Once he got home, Kane got cleaned up with a long, hot shower, then went downstairs for dinner. He sat down at the table with his right arm in a sling, and Harry broke off his explanation of his shocking new transformations with Thomas, the Purist meerkat.
“Why didn’t you get a cast, Dad?” Harry asked curiously.
All eyes at the table locked onto Kane.
Kane took his time looking at each of them before he finally answered. “It restricts my movements too much,” he said simply.
“Bullshit,” barked Mitchell.
“Mitch!” Miranda chastised, grinning.
“Sorry, Mira,” Mitchell muttered, eyes downcast.
Kane smiled to himself at the scene playing out in front of him, using it as an excuse to change the subject. “How’s everything going with the other scavengers, Mitchell?”
“It would be going a lot better if you would step up into a command position,” stated Mitchell, “and don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, trying to change the subject. We are not done with that line of questioning,” he said with a knowing look. “We have a big inspection coming up that is rather hush-hush. Rumor is that President Smith is coming to oversee the whole thing. I have a lot to get done in the next two weeks. Oh, and before I forget…” Mitchell pulled out a thick white envelope from his jacket pocket that was hanging on his chair behind him, and slid it across the table. “Your cut from the cardinal came back. Nine thousand big ones.”
“Holy shit!” Harry blurted.
“Harry!” Miranda laughed, swatting him on the arm. “I blame you for this Mitchell,” she said, shooting him a dirty look, but unable to keep the grin from her face. “And before I forget, has the bitter ginger ripened yet, Thomas? I’m running low on shampoo, and the price of real shampoo has gone up again.”
“I think so, but I didn’t make it over to that side of the nursery this week,” Thomas replied.
The rest of supper passed comfortably. They were halfway through a game of Phase Ten before Harry failed to suppress a huge yawn, and Miranda piloted him downstairs to bed.
“That is our cue, I think,” Thomas said, nudging Mitchell in the ribs.
The enormous chair they’d had specially made for Mitchell groaned loudly as he slid it back and got to his feet.
“Bucharest was not your fault,” he said to Kane. “Whatever happened this week, I guarantee you did everything in your power to keep it from happening.” He reached over and gently squeezed Thomas’s shoulder, as he had grown pale and still at the mention of Bucharest.
“I may never have served in the military,” Thomas said gravely, “but if the nightmares I’ve had to wake Mitch up from are any indication, you need to talk about what happened. Those are dangerous things to keep bottled up inside.”
“Thanks, Thomas,” Kane said warmly. “I plan on it.”
. . . . .
Once again, the weekend passed before Kane even had a chance to blink, and he found himself returning to the scavenger’s compound for resupply. Mitchell did not greet him this time—he was probably too busy—so it passed uneventfully. He was about to get in the car with two thousand nine hundred dollars in his pocket, thanks to the impressive hall including the rat and racoon, when suddenly a hand snaked out and stopped him.
Kane didn’t even turn around. “What do you want, Rafael?” he asked darkly.
“The colonel isn’t ’ere to protect you today imen,” Rafael spat.
Rafael was a Purist, and he had a lot of pent-up aggression towards people with no attributes. Kane turned around and took in the Creole man standing a few inches shorter than his own six-foot, three-inch frame. Rafael was a Pure-blooded alligator snapping turtle out of Shreveport, Louisiana, and he was dangerous in all sorts of ways.
“I don’t need his protection,” Kane stated coolly.
“What makes you tink that?” Rafael growled menacingly.
“Not much.” Kane tapped the bowie knife he had discreetly drawn against the inside of the other man’s thigh.
Rafael went still, slowly looking down at the huge knife between his legs. “Fucking imen,” he said, a slight quiver in his voice. He backed out of Kane’s reach and rested his hand on the handle of his menacing machete at his hip.
“Boys, boys, boys!” said a slender woman walking up behind Rafael. She ran her hand gently over the huge shell on his back.
