Scavenger Alliance (Exodus Book 1)

by Janet Edwards

  I knew that because my mind was thinking of those things as well. The doctor hadn’t been able to examine me herself, so she could have misdiagnosed my injury. Tad could have made the injections into the wrong points in my shoulder. The stasis cabinet holding the vital regrowth fluid could have had a fault in the stasis field so the fluid had gone bad. I could have wrecked everything by making one incautious movement when Tad was wrapping me inside my sleeping bag.

  “I won’t move,” I said.

  Tad went to one of the stasis boxes that held our food supply, and shut down the field. “I’ll have my breakfast now. Would you like something to eat?”

  “I know I didn’t eat anything yesterday, but I still don’t seem hungry.”

  “Some of the medication I gave you slows your general metabolism so your body can focus its efforts on healing your injury,” said Tad. “You’ll need to catch up on eating the meals you missed when it wears off.”

  He took a plate of steaming hot food from the stasis box, activated the field again, sat on his mattress, and started eating. “This is wintereat again?”

  “Yes, there’s wintereat in almost every meal we eat.”

  “And the white stuff?”

  I grinned. “That’s chopped falling star meat.”

  “Oh.” He tried a mouthful of it dubiously. “It’s not that bad. There’s a faint taste of cinnamon.”

  I’d never heard of cinnamon, so I didn’t say anything.

  “There were more meals in the stasis boxes than I expected,” continued Tad. “I thought we were only spending three or four days here.”

  “On trips like this you have to take spare food. If there’s a blizzard or something we could be stuck here for a while. If not, then we take back the extra meals.”

  Tad concentrated on his food for the next few minutes, then helped me drink a few sips of water. “I’ll be making a list of medicines today, noting down the instructions for them from the Earth data net, and packing them into boxes. I’ll only need to keep checking your pulse and temperature every two hours from now on, so you should try to get some sleep.”

  I hated leaving Tad to do all the work, it was a matter of pride to always contribute as much as I could, but I didn’t argue. After all the effort trying to heal my arm, it would be stupid to mess things up now.

  “Thank you for waking up every hour to check on me. How did you manage to do that?”

  “I set something up on the Earth data net to wake me.” He laughed. “Imagine a bell going off inside your head.”

  “What’s it like being able to do all these amazing things?”

  “All the girls on Adonis kept asking me that,” said Tad. “They gushed at me about it being wonderful, so I had to say it was, but I can be honest with you. It feels horribly lonely.”

  He shook his head. “It must have been incredible in the days when everyone was webbed. Talking to other people with just your thoughts would have been almost like telepathy, but I’m the only one now, so …”

  “Your grandfather isn’t webbed then?”

  “He was webbed as a child, just like everyone else was back then. And just like everyone else, his implanted web was designed to last a lifetime, but it needed retuning every year or so to compensate for changes in his brain.”

  Tad made a pained noise. “My grandfather told me how dreadful it was when his connection to the local data net became erratic and finally died. He said it was like losing part of his own mind.”

  I remembered Machico talking about his brother crying at night as he went through that. “So how did you get webbed, and why is your web still working?”

  “My grandfather realized civilization was heading off a cliff edge. The colony worlds traded some goods and raw materials with each other, but they all depended on Earth for vital equipment parts, medicines, and other items they couldn’t make themselves because they didn’t have the experts or the technology or the resources. Once Earth didn’t have the experts or technology to make those items either, everything that depended on them was going to fail. It might take months, years, decades, or even centuries, but they’d all fail in the end.”

  I nodded. I’d helped to scavenge replacement parts to keep the equipment in the Parliament House working, so I knew all about technology failing.

  “Most of those things weren’t vital to civilization,” said Tad. “The big exception was the interstellar portals. People could manage without ordinary portals, because they could use vehicles or walk, but once the interstellar portals were gone, there’d be no way to travel or trade supplies between worlds.”

  He waved his hands. “Colony worlds wouldn’t just have to cope without the supplies from Earth, but without all the things from other worlds as well. Adonis is the most advanced of the colony worlds, the best equipped to cope alone, but would still be in trouble without the rare metals and the medicines it imports from dozens of other worlds.”

  Tad frowned at his empty plate. “My grandfather decided it was the duty of the family of Thaddeus Wallam-Crane to save interstellar portal technology. He knew that Adonis didn’t have the technology to make replacement parts for the old portals, so his idea was to invent new interstellar portals that used much simpler components. He believed he might be able to do that, but only if he was webbed again.”

  “Does it really make that big a difference?” I asked.

  “I honestly don’t know. I’m so used to having all the information just a thought away, that … What matters is that my grandfather believed it did. He felt he was only half the man he’d been when he was webbed. He shamelessly used his position to corner web experts and resources. They managed to modify a couple of old webs to make them much easier to tune, but they couldn’t change or replace the one in my grandfather’s head without causing brain damage.”

