The Purge of District 89 (A Grower's War Book 1)

by D. J. Molles

  And it drove the point into Walter like a railroad spike.

  “They’re gonna blow this building down,” Walter said. Not much emotion there. Just a statement of fact.

  Getty didn’t respond.

  Rat shifted, his shoes scratching through rubble as fine as sand. “Yeah. That’s what they’re gonna do.”

  “We could run for it,” Walter said.

  “We couldn’t get far,” Rat said quietly.

  “I wouldn’t get far,” Getty said with a ghostly half-smile. He nodded at his leg. “I wouldn’t. Y’all might.”

  Rat shook his head fervently. “Banish the thought, Getty.”

  Getty shrugged. “You could if you wanted to. I wouldn’t hold it against you guys. Could give y’all some covering fire.”

  “We could all go,” Walter said again. “They’re two blocks north of us. That’s over a hundred yards. And we’ll be running. We’ve got a good chance of not getting hit.”

  Getty threw a thumb skywards. “Them birds’ll strafe us on the run, just as soon as blow out this building. Die out there, or die in here.” He said it calm enough. Peacefully enough. But there was a tremor in his voice.

  “Guys,” Bobbi said in their ears. “Y’all got about twenty seconds. You gonna get out of there or what?”

  “Hold on,” Walter said into the comms. He looked frantically between the two of them. “You motherfuckers! I’m the grower! I’m the knocker that doesn’t know how to fight! Why are you two laying down right now? We can run. We can at least try. I’d rather die out there than in here.”

  Walter was on his feet now.

  He was going to run. But he needed them to run with him. Otherwise it would be running away. And he wasn’t going to do that. They were going to run it together, or they were gonna die in this shady hole like sick animals that have crept under a crawlspace to breathe their last breaths in relative comfort.

  Walter was about to start screaming at them, about to start grabbing and dragging as best he could, if that was all he could do.

  But then Getty struggled to his feet, a hard glint in his eye and that soft sense of mortality sudden stricken from it like the hard thing inside of Getty had reached up and throttled it, broken its neck, and stuffed it down. “Aigh’ then. Let’s die in the sun.”

  They didn’t wait.

  They ran for the door.

  No more talking.

  Rat threw the thing open, though there wasn’t much left of it anymore.

  Bright morning sunlight hit his face. And Walter thought that was good. That was very good. And they ran into the sun, the three of them, Getty limping significantly, but not all that slow, he was giving it a good effort.

  Out into the great wide open.

  Nothing between them and a dozen guns, cold eyes sighting down hot barrels.

  It was a long run, Walter realized. He had pictured a short sprint, but now it looked like miles were stretching between him and the next available piece of cover, and there was the scraggly remains of the gate to contend with on top of all of that.

  He was no more than five loping strides into it when he started to feel every muscle in his body give up, hit the wall, nothing left to give.

  We’re not gonna make it.

  Well, you should enjoy this sunshine, then.

  Carolyn!

  But then everything exploded around them.

  Chapter 31

  The next few moments were hazy.

  They never got processed into his memories.

  They simply were, and then they were not.

  Just before the entire street in front of them erupted violently like some giant and long-awaited caldera, Walter thought he saw three little gray somethings streaking out of the sky. But then, the explosion, and the earth lifted, like all the world was sitting on a rope bridge and some jackass was bouncing it on the far end. It bucked and swayed under his feet and then a giant, invisible hand smacked him in the face and chest and sent him backwards, and in the moment when the breath emptied out of his lungs and his chest compressed, he saw guntrucks defying gravity, along with great geysers of what had once been the cement street.

  Then there wasn’t much of anything.

  Then there was pain. But it was more just the concept of pain, rather than pain itself.

  He opened his eyes and the world was white, like it had snowed, white on everything, but that wasn’t right, it was just the sunlight. It was just the sunlight making everything so very bright, shouldn’t his eyes be dilating, blocking some of that light out? It was blinding…

  He felt a wind. A wind that was gentle, hell, almost pleasant at first. It wicked hot sweat from him.

