The Final Trade

by Joe Hart

“Babies?” Rita asks. “I’d have to find a guy who could stand me first. But yeah, from time to time.” Her eyes grow distant and when she realizes they are both watching her, her face becomes as deeply red as Newton’s and she glances away.

  “How about you, Zoey?” Sherell says. “Maybe Lee will come back and . . .” Her face falls and she closes her eyes.

  “I’d never bring a child into this world,” Zoey says with such vehemence it surprises even her. She swallows and shakes her head.

  “I’m sorry,” Sherell says.

  “It’s fine.”

  “But—”

  “I’m actually glad you both came in here,” Zoey says, cutting the other woman off. “There’s something I need you to do.”

  “Okay. What is it?” Rita says.

  “I need you to stay behind with Lyle.”

  Rita and Sherell look at her, stricken. They both begin speaking at once, their refusals overlapping and intermingling with one another.

  Zoey holds up her hand to quiet them. “Let me tell you why.”

  She does. When she’s finished the other two women simply stare at her as if she is a complete stranger that’s wandered into their midst. She supposes on some levels she is.

  “Why?” Rita finally asks, her voice husky.

  “Because it needs to be done. They’ll never stop. Never. You both know that. I’ve gone over every other option and I don’t see another way.”

  “You know, Merrill was right the other day,” Sherell says quietly. “Nothing we do will bring back the women who died before us.”

  “No, it won’t,” Zoey says, stanching the flow of faces that cascade through her thoughts. She closes her eyes. “But it will stop NOA. Forever.”

  They sit motionless for several minutes, the air within the vehicle beginning to thicken with their combined breathing.

  Finally Rita glances at Sherell. “She’s right.”

  “I know.”

  “You’ll stay then?” Zoey asks.

  “We’ll stay,” Rita says.

  “Thank you.”

  Zoey clears her throat, standing from the bench. “There’s still a lot to be done, so we should probably get moving.” She’s stepping out the door when Rita’s voice stops her.

  “Zoey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Be careful not to become them.”

  She tries to answer but can’t. Instead she turns away and leaves them sitting on the benches.

  Out in the hangar the air feels close and oppressive, like she’s still inside the vehicle, but she knows it’s only her imagination. The uneasiness in her center from hearing Lee’s name hasn’t dissipated. Why did Sherell have to mention him? Especially in a context like that? Because now the image won’t go away. She sees Lee standing before a small cabin gathering firewood. His back is to her but he turns, his face lighting up, and she can’t help the warm and comfortable sensation that runs through her—a rightness. And there is someone else there, she can feel it. Someone behind the cabin door that opens. A tiny hand and face peering out with a smile that is not Lee’s nor her own, but a combination of the two.

  The clang of a wrench against concrete snaps her free of the daydream, and she blinks, reality coming back so harshly beneath the fluorescents that her heart aches. Zoey shakes her head, willing the fantasy away. There’s no reason to think of things that won’t ever be.

  At the front of the vehicle she finds Lyle tightening an armor plate. He torques the last bolt and steps back.

  “Is it ready?” she asks.

  “As far as I can tell. Really there were just a couple relays burned out. Other than that, everything seems fine. I may be wrong though since the electronics are the only parts that I have any knowledge of. Tia did a rough check on the engine though and says it looks okay. We can test start it in any case.”

  Zoey glances past his shoulder and sees the others approaching from across the garage. “Rita and Sherell are staying behind to oversee your progress. You try and run or do anything stupid, they have instructions to kill you.” Color drains from Lyle’s face. “Remember, you can’t tell anyone until the time is right. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Merrill reaches them first. “Are we ready for a test drive?”

  “Should be,” she says. “But first I wanted to tell you, Lyle is staying behind and I encouraged Rita and Sherell to stay too. I don’t want any more of us in harm’s way than is necessary.”

  Merrill’s brow wrinkles and he looks from her to Lyle. “Okay, but what brought this on?”

