by A. L. Davroe
“You don’t know what I feel.”
I smile at her. “You love Gus. And you’re scared for Carsai. You miss your parents, though you try hard not to show it. And losing Nina was another bad moment that transformed you into something else.”
She turns, looks at me in the darkness, and her eyes are a mixture of dark hate and bewilderment, but it doesn’t faze me. She wants to pretend she’s a rock and doesn’t like that I can see the soft interior. I can’t fault her for that.
“You’re a good person, Delia. No amount of convincing yourself that you have no heart or that you’re made of stone will change that fact. You care for your own deeply, which is what makes you wonderful. You shouldn’t deny that about yourself because it’s your biggest strength.”
She looks away again. “I hate you.”
I grin bigger. “No you don’t.”
“I want to hate you,” she argues. “Gus is right, it’s impossible not to love you. And I hate you because you make it so easy for him to see those things in you that he doesn’t see in me.”
“What are you talking about? Gus sees a lot of good things in you. He wouldn’t have started dating you otherwise. He has feelings for me because they were downloaded into him. But he chose you. That means he favors you, Dee. Don’t you see?”
She’s quiet for a long time. “You think we could be happy? Gus and me?”
I shrug. “As happy as anybody. I don’t know what they’re gonna do with us when we get to Evanescence, but I hope we can just live out our days in peace. Don’t you?”
A siren begins to blare.
We both sit up. “What’s that?” she yells over the noise.
“I don’t know.”
We sit, paralyzed with uncertainty, then Sid practically rips the door as he tears at the zipper. “Get up. Both of you. We need to leave.”
Dee is on her feet and shoving them into boots in less than a second. I move to do the same, struggling to stand on one leg and grab at my crutches. Sid slips in and lifts me. “Sorry, but it’ll be faster this way.”
Cam appears behind him. “Got ’em?”
He glances behind himself, checks us up and down, and steps forward. The corridor beyond is dark, but there are flashing lights in the main chamber at the end of the hall. I can hear boots pounding on the stone and yelling. In the distance, shooting begins.
“What’s going on?” Delia asks as she trails us to the main chamber.
“I think we’re being raided,” Sid answers. A few of the remaining rebels run past us, guns lifted. Knowing Sid can’t defend with me in his arms, I reach for my gun, only to find I don’t have one. He grabbed me before I could grab it.
I reach down and take his out of its holster. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, but we have to go. Now.”
I turn to Cam. “Go get Stormy.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“But—”
“Damnit, I made a promise to her, I’m gonna keep it. Either you go get her or I’m getting down and going to get her myself.”
Frowning, Cam turns and hustles off.
I tap Sid on the shoulder. “Okay, let’s go, we’re sitting ducks out here.”
I keep one arm around Sid’s neck as he runs and the other outstretched with my gun. Once we reach the central chamber, we slam into a wall of bedlam. Screaming, running, things being hastily loaded and thrown onto the backs of trucks that are already rumbling and belching black smoke. Sid steps toward one. I hold my breath as he sets me on the floor, and I help Delia climb in. Inside, there are already half a dozen Disfavored rebels, their faces covered in masks. Sid glances around.
I cover him with the gun. “You see Cam?”
“Not yet.”
“Hurry up, Cam,” I whisper. Then, “What about the others? Are they back?”
Sid doesn’t look at me as he begins to wrestle things out of a box under the bench seat. “Don’t know.”
Grabbing the bar, I slide to the end of the truck. “I’m not leaving without Quent.” I move to climb out, but Cam appears, carrying Stormy. He chucks her practically on top of me and it takes me precious moments to untangle myself from her. When I finally get my balance and grab for my crutches, I’m once again knocked to the floor with a clang as someone suddenly hits the gas and the truck lurches backward, nearly running over Cam, who only manages to save himself from being backed over by grabbing the sidebar and hauling himself up.
Delia grasps my arm, helps me back onto my butt as the vehicle turns in a wide arc that makes us all tip to one side. A few thuds smack at the bottom and sides of the truck as it drives over what I hope are just boxes and not bodies.
