“Grasshopper! GRASS! HA! PER! Grasshopper! GRASS! HA! PER!”
Grasshopper leaned forward as he ran, with an expression equal parts grin and grimace. Brendan didn’t want to fight him here, not with four other salvagers waiting to join. It would be cleaner if he could separate them and take them on one by one.
None of these things occurred to Brendan as thoughts. They were instincts, like don’t touch a fire, or don’t breathe underwater. They passed through his mind in an instant, registering deep within his very core.
Only seconds remained before Grasshopper reached him. It was time to fight fire with fire—or, rather, mod with mod.
Brendan raised his mod, praying the earlier malfunction wouldn’t rear its head again, and triggered the switch straddling his flesh and the bio-connectors.
The metal hand rocketed straight up. Brendan’s gleaming arm elongated, stretching high above him. A collective gasp sounded behind him, and a smile found its way up from the darkness over Brendan. His mod might not have been as shiny as what the salvagers sported, but none of them had Krystal for a mechanic. She’d developed the stretchable, flexible alloy for Brendan’s mod, and he had a feeling there was nothing else like it in the world.
Grasshopper was closing in, but Brendan only needed another half-second. The mod sailed upward until it collided with a rafter twenty feet overhead. The impact shuddered all the way down the alloy into Brendan’s shoulder. He squeezed the rafter, tripped another trigger, and then the mod regained its original shape, pulling him into the air as it shrank.
Brendan’s feet whipped in front of him. Grasshopper’s hand grazed his calf. He looked back as he ascended. The salvagers had spread out, their strategy shifting with this new revelation of their prey’s ability.
Near the top, Brendan flipped upside down, hooking his leg over a rafter and pulling himself up. It wasn’t clear yet how he’d escape—only that this was his next step. That was all he could do. Keep taking the next step, and eventually, one of those steps would be one that led him to safety.
Hopefully.
Below, the salvagers resumed chanting Grasshopper’s name. The kid squatted so low his oversized knees rose above his ears.
Then his gleaming mods snapped to full extension, and he sailed toward the wall of debris created by the cave-in. Grasshopper hit the wall feet-first, let his momentum bend his legs to his ears again, and then he pushed off.
He rocketed toward Brendan. His long, mechanical legs trailed behind him, and his flesh arms extended, ready to grab a rafter. He flew at a blinding speed, his face a mask of determination.
Brendan didn’t have time to think. He dropped off the rafter, and a split second later, Grasshopper crashed into the spot where Brendan had been waiting. Brendan reached with his mod, firing the switch so it stretched across the rafters. The instant it found purchase, he retracted it again. He swung over the open space of the grocery store while salvagers below watched him wide-eyed and chanting.
“Grasshopper! GRASS! HA! PER!”
Overhead, Brendan heard loud, skittering impacts. Grasshopper was chasing him from above, scrambling along the rafters on all fours. The salvager used his mods to launch himself from rafter to rafter at breakneck speed, all the while wearing that grinning, grimacing look. His eyes tracked Brendan with grim determination.
Grasshopper was almost on top of him. Time for a new tactic.
An overhead beam sat a few feet behind Grasshopper. Brendan launched his mod at it. The minute the impact vibrated along his mod, he grabbed hold and pulled himself toward it, willing the mod to use all available bio-power to pull him as fast as possible. The world spun as his body acclimated itself to the sudden drain of energy.
Brendan swung his feet forward. Realization flooded Grasshopper’s features, but it was too late. He was sailing between two rafters, with no way of changing course before Brendan reached him.
They met mid-air. The impact jarred Brendan’s legs and compressed his spine. His left heel smashed into Grasshopper’s collarbone, snapping it like a twig. His right pushed through the bridge of the kid’s nose.
Blood sprayed. Grasshopper yelped.
Brendan turned just in time to see Grasshopper’s body hit a rafter, wrap around it, and then drop. The remaining salvagers shouted their disapproval, interspersed with colorful threats, but they shut up when Grasshopper landed head-first. There was a sickening crack to go with the grotesque way his body collapsed on itself.
