Twenty-Five to Life, page 17
Ranger was wheezing badly by the time they made it back to the van.
“You drive,” she said and dropped heavily into the passenger seat. As soon as Julie started the engine, Ranger flipped the car’s air-purifier on and turned the fan up high.
“Are you going to make it?” Julie said.
Ranger was gray. “I just need to rest for a little while.”
Julie pulled out carefully and headed down the road.
Ranger sat with her eyes closed and the air-purifier fan blasting into her face for nearly an hour before groping for the water bottle and taking a long pull.
“That’s better,” she said.
“How sick are you?” Julie said. She’d been tiptoeing around the question for weeks. Ranger was open about a lot of things but tended to get squirrely when people showed too much concern.
“Pretty sick.”
“Have you been to a doctor?”
Ranger sighed. “Last year a doctor gave me about a year.”
“A year to live or a year to get better?”
Ranger pulled out her phone. “It’s about sixty more miles to Columbus. We’ll park tonight so we can get into the city about noon tomorrow. Then we’ll run parallel to I-71 to Louisville.” She humphed. “Don’t think I’ve ever stopped in Circleville.”
“Where?”
“Says here it used to be home to the Great Pumpkin Festival or something. Mostly empty now. Bunch of tornadoes tore through it and people got sick of rebuilding. The park is in an old swamp right outside town.”
“Sounds lovely.”
Julie heard the rustle of paper.
“You hungry?” Ranger said.
“What is it?”
“Muffins. Homemade. Gretchen slipped them to me before we left.”
“Whatever’s in there, I get half.”
“Deal.”
Julie washed down two of the muffins with swallows of black coffee. “So, pretty sick, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
After they bedded down that night, Julie pulled out her phone and looked again at the list of files from her own life. Vids, games, silly messages and pictures, angry bouts with her mother… She slid her finger up the screen and checked the box that would select them all.
Delete. No more past. This is where I need to be.
THIRTY-THREE
“The fire isn’t burning.” Julie leaned over the steering wheel to get a better look out the windshield. It was early evening, gloomy and cold, and a motley group of vehicles was parked in a circle at one end of the lot. Most outfits had a slew of lights, garish things: Christmas lights, strings of LEDs, plaits of long-burning glow sticks… Ranger had a string of antique hot-pepper lights that she hung up when the mood struck her.
But at the very least there was always a fire to welcome any fellow travelers.
Ranger yawned. “Maybe they can’t get one going. It’s raining like a son of a bitch, and not everyone had Coop as a teacher.”
Julie flashed a smile that she didn’t quite feel. She couldn’t take her eyes off the circle of vehicles. “I don’t see any lights at all. Not even interiors.”
Ranger’s features narrowed, and she sat straighter in the seat. “That’s not good. Let’s stop here and watch for a bit.”
Julie brought the van to a halt about a hundred yards out. The windshield wipers flailed to keep up with the downpour that had been chasing them for the last thirty miles.
Ranger muted the entertainment center. “Beep the horn.”
The van’s horn, rarely used, sounded like a goosed duck. Julie stress giggled.
“I’ve been meaning to fix that,” Ranger said. “Do you see anything?”
“No. But the rain might be covering it.” Julie activated the horn again. This time the duck’s throat was clear, and it blatted loud and long.
“Give it a minute,” Ranger said.
The windshield wipers beat, and hot air from the defroster blew into their faces. “Nothing,” Julie said. “Should we launch one of the drones?”
“If it’s a trap, they already know we’re here.” Ranger’s eyes narrowed.
“They might even be coming around behind us.”
Ranger touched a slider on the screen linked to the back-up camera. The image went from visible-light black to night-vision green. She used a toggle to pan the camera right to left and back. “I don’t see anything.”
Julie’s mouth firmed. “I’m getting out. Count to five and come out after me. Leave the doors open in case we need cover.” She plucked the holdout stunner she’d started keeping in the cup holder beside her and flicked the safety off with her thumb. The little weapon wasn’t as powerful as the one on her belt and carried less ammo, but she could conceal it in her hand. Julie pushed the button to open the van door and stepped out into the rain. “Start counting.”
Julie’s waterproofs were tucked away in the back of the van, and the thin jacket she was wearing soaked through in seconds. “Hello, the fire!” she said and walked slowly forward. She heard the passenger-side door open and held up her left fist to let Ranger know she should hang back. “Hello!”
If the horn didn’t do it, my voice sure as hell won’t. Julie’s heart was hammering, and she forced herself to breathe slowly as she approached the circle. Keep it out of the black. She’d never met her armed-combat instructor in real life, but he’d been a fiend for breath control and using it as a tool to keep a clear head. Condition black meant out of control, jacked up to uselessness with adrenaline. A hard orange alert was OK. Red might become necessary, but black was no good to anyone. Julie reached the closest vehicle, a mostly modern minivan, and slapped it with her free hand.
The flat sound shocked the air and died without further reaction. Julie put her back to the minivan’s nearest tire and squinted back into the rain at Juniper. Ranger was peering around the passenger-side door, stunner in hand.
