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

  One thing the event had done was force Brogan to clean up his act. He had quit drinking the very same day, and later that evening after he had gotten home from the morgue to an empty house, had stomped on his BMI game connector, crushing it into tiny pieces under his boot.

  While none of this would bring Sarah or Jessica back, it did bring Brogan back. A week after returning to work, he handed Henderson his resignation letter.

  Other than to gaze mournfully at the ceiling each day, alone with his thoughts, Brogan used the time to get ready for his departure, packing up all the things he would take with him to the Outzone. On one of the days he gathered up Sarah and Jessica’s stuff and shipped them down to Sarah’s parents’ house in Providence. Everything else, he’d let the State take care of. It would be their property soon.

  Packing up Jessica’s possessions had been almost unbearable. After he sealed the last cardboard box with masking tape, Brogan sat on the floor, his back drenched in a cold sweat. He closed his eyes and made a vow to Sarah and Jessica that he would find their killers, even if it took him the rest of his life.

  Chapter 5

  Solomon’s Point, Outzone

  Ritter headed north, in the direction of Solomon’s Point. Riding hard, though not so recklessly as to risk an accident, Brick on his Kawasaki following right behind him. He didn’t intend staying on the main trail for long, and had a route mapped out that would take them off it soon. It wasn’t safe to be seen riding with a local girl wedged between two strangers, her hands tied behind her back.

  Once they were out of the area, they could ride more openly, though even then it would be wise to stick to the back roads. Not everyone turned a blind eye to their trade. The code of the motorcycle warrior chapters disapproved of it. They would free the girl and kill the three men. Most likely escort the girl home too.

  The warrior chapters weren’t the only danger. Many roving biker gangs who rode by no code would be only too happy to relieve the trio of their captive, especially a pretty one like this. Bounty angels commissioned by the girl’s desperate family might come after them as well before they got to the north, because once in slaver’s territory, there would be little chance of getting her back.

  He felt a couple of hard taps on his shoulder. Turning around, he saw Nooge gesticulating with his arm back down the trail.

  Fifteen hundred yards away, coming over the rise of a hill they’d passed minutes earlier, was a group of motorbikes bearing down on them, and fast. Ritter counted six machines. Someone inside the farm had raised the alarm.

  He cursed loudly. Another five hundred yards away, to the right of the trail, was the densely wooded area through which he had planned their escape route. In another few minutes, they would have been hidden from sight from anyone in pursuit.

  Behind him, Brick increased his speed and pulled up alongside. “Come on, Haiden!” he yelled. “We gotta shift it!”

  Leaning against Ritter, the girl sensed her chance. She began to struggle, twisting her body wildly from side to side, her movement causing the motorbike to wobble dangerously on the uneven road.

  “Control that bitch!” Ritter screamed. Nooge slapped the girl hard across the face, then threw his arm around her neck. With the other arm, he squeezed tight, putting her in a choke hold. A moment later she stopped struggling.

  They reached the turnoff. Ritter dropped a gear and negotiated his machine down off the main trail onto a deeply rutted track that ran along the edge of the forest. Taking a quick look behind him, he cursed again. Even on a powerful machine such as his, the weight of three people meant the group of riders had gained ground.

  They rode parallel to the tree line for a few hundred yards until they came to a small footpath leading into the forest, one Ritter had scouted out the other day. He nearly missed the turn and had to brake hard, steering the motorbike sharply to the left before heading down it. Another quick glance and he saw that a motorbike from the chasing group had pulled ahead of the others. Someone was desperate to save the girl.

  As soon as they entered the woods, the light became gloomy beneath the tall larches and pines. Ritter guided them unerringly through a network of trails no wider than a couple of feet. Though he might not be the hardest hombre in the Outzone, his mind was razor sharp and cool under pressure.

