New World Order (5 page)

Naoki was still looking at me, waiting for my answer. I’d been so lost in my thoughts, I’d almost forgotten he’d asked it.
“Maybe,” I said.

The caravan was packed up and ready to pull out by the time the sun crested the horizon. Hollywood left us to meet with a group of other men, whom I assumed were the leaders of the individual carts. I was trying to overhear their conversation when Ryan started waking up, begging for water. At the sound, Hollywood turned in our direction and motioned for Sanjay to give him a
drink. It was cruel to the rest of us to watch the clear, cool liquid being poured in Ryan’s mouth. Not that I resented Ryan for getting water; it’s just that it had been so long since my last sip.

Sanjay stole a nervous look in Hollywood’s direction and then tipped the water bottle to my mouth. I gulped, trying not to make any noise or draw any attention. All too soon, the bottle was gone.
Sanjay was obviously a good man to have on my side, so I squelched the urge to ask for more and instead mouthed a sincere
thank you.
I could tell by the appreciative glint in his eye that my gratitude was well received.

Sanjay looked around again and then whispered, “Can you tell me where you got the gun and those clothes?” His eyes were practically gleaming. “We searched that old town where
we found you, but we didn’t find anything.”

Were my clothes and rifle really that important that they’d stopped long enough to search the buildings? Then I remembered we’d stashed the bikes just outside of town. We had approached the city from the direction of the Dome—from the southeast. Would they have found the bike tracks leading back to the Dome? Not that I would care if this small ragtag
group found our city. They wouldn’t stand a chance against us. But if they found the city and took that information back to their so-called advanced society, that might be a problem. I didn’t know how big an army we were up against. It was an alarming thought, but I reminded myself that if they had found the bikes, they would have taken them. I checked around the camp to make sure. No sign of the
bikes, and no one had mentioned them.

But I was well aware of how much the rifle and my clothes meant to these recruiters. I looked at Sanjay conspiratorially. “Help me get out of here and I’ll lead you to where I got them,” I whispered. “There’s so much treasure that you’ll own your own rig in no time.”

Sanjay shifted and flicked a nervous glance at Hollywood. “You mean just us?” His eyes
returned to me.

“Just us,” I confirmed.

He bit his bottom lip, and then he shook his head. “Too many cats. We wouldn’t make it very far.”

Cats? I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but I didn’t want to get sidetracked. Hollywood might be back any minute, and I would lose the opportunity to convince Sanjay. I motioned to Naoki, Ryan, and Talon. “They can come too.”

He surveyed my fellow
recruits and then his eyes flew back to mine, a note of suspicion in them. “You’re just playing with me.”

“I’m not. I swear,” I said. “I know where there’s a whole—”

Sanjay cleared his throat and affected a stern look. “Like the boss says, cooperate and you can have more.” He walked around the cart to Talon. “Got another one waking up,” Sanjay said to Hollywood as he came up to us.

I hadn’t
noticed Talon waking up. That meant all of us were alive and accounted for.

A deep booming voice rang out across the camp, telling everyone to move out. As our wagon jerked into motion, I fixated my eyes on a distant mountain peak and wondered if that was the Dome and whether I would ever see it again.

Even without my warm coat, I welcomed the early spring storms that slowed our
progress. For one thing, every step we took carried me farther away from home. For another, my need for water was more acute than my constant shivering from the cold. Whenever it rained, all four of us threw our heads back with mouths opened to catch as much as we could.

They only gave us three small rations of water per day and one evening ration of food. Twice a day, we were each let out
of the wagon to relieve ourselves while under guard. It was almost pointless, considering our dehydrated, malnourished bodies had little waste to get rid of. Still, I welcomed the opportunity to stand up and test the strength of my legs.

Ryan railed the most against being shackled, uttering expletives against our captors until he was exhausted. Talon was quiet. Naoki and I were observant, waiting
for an opportunity to escape. So far, none had come. Our hands were secured behind our backs in such a way that too much movement not only tightened our plastic binds, but also painfully wrenched our arms.

