Broken Read online

  "Oh, right," the old man said, and pulled a switch. The road ahead was illuminated—badly. One light must be out, Broken reasoned.

  The main road was about half a mile down the dirt driveway, after which Broken, still full of food, was starting to feel a little sick.

  "Where is it?" the old man asked.

  Green Hair sighed loudly. "Turn left." As they nudged onto the main road, the county magnetics took over, and the van lurched a few feet off the ground. Broken could hear the wheels retracting with a horrible screech and a scrape, and then there was nothing but the quiet hum of the electromagnetic generator. The van hesitantly powered forward and picked up speed.

  "Keep going on this road, then go right at the old post," Green Hair said. "You know the one."

  "Yeah, yeah," the old man grumbled.

  The van sped soundlessly through the New Jersey night. Broken forced her dinner back down (she remembered now, she always got carsick) and tried to focus on not throwing up.

  I hope Michael is doing better, she thought. To her right, the first rays of dawn were beginning to appear.

  [CHAPTER 17]

  To Michael’s consternation, the sun rose directly in front of them. They were heading southeast—back towards the river.

  "We need to head the other way," he said. Monica groaned.

  "You can see the future, but you can’t even tell which direction we’re going in?” She was teasing. Mostly.

  He shrugged gamely. “I don't do directions.” She snorted, half-smiling. Ian started to make a fuss, and Michael smelled something foul. "Can you change him?" he asked . "I did it the last three times."

  "He doesn’t like me," Monica said, looking at Ian. "He gets it—" she swallowed hard, "He gets it all over me."

  Michael laughed. "He does that to everyone."

  Ian was now starting to really get going. He howled and screamed, as if someone was sticking him with pins. "I’ll do it," Michael volunteered at last. He didn’t want to drive Monica away again.

  "Oh, I’ll help," Monica said huffily. "Damn it! He is loud." Michael rummaged through his pack for diapers while Monica fought with Ian’s diaper.

  'Hey, Michael?” she asked.

  “Yeah?” he said, withdrawing a new plastic poop catcher. He hated these things.

  “When... when you look at me, what do you see?”

  He glanced up at her, startled by the question. She had that old lopsided smile on her face; he hadn’t seen it in too long.

  “Maybe you can tell my fortune,” she said, green eyes mischievous.

  “Um, well,” he stammered, and met her gaze.

  —Monica walked alone, across a desert. She carried a baby. It wasn't Ian.

  —There was a room, in the city on faraway Calvasna, where she waited for her husband to come home. When he did, she was overjoyed, but afraid at the same time. Did the man look familiar? Michael almost recognized him.

  —There was a green field, and Monica, dressed in blue, hiked through it towards a huge ramshackle house. Two people flew above it in graceful, sweeping arcs.

  —Monica sat in a blooming garden, surrounded by her grandchildren.

  —She waited in a cell. She'd be there for the rest of her short life.

  “There's a lot of possibilties,” he said. “But one... I saw you in a meadow, walking towards a big house. I think your friends were there. And another... I saw you married.”

  “To who?”

  “No idea.”

  She smiled crookedly. “It's good... to think I have a future, no matter what it might be. At least we won't be here forever.”

  Snap. Click.

  Their heads shot up at the sudden sound. Michael started as he found himself looking down the barrel of an old-fashioned machine gun.

  "Stand up," commanded the machine gun’s owner. "Slowly."

  Four men, each holding an identical machine gun, gestured at them. Their faces were covered; they wore camouflage from head to toe. Where had they come from? "Let’s go. Nice and easy."

  Michael and Monica stood up. Ian, almost as if he realized the danger, had become eerily quiet.

  "Hands high," one said, gesturing. They held their hands in the air, palms open. "All right. Put ‘em behind your head. You’re prisoners."

  Michael’s mouth was dry. He’d seen these guys in a few visions, but he hadn’t really expected them, at least not just yet. He’d been hoping not to see them at all.

  "Hey, what are we prisoners for?" Monica demanded. "Who are you guys?"

  Two of them trained their weapons on her, impassive behind camouflage bandannas. She shut up.

