“Well, Tim knows, so I’d say we already have,” I grin. “That man is like the town crier.”
“Yeah, but you know what I mean. What do we do about Alex, for example?”
“I think Alex will be fine as long as I’m fine. He adores you anyway, and he’ll sense something is up, even if we try to hide it.”
“He’s been through a lot, Tiny,” he sounds reproachful, and my eyes widen in surprise. Reed has always been fond of Alex, but I never suspected this almost paternal concern.
“He’ll be fine,” I say. “And thank you for caring so much.”
“He’s an easy child to . . .”
“Rebecca!” Reed’s sentence is left hanging as Morgan’s panic-stricken voice pierces the air. We whirl around to see her sprinting back up the Main Street, her eyes wide with fear.
“What the . . .” In a blur Reed is at her side, taking her by the elbow and pushing her behind him as he turns to face the man walking calmly up the street towards us. I hasten to his side, putting up my hand to shield my eyes from the harsh glare of the sun.
My first impression is that the man approaching us is tall and walks with purpose. He stands straight and proud, and he does not look left or right, maintaining eye contact. He seems to be looking straight at me, and I narrow my eyes, my curiosity getting the better of me. He seems unfazed by the party assembling to meet him, as the Legion members emerge from the town like shadows, and line up behind us.
“Get in the car,” I hear David whisper to Chase and he locks himself in the Jeep. Thankfully the keys are safely tucked away in Tim’s pocket.
When he is only about twelve feet away, the stranger comes to a halt, eyeing us with interest.
“Hello,” he breaks the silence, his voice low and unthreatening. This close up I notice that he is completely bald, even his face is devoid of hair, he has no eyebrows or eyelashes. His skin is incredibly brown, more than one would expect from simply being outdoors every day, and on his arms, between his wrists and elbows, red welts mark his skin.
When I look at his face, I find that I cannot tear my gaze away from his eyes. They are blue, but the pupils are not black, they are opaque, making his irises seem endless. My first instinct, on seeing the cataracts, is that he is blind, but the absence of a walking stick, and the way that he is smiling at my obvious scrutiny is testament to the fact that he can see. He runs his cloudy eyes over each of us in turn, but I notice his gaze keeps returning to me, a smile playing about his lips. He almost looks as though he knows me.
“May I ask what you are all doing here?” he asks politely.
“We might ask you the same question,” Reed counters, and the newcomer simply smiles pleasantly.
“I mean you no harm, sir, I assure you.”
Our group remains silent, not sure what to make of this stranger.
“What are you doing here?” Reed ignores his white flag.
“Staying alive.”
“Well, we’re just passing through, so why don’t you just let us be on our way.”
“I will not stop you.” He eyes me again thoughtfully and for some reason I feel uncomfortable.
“I’d like to see you try.” Reed’s voice is menacing but the stranger seems amused.
“I have no quarrel with you, friend.”
“I’m not your friend.”
“Ah, but the enemy of my enemy is always my friend.”
“Enemy?” I interrupt. “Which enemy?”
“Corruption. Greed. Power,” he answers enigmatically.
“Who are you?” I interrupt, realisation dawning on me. The answer, when it comes, makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“My name is Adam. Adam Vincent.”
Chapter 17
My face creases into a small smile and I relax slightly.
“I’ve been looking for you for some time, Mr Vincent.” I step towards him to introduce myself, but Reed and Jethro shadow my movements menacingly.
“Please,” Adam holds up a hand, “I do not want any of your people getting hurt.”
Reed’s laughter echoes down the street. “Oh, and who’s going to hurt us? You?”
“If I have to,” he sounds regretful.
“Yeah? You and what army?”
“Um, Reed,” I incline my head down the street as a horde of people emerge like rats from numerous buildings and alleyways. I have never seen such a motley crew; men, women and even children, all armed with makeshift weapons, knives, hammers, planks whittled into rudimentary spears, even a shovel. They are all human, but some have a wild look about them, almost Deranged in appearance.
“Back up,” I order and Jethro and the others retreat towards the vehicles. Reed stays exactly where he is, sizing up the competition. Adam holds up his arm, without looking back, and his followers stop in their tracks, awaiting further instructions. He gives me that same familiar, questioning look.
“May I have your name, Miss?” he asks.
“It’s Rebecca.” At this, he exhales deeply.
“Rebecca Dane.” He takes a step forward, closing the space between us and offering his hand. I force myself not to react to the name that I have come to despise, and I take his hand, shaking it firmly.
“It’s Davis, actually,” I correct and he nods in acknowledgement.
“I’m glad we’ve finally found you, Miss Davis. Please come this way, there is much we need to discuss.”
I start to follow him and then I hesitate. I do not know anything about Adam Vincent, and although my instinct is to trust him, I don’t want to walk blindly into a trap.
“Please,” he turns back, sensing my hesitation, “bring two of your men with you if it eases your mind.” Reed and Jethro fall into step behind me. Adam nods imperceptibly at the group gathered in the street and two men break away and come towards us. It seems Adam does not entirely trust us either.