The silence lasted only a moment before a shout rang out, followed by a high-pitched sound which Brendan recognized too late as Tiger Stripe’s blaster. The rafter disintegrated beneath Brendan’s feet in a flash of energy. He pawed at the air for a handhold, but came up empty. He hurtled toward the ground and Grasshopper’s motionless form.
Brendan extended his mod once more, hoping to catch another rafter before he dropped into the salvagers’ waiting arms, but then that high-pitched sound returned, and the rafter disintegrated. Brendan’s mod flailed in a cloud of dust.
The earth met him, and his vision went black.
3
Brendan couldn’t breathe. He clung to consciousness with desperation, and the abandoned store faded into view. The salvagers converged on him. They were in no hurry. They’d spread out now, surrounding him and cutting off his angles of escape.
Brendan forced himself to a sitting position, and pain exploded from his spine. He held back the wince though. The salvagers smelled blood. He couldn’t afford a show of weakness.
Tiger Stripe raised his blaster. It glowed bright yellow, absorbing energy from his body as it charged for another blast. “We were going to let you out alive. All you had to do was share some food.” He cocked his head to one side, feigning a look of disappointment. “Now we have to kill you. You know that, right?”
Brendan didn’t respond. He glanced over his shoulder to see if any escape lanes remained.
Tiger Stripe motioned with his blaster. “Get up.”
Brendan obeyed.
“Go over there.” Another wave of the gun, this one accompanied by a vague nod.
Brendan lifted his hands, showing he wasn’t a threat, even as he planned his next move. It would take drastic measures to survive this. He’d fallen into that dangerous intersection of trust and underestimation, and now he was paying the price. Tiger Stripe pointed Brendan to a bare wall, plated from end to end with solid metal. Brendan backed into it, feeling the cool surface through his threadbare shirt.
Tiger Stripe handed his blaster to Eagle Eye. Expressionless, the lanky kid took the weapon, holding it as if he feared it would bite.
“Your turn,” Tiger Stripe said with a sneer. “Take care of him.”
Eagle Eye lifted the gun. His hand trembled. Brendan braced himself, every muscle in his body winding into a tight coil.
“Do it,” Tiger Stripe whispered.
The muscles along Eagle Eye’s face bulged as he clenched his jaw. His modded eye whirred. Was that a sign of nervousness? Or did the mod's software only assess variables, ensuring that even this point-blank shot would go off without a hitch?
“Do it!” This time, Tiger Stripe’s command erupted as a shout.
Eagle Eye flinched, and the instant his flesh eye squeezed shut, Brendan took his chance. He lashed out, launching his mod at Eagle Eye. The metal fist made contact, and energy exploded from Eagle Eye’s blaster. The blast came so close to Brendan’s head the power warmed his cheek. He didn’t turn to see the hole it created in the wall behind him. The path to the tunnel was free now, and he would not miss his opportunity.
He’d nearly escaped when a blood-curdling scream stopped him in his tracks.
Despite the voice in his mind screaming to run away, faster than he’d ever run, Brendan turned. The salvagers stood in a semicircle, frozen in a diorama of terror. The entire scene was almost perfectly still.
Almost.
O
nly one thing moved now: a black tentacle extending into Eagle Eye’s mouth from the newly-opened hole in the wall. Rippling bulges traveled from its root, down the dark length, and into Eagle Eye’s gaping, silent scream. Fine, black tendrils snaked off the main tentacle and filled Eagle Eye’s nostrils and ears. Tiger Stripe’s blast had exposed a new patch of tar. Once upon a time, every crack and hole in the wall had been sealed, leaving the tar no escape.
But now the salvagers had set it free.
Eagle Eye convulsed. The cords along his neck turned black. The color spread, painting the pathways of Eagle Eye’s veins. Soon his entire body showed raised and blackened veins as the tar ate its way through its new host’s blood. The tentacle grew thin in the middle and split in two. There were no more salvagers in the tar’s range, so it retreated to its place in the wall, while the tentacle still extending out of Eagle Eye disappeared into his body. He closed his mouth, and his modded eye darkened.
