Emma: Part Three (6 page)

“Adam Gray,” she repeated. “Got it.” With a smile and a wave, she hefted her ax over her shoulder and walked toward the truck. She climbed up inside without any help from the soldiers standing nearby and settled onto the end of a bench seat in the cargo area.

“Is it just me or are the women out here a different breed?” Jack strolled over and rested his shoulder against the cargo truck. He carefully prodded his swollen cheek and stretched his jaw.

“Judging by the size of that bruise on your face? The women out here swing harder than Jace.” He reached out to touch it but Jack smacked away his hand. “How bad is it?”

“I’ll live.” Jack looked him up and down as if inspecting for damage. “You got thrown pretty far by that blast. How’s your head?”

“I’ll live.”

“You better.” Jack adjusted the rifle sling digging into his shoulder. “Have you talked to Rafe?”

Max scanned the cyborgs surrounding them and finally spotted Rafe standing on the far side of a burn pit. He had a faraway look in his eyes. Grief hadn’t swallowed him up yet but it would soon. “It’s not the right time. I’ll check in on him when we get back to the Outpost.”

“We have to keep an eye on him. He’s lost so much.” Jack’s gaze settled on the trucks stacked with body bags. “Hell, we lost more than we saved.”

“The men fought well. We were outnumbered and hurt.” He exhaled a ragged breath. “Shit, Jack. What the fuck is happening out here? The main risk to our security here in the Outlands is supposed to be zombies and run-ins with radicalized humans. Bombs? Coordinated attacks? This shit is getting old fast.”

“What do our intel guys say?”

“I contacted Monroe while I was calling in my report a few hours ago. They’ve already sent out a SICO team.” The grim set to his mouth betrayed his feelings about that. “Watch your six, Jack. Gage is the top SICO officer now. He has a long memory, and it’s unlikely he’s forgiven you for beating the shit out of him.”

“Fuck him.” Years ago, Jack and Gage, then only a SICO team captain, had gotten into a bloody brawl that had landed both of them in the infirmary. While Gage received a slap on the wrist and a promotion, Jack had been knocked down two ranks and shipped off to prison. Seven months in the brig hadn’t done much to temper his dislike or distrust toward the SICO program. Even after all this time, Jack had never confided the cause of the fight.

“You’ve got to stay cool,” Max instructed. It wasn’t often that he was the one urging calm, but today their roles were reversed. “You two have avoided one another for ten years. If his subordinates find out they can score points with their commander by fucking with you, they will.”

“If SICO puts a permanent team on the post, we’ll have to be careful with Emma,” Jack warned. “You know what those spec ops pricks are like. They’ll take one look at her and start looking for reasons to take her for themselves.”

Max’s stomach churned. “They’ll have to kill us both first.”

“Let’s try not to give them a reason.” Jack hooked his thumbs in his ballistic vest and stretched his back. “I suppose you already know that my platoon received orders to resupply.”

“Yes.” The order had come to Max first along with another. “The Zed squad is loaning Jace to you.”

“We need a good tracker so he’s more than welcome to throw in with us.”

Max hated that Jack was being sent on a dangerous job so soon after finding Emma. “We have to get to the bottom of these attacks. First, we get hit on the side of the road. Then, Emma’s farm is overrun, and we barely survive. Now this?”

Jack ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip. “You know what they’re saying, right?” He paused. “They’re saying Faction is back.”

Max had heard the rumblings. “The M.O. is so familiar.”

“We killed them. All of them,” Jack insisted. “We finished them off eleven years ago.”

“Maybe we didn’t get all of them. Maybe we missed a few. Eleven years is plenty of time to build up an army of their own.”

“An army of undead?” Jack scoffed. “Give me a break.”

“You heard what Emma told us that day we met her. She told us about the collars.”

“Yeah, but the men who attacked her farm? The men driving those trucks? They were human.”

“That doesn’t mean they aren’t working with Faction now.”

“Faction hates humans. That’s the whole reason we were at war with them. Remember?”

“I remember. Maybe they’ve decided that using humans for manual labor and losing them as collateral damage agrees with their endgame. Maybe their goal posts have moved.”

“All those maybes are above my paygrade.” Jack cracked his neck, tilting it side to side, and cleared his throat. “It’s not my job to ask all those questions. It’s my job to kill.”

