City 1 (12 page)

She pushed past Nick and out the door. Nick watched her walk away, still feeling as if he should have said something, or done something, more.

They ditched the scoot near the center of Hightown. Two rebels stood on the street corner, their backs to the center of town, guns at the ready. Nick was careful to make his and Lexi's presence known right away with a whistle. The guards swung their guns toward him. “We're with Clay!” he called out. “Ro's team.”

The guards nodded, and waved him past with the muzzles of their guns, then returned to their scan of the street.
Security
perimeter
, Nick realized, looking down a street to his left, seeing another pair of rebel guards at the far intersection.

In the center of Hightown, Nick found that a hundred rebels had gathered, along with an equal number of survivors. The City survivors looked haggard and nervous. Most were empty-handed, but some carried a few random supplies—packages of dehydrated food, extra clothes. One woman, her face pale, her eyes wide and unblinking, held a shivering black poodle.

Nick pushed through the crowd, looking for his parents, and Lexi's parents, and Kevin, and Cass, and Farryn. He recognized nobody. He kept shoving through the people, standing on tiptoes, trying to cover the entire crowd. Nick grew more desperate as he worked his way through the group, and his eyes began to sting, threatening tears again, but he held back the panic and the tears. He was not going to be weak in front of all these people.

He circled through the entire crowd, searching, and came back to his starting point. Nobody he knew. Should he go back out into the City to search? Where would he even begin? He didn't know what to do.

He began to edge to the perimeter of the crowd—maybe he'd just pick a direction, and start looking—and then he saw Clay enter from a side street and climb onto a pile of rubble. She raised her arms, and the crowd, with prompting from the rebels, quieted. General Clay raised her long arms above her head and gave a victory yell.

“This has been a glorious first strike,” she shouted out to the crowd, “but it is only the beginning. For those of you who have elected to join us, I applaud you for taking back your humanity.” Clay paused, looking left and right, surveying the crowd. “We will be back, to gather more supplies. But for now, we need to return to the forest.”

Nick thought she was done, but then she added, “And for those True Believers who refuse to accept their freedom, their humanity, who refuse to fight with us . . . they'll rust in hell along with the damned bots.”

WHEN FARRYN AND CASS AND HER FAMILY MADE IT OUT ONTO THE
street, City 73 was strangely quiet. The fires still burned, but there was no lase fire, no explosions. Her parents and Penny just stood there, shrinking against the doorway, staring in stunned disbelief at the ruins of Hightown.

“It's going to be okay,” said Cass's mother, pulling Penny close to her. “The robots will fix everything.”

And that's when Cass realized she couldn't bring her family to Clay's camp. They were True Believers to the core. Her parents were thoroughly brainwashed, and her sister had never known anything other than the City. Clay would . . . Cass hesitated, hating to even think it, but she knew it was true. . . . Clay would have them killed.

So what to do? Where to take them?
Rust
, she thought,
I didn't plan this out very well.
“Come on,” she said. “We've got to get out of the City.”
I'll find a Freepost
, she decided.
Get them settled and safe.

She realized this meant abandoning her brothers, but she had no choice. Her birth family wouldn't survive in the woods without her. She'd get back to her brothers when she could.

“We'll swing past your house on the way out,” Cass said to Farryn. “See if your father is there.”

Farryn nodded. He still looked pale, and his eyes were sunken. They began walking, and Cass noticed that his limp was more pronounced. This had been too much for him, she knew. She felt terribly guilty, but she was also immensely grateful. . . . She was parting with her brothers, for now, but at least she had Farryn with her.

Cass decided to risk scoots, since the fighting seemed to be over. They found three—Cass and Farryn on one, her parents on another, Penny on a third—and headed away from Hightown, toward Farryn's house.

It was slow going, having to pick their way through the rubble-strewn, chewed-up streets, but it was faster than walking, and Cass knew that Farryn needed the break. And as they moved farther from the center of the City, where the fighting had been less intense, they made better time.

They were only a few blocks from Farryn's house when Penny hit a pothole and tumbled off her bike. She landed on
her left side and tucked into a roll, slamming her back hard against the curb.