A sudden burst of gunfire opens up. Metallic pinging hails the side of the truck, and then bullets are coming through the canvas. Delia screams.
“Get down!” someone yells.
The truck swerves again. Bodies fall around me. Most alive, a couple dead.
Sid crawls toward us. “Here, put this on.” He shoves something onto my face. I fight him because whatever it is, it’s uncomfortable. But then I realize it’s a mask. I struggle into it, hoping it’s on properly. The goggles fog instantly, blinding me to everything except the blood that’s slowly circulating around the bed of the truck as our driver wrenches the wheel back and forth. I gasp and gulp at strange, stale air. It’s hard to breathe with a mask on in normal circumstances, so it’s three times harder now that I’m certain that I’m hyperventilating. My fingers twitch. I need the gun that flew from my hand when Cam tossed Stormy at me. I need the spider threads I used in Nexis. I don’t have either.
As Cam laces the canvas backing closed behind us, I check my surroundings. Delia is on the floor next to me, Sid is helping her into a mask. Two dead. Eight others alive. I reach for the rifle trapped under one of the bodies and above all the noise, I hear a bullet slide into a chamber at my temple.
“Don’t.”
It’s Stormy. I recognize her raised voice.
“Are you threatening me with my own gun?”
There’s a pause. “Yes. Yes I am.”
“I give you a perfectly good leg and this is how you repay me.” Rolling my eyes, I kick out with my good leg. My foot hits her square in the chest, sends her flying. It takes her too long to recover and by the time she does, I have both the rifle and my gun aimed at her. “Just because you can stand now doesn’t make you invincible. Now take cover and shut up.”
She remains crouched where she is. “They’re here for me.”
“Well they’re not gonna get you.”
Another volley of bullets. Rat-tat-tat-tatta. Ping. Tink. Tink.
Stormy screams and hits the floor. Instinct kicks in and I’m throwing myself over her, defensive.
She’s not hurt, just scared. “They’re shooting at me!”
Delia reaches out, grabs Stormy’s hand. “It’s gonna be okay!” she hollers over the thundering rumble of the truck as it accelerates up an incline. From what I remember of the base’s layout, there are ramps that lead up and out at the city limits. I feel the truck gain momentum underneath me, opening up and speeding across The Waste.
In the half-light of the LED floodlights mounted on the truck following us, dust wafts through the shredded holes in the canvas. Outside for real now.
Something thumps hard on the top of the cabin in front of us. The truck swerves hard to the left. Stormy shrieks again. So do I, because it feels like we’re going to tip. But then we’re righted and we rock back and forth a few times. I’m about to breathe a sigh of relief, when I hear more ripping. This time from behind me.
I look back in time to see a body, stark in the light outside, climbing through the half-closed canvas. Gun raised, sharp teeth bright.
Cannibal.
Stormy struggles underneath me. “I told you!”
If the cannibals are here, what does that mean?
I curl around Stormy, half crush her, but I don’t care. This way she�
�s protected by my body, and the cannibal can’t see her.
I raise both guns and it’s like I was born with them in my hands. Screaming to match the howl of the creature among us, I shoot. He shoots, too. But my draw is quicker and his aim is thrown off by the bullet sliding home in his left shoulder. He falls backward, his momentum pushing him out of the canvas opening. I hear him hit the ground and roll behind us.
But there’s another one just behind him.
This time it’s Sid who takes him out. “Get behind me!”
“Like hell,” I yell back. I scramble over Stormy, half sitting on her as I take up a crouched position beside him. “Cam, get your ass back here.”
He doesn’t have to be told twice.
There’s silence. As silent as it can be, considering my thundering heart, Stormy’s frantic breathing, Delia’s cooing shushing, and the moan of one of the Disfavored who was injured in the second volley of shots.
Seconds turn to minutes, but that’s eternity. The engine continues to hum under us and we drive straight, gravel and the sorry remains of long-dead vegetation kicking up under the truck as it eats the wasteland beneath it.
“Is it over?” Delia asks, voice shaking.
