by Julian North
Jess stopped the vehicle twenty yards from the aircraft and grabbed a force rifle from beneath the seat. “You all stay put. I’ll check it out. If anything happens to me, go somewhere else—fast.”
I stuck an arm out to restrain her. “You sound like your sister all of a sudden. I’m going—I’ll know if it’s a trick. You stay here and cover me from the car.”
I got out without waiting for any protest or reply. I had my force pistol with me, but I didn’t bother pulling it out. I was sure there weren’t any soldiers on board. As I walked toward the v-copter, the exit hatch moved. Light from the aircraft’s interior poured out. I squinted at the blurred figure who emerged from the v-copter. I took two more quick steps until I was close enough to be sure of the face. Then I ran. Rhett greeted me with open arms and that damn satisfied grin.
I squeezed him, first with joy, then annoyance. “What the hell were you doing messing with Nythan’s hack? We almost didn’t come.”
“I didn’t know that. Jalen was cryptic, to say the least. One moment I’m on a transport to the front lines of a hopeless war, the next he’s there yanking me off, dressed in military fatigues, telling me to put on a doctor’s coat, get on a v-copter with a friend, and go where it takes me. When the course started changing, I didn’t know what else to do.”
I turned back to the car and waved the all-clear to the others. “Is he inside?” I asked, even as I pushed past Rhett into the interior of the v-copter.
Alexander was indeed inside, strapped to some kind of gurney, a breathing mask covering his nose and mouth. Mateo was in a similar arrangement opposite him. A third gurney held Harren, except he wasn’t masked. I went to Alexander first, wrapping my hands around his arm. His skin was cool; he looked even worse than before I had left for New York, but he was alive.
Kortilla’s dad wasn’t here. He must’ve not been in the hospital. Or Jalen didn’t consider him important. Probably the latter. Damn Jalen. Hopefully, he had at least sent him in a vehicle back toward Bronx City.
I heard Rhett and the others entering the aircraft behind me. “Why does he have this mask on?”
Nythan strode up beside me. He swore under his breath as he studied the medscan display next to Alexander’s gurney. “It’s an anbrium-oxygen mixture that he’s breathing. It slows the metabolism. Whoever set this up must have thought he was getting worse and there was no other course of action available.” Nythan examined Mateo’s screen as well. “It’s the same with your brother.”
Mateo appeared no better off than Alexander. His skin almost seemed to be melting off him. I didn’t need to be a doctor to know that the Waste would soon claim him. The anbrium gas must be a last, desperate measure. For both of them.
Something like a sob climbed my throat. I gritted my teeth to hold it at bay. “Fix them, Nythan. Please, fix them.”
“I’ll do everything I can, Daniela. You know that.” It wasn’t the cocky Nythan I was accustomed to speaking with, however—it was a young man who belatedly recognized the impossibility of the task laid at his feet.
“What’s wrong with my father?” Alissa demanded as she made her way past us, her voice shaky.
Nythan went to take a look. “He’s been given a sedative. My guess is that it made him look like he was sick. Jalen must’ve had to fake it to get him on board. He made this flight look like a medical evacuation, with Rhett here posing as a doctor. Your dad will come out of it before we get to California. Hang tight, Alissa. He’s fine.”
“Let’s get the hell out of here, please.” Jess’s voice reminded me that the world hadn’t stopped while I’d been staring at Alexander.
Rhett walked over to me. “Where to, Dee? You really got a way into Cali without their missile defenses blasting us out of the sky?”
“Supposedly we’ve got codes that will make sure they don’t roast us, and it’ll get word to the right people. Let’s get going. They may have some answers for Alexander there.”
“I’m on it.”
Rhett left to fly the v-copter, leaving me alone in the rear of the aircraft with Nythan and his patients. I pulled out the viser I had taken from Havelock and handed it to Nythan. “I took this off Havelock after he blew his own head off.”
Nythan’s eyes went wide.
“I didn’t want to hand it to you when the others were around. Maybe it has something you can use.”
