Reapers (Breakers, Book 4)

by Edward W. Robertson

  Not that she expected Tilly to be an expert on Nerve's handwriting. It was possible the girl had never seen it—though of all people, new lovers were most likely to send each other little notes. Still, she wasn't about to let her whole scheme collapse because she didn't know Nerve put a tail on his d's.

  So she spent a few days getting it right. She had plenty of free time on watch on the tower roof. Her second day at it, snow powdered down from the skies, but it wasn't enough to stick. Day after that, gunshots crackled from up north. She stopped her pen and listened. Some back and forth to it, stretches of silence busted by flurries of bangs. She wasn't hearing a crime of passion or some drive-by thing. This was a proper street battle.

  Soon as her shift ended, she raced to the coffee house. Reese was in. She placed a new order with him and headed back to the piers to pick up the gossip.

  There had been a fight, all right. It was after dark and the stevedores had returned to their apartments, but most of the security team was gathered in the ground floor of the restaurant. Waiting on orders, they had little else to do but talk.

  In response to the missing men in New Jersey, the Tower—versatile Distro slang for the Empire State Building as well as the bigwigs who lived inside it—had sent a patrol up to the southern edge of the park. Which had immediately run into the Kono. According to her fellow security officers, the Kono had fired first. Couple casualties on both sides. One of the Tower's troops was in bad shape.

  After a couple hours with no new news, Lucy headed home. The next day, she wrote her note. Nothing too saucy; Tilly thought of herself as proper. Instead, she went heavy on mystery.

  The timing came together better than she could have hoped. At the piers, she heard a presidential envoy had swung by that morning to request the presence of Nerve and some Tower folk at City Hall the following evening. When Lucy biked to her apartment after a long day on watch, a silhouette waited for her on the front stoop. Reese hopped down the steps and grinned.

  "Got the stuff?" Lucy said.

  He lifted a canvas Gristedes bag. "If whoever this is for stands you up, you know where I am."

  "Persistent son of a bitch," she laughed. She pulled the folded note from her pocket. "Need you to deliver this to the Empire State Building, 3 PM tomorrow. Do not be late."

  "No problem."

  She took the canvas bag from him. "So what do you want this time? More cigs?"

  He tipped back his head. A couple other people lived in her building and one of them had the lights on. "You have electricity? A TV?"

  "Damn right. My services don't come cheap."

  Reese shuffled his feet around and ducked his eyes. "Can we watch a movie?"

  Lucy drew back her head. "Man, you're an all right guy. Don't make me shoot you down again."

  "It isn't like that. I haven't seen a movie in four years."

  "You're serious?"

  "Is it that weird?"

  She laughed and walked up the steps. "Come on."

  Upstairs, Reese turned in a circle and whistled. "Nice digs."

  "I know. I almost hate to leave." She checked the contents of the bag, then stashed it in her closet. "Well, choose wisely."

  The living room was furnished with several shelves of DVDs. Reese took his time, inspecting each title, winnowing it down to a stack of ten, then five, then three. At last, he held up a single case: The Terminator. Lucy popped it in and flipped off the lights and sat on one end of the couch. The flatscreen threw the room in shades of blue and black. Lucy hit play and lit a joint and passed it to Reese. He took it without looking, grin so big his teeth were even brighter than the screen.

  Lucy kept an eye on him until the bit where Arnold blasted his way through a nightclub. She wasn't much for nonsense like time travel, but you had to admire the way the big man handled a shotgun.

  In the quiet after the scene wrapped up, Reese spoke for the first time since the movie started. "What's all this about?"

  "Robots and shit."

  He shook his head. "The wine. The note. What's it for?"

  "Friend of mine."

  "Boyfriend?"

  "Girl I know from way back before the plague," Lucy said. "She's in over her head with Distro."

  He gazed at her, puffy-eyed and suspicious. "So what are the drugs for?"

  She had a glib one for that, but something stopped her—maybe it was the old comfort of being in a dark room with a story on the TV, but maybe it was that she hadn't had anyone to talk to in a very long time.

  "I don't expect her to skip away with me hand in hand," Lucy said. "She doesn't much like me anymore."