“Rebecca.” Kane nodded curtly at her. She was Rafael’s Beninese wife, and they were two of the most vicious people Kane had ever had the displeasure of knowing. Sadly, they were also two of the best scavengers under Mitchell’s command. She was a Purist as well, a gyrfalcon with snow-white feathers, an elegant beak, and an eight-foot wingspan. She had been a few inches taller than Kane but they now stood eye to eye. She was as beautiful as she was cruel, and she and Rafael made a perfect couple. Despite the ostentatiously loud sex they were often caught taking part in, they had no children.
“You’ve been causing quite a stir around here lately, Kane,” she said in her deceptively airy tone.
“Just doing my job.”
“Hardly,” she scoffed, giving him her full attention. “That arm looks precarious. Are you sure you should be out in your … condition?” she said with a sneer, obviously referring to more than his broken arm.
“I’ve been through worse, in much worse shape,” he retorted, all politeness sliding from his face.
Rebecca barely repressed a shudder at the cold, dead look that crept into his eyes. “If you say so,” she said, regaining her composure. “Good luck!” she purred in a sickly-sweet voice, grabbing Rafael by the arm and leading him to their SUV a few bays down. Rafael sneered at Kane over his shoulder but went along willingly.
Kane climbed into his own SUV and pressed the button to turn on the engine. Backing down the ramp at full speed, he exited the compound, heading towards the Bronx River Gate north of Mount Vernon. White Plains and its surrounding areas had already been thoroughly scavenged, but he wanted to stay close to the city, and that area was mostly devoid of life, thanks to the Bronx Zoo Quarantine Zone abducting anything with a pulse to feed its hungry denizens.
After he made it through the two checkpoints and the vault door, he relaxed a bit and tried to enjoy the long, winding drive to his destination. He needed to take it easy this week, give his broken bones time to mend, even with the accelerated healing he discovered he now possesed. He figured that in a few days, he would be able to remove the sling and start testing the limits of his new abilities. He had experimented some last week, of course, but the existential dread and guilt had kept his mind muddled to the point that he was not thinking too clearly.
Mitchell had outlawed subterranean delving years ago because of the monsters that now lurked in the deep dark of any underground structures. He claimed it was because he got tired of having to fill out the MIA paperwork for scavengers and scouts that never returned, but Kane had been on some of the retrieval missions and bounty hunts that often popped up afterwards, requested by loved ones that needed closure. Of course, they were never happy with the type of “closure” they received from that dirty business. There was never much left of the victims to return to the families anyway, so Mitchell had outlawed entering any sewers, subways, underground parking garages, or other subterranean structures.
The sun broke out from behind the trees and scattered across his windshield. He squinted in the sudden burst of light, breaking his reverie, and finally found himself able to enjoy the scenery around him. It was beautiful out here. Nature had reclaimed the surrounding city, and he took in the wonders that had bloomed between and atop the concrete, asphalt, and brick that had been the building materials of choice before the outbreak. He rarely took the time to enjoy nature out here, but the creatures that stalked it nowadays were a good excuse. He made a silent promise to himself to try to get out this way more often.
Kane spent the next two days carefully exploring the picked-clean buildings and was able to fulfill a few more bounties. Pulling out his tablet they were saved on, he looked over the list, checking them off. “Owl-shaped coffee cup; I hope that’s a birthday present or something. Check… Hard cover of Wild Wastes: check. Hard cover of Dawn of Wonder: check. Hard cover of Superpowereds: check.” He had found the last three at an antique bookstore that had gone largely untouched. All were signed copies listed at astronomical prices. He hoped he could get a bonus from the people that had requested these books.
At the end of the second day, as night swiftly approached, he glimpsed a huge shadow passing overhead, and he ducked back into the game store he had just exited. He sat down the bag with the old mini Nintendo 64 he’d been searching for and cautiously checked the sky. Whatever it was had vanished, but he was still a few streets over from his SUV, which felt more like five miles if he had to try to make it back undercover. He decided to wait until full dark before he ventured out again.
