Synthetic: Dark Beginning (23 page)

“I’m sure it won’t mind. Where did you find it?”

“Humphrey gave it to me. He said it was mine.  At the time I didn’t understand what he meant.”

“And now you do?”

Kora nodded her head. “I cared for them.”

Vaughn laughed. She had to be joking. “These guys all make Ivan and Caleb look like runway models and a few days ago, you were ready to toss them into the trash.”

“I
know.  It's hard to explain.” She ran a hand over the skull as if memorizing its shape. “That was what I learned at Mirafield, from Randall. When I lived here, it would never have occurred to me to destroy any creature. I healed them and loved them. That was my whole purpose.”

Vaughn felt as if he were in a free fall. He wanted to just dive into this girl and never surface. He followed along after her, wincing when she squatted down next to a two-headed creature with one face that looked normal while the other was lost in a gruesome knot of hardened flesh like a diseased tree. “I’ll bet the guy on the left was the one who got laid.”

“They share the same body,” replied Kora without looking up.

Vaughn needed to act more serious, but he felt better if he pretended they were touring the backstage of some macabre show. “So were they all stabbed to death?”

“I’d have to perform full autopsies on each one but from what I can tell, many died from severe deformities.  The stab was just an extra step to make sure they were dead.”

They continued into the next cavern where, in addition to the cut recesses, metal shelves crowded the center of the floor, each level overflowing with corpses. Despite the increased numbers, Kora made a thorough check of each body and spent an unusual amount of time examining one with gnarled tentacles protruding from its head and chest. Vaughn closed his eyes to block out the misery while Kora pushed her unflinching hands into the nightmare up to the elbows.

“How do you do that?” he finally asked, watching as she stroked the forehead of a disgusting corpse with an arm protruding from the side of its head.

“I’ve been hiding in the light for so many years: clean white rooms, white clothes, grinding out beautiful, near-perfect synthetics.  But I feel more like myself here.  I think I've been haunted by these mutants for years. Seeing them like this, as they truly are, is amazing.”

“I think they’ll be haunting me from now on,” mumbled Vaughn.

Over three hours and hundreds of bodies later, Vaughn was exhausted. He collapsed against the wall across from Mud’s apartment so he could bask in the faint glow of the light bulb.  He loved Kora. He couldn't tell her that, of course. Not yet.  But right now, in that cold place full of death, he could feel the heat of it on his skin like the sun.

She appeared from one of the caves with the flashlight, her face tired with large circles under her eyes.  “I just searched the last room and there’s still no sign of Mud.”

“How do you know none of the bodies were him?”

“When I worked down here, I tagged each one with a name, number and dates.”

“So we came all this way and no Mud.”

“I want you help me take a look at something.”

She guided him to the furthest point of the tunnel and shined the flashlight over a slim opening that was blocked by a heavy piece of wood. Vaughn pushed it aside so she could slip through and followed her into a room that had the feel of an ancient tomb. A chair and a small table with a lantern stood against one wall covered in a thick layer of dust.

Vaughn lit a match and held it over the wick, then turned a knob on the lantern. The room filled with a warm glow more familiar to him than the cold light from the electric bulb. Unlike the other caverns, the bodies here lay on soft pads with pillows under their desiccated heads. The first creature had bulging eyes like a fly and though he found it unremarkable, considering the horrors he’d seen over the last few hours, Kora was trembling.

“Are you okay?”
he asked.

He placed a hand on her shoulder but she scrunched down as if the weight of it was too much for her to bear. “These were my good friends.”

“Oh,” he gazed at the shriveled bodies.  Kora's friends had been a gruesome lot, even when they were alive. 

She backed away from the bodies and sank into the chair, eerily aware of its position directly behind her.  Then she lowered her chin onto folded hands and stared at the corpses.  “I don't have friends anymore, except for Ishmael.”

Vaughn nearly cracked a
with friends like these
joke, but wisely changed direction.
“Gus likes you, and when I went to visit Joshua, he said all kind of great things about you.”

