He stood over the blacked-out agent and lifted the man’s left arm. Tracing his finger over the agent’s skin, he felt the Chip beneath the surface. With the mirror shard, he dug into the man and freed the device from the agent’s arm. “I’m sorry, buddy, but I’ve got to use this to get the hell out of here.” Nick wiped the blood and torn tissue from the Chip. “I bet they can make you a temporary comm card to help you out, though.”
Thirty-Six
James found the destroyed husks of mangled wind turbines strewn across the burned ground like the dry and burned bones of fallen giants. No corpses or signs that any human life had been lost here remained. Not so much as a footprint preserved in the dirt collected dust as the wind blew over the vast expanse. He had never learned the name of the clone he and Nick had rescued.
No, they hadn’t truly rescued the poor man.
He had already lost too much blood by the time the paramedics got to him, stabbing him with IVs full of synthetic blood and trying to pump life back into the man’s chest. The clone was another casualty inflicted by their creators. Who were these men that acted like gods, casually creating life and destroying it on a whim?
Kicking at the splayed wires protruding out of a busted holodisplay unit, James rubbed the small incision on his arm. A thick layer of skin sealant kept the fresh wound closed, but the forged Chip underneath his skin itched and throbbed. The men, the coyotes as they were called, promised him they would help him across the border for a price. It had taken every last credit on the forged comm card that Hector had provided for him to convince the coyotes to help. They promised the falsified Chip would be good enough for a cursory ID check once in America, and it might allow him somewhat reliable access to the Net as well as syncing with his AR lenses. He had been too fearful to turn on the Chip’s Net access yet, paranoid that doing so would send the authorities speeding his way to arrest someone with a counterfeit Chip.
He climbed into Adriana’s humming old Jeep. With a couple of quick gestures, he set the vehicle’s destination back to Juarez. He didn’t know what he had hoped to find in the ruins of Adriana’s facilities. Nick’s words about clinging to a shred of optimism or hope had prompted him to return, even as his inner voice told him that he would find no survivors, no other clones hiding in the wreckage and awaiting a savior.
James had been right; Nick was wrong.
This world offered no room for trite concepts like optimism and hope. Only brutal survival.
For the rest of the evening, James sat at the bar of El Pescado Feliz sipping water and crunching on chips. He probed a plate of chicken bathed in a warm cheese sauce and rice with his fork. He struggled to stomach the food as he waited for the coyote who had promised to meet him there before their flight across the border. Behind the bar, a holodisplay projected the Mexico versus United States soccer game, aired by an American network. A news bulletin broke across the projection. It declared that a terrorist had been sighted illegally crossing the border from Mexico. He fought against the urge to gasp in shock as he saw Nick, dressed in a Border Patrol uniform, flee from the Customs and Border Patrol facility that connected Juarez to the States, while Spanish subtitles flowed beneath. The talking head in the projection claimed that authorities wanted the man in the security footage for his involvement in a recent terrorist attack on the Fresh Winds turbine manufacturing facility.
In his head, James cursed at the holodisplay. He glanced around to ensure that no one else watched or noticed the striking resemblance to the man on the display and himself. Either way, his mind raced, knowing his need to find Nick was now more urgent. James wondered if Nick knew that his own government wanted him.
James would need to make his way to Maryland as swiftly as possible. He took another sip of water, curious who in the world was not looking to capture them.
A short, thin man sidled up to the bar next to him. He ordered a shot of tequila and licked his cracked lips. “James?”
James nodded.
Taking the shot, the man said, “Ven conmigo.”
Exiting out into the bustling street, James dodged street vendors and tourists as he followed the coyote. Shadows and barred windows replaced the bright colors and friendly holograms that danced around the tourist traps as they departed from the crowds toward the edge of the city. They joined up with a group of others determined to cross. A woman held a baby in her arms. She cooed to quiet the child as a grizzled man held the hands of two younger boys. Several more men and women milled around, arms folded or holding onto someone near them. A truck hummed up to them, its lights off. One of the coyotes pulled open the door to the truck and ushered the group in.
“How the hell are you going to get this across the border?” James said, gesturing at the large vehicle as he got in.
The man ignored the inquiry as he slammed the door shut. As it lurched forward, the group fell into each other, jostled by the bumpy drive. James guessed they had left the city streets. When they came to a halt several hours later, his suspicions proved true. Stars filled the cloudless sky above them as the nervous passengers filed out. The coyotes led them to the edge of a river that rushed before them like a moving shadow, ominous and black in the night.
“Ven conmigo.” One of the coyotes led them to the edge of the river. He scrounged around by the muddy bank until he unburied a rope from the damp soil. As he pulled it taut, the rope surfaced from the water, secured to the opposite bank as well. The man waved the group toward him. One of the coyotes grabbed the rope, pulling hand over hand through the rapids toward the other shore. The woman with the baby protested, arguing with one of the coyotes. She held out her baby and gestured wildly at the river, then back to the child. Tears streamed down her face as she yelled in Spanish. James had trouble understanding her words but comprehended the intent of her argument.
