by Tom Abrahams
Battle pulled the boy from the edge with his free hand. “Good job,” he said. “Now help me with the next one.”
The other Dweller had coiled the third rope and was working on the fourth. Battle stood to the side, shouldered the rifle, and pulled the HK’s trigger twice, knocking loose both the grunts trying to climb the remaining rope.
As he wound the last of the cord onto the rock, the Dweller seized, grabbed his side, and toppled over, tangled in the rope.
Battle moved to his side and checked the wound. It wasn’t good. The Dweller had two large, leaking holes at his ribcage. The man was already coughing up blood.
Battle stood above him and tapped his trigger once. “As far as the East is from the West,” he said, “so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
“Why did you do that?” Sawyer asked.
“He was dying,” Battle said flatly. “I put him out of his misery.” He put his hand on the boy’s back and patted it. “It was the right thing to do.”
“What now?”
“We keep fighting,” Battle said. He looked over his shoulder and to the right. Some of the grunts had gotten past the first wall of Dwellers and were pushing ahead. The canyon was bathed in the yellow glow of sunrise, and his vision was much improved in the early daylight. He scanned the battlefield below and gave the plateau opposite the hoodoo a glance before assessing the strength of the next wave at the dogleg.
He caught something odd on the plateau that didn’t register at first until he’d moved past it. He looked back. Standing atop the plateau was Lola. Directly behind her, holding a gun to her head, was a bearded, ponytailed man. It was Roof. He was staring directly at him as if he’d been patiently awaiting Battle’s acknowledgement.
Roof’s left arm was wrapped around Lola’s chest, holding her tightly against him. Lola was gripping his arm with both hands.
Battle froze for a moment then turned to Sawyer. He pointed to the dogleg, trying to keep the boy from looking back to the plateau. “I need your help.”
Sawyer’s eyes brightened with a new responsibility and he nodded with enthusiasm.
Battle pointed his finger at Sawyer’s chest. “Now listen, I’m going down there to get reinforcements up here. Once I’ve slid down the rope, you yank it back up.”
Sawyer’s excitement diminished, but he nodded his understanding. “Okay.”
“Then you get over to that niche in the rock, make yourself as small as you can, and wait for me. You’ll be safe up here. Nobody will be able to reach you.”
Sawyer looked back at the rock and then to Battle with a dour look on his face. “How will you get back up here if there’s no rope?”
Battle sighed. “We’ll figure it out,” he said. “I’ll send you a signal.”
“What kind of signal?”
“I don’t know. You’ll know it when you see it.”
Sawyer nodded, seemingly placated by the vague response. The truth was, Battle had no idea how he’d get back up the hoodoo or what kind of signal he’d send if need be.
As it was, he had to navigate the fight on the canyon floor to cross the passage and climb his way to Lola. And Roof.
***
General Roof stared across the passage at the man who’d saved his life. He’d watched him kill a handful of grunts and callously drill a bullet into the head of a dying Dweller. He was the Marcus Battle he remembered. He was the Marcus Battle who’d staved off the Cartel for a half-decade and then survived the Jones as few men had.
He’d waited patiently for Battle to find his glare, using his superior strength to hold the woman in place. He didn’t care about her. It didn’t matter to him if she lived or died. She was a means to an end. Roof needed to deal with Battle face-to-face, and she was a serendipitous find to facilitate exactly that.
Roof scanned the rim. Even in the daylight he couldn’t see the reinforcements he’d expected. Something had gone wrong. He looked to the dogleg and saw little push from incoming waves of men. Their offensive was failing.
“He’s going to kill you,” said Lola. “You’re going to die here, and the Cartel is going to die with you.”
Roof chuckled and used his arm to lift her feet off the ground. He arched his back, totally controlling her as she struggled against his arm. She dug her nails into his skin and dragged them downward.
“We’re all going to die,” he said and dropped her feet back to the rocky surface of the plateau. “It’s a matter of when.”
