The Retreat (The After Trilogy Book 1) (10 page)

“We’ll have to work fast,” he said.

Romy approached behind him. “You can save him?”

He tilted his head to her. “We’ll try.”

“We?” she echoed. But Atlas didn’t comment further, instead putting his thumb and little finger to his mouth to let out a shrill whistle.

Five men entered the tent, all in funny green-patched clothes and helmets. All of them with Earth guns.

“What’s going on?” Thrym boomed.

Romy backed up.

Who were these men? There were too many of them to be the rest of Atlas’s knot. And he’d said his knot was dead . . . didn’t he? Were there
two
other knots here?

Something wasn’t right.

The group approached Deimos, ignoring Thrym’s angry question.

“Atlas, what’s happening? What are you going to do to Deimos?” she asked quietly.

“Stand aside. We need to act quickly,” he replied, signalling his men.

The air already had her overheated, but Romy felt her body temperature rise that little bit more. She turned around and flung her arms out, stopping the five men in their tracks.

She faced Atlas, anger coursing through her. Because she was sure when she was spilling out her life story to him on the walk to the beach, he never once mentioned five other men.

His face remained impassive as she glared up at him.

“I
said
, what are you going to do with Deimos?” she demanded.

Romy hated that her anger made him laugh. Not laugh outright, but he was doing that pursing lips thing again. Deimos shivered violently behind him and Atlas’s expression grew grave.

“He doesn’t have time for us to talk. You should all come. Only grab what you need—we have supplies at camp.”

Romy looked from the mysterious man’s sincere expression and met the gazes of her knot. Thrym nodded at her and she understood he was passing the decision to her.

She knew Atlas the best of any of them. But she hardly knew Atlas
before
this moment—Romy looked at the other men behind her—and now she knew him even less. She thought they’d forged some kind of bond, a camaraderie forced upon them by their situation: two people possibly alone on Earth. Apparently not.

He’d disappeared without any explanation back at the beach. The most horrible feeling was building inside because
nothing
was as it was supposed to be. On Earth, with Atlas, with Knot 27—nothing.

Did Romy trust the grey-eyed mysterious man with her knot? Deimos’s breathe gurgled, and her heart stopped until he resumed his stuttering efforts to survive.

Deimos would die if they stayed. But if they went with Atlas, Deimos might live. Put like that, it was the easiest choice she’d ever made.

Romy stepped aside and let the five men rush forwards.

Atlas met her eyes and she avoided his gaze, preferring to watch the ministrations of the men transferring Deimos onto a stretcher. The extra heat flushing her face had not dissipated in the slightest, and she knew it wouldn’t until she knew what the hell was going on.

No matter what he’d done since they’d met, she knew Atlas had been lying to her the whole time.

T
he men swept Deimos out on a stretcher.

Romy left everything behind and followed.

The others scrambled to collect food and water, not willing to leave it behind and place sole trust in the men who had barged into their midst.

She just wanted to make sure they wouldn’t disappear with her brother.

The rain fell in thick sheets. The five men carrying Deimos were a blur only a short distance ahead. Wet strands of hair clumped around her face. She held one arm over her eyes, jogging to catch up. The roar of the rain was unbelievable, almost frightening. Or maybe it was the situation. She caught fragments of conversation as the five men shouted to each other.

The men rounded a large tree and Romy slowed to a stop. She watched numbly as Deimos was carefully loaded into what could only be. . . .

. . . an automobile.             

Two of them.

A low voice spoke in her ear. “It’s a vehicle.”

Romy spun to face Atlas, heart beating fast. She looked back to the car. Her head was spinning as she attempted to comprehend all the impossibilities of the last few days. “But all automobiles were seized in 2047,” she whispered. In a desperate attempt to change the fate of the planet, the government bodies had systematically confiscated all vehicles. It was just before society erupted into anarchy. She rubbed her forehead. In that moment, she just wanted to go back to reading about Earth on her nano in her room on Orbito One.

It was too much.

Hands gripped her shoulders. Atlas dipped his head near hers. Romy avoided his gaze, closing her eyes to conceal her burning tears.

“I promise you,” he said, “I will explain what I can, soon. But right now, I need you to get in the car. You’re the only one who is keeping it together right now. I need you to lead your friends.”

This
was keeping it together?

“Deimos needs help. Now.” He brushed his thumbs along her upper arm in a soothing gesture. “Can you do that, soldier?”

Romy studied his face. The situation was quickly spiralling into something she couldn’t cope with. There was an overwhelming temptation to stick to what she knew––her knot—and deny that everything else was happening.

