by Jess Petosa
“Don’t?” he responded with a smirk.
She raised her eyebrow at him and he held his hands up.
“We can’t surprise them. We need to make our presence known as we come into camp.”
“So then we should drive in?” Ally looked at the transport. “It’s bullet proof.”
Joey smiled and nodded. “Definitely.”
After another uneventful night, to Ally’s pleasure, they were on the road first thing in the in morning. Joey took front again and Neil stayed in the back. She noticed Neil and Stosh had a few quiet conversations last night and wondered if they had somehow bonded already. She felt a pang of jealousy. Stosh should be opening up to her, not someone they had just met.
This town was further out, taking them three hours to drive to. This time Joey tried driving for a bit of it, doing okay for his first time. When Ally couldn’t take anymore of the jolting starts and stops and near misses of trees, she took back over. They stopped a short distance from the town to refuel the transport and eat a small lunch, and then they were on their way.
“What does this town call themselves?” she asked.
“They don’t have a name,” Joey responded.
“Interesting.” Ally was feeling more and more uneasy about this town visit. Joey directed her to a road that led into this small town. The sound of the transport was enough to bring people from their homes. By the time Ally had pulled to a stop in the middle of the road, dozens of townspeople had gathered.
“Should we get out?” She looked at Joey.
“No,” he said, nodding out the front with his head.
Ally followed his gaze. Several men had gathered with axes and large sticks with nails hammered into them. Ally could see a definite disconnect between this town and the previous two. The men and women were filthy and seemed aged, even though she was sure some of them were her age. Children ran around the transport unclothed, and no one made a move to retrieve them.
“Who is the leader?”
Joey looked around. “I’m not sure. It changes often from what I’ve gathered. People tire of the person in charge and someone fights him to the death.”
“The death!” Ally choked out. “And that wasn’t something you felt like you needed to tell me beforehand? I thought this town was civil. The General has it marked in green.”
Joey shrugged. “Maybe they are to Zone D, since they can knock their town off the map in a matter of seconds. Us however? We are a handful of people in a vehicle. It may be bulletproof, but I doubt it is roll proof.”
Ally was starting to panic. “What do we do?”
Joey was still scanning the crowd. He pointed to someone on the right, but Ally couldn’t tell who. “I’ve been on two trades here and he has been to both of them. Maybe he’ll recognize me.”
Joey rolled down the window and waved at him. Ally was half afraid one of the men with weapons would run up and beat him to death. Instead, a man stepped away from the crowd and held his hand up. This seemed to settle the gathered people a bit. The man approached the window.
“It isn’t trade time. What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.
Crass.
“We aren’t here to trade,” Joey said. “We are here to discuss an opportunity.”
The man scowled. “And if we don’t want to discuss with you?”
Joey shrugged. “Then we’ll be on our way.”
The man held up one finger and walked back to the crowd.
“Maybe we should just leave,” Ally said.
Joey looked over at her. “Are you going to run away from everyone who is difficult to talk to?”
Ally sighed. “No.” She couldn’t afford to.
The crowd continued to stare with their menacing glares, the children continue to run around the street screaming, and they sat that way for what felt like hours. It was probably only ten minutes before the man Joey had talked to returned, this time with a young boy with him. This boy couldn’t be older than Luke or Max, but he was tall and very muscular, veins protruding from his arms and neck. He was shirtless, and covered in dirt, his long hair hanging in dirty strings by his cheeks.
“Nice moving home you have here,” he said.
Ally looked at Joey and then back at the boy. “Excuse me?”
“This home on wheels.” He stepped onto the side of the transport and pulled himself up by the window so that he could see Ally.
Clearly these people had limited knowledge of transports, or at least what they were called. Perhaps the soldiers from Zone D had visited on foot, or just hadn’t had a chance to inform them.
“Um, thanks,” Ally said. She silently chastised herself for saying um. It didn’t make her sound confident or in charge. She had been reminding herself to act like an adult. Problem was, she was still a teenager.
“This would be a nice addition to our home,” he said.
Ally laughed humorlessly. “Well, you can’t have it. We are here to talk, and then we will be on our way with our transport.”
The boy smirked at her. “So you think.”
Joey reacted before Ally even did. He punched the boy in the face, causing the boy to fly backwards off the transport. He was obviously stubborn enough to believe that they were just going to give the transport over. Joey rolled up the window and screamed “Drive!”
Ally hit the pedal with her foot and turned the wheel hard to the left. Thankfully the children ran screaming but a few of the men with weapons got in her way. She closed her eyes and she rammed into them, cringing as the transport bumped over their bodies.
“Go, go, go!” Joey yelled, watching the crowd carefully. “Drive over them if necessary.”
“I’m trying!” Ally screamed back at him.
She maneuvered the transport through the remaining crowd and soon they were driving out of the town. She didn’t stop driving for thirty minutes, and neither of them spoke. She finally pulled to the side of the road and took a few deep breaths.
