Large birds with naked heads circled high above. Not a good sign. They were the kind of birds who came to pay their visit once the heat cooked your meat just right. Scavengers would come on land, seeking out the fresh meat. A crow landed just a few branches away and cocked its head as if asking how long I was planning on sitting there.
Thick haze still clung to the hot afternoon air. No breeze bothered to carry it away, so there it stayed. The afternoon passed in heavy silence. It got hotter.
My eyes snapped open. When had they closed? The sun had moved, but it was hard to tell how much time had passed. My hands were red where the sun now beat down on them. With a huge effort, I moved back into the filtered shade. My knees refused to bend, but the strength in my metal arm achingly obeyed.
The crow bit my face.
I snapped up, alert again, and swatted at the bird. It flew away, watching from only a few meters away. My gaze met that of the black bird and it stared back at me. It seemed disappointed. The bird shook its head and stretched its greasy black wings, batting aside green leaves.
How could it be disappointed? It was a bird. Then again, how could it not be disappointed? Here I was about to die from heat in a land where dangerous heat was a daily thing. Sure, this was hotter than the hottest day I’d ever been through, but that didn’t excuse my lack of preparation. That didn’t excuse stupidity. Now, everyone who depended on me wouldn’t get what they needed. My tribe would never get those horses. The people of Dead Oak wouldn’t ever know freedom once Quintech took over their implants. Hell, even the outlaws of Cinco Armas would be slaves to that same tech. It was a game changer, and here I was the only man with enough pieces to the puzzle to make a decent shot at a solution.
“What’re you looking at?” I muttered through a thick tongue. “I did my best.”
The crow didn’t seem to care. I touched my cheek where he’d bit me and came back with a thick smear of blood.
“See?” I said. “Still alive.”
The crow stared at me from its backdrop of green, lush underbrush. A thought pushed its way into my head like a trout swimming through molasses. There was green here. A lot of it. All this green wouldn’t happen without a water source. It might all be underground, but there was a chance there was a spring nearby.
My joints protested the very idea of moving. Dizziness dropped me again once I was up, but I gritted my teeth and forced myself back up. I didn’t know which way to go at first, so I just walked. Deeper into the mesquite, where the land seemed to hold some sliver of its life. The air seemed cooler the farther I walked. My skin felt tight. Dry.
It’s not hard to follow tracks in soft earth. Animals fall into their routines just like people. They’ll walk the same path every day their whole life if nothing stops them. I fell into the trail, spotting at first rabbit tracks, then deer. It might not have been far, maybe less than a kilometer, but it felt like forever. More than once I had to pick myself up off the ground, not remembering falling. My mouth was so dry it hurt. Tongue so swollen it nearly choked me.
The crow followed, and when I first heard the soft murmur of the brook I thought the crow was muttering at me. I refused to let hope get hold of me. It wouldn’t be water. It had to be something else. Not only was I going to die, but now that I was deep in the forest they would never find my body.
A splash from up ahead. A splash. My breathing quickened. Still, thirsty as I was, I didn’t rush forward. Instead, I crept as quietly as I could, parting the branches so that I could see what had made the noise.
Horses. Three of them. They stood in a brook not more than a meter wide. I must not have been as sneaky as I wanted to be because the trio froze and stared at me.
The largest was the same black I had tried to catch. Her coat was glossy and thick muscles worked as she shifted uncomfortably. Here she was, looking at me like I was walking in on her secret garden. This must have been where the horses found water. This was how they survived.
Cautiously, I walked forward, hands out.
Two of the horses turned and ran. Not the black, though. She stood, the whites of her eyes showing. Her muscles tensed up, but she didn’t run.
I tried to talk, to give her a soothing word or two. My dry throat refused to make any sound. Ten meters away from her, I tripped, stumbled forward, and landed in a heap.
When I looked up, she was gone.
Above, the crow cawed.
No. I wouldn’t die there. Stubborn only gets a man so far against the forces of nature, but that’s pretty damn far. I forced myself up on my knees, leaning heavily on my metal arm. I crawled the last ten meters to the brook.
