Love, Death, Robots, and Zombies

by Tom O'Donnell

  Chapter 5.

  We don’t dare stop at night. It’s an easy decision to make and a hard one to carry out. The logic is simple: we need to get as much of a head-start as possible before Cabal comes after us. The reality is more complex: as soon as we circle the Library and head north along Big Road, I want nothing more than to lie down in a dark corner and forget I exist.

  Life was never easy in the ruins, or even in Farmington, but I never personally had to kill anyone. Now I’ve killed two people. I can’t focus on anything else. Their lives ended because of me. Shouldn’t I feel bad? All I feel is a numb. I stumble over cracks as we walk. Echo’s eyes are glazed. We’re exhausted.

  Cabal is the only other topic that comes to mind. When we don’t emerge from the Library, he’ll assume we died in the fire. He’ll have to wait for it to burn down before he can search the ashes. In time he’ll realize we took to the sewers, and there’s simply no way for him to track us down there. He’ll know we’re either running or hiding. In both cases, he’ll be better off waiting for the army. He can get better supplies and maybe a horse, and the army can search for us in the ruins. I mention my conclusion to Echo, trudging along the road near sundown, and she looks at me like I just told her the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Of course he’ll wait. The army can’t be more than a day away,” she says.

  “Maybe they’ll just write us off. I mean, maybe won’t want to waste any supplies or manpower on us.”

  “No. I told you, Studebaker can’t just let it go–he’ll see it as his duty–and for Cabal it’s personal. Cabal’s not exactly loyal to Foundry. He was loyal to Ballard. They grew up in the same town. Not that Cabal liked him. He respected Ballard, I think, but he was jealous too. Ballard was smarter, a better leader, but Cabal is cruel in a clever kind of way. I think if Ballard had to die, Cabal would’ve wanted to be the one to kill him.”

  “Wait. Cabal would’ve killed Ballard, but he’s mad we did it first?” I ask incredulously.

  Echo’s blonde hair shakes wearily.

  “He wasn’t actively trying to kill Ballard. I’m just saying he was jealous, and if it had to be done, he would’ve rather done it himself. Having a stranger do it is entirely different. Now he’d kill us if for no other reason than to prove to himself he really was loyal to Ballard. It’s complicated. And anyway Ballard didn’t have to die. We killed him to set ourselves free.”

  “Weren’t you already free?” I ask, looking at her sideways. She looks like she might cry again.

  “Just walk, Tristan.”

  So I walk. But another question occurs.

  “Do you think they’ll give him a horse?”

  “Probably. He’s going to catch up one way or another. It’s just a question of what will happen then.”

  Despite all our reasons to keep moving, it takes a huge effort to walk throughout the night. We fall into a daze, barely aware of our progress. Even Lectric trots with his head down. For a while I wonder why his step is a little uneven. Then–oh, I see. His metal paws have rubber pads for traction, but the front-left pad has been burned away. He must have stepped on a bit of gluefire during our escape. It’s not a big concern, but it must hurt. A sensory network is wired into his body, and he’s programmed to feel pain for the same reason we are–bodily preservation. Sentient bots who don’t feel enough pain invariably die in a hurry.

  The sky is growing light again. It feels like we’ve come a thousand miles when we finally stop. Of course, we can’t just sleep on the road, because what if somebody comes? We head east for another mile until New Sea is visible. There we lie in the shadows of a half-standing house. Exhaustion has erased any concern for comfort. Even sitting brings a feeling close to bliss. Still, for a few minutes I can’t sleep because I’m listening for Cabal. I listen even in my dreams.

  Echo is still asleep when I wake. It’s past noon. Lectric is sprawled across the ground, soaking up the sun. I’m dead-thirsty and we’re out of water. My canteen is empty. I’ll have to fill it from New Sea and desalinate the water. I have a lot of useful items in my pack. When Farmington burned, there were a lot of things I’d wished I’d had. That’s never going to happen again. Now my pack is always ready.

  With my canteen and desalinator, I head to the shore. Lectric rouses himself to follow. When I first came to the Library, I desalinated all my water from New Sea by the evaporation-collection method taught to me by my grandfather. The second time I met Toyota, however, I traded him for a graphene desalinator. They made a lot in the final days before the Fall, and Toyota found a whole warehouse full somewhere down south. On one trip, it was practically all he traded.

  I fill the top-half of the desalinator with saltwater, then close the lid and use the little crank on the top, compressing the water inside. As it’s compressed, the water is forced through a graphene membrane between. The membrane has millions of nano-sized holes, too small for salt, just big enough for water. The only bad thing is that it’s very tiring on your wrist because you have to keep turning the handle to put pressure on the liquid–otherwise it takes forever for the water to trickle through.

