Even through the filtering of the tiny microphone, the sounds of panicked activity were evident in the background now. Two black-suited men rushed in on the mysterious transgressor, but he batted them aside with even less effort than he’d shown with the desk. That done, he bent down to look straight into the camera.
His eyes came alive with crimson fire.
Rachel gasped. Beside her, John gave a violent start.
“Our turn,” whispered the red-eyed demon of a man.
Then the feed cut out.
They sat in stunned silence as the station returned to the pair of news casters who both had assistants whispering frantically into their ears as everyone collectively tried to figure out what in the world had just happened.
“John?” Rachel asked, unsure what else to say, what to even begin to think about what they’d just seen.
At the sound of her voice, John snapped out of whatever haze had gripped him and jumped to his feet. “Michael!” he cried. “Downstairs! Now!”
“Come on,” he added to Rachel.
Then he grabbed her by the wrist, and the world imploded inward. For a brief second, time stood still, and Rachel couldn’t move—couldn’t breathe. The moment stretched. Too long. Then it snapped like a rubber band and sprang forward, and she was breathing too fast, and she couldn’t think for the surge of raw panic screaming through her body and out of her lungs.
John was backed halfway across the kitchen, hands raised to his sides and head bowed before she realized she’d actually been screaming, bucking violently to free her wrist from his grasp.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I’m so sorry, Rachel, I didn’t mean to—but we have to—I think we have to move. Can you come with me? Please?”
Her body burned from the flurry of activity, and her mind raced with barely coherent impulses to run and hide and never look back. But something about the look on John’s face, something about the feeling she’d had when that red-eyed… whatever it was had looked into the camera and said the words, Our turn…
Something wasn’t right.
Michael appeared at the bottom of the steps behind John, clutching a pair of his SmartBlocks. “Daddy?”
“We have to go, buddy,” John called without looking away from Rachel. “Get your shoes.”
Michael looked between the two of them. “Is Rachel coming?”
“Of course, buddy. We’ll be there in a second.”
Michael, apparently deciding this was acceptable, bounced off to the front hall.
When he was gone, John sank to a knee and reached his hands imploringly toward her. “I don’t know what’s happening out there, but my gut’s telling me we should be somewhere safe right now.”
Now that her breathing was returning to normal and she’d had a moment to process, she was more confused than panicked, and, more than anything, embarrassed she’d reacted so violently to what had clearly not been harmful contact.
In the silence between them, the news casters on TV got their act together enough to announce everyone should stay calm and remain inside their houses until they were able to gather more details on what was happening.
Rachel stood shakily, legs and back reminding her she’d better not expect to be going anywhere too fast too soon. “We’re not safe here?”
John rose slowly, cautiously. “Not as safe as we’ll be next door. Can you make it, or can I carry you?”
Rachel swallowed, fighting another rush of inexplicable panic at the thought of his strong arms hoisting her up. “I can make it.”
John nodded, disappeared, and was back a few seconds later with her shoes and a black backpack, which he promptly began shoveling food and water into while Rachel pulled the shoes on.
He scooped Michael up, and they left the house through the back door. Rachel stumbled through the dark back yard beside John, doing her best to ignore the fire that blossomed through her legs and up into her body with each step. John offered his hand, and she took it gladly for support.
Luckily, they didn’t have far to go before John led them up to the back deck of a nearby house. He set Michael down beside her and went to knock on the door.
Nothing happened.
John knocked again, harder, muttering under his breath. Michael reached up to find Rachel’s hand, only now beginning to look frightened. Rachel gave his hand a squeeze and waited as John continued hammering on the door.
Finally, when Rachel thought there was no point in him trying any longer, the door swung open a crack to reveal the suspicious glare of a man with dark hair and eyes.
Rachel’s breath caught when she saw the big handgun held ready at his side.
“Just the kids,” John said quickly. “That’s all I’m asking. Please, Myers.”
The guy’s dark eyes narrowed and tracked past John, and his expression shifted to one of hesitation when he caught sight of Rachel and Michael. He stared at them for a long stretch—long enough to make Rachel squirm.
“Dammit,” he hissed.
Then he stepped back and the door swung fully open. Rachel saw that this Myers had another pistol and a shotgun strapped to his paunchy form in addition to the weapon in his hand.
“Get in,” Myers said. “Now.” He frowned at John and his backpack. “All of you. Hurry up.”
John waved them frantically in. “Thank you, Myers. God bless you.”
Myers grunted as they shuffled past him into an impressively clean hallway. “Basement,” he called after them. “Go!”
Rachel didn’t have time to argue or ask questions as they swept her and Michael down the steps into a well-lit, pristinely ordered basement. She thought it might be worth stopping to make the time, though, when she caught sight of the open hatch toward the center of the room that disappeared down to what looked to be uncomfortably tight quarters.
Were they supposed to be going down there?
“—was about to close the thing when you started knocking,” Myers was calling after them as he followed down, confirming her fear. “You’re lucky,” he added in a tone that suggested he felt he was also unlucky in this particular deal.