That got her attention.  “You went and saw him like I asked?”

“I'd even make friends with these guys if you wanted me to.”

It was a bad answer, but luckily Kora was too preoccupied to notice. “They were the first ones I helped survive down here, but it was back before I had medicine or training, so they eventually died.  Their deaths are what drove me to master all of Ruby's knowledge so I could fix her mistakes.  It wasn't long before I knew more than her.  More than anyone about how to construct an artificial human.”

“What were you like back then? Do you remember?”

Kora gazed up at him, her eyes swirling with new memories. “I was the opposite of how I am now. I was good, kind, and ten times more brilliant.”

“
I find that hard to believe.
”

“
It's true, but I was horrible looking.
I would never have wanted you to see me.”
Kora fixed her eyes back on the corpse in front of her. “But in the end, I just changed from one kind of monster into another.
”

Vaughn couldn't move. Was she saying what he thought she was saying? His reoccurring dream bloomed before his eyes: the gray, heavily scarred face, staring down at him through his tank water. He reached out and his hand hovered a mere inch above her head. There was so much he wanted to say to her, he didn't know where to begin. He could barely get his voice above a whisper. “I’ve only been in love once.” 

Kora didn't look up, and when she finally answered, he could hear the pain and longing in her voice. “Who was it, one of the girls in the Food?”

He ran his fingers gently down her hair.  He knew it would be soft, like strands of fine silk.  How many years had he dreamed of touching her?  “It was you, Kora. I didn't realize it until now, but it was you.”

Chapter 26

Berta was the first to see the trucks. They roared past as she hid below the hill and blanketed her in dust. They had the same smell of shit and sweat that she remembered from that day, ten years earlier, when Randall's police had arrested her whole family. She closed her eyes, struggling not to cough, and saw her mother pressed into a corner with baby Iris in her arms. Berta watched, helpless, as Ramon fought to hold back the tilting mass that threatened to trample them to gain more room and air.

When the trucks had all made the turn up the long drive toward the compound, Berta slid out of her hiding spot and cut up the hill to the back of the workshop. She peeked around the side and saw men dressed in camouflage jumpsuits with automatic weapons, pounding across the yard toward the house. She was too late. She slipped through the back window into the workshop and looked around the cluttered worktables for anything she could use as a weapon. She heard shrieks from the direction of the house and hurried to the grimy window. The soldiers were already lining up the children. Iris was helping the little ones as the wailing mothers looked on, held back by a wall of guns. Iris kept shouting at the women and though Berta couldn’t hear her words, she knew Iris was trying to reassure them that everything would be okay.  That she would take care of them. Her baby sister had grown up so quickly.

There was nothing in the shop that would stop so many soldiers, but then her eyes landed on the garage where her truck was parked. The engine wasn’t finished but she could get it started. Berta darted across the driveway, but one of the soldiers spotted her and barked at the others. The garage door was half open so she slid under the door and slammed it closed with her foot, turning the stiff bolt. Some of the men tried to pry the door up while others ran around the garage looking for other ways in. She leapt into the truck, turned the key in the ignition, and burst through the garage door in an explosion of wood.

Berta smashed into one soldier, who’d failed to get out of the way, and dragged his body for several yards before he fell to the side of the road. She tore down the driveway, looking in the mirror to see if anyone was chasing her. Soon the high-pitched wail of motorcycles filled the air as they careened down the hill after her.

She pressed her foot on the accelerator and burned toward the mansion Vaughn had mentioned Joshua lived in, hoping her newly rebuilt engine didn’t burst into flames. When she neared his driveway she slowed down, nearly taking the turn on two wheels. She blasted up to the house, honking her horn, and slid to a stop directly in front of the main entrance. Joshua popped his head out the door like a dopey lizard.

“Get the hell in,” hollered Berta.

