Burn Out (5 page)

“Thank you, Allan. I’m proud to serve the Consulate in any way I can.”

We stood and I moved toward the door before Allan could touch my hand again. I turned once before leaving and the woman’s smile remained. I shuddered.

On the ride home, I asked Dad what he’d wanted to show me.

“The weapons room … but I decided today wasn’t the right time.” He sighed. “Soon though.” He reached into his bag and tossed me the gift he’d received from Allan. “It’s an Infinity.”

“Whoa.” I stroked the small device and immediately attached it to my wrist. I’d heard of them but had never seen one. Most people had basic GlobalNet tablets, but only a lucky few had the Infinity. I’d even read that people could access books and videos from hundreds of years ago on these things.

I punched a button and a glowing, virtual keyboard appeared in front of me. “This is awesome.”

Dad flashed a weary smile. “It’s yours.”

I gasped. “No way. Thanks, Dad.”

“Sure, I need to make a few modifications on it first, but
I think you’ll find it useful. Especially once we relocate.”

I was so mesmerized by the graphics of the pictures in front of me that it took a minute for his words to sink in. I turned my head. “Relocate?”

“Yeah,” Dad said. “We’re moving.”

That same week, Dad had started moving the guns out and used his “bonus money” to build our bunker. I’d overheard late-night whispers between him and Mom about something “bad.” All I knew was that whatever he was doing, the Consulate didn’t know about it. He told my sister and me that we couldn’t tell a soul about our moving, and three short months later, we arrived at our new home sweet home. My weapons training with him had started almost immediately.

I ran my hand over the Infinity and smiled wistfully. Guess it couldn’t hurt to check for survivors again. A light flashed off as I turned on the machine. The locator light. No way could I have imagined it twice. Someone had to be out there.

After an hour staring at the screen, my eyes got blurry. Hope took a nosedive when it occurred to me that both times I’d seen the light flash had been when I’d turned on the device. The light itself was probably defective. Fabulous.

I considered watching one of my favorite old shows but pulled up my sister’s favorite program instead. A three-dimensional field of wildflowers instantly surrounded me.

I lay down on the floor amidst the carpet of blossoms. She and I would lie for hours as the flowers waved around us in the gentle wind, a breeze so unlike the harsh winds we experienced in our world. We’d watch butterflies land on the colorful petals before taking flight again, inhale the lush fragrances, and pretend this wild garden was our front yard. The scent of the flowers was the best part of the program—it almost made it real. Instead of rocks and dust, we had fields of flowers and the ocean as our landscapes. This was how we spent our time, rather than worrying about school.

Though there hadn’t been formal schooling in decades due to lack of enrollment, the pod cities provided online tutorials in basic subjects. My sister and I stopped all the lessons except Spanish once we moved out of the pod city. It seemed ridiculous to learn about history when we had no future.

We kept up with the Spanish though because the Consulate frowned upon all languages except English. It made us feel like rebels to turn on the Infinity program and discuss the
bellas flores
. For hours at a time, we lost ourselves in fantasy worlds involving flowers and oceans.

I turned my head to track an
abeja
skittering from flower to flower. It flew closer toward me, so close that I flinched despite knowing it couldn’t sting me.

I sat and turned off the device. The flowers disappeared into thin air.

PING! PING!

The strange sound jarred me. I cocked my head to listen, my ear tilted up toward the ceiling. The wind had died down, so it couldn’t be something blowing against the shelter.

PING! PING!

The noise sounded like it was coming from directly above me. Maybe it was the same animal that had chewed through my oxygen line, though I still didn’t understand how it could survive out here. If so, I had to get up there and take care of it before it did more damage. But what if Markus had come back? What if the lure of such high-tech weaponry was too tempting to resist? Either way, I’d have to strap on my entire protective suit. Another burn would not be pretty. I wriggled into my suit, and winced as the glove slid over my hand. Ready, I grabbed Trigger and powered her up.

I climbed the ladder, then hesitated at the top rung underneath the door.

PING! PING!

Something was definitely hitting the door. My heart raced. This could go very badly, but I didn’t make it to seventeen by being an apocawuss. I braced myself, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open. I jumped out and kept the gun in front of me while scanning the area. Nothing looked unusual. In fact, there was nothing but dirt, boulders, and cacti as far as the eye could see. A large boulder
sat ten feet to my left, and another group of huge rocks stood at least fifty feet away.

The cacti to my right, descendants of the saguaros, were fifty feet tall and six feet across. Their crazy-sharp spines looked like they could do some serious damage. The roots grew forty feet underground. These plants provided some major oxygen, which is why my dad built the shelter near a cluster of them. The oxygen line I’d repaired looked fine, the reflective duct tape gleaming in the sunlight. There was nothing hostile to be found, save for the sun, and it was always hostile.

I watched and waited, but I didn’t hear anything. Strange. After another minute, I relaxed. How stupid do you look pointing a gun at a rock? Sweat ran in rivulets down my protective suit, as I roasted in the dark reddish light.

Screw this. I leaned down to pull up the door and go inside. That’s when I noticed them.

Several pebbles were scattered around the shelter door. Almost as if they’d been thrown by someone—

“Now!” a voice yelled.

I dove behind the boulder to my left, barely escaping the several rounds of lasers that sprayed the rock.

After a moment, the rapid fire ceased, and I peeked around the side of the stone. Not two, three, or even four, but five sunsuited figures emerged from behind the rocks in the distance. Five bright-white suits headed for my faded red one. They had their guns aimed right at my boulder. I
gripped Trigger tight and swallowed hard.

I recognized the swagger of one of the suits, even though he was still some distance away.

Oh, how sweet.

Markus brought friends.

