Red Denver: A Prelude to REHO (The Hegemon Wars) (6 page)

A few other services were offered in other stations. Places just for food or sleep pods lined the walkway across from the inn. In the past, more people had traveled across the Blastlands; now, few possessed the funds or the balls to travel it. There was nothing better on the other side. But one had to cross to the other side to realize this.

No one lived at the stations permanently, though a handful of homes surrounded the station for the servicemen who had to stay for days or weeks at a time to do repairs.

The door to Rec Space 15 hissed open. Reho had no way of knowing how many occupants were here. He could have asked the boys how many travelers had come through, but somehow it just didn’t seem important. Not as important as the smell of the basketball’s rubber and talking—even just for a brief minute—to someone he wouldn’t end up having to hurt.

***

The room was simple: a worn, two-cushioned brown sofa left over from the OldWorld doubled as a bed. A square table with a wooden chair pressed against the opposite wall. A single bulb cast a soft yellow light across the room. There were no windows. One wall had once been painted over with a light blue. He could see the graffiti beneath it: an airbrushed
A
followed by some indecipherable markings and a four foot skull. Reho guessed it had been a detailed piece of art before being covered up.

Inside Rec Space 15, the air was clean. Filtered. Reho could tell the difference. Even though the radiated atmosphere never affected him, something about clean air still made him feel more alive. It had been six days since he’d enjoyed such a simple pleasure. Even so, the air couldn’t compare to that in his home community, Virginia Bloc 4E. He recalled running through the pastures as a kid. Although the area had suffered from the Blast almost a century before, the radiation was minimal, and the early community members had reformed the land. With few limitations, the community thrived as it had before the Blast.

Reho activated the panel on the shower door. “Please insert smartcard for options.”

Reho set it for cold. Few pleasures existed in the Blastlands.

“Six points required. Do you accept?”

Reho pressed the green
yes
button.

The water sprayed down. A timer at the top of the shower displayed 3:59. Less than four minutes to shower away a week’s filth.

The cold water revived Reho. His parched, black hair and blistered skin drank in the liquid as it hydrated his body. The watered hammered down on his thick, scarred shoulders and survival-hardened chest. He dispensed what was left of the soap across his chest and back, the scar on his shoulder reminding him of where he’d been had come from. An indention the size of his index finger now remained where the warbeast’s claw had once entered. He felt the stubble on his face, prompting him to shave before the water ran out.

The constant headache he’d had since disarming and crushing the two knock-down-drag-outs dissipated under the running water. His thoughts escaped to the mountains. The showers there had been ice cold. And the view was like nothing else in Usona. Reho thought back to the Western Coast and the desolate, half-submerged city of what an OldWorld map had labeled Los Angeles. The water of the ocean had been equally as cold. Now he just longed for the Eastern Coast, for home.

Reho accessed the entertainment panel from the table by the sofa. A red
X
was placed next to some options, showing that the feature was no longer accessible:
Films
,
X
. Reho had hoped to watch a movie, an instant escape, as OldWorld movies reminded people of what life had been like before the Blast. Reho pressed
Music
. Most of the names and bands he’d seen before; some he had even heard.

After deducting three points, the music played. Reho closed his eyes, his head resting on the arm of the sofa. He wouldn’t even bother undoing the bed. He lay naked as the music faded and he dreamed.

***

The dream was familiar. It was one of several that returned to him, always at unexpected times. His dreams had always felt real, as though they were moments he’d already lived or perhaps would live at some point in the future. Jen had once said they were of the future or maybe of another life. She had read books about civilizations before the Blasts that believed such things.

In this dream, he woke from a fetal position. Sand shifted beneath him as stood. Fresh blood poured from somewhere on his body but he could never find the wound. It formed a puddle around his feet, mixing with the sand. The tide was too far away to wash the mess out to sea. Behind him a fire raged. With his back to the ocean, he could see a city-sized, foreign military compound burning. A mountain had exploded, sending a mushroom-shaped cloud into the atmosphere above it. The flames rose higher than he could see. The scene was familiar enough. Once he had ventured off the beach, but each time he became lost in the jungle.

Now he looked out onto the ocean; a ship sat far away. He raised his hands and waved.
Can they see me?
The ship shrank from view. Rain poured as he waited on the beach, the dried blood running off his body as the rain persisted. The ocean’s angry waves crashed against the beach, driving Reho farther back. He could still see the ship through the storm. It grew closer as the storm pushed wind and rain onto the beach, stinging his eyes. The boat was coming back.

Reho felt something crash against his legs. An umbrella
.
As the water receded, Reho saw two other objects: a full-faced rubber gas mask with the canister missing and a dark, corked bottle. Reho snatched up the items and retreated farther inland. He put down the umbrella, a five-foot OldWorld style that looked as though the span would be at least six feet in diameter if it were opened. The gas mask was strange enough; he checked inside it for a name or company but found nothing. The dark bottle was void except for a single item wedged in near the neck. Reho yanked on the cork and retrieved a piece of paper. It read:
Kingdom . . .
The second word had been smeared.

An aggressive wave returned, covering his waist and retreating with the other items. A mammoth rock pushed up from under the beach. Reho fell back, barely avoiding the rising ground. It rose thirty feet above ground level. The tide returned and swept him under. Disoriented and panicking to find the bottle, he pushed farther out to sea.

The storm howled and something—
a human voice?—
rose above the winds and thunder. Reho lifted himself off the beach and ran to the jungle. As he ran, the voice returned. Its sound was unnatural, like a wild animal trying to talk, but its words were clear as it repeated:

The stone, once dropped, wants to move toward the center of the earth.

The stone, once dropped, wants to move toward the center of the earth.

The stone, once . . .

***

Reho woke, his sweat-drenched body shaking in the cold room. He pushed the dream to the back of his mind and adjusted the thermostat, then selected a peanut butter sandwich from the vending machine in the room. He ordered a few extra sandwiches and stuffed them into his pack. At an inflated cost of nineteen points, he would have enough calories to make it the rest of the way. Points were never an issue for Reho. He had more than he could spend from his winnings at the races in Red Denver. After eating, he stretched again and returned to the sofa.

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