Rachel drew up to the edge of the hatch beside John and decided that there was nothing lucky about the tight space below.
Neatly packed shelves of foodstuffs and other goods lined most of one wall, and there were three cots against the other, two arranged bunk style and one beside those to serve as dual sitting and sleeping space. There was a small sink, and a small device Rachel thought with a sinking feeling must be the toilet.
All told, it couldn’t have been much larger than Rachel’s bedroom back home. At least it was well-lit.
“You’re sure about this?” she murmured to John.
John didn’t look any happier than she felt about the small space, but he headed down the steep ladder steps without a word and stretched his arms up for Michael.
“Better safe than sorry, little lady,” Myers said behind her.
She turned, and he patted his two holstered pistols for emphasis.
“What do you need the guns for down there?”
He just arched a brow at her and gestured toward the ladder.
“It’s okay, Rachel,” John called from below. “We’ll just wait a couple of hours. Just to be sure.”
Myers shrugged as if he found it highly improbable things would turn out to be okay after just a couple hours.
Rachel glanced down, caught Michael’s wide-eyed stare, and forced herself to start down the ladder.
Below, the shelter felt every bit as tight as it had looked, and then some. Myers clambered down after her, paused to give them all one last long look, then pulled the small but thick hatch closed after him and gave the smaller wheel inset in the door a few long twists to either tighten the seal or lock it—Rachel didn’t really care which.
She was too busy worrying about the walls that were too near to literally closing in on her. She gave John a desperate look, and he guided her over to the nearest cot.
“Si
t,” he said quietly. “This isn’t forever. We’re just being careful.”
Across the room, which happened to barely be an arm’s length away, Myers flicked on an old LED TV. “Hardwired,” he provided, as if the detail were somehow important. “And much as I appreciate the optimism,” he added, fiddling with the channels. “I might wait until we know what the hell that thing was before we start imagining things are gonna be okay out there.”
John shot a frown in Myers’ direction as the other man found a news station and began turning up the volume. The audio proved unnecessary, though, as the shot cut from the female news caster to a series of shots from around the country—several major cities, some of which Rachel thought she recognized. It was hard to tell.
The cities were all burning.
“Merciful Father,” John murmured.
Myers shook his head slowly. “Not today.”
The news feed had just switched to a shot of the smoke-filled New York skyline when the screen lit with a bright flash and cut to black. A second later, a Net logo appeared, with a message that read Channel currently unavailable.
A long silence stretched between them, unbroken even by Michael.
Finally, Myers broke the spell and started scanning the Net for another working news channel.
“What’s happening?” Rachel asked.
She didn’t really expect a meaningful answer. John didn’t even try to give one. He just sank down beside her, still clutching Michael to his shoulder.
They spent most of the next several hours watching in tense silence as Myers hopped from one news channel to another, watching as, one by one, they all fell to the flames right along with the cities they were broadcasting from. At one point, the bunker seemed to rumble with some distant disturbance, and they collectively tensed for a good twenty minutes.
From what they gathered, the event wasn’t confined to US cities. All across the globe, the world powers seemed to have declared silent war against one another without so much as a call of warning. Some of the casters were speculating nuclear weapons were in play. As the hours passed, most of those remaining were too shocked to do much more than abandon their posts or sputter publicly for mercy from their deity of choice.
Finally, when the display on the wall read 2:00 AM, Myers switched off the TV and sank down to his haunches against the wall. For a long while, they stared at one another in silence. Then Myers crossed to the bunks, pulled himself up to the top one, and lay down without a word.
John looked at Rachel, a kind of permanent shock etched across his face. He gave her shoulder a squeeze, then went to lay Michael down on the bottom bunk.
Maybe Myers was right, Rachel thought. Maybe they were lucky.
They were still alive, right?
For now.
But did that really make them lucky?
Sitting there in the dead silent bunker, thinking of everything she’d lost in the past week and how thoroughly they’d just watched the rest of the world follow suit, she wasn’t so sure.
Yes, they were alive. But if things were as bad as they looked out there, how long would they be stuck down here? And what horrible manner of red-eyed monsters and devastated ruins might be waiting for them when they emerged?
Lucky, she decided, wasn’t a word that belonged in the planet’s vocabulary today—maybe not for a long time to come.
But, one way or another, Rachel was alive. And despite everything, she wasn’t about to sit back and release her hold on that without a fight.
1
Seven months earlier, had he been sitting where he was now, Jarek Slater wouldn’t have been worrying about much more than how he’d sate his rumbling belly that night, or where he’d find shelter. If anything, he would have been entertaining some grand daydream about how the survivors of the Catastrophe and the long winter were someday going to come together to rebuild a world that was good and just and maybe even worthwhile.
But now, sitting there dangling his legs over the crumbling concrete lip of the rooftop and staring out at the ruined city, all Jarek could see was an ugly night in an ugly world.
And it was about to get uglier.