He ran down the steps and yanked open the door. Berta could hear the motorcycles roaring down the driveway. Before Joshua could even get the door closed, she shot back up the driveway. When the motorcycles saw her coming they tried to swerve off to the side to get out of her way, but she followed them, slamming into three at once. One bike smashed into the windshield and tumbled over the roof, landing in the truck bed. The rider stood up and stared at Joshua through the back window as blood poured down his face. Berta hit the brakes and he smashed into the glass, then fell back unconscious in the truck bed. She looked in her rear view mirror. The final rider was idling his bike before the house.

“What the fuck is going on?” asked Joshua. He was dressed in boxer shorts with no shirt or shoes.

“Did you just wake up?”

“It’s five in the goddamn morning.”

“I’ve already been out for a swim.” Berta swung the truck onto the highway and drove for a few miles before rolling behind a dilapidated gas station.  She turned off the engine, afraid that it was beginning to overheat.

“What are we doing here?” asked Joshua.

Within seconds, the sound of a lone motorcycle rang out. It flew past them, headed back to the compound. She waited until it was a few miles ahead, then pulled the truck out from behind the building and followed at a distance. When they reached the top of a bluff, she stopped the truck and they watched the loud speck fall in line behind the trucks that were rumbling down the driveway from the compound. “I bet they’re headed into the hills. I’ve heard there’s some transfer stations hidden up there.”

“No way,” said Joshua, his eyes wide. “Who did they get?”

“They came early so they got everyone but me…and you.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Follow them. I’m sure they’re headed up Kanan Dume.”

Joshua leaned back in his seat. “I’ve been waiting for you to come visit me.”

“Well, here I am.”

She’d meant it as a joke but he looked pleased, as if she’d shown up for a date. Berta looked off toward the castle. “I feel like we should get Vaughn, but that would take too much time—we’d lose them.”

Joshua spat out the open window. “I’m surprised you didn’t go pick him up first.”

“That’s what I should have done. I wasn’t thinking clearly.” She glared at Joshua as if it was his fault that he now sat beside her instead of Vaughn.

“What are we going to do once we get there?” he asked.

“I have no idea. Why don’t you make yourself useful and think of something.” She’d made a huge mistake. Everyone was going to die because she’d decided to bring the useless outcast instead of the super-strength vampire.  What the hell was she thinking?

They turned up Kanan-Dume, passing a graveyard of empty housing developments and boarded up restaurants.

“Max is dead,” she said.

Joshua’s cheek twitched. “Not surprising.”

“I thought you’d be happier about it.”

He looked away from her.  “I wanted my father dead because he knew I liked you and beat the shit out of me in front of you every damn chance he got. Once I realized I didn’t have a chance in hell with you, it didn’t matter anymore.”

Berta stared at the side of Joshua’s face. What he said was true. Every time Joshua got the crap kicked out of him by Max, she was there, front and center. The two rode in silence until they noticed a trail of dust bending off to the left. “Looks like they turned up that dead-end road ahead. I’m going to park and we can hike in and take a look.”

“You don’t have an extra skirt I could wear?” Joshua looked behind the seat where he spotted a crumpled pair of old jeans. “Who do those belong to?”

“Vaughn,” said Berta, surprised when she felt embarrassed, as if she’d been caught cheating. “I’m sure they’re too big for you.”

Joshua looked disgusted. “You two did it in here?”

“None of your business.” She parked the truck behind an old convenience store with smashed windows, the inside full of tumbleweeds and trash. They climbed out and Berta surveyed the hill behind them.
“I didn’t bring any weapons.”

“Me neither,” said Joshua, scratching his bare knee.

Berta climbed, stopping to look back when Joshua didn’t follow. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t have any shoes on.”

“That’s your fault.”

“That I don’t sleep in my shoes?”

“Vaughn never wears shoes.”

Joshua threw out his arms. “Even the fact that I don’t have thick calluses on my feet like the goddamn vampire counts against me.”

