The Society (A Broken World Book 1) (26 page)

Tyrell was obviously angry as he walked towards us. The two guards looked like they'd rather be anywhere else, and I didn't blame them, but Brennan appeared supremely unconcerned.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Well, I had considered taking a trip down to the foundry to see how you were getting on, but given the roughness of the terrain we have to cross over, that didn't seem particularly prudent. Instead, I thought maybe I could go check on Lexis."

"You're playing a very dangerous game, Brennan. You are very well aware of the risks—I know because I explained them to you at length. Isn't there anything I can say to convince you to leave off this folly?"

Brennan made as though he was going to shrug, and then winced when his body refused to cooperate. "You're right, I'm aware of the risks—all of them—but we're running out of time."

I'd seen Tyrell disagree with Brennan several times since I'd arrived in the compound, but this time was different. It felt like there was a subtext to the conversation that I wasn't understanding. My impression of their relationship had always been that Brennan was the driving force and Tyrell was the trustworthy, competent right hand that every genius needed to make his dreams a reality.

It only lasted for an instant, but in that moment Tyrell felt like something other than the subordinate he'd always seemed before. His manner was more that of a mentor than anything else, and I found myself wondering if there was more history between the two of them than I'd suspected previously.

Even more unusual was the way that Tyrell looked up at the sky a moment later. It was as though Brennan had acknowledged more danger than just the gang leaders from the other territories.

Tyrell sighed. "Very well, you're right that it will take some of the pressure off once people have seen with their own eyes that the accident didn't kill you, but don't push so hard that you create another set of problems for yourself."

Brennan sketched a choppy salute and then the four of us were off to the textile factory.

I wasn't sure quite what to expect when we arrived. The big wheel was much as Lexis had described it, but I was surprised at just how far along construction had come on the second of the human-powered generators that Tyrell had promised her.

Brennan made as if to take over supervision of the team that was building the second wheel, but it was obvious even to me that his presence wasn't needed. If they'd been building something from scratch that might not have been the case, but the team Tyrell had sent was experienced enough that they weren't having any problems copying the design he'd used for the initial mechanism.

We stayed inside the textile factory for twenty minutes until it became obvious that even Lexis was getting antsy for us to leave so that her people would go back to focusing on their work.

After we left the textile factory, Brennan seemed content to wander about aimlessly. We visited some buildings and passed by others, but as time went on I was finally able to detect something of a pattern to our movements. Brennan behaved as though he wasn't at all concerned about the security arrangements Jax tried to keep in place around him, but he was actually being very careful to make sure that we didn't go anywhere too full of people unless there was a patrol there at the same time.

It was ingenious. A warlord like Piter never would've circulated among the inhabitants of his territory without at least a dozen guards. That went a long ways towards guaranteeing their safety, but tended to increase alienation felt by the rank-and-file inhabitants of their section of the city.

Brennan, on the other hand, was taking great pains to appear approachable and confident, while also minimizing the amount of danger he was exposing himself to. He was once again walking a very thin line in an effort to avoid one problem without causing another.

By the time that we'd been out for an hour, I could see that the trip was starting to take its toll on Brennan. He was bearing up under the effort better than I would've expected for someone without my advantages, but I felt a wave of relief as we approached the far end of the compound and I realized we would soon be able to turn around and head back to the headquarters building.

As we exited another high-rise building that had been converted over primarily to growing foodstuffs, the remnants of a twelve-story burnt-out shell of a building caught my eye.

"What do you use that one for, Brennan?"

"Hmm? Oh, that. We use it mostly as a source of raw materials. Originally the compound walls didn't include that particular building, but we recently started running low on the structural steel we need to feed into the foundry. That was one of our big projects last month. We went room to room inside the building to make sure it was completely unoccupied, and then we extended the walls out so that they brought the building inside our secure perimeter."

"How much steel are we going through? I wouldn't have believed you could melt down so much of that building in such a short time."

Brennan shook his head. "It's hard to see from here, but big chunks of the superstructure have decayed to the point where they collapsed into the center of the building. The inside is a real mess, which creates other problems for us. It's hard to know whether we're better off trying to clean out the interior first, or if that's just going to result in the upper floors caving in on us. If I had my way, we would leave that building alone until we can take it down with cranes, but Tyrell was right to push for that to be the one we brought inside the perimeter.

"All the other candidates were in much better shape, which would've made them easier to tear down, but it also would have meant evicting the people who were already living there. There are risks with what we decided to do, but going this way generates a lot less ill will among the rest of the people in our territory."

I mulled over his answer for several seconds. "You really are something, you know? I think most other men in your position would view the area outside the compound as nothing more than a buffer between them and their enemies. You, on the other hand, actually have guards out there trying to keep the peace and protect those people."

"In all fairness, my reasons aren't completely altruistic. We recruit from the people outside the compound. It's easy to think of the investment in machinery and infrastructure as being the most important undertaking that we're involved in right now, but that would be a mistake. It's just as critical that we continue to develop the human capital side of the equation.

"Half of our problem over the last few weeks hasn't been in deficiencies in equipment or machinery, it's been failures on the part of the people manning the equipment. I'd give just about anything right now to have a school up and running, but we just can't afford it yet. It's far more efficient to train people only on the tasks they deal with on a day-to-day basis."

I nodded. "But then they have such a narrow focus, they can't see how all the pieces fit together."

"Right, which ultimately just creates more work for the few people I do have who are capable of seeing the big picture. It's one more piece that has to be juggled at the same time we worry about what the other territories are busy doing."

