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  Compulsion

  Book One of the Compulsion Series

  Perrin Briar

  Chapter One

  THE LARGE BANK of monitors cast an eerie electronic blue glow that illuminated Bo’s broad desk and his large sweaty face. His frame was bent over a decades-old edition of the New York Times. All the news fit to print. Not anymore it isn’t, Bo thought. A chuckle hacked in the back of his throat.

  He had completed half the crossword and was stuck on a particularly difficult question: This exercise can save your life. Seven letters. It’d had him stumped for the past hour. He had the second letter, an ‘a’ thanks to the vertical answer to question six, but it didn’t help much.

  There were several Control Centers dotted across Brookdale, but Bo liked to think he had the best location. It was housed in the town’s former police station. It had a backup generator for power, bulletproof doors, windows and walls, and an armory large enough to kit out a small army. Monitors were trained on every intersection of town. In many ways, this police station was still active, and that meant a great deal to Bo.

  He felt the reassurance of a dozen eyes on him, from the wall behind. Intricate picture frames hung in memory to those killed in the line of duty. They were brave men and women, his guardian angels, helping him keep watch. Any time Bo felt his attention wander, he was reminded of their example, turned back to the monitors, and redoubled his efforts.

  The sight of them with their distant expressions and carefree smiles always gave him heart.

  This exercise can save your life.

  Didn’t all exercise save your life in the long run? It kept you fit and strong, so you could always outrun the Raiders or Grayskins. Not that Bo kept in shape. He was overweight and out of shape. He always promised himself to begin exercising tomorrow, but that day never came.

  Bo shifted his large girth. The chair let out a squeak of pain. One wheel threatened to give way altogether.

  A crackling noise from Bo’s radio. He scooped it up and depressed the receiver button with practised ease.

  “This is Bo at central, over,” he said into it.

  The crackling continued.

  “This is Bo, over,” he repeated.

  The crackling continued. Getting no response was fairly common from the other Control Centers. Amateurs, Bo thought.

  He leaned back and took in the bank of monitors before him. It was night, the town fast asleep. At its most vulnerable. That was why they maintained an all-night vigil like this. To keep the townsfolk safe. There were a lot of dangers out there. No one would come to any harm, not while Bo was on the job.

  He tapped his pencil against the crossword. It was easy to see if there was something out there that shouldn’t be. It drew the peripheries of his vision. He turned his head to the side to absorb everything within his field of view. It was how the human eye had evolved—to notice even the tiniest movement.

  And then he did see movement. But not from the terminal.

  A flash of red light.

  Bo turned, eyes fastened on the blinking red bulb attached to the side of the security camera terminal.

  He shot to his feet, knocking his chair over. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. It was mesmerizing, captivating, engrossing. Terrifying.

  How long had it been blinking? Seconds? Minutes? Hours?

  And then he saw it. Movement out the corner of his eye. Minute, but definitely there.

  This exercise can save your life.

  Caution, Bo thought. That was the answer. Caution.

  He didn’t write it down.

  Chapter Two

  THE RED LIGHT meant a sensor had been tripped in town.

  The rain distorted the camera images, making them hard to read. Bo’s eyes were used to it. He spied the hunched figures, indistinct in the darkness. Something was there that shouldn’t be. It moved from camera four’s view to camera seven’s.

  There were two of them, Bo thought. They kept their backs to the walls, shuffling sideways under the overhang that provided some cover from the downfall. Currently they were against the wall of the old pharmacy, sliding along the aluminum siding.

  They exited the monitor and turned up on monitor five. East of the hardware store. Rain water poured off the roof in a thick band and onto their heads.

  They could have been a pair of local teenage lads that sometimes snuck out to fool around with their girlfriends, but in his heart, Bo knew it wasn’t them. Locals would never have allowed themselves to get discovered the way these two figures had. It was too obvious.

  But even if that wasn’t the case, Bo would have known they were not from this compound, but strangers. It was in the way they moved, the way they did not wish to be seen, eyes cast downward. The local teenagers always moved with an eye upward, not at the sky, but at the cameras they knew would be there, peering down at them. These characters didn’t even do that, simply because they did not know the cameras were there.

  They weren’t from here.

  They were strangers, and strangers meant exercising a seven letter word that prolonged the user’s life. Caution.

  The walkie talkie rushed, spitting interference. Bo reached for the radio and spoke in a slow, clear voice.

  “Intruders at Main and Liberty,” he said. “Does anyone read me, over.”

  “I see them,” a voice on the other end said. Bo recognized the voice as that belonging to Dave. “What have we got?”

  “A pair of interlopers,” Bo said.

  “Raiders?” Dave said.

  “Negative,” Bo said.

  But that didn’t rule out the possibility they were part of a wider Raider plot to gain entrance. Dave would know that too.

  “Looks like we have ourselves a Mordor here,” Bo said.

