What Tomorrow May Bring

by Tony Bertauski

  I forced my eyes open and grimaced against the harsh light that streamed in through the truck’s high windows. My molester lay like a broken puppet on the dusty floor. He couldn’t have been more than thirteen. My stomach curled into a knot. As I contemplated waking him, I heard a sniffle. A girl sat huddled on a metal bench that ran along the wall of the truck. Her face was buried in her arms as they hugged the tops of her knees.

  “Are you okay?” My voice rasped with dryness. She didn’t answer. The truck swayed underneath me, and I gripped the metal bench to haul myself to my feet. I stood on my tiptoes to peek out the windows. Nothing but blue sky.

  Holding the wall to keep steady, I shuffled to the front where a door looked like it might lead to the driver’s compartment. The knob twisted easily in my hand, and I flung it open, only to find two empty seats. The truck ambled down a hard-packed dirt road, apparently on an autopath, but there was no mindware interface, no entry point where I could jack in and change the preprogrammed course. Ahead, a huge encampment rose out of the desert, covered with sand-colored camouflage netting and surrounded by metal fences fifteen feet high. Barbed razor wire spiraled along the top. It looked like a prison.

  Which, of course, it was.

  A tremor ran through my hands as the pieces clicked into place, and I gripped the back of the vacant driver seat to steady them. Kestrel had sent me to the jacker camp, along with these two jacker kids. I licked my cracked lips, parched from the drugs and the desert. He had sent me to prison simply for being who I was.

  Anger clawed my stomach like an angry beast.

  As we approached the camp gate, it swung open with determined mechanical speed. Sunlight pushed through the netting and mottled the ground under the canopy. Another metallic gridded gate and a second fence waited a hundred feet inside the camp. We rumbled past the first fence, and I strained to see beyond the second one.

  Whatever was on the other side, I was sure I wasn’t prepared for it.

  The truck lurched to a stop, and the girl whimpered. Her dirty face was streaked with tears. She couldn’t be any older than the boy. Straggles of brown hair fell across her wide blue eyes, and dirt marred the pink skirt draped over her knees. Her bright white ankle socks were untouched by the desert. If I wasn’t prepared, she didn’t have a prayer. I found handholds along the truck and crouched down next to her.

  “What’s your name?”

  She leaned away from me. “Laney.”

  “Okay, Laney. You and I are going to stick together.” I tried to smile without cracking my dried lips. She nodded and glanced at the still form of the boy.

  “Should we wake him?” I asked, following her gaze.

  She shook her head in short, rapid movements. A whining sound came from below the truck, and the view out the front spun until the first gate appeared again. The truck jerked and I almost tumbled over, catching myself on the wall behind Laney’s head. We were backing toward the second gate now, and whatever waited for us would soon be here. I searched the dusty floor for a weapon. The truck was bare.

  I tentatively reached through the gate with my mind. Hundreds of people milled around inside the fences. I pulled back from the thrumming of all those thoughts and heard the metallic grinding of the second gate opening. The truck lurched to a stop, and I nearly lost my footing again. The gate rattled shut behind us. An audible murmur rose in the distance.

  I gave Laney a quick nod and edged toward the back door, hoping to get the jump on whatever lay beyond it. There was scuffling outside the truck, and something heavy slammed against the door. The entire truck shuddered with the impact.

  I backed away, keeping between Laney and the door and hoping I could stop whatever would come through. As I stretched my mind forward, the gray door screeched open and there stood Simon.

  My mouth fell open, and he threw his head back, as if I hit him. “You!” The word wheezed out of him. “What the…” His eyes went wide, as though finding me in the truck was the worst possible twist on a very bad day.

  Behind him a full-on melee raged in the camp. Desert-brown buildings hemmed a large open area jammed with people. They encircled a dozen fighters in the middle, a scrum of fists flying and bodies dropping. I saw a flash of red hair.

  Simon cursed under his breath, pulling my attention back to him. He seemed to resolve some debate in his mind. I was afraid to link in and find out what it was.

