The Reset (9 page)

“I was bringing him food on the day that
I found him. When I called out in the usual way and didn’t receive an answer, I
knew something was wrong. I hid, biding my time and watching his house. When
night fell, I snuck inside and found him. They had taken
everything
, Ben.
He,” she shook her head at the memory, “he didn’t even have a tongue. Roan’s
men are the worst kind of animals. I had to leave Atlanta...”

She’d mentioned Roan’s name once or
twice before, and he wanted to push further into her story, to learn more about
the journey that had delivered her to the orchard, but he also needed closure
on what Alice knew of the Kids. “I’m so sorry for the things that happened to
you, Alice. So sorry. I can’t imagine what it was like. But I’ve got to know…why
did the Kids have so many operations? What was Calvin doing to them?”

“He was building an arsenal. Molecular
computing. It was all the rage back then. We had smart roads synced to cars,
ensuring that every vehicle traveled at an optimal rate of speed. No more
traffic accidents! No more gridlock—no more road rage! Nanotechnology that administered
medicine, just at the precise instant the host became ill. Calvin took things a
step further. He fashioned, from their own tissue, from their own cellular
materials, weapons with the capability to wipe whole cities from the face of
the Earth. Fission, Ben. We’re talking nuclear fission.

“And he needed a way to arm them—to trigger
a chemical reaction. It was as much a feat of psychological immensity as it was
a biological achievement. I hate to use such complimentary language in
describing what he did, but it’s true. He conditioned the children to take
shots
every
single day. He scared them—let them believe that they’d die
if they didn’t follow the protocol. The shots were placebos, of course. For
almost two decades, the kids took them without pause. They trusted him and they
had
to, if Calvin’s plan would work.”

Ben was on the verge of vomiting. How
many shots had he taken throughout the years? Thousands and thousands. The lie
hurt, and he felt sick with betrayal. “How do you know all of this?”

“Clover came forward almost immediately.
She went straight to the press. In the days before the Human Accord responded
to the attacks—before
our
misfortune became a global firestorm—Clover sang
like a canary. There was still the matter, you see, of
two
undetonated
weapons. Two young people, bouncing around out there with the power to erase
tens of millions of lives.

“This is really when the second wave of
the Reset kicked in. Paranoia! Man, paranoia was the order of the day! Foreign
governments leveled accusations. Corporate executives went into hiding. Things
unraveled pretty quickly. HA’s decimated leadership struck at targets in
Pakistan, Iraq, Australia, China…the list goes on and on. The attacks were
disorganized and poorly rationalized, but in a nation gripped in the frenzy of
blood lust, they delivered the desired effects.

“D.C. had been obliterated. The
President, figurehead that he had become, died in the Miami attacks. Seventeen
major U.S. cities—I’m counting Bend, Oregon, in that number, mind you—had
simply
vanished
, along with three quarters of the country’s total
population. Atlanta, oddly enough, survived. Back when the grid was up,
speculation mostly centered on the idea that one of the undetonated nukes was there.
That was based purely on the population profile of the cities that were hit.”

Coraline
, Ben thought.
Oh,
my dear Coraline, are you still out there
?

“You and I,” Alice concluded quietly. “
We
are what’s left. Two wandering souls sequestered in a lonely farmhouse, isolated
at the end of some shabby dirt road in what used to be Georgia. There’s us and maybe
some other people like us, but there are many,
many
more people like
Roan—sadistic animals without a care for humanity. He’d cut our throats out of
spite, Ben, and that’s not a lie. Are you…are you still planning to go after
your friend in Atlanta?”

“I have to, Alice. I have to find out if
she survived.”

“May I look at the photograph again,
please?”

Ben fished the picture from his pocket
and handed it to her. Alice studied it for a long time. “She’s very pretty. I
hope you find her.”

She stood and gave him the photo, letting
it linger between them for an instant, Coraline’s image closing the circuit.

“Goodnight, Ben.”

And there it was—a tiny moment, the
smallest of human openings—and he longed to take it. Hell, he wanted to take
her
in his arms. Instead, he cleared his throat and flashed a sheepish smile before
slipping the photo back into his pocket.

“Thank you,” he replied, “for sharing
such a sad story. It can’t be easy, going back there in your mind. I still have
some questions, but I’ll wait for another time to…to go any further.”

