Winterbay

by J. Barton Mitchell

  From the other side, she heard Armitage’s roar over the rumbling of the Machine.

  Mira lunged for the other Portal artifact on the floor and stomped on it. Once. Twice.

  Without the Interfuse, the thing shattered into its component pieces—and the Portal flashed out of existence, sealing away Armitage and the Machine.

  Everything went dark and quiet and strangely tranquil. Mira collapsed and lay on her back, breathing hard. There were similar sounds next to her. She turned her head … and looked into the almost black eyes of Reiko.

  The girls stared at each other, exhausted.

  “How about we call it even?” Mira asked.

  Reiko nodded. “Works for me.”

  Clinton Station

  Mira and Reiko sat on a wall of old car tires and hubcaps, strung together with wire and rope, that circled Winterbay’s trade district, staring at the ebb and flow of the kids moving through the stalls and shops, and the now familiar rusted smokestacks that jutted up strangely through the wooden deck and into the open air, wrapped in their lights.

  Reiko’s shoulder was bandaged. Armitage’s bullet had passed straight through, and the girl dressed her own wound while Mira watched. She still wasn’t sure what to make of Reiko. There was no doubt she’d had a conversion of sorts. She’d saved Mira’s life twice, and betrayed a man she saw as a father, but Mira wasn’t completely sure why—whether it was vengeance against someone who had used her, or because she thought of this city, and the idea it represented, as worth saving. Reiko didn’t say, and Mira didn’t ask. All she could think was that they had both found their own lines tonight.

  “What are you gonna do now?” Reiko asked.

  It was a good question, Mira thought. “Keep looking, I guess. Find what I need somewhere else. Unless you got more plutonium stashed away somewhere?”

  “Sorry, no.” Reiko smiled. “But we can go back in and get it if you want.”

  “I think one ride in the Machine was more than enough for me.”

  Mira had survived, it was true, but what did she have to show for it? Even if the wanted posters had never gone up in Winterbay, they were no doubt posted in Midnight City and Currency, maybe even as far away as the Low Marshes by now. The bounty hunters would be looking, which meant the big cities were off-limits. She’d have to find someone who had what she needed at one of the smaller trade depots, as unlikely as that seemed. It was going to be a tough, lonely road for a while.

  “Why’d you come back for me?” Reiko asked, and Mira could feel the girl’s eyes on her. “For all you knew, I was planning on killing you.”

  Mira had to admit it was a fair point. “My dad always used to say, ‘Integrity’s doing the right thing … even when no one will ever know about it.’ You did the right thing, Reiko, and no one would have ever known. And, I got enough things to feel guilty about.”

  Reiko studied her for a long moment … then frowned as if she’d come to a decision she didn’t much like. “You have a map?” she asked.

  Mira’s eyes thinned questioningly.

  “You have one, or don’t you?”

  Mira opened her pack, grabbed the old folded map of the World Before she always carried, and handed it to Reiko. The girl opened it, found what she was looking for … then pulled out a pen.

  Near the center of what was once called Illinois, Reiko drew a circle around a dot near a large lake. Next to it she wrote Clinton Power Station.

  Mira felt her heart skip. She looked up at Reiko and the girl frowned deeper, handed Mira back the map. “Don’t get all mushy on me, I swear to God.”

  “Are you … sure?” Mira asked, stunned.

  “Who do you think got the plutonium for Armitage? There’s plenty there, more than you can carry—assuming you can get to it.”

  Mira beamed, relief flooding through her. She couldn’t believe it. Her plans and hopes were still alive, and it had all come from the most unlikely of sources.

  “Thank you, Reiko,” Mira said. “I mean it.”

  Reiko shook her head. “Don’t be too thrilled. You know what’s waiting in there. Trust me—it’s worse than the stories, I can personally vouch for that.”

  Mira felt a slight chill, but it disappeared quickly. It was a problem for another day. She looked back at Reiko. “What are you going to do?”

  Reiko shrugged. “I don’t know … it’s not like I’ve got much time left.”

