The Rift - Howard Chris - Страница 2

“Quiet down,” Alpha yelled as the rest of the survivors started to squabble and roar even louder. She pump-snapped her shotgun, and it shut up most of them.

Not all of them.

“What?” Kade took two quick steps forward, drumming a knuckle at his skull. “You want to put a hole in my head?”

Alpha leveled the shotgun at him. “Don’t tempt me.”

“It’s a waste.” This was aimed at me, and the dude was slowing himself down again, as if his head might explode if he got to talking too fast. “We’re no use to you locked up in here. You should be putting us to work—we could help.”

“Help with what?” muttered Alpha.

“Whatever it was that you stole.”

“We didn’t steal nothing.” I tried to keep my voice as steady as his was. Reminded myself what I’d taken from GenTech was the remains of my father, and that man belonged to me, no matter what he’d become.

“I saw you rolling off of that island, bro,” said Kade. “All three of you came up and over the hillside, riding on a big steel box with a nice set of wheels underneath. Impressive-looking machine, don’t get me wrong, but any box is only worth as much as what’s inside it. Am I right?”

He’d been inching closer and was now just a few feet from us. Alpha looked about ready to snap. I stepped in front of her, coming between her and the redhead so as to block him from the barrel of her gun.

“I know you’re all angry,” I said to the crowd behind him. Kade was too close now. I could smell the stale reek of his old sweat through the outfit he’d pieced together. We were all bundled inside clothes made for agents, the purple fuzz and bright white logos glittery beneath the pale neon lights. “And I know you’re hungry. Hell, we’re hungry, too. GenTech didn’t exactly have the boat stocked for us to make our escape.”

“And you’d like us to starve in silence, is that it?” Kade said it calm and with a grin on his face, like he was all handsome smiles and smooth talking, too wise to be bitter.

“That ain’t what I meant. You just need to sit tight is all. Save your strength.”

“My strength, huh?” He took another step closer and prodded me in the chest with the clubbed stump at the end of his arm. We were about the same height, but he was twice as broad. “And what am I saving it for?”

Hell, his guess was as good as mine. All I knew was we had GenTech behind us, and plenty more GenTech ahead.

The dude started laughing then. Head thrown back, teeth sharp and straight. “You’ve no idea, do you? You don’t even know what’s out there past the water.”

“And you do?”

“Perhaps. Could be I know the northern wastelands like the back of my hand.”

“And which hand is that?”

I shoved his stumped arm away, turned, and strode for the door, the girls falling in behind me, Alpha keeping her shotgun aimed into the crowd.

I was sick of them. Sick of their noise. And sick of the stench of the cargo hold, and the way the boat rumbled my guts as it rocked back and forth.

“Come on,” Kade called after us. “I’m curious, bro. Where are you trying to lead us?”

“I’m just heading south.” When we reached the door, I threw him a final look, then threw a look at the rest of them strugglers, trying to make myself real clear. “I ain’t leading you people no place at all.”

Outside, the wind still howled, and the world looked just as we’d left it.

“That went well,” I grumbled, grabbing for the railing as my feet slid on the deck.

“Can’t let them see you’re afraid of them, bud.” Alpha padlocked the door to the cargo hold and triple-checked it was sealed.

“I ain’t afraid.” I shook my head at Zee. “Going in there was a stupid idea, that’s all.”

“You’re the one who said you wanted to quiet them down.” Zee wound back her long hair to keep it from the wind. My sister was the only one on this boat whose head hadn’t been shaved by GenTech agents, and it made her like the last pretty thing not messed with. “I still say we try leveling with them. Show them what we have in the hull.”

“There’s no leveling with that lot,” said Alpha. “Red’s got ’em too riled up.”

Right on cue, the strugglers started hollering and pounding at the door to the hold again, stamping their damn feet on the floor. The sound could drive you insane, so I tried my best to ignore it. Started scouring the horizon instead, hoping for land but fearing I’d see GenTech boats rushing towards us. And yeah, the fear could also drive you straight crazy. Especially after sixteen days.

“But what if it’s true?” Zee stared at the steel door between us and the strugglers. “You think that guy could know what’s out here?”

“Only if he’s an agent,” I said. “GenTech kept us drugged the whole way north. And that dude ain’t no agent. You saw the holes on his arms. He was plugged in ready for Project Zion, wired up to those purple cables just like the rest of them.”

“We should give them a chance.” Zee glanced at Alpha. “It doesn’t sit right, and both of you know it.”

I stared past the top of the cockpit to where the gun tower stuck up. And it almost looked like a skinny bit of scaffold poking at the rainclouds, like something me and Pop would have climbed to build trees as tall as our metal could fly. But I’d traded my scaffolds for lookouts, I reckon. Traded my tools in for guns.

It was up in that tower, wrapped in sheets of plastic, that we’d stashed every weapon but for the one Alpha had slung from her shoulder. Soon as those strugglers had first fallen asleep, we’d crept between them, gathering up their guns. Didn’t see them wake up—we were out on the deck, the door to the cargo hold padlocked shut—but I won’t ever forget the sound that they made.

“We can’t trust ’em,” Alpha said, following my gaze to the gun tower. “And we don’t owe these people a thing.”

“I know it,” I said. Hell, they were lucky just to still be alive, and I told myself that over and over. Besides, there were only seven of those saplings growing out of Pop’s dead body, stowed down below on this stolen boat. Seven last trees for a world made barren. And seven weren’t enough to go sharing.

“We hit land, we’ll make it so they can break through that door,” I told Zee. “Then we leave them behind us, and they can fend for themselves.”

Alpha leaned and spat off the deck as the wind rattled the water. “Can’t come soon enough.”

She was right. We’d all been stuck on this lake long enough to be praying for what lay beyond it, even though we’d no idea what that might be.

All we really knew was that at some point we’d have to cross the molten wastelands, the Rift. The lava fields where no one dared travel, the endless heat, the steam and ash and who knew what other flavors of hell. The Rift lay north of the dusty world we’d been plucked from, but it had to be somewhere south of the cold world we were in now.

I squinted at the low sun, then peered at the bow, and there was Crow, just like always. He’d been stood in the same damn spot, nearly all day long, for more than two damn weeks.

“Look at him,” I muttered. “He’s like a statue up there.”

“Don’t.” Zee’s eyes were watching mine, her brain guessing what mine was thinking. “You should leave him be.”

“Ah, there’s no stopping your brother.” Alpha smirked as she tugged up Zee’s purple hood, shielding her from the spray off the water. “He’s what we call a glutton for punishment. Ain’t you, bud?”

“Reckon I must be,” I said, and I pushed off towards the bow.