Begin Again Read online

  BEGIN AGAIN

  REMNANTS #14

  K.A. Applegate

  CHAPTER 1

  “THERE’S NO REASONING WITH THEM.”

  Mo’Steel rubbed the ugly pink scar on his throat and winced. It was always itchy and still really tender. Mo’Steel knew he’d probably be sporting the hideous memento of his run-in with Hawk, the last Marauder leader, for the rest of his life.

  Yeah, Mo’Steel thought now, glancing around at his tattered, scarred, and exhausted band. And Hawk will be dead for a long time. How’s that for a memento? “Hey, nice work!” Violet called.

  Mo’Steel raised a hand in acknowledgment. So much had changed. Not long ago, Violet had been a Jane, a fairly prim and sophisticated girl with sleek blond hair and soulful blue eyes.

  Now her hair was dark with dirt and matted into thick ropes. And the expression in her eyes …

  well, Mo’Steel thought, Violet had toughened up. She was a survivor.

  They all were — the Remnants and the Marauders. It’s why in a crisis they’d done the smart thing and banded together against the Savagers’ surprise attack.

  It had been a successful battle. Mo’Steel’s people had sustained nothing more than a few minor injuries. More, they’d routed the enemy, sending the small pack of Savagers running, destroying the two surviving Riders first. Mo’Steel felt a bit bad about that. The Riders — like the Remnants — hadn’t asked to be stranded here on what was left of planet Earth. But, all was fair in war. Right? Right, he told himself.

  Mo’Steel shivered in the unrelenting cold of the Dark Zone. Violet had changed. He had changed.

  There were times when Mo’Steel hardly recognized himself. Hanging with the Marauders had changed him more than anything else that had happened since waking up on the Mayflower aboard Mother.

  My life is a science-fiction fan’s dream, Mo’Steel thought now, surveying the grim landscape dotted with flaring torches and troubled faces. And it had all started in the year 2011. A huge honkin’ asteroid was hurtling toward Earth. Worldwide death and destruction were imminent. But not for approximately eighty lucky U.S. citizens. No, for those special few something else was reserved. The chance to be shot into space aboard a rickety old tin can of a rocket, sunk deep into a state of hibernation. The chance to rattle around space for five hundred years until a super-large ship created by a super-advanced race of aliens decided the rickety old tin can looked like a cool toy and scooped it up.

  And from there it had only gotten weirder. The ship, called Mother, was somehow a sentient piece of technology. A computer with a consciousness. Mother had engaged the “fortunate” few who hadn’t died during the five-century ride in a series of games and adventures Mo’Steel bet even Jobs, with his unique combination of technical skill and poetic sensibility, could never have imagined.

  Shipwrights. Riders. Blue Meanies. Squids. Tamara and her freakish, eyeless kid, the half-alien thing that controlled her like a ventriloquist controls his wooden buddy. The Troika, three so-called advanced versions of humans. Some of their own band of human Remnants who developed mutations that no Hollywood horror movie maven could have imagined. And finally, there was Billy.

  Billy was a whole other story. A genius? A madman? Or something in-between? Mo’Steel couldn’t even begin to guess.

  Wherever Billy was, Mo’Steel hoped he was well. But there wasn’t a lot of time to wonder or worry about the missing kid. Mo’Steel had the here and now to manage. Meaning, the Marauders.

  A wild shriek assaulted Mo’Steel’s ears. He spotted a big Marauder woman thrusting her fists in the air and grimaced. It was Nesia — no big surprise there. Nesia was the epitome of trouble, a party girl without a shred of conscience or an ounce of compassion.

  And she was only one of the Marauders Mo’Steel didn’t trust was on his side.

  Mo’Steel might be the nominal leader of the nomadic band, but he still had a long way to go if he was going to earn — and keep — their complete respect.

  Here comes another of my less-than-loyal fans, Mo’Steel thought, as a big, ratty-looking guy limped through the gloom in his direction. Newton. Mo’Steel’s self-appointed nemesis. The guy who’d ambushed him after he’d gotten rid of the Beast leader, an act that had officially earned Mo’Steel the role of leader. With a little help from Jobs’s younger brother, Edward, and a Marauder girl named Grost, Mo’Steel had gotten the best of Newton.

