Bound to Ashes (The Altered Sequence Book 1) (12 page)

“Think there’s anything in these?” Peregrine asks, knocking on one of the shipping containers experimentally. She puts her ear to the side and listens to the hollow echo.

“Probably just cheap Chinese shit,” James says.

“Or, you know, piles and piles of non-perishables,” Peregrine says, shrugging. “But hey, who knows.”

“We can’t waste time on gambles like that,” Alessandra says, a little disappointed. “Let’s just keep going. We can hit it later.”

We pass rows and rows of the things. They’re all different colors speckled with rust and lichen. I can’t imagine anything useful inside.

We pass in and out of aisles of gnarled train cars. The train station in the distance looks more like a pile of used kindling the way huge pieces of the awnings stick straight up. More train cars lie on their sides than upright. One of them brought down the tall chain link fence bordering the train yard. We climb between the car and the fence silently, disturbing neither of the metal giants, like we were never even there.

The town opens up after that and turns into the usual pattern of parking-shops-parking-shops-housing. I could just close my eyes and sleepwalk the whole way and I wouldn’t miss anything.

“Oh,” Peregrine says sadly, stopping in front of a ruined building. The whole complex got hit pretty badly, but judging by the colorful walls and faded window paintings in shards on the ground, it was something for kids. School, maybe. “Makes me miss Jennifer.”

Jules picks something out of her teeth and looks around absently. “Who?”

“My daughter,” Peregrine says faintly. Her tone sets me on edge. She hasn’t sounded like that before, so distant, something must be wrong. “She turns three this October.”

I can’t even think about children. The anxiety from the last time I saw one, the human base, are still pretty fresh. That might have been the
only
child I’ve ever seen. They never, ever cross my mind. But I can still remember the Caduceus official sitting us down and lecturing us on what I guess was standard health class material. Except for the end of the lecture, which went something like, ‘Except for you. You are all completely unable to reproduce. So even if the opportunity presented itself,’ he pushed his glasses up and focused his steely eyes on us, ‘it would be impossible.’ The memory stills my tongue and numbs my mind.

“Yeah, what with the apocalypse and all, you know, demand for more people has been kind of high,” Peregrine says and smiles coyly. “Don’t suppose you guys have ever tried.”

I can almost feel the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up.

It’s Cain who finally shatters the awkward pause. “Not like we can even
touch
Jules.”

Jules cackles like she was waiting for someone to mention it. Then she casts me a side-eyed, coy look, not unlike Jules, but given the situation, gives me chills.

“Well,” Alessandra says. She pauses and adds, treading lightly, “It wouldn’t be possible, anyway. CadTech made their own patented genetic affliction to make the men—and women, actually—functionally sterile. Kind of a control tool for preventing competitor duplication, so they were the only ones producing.” Everyone stares at her now, her eyes hover over us for a split second, and she says quickly, “I mean, that’s what I
read
, anyway.”

James rolls his shoulders uncomfortably and grunts almost inaudibly.

“Damn,” Jules says, laughing. “She knows more about us than we do! Anyone
else
creeped out?”

Ashton’s jaw muscles ripple near his temples and he purposefully avoids everyone’s face.

Vinder, constantly tagging along with us instead of his friends, glances at us worriedly and clears his throat. “So, how’re we looking on time, Aless?” He’s got tact when it matters, I guess.

“Oh come on,” Peregrine says. “You know that’s just another way of saying, ‘Are we there yet’.”

“Shut up! Seriously, how much closer are we?”

“I’m gonna give it... about four or five days out, if we don’t have any distractions,” Alessandra says, staring up at the sky. “But maybe that’s the optimistic estimate, I don’t know.”

All this uncertainty sure is making me feel better.

“Those clouds are awfully fat,” Vinder comments, taking Alessandra’s cue and glancing skyward. “Like... raincloud-fat.”

“Probably just a tease,” Peregrine says, snorting. “Like always.”

