Extinction (16 page)

***

A
shton parked
Perseus
in the hangar, and I took advantage by getting some much-needed sleep. I probably crashed around 08:00 – approximately twenty-five hours after I had last woken up. My sleep was dark and dreamless, as close to being dead as I’d ever felt. I was almost surprised to wake up later that afternoon. I checked my watch, finding that it was now 16:02.

I was drifting into a doze once again when the compartment door slid open. It was Anna, supporting herself by the doorframe.

I patted the bed. She smiled, and limped forward. I got up to help her out.

“Don’t worry yourself,” she said. “I got this.”

“You need to learn to depend on me,” I said. “Really, it’s not so bad.”

“I guess,” she said.

I eased her onto the bed. She winced in pain, settling on her good side. Ashton said she had broken two ribs on her left side. She lay on her right side, propping her head up with her arm.

“You alright?”

She waved a hand. “Yeah, fine. Except that lying down all the time is going to make me go weak.”

I wrapped my arm around her, gently. It felt good to hold her again.

“I’m glad you’re still here,” I said. “It could have been much worse.”

“What’s worse than being useless?”

“You’re not useless. Someone’s value isn’t determined by how many crawlers they can skewer through the eye.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

We lay there for a moment before I closed my eyes, ready to let myself drift off to sleep.

“You’re so tired,” she said. “You’ve been sleeping since this morning.”

“I know. I could sleep
more
if I wanted.”

“Well...Ashton said there was a conference later.”

“What time?”

“18:00. I think they’re wanting to leave the Bunker behind.”

“For Los Angeles?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s crazy to think how we’re allied with him,” I said, eyes still closed.

“Politics can change fast,” Anna said. “I’ll bet if it were beneficial to him, he’d switch right back.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I think he’s actually genuine. Yeah, he’s out for himself, but he’s trying to protect his Empire. Who can fault him for that?”

Anna didn’t respond. Something else was on her mind.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked, opening my eyes.

She sighed. “Now that this Bunker business is over...maybe
now’s
the right time to see the Wanderer.”

“What about Los Angeles? That’ll keep us pretty busy.”

“I think this is more important,” Anna said. “Los Angeles will just be a battle. Getting an answer from the Wanderer could mean the war.”

“We already know what will win the war,” I said.

Anna’s body stiffened. “I don’t think you believe me yet. I’m
not
going to let you die. That’s not an option. We’re
going
to find another way. I’m tired of this idea that the innocent have to die to save the rest of us. It shouldn’t be like that.”

I hated when she talked about this. The more she got this idea stuck in her head, the more painful it would be, in the end.

“What if it doesn’t work?” I asked. “If there was another way, don’t you think he would have told me?”

“We’ll never know unless we ask him specifically.”

“I already
have
asked him,” I said. “He said this was the only way.”

“He didn’t have to deal with me,” Anna said.

“He knows a lot more than we do.”

“I know,” Anna said. “But he doesn’t know
everything.”
She paused. “Besides, you promised me.”

She squeezed my hand. Yeah, there was that.

“You’re right. We’ll bring it up at the meeting. We’ll find a way to get there. The Wanderer might have some useful information we could use, anyway.”

All I wanted was to make Anna happy, but I didn’t know if I had the ability to keep that up. After all, it was hard to make someone happy when...

I couldn’t think about that.

“It’s worth asking him again,” I said.

“Okay,” she said, finally relaxing.

I pulled her close, and she buried her face in my chest. I wanted to do whatever I could to keep this going. Love was as scary as it was exhilarating. I didn’t know how it would turn out, but I
had
to keep it going, because there was no greater reason for me to fight than
her.

Still, the Wanderer’s words haunted me. The logical side of me warred with the illogical. It was no good to cling to false hope. I had to face reality, no matter how painful. I had to focus on my mission. My ultimate goal. It wasn’t just Anna and me at stake. It was the world.

At the same time, I couldn’t ignore the beauty I held in my arms. If there was even a
chance
she was right, I had to take it.

