The Reset (24 page)

FORTY-TWO

Coraline
slipped through the shadows. She wore an insulated jacket, snow pants and heavy
boots, and she had another winter jacket beneath her arm.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she
found the guard station outside Ben’s cell unattended. It looked like her plan
had worked, and she thought she might have as much as an hour alone with him.

She hustled to his cell, wary of waking
the other prisoners, and stole inside. He faced the wall, his back to her on
the soiled mattress, and she watched him shivering beneath what remained of a
tiny square of molding blanket. “Jesus,” she whispered. He coughed in his
sleep, and his labored breath rattled around in his chest.

“Oh God, Ben,” she whispered, kneeling
next to him. She climbed onto the mattress, worked her arms around him and
hugged him, her cheek to his shoulder.

“Ben,” she whispered into his ear. “Ben,
you have to get up now. We’ve got to go.”

He stirred a little, then started violently
at her touch. He scuttled away from her, a strangled cry in his throat. “Who
are you? Corr? Is that…is that
you
?”

She nodded. She held the coat out to
him. “Hurry. We don’t have much time.”

He pulled it on. “Where are we going? Is
it…is it my time?”

“No, Ben. Listen, I want to help you,
but we have to leave right now. Roan’s men will be back soon. They might
already be on the way back here.”

Ben moved closer. He searched her eyes,
and when he was finished he smiled at her. “I kept your picture in my pocket
every day, Corr. Every day.”

She frowned. “Come on, Ben. Roan’s men are
out on a disturbance call, but they won’t be gone for long.”

She took his hand and darted back into
the dim light of the cellblock. She didn’t notice the man staring at her from
the edge of his cell, but Ben saw him. Donald Finney—he of the family and the
two jobs and the honest-to-goodness house—gave him a knowing little nod.

Ben returned it, feeling a stronger
kinship in that moment to these unfortunate souls than he had ever thought
possible. They were the same, all of them—victims of cruelty and circumstance.

His heart raced as they jogged through
the innards of the jail. Coraline paused just long enough to study a wall of
black-and-white television monitors in an empty kiosk.

“It’s wide open. Come on.”

She took a key from her pocket and
opened a pair of locks on a heavy metal door. Frigid air buffeted his face and
he pulled his collar tight around his neck. They were in a service area, the
cement floor angling slightly upward to a loading dock, and then she used the
key again and pushed open one final door.

A howling wind blew gusts of snow
sideways, and Coraline took a pair of wool caps from her coat pocket. She
handed one to Ben, pulled the other on, and then they were off and running as
best they could through the knee-high drifts.

“Corr, stop! Please, we have to talk!”
Ben called.

“There’s no time! Come on, we have to
hurry!”

They’d exited behind what looked like an
old industrial park. It reminded Ben of the processing plant that had been both
his refuge and his prison after the Reset. The streets in this part of town were
deserted and poorly lit and, after they’d cleared a meager string of dim sodium
lights, they ran through darkness for what felt to Ben like an eternity.

Finally, Coraline stopped in the
driveway of a two-story house. It was one of only a few that still stood in
this hardscrabble part of Atlanta. It looked like heavy artillery had torn the
rest of the block to shreds, but Coraline walked down the driveway with
certainty before disappearing through a gate in a dilapidated fence. “Come on!”
she called, agitated.

Ben followed her up the stairs and she
pushed the door open. It was warm inside. They passed through a kitchen and
then she was leading him down a flight of stairs.

Orange light cast a warm glow on the
unfinished basement walls. There was a little card table in the corner of the
room, and a man and a woman were seated there. They were drinking something
warm. “It’s okay,” Coraline said to Ben, her eyes imploring him to trust her. “These
are good people. You’re safe here.”

“Corr, I’m confused. Are you…are you
with Roan, or not? Where’s Alice and…and where’s Lucy?”

“My God—he’s nothing but skin and
bones,” the man interrupted. “Roan’s a fool if he means to get a steak out of
that poor fellow.”

Ben turned his attention to the couple.
They were an odd pair.

The man was probably in his fifties. He
was a thickly built black man with a gray stubble of goatee and thin,
wire-rimmed glasses. He wore a soiled baseball cap and his eyes were kind. He
tipped Ben a nod, and Ben warily returned it.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” the
girl said. She was petite and pale, her bleached hair touched with a shock of
bright green in the bangs. Her nose and lips and ears glinted metal studs, and
she grinned at him as she motioned to the stainless steel coffee urn in the
corner. “It’s not fresh, but it won’t kill you either.”