  She was right; she probably had less than a year until she Succumbed. What would it be like when Mira got to that point? When it began to fight her for control, when it became a daily struggle?

  “Might join a resistance group,” Reiko said. “Fight the Assembly. Who knows. What is it the Wind Traders say? ‘The winds take you where they will…’”

  “‘… not the other way around,’” Mira finished for her.

  The girls held their look a moment more, then hopped off the wall to the ground, each one considering the other.

  “I don’t know what it is you need to make up for, Mira Toombs,” Reiko said. “But don’t stop trying. When all’s said and done, all we have is what we do … and what we don’t do.”

  “White Helix teach you that?” Mira asked.

  Reiko shook her head. “No. Taught myself that. Just tonight.”

  They stared at each other a second longer … and then turned and walked their own ways, disappearing in different directions into the crowd.

  Mira reached the main thoroughfare and moved through it, toward the ferries that would take her back to the mainland. She passed one of the Memory Walls, glowing and flickering like before, dozens of kids staring at the images. St. Peter’s Basilica, glowing buildings in Shanghai, people running in a marathon, SCUBA divers floating through a shipwreck, an astronaut on the moon.

  Mira forced herself to look away. The World Before was intoxicating, it sucked you in, but she had to live in the here and now. She had to keep moving. She had things to do …

  Mira passed under the main gate and the giant blue and white gear that hung above it. No one looked at her as she stepped onto the ferry. The boat rocked as ropes began to pull it through the icy water and away from Winterbay.

  When Mira looked back, she saw something she didn’t expect.

  At the other end of the city, a tower stood taller than all the others on the eastern end. She’d seen it before, from within and without, but it was different now. It was no longer dark and lifeless. Light streamed from the windows that circled its topmost level, shining brightly outward … like a beacon.

  Mira smiled and kept watching until Winterbay vanished into the haze of the early morning light. Then she turned and looked ahead, toward where she needed to go. One step at a time, she told herself. One step at a time …

  Turn the page to read an excerpt from the first book in the Conquered Earth series

  Available now in paperback

  Copyright © 2012 by J. Barton Mitchell

  1. VULTURES

  Right about then, it became official: Holt Hawkins was having a bad day.

  “Hey, you’re right,” one of the kids shouted, reaching for him underneath the crumpled old truck. “There is someone under here!”

  The kids yanked him out from under the ruined vehicle and slammed him hard against its rusted door.

  They were younger than Holt, but not by much. Seventeen or eighteen he guessed, looking at the black veinlike growths crawling through their eyes, the telltale sign of the Tone. It had a firm hold on them now; it meant their time was running out.

  Holt sized them up quickly. They were shorter and thinner, weaker, less quick probably, but those things mattered a lot less when you had guns or knives, and these kids had both. Holt had left his with Max, near the tree line, not wanting to risk the weight on the precarious bridge. A decision he was quickly coming to regret.

  The six kids holding him had small tattoos on their right wrists. The one with his forearm pinning Holt to the door sported a Scorpion. Two more, knives at the read
y, had a Coiled Snake and a Heart respectively.

  The wrist tattoos were bad news. It meant these kids were in the Menagerie, and the situation had just gotten a whole lot worse. Then again, Holt thought … maybe they wouldn’t recognize him. He glanced at the single, fingerless glove he always wore on his right hand.

  “Hey, this guy’s a Heedless, look at his eyes!” one of them pointed out bitterly. They were right—Holt was Heedless. One of the rare few on the planet the Tone didn’t affect. His eyes were perfectly clear; there were no signs of the crawling black tendrils. It was the only reason Holt had made it to twenty years of age. “Isn’t Tiberius looking for a Heedless out here somewhere? Tall guy like this one?”

  Holt grimaced. So much for not being recognized.

  He peered upward, looking for any sign of the ship. There were no clouds, the sun was high, and in the blue sky it would blend in perfectly. He had no way of knowing if it was even still there. Which was unfortunate, because it was probably his only shot at getting out of this.

