Secret Worlds (477 page)

What the Dust had she not been telling him? It had to be more than just the thing with Jackson, didn’t it?

He leaned back. Giving a little to keep her happy wouldn’t cost him anything. Of course, she wouldn’t expect him to make it easy. “Would you make an effort to be cooperative if we did?”

She finally met his gaze. “I’ll be as cooperative as I know how to be.” She rolled her eyes. “Which, I admit, isn’t much.”

Alex smiled at her. He waited until one side of her lips curved up in a returned half-smile. “You’ve got a deal.”

She turned away then, exhaling a long sigh of relief, and returned to her seat by the far window. She still held herself apart, but her demeanor had changed. Her body wasn’t tense and angry. More than anything, she seemed tired.

He knew from personal experience that they had all grossly underestimated the Dust Effect radiating off of a highly-powered female. They’d expected it, yes. Any of them who had ever spent time with a mid-range woman and felt the attraction and the buzz of well-being from her presence could have guessed there would be a stronger response to a woman who was a step up in power. None of them would have guessed it would be like this.

But what was the Dust feedback from all of them doing to her? They were affected by just one of her. How would it feel to have a hundred Lenas, all of them focusing their attention and expectations upon you?

His stomach sank. It would be overwhelming. Add on everything she’d been through before she’d even arrived, and the loss of the affections of the one person she’d spent every day with for months, and it was too much. He understood with sudden clarity: She might be pissed at Jackson, but all of it together was too much. She was doing the best she could with what she had, and if dipping past her reserves from time to time made her moody and difficult, perhaps they should all back off and let her breathe.

He intended to give her the time she needed in old Idaho. When he pulled into the station, he powered down and turned to Herrons while the others gathered their packs.

“Mountain Home is Zone Four, and it’s too dangerous to risk the attention significant repairs might bring. The lights work, but the plumbing doesn’t. If you have to relieve yourself while you wait, you’ll have to go topside. I’d rather you did it after dark.”

Herrons nodded his understanding.

• “After you bring the relief team back here tomorrow, make camp here inside the train. We’ll be back day after tomorrow, sometime in the afternoon.”
  

“Day after tomorrow?” Jackson interrupted, surprised.

Alex nodded, his voice inviting no discussion, “Change of plans.” He returned his attention to Herrons. “In the event something goes wrong, follow protocol. Do
not
attempt to begin a search or rescue on your own initiative. Is that understood?”

Herrons nodded once. “I understand, sir.”

Alex nodded and trooped out, Jackson and Lena behind him. The station was bare-bones, on the off-chance someone native to the Zone wandered in. The detritus of its previous use over two hundred years ago hadn’t been cleared, except to restore the stairs up to the exit. And that work was subtle.

When they came up to the exit from the station, he keyed open the lock box. Before the other two went through, he warned her. “This was a secure facility beneath a military base. When the power went, and the fuel-based generators didn’t come online, the workers down here were trapped. Like I said, no restoration work has been done up here. It’s too risky.” He didn’t expect her to be particularly squeamish, but better to be aware. “The bodies are still here. Keeps people out. Keeps those who might come in from going deeper. Just a heads up.”

They moved through the corridors and up the staircases. It wasn’t a big facility, nothing like Fort Nevada, so they made good time. Alex powered up each room as they entered and shut it down again behind them. It wasn’t bad down here, on the third below-ground level. Except for the odd stray survivor who’d wandered off to die alone on the lower levels once they’d realized the inevitable, the lower levels were okay.

The top level was a mess. The entry and what looked to have been a meeting room were the worst. It was clear from the positions of the bodies that something had happened down here. People didn’t die of starvation or suffocation crawling over each other in a vain attempt to escape. Someone, he’d thought from his very first trip through, had decided the air and the food would last a little longer if there were fewer sharing it. He had bleakly wondered if he might do the same. He’d long since learned not to second-guess himself.

