“That means the ARK has the technology to bring electricity back to the Juniper, but they aren’t using it. Those jackers.” She tucked the chalkdrive back under my shirt. “Keep it safe, not just for the babies, but so I can figure out how those jackerdans figured out the shielding. You go. I’ll catch up eventually.”
“How do we get over the wall?” I asked. “And we can’t leave behind our people.”
“Your friend Michael has it all figured out. He and Dutch have a plan.” She squeezed my shoulder. “Thank you, Cavvy. Thank you for giving me the courage to fight back. Now go!”
I nodded, choked up.
Nikola climbed down and walked toward the fighting. Too late to ask if she thought any of the ARK’s spies had infiltrated Glenwood Springs.
At the time, I thought I would never see Nikola Nichols again. But I did. She stayed true to her word.
(iv)
Two hundred meters from us, on the south side of the wall, an explosion lit up the night, sending cars, chunks of stone, and a whole bunch of debris into the air. Detritus popped and plinked around us.
My Marilyn and Marisol’s Audrey ran in great pistoning, steam-hissing footsteps toward the hole in the wall.
Wren cleared the windshield. The Audrey, though, didn’t have someone to do that for her. I hoped Marisol could see.
Dutch staggered into view, coughing, his dark skin gray with ash. He stumbled up to us.
“Where’s Micaiah?” I yelled.
“Don’t know! I lost him back at the spa. Couldn’t wait on him, so I blew the wall. Should’ve used a longer fuse on the charges.”
The fighting was getting closer. The first zeppelin we’d seen fell like a harpooned whale out of the dark, snowy sky. More flares arced over the city, painting the side of the second airship. A third zeppelin floated in, its machine guns blazing tracers and taking down the last of Glenwood’s men.
Once all the men were killed, nothing would stop the ARK from finding us. Yet, I couldn’t leave Micaiah.
Dutch guessed what I was thinking. “We said we’d meet on I-70 at the mouth of Glenwood Canyon. That was the back-up plan. Micaiah’ll be there, along with Pilate. The priest should already be there.”
We wouldn’t be able to wait. Still the snow continued to fall.
I called down to Dutch. “Get on the Audrey back there. Keep her windshield free of snow for Marisol.”
“Who?”
Wren laughed. “You never were very quick, Dutch. Back on that other robot-looking thing, ‘Stanleys’ I guess we’re calling them. The girl driving is Marisol. Do I need to draw you a picture?”
Dutch smiled up at her. “We have a lot to catch up on, baby. A lot.”
Wren blushed bright red. What the heck? Who could do that to my sister?
I was going to find out. Dutch, like it or not, had joined our crew.
He sprinted to the Audrey, clambered up the side ladder, then cleared snow off the windshield. Wind blew the smoke from our stacks and swirled it away.
Our Stanleys sped through the hole in the wall, took a left, and ran stomping down I-70 to the mouth of the canyon only to find an empty highway buried in snow.
Pilate wasn’t there. Neither was Micaiah.
Chapter Twenty
A loser like me can’t win
A winner like you can’t know
What it’s like when life crashes down
And everything around you
Is falling apart, falling apart
In a kitchen at midnight
Falling apart
— Melissa Clique
(i)
ON I-70, WE GOT OUT of the Stanleys. I walked around to the back of the Marilyn. Snowflakes sizzled when they struck the glowing firebox. The scent of burning coal brought back thick memories of other steam engines I’d worked on over the years.
Below the firebox, I found a storage compartment, the old trunk of an ancient Porsche. Inside lay a treasure trove of supplies: bottles of water, blankets, canned food—tuna, corned beef, Stokes Green Chile—and extra coal.
I threw an army-green wool blanket around me—better the itch than the snow on my bare skin. The soft slippers on my feet offered no protection against the elements, and my toes turned to numb hubs at the end of my feet. Sharlotte was dressed similarly, but at least she only had one chilly foot.
We all stood around for a minute, waiting. Gunfire had turned spotty in the town. Only one zeppelin had survived the fight, but the men had taken out its searchlight. It floated above the city, painted scarlet by falling flares.
