Intended Extinction (12 page)

“Are you ready, Mark?” asked Tara.

I sat quietly for a moment, trying to mentally prepare.

“Do it.”

White-hot magma poured onto my leg. It seared the skin and scalded every muscle fiber. My shin screamed as the Medi-A melted into my wound, latching onto every substance it could get its hands on. I gritted my teeth and groaned heavily, trying to stay conscious. But it was too powerful, the pain was overwhelming. I felt like I was being dipped into a pit of lava, feeling the intense heat enclose around me.

And then there was nothing.

I began
to
register feeling in my legs. The warmth ascended into my chest and out through my fingers. I grasped the coarse fibers of a woolen blanket and realized I was awake. Thick glue held my eyes shut. Someone was mumbling something to me, but I was so comfortable; I didn’t want to move.

“Mark?” asked the woman’s voice again.

I opened my eyes to see a familiar face above me. Long, black hair drooped below my head, grazing the surface of my chin. Tara’s photogenic smile sent endorphins throughout my body.

“Hey,” I said, immediately starting to cough.

Tara laughed a little, pulling back. “Are you feeling okay?”

I cleared my throat and blinked a few times to rid my eyes of their initial blurriness.

“Yeah,” I said truthfully. “Yeah, I feel great.”

I pulled myself up to a sitting position and looked around. I was lounging on Bloodface’s makeshift couch-bed. My shoes had been removed and placed on the floor, with my jacket folded on top of them. Only one light remained ablaze, plastering a contrasted glow onto the back of the room. Tara had moved one of the armchairs beside me, leaning on her knees. Behind her was the boy himself, nestled in the remaining seat, fast asleep.

“I’ll have to admit,” she said. “I was kind of worried. You blacked out.”

“For how long?”

“A couple hours.” She stretched and yawned. “You kinda just fell asleep on us.”

Tara was exhausted, I could tell. I wondered if she had gotten any sleep at all. Had she been at my side this whole time?

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Quarter after one.”

I sighed and looked at her with tired eyes. “Thank you.”

She returned the drowsy gaze. “You’re welcome.”

After an awkward silence, I reached for my pant leg and pulled apart the ripped section. A thick, white bandage was wrapped around my wound. I gently prodded the affected area.

I looked back at her with a joyful expression and said, “I can’t feel a thing!”

But seriously, the entire appendage was numb.

“We used quite a bit of Medi-A. And we managed to stitch it up. It may not look professional, but it should keep shut.”

“I can’t believe we found this place,” I said, shaking my head. “How’s Psycho over there?”

“When you were asleep,” she began, “he and I went up a few floors, looking for some bandages and stuff.” She shook her head. “He’s one spaz, that’s for sure, but he’s incredibly smart.”

“You didn’t tell him did you?” I asked, getting straight to the point.

She hesitated, looking a little guilty. “I had to. He would know if I was lying. Why else would we have those guns?”

Great, just what we needed. “What did he say?”

“He told me he wants to kill those soldiers.” She had an expressionless face. “He’s been waiting for them. He
wants
them to come back.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” she glanced over to the janitorial cart, to the picture of the happy couple. “Something must have happened.”

“Great,” I said. “Soon the whole town’s going to join our little adventure . . .”

Tara looked down again. “Well, I guess I didn’t tell him
everything
.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So he has no idea about Ellis Island?” A surge of relief swam through me.

She shook her head and then started to fiddle with her hands.

Oh no. What now?

“Mark,” she began, maintaining a whisper. “What if we were to stay here for a while?”

My relief was shot down, right out of the sky.

“Stay?
Here?
Are you out of your mind?” I realized my voice had risen quite extensively.

“Think about it,” she presented. “We have shelter, he’s got a huge stash of MetaChews,” she gestured to the stack of boxes in the corner, “and maybe we can just . . . lay low for a while.”

I didn’t even run her ideas through my head. There was no way in hell I was singing a
song
every time I had to enter this hole in the wall, absolutely
no
way.

