New World Order (26 page)

Jack

Half my night was spent working my muscles, the other half I allowed myself a few hours of sleep. When the first rays of the morning
sun streamed through the cracks of the shed walls, I awoke to a lucidity I hadn’t felt in a while. My body tingled with renewed strength. My thoughts were organized, clear, and concise. I had purpose. I needed to convince Ryder to give me a tour of his plastic factory so I could steal a weapon. I hadn’t worked out all the details of how I was going to escape, but I knew time was running out.
If the hole I was digging was any indication, I would soon be spending my nights underground, hands tied, with a plastic grate caging me in. Add a few armed guards to that scenario and chances of escape were slim.

Was it better to attempt escape during the day or night? Daytime was problematic because I didn’t know where Naoki and Talon were being kept; although if an opportunity to escape presented
itself, I’d take it. I would just find somewhere to hide until nightfall and then use a little stealth to take out the guards and spring everyone from detention. But I also had to think about Teegan. I knew Ryder was using her to coerce me, yet knowing that didn’t seem to lessen my protective feelings for her. The burn on her cheek didn’t look any worse, but it didn’t look any better either.
And after watching Ryan suffer from infection, I couldn’t bear the thought of her going through that kind of pain.

“Teegan,” I said gently. Her head rested on my chest, her mouth open and a little drool trickling out. “Teegan,” I said again, louder. She stirred. “Time to wake up.”

She drew in a deep breath, opened her eyes, and looked up at me. She almost seemed startled, but after a quick
glance around the shed she relaxed. Disoriented, I thought.

“They’re going to come for us soon, and when you get back to the kitchen I want you to ask that lady to clean your cheek with clean water again, okay? But ask her not to put the salve on it.”

She sat up straighter and pushed her disheveled hair away from her eyes. “Okay,” she said in a sleepy voice.

“Is it still sore?”

She nodded.
Her eyes filled with tears. “Do you think I’ll get to see my mom today?”

It was a heartbreaking question and one I couldn’t answer. “I don’t know, honey. I wish I did.”

I shifted away from her to maneuver my hands behind me again, and then we leaned back against the wall until they came for us. As we waited, I strained to hear the regular sounds of morning activity. A door being opened, distant
voices coming from the direction of the commons, two females talking in low voices over by the big house. Last night had been a lot quieter, and it had allowed me to hear the person guarding our shed. Only one person, I was positive. If I ended up escaping at night, the element of surprise could work in my favor.

I blinked against the morning sun when they opened our door. Usually they gave
us breakfast and time to eat it, but Fadi motioned with his head for us to come out. I wondered just how pissed Ryder was this morning after my fit of rage last night and what kind of punishment I could expect. We left the shed and headed toward the house, Teegan clutching my hand despite them being bound. Fadi’s eyes glanced down at the contact, and a smile curved his lips. It only confirmed my suspicion
that Teegan was being used as a form of emotional blackmail.

We went through our familiar routine of leading me to Ryder’s office and then untying my hands. Ryder sat in his usual spot behind the table, his charismatic smile gleaming broadly. I wasn’t so sure that was a good sign.

“How are you feeling this morning, Jack?” Ryder asked as he waved me into a chair.

Were we going to keep
up the cat-and-mouse game? Carry on as if I hadn’t called him every name I could think of? Fought my captors and told them they were all nuts? It was going to be difficult to keep up the pretense after I had been so honest. Suddenly declaring that I wanted to join his community and have free range was going to seem a little obvious. “Fine,” I said with a hint of disdain.

He frowned. “You’re
still upset.”

“Of course I’m upset. I’m concerned for my friends.”

Ryder tented his fingers and looked at me pensively. “How did you come to meet the Ajuns?”

“I would think that a well-read man like yourself would know the word is pronounced
Asian
.”

“Force of habit. My apologies.” He placed his hands on the table in front of him and leaned on his forearms. “You become a bigger mystery
every day, Jack. You see, I hadn’t realized how close you are with those two until your outburst last night. You really care about them.”

I shrugged, wondering what the revelation was. “I told you they’re my friends.”