The ARK would soon notice the hole we’d blown in the east wall. Regios would come to investigate, and they would see the huge hash-mark footprints of our Stanleys in the snow.
“Where’s Pilate?” Rachel’s voice shivered, and not from the cold. A camo jacket covered her. Her eyes gleamed with fearful tears.
My own eyes were dry, but I’d built up a tolerance.
“Okay,” Sharlotte said. “Tell us everything.”
Dutch explained that he’d been traveling past Glenwood Springs, and he’d stumbled upon Pilate and Rachel trying to figure out a way to free us. Pilate and Dutch knew each other. No surprise there.
Pilate didn’t want to risk any of the men recognizing him in Glenwood Springs, and so Dutch and Rachel approached the gates as man and wife. Dutch won his fight to keep Rachel and buddied up to Micaiah. With Nikola, they figured out an escape plan. They blew up the wall with explosives from Nikola, who had been squirreling away dynamite and C4 for years.
If separated, the plan was to meet on I-70, at the mouth of Glenwood Canyon.
Still, I was suspicious. What in the heck was Dutch doing wandering around in the Rockies? But there was no time to ask.
Dutch nodded. “There must have been an ARK spy in Glenwood. Those soldiers came quick once they got word you were there. And all just to get Micaiah back to his daddy Tibbs. Crazy.”
Again, no word about the chalkdrive. Good, the less that snake knew about us, the better.
“We can’t wait here,” Sharlotte said. “The ARK will be coming. If they interrogated the Hindu girls in Grand Junction, they’ll know we’re eastbound. We have to go and hope Pilate and Micaiah catch up.”
“No way.” I didn’t yell, but I said the words strong. “We aren’t leaving our people.”
We’d made it through Glenwood Springs. We’d killed Aces and leveled his evil city. In our moment of victory, I was not going to leave our people behind.
Rachel’s breath hitched.
Wren stood with her arms hugging herself, silent and sullen. I wasn’t sure how much whiskey she’d downed, so I had no idea how drunk she was. She seemed to be fine. Maybe the Gulo Delta helped her liver process the alcohol faster so she’d sober up quicker. Or maybe her battle with Aces had cleared her head.
I figured Wren would side with me and Rachel. Only she wasn’t talking. Neither was Dutch.
Sharlotte was, though. “We have to go on without them. If we tarry, if we try and go back into Glenwood Springs, we’ll get caught. It’ll take days for them to scour through Glenwood and question everyone. If we go now, we can get away while they search.”
The truth in her words hurt me, but the pain melted into anger. If only we had slates and internet and electricity, but we didn’t. Just useless Juniper junk all around us.
“We can hide out,” I said. “We can sneak around like we did in Green River. We can find them.”
Rachel wiped tears running down her face. Her words came out in a stutter. “We can’t ... can’t leave Pilate. We didn’t leave you, and we can’t leave him. No, no, no.”
Wren nodded. “She’s right. We ain’t leaving our people behind.”
“We have to,” Sharlotte said.
I didn’t have the heart to fight my big sister, but that was what Wren was for. Always.
Marisol and Dutch stepped back as Wren bustled forward. “You can’t tell me what to do, Shar.”
“I could if
I had a bottle,” Sharlotte shot back. “You lost that fight ’cause you were drunk. Why should we listen to an alcoholic like you?”
In the old days, such words would’ve led to a fistfight. But these weren’t the bad, old days. We’d thrown away that tired script.
Sharlotte held up a hand. “I’m sorry, Irene. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t’ve said that.”
Wren dropped her head. “And I shouldn’t have turned this into a fight. I can’t leave Pilate. He means more to me than my smile or my guns. Ain’t no God in this world if there ain’t no Pilate.”
“What about me, baby?” Dutch asked.
I flashed him a look that should’ve shut him up. It didn’t. He shrugged and grinned. “It’s stay or go. Y’all are gonna have to decide right quick and in a hurry.”
“We stay,” I said.
A moment of quiet fell on us, and then Sharlotte asked a question. “What about what Pilate told you, Cavvy?”
Pilate’s lesson: I would have to leave people behind to save them.
