Bonus Novel! [First Fourth, chps 1-10] (Patreon)

Hey peeps!

This novel I've had for a long time. I even got artwork for it years ago. It's a post-apocalyptic adventure in the style of Fallout (the video games). If you like that stuff, I hope you enjoy!

Happy birthday to you guys! LOL

SYNOPSIS 

Radiation. Power armor. The fate of a crumbling world.

A human-alien war has left Earth a wasteland of strange advanced technology and competing factions for control. Hacker Kita Yamasaki would give the use of her good leg just to experience a life without junkland raiders or overzealous slavers, so when she learns of a greenhouse sanctuary hidden under the northern snow, she’s determined to get there no matter what.

But when she hacks her way into an old-world government computer, she discovers a disturbing secret—a final alien attack will end the lives of millions. An attack humanity may never recover from.

As the only one who knows about the computer, Kita has to make a choice. Retreat to her greenhouse sanctuary safe from the catastrophe, or head in the opposite direction, through radioactive battlefields, to save the last of civilization.

CHAPTER ONE

I had been shot, beaten, attacked by aliens, and once left for dead… yet this was the second most stressful day of my life.

I had to sneak into a silver mine.

Guards watched the entrance, their rifles held close. If they found me, they’d throw me in with the rest of the forced labor. That was the lucky outcome. If I were unlucky—and I usually was—I’d be given the “worst player of hide-n-seek” award, which consisted of a dozen bullets buried deep in my small body.

Instead, I headed for a hidden fissure in the rocks, far from the main entrance. It led into the facility, in a part of the mines rarely visited. I slid from one shadow to the next, avoiding the guard towers posted on the side of the mountain. With careful movements, I crept inside the silver mines, scooting through the narrow crack-like tunnel until I arrived at a metal panel built around one of the mine’s rooms. I had to remove the panel to get inside, but it was the perfect hidden hatch for my operations.

Months of meticulous planning had brought me to this point.

If I failed, my life would be over.

But if I succeeded, everything would change—for the better. I’d get out of this Godforsaken wasteland. I’d be free. I just had to stay focused.

Once I entered the main portion of the mine, I hustled through the corridors. The place was huge, but only half of the mines were in use. I effortlessly made my way through the empty areas. As I got closer to the heart of enemy operations, I had to slow myself and wait for the guards to pass before continuing my way deeper into the facility.

Shouts echoed off the far walls, coming from the belly of the mine. It was the miners—the imprisoned enemy soldiers. The taskmasters loved to make examples of the rebellious ones by executing them in dramatic fashion. It never fully quelled the spirits of the soldiers, but after a particularly brutal death, the men would return to mining for a few days without another incident.

A chorus of smashed rocks and grinding metal hid my footsteps. Halfway to my destination, my hip flared in pain, making it difficult to walk without a limp. I was only twenty-three years old, but without a proper doctor, some injuries never healed quite right.

I continued regardless, even if I was slower.

Nothing would stop me.

Finally, I reached my goal: an alien computer terminal that controlled the doors to the storage rooms. Rust stained the outside, but the technology on the inside could last hundreds of years without degrading, even in the face of the world-ending bombs and radiation. That beautiful technology, crafted by those disgusting space monsters—A-tech, as everyone called it—was worth more than every slave in the nation of Ex Cathedra.

Which was why I had to steal some. My plan to cross the border would take resources, and if I ever wanted to reach the coast, to escape Ex Cathedra for good, I would need more than a handful of trinkets.

After a few quick keystrokes and reading through the alien-text instructions, the computer let me in. I shut the door behind me and took stock of my surroundings. The storage room had all the warmth of a cannery. Grated floors, steel walls, and a ceiling chiseled from rock itself. The fluorescent lighting flickered.

On the opposite wall stood a battery box, a thin aluminum container nearly the size of a locker. Everything I wanted was within that box.

But I wasn’t alone.

Two young women huddled together in the far corner, dressed in dirty, ripped clothing. They trembled when I entered, but their eyes grew wide when I stepped further into the room.

They were captives.

Neither said a word, no doubt fearing they’d draw the attention of the taskmasters, but they motioned me toward them, their frantic hand gestures betraying their terror. They were tethered to the wall with a set of cuffs and a thick wire, no better than animals.

Did they think that, since I was also a woman, I had come here to rescue them? I didn’t even know who they were.

It took me a moment to register a man sitting against the side wall, his hands chained above his head. He still had his clothes—cargo pants and a shirt—but that was a sorry consolation prize considering his injuries. Bruises, burns, and small cuts marked all visible portions of skin, like he had been dragged through the radiation and back on a sled made of barbed wire. He took in ragged breaths, rivulets of blood seeping from his mouth and onto his lap.

I had a layout of the mines, a schedule for the taskmasters, and the passcodes for specific computer terminals, but I hadn’t planned on people being inside the storage room.

I hesitated. There wasn’t much time between shifts in the guards. And what if these unknown people attacked me after I set them free?

The women pleaded with their glossy eyes.

Broken by empathy, my right leg burned in agony as I hobbled over to them and knelt, withdrawing a set of lock picks from my jacket pocket. I had worked as a thief for years, and simple cuffs posed no difficulty. I undid their restraints.

“Do you have a gun?” one woman asked in a hushed voice as she crossed her arms tight over her chest.

I shook my head.

The two women exchanged panicked looks, and then they turned their attention to my stiff leg. A piece of me felt their judgment, and I knew they’d leave me behind. Before I could even voice an alternative plan, they both bolted for the door.

Of course they saw me as a liability—a hindrance to their escape. Everyone did. I’d grown accustomed to being the one left to slow the pursuit of wolves.

At least they hadn’t thought to take the prizes locked away in the room.

I limped over to the battery box and picked the lock. The container was large, like a closet, and I swung open the aluminum door to get a better look at the contents.

Although the box was mostly empty, the first shelf held two atomic batteries, can-sized squares filled with radioactive isotopes. The decay of the isotopes generated electricity, and the atomic batteries could last for generations. They were perfect for household power problems, and once I reached United California, I could sell them for a small fortune.

But they weren’t what I was looking for.

I felt around the inside, pushing aside wires and storage containers. My heart rate increased with each barren shelf and dry power cell. It had to be there. It had to.

A rumble shook the tiny room, and I struggled to stay on my feet. Somewhere within the facility, the mining machines flared to life, executing their deep drilling procedures despite the fact that no one manned them. Autonomous and self-reliant, the A-tech mining equipment would continue digging out the mountains until it gathered every last scrap of silver this side of the Colorado River.

New A-tech machines couldn’t be built, not after the bombs devastated the world, so the imprisoned soldiers—slaves, really—were kept as pack animals, meant to carry the metal and stone out of the mines, helping the machines with the mundane tasks to save time.

The man chained to the storage room wall watched me as I steadied myself. His intense gaze startled me. He was much more alert than I had suspected for someone in his condition.

Once the rumbling stopped, I spotted his dog tags. They marked him as an Ex Cathedra soldier. It meant he was an enemy—Ex Cathedra owned the mines, after all. I had been trying to escape Ex Cathedra for damn near seven years. I couldn’t risk releasing him if it meant he could turn on me.

I returned my attention to the battery box.

At the bottom, underneath a stack of yellowed paper, I found my true goal for the operation: a fission battery. My hands trembled as I uncovered it. The battery was my ticket out of Ex Cathedra.

And unlike the atomic batteries, which powered small buildings or equipment, the fission batteries worked on a much larger scale—capable of powering a small town, maybe more—with nuclear fission as the power source. They had universal adapters and could be fashioned to connect with damn near anything. They lasted for centuries, perhaps longer. I never heard of one dying.

Fission batteries weighed close to fifty pounds thanks to the special shielding of the case and heavy elements contained within, but it was still only the size of a dinner plate. I dragged it out of the battery box, but my injuries would make carrying it through the silver mine a bitch of a task.

“Woman.”

The soldier’s gruff voice startled me. He hadn’t moved.

“Undo my restraints,” he said. “Please.”

I slung a small backpack off my shoulders and shoved the fission battery inside. Getting mixed up with anyone else would only hurt my chance of escape. And he didn’t look well. He probably wouldn’t make it.

He exhaled, his breath ragged. “I’m a traitor. Why do you think they locked me in here? I want to escape as much as you do.”

Traitor or not, helping him meant taking extra time in the mines. Best not to risk losing it. I made my way to the door.

He pulled against his cuffs. “Please.” He hung his head. “They’ll do worse than kill me.”

I stopped, knowing he was right. But the peril weighed heavy on my mind. The extreme heat of the mine shafts, coupled with occasional flesh-hungry arthropod the size of a dog, created a catalog of horrors to challenge Dante’s tour through the Inferno. I didn’t want to get trapped in here.

Indecision killed more than risks out in the wasteland, however. I needed to commit one way or the other.

He saw I had taken the battery. What if he wanted it for himself? So many factors to consider and not enough time. I had a knife, and his injuries would hinder him if he tried to overpower me.

With a quick exhale, I turned and ambled to his side. The soldier lifted his head as I knelt to undo his shackles. Although his gums were bloody and his skin wan, none of his wounds would prevent him from walking.

Once finished, I swung open his cuffs and stood. He pushed himself to his feet slower than I did—which was never a good place for someone to be in—and I had enough time to back away as he gathered his strength. Would he try something stupid, like attacking me? I slipped a hand into my jacket and fingered my weapon.

“Thank you,” he muttered. Then he motioned to the door. “We need to go now. The guards will be back through this hallway any minute.”

I pulled my hand out of my jacket and nodded.

His apparent familiarity with the schedule meant I wouldn’t need to explain everything, and I waited for him to go first out the door. Better to stay behind someone, in my experience. Most of the lights in the hall were dim or flickering, as if we had stumbled onto the set of a horror movie. At least the lighting worked in our favor.

The soldier turned right. I turned left.

He glanced over his shoulder and hesitated a moment before hustling to my side. I gave him a quick glance, confused by his continued presence. He could leave, I wasn’t stopping him, and he obviously knew the layout of the mines well enough to find an exit.

Although he could still walk, he doubled over for a moment and held his side, his fingers twisting into his shirt. He didn’t complain, though. With gritted teeth, he forced his posture straight. “This way is a dead end.”

“I know what I’m doing,” I whispered, my voice rusty. I rarely spoke. For years I lived alone, worked alone, and hid myself away at all times.

“If you know a way out, please take me.”

Hadn’t I already helped him enough? He moved with an awkward jerk, as though every bit of movement pained him.

The soldier walked to the next door over and leaned against the wall. “I know they have more supplies.” He punched a passcode into the A-tech computer terminal. When the machine beeped in rejection, I cringed. The echo of the harsh sound travelled down the hall.

“What’re you doing?” I hissed.

“They must’ve changed the codes.” He exhaled and shook his head. “Give me a moment. They cycle through a set of standard passcodes.”

I motioned him aside and tapped at the keyboard. Trying out several codes wasn’t a viable option. The beeping would alert the guards to our presence.

Although I hadn’t gotten the passcodes for all doors, I didn’t strictly need them. The coding for the silver mines was old—some of the first alien computer code given to humanity—and I knew it well. There were back doors in the command systems, and I typed away at the terminal, changing the passcodes manually to something I made up on the spot.

“You can read the alien language?” the soldier asked.

“Yes.”

“And you know how to bypass A-tech systems?”

I finished my hacking job and then stepped aside, allowing the unlocked door to answer for me.

The soldier regarded me with his eyebrows knit as he stepped into the room.

Not many people were familiar with alien computer codes, especially not after the war. A vast number of people had died, and all the major cities were destroyed, leaving humanity with few sources of actual pre-war knowledge. It didn’t surprise me this soldier knew nothing of the language.

The man went straight for a gun rack mounted to the wall. When I glanced around, I realized we had opened an armory.

He grabbed a couple rifles, opened them up, and checked the fragile parts, making sure time hadn’t destroyed them beyond functioning. He slung one with a strap over his shoulder and picked up two .45 handguns—HK45s, nice models, and in good condition. Once he had a small arsenal’s worth of ammunition, he jogged back to my side.

Before exiting the room, he grabbed himself a backpack and dumped an armful of bullets inside.

I clenched my jaw, half tempted to leave him, half tempted to use him as a decoy for my escape. Ironic to consider someone else for the role of scapegoat, but desperate times always turned my thoughts dark. If one of these weapons discharged, the echo would surely draw unwanted attention. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, however, I already knew. The few times I had been left behind haunted my thoughts.

“My name is Dallas,” he said as he zipped up his pack.

“Kita.”

Dallas coughed into his hand, coating his palm in fresh blood. He wiped away the crimson with a quick swipe of his arm.

“Take this, Kita,” he said as he thrust one of the handguns to me.

After a long moment of hesitation, I took the weapon. With my hand shaking, I tucked it into my jacket. He kept the gun for himself and hustled into the hallway. Although I didn’t plan on using it, having the gun would at least act as a deterrent. Dallas would have to think twice about betraying me if he knew a bullet could come from my end.

We made our way through the mine shafts, but I fell farther and farther behind. Dallas jogged back to me and reached for my backpack.

“No,” I growled as I flinched away.

I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t.

He stepped up close and motioned to our narrow surroundings. “You’ll get us both killed. Let me carry it. I swear you can have it back once we’re safe.”

I didn’t trust him. How could I? I’d drag myself through this place with one broken arm before I let anyone take my battery. I held onto the straps of the backpack, my knuckles white.

“I can do it,” I said.

Several seconds of silence passed between us before Dallas replied with a curt nod. It would no longer be an issue, but I knew it meant I would be at a higher risk of getting caught.

A siren screeched throughout the facility. I slammed my hands over my ears. What had happened? Who discovered us? The guards would converge on us at any moment.

“We have to run,” Dallas shouted.

Despite his injuries, he took off down the hall. I ran after but only for a few hundred feet. After turning on to another hallway, all I could hear were my own hissing breaths. They performed the perfect impression of a torn bellow as they stoked the cold fire of my chest. My leg injury affected more of my health than I’d ever admit. Cardio wasn’t something I had focused on while in hiding.

I’d never be able to keep up. Never.

And then my leg gave out, and I hit the steel grating forearms-first. The flare of pain momentarily blinded me. The extra fifty pounds from the battery didn’t help, either.

Dallas must’ve left, which meant I was going to be a scapegoat yet again. Of course he had left me to a slow death at the hands of the Ex Cathedra judges. Anyone would.

Damn, it hurt.

Not the fall or my labored breathing, but the rest of it. I had lived through so much! Isolation, the wasteland, hell radiation, the aliens—but I would finally die in the hallway of a random silver mine. My obituary could read the same as a cockroach’s.

Someone grabbed the back of my jacket and yanked me up. I snapped my attention to the individual, shocked to see Dallas. He unceremoniously pushed me forward, and I staggered to get my footing. With my backpack still in place, I took a few deep breaths.

“Hurry,” he said. “If you can’t walk, lean on my shoulder.”

“I—”

Dallas shoved me again, but he kept his hand twisted in the fabric of my jacket, keeping me upright even when I stumbled. Together we raced toward the exit, and any time I might have fallen, he was there again to keep me going.

When we reached an intersection of hallways, he stopped and gulped down his breaths.

I pointed down the darkest corridor. “There. We’re not far.”

The sounds of boots stomping on the grated floors got my pulse running faster than before. Dallas didn’t move. Did he think I was leading him into a trap? This time, I shoved him.

“Hurry,” I said. “Or go your own way.”

Dallas must have weighed the pros and cons of trust because he hesitated for half a second. Then he continued with my route, half laughing to himself.

“Let’s get out of this hellhole.”

CHAPTER TWO

We entered a narrow room before any of the taskmasters ran into our hallway. Dallas shut the door while I pulled out a small flashlight from my jacket pocket. The room was once a lab for testing metals, but the computers and machines weren’t made with A-tech components and had ceased to function decades ago. A fine layer of dirt covered most surfaces. I worried we would leave an easy trail to follow, so I took a moment to scrape my boots along the floor and brush my sleeves over the walls.

Dallas didn’t question me—he probably guessed what I was doing—and he waited at the door, listening. The siren alarm and hustle of movement echoed in the hallway, but the thick steel dulled the intensity. The harsh sound of every door in the hall opening and slamming shut was evidence that the taskmasters didn’t know where we were, but it wouldn’t take them long to find us. After a deep breath to clear my thoughts, I pointed to a metal panel on the far wall.

“There,” I said. “It opens, and there’s a fissure through the rock. That’s how I got inside without getting caught.”

Dallas pulled at the edges of the panel until it popped off, revealing the narrow crack through the rocks. While there was enough room for me to slide through, Dallas took a step back and examined the entry, his eyebrows knit together in healthy skepticism.

“You sure its big enough?” he asked.

“Positive.”

I eased myself into the dark crevice, keeping my backpack close, and scooted along sideways, the rocks pressed against my back and chest. Dallas removed his backpack and rifle and held both by the straps in one hand. He grimaced when the jagged edges of unworked stone scraped across some of his injuries, though he kept quiet. Once fully inside the fissure, he lifted the metal panel and propped it back in place, though I doubted it looked convincing, given his haste.

We slowly moved along until the mountain rumbled again from the stress of the machines. Dallas bumped into my side, his breathing strained from the lack of room to inhale, and he grunted something in an apparent attempt to urge me forward. It wasn’t long before the crack widened and I could walk normally once again.

I exited onto the mountainside, comforted by the glory of a burning sunset. The fresh air and my victory invigorated every cell of my body. I wouldn’t be able to sleep for a good twenty-four hours, not while riding my triumphant high.

So many months of planning had finally paid off! With the fission battery, I would be able to escape Ex Cathedra and make it all the way to the coast; there was no doubt in my mind.

Dallas stumbled out of the darkness and into the muted radiance of the setting sun. Overcast clouds did their best to drain the world of color, but the sun broke through, basking us in the glory of a few simple rays of orange and gold. Dallas ran a hand through his auburn crew-cut hair, dusting off the dirt.

I unconsciously did the same. I hadn’t much considered my appearance while living alone. The uneven ends of my black shoulder-length hair were a result of thinking haircuts to be a waste of my time. I shook the thought from my head. Better to continue with my high than dwell on trivial details.

Dallas squinted up at the sky.

Most days were overcast, the clouds pregnant with leagues of black water. Every once in a while the sun broke through, though not often. Perhaps it was a sign that destiny was on our side. A pleasant thought, if one believed in such illogical concepts as destiny.

The silver mine’s siren sounded, even on the outside. Dallas flung his backpack and rifle back over his shoulder. He took in wet breaths as he did so, his breathing becoming ever more ragged.

“You have radiation poisoning,” I said.

“It’s worse than that,” he replied with a forced chuckle. “But we don’t have time for bullshit. Where are we going?”

My plan had involved escaping without getting caught, but I did have contingencies. My hideout for the past six months wasn’t far, and we could walk along the broken highways to avoid leaving tracks through the dirt.

The silver mine sat atop a large slope on the side of a mountain. The facility was closed off and surrounded by a wall. The guards on the posts couldn’t see us from our angle, and if we slid around the side and down the slope, we could avoid them altogether. I motioned to a path between rocks.

As if the universe had a dark sense of humor, a lone patrolling guard hustled up between the rocks, sweat dripping from his face as he glanced around. He held an M16A1 rifle in both hands, his finger already tight on the trigger.

I stumbled back, attempting to head for the fissure, but my weak leg gave out, and I hit the dirt. The guard snapped his attention to me, rifle up. A loud crack of gunfire echoed off the mountain as Dallas shot the man with little hesitation. It took me a second to shake off my dread. Now they would know we were outside.

“Thank you,” I murmured as I got back to my feet.

Dallas offered me a hand. “I’ve seen these bastards kill enough people in my lifetime. I’m done with it.”

Ex Cathedra always had war on her borders, and everyone knew of their scorched earth practices. If soldiers like Dallas were turning traitor, maybe it had become too much.

But we didn’t have time to dwell on the state of the world. We headed down the mountainside at a steady clip, staying hunched in the harsh shadows as we passed lookout towers. People yelled and barked orders. It made it easier to scramble across the rocks.

The half-collapsed highway at the base of the mountain still carried a hundred deserted cars from before the Forever Winter. Rust bled into the road and painted the concrete brick red. The wind rushed by, peppering the sky with scraps of urine-yellow paper. Everything else, from the broken buildings, to the charred trees, to the walls of the mining facility, haunted the scenery with shades of lifeless gray and dull black.

Some said the sights were bleak, but they were all I had known. The desolate landscape was infinitely better than anything in the mine shafts, at least in my book.

I lost my footing a few times on the steep slope. I didn’t gasp or cry out—being silent was my natural state—but my heart leapt into my throat each time. Killing myself on a rocky slip-n-slide would be the worst way to end my day of success.

As we reached the base of the slope and the beginnings of the highway, the gates to the mining facility opened wide. They had finally assembled their search team. Dallas and I hustled between the discarded vehicles and hunkered down, chancing only occasional glances.

Guards stepped out of the facility, but I wasn’t worried about them. It was the judge that came out after. Even as the light faded, leaving us with the evening darkness, the judge stood out among the rest, bits of glowing power cores radiating from his armor.

Judges in Ex Cathedra held a rank equivalent to captain in most other surrounding countries, but they were given the title judgebecause of their A-tech exoskeleton power armor. The JUDGE-X0 exoskeletons had been one of the final military innovations before the world ended, and they were produced en masse at a factory located in the heart of what is now Ex Cathedra. It was how Ex Cathedra got so much influence after the Forever Winter—their judges dominated the battlefield.

And now the silver mine’s judge headed our way.

Why had the alarm gone off so quickly? In my original plan, I had anticipated several days before they realized what happened—more than enough time to escape Ex Cathedra altogether. Had it been Dallas? Had he somehow alerted them?

Then it struck me. It wasn’t Dallas.

It was the two girls.

They hadn’t escaped. They were caught and no doubt mentioned me to alleviate their punishment. Which also meant the storage room would’ve been investigated and the fission battery reported as missing.

