Food for water; water for food. Without the exchange, the Alphas would die of thirst and the Marauders would die of hunger. The simple exchange had allowed their two groups to survive in an environment that supported little life.

  "What's the wager?" Echo asked.

  "7/24s of bathroom duty," Mattock said.

  Cleaning bathrooms was not Echo's favorite chore, but she didn't want to disappoint Mattock. "I4/24S," she said.

  "Don't be foolish," Westie cut in irritably. "It doesn't matter which bin they pick. Each one contains exactly the same amount of food."

  A pause. Then Mattock said brightly, "Good. That must mean we're finished here. Come on. Echo. Let's go get ready. We want to look our best for our guests."

  "For the Marauders?" Westie said with a sniff. "How ridiculous." "Go on." Woody said. "Go."

  Echo and Mattock fled up the corridor "I don't know how j'ou stand Westie," Mattock complained. "She's the most uptight, humorless, bitter —"

  "Please," Echo said with a smile, "don't ruin my mood for tonight."

  "Oh, I'll let the Marauders do that," Mattock said with false gravity. "That lovely smell they have should do it. And if that doesn't work, then there's the scars and scabs and extra body parts —"

  "Extra body parts?" Echo repeated. "I've never seen any extra body parts."

  "J'ou can't see much with all those clothes they wear," Mattock said, his eyes bright.

  "I just hope something exciting has happened to them in the last l82/24s.We could use some entertainment around here."

  "Oh, I don't know," Mattock said, pinching up his face and doing a fairly good imitation of Westie. "Entertainment has never done anything to increase the yield."

  "Forget the yield," Echo said.

  "Shocking language," Mattock said, maintaining his Westie voice. "Just shocking."

  Echo was smiling as Mattock peeled off and disappeared into the men's dormitory. But her smile faded as she continued down the hallway.

  The yield.

  She'd devoted her entire life to the stupid yield — planting seeds, tending plants, watering, pruning, fiddling with soil composition, taking readings, making reports, watching, worrying, harvesting, weighing — and then starting all over again.

  Maybe she couldn't hope for more. She was already 16/365s old. Probably too old to change. But what about her baby? Could the baby hope for nothing more than a life spent underground, in artificial light, worrying about the yield?

  Somewhere between the men's dormitory and the women's, a wave of melancholy washed over Echo. She entered the cramped room with her shoulders slumped, all pleasure in the Marauders' imminent arrival forgotten.

  "What happened to j'ou?" Lyric greeted her She was sitting on her bunk, already dressed in her finest clothes. She'd woven bright pieces of cloth into her hair "Still tired," Echo said flatly

  "Are j'ou okay?" Lyric asked with what sounded like scientific curiosity.

  Echo nodded. "A baby with my DNA is being developed in the lab to come into a life of drudgery. A life underground. Worrying about the yield."

  "Well, cheer up," Lyric said lightly. "Maybe she'll be deformed and have to go live with the Marauders.

  "Maybe that wouldn't be so bad," Echo said fiercely. "Marauder children play with toys, not soil toxicity samples. I don't want the baby to spend her life composting. I want her to do interesting things."

  A flash of anger passed over Lyric's face, reminding Echo of the secret they shared, reminding her that Lyric couldn't afford to joke about deformities. "'Interesting' things? Like what — battling Beasts?"

  "I — no." Echo felt ridiculous discussing this with Lyric, of all people. And she didn't really want the baby taken by the Marauders. She'd only get to see her twice a year. "Forget it," she said dully. . .

  Echo forced herself to put her strange feelings aside. She needed to be calm for the ceremony. From the time she was a baby. Echo had been taught that trembling hands or a nervous giggle during the exchange could endanger the entire colony. Above all, they must do nothing to raise the Marauders' suspicions that they were being cheated in any way.

  A little before the clock chimed 12/24, Lyric and Echo left the dormitory together and joined the colony members gathered in the hallway outside the exchange room. As the clock began to chime, Woody pulled the door open and they filed in.