But there’s a pinprick of cold on my arm—a tiny drop of water. I look up and the clouds thicken rapidly above us. The ground is spotted with tiny circles, a shade darker, and the pattern grows and grows with every second.

“What the....” Ashton says, holding his hands out.

Suddenly, it’s everywhere. All at once. Soaking.

Peregrine and Alessandra nearly squeal, grinning, and the other two are smiling ear-to-ear and holding their hands out gratefully.

“About goddamn time,” James says. Not even he is immune to the charm.

I can’t remember rain. I glance at my friends and thankfully they’re as bewildered as I am. Only Cain is put out; he stashes his rifle under the flap of his pack with sharp movements.

Ashton looks down at me and smiles. His black hair, usually kind of curly, is straight and clinging to his face.

I know it’s stupid to hope, but maybe this storm means something good is coming.

The rain won’t let up. It used to only be a problem when it
wouldn’t
fall, and now we have to stop because it’s making up for lost time. Everything smells rich and strong from being dried out for so long, finally brought out of hiding by the rain. Under the open awning of some kind of factory, sitting on stacks of metal crates, we wait for it to let up. Even just a little will do. I sigh. We’re probably going to have to camp here tonight. My legs are itching to keep going.

The only other time I felt this way, anxious to move, was post-revolt. Staying still was suicide. You’d run out of food, water, if you were lucky enough to have a gun, you’d run out of bullets eventually, too. Wandering was the only way. Without that urge, though, Ashton wouldn’t have found me. Memories of our first treks through the city occupy a dark place in my mind. And none of them have rain.

Rain is nice except for the weird tightness in my chest near the fuel sacs. The uncertain cause just makes it worse. It’s been happening since the rain started.

I wish I hadn’t got stuck alone with Vinder. And Punk, lying under the table, providing us with a constant wet-dog smell. Everyone else is across a barrier of water.

And of course, Vinder has to talk.

“Not so fond of the rain, huh?” He says, slipping his coat off and shaking it to flick off the water.

“Just not used to it.”

“Yeah, it hasn’t rained back home in what, six months?”

“Something like that.”

“It’s like, we live in the Pacific Northwest, right? We should just be getting dumped with rain. All the time.” He stops, like a thought catches him off guard. His whole demeanor shifts down into a slouch, a low voice, a distant gaze. “It was raining like this when my mom caught the virus.”

From reading papers, I know that catching the virus means getting killed by it.

“You guys, the Altered,” he says, staring through the curtain of rain, “you were made to fight in the war, right?”

I shift and try to focus on the greyed out stacks of cargo containers across the street. “Yeah.”

He glances over at me with sad dark eyes. “Wish you’d won. Then maybe the Northern Alliance wouldn’t have... infected us.”

I always thought the virus was a blessing. The revolt happened six months before the virus took hold, and those six months were hell. If the virus hadn’t hit, we’d be dead by now. There would have been no place for us. But with the slate wiped clean, we had a chance. Hearing Vinder talk about the virus reveals a side of the story I wish I could continue to ignore.

“It was a manufactured virus, you know. But it got out of control. Killed almost everyone on their side, too. It was a brain thing,” he says, tapping the side of his head, “it targeted chemical outputs. Serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, yadda yadda. Anyway it made most everyone manically depressed, or just crazy. That’s why guns are so hard to find. They were bought up even after state of emergencies and martial law went up. Then the government shut down all the arms dealers and if people didn’t get anything black-market, they’d find... other ways of doing it. Not eating. Exposure. Jumping off... things.”

Seems a weird time to spill the beans. Even weirder is I’m intrigued. “So... everyone who got the virus....”

“I was eight. Mom fell backwards off the apartment building.”

Why is he telling me all this? He just stares into the rain, glassy-eyed and dripping wet, leaning over with elbows braced on his knees. Water drips off his black hair, into his eyebrows, and he doesn’t even blink when it rolls off his long eyelashes.

“People back home say the only reason there are any survivors is because the people who were immune to the virus already
had
chemical imbalances. It threw off the virus.” He wipes his forehead and laughs grimly. “Isn’t that messed up? Only the ones wrong in the head got to live. I thought about killing myself when I was thirteen. What kind of stupid irony
is
that?”

