New World Order

by S. M. McEachern

  “Get back to work,” Amos said, still laughing.

  Fed up with digging a hole, I drove the shovel as far into the earth as it would go and flung the dirt as hard as I could. Some of it fell into a hole six feet away, and I swore I heard someone cough.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sunny

  I stared at Sims as my brain slowly made the connection between Senator Kenner and my husband Jack.

  Jack wasn’t supposed to make it home? An icy-cold fear gripped me.

  “Why?” I asked with a calmness I wasn’t feeling.

  “I don’t know,” Sims said.

  I drew my gun, intent on getting answers. “Tell me, or I swear to God I’ll shoot you.”

  Reyes raised an eyebrow. “What happened to ‘you can’t get answers from a dead man’?”

  “Dead men can’t hurt my husband.” I pressed the trigger enough to let Sims see it without actually firing.

  “I told you that’s all I know. I swear!”

  Reyes picked him up off the ground by the throat, shook him a couple of times, and set him back down.

  I extended the barrel of my pistol toward him. “Last chance.”

  Alex looked at Sims. “Shut up.” His voice was hoarse, but the tone of command was unmistakable.

  I looked down at Alex. “Then you tell me.” He was still coughing but not as much. I squatted down in front of him. “Why don’t you want Jack to make it home?”

  “What the hell are you wearing?” he rasped. He looked from me, to Reyes, to Summer, and back to me. “Where did you get those suits?”

  “Answer the question,” I said.

  “And where did you get that raft? Who’s supplying you?” He swallowed and coughed. “What are you, some kind of subversive army for the Alliance?”

  “Subversive,” I repeated, letting it resonate. “It’s an interesting choice of words. It leads me to believe you think the Alliance is trying to overthrow our government.”

  Alex huffed, but it turned into a coughing fit. He composed himself and wiped spittle from the corner of his mouth. “I see your year at our Academy is paying off. You know all the big words now.”

  I ignored the jab. “So—and I’m just trying to work through this—you think Jack is the head of the Alliance and he’s leading a subversive army into revolting against the government?”

  “I didn’t say Jack had anything to do with the Alliance. I was just making an observation,” Alex said. I glared at him, waiting for him to answer me. He glared back. “Where Jack is concerned, I already told you, I was just following orders.”

  “Whose orders?”

  “Head of our military, General Powell.”

  “And Powell ordered you to make sure Jack didn’t make it home?”

  “Like I said, I was just following orders.”

  I could tell he was lying. It was probably more like he was in league with Powell. I remembered how close he and the general were back before the Pit had been freed and the doors to the Dome opened. The memory of Alex on the range, patting his pistol while he told Jack that, “shooting a moving target was a great way to hone his skills,” came back to me. Alex was bourge through and through.

  And then it hit me.

  Alex was a bourge. He was a Holt supporter. “This has something to do with Leisel taking Jack’s seat in the Senate, doesn’t it?”

  He looked at me with enough surprise to confirm I was right. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  An arrow hit the ground a few feet from us. I looked up at Reyes, who still had a hold of Sims. Reyes looked in the direction the arrow had traveled from and held up his hand as if to ask, what? I turned back to Alex.

  “Oh, yes you do,” I said with absolute certainty. I narrowed my eyes, studying him. He shifted nervously. “That’s exactly what it is. So what’s the plan, Alex? Make sure Jack doesn’t come back to claim his seat in an attempt to stack the Senate with the old regime?”

  “Sunny!” Summer said with some urgency.

  Alex sneered. “If you’re as smart as you think you are, you’ll know we’re doing it this way to avoid fighting.”

  My eyes widened in shock. I stood up so I could look down at him, but he scrambled to his feet. “You think putting Leisel Holt on the Senate isn’t going to start a fight?” I leveled a glare at him. “It’s going to start a war!”

  Reyes swatted me on the arm and pointed to something. I looked to find Hayley and four soldiers riding up to us on their bikes. Jin’s arrow must have been a warning.

  Alex leaned a little a closer to me and whispered, “A war we intend to win. Once a slave, always a slave, O’Donnell.”

