Behind her, Dixon grunted as he heaved a guard off the sarfer. On the other side, Rush fought two others trying to carry the wounded doctor to the ladder.
Star climbed over the folded sails toward the briefcase that was Singer. She’d get control again like she had when she’d left her nanos on its temple sensors. She’d just have to find them in its briefcase form.
63 - W
With W’s units busy on or being thrown from the deck of the sarfer, he used Jules’ eyes to watch The Gov’s ship sail down a dune two hundred yards from their camp.
Beyond the shade of her tent and below the slight incline of her vantage, the three-hundred-member crowd scuffled, wailed and bled through the implementation of a secondary plan Star’s rebellion had forced W to use. He didn’t have the plasma reserves up here to quickly turn them. He’d planned on using the Savior complex to align them first, then in the celebration, infect them through water offered to the Blessed of Arthur. That idea, born from his failure to keep control of Dixon and Carroll, and a realization of the strength of mental barriers, would have to wait for another time. If he had to kill all the fresh bloods and rebirth them into the ranks of his reborn, better that than risking their strength in numbers with such a close view of The Gov’s tower emblem flapping on its black sail.
The fire that burned in Hannu’s thigh and every other wound opened up in W’s hosts stole processing power to send nanos into damaged flesh, each requiring precise commands to repair. These added command trees weighed the speed of the computer network he’d built into the top floor of the Republic Plaza. Delays in his commands led to struggles in his army’s melee attacks, forcing him into cannibalistic methods. He’d pick up the pieces when they were immobilized.
How one of the crew on sarfer had slipped through his control baffled him. He’d sent precious plasma and nanos into their bodies to ensure neither Rush nor Star would survive the slightest effort against him.
His nanos hadn’t read that one of them was Dixon, but they’d also transmitted solitary control of his neural network.
Their report had been falsified. A map of his neural network would have identified him, and then W would have crashed the system.
His new breed lived in him or not at all. Carroll and Dixon had forced that card.
And now his crowning achievement was about to be revealed.
He couldn’t wait to see Star and Rush’s reaction.
64 - Rush / Star
Rush kicked the guard in the chin, separating his hold from Dr. Hannu’s suit. The cloaked man fell backward off the sarfer’s deck. Dr. Hannu swung a weak hook that Rush blocked and twisted up behind his back.
“Rush, hold still!” Dixon shouted from the other side of the ship.
Rush obeyed. A blink of light hit Dr. Hannu in the side, sending a spasm up and down the thick man’s body. His flesh fisssss’d in glowing cinders flaking off in the wind. Rush let Dr. Hannu drop to his knees, reeking of charred meat.
On the port side, Dixon slowly lowered the DL, eyes wide at what he’d done.
A hand grasped the edge of the boat behind him. Dixon turned and fired a quick burst that sent the shocked hand off the ledge.
At the stern, Star swung a metal briefcase into the jaw of the last guard, then dropped the case and flipped the weakened body off the boat.
Dr. Hannu heaved and stared at his wound crossing up over his chest as though a giant claw had dug a cavern from hip to sternum. “That’s not good.”
Rush reached out to help. “If we stop the—”
“No.” He looked Rush in the eye. His hand trembled between them. “I’m lost. W won’t let us go.” His breathing tightened in quick huffs. “You must snuff him here.”
Rush heard the stair pole rattle. He picked up an AK from the deck, raised it over the ledge, and found a new cloaked figure climbing aboard. The orange glow in his eyes still shone through the gleam from the sun.
Rush had no choice but to kill to keep his loved ones safe. He would not see his second child or wife die on his watch.
He fired. A burst of red splashed the front of the climber’s chest and he fell back, arm’s draping outward.
Something ripped flesh from Rush’s left arm, tearing straight through his suit and carving a six-inch gash in his triceps. Crack! Rush followed the sound to a black flagged sarfer sailing at generator-pushed speed from his three o’clock, close enough for him to see the shooter leaned over his sights to fire another.
Rush jumped away from the ladder, into the cover of the sarfer’s wall. He landed hard on his side and skidded to a stop.
“Rush!” Star ran over, hunched and partially covered by the wall.
“Get down.” The hot pain in his arm flared at his movement. He ground his teeth and looked for something to tie around his bleeding wound.
“Was that Star?” called The Gov over a loudspeaker likely housed on the ship carrying the shooter.
Star looked up and over, but didn’t gain the trance state she’d had before when The Gov spoke. Relief eased through Rush’s exhale.
Until he saw Dr. Hannu’s empty gaze at the floor. A string of dark red saliva hung from his parted mouth.
“Could use some help over here.” Dixon fired off a long swath of DL charge over the other side of the ship. His attention carried right to the bow. He fired a shot that blew a chunk of wood from the railing, but missed the head that had appeared behind it.
Another young boy with an orange powered gaze scanned the ship until he locked on Rush and swung his legs onto the ship’s deck.
