by T. K. Malone
Zac smiled as he kept pace.
About a half hour later, Saggers pulled them up again. “Hear that?”
Jimmy nodded. Then Zac heard it. He took his machine gun off his shoulder. “How many they brought, Jimmy?”
“Depends, Zac.” Jimmy took his own gun down. “I hope you’re not thinking of shootin’ the club up.”
Trouble was, Zac knew he hadn’t been thinking at all. What if Connor was just a shell? What if Grimes had already killed him? What if the club got in the way?
“No, there’ll be no shootin’, just as long as I get my way.” He winked and then laughed. Saggers walked on for another ten minutes before he began creeping, the rest of them following suit behind him, crouching as they slipped through the undergrowth. The steady rumble of bikes grew louder. Zac could smell their exhausts, the stench of his old club. Saggers eventually stopped and pointed down through the trees.
“That’s my house, there,” he hissed as he settled down in the undergrowth.
Zac could see what looked like a house which had been in the path of a hurricane, all splinters of wood and roof tiles. Saggers shuffled over a bit more. “There, that’s better.”
The bikers were there, milling around, then most of them roared off, heading farther up the valley. Those who stayed, wheeled their bikes into the undergrowth just past Saggers’ wreck of a house, then continued milling around and smoking.
“What are they doing?” Jimmy asked.
“Fishin’,” Loser said. “Credit to a corndog, they know exactly where the others are.”
“Don’t seem to be hiding.”
“Nope, but a couple just peeled off and walked down the road. Bet they’re going to Trip’s.”
“The dude with the mouse?”
“Yep, ’n if he’s alive, the guy with Teah.” He patted Zac on the back. “S’all right. She never held a candle fer anyone. Way she figured it, her life was too complicated, anyways. Now, we need to get our eyes on Trip’s. You coming?”
“Why not? Loser, Jimmy, you keep your eyes out here?” and Zac hurried to catch up with Saggers.
Sure enough, two of the bikers were hiding behind the ruins of the house now opposite where they’d settled again. “That were Helen’s house,” Saggers informed Zac. “Wonder how she’s gettin’ on. Her ’n her kids… Think they ran off into the forest at our rescue, but must say, it was a confusin’ time.” Saggers slouched down, settling in. Zac crouched next to him.
“Wasn’t supposed to be a rescue,” Zac told him. “I just saw the…” He looked at Saggers. “I saw Clay and thought…”
Saggers grinned. “Felt a connection, did we? See, I told you Teah saved my life. ‘Bout time we came up with a plan to introduce you.”
“Yep,” Zac muttered. “About time.”
“Shittin’ yerself.”
“Yep,” Zac again muttered. “Shittin’ myself.”
“Hold on, we have movement.”
“Where?”
“Over the road… Over the top of that pile of rubble; see the patio, the dwarf wall? See the head?”
Zac squinted against the sun. “Is that a body poking outta the ground?”
“Yep, think that there is Ray. Mother of your child put him there.” Saggers’ grin told Zac that might not have been too bad a thing. “Over the top… Oh, oh, here we come.”
Zac watched a man step over the body, another poke his head up and then pull himself to his feet, casting a quick look at the partly exposed body. They then ran for the cover of the collapsed building, inching around it and then looking up and down the street. One ran toward Saggers’ house, the other walked back across the patio and sat on the parapet wall, his gun resting casually across his knees. Zac trained his gun on the bikers.
“Military,” he muttered. “Them two are military. They’re our killers.”
“Then why are you pointing your gun at your own gang?”
Zac shook his head. “Cos life just ain’t simple no more.”
“Amen to that.” Saggers tensed. “Here they come. Let’s hope—”
“Nope,” said Zac as the first doubled over at the sight of the body. “Fragile stomach—that’s a gridder.” Zac took a sharp intake of breath. “But that’s him; that’s Connor.”
Saggers grabbed Zac’s shoulder. “Let’s watch this play out. The bikers think they got the surprise, but we got it all. Say, you ever been huntin’?”
