Shattered Roads

by ALICE HENDERSON

  She looked at the car’s screen, which told her this was the “farming community of Fort Meriwether.” Part of a building still stood, and she thought it might give her enough cover. At the same time, if they came this way, it looked too obvious a hiding place. Panic welled up in her gut. Once again she was being hunted.

  Lights cut through the darkness ahead. Three more cars appeared over a hill a quarter of a mile away. She flipped around, heading back, hearing their strange engines gunning after her. She knew they’d seen her. A cold wave of fear swept over her. She raced back down the little hill toward the interstate. But already the six cars had exited the interstate and formed a roadblock. She stifled a cry and looked for places to turn out, but the cars moved quickly to intercept her. They closed in, the three from behind, forming a tighter and tighter circle.

  She turned down the last open side street, where they cut her off. Trapped, she locked all her doors. When they saw that she was cornered, they got out of their vehicles, rough-looking men and women who regarded her with cold, calculating eyes. Their clothes were ragged and torn, stitched together from a dozen different fabrics. Many wore red-and-black paint on their faces and bodies, designs she didn’t recognize. They came over, leering down at her. One tried the door, and when he found it locked, he pulled out a long, thin piece of metal and slid it down inside the door. The lock popped open.

  He was tall, with brown hair cascading down his shoulders. His face was rough and whiskered, and his pale green eyes gazed down shrewdly. He opened the door and grabbed her by the arm, wrenching her out of the car. He shoved her into the crowd, where someone punched her so hard in the stomach that she doubled over, falling to her knees. Then they moved past her, most taking no notice, instead gazing at the car, at its solar panel and high clearance modifications. She managed to stand up. Two of them held her in place, one with his hand on the back of her neck, and a woman holding her arm so tightly that she could feel it bruising.

  “That’s some ride,” the long-haired man said to her.

  She didn’t say anything. She remembered Rowan’s warning to not let them know anything about her.

  “I think we’ll be taking it.” As he started to slide into the driver’s seat, she threw her head back, twisting free of the man’s grip, then turned and shoved the woman to the side.

  H124 rushed to grab the long-haired man’s arm. “I need it,” she told him.

  “So do we,” he said.

  “You don’t understand. I have to reach my destination.”

  “So do we all.”

  She glanced around. The two who had been holding her had so much hatred in their eyes that their gaze burned. The leader paused. Instead of getting in the car, he lingered on her. She looked back at him, trying not to betray her terror. Suddenly her life felt worth as much as a rusted car.

  “If I don’t reach my destination, we’re all going to die.” She craned her neck, making sure no one was getting too close. “All of us.”

  The leader gave her a wry smile. “Some of us sooner than others.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said, masking the plea in her voice. She had the feeling that the moment she showed any kind of weakness, they’d descend on her like a pack of night stalkers.

  He started to slide back into the driver’s seat, but this time she gripped him forcibly. She wasn’t going to give up now. The car was her best chance of reaching the Rovers, of having a shot at stopping this asteroid. She wasn’t going to lose that because some greedy jerks wanted her car.

  “I can’t let you take it,” she insisted.

  He snatched her hand, his skin rough against hers. “I don’t think you have a choice. We need a solar car. And you’ve got one.” A curious look swept across his face. “Where did you come from?”

  She stared back at him, her jaw set.

  “What’s your name?”

  She narrowed her eyes. She didn’t have a name. Just a designation.

  Rather than climb into the driver’s seat, he bent into the car and pulled out her tool bag. He dug through it, finding the books and Willoughby’s PRD. He gave a long, low whistle. “Wow. Will you look at that? That’s city center tech.” He turned back to her. “You a thief?”

  “No,” she said.

  “You from a city center?”

  She thought quickly. “Of course not. Does it look like I’m one of those jacked-in deadbeats?”

  He really took her in then, scanning her up and down. “No, you don’t,” he said finally. He yanked her elbow. “You look like a city worker. And I think you’re going to ride with me. Get in the car.”

  He manhandled her around the side of her vehicle. Anger flooded through her, and she grew hot. She wanted to wheel on him and pound him with her fists, but with all his companions around, she knew she wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Maybe if she rode with him a little while, she could convince him to let her go, tell him of the asteroid. At least that way the car wouldn’t be out of her sight.

  He shoved her around to the passenger side and stuffed her in.

  “Let’s get back to base,” he said to the others. “If the night stalkers aren’t here yet, they soon will be. We’ve stood around for too long already. Let’s go!”

  They all returned to their cars. Doors slammed, and as he crossed back to the driver’s side, she thought of making a run for it. But that would leave her alone out there, back where she started, on foot, making slow progress. And the more west she’d headed, the more these thugs had started showing up, not to mention the night stalkers.

  She stayed put as he got into the driver’s seat. He started the car, then settled his eyes upon her. “Now you can tell me all about yourself,” he said, pulling away with the others.