  A vivid memory struck Michael. He had been nine years old, and he had looked in the mirror one morning.

  A man in camouflage just like these men had a gun pressed to his head. "Start over, traitor! Start all over again!" Michael started again, but the first word came out all wrong. The man in camouflage shot him in the head.

  "Follow me," the leader said. "We have you covered from behind. Try anything, we shoot you." He seemed very matter-of-fact about it. Michael believed him. The leader marched off into the forest.

  "The baby?" Michael hesitantly asked, looking back. But one of the men had grabbed the pack, baby and all. Ian mewled, confused, frightened, and diaper still full of shit.

  * * *

  The woods opened into a clearing, in which stood a rundown cabin. A trail of smoke curled out of a slender stovepipe. Michael could smell the pleasant tang of wood burning.

  The four men tramped up to the door, keeping their muzzles trained on Monica and Michael. The leader went inside for a second, then reemerged.

  "Inside," he barked. They obeyed, stepping onto the wood porch and through the heavy oak door into a darkened room where an old wood stove sat, radiating warmth. Two men sat behind a table, reading what looked like newspapers. Behind them hung a familiar yet shocking sight: a flag with thirteen red-and-white stripes, and a blue, star-filled canton. The old flag of the United States, banned since the end of the Last War. They’d seen it only in textbooks and movies about the war, for the most part—

  Joe held the old piece of cloth reverently. "We worshiped it when I was a boy. I took up a gun to try and defend it. Can you believe that? But I saw the end coming." He tapped his head. "So I deserted my post. I took this with me, though. It used to stand for something a lot better than what it ended up standing for." He sighed. "But they don’t tell you that. To the Australians"—Joe always referred to the Confederation government as “the Australians”—"it’s just a symbol of evil, of the wickedness of Greenleaf’s administration. My own dad hated Greenleaf. But he loved this. It’s hard to say why, really, but they were two separate things to him."

  He put the old flag away. "I suppose it is just a thing, and that’s that."

  —but every once in a while… they’d seen it somewhere else. Like most people of their generation, Michael and Monica had never seen anyone display one freely. So they did what Americans their age did when they saw that old flag; they gaped, and a little shiver ran up and down their spines.

  One of the men saw where their gaze lay. He grunted. "Calls to something in the blood, don’t it. I know the feeling."

  "That flag’s illegal," Monica declared flatly. The men laughed a short, mirthless laugh.

  "Yeah, so it is. So are we. So are you, most likely. UNP?"

  Monica flushed. "I am," she said defiantly.

  "Thought so. Why else wander around the woods, lost, in the cold, with a baby crying so loud the dead will come back to life? How ‘bout you?" The man behind the table pointed at Michael.

  "They want me for other reasons," Michael said.

  The man nodded. "Fair enough, right? I’m Colonel Wayne." He extended a hand. Michael took it gingerly; the man had a grip like iron. He did not offer his hand to Monica. "This is the 1st New Jersey Regiment of the American Liberation Army." The men surrounding them nodded, still keeping a hand on their weapons. "You are our prisoners, I’m
afraid."

  "Why are we prisoners?" Monica wanted to know. Colonel Wayne kept looking at Michael, ignoring her.

  "You were trespassing on our woods," Wayne said. "These are dangerous times. We can’t trust anyone. You’ve been scanned; you were as soon as you came in here. We’re pretty satisfied you’re not wearing a transmitter or any other signal device, but we can’t be sure, right? You might be spies. Lots of spies around." He jutted his chin out. "We kill spies."

  Colonel Wayne, Michael realized, studying his face, was at most twenty years old.

  —Black Bands opened fire; he fell, guts torn out. He made a few motions, trying to put his intestines back in, then collapsed and mercifully blacked out.

  —He ran right at the company of soldiers in front of the vast, pillared ConFedMil building, screaming his head off. His leg still hurt. He yelled out someone’s name, and fell in a hail of bullets and plasma fire.

  —The hopper was over the city. "Drop it!" Wayne yelled. But something was wrong. Fire erupted everywhere.

  Possibilities. Michael looked away, aware of a growing throbbing behind his temples. Violence was this young man’s destiny. He’d have a deeper look later.

