by Russ Linton
As innocuous as the building looks, it's a hardened defensive structure designed to contain the worst weapons humankind has ever created. The explosion I anticipate never happens. Nor does smoke seep through the armored ceilings and walls. But the deep tremor continues and builds, rushing closer, an avalanche of heat and destruction. Fire plumes through the front doors brighter than daylight. I squint and the focused pulse of warmth she directed at my cheek in the hallway becomes a full body experience. Loose clothing and hair dances on the scorching belch of super-heated air. Glass shatters and melts, spraying the parking lot with a viscous rain.
Then it's over. From the smoke and ash comes the burning shard that's Ember. Fire cools in rough patches, dissipating off her body as she strolls toward the SUV. A distant expression, her mind is somewhere far outside the several acre-long kiln she just created. At the corner of the SUV, the cloak of flame lifts, and I catch the barest glimpse of her bare ass before she disappears inside.
Hound is first to speak. "I'd wager that's a job done. Where to?"
"Eric, Spencer, any leads?"
I defer Dad's question to Eric who refuses to speak. When the silence extends, I chime in. "Eric was right, there wasn't any way to track what we had in the logs."
"No problem," says Hound. "We gotta get our hands dirty. Find our leads the old-fashioned way. Might need to drag in a couple a' reds and apply special methods of questioning."
Something Hound says about questioning sparks the memory of a recent, terrifying conversation. "Destructo mentioned something about heading off to where the action is. Building his own line of cars like they used to in Detroit."
"What are you sayin', son?" asks Hound, squinting one eye.
"We couldn't trace anything to a specific location, but we did get more than few hits off the Midwest Internet Cooperative Exchange."
"Detroit," says Dad. Only a moment lost to thought, and he's back in command. "Let's check it out. Nothing else to lose."
"Eric, keep an eye on the news, the net, however you can. Try to verify if any part of Shortwave’s operation could be there. Got a connection?"
He hasn't raised his eyes, but he motions to his car. "Cellphone. Laptop. Done."
"Good," Dad continues though he lingers on Eric before getting to Hound. "You're at the wheel. We may have to sniff them out once we're in Detroit. Whatever methods or contacts you've got, we'll use." Hound gives a two-finger salute. Behind us, the car door opens and Ember slips into view, tugging at the corners of a new suit.
"Dressed for the party, boss. I'll handle Vulkan."
"Agreed. We'll just need some way to deal with Time Slip."
More silence as our resident Augment expert wallows in misery. Time Slip's power is a quirky one from what I understand. Potentially a game changer, it had a devastating effect on Danger's power, a premonition we now know is based on future possibilities and not simple instinct.
A barely audible suggestion fills the silence. "I think I can do it," Mom says.
Dad watches her as she fidgets, then he bends forward to kiss the top of her head. She's probably right. She can probably take care of quite a few of our problems. I'm just not sure if I want her to.
Chapter 37
FLAIL CHEST. FUCK. I've got flail chest.
Eric breathed deeply, as was his birthright according to Wikipedia. Testosterone during male puberty caused an expansion of shoulders, ribs, allowing men to draw in more oxygen, a resource with which he currently struggled. Especially since checking WebMD for his symptoms.
Flail Chest. Or maybe a panic attack. But definitely flail chest.
"Everything okay?" asked Charlotte...or, Mrs. Harrington, craning her neck to check the rearview mirror.
"I'm good." He wheezed in the middle of a breath roughly equivalent to a bong hit. Pain was becoming excruciating. Soon he'd be able to watch his chest collapse like a used balloon.
Spencer twisted in his seat. "We can pull over, just give the word."
Eric braved a smile and nodded at both of them, lingering on Char's worried look in the mirror. How long had he wanted to see those eyes open? Her slumbering features suddenly alive? A little glimpse while changing an IV bag or adjusting the little weather-proof tent he cobbled together to keep her safe and warm. He'd given so much to her.
"I'll be fine," he said and pretended to bury himself in his laptop.
