Scavenger Blood

by Janet Edwards

  “In the winter, those of you with tattooed hands could cover them with gloves,” said Tad. “In the summer, you’d have to let the younger generation represent you in discussions with other settlements.”

  He glanced at Donnell’s right hand. “Donnell and Blaze will have to wear gloves to keep their Armed Agent weapons hidden from outsiders as well. If anyone saw those, they’d start asking dozens of questions about where they got the guns, and the whole deception would fall apart.”

  Tad paused for emphasis. “I also strongly suggest that you only allow younger people without criminal convictions to interact with officials of the United Earth Government. Especially when you’re arranging for children to be registered as citizens. If something made one of the registration officials suspicious, it would be easy for them to use their genetic scanning equipment on you.”

  “Arranging for children to be registered as citizens,” repeated Raeni sharply. “Could we truly do that?”

  “Yes,” said Tad. “There’s a genetic scan involved in the registration process to make sure the person’s genetic identity isn’t already on record. There’s no check for genetic connections to criminals though, because many respectable citizens have relatives with criminal convictions.”

  “How many of the children could be registered as citizens?” demanded Wall. “Just the new babies that are born, or older children as well?”

  “Anyone whose genetic identity isn’t already on record,” said Tad. “That would include all the children and some of the younger adults, such as Luther and Julien. With the United Earth Government structure gradually breaking down, isolated settlements having problems with portal failure, and increasing shortages of genetic scanning equipment, there are plenty of late registrations of citizens.”

  He grimaced. “Blaze is the one exception who can’t be registered. It would be impossible for her to hide her Armed Agent weapon during a genetic scan.”

  I’d only had a split second to imagine being an officially registered respectable citizen, and wonder if it would make things easier for Tad and me. I still felt a moment of disappointment that was close to regret.

  Ridiculous of me to feel that way. When I accepted my Armed Agent weapon from Donnell, I’d known that I was making an irrevocable choice. I was giving up any chance of ever being respectable or leaving Earth, in exchange for a weapon that would allow me to protect Donnell, Tad, Phoenix, Braden, and the whole alliance from Cage. I had absolutely no regrets about making that choice.

  Tad was still speaking. “The safest way to get the children registered would be to find a sympathetic settlement to arrange it for you.”

  “There are a lot of old Resistance members at Albany settlement,” said Donnell. “I’m sure they’d be willing to help us. Once we’ve established a new home with working portals, it would be easy to portal small groups of children to Albany for registration.”

  “All the children could be registered as citizens,” said Wall, in a dazed voice. “Mist, Fleet, Otis, and all my other nephews and nieces could have the same rights and opportunities as any respectable citizen.”

  Looking at Wall’s face when he said that, I knew Tad was no longer in danger. Wall would protect him at all costs for the sake of his nephews and nieces, Raeni would be thinking of the future of the baby she was expecting, while Ice and Ghost could see that a new start with a respectable background would have huge advantages for everyone.

  Donnell obviously realized that too, because he spoke in business-like tones. “It’s vital that we keep Tad’s identity and abilities secret until we’ve got rid of Bronx division. Agreed?”

  “Yes, we can’t risk Bronx division harming the boy,” said Wall. “None of us will say a word to anyone. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” chorused Raeni, Ghost, and Ice.

  “We’d better get back to Parliament House now,” said Donnell.

  Wall frowned. “Why are we going back to Parliament House? Tad has control of the Citadel defences now, so there’s nothing stopping us going into the Citadel after Cage.”

  Ghost gave him a disbelieving look. “We’re in no state to go hunting Cage in a building that’s the size of a small city. Donnell and Blaze’s guns are totally out of power, and we’ve got wounded people needing medical treatment. Wounded people that include you!”

  Wall gazed hungrily at the Citadel. “We can’t tamely walk away now. We’re so close to getting Cage’s head.”

  “We have to return to Parliament House right away,” said Donnell. “Everyone there will have heard about the drones and be panicking. We’ll come back to deal with Cage on another day.”

