Road To Babylon | Book 10 | 100 Deep

by Sisavath, Sam

  “Left arm?” she asked.

  “Better.” He lifted his right one up and down to show her.

  She nodded. “Then I guess you don’t need painkillers.”

  “Well, I didn’t say that.”

  She squinted at him.

  “What?” Keo said.

  “You need painkillers or not?”

  “I could use some.”

  She took an unlabeled bottle out of her pocket and shook out two white pills.

  “Vicodin?” Keo asked.

  “You wish. Generic acetaminophen.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s all we got. You want them or not?”

  “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  She handed the two pills to him. “You want water?” she was asking when he popped both into his mouth and swallowed them down. “I guess not.”

  He grinned.

  “So manly,” she said, and did a half-roll with her eyes.

  Keo chuckled as she moved to the window and looked out at the scene below and across from them. He’d thought she was pretty small when he first saw her, but up close she was even tinier. Barely five feet, if that, and though she’d cut her hair a bit too short, it didn’t do much to hide her attractiveness.

  “What happened?” Keo asked.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I know someone blew up the building.”

  “That’s exactly what happened.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I don’t know. They’re still trying to figure that out.”

  “Who is?”

  “The ones in charge.”

  “That’s not you?”

  “Not even close.”

  As if on cue, two figures stumbled out of the biggest hole in Bunkhouse #17. One of them was Harvey. The other man was someone Keo hadn’t seen before. They were both wearing reusable medical masks that they ripped off as soon as they were outside and could breathe in the fresh—or at least, comparably fresher—air.

  Keo watched the two men turn to one another and begin talking. It didn’t appear to be a very animated conversation; more like two investigators confirming what they’d discovered inside.

  “I heard he was coming,” the woman said. It just then that Keo remembered he didn’t know her name.

  “You have a name?” he asked.

  She gave him an amused look. “About time you asked.”

  “I was too busy trying not to die.”

  “Of course.” Then, “Verona. But everyone calls me Ronnie.”

  “Thanks, Ronnie. For saving my life.”

  “I didn’t save your life.”

  “Don’t be so modest.”

  “I didn’t. You weren’t in any danger of dying out there. Your wounds weren’t that bad.”

  “Still. Thanks.”

  She nodded, before looking back out the window. “You’re welcome.”

  “So who’s supposed to be coming?” Keo asked as he glanced out at Harvey and the other guy on the sidewalk across the street from them.

  “The Deacon,” Ronnie said.

  “The Deacon is here?”

  “No. But I thought he’d be. I mean, if this doesn’t bring him out of his ivory tower…” She let the rest trail off.

  Harvey must have sensed eyes on him, because the big man glanced up in their direction. Keo thought Harvey was eyeballing him, but was surprised to notice Ronnie tensing noticeably at his side.

  “You know him?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Ronnie said.

  He waited for her to continue, and when she didn’t, said, “Ex?”

  “Something like that.”

  Interesting, Keo thought, though he didn’t know why it was interesting. Maybe the idea of a big brute like Harvey, who looked very much like a corn-fed country bumpkin being romantically linked to someone like Ronnie, who was the exact opposite of a corn-fed country bumpkin, was what did it.

  Outside on the sidewalk across from them, that same corn-fed country bumpkin lifted one hand and beckoned to Keo and Ronnie with his forefinger.

  Keo exchanged a look with Ronnie. “You or me?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  They looked back down at Harvey, who must have interpreted their confused reaction and did something very cute with his hands:

  He pressed them against the edge of his eyes and pulled back.

  The classic “chinky eyes” stunt.

  “I think he means you,” Ronnie said.

  Keo smirked. “Yeah.”

  He turned and walked across the room, careful not to step on his two unconscious roommates. One of them was breathing fine, but the other one, the man, not so much. The guy was probably dead for all Keo knew, or cared.

  “Hey,” Ronnie said.

