“I may not be officially in charge, but somebody has to lead, and we all know your friend has no interest in taking any kind of responsibility for everything he’s d—” Dyana saw me and swallowed her last word.
Your friend? That would be me, I guess.
Pol didn’t miss a beat. “Nik, you have to tell her. She’s not in charge here, you are. You’re the one who stopped the knockout.”
I had trouble making out his face in the badly lit cavern. I wanted to tell him to shut up and back down. But this was Pol; he never backed down.
The crowd around us muttered, filling the cavern with an echoing hum of voices. I scrambled for something to say. How could I tell him—and everyone really—that I absolutely didn’t want to lead this group? Dyana and Pol were right; all of this was my fault. I tried not to think about the people who had died in the escape from New Frisko. That had been Holland, not me. But he only did it because I pushed him so far and told everyone about his secret.
“Pol,” I stalled a bit longer. I had to take responsibility for what I’d done, but did that really mean I had to lead the Pushers now? “This is spam. We don’t have time for this. We need to make a plan for keeping away from the Ranjers—and keeping them away from here—while we track down Holland and the people he took. We have to go to San Francisco.”
“I know.” Pol jabbed a finger in Dyana’s direction. “But your girlfriend’s mom is trying to take over and change our name.”
“My girlfri—” My face got so hot it had to be glowing. Had someone seen the kiss last night? “Change our name? So? Why does that matter?”
“Because we started as the Pushers and that’s who we should be.” Pol sucked in a loud breath, obviously gearing up for another rant.
“We are not a group of children playing in a park after school,” Dyana said, cutting him off. “We are families trying to reach a safe place after our world was destroyed.” She didn’t hide her glare at me.
What? Does she hate me for showing everyone the truth? Then I remembered why she would probably hate me for the rest of my life. Bren.
I stammered for a second. Yeah, this has to end. “Okay look. You’re both right, but this is the stupidest thing to care about right now.”
“But tell her she’s not in charge!” Bug me, sometimes Pol sounded like a little kid.
“Pol, it doesn’t matter.” Now I was shouting. I didn’t care. “Holland killed Bren, David, and lots of others.” Pol looked like he’d been shot, and he nearly collapsed. I reached for him, but he skipped back. “It’s time to stop running and hiding.” I took in the crowd. “I mean, it’s time for some of us to stop hiding.” The shape of a plan was tickling my brain. Some of us.
Pol grabbed my injured wrist. He didn’t mean to. “Tell her she’s not in charge, Nik.” His voice sounded rough. “This started with us. They’d still be getting the Bug every day if it weren’t for us.”
“I know,” I said. I carefully extracted my wrist from his grip. “But we did change everyone’s world—”
“For the better! We can live however we want now.” Pol glared at Dyana. “Except she’s trying to be a new Prime Administrator.”
“Pol Benitez, you will watch that mouth.” Dyana’s voice cracked hard over the crowd. “I am no murderer.”
“Come on, Pol.” I took his shoulder. “They never asked for this. We spammed up Holland’s plan and he forced us to run. He killed a lot of people.”
Pol said nothing. I had no trouble feeling his glare through the darkness of the huge cavern. From the corner of my eye, I saw Melisa and Rojer. Lights glowed in their hands and some spheres hummed upward, hovering about two meters above us. A circle of light spread all around us and illuminated the faces of the surrounding crowd.
Nate was there, along with Zavier and Lexi. James squeezed between the tightly packed people and stopped next to Melisa. Krista stood next to Rojer. Jan still stood next to her mother. And most of the other people I didn’t know. None of us had asked for this—except for me and my friends.
“Dyana’s right,” I said, raising my voice. “Our world was destroyed. I know that’s my fault.”
A bunch of voices raised, Melisa’s the loudest. She shouted over them, “But Adam Holland was doing terrible things. He killed almost all of humanity and was controlling us like sheep or something.” Melisa stood tall, her glare daring anyone to argue with her.
More voices. I had to shout even louder to be heard. “I know. You didn’t ask for this! But we have to—”
The voices got louder. A shrill whistle pierced the noise. “Quiet down!” James had his fingers in his mouth. How the Bug did he make that noise?
