by Ric Beard
“I saw you.”
Sasha stood up straight. “What’s that?”
“Standing in the shadows of the building across from my apartment. The night Lucian brought down his building along the city wall. You’d come down to street level when you realized I’d caught you hacking me. I ran out the front of my building, into the street, and caught sight of you. Then the explosion distracted me, I looked away, and when I looked back, you were gone.”
Sasha raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Yep. I wondered if you saw me. I was looking right at you.”
“You were little more than motion in the shadows. I actually wondered if I’d imagined the encounter until Moss showed up later.”
“Nope, I was there!” The words came out in an entirely-too-chipper voice, for Lexi’s taste.
‘Yup, I invaded your privacy for years and it’s no big deal!’ She thought. She shook her head as she considered the irony that, in her role as a spy for the foundation, she’d been spied upon. The infiltrator, infiltrated.
Lexi suppressed her irritation with a slow, cleansing breath. If Jenna had taught her anything in their long lives together, it’d been that logic trumped emotion. They didn’t have the benefit of growing old and experiencing the calming effects of hormone depletion, The Foundation’s doctor contended. The hormonal levels of their bodies would remain in their mid-twenties for as long as they possessed functioning pituitaries. So she’d applied logic as they rode in near silence down the mountain and east, across the old interstate. Now that they’d stopped to rest, Lexi itched to talk about it.
“What had your mission been in Triangle City?”
“To cover your six. You made it easy enough, until Miles went Rogue.”
“Lucian.”
“Right. Lucian. I never get used to how you all change your names. I mean, what do you have but your name?”
Lexi cocked her head to one side and glared at the shorter woman.
“That’s an interesting question. I’ve used Lexi as my cover name for so long…I didn’t adopt Shaw until I went to Triangle City, though.” She shrugged. I guess I finally figured out I always preferred Lexi to Miranda.”
“Miranda?”
“My real name. Forget it.”
Sasha nodded. “I could see why you’d want me to. What kind of name is that? Yeah, I like Lexi better. I see why you changed it.”
Rude.
“Gee, thanks.”
“Sure!” Sasha said. “Did you pick it because it rhymes with sexy?”
Huh?
“I don’t know if I’ve ever given it a thought. I just liked the name Alexia.”
“Well, it totally works on you.”
“Thanks?”
She just called me sexy. Her belly fluttered. Let it go, there’s work to do.
Sasha’d had a mission in Triangle City, and she’d completed it. That was that. They’d get to the details later. Lexi’s history was filled with missions like it. If she could run about the countryside under the cover of night, then why couldn’t The Black? If toppling a power-hungry regime that weakened a city’s defenses against a world of badlanders without the citizens’ understanding was okay, why shouldn’t Sasha be sent to protect her, if her organization had similar goals? If what this character, Moss, said was true, they could be allies.
Wasn’t helping someone without taking credit for it the best proof of their good intentions? Wasn’t it what The Foundation was doing the whole time they were in Triangle City? Resentment had its place, but making Sasha or Moss the source of it was senseless.
Even with the muffler engaged on the bike’s solar-powered, twin mini-ion engine, it sounded like an angry bee, and the frequency of the buzzing sound made it susceptible to echoes in mountainous terrain. But Lexi was still hours from mountains, and she hadn’t even been thinking about the noise until she was hurling through the air after a bullet, having missed her legs by mere inches, blew the engine on her hover bike straight to hell. She summersaulted through space in what seemed like slow motion, awaiting the violent impact the earth waited to provide her flailing body.
Over her prolonged life span, she’d performed enough shoulder rolls in her martial arts practices to adjust to the various surfaces of the earth with ease and return to her feet without thought; but traveling at the highest possible velocity of the twin engine cycle, as it decelerated and her body flew over the handlebars, fucked the physics.
