by R. K. Gold
The east side of the map was painted black, five gray circles spread across the storm. The fourth was the widest.
"You wouldn't head west for clean water?" Jakobe held up the map. "Imagine not having to kill a battery before every sip."
"I've grown used to it." Forte shrugged.
"And I've gotten good at it," Myskin added, then investigated the loot.
"If you're not happy here, just say it." Lyo left the pile and walked over to Jakobe. "The only way west are across the stepping stones, see?" He pointed at the five gray circles. "Those are owned by Red Eye. So chances are, if you survived the storm long enough to reach one, you'd be dead."
"You really think Red Eye is protecting the stepping stones? The storm does that for him," Jakobe replied.
"We got a good thing going right now. Why rock the boat? We all want the same thing, to survive. Heading west—the five of us, just doesn't make sense. If the storm doesn't kill us, the people will."
"Yeah, but west of the storm divide is where all the clean water is. Not just that, but food—actual food, and cities people actually still live in."
"It's also a war zone. We're equipped to take on whatever small-time gangs we got around here, but that clean water you're looking at, I bet it's guarded by some big men with bigger guns and a whole lotta people willing to die for them."
"So we can't hit the main roads, and we can't hit west of the storm divide, we're just gonna wander this no man's land for the rest of our lives?" Jakobe asked.
"Let's not forget who you are. You're the kid we stuck our necks out for and saved after he was busted stealing from Red Eye's son. You talk about wanting to stare down armies, but last time you tried to steal from one, you ended up tied up in a ditch. You were a thief to them, and so far you've been nothing but a thief to us. You've just been smart enough to steal for us, not from us."
"You know damn well why I stole from Clive," Jakobe said, clenching his jaw. He narrowed his gaze and curled his hands into fists, but Lyo rolled his eyes and flicked the air with the back of his hand like Jakobe was nothing more than a fly.
"You don't call the shots, Kobe. You're the guy who steals when we aren't looking for a fight. The little kid who can't throw a punch for shit and has to kill from a distance ‘cause the second he's busted, he's dead unless someone comes to his rescue. So I'm sorry if we aren't in a hurry to follow your lead."
"Clive was gonna sell me to Hammers. Damn right I stole from him and tried to get away."
"That story is the only reason we let you stick around with us. Keep up with that smart mouth though, and we might begin to wonder if that's just another one of your lies."
"Why else would he keep me alive if I was caught stealing? I don't lie to you. I'm just tired of running."
"We're not running from anyone. We're running to survival. Get that through your head."
"But just imagine—"
"No, there's no imagining. This is what we got. This is how we survive, and once that changes we look for the next best thing. If you wanna leave, no one's chasing you," Lyo said and pointed at the vast wasteland.
Jakobe knew better than to argue. He kept his mouth shut and returned to the loot. Though, as punishment, they all took most of the stuff already, leaving Jakobe to shuffle through clothes that could never fit him and exposed food he couldn't be certain wasn't contaminated. At least they were kind enough to leave him most of the ammo and fill his bike with fuel.
He packed the clothes in his knapsack; at the very least they'd make a good rag. He slipped the map in under the clothes, mounted his bike and rode after everyone.
They returned to their mountain camp. Jakobe sat by the ledge. He spent most of his nights there looking out in the distance. At night he could see the fires from the distant cities clearly.
Jakobe's stomach rumbled. All he had that day was a glass of water and a handful of coffee beans. They were bitter but kept his eyes open, even after nights of no sleep.
Lyo sat beside him and offered a spoonful of beans. "Hungry?"
"Of course I'm hungry," Jakobe replied. He would've liked nothing more than to have the strength to walk away after the way Lyo spoke to him, but his stomach betrayed him.
"You know none of us see you as a burden, right?" Lyo wiped his hands together after Jakobe took the can and spoon.
"I don't know, you sure made it sound that way earlier."
"You gotta get out of your own head," Lyo said.
"Your voice is the only thing in my head right now." Jakobe looked over the ledge and kicked his heels against the mountain.
"You were talking back to me after I made it clear we weren't heading west. You know you're family. Families fight. We're allowed to fight amongst ourselves as long as we come together and fight for one another when someone else tries to fight us." He took the food back, which forced Jakobe to look his way.
"I was never lying, though. I know you guys think I was, or at least a small part of you still questions if I was telling the truth. Clive planned on trading me to the Hammers. They've made it east. I don't know where, or if they'd even be a problem, but he was going to trade me on behalf of his father's agreement with them. And I only joined Clive out of desperation. He killed everyone in my old village. My only options were to join or die. I didn't know what I was doing or how to survive. They promised me food and all the ammo I wanted to practice with my rifle. What would you have done if the army that took you away from your home planned on trading you to the Hammers?" Jakobe handed him back the beans.
"I wouldn't have stolen from them," Lyo said and let the silence weigh on Jakobe before continuing. "I'd have killed every last one of them, then taken everything they owned."
