“We’ve got bigger problems.”
In sync, Truby and Zedd’s BioID alert sounded repeating strict instructions to continue to follow water rationing guidelines for their zone.
“We can be tracked. I haven’t been able to disable these things,” said Zedd, avoiding Truby’s pointed gaze.
“That didn’t seem to bother you before,” she snapped.
She’d given a lot of thought to her theory that they were under house arrest like she was. If Zedd wasn’t, then he would have been trackable through his BioID. Why had Hector and Cadence said he was off the grid if he wasn’t, or had he been? The questions only mounted.
“Just fix the damn car, Zero!” Hector sat on a stool. Vintage cars weren’t his specialty.
“You fix the damn car, Thor!” Zedd fired back, his mood shirt changing from yellow to flashing red lights.
It was the third day of the GSC global state of emergency. Tempers flaring, the love trio had officially busted up. Zedd had become the outsider the day he ditched the rest of them to go off on his own. Trusting nothing and no one, Truby determined it was time to leave. She didn’t know how or why, she just felt it in her bones.
Catching Hector holding his BioID wrist under an armpit again, she crossed her own arms, probing Hector with an evil eye. He had a secret.
“Engineers do it better. Right, Hector?”
___
Truby crept up to the taser-emitting tree on the edge of the Old Faithful Inn property for a second time in the same week, heart pounding. It was less worry about the potential shock, nasty as it was, than that it might throw her into another flashback. From the way she felt when a flashback was over, she surmised she didn’t black out but went into a trancelike state as if having a small seizure. Being helpless and vulnerable even for a second was not an option this far in. To distract the emotional half of her brain, she analyzed Hector, Zedd, and Cadence’s interaction at the Inn an hour earlier.
“Global Security would love to recruit you, if they could find you.” Zedd slapped Hector on the back, both behind the Inn bar.
Cadence and Truby sat on bar stools on the opposite side, their wrists extended as Hector incapacitated their BioIDs with an electromagnetic pulse. Hector wasn’t buying Zedd’s friendly overture.
“So you disabled Zedd’s BioID before he went to the Grand Can—Reservoir,” stated Truby trying to make sense of it.
“He wasn’t supposed to ditch us.” Cadence wouldn’t look at either of them.
“I wasn’t sure it actually worked,” Hector defended himself.
“We do what we gotta do,” countered Zedd.
Truby cut the pending argument short, “How sure are you these are fully disabled?”
She was about to find out. Just get it over. Truby looked around her. It was another gorgeous day. Tall grasses, birds chirping, sunny skies, and a gentle breeze. Did anyone need more? Freedom!
She squeezed her eyes shut, let out a little war cry and threw her arm into the laser’s path. Nothing. Eyes open this time, she did it again. Nothing.
Relief flooded her being. She was free! Truby’s body spasmed not into a seizure, but a spontaneous happy dance.
“That’s much nicer than the way I found you last time,” said Rose.
“You were looking?”
“My gift. I find things, mostly people.”
Truby wasn’t going to squander the opportunity. “So Pete says you two go way back. How far back does a seven-year-old go?”
Tinkling laughter trailed after the child, her long dark hair blowing in the wind as she looked back, daring Truby to keep up.
___
Soaking up the sun, Pete lazily smoked his Cuban in a folding outdoor lounge chair. Zedd and Hector set up fireworks rocket launchers near the fence. Cadence removed fuse covers while Rose assisted Truby by holding a sunlight reflector as she logged B-roll video.
“If you can’t beat ‘em, smoke ‘em,” puffed Pete
“Pete, you— We made friends with Cuba back in ’16,” said Zedd. He kept turning his back to Truby’s video camera as she recorded the event.
“Friendly Cuban cigars aren’t as good as unfriendly ones,” said Pete. “Someone please explain.”
“Once the doors to the cookie jar were unlocked, to corporations that is, Monsanto peddled genetic modifications that would produce a higher yielding, more profitable crop, negatively impacting the tobacco’s flavor,” offered Cadence.
Hector lifted a hand for a high-five, “Science! I knew there was hope for you yet!”
