Winter's Edge: A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure (Outzone Drifter Series Book 1) Read online

  “Suits me fine,” he said with a grin. “I’ve got fast hands, like a gunslinger.”

  The neurosurgeon sighed. “You want to know something? When agents return from the Outzone, they come to this center for a checkup. I run their brain function tests—interferometric scans, proton-beam nano-imaging, things like that, to make sure their brains have healed correctly while they’ve been away, ready for insertion again.”

  Brogan felt a piercing pain inside his head. Like the two cerebral hemispheres were being sawed apart with a rusty blade.

  “Sorry, Doc, you lost me there. Then again, you’re a brain surgeon.”

  Weiss ignored the wisecrack and continued. “They all tell me passing through the Scangate is like stepping into a time machine and going back two hundred years. Most agents can’t wait to get back here. Your decision to expatriate means you won’t have that luxury.”

  Brogan focused his eyes and finally managed to stop the room from tilting to one side. “You say most, but not all of them, correct?”

  “Correct. Different personality profiles react in different ways. Some of them turn ‘native’, as we jokingly call it. They itch to get back. Once we medicate them, pretty soon they start to feel normal again, I can assure you.”

  Brogan smiled at Weiss. A handful of brightly-colored pills washed down with a cup of bug juice could do just about anything to a man.

  “I bet,” he said.

  He understood the point the surgeon was making, however. Agents went over to the Outzone because it was their duty, the normal ones hankered to get back. As far as Weiss was concerned, someone who chose to go there of his own accord was way out there to the left of normal.

  He was fully dressed now. As he put on his jacket, a trickle of cold sweat ran down his back, then his stomach lurched violently. His nausea had reached the point of no return.

  “Doc, where’s the bathroom?” he croaked. “Gotta puke.”

  Chapter 3

  Solomon’s Point, Outzone

  With his shoulders hunched against the wind and rain, Haiden Ritter squinted one eye and adjusted the focus of his binoculars. From his position at the top of the hill, he gazed down at the approaching rider, nudging a large chestnut-colored Palomino along the trail below. Soon the horse would pass the point where Ritter stood crouched behind the crest, only the top of his head sticking out.

  “Is that her?” a voice to his right whispered.

  To either side of Ritter, the two Gresham brothers peered over the ridge too.

  It was Brick, the older of the two, who had spoken. He was a giant of a man; six foot five, two hundred and ninety pounds, with immense shoulders, huge legs, and hands the size of bricks, as his name alluded to. An intimidating sight when he stood at full stretch.

  Brick didn’t intimidate Ritter, however. In fact, Brick did exactly what Ritter told him, and it would remain that way so long as he continued to deliver the goods, something he was quite sure he would do. Ritter was not a man short on confidence.

  “I can’t tell yet,” he replied. “Not with the hood up.”

  The rain was coming down hard and the rider’s head was bowed, the hood of their slicker securely fixed on.

  “Same horse,” Nooge Gresham said in a low voice to his other side. At six foot four and weighing two hundred and fifty pounds, the younger of the two brothers was an imposing sight as well, and attracted a lot of stares when he entered a room. That was, until Brick followed him in.

  “Same horse,” Ritter affirmed. “We’ll know soon.”

  The grassy hill whose crest the three men lay crouched behind overlooked Riverdale, a farming community thirty miles south of Two Jacks, the Outzone’s third largest city. Two Jacks was a rough town, full of miners, loggers, drifters, and gamblers. However, the land south of the city was lush and fertile, and in the early years of the Outzone many pioneers had setup homesteads in the area. They had quickly formed themselves into farming communities to protect themselves against the bandits and marauders that roamed the area, such as the trio who waited patiently on the hillside a mile away from the entrance to the Riverdale gates.

  The rider got closer, turning their head a moment to one side. Ritter caught sight of a strand of pale blonde hair blowing in the wind, the same corn silk hair that had caught his attention a few days ago at the market.

  It belonged to that of a pretty girl in her early twenties, one who would fetch them a fine price. Ritter and the two brothers had been following the girl’s movements for several days now, waiting for an opportunity to catch her alone.

