"In the comic you also say the zombies are harmless."
I don't really want to get into this now, but I can't resist this. "Didn't you see the videos? There's plenty of them in the cairns, all showing the ocean are harmless."
He shrugs. "I've seen plenty of the opposite, in real life. They've been trying to kill me since the start."
"And has one ever? Killed one of your people?"
He smiles. "My people never laid down in the road to let them. I didn't get the chance to find out."
That's a dig at me, at my surrender in Iowa, and fine. Let him get a dig in; at least we're all alive. I look out the front windshield, thinking about how this is going to work now, and worrying about Lara, and trying to ignore the blurry cold of the demons which feels like it's getting closer every second.
* * *
We don't talk much for the thirty minutes it takes, and the tension grows thick. The kids in back exchange muffled whispers but for the most part they watch their convoy of RVs behind us. I spend most of my time looking back too, expecting at any minute a giant red beast to leap out of the cover of buildings and shoulder charge one of the vehicles, but nothing comes.
Still the cold, complex in its multiple notes, builds.
"Amo," Crow says at one point. There's a strain in his voice, close to breaking. "I'm not sure I can drive any more."
There's sweat on his cheeks despite the A/C, and now I notice his hands are trembling. It doesn't matter if I see them or not, this is all the evidence I need.
"I'll drive," I say, "pull over."
He does, and I slot into the driver's seat and get us moving again in seconds. Crow takes my place and starts to shudder uncontrollably.
"Jesus," says Drake, for the first time with a note of unease in his voice.
"This is just the beginning," I tell him. "It'll get worse."
He doesn't say more and we drive, along 91 past the jousting tracks of Medieval Times with the log flumes of Knot's Berry farm looming above and behind, to the interchange with the Santa Ana Freeway, where I veer us round the slip roads and back up to race south east. Every second now should be taking us further from the demons, but Crow is only shuddering harder, struggling to keep himself together, and the cold just doesn't diminish.
In the rearview mirror I see Drake watching Crow with distaste. If he still thinks this is an act, he must be admiring Crow's dedication. The kids in back look perturbed. Feargal clutches his rifle firmly.
"Are you ready for us?" I ask Josh on the walkie.
"Ready," he comes back.
Ten minutes later we're almost to Fallout 1, the Yangtze fulfillment center just south of Disneyland. We soar past Tom Sawyer's Island on eye level with the Matterhorn's snowy peak, then I spiral us down to East Katella Avenue, pull round the Holiday Inn and hard into the large parking lot of the unmarked warehouse.
It's a huge block of drab, precast cement walls with pale blue sheet metal roofing. Two of the loading bay doors are open, several large metal carts stand mostly empty nearby, and spread before them lies most of the harvest convoy, fresh from Chino Hills. There's my RV, which surely still holds Lara, and two trucks intended for ferrying crops, and four battered RVs plus three glossy new ones freshly rolled out of the center's depths, where we parked them a year ago in case of just such an emergency.
There's Josh standing out front, along with a small refueling crew and two heavy steel barrels fitted with pressure pumps. Jack's with him, and Samuel and Gloria, while everyone else is in a vehicle where they should be. They look worried.
I pull in and park the bus, then spring out onto the cement to wave Drake's RVs in, pointing to the refill station. Drake climbs out and follows to stand beside me, waving in tandem.
"Your people move fast," he says, as the RVs halt and Josh's crew gets to work.
"I'll commandeer one of those RVs for you," I point. "You can ride with your people. We leave as soon as this is done."
I run over to the flanks of New LA RVs without waiting for a reply, stopping first at my own vehicle, where Keeshom stands in the doorway looking shattered. I peer past him into the darkness to see a full complement inside, with Connie tending to Lara.
"How is she?" I ask.
"Asleep," Keeshom says, stumbling over the word. "Fully out." Then he points to one of the shiny new RVs. "Your kids are in there."
"Thank you," I say and run on, then hop on board to see eight people in there, including Vie and Talia. God it makes my heart ache to see them, and think of what I was just prepared to do.