  Three short, sharp shots rang out, and echoed in the air. Michael and Monica jumped. Wayne laughed.

  "That’s just Kent hunting out there. Probably shot a squirrel." He grinned at his men. "Dinner!"

  He suddenly scowled at them again. "Search them. Thoroughly. Go easy on the woman, but make sure she ain’t hiding anything. Right?"

  "Right," said one of the “soldiers.” He still wore his camouflage bandanna. Michael wondered if he was wearing a leer behind it.

  Scanners and other equipment were brought out, and they were patted down, too. They found the money and the tickets.

  "Trying to get off planet, huh?" Wayne asked. "That’s the coward’s way out, my friend." Michael didn’t say a word.

  "Those are ours," Monica protested.

  "You think I’m a thief?" Wayne said icily. All movement suddenly came to a halt.

  Kid or no, Michael realized, he was dangerous. He stood and advanced on Monica in two massive strides . He stood nearly twice as tall as she did. He glared down at her. "Are you questioning my honor, woman?"

  "Wayne," one of the camouflaged men said warningly.

  "Shut up, Parker! Answer me, woman. Did you or did you not imply that I was a thief?"

  "I—I was just saying—it looked like you were going to take it, like the Black Bands did—"

  He reared back and slapped her. She staggered across the room.

  "Hey!" Michael cried, rushing forward.

  A big hand clamped down on his shoulder. Parker, the soldier who had tried to calm Wayne down, shook his head at him. "Better not, kid," Parker said quietly. Michael gratefully allowed himself to be restrained.

  "Don’t ever question my honor!" Wayne spat. "I don’t want your shit. We’re Americans, we don’t steal. And we are not like the Black Bands!"

  Monica, clutching her cheek, stared at Wayne, stunned. She glanced over at Michael quickly, then looked away again.

  "Um," said a soldier. "They’re clean, as far as I can tell."

  "Here," Wayne said, tossing the money and the tickets back towards Michael. They landed on the floor. "Pick ‘em up."

  Michael did as he was told.

  "Now get them imprisoned somewhere," Wayne said. "I don’t care where."

  "Uh, Wayne?" a soldier said. Wayne shot him a death glare. "Colonel. We have no space for 'em."

  "Then they can use your room, Banner," Wayne snapped. "Get going."

  Banner prodded Michael in the back with the butt of his rifle. "You heard him. Get going." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone help Monica to her feet.

  They were led down a flight of stairs into what Michael assumed would be a rather rustic basement. To his surprise, it was a fully furnished suite of rooms, possibly larger in area than the house above. "Here," said the soldier, the one Wayne called Banner, opening a door into a small room with a cot and some clothes scattered here and there. "I guess you’ll have to share."

  "Sorry about your room," Michael said. "Uh. Banner."

  —The guns silenced him.

  —An armored hovercraft leveled and fired. The shell took his head off.

  —He bled to death in a desert, with only the unrelenting sunlight as a companion.

  Were they all like this? Michael looked away.

  "No big thing," Banner shrugged. He pulled off his bandanna and shoved it into a duffel bag, then he crammed the rest of his things inside.

  "You got a rank, too?" Michael asked.

  "Nah. Only Wayne gets a rank." Banner was a large guy—they were all large—with blond hair and an incredibly thick neck. His head looked kind of like a potato, Michael thought.

  —"Mom!" he cried, feeling his chest. Holes, everywhere. "Mommy! Mommy!" Redness crept into his field of vision. Was someone standing over him? Darkness.

  —The hopper was over the city. "Drop it!" Wayne yelled. Banner flinched. He suddenly realized he hadn’t put the safety on. Fire erupted everywhere.

  Michael sighed. These days, he only ever seemed to see people’s untimely ends. Why couldn’t he see something ordinary, like someone going for a walk or taking a leak? "Well. Thanks, Banner. Where’s the bathroom?"

  "Uh. Knock on the door if you need to go or change or something."

  "We had a baby with us," Michael reminded him.

  "Oh. Um. I don’t know what’s happening with that. I’ll go check. I got to lock you in. So go on in." He gestured. Michael went inside and sat on the cot next to Monica. Banner shut and locked the door.

