“Thank you,” I finally said as the car accelerated forward.
Savita sighed, “You’re fortunate you were taken by Benecorp and not the CSA. Benecorp will be hesitant about giving them much to go on, since they’ll want you back for themselves.”
The ride didn’t last long before we came across two more narrow, four-wheel UGVs making their way down the road, sirens blazing, going past us toward the quarantine zone. I looked out the window, seeing with my bionic eye a UAV flying overhead a few blocks away, moving toward the quarantine zone. Our car made its way toward a highway ramp.
“Shit,” Savita muttered.
I looked through the windshield ahead of us, seeing a police checkpoint on the entrance ramp. Our car automatically slowed down, coming to a stop behind the line ahead of us.
“Is there any other way to get on?” I asked.
“It looks like a routine checkpoint,” Savita said. “If we get out of line now, it might raise suspicion.”
The three of us bobbed our heads around, trying to see ahead of the line of cars. Every forty seconds or so, we would automatically move ahead one car length. It was difficult to see what was going on, especially in the dark of night. I could see faint flashes of blue and red from the blockade.
When I looked to Savita, she was staring at herself in the rearview mirror. I saw her skin shift slightly a few times, trying to hone in one a passable look for her new identity. It was interesting to see her skin fluctuate. It happened to subtly it was almost difficult to discern.
We finally got close enough that I could see CSA officers looking into vehicle windows two cars in front of us. They were using their ARs to scan people’s identities. Savita finally settled on a look. It was oddly similar to how Laura looked, but less scrawny.
If there is one good thing about advanced technology, it’s that people rely on that rather than their own senses.
We finally got up to the checkpoint. The officer signaled for Savita to roll the windows down. She obliged, letting the two officers lean in at look at us, their ARs giving our fake identification to them.
“Where ya off tuh?” the officer at the driver’s door asked.
“Just heading south,” Savita said in English, her accent so artificially flawless it almost sounded like a news anchor reading a prompter.
“That right?” he asked, “What’s goin’ on south’uh here?”
“Just meeting some friends,” Savita said.
“These yuh kids?” the officer on the passenger side asked.
“She is,” Savita said, signaling to Laura, “and he’s my friend’s son.”
“That a fact?” he asked, looking back to Laura.
“Are we going to be late, mother?” Laura asked in English, talking very slowly as she tried to hide her accent.
“Yes, dear,” Savita smiled, “they’re only trying to keep us safe.”
“What was yuh bitness in Atlanta?” the driver’s side officer asked, furrowing his brow.
“We went to the Goodwin rally,” Savita said.
Both officers chuckled. The driver’s side one said, “that musta been a blast.” This pun was met with more chortling.
Savita gave him a wry grin, “we didn’t know about that before coming here. I think a lot of us were duped.”
He laughed, “I bet yuh changin’ yuh vote now, huh?”
“Yeah,” she said, “to Lyle Stoddard.”
Both officers laughed heartily at this. The driver’s side officer said, “Well, ain’t no laws against throwin’ yuh vote away. Though there oughta be. You can go on through, ma’am.”
The windows rolled up and the car started forward automatically. It wasn’t clear whether it was audible or just implied, but the three of us sighed in relief as we accelerated down the highway.
Chapter 45
“What the hell were they doing to you?” Savita finally asked.
I exchanged a glance with Laura before saying, “I’m not sure if I could even explain it.”
The car had driven us for a couple hours down the highway, heading southeast toward Jacksonville, Florida. Forests and swamps sped past us on either side, the automatic drive doing one hundred fifty miles per hour. Many trees stood dead, unable to keep up with constant hurricanes coming in off the gulf and flooding rivers. A drastic change from what I’d grown accustomed to in the drought addled west.
I spent some of the time looking into what happened in Atlanta after we were caught. Most coverage looked at Tory Goodwin. He had, in fact, detonated a suicide vest hidden beneath his suit.
Must be why he suddenly grew modesty before we went to the mansion.
As the Benecorp guard said, the elections were called off. Director Mitchell called a state of emergency, putting himself in charge indefinitely. His other ‘challengers’ in the election were being taken into custody and questioned, their houses searched. Hundreds of other arrests were being made for possible connections to the bombing.
The death toll was at a steady fifteen people. This included both Benecorp CEO Calvin Lind and Sovereign CEO Hugo Fischer, along with a handful of their entourage. Several Chinese and EU officials were killed. The rest of the GPFTA negotiators sustained injuries, a few in critical condition, including foreign minister Wen Guanyu. There was little mention of me or Laura, with reports only saying there was forty-eights involvement in the terrorist attack.
Curiously, while the deep fakes of the Chinese officials were released, along with information about the GPFTA gathered from the hack, the Global Prosperity Network was still online. Christina’s virus failed to take it down.
There was nothing about Imelda.
With China’s president dead, a Poliburo member named Cai Ning had taken charge of the National People’s Congress. Allegedly through threats of violence, he was quickly voted Chairman of the Standing Committee and General Secretary of the Communist Party. Cai Ning’s rapid accession has not gone without controvery, with a large chunk of the Congress and Politburo protesting the decision. Reports of riots in major cities. The Uyghur and Tibetan minorities I named as targets in my deep fakes were outraged.