As we walk down another street, a young man approaches us from Adam’s party. I look back and shake my head as David, Morgan and Tim step forward, and they stop their advance, looking apprehensive.
“Everything okay?” the youngster asks and I do a double take as I realise the voice is female. It is indeed a girl, about sixteen years old, but her head is completely shaved.
“Rebecca, this is Hope, my daughter,” Adam introduces us and I extend my hand. Her grip is firm and her eyes are hard and suspicious, but up close her face is incredibly beautiful. Her eyes are luminous blue in her face, and her cheeks are flushed with youth. She looks ridiculously out of place in this bleak, barren setting, and her bald head only serves to accentuate her striking beauty. I turn back to Adam, my confusion obvious.
“Not my biological daughter, of course,” Adam hastens to explain. “An unfortunate effect of my extended exposure to the fallout is that I cannot have children. I found Hope here,” he puts his arm around her shoulder fondly, “when she was only a year old. She was abandoned on a street in Denver.” Hope manages to smile up at him while at the same time scowling at us.
“Makes Morgan look like the town jester,” Reed whispers in my ear and I purse my lips to keep from laughing.
“You sound like you’ve been around,” Reed speaks up, addressing Adam as we make our way down the street.
“It’s part of the job,” he calls back to us. “We scour the barren lands searching for those in need of our help.”
“Find anything else interesting?”
“You couldn’t imagine,” he answers cryptically.
We come to a stop at the town hall and Adam gestures us ahead of him. Not knowing what to expect, we step into the vast room and my jaw practically hits the ground. There must be over two hundred people in here, mostly women and children. My eyes widen even further as I see the child I saw in the church on our way out, looking a lot cleaner, in a well-worn pair of boy’s shorts and an overs
ized orange T-shirt. Her hair is shorter, but much neater, and she is sitting between her parents, who are being cleaned up by a kind-faced woman.
“Where do you get your supplies?” I ask Adam, tearing my eyes away from the Deranged family.
“We hunt and gather for our food, and we have stock supplies which were smuggled out of the States. Unfortunately, as of four months ago, the supplies stopped because the security increased. We are no longer able to communicate with our sympathisers on the inside.” I am not imagining the knowing look that he gives me, and I wonder how much he knows about the final battle and whether he is aware that I am the reason for the increased security measures and his consequent hardships. “Our medical supplies, vanities, linen and clothing come from the wastelands,” he continues. “We travel extensively and we collect what we find.”
He falls silent as he leads us through the hall and into a large storeroom at the back.
“Stay with the others,” Adam instructs his daughter and she falls back as he closes the door behind him. We sit down at an old plastic table, Adam directly opposite me.
“This is Loader,” he indicates the heavy-set man on his left, “and this is Little Chef.” I raise my eyebrows in question at the man on his right and he grins. “We’ll get to that.”
“Reed and Jethro,” I incline my head at each of them in turn and Adam nods.
“It’s nice to meet you.” I glance again at his arms, the red scars clearly visible even in the dim room. “Beta burns,” he explains, uncannily able to sense what I am thinking.
“I’m sorry,” I apologise, flushing.
“No need to be. My scars are memories. They remind me of what I have been through, what I have survived.”
“How did you survive?” I can’t help but ask. This man should not be here, he should have died twenty-eight years ago in the Washington explosion.
“My father was not a stupid man,” Adam replies. “He knew the chances of making it out of DC were slim. When he realised that Air Force One might not make it out of the US before the bombs hit, he had his head of security get me off the plane. We made it underground just in time.”
“And your father?” Reed interrupts, referring to President Vincent.
“Unfortunately, he stayed aboard. He was never one to run from his responsibilities, and he had an obligation to try to get to safety, regardless of how slight the odds. I don’t think they ever expected the scale of the war and they certainly didn’t anticipate the consequences. Presumably America was supposed to fight back after the initial chaos, and he would have needed to make that call. As we now know, there was nothing left to fight back. America did not survive. The world did not survive. My father had to make a decision as the nation’s leader, not as a parent. Being the President is not always all it’s cracked up to be.”
He pauses, staring into space for a few moments. “Anyway, Jason got me underground and, as you can see, I survived. Unfortunately, we weren’t well prepared, our provisions were minimal, and we had to emerge much sooner than was safe. These,” he indicates the beta burns on his arms, “are a result of direct contact with fallout. Luckily, the beta particles were only weakly penetrating so I merely experienced surface burns. This,” he rubs his hand over his bald skull, “is permanent epilation, another effect of the exposure. I had hoped it was temporary, but I’ve got used to it.”
I listen in wonder, unable to conceive how he can speak so calmly about an event that changed his life so drastically. Even Reed is silent. Adam doesn’t seem to notice and continues in his calm way.
“The cataracts started a few years after the war, but they are by far the most debilitating injury I sustained. They impair my vision, particularly at night.”
“Can you see at all?” I ask, staring at his clouded eyes.
“Yes, Miss Davis, I can see well enough.” He takes no offence at the personal question. “But I can’t drive and my physical capabilities are limited – I can’t hunt, for example.”
