Third Wave: Bones of Eden

by Zaide Bishop

  Zebra shook his head. “No. I see why Spider called her a demon. I do, but...”

  “But she’s of your tribe?” Fifteen asked.

  “Yeah. And I think she’d kill any monster that came for me. Whiskey is complicated. Maybe a little damaged. But, hey, she didn’t kill that guy today, so that was a huge step forward for her.”

  Sixteen and Fifteen exchanged a doubtful look.

  He grinned. “Just trust me, okay?”

  * * *

  Dog woke with Vaca warm and reassuringly solid beside him. The slow rise and fall of his chest betrayed deep sleep. Dog had feared after the tsunami that he would never see Vaca again. That everything was lost. Gratitude swelled in him like the rain, even though the islands—their homes, everything they had been working toward—were decimated now. Even though he had lost brothers, it was having Vaca beside him that made the losses easier to bear.

  Something warned him not to get too comfortable, though. Spider declaring Whiskey a demon was a bad sign. Perhaps she would come around. The Elikai had, with time. Or perhaps they were going to wear out their welcome here sooner rather than later. Right now, they were too badly injured to make alternative plans. Vaca and Dog were both in bad shape, mostly bruises and strains. The composite injuries of the tribe were too severe to consider just packing up and running again. Maybe Whiskey would come back with a solution.

  Maybe waiting for Whiskey to save them was a sign of how bad things had become. He could tell the others saw Whiskey as something else now. No matter how much they protested the label Spider had given her, the Kai thought she was superhuman. She had hunted the Elikai, then she had overpowered and kidnapped Fox, survived the super croc, killed the megalania, given birth to the first baby and survived the scientists only to pop out of the shadows like some fairy-tale monster to kill them.

  But it had been Dog that saved her that day. Dog that found the gun and fired the shot that kept Whiskey alive. Dog that had carried her, broken, back to the village for India to patch up. He’d been afraid to pick her up at first, after watching her tear into a man with her bare hands. She had been much lighter than he expected.

  He remembered that lightness. That frailty.

  The heat of her blood running down his legs and belly.

  The others were starting to rouse and wake. Charlie was breastfeeding Soul. The Varekai leader still moved with confidence, but she had dark rings under her eyes and she was a patchwork of bruises, like the patterns on a cow.

  Nab had barely woken since they arrived and had to be carried to the latrines, and Sugar, though returning to his normal self, was still being shunned by many of the Kai. Grief and pain showed on every face. India had said no more about prophetic dreams, but she woke like she was finishing a marathon.

  Dog kissed Vaca on the shoulder, and he woke with sleepy befuddlement.

  “It’s morning,” Dog murmured.

  Vaca groaned. “Again?”

  They emerged into the brilliance of morning to the smells of cooking, the protests and laughter of children and the calls of the impatient animals they were supposed to be feeding. In the spirit of community, it seemed, the Numbers were bringing plates of food from their houses, and Dog and Vaca were handed bowls and wooden carved utensils as they made their way toward the square.

  The children, growing bolder now the Kai were not such a raw novelty, dared one another to approach, tentatively asking questions, then drawing them into their childish conversations.

  It was a pleasant distraction—though one Dog seemed to appreciate more than Vaca. Once the morning meal was complete, the Even hunters began to gather again, taking up weapons and gathering around their trucks.

  “Shall we go with them?” Dog asked Vaca. “I would like to see. To understand these people a little better.”

  Vaca nodded. “I think we are both well enough. And I think it is wise. Look, there is Zebra.”

  Dog blinked and realized suddenly Zebra hadn’t been with the tribe the night before. After all his pining for his Odd girl, it shouldn’t have been such a surprise. Only, he seemed to have acquired both an Odd and an Even. They were touching with a familiar intimacy, and Dog puzzled the mathematics of the equation.

  “Whatever makes him happy, I guess?” he said to Vaca with a shrug.

  “The things that make Zebra happy tend to involve him throwing himself into senseless danger, so let’s not hope he is too happy.”