  He turned to look at me. “Are you recovered enough to walk down the monument stairs, Blaze, or will we need to carry you?”

  “I can walk.”

  “Tell us at once if you need to rest,” said Donnell.

  We went back inside the monument and started going down the stairs. Donnell was on one side of me, and Tad on the other, ready to catch me if I stumbled or had a dizzy spell. Halfway down, I had to stop and sit on the stone steps for two or three minutes, but it still seemed to take far less time for us to get down the stairs than it had for us to climb them.

  As we went through the memorial chambers, Wall paused by the window depicting the first Thaddeus Wallam-Crane, and glanced rapidly from the stained-glass image to Tad and back again.

  “There isn’t much of a family resemblance.”

  “If you look closely, you’ll see I’ve got the dreadful Wallam-Crane ears,” said Tad gloomily. “All the descendants of Thaddeus Alexander Wallam-Crane inherited the ears that stuck out like aircraft wings, except for Benjamin, and he had a massive nose. On the whole, I prefer to have the ears.”

  I peered at his face. “Your ears aren’t that bad.”

  “I try to keep my hair long enough to cover them,” said Tad.

  We headed out of the door, and Ghost sprinted across to where a mass of broken drones lay on the ground. He stooped to search among them for arrows.

  “I know we always take care to retrieve our arrows when we’re hunting ducks and geese,” said Donnell, “but we can’t linger here collecting them now.”

  Ghost came back to join us, and held up a couple of dozen arrows in triumph. “I just wanted to retrieve some of the best diamene arrows. I feel stark naked wandering around without any arrows at all.”

  Donnell laughed and led the way on to the Unity Bridge. As we reached the turrets on this side, there was an odd scraping sound from behind us. We hastily turned, and I blinked in shock. What looked like steel shutters were coming down over each of the countless thousands of windows of the Citadel.

  No, those steel shutters weren’t just covering the windows, but spreading across the walls as well. I watched, stunned, as the shutters extended until the entire building was encased in steel armour, and then a metal shield appeared to curve over the roof.

  Donnell groaned. “What’s Cage doing now?”

  “That isn’t Cage,” said Tad. “That’s me. I’ve sent the Citadel into bunker mode.”

  “I do wish that you’d warn me before doing these things, Tad,” said Donnell plaintively. “Why did you cover the Citadel with armour plating?”

  “Bunker mode is intended as a defence against attack, shutting the Citadel off from the world so nobody can get in,” said Tad. “I realized it would also stop Cage from getting out and finding a new hiding place before we come back again to hunt him.”

  “Tad, are you saying that it’s absolutely impossible for Cage to get out of the Citadel while it’s in bunker mode?” asked Donnell.

  “That’s right.”

  Donnell waved both hands. “In which case, we don’t need to come back and hunt Cage at all.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Braden keeps talking about how, in an ideal world, Cage would be securely imprisoned so he was no longer a threat to anyone. Now we’ve achieved that.”

  “I don’t want Cage imprisoned,” said Wall. “I want h
im dead.”

  “I’m not going hunting Cage in the Citadel if it’s not necessary,” said Donnell. “I’ve had one of my officers die in that building already, and I want our people alive more than I want Cage dead.”

  “I agree with Donnell and Blaze,” said Ghost. “Cage got his nickname from putting a citizen in a cage long ago. It amuses me to think of him being trapped in a steel cage himself.”

  Ice nodded. “If Cage is safely imprisoned, then we should focus our efforts on dealing with Bronx division and leaving New York before the firestorm hits.”

  “I want Cage dead,” said Raeni, “but Donnell is right. If we take a party into the Citadel to hunt down Cage, he’s bound to find a way to kill some of us, and then there’ll be more people grieving for someone they love. We should leave Cage safely imprisoned and concentrate on dealing with Major and Bronx division.”

  “We have a majority in favour of leaving Cage imprisoned in the Citadel,” said Donnell.

  Wall gave a reluctant sigh. “Very well, but I hate to think of him sitting in a rooftop palace and feasting on enough luxury food to feed an army.”