As we'd been talking, we'd continued forward and we were now less than a dozen yards from the shell of the building that had caught my eye. I started to turn Brennan's wheelchair back the direction we'd come from, but he stopped me.

"Did any of you hear that?"

I exchanged looks with the two guards and then shook my head. "No, what was it?"

"I'm not sure, it almost sounded like a child."

I tried to remember if I'd seen any children during my time inside the compound. I didn't think so, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. I was starting to realize that only a fraction of the compound's population lived inside of the headquarters building. Dozens upon dozens of people worked farms on the upper floors of the buildings which hadn't yet been torn down to make way for new construction. For the most part, the farmers seemed to eat and sleep on the floors where they worked.

It didn't seem like much of an existence to me—at least not compared to daily warm showers and food that I didn't have to cook myself—but I couldn't entirely blame them for not wanting to climb fifteen or twenty flights of stairs multiple times per day. The fact that Brennan had managed to get running water up to all of the farm levels meant that it wasn't strictly necessary for many of those farmers to mix with the rest of the inhabitants of the compound.

"Is that even possible? Do we have kids inside the compound?"

Brennan nodded. "Not many—we don't actively recruit anyone younger than fifteen and we don't tend to get a lot of recruits with kids joining up—but we do get some, and the compound has been here long enough that people are starting to get married and have kids of their own. This building is a restricted area—it's too dangerous even for most of the adults—but it's entirely possible that someone felt like that was all the more reason they wouldn't be bothered out here."

If any other seventeen-year-old had told me he was concerned there were kids using a condemned building as their own personal playground, I probably would've laughed, but I wasn't even tempted to do so when it was Brennan making the statement. He peered at the building, moving his head back and forth in an effort to locate where the sound was coming from, but didn't seem to be having any more luck than I was.

"Can you wheel me around the side of the building, please?"

Williams, the older guard, put his hand on my arm when I started to comply with Brennan's request. "I don't think it's a good idea for us to get that close to the wall—not when there are only three of us to keep an eye on him."

We were close enough now to the building that I thought I could hear the same thing that Brennan had heard. He was right, it sounded like a child was in pain and crying.

I could see Brennan getting ready to dig his heels in, but I put my hand on his shoulder. "He's right, Brennan. We can't afford to have you hurt if the building comes down, and there's no reason to get any closer to the compound wall than we have to. Let's head back to the headquarters building. Once we get back there, you can assign a squad of guards to come check out the building."

Brennan turned his head to look at me and I could see his desire to help warring with the common sense that told him we were right. "All right, I won't force the issue and make you guys push me over to the other side of the building, but could one of you go check on it now? I would hate to send a squad out here and have them arrive ten minutes too late to save whoever's trapped inside the building."

Williams and the other guard both obviously didn't like that idea much better, but I was afraid if they dug in their heels that Brennan would change his mind and say we all had to go.

"I'll go. It only makes sense, since I'm the one who's going to be least able to protect you if something happens."

Brennan frowned. "Absolutely not, Skye. This is silly—we'll all go and everything will be just fine."

Williams still didn't look happy, but he motioned for the other guard to go check out the noise. We watched as the younger guard disappeared around the corner of the building, and then Brennan suddenly sat up straighter in his wheelchair.

"Something just happened."

I started forward, but Williams grabbed my arm before I could take a second step. "No, I'll go. You take Brennan back and get another team headed this direction."

I opened my mouth, planning on arguing, but Williams was already moving towards the corner of the building. There was no way to stop him unless I was either willing to leave Brennan on his own, or wheel him closer to the potential danger.

I had just taken a step back towards Brennan when a strange hissing sound brought me around just in time to see an arrow take Williams through the throat. A second later more than a dozen men stepped out of the shadows inside the building.

Only two of them had rifles, but all of them were armed with some kind of melee weapon. There were too many of them to fight. My only option was to try to get Brennan deeper inside the compound in the hopes we would stumble onto a patrol before the enforcers caught up to us.

I grabbed Brennan's wheelchair, spun it around, and took off like a shot back towards the north.

I should have been faster than any normal human, but the forty-pound wheelchair that had seemed like a minor burden at walking speeds was suddenly a much bigger deal now that I was trying to push it and run at the same time. I only made it half a dozen steps before something crashed into the back of my leg with enough force to slam me face first into the ground.

Brennan's wheelchair hit a pothole in the road and sent him sprawling onto the blacktop. I scrambled back to my feet and spun around just in time to block a knife that otherwise would have taken me in the ribs.

My right leg was a solid mass of pain, but it still seemed structurally sound enough to provide me the base I needed. I swept my attacker's right leg, and then used my hold on his arm to destroy his elbow as he headed towards the ground.

The entire exchange had taken less than a second, but it still bought the enforcer's companions time to close with me, and the next two attacked at the same time. The one on the right was wielding a short sword, while the one on the left was swinging some kind of collapsible baton.

Even my nanites wouldn't allow me to regenerate a severed limb, so I prioritized the attacker on the right. He came at me with a low slashing attack, so I stepped forward to put myself inside the arc of his swing. He tried to backpedal and buy himself room to get his weapon back in play, but my nanite-infused muscles propelled me forward with the speed he couldn't hope to match.

I slammed the point of my elbow into the top of his throat and then spun around hoping that I'd been fast enough to avoid being clubbed in the back of the head by the second enforcer. I caught a flash of motion out of the corner of my eye, but even with the adrenaline in my system causing my nanites to take up station along my spinal cord, there just wasn't time to avoid the end of the baton as it slammed into my collarbone.