Love, Death, Robots, and Zombies Read online

  Chapter 3.

  Farmington was lucky enough to escape major damage from the Big One, along with the aftershocks and the ensuing chaos of the Fall. The population itself was not so lucky, having been mostly wiped out by the Synth-Z plague.

  My grandmother’s grandfather had been a child at that time, and his family had run a small market in the village. As the climate changed, the crops failed. Most farmers could barely feed their own. When my grandfather wandered in from his travels with all kinds of oddities and electronics, he converted my family’s ailing market into a ‘tronics-heavy general store. That was the store I grew up in.

  I never knew my father. He’d been born in Farmington and spent a reluctant life there. When my mother was four months pregnant, he’d found a rare treasure of Old America. He’d known he could get the best price for it in Cove, though my mother had later said that was just an excuse to make the journey. He’d had a piece of his own father in him, the wandering piece, and it’s god-awful hard to stay trapped in one small village when you have the soul of a wanderer.

  The problem was he never wandered back. Illness? Bandits? Wild animals? No idea. My mother was adamant that he hadn’t intentionally abandoned us. They really did love each other, I guess. Or she loved him, at least.

  My mother herself caught the Wheezing Sickness and passed away when I was seven. Even before that, I was mostly raised by my grandfather, Bacchus. Often I’d fall asleep on the bench in the back our family’s store after experimenting with some new piece of equipment. My grandfather knew a dozen ways to make batteries. He also made generators, sparkers, electrical components, small bots, and some pretty efficient solar cells.

  There were only a handful of other kids in Farmginton. My three best friends were Berkley, Crispin, and Annabel. Berkley was the most daring of us and the best at fighting. Crispin was smart but often sickly and overly cautious. Annabel Lee was–well, the girl. The only girl we played with. Named after some old poem, she was gentle, often quiet, and didn’t like to play the rougher games, but she was a fast runner and an essential part of our group, and sometimes she could be as daring as Berkley.

  Although I never thought much about it, she did seek me out more than the others. Even back then, I was kind of a loner. I loved my friends, but my favorite activity was ranging. I’d spend the whole day combing through abandoned houses in the desert, searching for oddities to bring back to my grandfather. On many of those trips, I returned at dusk to find Annabel waiting on the edge of town.

  Her parents had forbidden her to leave Farmington, but she liked to see what I’d found, so often I’d pick something up for her. Once, I found a peculiar necklace, chain-linked steel with a black jewel in the shape of a heart, set in a silver circle. It wasn’t anything valuable, but I knew it was the kind of thing girls like, and what else was I going to do with it? I gave it to her. Her face lit up like it was gold. That was one of the last trips I made before the raiders came.

  The funny part is–can you call it funny?–Rodrick’s Raiders were the lesser evil. Villages like ours weren’t worth the trouble. Sometimes they even traded with us. Mostly they waylaid rich caravans leaving bigger city-states–like Cove.

  Apparently Rodrick had made himself too much of a nuisance, however, or perhaps some Coven politician had wanted to prove a point. One day the whole band of raiders showed up in town, retreating east in a hurry. Some were injured and all were hungry and armed. What else could we do? We fed them and boarded them and treated the injured, not because we wanted to, but because to refuse point-blank would’ve been suicide. The goal was to give them what supplies we could afford in the hope that they’d move on quickly and not burn the farms on the way out.

  The army from Cove didn’t see it that way. Rodrick’s Raiders had moved on by then, but a few of their injured had stayed behind and tried to hide. They failed. Worse yet, the raiders had been eating all the food ahead of the army and laying traps along the road. So into our village came a maimed, half-starved, angry group of armed men. Do I have to spell out the rest? We were aiding the enemy–what did they care for our reasons? There was too much fuel for a fire, both literally and figuratively.

  I escaped the desolation. My grandfather and most of the others did not. Those that lived probably fled to Cove or starved in the wastes. I couldn’t find anyone to shelter with, so I didn’t stick around to find out. The one thing I can say is that I did find Lectric in the ruins of my grandfather’s store. He’d been looking for me there, curiously unharmed. Together we headed northeast, and I found the rats under the Library. With meat and water and the tricks I’d learned from my grandfather, I didn’t starve to death–but it was a close thing for a time, I’ll say that much.