From the bits of conversation we overheard, recruits were valuable cargo and a recruit wearing synthetic fibers even more so. Almost everyone in the camp had stopped by to admire my rifle,
and on a few occasions, I braced myself for it to go off. I couldn’t remember if I’d had a chance to unlock it before they shot me with devil’s blood. My guess was no because so far no one could fire it, and the men were debating whether it was even operational. Hollywood insisted it was the real thing and that it was going to earn him a huge reward from Father Ryder. But his fellow recruiters refused
to believe it was anything more than some kind of plastic relic. Even I scratched my head over that one. How could they confuse steel with plastic?

The position of the sun indicated we were moving south-southwest. A wide river ran to the east of us, and the caravan never strayed far from it. Even when the river wasn’t within sight, we could hear it, and the image of all that cool, fresh water
rushing down the mountain occupied my thoughts. Today it sounded louder than usual.

“Wake up!” Hollywood yelled at us as we broke out of the forest into a clearing by the river. The terrain was a relatively flat mix of wet, grainy sand and rounded stones.

We all perked up. They didn’t usually bother waking us when they stopped to replenish water supplies. Naoki’s face creased with worry.

“What’s going on?” I asked Hollywood.

“You get what’s called a hygienic break,” he said.

Phillip smiled, showing more gum than teeth. “Yeah, we finally get to wash the stench off you.” He waved a hand in front of his nose.

Ryan sat up even straighter, the gleam of freedom in his eyes. I nudged him with my elbow and shook my head almost imperceptibly, knowing Hollywood didn’t miss a thing.
Ryan’s obvious anticipation was going to get him into trouble.

The entire caravan made its way close to the shoreline. During our journey down the mountain, the river had maintained a thin, mottled cap of ice. But here it flowed unrestricted and, it seemed, in greater volume.

“The snow and ice are melting,” Naoki said, motioning with his head toward the top of the mountain. “Spring floods
will start soon.”

That’s why there was little vegetation here. It was a floodplain. Having grown up inside a biodome, I had never witnessed spring coming to the land.

The guards and foot soldiers took turns bathing. They stripped naked despite the cold wind and even colder water, laughing and joking in their now-familiar, obscene way. When the first group had finished, they dressed and tended
the bears while the second group bathed. After all the recruiters had washed, they started on the recruits. The foot soldiers served as backup to our personal armed escorts.

Our hands were not unbound, just unhooked from where we were tethered to the cart. As Ryan hopped down from the wagon, I observed him surveying the area around us, his gaze darting from the river to the forest and back
again. But too many archers stood between the water and the trees. As soon as I caught his eye, I subtly shook my head and pointed with my chin toward the water. Naoki was watching us and tapped Talon with his elbow to get his attention. Our best chance for escape was the river. The current was swift and would carry us away quickly; although with our hands bound, it could be suicide.

Turning
my face downward, I said in a barely audible whisper, “Follow my lead.” Naoki nodded.

Our escorts started herding us toward the water.

Then Ryan head-butted Sanjay and bolted for the trees.

Hollywood and Phillip unsheathed their knives and grabbed Naoki and me. Talon took a step back toward the cart. “Don’t move,” Hollywood warned him. Within seconds archers surrounded us.

Ryan kept
running, hands tied behind him, and at first no one stopped him. They just laughed. He’d almost made it to the tree line when a foot soldier stepped out to block his way. But that didn’t stop Ryan. He tucked into a shoulder roll, evading an arrow speeding toward him, rolled right back onto his feet, gave the guy a roundhouse kick to the head, and sent him flying. Two more foot soldiers came at him
from either side, and Ryan ran three steps up the trunk of a tree, flipped, and landed on one of them with his legs wrapped around the man’s neck.

Hollywood released me and grabbed his bow. Before he could take aim at Ryan, I shouldered him and sent him into the side of the cart. Someone else took a shot at Ryan and an arrow ripped through his thigh and into the neck of the soldier he was strangling.
They both went down.

Hollywood righted himself and hauled back a fist aimed for my head, but before he could release it, someone yelled and startled him.

“
Who shot that
?” an angry voice demanded. He was looking right at Hollywood. He took a few steps toward our cart, his eyes never leaving Hollywood. “I said, who shot that arrow?”