“No,” Cam whispers. “Stay quiet. We’re being followed.”
“Followed?” she asks, sitting up. “But I don’t—”
Something jars the side of the truck, clipping the back of it so that an awful metallic noise rattles me to my teeth, and I can suddenly see a vast section of desert passing behind us.
Anchored in a massive hole in the tailgate is a large metal hook, like the kind Quent once used to fish with in Nexis.
“Brace!” someone behind us yells.
I do as I’m told, grabbing hold of a bench seat leg just as another awful jarring slams my bones together. A body rolls past me.
“Stormy!”
I let go, slide along beside her. Screaming, her hands go up. Mine go out. I grab one just in time. Just as her body slides out of the back of the truck. I realize too late that I’m going with her, and we’re both going down.
My ankle snags in something and it’s like my body is on a medieval torture device I once read about in Dad’s files. Snap. Pop. Pain. So much pain that black shoots around the edges and vomit explodes from my throat. But I don’t let go. Can’t let go.
Stormy’s wild eyes, big and black as night. Her mouth, bloody and open wide in horror. The ground rushing just past her. Her hand in mine.
Don’t let go.
Don’t let go.
Don’t.
Don’t.
It’s a mantra I repeat over and over again against the pain and the black.
More pain, hands grip me. Sid climbs over me, pulls Stormy up by her wrists. Her shaking body passes over me.
In the ghostly light of oncoming desert dawn, I see not one, but two vehicles following us. Each spilling over with cannibals.
“Gun!” I scream. But I’m already raising it. I didn’t let go of that, either. Clever me.
I lift it. I take aim. I fire.
I pull the hammer back, load the next round in the chamber. Around me I hear more guns firing, filling the space between my rounds.
Again. Boom.
And again. Boom.
And again. Boom.
I keep going. I keep firing. Bodies fall into the desert behind us. Roll, go black and still.
One of the trucks draws closer, overtaking us. Metal spikes eat at the world around me, shredding so that I can see more outside than in.
Someone shoots the driver pursuing us. A couple of cannibals jump at us in a last-ditch effort. They’re shot before their hands can cling.
Bodies fall around me. I refuse to look at who they are. Instead, I fire another round, this time aiming for the driver. The next time aiming for the grinning grill at the front of the truck.
Boom.
Reload.
Boom.
As long as one of us is still firing, as long as the truck is still going, there’s still hope.
Keep going.
Keep going.
Until there’s nothing left.
Until all the bullets are gone and darkness and pain finally take me.
chapter twenty-eight
Post-American Date: 7/10/232
Longitudinal Timestamp: 6:02 a.m.
Location: The Waste
“Ella? Ella!” Someone is shaking me. Groggy, I open my eyes but I wish I were back asleep almost as quickly, because the pain in my leg is so intense it makes me want to scream.
Delia blinks at me. “Are you all right?”
Trying to see through the pain spots, I squint at her and focus in sudden bright light. I still have my mask on. Around us, the yellow-brown miasma that is the sky passes over us like an unhealthy soup. Moving. We’re still moving. Still in the truck.
I sit up, biting my lip against the pain.
“Careful,” Sid says, grabbing my shoulders and supporting me from behind.
I glance around. Sid, hands bloody, but upright and okay. Cam next to Delia. His uniform has been torn to shreds and used to bandage a large bloody wound in his chest. He smiles, weary.
I search the floor. “Stormy?” Then I sit bolt upright. “Stormy!”
“I’m here.” A small voice reports from behind me. In the darkness remaining in the cabin, Stormy sits grasping her knees in a pool of sticky blood. There are no bodies, only two remaining people who look just as wounded as Cam does.
I let out a breath of relief. “You’re all right?” She seems shaky, sitting alone and scared. Eyes wide in the darkness. “Stormy?” I ask, confused why her terrified eyes are fixed on me.
“Ella,” Delia breathes, placing a hand on my arm. She tosses her head downward and I follow the gesture. Only to find nothing there are all. A few feet away, my remaining prosthetic is caught between two of the legs of the bench-seat. The end is ragged and bloody, the neural links laying limp like white worms.
