Into Shadow

by T. D. Shields

  I shrugged one shoulder casually.

  “Cha, he doesn’t get along with my cat,” I told him. As if on cue, Roomie chose that moment to pop his head out of the backpack and glared balefully over my shoulder at the three men. I snickered as all three of these big, brave men jumped back at the surprise appearance of my cat.

  “What the … You have a cat in your backpack?” the blonde asked incredulously.

  “What? You don’t?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I’d followed Lucas through a maze of city streets for what felt like an hour. I was pretty sure it had not actually been that long, but in the dark with icy wind whipping at every bit of exposed skin, time seemed to move much more slowly. By the time Lucas pulled off the street into a small, fenced parking lot almost every muscle in my body was stiff with cold. Only the center of my back was still warm since Roomie was curled up inside my backpack again, and his body heat protected that one area from the chill. I pulled into the lot behind him and slowly dragged myself off the bike. I fumbled with the twine tying my bundle of belongings to the bike, unable to get my fingers to cooperate. Lucas stepped in to untie the knots and lift my bundle off the bike.

  “I’ll take it,” he told me. He patted me on the back with one huge hand, shaking my whole body with that casual gesture. “Come on inside. We’ll get you a space to rest up for a bit before we talk about what you plan to do next.”

  I was grateful for the offer. It had been a long couple of days and I was ready to drop in my tracks. Right now I wanted nothing more than a place to lie down and close my eyes. Lucas led me to the base of a tall glass office tower. In the light of the moon I could see that it had been very tall and graceful at one time, but it now ended in a jagged border against the sky about 20 floors up.

  It was hard to tell in the dark, but I was pretty sure I saw the tell-tale shimmer of Solaris-Web running through the glass walls of the tower. Solaris-Web had been developed about fifty years ago as an alternative to bulky solar panels. The webbing was embedded in the very materials that made up the outside of the building and soaked up solar energy all day. The Solaris fibers carried the energy through the walls to provide power inside the building. Since the technology had been very new when the war started, this must have been one of the first buildings ever built using the solar-powered webbing.

  I had to pull my attention back to ground level to avoid tripping over the large cracks and bumps in the sidewalk beneath my feet. There were also piles of debris cluttering the sidewalk and hugging the foundations of the building. We stopped at a break in the rubble where a man was standing guard. He was short and broad with wiry dark hair and three long parallel scars running down his left cheek.

  He had obviously seen us coming, because he immediately pulled open the “door” formed by a large piece of plywood blocking a gaping hole in the wall behind him. Lucas and I slipped past him with a murmured thanks, and he pushed the wood back into place behind us.

  I paused to take a good look around as Lucas turned to speak to another guard who was on duty inside the building. After a few murmured sentences, the guard slipped away on an errand for Lucas, leaving us alone in the quiet shadows. We appeared to be standing in an open lobby area that filled much of the ground level. Perhaps this had been a hotel or a very nice bank? Whatever its original purpose, this had obviously been a very nice building before the war turned so much of it to rubble.

  As I’d suspected there would be, dim lights shone through; almost certainly powered by the Solaris-Web. Engraved wall sconces around the edges of the room created small pools of golden light in the cavernous darkness of the enormous lobby. To still work after so many years meant they were very well-made.

  The building was warm, too, much warmer than just being inside would account for. The solar power must have been providing heat to the building as well. After so many months living a Spartan existence, the thought of these modern conveniences in the middle of the blighted city was miraculous. Before I could ask Lucas about these luxuries, I heard the sound of running footsteps racing down the wide staircase leading into the lobby. I looked over and saw Sharra, blue and pink hair exploding from a high ponytail atop her head. She was beaming as she ran across the lobby and snatched me into a fierce hug.

  “Poppy! I’m so, so happy to see you! I felt so terrible to leave you behind! I’ve been feeling so guilty. Now to see you here and looking okay; well, what a relief! Do you forgive me for dragging you off to Denver and then abandoning you?”

  I hugged her back and assured her that I was not the least bit angry with her. “Not your fault,” I insisted. “I knew why you took off. And hey, I managed to handle things myself.”

  “That’s for sure,” Sharra agreed with a wide grin. “Every pack in the city has been talking about that encounter for months. Eddie is generally considered pretty tough, and this little tiny bit of a girl took him down? Cha, even his own friends couldn’t keep quiet about it, though I’m sure he wished they would.”

  Sharra laughed and finally turned me loose. “I was not at all surprised by the story, of course. After all, I saw you take out a mech fighter. Eddie was hardly going to be a challenge compared to that.”

  “He wasn’t expecting me to push back,” I explained, “and I think maybe he’d been drinking. That made it easier. I was lucky, really.”

  “So modest,” she said, shaking her head. “Allow me to just continue enjoying my mental image of you beating him up without breaking a sweat. It makes me happy.”

  I rolled my eyes but smiled. “You can keep any illusions you want to hang onto if you’ll just let me stay here where it’s warm and point me to a flat space where I can pass out for a few hours.”

