“Eve…” Avian started to argue.
“You know it can’t be safe,” I said, shaking my head at him. “We can’t risk the Bane following me into the city.”
“He’ll fix it,” Gabriel said. “I’ve never met a man smarter than Erik.”
“Let’s hope so,” I said with a sigh. But something inside of me wasn’t so sure.
We drove through the night and fueled up when the sky was darkest. I took most of the night shift, finally fully recovered from my imprisonment and surgery. Avian slept with his hand on my calf, as if he was afraid I would disappear on him again.
By morning we were reaching cities.
Bill kept track of where we were on his maps. We’d been lucky to have forests to the north. There weren’t many cities. But the trees were falling away and the buildings were rising around us.
“I think it’s about time for you to head up,” Bill said, his finger tracing along the paper. “It all starts here.”
Avian met my eyes and where in the past there would have been fear, there was admiration and confidence. He gave me a lopsided smile and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Go save the world some more,” he said.
I couldn’t help the full smile that spread on my face. I checked my magazine, loaded my pockets with more ammunition, and opened the hatch.
There were still trees around us but they weren’t the towering ancient guardians of the north. These were smaller and more ragged. They had to struggle a little harder for survival.
There was a gas station up ahead and a few shops. There were blocks of houses.
The tank kept rolling through the morning light.
I raised my rifle to eye level, my finger poised on the trigger.
We clattered into the edges of the town. And almost as if it had trumpeted our arrival, bodies stepped into the light.
I started firing as the first batch of twenty sprang at us. Two bodies dropped to the ground with a scraping of metal on concrete.
“Stay back!” I bellowed as the crowd grew and rushed us.
The two hundred plus bodies that were swarming us instantly stopped and took a few steps back.
“You guys want to see this?” I said loud enough those below would be able to hear.
The tank slowed to a stop and I shifted to the side so the others could emerge.
The crowd of Bane just stood before us, twitching and shifting like they wanted to break from my hold the instant I dropped it. But they didn’t come any closer.
“Holy…” Bill whispered.
“There are hundreds of them,” Gabriel mused. “Why is it so strong now?”
“They did some serious digging in there,” I said, keeping my shotgun leveled at the crowd. So did the rest of the team. “I don’t think they meant to do this though. I think it is just an unexpected side effect of whatever it was they did to me.”
“They’re standing back, this many of them,” Avian said, holding a hand up to shield the sun from his eyes. “How many of them do you think would listen?”
“We’ll find out soon,” Bill said. “The next big city after this is San Francisco. Population eight hundred thousand.”
“There’s no way I can hold off that many of them,” I said, shaking my head.
“But hopefully they’re not going to all come at us at once,” Gabriel said. “We made it through fine in the night when we came up here. We’ll make it through again.”
How could they be so confident in me? They didn’t know what I was capable of anymore. I didn’t even know what I was capable of.
But those Bane before we were still standing there, just looking at us. Waiting for orders.
“March west,” I shouted. “Don’t stop when you get to the water.”
And as one, the growing crowd turned to their left and started marching, their strides perfectly in unison.
“Not possible,” Gabriel whispered as his eyes followed them.
“Welcome to the new age,” Avian said. His hand rose to my shoulder and gave a squeeze.
There were Sleepers inside the buildings, just staring out at the world. But not a single Bane moved as we rolled through the town.
It was an exact replay when we reached the next three small towns. But each town got a little bigger. And I sent more and more Bane marching toward the Pacific Ocean.
At noon day, the Golden Gate Bridge was looming before us.
“Maybe we should go around the city,” Gabriel said, as we approached. He, Bill, Avian, and I were perched atop the tank while Tuck continued to drive.
Bill shook his head. “That could take us another full day. Probably more. We can’t afford to lose any time.”
We were all quiet for a moment. I was trying to ignore my self-doubt. Trying to ignore the urgency to get back to New Eden as soon as possible.
“I’ve got an idea,” I suddenly said. “The Bane, they really don’t like water. The more Evolved they get, the more so. I saw it while I was in Seattle. It would rain and they were a lot more hesitant to come out. A lot of them would die just stepping out in the rain.
“If I can call as many of them out as I can onto that bridge, I can make them jump off. The water will kill most of them.”
“And you’re sure they won’t rip you apart?” Gabriel asked doubtfully.
I swallowed hard. No, I wasn’t sure at all. “I don’t see any other option.”
Avian’s eyes met mine, and to my surprise, pride shone in them. He draped an arm across my shoulders. “Sounds like a plan.” Hopefully gone were his days of overprotectiveness.
Avian’s confidence bolstered mine.
Old habits dying hard, we all turned to Gabriel for approval.
He didn’t respond at first. He eyed me carefully, his eyes unable to keep from drifting up to the scar that wrapped around my head. When his eyes met mine again, they were resolved. “Let’s do it.”
I nodded. “I want you guys to wait a ways back. Keep the hatch locked until I give the go ahead. If this doesn’t work, I’m not risking any of you getting infected.”
Avian hesitated, and finally nodded. “You’re never going to change, are you?” he said, cracking a smile. “Always putting yourself in danger to save the rest of us.”
“Never,” I said, a smile tugging at my own lips.
We rolled the tank closer and Tuck parked. They wouldn’t be able to see much from this far away but I came up with a signal to let them know when it was safe to come to the bridge.
As soon as they had the tank parked and I walked away from it, Bane started stepping out from their hiding places.
“You’ll follow me,” I said loudly. There were more and more of them emerging every second. My heart started hammering as there came to be twenty, fifty, seventy of them.
“You will not look away, you will go nowhere else,” I said loudly again as I started walking toward the bridge. “You will follow me to the bridge.”
The crowd that had started forming between me and the bridge parted as I moved forward. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that they were indeed following me.
Looking forward once more, I concentrated my thoughts. I imagined every Bane that must be in this city, in the entire bay area. I imagined them collecting on the bridge. I called to each of them in my head, screamed for them to come to me.
At first the movement was hard to make out. I squinted through the cold, pale light, trying to see all the way to the other side of the bridge. The land was shifting, or so it looked. Like a dark avalanche. An avalanche that started funneling itself to the massive rust colored bridge.
With my first step onto the bridge, I questioned our decision to cross it. The road was cracked and some of the gigantic steel cables that held the bridge up had rusted away and snapped. And I was about to flood it with thousands and thousands of bodies.