As she wailed, one of the coyotes brandished a pistol and pointed it at the woman’s face. He spoke in trenchant words, his eyes narrowed. James stepped up to the man and motioned for him to lower the weapon. Placing his hand on the woman’s shoulder, he spoke. “I’ll help you. I’ll make sure you two get across.”
Her lip quivered as her eyebrows pressed together. “Thank you.” Her words came out with a stilted accent and a brief glimmer of sincere gratitude appeared in her eyes. “Thank you.”
“We’ve haven’t gotten across yet,” he said, walking beside her to the edge of the river.
Several others waded through, fighting for purchase as they pressed against the current and clung to the line.
James took his shirt off and fashioned it into a harness across his chest. He reached out toward the woman’s infant. “May I?”
Reluctantly, she nodded. Her teeth were chattering as James took the child and tied him into the makeshift harness. He wrapped one arm around the babe as he floated himself on his back. He pulled himself with the one free hand and inched his other up the rope, his arm securing the child against any errant rapids. The woman followed, her eyes frozen on her baby, her expression pitiful as she pulled herself along. Someone cried out and he twisted his head. They watched one of the others carried away by the current, his arms flailing. Cries from the witnesses followed as the man’s head disappeared under the water. The coyotes cursed, urging them onward.
On the other side, two coyotes yelled at one of the younger men. James made out only a few of the words but knew enough to realize they demanded more money. When their victim could not produce any, one of the coyotes squeezed the trigger of his pistol and the young man’s body slumped into the dirt.
They approached him next, one pressing his pistol against James’s forehead and the other grabbing the clone’s arms behind his back. He did not protest as the man’s voice boomed. He had no more money to give the men.
In one fluid movement, he ducked down and twisted out of his captor’s arms. He shot a fist upward into the other coyote’s arm and stole the pistol from the man’s grip. James pulled the trigger as he leveled the gun at another man befor
e swiveling around to shoot the remaining coyote.
With both men dispatched, James strode to the edge of the river and carefully aimed at the two coyotes still crossing the river behind the last stragglers. They had seen what had happened and struggled for their own weapons as he keyed in on them with his implanted AR lenses’ night vision. After two quick shots, both coyotes’ bodies floated down the river, swept away in the dark current.
No, there was no room for optimism and hope in this world. But he had not been bred to be optimistic. He hadn’t been genetically engineered to wear a smile or tell a joke or embrace a friend in a loving hug.
He had been designed, grown, and trained as a killer. A soldier. A survivor.
Thirty-Seven
Nick placed his order on the holoscreen at his greasy table at a diner outside of Blacksburg, Virginia. His stomach churned, not out of hunger but with the knowledge of how close he was to DC, how close he was to seeing Kelsey. He didn’t dare call her, worried what would happen if a cybersecurity algorithm picked up his voice and name. If government spooks had planned on taking him captive back in Texas, he feared that they would be scouring the Net to locate him. His desire to see Kelsey, to make contact with her again, battled with the likelihood that someone, somewhere kept tabs on her, waiting to see if he would attempt to make contact with her.
He knew the stupidest thing he could do would be to run straight to her arms, but that was exactly what he wanted to do. At least by staying off the Net, the timing of his visit would be a surprise.
Despite the years he had spent buried underground and the miles that he had traveled between his abduction and now, Kelsey remained constant in his mind, a lighthouse piercing the choking fog, guiding him home. If nothing else, before they stole him away from the world again, he could see her, apologize for his absence, tell his story. She could do with it what she wanted, but she deserved to know that he had never run away from her, never abandoned her by choice.
“Boy, you’re looking sad. Thinking about that girl again?” The truck operator squeezed into the booth and set his bulbous arms on the table.
“Yes, sir. Can’t wait to see her.”
Hitchhiking toward the East Coast, Nick had been lucky to be picked up by Terrence. The man spent his lonely time on the road guiding a convoy of self-driving semi-trucks to ship goods across the country. He ensured that the trucks remained in good operating conditions and no one vandalized or tried to steal from the vehicles. A side-effect of his job was his incessant need to chatter when joined by a real, live human companion. Fortunately, this also meant Terrence hadn’t interrogated Nick too harshly, merely asking him where he wanted to go and why. Nick had claimed he was a Natural who’d given up his Chip and in turn, his fiancée had given him up. He had told Terrence that he’d realized he had made the wrong decision and, broke and destitute, wanted to “do right by his woman,” as Terrence had later put it.
In those rare times he wasn’t talking, Terrence put on one of his Western holofilms, filling the cab with old-fashioned gun-toting cowboys and marauding Indians.
“At this rate, I’ll be able to get you close to DC by sunset. Are you going to do anything about that dirty getup?” Terrence indicated the ragged clothing Nick had put back on after his escape from the border agents’ facility.
He had at least possessed the common sense to realize hitchhiking around as an AWOL Border Patrol agent would evoke more suspicion than wearing a uniform consisting of stained armpits and body odor.
“Don’t have a change of clothes.” He selected a cheeseburger and fries combo. He would hardly be able to eat the meal, though. His thoughts flitted back to the counterfeit comm card in his pocket that Hector had given him. The universal credits associated with the card were dwindling, and if he didn’t find Kelsey tonight, he wasn’t sure where he would go. He didn’t have enough to afford any kind of lodging on his own. At best, he would be joining the ranks of the homeless, wandering DC and holing up in the parks and under bridges for the night. He already looked and smelled the part.
