Nemesis Games (Expanse 5)

“About three miles down the road,” Amos said, pointing with his thumb. “I can have it here in an hour, easy.”

“That’s okay,” the man said, lifting the rifle to his shoulder and sighting on Amos. The end of the barrel looked as big as a cave. “I can get it myself.”

Before he could pull the trigger, something moved through the field of his yard like a gust of wind. Only this wind had teeth. The man staggered back, then yawped in confusion and pain. With her chemical hormone blockers having faded in the days since they left the Pit, Peaches moved too quickly for Amos’ eye to follow. It was like she’d become an angry hummingbird. The man fell to his knees, his assault rifle suddenly gone and one of his fingers broken and bleeding. As he curled to grasp his broken hand, the gun stuttered, opening the man’s chest along the side.

And then Peaches went still, her prison gown flapping around her in the breeze, blood spattered down the length of her body, the assault rifle held in one hand. Slowly, she sank to the ground. By the time Amos had his pants back on and got over to her, her eyes had rolled back and she was vomiting. He put his shirt over her and waited until the fit passed. It wasn’t more than about five minutes, and since no one else had come out of the house to investigate or take revenge, Amos was feeling pretty confident the dead man had been a bachelor.

She shuddered once, went still, and then the blankness left her eyes.

“Hey,” she said. “Did we win?”

“First round,” Amos said, nodding to her. “It like that every time?”

“Yup,” she said. “It’s really not a great design.”

“Useful when it’s useful, though.”

“Is that. Are you okay?”

“Little chilly,” Amos said. “Won’t kill me. You stay here for a bit, okay? I’m gonna go see what we’re looking at inside.”

“I’ll come with you,” she said, trying to sit up. He put a hand on her shoulder. He didn’t have to push to keep her down.

“I’ll go first. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t booby-trapped.”

“Okay,” she breathed. “I’ll just wait here, then.”

“Good plan.”

The next morning, they set off from the little compound at dawn. They both had professional-grade thermal suits, even if his was a little snug and she had to roll up the cuffs. The bunker under the house had supplies enough to last for a year or two: survival gear, weapons, ammunition, high-calorie rations, a stack of surprisingly boring pornography, and a collection of beautiful hand-carved chess sets. The best find hadn’t been in the bunker, though. The garage had a half-dozen unused but well-maintained bicycles, complete with saddlebags. Even with long rifles strapped over their shoulders and their packs weighed down with water and food, they covered the distance from the compound, through the town, and out to the highway in half an hour. By noon, they’d gone farther than three days’ walking would have taken them. It was probably seven hundred klicks from the Pit to Erich’s office. They’d been able to cover just under thirty on foot. With the bikes, they’d more than double that. Baltimore was maybe nine days away, assuming nothing went wrong. Which, given the context, seemed like a lot to ask. But still.

They stopped for lunch at noon. It was dim enough it could have been the hours just before dawn. His breath was pluming in the air now, but between the exercise and the thermal suit, Amos didn’t feel the cold. Peaches seemed about a thousand times better too. She was smiling, and there was color in her cheeks. They sat on an old bench beside the road, looking east. The view was mud and a scattering of debris.

And still on the horizon, the glow of something huge – a city or a fire – lit the clouds from below, gold on gray. So maybe even the end of the world had its moments of beauty.

Peaches took a bite of her ration bar and sipped the water from her self-purifying canteen. “Is it bothering you?”

“What?”

“What we did.”

“Not sure what that was, Peaches.”

She looked at him, her eyes narrowed like she was trying to decide if he was joking. “We invaded a man’s home, killed him, and took his stuff. If we hadn’t come through, he might have made it. Lived until the sun came back. Survived.”

“He was gonna shoot me for no reason except that I had something he wanted.”

“He wouldn’t have done it if we hadn’t gone there. And we lied to him about wanting to trade.”

“Seems like you have a point to make, Peaches.”

“If he hadn’t been ready to pull the trigger, would you have let it go? Or would we still be here, with these guns and this food?”

“Oh, we were taking his shit. I’m just pointing out both sides of the argument had the same plan.”

“Then we’re not exactly the good guys, are we?”

Amos scowled. It wasn’t a question that had even crossed his mind until she said it. It bothered him that it didn’t bother him more. He scratched his chest and tried to imagine Holden doing what they’d done. Or Naomi. Or Lydia.