“Tara,” I said, “what do you see in him? Why do you want to get to know him? He’s just some addict kid. He probably would have killed us if he had the chance.”

Tara seemed a little deflated, maybe even hurt.

“He’s been here for a month, Mark. An
eleven-year-old
. He doesn’t deserve this.”

I hesitated. “
We
don’t deserve this. For heaven’s sake, Tara, there’s a giant ‘f-word’ painted on his wall!”

She glanced at the word, not really paying attention. “I guess . . . he reminds me of someone.”

I dropped my head onto the pillow.

“He’s a lot like my little brother, Mark. I can’t just leave him like this.”

I took a deep breath. How was I supposed to argue that? I turned to see the child, smashed up against the arm of his stiff “bed.” I hated to be the bad guy, but I had to voice my opinion.

“He’s just a kid, Tara. All boy-scout qualities aside, we could run into more of those metal-heads. We can’t protect him.” This time I was being sincere. Maybe I hated the Little Annoyance, but I certainly didn’t want to see him die, especially because of me. “I can barely protect you.”

Tara went silent. She pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and said, “Don’t say that. We’re alive, right?”

I didn’t respond.
That
wasn’t good enough. If I couldn’t keep Tara safe, how could I add another number to that problem?

“Besides, didn’t you just say he would have killed
us
if he had the chance?”

I remained stone faced.

“What about the note, though?” I said. “I thought you wanted to figure this out?”

“I do,” she affirmed. “I guess it was just nice to finally stop running. Maybe I thought this place—with his alarms and the location—I thought that maybe we could try and find . . . I don’t know what I was thinking.” She looked crushed.

A dagger pierced my heart. What was I doing? I simply couldn’t shake my Edge attitude. There Tara was, after everything that had happened, looking out for others, thinking of ideas, planning other strategies. I felt completely worthless. Maybe it was time I switched my approach.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m glad that you
are
thinking. I want nothing more than to stop running. But you and I both know that this place isn’t safe. And I don’t mean because of
him
. We can’t stay here, Tara.”

We remained in silence for the next few minutes. I was in such deep thought that it started to give me a headache. What did we do to deserve this? Why was it happening during such a devastating time in our lives?

“So we just leave him?” Tara croaked.

I sighed and craned my neck backwards. I glanced over at the sleeping heap that was Bloodface. I had no clue what was going to happen. If he wanted to come with us, I really couldn’t stop him. But that would mean another body to worry about. That would mean constant headaches. It would mean another notch on the uncertainty belt.

“I have no idea.”

Light breathing
ruptured my dreams.

I opened my eyes to find Tara with her head hanging unnaturally to one side, fast asleep. The stiffness in my neck made me cringe. I rubbed it sorely and slid off the couch without a sound. When I stood up, my legs held me steady. No pain, no soreness.

Okay, maybe a little soreness.

The tranquility of the boy’s hovel comforted me. There were no hums or buzzes; it was silent and perfect. I watched the eleven-year-old as he slept. Head buried into the cushion, feet halfway off the armrest. At this angle, he seemed normal—almost. Wanting to breathe fresh air, I slipped on my shoes and exited through the tarp.

The lobby was bathed in a warm, morning glow. I meditated in the natural light, slowly walking past the marble pillars and coming before the unbroken entrance doors. The street outside appeared to be suspended in time, filled with debris and littered cars. I looked down each side before deeming it safe—free of killers.

I ducked underneath the broken glass and emerged into the serenity of the morning. I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with invigorating, cool air. The sun sent a single beam of light across the abandoned city, warming my skin. Once I reached the front steps, I sat and enjoyed the time alone.

Through the skyscraper fjord on my left, Battery Park lied in wait. To my right, brilliant rays brightened the graveyard of eastern Manhattan. In the distance, indistinguishable sounds and echoes came from the west. People went about their normal business, as if nothing had happened.

And what
had
happened?

I thought back to last night. Were we the only ones running? What if there were others out there, wandering aimlessly through vacant streets? And what if this mysterious note writer was directing all of us to Ellis Island?

