Steadily they closed on the bunker. Anna knew this run well, having made it numerous times on trips to the city to pick up fresh vehicles, to scavenge for fuel and machine parts the ancient, abandoned bunker didn't hold. The ocean grew thicker as they came closer, and Anna had to plow through some and dodge smartly round others.
"Here," Jake called at last, and she pulled the stairs truck to a halt in a cloud of orange dust, alongside a faded farmstead and a sun-bleached fence. Peters and Jake clambered out hurriedly, and Ravi and Anna passed them the various tools they would need; the gas jet welder, gas to fuel it, a handgun each, a walkie.
"Wait here," Anna told them. "Let us draw them away."
Peters nodded, and Anna revved the engine hard, then started back the way she had come slowly, alternately switching the gearstick to neutral so they coasted while she revved the engine loudly. In the rearview mirror she watched as one of the ocean ran right by Peters and Jake, coming for the louder sound and the bigger motion.
She stuck her hand out through the bars over the window and waved. Back in the cloud of dust, Peters and Jake picked up their gear and started away, melting into the towering vines.
"That's that," Anna said, and took off at a higher speed.
"Payload delivered," Ravi said, and settled back into his seat. At least it was more comfortable, now. He set their walkie on the seat between them. Waiting to hear if they made it to the bunker. Waiting to hear what they found within.
* * *
A day and a night passed, and they drove. Anna drove then Ravi drove then Anna drove, working a widening spiral around the bunker. At times they almost caught up to their own tail, where the stampede of the ocean mixing with demons was following its own noise. Each time they took a right turn and went wider, giving more room for the ocean to spread into.
Thousands of them looped along behind. Anna circled by night, the engine guttering, knowing she would need to stop and refuel from the keg soon, waiting to hear from the radio or the walkie. Ravi stirred in his sleep.
She'd talked to Istanbul, but still there was no word from New LA. Whatever was happening there, it was serious. Lucas kept her up to date with their latest readings on the hydrogen line, but there was little new.
"The bunkers are still denying it," he said, while she rolled through a tiny village for the second time, lit only by stars and her dipped headlights. "Flat out. I sent through our readings and they simply claim they're anomalous. They're doing something, Anna, especially with the way the line's changing now."
Anna was half-asleep, barely kept awake by the drone of Lucas' voice. "What changes?"
"Lara's signal. I've tracked it back through what records we've kept, now we know what we're looking for, and we can see she's been modulating for perhaps a month, showing signs of Drake even back then. I don't know what it means, but I'd guess he was nearby for all that time, though none of us knew."
Anna blinked. "You think he was spying on her?"
"On New LA, perhaps. Her signal's been chaotic, and in the last few hours it's only grown crazier. Nothing makes sense. I'm seeing patterns here that don't correlate to anything we know. Perhaps to a member of the ocean? Or a demon."
Anna stifled a yawn. "Lara reads like a demon?"
"I know, it's crazy. Her signs are spiking like you wouldn't believe. Oh, and it looks like Witzgenstein has joined the party."
Anna cursed under her breath.
"They're all there, now, like Thanksgiving."
It worried Anna, but there was nothing she could do now. She had to trust that Lara was taking care of it. Amo's signal was still faint and that worried her too, but she had her own issues here too.
"How's it there?" Lucas asked.
"You know," Anna answered. "Round and round."
A silence fell between them. Anna caught herself nodding off against the wheel, and pulled the stairs truck back over into the middle of the road.
"Talk to me, Anna," Lucas said through the radio, and he was right. So she did.
She told him about the plan, though she'd told him already. She told him about the time that Amo did the same thing, leading some of these same zombies through the canyon-streets of New York to end up in Yankee Stadium.
"And the others, how are they getting on?"
Anna told him about Peters and Jake, slaving away in the bunker. It was completely empty but for a few floaters caught on snarled bits of railing, and they'd dealt with those easily enough. They were working round the clock too, using the welder and an oxygen torch Jake dug out of supplies to cut off every girder support they could, in the inner bowl of the bunker.
In a different life she'd sent Feargal and Peters to blow up the stairs with grenades and rockets. Now Peters and Jake were finishing the job, shaving the sides of any prong and ladder jut and remnant of the upper deck that they could, turning it into a Venus flytrap for the ocean and the demons.
"It's slick," Anna answered. "Getting slick. Once they're in they won't be getting out again. Not unless they make a ladder out of their bodies."
That image amused her.
"And the hydrogen line shield, is Jake on top of it?"
"He's ready. He knows what to do, to flip the signal. Once we get them in there we can turn them back to fighting each other. We should have time to backfill the chutes. With luck we'll never see any of them again."
"Good, Anna," Lucas said.
"Good," she answered. "And you keep an eye on the line. You let me know as Lara's signal changes. You keep trying them. You let me know the minute they answer."
"Understood," he said.
They kept on. She drove on into the night, until she changed fuel, and Ravi took over, and then for a little while she slept.
* * *
"They're ready," said Ravi, waking her. She felt foggy and dry-mouthed, like she so often had on her first Pacific crossing, only catching tiny snatches of sleep every six or so hours.
