Quake

by Patrick Carman

  Faith felt the same way as they continued on, finding more and more cars with blown-out windows filling the bridge. The pathway through narrowed even more until they reached the midpoint of the bridge and an opening appeared, encircled by abandoned cars.

  “This is getting weird,” Faith said.

  Steel beams rose into the sky overhead, where a makeshift fort had been built out of plywood and random junk. A bullhorn sounded from somewhere inside the structure.

  “How about you two hold up right there so I can get a good look at you.”

  The voice had a cowboy drawl to it, as if whoever was up there staring down at them was fresh off the rodeo circuit.

  “We’re not looking for trouble,” Dylan said, putting his hands out to his sides to show that he was not carrying anything. “We’re unarmed, just passing through.”

  There was no reply, but all the windows in the cars that circled Faith and Dylan unexpectedly filled with shotgun barrels.

  “It’s like the O.K. Corral,” Faith said, drawing on some long-ago history lecture she’d sat through when she was ten or eleven. “They’ve even got cowboy hats.”

  “What’s the O.K. Corral?” Dylan asked curiously.

  “Didn’t you ever study?”

  “Of course I did. I know a lot of stuff. But I read a lot of comic books in history class.” Dylan shrugged.

  Faith thought of how easy it had become to rely on the fact that the guns trained on them would have no effect, even if they all fired at once and every single one of them hit its target. “Hang on now,” the voice overhead said into the bullhorn. “I’m comin’ down to check this out.”

  Dylan rolled his eyes. “Should we just leave? Let them shoot?”

  Faith thought that was a terrible idea and shook her head. Chill. Let’s let this play out.

  Faith glanced around the circle and saw that every head in every window was covered with a cowboy hat. They were some sort of urban gang of gun-loving wackos who’d never gone into the States and chosen instead to take over what was left of Portland as an outpost. Faith and Dylan had tried to cross a checkpoint of some kind.

  “This just gets weirder,” Dylan said as he looked up into the beams of steel. The whole fort was moving down on cables like an outdoor junk elevator. It stopped on the pavement of the bridge and a metal door swung open.

  A bearded man with a plaid shirt, cowboy boots, and a ten-gallon hat walked out onto the bridge. When he entered the circle of cars Dylan and Faith stood inside of, he motioned for everyone to settle down.

  “Let’s have a look at what we got here,” the man said warily. He was packing a pistol in a holster and holding an assault weapon that looked as if it could fire a thousand rounds a minute.

  “Like I said,” Dylan offered, hands out at his sides, “we’re not looking for trouble. We just want to pass through.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed and he stepped closer to Dylan. He ran his free hand over a gray mustache that looked as if it hadn’t been trimmed for about a decade.

  “Name’s Clay, how about you two?” the man said. He appeared to be chewing on a small bit of gum or his lip or something left over from breakfast, it was hard to say which.

  “We’d rather not say,” Dylan answered, taking a step toward Clay and flexing his arms. Dylan could be an imposing figure. Cool confidence oozed off him in situations like this, which had a certain power of its own. It was a power Clay didn’t seem to take much notice of.

  “I generally prefer it when I know names before I start shooting, but it’s your funeral either way.”

  Clay raised the assault rifle so it pointed at Dylan and laid his finger on the trigger.

  “Go ahead,” Dylan goaded, stepping into the barrel of the gun until it touched his chest. “See what happens.”

  “Okay, you two,” Faith said. “Enough testosterone already. I’m Faith, this is Dylan, and we’re passing through. Is there some sort of toll or something? Because if there is you can check our packs. We’re dead broke.”

  Clay didn’t take his eyes off Dylan the entire time Faith spoke. He took a deep breath, and then he fired about twenty rounds into Dylan’s chest, knocking Dylan onto the ground with the force of the bullets. The man turned the gun on Faith and fired a similar number of rounds, but Faith saw them coming and braced herself enough to stay standing when the bullets stopped flying.

