by Tom Abrahams
Everything in him told him that staying to fight was a bad idea. His gut told him they were better off taking their chances at the wall. He looked at Lola. Her eyes pleaded with him to relent, to stand down. So he did.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said that. It wasn’t fair. You’ve been very kind to us.”
Paagal nodded. “Apology accepted. It’s best we’re on the same page when our fight begins. I’d hate to find us on opposite ideological sides.”
Battle ignored the veiled threat. “We should talk tactics,” he said. “Timing. Placement. Attack. Defense. Retreat.”
Paagal laughed. “There will be no retreat, Battle,” she said, clasping her hands behind her back. She began to walk toward camp. “I can promise you that.” She glanced at one of her sentries, and the four of them moved with her, keeping the same distance.
Battle took the hint and followed Paagal away from the fire. Lola and Sawyer trailed a step behind. Battle motioned for them to walk beside him.
“Let’s go to my tent,” she said, marching toward the encampment. “We’ll discuss the particulars there. Lola and Sawyer are welcome to join us. Since you’re here, there’s no need to wait until the morning.”
CHAPTER 12
OCTOBER 25, 2037, 6:40 PM
SCOURGE +5 YEARS
HOUSTON, TEXAS
Ana fumbled with the key and struggled to slide it into the slot in the side of the door. She’d tried the fob first, pressing the unlock button repeatedly without luck. The battery was dead or the mechanism was broken.
Either way, she was forced the work the key itself with shaky hands. She kept looking over her shoulders, finally unlocking the car door with a reassuring click. Ana pulled on the handle and swung open the door, the sound of its dry hinges echoing against the concrete of the parking garage.
It was dark except for a flickering streetlamp outside the garage. The bulb was even with the third-floor deck and gave Ana enough light with which to work.
The car, a 2028 Lexus, was a hybrid. It was plugged into one of three charging stations on the third level. Ana had no way of knowing whether the car’s battery had any juice. Even though Houston had better power than most of the Cartel’s two hundred and seventy thousand square miles, it was intermittent. Add the daily surges of power across the unreliable grid and the charging station might not work under the best conditions.
Ana sat in the driver’s seat, put the key in the console to her right, and was about to press the start button to test the vehicle when she thought better of it. The sound of the engine starting, however low a hum, would alert anyone nearby. She’d need to be on the move once that happened.
She pulled herself from the car and walked to the passenger side. She tugged on the door. It didn’t work. Ana slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand, huffed, and walked back around to the driver’s side to press the unlock button in the door panel. She heard the stereo click of all four doors unlocking simultaneously and repeated her move to the passenger’s side.
The door swung open and Ana left it there as she went to the rear of the car and pulled Penny from her stroller. The nine-month-old was still asleep, the pacifier bouncing in her mouth with a deliberate sucking sound.
Ana sat her child in the front passenger seat and tried the automatic adjustment lever at its side. It didn’t work. She opened the rear passenger door, folded the stroller, and laid it across the backseat.
Gently she closed the rear passenger door, the front passenger door, unplugged the charging cable, and returned to the driver’s seat. She looked back at the charging station and noticed a red flashing light atop the machine. It hadn’t been flashing before. Ana disregarded it. Her finger hovered over the start button and she closed her eyes. Then she pressed it and the engine rumbled to life, settling into a low hum.
Ana pumped her fists. “Yes,” she said between her teeth and leaned over to adjust Penny’s seat. She lowered the back as far as it would recline and then pulled the seat belt across her sleeping child’s torso. She yanked on it until the belt locked into place. It wasn’t a car seat, but it would have to do.
She adjusted her own seat, setting it higher and closer to the steering wheel, before adjusting the side and rearview mirrors. Ana had only been in a car twice in five years, and she hadn’t driven since the Scourge.
The Lexus, which had belonged to General Harvey Logan, was in surprisingly good condition for its age. It had a full tank of gas and a working electric motor, and Ana remembered Logan telling a captain the car could travel close to seven hundred miles.
