New World Order (7 page)

Ryan’s wrists were secured to the rails next to me, the slow rise and fall of his chest reassuring me that he was still breathing. Our cart started moving forward, and his body lolled lifelessly with the rhythm. The arrow had struck high up on his inner thigh. There was blood, but not enough to suggest that
his artery had been sliced.

Naoki tapped my foot with his and motioned toward Ryan.

“He’s breathing,” I said. Hollywood glared at me disapprovingly. But now that I had a better sense of my value, I paid no attention to it. “So what’s an Ajun?” I asked him.

Naoki smirked and maneuvered his head slightly to see how Hollywood was reacting. Hollywood was walking on the opposite side of the
cart from me, with Phillip beside him. His mouth was set in a thin line, but he looked to be deliberately ignoring me.

“They don’t know how to say Asians,” Naoki said.

I laughed. Not a big, full-on belly laugh, but a short, forced one. “That can’t be possible,” I said with exaggerated sarcasm. “They’re an
advanced society
.”

Naoki snorted.

Hollywood turned on me. “I swear to the gods,
you little freak, if you push me one more time I will
kill
you.” His face was red and his eyes shiny with rage.

And yet I didn’t care. “Go ahead.” My own anger had been simmering ever since they’d captured me, and now it was boiling up. The only reason I even tried to keep it under control was because I was biding my time, trying to gain their trust so I could find a chance to escape. But after
Ryan’s move, there was no way they were ever going to give us another opportunity. Gritting my teeth, I returned Hollywood’s glare. “
Kill me then! Go ahead!
”

Hollywood heard me. I could tell by the look on his face. But he didn’t answer me. Or kill me. I wasn’t even sure I
could
die, thanks to Doc’s nanobots. But if I had a choice between getting an arrow in the head or being stuck in this cart
slowly dying of dehydration while I watched dead bodies get chopped up, I’d take the arrow.

Naoki kicked my leg, and my eyes snapped toward him. “Sunny would be awful mad to hear you provoked your own death.”

Just hearing the sound of her name snapped me out of it. Her image had been my constant companion since they took me, yet this was the first time I had heard her name spoken out loud.
It reminded me that she was more than just a memory. She was real. She was home. And what I wouldn’t give to turn back the clock to that morning when she hadn’t wanted to get out of bed. When she wiggled her warm body against mine, snuggled in, and asked me to hit the snooze button. Why had I wanted to go explore a cold, decaying city instead of spending the day in bed with my wife?

Naoki and
Talon were both watching me intently. I doubted very much that provoking Hollywood would result in anything more than a punch in the head. The one important conclusion I had come to was that recruiters needed recruits to get paid, and as far as I could tell, recruits were in short supply. Of the eleven wagons in the group, only four held cargo. The crews of the empty carts organized hunting parties
daily, detouring away from the main caravan, and they always came back empty-handed. Finding people was not easy.

“Who’s Sunny?” Hollywood asked without looking at me. “One of the two that got away?”

And now I knew for sure: Sunny and Ted had gotten away. Utter relief and happiness surged through me, putting to rest some of my anxiety.

“I’m glad she got away,” I said.

“As long as it
was just a couple of women we lost,” he said. “They’re only good for breeding, and I already have enough wives to feed.”

I took his chattiness as an opportunity to probe for information. “So men are more valuable?”

Phillip good-naturedly elbowed Hollywood in the arm. “Do you believe that stupid question?”

“Coming from him I can,” Hollywood said. “He’s probably one of those weak men Father
Ryder is always talking about. A cuckold.”

“
Cuckold
?” I repeated in amazement. “Geez, that’s an awfully big word, Hollywood. I’m impressed.”

Despite his smile, Naoki shook his head at me, but I didn’t want to stop. On some perverse level I was enjoying it. Not only was it keeping my mind off being thirsty, which seemed to be the dominant thought in my head since I had been captured, but I
was also finding out information that might turn out to be useful. That I was making fun of Hollywood in the process was just a bonus. “So Father Ryder must be a really smart guy,” I said.

Sanjay was walking on the side of the cart where I was tethered, and he said, “The smartest man on earth.”