  I punched him square in the face, felt his nose break under my knuckles, and relished the satisfaction it gave me. He landed on his backside with an unceremonious thump and cupped his nose with both hands. “That’s Mrs. Kenner to you,” I said.

  “What is going on?” Hayley demanded as she dismounted her bike. She strode toward us, pointing at Reyes. “Unhand him!”

  Reyes made no move to let Sims go. Alex was on the ground, trying to stop the blood flow with his hands.

  I turned to face Hayley, letting my hand rest on my gun. “You won’t get away with it.” She stopped when she saw where my hand was. Her eyes traveled up to find mine. The soldiers behind her dismounted their bikes and drew their rifles. “I will bring Jack home.”

  The angry set of her expression turned to part confusion. “Okay...” she said, nodding her head. Her eyes grew round as she looked at me like a mother looks at a wayward child. “We don’t need to get crazy about it though. We all care about Jack. We all want to find him and bring him home. This isn’t a competition.”

  “What?” It was my turn to be confused. Was she just keeping up the pretense? “We’re the crazy ones? We didn’t ask for any of this! And before you say anything—”

  “Sergeant Wilcox told me you ambushed them,” she said loudly, drowning out my voice. She thumbed behind her at one of the soldiers. I recognized Wilcox as the one who’d gotten away.

  “We ambushed them? They’re the ones who came to the beach looking for us. We watched them from up on a ridge— wait a minute.” The realization dawned on me that Hayley wasn’t a part of the conspiracy. I eyed Alex suspiciously, slowly putting the pieces together. I addressed my next words to him. “You didn’t even know we were planning on coming out here, which means Powell sent you to stop Hayley from finding Jack.”

  Alex dropped his gaze toward the ground, still holding his nose.

  “What’s she talking about, Alex?” Hayley asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said in a muffled voice. “Like you said, she’s crazy.”

  “Do you agree with that, Sims?” I called over my shoulder. I knew Reyes still had him by the throat, and I was hoping Reyes might give him a little more airtime to coax the truth out of him.

  I heard a strangling noise behind me but didn’t have time to turn around because Wilcox took a step forward, aimed his rifle, and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit me in the chest, and I watched in horrific fascination as it crumpled to a stub and dropped harmlessly to the ground.

  “What the—” Hayley said, eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

  The commotion behind me drew my attention, and I spun around to see Alex on his feet, a rock in hand, aiming at Reyes’ head. Reyes didn’t have his hood up so I knew the impact would knock him out, maybe even kill him. I threw myself at Alex, reaching for the arm that held the rock. Somewhere in my peripheral vision I saw Summer move too. Reyes dropped Sims as he shifted to evade Alex, and Sims pulled his gun. I was in mid-jump when I made contact with Alex and took him down with me, the two of us tumbling with the force of our landing. I lost my hold on him, but Reyes was already barreling down on us.

  I heard shots being fired and arrows whizz through the air, but I couldn’t react. My body was in an uncontrollable roll, heading toward the river. In my knee-jerk reaction to stop Alex from clobbering Reyes, I had
thrown myself at him not even thinking about the fortified strength my suit gave me. Terrified of plunging into the water, I clawed at the ground to halt my tumble. I finally rolled to a stop with my legs submerged in the river.

  I let out the breath I had been holding and sucked fresh air into my lungs.

  Reyes ran into the water, and I looked up in time to see Alex get swept into the current. Reyes was halfheartedly attempting to reach him, but the current was strong and fast. Alex’s arms wildly clawed at air as the river carried him away. Hayley waded in with a hand outstretched but quickly backed up when the current threatened to take her too.

  I looked for Summer and found her surrounded by soldiers. She had her hood pulled up and was holding the wrong end of a rifle. Wilcox was on the ground at her feet, one side of his head bloodied.

  Pushing myself up off the wet ground, I pulled up my own hood to protect my head from bullets and walked toward her. As I went, I noticed Sims on the ground with an arrow sticking out of his chest.