Julie pounded the fender above her with the side of her fist. She looked to Ranger who shook her head and held up her hand. The older woman slipped around the door and started to approach Julie’s position.
She knelt down beside Julie. “It’s hard to tell a lousy ambush from a good one until you’re in it.”
“I don’t think it’s a trap,” Julie said. “Do you smell that?” It was a greasy odor, almost cheesy, gassy, with a sort of floral undertone. Julie’s police-training package had included a set of smell strips, each laced with a blend of chemicals that might prove important to the job. The one she was remembering now had nearly made her throw up and lingered for days in her room.
Ranger swore.
“What do we do?” Julie said.
“Stand up and look, or walk away.” Ranger pulled the flashlight off her belt. “Can you handle this part?”
“Can you?”
“No idea.” Ranger took a deep breath and stood to point her light inside the minivan. “It’s not too bad.”
“Are they dead?”
Ranger rapped the window with the butt of her flashlight. “Yeah.”
Julie peered into the van. The back had been converted into living space, and two human forms spooned under the blankets inside. They weren’t moving.
“The windows aren’t fogged,” Ranger said. “Let’s check the others.”
The next vehicle had three bodies in it, the car after that only one. Vehicle five contained an entire family: two big, under-the-blanket lumps and three little ones. Twenty-seven corpses in all.
“Did they freeze to death?”
“I don’t see how,” Ranger said. “It’s been cold but not that cold.”
Julie scanned the circle again. “It doesn’t look violent.” She borrowed Ranger’s flashlight and ran the circle of light on the ground around each vehicle. “No blood that I can see, but it’s raining.”
“How bad do you want to know?” Ranger’s face was tight.
“We have to do something.” Julie returned the flashlight. “Don’t we?”
“No. But let’s wait until morning. Maybe it will stop raining by then.”
Waiting didn’t mean sleeping. Ranger made a pot of coffee, and they sat up in near silence to watch the shapes of the caravan sharpen as the sun came up.
“Nothing we do is going to make anything better for them,” Ranger said.
Julie slipped her mask over her face. It might be enough to cut down the smell. Might. “You can stay back here.” She’s thinking about Euchre. “That might be a good idea anyway.”
Ranger snorted. “Who’s going to save your ass when you throw up in that thing?” She wrapped a scarf around her mouth and nose. “This will do.”
Neither precaution was enough. They jimmied the driver’s door of the minivan and fell back, retching in the foul air that drifted out. “I really don’t want to do this.” Julie lifted the blanket. The little spoon – a woman, probably, though it was hard to tell – clutched something to its chest.
Julie’s virtual Intro to Forensics trainer, Police Sgt Janey Lavois, had a voice like a piccolo and a macabre sense of humor. Julie tried to channel one of those things. “At least she died snuggling.”
Ranger’s eyes widened. “What the–”
“Coping strategy.” Julie cleared her throat. “I don’t see any wounds or blood.”
“What’s she holding?”
Julie lifted the woman’s hand. “No rigor mortis. She’s been dead more than thirty-six hours.”
“Duh, Nancy Drew, she’s been dead a hell of a lot longer than that.”
Julie flushed. “I’m following procedure.”
“Screw procedure.” Ranger leaned past her and plucked the object out of the woman’s grasp. “It’s a book. A Bible.” She held it out for Julie to inspect.
There was a bookmark inserted into the pages about three-quarters of the way through. “She was reading Revelations.”
Ranger threw her hands in the air. “Fucking idiots!”
The bookmark was a plastic card with a raised design printed on it. “I think this is a pharma mod.”
“Betcha anything that she used that, stuck it in that fucking book, and then lay down and died.”
“You can’t be sure.”
Ranger gave Julie the hard eye. “I’ve seen some stupid shit out here, Jules. Ten to one this was a group of Rapturists who didn’t want to see what came next.”
The driver of the next vehicle was still behind the wheel. He also had a Bible and a little plastic card. The man’s passengers, a man and a woman, had med patches up and down their exposed forearms.
“No pharma emplants,” Ranger said. “Had to do it the hard way. We keep going we’re going to find the same thing.”
Or worse. “The kids.”
Ranger slammed her hand on the hood of the car. Her face was ashen. “Oh, hell. God damn them. What kind of monster would do that to their own child!?”
Scared monsters. Desperate monsters. Monsters who had seen all their hope leave orbit. They’d planned this, thought about and prepped for it, worked up their courage and– That’s it, folks!
“Why hasn’t anyone seen this before now?” Julie said. “You said the police fly over the parks every couple of days.”
Ranger smoothed her braids. “Maybe they missed it. This park isn’t used much. Or maybe they saw it and left it as an object lesson.”
“What do we do now?” Julie said.
“No pigs,” Ranger said. “That’s where I draw the line.”
The fire they left behind them three hours later neither warmed nor welcomed.
THIRTY-FOUR
Ranger dropped lunch on the table. “The Jennifers gave us these. I’ve been saving them. The expiration date is only a little past.”
Julie pawed through the small collection of readi-meals Ranger had spread out on the hood. “They don’t really go bad.”