Hollywood looked over at Sanjay, nodding vigorously. “He’s the voice of the gods. The chosen one.”

I could almost feel the passion rolling off of Hollywood. He was obviously fiercely loyal to Father Ryder.

“So what was he chosen to do?” I asked.

Naoki silently laughed, his smile tight.

Hollywood finally looked at me. Right at me. His eyes piercing. “Lead the world.” His voice practically trembled with conviction. “You sit in that wagon acting as if we’ve done you wrong when what we’ve
actually done is
save
you.”

“Save me?” I asked in surprise. It was an unexpected spin. “From
what
?”

“Your cuckolding wife,” Naoki said.

I smiled, happy to see he was going to join in the fun.

Hollywood was getting furious. “From murderers, thieves, and
cannibals
!” His voice was raised, attracting the attention of others in our caravan. “Father Ryder says it was the War that caused people
to lose their moriality. The gods chose him to restore it through their written words.”

“And by ‘moriality,’ do you mean morality?” I asked. Hollywood opened his eyes wide, and his nostrils flared as he took a deep breath then forcefully blew it out. Maybe I had pushed him far enough. “Well, you know what would help my moriality? A drink of water.”

Hollywood ignored me and stared straight
ahead as he walked. I didn’t have any energy left to keep poking at him anyway. I settled my back farther down on the rails, relaxed the best I could, and observed my surroundings. Trees. Rocks. Outcroppings. Frozen earth. Not one notable landmark I could use to find my way home. Except for the river. As long as we didn’t leave it, I could use it to guide me back.

When the sun was at its peak
in the sky, our caravan stopped for the midday break. I tried not to look too eager for a water ration. After the way I’d made fun of Hollywood, I didn’t expect to get any. But Sanjay put the bottle to my lips and Hollywood didn’t stop him. Phillip gave Talon his ration, and I noticed with some alarm the way Phillip was looking at the younger man. He was far too absorbed in Talon’s lips as he gulped
the water. Had Phillip looked at him that way before?

There was a bit of a ruckus farther down the line, and Hollywood left to see what was happening. I stretched as far as my bound wrists would allow and saw a recruit being rolled out of a wagon. Naoki was craning his neck to see.

“Don’t watch,” I said. Naoki was still looking when I heard the first whack of the ax. He turned back around,
his face pale.

Hollywood yelled for Phillip to bring something, and Phillip opened the wooden crate in our wagon and took out the big plastic container that held the meat for the bears. He went to Hollywood with it.

“So that’s what they’re feeding the animals,” I said.

“He’d go to waste otherwise,” Sanjay said.

Phillip returned carrying the container with Hollywood a few steps behind
him. I averted my eyes even though the container was an opaque gray. If there was blood on it, I didn’t trust my stomach not to lose the small amount of water I had just been given.

Hollywood clapped Sanjay on the back, pointing to the container as Phillip returned it to the crate. “Do you believe he charged me a wife for that little bit of meat?” Sanjay smiled the kind of smile a child would
when getting attention from a neglectful parent. “I didn’t tell him he was getting the ugly one.” Hollywood guffawed, and Sanjay laughed with him.

Sanjay was an interesting guy. One minute contemplating stealing me out from under Hollywood to go in search of more rifles, the next sucking up to the boss.

A hunting party broke away as the caravan started moving again. I closed my eyes and let
sleep overtake me.

The smell of smoke jolted me awake. Using the rail, I leveraged myself into a sitting position and looked around for the fire. We were no longer moving, but we weren’t setting up camp either. No fires had been lit. So where was the smell of smoke coming from?

A hushed, nervous excitement rippled through the recruiters. I recognized Kane’s voice saying, “Take twenty
men with you.”

The sun was low, and long shadows darkened the forest. I looked for the source of the smoke and realized it was coming from the direction of the river. People. These recruiters had found people. Naoki, Talon, and I exchanged silent glances.

We listened to them as they sorted out which twenty men to take and set the price for compensation. From what I could gather, the foot
soldiers were paid with three meals a day and the chance to get on with one of the rigs full time. The owners of the rigs, or carts, were referred to as captains. They “hired” escorts to work with them by negotiating a percentage of whatever payment they received from Ryder.

