Tomorrow's Cost (Final Update Book 3), page 15
Then he eyed Nick as he placed his derringer on the table next to him, only a half-second’s reach away. He furiously started punching buttons on his command display, always looking up and keeping Nick in check.
“Work!” he yelled. “You defective piece of trash.”
But Robert didn’t move. His seizures seemed to have passed, and Nick worried that Vaughn had successfully entrained his father’s waveforms.
Vaughn took back his weapon and dashed toward Robert, screaming in his ear: “Kill. Kill. Kill them!”
Then, softly, Nick heard his father’s voice for the first time in over a year.
“No,” Robert said.
Then, before Vaughn could react, Robert twisted around and knocked the gun from his hand. Then he grabbed Vaughn and lifted him by the throat.
Vaughn’s feet dangled six inches off the floor as Robert took him to the center radio transceiver and smashed him up against it.
There was an electric pop and crackle, and Nick thought Vaughn was trying to scream in pain, but Robert’s grip was too tight for sound to come out.
With his free hand, Robert reached into his side holster and remove a long fixed-blade knife. Nick expected him to gut Vaughn or slice his throat, but instead Robert slid the knife across the room toward Nick and Jimmy.
The boys looked at each other and immediately realized their father’s intent. They needed to cut each other free.
More noise distracted Nick from taking action, and he looked up to see Robert reach into another pouch and pull out a grenade.
He bit down on the safety pin and pulled it out, then held the live grenade up against the side of Vaughn’s head.
Vaughn’s eyes were wide and shaking, and Nick could hear irregular gasps and see spittle fall from Vaughn’s trembling lips as he struggled for air.
Then Nick saw his father’s head shake, his glasses falling to the floor. Robert turned and looked at Nick and Jimmy and said, “You’re my sons, and I’m your father…forever.”
There was a pause.
Then Robert said, “Now run!”
CHAPTER 30
THE BOYS STRUGGLED to get free. Nick took the lead, awkwardly picking up the knife off the floor and stepping backwards to his brother’s tied hands. They needed to hurry, but one false move and he knew he could cut Jimmy badly.
Nick heard the snip of the plastic tie breaking. Then he felt Jimmy’s hand take the knife from his grasp and quickly cut him free.
“Let’s go,” Nick said, shoving Jimmy toward the door.
“We can’t leave him,” Jimmy said.
“We have to!” Nick yelled as he dragged Jimmy to the stairs.
Nick heard the distinct sound of Robert crushing Vaughn’s windpipe as they ascended the stairs and raced through the doorway.
Nick hesitated once outside. He didn’t want to close the door behind him. It felt wrong, like he was abandoning his father. But he knew there would be an explosion, and they needed all the protection they could get.
He slammed the door shut and heard the same echoing reverberation he’d heard before, and he knew this time, a casket really was closing.
Nick twisted back around and saw Jimmy running about twenty feet ahead. Hearing the sound of the door behind him, Jimmy turned his head to one side as he continued running.
Just then, Nick saw a figure step out from behind a cargo box. It was Ayers, and Nick tried to warn Jimmy, but it was too late.
Ayers swung his club at Jimmy’s knee, knocking him down. The club fell out of Ayer’s hand, bouncing noisily on the deck and competing with Jimmy’s howls of pain. Then Ayers reached for his holster as he turned to face Nick.
There wasn’t time to think, and Nick felt his legs began to move, sprinting toward Ayers with no conscious plan of what he’d do if he reached him before getting shot.
“I was hoping I’d get to do this,” Ayers said, showing teeth as he raised his pistol and pointed it at Nick.
Ayers closed one eye, taking his time.
Nick was only ten feet away now, but he knew he wasn’t going to make it.
Just then Ayers spasmed in pain, dropping the gun. He looked down and gawked at a knife sticking out of his left thigh.
Nick realized it was his father’s knife. Jimmy had used it.