  “There’s additional information I’ve already tapped into and more I think I can glean from the database about the National Obstetric Alliance. Besides, I’d be more of a hindrance than a help where you’re going.”

  Merrill studies the older man for a long moment. Zoey watches Lyle, the bead of sweat that’s forming at his temple. “Okay. If that’s what you want. You’ve been a big help to us so far. But there should be a contingency plan in case anyone else shows up here while we’re gone.”

  “I think it would be a good idea for Newton to stay behind too,” Zoey says.

  Merrill grimaces, glancing over at the young man who stands quietly watching Sherell. “I hate to leave him.”

  “I know. But they’ll all be safer here.”

  After a long moment he nods. “Okay.”

  “Also, if it gives you more peace of mind, there’s a tunnel running the length of the compound on the lower level that comes up behind the storage shed beside the northern fence. If someone tries to get in we can take it and cut through the fence and be gone before they know where we went,” Lyle says.

  “All right.” Merrill looks at Zoey. “Rita and Sherell staying back wasn’t your idea, was it?”

  “They offered.”

  He watches her and she worries that he’ll see through the façade she’s putting up, know that there’s something more. And what will he say when he realizes what it is?

  Eli slaps Merrill on the shoulder and the moment is broken. “We gonna fire this bad bitch up or stand around and look at it?”

  “Yeah, let’s try it.”

  Lyle tries to hand the keys to Merrill, but he pushes them back. “You’re the one that fixed it. You have the honors.”

  Lyle smiles and climbs into the cab with some effort. The heavy silence throughout the garage is finally broken by a loud click, followed by the explosive growl of the machine’s engine. It idles roughly, blue smoke pouring from its rear end. The engine revs and howls, making the large room reverberate with sound. After another few seconds the vehicle falls silent and Lyle appears in the hatch once again. The group breaks out in applause and he takes a little bow, the smile still on his face.

  “That is the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard,” Tia says, running her hand appreciatively over the vehicle’s side.

  “Damnit, girl, if I growl like that, will you touch me?” Eli says, sidling up to her.

  “You do growl like that. The problem is it typically comes out of the wrong end.”

  Zoey smiles as the rest of the group laughs. Eli hangs his head and shakes it. She looks from person to person, each of their personalities shining through, the subtlety of who they are so clear to her.

  And she knows when the time comes she will miss them all very much.

  21

  They leave the installation at dawn, the first lancing rays of light deflecting off the hills in the east, creating a half halo in the ashen sky.

  Merrill drives the armored security vehicle, or ASV, as Lyle told them it is called. Chelsea sits beside him in the passenger seat while Zoey rests on one of the benches behind them along with Ian, Tia, and Eli. The rough road crackles beneath the heavy machine, the sound almost lost beneath the constant hum of the engine. Through the thick, tinted windows Zoey watches the land glide past, the rise and plateau where Halie rests appearing in the view pane and then gone.

  She readjusts her position on the bench and silently wishes that the rear
of the ASV had a window. Then she could look back, watch the installation grow smaller and fainter until it was swallowed up by the distance and curve in the road. She imagines Rita and Sherell and Newton standing there with Seamus by their side, watching them fade away down the drive, and feels an apology on her lips for the weight she’s burdened them with.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Eli says, nudging her in the ribs.

  “What?”

  “It’s an old saying. Kinda means you want to know what someone’s thinking so bad, you’ll pay them.”

  “Did some people actually make money that way?”

  Eli chuckles. “I guess you could say that.”

  “I wasn’t thinking anything.”

  “Now you’re straight-up lying. Everyone’s always thinking something. Even if it’s bullshit.”

  She sighs and glances at Ian and Tia. They are talking quietly to one another. “Do you regret anything you’ve done?” she asks.

