Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Ronin recorded the passage of two hours, fifty-one minutes, and seventeen seconds before they reached the outskirts of the base.
Not for the first time since meeting Lara, Ronin doubted if his internal clock was correct.
Days, weeks, years had gone by as he’d run, clutching Lara to him with as much delicacy, firmness, and stability as he could simultaneously manage.
She’d yet to awaken.
Despite his care, his hurried trek across the uneven terrain had jarred her several times, but she hadn’t stirred.
All his willpower had been focused on moving forward.
He could not allow himself to succumb to the urge to check her pulse and breathing every ten meters, knowing that the slightest delay could doom her.
For all his talkativeness in the shelter, Newton had been silent during the journey.
The wind rustled the surrounding scrub grass as Newton stopped. The gently rolling hills ahead were high enough to block Cheyenne from view, but Ronin somehow sensed the city’s nearness, and doubt slithered into his thoughts.
What if he’d miscalculated? Warlord had left them, battered and broken, to die in the Dust, and now Ronin was bringing Lara closer to that brutal despot’s stronghold?
But he knew no other way. The only choice was the one that could save Lara, no matter the danger.
“Don’t leave me yet,” Ronin said to her softly. “I need you to remind me, every day.”
Were she to have given even the smallest indication of awareness, a flutter of her eyelids or a twitch of her fingers, perhaps he could’ve ceased those frantic chains of thought. But her silence and stillness enveloped him like a corrosive fog, eating away at his mind.
How could he possibly carry on without her? He couldn’t live with the memories of his time with her taunting him, tormenting him, while his processors simulated thousands upon thousands of possibilities of what their lives could’ve been.
Newton lifted an arm and pointed ahead. “There.”
Ronin’s optics scanned the field, but he saw nothing but waving grass and the dust clouds kicked up by the wind.
He knew the ruins of the base lay on the other side of the hills.
He’d passed through it once since coming to Cheyenne, and what he’d seen there supported Newton’s story—a cracked tarmac overgrown with weeds and crumbled foundations and rubble scorched black.
Newton resumed walking, and Ronin followed without comment. His recent experiences had not instilled him with trust in either man or bot, but Lara’s survival depended on there being people here—people who were willing and able to help.
He tried not to dwell on the fact that both the willingness and the ability were in woefully short supply in this world.
They moved down a gradual slope and partway up the next incline, where Newton paused to check their surroundings before leading Ronin into a depression that blocked the landscape from sight. He bent forward, brushing aside tufts of long, dry grass to reveal a metal hatch.
Between the angle of the hill and the thick vegetation, this entrance was effectively invisible from most approaches.
Newton gripped the handle and pulled the hatch open. It was surprisingly smooth and quiet despite its apparent age.
He looked up at Ronin. “This is the most direct route inside, but we’ll have to take care in getting her down.”
Ronin stepped forward, glancing into the opening. Metal ladder rungs set in a concrete wall descended three meters into a dark corridor. “They’re down there?”
“As I said, it’s been a long while since my last visit. I don’t imagine they’d have gone anywhere, but it’s entirely possible they’ve relocated or perished in the time since.”
Lara didn’t have time for hesitation. If there was no help here, there was no help to be found at all.
“Hold her. I’ll go down, and you can pass her to me,” Ronin said, turning to Newton. He ignored the blaring alarms from the portions of his coding that had been overridden by fear.
If Newton meant them harm, what would he gain by reactivating Ronin and leading him here? Why bother powering him back on if he had malicious intentions?
Ronin gently passed Lara’s limp form into Newton’s outstretched arms. His limbs locked as he pulled away. She was so fragile. Even losing a few seconds of contact, when they were potentially so limited a commodity, made him again doubt if this was the right thing to do.
Holding her now will not help her recover.
Finally, he withdrew his hands, turned to the hatch, and lowered himself onto the ladder. The sound of his boots on the rungs echoed along the corridor, which extended into total darkness in either direction.
He looked upward the instant his feet were on the floor.
Standing over the opening, Newton maneuvered slowly to guide Lara’s legs through, sinking into a crouch as he lowered her. He adjusted his hold on her so his arms were beneath her armpits. Despite the discomfort she should’ve felt at such handling, she remained unconscious, head lolling.