  “Let her go,” I said to the soldiers. I didn’t bother to draw my gun. My confidence in the exoskeleton had grown tenfold in the last few minutes. Hayley looked furious. She dragged herself out of the river and marched toward me with both hands on her rifle.

  “Go ahead, shoot,” I said.

  “What the hell are you wearing!” She stood looking at me, panting from her exertion. “Who made it? Where did you get it? And what the hell is going on?”

  If Hayley didn’t know what Alex was up to, I could only imagine how all this appeared to her—we’d just killed Alex and Sims. “I know how this looks, but you have to believe me, we were defending ourselves against Alex. He came here to stop us from continuing our search.”

  She snorted. “Liar!”

  “I’m not lying. Alex told me that General Powell ordered him to make sure Jack doesn’t make it home.”

  “Really,” Hayley said, fury mottling her face. “And why the hell would he do that?”

  “So Leisel can take Jack’s seat in the Senate.”

  Hayley’s brows drew together, and her mouth twisted derisively. “Please! Nobody takes that seriously. West is just pacifying her like the spoiled brat she is, and Alex knows that.”

  I looked over at Wilcox lying on the ground, the only possible witness left. I directed my next question at Summer. “Is he still alive?”

  Of the four soldiers surrounding her, three of them had their rifles pointed at her. The fourth held his rifle turned downward, loosely hanging in his hand. I noted he was the same one who had smiled at her back at the recruiter camp.

  Summer nudged Wilcox with her foot. He moaned. She took her sunglasses off and looked at me. Only then did I realize the sun was almost down. “Yep,” she said with disinterest.

  She threw the rifle she was holding on the ground and sauntered out of the circle. One of them threatened to shoot her if she didn’t stop. She didn’t pay any attention. A shot rang out. Summer kept walking. The shooter swore in disbelief.

  “Maybe he can confirm everything about Alex when he wakes up. Until then,” I said, motioning toward the brush where our raft was hidden, “we have a raft and can try to save Alex, but we have to move fast.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You have a raft?” She headed toward the brush.

  Gravel crunched under Reyes’ feet as he hurried away from the river’s edge toward the raft, presumably trying to get there before Hayley.

  “You didn’t have a raft with you back at the recruiters’ camp,” Hayley said.

  “Yes, we did,” I said. “It was in Reyes’ backpack.”

  Reyes shot me an annoyed scowl over his shoulder. “Why did you tell them we have a raft?”

  “Because we’re not killers, Reyes. If we can save Alex, we should.”

  Reyes reached the raft first, did an about-face, and held up his hands to stop Hayley from coming any further. “Just get on your bikes and go your way, and we’ll go ours. I promise we’ll pick your friend up if we see him.”

  Hayley straightened, putting her hands on her hips in a stance that said she wasn’t going anywhere. “I don’t believe you.”

  Reyes’ features twitched, momentarily crinkling his nose, as he looked down at her. “I know I owe you one. You can trust me.”

  Reyes owed her one? I looked across at Summer. She shrugged.

  Hayley shook her head, dropped her hands from her hips, and moved forward. “Nope,” she said.

  I moved forward as well, afraid Reyes might try to physically stop Hayley. He wouldn’t think twice about grabbing her and, if he was like me, still wasn’t accustomed to the power of his suit. He could inflict real damage.

  Surprisingly, he didn’t lay a hand on her. Just sidestepped to block her from reaching the raft. Despite her own petite stature against Reyes’ tall, muscular frame, she stood her ground, mere inches away from him, her lips tightly set.

  “Out of the way,” she ordered.

  Reyes shook his head. She stepped around him. And I watched, in absolute shock, as Reyes did nothing about it. If I had ever challenged him like that, back when we were engaged, he would’ve grabbed my arm and flung me out of the way. So what was it about Hayley? Was he so conditioned to being subservient to Dome soldiers that he couldn’t defy them? No. That couldn’t be it. Reyes had killed plenty of Domers during the revolt in the Pit.

  “Where’s the gas cylinder that inflates it?” Hayley asked as she inspected the raft. “And how do you deflate it? Are you carrying a pump in your pack?”

