New World Order (20 page)

Her mouth dropped open. “You have a
raft
?” She headed toward the brush.

Gravel crunched under Reyes’ feet as he hurried away from the river’s edge toward the raft, presumably trying to get there before Hayley.

“You didn’t have a raft with you back at the recruiters’ camp,” Hayley said.

“Yes, we did,” I said. “It was in Reyes’ backpack.”

Reyes shot me an annoyed scowl over his shoulder. “Why did you tell them we have a raft?”

“Because we’re not killers, Reyes. If we can save Alex, we should.”

Reyes reached the raft first, did an about-face, and held up his hands to stop Hayley from coming any further. “Just get on your bikes and go your way, and we’ll go ours. I promise we’ll pick your friend up if we see him.”

Hayley
straightened, putting her hands on her hips in a stance that said she wasn’t going anywhere. “I don’t believe you.”

Reyes’ features twitched, momentarily crinkling his nose, as he looked down at her. “I know I owe you one. You can trust me.”

Reyes owed
her one? I looked across at Summer. She shrugged.

Hayley shook her head, dropped her hands from her hips, and moved forward. “Nope,” she
said.

I moved forward as well, afraid Reyes might try to physically stop Hayley. He wouldn’t think twice about grabbing her and, if he was like me, still wasn’t accustomed to the power of his suit. He could inflict real damage.

Surprisingly, he didn’t lay a hand on her. Just sidestepped to block her from reaching the raft. Despite her own petite stature against Reyes’ tall, muscular frame,
she stood her ground, mere inches away from him, her lips tightly set.

“Out of the way,” she ordered.

Reyes shook his head. She stepped around him. And I watched, in absolute shock, as Reyes did nothing about it. If I had ever challenged him like that, back when we were engaged, he would’ve grabbed my arm and flung me out of the way. So what was it about Hayley? Was he so conditioned to being
subservient to Dome soldiers that he couldn’t defy them? No. That couldn’t be it. Reyes had killed plenty of Domers during the revolt in the Pit.

“Where’s the gas cylinder that inflates it?” Hayley asked as she inspected the raft. “And how do you deflate it? Are you carrying a pump in your pack?”

I glanced from her to Reyes in confusion. “It doesn’t need a pump.”

Reyes rolled his eyes.

Hayley raised an eyebrow and stared right at me. “This isn’t one of ours.”

My gaze swung to Reyes, who was looking distinctly guilty. “What does she mean? You told me you borrowed it from inventory.”

Hayley slowly ran her fingers over a rectangular patch of material on the side of the raft. “Where did you get it? Same place as the suits?”

That patch of material
did
resemble our nanosuits!
I almost did a head-slap. The raft had been modified with Doc’s technology. Why hadn’t I made the connection before? But it still didn’t make any sense. Why was Reyes trying to keep that secret from me? And come to think of it, why didn’t Doc just give
me
the raft? Did he think that without transportation I would decide not to go on the search? That didn’t make sense. Doc knew I was going no matter
what.

“Why did you lie?” I asked Reyes. “Why not just tell where you got it?”

Reyes took off his sunglasses, shut his eyes tightly, and pinched the bridge of his nose. Hayley grabbed the raft and started dragging it. Reyes waved her away and picked it up. “I don’t want to take a chance on the rocks puncturing it.”

“Wait a second!” I said, intent on getting some answers, but Eli came out
of the woods carrying Jin-Sook.

“I need help!” he called. “She’s been shot.”

Jack

A cough.

I looked over at my guards. Fadi was noisily drinking water. Had the sound come from him? I inched my foot toward the hole where I had thrown the dirt.

“Bring him!” someone called out from the gate.

“Where?” Amos called back.

“Father Ryder wants him at
the sterilization.”

“You heard him,” Fadi said, putting the cup down on the table. He pulled a plastic tie out of the leather pouch attached to his belt and gestured at my hands. “Behind your back.”

Dropping the shovel, I dutifully put my hands behind my back but flexed my wrists to ensure the tie wasn’t so tight this time. Once I was secured, Amos gave a push in the direction of the gates.