  The Marauders entered the room through another door at the same moment. As the two groups came together to form a circle and join hands, Echo reminded herself to remain serene so the Marauders knew she had nothing to hide.

  Woody stepped into the center of the circle for the beginning of the exchange. He was joined by one of the Marauders — a large bald man who was missing his two front teeth. His clothes were ill-fitting and matted with dust and filth.

  "Thank j'ou for being our hosts," the Marauder said in a booming voice, leering strangely. He had wild, dangerous eyes and a huge dimpled nose sharp enough to be a weapon. "Th — thank j'ou — for being our guests," Woody said, doing a very poor job of hiding his surprise.

  Crutch — a wizened old man with a dense gray beard who had been the Marauders' leader ever since Echo was a little girl — was missing. That could only mean he was dead. The man who had joined Woody in the circle was called Hawk. Clearly, he was the Marauders' new leader

  Echo could see her own shock mirrored in the faces of the Alphas around the circle. Her heart bumped uncomfortably as her eyes traveled over the band, counting them. Twenty.

  Only twenty. At the last exchange, there'd been twenty-four Four deaths in one 182/365. How had they lost so many people?

  The Marauder women looked exhausted, Echo thought. Several of them had half-healed wounds or bruises visible on their faces and arms. She was relieved to see they still carried the traditional pouches of water Whatever had befallen them couldn't be too bad if they had managed to make the collection.

  Echo's shock slowly began to give way to a sort of cautious excitement. The Marauders would certainly have an interesting story to tell! She longed for the exchange to end so that she could hear it.

  "We — we have grown this food with water j'ou provided and divided it equally into two bins," Woody said, struggling on with the ceremony despite his obvious confusion. "Please choose the bin that pleases j'ou and we will gladly take the other."

  Hawk approached the table, and stuck his nose disgustingly close to first the red bin and then the white. He took his time, seeming to consider. "We will accept the red bin," he said with that same disturbing smile.

  "And we will gladly —" Woody started.

  "And half of the white one," Hawk interrupted, his smile suddenly vanishing.

  Woody stared at him stupidly. Halfway around the circle, Westie gasped loudly. Echo suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Lyric squeezed her hand painfully hard. The Marauders' expressions were hard; their hands were on their weapons.

  "Our agreement is centuries old," Woody said with difficulty. His face had flushed an unhealthy purple.

  "All of the red bin and half of the white one," Hawk said mulishly.

  Echo could see a vein beating in Woody's forehead. "I need — can we have some time to discuss j'our — request?" he asked haltingly. "I must — consult with the other elders of our colony."

  "J'our elders can consult," Hawk said derisively. "And since my band has no need for consulting but is content to follow my orders, we will hear a story while j'ou are away." Hawk gestured impatiently to one of the younger Marauder men. "Tell," he ordered.

  The man called Sanchez stepped into the circle. Woody stood there looking confused for another moment. Hawk hadn't even mentioned the water that was the Alphas' payment, Echo thought in dull amazement. Woody moved toward the door Hesitantly, Westie, Rainier, Borlaug, and Ali Kosh followed him.

  CHAPTER 11

  "ANY OTHER QUESTIONS?"

  "How much time?" Mo'Steel called, his voice muffled by the ill-fitting Meanie suit. He was ahead of Jobs, leading the way.

  "An — hour and a half," Jobs called hoarsely. His throat was dry enough that shouting was difficult, painful. His tongue felt like a piece of meat — huge and swollen and alien. As soon as his hands were free, he planned to drink the last gulp of water in his bottle. "We have to — turn back in an hour — and a half or —" "Right," Mo'Steel called, sounding distracted.

  As they flew on and Jobs concentrated on making his numb fingers work, he heard Mo'Steel mumbling to himself. He thought he made out the words "five thousand four hundred." Was Mo'Steel calculating how many seconds they had before they had to turn around? Jobs felt a cold lump of fear swelling in his stomach and made a firm decision to ignore it. So Mo'Steel was acting a little strange. Under the circumstances, acting strange was normal.

