The Breakers Series: Books 1-3 Page 61

  Life wasn't worth living. It was now a matter of how much longer he could resist that truth.

  In mid-January, they allowed Shawn to see him at the lab. Shawn hugged him, thumped his back.

  "Still at it, huh? Bet you could make some badass bourbon by now."

  Ness glanced at the door. "Don't give them any ideas."

  "You seen the fence across the way?"

  "Hard to miss."

  "Almost done." Shawn nudged one of the stills with his boot. "They got this new program in the works, 'Earned Citizenship.' You get thirty credits, you get promoted to full-fledged member of the community. Votes and shit. The fence will get me ten credits."

  "They'll raise it to forty right before you reach thirty."

  "Look, I don't know. Maybe I'll make it and maybe I won't. They got to do something to prove Daniel's not Dr. Doom."

  Ness itched his nose. "It's a trick, Shawn. So long as a few make it over here from the farm, the others will go on working, because they think they can make it, too. Most will die in the same place they were born."

  "You don't know that. I'll talk to somebody. See if you can start earning credits, too."

  "They're just waiting for me to perfect the process," Ness said. "Then they'll kill me. Just like they did Larsen."

  "Larsen isn't dead," Shawn said. "I seen that big Swedish bastard working at the farm just the other day."

  Ness laughed. "Even better."

  "Well, until you got a better idea, I'll keep plugging away. What else is there to do?" Shawn turned for the door, but stopped with his hand on the handle. "Look, Ness, where'd that brain of yours go? We aren't gonna get rescued by dragon-riding dwarves. You want out of here, you got to figure a way out."

  Ness watched him go.

  More snows fell, smothering the dust. Ness wrote a note asking permission to scout the feral orchards around the river. Next summer, the fruit trees could bolster his ethanol output without touching the staple crops. That was his out-loud rationale, at least. What he didn't say was that he was so bored he would do anything to get beyond the fences of Hanford, and that he held hope, however slim, he'd see something in the wilds to help him plan an escape.

  One night, as he laid down in his converted closet to go to sleep, the door creaked open. Light sliced into the gloom. He sat up hard, pulling his sheet past his bare chest.

  "Kristin?"

  "Shh!" She closed the door behind her, enfolding them in the darkness. "Sweet pad you got here."

  "How'd you get in?"

  "I bribed the guards."

  "With what?"

  "What do you think?" she said, an edge of sharpness to her voice. "Civ IV and porn."

  He rose and hugged her. "They'll kill Shawn if I try to leave. I didn't want to get you in trouble. I didn't know if you'd want to see me again."

  She pulled back. It was too dark to see her face, but he could hear her breathing. "Why wouldn't I?"

  "I don't know."

  "You are strange." She kissed him. "I would have come sooner, but it's been crazy. They're trying to lay a backup water pipe into the reactor because Daniel's all paranoid about getting bombed by our rivals. The new pipe would have taken a miracle before the apocalypse. It's been soaking up every spare minute. I didn't even know they had you here until last week."

  "Well, I'm glad you came."

  The smile was audible in her voice. "Not yet."

  He got her there with the second try. After, they lay tangled in the darkness. The closet was close and their sweat stuck their skin together. Their breath panted from the walls.

  "Have you ever thought about leaving?" she said.

  "Every day," he said. "Then I remember they'll shoot my brother if I do."

  "Seriously? I thought you were joking."

  He shook his head. "They say we committed treason."

  "There was a riot at the farm last month. Did you hear? They shot two of the workers. They've been shipping in new ones ever since. I see them on the trucks."

  "Where from?"

  "I don't know." She brushed her hand across his chest. "But judging from the chains, they'd prefer to go back."

  "I wish we hadn't killed the aliens," he said. "Maybe they could have saved us."

  She laughed. A while later, she caught herself snoring and jerked awake. She had to be gone before the guards changed shift. She kissed him goodbye. She didn't know when she'd be back.

  It was all right. He understood. And at last, he had an idea.

  He asked to speak with Daniel. It was days before the old man granted him an audience. Roan watched from the far wall of Daniel's office, pistol on her hip.