  She watched him drive, fighting a sudden territorial urge. She’d been the one to find the car. She’d been the one to get it working again and winch it up into the daylight. She didn’t want some violent stranger driving her car. That’s how it felt to her now. It was her car. Who was this guy anyway?

  “Who are you people?” she asked.

  “I get to ask the questions.”

  She stared forward. “Can’t we just converse?” She tried to make her voice sound even, reasonable, when what she really wanted to do was slam his head against the glass, kick him out of the car, and get as far away from him and his posse as possible.

  She looked back at him, considering it. He had a tough look about him, like he’d had a hard life. He was in his late twenties, she guessed, and his lean, muscular frame looked like it had been in a scrape or two over the years.

  “What’s your name?” he asked again.

  She grew silent.

  “Did you come from a city center?”

  She crossed her arms, fixing her gaze straight ahead as he drove.

  “You know,” he said, looking at her, “you’ll probably find answering my questions a lot more palatable than if I left you to the others. Some of them don’t have my charm and patience.”

  She said nothing. At least he was going west. After a few minutes of silence, she asked, “How far are we going?”

  “About twenty miles.” The dashboard lit up his face.

  “So you just drive around, looking for people to steal cars from?”

  He readjusted his seat belt. “Something like that. We were just going to steal your supplies, but when we saw that you had a solar-powered car, that changed.”

  “But why take it? You have plenty of other vehicles.” She surveyed the throng of cars before her.

  “Hear that?” he asked her. “Their engines?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “They’re internal combustion engines.”

  She raised a brow. She decided the less ignorance she showed of the outside world, the better. She didn’t want him to know he was right, that she was from a city cen
ter.

  When she didn’t say anything, he went on. “It’s old tech, but it works. Also loud as hell, and our enemies can hear us coming.” He ran his hand affectionately over the steering wheel of her car. “But this? Solar power? Quiet. And from the size of that panel, I’d say this is pretty old tech too. But it works like a beaut.”

  She had no idea what a beaut was, but she knew there was no way she was going to let this guy keep her car. She wanted to ask him how he lived out here, how they all got by, what they ate, how they survived the storms, but she kept silent.

  “Even got one that runs on steam,” he said. “You should see it. And then there’s the Big Worm. Glorious.”

  She finally lent him her eyes. “What’s that?”

  “A steam train. Fixed the track from here to Delta City, and that thing runs like a blade on ice. But we have to find stuff to burn, which can be hard. But when it goes, it goes.”

  She had no idea what he was talking about, but tried not to let on. “So what’s the point in taking me? Why not leave me to the night stalkers?”

  “Fun devils, aren’t they?” he said, grinning slyly.

  “Yeah. Real fun.”

  Something sad overtook his face, an old hurt. She watched his expression change. A second later, he came back to the present. “I took you because you intrigue me.”

  She decided to go for it. “Look—I really do need to be somewhere. It’s incredibly important.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “You don’t understand.” She turned in her seat to face him. “Something bad is coming. Something that could kill us all.”

  “And you alone can stop it?” he asked, with a half smirk.

  “I’m going to try.”

  He let out a laugh, and she rankled at the sound. “Well, hell,” he said, and she realized the laugh wasn’t entirely derisive. “Maybe we can fix you up with a methane-powered car later.” She didn’t know what methane was, but she believed that about as much as she believed he’d stop right now and let her have her own car back.

  “I need this car,” she insisted. “I have a very long way to go, and won’t be able to get any . . . methane . . . on my way. I need the sun. It’s the perfect power source, right over our heads.”

  “When you can actually see it.” He regarded her, then looked back at the road. “Listen. You’re determined, I’ll give you that. But you don’t seem to grasp a vital component of the situation here.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, her wrath stealing up inside her again.

  “You’re our prisoner.”

  “What possible use could I be to you?”

  He suddenly looked serious. “Information.” He pulled Willoughby’s PRD out of her tool bag again. “I’m no idiot. I know you’re not from around here. Where did you get tech like this?”

  She just stared back.

  “Did you kill whoever this belonged to?”

  “Of course not!”

  “See? If you were a Badlander, you’d brag about it. You’ve got an innocence about you, a kind of naïveté. That stands out. You did come from a city center.” When she didn’t answer, he slowed down, letting the others get ahead of him. “Which one?”

  She decided to try to bluff him, thinking of how Rowan got in and out of New Atlantic. She hadn’t even known there was more than one shielded city until Willoughby had mentioned it during her escape. “I’ve been to a city center before, but I’m not from one of them,” she lied.

  “Which one?”

  “That’s where I got that PRD.”

  “Which city center?” he said again.

  She decided not to answer. “I’m not sure. I was just a kid.”

  “You’ve been breaking in and out of city centers since you were a kid? How?”

  “I didn’t say I’d been breaking into them. I went to one once. I found that PRD.”

  He turned it over in his hands. “This looks brand-new, not years old. This is new tech.”

  She thought quickly. “It was a prototype back then.”

