Proxy

  Not Egan. Egan would never go back to that stuffy little room of his. The thought punched Syd in the throat. Egan was dead.

  “You kids might want to close your eyes,” the woman suggested to Knox and Marie. “Your parents aren’t paying us to give you nightmares.”

  “Father,” Knox said, hunched on the ground, starting straight into the fire. Everyone looked his way.

  “What?” the woman grunted.

  “Not parents,” Knox answered her. “It’s just my dad and me.”

  Why did that matter now? Why did Knox feel like that mattered?

  “Whatever, kid.” The woman shrugged.

  “You can’t do this,” said Marie. “Syd could change the world. He can’t die in a cave. He can’t die like this.”

  “Shut that girl up,” the bandit with the sword sneered.

  “Please, don’t do this,” Marie begged the woman. She knelt at the woman’s feet. “Think of all the people he could help.”

  “Get off your knees,” the woman said. “It’s just a fairy tale. That kid can’t do anything.”

  “If you don’t believe it, then why kill him? Why do you need to kill him if he’s no threat?” Marie stood, still in the woman’s face.

  “I don’t have to believe it as long as your daddies do,” she said. “They have a lot of money riding on Syd here never making it to the Rebooters.”

  “You’d kill him just for money?” Marie spat out the word “money” as if it were a curse, but Syd understood perfectly. The only people who couldn’t understand the brutal lengths others would go to for money were the people who’d never been without it.

  Syd could see it dawning on Marie that it was over, that hope was lost. She had that look people get when they know they’ve bet it all on a losing proposition. In the Valve, moments like that drove people to religion or to madness or to suicide. Syd wondered what it’d do to the rich girl as she realized that a fortune would always beat a dream.

  “Marie,” Syd told her. “Let it go. I’m not worth it.”

  “You are,” she said. “I know you are.”

  She put her body between the weapon and Syd. Her bravery mocked Knox’s cowardice. He was still on the ground in the dirt, like a worm. He hated himself for it, but he couldn’t make himself stand.

  “Out of the way,” the woman commanded, but Marie didn’t move, her stillness so different from Knox’s.

  “Just move her.” The bandit with the sword grabbed Marie by the hair, yanking her head to the side with a painful snap.

  What hadn’t occurred to him, to any of them, was that Marie, like Knox, like all Upper City executives’ children, had had self-defense training. And unlike Knox, she had paid very close attention. She had practiced.

  Her hands reached out in front of her and she grabbed the hot barrels of the woman’s weapon, jerking it down and to the side. Before Syd or Knox knew what was happening, Marie had pulled the weapon free and slammed the back of it into the bandit’s groin. Then she brought the weapon down on his head, spun the weapon around and pointed the side-by-side tubes into the woman’s face.

  The injured man was doubled over in pain on the ground, cursing Marie in a gurgled torrent of profanity.

  “No one move,” Marie said. She brushed her dark hair from her face and her eyes caught the firelight, flickered.

  “Don’t be stupid,” the woman told her. “You’re not a killer and this is not some fairy story. Maybe you’re a princess who can’t sleep at night, but like your pals said, there’s no frog prince here. You’re in over your head with the wrong kind of people. Put the gun down, let me do my job, and we’ll get you home. You can work all this out with your daddy. Maybe he’ll buy you a horsey of your own to apologize.”

  “No,” said Marie. “We’re leaving. The three of us. We’re going to the Rebooters. Knox! Tie those two guys up.”

  Knox didn’t move. He was lost in his head, his eyes fixed on Egan’s body. The shadow of the dancing flames, like when his mother’s coffin burned. He couldn’t recall her face. At the moment, that seemed somehow important. The gritty earth below his knuckles crunched, cut him. The pain, that too seemed somehow important. He heard his name as if it were shouted through water.

  “Knox? Are you hurt? Knox!”

  “What?” He snapped to. “I’m okay. What?” He brushed his hands on his pants, looked around the cave at the aftermath of the violence. He felt like he’d been watching a holo and only now was he realizing he was in it too.