“Why leave it with him? I would think Virginia’s people would’ve taken it to try to find out whatever they could from him.”
“That’s part of the puzzle. I don’t know.”
Nythan stared at the viser, turning it over in his hand. “It’s the new Tyrell prismPulse model. Not really the former headmaster’s style, is it?” He flicked a few fingers. “It still has power. Now I’m really surprised. I’ll take a look. It’s likely there are some medical scanners on board that I might be able to utilize as well. We’ll speak to Alissa’s dad once he’s awake. There has to be a connection between all these things.”
I bent in next to his ear. “Whatever you discover, tell no one but me. And cover your tracks—hide and encrypt the data. It sounds like California is going to be a rough ride, and we’re going to need something to bargain with. They are certain to search everything on this aircraft.”
“Got it, boss.”
“Thanks, Nythan. If you can save Alexander, I promise I’ll tell Kortilla all about it.” He flashed a cocky smile that reminded me of the Nythan I needed.
I left Nythan to work and joined Rhett in the cockpit. Jess had put herself in the co-pilot seat, which annoyed me. I trusted her the least of everyone on board, Alissa included.
“How is your uncle doing?”
“This may sound odd considering how badly the war is going, but surprisingly well. He’s raised and equipped several regiments of soldiers from the Atlanta streets. Says he needs soldiers with more scrap than we had before. It also gives him a personal force loyal to him. If anything, he seems invigorated by the whole thing. At least until President Hoven was killed. They knew each other a long time—he took it hard.”
“How did it happen?”
Rhett flicked a key on the display in front of him. The engines grew louder. “We’ll be at the California border in a little under three hours.” He turned to me. “He was assassinated. A member of his own guard unit, a man who’d been with him for twenty years.”
I chewed my lip in frustration. “No one in the South has any theory on how Virginia is doing it?”
“There was a lot of arguing about it at the highest levels. Maybe Virginia is responsible for that as well. In any case, based on what we learned from Harren Stein, we suspect those modified drones are part of it. They use very unusual transmitters, although even he didn’t have the details we need.”
“It has to be more than the drones. If they were using a signal to control people, this war would’ve been over before it started, and Virginia wouldn’t just be the president—she’d be something far worse. No, it can’t be that simple. Do you know what was on the recording that Katrina made inside the prison?”
“I confess the science is beyond me, but my understanding is that Ji-ho and the others projected themselves inside a virtual representation of a genetic molecule. It was like they were inside a person’s DNA to study it. There was only a brief fragment of the environment recorded, and whatever the scientists were investigating was impossibly complex—even Ji-ho didn’t seem to completely understand it. Perhaps your friend Nythan will have more luck.”
I tried to put a brave face on our situation. “I’m sure he will. He’s done brilliant work trying to find a cure for my brother, and on other things before that.”
“I hope so,” Rhett said, returning his attention to the flight controls. “Apparently, the best scientists in Korea were in that VR environment, and my understanding is that they were scared as hell. But at least they seemed to understand what they were looking at. No one in the South could even get that far, but they don’t have your frie
nd Nythan’s experience. Let’s hope he can do better.”
Chapter 20
We had a smooth flight for the next several hours. It didn’t last. A pair of aircraft started chasing us as we flew over Nevada.
“RazorFish,” Rhett said. “They’re faster than us. Much faster. And they’re carrying air-to-air missiles.”
“Can we make it to California airspace before they intercept us?” Jess asked.
“I’m already pushing her as hard as I can. We’ll get there before them, but that’s not the whole problem. The real issue is that we’ll be in their weapons’ range before we can cross the line. And that assumes that they won’t pursue us into California anyway, of course.”
“How long until we cross the Cali border?”
“Three minutes and ten seconds at our current speed. I estimate that we’ll be in range of their missiles in about two and a half minutes. It’ll be close, but I think we are going to lose the race. Barely—but barely leaves us just as toasted.”
“Any weapons or defenses on this thing?” Jess asked.
