“Be pissed at me,” he said. “But I did what I had to do.” He shrugged. “I had orders. I hoped maybe I could talk some sense into you before you got yourself killed. But they weren’t going to risk you and the kid getting away. I was in a hard place. I couldn’t let you get away, and I couldn’t let them kill you. So I made a choice.”
He pressed her against him.
“You serve your country, right?” he said.
She strained and tried to break free of his grip, but he held her tight against him. The walls of the Dragonfly began to drift. Braden was spinning away from her.
“Braden...” she said.
The sight of him still drooping in his chair. The thought of him being taken to that institute by Asa. The man who had betrayed her twice. New strength surged in her. She could still save them. All she had to do was to knock the bastard down and get to another sedative pen.
“He’s going to be fine now,” said Asa. “They’re not going to—”
Val tried to head butt him, but as she did, her knees gave way. She planted her forehead in his chest instead of his face, and he let a surprised oooof.
“Dammit, Val,” he said. “Stop fighting.”
He helped her go to the floor without falling and sat down next to her, laying her head against his chest.
“They’re not going to hurt him at the Institute,” he said. “They’re just going to keep everyone safe from what he can do. They’re going to keep him safe. I hear they’re even looking for a cure.”
“Safe?” she said. “Cure?”
In her mind, she and Kim and Braden all walked along an unused railroad track that cut through the woods a mile behind their house. Kim was balanced on one of the rails like a tightrope walker, his arms outstretched for balance. Braden, who had been five at the time, was following behind his father, straddling the rail because he couldn’t quite balance yet. I’m doing it! he’d shouted, his eyes incandescent with glee.
Her head slid backwards against him so that she was looking up into Asa’s face and beyond it at the yellow overhead lights of the cargo bay.
“Do you... even have... wife?” she whispered, barely holding onto consciousness. “Daughter?”
“I did have a wife,” he said, running his fingers through her hair. “Karly left me six years ago. Took my daughter, Breanna, with her. Karly said she couldn’t stand the man I turned into after the war. After I started work with DHS. Fuck her, as far as I’m concerned. All I’ve ever done is serve my country. I do miss Breanna, though. She made me a better man.”
Val wanted to knock his hand away, but she could barely speak, let alone fight.
“And I still love you,” said Asa. “Always will. And I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”
He bent over to kiss her again. As his mouth touched hers, it occurred to Val that she could probably bite off his lips. With that thought, her eyes fell closed, and she slipped into darkness.
36
“Wait here,” said Marcus. Rough hands grasped Jessica’s shoulder and forced her down onto a couch with faux-leather upholstery.
“Hey!” shouted Merida as someone else did the same to her.
Marcus pulled the hood from Jessica’s head, grasping it hard enough that he pulled some of her hair with it. Jessica bit her tongue and tried to keep a straight face. She didn’t want him to know he had hurt her.
White light blinded her. She heard the footsteps of the two men who had brought them to this room. Then the sound of a door closing and locking.
“I’ve never wanted to die so much in my whole life,” said Merida. “Flying always got to me, but flying at top speed with a hood over my head...” She groaned. “I still feel like I’m going to puke. I just wish they’d shoot us and get it over with.”
“I’m glad you aren’t panicking,” said Jessica, rubbing her eyes. Her vision began to clear, and she took in their surroundings. Vinyl floor with an ugly green and red geometric pattern. Tile ceiling. Florescent lights. A security camera mounted in one corner near the ceiling. Bare, white cinderblock walls. No furniture except for a small chair against one wall and the two ugly vinyl couches that she and Jessica sat on. A metal door with no handle on this side—only a handprint scanner and a keypad mounted on the wall next to it. A light above the keypad glowed red.
“You think they’ll kill us?” Merida said hopefully. She cradled her head in her hands.
“Not before we tell them where the computer is,” said Jessica.
“So they’re going to torture us, then,” said Merida, a hint of fear now in her voice.
“No,” said Jessica. She scrubbed her eyes again. “I don’t think.”
She glanced up at the security camera and then at the door, thinking. Marcus had told her that he had a way of getting information.
“He said it wouldn’t hurt, whatever they did,” she said finally.
“Sure,” said Merida. She crossed the room and sat down next to Jessica. She lay her head on her shoulder and took her hand. “I’ll bet they rip out our fingernails or something.”
“I have a feeling they won’t have to do anything like that,” Jessica said. “Remember what I told you about—”
But a beep from the keypad next to the door interrupted her. The door swung open, and three people entered along with a pair of buzzing drones. Captain Marcus came first with his smug smile. He still had that ridiculous pistol hanging from his thigh. Next came a young man wearing a blue jumpsuit, his black hair tousled and hanging over his eyes, his skin pale. The drones hovered on either side of him as he stepped through the door slowly. Last came a woman whom Jessica recognized immediately. Senator Nancy Jones-McMartin.
(D) Connecticut, Jessica added in her head.
Jones-McMartin, champion of women, champion of minorities, champion of the oppressed. Lover of animals. Foreign policy hawk. One of the primary voices behind the invasions of Ghana, Nigeria, and Iran. SRP enforcer.
