by Greg Keyes
They had been on the road less than an hour when the girl awoke with a scream. She was lying on the backseat behind him, her eyes pitching around the interior of the van.
“Hey,” Amar said. “Calm down. You’re okay.”
She sat up, but her gaze kept shifting, settling briefly on Chitto, DeLao, and Dux, who was driving, before returning to him. He noticed she was feeling the back of her shoulder and wincing.
“What happened?” she asked. She had a deeper voice than he had expected. Throaty. “Where am I?” Her eyes were a really startling green color, like jade.
“We found you at a smugglers’ compound,” he replied. “You were kind of out of it. Do you remember how you got there?”
Her eyes widened. “Smugglers’ compound?” She shook her head. “I don’t remember anything like that.” She frowned. “You’re not smugglers, are you?”
“No,” Amar said, although he knew that was not entirely true. Why make things complicated? She needed reassurance.
“So what’s the last thing you remember?” he pressed, gently.
“I was in Greenville,” she said. “That’s a settlement.”
“I know,” Amar replied. “I’ve been there.”
“I went into this bar—the one in the bus. Do you know it?”
Amar told her he did.
Her eyebrows scrunched together. “Maybe I drank too much,” she said. “Or maybe …” She suddenly looked horrified. “These smugglers,” she said, “do they …”
“Traffic in humans?” Amar finished. “No. That doesn’t happen, ADVENT propaganda to the contrary.”
“Unh-unh,” DeLao shot back from the front. “It wasn’t about that. Check your left shoulder.”
“It hurts,” the girl said. She pulled her collar down, revealing a crudely stitched incision.
“My implant,” she said, blinking in confusion.
“Implant?” Dux grunted, and then proceeded to swear colorfully for about thirty seconds, his sunburnt face flushing bright red. For Amar, it all suddenly made sense—her haircut, the way she dressed. She was not only clean; she had a flowery scent about her.
This was no settlement girl. She was from one of the New Cities. Not everyone in the cities had identification implants, but to receive gene therapy and advanced medicine, you had to have one.
She had that panicked look again.
“What’s your name?” Amar asked, trying to ease her back down.
“Lena,” she said absently, still craning her neck to stare at her wound. “Lena Bishop.”
“Lena, where are you from?”
“I’m from Gulf City,” she said. “I guess you figured that out. Who cut out my implant? Why?”
“The smugglers,” Amar said. “They probably thought you were a spy. You … sort of were.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded. “I just wanted a drink.”
“Yes, but when you have one of those things under your skin, they can track you, maybe even see what you see, hear what you hear. So, in a lot of settlements, when someone comes in from the outside, they don’t ask questions. They just cut it out of you.”
She looked at them all in horror. “Who are you guys?”
“The good guys,” DeLao said.
“DeLao,” Dux cut in. “Did you make sure it’s really out?”
“Of course,” DeLao said. “No lump, and the magnetometer didn’t pick up a signature. Ran it over her whole body.”
“My whole body?” Lena said.
“Nothing inappropriate,” DeLao assured her. “I’m a doctor.”
“I think that’s enough,” Dux snapped. “Finish debriefing her with Thomas.”
It was unwise to drive at night, so when twilight came they pulled onto a dirt road and followed it until they found a good campsite. Amar helped establish a perimeter while Chitto sat chatting laconically with Lena. When everything was secure, Thomas called a meeting, reviewing the girl’s story—first without her, then with her. There didn’t appear to be any inconsistencies.
“What were you doing in a settlement, anyway?” she finally asked Lena. “Ghetto tourism?”
Lena looked around nervously. “I think …” she began, checked herself, and then started again. “I think I was looking for you guys.”
“And what do you mean by that?” Thomas asked.
“The … you know. The resistance.”
“Huh,” Thomas said.
“That’s who you are, right? I mean, you have all of those guns. That’s hard to miss. And you’re hiding in the woods. You were at a smugglers’ compound …”
“Never mind us,” Thomas said. “Why were you looking for the resistance?”
“To join them. You. To fight ADVENT.”
* * *
Amar took the first watch. Lena stayed up with him, which was convenient since she was—in part—what he was watching.
“Where are you from?” she asked. “Not from around here, given your accent.”
“What do you mean?” he said. “You have the accent, not me.”
He smiled to let her know he was kidding, but she didn’t seem to get it, and he realized that he couldn’t actually feel a smile on his face. It probably looked more like a grimace.
“Sorry,” he said. “Just a little …” He gave up. “I’m from a settlement in Malaysia,” he finally told her.
“Your English is excellent,” she said.
He shrugged. “I’ve been speaking it since I was a kid, along with Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil.”
“Ah,” she said. “Just put my big ol’ foot in my mouth, huh?”
“No worries,” he replied.
“I always do that,” she said. “My sister Jules used to say I couldn’t talk my way out of …” She didn’t finish, and her smile vanished. He didn’t press. A lot of people joined the resistance because someone they knew had gone missing—with or without explanation. That had been the case with him.
