Donny fired his rifle. With half a dozen bullets in it, the screen turned black.
There was a low whining noise, like an engine powering up. Donny cast around, taking in their surroundings.
“Oh God,” he said.
“What?” Jamie said.
“It’s the hyperloop,” Donny said.
“Hyperloop?” Jamie said. “What’s that?”
“It’s a high-speed rail system to Denver,” Donny said. “Built before the Fall. Unfinished. It was the City’s emergency evacuation system.”
The engine roared, loud in their ears now. Like a powerful weapon charging up. They began to drift forward. The floor moved unsteadily beneath them.
Fatty took a seat.
“What are you doing?” Jamie said.
“Taking a seat,” Fatty said. “Like the doctor said.”
“You trust him?” Jamie said.
“No,” Fatty said. “But I trust my instincts.”
Donny took aim at a window.
“Stand back,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” Jamie said.
“Blow a hole in this thing and get out before we travel too far,” Donny said. “We have to get Dad. I’m not leaving him alone with that madman.”
He took aim at a window and squeezed the trigger. The train suddenly jolted forward. The bullets sailed harmlessly into the roof of the pod, biting out two fluorescent lightbulbs and thudding into the metal ceiling, forming inverted boils.
“Please don’t do that again,” Fatty said.
The train lurched forward, increasing speed. It was pitch black outside their little pod, the rough earthy insides of the tunnel visible, whizzing past.
Donny lay on the floor, gun out of reach. He gripped the plastic floor with the palms of his hands. Shifted to take hold of the metal frame bolted to the bottom of the seats. Jamie and Lucy jolted back, pushed into the rough fabric.
The train kicked up another gear and the pod bolted forward even faster. Donny was thrust violently back, grunting as his body struck the wall. Earlier, Donny had driven a sports car with incredible speed and acceleration, but it had nothing on this thing. It seemed to go faster and faster, never letting up.
Jamie felt the G-force first hand, forced into the welcoming embrace of his seat, pressure mounting. It was a struggle for him to even raise his neck off the headrest. He decided to relax and let the pod do what it would. There was nothing he could do to stop it now anyway. It sped faster and faster, to an unbelievable speed. The earth outside the windows blurred.
And then the pod went even faster.
Jamie didn’t know how long they’d been travelling nor how fast they were going. He certainly had no idea where this Denver City was. What he did know was they were heading at an unconscionable speed away from everything he had ever known and loved. Leaving their father behind to die, in the hands of the most duplicitous man he’d had the misfortune of meeting. His father was as good as doomed, while his children were being whisked, for all he knew, hundreds of miles away.
Tears streamed from his eyes. He wasn’t sure if they came bidden by the incredible speed or the fate of his poor father. His body couldn’t take it any longer, and he passed out.
68.
“WAKE UP.”
Jamie jolted upright, peering left to right, finding his bearings. He was still inside the small pod, Lucy and Fatty already awake and wandering around. He was the last to stir from his imposed slumber.
“Oh God,” he said. “It really happened?”
“Yes,” Donny said. “It wasn’t a nightmare. We’re living it.”
He had a large knot on the top of his head from where he’d struck the pod’s back wall.
“Are you all right?” Jamie said.
“I’m fine,” Donny said.
They were no longer moving. That was something. It was still pitch dark outside. When Jamie got up and wandered around, he found it hard to find his feet, needing to brace himself on the chairs.
“Take it easy,” Donny said. “The trip scrambled your brains. Get your bearings.”
“Where are we?” Jamie said.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Donny said. “Although, Denver City seems a pretty safe bet.”
“Denver City?” Jamie said. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“I saw it once, on an old map,” Donny said. “Then I heard it again a few days ago. I think the good doctor wanted me to know about this place. That’s why he mentioned it to me.”
“What are we supposed to do here?” Jamie said. “Something about a cannon? What was he even going on about?”
“I don’t care what he wants us to do here,” Donny said, chin jutting out. “I’m going to figure out how this pod works and get back to the City. Back to Dad.”
“I’m with you,” Jamie said.
He turned to the others.
“Are you all right?” he said.
“Fine,” Lucy said.
“Sick as a dog,” Fatty said. “Why do these things keep happening to us?”
“Because the universe hates us,” Donny said. “I guess we should be getting out of this fish tank to see where we are and how we can get back home.”
He opened the door and listened to the darkness. He, like the rest of them from the commune, had highly attuned senses. Their very survival depended on it. There was a single sound: a low drone, distant, from some unseen source. The wind. No hurried Rage footsteps, no reeking odour, only that endless drone.
Donny hopped outside and aimed his gun left, then right. Checking for hostile forces, whatever shape they came in. He shouldered his rifle and began probing at the pod.
“You guys give me a hand with this thing,” Donny said. “See if you can figure out how to make it go in reverse.”
Fatty was already walking away, to the fringe of the shadows.
“Where are you going, Fatty?” Jamie said.
“Taking a leak, if that’s all right with you,” Fatty said.
“Do it in the light so we can see you,” Donny said.
