Her motorbike revved and approached unmanned from the front car park, skidding out across the grass in front of us.
“Jump on.” I followed Jacky, leaping onto the back seat as she took the front. The bike kicked forward, the front wheel lifting up. One of the watchtowers noticed us and turned their aim downward. Dirt exploded from the crater, blowing a hole through the fence. We lurched forward, clearing the grounds and skidding out across the roads. I twisted in my seat, watching the jet as its image shuddered and disappeared.
I gasped. “A hologram?”
Jacky smiled. “A distraction.”
It was easy enough to obtain McKinnon’s whereabouts with Swoon’s printed eye. His hideout had no official address, just a point on a map among wasteland.
On our return Hiro welcomed us on the staircase. He jumped up and followed me. “Did you get it?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad you’re back.”
“Were you bored?”
“Actually, no. Logan showed me this thing he called an M.R.D, umm… memory retraction device. For when they get their hands on Fitzgerald. Umm, hey, Jacky.” His eyes followed Jacky as she passed him and continued down the hall. He looked back anxiously. “What are we going to do when they find out?”
I chewed my inner cheek. “Did you get me what I asked for?”
Hiro nodded and slipped me the phone.
“Thanks.”
I turned toward the bathroom as Hiro grabbed my sleeve. “I don’t want to hurt them.”
“Hey?” We spun around at Jacky’s approached. I quickly tucked the mobile up my jacket sleeve. “Turns out we’ve got everything in order. Now that I’ve held up my end of the bargain, it’s your turn.”
I nodded. “Of course. Fitzgerald is outside of the city though.”
“Don’t worry about that. Getting out is easy.”
“Then we can leave straight away. I just I need to use the bathroom first, then we’ll go straight there.”
I slipped down the hallway and into the bathroom. Inside there was a body of a young woman slumped across the bathtub. Her head had rolled back and jaw popped open with drool lining her chin. Overdosed. I drew the shower curtain across so I didn’t have to look at her.
I called Diesel. The dial tone rang once before a crackled voice answered. “Yes?”
Hearing his voice immediately eased me. I cupped my hand over the mouthpiece and whispered. “We’ve got an address.”
“You okay?”
“Yes. But we have company you need to take care of.”
The static of Diesel’s breathing tickled my ear. “Come at sunset. I’ll be ready.”
“She’s tough. Robotic limbs. Knives that extend and retract through her arms. Half of her body is made of steel.”
Even though I couldn’t see him, I could almost picture the calculating smile tease his lips. “See you soon.” The dial ended and I dropped the mobile in the toilet.
Chapter Twenty-One:
Sunset. My fingers twitched. Red light tinged the dark bricks by our feet. Homes stood in ruins, gutted, burnt and desolate. We approached the meeting point, Hiro and I leading a few meters ahead. Heat pulled on my hair, dampening my skin with sweat. It was hard to hide my nervousness, especially as I didn’t consider Logan would come along too. I eyed them over my shoulder. Logan shifted beneath the weight of his backpack. I could see the prongs of his homemade machine sticking out of the zipper. Birds chirped in the distance, bringing notice to how quiet the crumpled streets were. The city towers arched over the horizon, the giant black walls creating mountains from a distance.
“Are we nearly there?” Jacky asked.
“Just past the bridge.” I pulled on my jacket, watching the shadows for Diesel.
Hiro stepped closer. “You don’t look so well.”
I licked my lips, not meeting his eyes. I watched the shift in the sun’s fading light. Rats scurried past. My hands tensed into fists.
He quickly grabbed my shoulder, reading my body language. “You didn’t.”
“We have to,” I whispered urgently. Hiro looked up into the neighbouring roofs. Heavy clutter narrowed the streets, squeezing us down into a single file. Loose tin sheets bang against the draft. Bells whistled from posts. The setting sun drew out shadows from the corners. I pulled his attention back down. “Don’t act suspicious,” I hissed. “They will kill us.”