  “One way to be sure,” another said, younger still, fifteen maybe, with two tattoos: a Yellow Skull on his right wrist and an eight-pointed star on his left. The star had only two of its points filled in; the rest were just outlines. It was a sign of promotion—it meant he was an Adjutant, a lower-level commander in the Menagerie. As he rose in rank, more star points would be filled in.

  “The glove,” the yellow skull said. “Pull it down.”

  Holt’s heart sank. He struggled when they went for the glove, but a couple more punches brought him in line. It was a leather one, and he wore it for only one reason, to hide what was under it: a black tattoo just like these kids’… only his was half-finished.

  It was hard to make out what it would have been, but there were hints of a birdlike shape, wings, claws. Whatever it was, it was enough for the Menagerie thugs who had him by the throat.

  “Yes, indeed!” said the yellow skull. “This is Holt Hawkins—Tiberius is paying big money for his head, no wonder he’s hiding under there.”

  The funny thing was, Holt hadn’t been hiding from them at all. He’d been huddled underneath the truck because of what had been circling in the sky. He glanced upward once more, trying to find it.…

  “That what you were doing, Holt Hawkins? Hiding from us?” the yellow skull asked with a sneer.

  “If you want the truth, I was taking a nap,” Holt replied, holding the yellow skull’s eyes as solidly as he could. He had to stall them, had to keep them talking. “Nice under there, you should try it.”

  Holt groaned as one of their fists made less-than-gentle contact with his stomach. The Menagerie still lacked a sense of humor it seemed. Where is that ship?

  “You’re a funny guy, Holt Hawkins,” the yellow skull said, stepping even closer. “Didn’t know that about you. Say something else funny. Go on.”

  Holt didn’t bother. Instead, he glanced at the environment out the corner of his eye.

  They were all standing on a massive, decaying steel bridge that spanned what used to be called the Missouri River. It stretched as far as Holt could see in both directions, and was filled with hundreds of old cars, where they had either been abandoned by their owners or blown to bits by Assembly gunships during the invasion.

  Holt’s fists clenched in frustration. Even if he ran, there weren’t many places to go, other than taking a swan dive off the edge. The way Holt’s luck had been going today, that probably wasn’t the best idea.

  The bridge’s supports and cables were barely holding on, many of them had snapped already, and a huge crack in the asphalt near the middle showed where the bridge was pulling itself apart in slow motion. Of course, the bridge’s state of disrepair was the reason he’d bothered to check it out in the first place. Places like this, precarious ones that were risky, they were where you still found valuable things for trade. It had been eight years since the invasion, and most everything not locked down had already been taken, unless it was difficult to get to. Clearly, these Menagerie thugs had been thinking the same thing.

  “Get something to tie him up with,” the yellow skull ordered.

  The snake groaned at the implications. “We have to drag this loser all the way back to the Samneric?” he asked.

  “The bounty says Tiberius wants him alive,” the yellow skull said. “How else are we gonna collect it?”

  “What do we tie him up with?” the heart asked.

  “Rope. Wire. Your shoelaces—do I have to do all the thinking? Go find something,” he said with impatience.

  Two of the boys left to go find restraints. When they got back and tied Holt up, it would all be over, plan or no plan. As ironic as it was, he needed that ship. He just hoped he could draw its attention.

  “Kind of funny, I guess,” the yellow skull said, his eyes back on Holt. “Bounty hunter with a price on his head. Could’ve just turned yourself in, collected your own reward. You ever think of that?” The yellow skull laughed. The others laughed with him.

  Then a strange sound filtered up from under the truck. The laughter died; the boys all looked down at it. It hadn’t been there before, the sound. Holt knew why. What he’d left under there was starting to burn hotter.

  “What’s that?” one of the boys asked, kneeling down to look underneath. His eyes widened at what he found.

  “Well?” the yellow skull asked. The boy grabbed hold of something and pulled it out. A long cylinder that sparkled bright red. Even in the daylight, the kids had to shield their eyes.

  A road flare. Sparkling and burning hot.