  “Tie those two up,” Marie repeated.

  “Tie them with what?” he asked.

  “Take the reins off one of the horses outside.”

  Knox pushed himself off the ground and made his way out of the cave. As he passed, the guy on the ground reached for his own weapon. Syd dove for his EMD stick and fired off a shot that left the bandit sprawled out facedown, twitching.

  “Thanks,” Knox said, his voice flat, his face a total blank. He turned and walked outside to get the reins off one of the horses.

  Syd stepped forward, right over the fire, sparks wicking off his shoes. He stood beside Marie and held the gleaming silver rod pointed right at the bandit who had killed his friend.

  The woman’s eyes scanned him up and down. He wondered if she could read him the way he could read her. She wasn’t afraid.

  She could see quite clearly that he was.

  “I can stop your heart with this thing if I want,” he said, trying to sound confident. He turned up the output. “I have a lot of experience with these.”

  The woman didn’t answer. Syd felt like a coward. This woman had killed Egan. She’d killed two Guardians. No doubt she’d put Egan up to killing that woman in the zoo. She was a Maes gang thug. She deserved to die. She’d earned it. It took all the strength Syd had to keep his hand from shaking. He stared at her and she pursed her lips. All he could see on her face was impatience.

  Knox came back in clutching a mess of leather straps. He bent down to tie the bandits up but stopped before he got to them. He froze.

  “You don’t know how to tie a knot?” Marie groaned.

  “I never had to before,” he said

  Syd kept his eyes locked on the woman’s.

  “Well?” the woman asked. “You pulled it out, you know how to use it, big boy?”

  Syd exhaled. He steadied his hand. A small smirk formed on the woman’s lips.

  “Go help Knox,” Syd told Marie.

  “I—” Marie hesitated.

  “If you don’t help him, they’ll never get tied up and they’ll take us all hostage and kill me.”

  “Fine.” Marie stepped away to help Knox tie up the men. She handed Knox the gun as she bent down to tie the knots herself. “Keep this pointed at them.”

  “I’m gonna cut your pretty face off, you spit-shined slag,” the bandit who was still conscious snarled at her. Syd heard them grunt as she cinched the leather straps tight, probably cutting off blood flow to important parts of their bodies.

  “I like her,” the woman said to Syd. “Your girlfriend?”

  Syd didn’t answer her.

  “Oh, right,” said the woman. “You don’t go for that. Maybe you can be her girlfriend.”

  Syd raised the EMD stick to the level of the woman’s head.

  “Stop kidding yourself, boy.” She cleared her throat and spat to the side. “You aren’t the type. Why don’t you just run out of here so we can get on to the next part.”

  “What part’s that?”

  “The part where we hunt you down, torture you to death, and sell your friends back to their parents piece by piece.”

  Syd swallowed hard. His throat was dry.

  The woman leaned forward and smiled. She whispered in his ear. “Your friend Egan didn’t want to kill that woman at the zoo, you know? We told him it was the only way to save you. So he did it. He killed for you.” She raised her eyebrows. “And you? Little Chapter Eleven coward, can’t even take your revenge. I guess we know who was the man
in your relationship. Guess you’ll never bend over for Egan again.”

  She laughed in his ear and the moment he flinched, she grabbed for the EMD stick in his hand.

  Syd was faster.

  He hardly seemed to move, but the pulse he sent through the woman made her crumble where she stood. She fell straight down in a mass of firing synapses and blasted nerves. She clawed at the dirt and vomited and Syd stood over her until she stopped moving.

  He knew what he’d done. He’d stopped her heart. Dead.

  A life for a life.

  All debts have to be repaid.

  “We’re going,” Syd said and he walked out of the cave into the cool desert air.

  [38]

  SYD WAS SURPRISED BY how little remorse he felt for what he’d done to that woman, lying dead in the dust. He’d always thought killing would change a person, but he didn’t feel changed. He’d just flicked his wrist. It didn’t take much to make him a killer. Just a flick of the wrist.