Mrs. Harrington had the road to worry about, but Spencer kept an eye on him. An uncomfortably long time, it seemed. How long had they been friends? Not long in the grand scheme of high school and their separate post-grad hermitages but they'd been an instant match. A binary compliment. Until now, he never questioned their friendship.
"Hang in there, Jint." A light fist bump on his knee and Spencer turned around.
He'd really been looking forward to working with him. God, the rest of the team was such a buzz kill. He'd give his left nut to have the base back, but outside of thrilling hacker heroics, the place had been mind-numbingly dull. And with Spencer there, he'd hoped it would help boost his cred with the boss. Sure, Crimson was all thankful, and he'd gotten less scary since Killcreek. That was, if anything Spencer said about his childhood could be believed. But instead of helping, having the boss' son around had gotten him benched.
Eric shuttered the WebMD browser window and grabbed the tethered cellphone before it skidded off the seat. They'd been on the road five hours. In the lead was the tactical SUV with all the big guns. He was back here. At the kid table. Since when had he and Spencer switched places? Hell, the guy couldn't even buy his own beer. Not that he bought his own beer, either. Shit tasted like ear wax.
Another stabbing pain radiated down his side, and he yelped. All eyes on him once more. They could watch his chest shrivel like an emptied scrotum for all he cared.
"It's nothing. Keep driving." He swiped the bottle of Ass-prin out of the cup holder. Eating chalk would have been more pleasant, but they worked. He'd die without pain. That was good. But if he took too many, would he not notice at all? Would he look down and see a concave depression in his chest and die all surprised and confused?
Chroma: Are you there?
Oh right. He couldn't die. He had a reason to live.
Eric typed his response into the chat window. 3n1g|/|4: Barely hanging Chroma. You?
Chroma: Cramped, but good. What do you need? Careflight average twenty minutes. I can—
Her distress was palpable, and Eric hammered out a response before she could finish. I'll make it. Don't worry about me. I go down, the rest of the team falls apart. What's left of it, anyway. We can't have that, yet.
Chroma: —dispatch them now and classify you as critical, they'll be—Oh. Okay.
Things weren't all bad. While Spencer had been out doing his oh-so-awesome fieldwork, Char had opened her eyes. More beautiful than he could imagine. He didn't know why he got jealous watching Spencer hog all of meat-Charlotte's time. Besides, that was Mrs. Harrington, and it made stuff weird.
On the not-so-terrible scale, The Collective had brought large chunks of the digital world back online. Communication was restored, and miners were given priority on the data exchanges. Quite a few sites had been re-launched as well, especially those which had been early adopters of the cryptocurrency. Almost like nothing happened unless you were a corporate type. Xamse, the prick, was probably shitting himself.
Buy one of these. USB compatible.
Another message from Chroma and a browser window opened. Eric didn't understand what he was seeing, and when it finally sunk in, he slouched and smiled, forgetting the need to keep perfectly, ramrod straight. He swallowed the grunt of pain this time and felt pressure well behind his eyes.
She'd opened up a page for a heart monitor.
Thoughtful. UPS doesn't do drivebys.
You'll be in range of an Amazon facility with drone delivery in three point six hours. I can get it to you. I will get it to you.
She wasn't scary. She was sweet. Confused, but all she
wants it to help.
Better not. They see a drone, they'll think we're being followed.
But you are.
His mind raced. What had he missed? She'd said she would route his cell data through the wireless on board a passenger jet headed the opposite direction. She was brilliant but still a newb at much of this. Maybe it hadn't worked? No telling how many other Augments had flocked to the Collective. Vulkan was a heavy enough hitter alone with CM down. Battlecrow. Sparrowhawk. Atlas. Proton. Skybolt. Jesus fucking Christ.
I'll kill the connection and reboot. One sec.
No, wait! By me! I'm following you! :P
A wretched sigh of relief rattled out of his lungs.
Don't scare me like that.