“Look at the passage,” Lola taunted. “You’re losing. You can’t win. You didn’t realize how strong the Dwellers’ resistance would be, did you?”
Roof looked across the canyon. Battle was lowering himself into the passage on a rope. His legs were wrapped around the nylon and he used one hand to guide himself. He held a rifle in the other and had it pressed against his hip as he descended. Roof couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw Battle fire the weapon one handed as he dropped.
“You’re losing,” Lola repeated and jammed her elbow into Roof’s solid gut.
He flinched but didn’t lose his hold. “You’re gonna have to be okay with staying here until your boyfriend arrives,” said Roof. “Then you can go. Then you watch both of us die.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
OCTOBER 26, 2037, 7:45 AM
SCOURGE +5 YEARS
PALO DURO CANYON, TEXAS
Juliana Paagal emerged from her tent into the chill of the early morning sunrise. She didn’t feel the cold. She was warm with power.
At her ear was the satellite phone. Call after incoming call brought with it astonishing news. With rare exception, the Cartel was folding. What she expected to be a long, brutal war might be over by lunch.
“What about the north rim?” she asked. “What’s their status?”
Her scouts had performed admirably. Throughout the night, across the territory, they’d alerted her of awaiting squads of advancing Cartel caravans.
They’d ambushed them where they were outnumbered, fought them hand to hand when they were evenly matched, and slaughtered the grunts and their bosses when Dwellers had the advantage.
Paagal thanked the caller and folded the sat phone’s antenna. She slipped it into her pocket and turned to the operator. He’d kept her company since her security team died on the rim. They were walking to the tent enclave, ready to deliver good news to the elderly, the women, and the children who’d stayed out of the fray.
“We’ve timed this perfectly,” she said to him. “Austin is beginning to acquiesce now. In a matter of hours, we will have control of everywhere behind the wall except Lubbock.”
“Everywhere, huh?”
“One glitch,” she admitted. “Something happened in Houston. Our cell successfully killed the general there. Then three of the leaders, the people who’d put the plan together, all died. We think the general’s wife flipped on us.”
“She’s one woman,” said the operator. “What does it matter?”
Paagal stopped and shoved the operator in the arm. “What does it matter?”
The operator shrugged as if the question were rhetorical.
“Battle is one man,” she said. “Look at what he did. He created enough of a ripple in the water that it distracted the Cartel from the storm that was coming. If we find her, we can’t let her live.” She resumed walking toward the tent city. “Come to think of it,” she added. “I don’t think we should let Battle live either.”
The operator stopped in his tracks as Paagal kept walking. She sensed he wasn’t next to her and turned around. “What?”
“Why would you do that? He’s helping us. You promised him safe passage beyond the wall.”
“I don’t trust him psychologically,” said Paagal. “He’s got issues.”
The operator laughed incredulously and ran his fingers through his beard. “We’ve all got issues. We’re living in a wasteland. The Scourge killed two out of every three people we knew. Cut him a break.”
Paagal mar
ched back to the operator, her mouth pursed with frustration. “I don’t need your opinion, I need your obedience. I need everyone’s obedience as we rebuild the territory into something better. Battle doesn’t fit.”
“He’s not going to be here,” said the operator. “He wants to live north of the wall, outside of the territory. He’s no threat to you.”
Paagal huffed and spun on her heel. “Enough,” she said without turning around. “I need to speak with the invalids.”
She walked with purpose toward the tent city, reluctantly considering what the operator was suggesting. Perhaps Battle wouldn’t be a threat. Maybe he’d move across the wall and stay there. If he did, he’d be their problem. Instead of challenging the Dwellers’ new order, he’d spend his days and nights exasperating those trying to maintain a tenuous sense of calm on a much larger scale.
Paagal had watched Battle work. He was an enigma. She’d seen him ruthlessly maim and kill. She’d seen him reveal remarkable empathy for that woman Lola and the boy Sawyer. She’d overheard him talking to himself, though the conversations sounded as though he believed the voices she concluded were in his head were, in his world, real and tangible.