  “How did you get into the city?”

  “Some guy got me in. It was a long time ago.”

  He turned the PRD over in his hand. Steering with his knee, he popped open the back of it. “It doesn’t have a tracking chip. Doesn’t even have a place for one.”

  He reached over and closed his hand on the back of her neck. He forced her head down, fingers feeling along her scalp.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, batting his hand away.

  “No head jack.”

  “I told you that.”

  “What’s a chinook?

  “Excuse me?”

  “Or a Death Rider? If you can tell me that right now, I’ll leave you alone.”

  She had no idea what a chinook or a Death Rider was. Never heard of them.

  “What’s your name?” he asked again.

  She tried to think of a name. “Bowen,” she answered at last, thinking of a character in The Land That Time Forgot book she’d found at the shelter.

  He watched her out of the corner of his eye. “That’s an unusual name. I’m Byron. But what’s your real name? Your designation?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re a worker, aren’t you?”

  “A worker?” she asked, trying to sound ignorant. She could tell he wasn’t buying it at all.

  “And you can get us in.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You can get us into Delta City, through the atmospheric shield.”

  “I have no idea how to do that. Besides, like I said, I have somewhere very important to be.”

  “And we have something very important to sabotage,” he said grimly.

  “I can’t help you,” she insisted. She decided to take a chance. “Listen. An asteroid is coming. It’s on a collision course with Earth. A long time ago it was being mined in outer space, and a disaster happened, altering its course. It fragmented, and some if it has already hit, causing massive damage on impact. There are still three more chunks that haven’t hit, but they’re about to. The first will hit in less than two months, followed by two more. They’ll wipe out whole regions. But that’s not even the worst part. The main asteroid is going to destroy us all.”

  He was silent.

  “We won’t survive. Nothing will. Unless we can find a way to stop it.”

  “What’s an asteroid?”

  She frowned. “It’s a huge rock out in space. They can devastate life on a planet if they’re big enough, and this one certainly is.”

  “How do you even know about this?”

  She looked over at him. “I found an ancient laboratory, a place that studied that kind of thing. I saw the diagrams of how these things are going to strike the earth.”

  “Ancient? How do you know what you saw wasn’t malfunctioning?”

  Rage flared in her eyes. “I looked at the equipment. It was running. I saw images of how much destruction the smaller chunks had caused in the past.”

  He lifted his brow. “And you know how to stop this thing?”

  “I’ve got a lead.”

  He gave a wry smile. “I’ve heard a lot of stories to get away from the Badlanders before, but that one is the craziest. How could anyone know about this, anyway? No one knows what’s out there.”

  “They used to.” She reached into her bag to get her PRD, so she could show him the videos.

  He caught her hand. “Not so fast.”

  “But I can show you!”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet. And stab me while you’re at it.”

  “I just need my PRD.”

  He slid her bag over to his side of the car, tucking it between his body and the door. “I’ll hold onto it for now.”

  “Please just let me show
you.”

  He stared at her in silence, then sped up to catch up with the others.

  “Please let me go,” she begged. “Believe me, the world is about to be destroyed.”

  He met her gaze in the glow of the dashboard, his eyes softening a bit. “Sorry, but you’re along for the ride.”

  They turned off the highway and took an exit ramp toward a glow on the horizon. Firelight flickered in the distance, illuminating old, ramshackle buildings. A thick haze of smoke hung near the ground, and as they drove through it, she stifled a cough. Then the glow grew brighter, and they pulled into the Badlander camp. She looked out in wonder. About a hundred people huddled around small fires, cooking and talking.

  As they pulled into a large lot full of cars, she stared out, frightened, as five Badlanders savagely beat someone lying on the ground. She gaped as the man tried to get away. She turned to Byron. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

  He looked at her and laughed. “Sure, if you want to get killed. Wow. You’re really not from around here.” Parking the car, he glanced over at the fight, then leaned back toward her. “Stay put. You do not want to go out there.”

  He climbed out of the car, then shut and locked the door. Already the car had attracted attention, as a couple of people—and soon a dozen others—gathered around it, staring at the solar panel.

  “Who the hell’s that?” a woman asked, gesturing at H124. Her bright red hair stood in sharp spikes, and a labyrinthine tattoo covered the sides of her face.

  “Who cares? Look at the car!” her friend replied, a thin man with greasy blond hair braided down his back. Every inch of his skinny arms was covered in tattoos. Behind them, the man who was being beaten ran away.

  H124 glanced around, wondering where Byron had gone to. “Okay, okay,” she heard his voice saying. He pushed through the onlookers, back toward the car. “Look all you want, but don’t touch. Where’s Firehawk?”

  The skinny man spoke up. “Still gone.”

  “Damn.”

  “Why, what’s wrong?” the man asked Byron.

  “Never mind,” Byron said curtly, then opened the passenger door. He grabbed her arm and pulled her out, his fingers gripping her like a wrench