When night finally falls over the wastelands, Gandalf is the first to wake. He finds me sitting on a rock near the river.
“I’ll be going now. Twilight is my favorite time of the day to travel. Tell Jude that I say thank you again,” says the old merchant.
He’s slightly limping. He seems too old to survive the desert, and yet I have no doubt that he will.
“He’s still out cold?” I ask.
Gandalf cackles. “From the empty bottle you left on the table, I dare say he won’t notice my departure.”
“I’ll help you break camp,” I say, rising.
We gather the tarp and roll it. Then put the folded chairs and table back into the hovercar. Meanwhile, Jude sleeps the sleep of the dead in the sand.
Right before climbing inside his hovercar, Gandalf asks me, “Do you miss your father?”
My answer comes quickly enough. “No.”
Why would I? He was a nightmare on Earth; cold and heartless. I would prefer to spend years alone in the wastelands than relive the years I spent with my father.
Gandalf offers me another one of his toothless smiles. “That’s all I needed to hear,” he says. “Take good care of him.” He gestures toward Jude before disappearing inside his hovercar.
I sit near my slumbering captor and wait for him to wake. The gun lies half-buried in the sand.
11
The Hoover Dam.
“When we mutated human DNA samples with the ones taken from the titans, we had to choose which attributes and mutations to put forth. We could only change so much of the human genome without turning the subjects into monsters themselves. Choices were made. To some, we gave special abilities. Like electricity, fire, and being able to breathe underwater… Others were blessed with fast healing, brute strength, or speed. Some combinations turned out to be worse than others. We might pay dearly for our experiments.”
Audio description of an interview with Dr. Nolan Max, a scientist who worked on the Revival Project, 2047.
We fly to the Hoover Dam after nightfall. Jude woke up parched and grumpy. He was uncharacteristically quiet for the first hour after waking up.
To the point that Fyfe said, “You look a little pale, Mr. Jude. Do you require assistance?”
Jude’s answer was to flip off the control panel where Fyfe’s sensors were.
Once we reach the Hoover Dam, we land on a neighboring mountain. From up there, we have a decent view of the impressive man-made structure. Four towers stand in the lake in front of the dam itself. Most of the windows have light. The entire place is inhabited.
I’m surprised the dam is still intact. In twenty-seven years, no old god destroyed it.
“We will have to figure out where they’re keeping Marika,” Jude says, lowering his binoculars.
He has been dangling dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. Again, the thought of pushing him to his death crossed my mind. But it was quickly replaced by another kind of dirty thought as my eyes fell on his ass in his tight jeans.
We have kept all theFirefly’s lights off, and there will be no fire tonight. But I doubt that Jude intends on setting up camp, anyway.
I point toward the large parking lot on the side of the dam. It has been turned into a kind of village, with caravans and trucks. Mountains of junk already block some parts of the road. TheHighwaymenhave taken residency close to their new master.
“We could pick out a few stragglers,” I say. “Ask them questions.”
Jude nods. “I like how you’re thinking.”
No, you wouldn’t, I think.Because I was thinking about burying your head in the dirt while I fucked you just seconds ago.
It appears that one hate-fuck was far from enough to get him out of my system. I already crave more. He still smells like me. And under it, his arousal is fresh. I wonder if he’s thinking the same. If he would love to be fucked in the red dirt.
We hide theFireflyin the canyons surrounding the dam and start our hunt.