  I was sure all my friends were dead. I mean, Cove’s bastard of a commander had herded everyone together for questioning and speech-making before the violence began. Pretty sure I saw Crispin trampled by a horse soon thereafter. Things were moving fast, and it’s all a bit hazy, but I have that undeniable image in my head. Berkley and Annabel–well, Berkley was certainly too brave to live, and when I couldn’t find Annabel in the remains of the village, I knew she was dead too.

  Except I was wrong.

  Because the girl sitting in my bed is wearing Annabel’s face–plus a scar and sad eyes and three years of hard living–and turning in her hand is the very necklace I gave her, with the black heart in the silver circle.

  Echo is Annabel. I make some kind of strangled coughing sound which is actually an attempt to say her name, but she sinks back into the bed, hiding her face from view. My first instinct is to yell her name, but this sleepy pre-dawn revelation is so bewildering that I can only stare–and why didn’t she already talk to me?

  Maybe she doesn’t recognize me. I’m taller than I was. I’ve had to start shaving too. Yet she must know. Is it really Annabel? Maybe I’m seeing things. Her face is hidden now. But that was the necklace–it has to be her.

  Ballard returns from morning watch and wakes Finnigan to hunt.

  “Hey Tristan, what the hell do you eat around here? Circuit boards?” Ballard asks.

  “Rats,” I say.

  “Nice. Care to show Fin where to find some?”

  I don’t, but I’m hungry, so Ballard un-cuffs me, and I reset the traps in the basement. I’ll never tell them about my hidden garden though. In three hours, we catch two small rats, mostly skin and bone. Then Fin heads out and comes back with a desert fox. Ballard shares some of the meat with me.

  It’s hard not to stare at Echo/Annabel while we eat. She avoids looking at me too. Now and then she glances my way, however, and in that glance is recognition. It has to be her. Still, she says nothing. Cabal doesn’t say much either. He eyes Echo/Annabel. He’s loyal to Ballard, but I sense a petty cruelty beneath the veneer of civility.

  Slowly, very slowly, the day passes.

  Foundry’s army is a few days south. The funny part is: I hate Cove, and if given a choice I might consider joining a cause against them … but I doubt Foundry is any better, and the attempt at coercion only ensures my antipathy. Really, I just want to be left alone–but what can I do? Then Ballard says something during dinner.

  “… and after Rodrick’s Raiders broke up, we headed south.”

  The words stab my brain. A small fire is going and we’re finishing the fox. I swallow hard and choke out a question.

  “Rodrick’s Raiders?”

  “Hmm? Yeah. We used to scout for them–me and Cabal. That’s where we met Fin too. Cove caught up with Rodrick and hanged him, I hear. But it was easy living for a span. Something wrong, Tristan?”

  My face is a terrible mask. I can’t soften it.

  “Hurt my tooth,” I mutter, and chew the end of a bone for distraction. It takes everything not to look at Annabel. One look and it will all spill out. She’s been running around with scouts from the same group that started the trouble in
Farmington? I grind the bone to bits between my teeth. The splinters stab into my gums. The blood tastes like warm copper. I’ll think of her as Echo, not Annabel. Annabel is dead.

  “Mmm, yeah, this fox was more dead than alive,” Ballard says. “Hard to believe you survived in this shithole. You’ll do fine in the army, man.”

  You think so, do you? I’m going to mount your head outside the Library. But no, I’m a coward, and I don’t know how to overcome three armed enemies. Or four. Whose side would Echo take?

  That night, I’m cuffed to the railing again. This part isn’t particularly discourteous. It’s a wasteland law: don’t trust anyone who hasn’t already died for you. But Rodrick’s Raiders–I do take offense to that, even if it was men from Cove who burned my village.

  What little sleep I manage is filled with confused nightmares. Farmington burns again, but I’m cuffed to the bench inside my family’s store. Echo is there, but she’s also someone else. Her shirt is torn to reveal one breast, and she lights me on fire as she tells me everything will be fine. Meanwhile, out in the desert, Foundry’s army draws a little closer.

