I flip through the rest, hoping to find another connection. Some obvious statement or odd fact or anything that will give me a better picture of Santiago. Something explosive—like a tin of letters from a terrorist.
His medical records appear standard at first glance. Vaccines as a kid. NV but it’s dormant. Measles when he was eleven. Dental images and x-rays of a broken arm at age twelve. Pictures of a cast and a young Rabbit with a closed, unsmiling face. A black eye. Another picture of a slightly older Rabbit with a split lip and taped nose. Rabbit at thirteen admitted to the emergency room with a broken rib and internal bleeding. Rabbit at fourteen with a series of dark bruises punctuating his spinal column. Rabbit at sixteen with a knife wound on his chest. Near his heart, where a prison tattoo would go. Gang violence—the chart reads.
There are no more pictures of Rabbit Santiago.
No more Rabbit. Not for me.
A wave chimes on my left band from Scarlett: It’s time Len. Let’s go.
I spy Scarlett waiting outside the Academy main building, standing by a blooming cherry tree, shivering despite the temperate weather. Relief kicks the remaining fog from my brain. I wasn’t sure she would join me. It’s been a weird day. I release the nanos, the cloak falling away, and adjust the video and audio recorders. I should have spent all that time with Rabbit charging my batteries instead. We’re going a long way before we reach any more electrical stations powerful enough to feed me.
“Where did you disappear to?” I ask, noting the mascara smudged on her cheeks.
“I was putting this together.” She holds up a pack bursting with military supplies and rations.
“How did you get past security? The whole base is on lockdown.”
“Are you kidding me? I’m Scarlett Buford. I can do anything.” She winks.
I show her the care package from Nurse Esperanza and her pupils go wide with the revelation that Our Lady of the Infirmary is a Contra spy. Not a Contra spy, actually. A concerned citizen with ambiguous morality when it comes to curing a deadly disease. There's a difference.
We cram the medical kit inside the already over-full pack. I keep the vial of blood tucked in my pocket. Scar doesn’t need to know about that yet.
“Great. Where’s your bag?” I ask.
She kicks a leg behind the trunk of the tree and it bumps up against a second pack.
“What’s the plan, Stan?” she asks with forced cheer, face a translucent mask of fear.
A wave pops up on the left band, distracting me from answering. I open the message. A cold snake strikes my stomach as an image loads of my open tin box gripped in a pair of chunky hands. Clinton's hands. Text underneath the image reads: Clinton wants to negotiate. The message is coded from Rabbit.
I tap on the keyboard: For what?
A minute passes. More text appears: He wants you to meet him at the Commons in half an hour.
My finger hesitates above the screen. I write: No. I wait for a response.
The wave is quick: If you do what he wants your ties to the Contras will be destroyed. Otherwise, he’ll report you to the-
It cuts off. I hesitate for a moment, then type and send the final words: I don’t negotiate with terrorists. The band clicks off.
“Clinton has my tin with the letters. He got it from Rabbit.”
I try to feel something about Rabbit's betrayal. Anything. But I’m numb. You can’t feel pain if you can’t feel anything. It’s a coping mechanism. Not healthy, but it will serve me for now, at least until we're far away from here.
“Well shit. I always thought he seemed shifty and weird. What happens now?”
“He wants us to meet him outside the base—”
“We aren’t going. I don’t trust Clinton. He beat you in front of all those people in the SIM. What do you think he would do to you on a secluded part of the base?”
Kill me. Killing a terrorist spy would be his ticket to glory. It wouldn’t matter if he’d failed Aeronautics and flunked out of National Service. My death would make him something other than Senator Edmund’s son. He’d be a hero and I’d die a martyr.
The idea curdles my stomach and a concentrated rage wells up in response. No more. Death and destruction is not what I want. My fingers come down hard on the vial of blood in my pocket. This is what I want. And I will stop Clinton or Rabbit or Scarlett or whoever gets in my way.
