False Future (15 page)

“Kellogg and his men,” Peter says. “Of course.”

“And they’re actually still alive?” Sophia says. Her dark eyes are narrowed.

“They are,” Olivia says.

My heart begins to race. If we free those men, we’ll have an assault force—a small one, but a group of trained soldiers nonetheless. I could show up to address the world with an army.

“What would we do with them?” Noble says. “We need the Key, which is probably in a different universe. That means finding East. Do you know if he’s still alive?”

Olivia nods. “East has wired the Key to his central nervous system, quite ingeniously, I might add. It means that for the Key to be used, East has to remain alive.”

“But where is he?” Noble says. “True Earth?”

“No. In order for the Key to work, it must remain in the universe it is affecting.”

Which means…

Olivia smiles again, bigger this time. “East is still here.”

C
oming up with a plan to free the prisoners doesn’t take too long after that. Everyone has a job. Mine is transportation. With the failure of all things electrical, we have to get a little creative. Peter thinks we might be able to get a diesel engine to work, but Noble shuts that down quickly, claiming it’d be too loud and too slow to be effective against any Thorns/Axes in the area.

Sophia brings up a great point. “Say we do get the Key. Somehow. What then? The Black has already been released.”

“Once you have the Key,” Olivia says, “you just have to travel through the Black and you’ll end up in a special room. From there, you can begin the process of removing the Black. Power restoration will follow shortly thereafter. Right now, electrical fields are suppressed. Our vehicles are shielded from the effects. Forget radio transmission too.”

“Maybe we can spend a few years reverse-engineering their tech, if all else fails,” Peter says dryly.

No one laughs, but I don’t think he expected anyone to.

We rise together, and Noble reaches across the table to shake Olivia’s hand. “Thank you. We needed this.”

“I hope it’s not too late,” she says. “I still don’t know what’s right, but I think I’ve broken things enough by trying to fix them.”

Outside there are no Roses in sight, since their purpose here has been fulfilled, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any around…or that people won’t recognize us as clones.

“We need to blend in,” I say.

“Agreed,” Peter says. “Look.”

Across the street is a sporting goods store, the windows helpfully shattered already. Inside most of the clothing is gone, the hangers lying around like discarded bones. Smart people stocking up for the long winter, I guess. Or maybe they just wanted free stuff. We find enough clothing for all of us, though. Sophia takes a big silver puffy jacket, and I find several long-sleeve T-shirts I can layer, a thick black scarf, and a pair of waterproof overalls that somehow fit perfectly. I look like I’m ready to go inner-tubing rather than fight a war. Noble already looks the part, so he just grabs a big flannel hat with ear flaps.

Peter puts on a pink hat with little eyeholes, clearly meant for a kid. “How do I look?”

I laugh, and immediately feel bad. It doesn’t seem right. I should be somber at all times.

But Peter laughs too, and he throws the hat at me. Somehow he knew I needed that break.

“Listen!” Noble says.

Outside a bunch of people start shouting. We duck into the shadows, behind the racks, and watch a group of at least twenty men marching down the street, holding up torches. They’re definitely not from True Earth. Two of them break off and stick their heads into the store. They leave a moment later when they see there isn’t much left to steal.

“Animals…” Peter says.

“People,” Sophia replies.

They march onward, and no Axes show up to scatter them. Olivia was right—the force is scaling down. That means this is the end, happening right now in front of us. People will soon be devouring one another in the long night.

I creep closer to the door. The gang happens upon a man on the other side of the street, and they surround him, pulling off his jacket and the layer under it. They rip a bag full of canned food out of his arms and throw it down, the cans rolling out to be picked up by fast and greedy hands. The man falls to his knees, crunching the snow.

I step out into the street. “Miranda!” Noble says harshly. I look back, but Peter only nods at me, then moves to follow.

“No. Stay here,” I say. “I just want to talk to them. If we all go, it’ll become a brawl.”

I walk toward the gang, my blood hot. The director was right. Somebody has to maintain order, or all that will be left are corpses.