  Tears were streaming down Monica’s face. She put her fist in her mouth and curled up on the cot.

  "Hey, you okay?" He touched her shoulder. She whirled and slapped his hand away.

  "Fuck you," she whimpered.

  "Does it hurt? Let me see," he said.

  "Go away." She turned away from him, and wouldn’t say another word, though she sniffled from time to time. He settled on to the floor and fell asleep.

  * * *

  When he woke up, he realized that Ian was still missing. He scrambled to his feet. Monica had passed out on the bed, and was snoring softly. "Hey!" he called softly. "Anyone out there?"

  The door opened a crack. Banner poked his head in. "What?"

  "The baby," Michael said. "Remember?"

  "Uh? Oh! Yeah, Wayne wanted to play with him. Probably still upstairs."

  Wayne wanted to play with Ian? Huh. "Are we going to get him back?"

  "Oh, yeah, sure," Banner said distractedly. "He’ll be back down."

  "Okay, then," Michael said. "Uh. Thanks."

  "Sure thing," Banner said. He shut the door. Michael sat back down on the floor, and tried to imagine Wayne playing with a baby. With his baby.

  [CHAPTER 18]

  Time crawled. Every once in a while, Michael would hear boots clump across the boards above his head, and sometimes he heard voices and shouts. Monica slept soundly, showing no signs of waking any time soon. He spent the day lost in thought.

  An American "liberation army"… he pondered that for a while. These guys were just a bunch of kids trying to resurrect a country everyone said was better left dead and gone. Humanity had been united as a single nation for over fifty years. Who were they kidding? Maybe they just liked shooting at things and living in the woods. At least it was mostly peaceful.

  Where was Broken? Had she escaped? What would they do to her if she hadn't? Would they take her back to the Extrahuman Union? Would she tell Sky Ranger everything? He fervently hoped she was okay, and that she was still free.

  When it came to Sky Ranger and the Union he couldn’t be sure, even now, where her loyalties ultimately lay.

  Monica… He took a moment to look at her sleeping form. She’d been through too much in the past couple of days. She’d lost her home and family, and had her political beliefs outlawed. Now she was
stuck in the woods, caught by a group of possibly-addled young men.

  She was what, nineteen? Twenty? She sighed in her sleep. She had lovely hair, Michael caught himself thinking. He banished the thought quickly.

  He hoped her dreams were peaceful.

  A knock on the door. "Food comin’ in," Banner said. "Step back from the door. There’s three of us."

  "I’m back," Michael called. The door opened and Banner stuck his head in. He grinned and shoved two plates of food into the room. "Hey, Banner," Michael said. "Where’s that baby we had?"

  "Colonel Wayne, last I saw," said Banner. "Hey, we got some news. President made a speech. It’s martial law, the Senate has been disbanded. All the UNP Senators got arrested."

  "I don’t care," Michael said.

  Banner fixed him with an intense stare. "Guy’s a dictator."

  "I knew that."

  Banner looked crestfallen. "Okay. Just thought you’d want to know." He withdrew, and locked the door again.

  "Hey!" Michael yelled after him, feeling crazy and impulsive. "You’re going to die in fire, you know! You’re going to yell for your mom!" Banner, perhaps fortunately, didn’t return. Michael seethed.

  Monica stirred. "Way to piss off the enemy," she said. "He was nice."

  "Oh, you’re up?" Michael said irritably. "Well, if you hadn’t noticed, he’s keeping us prisoner."

  "What crawled up your ass?" Monica grabbed her plate and started eating. Michael huffed and paced around the room for a few minutes before picking up his own plate and eating fitfully. The meat was tough and stringy, and it tasted funny. He tried not to think about what it might have been.

  "Hey, sorry I was mean to you before," Monica said. "Really. It’s just been a hard couple of days."

  "Good for you," Michael snarled. "Other people have had it rough, too. Not that you notice. All about you! And do you ever stop complaining? Could have been you in that fire, too, if not for me! And what thanks do I get, but you bitching and complaining all the fucking time!" He whirled away from her, panting angrily. He felt oddly empty, and glanced back at her.