Scarlett reads my series of fluctuating facial patterns as these thoughts whiz through my head. She clears her throat with the authority and calm composure of a best friend.
“Don’t you even consider it,” she says. “You’re not going out like that. You’re not leaving me here again.”
“What other choice do I have?” I snap. Angry at her—angry at the fear riding through me.
“Len, you’ve had the same choice forever. Same choice we make every day. Stay. Or run.”
“Running is dangerous. I tried that once. It didn’t work out so hot.”
“That’s because you didn’t bring me along to help you. In case you haven’t noticed, you suck at making plans on your own.” Something like a real Scarlett smile drifts to her face. “First, you’re gonna need some shoes.”
She drops a pair of combat boots at my feet, so I busy myself with putting on socks and tying boot laces while Scar casts her eyes towards the base gate, gnawing at the tip of her thumbnail, deep in thought.
“We gotta get past the guards. What I’m thinking is this—I’ll explain how I’m going out to the Salt patch to prep it for our deployment to Mexico City. I know the guards on duty. I’ve dealt with them before. You go invisible and slip in front of me,” she says.
“I could blow the gate if need be.”
Scarlett frowns at the suggestion.
“Just the electrical components, though that might trip the metal security door, the failsafe. Actually, your plan is good. I like your plan. I’m all about nonviolence," I say, cloaking out of sight. “Nonviolence is my thing now. No more explosions.”
“Hey you’re invisible again. That’s disconcerting. I'm not gonna get used to that.” She reaches out to touch the empty space where I still stand. “Let’s move.”
When we reach the gates, Scarlett extracts cigarettes from her pocket, offering them to the male and female guards and plopping the other in her mouth. She chats amiably about our impending deployment to Mexico City, mentioning her need to check the Salt crop to be sure it will survive an extended absence. The soldiers exchange doubtful glances. Scar bites her nail again—musing.
“We’ve had a mutually beneficial arrangement for a while. It works. But I’m gonna be gone for a long time. Maybe I won’t make it back from Mexico. Which means there won’t be anymore Salt. If you let me out tonight to check on things, I promise I’ll give you guys all the information to maintain the crop and plant more. I’ll turn the Salt business over to you.” She assists them with igniting their cigarettes, smiling coercively.
Another look passes between them, their interest piqued, and they move off to discuss. Scarlett stands there, flashing a thumbs up in my direction. I tread softly over the scrubby grass and stand near Scar. She squints in my direction and says nothing. We wait out their deliberation in silence.
The male guard returns, delivering the verdict. I don’t recognize him. He wears a helmet obscuring the top of his face, only his nose and lips are visible when he speaks.
“We want more than the Salt patch. You've been running Ecto too. Our buddy Diego says you're turning a nice profit and won't share, even though he got you in the business. He says you cut him out and hooked up with Holmes. We have loyalties to our friend, but we're willing to overlook it, if you give us both. The Salt and the Ecto,” the guard says, a gross sneer exposing two crooked front teeth.
Anger boils up from deep in my chest. I grip down on the taser in my pocket, contemplating its heft, considering jamming it into his exposed neck.
“Diego.” Scar’s jaw clenches and she works her teeth around his name like it’s
a piece of sour fruit. “Why am I not surprised? You tell that little asshole, and I do strongly emphasize the word little, he gets nothing. He tried to take over my operation when I went on leave and nearly ran it into the ground. Is that what you want?”
The male guard shrugs. The female guard watches the exchange from a distance. I can’t read her expression. Ambivalence. I don’t like her. I don’t like this guy either. I don’t have time for this.
“Diego’s deploying along with you. Neither of you get to keep the drugs. So, why not hand them over now? Save yourself some trouble.”
“They’re still my drugs,” Scar says in a dangerous, even tone.
“Not anymore,” the guard says. “Not if I turn you in. Who are the admins and officers gonna believe? Me or you? I mean, you’re friends with that Garza chick who turned out to be a Contra spy. Why should anyone believe anything you say?”
