Broken Worlds Super Boxset (57 page)

The desk in Gordon’s office crashed to its side, toppling piles of papers and office supplies, and his computer smashed to the floor. Gordon rammed the tip of his foot into the underbelly of the desk repeatedly, splintering the wood underneath, spouting as many curses as he could come up with.

Once the rage had exhausted him, Gordon stopped. The tip of his foot throbbed as he sat back down in his chair. What was left of Alex’s seed bank and food storage was blown to smithereens, along with a portion of his men. The brutes that made up the muscle of the Soil Coalition were only good at one thing: breaking things.

It was an attribute that Gordon had exploited many times to his benefit. The goons could break bones, doors, walls, windows, and from time to time, the defiance that some of the community members exhibited, but that same brute force and less-than-delicate touch also caused quite a bit of collateral damage. However, this was the first time they’d ruined something this important.

The door slammed against the wall when Gordon made his way out of the office. The two sentries guarding Alex’s cell stepped aside and let him enter.

“Bad news. My guys found your stash, and a majority of them are dead and crispy. Smart rig with the explosion. But then again, it doesn’t take much to fool these guys,” Gordon said.

Alex didn’t say anything. He continued to cradle the side of his swollen face and pushed himself from lying on his side to a sitting position.

“So the deal’s off the table,” Gordon said. “You’ll be taken to a farm camp immediately. And I’ll make sure it’s one where your friends won’t be.”

Gordon turned to leave, but before he made it out of the cell, Alex pulled his hand away and mumbled through his swollen cheek and lower lip, “What makes you think that was all of it?”

“Bullshit.”

Alex flashed something that Gordon thought resembled a grin. Gordon tapped his foot. The throbbing had lessened and was replaced by a slight tingling. “Where?”

Alex shook his head. “No. This time I go. I don’t need your guys blowing up any more of my stuff.”

“Fine. But we leave now. Guards!”

It was a four-hour drive to Alex’s community from Topeka, and that was if the weather conditions remained favorable.

Gordon chose to ride with Alex and sat right next to him. It was a three-row seat SUV, with two sentries up front and two in the back. “They’re from the seed silo, aren’t they? Is that why you joined that detail when all of this shit went down?”

The vibration of tires on potholed asphalt was the only response, along with the slight clink of metal when the sentries adjusted their rifles. Another dip in the road jerked their bodies from side to side. The car’s shocks squeaked under the strain of its full load. Gordon leaned a little closer, looking at Alex’s reflection in the window as he looked away.

“You ever miss it? The power?”

The lumps on Alex’s face made it hard to read, but Gordon could swear he saw Alex’s jaw tighten in the window’s reflection.

“No?” Gordon asked. “Well, more for me then.”

***

They were only ten minutes away from Alex’s community now. He’d run through all of the different scenarios of how it would play out. The seeds he had stored under Harper’s house were his only real bargaining chip now. Once those were gone, he’d lose all leverage. And he wasn’t even sure if the pardon deal was on the table anymore. This would end in one of two ways: either he would be sent to a farm camp, or they would kill him. Alex didn’t like either of them.

The Main Street community structures came into view. Less than five minutes away now. Alex tried concentrating on the last time he had been in Harper’s house. Did he have anything there that he could use? The cloud of hunger loomed over his mind, fogging his train of thought.
Focus.
Alex shook his head sharply, fighting off the pain throbbing in his head when he had his answer.
The kitchen.

The tires of the SUV splashed through the mud road, past the community stores and buildings, and made its way up to the cul-de-sac. The brakes squealed to a stop. The driver got out and popped the door open. Warren was in similar cuffs outside the house.

“Well?” Gordon asked.

Alex nodded to the Harpers’ house. Two of the sentries walked on either side of him, with Gordon right in front. They stepped inside Harper’s house. Like most of the homes, it was fairly empty. Most people had burned their furniture for warmth during the first winter.

“Show me,” Gordon said.

“Through the kitchen. In the back,” Alex answered.

“You first.”

The restraints around Alex’s wrists hid the trembling of his arms. He controlled his breathing to steady himself. He stepped through the doorway into the kitchen, the two sentries following him. His eyes immediately went to the sink. Each step closer brought the bottom of the sink into view, and every inch that appeared without the outline of a knife caused panic to overtake him. Alex moved closer to the edge of the counter, trying to get a better look inside the sink. And then, just before the bottom of the sink appeared empty, he saw the faded black handle of a knife.

