by Alex London
The man with the grenade shrugged. He turned to the other one. “Looks like they’re the ones that don’t negotiate.”
The other one spat on the ground. It hit the dust with a splat and a sizzle. “Then we gotta kill ’em all.”
“We still get paid if the rich ones die?”
“Guess we’ll find out.”
[44]
BEFORE ANOTHER WORD COULD be spoken, the bandit threw his grenade straight at Syd.
It landed on the dirt in front of him and rolled at his feet.
At the same time, the other bandit fired his rocket launcher at the hovercraft. It whistled across the short distance in a flash.
Knox and Marie both turned, without hesitation, and dove on top of Syd, knocking him down. The impact tore the breath out of him and sent a stabbing pain through his ribs. The weight of two bodies pressed over him, blotting out the sky.
Knox and Marie slammed their eyes shut tight, and wrapped their arms around each other, just in time to go together into oblivion.
Except they didn’t.
No explosions followed.
The rocket hit the hovercraft with a metallic clunk and bounced harmlessly off the hull. Knox and Marie opened their eyes. Syd looked up at Gordis, who stood exactly where he’d been, feet planted firmly on the cracked hardpan of the desert, the explosive ball touching the tip of his toe. Knox was surprised to see that Gordis wore sandals. It was a strange detail to capture his attention, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the metal ball and the man’s big toe.
Gordis kicked the grenade lightly to the side.
“What the—?” the bandit began.
Gordis smirked. “Variable-frequency signal jammer,” he said, and with a wave of his hand, he fired off an EMD pulse at the men on horseback.
Actually, Syd, realized, at their horses.
The animals flailed and shrieked, bucking their riders as they fell to the ground in convulsions.
Gordis strolled up to them, casual as could be, and he gave them each a fatal tap with his EMD stick, frying every nerve in their bodies and watching calmly until the shaking stopped. He bent down and snapped each of their necks for good measure, then he nodded at the kids, who rushed to slice the meat from the horses.
And, to Syd’s horror, from the men.
“No wasting foodstuff out here,” Gordis said.
Marie looked over to Knox. She had one hand clutching her weapon. The other was wrapped around his shoulder. He had an arm around her waist. Knox looked back at her with just a little twitch of the lips. Her head tilted slightly. Knox’s moved forward.
“I hate to interrupt.” Syd winced beneath them. “But can you get off me, please?”
They looked down at him, as if they were startled to see him there. Marie blushed and rolled off him. Knox watched her stand, using the weapon to help herself up.
He smirked at Syd and gave him a mischievous wink. “Progress,” he whispered and heaved himself off the ground.
It was undeniable, Knox had confidence. A twisted mind, laser focused on one totally inappropriate thing, but still, it was impressive. Even in the face of death, Knox had making out on the brain. He bent down and helped Syd off the ground, letting him lean his weight on him once more.
“They didn’t even get a shot off,” Knox announced, excitement and pride buoying his voice, like the brief but conclusive battle was something from a holo game. Adrenaline coursed through him; his whole body tingled in a way that petty vandalism or high-speed driving could never create. He was frightened and horrified and yet, somehow, thrilled. He felt more alive than he ever had before. “A signal jammer! Did you see that?”
“I saw,” said Syd, watching Gordis oversee the picking apart of the bandits. He wondered who the man really was. No simple scavenger should be so cool in the face of battle, not without training. And what scavenger fleeing Mercy Camp just happens to have a variable-frequency signal jammer? Syd had been fixing stuff for security contractors since puberty and he’d only ever seen one in Mr. Baram’s shop in all that time. They were rare and expensive technology.
Gordis was more than he seemed.
Of course, thought Syd, so are we.
Gordis came over to Syd and Knox and Marie. He rested his EMD stick over his shoulder.
“You two.” He looked Knox and Marie up and down. “Patrons? Upper City?”
They nodded.
“And you?” He turned to Syd.