They reached the entry. Alex powered up the lights and glanced over his shoulder at the sharply-indrawn breath behind him. Lena’s face was pale but set. The body closest to the door through which they had entered was the most horrific.

He lay spread-eagle on his back, exactly as he had fallen. Skin, shiny and brown with age, had shrunken onto his bones. His mouth gaped in a centuries-long silent shriek while empty eye sockets stared up at the ceiling. Both hair and clothing were wispy and tattered. The brown-stained front of his shirt had several large, gaping rents in it, giving testimony to the wounds which had caused his fall. He was the worst. Once they got past him, the rest were too tangled to pick out the same level of detail.

Alex walked through the mass of desiccated, air-mummified bodies to the secured outside access point ahead, placing his feet carefully to show Lena where to step. He began the process of powering up the new security and keying it open as Lena and Jackson made their slow way down the path. The door cycled open, and Alex pushed at it, freeing them.

As they entered a final staircase up inside the long-abandoned and weathered building, Alex whispered an admonition to them. “No speaking at all from the moment we hit the surface. You keep your eyes on me and do exactly as I signal. Lena, we do not relax until we are within cover of the canyon two miles to the west.” He gave Jackson a look meant to remind him they did not ever relax.

The building itself had mostly collapsed, leaving a skeleton of support beams and door frames. Only the rear wall and the stairwell remained intact. Alex slid from frame to frame, taking stock of the surrounding area.

They were doubly lucky. There was no one around—not many Scavengers would bother with an area as picked over as the former Air Force base, but Neo-barbs might move in anywhere they could find rudimentary shelter. Plus, dark clouds skimmed low. Not only would the temperatures remain cooler, but their shadows would be less defined. Anything making them less noticeable as they moved across the plains to the canyon was a good thing.

He gestured them forward, and first Lena then Jackson joined him. Alex headed out, and they followed, an irregular arrowhead darting from the scant cover of the building.

Tall grasses, overgrown bush, and the occasional scrub pine covered the plain. As they moved further away from the base, they passed through what might have been a farmed field many years before. The crop now grew wild, and Alex moved into high alert. Wild grain always caused worry. If food grew, any nearby people would be desperate to collect it.

They were almost to the canyon when dim shadows crawled up over the opposite lip of the canyon ahead, moving away from the river ahead of them and toward the first of the low, broad buttes rising out of the plain on that side. He dropped to the ground. Lena and Jackson did the same behind him.

It was a small party, but still bigger than Alex’s three. They weren’t in the well-made uniforms of Council security. Scavengers were vicious opportunists who’d be dressed in the mixed colors of whatever they’d managed to find, steal, or remove from the bodies of those not as strong. Even from this distance, he noted the telltale rough, earth-toned clothing marking them instead as Neo-barbs.

The group was well armed. Each of them carried a bow or crossbow in addition to blades of various lengths strapped to their sides. He guessed they were a hunting party. So long as they continued in the opposite direction, he was content to let them go.

He waited until the Neo-barb party moved well away out of sight and hearing range. He back-tracked along their route to be sure there were no stragglers. The group had moved off toward the buttes ahead. He signaled Lena and Jackson to follow, and the three of them scuttled over the final stretch of open ground to the canyon.

The canyon narrowed as they passed, its steep sides choked with brush. The threatened rain stayed in the clouds as they cut south through the canyon to the Snake River. It was greener along the shoreline where the vegetation grew thick. The growth made for slower going, but it provided better cover. Alex hung back, watchful and wary, and let Jackson lead them up the river until late afternoon.

A piercing three-note whistle sounded from the underbrush ahead of them and off to the side. They stopped, and Jackson answered the whistle in kind. Alex joined them, waiting for the man on sentry duty to appear.

When he rose from the brush, he asked for the password.

“Bellwether.”

The young man nodded. “Thank you, sir. Our camp is just ahead, in those pines.” He pointed for them.

“Any activity?”

“No, sir. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Alex nodded. “Keep a close watch. We saw some neo-barb activity in the area when we were hiking in.”