  He swept the binoculars up and down the trail. There was no one in sight. A smile formed on his lips. Though it had taken some planning, it appeared now that their patience would pay off.

  He lowered his binoculars. “It’s her.”

  Nooge stretched out his hand. He had been waiting impatiently to get a closer look. He eagerly placed the glasses up to his eyes. “Oh yeah. That’s her alright. Boy, can’t wait to get some of that.”

  “Don’t leave any bruises like you did last time,” Ritter said, a sour look coming over his face. “I don’t want to have to wait a month to sell this one.”

  “Bitch better behave herself then. Do exactly what she’s told,” Nooge replied. He looked across at Ritter with a toothy grin. “Besides, Haiden, that was a fun month, or don’t you remember?”

  Ritter didn’t return the smile. “Quit yapping,” he growled. “We need to catch her first.”

  Something about Nooge’s goofy smile and incessant chatter always managed to rub Ritter the wrong way. He wished the man would take a page from his older brother’s book: talk less, smile less. Neither of the brothers were exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, but at least Brick had the sense to keep his mouth shut and not advertise the fact.

  The three dropped back from the ridge and scrambled down the hillside, their rifles slung over their shoulders. At the bottom, two motorbikes were parked, raised up on their main stands. One was a red Honda XRF 450cc dirt bike, a high-performance machine with air-fork suspension and an extra-wide exit pipe to handle the powerful engine. Ritter hadn’t come across many bikes in the Outzone that could match it for speed, especially not the clunky diesel engines running on bio-fuel that most people had.

  The second motorbike wasn’t too shabby either: a sleek-looking lime-green Kawasaki 250cc belonging to Brick.

  Ritter started his engine as Nooge slid onto the back seat behind him, while Brick straddled the Kawasaki, his huge legs easily reaching the ground on either side.

  Keeping the machines at low revs to minimize the sound of their engines, the men picked their way through the rough ground behind the west side of the hill, crossing a small arroyo swollen with water from two days of constant rain. Then, sweeping up the shallow bank at the far side, they emerged onto the trail.

  A thousand yards ahead of them, their prey continued to ride her horse at a slow trot, unaware of their presence behind her.

  They had cut off the girl’s path back to the farm. It was several miles to Solomon’s Point, the market town at the southern end of Arrow Lake—where it narrowed to the tip that gave the lake its name. Stallholders from the Two Jacks’ markets rode across the lake in skiffs to Solomon’s Point each week to buy produce to sell back in the city.

  They got to within five hundred yards before the rider turned her head. She stared hard at them for a moment then turning around, flicked her whip lightly across the Palomino’s flank. The horse’s hind legs kicked out into a fast trot.

  Ritter took that as the cue for them to make their move. Twisting his right wrist back hard on the throttle, he leaned forward and the 450cc machine tore up the wagon track with a burst of acceleration. The girl took another look behind her, rose out of her seat, cracked the whip hard, and the horse took off in a gallop up the trail.

  A horse was never going to outrun two powerful motorbikes. In a short time, Ritter closed the distance to within a few hundred yards, Brick following clo
se behind. Glancing around again, the girl jerked hard on the horse’s reins. It veered left off the trail and plunged down the bank into an open field, galloping at full speed across the sodden grasslands.

  Ritter waved urgently to Brick to catch up with him. When the Kawasaki had pulled alongside him, he motioned for his companion to ride farther up the trail, then cut across into the field ahead of the girl. Gunning his engine, Brick shot up the track.

  Ritter rode down off the trail, the back wheel of the big Honda sliding down the muddy bank. Behind him, Nooge jammed the fingers of both hands under the seat, gripping it hard. Increasing his speed, Ritter plotted an intercept course toward the horse and rider galloping across the field at full pace.

  Checking behind her, the girl saw Ritter make his angled approach toward her. A moment later, she jerked the reins again and headed back toward Riverdale where, in the distance, a wooden rail fence marked off the property.

