New World Order (8 page)

Of course, I didn’t know how he felt about me. I could only guess from the grunts and sneers he often threw my way during our training sessions with the militia. He was obviously not in agreement with Doc’s choice of me as leader, yet he wasn’t disgruntled enough to leave our elite group either. Then again, Reyes had always been
tough to read. His brooding, silent exterior made it impossible to see inside.

After the third time Summer heaved over the side of the raft, I suggested we stop for a break. I didn’t have to look at my watch to know it was past noon. The sun had already reached its peak an hour before. With the unpredictable spring weather, I would have preferred to keep going while it was on our side, but I
knew if we pushed too hard now we’d pay for it later with exhaustion.

As soon as we had pulled the raft safely onto dry land, we filled our flasks from the river while Jin-Sook and Eli scooped water with both hands and drank. Summer, Reyes, and I had to wait for our water to percolate through the filter, and I watched it with anticipation. I seemed to be constantly thirsty these days. After
a good long drink, I opened a pack of freeze-dried food and added the water, turning it into a mush not unlike the stew we had been fed in the Pit. Jin-Sook knew of our need to protect ourselves from radiation, but Eli didn’t, and he looked on curiously.

“We have food sensitivities,” I explained.

Summer grimaced at the smell of her pack. “I don’t think I can eat it.”

“Try,” Reyes said firmly.

His harsh tone irritated me, but I resisted snapping at him. “He’s right, Summer. You have to eat.”

She groaned and took a mouthful.

Jin-Sook finished her last bite of dried meat and licked her fingers. “We should scout for signs of recruiters passing through here while we’re stopped.”

I wasn’t sure about taking the time to do that. “Does it matter if they passed through here? They
have over a week’s lead on us, and Eli’s pretty sure he knows where they’re going. We should keep moving.” I chugged back some of my mush.

“They’ll be traveling a lot slower than us,” Eli said. “The bears hauling the carts don’t move very fast, especially down a mountainside. They’ll have to pick their way down, all the while looking for more recruits.”

Summer took the flask away from her
mouth. “Bears?” she choked. “They use
bears
to haul the carts?”

“Yeah,” Eli said, as if it were a widely known fact. “They’re big enough to pull a cart full of recruits and surefooted on just about any terrain, including in water.”

“They
are
huge,” I agreed. Jack and I had spotted one a few miles from our city when we were out for an afternoon of target practice. “A lot bigger than the ones
recorded before the War. I wonder why?”

Reyes swallowed some mush and cleared his throat. “Gee, if only I knew someone who always had her nose stuck in a nature book.” He looked at me. “Oh, wait. I do.”

His tone was kind of friendly, and it caught me off guard. I regarded him with suspicion. Was he being
nice
to me? Better to go on the assumption that he was and keep the peace. “I don’t know.
Because…” I tried to think of a reason why. “Bears eat fish and berries, right? Obviously there wouldn’t be any berries for them to eat during a nuclear winter, but maybe fish?” Even as I said it, I knew my logic was flawed. Without sunlight, the aquatic food chain would’ve broken down during the nuclear winter too.

Both Jin and Eli gave me a weird look. “Berries?” Eli asked. “Bears eat meat.
Humans, small game, fish, insects—”

“Did you just say
humans
?” Reyes interjected.

A little bit of my mush regurgitated on me and I swallowed it back down. Of course he said humans. Only meat-eaters survived the nuclear winter. And I had learned from Dena that human meat was a key source of nutrition in the years immediately following the War, which made sense since the global population was
close to eight billion. People were the most abundant source of food.

“It explains why they survived,” I said. “They could’ve hibernated through most of the nuclear winter, waking only long enough to replenish their fat stores. It makes sense that the only thing to eat when they did wake was meat, anything and any
one
that had managed to survive in a world without sunlight. Cross-mating with
other species would have contributed to their evolution and size.”

“I knew all that dry reading would pay off one day,” Reyes said and downed the rest of his food.

Was he really being friendly or was it a reminder that he had always hated it when I’d chosen a book over his company? I didn’t want to ask though. I preferred this friendliness to our usual uneasy conversations.