W
e slept for a while before the alarm on my watch buzzed at 17:45. I turned it off, keeping my eyes closed. I didn’t want to get up and move just yet. I could sleep the rest of the night if I let myself.

“We have to get up,” Anna said.

I groaned. “Would it have killed them to put it off until the morning?”

“There’s a big mess to clean up.”

Finally, I forced myself to get up. I checked my watch again, seeing that it was now 17:47. The council was supposed to start at 18:00 and wasn’t supposed to last more than an hour.

I knew there was little chance of that.

“Where’s your wheelchair?” I asked.

“I’m walking.”

“No, you’re not. You’re going to be out and about for a while.”

Anna sighed. “Fine. It’s in the clinic.”

“Be right back,” I said.

I found the wheelchair and rolled it to the cabin, its wheels squeaking. Anna had pulled herself up. Her eyes were half-lidded and sleepy.

“Here,” I said, helping her into the chair.

“I can manage,” she said.

She groaned as she sat roughly in the vinyl-padded seat. She closed her eyes, wincing in pain.

“I left my katana on the bridge,” Anna said.

“Alright,” I said.

I started to wheel her toward the bridge, but when we entered the wardroom, she placed her hands on the wheels, stopping the chair.

“Let’s just get to the council.”

“You sure?”

Anna nodded. “I need to accept things as they really are. I’m incapacitated, and I can’t fight. I have to make peace with that. Accept the things I cannot change.”

She began to wheel the chair forward, pressing the exit button to the ship. When the door opened, she pushed herself down the boarding ramp. The wheels squealed, so much so that I was afraid the chair would fall apart. The chair careened onto the cement. She flew with the chair, laughing, as a couple of Raiders dodged her path. She circled around, still going fast, before stopping herself and looking up at me, seeing if I was impressed.

“Pretty good,” I said.

I walked down the ramp. As I did, I looked up to see Char walking toward Anna. Seeing me look that direction caused Anna to wheel her chair around.

“Char!” she said.

He gave a tired smile. His face was thin and gaunt, and he seemed older than the last time I’d seen him. His eyes were tired and circles underlined his sharp, blue eyes. Those eyes had not lost their light or intensity, but Char looked worn, for lack of a better word. The marred left side of his face lay in shadow, hiding the horrible scars of his disfigurement.

Anna stood, and the man who was like her father embraced her.

“You shouldn’t stand,” Char said.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

She sat back down, wincing in pain.

By now, I’d reached them and stood beside Anna’s chair. Char’s gaze shifted to me, his eyes appraising.

“I don’t think you realize the kind of girl you got,” Char said. “Or what you got yourself into.”

“Now what’s
that
supposed to mean?” Anna asked.

“Let me put it this way,” Char said. “Most seventeen-year-olds who wander into Raider Bluff don’t become the Alpha’s chief bodyguard. There were men under my command who would have killed you.” Char smiled in remembrance. “You challenged any of them to a one-on-one fight, and one of my top guards took you up on it.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“They fought, right there in the dirt of the marketplace,” Char said. “No weapons. My guard had the upper hand most of the time, as might be expected for a man his size. A crowd of hundreds gathered. All business stopped as Anna fought for her right to be a Raider. I remember watching this kid, thinking she was foolish. Dead.”

Anna said nothing, only listening to the story.

“Then like lightning, she pinned him to the ground. You could see how his eyes widened. I knew he wasn’t destined to be on the ground for long, given his size. But from nowhere, a knife was in Anna’s hands, at his throat.”

“I thought the fight was without weapons,” I said.

Char paused and looked me in the eye, as if that were the point of the story.

“That was when Anna said, ‘Don’t expect me to fight fair. Expect me to win.’”

“She was booed and jeered at, until I called everyone down. I walked into the ring, and held out my hand to her. I still remember the way her eyes blazed, like green fire. ‘This is a fighter,’ I thought. ‘This is someone I need.’ At the time, I trusted no one in Raider Bluff. I thought with someone so young, she would have no thought of corruption or betrayal.