“You want to see me?” Fatty said. “Pervert.”
“So we can see you’re all right,” Donny said. “If you prefer to accidentally fall off a cliff, be my guest.”
“There’s no cliff around here,” Fatty said, opening his fly and relieving himself.
A healthy splatter of urine. The sound bounced off the walls, making it sound a lot louder.
“Can you guys feel anything?” Donny said. “Something that might open? A compartment with controls? Anything?”
“No,” Jamie said.
It was perfectly smooth and didn’t have much they could get hold of. Even if they did find the controls they would be complicated, and what did they know about computers?
“Uh, guys?” Fatty said, back still to them.
The continuous stream of water had ended.
“Will you hurry up and help us?” Donny said. “And at least wipe your hands on something.”
“I can’t,” Fatty said, still not turning around.
“Why not?” Donny said.
“Because a bunch of people are staring right at me,” Fatty said.
It wasn’t the strangest thing Fatty had ever said. It was his tone that really made their ears prick up.
“What?” Jamie said.
“And they’re armed,” Fatty said.
“Fatty, stop screwing around,” Jamie said.
“He’s not screwing around,” Lucy said.
Jamie first looked at Lucy, then in the direction she was looking in. Like an early morning mist, figures emerged on the edge of darkness. They were surrounded.
“The plot thickens,” Donny said.
69.
THE MEN wore suits, a little frayed around the edges, with clean shirts. Even a couple of top and bowler hats. The women wore full-length dresses with frilly lace at collar and cuff. They each carried weapons the like of which the commune members were very familiar with, as they still sported s
ome of their own. Swords, crossbows, axes, and knives. They wore blank expressions. Fatty slowly turned to face his friends, but daren’t move toward them for fear of upsetting their hosts.
Donny moved to grab his rifle. Jamie touched him on the arm to stay his hand.
“They’ve got Fatty,” he said under his breath.
Donny, with hesitancy, lowered his hand. It remained at his side, his muscles tight, ready to spring at a moment’s notice. Jamie searched the strangers’ faces and costumes, attempting to identify the leader. It was impossible to tell them apart. They looked the same.
“What do you want with us?” Jamie said out loud.
They stared at him. Unmoving. Maybe they didn’t understand what he was saying.
“Do you understand me?” Jamie said.
“We understand.”
The voice came from their left. Presumably from the figure who now took a step forward to stand beside Fatty.
“We mean you no harm,” Jamie said. “We don’t even know where we are.”
“You’re beneath Denver City,” the man said. “The Land of Light.”
Fatty eyed the obvious darkness.
“A bit misnamed, don’t you think?” he said.
The speaker had a distinguished face, thin, gaunt, and strong. He ignored Fatty’s attempt at levity.
“Welcome to Station,” he said. “I am the Speaker. Are you the Son?”
“The son?” Jamie said. “The son of who?”
“The Son of the Father,” the Speaker said.
Jamie glanced at Donny, asking with his eyes if he understood what was going on. Donny shrugged a shoulder.
“We don’t mean you any harm,” Jamie repeated, holding up his hands. “We want to get our pod to work so we can leave. We’ll never come here again.”
“You cannot leave if you are the Son,” the Speaker said. “You are the Promised One.”
Donny stiffened at that. Jamie placed a calming hand on him.
“We’re not promised,” he said. “We can’t be this Son you’re talking about.”
“You cannot decide that,” the Speaker said. “Only the Preacher can decide.”
“Preacher?” Jamie said.
“A holy man, I suppose,” Donny said. “Just what we need. We haven’t got time for this.”
“They’ve got Fatty,” Jamie said. “We can’t take the risk he’ll get hurt.”
“Damn your risk,” Donny said, stepping forward to address the men and women who surrounded them. “You want a promise? How about this.”
He held up his powerful rifle for them to see.
“I can slay all of you in seconds,” he said. “All you’ve got to do is say the word. My brother here tried to talk to you, tell you of our intentions. But if you won’t listen, maybe you will listen to my little friend.”
He raised his rifle at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The curved tunnel walls enhanced the explosions emitted from the end of his rifle. The people did not appear to be afraid.
They’ve heard guns before. They might even have their own.
“Don’t do anything too. . . rash, huh?” Fatty said.
He drew breath when one of the figures aimed her crossbow at him, hissing through her teeth.
“There’s no need for violence,” the Speaker said. “We only ask that you come with us. To speak with the Preacher.”
“Come where?” Jamie said.
“To our village,” the Speaker said.
“No deal,” Donny said. “Listen up, Bub. We intend on getting on this pod and heading back to where we came from. All within the next few minutes. If you think we have any intention of going anywhere with you, you’ve got another thing coming.”
Thwack!
Something snapped against something solid. Donny stiffened, sensing an impending attack. Jamie’s head shot up at Fatty. He had that same fearful expression on his face, but he hadn’t been shot. Next, Jamie’s neck swivelled to Donny and Lucy. They hadn’t been shot either.
Then what the hell made that noise?
“The door,” Lucy said. “The pod door shut.”
