She awoke to shouts in the camp, feeling as if she’d only just dozed off. She guessed she’d gotten about fifteen minutes of sleep. Byron had done only slightly better. Though they hadn’t spoken for most of the night, she could sense he’d remained awake for much of the evening. Sunlight streamed in through the tent opening.
She heard snippets of shouted conversation. “We have to move!”—“Firehawk’s not back yet.”—“. . . got the device!”
Byron stirred, his opening eyes meeting hers. Their green intensity struck her. She’d never been so close to someone before, at least no one who was alive. He watched her for a long moment, and she could feel something passing between them, some unspoken communication, but she didn’t know what it was. Then he turned, shifting his weight. He untied the rope. It had been uncomfortable as hell to sleep like that. Getting up and stretching, he moved to the opening of the tent.
He stuck his head through the flap, and H124 squinted in the sudden brightness. “Astoria, what’s going on?” he asked as someone rushed by.
“Firehawk’s got the prototype,” she heard a woman answer. As the newcomer stopped outside the tent, H124 got a glimpse of a black Mohawk and dark, piercing eyes. Spiral tattoos covered a sepia face. “But we’ve got to move today. They’re mobilizing, but we don’t know to where.”
“What about Firehawk? Where is he?”
“He’s fallen under fire outside the city. Someone managed to get out to tell us we should leave now, but Firehawk stayed behind with the rest of his team. He says we’re supposed to meet him there.”
“At the tower?” Byron sounded incredulous.
The woman nodded.
“How the hell is he going to get in the city?”
“He found a worker.” She looked through the tent flap at H124. “Another one. I’ll get Dirk and meet you at the car.” She turned and rushed off. Byron turned in the tent doorway.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Change of plans. We’re leaving today. Now.”
“Who’s coming? What did she mean?”
“The death squad.” He hurried about the tent, shoving gear into an old, worn duffel. She watched him stuff in climbing rope, carabiners, a belt full of tools, a portable laser torch, and some water.
“Who is the death squad?”
“The PPC sends them to wipe us out. It’s why I need your help. They’ve already killed too many of our people.”
“Can’t you fight them?”
“They have the numbers, and the advanced tech. And they keep finding us. We can’t stay in a single place for long. Firehawk thinks that if we carry off this mission, we’ll know their movements before they can reach us.” He looked away, that haunted expression returning to his face. “We want to end their operation for good.”
She saw now why he’d been so insistent. “Where do we have to go?”
“Delta City.”
She tilted her head.
“I’m guessing you’re not from that one.”
She gave him a blank stare.
“Delta City,” he elaborated. “AKA Murder City.”
“Murder City?”
“Sadly. You’ll see what I mean when we get there.”
“How far is it?”
“It’s right here. Damn thing stretches from east of Lake Michigan all the way down to the Mississippi delta. It’s everywhere. We’re on the eastern border.” He stuffed a jacket into his bag and then turned to her. “But we don’t have to worry about all that. We’re concentrating on a specific section of the city: the PPC Tower.”
H124 thought of the one in New Atlantic, and how heavily guarded it was. “How do you expect to get in?”
“Simple,” he said, grabbing her hand. “You’re going to get us in.”
She let him pull her to the door. “Are we taking my car?”
He nodded. “It’s quiet. We’ll take it to the edge of the atmospheric shield.”
She frowned, watching him as he packed the last of his supplies. Maybe she could slip away somehow after they were done. Maybe he wouldn’t be keeping so close an eye on her after he got what he needed in the city. And the media communications tower presented an interesting opportunity. Could she somehow carry off a pirate broadcast? Warn people of the imminent danger? Tell them to break away from the networks and seek shelter? She didn’t know where those people could hide . . . maybe underground somewhere. She could broadcast some contingency plan in case she didn’t find the Rovers.
And in case the Rovers didn’t know what to do, even if she did locate them.
They moved quickly through the camp, stopping at the solar car. Two others approached, both giants in their mid-twenties, she guessed. The woman had been the one to peek into Byron’s tent earlier. Red streaks ran through her black Mohawk, and the man’s hair hung in long black dreadlocks around his rich umber face. A few of the dreads were a vibrant blue.
“These are Astoria and Dirk.”
Dirk offered a quick nod, while Astoria stared her down as if thinking how best to gut H124 so she could eat her for dinner later.
“Be nice,” Byron told Astoria.
The brawny woman relaxed her shoulders. “Always.” Her chestnut eyes narrowed on H124. Again it gave her the shivers.
“Twins who couldn’t be more unalike,” Byron told her. “Astoria will shiv you in the gut for your shoes, and Dirk will weep over a swatted fly.”
Indignation flashed in Dirk’s eyes. “That’s not entirely true.”
Byron smiled ruefully. “Yeah. Not entirely.” He patted Dirk on the arm. “But he knows his way around tech, and can sneak into anything.”
“Glad I can be of some use,” Dirk huffed.
Byron gestured toward the car. “Pile in.” He handed back H124’s bag, sans the knife and Willoughby’s PRD. But it still had her MREs, books, and water bottle, now empty.
