Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1) (41 page)

Poison.

Her power came slow at the urging of a mind dulled by the drug. Sped up by her psionic command, her body expelled the toxin and she made green water. Pushing herself up, she tried to scream, but only a whisper emerged. Her motion startled Dean, who pointed a pistol-like device at her. The high-pitched whine brought more pain. Fire engulfed her back; the weapon screamed for what felt like minutes until the dirt upon which she lay turned black.

Within the darkness, Dean’s voice. “Don’t worry, kid. By the time you wake up…” The voice changed; it was a woman now. “You’ll be among friends.”

oft cloth brushed against her skin as a gentle rocking jostled Althea from side to side. Her head felt as though it weighed many times what it should, and the oppressive thrum of some great mechanized presence filled the stagnant air. Frozen metal greeted her toes as she stretched. Rolling onto her back, she reached up and felt more chilly smoothness.

Her hand carried the cold to her cheek as she rubbed the fog out of her senses and sat up. She looked down at her feet, stark pale against the darkness of her surroundings. Patches of reflected light followed her gaze around a black and white chamber that fit her like a coffin. Below her lay a pile of folded blankets, and flat metal walls enclosed her―a cage without bars.

She remembered the whine, the swarm of angry hornets on her back, and screamed. This time her voice came as it should, though the machine noise swallowed it. Her fingers found the back of her shoulder sticky; her palm came back tinged with blood and crystallized chemicals. She gritted her teeth and forced herself whole, a thousand needlepoints in her skin sealing in an instant.

Althea purged the toxin from her body, leaving it in the corner, and braced herself against the walls as the dizziness abated. The room really was moving, that was not a product of the bees.

She thought of the fake wound, at once knowing Dean had put her in one of the large boxes in the bed of their truck. The motion told her they had decided to bring her with them despite her protest. The water she had been gathering for bath had never made it to the house. Her long-awaited time with her sister had been stolen from her.

Taken again.

Althea screamed and banged at the metal on all sides, kicking and punching the unmoving barrier until her hands and feet throbbed. No one reacted to her tantrum; if anyone noticed―they did not care. When she ran out of energy, she curled into a ball to cry, but could not. Anger gripped her more than sadness. Hunger as well, which came on as if she had not eaten in a day. Her mind called out for Father, for Karina, for the doctor, the Water Man, and even the canid.

Jostled about in the confines of the box, she rolled onto her back and braced her feet against the lid. The sense of her body filled her thoughts as her power focused upon her legs, causing her thighs to swell into sinewy strands of amplified strength. After bracing her feet against the lid, she shoved. A minute later, she relaxed, red-faced and gasping, and glared at the slab of metal that continued to defy her. Fingers clenched the coarse blanket on either side as she strained again until pain flooded over her legs. She relented, and rubbed her thighs. Mending the torn muscle made her hungrier. When the hurt faded to exhaustion, she lay still for a time, drifting in and out of sleep.

Hours passed.

A bump flung her out of her near sleep into the lid. She landed on her chest and rolled upside down, crumpling against the front wall as the truck jammed to a halt. The machine sound ceased, leaving her basking in the echoes of her own breathing. She eyed the spot where she thought the lid would open. Poised in a wildcat’s perch, she waited to pounce the second it opened.

A murmur. “Good evening, sir.”

Beard’s voice came through the shell around her, at the edge of hearing. “Howdy, officer. How you boys doin’ tonight?”

“Not too bad. What’cha got?” The sound of the one called Officer drew closer.

She heard doors open and slam. Here they come.

Fingers and toes dug into the blanket.

“The usual. Pre-war artifacts, couple of signs, couple of ‘lectronic things, two old guns, and oh… yeah… got a rescue, too.”

Althea scowled. She did not need rescue; at least, not from Querq.

“Name?”

“Staff Sergeant Rachel E. Clarke, United States Air Force, security detachment for the 153
rd
Air Wing Under General Fitch. Enlistment date August 3, 2051.”

Silence.

“Come again?” Officer spoke.

“I know four hundred years went by; I was in a cryo unit at White Sands.”

“Oh, geez.” Officer sighed. “Brass is gonna have a goddamned field day with this.”

“Is my enlistment still good, or is it expired?” Rachel trailed off to a whisper. “Holy shit, what is this place?”

“Welcome to West City, ma’am.” Officer laughed. “Wait, what? Stowaway? Child-sized skeleton on the scanner? What are you talking about? Is it moving?”

Althea blinked. Beard said “a” rescue. That meant one. He did not know she was locked in here. “Child-sized” had to mean someone sensed her.

She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Help!” In a blur of desperation, she shrieked and kicked and slammed. “Help, let me out!”

“Hands where I can see ‘em,” Officer yelled.

“Nobody move.” Another voice, deeper, shouting from the other side.

Althea went quiet and listened. The truck jostled with the noises of armored bodies climbing it.

Someone knocked on a different crate. “Hello?”

“I’m here,” she yelled, slapping the lid again.

“Open it.” Officer sounded close now.