  Eli sits back, one of his hands going to his arm with the tattoo before settling onto his thigh. “Regret is like air: can’t be alive without it.” He seems to be lost in a memory for a second before coming back. “But I’ll tell you what—regret’s made out of lead. It’ll drag you under if you let it.” He glances down at the name tattooed on his arm and looks away. “If I could go back to do some things over, I would in a heartbeat. But that ain’t reality. It ain’t life. You got to forgive yourself before you can move on. When you forgive yourself the regret gets lighter and lighter and you manage to keep going.”

  “Have you forgiven yourself?”

  Eli’s face darkens and he leans back against the side of the ASV. He tries to smile and fails. “No. Not yet.”

  They drive for most of the day, stopping several times to gain their bearings and relieve themselves. Zoey watches the landscape recede into itself, the highest buttes gradually leveling off, ravines rising into wider plains. The sky expands so that it becomes half of everything she sees. The scope of it stuns her to the point she can do nothing but look out the window, marveling at the immensity of it all. Just when she’s sure she’s got a grip on the world, it unfolds again, revealing another side of itself.

  “Pretty vast, isn’t it?” Merrill calls from the front seat in the midafternoon. “We’re on the edge of the Great Basin Desert. This whole area burned flat about fifteen years ago. Doesn’t look like much grew back since then.”

  Zoey gazes out the window at the rolling desolation. The scrub is shorter than any she’s seen before, the land pocked and cracked like burnt skin. As she watches, an area far left of the road drops and opens into a wide hole. Something flashes there, bright and gone in an instant.

  “What is that?” she asks, pointing toward the depression.

  “Not sure. Maybe a sinkhole?” Merrill says.

  “I saw something.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know. A flash of metal maybe.” She turns from the window. “Can we check it out?”

  “Sure. No sign of life yet.” Merrill slows, turning off the highway onto a rocky decline the ASV handles with ease.

  Zoey leans up between the two front seats, staring at the drop in the land. It is more defined than she thought before, its edges somewhat squared rather than round. Beyond the depression the horizon is smudged with the smoky outlines of a mountain range.

  Merrill stops thirty yards from the hole and shuts the vehicle off. He stares out the windshield, and after a moment Chelsea glances at him.

  “What?” she asks.

  “This looks manmade.”

  Zoey frowns. “What could make something this big?”

  “Backhoes, dredges, a bomb, I don’t know. It’s washed some but the shape is still here.”

  Zoey grasps a pair of binoculars from the center console and opens the side door, dry wind buffeting her face and hair. She jumps down and walks around the front of the ASV, stopping a dozen steps away from the drop’s edge.

  Merrill was right. The hole is square shaped, its far border at least a hundred and fifty yards away. Some of its sides have crumbled and fallen down, but for the most part the work of men is recognizable. Its middle is strewn with dried tumbleweed and bramble, the twisted remains leached of any color by the unrelenting sun.

  She walks along the edge’s perimeter, the others joining her. There, the flash again. It’s partially up the opposite wall, glinting when she moves a certain way. Zoey brings up the binoculars.

  The shining comes from a rounded dial, small and rimmed with silver. Bleached sage roots twist into the parched soil above and below it. She squints at the small disc adjusting the binoculars so that it comes into tight focus.

  It’s a wristwatch, burnished from the weather, its face broken and clouded. Several of the guards at the ARC wore them on the arm opposite their bracelets. She always wondered why they bothered with them since you couldn’t turn a corner in the compound without seeing a calendar.

  What is a wristwatch doing in a hole in the middle of a desert?

  “Zoey,” Merrill says, somewhere beside her. She can’t see him since her eyes are still glued to the binoculars, but his voice is odd, light and airy. The sage roots are weird under the magnification, straighter and whiter than they ought to be.

  “Zoey.”

  And they seem to run through the watch’s band.

  Something locks into place in her mind and her breath catches.

  Not roots.

  Bones.

  The wristwatch is still attached to an arm, clean and dry of any flesh. The binoculars waver and she catches sight of more bones protruding from the thin layer of dirt to the right of the watch. Her arms lose some of their strength and the binoculars drop away from her eyes, allowing her to see the entire hole at once.