Somehow, the crowd actually settled down.
I took in the faces of the people whose lives I had basically destroyed. Some of these people had lost family members during our escape from New Frisko. Rojer’s hover lights didn’t make the cavern bright, but there was enough light for me to see the entire crowd. There had to be over two hundred people clustered around me.
My chest felt like it was being squeezed. I had to force myself to take a slow, even breath. I blew it out in one burst. “I’m sorry. I know I ruined everything.” Pol stepped up next to me, close enough that I could feel him near my side.
“You didn’t ruin anything,” Pol said. He bumped me with his shoulder.
The enormity of what he was saying struck me. He’d just lost his brother. After losing his parents in the escape. My vision blurred. I swallowed hard, squeezing his shoulder in gratitude.
Pol was the strongest person I’d ever known. And the smartest. And he trusted me.
“But this is what we have to deal with now,” I said, facing the crowd again. Dyana and Jan stood behind me. Melisa was on my right side, opposite Pol. “This is life for now. Until we can stop Holland, we have to stay ahead of him and keep the babies and families out of sight.”
“The Ranjers are too good! They’re going to find us!” a woman’s voice rang out.
“It’s just a matter of time.” This was a man whose voice I didn’t recognize. “Why can’t we just go to Anjeltown or Mento and live with them?”
“Bug that!” Pol shouted.
“Because,” Melisa shouted at the same time. She tried again. “Because we know the truth! Holland can’t take the chance that we tell the people in those cities the truth.”
“Why’s he doing it?” I thought that was Lexi.
Everyone got quiet. My friends and I exchanged looks.
“I have no idea,” I said. The story of what Melisa and I had found in that secret room in Prime One had gotten around—everyone knew about it.
And Lexi had a point—what was Adam Holland’s reason for murdering almost everyone in the world, then controlling the rest of them with a killer bio-toxin, all while remotely operating some kind of cloned puppet that acted like the leader of New Frisko?
“None of us knows. But I think we need to find out in order to stop him,” I said.
“And we have to go to San Francisco to do that,” Melisa added.
Shouts and protests filled the cavern. James whistled again and yelled. “We’re not all going to San Francisco. But some have to and we have to talk about how we do this.” His commanding voice, left over from being an Enforser, seemed to have a calming effect on the crowd—even though it wasn’t filtered by a matte black helmet. Muscle memory in the crowd—they were used to reacting to Enforsers like that. Or maybe they just needed a firm voice sometimes.
“I promise you,” I started, then stopped. I thought fast. “I promise you we’ll find out what’s going on. We were lied to about everything. Our world was a total lie.”
“Artificial,” Pol muttered. “Even the language.”
He was right. A man-made fabrication. “But now we get to live our own way—how we choose.” I thought about that. “Well, okay. Sort of, for now. And we have to fight to protect our freedom—and get more of it.” Faces turned my way. I gathered air into my lungs and sh
outed so everyone could hear me. “We have to find the truth. Then we find where Holland is hiding with our families.”
“Then we kill him,” Pol said. His voice was quiet. I guessed only the people nearby heard him.
I felt weird about shouting something like that, so I yelled, “Then we stop him and the Ranjers so we can live in peace!”
Pol bumped me again. “And kill him.”
Chapter 11
Sunlight filtered through the pine tree branches overhead, making it easier to see the surprisingly clear forest floor. I remembered the first time I smelled the rich, heavy forest smell—so heavy you could almost taste it. It had been the morning after I ran away from those suddenly murderous Enforsers.
Scott and a few other Wanderers led the way, maybe ten meters ahead of my friends and me. To my left walked Pol and Lexi, their heads drawn together in conversation. Melisa and James were the only other Pushers that had come with us.