“Please,” Ben said. He sat in a folded
chair at the table while Coraline poured the coffee. There was a folder in the
center of the table.

“I’m Johnny,” the man said. He swallowed
Ben’s hand in his grip. “This is Ann. We’d like to help you, if we can.”

Coraline pushed the drink into his hands
and he leaned greedily into its steam—relishing its warmth and aroma. It took every
bit of discipline he had to resist from gulping it down and scalding his
throat. “Well, we’re in luck then because I’m in desperate need of help,” Ben
replied after sipping the brew.

Coraline reached across the table and
took his hand. “Ben, where is the farm?”

He yanked his hand free. “Jesus,
Coraline! Is that what this is all about? Some kind of…some of trap to get me
to talk? If you think I’m telling you, you’re crazy. You’re—”

Johnny reached out and nonchalantly
flipped open the folder. A clear image of the miracle farm sat on top. “This is
it, am I right, Ben?”

His eyes searched their faces. “How did
you…?”

“That’s it,” Coraline said. She nodded
at Johnny and he closed the folder. “Roan’s men are close. It’s just a matter
of time before they find it. Those people living in the house. Who are they,
Ben?”

“Are they okay?” Ben said. “Are they…
alive
?”

The girl nodded. “At least they were
three days ago, when these pictures were taken. Ben, things are moving quickly
now. Much faster than any of us had hoped. We wanted to wait until the roads
were clear this spring, but that’s just not an option. Not for us anymore, and
clearly not for you either,” she nodded at him, indicating his dire physical
condition. “We’re going to try to get you and Alice and the girl out of there
tomorrow.”

“Roan’s spread his scouts as far down as
Jacksonville,” Coraline said. “He’s put almost two hundred men on the road. These
are very bad people, Ben. The worst of the worst.

“The only good fortune we’ve had is that
Crank never had time to give Marks your exact location before Roan had him
killed. Roan is…he’s so
impulsive
, and it’ll be the end of him when all
the rest of this has run its course.” She looked away, her fingers absently
tracing the scar on her face. Johnny and Ann frowned in unison, and Ben picked
up on it and reached out once again for Coraline’s hand.

“Did Roan do that to you, Corr?” he
asked. “He did, didn’t he?”

She nodded, tears in her eyes. “But it
doesn’t matter anymore. Everything’s going to be different very soon. I
promise.”

“And that’s where we come in,” Johnny
said. “Word spreads quickly when there’s talk of revolution. It spreads like a
damned
wildfire
when people start whispering about fresh food.”

“Where did you two come from?” Ben said.
His coffee had cooled some and he took a swallow and relished the sensation as
it warmed his belly.

“Cascade County,” Ann replied. “It’s a
pretty little oasis in the middle of the great state of Montana. You might know
our town by a more familiar name. We came here to Atlanta all the way from
Great Falls.”

“Jesus, Ann,” Ben replied. “That’s the
entire
country. How did you get here? And…are there people out there?”

Johnny nodded. “Quite a few, actually.
There’s a pretty big settlement in Kansas, too. They’ve got the juice turned
on. And another one near Grand Island, Nebraska. When things fell apart, the
heartland didn’t take so many direct hits.

“
Our
people live mostly along the
old Canadian border. The eastern seaboard is gone, Ben. California and Texas
are
gone
. And there’s not much left of the Pacific Coast, I’ll admit.
But things are getting better up in MT. We could use your help—and your
resources. I’m not going to hide the fact that we need you. But we won’t abuse
you, and we won’t exploit you.”

“Do you have starts?” Ann asked. “Have
you been putting up seeds?”

Ben nodded.

She smiled. “Well, I guess the last
question is, are you willing to come with us? If we can get you and your wife
and little girl out, will you bring those seeds and go out west with us?”

Ben looked at Coraline. “Are you coming,
Corr?”

“We’ll talk about the details later,”
Johnny interjected. He leaned forward over the table, holding Ben in place with
his dark eyes. “I need a commitment from you, Ben. Are you on board? We don’t
have much time here, son.”

“How—how will we leave?”

“We have transportation.”

“But it’s got to be, what—two thousand
miles?”

“That’s pretty good,” Johnny said,
smiling. “It’s 2100 miles. We can do it in three or four days if we push hard.
What do you say?”

