’Til the World Ends (13 page)

Chapter Two

I didn’t get one. For hours, I wandered those shafts on my hands and knees, unable to proceed along the mental course I’d charted. Too many changes had been made to the system since Stavros’s plans had been drawn up. So instead of going secretly to the target’s room, I had to do something insane. Fear didn’t begin to describe the chaos in my head as I went to work on the panel; I loosened the bolts from the back and then manually unscrewed them. If they had sensors to detect tampering—and they probably did—they’d discover the security breach in seconds. It was too small a window for me to find a place to hide and let the heat die down before I searched for the statuette the client wanted.

One problem at a time,
I told myself.

First I had to get out of the ventilation system. I cut my fingers on the last bolt. It was stubborn and stuck, slightly oxidized because nobody ever performed routine maintenance. That might be a metaphor for fortress life for all I knew, beautiful on the outside, but breaking down within. I angled the grille so I could pull it through the opening, then I laid it quietly behind me. Terror spiked my movements, making me fast as I flipped down from the ceiling.

I’d never been in a room like this, pristine, expensive furnishings and electricity. People from the Red Zone knew about such luxuries, of course, but we weren’t entitled to them. Unfortunately, there was a light flashing on the console that I took as an alarm; my father had told me stories about such things passed down from his grandfather. The Thistle family had been stealing for over three hundred years. I was just the latest in a long line of thieves, but if I didn’t get moving, I’d be the last.

In my black clothes and cracksman tool belt, the guards would make me as a thief immediately. I darted into the hall; fortunately, most private residences didn’t have a system that prevented people from
leaving
without authorization, though opening the door set off an audible alarm to match the discreet one.

My life just got so much worse.

I had no idea where I was inside the fortress, where the statuette lay from here. It seemed unlikely I’d ever find it; I had the habitation number, but the blueprints I’d seen hadn’t included the living quarters. For obvious reasons, fortress officials kept that information secure. They hadn’t been as careful with the specs for air quality design. As it turned out, there was a reason for that—the info Stavros acquired was years out of date. There was nothing I could do to change the bad break.

So I focused on staying alive.

In desperation, I ran down a random hallway. I was actually
inside
a fortress. Granted, I wouldn’t be for long, at least not in one piece, if security caught me. Their booted feet rang out behind me, closing in from all sides. I shoved open a door and emerged into a moonlight paradise. The garden was verdant with blooming plants—spiky fronds and crawling vines, delicate petals that shimmered in the ethereal light. And there were trees, actual trees, stretching up toward the sky. The ones we had in the Red Zone were gnarled and stunted. Many grew sideways like humpbacked monsters with rot riddling their bark. Our world was nothing—
nothing
—like this.

Awe didn’t still me for long.

I raced across the park and ignored my dread of what would happen if they caught me. We had stories, of course, all of them awful. But silence was worse. There were always whispers of people who went missing, no reason why. Maybe Al and Elodie would never know what became of me. They’d think I abandoned them. Sure, my sibs could be a pain in the ass, but I loved them. I’d never cut them loose to fend for themselves.

“Stop!”

Obviously I didn’t; I had enough self-control that I didn’t even turn, but one of the security squad had gotten within spotting distance. This couldn’t end well. Yet I didn’t give up. I dodged around a half-wall that enclosed some flowers. In the Red Zone, they only looked like this because they’d crumbled and fallen over, and there were no sweet-smelling blooms to scent the night air.

“Over here. Hurry!” a feminine voice called.

Barely breaking speed, I evaluated my options. She didn’t sound like someone who wanted to confine and/or kill me, so I wheeled in her direction. I had no idea who she was, but she pulled me into another hallway. The girl was around my age, slim and nondescript, and she didn’t let go of my arm. Instead, she towed me toward another doorway. I was smart enough not to dig in my heels and fight someone who appeared to be helping me. Questions could wait.

We stopped inside what looked like a locker room, probably designated for staff use. For the first time, I noticed her uniform, which meant she was a maid. I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy fetching and carrying for rich people; I might even hate it enough to prefer the Red Zone.