The early light of the sun warmed my neck. We’d started before the sun had come up, after a short night of sleep. The planning session took a couple hours, especially since people spent way too much time arguing over the dumbest things. Things like how to stay out of sight and how to clean up a campsite. Scott and his Wanderers hadn’t seemed at all surprised when I’d shown up late last night, asking them to be our guides. He’d insisted on a few things, which was why my friends and I now wore Wanderer clothes. All of our weapons and other supplies were buried deep in backpacks. Except for Lexi’s. She kept hers out of sight under her long, light brown shirt.
As we wove between trees, I found myself wishing my goodbye with Jan hadn’t been so fast. I could almost still feel her arms around my neck, pulling me closer. Between that warmth and the quick, sweet pressure of her lips, I’d briefly considered not leaving. I’d stared into her eyes, my heart pounding. The silence stretched.
Then Mr. Smooth Nik showed up. “Uh, I have to…”
She’d smiled. “It’s okay. You’ll be back.”
I’d nodded. “I will be. Be safe.”
“You too.” Then she’d turned and walked away.
And that had been that. I was in a daze when I made my way out of the huge, maze-like cavern. Ahead, Scott and the Wanderers had stopped. We caught up to them. “What’s going on?”
Scott pointed down. On the forest floor was the faint path we’d been following, along with some kind of pebble. I poked at one of the small brown things with my foot. No, not a rock.
“It’s deer spore,” Scott said. “And we are in need of venison.”
“Venison?” I glanced at Melisa. She shrugged and made a face. Okay. She didn’t know either.
“Deer meat.” Scott waved the rest of the group over. “We’re going to stop here for now and let our hunters track the deer down.”
“But we have to get to San Francisco,” I said.
“You would prefer to go hungry?” Scott met my gaze and raised his eyebrows.
“Well, no, but it’s a long way, and we’re in a hurry.”
“Precisely. And stopping for a few hours, or even a day, will make little actual difference in our journey.”
While we’d been speaking, the Wanderers had set their packs down, and two of them pulled out thin, flat boards. They were maybe a half-meter long and looked like wood. There were several layers in the bundle of boards.
The Wanderers held the odd-looking bundles out and pressed some kind of button in the middle of them. With a hum, the bundles loosened somewhat. Then layers swiveled out from each end, unfolding with smooth clicks. In a second, the two Wanderers no longer held a bundle of boards, but long, sleek-looking sticks that tapered at each end. There were grips in the middle of them, which was where the Wanderers now held them.
“Bug me, what is that?” Pol stepped closer.
“Bows,” Scott said. “This is how we hunt. Keepers are too loud and do far too much damage to the deer. The bow is an elegant, precise weapon.”
As I watched, the Wanderer hunters pulled an incredibly thin wire or cable from one end of the bow to the other. Once the cable was attached at both ends, it tightened, bending the bow into a slight arc.
“Wow,” Melisa said. She stepped closer to the nearest hunter, a lady a little shorter than Melisa. “Can I see?”
“Sure,” the hunter said, handing Melisa the bow. While Melissa examined the thing, the hunter pulled out a flat, narrow case and popped it open. I could make out six long, thin cylinders. She drew one of the cylinders out and tapped it against one hand. It extended immediately to nearly a meter. One end clicked and four strips of incredibly thin material slid out, evenly spaced around the end of the cylinder. They extended down the last six centimeters of the shaft. The other end clicked and a vicious-looking barbed point came out.
“Arrows,” the hunter said. She ran a finger down one of the thin runners that extended from the top half of the arrow. “This is the fletching. Keeps the arrow flying straight.” She held out a hand for the bow. Melisa gave it up reluctantly.
The hunter rested the pointy end of the arrow on the bow, just above the grip, and slid the arrow’s butt back to the string. The string clicked into a notch I hadn’t noticed before. She lifted the bow up to her face and pulled the string back with a gloved hand at the same time. In the same smooth motion, she swiveled and leaned forward just a bit.
She had the bow’s string drawn all the way back to her right ear. The arrow made a straight line across the right side of her face, nearly pressing on her cheek. She released a breath and the arrow at the same moment. I heard a thunk and followed the sound. The arrow had sunk into a narrow sapling about twenty meters away.
“Bug me,” Melisa whispered. “That is the best.”
