Chapter Twelve
Year 2068, Southern Texas
Tye and company followed the sign of the turtle through Mexico and along the eastern shore of the gulf where the conditions were desolate, harsh and arid. Marked on stones, painted on buildings, and etched into trees and landmarks, the mark of the turtle led them on with a promise to show the way back to the gone world. With the reborn Hansa’s help, they avoided Uruks and found fresh water. Without her unique skills the party would have died of dehydration within a week. Just like she saw inside the minds of people, she could see the world through the eyes of animals and virals. So with Hansa’s help, Tye hunted small game and caught fish in the gulf, but survival took time and slowed their progress. Robin’s wounds healed, and it had been over a year since they’d abandoned the Jolly Roger.
Tye knew they’d entered the United States when they crossed the Rio Grande. Broken slabs of concrete with rusted rebar sticking from them dotted the riverbed, the constant rush of water rounding their corners and slowly wearing the man-made rocks back to sand. The collapsed bridge had been replaced with a rope version anchored between broken support buttresses, and an old road, overgrown but passable, led to the new bridge’s entrance. Everything looked used, and that worried Tye because it left the fellowship exposed in the open, and there was little cover on the brown plain beyond.
There was a brief debate about using the bridge as Milly and Peter believed it might be a trap, but when Tye found the sign of the turtle carved into the foot planking everyone crossed without hesitation. Peter took point, and Milly covered their backs. Hansa, Vera, Jerome and Robin trailed after in a daze. They hadn’t been attacked in a long time, and staying alert presented a challenge.
“That used to be the town of Brownsville to the west,” Hansa said.
“Sure lives up to its name,” Tye said. The kid said stuff like that all the time, but if he asked her where they were, the child would say she didn’t know. The day before he’d gotten this nugget out of her; “I was born up this way.”
Everyone in the party stayed away from Hansa, except Tye, but even he found being around her an effort. The girl sifted his thoughts, asking questions and making assumptions. The party tolerated her because she promised to bring them to a place where they could learn about the turtle, but so far, the only specifics she’d provided was they were heading toward a place called Stadium in the north. They were going on faith, and Tye didn’t hold well with that, but Austin was up north so nobody questioned their destination.
Tye worried for Hansa. Her arrival had been met with great joy and hope, but this faded to stoic skepticism in the last year of hard hiking. Tye never saw the girl eat, go to the bathroom, or do anything normally associated with being human. When Robin joked with the child that she acted like a robot, Hansa smiled her knowing smile. Tye always felt the pains of hunger and thirst, yet the child never complained or slowed.
She wasn’t a robot, though. Tye’d seen her bleed, heard the ragged breaths she took when she slept, and the way she screamed her mother’s name in the deep of the night when all the illusions of day got stripped away. She was a child in many ways, and not a child in many others.
“Are there others like you?” Vera had asked.
“No.”
No explanation. No polite conversation. Tye got more out of her the night they’d meet, when she said everyone like her was different.
They stayed west, and on the twelfth day in Texas, they came across overgrown railroad tracks that headed north in a gradual arc that turned east. The old steel rails were rusted brown, but intact. Green trees and burnt out brown grass stretched over gentle hills and around old structures. To the west a clump of old buildings was framed against the horizon, and dust rose as things unseen moved about. They filled their skins in a crystal clear stream and ate some salted venison. Small deer were plentiful within the sagebrush where they feasted on branches and leaves.
“We should stay out of the town,” Tye said.
“Probably a good idea,” Hansa said.
The first railroad station they came across was mostly intact. White paint lay in piles around the building, the windows open holes, but the metal roof looked in good shape, and the brick walls were unbroken, but badly decayed. The rusted hulk of a soda machine stood on one side of the main door, the red shards of its plastic front still clinging to the edges of its frame like bloody teeth. An engraved train route map was mounted on the other side, and Tye ran his hand over it. The paint had worn away and the wood plaque and the holes where stations were marked was all that remained.
“Wish I had a map,” Tye said.
“Would it help?” Hansa asked.
“It might.”
They walked on, following the train tracks into a wasted land. Brown grass and dried weeds poked through every gap, and in places the railroad ties were cracked and coming apart.
“Look here,” Milly said.
Carved into the wood support tie was the sign of the turtle, its neck extending north. Tye counted a turtle every five hundred ties, and this put the party at ease.
They came upon a rusted metal sign that had been sandblasted from the harsh weather, but was still partly readable. It showed Houston as the end of the line. A string of bullet holes ran across the sign and that made Tye remember the Glock. It stuck from the back of Milly’s jeans. It hadn’t been fired since landfall.
“What if someone
