New World Order

by S. M. McEachern

  Ryder greeted each worker by name, stopping to inquire about family members and give thanks to the gods. The air trapped under the slanted roof was hot and acrid with the smell of chemicals. It was nauseating. Yet I could tell by the looks on the workers’ faces that they loved this man and worked there willingly.

  He introduced me. “This is Jack Kenner. He’s interested in how we make our plastic products.”

  One of the workers stepped forward. “Not much to tell really. Different plastics have different melting points, so we sort them over there,” he said, pointing to the pile of plastic on the other side, “and then chip them into smaller pieces. Some types of plastics get melted in the big oven.” He pointed to the large open fireplace. “And other types are melted on the stove. We’re experimenting a lot.” He invited me to look in one of the kettles.

  Hands still tied behind my back, I stepped closer to the stone stove. The heat was intense, and the steam wafting out of the pot was thick with toxic fumes. Inside the hot kettle, plastic chips of every color were becoming viscous.

  “So it just melts down and then you mold it into something?” I asked. The process was kind of interesting, but I was still anxious to move on to the other side of production.

  Ryder snorted. “What do you mean just melts down? No one else on the planet has come this far since the War.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.” I really didn’t want to upset him in case that would make him cancel the tour. Then the entire morning would have been a waste.

  “That’s right, Jack. I forgot. You’re from an advanced society,” he said sarcastically. “This all must seem so simple to you.” He strode to a large vat off at the far end of the stove, picked up a protective oven glove, and took the lid off. “Can your people make this?”

  I gave him a wary look as I approached, wondering if it was a trap of some kind. The pot contained a thick black slurry. I sniffed it. Oil.

  “Plastics were made from oil, and now I’ve figured out how to extract that oil. It’s fuel, Jack. We’re about to enter a brand new industrial era, and my city is leading the way.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sunny

  Human bones were scattered all over the ground, well chewed and with only a few scraps of rotting flesh clinging to them. There wasn’t much left for the insects to fight over. And if it weren’t for his clothes, torn to shreds as they were, we never would have known it was Ryan.

  The contents of my stomach came burning up my throat, and I mentally screamed at myself to hurry up and stop heaving so I could take a better look. My heart was thumping with the thought that there might be more bones around... bones with synthetic material still clinging to them. Not even Doc’s nanobots could put Jack back together if he had been ripped apart and eaten. The thought only made me heave harder.

  Finally, I caught my breath and forced myself to start looking.

  “He’s not here,” Hayley said. She took hold of my shoulders and shook me, forcing me to look at her. “Did you hear me? Jack’s not here.”

  The sun had already dipped low, casting long, dark shadows as late evening fell. It wasn’t exactly night, but it was getting dark. And Hayley’s eyes were of no use in the dark. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” she said.

  I looked to Reyes for confirmation. He could see in the dark. “Just one body, as far as I can tell,” he said.

  Tears blurred my vision, and my knees went weak. Of all the people to catch me before I fell, it was Hayley. On some level, I didn’t want to be weak in front of her, and I knew it was weird that she was the one holding me, but my legs refused to listen to my brain and stand on their own. It was Jin-Sook’s uncontrollable sobbing that helped restore my strength. Ryan had been her friend and fellow Protector, and he lay scattered all over the ground. With a nod of thanks to Hayley, and went to Jin. She was leaning against the bike, holding her injured side, a look of horror-stricken grief marring her features. I threw my arms around her neck.

  “Don’t look,” I whispered, even though I knew she already had.

  “We have a big problem,” Eli called out. When I turned to look at him, he was getting his bow ready. He motioned to a pile of dung on the ground. “That’s fresh. There are tigers here. And where there are tigers, recruiters are not far.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and I scanned the area looking for anything suspicious, but the uneven terrain provided a lot of hiding places. And then it happened so fast, it took my brain a second to catch up with what I’d seen. Two arrows flew out from seemingly nowhere. One hit Zach in the leg, and he went down gasping in pain. The other hit the ground two feet away from Hayley. Reyes jumped in front of Hayley just as two more projectiles careened through the air at us. One hit him in the chest and bounced off his suit. The other arrow hit the tree Eli had dove behind.