I slowed when nearing the underpass. Water tracked through the dirt beneath the bridge, disintegrating whatever remained of old newspapers, magazines and dumped trash. An abandoned car barred our passage, forcing us to squeeze past the bonnet one by one. I went first, followed by Hiro. Jacky stepped across next when a sudden clink caught her steel foot. She glanced down at the sewer rim, unable to step off the magnetised surface. Seconds later, a rope snapped, a heavy fridge working as its counterweight. Jacky’s body whipped up, and she dangled upside down from the bridge railing.
Before anyone could react, Diesel charged. He moved fast, slamming Logan to the ground. The old man skidded on his back, his bag flinging across the yard. Diesel chased after him, pumping the shotgun before aiming at Logan’s head.
Hiro leapt at Diesel’s hands, knocking his aim sideways just as he unloaded a round inches from Logan’s face. Dirt sprayed. Smoke scented the air.
“Hiro,” I screamed. “Don’t!”
Diesel shoved Hiro back. Logan quickly grabbed the gun and tossed it aside. They fought hand-to-hand, Diesel landing fast and violent punches to Logan’s side. Each swing drew strength from the twist in his body, hitting harder and faster. He moved in blurs, hitting, kicking, doing whatever he could to knock Logan back down. Logan stayed on the defence, taking each hit with hunched shoulders and his arms held up to his face. Jacky continued to swing meters above our heads, cursing us.
“You said one, Nadia! One!” Diesel roared at me as he pounded his fists into Logan’s chest. I could hear the clink of knuckle hitting steel. He fought hard, swinging left then right and left again. Yet, all it took was for Logan to catch Diesel’s wrist once to overpower him. With his enhanced strength, he lifted Diesel over his shoulder and slammed him into the car side door. Metal crunched around his spine, knocking the wind from his lungs. Diesel dodged left, just avoiding Logan’s killing blow. He kicked out, unbalancing Logan and knocking him back. He then picked up a lead pipe stashed behind the wheel of the car. My knuckles tensed. This didn’t feel right. Logan quickly hunched his shoulders, preparing himself for another beating.
“Diesel,” my weakened voice squeaked. He tightened his grip around the pipe. “S-stop! Diesel, stop!” Diesel charged and swung. The pipe caught Logan on the shoulder, spinning him around. He yelped, cowering away as Diesel swung again. I ran forward. “Diesel! Stop it!”
He stopped mid-swing, glancing back at me.
Logan suddenly grabbed him from behind in a chokehold. He reared Diesel up, lifting him off his feet. Diesel tucked his chin in and elbowed Logan in the ribs, crippling the older man before bucking against Logan’s grip until he was able to kick Logan’s legs out from underneath him and drop them both into the mud.
Logan’s age withered him. Even with mechanical limbs hardening his body, his mind rattled beneath each of Diesel’s jabs. And Diesel punched mercilessly. His bloodied knuckles connected with the side of the old man’s head. Arms swung. Logan’s eyes fluttered. I thought it was over for him, when in the most surprising moment, Hiro stepped across and smacked Diesel’s face. I gasped. Jacky swore. Logan wheezed from behind his hands. Diesel ran his tongue across his teeth and spat blood. He shot Hiro a hard dirty look.
“Enough,” Hiro panted. “Enough!”
In a sudden crack, Jacky managed to cut herself free and fell on top of the car’s roof. She wrenched the metal rope off from around her ankles and lurched herself toward us. Diesel turned to face her, his eyes tracking the long blades protruding from her arms. His muscles flexed, preparing for the fight.
I ran between them. “No!
No more fighting!” Jacky slowed. Diesel’s expression hardened with confusion as he straightened out of his fighting stance.
Guilt restricted my chest. “I’m sorry, Jacky, but Fitzgerald really is dead, okay, and I knew you were going to kill us when you found out we lied so—”
“You set us up?”
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You tried to kill us!”
I didn’t know what to say. My mouth opened but nothing more than ‘I’m sorry’ came out. Logan groaned as he edged himself up against the car. Blood ran from his sliced eyebrow and down his swollen, pink cheeks.
I wringed my hands together. “I still want to help you! Please? Let me make this right!”