Sorry. :(
He never should have taught her about emojis. It was one reason he used a vanilla text chat client. He never put up with anyone who didn't use them ironically. Though, with her, it was kinda cute.
"Anything in Detroit?" Spencer shouted over the seat back.
Guess Golden Boy's in charge now. Driving cross country on a hunch and a few possible matches out of hundreds of logged IPs. Crimson would have asked him to be more precise.
"Not yet. Still searching."
Chroma, sweetie, got anything?
I heard. BRB.
*Chroma has left the channel*
Weird. One day she'd been feeling her way around the servers at Whispering Pines and the next, soaring through cyberspace. How the fuck did that happen so fast? Just yesterday he watched her catch on to his tricks. She set up her own virtual workspace, mimicking his warez installs and Linux commands. The intuition of a psychic Augment had transferred into bits and bytes. She was nothing short of amazing.
*Chroma has joined the channel*
I need to request a file. What is FOIA?
Eric snorted and clenched his cheeks as pain rippled through his body. Like on the brink of societal collapse anyone is going to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request. Okay, she had a lot left to learn.
Fuck that. Show me.
Property records. Child's play, really. He understood how she might have a problem. This was more of a public records puzzle than a head-on hack. What was totally bonkers was how she'd gotten there and how fast.
From the Midwest Exchange, she'd sifted through billions of requests and traced their routes back to individual ports which matched with default settings on the miners. Ports cloaked behind hardware firewalls and routers. She'd walked in each gateway as though she had a skeleton key—and as if she'd passed through every single one in the same instant.
She'd transferred into a binary environment though she herself traipsed around like a quantum actor.
Couldn't be possible. Wasn't possible. Okay, maybe she'd settled into a Quantum system hooked online. Those were research only, clock hours highly monitored with their capabilities unknown or not fully realized.
No time for dissecting her genius. Time for a smash and grab on the City of Detroit. They had the best security money could buy circa 1999. Not only was their infrastructure antiquated but their record systems were a joke. Incomplete, a mix of scanned records, none of which had been properly OCRd. Surprising even the city could find anything in that bantha fodder.
Next, a trip through state and international business records. Shell companies were a joke. They played enough by the rules you could always track down the source if you knew where to look.
"Got it," he said, out loud.
:):):):)
"Harper Avenue and Van Dyke," Eric continued. "The whole block was purchased two years ago by a company called Revitalize. Either it's some poor schmuck's miner farm or our boss level."
Spencer hunched over the center console, smiling. He grabbed the car to car comms. "We got 'em!"
"10-9?" Hound's growl scratched over the airwaves.
"An address. In Detroit," said Spencer.
"Nice work." Crimson on the horn that time.
Spencer kept his goofy grin and held out his radio-clutching hand for a fist bump. Somebody was happy at least. Eric couldn't deny the bro love. Even if the "we" who found the lead had been him and his ghost in a Linux shell.
Another browser window opened, and he pulled away from Spencer. A satellite feed with a real-time image. What surprised him was the amount of green space. Open fields, grass pushing up broken pavement, and entire houses sporting trees through their roofs like alien chest bursters. A bizarre mix of civilization and natural space.
Images cycled through a separate window. An old theater, ragged with an acid wash coat of gilded frescoes, white plaster, and brick. A hungover vomit of deterioration which had traces of the party before the sickness. Enough traces Eric felt he could say it had probably been worth it.
Beautiful. Is this The Collective's home now?
Leave it to the disembodied girl raised in a torture chamber to see potential in the dilapidated mecca.
Don't think they have a home.
That's sad. Isn't it?
They'd had discussions like this before. Too deep and philosophical, he didn't feel ready to be anyone's tutor on home life. He'd had a stable family life, unlike Spencer. That hadn't been all that great what with his parents working all the time, and him having to dodge school then dodge work. The basement had been his home, as pathetic as that sounded. He knew he was a walking stereotype, but the fact was, he could unplug and place that home anywhere. A basement. A command center full of Augments. Maybe a rundown theater. As long as he could splice in the juice and siphon the wireless waves, it's all good.
