Radio Hope (Toxic World Book 1) (16 page)

And talking they were. They didn’t even notice when Marcus poked his head into the room. They sat on the couch chattering away at ninety miles an hour. Marcus had never heard the girl speak,
but there she was, gossiping with Catherine like they’d been friends forever. She’d taken her hat off to let down her long blonde hair and had taken off her loose outer coat. It was typical for scavenger children to be hungry for people their own age, but Jessica seemed completely transformed since the disappearance of her father. Catherine was telling her about all the cutest boys in town.

Dad wouldn’t like that
,
Marcus thought with a smile.

A small hand tugged on his own.

“Come see what I drew,” Pablo said.

The kitchen table
was strewn with paper. Drawings covered them all.

“This is me and the dog I’m going to have when I find where they all went to,” Pablo said, holding out a paper to him.

“That’s not a bad drawing for someone who’s never seen a dog.”

“And this one’s—”

“Dinner’s ready!” Rosie called in a singsong voice.

The girls burst
into the dining room, still talking, while Pablo scooped up his drawings and took them into his room. Marcus set the table while Rosie laid out the food.

Marcus
said grace and everyone set into eating. Marcus and Pablo sat at one end and talked about baseball, the dog Marcus used to have, and all the friends Pablo was making in New City. Rosie sat at the other and chattering with the girls with a face lit up as bright as the sun. She looked like she had in the Old Times, as if all the death and the fear and the suffering had never happened. Rosie wasn’t in denial, or crazy, she simply had a talent for embracing any trace of joy this life could offer. It was one of the reasons Marcus loved her.

Her happiness, however fleeting, always caught him up in its stream and carried him along. Within minutes he was telling Pablo corny jokes that made the boy laugh and the girls roll their eyes.
Catherine cut in with the news that Radio Hope had taught her how to pattern her own sweaters and that she was going to trade for some wool and make a new one. Jessica eagerly joined in with the plans, saying she hated the clothes that she had to wear in the wildlands and now that she lived in New City she was going to dress any way she liked. Rosie gave them some advice about what colors would go best for their looks, Marcus cut in with a complaint that Radio Hope should broadcast how to brew beer, the girls rolled their eyes and ignored him, and Marcus laughed and tucked into seconds and heaped some more food on Pablo’s plate. His weariness was gone and they ate and talked for far longer than Marcus had initially allowed himself to go on break. He didn’t care. Tonight was tonight, and if he didn’t think about it too hard, didn’t analyze it, it was perfect.

The following morning the Righteous Horde arrived.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jackson screamed as he slipped off the edge of the bridge. The world spun. He had a fleeting view of the jagged rocks and white water of the river far below.

A
strong pair of hands gripped him below the shoulders and hauled him up. In desperation he flung his arms around the far edge, his fingers finding the crack between the level surface and the slab that had shifted.

Annette pulled again and he made it another precious few inches back onto the hard surface. He swung a leg over.

His foot smacking the cracked slab was enough to send it plunging into empty air. Jackson was left straddling a narrow span of concrete.

Annette looked over her shoulder.

“Shit, it must be the Righteous Horde!” Annette said.

Jackson saw Mitch and Ha-Ram crouched behind a rock and firing off to his right. Looking in that direction, he spotted a number of figures making their way up the road, firing as they came.

“They’re still far enough away that we can make it to the others and get away,” Annette said, “but we have to mov
e
no
w
!”

Jackson clung to the concrete, his arms and legs wrapped around it, muscles shaking from the strain. His mind was gripped with panic and he couldn’t think, couldn’t move.

“Come on!” Annette yanked at him.

“I’m going to fall!” Jackson shrieked.

A bullet whined overhead.

“Now or never!” Annette said.

“I—I can’t,” Jackson replied helplessly.

And he c
ouldn’t. Terror had plunged him into an icy bath and had frozen his body. It was ridiculous, humiliating, he who had faced so much yet couldn’t stand high places, but he couldn’t fight it. The figures on the far cliff drew closer. Mitch shot one, sending the man doubling over and clutching his gut, but the rest kept coming. Ha-Ram was waving at them.

Annette looked in his eyes. “Please come.”

Jackson merely shook his head.