As the last vestiges of light left the sky, he snuck out of the store, almost forgetting his bag in the process. Slowly making his way back towards his vehicle, he could just make out the sound of people talking quietly, but he was too far away to hear any specifics. He made a split-second decision to try to get closer, and after a dozen more steps, the voices became more discernable.
“De vehicle has not moved all day. He ’as to be around ’ere somewhere,” a male voice hissed.
“You promised you would not kill him in any event, right?” questioned a clearly female voice that he suddenly determined was coming from the rooftop of the building he now stood beside.
“Yes, Becca,” responded the male voice, and he realized with a jolt that it must belong to Rafael. “I jus’ want to rough ’im up a bit.”
“I don’t know why you let that pathetic human get under your skin so much,” Rebecca whispered haughtily.
“He tinks ’e is better dan us,” Rafael hissed loudly. “He claims not to be a Humanist, but why ’asn’t ’e or ’is wife ever partaken in consumption? If dey don’ look down on us, why would dey give up de chance to become better if dey did not find us disgusting?”
“I know, love,” Rebecca said soothingly. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“FUCK ’IM! I’M NOT SCARED OF ’IM!” Rafael roared.
Kane heard Rebecca sigh loudly. “He knows we’re here now,” she stated calmly.
“Shit. My pa’don, Becca, I’m jus’ so tired of ’im keeping up wit us in de rankings,” he responded.
“Only the individual rankings,” Rebecca corrected. “In team rankings and confirmed kill rankings, he is nowhere near the top. The only place he is higher than us is in the live capture rankings.”
“I know. I jus’ can’ stand a ’uman outperforming us,” said Rafael dejectedly.
Kane had heard enough. He slinked away towards his vehicle as their voices drifted off behind him. He was just about back to his car when a light beamed into the sky beside him. Automatically he looked down at his feet and spotted the trip wire, nearly invisible unless you were looking right at it, running around his car.
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The jig was up, so he casually walked to the back of his SUV and opened the rear door, setting his plastic bag inside. He rolled his shoulders, checking the status of his arm, and was happy not to feel the pinch of pain that would have indicated it was still healing. Leaving the sling in place, he undid the snap on his bowie knife and adjusted the strap of his katana against his back. Then he heard the soft thump behind him as what could only be Rebecca landed gracefully at his six.
Kane turned around. “Hello, Rebecca,” he said conversationally.
She folded her wings behind her, looking almost angelic as she scanned him from head to toe. “Put your pistol in the back of the SUV,” she commanded.
“Why?” he asked, feigning ignorance.
“Don’t play games, Kane. You’ve known this was coming for a while now,” she growled.
Rafael came trotting up beside her, barely even out of breath. “Trying to sneak away huh? You coward!” he said with a sneer.
“Out of everything you have ever called me, that one is the farthest from the truth,” Kane said without blinking.
“We will see ’ow courageous you feel after I get done wit you,” Rafael countered. With that, he advanced, smoothly drawing his machete.
“Don’t kill him,” Rebecca reminded him gamely as Rafael stalked towards Kane.
A grin spread across Rafael’s face as he gave Kane a measuring glance. Kane could have won an Oscar for the “clumsy” way he drew his katana, holding it loosely in his left hand. With a lunge, an overhead swing, and a resounding clang, their blades met, and sparks flew from the power of the blow. Rafael was much stronger than Kane, but Kane expertly guided the blades to the side, keeping Rafael’s blade from sinking into the flesh of his left shoulder. Rafael did not miss a beat, and Kane was forced to block a swing at his ribs, just barely deflecting it over his head. Fighting one-handed might allow Rafael to kill him, albeit accidentally, so Kane had to think fast if he wanted to maintain the charade of a useless right arm.
The choice was taken from him before he had the chance to come up with anything as Rafael threw a roundhouse kick at the arm in question. The man’s humongous turtle shell knocked Kane’s sword aside with the spin, and Kane was forced to raise his right arm at the last second to block the powerful kick. The sling fell away, and Rafael’s eyes narrowed as he took a few steps backwards.