I don’t know what to say to him after that wave of brutal honesty. He’s stupid for spilling his guts like that.

But then again, maybe he had to. Maybe no one else listens. Vinder feels safe around us, and I’d do anything to know why.

“Why are you telling me this...?”

He glances at me sideways and a smile almost forms. “I dunno. I trust you, I guess.” His face breaks into his usual grin. “And besides, we could be related, you know? You totally have that Punjabi schnoz.” He traces the outline of his long nose.

My own laugh surprises me.

“No, I mean it,” he says. “Alessandra says you guys weren’t just some test tube babies. You were born from actual people. So you could totally be like, my distant cousin or something. Indian families are huge, you know. We get around.”

“Alessandra sure knows a lot about us.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, she knows a lot about all sorts of stuff.”

Right. All sorts of stuff.

“Hey, looks like the monsoon is over. Come on.” He hops off the table and grabs his coat on his way to the other shelter. It’s still raining enough for him to want to hold the coat over his head, though.

I watch him go and talk to the others. Ashton looks at me and we exchange tired glances.

This trip can’t be over soon enough.

By the way the air smells, heavy and salty, I’m worried something might be wrong with the downtown area we’re moving into. But the humans don’t seem to be worried, they walk ahead same as ever. Am I just imagining things? Maybe they’re not sensitive enough to smell it at all.

“What’s that smell?” Jules sneers.

“What smell?” Peregrine asks.

“The ocean?” Vinder suggests. “We must be by the ports!”

Even Punk is craning his neck to the wind taking deep sniffs.

Cain would be too proud to admit it, Ashton’s well-read enough to know about it, so Jules asks the question on my mind: “What’s the ocean like?”

She has all the humans’ attentions. “You’ve never seen the ocean.” Peregrine says. Her eyebrows couldn’t get higher and she finishes the shocked look with an excited smile.

No one has the guts to admit it. I don’t see why we should feel ashamed of it, but that’s how it feels. Like we’re less traveled or ignorant or something.

“My knowledge is limited to photographs,” Ashton offers with a shy shrug, tucking his hands into his pockets.

Peregrine looks at Alessandra deadly serious. “Aless, we have to swing wide,” she says. “They have to see the ocean.”

Alessandra hesitates. Peregrine seems to hold sway over Alessandra somehow, because Alessandra shrugs. “Alright. It’s not that far out of the way....”

“It must be better in person,” Ashton whispers to me as we climb over a pile of ripped up cars. He hops down and rolls his shoulders.

“What, the ocean?”

“Yeah. Seems like... well. How interesting can a ton of water be?”

“It’s not like you to be so....” Can’t find the word for it.

“What?”

“I dunno. Boring?”

I hit him before he can reach out and smack me. “Shut up,” he says, smiling.

“Oh, there it is!” Peregrine exclaims, running ahead. “Come on, we’ll get a better view....” She rushes down a road that gradually slopes upward. The road eventually gets so high up we’re level with a few of the taller buildings— must be an overpass. Peregrine stands on top of a burned-out car frame and can’t seem to stop smiling, like she’s sharing an exciting secret. “Check it out.”

“So what, it’s a big, blue, wet... thing,” Jules says dismissively. But when it comes into view, her mouth falls open and she says, “Oh.”

It’s so bright— it hurts my eyes at first, but as it fades into clarity, I see why Peregrine was so eager for us to see it. It’s a field of light: dancing, jittery light, wiggling and sending blinding pinpricks back at us. The teal-blue depths gently fade into a lighter shade as it nears the shore. White crests claw at the docks and roads below. The port buildings, what looks like seven of them up and down the coast, are half underwater and crusted with white... rocks? Some plants grow out of the rotten wood and a skinny grey bird, disturbed by our coming, rears its long neck and pushes itself into the air. The salty smell is almost overwhelming, but if I push past the initial rotting sensations, it’s almost refreshing.