The compound seemed almost abandoned as we walked back through. No workers manned the plastic factory, no one walked the streets. When we turned the corner for the center of town, I saw the village gathered in the commons. The castration. Everyone in the city was there for it.

My earlier estimate of a population of three hundred was off. I thought about our gymnasium in the Dome with a seating
capacity of five hundred, and I could see the number of people here just fitting into that space. The crowd clustered around the sides of the fence was about six rows deep, with the ones at the back standing on tiptoes to see over the ones in front.

Amos and Fadi elbowed gawkers aside and pulled me to the front row, giving me a clear view. In the center of the fenced area, Phillip lay stretched
out naked on a table in a pool of his own sweat. Beside the table stood two men, one of them with a knife in his hand. Ryder addressed the crowd, walking a few steps at a time, ensuring he addressed everyone in the semicircle gathered around him.

“Our ancestors provoked the jealous wrath of the gods by arrogantly favoring one and ignoring the others,” he said. He ran a hand up his arm. “And
the poison the gods infected us with still runs in our veins, sickening our minds with powerful urges to destroy each other.” He walked toward the table, pointing at the vulnerable figure lying on it. “The poison running through this man is strong—too strong for him to overcome temptation. He sinned by engaging in a sexual act that would not result in procreation.” He paused for effect, slowly turning
to look at every section of the crowd. “As survivors of the Holy War, it is our duty, my brothers and sisters, to rid the world of this poison, and we do that by diluting its strength in our bloodlines. Each and every one of us knows in our own heart how strongly we’re infected, and it’s up to each and every one of us to reach into the good part of ourselves and decide if we are worthy of breeding.
And when we’re too infected to make that decision, we have each other to make it for us. Together we are strong.” He moved toward the table and gently cupped Phillip’s face. “We are here for you, brother.”

Ryder looked at the two men standing beside the table and gave a curt nod. Phillip started screaming before the knife even touched him, but when the blade finally began its work, his screams
became hysterical shrieks.

I closed my eyes, unable to watch, and Fadi roughly shoved me.

“
Look
,” he said firmly.

I opened my eyes in time to catch the final slice; Phillip was all but unconscious, blood everywhere. Three women emerged from the crowd, and someone opened the gate to let them in. They carried a basket full of medical supplies. I looked around at the faces gathered there.
Some looked sickened by the event, others seemed satisfied that justice had been served, and a few who had obviously enjoyed watching the torture sported a gleeful shine in their eyes. There was something depraved about getting enjoyment from deliberately causing another human being so much pain. I didn’t get any pleasure out of watching Phillip suffer, but I had been there the night Phillip had
“watched over” the young boy, had seen the boy’s face upon their return to camp, so I didn’t feel much sympathy for Phillip either.

As the crowd began to break up, I caught sight of Naoki and Talon. They were with three other prisoners, all of them with their hands tied and guarded by several of Ryder’s men.

Taking a big risk, I shouted, “Naoki!” Fadi grabbed me roughly by the arm, but I
resisted going with him.

Naoki’s head snapped up, and he scanned the crowd until he found me. He looked relieved. “Where have you been?” he called back and got cuffed in the head.

“Get
moving
,” Amos said with a shove.

They forced me through the crowd toward the small gate that allowed entry to the grounds of the big house. When we emerged from the crowd, I looked over my shoulder for Naoki
and Talon, but they weren’t there.

I expected to be thrown back into the shed, so I was surprised when they led me to the back door of the big house. Just like the first time I entered the house, delicious aromas greeted me as I walked into the kitchen. The same three women were busy making what might be bread. Annie was helping, and I was glad to see her there in the warm home. I hoped she
hadn’t been forced to watch the castration.

Fadi pushed me in the direction of Ryder’s office. He was seated at the table, writing in a hand-bound book. Amos took out his knife and severed the plastic tie binding my wrists, and as we stood at the door patiently waiting for Ryder to finish whatever he was doing, I silently wondered how many of those ties they produced in the space of a week.

“Jack, I want to thank you for bringing Phillip’s sins to my attention.” He waved a hand toward the empty chair. “I’d be pleased if you joined me for lunch.”

