The Fire and the Free City

by Eric Wood

  I Somehow doubt it, Sam thought.

  "With us, everyone," Ki said, acknowledging the new group with a small nod. "We are on a tight timetable." She turned to the nearest of the new group. "What about our source? Have your people collected him yet?"

  The street soldier — a pale-skinned woman who had an elaborate set of scalp tattoos in place of hair — nodded to Ki. "I just got word of his arrival at the northwest tunnel. There was a complication, however." She leaned in closer to Ki and whispered something in her ear.

  Whatever she said got Ki's attention: the crime boss's eyes widened in surprise, and a small smile crept onto her lips. "Interesting. Bring them both. And obviously, keep them under a tight watch."

  The street soldier nodded and walked off to the side, talking into what looked like a handheld radio.

  "Have you heard from Abigail?" Sam asked Ki. "She and Roach —"

  "Traveled beyond the walls, in search of your mysterious data drive," Ki said, finishing his sentence. "I am aware, despite your considerable efforts to evade my sight. We located the two of them just before we recovered you: I have dispatched a team to collect them and bring them to us."

  Sam breathed a sigh of relief. "That's great," he said. He hoped Abigail didn't get the wrong idea and kill Ki's team. "Where exactly are we heading?" he asked.

  "Right here, as it happens," Ki said. They had come to a large but otherwise unremarkable stone building carved into an outcropping of cavern wall. It was on the edge of the lit portion of the Shadow Market, and it had no markings or exterior features beyond a single heavy door, which was flanked by two very tall, very hairy guards.

  Sam did a double take, and had to stifle a gasp, when he saw who the two guards were. Or rather, what they were. They were each about six-and-a-half feet tall despite the matching hunches of their upper backs. They both had exaggerated jaws and lips that puffed out like they were holding enormous bunches of chewing tobacco between their gums. Sam realized those bulges were teeth extending behind the pair's lips; he knew then that underneath their leather gloves he would find large, claw-like nails at the ends of their fingers. Ki wasn't exaggerating about having her own Infected. These guards were both Howlers.

  One of them wordlessly opened the door and the group filed in. Sam tried not to gawk; he took note that while Rend nodded in greeting to the nearer of the two Howlers, the Howler ignored him. Seeing Rend side by side with a Howler, Sam realized just how different he was. Unless you looked closely, Rend was nearly indistinguishable from a normal Uninfected. These two, however, though considerably less...beastly than the ones Sam had fought back in the Wilds, would not pass for Uninfected under any circumstances.

  "We found Abigail and the Ravager for the same reason we needed to regroup down here," Ki said, drawing Sam out of his reverie. "One of our agents was compromised, to put it delicately. As she knows the location of all our surface refuges, we needed to withdraw to safer ground."

  "Compromised?" Sam asked. Inside, the room looked a bit like an office back at his home Colony. It had nondescript tables and chairs, a whiteboard and a large projector screen. Ki gestured them forward, leading Sam and Rend toward a set of chairs to one side of the room.

  "Betrayed us, killed a number of my own people, and did her best to kill young Abigail," Ki said. "To put it a bit less delicately, Elena has double-crossed us, which I consider a more damaging blow than the outbreak of Infected above. Lucky for both you and me, I was not the only one who was betrayed today. Speaking of that —" she turned toward Hydra and raised a finger to get his attention. "How close are they?"

  "They are arriving now, ma'am. Under guard, just like you ordered."

  "Excellent. Bring them in. Sam, I believe you know young Marcus; I also think you have met his unexpected companion, and will be as eager to hear what he has to say as I am."

  The door on the far side of the room opened, and two dirty, bedraggled people were brought in. They looked like Sam imagined he himself looked: they had obviously been through a good bit of running and fighting. The first of the pair Sam recognized as Marcus. The second he also immediately recognized, though he was perhaps the last person Sam expected to see here.

  His hair was disheveled, and his uniform was torn, but there was no mistaking who it was.

  Roosevelt was here, and he didn't look the least bit happy about it.

  45

  "Those bastards betrayed me!"

