Broken Worlds Super Boxset (59 page)

***

The hot wax dripped from the tilted candle onto Alex’s forearm. He had to keep the light close to the wound so the old man could see. After the old man threaded the needle, he heated it to the point of almost dropping it. Alex winced at the first prick, but once the old man got into a rhythm, it didn’t hurt as much. He just lay back in the chair, his arm jerking slightly from the old man’s motions, and closed his eyes. He wanted to sleep so badly. He hadn’t realized how tired he was until he sat down. It was like every bone in his body collapsed, and he wasn’t sure if he’d have the power to reassemble them.

Most of the farm camp’s workers had taken off, but a few lingered behind to watch the old man sew Alex up. The workers that left had grabbed whatever rags they could cover themselves with and whatever food they could stuff into a bag and carry on their backs. Alex figured most of them would try and make it to one of the big cities, which afforded many places to hide. There wasn’t a major city in the United States left that wasn’t harboring some type of refugee who escaped the relocation efforts of the Soil Coalition. But most didn’t have the knowledge or resources to attempt the journey. And those who did usually died of exhaustion before they made it.

“There we go. All patched up,” the old man said.

Alex examined the old man’s stitching. It wasn’t pretty by any means, but the wound was tightly sealed up. “Thanks.”

The old man waved him off. When he tried to stand up, he immediately fell back down into his seat, holding his head. Alex grabbed his arm.

“You need to eat,” Alex said, then rushed over to one of the hydro-tanks and started picking off some strawberries and piling them in his hand. He set the fruit on the table next to where the old man was sitting and extended one of the strawberries to him. “Take it.”

The old man pinched the fruit between his bony fingers and lifted it from Alex’s palm. He rotated it, examining all of the grooves, bumps, and the tiny sprig of leaves that nestled at the top. He brought it to his nose and inhaled its scent. Then, slowly, he formed a fist around the berry and closed his eyes. The sobs that escaped the old man were soundless. The only visible sign of his weeping were the convulsions of his shoulders and the tears running down his face.

Alex placed his hand on the old man’s shoulder, and all he could feel was bone. Maybe the old man didn’t want to go on. Perhaps he’d reached the point where all appetite had disappeared. It wouldn’t have been the first time Alex had seen it happen. The only thing worse than starving to death was forgetting how to eat.

The old man wiped his eyes then unclenched his fist and brought the piece of fruit to his lips. He bit into it softly. The juices exploded and dribbled down the old man’s chin. He chewed slowly. Then, after the first bite was swallowed, he bit furiously into the rest. He greedily reached for the pile of fruit Alex had brought him, shoving bite after bite into his mouth, stuffing his cheeks until they looked like they were going to burst.

Alex intercepted the old man’s hands from grabbing any more. The old man tried to fight him but was too weak to do anything. “Hey, you need to slow down. You don’t want to shock your system.”

The old man finished what food he had in his mouth, and Alex took a portion of the strawberries away and stowed them in his pocket. He rotated his stitched arm a little bit, testing its mobility. It was stiff, and there were a few instances where he thought the stitches would tear, but they held true to the old man’s skill with the needle.

“It’ll stick,” the old man said, pointing to Alex’s arm. “It has been a while since I’ve patched anyone up.”

“What’d you do? Before this?”

“I was a doctor. General practitioner.”

“Why aren’t you stationed in one of the communities? Doctors are hard to find these days, and the Coalition would probably let you pick wherever you wanted to go.”

The old man shook his head. “No. I didn’t want to perpetuate their false hope. And this was the price I paid for my subversive behavior.” He gestured to his surroundings.

“Did you see it coming? The soil crisis?”

“Not soon enough. I remember receiving my first case of GMO poisoning. Of course, back then we didn’t know what it was. It resembled all of the symptoms of a flu bug. Then once the cases started piling up, that’s when questions started being asked, fingers pointing blame. The GMO companies screaming that it was the pesticide companies, the pesticide companies screaming that it was the GMO companies’ fault, the politicians yelling that it was both of their faults, and no one willing to share any of the information they had on their products and how they’d been using them. Everyone was afraid to let the science reveal the truth. They were scared of what it meant.”

