Tin Road

By Melinda Jasmine Crouchley

Tin Road is the second book in the Metal Heart series that follows the exploits of young women and men conscripted into "national service."

This installment focuses on Scarlett Buford and Rabbit Santiago as they escape from the Fort Columbia base and travel to Mexico City, carrying with them a cure for the nanovirus.

At the same time, a mysterious clone awakes on the East Coast and joins forces with a super artificial intelligence with the same goal of eliminating the nanovirus.

​But do all of their purposes truly align?

The sequel to Metal Heart, available for download now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melinda Jasmine Crouchley
• Release date: Dec 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463888834

Melinda Jasmine Crouchley

I'm a Pacific Northwest local with an MA in Book Publishing and BA in English from Portland State University. My first three novels, young adult science fiction books, Metal Heart, Tin Road, and Iron Curtain were accepted into the Multnomah County Library Writers Project Collection.I recently wrapped up tenure as the Managing Editor at Ooligan Press, and I'm now working as an Editor.I currently live in Portland, Oregon with my spouse, our daughter, our Boston Terrier Oreo Cookie, and I'm the proud steward of a Little Free Library. I love to read, write, and play Pokemon Go. Gotta catch 'em all.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE:

FORT COLUMBIA

Rabbit Santiago wants me to shoot him. It’s only with a hand-held EMP, and only to obscure the signal transmitting from the band around his wrist. But considering tonight I already shot and killed his best friend, it’s a tall and brutal order. I’m rooted to the spot—finger poised on the trigger—when the sound of sirens stirs us. A hovercar is on its way.

We hear the wails before we see it mount the horizon, floating above the ground like a flashing gray ghost. My finger twitches against the metal and the EMP gun kicks. Rabbit grits his teeth as a pulse sucks all the juice from his tech.

That hurts, he grunts, rubbing at the glowing band.

It shouldn’t. Aside from an unpleasant static cling, the EMP guns are harmless.

Well it does. Now get down. He grabs my arm and pulls us both to the earth. My knees hit the dusty grass first, and then my chin grinds into the rough soil. I curse under my breath, but Santiago doesn’t seem to hear it. I wipe at my throbbing chin, smearing a crusted patch of blood I didn’t even realize was there.

His instincts aren’t bad. The hovercar rolls about a thousand yards past our position, towards the signal emitting from Clinton Fuller’s band. The RFID called them here. Two flood lights attached to either side of the vehicle's windshield kick on and the body of our deceased friends are now bathed in eerie blue light. Beside me, still gripping my wrist with his fierce bony fingers, Rabbit sucks in a breath and blows it out. I catch a whiff of cinnamon, overridden immediately by the tang of sweat and metallic odor of blood.

Eleni and Fuller’s blood. We’re covered in it.

We need to get out of here, I say, my vision locked on the scene. Neither of us moves. We’re transfixed by the steady motion of the machine and the fact that two people died tonight because of what we did.

The metal ramp rolls out of the bowels of the hovercar with a clinical thud and medical officers emerge, carrying a single stretcher and medical equipment. Half of them run to Fuller's inert body and the others cautiously approach the tarp we laid on top of Len. I don't know if I can watch this. I don’t want to see them lift her shroud. I can’t see her body again.

Let’s go. I climb to my feet, dislodging the steel vice grip Santiago has on me.

Scarlett, wait.

We can’t. We need to get to the water. Wash the blood off our hands. We’re covered in blood.

I know.

Then what are you doing?

Maybe they’re still alive. Maybe she—maybe we can fix this.

I shot Fuller in the head with your rifle. Nothing can fix that.

The medical officers far across the field have radioed for backup. More vehicles approach, wailing off in the distance.

Shit, Rabbit says.

Let’s move. I grab his arm this time.

