The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Cox, Matthew S.

  And the Virus fucked them all.

  Zoryn directed him at an alley between two buildings that resembled aircraft hangars. He followed it to the end where it opened into an area full of white gravel. The three Resistance people sank out of view as they descended below the level of the ground, again waving for him to follow. Kevin nudged the car up to the side and peered down at an angled concrete wall that led to some manner of manmade river path―only massive. As far as he could see to the right, the channel continued with a slight leftward curve, spanned by a handful of overpasses. Zoryn and the others headed left toward a wall about a hundred yards away with six square tunnels.

  “Will the car make that grade?” Tris peered at the bottom.

  “Not without pain.”

  He figured it would scrape at the least, and ruin the bumper―possibly bend the frame―at worst. About a quarter mile to the right, he caught a glimpse of an access roadway and decided to go for it rather than drive straight down the angled concrete. With a spray of gravel, the Challenger took off, reaching the ramp in a few seconds. Though the turn at the bottom proved sharp, nothing scraped. He straightened out and drove along the artificial riverbed back to where the three waited for him. Their initial confusion at him going in the wrong direction gave way to expressions of understanding as he rolled to a stop nearby.

  “Maybe I’d have gone straight down if I had a truck.” He smiled. “Didn’t wanna thrash the frame.”

  Naomi nodded.

  They led him into the third tunnel from the left, one of two not blocked off by walls of shipping containers. A minute or so after driving into the tunnel, Uther waved at him to stop.

  He rolled down the window.

  “Can leave the car here. We’re close enough to the door.” Uther smiled.

  Once the headlights went out, the three Resistance people turned on flashlights.

  “You sure you trust them?” Kevin glanced at Tris.

  “Mostly. I got nothing else though. And they had that picture.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Would Nathan have sent that picture?”

  “If Nathan knew I was here, and sent them, there would’ve been gunfire already.” She opened her door. “Not saying we should drop our guard, but I trust them enough to see where this leads.”

  “Okay.” He held her hand for a few seconds. “If this goes south, I’m going to be selfish and die first. I don’t want to have to deal with the pain of losing you.”

  She thumped him on the arm. “Ass.”

  Kevin got out, shut down the car, and engaged the security code. The dry riverbed below the ground level would make a decent place to sit and wait for the portable chargers to work. Probably even leave the car in the tunnel and run the panels outside.

  “In here.” Zoryn walked up to a pale grey door with some rust spots.

  Uther opened it with a key and walked in.

  The other two followed.

  Kevin relaxed a little bit at their not wanting to flank them. He went in ahead of Tris.

  “Close it, please,” said Naomi.

  Tris backtracked to shut the door behind them.

  A short hallway led to a ninety-degree turn to the right, another door, and a long massive room thick with a pungent odor somewhere between seaweed and foot. The last vestiges of the setting sun leaked in from a narrow strip of windows near the ceiling, some two and a half stories overhead. Six massive machines that resembled boilers dominated the left three-quarters of the space. Pipes large enough for a man to crawl inside of connected them to the ceiling and the wall behind. Opposite the enormous machines stood a wall full of dials, buttons, and gauges. The repetitive nature of the pattern suggested each machine had a separate, identical control panel. Rust blanketed most surfaces, and the majority of the buttons and whatnot on the control wall had been smashed.

  Zoryn approached the panel opposite the fourth machine and typed a code on a keypad of silver buttons resembling those of an ancient phone.

  Kevin chuckled. This place had to be obsolete before the war.

  A loud click sounded from another cabinet covered in gauges and lights. The yellow, orange, and red bulbs looked as though they hadn’t seen electricity in a hundred years. Uther grasped the corner of the cabinet and opened it like a door. The interior had scorch marks from recent welding, where most of the guts had been removed to make space for a passageway containing metal stairs.

  A silver box about the size of a fist near the top left corner didn’t appear to be part of the original mechanism, and the new wires leading from it into the wall confirmed that feeling.

  “Interesting doorbell,” said Kevin.

  “Enclave sometimes comes looking for us here,” said Naomi.