  “Recruiters!” I yelled.

  Two more arrows came at us, and then two more. They’d used the same tactics when they’d shot me and took Jack and the others—sneaking up from behind and then hammering their prey relentlessly with projectiles tipped in some kind of sedative. The sense of déjà vu was unsettling. I pulled up my hood to protect my head, took out my gun, and surveyed the area. Jin-Sook was fumbling for her bow, standing on unsteady legs. Zach lay on the ground out cold with an arrow embedded in his leg. Eli crouched behind a tree, which really didn’t provide much cover. Jonas was getting on his bike.

  Two more arrows flew our way, and I tracked the direction they came from. I looked behind us for cover and spied a grouping of large boulders jutting out of the ground not far away. “Take cover,” I yelled, pointing to the rocks.

  I leaned down and put my arm under Jin’s, and as soon as I did, an arrow thumped against my right buttock. Startled, I watched it fall to the ground, its wooden tip shattered by my exoskeleton. I shifted my body to completely cover Jin-Sook and half dragged, half carried her to the boulders, using my body as a shield.

  Reyes had positioned himself between the archers and Hayley, and she struggled to get around him to face the recruiters. He picked her up and ran to us. Summer dragged Zach. Jonas took off on his bike.

  “I’ll go back for Eli,” Reyes said.

  As soon as he left the cover of the boulders, three arrows flew at him. One missed, and the other two bounced harmlessly off his suit. Reyes picked up Eli and sprinted back behind the rocks, dodging incoming arrows as he went. Eli’s face was red, probably from the humiliation of being carried, but he thanked Reyes anyway.

  “It’s almost dark,” Reyes said. “Do you think they’re as blind at night as the bourge?”

  I smiled. “I say we walk right up to them and snatch the weapons out of their hands.”

  Reyes flashed a smile. “Worth seeing the look on their faces, eh?”

  “Are you people insane?” Hayley asked. “Let’s just shoot them from here!”

  “From their position up on the ridge, they have the advantage,” I said. “Besides, they can’t hurt us. You saw that arrow bounce off Reyes, and the one that hit me splintered.”

  Hayley’s eyes flicked over us. “What the hell are those suits made out of anyway?”

  I had a sudden flashback to when I had to tell Jack about nanotechnology, right after I’d injected him with it. He’d told me it was just as mythical as aliens from outer space. Nothing more than an urban legend. But covering up the existence of nanotech was just one more lie—one more revision of history—by the Holt regime to protect their nuclear dominance.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” I said. “Right now we have to figure out exactly where they’re hiding on that ridge.”

  “There are usually two groups,” Eli said, his bow ready as his eyes darted in every direction behind us. “Men volunteer to go with recruiting parties in exchange for food and the chance to become a recruiter. They assist hunting parties as well as protect the caravan.”

  “Maybe the three of us should do some scouting,” I said.


  “You read my mind,” Reyes said.

  “You think I’m just going to stay here and cover you?” Hayley asked in a harsh voice.

  “You have an unconscious soldier to protect,” I said, motioning to Price.

  She looked at his vulnerable figure, clenched her teeth, and gave me a curt nod. She wasn’t happy about it, but she knew I was right.

  “I’ll try to draw their fire so you can figure out exactly where they are,” she said, taking the silencer off her weapon.

  Jin-Sook sat up straighter, leaning against the boulder for support. She had an arrow nocked and ready to shoot at the first sign of movement. Even injured, she was more than capable of looking after herself, although I knew Eli would take care of her too.

  “Ready?” Reyes asked.

  Summer nodded.

  I looked at Hayley. “Okay, let’s see if you can get a response from them.”

