by Ryan Schow
He got her to the college though, to the doctor. The doctor, of course, had been Sarah. Sarah whose name he hadn’t known just yet. On the bed, the young doctor said, “Wow, she’s beautiful,” to which Rider said, “True beauty lies beneath the skin. She could be the ugliest woman you’ll ever meet and we wouldn’t know it until she speaks.”
“Do you think we should let her die?” Sarah asked, deadpan, but stopping what she was doing to look up at Rider.
“I have a quarter,” he said, matching her expression. “We can flip, if you want.”
“Okay,” she said. “You flip it, I’ll call it.”
He took the coin, flipped it in the air and she called heads. It was heads. “So normally I wouldn’t have you do this, but there’s no one else I really know, and you’re the one who brought her here...”
“What are you asking?”
“I need to inspect her body, and I need your help. We have to check for cuts, lacerations, indications of internal bleeding—”
“I thought you could do that, you’re the doctor. I’m just…I’m just a good Samaritan who didn’t ask for any of this.”
Ignoring him, she lifted the woman’s sweater. Her stomach was flat, flawless, her breasts small but cupped nicely by an expensive, bejeweled bra. Rider looked away, uncomfortable. He felt Sarah look up at him, thought she might’ve smiled.
“You gay?”
“If I was,” he replied, “I wouldn’t look away.”
“She’s unconscious,” Sarah said, examining her body. “She’s not going to mind.” When she pulled the shirt back down, she said, “We have to turn her over.”
They did.
Again, she lifted the woman’s shirt and checked her torso. There were bruises, but they were external. Nothing appeared to be broken.
“My name is Rider,” he’d said to Sarah, awkward.
“Got a last name?”
“Not really.”
“Well it’s a good name,” she replied. Back then, she didn’t give her name and he didn’t ask. He preferred to just call her “doc” and she seemed to like it just fine.
“I’m not a real doctor you know,” she said. “I’m just a second year.”
“Well I’m not a real rider. I’m just a guy. If my name was any indication of what I do, it would be Walker, but that sounds too much like The Walking Dead and I don’t want anyone thinking of me as a zombie, even though most days that’s exactly how I feel.”
If he was named for what he did, in all honesty he’d be called Killer, but no one really ever gets that special feeling for you if your name is synonymous with murder.
He smiled; she smiled.
That was that.
Over the days, he came to see this mystery woman, but she was sleeping a lot. She’d had a concussion, a broken nose (which he helped the doctor reset that day), lacerations on the side of her head and burns on her face and forearms from the airbag deploying.
Yet she was still an attractive woman.
He never stared at her for too long because in times of war, you don’t obsess over women as much as you do your best to survive. Women were a distraction, and he was in war mode.
Sometimes, though, he looked at her thoughtfully. Tried to imagine what she was like inside. Tried to guess at who she’d been in the real world.
Shaking his head more times than not, he thought, this woman is taking me places I can’t afford to go just yet. And the doctor? She was no help either. She was easy on the eyes as well, competent and witty, blessed with a lighthearted sense of humor that came off as something of a miracle considering the absolute hell they were under.
But she was young. Too young.
That’s why Rider eventually left the compound. Well, that and one other reason. The mystery woman, in one of her waking moments, was asking for someone. She was repeating a name. Rider put his ear close to her mouth, caught the name, then asked where she was and the woman told him. Because he was growing fond of Sarah, because he found himself thinking more about her and their patient than surviving, he needed to go, to walk, to have a mission.
Finding this girl was his mission.
Indigo.
After a few days he found her, but he didn’t want to bring her back to the compound because she was a girl who was surviving on her own just fine. The girl was every bit as competent as Sarah, just younger. Less jovial. If he took her from her home, everything she was developing in herself would come to a swift and jarring halt. The last thing this world needed, Rider had been thinking to himself, was another follower.
He recognized in this teenager true survivability and this made him want to check back in on her. He had people back at the compound to take care of, friends to help, responsibilities that had his name written on them.
They say inside of a year, after the grid goes down, power goes out and society is thrust headlong into the dark ages, most of the population dies. This is no real news. Certainly not to a guy like Rider.
What they don’t tell you is how all these people come to die. What happens to them when they get hungry, when they need a place to stay, when supplies run out and food goes rotten and clean water and sewage are a thing of the past. What they don’t say is that people will always fall back to their base instincts and that’s when you separate the wheat from the chaff, the wolves from the sheep. Rider was a wolf. He would survive.
But everyone else?
Well, he thought, it was best not to get too attached.
Yet there he was, getting attached. He’d just asked Sarah out for a walk and now he was here with the woman whose name he still didn’t know. There was a ring on her finger, but when he found Indigo, there was no father figure around. It was just her.
The woman slowly worked her eyes open. One of them was shot through with red from the trauma to her head, but not like before. She was looking a lot better. Nearly perfect.
“You,” she said.
“Me.”