  Dog chuckled. “Maybe having two bodyguards will help?”

  “Or give him twice as many people to show off to,” Vaca snorted.

  Zebra limped over to join them with a smile on his face. “Are you coming on the hunt too?”

  “Yes,” Vaca said. “But are you in any shape for it?”

  “Zebra will stay on the truck,” the tall man trailing Zebra said.

  “This is Sixteen and Fifteen,” Zebra said. “Dog, Vaca.”

  “If he’s staying on the truck, it will probably get swallowed in a landslide.” Vaca rolled his eyes, swinging himself lithely up into the back of the vehicle.

  “Hey!” Zebra protested. “I’m not bad luck.”

  “Just daft,” Dog said with a grin.

  Amused, Sixteen handed them spears. With muffled roars, the truck started, and the remaining Evens grabbed weapons and hauled themselves into the back. They set off with a lurch.

  Altogether, there were ten Evens on the hunt, armed with guns, spears or bows and boxes of ammunition in their pockets. As they drove, the scenery flashing past at unnatural and terrifying speeds, Sixteen explained the truck had batteries that were charged by the sun.

  “They have plug ports and a limited amount of battery power. Once we got stuck and had to push the damn thing fifteen miles until we found a working solar panel.”

  The bouncing horizon was clearly making Zebra queasy, and he clung to the metal railing, slowly going from sickly pale to deathly gray.

  “I think you should have stayed at the village,” Vaca said, his voice almost completely snatched away by the roar of the wind. “You’re wounded anyway.”

  “I just wanted to see the buffalo,” Zebra explained, but he looked like he was regretting the decision.

  The hunting ground was almost an hour away. They parked at the crest of a hill. Down below was a mixed herd. Buffalo, cows, camels and even a scattering of sheep and deer. To the north, they could see a monolithic gray wall stretching between two mountains.

  “What is that?” Dog asked.

  Sixteen paused in loading his rifle, glancing up to see what he was looking at. “A dam. There’s a big lake on the other side. It feeds into the river the village is on. Right before the monsoon, we go and check the levels, and if Spider decides it’s too high, we open the sluices and half empty the dam over a few weeks so we don’t get washed away if the dam bursts.”

  “What if—” Dog was cut off by alarmed yells and the furious squeal of pigs. They burst out of the trees at the bottom of the field, smeared in their war paint of dried blood and black streaks of engine grease. Six of them, big and running, weaving back and forth as they charged, the herd of game panicking and fleeing into the forest. The Evens hoisted their guns and took aim, but even though the creatures were almost a ton of pale flesh, they were hard to hit while they were zigzagging so illogically.

  “Hold until they get closer!” Two yelled. “We’ll be able—”

  The truck bounced under them, lurching to one side with two pops like gunfire. Dog saw something small and pink humping by the side of the truck.

  “They popped the tires.” Sixteen was trying to haul Zebra up. He was thrashing in pain after landing badly on his wounded leg.

  Vaca clutched Dog’s arm. “What—”

  Two more much larger pigs appeared on the right side of the truck, thrusting their snouts under i
t and hoisting it upwards. The whole thing tilted, and Dog grabbed Vaca and leaped, pulling him free of the vehicle as it crashed onto its side. The remaining windows shattered, ammunition bounced across the ground, and Two began to scream.

  Dog scrambled up onto his hands and turned around to see the Even was trapped—his leg pinned under the side of the cabin. Sixteen and Zebra were a tangle of limbs. Someone fired their gun. A pig howled. The ground shook as the herd charging from the north drew closer.

  Dog scrambled back to Zebra and Sixteen.

  “How did they know where to find us?” Dog demanded as Sixteen tried to get a round into the chamber of his rifle with shaking, bloody hands.

  “Spies maybe.” Sixteen aimed at the approaching sounder. “Spider told us where to hunt last night.”

  “What do we do?” Vaca was wide-eyed with fear.

  “We have to drive them off,” Sixteen said.