Dixon fired again. The boy dove between the steering column and the pilot’s chair, rolling to cover on the other side.
Rush rolled to his elbows, pressed his AK into his good shoulder, and raised his iron sights while the boy zigged and zagged through the ship’s stacks of crates. Dixon fired two errant shots through the crates behind him.
The boy stopped behind a double stack. “Dad! It’s me. Don’t shoot.”
It’s me?
*
“Dad!” he said again.
Fish. Star knew it. But...how?
“Put your hands on your head and face on the deck,” Rush told him.
“Rush.” She put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him from rising. “It’s Fish.”
Rush looked up at her, eyebrows scrunched in denial. He shook his head. “No, hon. It can’t be. It’s a trick.”
“Dad. I escaped. W grew me from an em-bree-oh,” the boy said with unsure syllables. “Said Mom was too weak to carry me and my brother.”
Rush wiped sweat from his forehead and repositioned his left hand on the stock of his AK, still aimed at the box their son hid behind.
“What’s he talking about?” Rush asked, low enough to direct it to her.
“I have no idea.” A deep pain radiated in her abdomen, triggering a vague memory of losing something. Please, don’t. He’s mine. But whatever it was that night in the dark, it hadn’t listened.
“It’s his voice,” Star said, absently, trying to rebuild that memory. “I didn’t picture him to look like that, but I suppose…”
“No. It’s not him. Warren uses our memory to project his voice. This is the same thing.”
“They’ve stopped.” Dixon hid back under the cover of the sarfer wall. “The ones around the boat are just standing there…waiting. A few are still fighting in the crowd, but no one is trying to climb aboard.”
Star rose just enough to check. The crowd’s previous frenzy halted to a standstill in the rows weaving through tents. One of the cloaked figures sank out of view, as though yanked by a string. Similar blurs of movement took several more from the crowd.
The boy claiming to be Fish stepped out from behind the box, palms out to Rush and Star, and then to The Gov’s ship as it slowed its approach. “W sent me here to save you before he got here,” his head tilted to the boat as he indicated The Gov.
The ship with the black sail docked just far enough to make jumping between the
ships impossible. The sniper who shot Rush held his rifle aimed at Fish.
“Fish!” Star raised her hand and began moving to her son.
Fish held up a hand to halt her. “It’s okay, Mom. He won’t be stupid enough to fire again,” he said loud enough for the sniper to hear. “If you want this negotiation to begin, you’ll give me a minute with my family.”
The Gov stepped out from a hatch behind the sniper. Dark sunglasses hid his eyes. A half buttoned brown shirt showed a tanned, slender build of muscle. His tan shorts matched the shirt in crisp edges and with a surface free of cuts or stains. As he rose to full height on the deck, he lowered his shades to look Star in the eye. Blue flares flashed around his pupils and disappeared into the black. He crossed his arms, then offered a hand as though to say she may proceed.
Her nerves eased a little at his refrain from speaking, even if she doubted he could control her anymore.
“He won’t hurt you,” Fish said. The bashful smile. It enacted a reality she hadn’t imagined and yet couldn’t be more perfectly true. Perfectly him.
She couldn’t hold back any longer. She burst forward and wrapped him in a hug. Her son was no longer memory, but flesh. She squeezed tighter, daring it to go away and leave her alone again. It didn’t. He didn’t.
“Thank you!” To whom she spoke she didn’t know. She was just thankful.
“Ouch, Mom.”
She relaxed her hold and let him slide down to stand before her, then kissed him all over his dust and sweat-slick face.
“Okay, that’s enough, Mom.” He ran his arm over his cheek and eyes. His irises resonated light like amber coals.
Star’s heart leapt. She pushed him back. “Fish.” His name came out as a desperate plea against the impossible. If W gave him life, was there a way to take him back without W inside him?
“Yeah, Mom?” So handsome, yet with eyes like a poisoned blade pressed to her neck. It made her cry.
“Why?” Into the unknown her heart cursed.
Rush walked up behind him. Somber as he assessed her terror stricken gaze. He rested his hand on her arm and raised a look like an announcement of time expired.
She resisted the silent plea, locking her fingers tighter behind Fish.
“Star, come on.” He rolled his shoulder and winced.
Fish turned to face him, forcing Star to break her hold.
Rush looked his son in the eyes, lips creased to seal in his emotion.
His son. Star didn’t know what she thought.
“I never blamed you, Dad.”
“No. You… I can’t know if you’re my son or trap. I’m sorry.”
“I understand. He told me how you three have fought lately.”
“Fought?” Star asked. “You mean when he locked me in Singer—”
“To make sure you came here,” Fish interrupted, a gentle but confident look carrying his words. The amber glow had faded from his brown eyes, leaving her to wonder if it had been her imagination.
Star squinted through her silence.
“We didn’t have time to let you find your way without Hannu and Singer.” Fish nodded behind her, to The Gov’s ship. “We barely made it.”
