New World Order (4 page)

Narrowing his eyes, he rested his hands on the tops of his thighs and leaned toward me. “So you’re saying I’m not…what? As brave as you?”

I drew in a deep, calming breath and let it back out. “You just said yourself you couldn’t care less
about Jack, which tells me you’re not exactly dedicated to the cause.”

He drew his eyebrows together in a familiar frown that brought back a few bad memories. “I also said I want to know what’s out there.” Then the crease of his brow softened and he snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Wait a minute. This is about you going off to save the world all by yourself again, isn’t it?” He stood
up, shaking his head at me. “God, you haven’t changed.”

I got to my feet and faced him. “What is
that
supposed to mean?” I instantly regretted asking him. There was no point in talking to Reyes when he was angry. I put up my hand to stop his next words. “Forget I asked. I don’t want to know.”

“
Doc
asked me to go, so the decision is mine.”

I pointed a finger at him, about to make a hot retort,
but his words made me clue into something. Reyes wearing an exoskeleton
was
Doc’s best weapon, so without Reyes, it was less likely Doc would attempt a strike against the bourge while I was gone.

I dropped my finger and leveled my best glare at him. “Make no mistake, Reyes, this is
my
mission. I’m in charge.”

He looked down his nose at me, lips curving into a half smile. “Okay,” he said with
a shrug of indifference. “You’re in charge.”

Doc came to his feet, a satisfied smile on his face. “It’s all settled then.”

I looked from one man to the other, suddenly struck by how easily that all had gone.

I walked across the threshold of the home I shared with Jack, his brother Ted, my mother, and my best friend Summer. There were no lights on, but that only meant that Ted wasn’t
home. Like me, Summer and my mom were more comfortable in a dimmer setting. I knew my mom was working tonight. She washed dishes at the Pub House, which used to be the Mess before liberation, and it didn’t close until midnight. I didn’t expect her home for at least another two hours.

“Summer?” I called out into the quiet.

There was a rustling upstairs, and then she peeked over the railing.
I smiled up at her, happy to see a healthy glow returning to her cheeks. She was now eight days sober. Her unexpected rehabilitation had started when she decided not to leave my side in the hospital, where the only available alcohol was the kind used as antiseptic. The second day without a drink, her hands began to tremble, and by that evening she was in bad shape. It earned her a hospital bed of
her own and intravenous drugs to help take the edge off. She hadn’t taken a drink since, but Doc told me it was still early days for her. Which was why I wanted her to go on this mission with me and be far away from temptation.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“Doc said I’m in the clear. I’m good to go on the search. Are you ready?”

“Just about.”

“Have I ever told you that you’re the bestest
friend in the entire world?” I asked.

She smiled. “Once or twice.”

“I’ll go grab my backpack and we’ll get going,” I said, heading toward my room.

I walked into our bedroom—the one I shared with Jack—my eyes immediately going to the small pile of clothes on the floor to make sure they were still there. They were his clothes, cast aside on our last night together. A part of me knew leaving
them there was irrational, but they somehow kept his presence alive. So I left them untouched, exactly as he had thrown them, with the exception of his shirt. That was tucked under my pillow, his scent still lightly clinging to it, and whenever I closed my eyes and breathed it in, I could imagine he was lying right next to me. I snatched it from under my pillow and stuffed it into my backpack.

The pack had been ready for days, hidden in my closet because it was made of the same nanotech material as my suit, and jammed full of everything I could fit in it: two flasks with extra water filters, enough dehydrated food packs to last me a month, and a large insulated blanket that could double as a tent with a little ingenuity. I shrugged it onto my shoulders, feeling its weight settle on
my back, and a thrill of nervous excitement shot through me. Finally, the search was about to begin.

I paused for a moment to look down at my belly, wondering if I should share the importance of this momentous occasion with “Kenner’s offspring.” I eyed the open door of my bedroom, not really wanting to get caught talking to myself. Maybe I could just think it? I mean we were sharing the same
body, right? Maybe he could hear my thoughts.