Of course they would send a judge to retrieve the battery. Those batteries were incapable of being reproduced after the world ended. Hell, I would send a whole army to retrieve one if I were in command.

The judge leapt down the mountainside with ease. The exoskeletons vastly improved a soldier’s strength, speed, and mobility, and the steel alloy plating shielded them from bullet fire. The judge would be upon us in no time.

“Fuck,” Dallas said under his breath.

With unsteady hands, I reached into my backpack. “I prepared for this.”

My heart pounded hard enough it rang in my ears, deafening me to distant noises. I had thought of every possible contingency plan before setting foot inside the silver mines, but that didn’t mean I wanted to use them.

Closer and closer the judge neared the bottom of the mountain. His exoskeleton covered him from head to toe, and the HUD system that made up his face mask could use thermal imaging to detect nearby people. Hiding wasn’t a viable option.

“You prepared for this?” Dallas repeated, disbelief and sarcasm mixing in equal amounts in his tone.

I pulled out my last EMP grenade from the large pocket of my backpack.

Dallas flinched away, his jaw clenched tight.

“It’s okay,” I said, holding it close. “It’s not a normal grenade. This one uses an electromagnetic pulse to disrupt electronic systems and—”

“I know what they do,” he hissed. “It won’t work on the judges.”

“It won’t work on Mark III exoskeletons or later, but the judges here are wearing Mark II variants, which are still susceptible to EMP grenades.”

Dallas opened his mouth and then closed it, like he had an argument ready but it derailed faster than he could think of a new one.

The judge jumped and landed hard on the end of the broken highway platform, the boots of his power armor cracking the concrete from impact.

Dallas slinked behind another vehicle, putting more objects between him and the approaching judge. I moved after him, quiet but slower. The carbon steel of the dilapidated vehicles would hide our heat outlines, but it wasn’t perfect. My panicked breathing would also elevate my internal temperature, though there was little I could do to control it.

“How do you know what model of armor they’re wearing?” Dallas asked.

The judges of Ex Cathedra painted their armor with all sorts of intimidating images or words, often covering the serial number and model variant since such designations were worthless within their new order. Even our pursuing judge had painted his armor black and red—the red in the shape of blood splatters across the gauntlets, boots, and chest guard.

And he also had a name written with the faux blood across the shoulder of the suit.

Judge Gascoigne.

“The air filtration vents,” I whispered. “The Mark II air filters are a different shape than the Mark III, IV, and V variants. This is definitely a Mark II suit.”

Dallas regarded me with a quick glance. “Goddamn, you know a lot about A-tech machines.”

“Thank you?”

He replied with a single laugh, though this wasn’t the time for jokes.

“When the judge gets close, I’m going to set this grenade off,” I whispered. “After that, we run.”

The guards of the silver mine wouldn’t travel far, not at night. Twenty of them headed down the hill at a slow pace, which meant as long as the judge couldn’t follow, we would be able to run back to my hideout.

“No,” Dallas said. “You can’t. I can’t be in the radius of the grenade.”

“It won’t harm flesh, only electronics. The voltage is—”

“I can’t be in it.”

His dire insistence shook me. We didn’t have time to argue. We didn’t have time to plan. My heart beat twice, but that was all the time Judge Gascoigne needed to turn in our direction and effortlessly flip over a vehicle in the way.

The car crashed off the side of the road, sending shattered glass across rocks and dirt.

“Run,” I said. “The pulse radius is fifty feet. I’ll go in the opposite direction.”

“What? No. The judge will tear you apart and—”

Ignoring him, I stood, the grenade held tight in my hand. My impromptu plan to draw Judge Gascoigne away from Dallas was reckless, but it could work, and that was all I needed.

“Kita,” Dallas hissed under his breath. “Kita!”

I weaved through the vehicles, using them for support since my leg wouldn’t hold up, and headed for the side of the highway. It was collapsed enough that I could climb down to the ground below.

Judge Gascoigne stepped onto one of the cars and leapt toward me. He smashed down on a four-door town car, blowing out the windows and knocking me over in the process. I hit the concrete as the glass showered down around me.

And the EMP grenade flew out of my hand.

My heart stopped. I watched it bounce away as though in slow motion.

I leapt for it, but the oval-shaped weapon slid under a large shard of the car’s windshield. I wasn’t fast enough. I scrambled to move the glass, cutting myself with each wild motion.

Judge Gascoigne landed on the street next to me, shaking everything with each heavy step. Those damn exoskeletons were suctioned close to the driver’s body, making them sleek and person shaped, but they were still two hundred and fifty pounds of deadly metal, and they all stood an impressive eight feet tall, no matter the height of the person inside.

“You must be the thief,” Judge Gascoigne said.

Not a man, but a woman. Her feminine voice, warped by the armor’s mask, echoed a bit. It had a harsh metallic tinge that sent a shiver down my spine.

She reached down and grabbed my shoulder with the vice grip of a robot. In my last panicked moments, I reached the grenade and snatched it from the wreckage. The grip of her gauntlet cut off blood flow to my arm. She could kill me—she could rip me in fucking half if she was so inclined.

“Where is your traitor friend?” Judge Gascoigne asked. “You will tell me.”

For a moment, all I could hear was the beating of my overworked heart.

I triggered the grenade.

The only visual component was a quick flash, but the click and pulse that ran through my body left me tasting copper and my ears ringing. The instructions for EMP grenades said not to be right on top of them when they went off, but I didn’t have much of a choice.

Judge Gascoigne’s exoskeleton sparked and hissed. She took a step back, but then the armor froze in place, creaking as the metal plates jammed together, not moving properly without the assistance of the onboard computer. The brightly lit power cells flashed a warning that something was wrong internally. After that, Judge Gascoigne didn’t move or speak. No doubt she was raging on the inside, though.

I struggled to my feet. The clouds overhead thickened, adding an extra layer of gloom to the atmosphere. But it couldn’t dampen my mood. I laughed—even though it hurt like a bitch, my stomach aching for the sweet release of death—and I hobbled off, smiling the entire way, despite the pain.

My nose bled, and I wiped it away with the sleeve of my jacket.

Without much visibility, I continued forward until I heard the sound of boots on concrete. Although I normally avoided such noises, I perked up and looked around, wondering if I would spot Dallas amidst the odd shapes of a broken world.

Sure enough, he hustled back to get me, his own injuries slowing him a bit. I offered him a half smile and wanted to give him a you’re still alive? remark, but too much speaking would strain my already taxed body, so I opted for concise.

“I stopped her,” I said through a wheeze.

“It’s a goddamn Christmas miracle,” Dallas quipped. “I thought for certain you’d be in pieces.”

Bullets plinked off the broken vehicles. I threw my hands over my head as Dallas pushed me behind a vehicle. Was he looking out for me? It had been so long since anyone was on “my side,” I had almost forgotten what it was like.

Silver mine guards slid down the last bit of mountainside toward our location, slower and clumsier than the judge. Dallas returned fire as he motioned me in the opposite direction.

“Let’s hurry,” I said. “They’ll probably stop to help the judge.”

Dallas picked off a few of the faster guards before turning and walking alongside me. Although my body ached and my eyelids hung heavy, I knew I couldn’t rest until I reached my hideout. We traveled along the dilapidated highway until the guards stopped their pursuit, no doubt to conserve strength and ammunition.

Silence fell over the world.

I stopped and bent over, my hands on my knees, the weight of the fission battery heavy on my back. Dallas stood next to me, his eyes downcast.

“You can go,” I said. “It’s unlikely they’ll send anyone until dawn.”

“I’ll never make it,” he muttered. “I need… someplace to rest.”

He wanted to stay with me. But it wasn’t part of my plan. I closed my eyes and took a minute to mull over the situation. Although I didn’t have much food or water, I did have a small workshop hidden in the hills. He could rest there while I prepared for the rest of my trek.

“I know a place,” I said.

Dallas nodded. “Thank you.”

I kept quiet and pointed him to the narrow path that led away from the highway. We were the only two souls out wandering the wasteland in the dead of night.

***

My hideout consisted of two rooms underground. One I called my workshop—I kept my tools and boxes piled around the walls—and the other I had made into a shabby bedroom. I took Dallas to the workshop and showed him the door tucked away between rocks. It was impossible to find from the road and completely separate from my personal quarters.

We stepped inside, and I turned on the sole light. It hung from a wire, swinging back and forth, casting shadows that darted around the room like frightened animals. Then I motioned to the surroundings as if giving a tour. One wave of my arm was all it took, but even that sent pain shooting through my system. My stomach was bruised from the base of my ribs to my belly button.

Dallas walked in, set his backpack by the door, and gave the place the once-over. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything, so I shadowed his steps as he glanced around.

My workshop—my only comfort in the world, if I were being honest—was an old cellar. Nothing impressive, but at least it kept me safe. And, unlike most cellars, which were found around houses and easy to spot, my workshop had been created by a man named Joel in order to save himself from the apocalypse. He hid the place, camouflaged the door, and kept it in good shape, even throughout the Forever Winter.

I never met Joel, nor do I think we were alive at the same time, but he left a good deal of messages carved into the wooden support beams around the cellar. I felt like I knew him better than my own parents. Some of his writing stuck with me. He wrote, We all strive for good times, but they create weak men, and weak men are the source of great evil. On another he wrote, Honesty, duty, and hard work are dead.

His last message, the most disturbing, simply said, Today I lost another finger. God is taking me home one bit at a time.

Dallas glanced down at the sad sack accommodations. A few empty battery cells littered the corners, and I kept my food in a box by the door. I used to think the cellar was spacious, but with Dallas’s company, the place seemed unbearably cramped.

He turned his attention to the opposite side of the room where I kept my work desk and planning materials. Before I could think of anything to say, he ambled over and stared at my figurines.

I made buildings, people, and props out of junk I found around the wasteland. I used them for planning purposes, as I built most objects to scale with their real-world counterparts, but a few were merely for my own pleasure. I made a cat and dog out of twisted coat hangers and a couple of birds crafted from old bottle caps. I even had a little house with furniture, like in all the old world magazines I’d read over the years, so they would all have a place to live. Childish musings, but it passed the time.

Dallas grazed his fingers over the figurine of a mother and her child. “You made toys?”

“Th-they’re not toys,” I said, flustered. “And I’d like to see what you do with your extra time, thank you very much. At least this is constructive.” The world had too much destruction in it already.

“I never said it was bad.”

I rewound the conversation in my head, feeling foolish for the effort when I realized he was right. I had taken offense at a specific word, but he hadn’t yet cast judgment.

“You’re talented,” he muttered.

“Er, well, thank you.”

Without warning, Dallas doubled over and slammed a hand on my table. He gripped his gut with his other hand and took in breath through his clenched teeth. When he coughed, he splattered fresh crimson blood all over the floor of my cellar.

I rushed over and placed a hand on his back. “Are you okay?”

He growled something I couldn’t understand.

“There are treatments for radiation poisoning,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “I could take you to the edge of a city. The doctors will charge you for the treatment, but you could get it.”

Dallas shook his head. He took in a deep breath and steadied himself.

“I need to lie down.”

I motioned to a bench positioned between boxes. I technically had a bed in my other room—if you counted a dilapidated cushion as a mattress—but I needed someplace to rest if I was going to make the long trek anytime soon. I didn’t have any chairs or luxuries. Dallas could have the bench or the cold cement of the floor.

Dallas rested back on the wooden bench, sweat glistening over all visible portions of his skin. I fetched him water from my food box, but he only took a single sip before closing his eyes and falling asleep.

I limped over to my work desk and finally took off my backpack. Although I had gone through a gauntlet of effort, energy burst from my pores, my heart rate never settling back into an even rhythm.

I could use the battery to escape. And waiting around only invited failure.

Someone could find my cellar or other judges could come calling.

I had to leave. And soon.

I gave Dallas another glance, narrowing my eyes as I examined him.

Again, I wondered why he was here. He could be a liability, especially given his radiation poisoning. Then again, I could guide him to a town on my way out of Ex Cathedra. I chuckled to myself as I glanced away. For months—maybe a couple years—I had been alone. Very alone. Even having someone over, even if he was just sleeping on a bench, reminded me how much I missed interacting with others.

Conflicted, I hefted the fission battery out of my backpack and looked it over.

It was in perfect condition. Once satisfied everything was ready, I tucked it back into my pack and left the workshop. My limping grew worse as fatigue settled in. The hatch to my bedroom, hidden under dirt and rocks, wasn’t far, but it felt like an eternity. Once inside, I slid down the stairs and hobbled to my sad sack mattress.

With my fission battery close, I laid my head down and the butt of the handgun jabbed into my side. I gritted my teeth as I pulled it out and tossed it to the side. Even touching one brought back unpleasant memories.

CHAPTER THREE

I didn’t sleep well.

My gut hurt, and excitement coursed through my veins. I woke a couple hours after I closed my eyes, sweat dappling my skin. When I sat up, my head spun. Dehydration was an ever-constant companion, like a second shadow, but I couldn’t guzzle down water whenever I wanted, not when I made my home away from the cities.

After a drink, I checked my battery, gathered up what little supplies I kept in my bedroom, and then limped to the door. I listened before exiting. No unusual sounds. Then I made my way outside and straight to the workshop. Again, before I entered, I waited and listened.

Nothing.

Had Dallas left? It would solve my dilemma on what to do with him.

I slowly opened the door. Dallas rested on the bench, his back to me. His chest expanded in a slow but constant rhythm. I breathed easy knowing he hadn’t died. No one liked handling corpses, and dragging a full-grown man from my workshop would be a hassle.

I couldn’t eat, not with the pain in my intestines, so I hobbled over to my work desk. The little figurines sat perfectly still in line, and I decided I’d think about my situation while I made a new one. Crafting things helped me think straight, since it gave my hands something to do.

I grabbed a pair of pliers and half an aluminum can, my focus on the mother and child I had made months ago. I hadn’t thought about it until then, but maybe they could have a father as well.

I used my measuring tape to examine the figurines. Half an inch represented a foot, so the mother was two inches and three quarters—my own height—which meant the father should be three inches.

Such details mattered to no one, especially given my hermit lifestyle, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted things to be exact. I wanted them to make sense with numbers and planning. It bothered me sometimes when things weren’t in order. I lost sleep when the floor plans to my model house didn’t match the dimensions I estimated from the picture in the magazine.

Just as I finished twisting the aluminum into a humanoid figure, the bench squeaked with movement. I held my backpack close and turned around in my chair.

Dallas sat up, his elbows on his knees.

“Good morning,” I said.

It wasn’t morning, but I enjoyed the ring of the phrase as I said it. I hadn’t greeted someone good morning in years.

Dallas ran a hand down his face. “I need to piss.”

I pointed to a bottle in the corner of the room. The ammonia in urine could be used for all sorts of useful things. It helped plants grow and could remove rust from iron. I had Joel to thank for such wisdom. His survival guide etched into the cellar’s posts had helped me greatly over the years.

Dallas stood with a grunt and ambled over to the bottle. There was a funnel nearby, and I almost mentioned it, but I stopped myself before looking foolish. Obviously men didn’t need a funnel. Obviously.

With almost no modesty, Dallas unzipped his cargo pants.

I quickly turned away and clutched the fission battery tighter. Just as I hadn’t wished someone good morning in years, I hadn’t felt the burning heat of social embarrassment for years, either. I hadn’t missed that sensation, however.

Once he finished, he screwed the cap back on the bottle and returned to the bench. I turned back around in my chair and studied him for a moment, neither of us saying a word.

To my shock, he looked better than before he went to sleep. No, not just better, but free of injury. The small cuts, burns, and bruises were nowhere to be seen. His skin had no blemishes; only his clothes held the evidence of blood that proved he was once wounded.

“What happened?” I asked, motioning to his body. “Those kinds of injuries don’t go away that fast.”

“I told you. I just needed a rest. I wasn’t that injured.”

“But the burns…” My gaze shifted to the bench. Flakes of dead skin littered the wood. Then I glanced down at the blood that stained my floor. The copper tinge that lingered on the air would take weeks to go away.

“It was dark,” he snapped. “Trust me. It wasn’t that bad.”

Being quick to anger was a sign of lying, and I knew it well. But I didn’t have another explanation for why his injuries had cleared up, so I left the issue.

“Did you have any dreams?” I asked. I knew it was a bizarre question the moment I asked, but I wanted some sort of connection. Speaking about dreams felt like something I did a lifetime ago, when I was happier.

“Dreams?” Dallas asked, glaring at the floor. “No.”

“Pleasant dreams refresh me. Mentally, I mean.”

“I… usually have nightmares,” he murmured, almost too quiet to hear.

“Hm.” I understood the sentiment, so I opted to change the topic. “If you’re a traitor, why were you in the silver mines?”

“I tried to steal some of the A-tech components. The ones in the major machines.”

“Why?”

Dallas took in a deep breath and then exhaled. “I needed the money to get out of Ex Cathedra.”

His answer struck a chord. I stared at the cement floor, my breath held as I debated telling Dallas about my plan. Giddy excitement bubbled up in my chest. I had never told anyone, and now that I was so close, everything felt surreal.

“I also want to get out of Ex Cathedra,” I said.

He turned and narrowed his eyes. “With a leg like yours?”

I gritted my teeth. Did he have to mention it like that?

He looked away again. “I’m sorry. I’m just curious how you thought you’d make it all by yourself.”

“There are old world military bases all over Ex Cathedra,” I said. “Some are destroyed, some are infested with alien drones, but there’s one nearby that’s simply sealed.”

He didn’t respond. He stayed still and quiet, like he was curious and afraid to interrupt.

I continued, “The military base’s fission battery isn’t working, so all the doors and security measures are locked in place. People have tried to break in, I’ve seen it, but the compound is too secure. And according to these inventory listings—” I swiveled around in my chair and grabbed a stack of pre-war paperwork, “—the base should have a couple all-terrain vehicles.”

Then I turned back around and grabbed an old world map from my research pile. It had the lines of past nations marked across it, along with the rivers and mountains, but most of that was irrelevant. Those nations didn’t exist anymore.

“I want to use one of those all-terrain vehicles to cross the border into United California.”

I pointed to the map, specifically to my own markings designating the new world territories.

Ex Cathedra controlled the flatland territory between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. There were only two viable ways to leave Ex Cathedra on the western border, and that was either through a stretch of land south of the Rocky Mountains or across a portion of the mountains themselves.

Unlike whenever the maps were made, the land had changed after the war, creating new obstacles besides rocks, rivers, and deserts. Everything north was too hostile or inhospitable, and traveling too far south would result in getting caught in the radiation mire. And the leftover alien drones were a plague in some areas, killing anyone who entered.

Dallas stared at the map for a long moment. “This military base… Do you think it has other A-tech equipment?”

I nodded. The facility had been locked down for years.

He breathed easier than before and half smiled. “Clever. Real clever. You thought of this yourself?”

“Yes. I’ve lived here alone for some time now.”

Dallas glanced around my hideout as if seeing it in a whole new light. Then he turned back to me, his eyebrows knit together. “How long?”

The pity in his voice stabbed at me. I couldn’t find my voice, so I simply shrugged.

Perhaps Dallas could sense my pain because he quickly tapped on the map, refocusing the conversation. “What route will you take to get to U-Cali?”

I pointed to the stretch of land south of the mountain—some place once called Arizona.

“There are old world roads that lead through this territory,” I said. “By my estimates, it would only take a couple days to reach United California. A week at most.”

Dallas turned away and chuckled. “You can’t go that way. It’s a fucking war zone.”

“But the vehicle can reach top speeds of—”

“It won’t matter,” he interjected. “Obviously you haven’t seen the border. Those U-Cali bastards use land cannons to keep the Ex Cathedra soldiers at bay. There’s nothing but a scorched strip of land there. Anything that moves—anything large enough, like your vehicle—will get annihilated.”

I stared down at the map, my chest tightening as my carefully laid plans ran across a snag. Traveling six hundred and seventy-five miles didn’t look far on paper, but it would feel thirty times longer to try and maneuver through battlefields and no-man zones.

“The mountain path is longer, but safer,” Dallas said. “If you had an all-terrain vehicle you could use the busted roads there.”

It would require traveling eight hundred and fifty miles if I took the mountain path, but I was sure the vehicle could make it, given the batteries I had amassed. That wasn’t a viable option, however.

I shook my head. “The Iron-Blooded have infested most of the mountains. Everyone knows they’re insane.”

Unlike Ex Cathedra and United California, both new world nations who were trying to rebuild something out of the twisted corpse of Earth, the Iron-Blooded were lunatics hell bent on serving the cause of humanity’s demise—those fucking space monsters. They worshipped the aliens like only end-of-world zealots could. I had never heard of the Iron-Blooded being reasonable or level-headed, and they used what A-tech they found to undermine the roots of civilized society.

And while most people were ignorant of A-tech, the Iron-Blooded knew how to make the devastating weapons work to their advantage.

“I’ll just have to think of something else,” I said as I grabbed a new piece of paper and one of my homemade pens. I could write out a plan and work from there.

“Why are you so desperate to get to U-Cali?”

That was the part of the plan I couldn’t tell him. I wasn’t interested in U-Cali, per se. I needed to reach the docks and ships. I wanted to go north, to a place beyond the snow line. Some said people bury themselves in an icy coffin when they go too north, but I knew something they didn’t.

There was a facility hidden in the snow. I glanced down at a brochure I kept at my desk. The colors had long since faded, and the edges of the paper flaked off occasionally, but I knew the information well. It advertised an underground greenhouse, one capable of growing vast amounts of plants. It was the largest in the world—or so the ad boasted—built before the war. It ran off fission batteries and could feed a quarter million people a year by its lonesome. And there were machines, like in the silver mine. Machines that ran by themselves.

They called it the BC Oasis.

It would be the perfect place to live in a world ruined by war, especially for a hermit girl like me. I couldn’t imagine it being uninhabited, but if the fission batteries were taken or damaged during the fighting, there was a chance it would be deserted. And I could get the facility up and running again, in theory. The brochure had a map to its location. I was willing to take the risk.

I knew it was a pipe dream, but leaving Ex Cathedra was the first step to take regardless.

