The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Cox, Matthew S.

  “You’re making a mistake,” said Tris. “The Council has been lying to you.”

  Aura hopped down from the console and stepped in front of Tris. “I don’t want to be frozen.” She tugged on Tris’ arm. “They won’t shoot if you’re pointing the gun at me.”

  “No.” Tris stared at the security team. “I’m not putting a gun to a kid’s head. Look. If we were here to cause trouble, we wouldn’t have left those two upstairs alive. Have you ever been down here? Did you know what this facility was?”

  The ISF team shifted and exchanged uneasy glances.

  Tris tried to move Aura around behind her, but the girl held her ground. “The outside world isn’t as bad as the Council wants us to believe. They are lying to everyone to control them. The Council isn’t worried if we can survive out there. As long as they keep everyone inside, they have complete control over every aspect of their lives. Absolute power. We’re almost out of gene pairs. The Enclave is dying, and it’s trying to take the rest of the world down with it. Besides, you’re too late. It’s already started.”

  “I suppose you have some evidence to support your claims?” asked the commander, taking a step closer. “Let the girl go.”

  “I’m not holding her.” Tris frowned. “She can go if she wants to.”

  “Come on, sweetie. Step away from them.” A woman ISF officer crouched, waving Aura over.

  “If I walk away, you’re going to shoot her. Listen to what they’re saying. If it’s wrong, why would the Council lie about freezing everyone? If it’s good for us, why not tell everyone?”

  “The less information you give to the people, the easier it is to control them,” said Kevin.

  “Release the girl,” said the lead man, in a sterner tone.

  Tris smiled. “I’m trying, but she’s got a hell of a grip. Open your eyes, dammit. The world is dying. The Enclave is dying. The only way for either one to survive is to open the gates.”

  “Oh, she’s one of those activists,” said the woman with her rifle on the techs.

  “Look.” The commander took another step closer to Tris, bringing him within lunging distance. “I’m willing to listen to what you have to say, but you’ll have to plead your case to the Council of Four. I’m placing you under arrest.”

  “That’s not happening.” Tris narrowed her eyes. “Not that I don’t trust you, but I don’t trust you.”

  “Fine. We do it the hard way.” The man angled his rifle at Tris’ thigh.

  She blurred into motion, darting forward and swatting the rifle to the left at the same instant her other fist connected with the man’s jaw. The remaining four ISF officers all swiveled their weapons toward Tris. Kevin snapped his arm up and fired four shots as fast as he could into the chest of the nearest man. Lead dots appeared on his armor; he let out a grunt like a kicked goose and doubled over.

  Mara slapped the console, plunging the room into darkness, save for the eerie glow of hundreds of stasis tanks in the cavern behind the giant window. Kevin charged at where he remembered the next nearest man to be. Blind in the sudden loss of light, he managed to find a vertical body and tackled it to the ground, sending a chair skittering away.

  Tris grunted. A fleshy smack rang out, and a man groaned. Armor struck the floor. Unarmored bodies dove for cover and crawled off, probably the male technicians. Aura shouted ‘please don’t shoot me’ over and over. No sooner had his eyes adjusted to the eerie light from the cryogenics chamber, Kevin raised his arm to block a strike from a rifle stock that would’ve caught him in the head. His elbow paid the price, leaving his arm stunned and tingling. He reared up and punched at his best estimation of head, and hit shoulder. His second attack landed against the unmistakable crimple of a nose.

  Shoes scuffed and scrambled about. Numerous thuds and whumps a short distance to his left created a fight scene in his mind; he hoped Tris had the advantage. Sparkling blue light inches from his eyes caught him unaware. He cringed up and away, causing the stunner to scrape over his chest. The electrode had no effect other than sending a blanket of sparks dancing over the surface, diffusing into the hexagonal pattern inlaid within the smoky black material.

  Kevin seized the man’s wrist and wrestled for control of the stunner. The man he’d shot wheezed and gasped for air off to the right. Tris let off a shout like something out of a bad Kung Fu movie a second before the thwap of shoe on face went off like a gunshot. A body sailed over his head and landed behind him with a plastic-coated clatter.