  “What if they find the car?” asked Tris.

  Zoryn smiled. “They don’t usually enter the tunnels unless we’ve kicked them where it hurts. They haven’t been doing much lately around here though. You should be long gone before any Hoplites come by.”

  “Those things wouldn’t fit in the tunnels anyway.” Kevin finally felt comfortable enough to sling the AK over his shoulder. “They’d have to come in on foot.”

  “I doubt they’d think anything of that car if they found it.” Naomi shook her head. “Just some ballsy Wildlander exploring.”

  Uther entered last, pulling the hidden door closed.

  Naomi and Zoryn jogged down the stairs to a catwalk, lighting the way. Three dark pipes ran along the middle of the curved tunnel ceiling. Dirty concrete patch jobs decorated the bare cinder block walls. Kevin coughed on the taste of wet dust, straining to make out details in the dark.

  Their guides stopped again for no apparent reason. Before Kevin could open his mouth to ask why, Naomi spotted her flashlight on a partially concealed door to the left and pounded her fist into it twice. A tense moment later, the door opened inward, flooding the area with bright light.

  Kevin squinted, grunting from the surprise. Zoryn stepped in past another pale man in a grey shirt and pants, who looked at Tris as though he’d seen a ghost. Naomi followed. Kevin entered behind her, still cringing at the change in light. Near the door, a flat panel monitor offered a green night vision view of the hallway outside, evidently from a tiny fiberoptic camera overhead.

  As his eyes acclimated, he looked around at several long tables with attached bench seats, a row of bunk beds arranged between freestanding lockers, a larger table without chairs that had a hologram of tunnels hovering over it, and one hallway leading deeper in.

  Eight more people, none of whom had armor on, froze in their tracks and stared at Tris.

  “Oh, please tell me that’s not what I think it is,” said a tiny girl who appeared around twelve or so. She could’ve been Naomi’s kid sister; they had the same white bob, only this girl had blood red eyes instead of green.

  “Damn,” whispered someone to the right.

  “I’m not a Persephone,” said Tris. “Honest.”

  “As if one of those things would admit it.” A deep voiced man, pale but not snow-white, shook his head.

  “I met one who did.” Kevin smiled. “Seemed like a nice enough girl when she wasn’t throwing bikers through houses.”

  The small girl approached, bare feet poking out of too-long black BDU pants. She wore an immaculate white tank top that exposed her shoulders and showed off her lack of breasts. Aside from her height, she had the physique of a nine year old. “She’s right. Persephones are taller, look older, and actually have muscle tone.”

  “Look who’s talking.” Tris folded her arms.

  Some of the people laughed.

  “Your little sister’s adorable.” Kevin smiled at Naomi.

  The small girl sighed at the ceiling. “Right. First, I’m not Naomi’s sister. Second, I’m not twelve. You’ve heard of nanites?”

  “Yeah.” Kevin chuckled. “Tris has ’em. Kinda want ’em myself.”

  “Well, I got a slightly overtuned batch. I stopped looking older when they installed it, and some
times I think I’m creeping backwards. I’m thirty-six. Most of these people call me Amaranth.”

  “Tris,” said Tris. “You must go through a lot of food.”

  Amaranth rolled her eyes. “Don’t get me started on that either. It’s annoying. Not fair to everyone else here how much I have to eat.”

  “Hey maybe you can give me some of those and between the two of us we wind up normal?” Kevin grinned.

  “Doesn’t work that way. The nanites are coded to my DNA. If we injected my nanites into your body, they’d treat your tissues as being invasive to me and destroy everything.” Amaranth winked. “Basically about the most intensely painful way to die you can imagine.”

  Kevin shook his head. “That would be getting stuffed face-first into Wayne’s toilet.”

  Tris shivered.

  Amaranth stared at him. “I don’t want to know. So…” She looked up at Tris. “Why are you here?”

  “My father told me to go to the Starbucks.”

  Kevin leaned over to Tris and whispered, “Hey, you’re not the shortest person in the room.”

