Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.
“I’ve been considering the most efficient route to Bunker One,” Samuel said. “We’ll be taking I-40 east most of the way. As we travel further east, it will get drier and drier. Our first obstacle will be a giant desert called the Boundless. Most who try to traverse it aren’t heard from again. Then again, most don’t have a Recon at their disposal. There will be a lot of empty, uninhabited land. And mountains. Lots and
“How do we get through that?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know what to expect. It’s not as if we have satellite imagery of the Great Blight, so everything is up in the air once we make the border. No one even knows where it begins, exactly. All the same, we have to go through it, all the way to Cheyenne.”
I thought of the Blight that Makara and I went through while trying to find the entrance to Bunker 114. It was hard to imagine hundreds of miles of it at a stretch. The xenovirus would have had a chance to evolve a lot of deadly monsters in an ecosystem like that.
“Somewhere in there is the city of Albuquerque,” Samuel said. “There, the road turns north. We’ll be taking I-25 almost all the rest of the way to Cheyenne. After that, it gets a bit trickier. We’ll have to find the right roads to make it to Bunker One. If we’re lucky, we’ll find some signs pointing the way. If not, we always have a compass and landmarks to go by.”
“How long should all that take?”
Samuel shrugged. “In the Old World, two days at most. Now, who knows? It could take anywhere from a week to a month.”
Anna charged into the room, out of breath.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“You won’t believe this, but it isn’t over.”
“What isn’t?” Samuel asked.
“There were a group of Imperials camped out to the south. They’re torching the farms. Without that harvest, the city might starve come winter.”
“What do we need to do?” I asked.
“Char wants everyone at the front gates, pronto. You included, Alex.”
My heart pounded. Here I was, not even a Raider, about to go fight their war.
“Come on!” Anna said. “He wants us at the bottom of Bluff in ten.”
Anna shot out the door. I looked at Samuel.
“Don’t get yourself killed. Stay with Anna and don’t take any risks. Makara should be down there, too; find her and tell her the same. Our mission is greater.”
I nodded. “I know that. I’ll find a nice rock to hide behind.”
“Good boy.”
I walked out of the room, Anna frowned.
“You’re a Raider now,” she said. “You better fight like one.”
“I could compromise, I guess,” I said. “Take out a couple Imperials and
Anna shook her head. “The gate’s only a couple miles down the road. I suggest we run.”
As Anna took off, I shook my head.
“Great,” I said. “I love running.”
By the time we made it to the gates I was, unsurprisingly, out of breath. The fact that we went downhill the whole way worked in my favor, but still, two miles in ten minutes was not a good thing in my book. We had gone down countless switchbacks to get to the desert below. The whole time, smoke poured into the sky from the fires consuming the farms. There was still time to save the greater part of the crop, but a lot of damage had already been dealt. I guessed Rex had an ace up his sleeve after all.
At the bottom of the bluff, Anna and I ran to join a group of about twelve Raiders. Among them were Char, Makara, and Lisa. Lisa held a sniper rifle, complete with scope, in both hands, and wore a grim expression to match.
“Good, Anna’s here,” Char said. “Here’s the full situation. There are five or six Imperials trying to escape along the river. We outnumber them two to one, but there are still enough to do damage. It’s likely they’ll take cover and fire on us as we approach. You know the drill, so don’t do anything stupid. They’ve already killed several of the slaves who weren’t quick enough.” Char looked around at everyone. I wondered what “the drill” was, but was too afraid to ask. “Keep low, form a half-circle and flank them in. None of these Imperials need to make it home. Right, let’s go!”
Char turned and ran for the river. Everyone followed.
I ran beside Makara.
“Samuel told me to tell you not to die.”
Makara smiled. “I’ll try, Alex. Stick by me.”
We ran for at least a mile. As we got closer to the action, I could smell acrid smoke in the cold, dry air.
We ran up a small incline. Cresting the rise, we saw them beyond, waiting for us. There were five Imperials lying on the ground, rifles pointed at us. They fired.
Bullets whistled above and beside us. The Raider on my right fell, hard. As I collapsed beside him, I knew he would not be getting back up. He had been shot in the forehead; blood trickled down.
Makara pulled me behind a large rock.
“I thought you were supposed to stay alive.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Wasn’t expecting that.”
She stayed on her stomach and kept her head below the rim of the hill.
“Just wait here,” Makara said. “We can’t charge them or we’ll get killed.”
Every Raider was planted on the safe side of the ridge. The gunfire had faded, leaving only the wind and the sand in their interminable dance. The sand hit my face, collected on the windward side of my body. I imagined if I lay out here for a few hours I could collect a lot of it on that side. Because, from the way it looked, we were going to be here for hours.
And then…
It was a single, distant shot reverberating through the desert. Whether it came from the north or south, east or west, I couldn’t tell.
I heard screams. At first, I thought they were on our side. It took me a moment to realize they were coming from the river.
Another shot. More cries of panic.
Makara was looking toward the other Raiders. They were all lying in place, as before.
Char raised an arm. Silently, all the Raiders stood, then charged down the ridge.
I rushed to join them. Two dead Imperials lay at the bottom of the hill. The remaining three were running for the cold Colorado River.
The Raiders fired their guns, yelling, surrounding the Imperials on three sides. The Imperials ran into the water and started swimming. Even if they did have the strength to make it across, they would be so cold and exhausted that they would be dead by nightfall.
The Raiders didn’t want to take any chances. They aimed and fired into the water, downing two of the men. Their bodies floated downstream. The last made a dive, vanishing below the surface of the dark blue water. We waited for a good thirty seconds before he came back up. When he did, he appeared distant, about a quarter of the way across the river.
The Raiders took aim again. But before any could take a shot, another crack sounded in the air. The man stopped swimming, and floated downstream like the rest.
They were all dead. And I had no idea who had killed three of them. I saw all the Raiders looking northward