“Just what I look like I am.”
The man smiled. “Then you the only man on earth that’s true for.”
“You okay?” Knox asked Syd. “You’re kinda gray.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” said Syd, but he knew he wasn’t. The adrenaline of the fight was gone, the urgent focus of being chased had vanished, and what was left was only pain. His ribs ached, his head throbbed, and he felt light on his feet. He listed to one side and Knox barely caught him, his strong grip squeezing out a bolt of agony, even as he kept Syd from collapsing on the road.
“Take this.” Gordis held out a biopatch. It didn’t look like a scavenger’s hacked meds, but like something from the Upper City, something lux. Gordis didn’t wait for Syd to answer, just slapped it onto his skin, where it lit up gold and silver and green, then faded and dissolved. It seemed to take the pain with it. A wave of peace rolled up from Syd’s toes to the tip of his head. He wanted to sleep. More than anything, he wanted to sleep, but first, he had to find out about Gordis. He had to know.
“What about you?” he asked. “Who are you?”
“Just rest,” urged Gordis. “Bring him on board,” he told Knox.
“No!” Syd objected. He held himself up. He studied Gordis. His arms were thick and strong and he looked well fed. To be well fed as a scavenger was no easy task, and nobody living out in the wastelands pulled it off. They usually arrived in the Mountain City half dead, thin as reeds, and host to a thousand parasitic diseases. Other than the scar on his face, Gordis looked healthy.
“You’re a recruiter,” Syd suggested. Gordis had to lean in to hear him. Syd could feel the patch taking over. He was fading. “For the Rebooters . . .”
Gordis sucked his teeth; he didn’t deny it.
“We need to get to the Rebooters,” Marie added eagerly.
Gordis nodded.
“These kids,” Syd added. “Your recruits?”
“Very impressive, Sydney,” Gordis replied.
“I . . .” Syd’s vision blurred. He tried to make eye contact with Gordis. “I never told you my name.”
“You didn’t have to.” Gordis reached into his shirt and pulled out a chain. There was a small metal plate on the end of it. He held it up to show Syd. Knox and Marie leaned in to see it too.
The plate was stamped with symbols. Although his vision had begun to blur and his thoughts become foggy, Syd recognized them immediately.
They were the same ones behind his ear.
“I always knew you’d come back,” said Gordis. “I always believed.”
“Yovel,” said Syd, before his legs gave out. Knox scooped him up and carried him into the hovercraft.
“Sydney gonna be okay,” Gordis told him as they set him inside on top of some crates.
“Syd,” Knox corrected him. “He goes by Syd.”
Gordis nodded. “They’ll fix Syd up in Old Detroit, all better. You’ll see.”
All better, thought Knox. That didn’t seem possible.
When he closed his eyes, he saw Gordis touching each of those riders with his EMD stick, dropping them dead on the road. He saw the woman in the cave, the moment Syd killed her. He saw Egan’s chest exploding and he saw the Guardians in the doorway from the zoo and the woman bleeding out on the floor. He saw Beatrice, hanging like unprocessed meat on a hook. The branding on Syd’s arm, the scars. He doubted anything would ever be all better for Syd. The most he could hope for was to survival. It was the most anyone could hope for out here and even for that, the chances seemed slim.
[
45]
THE HOVERCRAFT WHINED AND rattled as it tore through the evening and into the night.
Syd slept fitfully, wrapped in a silver emergency blanket on some crates behind the pilot’s seat. Gordis drove with four holo projections in front of him, showing engine readouts, ground topography, power levels, and the drones prowling in the sky above.
The interior was lit with only dim red running lights, to avoid detection, but given the speed and focus Gordis brought to bear, Knox sensed they’d been spotted and were in a race to Old Detroit. He tried to picture his father in his office, looking down at the hovercraft, debating whether or not to blow up his son to make sure Syd was killed. The hovercraft wasn’t trying to outrun the drones. It was trying to outrun Knox’s history and his father’s calculus—how much was his son worth, when did the bad of Knox’s life outweigh the good? Had it ever?