  Roosevelt's shouts echoed off the room's smooth stone walls, which almost gave the impression there was a small crowd immediately agreeing and bellowing along with everything he said. Among this crowd, Roosevelt was no doubt going to have a hard time finding a sympathetic ear.

  "Calm yourself, Roosevelt," Ki said, her voice low and confident, in contrast to her counterpart's furious roars. She had set aside her weapon when they entered the room, and she was now standing near Sam with her arms crossed, regarding Roosevelt with a calm, even expression. "Our time is short, and you have a lot of explaining to do."

  "Explaining?" Roosevelt spat, straightening and taking a heavy step toward Ki. Immediately a handful of the room's larger occupants moved threateningly toward him, and he wisely stepped back and slumped against a table. After his anger subsided, he looked very tired; to Sam he almost seemed to shrink in size, like a deflating balloon.

  He sighed. "My own people. They turned their guns on me and ran me out of my own damned citadel. Like a beaten damned dog."

  "So none of this —" Ki gestured up toward the surface, frowning, "— was your doing? That seems a convenient excuse."

  Roosevelt laughed weakly. "If I was lying, why the hell would I come down here myself? That would be an awfully elaborate deception, Ki. Even for you."

  Ki thought about it for a few moments. "No, I suppose that doesn't sound like you. We will take you at your word, at least for the time being. Now, please explain what happened on your end of all this."

  "It was those Company bastards," Roosevelt said. "It had to be. None of my lieutenants would’ve dared something like this on their own, and if they were plotting among themselves, I would have found out. Marcus, of my eight lieutenants how many do we know are still alive?"

  The room's focus shifted to Marcus, who looked up from his tablet, surprised by the sudden attention. "Ummm...according to our latest reports...Simmons, Hughes, and Wing were killed in the citadel fighting on our side, Remington and Hayes were killed fighting for the opposition —"

  "Traitors!" Roosevelt roared. "Call them what they are."

  "Of course, they died fighting for the traitors. Doctor Gottfried and General Fitzhugh we know were leading the oppo — the traitorous forces, and at last report had consolidated command in your office."

  "I will carve the skin from their bones," Roosevelt growled.

  "That just leaves General Westbrook unaccounted for," Marcus finished.

  "I don't believe Westbrook would turn on me," Roosevelt said, seemingly to himself. To Sam, the names of the lieutenants were meaningless, but he noticed that Rend's ears seemed to perk up at mention of Dr. Gottfried’s name. At that moment, Rend looked as close to angry as Sam could ever remember seeing him.

  "And why do you think this has to do with the Company?" Ki asked.

  "I should have never listened to them," Roosevelt muttered. "They came asking for help, offering their services at a discount...I should have known it was too good to be true. Every step of the way that oily one-eyed bastard took more control, made more decisions himself, and somehow convinced me those decisions were my own. How did it go so wrong..."

  "Douglass," Ki said, trying to refocus Roosevelt's attention. "Please, we need you with us if we are going to plan our next move properly."

  "It was those damned kids," Roosevelt said, waving his hand vaguely toward Sam and Rend. "Before they even showed up at the gates, the Company knew they were coming — they must have — and were already positioning themselves to get everything they needed out of them. They wanted samples from
the one with Howler blood, and the Ravager’s blood as well. Said they knew people that would pay good money for the data, that it would finance my final push to take over the city." He laughed. "I guess I can tell you that now, Ki. It's not like you didn't know my ultimate designs, they're the same as yours."

  Ki nodded in acknowledgment.

  "They kept an eye on that other one, too. The one the Colonies wanted. They kept him safe and under surveillance. The only reason I agreed to pass up that fat bounty was their plan to give you the fake disc with the worm on it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that didn't work out as I expected either. The last straw was giving them access to my data networks." He patted Marcus on the shoulder. "Marcus here told me I shouldn't, but like the damned fool I am, I let myself be fooled by big promises. We were going to lose the coal, Ki; you have to know that. We still are. I needed a quick victory to save the city, and the Company said with full access to the networks they could give me a surprise attack. It was a surprise, alright. I should have known something was wrong when Fitzhugh pushed so hard for the plan. The man's never shown a bit of initiative his whole career...until that moment. How could I not have seen it?"

