The Gatherer Series, Book 1

by Colleen Winter

  She saw a white stucco ceiling, framed photos on white walls, a lamp with a decorative shade. It was all encased in a muffled quiet, as if she were sealed in a cocoon with the stench of her own body overlain by the smell of coffee brewing. Her stomach dipped with a craving for the bitter liquid, her mouth so dry her throat caught when she swallowed.

  The sound of voices came from the direction of the coffee, one angry, the other calmer, appeasing.

  “She’s awake.”

  She startled at the woman’s voice close behind her head, older, without a trace of warmth. She craned her neck to see who it was, but the woman was beyond her view.

  There came a scraping of chairs and footsteps on tiles, then muted on carpet. A man loomed above her, sporting slicked back black hair, a bushy beard, and a tired determination. She would have moved back if she weren’t strapped down. It was the farmer from the railroad tracks, facing down a train with a hunting rifle the last time she had seen him.

  “We meet again.”

  He sat next to her cot. The second man was younger, with rosy cheeks and a long mane of tangled blonde hair held back by a pair of glasses perched on top of his head. He held a tablet in his hand.

  “Sorry to snatch you like that, but we had no other choice.”

  A kidnapper that started with an apology. How quaint.

  The woman came into view behind the farmer, and any quaintness vanished. It was the woman who had carried the torch outside the train, her robot-like blankness setting Maria on edge. She had seen it in soldiers on patrol, too broken to engage with the world, and dangerous in their willingness to carry out any order regardless of consequences.

  “Your fever’s broken and the swelling in your leg has gone down. Dorian looked after it.”

  Maria recoiled from the thought of the woman messing with her leg while she’d been unconscious.

  “We should have you up and walking by tomorrow.”

  “Might be difficult strapped to a stretcher.”

  The bearded man started to undo a buckle at her side and the pressure on her thigh loosened.

  “Don’t.”

  Dorian moved to stop him. He pushed her hands away. There was an intimacy there, not of lovers, or husband and wife, but something shared.

  “She isn’t going anywhere.”

  Maria flexed her toes, feeling the tight skin around the wound. Could she run if she had to?

  The straps loosened one by one before he lifted them from her body. Neither the boy nor Dorian offered to help, wary to come close as if she were a rabid tiger about to be unleashed.

  When the final strap fell away, she struggled to sit up. She wasn’t as strong as she had hoped. The bearded man supported her back through a wave of dizziness.

  “Can I get some water?”

  Slowly, to let everyone know she wasn’t anyone’s servant, Dorian moved towards the source of the coffee. There was the easy, tantalizing sound of water rushing into a sink. The man turned his head to the boy.

  “Let them know she is awake.”

  The boy tapped rapidly into the tablet.

  Her cell was someone’s living room, a plump white sofa and chairs filling the space, and sheer gauzy curtains obscuring a bay window. Her stretcher had been laid across a coffee table and the house was too warm.

  She drank deeply when Dorian returned, the taste of chlorine sharper than the clear earthiness of the water she and Storm had drank.

  A big screen covered one wall, the control panel for the house’s monitoring system glowed in the hall, and somewhere upstairs an electric motor whirred. Anxiety gathered until she reminded herself that Storm wasn’t there and had most likely left the city. She couldn’t blame her, now that she had seen Storm’s suffering up close.

  The man took the glass and rested it on an end table. If this was someone’s living room it wasn’t Dorian’s, the white sterility not matching the woman’s stony broodiness.

  “Can I go now?”

  The man extended his hand towards the foyer and the exit. Like pulling a band aid off, she swung both legs over the side. Her bare feet touched soft carpet as spikes of pain burst from her calf and an icy chill spread like cold rain down her back. Black spots swam before her. With both hands she lifted her injured leg back onto the stretcher. She closed her eyes against the pain and to block out Dorian’s spiteful smile.

  “How did you do it?”

  Maria opened her eyes.

  She and Storm had been linked inextricably to the Three Rock’s Gatherer’s destruction like some kind of miracle avengers. She could have laughed that anyone thought she had the brains to manage it.

  “You got the wrong person.”

  “Yes, we understand that.”

  Maria’s pride rankled.

  “But we thought it best to take both of you.”

  Maria levered up onto her elbows.

  “Is she here?”

  The bearded man watched her coolly, more calculatingly that she had given him credit for.

  “She will be soon.”

  Maria tried to imagine how long Storm would last in the overlapping fields. There wouldn’t be a safe place for her.

  “You can’t bring her here.”

  Something in the way the boy turned away and a darkening of Dorian’s blank face told Maria that in some way Storm’s arrival was controversial. Perhaps they hadn’t all thought it was a good idea. The boy showed Dorian something on his screen. A Bluetooth device bulged from inside his ear.

  “That isn’t your decision.”