The hunter smiled. “It’s pretty great.”
Melisa, Pol, and I followed the hunter to the sapling she had shot. About ten centimeters of the arrow stuck out the other side of the sapling.
“How does it launch the arrow so hard?” Pol asked, fingering the pointed tip. “And how are you going to get the arrow out?”
The hunter smiled. “Watch.” She pressed the back of the arrow. The barbed tip clicked, turned, then slid into the body, leaving only a smooth shaft.
I heard a slight hum coming from the arrow. I looked closer and saw it vibrating, the image a little distorted from the movement. The hunter gripped the fletched end hard and pulled. It slid cleanly out of the sapling. She pressed the back of the arrow again and the barbed point re-emerged. She put it in Pol’s reaching hand. “Good stuff, right?”
“Blaze,” Pol whispered. “Straight up blaze.” He bent close to examine it.
“Can I see the bow?” Melisa asked.
“Sure,” the hunter said. “I’m Lily, by the way.”
Melisa smiled awkwardly. “Oh, yeah. I’m Melisa.” She took the offered bow.
“I’m Nik,” I said. “The guy drooling on your arrow is Pol.”
“I know,” Lily said. She pulled some kind of stretchy loop out of a pocket in her jacket and tied her hair up tightly. “You guys are famous.” She smiled. I couldn’t take my eyes off her face. It was like she was glowing. I had thought her skin was just dark from a lot of sun, but the truth was that her cheeks and nose were covered in freckles. Her eyes were green with brown specks and they looked like they had light pouring out of them.
“We didn’t mean to be,” I said, trying not to stutter. I blinked and forced myself to stop staring.
“Well.” Lily took her bow and arrow back. “You are. Fame means you get noticed. Fame is dangerous.”
She activated something on the arrow so that by the time we got back to the group, the arrow was just a dense-looking, plain cylinder. She slid it back into its case.
Lily and the other hunter, a woman much older than her, bent their heads together. What was it about her? She seemed totally at peace, totally relaxed. Like she belonged in the forest and had no worries at all. Like she belonged here, in this exact spot. Her smile had been like a new
sun’s light exploding through the trees.
Melisa nudged me. “Might want to stop staring.”
“What?” I made a face. “I’m not staring.”
“Yes, yes you are,” Melisa said. “And yes, she’s amazing.”
“It’s not like that.” I shook my head. It wasn’t. Lily was amazing. But she was just . . . like a sunrise you couldn’t take your eyes off of. You don’t marry it, you just stop and stare. “That bow thing is totally blaze,” I said, trying to change the subject.
“It is. And she’s really pretty,” Melisa said.
I had no idea what to say about that. I decided to ignore it. “No, I mean that bow could be useful. It’s totally quiet, and gets really compact.”
“You’re right.” Melisa said. She raised her eyebrows and cocked her head. “And she’s really pretty.”
“Oh, come on.”
“You were staring, Nik. And your mouth was so wide open a pod could have flown into it.”
Spam. Melisa needed to let it go. “Come on. She’s just.. I don’t know. I’ve never seen anyone like that.”
Melisa cocked her head to one side, her eyes crinkling a little. Her lips curved in a smile I hadn’t seen in a while. “Okay,” she said.
I really needed to change the subject. “Do you ever wonder where the Wanderers get this stuff? I mean the bow and arrows, and their tents? We never saw anything like that in New Frisko.”
Melisa thought for a moment. “Good question. Maybe you should ask Lily.”
I shook my head and walked away. Melisa’s laughter followed me. I caught up to Scott, Lily, and the other hunter.
“So how long is this going to take?”
Scott placed a hand on one of Lily’s shoulders. “Lily and Tasha here are very good.”
The other woman, Tasha, smiled. Lines around her eyes deepened. “The spore is fresh. The deer probably came through earlier this morning.” She exchanged a glance with Lily. “We won’t be long.”
“Can I come?” Melisa appeared next to me.
The two hunters exchanged another look. Lily gave a comforting smile. “No. We’re much faster alone.”
Push (Beat series Book 2) Page 7