“Nope.”
“Well, surprise is the key.”
A woman and an older man appeared.
“Byron Tuttle,” Zac muttered as Byron began vomiting everywhere. “Now, how did I know that man would puke his guts up?”
The other soldier had returned and beckoned them up the road.
“Told you,” said Saggers. “Knew they’d go to mine. Damn, bet all my smokes have been rifled.”
Saggers made to move, but Zac held him back. “Why aren’t they moving?” he asked, pointing at the two bikers.
“Ain’t that a fine question. Give it a few minutes? We’ll beat them back, whatever.”
Zac nodded. “Five max, then we go after Connor.”
The wait was nothing short of torture, and when Saggers tapped his arm, Zac jerked up in surprise but then settled again when he saw where Saggers was pointing. “Nathan Grimes,” he hissed.
Nathan Grimes was now sauntering up the road, a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun over his shoulder. As he passed the two lookouts, they fell in with him as he sauntered on, one either side and a couple of paces back.
“Asshole,” Zac muttered as he shuffled backward into the forest.
“They’ve all gone into the basement—I presume it’s a basement,” Jimmy said as Saggers and Zac returned. “Say, that your flagpole?”
“Nope,” said Saggers, but he didn’t elaborate. “What’s he doin’?”
“Been rooting around yer garden, sifting through yer rubble. Think he’s got a bunch of yer money in his hands.”
“S’only money,” Saggers muttered.
“Now, that’s the kinda talk that’ll get you killed,” Jimmy reckoned.
“So, Connor’s in there?”
“Rest of ’em are. Fuck me, here comes Nathan.”
“You ready, Loser?” Zac said. “If Connor’s in any—”
“Got it, boss.”
“The other one’s blind,” Jimmy went on. “He’s got his head in the basement window. Grimes is about to—”
“Don’t need a running commentary, Jimmy,” Loser muttered, sighting his rifle.
Grimes walked straight up to the prone soldier’s outstretched legs and twirled his sawed-off from his shoulder and planted it straight into the soldier’s back. The soldier pushed himself out and got up, another biker leading him away and then making him kneel. Grimes leaned down to the window.
“Got some guts, Grimes. Musta grown them recently,” Zac muttered as the other soldier climbed out through the basement window. He was made to kneel next to the first one.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Zac muttered, but he had a bad feeling about it all. “Loser?”
“Ready.”
A blast rang out and one of the soldiers keeled over.
“Loser?” Zac exclaimed.
“Wasn’t Connor; you said Connor.”
Grimes had his head back at the window. The other bikers were all milling around in the street now, some on their bikes, some still retrieving them. The remaining soldier was dragging his companion toward the road, a gun in his back.
Grimes stepped back from the basement window and offered to help a woman out, but she shrugged him off. The big man emerged next, followed by Byron Tuttle. They were all led away, leaving Grimes alone—until Connor came out.
“Loser…”
“Got it, boss.”
Grimes was now poking Connor in the chest with his sawed-off.
“Loser…”
Loser flexed his shoulders.
“Got it…”
Grimes backed off, ra
ising the sawed-off, but then turned away from Connor. He walked a few paces and then spun around, leveling his shotgun at Connor.
“Loser…” Zac growled.
“For fuck’s sake, I got it.”
Grimes gave out a loud belly laugh, cut off almost immediately, leaving silence hanging in the air.
“I think your brother’s going to fight,” Jimmy said.
Grimes pulled the sawed-off tight into his shoulder.
21
Teah’s Story
Strike time: plus 9 days
Location: Christmas
Teah let him jabber on; she’d decided Cornelius liked the sound of his own voice. He’d tried to justify his past, time and time again, as if it were somehow important to him that she understood. She’d merely ended up accepting he really did think he’d done nothing wrong. Once she’d come to terms with that she’d relaxed a little. Because she knew he’d no remorse, she’d also made a bargain with herself never to lower her guard, for the lengths he’d go to in order to get what he wanted seemed without end. He carried on shouting over the rock music, the wind in his hair, his arm out of the truck window and sporting round, green-tinted glasses. To all intents and purposes, it appeared he’d not a care in the world.