“Why did you help me? They could fire you. Or worse.” I had no idea how fortress managers handled staffing issues, but their draconian policies made me think they didn’t favor mediation.

“I owe Thorne a favor. You tell him we’re square now.”

“Who?”

Her face twisted with impatience. “He works for Stavros. Take this.” She pressed a card into my hand. “It will get you outside.”

“Won’t me using it get you in trouble?”

For the first time, she smiled. “No, but thanks for caring. I stole it from a girl I don’t like.”

“I didn’t realize staff ever left the fortresses.”

“Who do you think they send when they need someone to travel on a whim? Certainly nobody with membership privileges.” She shrugged.

Oh.
No wonder she didn’t mind sticking it to the authorities. They used her as if she was expendable, as if money made everything all right. Corporations had long since adopted that attitude; it hadn’t taken long for it to infest the whole world.

“Do you live in a big apartment like the one I broke into?”

She shook her head impatiently. “My sleeping area’s so small I have to lie down to fit inside it. What difference does it make?”

That was even worse than I’d imagined. “I was just curious. What’s your name?”

“Kyla. Now
go
. Or you’ll get us both killed.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll find a way to make this up to you somehow.”

“Thorne already did. Ask him anything you need to know.”

Who’s Thorne, anyway?
I didn’t remember meeting him, but I’d only been in Stavros’s HQ briefly, that one time. I turned then and hurried in the way she’d indicated. From behind me, I heard security shouting. They were nearby if they hadn’t entered the locker room yet. I hoped Kyla made herself scarce before they found her. But maybe uniformed maids all looked alike to the guards; it had been dark, and it wouldn’t be possible to tell one from another, even on camera. That was her best shot for eluding detection anyway. Whatever she owed this Thorne, it must have been big to take this risk repaying him.

The corridor became increasingly more industrial as I ran, until it terminated in a heavy-gauge steel door. Beside it was as an electronic lock I could never crack. Fortunately, I had the stolen passcard, which I used without a qualm. A green light came on, and the exit opened. They’d absolutely tie the other maid to the break-in, but that wasn’t my worry.

I stepped out into the smoky, unfiltered night air and realized in the next breath that my problems had just begun.

Chapter Three

Thorne was waiting.

Or I guessed it was Thorne because the man looked purposeful. In the faint light, I couldn’t tell much about his features, but he was fairly tall. Ass-kicking boots. He beckoned. “Stavros is expecting us.”

Yeah, he worked for the bossman, all right. But I didn’t have the statuette. I dodged and made a break for it. I was a fair distance from Snake Ward where I lived, but if I ran all night, I might make it home before dawn. I could collect the kids and we’d move. It would mean leaving everything behind—

Quick as I was, he was faster. In a few strides he snagged my shoulder and spun me around. “Don’t walk away from me.”

“I wasn’t walking,” I muttered.

Truth. I’d been moving at a dead run, and he’d still caught me. That stung.

He planted himself in front of me, offering an introduction but not his hand. “Thorne Goodman. Don’t let the name fool you.”

Oh, I wouldn’t. Anybody who worked as an enforcer for Stavros had coal for a heart and ice in his veins. I’d figure out how to slip his net later. “We should move. You have an escape plan?”

“This way.” Thorne led me to a classic moto with sleek, powerful lines, antique if I was any judge of such things. It had silvered panels affixed to the side; they glimmered in the moonlight. He swung himself aboard and beckoned. “Get on.”

I did. He had one helmet, which he gave to me. I strapped it on as he kicked the bike to life. I’d seen messengers riding these, usually from the fortresses. I’d assumed they must be important or they wouldn’t be trusted with such expensive equipment. Though, if anything happened to a messenger, fortress authorities probably cared more about retrieval of property.

“Anything I should know about riding this thing?” I asked, as the heavy door in the side of the stronghold crashed open behind us.

He gunned the throttle. “Hold on, lean with the turns and don’t fall off.”

There was no chance to ask what he meant about leaning. I locked my arms around his waist and pressed against his back, more intimacy than I’d shared with anyone except my sibs for longer than I could recall. There had been a few guys passing through, but I came with a built-in family. Life was hard enough for one person in the Red Zone, and Snake Ward was worse than most.