Ranger’s hand darted in. “Lasagna. Mine. I haven’t had pasta, even bad pasta, in ages.”
Julie picked a package that said “Apple Pie” and pulled the self-heating tab. The package inflated from the pressure.
“That’s not likely to be real,” Ranger said.
“What is?”
She humphed. “I see you’re in a great mood today.”
“And I see you’re faking it.”
“Usually am. Life makes it hard sometimes.”
They sat at the table and ate with the plastic silverware that came in the packages. Julie licked her spork clean and burped. She rolled the packaging into a small ball. “How much of this is recyclable?”
“Probably none of it. Keep the spork. You can use it again. We’ll put the rest into the trash bag until later.”
Julie was quiet as she did her share of the packing up. The word “later” was fraught, but they’d already talked about it during the drive to the little park outside Columbus and again when they woke, still exhausted, late the next morning. What would happen if…? What should she do when…? The plan was simple enough. She and Ranger would drive into the city to meet someone who could set her up with a birth-control emplant, then rendezvous with a Louisville-bound caravan on the other side of the city.
“It’s going to be fine.” The van door made a satisfying thunk-click when Ranger closed it. She made a practice of unpacking and repacking the back every time they stopped. She said it was to keep the sleeping area clean, but Julie suspected it was more to keep the location of all the oddities stuffed inside fresh in her memory.
“You said you don’t know even know this guy,” Julie said.
“I don’t. But I sort of know someone who does, and that’s usually good enough.”
Julie was still rocked by what she’d seen the night before and what she’d had to do. They’d posted a notice on the volksnet: a complete caravan, free for the taking, mind the smell and the pyre. It was an opportunity for someone, although Julie couldn’t imagine anyone being eager to ride around in a corpse-scented minivan. “I just don’t want to get caught,” she said.
“You won’t.” Ranger opened the driver-side door. “Probably.”
The holo map blinked out when Ranger started the engine, and she slapped some sense back into it.
“That’s not going to work forever,” Julie said. “There’s a short in there somewhere.”
“You want to poke around in there with a soldering iron feel free. Until then…” Ranger brandished her hand. “El Whacko speaks volumes.”
The nav system beeped four times as it recalibrated and displayed their route. Ranger pointed. “See? It knows who’s boss. Seventeen miles to go.”
As crows once flew, the city was a lot closer than seventeen miles. It loomed on the horizon like a fairy land, all tall spires and shining solar panels. Here and there wind towers bloomed like alien flowers. Had Juniper been capable of highway speeds, they might have been there in five minutes. As it was, twisting around what was left of the local roads, the trip took nearly two hours over the broken pavement lacing together the abandoned suburbs.
“It’s hard to believe people used to live here,” Julie said.
Ranger drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “Once enough people moved into the city, the government came in and knocked everything down. Keeps away squatters.”
There was enough left of driveways and parking lots that Julie could get an idea of the geography. It had probably been a lot like the place where she grew up. She sighed. “It’s all going to look like this one day. Brown grass, dead trees, and rubble.”
“A lot of it already does,” Ranger said. “Other places it’s desert.” She took a left and entered shadow. She flicked the headlights on. The GPS pinged. “Welcome to Columbus.”
Julie craned her neck to look up and finally stuck her head out the window. On either side of the street, buildings rose like cliffs. Way, way up, she caught a glimpse of the yellow-blue sky and the daylight they’d left behind. “That’s depressing.” She pulled her head back in and raised the window. “There’s not even anyplace to walk.”
“There’s a skywalk about midway up,” Ranger said. “At the fifty-floor mark.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“Couple of times.”
A green autopod meeped at them as it scooted past. Julie got a glimpse of the occupant, engrossed in his emplant while the autopod’s navigation system figured out the fastest route to his destination.
“Important enough for a private pod, but not so important that he can’t avoid an appointment in the Dregs,” Ranger said.
“Dregs?”
“Closest to the ground, closest to the bone. The more money you have, the higher up the towers you live. You go high enough you even get parks and windows. Down here…?” The GPS instructed Ranger to take a left at the next intersection and go up a ramp into a mostly empty parking garage. Juniper took up a space and a half and stuck out into the lane. “We won’t be here long.” Ranger pointed. “There’s the elevator.”
The elevator took them up nine floors and dumped them in a nondescript hallway filled with equally nondescript doors. Ranger consulted her phone. “This way.”
Ranger led the way to a T-intersection and took them right.
“Every door is the same,” Julie said.
Ranger tapped the phone. “The doors are coded. If you lived here, you could feel your own cube through your emplant.” She stopped. “Here we are.” Ranger stuffed the phone back into her long coat and rapped on the door with her knuckles.
A computer’s voice responded. “Wait,” it said. It said “wait” again, and repeated it every thirty seconds for the next eleven minutes.
“This is ridiculous,” Julie said. She made a fist and readied it to knock again. The door slid open.
“Enter,” the computer said. “Enter.”
They crossed the threshold at the third “Ent –”, and the computer fell silent.
