“Travel safely,” the Preacher said to him, and extended his hand.
Logan gripped it firmly. “I will remember you every time I think of that song.”
“Then remember, too, that there are still some of us who believe in what you are doing. We will pray for you.”
Logan went out the door into the night and did not look back.
BY SUNRISE OF the following day he was driving into the foothills below the Rockies, winding his way slowly upward toward the barren peaks. There had been snow on these mountains once, long ago before the weather changed. Even in summer, the permafrost had endured and traces of winter had remained. Winter had capped the peaks in a soft white covering that could be seen for fifty miles. He had been told that it was a beautiful sight.
He had come to the Preacher almost broken by what he had done inside the compound two nights previous, consumed by self-loathing and a growing fear of what he was becoming. It wasn’t that he hadn’t done any of it before; it wasn’t even that it was more horrific this time than any other. His mood was the cumulative result of so many compounds and so many encounters with children transformed into monsters. It was the repetition of the killing, however necessary, however well intentioned. It was the crushing weight of the numbers.
He had been doing these…he searched for the right word, the least contemptible word…these mercy killings for almost fifteen years. How many children had he killed in that time? Children! He made himself say the word. How many children had he killed?
Of course, they weren’t really children. They weren’t even human by the time he reached them inside the compound walls, not after the demons had altered them. But they had been, and something of that still reflected in their eyes and on their faces, even as he snuffed out their lives. Oh, yes, he had no choice. He had to put an end to them because he understood what was happening.
Demons were breeding demons from human children.
Tears came to his eyes, and he couldn’t stop them. It’s all right, he told himself. You can cry for them. No one else will.
But he was crying now for himself, as well. He was crying for what he had turned himself into. He understood better than anyone what too much of something could do to you. He had witnessed it firsthand not that many years ago. He had not believed it possible before then. He thought that once you understood the difference between right and wrong, it was ingrained in you. He thought your moral values were developed early and stayed with you.
As with so many things, Michael had taught him otherwise. It was a lesson he would never forget.
He drove on through the morning, the sun an indistinct splash of brightness above the thick screen of clouds, its light diffused into a dull wash as it filtered down through the mist that shrouded the lower levels of the peaks. The temperature was changing slightly, but the air was still warm and oddly dry, even in the haze. If there was such a thing as dry damp, this was it. He remembered an expression he had once heard—sunny showers—which was used to describe bright sun shining down through a rain. He wondered what that would be like.
It was barren and empty in the mountains, more so than on the plains, which was disconcerting. To keep himself from dwelling on it, he sang “Amazing Grace” a few times, repeating the phrases he liked the best, letting the melody take him away. He was feeling better today, after his night with the Preacher and his flock of old people, and he wanted to keep that feeling wrapped about him for as long as he could. The horror of the compound had begun to dissipate, as such horrors always did, even when he feared they wouldn’t. The human spirit was remarkably resilient. Were it not, he supposed he would have gone mad a long time ago.
The road tunneled between the cliffs, and he went with it, steering the AV through clusters of boulders and over small slides. If he had been driving anything else, he might not have been able to go on, but the Lightning’s huge tires and high-set chassis allowed passage over almost anything. The mountains loomed all about him now, huge monoliths that jutted skyward until they disappeared in clouds and mist. Everything was taking on a hazy look, giving the world about him an indistinct quality that suggested it was fading away. He wondered how much farther he would have to climb in order to reach the crest of the pass.
He got his answer almost as soon as he finished asking the question. The road rounded a curve and simply disappeared. Tons of rock had collapsed in a slide that had brought down an entire cliff face. He drove right up to it, stopped, and got out. The slide was fifty feet high if it was an inch. It angled down across the road from what remained of the cliff and tumbled over a drop. There was no way around or over unless he proceeded on foot. The slide had formed a wall he could not get past.
He would have to find another way.
There is no other way!
The familiar voice screamed at him in the silence of his mind, the words cutting at him like a razor and triggering a memory he knew he would never escape. He felt the world drop away beneath his feet as the memory surfaced in a swarm of harsh, angry images.
And suddenly, he was reliving the final moments of his last night with Michael Poole.
H E CROUCHES WITH the others in the concealing shadows of a skeletal forest and peers through the hazy darkness of the moonless night at the Midline Slave Camp. The Midline sits squarely on the border of what used to be the states of Indiana and Illinois, just below Lake Michigan. A hundred yards of open ground surrounds the camp, land cleared by the once-men as a precaution against what is about to happen. Watch fires burn in pits along the barbed-wire fences surrounding the camp, and torches flicker at its heavy gates. It is a slave camp like all other slave camps, and yet it is something more. It is the one slave camp that Michael Poole has steadfastly avoided attacking, the one camp he has said it would take an army to break into.
Nevertheless, here they are, preparing to do what he has sworn they would not.