  They'd been searching for more than eight hours, heading straight toward the Dark Zone, the temperature dropping with each mile they traveled and all they'd seen was rubble.

  The hugeness of the destruction made Jobs numb. He'd spent the long hours scanning the horizon for any man-made object that may have survived the Rock — or been built in the five hundred years since it hit.

  He'd seen none. No intact buildings or water towers or electrical poles. Nothing but a flat plain of ash with the occasional ruined wall or stair still standing. There was no sign of lakes or rivers or oceans. Jobs had allowed himself to hope that as they got closer to the Dark Zone.... But no —

  They were going to have to go back empty-handed. Go back and tell the others all they had discovered was frozen ash. They'd have to tell the others they were going to die of thirst. Go back and crush their last hope for survival.

  Jobs wasn't sure he had the guts to stand in front of them and speak the truth. To face Olga's disappointment. Violet's. Edward's. Edward was only six.

  Too young. They were all too young to perish. And 2Face. Somehow the idea of selfish, power-hungry 2Face dying after she'd fought so bitterly to survive made Jobs incredibly sad. "Duck, look," Mo'Steel suddenly shouted. He gestured with the tentacles on his suit toward the horizon. "You see that?"

  Jobs saw what he first took to be a solid wall about a mile or two distant. Then he noticed the swirling eddies — light gray, pewter gray, yellow-gray — churning, combining, separating and combining again.

  The sight was somehow familiar, but it took his brain a minute to provide the proper memory: a storm. A storm the way it looks when you're coming toward it down the highway.

  "Looks almost—like a tornado," Jobs called ahead, still fighting his oversized, dry tongue and the chilled muscles in his face.

  "Ash tornado," Mo'Steel said.

  "Maybe we should —"

  "Whoa!" Mo'Steel yelled, and Jobs saw his head jerk in surprise. A flash of lightning had just brightened the swirling cloud. A boom of thunder reached them seconds later.

  Jobs kept his eyes on the storm. For a second, he'd thought he'd seen — through the swirling dust — no, it was impossible. But his heart was beating fast and he prayed for another lightning strike so he could see —

  The flash came.

  Jobs saw — something. Something that looked like — well, it looked like San Francisco. Not just a few buildings but everything: the skyscrapered downtown, the sweeping bay and the rust-red Golden Gate Bridge. All of the buildings were intact; the electric lights twinkled merrily.

  Joy swelled in Jobs's chest. "Mo!" Jobs shouted jubilantly. "Yeah?"

  But in the few seconds it had taken for Mo'Steel to respond. Jobs had realized it couldn't be. He'd seen San Francisco wiped out by a chip, a pebble that had spun off the Rock and hit before the Mayflower had left Earth.

  Jobs studied the distinctive roofline of the AOL tower and told himself it wasn't there. He'd seen the city's skyscrapers, including the AOL building, knocked over like toys. Seen the Golden Gate wrap around the U.S.S. Reagan. Seen the water of the bay transformed into a vast column of superheated steam.

  What he was seeing now was some sort of cruel joke. A mirage, a hallucination. San Francisco was gone. There was no way he'd ever be able to forget that. "What do you want to do?" Mo'Steel shouted.

  "I — do you —" Jobs couldn't bring himself to ask Mo'Steel if he saw the city. With an incredible force of will, he bowed his head so that he couldn't see the glittering lights. "Let's turn back!" he shouted. "Storm looks bad."

  If Mo'Steel can see San Francisco, he'll say something now, Jobs told himself. Please let him say something —

  "You're the boss," Mo'Steel shouted. Without even glancing back toward the storm, Mo'Steel turned his suit around.

  He doesn't see it. Jobs told himself with infinite sadness. He looked at the ghost city one more time, wrenched his eyes away and turned his suit toward camp and the burden of delivering the worst kind of news.

