Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  Beard’s voice came through the shell around her, at the edge of hearing. “Howdy, officer. How you boys doin’ tonight?”

  “Not too bad. What’cha got?” The sound of the one called Officer drew closer.

  She heard doors open and slam. Here they come.

  Fingers and toes dug into the blanket.

  “The usual. Pre-war artifacts, couple of signs, couple of ‘lectronic things, two old guns, and oh… yeah… got a rescue, too.”

  Althea scowled. She did not need rescue; at least, not from Querq.

  “Name?”

  “Staff Sergeant Rachel E. Clarke, United States Air Force, security detachment for the 153rd Air Wing Under General Fitch. Enlistment date August 3, 2051.”

  Silence.

  “Come again?” Officer spoke.

  “I know four hundred years went by; I was in a cryo unit at White Sands.”

  “Oh, geez.” Officer sighed. “Brass is gonna have a goddamned field day with this.”

  “Is my enlistment still good, or is it expired?” Rachel trailed off to a whisper. “Holy shit, what is this place?”

  “Welcome to West City, ma’am.” Officer laughed. “Wait, what? Stowaway? Child-sized skeleton on the scanner? What are you talking about? Is it moving?”

  Althea blinked. Beard said “a” rescue. That meant one. He did not know she was locked in here. “Child-sized” had to mean someone sensed her.

  She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Help!” In a blur of desperation, she shrieked and kicked and slammed. “Help, let me out!”

  “Hands where I can see ‘em,” Officer yelled.

  “Nobody move.” Another voice, deeper, shouting from the other side.

  Althea went quiet and listened. The truck jostled with the noises of armored bodies climbing it.

  Someone knocked on a different crate. “Hello?”

  “I’m here,” she yelled, slapping the lid again.

  “Open it.” Officer sounded close now.

  Beep, beep, beep, click. With a pneumatic hiss, the metal plate above her slid away to reveal a smog-filled sky bereft of stars. The acrid smell of metal, trash, and technology brought involuntary tears to her already wet eyes, and she coughed. A man-shaped creature hovered over her, covered in a shiny blue shell with the funny marks she knew as words on his chest and the sides of his helmet.

  “Oh, my God, you poor thing.” He leaned closer. “Take it easy, kid; no one’s gonna hurt you.”

  Althea stared at her face, reflected in the swath of gleaming silver over the head from which Officer’s voice emanated. She did not notice the black glove until it touched her shoulder, and she cringed.

  “Easy, kid. I’m just going to get you out of there, okay?” He reached for her with both hands.

  She was terrified, but had little choice but to comply. Lifting her arms, she let him grasp around her body. He lifted her out of the crate, cradling her until he climbed from the truck and set her down. The ground was metal, freezing to her bare feet. Teeth chattering, she glanced left at Rachel, Beard, Darren, and Dean with their hands against the wall; more blue men had guns aimed at them. Straight ahead of her, beyond an interior gate of dull flat grey, the horizon burned with a million lights and great towers of metal and glass between which rivers of fast-moving objects flowed.

  It was what she imagined the Lost Place looked like in the before-time, only with more light, more noise, and more stink. Things whizzed by in the air, streams of boxes clad in panels of light; larger objects resembling cars moved in neat rows much higher up. Disembodied ghostly heads, many times bigger than a person ought to be, smiled down at the Earth and held up products and gadgets. The structures went into the clouds, out of sight. This city appeared to lean toward her with the overbearing lack of open land. She backed into the wheel of the truck, trying to get away from the oppressive presence, wanting to hide, wanting Father.

  “These bastards kept her in there so long she wet the blanket.” Another blue creature hovered over her now, perched in the truck bed by the box.

  “You fuckers know it’s perfectly legal to save Scrags. Why’d you lock her in there?” Officer yelled back at Beard’s group.

  “I don’t need saved. I was taken from my family.” She stomped. “I want to go home.”

  “Look at her eyes, Joe. Lace?”

  “Get a medic down here.”

  “Roger.”

  “It was him.” Althea pointed at Dean. “The others don’t know. He shot me with bees.”