  “Come on, let’s go!” He spat the words and held the door wide for us. But there was no way I was trusting Simon Zagan, arch-betrayer of girlfriends and unsuspecting jackers.

  I stood straighter and clenched my fists at my side. “I’m not going anywhere with you!”

  His jaw dropped, but it quickly set into a hard grinding of muscles. “I don’t have time to argue. If you want to live, come with me. Now!”

  I glanced again at the melee behind him. The ring of onlookers, some as young as Laney, cheered on the fighters, who seemed older and bigger. The brawl was getting uglier, with fighters falling down and not getting up. I didn’t want Laney or myself mixed up in any of that.

  My options seemed bad and worse, and bad would have to do.

  “Fine. But she’s coming with me.” I took hold of Laney’s hand and pulled her up on shaky legs.

  “Okay, okay, let’s go.” Simon checked over his shoulder.

  As Laney and I scooted past the slumped figure of the boy, I asked, “What about him?”

  “He’s on his own.” Another boy lay motionless in the dirt below the door. My mouth flopped open to ask, then I shut it. Simon hoisted Laney out of the truck and over the body. I ignored Simon’s hand and hopped over the inert boy myself. Simon shut the truck door behind us, glanced over his shoulder again, and hurried us away from the center square.

  The hardscrabble dirt reflected the dots of sun that made it through the canopy. I gripped Laney’s hand as Simon weaved us between dizzying arrays of identical sand-weathered barracks. They stood in clustered rows like parked train cars, with large open areas in between. We ran to keep up with him, and he alternated between sprinting and darting looks around corners.

  Simon held his arm out to stop us, and I almost crashed into it. Up ahead, between barracks, three girls huddled around a fourth, who was on her knees in the dirt. As we watched, she slumped to the ground. A chill went through me as Simon backed us up, watching the ring of tormenters to see if they noticed us. They were too busy checking the pockets of the fallen girl.

  Simon tugged us around another barrack, out of their sight. He dashed across a short alleyway-sized gap and turned down a different row of buildings, each with four doors. At the last building, he pulled open the furthest door. Inside was a space about the size of my living room back home. The air was cooler, but stale. Six cots wrapped tightly with gray blankets lined the bare walls.

  He closed the door and pressed against it, listening or maybe reaching for something. Laney dropped my hand and climbed on a bed in the furthest corner. She drew up her knees and clenched them again. Simon exhaled, apparently content that we hadn’t been followed.

  I linked into his mind. He whipped his head around and shoved me back out. “Don’t do that here.” His voice was rough and low. “Not if you want to make it through the day.”

  I took a step back. Maybe I had made a terrible mistake, letting him secret Laney and me away.

  He rubbed his face with both hands. “What are you doing here, Kira?” he demanded.

  “I didn’t want to come here!” I shot back.

  “It’s your fault we’re all here!”

  My jaw dropped. “How is it my fault?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re not a mole for the FBI!” He clenched his hands. “Someone had to rat us out, and you and Gomez are the only ones who didn’t come with us to the camp. So, did the Feds give up on you? Couldn’t break into that hard head of yours?” He took several swift steps and made to tap on my forehead. I cringed away from his touch.

  “I…” I swallowed and straig
htened. “I didn’t know anything about the FBI or this place. I didn’t know anything at all until you came along and tried to trick me into joining your stupid Clan!”

  Simon rocked back on his heels. “There are a lot of people here who think you betrayed them.”

  “I betrayed them?”

  “Yes! And they’re going to want your head for it.” His voice was urgent, as though he was trying to shock some sense into me. “Look, just stay hidden here until I can figure this thing out.”

  He ran his fingers through his dark hair, which had been lightened with ground-in dust. A smudge ran along his cheek, and his clothes were the same that he wore at the warehouse—except the white starched shirt was mostly wrinkles. A fine layer of grit had colored it the same dull brown as the apartment walls.

  “I have to go help out with something. Stay here and don’t make any noise, and whatever you do, don’t jack anyone until I get back.” He started to turn away and then stopped. “Unless you have to.” He quickly crossed the room, but hesitated again at the door and glanced at Laney. “If I don’t come back, stay hidden as long as you can.” He slipped out the door and closed it solidly behind him.