Ayers hobbled sideways and with his good leg stomped on Jimmy.
But now Nick had a chance. He dove onto Ayers’s back, tackling him to the deck.
Ayers was older and bigger than Nick. And even though Nick had the advantage, Ayers was able to roll over and face his attacker.
Nick reached blindly for the knife in Ayers’s leg, but what he found was only a bloody mess on the floor beside them. He looked and realized the knife had come loose and was laying behind them somewhere.
Nick’s head whipped back from Ayers’s first blow. Nick’s mouth was instantly numb, but he felt his own blood trickling down his chin and splattering onto Ayers.
Incensed, Nick raised his fist to fight back, but before he could land a punch, Ayers countered with another quick jab to the side of Nick’s jaw.
The jolt rocked Nick, stunning him momentarily. Then, he saw another coming, but this time he caught Ayers’s punch with his hand and held it there.
Ayers tried using his other fist, but Nick was faster and grabbed it too. The two struggled mightily before Nick used his advantage to press Ayers’s arms to each side. Nick had the tiger by the tail now and hadn’t the faintest idea what to do next.
Ayers, first grunting with clenched teeth, suddenly relaxed his arms, letting Nick press them down all the way to the deck. Then the old con showed his toothy grin before he began yelling.
“Echo Ten, attack this—”
Nick interrupted his command by headbutting his face, and he heard the dull smack of the back of Ayers’s head impacting the floor.
The convict colonel was stunned, and Nick knew he had only a second to act before Ayers would try to call his drones once again.
Nick grabbed Ayers by the throat. His neck felt unexpectedly soft and fragile, and Nick realized he’d never killed anyone this way. Never a crazy or emergent and certainly no unaffected person, con or not.
Ayers’s eyes bulged like Vaughn’s had when Robert had grabbed him, and the memory made Nick tighten his grip. This needed to end quickly before the detonation.
Ayers’s airless lungs began spasming underneath the weight of Nick’s body. And just as it seemed the con’s struggle to live was over, Nick heard movement nearby him and realized a new shadow had been cast.
Suddenly a metallic wang sounded as Jimmy struck Ayers in the side of the head with the club.
“How do you like a taste of your own medicine?” Jimmy taunted, standing over an incapacitated Ayers.
Jimmy helped Nick up to his feet. When Nick looked back down, he saw a new puddle of blood forming from the fresh wound on the side of Ayers’s head.
“Come on,” Jimmy pleaded.
Nick knew his brother was right. They had to hurry, but something told him to finish this job.
Nick bent down and with two hands rolled Ayers’s lifeless body under the side railing and over the deck.
A surprising number of seconds later, they heard the body smack the ocean below. “Okay, run,” Nick said.
He took off, but immediately he heard his brother yell for help. Nick turned and saw Jimmy hobble. His knee was busted up badly. Nick scurried back and grabbed Jimmy with one arm around his shoulder.
“You remember doing the three-legged race on Field Day at school?” Nick asked.
Jimmy smiled, and the two boys began running their uneven gait forward toward the bow of the ship.
After passing the countless barrels of fuel, boxes of who-knew-exactly-what, and stacked missiles, they reached the helicopter which was still there. If only they had control of a drone pilot, Nick wished.
They passed the chopper and reached the ship’s bow. Nick grabbed the railing and the metal ladder that went over. He peered down at the floating rafts that were tied below.
“Up and over,” he shouted, more of a celebration than instruction.
“Wait. I can’t,” Jimmy said.
At first, Nick thought it was because he was scared, and he felt that old familiar instinct to prod his brother with insults. A big ‘Nancy’ was about to leave his mouth when Jimmy said, “I can’t climb down that ladder. My knee.” He grabbed the already stiff and swollen joint.
“This whole ship’s about to blow,” Nick said. “You’ve got to.”
Then it happened. First a rumble. Then the unmistakable sound of metal erupting as the grenade blast began a chain reaction across the top of the destroyer’s explosives laden deck.