  "Why's that?"

  "How should I know? She won't even talk to me. Probably mad about her boyfriend, but they'd been broken up for months, and anyway it wasn't my fault. Tell the truth, she's been acting hinky for a couple years. Which is a bushel of bullshit. I been keeping her out of trouble since the world went to hell."

  Reese slumped deeper into the couch and gazed at the blue light on the screen. "Maybe that's the problem. She resents you for acting more like a parent than a friend."

  "I promised her daddy I would look after her. She was born for shopping malls and Starbucks. Instead, we're wearing dead women's shoes and trapping possum for meat. She wouldn't last a week without me."

  "Well, I bet she loves the hell out of that attitude."

  Lucy sat up straight. "Are you gonna watch your movie or what?"

  "I'm just sayin'."

  "And if you want to keep sayin', then you can get the hell out of my apartment."

  He glared at her. Onscreen, guns went off. The two of them didn't talk again until the movie ended and Reese got ready to leave.

  "Three o'clock," Lucy said. "I can count on you?"

  "'Please. I'm a pro." He zipped his jacket high and snapped the collar closed around his neck. "Good luck with your friend."

  He left her alone and she felt bad for spoiling it when all he'd wanted was to watch a movie. Should never have gotten personal with him. Was his fault for asking. He probably only wanted to watch the stupid thing because he had the hero's name.

  She got up early and went to her post on the roof as usual. Around three, she snuck downstairs and ran home. Reese had left a note under the door: "DONE." She hiked upstairs, grabbed her bags, and ran to a twelve-story apartment a couple blocks from the Empire State Building.

  She'd seen it while spying on Nerve. It was short enough to walk up, but more important, it had a full-fledged garden on the roof. One half of which was dead flowers, with the other half an urban jungle of weeds, but it would be romantic enough for her purposes.

  The wine was Riesling, a sweet white Tilly drank like soda. The wintry air would keep it cold. Lucy popped the cork, then replaced it and settled in for a long wait. Hidden by the clouds, the sun headed for the hills. She did some pushups to keep warm. Plucked some of the flowers that weren't dead and set them in a water glass on the wooden table in the middle of the roof. After the darkness was complete, she got out a baggie of white powder, dumped it in a wine glass, poured it tall with Riesling, and swirled it around until the powder dissolved. She set it on the table, along with a folded note in Nerve's handwriting bearing Tilly's name, which she weighted down with a smooth ruddy stone she'd picked up from the street on the way here.

  Heels clicked down the pavement. Lucy peeked over the gut-high wall on the edge of the roof. Too dark to make out the figure below, but she knew the walk. She hid behind a dense wall of shrubs.

  A couple minutes later, the rooftop door opened. Footsteps approached with hesitant taps. As Lucy watched from behind the screen of brush, Tilly walked into the courtyard, wearing a coat over a pretty black dress.

  "Nerve?" Tilly's eyes caught the glint of light on the dew on the wine glass. She frowned, looked around, picked up the note, and smiled. She took the glass to the edge of the roof and leaned her elbows on the wall and watched the dead city lie at peace.

  Tilly didn't look so happy ten minutes l
ater when her glass was empty and Nerve hadn't shown. Nor five minutes after that, when she blinked heavily and staggered into the table with a scrape of wood on stone.

  "It's all right, Tilly." Lucy walked out from the shrubs and winked. "When you wake up, you'll be in a better place."

  18

  Flakes of snow lurched from the sky. Ellie stood her full weight on the pedals, but her back tire spun on the ice they'd compacted with their footsteps. The trailer refused to budge. Hobson got around back and pushed until she found purchase. Snow creaked beneath her wheels.

  Snow crusted the brim of his bowler. "Shall we take the highway?"

  "I'll never make the onramp," Ellie laughed. "We'll hook up with it at the edge of town."

  They rode northwest, away from the makeshift prison, then hooked back around to cut through the suburban lanes leading south. Twice, Ellie got stuck mid-turn and had to get off and haul her bike out of its ruts. The snow piled five or six inches deep and grew thicker by the moment. When the path was straight and level Ellie was able to keep the bike moving, but she had to lean into the pedals and was soon panting, breath steaming from her mouth.