Shots rang out. Bullets hit the ground behind us, throwing sparks, and I strangled a scream. I’d seen a few guns in my time, but bullets were strictly controlled. So on my block, people used old revolvers for pistol-whipping each other. There were a few geezers who knew the recipe for gunpowder, but casings required a blacksmith, and nobody could find the right chemicals or the equipment to process them. It was simpler to bludgeon and stab each other.

“Halt!” a guard shouted.

An automated tone came from the fortress itself. “Mandatory incarceration results from encroachment on Erinvale property. Yamaguchi Corporation offers a bounty on felons.”

The tires screamed as Thorne slung us around a curve. He ignored the shouting guards and the fortress security AI. Until now, those had just been tales to scare little children. In childhood, I’d heard that computers ran the fortress systems, monitoring population and allotting resources with greater efficiency than humans could muster.
How long before that goes terribly wrong?

If it hasn’t already.

We zoomed along, leaving the security detail behind. The wind felt fantastic, not clean but fierce, and I loved every moment of this breakneck race, even if it might end in fiery death. In my normal life, I tried not to take risks. Could never forget that I belonged to my sibs as much as to myself.

I called, “If there’s a computer running things, how come it didn’t notice me as soon as I came in?”

“Do you know each time a new bacteria enters your system?” He pitched his voice to carry.

“What’s bacteria?” I put my chin on his shoulder so I didn’t have to yell. That, too, felt intimate, as if I was doing something more reckless than riding on a stranger’s bike.

“A microorganism living in your body that you don’t notice unless it makes you sick.”

Okay, that was
horrible
. I wished I didn’t know that. But I got the correlation. “You mean like when I set off the alarm coming from the ducts into the habitations.”

“Exactly.”

“How come the whole place didn’t go into lockdown?”

“That would bother the residents. The AI tried to determine the threat level and how to trap you without inconveniencing anyone.”

I laughed at that. “It failed.”

“Because it didn’t calculate bribery. It’s an exploitable AI limitation.”

“You mean Kyla?”

“Precisely,” he answered. “The AI can’t factor for favors owed or improbable risks.”

Some distance alongside the fortress, another door opened, and a trio of vehicles emerged, nothing I’d ever seen, half car, half motorcycle, with a cockpit for one. They’d have weapons and targeting systems. I hoped Thorne was a good driver. I tightened my arms on him as he swerved, and the first boom rushed past us, striking the rutted road in a corona of cinnabar sparks.

“Relax,” he called. “This bike can go places the cruisers can’t.”

There was nothing for it but to trust him and hang on, as he’d instructed. The shots came in hard and fast, but he dodged them, driving us through smoke and burning pavement that I thought should melt our tires. Certainly a hot rubber smell laced our flight as we hurtled forward. We sped out of Erinvale territory, and still the cruisers gave chase. They must have had orders not to come back inside until the intruders were dead. A lesson had to be handed down, so they fired again. Again. More explosions rocked the ground, so the moto shuddered, but he controlled it—and we didn’t wipe out. I banished the mental image of my battered body skidding over the asphalt.

A hundred yards off, I spied a broken bridge with girders hanging like snaggle-teeth over the stinking river. At night, I could imagine it was clear and clean, not green-tinged and faintly smoking. The runoff from Factory Ward came straight our way, and there was no agency to make companies clean it up. So acid in the water would probably eat a body faster than the creatures that managed to survive in there. I’d heard there were three-eyed fish and things with tentacles, but if you liked your life, you didn’t go down to find out after dark.

Thorne gunned the throttle. The moto growled a response, rocketing toward empty space.
Oh, no. He’s going for it.
I didn’t see how the bike could make the jump with two of us on board.

“Are you crazy?” I shouted.

We went airborne.

Chapter Four

Sailing across the abyss with dark water and rocks below felt...indescribable. A powerful cocktail, terror and exhilaration, fizzed in my veins. I closed my eyes, unable to watch us die. The moto hit the ground, bounced and slung sideways; Thorne leaned, negotiated with the bike, which wobbled, but he righted it and took off. Guards fired a few more rounds, but they couldn’t hit us from this distance, and they wouldn’t pursue us into the Red Zone. Outsiders were robbed and murdered within seconds if they couldn’t call on a local for protection.