  And, though he was well within all sorts of rights to destroy Newton right there and then, he’d let the guy live. Mo’Steel believed in being the bigger man.

  “You fought well,” Mo’Steel called out. Newton grunted and limped on.

  Newton was still a wild card. Mo’Steel knew he couldn’t trust the guy as far as he could throw him.

  Which, right now, in his state of advanced exhaustion, would be about an inch.

  First, the up-close-and-personal fight with the Beasts. Then Newton’s surprise attack. And then the short but fierce battle with the Savagers. It was enough to make a guy regret having gotten up in the morning.

  Morning? Mo’Steel laughed. He’d never see a real morning again. Never see a sun rising and hear birds chirping. Not in this place.

  Mo’Steel strode on toward Badger, a Marauder about his own age, maybe a few years older. “What’s up with those Savagers, anyway?” Mo’Steel asked, shoving his matted hair off his forehead.

  Badger explained. “They were once with us. Sometime before I was born, there was a big fight. I don’t know about what. Maybe Aga knows. Anyway, some went off and called themselves Savagers.”

  “Ah, a splinter group.”

  “There’s no reasoning with them,” Badger said with a smile. “They’re not civilized, like us.”

  Mo’Steel laughed. Badger was one of the few Marauders he could relate to on a somewhat personal level. Him and Sanchez.

  Jobs shook his dirty blond hair out of his eyes and slipped his spade back into the belt that kept his tunic closed around him. He’d fought well against the Savagers, spurred on by a renewed sense of loyalty to Mo’Steel.

  Maybe it was the seriously weird environment, but since they’d started out on this journey with the Marauders, Jobs had felt his mind slip inexorably into paranoia. Suddenly, his best friend had become his feared adversary. That is, until Newton ambushed Mo’Steel. At that moment, the paranoia lifted and Jobs was his old self.

  Jobs strode over to Mo’Steel. His friend was standing with the Marauder called Sanchez, who was leaning heavily on a staff. Sanchez was sort of like a storyteller or a holy man or a shaman. The Marauders seemed to listen to and respect him. He alone of the group had his head shaved. Around his neck, on a piece of leather, hung a chunk of metal. Jobs figured it was a talisman of some sort, though he had no idea in what, exactly, the Marauders believed.

  Mo’Steel nodded at Jobs. “Duck? Sanchez has something to tell us,” he said.

  “I heard another call,” Sanchez told them. “From the Source. We are being summoned now.”

  “Why?” Mo’Steel asked. “I mean, why do we have to go to this — Source?”

  “That I don’t know,” Sanchez admitted. “I have tried to understand….”

  Mo’Steel glanced at Jobs. Jobs nodded. “It’s okay, ‘migo.” Mo’Steel said to Sanchez. “I believe you.

  At least, I don’t think you’re fooling about hearing — whatever I’m down with spiritual stuff.”

  “What do we do now?” Jobs asked.

  “We must tell the Alpha colony to join us,” Sanchez explained.

  “Wouldn’t they have heard the summons already? Don’t they have a holy man or whatever?”

  Mo’Steel asked, frowning. “A guy like you?”

  Sanchez looked vaguely troubled. “No,” he said slowly. “No o
ne like me. Unless he keeps himself from the Marauders. But — the Alphas believe in what is right before their eyes. The Marauders, we believe the same. But we also believe in what we cannot see with our eyes or hear with our ears or touch with our hands.”

  “Science versus religion,” Jobs muttered. “It’s never really a hard-and-fast split, but I see what you’re saying.”

  “Okay, so how do we get in touch with the Alphas?” Mo’Steel asked. “We’re a long way from their colony. I think.”

  “Cocker will go,” Sanchez said.

  Mo’Steel nodded. “Fine. Though I hate to lose him.”

  “If anyone can make this journey alone and survive, it is Cocker,” Sanchez assured him. “He will join us at the Source. With or without the Alphas.”