Annette looked bac
k at the approaching men. She’d have to sprint if she was going to have time to reach the others before getting cut off. More gunfire crackled in the air.

Annette gave him another tug. Automatically Jackson clenched the
concrete even harder.

“I’m sorry,” Annette said, moving back.

Jackson had a sudden thought.

“Wait!” he cried.

“I can’t wait. Move!”

“No, come back.”

Annette crawled forward again as another bullet sang through the air near their heads.

“Reach into my shirt and take my topo,” Jackson said. “Find Radio Hope. Ask them to help New City. But don’t
let the others find it. Abe will try to shut it down. He’ll destroy the only good thing in the wildlands.”

Annette reached forward. Jackson pressed his chest against the bridge.

“Promise,” he demanded.

Annette looked in his eyes. “I promise.”

Jackson summoned the will to raise himself up a little. Annette’s hand slipped into his shirt, found the topo, and yanked it free.

“Come with us, please!” she said as she tucked it inside her own shirt.

Jackson merely shook his head and pressed his face against the surface of the bridge, sobbing.

He
could hear the others calling to them over the sound of the gunfire. Annette hesitated a second more.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she was gone.

Jackson watched as she sprinted across the bridge, hunched low to avoid the shots the cultists sent her direction. They were still a ways off, but well within rifle range.

She made it to the end, grabbed her pack, and ran down the highway as Mitch and Ha-Ram gave her covering fire.
The three of them scurried around a bend in the road and were soon out of sight.

The cultists went
after them. He could see about a dozen, probably the same group who had camped nearby. One of them spotted him clinging to the bridge and pointed his direction.

With chilling clarity he saw one of the cultists stop and take careful aim with his rifle.

The bullet cracked off the concrete inches from his face, spitting grit into his face.

He leapt back, scuttled away, and found himself on a wider part of the bridge. It had been an automatic reaction, his body flinching from the bullet, and it had gotten him back across the
narrow section.

He didn’t
need any more incentive. He hurried to the far end as another bullet whined past his ear.

Once back on the side of
the bridge from which he had come, he dove behind an outcropping of rock next to the road.

For a moment he lay there panting, body soaked in sweat, then he dared a look around the rock. The cultists were hurrying after the others. The man who had shot at him paused, looking his direction for a moment before joining his companions.

As the sound of gunfire receded into the distance, Jackson caught his breath. Mopping his brow, he made an inventory of what he had with him, an automatic habit bred from dealing with life in the worst parts of the wildlands. To his surprise nothing had fallen while he had slipped and panicked on the bridge. Annette’s gun was still tucked into his belt, the spare bullets still in his pocket, and his bag was still on his back. The thing had yanked at him as he wavered on the edge. He remembered wanting to claw it off and toss it into the deep, but panic had locked his hands onto the bridge.

So he had all the basics for survival except food. It was only two days back to the Burbs. He’d be hungry but he’d make it, assuming the Righteous Horde wasn’t there yet.

But he couldn’t go back. His topo was with Annette.

Why had he given it to her? He hadn’t trusted her, still didn’t, but the way she cried out in the night, and the look she gave him when she tried to coax him across the b
ridge, that had made him see her differently.

Maybe she isn’t so bad
,
he thought
,
but the other two are. I can’t let them keep my topo, and I can’t let them find Radio Hope.

He needed to follow them.

But that required going across the bridge.

No, impossible.

He might as well call it quits and go home.

But then Abe wouldn’t honor his agreement. Olivia would be stuck outside.

Jackson smacked the back of his head against the rock.

Why? Why? Why had he choked? He couldn’t go back to Olivia like this even if she was safe behind the walls. He wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye.

And then there was Radio Hope, somewhere in a valley not far off. There, hidden away, was a community of people who thought like he did, a group that understood what equality and social progress were all about. Heaven lay before him, and only hell waited back the way he came.

It was a ridiculous analogy, mired in the primitive superstitions thrust upon the proletariat by the ruling classes, but it was the best analogy he could think of.

But to go across that bridge. . .

“Fuck.”

Jackson smacked his head against the rock again.

“Fuck! Fuck!”

He stood up.

“FUUUUUUCK!!!!!!”

He sprinted for the bridge, trying to keep his mind a blank. He raced across the span of concrete and didn’t slow down as he bolted across the crumbled narrow section and onto the other side.

