Fire, Ruin, and Fury (Embers Saga)

by Matthew Taylor

  Which assignments’ll earn the most? How do I get ‘em for my teams? How much can I skim? What other connections can I make? How long’ll it take? How do I keep from gettin’ killed until I can cash out?

  As Ben pondered for the first time how he might actually escape the life of a hyena, he became aware that cordial goodnights were passing among Calden, Rashid, Nanner, Alias, and the handful of other functionaries, whose names Ben couldn’t commit to memory. As Ben started following the others from the dining hall, he glanced back to find Alias still sitting at the table.

  “I’ll catch up with you back at the dormitory,” he said quietly to Nanner.

  “Huh?” Nanner answered sleepily. Ben could tell that Nanner was so desperate to get to a bed that he didn’t give much of a damn what Ben did. Nanner peered over Ben’s shoulder at Alias. “Ah,” he acknowledged. “Gotcha. Yeah, well just ‘member you gotta big day mañana.”

  Ben returned quietly to the table and sat down next to Alias, who took a small sip of tea.

  “Can’t sleep either?” Alias greeted.

  “Actually, I’m exhausted.” Ben answered. “Thought you might want some company.” His message wasn’t lost on Alias, who shifted to face Ben. Ben’s heart raced.

  “We could be spending a lot of time together, you and me.”

  Then, to his own astonishment, Ben leaned in and kissed Alias—the first romantic moment Ben had experienced since leaving the Billings Home for Children, and the first willing one of his life.

  When the first rays of morning streamed through the giant windows of the dining room, Ben awoke to find Alias sliding into his hooded robe. Pillows were strewn about the floor, and two dining chairs lay tipped over their sides. Ben’s head ached from lack of sleep, with a tinge of fear at being discovered in such a compromising spot.

  “Rise and shine,” Alias said, a slightly cavalier tone in his voice. “You should prob’ly get back to the dorm and get ready for breakfast. Business starts again in an hour.”

  “Yeah,” Ben croaked, rubbing his eyes. “Where you goin’?”

  “To my room,” Alias answered. “Same reason.” He put the chairs back in place. “You’ll get the pillows before you go?” Ben assented. “Great. See you in a bit.” Alias bent down, gave him a peck on the cheek, and left him alone, bewildered, in the large empty room.

  Ben had no time to contemplate the vacant feeling in his heart. He quickly got dressed and rushed back to the dorm for a disappointingly quick shower with hot, clean water. He hurried to breakfast in the estate’s cafeteria, greeted by grins and whispers from his crew, and he lamented his need to shovel down a heavenly meal of pig-meat sausages, chicken eggs, goat cheese, and fresh fruit. He darted from the table, jealous of his comrades, still at the table savoring every bite.

  He was all nerves when he got back to the dining room to close out the negotiations. Seated next to him again, Alias feigned that Ben was nothing but a new business partner. For the moment, at least, Ben looked past the slight, compulsively scanning the room for any give-away evidence of their escapade the night before.

  The room was quiet, as all the parties looked over their computer screens one last time.

  They prob’ly already know, he cringed. Every look from Rashid and Caldwell set him on edge. They monitor everything. He felt naked and compromised. If his indiscretion derailed the deal, and found its way back to Rashid, all his plans for the future would be done for.

  “Well,” Rashid finally announced, “I think we made so much headway yesterday that we are all but done.”

  Ben was exalted. Even after divvying up Sherman’s bonus with his crew, he would surely have enough left over to save for his eventual escape. Ben thought his luck was at its height, when Rashid unexpectedly offered him and his crew another day and night at the estate to recuperate. The thought of another stolen moment with Alias flashed through his head.

  The last benefit was not to be, though, as Alias mentioned that he was overdue in Albert Lea, where the church was christening a new facility.

  With a heavy heart, Ben followed the functionaries to bid Alias farewell on the landing pad and watched wistfully as Rashid exchanged a few kind words and an affectionate embrace with Alias before sending him up the gang-plank to the jump-ship. Without so much as a gesture of goodbye from Alias, Ben shuffled dejectedly back to his crew, now busily at work in the vehicle-repair bay.