“I dreamt of you,” she said, groggy.
“I’m afraid your dreams might be mixing with reality, which has become somewhat of a nightmare of late.”
“So I know you?”
“Not really.”
“But you know me?” she asks.
“Not really.”
“Why are you here then?” she says, her eyes heavy, her body willing her back to sleep.
“I’m the one who brought you here,” he said, grinding his molars because honestly he didn’t want to admit that. To admit he had saved her would be binding them together, and having people bound to you was crippling. At least, that’s how it felt to Rider.
“You saved me?” she asked, her voice scratchy, her eyes full of foggy wonder.
“It was nothing,” he said. “The effort, I mean. All life has value and yours needed saving.”
She took his hand, and it was soft—the skin of her hand on his. He hadn’t held a woman’s hand in well over a year, so experiencing the rapture of human touch was both heart rending and uncomfortable. He inched his hand out of hers then she settled back down, the effort having sapped most of her energy.
“Am I okay?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I don’t fell well, though,” she all but whispered.
“You had a concussion, a broken nose, some bruising. Do cuts heal slowly for you? Or burns? Things like that?”
“Before, no. I used to heal just fine. But now, yes, things have slowed down significantly.”
Her face was profound sadness. He didn’t understand.
“What do you mean?” he forced himself to ask.
Looking right into his eyes and not blinking, she said, “Please don’t take this the wrong way, because I’m grateful for you and what you’ve done, but I have cancer. I was already dying before you found me.”
Now he sagged into his body so hard it made him not only mad about this life, but enthusiastically pissed off that he opened that part of himself up to care about a woman who was going to die anyway.
“You’re young though,” he said, his voice tender, unguarded.
She swallowed hard, cleared her throat, then looked at him and said, “Cancer doesn’t care if you’re forty or eighty, or even ten for that matter.”
“People are beating it though,” he said, sick at how desperate he sounded. “There’s a chance, right?”
“Where am I?” she finally asked, looking around. “This doesn’t look like a hospital.”
“Do you even know what’s going on out there?”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted.
“The drones, the city, the AI? Any of that ring a bell?” he asked, looking right at her, not knowing how to delicately put the fact that society as they knew it had been crushed under the boot of innovation and technological advancement.
“What’s AI?”
“Artificial Intelligence.”
“How does any of this explain why I’m here?” she said, her eyes so heavy, her petite body growing so still he wondered if she even bore the strength necessary to hear and comprehend what he had to say. In the end, he decided the truth would be too traumatizing. He’d wait a few days, fill her in on things then.
“When you’re feeling rested, I’ll tell you, but for now, just sleep.”
She reached out, rested her hand on his forearm and closed her eyes. “Thank you for what you did.”
And then she drifted off to sleep again, her breathing deepening, her body once again finding reprieve in its slumber. He sat with her for the better part of an hour, until Sarah came in and said, “Did you get a chance to talk to her?”
“I did,” he said.
“And?”
“I wish I would have never saved her.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Raymond King, a.k.a. “Kingpin Ray,” sat at a large desk in the enormous Sutter Health building on California and Cherry with his fingers tented and his three generals standing before him. A bottle of Scotch stood open and breathing, but as much as he enjoyed the idea of the finer things in life, what he really wanted was the power back and an ice cold Corona.
Times were changing, though. He had to change with them.
If he played his cards right, he would command an army by the month’s end, and at the head of this army stood his enforcers, all reliable men, all loyal beyond measure.
Looking around he said, “Am I to assume you want to rule this city by force?”
Salazar said, “Indeed.”
Salazar was his most loyal man, his chief enforcer and a friend. He was not seeing the bigger picture though, and King intended to be clear. “In a city that’s been overwhelmed by force, what you need to lead is not more force.”
“We’re a gang,” Salazar argued. “We control things, we sell things, we kill things if necessary. These are the basic tenants we agreed to when forming The Ophidian Horde.”
King finally took a sip of the Scotch, let it warm his throat and belly, then said, “One of the first things I learned when reading Sun Tzu’s Art of War was to read the landscape. Do you think the landscape now is the same as it was a month ago?”
“Obviously not.”
“Outwardly, we appeal to the people. From there we will create our own landscape from which to dominate.”
“We’re not politicians,” Salazar snipped, causing the other two enforcers to give a unifying nod.
“True, we’re less corrupt, I’ll give you that. But that isn’t the point.”
“You want to use the carrot not the stick,” Salazar said.
“No, I want to be more like the pied piper. We’ll sell safety. We’ll sell security. And when the time is right, we’ll have everything we want, but with the cooperation of the people, not the pushback.”
“Why must we rely upon benevolence as a measure of control when weapons work so much better?”
“Do you have a problem with that?” he asked.
“Others will.”
King shifted in his chair, took another shot. “Those who don’t do it our way, those within our ranks anyway, they are to be killed on site. Compliance will surely follow. We are not one gang but the dissidents of many. I don’t expect everyone to see it my way just yet, but they will and you will help them.”