“I need you to do this,” he said.

She looked away and nodded, Deimos once again influencing her decision. Atlas hesitated before dropping his hands.

He shouted to the men, wiping the rain from his eyes, and made for the second car.

The rest of her knot crowded around Romy, each of them attempting and failing to find some small protection from the rain. Romy had once read the phrase “soaked to the bone”. She remembered laughing, thinking it a cute remnant of Earth.

Romy had never before been so completely drenched that it sucked the life from her.

Thrym hovered to her left. Elara had taken hold of her hand on the other side. Atlas was right. Romy was in no way calm, but her friends were falling apart. She stood tall, aiming for nonchalance, hoping her knot would take comfort from it.

One of the unknown men approached their group and herded them to the second car. The back panel sat open and Romy took the lead, pulling herself into the vehicle.

The interior was pristine. The seats were black. It was . . . confined. Hoping she hadn’t made the biggest mistake of her life, Romy moved into the farthest seat. She sighed at the reprieve from the beating rain. Not that sitting in her soaked clothing was comfortable, either.

“What is this?” breathed Elara.

Thrym and Phobos stared in awe as they took their seats in the back cabin. “An automobile,” Romy answered calmly.

The armed man snorted. “It’s the best carbon-neutral ranger there is, sweetheart.”

“It’s electric?” Romy asked, surprised.

The man burst out laughing. “Electric?” he scoffed. “I think my great-gran had one of those.”

Phobos hummed in disbelief as the man left, slamming the back door, causing the entire craft to shake almost as much her insides.

“That’s impossible.” He faced Romy, water dripping from his shoulder-length blond hair. “Isn’t it?”

The others waited, staring at her. Out of all of them, she knew the most about Earth. Carbon-neutral economies and technology had held her interest for several years. The carbon-neutral campaign had gained wide popularity in the 2020s. If the campaign had commenced a single decade earlier,
maybe
Earth could have survived. Romy slowly nodded. A carbon-neutral way of travelling was possible.

But if the vehicle wasn’t electric. . . .

What fooled the world into a false sense of security was the twenty-five-year delay between what they were doing, and the effect it had on Earth.

The humans saw all the pollution, but couldn’t see immediate consequences. It made ignoring the problem too easy. Unfortunately, when it became clear that the end of the world was approaching, all funding was pulled from carbon-neutral and pushed into nanotechnology and The Retreat.

The last available cars had been electric. If research had ground to a halt in 2040 like she was always led to believe, and Earth-dwelling humans had perished by 2060 . . . then how the hell, a century and a half later, was there
better
technology?

A sick feeling had churned inside her since Atlas barged into the shelter with the other men.

Romy wanted to scream. But she couldn’t because her knot was currently watching her. They only remained calm because they thought she knew what was happening.

Romy had to keep it together.

“It has to be powered from nuclear fusion.” She shrugged as if it were no big deal. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Thrym’s face twisted. “Was that around before The Retreat?”

“Yes.” She didn’t add the fact it had only been used in military transportations, such as submarines. Or that nuclear reactors small enough to power a car, while not killing the driver with radiation, had been at least another decade from perfection. Even then it would have had to go through rigorous testing before public use.

The churning in her stomach worsened but the others accepted her lie without batting an eyelid.

A thought—a terrible thought—had occurred to Romy. One so twisted it couldn’t possibly be true. So perverse she felt ashamed to think it, let alone give it voice.

Something was going on. Knot 27 was out of their depth. Romy pressed her lips together in determination. Atlas promised he’d explain. There had to be a clear, concise, logical justification for why there was human life, for why the knot was still alive, and why they were sitting
in a damn nuclear powered carbon-neutral vehicle
.

“Where did they take Dei?” Phobos asked, pushing his head against the window.

She slowly inhaled and hoped Elara didn’t hear the shake in her breath. “They drove him off already. I think they needed to get him to help straightaway.”

“They have medical?” Thrym asked, just as Elara asked, “Will he be okay?”

Romy wrapped an arm around the slightly smaller woman. “I don’t know.” She had no idea what they were walking into. However, if they’d stayed on the beach, Deimos’s death would have been assured. “But this is Dei’s best chance.”

“It
is
my fault,” Elara whispered, so quietly Romy hardly caught the words.

Romy didn’t think she was meant to hear it, so she laid a gentle kiss on her sister’s head and held her tightly as the vehicle lurched forwards.