I don’t see or hear or feel anything for the next fifteen minutes except the reverberating thump of my heart, the pound of our legs over the dry grass, and the labored breath ringing in my ears. We hit gravel then train tracks, dashing over them and skidding down an embankment to the lip of the river. Rabbit sheds his pack—no, not his pack, Len’s pack—in one swift, almost graceful movement and plunges headfirst into the water. I stand on the shore watching him, my boots crunching in the silt. He’s gone for a while. He’s gone for too long.

Rabbit? I send the question out over the undulating water. The current is fast and strong. He could’ve been carried far from shore by now.

There’s only silence.

Finally, after almost a full minute he explodes up from the water, gasping loudly. OK, he’s breathing. It’s my turn. I crouch near the edge of the water as he comes slogging out, his body dripping wet—heat and moisture steaming from his head. He unintentionally splashes me, but I hardly notice. He looks like someone took a bucket of water to a scarecrow.

You were under for a while, I say.

He doesn’t answer. He walks a few feet from where the water touches the edge of Oregon and he falls into a heap. I turn my attention to the bitter cold river lapping softly against the shore. Everything is moving. Nothing stops just because we fucked up. We can’t stop here either. Not for long.

Once my fingers are submerged in the Columbia and I’m wiping the red from under my fingernails—I realize the cold is not that bad. Warmer than I thought it would be. The bare skin of my clean hands eases the tension in my neck and shoulders. I wipe my hands on the outside of the pack. There’s blood caked everywhere else on my body, but at least my hands are clean.

We’ve got to keep moving. My eyes flicker over to Rabbit washed up on shore, nothing but a skinny pile of laundry.

He makes an indecipherable grunting noise and drags himself up from the sand. He walks over to the embankment, crawls to the top, and peers over. I join him, elbowing up next to him and grinding my shoulder against his. His gaze doesn’t flicker away from the chaotic scene across the field.

The hovercars still perch near the Salt patch. My Salt patch. I’ve spent an entire year cultivating that crop. My stash of Ecto and the remaining vials of Flash are hidden there. The sounds of the officers rummaging through the shed and their headset chatter drift across to where we sit. Rabbit’s breathing is labored. I shake his shoulder roughly.

What’s wrong with you?

I don’t know. He doesn’t pull his gaze away from the hovercars and officers. I can’t breathe. Everything is fuzzy.

Can you pull it together?

Yeah, I can. He runs both hands over his face.

He notices the wet bandage and peels it from his head, dropping it to the ground. DNA evidence. We shouldn’t leave it here, but what does it matter? Rabbit’s DNA is all over Len. Their genetic material all mixed up. His saliva on her lips. I swallow at the hard snarl of grief building in my throat. Rabbit’s in shock. So am I. But not all my instincts have fled.

We can’t leave that here. I poke him and pick up the bandage. We’re fugitives now, dummy. Everything is evidence. Everything we do leaves a trail.

He says nothing in response, so I slide down the ravine to the river and toss the bandage in. He joins me at the shore.

It’s safer to walk down here, out of their direct line of sight, he says.

I shrug. I’m certain we’re leaving footprints behind us, but there’s nothing we can do about that. We can’t stealthily and quickly escape. We’re on foot. They have hovercrafts and thermal scanning and—oh shit, they have thermal scanning.

Thermal scanning Santiago. They’ve got thermal scanners on the drones. And we’re crawling with RFIDs in these Academy clothes. We are so screwed.

Rabbit surveys his clothes and our equipment in mute surprise, as if he’d never considered such a possibility before. Of course he hadn’t. He never planned to escape.

We’re not going to make it to Mexico. We’re not going to make it another 500 feet.

Walking in the river would keep our core body temps down.

But the cold and current might kill us.

Prothero’s going to kill us. I’d rather be cold than— his voice breaks and he stops moving to close his eyes—dead.

He stopped to regain equilibrium. I stop with him. I need a little equilibrium, too.

We’re going in the water then?

Unless you have a better idea.

I veer off towards the river and hoist my pack up onto my head like we learned in field exercises, then wade into the water up to my neck. Rabbit follows suit. The water is so cold it momentarily steals the breath from my lungs. That’s fine. There’s not much to say at the moment.

