“I’m a’right, Gran’ma.”
“I know, baby, I know.” Lauren kissed the side of his head, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”
Tris glanced down.
“What if it’s not a cold?” whispered Abby.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“What’s twenty-three plus thirty-four?”
“Fifty-seven.”
“Feel like killing anyone?”
Abby shrugged and whispered, “Maybe Warren.”
Tris chuckled, but couldn’t deny a pang of worry. “Did anything happen to make you think it’s not a cold?”
She fidgeted at her dress between her knees. “No. I just don’t wanna die.”
31
Used and Discarded
Awkward silence pervaded the Redeemed clubhouse. Dust danced in thin streams of sunlight leaking from holes or cracks in the ceiling and walls. Kevin stood in a wide stance, swaying about, staring down at the man who killed Wayne. Well, one of them. Vicar’s eyes rolled up in his head. If unconsciousness had a portrait, it would look like him. Kevin fixated on the man’s throat, calculating how long it would take to get the knife from Vicar’s boot and let Wayne rest.
Getting out of here afterward though…
He bowed his head. They’ll kill Fitch and Neeley too. Dammit! Pain throbbed over his face. He cringed away from the mental image of Tris reacting to his death… or worse, her sitting in the roadhouse waiting for him to come back and never knowing what happened. “Fuck it.”
Kevin stumbled over to the hat, swiped it up, and wandered to the edge of the pit. The bikers backed away to let him pass, but Komodo stepped in front of him.
“I did not expect you to win.” The president looked him over. “Perhaps you did not.”
“Yeah.” Kevin glanced at the hat in his fist. “Guess some games, no one wins.”
“The weak man is weak for he cannot unburden himself, and has no strength left for things that matter. A weaker man wishes to destroy what he cannot control.”
Kevin tried to smile, but it hurt too much. “Now, you’re just sayin’ that so we don’t kill everyone here.”
Komodo tilted his head. No one made a noise for over a minute as the man stared at him with a measuring gaze tinged with incredulity. Seconds before the tension grew too thick for Kevin to continue standing still, the Redeemed leader leaned back and laughed. Other bikers joined in with varying degrees of sincerity; some sounded nervous, as if expecting the big man to kill him at any second. The redhead woman walked over, barefoot in jeans and a tight black tee shirt, and handed him a tin can of water.
“Not bad.” She winked and padded over to the shelves behind the pool tables, where she rummaged a beer cooler.
“I like him.” Komodo patted Kevin on the shoulder.
“Heh.” Kevin suppressed a wince and took a long sip. “I was starting to wonder if my sarcasm was too dry.”
“Your friend is dead.” Komodo bowed his head and grasped Wayne’s hat into Kevin’s fist. “We lost five. Take this badge of honor and may the spirits accept your bravery.”
Kevin stared at the hand engulfing his. He couldn’t say if Wayne would accept a beatdown as revenge for them taking a giant shit on the Roadhouse, but at least four of them died. Wait. Five?” “Five?”
“Indeed.” Komodo, and the rest of the Redeemed, offered a momentary reverent silence. “One of the men bled out.”
Kevin grumbled, glanced back at Vicar, and grumbled again. This is sending the wrong damn message, but… fuck it. I ain’t dying for a message. “How you fixin’ ta handle it if someone comes after that bounty?”
Komodo smiled. “There is no bounty.”
The bikers dispersed around the room, back to where they’d more or less been before the fight. Two carried Vicar out a back door, muttering about cold water. Fitch and Neeley approached, both with ‘what now’ looks.
“Not quite what you wanted?” asked Fitch.
Kevin shook his head.
“Big picture, man. Big picture.” Fitch patted him on the arm. “Got that pretty little thing waitin’ for you back home. I’d probably ’ave done the same.”
“Well.” Kevin looked up, a hint of a smile parted his lips enough for a trickle of blood to run over his chin. “Figured it be pretty rude of me to get you two killed as well.”
“’Preciate that.” Neeley touched his fingertips to his chest. “I’m delicate.”
Fitch thumped him on the shoulder. Neeley overacted pain.
