Wasteland
Jess Granger
One
“C’mon, baby,” Rexa whispered under her breath as she watched the information flashing on the screens in large three-dimensional blocks of glowing blue on the inky black field. Tugging on the sync gloves that both controlled the cursor and decoded the encryption on the files, she sorted through the large cubes of information. She didn’t dare turn on the lights. The glow from the screens was enough of a risk.
If Palis discovered her, she’d be dead.
After all, family loyalty only went so far, and in her clan, blood was not thicker than politics.
The box on the far left flashed like a beacon. She immediately reached out, grabbing the info-lex with the ghostly cursor floating through the air in front of her, and pulling it down to her personal screen. Her heart thundered as she read.
This was it.
She knew the bastard had sold his soul and rigged the last election.
She snatched the info-lex, simultaneously opening links to every media outlet from Udan to Calaria. All she had to do now was let go of the block of information the cursor-hand gripped so tightly, and the whole world would know her brother was a fraud.
The lights flashed brilliant white, and the screens turned black. Rexa spun around.
In the doorway stood her brother, looking at her as if she were a little girl who’d just broken his favorite toy. Two of his bodyguards edged into the room.
“Really, Rexa?” Her brother’s dark hair had thinned since taking office. It only made his face sharper, more like a skulking river rat’s. “I thought you were smarter than this.” He flicked his wrist, and the bodyguards surged forward.
Rexa screamed, and one of them clamped a hand over her mouth. She tried to bite him, but his gloves were thick, and he was more than twice her size. When he picked her up, she thrashed her legs, but it did no good.
“Take her to the portal,” her brother commanded.
Rexa tried to scream again.
Not the portal. Please. No.
She tried to wriggle out of the bodyguard’s grip but it was no use. If they would just kill her, there’d be evidence, eventually her brother would be caught, and fate would be far less cruel.
Palis left the lights off and led them through the dark corridors with the small light from his sync gloves. They weren’t far from that part of the complex that stored the original election files to the justice corridor. The bodyguard now carried her through the cavernous Hall of Justice. The sentencing chamber was just beyond.
At one time, anyone who broke a law was sentenced to banishment in penal colonies on the far outskirts of their tightly knit civilization. But some prisoners had managed to escape and find their way back into society. That’s when the branding tradition had started, so everyone could recognize a criminal and his crime by the location of the brand. Then the portals had been invented. Once a convict was sentenced to banishment, they never came back, and crime had ceased to exist in their world.
Or at least it ceased to exist unless you had enough power and money to corrupt the system. Rexa jerked against her captor again.
The guard holding her didn’t flinch as they entered the small, bare room. Rexa stared at the ominous hexagon framework of metal looming in the far corner. Palis stepped over to the controls and waved his sync gloves in front of them. The machine came to life. A wavering red light pulsed within the metal frame.
Rexa twisted her head around and caught one of the guard’s fingers in her teeth, biting down hard. He shouted and snatched his hand away from her mouth.
“You can’t get away with this. Someone will know I’m missing.” It was a useless thing to say, but she was desperate.
“I’ll tell them you ran off with that Telaran lover of yours.” Palis shrugged as if he weren’t sentencing her to death.
“I don’t have a Telaran lover!”
“Too bad for you.” He grinned.
“You bought the election.” She twisted, but the guard’s arm clenched tightly around her throat.
“I only bought it by slightly more than my opponent did. That is how the game is played.” His eyes were icy and cold.
“You broke the law.”
“What would have happened if the Rengal clan had resumed control of the senate? Father died to see our clan in power. I’m not going to let his sacrifice be in vain. The trouble is, everything has to be so black and white with you.” Palis turned and programmed the portal. It snapped and hissed as whips of bright white energy crackled within the swirling red light.
“So you’re willing to sentence me to death?” She tried to kick herself away from the portal.
“It’s not death, just banishment. Enjoy your life in the wastelands with the other conniving dregs of society. Goodbye.”
Rexa screamed as the bodyguard pulled her up on the platform. The red light swirled and seemed to reach for her. She tried to cling to the guard, but the second one grabbed her around the neck. Choking, she felt herself fall and her vision turned black.
Burning whips of lightning and searing cold assaulted her as she dropped, falling through the red light.
She couldn’t breathe. Her flailing arms did nothing to stop her as she tumbled through the portal.
Suddenly, she felt as if she was being pulled through a tight vortex, spinning and spinning. She hit the ground hard.
Rexa took a minute to breathe. Pain from the impact radiated through her. Still dizzy and sick, she didn’t want to move. The metal platform felt cold against her cheek. She tried to wiggle various parts of her body, hoping that nothing was broken.
Thankfully everything worked fine, although not without a good deal of pain. Cradling her side, she sat up. She’d probably cracked a rib. A gray desert stretched endlessly around her. The barren rocks and crags blended seamlessly on the horizon with the heavily overcast sky. She shivered in the cold, dry wind and pulled the collar of her jacket up around her neck.
She glanced back at the portal framework. The red light was gone. Now it was only an empty metal arch. There was no way back.
In the distance, a large mountain range rose above the desert. At least the mountains would provide shelter. But then, that was the most likely place for the other foul residents of this prison to congregate.
She had no desire to run into any of them. She’d be lucky if the only people she came across were thieves and prostitutes.
Rexa touched the back of her hand to her stinging cheek. A smear of blood marred the top of her sync gloves.
Her gloves!
Her idiot brother had forgotten to take her gloves. She struggled to her feet and inspected the side of the portal frame. If she could hack into the system, perhaps there was a way to reverse the gate and send herself home. And when she did reach home, nothing was going to stop her from ruining her brother and making him pay.
She searched the entire structure, but there was nothing she could tap into to gain control of the blasted thing. Without a control screen, her gloves were useless, so she pulled them off and pocketed them. She shaded her eyes with her hand. To her left, some sort of gully scarred the ground.
If it was a ravine, there might be water. It was as good a goal as any.
She couldn’t survive out in the open for long. She’d barely gone ten steps when she noticed bones sticking up out of the dirt. At least there were animals here . . .
Oh dear Creator, the bones were human.
The arm and leg bones had fallen at odd angles, but there was no mistaking the human ribs. Only the skull was missing.
Rexa shivered and turned away from the grim warning. She started walking.