Ten minutes pass in silence as the current carries us from the dead and back towards the base.

Rabbit interrupts the quiet. Hold up. The band’s back on.

Oh god finally, I can’t feel my toes. I breathe a sigh of relief as we swim back to shore. I duck under the water before we hit the sand and feel the caress of the water pulling the blood and brains out of my hair. There were brains in my hair.

I toss my pack to the ground and flop my water-logged head down on it. Stones and scrubby grass patches poke my back and provide an uneven cushion, but since I’m numb with cold from the neck down, it hardly matters. Rabbit grabs the EMP gun, fires another round at his wrist, and our tech goes dark.

We’re not moving fast enough, he says, features set in a scowl. The EMP is slowing us down. I’m slowing us down.

It’s true. Our progress through the water is a struggling crawl and the nearest train station is an hour away on the other side of Fort Columbia. We’ll have to travel past a heavily fortified military base to make it to the very first stop on our destination. With an entire arsenal of soldiers who will be looking for Rabbit Santiago, because according to the registration on the plasma rifle—he killed Clinton Fuller. Then again, according to the prints and DNA evidence also on the rifle, so did I. I killed Clinton Fuller.

What do you suggest? I ask quietly. The thought of killing someone, even an asshole like Fuller, has a sobering effect.

It doesn’t hardly seem possible, but Rabbit’s scowl grows even deeper.

Nothing. He climbs to his feet, dripping wet. There’s nothing we can do about it. At least, not right now.

Huh. He might not be a super telekinetic wizard like Len, but maybe he has a kernel of intelligence rattling around inside his shaggy head.

Back to the water, I mutter.

The thought of dipping a single part of my body back in the freezing river makes the teeth in my head chatter. Rabbit doesn’t hear or at least pretends he doesn’t. The only option left is to suck it up. Within the first few minutes of re-entering the water, my teeth clack together uncontrollably. My lips might be turning blue. Everything is numb and I can’t even form words. It’s just so damned cold.

Our progress is painfully slow. Every fifteen minutes our tech resurfaces and Rabbit wipes them out of existence with the single pull of a trigger. The mood in our little party is sullen and soaked. Maybe it paints me out to be a terrible person, but at the moment the only thing driving me forward is the promise of a hot shower in one of the train Commons. And maybe a warm blanket to snuggle up in. It’s only half an hour away now.

I’m envisioning my numb fingers closing around a steaming mug of hot chocolate when the sound of dogs barking breaks the silence off to our left. They’re probably a few thousand feet away but getting closer. It’s hard to tell if they could pick up our scent from each of our brief adventures out of the current.

Oh god. We forgot about the dogs, I whisper hoarsely. The icy waters have closed their fingers around my throat. It’s difficult to breathe, let alone speak.

They won’t smell us out here, Rabbit says, but his words are coated in doubt.

You don’t sound so sure.

I’m not.

Well, hell. What do we do now?

He stops and turns to look at me. At the same moment our bands thrum to life and throw dim splashes of light on our faces. His lips are dark and there are deep bags under his eyes.

You look awful, I say.

So do you.

It’s my turn to scowl. Let’s go back to shore.

We make another foray onto dry ground and it’s only once my body leaves the life-draining tendrils of the Columbia that I realize I can’t force myself back in. We’re gonna have to take our chances on land. Rabbit does his EMP business—the light fades—and we lay on the gritty edge of the river gasping air into our defrosting lungs. I take the opportunity to glance around and realize we’ve reached the far edge of the base. A guard tower climbs into the sky several hundred yards ahead of us. The docks lay beyond that.

I nudge Rabbit and tilt my head towards the docks. The lights in the guard towers blink on, filling the night with a flood of white light. The illuminated circles sweep the river water in wide, arcing rotations. The sounds of the dogs and soldiers grow steadily closer. A siren peels through the muffled din, startling me. I grab onto Santiago’s shoulder and he glances over at me.