  I stared at the door for a long time. Laney’s head was still hidden in her arms as she clutched her folded legs. I sat next to her and linked, very gently, into her mind. Her mind scent was sweet, like raspberries.

  I guess we’re going to be here a while. My name is Kira.

  She peeked up and wordlessly showed me a stream of pictures: her fighting with her family about homework; them collapsing on the floor around her; her frantic call to 911 only to have the FBI show up; the FBI saying her family would wake up believing she had run away.

  The memories made tears flow down Laney’s face again. I wrapped an arm around her, but it didn’t quell the shaking. I borrowed blankets from two other cots and wrapped them around us. Her body quieted as our collective heat fought off the chill of the room and our dire situation.

  I hoped like crazy that no one would find us before Simon returned.

  chapter TWENTY-SIX

  Laney fell asleep on my shoulder.

  I wriggled out of our cocoon and eased her down to the thin cot, smoothing the stray hairs back from her face so they wouldn’t tickle and wake her. The peace of sleep made her seem even younger.

  That Kestrel would send someone so young to this lawless camp in the desert made me clench my teeth. Not that I belonged here either. I was trying to figure out our options when Simon burst into the barrack. He gulped in ragged breaths and darted looks all around the room, as though he expected an ambush. If he’d brought back an angry mob with him, the flimsy door he was leaning against wouldn’t hold them off.

  I put a finger to my lips and slid off the cot, careful not to disturb Laney. If he wouldn’t let me link into his head to mindtalk, at least we could discuss things quietly and not wake her up.

  And we definitely needed to talk.

  He looked considerably worse than when he left, with dirt ground into his face and a dull smear of blood at the corner of his mouth. I reached up to touch his face.

  He smacked my hand away.

  I pulled back my stinging hand. “Are you hurt?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I’m fine.” A purplish bruise was blooming on the side of his face. He must have gone back to the entrance and joined the melee.

  I swallowed, my throat still raw from thirst. “What was the fight about?”

  “The fight’s over. Clan Molloy is now in control of Block C, which means Molloy and the rest of the Clan will be here soon.” He hesitated. “I might be able to hide you, Kira, because they can’t jack into your head. They won’t sense you from the other barracks. But her,” he said and flicked a glance to Laney, “they’ll notice right away. She’s still a changeling.”

  “Well you can’t just turn her over to Molloy!”

  Simon grimaced. “She’s safer with Molloy than she is with you,” he said. “And Molloy will be a much better Block chief than that monster Lenny.” I guessed Lenny was on the losing end of the fight, but that didn’t make Molloy worth trusting.

  Reading my skeptical look, Simon sighed. “Molloy’s not the bad guy here, Kira. There are a lot worse people out there, and some of them are living in the next Block over.” He gestured to the prefab buildings beyond the walls. “You could have been part of the Clan, you know. Everything would have worked out fine if you hadn’t lost it at the warehouse.”

  I gaped. “You were going to kill Raf!”

  Anger burst to life on his face. “He was spying on us! I didn’t have any choice! Molloy would have done it, if I hadn’t.”

  “What was I supposed to do?” My voice had risen. “Just let you kill him?”

  We glared at each other, faces drawn tight and close. A bright red bead of blood formed at the corner of his mouth and trickled down. He wiped it with the back of his hand and turned away, shoulders slumped. With his back to me, voice flat, he said, “Things don’t always turn out the way you’d like them to.”

  I stared hard at the back of his head, tempted to jack in and make him sorry for what he had done. Sorry for trying to kill Raf, sorry for luring me into the Clan, sorry for pretending to care about me all that time, only to trick me into working for Molloy. I wanted to make him regret all he had done, but somehow seeing him trapped in a desert camp, fighting to survive—I didn’t have the heart.

  After all, he was right. We would all be better off if the FBI hadn’t caught up with the Clan. There had to be some way out of this nightmare. I didn’t trust Simon, but he had already helped us. And I had more than myself to think about.