Ronin placed his hands on her hips and gently drew her down against him with his cheek pressed to her bruised midsection. “I have her.”
Newton released Lara. Ronin shifted as her torso sagged, preventing her weight from coming down on her damaged ribs or broken arm. Adjusting his hold, he cradled her against his chest, smoothing her hair out of her face. She’d been so badly battered that not a centimeter of her had escaped injury.
Bare metal feet clanked on the ladder. Newton closed the hatch as quietly as it had been opened, plunging the tunnel into darkness. Ronin’s optics switched to infrared supported night vision.
A fine layer of dust coated the tunnel’s concrete floor. Though there were no footprints or other signs of habitation, the dust didn’t appear to have settled naturally, and it bore a strange pattern.
Were those…brush strokes?
“This way,” Newton said, voice low.
They proceeded down the corridor with Newton ahead, their footfalls scraping lightly over the floor.
Light fixtures were mounted at five-meter intervals on either side of the tunnel, but none held bulbs within their wire cages, and the hints of letters and numbers painted on the walls were too faded and flaked to decipher.
Each step heightened Ronin’s anxiety. He was carrying his beloved down a pitch-black corridor with nowhere to run, no weapons, no cover.
If an ambush awaited them ahead, it would be unforgivingly effective.
An increasingly strong thought chain insisted that there was nothing here to help her.
There was nothing in all the Dust that could help her. This place would be Lara’s tomb.
No. She will not die.
Newton slowed, glancing over his shoulder. “Nearly there. Just around here.”
The tunnel continued straight, beyond the range of Ronin’s optics, but Newton turned into an opening on the right. Ronin followed close behind.
His vision blazed white as he was hit by a blinding light. He twisted away from it, shielding Lara’s body with his own.
An ambush, after all.
“Don’t move!” someone shouted.
Newton, standing beside Ronin, raised his arms. “Quite reassuring to see security has not grown lax.”
“Are you two bots, too?”
“I am,” Ronin said, turning his head toward the man. With his night vision deactivated, he could see the humanoid silhouettes against the bright spotlight, all of them gathered behind a waist-high barrier with firearms aimed at him and Newton. “The woman is human.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She was severely beaten by the self-titled Warlord of Cheyenne,” Newton said.
The people behind the barricade whispered to each other for several moments before the first man asked, “Did he follow you?”
“No.” Ronin looked down at Lara. “As far as he knows, he ended us. Left us for dead.”
The spotlight shifted, and the man who’d been speaking turned to two of the other figures. “Secure the perimeter.”
The pair—soldiers dressed in matching uniforms—hurried past Ronin and into the perpendicular corridor.
“If you have any weapons, place them on the ground. Now,” the leader said.
Ronin’s jaw actuators ticked. “We’re unarmed, and we’re out of time. If you can’t help her, tell me now, so I can find someone who can before it’s too late.”
“Turn around. Slowly.”
It wasn’t a request, and that made it no easier to comply. Exposing Lara to potential hostiles went against Ronin’s drive to protect her. All the same, disobeying would only push the situation closer to violence.
Ronin turned, bringing the barricade into full view. His optics blurred and focused repeatedly, battling to balance the contrast between the overwhelming light and the thick darkness behind it.
“Garrison, Walker, take the girl to the infirmary,” the leader commanded.
Two figures advanced, features clarifying as they neared.
Both held automatic rifles similar to the one Ronin had carried.
Their uniforms matched the soldiers who’d gone into the corridor—much repaired, the camouflage patterns faded, but well-kept, nonetheless.
The men slung their rifles over their shoulders.
Ronin stepped back. “I’ll carry her.”
The soldiers halted, hands drifting back toward their weapons.
“You’re in no position to make demands,” the leader said as he stepped forward. He was a tall, lean, middle-aged man with short-cropped blond hair and a double bar insignia displayed at the center of his chest. A captain.
That shred of information was from Ronin’s old life, a tiny bit of data reclaimed after many decades.
For nine seconds, Ronin and the captain stared at one another, neither moving. Walker and Garrison stood by uncertainly.
“They will not hurt her,” Newton said.
“How do I know that?” Ronin demanded. “How do I know they’ll take care of her?”
The captain dipped his chin. “We have the facilities to help her, but you’re unknowns, which means we must err on the side of caution until we determine whether you’re a threat.”