“Yes, but I assumed that you became friends during your trip here.” He pursed his lips for a moment and then continued. “I had a more in-depth chat with Ralph last night. He
seems to think you’re from the scorchedlands, but I’m wondering how a scorchedlander ended up with a group of Asians.”

For him even to ask that question told me he assumed there was a particular world order: Ajuns lived with Ajuns, scorchedlanders with scorchedlanders, and Daemon’s people to the north. Divided they were easier to conquer; united they posed a threat. I believed Ryder was scared.

“If I tell you everything, will you stop torturing them?” I asked. If I eased his mind, maybe he would be more amenable to my request of a tour of the plastic factory.

Ryder huffed out a laugh. “This isn’t a negotiation, Jack. I’m telling you I want the truth.” He thumped a finger on the table. “I want to know where you got that rifle and the clothes, why your burn healed, and why you’re keeping
company with Asians.”

I put up my hands as if in defeat. “I tried to tell you from the beginning, but you wouldn’t listen. Are you ready to hear the truth now?”

He set his mouth in a thin line and leaned back in his chair. “Are you going to tell me about your advanced civilization again? Because I’m done with that, Jack.”

“The first time you asked where I got the clothes, I told you I found
them. You didn’t believe me, so I made something up. The truth is that I found them about a year ago in an old collapsed building. They were in a plastic bin and well preserved. Shortly after I found them, Naoki captured me and took me back to his people.”

Ryder jerked forward. “His people?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

I nodded.

“How many?”

“They have a settlement of about twenty, give
or take a few.”

“Why did you stay with them? Why didn’t they kill you?”

“Because they’re peaceful people. They only captured me because I had a gun and they thought I was a threat. When they realized the gun didn’t even work, they let me go.”

“Why did you stay?”

I tried to keep the smile off my face. This was going exactly the way I wanted it to. “There was a girl—a really pretty girl.
And I had no place else to go.”

“She’s your wife now?”

I nodded.

“Ralph tells me she got away.”

I shrugged, raising my hands in an
I don’t know
gesture. “I was knocked out from the devil’s blood, so I only know what Hollywood told me.”

He touched his own cheek while looking at mine. “And your burn?”

“All my life I’ve healed quickly. I don’t know why,” I said, then paused and arranged
my features into a serious expression. “Although now that I’m learning about your gods and all this poison running through our veins, I wonder if you’re on to something.”

Ryder laughed mockingly. “You think you’re a chosen one?”

“Me? No. It’s probably just coincidence I ended up here, in your city.” Ryder’s eyebrows shot up, but I continued before he could say anything. “But I did give some
thought last night to joining your community.”

“You were very angry last night.”

“Naoki and Talon are my friends, and I don’t want to see them harmed. I’m sure if you asked them, they would be interested in joining your city too.”

Ryder shook his head. “I told you, Jack, they make people nervous.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “And I have a better use for them.”

I managed to maintain
a stoic expression. “Which is?”

“I’ll instruct Ralph to take them back to where he found them so they can lead him to their people. I’d like to know more about this settlement.”

Not what I was expecting, but not a bad scenario either. It would get them out of the city and headed home. But if it meant being tied up in the back of a wagon and kept in a constant state of dehydration, that wasn’t
good. We barely survived the first trip. In fact, Ryan didn’t.

“I’ll go too. I can lead them to where I found the clothes and rifle,” I said.

“No, Jack, you’ll stay here with me. I want to know more about this ability of yours to heal so quickly.”

A knock came on the door, interrupting our conversation. Teegan and one of Ryder’s pregnant wives entered, each with a tray of food. They had
reapplied the milky salve to Teegan’s face. I could tell she was in a lot of pain, but she was conscious, which led me to believe the salve wasn’t devil’s blood after all.

“Thank you, Annie,” I said as she placed breakfast in front of me. She looked at me with those round, vulnerable eyes, and my heart broke a little bit. Ryder’s wife shooed her back to the kitchen.

Two raw eggs cracked over
flat bread sat on my plate. Same thing as yesterday. Since I was no longer starving, I had to force myself to eat it.

