Frozen

“Nah, I don’t gamble.” He smiled, taking a big bite of his burroti.

“Only with his life,” Shakes said, from the front. “Hey! What about me?” he said, holding up his hand, and Farouk tossed him his own multi-cuisine mash-up.

“I swear I’ve met you before, and I don’t just mean from the casino the other day,” she said to Wes. It was suddenly important that she remember why his face was so familiar to her. “But I guess not.”

Wes regarded her thoughtfully as he ate. Nat became worried that maybe he would think she was flirting with him—even if she wasn’t. Besides, she thought with a secret smile, if she was flirting with him, he would know. She was about to say something else when Shakes released a yelp from the front seat that startled everyone, including Nat.

“What is it?” demanded Wes.

“Drones in the sky; they sent a seeker team out,” Shakes said, pulling out his scanner, which was beeping. He shook his head as he peered out the window at a small black plane circling the distant horizon.

“Where?” Wes asked, sticking his head out the window.

“Not sure. He’s off the radar now.”

“Fine, we’ll take the back roads,” Wes said. “Seekers stick to the main highway. We’ll have to loop around, take us close to MacArthur, but it’ll be okay. We should be able to shake them once we—” Wes never finished his sentence, as a blast of cold air hit and a cloud of silver flakes filled the cabin.

“What now!” Daran yelled, as the flakes flew up his nose. They were everywhere. A second gust of wind sent more snow pouring through the openings.

The boys yelped and Nat batted at the flakes, feeling them fall on her eyelids, her ears. “Burglar alarm,” Wes said tightly. He explained the silver cloud wasn’t smoke or snow. Crossing the fences had released nanos— machines no larger than a grain of dust that sensed and recorded human pheromones. Nanotechnology was old hardware, just like the fusion batteries; it was from the last global war before everything started breaking down. The military didn’t know how to upgrade the system, only how to maintain it.

“They’re like robo-bloodhounds,” Farouk said excitedly. “They catch your scent and then feed it into the defense network.”

Wes cuffed him in the shoulder. “What are you so hopped up about?”

“I’ve never seen one before, is all,” Farouk said. “A nano cloud, I mean.”

Wes gestured out across the garbage-strewn landscape. “The locals call ’em pop-cans. The bombs are usually hidden inside old soda cans, and the Pile is littered with them.”

“What do they do?” Farouk asked.

“They pop,” Shakes said, cutting in. “You get close enough for one of them to sniff you, to make a match for one of the pheromones that just got transmitted into the system, and they blow, taking out whatever part of you is closest to it.”

“We’ve never been in the system before,” Daran complained. “I didn’t sign up for this. I ain’t losing an arm or a leg to a soda can.”

Nat shuddered as Wes stared out at the snow-covered landscape. “Look, I wouldn’t think less of you if you wanted to turn back,” he said. “We snuck you out, we can sneak you back in. You can have your credits back, less a percentage for our trouble, of course.”

“I’m not turning back,” she said, annoyed. Was this his way of trying to scare her out of the trip? Get her to change her mind? Pop-cans didn’t scare her like her nightmares did.

“You’re sure about this?” he asked again, his voice gentle.

She realized then that he wasn’t trying to wriggle out of the job, he was simply being decent; she felt another rush of affection for this impulsive, good-looking boy.

Nat gripped his forearm and nodded. “I’m not scared. I’d rather take my chances with what’s out there than go back.”

“All right then.” Wes sighed. He put a hand on top of hers and held it tightly. “Nothing wrong with being scared, you know. I’ve seen a lot of things that have scared me on this side of the fence.”

She nodded. His hand was warm on hers, and it lingered there for a while before he took it away. She wasn’t sure which one of them was more embarrassed about that tender moment.

He cleared his throat and addressed his team. “I’ll drive. We take the back roads. It’ll be a five-day drive to the coast, but once we hit the Pacific we’ll pick up speed and we’re back by Christmas. Okay?” He waited for anyone to argue.

No one did, but then again, no one looked convinced either.

12

THEY DROVE STRAIGHT THROUGH THE night, moving deeper into the Pile, and as day came, the sky turned a lighter shade of gray. Underneath the snow and twisting through the garbage, Nat could see bursts of color— green vines, improbable tiny white flowers. She blinked and they were gone. She looked to the boys to see if anyone noticed, but half the team was asleep in the back and in front of her, Farouk was driving, while next to him Wes was studying his screen with a concerned look on his face.

He looked so serious that she felt a sudden impulse to reach over, sweep her fingers though his hair, and tell him everything was going to be okay. Feeling her gaze on him, he turned around and caught her eye. He smiled and she smiled back, and for a moment they were just an ordinary boy and girl in a car, neither runner and client, nor mercenary and thief, and Nat saw a glimpse of how normal things could be. The voice in her head was quiet, and for once in her life, she felt as if she were just like anyone else.

The truck hit a bump and the moment passed. Wes went back to what he was doing and Nat turned her attention out the window, unsure of what she was feeling. He’s handsome and brave, and any girl with a pulse would be attracted to him, she thought, but he’s nothing to me, a flirtation, maybe, someone to pass the time with, to make the trip more interesting. Remember what the commander said, she told herself. Remember what you are.

The trash was heaped on either side of the road, and it felt as if they were burrowing through a tunnel. The piles were skyscraper-high on either side, but it was a smoother ride, as if the road was newly plowed. “Wait a minute—if the snow’s plowed it means there are people are living out here,” Farouk said with a start.

“Of course there are,” Nat said impatiently. What kind of crew had she hired that he didn’t know that? Then she remembered that Farouk had mentioned he had never been past the fence before.

“Don’t believe everything you hear, ’Rouk,” Wes mocked from the passenger seat, grinning at her. No one was allowed in the wastelands. There was nothing out here but death and decay, or so they had been told. But they knew better. The government lied. They lied about everything.

The piles receded in size as they moved down the road, and they drove in tired silence for a few hours. “What’s that?” Farouk asked suddenly, pointing to a monumental cliff that loomed over the area. “I thought Hoover Dam was the other way.”

“And you thought right,” Wes said.

Nat felt the voice in her head rumble awake, aware of the danger; she had known there was a chance the journey would take her past this place, but was unprepared to see it again so soon. There was an edge to her voice. “That’s not Hoover Dam.”

“No, it sure isn’t,” Wes said, raising an eyebrow. “You’ve been out here before?” he asked lightly.

She frowned and didn’t answer, feeling goose bumps forming all over her body. Had she escaped only to be sent back here? She didn’t know who he was or what his intentions were. Most runners will sell you down the river as soon as you get out of New Vegas, toss their cargo, rob you of your credits. Maybe Wes was one of the good guys, but then again, maybe he wasn’t.

Farouk was right, it did look like the old photos she’d seen of the Hoover Dam, its massive concrete walls towering over the valley, holding back the immense pressure of the river beyond. As they moved closer to the sheer rock face, it became clear it wasn’t stone at all but concrete painted to look like stone, several feet thick, and it wasn’t a barrier, but a building, stretching to the sky, a row of windows at the very top, with one panel, Nat