Kane directed the rest of our caravan to make camp. Not far ahead, we rounded a bend, and the landscape opened up to a
large, flat area. The stone wall of the mountain rose on one side and on the other a ravine led down to the river. Only one path led in and out.

Screams echoed through the forest before we even rolled to a stop. They were so unexpected, so piercing, that I forgot I was bound when I jumped to help. My arms wrenched back and the plastic binds cut into my wrists.

More screams. At least two
different women… and was that a child?

“What are you doing?” I asked Hollywood.

“Making camp,” he said dryly.

The screams were begging now. Pleading. My heart hammered in my chest. Naoki was across from me, wide-eyed and pulling against his bonds too. Talon was sitting up as straight as his tethered wrists would let him, his eyes alert with fear.

“They’re hurting them,” Naoki said.

Hollywood came around to the back of our wagon and opened up the wooden crate.

“I thought you said women weren’t worth much,” I said. He didn’t look at me. “Leave them alone!”

He paused in his task long enough to give me a bland, disinterested look. “Not worth much to me. I already got enough.” He pulled the plastic container of meat out and set about feeding the bears.

The screams came
less frequently, but when I could hear them, it was always a feminine voice. I realized then that the men would have been shot with devil’s blood and were probably out cold. God help me, but I couldn’t stop thinking,
Lucky them, they won’t have to live with the memory of what happened to their wives and daughters.

Sunny’s image was determined to creep to the forefront of my thoughts, but I
pushed her away. Her memory—her very essence—was the only thing keeping me sane since my capture. She was my happy place, the place inside my head where I could go to escape my reality. I couldn’t allow that place to be tainted with their screams or, most of all, my humiliation at not being able to do anything about it. Tethered, powerless and at the mercy of the dumbest masochist I had ever met,
I was impotent.

I could tell by the set of Naoki’s face and the way the cords of his neck stood out that he felt the same way. This was the world that his people had so desperately tried to escape by making their home in the mountains. I remembered when I had told Dena that maybe it was better to run from Holt, and she had responded by asking,
Run where?
Now I understood.

My chest constricted
as I watched my captors, who so righteously carried out the orders of Father Ryder, and wondered if I was staring at the future of humanity.

A short time after the screaming stopped, just as the last of the sun’s rays streaked across the sky, the new recruits were brought into the camp. I didn’t get a good look at them, but the entire camp cheered at the sight of a wagon full of women. I suddenly
wished they’d shoot me with devil’s blood again.

I looked at Naoki. “The minute they cut me loose, I’m going to kill every last one of them.”

He gave me a curt nod. “I’ll help.”

Sunny

Dena always did have a way of pointing out someone’s faults without actually laying blame, which had the effect of putting you on a guilt trip instead of on the defensive.
Ordinarily I didn’t appreciate guilt trips, but in this case I welcomed it. Not only did it force me to start exploring my own feelings about bringing a child into this world, but it also took my mind off the physical trip I was on: in a raft navigating a river swollen by winter melt. At least I could stomach it. Summer was positively green.

Jin-Sook and Eli were the only ones with experience
operating a boat, so they took control of the raft and were patient enough to instruct Summer, Reyes, and me on the art of navigation. Most of the time the river did the work of propelling us forward, so we mostly used the paddles to push away from rocks, fallen trees, and any other debris caught in the current. It was intense work made easier by the fortified strength our exoskeletons gave us,
but it still required a sharp eye, quick reflexes, and our undivided attention since the burgeoning waterway had swept up a lot of winterkill from the riverbanks. Talk among us was kept to short phrases like
Rock!
Tree!
or
Look out!
I didn’t mind the lack of conversation. It forced Reyes and me to work together toward a common goal without our usual snide exchanges.

As leery as I was about
his motives for wanting to be there, I recognized that his presence had a calming effect on me too. Reyes was familiar. No matter how horribly our relationship had ended, I didn’t want it to be our defining moment. We started out as friends, collecting memories together the very first day we met at school when we were only six years old. I couldn’t just cut him out of my life. Where we grew up, good
memories were a rare commodity and far too precious to waste.