Worse than that, the clamps holding the pod in place released its grip with a hiss. The little pod was already beginning to slide along the rail. . . back in the direction of the City. Without them on it.
Donny chased after it.
“No!” he said. “No! Everybody! Get on! Jump on!”
He stretched in an effort to grab the pod. The locals parted, letting him pass. Try as he might, Donny could find no purchase. There was simply nothing to hold onto, no ledge, no hook. Even if there was, how were they supposed to stay on board when it travelled as fast as it did?
Haste had made Donny desperate. He wasn’t thinking clearly. The others were, which was why they hadn’t taken after the pod in the first place. And Jamie wasn’t about to let these people keep Fatty.
Donny, realizing the failure of his efforts, slowed to a stop and watched as the pod, the little ball of light shrink, growing smaller and smaller, speeding up with each passing second. Into the eternal dark.
70.
DONNY DIDN’T turn around until the little pod had taken most of its light—and hope—with it. Any chance they’d had of returning to the City soon departed along with the pod. Donny turned and headed back to the aggressive circle of strangers. He ignored them as he solemnly joined the others.
Donny knew more than the others about their location. He’d seen a map of the area once when a travelling salesman came to sell his wares. Donny had really wanted the map, to look at, ponder over, imagine the existence of other people in distant parts of the world. His father wouldn’t fork out for it and the salesman refused to reduce the price, so Donny took matters into his own hands.
He visited the seller every day he was in the commune. They sparked up a good relationship, the young Donny always fascinated by the man’s tales of adventure. He felt certain that, come the day of the salesman’s departure, he would bestow the map on Donny as a parting gift. A sign of friendship. He did no such thing and headed into the sunset with his wares on his back, never to be seen again. Donny’s only consolation was that he had a good memory, and had spent so much time pouring over the maps that he had already memorized a great deal of it.
He knew how far Denver was from Las Vegas. Dr. Beck had said they’d completed approximately half the tunnel, located beneath their City. Donny could therefore make a pretty good guess of the distance. And, although he didn’t like to admit it, Jamie was right. It was just too far for them to travel on foot.
“You think we should go with these people?” he said.
“Not if we can avoid it,” Jamie said.
“Then avoid it we shall,” Donny said, reaching for his rifle.
He grunted and jerked forward. He put an unsteady hand to the back of his head. His fingertips came away red. He turned around. Caught one of the strangers by the eye.
“You sorry son of a—” he managed before his eyes rolled back in his head and he hit the floor.
“Come quietly,” the Speaker said. “Or come like him.”
Several of the locals were already swinging their slings above their heads. Ready to release at a moment’s notice. Even if Jamie could reach his gun before they released he couldn’t hope to kill them all before one of their rocks knocked him unconscious too. And did he really want to massacre an entire village?
Jamie held up his hands. The locals closed on them, taking their weapons. The pod raced away, now no longer even a single point of light. It winked out, leaving them in total darkness.
“You have made a wise decision,” the Speaker said.
Had he? Jamie thought. Or had he taken the coward’s way out?
71.
IN THE shadow of the mountain that housed the City where Jamie and the others had made their stand against the Rages, was an area of the salt flats that had been unspoilt for centuries before Donny came along with his sports car.
He’d overturned the salt an
d left black tyre marks with wicked spinning rubber wheels. Invisible to the naked eye perched atop the mountain—which was just as well, as currently there were no eyes, naked or otherwise, upon the mountaintop—was an object discarded by the heavy-footed Donny.
A small black box of incredible power lay on the salt flat’s surface.
A Rage wearing dungarees, hampered by the fact it had only one leg, hopped across the desert. While the other Rages had been distracted by the obvious pulse in the distance, somewhere near the giant mound of dirt, this Rage had heard a roaring sound from this direction.
It was true Rages were primarily attracted by the loudest, biggest thing in any given area however, there was another, lesser-known attribute that guided their senses, equally true, equally valid. Rages were also attracted by the most recent distraction. A Rage’s mind was not a complex thing. Its senses had to balance between these two objective variants, and it was often fifty-fifty as to which direction it would head in.
And so now, as the creature reached the spot where the roaring had taken place—and having no concept of predicting where the noise might move in the future—the creature peered around, listening, and more importantly, sniffing.
There was no sign of the usual delightful stench of a living thing, its pores opening up and exuding a scent quite irresistible to any Rage. There was no such thing here. Just the dull dry wind that blew, forming tiny vortexes of salt and dust. Nature was bored, playing with itself.
Then it saw something; something so obvious that even a Rage could see it. A black box on the white desert floor. It had an acrid, unnatural smell about it. The Rage had never smelled anything like it before, and a Rage was nothing if not accidentally curious.
With nothing else to eat, the creature in dungarees got down on all fours and bit into it. It was hard. He broke a couple of teeth. He gnawed at it, making small indentations along the corners. The Rage was about ready to give up on it when it heard a noise.
Would this be the delicious meatsack he had heard before? No. It was another Rage. And it was coming for the black box. His black box.
After The Fall (Book 2): The City Page 13