Chapter Twenty One
The withered trees spread out in every direction, each branch twisted and bare, the many trunks overturned by force or age. It was a testament that nature, too, was on the very brink. There wasn’t a single part of the world left untouched by corporate greed, and Malory sighed. She had been stuck on guard duty for over a week, and she was bored out of her mind. She’d been wandering miles from her post and used some of the dead stumps for target practice—the Lantern had been returned to her, and bullets were about the only thing that wasn’t in short supply in the hideout. It was safe to say the Black Hands had lost the war, but they were too proud to admit it, and too self-important to give up. It was all a waste of time. No one was coming; they were going to wither and die on their own as resources ran out. None of them were nomads or knew how to forage outside the wall. They were accustomed to city-living, and the complete lack of creature comforts had started to affect morale. Malory made her way back to base when the sun crested over the horizon and her shift was over. Most of the blood had flaked off, but she had yet to shower.
The crisp ground crushed underneath her boots and her toes were numb, but she had recovered from the overexertion at the headquarters. Mal noticed the contours of muscles flexing where they’d never been visible before. She might have even been in good shape, all things considered, but growing up the way she did had left a permanent mark. She wondered what Nadia would think the next time they saw each other. She rubbed at the scars on her back absentmindedly as she drew near the makeshift buildings and slowed her pace. Most people were waking up for the morning, and she could hear the clamor of their new routines. It felt like traveling back in time to a doomed city on the eve of a natural disaster; Pompeii, Herculaneum, or Lajia, its people blissfully unaware their lives were forfeit. Each of their wants, their hopes, every need destined to remain forever unfulfilled. As Mal stepped inside one of the structures to head to her room down below, she stopped in her tracks. The Stranger was there, leaned against the wall, and he was waiting for her. His hair was slicked back with fresh gel, and he flashed the same sly smile. The clockwork gears spun and spun, trained on her disheveled face.
“You should take better care if you plan to survive,” he said. He pushed off the wall, stood to his full height, and clicked his tongue. “Shirking guard duty to wander around and play at merc with your little pea-shooter—such delusions are a coping mechanism of the weak.”
“What the fuck do you want?” Mal asked. She was exhausted, out of patience, and her filthy skin itched something fierce.
“You have been nominated, despite my insistence to the contrary,” he said. He leaned forward until his head was level with hers and stared into her eyes. The gears rotated slowly with contempt. “You will be granted transport and sent back to the city to retrieve enough supplies to ensure our operational success. If you fail, or do not return, however, I will do everything in my power to eradicate every trace you ever existed.”
“You want me to head through customs looking like this?” she asked. She motioned to her tangled hair, the grease, the leftover gore. “At least pretend you don’t want me to fail.”
“Very well,” he sighed. His eyes flashed, and a diagram pointing out the shower location down below was sent to her network. The job details followed. It showed her where to go, an extensive list of what was needed, and an expected timeline. “Use what you need, and then be on your merry way.”
“Sure,” Mal said. She pushed past him and headed down the hall, but then stopped and turned back. A glance at Faraday’s progress showed the AI was growing fast and had taken to sneaking inside rooms when it knew the occupants were elsewhere. It had yet to find anything important, but it was just a matter of time. “You said you were given the Doc’s assets, right? Any chance of continuing the search for my sister?”
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Absolutely not,” the Stranger said. He curled his lips in disgust and stifled a laugh. “The Black Hands are not a babysitting service, and that old bastard is lucky he wasn’t alive when such a mishandling of resources came to light.”
Mal’s hand moved for the Lantern on reflex, but she caught herself and continued walking. The clouds that blocked out the blooming rose inside her parted, and an overwhelming light flooded each petal and cranked the growth into overdrive. She had made up her mind to betray them. The hall of the old structure leading to the bathroom had been polished to a shine by some poor lackey who was demoted to a maid and forced to clean until there was nothing left that tarnished the well-traveled paths of the higher-ups. Mal shed her clothes, shoved them into the industrial cleaner in the corner, and slipped into one of the half-dozen stalls. She turned on the tap, and hot water greeted her. She let out a groan of pleasure, and scrubbed every inch of her body twice. There was tension in her joints and in the seam where the arm implant met flesh and blended together. As she felt it fade away, Mal stared at the drain and watched the water slip down into the sewer. When she was done, she wrapped a towel around herself and pulled her clothes from the machine. They were warm, smelled of detergent, and they looked fresh from a store rack. As she dressed, her hair dripped in a steady beat on the tiled floor.
When she was dressed and dry, she headed up to the surface and into the cold air that tickled her nose. She made her way over to the mustering point and found the red-faced woman who’d informed her about guard duty waiting. Beside her, an off-road motorcycle with a Black Hands logo slapped on the side was propped up on a kickstand. Its tire treads were heavy-duty and meant to traverse the wilderness with ease. On the back near the seat, someone had welded a tow bar where it didn’t belong and it threw off the balance. It allowed the bike to pull a small cart behind it, and Mal figured the higher-ups expected her to make multiple trips. She wasn’t coming back, though. The red-faced woman finished topping off the fluids, passed her the keys, and then walked away without a word. Mal threw her leg over, settled in the seat, and pressed in the ignition switch. The engine roared to life and then settled into a steady hum underneath her. She leaned forward, placed her hands on the handlebars, and revved the engine as she slipped the bike into gear. She shot off into the wilderness.
The wind howled past, and it twirled through Malory’s hair and caused her jacket to flap hard against her legs. Dust swirled high in her wake and clouded out the trees. The raw power made her giddy, so she pulled the throttle back further once she was out of the treeline. There were several craters scattered around, and she threaded the needle along their rims. A simple mistake was enough to send her tumbling down at high speeds, but she held the handlebars steady. An hour passed by, and with it, the initial rush faded away. Mal still felt free, but she was bored, and scanned the horizon waiting for anything to happen. A while later, she noticed a haze in the distance that hung over a large hill, and it grew in size as she drew closer. The smell hit her first, and it was overwhelming; it reminded her of the outskirts, the decay, the refuse that clogged the alleyways. When she started to make out scattered objects here and there, it became obvious that it was one of New Detroit’s open-air landfills. There were pieces of broken furniture, discarded entertainment systems, synth-plastic, a mix of discarded parts, and so much rotting trash. At the very top of the mound, a lone gray robot dug through the place, searching for something unknown.
Mal watched the sad thing root around until it was out of sight, and then called Nadia. It rang three times before she answered, and the little maniac was fresh and clean. Instead of being caught neck-deep in an invention, she was seated in the middle of an auditorium lecture and listening to an old woman drone on and on about advanced power supplies, their myriad uses, and the current shortage of Helium-3.
“Hey,” Nadia whispered. She twirled a small bolt in her nimble fingers and looked like she was on the verge of nodding off before the call. “What’s going on?”
“You actually went to class?” Mal asked. She pulled on the handlebars and drifted around a dried-out swimming pool. The remnants of neighborhoods started to appear as she neared New Detroit.
“I have to show up once a week to keep my scholarship, but I always end up sleeping through them,” she said. She put the bolt down on the desk and sat up straight. A look of deep concern made its way to her face. “Where the hell are you?”
