James Corey - Nemesis Games

They were smeared with ash, the same as everything. If they had weapons, Amos didn’t see them. Handguns, maybe. So he had them for range if he wanted to start shooting. They were walking, so outrunning them was also an option, if it came to that. Thing was, Peaches didn’t look like anywhere near the threat she was, and pretty much everyone was going to be going off appearances. It was that kind of misunderstanding that got people killed.

The other group slowed down, but didn’t stop. Wary, but not disinterested. Amos stood up on his pedals.

“Peaches? How’s about you hang back a little.”

“Draw down on them?”

“Nah. Let’s be neighbors first.”

Her bike slowed and fell behind. Ahead on the street, the others made their own calculations and came to a different conclusion. All four stepped out toward Amos together, chins raised in a diffident greeting. No trouble unless there’s trouble. Amos smiled amiably, and it occurred to him this was exactly the kind of situation that had taught him how to smile like that.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.” One of the four stepped closer. He was older. He moved gracefully, center of gravity low. Maybe a veteran. Maybe just someone who’d boxed some. Amos pointed his smile at the guy, then the other three. Tension crept up the back of his neck and into his shoulders. He breathed through it, forcing himself to relax. “Coming from Baltimore?”

“Monkton,” the fighter said.

“Yeah? Towers or the flats?”

The fighter’s mouth twitched into a little smile. “Z tower,” he said.

“Zadislaw,” Amos said. “Had a friend lived there once. Long time ago. How is it up there?”

“It’s ten thousand people in a box with no food and not much water.”

“Not so great, then.”

“Power supply’s all fucked up. And Baltimore’s worse. No offense meant, but I’d say you’re heading the wrong way.” The fighter licked his lips. “Nice bikes.”

“They do what we need ’em to,” Amos agreed. “Only gets worse south of here. We’re walking away from the strike.”

“Keep going south, though, it gets warm again. That’s where we’re headed. Baja complex.”

One of the others cleared her throat. “I’ve got a cousin down there.”

Amos whistled between his teeth. “That’s a hell of a walk you got there.”

“Walk there or freeze here,” the fighter said. “You and your friend there ought to come with us.”

“I appreciate the invite, but we’ve got people we’re meeting up with in Baltimore.”

“You sure about that?”

“It’s more like a working hypothesis, but it’s the plan for now.”

The fighter’s gaze flickered down to the bike again, then up to Amos’ face. The man studiously avoided looking at the rifle hanging on Amos’ back. He waited to see which way they were going. The other man nodded.

“Well, good luck to you. We’re all going to need it.”

“That’s truth,” Amos said. “Tell Baja hi for me when you get there.”

“Will.”

The fighter started off down the street, the others with him. Amos loosened the strap that held the rifle, but he didn’t draw the weapon. The four walkers moved down the ash-gray road. Peaches rode up, passing them. The last in their formation turned to watch her pass, but no one made a move.

“Everything all right?” she asked.

“Sure,” Amos said. The shadows of the other crew faded into the gloom.

“Talked them out of any unpleasant actions?”

“Me? Nope. They did most of that themselves. Best defense we’ve got right now is everyone’s in the habit of not killing each other and taking their shit. Pretty soon, people are just going to start assuming anyone they don’t know is out to slit their throats. If they’re lucky.”

She looked at him. Her face was smooth, her eyes intelligent and hard. “You don’t sound upset at the prospect.”

“I’m comfortable with it.”

With every kilometer traveled they came closer to the sea and the stink of rot and salt grew worse. They hit the high-water mark: the place where the charge of the floodwaters had broken. The line of debris was so clear and distinct it looked deliberate. A short wall made of wreckage and mortared with mud. Once they passed it, the ash was thick with mud and the roads were covered in broken wood and construction plastic, ruined clothes and waterlogged furniture, blackened plants killed by darkness and ash and salt water. And the bodies of dead people and animals that no one was going to bother cleaning up. The bikes threw up gobbets of the muddy road and they had to push harder, bearing down with all their weight, to keep the wheels spinning.

When they were still about twenty klicks from the arcology, Amos ran into a pit filled with water and covered over with a scum of ash. It bent the bicycle’s front rim. He left it where it lay, and Peaches dropped hers beside it.

He was aware of voices around him. Every step of the way, they were being watched. But between having rifles and not seeming to have anything much else, no one tried to stop them. All around, the ground floors of the buildings were gutted, walls cracked by the pitiless water, and the contents of the stores and apartments and offices puked out into the streets. Some places, the second story was just as bad; some places it was better. Above that, the city seemed almost untouched. Amos kept imagining the place like it was a healthy-looking guy with exposed bone and gangrene from the ankle down.

“Something funny?” Peaches asked.

“Nope,” Amos said. “I was just thinking.”

The arcology was no different. It loomed up among the ruins, towering over the debris-choked streets now the way it had over the maintained streets before. The reactor that powered the vast building seemed to still be running, because lights glowed in half of the windows. If he just put his hand over the bottom layer, Amos could almost pretend the ash was snow, and all this was nothing more than the worst Christmas in history.

They trudged into the lowest level. Icy mud stuck his pants to his skin up to the knee. Glass pipes and footprints showed where people had been but there was no one standing guard. At least no one they saw.

“What if your friend’s not here?” Peaches asked as Amos poked at the elevator’s call button.

“Then we think of something else.”

“Any idea what?”

“Still nope.”

He was more than half-surprised when the elevator doors opened. Flood damage could have ruined the mechanism. Of course it could also get stuck halfway up, and they could die in it. When he selected the club level, the screen clicked to life. A broad-faced woman with a scar across her upper lip sneered out at him.

“The fuck you want?”

“Amos. Friend of Erich’s.”

“We got no fucking handouts.”

“Not looking for any,” Amos said. “Want to talk about a job.”

“No jobs either.”

Amos smiled. “You new at this, Butch? I have a job. I’m here to see if Erich wants in. This is the part where you go tell him there’s some psycho in the elevator wants to talk with him, then he says who is it, and you say the guy calls himself Amos, and Erich tries not to look surprised and tells you to let me up and —”

“For fuck’s sake!” Erich’s voice was distant, but recognizable. “Let him up, or he’ll talk all day.”

Butch scowled into the screen and blinked out to the blue arcology menu system. But the car started up.

“Good news is he’s here,” Amos said.

Erich’s office looked the same as the last time Amos had been in it – the same wall screen showing the same ocean view, the rubber ball instead of a chair, the desk encrusted with decks and monitors. Even Erich didn’t look different. Maybe better dressed, even. It was the context that changed it all. The screen showed an ocean of gray and white, and Erich’s clothes looked like a costume.