  “Shit,” his friend Billy Washington quipped as Ben walked in. “I still can’t believe how these motherfuckers live! Can you believe this shit? Air-conditioning. All this food.”

  “No orgies like at Christmas, but still,” Nanner added.

  Ben smiled weakly, knowing that even a small taste of the Ellie’s life was like Heaven for Ben and his fellow hyenas and they couldn’t help but rejoice in their good fortune. But this kind of luck was always short-lived, laced with resentment, and tainted by an odd sense of desolation. Ben was in no mood for it, but he resigned himself to his crew’s banter about the Ellies’ lifestyle.

  It all ended abruptly only twenty minutes later, when two guards arrived and summoned Ben to an autocar, which whinnied across the courtyard to the mansion. Inside, Ben found Rashid, Calden, and a handful of security officers huddled intently around GEO. Hearing Ben enter, Rashid turned around and waved him into the group, putting his hand on Ben’s shoulder.

  “We have a problem,” Rashid said, calmly. “And I’m afraid your crew is now on contract to fix it.”

  In minutes, Ben was back in the garage, looking into the solemn faces of his crew and scrapping their hopes for rest and comfort.

  “Alias’s—” Ben caught himself, nearly choking on his words, “—our new customer’s jump-ship just went down near Rochester Township. Gear up. I want everyone battle ready in five minutes. We’re on the road in ten.”

  Chapter 20: Battle for the Crash

  (Victoria Lancaster)

  Victoria Lancaster bounced and swayed in the back of Oscar with her brother Paul and her cousin Emily—all of them wedged between the cargo walls and the stretchers carrying Alias Goodwell and his three mercenary guards. A medic, who said very little during the trip, did his best to move from patient to patient, though he seemed especially focused on Alias. Alias was the most badly injured, but even he was fine, as near as she could tell. She had also learned that he was the most important of their passengers—of all of them, in fact.

  Emily huddled over Alias as well, oblivious to the oddly negative looks that the mercenary named Ben occasionally shot at her.

  Victoria’s attention returned to the object of her own interest, the blond and muscular man they called Nanner. Nanner was the funniest and most entertaining of the lot—by far—to her way of thinking. The most handsome as well. She tried to refocus on the stories he’d been telling her for the past hour of their journey.

  No sooner had she tuned back in to listen to him than she became distracted again by Alias activating a wrist-plat he had concealed under the torn sleeve of his robe. The hologram bust of an Arab man flickered to life, casting a luminous blue-gray hue over the truck’s interior and everyone’s tired faces. The smallish, brown-skinned man, dressed in the extravagant attire of the Ellies, offered Alias a warm smile and some words of relief at seeing him safe. He then looked curiously at Victoria, Emily, and Paul, prompting Alias to broker introductions.

  Maybe he isn’t a complete douchebag, she thought, surprised to hear Alias’ gracious description of her caravan’s role in saving him from near-certain death in the Wilds.

  Ali Ibn al-Rashid? Her stomach twisted with a subconscious suspicion of his Muslim name.

  “I am sure some kind of recognition is in order for your courageous intervention,” Rashid said with an appreciative tone.

  Her stomach unclenched a little with the thought of reward and sparked a new appreciation for their passengers’ importance. She still had no real idea who was whom, or how any of them were related, but the gravity of the day’s events was star
ting to settle in for her, and she felt a tinge of guilt for her initial reluctance to help Alias and his men.

  Fortunes change so quickly. But she tried to lower her expectations, having no confidence in the promises of an Ellie.

  Just an hour earlier, Victoria had been rumbling down the potted desert road in a small convoy between the Davenport and Sioux Falls work site. She had made the trek a dozen times over the past several months, but the early-summer heat seemed to make it more miserable. The blasting wind still growled in her ears when she climbed down from the spotter hole in the roof of Oscar’s cargo hold. The spotter was the most vulnerable spot in any convoy, half exposed and the first target of any attackers, and the terror of it made her ill every time she took her turn. Their small line of work trucks and buggies was already a fat score for marauders, and she was still cursing the decision to move so late in the morning.

  As she plopped down after her shift, she took little comfort in watching her bother Paul climb towards the spotter hole for his. The anxious eye-roll he gave her didn’t help.

  “Buckle up,” he ordered with a quasi-paternal tone on his way through the hole.