  It is full of bodies.

  Most are covered by soil that’s eroded or blown into the depression, but the details emerge as she stares. A row of skulls here, a frayed and blanched patch of clothing there. What she first mistook for dried sage that had tumbled down into the hole becomes clear. Bones, so many bones interlaced and partially buried.

  Thousands.

  “Zoey.” Merrill’s hand touches her shoulder and she nearly screams. She looks up into his eyes and sees a reflection of the horror she’s feeling.

  “What is this?” she breathes.

  “A mass grave. These are rebels. I heard about things like this but never saw one.”

  She swallows bile and glances again at the pit. It draws her gaze like a magnet, unbearable to look at but impossible not to. “So many.”

  “Come on.” He tries to guide her away but she stays where she is. Entranced by the overwhelming weight of death.

  “NOA did this.”

  “Yes, or the military. At the end it was basically the same thing.”

  “How. How did they . . .” She falters, the sheer mechanics of the genocide numbing her mind.

  “Come on. There’s nothing here for us. We have to go.”

  She lets herself be led away, the hole an engraved picture behind her eyes. How? she asks herself. How could they do it? How could they let it happen?

  But already she knows. She’s felt the rage, the hatred, the absolute and utter need to destroy. She’s partaken in it, drank the bitter draft of murder and did it unblinkingly. That is how all travesties occur. Because of people like her.

  When they begin to drive again, she curls up at the far end of the bench, tucking her legs in close to her chest, becoming as small as she can be. A hurricane of emotions rises inside her, pummeling her mind with accusations and vindications at the same time.

  You’re a monster.

  They deserve it. Every last one of them.

  Monster.

  No one else. Never again.

  Murderer.

  She clenches her eyes shut and wishes Meeka’s voice would return and speak to her like it did when she was traveling alone and feverish in the wilderness.

  But Meeka is silent. A
nd she knows she’ll remain that way.

  Because she’s on her own again, as solitary as she was when she escaped.

  22

  Zoey wakes, arm asleep beneath her, neck brimming with pain from the awkward angle she’s lying at on the bench.

  She sits up, groggy, eyes crusted with sleep, and blinks at Tia who’s watching her.

  “Nice nap?” Tia says.

  “Didn’t realize I fell asleep. How long was I out?”

  “Maybe two hours. We figured you could use it.”

  “Thank you.” Zoey cracks her neck and stretches her tingling arm, the feeling slowly returning. “Where are we?”

  “Passed into the great state of Oregon a while back,” Merrill says from the front. “Thinking about stopping pretty soon for the night.”

  Zoey nods, swiping at her eyes before feeling an indentation in the side of her face. Her fingertips run over it and she glances at Ian and Tia who are grinning at her.

  “You’ve got quite the imprint from the seam in the seat there, my girl,” Ian says, beginning to laugh.

  “Looks like someone put a zipper in your face,” Eli chimes in.

  She smiles, trying to rub the mark away, only then recalling what happened before she fell asleep.

  The pit.

  The bones.

  The death.

  I still have a choice.

  “Zoey?”

  She looks at Eli whose brow is furrowed. “What?”

  “Didn’t you hear Tia?”

  “No, sorry. What did you say?”

  Tia shakes her head, all the mirth gone from her now. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  Zoey meets Ian’s eyes and looks away, unable to withstand the concern within them.

  The ASV shudders as Merrill slows their speed, glancing around the deserted highway. “Well, there’s a drive headed off to the left and a draw to the right we could hide the vehicle in overnight. Wouldn’t be visible from the road. What do you guys thi—”

  “Holy shit!” Tia says, standing suddenly. “There’s a kid over there.”

  Zoey spins, nearly knocking her forehead against the window behind her. It takes a split second for her to see the small figure standing in the center of the small drive on the left. The light is still good enough to make out delicate features, blond hair that hangs down over his ears. Gauging from his height she guesses he’s anywhere from twelve to fourteen years old.