Brendan needed to run. It was one thing to salvage near a patch of tar fixed in one place, but once the tar infected a living host, it could roam freely.
Brendan knew this, and yet he found himself rooted to the spot. The grotesqueness of the scene had frozen him. Eagle Eye, too, had stopped convulsing the moment his eye went dark. He stood, arms hanging at his sides.
Then his body jerked, quickened with perverse life. His mouth sprang open. A black tentacle erupted from the gaping maw, and that was enough to inspire Brendan and the salvagers into action. The salvagers dove out of the way of the tar seeking its next meal. Brendan took off, sprinting for the tunnel through the debris like he should have done ages ago.
The salvagers screamed behind him, but he kept running. His feet tore at the cracked tile. His heart thudded in his throat.
The tunnel drew closer. Only after he reached the other side did he allow himself to turn back.
Eagle Eye stood, framed in the ragged hole through the debris. The thick, black cord of tar hung out of his mouth, an oversized tongue that quivered with every lurching step he took. The infected salvager took another step toward something Brendan couldn’t see. There was a clatter and a shout, followed by Tiger Stripe’s voice shouting, “Don’t do it! Don’t shoot it!” but it was too late. Yellow light painted the debris tunnel, and Eagle Eye staggered backward.
The top half of his head vanished.
The modded eye was gone. Most of his nose was gone. Above his neck, there was a jawline, a mouth, two nostrils...and then nothing.
No blood came from the wound—the tar had taken care of that—but where Eagle Eye’s skull had disintegrated, a mass of inky tentacles floated, weightless like seaweed underwater.
Eagle Eye took a hideous, shuddering step.
Someone screamed.
The tentacles shot forward with deadly intent.
The scream stopped in a gurgling choke.
Brendan turned and ran.
4
Brendan ran until he grew weak and the world began to spin. He’d used his mod far too much in the abandoned store. His body had spent a lot of energy to power the mechanical arm. And then there was the pain, radiating down his spine and into his extremities. When his legs threatened to give out from exhaustion, he collapsed behind a boarded-up house. His fingers trembled—partly from weakness and partly from fear. It had been years since he was that close to an infected. He’d become an expert at avoiding the black-eyed monsters, just like everyone else in Newhaven, but Tiger Stripe and his friends didn’t know the drill. They’d paid the price and nearly took Brendan down with them.
Trying to calm his racing heart, Brendan took a long, slow breath. He closed his eyes, wishing he could forget what happened, but the images kept coming: Eagle Eye with tar worming into his ears. Eagle Eye with tar shooting out of his mouth. Eagle Eye without half his head.
At least Brendan had gotten a good haul out of the trip. He hadn’t found that much food in ages. He patted his satchel.
...and his heart dropped.
A new injection of fear coursed through Brendan’s veins. He flipped the satchel open, hoping he was mistaken, but there was no mistake.
The satchel was empty.
After all he’d been through, there wasn’t a single piece to show for his work. Brendan rested the base of his skull against the house’s rough exterior and shut his eyes against the feelings of panic. This couldn’t be happening. He’d never been careless enough to lose an entire day’s salvage.
The afternoon light turned orange. It would be dark before long.
He should have fastened his satchel the second he realized Tiger Stripe meant trouble. He should have gotten out of the store before the salvagers noticed what he’d found. Dozens of things he should have done raced through his mind until it seemed he could change the past by sheer willpower. If he thought long enough and hard enough, he’d open the satchel and find every single can, magically returned.
But the satchel was empty, and the sun was setting.
5
Brendan hurried through the ruined city, avoiding the lengthening shadows. There might be fresh patches of tar waiting in the dark, and Brendan needed no more surprises.
He could always spend the night at Krystal’s. She’d welcome him in and offer him a bed, a hot meal, and a smile. But it would be out of pity, and Brendan didn’t want her pity. Especially when she’d be repairing his mod again before long.