  Keo stopped at the door and looked back at her.

  “You gonna tell me why you’re pretending to be Chinese?” she asked.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I bet.”

  “Later, doc,” Keo said, and stepped outside.

  Before he could close the door, Ronnie said, “I’m guessing you don’t want me to let Harvey know about this conversation of ours?”

  He smiled at her. It was forced, but he thought he’d pulled it off. At least, he didn’t think she noticed it.

  Keo said, “You can do whatever you want, doc. It’s a free country.”

  “It is?” she said.

  “Isn’t it?”

  She shrugged, and Keo thought, Interesting, just before he closed the door.

  Seven

  “What did you see?”

  “Stars.”

  “Stars?”

  “Yeah, stars. My head was ringing.”

  Harvey squinted at him. “Be serious.”

  “I am.” Keo tapped his temple with the palm of his hand, as if to shake loose the cobwebs. “Other than that? There was a guy in an olive-green army jacket. Short black hair. Squirrelly eyes.”

  “Squirrelly eyes?” the guy who had come out of Bunkhouse #17 with Harvey said. He was smaller than Harvey—but then again, who wasn’t?—and didn’t look all that comfortable wearing the gun belt with the holstered sidearm on his left side, because apparently he was left-handed.

  Lefty hadn’t identified himself, but Keo assumed he was one of the big shots in Shaker Town. Keo had only deduced that because Harvey was, so anyone he took the time to chat with, not to mention investigate the remains of the bombing with, would have to be of equal status if not higher.

  Definitely not higher, Keo thought as he eyeballed Lefty. The man just didn’t give off that alpha vibe. Not that Harvey did, but he was damn close.

  “Yeah, he had squirrelly eyes,” Keo said. The phrase was something the folks back at Black Tide used to say, and Keo guessed it worked in this situation, too. “But the important part is him walking into the building before it went kaboom.”

  “It went kaboom?” Lefty asked.

  Keo smiled. “Are you just going to repeat everything I say?”

  “You got a hell of a way of speaking, that’s all.”

  “It’s a gift.”

  “Not much of one.”

  “Everyone’s a critic.”

  “What else?” Harvey asked.

  “That’s it,” Keo said.

  “You think he was the bomber?”

  “A leads to B, leads to C.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Yeah, I think he was the bomber.”

  Harvey squinted at Keo again. “Who was he?”

  “I dunno. I haven’t been here long enough to know everyone in town.”

  “But he had squirrelly eyes, you said.”

  “Exactly. And you can never trust anyone with squirrelly eyes.”

  Harvey seemed to think about that for a moment. Keo wasn’t sure if the big man believed him or not as he glanced around. First at the bodies on the sidewalk behind them, then at the jagged holes in Bunkhouse #17.

  The two men were waiting for Keo
to come down from the residence he’d been sleeping off the last three hours, which was how long he’d been out, according to Ronnie. The interrogation began quickly after that. Keo told them everything he knew. All of it. It wasn’t like he had any reasons to lie.

  As he walked across the street, going around drying puddles of blood, Keo was glad someone had removed the big section of wall that had been blasted loose from the bunkhouse and killed the redheaded kid. He’d seen a lot of blood and death in his life, but children casualties always stayed with him. It was really the only reason Keo knew that, despite everything he’d done in his life before The Purge, there was still a kernel of humanity left in him: He wouldn’t kill a kid. Not on purpose, anyway.

  The taste of crushed brick and mortar hung in the air, invading his mouth whenever he opened it. The acrid smell of gunpowder tickled his nostrils and eyes, but Keo was able to push through them. Ronnie had been nice enough to give him a handkerchief, which Keo tied around the bottom half of his face. Even so, there was no mistaking what had happened here very recently.