But she needed to be alert. She looked out of the grille-shield to a hot day, and a road trundling beneath them covered in wildflowers and crawling grapevines. The air smelled tangy and ripe, full of possibility.
"In the bunker," Ravi said. He looked cheerful. "Shield ready, the sides slick as a toilet bowl."
Anna frowned. Ravi frowned a little too, plainly regretting the phrasing. "Sorry. I thought that might be funny."
"New LA?" she asked, rubbing the grit out of her eyes and yawning.
"Still nothing, just more wild fluctuations in the line. Sulman's theory is it's building to something huge."
"Something like what?"
"An eruption. He's talking about the apocalypse all over again, on a par with Amo and Lara at the start that kicked the whole thing off."
Anna considered that briefly. "On what basis?"
"I think just a hunch. Signal's getting bigger, maybe."
"Huh. And our tail?"
"I've cut inside it already. We're spiraling in now, drawing them all closer. Jake estimates we'll have maybe an hour's window, before the demons in the pit get through killing all the ocean and start trying to climb. We need to be out by then and backfilling like crazy."
It was all according to plan. There were just not enough people in the ocean to deal with so many demons, and there was no way now to control their arrival and pack them individually away into corridors, like they had before. There was only time for a massive, uneven pile-on.
"In fact, we should be seeing the bunker any-" Ravi took a dramatic turn to the left, cutting off a corner of the field to the left, and there lay the low-growth field they'd once torched, '"minute." He grinned.
Anna was looking ahead, to where the first few zombies were already emerging from the masses of growing and rotting vegetation, having broken from the spiral and cut straight to the center. They were many and they were coming like a wave.
"Get us there fast," Anna said, pointing. "Like, right now."
14. EXECUTION
The execution was coming.
"Where's Lara?" she was sure she'd heard them say. They'd learn soon enough.
It occurred to her that she'd never explored their rippling patterns before, though they'd always been there, ever since the demon crushed her ribs and pushed some button in her mind. At every chance she'd turned her thoughts away, just as long years had taught her to do, because there was no benefit in risking that feeling of helplessness. Only the panic would follow, and she'd gone twelve years without a fit.
So she'd taught herself ways to stave it off. She buried herself in work. She buried herself in Amo's arms. She learned to turn her head just to survive, so when Robert first came she'd ignored him. He was a symptom of a deeper disease, and she could not let herself be sick. She was not that same weak person anymore.
Except she was.
By the time the knock came, she'd begun to fear that none would. Perhaps she'd be left here unaccounted for, absent from her own husband's execution. Drake had gotten what he'd wanted from her. What further use could she be?
Though it seemed he wanted more. Despite the crippling fear, her mind was still clear about that.
Drake spoke well. He talked a clear and persuasive case, he made promises of accountability and vowed he had no personal stake in the success of the First Law, but she knew otherwise. She knew him by his words and deeds, knew he was too deep into his own cage to ever step down.
New LA would grow rapidly under his guidance, but it would never be right. He would lead her people into generations of suffering and internal strife; the true fruit of his First Law There would be no lasting union grown from what he built.
Then came the knock.
Lara stood with care. She felt both fear and an answering anger now, and the friction gave her strength. Her muscles shook, the pain was there, but it was no longer crippling. She'd managed to wash in the shower and apply a little simple makeup. She'd changed into a dark evening gown, left in the RV before she'd even arrived; Drake's idea of flattery, perhaps, or seduction.
The locks clanked and in Drake came. In the electric light he let his jaw drop theatrically. "I hadn't expected this," he said.
She felt him like a welter in her skin. Accepting the reality of the past had brought a new clarity. She could feel all of New LA now, spread throughout their village in the city, like spinning Jeo-dots on a satellite map, each marked by their own distinctive pattern.
Here was Feargal, and Tomas, and the woman who'd spoken to her, Lydia. Here were Vie and Talia huddled together, here were Witzgenstein and Alan, and here was Drake, the strongest, brightest signal of the bunch.
"You left me the dress."
He nodded. "Still. You know what we're about to do?"
She gazed back at him, as though she were the mayor and he a lowly boot-scrubber. "You're going to murder my husband."
"An execution," he said. "To usher in a new age of plenty. I'd like the pleasure of your company."
He extended his arm. He knew it was a ploy. He knew she knew. He had to know she would make some last ditch effort to subvert him, because for all else, he wasn't a fool. Perhaps he would welcome her effort as another chance for him to prove his might. His children would be in the audience, carrying their bombs. His people would be at the edges, corralling their sheep. Any work she did with words he could simply undo, as he'd undone twelve years of Amo's work with a single bonfire.
She thought of Guy Fawkes.
Perhaps he was right, and that was Amo's fate. But Drake didn't know everything. He'd never even met Cerulean. He hadn't seen her visions. He didn't know about the churning ball that she'd tended for so long, burning in her belly.
Still he held out his arm. Still she took it, and as before there was a charge through her body like an electrical shock.
"When will that stop, do you think?" he asked. "Sparks flying between us."
She didn't answer.