  "We brought some things back with the jeep," Ness said. "Alien things. I'd like to take a look at them."

  "Why?" Daniel said.

  "Because they look interesting."

  "Like the lasers," Roan said.

  "No." Ness flushed. She'd seen straight through him. He supposed that was a good sign. To pass among snakes, you must think like one. "Do you know how bored I am in there? Dipping sticks in vats of old corn all day? I'd rather be back in high school."

  Daniel raised a skeptical brow. "And you think tinkering with strange gadgets will make you more productive."

  "Look, I don't know. I thought it might be cool. I don't care." And it was true: it had all been a ruse, an effort, however unlikely, to get his hands on one of the lasers, or to discover one of the other items held secret powers—something that could blast down a wall or reduce a man to a shocked skeleton. Roan had defused that spark at once. Even if they gave him something, it would be an impotent trinket, incapable of violence unless he threw it straight at their heads.

  Yet it was his exasperated indifference, oddly enough, that changed everything.

  "We'll see," Daniel frowned. "What about this other suggestion of yours? These feral orchards?"

  "Fruit ferments best," Ness said. "That's why you don't see a lot of corn champagne."

  "The old farms. Which you propose to visit for yourself."

  "Visit once," Roan said. "As he sprints right past them."

  Ness rolled his eyes. "So you can put a bullet in Shawn's ear? If I wanted to escape, I'd run from the lab while the guards aren't looking. Those guys don't do their jobs for shit."

  "What about your other duties?" Daniel said.

  "I'm just messing around in there. Killing time until I have more material. The stills won't have me overworked until the next harvest." Ness stood. "Well, I thought I could help. Take me back to the lab."

  "Christ, you're a sullen one," Daniel sighed. "We'll discuss it."

  Ness doubted that, but the old man was serious. Two days later, a guard delivered him a handful of small objects they'd taken from the aliens: two flat metal circles etched with strange sigils; four abstract idols that might resemble chess pieces, so long as you didn't look too closely; a narrow plastic rod of no obvious use. As Ness gazed at these in disappointment, the guard mumbled about going to the truck, then came back with a touchpad attached to a small square screen.

  "Mr. Wizard said to tell you there's no wireless on this one," the guard said.

  "Mr. Wizard?"

  "The old man. King Daniel."

  Ness laughed and took the items to his desk to start playing. It took him more than an hour to learn how to turn the pad's screen on—there were no buttons, and the touchpad wasn't supposed to actually be touched; instead, it responded to gestures made in the space above it—and even then there was little in the way of navigation. The screen showed shapes as abstract as the tiny chess-idols. He could change the display, sometimes, by waggling his hand around the air above the pad, but the symbolism remained inscrutable.

  The other items were even less interesting. The metal was pretty, a smooth, iron-like surface swirled with iridescent colors, but the objects themselves were inert. He took to carrying one as a good luck charm, absently running his thumb over the symbol-etched surface whenever he grew stressed.

  A
couple days after the delivery of the trinkets, a driver arrived to chauffeur Ness to the wild orchards up the river. They fueled the pickup with his own ethanol and took off for the backroads. The rows of trees were long done fruiting, de-leafed by the winter. Grass grew thick between them. Many looked outright dead, or at least well on the way, but others sported hopeful green buds. Ness sketched rough maps and rougher tree-counts. The next day, he took the alien screen with him to kill the long drive into the fields.

  The first few trips, the driver shadowed Ness at all times. The next few, the man wandered off on his own, seeing whatever there was to see. Ness was left to his own devices until the driver called through the orchard to let him know his time was up. Very soon, the man didn't leave the pickup at all, listening to old Metallica tapes on the car stereo while Ness tramped between abandoned rows of apple trees. Getting the fruit back to Hanford would have logistical issues, but given the labor to pick it and load it, it would pay for itself several times over in fuel.

  By mid-February, the guard arrived to tell Ness he'd be allowed to drive himself. Ness frowned—he'd never liked driving, and the truck looked as awkward as a boat—but the man didn't look willing to argue.