“That was exciting,” Joey said, sounding almost happy about what had happened.
“That was insane. What is wrong with those people?” Ally nearly shrieked.
Joey let out a loud laugh. “They are crass, remember?”
“Crass? More like uncivilized!” she said. “That was New Eden all over again.”
Joey smirked. “And you still want to go there next?”
Ally closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the steering wheel. “Yes, I still want to go there.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
[ marnie ]
Marnie was continually amazed by Champaign.
The people, the homes, the unity. She could live here.
She wanted to live here.
Unfortunately, they weren’t staying. She had been given the choice but wanted to travel with Luke and Max. Hopefully they would be back to Champaign after intersecting the group traveling toward the City, if nothing major got in their way.
They had been in Champaign for just one night and then a full day. They were heading out at dark to get a better advantage on the group so they had spent the majority of the afternoon organizing supplies and getting the transport ready to go.
“Unless they are Exceptional or Rogue,” Luke had said. “Then there really is no advantage.”
Max had been practicing his abilities each night of their trip. Luke had spoken to Marnie about how they could best use her abilities, which was basically listening in on the group and trying to pinpoint who was in charge and what they were doing this far from home. According to the General’s assessment, they had been traveling from the far west of the country, where the land met a large body of water.
Evan was along for the ride, trained in combat. But he was still an Ordinary and Marnie worried about him. He remained quiet for the most part, as he had when they had first met. She had always thought it was because he didn’t have permission to speak to her, but now she realized it was part of his perso
nality. No wonder they put him on prisoner detail.
Dusk was quickly approaching. They were all looking at a map that Luke had brought from Zone D, even though Marnie had no idea how to read it.
“This is where the General marked them last. That was days ago so they could almost be at the City, if they are not there. I think we should go to the western boundary of the City and move west from there.”
Max nodded. “I agree. My Uncle is refueling the transport for us, and then we can move on.”
Marnie hadn’t commented much on Max’s relationship with his Uncle. She had found it too easy to peek into his Uncle’s mind, despite her moral beliefs not to. It seemed that they had had a great relationship up until he left for the Southern City. Coming back Exceptional had taken a toll on Heath’s perception of his nephew.
“…if we can get lucky enough to intercept them here,” Luke was rambling through the plan again, “then we can use the river to our advantage.” He ran his fingers over a blue line in the map.
A resounding Ally sounded in his mind and Marnie tried to block out his inner voice.
“If they end up being hostile, I can use my abilities to raise the water and Max can freeze it into a wall, giving us time to either escape or counter attack, depending on the nature of the group. Marnie, this will give you a chance to assess their thoughts. Evan will be positioned nearby with his guns.”
If they could get close enough in secret, Marnie would hopefully be able to read their minds before the group even noticed them.
“We should get going,” Max said, looking at the sky.
The colors were quickly shifting from orange to red to purple. It was time to get moving. They would drive the transport straight north and to the City, where they would leave it with the Guards within the walls. From there, they would walk west.
“Can I ride up front?” Marnie asked.
She wanted to pick Luke’s brain, silently, while they drove. She also wanted a first look at the northern City.
“Sure,” Luke said, looking at Max for confirmation.
“I could go over strategy with Evan again,” Max offered up.
“Let’s go,” Luke said.
They put the last of the items into the transport and they were on their way. Marnie and Luke were silent for the first part of the short drive. Against her better judgement, Marnie just listened. Luke was thinking about Ally. All the time.
Was she doing well?
Was she alive?
How was their end of the mission working out?
Luke did a great job of putting on a calm face and Marnie believed it was solely based on the fact that he had been leading an entire City at one point. Technically, he still was the leader. But inside, Luke was freaking out. He couldn’t keep his mind on the task at hand and Ally, and his inability to truly focus worried Marnie in regard to their current task. If their confrontation with the group turned nasty, he needed to be able to fully concentrate.
“How did you and Ally meet?” she asked, trying to focus on listening to his words rather than the thoughts streaming through his mind.
Luke smiled, only one corner of his mouth pulling upwards. “Actually, you’ll get to see the place that we met soon. My friends and I had decided to scale the wall surrounding the city and explore the surrounding Wilderness. We had done it often, never really finding anything exciting other than random Ordinarys at work or Guards on duty. But this day was different. We had heard from a newly recruited Ordinary that some of the Ordinarys our age had this tradition where they would jump the boundary line, in their case the river, of their settlement. The river separates the settlements from the City, and it is illegal to cross over without permission. In some case the penalty is, well was, death.”
“So we decided to jump the boundary into the settlements, somewhat making fun of the Ordinarys. Saying it out loud, to you, makes me feel immature. It feels like so long ago.” He paused.
Marnie could relate. Living in her own Sector, with her mom, felt like years ago. How quickly life had changed, from working in the fields to traveling days away from Zone D.
