The Neo-Spartans: Altered World (20 page)

              “I didn’t say sixty…” protested Nico.

              “I know. You might not care when you die, but I’ve seen you care when other people die, so I figured my presence upped our chances of survival by another ten percent. Besides, you’ve done this with two people before, right?”

              “All the calculations are precise. We backed up an additional forty yards, we’ll increase our speed by thirty miles an hour and we’ll be good to go. Hop on.”

              “You didn’t answer my question,” she said as she got on behind him. “You’ve done this before…?”

              He turned and grinned at her. “Whattaya nuts?” He revved the engine to life. Nico knew she was right. He’d go to hell and back before he’d allow something to happen to her. The shock and power of this new realization flooded his head and put him in the zone. He was going to fly over this canyon. He gunned the bike, it belched and backfired, and it shot down the ramp like a devil on fire. The noise and vibration scattered all of Quinn’s fears in the dust, and only pure excitement remained when the bike soared beyond the point of no return. She dug her fingers into his midsection and glued herself to his back, her heart beating like a hummingbird. She felt the warmth of the wind, she felt the heat in her cheeks that her rushing blood delivered, and she felt alive as she had never felt before. She was flying, she had abandoned all control over her own life and had entrusted it into the hands of this young man, and she wasn’t scared. She was thrilled. She looked down for a second and marveled at the stark beauty of the canyon—it wasn’t the gaping maw of death anymore, it was a majestic stroke of nature that left her breathless.

              The bike completed its graceful arc over the jagged canyon and landed on the other side amidst a cloud of dust and the loud cheers of the gang. It spun to a stop and Quinn and Nico jumped off. Quinn’s feet were on the ground but she was still flying. It was a joyous moment she didn’t want to end. She saw Nico’s face flushed with excitement and felt filled to the brim with something that she thought was joy and gratefulness, but it was more than that. She could not contain it inside her or she would burst. She threw herself into his arms and pressed her lips against his. She didn’t know what she was doing, she just felt she had to do it. And when Nico responded, she was flying for the second time. The whistles of the gang finally brought her back to reality and she realized she had carried on the celebratory kiss a bit too long. They quickly broke apart, the awkward moment hanging in-between like unsettled dust. It was a relief when the gang, riding high the wave of joy, whisked them away to continue the celebrations back home.

              Dusk was settling over the Sanctuary. The marketplace was still busy. Owners were closing stalls and Bangers were milling outside of the cheap bars and taverns that rimmed the square. At one of them, the Vaqueros were lost in raucous celebration. As soon as the first couple of drinks had worked their effects on them, and the boys had stopped paying attention to Quinn, she made her exit and settled on the high stone steps in front of the tavern. She felt drained after all the excitement of the day and needed some peace and quiet. Things were changing, inside of her and outside, and she had to sort them out. Her eyes roamed around the market place. The setting sun had splashed its palette over the scattered stalls and clustered buildings. It felt bizarrely warm and comforting. People kept coming and going, vendors pushed their wheeled stands, sometimes running into pedestrians who’d curse and yell, and suddenly a motorcycle would buzz in and out of a narrow alley making everybody get out of its way. It was busy and chaotic but there was a soothing rhythm in it that mesmerized Quinn. Her trance-like state was interrupted when Nico joined her on the steps. He sat down and took in what she was looking at.

              “Enjoying the Sanctuary sights?”

              “It’s nice, even pretty in a strange way. For a moment there I felt like I was on vacation.”

              Nico studied her face, so calm and glowing with the setting sun.

              “Well, in a way it is. Vacation from everything that’s out there. Beyond the wall.”

              “You mean an escape,” Quinn added.

              “Call it what you want. Vacation, escape, maybe even real life… who’s to say what’s right? What matters is how it feels to you.”

              There was lightness in Nico’s voice that surprised even him. Something felt good tonight and he decided to go with its flow.

              “So far it feels pretty good,” Quinn smiled at Nico.

              “I’m glad. You had a rough start.”

              “Don’t we all at the beginning?” Quinn wasn’t asking, she was simply skirting the Tyra issue. A brief silence followed, but it didn’t feel awkward this time. They both soaked up the warm vibes of the early evening and for the first time in a very long time Nico had the chance to kick back his heels and enjoy a moment of leisure. He looked at Quinn and felt comfortable, relaxed. He forgot he was a gang leader with all the baggage that came with that job title. He was Nico again. Just Nico. And somehow she made him feel the need to tell her about that self. They watched the activity in the square and the words rolled off of his mouth, stringing together his story.

              He did have a rough start when he came here three years ago. He had lost his little brother and the parents were gone soon after that. He was an angry young man who didn’t care one single bit what happened to him, or anybody else for that matter. He was done with his old life and had made his way to the Sanctuary.

              “I was looking for trouble of any kind,” he chuckled at the memory. “The crazier, the better. I was trying to escape, but I couldn’t. ’cause it wasn’t my way of life I was trying to escape—it was my rage. Good luck running away from that. You don’t harness it, hell, it’s gonna chase you like a rabid dog all your life.”

              His words struck a chord in Quinn.

              “Wise words,” Quinn whispered, more to herself but he heard her.

              “It’s amazing how fast you grow up in the Sanctuary. We all act like crazy children here, but we learn stuff that’ll take you a lifetime outside these walls.”

              “So rage made you a leader?” Quinn asked.