“It’s your job to stay alive,” Max countered. He reached out and squeezed Jack’s shoulder. ‘Don’t be a hero.”

“Don’t get all soft on me.” He placed his hand atop Max’s for a moment before slowly removing it. “You take care of our girl until I get back.”

“Always.”

Jack jogged toward the helicopter waiting for him and climbed inside. Max tilted his head back and watched the bird take flight against the bright Texas sunrise. After a night of violence and death, the pink and orange skyline seemed almost too beautiful and too perfect.

Death.

Life.

Beauty.

Destruction.

This new world was wild and strange.

.

4
Chapter Four

A loud knock woke Emma from a light sleep. She bolted upright and glanced around the unfamiliar space. It took her a few seconds to remember that this was her new home. She rubbed at her eyes and stretched her aching neck as the memories from last night overwhelmed her.

Jack. Max. Lovemaking. The sirens. Working on the radio. Finally passing out from exhaustion.

The knocking grew more insistent. Emma pulled the borrowed uniform shirt tighter around her upper body and crept toward the door on tiptoes. Biting her lip, she unlocked and opened it just a crack. The overcast skyline threatened more rain, and the rumble of thunder in the distance seemed to confirm it. Uncomfortable in her under-dressed state, she hid her body behind the door. “Yes?”

A young woman in slim-fitting camo pants and a modified uniform shirt stood on the porch. She smiled and waved, the dark hair of her ponytail flicking against her shoulders. “Hey! I’m Rio. I live here on the Outpost.” She flashed an ID badge. “I work in the housing department.”

“Oh.” She relaxed upon seeing the other woman’s friendly face. She wanted to trust her instinct that Rio was someone safe but kept her guard up, just in case. “I’m Emma.”

“I know. It’s nice to finally meet you.” Rio held up a tote bag. “I brought breakfast. I know your guys are still outside the wire. I thought you might like some company.”

Normally wary around strangers, Emma found herself craving the company of this new and friendly woman. “I’d like that.” She stepped aside and waved Rio into the house. “Excuse the mess.” She gestured to the half built radio transceiver and the carefully sorted piles of electronic components. “I was up late working.”

“It’s good to stay busy. It’ll keep you from worrying too much.”

Emma smiled sadly. “Not so much.”

Rio touched her shoulder. “Your men are okay. You don’t need to worry.”

Emma’s heart fluttered in her chest. “How do you know? Do you have any other details from last night?”

“I know because I’m basically the nosiest little gossip on the base.” Rio grinned, mischief sparking in her eyes. Sobering, she said, “There was a second attack on the town after the main rescue force arrived. There was another explosion and a wave of zombies.” She squeezed Emma’s shoulder now. “There were a lot of casualties, but Max and Jack weren’t hurt. As far as I know, they’re still finishing up the recovery and cleanup.”

Emma sagged under the overwhelming onslaught of emotions. On one hand, she was relieved that Jack and Max were safe. On the other, she was saddened and grief-stricken by the thought of all the death and carnage. “The civilians who died? How can I find out if any my friends were among them?”

“I’ve heard they’re bringing in a few truckloads of civilians, some of them for medical care and some of them because they want to stay here. They’ll go through the same intake process and quarantine you did.” Rio made a face. “Well, not exactly the same. Major Cardwell made such a stink about the way you were treated that Julie—Doctor Freedmore—has new rules in place to protect all new civilians who undergo quarantine.”

Her hopes of finding out if any of her friends had been hurt or had survived flagged. “There’s no way I can get close to the quarantine barracks.”

“I know a guy. He’s a combat medic, but he’s in and out of the CASH all the time. I’ll see if he can get me the intake list.”

“Really? You’d do that for me?”

“Sure. There aren’t many women like us here. We have to stick together and have each other’s backs, you know?”

Emma experienced a wave of emotion at the kindness and generosity Rio had shown her. “Thank you for being so nice to me.”

“I remember what it was like when they brought me on base. I was so scared, and I didn’t know anybody. I was also the only human, and they all talked in acronyms and codes so I couldn’t understand a damn thing.” Rio smiled encouragingly. “It gets easier, Emma. I promise.”

Emma eyed Rio and guessed she was close to Leila Keaton’s age. Were the cyborgs marrying women so young? “Did your men go out to the Purgatory bombing last night?”