  They rode for ten minutes, the trail becoming more and more overgrown until it was practically impossible to distinguish it from the rest of the undergrowth. Finally Ritter slowed down. Riding at a crawl and staring intently to his left, he soon veered off the path and rode another thirty yards through dense forest until the trees thinned out and they arrived at a small clearing. Above was a patchwork of gray rainclouds, and Ritter felt the rain on his face again.

  He came to a halt by a huge larch, next to which was parked a red Kawasaki 250. It was Nooge’s bike, the twin of his brother’s green Kwacker.

  Ritter killed the Honda’s engine as Brick pulled up alongside him.

  “Turn off your engine,” Ritter told him.

  Brick looked over at him, a dubious look on his face. “What for? We should keep moving.”

  “We need to listen first. I got three routes out of here.”

  Brick cut his engine and the three men listened carefully to the sounds of the forest. From somewhere close by, they heard the sound of an engine. It was coming in their direction.

  “Nooge!” Ritter hissed. He made a motion with his hand.

  Nooge had gotten off the motorbike and was standing next to the girl, still on the seat behind Ritter. Grabbing her quickly, he pulled her in close to him and clamped his hand over her mouth.

  The sound of the engine got louder. Moments later, Ritter caught sight of movement close to the point where they had left the footpath. Through the trees, he could make out the blurry figure of a man riding past them.

  “Shit,” Nooge whispered. “What the fuck do we do now? The rest will be here any minute.”

  Their decision was made for them when Ritter heard a gasp of pain, and a moment later the girl let out an earsplitting scream.

  He turned to see Nooge struggling with her. When she screamed again, Nooge punched her hard, catching her above the right eye. The girl’s eyes fluttered and she began to slide off the seat. Nooge moved quickly, deftly catching her around the waist before she fell from the machine.

  He looked over at Ritter and scowled. “Bitch bit my hand,” he said, pulling her back up onto the seat.

  Ahead, the motorbike revved its engine. The three heard it approaching once more, this time from the other direction.

  Moments later it stopped, its engine puttering noisily. Ritter could see the rider looking down at the path and knew he was inspecting the track marks. He drew his Walther P99 from out of his holster. Beside him, with one arm wound around the girl who was starting to come around again, Nooge did likewise with his Sig.

  The rider pulled off the path and wove his way through the trees across the forest floor. A few seconds later, he reached the edge of the clearing and came skidding to a halt not more than twenty feet away.

  Ritter was surprised to see he was only a boy, not much more than eighteen years old.

  He wore no helmet, had cropped blond hair, and was wearing a black leather jacket over a pair of blue dungarees and work boots. Resting on top of the throttle in the grip of his right hand was an old service revolver. It looked at least thirty years old.

  Ritter raised a hand indicating that nobody fire their weapons.

  The young man looked first at Ritter, his P99 pointing straight at him, then across at Nooge, one hand over the mouth of the girl, the other with his pistol in it, wrapped tightly around her waist. Away in the distance, Ritter could just make out the sound of the other motorbikes, a low, constant hum. They must have lost their trail in the forest, he guessed, or they would have been here by now.

  “Hey!” the boy yelled at Nooge. “Let her go!”

  “Hey you,” Nooge growled back.

  “Put her down an
d go,” the boy said nervously, realizing the vulnerability of his position. He waved his pistol. “I shoot this and the rest will be here in a minute. Just let her go and leave.”

  “Easy kid, relax,” Ritter said. “Nobody needs to get hurt here.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Brick moving noiselessly around the back of the trees, heading to where the boy sat on his motorbike, its motor idling loudly in neutral. It never ceased to amaze Ritter how stealthily the big man could move.

  The girl saw him too, and struggled wildly, her eyes bulging as Nooge kept a firm grip over her mouth.

  “I said let go of her,” the boy said. He aimed the revolver at Nooge’s forehead, squinting one eye as he lined up his shot. “I’m not kidding. I know how to shoot.”

  Behind him, Brick had emerged from out of the trees and into the clearing. In his left hand was his Heckler & Koch 9mm pistol, in his right a short black baton he’d taken off the chain of his belt.