“The least you can do is shave.” Terrence wiped his nose with the back of his hand and sniffled. “You ought to take a shower or something, too. You’re ripe enough I can smell you through this cold. That’s not a good sign.”
The corner of Nick’s mouth twitched up into a slight smile. “That’s the least of my worries right now.”
“Ah, your woman will take you back. If you care about her, it’ll show through all that dirt and grime,” Terrence said, misinterpreting his statement.
As the autoserver bot brought their food to the table, Nick noticed an elderly woman gaping at him. Her eyes squinted under her wrinkled brow. He stared back until she turned away. She seemed to confer with the wizened man seated across the booth from her. Making no attempt to appear inconspicuous, the old man looked straight at Nick. Fear boiled up in him as he noticed others whispering. He had learned to trust his paranoia and it nagged at him now.
“Ah, I’m feeling kind of sick,” he said as he held his stomach. Can we hit the road? Take the food to go, maybe? Watch The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly?”
“If you’re feeling sick, maybe you should visit the bathroom for a bit.”
Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. “No, it’s not like that. How about this? You go get the trucks revved up and ready to go, and I’ll take care of the food. I’ll even shave, clean up a bit.”
Terrence frowned but gave a reluctant nod. “All right, all right. If that’s what you think will make you feel better...”
“It will,” Nick said, trying to remain calm as the older couple stared at him.
Heaving himself up from the table, Terrence scooped up the food on their paper trays. “There’s no need for you to pay for my food.”
“Ah, please, it’s the least I can do.” Nick knew the elderly couple suspected something now. The woman seemed to be making a call on her receiver. She cupped her hand over her mouth as if that would conceal her intentions. If she called the police, it wouldn’t take long for them to locate him and he needed a way to throw them off his trail. “Please, I’ll take care of the check. You go get the trucks ready.”
Terrence held up his hands. “That’s an awfully kind gesture.” He winked. “Now, you go get yourself fancied up for your lady.”
After the truck operator exited the roadside diner, Nick noticed the gray-haired woman no longer talked through her receiver. She stood up with a fire in her eyes that contrasted her gnarled knuckles, drooping nose and skeletal frame. “Young man, where did you come from?”
He waved his comm card across the screen and ensured that the payment went through. The holoscreen beeped, confirming and recording his payment along with his comm card identification. “I beg your pardon?”
“Did you come from Texas by any chance?”
His heart thudding in his chest, his muscles tensing, he shook his head. “Oh, no. What would you give you that idea?”
She leaned in, her breath stinking of onions and coffee. “You look an awful lot like that terrorist I saw on the news streams.”
“Terrorist?” He placed his hand over his chest and forced a guffaw. “Not me. No way.”
“That’s all well and good, but I suggest you wait around. The police are on their way, and if you go a-running, that won’t look too good on your behalf.” She closed one eye, staring hard at him again, clicking her tongue. “You look an awful lot like that terrorist.”
As she said the words, the sounds of silverware clinking against plates ceased. Other diners turned, a couple with gaping mouths, some chewing with open mouths like dumb cattle, and a few standing up in a show of moral support for the older woman.
“I’m no terrorist,” he said. Even so, he half-jogged to the exit. The woman yelled after him, calling for him to stop.
“He used a comm card at that table. Tell the police! I saw him use a comm card.” A voice called out as the glass door closed behind him.
Another man cha
sed after, his arms outstretched, ready to dive in for a tackle. Nick dodged his pursuer. The man rolled to the ground and recovered, getting up to one knee. Nick swung at the attacker. The punch sent the vigilante sprawling across the parking lot.
Shocked faces pressed up against the windows of the diner as Nick sprinted for the lead truck in Terrence’s convoy. He yanked the door open and lunged into the cabin. After pulling out his comm card, he stuffed it into the glove box.
“What’s up, buddy?” Terrence asked. “What’s going on?”
“I’m real sorry about this. You’ve been a great guy, a tremendous help, and I owe you my life.”
Terrence scooted backward in his seat, his eyes widening. “You’re scaring me.”
“Can you head back south? Go on Seventy-Seven to Charlotte or something?”
“You know I can’t do that, buddy. Got a load to deliver and I don’t got the time to take you to Charlotte. Besides, I thought your ol’ lady was in DC.”
Nick frowned. “I was afraid you would say that.” He jumped at Terrence and punched the man square in the temple.
The blow knocked the operator into the driver’s side window. He slumped into the seat, his eyes closed and his massive chest rising and falling slowly.
Resetting the lead truck’s destination, Nick sent the truck toward Charlotte. He checked once more to make sure the comm card sat in the glove box. As the truck lumbered out of the rest stop and toward the highway, he waited until the passenger side was obscured from the diner’s view. He opened the door, then tucked and rolled down the embankment next to the road. He crawled in the ditch as all five trucks in the convoy drove past, the computer systems unaware that their protector and operator could use a tune-up himself.
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