Waki raised the radio again. “Rex, do you see any signs of pursuit?”
“Three pickup trucks and three motorcycles, so far.”
“Damn.” She pounded her palm on the steering wheel.
“Keep driving,” Rex reminded her as his voice clicked off.
Her eyes darted between her side mirrors and the expressway curving around to the right. They reached seventy miles per hour when the Winslow folks struck. They formed a line of three pickups across the road, and the people in back stood and fired over their truck cabs. Seven or eight guns pumped rounds at Chinle’s two pickups.
The Chinle folks had reinforced their tailgates with extra pieces of metal, and it would take a direct hit from a powerful weapon to pierce the shell. They placed their rifles over the tailgates and returned fire, throwing lead in the other direction.
Waki thought that would back the Winslow folks off, but they charged in doing more than eighty. A Winslow truck flew up beside their black one. Winslow and Chinle folks rose at once, firing at each other with only ten yards of space between them.
Waki cried out when two of her people fell into the truck bed, only to have another rise in their place. The snaps of rifle fire continued, ripping steel and flesh apart.
Josiah took careful aim at the driver and began popping off shot after shot,
“You’re in the way,” Waki shouted. “I can’t see.”
The team captain ignored her, adjusted himself to the side, and fired off two more rounds. “Got him!” he cried excitedly.
The Winslow truck slewed to the shoulder, and a second pickup roared up to take its place. They unleashed a volley, but Rex and his people in their red GMC fired at them before they could pull even, stitching bullet holes up the driver’s side door.
That truck banked left and rolled hard, flipping people into the air and sending them scattering across the pavement.
The third Winslow truck backed off, and that’s when Waki’s rig rounded the bend, losing sight of Rex.
The two semi-trailer trucks were alone for a full minute, the road stretching ahead and passing beneath their wheels. She slowed to sixty, forcing Ron to do the same.
There was no sign of their pickups anywhere.
She lifted the radio to her mouth. “What’s the status back there, Rex? We can’t see you.”
A ten-second pause followed, filling Waki’s heart with terror and dread. Her palms gripped the wheel. Sweat dripped down her face, and she licked upward with her tongue, tasting her own salt and fear.
“The other pickup is stalled,” Rex finally said. “Going back for them.”
“Be careful, be careful, be careful,” she whispered, patting her palm on the wheel, obsessed with her mirrors.
As time passed, Waki’s eyes stung with tears, and her heart rose in her throat, beating against her windpipe. She could never live with herself if she lost all those people. The trip itself wouldn’t have been worth it. What was the use in scavenging if they continued losing good fighters? She knew the answer was to save the lives of thousands. Still, it was hard to accept.
The radio popped. “We got them,” Rex said, as if it was something he routinely did. “All safely aboard. Catching up now.”
She released a huge sigh, her heart settling back into her chest. “I saw two people go down. What’s their status?”
“We’ve got four wounded,” he replied. “One pretty bad. But I think he’ll make it. None dead.”
As the rigs hit a straightaway, Rex’s GMC pulled into view, catching up quick. His truck cab was packed with people. Those remaining in the pickup bed changed positions as they provided first aid to the wounded with the wind whipping around their heads.
She lifted the radio. “Let’s stop up ahead and transfer the wounded to the rigs. We can administer aid better from here.”
“Roger that, Waki. Good work.”
She placed the radio in her lap and shook her head, grinning wildly. “Yes!” The cry tore from her throat, and she pumped her fist in the air. “Yes, Josiah. We did it!”
*
Hours later, the scavenging team pulled into the North Rim camp to great cheers. She and Ron backed their rigs to the unloading point, and workers threw the back doors open to reveal the wealth of goods they’d taken from the Winslow stores.
There were several thousand cans of food, powdered drinks and fruits, more seeds, infant products, motorcycle and car parts, tires, and medical supplies in back.
She popped her door and climbed from the rig, legs shaky and near useless from sitting so long. She wobbled away from the truck, hands on her hips as the late evening sun dipped toward the horizon.
A cold wind whisked across the desert floor, sending chills down her spine. Josiah and Tyler got out behind her, patted her on the back, and went to help with the unloading process. Ron Stone walked over from his rig to congratulate her.
“Great driving,” he said with a gap-toothed smile.
“I’m still having some trouble with turns,” she frowned.
“But you’re learning fast,” Ron pointed out. “You will be better on the next run.”
“Thanks. And good job to you, too. You were right on point.” She shook her head. “I didn’t think we could pull off two truckloads, but here we are.”
“Here we are,” Ron agreed, grinning wider. “I’m going to go sit down for about twelve hours. See if I can scrounge up a beer or a shot of homemade moonshine. Let me know when you’re ready to hit the road again.”
“Will do,” Waki said.
Ron held out his arm, and she clasped it before the older man walked away.
She turned and looked at the scrub land surrounding her. Guards stood by their pickup trucks on the side of the road, rifles hanging from shoulders or resting across the hoods of their vehicles. She was proud of her people. They were growing tougher by the day. While they were wary of threats from all directions, they gazed toward Chinle the most.