  Tad pulled a face. “My grandfather had to make a new plan. He couldn’t be webbed and re-invent interstellar portal technology himself, so his son would have to take his place. My father was webbed, studied portal technology, and started work on the problem, but he was kidnapped and killed. After that, it was my turn, and I had to learn everything faster than my father, start work younger than my father, because we were running out of time to save civilization.”

  He sighed. “I was webbed at seven years old. From what I’ve heard my grandfather say, I don’t think the web in my head has ever been perfectly tuned. It’s probably only working at 90 per cent efficiency, but the point is that I can retune it myself with simple tools and keep it at that 90 per cent.”

  “It’s lucky your grandfather could find those experts and some spare webs,” I said.

  Tad hesitated before answering. “There weren’t any spare webs left. My father’s web, and my own, were both second-hand.”

  “What? You mean they’d been implanted into someone else’s head before …?”

  “Yes. All the webs had identification numbers, and I looked up the information for mine. I knew it was a stupid mistake, but I couldn’t stop myself. It only took a single thought to get the data, and it’s hard to stop thinking.”

  He paused. “The … previous owner was a girl. Her name was Ellie. She had dark hair like you, loved animals, and was smiling in all the images of her. She was only twelve years old when she was killed in an accident. Of course it made sense to use the newest webs possible, which meant taking ones from children, but …”

  Tad got up, and stood with his back to me, looking out of the window. “That’s why I can’t stay on Earth. I have to go to Zeus and find a way to re-invent interstellar portals. It’s not just for my grandfather, or to save civilization. It’s because I promised Ellie that I’d make the best possible use of her legacy.”

  There was silence for a moment.

  “That must sound strange to you,” said Tad.

  “No, I understand. At least, I understand a bit. Everything I have was owned by other people before me. When I play my flute, I often wonder who else played it before me, and what happened
to them. It makes sense to me that you’d feel like that about Ellie.”

  “You’re the only person I’ve ever told about her.” Tad’s voice was shaking. “I knew that my grandfather would think me a sentimental fool for caring about the previous owner of my web. He’s a fiercely practical man without much time for emotions.”

  I pictured Tad’s grandfather. A cold, harsh man driven by his obsession with interstellar portals.

  “I’d better start packing those medicines.” Tad hurried out of the room, still keeping his face turned away from me.

  I lay staring up at the cracked ceiling above me. I imagined the childhood Tad had had on Adonis, and compared it to mine. He’d never been hungry, never fled from a firestorm, or had to worry about falling stars attacking him, but I’d never had something taken from a dead girl’s brain and implanted into mine.

  Tad had only been seven years old when that happened, and I was sure he had no choice about it. His grandfather wouldn’t have asked his opinion, or listened to a refusal. Tad’s father was already dead then, but hadn’t the boy had anyone else to care for him? Tad had never mentioned his mother. Was she dead too?

  It was two hours before Tad reappeared. He checked my temperature and pulse, and chatted for a couple of minutes about different parts of the Americas that might be a suitable new home for the alliance. He didn’t mention Ellie again, so neither did I.

  I spent the rest of the day lying still, bored and frustrated, with Tad appearing every two hours to have brief discussions about places called Virginia, Ohio, and Dakota. Eventually, the light from the windows started fading. I wondered if Tad would be able to sleep properly tonight, or if he’d still have to keep checking on me.

  It was then that I smelt the smoke.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “Tad!” I shrieked. “Tad, I can smell something burning!” There was no response, so I tried yelling again. “Tad!”

  Still no response. Tad could be in an entirely different area of the storage facility, well out of earshot. I was supposed to keep perfectly still for a full thirty-six hours, and it couldn’t have been more than twenty-four so far. If I tried to get out of my sleeping bag, then I could do something dreadful to my healing shoulder, but I couldn’t keep lying here when the building was on fire.

  I tried one last desperate scream. “Tad!”

  “I’m here.” He appeared in the doorway, breathing heavily as if he’d run to reach me. “What’s wrong? Is it your shoulder?”

  “I can smell smoke. Something’s on fire.”

  He sniffed. “I can’t smell anything. Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure! I was in London when it burned, and I know the smell of smoke!”

  He lifted his hands in surrender. “Calm down, Blaze. I believe you. I’ll have a look round. Don’t move.”

  He hurried off, and I lay there fighting against my panic. “We must have a clear escape route. We’re on the ground floor of the building. I can’t see any flames outside, so we just have to smash the window, climb out, and get to the river.”

  I realized I was talking to myself, and put my right hand over my mouth to shut myself up. I didn’t want Tad to hear me babbling hysterically. Where the chaos was Tad anyway? How long did it take someone to …?

  “You’re right.” Tad hurried back into the room. “An apartment block is burning. There seems to be more smoke than fire, and there’s another building between it and us, but the wind is blowing this way. We need to keep an eye on the situation.”

  “We need to leave,” I said. “Right now. We grab the boxes of medicine you’ve packed, put them in the boat, and head downriver.”

  “That’s a really bad idea,” said Tad. “If we move you to the boat now, then we’ll wreck your shoulder. It’ll be pitch dark outside soon as well. There’s thick cloud cover, so no moonlight to help us get the boat downriver.”

