as the notorious anarchist Miles Copeland left him with a gash above his left elbow from where a Security Services officer tried to kill him, his exodus from the city had only compiled his problems: a severely bruised rib, an infected shoulder wound resulting from the bite of a snake that lived in shit water in a rat-infested old-world sewer, and third degree burns covering his hand, courtesy of the two asshole badlanders. The two badlanders who boiled his hand in a bucket of steaming water had then been dispatched, with prejudice, by the mysterious woman in black who now traipsed through the MidEast with Lexi.
“Sean and Moss traveling together? I wonder how that came about? Sean didn’t speak too fondly of him last I heard.”
“Jenna likes Moss. Sean likes Jenna.” Killian’s irises bordered on red in the strange reflection of the indirect light from the Tab as she stood with her hand on one wiry hip. Her other hand waved her words through the air in typical, Killian fashion. “If this Sasha is as ‘ninja’ as you’ve said, seems like she and Lexi would be quite the pair.”
“That’s what bothers me.”
“What about it?”
Lucian shook his head and handed the Tab back to her. “We thought it’d be a longer game.” He read her smirk and matched it with his own. “Sure, Lexi and Sasha might be all—” he curled the first two fingers of each hand in the air—“‘ninja’ and shit, but every truck they disable represents an opportunity for things to go sideways.”
“We could go!” Killian said with entirely too much enthusiasm for Lucian’s taste. Then she lowered her head and squeaked, “Sorry.”
Her Tab flashed. Reddish eyes flicked across the screen before her chin shot up.
“Shit!” She squeaked. “Relay from the comm tower.” She thrust out the handheld.
Lucian read the message.
Luke. Jenna and Scruff kidnapped! L.K. Jones compromised.
I have to break camp. Going to bikes.
Will hunker down until I hear from you. I have to find them!
Lucian slapped his forehead and ran his hand down, across his nose and lips, before dropping it to his side.
“I’ll go with you,” Killian said. “We’ll find them.”
Lucian dropped his hand and turned his back to her, returning to the stainless table.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“What are you, my fucking father?”
Her footfalls tapped the concrete floor as she trailed behind him. Lucian stopped at the table and spun around, squinting an eye at her.
Her chin pointed down. “Sorry.”
He took in her long, milky face and the oversized SmartGlasses on her nose. After considering the option for a fraction of a second, he shook his head.
“Do you think, after all these years, that injured act plays with me?”
Killian raised her head and leveled a squint of her own upon him, matched by her tightened lips.
“I’ve been training for years!” She barked. “You have to cut the cord at some point, Lucian!”
“Killian, when Jenna clears you for duty, you can go raise all the hell you want. In the meantime, you’re the most diverse asset The Foundation has, and I need you here to cover for me.”
“Like I did for six years? When I didn’t know if you were alive or dead?”
Lucian put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. “Sorry, Kills. No can do.”
Killian turned and paced along the concrete floor toward the door as if she’d been dismissed. Lucian watched the slender woman’s back until she stopped and turned at the door.
“Fine. I’ll be your little specialist, but if you think you’re leaving me here again without at least a quickie before you go, you got another think coming! See you in the hovel.”
Lucian’s smile lasted only for a heartbeat as a mental image of Nina’s face, coupled with fear of her being on her own in the MidEast, erased it.
Chapter Thirteen
THEY'RE ALL DEAD
13
Ruby’s boots crunched on the gravely road as she closed half the distance between the troop truck’s headlights and the lawkeeper standing in the open, his hands purposefully stuck out to the side, away from his sidearm. Upon driving into town she’d noticed the people scurrying back indoors, some with bags thrown over their shoulders.
Guess we got here quicker than they expected. Ruby gave her head a derisive shake as she watched the back of a scurrying woman disappear inside a shack. The door slammed behind her.
An example was to be made, sure, and there was no telling what Sampson might do, but murdering half the labor force for the nearby lumber mill and its partnering paper factory that manufactured the precious journals that would chronicle his legacy? That wasn’t on his list.
Sampson passed her by at a mea
ndering pace as his head turned to either side of the road, scanning the houses and the longer building where they’d probably been tending the recovering addicts. All the other structures were too small for the task.
Ruby’s eyes ticked from window to window, watching for malicious little sets of eyes or fancy gun barrels that might pose a threat to her mentor. Filcher leaned against the truck’s grill, a half-smile painted on his face. Her idea he would never survive on a truck full of brutes was erased by that smile. The spy and traitor to these people would fit right in.
Though Ruby thought Filcher would ride with Bradshaw down south into the justice’s territory, Sampson had suggested it would be good for his new employee to witness the fruits of his labor. Said fruits were actually a demonstration of what would happen to Filcher should his traitorous, self-interested inclinations rise to the surface as they applied to Sampson.
Two men took up position to Ruby’s right and left, each clutching rifles against their chests.
“Lawkeeper Jones,” Sampson said.
“Governor,” the lawkeeper replied, hands still clearly away from his holster.
“You disappoint me, sir.”
“I imagine I do, governor, but I’m afraid the feeling is mutual.”
“What cause have I given for this betrayal?” Sampson asked, coming to a stop.
“I’m tired of pushing your poison. People here have gotten wise to you, Governor.”
“Wise to me…”
“Just because I’m the one ‘passes the drug around, don’t mean they don’t know where it comes from. You told me this was safe, that people would be able to work longer, and we could help them faster if they could produce. You said we could trade with the cities, that it would make our lives better.”
“Jonesy, we have an open trade route with OK City.”
“Oh, really, governor? What is it we’re trading with OK City?”
“What is it you think you need?” Sampson asked. He raised a hand and swept it around, indicating the buildings. “You have food, right? You can make your own furniture. Soon, you could build your own houses. What is it you think you’re missing?”