It had been their home but wasn’t anymore. Part of her was almost fine with it. They were better off in the canyons and rediscovering the old ways of life. Maybe they could revive the Navajo language and teach it exclusively.
In truth, she only knew a little herself. She’d tried at various points in her life, but the lure of the outside world had drawn her away. She’d gone to college and lived in many parts of the country. She had a few relationships with men that mostly went nowhere. Moe didn’t know any of it.
All her attempts at a life off the reservation had failed. She’d lost touch with her family and caused irreparable damage to her own heart.
Her coming home and driving her brother’s rig felt like an atonement. But instead of lightening her spirit, the wound only opened more, showing her how wrong she’d been. She might never redeem herself, but it was a start. It was a path she could follow.
Deputy Whalen came up with a wide grin on his face. “This is incredible, Waki. A beautiful bounty.”
She turned her head and wiped away a tear. “Thanks. We didn’t lose a single person.” She glanced where Sage Denetdeel and her nurses pulled the wounded out of her truck cab. One man screamed and clutched his stomach as they lowered him down, curbing Waki’s enthusiasm. “But, we have some injuries, unfortunately.”
“Those will happen,” Whalen shook his head as he watched them carry the man away.
“I don’t like it,” Waki frowned.
They walked around to the truck’s rear and watched people unloading the goods into carts and ATV baskets. They drove them to a platform perched on the edge of the canyon where a second crew offloaded the supplies.
“We have a pulley elevator system now,” the deputy said, pointing. “It’s primitive, but it gets the job done. We don’t need to drive supplies to the basin anymore. It saves a lot of fuel and time.”
“That’s amazing,” she nodded.
“Progress,” the former rancher gave a confirming nod. “It’s amazing how much we’ve accomplished in so short a time.”
“How many are sick?” she asked suddenly. She’d been so busy with organizing the scavenging runs that she hadn’t kept up with things in the canyon. “Or do I even want to know?”
“It’s a lot,” Whalen confirmed, his voice tensing. “Six hundred and ten people drank the tainted water. They’re all showing signs of illness. Some are handling it better than others. Some have died.” The man looked down and kicked at the dirt. “My own wife is very ill.” He sighed and folded his arms.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I feel the spirit world hanging over us like a dark pall.” He gripped himself tighter. “Many will die soon.”
“Ten days perhaps? A week?”
Waki nodded as she stood by the deputy’s side. She gazed out toward the east where her brother had flown several days ago. Her heart went out to him, and she said a silent prayer for his safe flight and swift journey. This cure they hoped for seemed so far away, an impossible distance over a hostile land. But if anyone could do it, it was Moe.
“Come home to us soon, brother. We need you.”
Chapter 33
Kim, Redpine Facility, Little Rock, Arkansas
Kim reported for work the following morning, and it struck her how much of a job it had become. Not that it was a bad thing. If anything, it gave her a sense of purpose and regularity.
She arrived early, as usual, checking into the lab and taking her desk seat. Flipping on her computer monitor, she reviewed the overnight testing on Redpine’s advanced modeling software. Created to replace human testing, the program ran thousands of probabilities based on blood type and DNA makeup, throwing out warnings and autocorrecting to eliminate the potential for serious symptoms.
Kim ran down the data points, reviewing the corrections the Branch software had made. “Not bad,” she murmured to herself, sipping on her coffee.
Bonnie arrived at her usual time, wearing her lab coat, skirt, and pumps. Her red hair hung loose to her shoulders, but she looked less than chipper.
“How does it look?” she asked as she powered up her computer.
“Amazing,” Kim replied. “Many of the corrections the software made are brilliant. They would have taken months for human testing to work out.”
“That’s why we love it,” the chief scientist gave a half smile.
“It’s disappointing we didn’t know about this place sooner,” Kim said, toggling through the model images on the screen. “If Burke would have just...” She bit her own words off. “Sorry, I’m lost in my thoughts. He’s crucial to your work here. You probably resent that we hate him so much.”
“That’s not it at all,” Bonnie said.
Kim waited for the woman to elaborate, but Bonnie opened the Branch software and began checking errors.
“You’re just going to leave that hanging out there?” Kim asked with a half-smile.
Bonnie turned a cold stare on her. “We don’t resent you at all. If anything, we sympathize with you. You have to trust that Burke is important to us. We want to make your serum and vaccine, and have you return him to us.”
Kim watched the woman, deciding if she’d take the chance or not. She’d talked about it with Bryant and Jessie, and they’d given her the go-ahead to do whatever she felt was necessary to ensure Redpine’s cooperation.
“I’m going to be honest with you.” Kim shifted, speaking slow and calculatedly. “We know Burke very well. We know how manipulative he is. The way he holds things over people...” She let the implication hang.
Bonnie stopped what she was doing, turned in her seat, and narrowed her eyes.
“We can see there are no other children here but our own,” Kim continued. “Nancy said so herself. That means that either they didn’t make it, or they’re being held somewhere.”
Bonnie’s eyes teared up, and she seemed like she wanted to say something but shut her lips.
“I’m sorry.” Kim shook her head. “That was a bad way to put it. What I meant was we think Burke may be holding your loved ones somewhere. Making you do things you might not want to do. We can help you.”