  Lights flashed on.

  The ISF man beneath Kevin, flat on his back, blinked dazedly at the ceiling. Seizing the advantage, Kevin overpowered the arm and jabbed the stunner into the man’s right ear. Froth burst from the man’s mouth as his eyes crossed.

  The short ISF woman shook off the effect of the rapid shift to bright light and rushed Tris from behind. Kevin brought his .45 up, but before he could fire, Tris caught her in the side of the head with a reverse heel kick that threw the little woman face-first into the giant window overlooking the stasis pods.

  She moaned, sliding down from the glass onto the button-covered desk.

  Aura darted out from her hiding place beneath the console, pulled the stunner from the woman’s belt, and touched it to her head. The officer convulsed and spasmed, various parts of her hitting random buttons and controls, but nothing appeared to happen because of it.

  “Drop it!” yelled Tris.

  Kevin spun toward her voice.

  She planted one foot on the commander’s chest, pointing an Enclave rifle at his face while staring at the last ISF man.

  “They’re going to exile you for this.” The last ISF officer tossed his rifle to the floor.

  “That’s supposed to be a punishment?” She raised an eyebrow. “I want to leave. Only problem is they say ‘exile,’ but they mean execution. Any Enclave people who actually leave are hunted down like escapees.”

  “She’s right.” Kevin waved the pins and needles of a funny bone strike out of his left arm. “Ten thousand coins’ bounty on anyone brought back here… assuming of course they don’t kill the poor idiot who thinks they made payday. But you should know that, right? Being security?”

  “Uhh,” said the man. His features suggested he should’ve been black, but he had the same bleached-white skin and hair as Tris, though his eyes retained a rich brown hue. “The military patrols outside the gates. We’re strictly internal.”

  “So they don’t even let you outside?” Kevin shook his head. “She’s right and you can’t even see it. Even you people—the ISF—you’re prisoners too.”

  “But the Speaker says―”

  “Fuck the Speaker,” yelled Tris. “I’ve hated that floating head since I was a kid. If he’s even a real person, he’s a font of lies.”

  “What the hell is a font?” asked Kevin.

  Aura scrunched up her nose. “Isn’t that a typeface?”

  Tris sighed. “Never mind.” She glanced at Mara and chucked the rifle to her. “Thanks. Help me a little more? Watch these people? Don’t let them leave until it’s safe.”

  “Sure.” Mara sat on the console desk, rifle across her lap. “How will I know when it’s safe?”

  “Oh… I think you’ll know.” Tris smiled.

  Aura started to approach Tris, but froze when she picked up another rifle. Tris ran around and collected the security team’s weapons, piled them up by Mara, and dragged the four unconscious officers into a heap by the corner. The three techs took rifles and stood guard over the officers.

  “We’re in so much trouble.” Aura looked down at her shoes. “I guess it doesn’t matter now what we do. Are they gonna put me in Detention too?”

  Tris sighed. “I hope when the dust settles, they’ll thank us. A person who’s been weaned on bullshit their whole life gets a taste of truth, the first thing they want to do is spit it out.” She held a stare on the ISF man for a second more before rushing to the console and tapping some buttons. “Mara, watch him… but let him come
over here and see this.”

  Within the giant window, transparent virtual monitors appeared in hologram. Each the size of a large television screen, they contained images of a grand city. The buildings resembled those outside, mostly silver and white, but stretched dozens of stories tall. Perfect roads formed a regular grid between manicured lawns. Little drones sprayed water on the grass, and people went about their day. Small children played in a park, giggling and racing around.

  “This is the sim,” said Tris. “This is what those people are seeing while they sleep.”

  “Why are there little kids in there?” asked Aura. “You said they only put us in when we turn eighteen.”