“How is your arm already ’ealed? Rumor ’as it dat it was broken in multiple places.”
Kane did not respond as he brought the katana forward in a two-handed grip. Having let his machete drop in confusion, Rafael swiftly brought the tip of the blade back up into a ready position. Kane went on the offensive this time, coming in with a flurry of blows that left Rafael panting.
“You can’ be…”
Kane exploited the advantage of Rafael’s dip in concentration, and with a feint, he was able to slip through the man’s guard. With a flick of his wrist, Kane sent the machete flying into the night, beyond the ring of light around his SUV.
Rafael rallied instantly as the machete slipped from his fingers, stepping into Kane’s guard and landing a heavy blow to his stomach. Kane let out a gasp and doubled over in pain as Rafael seized his wrist and twisted, until Kane dropped his sword as well. As Kane stood back up, Rafael went to kick the sword away, but got a knee to the groin instead. As Rafael collapsed to one knee, Kane kneed him in the face for good measure.
Rafael slumped to the side, then went for a leg sweep before Kane could get his foot back on the ground, and all at once, both were lying on the asphalt side by side. They rolled away from each other. Kane sprang back to his feet.
Rafael had a huge smile on his face as he slowly stood up. Spitting blood from his mouth, he said to Kane, “I ’ad my doubts, but dat confirms it. You’re not ’uman!”
“What do you mean?” Rebecca gasped, staring at Rafael.
Rafael blanched as if he had forgotten she was there, giving her a guilty look.
“Rafael?” Rebecca demanded with a look that could curdle buttermilk.
Rafael flinched away, looking down at his feet. “I’m sorry, love, but I got caught up in de moment,” he mumbled, so quietly that if Kane had not had enhanced hearing, he would have missed it. “I went for de killing blow wit dat last punch,” he added meekly.
“WHAT!” Rebecca screeched with a hawklike trill.
Hands over his ears, Kane could have sworn that the windows of his SUV vibrated slightly, as if they were about to shatter. Rebecca was glaring daggers at Rafael, and a full minute passed before Kane decided to break the silence.
“You’re lucky you didn’t try that last week. It would have killed me then.”
Rebecca’s and Rafael’s eyes whipped toward him, and he almost laughed at the shock on their faces.
“I told you, I’m not a Humanist, but I accidently ingested a bite of a rat last week. And if you must know,” Kane continued, deciding to be totally honest, “my wife is a Dumper.”
Rebecca sucked in a sharp breath as Rafael dropped his gaze to the ground in shame.
Rebecca glanced at Rafael before addressing Kane. “We owe you an apology. We have been overly harsh towards you. But nonetheless, it is no excuse. Everything about you screams Humanist, from your unwillingness to speak to any of us to your adamant routine of working alone. We all believed you were more than a little strange.”
“But Mitchell is my best friend,” Kane said defensively.
“True, but you were friends before all this went down,” Rebecca pointed out.
“You’re right. It does seem a little suspect,” Kane admitted, feeling a weight he hadn’t known he was carrying lifting from his shoulders. He smiled genuinely at the pair for the first time.
“I’ll go get some wood,” Rebecca said with a beseeching look at Rafael, then unfurled her wings and lifted into the air.
The awkward silence continued for a few minutes before Rafael stopped shuffling his feet and looked at Kane. “My pa’don…” He paused a moment. “… for almos’ killing you.”
“Do you really think that would have killed me if I were still human?” Kane asked honestly.
“Oh yeah,” Rafael said immediately, nodding his head with childlike enthusiasm. “I punched a marauder a few months back who I’m sure was a human. My fist wen’ clean through ’em!”
“Why are you and Rebecca so violent? If you don’t mind me asking,” Kane said carefully.
“I grew up in Shreveport, after Becca’s papa rescued me from a restavek compound and took me in when I was six. ’e was a simple fisha’man dat wen’ on a crusade after ’is son was kidnapped by ’aitians. ’e died ’fore ’e ever found Becca’s bruda, but after we graduated, we wen’ looking for ’im. We got our asses kicked, and nearly died too, so we both joined de military to get stronger, radder dan join a gang and starve on de streets … and we been kicking ass ever since!”