When Jakobe smiled, Lyo slapped the top of his head. "We all gotta trust each other. You know that—I know you know that, but I need you to really believe it. We all have every reason in the world not to trust anyone else on the planet. Everyone has a story about betrayal. What makes us strong is we put that in our past; we found each other and built a family on trust." He put his hand on Jakobe's shoulder and gave an affectionate squeeze. "Just think about that, okay?" He took a final scoop from his can of black beans, then handed Jakobe the rest and walked back to rejoin the group.
3
Lyo let everyone sleep in while he went out to scout for new camps. That was how their days were spent. Myskin tinkered with new projects; Bronx and Forte trained with every weapon they could get their hands on, and Jakobe sat at the edge of their landing. He looked out toward the storm divide and wondered what life was like on the other side.
The east offered him nothing but regrets and bad memories. How could they think he would lie to them? Lyo was right; every one of them had a reason to distrust the world, and every one of them found a reason to trust Lyo. Even Forte, who was raised by a family that gave him nothing but love until his thirteenth birthday when he was told he needed to be sacrificed so they could all live.
Bronx probably had the most comfortable upbringing. He was guaranteed food and water every day, and even though he had to spend most of his days and nights in a cage, most people would happily trade what freedom they had for hot meals and clean water. Of course, most people wouldn't have survived as long as Bronx, having to fight other prisoners to the death almost every day, usually with just a single weapon thrown between the two.
As for Myskin, Jakobe liked to pretend he crawled out of the ground. It would make more sense of his skeletal appearance. He was an experiment baby. He was contaminated with the cure at birth and built up an immunity to it. It's why he lost all his hair. The fact the cure ran through his veins terrified Jakobe. He kept expecting the contamination to spread and spent his first months in the gang always sitting opposite Myskin, simultaneously keeping a good distance from him and an eye on him at all times.
They experimented on Myskin to create an antidote. Does it get more human than that? Needing to find a cure for their own cure. Myskin rarely spoke about his escape. All J
akobe knew was someone attacked the lab. Myskin never said if it was to stop the experiments or steal them. He wasn't the only child being experimented on, but by the time the raid was over, he was one of three left alive. The lab burned down, and they barely escaped with their lives. They walked north toward the skyscrapers, but by the time they reached the city, Myskin's two companions had died.
"Does it hurt?" Jakobe asked in one of their first conversations.
"Not at the moment," Myskin shrugged. "It's strange, though, I can always feel it. It mostly nests in my stomach, always moving in a circle like a carousel, but when I'm in danger or excited, it spreads through my limbs. It feels warm. Not like in a constant fire sorta way, though, more like an electric prickling. Like a thousand little feet running just under my skin.
“I know what it does. I know those infected lose their senses one at a time and go into a violent rage until their heart stops. I guess I sorta feel the start of that, but it never crosses the point of no return. Like my body accepts the energy it gives but never lets it take over. When it spreads through my body it's not zapping my senses but giving me a new one. Like I can sense a person creeping up behind me or reaching for a weapon. Even stranger, I can sometimes sense things that aren't even there. At first I thought I was going crazy and hallucinating, but check this: I saw a town burning down. It scared the shit out of me. I recognized a burning white chapel, and the next day during a ride we passed the ashes of the town. Guess what was in the middle of it?"
"A white chapel?"
"The remains of one. That's when I realized there's something going on here. Something I still don't fully understand, and the doctors who worked on me certainly didn't either."
When Myskin reached the city alone, he struggled to get by. "I thought, what was the point? I should just let myself die and be with the only family I ever knew." He was living off scraps of food and close to no water.
"The day Lyo found me, I was getting jumped by a couple of guys trying to earn a spot in Red Eye's army. I thought, finally, I can rest and don't have to worry about surviving another day. Then Lyo and his brother rushed in to save me and kicked the crap out of the three men laying into me. Turns out, they just wanted my purifier, but during the beating it got destroyed. I told them they used to have a bunch where I was from, and I knew how to make them, so they let me tag along."
"Lyo had a brother?" Jakobe asked.
"There was no one like Robe," Myskin said. "You think Lyo has his shit together, Robe was the kinda guy who could walk into the sun and not get burned."
"What happened to him?"
"He went west. Lyo turned back at the storm; Robe didn't. No one knows if he made it or not."
Myskin's story was the end of Jakobe's curiosity with the west until he found the map to the water. He wasn't sure why anyone would risk the storm for a war-torn land until he found it. He pulled it from his bag and examined the body of water. No doubt someone had it under their control, but compared to disease and droughts, something as flimsy as a human felt more like an invitation than a challenge. Even an army felt minuscule compared to the vast emptiness he saw surrounding their mountain.
"You took the map?" Myskin asked and walked over to join him.
"Just to have something new to look at."
"You don't have to lie to me. I can see those little wheels in your head turning. You're still thinking about running aren't you?"
"Who doesn't think about running in a place like this? We survive by running, either to something or away from it," Jakobe replied. He looked back at Bronx and Forte, each taking turns drinking from the portable purifier. Both moved faster than men their size should. Bronx was working with a dagger he found during the raid, and Forte had on his brass knuckles, avoiding shots to the throat and head out of courtesy to his friend.
Myskin looked back at the portable purifier. "Had to give it a test run. Can charge it with my bike all the same, and it takes a lot less juice than the tank I made."
