by Eric Wood
His flat computer had fallen to the ground in the confusion; his glasses had been knocked askew on his face so that one lens hovered below his left eye, the other nearly above his right. His whole appearance was about as far from Elena's leather-clad Wilds warrior look as it was possible to get. Either Roosevelt had very different ideas on intimidation than she had expected, or there was something odd going on here.
Like her, Sam had obviously expected Roosevelt to send one of his more traditional agents to wait for them. Some big guy with an even bigger gun. Sam lowered his weapon slightly, unsure of how to proceed.
"If you came here to give us some speech about how Roosevelt still expects us to work for him, I'm not interested in... oh hell, what do you want?" He sighed and lowered the gun to his side, though he remained in his shooting stance, hoping to convey to Roosevelt's guy that he could easily re-raise the pistol at any moment.
"I know this one," Roach said. "The scientist." She narrowed her eyes at the young man. "The one with the tests. You should shoot him, Colony boy."
"No!" the young man said. "No, don't do that. I mean...please don't do that. I didn't come here to threaten anyone, or anything like that. I just want to talk."
"That's why you snuck in here to wait for us?" Sam asked.
"I didn't sneak in anywhere. I asked the woman outside if I could come in and wait, so I wouldn't risk anyone seeing me meeting with you."
"He's lying," Roach said. "Kill him."
Sam turned to look at her incredulously. "I don't know why you think I would possibly take orders from you."
Roach shrugged. "Fine, do what you want. Just don't blame me for your own dumb decisions."
"Roach..." Rend said, speaking for the first time in what seemed like ages. "This one was less harsh with me than the others. As kind as he was able, I believe. I think we should hear what he has to say."
"I agree," Abigail said. The boy — she couldn’t think of him as a man — seemed particularly poor at concealing his feelings. She had spent her entire life witnessing countless variations of human fear, and unless he was a truly exceptional actor his fear — of Sam’s gun, but also of something greater — seemed genuine. Hell, he was frightened just being here.
"Roosevelt doesn't know that you are here, does he?" she asked.
His eyes somehow widened even further; his whole body seemed to deflate. "He does not. I'd tell you I'm taking a great risk by even being here, but you've seen him, so you probably already know. I mean, you should."
Sam sighed. "If this is a trick, I'm going to be very disappointed. And displeased. What is your name?"
"Marcus," Abigail supplied when the boy failed to respond immediately.
"I'm going to be very displeased, Marcus." Sam looked around for a chair. Not finding one, he settled on an empty wooden box, pulling it over and sitting down in front Marcus. He leaned forward and looked the young man in the eye. "Let's hear what’s so important you would risk incurring the wrath of General Mustache."
"Okay, just give me a minute to catch my breath," Marcus said. He bent to retrieve his computer, moving slowly.
"It's alright, Marcus," Rend said. "Go slowly. No one here is going to harm you."
Marcus looked at Sam and then over to Roach, seemingly unconvinced by Rend's assurances. He took a deep breath and composed himself. "We have a problem," he said. "A big problem."
"Now see, I don't know what you mean by this 'we' talk," Sam said. "You're there, and we're over here. To be honest, there isn't much of a we, even on this side, so you'll have to explain why any of your problems are somehow our problems."
"I don't mean we as in this room," Marcus said. "I mean we as in this entire city."
"We were at the same meeting as you," Abigail said. "We already know about the Ravager army."
"That's not what I mean," Marcus said. "Well, okay, that isn't all I mean. The problem I'm talking about isn't the Ravager army, not in and of itself. If I'm right, and I usually am, things are about to go bad in Cheyenne, and they're going to go bad very quickly. As messed up as this is — as much of a long shot as this is — I think you are the only people who can help me stop what I think is coming."
The room stood in silence for a few moments while everyone processed Marcus's words. Finally, Sam spoke. "You seem pretty close to Roosevelt. I assume there's a good reason why you are talking to us, and not to him."
