by R. K. Gold
"I think I might have one," Jakobe spoke up. All eyes in the room turned to him.
15
They were in and out of consciousness for the next day and a half as the captain knocked them out with anesthesia to implant a tracker. When they came around, they barely noticed the scars on their ankles. If it weren't for the captain telling them about the procedure ahead of time, they might've missed the small scar entirely.
The general, Fol, and Vyle were on board with Jakobe's lie about coming from the East. "When the Hammers came, I knew it was time to leave. My gang turned on me, but I had to take the fight to Red Eye. I didn't know much about the West, but I knew he was the only man alive to have communication with Hammers. Whatever deal he made with them to send them east was enough to turn me against him."
"You need more than that," Vyle said. "You're trying to survive. That's something she can relate to. The East is nothing but a bunch of bottom feeders; no one from that side of the storm divide would ever take up arms for a greater good. All they think about is their next meal and where the fresh water is coming from." Vyle sat in one of the two chairs in their cell. Fol sat in the other while Jakobe and Sedi were stuck on the bed.
"Shouldn't we be preparing for the escape?" Sedi asked.
"The escape is the easy part. It'll be over in a few minutes. If you mess up when you're out there and blow your cover, then you've screwed us," Fol said.
"Again," Vyle chimed in and rotated her index finger signaling Jakobe to review his story.
When they felt like he nailed a believable alibi, unaware it was how he actually came to the West in the first place, they reviewed the plan of the actual escape. Fol was right, compared to convincing Dez they were on her side, the escape felt like a breeze. The base would lead them to the grasslands and the hills where Dez's gang was last spotted. All they'd have to do was follow the path of unlocked doors.
"We can't use blanks; it's gotta feel real. She'll be in a bit of a dazed state, so some details can slide, but you gotta move like your life depends on it, got it?" Fol asked, snapping his fingers at them. Sedi and Jakobe both nodded.
"Get a good night's sleep; tomorrow you're free men," he said and left the cell.
16
The white lights shut off, and flashing red ones blinked on. A loud siren screeched through the cellblock, and their door shot open. Jakobe and Sedi burst out the door to the echoing sound of gunfire. They both dropped to the floor and covered the backs of their heads.
"We got a prison break!" a guard yelled, and the fire commenced. The two of them crawled down the cell blocks looking for Dez's door. It was the one marked with a large Red Eye, most likely to taunt her. The keys were in the pocket of the dummy guard beside the door. The details of the doll were uncanny. It had short blond hair and bags under its eyes, making it look sleep-deprived. Jakobe could feel body heat rising off its torso as he reached for the card swipe to open the cell door.
They unlocked the door, and Dez was waiting. She leaped into the hall and rolled to her feet. Her fists were up ready to fight. She looked at Sedi and Jakobe with rage and cocked her fist back, ready to strike when a flash of recognition crossed her eyes.
"You two—you—"
"Trying to get outta here," Sedi said and ran off down the hall.
Dez searched the dummy guard, and Jakobe's stomach tightened. He could see their plan going up in smoke. Fol underestimated how dazed she would be. Despite being sleep-deprived, she looked just as alert as he remembered.
At least that's how she seemed. She threw the jacket closed when she found a thin, black, baton on the guard's person then chased after Jakobe and Sedi. "This way!" she shouted and checked her shoulder into the closest door.
Jakobe sighed. It was unlocked. They were heading the right way. He ducked when he heard gunfire, though all the shots were high. Debris from the ceiling and upper wall dusted his shoulders. He ran after Dez and Sedi, unsure how she took the lead from them so quickly. It felt like it was for the best. How could they betray her if she was the one leading them?
Another door opened without resistance, another sigh of relief. "This way! This way!" Sedi shouted and ran ahead. The lights blinked on and off. Jakobe saw Dez's hair whip around the corner as she chased after Sedi. They didn't have much further to run.
"I found 'em!" a high-pitched voice shouted. Jakobe turned around and saw a mouse-faced man grinning. He aimed his rifle at Jakobe just as he rounded the corner. In his gut, he knew the shot wasn't high, and if he hesitated he would've been hit.