Ben’s mind raced. He couldn’t think straight
he was so hungry. “Look, can I have something to eat? Is there anything? This
is a lot of information, all at once.”

Ann bent down and rummaged in a pack
until she found a canister of protein powder. “It’s all we have, I’m afraid.
You can probably see why we came all this way, Ben. We heard the rumors, and we
had
to come. Did you guys really have fresh fruit?”

 She scooped two rations into a plastic
cup, filled it with water from her bottle, stirred it and set it next to Ben’s
coffee cup. He gulped it down in three swallows.

“They did,” Coraline said, answering for
him. Ben felt the energy coursing through him immediately. He belched and
chased the chalky taste with a pull on his coffee.

He sat there for a long, quiet moment. “If
we go with you, it has to be a package deal. I need my wife and Lucy, and those
two people back at the miracle farm. That’s the only way.”

Johnny grinned. “That what you call it?
The miracle farm? Well, the name fits—that’s for sure.”

“So, what do you say? Can we take them
all?”

“Yeah, we have room,” Ann said. “But
we’ll have to be quick. You think we can pick these two up and still make it
out of here on time, Johnny?”

The man sighed. He fixed his eyes on
Coraline. “That all depends on Ms. Coraline, here. Our little wild card in this
whole crazy scheme. What do you say, Ms. Coral?”

She slipped her hand inside of her coat
and came out with it. She placed it on the table and Ben’s mouth fell open in
shock. “Is it…holy
shit
, Corr! Is that…?”

She nodded, her smile pained and wistful.
She pushed it into the center of the card table.

It was her kit, and it hadn’t changed in
all of these years. Same pale blue case, same collection of sunflower
stickers—only they were a faded.

“Oh, God—it’s still in there, isn’t it? After
all these years?”

Coraline nodded. “I can handle my end of
things just fine, Johnny. You just get Ben and Alice and Lucy out of here. I’ll
take care of the rest.”

Johnny took Ben’s hand. Ann placed hers
on top, and Coraline completed the pact. “If we’re going to our glory,” he
said, his voice low, “then let’s take as many of these ruthless fucks with us
as we can.”

FORTY-THREE

“Come
with us,” Ben said. He pulled her close, her scarred face pressed tight against
his chest. Her thin shoulders hitched with sobs. “
Please
, Coraline.
There has to be another way out of this.”

She looked up at him, her eyes searching
his as she asked the question that had been eating at her for years. “You
really came looking for me?”

“Twice,” Ben said. “I came to Atlanta
twice
,
Coraline. Alice wasn’t lying. Before I met her, I had designs on making another
trip into the city, Corr, I swear it. I…I never gave up on finding you, Corr.
Never.”

She smiled. “I know, Ben. I know you came,
and I’m so sorry we couldn’t find each other.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,
Corr. None of this was your fault.” He gently touched the scar, and she didn’t
shy from his contact. Instead, she pushed her face further into his chest,
nestling her head beneath his neck while his fingertips traced the translucent
pink skin. “Roan did this to you?” he whispered.

She nodded. “He takes whatever he wants.
He drugged me, Ben. I tried to hide, but he took me for his own and he branded
me. He told me,” she sobbed, “that I was his
alone
. When I told him you
were looking for me, he said it was a lie. He said nobody would come, and that
he’d kill anybody that tried. And when I tried to leave on my own, he cut me,
Ben. He said I was too ugly, too
ruined
, for anybody to care about me
but him.”

Ben touched her chin, tilting her face
up to his. He kissed her—a simple, chaste kiss—and their eyes were shut as the
world slid away all around them.

The snow fell, but neither of them felt
the cold. They didn’t feel the emptiness, or the aching. Instead, they simply
touched each other, rekindling the connection that had been forged so many
years before.

Ben wiped away her tears. “I am so sorry
that I couldn’t help you, Corr.”

She smiled, her eyes wet. “Do you
remember that afternoon in the cave?”

Ben grinned. “I still dream of it
sometimes, Coraline. I still dream of it.”

She nodded, looking away. “Me too. Those
are about the only moments of happiness I’ve had since Roan took me.” She
cleared her throat. “Did you…did you know that Mr. Brown never…he never sent us
the arming doses.”

Ben frowned in confusion. “What?”