  Using the boulder to keep the rifle steady, Hayley aimed and let off a round as we left the cover of the rocks for a nearby bush. The rat-a-tat-tat of the rifle rang out alarmingly loud in the quiet forest, and the sound of bullets ricocheting off rocks and tree trunks splintering sent my own rapid heartbeat into overdrive. As soon as Hayley stopped firing, a figure stood up and gave his position away.

  “There,” I said, pointing. The figure ducked back down. The twilight sky was quickly dimming, and I pulled the hood of my dark suit up over my head. “They won’t see us coming.”

  “Let’s go,” Summer said.

  Reyes’ long legs carried him to the ridge faster than Summer or I could run. He was going to get there first, on his own, and we weren’t even sure how many we were up against. I wanted to shout at him to wait for us, but that would only alert the recruiters to our approach.

  Reyes scaled the outcropping in three bounds. I heard the recruiters’ muffled cries of surprise and saw a bow thrown up in the air. Summer and I scaled the rocks and found Reyes literally knocking two men’s heads together. A third man was taking a knife from his sheath, and a fourth made a break for it, yelling for someone named Kane. I was about to launch myself at the man with the knife when Summer shot him. He crumpled to the ground. The fourth man disappeared over the other side of the small ridge, and I went after him.

  Even though Eli had described the bear-drawn carts, that hadn’t prepared me for actually seeing one, and I faltered in my pursuit. The animals were enormous and making deep, throaty huffing noises. Their feet shifted nervously, as if they were trying to bolt, but they were harnessed to a crude wooden cart with big plastic wheels. I was willing to bet the gunfire had spooked them.

  Two men were with the cart, and when they saw their friend running down the hill, they ran to meet him. They hadn’t seen me yet. As I leaped after him, closing the distance quickly, Reyes sailed overhead. He hit the ground hard, rolling right into the two men and taking their feet out from under them. The man I was chasing stopped in his tracks, and then backed up right into me. Slowly he turned, wide-eyed, sweat glistening on his forehead and his mouth gaping open. His eyes found mine, and I could see the fear in them. A small, shallow part of me was elated. These people had ripped my life apart.

  “Surprise,” I said.

  He still had an arrow in his fist, and I wondered vaguely if it was his bow I had seen being thrown into the air. He pulled back his hand and took a stab at me. I blocked it and gave him a roundhouse kick to the gut, sending him sailing backward several feet, right into the edge of the wagon. His head snapped back, and then he slumped down onto the ground. He didn’t get back up.

  The other two men were on the ground, and Reyes was administering a final kick to one of them. I turned around to look for Summer. She was sitting on a rock watching us and started clapping when she saw me looking at her.

  “Did we get them all?” I asked.

  “I think so,” Reyes said.

  “None left up there,” Summer called, thumbing behind her.

  Reyes started walking toward me. “Let’s get back and let them know it’s all clear.”

  “Not without that,” I said, pointing to the cart. “I have an idea.”

  ***

  “Are you out of your mind, Sunshine?” Hayley yelled.

  Frustration nipped at me. Maybe it was because I was so used to the ease of working with Jack. When we talked, we gave each other ideas, not roadblocks. I filled my lungs with air, felt the pressure against my chest, and let it go. Disguising ourselves as recruiters to walk into Ryder’s city unnoticed was a good plan. We didn’t know where the men were being kept inside the city, or even if they were there, so we were going to have to ask around.

  “Do you have a better plan?” I asked.

  “You mean better than walking right into Ryder’s city and getting ourselves killed?”

  “No one in the Dome knew I wasn’t Leisel at the wedding until my veil was ripped off,” I said. “And Jack and I were able to convince you and everyone else that he was still the heir and I was just his mistress after we escaped the Dome.”

  “Oh, c’mon. That was totally believable,” Hayley said.

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m just saying that a good charade can work. All we need to do is act like we belong there.”

  “It’s not a bad plan,” Eli said. “But I’m not sure about taking the animals all that way. We don’t know how to handle them.”

  “We managed to get them over the ridge and bring them here,” I said. “They’re actually really quite gentle.”