“What do you think Wesley will decide?” he asked her as they drove away from Christmas.
“I’m sorry, what?” Her mind was shot. Not only was she trying to fathom-out Cornelius but her thoughts were also roaming two valleys away. A second explosion had thundered through the valley the night before. As loud as the first, it had been a double one, and one which had made her sit upright, sweat streaming down her brow. Now, all she wanted to do was drive, drive and think of Clay, wondering why that day in the woods she hadn’t just run back to Saggers’ house and scooped him up. In her heart of hearts, though, she knew she would have been too late, that Aldertown would already have been emptied, but it didn’t help—not now.
“What gain?” she shouted.
Cornelius leaned forward and turned the music down.
“What what?”
“What gain would the soldiers have by emptying Aldertown and Morton?”
“That? Hasn’t anybody told you?” He looked at her, his ponytail flapping in the breeze, his handsome moustache framing a wry grin. “Have they not? But then, who have you met that could? Some bit players, some pretenders. Apart from Jake, of course, who’s at last got a grasp on the intricacies of what’s going on. Did he tell you much?”
“He said I’d remember.”
“And you will, in time. Do you remember the red lights which used to flash over the grid? You were told they were something to do with night-flying drones, some such crap, and you blindly accepted it.”
“And wasn’t it?” Teah asked, but knew it was a foolish question.
Cornelius threw his head back and laughed. “Control; the AIs, VPAs, the implants, it was all control. They were a mere extension of the information gathering implants of years before. No, those beacons, they put you to sleep, they woke you up, they told you how to feel. It was supposed to be utopia, where choice was controlled and thought monitored. It was part of Charm’s brilliance.”
“What was?” Teah pulled a smoke out and lit it.
“Well, that for a start. Charm infiltrated it—the control—he infiltrated it with rebellion, and that made everyone think they were a bit…a bit risqué. Brilliant, quite brilliant. When they bought some black-market hooch or smokes, or pills, they felt like kings and queens, and Charm profited.” Cornelius shuffled around to face her. “He’s quite the manipulator.”
“So, how does that affect me?”
Cornelius’s eyes lit up. “Because he controlled your memory. Even once you’d escaped, he still controlled it. But then...” Cornelius raised his hand high then drove it down. “Then boom! and the red lights were no more, the beacons gone, and whatever little implant is in that feisty head of yours stopped supressing your memories. So, the apocalypse set you free. Ironic, eh?”
Teah tried to understand his words, to put them into the puzzle which had long confronted her. Did he mean to say Charm had known her every move since she’d escaped?
“Why didn’t he have me brought back? Back to Black City? Why was I allowed to stay free?”
“Free?” and Cornelius bellowed a laugh. “You were no more free than I was. Free? Free of Black City? Free of Charm? Free wasn’t just fifty miles, not even a hundred. A thousand, maybe. Free would have been one of the neutral countries. Free? You were still his dog.”
“His dog?”
“His dog,” Cornelius affirmed. He shuffled back around to look straight through the windshield. “So, what gain would the soldiers have by gathering up everyone in Aldertown and Morton. Why those two places? Why not Christmas? Why not Sendro Verde? Why not the preppers, eh? Ever ask yourself that?”
“No,” Teah let dribble out. Now he’d mentioned it, it was so glaring. “Not close enough to the army base?” she ventured.
“Really? That’s the best you can do? How about this? Aldertown was your last known location. Morton the only place close enough to get to it on foot. Assuming you weren’t silly enough to go outside for a couple of days—and don’t say ‘We watched a flag’ or some horseshit like that, because we all know no flag’s high enough in the air—don’t you see? You could have only been in one of two places: Morton or Aldertown. So, they gathered everyone up and put ‘em in a pretty stockade and waited.”