“Over here,” said Marcus. He directed the guy in the jumpsuit toward a metal and plastic chair. The drones glided over to the couches where Jessica and Merida sat and landed on end tables. Sedative dart guns emerged from doors on top of the drones and pointed toward not toward them, but at the guy as he sat down in the chair.
“Hello, Ms. Brantley,” said the senator, closing the door behind her. The keypad made another beep, and the light turned red again.
Jessica looked at her.
“Captain Marcus tells me that you’ve stolen—”
“She didn’t steal a damn thing,” said Merida, her voice quavering.
Jones-McMartin looked at Merida. The senator’s eyebrows arched in amusement.
“Captain Marcus tells me that you acquired a computer with classified information on it,” she said.
“Yeah, well,” said Merida, bobbing her head as she spoke. She shifted forward in her seat. “We already told someone where it is, and you’ll never get it back.”
“Merida,” said Jessica.
But Merida was just getting fired up. “And with any luck, that information is already out there for everyone to—”
Marcus cut her off. “Just shut up. Quit embarrassing yourself.”
Merida’s head turned slowly toward him, her eyes wide as if the indignity of being interrupted had shocked her.
“You’re still wearing that compensator pistol, huh?” she said. “All that thing does is tell everybody that you ain’t got shit where it counts.”
Marcus smiled.
“If you weren’t such a pain in the ass,” he said, “I’d show you what I’ve got.” He licked his lips.
Merida laughed. “A limp noodle? You know, dicks are ugly. They look like a squid with no tentacles—”
“That’s enough,” said Jones-McMartin.
Merida continued to stare at Marcus, but she kept her mouth shut.
“Ms. Brantley,” said the senator. “I’m sure you think you’re some kind of brave leaker. The new Deep Throat. E
dward Snowden. Michael Patrelli. Right?” She smiled, and Jessica thought of all the times she had seen the woman in news footage, arguing with some other politician about healthcare or taxation. Jessica had often admired her. Her grit. Her principles.
“A brave journalist about to expose the Greatest Conspiracy Ever, or something like that,” she continued. “But you have to understand something.” She crouched with her back against the wall like a teacher coming down to a kindergartener’s level. “Safe Reproductive Practices might have come about through some shady dealings. The people who brought it about, forced it through—maybe they were Very Bad People. I can definitely tell you that Susan Wade wasn’t an angel. And Reginald Samford was a steaming pile of dog shit. But SRP itself... You can’t tell me you don’t think it’s the best thing to happen to women—to humanity—since the pill.”
She clasped her hands together and shook them, begging Jessica to see reason.
“I can tell that you’re conflicted,” she said. “Just like I was when I found out about this. But forget about the creators and the ones who implemented it. Just think about the idea of Safe Reproduction. The idea is better than the people who first had it.”
She was right. Jessica knew that she was right. An idea could be better than the people who came up with it. SRP was the cornerstone of the modern world, a better world. But not a perfect world. She thought of Jonas Freeman and his son. Clone pedophilia. The steady increase in rape over the last few decades.
“Senator Jones-McMartin,” she said finally. “How do you think the American public will react when they find out that the U.S. government conspired to infect them with a virus that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of deformities, so that it could seize control over women’s bodies?”
“The people who are alive today? I imagine they’ll be grateful. I certainly am. How many people do you know who would want to go back to the way things were before? Women are free. The children who are born are all wanted. Cared for.”
“Do you believe there is a connection between the original Samford Virus and the so-called Samford-2 virus that has—”
Jones-McMartin laughed and stood. “This isn’t a press conference, Ms. Brantley.”
But Jessica pressed on. “—has already killed over ten thousand people in the global south?”
“Francis is going to find out where you hid the computer.”
“Will you please answer my question, Senator?”
Jones-McMartin ignored this. She nodded toward the guy in the jumpsuit. “I assume you’ve read the information on the computer and understand what Francis can do?”
But before Jessica could answer, Francis spoke. “She has.” His voice was low, half-whispered.
Jessica turned to look at him. He sat in the chair with his hands on the armrests, his eyes fixed on the floor. Those eyes belonged to someone who dealt with depression. Vacant, dark circles, resigned to fate. Jessica had seen that look a hundred times in her father before he died of cancer.
If you’re reading my mind, Jessica thought, hoping he could hear, then please listen to me. You don’t have to help them. If I can get out of here, then the information on that computer can help me shut this place down and set you free.
“Francis?” said Jones-McMartin. “Where is it?”
Please, thought Jessica, willing Francis to hear her. She looked at him, but he went on staring at the floor. Please don’t do this.
No one spoke. Marcus stood facing Francis, his arms crossed. The air whistled lightly through his nostrils as he breathed. Merida tapped her foot on the floor. The senator leaned against the wall next to the door, her hands laced together in front of her.
Finally, Francis’ voice spoke in her head. It made Jessica jump.
I see a dark room with a lot of metal equipment in it, the voice said. It’s... It’s a restaurant. The back of a restaurant. She put the computer—inside an oven?
