by Mel Odom
“Because he thinks reading is important.”
“Do you?”
Hella kept walking. Around her, other camp defenders raced from corpse to corpse. “You don’t use reading for much while you’re on the trail. Usually for identifying salvage. Occasionally Stampede and I share a book.”
“Share a book?”
“Take turns reading out loud. We don’t waste batteries on vox-players.” Hella hated that she was talking so much and wished she could find some way to shut up. She reminded herself that Stampede’s comm link was on and he could be listening in. The whole situation was embarrassing—at both ends.
“Oh.”
Hella studied Riley’s reaction. She wanted to know if “oh” was a negative reaction and if Riley thought she was being an idiot. Then she told herself that worrying about what he thought proved she was an idiot … at least about that.
“You can learn a lot of things from books.” She sounded more defensive than she wanted to.
“I suppose.” Riley didn’t look convinced.
“Do you read?”
“Manuals. But most of those are computer downloads.”
Hella had seen computers only a few times. “I’ve never used a computer.”
“Really? Because that surprises me. You’ve got nanobots in your body. That should give you some kind of affinity for computer hardware and software, I’d think.” Riley seemed contemplative so Hella didn’t know if he thought her nanobots were like a disease or not.
She also didn’t like admitting that she didn’t know much about the nanobots inside her system. “If I ever get curious about that, maybe I’ll look into it.” She pulled an M4A1 assault rifle from under the dead man. The weapon looked to be in good shape. With a little cleaning, she’d be able to barter it successfully.
“Is it all that important to rob the dead?”
Anger sparked inside Hella. “They’re dead. They’re not going to use any of this stuff again.” She kept moving, forcing Riley to stay up with her. “Besides that, only a short time ago, one of these guys would have killed you. Or anybody else.” She took a breath. “And it’s not robbing them. It’s salvage. It’s also important. These are goods that Stampede and I can use to stay alive. Either we can use them with part of our kit, or we can trade them for stuff we can use. A meal. A room. Supplies.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend.”
“You didn’t.” Hella didn’t want to let him see that she felt defensive, and she was angry at herself for feeling that way because it meant she felt vulnerable.
“I’m just trying to understand. This world … is different from where I grew up.” Riley looked around. “It’s hard and it’s dangerous and it doesn’t care for you very much.”
“Your world cares about you?” The idea was intriguing.
“I think so.” Riley smiled. “We live in homes, Hella. With our families. We’re safe. When we go to bed at night, we don’t have to worry that someone will have a knife at our throats in the morning. There’s always food on the table, and we don’t have much sickness.”
Hella remembered Colleen Trammell’s concern about her daughter and almost asked about that, but she stopped herself. One thing that travelers on the trails learned quickly was to keep their curiosity to themselves. “Pardot is the leader there?”
Riley shook his head. “He’s on the council, but he’s not the leader. His voice is heard, and he gets a lot of respect.”
“Then why is he out here?”
“Because our community is strong and we want to keep it that way. That means we have to find new things and adapt them if we can use them. Dr. Pardot is good with technology. He’s reverse-engineered power sources, machines, and even”—Riley tapped the hardshell armor—“designed some of the microsystems inside these suits. The man is a genius.”
“Sounds like a guy no one should be risking out here.”
Riley nodded. “Everyone thinks that way, and they tried to stop Dr. Pardot from coming. But he doesn’t trust anyone else to do the job.”
That was something Pardot shared with Stampede. Except that Hella knew Stampede trusted her.
“When they found the first—” Riley stopped and grimaced. Then he shook his head. “Sometimes I talk too much.”
“What did they find?”
“I can’t tell you. When the time comes, Dr. Pardot will make sure you know.”
If we’re not dead first. Hella kept that thought to herself. One of the salvagers ran past her.
Riley smiled. “I guess he’s in a hurry.”
“He’s young and stupid. That’s a combination that doesn’t last long. Sometimes, when an invading force has to retreat, they leave booby traps under the bodies of their dead.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Good thing you’re not out looking for salvage.”
“Did these bikers really think they could bring down the trade camp?”
Hella looked at the dozens of dead armadillo men and women spread across the ravaged earth. “They did. But Stampede thinks their leader got desperate.”
“What do you mean?”
“Whoever put these gangs together, the group grew bigger than he expected. At first we thought maybe he was just stupid, believing that more was better.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Look at how many men you’ve got on this expedition. Think about how many supplies you’ve got to bring with you to survive. If you didn’t have your own food, Stampede and I never would have agreed to sign on with you.”
“Why?”
“Because we couldn’t feed you off the land. All we would have been doing was hunting the whole time, and during that time, you people would have been sitting ducks. When people run out of food out in the Redblight, it doesn’t take them long to decide to fit someone from among them in a pot.”
Riley’s face hardened in disgust. “Cannibals?”
“They don’t see it that way. They think of themselves as survivors.”
Riley hesitated.
Hella answered before he could ask the question that was on his mind. “No, I haven’t ever eaten someone. Neither has Stampede. We know how to hunt and trap and fish, and there’s only two of us to feed. We’re sustainable on our own. Autonomous.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Just so you know, we’re buying more food here.”