Cadence gave him a dirty look instead.
Pete checked his timepiece attached to a leather strap buckled to his wrist, a regular watch.
“You have approximately ninety seconds, gentlemen and ladies. Make it count!”
“Pete, you’re up!” Truby called out.
Everyone got into position.
Zedd warned, “They’ll know we shot them down.”
“We’ll be long gone,” said Rose.
“We?” Truby lifted her video camera.
Pete pulled hard on his fat cigar, stoking the smoldering embers on the other end. On schedule, two surveillance gliders sailed toward Old Faithful’s Inn.
“Go! Go! Go! Go!” Zedd and Hector commanded.
Pete and Cadence swiftly lit the fuses of the fireworks rockets in the PVC pipe launchers Hector and Zedd had fashioned out of scrap plumbing supplies from another shed. Next to them, four more rocket launchers attached to wooden stakes jammed into the Earth stood ready in case the first two missed.
“Come on, you pieces of crap!” Zedd rumbled impatiently.
Hector and Zedd each held a rocket launcher on a shoulder taking aim, simultaneously tracking the gliders’ path. There was no trigger. They were at the mercy of the fuse to set off the firework.
Truby slowed her breathing to steady herself as she skillfully recorded every second, moving around discreetly to capture various camera angles. She knew the odds were stacked against them. They were more likely to be imprisoned for attempted sabotage to government property. Except for the sound of burning fuses, no one dared say another word.
A wobbly whizzing sound, then another. Zedd and Hector both missed the surveillance gliders with their fireworks rocket launchers. Truby was shocked when she turned the camera right to see that Rose had already lit the rockets on stakes in the viewfinder. Pulling the last makeshift rocket launcher out of the ground, Rose took aim.
Whatever deal she had with the Universe brought down the glider farthest away from them with a loud thud.
CHAPTER 36
Truby dumped her overstuffed backpack’s contents onto her unmade bed, repacking it a third time. This time the only item of clothing she would take was a sweatshirt to wrap around her video camera as protective padding. If she wasn’t arrested on the way to New Las Vegas, she would surely be caught trying to sneak into the city. Her fate and possibly more was going to be revealed in less than thirty-six hours.
Truby had no idea what to expect. It was highly peculiar that PNN had not shown any footage of the ruined city in the last three days. Journalism, as far back as she could remember, was about selling hype and fear. They used to call it yellow journalism; now it was the norm.
Somewhere, someone was in control of this operation. How much preplanning and whose agendas were being served were the facts she’d have to dig for. Hopefully, she wasn’t digging her own grave.
Truby pulled a rusted red Radio Flyer wagon sitting by the door in front of her desk. A hologram of Hemmy playing baseball looped above her computer. Truby picked the baseball off her cluttered desk, tossing it a few times between her hands.
Backing up almost to the wall, “This one is for you!” She wound up her pitch, her arm swinging around to release the ball.
Truby barely stopped in time at the explosion of light and sound that filled the entire wall behind her desk. A cacophony of crashing water meeting twisted metal replaced the image of the little girl, follow
ed by raging, debris-filled water. The rubble swirled over an illusory waterfall edge into a pool below to form words.
Truby read them aloud as they took shape: “Detecting unusual activity. Sneaking off to Mountain Pass again? It will cost you. Contact me A.S.A.P.”
“A-SAP, huh?” She angrily leaned back, cocked the hammer, releasing her bullet with everything she had. The baseball hit its target, her aim true. Smashed computer pieces and parts flew across the room. The sound of rushing water was gone and so was Hemmy’s image—forever.
Truby hurriedly filled the antique wagon with the largest computer remnants, personal items, drives, files—everything she wasn’t taking with her. She ran out the door without shutting it, much less locking it, dragging the loaded wagon across the property toward a small bonfire burning in the center of the Gritt camp.
Truby looked around in surprise. Not only was the bonfire unexpected, but the camp itself was also bustling with activity. Off-gridders ran from shelter to shelter carrying armfuls of stuff.