  The feeling of it was so familiar, of decisions being out of her hands. She’d once had such faith in that process and the comfort that as long as you obeyed the orders it would all work out. She had obeyed every single one until they had stopped her and Havernal from investigating the evidence around the Gatherer’s health effects. A directive that had come from higher up, as though they were completely uninterested in what they had found.

  “Killing her isn’t going to help you.”

  The man remained still, his gaze lowered as if caught by a powerful memory. White lines from many hours in the sun spread out from the corners of his eyes. The frayed edge of his collar rested against skin that had spent its life outdoors.

  “We aren’t in the business of killing people.”

  From the way he said it she understood that there had been killing at some point and he did not rest easy with it.

  “Is it true?”

  Dorian’s expression had barely changed but for a slight opening of her mouth.

  “That she’s dying.”

  Maria paused, starting to speak the denial that lurched from her chest, yet didn’t. For what else had she been witnessing on their journey but the slow draining of Storm’s energy, the depletion of whatever force kept her going?

  “No.”

  They waited as she struggled to sit.

  “It’s just the fields.”

  She tried to put her feet to the floor again but the man stopped her with a hand on her leg. The pressure was calm, steady with a gentle firmness as he guided her leg back straight. She kept her good foot on the floor.

  “You have to get her out of the city.”

  The man exchanged a glance with Dorian and she nodded. The boy’s thumbs clicked on his tablet as the woman slipped out of the room. There was the suck of a door opening and silence when it shut again. The boy lowered his glasses, which were more of a visor, clicked something on, and left into the kitchen.

  The man offered her the remains of her water. She drank, urging her body to take what it needed so it would heal faster.

  “How sick is she?”

  She hadn’t thought of Storm as sick, only exposed to the wrong environment. Keep her from the environment and she would be safe, except Storm had willingly immersed herself deeper in this wo
rld. Maria cursed her injury, her weakness for not being able to overcome it, and her stupidity at being caught in the cellar in the first place.

  “When I last saw her we hadn’t reached the city yet.”

  He pushed himself to standing and turned towards the kitchen. His head almost touched the top of the door frame.

  She considered the option of dragging herself across the carpet, somehow making it onto the front lawn.

  “Who are you?”

  He returned to the doorway, his thick broad shoulders and strength at odds with the white carpets and the soft pastels of the house.

  “You can call me John.”

  “Is that your name?”

  He smiled and turned away to the sounds of drawers opening, cutlery clanging.

  She considered the exit again, the two steps down to the foyer. She put weight onto her good leg, testing whether she had the strength to carry herself. Even if she could, she would be like a cobbled horse, easy pickings for anyone who wanted to catch her.

  A few old decorating magazines lay on the table beside the couch, a remote for the screen next to them, china knick knacks populating a glass case. It was a standard suburban home with no signs of military intelligence or organization. Except for the absence of the owner, they might have been stopping by for tea.

  The man returned carrying a plate of food and her hunger took over. It was a cold mixture of canned pasta and beans, and as good as anything she had tasted.

  “You won’t get any money for her.”

  He resumed his spot next to her, watching her eat.

  “It would be easier if this was only about money.”

  She jabbed at an escaped bean at the side of her plate.

  “So what is it about?”

  “More?”

  He took her empty plate.

  She nodded, surprised to be taken care of but willing to take what was offered. The slow tide of fatigue gathered around her as she waited for him to return. He brought her another plate of cold food that she ate more slowly.

  “So how did you do it?”

  She shoved another spoonful into her mouth, worried he would take it away if she refused to answer.

  “You were there when she took out the Gatherer.”

  He was leaning forward, a newer, more demanding note to his voice.

  “It was a homemade bomb. Nothing special.”

  He pulled himself closer. His face over her plate.

  “The outer shell was intact. Only the internal workings were compromised.”

  She heard the continued whirring from above.

  “I wasn’t with her then.”

  “You were on the video.”

  Maria balanced the empty plate on her good leg. The room was brightening, its growing white shine in contrast to her grimy clothes and beleaguered state. John didn’t fit much better in his worn, faded work clothes. They were like a poorly altered image where the people don’t fit with their surroundings.

  “When did you give up stopping trains?”

  The curtains blocked any view of the outside and she felt again the tightness of a cocoon. She hoped at some point to metamorphose and be allowed to emerge. Her leg throbbed dully, whatever they had given her starting to wear off.

  “It wasn’t making a difference.”

  “And this is?”

  He regarded her calmly, a slow methodical examination as if time was all he needed to know her secrets. His patience disarmed her. No wonder people had followed him. He gave off a reassuring stability that even made her feel calmer, with an underlying strength that could be called upon when needed.

  “What was it you and Ms. Freeman were planning on doing? If she is as sick as you say she shouldn’t be anywhere near the city.”

  How had they thought that Storm would survive the city? She could be incapacitated somewhere, what was left of her health draining away. Yet there had been no other choice. It was through the Corporation that the Gatherer had to stop. With Storm the one who would have the ultimate control.