I directed
my gaze to the stark forest behind us. Winter had not fully given way to spring, although the patches of snow that clung to the ground were no longer white as their melt had mixed with the thawing ground to make a cold, slippery mud. The trees and brush were still dormant, their branches bare of any foliage, so even though they were fairly dense, they didn’t provide much privacy. And I really needed
to pee.

Hey, little guy
, I thought, casting a covert glance at my belly.
Why do you want water all the time if you’re just going to make me get rid of it?

“We can have a quick look around,” I said to Jin-Sook and Summer.

Summer caught on immediately, the way only a best friend could. “We’ll be right back,” she said to the men.

We didn’t stray too far from the shore, choosing a suitable
boulder to squat behind. Doc had thought of everything when he designed the suits, so it wasn’t difficult. We took turns, two keeping a watchful eye for anything that might cross our path. I looked for signs of recruiters having passed through, but found nothing, not even small animal prints.

A cold breeze blew through the leafless forest, and branches whispered against each other. It wasn’t
an unfamiliar sound, but I was used to hearing it as part of an orchestra of traffic on a busy street, the incessant chatter of people, and the hum of electricity. On its own, it sounded hollow and lonely, and I was suddenly aware that we were the only living creatures for miles.

Summer and I stood watch when it was Jin’s turn. “Are you feeling any better?” I asked. Summer looked pale.

She
shrugged. “Drinking water is helping a lot.”

I put my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to come. Maybe it’s too soon.”

Only seven days ago she had been hooked up to an IV, kicking the alcohol in her system. She was strong in her fight against her addiction, stronger than I had ever seen her, and I had thought taking her away from the temptation of booze would help.
But she was on medication Doc had prescribed to take the edge off her cravings and keep her withdrawals in check, and now I was afraid she was vomiting them up.

“No. I’m glad I’m here,” she said, putting her hand on mine. “I’ll get used to the raft. Don’t worry about me.”

Jin-Sook finished, and we returned to the shore.

“There’s no sign of them,” Jin said to Eli.

“It doesn’t mean we’re
going in the wrong direction,” Eli said. “They won’t stray too far from a water source, but traveling the riverbank with wagons is difficult. They probably kept to the higher trails.”

This was a river valley. The shore on either side of the river ranged from somewhat flat and pebbly, to sheer cliffs, to everything in between. Our current position was relatively flat, but the terrain on either
side of the river crept steadily upward to eventually tower over the valley.

We stowed our packs in the raft and pushed it back out onto the water before we all hopped in. Although I was still uncomfortable being on the water, I was beginning to trust that the raft would stay afloat. Summer didn’t look any more comfortable. It took only twenty minutes for her to lose her lunch.

The current
was swift and, I was pretty sure, stronger than it had been before we had stopped. We navigated our way through some rapids, and eventually the current slowed as the river widened into a lake. Reyes and I dug into the water with the paddles, using the boosted strength that our exoskeletons gave us to power across the lake. The calmer waters gave Summer a brief reprieve, but soon enough the waterway
narrowed and we switched from paddling to repelling away from rocks. Even taking turns, the work was exhausting.

Occasionally I looked up from my task to scan the mountaintops on either side of us, wondering if recruiters were watching our progress. Oddly, the thought didn’t scare me. It gave me hope that Jack might still be in the area and I could bring him home sooner than anticipated. Yet,
as the day wore on, all I saw were rocks, bare trees, and the occasional small animal getting a drink at the river’s edge.

When the water became too rough to navigate, we pushed our way back to shore. Summer jumped out of the raft as soon as we were in shallow water.

“We’ll need to go on foot for a few miles at least,” Eli said.

“Thank God,” Summer whispered and sat down on the ground
with her head between her knees.

I grabbed my backpack and Summer’s, took out our flasks, and filled them with water. Eli and Jin attempted to help Reyes get the raft ashore, but he waved them away, picked it up, held it aloft, and carried it up onto dry land. Setting it down, he fumbled with a mechanism on the back of it, and a whirring started as the raft began to deflate. Summer looked at
the boat with detest.