“Oh Jesus! Oh Jesus fuck!” he bellowed as he kept running to the other side of the bridge, body shaking
, arms flailing, and eyes wild from the realization of what he had just done.

“Holy
fucking crap!” he bellowed, his words echoing off the canyon walls.

He stood at the far side of the bridge, that spot that had seemed so unattainable ten minutes before. Panting, he looked around him. No one. Cocked his head, listened. Nothing.

Composing himself, he loped up the road after Annette, his topo, the cultists, and Radio Hope.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Annette
ran with Ha-Ram and Mitch along the winding mountain road. Tears stung her eyes and her body felt the heavy drag of a suffocating guilt. She had left him to die, took his precious map and ditched him. The look on his face, she knew, would haunt her the rest of her life.

A bullet cracking off the rock face near her hea
d reminded her that her life might not last very long. Mitch turned and let out another three-round burst. Annette had her shotgun out and Ha-Ram gripped his 9mm, but the cultists were too far away for either of those weapons to be effective.

Their pursuers
, on the other hand, were all armed with rifles.

They were
well trained. Annette could see that right away. While half kept up a steady fire that forced Annette and her companions to keep their heads down, the other half rushed forward. Only once did Mitch catch one with a head shot, and he nearly got killed himself when he exposed himself to do it.

They came to a turn in the road where a large boulder had come down from a landslide. Using this as cove
r, they could sweep the road behind them.

“I can hold them off for a while here,” Mitch said.

“Yeah, but then what?” Ha-Ram asked.

“We got to lose them,” Annette said.

“Why don’t you break out that sniper’s rifle I always hear people talking about?” Mitch asked.

“It’s only got five
rounds,” Annette replied.

Mitch sighed. “Now she tells me.”

“I have a better idea,” Annette said.

She sat down under the cover of the boulder and pu
lled out the map. The others let out cries of surprise. Ha-Ram crouched beside her. Together they examined the confusing lines and symbols that covered the paper. Annette felt like she was betraying Jackson. This map had been his prized possession, something he hid from everyone else. What had he said
?
Find Radio Hope, and don’t let the others tell Abe where it is.

Ha-Ram jabbed a finger at a point on the map.

“I think we’re here,” he said.

“Yeah, w
hich means that the road keeps curving away in the direction we already see it going, and this little side valley will get us in the direction of Radio Hope,” Annette replied, pointing to the first valley beyond their position.

“Once we get closer,” Ha-Ram stopped as Mitch let out another burst. “Once we get closer I’ll use the direction finder again.”

“We got to lose these motherfuckers before we do anything!” Mitch shouted.

Annette stared at the map again. She pointed to a spot a little beyond the side valley they had been previous
ly studying. “How about here? See this little maze of valleys? We could lose them here and loop back.”

“Or get lost,” Ha-Ram said and bit his lower lip.

“Anything is better than this, I’m half done with this magazine and my backup is the last ammo I got,” Mitch said.

A couple more bullets whined through the air over their heads.
Another cracked off the boulder.

Annette tucked the map back under her shirt
.

“Get going,” Annette told Ha-Ram, “I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

After Ha-Ram hurried away she got in close beside Mitch. “You’re faster than we are. Give us two minutes head start while you hold them off, then come running after us. It’s a blind corner so they won’t see you for a while. Go to the second side valley and join us there.”

“All right,” Mitch nodded. “I’ll give them a burst just before I go. Buy us a little more time.”

Without another word Annette sprinted around the corner after Ha-Ram. The road took a sharp curve around the mountain at this point and soon Mitch was out of sight, the sound of gunfire dampening out into a distant echo. The road kept curving, so that there was little to see behind them.

Good
,
Annette thought.

“So tell me what we’re supposed to do once we get to Radio Hope,” she asked as she ran by Ha-Ram’s side.

The technician looked shocked. “Who said anything about Radio Hope?”

“Cut the bullshit.
I saw the frequency on your direction finder.”

Ha-Ram shrugged. “OK, fine. Abe wants us to find Radio Hope.”

Annette spared a glance over her shoulder. The crackle of gunfire was fading as they continued around the mountain.

“But why now, when the Righteous Horde is all over the place?”