  He heard a snuffling beside him, the loud breathing of the horses tied up by the entrance to the cave. They were just dark outlines against the starry sky. He approached one, whispering, urging it to hush.

  The horse backed a few steps away but Syd raised his hand and let the horse smell him, and then he rested his palm on the horse’s long nose. It was hard and the fur was short and bristly. The horse’s giant black eyes darted from side to side. Animals know when something is wrong.

  Syd rested his forehead against the horse’s snout, holding it still with a hand on either side.

  “Shh.” He stroked the horse’s snout. “Shhh. It’ll be okay. It’ll all be okay. You’re not alone.”

  When he closed his eyes, he saw that bandit’s face when the EMD pulse hit her. She didn’t even have time to be surprised. She crumpled into the dust, her last expression caught between a sneer and spasm. Her face was quickly replaced by Egan’s, sweat just above his upper lip, his hair tussled, his chest heaving, torn open. He’d looked up at Syd, but he had no clever last words. He didn’t go out in a blaze of glory. He just went out.

  Syd lifted his head from the horse’s. He felt its hot breath on his face.

  “They’re tied up.” Marie came outside. Knox followed her.

  Syd knew he owed her his life, but still, she made him uncomfortable. He found her faith in him unnerving. He didn’t want to be its object. Why’d she have to believe in him?

  “So . . . what do we do now?” asked Knox. His clothes were dusty, his face was bloody, and he’d just witnessed two murders. He wanted nothing more than to be told what to do. He wanted to obey. Knox had crossed some kind of line back there in the cave. He’d started the fight that left Egan dead, and though he knew the bandits would have probably killed the kid anyway, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d brought it about. From the moment he’d gone out for that joyride in the CX-30, he’d become responsible for all this death. One dumb decision, that’s all it took. It was his fault.

  “We take the horses and ride to Old Detroit,” said Marie, brushing a stray strand of hair from her face. “We have to get Syd to the Rebooters. Nothing’s changed.”

  “Nothing’s changed?” Knox said. “People are dead!”

  She looked away from him. “If we don’t get Syd to the Rebooters, they died for nothing.”

  Knox shook his head. He looked to Syd. “Should we, like, bury your friend?”

  “What for?” said Syd. “That’s not Egan in there. That’s just a body. Egan’s not in it anymore.”

  Knox wouldn’t argue the point. If Syd wasn’t the sentimental type, that was fine with him. Syd had his own reasons. Knox couldn’t bear to go back inside the cave either. He didn’t want to see what he’d done and what had been done because of him.

  “Do we even know where Old Detroit is?” Knox asked.

  Marie didn’t answer. Knox didn’t need to be skilled at reading body language to know she had no idea.

  “People say there’s an old road on the other side of the canyon,” Syd said. “They call it the Interstate. Say it runs right across the desert to Old Detroit. If we can get to it, we can follow it all the way.”

  Marie nodded, ready to go into the great unknown.

  Knox, however, looked hesitant, which seemed to Syd like a more sane reaction.

  “Do you know the way to this Interstate?” Knox asked. “I mean, are we going to hop onto these things—”

  “Horses,” said Marie.

  “Yes, I know that,” Knox grumbled at her. “Onto these horses and just ride out into the wastelands on some rumor of a road? I mean, you heard those thugs. What about flash floods? Earthquakes? Organ harvesters roaming the sand?”

  Syd shrugged. “You don’t have to come,” he said. “You did your part. You got me out of the city, just like you promised. You can go home to your house and your father now. You don’t owe me anything.”

  Knox shook his head and kicked at the dirt with his toe. “I’m not going back there.”

  “You don’t even know how to ride a horse,” said Marie.

  “I’m not going back to my father,” he said. It was that simple. On this point, there would be no negotiation.

  “I’m not here to help you work out your issues with your father,” Syd told him. “This isn’t some patron enrichment program. I’m running for my life and the only person I’ve ever trusted is dead.”

  “So trust us.” Marie stepped beside Knox. “We can help you.”

