Wasteland Wonderland - Part 1 Read Online Free Page B

His legs go limp. He doesn’t scream. He lets out a
weird whimpering breathless sound.
    I let him down gently and relieve him of his
weapons.
    A knife.
    The gun.
    Two extra magazines of ammunition.
    If I wanted to, I could trade these items and
live like a King in the Buried City. But I don’t want to live like
a King. I want answers. I want revenge.
    The Enforcer looks up at me, no longer hiding
his fear.
    He’s afraid.
    He’s always been afraid.
    “I’m sorry to do this to you,” I say, half
lying, half telling the truth. “But I’m not ready to die. I’ve got
stuff to do. And I need answers. So now, I’m going to ask you a
bunch of questions. And you’re going to answer every single one of
them.”
    He coughs blood and spits it at me. “I’m not
answering a goddamn thing.”
    He whispers this through clenched teeth.
    “I just paralyzed you. I can do worse.”
    He tries to act tough but his eyes betray
him. “I don’t know anything. I’m just a soldier. I’m just following
orders. We were told to bring you in. To find out what you know. To
find out who else you had talked to. And then …”
    “Exile me?”
    “No. Not Exile. Execute… publically… as a
warning.”
    “I killed maybe a handful of Mercs that you
and your people don’t give a shit about. I killed two Enforcers.
They attacked me first. They provoked me and I defended myself in
the heat of battle. This wasn’t cold blooded. This wasn’t
pre-meditated. The punishment should be Exile.”
    He is shaking his head. “You don’t get it, do
you? It’s not about the killing…”
    “Then what’s it about?”
    Again, he clams up. Because whatever it’s
about is big.
    Or maybe he doesn’t fully know.
    Maybe this guy has been lied to…
    I’m just a soldier.
    “You had nothing to do with her death, did
you?” I say, thinking out loud, talking to myself. “Whoever killed
Ruby was no Enforcer. No butcher. She was poisoned. She was
poisoned with something I’ve never seen, never even knew existed.
She didn’t suffer. She was in no pain. You wouldn’t even know she
was dead if you saw her. You’d have to feel for her pulse. It was
almost like she’d been preserved. A beautiful work of art for the
whole world to see.”
    “What the hell are you talking about?” he
asks. “What did she tell you?”
    He asks this question like he is genuinely
interested, like he really, really wants to know. He is genuinely
curious. He is curious because he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know a
goddamn thing.
    “She didn’t tell me anything,” I say.
    She didn’t get a chance. She was scared. She
said she knew secrets. And those secrets got her killed.
Information and knowledge that she possessed but wasn’t supposed
to.
    I’m slowly figuring this out.
    I’m slowly realizing that this is big… that
it goes all the way to the very top. That not even the Enforcers
know what’s going on.
    They are in the dark as well.
    We all are.
    “We tracked her here,” the Enforcer says as
he struggles to breathe. “She made it through the tunnels, through
the Long Tunnel. Don’t know how she got out.”
    “Wait. Are you saying there are tunnels
connecting this place to Wonderland?”
    “Of course there is. How do you think we move
around so freely?”
    “Why the hell does no one else know about
these tunnels? Do you realize how much easier it would be to
transport people through an underground tunnel? Would’ve made my
job a whole lot easier. It would’ve saved lives.”
    “This tunnel isn’t for Wastelanders.”
    “Figures. Typical Wonderland bullshit.”
    “It’s not bullshit. It’s necessary. We need
to secure the borders. The gates. The more gates we have to secure,
the more at risk we are of being overrun. If we become overrun, the
whole system breaks down. If the system breaks down, then no one is
leaving Earth.”
    I see blood beginning to pool underneath him.
The pool is growing. “Look, you don’t have long. Who was she?”
    “I… I