  If this was going to work, it would happen any second. Holt looked up into the sky.…

  … and saw a flash of light, far above, as the ship twisted and caught the midafternoon sun. His heart made a hopeful leap in his chest.

  “What did you do?” the yellow skull demanded, looking back at Holt, his voice nervous and unsure for the first time.

  Holt smiled. “E.T. phone home,” he said.

  Something slammed into one of the boys, knocking him to the ground and pinning him at the same time.

  Holt had just enough time to see the clawlike contraption, the cable stretching up into the sky … before it yanked the poor kid violently off the bridge. His scream quickly faded to nothing as he disappeared far above.

  The others flinched, panicked, looked around the bridge in confusion. It was only the leader, the yellow skull, who knew what was happening. “Vulture!” he shouted, fear in his voice.

  Another boy screamed as the claw ripped him upward out of sight. The rest bolted.

  Holt rammed his head into the face of the lone boy still holding him, sent him reeling backwards. He was loose; the yellow skull was too shocked to react. Holt’s kick found his knee, crumpled him to the bridge. The other Menagerie were already running, no longer interested in Holt, concerned only with escaping the horror circling above.

  Holt didn’t waste the opportunity. He ran with them, toward the edge of the bridge several hundred yards away. Unfortunately, abandoned, rusting cars blocked his path like an obstacle course.

  Another boy went down, pinned by the claw of the Vulture scout ship above … and then screamed as it yanked him powerfully up and away.

  Holt had seen the Menagerie approaching, knew the Vulture was circling above. The Assembly scout ships’ optics were infamously powerful, so he’d lit the signal flare before the pirates grabbed him, hoping to attract the thing’s attention. A gamble, but it had paid off.

  Of course, there was no guarantee it wouldn’t grab him next, but he liked those odds a lot better than the ones he would have gotten with the Menagerie.

  As he ran, Holt leapt over the hoods and trunks of cars, sliding over them agilely, hitting the ground at a sprint. Ahead, the two Menagerie who had gone for rope were running back. They weren’t totally aware of their predicament yet. They were still focused on Holt. He saw them raise their guns, and he ducked quickly behind a ruined station wagon.

  Gunfire erupted f
rom ahead of him. He flinched as slugs sparked on the hood of the car.

  From the other direction, the remaining boys were closing on him, drawing their own weapons.

  A scream echoed from in front of him. Another grapling claw yanked one of the two blocking his path into the sky. Immediately after, one of the boys behind him was ripped upward as well.

  No Vulture could fire and retract its claw that fast. Holt ripped his gaze back up to the sky. He saw one flash above him. And then another, separate flash several meters to the north.

  There were two of them.

  “Super,” Holt groaned. His plan had just backfired.

  The kid in front of the car, just now figuring out his problems, stared up into the sky with terror.

  Holt drove straight into him, sending him crashing to the crumbling concrete of the bridge.

  He could hear the shouts of the other Menagerie pirates behind him, chasing after him. Gunfire sparked all around him as he ran, but Holt ignored it.

  Only two pirates were left: the heart and the yellow skull leader. They rushed after him, leaping over the cars almost as agilely as Holt, guns drawn.

  More gunfire shredded the bridge near his feet, barely missing him.

  Holt lost his footing, stumbled forward, crashed into the open rear door of an old van, hit the ground hard. The wind burst from his lungs; he struggled to get up. The kids were almost on him—he could hear their shouts, growing louder, their footsteps.

  He got to his feet and ran. He had to keep moving, to get to the tree line on the other side of the bridge. It was his only shot.

  The heart grabbed him from behind. Holt lashed out with a foot, managed to connect and sent him spinning away.

  Another grapling claw blew the kid to the ground, pinned him … then yanked him with ferocity up into the air.

  Holt stumbled to his feet, ran for the edge of the bridge. Above him, sunlight flashed off the metallic fuselages of both Vultures.

  He dodged and shimmied past the remaining cars on the bridge, and came out the other side onto solid ground. Holt instantly turned right, down a grassy slope toward a thick line of trees just a few dozen yards ahead.