Ryder dipped his bread in the raw egg, put it in his mouth, and chewed slowly as he regarded me. “You’re becoming fond of the girl,” he said. His eyes gleamed in satisfaction.

I drew my brows together. “Fond?” I asked in disbelief. “She’s a bratty little kid who won’t stop
sniffling unless I’m nice to her. It’s the only way I can get any sleep at night.” I shot a quick glance at him to see his reaction. I doubted he believed me. I changed the subject. “Since I’m thinking about staying, I was wondering if I could get a tour of your city.”

Ryder frowned slightly and tilted his head from side to side, as if weighing the pros and cons of my request. “Why do you want
a tour? What difference would it make to your decision?”

I motioned toward the bookcase. “I think thermal depolymerization is pure genius. I’m really interested in learning how it’s done.”

He finished his breakfast and pushed his plate away. “Why not, Jack. Consider it a reward for your honesty. However, until your friends return with confirmation of this Asian settlement you’ve spoken about,
your access to this community will continue to be limited.”

When Dena had told me about Ryder and his recruiters, the mental image it had conjured up was some head honcho backed by a group of thugs kidnapping good, innocent folk, forcing them to be soldiers, and making them fight against an unseen enemy thousands of miles to the north. It hadn’t occurred to me that recruiting was actually
a lucrative industry and that most new recruits would welcome the opportunity to join Ryder’s community. In a sparsely inhabited, lawless world where predators roamed—both animal and human—belonging to a pack was attractive. If you could swallow his twisted religion, live by his rules, and avoid castration, Ryder’s community offered a safe haven.

Ryder gave me a personal tour of his city with,
of course, Fadi and Amos flanking me at all times. The compound was about the size of one of the city blocks I’d seen in the old city we’d come through to get here. If I compared it to the biodome, the footprint was about the same size, but the Dome had several levels of living space stacked on top of each other and several levels below that made up the Pit. Still, Ryder’s compound was large enough
to house a few thousand people.

At the opposite end of the plastic factory, on the southside, were training facilities and, of all things, a bear nursery. I had thought it was odd when I first saw bears pulling the wagons, but I hadn’t really thought about where the animals came from. It made sense that the bears would be bred and raised to perform the task. Errant or uncooperative animals were
killed, their meat consumed, and their hides used for winter clothing.

The training facility was an open area, with targets set up for archery and knife wielding and a smaller area to practice hand-to-hand combat. Ryder allowed me only a few minutes to watch the recruits train, but it was enough time for me to glean that emphasis was placed on weapons. The trainers demonstrating hand-to-hand
were slow and uncoordinated. Scanning the area, I looked for Naoki and Talon but didn’t see them.

We made our way from the southside, through the residential area, past the commons, until at last we came to the plastic factory, the one building I was actually interested in. Ryder took me to the production side of the factory first, the side with the stone stove and steaming pots. I didn’t really
care about this side. I wanted to be where the workers used knives to whittle plastic into shards.

Ryder greeted each worker by name, stopping to inquire about family members and give thanks to the gods. The air trapped under the slanted roof was hot and acrid with the smell of chemicals. It was nauseating. Yet I could tell by the looks on the workers’ faces that they loved this man and worked
there willingly.

He introduced me. “This is Jack Kenner. He’s interested in how we make our plastic products.”

One of the workers stepped forward. “Not much to tell really. Different plastics have different melting points, so we sort them over there,” he said, pointing to the pile of plastic on the other side, “and then chip them into smaller pieces. Some types of plastics get melted in the
big oven.” He pointed to the large open fireplace. “And other types are melted on the stove. We’re experimenting a lot.” He invited me to look in one of the kettles.

Hands still tied behind my back, I stepped closer to the stone stove. The heat was intense, and the steam wafting out of the pot was thick with toxic fumes. Inside the hot kettle, plastic chips of every color were becoming viscous.

“So it just melts down and then you mold it into something?” I asked. The process was kind of interesting, but I was still anxious to move on to the other side of production.