It probably wouldn’t do any good, but Jessica tried to force herself to think about anything except the computer. She pictured her desk at work. Her motorcycle. Mount Rushmore. A deck of cards. The flame of a candle. The lines of Merida’s stomach.
“I think they might have destroyed the computer,” he said out loud.
Jessica’s heart leaped. Was he going to lie for her? Or was she actually obstructing him?
“What?” said Jones-McMartin, suspicion in her voice.
Marcus snorted. “No, they didn’t.”
“No, wait,” said Francis. Still staring at the floor, he raised his hand in a hold-on-a-minute gesture. “No, there it is.”
Jessica dropped her head.
No, please, she thought. Why would you help them? That computer could set you free.
You think they’d ever let people like me go free?
He had a point, and Jessica couldn’t hide that thought from him.
They sent men to my mother’s house. If I help them, they won’t hurt her. And the senator promised that if I give them everything, she’ll let me see my mother again.
But—
And I know she’s not lying. I can tell when people are lying.
“The computer is in an oven,” said Francis. “You have to take the oven apart. She hid it inside. Not where you cook things. In the guts of it.”
Merida put her head back and let out a loud, obnoxious laugh.
“We didn’t stick the computer in an oven. Do you think we’re idiots?” She looked at Marcus, putting on a smirk. “I think your mind-reader is broken. So he and your dick have something in common.”
Oh, Merida, thought Jessica, her heart sinking. You’re a terrible poker player.
Jones-McMartin ignored Merida’s outburst. “Anything else?” she said.
Francis looked up for the first time since he’d sat down. His eyes focused on the senator, almost pleading with her. “That’s it. That’s where the computer is. You can go and get it.”
“Did they tell anyone else about it?” said the senator.
“No,” said Francis. “The women at the reproduction place are still the only other ones who know about it.”
The senator turned to Marcus. “Wait until early morning to go and get it.”
Marcus nodded.
“Can I see her now?” said Francis, a hopeful lift in his voice.
But the senator ignored this. “Take him back to his cell,” she said.
Francis’s voice rose another notch, panic replacing the hope. “Can I see her now?”
Then something changed in the room. Jessica’s skin tingled a little, and she heard a tiny buzzing noise. At first, she thought it was more drones out in the hallway, but before long she understood. It was in her head.
Francis and the senator went on looking at one another. Jessica thought she could feel the energy in every molecule of air around her. Even the walls seemed about to vibrate with the tension.
“Take it down a few clicks, Francis,” Jones-McMartin said after a moment. “Those drones are ready to put you out, and my men will kill your sweet momma if they don’t hear from me soon.”
For a second, the feeling in the air that something was about to explode increased, but then it died like a hologram fading when the projector had been turned off.
“What the hell,” whispered Merida.
“Thanks for your cooperation,” said Jones-McMartin, turning toward the door to scan her handprint. “Once we have the computer back, we’ll talk about letting you go home.”
“I’m not an idiot,” said Jessica. “You’re not going to let us go home.”
The senator met her gaze. “I’m not some monster out to imprison people,” she said. “I’m not trying to take over the world. I’m just trying to save it from people like you who want to tear down everything we’ve been building for the last seventy years.”
Jessica laughed. She couldn’t help it. She was probably going to die in this place, but she couldn’t stop herself from laughing at
the woman’s sincerity. Unlike most politicians, the senator actually seemed to buy the words that came out of her mouth.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Jessica said.
But the senator turned and scanned her handprint. “Captain,” she said.
“Let’s go,” said Marcus.
The drones’ propellers whirled to life. The two of them rose from the tables and hovered.
“You told me that you might let me see her,” said Francis, who rose to his feet. “But now you’ve changed your mind. I gave you what you wanted.”
“We’ll talk about it,” said Jones-McMartin, but Jessica didn’t have to be a telepath to know she didn’t have any intention of talking about it.
The drones took up positions on either side of Francis’s head as he and Marcus crossed the room. His head drooping and his shoulders slumped, he dragged his feet across the tile floor as they headed toward the door. Jessica might have felt sorry the kid, but all she wanted to do was to kick his shins as he shuffled by.
“Wait,” he said, stopping right in front of her.
“Come on,” said Marcus, jabbing him in the back with his finger.
But Francis put up a hand.
“No, wait,” he said. “There’s something else.”
No, thought Jessica. She could almost feel him inside her head, and she knew before he said it where he had gone, what he had found. Don’t do this. They aren’t going to let you see her. It doesn’t matter what you give them. You know that.
The drones buzzed. Jones-McMartin stood in the open door, one hand on the frame, and looked mildly back at him.
“You’ve already told us where the computer is,” she said. “What more—”
“Wait,” said Francis, waving a hand at her. He closed his eyes.
Please, God, thought Jessica. Please, kid. Don’t do this. Think about somebody besides yourself. Please.
Francis opened his eyes and raised his head, looking right at Jessica.
I’m sorry, his voice said in her head. But I have to see her. I have to know that she’s safe.
“There’s a baby,” he said.
37
The Way Out Page 20