“I’ll be staying behind and cycling back when you all go, so I’ll watch your back.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. They were headed toward the north side of the buttes, but it’s good to know we’ve got you back here.”

Alex lead the way up behind a rocky rise with scrub and pole pine clustered around its base on either side. He set his pack down and looked around. The base camp wasn’t much, but it was protected from weather and view.

They were alone now. Only one man stayed behind to watch from the rear. The other two were at the observation point, where they stayed for the duration of their shifts.

Lena slid her pack off and eased it down to her feet. She rolled her shoulders and then leaned down to take up her water and drink.

“Cold camp?” she asked him after she’d swallowed.

“Yeah,” Alex said. “That’s standard out here this close in.”

Jackson bent to claim a small area. He set his pack down and then leaned back against it, propping his legs up with a sigh of contentment.

She did the same at the far edge, away from Jackson.

Alex still felt restless. He glanced around. “I’m going to make a quick circuit, make sure the campsite is as good as they think. Check in a little more thoroughly.” He threw the younger man a sly look. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Jackson blanched. Lena challenged Alex with a look, lifting a brow at him as if to remind him of the kiss they’d agreed not to mention again. He swallowed his mischievous chuckle and stepped back into the trees and brush.

They set out in the pre-dawn dark. Moonlight made artificial lighting unnecessary for this portion of the trek. The now cloudless sky cooperated, and the twilight glow lit the route before them. They hiked an hour up the river to the yawning mouth of the canyon that led to the prison. Their observation point was a third of the way into the canyon, up high on the steep canyon wall. They cut up and around now, to come at it from above.

Silence had been important earlier. At this point, it became critical. Alex was hyper-aware of every rock grinding under foot and every cricket that stopped singing as they passed.

As they perched above the opening to the canyon, Alex paused. He cocked his head, listening. He could hear the soft sound of the river being churned by a paddlewheel and voices floating across the water to bounce back from the sides of the buttes running along this section of river. A steamboat headed down toward them. He cursed silently.

They couldn’t know if it would stop here, for the prison, or continue down the river. If it stopped, was it delivering supplies, or picking up cargo, likely of the human variety? Was this the long-overdue transfer they’d been watching for? The sounds were faint. Sound carried oddly over water, giving them no clear idea of how far out it was.

They entered the canyon, working over the sharply slanted wall, and then made their slow way down and across the right side of the butte that formed one of the inner walls of the canyon. The observation point hid the observers behind scrub and trees near the top of the butte, just to the side of an overhang.

The prison itself had been built along the curve of the butte, nestled at its base in the far opening of the canyon where two buttes rose up beside each other. The canyon ran between them from the river to the plain beyond. The plains spreading out from the prison on the other side were farmed, the labor to work the farms provided by collared Spark prisoners. The mouth of the canyon behind it had been reinforced and fortified against both water and intruders.

That was fine with him. They weren’t trying to get in; they only wanted to watch the activity of the guards and prisoners. If Lena got an eyeful of the collared Sparks so she’d understand why he and Thomas had worked so hard to build a viable alternative to the Council, even better. Yes, these particular men were criminals. But it wasn’t a leap in logic to guess how easy it would be for the Council to decide the easiest way to guarantee power would be to use the collars on all Sparks. It was barely a hop considering the recent delivery of a box of the damn things to each zone’s Council agents, likely precipitated by the loss of Lena.

If Thom and Alex could move Zone to Zone, they would have accomplished a bloodless revolution, ending the abuse and harnessing of Sparks. Well, not exactly bloodless, he acknowledged, but they were doing all they could to avoid any large-scale fighting or casualties.

As the three of them approached the OP, two shadows rose from the ground. The men they were relieving lifted their gear silently and moved toward and then past them without a word, handing off a pad of paper to Alex as they passed. Jackson led Lena and Alex behind the brush-covered twining trunks of a pair of pines. A long, narrow ditch had been carved out of the canyon-side between the trees and a large rock jutting back up the side of the butte beside the overhang. The three of them settled in.