She could hear Wayland climbing through what she was now positive was some hatch between cab and cargo area. Then the sound of it sliding shut.
Her limbs were rubbery, aching. A knot formed in her throat.
Pirates. Vores. Nothing had stopped the enforcers. Wherever they were taking her, whatever they had in mind, there was no way out.
All she’d wanted to do was go into The Rose for a drink.
The mayhem left Buckeye wide awake to feel the truck rolling to a stop some time later. Thirty minutes? An hour? She was losing her grip on reality, immobilized in the dark like this.
There were voices outside again, but since Wayland had retreated to the cargo box, August must have been talking to someone else, but it was just a garble of tones through layers of metal. A brief exchange before the engine shook itself back to life.
One axle after another, after another, the wheels hit a bump that jolted her already sore right arm and hip against the floor. It felt like the truck was aiming downward, as though driving down a hill, but then it leveled out. And a few minutes later … uphill?
Buckeye searched mental maps of The Vice trying to figure out where they were. Not being able to see daylight the whole time had fucked with her sense of direction.
A final time, the truck made it onto level ground and kept rolling. In the end, it wasn’t any further disturbance that made Buckeye’s fine hairs stand on end. It was the lack.
There was no crunching of rocks under tires. No bouncing floorboards. No low-gear struggle over terrain. They drove, slowed for more stops here and there. Made a few turns. It was the smoothest ride she’d ever felt, and that included some of the highways that were still in fair shape in what was left of Austin. Or Phoenix.
Where in the fuck are we?
Another stop. More downhill. A turn. Down. Turn. Down.
What is this, the seventh circle of hell? Come on!
This time when the wheels stopped, so did the motor. There was quiet. A weird, echoing quiet. Her skin might have crawled right off her bones if it wasn’t for her clothes being in the way. The cab door slammed shut. A few breaths later, someone was working the latch to the roll-up door.
Dim light came through the hood. Buckeye’s pulse sped.
As the door rose, something subtle changed in the air. Even through her britches, she could feel it. August’s voice broke into her welling panic.
“All right, time to listen,” he said, projecting to fill the space. “You’re about to move out of this truck, and we need you to walk down the ramp and go where you’re told without trippin’ and killin’ yourself.”
Rummaging noises clunked near the open end of the box, something Wayland was doing, she guessed. Sweat popped out on her lower back, under her pits.
“We’re gonna come around,” August went on, “and cut you loose at the ankles. Take off those hoods.” Muffled sounds of reaction came from a few of the captives.
“You will cooperate,” he said, words shifting forward and up, probably climbing in to help Wayland. “Or there will be consequences.”
The two men made more small noises. Shuffling of boots. Buckeye existed in a state of static agitation: vibrating in place, her thoughts unable to latch onto any one worry or question.
“You take the feet, I’ll take the heads?” Wayland said.
The only response after a few seconds was a dull clicking sound. A rasp of fabric. A grunt from a gagged mouth.
“All right, get up,” said August.
Quiet.
“I said, get up.”
An oof of wind from lungs and Buckeye heard limbs rearranging themselves. A new set of unsteady footsteps. August addressed them all a second time.
“When I say ‘get up’, I mean get up. Do not make me ask you twice.”
Ask. Pff.
The next few debtors got up, mostly by stumbling, but they managed. It was only minutes before the enforcers started work on the man at her back, various limbs and joints bumping her as he struggled to his feet.