  “If you bring Laney to Molloy, do you promise he’ll keep her safe?” I tried to keep the edge out of my voice.

  He hesitated before he turned to me. Weariness dragged his face down. “He will, I promise. His younger brother disappeared a long time ago, when they were trying to escape the Feds. I told you, he has a soft spot for the young ones, and he hates the way no one looks out for them here. He sent me to check the newcomer truck, even though we were taking a thrashing from Lenny’s clan, just to make sure we got to any changelings before the others did.”

  I shifted from one foot to the other. “Okay.”

  Simon gave me a short nod. His eyes rested on my lips, still chapped from the desert and the drugs. “Look, we should give Molloy some time to get settled.” His face twisted in disgust. “There might be some stragglers from Lenny’s clan that he needs to decide about.”

  “Decide what?”

  “Well, there’s nowhere for a defeated Clan to go. They either get broken up and absorbed into other Clans, or…”

  “Or?”

  “I don’t want to know what happens to them, okay!” The fear on Simon’s face sent a chill through me. “Whatever it is, she doesn’t need to see it.” He glanced at Laney. “It’s better if we let the dust settle. In the meantime, I’ll get you some water and food. Water shouldn’t be a problem, but there’s not much food. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll be back soon.”

  I didn’t want him to leave. It felt like a pack of wild dogs was roaming outside in the brilliant desert heat, and he was the only one that knew how to control them. On his way out the door, he gave me a grim smile and repeated, “I’ll be right back.”

  While he was out, Laney tossed and turned in the rough blankets wrapped around her, letting out occasional soft whimpers. The same scene she had played before, where she accidentally knocked out her entire family, repeated over and over in her mind. I slowly nudged her to a new dream, one where no one was hurt. Her tremors stopped, and she slipped into a deeper, dreamless sleep. The quiet sound of her breathing had me straining to hear beyond the barrack walls, in case anyone might be coming for us. But I didn’t reach out with my mind.

  A few minutes later, a scuffle of feet outside kicked up my heart rate until Simon pulled open the door and let in a blast of dust and sunshine. He brought bottles of water and dust-coated p
rotein bars. My throat still rasped like sandpaper. He had to stop me from guzzling an entire bottle at once.

  “So are you going to tell me how you ended up here?” he asked, when I paused for a breath. I took another swig of water and licked my lips, not sure what to tell him. At this point, there didn’t seem to be any sense in lying.

  “The FBI caught up to me.” At the last second, I left Raf out of it. “They wanted to recruit me.” I cocked my head. “Just like you did.”

  Simon didn’t seem to take offense at my accusation. “So why didn’t you join them? Why come here?”

  “I didn’t plan on doing either. My plan was to escape.”

  He snorted. “I guess that didn’t work out for you.” His half-grin was more rueful than cruel, but I still didn’t appreciate it.

  “I almost did,” I said. “If I’d had a few more minutes, I could have gotten rid of the last of that orange mist drug, or whatever it was, and taken out Agent Kestrel and his jacker guards.”

  Simon’s face went dead still. “You did what?” He stepped closer to me. I held my ground and shifted so I was between him and Laney, where she lay sleeping on the cot. The look in his eyes made me stammer.

  “I… I could have taken him out, but the drug…”

  “You said you got rid of the drug.” It was a statement, and his eyes bored into mine, daring me to deny it.

  “Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Yes, I did.”

  “How?” He leaned toward me, as though our lives hung on the answer to his question.

  “I told my brain to pump it out.” It sounded a lot more lame than the reality of manipulating my own mind. He took a step back and his eyes widened, as if he had discovered I had a third arm or maybe an alien brain. Too late, I realized I should have kept that to myself.

  He quickly regained his composure. “Can you do it again?”

  “I did it on the way here. In the truck.”

  A smile flashed across his face. He closed the space between us, like he was about to hug me. Instead, he took hold of my shoulders. I shrank back from his touch and the fervent look in his eyes. “Kira, if you tell Molloy about this ability of yours, he’ll let you stay in the Clan, I’m sure of it.”