Wasteland Wonderland - Part 1 Page 3

  “I’m sorry about that. Really, I am. But you people gave me no choice. And what the hell were you people even doing there? Why the frame? Why the set up? What did you want with the girl?”

  “You don’t get to ask the questions.”

  “I’m a dead man,” I say, trying to reason with him. “You can tell me. You can tell me everything because I won’t tell anyone when I’m dead. And right now, there’s no one else around. It’s just you and me and whatever is lurking in these dark tunnels.”

  “I’m just following orders.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  I shift my eyes to the dark. Off in the distance, I picture something there, something big. And I say, “We think they’re mutants. From the radiation. From all those fucking bombs they dropped during the Great Wars.”

  “You’re not going to scare me.”

  “It’s funny, isn’t it? We were fighting wars over land and food and water. And all the while we were dropping nukes. We were destroying the very things we were fighting over. We were sealing our fate. Or at the very least, we were speeding it up.”

  “The Great Wars led to the Truce, which led to the building of the Arks. The wars were a necessary evil.”

  “Is that what they teach you in Wonderland? Is that what they tell you?”

  He slowly reaches for his fancy gun. Rapid fire. Large mag. Silenced barrel. This guy is carrying around a fortune. A treasure. And he doesn’t even realize. I see him flick the safety off…

  He is sick of talking.

  “There is no escape,” he says. “My partner is waiting in the bar. You are trapped.”

  I smile. “That’s funny, because the way I see it, you’re trapped down here with me.”

  He looks at me like I’m crazy. He looks at me and he can’t figure out why I’m smiling.

  He shifts his weight, stepping back. He swallows hard. It’s right about now that he is starting to feel extremely uneasy. I tend to have that effect on people.

  “You hear that?” I ask.

  Again, I look off into the dark. I picture the monstrosities, the twisted abominations. I picture creatures from the depths of the Wasteland.

  He doesn’t buy my bluff.

  But then all of a sudden there is a noise. A loud thump. An even louder roar. A roar. Maybe there really is something coming this way.

  The Enforcer turns and he raises his weapon. He’s expecting a monster, something from his imagination, from his nightmares. He’s heard the stories. Of course he has. And even though he hides his fear well, I know he is scared.

  But there’s nothing there, nothing but the monsters of his mind.

  The barricades do their job this time.

  Anyway, while the Enforcer is distracted, I move behind him with my knife in hand. I put him in a choke hold. My forearm and bicep lock around his neck. He automatically stands up, he automatically struggles, arching his back. I slide the knife into his spine. His legs go limp. He doesn’t scream. He lets out a weird whimpering breathless sound.

  I let him down gently and relieve him of his weapons.

  A knife.

  The gun.

  Two extra magazines of ammunition.

  If I wanted to, I could trade these items and live like a King in the Buried City. But I don’t want to live like a King. I want answers. I want revenge.

  The Enforcer looks up at me, no longer hiding his fear.

  He’s afraid.

  He’s always been afraid.

  “I’m sorry to do this to you,” I say, half lying, half telling the truth. “But I’m not ready to die. I’ve got stuff to do. And I need answers. So now, I’m going to ask you a bunch of questions. And you’re going to answer every single one of them.”

  He coughs blood and spits it at me. “I’m not answering a goddamn thing.”

  He whispers this through clenched teeth.

  “I just paralyzed you. I can do worse.”

  He tries to act tough but his eyes betray him. “I don’t know anything. I’m just a soldier. I’m just following orders. We were told to bring you in. To find out what you know. To find out who else you had talked to. And then …”

  “Exile me?”

  “No. Not Exile. Execute… publically… as a warning.”

  “I killed maybe a handful of Mercs that you and your people don’t give a shit about. I killed two Enforcers. They attacked me first. They provoked me and I defended myself in the heat of battle. This wasn’t cold blooded. This wasn’t pre-meditated. The punishment should be Exile.”

  He is shaking his head. “You don’t get it, do you? It’s not about the killing…”

  “Then what’s it about?”

  Again, he clams up. Because whatever it’s about is big.

  Or maybe he doesn’t fully know.

  Maybe this guy has been lied to…

  I’m just a soldier.

  “You had nothing to do with her death, did you?” I say, thinking out loud, talking to myself. “Whoever killed Ruby was no Enforcer. No butcher. She was poisoned. She was poisoned with something I’ve never seen, never even knew existed. She didn’t suffer. She was in no pain. You wouldn’t even know she was dead if you saw her. You’d have to feel for her pulse. It was almost like she’d been preserved. A beautiful work of art for the whole world to see.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he asks. “What did she tell you?”

  He asks this question like he is genuinely interested, like he really, really wants to know. He is genuinely curious. He is curious because he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know a goddamn thing.

  “She didn’t tell me anything,” I say.

  She didn’t get a chance. She was scared. She said she knew secrets. And those secrets got her killed. Information and knowledge that she possessed but wasn’t supposed to.

  I’m slowly figuring this out.