Still shaking from the insane getaway, I leaned my forehead against his back. It didn’t matter that he was a complete stranger. In some ways, that made it easier. I wouldn’t see him after tonight, so it didn’t matter if he thought I was weak.

You might not see
anyone
after tonight. Dammit.
I’d forgotten about Stavros, the guy who would cut off my hands and watch me bleed out for failing to steal the statuette.
And this guy works for him.
For a few seconds I pondered flinging myself off the moto, but we were moving fast enough that I thought landing might hurt me as bad as the bossman. This day just kept getting better.

“What time is it?” I asked in Thorne’s ear.

“Why?”

“I want to know how long I have left to live.”

“It’s 11:14.” He didn’t bullshit about the dire nature of my situation—and for that I accorded him respect.

Not that I liked him any better for delivering me to my executioner. It made his rescue seem pointless; he could’ve left me to die in the hands of fortress security, but, no, Stavros couldn’t let that happen. Like everyone else, he had to make a statement.
This is what happens to people who fail me.

“You could take me home,” I tried. “It’s on the way.”

“Not a good idea.”

From his perspective, maybe, but from mine, it was my only play. I had to get away from him somehow, double back to the house and grab my sibs. They had convinced me they didn’t need to stay with anyone for a one-night job, and they had been alone for hours already. Fear tightened into a hard core in the pit of my stomach. I had been in some tough spots, but this qualified as the worst. The bike zoomed along, carrying us deeper into Snake Ward. Here, the air smelled of industrial fumes and garbage, not flower petals. Two fires were burning, and as we rode by, I saw four muggings and a girl being dragged toward an alley. I recognized most of the thugs as working for Stavros, who offered beatings, extortion and terror as part of his regime.

Home, sweet home.

“He’s going to kill me.” I didn’t imagine Thorne cared.

“I know,” he answered. “That’s why going to your place would be suicidal. You have to lay low until I figure something out.”

Did that mean what I thought it did? People didn’t just...save me. Ever.

“You’re throwing in with me...why? What do you want in return?”

“We’ll talk about that later.”

“Forget it. I don’t make deals without knowing the terms. I’ll take my chances with Stavros.” That was pure bluff. Even if I didn’t know what this guy wanted, it couldn’t be worse than death. Not worse than breaking my promise to my mother and leaving the kids. Somehow, I’d cope, even if he wanted me to break into another fortress.

’Cause, yeah, that went
so
well this time.

“You think you’re in a position to negotiate?”

He had me there. “Look, we
have
to swing by the house. If we don’t, I’m getting off this bike, whether you stop it or not.”

“What’s so important there?”

Here, I risked everything, but what the hell. I had nothing left to lose. My throat tightened as I confided my deepest secret to a stranger. “My brother and sister.”

He swore, then asked, “If you have dependents, why’d you get mixed up with Stavros?”

“He doesn’t exactly give people a choice.” That much was true.

“Fine. Tell me where you live.”

I gave the directions, hardly daring to believe my luck. There had to be a fly in the ointment, but I couldn’t afford to argue. Not now. To my delight, Thorne wasn’t such a good dog, after all. Apparently he was about to bite the hand that fed him. Whatever he had in mind, it should end better for me than severed limbs and slow death, which meant I was all-in.

He changed course, aiming us down a garbage-choked alley, where two of Stavros’s goons were beating the crap out of an old man. His piteous cries rang over the purr of the moto. Part of me wanted to stop—to save him—but I squashed it. Al and Elodie had first claim to any heroics I mustered up tonight.

“Do you have somewhere to stash them?” Thorne asked.

“Yes.”

After that, he drove in silence; we drew attention as few people could afford fuel or a vehicle anymore. Poverty trapped us in the wards we were born in. Nobody moved farther than they could walk these days, and when you had to carry everything you owned, it was a nightmarish prospect. Which indicated just how scared I had been, considering it with my sibs in tow.