  Their code describing dangerous situations used references from the Lord of the Rings movies. Only the Watchmen knew their true meanings, and they could say them even if they were under duress.

  A Mordor situation described a dangerous setting that could easily head south.

  “What’s the plan?” Dave said.

  Bo turned to peer at the dozen steady gazes looking at him from the wall of officers killed in the line of duty. Heroes, every last one of them. The faces he’d spent the past two years watching. The faces that had inspired him to be brave…

  But he hadn’t yet had the opportunity to do so. And now here it was, offered up to him on a platter.

  “I’m going out to intercept them,” Bo said.

  “Oh no,” Dave said. “That sounds very much like a Samwise.”

  Samwise meant doing something unnecessary and potentially extremely dangerous. Often with overtones of something very foolish.

  “Keep an eye out,” Bo said, ignoring Dave.

  “Will do,” Dave said. “You be careful. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “You know me,” Bo said.

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” Dave said.

  Bo scooped up his rifle and stepped out into the rain.

  Chapter Three

  DAVE would be watching from his bank of monitors, Bo knew. Bo was aware of the cameras on every street corner he came to. He had studied them to ensure he knew precisely where they were and which direction they were facing.

  He glanced up at the nearest camera. He had an audience. Nothing made him feel more special than that.

  With his shotgun held in his hands, Bo moved along the rough brick wall. He wasn’t afraid. He was thrilled. The rain fell and made a rushing sound, heavy like a wate
rfall. It was difficult to hear anything.

  He didn’t know where these figures were heading or where they might go, but he rushed through the rain-clogged streets in the direction of their last known location.

  Bo took a shortcut through Liberty Street. He crept down an alley with his heart in his throat. He navigated a wet garbage can. A dozen rats scattered at his approach. Bo tightened his grip on his rifle and stepped over a half-eaten cat.

  He arrived at the corner and waited, pausing to get his breath back. His limp was slowing him down, but not enough for him not to want to do this.

  Bo raised his radio.

  “Update on their six, over,” he said.

  “They’re in the park, behind the George Washington statue,” Dave said.

  “I see them,” Bo said.

  Though the word ‘see’ wasn’t really the right one to use. The strangers were merely in view, a pair of huddled figures peering out from behind the base of the statue. They were smaller than he’d thought.

  In his mind they had been two large fellows armed to the teeth. He gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to look much like a hero if he panicked and brought in two dead kids.

  The figures made a dash for it, to cross the park green, the street, to the other side of town. Bo lurched forward under the strain of his gimp leg, running. He was closer to the street than them, and got there first.

  “Hey!” Bo said.

  The figures skidded to a halt. They looked at one another and shifted their weight as if they intended on continuing to run in the same direction. Bo cocked his rifle and held it up at them. There was no missing them from this distance.

  One of the figures stood in front of the smaller one. The protector was male, Bo decided. The other was a girl. He held out his hands, showing he held no weapons.

  “Don’t shoot,” the boy said.

  “Weapons,” Bo said. “Do you have weapons?”

  “Only this,” the boy said.

  He reached down to his pant leg and produced a pathetic dull buck knife from his boot.

  “Toss it,” Bo said.

  The boy looked hesitant. His grip on the blade grew stiff. Bo tensed around his rifle. The girl put her hand to the boy’s forearm. The boy visibly relaxed. He tossed the knife aside.

  Bo did not shift target, and remained focused on the boy. The boy shifted again, turning his body straight on. If there were any shots, he would receive them, not the girl.

  Bo glanced at the girl.

  “Do you have any weapons?” he said.

  “I have no weapons,” the girl said.

  For reasons Bo couldn’t quite fathom, he found he believed her. He knew she was telling the truth. He shook his head and found his old cautious mindset awaiting him.

  “Against the wall,” Bo said. “Hands flat, feet shoulder width apart.”

  They did as he asked, bracing themselves against the old baker’s security shutters. Bo frisked them, beginning with the boy, then the girl.

  The boy was in good shape, by no means muscular, but there was the potential for it. If he could get enough nutrients into his slender frame he would build muscle fast.

  The girl was small, diminutive, Bo thought. He set the word aside for a future puzzle answer. No doubt it would turn up eventually. They had no other weapons on them.

  “All right,” Bo said. “Turn around. Now, I’m going to ask you one simple question. I want a yes or no answer. No explanations, no excuses. Yes or no. Understand?”

  He weighed the two kids up.

  “Are you with the Raiders?” he said.

  “No,” the boy said.

  Bo’s eyes shifted to the girl. There was something about her, something that attracted the eye, and not just because she was so beautiful. She was destined to be a movie star, but that was another life.

  “No,” the girl said.

  Her voice was low, and yet smooth as silk.

  “The Raiders would try just about anything to get in here,” Bo said. “Including sending teenage spies.”

  “We aren’t with them,” the boy said, heat in his voice.

  The girl looked at the boy, a warning. The boy lowered his eyes.