  Donnell stared at the Citadel. “That’s a good point, Wall. Cage has a vast amount of food and other supplies stored in the Citadel. If we manage to deal with Bronx division, then imprisoning them in the Citadel would be a far safer option than dumping them somewhere upriver.”

  Ghost laughed. “Yes, they’re all Cage supporters, and want to live under his rule, so let them do that. They may find it’s a lot less pleasant than they expected.”

  I frowned. “But if we leave Bronx division locked in the Citadel, they’ll all burn to death in the firestorm.”

  Wall suddenly looked more cheerful. “That seems an excellent plan to me.”

  “There’s no need for anyone to burn to death,” said Tad. “Once the alliance is clear of New York, I can take the Citadel out of bunker mode, and Bronx division can leave New York as well.”

  I smiled. “If you can do that, Tad, then it’s the perfect solution.”

  Wall groaned, but Donnell didn’t wait to give him the chance to start arguing again, just turned to lead the way across the Unity Bridge. I stopped in the middle to look at the plaque. Manhattan had proved even more dangerous than I’d expected, but I was returning across the Unity Bridge on my own two feet this time rather than being carried on a stretcher.

  The others stopped as well, and Ghost spoke in a thoughtful voice. “The people back at the Parliament House will want to know how we survived being attacked by a couple of hundred drones and ten missiles. How do we answer that without giving away Tad’s secrets to Bronx division?”

  “The rest of our party only saw eighty drones,” said Donnell. “We destroyed all of those without any help from Tad, so we can tell everyone the full thrilling details of that battle. We just avoid mentioning the extra waves of drones and the missiles that followed.”

  Raeni was staring at the plaque on the bridge. “This bridge was built as a symbol of a united city in a united world. We have a chance of a new future, but the alliance must be united to achieve it. We don’t just need to rid ourselves of Bronx division, but of past feuds as well.”

  She turned to face Wall, and held out the hand that was still stained with his blood. “Manhattan owed a blood debt to Queens Island. Now my life has been saved by the leader of Manhattan, and Queens Island acknowledges the blood debt is paid in full.”

  She paused. “Queens Island declares peace with Manhattan.”

  Wall reached out his right hand to take hers. “Manhattan declares peace with Queens Island.”

  Under the ornate, linked hand design of the Unity Bridge, Raeni and Wall solemnly shook hands.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  We headed on towards the Parliament House, the width of the path down to the Spirit of New York allowing us to walk in a companionable group. “Donnell, did you know that you get bad tempered when you think you’re losing a battle?” asked Wall chattily.

  “I get bad tempered when I think I’m losing people I love.” Donnell stopped moving, stared across at the alliance graveyard for a few seconds, and then turned to look at me. “You’ve done this twice now, Blaze, and there must never be a third time.”

  “Done what?” I asked warily.

  “Recklessly endangering your life to protect mine. You challenged Cage to defend me. You fired at that drone to defend me. It’s becoming a life-threatening habit, and it has to stop right now.”

  Donnell gestured across at the graveyard. “Too many people have been killed protecting me in the past. Too many people have sacrificed their lives for my cause. Too many people have died miserably pointless deaths from accidents and disease because of me.”

  He shook his head. “Now we have a chance of a fresh start as respectable citizens. I don’t want anyone else dying for me, and especially not you. Firing that shot at the drone nearly killed you, and it was totally unnecessary.”

  “It was necessary,” I said. “That drone was about to shoot you.”

  “I’m extremely good at surviving dangerous situations,” said Donnell. “I’ve spent my whole life getting into trouble. I was in my first bar fight when I was only fourteen years old. My opponent was twice my age and weight, but I still won.”

  Tad frowned. “A bar is a place where you drink alcohol?”

  Donnell gave him a pitying look. “Yes.”

  “What were you doing in a bar at fourteen years old?” asked Tad.