There is no reason for them to do this. There are other, easier compounds against which they could mount an assault. The Midline is formidable. Three buildings that were once steel mills form the compound—huge, cavernous structures built of corrugated metal sheets and surrounded by double rows of mesh steel fencing strung with concertina wire. Ditches deep enough to swallow Michael’s Lightning S-150 pockmark the open ground outside the fences in all directions. The buildings are tightly sealed, their doors and windows barred and shuttered. The slaves of the once-men who come here are taken inside and do not come out again until they are carried out. The work that is done here is infamous. It is widely regarded as the most impenetrable of the slave camps.
Michael says it doesn’t matter, that it is an abomination and must be destroyed. Michael says they have put off doing so long enough.
Logan looks at the camp, assessing its defenses and its sheer size, and shakes his head slowly. This is suicide, he thinks.
But Michael has decided, and once he has done so, that is the end of the matter. Even Grayling, who isn’t afraid of anything, won’t cross Michael Poole. Michael is a legend. He is a living talisman; nothing can kill him. He has survived against impossible odds. He has led his men on successful attacks again and again. He has never failed.
No one thinks he will fail tonight, either.
Still, Michael is not the same man since Fresh died. It took something out of him when he lost Fresh, and while most had not noticed, Logan could tell. It was an accident, a truck’s hand brake giving out, and the truck rolling slowly downhill, gathering speed, and finally crushing Fresh against a wall. There was blood everywhere. Fresh had taken two days to die. There was nothing anyone could do; the injuries were too extensive. Michael had kept vigil the entire time, even when Fresh lapsed into a coma and no longer knew who he was.
Michael told the driver of the truck afterward that it wasn’t his fault. Accidents happen. He told the driver he bore him no grudge and thought no less of him. Logan was there and heard what he said and how he said it. Another wouldn’t have recognized the rage Michael was hidi
ng. But no one knows Michael better than he does. Michael is so tightly controlled that he never lets anything show that might reveal or compromise him. Still, he gives himself away through small gestures and an emphasis on certain words. He saw the telltale signs during Michael’s conversation with the driver and knew instinctively what it meant. The driver was a dead man. Logan almost told him as much, and then decided it was too dangerous.
A week later, the driver disappeared while foraging and was never seen again.
Fresh might have tried to do something about it. But Logan is not Fresh. He is not Michael’s equal. He is Michael’s adopted child. Even though he has just turned eighteen years old and is technically a man, that is the position to which Michael has relegated him. It is odd to feel so close to someone and at the same time so distant. They share so much that no one else shares, and yet there are boundaries that Logan knows he cannot cross.
Questioning the wisdom of tonight’s assault is one. He knows he should say something because on the face of things the attack is foolish and because it is clear to him that Michael has changed. He thinks the change began before the death of Fresh, but it has evolved into something dangerous since. Michael has grown reckless in his efforts to destroy the once-men and their camps. He seems increasingly heedless of the dangers into which he leads them. His leadership decisions are uncomfortably spontaneous and made with less and less consideration for the consequences. So far, he has gotten away with it. So far, his aura of invincibility and his luck have carried him over the rough spots. But Logan knows that sooner or later even these will fail. If that happens before Michael recovers himself, the consequences will be disastrous. But what is he to do? No one will listen to a boy barely turned a man. No one wants to believe that Michael is no longer invincible.
Nor will he be the one to run from what the rest of them go willingly to face. Michael saved his life. Michael gave him everything he has. He will never abandon Michael, even if it means his death.
He tries to push such thoughts out of his mind as he stares at the compound and waits for Michael to give the order to attack. But the thoughts will not be banished; the thoughts persist.
“Logan,” Michael says to him suddenly, turning around so that he can see the other’s face. Michael’s expression is chilling, alive with a terrifying wildness. “I want you to lead the assault on the right wing, on the first building. If you can’t handle it, tell me now.”
Logan would never tell him that, and Michael knows it. He nods without speaking.
“Just remember what you’ve been taught. Wilson, you take the left. Grayling, you stay with me. The center building will be the most heavily guarded. The experiments are carried out there.”
On the children, Logan thinks. On the old and sick and helpless. There are demons in residence here, two of them at least. But Michael’s information tells them that the demons are absent this night, gone on a hunt that will keep them away until the end of the week. Michael’s information has never been wrong. Logan hopes it is right tonight. Once, he would not have thought to question it. But Michael is not the same, and Logan can no longer be certain that anything he does is well considered.
He feels an unexpected sense of despair. How did this happen? When did Michael lose his way? He understands how it could happen, given the terrible work they do. Live long enough in a madhouse, and you risk going mad yourself. But he had always believed Michael could rise above it. Michael is the ultimate warrior, hardened to everything, strong enough to withstand the horrors they encountered no matter how often or how terrible. Even losing Fresh shouldn’t have been enough to change him.
Yet something did. Somewhere along the way he failed to recognize that he was slipping away, that an erosion of his soul was taking place.
Logan looks down at the Scattershot he has carried since Michael gave it to him on his first raid. If it can happen to Michael, it can happen to him. Will he recognize it if it does? Will he know enough to do something about it?
He realizes suddenly that Michael is talking to him, and his gaze shifts quickly. “Boy, are you with us or should I find someone to take your place?” Michael snaps. “You look like you’ve got your head in the clouds. Pay attention when I am talking to you!”
“I’m listening,” he says quickly.