I leaned back on my hands and grew tired of the mystery of the secret shooter. The more I tried to solve unanswered questions, the more I found myself further away from the truth. Out of all the skepticism rolling through my skull, only one thing was worth trying to answer.

Bloodface Vectorpus.

We owed him. Technically. And I hated that. Had I known we were going to meet a mentally unstable kid, Neurolics would have been out of the question—no matter how much longer it took to find another place. Bottom line, we had to tell him about Ellis Island. He knew about the soldiers, he knew about the Turnmont, and he knew we were targets. But whatever he thought he was entitled to didn’t satisfy the idea of bringing him along.

I just couldn’t think of any alternatives that included Tara’s support.

I decided to put it off for now. This idyllic moment wasn’t going to last. I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind.

A small crunch broke my deliberation and I whirled around.

Another armored soldier stood only a few feet away from me, pointing a pistol at my head. This time, it was a woman. I could see the slender features and tighter fitting gear. She panted heavily, as if she had just finished running a marathon. The drawn out breaths were audible through her mask, lightly garbled by the voice filter.

She hadn’t shot me, though.

I stretched my hands out to plead. Maybe I had a few minutes to coax her into letting me live.

“Wait,” I said. “Just wait for a second. What do you want? Why are you trying to kill us?”

The woman soldier stood firm, still holding the weighted pistol with one hand, finger on the trigger.

“You killed my team,” she spoke, sounding like a deactivating robot.

“They were trying to kill us,” I argued. “Look, we have no idea what is going on. Please, we just want to know.”

“You don’t deserve to know.”

Something was off. The professionalism didn’t exist—this girl was hesitating. She let personal vengeance take the place of dedicated fulfillment.

She took a step forward. My heart groaned within me and my breaths turned into choppy, fearful wisps.

“Please,” I said, “don’t do this.”

Someone whistled from behind the other side of the building and the armored woman turned her head. Before she could register what had happened, something flew toward her. A rabid, mechanical spider latched onto her face and began to scratch her visor with its dagger-like legs. She screamed and stumbled down the stairs, dropping her weapon. The robotic arachnid continued to mutilate her face, finally breaking into her helmet and crawling inside. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the horribly demented sight, watching the woman’s breaths come to a halt.

“
Dayum!
” shouted a mousy voice from my right. I turned to see Bloodface, hopping out from behind a pillar, admiring his work. He wore a knitted hat that hung over his ears and a small backpack.

“What the hell was that thing?!” I exclaimed, going to see the limp corpse.

“Dat’s one of my spee-bots,
what-what!
” He followed me up to the body and started rummaging through it.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. An eleven-year-old kid, looting a body like it was the sofa he searched for spare change. Killing someone meant nothing to him. It made me physically sick, and I had to sit down.

“Whoaaaaah!” he said, picking up her pistol. It practically weighed him down, but he managed to hold it up, check the clip, and stash it into his backpack.

“Are you guys out here?” shouted Tara, coming from the other side of the building. Once she saw the body, she rushed over and immediately asked what had happened.

“This Tarmuck tried to off Shinbutt—but Kinny got to her first,” he replied, finishing his plunder.

“Kinny?” she asked, kneeling next to me.

“His
spee-bot
,” I said. She didn’t appreciate my sarcasm.

“Short for ‘
spider-bot
.’ That’s twice I’ve saved your ass, Shin!” He picked the green goggles off his neck and straped them onto his eyes, as if it were a “take that” statement.

“Thanks,” I said dully.

Our host explained to us what other uncanny advantages he held over the “Tarmucks.” Over the course of his stay at Neurolics, he had managed to scavenge a plethora of usable machinery and splice a bunch of different materials together to create the lasers we first encountered and things like the spider-bots. Through a mouthful of vulgarity and slang, he told us how he could look at his surroundings and decide within seconds if there was something to craft. No matter how much I wanted to push him away from my life, he was turning out to be a hell of a lot more useful than I ever imagined. Though I still wouldn’t have chosen a “spee-bot” to take care of a metal-head.

“I don’t understand,” I asked, observing the dead robot. “How did you get power to the thing?”