Scarlett delivers a swift kick to his groin and he crumples to his knees, moaning. She punches the portion of his nose visible below the helmet and he grabs at it, toppling to the ground.
The guard behind him watches in mute outrage as her friend goes down. She readies the plasma rifle to shoot, and it bursts into electric fire. The energy explosion happens so fast, I almost don’t realize it came from me. She tosses the gun to the ground and targets us with a blast from an EMP device instead. As before, the static electric shock and mild disorientation by-passes me. It warps the cloak, casting strips of colored light in all directions, revealing my position. My new, weaker eye implant registers a brief interruption then resets itself.
The guard stares in horrified fascination at the spot where I briefly emerged in a phantasm of light. Cloak renewed, I snatch her EMP device and Scarlett sweeps the guards legs out from under her. The guard drops, receiving another taser jolt from a fiendishly grinning Scar.
“Where’d you get the martial arts skills?” I ask.
Scars raises her brows with a comical grin. ”I’ve got secrets too. You’ve never seen me in field combat exercises before. I can hold my own. And I barely chip a nail.”
I scan my band at the terminal built into the gate wall. An authorization request pops up on the screen. I glance frantically back at the groaning, inert soldiers on the ground. Extracting information from them to open the gate is not an option. Scarlett pokes me.
“Come on Len. It’s now or never.”
I close my lids, placing a hand on the tech, reaching into the recesses of my mind to connect with the device. Willing a miracle to happen. In the stillness, I listen for the transmissions of the machine. The buzzing current of digits and electronic pulses that will carry us through this security system. It’s a brisk, official signal accompanied by a mutter of perfunctory boredom. I push more heavily onto the pad, allowing the connection between my nano infused body and the screen to work its full magic. The purple code rolls over my vision and I tap it into the keypad.
With a sigh of resignation, the doors slide open and we pass out the other side. The sequence I enter falls into place and the failsafe gates swing down. One after another, all along the fence surrounding the perimeter of the base. It will take awhile to untangle the codes to open them again. We’ll need every second of that diversion.
The cloak vanishes with a shudder of relief. Sustaining it is like running in place with fifty pound weights strapped to each arm. The night is cloudless and there’s a full moon above. We break into a run.
For the next twenty minutes there is nothing but the chirp of crickets, the crunch of dry grass and rocks under our feet, and the panting of breath. We stop when we reach the halfway point to the Salt crop. I look off to the left, where the high speed train grumbles by, flicks of electricity spitting off the tracks and cables. That’s how we’re putting distance between us and Fort Columbia.
“This way, Scar. We can hop the train before the base recovers from the failsafe activation.” I motion towards the tracks.
“OK, the thing is—I need to get an item from the salt patch first. It’s important.”
I don’t press any further. After witnessing her take down the guards at the gate, perhaps she actually knows what she’s doing, maybe even a little more than I do.
Scarlett stares up at the darkening night sky, a melancholy sway to her head.
“I thought if I ever escaped National Service alive, the first thing I would do is go back to Biloxi. Find my brother. Pay off all my parents debts. There’s no chance we could just go there first, right? It’s only a detour of a couple thousand miles.”
I shake my head at her. She nods and moves away, but I grab for her.
“Scar, promise me if anything should happen—”
“Oh I do not believe we’re talking about this already. We’ve only been on the lam for like ten minutes. I don’t want to hear your goddamn death speech.”
I dig the vial of blood out of my pocket. “Stopping being so melodramatic. If something happens to me, please take this to Mexico City. I want you to find Mateo Alvarez—The Matador. He’ll help you and keep you safe. Well, safer than you are now. Safe is a relative term for us.”
Scarlett’s fist closes around the vial and she grimaces down at it. “Is this blood? Are you seriously handing me a vial of blood right now?”
I nod. “This is important Scar. More important than either of us. More important than Mateo or Logan or Prothero or the Contras. You have to take this vial to Mexico City.”