  At least that meant Daniel and Roan trusted Ness was too cowardly or devoted to run off without Shawn. He could use that, should the chance present itself.

  The opportunity came much sooner, and in far different form, than he could have imagined.

  Wintry light slicing through the knobby branches. He'd stopped counting apple trees half an hour ago. The more time he spent in the orchards, the less actual work he did. Instead, he pretended he was elsewhere, exploring terra incognita, mapping parts of the world no one else ever had ever seen. He could live here. Eat the apples. Build bridges between the trees and never touch the ground except to dig up the food he buried to get through the winter. He could do that right now, couldn't he? Hide away from Roan and her men in plain sight of the steam rising from the plant. They'd never find him. He could drive the truck into the river and strike out on his own that same day. If not for Shawn.

  He was wondering how long the guilt would last when the alien stepped from the trees and lifted its tentacles above his head.

  28

  Tristan grabbed Colin's collar. "What do you mean, you found my brother?"

  Colin tried to pull away, scowling at her white knuckles. "Alden Carter, right? Blond kid? Fourteen?"

  "Thirteen," she corrected before remembering his birthday last month. "Where is he?"

  "No, no, no." Colin glanced around for Yvette and the man who served as his own shadow. He lowered his voice. "I can't tell you that until you help me get out."

  "If you can get me out of these chains, exactly what do you need my help with?"

  Colin continued to gaze across the grass. "Parting me from my shadow."

  Tristan didn't look. "That's why you wanted to know what I planned for Yvette."

  "And to satisfy my general curiosity about you."

  "You're sure he'll scream if you run?"

  Colin rolled his eyes. "He's a loyal subject."

  "So you can give the order, but you can't pull the trigger."

  "Is that supposed to be a character flaw?" He softened his voice. "Look, I like him, all right? I don't want to do this to him. But he's left me with no choice."

  Tristan poked her tongue into the gap in her teeth. She could think of no clear motive for a setup. He could be lying about his motives for leaving the killings to her—he could be less squeamish about the blood than about being caught with it on his hands—but his intentions, at least, sounded legit.

  If they weren't, she could always kill him, too.

  "When?" she said.

  Colin smiled. "That didn't take much convincing."

  "I'd be long gone if Yvette weren't afraid to take a single beating. She banked that I'd roll over as easily as she did. She was wrong."

  He smirked. "One o'clock. Tomorrow night."

  Colin strode away, winking at Yvette as she waddled up with a fat tub of water. Yvette smiled back. She saw Tristan at the wash lines and her smile withered like the vineyards in the valley south of Redding.

  She clunked down the tub at Tristan's feet, splashing her ankles. "You'd get more work done if you spent less time talking to boys."

  "I'm a shameless flirt." Tristan bent over the washboard. "What are you going to do? Tell Mom?"

  Yvette tossed her head. "Maybe I will. It's not very fair to me when I work twice as hard and we both go back to the same room every night. How do you think that makes me feel?"

  "Resentful," Tristan said. "I'm sorry. This has been such a big transition. I know I could have handled it better."

  Yvette frowned, wrung out a sweatshirt, clipped it to the line. "Well, you won't be happy until you start to put your heart into it."

  "You're right."

  Yvette laughed. "Maybe you should talk to more boys. You're much more reasonable when you're happy."

  "I'm just seeing things differently, that's all."

  Tristan found it easy enough to fake her amiability. She just had to turn back the clock to the person she'd been a year before. If she could make it through 36 hours of this polite pliancy, she'd be back outside the walls. So she worked hard and without complaint. Yvette gave her several pointers, nodding in satisfaction when Tristan gave them a shot. Tristan watched Yvette when she wasn't looking. She felt no qualms about the plan. She could make herself feel guilty, if she sought the emotion out, but mostly what she felt was rage. A part of her wanted to kill Yvette. The woman was weak. Would rather bow to every one of Winslowe's rules than to stand and resist. She was a weasel who hid in the master's skirts, waiting for prey to fall, wounded and helpless. Humanity didn't need people like her.