When she felt a crack jolt her forearm, shock her elbow, and surge into her shoulder, Lexi tucked her good arm around her head, slapped the wounded arm to her torso, and braced herself as she bounced like a brick across the grassy field on which she landed. She came to a sudden halt inches from a jutting rock twice her size that would certainly have killed her. After the final, harsh bounce, when her body came to a rest, she felt like she was still moving.
“Woo!”
Though her ears registered the sound—and that was good—the likely source was a different story entirely. Back in her early days in the South, it’d been referred to as a hoot, or a holler, and was usually anything but a guarantee that she was about to encounter an intellectual. These fleeting thoughts were overwhelmed by both her inability to draw air into her lungs, and the way the world was pivoting. She closed her eyes and held the hand of her uninjured arm to her chest. As she stared at the red insides of her eyelids, Lexi likened the sensation to spinning in a washing machine.
The blow impacted your solar plexus and paralyzed your diaphragm, that’s all. They’re going to reach you before you can run. One thing at a time. Don’t panic.
“That’s a hell of a shot, boy! Hell of a shot!” someone hooted.
“Yes sir!” another voice hollered.
Rednecks are like cockroaches; you just can’t kill them all.
Distant footsteps pounded the earth as Lexi’s eyes fluttered open. The sickening pain in her throat as her body revolted with the effort to breathe trumped the spinning white clouds in the blue sky above. Struggling between the sudden, heaving need to vomit and breathe, she rocked her body from side to side, hoping the motion would help it to make up its mind before she passed out and drowned in her own stomach contents.
“Where’s she at?”
Much closer now. Breathe!
Then her diaphragm reengaged and her throat gasped in an inverse wretch as her lungs desperately sucked air.
“There!”
Too close.
Her head rolled to the side and her cheek touched cool, loose earth as she regarded her encroaching attackers. Sucking precious air in long gasps, forcing her lungs to inflate to capacity, Lexi entered analysis mode.
Three of them. Big boy on the right. He’ll have to go first. One in the middle second.
Fifty feet.
Close your eyes. Play unconscious. They won’t finish you outright. They don’t see a lot of women like you. Use that.
Staring into the pinkish black void inside her eyelids against the light of the partly cloudy sky, she listened to their footfalls. Ever-so-slowly, she slid one leg behind her and rolled her chest toward her side with the uninjured arm.
3…
Wait for it…
“Hey, sweetheart!” one of the men called as they approached. “Did we kill ya?”
2…
One of the other men laughed.
“Hell of a shot, Zeke!”
1…
The sounds of feet kicking dirt and rocks ceased and she felt pebble debris shower her forehead.
“Looks like she’s out, boys. Damn! Cute one though. Maybe we can—”
Light flooded the world as Lexi’s eyes shot open. She swept her preloaded leg across the other and brought it up and around, catching Big Boy in the side of his knee.
“Pah!” He yelled as his rifle rattled to the ground, and he reached to grip the joint. His weight slammed down on the other knee.
Lexi bent, reeled her leg back in, pulled it to her chest, and shoved it outward to strike the man’s shin
. The impact twisted his foot under his weight and sent him rolling onto his side, both arms wrapped around the useless leg. The other two stared dumbly over at him as Lexi brought both feet back, winding herself into a cradle, then rolling forward to use the momentum launch upright; but her arm screamed with pain, distracting her and she miscalculated. She fell back to her butt and glared up. The tall, skinny one in the middle was holding a carbine’s muzzle near her face.
“Nice try, sugar bumps. Move a muscle, and I’ll send ya to Jesus.”
Lexi looked around for signs of Sasha, who’d been riding next to her when the shot rang out, but all she saw was the smoke from the ruined engine of her hover bike wafting into the sky above.
Did they get her?
Chapter Sixteen
ALL MY NAGGING QUESTIONS
16
Nina Schafer stared into the darkness, lost in a massive world of which she’d had no true comprehension a year before. The faces of her people in Triangle City washed over her mind in still images, as they often did when she looked upon the world she’d never truly fathomed until she’d ridden into it.