The water was cool and a little gritty. It was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted. The next couple hours I sipped, then gulped, water. Once my canteen was refilled and I could reliably stand, I started back to the hideout.
It was time to get that damn door open. Again.
Chapter 27
Halfway back to the clearing, the whole forest shook from an explosion.
Someone else got to the door first. Could this day get any shittier?
Slowing, I picked my way carefully closer to the clearing. This forest was old, and the ground off trail was covered in dead material. Every step had to be carefully chosen. Crouching low, I crept up closer until I spotted someone up ahead, messing with the door. It was still closed. The man turned, ran in my direction.
It was Tucker.
He ran, trundled through the forest, and ran right smack into me. By then I had my pistol out, the tracking dot pointed right at his head. His hand twitched toward the sawed-off shotgun strapped to his belt.
“Tuck,” I said. My voice was nothing more than a rasp, barely managing to sound like language at all.
Tucker must have heard the threat in my voice because he stopped.
“’Preciate it if you’d hold still,” I said.
“What, so you can shoot me?”
“Ought to.” I picked up my pistol and pointed it back at him. “For the bank. Mind telling me what you’re doing out here?”
“Business as usual.” He stuck a thumb back at the door. “Saw the smoke and thought I’d come for a little salvage.”
“On private land?”
“Ain’t it all private land?”
“All the way out here?”
With a crack, the clearing behind him lit up in a column of light. A concussive force hit the two of us, staggering me a step back and making my ears ring.
Tuck gave me an apologetic look. “This ain’t so far from my own place, as a matter of fact.” He shifted his weight back and forth. “Put that gun down, Sheriff. You know you’re not going to shoot me.”
I tried to connect to the console. “Dead,” I muttered, keeping an eye on Tucker as I poked around the clearing. His knapsack sat a short distance away, its contents spilled across the ground. The door was still solidly closed.
“No kidding,” Tucker said. “Damn door won’t open, but you know there’s gotta be good stuff in there.”
“You think?”
“Sure, door like this isn’t the kind of thing you build for some old storm shelter.” He licked his lips. “Some of that tech would have survived the fire.”
Tucker made a move and I spun, pistol trained on him, so fast that he dropped a tin of snuff. The dirty brown contents scattered into the dirt.
“Fuck it all,” said Tucker. “I’m not going to draw on you, J.D. What the hell’s gotten into you?”
My shoulders were relaxed and my grip was steady. A long minute passed and I didn’t say a thing.
With all the deliberation of a fat worm after a lazy rain, Tucker raised his hands and laced his fingers behind his head. “Been a long day. I don’t need none of this,” he said. “Hell, it’s been a long couple days and you know I got you to blame. I’m not robbing anyone, and you ain’t a sheriff. How about you let me go?”
“And what? Let you walk away so you can come back round to finish me off? So you can make sure t
here aren’t any witnesses?”
He snorted. “You’re a shit witness. Nobody’s going to believe a washed-up old bank robber like yourself. Hell, you’re about as reliable a witness as I am, now, aren’t you? Tell me what’s really on your mind, hoss.”
“You were going to kill Trish and that deputy back at the bank.”
His look went cold.
“You incinerated the place and you stole the tech after we agreed to destroy it.”
His eyes narrowed and his voice dropped dead serious. “You agreed to destroy it. I had to do what I had to do. Can’t blame a man for doing what he has to do, can you?”
“Then I’m going to owe you.”
“For what?”
“This.” I took one long step forward and hit him with a metal backhand nearly hard enough to break his jaw. He stumbled back, slammed against the black door, and skidded down it. His flesh blistered where half of his cheek rested against the hot metal.
It was tempting to leave him there to cook, but I just couldn’t bear to see an old army buddy go out like that. I dragged his unconscious form into the shade. Judging by the sun, it was getting late and the worst of the heat was over.
I do believe my mood was improving.