I look down at my leg. Or, my stump. Not even a stump anymore, just a gaping thing where a stump used to be. It’s all crusted over with blood, but I can see the smooth bits where the scar remains and the rough patches where the prosthetic limb was once attached. Circulation to the sections has been tied off with part of what, I assume, is the rest of Cam’s uniform and radiating around and up and all over is an intense pain that beats with my fragile heart.
My mouth tastes bitter. No wonder Stormy is looking at me like that.
“Oh, Ella,” Delia whispers. She folds her arms around me, embracing me. “It’s okay. We’ll get new ones for you. We’re almost home!”
“Home?” I glance around, confused.
“Here,” Sid says, bending to lift me into his arms. “Looks like we’ve circled halfway around the city. We’re coming up on the main gate.” He sits me on a bench seat so I can lean out one of the rips in the canvas.
Dry wind beats at my matted hair, flakes of dust and debris bite my skin. To our left is nothing but brown, cracked earth. I can see where there used to be vegetation—trees and grass. The occasional foundation, picked clean of everything but the concrete. It smells metallic and musty. To our right is the outskirts of Kairos and beyond her, a massive blue moon fallen to earth.
Around the moon is a black belt and around the belt, a skirt of geometric shapes.
Evanescence. With her blue nano-glass dome. Her black wall to keep out the Disfavored. And the Outer Block, Kairos, spilling out all around her. Nothing ever looked so beautiful.
The truck takes a turn up a road that seems fairly wide for the ones I’ve seen in Kairos so far. I stare as she gets bigger and bigger until the only thing that I can see is the black wall and she’s blocking the light like an angry parent come to frown on the creatures below.
But there’s nothing to frown at. Only the toys left behind. The forts, the cars, the building blocks, and the spilled things.
Kairos abandoned.
Tin-sheet doors left ajar, ragged cloth
es still hanging on lines, pots of muddy water left by the wells, broken dishes in the streets, dirt collecting against the sides of buildings as wind blows it in and no feet shuffle it back out.
The stench remains. A deep, lingering scent. Defecation, decay. A few bodies lay rotting in the gutters, bloated and heaving in the sewage. I lift my uniform up over my mask, preferring the scent of my own vomit and the blood of strangers to this filth.
After traversing what seems like an endless approach of desperation and decay, we turn a corner and suddenly it’s there. The gates of Evanescence thrown wide, with no care as to who enters.
Unquestioned, the truck advances, rolling over the bodies of Disfavored and droid alike—ground zero for the rebel infiltration that took place the night the Anansi Virus activated. The droids on the other side of the gate have gotten their just desserts at the hands of the Disfavored they kept out of the city. Torn to the very basest of components—easy targets once they were struck immobile by the city shutting down.
And the devastation continues. Block upon block destroyed, broken, decimated, violated, and vandalized. It seems as if nothing is untouched. Even the broken bodies of the poor Aristocrats who were either still alive or—circuits, I hope—dead before the Disfavored entered the city have been given the same treatment. Torn, decapitated, clothes ripped from their bodies, obscene things done to them.
Someone’s trembling fingers find mine. I hear Delia whisper beside me, “Monsters.”
And I believe what she says. This is the vilest display I have ever witnessed here or in the game. And I’m here to save these people? What’s to stop them from doing the same thing to me? It’s hard to tell if the initial experimentation through Redux created these monsters or if they would have acted like this on their own. Part of me hopes it’s the brainwashing. It gives them some kind of excuse for this behavior. And it gives me hope. Because if this is the brainwashing, then there is hope that the secondary stage will work— that they will listen to their Savior.
I swallow hard, suddenly terrified. What if I’m not a savior at all? If I’m walking into a trap? If they want to do to me what they’ve done to these bodies piled along the street like trash? Rape me, beat me, cut off my remaining limbs, rip out my innards and string them along the street like festival garland, put my head on a pike. It smells in here like it smells out there and that doesn’t compute. Evanescence always smelled fresh and clean, like machine oil and plastic. Not offal.