I couldn’t tell Dallas about the BC Oasis, though, so I mulled over his question—why go to U-Cali—and I decided to lie.

“I hear it’s better over there,” I finally said.

He slowly nodded. “I see.”

I returned to my planning. I had to take the route south of the Rocky Mountains. The Iron-Blooded were too dangerous.

“The cannons must use ammunition or have a power source,” I said. “I will move to a place closer to the border, and then I’ll gather information on the weapons. In a few weeks’ time, if I’m lucky, I can devise a strategy to get—”

“Kita,” Dallas said, his tone melancholy.

I stopped and glanced back at him.

“I didn’t tell you the whole truth. I needed the money for more than just getting out of here.”

“Okay.”

“I’m dying.”

The statement caught me off guard. I waited for the punchline, holding my breath until it hurt to do so.

“The Iron-Blooded have lots of A-tech,” he said, “so I went to them to see if they could help.”

What a terrible idea.

He continued, “I got to know some of them. They… helped me… but I need to go back to get the last of my treatment. That’s why I needed the A-tech from the mines. Nothing else could afford what they’d give me.”

Treatment? The word sounded intentionally vague. What kind of treatment? For what?

Dallas stared at me. “If we go together, I’m sure they’ll let you pass through the mountains.”

His claims went against everything I knew about the Iron-Blooded. They didn’t help random people. As a matter of fact, I heard they sacrificed people to the aliens, like a fucked-up ritual meant to keep the sun in the sky. Those weren’t the actions of empathetic and understanding people—of people who gave someone “treatment” because they were sick.

“I can’t risk it,” I said. I returned my attention to my to-do list. “I’ll find some other way to leave Ex Cathedra.”

I crafted plans that involved myself and onlymyself. I knew what I was capable of, and relying on others could be a gamble. No one could fail me if I worked alone. No one could betray me. No one would leave me…

I stopped writing, my mind lingering on haunting memories.

It was best to do everything myself. Trusting Dallas to get me through the mountains was only inviting trouble. What if he died in the middle of the trek? Or the Iron-Blooded decided they wanted my vehicle? Those were circumstances I couldn’t handle.

“I want to reach U-Cali as well,” Dallas said, an edge of pleading in his voice. “If you go through the mountains, we can go together. Please. I don’t know if I can make it on my own.”

His dire expression and tone dug into my thoughts. It had been a long time since someone needed my help. After I lost my sister, I had been so alone.

I glanced at the little family of figurines.

Dallas stood, his motions slow and careful, like an old man with arthritis. “We could help each other. I know all about Ex Cathedra’s border defenses, and you’re intelligent enough to make it on your own—someone dependable. If we run into any renegade A-tech, I’m sure you could handle it.”

The BC Oasis was far away. Having someone with me for half the trek wouldn’t be so bad, and he obviously had military training. If he worked as my gun and I worked as the brains, we could get far. And if he was dying, there wouldn’t be much reason for him to delay our trek.

I didn’t want to mill about any longer. Not when Ex Cathedra would be sending Judges to retrieve their battery.

I grabbed a paper at my desk and flipped it over, ready to make a list of things I needed in order to make it across the mountains.

“All right,” I said. “We’ll see the Iron-Blooded, but we need to have a few contingencies, just in case. I still don’t trust them.”

Dallas smiled. “Thank you, Kita.”

“In the morning, we’ll head for the military base. Until then, we should get some more rest.”

***

We walked along the cracked roads, moving at a slow pace due to my limp.

Dallas carried everything but my battery. I wouldn’t be returning to the cellar, so everything I could fit into our two backpacks was the totality of my possessions. I feared the seams would rip, but once we got a vehicle, I wouldn’t have to worry.

The deathly quiet of our surroundings was a requiem to the millions who died decades ago. I had a portable radio, but Ex Cathedra controlled the broadcasting towers. Wartime propaganda wasn’t my favorite genre of music, so I opted for silence instead.

Dallas wobbled a few times on his feet, his eyes half-lidded. I didn’t ask. He always managed to shake it off and continue forward, no matter how pale he got.

When he shoved his hands into his pockets, I heard the jingle of metal. I glanced over and lifted an eyebrow. He pulled out my figurines—the mother, father, and child. I had left them all behind since they weren’t needed. Plus, I could always make more.

“You took them?” I asked.

“Do you mind?”

“No, but why?”

“I like these. They remind me of happier times.”

I walked a bit closer and nodded. “Do you have a wife?”

“I did,” Dallas said, curt. “She died. End of story.”

And then I returned to my normal distance away from him. As far as I was concerned, it might be easier to find a sugar cube on the moon than craft an engaging conversation. I searched my memories for any clues to make the discussion between us meaningful.

Dallas exhaled. “Where… is your family?”

I was glad to hear the awkward strain in his voice. At least I wasn’t alone in my conversational deficiencies.

But I didn’t want to talk about my family. “They’re all dead,” I intoned. “End of story.” I touched my injured hip, flaring the pain for a moment just to stop my mind from wandering down memory lane.

“No children?” Dallas asked.

“No. I’ve never had children.”

“Yet you made so many toys.”

I huffed and said, “They’re not toys, they’re—” but I stopped myself the moment I got a good look at Dallas. He smiled and chuckled, as though amused by my reaction to such a trivial statement. He was fucking with me, basically.

I stifled a laugh and turned away. I had almost forgotten what it was like to joke with someone.

The clack of rock on rock caused us both to stiffen and fall silent. Although the harsh cloud cover blanketed the area in gloom, I could see movement in the distance. A swarm of flies and birds hung around an outcropping of rocks, a visible cloud of death and illness.

Dallas pulled out his .45 handgun. “Stay close.”

I did as he said and gripped the straps of my backpack. The birds in the region were aggressive and riddled with diseases—a terrible combination. Two cawed and took to the air. Dallas positioned himself for the confrontation, keeping himself between me and the birds at all times. Normally I avoided animals, but we didn’t have that luxury if we were going to get him to the Iron-Blooded for his mysterious treatment.

The two birds swooped close, pecking and flaring their talons. They were great-tailed grackles—black and shiny like spilled oil—and their yellow eyes pierced the darkness, honing in on us with bloodlust.

Dallas fired twice. I flinched with each shot, my pulse high and my breathing shallow. Both birds hit the dirt, feathers everywhere. The remaining flock took off after the first shot, their companion swarm of flies following them as they went.

The ring of the gunshots traveled for some distance.

Dallas didn’t hesitate. He grabbed some ammo out of the backpack and slotted two more bullets into the magazine. The HK .45 only had a ten-round capacity, so it was probably for the best. Running out of ammo at a crucial moment could spell demise.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded.

I pointed into the distance, beyond where the birds flew. “Do you see that building? That’s the military base.”

“I’ve seen that place before. It’s Fort Molena.”

His familiarity invigorated me. We made our way to it, eagerness in our step. Even my limp wasn’t as bad as we traversed the rocks and cracked earth. The only sight that slowed my pace was the corpse the birds and flies had been scavenging on.

Not a human corpse—one of the aliens.

I turned away, holding back a sneer. As long as we didn’t run into one, it wouldn’t matter.

We reached the gate of Fort Molena faster than I expected. The cement wall was adorned with rusty barbed wire and covered in decades’ old graffiti. The place had the aura of a ghost town.

“You know how to get in?” Dallas asked.

I nodded. “We can slide open the gate and head to the reserve power box at the back of the building.”

The thought of getting my hands on an all-terrain vehicle excited me more than anything had in the last few days, even getting hold of the fission battery. It was another monumental step, another key to the puzzle of taking control of my life.

Dallas shoved the gate open and motioned me inside.

CHAPTER FOUR

We crossed a crumbling parking lot littered with broken vehicles in various shapes and sizes. Unlike the military grade all-terrain vehicles, the cars scattered around the wasteland were useless. Their tires had long since died and the fuel expired, corroding the insides. The all-terrain vehicles didn’t use gasoline—no combustion engine—and instead could be completely powered by a large enough atomic or fission battery.

Before we reached any of the buildings, my leg grew stiff and painful. I slowed, despite my excitement. Although Dallas could have continued on, he stayed close to my side.

We walked around the backside of the first building. Dallas reached for the door. I grabbed his arm and pointed to a damaged area. The wall was cracked open, exposing a portion of the reserve power room. The small opening—a tight squeeze for someone like me—had edges lined with jagged pipes and metal bars, but it worked as an entrance. I had gone through it several times before during my investigations.

It was futile to try any of the base’s doors. The security system had been placed in lockdown before the power cut out, resulting in all doors being shut with dead bolts and triple locking. It wasn’t something I could lock pick, and my only hope was the battery.

I slid into the power room, keeping my backpack close. I had my battery and my tool kit—everything I needed for minor adjustments on the machine.

Dallas waited outside while I shined my flashlight over the power reserve system.

According to the paperwork I gathered, Fort Molena’s primary power source had been a civilian power plant before the war. But the base had a backup system complete with its own fission battery. For whatever reason, the fission battery wasn’t functioning. It powered nothing, even the testing devices I tried hooking up to it. Everything pointed to an internal problem, but since I didn’t know how to fix it, replacement was my only option.

I detached the old fission battery, hefted it out of the machine, and placed it on the floor. Breathing hard, I placed the new battery inside and went to make the attachments.

But I stopped when I noticed something out of place.

The new fission battery already had something plugged into one of the input ports. At first I thought it was a cover meant to keep the port protected, but the longer I examined it, the more I realized it was a device.

A tracking device. It said so on the faded lettering: US GPS MDL-196.

I tried to rip it off the battery, but it was secured with screws to the casing. My heart rate increased as adrenaline dumped into my veins. With unsteady hands I used my screwdriver to detach the device. Once off, I shoved it in my pocket. Perhaps it would continue to transmit my position for a short period while power still coursed through it, but not for long, not when it was designed to be connected to a power source.

How had I been so careless? I cursed myself under my breath as I connected the new battery to the power system.

“Dallas,” I said.

“What is it?”

“Did anyone in the silver mines know how to use the computer systems?”

“I don’t know. I never saw anyone use them besides cycling through passwords. It was rote memorization, though. They couldn’t read the alien words.”

Of course. That was common. Technology had become more of a magical force in the world—a thing people knew about but didn’t understand—so there was still a chance no one in the silver mine would even know of a tracking device on the battery. At least, that was my hope.

“Why did you want to know?” Dallas asked.

“I—” I took a breath and held back my words, half embarrassed by my own mistake and half rushed to get everything done, “—was thinking about the mine’s capabilities.”

Once the battery was in place, I took a step back and turned the whole thing on.

A groan issued from the machinery and echoed throughout the room for a good thirty seconds. A flood of lights shone for a moment before two sparked out, leaving me in the shadows of a partially dim environment.

Another groan, this one laced with the grinding of metal, rumbled somewhere in the base. I knew everything wouldn’t be in working condition—it had sat idle too long—but I hoped I would have enough access for my plans.

I walked to the inner door in the reserve power room and checked the handle. It unlocked, and I entered the main hallway. Before I went for the computers, I limped over to the front door and unlocked it.

Dallas stepped inside and offered me a smile. “Impressive.”

I didn’t know how to respond to the compliment, so I rubbed the back of my neck and nodded.

Together we made our way through the empty base, our footsteps our only companions. The moment I spotted a computer perched on a desk, I made my way over.

Dallas glanced around, his gaze lingering on the shadows.

The computer booted up when I hit the power. Words flashed on the screen about the Fort Molena base, something about being property of the USA and other such statements. I ignored them and instead went into the command prompt to bypass any of the passwords. The base worked on pre-war coding. I knew that the best.

Once I had full access to the contents of the computer, I immediately went for the site map and storage facility information. But while I looked through the information, a notice popped up from the computer.

A video message.

Curiosity got the better of me. I opened it.

The video started in a room not unlike the one where we stood. A man in his pre-war uniform stared into the camera. There were soldiers and officers running around in the background, but I couldn’t get a good look at them. A siren sounded outside, muffled by the base’s walls.

“This is Base Commander Daniel Robins,” the man said, his voice rusty, but firm. “Moments ago, we lost contact with Fayetteville, New York, and Jacksonville. As per emergency protocol, the soldiers stationed here at Fort Molena will evacuate to Chanute Space Force Base.”

Dallas glared at the screen. “What’re you doing? This doesn’t matter to us.”

Something about the pre-war world intrigued me. It was like I lived in a world of perpetual night, and the pre-war world lived in the day. They were the same yet so very different.

Base Commander Robins continued, “Humanity was betrayed. Hobbled by our indecision and blinded to our enemy’s desperation, we didn’t foresee—”

A soldier ran up to the base commander, out of breath and covered in sweat. “Sir, it’s all over. We lost contact with the last of them.”

“Then this message is for anyone who—”

I turned off the video.

Dallas was right. What did it matter what happened all those years ago? No one in the video could help me. I continued to poke through the computer until I found the map. Once memorized, I released the emergency settings and unlocked all the doors.

Dallas and I exited the main building and headed for the special operations garage. An odd mixture of excitement and dread plagued my thoughts as Dallas slid open the doors.

For months, I had planned this. For years I had yearned to escape. Every piece of the puzzle to my freedom had been constructed through persistent struggle, willpower, and determination. I dreamed of the moment I would see the steps of my plan checked off one by one, even going so far as to name the vehicle in all my imaginings. I’d name it Joel, so I could pretend I was taking him with me while I left Ex Cathedra.

But all emotion in my body spoiled like milk the instant I got a good look at the inside of the garage.

The place was empty. The vehicles gone.

My mind ground to a halt, and my heart beat up in my throat, preventing me from breathing. It took me a few moments to regain control of myself.

Of course. Of course! If they evacuated, they would’ve taken the most valuable equipment—there had only been ten vehicles here. And it’s not like they would’ve updated their inventory listings after they left the base. Why would they? The world was ending all around them, and bureaucracy was the first casualty.

Dallas walked in and gave the empty space a quick glance. “Is this the only place they would’ve been?”

Unable to speak, I nodded.

“So there’s nothing here for us.”

I nodded again.

Dallas ran a hand through his hair, his jaw clenched tight. Afterward, he doubled over and rubbed at his stomach. I had almost forgotten about his impending death, and I was certain he didn’t appreciate the empty garage. It meant we’d take even longer to escape.

I was accustomed to setbacks. No matter how carefully I prepared ahead of time, no plan ever went 100% the way I wanted. There was always a chance I didn’t find an all-terrain vehicle, and my contingency was to go to another military base.

“We’ll find something else,” I said as I took a deep breath. “There’s another base not far from—”

“I don’t have time. I need to return to the Iron-Blooded.”

His curt statement left no room for deviation. He needed his treatment, and I didn’t have any medication for him. I had said I would help him, but already it felt like I had failed. What if he died because of me? He had already gone out of his way to assist me, yet I couldn’t seem to do anything in return.

I would need to find a workaround. Perhaps the Iron-Blooded weren’t the cutthroats I had heard about before. Perhaps we could get help from them. Genuine help.

“Let me search the rest of the base,” I said, grasping at possibilities and hypotheticals.

Dallas lifted an eyebrow. “We won’t be able to carry much without a vehicle.”

“Maybe we can use something else.”

“Please make it quick.”

As if the universe wanted to impose a harsh timer, a cloud of dust in the distance caught my eye. I stared, wondering what could cause such a disturbance considering the lack of wind. Dallas turned to follow my gaze.

“Someone has a vehicle,” he quipped.

The wall around the base obscured my vision of what caused the disturbance, but in my heart, I already knew.

The tracking device on the battery had led someone to us.

Judges. No doubt in my mind.

“We need to go,” I whispered.

Together we made our way back to the reserve power room. I turned off the machine, and the lights flickered and faded. I removed the battery and returned it to the backpack without a wasted second, but my hands trembled a bit, adding to my stress.

Neither of us was in good shape, and the judges wouldn’t hesitate to kill us this time around. And I didn’t have a way to deal with them. Not anymore.

Without the security measures in place, the doors opened with little trouble. We slipped out of the building and hid along the side wall until we made it to the gate. A truck headed toward the base along the destroyed road—a transport truck, the kind with a tarp-covered back and all the colorless joy of a graveyard.

“Ex Cathedra soldiers,” Dallas said. “We can’t leave this way.”

“I don’t think the other gates are capable of opening.”

“Then we’ll have to climb over.”

We hustled away from the main gate and followed the outer wall. By the time we reached a steel ladder mounted into the side of the wall, the terrible screech of metal against concrete grated on my ears. A building sat between us and the main gate, so I couldn’t see, but no doubt the transport truck had forced itself into the base by driving through the ruined defenses.

Dallas leapt onto the ladder and pulled himself up one rung at a time. I attempted to follow, but the moment I put my weight on my injured leg, it buckled and sent a wave of agony through my spine. I tumbled to the ground, my body shaking. I took a deep breath and steadied myself before standing.

Dallas used the butt of his rifle to smash away the rusted concertina wire still perched on top of the wall. Once he’d cleared a path, he slung a leg over and gave me a quick glance.

“Can you make it?”

I nodded.

Countless obstacles had tried to stop me over the years. I would not be defeated by a ladder. I refused.

“Search the compound,” a harsh metallic voice echoed throughout the base. Judge Gascoigne’s tone was cemented into my mind, and I knew she was the one giving the orders.

Steeling myself with determination, I grabbed the rungs and pulled myself up with my arms. The strain wore me out by the time I reached the midway point, but I knew if I fell, the Ex Cathedra soldiers were sure to catch me. Dallas waited at the top, motioning me to hurry with each rung I made it up. Once close, he grabbed the collar of my jacket and pulled, helping rush the last few.

The twelve foot drop to the ground got my heart beating fast and my skin coated in sweat. My leg wouldn’t handle the impact.

Without warning, Dallas leapt off the wall. When he hit the ground, he rolled and tumbled until the momentum had gone. It took him a few moments to stand properly, but once he did, he glanced up at me.

“I’ll catch you,” he said.

The sound of boots on dirt urged me to take the leap without any of my normal critical analysis. I tried to turn my body so my injured leg wouldn’t hit first, but the fall had happened so fast I doubt I made much of a difference. Dallas caught me, but we both hit the dirt when his knees buckled, the weight of the fission battery on my back not helping anything.

Winded, I took a moment to feel over my body before standing. Dallas’s catch lessened the overall impact, and although he was dazed and coughing, he also appeared unharmed. Then I checked my backpack. The battery wasn’t fragile, and neither were my tools. Everything made it through the fall just fine.

Dallas stood and helped me to my feet.

The slam and smash of doors from inside the base weighed heavy on my thoughts. The layout of Fort Molena was a simple one—five buildings, a special operations garage, a normal garage, and some forgotten training grounds. One of the buildings was an armory. Although the evacuating soldiers had taken the ten all-terrain vehicles, I suspected they weren’t capable of taking the million units of equipment stored in the base. And since I had unlocked everything, I had basically given our pursuers even more firepower.

My only solace came from the fact I had detached the tracking device. Even if they had more weaponry, would it matter if we disappeared into the Rocky Mountains?

Dallas and I made our way away from Fort Molena.

Still shaken from the failure of the mission and the close run-in with Judge Gascoigne, I continued pushing myself to the limits of exhaustion.

***

Fifteen hours.

Six hours of walking, two for rest, another four walking, an additional two rest, and the last hour climbing rocks. I couldn’t handle much more, and neither could Dallas. He coughed more and more, his wan complexion a terrible sign.

My blistered feet wept blood, and every time I sat down, I gave serious thought to never standing ever again. The icy evening winds didn’t help, either. I kept my jacket tight around my body and secured a pair of goggles over my eyes. The dust kicked up by the breeze carried all sorts of harmful particles. I didn’t want to injure the one part of my body that functioned at higher than average quality by allowing my eyes to get infected.

Dallas stopped when we climbed up to a small landing near a partially intact road. He took a seat on a couple rocks and breathed easier. I sat next to him, relief flooding my system.

While we rested, I took the last of the water and smoked meat out of my backpack for us to share. Dallas insisted the Iron-Blooded would have supplies, and right now we needed the nourishment. In the worst possible scenario, we could return to my cellar.

“They’ll meet us here,” Dallas said.

I glanced around. “Here? How do you know?”

He shined his flashlight on a dented sign sitting on the side of the road. In yellow and black, it had the picture of a car on a slope.

“This is where they told me to wait. They said they’d be watching this location.”

I chewed my dinner and swallowed, my sandpaper esophagus making the process difficult. Once finished, I gulped down water and then said, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“The vehicle. I thought… it would definitely be there.”

“Feh. It was too good to be true.”

My feet pulsed with pain in time with my heartbeat. I reached for the large pocket of my backpack and withdrew bandages and gauze. Dallas watched intently as I removed my boots and cleaned the bloody soles of my feet.

“How are you holding up?” I ask, motioning to his boots. “Do you need any bandages?”

He shook his head. “You’ve done enough for me already.”

“If you’re bleeding, we should take care of it.”

“I’m fine.”

But I had seen the way he grimaced with each hard step on the rocks. It mirrored my own torture as we climbed. He really wasn’t in good shape.

“I don’t mind bandaging you up,” I said as I finished wrapping my feet. The pressure on the injuries, while stinging at first, eased the ache. “I still have plenty of cellucotton and gauze.”

He turned away from me and said nothing. I didn’t understand why he insisted on keeping distant, but I knew I would have to push if I were going to help.

“At least take off your boots for a little bit,” I said. “The wounds can get infected or worse if you leave them.”

Dallas clenched his jaw. At first I thought he wouldn’t do anything, but then he unlaced his boots and kicked them off. His once white socks were blackish-red with blood, and pieces of the fabric clung to the raw and damaged skin of his feet when he peeled them off.

Without asking—because I knew he would deny my offer to help—I knelt down and used a bit of my water to wash away the excess blood. Dallas ground his teeth as I wiped the injuries clean with the cellucotton, his whole body tense. At first I thought he might shove me away, especially when he shifted his weight on the rock, but it never happened.

After a few moments, he relaxed.