Astoria and Dirk got in the back, as Byron opened the door for H124. He closed and locked the door, and got in.
He pulled away from the encampment, weaving between randomly parked cars. They pulled out onto a main road, H124 staring out at the desolation. She leaned forward, looking up at the sky. The asteroid was out there, and she was losing precious time every minute she was with them.
She turned to Byron. “Please,” she said. “I have to finish my mission.”
“Our people are getting killed.”
“I know, but a hell of a lot more are going to suffer the same fate if I don’t get out of here.”
Dirk leaned forward from the back seat. “What’s she talking about?”
Byron waved him off. “Nothing.”
“Nothing!” H124 yelled. “Nothing?”
Byron gave her a soft gaze. “Tell you what. You get us in, you’ll have an opportunity to warn people.”
“How? You know how to do some kind of pirate broadcast?”
Astoria chuckled in the back seat, as if that were the stupidest question she’d ever heard.
“I see you already thought of that option,” Byron told H124. “I’ll show you when we get there.”
“And then?” she asked, raising a brow.
“We let you go.”
The back seat erupted in laughter. “Yeah, we’ll let you go,” repeated Astoria.
Dirk was still leaning toward the front seat. “Warn them about what?”
H124 turned to face him. “An asteroid.”
“An aster what?”
“It’s a space rock,” Byron chimed in, “and supposedly it’s going to slam into the planet.”
Dirk’s eyes widened. “And you didn’t think to tell us?”
Byron closed his eyes and shook his head, waving it off. “We don’t even know if it’s really coming.” He looked to H124. “You said that lab you found was ancient. It could have been malfunction
ing.”
She turned to him. “Is it worth taking the risk?”
Byron pressed his lips together. “You’ll have the chance to warn people in Delta City,” he assured her. “That’s all I can do.”
“And then let me go,” she added.
“Yeah,” he said. “And then let you go.”
She didn’t believe him at all.
Chapter18
Long before they reached the city, H124 could smell it. “What is that?”
Byron wrinkled his nose. “Methane.”
She fought the urge to gag. “Where is it coming from?”
“The infrastructure of Delta City can’t handle the population. A long time ago, they started pumping the sewage outside the city. They have sewers within, but outside . . .”
“It just runs off like rivers?”
“Rivers of shit,” Astoria said from the back seat.
H124 pulled her shirt up over her nose. It didn’t help. She could feel the back of her mouth start to water, a precursor of what was to come. Digging around in her bag, she pulled out the scarf she’d found in the weather shelter. She tied it around her face, covering her nose and mouth. It didn’t help much.
“It works well for us,” Dirk said.
She looked back at him incredulously. “What do you mean?”
“It’s where we bottle all the methane that powers our cars.”
She looked away in disgust. “Ugh.”
Byron wrinkled his nose. “It’s dangerous, though. The methane runners can get blown sky-high sometimes. The gas is extremely volatile. Just a spark. and whamo! You’re bottling methane for the angelic choir.”
“The angelic choir? Who are they?”
Byron looked at her. “You know. Checking in at the pearly gates?”
She gave him a blank stare.
“Wow. You really don’t get out much.”
They drove on, storm clouds gathering above. Late afternoon changed into evening. Soon it grew so dark she could see the dim glow of the distant city.
All around them the ground glistened and squished as far out as she could see. The scent of urine stung the inside of her nose. She tried to breathe through her mouth and think about something else.
The radiance grew brighter and brighter. She could see a wall looming before them, the same orange glow that her own city let off, the same bright pinpoints from the floating lights. But the atmospheric shield was different. It rose straight up, stretching across the horizon. She leaned forward in the passenger seat, trying to gauge the top of it, but couldn’t. “Is that a wall?” she asked.
He shook his head. “A dome. So big it just looks like a wall.”
Her mouth fell open. “How big is this city?” She didn’t know what Lake Michigan or the Mississippi delta were.
“More than seven hundred miles long, if you can picture that.”
She tried to imagine how big that was and how many people lived there. He gauged her astonishment. “I’m guessing you might be from New Atlantic. This place isn’t tucked away and orderly like your city. This is going to be rough.”
Just out the window, waves of fecal matter flew up from the wheels. She was sickened that this was her car plowing through the muck. It wouldn’t take long for the panels to get caked.
Still they drove on. The dome kept growing. She kept thinking they’d reach the edge at any moment, but instead it just loomed larger. Soon it filled the whole night sky, and the light was so bright she could barely see beyond a squint.
Then, along the ancient concrete base, she spied enormous carbon dioxide ports, identical to the ones she and Rowan had escaped through.
“Are we heading for those?”
Byron nodded. “Yep.”
She spun toward him. “But we can’t get in from this direction. We’ll be incinerated.”
“Not if you turn it off.”
“Does it even have a TWR for that?”
He gave another nod, slower this time.
She stared back at the colossal shield. “I’ll try. I’ll also have to open that environmental barrier in the middle too.”
His brow rose. “So you have done this before.”
