by Sean Platt
Despite just having gotten up, Keller poured himself a drink—a small one now, more later—to silence his inner voice. That voice wanted to dwell on betrayal and scold him for allowing the kid to get close, letting the kid occupy a spot in his heart opened by Joshua’s death.
Adam will never be half the man my son would’ve been.
But it wasn’t just Adam’s betrayal that kept him low. There was something else—something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He didn’t think it was the politics of City 1 leadership, at least not exactly. Keller had kissed ass as chief long enough to know how to play the game. Nor did he think it was the new stresses of having to deal with the privileged City 1 citizens and their many demands. So often he wished he could just take a few of them into an alley and set them straight. But his hands were tied: everyone in City 1 knew someone who knew an Elder.
Sometimes Keller wished Jonah had taken out more than 40 percent of City 1.
Really, what would have been the harm to The State if he’d taken out the whole damned city and left them to start over?
The law was solid, practical, necessary. It kept people safe. But it was poison to know that the people behind it were what they were. These esteemed Elders that he had only seen once or twice a year prior to coming here, he now saw on a daily basis. It was only when seeing them regularly that Keller realized just how screwed up and petty they were.
Rules weren’t just made to maintain power. They were also used to punish personal enemies, usually for the most trivial of things. These were rich, powerful men who were not used to being told “no.” And while Keller had yet to question his oath to The State, he did question those that held seats of power, and he wondered if improvements were possible.
And while he dared not say it publicly, he was on the lookout for an opportunity to bring new blood into the Elders Council, to find at least one other who truly believed in properly running The State.
Keller entered the kitchen and saw a note on the cupboard’s digital face.
“Gone out with Evia. Be back for dinner.”
Good, I can get nice and drunk.
Keller left the kitchen and went into his office. He sat at his desk and pulled the half-empty bottle of scotch from its home behind the bottom drawer, along with the tumbler he’d been using for days, pretending that Jacqueline didn’t count or notice it missing. Keller filled the glass and wondered why Jonah had unleashed the virus.
It didn’t make sense. It never had, and even a full tumbler of The State’s best scotch couldn’t make it so. No part of Keller believed the official story—that Jonah had decided to topple City 1 on his own to hit The State where it counted. While Keller could easily see some of the more radical leaders of The Underground pulling such a cowardly move, he couldn’t see it from Jonah.
Jonah was, despite his radical leanings, a good man.
No matter how angry Jonah was over his wife’s murder, his framing for the crime, or even Ana’s fate, Keller couldn’t imagine what would drive an honest man to murder so many innocents. Assuming The Underground had planned the attack—and Keller had no reason to suspect anyone else—he couldn’t think of a way they could ever have managed to drag Jonah into the scheme.
Yet somehow they had, and now nearly half of The State’s crown jewel was a memory.
Keller had studied the footage from Jonah’s attack over and over for hours at a time. The State wasn’t lying about the skeleton of facts: Jonah had definitely done the deed. He was the one on the train unleashing the virus. You could see the guilty horror all over his face. But Keller also thought that Jonah seemed uncertain and didn’t think it was The Underground that had given him the helpful shove.
But who exactly had forced his hand?
Someone helped Jonah get into City 1 and orchestrate the attack. Someone inside City 1.
Someone trusted by The State?
Keller assumed that the Elders had asked him to come here to get to the bottom of the crime, in addition to taking over as the Provisional Leader. But as he poked around, asking questions, his investigation was stonewalled by the Elders, who didn’t want a word whispered about an alternative possibility.
Go about your lives, ladies and gentlemen. Nothing to fear here in City 1.
But Keller was too smart to believe the lies he was forced to tell.
He took another swallow and wondered for the hundredth time, if not the thousandth, who his true enemy was, and when they might strike again.
CHAPTER 15—ADAM LOVECRAFT
Early morning light pounded on Adam’s eyelids, almost forcing them open as he slowly woke to the sound of movement. He managed to keep them closed. Something might be wrong, and if it was, Adam didn’t want to open his eyes to danger. It was best to feign sleep.
He kept his eyes closed, barely moving his fingers, hand slowly inching toward his blaster. Hand around the butt, Adam finally dared to open his eyes. He was ready to shoot . . . but didn’t need to. The “danger” was only Colton, who knelt a few feet across from him, stuffing his pack with supplies that probably weren’t worth the weight on his back.
The old store where they’d been staying had been picked dry already, who-knew-how-many times across who-knew-how-many years. Packing his bag with scraps made Colton seem as desperate as Adam knew he probably was.
With a guilty flush, Adam remembered that he had fallen asleep on the job. After Colton declared that they needed to rest before attempting to reach Zelle, Adam had been supposed to take—and stay awake through—the final shift.
At first, Adam had only pretended to sleep. After arguing with Colton over the necessity of shooting Hooper—which Colton insisted he’d had to do to save both of their lives—Adam wanted time to think. And think he did, over both Colton’s seemingly heartless action, and whether or not Adam would do the same thing if put in that position. Wondering was the last thing he remembered before nodding off and sleeping through the night despite the sporadic gunshots, screams, and rolling groans that seemed an ever- present soundtrack in The Outback.