But we didn’t speak during the process. Anytime I glanced up, he would look away, unwilling to meet my gaze. I felt along the bone ridges of the top of his feet as I bandaged them, making sure nothing was broken. Each time I touched his skin, he would flinch, but still, he said nothing.

Once finished, I took my seat back on the rock next to him.

“See?” I said, half smiling. “That wasn’t so bad.”

Dallas silently stared in the opposite direction.

“Are you okay?”

Nothing.

“Did this upset you?”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” he said under his breath. “It just makes everything harder.”

Before I could ask him anything further, lights shone from down the road. We slipped our boots back on and moved behind a couple large rocks. The purr of an electric engine rolled down the mountain, and while I was content to hide, Dallas stepped out and waited in the middle of the landing. He motioned me to join him. Although I tended to hide whenever new people showed themselves, I limped out to his side. They had already seen me anyway if they had been watching the landing. What was the point of hiding now?

I waited on burning feet.

The vehicle had to belong to the Iron-Blooded. The darkness made it difficult to see much, which added to my unease.

The vehicle stopped twenty feet from us, the headlights shining directly in our eyes. Although I could hear the door, the crunch of boots on dirt, and the heavy heft of weapons, all I could see were three silhouettes. I moved a step closer to Dallas.

“Looks like he made it back,” a man said—not in English, but the alien language, Tethlite. It had a thick use of the tongue in order to make the proper syllables, and I would’ve recognized it anywhere. “I guess I owe Dannik a drink.”

“Who’s the girl?” another asked.

“Don’t know. She wasn’t part of the agreement.”

“I don’t like it when insects think they can run the show.”

“Want me to shoot her?”

I gripped Dallas’s shirt and moved half behind him. “Say something. They’re talking about shooting me.”

The three Iron-Blooded became quiet.

Dallas took a step forward. “I—”

“Can the girl understand Tethlite?” one of the men asked, his English not as good as his alien tongue.

“Yes.”

Again, silence fell over the unseen Iron-Blooded. I tried to shield my eyes from the lights, but they were much brighter than anything I had dealt with before. No matter how hard I squinted, I couldn’t make out much detail.

One of the Iron-Blooded stepped forward. “Did you get the parts from the silver mine machines like we asked?”

Dallas shook his head. “I was caught before I was able to retrieve anything.”

He had been telling the truth. The information put me at ease.

“You came here empty handed?” the man asked with a chuckle. “That isn’t going to help you or your daughter. And she’s got a lot of internal bleeding. Maybe we should go back and shoot her now and put her out of her misery.”

“No!” Dallas shouted. “I didn’t come back empty handed.” He grabbed the strap of my backpack and yanked me forward. “I have a fission battery, along with a lot of other useful junk.”

My mind and body locked up, the revelation blindsiding me with enough force to prevent me from breathing.

Dallas shoved me out in front of him. I stood next to the backpack, still unable to move, my heart frozen in my chest from the shock of the situation.

“And the girl,” Dallas said. “You can take her, too. She knows everything about those damn A-tech machines, even how to read Tethlite. She can fix whatever you need.”

“That’s quite an impressive haul.”

“You’ll take it?”

“Well,” the Iron-Blooded drawled, “it wasn’t what we agreed upon… But I think it’s a fair trade. Now load it up into the car. We have work to do.”

CHAPTER FIVE

I took a step back, my thoughts returning with each forced inhale.

How could Dallas do such a thing? Hot anger and icy shame mixed in equal parts throughout my system. I gritted my teeth, uncertain of a plan given my predicament. All that came to mind were spiteful tactics or throwing myself from the landing in the hopes I survived the fall.

I took another step back.

“She’s gonna run.”

Before I could whirl around and attempt a leap, one of the Iron-Blooded struck me across the face with the butt of their heavy rifle. Blinding pain dominated my senses to the point I didn’t even register hitting the dirt. I gasped for breath through my mouth as blood wept from my nose. No matter how much air I got, the dizzy sensation wouldn’t stop.

Someone grabbed my arm and hauled me along. They continued to speak, but I noticed none of it. Even the images I saw were suspect—shadowy shapes, lights, the backseat of a vehicle. Nothing made much sense, and the unknown scared me more than anything else.

I closed my eyes and couldn’t open them again.

***

I awoke in darkness.

Right away I realized a thick cloth was tied across my face, covering my eyes, nose, and forehead. I tried to reach up and pull it away, but my wrists were secured at my sides, strapped to whatever I was lying on. A table, most likely. The flat surface irritated the sharp points of my shoulder blades.

Where was I? The question stewed in my thoughts. I grew restless and antsy. Despite my better judgment to remain calm and collected, I struggled against my restraints, attempting to break them. Even my ankles were secured to the table, and with each twist of my body, I hurt my hip more and more.

After taking in a few deep breaths, I stopped.

It was only then that I realized I didn’t have my jacket or shirt. I wore bindings over my chest, still secured in place, but more importantly, I had my pants, even if my boots had been removed. A small consolation not to be naked, but it eased my dread.

I still couldn’t believe Dallas had betrayed me so thoroughly. He helped me that entire time just to turn me in to the Iron-Blooded? He begged and pleaded for me help, just so he could lure me here? And for what?

The memory of the encounter stewed in my thoughts.

He had a daughter.

Did he do it all for her?

With my teeth gritted, I remembered my father. He died protecting me and my sister. He could’ve saved himself. He could’ve left us to the aliens when they came to attack. But he didn’t. He made sure we were safe inside our hideaway, protected from the carnage and out of sight.

Everything my father did was for me and my sister.

Everything.

So while I hated Dallas, another piece of me wanted to erase him from my mind and move on as fast as possible. I didn’t care if he wanted to protect his daughter—it was a noble goal—but it was exactly the reason I wanted to work alone. None of this would’ve happened if I had kept away from him. If I had done everything myself.

The creak of a rusty door stilled my thoughts.

Footsteps drew closer and closer. With each click of boots against cement, I tensed up. The draft from the open door sent goosebumps prickling across my exposed skin.

“You’re awake,” a man said, his Tethlite speech smooth and easy.

I took in a deep breath, my throat sore. “Where am I?” I whispered.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he picked up something nearby. Something metal that scraped against the hard surface it had been on.

“They said you were an expert with alien tech. Where did you get all that knowledge?”

“I… learned it all from my father and grandfather.”

It was true. I didn’t have a reason to lie, and in my position I didn’t want to provoke them. Besides, the Iron-Blooded worshipped those space monsters—perhaps they would be impressed with my lineage and release me.

“Speak in Tethlite,” the man said.

“I speak better in English.”

“I’m not here to argue. You’ll speak Tethlite or I’ll start removing body parts you don’t need. Do you understand?”

The situation registered with my subconscious before I could process the statements. Sensory-numbing hormones flooded my veins, seizing up my muscles and slowing my breathing. They planned on torturing me. And the man spoke with deathly seriousness, no mirth or sarcasm in his tone.

I rarely spoke Tethlite, so when I struggled for the words, I knew I’d speak with a terrible accent. “I understand.”

“Good. Now, who taught you Tethlite?”

“My grandfather, Dr. Benjamin Yamasaki.”

Silence followed.

Everyone knew of Dr. Benjamin Yamasaki. He was one of the first ambassadors for the aliens when they made contact with Earth. Of the three alien “clans”—the Teth, the Vay, and Frest—he helped establish friendly dealings with the groups most aligned with our ideals. He pioneered the translations and instruction of their language. He helped integrate the advantaged A-tech into our civilization. His whole life had been dedicated to understanding and unraveling the mysteries of aliens. He wrote twenty books, made hundreds of televised appearances, and became the face of human-alien relations.

“Dr. Yamasaki died when the firestorm fission bombs hit,” the man said.

My grandfather changed his name to avoid people who would blame him for the bombs, but he didn’t die.

“My grandfather was a Winter Survivor.”

The Forever Winter came after the bombs hit, but the name was misleading. It lasted a few years, not forever, blanketing the world in storms and frost. Pockets of civilization survived—anyone who lived through the Forever Winter earned the title of Winter Survivor—and my grandfather was among them. He knew how to cultivate the alien vegetation, plants that grew in Earth’s soil no matter the frigid temperature. His knowledge saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands.

The man grazed his fingers over my bullet scars. I flinched, even at the gentle touch. “Maybe you didn’t think I was serious,” he drawled. “But I don’t play games. Where did you learn to speak Tethlite?”

“I… told you the truth. From my grandfather.”

The tip of a sharp object pressed into my injury. I sucked in air through my teeth, the pain already flaring. No doubt the object was a knife. Even imagining the blade carving through my injury got me trembling.

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

What was I supposed to say? I could lie, but everything would pale in comparison to reality.

The man pressed the blade harder into my old bullet wound.

“Please,” I choked out, my volume high. “I’m telling the truth.”

“You picked the most famous doctor of all time. Do you think I’m that gullible? Who are you trying to hide?”

Outlandish claims were signs of lying. Perhaps I should’ve known better than to spout the truth when it sounded so preposterous.

The blade pierced my skin and slid half an inch into my flesh.

I screamed. Tears soaked into my makeshift blindfold. I took in shaky breaths and whimpered, but he didn’t remove the weapon.

“Please,” I said, my voice unsteady. “I… might not be able to walk if… if you do this.”

I almost didn’t recover the last time and it left me with a terrible limp.

And what would I do if I couldn’t walk? There’d be no place for me—no way for me to take care of myself in a harsh and unforgiving environment that was the wasteland. I’d never make it anywhere. Not out of Ex Cathedra, not across the mountains, not to the BC Oasis.

Unable to achieve anything I worked for.

A fate worse than death.

I twisted my wrist around in the restraints until I could grab the edge of the man’s sleeve. I clung to him, hoping to impart some of my desperation, hoping he would understand my dread. Hoping he would have a bit of humanity.

“Please,” I said again. “Don’t do this. I need to be able to walk.”

“I don’t think you’ll strictly need it for where you’re going,” he replied, a cold amusement in his voice.

“I—”

“Tell me who taught you Tethlite or this will get worse.”

“I was a slave in Ex Cathedra,” I blurted out, my mind scrambling a story together out of nothing. “My masters taught me to help them work on the machines.” If he wanted a lie, I would give it to him.

“What were their names?”

What were their names? Any name would do—it was all a sham, anyway—but the only name I could think of was Dallas. When I didn’t respond, the man huffed and slid the blade in deeper.

All I could hear was my own screaming. All I could feel was the burn—the searing agony that rushed through my nerves. All I wanted was for it to end.

I couldn’t breathe through the sobs. Why? Why would anyone do such a thing? I told him the truth! I told him the fucking truth! Why? Why wouldn’t he end it? With each twist of the blade, I tried to get away, but the restraints held me in place. I wouldn’t be able to walk again after this—I just wouldn’t—the blade went too deep and the pain spread too fast. Knowing that hurt more than the physical torment. When I cried it was for the loss of capability, like a piece of me was being murdered, and I couldn’t do anything about it.

Thankfully, my body wanted it to end, too.

I didn’t feel anything for a brief second before losing consciousness.

***

When I awoke again, I wasn’t blindfolded.

I blinked back the light that invaded my eyelids. The fluorescent flicking of the overhead bulb was so annoying it could agitate the dead.

The constant ache from my hip reminded me everything had been real. With each beat of my heart, a new wave of agony coursed through my veins. I bit my lip until it bled, hoping to numb myself to the sensations of pain. It helped, but not by much.

Someone had applied a hasty bandage to the wound, and I dreaded to know what was underneath. Surely a mass of knotted, gnarly flesh. And that would be if I were lucky.

To my surprise, an IV stood near my prison table, the tube strung down to my arm. They didn’t want me to die, but they didn’t want to deal with me much, either. The medication attached to the IV line had the Tethlite language scribbled on the side.

“Is someone there?” a man whispered.

I tilted my head to the side in an attempt to look around. The tiny room, constructed entirely from cement, had no windows. Through the flickering light, I made out a second table with a rangy man on top, but the details eluded me. Another prisoner? I couldn’t see properly—not through the ache and fuzzy state of my mind.

“Dallas?” I asked, though speaking hurt my raw throat.

“No. Sorry.”

Why would I even ask about him? He was probably long gone. He left me to be tortured—or perhaps to be converted to one of the Iron-Blooded themselves. The man who tortured me said I was going somewhere, after all. If they weren’t killing me that was the only conclusion I could draw.

My fellow prisoner didn’t move much, though I could hear his raspy breaths without much trouble. After a few inhales and exhales, he spoke.

“My name’s Joel.”

I laughed aloud.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

The universe had a bizarre sense of dry humor that never ceased to amaze me. Although I knew nothing about the other man, already I liked him, as irrational as it was. Joel. It felt as though I were destined to encounter that name for all eternity.

“Did you ever live in a cellar?” I asked, half smiling.

The man chuckled once, perhaps baffled by my strange reactions and questions. “No. My home is in Richfield.”

Richfield.

Not a city in Ex Cathedra, which meant he came from the other side of the mountains. Where was I? I knew the Iron-Blooded had vehicles, but what distance had they taken me?

Joel shifted around on his table. “Do you have a name?”

I almost didn’t answer. What use was it to make attachments with other people? But I trusted Joel—at least the one in the cellar—and I couldn’t will myself to stay quiet.

“Kita.”

“Did you live in a cellar, Kita?” He spoke in such a soft voice.

“Yes.”

“I hope you get back to it one day.”

What an odd sentiment. I knew he was trying to comfort me, but the words rattled around my head like a bird trying to escape a cage.

“Joel,” I whispered.

He moved a bit, but didn’t say anything.

“I… don’t think I’ll be able to walk again.”

The words caught in my throat. A few silent tears ran down the side of my head and splashed onto the table. Why did I tell him? I didn’t know. My chin trembled, and I couldn’t get any more words past the blockage of the previous sentence.

Joel held up his right hand as much as he could with a leather strap over his wrist. All four fingers had been removed at the first joint, leaving only his thumb.

“They don’t like me speakin’ the way I do,” he said. He set his hand down. “You got an Ex Cathedra accent, though. Your cellar located there?”

The way he asked—the levity he kept in his voice despite the metaphorical and literal darkness all around us—I couldn’t help but regain the strength to speak.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “I was born in Ex Cathedra.”

“I heard it’s rough. Lot of fightin’. Big, though. Everyone says they’ll reclaim the land.”

“From sea to shining sea,” I intoned as I recalled Ex Cathedra’s war slogan.

“You a soldier?”

“No.”

“Did you ever get a look at any judges? I heard they were a sight.”

I chortled. What a sight. What a damn sight.

“Joel. Do you… know anything about United California?”

He mulled over the question for a bit before answering. “It’s got cities.”

“But does it have ports and boats?”

“Lots of those, or so the gossip mice say.”

Perhaps I just wanted to fantasize, because there was no reason to think I’d make it there. But I liked knowing it existed. Someday, maybe, if life eased up and gave me an opening, I’d find myself among the boats at dock.

Or perhaps it was all a naïve dream—the hope that fueled my will to live when I obviously should’ve given up long ago. Either way, I kept it close and refocused on the present.

“Thank you, Joel,” I murmured.

“No, thank you,” he said with a chuckle on his voice. “You’ve got a voice that makes the birds jealous. And ever since they got my eyes, it’s talks like this I live for. Though anything’s better than their gutter-spit speech.”

I wanted to thank him again—to tell him his mere presence made the whole ordeal bearable—but the door opened, killing all conversation between us. Footsteps echoed in the room until two men stood on either side of my prison table.

They wore matching outfits, no doubt some sort of uniform.

Black long-sleeve shirts. Bulletproof vests painted black. Bandoliers of ammo and plastic explosives. Cargo pants of matching color. They could be shadows if it weren’t for the insignia stitched into both their shirts.

A human skull inside of an alien skull’s open mouth.

The mark of the Iron-Blooded.

The aliens had elongated faces, like a horse or a dog, but their tooth structure was remarkably similar to Homo sapiens. Incisors, canines, molars. The Iron-Blooded had the incisors and canines right, making the whole mark a sick horror fest of branding.

“They’re both awake,” one man said. The same man who stabbed my side. A man with an angular face, his expression devoid of emotion. Or perhaps it was disdain, I couldn’t tell.

The other Iron-Blooded soldier gave Joel a quick glance. “This one is a mess.”

“He doesn’t know where the bunker is. He took all the equipment he could carry and promptly forgot the location, apparently.”

“Sounds like a liar to me.”

“I’ve done everything to jog his memory. He’s more corpse than man now. He never remembered.”

“So he’s useless to us?”

My torturer nodded.

Before I could offer a word of protest, the other Iron-Blooded asshole pulled out a .40 handgun, leveled it at Joel’s head, and squeezed the trigger. The loud bang reverberated in the room, stinging my ears and my sanity. Joel spasmed atop his table, his blood coating the far wall of the room.

The man half laughed as he tucked the weapon away. “So much more satisfying than cleaning the bastard. Now I can just wheel him to the back with all the other corpses.”

“Make it quick.”

The second Iron-Blooded took Joel’s corpse away, the wheels of the table squeaking as they went. I couldn’t control the pounding of my heart or the dark thoughts that ran through my head. The Iron-Blooded were every horrible thing I had heard and more.

Once the door shut, I stared up at the man who had stabbed me—the man who had crippled me.

“I need you to answer a few questions,” he said. “Can you do that?”

I nodded.

“We found a few items we couldn’t identify among your belongings. Tell me, what is this?”

He held up one of my soldering pens—a compact device used for electrical connections. It wasn’t an A-tech device, just something humans made long before the bombs.

“It repairs electronics,” I said as I couldn’t remember the Tethlite word for soldering.

“And what about this?”

He held up the tracking device.

My heart stopped for a second, and I held my breath. He didn’t know? He couldn’t read the letters on the side? No. He probably could, but he didn’t understand the acronym. I was sure if it said global positioning device he wouldn’t have asked me.

My thoughts came to a halt.

If I told him, he would destroy it. If he reconnected it to the battery, however, the judge would find this place, wherever it was. And judges were known for their personal combat capabilities. No way the Iron-Blooded would walk away.

No way I would, either. Not in my condition. Not strapped to a table. Summoning the judge was like summoning death itself for the whole compound.

But then I glanced over at the blood stain on the wall. Did I want to end up like Joel, or did I want one spiteful parting blow? It might not even happen, even if I lied. If we were too far away, the judge might not make the trek. Still—the thought of a judge ripping through everyone here delighted me more than it should have. I almost laughed.

“Answer me,” the man said with a sneer. “Or do I need to remind you what happens if you don’t?”

“It’s a cover for the fission battery,” I said. “It protects the access point when it’s connected. Prevents damage from dust and other particles.”

Everyone in the wasteland knew about the dangers of hazardous particles. Fallout from hundreds of bombs didn’t just disappear overnight. Most electronic devices had covers for the ports to prevent undue damage.

The man turned the device over in his hand. “Is that so?” He pocketed the device. “That’s all for now. When I come back, I’ll expect more answers.”

I nodded, though in my heart I knew I hated the Iron-Blooded just as much as I hated the aliens themselves. They could all burn and I wouldn’t shed a tear.

I closed my eyes and imagined the judge’s arrival with half a smile on my lips.

CHAPTER SIX

How long had I been trapped? A few hours? A few days? I didn’t know. Time and time again they came for questioning.

“The individuals who taught you Tethlite—where are they?” the man asked.

“They died.”

My third rule to lying: avoid contradictions and easily verified facts. No one could ever trace my source of knowledge, not when they were rotting. Although it wasn’t really a lie. Sure, I’d spun a tale of slavery and forced study of A-tech, which the Iron-Blooded appreciated more than reality, but whenever I could fit in the truth, I did. Easier to keep the facts straight.

“Have you ever opened an A-tech vault?”

The question didn’t register with me for a long moment. My head hurt, and each wakeful moment was its own torture. More and more of me wanted to remain quiet and allow my end to come with the last of their patience.

Perhaps the man could sense my apathy because he placed his fingertips over my twisted hip wound.

I gritted my teeth and swallowed hard. Anything but that, but I refused to beg. Refused. I had asked already—pleaded with him to show me even a shred of mercy—yet he showed me none.

When he spoke again, it was with a softer tone. A faux soft. Artificial comfort like only a sociopath could muster.

“We have advanced medications unlike anything found out in the wasteland.”

I turned my attention to him, my thoughts returning to Dallas. Their medicine was the reason Dallas defected in the first place.

“Once you’re one of us,” the man continued, “it won’t have to be this way.”

“You killed Joel,” I whispered, my lips dry.

“Who?”

“The other… in the room…”

“Oh,” the man said with a sneer. “You’re referring to that inbred garbage we caught carrying our belongings. We don’t integrate filth into our ranks. But people like you—people who already know the master language and the technology—we want to rehabilitate. You should be elated to cooperate with us. We’re nothing like the squalor writhing around the radiation.”

I didn’t answer. Whispers about the Iron-Blooded’s recruitment methods had reached me years ago. Forcefully converting people they thought compatible. How did they do it? Breaking people? Did they intend to torture me until I gave in? Or perhaps take away my will to live and then offer it back with their medication, like they wanted to induce Stockholm syndrome in their victims.

It didn’t matter how much they tortured me or how much medical knowledge they had, I wouldn’t join their ranks.

“We’re looking for something. And I think you can help us find it.”

I closed my eyes. The pulse of my headache made it difficult to care about the content of his speech, but the information did interest me. What could the Iron-Blooded be looking for? Perhaps they wanted to find more surviving aliens—not the brainless drones that wandered the wasteland—but the innovators and architects.

“Acknowledge me when I’m speaking to you.”

I remained silent, the words fuck youon the tip of my tongue. I knew he could stab me again, but he’d tipped his hand about killing me. They wanted me for something, so he wouldn’t go to the extremes. I didn’t know if I could hold out during another round of torture, but I was willing to try.

“I’ve done this hundreds of times. None of you last.”

The door opened, and I tensed further, if it were even possible.

“Commander Dannik,” the new Iron-Blooded said. “We have a situation.”

The man questioning me, Commander Dannik, narrowed his eyes. “Can it wait?”

“No. We don’t have much time before they get here.”