  “So, you think there’s a possibility the Alphas won’t come?” Jobs said, his mind turning to the girl named Echo. The girl with the brown eyes and the gentle manner

  “I think,” Sanchez replied, “that they will not come.”

  Jobs nodded brusquely, pushing away his sentimental thoughts.

  “What about the Savagers?” he asked, hoping his voice sounded nonchalant. “Shouldn’t we tell them?”

  Sanchez drew his cloak closer around him and looked off in the direction in which the wild band had fled.

  “It is my duty to share the visions with all who inhabit this place. And yet, I said nothing before Sczuka commanded his people to run.”

  Mo’Steel squinted at the guy. “You’re saying you don’t think we should send someone after them?

  Give them the chance to say yes or no to the invitation?”

  Sanchez looked squarely at Mo’Steel. “J’ou are the leader of the Marauders,” he said. “Command it and another will set off after them.”

  Jobs waited while his friend considered.

  “Never mind,” Mo’Steel said, finally. “We’ll take our chances without them.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN.”

  The colony was in an uproar They had an unexpected visitor A sole Marauder, calling himself Cocker, had appeared at the bunker’s main entrance, requesting to meet with the colony’s elders. He said he had a message to deliver

  Lyric sat on the edge of her cot, alone in the women’s dormitory. Her body was alive with tension. The Marauders were wild. Unpredictable. This Marauder’s presence made Lyric feel afraid. But it wasn’t the only source of her fear.

  Since Echo’s baby had been “born” at the lab. Lyric had felt — uneasy. Like something was going on behind her back. Behind Echo’s back, too. Something — wrong.

  She’d told no one of her worries, not even Echo. She was still recovering from the shock of her child’s unexpected — deformity. The baby was weak. And had a film over its eyes. Either it was blind. Or something more.

  Poor Echo … poor me, Lyric thought. The friends hadn’t been allowed to see each other alone. Whenever Lyric attended Echo in the small private room she’d been allowed for her recovery, she was watched by an elder, most often Trinny. It gave Lyric a bad feeling, like she was under suspicion of doing something wrong.

  Or like Echo was a prisoner Lyric had learned about penal systems, about prisons and torture, about crime and punishment from some of the information the founders of the Alpha colony had collected before the Rock crashed into planet Earth.

  What had Echo done wrong?

  Lyric shivered. Now, this wild man was here. And Lyric was determined to hear what he had to say. She had to learn as much as she could about what was going on in the colony, behind closed doors. For her friend’s sake, as well as for her own.

  Lyric crept out of the women’s dormitory and glanced up and down the narrow, low-ceilinged hall. She was alone. Good. Lyric’s secret weighed more heavily upon her now than ever before. Truth be told, there had been times when she’d forgotten about her webbed toes.

  Almost. Times when she’d been happy or simply content, times when the consciousness of being — different — wasn’t so real.

  But now…

  Lyric hurried to hide herself in the tiny crawl space that opened off the colony’s meeting room. She was in luck — no one was in the room yet. Carefully removing the fine-mesh metal covering, Lyric slipped inside and secured the panel.

  She’d discovered the abandoned crawl space a while back when she and Echo and Mattock were playing hide-and-seek. They’d left their work posts without permission and when their absence was noted, some of the adults set out to find them. Lyric winced, remembering the scolding she and her friends had endured, all for a little bit of freedom.

  Lyric tensed as the elders of the colony began to file into the room. One by one, they took their places in a semicircle facing the door. Lyric tried to make herself as small and silent as possible.

  With distaste she noted how dusty her hiding place was. In spite of being underground and tightly sealed, the bunker was impossible to keep clean.

  Suddenly, the man called Cocker appeared just inside the door of the meeting room. Lyric couldn’t see his eyes clearly from her hiding place but she could see that his general bearing was one of enormous self-control. His hair was gray but Lyric wasn’t sure if the gray was real or a thick covering of ash. One side of his face was covered with small gouges; on the other side, a straggly beard grew in patches. He appeared robust, unlike any of the Alpha colony men. His back was straight, shoulders broad; his step was firm as now he strode farther into the meeting room, accompanied by two Alpha guards.