It’s OK, he whispers. This time he actually sounds reassuring. This is standard procedure. They don’t know where we are.

Standard procedure, I echo in a dull, unhappy voice.

Exactly. He stands, catching my arm and dragging me up with him. His hand melts around mine. It’s warm—warmer than my own. He loops our fingers together and pulls me forward. It’s stumbling, fumbling progress over the earth.

We’re still a few steps ahead. We can make it, Rabbit says.

We make a bit more progress on land and then the docks emerge into full view. There are guards posted at each tower. The towers climb up out of the water—enormous metal and stone structures supported by huge concrete pylons—leaving about twelve feet of gap between the current crest of the river and the docks.

Cargo containers sit piled up along the walk, between the base gate and the docks. They could provide some cover, but there's no way to bypass the electrified razor wire fence. Thermal scanners and security cameras are everywhere. This port is heavily fortified. There’s no easy passage through this part of the river.

I’m waiting for another bright idea.

Back in the water. We have to swim under the docks. It’s the only way to avoid the tech and guards.

"I said a bright idea."

It’s our best shot. Doesn’t get any brighter.

Should we dump the packs? They’ll sink us like stones and we’ve got a long way to swim. They are probably crawling with RFIDs and nano tech anyway.

I need to get something first.

He drops to his knees and unzips the pack. I do the same with mine. My stuffed dog, Toto is the only thing I can carry. He might get a little wet, but at least the drugs and stipend allotments inside him are sealed in a plastic baggie.

I glance over to see what precious cargo Rabbit unearths from Len’s bag. There wasn’t anything personal left of hers to pack, aside from her tin box. Sure enough, when I turn, the hateful treasure is gripped tightly in his hands.

Oh hell no. I reach to pull it away from him.

He sweeps it out of my grasp and glowers at me.

I’m not getting rid of this. Eleni died for this box.

She died because your best friend shot her but—you know—I guess that’s a minor detail.

She died to protect the Contras. She died protecting us, Rabbit says.

"She died because of what’s in there. You wanna drag that around with you?"

He doesn’t respond. Instead, he grabs out a large baggy of rations from the pack, dumps out the contents, then stuffs the tin inside. It pulls against the sturdy plastic but Rabbit persists. He zips the ration bag closed and stuffs it up inside his shirt, tucking the shirt material down into his pants and wrapping his jacket around it.

You’re such an idiot. You look like such an idiot.

At least I’m not holding a stuffed animal. He points at the fake terrier.

This stuffed animal is gonna save our lives. More so than that sad bastard box of yours. I poke his chest.

He bats my arm away, retreats to the water, and submerges himself. I grab my bag, feed it to the hungry churning mouth of the river and follow his lead. The water is thousands of tiny needles pricking my skin. My limbs are already exhausted, trembling with effort. I don’t even want to imagine what kind of ridiculous figure I cut, splashing underneath the pillars.

I resurface once the comforting womb of the docks folds over us. We’re in the shadow of the structure and I can see the rust of the metal slats and cobwebs and all sorts of grimy dust that has lodged itself in every nook and cranny underneath the dock. Rabbit’s head bobs to the top of the water and his lips are dark again, the bags under his eyes deepened.

Only five more to go, I whisper, my voice echoing and tinny.

He nods and we roll under the water again—two flailing humans doing our best to avoid detection. I emerge two docks down the row and see Rabbit is already clearing the last dock.

Jerk. I surge down into the depths again, my whole body wracked with shivers.

My arms and legs are cramping up by the fifth dock and I can no longer hold my breath long enough to stay fully submerged. The icy waters push against my mouth, threatening to spill down my throat. We’re traveling west with the current, so this should be much easier than if we were fighting it, but I can’t seem to move faster than a snail crawl. I’m about to give up, lay flat on my back and let the tide carry me away when Rabbit’s steely fingers grasp mine. We’re directly underneath the last dock, out of the line of sight of any cameras or guards. He pulls me close to him and his icy lips brush against my ear.