  The bodies had been loaded into a wagon—it might have even been one of the wagons that had sped up these same streets earlier, before the explosion—and driven off. There were still three body bags waiting to be taken away. Two men and a woman. Keo knew that because the sheets that covered them weren’t long enough to hide all their faces, and the woman’s hair, long blonde locks, were spread out behind her like a fan. There was blood on her forehead and more clinging to her strands of hair.

  “Finish up here,” Harvey was saying to Lefty, “then meet me at the armory.”

  Lefty nodded.

  Harvey turned to Keo. “You come with me, Chang.”

  “Why?” Keo said.

  “Because I said so,” Harvey said, before walking off.

  I guess that’s a good enough reason, Keo thought as he followed the big man.

  There was still a mild tingling from Keo’s left arm, but nothing he was too concerned about. The wounds would heal, like all the other ones he’d gained since the end of the world. Even so, he wished he had asked Ronnie for some extra painkillers, though she probably would have said no.

  “We’re going to the armory?” Keo asked.

  “That’s right,” Harvey said.

  “I thought I was meeting The Deacon.”

  “Change of plans.”

  “Too bad. I was looking forward to meeting the boss.”

  “Yeah, well, get used to disappointments, Chang.”

  “Story of my life.”

  Harvey grunted. “Don’t be a smartass. This is serious business.”

  “Hey, you don’t have to tell me that. I almost got my head blown off, remember?”

  “Consider yourself lucky.”

  Yeah, that’s me, lucky, Keo thought.

  But he didn’t say it, mostly because he didn’t think pushing Harvey’s buttons for the sake of some chuckles was a good idea. He could tell the man was on a mission; that was a face that meant business if Keo had ever seen one. Harvey was not taking any of this lightly, and well, he shouldn’t. As far as Keo knew, someone had just sent a suicide bomber into Shaker Town and taken out a dozen people and wounded scores more.

  The armory was a good five miles back at the resort area. Keo knew that because he’d skirted the big warehouse while he was sneaking into the hotel two nights earlier, an act that had gotten poor Roy killed.

  Poor Roy? You killed him, remember?

  Oh, yeah.

  Harvey wasn’t going to walk all five miles, of course, and he didn’t have to. His horse—the same big black mare from last night—was waiting for him among a group of others.

  The big man untied the reins of his animal and nodded at the skinny man who was standing watch over them. “Give Chang one of the horses.”

  “Yes, sir,” Skinny said. Then, turning to Keo, “That the new fashion or something?”

  Keo was going to ask him what he was talking about, when he remembered that he only had one remaining long sleeve.

  He smiled at Skinny. “It’s all the rage with the kids.”

  “I bet. So, which one you want?”

  Keo looked the animals over. There were six of them, but only one was a big brown thoroughbred with brown eyes. Not Horse the horse, but close enough.

  “He’ll do,” Keo said.

  Skinny untied the horse and passed the reins over to Keo, who hopped into the saddle. Harvey turned and headed off, and Keo followed behind him.

  They weaved their way through downtown, sticking mostly to the streets. There weren’t a lot of people still outside, and eyes tracked them from open windows on both sides. Most of the civvies were either already at work in the fields or locked away inside their homes. According to Ronnie, Martial Law had been declared, and anyone who wasn’t needed elsewhere was told to stay indoors.

  After a few minutes of riding in silence, Keo moved closer to Harvey. “I couldn’t find Lance. You know what happened to him?”

  “He’s at the infirmary,” Harvey said.

  “He’s okay?”

  “He’ll live.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “He’ll live,” Harvey repeated.

  Keo nodded, and thought, I guess that’s good enough.

  It wasn’t like Keo was best friends forever with ol’ Lance, but he liked the guy well enough. At least, as well as you could like someone who you were forced to bunk with and who later thought highly enough of you to recommend for a promotion. Actually, now that Keo thought about what Lance had done for him… Yeah, he probably owed the guy. If not for Lance, Keo might still be struggling to rise out of his Shitty role.

  Keo made a mental note to look in on Lance and find out just how okay his former roommate was doing.

