Myers laughed. “Believe it or not, I was on my way to find out. I was sent to find someone who could tell me.”
“Who told you?”
“I don’t know; some guy. Didn’t tell me his name, just told me to go.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“And I thought you were the smart one.”
Myers hit the floor again. He fought to keep conscious, to keep the blackness from creeping over his vision.
He lost that fight.
* * *
A caravan of three loud, rusty vehicles drove south along the remnants of the dusty US 101. One man sat in a bolted-down metal chair on the front vehicle, facing forward, and another on the rear vehicle, facing backward. John sat back-to-back with a woman named Leta who had the dark-skinned, weathered look of a caravan guard. They were on the top of the middle vehicle, facing the sides. He was on edge. Not just because he was being hunted by Hyperion, but because a group of three loud, slow-moving vehicles full of supplies was an easy target for gangs and raiders.
“Can’t these things go any faster?” He had to shout just to be heard.
“Yeah,” Leta said. “But they’re a hell of a lot louder, and they’d use more fuel.”
“What’re we carrying, anyway?”
“Ammo, letters, other junk. Shouldn’t you know this?”
“Last minute recruit.”
“Right. We’ll be bringing back water, letters, fuel, and maybe a purifier if we can afford one.”
“They don’t purify the water before selling it?”
“They do, it just costs extra. Purifiers tend to break down a lot. But we’ve got a good mechanic in Redway, so it’ll be cheaper in the long run.”
They sat in silence for the next two hours. Every now and then, the ghost of a dead city would appear in the distance. A shrill whistle sounded from the front car. John looked over, seeing two tall structures in the distance. The woman behind him dropped her gun and lied down with her hands behind her head.
“We’re not there yet,” John said.
“You’re new to this, aren’t you?”
“Why?”
“No one attacks this close to a city. Especially not Brooktrails. That, and your face isn’t screwed up.” She smiled, and closed her eyes.
As the caravan got closer to Brooktrails, John saw why no one would want to start a fight close to its gates. It was one of the more impressive perimeters he’d seen for a smaller settlement. The fence was tall and covered in barbed wire, interrupted only by guard towers. The two towers that sat on both sides of the main gate rose taller than the rest, and were visible far away.
The caravan stopped at the gate, and after a brief conversation between the driver of the front car and an officious gate guard, they drove through and parked by a small, surprisingly clean building with CALIFORNIA CARAVAN CO. painted in red above the door.
“So what’s next?” John asked.
Leta hopped off the car and stretched. “We check in here, hit the market, and go home. But since we’re not merchants, we can hit the bar instead. There’s a good one down the street from…”
“I’m not staying.”
“Oh. Well, if you want to get paid, you’ll have to wait until they’re done at the market. Might as well have a couple drinks while you wait, it’ll only be a few hours”
“I have other business here.”
“Right. Good luck, then.” She smiled and followed the others into the building.
John sighed and unclenched his fists. He hadn’t even realized they’d been clenched. His anger and desire for vengeance drowned out everything else he felt. As much as he would’ve loved to share a drink with her, he needed news. He was on the hunt for Nyriki Rocco, and would follow him all the way down the long 101 if he had to.
* * *
The rest of the ride up the Sierra Nevada was quiet, except for the wind whistling through rocks, the jeep’s motor, and the dirt beneath its tires. Rocco saw what Tari meant by the path being dangerous. The drive up was slow, the paths thin, many of them without a barrier to keep them from going over the edge. He looked over at her a few times. Her forehead and cheeks were soaked with sweat, despite the decreasing temperature. Every now and then he saw black streaks of soot and scorched stone, remnants of atomic fire. Once he saw the shell of a great undetonated warhead wreathed in broken stone and steel, jutting precariously from the side of the road.
“Were you around for this?” Tari asked.
“The war?” He chuckled. “I’m not that old. The heads of the Estates were young when the bombs dropped. Probably didn’t happen in my lifetime.”
“Probably?”
“I don’t know when I was born. I figure I’ve been around for about forty years, but no one knows when the war happened, so I don’t know for sure.”
“No one knows?”
He looked at her. “I’m sure the heads of the Estates do. Not many people still alive from back then. Most who were don’t know or don’t care.”
“Some do.”
The path twisted up around a bend. Tari slowed down. As she drove around it, she slammed on the brakes and swore.
“Sorry,” she said.
He shrugged. They got out of the jeep. Part of the path before them had crumbled. Rocco saw what was left of it a hundred feet down the mountainside.
“This is new. The path here should be sturdy.”
“Not anymore. How’re we going to get across? You might be able to jump it, but there’s no way I can.”
Tari looked up. The mountain wall didn’t look climbable. She walked back to the jeep and looked at the supplies.
“No rope,” she said.
“Are there any other paths up?”
“There… We can climb there. I think farther down. It looks sturdy, and it’s not too steep. But we can’t turn the jeep around, and it is too dangerous to drive backwards.”
Rocco sighed. “So we walk.” They grabbed some supplies from the back and began their descent.