We’re going to swim down past the curve. The dogs or the spotlights will catch us if we don’t. I’m hoping the cold and the water interferes with the signal cast by the band long enough for us to move on without being detected.

I arch an eyebrow. So, you’ve never thought of escape?

He Rabbit-scowls and then a small, tight smile flashes across his lips. Maybe once.

Or twice.

You going to be able to swim the whole way? It’s far. Rabbit casts his eyes over to the curve. It must be at least half a mile. Twenty minutes or longer, with the way we’re moving.

I was on the swim team in secondary, I say. Mostly diving, but I could do a decent 750 free.

Me too. I was a lifeguard in secondary.

Then let’s do this. I take a deep, even breath, duck under the water and kick away from him.

We come up for little breaths of air roughly every minute, but I’m not keeping accurate time. It’s probably less, though I remember managing that much in swim meets. Sometimes I see Rabbit. Sometimes I don’t. Mostly I don’t because he’s either ahead or behind me. The tin box gives him more trouble than he cares to admit. He should dump it in the river. Let the current carry it away. Even with what seem like frequent breaks to the surface, my lungs burn. It’s been a couple years since I swam this hard and even with the rigorous National Service training, my body is not in this particular kind of shape. Swimming uses different muscles than running or climbing or jumping. My legs are doing alright, but my arms are giving out a little more with each stroke.

Almost there, Rabbit says the next time our heads bob up for oxygen.

I blow water out my nose and head back under. He’s right—we have less than a few thousand feet to go. I’m trying to keep an ear open for sounds of helos or dogs or drones but so far all those noises are far away. We’re on the opposite side of the base now and they wouldn’t be expecting us over here yet. They are probably still combing the fields and maybe searching into The Dalles. That would be a logical place for us to run. We probably confused them by running straight back at the base, instead of east.

A few more feet and I break through the murky brown water into the fresh air, gasping and shuddering. Rabbit emerges moments later, shaking water off his head and gazing around with a stunned expression.

Geez, I’m out of shape, he laughs, brushing a trembling hand through his hair.

We scoot towards the shore, letting the current carry us further downstream even though we’ve already crested the curve. The more distance we can gain the better. We finally stumble out of the water and collapse in a heap, nearly on top of each other. Steam billows off our bodies. Rabbit, despite his long submersion in the Columbia, is creepily warm.

We catch our breath and don’t speak for a full minute.

You still got that stuffed animal? he asks, panting.

I nod and hold Toto up.

You still got that stupid tin?

He nods and pats the exterior of his jacket.

I’ve got another idea, he says.

I hope it’s better than the last one.

Much. He rolls over onto his knees and shakes his body like a wet dog.

He unzips his jacket and flings it off to the side. Next he strips off his shirt and pants until he’s dripping wet in nothing but his underwear. Then, he sits cross-legged on the shore and clicks on his band. It thrums to life with a stutter. My own band freezes against my skin but I’m too numb from the low temperature of the water to feel anything but miserable and lethargic.

He taps a few buttons and enters a line of code. The band flashes and squawks with a horrible feedback, then produces a pleasant-sounding chime.

What did you do? I ask, peering over at him.

I re-synced my band. I should have done this before but I was too worried. I wanted to get past the base.

He rolls through more lines of code, tapping and squinting at the virtual read-out.

Clarify that for me please?

I can’t deactivate the signal, but I can relocate it. I can confuse the triangulation systems and make it look as though the band is transmitting from another location. There’s just one problem—the only other time I’ve done this—I used the unique hardware code embedded in Clint’s band.

I shrug. So what?

That’s the signal I’m transmitting from now. They’re going to know pretty quickly it’s false. Unless I can find another military band with the same frequency as ours—I’m not going to be able to pull this stunt off. And there’s a limited range. We’ll be traveling out of it within oh, probably five miles or so, Rabbit says, contemplating the tech.

At any given time, they will know our location within five miles? Is that what you’re telling me? I ask.