  “But you have been in contact with them,” Bo said.

  They didn’t need to answer. It was clear from the expressions on their faces that they had.

  “We’re not with them,” the girl repeated. “But they have tried to kill us, or capture us, the same as they have everyone else they come in contact with.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Bo said.

  Despite all the evil in the world in the form of the Grayskins, the human race had found the resources to create a far more dangerous creature, the one inside themselves. In all the movies and TV shows of post-apocalyptic worlds that had been made, they had always depicted a place where the scum rose to the top. It had become a cliche.

  And yet here they were, living in that very world, with the Raiders on their tails, rising from the ashes to bear down on them. Brookdale had had its fair share of interactions with the Raiders. They never ended well. But they were a part of life now in the usually sleepy town.

  By the light of the moon Bo could make out similar features in the pair. They had prominent cheekbones, a narrow forehead and big eyes. They were a good looking pair, a little rough around the gills having lived in the less-than-hospitable world for the past few months or years. One thing was for sure: these kids needed help.

  “You should get out of town,” Bo said, softening his tone. “Or stay, become part of our community.”

  He decided to hold his rifle in the crook of one arm. No need to scare the poor kids more than he already had.

  “We can’t stay,” the boy said. “We have somewhere to be. But we sure wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to get dry and maybe get a little food in our bellies.”

  “We don’t have the food to spare,” Bo said shortly.

  “We have our own then,” the boy said. “We just need a little shelter from the rain.”

  Bo pursed his lips. There was a hard and fast rule at Brookdale: no strangers unless they took the vow to join their community. Otherwise it was like inviting a wolf into your hen house.

  “No,” Bo said. “No strangers. Our rule.”

  The boy opened his mouth to speak, but it was the girl who stepped forward. Bo felt the weight of his shotgun in his hands, but didn’t move for it. He sensed the girl was of no danger to him.

  “Please,” the girl said, looking up into his eyes, her big blue eyes meeting his squint. “Can we just stay the night? Please?”

  Her voice was soft velvet, warmth after a long day at the monitors where the heating had packed up. She seemed to positively glow, her skin like porcelain, without blemish. Now he could fully see her features, Bo could see how beautiful she truly was, how there was no doubt in his mind what use the Raiders would put her to. And the thought of that, of the travesty—another good crossword word—made Bo angry.

  “Yes,” he said, though the word was hard won. “Come with me.”

  He was halfway back to his Control Center when he began to wonder why he was taking such a risk in letting these kids rest at Brookdale. The thought was gone just as quickly as it had come.

  Chapter Four

  “STOP HERE,” Bo said. “And stand over there.”

  The interlopers did. Bo reached for his Control Center door, pushed it open, and entered. He held it and ushered the siblings inside. He shut the door behind them.

  “Take a seat,” Bo said.

  The boy was mesmerized by the bank of monitors on the wall.

  “So this is how you knew we were out there,” he said.

  “I can see the whole town from here,” Bo said.

  “You have electricity?” the boy said.

  “A number of generators,” Bo said. “They provide us with the power we need.”

  “You’d need a lot of fuel to power this many monitors,” the boy said.

  “Finding fuel can be
a challenge, which is why we have to deal with the Raiders,” Bo said. “Those who have the resources make the rules.”

  Bo blinked. He was never this forthright with information. What was wrong with him? He’d told them too much, far too much. He shook his head. The rain must have scrambled his brains. He removed his coat and hung it on the stand.

  With no other chairs besides the one Bo sat in to watch the monitor screens, the boy and girl had to sit on the floor. They didn’t complain. They sat close to the radiator, the orange bars of light giving the space a warm cozy glow.

  Bo moved to a storage cupboard and took out two towels. They were worn and rough, but made of good material. They absorbed water well.

  “What are your names?” Bo said.

  “I’m Wyvern,” the boy said. “She’s Siren.”

  “What are your real names?” Bo said.

  They didn’t answer him. Bo shrugged.

  “I suppose it doesn’t really matter,” he said. “You are who you are. You can call yourselves whatever you want.”

  The walkie talkie attached to Bo’s belt crackled.

  “This is Crow’s Nest, over,” Bo said.

  “You’ve got them?” Dave said.

  “Yeah, they’re inside,” Bo said. “Just a couple of kids.”

  “They’re inside?” Dave said. “With you?”

  “That’s what I said, ain’t it?” Bo said. Some people could be so dense.

  There was a pause.

  “Let me get this straight,” Dave said. “Our policy is we don’t let strangers into the community, under any circumstances, and you let them into the main Control Center? And they didn’t threaten you or anything?”

  Now that Dave said it like that, it did seem strange, especially since it had been Bo who had done it. He was a stickler for the rules, and for him to have broken them so lackadaisically was unusual to say the least. But Bo wasn’t about to let Dave have the upper hand.

  “Gee Dave,” Bo said. “You should be a detective. You figured that out all by yourself?”