The pain in Alex’s arm seemed to catch fire the longer the old man spoke. His head started to ache. Flashes of those first few months of famine pierced his memory. He started to feel cold, dizzy.

“He was nine,” the old man said. “That first patient with GMO poisoning that I had. I sent him home with some antibiotics and told his mother to keep fluids in him. He died a month later. When we discovered exactly what the GMO-24 strain did to the body, I realized just how painfully that boy died.”

Alex could hear the shouts and the sharp fire of gunshots. He could smell the smoke choking him and the fire melting his skin. His muscles tensed up.

“The acids in your stomach weakening to the point that they couldn’t digest water. Then the subsequent shutdown of your kidneys, liver, intestines. All of them just dissolving into nothing. Rotting from the inside out,” the old man continued.

“The screams,” Alex said softly to himself. “You never forget the screams.” He turned to the old man. “Do you remember that? People just… bargaining with some unnamed deity for more time. Saying they’ll give you anything for just a few more days, hours, seconds.”

The old man’s green eyes softened in the candlelight. The look on his face wasn’t one of revulsion or pity but of understanding. It was a face that had heard those cries before. But unlike the old man, who didn’t have the ability to save his patients, Alex was left with the ghosts of the dead that he could have saved.

“It was a hard time,” the old man said.

“Things haven’t gotten much better.” Alex closed his eyes, shaking the memories from his mind. “Look, the headquarters in Topeka will be checking in soon, and when they don’t get a response, they’ll be sending the cavalry. You won’t want to be here when that happens. Do you have any place you can go?”

“I’ll just do what the rest of them did. Grab as much food as I can carry then get as far away from this place as I can. Then die. I don’t think it will be as bad for me as it will for some of the others. I’m ready for it to be done.”

The old man didn’t have anything left in the tank. He’d reached that place of accepted apathy. It was an incredibly dangerous state of mind. Alex extended his hand, and the old man gripped it weakly.

“There’s a river just south of here. It could be patrolled by sentries looking for me, but at least you’ll be close to a water source. You might last a little longer with it,” Alex said.

“Thank you.” The old man got up from his seat and grabbed a rag that he converted to a pouch to carry whatever supplies he’d take with him.

Alex headed to the sentry station in the back. He gained access to the Coalition’s database with one of the sentries’ key cards and searched for Meeko and Harper’s location. They were stored at two separate camps, both just outside of Topeka. Headquarters would be checking in at this location in about six hours, and it would take him around five hours to get to Topeka. Time was his enemy now, and he was already running dangerously low on it.

In addition to the .22 rifle, Alex grabbed another AR-15 and ammo for the .308. He grabbed some food for the drive and found a Kevlar chest piece that fit him. The last piece of his deception was the uniform. He traced his finger over the stitching on the front, which read “Class 2.” The fabric was just as bulky as he remembered it.

The water from the hose spurted onto Gordon’s hands. A blended mixture of water and blood splashed to the ground and swirled in the dirt, turning it to mud. Gordon rubbed his hands furiously, trying to remove the dried red stains, but no matter how hard he scrubbed, he couldn’t rid himself of the pinkish tinge that lingered on his hands. Gordon summoned one of the sentries over.

“Change of plans. I’m heading back to Topeka. I want all of our men to stay here. You do not let any of these people move, understand? If that son of a bitch comes back, I want him alive. I don’t care what condition you bring him to me in, just as long as he’s still breathing. You got that?” Gordon asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Gordon climbed into the truck, and the cul-de-sac grew smaller in the rearview mirror. He rested his head back on the seat. He could feel his body melting into the leather underneath him. “Wake me before we arrive in Topeka.” The driver nodded. It was exhausting work, torturing people.