Rio laughed. “No! I’m not married.”

“But then how do you live here on the Outpost?”

“Oh man.” Rio motioned toward the kitchen. “Let’s go start breakfast because that is a long story.”

Emma trailed Rio through the house. “I haven’t spent much time in here so I don’t really know where everything is yet.”

“Every union house is setup exactly the same,” Rio explained. She opened a cabinet next to a refurbished stove and retrieved a cast iron pan. “I doubt either of your guys have done much rearranging since moving in here. You’ll figure out pretty quickly that these cyborgs are seriously addicted to their master plans and grids and layouts.”

“This place does seem rather utilitarian.” Emma hopped up onto the counter and started digging through the bag Rio had brought. She seized on the jar of peach preserves and grinned. “These are my favorite! I had a nice stone fruit orchard on my farm. Peach season was the highlight of my year.”

“Those came from a small shop in Borden’s Crossing. There’s a trading post here. They officially get deliveries every other Friday morning, but if you get in good with Roy, he’ll let you sneak in on Thursday evening to get the first pick of his new stash.” She hefted the cast iron skillet onto the stove. “I’ll take you with me to make the rounds of the Outpost later. You need to get out and meet the right people.”

“The right people?” Emma rolled the jar of preserves between her hands and tried to ignore the flutter of anxiety in her lower belly. After years of doing her own thing, of living alone and enjoying the solitude of her farm, the idea of going out and making new friends was intimidating.

“Well, yeah,” Rio said as she dug in the tote bag and piled the contents on the counter. Bread. Bacon. Eggs. “Your men are officers, and you’re one of the first women from this new territory to join a union. The women who come after you are going to look up to you. They’re going to come to you for answers and support.” She grabbed the small hunk of bacon and unwrapped the familiar cloth stamped with the Hill family’s logo. “You’ll get the duty speech from the general when she gets ahold of you.”

“She?”

“General Eve Adamson.” Rio retrieved a knife from a drawer and started slicing the bacon. “Also known as my crazy overprotective mom.”

Emma’s eyes widened. She scanned the petite dark-haired woman standing in her kitchen. She was so small and thin and didn’t look anything like the tall, muscular cyborg women at the Outpost. “I thought cyborg women were infertile.”

“They are.” Rio set aside the knife and moved to the sink where she began washing her hands. “I’m completely human like you. Eve isn’t my biological mother. She adopted me.” Rio glanced back and smiled. “This is where that really long story starts.”

“I’d like to hear it.” Emma slid off the counter and joined Rio at the sink to wash her hands. “I can handle the bacon and eggs while you talk.”

“Deal.” Rio handed her the towel, grabbed a spoon from the drawer and then twisted the lid off the preserves. “So I was born way out west, out near what used to be El Paso. It’s mostly wasteland out there now, but my family lived in a compound that had been a military base way back before the war. A fairly large group of human survivors managed to eke out a living there for decades.”

“But?” Emma placed strips of bacon into the hot pan and nudged them around with the tip of her finger.

“But then the cyborg civil war spilled over into our little haven.” Rio dipped the spoon into the preserves and scooped out a big serving that she promptly put right into her mouth.

Emma tossed an egg between her hands. “I didn’t know the cyborgs had a civil war.”

“Because they didn’t want you to know,” Rio said matter-of-factly in between licks of the spoon.

She started to ask why but then the reason for the secrecy occurred to her. The cyborgs were still the dominant and superior force and controlled most pockets of survivors. If humans had known that the cyborgs were vulnerable? It might have given some of them the courage to stage uprisings.

“I heard about your test scores.” Rio set aside her spoon. “You were, like, off the charts in engineering and math but your history knowledge was total crap.” She held up a hand to stifle the protest Emma was about to begin. “Look, I get it. You only know what you know, but let me school you on some things that will make your life a hell of a lot easier here.”

Emma swallowed her initial urge to argue with Rio. The girl was right. She needed to learn everything possible if she was going to make a go of her new life. “Okay. Tell me. All of it.”

“So you know that humans like us created cyborgs to fight wars, right? We genetically modified them and stuck implants in their brains and trained them from birth to defend us and protect us and be killing machines. And then, when all hell broke loose with the Zed virus, we used the cyborgs as our first line of defense.”