I hesitated, wondering if I was actually being
asked
to join him and if I could decline, but Fadi bumped me toward the chair with his shoulder. I sat down, and my two escorts were dismissed.

“How come they always untie me when I’m brought
to your office?” I asked. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll hurt you? Kill you?”

Ryder’s gleaming white teeth made an appearance as he laughed at my question. “I’m not afraid of you, Jack. I’m twice your size. You’re not incapacitated for my protection—it’s for
yours.”

“
My
protection?” I repeated in disbelief.

He leaned against the table and tented his fingers. “Some newcomers embrace us with open
arms; others, like yourself, take some convincing before they accept that we’re here for
their
salvation. The only way we can appease the gods and put an end to their jealous war is for every person on earth to unite and worship all gods equally. Every. Single. Person.”

If I could see through the holes in his theology, why couldn’t everyone else? Or maybe they chose not to see the implausibility
of his religion because they were too lured by the desire to be a part of a society. There was protection in numbers, as Sunny and I had found out during our time in the Pit.

“Wasn’t it the gods who poisoned us in the first place?” I asked.

“Ah,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “You listened to my talk.” I nodded. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Tell me your thoughts.”

That wasn’t a good idea. My thoughts were that this man had been made insane by the tragic events in his life, and if he was the future of mankind, then the earth was in serious trouble. But I had to come up with something to make him believe that I thought he had wisdom and convince him that he didn’t need to keep me locked up in a shed with my hands tied. It shouldn’t be too hard. After all, I
played the presidential heir for almost a year back in the Dome. A few days with Ryder was nothing.

I arranged my features into the diplomatic expression I knew so well.

“I did listen,” I said. “You made a lot of sense. I mean, there are some people who are more evil than others, and I never knew why. But you say it’s because of the amount of poison running through our veins. Poison the gods
infected us with?” Ryder nodded, a satisfied smile playing around his mouth. “Then doesn’t that make us victims of unjust gods?”

Ryder studied me for a moment before he answered. “You have a sharp mind, Jack. Yes, we are victims, but not of
unjust
gods. We are victims of ourselves. It was wrong of people to favor one god over the others.
We
started the War in the heavens by inciting jealousy
among the gods.”

“I’m just trying to understand why they poisoned us with temptation.”

“You mean with destructive urges,” he said.

I nodded.
Whatever
.

“Because the gods turned their congregations into armies by infecting them with the urge to destroy their fellow deities’ worshippers.”

“I see,” I said. “And because we were poisoned, we almost annihilated humanity.”

Ryder nodded in
an exaggerated fashion. “But the gods have paid the price by losing all of their followers. They have learned their lesson, and now it’s up to us to right the wrongs of the past and dilute the poison that still runs through our veins.”

I grinned. “I wholeheartedly agree with you there. We do need to right the wrongs of the past and get rid of the evil people of the world.”

A knock came at
the door, and Ryder bid them enter. One of the pregnant women from the kitchen came in followed by and Annie. They each carried a tray of lunch. Annie set mine down on the table in front of me, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye as she did.

“Thank you, Annie,” I said quietly, and gave her a warm, encouraging smile.

She turned her gaze to the floor. The other woman set her tray in
front of Ryder and then ushered Annie out.

“She’s a good little girl,” Ryder said after they’d left.

I nodded in agreement, silently wondering what kind of man could kidnap a little girl and force her to be a slave. Then I remembered our own history in the Dome, and that Sunny had been a slave at Annie’s age. I felt the heat of shame color my cheeks.

“And she’s yours,” he said.

Sunny

My guts twisted at the sight of blood oozing from Jin-Sook’s side. She was conscious but obviously in a lot of pain. Eli set her down on a piece of flat ground. All thoughts of going after Alex evaporated as I ran to Jin. Kneeling down in front of her, I lifted her tunic to examine her injury. It wasn’t the first time I had seen a bullet wound. The memory of digging
a bullet out of Jack was still fresh in my mind. And I was happy to see that I wasn’t going to have to dig one out of Jin, since it had gone straight through the fleshy part of her side. It was nowhere near bone.