Wasteland Wonderland - Part 1 (10 page)

He collects people.

He collects people to come and live in
Wonderland.

And from there, they can buy a ticket, a seat
on one of the Shuttles headed for the continental Arks, the last
refuge of the human race, the life boats of mankind.

Problem is, it’s been a damn long time since
he’s collected anyone.

Five long years. Five long and hot years.

The hottest on record.

Last of all is the Overseer. A person, a
thing, who up until a few hours ago, I thought was just a myth. But
what I’m quickly finding out is… that not only is the Overseer
real, but everything I’ve ever heard about him is real. All the
rumors. All the tall tales and drunken stories in those sleazy bars
and pubs and back alleys. They’re all fucking real. He’s a
genetically enhanced super soldier who just might be
invincible.

He might just be unkillable.

I laugh to myself because I’m about to find
out real soon if this is the case. I’m going to kill an invincible
super soldier. I’m going to kill a myth.

Or I am going to die trying.

It sounds like madness.

“What’s so funny?” Angel asks, looking at me
sideways.

I shake my head. “Nothing is funny.
Everything is funny. Life. Where are we going?”

I realize I’m not making much sense.

Angel doesn’t seem to mind.

She points ahead. “Like I said, we’re going
to the Water Treatment Plant. There’s a tunnel behind the plant
that leads directly to Wonderland. The Overseer, he’s bound to come
through there.”

According to one of the Enforcer’s I killed,
there’s a tunnel connecting Wonderland to the Buried City.

A secret tunnel.

Blocking this passageway is a door that no
one on this side of the door knows the code to and no one has a key
to.

Angel confirms the intel. “That’s how the
girls, that’s how Ruby and I, that’s how we escaped. Ruby was able
to get the access code and the key. Don’t know how she did it.”

Ruby was smart. Tough. Resourceful. More and
more, I find myself wishing I could’ve had the chance to know her
better. More and more, I’m realizing how much of a tragedy it was
that she was murdered.

We arrive at the Water Treatment Plant and
it’s lousy with Mercs waiting for me and for other marks, waiting
to cash in on a big fat score. They’re so desperate and hungry they
don’t even bother hiding.

They’re out in the open for all to see.

It looks like the actual workers, the
engineers and the maintenance staff, the people who keep the
residents of the Buried City alive and hydrated have clocked off
work for the day.

They knew something big was about to go down
so they got the hell out of dodge.

Smart move.

Or maybe they were tipped off.

Every now and then I see what I think might
be an Enforcer. But it’s not. Maybe they’re better at keeping
themselves hidden. Or maybe they’ve all bugged out. Maybe they’ve
all run back home to Wonderland to lick their wounds and reattach
their lost limbs.

Can’t blame them.

Then again, maybe I’ve killed all the
Enforcers.

I guess it’s possible. I sure have killed a
lot of those bastards.

Angel and myself, we’re crouched down real
low, we’re on the other side of a massive reservoir of water. It’s
so massive it may as well be a lake. To our backs is smooth rock.
There’s no chance of anyone sneaking up on us.

In front of us, beyond the lake, is the
plant. And beyond that is the vault door and the tunnel that leads
to Wonderland.

We can’t see the vault door, but Angel
assures me it’s there. She then explains to me that there’s
protocols and contingency plans. Worst case scenario type
things.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I mean, Wonderland has the power and the
position to take control of this water source if they need it. They
can then do whatever they want with it. Drink it. Poison it. Use it
to flood the Buried City. Whatever they want.”

She has a large night vision scope attached
to her sniper rifle now. She’s given me a quick look. That’s how I
can see all the Mercs and none of the Enforcers.

“I’m getting worried,” I say.

“About what?”

“There are no Enforcers here. Why are there
no Enforcers?”

I give her the rifle so she can see what I’m
talking about.

“Maybe you killed them all,” she says,
scanning the plant. “Or maybe, just maybe, the Overseer realized
that throwing Enforcers at you was a waste of everybody’s
time.”