“Jump!” Nick yelled as he grabbed his brother and leaped over the railing.
CHAPTER 31
NICK STROKED THE wooden rails. It’s potential to cause splinters had been lost long ago, polished by the thousands of persons doing just what he was doing now plus the buffering of rain, sleet, snow, and the constant salty air.
Nick looked out from the dock, out at the setting sun. That was where the destroyer and sub had been weeks ago. Now, the destructive epicenter looked downright peaceful, and if he hadn’t been there to know differently it would have been hard to believe it had happened at all.
The warmth in the air waned, and Nick felt a chill that told him much more than that the day was ending; summer hadn’t lasted long, and autumn would be even shorter. The last few weeks had passed so quickly, almost as fast as the onset of winter, which came in September here. The nights had become cold, and it took longer and longer each day for the sun to warm the air.
Nick replayed the events in his mind. He had lived them. But they still seemed impossible, like it was someone else’s life he had lived. And he wondered if that wasn’t how the drones experienced life, how his father had been before he’d awakened on the destroyer: trapped inside someone else’s head.
Nick heard footsteps behind him. He didn’t turn around, and the fact that his heart didn’t skip a beat from fear made him smile. Those days were slowly fading away. The crazies, emergents, danger at every corner—they were all receding into the past now.
As the steps that he first could only hear became louder and he could feel the vibrations through the planks under his feet, he had to suppress a smile. He knew those steps. Somehow, he’d already memorized the patterns, the surprisingly jarring impacts that came from such a lightweight frame.
“Go away. I don’t give money to strangers,” he said before whipping around to see Lusa.
“No money, huh? Then what good are you?” she teased.
The money joke had become a recurring one over the last few days when they’d first realized they hadn’t thought or cared about the green stuff in forever. Nick wondered if they ever would.
Their smiles changed from those of friends to something more, and they took each other’s hands and held them, holding on to the moment.
“Did they want to help?” Nick asked, breaking the silence.
“It was the same old story,” she answered. “The village was split between those that saw the value in moving to the city to be with others and those who wanted to hold onto the traditional ways.”
“Can’t say I blame them. If they hadn’t lived differently from the rest of civilization, they would have all been crazies a year ago.”
Lusa nodded, and her expression told Nick that she was thinking about all those she’d lost, her old way of life, her father. These wounds would take time to heal, and there’d always be a sore spot there. Nick had them too. But the pain was something they didn’t have to experience alone. They didn’t necessarily have to talk about it either. Usually, it was just a knowing look shared between them, a sign that the other felt it too. And sometimes that was enough.
Nick imagined Fairbanks and the wandering souls that were re-inhabiting it now. He and Lusa had convinced hundreds of her people to move into the city and help rebuild. The drones—most of them, anyway—were in other people’s control now, people who had seen firsthand the devastation caused by the update and who wouldn’t be hasty to see history repeat itself.
The remaining drones were no longer a standing army; they were a work force, tasked by multiple handlers to rebuild the infrastructure. It was going to take time, Nick knew, but things were moving in the right direction now, and the future was no longer in the hands of a mad scientist and three teenagers. It was a burden shared by many.
The ongoing development that Nick was keen to watch was the interplay between unaffected people and the emergents who were slowly—with the help of Vaughn’s chips—recovering their memories and identities. That was where the remaining drones’ tactical abilities came in most handy. When emergents were found, they were tranquilized and chipped. Most of the chips successfully entrained with the emergents’ brain waves, but a few souls were lost, permanent casualties.
To Nick’s surprise, there had been little political or us-versus-them behavior between the groups. Nick figured the villagers felt like outsiders in the city to begin with, while the recovered emergents had so much blood and trauma on their hands they couldn’t pretend to have any social or moral clout. Both groups were on unsteady ground.
Maybe it was something else that made it work. Maybe it was the ugliness and terror that had become so normal, so regular. And this break from the storm motivated people to work together, knowing that if they screwed this up, they might not get another chance at a better life.