Hey little guy
, I began.
We’re going on an adventure to look for your dad. Don’t worry, because we’re going to find him and bring him home.

I patted my tummy, took one last look around our bedroom, squared my shoulders, and strode out into the living room just as Ted came through the door. My heart sank. I was hoping to leave without running into
him.

Despite his tired, haggard appearance, he managed a smile for me. “You’re up late. Is everything okay?” His eyes immediately went to the vicinity of my stomach. Ted had become really obsessive about the pregnancy. Almost annoyingly so.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” I reassured him. “The ultrasound went fine, and Doc declared me healthy.”

He seemed to relax until he saw the backpack.
“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to the Nation to stay a few days,” I lied.

As if on cue, Summer appeared and began to descend the stairs. She was dressed similarly to me, complete with full backpack. “Ready to go,” she said but stopped midway on the staircase when she saw Ted.

I rolled my eyes. Her timing couldn’t have been better.

Ted looked from me to Summer and back again, narrowing
his eyes. “You’re going out to look for him, aren’t you?”

Ted had already been out searching for his brother and had come up empty. His search party had found the recruiters’ campsite but not much else. I interrogated him after, asking where they’d looked, how far they had ventured, and whether or not there was any sign of which direction Jack and the others had gone, but he always said the
same thing—the ground was frozen when Jack, Naoki, Ryan, and Talon had been taken, so there was little in the way of prints to follow. The search hadn’t lasted more than four days, so I knew they hadn’t strayed very far. To be fair to the searchers, the weather hadn’t been great. A few nights had started out with rainstorms that changed to freezing rain and snow by nightfall, turning the ground to
ice. For people born and raised inside a Dome, that kind of exposure was suicidal.

“Ted, I’m a big girl and I can make my own decisions. Please stop worrying about me.”

“But you don’t need to go. Alex and Hayley set out yesterday with a few soldiers. They’re searching the west side of the mountain.”

“The more searchers we have, the better,” I said and started toward the door, anxious to
get out of there before my mother showed up too.

Ted closed the door and put a hand up. “Sunny—wait.” I stopped, and he took a few steps toward me, which allowed me to step around him. I reached the door just as Summer finished descending the stairs. “
Please!
” he said. The desperation in his voice made me turn and face him. “The baby might be the last piece of my brother left in this world.”

The set of his face, the pleading in his eyes, and the reminder that I may never see Jack again was a crushing blow to my heart. Tears stung my eyes and for a split second my resolve faltered. But then I reminded myself Doc’s nanobots were most likely keeping my husband alive. That was information Ted didn’t know and wasn’t taking into account.

I cleared my throat in an effort to dislodge
the lump pressing in on my voice. “I’m sorry, Ted. I have to do this.”

He exhaled a sigh of defeat. “Then just give me one minute before you go. Just one minute.”

He was making that face—the one that made him look exactly like his brother. My hand was already resting on the doorknob, but I paused in opening the door. “One minute.”

“You know I’m working on the AV-22 Project, right?”

I nodded. Also known as an Osprey, the AV-22 was a cross between a helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft that the Air Force was busy replicating. Ted was a gaming junkie—it was rare to see him without a tablet in his hand playing something—so it hadn’t come as a surprise to learn he had specialized in air combat at the Academy. Since aviation wasn’t actually possible inside the confines of the Dome,
“training” consisted of learning to fly via a life-size simulator, otherwise known as a fun way to spend a school day. And apparently he was really good at it, so when the Dome was liberated and the Air Force could finally begin to rebuild its wings, he was a natural selection for pilot.

“The first test flight is scheduled to take place in three days’ time, and I promise you, Sunny, that as
soon as I can fly it, I’ll convince them to let me take it to search for Jack.”

I gave him a sad smile and shook my head. There were far too many
ifs
that plan for me to put faith in it. “Like I said, the more people we have out looking for him, the better.”

I opened the door and walked out, Summer close on my heels.

“I can’t stop you from going, but can you wait two seconds for me to
give you something?”

“Really, Ted?” I asked in an exasperated voice.

“I’ll be right back.”