Cass skidded to a halt, vaulted off her scoot, and ran to Penny, who was groaning, and pushing herself up onto her hands and knees.

“Penny!” Cass said, bending down and grabbing Penny's shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. . . .” Penny said. She had a cut on her cheek, and Penny touched it, then looked at the blood on her fingertips. “Oh my god,” she said, panic in her voice. “I'm bleeding. . . .”

“You're okay,” Cass said, cupping Penny's chin, turning her face to look at the cut. It was a long scratch along her jawline, but it didn't seem deep.
Facial cuts bleed profusely
, Sarah had taught Cass.
They often look worse than they really are.

Her parents and Farryn were at her side. Her mother crushed Penny in a tight hug. “Penny! Are you okay? Your face . . .”

“Can you stand?” Cass said. “Does anything else hurt?”

Their mother helped Penny to her feet.

“My arm,” Penny said, holding up her left forearm. It was badly scraped, with a gash near the elbow that was dripping blood. “Oh, no . . .”

“We need to get her to a rejuve tank!” said their mother.

Cass felt a flash of anger. There was no time for stupidity. “Let me see,” she said, taking Penny's wrist. The cut
thankfully had missed any major arteries and veins. It was jagged and dirty, but not too deep.

“It's okay,” Cass said. She looked around, still holding Penny's wrist. “I need water and a bandage.”

Farryn handed Cass a canteen, then tore off a strip from the bottom of his shirt. “I've always wanted to do that,” he said, grinning.

Cass took the strip, shaking her head at Farryn, amused but not wanting to show it. She squirted water over the wound. Penny winced and reflexively tried to pull her arm away, but Cass held her tight. She took another look at the cut—the dirt was off, at least—and then she tied the strip of Farryn's shirt tight over Penny's forearm. “We'll clean that out better as soon as we have the chance. This'll stop the bleeding.”

They reached Farryn's house without further incident, Penny switching with Farryn to ride behind Cass. The buildings on the block were all intact, except for a few broken windows. A scout bot lay in the middle of the road, scorched and crushed, a wisp of smoke still rising from it. Across the street a man and woman sat on their sidewalk. The man had his head in his hands, and the woman had her knees drawn up to her chest. Neither one said a word, or even looked at them when they pulled up on their scoots.

“Wait here,” Cass said to her family, leaving them on Farryn's driveway. Penny stared into the street, at the broken
bot, and hugged her mother's side. Her father ran his hands through his thin hair, and looked off in the distance toward Hightown, as if trying to decide whether he should go back.

The door vid plate wasn't working, so Farryn knocked hard on the door, then began kicking it. “Dad!” he yelled. There was no answer. He tried the door, and it swung open.

“Should have tried that first,” he said, smiling. But Cass could tell he was nervous; his grin looked forced, like he was trying not to be sick. They entered the house, which was lit in the same murky emergency light as the Hightown apartment. “Dad!” Farryn called, but still got no answer.

They walked into the living room, kicking aside clothing, and dishes, and food packages strewn about the floor, and in the gloom they saw Farryn's father lying on the couch. He had one leg on the floor. One hand was on his belly, and the other was flung over his head. A large bottle, half-full of a brown liquid, lay on the ground next to him.

“Who's that?” he said, slurring his words.

“Dad, it's me. Farryn. We've gotta go.”

“Farryn!” His father made a weak effort to sit up, then fell back on the couch. “You're gone. You went away.”

“I'm back now,” Farryn said. “I came back to get you. We have to go. We have to get out of the City.”

His father didn't say anything, and Cass wondered if he had fallen asleep, or passed out, but then finally he said quietly, “No.”

“Dad—” began Farryn.

“No!” his father yelled, and he pushed himself awkwardly upright, leaning against the back of the couch. “I'm not going anywhere!”

“We have to go now!” Farryn said. Cass watched him. His hands were clenched into fists, and he was rigid with tension, but she wasn't sure if he was keeping himself from punching his father, or from bursting into tears.

“I'm already dead, son,” he said. He lay back down and closed his eyes. “You wanna drag around a corpse?”