The wind howled through the hole in the roof of the vehicle where the bandits had blasted off the turret. Cold air frosted the metal and the children huddled together, crammed into every open space inside. The ones who’d stayed awake watched Knox and Marie intently, curious how patrons sat and talked and moved and coughed. They’d never seen the rich before.
Knox and Marie shared a stinking patchwork quilt that the children had given them. Knox marveled at how many different kinds of itchy fabric could exist in the world and how they had all come to be a part of this one quilt. He was pretty sure it was giving him a rash. He wished Gordis had offered him a patch like he’d given Syd. He had pain too. He needed sleep.
“You asleep?” Marie asked.
“Nope,” said Knox.
Marie shifted, tried to get comfortable, but a metal rivet was digging into her back. There was no getting comfortable in this hovercraft. It was not how she was accustomed to travel. She admired how peacefully the little kids could sleep, in spite of the discomfort. In spite of the danger and the horrors of the day. No one sleeps like little kids, she figured. The thought made her miss her father, made her think about what she was giving up to follow her cause to the end.
It wasn’t that her father was a bad man. He’d done bad things, but he meant well. He meant to keep her safe and the only way to be safe in the Mountain City was to be rich. So he’d made the choices he made. For her. But there were more important things than safety. She hoped he understood that, or that he would one day.
She looked over at Knox, wondering what he must be thinking.
“Do you believe now?” Marie asked him. “Do you believe about Syd?”
Knox had always believed in whatever was most convenient, whatever worked for whatever he wanted at the moment. He hadn’t known until a few days ago how fragile that kind of believing could be.
He wanted to tell her yes, now he believed. He wanted to tell her he believed what she believed because maybe then she’d hold his hand, maybe then she’d smile back and remind him who he used to be. But he didn’t believe and he didn’t say yes. He just couldn’t fake it. Instead, he shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter either way.”
“How can you say that?” Marie straightened up, letting the blanket fall from her shoulders.
“Look around.” Knox waved his hand toward the kids huddled around the cargo hold, clutching sacks seeping with the blood from raw horse meat and worse, and to Syd lying broken and unconscious. “Is this better than what we’ve got? Civilization costs something, you know? Some people win and some people lose, but civilization survives because the winners and losers make a deal to keep it working. You tear it down, you break that deal apart, and what do you have? Just death in the desert. I don’t want to live in that world.”
“But we could build a better system,” she objected.
“I don’t see how,” said Knox. He felt bad about it. Marie believed so strongly in her cause that she couldn’t imagine anyone believing something different. She was an optimist. She thought people were better than they were. She thought Knox was better than he was.
“Syd,” she said, as if that explained anything. “It has to be him. It’s destiny.”
Knox rubbed the back of his neck. He tried to form a response.
“Destiny didn’t make me take that car or get in that accident,” he told her. “Like the old man said, it was just choices. And everything since then too, just choices I made and you made, others we didn’t make. There’s no meaning to it. I could have just as easily slipped away from Syd at that club, left him to escape on his own.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Because I wanted to get back at my father.”
“No.” Marie looked up at the blur of stars racing by. “Because you were meant to be part of this.”
“I wish I believed like you do,” said Knox. He looked down at his lap. He’d disappointed her like he disappointed everybody. “You know, I hoped you might convince me.”
“That’s not my job. I’m not your mother,” Marie said.
When Knox flushed, she knew she’d gone too far.
“Sorry.” She pulled back. “I didn’t mean to . . . you know . . .”
“It’s fine,” Knox told her, even though it was far from fine. He didn’t like anyone bringing up his mother. She was a private thing. He’d built an airtight container around her memory and only he could slip inside it. Talking about her let the world in and the memory began to decay. But he didn’t want the conversation to end with Marie hating him again. He’d come too far. He didn’t want to be alone again.