  An hour later, at the south end of town, they curled up a gentle onramp. Ellie stalled on the steep curve. She swore and hopped off and kicked at the heavy trailer.

  "Like me to spell you?" Hobson said.

  She planted her hands on her hips and breathed in and out. "We need to get as far as we can. If the snow stops, they can track us all the way here."

  "What happens if they catch us?" Dee said.

  Hobson unhatted himself and flicked the brim to pop off the snow. "They profit from the trade of humans. Safest to assume maximum barbarism from them at all times."

  "Pretty much," Ellie said. "Time's wasting."

  Hobson took over, but he couldn't get the trailer moving, either. Ellie leaned against it, feet skidding in the snow. Her shoes were soaked through. They'd need a fire. It was going to be a long night.

  The highway ran dead south, the Hudson river glinting across the white plains. Another mile and Hobson was puffing like an antique train. Dee offered to take over and managed a half mile, stalling repeatedly in the drifts. Ellie couldn't feel much in her toes. The snow continued to swirl. Three hours from leaving Albany, with her feet half numb and her legs burning from strain, she exited the highway—onto yet another street named Beaver Dam, making her feel as if they were still stuck in Albany in some horrendous post-apocalyptic Groundhog Day—and turned into the drive of a stately two-story home tucked into the woods. She barely had the energy to open the garage and help lug the trailer inside. Snow lined the creases of its tarp.

  There were no logs beside the fireplace. The pile outside was buried under deep drifts. Hobson found a rust-pitted axe, turned the coffee table on its side, and smashed it apart right there in the room. Dee watched from the couch, glaze-eyed. Ellie got a couple books from the shelves in the master bedroom and crumpled up the pages in the fireplace, then arranged the table splinters in a pyre above the shredded paper. She flicked her lighter, but no sparks emerged. It had gotten wet. Dee crawled over on her knees and set the pages aflame.

  They stoked up the fire, wordless, as if human speech might scare the ancient heat away. Ellie closed every door she could, minimizing the space. The room smelled like woodsmoke and the chemical tang of varnish. Oh well. After six years of eating organic, she expected her body could handle it.

  She pulled off her shoes, peeled off her damp socks, and changed her jeans, which were wet halfway up the shins. She laid out her socks and shoes in front of the fire. Steam rose from the fabric. She thought they ought to keep watch, but it was nearly four in the morning and she was so exhausted she fell asleep sitting in front of the fire.

  She slept until mid-morning. The snow had stopped, but the clouds remained. The snow on the railings of the back deck looked eight inches deep. When Ellie went outside to pee, she sank to the calf, with drifts that touched her knee.

  Inside, she stomped off the snow and brought her shoes back to the fire; they'd already gotten wet again. "There's no way we get the bikes through that."

  "What do you propose?" Hobson said.

  "Walk. Or wait for it to melt."

  "We can't just sit around," Dee said. "If they had a truck, Quinn's already in the city."

  "Which is 140 miles from here. How long do you think it takes us to walk that in this weather? Ten days? Two weeks? It isn't even December. The snow could start melting tomorrow."

  "Or it could last until spring. If we stay here, what are we going to eat? Our shoes?"

  "Yet another argument for wearing leather," Hobson said.

  Ellie sighed. Her legs were stiff and sore. "Food's going to be a problem no matter what we do."

  Dee picked at a loose fiber on the carpet. "What if we went back and stole the snowmobiles?"

  "By now, Nelson's led a slave rebellion. They've escaped or been killed. Either way, Nan and her people will be on high alert."

  "Then what's your solution? Complain about all the things that could go wrong until our mouths freeze shut?"

  "Maybe then I'll have the peace of mind to figure out what to do."

  Hobson cleared his throat. "I have a suggestion that may clarify our path. It's a single word. Two words? Or, if you're a proponent of hyphenation, perhaps somewhere in between—"

  "Spit it out," Ellie said.

  "Snowshoes."

  "Snowshoes?"

  "Indeed," he said. "People have crafted them for thousands of years. The wicker baskets in the laundry room should do nicely."

  Ellie hunched forward. "We're going to need to search for food. We might find skis."