Marcus nodded. "I am close to Roosevelt, or as close as anyone is, these days. Unfortunately, Roosevelt can't help with this problem. Roosevelt is the problem."
"I could have told you that," Sam said, shrugging. "I figured that out sometime between when his soldiers shot at me for no reason and when he strong-armed me into betraying his fellow creepy crime lord."
"You did kind of bring that on yourself," Marcus said. "Not that I'm making any judgments. But those were the actions of a relatively calm and collected Roosevelt. These days, that version of him is in charge less and less. I'm worried once those Ravagers show up outside the walls, he's going to be gone forever."
"Again, I don't see how that's our problem," Sam said. "Besides, a Ravager army on your front step is going to make everyone a little crazy."
"It's not the army that's going to push him over the edge," Marcus said, shaking his head. He paused, trying to compose his thoughts. "Roosevelt's power has two foundations. He has his army, which you've seen, obviously, and he has his power plant. That's what keeps the lights on in this town, and it's how Roosevelt makes most of his money. The power plant runs on coal, and the coal comes from a mine about a quarter mile outside the walls. The walls might keep out the Ravager army, at least for a while, but —"
"The Ravager army will keep the miners inside the city," Abigail said. She understood immediately how bad that would be, and it reinforced her resolve to leave Cheyenne as soon as possible. She just had to make Sam see reason.
"That's exactly right," Marcus said. "No coal coming in means no power, and no money coming in to pay the soldiers. He'll lose any advantage he had over Ki, and he'll be completely exposed."
"So even with a giant horde of Ravagers ready to kill and devour them, Roosevelt and Ki would still rather fight each other?" Sam asked. "That's insane."
"I don't know about Madame Ki," Marcus said. "But Roosevelt, well… When that army shows up, it will cut off the routes to Roosevelt’s coal mines, and when that happens, he’ll lose his biggest source of power and money. The scales will tip in Ki’s favor, and that scares the Lawbringer more than any Ravager. His only choice will be to strike first. If the army shows up before we do something, the Ravagers won't have to burn Cheyenne; we'll do it ourselves."
"Well, that sounds...awful," Sam said. He sighed and rubbed at his face. His head ached, his stomach grumbling for a warm meal and his brain screaming for rest. He hadn’t slept – he hadn’t even had a chance to catch his breath – since before he had entered Roosevelt’s base. "I still don't see how we can help, though."
Marcus smiled. "I think that you four — especially you, Sam — are the only people who can help. Not only do both Ki and Roosevelt want you on their side, but you have connections outside the city. You can contact the Colonies, convince them to help us."
Sam shook his head, chuckling grimly. "A clever idea, but it won’t work. The Elders of my Colony want me dead, haven't you heard? Though God knows why; I certainly don't."
"Roosevelt may have...embellished the bit about them wanting you dead or alive," Marcus said. "The truth is, with as much influence as the Company has gained among his council recently, if they wanted to kill you Roosevelt wouldn't be able to stop them. The Colonies don't want you dead, Sam. They don't even really want you, per se, so much as they want whatever it is they think you took. That is what we can use."
"Wait a minute," Sam said. "Setting aside why I should trust you after you just admitted your people lied to me, how can you possibly know what the Colonies really want?"
"Well, I know computers," Marcus said. "T
he Company people in town send messages back and forth with the Colonies, bouncing them off some old satellite, and their encryption isn't nearly as strong as they think it is. When you talked to Roosevelt about that mysterious data drive, well, that shot their traffic through the roof. Whatever they think you have, they want it bad. If we offer them that in exchange for their assistance, we might be able to get them to come and help us, maybe even scare off the Ravager force completely."
Abigail shook her head. "That won't work." The Ravager army was led by Solomon, and a Colony force wouldn't scare him off. In fact, it would probably encourage him to attack, considering how much he hated them.
However…
"It might distract them, though," she said. "They might be more inclined to attack Colony forces than the city itself. Though I still think it's a bad idea."
"Deacon will look for the best fight he can get," Roach said. "If he thinks fighting another army will be more fun, he might go for it."
