Wasteland Wonderland - Part 1 (2 page)

The Sherriff is a good woman. Well, she’s
still a girl really. Young and naïve.

Full of hope and energy.

I’m not even sure how she got the top job.
It’s not that she’s not capable, she’s plenty capable. She’s the
best damn Sheriff this city has had in a long time. It’s just that
there were other people, hard men, old and crusty men who had paid
their dues and served their time.

And then the Mayor goes ahead and names
little Zoe Harrison as the sheriff.

With the stroke of a pen, the nod of a head,
the Mayor pissed off a lot of people. I personally think he chose
Zoe so he could manipulate her, so he could groom her.

He has had no such luck.

Anyway, right now, Zoe is giving me the heads
up. Giving me a run-down of what is waiting for me out in that
narrow hallway of this sleazy hotel.

A squad of Wonderland Enforcers.

A bunch of desperate and hungry Mercs.

Thank you, Zoe.

I owe you one.

The door flies off the hinges and it’s time
to get down to it.

I’m expecting the Enforcers to open fire. But
guns are rare. Bullets are rare.

Rare and expensive.

So they send in the Mercs first and their
weapons of choice are wooden batons.

Knives.

One lucky bastard has a sword.

I throw these Mercs to the floor, breaking
arms and hands. I stomp on their faces, making sure they stay
down.

And they do. They stay down.

I’m pretty sure they’re all dead.

I can tell within seconds that the Enforcers
are regretting their decision to not use deadly force, to save
their bullets, to try and take me alive. But I know it won’t be
long before some hero decides to draw on me and open fire.

So I keep moving.

Most of the Enforcers and the rest of the
Mercs have fallen back to a lower level of the hotel. I see some of
the Mercs are armed with guns. None of them are drawn. None of them
are aimed at me.

Zoe is nowhere to be seen. Smart girl.

Only two idiots remain.

Two elite soldiers from Wonderland.

They die quickly. Easily.

Their guns are still in their holsters.

Two dead Enforcers.

If I wasn’t in trouble before, I sure as hell
am now.

I make my escape. I leave the building.

I know the Enforcers and the Mercenaries are
waiting for me. I know they have blocked off all the exits. But
they don’t know
all
the exits. They don’t know this place
like I know this place.

So I leave this seedy hotel. I leave Ruby,
dead and cold, covered by a sheet.

I escape unseen.

I move quickly because I know it won’t be
long before they get sick of waiting, eventually they’ll figure out
that I’ve given them the slip, eventually they’ll come looking,
eventually they’ll tear that building apart in a desperate search
for me.

And when they don’t find me, they’ll come
hunting, chasing.

So I don’t have long.

I need to keep moving. I need to speak to the
only person I can trust right now. I need to talk about Wonderland
Enforcers and murdered girls. I need to say these things out loud
and get these crazy thoughts out of my head. Basically, I need
someone to tell me that I’m not fucking insane, that the scene back
in that seedy hotel room was real. That I did the right thing. That
I’m fully and totally justified in getting my revenge and killing a
whole lot of people in the process.

My brother lives in one of the nicer parts of
the Buried City. By nice I mean the water is usually flowing, the
power is usually on, and the roaches and the rats aren’t so damn
big. He chooses to live in the nicer part because he can. He can
afford it and no one was going to tell him otherwise. And now that
we’re both essentially retired, he’s got no use for hanging out in
the rougher parts. He’s got no use for fraternizing with the
rougher people.

I make my way to his apartment. The door is
locked but it makes no difference to me. I’ve known how to pick a
lock before I could throw a punch.

My brother is awake, sitting in a chair,
drink in his hand.

He was waiting for me.

Or for someone.

He turns a lamp on and I look away so as to
not ruin my night vision.

“You armed?” I ask.

“Should I be?”

“Probably.”

I look over, initially blinded by the light.
He shows me a hand held gun. A relic. An antique. A treasure worth
more than our lives combined. Hell, the bullets contained within
the magazine alone are worth more than our lives combined.

“I’ve been seeing a lot of those things
today,” I say.