What was in me? Fear or faith? You can’t feel both at the same time.
Everyone was waiting for me to talk.
I knew the right thing, and I knew it would tear me in half to do it. Lord help me, but I talked it through. “If Micaiah is still alive, I think we need to assume he’s been captured. If he’s captured, the ARK will take him back to his daddy and he’ll be fine. He doesn’t know about my plan. None of you do, but I have one.”
“What is it?” Wren asked.
“Now is not the time,” I said. “So Micaiah is either dead or captured. Knowing him, he’s been captured but talking his way out of it. He’s fine. Now, as for Pilate ...”
I closed my eyes. My Pilate. My dear, dear Pilate. “If he’s not here, he’s dead. Killed or captured, both amount to the same thing. They’ll ...” I swallowed. “They’ll torture him, figure out he doesn’t know where we are, and then they’ll kill him so he can’t tell anyone about the cure. That’s prolly what’s happening right now.”
Rachel howled and threw herself forward onto the ground. It reminded me of a three-year-old having a tantrum.
But maybe that’s growing up—learning how to handle the emotional storms that blow suffering through us. Once again I thought about teething. Babies could handle the pain, but adults couldn’t.
Rachel had lost that quiet place she’d found in the deserts months before. But then, it’s easy to forget about the serene parts of ourselves when everything falls apart.
Wordless, on her hands and knees, she sobbed. She then raised her head to growl at me, “How can you say such wicked things? He’s your father!”
Fury filled her glare, and I wanted to back away, but I didn’t. I stepped closer. “Alive or dead or tortured, he told us it would come to this, like he knew. We have to have faith. We have to believe God will watch over them both and deliver them to us. We don’t have a choice.”
Rachel screeched, “How can there be a God when I feel like this? If there is a God, it’s a wicked thing, toying with us and laughing at us. Jack it! Jacker it all!”
She hit us so very, very fast. She snapped to her feet, snatched Tina Machinegun from Wren, and sped off toward the burning city, still on fire despite the snow.
We all watched her, hushed. Then Wren turned on Dutch. “You coming?”
“No.” Dutch smiled. “Never let your heart get in the way of the paycheck. My number one rule. You go, though. You’ll do what you want in the end anyway.”
His words seemed to sap a little of the vinegar out of Wren. But not enough to stop her. She yanked out her Colt Terminators and marched after Rachel, the two of them going off together like they’d done countless times in Green River.
Snow swept down on us. Rachel paused, but Wren kept on walking. I wanted to call out. I wanted to join them. I did neither. I stood with my stupid slippers freezing my feet in the slush, feeling hurt, scared, and hopeless.
Rachel stopped, silhouetted by the burning city in the distance, awash in snowflakes and wind.
Wren finally realized her partner wasn’t with her. “Rache, come on, girl. Let’s get on with it. We’ll sneak around, find our people, and get out. Just like old times. Come on.”
Rachel turned around to face us. We couldn’t see her face, but her chest shuddered from her tears. “But I can’t leave them. Cavvy and Sharlotte are my family.”
“I am, too,” Wren said. Such a change, that she would claim Rachel as a sister.
Rachel fell to her knees again, sobbing. She wasn’t going anywhere.
I ran to her and held her while she cried into my shoulder, her whole body shaking.
She pulled back. “Please, let’s all go and find him. If they’re torturing him, we must stop them. Please.”
“We have the chalkdrive,” I whispered to her. “I didn’t mention it in front of Dutch ’cause I don’t trust him. If we go back in there to look for them, we risk everything. It’s not what Pilate would want. Nor Micaiah. Like Pilate said, it’s our divine duty to deliver it to the world.”
“There is nothing divine!” Rachel shrieked.
I pulled her close and whispered into her ear. “There’s me and what I feel, and there’s you and what you feel. There’s us, our voices in the silence. When two or more gather together, there’s a strength that comes. And that strength will guide us. We’ll walk away together and hope. We’ll use our hope as a weapon.”
It was something Pilate might have said. My father. Lost in the snow and fire.
“Use hope as a weapon?” Rachel asked, sniffing at her tears.