It’s better than the alternative. We need another EMP or something else to confuse the GPS but this will work. For now.

Whatever. As long as we’re not painting a bright red beacon on our tails, I don’t care.

We’re under the radar. A shudder rolls over his body.

Here—take this jacket. I shed my coat and hold it out to him. It’s RFID free. I couldn’t have Prothero tracking me on my drug runs.

He takes it with a nod and slips it over his shoulders, zipping his torso up and out of my sight.

Speaking of drug runs—I can get us on the train. I have connections. Just let me do the talking, I say.

Does anyone ever tell you to stop?

Nope.

I unzip the stuffed dog and let the contents fall out onto the ground. The water hasn’t infiltrated the inner baggies, but the outer baggy is damp. I shake it out and retrieve a tiny vial of liquid Ecto.

Is that—? Rabbit asks.

Yep.

Our ticket to boarding the train.

CHAPTER TWO:

THE DALLES, OREGON

We approach the train station with as much dignity as possible, given the fact that Rabbit wears nothing but a jacket and tight, white underpants. We’re both dripping wet. The station is small despite its proximity to Fort Columbia. There aren’t many soldiers or residents lining up to take cross country trips, so the traffic from the base has never been great.

The station is equipped with the bare necessities of any high speed transit launching point: a terminal to purchase fare, a bathroom equipped with a scanner to gain entrance, and a vending machine where you can buy basic items like toothpaste, snacks, hygiene products, small medical kits, and vials of bright green Swamp.

Swamp is a cheap knock-off of the magical elixir Prothero doles out to all the residents, soldiers and officers on base to ward off NV. As far as I can tell, Swamp is a placebo. Nobody I know has lived a longer, fuller life because of it. Prothero lets ConFoods manufacture it because if there’s an alternative to the government issued inoculations on the market, their pretense at a monopoly can go undisputed.

It tastes as awful as it looks. I should know—my parents used to feed me this crap all the time. At first they would make me take the dose right out of the vial. But I rebelled enough that they started sneaking it into my food—green eggs and ham style. My mother would whip it up into our breakfast food like we wouldn’t notice the slightly-off color. Logan would always be the first to complain because he was a brat.

Man, I miss him. The Swamp trauma probably explains my aversion to all kinds of breakfast foods now, as an adult.

Do people still buy that crap? I poke a finger at the vending machine display.

Of course they do. God, I’m starving. Rabbit slumps his shoulders and head up against the machine in an attempt to look as pathetic as possible. It works.

You do look a little emaciated. I wasn’t gonna say anything.

I fish around in my pocket for a few of the stipend payments I’ve stashed in there. I scan them through the machine and tell Rabbit to pick anything he wants. He selects a chocolate bar and a bag of cheese sour cream potato chips. On the other side of the vending machine is a bench and above that, under the cover of a glass roof, a monitor displays the next arrival time of the westbound train.

Train #0082 will be docking in precisely five minutes and thirteen seconds. The information is translated into three different languages below, along with an icon to scan and read the text in hundreds of additional languages.

We sit on the bench and split the meager dinner of grease, corn, and sugar. It tastes amazing. Pleasant notes of exhaustion sing in my brain, coursing up and down my legs and arms as soon as I’m done eating. The weight of the food in my stomach makes me sleepy.

I could sleep for twenty hours, I say, licking the last crumbs of orange cheese stain off my fingers.

Rabbit heaves a sigh and clicks on his band, scrolling through the waves with a slender finger. I watch the colors roll and change on his read-out. They cast some measure of warmth and normalcy around us. Look, it’s the waves. The real world still exists. We didn’t break everything.

Just ourselves.

Nothing about us yet, he sighs again, with an undertone of relief in his voice that soothes my spirits a little. Rabbit makes me wary, but it sure is nice to have someone in this mess with me.

Good, that’ll make boarding the train easier.