  Amaranth frowned. “This guy’s original. Hope you pay him well. Your father? Doctor Jameson?”

  “So you know who I am?” Tris blinked.

  “You are well known among the Resistance, as well as certain circles within the Enclave.”

  Tris bit her lip. “How bad?”

  “Well…” Amaranth walked over to the tables, waving for them to follow. She took a seat, shifted sideways, and put her feet up on the bench, ankles crossed. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yeah.” Tris scratched at her stomach. “Quite.”

  “Food sounds good.” Kevin stepped over the bench and sat beside Tris.

  “On it,” said Zoryn. He had to duck to walk under a few pipes on his way to the hallway that led deeper into the place.

  Amaranth leaned forward, arms folded on the tabletop. “Okay… I’ll try to keep it simple and short. Your father was part of a movement that wanted to open the doors and reintegrate the Enclave with the outside world. Unfortunately, he found himself in the minority as most of those in power feared the result of nuclear war and were worried about genetic damage caused by the vast amounts of radiation let loose.”

  “I knew that already.” Tris raked her fingers through her hair. “What ‘circles’ are you talking about?”

  “Well, my people on the inside tell me that one of the First Tier administrators basically has your face on a dart board.”

  “Nathan,” muttered Tris.

  “Yeah. There are a small number of people within the biogenic science division who have secretly run progression models that predict the isolationist policies of the current Council will result in an unsustainable situation within thirty years or so.”

  “They needed computer models to understand that there’s only so many ways to match people before you wind up inbreeding?” Tris slapped the table. “I think it’s too late. They already did screw themselves into stupidity.”

  Amaranth smiled. “Perhaps. We’ve been trying to find a way into the city core, but so far, we’ve only been able to locate the quarantine district. They really did their homework. Doesn’t seem to be any alternate way into the core other than the main tram, not even vents.”

  Tris nodded.

  “Wait, what?” asked Kevin.

  “Shall I, or do you want to fill him in?” asked Amaranth.

  Tris looked at him. “The Enclave is split into two parts. There’s the city core, an underground metropolis built somewhere in the area around the University, where most of the people live. It’s got all the education, technical, training, and residence facilities… basically most of the Enclave civilization. On the surface, there’s a smaller outlying section of city they use for quarantine purposes. Basically anyone who goes outside, like the hovercraft pilots, or the patrollers, or in some rare cases, scientific survey teams, lives there for a few months after coming back. The security to get into the city core is ridiculous. The only way in or out that anyone knows about is a small magnetic tram line. The capsule seats four people at a time only, and it takes about twenty minutes to go between the zones.”

  “Wow… sounds like they’re paranoid.” Kevin shifted his jaw side to side. “What are they afraid of?”

  “A little paranoid, yeah. Disease and radiation mostly.” Tris smiled. “There’s a decontamination process before getting into the cab… a shower, and they make you wear these paper gowns, which they burn as soon as you arrive… and go through another decontamination shower.”

  Kevin glanced between the women. “These people do realize the world isn’t swimming with toxic shit anywhere near as bad as they think…except for the crap they’ve set loose.”

  “Paranoia isn’t supposed to make sense.” Amaranth leaned back and stretched. “The Council has convinced themselves that the outside world is deadly, and they’ve got everyone living in fear. That’s the first step to controlling a large population: make them afraid of everything so they trust the people in power the way children trust their parents.”

  “We have to stop the Virus.” Tris thumped the table with her fist.

  Zoryn returned with a pair of silver trays. Each held a pair of chicken pieces, a beige glop, a basin of little green pellets, a brown square in the middle, and a small reservoir of light brown liquid. “Here ya go.” He set one down in front of Tris and one by Kevin. “Oh…” He produced two plastic forks in clear wrappers from his pocket and handed them over.

  “What are those?” Kevin pointed at the pellets.

  “Peas,” said Tris. “Eat the brown one last, that’s dessert.”

  She attacked her food with almost as much ferocity as Katie had.