* * *

R
omy’s head lolled to the side, startling her from sleep. She was in a small, dark box.

Heart racing, her eyes fell on the sleeping forms of Elara, Phobos, and Thrym, and she recalled where they were: a vehicle.

Romy tried to focus her blurred recollection of the last . . . few hours?

The vehicle had maintained a slow lurch through heavy sludge for most of the day as far as they’d been able to guess. They drove for so long, the rain finally stopped.

But they were no longer moving. So where were they? The twisted thought from earlier came back in force. It was clear that the situation on Earth was nothing like they’d been told. She could only think of so many excuses before she had to look the truth in the eye. During the drive she’d given it serious consideration. Now the questions were who, and why. Who was covering up the fact that there was still human life on Earth? Had these people survived through generations of global warming? Or were the Orbitos reintroducing the soldiers in secret?

Romy looked through the window beside her, trying to see out. They were parked in some kind of shelter. She had to crane her neck to see the ceiling. It appeared much sturdier than their beach shelter. The metal sides were smooth and bolted together.

But it looked nothing like the Earth houses she’d seen on her nano. A shiver worked its way through her. Her instincts screamed that she should remain alert. Who could say whether the Earth humans were really here to help, or not? If this was all a cover-up, Knot 27 could have followed Atlas and his men into a trap.

She untangled herself from Elara and leaned across to the window beside Thrym and Phobos, confirming their car was the only object in the high-roofed building.

A prickling tickled the back of her neck.

Where was Deimos?

Not wishing to cause undue alarm, Romy quietly squeezed through the jumbled legs of her friends and tried the handle.

She breathed a sigh of relief when the door swung open. If the Earth-dwellers—or crash survivors—meant them harm, surely the vehicle would be locked. She eased the door open, just enough to slip out, before resting the door so it appeared closed to the casual observer. Her chest rose and fell in even beats.

A panel on the side of the building was illuminated with daylight.

Romy approached with soft steps, one ear listening behind her for any signs of the knot waking. She felt across the panel.

Where was the handle?

Romy swallowed back her misgivings, recalling the nuclear fusion automobile. Maybe this held more advanced technology.

“Open panel,” she stated clearly.

When this didn’t work she tried “Open door”, “Requesting exit”, and “Let me the hell out”, to no success.

Crouching down, Romy felt her way along the panel on her hands and knees. She was grimy, tired, and hungry, and wasn’t used to being in charge. Space soldiers were made to follow, not to lead and ask questions. At this point a memory wipe sounded like a good time. Falling asleep to wake with no memory of any of this would be a blessing. The image of the sun rising over the ocean stirred before her eyes and she blinked it away.
Well, maybe not.
She gazed down at the door and discovered a slim metal handle along the smooth surface.

Moving into a squat, she gripped the handle with both hands and heaved up with all her strength. The door whipped around in a coil at the top with a
bang!
Romy winced at the crashing sound, even as she raised a hand to protect her eyes against the glaring light.

It turned out that door wasn’t locked either. . . .

Eyes watering, Romy stepped out of the empty building and into the light. The sun was barely in the sky, signalling early morning.

When her vision cleared, she gaped at the sight before her.

There was a clearing in the bush, and it was full of low wooden buildings. The . . . camp, she realised, was longer than it was wide. She could see that only five or six of the low buildings were dotted across, while she could not see the end of the shelters to her left or right.

The dirt under her feet was a ruddy red-brown, and the few parked vehicles were that same khaki colour that the men who took Deimos had worn. Her orange suit stood out against the neutral landscape.

The odd village seemed to merge with the bush. If she had walked fifty metres either side of it, Romy couldn’t be sure she would have spotted it.

A shiver ran up her spine as she scouted the area for life.

Romy took a few steps forwards and scanned once again. There would be a guard of some description watching them if Atlas meant to harm the knot, though no one had come running when she’d flung open the panel.

Nothing disturbed the still morning.

A few hundred metres to her right was a cluster of buildings. They were the tallest Romy could see in the camp.

She took off at a fast clip towards them. Was this an old township? It didn’t
look
hundreds of years old. And she knew that wooden buildings were rare in the twenty-first century. Romy glanced back and saw a clear trail of her footsteps extending from the building she’d left.

“The doors were unlocked,” she reminded herself before abandoning any attempt to sneak her way through the village.

The red dirt clung to her ventilation suit as her steps disturbed the smooth surface, adding to her general grime.

As she walked through the camp, the houses remained quiet. Empty, for all she knew. But the window coverings were lowered against the rays of the morning sun.