  Clay held his gun out to the side and someone exited a creaky car door, ran over and took the gun, and returned to where he’d come. Dylan didn’t seem to know what to do, so he stayed on the ground and looked at Faith. Now what?

  Clay surprised everyone and reached a hand down toward Dylan.

  “You’re as tough as your mom said you would be. And headstrong, just like her.”

  “Wait,” Faith said as Dylan took Clay’s hand and Clay pulled him up onto his feet. “You knew Meredith?”

  “Knew?” Clay’s attention turned dramatically toward Faith and no one else. “Whatcha mean, knew?”

  Faith looked around and saw how out in the open they were, how exposed and dramatic it all must have looked, especially with the gunfire.

  “You seem to know a lot more about us than we know about you,” she said. “But I can promise you this: Portland might be your home, but it also feels like the most dangerous place on earth. Can we disband this little show and sit down somewhere less conspicuous?”

  Clay looked around at the ridiculous spectacle he’d created and seemed to agree. He nodded to a woman in a wide-brimmed Stetson who sat in a late-model solar car that was pockmarked with bullet holes and dents.

  “Saddle up!” the woman yelled, and all the cars moved in a line around the sides of the fort that had been lowered onto the bridge. They moved in silence, each of them running on some combination of solar and electrical power.

  A few minutes later all three were in the fort, which had been lifted into the air above the bridge. Light streamed in through cracks in the corrugated-metal walls as Clay offered them each a chair at a table in the center of the room.

  “Is she gone?” Clay asked solemnly. “Just tell me that much and we can start exchanging information freely.”

  “Yeah,” Dylan said. “She’s gone. A few weeks ago.”

  “I figured as much,” Clay said, shaking his head. “We got some intel on the crazy stuff going down in the Western State, but it was spotty. Figured she was involved in whatever the dustup was.”

  “It was a little more than a dustup,” Dylan said.

  He nodded, looked hard at Faith, then Dylan. “You do know you’re public enemy number four and five, right?”

  There was an ancient Tablet on the table, at least twenty years old, and Clay tapped the screen alive. A few more taps and there was a page with five faces on it.

  “Whole world is looking for you. Also Clara and Wade Quinn.”

  “And Hotspur Chance,” Faith said, finishing the picture.

  “Prisoner One,” Clay mused, barely above a whisper. “How the hell he ever got out I can’t imagine. After everything Mallory told me about how they were holding him, it doesn’t seem possible.”

  “How much do you know?” Faith asked, astonished at how in the loop Clay seemed to be.

  Clay took off his hat and rubbed his matted gray hair with a dirty finger.

  “We’re what you might call the third-string benchwarmers. Not a pulse in the bunch, but we’re on your side. Small group of twenty, sworn to help if help ever came calling. You know about Carl? We’ve been sending provisions up there for years.”

  Dylan looked at Faith: I’ll take this one.

  “Listen, Clay. Carl’s dead. Clooger’s dead, too, if you know who that is. The entire single-pulse army Meredith trained up—they’re all gone. You’re looking at the sum total of the revolution front line. We’re all that’s left.”

  Clay sighed and put an elbow on the table. His forehead fell into his open palm.

  “I figured it was bad. Not this bad.”

  F
aith explained everything about Jade and Hawk and Hotspur and the Quinns, the whole ball of wax, and then she asked Clay a question.

  “Are you still with us?”

  Clay didn’t hesitate to reply.

  “Absolutely, a hundred percent. Also, I’m sorry for shooting you both. But I knew it wasn’t going to kill you. I was pretty sure, anyway.”

  Dylan and Faith both smirked and looked at each other. They’d just signed on with a guy who had a very itchy trigger finger. It wouldn’t take much for Clay to start shooting if things went off the rails, not that it would do any good in a confrontation with the Quinns.

  “I have something I need you to do for me,” Faith said, sensing how long Clay and his team of urban cowboys had waited to actually be of some use. “You and your team.”

  Clay smiled under that fabulously wild mustache and his thick eyebrows rose in anticipation.

  “Fire when ready.”

