Rage (30 page)

“And he is?”

“He runs Subway Town. Who knows why …”

“Love the political system in this world.”

“Yeah. Another thing we want to change. For now, though, Redstone is in charge. Whether people are scared of him or need what he can get, it doesn’t much matter. This is his place.”

Now only thirty feet above the ground, Raine watched Elizabeth turn to the right, banking the craft slightly.

“So you are safe here?”

“Like I said, for now. No place is safe too long. We’re already looking for a new place.” She looked at Raine. It seemed to him that she wanted to tell him something more but stopped.

He could see that up here, at the street level, the city above-ground was completely deserted.

Everyone was living below, he realized. Like …

What was the word?

Living like troglodytes.

Elizabeth grabbed a lever and the engine slowed. Another lever let more hot air out of the sausage-shaped balloon above.

In minutes they came to a landing.

She pulled the engine lever all the way down.

The boiler went quiet, and as the balloon deflated she ran around, neatly catching the folds of canvas material as if wrapping a mainsail tight after a day at sea.

“Okay—ready?” She jumped off the ship, its hull now camouflaged amidst the scattered debris of the city. “We have people waiting.”

Raine grabbed his guns and his pack with the hard drive. Would they be of any value to this group?

He guessed he was about to find out.

Down into dark subway tunnels. Once his eyes adjusted, he could see that stretches were dotted with lights. Slowly, he could make out the sound of voices.

“Just walk like you live here,” Elizabeth whispered. “Nice and natural, okay?”

“Sure.”

The passed people, some drinking, others haggling at a stand.

She leaned close to him. “Put your arm around me. Looks better.”

Raine did so. Been a while since any human contact, he thought.

They walked close together now, as if out for a late night stroll.

Past a place with neon lights…

Jani’s.

From a doorway, smoke and people poured out. Raine could see that everyone had a weapon—either a rifle slung over their shoulder or a handgun by their side. No, it wouldn’t be easy even for Enforcers to clear out this place.

Elizabeth leaned her head into him.

“We turn up here. It’s going to get dark. Then we get to a place the train inspectors used to use. No one goes there—too dark, too far from the action.”

He followed her lead, and Elizabeth led him down a narrow
tunnel, leaving the tracks behind. The lights and sounds behind them faded.

He didn’t know how she knew where she was going. Counting some kind of markers on the side?

But then she stopped. She pulled her headlamp on and turned on the light.

“Here we are.”

Raine didn’t see anything.

But she knocked, and he could hear that whatever she was banging on was hollow. She knocked three times. One time. Then twice … and a door opened.

She moved to go inside, but before she did, she turned to him.

“Don’t be disappointed … but welcome to the Resistance.”

Not the best welcome …

A burly man—no shirt, but a band holding a knife around one of his thick muscular arms and two full holsters—stood on the other side of the door.

Having the correct knock … probably pretty damn important.

No smiles at Elizabeth’s return.

“Everything go okay?”

She nodded in Raine’s direction. “He won the Bash. That helped. I had the explosives ready for plan B.”

The man nodded.

“Raine, this is Jack Portman. He’s our ordnance expert. Gets the weapons, keeps them working. Irreplaceable.”

“Glad to meet you,” Raine said.

“We’ll see about that.”

Another man hurried out from the rear.

“Does he have it? I’ve been waiting.”

Elizabeth continued, “And this is Mark Lassard. Does what we used to call I.T. Except he’s a real genius.”

“Yeah, yeah—we don’t have a lot of time, Elizabeth. Where is
it
?”

“He’s talking about the hard drive you got.”

“Oh.” Raine dug out the incendiaries and the shotgun, then handed the pack with the drive from the Dead City to Lassard.

“Good. I’ll get on this right away.” He hurried away.

Portman still stood there, taking him in.

Trust had to be scarce.

Was he weighing whether he, newly arrived, was worthy of it?

“Seems to be in a rush,” Raine said.

Elizabeth turned to him.

“Yeah. Well—”

“And your leader. Marshall. Is he here?”