  “It’s a wide river, Tad. It flows towards the sea. We can’t possibly get lost.”

  “No, but we could hit something and sink the boat. On the way here, we passed …”

  “I know that,” I interrupted. “Moving me to the boat could wreck my shoulder, and taking the boat downriver in the dark is risky, but it’s better than staying here to be burnt alive.”

  “If the fire gets dangerously close to us, I promise we’ll leave, but it really isn’t necessary yet. Please try to calm down, Blaze.” He tugged a chair over to the desk by the far end of the windows. “If I sit here, then I can keep an eye on the burning building. There’s no need for you to worry.”

  Telling me not to worry about a burning building was like telling gravity to make things go up instead of down. I couldn’t see the fire from where I was lying. Why the chaos had we put my mattress in the middle of this room, instead of where Tad was sitting? “Do you think the firestorm is starting?”

  He sighed. “It’s not the firestorm, Blaze. This is just a single random fire. Let’s relax and eat our evening meal.”

  “I’m still not hungry.”

  “Well, I am. It’s best if I eat now just in case the fire does turn out to be dangerous. If we have to head downriver at night, the most sensible thing would be to stop once we’re well clear of the fire, tie up the boat, and wait until morning before we make the rest of the journey. If I’m going to spend the night freezing in a boat on the river, I’d rather do it with a full stomach.”

  I grudgingly felt Tad had a point there. He seemed to take my silence as agreement, because he fetched a plate of food, took it over to the desk, and sat there eating while watching the fire. At least, I hoped he was watching the fire.

  I opened my mouth to ask if he was watching the fire, but managed to stop myself before I actually said the words. Chaos, Tad had told me he’d keep an eye on the burning building, and he was sitting facing it. It was perfectly irrational to keep nagging him every few seconds.

  When Tad had swallowed his last mouthful of food, he sat frowning out of the window for a while before finally speaking. “The fire has spread to the second apartment block. That’s the one next to us.”

  “We have to leave then. If you unzip the sleeping bag, and steady me as I get up, then …”

  “No, you lie still! There has to be a better solution than wrecking your shoulder by running away. This storage facility must have fire defences. Everything built after 2150 had to … Yes, I’ve found the original fire defence specifications.”

  We should be leaving, but Tad was happily studying things on the Earth data net. I considered which insult I should yell at him. None of them were bad enough.

  “We do have fire defences,” said Tad, “so I just have to get them working. The master building controls are only two rooms away. I’ll be back in less than a minute, so don’t you dare move!”

  He hurried off, and I lay there biting my lip. The fire defences for the Americas Parliament House still worked. At least, they’d worked the last time someone got drunk and accidentally started a fire, because the internal sprinkler system had drenched everyone in the Brooklyn division area. A different division leader would have beaten up the guilty party, but Ghost had ordered him to do sewer cleaning duty for the next six months which was probably worse.

  Of course the fact the Parliament House fire defences worked didn’t mean the ones here would. Machico did maintenance checks on our defences, but this building had been abandoned for decades.

  Tad reappeared. “The fire defences are on, so there’s no need to worry.”

  No need to worry? The smell of smoke was getting stronger, but I tried to argue rationally instead of just screaming. “Presumably the other buildings have fire defences too, and those don’t seem to be doing anything to stop the fire.”

  “Yes, but those are ordinary apartment blocks,” said Tad. “Their power was cut off when the New York power supply was shut down. This building is part of a Military complex, with a backup emergency power storage system that should keep the fire defences running for weeks.”


  “You don’t just need power for fire defences to work, you need water too. Our building uses the rain water collected in the roof tank, but this building doesn’t have a roof tank.”

  “This building is right next to the river,” said Tad. “The fire defences take their water directly from that.”

  I groaned. “The pumps could have failed, the pipes could have clogged, the …”

  “I realize all that,” said Tad. “The heat levels on the side of this building closest to the fire should be high enough to trigger the external water jets soon. If they don’t start up in the next five minutes, we’ll leave. I’ll get you into the boat, then I’ll grab the boxes of medicine. I’ve piled them up by the door to the riverbank, so it will only take a couple of minutes to get them aboard the boat.”

  Five minutes. Tad had promised that we’d leave in five minutes. I stared at the windows. It was dark outside, but there was a faint glow to the right that must be coming from the fire. I started counting seconds, and had just got past two hundred when there was a slight pattering sound on the ceiling like light rain.

  “That’s one of the external water jets coming on,” said Tad.

  The rain on the roof suddenly got a lot heavier.

  “That’s the rest of the water jets starting up,” he added. “We can stop worrying now.”

  I was much less joyful about it. The external water jets were on, but I’d still feel much safer on a boat in the middle of the Hudson River.

  Tad peered out of the window. “We’d better stay awake until those two apartment blocks burn themselves out.”

  “I wasn’t planning to go to sleep while the building next door is on fire!”

  “I understand you’ve got a phobia of fires after what happened in London, but you really don’t …” Tad broke off, because the pattering sound of the water jets had stopped. “What’s gone wrong?”