I suppose. Some people can make a home wherever they need to.
The cursor blinked, long and steady, then raced ahead of the response. I like that :)
Another way he was finding he and Chroma so much alike. She'd become part of the strange hearth he carried with him from place to place. He wanted Spence to see the same thing again. Chroma, though, had given a sacrifice which neither Spencer or Mrs. Harrington understood.
Another chat message crawled across the screen. We should make our own home.
Eric looked at the pictures. A fucking dump. But those were old, long after the place had been abandoned. On the live satellite, he saw a new roof, a few generators, copious AC units, three phase electric with enough power to run a small city. The Collective would’ve had to have done some serious repairs to make the place habitable again. Their shell company showed a heavy issue of construction permits the previous year. Though, why had they relocated from their remote mountain to a major urban center in the United States? Too damn easy to get to once they were discovered.
Whatever their reasoning, he wanted to agree with her.
The team could use a new base.
No. I mean for us.
Chapter 38
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA to Detroit? Not a trip recommended in a shoe box on wheels. I have plenty of room, but even my non-existent ass is cramped and sore. We make stops along the way and spend one night at a motel, but otherwise, Hound sets a relentless pace.
Mom and I trade off driving while Eric remains at his digital post. I expected him to sleep more than he does. Eventually, I want to knock his ass out so he will. He keeps getting crankier as the miles add up, and I keep reminding myself he's in some serious pain.
Our route takes us through Wyoming. When my mind drifts to Killcreek, the front seat conversation does as well. Charlotte may have been erased irrevocably from Mom's hard drive, but they both experienced that place. She's still not ready to talk about it and Eric, maybe not as absorbed in his laptop as I previously thought, grunts his approval when we drop the subject.
My turn comes up at the wheel, and with the rearview mirror, I notice Eric keeps stealing glances at Mom. He's maybe not at the same level of acceptance about the switch. Could be he's scared she'll flip out and lobotomize us. Since the base, she hasn't shown any sign of powers. Might be a toss-up whether she's ready to use them on Time Slip or not when the time comes, but that suits me f
ine. I'd rather she didn't.
Halfway into day three of near nonstop driving, we reach Detroit city limits. It's one of the few places in the continental U.S. I've never seen. Once off the interstate, the broad streets feel empty. Enough abandoned space, I half expect to crest a hill and find a horde of zombies facing us.
This place has been devastated. Businesses sport more tags than actual paint, and empty houses have enough smoke damage to be paint. Random pockets of civilization pop up here and again, but even those show wear beyond their age.
"It's like a war zone," I say.
"Economic war zone," says Eric.
"What do you think the plan is?" I ask. "We just drive up, guns blazing?"
"We're headed to a motel off Canton," he replies. "A real dive, but it'll do."
I don't ask Eric how he knows this. Calculating our route or maybe eavesdropping on the lead car. I'm not too surprised when we make the turn onto the exact street he mentioned, yet another road veined with tar and lined by ruins. Across an open field stretches the shattered remnants of an industrial fortress. It leers over treetops with a toothless grin, block after block. The trees and undergrowth thicken, and it's lost.
Our motel is an anomaly. The sign, streaked and faded by the sun, fits in, but the building has a fresh coat of paint. So out of place among the ruins, empty fields, and sparse clapboard houses. We pull into the empty parking lot. Hound emerges from the SUV and circles around behind the building. A few minutes and he's back with a key. I roll down the window as he approaches.
"Up there," he points. "Be quick about it so's we aren't seen."
I check the Planet of the Apes set one more time. A few permanently parked cars a block back. No people.
He's gone before I can snark and he's headed up the steps with the rest of the lead car following behind. It is a messed-up sight. Dad, a hoodie stretched over his uniform and Ember ascending brazenly in full flame-colored regalia like an impudent sun. Hound's obviously miffed but at this point, who's going to arguing with her?