A
PPARENTLY
M
ARKUS THOUGHT
I
WOULDN’T SHOOT AT AN
old friend, even if said friend shot at me first. He was so wrong. I touched the small trigger panel and shot a stream of electric blue pulses his way. He and one of the other suits flattened themselves to the ground, crawling back toward the rock they came from. How fitting. The other three dashed back behind the second one. A chill ran through me as I realized my rock was the rock—the one where my father found my sister and mother dead. Where they’d been turned into human cinders.

“Tora, it’s me, Markus. Don’t shoot!” his voice shouted through my helmet com.

Was he kidding? “Oh, sorry, Markus. Was that supposed to be friendly fire? I must have gotten confused,
with those lasers coming at me and all.”

He stood up, still holding the gun, but in a relaxed pose with his hand off the trigger. “Come on. You know what I’m here for—I’m not leaving without the guns.”

I called back. “You know they won’t work for you. Trust me; they’ll never work for you.”

“What do I care? I’m not the one that’ll be using them, but I’m getting an unbelievable payment from the ones who will be.”

“Payment big enough to erase the guilt of killing an innocent girl?” I asked, my finger on the trigger panel. The gun hummed softly in my hand.

Markus laughed and called back, “Innocent girls don’t curse the way you do. And I’m not trying to kill you, just disable you a bit; the Consulate needs you alive. But yes, they’re giving me an Unlimited Currency Chip for the guns.”

I wanted to kick myself for telling him about being the sole person who could fire them. Markus would likely kill children, if any were left, for a UCC. With so few people remaining after the massive die-offs, a move was made to change to a united global government, coined the Consulate, an international currency system, and an international language. Good thing I already spoke English or I would have been
muy
screwed.

Markus and I faced each other, about fifty yards of dirt between our rock fortresses. This would have been cute if we’d been six years old.

“So, my father’s guns for a UCC. Our esteemed Consulate has already declared itself the ruler of Caelia?” I guessed that not only was Markus’ desire for the weapons at the behest of the government, they’d probably financed this whole attack. They really wanted the guns.

“Something like that,” Markus said.

Everyone had currency chips implanted in their arms that denoted their net worth. If you were poor, you still got the implant but received a minuscule currency amount—the equivalent of space-age welfare. Currency Chips (CC’s) were how people obtained the W.A.R.’s when the water ran out. No currency left on your CC, no water.

I got lucky because my dad was the guy who created bioenergetic warfare. Dad didn’t have a UCC, but he was rich. He cashed in the bulk of his CC balance on all the equipment he could get from his friends in the pod cities. Luckily, he spent most of it before the Consulate realized he wasn’t giving over the guns and zeroed out his chip. I’d say they won in the end though, because Dad was dead.

“Wow, Markus, there must be so much use for it on Caelia. What are you gonna buy … an ocean? The whole planet?”

This elicited a laugh from him. “I like that idea. The whole planet. We’ll have to see about that.”

Movement caught my eye and I ducked down as another spray of blasts hit the rock.

“Crap, I missed her.” A female voice. She sounded about my age, which surprised me. A man shooting at me didn’t
surprise me. Maybe that wasn’t fair to all men, but many of the male survivors had been brutes. But a girl burner? Another shot came from that direction, and I pressed the trigger panel on my gun. Blue sparks lit up the rock around them. A small chunk of the rock blasted into the air from the laser and fell to the ground nearby.

I sent the streaming blue light toward Markus before he could shoot again. He dove just in time and I sank back behind the rock. With five of them and only one of me, the odds were not in my favor. My only advantage was a kick-ass gun, but five regular guns seemed like a lot at the moment. I wished I had my favorite super-gun right now, but that bad boy was in storage.

My lungs labored for air despite the oxygen in my suit. Sweat poured down my body and dripped into my eyes, yet I couldn’t remove my helmet to wipe my face. The sun was cooking me from the inside out. I was
muy caliente
, and not in the good way. Damn, I was thirsty. All I wanted was to get back underground, bolt the door, and get some water, but the door was a good ten feet away. I’d have to turn my back to the group to open the door and they’d put laser holes in me faster than you could say
agua
.

I yelled from behind my rock. “Where’s your ship, dirtbag?”

“I didn’t bring mine … it barely made the trip last time. The one I hitched a ride in is over the ridge,” he called back. “You wanna give up yet, sweetcakes? You’re a little outnumbered in case you didn’t notice.”

“Fat chance. I’m guessing you burners will be the ones giving up.” The ridge was over a half mile behind them. That meant they must be even hotter and thirstier than I was. Maybe they’d be forced to leave soon if I could keep them at a standstill. What I wouldn’t give to get to that ship, but it wouldn’t do me much good. I couldn’t fly it myself. I’d need the dirtbag to pilot it, and I didn’t see any way that was going to happen.

I heard the sound before it registered. A roar that grew louder each second. The air kicked up around me and the red light of the sun blazed with anger. Terrific. A sun storm. I stashed the gun in my pants, dug my fingers underneath the rock, and hung on for dear life. The fierce solar winds ripped through, whipping one of the larger pebbles by my door into the side of my suit. It made sharp contact with one of my ribs, and I yelped in pain. I really hoped it wasn’t fractured—another medical issue was the last thing I needed.

My suit wove itself back together again where the rock had pierced it. At least the high-tech material would protect me from oxygen loss. I could easily die from their lasers, but I’d be breathing up until the bitter end.

The shrieking of the winds intensified and my body lifted as the gusts threatened to take me for a one-way ride. I gripped the underside of the rock tighter, fighting to hang on, my hands so sweaty I was afraid they’d slip right out of the gloves. Small rocks continued their assault, plunking the sides of my helmet. It didn’t help that I couldn’t stop
coughing from the crap flying through my lousy filtration system. The muscles in my arm burned. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on.