  There are no rats the next day. No foxes either. My tomatoes are in the garden, but I’ll be damned if my captors get a single bite, even if I have to starve with them. It’s a miserable day. Ballard takes Echo and Fin into the ruins, either to hunt or scavenge, which leaves me alone with Cabal. My right wrist is still cuffed to the railing, since they saw no reason it should be otherwise. Cabal spends the time throwing a large knife at a spot on the wall. He’s disturbingly accurate, even after he starts sipping from a flask. When he’s tipsy, he comes over to talk.

  “I know what you are,” he says, smiling, pointing the knife lazily in my direction.

  Lectric gives a low growl. I say nothing.

  “Ballard thinks Foundry can use you,” Cabal says. “But the army can’t use deserters. And that’s what you are. I see it in your eyes. You’ll run the first chance you get.”

  Still I say nothing. Cabal notices Lectric growling and barks like a maniac, following this up with a bout of girlish laughter. Lectric whimpers.

  “You know, I caught a deserter once,” he says confidentially, then gets up and walks away, leaving me to wonder what happened. Ballard and Echo soon return. Fin is still out. Ballard has picked up some broken tech but is otherwise empty-handed.

  “Dry as a bone, this city. Be leaving tomorrow, at least,” he says, flopping onto the bed. He drops the piece of old tech on the floor next to his travel pack–next to the keys to my cuffs.

  Echo sits demurely on the bed and stares at the floor until Ballard pulls her down. She curls up sideways, facing away from him. I can see her face at an angle. Ballard’s hands roam her body. Is it just my imagination or is she enduring, rather than enjoying?

  Slowly, Echo’s eyes drag toward mine. She flinches away briefly but then locks on and stares at me. Her expression is masked, yet her eyes grow watery. Her left hand slowly tightens, clenching the blanket in a white-knuckled grip. Ballard’s hand lifts the bottom of her shirt. A tear escapes her eye. She makes no sound.

  Finnigan bursts into the Library.

  “Something’s coming down the road to the east. I think it’s a roamer,” he says.

  “You’re shitting me!” Cabal says, retrieving his knife from the wall.

  “This far? You sure, Fin?” Ballard asks.

  “Nope. Could just be some wandering lunatic. Gotta get closer to see.”

  Roamers are rare in these parts. So rare that I’ve never actually seen one. A few came close to Farmington once, but all I saw were the burnt remains. If Fin is right, I’m guessing this one trailed Toyota all the way from the z-line.

  “Check it out and let us know,” Ballard says.

  “I’m coming too,” Cabal says, unsheathing his scimitar. “Finally, a little fun.”

  And they’re gone.

  In their absence, Ballard’s exploration of Echo’s body becomes more pointed. I might as well be a painting on the wall. Echo resumes staring at me, however. My face feels hot. There’s an electric tension in the air. Ballard buries his face in her neck. She does nothing to stop him. She does nothing to encourage him. She might as well be a living doll–except for her clenched hand and the tears in her eyes, which he’s too preoccupied to notice.

  I can’t stand watching her, knowing she’s lying next to one of Rodrick’s Raiders. Knowing she knows it. How can she do this? That’s Annabel, for Crom’s sake. That’s the necklace I gave her. How did we get here?

  I see them both: the girl with the shining eyes and blowing hair, the girl with the scarred cheek and cold expression. Every silent caress of her unresisting body is more appalling than the last. It’s an insult to me, to her, to the ashes of our village. My face has hardened into something terrible. A demon’s hatred shines from my eyes. One look at either of us would stop Ballard in his tracks, but he can’t spare the attention. His lust absorbs him completely.

  Slowly, deliberately, Echo turns her body more toward him. Her eyes stay on me. There’s some hidden purpose in her silent gaze. Her right leg comes down over the side of the bed. Her bare foot lands on the floor beside Ballard’s pack … right on top of the keys. My eyebrows go up. She caresses his hair and pulls his head against her neck.

  He shifts on top of her, his face hidden from me. Encouraged, he’s writhing against her now, lifting her shirt higher. Her body responds, yet her face is as barren as a statue–all except the eyes. He kisses her stomach, her navel; he’s moaning softly in desire, and then in one calculated movement her right leg, foot still pressed to the keys, shoots swiftly forward, across the floor and up, wrapping around him while she clenches the back of his hair and writhes sensually against his eager mouth.