“In the hands of the Enforcers no doubt.”

“And Mercenaries.”

“Mercs don’t usually have guns.”

“I guess someone is supplying them.”

“That someone being from Wonderland.”

“Why are you awake?” I ask. “Why have you got
your back to the wall?”

He puts the gun away, somewhere in the waist
of his pants, somewhere near his knife. “A man came to see me
yesterday.”

“About what?”

“He was asking about a girl. He knew I used
to be a transporter. Back when we had people to transport. Thought
I might have helped her.”

“Helped her? With what?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. Not at first. But it
doesn’t take a genius to figure this out. She escaped from
Wonderland. She stole something from the Collector.”

Ruby. She was scared. She was on the run. No
wonder she was hanging out in that bar, in that part of town. No
wonder she wanted me in her room. Lot of good that did her.

“What did she steal?” I ask.

“He didn’t say. But does it really matter?
You steal from the Collector, or from the Lord, your life is
over.”

“Why the hell would anyone steal from those
guys?” I ask, thinking out loud. “Why would anyone want to
escape
from Wonderland? The risk, it’s not worth it. This
doesn’t make any sense.”

My brother shrugs his shoulders. “Beats
me.”

“No one chooses the Wasteland over
Wonderland. I don’t care what you stole. I don’t care what you did.
No one chooses the Wasteland.”

“You’re pretty worked up over this. Mind
telling me what happened?”

“A man came to the bar last night, probably
the same guy who came to see you. He was asking me about a girl.
The
girl.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I’ve never seen anyone like her
before. I’ve never seen anyone with skin so smooth and soft. Hair
like silk. She said her name was Ruby. She said she was from
Wonderland. She said she knew secrets.”

“You spoke with her?”

I nod my head slowly.

“What the hell did you do?” He asks this
question even though he already knows the answer.

“She was scared,” I say. “She was
terrified.”

“And you slept with her?”

“She died in my arms. She’d been poisoned.
Wasn’t no regular poison.”

My brother pours himself another drink. He’s
drinking from a bottle of whiskey. Another antique. He doesn’t
offer me one. Probably because I look like shit. And probably
because he doesn’t want to waste a priceless bottle of whiskey on a
dead man.

“And then the Enforcers showed up?” he
asks.

“Yeah. And the Mercs. They showed up before
anyone but me could’ve known she was dead.”

“She’s from Wonderland, Hector. They can
track their people. That’s probably why she came here. The signal
gets weaker underground. A lot weaker. Probably bought her some
time.”

“Not enough.”

“Did you kill anyone?”

“Maybe.”

“Jesus. Why didn’t you cooperate?”

“They were going to frame me for her death.
They were going to put it all on me.”

“How do you know that? They weren’t after
you. They wanted the girl.”

“They had guns. They were out for blood.”

“Did you kill Mercs or Enforcers?”

“Both.”

“They’ll Exile you for this. Or worse.”

“I’ve been Exiled before. I’m not
afraid.”

“That was years ago. It’s hotter now. A lot
hotter. And you’re not getting any younger.”

“You really think anyone is gonna enforce an
Exile on me?”

“Yes. I do. And if you don’t cooperate, if
you don’t go peacefully, they’ll put people in place, in the
Canyons, in this city. They’ll have guards and patrols. They’ll be
armed to the teeth. They’ll punish anyone who helps you. They’ll
isolate you. That’s how they do it. That’s how they win. They have
more people. More guns. They have the tech. There’s no surviving
this. Not unless we go to them immediately. We go to them and we
explain that it was all a misunderstanding. We need to start
cooperating. We need to start calling in all the favors we spent
years working for.”

My younger brother, the hard man of the
Buried City, has gone soft on me. That’s what retirement will do to
a person. That’s what living in a nice apartment will do to a
person.

Drinking priceless whiskey.

Having regular showers.

“There’s no talking my way out of this,” I
say. “The Wonderland Enforcers, the Lord, the Collector, they’re
out for blood. This girl, she knew something. Something big.
Something that got her killed. She came to me for protection, she
could’ve just as easily have found you.”