As Truby tossed the contents of her wagon into the flames, a few off-gridders came by to chuck various items from clothing to objects whose purpose was unclear. “This fire is illegal. Going some— Hello?”
None of Pete’s guests would acknowledge her presence. Becoming frustrated, Truby looked around the camp for a more familiar face. By now, they were all looking sort of familiar. That’s when she spotted the impeccably pressed uniform on the other side of camp. She was about to accost Pete when she saw him let go of Rose’s hand to greet and hug a pretty woman.
A few years older than Truby, she had long, wavy black hair that spilled over bare shoulders and full breasts that supported a strapless maxi-dress. Truby watched in fascination. If she had to guess, Pete and the woman went “way back.”
___
“Wanna bet? Let me try before you shoot me down,” said Hector.
In the service shed, a gutted glider splayed out on the ground like a corpse next to Zedd’s flying vehicle. Hector and Zedd each held tools pointed at one another.
“What shall we wager? Me?” flirted Cadence sitting in the vehicle.
“Cadence it is!” Zedd jumped at the chance. In his state, he’d jump just about anyone or anything.
Truby thought Cadence must be trying to get back in their good graces, or, she wanted something, probably both. So much for feminism.
“Need I remind you that if anything is to be shot down, Rose is your girl,” said Truby.
“If you want to fall out of the sky, go ahead and be my guest,” Zedd toyed with Hector’s inexperience.
Truby tossed her backpack onto Cadence’s lap, “Put a bow on her, boys. We leave in five.”
“What about the bet?” taunted Cadence.
Zedd at the controls, Truby, Hector and Cadence were in the air over the off-gridder camp. Shooting down only one glider, Truby had vetoed Hector’s proposal to fly a second vehicle they were able to jumpstart without necessary replacement parts. It was too dangerous.
Down below, campers, Pete, his woman friend, and Rose waved as the flying vehicle dipped a wing to circle the camp, testing its airworthiness more than to say goodbye.
“I hope she has a plan,” said Pete looking skyward.
“Don’t worry. The Dalai Lama said the world would be saved by women,” Rose stated matter-of-factly.
Pete’s eyes twinkled, “Mmm, did he now?” Maybe that’s why the woman next to Rose made him feel the way he did.
CHAPTER 37
Americas Sector L5-16K :: Western Utah
They stood around like mummies in hooded thermal sleeping bags zipped except at the feet. It was too early to go to bed. They didn’t dare risk starting a fire. Since global warming, sophisticated satellites detected and recorded changes in surface temperature from the macro down to the micro. Truby knew they, too, would be detected, but hopefully, human inefficiency would delay the inevitable.
A warning light in the dash had caused an unscheduled landing when the solar rechargeable battery connector had vibrated itself loose from its non-standard mount. The problem had been easy enough to repair, but the safest choice was to avoid the possibility of crash landing in the dark if there was another malfunction.
Shivering, Zedd put the last of the tools away in the trunk, reaching for his sleeping bag. Hot during the day, the desert easily dropped more than fifty degrees at night.
“Oops! I have to pee.” Cadence wiggled around a boulder, Hector in waddle pursuit.
“Wait for me! I’ve never done it in a sleeping bag!”
Truby and Zedd had had the pleasure of witnessing Cadence seduce Hector all over again in the backseat of the vehicle. Truby had her own hormone issues.
Sleeping bag under his arm, Zedd slammed the trunk closed. He shuffled around awkwardly a bit. With no place to sit, he rubbed shoulders with Truby leaning against the hood of the car. She was mildly amused.
Pushing his shoulder into hers, he said, “We could zip these together. You know, to keep warm and stuff,” he offered. When Truby didn’t respond, he unrolled his pack slowly. “So... you’ve not said much about the earthquake.” He flicked a dried dead spider off his sleeping bag. “Know what I think?” he asked, touching her arm suggestively. “I think you already know what’s what.”
Somewhere in the darkness, they heard Cadence and Hector giggling. The giggling stopped, supplanted by muffled moans and heavy breathing. Truby saw and felt Zedd become visibly agitated.
Taking a new tack, he pulled away from Truby. “Man! The coordination it would take to pull off a stunt like that on a global level! Wow.”
