Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1) (44 page)

“I want to go home.” Her downcast gaze fell among tangled strands of leather. A glint of chromatic light danced across the silver button, and she remembered how to work the belt.

“You are going home, child, to a home that can properly nurture you.”

She crawled through the gap between the seats, grabbing Anita’s arm in both hands and shaking her. Android-like, she gazed with lifeless eyes at the passing buildings.

Althea shoved and pulled. “Wake up.”

The head laughed. “You cannot reach her, child. Do not feel sorry for them. They only led you into slavery once again. Only I can offer you true freedom.”

The shimmering light from this head flashed patterns on her skin as she stared at him. “Who are you?”

“I am the man who will usher in the dawn of the Awakened. I am Archon.” He gazed up and to the right, infinitely proud of his own destiny.

She blinked. “Awakened at dawn? Most people wake up at dawn.”

He frowned. “Droll child. Are you truly simple, or do you mock me?”

“Sorry.” She looked back and forth at the lights all over the console. This flying car had so many complicated things. She could not even work out how to use a steering wheel and pedals, and this car did not have a wheel―just two sticks. “What is awakened?”

“These Division 0 fools are psionic in the way a baby crawls. You and I, we are walking; no… flying. We are a higher order. Your eyes mark you as one of us.”

Althea cringed from the pride and desire radiating from the face floating over the console. Leaping forward, she swatted at buttons and switches at random, trying to make the bad man go away.

“What are you doing, child?
Sit down!
” His voice flooded her thoughts.

She fell onto the hard plastic between the two front seats, grabbing her head. A second later, she hopped back into her seat and grinned vapidly at him like a little girl trying to please her daddy. It felt like such a wonderful idea to just sit there and behave.

The smiling faces of Karina and Father flashed in her mind. A tiny scream started in the back of her mind, growing and coming forward until it erupted from her mouth; she shoved him out of her head.

“No.” The car flooded with blue light and she leapt into the front again, pounding her fists into the console, left and right, at anything that glowed.

A bad sound throbbed through her ears as everything inside the car flashed red. The head vanished as the center part of the dashboard went dark. She floated into the air when the car fell like a stone; her back brushed the cloth liner at the top of the cabin. Seeing the ground approaching fast, she screamed. Her arms were too short to reach Anita while pinned to the roof. Growling, she swung a leg down and pressed her foot to the side of the woman’s head.

Strange scrambled energy occupied the space where the brain should be; nothing seemed physically wrong, but the brain was not “turned on.” She tried every way of pushing at it she could think of as she searched for a way to purge the harmful presence before they reached the ground.

Anita’s eyes shot open and she screamed, bashing her fist into a red button. Light spread through the console as she hauled back on the sticks. Althea crashed onto the floor and flew into the rear, barking a noise like a kicked goose as she thumped flat against the seatback. She reached for the belt, but became weightless again an instant before a tremendous smash hit the car from below. Sky, road, and city flashed by the window as the vehicle tumbled end over end. It stopped for several seconds as Anita regained control. Althea found herself lying on her back in the front seat again and could not explain how she’d gotten there. Her head pounded, the warmth of blood ran down her face.

Althea closed her eyes, focusing inward. White smears of bone in the shapes of her life had cracked: ribs, an arm, and her thigh. She cringed at the snap of her right femur coming back together, after which the crunch of her reintegrating arm was no big deal. Angular shards broke into the red cloud, and she forced them out one by one, feeling small fragments slide through her skin and clink to the carpet beneath her. The cut on her head was minor, and after a few minutes’ meditation, she pushed herself up off the floor and looked around.

She wanted food again.

The windshield had become a dented slab of metal covered in broken glass that somehow made it see-through before it broke. Mike was out; Anita remained awake and bleeding.

“You okay?” The woman coughed up blood.

“Don’t talk.” Althea took her hand.

She did not have much left, but focused what little energy remained into the wounded cop. Althea budgeted it enough to stabilize her and prevent death. When she opened her eyes, Anita tried to speak.