“Stampede and I know that, and we know you’ve got plenty left to trade with to get more food. Like I said, we weren’t going to bring you out here and watch you starve.” Hella kept walking. “But that’s what the leader of these Purple Dragons was faced with.”
“Watching his people turn into cannibals?”
“Yes. And if they did that, they’d have to have someone to blame.”
“They’d blame him.”
Hella nodded. “So he chose to attack Blossom Heat.”
“Why?”
“If they were able to take the camp, their problems would be over. At least for a while. If they couldn’t—which they weren’t—he’d be able to cut the numbers of his gang down to a more manageable size.”
“He knew they would die.”
“If they believed long enough that they could sack the camp.”
“So all of this was just for attrition?”
“To thin the herd, yeah.”
Riley looked around at all the dead and the devastation; then he looked at Hella. “The world I come from isn’t like this. We aren’t staring down the barrels of guns all day. There’s peace.” He paused. “You should come back with me and let me show you.”
For a moment Hella stood quietly, mesmerized by the idea of seeing where Riley had come from. The idea of a city filled with people appalled her, but getting to see it even for a short time would be fascinating.
“Maybe.” Her answer made Riley smile, but she knew he had too many secrets for her to completely trust him.
An explosion detonated only a short distance away. Riley’s hardshell closed up automaticall
y, covering his face as dirt and rock peppered them. Looking to the left, toward the sound of the explosion, Hella watched as the mutilated body of one of the scavengers dropped back to earth.
A woman, perhaps the dead man’s mother, howled in anguish and rushed over to the smoldering corpse. Two younger children trailed after her. Then an older man joined them, and they collapsed in tears.
Hella felt sorry for them but knew there was nothing she could do. It was already too late, but the rest of the family had learned something that might save another’s life later on.
Riley cursed softly. “Booby trap?”
“Yes.”
“This isn’t a good place to live, Hella. There is more to the world. Think about my offer.”
Hella relaxed in the bathtub and thought about turning the hot water back on. The bathwater hadn’t chilled, but it wasn’t as hot as it had been. She didn’t know if she wanted to listen to the water gurgle, though. At the moment the bath was quiet and the scent of the vanilla candles filled the room.
She kept trying to imagine the place Riley had described to her and couldn’t. Even after reading magazines and books with Stampede, she couldn’t wrap her mind around a place with streets and buildings and homes.
A heavy fist knocked on the door.
By the time Hella lifted her hand from the water, it was a weapon. “Who is it?”
“Me.” Stampede’s voice sounded tired.
“Do you need in?”
“No. Just wanted to make sure you were okay. I heard there were a couple people killed during the salvage.”
“You don’t think I’m foolish enough to get caught by a booby trap.”
“No, but the thought crossed my mind that someone standing next to you might have been.”
Hella smiled and dropped her hand back into the water. “Thanks for caring.”
“I’ll always care, Red. I also wanted to tell you that we’re pulling out in the morning. I tried to talk Pardot into letting the Purple Dragons have more time to scatter or starve out, but we’ve already stayed here a day longer than he wanted to.”
That meant she might be in the last bath. At least she could work in a shower in the morning.
“Look, I heard Riley talking to you about taking you back with them.”
Hella closed her eyes and tried to relax. She really didn’t want to have that conversation at that moment. “He offered. Doesn’t mean I’m going.”
“I know. I just want you to be careful. That’s all.”
Be careful? Hella wanted to argue that point. Their lives weren’t about being careful or safe. They risked their lives every time they agreed to a guide job.
“I came back from the salvage in one piece, didn’t I?” She knew her tone came out sharper than she’d intended.
“You did.” Stampede paused. “Faust and I are having dinner in the big room below. Want to join us?”
“When?”
“How long do you want to soak?”
“Forever. I finally feel clean.”
“You’ll miss dinner if you do that, and what they’re serving is better than stringy rabbit and a few wild onions and carrots.”
“Give me twenty more minutes.”
“Sure. It’ll take that long to drink a beer.” Stampede’s footsteps retreated from the door.
Hella slipped back under the water and submerged completely, shutting off all sensory input except the beating of her heart. She wanted to stay a couple more days at Blossom Heat but only to stay in the bathtub and prune up till she couldn’t stand herself.
That wasn’t an option, though. However, as she lay there, she gave Riley’s description of his world more thought. In his world she’d be able to bathe every night and she’d be in a home that wasn’t filled with other people and noise and demands. She couldn’t imagine why Riley—or any of the expedition for that matter—would leave such a place.
That made her think even more fervently about what Pardot had them searching for. Riley had mentioned they’d found one of something, but one of what?
Just as she was about to surface to take a breath and maybe turn on the hot water again, Colleen Trammell screamed inside her mind.
CHAPTER 12
The raw agony of the woman’s scream reverberated inside Hella’s skull. She thought her head would burst open; then she was afraid it wasn’t going to burst because bursting was the only thing that could possibly alleviate the excruciating pain.