  When it’s done, I unscrew the now-empty top half and rinse it in the ocean. Then, quite annoyingly, I have to pour the water from the bottom half back into the top and press it through two more times. I suspect this is because I got a slightly defective one and some of the holes are too big, so it takes three passes to eliminate all the salt.

  After the third pass, I pour the water into my canteen. Then I gather more saltwater and run through the process all over again, leaving the new volume in the bottom of the desalinator because I have nothing else to carry it in. Meanwhile, Lectric pees coolant into the sand and refills his rubber bladder.

  Echo is awake when we return. She accepts the water cautiously and watches me with serious eyes. I can’t even begin to guess what she’s thinking.

  “We should get moving,” I say.

  She nods. Lectric barks happily. At least one of us is in a good mood.

  On Big Road again, I estimate what time Cabal will catch us. I do this maybe fifty times. There are too many uncertainties. I can approximate how far we’ve gone, but I don’t know how fast a horse can run, what time the army will arrive, or when Cabal will leave. The only thing that’s certain is that he’ll come north along Big Road, and if he does have a horse he’s going to catch us in a damn hurry. Twelve hours walking is only three or four riding.

  Which means we can’t stay on Big Road. If Cabal spots us from behind, he could take us out from a distance. Echo agrees. I don’t like the idea of being trapped between New Sea and our enemy, so this time we strike out west instead until Big Road is safely out of sight.

  The Great Ruins of my old city–with its fallen towers rusting in jungles of twisted girders; with its massive crumbled complexes that once housed untold thousands; with the Headless King and the fantastic sculptures of the old, dead American Empire–all of this has fallen behind, leaving a seemingly endless stretch of smaller ruins surrounding the metropolis. Family-sized dwellings fill the area. Few are still standing. It seems impossible that enough people once existed to fill them. Where did they get all their food? How did they handle the plumbing? Baffling.

  “We could just keep going west, you know,” I say. “Gather water first, hunt small game. There’s a river closer to Cove that runs north. We’d hit it eventually.”

  Echo looks at me sideways. Her hand moves absently to her necklace. She’s wary about something–beyond all the normal things there are to be wary about–but it eludes me.

  “We should keep going north,” she says.

  “Why? Cabal knows we’re heading that way and we’re going to hit the z-line eventually. We can’t go east because of New Sea, and we can’t go south because of the army. West means more desert, so it’s a big risk–but so is north. At least west there’ll be desert-foxes and coyote
s and other game. What’s good about north?”

  Echo is reluctant to answer. Finally, she says, “Haven.”

  I frown. I’ve heard the name once or twice, but I know almost nothing about it. A small group came through Farmington once heading for Haven. My grandfather wrote them off as crazies.

  “That’s someplace up north, right?”

  “Not some place, Tristan, the place. A place where everyone is safe and free, and they’ve got food and water, and laws to protect people, and working tech from Old America. They’re rebuilding, Tristan. Making things the way they used to be. The way they should be.”

  She believes it. Hope burns in her eyes with startling intensity. It’s one of the things she keeps hidden. But I can only think of Hyperborea, where Conan went. Didn’t turn out as he expected.

  “So it’s a city-state? Cove’s got laws and stuff too. How’s that any different?” I ask.

  A shutter comes down over the hope in her eyes, protecting it from intruders and people who don’t understand. People like me. She makes a dismissive noise and looks away. This is why she was reluctant to tell me. Hope is a treasure in the wasteland, even rarer than water. To keep it, you’ve got to guard it. When Echo speaks again, her voice is more factual, less involved.

  “Haven is a good place. Not greedy and harsh like Cove. They don’t burn people’s homes down. The people there are trying to rebuild things the right way. It’s the last, best hope for our world, Tristan.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She shakes her head and turns away.

  “It’s north of the z-line?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Going to be hard to get there.”

  She looks at me sideways and nods. I shrug, relenting.

  We turn north again, parallel to Big Road–not that I’m committed to actually crossing the z-line. It just wouldn’t hurt to get a little further before arguing about turning west. No point standing around. I’m pretty good at ignoring hunger, but I’m starving if I pay attention to it. I don’t have my rat traps to rely on, which means we’re going to have to use the crossbow or machine-pistol. Not many signs of games out this way either.

  For an hour, we walk in silence.

  “Fin wasn’t so bad, you know,” Echo says out of nowhere.

  I meet her eyes briefly.

  “He was a good hunter. Always found us food. He never … never did anything to me.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask slowly, looking at her out of the corner of my eyes. Echo only shrugs, staring carefully ahead.

  “We had to do it though. Once we … once we killed Ballard. We couldn’t leave the others,” she says. I’m not sure if she’s telling me or herself.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “You hate me, don’t you?”

  “What? Annabel. Why would you ask that?”

  “You look angry whenever you talk to me. And call me Echo.”