Kevin tromped outside, heading in the direction he figured the cars to be, grumbling the whole time he walked. Four dilapidated huts down on the left side, a flash of white caught his eye. His brain filled in Tris’ hair, as it had done whenever he’d thought he’d seen random white patches appearing in his peripheral vision as of late. A few seconds after he focused on the porch of a tiny, brown shack, he realized Tris was standing there.
She had her back turned, and though her long pure white hair made it difficult to tell for sure, she appeared topless. Tattered shorts made from old camo pants rode so high into her butt her pubic hair would’ve shown if she had any. Heavy black boots most of the way up her shins looked like something straight out of the Enclave with graphite grey armor panels.
Seeing her here wasn’t the worst part. Watching her suck face with two Redeemed men hit him like Praetor’s fist in the belly.
Neeley and Fitch braced his arms to keep him upright
What the fuck? What the actual fuck? He blinked, trying not to believe his eyes. Tears gathered but retreated under a wave of rage. He tore his .45 out of its holster and stormed ahead, not quite able to walk in a straight line after the beating he took. Neeley and Fitch ran after him, again catching him by the arms.
“Get off.”
Fitch pulled. “Wait, man. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I already did,” he grumbled. “Never should’ve given her a ride in the first place. This is god damned Morgan all over again…” No, this is worse. “Go on out of here. I’m gonna kill every last motherfucking one of them.”
“Kev!” Neeley leapt in front of him, grasping both cheeks. “Re-freakin’-lax. Stop thinking with your bent dick and take a good look.”
Kevin squeezed the handle of his pistol, pressing the patterned grip into his flesh. He stared at Tris. He stared at the woman he thought he’d loved. The woman who betrayed him, who may have set all this up. She had been so insistent on going off to Amarillo alone. “What?” Kevin shoved Neeley forward while yanking his face away from the man’s squeezing hands.
“Look at her, mate.” Neeley wrapped himself around Kevin from behind, pointing at her. “She don’t look right. Bit thicker, bigger boobs.”
Kevin’s flood of anger tapered off to droplets. He walked forward at a pace confused rather than hostile, and slid the gun back into the holster.
She reacted to the scuff of his boots on the road and twisted around to look. The white-haired woman did seem to have more muscular arms, athletic not waifish. A black halter-top, the ties about her neck and ribs hidden by her hair, covered her chest. While he had no complaints about Tris’ perfect round breasts as big as peaches, the woman before him had a larger pair. Of course, he couldn’t get past her having a face like her twin sister who’d gone to boot camp rather than a detention cell. Then again, this woman appeared closer to middle-late twenties. Older, and more confident in the eyes.
“Well, hi there. You’re kinda cute.” She winked at him. “Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not for hire.”
The two Redeemed pawing at her glared at him.
Kevin raised a hand. “Ain’t gonna ask for that. You… look like someone I know.”
The woman spun back to face her paramours, hair flowing as if underwater. “Gimme a minute. I gotta talk to this guy.” When she moved to step down from the porch, the man on the left grabbed her arm. She whirled on him, hoisting him off his feet by a fis
tful of leather jacket at his chest, holding him aloft with no visible effort. “Did you just grab me? What? I’m your property or something like that now?”
“Uhh…” The man gawked.
She thrust her arm forward, tossing the man off the porch and through the wall of the next hut. He landed in a cloud of splinters. “Asshole.”
The woman faced Kevin, a pleasant smile on her face as though nothing at all violent had happened two seconds before, and wandered about twenty paces from the building before spinning back to face him. This woman was definitely not Tris. She met him eye to eye at the same height.
“So you’re the one.”
“Which one?” Kevin walked up to her. “Why do you look like her?”
A long, low moan came from the hole in the hut.
The woman smiled. “Call me Snow… the guys around here started calling me that and, well, I kind of like it.” Her lips morphed to a disapproving smirk. “Before that, I was I6-410. Tris is your girlfriend, right?”
Kevin glanced at the sleek, black handgun on the woman’s right thigh―Enclave tech. “What are you doing here, and why do you look like her?”
