Rootless - Howard Chris. Страница 10

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“But if people have been there,” Zee said. “If they’ve found it, then we can get there, too.”

“Or Frost can,” I said, thinking about that room of his, full of maps and books. “Man must have a plan.”

“Crow’s got him convinced Zion’s out there.” She pointed behind us. “Across the water. But they’re waiting on something before they set off.”

“What they waiting on?”

“Beats me. It’s only because Frost thinks I’m stupid I know anything at all.”

“And what do they aim to do if they get there?”

“You kidding? People will pay a whole lot for a little slice of Zion.”

“Is that what you want? Find the Promised Land so you can sell it off?”

“I just want to breathe clean air.” She jabbed a thumb at her wheezy chest. “Find a place to be free.”

“With that bastard Frost?”

“Not if I find a way to get rid of him.”

“Maybe you should just keep running.”

“With nowhere to go and nothing to eat?”

“Then maybe you’re as free as you’re ever gonna get.”

“What?” Zee sneered. “You think you’re free? Roaming around in your rusty wagon and scraping for something to eat. You’re not free. No one is. Not as long as GenTech’s the only ones who can grow anything.”

“There could be fruit trees,” I said. “They could be fruit trees in that picture.”

“And who knows what else might be growing?”

“Well, wherever there is, you’d have to stay put. Locusts keep to the cornfields, but they might make an exception, you give them a new place to nest.”

“Find Zion and I’d never leave. Never.”

“Not if they chain you to the damn trees.” I thought about Pop. And then I stared across at Zee. “I need you to tell me about the coordinates.”

She smiled, but not at me. It was like she’d gotten something she wanted, and she sank back into her seat. “I’m not telling you anything else, tree builder. But if you want my help, then you can do what I say.”

“What the hell’s that mean?”

“It means we’re a team. We work together as long as it makes sense. One of us needs to do our own thing, the team’s over. Right then.”

“Sure,” I said. “Works fine for me.”

“Then step on it. Crow will be in shantytown this morning.”

I slammed on the brakes, though the shacks were still a good ways in the distance. “Crow?”

“Yeah. Today’s when he drops my mother off with the Tripnotyst.” She stifled a cough. “Her weekly appointment.”

“You want to talk to Crow?”

“No.” Zee shook her head. “I want to get my mother back.”

“We can come back for her later,” I said, thinking about my dad and the old Rasta’s warning. “Race this crowded, we need all the head start we can get.”

“We’re not leaving her behind, tree builder. Frost’s got her shattered and strung out on crystal, but she’s still my mother.” Zee glared at me. “And we’re gonna need her if we’re gonna find us those trees.”

The tattoo. That’s what Zee said we needed. But that’s about all she would say about it.

I left the wagon stashed at the scrap farm and the guy there told me he’d keep his eye on it. I didn’t tell him I had a freaky old Rasta buried in the back of the car. Didn’t tell him I was planning to go kidnap me someone else, neither.

Zee was dressed in one of Pop’s old shirts, my extra goggles hiding a good part of her face and an old rag wound around the rest of it. I padded an extra bit of cloth against her nose and mouth, doing what I could for her busted lungs.

I’d never walked that stretch of shantytown before, and it wasn’t so much that it looked different than it did through the car window, but I swear it smelled twice as bad. The wind had started up and the sand blew hot and stinky. Still, I was grateful for the camouflage.

“So what the hell’s a Tripnotyst?” I said, my mouth all full of grit.

“Supposed to help you remember things.” Zee’s voice was muffled by the rags, and almost drowned completely by the wind.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged her skinny shoulders. “I remember everything. Most stuff I’d rather forget.”

“Then what’s your momma forgotten?”

“If we knew that, she wouldn’t be going to the Tripnotyst. But Frost reckons her tattoo’s from the same place as that photograph.”

It was the tent I’d seen Crow emerge from just a couple days before, back when I was killing time and waiting for my water tank to fill.

We loitered out of sight, hidden behind a stall selling salvaged plastic toys shaped like animals. Folk trading for memories of a time before the Darkness and the locusts and the barren new world.

“You think he’s in there?” I asked Zee. But before she could reply, we watched the tent flap roll up, and Crow came strolling out with his shades pulled on and his headphones plugged in.

We ducked behind the stall and peered around the side of it, studying Crow as he rolled on by. I tried to guess where he was going, what thoughts were buzzing inside those big old dreadlocks.

“Now’s your chance,” Zee whispered, shoving me forward. “Get my mom out of there. Tell her you’re with me.”

“What about the Tripnotyst?”

“Tell him whatever you have to.”

“And what are you gonna do?”

“I’ll keep watch, idiot. Make sure Crow doesn’t come back.”

I waited till the watcher was out of sight and then I sprinted to the tent door. I glanced back and saw Zee huddled between the water tanks at the drinking station. And then, before I could think anymore about what I was doing, I yanked off my goggles, eased up the tent flap, and plunged into the dark.

Inside that tent was as black as any place I’d ever been. The plastic flap fell behind me and suddenly the street seemed a mile away. I blinked, searching for light. Then I just stumbled forward with my hands stretched out ahead of me.

There was a gurgle of static, a buzz of electricity. And was that music? I strained to listen. No. Just the drone of machines.

I felt wires underfoot and dropped down and groped at them, crawling along with the cables until I hit something solid. Walls and edges. Some kind of container, about twice my size. I stood up and felt around at it. I stuck my ear to the wall of the metal box, and through the hum I heard voices.

Then something else.

I spun around. Faced back the way I’d crawled in. I heard the sound again. A tiny scrape. And suddenly, just a few feet from me, a lighter caught and flamed, puncturing a hole in the darkness.

The flame spat and flickered, coloring the tent with an orange glow, and I watched the flame kiss the end of a pipe, smoke and cinders hissing as the pipe was puffed and chewed. Before the lighter cut off, I had enough time to try and read the eyes staring at me.

But those eyes were impossible to read.

“Welcome back, Mister Banyan,” said Frost, chomping at the pipe like it was breakfast. Then he snuffed out the lighter and all I could see was the crystal making patterns in the darkness as Frost made his way toward me.

Frost was a whole lot faster than I’d expected. He was juiced on his pipe and moved like a blur. His fingers clawed the dark as I bounced and ducked. Spun. Rolled away. He was too fast and too damn big and he sealed all my exits as he tumbled down upon me.

I was trapped. Pinned to the ground with my face in the dirt, my back feeling like it might snap in two. Frost just sort of waddled atop me and sat there. He shoved the crystal pipe at me, the flame crazy in my eyes.