“Someday,” I told him, earning a hard stare. “We’re not meant to be told what to do. Not even if it’s something with fangs doing the telling.” At that, he laughed, a short, dry bark without any real joy.
“Damned if you aren’t right, but still—” He looked off to the north, his eyes losing focus. “—people get mighty tired of living on scraps.”
“If this works, we won’t have to,” I said, standing to limber up for the run. “Next stop, civilization. Unless it’s already here.”
“What’s that?” Salyers asked, mild confusion on his face.
“Look at that.” I pointed to a dip in the sand, which wouldn’t be interesting on its own, but this depression ran straight and true into the distance. “When was the last big storm through here? Do you know?”
“Two at least in the past three months. Kept us hemmed in for trading, but I can’t say as I know this area well. More as a casual observer.” He made a thoughtful noise and leaned down to get an angle on what I was seeing. “That’s a long wall, unless it isn’t. Straight lines that long usually mean one thing out here in The Empty.”
“A road. Or a highway.” I took my bearing, considering the location of Alatus, and the Oasis, and things began to fall in place. I had a name, and a connection to the past that would help us navigate, even if the road was only a distant memory. “Route 62.”
“The name of the road, or the town?” he asked.
“Road. If there was a town nearby, it might be”—I did more calculation, drawing from memories of a world that was long gone—“Snyder. That’s what was here.” The past dropped away again as I thought of all the towns I’d ridden through, exploring the area after I left the military. All those people, gone. It was a dizzying moment of loss, but Salyers brought me back with his questions.
“Snyder? Was it a big place? No mention of it now,” he said.
“It was small. This was all small towns, mostly, lots of farming and ranching. It was a lot different then,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.
“Is that why you’re so keen on planting your own forest? Because you think it’ll bring something back?” He wasn’t being cruel. I don’t think Salyers had that ability. I think he was curious about what I saw when I looked at the wasteland.
“Maybe a little, but more of it is knowing that water and tree cover can reclaim this place, even if it takes a lifetime. And beyond. We can’t live in sand, and I guess we can’t live near the river, not unless we want to end up as crocodile shit,” I said, shaking my head a little at the brutality of my new life.
“I’m told that’s a fatal condition,” Salyers said, straight faced and fighting a smile.
I laughed at that, wondering yet again what kind of people could survive in The Empty and still crack jokes. People like Salyers, and hopefully me, though there was a lot of work in front of us before I would feel relaxed enough to laugh without a shadow on my heart. There were too many bones underfoot for that.
“Do the storms ever reveal any of the old roads? In larger sections?” I asked.
“Sure. The next storm that comes along will usually cover it up, but there are more than just ruins. Sometimes the roads are still good enough to walk on, being buried and away from the sun and wind. I’ve seen sections as long as five klicks exposed by one of the howlers that we get in the late spring. Vicious month or two for storms, but damned good for scavenging. You never know what the wind will reveal,” he said. Seeing my expression, he gave me a slow nod. “You thinking about how to keep the roads uncovered?”
“Among other things, but yeah. That’s one idea. The other is using whatever the storms reveal for when we expand,” I said. “Let’s walk a bit and get loose. I don’t want to miss any details around here, now that I know there’s a cache left over from my world,” I said. A memory tried to surface and failed, and straining only pushed it farther away. I relaxed, rolling my shoulders and sighing with an effort. There were secrets nearby, but they would have to come to me, not the other way around.
“I don’t mind the warmup. At my age, I can only run for ten or twelve hours before I get tired. Not like you kids,” he said, his beard twitching with suppressed laughter.
“Fair enough, old man. When you’re ready, set the pace. History is just over that hill,” I said.
“Always on the horizon,” he muttered, and we took off down the hill, our feet churning ancient sand behind us as the future beckoned.
7
“That’s it,” Salyers said. “Unless we’ve found another fortress, but I doubt it.”