  The keys skitter across the floor.

  Ballard’s pack tips over, jostled in the movement. He starts to raise his head, but Echo pulls him back down, whispering an apology, as if she just couldn’t control herself, and now he fumbles hungrily with the belt of her worn leather pants.

  I stare stupidly at the keys. There’s no way that was an accident. She wants me to escape. My heart is pounding. This is what I wanted, isn’t it? Yes, idiot! But suddenly I’m terrified things will go wrong. I lean forward. Crom–the keys are just out of reach. Naturally.

  Lectric gets to his feet, watching curiously. I jab my finger at the keys–get them, boy. He tilts his head. Get the keys, I mime. He looks at them. He looks at me. Stupid dog. I should’ve used a Tritium-Beta instead of a Spark 2100.

  My pack–there’s got to be something in it I can use. I reach back with my free hand, trying not to make a sound, and pull out Volume Seven. I want to laugh hysterically; Conan may save me after all. I stretch toward the keys, extending the graphic novel, and cinch them closer. Got it!

  There’s only two keys, and they both look the same. The cuffs click open. Ballard is still ensnared by yearning. What now? His pistol lies next to the bed in a leather holster, but it’ll be a struggle to get at. I don’t know if I can get it out and aim it before he grabs me, and I’m not particularly big for my age. Yet I need a weapon.

  My crossbow? It’s across the room with an extra supply pack. Too far. Wait. There’s something closer. It calls to me from the unused parts scattered across my workstation, no more than ten feet away: the bottom of a partially completed trap. It’s basically just a capacitor and a resistor wired to two steel nails, secured to a flat board. The important thing is that the capacitor is more than half-charged. Not the safest practice to leave it lying around like that, yeah, but my lack of caution is about to come in handy.

  Just like catching one giant rat…

  I move quickly and quietly, grab the board without touching the wires. I approach the bed from behind, holding the partial trap so the nails are facing down. My muscles are so tense I can barely breathe. Echo’s pants are off.
She has nothing on underneath. The curve of her bare thighs registers distantly. Behind me, Lectric lets out a whine. Ballard is undoing his own belt when he finally senses danger. He half-turns–

  –as I slam the nails into the back of his neck.

  His back arches. A burst of electricity lances through him. His upper body goes rigid. He jerks sideways, rolling into the wall beside the bed. The board is ripped from my hands by the movement. It bounces off the mattress and clatters to the floor, nails bloody and smoking. I scramble for the leather holster. My hands are slow, clunky. Echo rolls off the bed. I’ve got the pistol. I fumble for the safety–is it off? Is it?

  Ballard’s still conscious. He’s reaching into his jacket-

  Oh God, a second gun! He’s pulling it free. He’s going to kill me. His mouth is moving in slow motion. My finger is squeezing the trigger repeatedly. It’s an old-fashioned weapon, the kind that shoots bullets, but there’s barely any recoil.

  Then it’s over.

  Blood is spattered across the wall behind him. His pants are wet. I’m watching his arm, still waiting for him to finish drawing the weapon. My hand is shaking.

  “Is he dead?”

  I ask three times before I realize I’m shouting. Why won’t Echo answer? Did she answer? Yes, of course he’s dead. I shot him in the face. Body armor didn’t help. I slap his jacket-flap aside, planning to take the second gun, but I can’t find it. Did it fall? No. It hits me: there is no second gun.

  Is that possible? He was drawing it. But there’s nothing. What the hell was he reaching for then? His arm moved. This is his fault. He shouldn’t even be here.

  Echo’s hands are on my face. Trying to soothe me? I look at her. Shouldn’t she be upset? Wasn’t that her boyfriend? Absurdly, she’s still naked from the waist down. Lectric is barking madly, scurrying around us.

  “Tristan,” she whispers. “Tristan.”

  She tries to open my hand to take the gun but I won’t let it go, partly because I’ve just killed someone, but partly because I don’t trust it in anyone else’s hands. Her blue eyes fill the world. There are tears on her cheeks, but her face is serious, controlled, when she says:

  “We have to kill the others too. It’s the only way.”