Salazar now stood uncomfortably on his feet. King knew it would come to this. The sooner they discussed this the better.
“We’re not the only outfit here, King.”
“That goes without saying.”
“What about their captains? Their lieutenants? Their soldiers? With them, you don’t just lop off the head and expect the body to die with it. You lop off the head and expect another, more grislier version to grow back.”
“All the other gangs will fall if we do this right. We’ll sweep in the soldiers, the lieutenants, the captains if need be. Collect all those willing to share the vision.”
“What you’re suggesting is starting a war of epic proportion,” Gomez said. He was the newest of King’s enforcers, a fierce man, an unwavering man.
“This is the single most important power grab we’ll ever have at our disposal,” King said. “If you think they’re thinking anything different, if you think they’re not in some place exactly like this planning our swift demise, they you are gravely mistaken and in no way deserving of the position I’ve provided you.”
Kingpin Ray watched his right hand man grinding his molars. Finally Salazar drew a short, sharp breath through his nose and lifted his chin. “So we are going to be soft to the people, but hard with our rivals?”
“This is a new world and we have to be a new gang. So yes.”
Salazar ripped his .45 loose, fired two quick rounds into Raymond King’s head. His friend’s skull snapped back, two smoking holes in his forehead, and then he slumped over sideways and that was that.
Salazar was the ranking enforcer, so with King dead, he took King’s place. Yelling at his friend’s corpse, accentuating his points with the thrust of his smoking gun, he said, “We are going to be hard all the time! This city does not need benevolence right now, they need a leader who is not afraid to make tough choices!”
From behind Salazar, a shot was fired and the man’s forehead blew open a wash of red. He fell face first on the ground with a sick thump.
Gomez and Gunderson both spun around, weapons drawn. They stopped when they saw who was standing before them. The killer said nothing. There was no posturing, no grandstanding, no words wasted on people not interested in listening.
“Do either of you wish to challenge me?” he asked with a soft voice. Neither Gomez nor Gunderson moved. “No? Good. There are community events rising up across the city. We will visit them, introduce ourselves, and we will do what we’ve always done, but with the chains off. We took the police stations. They are no more. There is no law, no national guard, no courts or jails. There is only kill or be killed. These people need to know that we will kill how and when we like and there is nothing they can do about it.”
“Are you planning on leading this gang?”
“Yes.”
“But, you’re a hitman.”
“And you’re politicians with guns.”
Gomez and Gunderson exchanged looks. Then Gunderson said, “So we just show up and kill them and that’s it?”
“No, you kill the men and the children, but you take the women. The women are ours. The spoils of war.”
“Kill the children?” Gomez asked. “Are you pinche loco?”
The bullet blew out Gomez’s front teeth, wobbling him, but not killing him right away. Gunderson neither jumped nor panicked. He just turned and watched Gomez choke to death, wide-eyed and scared, standing on soft knees and buckling legs. Blood leaked from the lower half of his face as he stumbled to a nearby chair, fell into it then slumped over and died.
“Is this going to be a problem for you?” the hitman asked Gunderson.
Gunderson was not a man not to be trifled with, but he was not consumed by ego, either. He was a soldier at heart, willing and able
to take orders, and more than respectful of the chain of command.
“No. No problem here.”
“I’m pleased to hear that, Mr. Gunderson.”
“Can I ask you a question?” he asked. The former hitman waited. “What do I call you?”
“The only name people need to know is our name.”
“The Ophidian Horde.”
“In this day and age, under these uncertain circumstances, benevolence and diplomacy don’t work. We’re on a clock. If we don’t take the upper hand while our enemies are regrouping, we will be like these cabróns here: shot dead and forgotten.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“See that you do,” he said as he turned and disappeared down the hall.
Gunderson looked at the dead men before him. Instead of cleaning them up, he simply took the opened bottle of Scotch and all of their guns, then left the office, shutting the door behind him. Thinking of the man who just assumed control of The Ophidian Horde, he couldn’t help the involuntary shiver that ran through him. This contract killer was a slight Guatemalan man with no conscience, no hesitation, and absolute surety in his every move, as to be expected. Gunderson realized it was best to make a man like this a friend because so far, three of his friends had been disposed of already, and he wasn’t anxious to be next.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
When the drones set in on the city, blowing up cars and buildings and people, Chad and Wagner thought the best thing to do was start building bombs. How else were they supposed to stop the machines?
“We need focus,” Chad said.
“No,” Wagner replied, “we need to chill.”
“What exactly do you have in mind?” Chad asked, anxious, giddy almost.
Chad looked young, too tall for the age of his face, and too much hair for a normal kid. It was long and brown; it was halfway down his neck at the back and falling in his eyes in the front. He lived out of saggy jeans and decorative t-shirts his mother bought him from second hand stores and Wal-Mart when they were on sale for six dollars plus tax.