Bonnie was already shaking her head. “You can’t help us, even if we could trust you. He has the upper hand. We just have to get him back from you, prove our loyalty, and hope he’s merciful.”
“I’ve seen Burke be and do a lot of things,” Kim said, “but merciful was not one of them.”
“I know. That’s why I can’t sleep at night. I almost wish we could have her funeral and be done with it.”
“Who?” Kim asked gently.
“My granddaughter,” the woman answered in a quiet, shaky voice. “I know we need to stay hopeful, but it’s hard.”
“I understand,” Kim said. “You want it to be over, but you can’t let it go.”
“Not until I know what happened to her for sure.” Bonnie sighed. “My worst fear is that Burke will die, and I’ll never know if he was lying to us, or if he really did have her.”
“Jessie thinks the facility is in California. Do you agree?”
Bonnie shrugged. “I went to one of his retreats when I first worked for him. It was a nice place in California. We all assume he’s keeping people there.”
“Maybe General Miller can send a team--”
“It will only get them killed,” the scientist shook her head sadly. “But I appreciate the concern. We know where you stand with Burke. You know where we stand with him, too. There’s not much else to say.”
She wanted to ask if they had plans to assault Wing 3 and forcibly take their prisoner, but she held back. If they tried anything, Jessie would know right away. No sense in pressing the issue.
They had an uneasy truce, and Kim needed to preserve it.
She turned and stared at the vaccine models on her screen. “You know what? Why don’t we forget about everything and throw ourselves into our work? The faster we get this done, the better.”
“Work is my favorite thing to do,” Bonnie grinned.
The women began picking apart testing data, working through lunch and into the late afternoon. They compiled, re-compiled, and made corrections to the formula. Three hours later, they ordered twenty vaccine vials from Max.
And as they sat talking about a treatment program, Max brought their first completed batch of serum. Kim opened the case and stared at the neat vials of crystal-clear liquid, different from the cloudier fluid she and Paul had made. It looked perfectly purified.
She slammed the case closed and stood. “Walk with me.”
The pair got up and left the lab. They took the elevator to Wing 3 and stepped off. As they passed through the rec room, Kim saw Jessie having a meal with Dex. She held up the case in triumph and gestured for her to follow. She gave the soldier a kiss on the cheek and excused herself from the table. The three marched down the hallway to Room 30.
Kim buzzed the touch screen, and Garcia responded. “Who is it? What’s your business?”
“It’s Kim. We’re here to give Burke a dose of the new serum.”
“All right.”
The door slid open, and the trio slipped inside.
Kim barely glanced at the former CEO as she placed the case on the desk and prepared two syringes with what she’d estimated to be the standard dosage.
Bonnie talked while she worked. “Now, Burke. We’ve put together a clean serum that will reduce your Asphyxia symptoms by at least ninety percent. And you should have little to no side effects.” The woman laughed with professional grace. “We really put some time into this, sir. I think you’ll be pleased.”
After Kim prepared the syringes, she turned to see Jessie with her arms folded across her chest, glaring at Burke from the other side of the room.
Kim held up her hand with the first syringe, but he stared at it like it was moldy pizza.
“How do I know it isn’t poison?” he asked.
Kim sighed. Like with Savannah, she prepped a spot on her arm while Jessie came to tie off her arm. Then she injected herself. After placing a
bandage over the prick point, she capped the used syringe and put it behind her.
She raised the second syringe and shook it gently.
“Like I could actually stop you anyway,” Burke said, indignantly, putting out his chain-heavy arms to expose a forearm.
Kim injected him and backed away, returning the used syringe to the case.
“There you go, sir,” Bonnie said. “We’ll have our first batch of vaccine for live testing in a day, then you’ll be on your way to leading Redpine.”
Burke retreated into his corner and gave the woman a brief nod.
Kim hated that Bonnie had to snivel like that, and she wanted to punch the man in the face rather than give him an ounce of respect. The important thing was that she may have regained some of Bonnie’s trust.
“Thanks, Garcia,” she said, flipping the case lid down and turning to the door. “Ladies.”
They walked into the hallway and waited for the doors to slide shut behind them.
“We just need to see how everyone takes to the serum.” Kim nodded to Jessie. “You can be next. If it’s good, we’ll place our big order.”
“One step closer,” Bonnie agreed.
*
It was going to be a late dinner. 10:00 PM late. Bishop wanted the lasagna, and Kim planned on having the roasted chicken and broccoli. She undid the pin in her hair and let it fall around her shoulders in an exhausted mess.
She was tired and hungry. Hangry, some people called it, and she wanted to eat something before she snapped at someone.
“That’s how it goes when you’re trying to save the world,” she murmured to Weissman on her way past the guard desk with exaggerated agony. “Long, lonely, hungry work.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the medic responded, though he probably had no idea what she was talking about. He buried his nose in his tablet.
She strolled into the cafeteria and heard the sound of video game noises playing on low. Kim continued to the rec room and peeked her head inside. While they’d set a curfew, many of the older kids pushed it and tried to play later. The adults expected it and addressed the instances as needed.
Spore Series | Book 5 | Torch Page 26