“We only got the direction finder working a couple of weeks ago. Abe got worried that the cult might find Radio Hope and destroy it.”

“Who’s to say they haven’t?” Annette asked.

“They’re still transmitting. I checked last night while you slept.”

I bet a lot of things go on while I sleep
,
Annette thought.

“You still haven’t answered my question.
Once we find them, what then?”

Ha-Ram didn’t say anything for a moment, and then replied, “We’re supposed to offer a trade.”

“What sort of trade? What could Abe have that they could want?”

“Well, we have some spare radio equipment they might be interested in,” Ha-Ram answered vaguely.

“I’ve never heard Radio Hope go off the air. They’re not hurting for equipment. What’s Abe really trading?”

Ha-Ram said nothing. They came to the turnoff point, a narrow, gravelly side canyon that quickly curved out of sight. Annette scrambled over the gravel.

“Shouldn’t we wait for Mitch?” Ha-Ram asked.

“He knows where we’re going. He told us to go as fast as we could and he’d catch us up once he’d delayed the cultists.”

The canyon took a sharp turn and the highway disappeared from view. Annette couldn’t hear any more firing, but wasn’t sure if that was a trick of geography or if Mitch had disengaged and was making a run for it.

They scrambled up a steep slope, Ha-Ram panting to keep up. Annette slowed down a bit. Her pack felt heavy. Her back was slick with sweat.

They slowed to a fast walk.

“Shouldn’t we stop?” Ha-Ram asked.

“Mitch will catch up to us. We need to keep moving. And you haven’t answered my question.”

“What question?”

Annette cut in front of him and smacked him on the shoulder. Ha-Ram stopped short.

“What does Abe want to trade with Radio Hope?” she demanded. She hated being lied to and she’d been lied to
constantly since she left the Burbs.

“Nothing! That’s his business.”

Annette gave him a shove. “Tell me.”

“Hey, watch it!”

Annette pushed him again. “Tell me.”

“He wants to trade information,” Ha-Ram blurted.

“What kind of information?” Annette asked, pushing him again to get him moving. They needed to get more space between themselves and their pursuers. At least they were out of sight of the road now.

“
Just information.”

Annette smacked him upside the head. Not hard, just hard enough.

“Every night in the bar I make drunk scavengers do what I tell them. You think you can keep this from me?”

“What’s got into you?” Ha-Ram hurried along, looking back at her with wide eyes.

“Abe is a corrupt piece of shit and this whole thing stinks. We left Jackson to die back there. He’s dead because of whatever Abe is hatching, and I want to know what that is.”

Ha-Ram looked down at his feet as he walked. Annette moved closer beside him, invading his space.

“He’s not a bad guy. He treats his employees well,” Ha-Ram replied lamely.

“Tell me,” Annette smacked him upside the head again.

Ha-Ram flinched. “He wants to see what technical information they have, what spare equipment they have. Maybe even see if they have someone they can let go. Someone we can bring back.”

“And what does Abe have to offer in return?”

Ha-Ram’s mouth turned down. “Silence.”

“You mean not telling everyone where Radio Hope is? Is that what you mean? If they don’t give him what he wants he’d broadcast their location over New City Radio?”

Ha-Ram wouldn’t look at her.

“That little bastard,” she whispered.

So that was it. He wanted to plunder Radio Hope for their technological wealth, and if he couldn’t have that, he’d get rid of his only competition on the air. He’d be the only one broadcasting to the region, the only one with a voice.

What had Jackson said he had told Abe once? “Information is power.”

Ever since she’d figured out that they were looking for Radio Hope, she suspected Abe was up to no good. This confirmed it, and confirmed that she had done the right thing back there on the highway. In the wildlands Annette had learned to trust her instincts, following her gut even when her mind said otherwise. She’d made the right choice both times she’d joined scavenger bands, even though she’d been afraid of approaching anyone. She’d made the right choice ignoring her mistrust of men when she accepted Roy’s offer of a job. And now, when her mind was screaming to stick to the original plan for her personal safety and for the sake of the deal she’d made with Abe, she’d plunged into the unknown by trusting someone who should have been a natural enemy while betraying someone who should have been a natural ally.

She had followed Jackson’s wishes. Mitch wouldn’t find Radio Hope. She had given him the wrong directions.