Yesterday's Gone: Season Six (3 page)

Desmond, now behind him, said, “You’re thinking about your daughter right now, and whether she’s in danger.”

He said this matter-of-factly, not even asking.

Can he read
my
mind?

Is he doing it now?

Oh, God!

He focused on nothing, clearing his mind and thoughts, a technique he’d learned from The Church of Original Design — the place that gave him the materials to hone his talents early on.

Desmond spoke again, “Ah, clearing your mind, I see.”

Paul felt like a magician whose act had been spoiled. He turned to Desmond. “Get out of my head.”

Desmond laughed, a small laugh like you might use with a child who was trying to outwit you.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Roberts, I am not here to harm you, or your sick daughter. On the contrary, I’m here to help you both.”

“How are
you
going to help us?”

“I have an important job vacancy. It requires a man of your talents.”

Paul was horrified. He’d heard rumors of aliens going into people’s bodies, taking them over like sinister puppeteers. He’d rather die, would rather Emily die, than have either of them play host to these foul things.

Desmond frowned. “I’m sorry you view us with such disgust.”

Paul swallowed. He’d offended the alien, and now he would pay.

“I said I’m not going to harm you, and I meant it. You can walk away right now and never see me again. I can’t promise your safety, of course. It is a rather barbaric world, I’m afraid, and I’ve no control over the savages that still scour the streets.”

By savages he surely meant men.

Desmond continued, “And you needn’t worry about us hijacking your body. I want your unique mind, Mr. Roberts. For me to install one of our own into you would infinitely lessen your value. You come with me, and I promise to provide you and your daughter a safe haven. You can live with others who are serving to build a new society, free of illness, death, and violence.”

“I’ve seen what your things have done to my people. You call that
safe?
”

“We are merely clearing dead wood, eliminating the worst of your kind. But there is a place for you both in our society, where excellence is esteemed, and well rewarded. I promise: Come with me, and Emily can live a long, happy life by your side. We have people who can cure her.”

Paul stared at the man, trying to gauge his honesty. It was difficult to be certain — especially when he wasn’t dealing with a human intelligence whose mind he could enter — but his gut said that Desmond was telling the truth.

“Are you interested, Mr. Roberts? Or shall I leave you to your few remaining days in an underground hovel spent waiting for your daughter to die?”

Paul flinched.

He wanted to hit the man for threatening Emily. But Desmond’s tone conveyed more honesty than threat. The alien had offered to cure Emily. Even if she survived the sickness without the aliens’ help, how long could they live like this? They were on borrowed time. Sooner or later, aliens, or men who wanted what little they had left, would find them. Paul had been lucky, six times by Desmond’s count, but how long could such luck run?

Paul knew people well, but he also knew luck, and when people were pressing it. He’d seen too many contestants in his games push their fortunes too far. The woman who’d been close to walking away with two million dollars in the show’s third season — but allowed herself to gamble it all for a chance to knock out a threat to her seat in the house. She left with a consolation prize instead. And she was hardly alone when it came to people who didn’t recognize an opportunity for what it was.

Paul met Desmond’s eyes. “Well?”

* * * *

CHAPTER 1 — Boricio Wolfe

Las Orillas, California

2017 (present day)

“Son of a fucking cunt!” Boricio’s knife slipped through the apple’s side and into his left index finger.

He raised his digit and examined the wound. The slice was deep but clean. Pain pounded through to his bone, worse than it had any right to feel.

“You okay?” Mary came to the kitchen from the living room where she’d been napping.
 

She brought his finger to her mouth and kissed it. Blood dabbed her lips in a crimson stain, turning him on more than it had any right to.

“I’ll be fine.” He took his hand back and searched the cabinet under the sink for his red plastic box. He grabbed a bandage and tore it open.

“Wait, you need to rinse it out first.” Mary grabbed a bottle of water from the counter and flipped off the cap.

Boricio let her pour a little water over his wound then held up a hand. “That’s enough. Let’s not waste it.”
 

He patted the wound dry with a paper towel then wrapped a bandage around his finger.
 

“See, this is what happens when you use dull knives!” Boricio raised the blade for Mary to see the offending party. “I need to find some baby knives or a sharpener for the geriatrics.”

Mary laughed. “Sorry that the comforts of postapocalypse life don’t suit Chef Boricio.”

“Hey, I was a damned good chef, and I’ll have you know you’re pretty fucking lucky to have me at the stove. Especially with no power, running water, and whatever the hell I can find left on Planet FuckAll.”

“Don’t forget the contributions of my rooftop garden,” Mary reminded him.
 

“Of course, Miss Mary, how
could
I ever forget how your garden grows, or the bounty it brings to my kitchen? I have all the truffles I could ever want.”
 

“Oh, shut up, I grow some damned good tomatoes, carrots, and radishes.” Mary grabbed Boricio’s apple from the counter and took a bite. “Wouldn’t cut yourself if you ate apples like a normal person. Where did you even get an apple?”

“When Ed and I went to visit The Farm last week.”

“Oh.” Mary turned away and looked out the window. She was either great at being a drama queen or the world’s shittiest poker player, because the way she turned off and away whenever The Farm came up in conversation, Boricio felt like he was watching a guest star on
Manimal
.

“You know you could’ve come.” Boricio came up behind Mary and wrapped his arms around her waist.
 

“No,” she said, false pride wounded. She was still annoyed that Marina had left their group and gone to The Farm, saying she’d had enough of war and The City. “It’s fine. So … how are they?”