He couldn't find Sedi or Dez. The moment he turned around to look at Foyle was enough time for them to get away. He ran to the closest door on the right and pulled the handle. It didn't budge. "Damnit!" he shouted.
"Yoo-hoo!" the high-pitched voice called out and fired a round at the ground. Jakobe hit the deck and covered the back of his head with his hands. The bullet ricocheted off the walls. The echoing shot rung in his ears.
"Thought getting away would be that easy, huh?" Foyle asked and let his rifle fall to his side, still attached to his shoulder strap. He pulled out his taser and pressed the switch. Jakobe's chest tightened when it sparked. "You're dead, Ko—dead." He grinned and lunged the taser forward like fangs on a cobra.
Jakobe crawled back and kicked his foot in the air. He didn't aim; he just needed to hit something. He connected with Foyle's hand, and he heard something knock against the ground. When he saw the taser between them, he lunged for it. Foyle reached too, and neither could secure a grip. Foyle flipped it on to scare Jakobe off, but Jakobe pulled his hand closer to his face and bit down on his wrist.
Foyle pushed his free hand against Jakobe's face and dug his fingers into any hole he could find. When they found his eyes, Jakobe let go and ran down the hall. He turned left and pulled on the door at the end. It was locked. "Shit!"
He ran back, and Foyle blocked his path. He wasn't alone. At least seven men in red uniforms and identical buzz cuts entered the hall and aimed their rifles at Jakobe.
Jakobe raised his hands over his head. How was he the one who got left behind? If anyone should've been trapped, it should've been Sedi. "I think the captain would like to have a word with you." Foyle couldn't contain his smile. He sounded on the verge of cackling. Jakobe looked at the ground, not wanting to feel those beady black eyes on him any longer.
The lights blinked on and off more rapidly. Foyle pulled out wrist restraints and walked over beside Jakobe. Before he could put the first one on, the lights went out. Jakobe could still feel Foyle beside him and threw an elbow into his gut with all his weight. When Foyle groaned and faltered back, Jakobe landed a kick between his legs and felt the opening for the hall. He sprinted to the end and pulled the handle. It clicked and opened. He heard gunfire from the hall the second he closed it, and the lights blinked back on.
At the end of the hall was a hangar. Scores of men and women were scanning the computers. "It wasn't a hack!" someone shouted as Jakobe ducked behind the nearest crate for cover. No one in the hangar looked like a soldier. None of them even looked armed, and they were all distracted by the large monitors in front of them but walking through undetected didn't seem possible.
He looked up at the fishbowl—an angular window jutting out from the floor above overlooking the hangar. He recognized Fol the half-giant. After looking at a single monitor, he turned it off and looked across the hangar. Though there was no way he could see Jakobe, Jakobe still felt his eyes on him. He peered over the crate a little taller and locked eyes with Fol, who nodded to the opposite end of the room.
Jakobe followed his gaze and spotted Dez's blue hair. She was hiding behind a pile of scrap metal and a large, unoccupied monitor, and held something to her ear. Jakobe couldn't see what it was, but when he moved closer, he spotted Sedi's pale face. His cheeks were flushed, and his forehead was coated in sweat.
Staying low, Jakobe swallowed the lump in his throat and ran to them. Dez grabbed his arm when he was a couple feet away and yanked him behind th
e scrap pile. "Where'd you go?" Sedi asked.
"Got held up by Foyle." Jakobe wasn't in the mood to go into detail. He wanted to ring that mousy neck.
"Did he follow you to the hangar?" Dez asked.
"I delayed him, but we gotta get outta here now," Jakobe said.
"No shit, but we got nowhere to go but back unless you wanna run through this lot," Sedi replied.
"I'll take my chances with that before I step back in that base. Is the city this way?" Jakobe asked.
"This is Hangar B; the city is through A. We're back in the grasslands if we can open those doors and get out," Dez said and pointed at the large metal doors on the far side of the hangar. She rubbed the mark under her eye and winced like it burned her. "I agree, our only way out is through those doors. We just need to—" She stopped talking when the door Jakobe snuck through moments ago was kicked open. The guards who cornered him in the hall burst through, and Foyle ran to the far end of the hangar.