  “I thought you hated him,” said Syd.

  “I don’t have to like him to understand him,” said Marie. “We’re not so different.”

  “We aren’t?” Knox asked.

  “We both have a reason to help Syd,” she said, and then she changed the subject to cut off any chance of an argument. “There are four horses and we only need three.”

  “Two,” Knox corrected her.

  Syd nodded. “Fine, two . . . but we can’t just leave the other horses here.”

  “We could let them run,” Marie suggested. “Maybe they’ll find their own way.”

  It seemed like as good an idea as any. Syd untied two of the horses.

  They didn’t run. They just stood and stared with their big dumb horse eyes. They didn’t know a good thing when they got it.

  “Go on!” Syd said. “Run! Heyup!”

  The horses didn’t move.

  “Why won’t they run?” Syd asked. “They’re animals. They should run.”

  Knox and Marie shrugged.

  “Heyup!” Syd smacked one of the horse’s haunches. It looked down at him and snorted.

  “Go!” he ordered it. “You’ll die if you stay! Just go!” He smacked the horse again, harder. “Go! Go!” He held up the EMD stick.

  “Syd.” Marie grabbed his hand, stopped him from frying the horse’s nerves. “You can’t make them want to run. That’s not how it works.”

  Syd lowered the stick to his side again, clutching it tight. He bit the inside of his cheeks and looked the horse in the eye.

  It worked on me, he thought. I ran.

  “I’m riding alone,” he told the others and climbed onto the back of the horse he’d been trying to set free. “You take Knox on your horse.”

  “Okay,” Marie agreed, although she didn’t seem too excited about it.

  Knox turned to Marie and smirked, a little trace of the old smart-ass coming back. “I guess you get to drive this time.”

  [39]

  MARIE CLIMBED ONTO THE large piebald horse and Knox heaved himself up behind her. He wobbled unsteadily as the horse shifted and grunted its objections to the new weight. The other two horses whinnied, as if they were gloating. Their horse tossed its head from side to side and circled, nearly tipping Knox off.

  “Whoa!” he said, but the horse kept bucking. For a moment, he feared this would be Marie’s revenge for the car accident, but she leaned forward and whispered something in its ear. The horse calmed down.

  “What are you saying to it?” Knox as
ked.

  “I gave it a name,” said Marie.

  Knox was glad that Marie couldn’t see his face.

  He steadied himself, letting his hands fall to his sides. It felt weird, but he was so close to Marie’s back that if he lifted his hands he’d have to hold them all crumpled against himself. He couldn’t get comfortable. He stretched them forward and let them wrap around Marie’s waist as gently as he could. Why was that so much harder to do than when he rode with Syd?

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Marie said.

  “I just need somewhere to put my hands. It doesn’t mean anything. I rode the same way with Syd.”

  “I noticed,” Marie answered, and there was more humor in her voice than he’d heard before. Maybe she was warming up to him. Or maybe she was just tired of being angry. There’d been enough misery in the past few days to last a lifetime. Knox figured it was time they both started acting human to each other. He resisted the urge to make a sarcastic comment back.

  Once his hands settled, he had to admit that it felt much nicer holding the curve of her waist than it had Syd’s. He suddenly felt very aware of his hands. He focused on keeping them as still as possible so that she didn’t make him let go. The horse breathed beneath them.

  Syd turned his horse toward the cave and looked into the gaping mouth of stone. Behind him, the stars burned their billion pixels. A golden glow started up on the horizon. A new day was coming and with it the heat and the long ride.

  Syd spat onto the ground and then turned his horse at a quick trot in the direction of the sunrise.

  “Here we go,” said Marie and she nudged her horse forward after him.

  Knox felt the full weight of the previous two days hitting him. He’d stayed awake this long before, of course, but usually for a party and usually he had a little chemical help to make it happen. Now, he was running on nothing but willpower, adrenaline, and fear, like an animal.

  There were other animal feelings too. His skin burned with a desire to squeeze Marie tighter against his chest.