  "I don't know how to ski," Dee said.

  "You can learn on the job," Hobson said. "What do you say?"

  "I like it," Ellie said. "Come on, Dee. Let's have a look around."

  The sheriff clapped his hands. "I'll get to work on the shoes."

  They went door to door through the neighborhood. They were just a quarter mile from the highway and years of travelers had picked most of the homes clean, but they found thick wool socks and balaclavas and a jar three-quarters full of white rice. Many of the houses had been broken into, windows shattered or front doors hanging open, locks broken; snow rested on stained carpets and foyers. Birds and squirrels had made nests on cabinets and entertainment centers. Bones lay in beds, victims of the plague.

  Ellie didn't find any skis and she berated herself for not thinking to search back in Albany. Then again, she'd never been stupid enough to trek across the state during a blizzard. Learning experience. She did find a set of wicker chairs which she and Dee dragged back to the house, chair legs leaving trails through the snow.

  In the front yard, Hobson walked awkwardly across the surface of the drifts, round wicker shoes flapping on his feet. He lifted one foot and rapped its rim with his cane. "Stylish, wouldn't you agree? I daresay we'll be the talk of Fleet Street."

  Dee laughed. Ellie asked to see the design. It was a rough job, but effective: he'd framed the rims with thick wicker and tied it to the main body of the shoe with shoelaces and fishing line looted from one of the rods in the garage. From there, he'd braced the wicker with broken-off pieces of yardstick, and finalized the design by threading the wicker through with belts, which they could strap firmly over their normal shoes.

  While he set to work on the next pair, Ellie ran triage on the bike trailer. They'd have to cut back to bare essentials. She ditched the tent. Along the Hudson down to the city, there would be little space between towns, and many of them would be outright contiguous. Finding a roof shouldn't be a problem. She set aside all but one jug of water, too. Between the snow and the river, they'd be fine until they entered the city.

  Piece by piece, she winnowed their supplies to the marrow. Food. Blankets. Spare clothes and shoes. Two knives apiece. Their trading goods. Some cordage and spare chair slats for snowshoe repair. The emergency kits. A single pot, and one bowl p
er person, which would also function as a cup.

  Between their late wakeup and Hobson's work on the shoes, it was clear they wouldn't be leaving that day. As she sorted gear, she assigned Dee to chop wood and pile it at the back of the house. When Ellie finished setting up their packs, she swept the snow from the back patio, lit a fire, and boiled the entire jar of rice. The carbs would be good for the trek and as cold as it was, there was no chance the leftovers would go bad before they finished them. Anyway, they might not be in position to do much cooking for a while.

  Hobson finished the third set of shoes by dusk, then spent the evening tweaking them, reinforcing the frames and straps. As the light vanished, the snowfall resumed, but it was spotty and small, bright silver motes that added no depth to the white coat enfolding the world.

  "I'm hoping it'll take a week," Ellie said. The fireplace was bright and the room smelled like smoke and the mildewy water drying from their socks. "Keep your eyes out for game. We'll need it."

  Dee rested her chin on her knee. "In school they told us people can go weeks without food."

  "Not when they're burning four thousand calories a day pretending to be Arctic hares."

  "Leather is edible," Hobson said. "Provided it's sufficiently boiled."

  Ellie left it at that. They'd made their decision. At this point, they were closer to the city than the lakes. Either they'd make it or they wouldn't.

  They went to bed early enough to be up and ready by dawn. They ate rice warmed over the fire and the last of the venison jerky. Ellie's pack was heavy but bearable. They strapped on their snowshoes and walked toward the highway.

  The shoes helped immensely, but Ellie soon learned they'd be lucky to make it to the city inside a week. The snow was fluffy and the snowshoes sank several inches. They soon shifted to a single-column formation, but the person at the head had to break a trail, smoothing and compacting the snow for the followers. Her calves lost strength rapidly. They cycled the lead position every thirty to sixty minutes.

  Once, they saw a brown rabbit watching from the side of the road, but Ellie missed her shot and it bounded into the snow. At twilight, a mallard and his mate squawked toward the river, wings pumping like mad, but their bullets sailed harmlessly wide.