Jacky scoffed and turned away. “I should have known. I should have known you’re just like everyone else. All this bullshit about saving humanity. Fuck!” She paced back and forth, her jaw clicking. “We really needed those memories. I don’t think we can last another cycle.”
“Maybe there’s another way.”
“Like what?” she snapped.
“I-I don’t know. Someone else may know where he kept your memories.”
“There is no one else!”
“Maybe he stored the information somewhere.”
“Stop wasting our time. There’s nothing you can think of that we haven’t already tried.”
I reached out to her. Diesel pulled my hand down but I growled and stepped around him. “What about at Alpha? He had a whole work station there full of his research!”
“Alpha is one of the most heavily guarded prisons in the entire world.”
“What better place to let your guard down? Maybe if we can get into his office we’ll be able to find the information?”
“We?” Diesel repeated with a mocking laugh. “What the hell happened in the city to make you two best friends?”
“Diesel!”
“It doesn’t matter because it’s not possible,” he dismissed with a wave. “Everything would have been wiped from the system. There’s nothing left at Alpha.”
“Wait a minute.” I gasped as a memory sprung forward. “Diesel, didn’t you download Fitzgerald’s work before we fled? You have the files!”
“Not anymore.” He grinned, amused by my excitement. “Everything went up in flames. Remember?”
“But you saw it, yeah?”
“Why does that matter?”
“You saw it? You read the files?”
He cocked his head. “Yeah, but if you’re expecting me to be able to recite everything—”
“No, but it’s there. In your head, you have the information.”
Jacky’s posture shifted as realization, or maybe even hope, loosened her shoulders. The blades slid back into her arms as she approached. “If you read his files then we can take the memories from you instead.”
“I glanced at it for like a second—”
“That’s good enough.” Jacky helped Logan stand and took the bulky device out from his dropped backpack. Thankfully, it wasn’t damaged.
Diesel broke out into laughter. “And what the hell is that supposed to be?”
“It was meant for Mao, but it’ll work on you too.”
“Who the fuck is Mao?”
I eased Jacky back. “We can’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to.”
“It’s not a request.”
“So it’s a demand?” Diesel chuckled. “Your giant needles may be impressive, but you’re going to have to do a lot more than jab me to get into my head.”
“Diesel.” I placed my hand on his shoulder. He tightened at my touch, his eyes shooting down before he grimaced. He wrenched himself away.
“Bloody hell.” He picked up his shotgun and rested it against his shoulder. “Fine, if you want my memories, you can get them after we get McKinnon.”
“No! Now!” Jacky demanded.
“That piss pot machine is not going to do shit without a massive generator. Unless you have an input somewhere on your tin body you can charge it with?”
Jacky clamped her mouth shut and crossed her arms. “You want us to join you to fetch McKinnon? The same people you just tried to bludgeon to death? Why?”
“Because I tried to kill you and you didn’t die. Means you are capable. Plus, those knives could come in handy.” Jacky didn’t share Diesel’s joke. He shrugged, wiping sweat off his brow. “End of the day, tin girl, you need my memories. You can kill me, sure. You can kill all of us, but that’s not going to get you into my head.”
Jacky thought on it for moment. “No. No, this time I want proof you have what we need.”
“Like what? I just said everything we had was destroyed.”
“You lied and tricked me once. I’m not going to believe you again so easily.”
Diesel stepped closer, his swinging foot knocking a pebble along the track. “Listen, I was locked up in that hellhole Alpha for years, but it wasn’t until Fitzgerald came along that it really made me loathe my immortality.” As he spoke, Diesel’s words slanted and slurred with Krane’s accent, his tone dropping into the back of his throat. “I memorized his facial features. I remembered the curl of his lip when he smiled. The way he watched me scream, the tilt in his facial expression when he was pleased. I remembered it all. Even when I finally died, I still dreamt of it as a child. So… I went back to that prison. I found that loathing bastard and I took my time watching him again—”
“We all have our own sob stories,” Jacky cut across him.
