Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) by Milo Fowler (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Edenite can have all the electricity and running water a body could want, but when the food runs out, he's no better off than anybody else scratching out a living on the surface.

I know from firsthand scavenging experience: Sector 31, located above Eden, is no longer the land of powdered milk, honey, and treasure troves of goods, materials, and foodstuffs. The UW raiders have seen to that.

"Leave it." I don't change my posture.

He drops the suit to the ground with a thump and a puff of dust. Then he sets the helmet on top of it.

"Now what?" he demands.

I nod in the direction his buddy took, long gone by now. "Start walking."

He scowls, shielding his pale face from the sun with an equally pale hand. Unprotected like that, it won't be long before every patch of exposed skin grows its own crop of blister-bubbles that will eventually break, become infected, and—if he survives—permanently scar.

"You know they won't let me back inside," he says. "Not now."

He's a sand freak in the making.

"And you know he'll never survive such a journey." Mother Lairen reappears in front of me. I would have flinched if I wasn't already accustomed to her spooky antics. "You might as well shoot him. You'll be killing him, either way."

Same old story with her. She always wants me to kill somebody.

"I don't care where you go," I tell him. "But you're heading east, as far away from me as possible." I take another lunging step forward, my rifle ready to inflict some serious misery. "Get moving!"

He backs away, unsteady on his stocking feet. "I doubt your people would recognize you anymore."

That raises my hackles. "I don't have any people."

"You used to."

Luther. Shechara. Samson. Milton. My jaw trembles. I clench it tight.

"You think you know me?" I scream. If I didn't know better, I would think I sounded completely out of my mind. "You don't know me!"

"You don't know me either," he says. "Not if you think I deserve to die out here."

Deserve? Who deserves anything anymore? What is there to deserve? It's survival of the fittest. You scavenge, you keep your eyes open, you stay alive. You act like an idiot, and you die.

"Bounty hunters are trash," I grate out. "Twenty hydropacks, right? For my head on a pike?"

"The pike's optional." He thinks he's funny. "I wasn't always like this. Neither were you." He's still moving backward, but his pace is agonizingly slow. "When you killed Captain Willard, things changed."

I want this conversation to end, for him to be part of that ripple on the eastern horizon, for me to have the time I need to fix my jeep and get the hell out of here. Keeping my rifle and my goggles trained on him, I stoop to pick up his suit and helmet. Not happening. Too much for one arm with a wounded shoulder to carry. So I settle on the helmet and back toward the jeep, setting it down inside the cargo area once I'm in range.

"That bastard deserved to die!" I shout, and my voice hangs in the silence for a few seconds.

"Maybe." He has to raise his voice now across the distance. Fifty meters or so. "But not like that. You were his judge, jury, and executioner."

"Yes, you were," Mother Lairen whispers into my ear. "Someone had to make him pay. What he took from you can never be replaced."

"Maybe not," Rehana offers from inside the jeep, "but Luther has a plan."

"Luther always has plans." Mother Lairen scoffs. "But they never work out so well, do they?"

I hate the memories that resurface, of us handing over our unborn children in clunky incubators to the United World troops. Rehana never wanted us to be Mother Lairen's cows, the fruitful wombs of the future. But having your eggs extracted against your will does something to you. Changes your mind about some things.

"Don't you want to meet your children?" Spirit-Rehana knows just what to say sometimes.

The rage burns inside. My muscles tighten, shaking, but somehow my aim is steady as I fire a warning shot over the idiot's head. He ducks mid-stride, but he doesn't run away. He just turns his back on me and keeps walking.

"At least give him a fighting chance," Rehana says. "Throw him a hydropack."

He's not my concern. The jeep is.

I watch him until I can't distinguish his scrawny silhouette from the mirage in the distance. Then I drop my rifle into the cargo compartment and stuff his protective suit in there beside the helmet. Might bring me something by way of trade next time I pass through Stack.

After reloading the Colt and returning it to the dashboard compartment, I load the clip of my 9mm and tuck it back into my belt. Best to be armed at all times, particularly while I'm under the hood, spending some quality time with the battery array.

Which turns out to be a fruitless waste of time. There's nothing wrong with the connection. The roof panels are fine. It's the batteries themselves. Both the primary and secondary are dead. Annoying, since I checked them just yesterday.

Or maybe it was last week. Time's been kind of fluid for a while now.

"Stupid bitch," Willard sneers. "How have you stayed alive this long?"

He's standing there in his fake fatigues glaring at me with his beady eyes, his stupid little caterpillar of a mustache glistening with sweat.

I pop open the dash compartment, ignoring Rehana because she isn't really there. Neither of them are. Grabbing the flask, I unscrew the top and take a swig. Swallow the burning whiskey and follow it with another, then another.

"Take it slow," Rehana advises. "You haven't eaten anything today—"

"And she doesn't drink anything else," Willard says.

"Shut up! Both of you!" The flask is half-empty. It's all I've got until I can replenish my supply, and there's no way to know when that will be.

Sometimes I drink enough so that my spirit-friends disappear. Unfortunately, I'm not at that point yet. And with all the walking ahead of me,