  Playing demure helped hide Tristan's nerves, too. Those buzzed like her fourth cup of espresso. Her stomach fluttered. But these biochemical reactions didn't climb to her brain. That remained detached. Focused. Resolved.

  The day after she agreed to the plan, with just seven hours until it was scheduled to begin, Colin drifted up to Tristan after dinner. He gestured toward the patio where the servants were allowed to smoke, chat, and grab some fresh air, so long as they didn't leave its cement boundaries. After the warmth of the kitchen, the nighttime marine air gripped Tristan's body in a clammy fist.

  "Still ready to get a little exercise?" Colin said.

  She zipped up her jacket. "Hard to run when your legs are in chains."

  "Oh, that. Maybe this will help." He reached for her hand. She started to draw back. He pressed something sharp and metal into her palm. In case anyone was watching, she held his hand for a minute, then moved the keys to her pocket.

  "Where did you get these?"

  He grinned with half his mouth. "Winslowe."

  "She hates me. She'd never just hand these over."

  "No, but get an orgasm or two in her, and she sleeps like a stone." He gazed at a roly-poly crossing the patio. "Don't judge me. We all do what we have to."

  "I wasn't about to stone you. After tonight, you'll have a couple of boulders to chuck my way." She glanced inside. Yvette watched from a chair by the window, gaze ticking between Tristan and Colin. "What's the plan?"

  "Take care of your chains. Take care of your shadow. Then come to my room and take care of mine. He's an absurdly light sleeper. Expect him to wake the second you open the door."

  "From there?"

  "Hop the fence. I've got supplies waiting down the hill."

  "How?"

  "Same friend who found your brother. You get us out of the house. I'll take it from there."

  Tristan nodded slowly. "If this friend can do all that, why doesn't he get you out?"

  "Because he's not that good a friend. And he's not a fan of being executed." Colin glanced at the window. "We've been out here too long. That shadow of yours can't seem to keep her eyes off me. What do you think, should I ask her out?"

  Tristan returned inside, ig
noring Yvette's stares, forcing herself to keep her hand out of her pocket. She read a National Geographic article on oceanic volcanoes until the bell sounded for bedtime. Yvette gave her the cold shoulder as they brushed their teeth and dressed for bed. That was fine with Tristan.

  Winslowe came by to lock them in. Tristan waited in bed, listening to Yvette's breathing. Tristan had a digital wristwatch Winslowe had given her to keep up with her chores; every few minutes, she cocooned herself in the covers and pressed its light function to check the time.

  At 12:58 AM, she removed the key from under her mattress and fit it into her shackles. The right cuff popped free with a metallic click. Yvette breathed on. She released the second cuff and pulled her feet up to her butt, leaving the shackles beneath the sheets. Her ankles felt incredibly light. She unzipped her mattress cover one tooth at a time and slid her fingers into the cut in the fabric. She touched plastic. She withdrew her second shiv, a long-toothed comb. She'd worked on it for weeks, sharpening its handle against the grout whenever she went to the bathroom, using the noise of the toilet and faucet to cover the sound of the scrapes.

  She rose, careful not to stir the shackles. Light peeped from the base of the door. Yvette slept on. Tristan leaned in. She clamped one hand to Yvette's soft mouth and slashed the shiv across her throat. Blood spurted over her hand. Yvette tried to scream, gargling on her own blood. Tristan jabbed the shiv into her heart and dropped her weight. Plastic scraped the girl's ribs. She shuddered. Tristan bore down on her shiv and Yvette's mouth. The blood stopped pumping. The girl's chest stopped rising. After another minute, Tristan eased off and cleaned herself on Yvette's sheets.

  She dressed in pants, shoes, and a jacket. The door was closed with a bedroom/bathroom handle, reversed so it locked from the outside and keyed from the inside. But Colin had given her a key for this, too. She slipped it into the lock, feeling it glide over the tumblers, and turned.

  The hallway was bright and empty. She paused in the doorway, heard the buzzing of lights and the muffled moans of the king enjoying himself upstairs. She crept down the hall to Colin's room, turned the lock, and slipped inside.