“Cass,” Farryn said quietly, without looking at her. “Check the bathroom drawers. There should be some antibiotic cream and bandages for Penny.”

Cass hesitated, looking at Farryn, his shoulders slumped, standing over his father. She opened her mouth, then shut it. What could she say? She hurried to the bathroom and rifled through the drawers, finding the antibiotic and bandages, and also grabbing a pair of scissors that might be useful. She returned to the living room, where Farryn still stood over his motionless father.

“Dad,” he said. “Please.”

His father shook his head, eyes still closed, and said nothing.

Farryn stared down at his father. “Dad?” he said quietly.

“No,” his father said.

Farryn unclenched his hands and turned away. “Let's go,” he said to Cass.

“Farryn,” said Cass, not sure what to say next, but he cut her off anyway.

“Leave him,” Farryn said. “You heard him. We need to go.”

Farryn had a streak of tears running down his cheeks as they left his father on the couch. Cass pretended not to notice.

NICK AND LEXI HIKED NORTH WITH THE REBELS AND A HUNDRED CITY
survivors, to the spot where they had gathered before the battle. Back at camp, Nick and Lexi circled around the survivors, who had been organized into two lines. No Cass. No Kevin.

“I should have stopped them,” Nick said.

“They can take care of themselves, Nick,” said Lexi. “It's not your fault.”

“Yes, it is,” Nick said.

He cut through the survivor lines, planning to do one more circuit of the camp—maybe he had missed them somehow—and then he stopped dead in his tracks in surprise. Sitting on a rock, next to the medic, holding something up to a survivor's neck, was Doc.

“Doc!” he said. Doc turned, looking around wildly, then
saw Nick and Lexi and stood. Surprisingly quick, he crossed the distance between them and crushed Nick and then Lexi in a strong, hairy-armed bear hug.

“You're alive!” Doc said. “Well done!”

Nick nodded. He was glad to see Doc, but his worry about his siblings was heavy on his mind. “Cass and Kevin . . . have you seen them?”

Doc frowned, and shook his head, “No, sorry,” he said. “But tell me—”

He was cut off by Grennel, appearing from behind Nick, stepping between them and putting a hand on Doc's shoulder. Nick was startled; he hadn't heard the big man coming.

“The chip defusing is your only concern right now, doctor,” Grennel said.

“It's just Doc,” said Doc.

“Doc,” Grennel repeated. “As I've told you, if we get word of any bot reinforcements, then we'll be leaving behind anyone who hasn't had their chip destroyed. Get busy.”

“And I've told
you
, we're going to end up crippling someone, the way we're doing this.” He pointed at Sarah, who was holding some sort of small device that looked like a wrench with a pyramid-shaped tip up to a survivor's neck. “It's barbaric. Some of these chips are too close to the spine. We can only control the radiation so much—”

“There's no time for any other way,” Grennel said. “Do it, or we leave them behind.”

Nick watched Sarah. She pressed a trigger on the device, and there was a pop, and the survivor, a middle-aged man, staggered forward a step and cried out. The back of his neck was blistered and red. Sarah quickly pressed an auto-injector into the burn, and the man's shoulders slumped with relief. She turned him around, and looked him in the eyes. The man nodded, then stepped away, and the next person in line stepped forward.

Doc glared at Grennel, then spun his substantial girth and went back to the rock.

Grennel turned to Nick. “Before you ask, yes, your brother is missing. And your sister and Farryn were supposed to stay in the camp, and they've disappeared. And we've just heard back from Rabbit and Moss—Erica escaped.” Grennel folded his massive forearms over his chest. “Pretty soon nobody's going to be left. Do you know where any of them are?”

Nick shook his head. Cass and Kevin, gone. And Erica, escaped? What had happened with her?

Grennel lowered his voice. “The General is not happy. I'd avoid her right now, if I were you.” He walked away.

Nick sat down, right there in the middle of all the chaos, and closed his eyes.
Kevin!
he said loudly, inside his head.
Where are you? Cass! Mom! Dad!
He strained for a response, for some sort of telepathic sense that they were okay, but of course he felt nothing. They were scattered, who knew where, yet again.