  I glanced from her to Reyes in confusion. “It doesn’t need a pump.”

  Reyes rolled his eyes.

  Hayley raised an eyebrow and stared right at me. “This isn’t one of ours.”

  My gaze swung to Reyes, who was looking distinctly guilty. “What does she mean? You told me you borrowed it from inventory.”

  Hayley slowly ran her fingers over a rectangular patch of material on the side of the raft. “Where did you get it? Same place as the suits?”

  That patch of material did resemble our nanosuits! I almost did a head-slap. The raft had been modified with Doc’s technology. Why hadn’t I made the connection before? But it still didn’t make any sense. Why was Reyes trying to keep that secret from me? And come to think of it, why didn’t Doc just give me the raft? Did he think that without transportation I would decide not to go on the search? That didn’t make sense. Doc knew I was going no matter what.

  “Why did you lie?” I asked Reyes. “Why not just tell where you got it?”

  Reyes took off his sunglasses, shut his eyes tightly, and pinched the bridge of his nose. Hayley grabbed the raft and started dragging it. Reyes waved her away and picked it up. “I don’t want to take a chance on the rocks puncturing it.”

  “Wait a second!” I said, intent on getting some answers, but Eli came out of the woods carrying Jin-Sook.

  “I need help!” he called. “She’s been shot.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jack

  A cough.

  I looked over at my guards. Fadi was noisily drinking water. Had the sound come from him? I inched my foot toward the hole where I had thrown the dirt.

  “Bring him!” someone called out from the gate.

  “Where?” Amos called back.

  “Father Ryder wants him at the sterilization.”

  “You heard him,” Fadi said, putting the cup down on the table. He pulled a plastic tie out of the leather pouch attached to his belt and gestured at my hands. “Behind your back.”

  Dropping the shovel, I dutifully put my hands behind my back but flexed my wrists to ensure the tie wasn’t so tight this time. Once I was secured, Amos gave a push in the direction of the gates.

  The compound seemed almost abandoned as we walked back through. No workers manned the plastic factory, no one walked the streets. When we turned the corner for the center of town, I saw the village gathered in the commons. The castration. Everyone in the city was there for it.

  My e
arlier estimate of a population of three hundred was off. I thought about our gymnasium in the Dome with a seating capacity of five hundred, and I could see the number of people here just fitting into that space. The crowd clustered around the sides of the fence was about six rows deep, with the ones at the back standing on tiptoes to see over the ones in front.

  Amos and Fadi elbowed gawkers aside and pulled me to the front row, giving me a clear view. In the center of the fenced area, Phillip lay stretched out naked on a table in a pool of his own sweat. Beside the table stood two men, one of them with a knife in his hand. Ryder addressed the crowd, walking a few steps at a time, ensuring he addressed everyone in the semicircle gathered around him.

  “Our ancestors provoked the jealous wrath of the gods by arrogantly favoring one and ignoring the others,” he said. He ran a hand up his arm. “And the poison the gods infected us with still runs in our veins, sickening our minds with powerful urges to destroy each other.” He walked toward the table, pointing at the vulnerable figure lying on it. “The poison running through this man is strong—too strong for him to overcome temptation. He sinned by engaging in a sexual act that would not result in procreation.” He paused for effect, slowly turning to look at every section of the crowd. “As survivors of the Holy War, it is our duty, my brothers and sisters, to rid the world of this poison, and we do that by diluting its strength in our bloodlines. Each and every one of us knows in our own heart how strongly we’re infected, and it’s up to each and every one of us to reach into the good part of ourselves and decide if we are worthy of breeding. And when we’re too infected to make that decision, we have each other to make it for us. Together we are strong.” He moved toward the table and gently cupped Phillip’s face. “We are here for you, brother.”

  Ryder looked at the two men standing beside the table and gave a curt nod. Phillip started screaming before the knife even touched him, but when the blade finally began its work, his screams became hysterical shrieks.

  I closed my eyes, unable to watch, and Fadi roughly shoved me.