  The girl’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets.

  “Okay, Nooge,” Ritter said quietly. “Let her go.”

  “Sure.” Nooge released his grip on the girl. He pushed her hard in the back and she slid off the bike, staggering forward.

  “Behind you, Jimmy!” she screamed.

  The boy started to turn, but it was too late. Brick was only a couple of feet from him, moving fast with the baton raised high. He smashed it across the side of the boy’s head, making a loud thud when it connected with his skull.

  Without uttering a sound, the boy toppled over the side of his motorbike and crashed to the ground, his machine falling over and landing across the back of his legs.

  Jimmy!” the girl gasped. She ran forward and crouched next to him. With her hands tied behind her back, there was nothing she could do for him. She knelt beside him, moaning helplessly.

  The sounds of the motorbikes were closer now. They had picked up the trail again. Perhaps they had heard the girl scream.

  “Come on,” Ritter said. “We need to get out of here.”

  Nooge glanced down at the girl. “Haiden, she’s not going to cooperate. She can’t ride with you alone.”

  What Nooge said was true. The girl was willful. At every opportunity, she had done her best to hamper their efforts.

  “Hide your bike behind those bushes over there,” Ritter said, pointing to a cluster of thick bushes ten yards away. The group of pursuers had only seen two motorbikes, they wouldn’t find Nooge’s so long as it was well-hidden.”We’ll pick it up tonight. Hurry now.”

  Nooge ran over to his Kawasaki. Grabbing the handlebars, he pushed it, and running alongside, took it around to the back of the bushes and disappeared from sight. Moments later he emerged again, walking backward, running his boot across the ground in front of him to remove any traces of the tire marks.

  The boy was beginning to stir, and the girl squatted next to him, whispering in his ear.

  “What about the kid?” Brick asked. “He’s seen everything.”

  Ritter looked over at Nooge, then nodded toward the girl. The younger of the Gresham brothers moved swiftly across to her. Leaning over, he clamped his hand over her mouth again and pulled her to her feet.

  As he dragged her away, Brick strode over to the boy, baton in hand. Crouching over him, his huge frame obscuring the view from where Ritter and the other two stood, he raised it in the air and brought it down fast with a sharp crack. He raised it again and swung it hard one more time.

  Beside Ritter, though her mouth was covered, the girl whimpered uncontrollably, her eyes welling up with tears.

  “That’s what you get for causing trouble, lady,” he snarled. “Your boyfriend’s dead, and it’s all on you.”

  Brick came strolling back, wiping off the club with a bunch of leaves he’d picked up from the forest floor.

  “Careful with our prize,” Ritter said to him as Nooge roughly turned the sobbing girl around.

  Once more, Brick raised his club. Measuring the distance to her head, he clipped her hard across the temple and the girl slumped into his brother’s arms.

  “Let’s get out of here,” the big man said, casually clipping the baton back onto his belt.

  He jumped on his motorbike and started the engine. Looking over at Ritter, his brow furrowed and a questioning look came over his face.

  “Um, Haiden…which way?”

  Chapter 6

  Sanctuary Suites, Strata-1, Metro New Haven

  One week after his procedure, Brogan received his Citizenship Rescindment Order, the official term the State called his expatriation request to the Outzone. By then, he had already moved out of the apartment and into an S-1 motel off Sanctuary Drive, close to the Scangate terminal. There had been no choice, since the CRO identity card he had been issued only allowed access within the Strata-1 zone.

  Brogan was an oddity. The system didn’t make allowances for higher strata citizens like him. But by that time, he had been happy to leave. The house held nothing but painful memories for him.

  ***

  “These will be useful, John. Can I keep them?”

  Brogan turned to the man sitting next to him at the desk of his tiny motel room. The two carefully studied a series of high-quality aerial reconnaissance photographs of the Outzone’s de facto capital, Winter’s Edge. Taken recently by a military surveillance drone, some were of the city itself, others of its outlying areas—particularly around the border with Metro New Haven—including one of the Scangate terminal, which had a route mapped out in red marker all the way to the city’s southern gates.