“It’s a luxury aircraft. No weapons or jamming equipment. The South would not have let her go if she could fight.”
I looked at the sensor displays in the cockpit. There was no way to see the razorFish pilots in their blacked-out cockpits, and they were too far away for me to trill. Missiles had a much longer range than I did.
“Start transmitting our encryption codes and password on the secure channel Frost-Bell gave us. Let California know we’re coming. Don’t slow at the border. We’ll just have to trust they won’t shoot us down.”
“I have no plans to slow down. One minute and thirty seconds to the California border. Those razorFish are still closing fast.”
Everyone was strapped into their seats except me; I insisted on hovering just outside the cockpit. If we got hit, a seat belt restraint wasn’t going to do me any good.
“Any California aircraft on the radar?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Deuces. We sent the codes. They must see us approaching the border; they must know what’s happening. You’d think they’d at least put some aircraft in the sky to help.”
“Nothing on my screen except the bogies behind us. And they are getting closer.”
I closed my eyes, trying to get a sense of the minds of the pilots on the aircraft behind us—assuming they even had pilots. I felt nothing. The dots of the v-copter’s scanners might appear close, but they were still far too distant for trilling.
“We’ll be in missile range in ten seconds… nine… eight.”
“You don’t need to count. I’m watching the screen.”
Damn if that boy wasn’t still grinning, imminent destruction by air-to-air missile notwithstanding.
“Virginia may want us alive,” I said, more hopeful than expectant.
Rhett shook his head. The red icons of rocket-propelled projectiles appeared on our sensors the moment our v-copter came within range of their missiles. Virginia was playing for keeps. Obviously, she preferred me dead to free. She might get her wish.
“Ten seconds till impact. We won’t even make it to the border. I’m putting us into a steep dive. Maybe we can pick up some extra speed or shake them a bit.” He didn’t sound very confident.
The v-copter headed toward the ground. The fuselage shook. Rhett was going through the motions like a good soldier. We both knew his maneuvers wouldn’t do any good.
My stomach lurched as our aircraft fell through the sky. The angry blips on the screen didn’t seem bothered by our efforts. Their closing speed slowed for a moment, then resumed its pace. We had only seconds left. Somehow, I didn’t expect to die, nor did I see how we were going to avoid it.
The aircraft suddenly shot upward as if a giant wave of air blasted it from below. I fell to the floor. I waited for the explosion. For the fuselage to be ripped apart. For the cold air outside to grab me. But none of those things happened.
I pulled myself back up, ignoring the ache in my wrist. “Whoa, what the hell was that?”
I looked at the sensor display. One of the missiles had already disappeared. As I watched, the next vanished as well.
“I don’t believe it,” Rhett muttered. “I’ve been watching the scopes this whole time. There is nothing else out there except the razorFish.”
“It must be California,” I said.
“I'm telling you, there was nothing on our screens…”
I remembered the jammer that Jalen had used when we escaped from the extraction platform. I guessed it had come from California. It stood to reason that whatever they had given or sold him had to be inferior to what they kept for their own defense. It appeared we had seen a demonstration of the superiority of California’s stealth technology.
“We’re in California airspace,” Rhett announced with relief.
Clapping erupted behind me, but I wasn’t ready to celebrate quite yet. I was looking directly ahead, through the v-copter’s cockpit window. Something had appeared on the horizon. Two somethings—they were curved, glossy machines, barely visible to the naked eye. Ghosts that flew.
“No heat signature, almost no radar or sensor reflection,” Rhett said in amazement as he looked out at the strange flying machines. “Maybe California can actually hold out against the rest of the country if their aircraft are this invisible.”
“Resend our codes and our password. It can’t hurt.”
Rhett did it, but the machines and their human masters gave no indication that they heard or cared about our transmission.
I continued to stare at the sensor display. An occasional blip registered, but that was all. “They saved us, even if they did it as secretly as possible. I suppose that’s a good sign.”