"I'm giving this vehicle to the survivors," I say. "I need all of you on the battletank with me." It's a gesture only, it gets Drake's kids some comfort for what's going to be a long ride, and hopefully buys back some of the trust we've lost. They're not our hostages after all, plus I want my kids with me.
"Daddy," Vie says, scared but happy to see me. "Where's Mom?"
Talia just watches, scared too but being grown-up about it.
"She's fine, just resting. Come on."
I lead them out and back across the white cement apron, right into a flood of Drake's kids. That stops me in my tracks. They're running from the door of the battletank but also from the other RVs that just pulled up, many more than the seven we had on board the bus.
I stare, momentarily dumbfounded. This is not how you react when there are demons coming.
"What are you doing?" I call, but they ignore me and keep running, crisscrossing each other's tracks smoothly as though following some kind of pre-ordained plan. They're spreading out. Seven of them split toward our RVs, one running toward each, while the others circle me and the refueling team, and I react just as Drake strides into view round the battletank's rear.
With one hand I pull my gun and level it at Drake, while with the other I bring up my walkie. I don't know what's happening but I know I don't like it. "Don't let those kids onto our vehicles," I order on all channels. "On no account are they to enter."
In my peripheral vision my people appear at doorways, blocking the kids. None get on board, but this doesn't seem to concern them. They content themselves with standing by the vehicle's flanks, clutching their soft toys.
I watch Drake, now nearing the center of the roughly oval clearing between our vehicles with Feargal tracking behind him, rifle raised, and circled round with more kids.
"I told them to stop," Feargal says. "He just kept on."
"What the hell are you doing?" I ask Drake, my finger riding the trigger's release. The demons are seconds away and he only needs to give me a reason.
He gives me a sad smile instead, like he regrets this, like it's not how he envisaged things going. Then he speaks. "The kids are carrying bombs, Amo." He gives a second for this to compute. "In their toys. My people have the remote detonators. Pull that trigger and they'll start to blow."
For a long moment this does not compute. I stare. His kids are everywhere; circling both me and Drake, hovering by the RVs, and they have bombs? It's a ridiculous, impossible bluff, and I've got not time for bluffs.
I pull the trigger, but something hits my leg in the middle of the movement, right in the calf and it throws my aim off as my body compensates.
BANG
The shot takes Drake wide in the left shoulder, not where I was aiming. He rolls with it and I lift the walkie back to my mouth as I'm striding forward, away from whichever kid struck me.
"All vehicles roll right now," I bark. "Get out of here, hit the road and keep on until the East coast."
Engines all around me rev and I'm ten yards from Drake and squeezing the trigger to fire again when-
BOOM
One of my RVs explodes.
A hurricane erupts from its side and an invisible punch of hot air hits my face, followed by gouts of flame and a flurry of whistling, airborne wreckage. A kid nearby takes a flat plastic panel in the face, there's a crunch of blood and he goes down. Shattered cubes of glass spray over my cheeks but there's no time to turn away. Sharp
fragments of metal clash musically off the nearby vehicles, and sheaves of burning paper and rags of ripped fabric flow up like a geyser, caught in the updraft of the fiery black smoke.
There's a whining in my ears and now I'm wavering in position. Perhaps I black out for a second because I come back to consciousness on my knees facing Drake, looking down at me. Another little kid, maybe four years old, kneels nearby with his jaw dropped wide and spatters of blood torn into his cheeks and forehead from the blast.
Others are lying all around, drifted over with scraps of scorched plastic and wood. My eyes settle on random details, disconnected from any sense of continuity; here's a mangled metal porthole frame, half a chipboard desk, what might be a human arm.
I look up, past Drake to where the RV is gone, leaving a blazing, broken chassis dug into a crater in the asphalt. For long seconds I don't understand what I'm seeing. What happened?
Drake speaks but I don't hear him over the buzzing in my ears. I look at him, then down at my own hands. A gun and a walkie.