Beep, beep, beep, click
. With a pneumatic hiss, the metal plate above her slid away to reveal a smog-filled sky bereft of stars. The acrid smell of metal, trash, and technology brought involuntary tears to her already wet eyes, and she coughed. A man-shaped creature hovered over her, covered in a shiny blue shell with the funny marks she knew as words on his chest and the sides of his helmet.

“Oh, my God, you poor thing.” He leaned closer. “Take it easy, kid; no one’s gonna hurt you.”

Althea stared at her face, reflected in the swath of gleaming silver over the head from which Officer’s voice emanated. She did not notice the black glove until it touched her shoulder, and she cringed.

“Easy, kid. I’m just going to get you out of there, okay?” He reached for her with both hands.

She was terrified, but had little choice but to comply. Lifting her arms, she let him grasp around her body. He lifted her out of the crate, cradling her until he climbed from the truck and set her down. The ground was metal, freezing to her bare feet. Teeth chattering, she glanced left at Rachel, Beard, Darren, and Dean with their hands against the wall; more blue men had guns aimed at them. Straight ahead of her, beyond an interior gate of dull flat grey, the horizon burned with a million lights and great towers of metal and glass between which rivers of fast-moving objects flowed.

It was what she imagined the Lost Place looked like in the before-time, only with more light, more noise, and more stink. Things whizzed by in the air, streams of boxes clad in panels of light; larger objects resembling cars moved in neat rows much higher up. Disembodied ghostly heads, many times bigger than a person ought to be, smiled down at the Earth and held up products and gadgets. The structures went into the clouds, out of sight. This city appeared to lean toward her with the overbearing lack of open land. She backed into the wheel of the truck, trying to get away from the oppressive presence, wanting to hide, wanting Father.

“These bastards kept her in there so long she wet the blanket.” Another blue creature hovered over her now, perched in the truck bed by the box.

“You fuckers know it’s perfectly legal to save Scrags. Why’d you lock her in there?” Officer yelled back at Beard’s group.

“I don’t need saved. I was taken from my family.” She stomped. “I want to go home.”

“Look at her eyes, Joe. Lace?”

“Get a medic down here.”

“Roger.”

“It was him.” Althea pointed at Dean. “The others don’t know. He shot me with bees.”

“What?” Officer crouched, meeting her eye to faceplate. “Bees?”

“Tranq needler.” The man by the box held up a tiny sliver of what looked like green glass.

Other blue men searched him, finding the tranq pistol.

“That.” As soon as she saw it, Althea pointed.

Officer reached to his belt and took metal restraints out of a case. They looked somewhat different from handcuffs she had seen, but such an object was unmistakable. Althea held her hands up to him, and cried.

“Please don’t. I promise I won’t run away.” Her old plea, sobbed through the feeling she would never see Karina or Father again.

He looked at her for a moment, and pushed her hands down. “These aren’t for you, kid.”

“You sick fucker.” One of the blue men drilled him into the wall. “What’d you do to this girl?”

“Nothing. What the hell is going on? I didn’t touch her!” Dean howled. “I don’t even know what happened.”

Rachel looked over her shoulder, past her raised arms at Althea, concerned.

Althea stared at the shiny ground, searching for words amid her grief. “Please… The others didn’t know I was in the box. They are confused.”

Beard glared death at Dean. “You shifty little bastard. If I see you again, I’m gonna beat you purple.”

“Calm down, sir.” Officer put the cuffs away, staying with Althea.

“Dean had nothing to do with it.” The woman’s voice came from everywhere.

Aurora.

The blue men aimed their rifles around, searching for the source. Dean screamed and wrenched himself free of the police officer’s grip, banging his face into the wall in a series of dull, metallic
thuds
before he slid to the floor, cheek squealing over the surface. When he sat up, his shirt split open and a flesh-apparition of a woman’s upper body exuded from his chest. The displacing skin thinned his face, drawing the skull more prominent around his vacant stare, and exposing the undersides of his eyeballs.

The cops leapt back, all of them shouting “whoa” in unison. Beard lifted an eyebrow, grabbing at an empty holster and grumbling about the cops taking his gun.

“What the fuck is that?” Rachel pointed.

Darren gathered her behind him, and backed with Rachel into the corner by the inner gate. “This man is a shell. He was in a necessary place at a necessary time.” He staggered to his feet, shambling with a zombie’s gait toward Althea. “I show myself for your benefit, little one. These police will now believe you Dean is not to blame. Don’t you feel better? He will not suffer for what I have done with him.”

“Take another step and you’re fucking gone, whatever you are!” A red dot from Officer’s pistol flitted back and forth from Dean’s head to the apparition’s face.

“No.” Althea yelled, tugging on the hard plastic arm with both hands until she dangled from it. “Don’t kill him. You can’t hurt her, but you’ll kill him. She’s just a spirit that made him do it.”

“What are you?” One of the other blue men took a step towards her.

“I am a messenger, the herald of Archon. You have served your purpose. Come, little one, it is time to meet your friends.”