One of the armed escorts from an empty cart stepped forward.
“I did.”

After a brief staring competition, Angry Man turned on his heel and faced the guilty escort. “What the hell were you aiming for? You shot a perfectly good soldier in the neck!” The soldier was on the ground, blood gurgling from his gaping mouth.

The escort’s eyes widened. He seemed scared and confused. “We’re supposed to hit recruits in the legs so we don’t kill them. That’s what
we’re always told.”

Angry Man shook his head and went back to where Ryan and the foot soldier lay on the ground. He tore the arrow from Ryan’s leg, and Ryan didn’t move. I hoped it was just the effect of the devil’s blood.

Hollywood cuffed me. “Get them back in the wagon,” he ordered Phillip and Sanjay. He walked toward Angry Man, pointing at Ryan. “Kane, with all due respect, he’s still my
bounty.”

“Looks to me like your bounty escaped and someone else got him.”

Hollywood stopped a short distance from him. “Rules are rules. We can take it up with Father Ryder when we get back.”

Kane hesitated, but then kicked Ryan. “Have him. Ajuns are worthless anyway. Especially Ajuns who run.”

Phillip and Sanjay pushed us into the cart, secured us, and went back for Ryan. An argument
broke out over whether or not the other cart owners—captains as they were referred to—were going to be compensated for the loss of the foot soldier. Hollywood stomped back to us, opened the wooden box built into the wagon, and took out some computer tablets. I recognized mine right away. They must have gone through my pockets to find it. The others were probably the dead ones that Naoki and Ryan had
found. Hollywood gave them to Kane to distribute.

He returned to the cart in a foul mood and punched me in the shoulder. I noted it wasn’t in the head. I also noted that even though I had shouldered him to keep him from shooting Ryan, the worst punishment I received was a punch in the shoulder.

I was getting a greater sense of my worth.

Sunny

Water. Why did
we have to travel by water?

The river was swollen by the spring melt and traveling at a greater velocity than I could ever remember seeing it before. Of course, it was my memories provoking the fear in me. I had very nearly drowned in that river during our escape from the bourge last year. If it had not been for Jack’s knowledge of first aid, I would have died. He was able to accomplish the
miraculous: restore the breath the water had stolen from me. And as I assessed our search party, I realized there was no one among us with first aid training. Provided the river didn’t pose the biggest threat, we were a capable team: Jin-Sook was a fierce warrior of Protector status with the Nation; Eli, our guide, was a slight man and older, but Dena had assured me he was capable of looking after
himself; and Summer, Reyes, and I were all dressed in the exoskeletons that made us strong, fast, and impervious to bullets and arrows.

Yet, as I eyeballed the two hollowed-out logs Jin and Eli had brought as boats, I wondered if the river would indeed pose the biggest threat.

Besides the five who made up our search party gathered at the river’s shore, Dena had come to say farewell, with
Willow tagging along. I had met Willow on only a few occasions but knew her well enough to know that she was always trying to find a way to promote herself to the status of Protector. Since Dena was head of the Nation’s military, Willow liked to stay close to her, always trying to find ways to impress her.

I knew Dena much better. Over the past ten months, Jack and I had become good friends
with her and her wife, Yean-Kuan, although I was always conscious and respectful of Dena’s status within the Nation. The Nation was comprised of six barangays, each one headed by an Elder. Together, the six Elders formed the government of the entire Nation. Dena was, in my opinion, the wisest of all six (and a trusted advisor to Senator Jack Kenner), as well as the fiercest military leader I had
ever known. The fact that she was giving us a personal send-off told me just how important this search was to the Nation. The recruiters had taken Naoki, Ryan, and Talon too, and it was causing chaos. Not only were the People grief-stricken by the loss of their brothers, but they also feared the recruiters might still be in the area.

And I was anxious to get the search started. Except for the
water part.

Jin-Sook must have sensed my anxiety—or maybe my expression said it all— because she laid a comforting hand on my shoulder. “It just means we’ll get down the mountain faster,” she said. If anyone knew the turmoil I was going through, it was Jin. Although we’d met as foes, our bond as friends began the day I had almost drowned.