I raise the gun. I raise the walkie.
Drake hits me before I can use either of them.
CRUNK
His huge left fist hits like a bronco's kick, and I swing back and drop hard to smack the fragment-strewn apron. I roll and try to get the gun up but it's gone now and Drake's standing over me with his fists tightly bunched like hogs' heads. Somewhere behind him there's Feargal, pale on the floor like some kind of grub crawled up out of the earth. I blink and he twitches but that's all. Things have changed and I can't keep up. I crane my neck, blood trickling into my eyes from the worst punch I've ever taken, that almost certainly broke my nose and maybe my jaw too, and see all the RVs around us, unmoving.
"Go!" I croak at them, but hardly any sound comes out. The shock has them now. "Go!"
Then Drake's boot finds my face, and I crumple backward. The force of the kick is unimaginable. My head and neck grind like broken gears, my body lifts and scrapes on the forecourt and now I'm sucking in blood, and I'm thinking this is probably about it for me, and I roll on my back in time to see Drake over me, and his mouth is moving but I don't hear him, because there's a voice that's infinitely more important shouting out.
"Demon!"
I crane my neck and see her, just visible across the cement strewn with bodies and shrapnel, hunched, leaning and pale-faced in the RV's doorway. Lara. She extends one shaking arm to point at Drake, and shouts hoarsely again, "Demon!"
Then Drake's bulk blocks my view. I try to shout something through my mangled lips, but only blood and the sharp lump of a tooth dribbles out. His foot draws back and comes in and-
INFLUX
ANNA 1
Anna was on a rare, hard-won break on the Golden Horn in Istanbul, standing beside a shallow reflecting pool between two ancient mosques beneath a burning blue sky, when Lucas's voice came in on the walkie, as calm and controlled as ever.
"Anna, there's something happening on the hydrogen line you really need to see. Pick up!"
Anna frowned, distracted enough to drop a second on her time around the shallow pool in front of the historic Aya Sofia mosque. Her boat was a 48-inch ProBoat Rockstar with a water-cooled 26cc gas engine, able to hit speeds above 40mph. Ravi beside her, lying down at the water's side while he sipped on Turkish raki, controlled a 42-inch ProBoat BlackJack 29 capable of 45mph with a 2000Kv brushless motor.
He grunted lazily. "There's always some new breakthrough on the hydrogen line. Let him come out here. He needs the exercise."
"You need the exercise," Anna said, nudging his shoulder with her foot, which knocked his attention off-balance just long enough for her to clip his faster model round the red buoy at the end of their course.
"Did you-?" he spluttered, then cursed. "Damn it, that's it." He rolled onto his knees to focus more fully, gently whipping her ankles with the springy antenna of his remote control pad as his body spun around.
Anna gasped with the sharp, slight pain, and then the race was on. In the background Lucas kept on trying on the walkie, but both Anna and Ravi were too intently focused on the water as their two little boats, one black and yellow like a hornet, one red and black, buzzed and chugged around the reflecting pool.
It was their new hobby, a welcome distraction from the heavy matters of state involved with marching from bunker to bunker and dropping on each one in turn the news of the end of their world as they knew it.
It took a toll, and it was at Peters' advice that Anna had started delegating more.
"This," he'd said one day, looking at her as she pored over another sheet of calculations and genetic markers in their mobile lab, plainly exhausted from the non-stop load she'd carried since returning from the States. "It's arrogance. Your head will blow up, boom."
He'd made a 'boom' gesture. He'd been right. He'd got Ravi to back him up, and gradually they weaned her off delving into the depths of the T4 and hydrogen line science. Now Lucas was in charge of it, along with Jake and Sulman who ate that stuff up. They got absorbed in the scientific details, the long back and forths about the cure to come, the genetic sequences, and while Anna loved to get reports on their progress and stay abreast of any changes in their understanding, it was just not feasible for her to take an active role anymore.
