Free Torn (Cold Awakening) by Robin Wasserman

stretches of concrete and the occasional barren field, its earth flat and dead enough that we could drive over it with ease. It wasn’t until the jagged skyline appeared on the horizon that I understood where we were going, and even then it was hard to believe. But we drew closer and closer, finally coming to the mouth of the tunnel that would lead us inside.
    Nothing looked like I expected.
    I’d seen images of it on the network, of course, but after a while one dead zone looked pretty much like another. They all featured the frozen parade of abandoned cars choking their escape routes, some doors flung open by long-ago passengers who’d desperately decided to get out by foot, others locking in bloated bodies of the unfortunates who stayed in their cars, trusting the traffic laws, trusting the highway flow, trusting the radio reports of a quiet, orderly evacuation, trusting right up until the moment the toxic cloud or tidal wave or flesh-eating supergerm gave them a final escape.
    Not this city.
    It was just empty. The bombs had flattened half its buildings and much of its population. The lingering radiation had taken care of the rest. I’d only been in one city before—unless you counted the underwater ruins—and that had been teeming with life. Even the emptiest streets had festered with rats, roaches, gutter rivers of piss. But here nothing moved. There were no bodies in sight, and I wondered if some unfortunate corp crew had moved them out, one by one—how such a thing could be possible when the deaths numbered in millions—or if they had lain fallow all these years, gradually returning to the earth. I wondered how the city would smell, if I could smell.
    I couldn’t have handled bodies. I’d seen them in the ocean, of course, but that was different. The pale, preserved corpses that floated through the underwater city were dreamlike wraiths—nightmarish, but unreal. Bodies lining the streets, decomposing, swarming with maggots or flies or whatever hardy scavengers could survive nuclear war … that was a reality even I wouldn’t have been able to deny.
    Jude was waiting for us, just beyond the mouth of the tunnel. He lounged on a bench at the center of a small concrete plaza, proud ruler of a broken skyline and a city of ghosts.
    We stopped the car.
    Opened the doors.
    Greeted our long-lost friend.
    Jude stood. “Riley.” He gave his best friend a once-over, taking in the new body, the new skin, the face that was molded asclosely as possible to a face from old photographs. I realized this was a Riley he hadn’t seen in almost two years, and wondered if, finally, something had managed to throw Jude off balance. But he stepped forward with a cool half smile. “Didn’t think I’d ever see that face again.”
    “Knew I’d see yours,” Riley said, and grabbed Jude, pulling him into a tight embrace. Not one of those guy half hugs, with a loose grip and a slap on the back. This was the real thing, the two of them clinging to each other. Jude’s hands were balled into fists. His eyes stayed on me.
    He let go first.
    “Welcome.” Jude spread his arms as if inviting us into his home.
    I waited for Riley to ask all the questions I was sure he’d been saving up, about where Jude had been, what he wanted, what he needed, what had happened, what would come next … but that wasn’t Riley’s style.
    “You keeping it together?” he asked.
    “Always.”
    And, apparently, with that he was satisfied. My turn.
    “What are we doing here, Jude?” I asked.
    He laughed. “Still asking the wrong questions, I see. Good to know some things haven’t changed.”
    “So this is it? The top-secret home base? Where are you hiding the groupies?”
    “No groupies,” Jude said. “Not this time. This time we play it safe. This city has been uninhabitable for decades. They didn’tjust bomb the place; they infested it with radiation. Viral rad, the gift that keeps on giving. No org’s coming within fifty miles, not