“Stim…” A weak whisper, made less clear by Althea’s fatigue.

She did not ask for clarification, instead looking into Anita’s mind. Small red devices on her belt held medicine. They would make her less tired. Althea rummaged through the little black cases, avoiding the strange silver gun. In one of the pouches, she found five red tubes and took one out.

“How do I work it?” Althea searched into the woman’s mind for the answer as the thoughts formed.

Althea pushed the end into her thigh, but nothing happened.

“Safety cap…”

Turning it over, she bit a yellow plastic cap off the end, exposing a tiny hole at the center of a metal spot. When next she pressed it into her leg, it hissed, and flooded her thigh with a cool presence. Althea did not know what synthetic adrenaline was, but within seconds, a surge of energy replaced her fatigue. Anita was confused; she had meant for the girl to give
her
the stimpak.

Revitalized, she mended the last of the hurt from the woman and turned her attention to Mike. His limp body weathered the crash a little better, and was in no danger of dying. A second after he awoke, gunshots erupted around her.

Althea tried to look, but saw only Anita’s hand as it covered her face and shoved her into the back seat. “Get down!”

The silver pistol spat bolts of blue light through the window, and the
clink
of bullets striking the car came from all sides. Phantom voices filled the car asking what happened. A desperate, young sounding girl really seemed to want something called ‘status.’ Both Anita and Mike yelled they needed backup immediately. Althea knew a car was an awful place to be in the middle of a gunfight, unaware the police hovercar was all but impervious to the small arms fire coming in.

She smacked at the door buttons and slithered out into the street, crawling on her belly to get away. A dozen people in a mix of long coats and wild clothing that reminded her of raiders, only less dusty, continued firing at the car. One man appeared to be tossing a sphere of flames around in his hand. The sight of the hovering fireball made her heart skip a beat; was that a demon?

Althea ran from the fight, feet squeaking over the metal ground as she sprinted down a cluttered path between two buildings. Someone saw her and yelled at his friends to circle around. Taking a right at the first opportunity, she leapt over several people sleeping on the ground.

She dashed into a narrow alley strewn with garbage and large, wheeled metal boxes packed with yet more trash. A huge man leaned out from behind one and she ran right into him. Staggering back, she looked up into a toothless grin and frayed beard.

“Sorry.”

Bypassing the wobbling giant, she darted around the corner before he could turn to see where she went. She did not look over her shoulder, as the raiders trying to take her from the people in black could be right behind her. Taking corner after corner, she continued until rhythmic throbbing noise pounded at her from an open doorway. A line of people stacked up along the edge of a building with a lime green door, dressed in clothing made of bizarre shiny materials, some with their hair aglow or twisted into weird shapes. Above the opening, words danced in the air, shifting and moving, made out of pure light like the head in the car.

A tall, bald man in a black leather vest and dark pants peered through opaque glasses at the couple closest to the door. Althea stared to the rear, terrified the man with flames in his hand would round the corner any second. In all directions, the same thing repeated itself: trash, small clouds of fog rolling along, buildings, and metal ground. Having no other ideas, she ducked and ran for the door, sliding under the bald man’s reaching arm. Inside, multicolored lights flashed in the dark, pulsing in time with beating music that vibrated the air and swallowed the bald man’s shout. She ran forward through a short area full of tables, and down three stairs into a dense crowd. The noise in the air grew loud and heavy, it pushed and pulled the air in her lungs.

Stumbling through a sea of undulating figures, she tried to disappear. The mass of people reacted like a body to a foreign object, pushing her along in a current of gyrating hips and roaming hands until it spat her out, chest-first into a rounded platform of shiny black glass upon which a naked woman gyrated in time with the music. Straps circled her thighs and waist, with small bits of bright red plastic tucked in them.

The woman stuck her rear end out at a man nearby and waved it around. This must be the raider’s camp. Althea gulped. The harem slaves would occasionally do this; though she found it strange the woman was not on a leash and even radiated pleasure. She figured her to be as broken as Aya.

“I love the blue light,” a female voice yelled into her left ear. “Where did you get them done?”