Snow crossed her arms. “I can hear the anger in your voice. Before you do something stupid, you should know that I could kill the three of you faster than your brain could even think ‘oh, shit.’ I’m sure you’ve seen your girlfriend in action, yes?”
Shit. “Yeah.” His muscles tensed, making all the bruises he’d have in the morning throb.
“Well. She’s alive. Made out of meat. I don’t have that drawback.” Snow lowered her voice. “I am a Persephone series infiltration and combat android.”
“Whoa.” Neeley leaned in, face to tit. “She looks so real. I… don’t believe it.”
Fitch grasped Neeley by the head and made him look at the smashed hut with one Redeemed boot sticking out of the hole. “I’m inclined to trust what she said. Squeeze at thine own risk.”
“So they are real.” Kevin gnawed on the knuckle of his index finger, and spat when he tasted blood.
“Ya think?” asked Neeley with an eager expression.
Kevin hung his head. “I meant the Persephones, not her tits. I thought it was bullshit.”
“I’m sorry.” Snow looked down, her hair billowing to the side in the wind. “While I am perhaps as advanced as artificial intelligence managed to get prior to humanity deciding to blow itself back to medieval times, it is not impossible to fool me. Nathan sent me out here to find a large, organized group capable of mounting an effective offensive operation against the Amarillo military. While he’d presented enough of a claim to the command structure to permit the op, he failed to mention two critical things.”
“Wait.” Kevin pointed at her. “So you’re the reason everything went to shit? You killed Wayne?”
“Not entirely. I never directed them at any specific target beyond Amarillo’s interests in general.”
“What did this Nathan dickhead leave out?” asked Fitch.
Snow sighed. “Well, for one thing, he didn’t tell me this was all about your little girlfriend. He didn’t care about Amarillo at all. It was merely a layer of armor he needed to peel away to expose her. The Enclave did not have accurate information about the true capabilities of Amarillo’s military or their numbers. Rumor was enough to make them hesitate… you know how they oh so hate going outside.”
“Yeah.” Kevin glared at her. “The farther they go east, the more they get their underpants in a knot.”
“Well, these Redeemed thugs already had a thing against Amarillo for making waystations rare and expensive. These fools really believe that it retarded the spread of humanity.”
“You don’t?” Kevin cocked an eyebrow.
Snow pulled hair off her face, staring at the western horizon for a few seconds. “It seems like it’s already past the point of no return. Humanity might die out no matter what anyone does. A couple extra power stations along the road isn’t going to make much of a difference… but I suppose humans are nothing if not tenacious. Unless the Enclave changes its stance and decides to provide technical knowledge and material, no functioning vehicles will remain on the roads in twenty years, which of course makes the number of rest stops a useless point to begin with. Transportation will devolve back to horses until enough infrastructure comes about to allow humanity to re-invent automobiles… if they even do.”
“And they’re never going to open the doors.” Kevin spat.
“Nope. So Nathan arranged for an Agent-94 drop right on Amarillo. I was sent here to tell the Redeemed that the threat of retribution from the fearsome army out of Texas was no more. They could do whatever they wanted to the roadhouses and nothing would happen to them. Nathan instructed me to feed them a bunch of misinformation about one place though. Hagerman.”
Kevin almost grabbed her by the throat, but somewhere between her looking like Tris and being a killing machine, he held back. “What did you do?”
“Just told them the man who operated that roadhouse was part of a crew of Night Riders who raided this place on and off about twenty years ago. I have no idea how Nathan knew that, but they ate it up. From what I hear, it was a pretty bad raid. Lot of people were killed here. I guess Nathan figured you and Tris would be there, so he wanted to make sure they hit that one.”
“Wayne had nothing to do with that!” Kevin yelled.
“In hindsight, I’m sure he didn’t. Everything that comes out of Nathan’s mouth is a lie.” She scowled. “Which brings me to the second piece of critical information. He didn’t bother to mention that he’d leave me stranded out here after my mission ended.”
“You couldn’t get yourself back?” asked Neeley. “C-can I touch your breast? Never saw no android lookin’ so real.”