As he pulled up in front of my house, I asked, “Why are you doing this?”

“If I walk in and kill Stavros for no apparent reason, I have to fight everyone who’s loyal to him,” Thorne replied. “If I save you from him, I get to say he’s gone too far.”

“I’m the justification,” I realized aloud.
Excuse, really.

I let that go for the moment as I swung off the bike, anxious to check on Al and Elodie. My neighbors were watching, and one of them came out, just to his doorway to limit his exposure. Edgar was around forty with salt-and-pepper hair and a rangy build. He rarely talked to people, but he liked me for some reason. We weren’t close, but he’d said that he admired how I looked out for Al and Elodie. As a result, he kept an eye on my property, and I watched out for his when he went to market. He was also fairly skilled with mechanical solutions, like rigging a gravity shower or a filtration system using scavenged components.

He lifted a hand in greeting; his gaze flicked to Thorne. “Everything all right, Mari?”

“All clear,” I said. “Any movement tonight?”

Ed shook his head. “Few of Stavros’s thugs were prowling around earlier, looking for trouble, but nobody came near your place. They know better.”

Unlike many, we lived in an actual house, an old one, granted, but our family owned the land—not that such claims mattered outside the fortresses. People took what they wanted, and if you couldn’t defend your property, you lost it. With a nod of farewell to my neighbor, I unlatched the front gate. I wasn’t the best fighter, but I had this place rigged with traps until it was impossible to go a foot without getting snared, strangled, impaled or beheaded. I led the way through the makeshift minefield, checking my triggers.

It all looked good. As Edgar had said, no trespassers tonight. There had been a few dead ones in our perimeter over the years, but they’d learned to avoid my territory. Thorne wheeled the bike along with us.
Smart.
I disarmed the front door and then opened it. Light fell across us in a diagonal swath. The solar lamps were on, shining from the windows; those had been my best find in the massive dump the locals dubbed Junkland. They were the kind someone had used in their garden once. If we put them on the roof during the day to charge, they provided enough brightness, along with the candles, so that we weren’t squatting in the dark like frightened mice, waiting for the light to return.

“Will his people believe you give a damn about me?” Deliberately, I blocked Thorne from coming inside. He was bigger than me. Faster. Those qualities wouldn’t help him on my home turf, if he was playing me to snag the kids on Stavros’s orders. He’d get to them over my dead body.

He shrugged. “Does that signify?”

“It does if you don’t want to fight the others, anyway.”

At that, he nodded. “You make a good point. And, yes, I can convince them you matter.”

For a few seconds, I wished I did...because in that moment, I caught my first real glimpse of Thorne Goodman. He turned from parking the bike, sable hair tousled from the ride. His features were lean and sharp, like an old steel skyscraper. A few of them were still standing in Snake Ward, though they were missing windowpanes high up; I’d known people to go scavenging up inside, only to be blown out from fifty stories, because unsealed, those places were like a wind tunnel. Looking at him made me feel like that, at risk and breathless. A silvery scar etched down his cheek, toyed with the line of his mouth. If I had to guess, I’d say knife fight; the attacker had nearly taken his left eye. His eyes gleamed with the same silver as the moon. He wasn’t handsome, but he was compelling in the way of alkali flats, a haunting reminder and a dangerous trap for the unwary.

“The other guy’s dead,” he said.

In fact, I wasn’t studying his scar, but his mouth.
Dammit
. I didn’t have the freedom to be fascinated by someone who might double-cross or kill me. Or both. On a bad day, it was definitely both...and today qualified.

“I’m not surprised.”

“What did Stavros send you to steal?” The question seemed random, but I could tell by his expression that it wasn’t.

“A little figurine. He said it would be in a brown case. Why?”

Thorne pushed out a long breath. “I’m glad you didn’t know.”

“Know
what?
” Poised in my own doorway, I felt a frisson of fear.

“He marked your block for annihilation, Mari. You weren’t stealing a little statue. Inside that case, there were chemicals, the last component he needed for the bomb he’s building. He’s decided to wipe this part of Snake Ward off the map.”