  Victoria broke the seal that her goggles had formed on her face and tossed her helmet onto the floor. She pulled off her sweaty balaclava and wiped her face and neck with a damp cloth, desperate to cool down. Her energy was just starting to return, when she noticed Shay riding shotgun, immersed in a spirited discussion with a stranger’s holographic face on the console V-plat.

  “This ain’t our job, Farid. You know that full well. Ain’t in our contract,” he groused, trying in vain to veil his anger. Shay’s red face sent a bolt of fear through her.

  Farid . . . Farid Sherman, she realized. She now had a face to put with the name and reputation. Gangster, mercenary, and silent financier of her family’s livelihood. Well, silent to her until now. …Whatever the hell he wants, he’ll get it, but it can’t be good.

  “I have men en route—” Farid replied.

  “Then use them, goddamnit.”

  Sherman’s face became resolute and detached. “Your convoy has weapons, Shay. I know ‘cause I bought ‘em. You’re also close by. So, if you wanna your contract, you’ll get your asses over there and get that boy. …We clear?”

  Shay paused for a moment, trying to suppress his fury. He had no options. “Clear,” he relented.

  “Good,” Sherman affirmed. “Transmitting the coords now. You can get there in half an hour. Make it happen.”

  In a feeble gesture of defiance, Shay turned off the v-plat without replying. He rubbed his eyes in frustration, reactivated the v-plat, and brought up GEO. Victoria saw their small convoy appear on the map, along with a thin gold line illuminating the waypoints through a web of backroads in the Wilds to a pulsing red dot.

  “Shay, what’s going on?” she finally managed to ask.

  “A detour,” he grumbled. “We’ll be fine, sweetie,” he added, unconvincingly. “But getcher helmet on and grab a rifle from the locker.”

  He then activated his comms mic to the other vehicles. “New destination, folks. Coords comin’ to your GEOs. Pull off up here for the game plan.”

  The conversation that followed on the side of the road was agitated and intense.

  “Some lil’ fucker crashed nearby, and we gotta fetch‘m,” Shay announced. “Dunno why they crashed, or we should expect when we get there. But we need to be ready for anythin’.”

  Victoria’s Uncle Christian glanced at his daughter Emily, then Paul, and then to her, his face becoming flushed.

  “Where exactly are we going?” Uncle Christian insisted, abandoning his normal, reassuring calm and channeling the entire group’s instinctive opposition to the idea. Everyone’s gaze shifted to Shay.

  Shay, as surprised as everyone to hear her Uncle Christian’s tone, gestured to Christian to join him for a quiet talk away from the group. It only took a minute of whispering before Victoria saw the exact moment when her uncle recognized their catch-22.

  Risk life and limb to rescue some strangers who crashed in the Wilds, or lose our jobs and go back to a miserable life in the Wilds. And who can say what vengeance Sherman will mete out to anyone who refuses his order.

  Uncle Christian then composed himself and followed Shay back to the group, putting on an air of unity and confidence to help Shay steel the group’s resolve. They launched into the task of organizing their cast of ramshackle workers—electricians, masons, metal workers, and mechanics—so they might have a chance of making it back alive. But she knew a look of consternation and dread when she saw it, and it was on all their faces.

  “OK, ever’one,” Shay concluded, “it’s gonna get bumpy. Get to your positions and let’s roll out.” To Victoria’s surprise, the workers’ looks transformed into solemn determination, and they obediently rushed to their designated spots.

  They know the deal. They’ve all faced ruin, and they know what it takes to survive.

  Moments later, they were back in Oscar. Her bother returned to his shift in the spotter hole, and through the tinted windows, she watched others pop up through their vehicles’ holes as well, rifles at the ready. They lurched forward on the tail of the lead buggy, which took a sharp turn onto a dirt road. Victoria slid sideways in her seat as they followed, a brief flash of panic at the thought of rolling over. Recovering her balance, she fumbled to the weapons locker, as Shay had instructed.

  She made a point of staying quiet, leaving Shay to the business of instructing the others. Signals. Protocols. Contingencies.