  “They’re programs.” Mara flicked a fingernail at the rifle grip. “Some of the kids are simple decoration. A handful are watcher programs… basically ‘cameras.’ Their parents are either virtual, or nonexistent. They help reinforce the illusion.”

  “It would seem wrong if there were zero children in a city that big,” said Tris.

  “Damn.” Kevin looked among the eight views. “That city looks bigger than some of the prewar metros.”

  “Easy to build big when it’s only data.” Tris frowned.

  Flying billboards, monitors in storefront windows, and in some spots, plain walls shimmered with television snow for a second before the frazzle-haired face of Doctor Ian Jameson appeared. Tens of thousands of him smiled from all over the city.

  “Citizens of the Enclave, your attention if you don’t mind. I am Doctor Ian Jameson. Some of you may remember me from the early days of our society. The reawakening of civilization has not gone as I and the other founders had envisioned. I am speaking to you now regarding a matter of utmost importance. I must tell you that you are stuck in a dream. The world you see around you is not real. You are all asleep in stasis pods, experiencing a collective simulation of a city that does not exist.”

  Some of the buildings changed color. Cars broke apart into digitized pixels and faded away. Most of the small children froze like statues and disappeared, as did some of their ‘parents.’

  “The Core City is not real.” Doctor Jameson’s visage switched to drone camera footage of the stasis tanks. The view zoomed in close to provide a clear view of faces. In another screen, a wider angle conveyed a sense of the chamber’s vastness. “In a few moments, you will all feel a sudden tiredness come over you. Do not worry. You will fall asleep in the false reality and wake up in the real world. Please understand that what you are presently experiencing is the dream. This is the lie. The Council of Four has been deceiving you for your entire lives. They fear the outside world with no reason. The historical documentaries are fictions used to control you.”

  The screens shifted again, showing scenes from pre-war movies overlaid with ‘Historical Documentary’ next to a file number on one side and images of advertising for the movie, publicity stills of the actors, images of the actors from other movies or real life. Shock spread over the people in the sim as individuals they thought had been violent raiders barely surviving the nuclear apocalypse showed up smiling in expensive clothes, at fancy parties, and in a few not-so-flattering photographs.

  “These so called historical documentaries were culled from entertainment videos produced before the war of August 2021,” said Doctor Jameson. Thousands of screens throughout the Core City shifted again, showing aerial views of what Kevin recognized as real settlements. “This is the reality of the world as it is now.”

  Please don’t let them have footage of Ned. Kevin’s chest tightened.

  The drone camera video zoomed in on families in piecemeal dwellings, farming and surviving. Another image showed a bunch of men playing their best guess at basketball, followed by video of settlers swimming in a river. Squealing, happy children hurried to swim away from a tremendously rotund man doing a cannonball jump from a rickety dock.

  “Then, there’s this…” Doctor Jameson’s voice grew somber.

  The images changed. Infected. Cities teeming with half-alive people moaning and milling about. Enclave drone cameras caught a few glimpses of people failing to flee, overrun by the virus-riddled wretches. A split screen window opened, going back to the image of the settler kids frolicking in the water.

  “Believing that the outside world was too contaminated to save, the Council of Four made the decision that everyone not within the Enclave deserved to die, purged from the world so the Enclave could take it back in a supposed pure state. Agent-94 is a perversion of research originally conducted for medical purposes. Our council dropped this virus on the unsuspecting people of the Wildlands… robbing them of reason, filling them with the need to kill, and wiping out hundreds of thousands of innocent survivors for being ‘impure.’”

  Doctor Jameson paused the drone camera footage on a small Hispanic boy with a huge grin upon his rounded face as he plunged into the river. “This, citizens of the Enclave, is an ‘impurity’ they believe deserves to die. They believe you are a resource to be frozen and stacked until needed, without a voice in your own destiny. Now is the time for you to stand up for yourselves.”

  The face of Doctor Jameson filled in all the viewscreens again, smiling like a benevolent grandfather.

