Chapter 3: High Water, Pt. 1

She picked the stitches out herself. A glance into a pool of water revealed a scar forming, a glaring red indent in her weathered brown skin. It wasn’t infected. 86 hadn’t taken her eye. She was lucky.

Ruins lined the old highway, headstones of a dead civilization. They’d moved carefully, often at night, hiding during daylight and taking turns sleeping — or dozing, in Lily’s case, with her finger on the trigger guard of a rifle she didn’t know how to fire.

In two and a half weeks he’d said eighteen words to her. Not all at once. She’d said twice as many back.

Spring had ambushed them. It rained pitilessly, and as the snow melted the scrubland turned into a swamp. Rivers swelled and burst their banks.

This particular river had bisected the highway, cutting and undercutting the road until it collapsed. Fifteen, maybe twenty feet to the other bank. It could be hours or days before they found a place to ford.

Lily watched the impatient current from the edge of the road. Noxious yellow foam ringed the waterline like froth on the mouth of a rabid dog.

She probed the inside of her cheek with her tongue. “We’ve gotta get over.”

74 peered down, hand on his rifle sling. The water rushed by with a muted roar. “Can you swim.”

“Well…” Lily booted a rock into the water. “No.”

He continued on along the bank, like that settled things. She made an obscene gesture at his retreating back as she followed. Why had she been so scared of him? He was just rude.

Ahead of them the sun was setting, turning the haze blood-red. A bad omen. The damp had gotten into Lily’s bones and her leg ached. She did not allow herself to limp.

Up ahead, 74 froze. He looked back the way they’d come. Then he took a knee and tucked the butt of his rifle into his shoulder.

“What,” she said, crouching down next to him.

74 blinked at her, like he’d forgotten she was there. Then he pointed with two fingers.

Lily saw only rusted girders held together by dry brown vines, and a few overgrown humps of rubble. The remnants of a tall building, vanishing into the middle distance. Beyond that, more ruins; a featureless shape in the growing haze too far behind them for detail. They’d passed it without incident. She had tripped over a piece of rebar.

Then she saw movement.

Little specks moved over the rough terrain in an uneven line. Grey uniforms. Lily tried to remember: had the ground been soft? Had they left tracks?

She shivered with an electric thrill of fear and fought the urge to flatten herself against the ground like a beast.

The Coalition was coming.

“You said they went back east.” Her voice was strained.

“They don’t want you,” 74 said, scanning the surrounding debris and hillocks with the suggestion of a frown. “You can go.”

Oh, could she? How kind of him. Lily cinched up the straps of her pack and rose, stiffly.

Her boot left a depression in the earth that almost immediately filled with water. She stared at it.

An Operative lay dead behind them, and Lily was guilty by association. Those Regulars had probably already seen two sets of prints, and would hunt her forever once they got done killing 74.

And of course there was the matter of revenge. Not just for her face.

She looked up at him. “I’ve never fired a rifle before.”

He stared back at her like she’d grown an extra head, like the rabbit he’d shot two days ago.

Lily thumbed the strap of her weapon. “Just a pistol.”

“Same principle,” 74 said, still staring. “Aim and pull the trigger.”

She pointed to a half-buried chunk of concrete, slick with green and white droppings. Behind it the ground sloped down to the river.

“There,” she said. “The sun’s in their eyes. Do you think they saw us?”

74 blinked again. Lily was starting to recognize the different kinds; this one indicated surprise.

“No,” he said, dropping down behind the cover. Kneeling, he propped his rifle on the concrete and sighted down the road.

Lily wedged her rifle butt against her stomach, drawing the charging handle back with both hands. She propped the weapon up to examine the unfamiliar surface.

“Don’t engage,” 74 said. “Unless they see us.”

She regarded him levelly. He blinked twice, and looked away; hopefully that indicated embarrassment.

They waited in silence. Damp and cold seeped into her clothes. The rain softened and turned to mist.

Maybe they would get lucky.

The Regulars’ uniforms blended in with the washed out browns and charcoals of the landscape. They were close enough now that Lily could hear voices but not words. The world was blue and cold.

“…on the road, maybe,” one of them was saying. “I lost it back there.”

“So find it again,” another answered. “Quick, he’s coming.”

74 was peering over the concrete lump.

“How many,” Lily breathed.

Horribly, she saw a tremor pass through his hands and into the rifle. Brief, but unmistakeable. “Sixty-three.”

She shook her head emphatically.

“Operative 63,” 74 whispered. He returned his attention to the sights. “He’s mine.”