  Chapter 8

  If 6 Was 9

  They spent the next hour with Clay in the makeshift fort, sharing what they knew about past events. Too many of the stories ended with a dead person on their team and after a while they gave up trying to find a silver lining in the journey they’d each taken. They ate together, reviewed some of Clay’s old maps, and all too soon began feeling restless.

  “There’s something I need you to do for us,” Faith said as they stepped out of the fort. “It might really help us.”

  “That’s what my team is here for, last resort,” Clay said. “As long as it don’t involve running away, we’re ready. We’re always ready.”

  Faith appreciated the resolve and the patience of a man who could spend years waiting in obscurity, only to be called up at the deadliest moment under the worst of circumstances.

  “There’s not much left of us, but what we’ve got is solid gold,” Faith said, looking first at Dylan and then at Clay. Her meaning was clear: We’re enough to get this done.

  Once Faith had told Clay what she needed and they’d talked a little more, she and Dylan were on their way through the urban slums of Portland. They took no one else with them and asked Clay to steer clear.

  “If we encounter the Quinns it might turn into all-out war faster than you or your team can scatter. Not worth the risk.”

  Faith had given Clay an important but ultimately very boring task. The good news was that it was something Clay and the rest of them could actually do, it would keep them occupied and out of harm’s way for a couple of days, and in the end it might prove very helpful.

  “The two-way is cool,” Dylan said, thinking about the seventy-year-old communication gadget Clay had given them. It was tucked away in Dylan’s pack, another in a long string of pre-Tablet wireless devices used by millions of people before the States were developed. This one was connected directly to a similar palm-sized device Clay kept strapped to his hip next to a revolver. As long as they stayed within twenty miles or so of each other, they could use the two-way to communicate.

  “Keep it in your pocket in case I need to contact you,” Clay said. “I’ll nudge you first, make sure you’re not in mixed company.”

  “Nudge?” Dylan had asked, playing with the dial and the buttons of the two-way as Clay pointed at a small button on the top of Dylan’s two-way.

  “Press that and hold for a few seconds. That will send me a nudge.”

  Dylan tried it and, sure enough, the two-way in Clay’s hand vibrated three times, then went silent.

  “You’ll feel it, but no one will hear it. If the coast is clear then press the bar on the side and start talking. Same for me—nudge me first—in case we hit a shit storm or I’ve got Hotspur Chance in my scope.”

  Faith had watched this interaction in silence, noting how much of a dude Dylan was. In the absence of Hawk, he’d fallen in with Clay and his nerdy gadgets.

  That had been an hour before, and in that amount of time Dylan had nudged Clay four times, laughing hysterically each time Clay’s tinny voice came out of the tiny speaker. The circuits or the transmission bounce or both were making Clay’s voice sound as though he’d sucked in a giant hit of helium.

  Faith was glad for the distraction, but it didn’t soothe her the same way it did Dylan. She took out her Tablet for the third time in ten minutes and searched for a signal, found none.

  “I’m beginning to wonder if they’re within a thousand miles of here.” Faith sighed, discouraged by the continuous dead zone. She had also begun thinking about the inevitable communication with Hawk.

  “Should we tell him about Jade?” Faith asked as she picked up her pace and they continued between the empty buildings toward the Koin Building.

  Dylan knew what she was talking about. “Let’s see if he’s left us a message first and if it’s encouraging or not. I’m leaning toward not saying anything. It will only distract him.”

  “I agree, but are we thinking like soldiers or friends? I mean, wouldn’t you want to know if the tables were turned and I was the one in trouble? Aren’t we supposed to be honest with our friends about stuff like this, even if it’s hard?”

  Dylan didn’t answer right away.

  “He’s in love with her, told me himself a few nights ago. That makes it harder to tell, ya know?”

  Faith understood completely. If Jade had just been a friend it wouldn’t have been a question. But Hawk was like Faith and Dylan’s little brother, and he could get upset about things like this. She worried about him.

  “I’m not sure we should have sent Clay on a wild-goose chase.” Dylan changed the subject.

