Jay Posey - Three

Cass got to her feet, stood uneasily for a moment, letting the blood circulate. Back down the rail, she saw a form laid out on the tracks. Still as death. It had to be Three.

Her heart went cold. Surely she would’ve woken up if there’d been any trouble? And Three didn’t seem like the kind to get taken by surprise. Cass crept out of the repeater and moved down the line on legs that felt noticeably stronger than they had the night before. Sleep had done her good. She could probably push it out another day or so before she’d need another hit of the synth, assuming they didn’t have another thirty miles of ground to cover.

As she drew closer, Three’s silhouette shifted slightly; he glanced her way, then returned to his previous position. He was watching something down below the rail. Cass slid in next to him, lying across the track as he did. He pointed towards the Vault, near the gate. She looked that way, scanned for what he was seeing.

A Weir. A big one. Bigger than any Cass had seen before. And well-preserved too, from what she could tell. Though it was tough to see much detail in the weak light, across that distance, Cass almost could’ve mistaken it for a man, if not for the telltale blue-glow eyes. It just stood there, staring at the gate as if waiting for it to open. After a long moment, it turned slowly and walked a few paces away. Then, it swiveled right back around and returned to its original position, precisely the same spot, and stared at the gate again. The Weir cycled this behavior twice more before Cass spoke.

“What’s it doing?” she whispered.

“Stuck in a loop, I’d guess.”

“Looks like it wants to get in.”

“Probably does.”

“You think it knows Wren’s in there?”

“I think he wants to go home.”

Cass puzzled at that. She’d never thought of the Weir as having homes.

“What do you mean?”

Three didn’t answer. Just sat there, watching the Weir as it shuffled away, then back again.

“Three…?”

He inhaled deeply. Held it. Released slowly. Controlled.

“That’s my friend…” he finally said. “That’s Gev.”

As Jackson led him by the hand through the corridors and along the catwalks, Wren was in awe of the Vault. In the darkness of the previous night, he’d imagined it as a squalid urban cave. Now he was surprised to see it was not much different from most of the other places he’d been; just under the ground instead of above it. There were rows and rows of rooms, deep and wide, that the previous tenants had personalized the way one might expect a row of houses to have been.

They’d found food just a few rooms down from the safe place. And not just scraps, as Wren had expected. A huge storehouse, with rows and rows of shelves each piled with varieties of rations. After they’d eaten, Jackson took Wren through “the District”, which, he explained, was the residential area comprising the three lower levels of the Vault. Now, however, they were on their way to see what Jackson called the Treasure Room.

“Here we go,” Jackson said, flicking on another light and tugging on a thick steel door. It slid open with a deep rumbling groan, and Jackson let Wren go in first.

The room was the largest he’d seen yet, even larger than the food storehouse. And it was packed nearly wall-to-wall with what seemed to be long tables, deeply set. Wren approached one and laid his hand on it. He saw now it was more like a very shallow crate, maybe five inches deep, than a table. And on top of almost every table was a well-organized pile of just about anything you could hope to find in the outside world. Clothes, tools, old mattresses, scrap metal, chemlights; Wren understood why Jackson called it the Treasure Room.

“So yeah,” Jackson said, still in the doorway. “This is it. Pretty much my life’s work, I guess.”

“Where’d you get it all?” Wren asked in a quiet voice.

“Well of course I didn’t get all of it. But that’s what we did, me and the people who used to live here. Just go out in the morning, come back with what we could find. It’s getting harder these days, but there’s still a lot out there to be harvested.”

“What do you do with it?” Wren asked, running his hand over a dark brown coat.

Jackson chuckled.

“We use it, little one…”

He trailed off for a moment, smile fading, eyes clouded. Wren looked up from the coat, noticed Jackson.

“Are you OK?”

Jackson just stared.

“Jackson?”

His eyes cleared, and he shook his head slightly, forcing a smile again.

“Sorry. I said we, but I guess it’s really just me now. Well, actually… there is ‘us’, at least for now.”

“Where did they go?”

“Who?”

“All your other people?”

Jackson’s eyes dropped to the floor, jaw clenched. He shook his head.

“I don’t… little one. Away,” he replied in a low voice. “Taken.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jackson shrugged, wiped his nose with the palm of his hand.

“Hey, you like that coat? You can have it if you want it.”

Wren looked back down at the coat. It was the neatest looking coat he’d ever seen. It was brown, with a hood, and had tons of zippers and pockets on it, and even secret pockets on the inside.

“You should take it,” Jackson said. “Looks like it might fit you pretty good. If not this year, maybe in a couple anyway.”

“That’s OK,” Wren said, hand sliding back to his side. “I don’t want to take your things.”

Jackson laughed good-naturedly.

“That’s what it’s here for. No way I’m gonna be wearing it anyway. Go on, take it. It’s in a lot better shape than yours is.”

“Well…” Wren paused, thought through it. It really was a great coat. “If it’s OK with you, then, thank you very much.”

“You’re very welcome. Come on,” Jackson said, turning and kneeling at the door. “Hop on. Let’s go see about your mom.”

Wren rolled the coat up as best he could under his arm in a hurry and jumped on Jackson’s back, piggyback style. Jackson stood and set off down a corridor to a staircase. Now, riding on his back, in such close proximity to Jackson, Wren felt a wave of anxiety wash over him. He couldn’t explain it, or find the right word for it; just images of wildness, and jostling crowds, and frustration, and fear. His skin crawled, and at last he couldn’t bear it.

“Can you put me down now?” he said quickly. “Please?”

“We’ve still got a few more flights to go—”

“Put me down! Put me down please!”

Jackson dropped quickly and let Wren slide off his back, then turned to face him. Wren dropped back two steps, and pressed his back against the wall.

“What is it, kid? What’s wrong?”

Wren felt the tears welling up, and he swallowed hard, trying to hold it together.

“What’s going on?”

“Are you sick?”

The question took Jackson back. He shook his head slowly.

“Not that I know of… why?”

“There’s something…” Wren took another step back down, afraid to say the words. “Something’s wrong. With you.”

Jackson gave a curious look at Wren. Studied him. Then, he sat down on the stairs and crossed his arms, resting them on his knees.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Yeah, I know.”

“What is it?”

He didn’t answer for a while. Just dropped his gaze to his feet. Eventually he rubbed his face with both hands, ran them back through his greasy hair.

“The night they came…” he started. “I just needed a few minutes. You know?”

Wren waited, not sure where Jackson was going.

“I thought I was going to die. I knew I was going to die. So I shipped. I just needed a few minutes to do it. I hid in the safe place.”