A girl who looked to be about Karina’s age had tucked up next to her. Red light striped over her face, a raccoon band over her eyes, and her little vest did not do much to conceal anything. Althea was not sure if she was a female raider or another slave.

“Oh damn, girl.” She reached for Althea’s chest. “You need to have someone look at them boobs. They’re so small they’re not even there. Mine used to be little like that, too.” She showed Althea what they looked like now.

This red-eyed girl had strange emotions; the way she grinned at Althea felt like she checked out a boy. Althea offered a nervous smile and moved away into the throng, avoiding her touch as the flowing bodies absorbed her. The crowd was too thick to allow her to fall as it swept her down a second short set of stairs onto a sticky floor where people stood in place and had seizures.

As soon as she felt it, she stopped to look down at the black surface and peeled a foot away, wondering what she walked on. No one else seemed to notice the awful miasma. At that point, Althea sensed a connection between the swaying bodies and the noise. Zombie thrashing moved in rhythm with the horrible sound, as if everyone in here fell under the charm of an evil mystic. She was terrified it would overwhelm her too; this cursed floor had to be why no one ran away.

A hand touched her backside. She yelped and jumped forward. Another ran over her head and down her back. Althea backed away, right into a hand that squeezed her ass.

“Hey, cutie.” A man’s voice came from behind.

She whipped around but he was gone. Spinning to the left, she found another man shaking himself at her like the rest of the afflicted while waving glowing orbs over his head. The music crashed its way into her mind, making the place feel as if it wanted to devour her. The emotional radiance around him reminded her of the way Vakkar looked at Rachel. He wanted to wife her. Her initial wave of panic faded at the sense he did not want to force it. Althea blinked at him in confusion, wondering what kind of raider only wifed a girl that wanted him to.

He shrugged as she backed away, and focused his efforts on another woman with luminous green hair. Hands grabbed her from behind, sliding around and up her front, pulling her back against an undulating body. Twisting away, she darted three steps over the sticky floor, flailing her arms to recover from a slippery spot where someone had spilled a drink.

Finding an island of open ground in the sea of swaying bodies, she caught her breath and clung to her wits before claustrophobic panic could set in. Behind her, more women danced on small stages amid a sea of light, which made their skin glow in the darkness. One had catlike ears and a long waving tail, the other a colored stripe over her eyes that melted through various shades of aqua and blue. Althea stared at the tail, wondering what sort of creature she looked at.

To the left, a man covered in glowing clothing worked buttons at a counter and shook his head in time with the awful sound. Ahead, two women stood behind another tall bench, like the judges from Querq, pouring liquid into cups and handing them out. Dawning realization came over her; the undulant bodies around her were
dancing
to the strange cacophony of buzzing, thumping, and high-pitched warbles no creature in this world could be responsible for.

They were having fun; no one here felt like a slave or under the charm of some mystic. Collision killed her thoughts as a man in an iridescent purple shirt grabbed her by the hands and tossed her about in the strange ballet.

“Great outfit. Neo-tribal, I love it,” he shouted a laugh. “You’re fuckin’ brave to go barefoot in here, but it’s sexy as hell. Wanna find some place quieter? They got sofas in the back.”

“Dude!” another voice yelled from behind her. “That’s a little kid.”

He stopped dancing and stared at her chest, finally noticing the height disparity. “Oh, shit. How’d you get in here? Sorry, squirt.” He dove into the crowd, overwhelmed with disgust at himself and afraid of being seen with her.

The crowd parted, giving birth to the bald man who shoved his way through. She looked up at him, cowering away from his anger. He seized her by the forearm, dragging her with a wrist-crushing grip through the dancing throng. The man elbowed men and pushed women out of the way, the stream of begging and pleading from her lost amidst the throbbing noise. Past the ocean of bodies they went, down a dim hallway where a small group laughed in a distant room. A black door swung open at the urging of his boot and he shoved her out into a light rain. She fell onto all fours as her foot found a deep water-filled hole. Althea crawled forward, glancing back just in time have him point at her.