“So tell me about where you’re from,” she said.
“Well,” he said, “it’s near a place that used to be called Kuantan. It’s on the ocean, and there are lots of palm trees and monkeys. Not a lot to tell, really.”
“But it was a settlement?”
“Oh,” he said. “Yes. Not a big place. Picture Greenville with palm trees and monkeys.”
She looked down. “I’d rather not remember Greenville, thanks,” she said.
“Understandable,” he said. “They shouldn’t have done that to you.”
She closed her eyes and smiled.
“Thanks,” she said. She sighed. “I’m tired. What’s your name?”
“KB,” he told her, after a moment’s hesitation. “You can call me KB.”
“KB, if I sleep right over here, will you make sure I’m okay? Will you keep me safe?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “I can do that. It’ll be fine.”
She lay down on the bedroll they had commandeered for her back at Warren’s depot. In minutes, she was asleep. She was still asleep when Chitto spelled him, and he took his own rest next to her, but a half meter away.
* * *
Amar woke with something cold pushing against the side of his head.
“Don’t move, KB,” someone whispered. No, not someone—Lena. He cracked his eyelids and saw she had the muzzle of Chitto’s shotgun pressed against his temple.
“You’re going to get up real slow,” she said. “And we’re going to go over to that truck, and you’re going to get in and drive.”
Wow. He had been stupid, hadn’t he? But Chitto was supposed to have been on watch.
“Drive it yourself,” he said.
“I would love to do that,” Lena replied, “if I had the faintest idea how to drive that ancient tetanus trap. But being civilized, I don’t.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Amar warned her. “Really, this isn’t a good idea. I don’t know what your problem is—”
“Well, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t y
ou?” she said. “About people getting killed. About killing them. Get up.”
“Trouble, KB?” Chitto asked, mildly.
“Chitto, how the hell did she get your gun?”
“I guess I fell asleep on watch,” she replied.
“Shut up,” Lena hissed. “If you wake the others, I’ll really have nothing to lose. I’ll die, but you two will go first.”
“But,” Chitto said, “I did take all of the shells out before I fell asleep. You know. Just in case someone was pretending to be asleep and waiting for a chance to arm herself.”
“You’re bluffing,” Lena said.
Amar slapped the barrel away from his head and then took hold of it. He scrambled up and pushed the butt against Lena, hard, and she fell back.
He heard the hammer click. Nothing happened.
She had just tried to kill him.
Amar drew his pistol.
“This,” he informed her, “is loaded.”
Everyone was stirring now, coming over to see what was happening. Lena climbed unsteadily to her feet. She was plainly terrified but trying not to show it, and not doing a very good job.
“Was it you?” she demanded. “The bombing in the Helena settlement? Or another bunch of murderous scumbags?”
“What are you talking about?” DeLao snapped.
“You know damn well what I’m talking about,” Lena said. “Eight innocent people died. One of them was my sister.”
Amar recalled the billboard in Greenville, Rider dressed in civilian clothing.
“There was no bombing at Helena,” he said. “That was propaganda. A lie. The dead they showed were our dead. Native dead. Really, do you people believe everything the aliens tell you? When you get your implant, do they take out part of your brain as well?”
“My sister was not one of you,” Lena exploded.
“Really?” he asked. “What was she doing in Helena?”
“She … she was a doctor. She went to help people, to try to bring them into the city. The ones with cancer and tuberculosis, with diseases nobody has to die of anymore. And you assholes killed her.”
“Why would we bomb civilians?” Amar asked. “Human civilians?”
“I don’t know,” Lena said. “I’m not a sociopath.” She stood straighter, a look of defiance on her face. “You people drugged me, kidnapped me, and cut me open, and now you expect me to just swallow any bullshit you toss my way? What now? Are you going to kill me now, in your war on clean water and good healthcare?”
“It’s starting to sound real damn tempting,” Dux muttered.
“No,” Thomas said. “We’re going to show you something.”
* * *
A flight of ADVENT drones delayed their departure the next morning, so by the time they got started it was already getting hot. Their vehicles didn’t have functioning air conditioning—other than open windows—and probably hadn’t for decades. Twice they had to stop and clear debris from what remained of the road, and in one place a meandering stream had cut a channel right through the highway, forcing them to spend three hours chopping trees to form a makeshift bridge. It was nearly sundown when they reached the ferry.
If Sam hadn’t been with them, Amar doubted they would have ever known the boat was there. It was docked underneath part of the bridge that had once spanned the river, protected from sight by canebrakes and strands of willow that Amar thought must have been deliberately planted as screens. The ferryman lived on his boat, an old barge he had fitted out with a biodiesel engine. He was an older man, knobby and gangly, and as bald as an egg. He had about five days’ worth of gray stubble on his face. He regarded them all with a great deal of suspicion until he noticed Sam.
“I remember you,” he said. “Cocky young fellar. But these ain’t the ones you came with.”
“No,” Sam allowed, “we had some unexpected trouble.”