Alice nodded. “Goodnight,” she repeated.

And with that she gathered her empty mug
and her blanket and left. He heard her rinsing the dish in the kitchen and then
retreating into her bedroom.

He sat before the fire, watching it burn
down until only coals remained. When the room grew cold, he went to his bed and
burrowed beneath the covers, falling asleep with the tips of his fingers held against
the ridge of scar tissue spanning the length of his sternum.

ELEVEN

Winter
gradually loosened its hold on rural Georgia. On a warm day in mid-May, the Earth
spun close enough to the sun that the clouds actually parted and the light
shone through. It bathed the ash-choked fields, delivering a much-needed dose
of warmth and optimism to the man and the woman trying to resurrect the farm.

Ben was in the orchard, pruning fruit
trees while Billy and Josie picked over the scant stubble of vegetation that had
sprouted among their roots. The ponies were emaciated, the inadequate stock of
coarse grass the old man had put by for their winter keep almost spent. Ben
supposed the old man had never planned to keep the animals through the winter
anyhow.

He worked hard enough to break a sweat, feeling
invigorated as he stripped out of his jacket and flannel shirt. He kept his tee-shirt
on, however, always mindful of the secret carved into his chest.

He worked well into the afternoon,
sheering branches and stacking them on the burn pile.

His mind raced as the sun and the
exercise energized him. It was confusing. He was warming to Alice, and she
seemed to be opening up to him as well. And yet, at least once or twice each
day he fished Coraline’s picture from his pocket and made a silent promise to search
for her a final time.

When the sun had swung well out into the
west, Alice appeared at the gate, a plate balanced on the metal crossbar.

“Care for some lunch?” she called.
“You’ve got to be starving, Ben.”

He dropped the loppers and climbed down.
“I am,” he replied, “but I didn’t want to quit. It’s just so peaceful out here,
being with Bill and Josie and all, and the sun is nice. It feels—I don’t know,
like a renewal, I guess.”

Alice nodded. “I know what you mean. I’ve
been out behind the house, turning over land for a garden. It’s hard going, but
I think there’s plenty of good soil about two feet down. I’ve been hauling off
the ash—got a mighty pile of that shit. I know it’s probably useless to even
try, but I wanted to see what was underneath.”

Ben grinned at the audacity of it. A
garden! “How big?”

“Maybe twenty by twenty. Big enough to
feed the two of us for a while, I think, if we could find some seeds.”

“Seeds,” he pondered, chewing on a slice
of dried apple. “You know, I
bet
we could find some, don’t you think? They’d
be old and maybe they wouldn’t take, but I bet they’re out there.”

Alice nodded. “The question is, do we dare
search for them? It seems like tempting fate if you ask me.”

Ben scooped a handful of pecans into his
mouth. “I think it’s worth a try. It might just be the change in the weather,
but I feel like we could maybe get some things going out here on the farm. The
old man—he claimed he had a green thumb. Said it could be a productive place. I
mean, picture it, Alice!” He ticked the varieties off on his fingers. “Cantaloupe,
watermelon, tomatoes, green beans—damn, it’s making my stomach growl just
thinking about it. Were there any…any towns that showed promise on your way
down from Atlanta?”

“Not really,” Alice replied. “There was
one place that had a few old buildings still standing, but it was much closer
to Atlanta. Probably a few days’ walk, at least. I wish I could remember more
about how I got here, Ben, but I was really struggling there at the end. It’s
all pretty much a big blank between waking up in that bed and the days that
came before that. I might have stumbled through a town or two, but I was trying
to stick to the country. Safer that way. How about to the south? Anything down
near Florida?”

“There’s a little town to the southwest
of here. Bickley, it’s called. It’s a two-day walk, but I was on fumes myself
back then. We’d make a quicker go of it now, I suppose, rested like we are. You
want to give it a try?”

She put her hands on her hips and turned
her gaze to the empty fields. In the sunlight, they really weren’t so
disheartening. She even thought she could see some potential there. “I suppose.
It’ll be…it’ll be an adventure. And we
do
need to try our hand at
growing some food.”