  He fired, hitting a sow in the flank, but she only screamed in rage. They were on top of the hunters. Gaping, mashing mouths wide, goring man and truck alike. The report of guns was deafening. A boar and a sow with tattoos descended on Two, who was still screaming and trapped, the ground under him awash with his blood. The boar clamped onto his shoulder, the sow to his head, and his screams changed. There was a wet crunching that wasn’t entirely covered by the bang-bang of gunfire.

  It was like a signal, and as coordinated and fast as a school of fish, the pigs turned, fleeing in different directions, vanishing into the brush. One of them was too badly wounded to run and lay on one side, panting fast, eyes rolling, one leg kicking uselessly. It took five bullets in the top of its head to still it. It was untattooed. Its smooth, white skin looked human. Its eyes were almost too blue to be real.

  Two was more than dead, he was unrecognizable.

  The remaining members of the hunting party gathered together. Nine Evens and the three Elikai. One of the men began to cry, rocking back and forth on his heels by Two’s body.

  “Will the truck go?” one of the men asked. “If we get it upright again?”

  “Too many tires gone,” Sixteen said grimly. “Even if we could lift it.”

  “Get a wedge, then. Something to get it up a few feet. We’re not leaving him.”

  Dog helped make a stretcher for Two’s body with branches, rope and shirts while the others managed to hoist the truck just enough to pull his shattered body free. They were a long way from the village, but their only choice was to walk.

  * * *

  It was the biggest human-made structure Whiskey had ever seen. The sheer dam wall rose up hundreds of stories—a gray monolith, marred by two wide ports that spewed a constant torrent of water into the river below. Behind the wall, on the northern side, was a vast expanse of deep water, still, fresh and cold. On one side of the lake, rolling green mountains rose up untainted by the signs of humanity’s passing but for one winding road cut into the bedrock. On the other, pockets of trees were inter-cut with rolling grassland. The cows and sheep that had once been farmed there were roaming wild, along with five elephants and a small herd of camels and donkeys. Run-down farmhouses had been claimed by vines and trees, but she could still see their bones and the squat, gray forms of sheds and silos amid the savage greenery.

  This was it. This was where they would settle. They would cut trees and build fences. They would fish in the deep, still water, and they would trap and hunt in the undulating forest. The height of the dam wall would give them clear visibility all the way to the coast.

  They would be safe from tsunamis. Sugar would design them buildings that could withstand the lashing of the storms. Here the Kai would settle, build their home and thrive. Whiskey was sure of it. Sure in a way she had never known before. As if she had been trying to come back to this place all along, even though she knew in her heart and bones she had never been here before.

  This was where her daughter would grow up. This was where her future children would be born. There would always be danger and good and bad seasons, but never again would they lose everything. Never again would they be homeless.

  “It looks ideal,” Fox said, standing by her side.

  “It is ideal. Now we just have to go back and get the others. We don’t need Spider and her servers.”

  Fox chuckled. “I wouldn’t mind a truck and some guns.”

  Whiskey smiled. “All good things. Now let’s go back and get our tribe.”

  Chapter Ten

  “You’ve started a war!” Spider was fuming, sitting on her throne, then launching herself upright with her hands to pace, fists clenching, body trembling all over. Her eyes were flinty with hostility. Spittle was flying from her lips as she spoke. “One of my children is dead!”

  “It’s not what we wanted.” Sugar looked calm, but Zebra could see he was stressed, his own special brand of calm-stress that usually indicated he was going to explode or throttle someone or break something, and knew it would only make things worse. “You knew the situation before we came here. We haven’t lied.”

  “You brought a demon with you. Her taint cursed us all!”

  Zebra could feel his heart sinking. It seemed to be tangled with his intestines somewhere down around his belly button. Fifteen slipped her hand into his.

  “It’s not Whiskey they’re after,” Sugar countered. “It was Charlie, Tango, Xícara and I who ate the piglet.”

  Spider glared, jaw working. She paced a few steps in a flurry of movement, then froze, just watching him, the wheels in her head turning into place. “Then it is you they shall have.”