I guess that was the intended affect, wasn’t it?
Nobody in the car said much of anything until we neared the Florida border. Savita had actually fallen asleep for some time, but while awake I noticed her shooting strange looks back at us in the rearview mirror and talking silently to someone over some network I wasn’t connected to. I guessed she was probably talking to Sachi and that her questioning about what happened was probably more for Sachi’s benefit than her own.
“Humor me,” Savita said.
“They implanted something in my brain,” I said, “someone similar to what Sovereign implanted into Laura’s. It allowed them to connect our brains together.”
“And do what?” Savita asked, now sounding more genuinely curious.
I exchanged another look with Laura and said, “It’s hard to explain but…it was like when I have one of my split-brain episodes. Except there are so many more thoughts that come crashing back together. I have no idea how long we were connected, but I didn’t experience…everything.”
“I don’t understand,” Savita said, “what do you mean by everything?”
“All of Laura’s memories,” I said.
We all sat silent again for several minutes before Savita said, “getting you out of there risked exposing our whole operation. It took a lot of resources and slowed everything down.”
“What happened to Christina?” I asked.
“I think Darren mentioned her,” Savita said.
“Darren got out?” I asked.
“More or less,” Savita said.
I was about to ask what she meant, but stopped when her insinuation dawned on me. Instead I asked, “I imagine you’re keeping him in Florida for now, then?”
“We’ll be taking him back to the LoC with us,” Savita said, “there’s a hurricane approaching soon and then another one coming in only a day or so behind
that one, so it won’t be much longer now.”
“Did you find where the tech was transmitting to in Florida?”
Savita said nothing, but I noticed her talking silently with someone.
The further south we drove, the more devastated the landscape became, having to weather a barrage of hurricanes being hurled out of the gulf and Atlantic Ocean. By the time we crossed into Florida, there were no more trees standing. Small streams flowed through wide riverbeds that had swept everything away down to dirt and rock. The small towns we passed through were half empty, any remaining houses fortified against constant winds and floods. Ponds and swamps choked with dead underbrush grew in size and frequency, some roads raised a couple feet to keep them out of the water sitting on either side.
As we neared Jacksonville, there came a point where the standing water covered everything as far around us as I could see. We drove a road that had marsh on either side all the way up to the street. In a few places water even puddled over the road.
Savita took the car off automatic drive, slowing us down and bringing it to a stop near a few other cars. I didn’t have to ask what was going on. The road ahead ended where water came up over it. Stretching beyond that, I could see a path suspended on pontoons floating over the US 1 highway.
“This is a strange place for the AKs to hide,” I said.
“That’s exactly why it works so well,” Savita said, “the CSA has all but given up on most of Florida. Constant hurricanes make it difficult to setup any kind of surveillance infrastructure or fly UAVs over it.”
The three of us stepped onto the rickety pathway that led us over the submerged highway. I could still see her occasionally talking silently to someone, but she didn’t seem to care to explain any further to us. I tried reaching a hand out to grab Laura’s biological hand, but paused before touching her.
Her hand. A hand that had felt like my own while we were connected. I experienced how things felt to her. I experienced how soft things felt to her. Rough things. Cold things. I didn’t just imagine that those feelings were the same for her as they are to me. I had experienced that myself.
Of course, you’ve experienced that many times, Evita’s voice said. Every time you’re born into a new body, you gain confirmation that pain and pleasure are universal amongst humans.
But those are all still a point of view possessed by me alone. What I had shared with Laura was two people experiencing the same mind at once.
Shared? Evita sneered, your mind raped hers. Look at her. She’s traumatized.
I gently slipped my fingers around Laura’s hand. She reactively tore hers away, looking over to me with wide eyes. She was afraid of me. Afraid of the things I’ve seen and done.
It was a short-lived relationship between you, Evita said, but you knew that from the start.
I pushed the thoughts out of my mind, looking away from Laura at the brackish water from the greatly expanded Saint Johns River. Crumbling buildings stuck out here and there like small islands. When I looked over the side of the floating walkway into the water, I could see the tops of picket fences and abandoned cars right near the surface, faint ghosts in cloudy, brown water. Tiny fish swam through submerged bushes, bare branches grasping up from the obscured front yards beneath the water like the stiff fingers of drowned victims. Occasionally we’d pass by a building that had a relatively new addition built on top to keep it out of the water, but there was nobody else around. At least not that I could see.
We came upon a split in the path, turning left off from the highway, heading toward a building with an addition built on top. A floating deck on pontoons stretched around the outside of the building, several small boats moored around it.
Savita stopped outside the building, speaking silently to someone for a moment before opening the door and letting us in. What I found inside wasn’t what I was expecting. It was a large room dimly lit by candles. The inside walls were made of plywood, much of it covered in graffiti.
