“?‘Luck’ is a weird word to use,” said Spider.
“With you on that,” agreed Benny.
“Luck’s relative, I guess,” said Gutsy. “Maybe we’ll never know the exact reason the whole horde didn’t try to use the tunnel. But we can be glad they didn’t.”
“No joke,” said Benny. Then he glanced in the general direction of the school. “Still don’t get how the ravagers got to the school without anyone seeing them in town.”
“Same for those ones Chong said were yelling,” said Nix. “The ones in street clothes. Where’d they come from?”
No one had an answer to that. Gutsy exchanged a look with Alethea, who raised her eyebrows.
“Gosh,” she said, “another mystery. Fun times.”
A few minutes later, Ledger, Sam, and Grimm returned, and they did not look happy.
“She’s gone,” said Ledger. “Killed both guards stationed at the far end of the tunnel. Head shots. Took their weapons and spare ammunition. At a guess I’d say she forced them to move the cases of canned goods we stacked to block the door. Maybe promising to let them go if they cooperated, but…”
Alethea snorted and leaned on the knob end of her baseball bat. “So what if she’s gone? Maybe the ravagers will get her. It’s not like she has anywhere else to go. The base was blown up, right? She can’t go there.”
“Where else is there?” asked Spider.
Ledger shook his head. “Not exactly sure. There are weapons caches out there somewhere. Sam’s been trying to figure out where. Or… who knows, she could be hoping to make it all the way to Asheville.”
“Isn’t that where you’re from?” asked Gutsy.
“Only kind of,” said Ledger. “It’s the capital of the American Nation, and there are lots of people there. No doubt Collins has some friends there too. If so, they’re keeping a low profile; I don’t who they might be, and that’s weird, because it’s the kind of thing I should know.” His mouth tightened, and his eyes seemed to go hard as polished stone. “If I ever get back to Asheville, I intend to find out who knew about what was going on down here. I’m going to pin some people to the wall and get some answers; you can count on that.”
“We don’t know if that’s where Collins is going, though,” said Sam.
“He’s right,” said Gutsy. “There could be another base somewhere else. Or another lab.”
“At this point, anything’s possible,” said Ledger darkly.
“Why are we talking about this?” asked Benny. “Let’s go get her.”
“I’m for that,” said Gutsy, and Alethea made a nasty sound of agreement.
“Well… that’s the other thing,” said Ledger heavily. “Collins took one of the quads and slashed the tires on the other machines. She smashed some stuff on each of them. Stuff I don’t know if we can repair.”
“Oh no…,” breathed Nix.
Benny gripped Sam’s arm with sudden desperation. “Which quad did she take? Did she take the blue one? God, please, please, please tell me she didn’t take the blue one.”
“Why?” asked Alethea. “What’s so special about the blue one?”
“That’s Chong’s bike,” said Nix in a very small voice.
“So?”
“It’s the one that had his extra medicine in the saddlebags.” Nix turned pleading eyes toward Sam. “Chong has some with him, but he left the rest down there for safety because… well… we weren’t planning on staying all that long. It wasn’t the blue one… was it?”
They all looked at Sam. He closed his eyes and nodded.
Interlude One The Hated
SIX YEARS AGO
THE BOY DIDN’T HAVE A name. Not really.