“I’m sure sorry to hear that,” he said. “Big trouble, or little trouble that you walk out of but go a different direction?”
“Big trouble, I’m afraid,” Sam said.
“Damn. Can’t say how sorry I am. That’s rough.” He sized the rest of them up.
“Come on over to the lounge,” he said.
The lounge was the area around the control cabin, which had been decorated with tiki statues of various sizes, some cut from palm trunks, other made of driftwood and even plastic, the latter dating from a distant age. Island scenes had been painted on the cabin walls, and some wicker chairs surrounded a table.
“I’m Captain Simmons,” he told them, as they settled into the chairs. “Y’all want some coffee?”
Amar remembered the last time he’d had coffee. It had been almost two years ago, on the long trip from New Guinea to the southern coast of Mexico, a little settlement named Puerto Arista. It hadn’t been that good, and he didn’t have high hopes for whatever Captain Simmons had brewed up, especially as it came out in vintage tiki glasses. But he couldn’t hide his amazement when he tasted it.
“I know,” Simmons said. “Had some guys come through a few weeks ago. This is what they paid me in.”
“Nice of you to share it,” Sam said. “You never know when someone will come through with something this good again.”
“The E.T.s may get me tomorrow, for all I know,” Simmons said. “Or I might have a good old-fashioned heart attack. I always thought coffee was best shared in company, and being stingy never made a man one whit happier. Relating to that, I’ve got a stew going, if you’re hungry.”
“That’s very kind,” Thomas said. “But the sooner we can cross the river, the better.”
“Then you have time,” Simmons said. “There have been enough air patrols today I don’t fancy crossing until night.”
So they relaxed a bit as Captain Simmons went to fool with his stew. Fireflies began to drift up across the river.
The stew wasn’t as good as the coffee; it seemed like it had been cooking for days and had a little of everything in it. But it was filling and hot.
“Don’t you want some?” Simmons asked Lena.
Amar watched the exchange. She had refused food all day. She had to be starving.
The captain pushed a little bowl of the stuff toward her. Reluctantly, she took it and the proffered spoon.
“Thank you,” she said. It was the first word she had spoken since the previous night. She took a tentative bite, then another.
“This is really interesting,” Lena said. “How did you get it to taste like this?”
“What do you mean?” Simmons said.
“It just doesn’t taste like CORE,” she said. “I know they say it’s like an empty palate, that you can make it taste like anything at all, but to me there’s always this taste on the back of your tongue, and you know what it is. I’m not getting that here.”
Everyone stared at her for a few seconds, and then Dux let out a belly laugh, and everyone else joined in. Lena frowned and her cheeks reddened.
“What are you all laughing at?” she demanded.
“There’s no CORE in this, honey,” Simmons said. “Some squirrel, and a little rabbit, some mudbugs, and I think a little nutria is still in there….”
Lena stared at her bowl.
“This is animal meat?” she gasped.
“Well, yeah,” he replied.
“Oh, god.” She dropped the bowl and lurched toward the side of the boat.
“Stay with her, KB,” Thomas ordered.
Amar was already on his feet. He didn’t think she was faking, but she was not one with whom to take chances. He kept his eyes trained on her as she heaved her guts into the river for fear that she might jump or push him in.
“What is wrong with you people?” she managed, when she was finally done.
“We eat what we can out here,” Amar said. “There’s no CORE in the settlements. Besides, who even knows what CORE is? ‘Reclaimed protein’? Reclaimed from what?”
“It’s safe,” she said. “It’s nutritious. No one has to k
ill it.”
“It’s bland,” Amar said. “It’s boring. And it’s what the aliens want us to eat. That’s enough to put me off it right there.”
She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Why?” she asked. “Do you really think things were better before they came? There was war everywhere, and famine, and crime!”
“We still have all that,” he said.
“But you chose it! There’s no crime in the cities, no hunger.”
“Because you’re kept,” he said. “Like a herd of cows. And why do people herd cows?”
“They don’t anymore,” she said.
“Right,” Amar said. “Because cows have been replaced.”
She just stared at the water, sweat beaded on her forehead.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t know if the world was better before they came. But it was ours. Our fate was in our own hands.”
“Pretty shaky hands, from what I know,” she muttered.
“A lot of what you know isn’t true,” Amar said.
CHAPTER 5
THEY CROSSED IN the dark and debarked their vehicles underneath the other end of the ruined bridge. Helena had an actual resistance outpost, and a radio exchange between the cell captain and Captain Simmons confirmed that there was no active ADVENT presence in the town.
The old town of Helena had been largely destroyed by flooding, and many of the new structures were built on stilts, reminding him even more of home. The night was young, and people were out enjoying the slightly cooler air that sundown brought. Someone was projecting an old movie on the side of a Winnebago, and Amar smelled popcorn. Some kids were playing football in a clearing by the river. Helena seemed a little cleaner than Greenville; the smell of frying fish and hush puppies were enough to overwhelm the stench of sewage.