"That assumes there is a Colony army," Sam said, "and there isn’t one; none that I’ve ever heard about. I don't know what you think Colonies are, but they're not some hidden fighting force. They're called 'Survivor's Colonies' after all, not 'Army Colonies.'"
"I don't know how much they’ve shown you, Sam," Marcus said, "but I've learned quite a bit about the Colonies over the years, and I promise you they have quite the fighting force scattered around the area. It doesn't really surprise me that they kept this knowledge from you. They seem as obsessed with keeping secrets from their own people as they do the rest of us."
"And you want to ask this secret-hoarding, shadowy high-tech army for help?" Rend asked. "Sounds to me like we'd just be exchanging one threat for another."
"You've gone to 'we' awfully quick," Roach said. Rend shrugged.
"I'd prefer them to a civil war or an army of monsters," Marcus said. "No offense," he added, looking to Roach.
"Some taken," Roach replied.
"Look," Marcus said. "I know that you four have no reason to help me or this city. But I don't think you're bad people, and I don't think you want to let everyone here die. You haven't seen the best of this place: despite Roosevelt and Ki's lies, Cheyenne is a good city, and it deserves to survive.
"Now, I don't think Ki truly intends to set aside her ambitions for the common good, and I know Roosevelt doesn’t, so someone else will have to step up. I'm ready to, but I can't do it alone. But maybe with a Colonist, an evolved Howler and Ravager, and — forgive me for saying it — an actual, real-life Reaper beside me," his voice trembled as he spoke, "we might actually be able to save Cheyenne. So... what do you think? Will you four help me?"
Sam shook his head in disbelief. "You are truly insane, Marcus." He tucked the gun into the back of his waistband and leaned forward. "But, why don't you run us through your plan."
Marcus smiled. "Okay, the first thing we need to do is—"
30
Jacinta and her wife hadn’t been exaggerating when they said that the upstairs apartment was unfinished. If anything, they may have overstated things. While the ground floor of the farmhouse had been rebuilt and refurnished into something that might not have looked out of place in the Old World, the upper floor was a very different story. Most of the walls were gone, either knocked down or just crumbled away over the two decades since the Old World had fallen away. The studs remained, however, and they seemed to still be in good shape, so at least they weren’t in immediate danger of the roof coming down on them.
Multi-colored fabrics and semi-translucent plastic sheeting took the place of many of the missing walls, separating the area into a single wide living area, a small, maybe-functioning kitchen, and numerous smaller rooms that could function as bedrooms, assuming there were some mattresses or even sacks of straw somewhere around the place.
No doubt the pampered Colony boy was horrified by the conditions, but compared to what Roach was used to, this place was the height of luxury.
The sun had just begun to set in the west. Roosevelt’s tech jockey, Marcus, had left, wrapping a woolen cloak over his head and tapping out something on his computer to disguise his passing. Sam and the demon stood off to one side of the living room exchanging increasingly agitated whispers with one another. Rend, like Roach, was left to wait awkwardly while their two maybe-captors finished with their lovers spat.
“I don’t care what he said,” Abigail hissed, her voice briefly raising to a near-shout. Quieter — but not quietly enough, she added. “None of this is our problem.”
“If we leave them now,” Sam whispered back. “We’re no better than Ravagers ourselves. We’re no better than Deacon.”
“That is ridiculous. You are ridiculous. You’re going to get us both killed.”
“And what’s your plan? Just run forever?”
Roach had never had much use for mating or affection in her time living with her Ravager brethren. While others in her band were apt to pair off for the night or even in some extreme cases semi-permanently, Roach had been content with her weapons and her trinkets from her childhood. Sure, she had felt fleeting feelings of attraction for some of the other adolescents in her band, but never enough to risk all the messiness that would result from actually acting on those feelings. Other than her the occasional appreciation for certain Ravagers’ combat abilities, she had never felt anything resembling affection for any of her band, except for maybe Deacon. Those feelings, however, had been more of admiration than any true closeness, and anyhow look how that had turned out. Hurt, betrayal, and ruin.