  I’m slowly realizing that this is big… that it goes all the way to the very top. That not even the Enforcers know what’s going on.

  They are in the dark as well.

  We all are.

  “We tracked her here,” the Enforcer says as he struggles to breathe. “She made it through the tunnels, through the Long Tunnel. Don’t know how she got out.”

  “Wait. Are you saying there are tunnels connecting this place to Wonderland?”

  “Of course there is. How do you think we move around so freely?”

  “Why the hell does no one else know about these tunnels? Do you realize how much easier it would be to transport people through an underground tunnel? Would’ve made my job a whole lot easier. It would’ve saved lives.”

  “This tunnel isn’t for Wastelanders.”

  “Figures. Typical Wonderland bullshit.”

  “It’s not bullshit. It’s necessary. We need to secure the borders. The gates. The more gates we have to secure, the more at risk we are of being overrun. If we become overrun, the whole system breaks down. If the system breaks down, then no one is leaving Earth.”

  I see blood beginning to pool underneath him. The pool is growing. “Look, you don’t have long. Who was she?”

  “I… I don’t know. But I do know she was someone important. She belonged to the Collector. But it makes no difference. She was the first to leave Wonderland. Things are going to change now.”

  “What things?”

  “What do you care? You’re a dead man.”

  He’s right. No point in worrying about things that won’t affect me. “How many Enforcers are in the city?”

  “A lot. A small army. Too many for even you.”

  And I think maybe this guy has heard of me. “Who poisoned her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I hold the knife in front of his face. “Do not lie to me. Do not play dumb.”

  “I was just on clean up and containment duty. Orders were passed down the line. From the top. The very top.”

  “Just give me a damn name. I want a name. And I want a reason. Why was she killed?”

  “What are you playing at?”

  The Enforcer is genuinely confused…

  “I just want the truth,” I say. “Who killed her?”

  “You did! You crazy son of a bitch. You killed her, you goddamn psychopath!”

  The frame is good. This guy still believes it…

  “What did they tell you?” I ask. “What were your orders?”

  “Like I said, we were told to bring you in. Dead or alive. Preferably alive. Find out if you talked to anyone.”

  This guy knows nothing. He doesn’t know the why of it and he doesn’t know who the killer is. Hell, he thinks I’m the killer. I guess a lot of people think I’m the killer. Maybe everyone. Well, not everyone. Not whoever set this frame up.

  “You killed a very important person,” he says. “A highly prized possession of the Collector. We can’t have people finding out there’s a leak coming from Wonderland. That she escaped. That she wanted to leave.”

  He’s giving away more good intel. I think he knows he’s dying. And I know he’s telling the truth. He’s telling the truth because there’s no rhyme or reason in keeping secrets at this point.

  “She escaped?” I ask. “Why did she escape? What did she escape from?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  I shake my head. “No. Why would anyone want to escape from Wonderland?”

  He closes his eyes. “You really don’t know. No one knows.”

  “Knows what?”

  “Trust me, you’re better off not knowing… you’re better off. Everyone is better off.”

  “Who’s the tall guy with the scar over his left eye?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  I pick him up by his shoulders. He goes limp. I shake
him. But he’s dead. His eyes roll back in his skull, white and lifeless. There’s a massive pool of blood on the ground.

  I lay him down gently because there’s no point in disrespecting a dead man.

  Chapter 6

  I’m better off not knowing. Everyone is better off…

  What the hell was he talking about?

  I climb back up into the train carriage, back into the bar. And there’s no time to think about what the dead Enforcer just told me, because his partner, the one he warned me about, is waiting at the other end of the carriage.

  The Mercs are still there as well. Still as hungry as ever.

  The Enforcer throws a big and heavy bag on the floor. The bag lands with the unmistakable sound of clinking metal.

  This is a big bag full of forged steel.

  The Enforcer says, “Cut him up. Bring me his head. The reward just doubled.”

  And now the Mercs are armed with hatchets and axes. Knives and machetes. There were even a couple of swords.

  I am always surprised to see a sword. Swords look awesome, they look fabulous and intimidating and all that, but down here, in the confines of the Buried City, they are not the most practical of weapons.

  Anyway, the reward just doubled. And the eyes of the Mercs go so big at the thought of all their problems going away, with the promise of riches, of food and water and booze and whatever the hell they want.

  It could even be a retirement fund. Maybe even a ticket for the Shuttle, for a place on one of the Arks.

  Most of these guys know me. And I think most of these guys like me, but a reward is a reward. Payment is payment.

  I understand that it’s nothing personal…

  Well, it’s nothing personal until the knife goes in.

  So I take a deep breath, the kind of breath you take just before you’re about to dive in a pool of water.

  My eyes go wide. Pupils dilate. I am razor focused.

  I’m ready for the fight.

  Apart from the fight at the hotel, at the scene of Ruby’s murder, it’s been years since I’ve been in a fight like this.

  Years.

  But I’m ready.

  I move through the carriage, breaking limbs, breaking faces.

  These guys are Mercs. They work for hire, for money and goods and services. Which I guess makes them professionals.

