Now I’m on my own, with tech in my arm that took a week to heal a broken finger. I’d have a better chance if I had my genkit, but I left it back at the cabin, along with all my files, and my code. The photograph of me and my father. Now that Cartaxus knows I’m here, I might never be able to go home again.
Branches smack against the windows as we veer on to an overgrown road, heading for the highway that leads into what’s left of town. Agnes tilts the rear-view until her eyes meet mine. ‘Why did you let your immunity lapse?’
I snort. ‘Because I’m an idiot.’
She grabs the joystick to swing us round a bend. ‘You’re not an idiot. You’re a genius, if I recall.’
‘Well, I’m feeling pretty stupid right now.’
She presses her lips together. ‘You’ll come back from this, Bobcat. Remember the shape you were in when I found you?’
‘Yeah,’ I mutter. ‘But I don’t think soup is going to save me this time, Yaya.’
Agnes and I met when she showed up at the cabin a few months after the outbreak. The temperature was diving with the start of a bitter winter, and I wasn’t prepared, not by a long shot. My food supplies were gone, and the solars on the cabin’s roof kept getting blocked by snow, killing my only source of power. I was spending my days huddled in blankets, shivering and hungry, not knowing if my father and Dax were even still alive. When Agnes arrived, searching for supplies, she found me feverish and shaking, passed out beside the fireplace.
I woke two days later, scrubbed clean, with a stomach full of soup she’d fed me when I was too delirious to remember. She nursed me back to health and said that she’d seen the footage on my genkit of Cartaxus storming the cabin. She had no love for Cartaxus either and had just joined a group determined to stop them from taking over the world.
She asked me if I’d thought about working for the Skies.
That day was a turning point for me. It’s almost as though I died beside the fireplace and woke the next day as someone else. One of those moments that split your life in two, letting the weakest parts of you fall away so you can emerge as something stronger. I promised that day that I would live to see my father again.
But tonight, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep that promise.
We speed up as we hit the highway. The acceleration throws me back into the seat, and I cough wetly. Something dribbles from my lips. When I touch it, my fingers come away dark. Agnes turns back to me, her face paling.
‘You’re bleeding. Bobcat, it’s worse than I thought. We need to …’
She trails off as headlights splash through the rear window. I pull myself up, gritting my teeth against the pain to look behind us. The hulking black jeep is hurtling through the forest. It skids on to the road, sending a spray of rocks and dust flying out from its tyres.
‘He followed me,’ I whisper. ‘You shouldn’t have come, Yaya. Now you’re in danger too.’
‘Nonsense,’ Agnes snaps. ‘Is it just the one soldier?’
I nod, swallowing. My mouth tastes like acid and rust.
‘Then we’ll scare him off. He’ll stop and call for backup. They always do. My gun’s on the floor back there, but it’s not loaded. Ammo should be in a box somewhere.’
I tear my eyes away from the jeep and grope around the floor, fighting back a surge of pain from the movement. My fingers close on the wooden butt of Agnes’s rifle, and I haul it up and into my lap. Still need ammo. I grit my teeth, searching for the box.
A shot rings through the air. Agnes swerves, startled.
‘They’ve never shot at me before,’ she says, her face lit up by the jeep’s headlights.
Another shot rings out. This time it takes off Agnes’s side mirror, forcing the autodriver into an emergency stop.
‘No, you idiot, come on,’ she growls, struggling with the car’s controls.
We finally surge forward again, but now the jeep is right behind us. I throw a desperate glance through the rear window. No time to find the ammo. My hand rises to the insurance bullet on the chain around my neck.
I yank it off, loading it with shaking hands. The rifle lifts easily, swinging to my shoulder in a well-practised arc. I take aim through the rear window, squinting in the headlights, and the jeep screeches to a stop, swinging round.
Its window opens suddenly, showing me a glimpse of the soldier’s face. There’s a weapon on his shoulder, aimed directly at me. The world lurches into slow motion. Agnes’s rear window shatters, and something flies into the car.
A small cylinder, painted military green. It bounces through the back and lands on the passenger seat. A series of high-pitched beeps cut the air, then a burst of light and pressure blows out the car’s windows.
I fly back into my seat. Agnes screams, jerking at the car’s controls as we spin wildly into the trees. I throw my arms over my face instinctively, and the next thing I know, I’m lying on the ground.
Dirt. Grass. Blood in my mouth. My stomach is a tight mass of pain. Thick, acrid smoke chokes the air, spilling from the wreckage of Agnes’s car.
‘Agnes!’ I shout, squinting through the smoke. The blurriness at the edges of my vision is growing, shrinking my world down to a speck. ‘Where are you?’
‘Here, Bobcat,’ she croaks, limping from the car. Her hair is wild, her jeans bloodied. She has the rifle in one hand. She staggers over to me. ‘Stay down. I’ll draw him away.’
‘No,’ I choke out, coughing. ‘He’s after me! Get out of here.’
She gives me a crinkled smile, blood dripping from a gash on her forehead. ‘After all this time, you think I would leave you?’
‘Please, Yaya, you have to get away.’
‘Ain’t no point in living alone,’ she says, peering back through the smoke. ‘The only damn thing that makes life worthwhile is people looking after each other.’
‘No,’ I beg. I don’t want to hear these words. This is the kind of thing people say to each other before they die.
The jeep stops in the middle of the road, its doors flying open. The soldier rushes out so fast he’s barely more than a blur.
Agnes lifts the rifle. ‘I love you, Catarina.’
‘No!’ I scream as two shots echo from the hills.
Time stutters and slows. My vision wavers. The soldier stumbles back, and Agnes disappears into the grass.
But that’s not right.
I saw it wrong. It’s a trick of the light. She can’t be down. Agnes is the toughest woman alive.
‘Agnes!’ I cry out, not caring if the soldier hears me. I try to push myself up, dragging myself through the grass, but a hand grabs my shoulder, flipping me over. I blink and find myself staring into twin pools of perfect blackness.
It takes me a horrified second to realize that they’re the soldier’s eyes.
‘Catarina Agatta?’ he shouts, shaking me.
‘Help!’ I scream, fighting his grip. His hands are like steel. I claw for his eyes, and he grabs me round the neck. I try to scream again, but my voice is nothing more than a whimper.
The smoke and wreckage fade into a speck that sputters and disappears.
CHAPTER 5