“Hey!” I say, loud enough for the crowd to hear me. I’m dressed in my new clothes and am so bundled up, they don’t recognize me as a Rose. A few of the guys stop stripping the man of all his worldly possessions and stare at me. They alert the others (I catch a muttered whisper—“Hey, look at this”), and soon the group is walking toward me slowly, spreading out to box me in on both sides. It reminds me so much of the way eyeless move that the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

It’s clear who the leader is; he’s the one closest to me, right in the middle. His eyes rove over me like I’m merchandise.

“Give us your clothes,” the leader says.

“Better yet, let’s take her with us,” the shorter one next to him says.

“No,” the leader says. “Too many mouths to feed. Give us your clothes.”

“You have ten seconds to give that man back his stuff, and then I will let you leave in peace.”

The guys look at one another and laugh. When the leader sees I’m not going to give up my clothes, he steps closer, chest out, trying his best to intimidate. All I see are targets.

I could use my power here. I could scare them all to death with my mind, literally. But I don’t want to do that. It’s not worth needing an extra memory shot sooner.

Instead I wait until the leader’s close enough—then I drive a straight punch into his nose. I feel it split under my knuckles, like cracking open a nut. He falls backward without trying to catch his balance, out cold. The snow saves his skull from breaking.

“Take him and go,” I say to the others.

They don’t. I sigh. I look at the clothing store, where Peter stands with Noble and Sophia. They’re coming toward me, but I give a quick shake of my head and they slow, not stopping completely. I may have just punched the guy, but this can still end with words. If we can’t stop the Black, these people will have a hard enough time surviving without broken limbs and open wounds.

“I know this is hard,” I tell the group, “but try to stay human.” Good advice for anyone, even myself.

“We’ll die,” one says.

“Then die well.” My brain is getting hotter, and I release the pressure with a tiny pulse of fear, just enough to send them on their way. They keep their wits but disperse like I told them to. Only two guys think to grab their former leader. They carry him away, disappearing into the darkness.

I gather up the cans of food and return them to the man, who has recovered one of his jackets. The shopping bag is torn and wet, but I crumple it down well enough to hold the cans.

“Where did you get these?” I ask him.

“A store down the way. It was all they had left. Please, my family…”

“Go to them. Stay off the street if you can.”

He nods graciously, almost bowing, and starts down the sidewalk. My eyes follow him, spotting more pinpricks of torches in the distance. More gangs, maybe. More pirates, thieves, looters.

“Why did you help him?” Noble says when he’s gone. “We shouldn’t have been in the open like that.”

“Why did you help me?” Sophia says to him. “When you could’ve kept walking.” I remember the story Sophia told when we rode to the market in her world. About how Noble saved her life. What he had saved her from.

“This is only the beginning,” Peter says. “That Key better be able to turn the power back on.”

I don’t have much to say about it. I don’t know what the world will look like in the next hour, the next day, or the next week. We can only do our best.

“Let’s move,” I say.

It’s not until we’re five minutes away from the group that I realize one of them looked very, very familiar.

One of them looked like Albin.

“I think we’re being watched,” I say.

“Then let’s get it done,” Noble replies.

The darkness provides easy cover. As we move west across the island, we’re plunged into a darkness so deep I can only see ten feet in front of me. Beyond that, gray outlines become black.

Soon we’re in the park, and the Verge appears out of the darkness like the prow of a ship cutting through fog. Or, in this case, snow. There’s some activity around it, the rumble of vehicles, and the outlines of figures moving with purpose. We give it a wide berth.

We split up near the west border of the park, at a series of huge rocks that look like mountains in the darkness. To the south I see the tall fence of the makeshift prison where Kellogg’s soldiers—and many others—are being kept. Behind the fence I can just make out people huddled together in silence against the cold. A few fires are lit inside the perimeter to keep the prisoners from actually freezing to death. Olivia seems to be telling the truth—so far.