He ran inside the house, and I waited impatiently. Summer walked to the curb and got on her bike. A few minutes later, Ted ran out the door carrying his own backpack.

“You’re coming?” I asked.

He set his pack on the sidewalk and opened it. “No. I’m serious about the Osprey almost being ready.”
He produced a large barreled gun from the pack. “It’s a flare gun. Every soldier who leaves the valley carries one in case they get lost so they can signal searchers. You hear an aircraft, shoot a flare into the sky.”

I took the gun, examined it for a moment, and put it in my own backpack. “Thanks, Ted,” I said zipping it up. “I promise I’ll stay safe and do everything I can to bring your brother
home.”

And then he hugged me. Ted had never hugged me before, and I almost drew away in my surprise. “I know you will,” he said.

He let me go, picked up his pack, and went back into the house. I turned and headed for my bike with a sense of elation. After weeks of waiting for this day to come, I was
finally
going to look for Jack, and nothing was going to stand in my way.
 

Jack

If my head hadn’t been booming hard enough from the devil’s blood, it was splitting after Hollywood knocked me out. My eyes kept straying to where the body had been. It was gone, but a bloody mess had been left behind, so I knew I hadn’t imagined it. I still wasn’t sure why they would chop him up. Fish had been caught and were roasting on sticks over the fire, and I heard
someone had caught a river rodent, which apparently was meat prized over fish. The one thing I was glad not to see on a spit over a fire was an arm or leg. But what had they done with the body?

It was close to morning when Naoki regained consciousness. The camp was already starting to rouse, and Hollywood ordered Sanjay to give Naoki a drink. As he received his small ration, I watched the clear,
life-giving liquid trickle into his mouth. My lips parted in anticipation of a drink even though I knew none was coming my way. All too soon the bottle was taken away. Naoki begged for more.

“Cooperate, and you’ll get more,” Hollywood informed him. “Act up like this one, and you’ll get none.”

I needed water.

Sanjay frowned at Hollywood. “Are you going to let him die?” he asked, motioning
to me.

Hollywood faced Sanjay, hands on hips. “Is that your business?”

Sanjay sucked in his bottom lip. “Sorry, Hollywood. It’s just… well… I know treasure when I see it, and him and his clothes are valuable.”

Hollywood narrowed his eyes. “My rig, my decision. You don’t like it, go sign on with someone else if they’ll take you.” Sanjay dropped his gaze and put the water bottle back in the
holder. “Ingrate,” Hollywood muttered.

“He’s got a point,” Phillip said.

Hollywood sneered at Phillip and then shifted his gaze to me. With a flick of his head, he grunted and then walked away.

Naoki’s eyes were closed, and I tapped his foot with mine. He opened his lids to reveal bloodshot eyes.

“You going to make it?” I whispered.

“I’m so thirsty,” he breathed.

“Me too.” I tried
not to think about the dead recruit being chopped up. Had he died of dehydration?

“How far are we? Can you see our mountain peak?”

I shook my head. “We’re a few days away from it.”

Naoki’s bloodshot eyes widened. “
Days
?”

“I don’t know where we are, but I think we’re headed south,” I said and motioned toward the burgeoning glow of the sun.

Naoki nodded. “Do you think they’ll come looking
for us?”

I was pretty sure he was talking about my people and not his. The Nation had a set way of doing things. The Elders would gather, discuss the situation and take a vote on whether it was safe to launch a search or if they would just be putting lives at risk needlessly. On the other hand, my people would scramble to get a search party out looking with no clue as to what they were doing.
When it came to technology, we were more advanced, but our dependence on that technology limited us. We were still very much tied to the Dome to produce radiation-free food and water for our survival, so the odds of a search party straying very far was slim. Air travel would one day help us explore beyond the valley, but I had no idea when production of the Osprey would be completed.

Then there
was the Pit. I wasn’t supposed to know about Doc’s exoskeletons, but since Sunny headed up their elite militia, of course I did. If she was still alive—and God, I wished I knew—she would come looking for me. It’s not that I wanted her to risk her life. I just knew my wife.