"You saw the prisoners? Have the prisoners escaped through the hangar?" he asked and whistled at the guards behind him, spinning his finger into the air to round them up. Foyle looked up at the fishbowl and locked eyes with Fol. "Open the hangar doors!" he shouted.
"Why would they open the doors?" Dez whispered.
"Maybe they think we escaped," Sedi replied.
"They've been spotted in the hills. Go get 'em!" Foyle pointed out the hangar, and the men who followed him rushed to the four-wheelers under the fishbowl and rode out.
Foyle looked out in disgust. He spat out the hangar door and walked back down the hall he came from. Each step made his face contort like he walked over a thousand thumbtacks. All the monitors in the room went black. A message displayed in the center reading "Return to Central Circle." One by one the remaining engineers in the hangar disappeared into the base.
When they were all gone, Dez ran for the four-wheeler.
17
"You two start talking now," Dez said and aimed a pistol at Jakobe. They escaped the hangar and rode through the hills. Dez tucked the four-wheeler under a ledge, out of sight of most of the grasslands, and pulled a loaded pistol out of the glovebox.
"Hold up, why are you turning on us right now?" Sedi asked as he held his hands in the air.
"’Cause nothing about that escape felt convincing. I wanna know what Cardinvale is planning, and something tells me you two are gonna have some answers," Dez said and turned the pistol to Sedi. He choked down a swallow when the barrel aimed at him.
"What makes you think we know anything?" Jakobe asked.
"’Cause if you don't, you're no use to me, and I'll leave your corpses here for Cardinvale to find," she said.
"That won't stop them from finding you after," Jakobe replied. He knew she wasn't going to buy a story about them being on the same side. She was too suspicious of them and probably expected they were working for Cardinvale trying to get in with her. Only thing she wouldn't know is why. "We don't work for Cardinvale, but we heard a lot about why you were wanted by them. Cut off their water supply for a month?"
"Two," she said and cocked the hammer back. "What's your point?"
"My point is we know what they're after, and we know why they wanted to let you out, but we aren't working for them. We just wanna go back to the city," Jakobe replied.
"The city—the city in the storm?" Dez asked. "You are with Red Eye!"
"No—no—no, not with Red Eye. Just under his control," Sedi cut in, holding up a finger.
"What's the difference?"
"The difference is if we help you get back to the Face Gardner we all live. If we fail, we all die," Jakobe said.
"That was their plan? For me to lead them to her? Never gonna happen. I'll sooner run east."
"They'll hunt you down and kill you."
"Better to kill me than her. She's our only hope of stopping Red Eye.” She raised the gun to Jakobe's forehead. "You'd let her die just to live?"
"There's nothing more heroic than finding a way to live. That's what I learned back east."
"Then you know nothing of the atrocities Red Eye has done," Dez said.
"I might have an idea. I recognize that mark under your eye. I rode with someone who had a similar mark on his chest. He told me his lab along with all the others back east were destroyed. I'm gonna guess the labs this side of the divide are still functioning," Jakobe said.
"How do you think Red Eye learned to clean the water in the first place? I don't know ifhe made the cure, but I know he made money from it—and I know he has an antidote for the infected, not that the West has many of those left. Once the water was cleaned, and the last of the infected were saved, the labs got to be a bit more creative with their experiments," Dez said.
"You can't be older than twenty; how do you know all this?" Sedi asked.
"I'm at least triple that age," she said and rubbed the v under her cheek. She then mouthed, "Can they hear us?"
Sedi and Jakobe nodded simultaneously. "Tagged," Jakobe mouthed back, and her eyes widened with recognition. Not only could they hear them, but they could also track their movements. If Dez killed them, they would find their bodies and go after her.