  “What?” Officer crouched, meeting her eye to faceplate. “Bees?”

  “Tranq needler.” The man by the box held up a tiny sliver of what looked like green glass.

  Other blue men searched him, finding the tranq pistol.

  “That.” As soon as she saw it, Althea pointed.

  Officer reached to his belt and took metal restraints out of a case. They looked somewhat different from handcuffs she had seen, but such an object was unmistakable. Althea held her hands up to him, and cried.

  “Please don’t. I promise I won’t run away.” Her old plea, sobbed through the feeling she would never see Karina or Father again.

  He looked at her for a moment, and pushed her hands down. “These aren’t for you, kid.”

  “You sick fucker.” One of the blue men drilled him into the wall. “What’d you do to this girl?”

  “Nothing. What the hell is going on? I didn’t touch her!” Dean howled. “I don’t even know what happened.”

  Rachel looked over her shoulder, past her raised arms at Althea, concerned.

  Althea stared at the shiny ground, searching for words amid her grief. “Please… The others didn’t know I was in the box. They are confused.”

  Beard glared death at Dean. “You shifty little bastard. If I see you again, I’m gonna beat you purple.”

  “Calm down, sir.” Officer put the cuffs away, staying with Althea.

  “Dean had nothing to do with it.” The woman’s voice came from everywhere.

  Aurora.

  The blue men aimed their rifles around, searching for the source. Dean screamed and wrenched himself free of the police officer’s grip, banging his face into the wall in a series of dull, metallic thuds before he slid to the floor, cheek squealing over the surface. When he sat up, his shirt split open and a flesh-apparition of a woman’s upper body exuded from his chest. The displacing skin thinned his face, drawing the skull more prominent around his vacant stare, and exposing the undersides of his eyeballs.

  The cops leapt back, all of them shouting “whoa” in unison. Beard lifted an eyebrow, grabbing at an empty holster and grumbling about the cops taking his gun.

  “What the fuck is that?” Rachel pointed.

  Darren gathered her behind him, and backed with Rachel into the corner by the inner gate. “This man is a shell. He was in a necessary place at a necessary time.” He staggered to his feet, shambling with a zombie’s gait toward Althea. “I show myself for your benefit, little one. These police will now believe you Dean is not to blame. Don’t you feel better? He will not suffer for what I have done with him.”

  “Take another step and you’re fucking gone, whatever you are!” A red dot from Officer’s pistol flitted back and forth from Dean’s head to the apparition’s face.

  “No.” Althea yelled, tugging on the hard plastic arm with both hands until she dangled from it. “Don’t kill him. You can’t hurt her, but you’ll kill him. She’s just a spirit that made him do it.”

  “What are you?” One of the other blue men took a step towards her.

  “I am a messenger, the herald of Archon. You have served your purpose. Come, little one, it is time to meet your friends.”

  “No.” Althea shook her head. “I want my family. I want to go home.”

  “We kin run her back out there.” Beard glanced sideways at the cops, hoping to curry favor.

  “I don’t think that will be possible,” Aurora cooed.

  Dean’s body jerked.
A gunshot, a scream, and the fleshy thud of body on steel followed. Althea turned as a knife, clear as glass, stuck in Officer’s side. A sluice of blood trailed the edge, dripping to the ground. The other blue man fired the instant the knife was thrown; the shot hit Dean in the shoulder and knocked a spray of blood onto the wall that oozed down behind him. The flesh-apparition deflated, and the sense of her presence departed.

  “Son of a bitch.” Officer grumbled, pulling the knife out. “Fucking Nano knife? Your ass better have a BHL or I’m gonna shove this straight―”

  He lurched to grab Althea as she ran for Dean, seizing her by the shoulder. “You don’t need to see that, kid.”

  “Please. He’s hurt. I have to help him.” She stared at the distorted version of her face in the silver.

  “Go with McMasters, he’ll get you some cocoa.” Officer pushed her toward another man.

  “Let me help him.” Althea’s eyes flared, and Officer’s grip went lax.