“Well . . .” he started, more interested in a conversation than ever before, “they usually don’t last longer than like ten seconds. I told you, my dad used to work for Gen-Gen, so I took a lot of his things after . . . Man, oh, man, do they get the job done, though!”

“After what?” asked Tara.

“Damn,” he said, ignoring her. “I guess we’ve got to hurry if we’re going to make it to Ellis Island.”

An electric bolt ran down my spine.

“How did you know about that?” I asked. I tried running different solutions through my head.

“I’m the world’s lightest sleeper! You two were basically shouting last night.”

I sighed and rubbed my face.

“So why weren’t you going to tell me, huh?” he asked. “After all the
ish
I just pulled for you two grob-loads?”

“We were,” I said. “There’s just a lot going on. We wanted to make the right choice.”

I sucked at this. I couldn’t properly convey what I was feeling. I never could, and that made me frustrated.

Tara’s eyebrows creased. “Why do you want to come with us so badly?”

Bloodface puffed some air in protest. “Because, they’ve tried to kill me. And from the looks of it, they’re chasing you two. Am I right? Am I right? Am I right-right-right-right—”

“Yes!” I said, standing. “You’re right!”

I looked up toward the cloudy sky and bit the inside of my cheek. Maybe if I just started accepting all of the insane things that were happening to us, then I wouldn’t be so stressed.

“Mark,” Tara said, “what are we doing? We both know he’s going to come with us. There’s no use trying to find ways around it.”

“You guys
need
me,” he began. “I can see it now,” he spanned his hands out into the air and imagined a scene. “Tarmucks. Everywhere.
Dead!
Mmmm, yeah, I can taste it. Plus, we’ll both get answers, eh?” He tapped me with the back of his hand. “It’ll be
suh-ick
!”

“Once we get there and figure this out,” I said, “you’ve got to promise us you’ll stay at one of those orphanages in downtown. That’s our deal.”

He laughed at me sarcastically, slapping his thigh. “Yeah! And then we’ll all go jump in a
toilet and flush ourselves into nonexistence!
No way! To hell with that plan! Who made
you
leader?”

Tara gave me a look of disgust. She knew as well as I that GenoTec might be behind all of this. But I hated being passive. I needed to establish a position.

“I’m serious, dude,” I said, with as much stern authority as I could muster. “We owe you our lives, but you owe us for the information. If we hadn’t come here, you would be stuck, never knowing where these guys were coming from.”

Tara didn’t like my reasoning.

The boy thought for a moment. He pushed his lips in and out of his mouth.

“Okaayyyy . . . deal. Let’s shake on it.”

He held out his hand, and for the first time, I thought it actually might work. As I reached out, he quickly hit my groin and jumped away, cackling. He bounced off and said he was going to grab some gear.

I recovered from both my embarrassment and anger, turning to Tara.

“This is your fault,” I said.

She smiled and helped me into a sitting position. She knew I was with her. Even though I hated her for it, she knew I wanted to help her. Perhaps she didn’t like my solutions, but it’s not like I was doing that on purpose.

“One of these days, you’ll thank me,” she replied.

“Don’t suppose he’s got a stash of aspirin in there? Because I’m going to need about two container’s worth.”

She smirked and thanked me. “But we’re not sending him to GenoTec,” she said, “until we know what’s going on.”

I didn’t answer for a while. I figured if I just let things flow through me, maybe I wouldn’t take everything so personally. God, Edge had really ruined me.

“Fair enough.”

She wrapped her arm underneath mine and the pain, anger, and annoyance seemed to wither away. I sighed and let her lean against me as we took this moment for ourselves.

So that was it. Bloodface was coming with us, yet another extremely weird occurrence in the chain of never-ending nightmares. I wondered when things were ever going to calm down. Were we ever going to stop running? Were those metal-heads always going to be two steps behind us?

After sitting on the ledge for long enough, I felt like it was time to get going. We needed all the daylight we could use.

“Should we move the body?” I asked, looking down at the armored woman.

“I suppose we should.”