“Waited for what?”
Cornelius shrugged. “For Charm? Possibly. My guess, though, would be for another player, a more ruthless one, and one who I’ve yet to have the pleasure of meeting.”
“Who?”
“An old man called Irving Meyers? A tyrant by the name of Oster Prime? We’ll find out, all in good time.”
Teah wanted to scream “Who?” and thumped the steering wheel in frustration. “Who the hell is Irving Meyers?”
Cornelius reached forward and turned the music down even further. “There are players of games, and there are players; there are bastards, and there are bastards. Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘A wolf in sheep’s clothing’?”
“No, but I get the gist.”
“Irving Meyers is a cold-blooded bastard. He looks like an old man—looks like he’s on the verge of death, but trust me, that man’s been that way since before you were born. There’s something strange about Irving Meyers, something very strange indeed.”
“What’s this man got to do with me?”
Cornelius propped his feet on the dash, scrunching right down into his seat. “Why do you think I sent four men to kill you? At the pass. Why only four?”
Teah was too numb to be shocked by his words. Nor was she going to be put off by his change of subject. Instead, she tried to think through the question. “Because you wanted to fail,” she suggested.
He looked over and winked at her. “Exactly. I wanted to fail. I put the bounty on Briscoe’s head and hoped they didn’t get too excited—they would have taken you out, too, you know.”
“And if they had?”
Cornelius shrugged. “Then you wouldn’t have been the woman I thought you were. It’s interesting, don’t you think, how only the important survive.”
“Or are people only relevant if they live?”
“Historians, when the world valued them, would have vehemently disagreed with that. But history dissolved into fiction, and that was its end. You’re right, the dead are irrelevant, so only the living can be important. So, my point stands.” Cornelius appeared quite pleased with his reasoning and slapped his leg, as though in celebration. “But,” he said, “it still doesn’t answer my question: Why only four? And don’t say one would have been obvious, ten too many.”
Teah thought hard, trying to remember the processes she’d used in her previous daily life, all those years before. “One,” she said, then paused. “One or two: too few. They would never have attacked. One or two would have been a scouting party and
would have laid low and waited for us to pass. Any more than four, and Kelly or Max would have seen it coming. Any more than four and we might have retreated. No, four was just right for us to think we’d won the day and not question it.”
Cornelius clapped. “Correct, but you’re only seeing one side of the coin. Remember, I didn’t want you ending up dead.”
“Your men…” Teah said, finally understanding. “More than four would have seen them be on the offensive, would have seen them attack and exterminate. One, two, even three, would have been cowered, like I said—or they’d have run, maybe even changed sides.”
“Well, well, well, I might make a general out of you yet. Yes, four is the best number—though four cowards could still have run. But then, you would probably only have killed three of them—the fourth being too intelligent to die.”
“So, one still remains…”
“And?”
Teah’s stomach became queasy. “And he’s watching Max’s cabin.”
Cornelius howled like a wolf. “More, more, more!” he shouted.
“You anticipated Jake’s parley.”
His laughter now rang out, loud and mocking. “So close, so very close.”
As Teah slowed the truck and brought it to a stop a dozen or so yards short of the cabin, she saw Jake was sitting on Max’s stoop, rocking back and forth. Teah guessed Kelly and Max would be somewhere in the surrounding trees. Trip she could see, sitting on the stoop’s railing. Both Trip and Jake had their automatics resting lazily on their laps. Cornelius, beside her, was now grinning.
“I wonder,” he muttered, and threw his gun out of the truck’s window before pushing the door open.
“No way to treat a weapon, Clay,” Jake shouted.
“A show of good faith.”
Jake craned his neck. “How many more, Teah?”
“A dozen or more,” she replied.
“Yer man: he’s dead. Oh, you can admonish him if you want, though he’s technically beyond that, but he didn’t do a bad job. You forgot one thing, though, Cornelius, and one thing alone.”