The visions knocked aside some of the throbbing, though. Images of Colleen standing in a laboratory, dressed all in white and wearing a white surgeon’s mask, formed in Hella’s mind. Colleen sat at a table and watched a group of small rodents inside a plastic cage.
Leprous contusions covered most of the rats, several running sores that wept thick, green pus. A number of the rats inside the cage lay dead. Two lay on their sides and kicked through what had to be their death throes.
Tears tracked down Colleen’s face, but her features were devoid of expression. Calmly she shoved her hands into waldos, mechanical gloves built into the cage, and caught one of the rodents in one hand. The creature was so sick, it couldn’t move much even though it was panicked. Its ears, nose, and paws were white as paper from improper blood circulation. “Give me the serum.”
A lab-coated assistant standing nearby took a vial from a protective case. The contents were colorless, and the fluid looked like water.
“Load the injector.” Colleen waited patiently but Hella sensed the impatience and fear inside the woman. Hella tried to break free of the experience, not wanting to observe whatever was coming, and couldn’t. Colleen’s hold on her mind was too strong.
The assistant attached the vial to a tube hooked into an apparatus that looked like a small, sleek pistol inside the plastic rodent cage. Colleen squeezed the trigger experimentally, and the apparatus cycled with a soft whir. Cautiously, she cupped the rodent in one gloved palm, slid the needle into the animal’s hindquarters, and triggered the injector.
The apparatus whined as it cycled, and the rodent struggled to escape Colleen’s grip. Tiny bubbles formed in the tubing as fluid drained. Colleen waited, her breath held and her chest tight with anxiety so strong that Hella felt it.
The rodent squirmed and squealed, barely audible because it was so weak and the plastic cage was so thick. Pink returned to the rodent’s ears, nose, and extremities. More energy flowed through it, and it fought against the big, black glove that held it.
“Everything looks good, Dr. Trammell.” The assistant’s voice was thin and quiet. “The serum is working.”
Colleen didn’t say anything. Hella felt the woman’s doubt and fear. Her breath rasped dryly against the back of her throat.
The rodent suddenly convulsed, and Hella thought the reaction was even more horrifying because she couldn’t feel the movement. Blood suddenly streamed from the creature’s eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and anus. Small, crimson bubbles popped over its nose as it panted. It managed one final, shuddering breath, then lay still.
“No.” Colleen’s voice broke as she moaned.
Hella didn’t understand the woman’s reaction. The rodent was just a creature, not even edible unless someone were desperate. And that was only if it had been healthy, which it obviously was not.
Then suddenly the rodent was gone, replaced by the body of a small girl with mouse-brown hair. She lay on her side, blood streaming from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
“No! Alice!”
Sheer panic thrummed inside Hella, and she tried to look away from the dead girl in the cage. It wasn’t real.
She had been dreaming.
Hella sat up in bed with someone holding her by the shoulders. Instinctively she fought against the hold and morphed her hands into weapons.
“Hella!” Stampede’s voice rang out in the darkness of the room as he grabbed her wrists. Moonlight filtered in through the window and gave her just enough light to see him standing at the side of her bed. “Hella!”
“Okay. You can let me go.” Irritably she pushed at his hands, knocking them from her wrists.
“What happened?”
“Bad dream.”
Stampede studied her. “Not like you to have bad dreams.”
“Plenty of reasons after this morning.” Hella scooted up in bed and placed her back against the headboard mounted on the wall. She didn’t want to talk to Stampede about what she’d seen. Giving voice to the horror in that lab seemed obscene. She wouldn’t give the nightmare any more time than it had already demanded.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.” Never. Hella reached for the water bottle on the nightstand, uncapped it, and took a few sips. Her throat was so parched, it felt as though it would crack. For the first time, she realized she was covered in perspiration.
“You going to be able to go back to sleep?”
She looked at him, his shaggy face shadowed and barely revealed by the thin moonlight. “Sure.” She shrugged. “If I don’t, I’ll just sleep in the saddle tomorrow.”
“Until the Sheldons wake you up.” Stampede examined her.
“I’m fine. Really. Go back to sleep.”
Stampede looked as if he wanted to argue then decided against it. He lumbered over to his bed and lay down. He was calm, complete, and looked totally relaxed. In seconds, he was snoring.
Hella took a few more sips of water. She wanted to get up and start her day, try to shake the cobwebs of the nightmare from her head, but she knew she was too tired and there was too much night left. If she got up, she’d be almost useless during most of the next day. It wouldn’t have been fair to Stampede.
She lay back down and closed her eyes, and she sent a mental message to Colleen Trammell to stay out of her mind.
After being cooped up in the barn the whole previous day, Daisy was restless. She tramped anxiously and strained at the reins in a manner that she seldom exhibited. Hella grew tired of fighting her and wished they could get through the gates and back into the forest. That was what Daisy wanted.
Riley had his men already suited up and on their vehicles. They had replenished their rolling larders with purchases at Blossom Heat. Stampede had told Hella to help examine the goods, and that had been the most boring hour Hella had spent in a long time.