Without a second glance in my direction, Commander Dannik strode out of the room.

I waited. Nothing happened after the heavy door slammed shut. Alone in the tiny room, I stared at the ceiling. With a deep breath, I tilted my head to the side. The poor lighting made it difficult to see anything that wasn’t directly above me, but the shapes made sense the longer I stared at them.

A small silver table sat next to mine. The shine of a scalpel caught my attention.

I held my breath, a plan for escape blooming in my mind.

The hope sent energy through my veins, pumping into each cell of my body.

With all the power I could muster, I jerked my body toward the silver table. My table had wheels—rusty, not cooperative, but still wheels—and with each successful motion I moved closer. When the two tables tapped together, I jerked upward, moving until my restrained hand was close to the gleaming scalpel.

Sweaty and winded, I stretched out my fingers, walking them along the aluminum surface, closer and closer to the weapon.

Had this scalpel been the one to pierce my hip? The blade had felt so much larger and duller than the scalpel on the table, but I knew it had to be the culprit. Still, it would be my salvation.

My middle finger reached the handle, and I spun the tool around until it came back into my grip. With a relieved exhale, I smiled. I scooped up the scalpel and brought it back to the leather restraints. As long as I didn’t drop it, which was a real possibility given my track record, I could saw through the strap and get off the table.

Slow sawing motions. It was all I could muster. Fiber by fiber, I severed the restraint, but at no great speed. I counted in my head to keep time. Three minutes. Ten minutes. Half an hour. An hour.

The room shook and the wheels of my prison table squeaked from the jostling. Flakes of cement rained down from the ceiling. I scrunched my eyes shut and continued. I refused to be distracted.

Another rumble and I held my breath.

When I yanked my arm, the strap let up enough for me to pull my hand through. I exhaled and held back a laugh. Then I turned over on my side and cut away at the other wrist, with ten times the vigor.

A third rumble captured my attention. They weren’t seismic activities. The tremors were created by explosions. But why? Had the Iron-Blooded attached the tracking device? Was the judge attacking? If it was, I already regretted my spiteful decision. I wanted nothing to do with a fight between alien-worshipping zealots and an Ex Cathedra judge.

Determined to just make it out alive, I finished cutting through the last of my restraints. My right leg, the one most affected by the bullet injury, ached with every movement I made. Even flexing my toes was a torment I couldn’t handle. When I slid off the table, I used my left leg, but even that didn’t support me like it should have.

My whole hip hurt.

And, like I had suspected, walking was out of the question. The knowledge stung my chest, making it hard to breathe, but I pushed it from my mind. I’d have time to mourn later.

I refused to give up.

I used the table for support, its wheels squeaking as it moved, and I gently hopped on my left leg to make it over to the door. When the IV tugged at my arm, I ripped it out.

Once out from under the harsh blinking light, I realized I was in an underground bunker. The stagnant air hung like a spider web. I coughed a few times and opened the door into a narrow hall.

Another rumble and tremor threatened to knock me off my feet, but I remained upright. Since no one knew I was leaving, I could slip away during the fighting and—

“Hey!”

I locked up, my eyes wide.

Three Iron-Blooded soldiers stood in the hallway, each with their black outfits and double-skull insignia. Their faces were kept hidden behind goggles and bandanas, obscuring every bit of flesh and transforming them into interchangeable cogs in the machine of war. I kept my scalpel close, but each of them had heavy rifles ready in their hands.

One raised his weapon.

In the next fraction of a second, one of the Iron-Blooded turned his gun on the other two. After two rapid fire shots, both point blank to the side of the head, the two Iron-Blooded fell to the ground, their bodies jerking in unnatural ways.

I flinched and stumbled back, but I couldn’t get far without the aid of the table.

The last Iron-Blooded ripped off his goggles and bandana.

Dallas.

It took me a moment to realize he was scarred. On his neck and jaw, right next to his ear, someone had taken a hot brand and seared in the Iron-Blooded insignia. The fresh wound half clung to the fabric of the bandana as he removed it fully.

“Kita,” he said as he jumped to my side.

I slashed at him with the scalpel, cutting his hand when he reached for me.

“Stay back,” I hissed.

He retreated a few feet and kept his hands up. “Please. I understand what I’ve done, but I do want to get you out of here. We need to hurry. There isn’t much time.”

Every cell in my body wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. What if he turned me over to the Iron-Blooded a second time? I could make it out of here on my own. I already got off the damn table and made it into the hall. I’d rather take my own way—die by my own way—than get duped by him again.

When he didn’t move, my attention fell to the two corpses in the hallway, their darker-than-average blood pooling all around my feet. He could shoot me, but instead he turned and pointed to a solid metal door down the hall.

Without another word, he ran off, leaving me alone.

I needed to escape—that was paramount. Determined to break free from the underground prison no matter what it cost me physically, I wheeled my table along, my gaze focused on my own dried blood staining the side.

Dallas threw open the door he had pointed to and rushed inside. As I was making my way past, he emerged, his hands shaking and a little girl by his side.

She stood three and half feet tall, her long black hair like inky waterfalls that spilled over her shoulders and down to her elbows. She stared at me with bright blue eyes—such an odd sight—and I caught my breath.

My sister had had the same dark hair and light eyes.

But even remembering my sister churned my stomach. On the verge of vomiting, I turned away.

Dallas held out his hand. “Please, Kita. I don’t care if you hate me. I’d do anything for my daughter.”

When the next rumble came, it was accompanied by the terrible sound of an explosion not far off. The whole underground hallway shook, dirt shifting down from the ceiling. For a brief moment, the lights went out. The little girl clung to Dallas’s side, her small hands twisted into his Iron-Blooded uniform.

She couldn’t have been older than seven.

What did Dallas want from me? To help his daughter? How?

He picked up the girl and then jogged through the facility. While I wheeled behind him, I heard the echo of gunfire. Was he clearing the way? Perfect. I shook my head to clear the sweat dripping into my eyes and continued. Then I saw a door at the far end of the hallway, and I was greeted by the icy chill of darkness. Once I made it outside, I abandoned the table—it wouldn’t wheel across rocks and mountain terrain.

Bursts of bright lights lit up the area. Rapid rifle fire, grenades, and claymore mines shook the mountain with the intensity of a war zone. I would’ve sworn we were being bombarded by a howitzer if I hadn’t seen the source of the commotion with my own eyes.

Only eighty feet away, Judge Gascoigne fought with the Iron-Blooded. Her new exoskeleton, a Mark III variant, shone in the sporadic lighting thanks to the fresh coat of crimson blood. She didn’t wield a rifle, even though judge armor could handle powerful weapons a normal man couldn’t. Instead, she fought the Iron-Blooded at close quarters, leaping to the men fighting her with little trouble.

When she reached them, it was all over.

Judge Gascoigne grabbed one man by the arm and tore it clean from his body. Before he could catch his breath from the scream, she ripped out his throat with her metal-crushing grip, silencing him forever.

The bullets they used barely dented the outside of her armor, and the fragmentation grenades were nothing more than smokescreens as they attempted to set up a tank-buster gun across the open flat of the mountainside.

I silently rooted for her success, delighting in the death of the Iron-Blooded more than I should have.

“Where is my motherfucking battery?” Judge Gascoigne shouted, her metallic voice half washed away by the incessant rifle fire and heavy weapons.

Dallas pulled me away from the commotion when he placed a hand on my shoulder. I flinched away and collided with the wall of the facility. He didn’t speak. Instead, he turned and ran down a small incline, toward an off-road vehicle.

My heart jumped into my throat the moment I spotted it. The damn jeep held the scars of a hundred battles, each door dented and scraped, all the glass long since destroyed. It was beautiful. Just what I needed to escape.

Dallas opened the driver’s side door and hefted his little girl inside.

While the war with the judge raged on, I pushed myself to my limits and stumbled toward the slope. Unable to correct my balance, I half tumbled down the road until I came to the vehicle. I slammed up against the side, my hands shaking.

“Please take my daughter,” Dallas said with a strained breath. “I’m begging you. I’ll stay to make sure you get away.”

I said nothing to him as I dragged myself into the car. He was going to let me just take it? With his daughter? Was he thatdesperate? I pulled myself into the driver’s seat.

Dallas slammed the door shut and then leaned on the window, never making eye contact. “She means everything to me. If you help her—if you take her to Boulder City—I’ll meet you there. I’ll return everything I took from you. I swear it.”

I didn’t believe he’d make good on any promises, but the fact he was leaving me with his daughter spoke volumes. And the desperation in his voice struck a chord with me. My father had the same tone when he pleaded with me to hide while he dealt with the aliens. Even if Dallas couldn’t make good on his promise, I wasn’t about to let a little girl become a victim to the Iron-Blooded or the judges of Ex Cathedra.

I started up the vehicle but kept the headlights off. Dallas pointed to a narrow road and backed away.

Another round of ear-stinging explosions, followed by the boom of a 75mm tank-buster shot, rocked the mountainside. The armor-piercing ballistic caps were capable of shattering JUDGE-X0 exoskeletons at close range, but the suit’s incredible mobility made them difficult targets.

When the fighting continued, I figured they had missed.

With my shaky left leg, I applied pressure to the forward pedal. The jeep revved and my mind snapped to the many manuals I had read in preparation for the all-terrain vehicle. I switched it to drive and applied a little pressure. The jeep moved at a quick pace over the rocks and broken road, the suspension system keeping the ride relatively smooth.

Several other jeeps took off, driving away from the concrete bunker. At first I thought they were coming for me, but I relaxed the moment I realized they all headed in different directions. No doubt they were fleeing from Judge Gascoigne. Without the proper equipment to stop her, she could easily run amuck inside their outpost.

I didn’t drive fast. Bullets plinked into the side of the vehicle, and I suspected it wasn’t accidental. I picked up the speed, but without the headlights, the void of night made everything a nightmare. What if I tumbled down the side of the mountain? Unwilling to take the risk, I flashed the lights on for a short bit to get a lay of the land.

A fork in the road waited ahead of me. The electronic compass on the dashboard told me one road went east and the other west. One went straight back to Ex Cathedra, and one went to the other side of the mountain.

I could return to my cellar. I could make a plan. I could exhaust all my options with the surrounding military bases. It was the safer option, but the longer one. Would I ever again have the opportunity to make it over the mountain? I might never get another chance. It would be a risk.

Or I could keep going. I could finish the drive across the mountain and head to the cities that dotted the flatland between the Rocky Mountains and United California—the lawless territory that no nation claimed. With no plan, no equipment, no help… it was the riskier option, but the faster one. The only option that capitalized on my opportunity to escape Ex Cathedra immediately. I could make it over the mountain if I went straight for my destination.

My heart leapt into my throat as I came to the fork faster than I anticipated. I allowed instinct to make the decision for me.

With a hard jerk of the steering wheel, I headed away from Ex Cathedra and over the mountain.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The cool evening air washed into the vehicle. I shivered constantly, but I didn’t stop driving. Hiding never worked. I learned that the hard way after my father hid me and my sister. We were eventually found, not by the aliens, but by the soldiers of Ex Cathedra.

So hiding wasn’t an option. I had to keep going—moving forward—until I couldn’t go any farther.

Where had my jacket gone? Without a shirt, and only my bindings, too much skin was exposed to the elements. Clothing was my top priority once we were somewhere safe.

I glanced at the girl from time to time. She stared at me, her dark hair fluttering in the wind. From every angle, she appeared like my sister. It made it difficult to maintain eye contact.

Sweat dappled my exposed skin, chilling me further.

“Do you have a name?” I asked, trying to ground my thoughts in the immediate. I didn’t want to dwell on the past.

The girl frowned.

“My name is Kita,” I said.

Still, the girl remained silent.

The jeep jerked back and forth over a cluster of jagged rocks. Pain surged from my injuries. Fortunately, nothing in the vehicle broke, and we continued on our way down the winding mountain path. I flashed the lights occasionally, keeping the image of the road in my mind’s eye as I drove. Nothing too fast—without a windshield, my eyes couldn’t handle the wind pressure.

After a long hour of driving, I turned to the girl again. “It’s okay. I’m going to take you to Boulder City.”

She forced a smile and scooted over in her seat until she was as close as she could get without sitting on the center console.

“You can tell me your name.”

The girl patted her throat and shook her head.

I caught my breath. She was mute.

Birth defects weren’t uncommon. The radiation messed with human development, and pregnant women didn’t have the luxury of avoiding the worst of it in most cases. But children with such problems typically had more in the way of physical deformities. Missing limbs, enlarged body parts, a cleft palette—something, anything. Dallas’s daughter seemed healthy and fully formed, however.

Uncertain of how to handle a mute child, I returned my attention to driving.

Twice I almost went over a sharp drop off, but each time I managed to correct myself before the last possible moment. My eyesight faded in and out, and my head pounded with the force of a thousand bombshells. Staying focused required all my willpower, and as I descended further and further into delirium, I knew I was ill.

Couldn’t stop driving, though, lest I get caught.

Daybreak brought with it a minimal amount of light. Clouds dominated the sky, but the glory of the sun managed to pierce through regardless. Pillars of sunshine fell onto the flatlands beyond the rocks of the mountain. I spotted a tunnel up ahead. Once I got to the other side, I would be beyond the worst of the terrain.

The tunnel might as well have been a black hole. No light got in, and it looked like nothing got out. I switched the jeep’s headlights on as I entered. Dallas’s girl climbed across the center console and grabbed my arm, her warm body a pleasant sensation against my clammy skin.

“It’s okay,” I whispered.

Even speaking took a toll on me. It was then that I realized I was on the edge of losing consciousness. And if I fell unconscious, there was no guarantee I would awake again, not when the Iron-Blooded were in the area, not when my only companion was a seven-year-old girl whom I knew little about.

When we emerged from the other side of the tunnel, I took a deep breath. A cityscape sat in the distance, the shattered skyscrapers and twisted metal frames of old buildings a pleasant sight.

There were always old A-tech storage facilities in ruined cities that remained intact. Not many people knew how to open the vaults or safety storage units. But I did.

If I could just make it…

My vision faded for a moment and my foot slipped from the pedal. The jeep veered and hit a pothole, jerking us around and agitating my injuries. The little girl gripped my arm, her fingernails piercing my skin and drawing blood.

I stopped the vehicle and rubbed the sweat from my brow. The taste of salt and copper lingered at the edge of my perception. When had I eaten last? The question haunted me for a long moment.

Was this the sensation of dying?

I couldn’t even feel the pain from the girl’s fingernails, only the rivulets of blood that resulted. I didn’t even have the capacity to press the forward pedal anymore. I opened the door to get out and rest, but the last thing I could recall was falling.

***

Water.

On my lips.

My eyelids fluttered open. A man stood above me. The situation reminded me of Commander Dannik, and for a short moment, I thought my escape had all been a dream. But it wasn’t Dannik—Dannik had an iciness to his appearance and movements—this new man wasn’t like that at all. He cocked a half smile.

“Oh, look,” he said. “You woke up. Good. I hate diggin’ graves.”

He lifted my head and tilted the bottle of water enough for me to have a sip. I tried to gulp down more, but he kept the container steady, allowing only a few mouthfuls at a time. Once I’d gotten enough, he set the bottle down and brought a hardtack biscuit to my lips.

I turned away, uncertain of what to do.

“C’mon,” he said. “You’ve got to eat. I can chew it for you, but I doubt you’d like that.”

I reached up and took the biscuit for myself. Should I eat it? What more could harm me? I had already been unconscious and on the verge of death. The biscuit couldn’t do any worse. I nibbled at the edge.

The man set my head back down on a soft surface, his smile persistent. “The name’s Uriah Bishop Geffen. Just call me Bishop. You mute too, or can you speak?”

After a long swallow of saliva-soaked biscuit, I tried my hand at speaking. “K-Kita,” I managed to choke out between coughs.

“Kita, huh? Interesting name.” He turned and motioned to someone. “Crouton, bring me some more water, will ya?” Once he had a new water bottle, he set it next to me. “Here. Drink it slow. I’ve got to watch the streets.”

Then he walked away. Left alone, I took a deep breath and cleared some of the fog from my mind. It was amazing how effective a couple bottles of water and a hardtack biscuit were for the body. A sore ache pervaded my being, but I could now function. I took in my surroundings.

We were inside a building. Light poured in from a busted window—the type of large window used to display goods back before the bombs. This was an old store front. The man, Bishop, knelt by the window sill, a powerful sniper rifle perched on the edge and facing the streets, the kind that took 7.62mm ammunition. Dallas’s daughter sat on a chair by the back wall, her attention consumed by three figurines she played with.

My figurines. The mother, father, and child.

I sat up, my hip still aching, and rubbed at my face. Without speaking, I ate the biscuit and consumed the rest of the water, taking my time as I did so to get a better understanding of the situation. The girl wore a pair of ratty overalls and a white shirt so dirty it had become gray.

Bishop licked his lips, a smile still affixed to his face.

He was larger than most I had met, and his muscular frame betrayed a diet steady in protein. With his unkempt hair slicked back, he had a wild look about him. The stubble across his chin didn’t help. Had he found me collapsed outside my jeep? Or had Dallas’s little girl led him back to me?

“Crouton,” he said. “Pass me a water. It’s almost time.”

Dallas’s daughter hopped off her chair, walked over to a duffle bag in the corner of the room, and then rummaged through it. She brought Bishop a bottle of water, and he patted her on the shoulder.

“Good job. You might want to stay down. Explosions shoot things all over.” He made gestures with his hands, making a fist and then opening it quick, fingers splayed.

The girl nodded and moved behind the wall, away from the open window.

“What’s going on?” I asked, my voice rusty. Did we need to run? Could I even move?

Bishop kept his gaze down the scope of his rifle. “Don’t worry. I’m just dealing with a couple tally marks.”

Tally marks?

When nothing happened, I slid my legs off the side of my makeshift bed. Someone had placed a bunch of blankets on a desk and made a pillow from fluffed cotton held together in a plastic bag.

Was it Bishop’s doing?

“Thank you,” I muttered, but the words didn’t adequately convey what I felt.

“Don’t worry about it,” Bishop said. “You paid me for the food and water with your jeep.”

“What?”

He motioned me over. “You’ll see.”

I couldn’t walk. Somehow, Dallas’s daughter must have known. She got up and hopped to my side. With my hand on her shoulder, I could move, though it was at an awkward pace. My left leg supported my weight, but the right wouldn’t cooperate, not without a wave of agony.

Bishop glanced over and stared as I hobbled to the window sill. His smile disappeared as he gave me the once-over, and for a brief moment, he had a calculating look about him.

But then he returned his attention to his scope.

“There,” he said. “It’s the Iron-Blooded.”

The twisted cityscape surrounded us on all sides. Collapsed buildings, ruined cars, and oceans of shattered glass made up the scenery. Melted tires and permanent shadows told me this was once an impact sight for a firestorm fission bomb. Which meant the fine coating of ash over the environment was a cocktail of incinerated corpses.

I shuddered.

It took me a few minutes to even register the jeep sitting out in the middle of the road.

“What are you—”

“Shh,” he said as he steadied his gun.

Two Iron-Blooded goons exited one of the many destroyed buildings. They glanced up and down the street before motioning to the jeep. With careful movements they made their way over, rifles in hand. My heart beat faster the closer they got. I hated the sight of their double-skull insignia so much it had me grinding my teeth.

What were they doing here? Nothing good, no doubt.

The instant they opened the jeep door to get in, Bishop squeezed the trigger, the ammo shell flying off to the side in one powerful shot that stung my eardrums more than the explosion, no doubt due to our close proximity. I covered my ears, and so did Dallas’s girl, but it didn’t help much. The bullet slammed through the man’s skull and brought him down. A half second later and Bishop shot again, laughing the entire time as the second Iron-Blooded hit the pavement, a hole in his head the size of an aluminum can.

“Your jeep makes good bait,” he said, his voice barely audible over the ringing in my ears.

I went to stand, to get a better look at the destruction, but Bishop grabbed my shoulder and held me down. I remained kneeling.

“Don’t move,” he said. “They always travel in threes.”

Sure enough, a third Iron-Blooded soldier emerged from a nearby building. Although I couldn’t see his face through the bandana and goggles, he threw his hands up behind his head in a show of frustration and shock, his crimson red gloves an odd sight. Before Bishop could fire again, the red-gloved man ran back into the building. Smart move.

We waited.

The seconds transformed into minutes. Bishop cursed under his breath.

“I’m gonna have to chase him,” he muttered. Then he stood and walked out of our dilapidated shop.

I watched him walk out into the street—he wasn’t worried about getting sniped back?—but there were no hesitations in his movements.

Bishop stopped at each of the bodies and shot them all again with his sidearm, sometimes riddling them with two or three more bullets. I couldn’t look away. His sheer delight made the moment almost cruel, but I refused to feel sorry for the Iron-Blooded.

When Bishop returned, I took in a deep breath and asked, “Why are you wasting your ammo?”

He chuckled as he holstered his handgun. “I’m not wasting anything. Those Iron-Blooded lunatics can live through a lot, let me tell you. They’ve got machines in them that stitch up all sorts of injuries.”

Bishop grabbed his sniper rifle—the whole thing three feet long—and disassembled it. It took me a few moments to register his claims.

“Machines in them?” I asked.

“Yeah. Little machines. In their blood. Where do you think they got their name? Aliens used to have the same damn thing. Tiny machines in their blood, healing them quick.”

“You mean nanites?”

“Whatever they’re called. The damn little machines will fix up a lot of injuries. You can’t trust one of them Iron-Blooded is dead unless you riddle them full of holes.”

Everything about the Iron-Blooded made a lot more sense. Bishop was right; their name, the fact their blood ran dark, it all linked back to an abundance of nanites in their blood. And nanites were something else—something amazing—microscopic robots that fixed and repaired human flesh faster than it could naturally. I thought they were more a thing of history after the bombs hit, but the Iron-Blooded must have found themselves a supply, like the judges of Ex Cathedra found the factory of exoskeletons.

My thoughts jerked to a halt.

