Free Pulse by Patrick Carman

succumb to the States, no matter the cost, and this had turned them secretive about their business. They reminded Faith of the Hell’s Angels, an old motorcycle gang she’d read about that had long since vanished off the face of the earth. The State hadn’t exactly banned weapons on the outside, but the only weapons that remained were leftovers from an earlier, more violent age. And Faith had the feeling they dressed as they did not only to hide weapons, but also to send a message: We are here to stay. We’re not going inside the State. Ever. They traveled in packs of ten or twenty, lived off the land, were thought to be violent and dangerous.
    Ping. Ping. Ping.
    Faith heard the sound again. She understood what it was: someone in the group was tapping a Coin against an empty tin can. But in her current condition, the sound had a bottomless echo that lurched closer like a demon. The fun and games had passed; the Wire Code had turned dark and menacing.
    She would later try to remember what had happened and conclude that she had entered into some kind of twisted nightmare. She saw them appear in the corridor from behind a door, where they must have been staying as they passed through the area. It was scary to think they’d settled in on school grounds, but it made some sense. No one would have thought to look for Drifters at a high school. Faith remembered the tattered eagle emblazoned on their long trench coats, their tangled hair, the sawed-off shotgun barrels pointing at the floor. Those were their trademarks.
    There was a lot of screaming in the hallway, but if she had been in her right mind, she would have understood that the screams had been mostly her own. She screamed because the Drifters were being thrown down the hallway like rag dolls. They were bouncing off lockers and breaking through the square sections of glass in doorways. Her senses zeroed in on one Drifter who appeared to be a woman. She was slamming into one wall of lockers, then she was slamming into the lockers on the other side of the hallway with lightning speed; back and forth, faster and faster, her body destroyed before Faith’s eyes.
    Three hours later she awoke from a deep sleep in her own bed. She was breathing heavily, a bead of sweat running down her exposed collarbone. Something moved in the room; but it was dark, and she couldn’t see what it was. Faith felt a deep sadness welling up inside her, but she couldn’t understand why. The last thing she could remember about the events of that night was the exposed forearm of a man, a Drifter fallen and silent on the cold floor in front of her. And on that arm, looking up at her, was the tattered eagle on the branch, the tattooed symbol of the Drifters. It was the image of a powerful bird lost in a broken world, ever defiant against a coming evil.
    She felt the tears running down her cheeks and cried silently. After a time, so heavy and tired, she floated back into a deep sleep and didn’t wake again until the next morning.
    If Faith had turned to her right and looked out her window, she would have seen that someone was watching her, wondering why she was so sad, hoping there was enough time to make things right.

Chapter 6
How Do You Say Good-bye?
    Liz’s obsessive hand-holding started after Noah left for the Western State. She had always been an unusually tactile sort of person. She loved the way things felt in her hands more than the way things tasted or smelled or looked. Smelling a rose, for Liz, was nothing compared to the sheer bliss of removing one of its bloodred petals and rubbing its velvety surface between her thumb and finger. To taste an apple was fine; but to feel its cool, slick skin against the side of her face as it glided back and forth, that was the really sweet part of an apple for Liz Brinn.
    Before meeting Noah she had long since made her dating decisions based on the way the other person felt in her hands. She would succumb to an invitation to go for a walk or watch a