“Okay,” Jarek said, breaking the silence for the first time in the twenty minutes since he’d settled there. “You can say it. You told me so.”
“It’s not my function to shame you for past wrongs,” Al said, the light trace of his English accent coming through Fela’s earpieces with crystal clarity. Jarek arched an eyebrow, waiting…
“But I did bloody tell you, sir.”
“I swear to god, Al,” Jarek said. “If eBay were still a thing…”—he swept an open hand through the air—“gone! Just like that.”
Al sniffed. “You’d miss me.”
Fela’s sensors informed him of the low rumbling of an approaching vehicle off in the distance well before Jarek could have hoped to pick it up with his own ears. Just the old gas-guzzler he was looking for, by the sound of it.
“Hopefully you won’t be missing me ten minutes from now,” Jarek said.
He still had a few minutes, but he decided to stand anyway. Didn’t want to be stiff when the fireworks started, after all. Jarek clenched his jaw and just managed to keep from crying out as the movement sent waves of sickly hot pain cascading out from his still-fresh bullet wounds—the through-and-through in his left thigh and its more superficial cousin in his mid-back.
He waited, watching. He wasn’t exactly sure how he knew it—maybe it was some nearly subsonic fluctuation on the other end of the line—but he could tell that Al was thinking about what he’d said.
“If it comes to that, sir,” Al finally said, “I’m not so sure that I would stick around.”
“Jesus, man… no pressure, right? Didn’t they dub you the next frontier of human achievement or something? I think you and Fela would have plenty to offer the world once I was gone.”
“Possibly,” Al said, “but it seems far too likely that we’d fall into the wrong hands, and then it would be little but pain and destruction that we’d offer anyone.” After a quiet moment, Al added, softly, “I don’t want that, sir.”
Jarek nodded as the rumbling of the archaic gas engine grew louder and the shine of headlights rounded into view a few blocks away. He reached back, clumsily searching until he found the hilt of the sword slung over his right shoulder but thought better of it and drew the pistol from the holster at his right thigh instead.
“Well,” Jarek said, “guess we better make sure I don’t die here then.”
If Al had possessed a head, Jarek imagined that the artificial intelligence construct would have given him a solemn nod. “I’m with you no matter what, sir.”
Jarek grinned. Al’s hardware was physically housed within the sturdy confines of his exosuit, Fela, so the AI was with Jarek wherever he went, provided Jarek went there in the suit. And given what had happened earlier that night, Jarek didn’t think he’d make the mistake of leaving Fela’s protection again anytime soon.
The truck, an old semi with a short trailer in tow, rumbled closer. A second later, Jarek spotted the headlights of a second vehicle, then a third—the truck’s guard detail. It had been a bit of a gamble, expecting that they’d come up this way to catch I-280, but it had paid off, and now it was time to do what he’d come here to do.
A swirling storm of fear and anxiety began the climb from his stomach to his throat. Jarek took a deep breath and blew it out, trying to focus on the task at hand.
“Alright,” he said, his mouth feeling suddenly dry as the truck drew near. “Time to kill the bossman.”
How the hell had he gotten here?
2
It had all started seven months ago, Jarek supposed, on the night that he’d found Rose.
Jarek had been out scrounging for food within abandoned houses and occupied dumpsters alike. It wasn’t an easy thing anymore, keeping a belly full. Before the Catastrophe, wasted food had been easy to come by. Once most of the world’s crops and livestock had died i
n the long nuclear winter, though, the survivors had gotten rather stingy with what food they could scrape together—go figure.
On the bright side, thanks to Fela’s thermally-regulated interior, Jarek at least hadn’t had to worry about the cold. The exosuit (and Al) had saved him from an early death more times than he could count, protecting him from most everything but the nefarious, ever-present threat of his empty stomach.
On that particular night seven months ago, Jarek had been investigating his next potential target when he’d heard the voices.
His body immediately responded, sinking into a ready stance, his heart accelerating. Running into people that were willing to roam the streets after dark rarely boded well. More often than not, they were the ones who’d spiraled down into true desperation in the cold and the dark following the Catastrophe—the ones for whom once deplorable acts like robbing and killing for food and other supplies had become a simple fact of life.
They’d started as everyday citizens—hungry, cold people begging or borrowing food from their neighbors. But the winter had stretched on; people had grown more hungry, more cold. Inevitably, some turned to violence to get what they needed, and soon enough, entire bands of marauders had risen, roaming from place to place, looting and stealing and killing as needed.
Jarek sometimes wondered whether the marauders would return to the bounds of society if the long winter subsided and the world became more habitable once again—whether they’d have the patience to work the land for what they required when they could simply take it from others instead. He wouldn’t hold his breath when the day came, but it was a nice thought, at least. For now, it was safe to say that humanity was not what it had once been. Or maybe it was. Maybe now they were simply more of what they’d always been.
None of it really seemed to matter all that much as Jarek leaned into the shadows and waited, listening for the voices and trying to decide whether to bolt or not.
The Complete Harvesters Series Page 130