Watching these two now only reinforced her opinion that she hadn’t missed out on anything. If that was what this was — two people who looked like they wanted to kill each other, yet too blinded by affection to throw the first punch — then she was certain she had made the right decision. These two looked like they made each other miserable.
Roach cleared her throat loudly. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I was kind of hoping one of you could hurry up and tell me what the rest of us are doing here. Because if I have to fight the girl to the death to get out of this room alive, I’d prefer to just get on with it.”
Both of their heads whipped toward her in unison. “Wait,” they shouted.
“Can we just agree that we’ll think about it for now?” Sam whispered to Abigail.
“If you’ll actually think about what I said,” she answered.
“Fine. And we’re agreed on…” Sam waved his hand vaguely toward Rend and Roach.
Abigail rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why we need to be friendly to them, but . . . whatever. Fine.”
“Great,” Sam said. He turned toward Rend and Roach. “Maybe let’s all have a seat. And I hope it goes without saying that nobody needs to fight to the death.”
“Well, that’s good news,” Rend said, smiling. He went and sat on the couch Marcus had earlier been occupying. After a moment of consideration, or maybe just spitefulness, Roach joined him.
Sam took his spot on the box facing them. Abigail moved to take a position behind him, her arms crossed in front of her. She leaned back against the wall and regarded them with a look that Roach didn’t think was entirely friendly.
“Alright,” Sam began “I know this isn’t anyone's idea of a . . . not-awkward situation, let’s say. We’re all in a strange place, and our last few days haven’t exactly been pleasant. On top of that, none of us know each other, and none of us have any particular reason to trust one another.”
“Funny how spending weeks being hunted like a dog by you two might not make me want to get all warm and cozy,” Roach said.
“Why would we hunt a dog?” Abigail spat.
“To be fair, you threatened to kill me first,” Sam said, “and you sort of implied you were going to eat me as well. So we’ve all done things we’re not proud of.”
“Speak for yourself,” Abigail said. “I’ve never felt guilty about putting Ravagers down.”
“Maybe let’s just ease up a bit?” Sam asked, wincing
. Turning back to Roach, he said, “let’s let bygones be bygones. Besides, it doesn’t seem like you are quite the same, um, person that you were before. It was that thing Deacon injected you with, wasn’t it?”
There wasn’t any reason to lie to him, besides simple stubbornness. He had been there, after all. In fact, he had been injected with the same thing, hadn’t he? He didn’t seem any different though. Maybe whatever it was didn’t affect sheep– it didn’t affect humans.
She shrugged. “You seem to know more about it than me. But . . . yes, I am different. More like you, I think. As embarrassing as that may be, considering all this.” She gestured toward Sam, up and down. Maybe I am a little stubborn, she thought, smiling.
Sam frowned at the insult but otherwise ignored it. “I wish I did know more,” he said. “But I do think it has something to do with that data drive you ran off with. That was why we were chasing you, incidentally. We weren’t planning on killing you or anything.”
Abigail scoffed.
“Well, we both weren’t planning on killing you. We do need that drive, however. Now more than ever. Please tell me you still have it.” He seemed to come to a frightening realization just then. “Please tell me you didn’t just throw it away some dozen miles back. Jesus, why didn’t I think of that possibility. Please tell me you didn’t do that.”
Roach laughed. “Relax, Colony Boy. I know where it is. Your woman is right about you being a fool.”
“She’s not—”
“I’m not his woman. Where is the damned drive?” Abigail demanded.
“You know, at some point, one of you guys is going to have to explain to me what exactly any of this means,” Rend said. He had pulled his legs up onto the couch and was sitting with them folded underneath him. His hands rested on his knees, palms up, with his thumbs and middle fingers pressed together. He looked frustratingly calm, all things considered. He didn’t even look sick at this point. He seemed to have recovered from what Roach was now calling the transformation far quicker than she had.