Palo Duro Canyon was six hundred miles away. It would be close.
She ran through a mental checklist as if she were to pilot a plane. She checked the turn signals, the lights, the space between the gas pedal and the brake.
Ana shifted the car into reverse, pressed the accelerator with too much force, and was forced to slam on the brake. Her right arm instinctively flew outward to protect Penny.
The child stopped sucking for a moment and then resumed, still asleep. Ana shifted into drive and gently pushed on the accelerator. The high-intensity beams shifted as she turned the wheel and lit her path toward the exit.
She turned left, maneuvering around the two other hybrid cars plugged into their charging stations, and then turned the wheel right to enter the circular exit ramp. Ana sat forward in her seat, straining against the shoulder strap, her hands tightly gripping the leather steering wheel. Slowly she descended the ramp, her foot gently pumping the brake, letting the car’s idle propel her forward.
Ana rolled to the second floor and then the first, to the traffic arm at the exit to the street. She rolled down her window to find something that might initiate lifting it, finding nothing. She turned back, determined to drive through the orange and white arm, when she saw a man standing in her way.
Ana jumped in surprise at the sight of him and let out a squeal before realizing it was Wendell Wake, Nancy’s husband and a posse boss. He was on the other side of the arm, his hands in his pants pockets. He tipped his brown hat forward, leaving much of his face in shadow. He ran his hand across his throat, telling her to cut the engine. She didn’t.
She rolled down her window, leaned out, and forced a smile, calling to him over the reverberation of the engine. “Wendell, I’m glad you’re here. Can you please help me get the arm up?”
Wendell waved his hand across his throat again and then pointed to the headlights. “You set off an alarm,” he said. “Where’s Sidney?”
“I’m trying to help Sidney,” she said. “We need the car. Could you please give me a hand?” She ducked back inside the car and looked across the hood at Wendell.
“Cut off the engine,” he said. “I can’t hear you.”
Ana could hear him. She didn’t comply.
“Ana,” he said, taking a step forward, “if you want my help, you’ll need to turn off the car. What did you do to Sidney?”
Do to Sidney? How would he know?
“He tried to kill me, Wendell,” Ana said. “I defended myself.”
“Defended yourself? I always doubted your resolve,” Wendell said. “I wondered whether you could follow through. Sidney trusted you would, but agreed with us that you were too much of a liability going forward. The Dwellers told us to do what we saw fit, to do what was best for the whole.”
Ana couldn’t believe what she was hearing. They had planned on killing her. The resistance was no better than the Cartel. She gripped the steering wheel, waiting for Wendell to divulge more of their plans for her.
He didn’t. Then he reached around to his back. When his hand emerged, he was holding something.
By the time Ana recognized Wendell was armed and aiming a gun at her, he’d already spent two rounds. The percussive blasts killed both headlights and startled Penny, who awoke and started crying. It was instantly dark. Ana pressed the button to roll up her window. She thumbed the shifter into what she thought was reverse and slammed her foot
on the accelerator as Wendell shone a flashlight in her eyes. She was momentarily blinded and the engine roared, but the car stayed in place. Ana pressed the accelerator again. It responded, but the car didn’t move.
Ana searched for the gear indicator. It read N for neutral. She pressed the brake and tried shifting into reverse. A piercing bright light followed by the stinging spray of shattered glass stopped her.
Wendell’s powerful, rough hands grabbed at Ana, groping for the wheel. He tried opening the door and one hand caught her chin, forcefully turning her head toward the open window, and a finger grazed her lips. She opened her mouth and bit down as hard as she could, feeling the crunch between her teeth.
Wendell cried out in pain and cursed Ana, still managing to wrangle open the door. Ana shifted her weight and grabbed the handle with both of her hands. She pushed outward at first, giving Wendell enough space to move his arm inside the car and grip her shoulder. Then she pulled back, slamming the door on his arm at his elbow.