Dallas had been afraid of the EMP grenade. Had the Iron-Blooded offered him nanites in order to survive? It would explain how he healed so fast in my cellar and why he thought the Iron-Blooded could save his little girl.

EMP grenades messed with the function of nanites enough to disable them. And, according to my grandfather’s stories, anyone with disabled nanites in their system would soon die from clots in their arteries—in a matter of minutes.

Once Bishop finished cleaning up, he pulled a tactical KA-BAR knife from his belt. I leaned away, instantly aware I didn’t have a knife of my own. He flashed me a smile as he pulled out a lighter and heated the edge of his blade. What was he doing? I couldn’t bring myself to ask, fearing the worst.

He rolled up the sleeve of his jacket, exposing his skin up to his elbow. Tally marks riddled his flesh, each scar neat in a group of five. He had at least twenty, but the marks continued up under his clothes.

Before I could comment, Bishop pressed the blade into his skin, carving two new tally marks into place. He grimaced with each mark, but his smile persisted, like he was some sort of masochist that enjoyed the sting of a cauterized wound.

“There,” he said with a forced chuckle. “Two more.”

He shoved his jacket back down, picked up his duffle bag, and slung his sniper rifle over his shoulder. He turned to leave, and I relaxed a bit. The little girl—who I had almost forgotten about—jumped to my side, her eyes wide and glued to Bishop.

“Wait,” I said.

Bishop stopped by the door.

“Are you going to take my jeep?”

Was he going to steal it? A piece of me was already surprised he was just going to leave us. He could sell people, if he wanted. Small girls could get him a few batteries or a bag of ammunition. But instead he headed for the door without a second glance back. My foggy mind couldn’t logic out a motive for all his actions.

Bishop shrugged. “I already have a truck. It would be too much of a hassle to drag your jeep around. Plus, you and Crouton need something to get back to town, right?” He glanced outside and then half laughed. “I don’t know why you two have an Iron-Blooded vehicle, but I also have a rule I like to follow. No Iron-Blooded equipment.”

“S-so you’re going to leave it to me?”

“That a problem?”

I ran a hand over the back of my neck, the ridges of my spine easy to feel. “Do you think you could spare anything for… our trek back to town?”

Why would I ask such a stupid question? Of course he wouldn’t. Why would anyone help a cripple and a little girl? Then again, if he was already being kind to us, I might as well milk him for everything he had.

And Bishop could leave. Nothing kept him here. But he mulled over my comment as though it were a dire question in need of an answer.

He pulled out his sidearm and tossed it to the floor. It hit the wood with a clunk, and my mouth went dry even staring at it.

“It’s got a full magazine of ammunition,” he said. “It’ll keep you safe until you get to town.”

“I… don’t use guns.”

Bishop laughed. He turned to me with his half smile, his teeth visible. “Weird sense of humor.”

“I’m not joking. I can’t.”

“You can’t be serious. You sound like you come from Ex Cathedra, and maybe they do things differently there, but I guarantee this place isn’t similar. Might equals right. If you aren’t gonna shoot someone, they’re gonna shoot you, especially if you have something and you look like an easy target.”

I didn’t reply.

“Your best bet is to get into a city and stay there. Your injury doesn’t look so good, either. Might want to see a doctor.”

Bishop took another step for the door and then hesitated. When I said nothing, he continued on his way, leaving me and the little girl alone in the dilapidated shop.

I turned to the girl, and she pointed to the gun. Did she want me to pick it up? I shook my head, and she must’ve understood I wasn’t going to do anything with it. The girl jogged over, picked it up, and stuffed it into the front of her dirty overalls. When she returned to my side she had a look on her face that spoke volumes.

What do we do now?

The question weighed heavily. I glanced out the window to the jeep. “We’ll take the jeep to a nearby town,” I muttered aloud, hoping the girl would understand. “Once there, I’ll exchange the gun for provisions and… anything else we’ll need.”

The girl nodded along with me words.

“Are you… good with a gun?”

Shifting her gaze to the floor, the girl offered a single nod in response. I took to mean she knew how to fire a gun, but that she didn’t want to. It would have a kick, and if she missed, especially in a terrible moment, it could cost us everything. Such responsibility was hard to put on someone as young as her. But I didn’t have many options. Using a gun brought back too many memories—I couldn’t do it.

“Help me to the jeep,” I said.

The girl helped me up. Together we hobbled outside, my head hurting and my legs weak. She never said a word, and I dwelled on that fact until I took a seat and placed my hands on the steering wheel. Bishop had said she was mute. Once she took her own seat, I started up the engine and allowed the soft vibrations to soothe me.

Where would I go? I waited for the answer to come to me, but I still couldn’t get a grip of my head.

The corpses of the Iron-Blooded men bled out around the tires of the vehicle. They deserved every bullet, in my opinion.

Gunfire echoed between the broken buildings. Dallas’s little girl jumped in her seat. She reached out and took hold of my arm, her eyes searching the empty road ahead of us. Whoever was shooting had to be a few blocks away and around a corner—someplace I couldn’t see. But I knew the Iron-Blooded had to be involved. Maybe Bishop? Either way, I would need to avoid it.

With shaking hands, I stepped on the pedal and drove down the cracked roads, avoiding the forgotten wreckage of vehicles from an era past.

The gunfire intensified. The echoing effect made it difficult to determine which direction it came from, but I kept at a slow pace, ready to punch the jeep into full gear should anything happen.

“Duck down,” I said.

Dallas’s girl did as she was told.

I drove through the city until I came to an intersection blocked with the rubble of a collapsed building. After I flipped the jeep around, another series of gunfire blasted throughout the city. My skin crawled. It sounded like a warzone.

I drove back a long way before turning down a new street. Then I found the source of the commotion—I had been right. The Iron-Blooded. I would recognize their black uniforms for the rest of my life. Four of them held their rifles pointed at a building, squeezing the trigger in short bursts. One of them wore crimson red gloves, no doubt the same man from before. Had he gone and gotten back up? Their bullets tore through the broken windows and shattered walls. Who were they aiming at?

I slammed my foot on the brake and shifted the car into reverse. The Iron-Blooded didn’t glance in my direction or even alter their actions. They continued firing at the building. Two of them spread out every few shots.

It hit me then. They were using suppressing fire. They intended to keep someone, or some group, pinned down while they inched around. And although it was difficult to distinguish gunshots over the sound of continual fire, I could see the occasional flare of red from the muzzle of a rifle inside the building.

Someone was firing back.

The Iron-Blooded inched closer to the building. When they reached the faded yellow lines in the middle of the road, my heart seized in my chest.

There was rubble and rusted husks of cars on the sides of the road, but there was nothing between me and the Iron-Blooded.

“Get out of the jeep,” I said. It was difficult to breathe, but I knew what I wanted to do.

Dallas’s girl let go of my arm and did as she was told, her eyes wide. I reversed the jeep until the bumper came up against a wreck of deserted cars. I had at least a quarter of a mile between me and the scumbags. They continued forward, their eyes down the sights of their rifles, still oblivious to my presence.

I shifted the jeep and slammed on the pedal.

In three seconds, I reached sixty miles per hour. In six seconds, I reached one hundred. At eight seconds, one Iron-Blooded finally noticed me. But the second’s worth of reaction time wasn’t enough. My jeep barely slowed when I plowed through the first guy. The second and third dented the bumper and jostled the vehicle. The fourth guy leapt up—jumped to avoid me—but still hit the frame of the jeep with a sick crunch.

I crushed the brakes, and the tires squealed in protest. When I hit the wall of a fragile building, a chunk of cement broke away from the rubble and crashed down on the hood. I came to a halt with a jerk and almost broke my face on the steering wheel. Dust and debris sprang into the air like a fog. It took me a few moments of coughing to clear my lungs.

Goddammit. I had intended to stop sooner, but the fourth guy jumping up startled me more than I’d ever admit. My body, sore from bracing for impact, took a few minutes to relax. My head pounded, and I wondered whether I would ever feel normal again.

“Who’s there?” someone shouted.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I rubbed at my temples and tried to open the door to the jeep. It wouldn’t budge.

“Damn,” the same person said with a chuckle. “I hope you ain’t dead.”

My coughing was answer enough. Although I wanted to crawl out and avoid all contact with people, I remained shaking the door of the jeep. It wouldn’t open, and I was far too weak to get it to do anything.

Once the debris settled, a dusty Bishop emerged on the scene. He stepped over the broken chunks of cement and walked straight to the door of my jeep. With little effort he threw it open. Then he motioned to the street.

“You’re crazy, Viper,” he said. Then he glanced back at the bloodstains left on the road. “You earned yourself four tally marks, though.”

Who was this guy? I hadn’t asked him much about himself when he was giving me water and biscuits. Was he fighting the Iron-Blooded? He had to be the one in the building—the one they were trying to kill.

Bishop tapped the roof of the jeep. “You really did a number to your ride.” He slung his rifle over his shoulder and then offered a hand. “C’mon. We can’t stay here. There’s no end to those Iron-Blooded bastards, trust me. Best to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“Y-yeah,” I muttered.

Then he picked me up. I hadn’t expected it, and I clung to him with trembling hands.

“Put me down,” I snapped.

“It’ll be faster this way, Viper. Trust me. We don’t want to linger.” He glanced upward, and I took in our surroundings with a more critical eye.

I hadn’t realized how far I’d plowed into a building. Papers and cloth littered the area, so old and moldy they filled the air with a damp stench. I typically avoided large buildings because the air inside contained all sorts of terrible particles in high concentrations. Standing around in a small portion wouldn’t harm us, but people died all the time from trying to make homes out of giant buildings with no airflow. Plus, the slightest thing could cause a collapse, and no one lived after getting caught under a thirty-story building.

Reluctantly, I nodded and allowed Bishop to take me out. Dallas’s girl stood on the road, her eyes wider than I would’ve thought possible. She ran to us the moment we emerged from the cracked and unstable building. I breathed easy once we were away from the wreckage.

Bishop continued past the Iron-Blooded corpses, the little girl glued to his side.

“You need to eat more,” he said as he lifted me up and down in his arms, as if evaluating my weight. “My mother would’ve never let you leave without four meals in your gut. No wonder you collapsed on the side of the road.”

“I didn’t have anything.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Bishop glanced over his shoulder. “You keeping up, Crouton? I don’t want to lose you.”

Dallas’s girl nodded.

“Crouton?” I asked.

“Well, I didn’t know her name, and she didn’t speak. What is her name, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered.

Bishop laughed aloud, his voice echoing against the surrounding city wreckage. “You’re the mom, ain’tcha? Forgot your own daughter’s name?”

“She’s not my daughter.”

“Really?” Bishop gave me a hard look and then turned his attention to the girl. He mulled over the statement until he finally said, “You two look similar enough. You’re not fuckin’ with me, right?”

I shook my head.

“Then who is she?”

“Who are you?” I interjected.

“I told you. My name’s Bishop.”

I shook my head. “Put me down. I mean… who are you? What’re you doing here?”

Bishop did as I requested. He gave me the same easygoing smile he did the first time I met him. “I do lots of stuff for money. Junk hunter. Mercenary. Ya know. Whatever.”

Crouton ran over the moment I wobbled. I grabbed her shoulder and braced myself before asking, “What were you doing here?”

“Hunting some Iron-Blooded. You helped me with that, though.” He shot me a pair of finger guns. “Nice work, too. I was startin’ to think I’d never make it back. But now that everything’s good, I’m feelin’ pumped. You need to get back to town, right? Let me give you a ride in my truck. Your leg doesn’t look like it’ll make it.”

Although I wanted to say no immediately, Crouton turned toward me with a smile.

I held my breath for a moment. It wasn’t like I was going to walk any significant amount. And Bishop didn’t seem like the type to murder me in cold blood. He did seem… different. Nothing like I had met before. And if he wanted to hurt me, he could’ve done it twice over without much trouble.

“You ready to get going?” Bishop asked.

I rubbed at my arms. Crouton nodded, as if answering for both of us. Without warning, Bishop scooped me up again. I gritted my teeth, almost ready to yell at him for doing it, but I bit back the urge and allowed the assistance. Anything would be better than standing around in the middle of the road out in Iron-Blooded territory.

Crouton maintained a bright smile as we walked, her happiness as apparent as the devastation all around us. She continued to carry my figurines around, her hands clenched tightly over them. It made me wonder how much she missed Dallas.

“You like the name Crouton, right?” Bishop asked.

She nodded.

“Crouton it is.”

Since she couldn’t articulate her name, it made sense to give her one. It rolled around in my thoughts as Bishop jumped over cracks in the road, effortlessly taking me with him as though I barely impacted his travel. Occasionally, his grip on my side caused me to suck in air through my teeth, but I never cried out.

“Are you taking us to your vehicle?” I asked.

Bishop snorted back a laugh. “Hell no. Neither of you gets to sit in my truck until you’re cleaned up. I’ve seen sewer roaches in better condition.”

Crouton slowed and stared down at her clothing. Her pair of ratty overalls had more holes than the Iron-Blooded corpses, and her once white shirt would forever be a shade of coal gray. She attempted to wipe away the dirt and grime, but every swipe of her sweaty palm resulted in another smear.

To my amusement, she narrowed her eyes into a glare and pointed at Bishop. Then she motioned to her chin and shook her head.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Are you giving me shit for my stubble?”

Crouton nodded.

“Kids these days,” he said with a chuckle. “So precocious.”

“Stop,” I said. “Where are you taking us? I want to know the details before we go anywhere.”

Bishop came to a halt atop a large pile of busted concrete. From our vantage point, I could see down all four roads that led away from the intersection. The howl of wind through broken glass reminded me of ghost stories I heard when I was younger.

Bishop rotated his shoulders. “I know a place we can wash up. And then get you two some new clothes.”

“Where? Specifically? And where are we? I need to know.”

“Calm down, Viper. This is just for washing and—”

“No,” I snapped, my volume as loud as my raw throat would allow. “I don’t want to go anywhere unless I know exactly what’s going on.”

I didn’t want to be at the mercy of anyone else’s schemes or tactics. It was my plan or nothing—Bishop would be a tool toward an end, not an ally I relied on in crucial moments and crisis. I wouldn’t have a repeat of Dallas’s betrayal because I would never allow myself to be put in such a position. I wasn’t going to go to a wash area unless I was certain it was something I wanted.

Bishop set me down. I used my left leg to remain standing and kept my hands on his arm for balance. Before I could ask what he was doing, Bishop pulled out a paper map and unfolded it in front of me. He had writing everywhere—notes on locations, images drawn, like caves and plants—but the most important details were the cities.

He tapped the eastern side of the map. “We’re right here. A few hours away is Dodge City. We’ll get you two cleaned and then head there.”

I stared at the map for a long moment, but my pounding head—no doubt a result from me crashing the jeep—prevented me from focusing properly. “Where is the city of Boulder?”

“Well, you can go from Dodge City to Richfield, then George Town, then Tomato Creek, and finally Boulder.” He ended his finger on the western-most point of the map. “These spots here are ruins. Lots of those. All these lines are hazards. There’s a hell radiation zone and a drone nest.”

His map referred to our location as “Ruins C.” The Rocky Mountains stood nearby, to the east, and Ex Cathedra just beyond it. For a moment, I reveled in a tangent thought—I had escaped. Even if it wasn’t like I had imagined. I had made it to the lawless flatlands, free from Ex Cathedra. Soon I would make it to United California. I was getting closer and closer to my goal.

“I’m taking you to the ramen cups,” Bishop said.

I stared up at him, confused to the point of silent bewilderment.

He laughed, flashing his teeth. “What’s that look for? Those ramen cups catch water from the rains, and one of them has dirt and sand inside, so when they trickle down, they’re somewhat filtered. I wouldn’t recommend you drink it, but it’s cool and it’ll clean you good.”

Ramen… cups?

Bishop closed the map and tucked it back into his pocket. “Dodge City has public baths, but I wouldn’t trust that place if I were you. Lots of crazy shit goes down there.”

Before he could say anything else, I said, “I want to go to the public baths.”

“Tsk,” Bishop said with a click of his tongue. He glared at me for a long moment.

“That’s what I want.”

“Fine. But you can’t sit in the cab of my truck. You sit in the way back, where you can’t dirty up my seats.”

Bishop scooped me back up in his arms and turned around. Crouton stayed at his side, undisturbed by our discussions. Once we reached the bottom of the concrete pile, I squeezed Bishop’s arm.

“I’ve changed my mind,” I said.

He stopped and stared down at me. “Now what?”

“I want to go to ramen cups.”

He didn’t protest, but he did huff before turning on his heel. “Women.”

The change of plans was a test. If Bishop had insisted on anything—forced the issue through threats or scare tactics—I would’ve suspected him of scheming. But his willingness to alter course based on my flippant shifts meant he probably wasn’t invested one way or another.

It put me at ease. I relaxed in Bishop’s arms.

Perhaps he felt it. He held me a little tighter and offered another one of his easygoing smiles. It reminded me of the Joel inside the Iron-Blooded compound. Someone with a level of comforting charisma that chased away negative thoughts.

But I pushed the idea from my head. If Bishop were a tool, it was best not to think about it. Everyone I knew—literally everyone—had either died or betrayed me. With those statistics, why would I ever want to get attached to people? It was foolish to think anyone would be the exception. And loneliness was a better outcome than heartbroken loss or deep seated anger.

We walked a few blocks of empty streets. When Bishop rounded a corner, he pointed with the jut of his chin. “There they are.”

Three gigantic ramen cups, the kind for instant noodles if normally sized, were smashed into one another a good ten feet above the ground and attached to a building with steel rods. They had been an advertisement for something before the bombs hit. The word restaurantwas painted in red and half faded away. Each cup could hold ten thousand gallons of water, by my rough estimates, and the top one leaked into the middle, which spilled into the last, filling it to the brim.

Bishop set me down by a lone standing wall and jogged over to the lowest cup of the three. He reached up and tugged at the chain of a metal gate built into the bottom. It was obvious someone had altered the cup to be a makeshift shower system, and the brilliance intrigued me.

“Bishop, did you do this?”

“Nah,” he said as he opened the hatch and allowed a stream of cold water to pour down. “I just found it. These stupid cups have been here for years. Real handy when you’re out in these dusty ruins, am I right?”

His laughter didn’t change what the dust represented, but I buried the thought deep in my mind. Now wasn’t the time for disgust and dread.

Bishop threw down his duffle bag and rifle. Then he took off his jacket and hung it on the tip of an exposed pipe jutting from the wall of a dilapidated parking garage. “We shouldn’t stay here long. This is out in the open, and you never know what kind of tally marks are lurking around these parts.”

I agreed with him. Outside of cities, it was a risk to interact with individuals. I preferred my hermit lifestyle to constant fear and jumping at shadows, but I couldn’t retreat, not when I had come so far.

Bishop ripped off his shirt and threw it on the same pipe with his jacket. I stared—not because a shirtless man was a rare sight—but because of the tally marks etched into his skin. So many. Perhaps a hundred. Perhaps more. They were clumped in sets of five, not organized or level with each other, but all over. His shoulders, his chest, some along his sides, some near his belly button, some half covered by the waistband of his pants.

He leaned under the water and allowed it to splash over his head, hair, and neck. After a few moments of rubbing his scalp, he stepped back and rummaged through his duffle bag. “Here. I’ve got soap. You two make this quick.” He tossed a bottle, and I caught it, much to my surprise.

Despite my malnourished and weakened state, I could still manage a simple catch, it seemed.

Bishop dragged a small mirror and knife out of his bag. He hung the mirror on the side of the parking garage and stared at it, all the while running his hand over his stubble. I appreciated that he kept his back turned to us, but I also knew the mirror could be used to watch the surroundings at the same time. A polite and prudent gesture.

Crouton didn’t wait for permission or instruction. She unclipped her overalls and threw off her grimy shirt before jumping under the water. Then she flailed around and leapt away, her whole body rattling from a heavy shiver. She rubbed at her arms as her teeth clattered.

Faded yellow and green bruises marred her complexion. One of the Iron-Blooded had mentioned internal bleeding, and the discoloration supported that claim. But the bruises were old. Had the Iron-Blooded cured her? Did she have nanites in her system, like Dallas?

I shook my head. It wasn’t the time to think about such things.

I wanted to walk over and hurry through the washing process, but my leg wouldn’t cooperate. Instead, I got down on one knee and half crawled over to the water. It wasn’t far—five feet at most—but it was a humiliating and painful five feet. The kind of five feet that stuck in my thoughts. The kind of five feet that made me wonder what it would be like to watch someone do what I was doing.

With gritted teeth, I slid into the puddle of water pooling at the bottom of the fresh stream. I tried to ignore my newfound condition, I truly did, but my mind wouldn’t let it go. I removed the binding over my chest and placed it to the side. My pants, on the other hand, would be just as much of a struggle as the damn five feet.

I unbuckled my belt and struggled with my clothing. It wasn’t that my arms failed me, but every move to slide anything over my left leg left me breathing shallow and holding back cries of agony. I had needed to piss for a long while, but I had held it back, fearing this exact moment.

Pathetic.

The word burned more than any physical pain. I scrunched my eyes shut, but it didn’t stop the tears.

I couldn’t let the thoughts consume me. Time and time again, people killed themselves in the wasteland—their hope extinguished by the bleakness of reality. I wouldn’t be one of them.

I moved the last couple inches until I was under the water. The icy chill swept over me, and I welcomed it. After a few seconds of shock, the cold numbed my body. I didn’t want to feel anything anymore. I just wanted to keep my eyes closed, pretend reality was different, and allow my dark thoughts to disappear with my warmth.

Someone touched my shoulder, and I flinched.

Crouton knelt next to me, her eyebrows knit. I didn’t know what to say, so I remained silent. She took the bottle of soap and opened it up. At first I thought she would once again leave me to my darkness, but she stayed next to me and smiled.

Without any words, she squirted the soap into her hands and placed her palms on my scalp. She scrubbed with gentle circular motions until my black hair hung heavy with suds. Then she ran her hands down my back and shoulders, clearing away the dirt and dried blood. Each time she met my gaze, she smiled again.