That left the problem of the door. My brow furrowed, the dry skin of my face cracking in the hot afternoon. The day had cooked me—seared my skin and cracked my lips. Muscles had been roasted, which seemed appropriate given the couple days of tenderizing they’d suffered. My metal arm still pinged its warning, but a man can only be warned for so long before he learns to ignore it. A warning’s nothing, after all. It’s like that wrong way sign stuck off kilter in the gritty sands of a long-lost highway.
The door was stuck and the computer that opened it wouldn’t wake no matter how much I swore at it. I stood there puzzling over it for a long while, trying my best to pry the door open or dig around the edges. The walls of the compound were shallow under the rich soil and made from stronger stuff. It wasn’t black metal, but the smooth concrete looked to have the sheen of something heavily reinforced. The surface reminded me of buildings in Austin or that bank in Swallow Hill.
Tucker grumbled and shifted as I rifled through his pockets, but didn’t wake. Finally, I found what I was looking for: the can of foam door that he’d used to dissolve a door in the bank. It felt almost empty. I tossed the can on the ground. Useless.
An hour later, when Zane arrived, the angry sun was twinkling through the tips of the trees and I was trying to open the door with cuss words and spit. It wasn’t working. He landed his car gently, tipped his hat to the awake and now fully hogtied Tucker, and stood there with one hand on his hip, watching me.
“City boy,” I said, noticing him wince at the term, “you got any ways to open this door?”
He studied it close for a minute, eyes flashing in the late-afternoon light. Finally, he straightened up and said, “Just need to hack the computerized system, far as I figure.”
I raised an eyebrow at him and stuck a thumb back at the post in the middle of the clearing. “Have at it.”
He did. A small panel in the side of the twisted post opened after half an hour of poking and prodding. I was impressed that he’d found it, but I was careful not to let it show. In the end, the access did nearly as much good as my cussing and spitting, but with less of the psychological benefit.
Ben found the two of us staring at the wall scratching our heads. I’d heard his truck rumble up to the edge of the woods, where he must have parked. The rancher didn’t make any attempt at being quiet when he came crashing through the forest either. He was out of breath when he broke into the clearing.
“You’re okay,” he said after a bit, more a statement than a question.
I nodded.
“I wasn’t sure, with the heat and all.” He tossed me a skin of water and I drank. “I’d have been here sooner, but—”
“Don’t worry about it, son,” I said.
Ben’s brow furrowed when he looked over and saw Tucker. Wheels turned in his head trying to figure out why the ugly man was tied tight to one of the shrubby trees.
“Isn’t that Mr. Hale?” Ben whispered.
“Right where he belongs,” said Zane.
“What’d he do?”
I nodded at the door. “You got a way to open this?”
He smiled. “I thought they might be tough to open, so I brought my tow package.”
“Your what?”
He disappeared back into the woods and returned with the truck. The thing hovered over the clearing with an odd thumping noise. My belly did a flip as he came closer. Once he’d landed, he hopped out, attached a thick cable to the back of the vehicle’s frame, and then hopped up into the back and started rummaging around in the tools. He found what he was looking for and attached it to the other end of the cable. It was a half sphere, ringed with a faint green glow.
“Truck’s sounding funny,” I said.
He nodded. “Some jackass tricked a bull into ramming it.”
“Tow package will still work?”
“Yeah, this ought to do it.”
Tuck snorted. “Sure it will.”
“Shut up, Tuck,” Zane and I both said at once.
“Hey,” Tuck said in a more placating tone. “Can y’all untie me now? I’m not going to hurt anyone. Hell, I don’t even have any weapons.”
Ben slammed the sphere against the black door. With a low thunk it stuck, the green glow on its surface intensifying. He hopped into the truck while Zane and I moved a good distance back so we’d be as far away from the cable as possible. Tucker looked worried about his position, but I figured he was safe from any direct danger.