The rocky point rose above the desert some hundred meters away, dotted with low shrubs and trees that hid the deep grooves along each face. A single track of winding sand led to the top, and when I saw the size of the outcropping, I knew that Rowan had lied. I also knew that the rock wasn’t natural, or at the minimum, it had been reshaped by human hands.
“It’s too small to be any kind of power plant I know, and damned small for a settlement.” I paused to consider the feature, then waved Salyers to follow me. We were still three hundred meters out, and if we’d been spotted, no alarm had gone up. “Let’s take a lap. I’d like to see what we’re dealing with.”
The entire hill was more like a small plateau, with the tops of stone buildings visible from our vantage point. There were hints of a square emerging, despite the weathered appearance of the rising walls. The more I considered it, the less I was convinced that any part of the rocks were real. I began revising my opinion of the location, reminded of the fact that the world went on for some years after I slipped into my long sleep. Things had changed, and this might be an example of something beyond my experience. Something new, like my ‘bots, and The Empty, and everything in between. Still, the hill was more fortress than random rockpile.
“Easy to defend, I’ll give him that,” Salyers said.
“Tough fight if you’re meaning to take the place, but no guards?” I shook my head in wonder as someone began to shout a greeting from the nearest edge of the plateau. It was Rowan, and he pointed back to the path until we acknowledged the instruction. “Guess we were seen. Time to put on our game face.”
“Game face?” Salyers asked.
“Sorry, old saying from my time. What I mean is—everything we say and do from this point is a negotiation,” I clarified.
“I’m more of a stalker, hunter, killer type myself, so if you don’t mind, I’ll leave all this to you,” he said, smiling as we made our way back to the sanded path.
Rowan appeared at the top of the path, along with Lyss and several other people I didn’t know. Some were young women dressed simply in smocks and work boots, wearing belts with an array of tools that made sense if you were fighting for survival in The Empty. “You weren’t kidding when you said it would be fast,” Rowan said.
“We ran. Nice day for it.” I clasped his hand, giving Lyss a polite nod. The other people looked on with a mixture of suspicion and amusement, although a couple were outright hostile. The young girls averted their eyes, except for the dark-haired girl on the far right. She peered at me with a hesitant curiosity, her blue eyes shining with intelligence in a heart-shaped face.
I held up a hand, gesturing that we should pause. “Before we come in, probably ought to ask where the power plant is, since I know it isn’t here.”
Everyone stiffened at my tone except for Rowan, who had been expecting the question based on his reaction. He smiled, turning to address Lyss in a casual voice. “Told you he would get right to the point.”
“I didn’t lie,” Rowan said. “The plant is nearby, but it’s hard to defend. This place is better, has other. . .advantages. We need more experience with the Hightec, frankly, and that’s where you come in. Will you eat with us, and we can discuss it?”
“We will,” I answered, marking his body language. He was hiding something, and not just the location of the plant. Rowan looked different than he had two days earlier. There was a vibrant gleam in his g
aze that hadn’t been present out in The Empty. It might have been due to home cooking and his own bed, but I had my doubts.
“Great. Come on up, and let’s get inside. I have a feeling there’s weather on the way,” Rowan said, earning a grunt of agreement from Salyers.
“Maybe. Not until later,” Salyers said.
“Then we have time for a quiet meal outside before we get under a roof,” Rowan said.
Lyss moved aside, and the other people dispersed without a word, vanishing to their tasks with unnerving speed. They were either in fear or dedicated. I made a note to find out which, because I wasn’t about to tolerate another version of Wetterick in my midst.
“We’re thankful for it,” I said as we climbed the path. The view from the top was a good one, revealing a spread of The Empty that turned from raw desert to something more alive as my eyes tracked east.
A fire crackled in their stone ring, placed at the western edge of the plateau and surrounded by low wooden chairs. On a spit, the hulking form of an enormous lizard roasted away, the skin sizzling and popping. Two skewers of root vegetables cooked alongside, and one of the young women ladled steaming liquid over all three items, catching the drippings in a steel pan that would later double as a serving bowl.