“You remind me of my sister,” I said. “Her name was Tamura.” I just wanted to tell somebody. It felt like forever since I had said her name.

Crouton nodded along with my words. Then she walked to her overalls and withdrew the little figurines. She returned to my side, and after looking over the options, she handed over the child.

I almost chuckled. “Is this my sister?”

She nodded. She placed the father figurine back on the overalls, but kept the mother close. She pointed to my “sister” and then the mother.

I understood.

Her mother had died.

“Dallas told me about his wife…”

But I couldn’t complete the sentence. The haunting look on Crouton’s face said it wasn’t a memory we should return to.

“Fuck me,” Bishop said through clenched teeth.

I turned my attention to him. Blood dripped from a cut across his chin, mixing with the stubble he had managed to shave. But the injury didn’t seem to deter him. He returned to shaving, like he was determined to finish what he started.

Crouton, once finished helping me, gathered the figurines back up and cradled them gently until she returned them to her overalls pocket. Afterward, she scrubbed her own hair, washed away all the grime, and then pulled Bishop’s duffle bag close. She withdrew a towel and dried off, never needing to be told or reminded. Children had to become self-reliant at an early age, but it still impressed me.

She walked over and held the towel out. I backed away from the numbing water, the tips of my fingers blue, and I wrapped myself up in the stiff cloth.

“I know a great doctor,” Bishop said as he started down the other side of his face. “She’s done wonders. A guy I knew once got a nail stuck in his head.” He stopped shaving, put a finger in his mouth, and popped it out along the cheek for the dramatic sound. “She got it out just like that. And it was a big nail, too. All the way in the fucker’s brain. You’d think you’d die from something like that. What I’m tryin’ to say is she might be able to help with your walkin’.”

I dried off while I mulled over his story, but I still couldn’t stand.

Crouton put her dirty shirt back on, but not the overalls. The shirt must’ve belonged to an adult because it went down to her thighs, like a summer dress.

“You two are gettin’ new clothes,” Bishop said. “So don’t bother, Crouton.”

I glanced around us. Ruined cities were treasure troves of interesting items. “Bishop, do you know where we might find some tools? Soldering pens, pliers, screwdrivers… things like that?”

“Yeah. A lot of junk hunters have picked the place apart, but I’ve found some interesting areas forgotten by others.”

“I need them.”

Bishop rotated a shoulder. “Well, it’s not too out of the way, and you did help me out. I’ll get you some.”

Crouton pointed upward. I tilted my head back to get a better look. A small swarm of birds and insects shot across the sky, all moving in the same direction, as though running from something. Bishop must have arrived at the same conclusion because he hastily finished his shave, picked up his clothes, weapon, and bag, and motioned for me to stand.

“We’ve got to go.”

I struggled for a moment as I attempted to stand with my left leg. It proved difficult, but when Bishop started to walk over to help, I glared.

“I’ll do it,” I snapped. I had to.

Bishop turned back around and dressed himself. “Is now really the time for pride?”

With my teeth grit, I pushed through the flaring agony and forced myself up to one foot. I almost yelled, but I didn’t. The tiny victory invigorated me enough that I allowed Bishop to carry me afterward. He closed up the ramen cup hatch and jogged in the opposite direction from which we came—farther away from whatever scared the birds. Crouton easily kept up, her ratty overalls in her arms.

I just wanted to know that, if I had to, I’d be able to stand without assistance. Sometimes it didn’t matter what people were actually capable of—just what they looked like they were capable of.

I kept my towel secure around my body as Bishop hustled down the street. He hid behind the first corner and then stopped. After a long moment of waiting and listening, a truck drove down the far road, kicking up dust as it went.

Bishop set me down and withdrew a pair of binoculars from his duffle bag. After he got a good look, he handed them to me.

I didn’t need the binoculars. I’d recognize an Ex Cathedra troop truck from a couple miles away.

“Do you see much of Ex Cathedra out here?” I asked.

“Never. Those damn soldiers never cross the mountain paths.”

“Do they… have a judge?”

“Standing on the back bed. That’s some mean-lookin’ armor.”

I drilled a hole in the ground with my gaze, my thoughts piecing together the situation into something understandable. It had to be Judge Gascoigne. But why? Was she chasing me? Had I injured her pride with the EMP grenade? Unlikely she’d travel this far for such a petty reason. More likely, she didn’t recover the fission battery from the Iron-Blooded, which meant she followed them beyond the mountain and to the ruins. She was still in pursuit of her stolen property.

“You said you would get us clothes?” I asked in a quiet voice.

“Yeah,” Bishop said.

“Where?”

“There’s a mall nearby with some clothing. I like the place—a little hidden from most. Not too many know about it.”

“Take us there.”

Bishop smiled, his attention glued to the Ex Cathedra truck. “Hm. Just give me a minute. I’ve never seen a judge up close. Looks like one hell of a tally mark.”

CHAPTER NINE

“Do you kill everyone you run across?” I asked.

Bishop gave me a sidelong glance. “You’re still here, ain’tcha?”

“Do you avoid killing women? If that’s the case, the judge following us is—”

“Followin’ you?”

“Er, it’s not—” I bit my tongue. He could strand me if he thought the escort mission to Boulder City was more hassle than it was worth.

Bishop laughed and returned his attention to the Ex Cathedra truck. It drove down the far street, in the opposite direction. “I don’t care if the judge is a woman, if that’s what you’re tryin’ to say. I kill anyone who’s gonna kill me, understand? It’s like a contest, and I like to keep score.”

“Judge Gascoigne is looking for a stolen fission battery.”

Bishop whipped his attention back to me. “A fission battery? Do you know where it is?”

“I… stole it from an Ex Cathedra mine.”

His eyebrows rose to his hairline.

“I don’t have it anymore,” I quickly added. “Obviously.”

“Still. Fuckin’ ballsy. Like running a jeep into some Iron-Blooded. I like that. Then again, you’re not a very good thief.” He flicked his middle finger on my upper arm. “You once had a fission battery and a jeep. Now you’re down to a towel. Easy come, easy go, I guess.”

I grew red and silent, not entirely sure how to rebut such statements. I had considered myself a talented thief, but perhaps my ego got away with me. Within the last week, I’d come close to dying multiple times, and I had lost all my equipment. I didn’t have anything to show for my efforts.

Well, except for the distance traveled. That couldn’t be taken from me. And I might’ve given everything I had to make it this far regardless.

“The Iron-Blooded took the fission battery,” I said, trying to steer the conversation away from my mistakes. “I don’t know where it is anymore. But that doesn’t mean Judge Gascoigne will let me go if she spots me. I’m sure she’ll kill me for my crime against Ex Cathedra.”

Bishop rummaged through his bag and withdrew an A-tech gas grenade, the kind that melted flesh. “What if we use one of these?”

“The JUDGE-X0 suits have air filters that remove deadly gas. It won’t work.”

His excitement over facing a judge baffled me. He was going to use an A-tech gas grenade for this one judge? Perhaps he didn’t understand how invulnerable they were? When he placed it back in the bag, I noticed he had two more. Interesting.

“I thought those judges didn’t wander around much because they needed to recharge their suits,” Bishop said. “How is she out here, then? So far away from the Ex Cathedra power stations?”

“The Mark III variants can go a month before needing to be recharged. She’s likely taking a gamble in order to retrieve the battery.”

Which explained her attack on the Iron-Blooded and her continued pursuit into the lawless territories. If I had to guess, she was desperate to retrieve the battery and likely didn’t want to return home to report a failure.

“What if we scared her?” Bishop asked as he ran a finger over the fresh cut on his chin. “I’ve got lots of explosives. People act real stupid when they get unnerved. It’s easiest to kill them then.”

“Don’t bother. The JUDGE-X0 suits have special helmets that connect to the driver’s head. They send electrical signals to the brain, stimulating certain hormone production in their adrenal glands. They keep the judges focused and… angry… for lack of a better term. So they don’t buckle during combat.”

The special connectors had to be embedded in the skull. It prevented someone from killing the person inside the suit and then taking the suit for themselves. The damn thing wouldn’t function without the proper connectors.

“You sure do know a lot about judges,” Bishop drawled. I remained quiet as he picked me up. “I’ll have to dig up some more C4, just in case. Shit like killin’ a judge requires a solid plan.”

I chuckled. And, of course, I agreed with him. Whenever I had a firm grasp of the enemy’s capabilities, along with enough time and resources, I typically came out on top.

Bishop carried me down three more streets, his steps careful not to disturb much in our surroundings. The stomp of his boots left a ghost of an echo, but nothing that would be heard from a distance. Finally, he crossed a decimated parking lot, weaving between rusted cars, and only stopped once he reached the front door of a mall.

He glanced around, his eyes narrowed.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

“I leave strings around the base of these doors. If they’re disturbed, I know someone’s been here.”

With little effort, he knelt and examined the frame of the wide door. The strings—thin and translucent—would be difficult to see without direct light. But they were there.

“Good,” Bishop said as he stepped over them. “Looks like no one has been this way.”

“Are there other entrances?”

“Yeah. But I’m gonna drop you two off before I check them. If I have to deal with somethin’, I don’t want to be holdin’ you.”

I clung to Bishop as he headed deeper into the mall. Holes in the ceiling provided some light, but not much. Dust hung heavy in the air, and I coughed a few times before we made it to a shop with a door that kept most of the particles out.

Bishop flipped a switch, and four lamps flickered on.

“Light?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’ve hooked up a few atomic batteries.” He pointed to a power strip with a portable power source. “I’ve been cleaning this place out. So much bullshit in here, ya know? There’re enough supplies for an entire city, and this was just one mall. The damn city has, like, ten.”

My grandfather had told me all kinds of stories about the world before the bombs. Vast seas of entertainment, food, and material objects. Sometimes he referred to such things as bread and circuses.

“That’s what everyone wanted back then,” he had said. “Bread and circuses.”

The shine of the lamps brought me back to the present. I glanced around the shop. Nothing remained on the racks except tatters and threads. Large boxes filled the corners of the room, and a lone door in the back stood ajar. It was like seeing a phantom of the world before the bombs hit. My grandfather had been right. So many things, so many advertisements for sales and discounts. A world so peaceful it could focus on the wealth of the average person, yet they let it be destroyed.

“See those boxes?” Bishop asked. “They’ve got clothes. The bugs haven’t gotten to them, so they’re nice and clean. Go on, Crouton. You can change in the back room. There’s a mirror and everything.”

Crouton nodded and rushed off toward the boxes.

Bishop stared down at me. “What do you want?”

“Set me down. I’ll do it myself.”

“Like you did at the ramen cups?”

I didn’t know what to say. Would he mock me for my pathetic display? I waited, but it didn’t come. Still, I couldn’t rely on him for something as simple as dressing myself. I had to have a baseline minimum of self-reliance.

Bishop set me down and waved at the boxes. “Suit yourself. I’ve gotta check those other entrances. Don’t worry. This place will always be in my sights.”

He left us to the shop, the hard crunch of his steps over broken glass a constant reminder he remained nearby. I turned back to the boxes. Using the counter, and then a few coat stands, I made my way over. Crouton had ripped open most of the boxes in a frantic search. I didn’t know what she wanted specifically, but it was obvious she had something in mind.

To my amusement, most of the boxes were for women’s clothing. Dresses. Skirts. Impractical shoes. Lovely items, no doubt, but nothing I’d want to wear out on the wasteland. There were bras and underwear, things I had, in the past, fashioned for myself out of other clothes as both were harder to come by.

I tried a few on, not understanding the numbers for sizes, until I had something that fit. I repeated the process for a plain black shirt and a jacket. I needed them to fit, not only because I couldn’t stand the thought of having something not sized perfectly, but because I didn’t want my clothing loose enough to get caught on something, especially if I needed to move quickly or quietly. So I tried on several jackets—especially the kind with several pockets—until I found one that fit just right.

“Are you two done yet?” Bishop asked as he walked back into the shop.

Without pants on, and feeling rather foolish, I half hid behind a pile of boxes and shook my head.

Crouton, on the other hand, walked out of the back room, a smile on her clean face. She wore a pink dress. A frilly kind, with lace and shimmering material. It puffed out around the hip and the hem fell to her knees.

Bishop snorted and laughed. “You can’t wear that.”

Crouton hugged herself and offered a glare.

“It’s not practical. Look at your legs. We’ll walk through one field of tall alien grass and you’ll be chewed up by every insect and thistle.And I’m not gonna deal with cryin’ kids, do you get me? So pick something else.”

Mulling over his statements, Crouton rushed to the back. When she emerged a second time, she wore the same dress, but with a pair of thick leggings and large boots.

“Nope,” Bishop said. “You can’t wear it. Viper, tell her she has to change.”

“What’s wrong with the outfit now?” I asked.

“It stands out like a bloodstain on linen; that’s what it does. The name of the game is don’t become a target of cannibals or marauders, and she’s ready to fail the first level.”

Before I could weigh in, Crouton hastily grabbed a jacket and threw it over her dress. It hung long enough to cover the shimmery bits, and she could zip up the front. I didn’t know why she was so desperate to wear the pretty outfit, but I could understand. There weren’t a lot of nice things out in the wasteland. At least, not for random travelers or rogues. Most cities had nicer things for those who could afford it, and I knew the judges and justices in Ex Cathedra lived easy so long as they served their government well.

“Are there many cannibals and marauders in these parts?” I asked.

“Of course. If you aren’t in a city, there’s a good fuckin’ chance you’ll run into someone lookin’ to gut you. Where do you think I got most of my tally marks? And children have the worst of it.”

Bishop walked over to Crouton and gave her the once-over. Crouton kept her jacket closed.

“We should at least cut your hair,” he said. “It’s still wet. Not good for you, and lots of assholes who lost their locks to radiation poisonin’ like makin’ wigs.”

Crouton held her long black hair tight. She shook her head and instead tucked her hair inside her jacket.

With a huff, Bishop grabbed a beanie from a nearby box and covered Crouton’s head.

“There,” he said. “And it’s blue. Matches your eyes.”

Although Crouton was already in the process of ripping off the beanie, the one comment gave her pause. She hesitated, her fingers curled around the hat. After a few moments, she positioned it back in place, smoothing it over her head so it fit just right.

“And what about you?” Bishop asked as he turned his hard gaze over to me.

“Hm?”

“You know what will really get the marauders’ attention? A young woman not wearin’ any damn pants.”

My face burned from the comment, and I struggled not to hide behind the boxes completely. “Obviously I’m not going to leave like this,” I said, louder than I anticipated. “Obviously.”

“Yeah, well, you said you could do it yourself, so let’s see it.” He stomped back over to the door of the shop. “It’s a bad sign when Princess Crouton over here has her whole royal wardrobe picked out before you.”

I grabbed the first pair of pants I came across in the box in front of me. They were cargo pants—multi-colored green, like old world military camouflage—and I managed to get one of my legs inside without much hassle. I had to lean against the wall afterward, but I managed to pull them on.

They were two sizes too big. An irritating itch filled my thoughts. I didn’t like it. I wanted them to be the exact size. But Bishop motioned for me to hurry, and I didn’t want to hold us up any more than I had already. So I grabbed a belt and secured the pants low on my hips—underneath the injury—and I promised myself I would fix it later, though that didn’t stop my mind from dwelling on it.

I hobbled out from behind the boxes and made my way to Bishop. Before he picked me up, he pulled a necklace out of his pocket.

“I grabbed some tools, like you wanted,” he said, “but I also got you this. You should have it. For good luck.”

“You don’t believe in things as irrational as luck, do you?”

Bishop placed the necklace in my palm. “Things happen that you can’t explain. That’s luck. And trust me, I thought of this the moment you said you’d try to kill me. It suits you.”

I stared at the metal pendant hanging from the thin chain. It had the picture of a coiled snake with its fangs bared. Written around the circular edge were the words, “Don’t Tread on Me.” Was that why he called me viper?

It had been a long time since anyone had given me a gift.

I laughed. A nervous, uncertain laugh, but still. “Uh,” I began, once again flustered from simple interactions. “Thank you.”

“You also need to eat more.” Bishop handed over another hardtack.

I took the food and chewed on it as he lifted me into his arms.

Crouton glanced from the necklace to Bishop, a tight frown on her face. He chuckled and motioned for her to follow with a tilt of his head.

“Not for you, Crouton. I’ll try to find a tiara. You’d like that?”

She clapped the tips of her fingers together in a quiet show of appreciation.

Bishop carried me out of the mall and back into the heart of the ruined city. Crouton kept at his side and occasionally glanced underneath her jacket, as though in disbelief she still had her dress. It amused me more than it should have. Tamura had been an odd mix of tomboy and princess. Crouton’s boots and dress combo reminded me of the details I had almost forgotten.

It didn’t take us long to reach a parking garage. Bishop grabbed a tarp on a nearby line of cars and pulled it off, revealing three rusty clunkers and one pickup truck. It was one of the fancy pickup trucks—the electric kind with an A-tech computer system and an exterior that resisted the elements better than most. It practically gleamed, even in the shadows, despite the cracked frame and nonexistent paint job.

I knew why Bishop liked it so much.

Crouton ran to the passenger side door. She threw it open and crawled in without any instruction. And, much to my increasing surprise, she buckled herself in and sat ready with a smile.

Bishop got in the driver’s side with me still in his arms. He set me down in the middle of the cab before throwing his stuff through the cab window and into the truck’s bed. He kept his handgun close, which I appreciated, but his sniper rifle went in the back as well.

Most electric A-tech vehicles didn’t have keys. Bishop touched the small computer screen. It scanned his fingerprints, and only afterward did the engine flare to life.

“Who programmed this for you?” I asked. Vehicles didn’t just accept any fingerprints; they had to be registered in the vehicle’s database during initial purchase.

“I did some work for a guy in Boulder,” he said with a smile. “He’s one of the guys who runs the place, and they have lots of interesting stuff, let me tell you.”

He pressed down on the forward pedal and drove out of the parking garage without any hesitation. The skeleton city passed by at a quick pace as I relaxed against the seat. The moment we left the ruins, desert flatland stretched out before us. Roads, signs, and the occasional field of alien weeds dotted the landscape. Mountains lined the horizon, but my eyes focused on the brown and gray of the terrain.

I was tired.

Could I sleep? Bishop could take us anywhere. Then again, if he wanted to do something heinous, he could’ve already. Of course, he could be taking me somewhere I didn’t know about. The lawless territories dealt in the trade and sale of people all the time, either to Ex Cathedra as slaves or to roving bands of migratory people who needed an influx of “breeding stock.”

Would Bishop do that? Sell us off?

The thought kept me awake. I forced myself to keep my eyes open, even when my body begged me for rest. I just couldn’t take the risk.

***

Crouton slept with her head on my shoulder most of the ride.

The clouds grew dark, limiting our light, but Bishop drove with one hand on the steering wheel, as though he’d taken the road a million times before.

“See that building over there?” he said, keeping his voice low. “Used to be a prison, back before the bombs. Now it’s a damn mausoleum. Filled to the brim with corpses. Those sad sack prisoners never got released, apparently. Guards just took off after the world ended.” He laughed, loud enough that Crouton stirred, but didn’t wake. “Can you imagine? What a fucked-up way to go.”

Bishop hadn’t stopped talking since the drive began. He talked about our surroundings, the history of certain buildings, or how his truck got recharged, but next to nothing about himself. Made me wonder what kind of life he led.

He let out a long exhale. “I used to get sick around corpses. Damn things make you realize we’ll all die someday. My grandmother would say this weird phrase. All flesh is grass.”

“What does it mean?” I whispered.

“Not entirely sure. But it made me think about death a little differently. It’s all fleeting, ya know? Nations. Cities. Life. Everything has stages. Newborn. Adult. It’s like we’re living in Earth’s rotting corpse stage of life.”

Again, he laughed, though it was more melancholy than before.

I kept expecting him to talk about a wife or children—Dallas had been quick to mention them—but Bishop never did. Perhaps he didn’t have anyone.

“Look,” he said, pointing straight ahead. “There’s Dodge City.”

It wasn’t hard to spot, especially given the dark clouds and gray surroundings. Bright lights shone upward, like a lighthouse in the middle of the desert. I sat up, eager to get a better look. Most cities in Ex Cathedra had walls and soldiers. They kept the peace, but at a price. To disagree with any of the soldiers, no matter their absurd or disgusting request, could cost people their life. Would Dodge City be the same?

“How long will we stay here?” I asked.

“The night. Tomorrow we’ll head to Richfield. Technically, it’s faster to go straight to George Town, but my doctor friend lives in Richfield. Shouldn’t be too long a detour.”

The closer and closer we got, the more details I absorbed. The signs on the side of the road read “Dodge City—For All Your Car Needs!” and “No Credit, No Problem!” But those were the old world advertisements. New phrases had been written with spray paint underneath. They read “Come Stay the Night!” and “No Safer Place Around!”

When we neared the gates, everything fell into place.

Dodge City was an old world automobile sales lot. Cars filled a massive parking lot—all glittering clean, driven nowhere—and people had affixed curtains to the windows, creating private spaces. The cars were used as hotel rooms now instead of vehicles. People stepped in and out of them, going about their business. Some of the vehicles even had mattresses inside.

And the lights weren’t the only amazing feature of the city. Machines operated the gates, kept the place clean, and maintained the guns mounted around the premises.

The fence around Dodge City might’ve been flimsy, nothing but chain link, but that helped the automated guns target anyone approaching. Sure enough, two machine guns mounted into the concrete ground turned to face us, though nothing fired. They had clearly been added after the war—they were military grade while the car lot was styled to be as friendly as possible.

Hundreds of people made their homes outside of the fence. Tents, shoddy wood huts, and campfires speckled the surrounding territory.

Bishop drove up to the gate and parked, but he didn’t turn off the engine.

“Stay here,” he said.

Crouton jerked awake. She blinked a couple times and shot up in her seat, her eyes wide.

Without another word, Bishop hopped out of the vehicle, leaving the door open, and headed toward a group of armed men at the gate. They had Dodge City badges around their neck. No doubt they were enforcers meant to keep the peace.

A man slammed up against the side of the truck, and my heart leapt into my throat.