Peter, Sophia, and Noble will go that way. But my destination lies to the north. I take a winding trail up a hill, and then down it, feeling my way through the dark with my hands out. Branches snag at my hair and scrape over my clothes. The trail dumps me at a huge barn butted up against an access road. It’s one of the stables they use for the horses that give carriage rides in Central Park. With no other transportation, this is our only hope for when the time comes to move fast. Luckily I have some experience with horses.

I creep toward the dark barn, listening for movement inside. It’s completely silent, no soft horse sighs or snorts. I slide the door open, and someone points a shotgun at my face.

“W
hat are you doing here?”

It’s a woman’s voice, her face hidden in the deep shadows of the barn. The shotgun is close enough for me to grab, but I don’t want it to go off in the struggle.

“I need a horse,” I say, figuring honesty is the best policy. “Several horses. We’re mounting a counterattack.”

“Who is
we
?” she says. “Get your hands up.”

I get them up and slowly step back.

The woman moves with me, stepping into the soft orange light from a distant fire. She’s wearing some kind of park uniform—I can’t tell what color it is—and a baseball cap over light-colored hair.

“You’re one of them,” she says flatly.

“I am. But I’m different. Otherwise you’d be dead.”

“Different how?” she asks.

“How long do you have?”

She doesn’t have much time, apparently. “Get moving and I won’t kill you right now. You’re not taking any of my food or any of my horses.”

She’s about to step back inside and shut the door, I know it. And then we’ll be stuck on foot.

My words come out in a tumble. “Please. Lady. I don’t know a single thing for certain, except that I don’t want our world to die the way it’s dying right now. I need your help. Please. Help me.”

What feels like a full minute passes. I exhale puffy clouds the color of chalk, and the woman does the same. The end of her shotgun barrel is dipping and swaying.

“The horses are all dead,” she says. “There’s just a foal I’m trying to keep alive. Along with myself.”

Then she lowers the shotgun. “But I have something better.” She steps back into the barn. “Come in.”

I do, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Everything stays black. I hear a match strike, and then see a painful burst of yellow to the right. The woman lights a candle.

“My name is Natalie. What’s yours?”

“Miranda North.”

“Nice to meet you. Come with me.”

I follow her past open stables, most of which are empty. Two have dead horses inside, their bodies frozen stiff on the colorless hay.

“The cold didn’t kill them,” Natalie says in a small, hard voice. “Their caretakers split when everything went to hell, and they had no water.”

“I’m sorry.” The sight turns my stomach, but a small, cynical voice inside me says at least they don’t have to suffer through the coming hours/days/weeks, because they’re already dead. We should all be so lucky.

“Don’t be. Now they don’t have to be miserable and overworked. They’ve gone to the big pasture in the sky, slaves no more.”

I’m already sad I have to leave Natalie behind.

We reach the end of the barn, where the foal is buried under a mound of blankets. A few candles are lit around it, carefully contained so as not to set the hay on fire.

Natalie opens the other side of the barn, revealing more dark trees and a large, dark mound. “I found it last night,” she continues. “It looks abandoned, but I don’t want to touch it. I’m afraid they’ll come back for it.”

“What is it?” My curiosity is piqued.

“Let your eyes adjust.”

I step outside and the flicker from the candles fades from my retinas. I can see an outline more clearly now against the trees. It’s just a few dozen feet away. The outline is a shape I already know well.

It’s one of True Earth’s Axes.

“Do you know how to use it?” Natalie asks me.

“No. But I can learn pretty fast.”

I walk closer to the Ax, and the details sharpen. It’s covered in a light dusting of snow.

“I don’t see many of them in the sky anymore,” Natalie says. “Before, they were flying overhead all the time.”

“That’s a good thing.”

“Okay, I did you a favor. And I didn’t blow your head off with my shotgun. So tell me what’s happening out there. I want to know what this is about.”

I turn to Natalie. “Some people don’t think we deserve to live. That’s all there is to it, really.”

“Ah. Well, screw ’em.”

“You shouldn’t stay here.”