  "Excellent!" Hawk boomed when Sanchez finished his story — a long, violent tale about the Beasts attacking Crutch and killing him.

  Echo, Lyric, and Mattock had withdrawn to the corner of the room. Even after her long 30/24s of waiting, Echo could only pretend to listen to the storytelling. Her mind was consumed with trying to figure out how they could stop the Marauders from stealing their food.

  Hawk motioned to one of his band — a girl named Grost who walked with a slight limp. "Bring me my sack!"

  Grost took a small pouch from around her neck and began to nervously unwind the closure as she moved stiffly toward Hawk. Hawk roughly grabbed the pouch out of her trembling hands and took a deep swig.

  "What is it?"

  "Stay on guard," Echo whispered tensely. "Be ready to fight."

  Mattock goggled at her as if she'd grown a third eye. "Fight with what? They're armed. We're not."

  "What about the other nineteen of them?" Mattock whispered, clearly shocked by the very idea of fighting.

  "Do j'ou want to starve?" Echo demanded, unintentionally letting her voice rise. She saw one of the Marauders — an elder named Aga — glance their way and smile, apparently at their discomfort.

  Suddenly, the Alpha elders opened the door and were filing back into the room. Woody came first, and the smile he offered Hawk did little to hide his grim mood.

  Hawk clapped his hands together and laughed. "What has the committee decided?" he asked derisively.

  Woody straightened his spine and faced Hawk squarely, making Echo feel proud of him. "We would like to consult with the entire colony."

  Hawk sucked his teeth and grinned. "No," he said slowly.

  "No?" Woody asked, taken aback.

  "No," Hawk repeated, his face losing its joviality. "J'ou don't need to discuss it with the entire colony because there's nothing to discuss. J'ou must accept my offer or die."

  Woody's face had gone purple again, but he stood firmly in front of Hawk's wild gaze. "Kill us and j'ou will die, too," Woody said.

  "No," Hawk said almost gently. "We will keep enough of j'ou alive to work for us. Just enough to plant the crop and harvest it."

  Now Woody's strength seemed to leave him. His knees began to shake and he took a step away from Hawk. "J'ou are giving us the choice of dying by the sword or from starvation," he murmured.

  Hawk smiled kindly. He stepped forward and grasped Woody's shoulder, steadying him. "No," he said again, "I'm not giving j'ou a choice at all."

  Woody's knees buckled. At first. Echo thought he'd collapsed from a heart attack, but then she realized that there was something sticking into his chest.

  "J'ou stabbed him!" Echo shouted, pointing a shaky finger at Hawk. She rushed toward Hawk, stunned, horrified, her fists beating in the air.

  Hawk turned casually away as someone grabbed Echo's arms and pinned them behind her. She lashed out, kicking her legs wildly, screaming, fighting to get free. She twisted — expecting to see a Marauder restraining her—but it was Mattock and Borlaug holding her back.

  Rainier — the colony's doctor — was kneeling at Woody's side and shaking his head in amazement. "He's gone. Gone already."

  Hawk spun back, his bloodshot eyes glowing with pleasure. "Poisoned blade," he said sweetly. "Any other questions?"

  "No," Westie said, her voice remarkably calm. "No questions. We'll give j'ou what j'ou ask."

  CHAPTER 12

  "YOU LEFT ME."

  The smells came to Mo'Steel first. Warm kitchen smells that blocked out the bad-breath-and-sweat stink of the Meanie suit. The hot, dry smell of an oven heating, the earthy smell of yeast rising and the medicated tang of the Bengay his grandmother rubbed on her bad back.

  The smells were so vivid, so relaxing, so transporting that Mo'Steel wondered if he was losing his mind — and decided he didn't care. Baking bread. He'd forgotten anything could smell so delicious. Then came the sounds. The soft slap, slap of dough being kneaded and turned, kneaded and turned. Latin jazz playing softly on a slightly tinny radio. And humming — his grandmother's robust humming. "Storm's gaining — on us," Jobs hollered.

 

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