“Hector, I got a job. Came from the top. If
you cooperate, we can clear your name, we can start working again.
But if you refuse, I can’t help you with this.”

“A job? What kind of job? No one’s been
processed in years.”

“That’s all about to change. The Shuttles are
almost here. I’m taking people from the Canyons and the Buried City
into Wonderland. I’m getting paid a small fortune. I’m sorry. But I
can’t help you.”

“Don’t you think the timing of this is a
little suspicious? They knew I’d come to you. They knew you had
nothing to lose, that you’d help me. That together we’d be that
much harder to stop. You had nothing to lose, so they gave you
something
to lose.”

“They showed me the proximity of the
Shuttles. They’re getting closer. It’s nearly time.”

He has his head lowered. He can’t look me in
the eye.

“I don’t need your help,” I say. “I don’t
need anyone’s help.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find out what Ruby knew. I’m
going to find out what got her killed. And then, I’m going to get a
whole lot of revenge.”

“You should make peace with the Red
Giant.”

“I already have.”

My brother finishes his drink and stares at
the empty glass.

No one says anything for a while.

And then I say, “When you go up, watch out
for Raiders. Those bastards are getting desperate.”

I say this because I’m unable to say
goodbye.

He nods. He knows to be careful. He knows the
dangers. It’s why he’s the best at what he does.

“When I get Exiled,” I say. “Come visit me in
the Wasteland.”

Before I leave, he throws me his gun. A
treasure, a priceless and deadly antique. He throws me two extra
magazines.

He says, “Don’t you dare waste those
bullets.”

I wander the Buried City. I keep an unconscious eye out for Mercs
and Enforcers, for the man in the poncho with the scar over his
left eye. I feel my brother’s gun dig into my hip. A rat the size
of a small dog scurries past me. It had a slice of pizza in its
mouth. Lucky son of a bitch.

I realize I’m still in the nicer part of the
Buried City. And I’m not going to find what I’m looking for here. I
need to get back into the tunnels, back to the deep stations.

The Buried City used to be a giant
underground subway station. It was one of the biggest in the world.
Apart from the numerous platforms, it also contained shopping
centers and offices. Restaurants and cafes. Exhibition centers and
hotels. All connected. All underground. And now it is smack bang in
the middle of the Wasteland. Along with the Canyons, and of course,
Wonderland, it became one of the last asylums of the human
race.

And like any city that has ever existed,
there’s always a right side of the tracks, and a wrong side of the
tracks.

I make my way to the wrong side.

My home.

The Mercenaries I killed earlier, they were
only the tip of the iceberg. I know there are more. I know they are
all just chomping at the bit to make a name for themselves. I know
they have all been paid upfront to kill me, to kill Ruby. They’ll
be given a reward for finishing the job.

Fresh food.

Fresh water.

Women.

Booze.

Drugs.

Weapons.

Forged blades.

Maybe even guns and ammo.

These are all the things we try and use to
buy off the people, the Enforcers and watchmen from Wonderland
with. I now see how stupid that is. What’s the point of trying to
trade something to someone who has no use for whatever it is you’re
selling, who already has a treasure chest full of whatever it is
you’re selling?

It’s like trying to sell dirt to a dirt
farmer.

It’s downright stupid is what it is.

What they, the Wonderlanders, what they want,
just like everyone else, is two things...

First, we all want a way off this doomed
rock, we all want a seat on one of the Shuttles. We all want a
place aboard one of the Arks.

We all want this.

Even if we say we don’t, even if we say we’ve
made peace with the Red Giant, we all want a way off. If not for
ourselves, then for our friends, our family, our children.

Truth be told, this is why my brother and I
had been risking our lives, transporting people through the
Wasteland, delivering chosen refugees to Wonderland. On top of the
transporting, we were doing favors for the Collector. For the Lord.
We had been trying so hard and all in vain, trying to get in the
good books of the good Lord and his right hand man, the Collector.
Trying to do enough good, enough favors so we could skip the wait
list, get a VIP ticket, a first class seat to an Ark of our
choice.