Diesel’s smile strained. “So what exactly do you want with these memories?”
“My own salvation.”
“Then join us.” I stepped forward, breaking the tension between them. “We know where McKinnon is, thanks to you. We’ll get what we need from him and we’ll give you want you need from us. It’s your only way to get your memories back. What have you got to lose?”
Jacky took a deep breath, her expression stone cold and unreadable. With the slightest of gestures, she nodded.
The world felt too large sometimes. The times of quiet, when no one was shooting at us, chasing us or trying to capture us, I could sink into my own shoes and look at what was left around me. Civilizations, monuments, temples and castles, architecture that toured back through time, painting stories of the past I would never fully understand. There was so much hope built for a future people no longer wanted. Nature took and gave. It broke and rebuilt. Time passed under our noses, chipping us away as water erodes rock. Mountains shrunk into hills. Oceans became puddles. Maybe that is what is meant to happen. Maybe we’re just meant to gradually disappear.
I took the torn poster piece out of my backpack and gently ran my fingers down the washed out green. The red sand around me felt wrong. It wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t the Earth I pictured. I looked toward the others as they set up camp beneath a lone, large tree. The closer we travelled toward McKinnon, the further away the towns and cities became. Dry paddocks, old barns and barren earth stretched out into the distant horizon.
Logan’s injuries had healed. His limp faded after a day but Jacky never left his side. Her cold shoulder toward the rest of us wasn’t surprising. They ate their meals away from us. Slept away from us. When we travelled, they always took the lead. Whatever trust we had built, despite how thin and fragile it was, didn’t seem to be returning.
Hiro remained oddly quiet too, making me feel like I was the rock that shattered his glass world. Everything he knew or understood disappeared in front of him. Sometimes, being born a Soulless felt like we were just put on this Earth to watch it die. Why make us different when being different didn’t matter at all?
For the past hour, Hiro and Diesel had stepped away from the group to talk privately further out in the fields. Even though I couldn’t hear the nature of their conversation, judging by Diesel’s reactions, it was a safe bet it had something to do with fighting.
I found myself staring at them as they worked. Diesel stood with his arms tightly crossed, only stepp
ing out of his pose to correct Hiro’s stance. Hiro took aim with the gun, trying to hit a faraway tree. Unfortunately, six shots later there were still no marks on the trunk. Diesel closed the range between Hiro and his target. Four shots after that, he managed to hit the fence, six meters away. I would have said that they were bonding if it wasn’t for Diesel’s frustrated yelling. In the end, Diesel demonstrated how to disarm a person before giving Hiro his shotgun. Shorter range but wider spray. The tree shuddered from the blast.
“Just don’t point it in my direction and you’ll be fine.” He clapped Hiro on the back and walked off.
The disappearing sunlight pulled shadows out across the fields. The small campfire helped fight against the deep chill setting in, the twist of orange startling against the gentle blue backdrop. Hiro eventually returned and joined Jacky and Logan at the camp. He continued to receive advice about firearms, despite his insistence he knew what he was doing.
Diesel approached me where I sat on the porch in front of a destroyed farmhouse. “How did it go with Hiro?”
“Well, we don’t have to worry about McKinnon anymore, because it’s Hiro that is going to kill us all.”
I laughed. “That bad huh?”
“The boy has never even held a gun before. I don’t know how you Soulless rookies managed to survive this long.”
“Think this is why we’re such a rare find.”
“And probably why they have to freeze half of you.”
I laughed softly. “It was kind of you to teach him.”
“Hmm, I don’t know why he didn’t just ask you.”
“I think he’s embarrassed.”
“Why would he be embarrassed?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t feel…manly enough or something.”
“It probably has something to do with the fact that I’m also the best fighter in our group.”
“All right, let’s just watch that ego of yours.”
“Ha ha.” His backpack cluttered as he dropped it at his feet. It had fattened with whatever junk he scavenged during our travels. A small prick bled from his vein, evidence of him injecting a new pill into his arm. “So, what’s on your mind?”
Soul Finder (The Immortal Gene Book 2) Page 20