  Ritter adjusted his angle too, all the time gaining on her. He was no more than seventy-five yards away now. Turning his head, he saw Brick bearing straight down on the girl. They were closing in on her.

  Behind him, Nooge rapped hard on Ritter’s shoulder. “We got her!” he whooped gleefully.

  Three shots rang out in succession. The rider had taken out her pistol and fired it into the air.

  Smart girl, Ritter thought to himself. That might get attention from someone at the farm. He was no more than twenty yards away now. The girl’s hood had blown back and her long blonde hair flapped in the wind. He could see the look of desperation on her face. She rode well, up off the saddle with her legs bent at right angles, cracking the whip as hard as she could.

  It wouldn’t do her any good.

  Moments later, he was riding alongside her. He yelled at Nooge to pull out his pistol.

  “I got it!” Nooge shouted back, waving his nine-mil Sig Sauer in front of him.

  “Stop!” Ritter shouted across to the girl. “Or we’ll shoot you down!”

  It was unlikely she could hear him above the sound of her galloping horse and the roar of the motorbike engine, but she knew exactly what he meant. Instead of slowing, the girl turned the pistol held in her right hand across the saddle and pointed it toward them.

  “Nooge!” Ritter yelled.

  Nooge fired twice. The two rounds hit the horse in the chest and neck. Whinnying a high-pitched shriek, the animal stumbled to its knees, throwing the girl high off the saddle. She sailed through the air and landed in a patch of heavy grass, tumbling a couple of times before coming to a stop. Ritter grinned across at Brick, who had just arrived. The two motorbikes came to a halt on either side of the girl.

  She lay panting on her back, a look of shock and fear on her face. Nooge jumped off the back of Ritter’s machine. The girl had managed to hold onto her pistol during her fall. She sat up and pointed it at him as he got closer, his own pistol pointing straight back at her.

  Behind them, Brick had raised his machine up on its stand and was walking stealthily up to her. Swiveling around, the girl aimed her gun at him.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!” she yelled out.

  “Plucky girl,” Ritter said softly, still sitting on his motorbike, all three now with their pistols pointing at her. “But you pull that trigger and you’re a dead plucky girl.”

  The girl scrambled around again, this time aiming her gun at Ritter.

  “Th…then shoot,” she stuttered, her lower lip quivering. “I won’t let you take me.”

  While the girl waved the gun uncertainly in her hand, Nooge had taken a step closer.

  He swung out his boot and caught her on the elbow. Her arm spun away and a shot fired off. Ritter heard the whine of a bullet whiz past his ear. Nooge jumped down and grabbed the girl, and a moment later wrenched the gun from her fingers.

  Holding onto her tightly, he turned to Ritter with an oafish grin. “Shit, Haiden, that was close.”

  “You fool!” Ritter snarled at him, furious at how close he’d come to being shot. “You nearly got me killed.”

  Nooge shrugged. “She had the drop on you. What else was I supposed to do?” He was no longer smiling. “Besides, I thought I better do something before you went and killed this one too,” he added sullenly, referring to the two women Ritter had killed in a rage a month before when his carefully planned raid into the State had gone wrong.

  Ritter’s upper lip twisted into an ugly scowl. “That was different. This one was about to give up if you’d given her another moment.”

  “Who knows, Haiden? I’m not so sure,” Brick said, shaking his head, anxious to prevent yet another argument between his brother and Ritter from breaking out. “Anyways, we got her now. No need for you two to keep squabbling.”

  Ritter composed himself. He cut the engine of the Honda and dismounted, walking over to where Nooge knelt in the grass still holding the girl firmly on the ground. Reaching down, he put a hand under her chin and pulled it up toward him.

  “Well, who’d have thought such a pretty face would nearly get me killed? Makes it all worthwhile now.” He glanced over in the direction of Riverdale. “Pick her up,” he ordered Nooge. “We need to get going. Somebody’s sure to have heard all the commotion.”

  Nooge grabbed the girl by the arm and dragged her to her feet.

  “Turn her,” Ritter said.