He opened fire without waiting for a response.

The Regulars scattered, shouting as they haphazardly returned fire. A bullet ricocheted near Lily’s head, scattering chips of concrete and sending her ducking with a curse.

74 didn’t flinch. He fired mechanically without pausing or seeming to aim.

Screams. A barrage of answering gunfire. Lily pressed her back to the rubble as clods of dirt fell away under her feet, into the rushing water.

Movement to the right. A Regular broke cover and sprinted—

Recoil numbed Lily’s shoulder. Her ears rang and her head was filled with a distant roaring.

Hot brass bounced off her arm as she racked the charging handle back.

The soldier bled out onto the rain-slick moss. The river snarled behind them and no one else fired. Nothing moved.

Then, into that awful stillness: “Surrender, 74.”

The words did not echo or ring out; they fell flat, as if made of lead. 74 flinched and tucked his rifle to his chest, gathering himself—

Lily threw herself at him, knocking him against the barrier before he could vault it. Bullets zipped over their heads again. “Are you insane?”

No, she realized, as he looked back at her. He was terrified.

He ejected his magazine, checking the rounds before slamming it home again, getting ready to move.

Lily chanced a peek around the pitted concrete and caught a glimpse of black before a desperate volley sent her falling back.

She wrestled her pack off her shoulder and fumbled through it until her hand closed around cold metal. Egg-shaped.

“No,” 74 said. There might’ve been a hint of alarm in it.

The hail of bullets faltered.

Lily pulled the pin, pitched the grenade, and tackled him backwards into the water. The explosion was the last thing she heard before the river grabbed them.

Deeper than she’d expected. Cold. Mud in her mouth. Lily was dragged down and slammed into something and lost her grip on 74, lost the breath she’d been holding, lost all sense of direction.

Water stabbed her lungs like knives. Her head broke the surface. Then the undertow dragged her back down and devoured her.

She was little. Safe. She sat in her mother’s lap, rocking gently like waves against a shore neither of them had ever seen. Johanna’s dark skin glowed, her eyes were unclouded, her hair was gathered in thick twists. No sickness yet. Just the slow rocking, just…

She heard wheels. Smelled horses.

Lily’s eyes flew open. Light stabbed into her skull like a needle.

If she was dead, then this was a spacious coffin. Pale light filtered through cracks in the wood-slat walls and canvas ceiling. Sloshing plastic water jugs and bundles of drying herbs hung overhead, swaying in time with the rocking wagon. She lay on a pallet under a rough blanket, and she was not alone.

Lily jolted upright, slumping against the wall with a groan and clutching her chest. Her ribs…

“Slowly,” the woman cautioned. She was small and plump, middle-aged, wearing layers of tattered clothing.

Lily tried to stay upright. “Where am I.”

“This is a trade caravan from New Columbia.” The woman smiled, displaying the whitest teeth Lily had ever seen. “We found you by the river.”

Had they? Lily remembered swirling water and shouting. A weight on her chest. Disjointed pictures.

She pulled out her shirt collar and glanced down at the impressive patchwork of bruises creeping out from beneath a cloth bandage. She didn’t remember getting medical attention, or changing her clothes, or getting into a wagon.

“My name is Malinda. Michael told me you were Lily?” She had an odd accent, broad and rolling. Lily wondered how she was going to pay for all of this, and worse, how a stranger knew her name.

She winced as the wagon lurched over a divot in the road. The chorus of pain swelled. “Sure. When can I leave?”

“We’ll stop soon. Go then if you want, but at least eat first.”

They’d tended her injuries, given her a lift, offered to feed her…all without mention of payment. That wasn’t normal, but she couldn’t risk raising suspicion. Not while she was unarmed and hurt.

“All right,” she said.

Malinda displayed her gleaming smile again and Lily curled her lips back from her own teeth in response. “I’ll send Michael to you now. He’s been worried.”

When she opened the door Lily caught a glimpse of two massive horses plodding in the traces of a second wagon before the door swung shut again. How had she gotten here? How could she have forgotten?

The grenade went off. Brown water swallowed her. The current tore 74 out of her hands—

No. She forced her fists to release. She breathed air, not water. It wasn’t closing over her head, rushing into her lungs—

No.

River bank. She’d woken up coughing, 74 leaning over her with blood on his face, breathing hard. Pain, in her chest and head…Lily’s eyes slid shut but still she saw the river, roaring straight through her.

Enough. This Michael was coming, and he knew her, and she didn’t have the strength to fight her way out.

The wagon shook. Someone rapped on the door, jerking it open without waiting for a response.