Using both cuffed hands, he swiftly snatched the handle of the knife. The doorframe to the kitchen was small, causing the two sentries to cluster, making it awkward for them to reach their rifles. Alex brought the tip of the blade into the side of the first sentry’s neck. An eruption of blood spouted from the contact. Blood squirted between the sentry’s fingers as he tried to stanch the bleeding. Before his partner could reach for his sidearm, Alex brought the blade of the knife across his throat as well.

With both sentries clutching their wounds, attempting to hang on to the last few seconds of life they had left, he shoved both into the kitchen’s hallway, bottlenecking the only entrance, keeping the knife in hand, and sprinted out the back. Dirt flew up from his heels. One hundred yards away was the forest of dead trees, clustered together in a decaying shamble.

The sentries finally made it through the kitchen, and shouts quickly transformed into gunfire. The bullets ripped through the air close enough to Alex’s head for him to feel the vibrations of the shots. Alex pumped his legs, pushing toward the tree line. His legs burned, and the metal from the cuffs cut against the skin on his wrists. Finally, he made it into the cover of the trees, which would grow thicker the deeper he went.

The cloud cover blocked out what moonlight was shining. The gunshots fired behind him lessened. They couldn’t see him now.

Alex pushed his body beyond the limits of what it wanted to do. It begged and cried out for him to stop, to rest, to eat, but he couldn’t. Not yet. He had to keep going. The constant placement of his feet one after the other on the uneven ground was the only thing keeping him alive. And if he was dead, then so were Meeko, Harper, and the rest of his community. So he pushed on, running to the thick tree at the other end of the forest to collect the rifles he’d stored there the day before.

***

Limp arms and a trail of blood were all that was left of Alice when the sentries dragged her out of the house and tossed her into the dirt. Warren, like the rest of the community that was forced to kneel on the hard asphalt in the street, looked at her body, praying they’d see some movement from her. But it never came. Her body was tossed next to the two dead sentries that Alex had killed.

When the leader of the Coalition himself, Gordon Reath, stepped outside of Harper’s house, he was wiping his hands with a rag. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing dark stains that decorated his arms. He tossed the bloody rag onto the mound of dead flesh then pointed at Warren. “Him.”

Warren’s knees were relieved from the pressure grinding them against the lumpy asphalt as two sentries picked him up by his armpits. The sentries dragged him inside after he wasn’t able to get his legs underneath him after having knelt for so long. On his way inside, he caught a glimpse of Alice’s body. Blood and large lumps disfigured her face, making it unrecognizable.

The sentries dragged Warren over the bloody boot prints that smeared the tiled floor. They dropped him into a chair in the kitchen next to a lantern that illuminated the concentrated splatters of blood around the chair’s legs.

“Your friend is a pain in my ass,” Gordon said.

“Welcome to my world,” Warren replied.

Warren’s knee popped as his foot slipped on the slick blood-soaked tile beneath him. The metallic heat and taste overwhelmed his senses. He felt like he was swimming in it.

“Where are the seeds?” Gordon asked.

“Go to hell.”

The remark earned Warren a blow to his cheek, which tumbled him out of the chair, and his shoulder smacked against the tile. He pressed his palm against the floor to push himself up and his hand glided through an already-smeared streak of Alice’s blood. Once Warren was stabilized and on his hands and knees, Gordon kicked his side, cracking his ribs. Warren collapsed back to the floor. Short, sporadic breaths that caused the slightest upheaval of his chest felt like broken glass grinding inside of him.

Gordon stepped over him and leaned down. “Six of my sentries are dead because of your friend. And on our way here, he said that there was another stash of seeds in this house. Now I ask again: where are the seeds?”

Warren lay there motionless, paralyzed by pain.
Alex will come back. He’ll get us out of this. He won’t let us die.

Gordon delivered another crushing blow to Warren’s face, breaking his nose. A gush of blood spurted, momentarily distracting him from the pain of his broken ribs. His vision blurred. The people around him turned into nothing but distorted figures. He felt Gordon pick him up by the collar of his shirt, but the fabric was so weak it ripped, and Warren crashed back to the floor. The symphony of agony reached its crescendo as Warren trembled on the floor, disfigured and maimed like the bodies out front. He would be joining them soon. There wasn’t any other way.