  “I was present at the founding of the Enclave so long ago… What we tried to do has been twisted and taken away from us. You do not live in the world we imagined. For that, I am sorry. They killed me for trying to stop them. This face you see now is little more than a digital ghost, an artificial intelligence created by a man who knew his death approached. Although I no longer walk among you, I am not ready to fade into obscurity.”

  The false Core City hung in total silence, thousands of people holding their collective breath.

  Doctor Jameson’s ghost spread his arms to the side. “I give you back your destiny in hopes that you make better decisions than your so-called leaders.”

  All the screens within the sim went black. Seconds later, the people swooned as if taken by a sudden exhaustion, many collapsing where they stood. Outside in the cavern, the pod-tender robots sprang to life, whirring back and forth like gargantuan versions of old printer heads. Hundreds of robotic arms flailed and poked at pods one after the next.

  “It’s working,” said Tris, wide-eyed. “It really worked!”

  “What’s happening?” asked Aura.

  Mara glanced at the console screen, a field of hundreds of green dots. Yellow crept in from the top left corner, spreading from dot to dot. The upper-left dot flashed to a brighter shade of green with a blue border. “Holy shit! All the stasis pods are opening. W-w-what are we going to do? We don’t have the food for that many people. We… don’t have the room for that many people.”

  Kevin threw an arm around Tris and grinned at Mara. “Guess you’ll have to go outside.”

  29

  Dreams' End

  Urgent beeping crept into Kevin’s ears like a microwave oven in another room finishing. The ISF man looked up. Mara and her three fellow techs also stared at the ceiling. Rich moaned and stirred.

  Kevin glanced over, frowned, and shot him twice in the chest. After, he reached over with his left hand and pushed his right arm down. “Oops. Sorry. Hate when it does that.”

  Aura cringed and covered her ears.

  “So I take it someone wasn’t cooking in the break room?” Kevin pulled the mag from the .45 to check it, finding it empty. One left in the chamber. He traded it for a full magazine from his left pocket.

  “That’s a general quarters alarm,” said the ISF man. “I’m getting comm traffic. Director Gerhardt herself is ordering the military to move into the city to back up the ISF and enforce an immediate curfew.” He looked from Tris to Kevin. “Seems that speech didn’t only happen in the sim. It went off in the Quar too. It’s a total clusterfuck out there right now. Sounds like half of ’em agree with her”―he gestured at Tris―“and the remaining half are split between jamming their thumbs up their asses in confusion or listening to Gerhardt.”

  Aura g
asped.

  “Sorry.” The ISF man scratched at his head. “Forgot we had a child in here.”

  “So where do you stand?” asked Kevin.

  The man approached the window. Some of the pods at the top left corner drained, allowing the limp, nude body inside to slump down into the foot end. The clear housing rotated open going from tube to bathtub. A track-mounted robot slid into position by the tank and lifted a fifty-something man out while disconnecting the wire from the jack behind his left ear. It cradled him in its two largest arms. Flashing yellow lights around its rear face turned on, and it glided straight to the floor five stories below, painting the wall with a dancing array of amber.

  The ISF officer leaned close to the glass, his face hovered an inch from his reflection. Kevin figured him for about thirty, the neat flattop suggested a by-the-book ‘eager to please’ sort who’d probably wanted to be a cop since he had been old enough to walk. The man made eye contact with Kevin via his reflection. A male voice murmured in the officer’s earpiece.

  “Director Whitford just give the military permission to fire on anyone who refuses to obey. I’m with you two. Name’s Jordan.”

  Doctor Jameson’s face appeared in a smaller holographic image embedded within the inch-thick observation window. “Tris.”

  She looked up from whatever she’d been doing at the controls. “It’s starting.”

  “I know. There is a complication. I need you to go to building 32-A. That’s where they store Agent-94 in liquid form. It’s also the drone hangar facility. There is enough mayhem going on at the moment where you should be able to get there without a problem. Especially in that armor. You’ll blend in like ISF.”

  “What happened?” asked Tris.

  “I’ll explain on the way. Go now. There are three cars outside. Take one.”

  The image winked out.