“Once.” It felt like a long time ago now. “What happens once I open it?”
“We enter the city.”
“But won’t they try to stop us the moment we go through?”
He laughed. “You definitely didn’t come from this city center. “
He stopped near the entrance to one of the CO2 vents and switched off the engine. “We’re about to enter utter chaos. You won’t have just the PPC death squads trying to kill us. Badlanders have a price on their heads.”
“You mean ordinary citizens might have it out for us?”
“Not the ones who are plugged in. They don’t notice anything. But the rest? They’re the dangerous ones.”
“The rest?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead he pulled out an antique metal device she didn’t recognize. Reaching into his pocket, he produced a handful of cylinders.
“What’s that?”
He loaded the cylinders into a round barrel. “A gun.”
“What does it do?”
“Punches holes in anyone who stands in our way.” She gazed at it as he put it in his pocket. “And it makes a hell of a bang.” He climbed out of the car. She got out too, followed by Dirk and Astoria. “Ready?” he asked them.
They nodded, but H124 was far from ready. She still wanted nothing more than to get back to her car and speed west. They walked to the outtake of the vent. The air was horrible and stale, and they couldn’t stop coughing. H124 turned on her headlamp, and they followed suit.
Byron stood next to her. “Let’s see if it’s even on first.” He kicked a reeking rock coated in excrement toward the vent. A wall of fire flamed down, sizzling the rock’s coating. “That’s a yes.”
H124 peered into the dark vent. She spied the TWR, but it was on the other side of the incineration field. She didn’t know if she could send it a message from this far away. She closed her eyes, concentrating. She sent the message for the TWR to turn off the detection shield. She felt it click in her mind and said, “I think it’s off.”
Astoria marched forward, and H124 grabbed her hand. “Wait. I’d throw something else in first.”
Astoria narrowed her eyes at H124, then spotted another rock on the ground. It glistened in a layer of sewage. Then she kicked it in, and it landed safely on the other side.
H124 took a long look at them. “I don’t understand why you couldn’t just do this yourselves.”
Astoria’s mouth fell open. “Are you serious?” She gave H124 a disgusted look. “Because our brains haven’t been fuc—”
Byron brushed past her and clasped H124 on the shoulder. “Good work. Let’s go.”
They entered the dank, cool vent, heading toward the city. H124’s heart quickened. She thought of her late-night escape from New Atlantic and of the Repurposers. Now she was walking back into that world. Her legs slowed, and her hands shook. She felt Byron come up beside her, heard his every breath. If she could warn people, if she could get a broadcast out, she had to risk it. She also knew that if the PPC wanted her repurposed before, they’d want her dead after this.
She trudged on in the dark.
Chapter 19
At the transition zone before the central semipermeable membrane, the air was so thick with carbon dioxide that she could barely breathe. All of them hacked and coughed in the confines of the tunnel. She thought of Rowan’s words, that it was only designed to let the CO2 out. She had to use her theta waves to temporarily disable the membrane, allowing them access.
In the dim light, she approached the theta wave sensor and got within operating range. She closed her eyes, feeling her way to the sensor with her mind. S
he felt the connection slide into place, then sent an off signal. Instantly the membrane went down, and oxygen flooded the tunnel.
She gasped for fresh air. Gathering themselves, they walked on, past the transition zone. H124 moved to the receiver on the other side. She sent an on signal, and the air pressure changed. She swallowed, popping her ears. “We’re in,” she whispered to Byron.
They proceeded cautiously.
When they reached the mouth of the tunnel, H124 gazed out into absolute chaos.
High above, amber lights floated, giving everything the same sickly orange glow that she’d grown so used to at home. But this place was not the clean, ordered space that New Atlantic had been. There she’d run through empty streets, no chance of anyone noticing or helping her. At the end of the tunnel, she disengaged the shielded membrane, and they emerged into a seething throng of people. She replaced the shield on the other side.
The air reeked with sweating, dirty human bodies. The stench of sewage had been bad outside, but here it was just as noxious, mixed with strong waves of body odor and decomposition. Gagging, eyes streaming, she pulled her scarf back up over her nose and mouth.
Thin, dirty people crowded every foot of the street. They squatted against buildings, lay on the ground, huddled in doorways. Byron pushed his way through with the casual indifference of someone who’d done it a thousand times.
Above them, a floating sign shimmered: It’s Time.
H124 lingered on it, wondering what it meant. Then she got behind Byron as he cut through the crowd. People grabbed her shirt, arms, ankles, asking her if she had food. She handed out MREs, and the people scurried away with them without a second glance back at her.
Behind her Astoria pushed over a begging woman, while Dirk mumbled an apology.
They passed another floating sign: It’s Your Civic Duty.
An old man grabbed Astoria by the shoulder. She whirled on him, knocking him down with a fist to the head. H124 rushed over and helped him up. “You didn’t have to do that!” she shouted at Astoria.
Astoria narrowed her eyes. “These people don’t have to live like this. They choose to.” She regarded the old man with contempt. He clung to H124, asking her if she had any water.
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