  Donnell laughed. “Singing, drinking whiskey, and fighting. Probably in that order, but it was a very long time ago, so I can’t remember the exact details. My point is that people have been trying to kill me since I was fourteen years old, but I’m still alive, and that isn’t because of random luck.”

  He stabbed his forefinger at me. “I’m extremely good at surviving dangerous situations,” he repeated. “You must never risk your life to save mine again, Blaze. Understand?”

  “I understand what you’re saying,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean that I won’t do the same thing again in similar circumstances. It’s impossible to change my basic character.”

  Donnell groaned. “Tad is another case where it’s impossible to change his basic character. Whatever I say, however many times I ask him to warn me before he does anything drastic, it makes no difference. He turns on the New York power supply, blows up drones, and puts the Citadel into bunker mode.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, Tad can blow up all the drones he likes,” said Ghost.

  We walked on past the Spirit of New York to the boathouse, and down the narrower path to reach the Parliament House. When we arrived at the glass front wall of Reception, I saw the view inside was blocked by stacks of overturned tables.

  “Aaron’s a good man,” said Donnell. “He’s been setting up defences against a drone attack.”

  We reached the door of Reception, and found it had a pile of tables stacked against it as well, so Donnell knocked loudly on the glass. A moment later, Aaron dragged aside the tables, opened the door, and stood staring at us with a stunned expression on his face.

  “We thought you were dead.”

  “You thought wrong,” said Donnell cheerfully. “Can we come inside?”

  “Oh. Yes. Sorry.”

  Aaron backed away to let us in through the door. Reception looked startlingly different from usual. Every single table and chair had been stacked on top of each other to form the barricade across the glass front wall. People were standing behind it, armed with a motley collection of baseball bats and broad-bladed short swords, while stacks of folded blankets dotted the floor.

  I saw Phoenix and Braden at the front of the crowd, both brandishing bats. For a second, I was confused by a pacifist like Braden being ready to fight, but then I realized he’d have no moral objections to fighting drones because they weren’t living creatures.

  Machico came hurrying forward to hug Donnell. “Sean, you’re alive!”

  Donnell laughed
. “Yes, Mac. We’re all alive. Slightly scorched in places, but definitely alive.”

  Machico released him. “But Aaron said there were dozens of seek and destroy drones heading for you. Those things are deadly, and they never stop following their targets.”

  “There were eighty seek and destroy drones armed with lasers,” said Ice.

  “And you’re right that those things are deadly,” added Wall smugly, “but not as deadly as us. We destroyed all eighty of them.”

  Tasheka was hugging Wall now, while Ludmilla seemed to be scolding Ghost for frightening her. Vijay, Weston, and Natsumi came up to take their turns welcoming Donnell back.

  “You’ll have to tell us all about the fight,” said Weston.

  “We’ll tell you the whole thrilling story later.” Donnell glanced around the mob of armed people. “Where are the younger children?”

  “I sent the children under the age of twelve to the Parliament Chamber and told them to barricade themselves in,” said Aaron. “That seemed to be the safest place for them, given it has steel security doors and no windows.”

  Ludmilla had spotted the bandage on her husband’s arm. “How badly are you hurt?”

  “Only a minor burn,” said Ghost. “Wall, Ice, Blaze, and Donnell have injuries that will need treatment too.”

  “No, I don’t,” said Donnell.

  “You were limping on the way back to the Parliament House,” said Ghost.

  Donnell shrugged. “That’s only the bruises from where I dived inelegantly down that stone staircase.”

  “Nadira has set up a medical treatment centre just inside the entrance to Sanctuary,” said Aaron.

  “Good,” said Donnell. “Blaze, go and tell Nadira that you need treatment for a laser burn and hypothermia. Julien, can you please run upstairs to the Parliament Chamber? Tell the children that everything is all right now, but they should stay where they are until we’ve tidied up.”

  Julien sprinted off through the entrance to the Resistance wing.

  “I assume the blankets are from the Sanctuary store rooms, but where did all those weapons come from?” asked Donnell. “I can’t believe we had that many baseball bats stored in the Resistance wing.”