He was baiting her. She nearly smiled. “More than you know,” Truby responded.
“Sometimes you wanna be on the wrong side of things just to see the genius behind it. Top, bottom, it’s all good,” he intimated.
A soft chuckle escaped the older woman’s lips, “Buki Man, if I were to give my younger self advice, know what it would be?”
“Don’t hang out with forty-year-old women if I wanna get laid?”
“Better. Ask yourself if what you’re about to do is something you’ll regret the rest of your life.”
2021 :: Stockholm, Sweden — Pausing outside a women’s lavatory in the Global Security Council Building, Claire squeezed Thomas’s arm, “The line’s not too long.”
Thomas sat on a bench to people watch.
General Frohm and Major Young suddenly hovered above Thomas in GSC committee button-downs. “Hey, I recognize you! You’re Hemmy’s dad, aren’t you?”
Thomas reluctantly shook Young’s hand, “I, uh, yes, hello.”
“You may have seen us sitting at a committee table in some of the planning meetings.” Young was clearly speaking on behalf of Frohm who now stood a dignified distance away eyeing Thomas pointedly. “Listen, if you have a minute, we’d love to chat with you about the project.”
___
In a single sleeping bag, Cadence and Hector awoke with a start to the sounds of a military convoy passing by on a freeway in the distance. Truby and Zedd were missing.
High up in a rocky overlook, Zedd laughed under his breath at the pair running naked for cover behind desert sage. His smart glasses told him there were forty-one vehicles in formation and they were National Guard. They were coming from not going to Vegas.
He turned his gaze to where Truby was safely tucked behind a smaller outcropping. Zedd blinked several times to bring moisture to his dry blue eyes.
It was early in the morning; he must be seeing things. He looked again. His pupils commanded his smart glasses to focus in on a small, steady stream of water spewing from behind the rocks about three feet off the ground. Smart glasses spectrum analysis flashed 90% certainty the stream was urine.
“What the hell?” Zedd impulsively wolf-whistled. The stream stopped. Truby’s head leaned out from behind the rocks. Startled and confused, his hand motioned the caravan was still in progress. Truby nodded she understood.
Fifteen minute
s later, Zedd, Hector, and Cadence were hurriedly packing sleeping bags.
“Where’s Truby?” asked Cadence.
“If I were to guess, snake handling,” said Zedd cryptically.
The rotorless military helicopters flying directly overhead with the convoy were what had taken Truby to her knees. She covered her ears, the pain as vivid as all those years ago.
Chaos consumed the outdoor café. Red covered children, mothers, and fathers. Everywhere there were Special Forces crawling like cockroaches out of armored vehicles. A hovering helicopter drowned out Thomas’s screams for Hemmy. They were taking her away on the stretcher. He couldn’t make them stop.
“We looked everywhere for you!” Cadence yelled angrily, a scared look in her eyes.
Truby also looked frightened, “We may have been spotted.”
“I’m not sticking around to find out,” said Zedd opening the driver’s door.
Truby met Zedd’s eyes from where she stood behind the car. Something in them mocked her. So subtle, she almost thought she imagined it. Zedd’s shirt swirled dark purple with black clouds. Her anxiety level began to climb again.
The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile before Zedd broke away to start the vehicle. As Truby put her sweaty hand on the front passenger door handle, Zedd gunned the engine, propelling the car forward.
“Hey!” cried Cadence.
Laughing, Zedd leaned across the seat to open the car door for Truby. “Just scaring away snakes.”
“A jerk and a zero,” said Hector.
“It’s all buki!” Zedd tilted the electric jet engines and flaps from horizontal to vertical.
Hitting the turbo button, they launched straight up into the sky at a rate that made Truby’s stomach turn. If it hadn’t been empty, it would have been in Zedd’s lap.
It’s all buki.
CHAPTER 38
Americas Sector M6-47A :: South Central Nevada
“Lame!” Hector threw a sleeping bag from the trunk at Zedd as he covered the vehicle with crumbling tumbleweeds tangled together in an oversized wad.
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