“According to our sensors, Virginia’s razorFish are turning around to go home. Seems like they don’t want us badly enough to risk a fight with California’s stealth aircraft,” Rhett said. “We made it.”
A human voice came over the communication channel at that moment. “Attention, trespassing v-copter, you are ordered to release control of your autopilot system. We will guide you in. Deactivate your radar and sensor systems. If you attempt to deviate from your new course, or if you reactivate your other systems, you will be destroyed. Acknowledge transmission immediately.”
Rhett looked at me.
“Do it.”
“Understood, releasing controls now.”
The mysterious voices of California took control of the v-copter. We were blind in the night, except for an old manual compass. The v-copter flew east. The lights of California’s cities shined below. Mateo had spoken ceaselessly of this place when we were young, boasting of how he would go here one day. He had finally made it. I hoped he survived long enough to realize he was here.
When we reached the Pacific coast, the v-copter turned northward. We flew for almost another hour, our course taking us lower than a normal flight path as we hugged the shore.
“The lights out there in the middle of the black void are ships,” Rhett said to me. “The fainter, stationary lights are oceanfront homes.”
“I’ve been watching. I noticed that there are fewer lights as we fly north.”
Eventually, we entered a holding pattern, circling a collection of lights in an otherwise deserted area of northern California. I went back to check on Alexander and Mateo. Alissa and her family slept. Her head rested on her father’s lap. I smiled—Alissa was lucky in her family.
I found Nythan in a tiny seat in the very back of the v-copter wearing glowing medical spectacles. He had Havelock’s viser in one hand.
“How are they doing, Nythan?”
He continued to manipulate the shiny golden viser. Perhaps he hadn’t heard me. I sat next to him, exhausted. Nythan and Rhett had to be tired as well. I waited for Nythan to finish whatever he was doing rather than interrupt. My eyes had just shut when the sound of his voice jolted me awake.
“I’m glad we aren’t dead. Good work.” He didn’t bo
ther smiling. “I’ll start with the bad news. I know many things, Daniela, and I’m a fast learner, but this is the first time I’ve seen a chipped person in the flesh, not counting net sims and the juche workers in the Ziggurat. The equipment on this v-copter is obviously less than what is in a fully equipped hospital, or even our clinic. Therefore, what I can tell you about Alexander with these instruments is that his brain function is not as it should be.” It was the same as what the doctor had told me back in Charlotte. Yet the dread within me was deeper, more devastating, because this was coming from Nythan. My last hope. “I’m sorry, Daniela, the hard truth is that there is damage to his brain. If there is a silver lining, it is that I do not believe the chip is functioning properly. Nothing is controlling him. We need to hope that California can help in ways I’m not yet aware of. Don’t give up hope.”
I forced my head to move up and down. I was numb. “Mateo?”
“The Waste is at an advanced stage, shutting down his bodily functions. I know I’ve said this before, but we are close to a treatment—I just need some more time with the new bacteria colonies I developed. The anbrium gas is buying him some time… but I think not enough. However, on this one I can offer you something more concrete. California is reputed to have made remarkable breakthroughs in cryo-technology.”
“Freeze him?”
“Temporarily, until I can finish a treatment. I promise you that given time and equipment, I can beat the Waste. It was created by people far less able than me. I’ve got all of Dr. Willis’s research, and I’ve got the controlColonies. I just need more time.”
“So, my first ask of California is a cryo-chamber and cutting-edge medical resources for Alexander. Frost-Bell made it clear we aren’t going to land in a magical land of goodness and generosity. I need something to bargain with, Nythan. What have you found out about Virginia’s plans?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. It reminded me that the self-satisfied Nythan was still waiting in there, anxious to return. “I’ve spoken to Harren, and I’ve thoroughly examined this… thing.” He held up the viser. “I’m not completely sure yet, and I don’t know exactly how they did it, but I’m pretty sure I know how Virginia is controlling people. Even better, I think there might be a way to turn it against her. We do have something to bargain with.”