Before the Scourge she’d treated patients who suffered from what were typically called auditory hallucinations. They were signs of psychosis and indicative of someone who had trouble distinguishing reality from fiction.
Battle, she was convinced, was teetering on the edge of schizoaffective disorder, if he hadn’t already plunged headfirst into that surreality. He presented with so many of the symptoms beyond the hallucinations. He was moody, bordering on depression. He was a loner for years and was uncomfortable playing well with others.
She did consider the possibility that the loneliness begat the depression and the need for a connection with people, real or imagined. Maybe it wasn’t psychosis. Perhaps it was a coping mechanism.
By the time she’d reached the first of the tents, Paagal made up her mind. It didn’t matter why Battle was the way he was. She didn’t care about the cause. She cared about the effect. He was a loose cannon, psychotic or not. He would not stay on the other side of the wall. The pull of his home was too great. He’d come back. She’d need to deal with him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
OCTOBER 26, 2037, 7:54 AM
SCOURGE +5 YEARS
SOUTH OF HICKORY CREEK, TEXAS
Ana had her nose pressed to the glass of the hearse’s rear window. They were crossing a large lake. The sun reflected off the water, making it appear red in color.
Penny was swaddled in a pile of blankets next to her and had fallen back asleep. Ana rubbed the back of her head, gently thumbing the remaining fontanelle. Her baby, born of deceit and treachery, was perhaps the best child on the planet. She still napped twice a day for hours at a time, and when awake, she was as happy as a clam.
With each spin of the hearse’s wheels, Ana was closer to freedom and farther away from her past lives.
Her breath formed, grew, and shrank against the cold glass. She pulled away and ran her finger through the condensation. She shifted to look toward the front of the vehicle. The hearse had a bench seat up front. There were four people squeezed onto the bench; the driver, a teenage girl, a teenage boy, and the dictatorial woman who didn’t want Ana traveling with them. Behind the bench, to the right side, were a pair of facing jump seats that shared a foot well. A pair of young women, maybe in their early twenties, occupied the seats. The rest of the hearse was a laminate flatbed with recessed casket rollers every few feet.
“Who are you?” The whisper came from a young woman in the rear-facing jump seat. “What’s your name?”
“Ana.”
“I’m Becky. And your baby?”
“Penny.”
The girl managed an insecure smile. “That’s a pretty name,” she said. “How old is she?”
“Nine months.”
“Why are you running away?” asked the young woman.
The twenty-something facing her popped Becky on the knee. “That’s rude.”
“It’s okay,” said Ana. “I need a fresh start. I need a healthier environment for Penny.”
The angry woman up front laughed from her belly. “There ain’t no such thing,” she said. “Not on either side of the wall.”
Ana noticed the driver, Taskar, watching her in the rearview mirror. “Then why are you going there?” she asked the woman. “Why are you taking the risk if it’s not better?”
“I didn’t say it wasn’t better,” the woman said. “It ain’t healthy. Taskar here was telling me about the way the world works up there. It’s all about who you know. You know somebody, you got it good. You don’t? You don’t.”
“So you know somebody?” Ana asked.
“I know lots of people,” she said. “We got somewhere to stay. We got jobs lined up. We got official-looking papers.”
“Papers?”
The woman laughed. “You ain’t got your papers?”
Ana looked at the rearview mirror. “I didn’t—”
The woman mocked Ana, whining as she spoke. “I didn’t. I didn’t.”
“I can help,” said Taskar. “Don’t worry.”
“Don’t matter if you got papers or not, sweet thing,” said the woman. “If you got nowhere to stay and no job, you might as well hop out of the car right now.”
“Don’t listen to her,” whispered Becky. “She’s always like this. She doesn’t like strangers. It’s not you.”
“Damn right I don’t like strangers,” said the woman, overhearing the whisper. “Ain’t nothing to like.”
