Rootless - Howard Chris. Страница 33

“He’s my father,” I said. “The man in the picture. The man chained in the trees.”

“Your daddy?”

“That’s right.”

Crow grinned. “And you don’t think he’s dead?”

“He ain’t dead in that picture.”

“True that,” Crow said. Then he pointed. “Here. Take this left.”

I made the turn and we started down a thinner service road, the dirt a little softer beneath the wheels.

And at the end of that road, not a hundred yards from us, towered a GenTech duster in all its glory.

I skidded the wagon to a halt, grinding up the dirt into a cloud all around us. The duster was as wide as the service road, twice as tall as the highest crops. And it wasn’t moving. Damn thing was just sitting there. Facing us.

The huge, rolling blades were rested on the ground, and behind the blades were rows of metal teeth that fed the compactor and the sorting boxes. And on top of it all, painted in GenTech purple, was the duster’s cockpit, windows bulging out the front of it like goggles on a steel face.

They’d seen us, of course. Whoever was up there. They were pointed toward us, staring right at us.

I cranked the wagon into reverse.

“Wait,” Crow said.

“For what?”

“Running ain’t gonna do us no good. And GenTech likes to keep its dusters moving. Check the grime on that thing.”

He was right. The machine was covered in a fine layer of dirt — the blades, the engine, even the windows. None of it looked like it’d moved in a while.

“Shift over,” Alpha said, climbing past Crow and squatting next to me. She had the telescope out, scanning the duster and the rest of the road. “Can’t see nothing else,” she said. “Nothing but that big hunk of steel.”

“I say we go closer,” Crow said. “See what we find.”

“What is it?” Sal was trying to squirm himself a view.

“Ain’t nothing,” I said, and Crow pushed the kid back down.

Alpha flipped the safety off her rifle and lowered her window a crack, just enough she could ease out the barrel of her gun. Then I popped the wagon back into gear and rolled slowly forward.

As we got closer, I could tell just how big the damn thing stood. The blades alone were taller than the wagon, and the duster was so wide I could barely squeeze between it and the wall of corn at the edge of the road. I steered through the gap, me and Crow and Alpha all staring at the engines and sorting boxes, peering up at the cockpit.

I pulled past the blades and teeth, brought us alongside the flank of the machine.

“Wait,” Alpha said. “Stop.”

“What do you see?”

“Up there.” She pointed at a ladder that stretched from the dirt all the way to the cockpit.

I stopped the wagon. Leaned across Alpha.

“You see it?” she said.

“Yeah. I see it.”

“Well, what is it then?” said Crow, trying to push his face at the window.

“It’s a body,” I said. Though I’m not sure you could really call it that. Just bones is what it was. Blood dried black and baked in the sun. Little tuft of hair, maybe. But no flesh. No organs. Poor bastard was gripped on that ladder, and he’d been almost to the top of it, too. Almost back in the cockpit. Almost safe. But almost ain’t enough. Not out here. Not with the locusts.

“And that,” said Crow. “Is why we do not leave the vehicle.”

“No shit,” whispered Alpha. She glanced across at me, more fear in her eyes than she’d shown before. She pulled her gun down and cranked the window back in place.

I turned the wagon around the back of the duster, heading for the next crossroads.

“Which way now?” I said to Crow.

“Stop,” he said.

“What?”

“Stop. Here. Behind the engines.”

“Why? What’d you see?”

“Agents,” Crow said. “Right behind us.”

I spun the wagon back around, pulled in behind the bulk of the duster. Then I cut the engine.

“You think they’re following us?” Alpha said.

“Most likely,” said Crow. “Unless you seen someone else out here to follow.”

“Maybe they’re just checking on the duster,” I said. “That could make sense.”

“Well, I say we ambush ’em.” Alpha peered up at the duster. “We got the high ground, after all.”

“That means getting out of the wagon,” I said.

“You want to sit here and wait, bud, you can go right ahead.” And with that, Alpha popped her door open and leapt out of the car.

Me and Crow just stared at her as she strapped the rifle on her back and began crawling her way up the duster, hoisting herself atop the rear wheels, then working her hands and boots along the engine.

“Told you.” Crow shook his head. “Girl’s a firecracker. A real live wire.”

“Not much of a plan,” I said.

“No it isn’t.”

“Guess today’s your lucky day, though.”

“How’s that?”

I threw my door open and climbed outside. “’Cause you get to drive.”

They say you can hear locusts a moment before you see them. A big buzzing rush of noise. The sound, I guess, of their countless tiny wings. So that was good. Because right now everything was silent. Except for the sound of my breathing as I hauled my way up that grimy machine.

Alpha was ahead of me, almost to the cockpit, clambering her way along a section of purple tubing, carefully remaining blocked from the other side. I scrambled to the top of the engine, getting a good look down at the sorting units — cobs in one, husks and stems in the other. Cleanly done. Efficient.

I was pretty high now, a good forty feet up. And I could see out above the rows of plants, see the waves of crops shimmering in every direction until they just merged with the sky.

“Take my hand,” Alpha whispered. She was just above me, hanging off the back of the cockpit, and she gripped my wrist and hauled me alongside her. We stood with our feet on a thin metal ledge, our hands grabbing hold of anything we could find.

“You see them?” I whispered.

“Yeah. Here.” She pulled me past her so I could poke my head around the cockpit. And there they were. Agents.

There were three of them. Two men and a woman. Dust masks on, even here in the cornfields where the dirt can’t blow so free. They were dressed identical — dark purple suits with the GenTech logo plastered all over in tiny white letters, as if the cloth had caught some disease. They matched their vehicle, too. A small round pod with fat purple tires and dark tinted windows, it sat fifty yards behind them. I watched the agents kneel and bend at the dirt, studying the tracks. Our tracks.

“You think there’s anyone left in the car?” I whispered, swinging myself back behind the cockpit.

“Hard to say. One more, maybe.”

“Well, you’re the pirate.”

Alpha grinned at me. “Here’s how it goes down. Even if there’s no one in their vehicle, we gotta immobilize it, in case they make it back there and try to get away.”

“All right.”

“So we wait till the agents are close enough for you, then you start shooting. I’ll take out their tires with the rifle.”

“Right.”

“You got it?”

“Got it.”

She worked her way into position, angling her rifle till she was all set and ready. Then she motioned me behind her and I kept low as I climbed around to the edge of the cockpit, holding on with one hand and laying out my pistol with the other.

The agents were pointing at our tracks and jabbing around at the corn, talking over something. Then the two men started for the duster. And the woman began jogging back to their pod.

“I’ll take homegirl,” Alpha whispered.

The agents pointed up at the cockpit, and for a moment I thought they’d seen us. My heart stopped but then thudded back into action — they were staring at the remains of the field hand, the bones must’ve been hanging right below me, just down the ladder on the far side.