“Bring him over to the table,” Portman said. “Chitchat time is over.”

Good conversationalist, that Portman.

They sat at a small metal table.

Behind them, Lassard was at a keyboard at what seemed to be a decent computer setup. The sound of typing accompanied their talking.

“Want some food?” Elizabeth asked him.

Raine shook his head.

Portman sat with his elbows resting on the table, his arms folded.

Elizabeth looked at him. “There
is
a rush.”

“I see you got your I.T. guy working like crazy,” Raine said.

Portman looked back at Elizabeth, ignoring him. “Let’s get on with it. See if he’s really with us or not.”

Yeah … not much trust emanating from the weapons guy.

“Our leader isn’t here.”

Raine nodded, listening to Elizabeth.

“He was captured days ago and sent into Capital Prime. He’ll be questioned, tortured, then questioned again. Eventually he will tell them what he knows … or die. Either could happen.”

“Or both,” Portman rumbled.

“He’s in the Capital?”

Elizabeth nodded. “We know he’s still alive. We got word about that. We also got word that he’s close to breaking. Tomorrow will be the day they pull out all the stops and try to get everything they can from him. What he knows could destroy the Resistance. Expose our cells all over the Wasteland, our plans …”

She looked to Portman to see how she was doing. He made a slight shrug with his massive shoulders. She continued.

“If we don’t get him out by then, it’s disaster for the Resistance. And with what you brought, we could be close to a turning point in our war against them.”

Raine kept listening but noted that was the first time he had heard the word … 
war.

War was something he understood.

“We can tell you about that. About what we are trying to do. But none of it—the Resistance, the data on that hard drive—means much unless we get Marshall out.”

Raine looked around at the room. No one said anything for a few moments. A lightbulb came on, without anyone saying a word. Finally, he spoke up.

“And I’m guessing … that that would be my job.”

And no one said no.

P
ortman spread out a hand drawn map.

“This is the Capital. We’ve sent teams around there to do a recon. Some made it back. It’s as accurate as we could make it.”

“But where did you get this?”

“People who worked on the Capital buildings … a few deserted to us,” Elizabeth said. “The ones that could get away.”

“And we’ve had some people on the inside,” Portman added. “From time to time.”

Raine recalled what they said about learning Marshall’s condition.

Elizabeth was nodding to what Portman had said. “Still, there are a lot of things we don’t know.” She put a finger down.

“Here, this is the prison … right under one of the Enforcer barracks.”

“That’s convenient.” They didn’t acknowledge his sarcasm.

“Marshall is there. Could be any cell. Our last informant never could find out where, and now we don’t have any inside information at all.”

“Been in situations like that before.”

“Not like this one,” Portman said. “The outer perimeter of the place has weaponized fences. Enforcers patrolling all over the damn place.”

“You make it sound almost easy.” Raine glanced at a digital clock above Lassard’s bank of computers. It was just after twelve. He was tired of all this debriefing. Tired, and hurt, and drained from the hell of the last few days.

Couldn’t they do this tomorrow?

But no—he knew they had no time.

Which meant that
he
had no time.

As if sensing his internal struggle, Elizabeth ignored his last comment. “One thing we know is that we can’t send a bunch of untrained settlers in there,” she said. “They’d get destroyed. It needs to be someone with training.
Your
training.”

“What do you know about my training?”

“One thing we did get from an Ark were the dossiers on all the planned survivors, who’s still buried …”

“And all those who have already been killed or captured,” Portman added. “A lot of good people.”

Raine nodded, and once again thought about the mission. “So it’s just me?”

“No—just us,” Elizabeth said. “I’m going as well.”

Raine shook his head. “No, you won’t. If I have any chance at all, it will be on my own, with as much firepower as you”—a nod to Portman—“can give me. Besides, if I don’t make it, that means Marshall doesn’t make it, and
that
means this group will need you.”

“He’s right,” Portman said. Then to Raine: “But I can go.”

“No. I need what you can show me here, on the map and any weapons you have, but you’re not coming with me.”