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
Colton turned to Adam. “I wasn’t tired.”
“Really?”
“That so hard to believe?” Colton feigned insult. “You may be young, kid, but I’m in the prime of my life. There’s an old saying: ‘you’re only as old as you feel.’ Well, I feel fantastic, son. Top o’ my game.”
Colton stood with loudly creaking knees.
“Yeah,” Adam said grinning. “Might wanna grease those rusty gears.”
They laughed together.
After so long without laughing, it was like sun melting snow. Adam had suffered in deep isolation for too long. It felt wonderful just to be with someone, even while facing impossible odds trying to discover the girl who might be able to lead them out of the ravaged city that Kirkman had called The Outback.
Perhaps especially in that situation.
“So,” Adam said. “What’s the plan once we find the girl? How will we convince her to trust us and escape The Outback without us all getting killed?”
“One step at a time,” Colton said. “First we need to reach her.”
“But you do have a plan, right? You’re not just making this up as we go.”
Colton’s face wore no expression.
Adam pressed. “You’re not just winging this . . . right?”
Colton broke into a smile. “Naw, man. I’ve got a plan. Trust me.”
“My dad said to never trust a man who says ‘Trust me.’”
“Your dad was a smart man. If only he had taken his own advice. In the end, it comes to trusting the right people, those who prove themselves, which I think I’ve already done by saving you. Your father, however, trusted Liam Harrow blindly, and it was that blind trust that got him into trouble. Liam ratted him out, ya know? That led to Keller ordering your dad to kill your mom.”
“What do you mean?”
“Keller had a chip put in your dad. A control chip that’s
in all City Watchers. They activated your dad’s and forced him to kill your mother.”
Plenty of Colton’s words sounded—and felt—wrong, but the cloth was too large, and Adam didn’t know where to start cutting. He barely stammered, “W-w-why would Keller do that?”
“Because your father was part of The Underground and a threat to the status quo. And you know what they say about the status quo?”
“What?”
“That men at the top will sell their souls, kill their brothers, and destroy nations if it means they can maintain their power.”
Outside, they heard the sound of clopping hooves on the street.
“Shit,” Adam said jumping up and heading to the window.
Colton was there a beat before him. They stared through the glass as Adam’s heart gathered speed. A black and red stagecoach pulled by four armored horses was on the street below. Atop the stagecoach was a man in a black hat and matching trench coat clutching reins like a cowboy from The Old Nation flix.
It was hard to see inside the carriage, through the thick, drawn curtains and grime-coated windows.
But Adam was most horrified by what he saw behind the stagecoach—two women in blue Darwin Games jumpsuits being dragged by chains. One of the women was older and had dirty, matted blonde hair, but the other was young, with long dark hair, and reminded him of his sister, Ana.
The women wore large metal collars—evil black bands circling their necks and attached to thick black chains that looked to be around 70 feet long. Both looked exhausted, eager to die.
Adam had seen some horrible things happen in The Games. Of course, there was murder—The Darwins were “Kill or Be Killed,” after all—but there were also the rapes, which Adam hadn’t really understood when he was little, but as he got older, he saw how they presented a new level of barbarism as mass entertainment. Now with The Games being held in the lawless Outback, a city crawling with depraved bandits and worse, The Darwins were “throwing meat to the wolves.”
Adam wondered if the women were sex slaves or if they were being dragged behind the stagecoach as some sort of zombie bait. He thought of his father and how Jonah had always said that no matter what, you had to do what was right, even if it was hard or felt wrong. Adam had never stopped believing that, even after he was no longer certain what else he believed.
He couldn’t just sit and do nothing. Adam turned to Colton and looked up into his darkening eyes. “We have to do something.”
“No, we don’t. We sit tight until they pass.”
“But those women look like slaves! We can’t just watch from the window and not do anything.”
“There could be as many as four in the carriage, and old Big Hat on top,” Colton said. “I don’t like the looks of this—at all. We need to hit the building where Zelle is this morning and can’t afford to take unnecessary chances.”
“I saw your shooting,” Adam argued. “You could take two or three of those bandits out before they knew where the shots were coming from.”
Colton looked down again, as if assessing their odds, then met Adam’s eyes. “Do you see the guy driving the coach? You know what that is there beside him?”
Adam peered over the sill again and saw a long thick black rifle, like nothing he’d seen at the Academy. “What is it?”
“It’s called a Hellweaver. It fires ammo in bursts over a target, and those bullets explode above you. It’s like raining fire. One shot up here, we’re done for.”
“Then you hit him first,” Adam said as if raining fire meant nothing.
“And what if they have more Hellweavers inside? What if the coach is bulletproof? What then? We’re not doing anything, kid. Getting into a gunfight with them isn’t just stupid, it’s suicide. We’re too close to everything right now. The building’s just up ahead. We need to reach it. Dealing with the swarm of zombies at the bottom will be bad enough, the last thing we want to do is invite other players, bandits, or more zombies to pay us mind. I’m not trying to be cold, but there’s too much at stake to concern ourselves with worries that aren’t already ours. We can’t afford to have anything stop us from finding the girl. Not to mention that if any Darwin orbs see us together, and somehow catch on to what we’re up to with Zelle, we’ll never get outta here.”