Rabbit leans back to rest his head on the bench like he’s tucking into bed. He’s snoring lightly by the time the train pulls up at the station with the whispery squeal of brakes. I shake him and his head rolls, eyes snapping open.

What—what’s happening?

It’s here, I say. Let’s head to the back car.

Rabbit unfolds his legs, stretches his arms over his head with a wide yawn and hops off the bench. I follow him—Toto tucked in my armpit—depositing the food wrappers in a garbage can next to the vending machine.

The train is a sleek, gunmetal grey machine swimming between Mexico City and western Canada, cutting a path through California, Oregon, and Washington state. This particular train is made up of one boarding car, five passenger cars, five sleeper cars, a Commons car, a dining car, and one luggage car. Most passengers board at the front car, registering for their fare and scanning in so Prothero can track their movements.

We make our way towards the eastern end of the platform, where Armando, my contact, oversees the luggage compartment, ensuring all items meet the federal requirements for travel safety. He runs a pretty good racket stealing tech and other valuables from the passengers and selling them on the black market to soldiers, residents and other unmentionables passing through this section of the world. I met Armando on my first trip to Portland, back when life was simple and I was nothing but a common drug dealer instead of a murderous fugitive. The good old days.

It was almost too easy to exchange Salt for frequent passage into Portland, Oregon—the second most densely populated city in the region—where the bulk of my customers live. Selling drugs to residents and soldiers didn’t end up being nearly as lucrative as establishing this second client base. Armando is one of the key figures in ferrying me to and fro without needing to scan in my coordinates or spend any extra stipend allotment on transportation fees. He's quiet—content with his lot in life—and I’m sure he has a crush on me. All of these factors are going to work in our favor tonight, winning us passage aboard this train.

Armando pokes his head out the sliding doors and waves at me. Then he spies barely clothed Rabbit following close on my heels and the pleasant, amiable smile drops off his mouth. I hustle towards him. Rabbit needs to get inside the train right now to avoid anymore stares. We reach the luggage car and hurry inside under Armando’s watchful gaze. We take seats on some particularly hard suitcases and I fish a packet of Salt out of Toto. Armando retrieves it from me—a hard, irritated look clouding his face.

Who’s this guy? Armando asks, jabbing a finger in Rabbit’s direction.

Rabbit squirms on the luggage, attempting to drag my too-small jacket down over his underwear as much as humanly possible. The tin box bulges against his stomach and I silently curse him for everything—Armando’s suspicion, the tin, our wet clothes. Everything.

Just a friend. A really dumb friend. This gang jumped us on our way to the train. They grabbed my bag, knocked us around, and tossed us in the river.

Why is he naked? Armando asks.

I’m not naked. Rabbit hangs his head in shame, his damp hair curling around his features.

OK, why is he in his underwear?

Bad trip, too much Ecto—started ripping his clothes off and calling himself ‘The Dragon King.’ The guys took everything—our guns, our knives, our packs. I’ve gotta meet up with someone in Portland or I’d go straight back to base. You’re gonna help us, right Sugar? I drop a few saccharine notes into my voice near the end of the story, playing on his affection for me.

I don’t know. This is weird. I would prefer it if this guy was wearing pants. Armando finally looks over at Rabbit, taking in the cut on his head, the deep bags under his eyes. He looks over at me, the bruises on my face from Fuller, the cut lip.

He didn’t rough you up, did he? Armando asks, moving in close on Rabbit, menacing.

No. He saved me from drowning in the river once the cold water sobered him up. He’s a good guy Armando. Dumb, but good. We can trust him. Right? I nudge Rabbit in the ribs, and he nods slowly, finally returning Armando’s accusatory stare.

Huh. Well, you guys do look pretty beat up. I’m glad you’re okay Scarlett. You need to be more careful. There are bad people out there, Armando says.

It wasn’t a fair fight. We can usually take care of ourselves.

When we haven’t been doing drugs, Rabbit intervenes. I should’ve stayed away from the hard stuff. Ecto really does a number on me.