She shrugs. “Got nowhere else to go. My building has no water, no heat. I’ve seen people on every street bringing in pots of snow to melt. Thank God for the snow.” I remember wishing they’d invaded during the summer, but the snow is saving lives. And I was concerned about comfort. “Maybe if you form this resistance of yours, I’ll come along.”

Gunfire booms in the distance, two shots, followed by a burst of crackling automatic fire. “Guess you better get on,” Natalie says. “I don’t have insurance on that thing, so be careful.”

She grins at me; I can just make out the glow of her smile.

I squeeze her hand. “The world is going to need people like you. Stay alive.”

She hefts the shotgun. “Doing my best.”

Natalie goes back into the barn and kneels next to the foal before sliding the door shut with her boot. I have a feeling I’ll never see her again.

To the south, a new source of light glows bright orange. An enormous fire.

And also my cue.

I step onto the front of the Ax, between the two vertical engines. The cockpit dome beeps, and a red light passes over my face. It beeps again, and the cockpit opens, sliding backward into the vehicle. There are benefits to having a face like mine.

I sit down in the left seat, behind the controls. There is a seat next to me, and two behind. Perfect. The Ax is set up much like the Thorn, actually. I grab the two control sticks, and the dashboard lights up with a gentle hum. The dome slides back in place, cutting me off from the deathly cold air. It’s so much warmer already I just want to sit here and enjoy it, but that’s not happening. I take another few minutes to look over the relatively simple controls. There are no foot pedals, and the two control sticks can be pushed or pulled in any direction, including up and down.

“Please work,” I say, then press the yellow button on the dash. The Ax starts up right away, all four engines spinning and glowing with soft yellow light. It lifts a foot off the ground, feeling perfectly stable. A map on the console glows a soft blue, showing all of Manhattan and most of Brooklyn. Two dots appear on the map—an Ax near Wall Street and one in Harlem.

Time to find out what the control sticks do. I pull up on them, and my stomach drops as the Ax shoots straight up, the engines rising in pitch. Suddenly I can see the fire clearly at the south end of the park next to the wreckage of the Time Warner Center.

I take a second, looking around in all directions.

The radio clicks, and a voice fills the cockpit. “State your number,” an Olivia says. The Ax in Harlem lights up on the map when she talks.

“M-96,” I say.

“Thank God,” the other Ax transmits—a Rhys. “Someone else gets left behind.” His tone is so much like my Rhys’s I actually smile. It dies on my face a second later.

“Can you believe it?” the Olivia says. “This must be our punishment for something.”

“Can’t believe it,” I say, which is actually true.

I don’t say anything else, and neither do they, so I just push both sticks forward slowly, and the Ax moves toward the camp. The next second I’m there, and I have to pull back on the sticks because I’ve overshot the fence. The floor of the Ax is transparent from the inside, so I can see the people scatter beneath me.

Once I’m in position on the right side of the fence, I descend, careful to avoid the trees around me. I stop a few feet off the ground, then push forward slowly, bumping up against the fence. There is a slight resistance, but then it screeches and folds over like a piece of paper.

What happens next happens fast. The prisoners don’t need to be told what to do. I back the Ax up, and soon the hole in the fence is filled with people. They flood through the opening, running as fast as they can. Many of them are immediately lost to darkness. My eyes skim over them, watching for a specific group. The soldiers will be together, maintaining order no matter what. I set the Ax down a safe distance away, then open the canopy. That’s when I see him.

“Kellogg!” I scream.

He turns toward me, then surrounds me with his men, the same way the street gang did just a little while ago.

I hold my hands up, palms out. “It’s me. It’s Miranda. I opened the gate.”

“I saw,” he says. “What’s your plan?”

“Get to safety. Form a resistance. Recover East.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Not right now. But we know East is in the Verge, and we need to get him. I was hoping you could help.”

“I think we can work something out. But first we get to safety like you said. We’ll take the tunnels north as far as we can to regroup.”

“What about spiders?” I say. Kellogg’s men are already moving out, filtering into the nearby trees. I don’t know how we’ll all stay together in the dark, but maybe it’s better that way.