There was a gathering of about thirty people meeting inside. At ten of them were transgenics. Savita led us past a couple wearing clothes with holes cut in them for elongated spines protruding from their vertebrae. This left them hunched over, as if the growths were causing them pain. There was another woman who had their fingernails grown into claws, and as a result, her face had numerous scars in different states of healing. I spotted a kid being led by another, the modifications to his eyes leaving him blinded. I found one amongst them that had wings similar to Salia’s, although not as large or well formed.
She wasn’t lying about how rare that treatment is.
We finally came upon Sachi, Rocky, and a guy with the same huge muscles as Rocky and Markus – the myostatin inhibiter treatment from the military. His ID onmy ARs just said his name was Brian. Sachi and Rocky both wore casual clothes that matched the rest of the people, their skin gleaming with sweat in the stagnant, humid air within the building. Brian had a flop of damp brown hair falling across his sweaty forehead almost down to double pupil eyes.
Nobody looked happy.
“I’m glad to see you two made it out alright,” Sachi said grimly, arms folded across her chest, “I suppose you’ll be wanting a change of clothes soon?”
I looked down at my hospital gown again then back to her, surprised she wasn’t yelling at us. “That would be nice.”
Sachi glanced to Brian and said, “I think we’re about ready to wrap up here before the hurricane comes in.”
“What is going on here?” I asked before Rocky and Brian could walk away.
“Markus’ people just got royally fucked by the Anonymous Cunts,” Sachi said, “the signal was coming here. Implicated our CSA contacts in your little Atlanta thing. Shirou’s virus was transmitted. Shut down our whole mesh network.”
“They pretty much finished our operations in the CSA,” Brian said, scanning his eyes across the room of people standing about talking to one another.
“I don’t understand,” I said, “why would the AKs target you?”
“Turns out,” Sachi said, eyes on Brian, “the AKs never wanted to shut down the Global Prosperity Network. They just wanted in.” She looked to me. “That girl used your people. And pinned it on my people.” She and the other two turned and walked away.
I guess it’s official. Sachi and I have different people. We’re not in this together.
I glanced at Laura, her eyes still wide as if the surprise of what happened to us was still fresh on her mind. Both of us followed Sachi up some stairs to a loft built on top of the building. We walked across a crudely constructed wooden hallway, passing by a room without a door. Inside I saw Darren sitting with his back up against the plywood wall, Pedro standing guard. I didn’t get a good look at him, but could immediately tell that he was miserable. We went two doors down the hallway and entered another room, a change of clothes already waiting on a bare, water-stained mattress in the corner for Laura and me.
“We’re going to have a talk when we get back to the LoC,” Sachi said.
I turned to look at her. She had a look two parts exhaustion and one-part disappointment. She didn’t have the energy to chew me out yet – a temporary reprieve.
“I already know how bad I fucked up,” I said, “so you don’t have to-”
“I’m not going to scold you like a child,” Sachi said, “what we need to talk about is how we can get past all this and continue moving forward.”
“You still want me in on this?” I asked.
“I do,” she said, “but we need more cooperation between your camp and mine if we want to avoid this kind of shit.”
“Of course,” I said.
“Good,” she said, “let’s all stay out of trouble for now until we can figure this shit out.”
“Sure thing,” I said, watching her leave the two of us in the room together.
I sat down on the bed, letting out a long a sigh. Her lack of anger was almost more infuriating. It was condescending. And she was going to use it as a way
to take everyone from my ‘camp’ and bring them into hers. I’d lost all confidence as a leader.
The migraine behind my eyes started creeping in again, blurring my vision. I looked over to Laura, seeing her staring at the clothes on the bed next to me.
She won’t come near me. Not even to grab her clothes.
I winced at the throb of the oncoming headache, pinching the bridge of my nose. The room felt as if it were wobbling beneath me, the sound of the water gently lapping against the building below fading away.
I looked back up, seeing Laura still standing there, staring at the clothes. A surge of anger overtook me, unable to cope with the headache, Sachi’s condescension, and Laura’s avoidance. I grabbed her change of clothes off the bed and threw them to the floor in front of her. She bent down and slowly picked them up. Afterwards, she stood up straight and held them up to her chest, meeting my gaze. The anger quickly turned to pity when the images of her memories came back to mind. The way she had been treated all her life.
And now I’m going to treat her like shit, too?
When she saw I wasn’t moving, she turned around and started walking slowly toward the door. I stood up from the bed.
“Laura…”
She stopped moving, but didn’t turn around.
“What happened to us back there…”
She turned to face me, eyes still wide, but focused.
“The things you know about me now,” I said, “much of it I’ve probably never told anyone. Not even Sachi. You have to understand that back in the past, things were different. I was different. I didn’t always do things that were-”
“I saw a field of corpses,” she said, “men, women, and children. You…were helping to kill them and you…enjoyed it.” She raised her hands in front of her, natural left and bionic right, “I can still feel how it felt to smash a baby against a wall. I can still feel…the way it felt. In my hands.”
“I…I…”
Laura stood, her drowsy gaze locked on mine for some time, searching for the right words, and then she finally said, “the…things I experienced…the things in your mind…even death was not as dark…”
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