              “No. Rage got me into fights and trouble and I quickly realized that if I wanted to survive in this wilderness—’cause that’s what the Sanctuary is, a bunch of crazed animals that run on fear and instinct—I better turn into a predator, you know, like a wolf. But not a lone wolf, a wolf with a pack. Fighting was my thing, so, first I found one guy who was weaker than me and less crazy and took him in. Then another one. And another one. We started picking fights, people bet on us, we collected the money and… never went hungry after that. We found our niche. Then things changed. More and more guys started coming to me. I started training them, started making the fights interesting, you know, put a bit of a show in them. Next thing I know we’re in the big game. And I woke up one day with this prickly thought that I’m not just bossing a bunch of thuggish boys, I’m responsible for them. They were all happy and high on hope when they fought. They felt they had control. If you win a fight against a tough opponent, hey, maybe you had a chance at winning the fight against your rotting organs. But the high would wear off and hope would go up in smoke and the only thing left would be their depression. And I had to do something about it. Keep the excitement going, stoke up their hope again.”

              “So you put them on a strict regimen of fighting and near death experiences? I gotta say you have an unusual approach to leadership,” Quinn teased, keeping the mood light, but she felt a great respect for Nico. The only other man she knew who cared so much and gave himself away to others was Kilbert.

              “I have no choice. Fear is the perfect fuel for aggression. If you don’t keep their fear at bay with constant diversion they’ll self-combust and the whole Sanctuary will go up in flames.”

              “What about you? You don’t seem to be scared, or you don’t allow yourself to be?” Quinn had turned to him and was studying his determined jaw. Her mind wandered off as the vague memory of her father pushed itself to the surface. She wondered if that’s exactly what was driving him—the notion that he was not allowed to be scared, not allowed to put himself first, to be selfish. No. Taking care of her and Gabriel was not selfish. Quinn ran away from the thought as fast as possible. She realized that Nico was studying her now. He had that look of somebody who had encountered a rare animal… a creature curious and lost, but somehow trusting that nature had nothing but good intentions for it. She felt an urge to open up, to come clean, to share everything about herself as he had done.

              “I don’t know, you tell me. You don’t seem to obsess about our imminent end either,” said Nico.

              Nico’s voice brought her back to reality, and she had to bite her lip hard to prevent the gush of honesty from cascading out of her mouth. “Maybe I’m just different,” she smiled enigmatically.

              “You sure are.”

              Nico watched her struggle with some sort of inner dilemma but decided not to push it. He liked the enigma. He liked that there was more to Quinn than met the eye. Besides, whatever she was fighting on the inside seemed to cause her more pain than he ever wanted to see her experience. He draped his arm across her shoulders and they sat in silence and watched the marketplace square sink into the evening indigo.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

              So this was death. Everything everyone always thought Gabriel would live down to, he’d finally achieved, or under-achieved. Especially Quinn. He hated her so much right now. Gabriel lay on his bed in the fetal position in his glassed-in cell.

              The last several days played over and over again in his addled mind. Being wheeled around on a gurney from station to station. Being probed and poked and prodded. And witnessing the Neo-Spartans, like him, also strapped onto gurneys, being carted around like so much excess luggage, seeing the words on the charts accompanying each of them—liver, kidney, pancreas, and finally understanding that Dr. Mallory’s earlier assessment of him was not merely a physical: it was a mining expedition. He wasn’t interested in the Neo-Spartans’ health. Smooth kidneys, strong hearts, good liver function.

              What Dr. Mallory wanted was the Neo-Spartans’ organs. What for? Who knew? All he knew is that his organs would be in somebody else and he wouldn’t be around to know or care.

              “He was always reckless,” Quinn would be saying someday soon. “He never thought of the consequences… and everyone was affected. Our mother. Our father…” Sure, Quinn had said this wasn’t his fault, and maybe she’d been sincere, but deep down she had to blame him. How couldn’t she? She’d lost both her parents and got saddled with a brother with nothing but a stupid gift.

              Man, he hated Quinn right then. He rolled over onto his other side. Still in the fetal position. And yet something deep within him had started stirring. An infinitesimal vibration drowned out by the youthful anger pounding through his brain. “Worse yet,” she’d say, “he never seemed to care. No matter how I protected him there was no way to keep up with his antics. No way to preserve his stinking gift.” Suddenly the Quinn voice ceased its endless drone. He realized… that wasn’t Quinn’s voice, it was his own voice, his own self-pity that he was hearing. He stopped and replayed it. Stinking gift. Gift… gift!

              His limbs loosened and he unbent his body. A thought shot through him and made his body go straight. Yes, he had a gift. And if he was clever enough he could silence the doubt and fear that bugged him. But first, he needed to get to where they kept the food. He got to his feet and looked around. He inspected the door. It was one of those sliding closed all-digital numbers, not something he’d be able to manage. He kicked at the door hard. It hurt. He jumped around on one foot and fell back on the bed, eyes closed and cursing. But suddenly his eyes popped open and he realized what he’d seen while falling backwards. There was a sliver of light coming through the seams of the ceiling panels. How could light penetrate the ceiling, unless…? He set the back of the hospital bed upright, leapt atop it and shot his fist through the panel. It flew aside and he sprang through the opening like a squirrel shooting up a tree. Over his ceiling was a wide open crawl space; when the Citadel had been refurbished nobody had bothered to fill in the vast empty overhead. The cells were pre-fab and just dropped into place.

              Voices coming from below abruptly got his attention. He dropped straight down, caught the uprighted bed on the way and fell into it in one move as if he’d never left it, just as a couple of doctors passed by, carrying on a vociferous argument. As their footfalls passed out of earshot Gabriel leapt onto the bed, and trampolined his way through the open ceiling panel. He looked around. Let’s see, where would they have put the pantry? This time he employed a gift most people shared: his nose.