“I can damn well go if—”

“What were you, before joining the Resistance?”

He sniffed the air. “Worked on engines. Dabbled in guns. But I can—”

“They’ll need you as well. And I need what you can give me. But if you’ve never practiced and carried out an infiltration, you’d do me more harm than good.”

The two of them stared at each other. Reluctantly, Portman nodded.

And Raine suddenly realized that the power had quietly shifted from them … to him.

Leading.

Now—he thought—that’s what the hell I was sent here for.

He rubbed his eyes. Fighting the fatigue.

“Got anything? To give me a boost.”

Elizabeth got up and went over to a shelf, grabbing a metal case.

“I can give you a shot—a mix of primobolan and testosterone. Some pills for a quick boost later. Your nanotrites still working okay?”

“Doing fine.”

She nodded. “As I said—don’t get used to them. When you come back, we’ll get them out. But you’re okay for now.”

“Good. Now—you say you have a plan?”

She looked back at Lassard, still tapping furiously at his keyboard. “Yeah. And it involves what Lassard is doing as well.” Elizabeth smiled and lifted the layout map of the Capital, to reveal a bird’s-eye view of the area from a distance … and what looked like …

 … an aircraft carrier.

What the …?

“Ready?”

Raine let her finish, the plan well thought out even if it sounded like it was lifted from a suspense novel: impossible, mad, no margin for error.

He shook his head.

“Lot of unknowns there.”

“We did the best we could.”

He looked over at Lassard. “And what if
he
doesn’t finish in time?”

“You go without it. Get Marshall. Come back.”

Abruptly, Lassard pushed his chair away from his monitors.

“Christ. I was close.” He turned back to them. The digital clock above his head kept clicking off the milliseconds. “So damn close!”

“Keep trying, Mark,” Elizabeth said.

He nodded and went back to his keyboard.

Raine said, “How did you know you could trust me?”

“Kvasir.” She smiled. “He may not like to think he’s with us. But he is.”

Raine realized then that she didn’t know.

About Kvasir. About what happened.

“Elizabeth—Kvasir is dead.”

Her eyes went wide. She kept them locked on Raine.

Then he explained how he had been rescued by the old scientist, and how he found him when he came back, slaughtered by the Authority.

She didn’t say anything as he spoke, but he saw her eyes glisten.

Hard to think of the crazy old scientist as a soldier of the Resistance. But it was clear that’s what he had been.

“Fuckers …”

The curse took Raine by surprise, coming from Elizabeth. Actually made him smile. “Right.”

She took a breath, the room so quiet now. “When he sent us word of you, he sent something else. Portman—”

Portman nodded, grabbed a crate pack and brought it to the table.

“Take a look,” Elizabeth said. “Kvasir’s last gift to us. And they may just keep you alive.”

Raine took one of the things out of the pack, a long, narrow needle with a small sharp clip attached to one end.

“A dart?”

“He sent them along with word of you. Called them mind darts. Only got to make five of them, and we haven’t had the chance to test them.”

Raine fingered it, felt the pointy end with a fingertip.

“Easy there,” Portman said. “Get that stuck in you and it floods you with nanotrites.”

“That would be good, no?”

“No. That would be
lethal.
According to Kvasir, the dosage far exceeds what a human can handle. Renders your system under their control. And see that clip?”

Raine undid the clip from the back of the dart.

“You can use that to move the person stuck with the dart, put them—apparently—anywhere you want them.”

Raine laughed. “Kvasir. Crazy guy.”

“And brilliant,” Elizabeth added.

“I don’t doubt it.” Raine looked in the bag. “These could be useful. Wish we had more than five.”

“We will work on making them—but for now, that’s all we have.”

He turned to Portman. “And what happens later? You said … they’re lethal.”

“You get a bit of time to move whoever you control around. But then the nanotrites’ buildup will make them explode. Literally.”

“Nasty.”

He looked up from the dart to the two of them. It was indeed a nasty weapon. They had been at this for a while and, as in most any movement, had reached the point where they would do anything to win.