  Nooge took the girl by her shoulders and spun her around while Ritter fished out a pair of plastic flexicuffs from his jacket pocket. He slipped them over her hands and pulled the strap of the zip-tie tight around her wrists.

  The two grabbed the girl by each arm and led her to the Honda.

  Ritter got on first. Picking the girl up by the waist, Nooge placed her up on the seat, scooted her forward, and got on behind her, sandwiching her between himself and Ritter. It was a well-practiced routine. On a motorbike it took two men to take a captive, to prevent them from jumping off. Sometimes even that wasn’t enough, and they had to be knocked out too.

  “Where are you taking me?” the girl asked, her voice trembling with fear.

  “North,” Ritter said. “Way north. That’s where the money is for someone like you.”

  He started the engine. Swinging the machine around in a tight loop, he headed back toward the trail.

  Chapter 4

  Strata-3 Zone, Metro New Haven

  For the few days following his operation, Brogan didn’t venture out of his house. He just rested, washing down a handful of pills every few hours that Weiss had prescribed for the headaches, and allowed his brain to begin the process of what the surgeon called its neuroplastic cortical remapping—a fancy name to describe the fact that the severed neural connectors previously attached to his implant were now desperately crawling around his skull, looking for some other part of his gray matter to cling to. Wherever they were going, it hurt like hell and he hoped they found a new home soon.

  The after-effects of the procedure gave Brogan fantastical dreams; of his family, of the Outzone, of murder and revenge.

  There was a recurring nightmare too, one where he was back on the operating table. Dr. Weiss stood over him, his surgical cap and mask on, a look of intense concentration in his eyes. In one hand, he held a soldering iron, in the other, a tiny screwdriver. Next to Weiss, upturned on a stainless steel medical tray, was a bloodied section of Brogan’s skull plate, a roll of electrical wire beside it.

  “Something’s not right,” the surgeon was muttering to himself. “I’m not sure if I can fix it.”

  During his waking hours, Brogan became wracked by another bout of intense guilt. Although Sarah and Jessica’s deaths had not been directly his fault, he couldn’t help but come to the awful conclusion that had he been communicating better with his wife—had he been communicating with her at all—he would have insisted on escorting her and Jessica to Providence that day, as he had done on the two previous occasions since her father’s stroke. Or at the very least, arranged secure transport for them.

  Over the past year
, his relationship with Sarah had slowly but surely deteriorated. His wife simply didn’t share Brogan’s increasing dissatisfaction with the State, the lies, the string of broken promises it made to its citizens. Now that peace reigned in New Haven and most of the country, their family prospects were good and she couldn’t understand his cynical attitude.

  Perhaps it was because it was Brogan’s job to do the State’s bidding that he felt things so strongly. And while he managed to hide his feelings at work, at home he became increasingly more surly and morose.

  He took to drinking in the evenings, even earlier on his rest days, sitting in his armchair with the back of his head plugged into some violent VR app until he passed out.

  Plunging into an ever-spiraling dysfunctional stupor, bad tempered, and flaring up at the slightest provocation, he took his anger out on his wife for her lack of understanding.

  Why couldn’t she believe what he told her? What he saw every day as a police officer? The increasing intrusions into people’s lives, the unjust detentions, the harassment of political dissidents. Is that what he had spent five years fighting a war all over the world for? Then another two fighting his own kind during the bitter Secessionist Wars? It made his blood boil whenever he thought about it.

  After several months of trying to convince him to seek professional counseling, Sarah had simply given up and moved out of the bedroom and into Jessica’s room. Brogan had barely noticed, and that morning, when Sarah received news that her father’s condition had deteriorated, the two hadn’t lain together in over two months.

  As soon as Brogan left for work, Sarah had packed some overnight clothes for herself and Jessica, left a brief note on the kitchen table, and headed off.

  What was she thinking?

  The highway passed too close to the Exclusion Wall. It just wasn’t safe. There were simply too many miles of border for IBP or state police to patrol. Nonetheless, Sarah had gone there, taking Jessica with her. Now they were both dead, and his life had changed forever.