He cried out again and withdrew his arms, giving Ana enough time to find the gearshift and slip the car into reverse. The car shuddered at the sudden shift but propelled backwards until Ana slammed on the brake.
“Shhh,” Ana said to Penny. Her hand found the child’s forehead and she stroked it gently. Penny was on the verge of hyperventilating and was squirming against the seat belt restraint.
The flashlight Wendell had used to blind Ana and break the window was on the ground, its thin beam spreading outward on the ground near the posse boss.
Ana could hear him screaming at her, so she had a sense of his general location, but she couldn’t see him clearly until he bounded in front of the car and was standing three feet in front of it with the handgun leveled at her.
She flipped the gearshift into drive and drove her foot down onto the accelerator and ducked, putting her body on top of Penny’s. She heard a rapid trio of gunshots and felt another spray of glass across her back before the car shuddered and lurched. It bounced as if the tires had run over a speed bump. Ana’s foot was still pressed to the floor and the car gathered speed, barreled through the exit gate arm, and exploded into the street. She moved her foot to the brake and sat up to retake the wheel.
The car screeched and spun, its tires burning off the top layer of rubber on the asphalt. Her hands again white knuckling the leather, Ana crinkled her nose at the acrid smoke filtering its way into the air around the Lexus.
Penny was still crying, her arms flailing. Ana leaned over and popped the latch. She pulled her daughter from her seat, cradling her flat against her body and stroking the back of her head. Penny’s lungs filled with air and then stuttered as she breathed out.
“Shhh,” Ana whispered. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Shhh.”
Penny pushed herself away from her mother to look at her. Even in the virtual darkness, Ana could see the shine of snot covering the lower half of her face. Her eyes were swollen with tears.
“Mamamama,” Penny said. “Mamamama.” Her tiny, wet hand touched Ana on the cheek. “Mamamama.”
Ana smiled and thumbed away the tears from underneath her daughter’s eyes. For a split second she forgot the urgency of the moment. It flooded back when she saw someone sprinting toward her car. It was a woman, maybe fifty yards from her, lit by the ambient light of a streetlamp in the distance.
“Hang on, baby,” Ana said and rebuckled Penny into her seat. Penny protested, but didn’t have a choice.
Ana checked the gear, flipped into drive, and slapped her foot onto the accelerator. The tires spun wildly against the street while she struggled to correct the wheel. The windshield was gone, and pieces of glass slid off the dash as the car increased its speed.
Ana aimed for the woman. Sitting forward in her seat, she drove straight at her. Not thinking about the lack of a windshield and the possibility the woman’s body could fly into the car, she turned the wheel to make sure she made a direct hit.
At the last instant, she recognized the woman as Nancy Wake. She was armed with a shotgun or a rifle. Ana couldn’t tell the difference in the dark.
Nancy screamed and tried to dive out of the way when it was apparent Ana wasn’t trying to avoid her. It was too late. The car clipped her, spinning Nancy like a helicopter blade into the air before she landed face-first on the street.
Ana looked in her side-view mirror and saw the dark heap in the road, the long gun lying nearby. She slammed on the brakes while holding back Penny’s forward momentum with her arm.
“Mommy will be right back,” she said, holding up a finger to Penny. She leaned over and groped the floor until she found the pacifier. “Here,” she said and popped it in her daughter’s mouth like a cork. Penny blinked at her but seemed okay.
With the engine still running, Ana hopped out of the Lexus and marched back toward Nancy. In the span of less than a few hours, she’d killed three, maybe four people. The reality of it didn’t set in until she stood over Nancy’s dying body.
The woman’s arms and legs looked like a broken puppet’s. She was on her back, her eyes staring blankly into the sky. Ana moved closer and squatted down by Nancy’s head. She could hear the ragged, wet air leaking from Nancy’s lungs.
A knot thickened in Ana’s throat as she surveyed her handiwork. She swallowed past it and gulped. “Why?” she whispered.
Nancy turned her head slightly and licked her bloody lower lip. Her eyes jerked toward Ana and narrowed.