A laugh escaped Kane’s mouth despite the gravity of the statement, and Rafael smiled and chuckled as well.
Rebecca soon returned with firewood, and after supper, the three talked long into the night. As they set up perimeter sensors and crawled into their sleeping bags, Kane felt like he’d gone back in time to the camping trips with friends in his youth. Indeed, it appeared that he had made two new friends. With that final contemplation, he closed his eyes and drifted off into the most peaceful sleep he had ever experienced out in the post Downfall wilderness.
He awoke just as the sun began to show itself on the horizon, and as he stretched and got to his feet, the other two began to stir as well. No one said a word as the morning routines commenced, and they sat in companionable silence until the coffee began to steam over the reawakened embers of last night’s fire. After they had all had a cup, Kane spoke.
“Which way are you two headed today?”
“Our plan is to scout the failed 287 wall and see if it would be viable to rebuild,” said Rebecca.
Kane gazed north into the distance, where he could make out the half-built wall on the horizon. “I didn’t know that was even on the table.” Then his gaze softened, and he plunged into a buried memory. “Mitchell and I were there when the horde overran the construction crew. We lost seventy-four people over the next two days. We had to fall back, and they pushed us all the way to Mount Vernon before we were able to hunker down and thin the horde enough to start pushing back.”
Kane jolted back to the present as Rafael stood up to get a refill. Kane rose as well, tossing the dregs of his cold coffee into the dying embers of the fire.
“You don’t have to rush off, Kane,” Rebecca said softly. “We have all seen and done terrible things since all this began. Some of us have coped better than others, but none of us sleep soundly at night anymore.”
Kane looked at her and smiled. “I know,” he said, “I just need to get going. I haven’t found much, and I need to make up for lost time, Thanks—I mean it. I never guessed that beating the shit out of each other would have worked out this good. We should have done this years ago.” He shot a sarcastic smile at Rafael.
“See you around, Kane,” Rafael said, dumping the remainder of his second cup in the fire.
. . . . .
Two more days passed, and Kane found next to nothing. He had checked off five more minuscule bounties, but the back of the SUV was basically empty. The day before, he had spotted a man watching him from the shadows of an old drug store, but they left each other alone. He knew there had to be something around here, but he was running out of options.
Passing the huge underground parking garage between the hospital and the mall, he slowed to a stop. He knew better, of course … but it felt like the garage was calling to him. Following his instincts, he approached the entrance and put the SUV in park. He got out and climbed up on his hood, settled into a comfortable position, and slipped into his familiar zen state. It was harder than usual, and he made a vow to stop by and see Master Tieng soon.
For thirty minutes he sat there, trying to delve as deep into the garage as he could with his senses, but he finally gave up. He collected his katana from the back seat, checked his knives, and snatched four spare CZ clips from the passenger seat. He really needed to get another AR-15 soon. It would have come in handy in this situation. He had lost his decked-out assault rifle a year ago when a group of marauders cornered him in a house and set it on fire, but what he really needed was his Benelli M2. It had met its demise after he’d almost put a small horde of mutants down with the attached XRAIL, when he used the shotgun to block a haymaker thrown by a mutant with the lower half of a kangaroo and the upper half of a gorilla, shattering it to pieces.
He closed his eyes as he walked through the darkness of the garage, trying to jump start his pupil dilation. After a few steps, he slowly opened them and looked around. It was clean … excessively clean. Someone was maintaining the garage meticulously.
He made it down the first ramp and began to circle around to the next one. He barely made a sound, but in the absolute silence, the muffled taps of his footfalls echoed menacingly around him. As he descended another level, he began to notice slight differences. The cars were nowhere to be seen. He guessed that they had been moved to the upper levels, but he could not guess the reason why someone would go to all that trouble. At the third level down, the ceiling lowered to eight feet, and he began to notice deep gouges in the concrete floor. It looked as if someone had dragged a bunch of vehicles with popped tires down the ramps. As he rounded through the garage again, approaching the ramp down to the fourth level, he heard a muffled sneeze and a harsh “Sshhh!” Detecting the shifting of at least half a dozen pairs of feet, he decided to keep going.