  “Is she safe?”

  He lifted the plate, holding the fork with his thumb. In the kitchen he spoke again with the boy. The talking stopped for several minutes before he returned, and when he sat, more time passed before he spoke.

  “We don’t have her.”

  A surge of pain in her leg accompanied her panic.

  “Who does?”

  If the Corporation had found her, they could already be dictating what she could and couldn’t do.

  “We were going to intercept her but she never showed up.”

  Maria again tried to lift herself, cursing her leg; she would have cut it off if it meant she would be mobile. There were too many scenarios of what could have happened. In most, Storm didn’t come out alive.

  Maria gripped the sides of the cot. It took her a few moments until she was able to relax her grip. She had to believe Storm was still free.

  “What do you even want? You can’t catch a sick woman, but you’ve got some conspiracy to profit from the situation? Is that what this is?”

  Anger flared now, so fast it couldn’t have been far below the surface.

  “At least we’re doing something.”

  The boy appeared behind the man, tapping him on the shoulder. There was more discussion out in the kitchen out of ear shot as Maria reviewed her hopeless escape options.

  The boy didn’t have his tablet when they returned and stood far back, one hand behind his back. John walked slowly, not looking at her, his thoughts far away.

  He had her pinned onto the stretcher and his knee pressed into her good thigh before she could react. She struggled, screaming at him to let her go, but his grip didn’t ease, his soothing voice telling her to ‘take it easy’ as if she were a spooked horse. The boy jabbed a needle into her thigh, his hold on her leg as strong as the farmer’s.

  She gasped at the cold rush of the drug. John released her, and though she tried to sit, she couldn’t gather her muscles into a coherent effort. The last thought she had was how brutally she was failing at what she had set out to do.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Rain soaked Storm’s shoulders and ran from the cuffs of her shirt. The path felt wide and empty without Megan beside her. She should have taken her back to her mother and made sure she was safe. Yet going backwards on this route wasn’t an option, all her energy needed for moving forward.

  She was relieved to reach the edge of the damp, pale forest, disoriented by its whiteness. At the path’s junction she stopped. To the right lay the willow tree and the dangers of the road, to the left more park and eventually the downtown. And not a single red chevron to guide the way.

  She chose the unknown path and climbed a long slope of soaked grass. The tops of apartment buildings peaked above a grove of bleached trees, a few lights glowing on the upper floors. She walked away from the buildings, their very existence a barrier, yet she couldn’t circle forever.

  The rain had eased to a light drizzle when she arrived at the crest, an extended flat area open below her with the movement of a single figure at its centre. She retreated down the path out of view until she could just see the figure circling, a pinpoint of flowing motion in the lifeless scene of white.

  He glided and jumped, skating on the ground where she had once watched the concert with Daniel. He lacked the abandon of a young skater, yet he made up for it with skill and grace. The slice of his blade into the ice and the scrape of his pick when he jumped floated in the still, misty air. It was a decadence she hadn’t foreseen, having an ice pad available all year round.

  She searched for what she knew must be there, and found it behind a stand of bare birches, like looking through ghosts. A Gatherer, smaller than the one in Three Rocks, but large enough to power the refrigeration system that would maintain the ice all year long.

 
She felt a flash of pride at how sleek and clean it looked, immediately snatched away by its dirtiness and legacy of sickness. A white swan tarnished by tar, the blackness never coming clean. She gave the skater and the Gatherer a wide berth as she moved south.

  The morning haze blurred the edges of the rooftops and the grid of streets that led to the cluster of office towers in the downtown. Daniel might have been out there, or he might have died like the rest of the team. It was a relief to move towards the towers, even if it meant she would die the way they had. At least it wouldn’t be alone in the Yukon, hiding from what she had done.

  The open hands of the Gatherer emerged above the haze, the logo’s clear elegant lines gracing the tallest tower. They had been dubbed Wings of the Angels by the media, but to her they were nothing more than hands grasping for whatever they could.

  Her mother would be up there somewhere, looking down from her high tower. Could she sense that Storm was close? Or was she too consumed with running the Corporation to care, Storm no longer shiny enough to hold her attention?

  Storm could remember the first time her mother’s attention had fully turned on her, beyond the distracted ministrations of a busy parent. It had been at a school science fair, her mother arriving too late to see the displays but sneaking in during the last half of the awards. No one had been more surprised than her mother when they’d called Storm’s name for first place for a tiny microgrid of solar energy and windmills. Even then it had always been energy. There had been graphs, charts, and balancing calculations, and her mother standing proudly beside her in the official photo. Storm remembered her mother’s arm clasped tightly around her shoulder.

  After less than a half kilometre, two perpendicular streets marked the boundary where the park ended and the houses began. Big, elaborate houses fit for the prestige of fronting onto the park, though that prestige would have faded with the fading green.