Sitting down, the pretty girl I’d noticed handed me a cup of water, the distinct scent of cactus rising from the cool liquid.
“Thanks,” I told her, earning a silent nod as she handed a cup to Salyers and moved back to the unseen center of the plateau. There was a depression in that direction, somewhere behind the few buildings that stood arrayed before us. The stone structures were low, made of block and wooden roofs, and facing inward with the doors away from our location at the communal fire.
In economical motions with a knife, Rowan made a show of serving everyone roots, lizard, and broth. When we settled in to eat, he toasted me with a forced amiability, his smile fixed before he lowered his mouth to sip at his bowl.
“It’s good, Chloe,” Rowan said. “Mind setting three bowls aside for the patrol? Thanks,” he said, without waiting for her answer.
The pretty girl, who now had a name, looked startled, then gave an awkward smile.
“I know you think I lied about the power plant, but I didn’t, Jack, and I have something that will prove it. The only reason I’m offering you this sign of our intent is because we need each other. I want to get started in the right way.” He motioned to one of the other women, who brought me a weathered plastic folder. “Take a look at that.”
I set my bowl down and opened the brittle folder to see plastic covered pages of technical data for restarting something called a Micro-Hydro Fusion Reactor. The pages were in English, and more importantly, the document wasn’t just technical specifications. It was a restart manual for a commercial unit that produced ten times the energy of its water source, and it had been in production for government and public use since 2029. Holy shit. They made thousands of them, I thought, schooling my face into a mournful frown.
“It’s—hard to read, but I think it’s got something to do with a water engine, used for driving water to crops,” I lied, smoothly and while continuing to stare at the pages in confusion. The plastic binder wasn’t government issue. It had been printed by a library, or a homeowner, or anyone who owned one of the reactors, probably left alongside like a card that sat next to a furnace, showing how to reignite a pilot light. It was so simple a teenager could have done it, and for the moment, the secret was entirely mine.
“Crops?” Rowan asked, fighting to keep the disgust from his face. He’d been thinking weapon or some other device that would give him an edge in The Empty; his expression was like a roadmap to delusions of grandeur.
“Sure. Sort of a pump, but strong enough to work with low water flow, and maybe even high temps. Might work here in The Empty. Can’t help to try. Do you have need of irrigation?” I made a show of looking around for nonexistent crops on the plateau, only to be rewarded by Rowan’s irritated wave.
“Not here. Too small, too dry. We don’t even live up top, really. The only protected area is underneath, down the racks,” he said.
“Racks?” I asked him, not seeing anything that looked remotely like a rack.
“Stairs, cut into the interior of this—structure. It isn’t natural,” he admitted. Lyss shot him a warning glare, but he dismissed her protest with a derisive snort. “Who gives a fuck? They have to sleep somewhere if it rains, and now that we know the devices don’t work—”
“Rowan,” Lyss hissed as he realized his mistake. I kept my eyes down gnawing on the lizard, which frankly tasted nothing like chicken. It tasted like an animal that ate other lizards, and maybe the occasional shit-smeared rat.
The wind freshened just enough to raise my eyes to the west, where a roiling bank of clouds was building.
“No choice. We go down into the interior, and we can negotiate the rest in the morning. Jack, sorry to say we have to cut this short, but the storms won’t wait.”
“Appreciate the hospitality, and to put your minds at ease, there’s nothing useless about an irrigation system, if the seals and gaskets can be repaired. The Empty will need more crops as our population grows. I know we don’t always plan on struggling to eat and live, Rowan,” I said.
He considered me for a moment, then a genuine smile flared to life on his face. “Well said. I, for one, will plan for success. If you’ll look at the pumps, then we can work something out. No sense in leaving Hightec to rot, is there?” He clapped a hand on my shoulder, taking my measure as we stood, scuffing at the fire and piling bowls together.