“OK. I’m creeped out. But OK.”
We walk in silence. The field with the Salt plot is up around the bend in the road, about halfway between the base and the dam. Tucked away from a clear line of sight but easily accessible if you have an idea of where to look.
“What are we gonna do about these?” Scar asks, breaking the quiet. She taps the piece of tech wrapped around her wrist.”
“I've got a solution for that. Hold up your band.”
She does as instructed. I grip it and blue electricity flickers between the bands. The purple schematics pop up. I type in the security code. The notification chimes. As it fades out a stream of purple threads over Scarlett’s band and pulses between us, then flickers out. “There. Disabled.”
“And this?” Scar lifts her hair, tapping on the RFID on her neck.
“That too.” I touch it and the band gives off another hot spark.
We continue walking in another bout of silence. We’re almost to the field. Scarlett motions to me and I move up alongside her, dropping the hood off my head for full visibility. There’s a tented shack structure at the front of the field where Scarlett keeps supplies and she moves in this direction. The field isn’t large but around the Salt plot, grass grows knee high and in places, higher. I missed the majority of the spring rains.
Scarlett points towards the tent and I nod. We dim our bands and approach at a slower pace, limiting the noise we make to nothing but the rustle of our boots over the grass. Scarlett elbows past and takes the lead, indicating she will enter the tent first. I shake my head firmly and push her aside. If I’m stronger, I’ll go first.
A faint breeze is always present on the Gorge. The tent material flaps, inviting us in with waving arms. The scene looks ominous. I move the light around the entrance, noticing the trampled, flattened grass in front of the tent. I look back at Scarlett.
“What are we looking for?”
“Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing. Tell me what it is.”
“You’re gonna laugh.”
“I’m not gonna laugh. I am gonna kick you in the crotch if you don’t tell me what I’m looking for.” I shine the light back at the tent
What about this scene feels wrong? In the pause between my question and Scarlett answering, I realize what it is. The crickets stopped chirping. It’s unearthly quiet. The breeze shifts the dried grass, but the noise of animals has ceased.
“It’s a stuffed animal. It’s my stuffed dog. I brought it with me cause I got lonely out here tilling and planting and irrigatin
g by myself. There’s a story behind it.”
“A stuffed dog? We came out here for a stuffed dog!? Scar, you’re ridiculous.”
“A dog stuffed with ten pounds of Salt and Ecto. Don’t you make fun of me! We need the drugs. The stuffed animal—is a bonus.” She strides forward, attempting to cut me off.
I hold her back. “I’ll go in. You wait here. And pull out your taser. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
She snorts. “All the Salt is making you paranoid.”
“All the Ecto is making you stupid.”
She sticks her tongue out at me.
I arm myself with the taser again. It’s an inappropriate weapon out here. Rifles would be better. I make eye contact with Scarlett and she moves to one side of the tent, facing out so she can keep watch over the field. I poke the taser inside the tent opening and peer after it. The quiet interior looks non-threatening and inanimate, so I move into the tent. I don’t see Scar's stuffed animal on the table in front of me, so I skirt around it. There’s a wood cabinet with a small countertop near a fabric wall off to the right and a couple stacks of fertilizer piled up next to it. The cabinet seems a likely place. I drop to one knee and open the door, spotting the stuffed dog on the top shelf.
Scarlett’s muffled grunt sounds from the front of the tent.
I swing toward the tent entrance and a foot knocks the taser clenched in my fist flying into the air. It lands and lays dormant on the ground ten feet away. My head swivels. I can see perfectly. It’s Luis Kang. His fist is doubled back to sock me but I aim a kick for his knee and he crumples. I kick him again, in the head, for good measure and he goes silent, unconscious. Outside, more commotion and males shouting at each other. I jump over Kang and peer through the tent opening, obscured by the material.
Clinton stands just outside the tent, with a plasma rifle aimed at Rabbit’s forehead.
Metal Heart: Book 1: The Metal Heart Trilogy Page 27