Luke continued. “When we got to the river, there were two Ordinarys walking out of the brush. Stosh noticed us first. Ally was too determined to get to the river, really more of a creek, and jump. I could see the determination in her eyes from where I stood. Stosh grabbed her arm and whispered in her ear, bringing her attention to us. She didn’t back away in fear like most Ordinarys would have, but instead stared us down.”
“I didn’t even have to think about what I did next. I ran and leaped over the river, making it look as easy as a bird flying. I landed and glanced up at her, acting cocky. Really, I wanted to be closer to her. I wanted to see the details in her face. She never backed down, staring at me until I had disappeared into the woods. I watched her from afar, after she had thought we were long gone. She finally stepped back and got herself into a good enough run to jump the river, as well as an Ordinary could. She was so proud when she landed and she immediately turned around to face her brother.”
“That’s when the Guards appeared. They approached her and roughly threw her to the ground. I was so angry in that moment, watching them handle her that way, and I knew that she would be special to me. I had never felt that way about an Ordinary. I intervened, acting like I had known she was there all along, and telling them she was with me. The rest is…. history I guess.”
Marnie had read a few of the thoughts in Ally’s mind about her time in the northern City but nothing in depth. She would be interested to hear Ally’s perspective of her and Luke’s meeting.
They returned to silence, more thoughts of Ally running through Luke’s head. It felt like a story was being told to Marnie, and soon she closed her eyes, listening to the tale of Luke and Ally’s start.
At some point she must have dozed off because suddenly Luke was shaking her shoulder. She sat up quickly, rubbing her face where it had been pressed up against the cool window.
“We’re here,” he said.
Marnie gaped out the front window of the transport. They had pulled up to a large, towering stone wall. A metal gate sat directly in front of them and every so slowly it was opening. A Guard appearing in the small opening and came up to Luke’s window.
It took the man a moment.
“Lukin?” he said in disbelief.
Luke leaned out of the window and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Go tell everyone I’m back, and open up that gate.”
It took several minutes, but finally they pulled into a small courtyard within the gate. Luke turned off the transport and stepped out onto the stone ground, suddenly surrounding with Guards full of questions.
Luke held his hand up and they all silenced immediately. Just like that.
“I’ll answer questions in time. Right now, there is a situation we need to take care of.” Luke was in leadership mode now. Marnie shifted around to his side of the transport, wanting to listen to him. He stood taller somehow, his violet eyes brighter.
“There is a large group moving toward our City from the west. They could be close by now, close enough to be in the settlements. We need to assemble a small group to travel with us to intersect them.”
All of the Guards volunteered at once and Luke pointed out four.
“Marnie, can you take them to the back of the transport and have Max brief them on their positions.”
A dozen pairs of eyes fell on her and she leaned against the transport, jumping forward as the heat of the vehicle permeated her shirt.
“Um, yeah,” she said, turning away quickly. She hurried to the back of the transport and pulled the door open.
Max and Evan were waiting, guns at the ready. They relaxed when they saw it was just her.
“Luke has some men that are going to join us,” she motioned behind her, where the four Guards were gathering. She looked at Max. “Can you brief them?”
Max nodded and climbed out of t
he transport. Without a word Evan began lifting their packs into Marnie’s arms one by one until they were all in a pile on the ground. It was only a few minutes before Luke rejoined them. He closed the doors to the transport and banged his hand on the back. It started up and pulled forward, coming to a stop in the back corner of the courtyard.
“My Guards are prepared in case the group makes it past us,” he said.
Marnie knew what that really meant.
In case we are killed and cannot stop them.
At least it was possible that they would only be captured, which would still be bad, but not as bad as being killed.
“So we’re ready then?” Marnie asked.
Luke nodded. “Let’s move.”
They made it to the river Luke had pinpointed on the map. The same river where he had met Ally. He was right, it seem more like a creek. They had a river that ran through one of the fields in Sector 4. It was wide enough that they sometimes took crops across on a small boat. This ‘river’ Marnie could easily jump over.
“No sign of anyone,” Max said.
“But we have no idea at what point they’ll enter the settlements.”
Marnie stiffened. “Wait, we are just waiting for them to go through the settlements first?”
“Yes,” Luke answered. “We need the advantage of the water.”
Marnie felt the heat in her face. “You’d sacrifice all those innocent people? We should be going to the west of the settlements, protecting the Ordinarys. What would Ally think of you now?”
Luke raised an eyebrow and Max laughed.
“You didn’t tell them?” he asked Luke. Then he looked at Marnie. “Wait, you didn’t read it in his mind?”
Marnie looked back and forth between Luke and Max. “I try to stay out of people’s minds if I can help it. What?”
They were both smiling again.
Luke looked back over the river. “We evacuated the settlements weeks ago. The idea was to bring them back to the City on a permanent basis, but right now they are living in a safe town on the northwest side of the City. We couldn’t risk it with the Rogues running around. So many were lost when they invaded the City.”