"At least we finally found something useful," Jakobe said.
"You really are in a bad mood, huh?"
"I'm tired of running the same drill every day. Lyo takes off on his own, leaving us up here, trusting he'll come back with news. Having to hide from all the main roads and take down small camps of people who can't put up a fight."
"Would you rather find large camps of people who can put up a fight?"
"Of course not, I don't have a death wish. I just wish we had something—I don't know. Something real. Something that wasn't so—so light."
"So light?"
"Like a weight. Like a reason to live that wasn't finding food and hiding, so we have the privilege of finding food and hiding the next day," Jakobe said.
"Sounds like someone's going a little stir crazy on the mountain," Forte called over. "You wanna blow off a little steam with us?"
Jakobe bit the inside of his cheek. Forte kicking the crap out of him, then convincing him it was for his best interest was the last thing Jakobe needed. He used to want to be able to fight like the rest of them, until weeks went by and he didn't improve, just woke up in more and more pain. "I think I'll pass," Jakobe replied.
"Come on, let me show you what I've been working on." Myskin walked back to his bike and waved for Jakobe to follow.
4
When they were out of earshot, Myskin turned on Jakobe. "I know you're gonna take off soon. I've seen it."
"You expect me to believe you know my future better than I do ‘cause you were right about a fire once?"
"I don't need to see the future to know this life is bugging you."
"I don't know why it's not bugging any of you. We all want the same thing."
"See, that's where you're wrong. We don't all want the same thing, and whenever you act like you know what we all want—"
Myskin trailed off and bobbed his head to some music Jakobe couldn't hear. He looked like he needed to go to the bathroom. It was one of his tics. He sometimes zoned out in the middle of a conversation and mumbled under his breath. Once Jakobe thought he heard Myskin counting when Bronx asked if he needed help with anything.
"What?" Jakobe leaned forward and raised his hands over his head. He stepped closer to Myskin, as if somehow their conversation was a tube of toothpaste, and the closer they were to each other, the more they squeezed out.
"You come across as an ass," Myskin replied. "Lately it feels like you and Lyo have been bumping heads over every little thing, and if it ever comes down to a choice between the two of you, no one here will hesitate to side with Lyo."
Myskin met Jakobe’s movement with his own and moved so close, their chests almost bumped. Though they were similar in size, Myskin’s eyes contained a wild desperation for survival Jakobe had never seen before. He wasn’t the kind of person to fight; he was the kind of man who bit, clawed, and gouged his opponent until he was safe.
"So in your vision, am I running away or being chased away by this conversation?" Jakobe backed off, and the tension in the air eased. They stood on a flat landing with a steep incline on one side and a cliff on the other. Jakobe leaned against the rocky wall and folded his arms. He liked to fold his arms because he could pretend he looked muscular.
"There you go with that smart mouth. For a guy who can bruise his knuckles punching air, you sure do love to talk.” Though his words were harsh, he said them as a joke.
"If the fight ever gets close enough for fists, I didn't do my job right. Did you bring me over here to insult me or show me what you've been working on? Cause I was more than happy sitting alone."
Myskin backed off and crouched under his bike. He pulled out a silver orb and tossed it to Jakobe. "What's this?" he asked, examining the sphere. It fit in his palm and was about the size of a golf ball.
"A conductor."
"What do I need a conductor for?"
"I'm not sure you do, but since I used your stuff to make it, I figured I better give it back to you," Myskin said and rotated his index finger, si
gnaling for Jakobe to turn the orb over in his hands.
KO was etched on the bottom.
"What'd you take?" Jakobe’s eyes shot back and forth from his mark to Myskin.
"The fact you still don't know what I took is all the proof I need that you didn't deserve to have it in the first place.” He grinned and held his hands up in mock surrender.
"Not the bug." Jakobe didn't care for the bug, but he found it in the front jacket pocket of what he thought was a corpse. A group of five men and women were encroaching on their territory. They wanted to take control of the water at the base of the mountain and tried to take out Lyo.
During the fight, a man with an axe snuck up on Lyo. Before he brought it down on Lyo's neck, Jakobe hit the guy in the chest. When he went to loot his body, the man swiped Jakobe's legs out from under him. He would've been killed if Bronx wasn't a stone’s throw away and tackled the man off Jakobe.
When Bronx finished him off, Jakobe stripped the guy of his jacket and saw a hand-sized metal bug. Its legs planted in the man's skin over his heart. They sliced it out and Jakobe carved “KO” on its stomach before anyone else claimed it.
"I took the bug. It was useless piece of junk, and its primary purpose was destroyed after you shot it," Myskin said.
"It's not like I was aiming for the thing."
"How about a thank you for taking something broken and giving you something useful?"
"How does it work?" Jakobe tossed it back to Myskin.
"See the slit?" He pointed to a narrow black line.
Jakobe nodded.
"Slide your thumb through it, press the button on top and throw as far away from you as possible cause lightning will strike." He tossed it back to Jakobe.
"I still think I'd prefer a bulletproof bug."
"Get over the bug; you were never gonna use it. Just say thank you, and let's move on."
5