Her skills were better spent on leadership, security and logistics, on judging the people they spoke to and selling them on the treaty she and Amo had put together, in concert with the Council. That was enough, really, and so she'd let herself drift away from spending twenty hours of every twenty-four engaged in 'the mission.' That meant leaving the science to others.
It afforded her time with Ravi, and room for new hobbies. At first she'd thought to take up her old habit of racing catamaran on the waters of the Mediterranean or whatever body of water they were near, but she'd called that off after too many people protested.
The first and loudest protest came from Peters, who'd regarded her with his dourest Scandinavian expression when she'd suggested rigging a trailer for a boat to travel round with their bunker convoy.
"Anna," he'd said. "That is patent ridiculous."
After which he'd gone back to counting their gas stores, the matter settled.
Secondly, as Ravi had explained so patiently, there was the risk actual racing engendered. Once upon a time she'd gotten high off it, even found a kind of respite from the dull, guilt-laden life of New LA prior to her expedition round the world, but not so much anymore. Every day they were at risk; communicating with bunkers that boasted proud gun towers, whose drones could circle above them at any time.
It was a lot of trust, and enough risk for anyone.
Third, which came from Macy in a quiet, candid moment, there was the cost the risk presented. The mission needed her, she knew that. Peters might be able to take over if he had to, even Ravi or Sulman would do a fair job, but none of them had her skillset or knew what she knew. It was best she stayed alive to do her job, and that meant no racing of real catamarans.
Ravi had suggested the models.
"They're portable. They're replaceable. And best yet, I may be able to finally beat you in a race."
That had been like a red rag to a bull, and she'd charged him with gusto. She'd always been the fastest on the water by far, but it turned out he was a damn good hand with a remote control. He also knew just how to tune up his little boat's engine to get maximum performance, something Anna always struggled with. Optimization had always been his strongest suit, back to when he'd been the one to detail her yachts after she tore them up on the water.
Now her RockStar boat bounced off the yellow buoy at the far end of the course and made the final sprint to the finish line. Ravi cursed as his BlackJack revved in from behind, turning right to go left all the way round, putting on an out-of-control burst of speed.
"What the-!" Anna cried, as the burst saw him rear-end her with a loud crack, flipping her boat up in the air and driving his down into the water with a gulp. Hers landed upside down just shy
of the finish line, and sank. Ravi's shot up again out of the water but threw itself violently into the pool's side wall, smashing the front bumper and making the engine kick out.
"Son of a bitch!" Anna yelled.
Ravi just laughed like it was the funniest thing ever.
Anna felt like stamping her feet, standing there with her fists tight and her jaw set. He always did this, and it was infuriating. He just didn't take the racing seriously.
"You need to race properly!" she belted at him. "We agreed!"
This just made him laugh more, choking out an unapologetic, "It was an accident."
She bent over to look at her legs, where his antenna had left the slightest, fading red welt on her dark calf. "And look at that? What about that?"
He kept laughing. Her face transformed into one of pure, unalloyed rage, then she forced it back while he just kept on laughing.
"It's just a race, sweetie," he managed. "Little boats."
Oh, he was loving it.
"Give me that raki," she stormed, strode over to the bottle by his side, then before he could react, slipped her fingers under his hips and heaved.
The look on his face as he spun and rolled was priceless. Then he was splashing into the reflecting pool's water, and Anna's anger faded as quickly as it had flared up.
He reclined full-length in the shallow water, posed exotically with one leg akimbo, and held up his raki shot glass. "I've still got some left," he said. He did indeed somehow still have a trace of the dark golden liquid at the bottom.
"Idiot," she murmured.
"You take it too seriously," he teased.
"Life is serious," she countered, then picked up the bottle and stepped into the pool beside him.
"My lucky day," he managed between laughs.
"Stop laughing right now, if you know what's good for you," she said, and on a dime he stopped. She dropped to straddle his hips, teasingly uncorked the raki and poured a heavy shot of the sweet, aniseed liquid into his glass, then let him tip half of that into her mouth, half down his.
The Last Mayor Box Set Page 128