Ana turned back to the window and breathed onto the glass. They were moving at a good clip. The dotted white lane markings whizzed past, blurring into a single line from Taskar’s speed. They’d be in Gainesville, south of the wall, in less than an hour.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
OCTOBER 26, 2037, 8:00 AM
SCOURGE +5 YEARS
PALO DURO CANYON, TEXAS
Marcus Battle clung to the rocks, pressing himself as close to the wall as he could. He didn’t like having his back to the fighting below him, even if it was diminishing and the Cartel’s advance was in the midst of being thwarted.
He scaled the final jutting rock onto the plateau and pushed himself to his feet. The morning sun brought with it a whipping wind that swirled through the canyon and flapped against Battle’s thin shirt. He stood with his rifle in his hands, the barrel pointed diagonally skyward.
Roof turned to face him, dragging Lola with him. He pushed the barrel of his handgun into her temple, forcing her to tilt her neck away from the pressure.
“I know who you are,” Battle said, calling to Roof over the wind and now intermittent gunfire.
“Do you now?” said Roof, half of his face hidden behind Lola.
“You’re Rufus Buck.”
“The one and only,” said Roof. “Good on you for figuring it out. Though, it’s not like I was hiding it. I knew who you were when I saw you at the Jones. You didn’t recognize me.”
“You’ve changed.”
“A lot has changed, Captain Battle.”
“Major.”
Roof laughed. “See what I mean?”
Lola’s hair whipped across her face, and Battle could see the resolve in her eyes. She wasn’t afraid.
Battle waved one of his hands, gesturing at Roof from toe to head. “So what’s going on here?” he asked. “What is this?”
“I thought we should meet face-to-face again,” Roof said. “Given that we’ve both saved each other’s lives, I thought it appropriate.”
Battle tensed. His hands tightened around the rifle. He spoke through clenched teeth. “How do you figure we saved each other’s lives?”
“You got me out of Aleppo. I told Skinner not to lay a hand on you.”
Battle’s focused narrowed. He slid his finger onto the rifle’s trigger.
“He’s dead now,” said Roof. “Skinner, that is. Got shot on his
way here. I put him out of his misery, like you did with that Dweller across the way. We have a lot in common, you and me.”
“Now you sound like the bad guy in an old James Bond movie,” said Battle. “You can’t rationalize what you’ve done.”
“Nor can you.”
“So, again,” said Battle, looking for an opening. He needed only enough space to hit his target. Roof was smart enough not to provide it. “What is this?”
“We’ve saved each other’s lives,” said Roof. “Now we’re going to end them. I’m going to let the little lady go here. You’re gonna shoot me. I’m going to shoot you.”
“Let her go, then,” Battle said. “You’ve lost this war. You know it; I know it. You gain nothing by killing her.”
Lola’s eyes widened. She struggled against Roof’s arm. “No, Marcus. No.”
Roof laughed and then leaned into Lola’s neck. “Marcus, is it?” he sneered and planted a big kiss on the side of her head.
Lola struggled against him. She kicked at his shins, clawed at his arm.
Roof growled. “Fine then,” he said. “Be free.”
He released his hold and shoved her forward. Lola stumbled. She fell onto her knees and slid, catching herself with her hands.
Roof raised his weapon. He aimed at Battle but stood his ground.
Battle pushed his left hand forward, drawing the barrel of the rifle toward Roof. His muscles tensed, anticipating both the recoil and the incoming fire.
In the instant before either of them let loose, however, Roof jerked to one side and then the other. He lost control of his weapon and dropped it. He turned his attention away from Battle and toward the hoodoo.
Battle followed Roof’s gaze and saw Sawyer on one knee, his HK pressed to his shoulder, a series of muzzle flashes exploding from the weapon’s barrel as he unloaded its magazine into Roof.
Roof’s body limply danced in place until he collapsed onto his weapon. The last of the Cartel generals was dead.