  Do I look angry? Living alone has not given me good practice monitoring my expressions. I am angry, but I was trying to ignore that. Mostly it’s because she’s supposed to be the innocent girl with the long hair in the desert, and instead she’s the girl who was travelling with Rodrick’s Raiders–the girl who helped me lose a second home. Does that mean I’m angry she didn’t die in Farmington like I thought? That doesn’t make sense.

  “I’m not … not angry at you,” I say, but it doesn’t feel entirely true.

  “Sure. I bet you wish we never found you though.”

  Of course I wish that. I’d be home reading Volume Seven. But why stop there? I might as well wish Farmington had never burned to the ground or that Old America never fell. Nobody can ignore the world forever. It finds you and shoves its troubles down your throat; then it watches quietly while you vomit everything back up on the people around you.

  “Why do you want me to call you ‘Echo?’” I ask.

  “I haven’t been Annabel since the Fire.”

  “Doesn’t really answer the question.”

  Echo sighs.

  “I took up in a cave after Farmington burned. I was starving. Rodrick’s Raiders were fracturing. Ballard, Fin, and Cabal came across my tracks in the desert. When they found me, I didn’t talk for a while. I repeated some things–mostly just ‘food’ and ‘water,’ whenever someone mentioned them. So Ballard called me Echo, and I’ve been Echo ever since.”

  So that’s why she travelled with them–she couldn’t survive on her own. Not that it makes it ok or answers my other questions. I want to ask her again why she would turn against Ballard and risk her life to go on the run with me, but I know she won’t answer–maybe she can’t answer–so I swallow the question.

  Here and there is a house still standing. We conduct brief searches for useful items. During one search, the high-pitched whine of a distant motor echoes across the barren land. Echo and I freeze, staring at each other. The whine gets louder.

  “Bike,” she whispers.

  We scramble to a broken window and crouch beside it, peering east toward Big Road. We’d walked west until Big Road was well out of sight, but it’s hard to stay parallel with the winding road. Since then we’ve apparently drifted closer, because a bug-sized dot can be seen speeding along the horizon. It must have heavy-duty off-road wheels to keep steady on the broken road.

  It’s unlikely anyone can spot us at this distance, but we duck out of sight regardless. I almost reach for my spyglass, but what would be the point? It can’t be anyone but Cabal, and what if sunlight glints off the glass? Better to just stay hidden.

  The motor’s pitch reaches a threatening crescendo as the solar cycle passes, then drops as the bike recedes. The sound reminds me of a giant mosquito. Appropriate, given that the owner wants to drain our blood. Studebaker has outfitted him even better than expected. Perhaps a little too well, because now he’s passing his prey. The bike disappears further up Big Road.

  “Well, at least–” I begin, stopping when Echo’s hand shoots up.

  I squint, listening. The sound is getting louder again. No. A second sound. Echo looks at me with wide eyes. She holds up two fingers: two solar cycles. Lectric whimpers and rests his head on my boot. A second bike passes us in the distance. We wait for more. Neither of us can relax even after the last dying echo has faded into silence.

  “Two then. Bikes, not horses. Seems Cabal made a good case against us,” I say.

  “Or they want him back sooner, and they don’t fully trust him. By sending someone else, they can be sure he won’t desert with their equipment.”

  We stay in the house a while, making sure Cabal and his escort won’t double-back. Sooner or later, he’s got to figure he passed us. When we start moving again, we head half a mile further west, away from Big Road. This creates a problem, however–we run out of water. It’s amazing how fast it disappears. With our bodies constantly on the move and the day fairly warm, there’s no way to make it last. We need to hit New Sea again, but that’s on the opposite side of Big Road.

  “We should wait for dark,” I say. I don’t feel comfortable crossing the distance in daylight. Echo nods. Clearing a spot beside a half-standing wall, we settle in. I remember the way the nails went into Ballard’s neck, and the whole scene starts replaying in a loop. It’s familiar by now. Has it only been a day? Impossible…

  “It’s dark,” Echo says, shaking me awake.

  I fell asleep? I must have. The light has changed.

  “We should go,” Echo says.

  “Right,” I say, blinking, groggy. We trek east, straining our ears for the whine of electric motors. It takes forever to reach Big Road. How is it so far? We cross with no sign of the bikes, but my heart is still in my throat. I’m paranoid. Echo must think I’m a coward. She’s right too. I’m scared of everything.

  We’re about half a mile beyond Big Road, crossing the smaller side-roads of a destroyed neighborhood, when the buzzi
ng comes again. Echo curses. A pinprick of light stabs our eyes. Not back west, along Big Road–no, not there but directly north. Immediately, I know what happened. When they turned back, Cabal and his companion fanned out to smaller roads on either side to cover a wider area. Now one of the bikes is headed straight toward us.