  Lucas passed my bundle of belongings to Sharra and said, “Why don’t you give her a five-minute orientation for now and get her settled for the night? You can give her the full tour tomorrow.”

  Sharra nodded, “Sounds good. See you tomorrow.”

  Lucas gave me another of those staggering pats on the back and left us. We watched him go for a moment before Sharra turned back to me. "I’ll show you just the basics for now, so you can find your way around a little. Should we start with the restrooms?”

  With so much going on, I actually hadn't even thought about that, but now that Sharra brought it up, I suddenly needed to pee so badly I could barely control myself. "Yes, please," I begged. “I really need to find a bathroom.”

  Sharra led me down a short hallway to what had been an enormous glass wall. All the glass was gone now, shattered by the bombs that had destroyed so much of the building, I assumed. Behind the formerly glassed-off area was the remains of a state-of-the-art – as of twenty years ago – gym. The various machines had been dismantled now, only pieces of them remaining. They had probably been scavenged for parts to fix machinery more useful than old workout equipment.

  We walked through the former gym to reach a pair of side-by-side doors in glossy black. The fussily engraved silver medallions at the center of each door proved to be palmprint scanners, though the dull colors of the security displays indicated that the scanners were no longer active. That was no surprise; the scanners would need electricity to operate. The solar lighting in the old building could operate without a working electrical system, but complex electronics like scanner locks would require a stable source of power.

  "Locker rooms," Sharra informed me as she pushed open the door etched with an elaborately fashioned female stick figure. The second door boasted a similarly styled male stick figure.

  The women's locker room was tiled in stark black with gleaming white fixtures and shining silver hardware. While the other areas I'd seen had a coating of dust and rubble, this room had been scrubbed ruthlessly clean. Sharra pointed to the left saying, "Showers," and to the right as she said, "Toilets."

  My eyes widened in surprise. "Running water?" I asked. "How is that possible?" And then, "Hold that thought. Tell me after I pee."

  I dashed into one
of the little cubicles on the right and availed myself of the working plumbing. Much relieved, I returned to the sink area and washed my hands, then splashed some water on my face and ran my fingers through my hair. That was all the effort I was willing to put into freshening up at the moment; I was just too tired to do more.

  Sharra could see my weariness; she grabbed my elbow to steer me from the room as she said, "We'll walk and talk so you can get your explanation on your way to bed."

  "Bed," I half moaned. "That sounds amazing."

  Sharra smirked, "I don't know that amazing is the right word; the mattresses here are all at least 20 years old after all. But there's no shortage of them at least. This place was a huge hotel back in the day. We think most of the meeting rooms and conference spaces were on the upper floors, probably to take advantage of the view; so there are a lot of relatively undamaged bedrooms in the lower levels that didn't collapse."

  We walked back to the lobby as Sharra continued her explanation. The floors were covered in fine marble tiles and the furniture, while dusty and worn after all this time, had obviously been of high quality. There were a number of chairs and loveseats scattered around the large room; most were occupied by sleeping people. A few raised their heads to watch us through sleepy and curious eyes.

  Sharra ignored them, so I did my best to do the same as we started up a dramatic set of dusty marble stairs to the second floor. "Lucas's dad Daryn founded this pack shortly after the city was bombed out and abandoned. Since no one else was really here yet, he got to take his pick when it came to choosing a home base. Even though this building looks like a wreck, it still has good bones. And of course, there’s the Solaris-Web, which made a huge difference. Daryn was one of the engineers who installed the Solaris-Web when the building was built, so he knew enough about the system to repair some of the infrastructure. He and the pack rigged up a whole cistern and filter system on the top level and managed to patch it in to existing plumbing. It's all gravity fed, so it doesn't need much power to operate. The pipes only lead to the locker rooms and the kitchens though. The rest of the building is dry."

  "So it's just running on rainwater?" I asked interestedly. "I guess Denver gets enough precip for that to work. It seems to pour here every afternoon."

  "Thanks to climate change," Sharra agreed. “This whole area used to have a lot of trouble with drought; we would have had a much harder time making it without easy access to water. But these days there’s so much rain and snow that we really never have to worry about water here.”

  That made sense. Global climate change had already been an issue even before the war, but the way the war had added gasses and particulates to the atmosphere and changed the landscape of entire regions had drastically altered weather patterns over much of the world. The results in Denver had obviously led to more rain and snow than had previously been common for the area.

  We reached the top of the stairs and turned left. Sharra led me to an open door a few steps down the hallway. Inside I could see a small desk and chair and a wide, soft-looking bed. I didn’t even wait for Sharra to tell me that I could use the room before I stumbled inside, plopped my backpack on the desk, and climbed into the bed. I was asleep before she closed the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke sunshine peeked through small tears and holes in the ancient curtains. A hundred aches and pains made themselves known as I climbed out of bed, reminders of my work making a path through the old convention center yesterday.

