Burn (Pure #3)(45)

El Capitan doesn’t see Hastings. He starts to feel a gnawing in his gut. Pressia has convinced him that they need Hastings. He’s a Dome insider—one of their own creations, Special Forces elite. But, of course, he’s been debugged and therefore compromised, but he could claim that all of that was done against his will. He can drag himself back to the Dome as the embattled messenger. He’s also an old friend of Partridge. He’ll take Hastings back in, right?

“I see Fandra!” Pressia shouts.

“And Hastings!” Bradwell calls out.

There they are—climbing up using the roller coaster’s rails as a ladder. Hastings is stooped and pale, but still tall and muscular. He’s wearing some kind of prosthetic hidden by his pant leg except for a wedge of metal—what’s now his foot. Weaponry embedded in his arms, he stops—wind-whipped, hooking his arm to the roller coaster—and fires at the Dusts. He’s a good shot and takes a few out. Their bodies spin and fall. But there are too many. Fandra is climbing up behind him. Her hair is as bright as a golden flag. She has it tied back, but thin wisps still bat around her face.

“You can’t land,” Bradwell says, “not down there with all the Dusts, so they’re coming up to meet us!”

He’s right. Hastings and Fandra are climbing to them.

“Do they want to airlift everyone out?” El Capitan shouts.

“Too many of them now!” Bradwell shouts.

Through the ash and dust, El Capitan sees darting bodies running through the amusement park. Bradwell’s right. There are more survivors than when they were last here. Fignan has extended his legs and is trying to gather data. He states an approximate count—seventy-two—male-to-female ratio, approximate ages.

“Not now, Fignan!” El Capitan says.

“Not now!” Helmud shouts.

It means more people have risked their lives to get away from the city—a bad sign. Something’s happened to the city. What now? El Capitan thinks. What now? He feels sick, a familiar wrenching dread in his chest.

“We need Hastings!” El Capitan shouts.

“Why are they attacking?” Pressia says. “The music was a deterrent. Where’s the music?”

“Can’t hear it over the engine,” El Capitan says. The music kept the Dusts at bay. It was only the stupid plinking notes of an amusement park theme song. Dinky dinks and diddly dinks… But the survivors used it as a deterrent, broadcasting it on old speakers before opening fire. The Dusts had come to fear it.

“We can’t hear the music,” Bradwell says. “We’re locked up in here.”

El Capitan touches a button and the seal of a small side window breaks and the window lowers a few inches. He hears movement, probably Pressia and Bradwell rushing toward the open window.

At first there’s only the rush of air. But then they hear a scream. Then another. “There’s no music,” she says.

“Without the music…” El Capitan shouts, and then he whispers what they all know: “They’ll die.”

He passes over Crazy John-Johns, this time so low he can see the twisted, melted faces of the horses on the merry-go-round. And now he can make out some Dusts ramming their heavy bodies into the chain link, pounding amid the beebee gunfire, small dirt clods spraying from their chests and shoulders. A dozen of them lean into the fence, which bows under their weight.

Then the fence gives, popping up from its posts and folding over on itself. The Dusts crawl over it into the park itself.

The survivors start screaming and pouring from one side of the park to the other.

“Goddamn it!” El Capitan says.

“God!” Helmud shouts.

He hears Pressia shouting, “What the hell are you doing?”

Bradwell bolts in through the cockpit doorway. “They’re in,” he says.

“I know,” El Capitan says.

“God!” Helmud says.

“We’ve got to get in close to the roller coaster,” Bradwell says. “And we need a way to pull Hastings in.”

“And Fandra,” El Capitan says.

Pressia walks into the cockpit too. “She won’t come with us. She won’t leave the others. I know her. She’s climbing up for a reason, but it’s not to run away.”

Bradwell is looking out the windshield. “You better hurry.”

“I’m going to get in as close as I can,” El Capitan says.

“Close,” Helmud says.

El Capitan lets more air into the buckies. The airship lists momentarily to one side—Pressia and Bradwell stagger and then hold on to the walls. The wind is strong, coming in from the west. He banks into it. “If I lower the landing prongs, he can grab hold.”

Hastings has reached the top of the roller coaster; Fandra is beside him. They’re both holding tight. The ashen wind roils around them.

“In this wind,” El Capitan mutters, “it’s just going to be harder to get in tight.”

“You can do it, Cap,” Bradwell says.

“I crashed it last time. I crashed!” Jesus! He crashed. They could have died. He remembers the ground running close below them. He braced for the landing, and things went black.

“Bradwell’s right,” Pressia says. “You can. We know it.”