  Then the wind turned harsh. Hurricane. Tornado. Ripping. Sending debris into his burned face. He tried to cry out, realized his lungs still didn’t have oxygen. Tried to move, but that required oxygen, and he didn’t know if his muscles could do it anyways. Everything felt broken and falling apart. Like all the communication lines across his body had been severed.

  Oh my God, I broke my back.

  I’m paralyzed.

  Someone was yelling.

  The wind battered him. Beat him. Buffeted him.

  Rotors.

  Those are rotors.

  Shit! The gunships!

  He tried to open his eyes. The light was too painful. Too bright. His eyes watered and welled. He squeezed them shut again. His left eye was damaged, he remembered that.

  The voice was still yelling at him.

  No, not at him.

  At them.

  “…okay? One of you move! Stand up!”

  Bobbi. It was Bobbi’s voice.

  Walter tried to lift his hand, but his arm was approximately the same mass as a small car.

  The wind had reached its worst. It wasn’t getting stronger, but it wasn’t letting up. The sound of the rotors were heavy and panic inducing, but there just wasn’t much he could do about it at that moment. He was trying to get the unwilling machine of his body to work, like a man in the driver’s seat of a battery-dead car, trying to crank, crank, crank.

  “Can any of you hear me?” Bobbi cried out. There were tears in her voice now.

  I can hear you.

  Then, finally, a connection reestablished in his brain. It remembered how to breathe. So that was good. He felt his diaphragm come out of its shocked, spasming state and all of the sudden acrid-tasting air went avalanching down his throat. He coughed wretchedly against it, and that seemed to be the thing that sparked off the rest of his connections.

  All of the sudden his body was moving, curling up like a pill bug around his cough. Then he was rolling. And he could feel his arms and his legs—holy shit, they were moving, thank God, I’m not paralyzed!

  “Walter!” Bobbi screamed in his ear.

  “Ungh,” he responded to no one in particular.

  “Walter, they’re landing right on you! To your left! To your left! I can start shooting but you need to be able to move, do you hear me?”

  Walter had managed to roll onto his left side, so when he squinted his sore eyes, he saw what Bobbi was talking about. He was looking out across a debris field, and about twenty yards from him, one of the gunships was setting itself down onto the ground, just inside the fence-line of the network hub.

  The other two gunships hovered overhead.

  “Can you move?” Bobbi yelled at him. “Can you hear me?”

  Walter found the PTT button and pressed it. “Yes. I can hear you.”

  The gunship’s skids touched the earth. The side wall of the gunship was already open. He could see inside. He could see New Breed soldiers looking at him. He could see their armor, but he couldn’t see their faces past the battleshrouds.

  It was a Fed gunship.

  It was his own countrymen come to kill him.

  He grunted and reached for his weapon, the battlerifle still tethered to his chest. He grabbed at it clumsily, barely cognizant of what end to point at the bad guys, but determined that he wa
s going to make them shoot him.

  Better dead than DTI.

  Yes. That’s how the saying goes.

  Carolyn.

  Ah.

  Sorry.

  The bird settled fully, and as it did, three New Breed soldiers tumbled out.

  “If you’re ready, I’m ready,” Bobbi said in his ear. “I’m ready. I’ll take the one closest to you.”

  Walter stared at him.

  This one stared back at him. The one in the front. The one closest to him.

  The one that Bobbi would shoot.

  He just looked like a man to Walter.

  He felt his hand slide into the grip of his rifle.

  “I’ve got him,” Bobbi said.

  The soldier was about ten yards away now.

  “Walter!”

  The voice wasn’t from Bobbi.

  It made him jerk.

  It sucked him back.

  Like a black hole had suddenly erupted in space just behind him and sucked him through at the speed of light.

  Walter.

  Walter!

  Walter, goddammit! What’re you so ascared of?

  Walter…

  Walter…we could do better but they won’t let us.