“My father wasn’t much for heart-to-heart talks,” he told her. “I’m not so good at it.”
“You don’t have to talk,” she said. “I already told you, I like you better when you don’t.” She smiled at him, put her hand on his. They didn’t need words. They didn’t need to agree, even. They just needed each other. Her touch sent a shudder through Knox’s body.
“Pretty amazing,” Marie said, pointing up at the stars through the hole in the roof.
“It’s just like looking at a holo,” Knox said.
“A lot better than any holo I’ve ever seen.” Marie pulled the quilt back up over her shoulders, leaned against him.
“I think I prefer the digital version,” Knox joked. “Smells better.”
Marie wrapped an arm around his back. He tucked a stray hair behind her ear. He saw his reflection on a dark panel behind her. It was the first time he’d seen himself in days. His hair was a tangled mess of muddy knots, pressed down and poking up in all the wrong places. His forehead was swollen where Egan had head butted him; he had a cut on his cheek and a nasty yellow-and-purple bruise around his left eye. His lip was cut and caked with dried blood. There were welts and burns all over. The only part of himself that looked familiar were his eyes. They looked so much like they always had that, somehow, they were the most unsettling part of his appearance. He didn’t know them at all. They were a stranger’s eyes. He looked back at Marie. Hers somehow were not.
He wanted to kiss her.
She shivered and rested her head on his shoulder. Maybe, he thought, when this was over . . .
He breathed quietly in time to her breaths. The air in front of their mouths frosted.
“My father killed my mother,” Knox said.
Marie sat up.
“I mean, not, like, literally,” Knox said. “But it was his fault. She was kidnapped and he wouldn’t negotiate. I saw it happen. I hid when they took her. I wonder, if they had taken me, would he have negotiated then?”
Marie didn’t respond. She nodded, letting Knox say what he needed to say.
“I always thought if I could hurt my father, it would make me feel better. Like we’d be even. I’d tried it all those years with everything from stealing to getting tweaked out of my head, but it never really helped. I figured maybe sneaking Syd away would do it. Like if I could save Syd, it would make up for my mom. A life for a life or something. I don’t know . . .” Knox wiped his nose on his sleeve. He looked at Syd behind them. “Now I want Syd to get to safety because he’s earne
d it. It’s got nothing to do with my father anymore.”
Marie grunted. “Earned it?”
“Yeah,” said Knox.
“You still don’t understand.” She frowned at him. “Why should he have to earn it? If people only got what they earned, where would that leave you?”
Knox wanted to reach out and grab her hand again, go back to the almost kiss. He should have kept his mouth shut, should have told her what she wanted to hear, like he used to do with girls. But he didn’t. He told the truth.
“I guess it would leave me right where I am,” he said. “This is what I earned.”
“Well, you got that right, anyway.” There was no anger in her voice. She leaned against him again. Her hair warmed his neck. They didn’t have to agree. Honesty was its own kind of peace.
Knox wondered how many other people had ever known him so well. None that he could think of. Well, Syd perhaps. Syd, who’d known him less than a week, knew him better than anyone. He had earned better than this life he’d been living. Even if he hadn’t, he deserved better now. Knox was afraid of tearing down the system that had served him so well his whole life, but if that’s what it took for Syd to be free, maybe it would be worth it. Not for some ideal world. For Syd.
He felt himself dozing off some time in the night, when the land had started to show signs of life. Tiny scrub brush poked from the hardpan earth. A cactus here and there or a strange-leaning type of tree. Fragments of rusted metal signs lay by the side of the road, back from the days before augmented reality, when information was planted in the dirt.
He dreamed about his mother. He saw her on a holo, hovering in the air before him. He was in his living room.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” she told him.
He wanted to tell her he had changed, that he had grown, that his world was bigger now, but he couldn’t speak. It was one of those dreams.