“Hey there, girlie,” he said, his breath odoriferous and his face a waterfall of grease.

I pushed Crouton behind me and glared at the man. What did he want? He wore a few layers of clothes, but it didn’t hide a shoulder holster or handgun. And everything on him had a fine layer of dirt or blood.

“Wow, you’re mighty fine,” he said, offering me the most crooked smile I had ever seen. “How much is Bishop paying you for the night?”

I was on the verge of reaching into the back of the truck and pulling out a grenade when Bishop finally walked back over.

“Get outta here, Thatcher,” Bishop snapped. “What the fuck did I say about touchin’ my truck?”

“Hey, hey. Me and the lady were havin’ us a conversation. Ain’t that right, miss?”

Bishop shoved Thatcher away as he stepped back up into the driver’s seat. “She doesn’t want a disgusting roach in her bed. Beat it.”

“I got what every lady wants.” Thatcher grabbed his crotch and hefted, chortling like he was the cleverest man alive.

Bishop half smiled. “Oh, really? Have you seen your teeth? Nine out of ten dentists recommend suicide.”

“H-hey!”

Bishop stepped on the forward pedal and drove us through the gates to Dodge City. Although the situation had been handled, my heart still beat hard in my chest. Men like Thatcher were commonplace, even in Ex Cathedra. I hated the idea of being at the mercy of another.

I reached into the back bed of the truck.

“What’re you doing?” Bishop asked.

“I’m getting a bottle of water.”

And one of Bishop’s gas grenades.

I would keep it on me, just in case. It would be a parting blow should anyone fuck with me—or if Bishop tried anything suspicious. It was petty, but I wanted to know that whoever did me in would at least get their comeuppance.

CHAPTER TEN

Bishop tapped the side of the “hotel room car” with his knuckles. It was a Dodge brand vehicle—large, four doors, a mattress in the back—located in the middle of the Dodge City lot.

“You and Crouton can sleep here,” he said.

Other people crowded around their respective “rooms,” everyone chatting in casual tones. Although no one acted aggressive, everyone had guns, most of which were on display, like they were rattles on a snake, warning the world of danger should they be messed with. But I preferred that to an atmosphere of quiet worry and terror. At least I knew what the people around me were capable of, and the threat of mutual destruction did keep everyone in line.

“Thank you,” I said. “And where will you be sleeping?”

Bishop leaned in closer and gave me a half smile. “Are you trying to ask me to stay the night with you?”

I leaned away and crossed my arms over my chest, unable to look him in the eye. “I was just curious.”

He stepped back and said, “Hm. I’ll be spending the night with my friend, Joyce.”

Bishop motioned to a group of cars separated from the rest. They were rent-by-the-hour and adorned with all sorts of heart-shaped signs.

I lifted an eyebrow. “Your friend? Is that what they’re called here? We had a different term for them in Ex Cathedra.”

Bishop scoffed. “Fine. I’m gonna spend my night with a whore. Happy? Or do you want all the gritty details?”

Crouton tilted her head.

“You don’t have to say it in front of her,” I said under my breath.

“What? It’s not like she’s gonna repeat anything I say.” Bishop turned away, throwing a hand up in the air. “I was the one who tried to be decent in the first place.” A few feet away, he stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “Thanks for helpin’ me back there. If you want my doctor friend’s info, hit me up. Otherwise, good luck getting to Boulder, or wherever you said you needed to go.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Have fun.”

It was an awkward way to send him off. I knew it the moment I said the words. Even Bishop stared for a moment before nodding and heading out. But I didn’t really know what to say to him. A piece of me didn’t want him to go too far. Maybe I just wanted his company.

Pushing the thoughts from my mind, I opened the car and got inside. A single light, powered by an atomic battery welded to the roof, shone above us. Crouton sat up front, adjusting the portal radio tied to the steering wheel. It had two tabs glued to the side, each describing the two radio broadcasts available for the area. One offered music and emergency news, while the other was simply labeled “Family Entertainment.”

Crouton switched the radio to the family entertainment channel and smiled as pleasant music played throughout the car.

“You can read?” I asked.

Crouton nodded.

I caught my breath, scolding myself for not asking earlier. “Can you spell your name?”

She held up her empty hands.

“Spell it in the air.”

Crouton pantomimed out the letters, writing each large and slow so I could follow along.

C-H-E-L-S-Y

“Chelsy? That’s a pretty name.”

She shook her head.

“You don’t like it?”

Again, she shook her head.

“Would you… rather me keep calling you Crouton?”

She nodded.

Odd. I didn’t understand her need to avoid her name—I liked the name Kita—and although Crouton could spell, I doubted she wanted to have an in-depth discussion one letter at a time.

She jumped from the front and onto the mattress in the back. Multiple blankets padded her fall. She grabbed each and threw them around, creating a soft bed out of our limited materials.

The music cut out, and I tensed, fearing some sort of emergency broadcast.

“And now for story hour,” a nasally man spoke over the radio.

The hushed voice of a woman in the background added, “Just read the book this time.”

“Okay, okay, I got it.” The radioman increased his volume and with a showman’s enunciation said, “Tonight’s story will be The Atomic Alert.”

I smiled. Ex Cathedra didn’t have radio stations dedicated to such entertainment. The fact anyone would take the time to spread such tales around for the sake of families lifted my spirits. What benefit did the radio stations gain from such an act?

Crouton edged her way to the end of the mattress, her elbows on her knees and her head in both her palms.

“Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lived in a city surrounded on every side by fields with irrigation ditches. He left his house to visit his grandmother when he came across a peddler on the side of the road.” Each word carried with it an artistic weight, as though the man’s calling was melodrama.

The flipping of pages echoed over the radio. “Ugh,” the radioman said with a huff. He kept his voice low as he added, “What’s with how depressing these are?”

“It’s a cautionary tale,” the background woman said. “Read the damn book. We talked about this. It’s good for kids.”

“Everyone dies at the end in horrific detail.”

“That’s the point of a cautionary tale, Ruben. You don’t want kids playing in places with radiation.”

“Do I really need to read about how the skin sloughs off? Or the bleeding blisters?”

I turned to Crouton and yawned. After I got myself under control, I said, “If anything happens, wake me up, okay? I’ll deal with whatever comes our way.”

Crouton reached into her jacket and withdrew a three-inch pocket knife. I flinched back, expecting her to hurt herself somehow, but she twirled it between her fingers and smiled. Then she motioned a few silent stabs and gave me a thumbs up.

“Violence isn’t always the solution,” I said, though a little uncertain of the claim. Violence was needed in a great many instances. Those who didn’t use violence would be ruled by it—or so my grandfather would say. And I did have a grenade in my pocket. “Where did you get that?”

She spelled out the word truck.

“Listen, I don’t think you should take things from Bishop without his permission. He seems a little protective of his belongings. Understand?”

She nodded.

“And who taught you how to hold a knife like that?”

Crouton pulled out the three figurines and pointed to the father.

Dallas was a soldier, after all.

“Well, let me try words before you go slicing and dicing, okay?”

Again, she nodded.

The man and woman on the radio continued to argue as I rested back against the mattress. Their words never entered my mind, but the bickering created a pleasant white noise that dulled my overtaxed thoughts. The moment my head hit the blankets, I closed my eyes and breathed even. My fears about the future disappeared with my consciousness.

A harsh knock on the side of the car jerked me from the tranquility.

I sat up, my eyes crusty from sleep.

Sleep?

Had I slept? I just went to bed.

I glanced around the car. Crouton slumbered in a burrito of blankets, her long black hair spilling out the top. My three figurines sat on the edge of the mattress, two toppled over, but all three together. The radio buzzed with static inactivity, and the time across the screen told me five hours had passed.

Five hours? I shook my head. It felt like two seconds.

Another harsh knock drew me back to the present. I scooted to the door and opened it.

A woman stood outside, a backpack on one shoulder and a cigarette on her lips. No, not a cigarette—tobacco had a reddish-brown color—the inside of her cigarette was black. She smoked a stick of hane, a type of cigarette made from the alien weeds. Easy to grow, easy to dry, easy to roll.

The woman exhaled a line of smoke. “You new here? Just come in?”

I managed to step out of the vehicle without grimacing and offered her a nod.

“Did you see any activity in the north? People around the old government buildings?”

“What’s this about?” I asked.

Other people went from car to car, dressed just like the woman, knocking on the doors and asking similar questions. Something to the north. A government building. Seemed strange. I hadn’t seen anything suspicious when we drove in. Then again, I had been listening to Bishop nonstop as we traveled.

“People say they saw some of the Iron-Blooded,” the woman said. She had a deep scar over her face, one that took a chunk from her nose. “They got into those government buildings somehow. I need to know if you saw anything. I’ve got some hane if you got info.”

“I didn’t see anything.”

“Eh.”

The woman left without even a farewell, straight to another car.

But I didn’t care about that. The information she had inadvertently given me sank into my thoughts. The Iron-Blooded got into a building somehow—emphasis on the mystery—but I knew. The fission battery. It was how I got into the military base. The Iron-Blooded used it to power up the facility and get inside.

But why? What did the Iron-Blooded hope to gain in these government buildings? And what kind of buildings were they? Government building was a catch-all term used for fortified places with lockdown procedures. It could be a military facility, or a lab, or even a records office.

All such buildings housed old world treasures, however. Everyone wanted inside.

I turned my attention to the scarred woman asking questions. She went from vehicle to vehicle until she reached the end of the lot. Her fellow inquisitors met her and discussed their findings before heading to the gate out of the city.

Junk hunters. Like Bishop.

They searched the wasteland for valuables and traded them in cities. A risky profession, but rewarding. All it took was one good find and most junk hunters could effectively retire. They were the 49ers of the wasteland—opportunists that went where the salvaging was good.

I rubbed at my face, my thoughts dwelling on the Iron-Blooded.

If these were the same Iron-Blooded that tortured me in the mountains, there couldn’t be many left. Not after Judge Gascoigne’s attack and Bishop killing a few in the city. I hadn’t seen any others, which meant their numbers were ever-dwindling.

And they had a fission battery with them. But the junk hunters didn’t know that.

My heart rate increased, and my hands shook with nervous anticipation. In theory, I could go to this building and retrieve my battery. In theory.

The car door opened, and Crouton made her way out. She glanced up at me, her eyes half-lidded.

“Crouton, can you take me to see Bishop?” I asked.

She rubbed her face with the back of her hand and jumped to her feet. With a determined look set on her face, she offered me her shoulder.

The cool evening air swept through Dodge City, whistling between the cars. Although I had slept for five hours, it wasn’t morning. The dark clouds hung low in the sky, swollen and close to bursting. Darkness loomed beyond the bright lights of the city limits, obscuring the vast desert.

Rainfall would kill almost any vegetation that wasn’t from the aliens due to the nuclear fallout still in the atmosphere and water. It was why people had to use elaborate growing techniques or greenhouses in order to keep Earth crops alive. Though I guess it didn’t matter.

We made our way to the rent-by-the-hour cars, but the moment we got close, a couple men with Dodge City badges—peacekeepers meant to keep the order—stepped in our way.

“We don’t allow children to work this area,” one guy said.

They both held rifles, but with a lax grip.

“We’re not here to work,” I said. “I need to see a man named Bishop. Do you know him?”

Both men exchanged half smiles.

“Yeah,” the guy said. “We know him. What do you want?”

“Can you tell him Kita wants to speak? Or maybe just call me Viper.” A piece of me wondered if he actually remembered my real name.

After a short sigh, one of the peacekeepers walked between the love-cars and stopped at one in the middle. He tapped the butt of his gun against the door and waited. A few seconds later, it opened. Bishop leaned his head out, his hair plastered to one side and his eyes still closed.

“What? I still got time.”

“Someone’s here for you,” the peacekeeper said. “A woman and a kid. Said her name was Kita.”

Bishop groaned. He shut the door, it shook for a moment, and then he emerged again, his hair still stuck to one side, but at least he had pants on. I focused on his many tally mark scars as he walked toward us, stretching the entire way.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, a slight mocking tone to his voice. “Have a nightmare? Need me to tuck you in?”

A soft odor of booze clung to him. He didn’t stagger or lose eye contact, but I did fear he wouldn’t be up to the task of leaving town.

I lowered my voice and said, “I need to speak with you about… gathering some valuable things.”

Maybe it was my cryptic phrasing or quiet tone, but something about my statement intrigued Bishop. He smiled wide enough to flash teeth and then motioned back to the car.

“Oh yeah? One minute. I’m gonna get my shit and we’ll talk about the details in my truck.”

It didn’t take him long to get his shirt, jacket, and boots. Bishop returned and offered his arm. I half walked with his support, thankful he hadn’t picked me up without warning. Then he withdrew a few sandwiches from his bag, each wrapped in brown paper. He handed me one and then another to Crouton.

Flat bread, some sort of meat, and three kinds of vegetables—nothing I had ever eaten together before.

“What is this made out of?” I asked.

“Goat,” Bishop said. “And some carrots, beets, and A-grass.”

Crouton bit into hers without a second’s hesitation. She chewed for a prolonged period of time—no doubt the meat wasn’t top quality—but she never stopped or complained.

I examined my sandwich, enjoying the warm feel in my hand. “You paid for this?”

“Yeah. Like I said, thanks for helping me back there.”

His truck, parked inside the city at a small lot for junk hunter vehicles, had a few peacekeepers circling around. Bishop nodded to them, they acknowledged him by name, and we got into the cab of his vehicle without hassle.

“Don’t drip the sandwich on the seats,” Bishop said, giving Crouton a sidelong glance.

Her fingers, face, and arms looked like a sandwich murder scene. She gobbled down the rest and then stared at her dirty hands. Bishop opened the glove compartment and threw her a small towel.

“Kids,” he said with a sigh. Then he turned to me. “Now what’re you goin’ on about? What stuff should we acquire?”

“Some junk hunters are heading to a government building the Iron-Blooded opened. I think there aren’t many Iron-Blooded there, given the numbers that left the mountain and the fact the judge either killed or separated them.”

“Uh-huh. And?”

“And, if a bunch of junk hunters are there, perhaps we could just sneak in behind them and avoid the Iron-Blooded altogether.”

“We? You’d weigh me down, Viper. And don’t give me any buts. You know your leg is messed up.”

I already knew this would become an issue, so I took a deep breath and held up a hand. “Look, I’ve made it across the wasteland for years on my own. It’s because I know how to hack and picklock a lot of these A-tech places.”

Bishop stared off into the distance, his gaze unforced. “Okay. And you’re sayin’ we need to go together because you can get us stuff inside the building? With your skills? And we’ll split what we come across, fifty-fifty?”

I liked the concise way he summed up my plan. I nodded, hoping he’d be gung-ho, but then he turned back to me with a serious gaze.

“How’d the Iron-Blooded get in?” he asked.

“Most likely my fission battery, but I’m not completely sure.”

“That fission battery you lost?”

“Yes. The same one.”

“And you want it back?”

I hesitated. Did Bishop want half of the battery? There was no way to split it. Or maybe he would take it for himself?

“I do want it back,” I finally said.

He gave me a half smile. “Yeah, that’s what I was hopin’ you’d say. I love cuttin’ down Iron-Blooded assholes. You’re gonna get some more tally marks, right? Show these lunatics you don’t mess with a viper?”

I chuckled. I hadn’t planned on revenge, but I had already run over four of them.

There was a lot to hate about Commander Dannik. And the idea of stealing back my fission battery did fill me with more happiness than it probably should have. Perhaps Bishop was right.

“Sure,” I said.

I’d need the battery for wherever I ended up at. It could literally sustain me and a small town for the rest of my life, whether or not I made it to the BC Oasis.

Bishop started up the truck. “Let’s go raid us some old buildings.”

***

The unrelenting darkness unnerved me a bit. Bishop drove without his headlights for a good portion, just like I had on the mountainside. It was good practice—no one wanted attention out in the middle of nowhere—but the void of night didn’t bring with it much visibility.

A lot of animals came out at night, some more aggressive than others. At least, in Ex Cathedra. I assumed it would be the same considering that the animal population thrived between zones of radiation, free from the vast numbers of humans that once lived there. Some animals could even venture into the radiation without much harm, no doubt having adapted to the terrible environmental hazard after several generations.

Bishop parked, though I had no idea where we were.

“Are we close?” I asked.

He nodded. “We don’t wanna drive up, or else everyone will know we’re tryin’ to cut in on their loot.” He pointed at Crouton. “You stay here.”

She turned to me, like Bishop’s words meant nothing unless I backed them up.

“You should stay here,” I said.

Crouton smiled and gave me two thumbs up. She sat back without a fuss, not even a glower, and Bishop seemed pleased with the quick acceptance.

But I knew better. My fourth rule to lying: never ham it up. Most people could spot overacting, even if they couldn’t articulate what about the performance seemed off. Crouton was a tad obstinate and never wanted to leave our side. She wasn’t planning on listening to us now—she’d sneak out of the truck and follow behind us; I would bet my life on it.

I placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s dangerous. What would Dallas say if you were taken by the Iron-Blooded again? After everything he did to get you free?”

Crouton froze. She stared at me, her blue eyes drilling into mine. Then she turned away and glanced out the passenger window, her faux happy melting into a melancholy expression. I suspected she would actually stay this time.

Bishop opened the door and jumped out. He grabbed his bag and sniper rifle before he motioned for me to follow. I hopped out, and he took me into his arms immediately. A faster way to travel, but I was starting to hate the mode of transportation. I wanted to walk, but now wasn’t the time to satisfy my pride.

“Who’s Dallas?” he asked.

“Chelsy’s father.”

He snorted and laughed. “Who’s Chelsy?”

“Oh, uh, that’s Crouton’s name.”

“So you do know her name. What? You don’t trust me? Can’t tell me the damn kid’s name? What would I even do with the information that you would need to keep it hidden?”

“Sorry,” I said as he walked around the truck. “It’s not that. Turns out she knows her letters. She spelt it out for me in the car.”

“And where’s Dallas if he’s her father? Dead?”

“I… don’t know. He saved us from the Iron-Blooded.” I closed my eyes and forced a smile. “Well, saved isn’t accurate. He’s the one that got me caught in the first place. He traded my life for his daughter’s.”

“Sounds like a tally mark if I ever heard of one. Any asshole who gets involved with the Iron-Blooded is so inbred they might as well be a fence post.”

For a moment, I almost told him it was Dallas I planned to meet in Boulder City, but I thought better of it. I doubted Bishop would want to hear it. Even I didn’t know how to truly feel about the situation. I couldn’t forgive Dallas, even if I understood his motives. But he should have his daughter back.

Bishop’s steps shifted with the loose sand and dirt. He held me close as we walked, but he had an odd scent about him. Sex, alcohol, sweat—it wasn’t the worst I’d experienced, just distinct. I should’ve insisted he wash himself before leaving.

“If we’re gonna wander around unclaimed territory, we’ll need to keep a Geiger counter close,” he whispered. “I hate these parts. You never know what kind of bullshit you’ll run into.”

To my surprise, I spotted lights past a grouping of boulders. Buildings—a couple of them behind a broken wall. Was it a compound?

Bishop set me down near a few knee-high rocks. We crouched together, and he held me close. “Here we are.”

I couldn’t see a damn thing besides the lights in the distance. Bishop slung his sniper rifle off his back. Before he put the thing together for firing, he flipped a switch on the scope and stared down it.

“More people than I thought there’d be.”

“How many?” I asked.

“Maybe ten junk hunters. All millin’ about the outside. No sight of the Iron-Blooded.”

He passed the butt of the rifle over to me. Although I had some reservations, it wasn’t rifles that bothered me so much. I took it and glanced down the scope. The night vision green-and-black sight allowed me to see everything that lurked in the darkness. Bishop was correct—ten people wandered around the outside of the compound, some with their hands on their hips, others motioning to the doors.

I turned the scope beyond the compound and glanced around the surrounding territory. Far off, half hidden by rocks, was an Iron-Blooded jeep.

“They’re here,” I whispered. “The Iron-Blooded must be inside.”

“But they didn’t defend the outside? There isn’t even a single man positioned as a guard.”

Of course not. They didn’t have anyone to spare, not if they were going to clean out the inside of a massive compound.

And what could be inside? Something more valuable than a fission battery?

When I returned my attention to the junk hunters, one withdrew a handgun. I recognized the scar over the face—the woman from Dodge City. Before I could grasp much of the situation, she leveled her gun at another and pulled the trigger. The crack of the bullet sent a shiver down my spine.

Nine junk hunters.

“What happened?” Bishop asked.

“One person… shot another.” I handed him back his rifle. “Why would they do that?”

“Probably couldn’t agree on a way to split the findings,” Bishop said with a shrug. “People don’t like to share. Trust me. Junk hunters do some crazy shit sometimes to gather up as much as possible.” He laughed and tapped me on the shoulder with his knuckles. “I thought you were a junk hunter at first, ya know.”

Another crack of a handgun.

Eight junk hunters.

Regardless of the distant violence, Bishop continued, still amused, “I thought you must be lyin’ to me or tryin’ to make off with my stuff after I brought you to civilization. I even paid the guards around Dodge City to stop you from leaving if you tried to sneak off without me. Funny, right? I should’ve just trusted my gut.”

“Good to know,” I muttered.

It occurred to me then—why would Bishop trust me? I wasn’t willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, after all. Of course he thought I was going to do something underhanded. Still, I disliked that he tried to trap me somewhere. I would have to think of contingencies for the future.

“Do you mind if I have the scope back for a second?” I asked.

Bishop handed it over. “If the Iron-Blooded are here, we should wait for our trigger-happy junk hunters to go in first. Maybe the two groups can cull each other and we’ll slink in afterward.”

I used the scope to examine the outside of the compound. My attention focused on the lettering mounted to the side of the main building. It wasn’t English, but Tethlite.

TETH RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

LOCATION #04

A Teth alien research facility. And then I knew why the Iron-Blooded were interested in getting inside—they worshipped those space monsters enough that they’d want to retrieve every relic they could. Or maybe even recover alien DNA.

Or maybe even one of the aliens themselves.