One could study their whole lives about what the world used to be, back when six billion people occupied the planet, and so many roamed freely about this countryside, but living inside the city walls could never have prepared her for the utter vastness of the open land, the intimidating mountain peaks, or the wildlife that roamed freely, outnumbering the human population by units immeasurable.
It’d been disorienting the day she’d left her home of twenty-five years and stepped out into the open the first time. The fallen, blackened trees of the forest that’d burned during the attack on the city had left her view to the horizon unobstructed as she rode away from the gate and toward the rendezvous point where she’d met Lexi Shaw. The dizzying sensation she’d experienced on that day was so naturally recalled that she felt unstable now, just thinking about it.
There’s something to be said for a wall that blocks you from a horizon you’ll never reach.
Her outlook soured at the realization the drone she’d sent toward Lucian with her message still hadn’t honed in on her yet. The hours since she sent word, informing him of Jenna’s and Scruff’s predicament, seemed like half a day.
Maybe I should’ve just gone back to the compound. No, that would just mean Jenna and Scruff would be…wherever they are…for even longer.
The town was little more than a collection of small buildings with collapsed roofs, like so many of the others in the region. Bending down, she grabbed a rock and scratched a white arrow on the discolored bricks of one of the buildings, pointing roughly in the direction from which she had come, down the thinner dirt path just outside of town. Plopping down in the dirt, she leaned her back against the rough, frigid surface.
Get your thoughts together.
Closing her eyes and letting the cold air fill her lungs, Nina drew long breaths and allowed them to slowly drift from her lungs, blanking her consciousness to the world around her. The task proved simple, in light of the utter silence of the quiet world around her. Within minutes, she’d blacked out the racing thoughts and calmed her heart. She grasped into the annals of her mind for images of a night in the mountains over a year ago.
“Men have been using the stars to navigate for thousands of years,” Lucian had said on that night when Nina had descended Chimney Rock, moving away from the compound, her arms interlocked with his as her trainer led her to her final test. He’d pulled off the blindfold and handed her a folding knife.
“Draw an arrow in a tree or somewhere on the ground to keep you from walking in circles. The world isn’t like it was when I was growing up. There used to be manmade trails, bushes beaten back by nature lovers, grass trampled down to leave dirt paths to point the way. But those days are gone. Those trails are distant memories, overgrown by nature taking back what belonged to her. If the ground here was more open, you could find a ridge or a rock face to use as a point of reference. But since you’re surrounded by trees for as far as you can see, you have to get your bearings by looking up. So, what do you do first?”
Nina had raised her chin and spied the tree canopy above. She nodded. “Walk until I can see the sky.”
“Good. Give me your SmartGlasses.”
“Why?”
In retrospect, Nina thought Lucian must have seen the distress in her face because he’d matched it with a warm smile and gripped her shoulder.
“Because you can’t always rely on technology. At this range from the compound, you can turn on your nav program and easily find your way home. My job is to keep you alive when you have nothing to rely on but your eyes.”
“It must be frustrating, answering all my nagging questions.”
“Not as frustrating as it would be to have you die of exposure because I didn’t make you do this. Certainly not as frustrating at how miserable Lexi would make my life if I let anything happen to you.”
Lucian had fallen in behind his student as the trees thickened, and Nina weaved among them until she could see a path out. After a few minutes, they had wandered into a clearing with waist-high grass and a massive oak in its center.
Lucian had pointed at the sky. “Find the Plough.”
The plough was a group of seven stars. Nina had craned her neck backward and gazed into the night sky, thrusting her arms out for a moment to push away a brief sensation of vertigo.
She’d thrusted out a finger. “There.”
“Good. Now, the North Star.”
Once she had the Plough, that part had been easy. “There.”
“Good.” Lucian had gripped Nina’s shoulder again and faced her, giving a reassuring nod. “You’re ready.”
The feeling was easy to remember.
Exhilaration.