“Are you going to make it?” I asked, handing her the flask.

“Would you believe me if I said I was getting used to it?”

Pulling my mouth into a wry smile, I dropped down to sit next to her. “No.” I took out a freeze-dried food pack, mixed it with water, and offered it to her. She gagged and turned away. “You have to eat.”

“I will as soon as the ground stops moving.
In the meantime, can you take
that
away from me, please?” She motioned toward the food.

I stood, taking the offending food with me. “Okay, but in an hour I’m going to make you eat.”

Even though the gray mush was less than appetizing, my stomach growled. I caught Reyes looking at me as I chugged it back.

“Keep going through your rations at that rate and you’ll be eating radioactive squirrel
soon enough,” he said.

I ignored the jab, finished my mush, and helped fold the raft until it was small enough to tuck into Reyes’ backpack. It was a lot heavier than it looked, and even with the aid of my suit, I struggled to pick it up singlehandedly. Reyes took it away from me, slid it into his pack, and settled the weight onto his back as if it were feather-light. I found myself wondering
how much of that strength was him and how much was the suit.

“We’ll have to hike over that ridge,” Eli said. “And we might as well make camp there tonight since it’ll give us a good vantage point over the valley.”

As we left the shore and entered the stark forest, the sound of rushing water began to fade. Jin-Sook and Eli led the way. I never tired of watching the ease with which they glided
through the forest, leaving barely a trace of their passing. Eli wasn’t quite as graceful as Jin, but then again he hadn’t been born and raised in the Nation like she had. She’d been taught from birth that her first defense against an enemy was not to let him know you were there and had spent a lifetime perfecting the art of being invisible. She had also been taught what to do if that defense failed…
and, frankly, I felt sorry for anyone who made the mistake of seeing through her camouflage.

Looking behind us, I saw that the only footprints left in the mud belonged to Reyes, Summer, and me. I would attempt to move as Jin and Eli did, but I was pretty sure I’d just end up slipping on the patchy ice. The hydraulics in our suits made it easy for us to move faster, and the three of us frequently
had to check our speed to allow Eli to maintain the lead. He was, after all, our guide. Summer and I didn’t mind the slower pace, but Reyes huffed a few times.

When we reached the top of the ridge, we stopped to take in the view. The sight of rolling peaks separated by valleys was quite breathtaking, although the dark clouds gathering in the sky above were not.

Eli pointed to one of the distant
peaks. “That’s your Dome.”

Could it be true? Had we really traveled
that
far from home in just one day? Summer and I looked at each other, silently communicating both our fear and our excitement at straying out into the world.

She smiled broadly, looking a lot better than she had a few hours ago. “We’re just like
Heidi
!” she exclaimed. We both fell into a fit of giggles at the mention of
our favorite movie—the one we used to act out in our imaginary childhood world inside the confines of the Pit. She and I always took turns being Heidi and Klara.

Reyes chuckled. “I remember
Heidi
,” he said. “Grade Three
every
recess, that’s
all
you two ever played. And you used to bug me and Mica to be the goat and Grandfather.”

Our giggles turned into hysterical laughter as we remember how
ridiculous, and yet awesome, Reyes and Mica had been for playing along with us. “But you only ever wanted to be Fraulein Rottenmeier,” I said.

“She’s the only one I liked,” Reyes said, his smile broad.

Wiping a tear from the corner of my eye, I got my giggles under control and squeezed Summer’s hand in mine. “We never thought we’d get to see the mountains for real.”

Behind us, Reyes ducked
down and put his face between ours. “You guys gonna cry or something? Do you need a moment?” Summer playfully shoved him away with her shoulder. He stood up straight and turned to Jin and Eli. “They’ve been like this since they were little kids.”

Jin-Sook looked on with an amused expression, but Eli seemed a little confused. “Well, whenever you’re done, we should get off this ridge. We’re visible
to everyone, and everything, around here.” He pointed down at the river, moving his arm to follow its path. “River bends there, through a gorge. We’ll hike around and meet it a few miles south of here.” He looked at the gathering clouds. “We won’t make it tonight, though. Storm’s coming. We should find some shelter.”