“At least if I drown,” I wheeze, my voice sounding like gravel, “your friends won’t have the pleasure of stringing me up from the rafters at your little hideout.”
Romeo narrows his eyes at me, brows drawing in as he pushes us off a clump of vegetation with one of the long poles the natives use. “We don’t hang soldiers,” he retorts with exaggerated outrage. “We burn them at the stake. It takes ages to collect the fuel, given the landscape. It’s quite a special occasion.”
I snort, using the sound to disguise the creak as I test the strength of the boat rib I’m tied to. Despite how shoddy-looking the boat is, the rib doesn’t give. But being tied up is the least of my problems.
Avon’s perpetual cloud cover means there’s no navigating by starlight, the way we’re trained to do in survival situations. The swamp stretches as far as the eye can see, giving me no reference points, no way to tell what direction we’re going. Even the occasional spires of rock thrusting upward look alike. They’re sharp as razor blades; Avon’s only had wind and water to erode them for a few generations, barely a heartbeat in geological time. The waterways between islands and floating masses of vegetation shift so rapidly that from day to day, the same patch of swamp can look entirely different. I have no idea where we are. And being lost, on Avon, is deadlier than being a soldier in the middle of a pack of bloodthirsty rebels.
There’s a dingy lantern hanging from a pole in the bow, casting a dim light over the water. We must be far enough from the base that Romeo feels safe using light. I strain my eyes, trying to get my bearings, but all I get are spots swimming in front of my vision. My soldiers sometimes claim they can see things out here, lights that seem to lead off into the swamp. The rebels call them will-o’-the-wisps, out of some fairy tale from ancient Earth. In all my time here, I’ve never seen anything but my own mind playing tricks on me—and, I suppose, the occasional rebel lantern bobbing through the marsh. But when you’re surrounded by nothingness, your eyes will create anything to keep you from feeling alone. I blink hard to clear the spots dancing in front of my eyes.
“Why do this instead of killing me on the base?” I say finally, twisting my wrists, trying to see how much give there is in the rope. Not much. It’s thick from repeated soakings, and stiff with age. “Are you planning some public execution?”
Romeo’s lips press together more tightly, but this time he keeps his eyes on the swamp ahead of us as he poles through the clumps of floating algae. “You really are insane.”
My mind is racing, taking stock of my injuries. My head aches from the gas fumes, sending spikes of nausea rippling through me, and my side hurts. But there doesn’t seem to be much blood, so he can’t have wounded me that badly. “I don’t see why it’s crazy to want to know exactly how you plan on murdering me.” I’m not done yet. All things considered, I’m in decent shape. I can still get out of this.
“I don’t plan on murdering you at all.” Romeo still won’t meet my eyes. “That might be your first instinct, but it’s not mine. You’re going to get me inside the facility you’ve been hiding from us and show me exactly what you’re doing in there.”
“My first instinct was to arrest you,” I snap. “You’re the one who brought a gun to my bar.” I keep staring behind us, but there’s no sign of the lights from the military base. “What facility?”
“The secret base to the east. It wasn’t there last week, and now there’s a full setup. Buildings, security fencing, the works. I’ve seen it, you don’t need to pretend. I want to know how you got it set up so fast, and without anybody knowing. I want to know what it’s for.”
My hands go still, my attempt to escape momentarily forgotten. “Secret base,” I echo, trying to quell the dread rising in my gut. It’s one thing to be captured by a rebel. It’s another to be taken into the swamp by a delusional madman.
“Act as surprised as you want,” he replies with a shrug. “But you’re getting me inside that facility.”
His face is impassive, but he’s not as good at concealing his hand as he thinks he is. There’s a thread of white-hot desperation in his features, a tension pinching his lips and eyes I’ve seen before, countless times. For the first time, I wonder if he was telling the truth before, that he really was in the bar looking for information—and not a target for that antique gun of his.
My mind races. There’s no base to the east of us—even if the military had the funding to expand to a second base in this part of TerraDyn’s territory, which we don’t, there’d be no reason to keep it a secret. But he believes it. I can see that as clearly as I can see his desperation.
This is a good thing, I tell myself. Even if he’s mad, he’s still only one guy. If I’d ended up in their rebel hideout, I’d be dead for sure. But here…there’s still a chance I could escape. For now, my only hope is to play along.