  He blinked, thinking at first that it had come from the soldier that was advancing on him, but then his eyes skidded madly about, and he caught sight of a fourth figure, not a New Breed, not as big or as wide, and he was dressed in softarmor, and he was vaulting out of the gunship and running towards Walter, his battlerifle swinging wildly from side to side.

  “Walt!”

  Walt.

  That’s me.

  Who the hell are you?

  But he knew it. It was something that didn’t need logic to calculate. Something that simply was. It was a fiber that ran through him. It was a part of his tapestry. It was a part of the whole of him.

  It was Roy.

  In his shock, in a sludge of disbelief while his conscious mind told him—nope, that’s impossible, they disappeared Roy, he got sent to DTI, and NO ONE COMES BACK FROM DTI!!!—he remembered one very important thing, and he snatched at his PTT button and blurted, “Bobbi, don’t shoot! Hold your fire! Don’t shoot!”

  Chapter 32

  Bobbi was saying something.

  Walter didn’t hear her.

  He was staring at his brother.

  His brother?

  Impossible.

  But was it?

  He had the feeling, like when something is on the tip of your tongue, when you’ve almost figured out the riddle, but you can’t quite articulate it. The connection is almost there, it’s just hovering in midair, like an arc of electricity from one pole, sizzling, trying to reach the next pole, trying to complete the circuit.

  “Roy?” he said in disbelief.

  Roy stumbled up to him, and around him, the four New Breed soldiers with their Fed insignia didn’t point guns and mow them down, as Walter was sure they would, nor did they charge them with restraints, nor did they throw diversionary grenades at them.

  Two of them stood up straight, one looking southeast, the other looking northwest, and the other two plowed past Walter as though he didn’t matter, and Walter couldn’t see where they were going, but he figured they were going to Getty and Rat.

  Oh my God, Getty and Rat, are they okay?

  Like a firework in his brain, and gone just as quickly.

  “Roy?” was all he could really get out.

  Roy bent down with purpose, down onto one knee. It was Roy. It had to be Roy. Older, most definitely—he looked shockingly like Pops now. And he had a neatly trimmed goatee that he’d never worn before, and his hair was salted at the temples, and it was shorter than Walter had ever seen him wear it…

  But it was Roy.

  Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  “Hey, little bro,” Roy said, worry scribbled over his surrealistically aged features.

  Walter felt an uncontrollable urge well up in him, and he reached forward, bent up at the waist, suddenly filled with strength, and he grabbed Roy and put his arms around him. If it was awkward, Walter didn’t notice. He hugged his brother to him desperately and felt a love in him that he hadn’t even considered in a very long time, a love that he had very deliberately buried long, long ago. Because he didn’t want the loss of Roy to touch him, he didn’t want to wake up every morning with that feeling in his gut like he’d been ripped apart.

  But here he was!

  Here he was, in the flesh.

  Holding his brother, Walter smelled him. And he smelled just as dirty as Walter did, but he also smelled like Roy. In a way that was imprinted on the granite bedrock of Walter’s consciousness. And it seemed that it could not be true, because here is a face: no one comes back from DTI.

  Except that someone had.

  Roy had.

  And whoever had broken out…

  “Was it you?” Walter blurted, suddenly pulling away.

  Roy looked troubled, confused, hurried. “What?” his eyes traced quickly over Walter’s features, not a loving glance, a diagnosing glance.

  He think’s I’ve got my senses knocked loose.

  “Was it you that got broken out of DTI?”

  Roy somehow managed to nod and shake his head in the same motion. “It’s complicated. Shut up for now. Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Walter was struggling up into a sitting position.

  “Anything broken?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Does your head hurt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you see okay?”

  “No.”

  “Bright?”

  “Yes.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “What month is it?”

  “April! Jesus, Roy! What the fuck’re you doing?”

  Anger mixed with real concern flashed across Roy’s face. “You might have some TBI, that shit hit real close. We didn’t think you were going to come running out of the goddamned building like that! You should have stayed inside. What the fuck were you thinking?”