  He stood motionless, hand hovering as if he held her, as she slid to a halt on her knees by Dean’s side. McMasters glanced back and forth from her to the stunned cop.

  “Dude, did that kid just psi you? You okay?”

  “Huh, what?” Officer looked around. “This is a checkpoint.”

  “Eep!” Althea cried out. A hole cut through his shoulder big enough to see the ground beneath him.

  What kind of awful weapons did these men have? There was no bullet to dig out; it had gone right through him, leaving a trench as big as her arm. She planted her hands around the gore and opened her mind to his life essence. The five patrol officers ran up to pull her away from such a grisly sight. They stopped, awestruck, when the wound began closing. One wobbled away, sick. Her eyes brightened as she worked, soft whimpers and grunts of exertion escaping her lips. When Dean was whole, she crossed her arms over her gut and moaned as her stomach growled.

  A hand took hers, guiding her to stand before picking her up and cradling her against cool plastic armor. The voice belonged to Officer; she felt it vibrate from the other side of the shell. She reached up, pushing the silver visor away from tired green eyes. Her fingers touched his cheek, and the sense of his life flooded her consciousness. In a moment, the knife-bite was gone.

  “Aww man, kid, you didn’t need to see that.” Officer pointed at Dean. “Get him to a medic, send the others to interview rooms, and someone get a fuckin’ Zero down here, stat. We don’t get paid enough to deal with this weird shit.”

  he tiny silver room held two metal chairs facing each other from opposite ends of a silver table. Officer set her down in one of them, and folded her limp arms in her lap. Althea stared at the loop bolted to the table and imagined the leash would be attached there. She leaned forward and put her wrists on either side of it, waiting for the chain.

  “Stop that.” Officer pushed her arms into her lap again. “I don’t know what they did to you, but you’re safe now. No one here is going to hurt you. Would you like some food?”

  “Yes, please.” She swung her feet back and forth, gazing down.

  Shivering from the temperature, she curled up on the chair and stared at her blurry reflection in the rough finish of the table. Officer had closed the door behind him; her heart sank, she felt certain it had locked. Cold and bare, with places for chains to go, this room looked meant to hold slaves. Despite that fact, it was cleaner even than Ruiz’s hospital.

  A hole in the ceiling covered in little bars carried murmuring voices from elsewhere inside this place. A woman arrived, in the same blue shell as the other men, only she had nothing covering her face. She carried food over, smiling. Two pieces of chicken, a beige glop, and a mound of little green spheres rested on a tray, flanked by a plastic knife and fork.

  Althea looked at the fork and cried. It made her think of Karina. Her sister would be upset with her for not using it, but she was too hungry and too upset to dwell on it. Packing handfuls of peas and mashed potatoes into her mouth, she devoured the strange food without tasting it, down to gnawing on the bones.

  A red-haired woman in a white jumpsuit had snuck in while she ate, watching her go feral on the fried chicken. Althea looked up from the fifth pass of her tongue over the plate, realizing she was no longer alone.

  “Wow… you must’ve been hungry.” The woman smiled. “I’m Allison. What’s your name?”

  “Althea.” She shrank into the chair.

  “Hello, Althea. I’m a medical tech, and I need to check you out to make sure you’re not sick or bringing anything into the city we don’t want.”

  “I don’t want to go into the city. I want to go home,” she mewled.

  “We don’t just let kids wander off into the Badlands. When you’re eighteen, you can go back if you want; for now, you’ll get a foster family and go to school, and―”

  “I have a family.” Althea jumped up, yelling. “Aurora took me away from them.”

  Allison smiled. “Well, if your parents are out there, they should come to the city where it’s safe. We can talk about finding them later.”

  She glared as the woman waved a strange little device over her, watching a strip of blue laser light crawl down her arms and legs. A hand on her head twisted it to the side, and a warmth flooded one ear then the other.

  “Open wide.” Allison held a small wand, which shone a bright light down her throat.

  This felt familiar.