  Just a handful of hapless workers. Makeshift armor. Only two of Sherman’s guards in the bunch—and who knows how much those guys know? Prob’ly some useless urchins Sherman picked up on the cheap. …Mom’ll come unglued if she finds out.

  She wondered if Shay would call her mother, risking God-knows-what kind of reaction, or if he would spare her mother the worry and suffer the consequences when they got back to camp. She had seen her mother sneaking off with Shay from time to time, but it didn’t strike her as the kind of relationship that would survive hiding a situation like this.

  Better if mom doesn’t know. Well, not better for Shay. Uncle Christian’ll surely tell Aunt Honey—if he hasn’t already. She’ll flap to mom. …The call should come any minute.

  Sure enough, she soon realized that Shay was already mumbling into his comms mic with her mother.

  “They’ll be fine,” she overheard him say. “I’ll keep ‘em safe, don’chu worry. First sign ‘o trouble and we’ll high-tail it outta there.”

  She dreaded her mother wanting to speak with her and Paul next. Last thing we need is a crying mother on the line if this goes to shit.

  “Gotta go, Sweetie,” Shay added. “We’re here.”

  Victoria’s heart sank at the words, and she now longed to hear her mother’s voice. The convoy stopping on a dusty turnout, and she peered out the window to find only rocks and tree skeletons.

  No crash. No path. What the fuck do we do now?

  Shay took a deep breath before turning around in his seat. “This’s where it gets interestin’. You make sure you stay near your brother, or Em, ya hear?”

  Victoria nodded in agreement and gripped her rifle tightly. At Shay’s signal, she threw open the cab door and fell in behind Emily and three others in a breathless race to the ridge of rocks separating the convoy from the desiccated grove of trees that was once a forest. Glancing back at their defensive ring of vehicles, she watched Paul and the other spotters scanning the landscape, determined not to be taken by surprise. Shay signaled to the next team, which quietly padded behind Christian through her ranks, leapfrogging them into the thicket of dead trees and rocks beyond.

  Silence fell over her team, with only the whoosh of the hot breeze and the humming drone of idling engines in her ears.

  Then gunfire crackled from the thicket, and she jumped in her skin. She looked urgently into Emily’s frightened eyes and peered over the crest.

  Nothing.<
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  More gunfire popped, and she flinched at the snap of bullets passing directly overhead. She looked again at Emily, whose eyes now signaled mischief. To her disbelief, Emily then launched herself over the crest in a headlong sprint into the trees in pursuit of Uncle Christian. Victoria’s blood and bones burned with the electricity of panic.

  She squeezed her eyes closed, steeled her courage, and threw herself over the crest and towards the treeline, dreamlike voices of Paul and Shay echoing from behind her.

  Too late to turn around.

  Every breath felt like fire, as she scrambled over the stones and gnarled tree roots, trying desperately to keep her cousin in sight. Undiluted relief flowed through her in seeing Emily leap into a shallow nest of boulders a short distance ahead, Uncle Christian crouched behind a fallen trunk nearby. Victoria willed herself through the last few steps to her cousin and jumped into the nest behind Emily, only to notice two lifeless bodies sprawled face down in the dust between them and her uncle.

  Jeremy? …And …Tyrone? She couldn’t tell.

  Anxious silence followed, until her neck instinctively craned skyward at the furious roar of an airship overhead. She glimpsed a beige hull floating through the web of branches, a thick trail of dirty exhaust behind it. A rhythmic thumping bellowed, and flaming orange streams rained into the trees ahead. The ship thundered around them unseen, back and forth, until it finally grew faint.

  Then quiet.

  Victoria tried desperately to gather her thoughts and calm her heart, as she stared down the barrel of her rifle into the eerily-still forest. She thanked herself for having the presence of mind—or at least the instincts—to keep hold of her weapon and backpack when she displaced from the crest.

  After what seemed like hours, she was convinced it was finally over, and from the corner of her eye, she detected Paul huddled beside Uncle Christian.

  “What the fuck is he doing here?!” Victoria rasped to Emily. Emily just shook her head in confusion. “We need to get the fuck outta here,” Vitoria pressed. “Whoever’s out there is prob’ly dead now anyways.” Then, as if on some terrible jinx, Paul and Christian left their sheltered spot and charged deeper in the smoke shrouding the trees.