Gravity-manipulation engines were inexpensive and didn’t require much power. Utility vehicles like Ben’s truck held a powerhouse of a gravity drive that allowed him to haul massive loads. Hell, its biggest limitation was the soft, squishy man behind the controls.
The first tug shook the ground under my feet. Ben’s gravity drive was leaking, which meant he was messing with the gravity unevenly around the truck. It was a little worrisome, but probably wouldn’t be too dangerous.
Or, maybe it would.
My boots slipped across the loose soil. Trees near the hovering truck were bending and swaying. My stomach made a mad dash to my throat. Zane gripped my elbow and I could see that he was having trouble as well.
The door still didn’t budge.
Ben looked ill at the controls. His face was flushed and twisted into a grimace. He loosened up and shook it off. After a deep breath, he looked back at me and gave me a thumbs-up.
“Again?” I hollered over a sudden rush of wind.
“One more time,” he said. “I’ll give it all.”
He gave it all. For a moment, I was weightless. Zane gripped my elbow. His fingers dug in somewhat painfully. I held him back, not wanting to let go of the one thing I was sure I could hold.
Then we were falling sideways, away from the door. Dirt kicked up, branches flew past. Zane gripped a mesquite tree, keeping the two of us from falling fifty meters sideways. Tucker floated in the air, tied securely to a tree.
The door held, but the truck didn’t. The rear square of its frame twisted under the pressure, squealing as the truck’s multiplied weight pulled it against the door. As it seemed to be just ready to give, the half sphere at the end of the cable flashed green and came loose, sending the truck crashing through the forest and up into the sky.
Zane and I landed hard on our butts and watched the truck fly off into the distance. It slowed, turned, and returned to land on the opposite end of the clearing. Zane and I didn’t move.
Ben looked exhausted. He stumbled out of the truck and leaned against it, gasping. After a while, he looked our way, resignation on his face. “Francis really doesn’t want us getting into his lab,” he said.
“Just makes me want to get in more.”
“Yeah.” Ben looked up at the sky. “Abi’s on her way.”
&nbs
p; “We had the door open.”
Ben nodded.
“It was right there,” I said. “Right there open and waiting for me. If I hadn’t turned back, we’d be on our way already.” I grabbed the hat off my head and twisted it like I wanted to tear it to shreds.
“It was my fault,” said Ben. “I shouldn’t have needed your help. I should’ve stayed better hid from those deputies.”
“Seems like a hell of a lot of coincidence,” I said. “The deputies, the longhorn, the fire. All at the same time. Like someone planned it.”
I stroked my stubble and stood there for a few minutes. It still wasn’t making much sense, but it seemed more important than ever that we get into the hideout. Maybe the fire would destroy everything, but if there was any chance we could pull information out of there, we needed to try.
Zane rested his hands on our shoulders. “Gentlemen.” His hand on my shoulder felt good. Tension eased out of my muscles. “This is nothing to worry about. We’ll set up camp here and when Abi arrives she’ll know about any tools from the junkyard that might get us through this door.”
I shrugged his hand off my shoulder and turned to face him. “Set up camp? Is that your advice or the advice of Goodwin? For all we know, they’re behind all this. What’s their profit from us waiting when our town might be in danger? Hell, when a whole load of towns might be in danger?”
He stuck a finger right in the middle of my chest. “Settle your damn self down, J.D. I’m my own man.”
“Are you?” I peered at him through my modified eye. “And as your own man did you come up with the idea of putting this damn tech in my head? Tech I can’t get out without your help? Was that your own damn idea?” My face felt hotter than the oven-hot air around us. I shoved Zane. Not hard, but there was so much rage.
Zane squared off against me and met my gaze. “Do it, J.D.” His fists were tight knots at his sides. “Take a swing. You’ll see what a city boy does to stand up for himself.”
My jaw clenched till my teeth were sore. Zane wasn’t my friend; he was a man from the city working for a company that sure as hell didn’t have my best interest in mind. They were rotten to the core, and I’d had enough trying to make things work with Zane.
Peace in an Age of Metal and Men Page 18