  “It will keep them occupied,” Faith said. “And out of the fray. That’s about all we can hope for at this point with a zero-pulse backup team.”

  Dylan nodded. “They wouldn’t stand a chance against Clara or Wade, but if they cornered Hotspur Chance, different story. They could get it done.”

  “It’s not worth the risk. Not after what happened to Carl and Clooger.”

  Dylan thought about it for another second or two and had to agree.

  They walked a little farther, careful to stay out of the open as much as they could, and Dylan nudged the two-way. Clay’s chipmunk voice carried quietly into the space around them, the speaker set at two out of ten. “What’s up, amigo?”

  Faith broke a smile at the sound of Clay’s voice, high and goofy like a cartoon. “Just making sure you’re still out there.”

  Dylan held the receiver closer to his face. “You sound like a hamster. A hamster with spurs. And a cowboy hat.”

  Five seconds expired with no response, and then Clay’s chipmunk voice returned.

  “Dylan doesn’t deserve you, Faith. Break it off. Do it fast, don’t make him suffer too much.”

  Maybe it was the intensity of the situation she found herself in, or Clay’s mousy voice, or the fact that it was the first genuine smile (half smile though it was) that she’d managed since the Timberline Lodge massacre—whatever the reason, Faith would find later in life that this was one of those rare, unexpected moments that would remain in her memory forever.

  It might have also been the fact that when she checked her Tablet once more a signal had finally appeared.

  “Dylan,” she said, holding out the Tablet in its stretched-to-large size.

  “Well, we know she’s not back that way,” Dylan said, a quick glance down the empty street they’d just walked. “We must have just gotten within five miles of her.”

  “No, it’s less than that. But it’s higher elevation. Maybe it messed with the signal. Only about three miles, up that way.” Faith pointed west, in the direction of the ocean. She zoomed in on the satellite view, a function that still worked even out here, away from the States, because the old satellites had never been destroyed. They floated in space, delivering long-stored images to anyone that could tap into them.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Faith said as she started walking again. “It’s the Oregon Zoo.”

  “Jade is at a zoo?” Dylan asked as he ca
ught up to Faith and took the Tablet out of her hand. What he saw was that the zoo was surrounded by a mile or more of green. “No buildings out there, no skyscrapers.”

  Faith thought of something else. “Plenty of cages up there to put a prisoner in.”

  “Guys, you hear me?”

  Clay was back, but this time he didn’t sound so upbeat.

  “Yeah, we hear you,” Dylan said into the two-way. “What’s up?”

  “We got company,” Clay said. “Better get out of sight.”

  “What kind of company?” Dylan asked as Faith motioned for him to cross the street and duck into an alley.

  “Not the kind we want, that’s for sure,” Clay said, his voice cutting in and out. “Drones, too many to count. The State is on to you guys. You want me to ammo up?”

  “Let’s have them take cover and lie low,” Faith said, pulling Dylan farther down the alley and into a recessed doorway. Dylan nodded and delivered the message.

  “Don’t engage, Clay. Stand down and take cover,” Dylan said. “And don’t do anything crazy.”

  “Same to you but more of it,” Clay said.

  Faith and Dylan looked overhead, but they were standing between two buildings. They could see only a patch of blue overhead.

  “There,” Faith said, pointing to the farthest right side of their view. A circular drone drifted past, just over the height of the buildings. It was followed by another, then five more, and then the sky virtually filled with drones, blotting out the sun.

  “There must be thousands of them,” Dylan said as he pulled Faith back into the alcove by her forearm.

  “How low can they hover?” Faith asked, thinking of what a problem it would be if they could descend to street level.

  “Too low,” Dylan said as he peeked out of the alcove. Faith looked around Dylan’s broad shoulder and saw the same thing he did: a dozen or more drones were slowly moving toward them, a few feet off the ground, scanning every square inch.

  “Hawk and Clooger told me about these,” Dylan whispered. “Each one has a pilot sitting in the Western State. These are demolition drones.”