“We’ll kill any we come across—there’s a cache of weapons nearby that will help us do exactly that. Help me recover them.”

“I’ll give you a ride,” I say, “but I need to find my people first.”

He nods, then moves toward the passenger seat of the Ax. The fire to the south is blazing now—a distraction caused by Peter, Sophia, and Noble—but I’m not sure how many Roses are left to distract. The world is free now, free to live or die by its own strengths. We just have to make sure it lives.

We take off as people are still leaving the camp, then fly into the Upper West Side, staying as low as possible. According to the map, the other two airborne Axes are still in the same general areas as before. Seeing me head north, the Rhys says, “Ninety-six, what are you doing? Did you get that last transmission about the fire?”

“Checking on it,” I say, hoping that buys me some time. I switch off the comm so they can’t hear me, then set the Ax down in our meeting location next to Lincoln Center, just to the north of what used to be the Time Warner Center.

The downward thrust from my forward left engine flips over one of those tiny cars that doesn’t seem like a car. “Oops.”

“Teenage drivers,” Kellogg says lightly. He scans the area, checking all around us for signs of movement. “We’re sitting ducks here. They’re going to see you aren’t checking on anything.”

“I’m not leaving my team. We’ll just have to hope they can’t leave their positions.”

“You are bold as brass,” he says.

“Is brass so bold?”

Kellogg sighs but says no more.

It takes ten minutes for my team to catch up. They approach with caution, using cars for cover.

“It’s me!” I call out. Once they see me with Kellogg, they break from cover and jog over.

“Nice ride,” Sophia says, actually smiling.

Peter grins at me too. “I call shotgun.”

Noble is all business. “The camp is clear. The Roses on the ground investigated the fire as planned, but they won’t be far behind now. We need to move.”

“Kellogg was telling me about a weapons cache not far from here,” I say.

Kellogg nods. “That’s right. Arming ourselves is priority.”

“We’ll need those, absolutely,” Noble says, walking toward the back of the Ax. “But these will help too.” He opens a panel in the back, revealing some kind of storage trunk. Inside six RAWs are neatly lined up. “As backups, these won’t be coded to any specific user’s armor.”

I hear a familiar sound right then—an Ax approaching—so I grab the first RAW and crank the knob up to ten. Then I point it at the sky. Two seconds later, the Ax swerves around a building at the fifth story, slowing to a hover.

The Rhys’s voice comes through a speaker. “Kneel and put your hands on top of—”

I fire the RAW, and the Ax explodes. One second it’s all there, the next it’s a giant ball of orange-black fire, sinking straight down to the street. One of the engines is still spinning, and it breaks loose, tumbling upward through somebody’s window. The rest of the Ax crashes to the ground.

Everyone else takes a RAW, including Kellogg, which leaves one left in the Ax.

“I’m going to regroup with my men at the cache,” Kellogg says. “After that we’ll move through the subway tunnels all the way north. I know my apartment in Washington Heights has generators, and the super will play it smart with the fuel. We fall back there and come up with a solid plan.”

“What about all the people we just set loose?” I say. “We can’t let them just wander in the cold.”

“That’s exactly what everyone else is doing. Many of them will go home. Once I’m with my men, we’ll corral anyone who wants to make the trip north. We’ll need more men than I have if we’re going to assault anything. And they’ll be safer with us.”

“Because the people were so safe at Penn Station,” Sophia says.

Kellogg’s lip twitches. “And whose fault was that? They knew where we were because of
you
.”

“Don’t blame all of us….” She stops herself, probably realizing I’m the only one to blame. She isn’t wrong. “Didn’t we just rescue you?”

“A rescue implies safety afterward,” Kellogg says. “Eight-oh-four West One hundred nintieth Street. It’s a hike. Be there.”

In the end, Noble and Sophia go with Kellogg to assist, and I go with Peter in the Ax. It sounds like a decent plan—the Ax will certainly come in handy—but all good feelings go out the window when I turn the thing on.