“I spoke with Patrice. She…she called me
just before the people from the Human Accord took her into custody. Mr.
Brown—his name was Mark, actually. Mark Kensington. Mr. Brown never sent either
of us the chemicals that were needed to…to trigger the reaction.”

Coraline unzipped her jacket. She took
Ben’s hand, pressing it to the scar tissue on her chest. He felt her
heartbeat—strong and fast.

“Why? Did she tell you why he didn’t
send them?”

She nodded. “Patrice said that he loved
us. That he loved
all
of us, but that he especially wanted you and me to
be together. She said—she said that he told her he wasn’t sure what might be
left when Dr. Calvin’s plan ran its course, but that whatever
was
left…well, he wanted you and me to be together in it.”

Ben sighed. He felt sick to his stomach.
He loved Alice—his
wife
, and the woman that had saved his life—more than
anything he’d ever known. And yet, here
she
was. Here was his Coraline.
They were together, after all these years, and the absurdity of the situation
made him nauseous. His hand fell from her chest, and he turned away.

“I know,” she said. “I feel it, too.”

“I don’t understand,” Ben said. “How…if
he never sent the arming mechanism, then how?” He couldn’t finish the question.

“We have our own chemists, Ben. When the
time comes, I’ll be ready.

“Look, we have to go back now. We have
to go back, or none of this will work. The Lawtons are already on the move. We
need to do our part.”

Ben nodded. He was reluctant to return
to the jail, but he knew things were already in motion.

Before they’d left the basement, Johnny
had placed a call south on an old satellite phone. At least parts of the old communications
grid were still in place, it seemed.

“How do I know it’s you, Ben?” Arthur
had said. His voice crackled with the spotty connection, but there was no
mistaking that it was Arthur.

Ben described the wedding ceremony
Arthur had officiated, and the older man fell silent on the other end. “Damn,
it’s good to hear your voice, Ben! Is—is Lucy okay?” he finally said.

“She is, Arthur. She is,” there was a
loud shout on the other end, followed by cries of celebration. “How’s Gwen?”

“She’s doing better, but she’s nervous
as a long-tailed cat on a porch full of rocking chairs about our little girl.
We need to get her back home.”

“We’re working on a plan to do just that,
Arthur. Tell Gwen…tell her that I don’t think it’ll be long before we’re all together
again, okay?”

“That sounds great, Ben. I’ll have a
word with the Lord on it, you can be sure. You, uh—you reckon we should go with
these people?”

“Yeah, I think it’s our best bet.”

“Forgive me if this sounds paranoid, but
what’s to keep them from hurting us once they have what they want?”

The thought had occurred to Ben as well.
When he’d asked Johnny about it, the man had made a simple (and effective)
argument.

“Look,” he had said, “you can throw in
with us, or you can die in Roan’s prisons. It’s up to you.”

“Not much of a choice, is it?” Ben had
replied.

Ann just smiled, and it put him at ease.
“It’s a fine choice, if you ask me. You’ll just have to take my word for it,
Ben. We’re not like Roan. You’ll have to make a leap of faith.”

And so he had. Coraline believed in
them, and so he did the same.

“Listen up, Arthur. I need you to gather
a few things,” he had said, relaying the instructions Johnny had given him.
When he had ended the call, he felt a burden floating away. If everything
worked out, they’d rendezvous with the Lawtons in Tennessee inside of
forty-eight hours.

If everything worked out.

And yet he couldn’t reconcile the plans
they had made with what Coraline was proposing. It seemed cruel—cosmically
cruel—that after all these years he had found her, only to lose her again so
quickly.

And completely.

Coraline kept her head bent against the
blowing snow. She held Ben’s hand in the howling storm, all the way back to the
jail, and it gave him comfort.

“They’ll come for you tomorrow,” she
said when he was back in his cell. “Be ready. Things will go quickly, and we
can’t miss our cues.”

Ben clutched her hand through the bars.
“Please, Coraline!” he whispered. “Please, there has to be another way!”

She squeezed his hand and smiled. “I’m
glad that we found each other again, Benjamin Stone. I’m very grateful for
that.”

She turned and ran, and Ben heard the
door shut as she secured the cellblock behind her; he was alone again, his head
swimming with everything that had just happened.

They were leaving. Again. And this time,
they were throwing in with strangers.

There was a rustling laughter from across
the way, and he pushed his face into the iron bars. Donald Finney bared his
rotting teeth in a savage grin.

“There you go, wonder boy
,” he whispered. “There you go.”