So he turned his steps toward Logan’s dorms. The crusty old landlord might allow himself to be talked into a free night’s stay. If he did, the bed wouldn’t come from pity. Logan did nothing out of pity.
On his right stood a row of tall metal boxes. They’d been sealed, airtight. Chances were Eagle Eye would end up in one of these. The catchers would find him and seal him. There was no killing the tar, nor stopping the people it infected. The only solution was to trap it.
No one knew who discovered the tar’s inability to pass through airtight surfaces, or how the discovery was made. All anyone knew was the tar could squeeze through any crack, no matter how thin. So the sealed boxes remained, monuments to the tar’s enduring presence in Newhaven.
Brendan shuddered, trying not to hear the decomposed bodies slamming against their prisons, forever under the tar’s influence.
After an hour, Brendan reached Newhaven. Few dared leave this desperate hub of civilization. Here, the most dangerous places were well-documented, and shelter was readily available. Outside, the tar or the infected might be anywhere.
The deeper into Newhaven he went, the more he saw cars humming along the cracked streets. They were old and rusty models, with engines that stuttered and whined. One car slowed to a stop, and the window rolled down. A bald man leaned out. The mess of bio-power wires attached to his temples stretched taut as he did.
“Hey pal.” The man called. “Need a ride?”
Brendan shook his head.
“It’s gonna be dark soon.”
“I’ve got nothing to trade.” Brendan held his satchel open.
The man narrowed his eyes. “How about this: You say thanks and we both get to live another day?”
Brendan didn’t respond. He picked up the pace again, heading for Logan’s property. The bald man started his car rolling, keeping up with Brendan.
“I’m just trying to help!” he called. “You got a death wish or something?”
Brendan slipped between two buildings, taking a route too narrow for the car. He didn’t have a death wish, which was why he never accepted free rides. Nothing came free in Newhaven, and the things without price tags often cost the most.
Brendan hadn’t lived this long by assuming the best of people.
The shouting grew desperate as Brendan ducked into an alleyway, but he didn’t stop. Sundown was coming, and he couldn’t afford to slow down.
6
Logan Macleod hadn’t been the first to rent tar-proofed shelter to people like Brendan,
but he did it the best. He started early, in that hazy in-between time after it became clear the tar was more than a passing trend, but before it overran Newhaven. Local governments handed out tar-proofing materials like candy, and the lucky investors who got a hold of the technology rented rooms to anyone who could pay.
Logan’s biggest advantage over every would-be entrepreneur with a tar-proofed basement was simple: Inventory.
He’d been a hotel janitor before the tar appeared. While management fled, died, and got infected, Logan stayed and tar-proofed the entire hotel. Instead of selling a room or two to passing salvagers, he had dozens of rooms, dozens of customers, and a steady income of salvage, food, and favors.
He was what passed for a rags-to-riches story in Newhaven.
The monument to Logan’s success loomed before Brendan, by far the largest building still standing. Tar-proofing alloy cast the structure in dull gray. The old hotel was nothing more than a featureless box in the middle of a crumbling wasteland, but it prevailed as Newhaven’s shining emblem of safety. Every possible opening had been sealed years ago, from the widest window to the narrowest crack. It wasn’t pretty, but pretty didn’t count for much anymore.
Brendan stood before the invisible front door. An outsider wouldn’t be able to find it, thanks to the impermeable gray walls. None of the three entrances were visible.
A camera mounted overhead swiveled until it pointed at Brendan. A crack appeared in the front wall, forming the outline of a door, which slid open. Brendan stepped through, and the door shut behind him.
He stood in a small room now, ten feet by ten feet at the most. Another camera descended from the ceiling. Brendan fumbled with his shirt as a rusted speaker squawked a single, unnecessary word:
“Strip.”
Brendan had been to Logan’s enough times, so he didn't need the instructions. That wouldn’t matter to Logan, though. Procedure was procedure.
Brendan waited naked in the tiny room while the camera drifted around him, examining his body for signs of infection. He kicked his clothes and satchel through a half-door to his left, where a guard checked his belongings for hidden tar.
Tar Page 2