  "It appears we've all failed to see a great many things," Ki said. "What is important now is —"

  "Um, sorry, I hate to interrupt," Marcus said, raising a couple shaky fingers into the air. "But I don't think this can wait." He was staring down at his tablet with wide, frightened eyes. Ki nodded to him and he continued. "I've been trying to keep up with what feeds we still have access to. One of the exterior cameras is showing...well, it looks like an army just showed up on our doorstep."

  "So the Ravagers are already here," Ki said. "I had hoped...hoped we still had some time."

  Marcus cleared his throat. "Well, yes and no, ma'am. Sir. I mean...Madame. I don't believe the timing could be a coincidence; the odds are just too great. But the army, well..." He pointed to the projector screen on the wall. "Does that thing work?"

  Ki gestured to one of her people, who retrieved a remote and turned on the screen. Marcus tapped at his tablet a few times and the image transferred to the projection. It was indeed an army, its front line positioned at the edge of a forest atop a gently sloped ridge. Sam recognized immediately the flag flying at the column's head.

  "This isn't a Ravager army," Marcus said.

  "It's a Colony army," Sam finished. "It's my Colony's army."

  46

  Sam stared in stunned silence at the Colony army on the projector screen. The rest of the room reacted similarly. It seemed no one quite understood what the image meant, and even Ki and Roosevelt didn't have anything to say about it for a long while.

  Finally, it was Roosevelt that spoke. "Well, this has to be good news, right? I mean, under normal circumstances, seeing a whole mess of those fancy mole-men outside our gates would just about ruin my day. But it’s got to be better than a Ravager army, right? And last I heard we still have one of those bearing down on us. We could use any help we can get."

  Sam looked over at Marcus. He’d come to them, had wanted Sam to contact Elder Jed and ask — beg, really — that the Colonies send relief forces to Cheyenne. However, Marcus looked as surprised as anyone at the Colony army's sudden appearance, and he certainly didn't look happy about it. He glanced rapidly back and forth from the projector screen to his tablet, furiously tapping at his device while turning an unsightly green color, like he was about to throw up. Sam couldn't blame him; there was no logical reason why that army should be here.

  And yet, here they are, Vincente's voice said. Jed came, and leading an army at that. Why are they here? And what is their plan?

  It was a good question. The size of the Colony force was many times larger than anything the Black Hills Colony could field by itself. It had to be a combined effort of multiple Colonies from all over the Great Plains, plus a huge number of Wilds mercenaries. Sam recognized the white and pale gray Colony uniforms many of the soldiers on the screen wore, but he also saw old, mismatched overcoats on others. There were a couple armored Old World military vehicles near the center of the front line, next to his Colony flag; cobbled-together and re-purposed cars and trucks lurked near the army's fringes, vehicles that clearly did not originate from any Colony motor pool. It would take considerable time to put a force like this together, much less march it all the way to Cheyenne. Whatever was happening, it had been in the works for a while. There had to be a connection to the chaos Company forces had wrought within the city.

  Madame Ki seemed to have the same idea. "I don't believe this force is here to help," she said. "As young Marcus said before, the timing of their arrival is extremely suspect. Furthermore, we all know about the long-standing, if informal, connection between Company mercenaries and the Old World Colonies. All of this has the smell of a Colony plot about it. How secure are the city gates?"

  "We lost contact with all our forces soon after the traitors played their hand," Roosevelt said. "Still, as best we can tell, they only represent a small portion of my overall forces, and last we checked," — he looked down at Marcus, who nodded briefly to him — "they were limited to the citadel itself. If we hadn't been locked out of our damned network, I'd know more."

  "We will need to figure that out for sure, and work to reestablish communication among what forces we still have."

  "That we have?" Roosevelt said. His tone was more surprised than angry, and Sam wondered if he was finally beginning to understand how bad of a situation this was. "Is it 'we' now, Ki?"

  "Once we establish the intentions of this Colony army and secure the safety of the city as a whole, I am more than happy to go back to trying to kill one another. But until that time, yes, I believe it is imperative we work together."