  “Oh, no nono,” Zebra murmured, as the slow roll of shock passed through the crowd. Sixteen put a hand on his other shoulder, and Zebra could feel the faint tremble in his fingertips.

  “Don’t listen!” India stepped forward—tiny and black, rattling with detritus. She stood before Spider, openly defiant in front of everyone. “I have seen your servers and heard your sermons, and you’re false! Twice you’ve been wrong. You said Whiskey would lose the combat trial. You said the hunters would be safe today. The servers may hold information from the world before, but they don’t let you see the future!”

  “I don’t need a crystal ball to tell you the pigs are going to keep attacking,” Spider said, becoming still, dropping her voice to a deadly quiet. “They’ve sacrificed one of their number for this revenge mission. Now they will keep coming.”

  Zebra’s heart was thundering. He squeezed Fifteen’s hand, and she squeezed back. He let her go. Dog motioned for him—a subtle gesture, but he knew what it meant. Be ready to run. Be ready to fight your way out. But that would mean leaving Fifteen. Leaving Sixteen. When the earthquake had come, Zebra had dragged the Kai to the mainland. He’d brought them here, for her. Whatever happened was his fault.

  In a roundabout way, Two’s death was his fault too. Whiskey and Fox vanishing again. Whatever was happening right now. It was all on him.

  “You can’t think we’d agree to that?” Sugar demanded archly. “Charlie and I have a baby. We lead our tribes. Tango is pregnant. We’re not just going to lie down and die because you don’t want to kill some pigs.”

  “They are people like you.”

  “People who are attacking us!” Sugar snarled, suddenly losing his temper. “People who killed one of your people today! We made a mistake, they started a war over it! If you don’t want us here, fine. But I’m not going to lie down and die. Not for you.”

  The Kai began to bunch together. Tare sprinted away toward the bunkhouse, clearly intending to get up those who were sleeping and injured. Zebra turned to look at Fifteen and Sixteen, both stunned and as confused as he was.

  “I...” he started. He felt a piece of himself die. “You can come with me?”

  He already knew the answer and wasn’t surprised when they shook their heads. He kissed both quickly, once e
ach on the lips, then sprinted to join his brothers.

  “Stop them!” Spider yowled, and guns were drawn. Startled Odds grabbed their children and hauled them into doorways and out of sight.

  “That way, toward the bunkhouse!” Charlie ordered, then there was a deafening report as someone fired. Zebra’s eyes darted back and forth in a frantic panic as he tried to see if anyone was wounded, but it seemed whoever had fired had fired into the air.

  “Stop where you are, or we’ll shoot,” Spider snarled. “All of you freeze.”

  India whirled to face her, her expression twisted in rage.

  “We are not yours to command. We are the Varekai and the Elikai, and between us we birthed the whole world! You may be a God, but you are not the only one with arcane power. I speak with the spirits, and the dead told me about you and your web! I will speak with the pig spirit, and you will not interfere!”

  Zebra thought the Kai were cheering for a moment. The sound started as a low rumble, which built in ferocity until the ground was shaking and the river was trembling.

  “It’s another aftershock,” Spider yelled.

  “Go, run!” Dog was pushing the Kai toward the bunkhouse, and Zebra spared Fifteen and Sixteen one more look before limping after his brothers. Xícara grabbed his arm and hauled him along. They met Tare and the other wounded at the edge of town.

  “Upriver,” India demanded. “I spoke to Juliet there. She will show us the way.”

  The Numbers were not following. They could hear Spider screeching, but there was no armed party running them down. Everyone was too shocked by how quickly it had all gone wrong. As the Kai fled upriver, Zebra wondered how many more times the dead were going to make their decisions for them.

  * * *

  Tango walked beside India as she led them north, following the river. It was slow going, but a fear of what might be coming up behind them kept them moving.

  “Are you sure?” Tango asked quietly. She glanced back at Xícara. He was red in the face, looking dizzy again. He wouldn’t be able to run if the Numbers caught up with them. Or the pigs. “This is the way the hunting party went when they were attacked by the pigs.”