Berta continued up the hill and after a while, she could hear Joshua following, cursing every time he stepped on a sharp rock. Once she reached the top, she lay down on her belly and peered into the canyon below. Several portable buildings sat at odd angles across a huge area as if they’d been set down by a tornado. In between these smaller buildings were two large, corrugated metal warehouses with boarded-up windows. The trucks were parked before the warehouse at the base of the hill. Soldiers were already herding clan members down the ramp and through the doors, their hands raised high above their heads. Berta searched for Iris in the line but everyone blended together at that distance. She turned to see Joshua was only halfway up the hill and when he finally arrived, his feet were bleeding.

He threw himself down beside her with a sour face. “Is that them?” he asked.

“Who else would it be?”

They watched until the last prisoner disappeared into the warehouse and the doors slammed shut.

“I can’t just sit here,” said Berta. She moved to stand up, but Joshua held her back. Three soldiers walked out of the warehouse and strolled over to their trucks. The sound of rumbling engines filled the canyon like low thunder. Berta cursed but Joshua hushed her, his eyes fixed on the convoy. It snaked its way through the camp, along a deeply rutted gravel road to an area fenced off with tall barbed wire and a gate. One man jumped out, unlocked the gate, and then swung it wide for the others to pass. The trucks rolled into the yard and the men parked them in a line along the fence. Joshua watched as the men opened up the backs of the trucks and pulled out bodies that thumped to the ground like sacks of grain. The men dragged the bodies over to a large mound in the center of the yard covered with a green tarp. One of them kicked the tarp back and a swarm of flies rose up like dark rain. The men swatted the air as they heaped on the fresh bodies, then stood beside the trucks smoking and talking.

“No way to get inside that gate,” mumbled Joshua.

“Shut up. I'm trying to listen.” Berta strained to hear their words, but the distance was too great and the wind seemed to rob the canyon of all sound. When they were done smoking, the men disappeared into a nearby portable, the sorrowful din of an acoustic guitar filling the air, for a moment, before the door banged shut.

“Were any of those bodies Ramon?” asked Berta, her tears catching in her throat. “They were all men but I couldn’t tell. They were so far away.”

“They were all white guys. One had blond hair and the other three light brown. I’m sure one was Brian. The son-of-a-bitch probably mouthed off and got himself shot.”

Before Joshua could stop her, Berta climbed down the hill toward the warehouse and accidentally dislodged a rock. She held her breath until it crashed into the cement foundation of a propane tank that sat before the warehouse entrance, just where the dirt gave way to wild brush.

Joshua reached out and grabbed Berta by the wrist and hauled her back up next to him. She resisted at first, but his grip was surprisingly strong so she finally gave up.

“You’re not going down there,” he said.

“I’m sure as hell not going to sit here with you and your bleeding feet, doing nothing.”

“I’ll go alone.”

Berta rolled her eyes. “And do what? Fight them?”

“I’ll think of something.”

She looked over her shoulder at her truck still parked behind the abandoned convenience store. “We should drive back and get Vaughn.”

Joshua spat on the ground. “You want to go get your hero boyfriend? Send him down there to beat the shit out of everyone and save the day?”

“He’s no longer my boyfriend and yes, I think he could do a hell of a lot more than you.”

“I have a plan.”

“You do? Then I guess we’re all saved.” Berta scrambled to her feet. “You’re the most useless man in the clan, Joshua. My family is down there and I need to do something besides send in your worthless ass.” She stumbled down the hill to her truck, her long hair lifting in the wind that was blowing in off the ocean.

“Berta, please,” said Joshua. She stopped to listen but didn’t turn around. “By the time you go back and find Vaughn, everyone could be gone or dead. I know I’m a fuckup—always have been—but I think this one time I can help.  Give me a chance.”

Berta gazed at the slice of gray ocean in the far distance that was barely visible beneath a heavy blanket of mist. “I’m sorry, Joshua.” She continued down the hill to her truck.  When she reached it she turned back, but Joshua was already gone.