She mimed a pencil in the air, and the two agreed. If they were going to communicate, they needed to find a way to pass messages without the microphone picking up what they were saying. Besides, Jakobe didn't care whose side he was on as long as it kept him alive. He would happily fight for the Face Gardner if it stole him a few extra days, and he'd happily share her location with Cardinvale if it bought him a few more. This war between Red Eye and the western tribes were none of his concern.
"We should find my crew," Dez broke the silence.
"How're we gonna do that? They could be anywhere," Sedi said.
Dez shot him a “you can't be serious” look. "We know how to survive—we know how to run, but we also know how to find each other." She hopped back in the four-wheeler and drove off once Jakobe and Sedi joined her.
18
They reached the main road heading toward the mountain. It was the same road Sedi and Jakobe rode through the storm divide on, the same road Dez's crew chased them off of right into Cardinvale. "Our land is shrinking every day. There are only so many places we can hide.” She nodded to the mountain.
"We're going there?" Sedi asked.
"It overlooks Red Eye's outer ring, but he's never been able to claim the mountain for himself. He can use whatever tech he wants; we can match it just enough to protect ourselves, and the natural protection will do all the rest," Dez said and accelerated down the road. "We're not gonna make it by sundown though."
"Why is that a problem?" Sedi asked.
"Take your pick. The Five have tech that can spot a fly a hundred yards away in the dark. The unconquered territories are full of tribes that aren't friendly to their own kind, let alone strangers, and of course, there's the possibility of a Hammer cohort from the North."
On top of all of that, Cardinvale put trackers in all of them. Jakobe wasn't sure if that made him feel more secure or more in danger. "How're we gonna camp for the night?"
"We'll rotate watches. These four-wheelers usually have some supplies in them in case of emergency," Dez said and pulled off the road. After they passed the first hill and were out of sight of the road, she stopped the car to search the back for anything she could find. "Got one sleeping bag, a first aid kit, a hunting knife and the pistol." She waved the gun in the air as a reminder of who was in charge.
"And I assume you'll want first watch," Jakobe said and folded his arms.
"Why? Cause I don't trust you? I'll let one of you take first watch if that'll make ya feel better. I know you both need me more than I need you."
Sedi and Jakobe held their breaths, worried she would go into more detail. That alone was enough to tip off Cardinvale that she knew they were being tracked, but they could also read it as they need her to survive in the West.
"I'll take first; you'll take second; Sedi's got third," Jak
obe pointed as he spoke.
"Whatever makes ya feel better," Dez replied and hopped off the four-wheeler. She laid out the sleeping bag and went through the first aid kit. "Take the keys in case you need the lights." She tossed them to Jakobe and went back to examining the med kit.
Jakobe kept his eyes on Dez more than the rest of his surroundings. He thought he was far more likely to take a knife in the back from her than to face any of the other threats she mentioned. As the night weighed on and the silence deepened, Jakobe struggled to keep his eyes open. He stared at the outline of the mountain under the half moon but found himself closing his eyes and just imagining the mountain was painted on the inside of his eyelids.
"You need a break?" Dez asked in a surprisingly calm voice.
Jakobe nearly fell out of the four-wheeler when she broke the silence. For a brief moment, he felt wide awake. His heart pounded furiously in his chest. Dez chuckled and held her empty hands in the air.
"I come in peace, see?" she asked, looking at her open palms.
"What do you want?" Jakobe yawned. His drowsiness came back in full effect. He couldn't remember the last time he had a full night’s sleep. The last two days he was a nervous wreck preparing for the breakout.
"You look like you need to catch some rest. I can take it from here."
"I got it a little longer."
"You're gonna be no help to anyone tomorrow if you pass out."
"What's going down tomorrow when we find your crew? Are they gonna fight us or something?"
"Nothing like that—at least I doubt it'll be anything like that. They aren't too fond of new recruits, though, and they'll be even less enthused about how we met."
"Why's that? It's not like we were allies of Cardinvale. You chased us into their territory."
"You rode through ours first," Dez shot back, but neither of them sounded ready to escalate to an argument. Jakobe didn't care whose fault it was at that moment in time; all he wanted to do was fall asleep. His shoulders weighed a ton, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to even step out of the four-wheeler.