Yeah. I don’t touch that stuff. Too weird. Salt— Armando flicks the baggy on his palm and smiles contentedly—is the good shit.

And I always bring you the best stuff. I climb off the luggage and approach him, squeezing Armando’s broad shoulder. He chuckles warmly.

I glance back at Rabbit, who folds his hands in his lap. Good. Stay quiet. Armando reaches up and grabs my chin, tipping it to hold my eyes.

About that. You know what an extra fare means. A playful twinkle lights up Armando’s features.

Rabbit clears his throat and out of the corner of my eye, I see him shift closer to us. Just what I need—a male companion to play hero and get us killed because of a misguided sense of honor. I cut a hard look at him, but the scowl doesn’t drop off his brows and his demeanor doesn’t change.

Just relax guy, Armando says with a smile. Keep your pants on.

I reach into Toto and grab an extra baggy of Salt. Armando holds out his palm, his smile going wider. That’s all I wanted. A little something extra.

Armando walks to the luggage car entrance. If you want clothes, that’ll be extra too. Times are tough.

Sure are. Thanks, Mando. You’re the best luggage attendant I know.

Armando laughs. I’m the only luggage attendant you know.

I put a finger to my lips with a wide smile. He winks and the door slides shut behind him, locking us in the car, swaying slightly on our feet along with at least fifty passenger bags.

A sigh blows past my lips. Finally safe. Finally alone. Except for Rabbit.

Do you think we could steal some pants now? he asks.

A chuckle escapes me. He offers a quick smile in return, so I smirk back at him, the corners of my mouth aching with the pressure. For a moment, we are more than allies. We are friends. But then, the moment passes.

Rabbit hops off the luggage and we set ourselves to the task of examining the contents of the bags. We work systematically, from the front of the car to the rear, each taking a side. It’s mindless busy work and I can’t speak for Rabbit, but my brain turns to the horrible events of the evening so quickly I’m almost fetal within a few seconds. This isn’t going to work. I can’t do this. Not without drugs. I'm considering the vial of Ecto buried in the bowels of my stuffed toy dog when Rabbit clears his throat.

How’s this? he asks. Do I look normal?

He’s chosen a pair of gray pants—the cut and style similar to our resident issued uniforms—combined with a long-sleeved black hemp shirt and a hooded jacket. These clothes are going to cost us more Salt. We’ve barely gained any ground and already we’re running through our supplies like water.

Normal for you, I say, but there’s hardly any enthusiasm or spark in my words.

Rabbit meets my eyes and his face and body sag under the weight of my gaze. All the adrenaline is leaving us. Now we’re nothing but empty shells.

Safe, empty shells. Safer than we’ve been in the last two hours. Warm, sheltered, traveling. I return to the spot I left Toto and retrieve the baggy of supplies. The liquid vial of Ecto will be the quickest way to get where I want to go. Rabbit watches me. Always watching with his dark, crow eyes. Maybe he’s not a scarecrow. Maybe he’s a big, evil bird sent from Prothero to watch over me. Watch every move I make and report it back to them.

He shifts out of my line of sight and my vision blurs and then all I can see are the horrible things from earlier this evening.

It’s dark outside. Nighttime. Eleni’s face crumples and falls out of my view. My finger scrapes against the trigger of the plasma rifle and a bullet fires out of the barrel. Clinton’s skull blows apart and blood and brains—

You sleepwalking, Buford? Rabbit asks. His steady, calm voice pulls me from the daze I was falling into.

Screw you.

No thanks. Rabbit holds a bag up and tosses it at my feet. I put this together. It’s got all the supplies we’ll need—basic toiletries and RFID free clothing. I scanned the clothes to be sure. No one was packing any military grade weaponry so no EMP devices. But there was at least one high caliber taser. And a package of licorice.

He pulls a plastic baggy of Red Vines from his back pocket, removes one and takes a bite off it. He crosses his arms—the candy hanging from his mouth like a cigarette—waiting for me to be suitably impressed.

"Great job. I’ve got dibs on