“
Where. Are. The. Seeds?
” Gordon demanded.

***

When the gunshots and shouts of the sentries faded behind him, Alex’s legs finally gave out, and he collapsed to the dirt and roots of the dead forest. His thighs twitched from exhaustion, and fire burned in his lungs. Whatever water was left in his system had been sweated out and had crystallized into salt on the edges of his face. His body wouldn’t let him up. He lay there, spent and completely empty of any fuel to burn in order to continue his journey. But his community still wasn’t safe.
Get up.
His muscles shook in defiance as he pushed himself off the ground and grasped a tree trunk to steady himself.

The blade he’d used at Harper’s house was still in his hand. He positioned the tip of the blade into the handcuffs’ locking mechanism. After a few tries, he managed to loosen the teeth on the locking bar enough to pull his hands free. The cool night air landed on the cuts left from the cuffs along the skin of his wrists, which cracked as he rotated them in their newly appreciated freedom. He tucked the cuffs into his pocket and continued his journey north toward a creek he knew that ran through the area.

The slight babble of water against rocks grew louder. When he made it to the riverbank, he cupped his hands in the flowing water and slaked his thirst. He cleaned the wounds on his wrist as best he could and splashed his face with the frigid water in an attempt to wake himself up.

The tree where he stored the weapons from the day before was a few hundred yards north. He took a few more sips from the creek then continued his journey. The water had given him a brief burst of life that he didn’t want to waste. Every second he was idle was one more Meeko and Harper were in the farm camp. But with this recent stunt, he wouldn’t just be able to walk up to the front doors and expect to get them out.

A small farm camp was north of the forest. He’d passed it a few times while hunting. The security was lighter compared to the larger camps closer to Topeka. There he’d be able to look up which farm camp Meeko and Harper were being held at and steal a uniform and one of their trucks. After that, he’d be able to sneak into Topeka with no questions asked.

Todd was still in shock. He and a few other community members lingered behind, wondering how they were still alive. Todd peeled his shirtsleeve off the puncture left from the needle’s prodding. Claret-colored specks of dried blood rested in its place.

Eventually, the other community members that had stayed behind left and headed toward the main community building, used for assemblies or the quarterly “social” gatherings that the Soil Coalition put on, which were nothing more than an ancient speaker system blaring old music. The only reason people showed up to them was because they were mandatory, as if forcing the community to be “social” would somehow cause them to forget their troubles.

When the community building wasn’t helping “strengthen” their societal bonds, it was used as a place to vent frustration against the very organization that built it. The poorly crafted walls, leaking roof, and musty air fit well with the complaints that filled it.

Most of the sentries stationed outside rarely entered the building. They remained at their posts, offering their obligatory glares and pat-downs upon entry. Todd extended his arms to the sides as the sentry patted him down roughly and robotically. Once cleared, he grabbed one of the wax candles from the barrel and lit its wick from the massive candle which acted as a lighter for anyone entering.

A small engraved plaque with the same inscription as every other community building rested under the candle. It was meant to inspire hope and a heightened sense of neighborly affection.

“
Let this continuous flame represent the burning desire for hope and faith in every citizen of the United States of America.”

Todd made it a point to spit on it every time he passed it. The plaque was nothing more than a continued propaganda campaign against every free-thinking man and woman in the country. Citizens had exchanged lightbulbs for candles. Cars for carriages. Knowledge for security.

Because glass was deemed too delicate and expensive, each community building was erected without windows. The small glow of the individual handheld candles provided the only light in the seemingly infinite darkness that consumed the room.

The light of Todd’s candle finally stumbled across one of the splintered wooden benches used as seating. He was careful in sitting down, trying to avoid an unnecessary poke from the aged wood.

“Talk about a literal pain in my ass,” Ray said, taking a seat next to Todd on the same bench.

Ray Nickle was by far the only other community member that had as big a grievance as Todd. Ray kept his candle tilted at an angle, letting the hot wax drip and join the growing pile on the floor. He sat hunched over with his elbow on his knee, making his already small frame smaller. The biggest thing on Ray Nickle was his mouth.

“Who the fuck is that new guy?” Ray asked.

“I don’t know,” Todd answered.

“Do you think they know anything? Did somebody talk?”

“No, I don’t think so. If somebody talked, half the town would be on their way to a farm camp right now. Something else must have happened.”