  “Why do we need the wagon when we have the recruiters’ clothes?” Reyes asked.

  “You took their clothes?” Hayley asked, looking at each of us.

  “I didn’t take them,” Reyes said. “Sunshine did.”

  I shot him a warning look and turned back to Hayley. “Yeah, I took their clothes.” I waved a hand at our attire. “Do you think we’re going to get into the city unnoticed dressed like this?”

  A distant, hissing growl echoed through the forest. We drew our weapons. The sound came again, and we all spun in a circle, searching our perimeter.

  “It doesn’t sound too close,” Hayley said.

  “Jonas is out there,” I said.

  Hayley clenched her jaw. “He shouldn’t have deserted.”

  “But—”

  “He’s a soldier and knew better. I won’t endanger the success of our mission, or risk any one of us, because of his selfish stupidity,” Hayley said, cutting me off. The set of her face said the matter was closed.

  The rest of us fell silent for a moment and exchanged glances. Her decision was harsh but not wholeheartedly unwarranted. At the first sign of danger, Jonas had turned his back on us to save himself. He’d driven right past his friend, Zach, lying on the ground with an arrow in his leg. Left his commanding officer alone with a group of heathens and urchins to defend herself against an aggressive enemy. Why should we change focus to find him when we were running out of time to find Jack, Naoki, and Talon?

  “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to look for him along the way,” I said to ease my conscience.

  Eli nodded. “And if we’re headed for Ryder’s city, then it’s not a bad plan to pose as recruiters if we can pull it off. The city is built on an open plain. There’s absolutely no direction you can approach it without being seen.”

  “But you told us we were gaining on them,” Reyes said to Eli. “I thought we were trying to intercept them before they got to the city.”

  “We’ve come across so many different sets of tracks...” Eli said, rubbing the back of his neck. He cast an apologetic glance at Jin-Sook. “I hate to say it, but Ryan is the first piece of solid evidence that our men even passed this way. Trouble is, I can’t tell how long the bones have been there.”

  An uncomfortable silence followed his statement. We all knew Eli didn’t want to reduce Ryan to a “piece of evidence,” but his body held information we needed to save the others. Time mattered. It was the difference between finding them at the city and losing them
to a plasticmine of an unknown location.

  “Right now, heading straight to Ryder is still our best bet,” I said.

  “But taking that,” Hayley said, pointing at the bear-drawn wagon, “is going to slow us down.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “As long as the bears can keep up the pace, we can stop for short periods to rest them. Summer, Reyes, and I can guide the animals at night while you guys sleep, and you can walk during the day while we sleep.” I motioned toward Jin and Zach, the latter still out cold from the recruiters’ arrow. “Better transportation for them, too.”

  “I’ll go along with it, Sunny,” Summer said. “But I’m not putting on someone’s gross disgusting clothes.”

  “You can be a prisoner,” I said with a smile. “We just have to tie you up in the back once we get close to the city.”

  “Much better,” Summer said mockingly.

  Hayley ignored our banter. “What about the bikes?”

  Eli’s face suddenly brightened. “The bikes! They’re our ticket to getting to Ryder. No one’s going to care who we are—their attention will be on those bikes.”

  Hayley looked a little confused. “I thought they recruited people.”

  Eli nodded. “Ryder recruits people to risk their lives to find plastic and technology for him. He rewards well for technology.”

  “It’s settled then? We’ll take the wagon?” I asked.

  “I’m in,” Reyes said.

  The stern set of Hayley’s face led me to think she was going to balk, so I was surprised when she said, “It had better work.”

  ***

  The weight of all the bikes plus four bodies proved to be a little heavy for the bears to haul, so we just put one bike in the back and Summer, Reyes and I rode the three others alongside the wagon. The animals were huge and moved at a good pace, but it was still a slow speed for the bikes. At least the bears were well trained, so once we got them moving in one direction, they plodded along steadily. We only had to pick up the ropes on occasion to steer them. They were okay with the bikes, as long as we stayed by the wagon and didn’t ride directly beside them.