  Allison took a small red tube out and pushed it against Althea’s shoulder. She jumped when it hissed and created a cool presence beneath her skin. She didn’t react to the tiny bit of pain. When Allison did it a second time, she scowled.

  “What are you doing to me?”

  The woman offered a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “It’s medicine that will keep you from getting sick. They’re called vaccines.”

  “I don’t get sick.” Althea sighed.

  “Sure.” A patronizing smile. “Let me see those eyes.”

  “No, I don’t know why they light up. Yes. They’ve always done it.” With a put-upon exhale of frustration, she leaned forward and opened them as wide as she could and rolled them around to the four corners. “See? Blue light. Can I go now?”

  Allison ignored her ramble, poring over her face with the same strange device.

  “Interesting.”

  “What?” Althea grumbled.

  “Your sclera are bioluminescent, like a firefly, but stronger. The rest of the eye looks normal.”

  “Bio loom…” She tried. This woman spoke the same word the strange little robot had used.

  “Bioluminescent.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means they glow.” Officer chimed in from where he leaned on the doorframe.

  “Then just say they glow. I knew that already.” Althea called the woman dumb with a glare.

  “So what’s the verdict?” He looked at the redhead.

  “I’m malnurmished, but you can’t find anything else wrong with me. I’m small for my age, you think I’m only ten but I’m twelve, and umm…” Her insolent rant stalled as she ran out of things to say.

  Allison frowned. “Her metabolic rate is sky high. Muscle density is what one would expect from a professional athlete… Somewhat malnourished”―Allison glanced at the untouched fork―“and probably a little feral. She’s conversational, though, so she’s had some human contact.”

  “I even walk on two legs and I’m toilet trained.” Althea’s petulance was tangible. “Or do you want me to pee in the corner and bark at the moon?”

  Officer tried not to laugh. “Any diseases, parasites, or infections?”

  “I checked her twice, nothing. Never saw that before with a Scrag; they always have half a dozen things.”

  She stomped with a sharp clap. “You’re not listening. I told you I don’t get sick.”

  A wave of discomfited concern came from Officer. “Any evidence of…”

  “No. That’s one damn lucky kid.”

  The blue man relaxed. Althea fe
lt his relief.

  Allison disregarded her with the same patronizing smile. “So where’s the suspect that took one to the shoulder? Isn’t his wound worse? Why did you send me in here for this first?”

  Officer pointed at Althea. “She fixed him already.”

  “What? Stop fucking with me, Joe.”

  “Go check the surveillance vid. Dude took an 11mm to the shoulder, left a hole you could drive a truck through. The kid put her hand on him and it just closed on its own, that’s why we got Zeroes on the way.”

  Althea’s sadness had turned to sullen frustration. “Can I go now? Are you done?”

  Officer glanced at something down the hall. “Not my decision, sweetie.”

  Rage boiled inside her and the glow flared. Hair whipped by an unseen wind, she yelled with a voice that seemed amplified. “I am tired of being kidnapped! I want to go home.”

  Radiant fear worked on giant roaches, and apparently just as well on arrogant medical techs. Allison screamed and ran past Officer into the hallway while he just lifted an eyebrow and took a step back. The medic was too scared to speak; Althea sensed her fear of psionics, a terror that peaked when a man and woman in black walked into view through the large window.

  Their clothes did not shine like the blue shells, and they both had silver pistols on their belt instead of the black ones like Officer. Allison ran, refusing to make eye contact with them. Officer moved out of their way, less obvious in his distrust, but she sensed it. Althea relaxed, backing against the table.

  “Hello there.” The woman entered. “I’m Anita. I hear you’re a very special little girl.”

  Mike, look at her eyes.

  The man in the hall reacted to the thought.

  I’m sayomic too. Althea shot her voice into the woman’s head.

  Anita chuckled. “It’s psionic.” She pronounced it a few times until Althea repeated it properly. “We are special police officers who help people like you. They told me you just arrived from the Badlands?”

  “Yes, but I don’t want to be here. I have a family, and I want to go back to them now.” She folded her arms, and pouted at her toes. “I missed bath time.”

  “Your family is out there?”