I nodded, hardly believing it myself. “Yeah, right now, it’s the best weapon we got. We’ll use it to follow our imperatives, get the chalkdrive out into the world, and somehow get money to save our ranch.”
Her tear-filled eyes met mine. “Our imperatives. I’ll protect you. I’ll give up my life for you if it comes to that.”
Wren appeared next to us. She bent and wiped a tear off Rachel’s cheek. “It won’t come to that, Rachel. Cavvy is right. Going back to Glenwood is suicide, and Pilate would want us to live. He said it. Cavvy said it. Faith, not fear. Hope, not despair. And love for us all. Let’s go.”
Wren caught me looking at her. She grinned. “You thought I’d never change, Princess. You were wrong.”
I pulled both her and Rachel into a hug. My goddamn sisters.
We returned to the group, standing next to the Stanleys.
“So are we set to go?” Sharlotte asked.
Wren nodded. She wheeled on Dutch and threw out a hand to slap the smack out of him. He caught her hand. “Don’t blame me for not wanting to risk my life trying to save people I hardly know,” he said.
That jackerdan.
Wren leaned in and kissed him hard on the lips. “Not sure which I like better, kissing you or hitting you.”
Disgusting. We all looked away as they got intimate.
In the awkward silence that followed, Marisol asked in a squeak, “What about me? I wanna see my family again.”
Lights twinkled from Glenwood’s demolished wall. Sapropel lanterns lighting the way of growling motorcycles powered by diesel engines.
“We’ll get you home,” Sharlotte said.
A blast of wind and snow swept around us, as if to contradict what my sister had just said. The cold froze us, and the night was just getting started—the storm promised more snow and more killing temperatures.
The motorcycles buzzed toward us. The lanterns flashed from their handlebars. The storm might have to wait its turn in trying to kill us.
Like always, the ARK was first in line.
(ii)
We all ran to the Stanleys and piled in, but we didn’t run east down I-70. No, the soldier girls on their motorcycles would catch us easily. Instead, the Audrey Hepburn followed my lead.
I waded the Marilyn into the Colorado River running next to the highway. It was a gamble. If the water was too deep, it would extinguish the flame in the boile
r. If the current was too swift, it would tumble down the metal machines and sweep us away.
“Wren,” I whispered to my sister who clung to the outside. “We can’t get too deep. Gotta watch the water. We can only go up to our legs.”
“Yeah, but it’s so jackering dark, Cavvy. Sorry, cussing won’t help us. It’s so very dark. Better?”
I sighed, smiled, and drove the Stanley into the water and stopped. The water gushed just under my hood, but I didn’t know how deep we’d go. I turned so our glowing firebox faced south, away from the highway.
The Audrey stood next to us, similarly turned. We stopped there, the dark water swirling around our war machines, sending a chill and wet, rivery odor into the cockpit. Wren’s breath misted. She held Tina Machinegun at the ready.
Above us on the highway, the motorcycles roared past, going east, running recon. In seconds they were gone, and we were alone again.
Pressing on the accelerator pedal, backing up, I moved the Marilyn to the south side of the river, away from the freeway. Lucky for us, it was autumn, and the Colorado River was running shallow.
I knew if we tried to cross the Rockies on I-70, the ARK army would eventually run us down.
As I drove, I tried to remember the old maps I’d seen of the Rocky Mountains. I’d hated geography. If school wasn’t math or science, I just didn’t care.
Now our lives might depend on what I’d half-studied. Ha, teachers always said if I didn’t study, I’d only be cheating myself. I hate it when they’re right.
I forced myself to remember. Aspen. Leadville. Independence Pass. Yes.
Best of all, if we headed south, we could find Marisol’s family. We could get her home and then cross the high mountain pass into Leadville.
If we didn’t get snowed in and killed by weather. The wet dress and thin slippers made me feel like I was destined to die of cold.
It was a gamble. Worse yet, if Pilate and Micaiah somehow figured a way out of Glenwood Springs, they wouldn’t be able to find us. I was choosing to sever our chances of finding them again.
Despair pinched my heart.
My only weapon against it? Hope.
Inferno Girls Page 26