Snow smiled and thrust her chest forward. “Go right ahead. But I touch back.”
He recoiled.
Fitch snickered.
“I could go back,” said Snow, “but Nathan gave me a surprise parting gift.”
Kevin cringed. “Little bomb?”
“I-13-SEO. Subdermal explosive ordinance. That might’ve worked on Tris, but he forgot I’ve got a full spectrum wireless array. I jammed his detonation signal long enough to remove it. So, no. I’m not going back there. I’m a goddess out here. And don’t worry, sweetie.” She winked at Kevin. “I don’t really have any desire to hurt you or your girlfriend. In fact, leaving you both alive is about the biggest middle finger I can send to Nathan.”
Kevin blanched.
“Shit… Amarillo is… What is Agent-94?” Kevin tried to swallow saliva, but gulped down a mouthful of dust.
“The distribution phase of the pathogen that evolves into the bio weapon you people out here refer to as ‘The Virus.’ By now, everyone in that city is more than likely dead.” Snow started to wander off back to the one man who surprisingly still waited for her. “Look, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Most of the people in the Enclave have no idea what it’s really like out here. They think it’s all raiders, slaves, constant war, incest, murder, mutants, everything possible worst-case scenario. I’ve seen enough to reconfigure my outlook. Some of them don’t believe ridding the world of everyone and starting over is a good idea, but people like Nathan are making the big decisions.” She looked down at her boots, not moving for a minute or two. “I look like her because the man who designed us modeled our appearance over what he calculated she’d look like as an adult.”
Kevin blinked. “Her father? What happened to him?”
“I don’t have that data. During the design phase of the Persephone project, the girl was six years old.”
“That’s why she’s not a perfect clone.” Fitch snapped his fingers.
“Yah, well.” Neeley bapped him in the stomach. “Tris also looks like the wind’d break her in half.”
“Like I said.” Snow lifted her gaze from the ground to the distance. “Our appearance was based on an estimation.”
“So it’s true. Amarillo�
��s gone.” Kevin sagged where he stood, feeling as defeated as he had after Wayne’s death. Everything he’d ever wanted or counted on… gone. He pictured Tris in his mind, the way she smiled at him right after sex, the way she smiled at him while they ate, the way she smiled at him… in general. “Not everything I wanted.”
“What?” asked Fitch. “Little louder.”
“Take care of yourself, Kevin.” Snow straightened her posture, the sense of projected guilt evaporating. “The least I can do is get Komodo to leave the remaining roadhouses alone. Those people are going to have enough problems.”
“What if he says no?” asked Neeley.
Snow walked away. “Then I guess I could just kill them all.”
Kevin closed his eyes and wished with everything he had that Tris was okay. “Fuck it. We’re going home.”
“Right on,” said Fitch.
Neeley leaned to the side, peering around Fitch, staring at Snow’s ass as she walked off.
Fitch grabbed him by the back of his vest and dragged him along after Kevin to where they’d parked. “Dammit man, that dick of yours is going to get you killed one of these days.”
32
Matchsticks
Four hours or so after the last bullet left the .50 cal overhead, Tris pulled the van into a parking spot by Mac’s Roadhouse, a few miles over the Colorado/Oklahoma border, almost due north of Amarillo. According to the dash, they’d arrived at 3:04 in the afternoon. She shut down the van and leaned around to the right, peering into the back. Most of the survivors drifted in and out of sleep, save Kirsten, clearly out cold, and Warren who sat against the back doors staring at Abby. The only time he’d not drilled into her with his eyes had been a few minutes at a time during pee breaks on the side of the road.
The two faced each other, the girl still planted between the front seats, for the entire ride thus far. After only five minutes of the man’s distrustful stare, Abby looked down and hadn’t raised her head once.
“Hey,” said Tris, almost yelling. “We’re at a Roadhouse. The van needs to charge and you all need food, water, maybe a shower. Lauren, you can probably get something to wear here too.” She looked at Isla, still wrapped in her brother’s tee shirt. “Kid-sized clothes are pretty rare, but maybe. We’re safe here, so I’d like to spend the night.”
The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 80