  “What happened back there?” Harvey was asking him.

  “Someone bombed you,” Keo said.

  “Wrong.”

  “Wrong?”

  “Someone bombed us.”

  “Us?” Keo thought. There ain’t no us here, pal. There’s just you and me, and I’m looking for a way outta here.

  The armory was a big warehouse nestled in the heart of Shaker Town’s default command center, which was itself repurposed from a former summer resort area. The sunshine and beach that used to welcome tourists flanked one side of a river that sloshed violently down from the nearby mountain. The other side was all open fields and trees. Anyone who tried to swim in the river was asking for trouble. Either that or they better be damn good in the water.

  A series of hills, like camel humps, rested in the northern side of the resort. Keo knew for a fact that there were Shakers out there, keeping an eye on all the man-made trails that led into Shaker Town. There were more guards on the various roads that were lower to the ground, but if you knew the location, you could sneak around them. Keo had done so two nights ago. That nightly jaunt, unfortunately, hadn’t gone quite as planned.

  This time around, Keo didn’t have to use the cover of darkness to gain entry into the place. He simply followed Harvey in. Armed men along the road didn’t try to stop them. Everyone knew who Harvey was. They did stare at Keo as he rode past them, though. Curiosity, mostly, though a couple gazed at his face for just a bit too long for his liking. He wanted to think they’d never seen a “Chinese guy” with his type of scars before.

  Getting prettier and prettier, pal.

  Keo stuck close to Harvey just in case someone decided to stop him and ask what he was doing there. There was one very big tip-off that he didn’t belong—he wasn’t armed. Everyone else was, even the ones doing construction or just walking around. This was an area of Shaker Town that was cut off from the civilians. And Keo, while he was stuck on Shit Duty, was still a civilian, supposed promotion notwithstanding.

  The activity around him wasn’t quite a well-oiled machine, but it was a good facsimile. If the people here were on high alert after what had transpired this morning with the bombing, Keo couldn’t see it in the way they moved around.
Either they didn’t know, or…

  No, of course they knew. It was impossible not to know about what had happened earlier.

  So why did everyone seem so…calm?

  Keo looked away from a group of Shakers putting together what looked like another warehouse and toward a building at the center of the resort, two or three football fields across from him.

  The hotel.

  It was five floors of 5-star luxury accommodation. It sat to Keo’s left on a slightly raised hill, balcony suites overlooking the river and surrounding beachfront. If someone wanted to, Keo imagined they could somersault off one of those fifth-floor balconies and right into the water. Of course, that person would have to be either an idiot or crazy.

  Two nights ago, Keo had found himself in that place. It used to have a name, but everything associated with its former life had been either torn down or painted over. These days, it was being used as Shaker Town’s main command hive. The Deacon himself had a suite somewhere in there, though no one actually knew which room, or even which floor.

  “It’s some kind of weapon,” Claire had said. “I don’t know what kind. But they’re doing something in that hotel that’s got a lot of people spooked.”

  “I haven’t heard anything about it,” Keo had said.

  “That’s because you’re not talking to the right people,” she had said.

  Keo looked back at Harvey now, wondering if the big man was one of those right people he had to talk to about what was going on in the hotel. He made a mental note to ask the Shaker. Well, not really ask, but something along those lines.

  They finally stopped in front of the armory, which was really just a big storage warehouse that once housed a myriad of machines and equipment used to keep the resort running. These days, it had a new function. And because of what was inside it, there were guards stationed at the front doors and walking around the perimeter. There were also two riflemen on the rooftop. Two that Keo could see, anyway. He’d spotted three of them four mornings ago during one of his scouting runs.

  A young Shaker, who couldn’t have been eighteen, walked over to take their reins as Keo and Harvey hopped off their mounts. Keo passed his off to the kid—he was tall, but way too skinny—and followed Harvey over as two of the guards pulled the wide doors open for them.