  Kevin stabbed the chicken and tore off a piece. As soon as he bit down, he blinked. Taste unlike anything he’d experienced flooded his mouth. Spices of some kind, it had so much flavor it almost hurt. “Wow…”

  “He’s never had purified food before.” Tris grinned. “It looks like chicken, but it never walked around. It’s basically the same… muscle tissue grown in tanks. Less messy than caring for live chickens. Takes less space too.”

  “Stop.” He raised a hand. “Let me enjoy this.”

  “Try the mashed potatoes with gravy.” She winked.

  Kevin scooped some of the beige goop, dipped it in the darker brown goop, and put it in his mouth. If I could sell this shit at a Roadhouse, I’d own the world. With great effort, he ate at the pace of a human being, and avoided the temptation to eat the tray as well.

  Amaranth watched for a few minutes without bothering them.

  “So…” asked Tris. “Everyone in the Enclave doesn’t know me or want to kill me?”

  “No.” Amaranth shook her head. “Only Nathan’s inner circle and a few of the military who’ve had direct contact with you out in the Wildlands. Director Gerhardt issued an order to the military that promised exile for anyone who volunteered for a ‘special’ mission issued by Administrator Savros.”

  Tris flashed a sinister grin. “I bet Nathan loved that.”

  “Please tell me you have the data about the antiviral process. The cure you were supposed to be smuggling out?”

  Tris sighed. “I never had it. Nathan set that whole thing up. He loaded my implant with music… a band named The Cure.”

  Most of the people around them groaned.

  One man in the back screamed and bashed his head into a locker door. “That’s awful!”

  “Tell me about it.” Tris seethed.

  “You okay, Mark?” yelled Amaranth.

  The guy banging his head on the lockers waved dismissively at her and walked off rubbing his temples as if attempting to erase the memory of having heard that.

  Amaranth leaned forward, head in her hand such that her eyebrows stretched unnaturally wide. “That is a god-awful pun. Someone needs to do something unseemly to Nathan for that.”

  “Oh… I want to.” Tris scowled. “I don’t think I can get near him
though. He’s too deep inside the city core.”

  “Don’t you have to go in there anyway?” Kevin smiled.

  “No… I should be able to do what I need to do from a terminal. I’m expecting this is going to involve uploading some kind of virus—software virus—into their system to turn the machinery that synthesizes and stores the biological virus against itself.” She poked her fork at the brownie. “It’s the only way that it makes sense for me to be able to have any kind of effect alone against the whole Enclave. I’ve got no chance of doing this up front and loud.”

  “So the cure was useless?” Amaranth grumbled. “We’re back to square one.”

  “Not entirely.” Tris bent forward, scooped the brownie out of the tray on the end of her fork, and pointed it at the smaller woman. “My father hacked a hidden message into the music files. Told me to contact him at an old phone number with an exchange in this area. Managed to find a working phone and… he said he needed me inside to help him, and then sent me to Starbucks.”

  “Hmm. I think we can help you with that.” Amaranth smiled. “The Enclave spends a lot of time being high tech, so sometimes they forget low tech. We found an old subway tunnel that used to have a stop at Stanford. If you don’t mind a climb, it connects via a ventilation shaft down a few stories and cuts over into the basement of one of the old university buildings. It’s tight quarters, but it should be possible to make your way up through there to the Quarantine Section.”

  “Wait, didn’t you say the Enclave city is underground?” Kevin scratched his head.

  “The core is.” Tris bit the corner off the fork-impaled brownie, and wagged the rest at him like a wand. “Quarantine is on the surface under a dome and several walls. There’s lots of guards, sentry drones, cameras, and such. Remember all those stories about ten thousand coins reward for bringing runaways back?”

  “Oh, so it’s like a fake Enclave city above the real one?”

  “The Quar isn’t fake,” said Amaranth. “It’s about one-eighth the size of the city core. It’s a staging area really, the interface between the city proper and the outside world. We haven’t been able to locate the exact geographic location of the core, but we’re starting to think it’s offshore under the San Francisco Bay, given the approximate angle of the connecting tram and duration of the ride.”