  "I...fine, we have a deal," Roosevelt said. "So, step one, re-establish comms. I believe that’s a logical place to start."

  At that moment they were interrupted: the room's outer door flung open. Roach came in first, holding a bloody bandage to her shoulder. Behind her emerged the rest of the group, two of them carrying a barely conscious Abigail between them.

  Abigail could tell the mercenaries planned to lay her on an empty table in the corner and be done with her. She hadn't come this far, her bones rattling in agony at every bump and tip of the dune buggy, to just be dumped in a dark corner like a bag of turnips.

  "A chair is fine. I'm weak, not dead."

  The one holding her up on the left, the one with half her face covered in black grease-paint, shrugged and gestured toward a nearby empty seat. They moved toward it, and with surprising gentleness, turned Abigail and set her down in a hard-plastic chair. It was a good thing they had: despite her protestations, Abigail doubted she had recovered enough strength yet to even sit down on her own. It was bad enough she herself knew how little strength she had left; she didn't need everyone else here to know it as well.

  And what an odd group it was. Madame Ki, along with one of her giants, she expected to see. Rend was here as well, along with a motley group from Ki's coterie of thugs, cut-purses, and killers. She noted that a couple of them seemed to be Ravagers, which was interesting but less surprising since she had passed the two Howlers at the door. She had not, however, expected to see Roosevelt here — and apparently here of his own volition — nor had she expected to see his young computer expert Marcus. Their presence lent some credence to Elena's taunting statement that she was, in fact, not working for Roosevelt. Ideally, someone here could give her clarification on that particular detail. Hopefully she could get some clarification on a lot of things, but at the moment all that was far less important to her than the room's final occupant, who had just rushed breathless to her side.

  "Abby, God; are you alright?" Sam asked, crouching down and putting a hand gently to her, just below her ear. "What happened?"

  She laughed weakly. "Oh, you know, just a minor case of a bullet to the neck. I'll be fine. And don't call me Abby."

  Sam smiled, though he still looked frightened, wh
ich in turn frightened her. "Right, I forgot," he said. "Wait, did you say you were shot in the neck?" He turned her chin upward a fraction of an inch and looked at her neck. She was just about to tell him to stop inspecting her like some kind of science experiment when he spoke. "Shot? In the neck. With a bullet?"

  "Well, it wasn't a squirt gun," she said. "It stopped bleeding, but there should still be a hole there somewhere. From the bullet."

  Sam laughed, weakly, the skin of his face ashen. He suddenly leaned in and kissed her with a passion she hadn’t known him capable of. He was warm and he in turn warmed her, and for a moment she forgot that she’d been lying half dead with a bullet hole just beneath her chin. She forgot everything but him.

  After what could have been a second or an hour he pulled back, his cheeks now flushed, his face a mixture of terror and relief. He brushed a finger lightly against her neck and she winced, more so because his fingers were cold than any sort of pain.

  "Sorry," Sam said. "You should see your neck."

  "Is it bad?" she asked. One more scar wasn't the end of the world, sure, but a permanent fist-sized pockmark in the neck was no one's idea of a beauty mark.

  "No, that's not what I meant. It's the opposite of bad. You've got a tiny pink welt — more like a spider bite than a bullet wound. It's amazing."

  "Well, it doesn't feel amazing," Abigail said, rolling her eyes. "But I'm glad that you're okay as well. Now, maybe you can tell me what exactly is going on here?"

  "It's a long story," Sam said. "The short answer is things have gone all to hell. Abigail leaves for an hour, and the whole city falls apart: this place can't run without you."

  They both laughed at that.

  47

  "I think I have something."

  Marcus's voice cut through the din of a half-dozen conversations that had sprung up at Abigail's group's arrival. Even with the majority of Ki's soldiers, mercenaries, and cutpurses dispatched to combat the Plague-Heads, the improvised underground command center felt almost oppressively overcrowded. Sam figured it was due to the low ceilings. In any case, the room went immediately quiet when Marcus spoke, all faces turning toward the group's youngest member.