He led her slowly out of the RV, giving her the time she needed. Outside there was a hushed quality to the hot, stone-baked air. People were gathering around a new stage erected in front of the Theater, standing some five feet high. There were braziers burning at the edges, and speakers on stands, though there was no lectern this time, nothing to stand between Drake and his new people.
On the stage, clearly visible in a spotlight beam cast down from the Theater's roof, was Amo. He knelt in the middle, head down, shackled by the wrists to a hoop in the stage boards. Just seeing him sent a spike of heat through her middle.
"Steady," Drake said, patting her hand.
Dark shapes lit by firelight parted as they neared. Lara saw Tomas, his eyes bewildered, allowing himself to be led by the hand by a small child. Witzgenstein stood with a clutch of her people round a brazier, eating sausage rolls, drinking from plastic wine glasses and laughing as she passed. She saw Feargal wearing a sparkling new badge of office on his chest, a look of confusion on his slightly parted lips.
Two days and so much had changed.
They passed near one of the braziers and Lara saw more comics burning inside, the colored pages quickly curling and losing their ink to the air. People clamored closer to the stage.
"Hey, Amo," someone shouted, a voice she half-recognized. Greg. "How's this for a welcome?"
A crumpled ball of comic book paper flew and landed shy of Amo's knees. There was another shout and another ball flew, this time partly on fire. It struck Amo's chest and bounced off, eliciting a ragged few cheers.
Amo didn't respond. He didn't look up.
It broke Lara's heart. These were not Drake's people, or even Witzgenstein's, these were her own. Perhaps drunk, perhaps high on the chance to burn down the old establishment, perhaps reveling in the life's work that lay ahead of them, but her own people. Maybe they saw guaranteed sex with every woman in town, forever. A legacy of dozens of children each. Some had been tempted. Some had taken off their kind, neighborly faces and become something different entirely.
Something they'd always been, inside.
It was a new kind of apocalypse, a new kind of message sent out to change the world.
Drake halted at the front, where two rows of seating had been laid out. There were children here peppered throughout, some his, some from New LA. At the end of one row there sat Vie and Talia, and her heart ached.
"They need to see this too," Drake said. "You need to see this. It will get better from tonight, I promise."
He patted her hand again.
Lydia was sitting already, on one of the rows of chairs from one of the Theater's screens. On the seat beside her lay what looked like a hymn sheet.
"We're going to sing," Lara said.
"Nothing too religious," Drake said. "Two folk songs only. Witzgenstein requested them, and I thought, why not?"
"Why not?" Lara whispered, and sat. She could barely stand any more anyway. The paper in her hands shook. She read the titles.
This Land is Your Land – Woody Guthrie
The Star-Spangled Banner
Of course. The songs from that night in Pittsburgh, when they'd thought the end was upon them. Confusing such bold memories was everything, now. Reclaiming the strength of the other and calling it your own. These were the most powerful tools of the new regime.
She set the paper on her lap and turned to the side, looking to her children where they sat, turned out in their smartest clothes. It meant someone had been through her home, rooting through their closets, rummaging in their warm family life. Vie and Talia only had eyes for Amo though, on the stage.
"It'll be over soon," Lydia said softly, resting her hand on Lara's knee. "Be still, and you'll survive. Make any kind of noise, and you'll join Amo on the stage. Your children too."
Lara looked at the pale hand on her knee. It didn't belong there. It didn't move.
/> She looked up at Amo, kneeling with his head still bowed. Intermittent jeers rang out. More scraps of paper were tossed, but there was the sense of things coming to order, like an orchestra tuning up. The rabble in back shuffled noisily closer. Drake was nowhere to be seen now, but she felt him nearby, preparing for his largest performance to date.
So this was the end.
The audience fell silent, so quiet that she could hear Amo breathing on the stage. Her eyes welled with tears at what he must feel. These were his people, turning on him. His hair was lank and hung down over his face. She stared at him, willing him to look up. She wanted him to meet them with defiance. She wanted his anger to carry on down through the generations, for him to be exonerated in the end.
As if on call, he looked up. There was a collective intake of breath from the crowd. He was beaten, bruised, and there was plainly no defiance left in him. Because of her. Because she had sold Sacramento to save him.
It took him a moment to find her eyes. He looked at her, but there was no message there, and no anger. Only defeat. He looked back down, scooping a chunk of Lara out with him. It felt like all their lives, all their love being dismissed in one glance, because it was not enough. Love didn't trump anything, and wouldn't save him, or her, or their children from what was to come.
Drake took to the stage. Applause rang out and he spoke, but Lara didn't hear much. Odd words reached through, about the brightness of the future, about the necessities of the First Law and the world that was waiting for them. He gave thanks for something, and praised something, and all Lara could think about was how the hollow look in Amo's eyes was the worst thing she'd ever seen.
It made her more certain than ever. It was something she should have acted on long before she found Amo in Las Vegas, something she needed to instill deeply in her children so that tyrants and liars would never come to rule their lives again.
It wasn't enough just to survive.
It was Amo's first lesson, first taught in the cornfields of Iowa. A life was a cheap thing if squandered. It should be spent on something greater. The insidious desire to stay alive was what had allowed Drake to take them over, and now she saw it for what it was.
Zombie Ocean (Book 6): The Laws Page 28