She hands the rifle back to me so I can have
another look.

“What are you going to do?” she asks.

Angel has made me memorize the access code to
Wonderland. She thinks the Overseer will have the key on him.

But I won’t even need the access code.
There’s no way I’m getting anywhere near the vault door. I’m
assuming it’s got some sort of failsafe activated. And it’s
probably guarded by some sort of automated weapon system.

But that’s beside the point. All I have to do
is go over there, make some noise, and wait.

The Overseer will show. He’ll show and then
it’ll be me and him. All I need to do is take him down and then
Angel and her friends can make a clean break. Angel and her friends
will have a chance. And I can get my revenge and my forgiveness
from Ruby’s ghost. I’ll probably die doing this, but I’ll die doing
the right thing. I’ll die doing the good thing, fighting the good
fight.

“Well?” Angel asks. “What are you going to
do?”

“If I don’t make it back, you take that
thermo suit and you get the hell out of here.”

I give her the keys to the Sunspeeder.

“What’s this?”

“There’s a Sunspeeder. It’s hidden in the
Wasteland. It’s hidden someplace that’s real hard to find.” I give
her the coordinates anyway. Just in case. “You’ll need a GPS
tracking device to find it. Worse comes to worst, maybe you can
trade the keys for something. The Sunspeeder is old, but it’s good
to go.”

She takes the keys off me. “You still haven’t
answered my question. What are you going to do?”

I make sure my guns are loaded and secured
and I say, “I’m going to make this right.”

For Ruby.

I start swimming towards the plant. My brother taught me to swim a
long, long time ago. My younger brother, teaching me, his older
brother how to swim. It was kind of embarrassing.

And I couldn’t figure it out. We live in a
Buried City. In the middle of the Wasteland. The world’s oceans and
lakes and rivers have all but dried up.

What’s the point?

He’d said, “The point is, so you don’t drown
in a desert like a fucking moron.”

It was a fair point.

And here I am. Swimming through an
underground lake.

My brother was always the smart one.

I’m putting his lessons and advice to good
use. And even though on the surface the water looks calm, even
though it looks down right inviting, swimming across it is a lot
harder than I thought it would be. The water has a strong undertow.
The water is moving and flowing and churning because it needs to be
moving and flowing. Can’t have stagnate water. Still water will
pool and become dirty and polluted. Flowing water is essential for
life. Almost as essential as the sun.

And as I swim across, I feel the presence of
something very big under the surface. A giant propeller. Giant
blades, mixing and churning the water. If I go under, I’ll be
chopped into mince-meat. I’ll be food for all the little fishies
down there. And the big ones.

Overhead, I hear the crack of Angel’s sniper
rifle. She has already started taking out the Mercs. I look up in
between strokes, between breaths. She’s not actually killing any of
them. She’s taking their legs, their arms.

She’s putting them down, but not killing. I
don’t care who you are, that takes some serious skill. And some
serious empathy. She understands that these Mercenaries are not bad
people. They’re not out to kill us. They’re just desperate.

She’s a lot kinder than I’ll ever be.

By the time I reach the shore, by the time I
climb up on to the metal structure of the Water Treatment Plant,
the Mercs are all flailing around on the ground. There’s blood
everywhere. The ones that had any sense fled with all their limbs
attached and no holes in their bodies.

I walk through the treatment plant. I don’t
bother hiding or stalking my way through. I know the Overseer is
here somewhere, and I know he will want to face me.

He needs to. He needs to know what I know. He
needs to know who I’ve talked to. He thinks he can get this
information from me, by torturing me, by asking the hard way. He is
sorely mistaken. I walk through a room and a bunch of doorways and
turnstiles that normally would be guarded. Normally you’d need some
sort of security clearance to get through.

Normally.

But this ain’t normal.

And now I’m standing in front of the largest
vault door I have ever seen. Bigger than the ones at the bank. And
I know there is treasure on the other side. I know on the other
side of this door is a tunnel, a very long tunnel that leads to
Wonderland.