As he peered down into the darkness, a few flashlights flicked on and shined directly at his face. Reflexively he sank to his knees and rolled to his side. But as his eyes adjusted, he saw it was only children standing at the bottom of the ramp looking up at him … and the oldest one, eleven or twelve, held an old revolver pointed at Kane.
“We can’t let you come no further, mister,” the boy said. “Daddy and Momma ain’t home, and if you get past us, our big brothers and sisters ain’t gon’ be happy with us.”
Further down in the depths of the garage, a baby began to cry, but it stopped almost instantly.
Kane looked around at the dozen or so children at the bottom of the ramp, and his heart broke a little. “Do you need help?” he asked tentatively.
“We don’t need nothing from you, mister. You just need to turn around and leave,” the boy said coldly.
Kane took a closer look at the boy and saw that he must be a Purist wildehond. All his features were wolflike, his sharp white teeth in stark contrast to the mottled black fur of his snout. Kane gazed out over the children and saw that they were all dressed and groomed well, and with a jolt, he realized that they were all Purists of completely distinct species.
That’s impossible, he reasoned. If they’re all really brothers and sisters, they should all be mixed breeds, taking random traits from both the mother and the father.
He stood there for a few more seconds before a deep voice barked out from below. “Royce! If he don’t turn around and leave, you better shoot him. You got ’til the count of three before I come up there and do it myself!”
The boy named Royce paled and shivered at the voice from below. “Yes, Jackson,” he stammered, wresting back the hammer on the revolver.
Kane held up his hands and took a hasty step back. “I will come back,” he said with an imploring look at Royce.
“Three!” Jackson shouted from below, and Royce flinched again, putting his finger on the trigger.
With a few more quick steps backwards, Kane disappeared around the corner of the ramp and vanished into the darkness. He listened for a few moments as Jackson spoke inaudibly to Royce and the children descended into the darkness, then he heard a generator kick on as light spilled up from below.
If he had not had enhanced vision, he would not have seen the slight green flash of cat eyes on the pipes above him. As he glanced up, a figure dropped down in front of him, landing soundlessly. She was totally nude and had to be a Purist panther; she was covered completely with smooth, glossy black hair. It was thinner at her formidable abdomen and chest, but he could not make out anything underneath in the dim glow coming up from below.
She studied him curiously, sniffing the air in his direction. “You smell human, but there is a tiny hint of something else.” She continued staring at him without another word.
“What can I do for you?” Kane asked once the silence became uncomfortable.
“If Jackson catches you, he will kill you,” she said, ignoring his question. Her muscles clenched and relaxed as she stood there. She had the body of an adult, but she could be no older than sixteen, if he had to guess. Her spring-green eyes never left his as the silence began to stretch out again. She smiled at him then, and she was about to say something when Jackson bellowed from below.
“Where is she?! CRYSTAL!” His roaring voice echoed through the garage.
The smile on her face grew. “That’s my cue.”
With that, she flipped gracefully into a back handspring and disappeared into the darkness.
Kane took a few steps in that direction, but there was no sign of Crystal’s presence. “Curiouser and curiouser,” he said with a smile, beginning the long climb back up to the entrance of the garage. He had struck out again on scavenged supplies, but he had found something just as good: information. It was worth just as much, if the ample reward he’d been given for the marauders’ mall location was any indication.
But what to do with this information was the more important thing to consider at the moment. The best course of action would be to play it close to his chest for now, until he could come back and do some more recon. Back at the SUV, with a last look at the garage, he circled it on his map and decided to head home a day early. As he wheeled the car around, he thought he saw a hulking figure watching him from the top floor of the garage, but it slipped away from the parapet as Kane headed back toward Newmerica.