Ben slapped the fence post. “Well, all
right then! It’s settled. We’ll go light and fast. Make good time and hustle
right on back here. Also, I think I might have something that could help you
out in the short term. Come on and follow me.”

They went into the barn and Ben burrowed
through some old cupboards until he found a weathered tarp and a dozen wire
stakes.

They walked out to Alice’s garden and
covered the cleared earth with the tarp before returning to the orchard to
finish up the work on the trees, knocking off for the day just a few minutes
before the sun disappeared over the rim of the western horizon.

TWELVE

They
left in darkness, hoping a path through the woods might be safer than the road.
They packed light—bedrolls, a tent, food, an extra change of clothing and, of
course, the guns. Ben kept the .20 gauge strapped to his pack. He’d practiced
brandishing it the night before, until Alice had discovered him behind the barn.
They shared a chuckle at it, understanding how silly he looked, but he’d been
deadly serious as he showed her how to use the handgun.

“I doubt we’ll need these,” he said,
“but it’s time you learned how to shoot all the same. We’ve got enough
ammunition for a few practice shots—just enough for you to get the feel of the recoil
down. If something happens out there, I don’t want you pulling the trigger
unless you’re within ten or fifteen feet of whatever it is that you’re trying
to hit. A gun like this…well, it’s hard to be real accurate beyond that. And
anyway, we won’t need to use these. It’ll be okay.”

He showed her how to load the gun, how
to chamber a bullet. She had a strange serenity about her when she snapped off
the first shot. Three tries later she’d hit an apple tree square in the trunk
from thirty paces. “It’s not so difficult,” she gloated. “You didn’t realize
you were bunking with a stone-cold mercenary, did you?”

Ben laughed. “Mercenary, huh? That what you
are now? You won’t hear any more complaints from me about doing the dishes,
then.”

Alice laughed, her eyes shining, and it happened
again—a shared gaze that lingered just a second longer than it should have.

“That’s…that’s really good, Alice,” Ben finally
said, silently cursing himself for letting the moment pass. God, what was he doing?
“Let’s head in and grab some rest. Could be a long couple of days ahead.”

They carried a map with them, but it was
little help. They didn’t know the precise location of the Winstons’ farm, so Ben
just tucked it into his pack, hoping they’d find Bickley in due time. If they
were successful, they could gather their bearings and piece things together
from there.

They picked their way through the woods,
stepping over fallen pines and around blackberry brambles and thick patches of
kudzu. The ash was everywhere, and they quickly became filthy. It was cool and
gray, the previous day’s warmth a fleeting memory.

They paused from time to time so Ben
could mark the trees with his hatchet.

They hiked gently undulating hills and tromped
through swampy lowlands. Twice, they skirted the periphery of sizable farms.
The first set of buildings had been gutted by fire and looked abandoned. The
second farmhouse was in better shape. It was eerily quiet; from even a hundred
yards away, the place made Ben anxious.

They knelt in the brush, watching it
through binoculars. “I just have a bad feeling. I don’t think we should go in
there.”

“Okay,” Alice replied. “We’ll trust your
instincts.”

They walked until dark, speaking very little.
When they did, it was in hushed whispers. They had a quick lunch and stopped a
few times to rest before finally stumbling into a clearing. A set of rusted
train tracks, the decomposing railroad ties scattered askance, cut a swath
through the forest.

Ben peered up and down the corridor. “I
know, I know,” he said, answering the unspoken question that hung between them.
“It’d make the going so much easier, and they probably head straight into
Bickley. But it’s just too dangerous, I think. We’d be sitting ducks, Alice.”

She merely nodded in reply, clearly frustrated.

“I’ll tell you what…we can,” his head
spun, “we can kind of follow the tracks from the woods. It looks like a fine
path, Alice, but it’s just a road of another sort. We can’t leave ourselves out
there—exposed.”

“Yeah, I know,” she replied coolly. Her
eyes went to the sky. “I think we need to start thinking about shelter, Ben.
There’s not much daylight left.”

They deliberated briefly before putting
the tracks behind them and pushing deeper into the woods. The further south
they ventured, the denser the foliage became. The last of the day’s light faded
quickly, and before long they were stumbling through the brush in the dark.

“Ben! We’ve got to stop,” Alice pleaded.
“We could be walking in circles for all we know.”