The keypad is next to the vault door.

There is an elaborate looking keyhole.

I never get a chance to enter the code.

Never get a chance to find out what kind of
key it takes.

There is a pin-prick in the back of my
neck.

More poison.

A lot more.

This is how the Overseer likes to do it.
Quick and clean and painless.

Not me. He won’t be so lucky. It won’t be
quick and it won’t be clean and it won’t be painless. I turn around
and he’s standing there with a dart gun.

He’s reloading it.

I grab the needle in my neck and throw it on
the ground. “Poison won’t work on me,” I say, hoping that Angel’s
serum will still be in my system, still working its magic.

The Overseer ignores me and reloads the
poison dart gun. He puts it back in its holster and he checks his
watch.

He looks at me.

And then back at his watch.

And he says, “Maybe you are right.”

I draw both guns in a flash. My brother’s
antique, it’s got a fifteen bullet magazine, the rapid fire’s got
thirty. These bullets fly towards the Overseer faster than the
speed of sound, faster than the eye can see.

Little promises of pain and death and
revenge.

They hit nothing but air and metal and
concrete.

I let go of the rapid fire and it swings to
my side. I reload my brother’s gun.

I take aim.

At nothing.

At darkness and shadows.

I see a glint of something.

A flash of steel.

A knife.

The Overseer cuts my arm and my hand and just
like that I drop the gun. I still have the rapid fire, but if I
take my eyes off him to reload it, he’ll end my life. So I keep my
eyes on him. I get ready for the fight.

He slashes with the knife. He’s fast.

So fast.

He’s thin and he looks malnourished, but he’s
got the energy and the power of a prize fighter, a gladiator, a
Wasteland Raider. His arms are deceptively long. Even longer with
the blade of the knife.

For a moment, we’re dancing around each other
and I’m in awe of his quickness and his strength.

We stand eye to eye. Toe to toe. Face to
face.

And then I decide to end it.

I move in close and he stabs me with the
knife. He stabs me right in the ribs and the blade catches on bone,
on my ribcage, protecting my vital organs.

I feel pain. A lot of pain. But I shrug it
off. I keep moving.

I grab his neck with both hands and I twist
it. I do this with force, with all the hate and emotion that I’ve
been carrying around with me. I hear bones crunch. I hear sinew and
tendons and ligaments snap.

I see his spine. His throat is still
intact.

I drop him on the ground and kick his knife
away. “You’re a fast son of a bitch, I’ll give you that. But you’re
not fast enough.”

I stand over him and the blood from my knife
wound drips all over his thin and once powerful limbs.

His eyes are still open. Still looking at me.
I think he wants to scream in pain, but he doesn’t. He is sort of
moaning and gasping on account of his throat being wrapped
awkwardly around his spine.

I hear a single round, a bullet slide into
the breech of a rifle.

Angel is behind me, sniper rifle at the
ready. “Let me finish him off. This bastard has made my life a
living hell.”

“Sure. Shoot him as many times as you want.
He’s not going anywhere.”

“I heard you earlier,” he whispers.

I hold my hand up, telling Angel to hold off
on the execution.

“Heard what?”

“Talking about soldiers.”

“So?”

“I just want you to know… that I too am a
soldier. I am following orders. I am following protocol.”

“And what were your orders?”

“To find you… study you. And… destroy you. To
stop the flow of information to the outside world. To protect the
interests of Omega Camp. The killing, it was not personal.”

I pick up my brother’s gun. It is loaded. The
safety is off. The barrel is still warm. “My brother used to say
that every day is a school day. Because every day, you can learn
something new. And guess what? You’re about to learn something new.
The killing… it’s always personal.”

The damn thing closes its eyes and maybe even
nods its head like it agrees with me. Like it is actually learning
something new.

I think about shooting him, but I don’t. I
step aside and Angel puts a bullet square between his eyes and his
head explodes and vaporizes.

I reload the rapid fire gun just in case.

Angel drops the gun and collapses to her knees.