  A distant part of Walter reared back indignantly.

  Somehow that tone never went away.

  Little brother. Stupid little brother.

  But then the thought was gone, washed away by the flood of love and relief that Walter felt, just seeing Roy in front of him, actually alive, actually well.

  “Was that you guys?” Walter asked numbly.

  “Fast movers,” Roy nodded. “Speaking of, loyalist troops have interceptors inbound and we got less than five to get the hell outta Dodge.”

  Roy stood up fully, grabbed Walter by the arm, helped him stand. Walter looked about him at the New Breeds. It felt like walking in a pride of lions. He’d never stood amongst them like this when they weren’t pointing guns at him, demanding papers. Now their backs were to him, looking out, scanning for threats.

  Feds.

  Fed New Breeds.

  “Are you Fed?” Walter asked as he struggled to keep his feet and the blood rushed out of his head and his vision sparkled dangerously. “What’s going on?”

  “I told you it’s complicated. But they’re not Fed. Not anymore. Come on.”

  Not anymore?

  Defected, then?

  “El-Tee,” one of the New Breeds hollered up. “Both live, one’s unconscious.”

  Walter turned, blinking against the bright light and his own fading vision, fighting the feeling of hot-cold that prickled his scalp, threatening to make him faint. The other two New Breeds were with Rat and Getty.

  Getty was awake and alert, though dazed. He was getting to his feet. His eyes were darting left and right, very confused, and Walter saw very clearly in his eyes that he was wondering if he should grab up his rifle and start shooting or not.

  “Getty!” Walter raised his hand and made a staying motion. “It’s okay!”

  Getty locked eyes with him, gave the barest of nods.

  “
Friends of yours?” Roy asked, working an arm under Walter’s and around his shoulder.

  “Ayuh.”

  Roy nodded to the two New Breeds triaging Getty and Rat. Without another word, they both bent and scooped them up, carried them in their arms like children. Getty looked surprised, and slightly indignant, but he let it happen.

  “Three minutes,” someone spoke up.

  “Let’s go,” Roy hollered loud enough for everyone. “Hustle up! Road gear, motherfuckers!”

  Walter and Roy were moving. Roy was moving faster. Walter was trying to keep up. He suddenly felt incredibly nauseas.

  TBI, he thought. Traumatic Brain Something…?

  Did it matter? He knew that the first two words were Traumatic and Brain.

  That said enough.

  Shit.

  As they neared the downdraft of the waiting gunship, Walter heard Rat come alive. He looked left, saw the gigantic New Breed carrying the small man at a jog, and Rat was just coming to, and all he was seeing was a gunship and a battleshroud, and he was starting to freak out.

  “Rat!” Walter yelled, groggily, the pressure of the yell making his head hurt.

  TBI…

  “Rat, it’s okay! It’s okay! They’re friendly!”

  Rat struggled for a second longer, eyes wide but unseeing, unfocused, like a sleepwalker.

  The New Breed barely seemed to notice his struggle. Walter heard the soldier say something to Rat, and he couldn’t tell what it was, but Rat’s eyes went to the soldier that was carrying him and frowned, but didn’t fight anymore.

  They were in the downdraft now.

  Somebody else was yelling something in his ear, but Walter couldn’t quiet tell what was being said, or who was saying it. Wait until we’re out of the downdraft, moron, no one can hear shit right now, he thought.

  The two New Breeds with Getty and Rat reached the gunship first.

  Walter had his head ducked down, his eyes squinting against the wind which dried them and pelted his skin with a hail of tiny pebbles, and he was reminded that the skin on the left half of his face was missing. He realized that somehow he had begun to cry, which was very odd, because he wasn’t feeling much at that moment, he was feeling very disconnected, watching his two friends—they were friends now, right? Hell, they’d bled together, they might as well be—as they were hoisted up into the belly of gunship, and that open side door waited for him too, and it was all very unreal that he was going to enter a gunship under his own power, not bound and gagged with the flash of a diversionary grenade still dazzling in his eyes.