Lucian’s final words echoed in her mind as she stood in the darkness.
The compound is Northwest. Good luck.
In spite of her training, Nina tapped her SmartGlasses, but without Triangle City’s or the compound’s nav towers, they couldn’t help her.
Having tracked her mileage to the town, she figured it would be enough for someone to find her. Lucian might be able to tell her where Lexi was, so she could send the returning drone in the right direction…assuming it ever returned. Nina peered up at the arrow above her head, faced away from the direction it indicated, and peered down. Her feet were engulfed by the shadow of the afternoon sun, which meant she was facing in the general direction of east. The others would be somewhere in the south.
If Lucian would send Lexi and Sean, she could cut the distance between them by heading south.
Her eyes scanned the short road with the ancient brick and failing wood buildings on either side. The ghosts were prickling at her neck again at the concept of bunking in one of those, so she turned away from town. Trudging up a short hill, she sat next to a rock jutting out of the earth and crossed her arms over her chest.
Shit!
A pain jabbed her ribs, as if a hammer tapped them from the inside. As she tried to breathe the ache away, lightning bolts suddenly ripped across her abdomen, and Nina doubled over. Dropping the rock and gripping her side, she cried out and rolled onto one knee. Her ab muscles shrieked as a nerve in her leg stiffened, shutting down the surrounding muscles.
Not again…
Nina crumpled to the ground.
Chapter Seventeen
REAL KEEN ON HER
17
Pulling the wrench from his belt, Charlie dipped his head down deeper and perused the outside of the engine block. The sun was gonna go down in a couple hours and he wanted to get back to Janie and give her a break from Twyla. The engine looked pretty good for something this old.
This machine was bigger than what he was used to. All the other cars had comparatively tiny engines, smaller tires—smaller everything. From the front, this one looked like some sort of evil beast, with wide, round, mud-covered glass where its eyes might be. Maybe if he could disassemble it piece by piec
e, he might get some rings or something salvageable.
Charlie’s hand jumped and he turned it over to find a cut near the top joint of his index finger.
“God dammit!” He sucked on the finger and, when he pulled it away, fresh blood welled into the gap. Grabbing a filthy rag from his pocket, he wrapped it around the finger and peered back down at the engine.
The food-pirating bastards in the trucks had left him a radio, so he could let them know when he had something to trade. If he was gonna feed his girls, he’d need exactly that. Scrounging up some marks and heading into town for some preserves and, if he was lucky, some meat, would make his life simpler. Hunting in his neck of the woods was slim, and he was lucky to bag a rabbit, himself; but the hunting parties tended to drop venison from time to time and if not, there was always rat. He hated rat. It was greasy as all get out, but he’d eat what he could, and Twyla got edgy as a scythe when there wasn’t enough food.
The girl had become brazen lately. Always on edge. Downright ornery, on a regular basis. Janie claimed their daughter’s womanly cycles were all out-of-whack, and that might be part of the problem. Charlie knew better. The girl was just plain—
Charlie raised his head so suddenly he banged it on the mammoth rusted hood of the beast he aimed to disassemble. Though it was hard to tell with the way sound bounced off the crumbling buildings on either side of the street, he thought the noise like a hornet buzzing by his ear was coming from the north. Rubbing his head furiously where he’d banged it, he poked out the petrified stick he’d used to prop the hood and caught it before it could bang on the frame as it closed. Easing it gently closed, hoping it wouldn’t squeak, he ducked into the doorway of one of the old buildings and watched the road from the shadows. Running his hand over the spot where his head was thumping, he checked his palm for blood and nodded in thanks when all he found was black grime.
His eyes widened as a strange contraption that looked like a bike with no wheels blew up dust from underneath as it hovered across the intersection and came to a stop. The rider stepped off the…thing, and the plumes of dust that seemed to surround it settled slowly to the ground. Flipping a small leather helmet onto the steering bars, the figure bent down and bounced at the waist a few times, backside facing Charlie.