The young women took everything down a concrete stairwell carved in an oblong opening that gored the middle of the plateau, their steps light and certain as they vanished into a wide double door, thrown open to the evening sky. The wind rose further to a low moan, and I felt the first hint of drops in the air.
“The rain is close. Never seen a storm move that fast,” I remarked, ducking into the gloomy interior of a hallway lit only by oil lamps.
“Out here, you can be overtaken by a storm so fast, you’re only a memory. Lighting, floods—even seen hail kill an entire traveling party. Found ‘em beaten to a pulp and rotting in the sun a day later,” Rowan said.
We emerged in a large common area that had once been the dining hall of a small facility, but nothing remained except for crude wooden tables and storage lockers, the paint long since scoured away by time or human hands. There was a familiarity to the layout, but I kept my eyes down as we settled around the low table while Lyss pulled the doors closed just as the first serious rain began to hit. Other than the odd drop hitting the doors, there was no sign of the weather outside.
“Having all that concrete overhead makes for quiet nights,” Rowan said. Chloe lit candles as we settled into an uneasy silence, then Lyss rose to loom over the table, leaning forward on her scarred hands.
“We have rooms ready for you both,” Lyss said with an uncharacteristic smile. It fit her badly, but she appeared to be making an attempt at hospitality. Rowan might not value my description of the pumps, but she did.
“Is there a—” I began, but Lyss smiled again, pointing down the left hall. “Third door. We have running water, and a shower that works, too. It’s not hot, but it’s clean.”
“Thank you. It’ll feel good after today. Salyers, you first?” I asked.
“Don’t mind if I do. Never pass up the luxury of a shower. Or dinner. Thank you for that, by the way,” he said with a polite nod. He rose and vanished into the hall, where I heard a door close with a wooden thump.
“What was this place?” I asked, curious if anyone would give me a real answer.
Rowan tried. “I think it was meant for science, or Hightec, but as to what kind, I don’t know. There were no bones in here, and parts were locked up tight when we found it. It’s part of a chain, you might say, something to do with Hightec being saved for humanity’s last stand. Might be bullshit, for all I know.”
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“How long ago was that?” I asked.
“About four months. We’ve been clearing debris ever since, but there are still rooms filled with dust. Big job, and not one we want to hurry. You never know what you might find by looking into the past,” he said.
“I couldn’t agree more.” I said nothing else, waiting for him to ask the question he’d been holding back. He was a decent actor, but not ready for the stage.
“Did you happen to remember the medical supplies?” Rowan asked. He tried for a casual air, but failed, though I made no notice of his naked greed.
“Sure did.” I let him squirm for a second, then reached into my pack and withdrew the bundle. “Could only spare two needles in the lot, but with proper sterilization, they should serve for a bit. Also some bandages and disinfectant.”
His relief was a physical wave, hand steady but fast as he reached for the package. He held it up with a casual air that rang as hollow as his bullshit story about arriving four months ago. The dust told a different story, and there were no crops, nothing indicating a steady presence.
Then, there were the girls.
I noticed their arms first, despite their efforts to avoid my eyes. The women had been in manacles or cuffs, and recently, the red marks livid enough to see in the low light of our campfire meal. I knew Salyers had seen it, too, because he’d spoken little, maintaining a casual air while forcing down the lizard meat and half-burned desert yams. If Rowan and his people were making this a permanent home, then he had the laziest crew in history.
I guessed that he had only recently found the facility, and he had other secrets as well. Our meeting—courtesy of the Hannahs—was probably no accident, but I had a roof over my head as the storm raged outside, and that meant that my suspicions could wait until the morning.
“Can’t thank you enough,” Rowan said. “Care for a drink before you bed down?” He offered a battered metal flask, the cap replaced with a carved wooden plug.
Future Reborn Box Set Page 28