  “Of course. Just don’t bring them with you. You get taken for an agent, start counting down the last hours of your life. Long, brutal hours you’ll beg to be over.”

  The photographs, along with an assortment of videos and slides, had been brought over to the motel by NIA Special Agent John Cole. A taciturn, slightly-built man in his mid-forties, the agent had short black hair just starting to recede at the sides. Under his shirt, Brogan made out the beginnings of a paunch, something he hadn’t noticed before. It appeared the desk job was finally catching up with his friend.

  The two men had served together during the Great Global War, and had remained close friends ever since. While neither of them would consider themselves religious, both shared a belief that there was such a thing as good and evil in the world, albeit with a lot of gray in between. They had seen too much to think any different.

  For years Cole had worked as a deep cover agent in Winter’s Edge. After serving a long and dangerous stint there, he had been brought back to the New Haven NIA station, promoted, and given his own team to run. Brogan was in the process of receiving a shortened version of the induction course Cole gave his agents before sending them into the field.

  The National Intelligence Agency operated directly under H-SEC which, along with H-DEF, was one of two super agencies legislated into being in 2040 during a radical shakeup of the government’s military and intelligence services at the onset of the Secessionist Wars. While H-DEF was tasked with defending the nation’s coastline, air space, and borders, H-SEC’s mandate was “to protect American citizens from subversion, lawlessness and domestic insurgency” under the new constitution’s Civic Internal Defense program. NIA was its eyes and ears.

  The Strata State needed to protect itself from all emerging security risks. Although unconstitutional, it was an open secret that there were NIA operatives in the Outzone. As well as agents, they also kept several safe houses where they stored money and arms caches ready for any eventuality.

  Their work had already proven useful. A few years ago, an extremist group, The Third Homeland, had risen to prominence and its leader, known as The Reverent, had fomented rebellion among the lower stratas as he agitated for an independent religious homeland. Operating from within the Outzone, he had caused considerable unrest before finally being tracked down and eliminated.

  Unfortunately, NIA’s covert activities also had unint
ended consequences. Sniffing out their safe houses became a profitable business for the Outzone’s many gangs, and any agent captured faced torture to reveal their locations.

  “They shove your head in a wooden cage and throw rats in it,” Cole explained, staring at Brogan with expressionless olive-green eyes that constantly dissected every facial twitch, every comment made by those around him. “If that don’t make you talk, they move the cage down to your waist and let the rats chew on your balls.”

  Brogan grimaced. “Nice.”

  Cole shrugged. “People learned some twisted shit during the war.”

  “Well, we both know the war was a gift for the twisted to shine. So what’s next?”

  The special agent spent the next thirty minutes detailing how things worked on a day to day basis inside Winter’s Edge, clicking through a series of slides on his laptop.

  Brogan learned quite a bit.

  If you didn’t stay alive, nothing else was going to matter, and keeping a low-key profile on arrival was paramount to survival, blending into the city as quickly as possible. The district at the center, the Barrio de Los Triguenos, a mainly Latino neighborhood commonly known as the Barrio T, was the safest starting point for most expatriates, though if threatened in any way, rule number one of the old wild west came into force: shoot first, and ask questions later.

  Cole warned Brogan that if he ran into trouble, he wouldn’t be able to help. The job of his agents was already dangerous enough as it was.

  “But now the turf wars are over, life’s not as bad as people make out,” he told him. “There’s good people there too. Never forget that. Stay low, bro, as we say, until people get to know your face. That should get you through the first week, anyway.”

  Outside of the cities, gold and silver, and B&B (bullets and barter), worked best when buying stuff. Inside Winter’s Edge you could trade these things, plus anything else deemed of value at one of the many “asset houses”, as they were known, where they could be exchanged for a house’s issued currency. The larger houses charged a higher premium, that extra premium giving you the comfort of knowing your notes would still be worth something the next day.