Adam couldn’t believe Colton’s indifference.
“But if we do nothing, those women will die.”
“We were all dead the minute we got here.” Colton turned from Adam, looking down, then out the window. “You can’t save everyone.”
“Maybe not,” Adam stood. “But I can save them.”
He grabbed his blaster and turned toward the stairwell, making it one step before Colton grabbed him hard by the arm, dug his fingers into his flesh, and yanked him back toward the window.
“You can’t do this.” Colton’s face twisted into a scowl. “You’re putting both our lives at risk.”
“Let me go!” Adam shouted loud enough to attract the bandits below.
Colton let go of his arm, eyes wide. “Think about what you’re doing, boy.”
“I know what I’m not doing: sitting up here like a scared old man.”
Adam turned and ran down the stairs two at a time until he reached the street below.
He heard Colton bounding after him, but Adam was too fast, and by the time he hit the door, Colton had already realized the folly of chasing him out into the street.
CHAPTER 16—ANA LOVECRAFT
Ana stormed into Egan’s office.
“Where are Liam and Katrina?”
Egan sat at his desk, hands folded as if waiting for her arrival. One of his youngest soldiers stood behind him, a skinny kid with thick glasses, hand resting on a shock stick hung loosely at his belt. Ana glared, as if daring him to raise it, and made him find something on the floor to stare at.
Egan spoke softly, “Please, Ana, sit.”
She didn’t want to sit, damn it.
She sat, leaned forward and repeated, “Where are Liam and Katrina?”
“They went to The Outback. To look for your brother, of course. This morning. Before you woke.”
“I was supposed to go with them!” she yelled. “You said we could take a skidder and you wouldn’t stop us.”
“Yes, I know what I said. But after speaking with Katrina last night, and then Liam . . . they were both concerned for your safety. They asked if I would give them one of my men if they left you here.”
“Damn it!” Ana said, kicking Egan’s desk. She couldn’t believe Katrina had tricked her like that. And that Liam had gone along with it. Katrina’s move was an unflinching betrayal; Liam’s a knife in her back.
“I’m going too,” she said, standing. “I’m not staying here when my brother’s out there.”
“Yes,” Egan said, “you are. You won’t be going anywhere.”
She spun back to Egan, rage already boiling inside her.
“Are you going to stop me?”
Ana glared at the skinny kid, wishing he’d try something so she could have an excuse to grab his shock stick and use it on him, then maybe on Egan. Though the blaster at her side would be the quickest way of dealing with them both, or any other trouble that might be coming her way.
Egan remained infuriatingly calm. It was as if he were dealing with a child and didn’t see Ana as capable of leaving The Station if she chose. After several seconds of a silence stretched to a maddening length, Egan pulled the elastic further, as if to prove his perfect control, before saying, “You’ll never reach The Outback if you leave on foot. And you’re certainly not taking one of our vehicles. Clark, Katrina, and Liam have already gone with one of our two skidders.”
“Who the hell is Clark?”
“A citizen kind enough to volunteer himself to go in your stead.”
“I didn’t ask for any volunteers,” Ana snapped. “I don’t need anyone to go in my stead. I should be there. Adam is my brother. My responsibility.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, Ana.
Your father would be proud.” Egan gave her a smile that Ana found impossible not to hate. She thought how nice it would feel to carve it from his face with a knife. “But sometimes the right thing to do is the hardest to choose. For you that means staying put even though you don’t want to, so you can help us develop a cure for the virus. That is what’s best for us all.”
She felt a sense of dé-jà vu, hearing her father: sometimes the right thing to do is the hardest.
Ana wanted to keep raging, but even she knew that Egan was basically right. Maybe not about her duty—her brother would always come first—but about her options. She considered them now, and in reality, was left with relatively few. She had no idea how to find The Outback on her own, how far from The Station it was, or how long it would take her to reach it even under the best of circumstances. She could escape and flee The Station, but where would she go once gone? Where would she be safest? Besides: if Liam and Katrina managed to find Adam, they’d immediately return to The Station.
Ana couldn’t risk not seeing her brother again. It was bad enough that she’d lost her mother and father. Adam was all she had left, other than Liam.
No wonder Egan is so calm. He knows he has me.
Ana spent several seconds glaring into his smile, then left his office without another word.
* * *
Ana was sitting on her bed, back to the wall and mind full of darkening thoughts, when there was a quiet, barely audible knock on her door.
“Yes?”
The door opened and Calla timidly stepped into Ana’s room. Calla’s constant companion loomed behind her, like a Grim Reaper in waiting.
Ana looked up at the kid charged to watch Calla. “She’s welcome to come in, but you are not.”
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“She can come in my room, but you may not.”
“I’m supposed to watch her. I can’t just—”
“You can wait outside,” Ana said. “It’s not like she can go anywhere from here.” She gave the kid her coldest stare.
The boy looked nervously back and forth.