“How come you’re not sick?” I ask.
“Cancer?” He shrugs. “It may come. It can take up to thirty years to develop but I feel fine. If that’s what is in store for me, then I guess I’ll deal with it when the time comes.” I sense that there is more to the story than he is letting on but I let it go, feeling I have pried enough.
“What happened to Jason?” I ask and his face falls.
“He was with me for ten years, but he was older, and his health failed. When the nausea and vomiting started, it wasn’t long.”
“Where did you find these two, and all the others out there?” I refer to the mob outside and his mood lightens considerably, his face creasing into a fond smile.
“Well, Loader here, I picked up in Tennessee, although it took some convincing to get him to join us. He’s a bit of a loner.” Adam slaps the large, serious-looking African-American on the back. “Little Chef,” he turns to the young, wiry, mousy-looking blond man on his right, who looks to be about thirty, “I found him ferreting around in a restaurant in Wichita. Turns out he can make a meal out of anything.”
“Little Chef.” I laugh.
“Most of our people were wanderers, scavengers, they had little or no human contact and lived in isolation. Many didn’t have names, so we gave them names that suited.”
“So,” I hesitate, not sure if the two men will take offence, “your people were Deranged?” Surprisingly, no one reacts to the term and I continue hastily, “You recruit them?”
“I help them,” he corrects. “Man was not created to be alone, Miss Davis. We are not meant to live in isolation, it strips away our humanity. I seek out the lost and I give them a home, a family.”
My respect for Adam Vincent is growing every minute.
“And your friends?” he asks politely.
“They’re members of my army,” I answer, “the Legion. And our goal is not quite as noble as yours, but it is necessary. We want to bring down NUSA. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
“I’m glad to see that the rumours about you are true, that you’re not just a pretty face.”
“You said you’ve been looking for me, too. Why?”
“Because you’re right. We need to bring down the so-called New United States, to share the wealth, the resources. This country could be united again; it could be restored to its original greatness, but to do that we need to overthrow the tyranny, give the power back to the people. We have the same aim, your Legion and my people, although we are not quite as remarkable, we are after all, only Ordinary.” He regards me contemplatively. “I assume that there are those among you who are Gifted.”
I am not surprised that he knows about the procedures but I am cautious in the way I answer, not wanting him to know the full extent of our abilities.
“Yes, a fair few,” I answer in a non-committal way.
“And I believe that you are quite exceptional yourself?” he probes and I feel Reed tense beside me. I press my leg against his under the table, urging him to keep calm.
“How would you know that?” I ask guardedly, deliberately avoiding the implied question.
“I knew your husband Eric.”
The silence that follows this statement is absolute, and I wage an inner battle in my head. At the mention of Eric’s name, my instinct is to react with hostility, but I force myself not to be impulsive. Taking a deep breath, I meet his gaze levelly.
“Eric Dane was the President of NUSA. If NUSA is your enemy, how would you know him?”
“I could ask the same thing of you,” he points out.
“I did what needed to be done,” I justify.
“As did your husband.” He places his hands on the table, fingers entwined, his expression sombre. “Eric was not perfect. He was a fanatic, a megalomaniac, power-hungry and prepared to do whatever he needed to keep control.”
“Sounds about right.
”
“Even the darkest man can be made to see the light, Miss Davis.”
“Rebecca, please. And I seriously doubt that, as far as Eric was concerned.”
He picks up on the slight hesitation in my voice.
“I did not know your husband well, Rebecca. Certainly not as well as you did. But I saw the change in him when he realised that you were in danger. A man in his position wouldn’t risk everything to protect a woman he doesn’t care about.”
“I think you’d better tell us exactly what you know, Vincent,” Reed cuts across his rhetoric.
“Eric found me a few months ago. He had heard about the Ordinary and what we were doing and he needed my help. You may not believe this, but Eric had been backed into a corner by men even more powerful than he was.”
“He was President,” I spread my arms in disbelief. “How much more powerful can you be?”
“When Eric began to rise to power, when he created NUSA and sealed off the rest of the country, he believed that what he was doing was right, genuinely believed it. He felt it was the only way to protect the healthy and ensure mankind’s survival. He may have been delusional,” he adds quickly, as I open my mouth to argue, “I am certainly not saying that he was right, but he believed it. Unfortunately, in order to do what he believed was right, he made a deal with the devil, and you don’t just walk away from that.”
“Who? Who did he make a deal with?”
“Unfortunately that is something that I don’t know. I don’t think even Eric himself knew the true identity of the person he was dealing with. He contacted me when he was trying to get out of his oppressor’s clutches. What he did say, when he became desperate, was that I needed to protect you,” he inclines his head at me. “Those in power knew that you were in fact working against him, that you were trying to bring down NUSA. They ordered him to have you killed. It turns out that wasn’t something he was prepared to do.”
“He tried to kill me,” I point out. “His general, Nina, almost succeeded.”
“I believe the woman Nina started acting on her own, failing to obey instructions. I can assure you that whatever orders Eric gave her it was never his intention to kill you.”
The Legion Page 14