“Why, Nancy?” Ana repeated louder. “I did what was asked of me.”
Nancy sneered, closed her eyes, and said nothing. Her breathing slowed.
“Tell me, Nancy,” she repeated. “You owe me an explanation.”
Nancy laughed and then coughed. She winced from what Ana imagined was ridiculous pain. There were multiple compound fractures on each limb. Ana supposed the internal injuries were worse.
“I don’t owe you anything, you whiny piece of—” Nancy coughed again and then wheezed when she tried to inhale.
A rush of anger coursed through Ana’s body. She pushed herself to her feet and then stepped on Nancy’s deformed left arm as if it were the accelerator in the Lexus. The pressure elicited a squeal that sounded like air leaking from a balloon. Nancy’s eyes bulged.
“I killed your husband too,” Ana said. She spat on Nancy’s face and turned to find the gun. She picked it up with both hands and carried it back to the Lexus without turning around to see Nancy take her final breaths.
Ana stood at the car door and looked at the weapon. It was a nasty-looking machine. The stock was a varnished wood grain, as was the pistol grip. There was a round drum attached to the rifle underneath the barrel, which Ana believed was called the “magazine.” It was angled forward toward the front of the weapon.
She pulled the weapon to her shoulder and looked through the iron sights. It was heavy in her arms. She imagined it was not an easy weapon to fire. She knew enough about guns to use them. Ana lowered the rifle, found the safety lever on the right side, pulled it up into the “safe” position, and set it on the floorboard of the rear passenger compartment.
Penny had fallen asleep again. The pacifier was still. Her chest was moving quickly up and down as she breathed.
Ana touched her leg and rubbed it with her thumb before strapping on her own seat belt. She looked at the electronic compass in the car’s display panel. She was facing northwest.
“Perfect,” she said to herself and put the car in drive. “Six hundred miles to go.”
CHAPTER 13
OCTOBER 25, 2037, 7:10 PM
SCOURGE +5 YEARS
PALO DURO CANYON, TEXAS
From a distance, the glow of the bonfire was a pulse of orange light. Felipe Baadal admired it from his perch on the southern rim of the canyon. He’d run to his spot after the meeting, stopping only once to drink water on his way. Paagal, his new lover, had entrusted him with what she believed might be the frontline of their defense.
Baadal turned from the canyon and
into the wind that blew northward. It was a cold, steady breeze that added an unwelcome chill to the air. He slid his pack from his shoulders and pulled out a thin knit sweater. It was full of holes and thread pulls, but it was enough to keep his mind off the dropping temperature and focus on the task at hand.
He was standing guard with a half dozen other men. They were one of the many squads that made up the southern rim platoon. They were armed. They were ready.
He unclipped the radio from his overly cinched belt and pressed the transmit button. “This is Red squad one,” he said with his mouth close to the microphone. “Please advise of your status. Over.” He let go of the button and then held the radio to his ear.
There was static and then a voice. “Red squad two. Status normal. Over.”
“Squad three, Red,” buzzed another voice. “Status normal. Over.”
Seven more squads responded. All ten were good. Baadal would check with them again in a half hour. As midnight approached, he would shorten the interval. Paagal had warned him the most likely time for an attack might be in the hours before dawn. That was when she had told him he must be the most diligent.
Even though she wasn’t planning to deploy most of her resources until after sunrise, she told him to be prepared. They might have only minutes’ worth of warning from those standing guard beyond the rim.
Baadal also knew that many of the embedded spies who’d been living amongst the Cartel would deploy the next day. They would squeeze the advancing Cartel forces, giving them nowhere to retreat. They’d be trapped.
Paagal had told him, in confidence, he would rule at her side when they won. She would entrust him with her protection and lead the forces that would forge a new age in the territory. Despite his lack of military experience and his deep desire for peace, he’d been flattered and had agreed to stand beside her as her protector and confidant. She’d chosen him, she had said, because he had survived the Jones. That was enough.