Cates 05 - The Final Evolution by Jeff Somers Page B

through my coat. I felt stiff and sticky, covered in a layer of my own sweat and brine. I rubbed my head and felt the stiff brush of my receding hair like steel wool, so dirty it was like mold growing on me. I wanted to walk around and stretch. I wanted a cigarette—a real cigarette, something pre–civil war at least if they existed—so badly my mouth watered. No matter how long I went without smoking, I wanted cigarettes, their taste and reassuring presence.
    Mexico City had been pretty fucking huge, I had to admit. We’d hit the suburbs several hours ago and had picked our way through ruined streets and abandoned blocks, edging inward toward the remnants of it. I guessed twenty million people had lived here at some point. Adora estimated we still had an hour’s driving through the rubble-strewn streets before we reached the small inhabited core, but the clouds had been constant and thick for days, and the battery was nearly dead. With the sun peeking out here and there, we were forced to just pull over and orient the collector to best advantage, sitting and waiting for the cells to at least read half charged. We were in a large old hangar of some sort, a big empty shell of a building with a poured-concrete floor and lots of rusted chains hanging from rigging attached to the ceiling. It was open to the air on the south side and afforded a good view of the rest of the industrial complex we’d limped into, a sad collection of warehouses with broken windows like crooked teeth and small runty buildings of gray cinderblocks and missing roofs.
    I looked up and squinted at the sun. A moment later there was a scrape, distant and muffled, and I whipped my eyes back down, scanning the sun-bleached area, hand on the butt of my gun. A silver hover, split into two, lay blocking one of the roads, the army insignia still bright and clear on it. There was no army anymore, but its artifacts were everywhere.
    I was afraid to leave the four-wheeler. We’d seen lots of evidence of population out here—smoke rising in the near distance, two entertaining periods of having rocks thrown at us as we raced by, fist-sized pebbles smacking into the windows like Psionic fists, and one more attempted blockade of the road, this time using an impressive amount of rusting metal junk, which we’d spotted easily in time to avoid. As Remy and Adora went out in search of water to refil our empty canteens, I’d realized that leaving the four-wheeler unattended was a sure way to have it stolen—probably by the simple expedient of getting a dozen people to lift it up and carry it away. A few years ago, the System Police had had everything under control, and I could have left the fucking thing unlocked and in gear and nothing would have happened unless the cops on duty had something against me. Now, I had to stand there, and I could feel eyes on me, hungry and patient.
    I had to piss. I stepped forward and undid my pants right there. If I offended any of the bandits watching me, I figured that was an acceptable risk. I only hoped they didn’t somehow manage to steal the four-wheeler from behind me while I went, or I’d never be able to look Remy in the eye again.
    Behind me, the battery sensor on the dash chimed softly, indicating a charge of fifty percent—good enough to get moving. As I stood there, a wolf ambled into my field of vision, a hundred feet away, maybe, and then stopped to stare at me for three heartbeats before putting its head down and prowling back into the shadows.
    It felt good, at least, to be back in a city. Mexico City didn’t remind me much of New York, which was what I compared every city to—it was too wide open, the sky too big above me and the buildings too colorful, everything red and purple and green and orange. But it was better than the wilderness we’d been driving through, the mysterious fucking jungles, all wet shadows and damp hollows, vines twisting around your ankles.
    Buttoning up, I turned back, half expecting