“They’re doing okay,” he said, staring out at what was left of the Las Orillas skyline. Scout ships dotted the sky, alien fuckers searching for more people to grab and bring to the mothership floating over The Island like some goddamned hobbit-hating red eye. He couldn’t wait to find a weakness in their program and bring the fuckers down. But even after four years, the alien occupation still felt as far off as a return to TV with
ALF
as the main attraction. They’d already lost the war on the other world, with most of the Black Mountain Militia, as he liked to call them, retreating then coming over in a portal that Luca had made — back when the Boy Wonder still had considerable power coursing through him.

Mary said nothing, continuing to stare out the window at the setting, sky bleeding orange and violet.
 

“Go ahead,” she said.

“Go ahead what?”

“Say it.”

“Say what?”

“That we should go there, too.”

“Nope. I’m not bothering with that line anymore. You already chewed my ass like it’d been too long on the grill. Our place is here, fighting on the front lines. Besides, neither of us is the type to settle on a farm.”
 

Mary said nothing, staring into her past — reflecting on a life she no longer had. She’d lost her daughter. Lost a baby. Two, actually. There
was
once a Mary who would’ve longed for a farm to settle on, but that Mary was buried beneath several calloused layers of pain. This Mary was Linda Fucking Hamilton in
Terminator 2
: buff, badass, and looking for a fight.

Boricio would have loved to help bring the Old Mary back, but he also loved being with a woman who was starving for violence like he was. Someone who didn’t shy away from killing bandit wannabes, blowing alien cornholes to chunky nuggets, or finding traitorous fucks who sold out their brothers to the aliens and decorating the streets with their skinned remains so other survivors wouldn’t be so swift to turn their coats.

“You thinking ‘bout the little lamb?”
 

“Yeah.”

“I think about her, too,” he said. “Paola was a good kid.”

Mary kept staring out the window.

Times like this, Boricio wished she’d show some emotion and cry for her daughter. Hell, a part of Boricio wanted her to weep on his shoulder — he was surprisingly old-fashioned that way. But tears couldn’t own her, and she refused to dwell on what couldn’t be.

A knock on the front door cut into their quiet, rapid and careless, ignoring the coded knock rebels were instructed to use.

In most circumstances, Boricio would see that as a sign that shit was wrong, that maybe someone was being coerced to knock and draw them out. But a few of their recent recruits weren’t exactly the sharpest crayons in the box. But hell, beggars were bitches when even choosers were chumps.
 

Mary grabbed her shotgun from the kitchen table.

Boricio grabbed his knife from the counter. Even dull-for-apples would gut a fucker fine.

“Who is it?” Boricio asked.

“It’s me, Barrow.”

Boricio rolled his eyes. Jake Barrow was the freshest of his recruits, a freckle-faced sixteen-year-old farm boy who was as big as a linebacker but dumb as one who’d taken a few too many hits. He’d lost his family to the plague last year and had been wandering upstate searching for God Knew What when Boricio and Ed found him and invited Hayseed Harry back to The City.

Boricio glanced at Mary to make sure she was ready, in case he didn’t use the code because he happened to be at gunpoint or some shit, then opened the door.

Barrow stood there, sweating — obvious even in the candlelit living room — out of breath, eager to spit something out.

“You forget the fucking knock?” Mary said before the boy could open his mouth. She slammed the door shut behind him then sat her shotgun down on the couch.

“S-sorry, I forgot. I was in a hurry to get up here and tell you.”

“Tell us what?” Boricio asked, waiting for Barrow to hit the fucking point.

“They’re dead.”

“Who’s dead?”

“Matt and Jace.”

“What the hell you talking about?” Boricio asked.

“The scouts we sent to infiltrate the slaughterhouse last week, Matt and Jace. They’re dead. When I went to see if they’d left a message at the drop point like they were supposed to after gaining the aliens’ trust, I saw their bodies hanging on pikes outside the slaughterhouse.”

“Are you sure?” Mary asked.

“Yes, I’m sure! It’s them, and they were torn to shreds!”

“Shit.” Boricio shook his head. “We’ve gotta flush.”

Mary was a step ahead already, loading duffel bags as Boricio hit the radios and called Ed Keenan over the encrypted transmission.

“Ed, we’ve got a Protocol 15. Repeat, Protocol 15. We’ll meet at Station 20.”

“Copy,” Keenan said over the radio.

“What’s going on?” Barrow asked.

“We need to pronto the fuck outta here before the place starts crawling with Guardsmen, aliens, or maybe an orgy of both.”

Bags packed, Boricio proceeded to set off the timer for the bomb that would leave the apartment looking like a busted box of Cocoa Pebbles — along with anything they left behind.

Two minutes.

They headed to the stairs when five men in Black Island Guardsmen uniforms and black visored helmets appeared just below them, automatic rifles in hand, taking aim. Desmond had infected all the Guardsmen shortly after the invasion, and their numbers were strong.

“Stop!” one of the men said, voice sounding mechanical through his helmet’s speakers, aiming his rife.

Mary fired her shotgun and sent him backward down the stairs, taking the other four men tumbling with him.

They had two paths of escape — up the stairs and to the rooftop, where they’d constructed a makeshift slide to the next apartment building or down the stairs.

Way Boricio saw it, if the cock swallowers were coming from downstairs, that meant another group was flooding down from above. They weren’t stupid enough to send
all
their men in the same way. He had to take care of the three remaining cumswappers before more fuckers wanted to party.

He leaped down, knife in hand, quick to slice through the suit’s black leather collar, straight into the man’s throat.

Boricio could see the helmet visor cloud with the alien attempting to escape through the man’s mouth, no doubt desperate for a new host.

“Don’t break their helmets!” Boricio shouted in case Barrow forgot yet
another
element of basic training.