  I walked over to the desk to check on Roomie, but he wasn’t in the backpack. I did a quick search of the small room, but he was nowhere to be found. I had to assume that he had found a way out of the room and that he would find his way back later if he wanted to. He seemed to be feeling better now; he might just decide not to be friendly anymore. I hoped he would come back, but there was nothing I could do about it. Either he would or he wouldn’t. In the meantime, I decided to do a few katas to try and stretch my stiff muscles. Then I would find my way back downstairs to those wonderful bathrooms. After six months of living in primitive conditions, toilets and showers seemed like incredible luxuries.

  I shoved the bed and desk to the edges of the room to make space for my workout. With the furniture out of the way, I actually had plenty of space to move. As usual, I began with yoga to warm and stretch my muscles before moving into katas. Spending the night in a soft, warm bed had left me energized this morning, so I chose one of the most complicated and difficult katas I knew. It involved a number of leaps, turns, kicks, and punches that had my hands and feet flying through the air at top speed. I followed the complicated choreography of the kata my father and I had jokingly referred to as “The Whirling Dervish” until it ended with a dramatic backward roll into a low foot sweep and a backfist throat punch. Holding my final position for a moment, I grinned with the exhilaration of a well-executed routine. It was always fun to do a complicated set and get it exactly right.

  I got to my feet and turned when I heard the applause. Sharra and Lucas stood in the doorway, clapping in appreciation for my performance. I would have revealed my embarrassment with a blush if my face hadn’t already been so red from exertion. For once, I could be grateful for my pale red-head’s complexion, which caused my face to flush beet-red at the mere hint of exercise. Being able to blame my rosy cheeks on the energetic katas allowed me to play it cool in response to their attention.

  “Good morning,” I said calmly.

  “Good morning,” Lucas rumbled in response. “I begin to see how you walked away from a skirmish with Eddie and took care of yourself in the rough for six months.”

  “You’re definitely not the soft townie that I would have expected,” Sharra agreed as they stepped inside and closed the door behind them. “I doubt anyone who ever watched Miss Perfect Poppy on the evening news holo would believe you could do that.”

  The room had seemed plenty big enough a few minutes ago, but the space felt very small now that Lucas was standing so close. At my height, I was used to having people look down at me, though generally I was wearing one of my many pairs of high heels to lessen the effect. But even in my tallest heels, I’d have been significantly shorter than Lucas; without those confidence-boosters, I felt positively dwarfed by his proximity. As usual when I felt a bit threatened, I took the offensive.

  “Cha,” I muttered, tipping my head back absurdly far to overemphasize his height. “How tall are you, anyway? You are freakishly large.”

  He just grinned at me, the cheerful expression taking him from just nice-looking to seriously gorgeous, and my heart skipped a beat. I kept my face blank, not betraying my sudden surge of attraction. “Maybe you are freakishly small? My size is very useful when I’m standing guard or fighting off a rival pack, or even just to intimidate others so that I don’t have to actually fight. I’m not sure what benefit your tiny size would bring.”

  “It does help others underestimate me,” I said, just before aiming a blow at his chiseled chin. He instinctively moved to block me, but it had been just a feint and I had already redirected my blow to strike him in the stomach. I pulled most of the force since I didn’t really want to hurt him; I used just enough strength to let him know that I could have done worse if I’d chosen to. Even at that reduced speed, I bruised my hand a little striking his muscular abdomen. The man was seriously ripped.

  He let out a small “oof” of expelled breath but didn’t otherwise react to my attack other than to study me more closely.

  “Are you always so ready to fight, little Red?” he asked.

  I thought about his question for a moment. Though I had not previously reacted so physically to threats, my father’s training ensured that I was always prepared for problems and acted swiftly. In the past I had usually responded with a cutting remark or careful word in the right ear to take care of the problem, but I was always up for the challenge. I looked Lucas in the eye and nodded. “Yes,” I said simply. “Pretty much.”


  He smiled, “Excellent.”

  Sharra took a seat on the bed. Patting the spot beside her, she instructed me to sit with her and directed Lucas to take the armless chair from the desk. Flipping it around, Lucas sat backward on the chair, leaning his folded arms on the back.

  “So,” he said. “Poppy Walker. What are we to do with you, then? According to all the news coming out of Goodland, you’re currently lying in a crypt in the National Cemetery. And yet … here you are. The new President has mourned your death quite dramatically. Does he know that you are here instead of there?”

  “He doesn’t know where I am now,” I assured him, “but he is quite aware that I’m not in that tomb.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Why, then, is he pretending that you are?”

  I glanced at Sharra, who gave me an encouraging nod. Really, what other options did I have? It was already obvious that I would have a hard time surviving on my own here. Without Sharra’s help I would never have gotten this far. I was a good fighter and I could protect myself from a lot of threats, but I simply didn’t know enough about life in this damaged city. If I was going to survive long enough to get revenge on Cruz for his betrayal, I would need to ally myself with someone.

  I had already decided to trust Sharra, and she obviously trusted Lucas. Ideally, I would be able to move slowly and get to know more about them before making a decision to align myself with this group, but that was in my past life. As Poppy Walker I’d been able to dance delicately around relationships without making a commitment; that was simply expected in political circles. But the old rules no longer applied.