Michael sneers. “Then there is no need for me to repeat myself, is there? You know what to do. So be sure and do it. Don’t run from it if things get tough. I hate cowards, Logan.”
He turns away dismissively, and Logan says nothing. A year ago, Michael would never have spoken to him like this. I should have seen it coming, he thinks. I should have done something to stop it. His eyes close, and he vows that as soon as the opportunity presents itself, he will.
“All right, let’s go,” Michael says suddenly, and they are off.
They spread out through the trees toward the waiting vehicles, trucks modified with snowplow rams and thick protective shields to get them safely through the gates. The trucks are modified four-tons, big and heavy, and not even gates as strong as those of Midline Slave Camp will stop them once they gain sufficient momentum. Heavy automatic weapons are mounted on the cabs and in the truck beds, each capable of firing hundreds of rounds in seconds. They are better prepared than they have ever been, and Logan feels a rush of excitement at the prospect of what it will mean to destroy this camp.
He climbs into the cab through the passenger’s door and sits next to Jena. She is tight-faced and focused, ten years older than he, more experienced and better trained. By rights, she should be the one leading and he the one driving. But she doesn’t say anything. She just looks straight ahead, waiting for the signal.
When it comes, a flare from the middle truck, she engages the clutch and the truck lurches forward through the trees and onto the flats. She whips the heavy vehicle left and right, dodging the pits and the traps, closing quickly on the fence. Weapons fire sounds from the walls ahead, and bullets ricochet off the shields. He peers through the spiderwebbed windshield to find dozens of once-men lining the fences, all of them with weapons, all of them firing.
All we need is a little luck, he thinks.
Then everything goes wrong at once. To his left, past Jena’s tense face and the hurtling bulk of Michael’s vehicle, the truck driven by Wilson misjudges and runs into one of the ditches. Its front wheels catch, its momentum flips it end-over-end, and it explodes. Shards of twisted metal and shattered glass rain down everywhere. Bodies tumble from the truck onto the ground, but only a few. The rest remain trapped inside.
There is no time for him to think about it because they have reached the fence and are tearing through the heavy wire. The once-men scatter, but only far enough to turn and try to shoot at them through the cab windows. The men hunkered down in the truck bed shoot back, and bodies fall all across the compound yard.
“Logan!” Jena yells in warning.
An explosion rocks their truck, sending Logan sliding into her with such force that she cries out. The gates of the south building loom directly in front of them, and they struggle frantically to untangle as they careen toward a collision. Locked together, they steer the truck into the gap between the heavy doors, and as the ram strikes them the doors explode inward with a shriek of metal tearing free. The truck lurches to a stop, and the attackers tumble out, firing into the defenders that come at them.
Too many and too organized, Logan realizes suddenly. They have been waiting for us. It is a trap.
He fights with a ferocity he does not know he possesses, lost in a haze of smoke and ash, in the staccato rip of automatic weapons fire, and the harsh scream of his own desperation. He shoots at everything that moves and at the same time keeps moving himself. He does not know how long the fighting continues, but it seems endless. Twice he is wounded, but neither injury stops him. At one point a rush of once-men overwhelms him, and he loses his grip on the Scattershot as he fights to break free. Someone—he never discovers who—comes to his aid and tears them away. E
ven so, he is left dazed and battered and weaponless. He scrambles about on his hands and knees, searching for the Scattershot, for any weapon at all. He thinks that this is the end. He thinks that this is the day he will die.
Then suddenly everything quiets. The shooting is all distant now, off in the other buildings and outside. Low moans and cries for help reach out to him from close at hand, but the smoke trapped inside the building is so thick he cannot find anyone. His ears ring from the weapons fire and bomb concussions, and he feels disoriented and weak. He stumbles about, still searching for the Scattershot, needing to feel a weapon in his hands. He finds it finally, lying not five feet away. When he picks it up, the barrel is so hot that the heat radiates down through the wood grips of the stock.
He gropes his way through the smoke. Where is everyone?
Then he trips over Jena, lying faceup on the floor, her eyes open and staring. He finds most of the others close by, all dead. There is no one left, he thinks. He has lost them all.
The moans and cries continue, and he makes his way blindly toward the sounds. He comes up against a cage, and inside the cage are dozens of imprisoned humans, a part of Midline’s slave population. Faces press up against the steel mesh, eyes and mouths beseeching, begging. He pulls away from the hands and fingers that seek to hold him and gropes his way along the mesh in search of the cage door. The smoke is beginning to thin now, and outside the shooting has quieted to a few distant discharges punctuated by shouts and cries. The battle is ending. He must hurry.
He finds the door secured with a heavy chain. He looks around for something he can use to break the lock. He locates a metal bar that will snap the chain—and suddenly Michael appears through the smoke.
“What’s happened?” he demands. “Where are the others?”
He is bloodied from head to foot, a walking nightmare, a corpse come out of the grave. It is impossible for Logan to tell if the blood is Michael’s or not. One arm hangs limp, the sleeve of his heavy jacket shredded. He carries his Ronin Flechette cradled in the other, smoke curling out of its short, wicked black barrel.