***

The sun had reached its highest point in the sky when Todd arrived at the site. The straps from his pack sloped his tired shoulders. The thickness of tracks from large machinery intensified as Todd moved closer to where he’d placed the test soil. The closer Todd moved, the larger the hole from where they excavated grew. The crater was at least ten square feet in diameter and six feet deep. Todd chose this place due to its remote location. The Soil Coalition still sent out search parties for any usable land, but most of Wyoming had already been searched.

“They took it.”

Todd jumped, spinning around and almost falling into the pit behind him. Emma had dust caked on her face, and her lips were chapped from the sun.

“Emma, what are you doing here?” Todd asked.

“That’s how they knew. They know we did it. That’s why they’re here,” Emma said, her eyes slightly glazed over and still staring at the pit.

Todd glanced around frantically. “Did you see anyone else following me? Emma? Did you come alone?” He gave her a gentle shake of her shoulders.

“No,” Emma answered, shaking her head.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

“It’s Billy. Something’s wrong. Ben came to find me.”

“What?”

“He’s not sure what it is, but he knows it’s bad.”

Billy was their key to the outside. If something happened to him, then everything they were working on would be put into jeopardy. “Let’s head back.” But what Todd couldn’t see was the man in the black jacket with a pair of binoculars, watching him.

***

The driver woke Gordon just as they entered Topeka. He rubbed his blurry eyes, and he could still see the red tinge of blood on his hands. He dropped them in his lap, annoyed by the fact that he was still dirty. “Take me to my place. I want to shower before I go back to the office.”

“Yes, sir.”

The images of the large steel structures of the farm camps they passed reflected in the SUV’s passenger window. He smiled. The lack of control he’d felt over the past few hours from the community’s insubordination had drained him. All he wanted was to know where the seeds were, and it didn’t matter how many times he hit them, or cut them, or spilled their blood, they just wouldn’t talk.

But those steel cages reaffirmed his control. It was a reminder that he held the whip, and with it the power to do whatever he wanted. He had the resources. He had the muscle. He had the food. He had everything he needed to maintain control and order. The vibration from his cell phone disrupted his train of thought. He checked the call. It was Jake. “Tell me you found something good.”

“The soil the techs found definitely originated from this community. I watched two of its members take a walk to the original site.”

“Good. Keep an eye on them.”

“You want me to bring them in?”

“No, just pay them a visit, see what you can get out of them.”

Gordon snapped his phone shut and spun it between his fingers. A breakthrough discovery of fixing the soil contamination had the potential to unravel everything he’d built. If citizens knew they had it, they would rally toward them. His mind kept going back to what Jake had said about the community members hiding their nutrition levels. But how the fuck could they hide it?

Maybe they didn’t.

“Sydney.”

***

After Todd dropped Emma off at her home, he walked back to his own place with the dying light fading behind him. Once inside, he headed to his room and kicked off his shoes. He turned his back to the door, and a few seconds later a blinding pain cracked the back of his skull, sending waves of throbbing pressure across his entire head. He collapsed forward on the bed, arms and legs attempting to push himself up, but he was still too disoriented from the blow. He felt hands grab his neck and fling him off the bed. The blurred face of the thug from the blood testing stared back at him.

“Enjoy your walk?” the thug asked then sent his fist across Todd’s cheek.

A spray of spit and blood flew from Todd’s mouth from the force of the punch. He fell to his side, and the throbbing in his head intensified from the thug’s blow.

“How’d you do it? Huh? Where’s the rest of the soil?” the thug asked.

“I… don’t… know,” Todd stammered.

“You don’t know?” The thug removed a blade from his waist and held it up to Todd’s throat. “How about now?”

A dribble of blood rolled from Todd’s lip down his chin, where it hung until it dripped onto the thug’s knife. He opened and closed his eyes, trying to get a handle on the pounding in his skull. “I’m not telling you anything. So you better just kill me now.”

The thug applied more pressure, and the edge of the blade penetrated Todd’s skin, sending a small trickle of blood down his neck. Todd didn’t take his eyes off the thug. If he was going to die, then he was going to look at the man who did it.

“Idealistic prick,” the thug said then sent another blow to the side of Todd’s face, knocking him out cold.