“I know it, but let’s just go a little
further. I’m telling you, those train tracks are a bad idea. I want to put some
distance between us and them if we mean to have a fire tonight. We’ll pick them
back up in the morning and follow them into town.”

Forty minutes later they found a granite
outcropping at the edge of a small stream. Ben took the measure of the spot,
content that they could put the rocks at their back and keep an eye on the
woods. “This’ll do fine, I suppose.”

“Finally,” Alice grunted, slinging her
pack to the ground with a groan. “My feet are on fire.” She wore the young girl’s
hiking boots, and they were just a tad too small for her slender feet.

Ben built a small fire and set up the
tent while Alice gathered firewood. When they’d made camp and the fire was roaring
along, Ben put water on to boil.

It was another cold night—there would be
morning frost, at the least—and they huddled together at the edge of the fire
for warmth, sipping tea and eating a modest dinner of dried fruit and tortillas
they had fashioned from the last of the cornmeal.

“You know, this right here is just what
we need,” Ben said, savoring each bite of tortilla. “Corn and wheat—we need the
staples, you know? I think…I don’t think that ol’ codger did a damned
thing
out there. Least I can’t find any evidence of it, if he did. All of it—the
power station, the food supplies for the ponies—was the Winstons’ doing, I
imagine. I think he was just living in their house, using up all of their
resources. Squandering the life they’d been carefully building for themselves.
Otherwise, I really don’t think we’d have to be out here risking our lives like
this. If it were up to the Winstons, they would have had that place humming
along just fine. There would have been seeds and supplies—things to sustain
their family for the long haul. I think they were survivors. They knew how to
make it work.”

Alice nodded, finishing her supper. “That’s
why we need to be smart about this. I’m nervous about being away, just like you
are, and it’s only been a few hours. I say we gather whatever we can carry home
quickly and we get back there and put our hearts and souls into making it work.
It’s…I don’t know, Ben, but that place feels like an oasis.”

They locked eyes and he pulled her
closer, swiping a piece of ash from her cheek. It was instinct, and he felt the
electricity blazing through him at the touch of her skin.

“Thank you, Ben,” she whispered, touching
her temple to his. Her breath was warm on his ear. “Thank you for being kind
and for being decent, and thank you for taking me in when…when you didn’t have
to help me.”

He pulled her into an embrace. She was
so
small
, and yet so solidly
there
, and the paradox thrilled and
excited him.

“Ben?” she whispered. The question hung
between them for an instant and then he brushed the hair from her temple. She closed
her eyes and he put his lips on hers—softly, tentatively. They kissed and he
felt her tongue dart between his lips. After a long moment, he pulled back and
she immediately snatched him to her breast, as if he might vanish in the
darkness. Their breath was ragged with excitement, any walls that had existed
between them gone.

“It’s the other way around, Alice,” Ben whispered,
their foreheads touching. “I owe
you
. I’ve been alone for so long. So
long that…well, I’m just very thankful that you came into my life.”

She touched the side of his face and
kissed him again. He closed his eyes and she covered them with kisses, and then
they were up and stumbling into the tent, awkwardly stripping in the tiny enclosure,
shedding their clothes as quickly as they could.

When they were nude, her petite body
perched over his, he inhaled deeply, terrified of her reaction. Here was the
moment—that ultimate instant of truth—and sure enough, her fingers found his
chest. She traced the scars there, and the sharp intake of air was her only
response. There was no light by which to gauge her expression, but he didn’t
need any. She lowered herself into his arms, her ear to the steady beating of
his heart.

“Oh, Ben,” she whispered, the pads of
her fingers lightly skimming the ridges of tissue. He started to speak but she
shushed him. Instead of talking, she reached down and guided him inside, sighing
a little as they merged. She burrowed her face in the hollow of his neck, her
breath hot there, and she began to move on him—feeling him with every part of
herself.

Ben felt the sting of tears in his eyes,
overcome by the sensation of connection and the intimacy of the secret they now
shared.

“I…” he started, but she covered his
mouth with hers.

They filled the tent with warmth, a hungry,
human warmth that neither had known in so long that it was brand new to them in
that moment, utterly oblivious to the presence of those that watched their camp
from the shadows of the forest.