  “I bring an urgent message from my people,” he said, without preamble. “Sanchez had a vision. We all must go to the Source. Together.”

  Cocker’s words stunned Lyric. Carefully, she crawled an inch or two forward to better hear and see the action.

  “What?” an elder named Shipper cried. Since Woody’s death. Shipper had been acting as the colony’s unofficial leader “This is ridiculous. He wants the entire colony to just pick up and

  —”

  “All Alphas or a few,” Cocker interrupted. “It don’t matter how many.”

  “What else does this — Sanchez — say?” Borlaug asked, his disdain obvious. Lyric was proud of his bravery.

  “Sanchez knows no more than I tell j’ou now,” the man said simply. “He cannot control the visions.”

  “It would be suicide to go! Supreme folly!” Kosh burst out. “The Marauders know we have few weapons and are untrained in combat.”

  Cocker nodded at the speaker “Marauders promise there will be no fighting.”

  Westie’s harsh bark of laughter made Lyric flinch.

  “J’ou insult us by thinking we will trust Marauders after all we have suffered at j’our hands!”

  she spat. “Look around. Do j’ou see what j’our leader did to us when he stole more than his fair share of the food we so painstakingly harvested?”

  “Hawk is not our leader no longer,” Cocker said.

  “It doesn’t matter!” Shipper stated loudly. “The effect of his actions linger People have died.

  We all are hungry. And we are angry.”

  Lyric watched the expression on Cocker’s face harden. She had no doubt that if attacked he would fight back viciously. But that self-control was still in place.

  “Why do j’ou want us at the Source?” Shipper continued. “Tell us that!”

  Cocker looked hard at the white-haired Alpha. “I don’t know nothing more than what I say.

  That we have been summoned. All of us. Alpha and Marauder alike.”

  Lyric looked at the faces of the elders. Even through the screen covering her hiding place she could see that not one seemed to be considering Cocker’s request In the least. Didn’t they trust that boy from the ship, Mo’Steel? He was the Marauder leader now, right?

  “No.” Shipper’s voice brooked no argument. “This time, the Alphas refuse to meet j’our outrageous demands. J’ou tell j’our leader we will not come.”

  Lyric felt a tickle at her nose and pressed a finge
r to her top lip. It’s almost over, she told herself, just hold on.

  The silence following Shipper’s statement was broken, finally.

  “I must accept j’our answer, no matter,” Cocker said. Then he turned and strode from the meeting room.

  “Follow him!” Shipper ordered the two bewildered guards, still standing at the center of the room. “Make sure he leaves peacefully.”

  Kosh’s face was a mask of fury. “We should capture him! Let the Marauders know we are not helpless.”

  Lyric wiggled in her cramped hiding space and willed herself not to sneeze. Were the elders going to go on forever? Cocker had gone …

  “No!” said Lyric’s mother, Nile, a woman known in the colony for her quiet wisdom. But she doesn’t sound so quiet now, Lyric thought. Her mother’s face was flushed and her voice high with strain. “The fact is, we are helpless. Still, we are better than the Marauders. We are above brute behavior and violence.”

  Dead silence followed Nile’s impassioned speech. Lyric felt a twinge of fear for her mother.

  Finally, there was murmuring and several elders shifted uncomfortably.

  “There is another matter we must discuss without further delay,” Shipper said darkly. “Echo’s defective child seems a sign of what I fear will be foul times. Already it has started with the visit of that — that Marauder.”

  A creepy silence followed Shipper’s words, as if they had conjured an ugly image no one wanted to contemplate. Finally, with a loud clearing of his throat, Borlaug spoke.

  “Perhaps it is time again to consider genetic testing. The colony is like a body, and each member is a part of that body. If there is an infection in even one small part of the body, the foot, for example, the entire body is at risk. The infection must be cleared out. Or the foot must be removed.”

  Lyric clapped a hand to her mouth. Borlaug. A wave of fury at the bulbous-headed, beak-nosed man she’d always thought so wise flooded her

  As if reading her daughter’s thoughts, Nile spoke forcefully. “Don’t j’ou remember what happened?” she said, looking from face to face. “Those who survived the last — testing —