The antenna relay system was still up, making communications a cinch. Handlers could easily send drones on long distance tasks, though satellite imagery wasn’t as readily available. Some of those access codes had been lost at sea.
Nick turned his thoughts to Deadhorse. It had been a second home to him and his brother, and there had been a time when he thought he’d live out his days there. Now he wasn’t sure if he’d ever see the place again. It was still an important location for the rebuilding effort. The seed vault was no longer a secret, and all of Nick’s prior cautions had turned out to be unnecessary; the Native elders agreed that eating seed intended for planting was a foolish notion and that it should be saved for future planting. Deadhorse was also one of the shortwave transceiver posts. The station was often only manned by drones, but it wouldn’t be a forgotten point anytime soon.
There was plenty of unfinished business for the denizens of Alaska. There were still crazies out there; in fact, the entire city of Anchorage hadn’t been chipped. Time was passing now, winter coming on soon, and conversation had turned to working through the city in early spring before the hibernating crazies thawed out.
What hadn’t been discussed at length was the distinct possibility that the crazies would turn before then. As far as Nick could tell, the crazies were on some kind of invisible timer. And after an unknown length of time, they became emergents. The reason the crazies further south of them had first turned into emergents was because they didn’t hibernate during winter. Their clocks had kept ticking year-round.
But Erin had been turned. And as far as they could tell—and from what she had told them—she was a local Alaskan. She hadn’t migrated north like the emergents had. She had been the lone survivor out of who knew how many crazies and had slowly changed into the next phase of the update’s aftermath.
So that meant what? Maybe that some of the crazies would turn before they hibernated this winter. Nick was unsure, but he let it go. It was someone else’s problem now.
Nick turned back to the sea. Lusa put her hand around the small of his back and slid in beside him, her head gently on his shoulder.
“Why did he do it?” Lusa asked softly.
“Who?”
“Your dad,” she said.
He knew she was asking why he had blown himself up. Some things are hard to say out loud.
“I don’t know,” Nick answered. “Maybe he knew he didn’t have long before he’d be under Vaughn’s control again.”
“But he could have simply killed Vaughn,” she insisted. “Or maybe just have thrown the grenade and run?”
Nick searched for reasons why it had to be that way. There was the fact that by holding Vaughn against the transceiver station and pulling the pin, Nick’s dad could be certain to destroy both targets. There was the fact that his dad didn’t know how long he had, that trying to run for it might have failed and that he just needed to act quickly. But ultimately, Nick believed it was for another reason that his dad had held onto the grenade.
“There are some things worse than death, Lusa,” Nick replied. “Some things you don’t come back from, or if you do, it means you don’t know how to go on.”
“You think he wanted to die?”
“I’m saying he didn’t want to go back to living as a drone. He must have been stuck inside his own head, fully conscious but unable to make his own decisions. And he couldn’t know if waking up was permanent or if he’d go right back under Vaughn’s control at any second.”
They stood there, and Nick pondered his father’s sacrifice, wishing it could have been some other way. He had more questions than answers, but he at least knew one thing: his dad loved him and his brother.
“What about the drones. The others?” Lusa asked.
“We’ll just have to wait and see,” came Nick’s response. “My dad could be an anomaly. The others may never turn. But we better treat them well, regardless. Maybe we can periodically turn off their chips.”
“They’ll have to be restrained,” she said.
“Yeah. Sure. But we can give them a chance to turn.”
“What if they don’t? What if they never come back to normal?”
Nick thought about it. “Well, then we give them important jobs, so their lives have purpose. And we treat them right, the best we know how.”
Suddenly, Lusa jerked back, pulling away from Nick’s shoulder.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Out there,” she said, pointing.
He thought something was wrong, but Lusa’s face now told him otherwise. Nick followed her slender finger and eyed the bubbles that conspicuously rose in the water.