“I took her to the top of Raider Bluff, gave her food and shelter, told her she could stay in Raider Bluff as long she liked, but she had to fight for me.”

“What did she say?” I asked.

“She agreed. And as if testing that agreement, there was a plot on my life just a few days later. She killed the assassin. Then I knew I made the right call.”

“I just wanted food and a home,” Anna said. “I stayed in Raider Bluff, honing my skill, eating all I wanted. Protecting Char was easy after the two years surviving the Wasteland. I was in Raider Bluff for two months, when...”

She trailed off, but I knew what came next.

“We came,” I said. “With our crazy idea to go to Bunker One and stop the xenovirus.”

Anna nodded. “Yeah. I never meant to come along the whole way, but the Wanderer changed my mind. I knew I had a part to play in this still, for good or bad.”

“For good,” I said.

Anna didn’t answer, remaining doubtful.

“Let’s go to the council,” Char said, grabbing Anna’s chair by the handles.

“Where is it?” I asked.

“Here, actually,” Char said, pointing to one of the hangar’s corners.

A long table with chairs had been set up. There was seating for about twenty people.

“Besides everyone from the inner crew,” Char said, “there will be representatives from all the other groups: the Community, the Suns, the Raiders, the Exiles, and the Vegas Exodus.”

“Do you know what will be discussed?” Anna asked.

“Everything,” Char said. “It’s clear we’re going to go help Augustus. It’s the logistics that are up for debate.”

We arrived at the tables. I cleared a chair to make room for Anna. I sat to her left while Char sat to her right.

Over the next few minutes, people arrived. Samuel and Makara came, sitting near the head of the table on my left. Julian followed shortly after, sitting next to Makara. Ashton walked from
Perseus,
making his way toward the table. He sat next to Julian.

“Where are the rest?” Makara asked.

“There’s still ten minutes,” Samuel said.

A few people I didn’t recognize sat at the table – probably some of the civilian leaders of the Vegas Exodus. Deborah took a seat at the table. She was silent and contemplative, apparently finding more interest in staring at the surface of the wooden table than in making conversation.

Five minutes before the meeting, people began to gather around the table, wanting to hear everything that was discussed. This group included Raiders and Exiles, along with people from Las Vegas and the Community, whose faces were worn from all the hard times they had endured. All they wanted was peace and rest, the one thing we weren’t able to give them.

Finally, the last group of people arrived: Michael, Lauren, and Ruth, leading a battered Marcus, whose face was bruised and whose right lower leg was in a cast. He advanced slowly on a pair of crutches, his face worn and his reddish-brown beard long and tangled. Like his brother Char’s, Marcus’s blue eyes were bright and alert. With help from Lauren, he was eased into a seat next to Char. Michael knelt in front of Callie, who had been following her parents, pointing her toward a group of children who must have been part of the Vegas Exodus. Reluctantly, Callie set off.

All the seats at the table were taken, and everyone waited for Makara to begin. The crowd around the table murmured, but its voices were stilled when Makara stood, the legs of her wooden chair squealing against the cement.

“Thank you for coming,” she said. “I know the last few weeks haven’t been easy, and I can’t promise they’ll get any easier. We lost a lot of lives and we barely have time to mourn our dead. I’m sorry for that. Askala and the
Radaskim
aren’t going to wait for us, so we can’t wait for them. We have to move on to Los Angeles and help Augustus, for several reasons.”

Makara paused a moment, and everyone waited quietly for her to continue.

“The first reason is one of food. Even with our numbers lower, the food in Hydroponics won’t last forever. Samuel, Ruth, and I took inventory of what we have, and it’s clear: even with the canned food, we don’t have long. A couple of months at most. Civilians can stay in the Bunker for the meantime, but eventually, everyone will need move to Los Angeles.”

Everyone had grown quiet, waiting for her to say more. Makara continued.

“Augustus is being attacked from the west by the Reapers in the Inner City, and from the east by the Blighters. It won’t be long before his forces are crushed between the two sides.”

Miraculously, everyone was
still
quiet. The crowd was actually hearing Makara out. I had expected them to protest at having to continue fighting.