Three others joined Ray and Todd on the bench across from them. Emma Claire, Nelson Willow, and Billy Cooth. A few other community members walked in but sat by themselves or with their own groups of people. Having a new inspector in the community was a big change, and change was usually for the worse.

“Do we know what that was all about?” Emma asked, dripping some of the hot wax onto her fingertip and rolling it around, coating her skin with a slick whitish gloss.

“No,” Todd answered. “But we’ll figure it out.”

“How are you not in a farm camp right now?” Nelson asked. “I mean for God’s sake, you’ve been on the new produce for weeks now.”

“Maybe the Soil Coalition doesn’t have the resources for blood sampling anymore? It could all just be for show,” Billy said, through coughs and hacks.

“No, did you see the way the new inspector reacted to the results? It wasn’t what he believed would happen. I think the lab tech skewed the data,” Todd said.

“But why?” Ray asked. “If the Coalition found out, they’d toss his ass in a food camp faster than a whore skipping church on Sunday.”

That was the one variable that escaped Todd. Why? He’d never met the lab tech who ran their blood test before. Could the lab rat have known who he was? Perhaps, but without more information, it was useless speculating on how they came through unscathed and who their mystery helper was.

“Let’s focus on what we know. We just had a blood sampling a week ago. They’ve never been this close together in the past, so that leads me to believe something or someone tipped them off,” Todd said.

Todd didn’t want to allude to any allegations that would lead to dissent within the group. Their bonds of trust were a major factor in what they were able to do and would hopefully continue to do. But Todd knew this day would come. The risks of secrecy came with a very high price, and if one of them decided to cash in, then it would put all of their work in jeopardy.

“We are so close,” Emma said, squishing the growing collection of wax in her hand.

“Well, I’m just gonna come right out and say it,” Ray said. “It wasn’t me. I know that’s what everybody is thinking. Don’t deny it. Ol’ Ray Nickle, just trying to save his own ass, but I’m not. So nobody even try.”

“No one’s accusing anyone of anything,” Billy said.

On cue, doubting their own words, they all looked over their shoulders. Some of the other people were caught staring at them and quickly turned back to their smaller groups.

And despite Todd’s hope that the group still maintained their fortitude for the mission, he knew that every one of them would hit the proverbial wall eventually. It wasn’t something he could help them with. Each person had to overcome it on their own. It was a test he himself faced. He just hoped that his peers were strong enough to push through it.

“The soil,” Todd said suddenly.

“What?” Ray asked.

“The soil sample we set east of here. Somebody could have found it,” Todd said.

“It was less than a square foot,” Nelson replied.

Billy turned to cough, sending a spray of phlegm and spit into his shoulder as he tried to cover his mouth. Todd noticed the unusual paleness of his skin and the glossy coat of sweat covering his face.

“Billy, make sure you go see Ben today. You don’t look good,” Todd said.

“Yeah,” Ray echoed, “And I don’t need you getting me sick.”

“Yeah, I’ll see him after this,” Billy replied.

“The probability that someone stumbled upon the soil accidentally is low, yes, but it is still a possibility,” Todd said, turning back to the discussion at hand.

“It could have been picked up by a scout team,” Emma echoed.

“I told you we should have brought it back,” Ray said, shaking his head.

“I’ll go and take a look at it tomorrow. I’ll let you know what I find,” Todd said.

Todd left them without another word. He blew the flame out on his candle and tossed the waxy nub into the barrel by the entrance.

“Todd!” Emma waved her arms and ran to catch up with him. He slowed his pace, and when she grabbed his arm, he could feel the flakes of wax still lingering on her palm. “I want to come with you tomorrow.”

Todd quickly fell back into his long stride. Emma stumbled forward after him, trying to keep up.

“Just hear me out,” she said, sliding over the mud, trying to gain traction.

“It’ll draw too much attention to ourselves.”

“We don’t have to leave together; we’ll just meet up.”

Todd stopped abruptly, and Emma slid forward. He grabbed her arm quickly to stop her from falling.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Emma, it’s foolish. Go home.”

And just as quickly as he stopped, Todd started off again, leaving Emma alone in the street. He knew it was harsh, but now wasn’t the time to be careless. And with the new inspector eyeballing him from across the street, he didn’t want to put her in any more danger than she already was.