  But they are not professionals.

  They are anything but…

  And with a knife in their hand, with any kind of edged weapon in their hand, they become predictable and pathetic. Most of them swing the weapon with their right hand. And they don’t bother protecting their head with their left. As a result, they don’t last long.

  None of them put up much of a fight.

  I don’t mind. It’s nice just to get the feeling back, to get moving.

  I crack skulls. I crack teeth. I could use the guns that I’ve acquired to mow these guys down, but I don’t want to waste the bullets and I don’t need to.

  I get my hands on a knife and things get bloody and messy. Like I said, it’s been years since I’ve been in a fight.

  I’d forgotten how good it feels.

  It feels good.

  So good.

  All the old feelings come roaring back. The muscle memory is still there. There’s an adrenalin rush that feels like lightning in my veins. And I can see why I used to be addicted to this, addicted to violence.

  My brother was the one who stopped me from fighting. From killing. He saved me from myself, from a life of death. I’d been working for the gangs, for all of them, playing both sides. All sides. Even in the Buried City, there’s an underworld, a dangerous underworld full of dangerous people. I didn’t care who I played or who I crossed. I made fools of them all.

  I thought I was invincible.

  And then they put a price on my head.

  It’s hard to live in an underground city when three different crime bosses want you dead.

  My brother paid the bounty in full. Cleared my name. Saved my life. He arranged the Exile. He made sure all the bosses were happy. They were happy because they all thought I was going to die out in the Wasteland. Being Exiled is a death sentence most of the time, for most people.

  But I am not most people.

  I survived the Wasteland. I survived the Exile.

  When I returned, I began working with my brother in the transportation business. Carting the good people of the Wasteland and from the Buried City and from the Canyons off to Wonderland, one step closer to the Arks, one step closer to salvation.

  And for a while, business was booming.

  Sure, we had our fair share of trouble from the Wasteland Raiders, but nothing me and my brother couldn’t handle.

  Apart from helping people, it felt good to have a purpose. It felt good to be doing something with my life, working hand in hand with my brother.

  The pay was good as well.

  And then five years ago, the work dried up, just like everything else on Earth.

  The word out of Wonderland was that the Shuttles had broken down. They had been working overtime, they had been working non-stop for decades. They needed maintenance. Apparently they were stationed at Mars, the Moon. Apparently the best engineers were working on them around the clock.

  But then the story changed. The story became that the Arks had moved further and deeper into the Solar System. The return trip the Shuttles were making was taking longer.

  A lot longer.

  Years longer.

  I don’t know about other people, but I get suspicious when stories change.

  My brother didn’t believe it either. He knew something was wrong. He knew there was something they weren’t telling us. But there was nothing we could do.

  Nothing to do but sit and wait.

  Wait for the Shuttles.

  Wait to be processed through Wonderland.

  Wait for our number to be called.

  Anyway, because the work dried up, because there was no one being processed, my brother and I were forced into early retirement. And I was once again living a wasted and directionless life. I was a man with no purpose. I was once again slipping into the underworld of the Buried City.

  Well, I’ve got a purpose now…

  I need to find out who killed Ruby. I need to make them pay for what they did. And maybe in the process, I’ll find some goddamn answers. Maybe I’ll find out what Ruby was running from, the reason she escaped from Wonderland.

  I’m breathing hard, smiling, laughing.

  I’m standing over a pile, a train carriage full of dead bodies, dead Mercs. A pile of edged weapons. Apart from the dead bodies, which in themselves are quite valuable… for their organs, their skin, teeth, and hair. And other things that I’m not even going to mention.

  All these knives, machetes, hatchets.

  The two swords.

  This forged steel is another fortune. I guess Lisa will get a nice surprise when she cleans up this place. It’ll more than cover the cost of the damage.

  I take out the rapid fire gun. I’ve never seen a gun like this, never fired one. But I want to get a feel for it. I want to see what it can do. So I aim it at the carriage door.

  The windows on the door have been blacked out, so I can’t actually see anything. But I’d bet good money, I’d bet a ticket to Ark America that the Enforcer who supplied all this steel is waiting in the next carriage. He’ll be waiting right behind the door.

  No need to hide or take cover.

  Arrogant son of a bitch. I can’t blame him. Unlike these poor and desperate and dead fools, he doesn’t know me.

  I take careful aim at the carriage door, at the blacked out window. I squeeze the trigger.

  The silenced barrel reduces the noise of the gunshot significantly. It probably slows the bullet down as well. Regardless, the bullet leaves a clean little hole in the reinforced glass of the window. I hear a shout of pain. A cry of pain. A body falls to the floor. And just as I suspected, the Enforcer wasn’t taking cover.

  I step through the door, sliding it open.

  The Enforcer is dying from a bullet wound to his neck.

  He has two hands wrapped around his own throat in a completely useless attempt to stop the bleeding.

  He sees me coming. One hand reaches for his gun, but he can’t pick it up, his fingers are covered in too much blood. The weapon slips out of his hand.

  I move towards him.

  Slowly.