A small weight lifted from Lily’s shoulders as 74 ducked inside. He wore unfamiliar clothes that reeked of tobacco smoke and horse, and there was a jagged cut on his temple in the center of a round purple bruise.

“What happened,” she demanded.

“Your ribs are broken.” 74 avoided her eyes as he sat down on a crate across from her. “The current dragged you into a rock.”

Lily remembered shouting, pain, light. Nothing more. “Wait. Are you supposed to be Michael?”

74 nodded.

“I’m not calling you that,” she said. He couldn’t have a name, he was a Coalition thing. “What happened to not engaging unless they saw us?”

Had she imagined a small spasm of guilt? “Plans change.”

“Whatever. I don’t like anything about this.”

74 stared past her shoulder. “They’re taking us to Freeport. In exchange for the pistol.”

“You gave it to them?” Lily tried to get up, an idea that seemed wonderful until its execution. She folded over with a moan and 74 moved much too fast, reaching—

“Don’t!” He sat back down and she breathed again, cautiously. “Just go, leave me alone. Don’t touch me.”

After a few heartbeats of silence, 74 got up. He walked to the door, but paused with his hand flat against it and turned back to her.

His face was smooth and calm. Nothing at all behind his eyes. How would anger shape that face, Lily wondered, trying to remember what he’d looked like by the river.

“It wasn’t your fight,” he said. “You could have gone.”

Being responsible for one more death through inaction, even if it was just his, might undo her entirely.

“We had a deal,” she said instead, clutching her ribcage. “To the river. Not that river.”

74’s mouth moved, tightening at the corners. Was it supposed to be a smile? He touched the cut on his forehead. “Warn me, next time.”

Another spike of pain lanced through Lily’s ribs. “There won’t be a next time.”

A brief flash of impatience or irritation crossed 74’s face. He opened the door without another word, stepping down off the moving wagon and vanishing from sight.

Lily was alone again.

—

By the time they stopped for the night Lily was ready to explode; the novelty of traveling without doing any of the work had already lost its charm.

She hauled her aching body off the pallet, watching from the open door as the caravan formed a slow circle. Each of the massive, shaggy horses drawing the wagons had the correct number of eyes and limbs. New Columbia had ten-generation clean stock, everyone said so.

Descending the stairs jutting from the back of the wagon without screaming took all of Lily’s willpower. 74 appeared right as her feet hit the ground, but he was just bringing her coat, and he didn’t stand too close as she put it on.

Shrugging into the coat was an agony. For a moment Lily thought 74 was going to help her, but he put his hands in his pockets instead.

The members of the caravan performed their tasks with the synchronicity of long practice, unhitching horses, gathering firewood, locking wagon wheels. All men. No children and no women, except Malinda. They all wore sidearms, except Malinda.

A bald, stocky man with a wiry black beard dropped his armful of firewood and strode toward them. Lily noticed 74 grip his knife, and took note.

The man saw it too. He grinned, exposing a vast expanse of tobacco-stained teeth. His tanned face was on a level with Lily’s and he looked her in the eyes as he spoke.

“You’re up,” he boomed, grasping her hand in both of his large rough paws. “I’m Jean, caravan leader. There’s anything you need, you come find me.”

His accent was broad and slow, the way she remembered from the troops on Omaha. He wore a pistol in his belt.

Lily pulled her hand out of his. “Thanks. We won’t be staying long.”

Jean’s smile stayed in full force.“Help yourself to food and fire tonight, at least. We’re all friends here.”

He marched off, shouting to the others in an unfamiliar language.

“So,” Lily murmured, trying not to move her lips as she fixed a smile to her face. “Was he that friendly before you gave him the gun?”

74 shrugged minutely.

They made a slow circuit of the camp, and he stuck close to her side. Too close. Like a sheepdog. She stopped by a pair of horses with quilted blankets thrown over their broad backs, laying her palm against a thick, shaggy neck.

“Why did they even want it,” Lily whispered.

74 looked around like everyone in the camp owed him money. “Firearms are valuable.”

“Yeah, but half the weapons on the continent come from New Columbia.” Lily gave the horse’s neck a final stroke. “Everyone here is armed. Except us.”

74 didn’t answer. Hopefully he was embarrassed.

The wagons stood open as cargo was removed or shifted; all but one, chained shut and secured with a padlock the size of Lily’s fist. Curiosity stirred, an itch that couldn’t be scratched.

A grizzled man rose from the steps of that wagon as they passed, and rested one arm on a club hanging from his belt.

The itch became unbearable.