“What about the ceremony?” Star asked.
Arthur’s cries called from Dixon’s arms as he picked him up from the sails and tried rocking him back to a calm state.
“We’re being set up to rule,” Fish whispered as he tilted his head away from The Gov’s view. “Still are. If I’d have made it up here first…” He turned back to Star. “He’s shown me what we can do just as he’s shown me what sacrifices may have to come first. I’m in this body, but what he’s taught me makes me more adult than what you see.”
“How long do you expect me to wait?” The Gov called out. “Rush, he’s your son. Deal with it. Be happy. Or not. I don’t care. I’m here to see how serious Warren is with preventing unnecessary bloodshed. It appears unlikely with what I see so far.”
“Dad. It’s me. Please. Don’t.” Fish shook his head. His eyes misted on the verge of tears.
They look so real.
He turned to face Star. “Tell `em, Mom.”
Don’t call me that. If she could have him, grown into that lanky body with the shaggy, dusty blond hair, she’d forgive almost everything The Gov and Warren, human and otherwise, had done to them. Just give her her sons and her husband and let them live the life they’d grieved over missing for so long. Not like this, though. No. This was too much.
*
Rush glanced at The Gov, the crater of pain ever throbbing in his arm. Why had the sniper shot at him if they were on the verge of negotiation? Had he meant to kill him?
“Tell `em how hard I worked to stand before you,” Fish pleaded. Was that an orange glow in his eyes? “I never gave up on you, Dad. I waited in your hearts, refusing to let go. I watched you leave her and I still never gave up on you!”
How does he know that?
Fish leaned into his shout, clutching fists behind his back as he lowered his head toward his dad. He took a breath and relaxed back into his upward posture. “I know W almost killed you both, but he’s changed since he died. I believe it because I’ve seen it. When you die, you see what really matters.”
How is this possible?
“Fff…if you’re really him. You can’t imagine how much you mean to me.” Rush looked away, clearing his throat.
“No, Dad. Don’t.”
Rush looked back up. “W has deceived us multiple times. He hasn’t changed at all for the better. I owe it to your mother not to let him hurt us again.”
Fish’s tucked lips quivered. He took a step back. “How much would it hurt me for you to leave?”
Arthur made sucking sounds on his fingers as Dixon rocked him side to side, standing behind Rush.
Rush faced his firstborn, lost between need and fear for what Fish could represent. “If I could believe you were more than a trick, I—”
Fish slashed a flat hand across his body. “No. You won’t. Believe.” He pointed his finger in Rush’s face, the anger unnatural in his newly teenage son. Everything about him was unnatural. Except for the love Rush couldn’t stop from growing in his presence. “W helped form me, but you two gave me life. His power doesn’t work on you just like The Gov’s power doesn’t work on Mom. I’m no trick. I’m his last offer to prove—”
“Son.” Star clutched his arm, turning him to look at her. “He can’t be trusted.”
Could his M-MANs be like mine? Could he be cleansed.
As Rush pondered the survival of his son, Star continued, “I believe you’re my son, but you can’t believe a word W says, power over you or not.”
“She’s right,” The Gov said. “Warren can’t be trusted. Or W, if that’s the stupid nickname he wants now. I don’t suppose that makes any of you eager to jump onto my ship, but we can at least agree that he’s brought us all here with less than honest intentions. He’s the one that thought up the plan to bomb Springston.”
“And your plan to kill the rest inside Fort Pope,” Rush countered.
The Gov shrugged. “I don’t like complications. Easier to limit risks by only letting a few of you get the plasma for me.” He shifted his focus to Fish. “So Warren and I have both sort of tried to kill your parents. If you’ve forgiven him, why not give me a chance, too?”
Fish turned his pointed finger on Rush’s gunshot wound. “How about this? Looks like you’re still trying.” He reached into a pocket in his tunic and retrieved a pouch. He unscrewed the small tip and squirted a silver piece size of blue gel into his palm. “Here, Dad.”
He lifted a smear on his fingers toward Rush’s wound.
Rush recoiled. “What is it?”
“It’s for injuries. Activates and fuels nanos.”
“W gave this to you?”
Fish nodded. “All of his people have it. I wouldn’t give it to you if I thought there was a chance of it harming you.”
Rush shook his head. “I know you w
ouldn’t, but how could you know for sure?”
A serious look beyond Fish’s age formed on his face. “I know the nanos inside me. I’m a hybrid. I don’t fear W, he fears me.” Fish winked, then cocked his chin toward his father. “I’ve used it. See, no scar. I could heal without it, but this saves the energy.”
Fish tried again, but Rush put up his hand. “I’ll be okay. Thank you, but I’ll be fine.”
Fish’s face looked as though Rush had smacked him. But he put the gel away.
“I figured the son would come to the rescue,” The Gov said. “Could have taken your head off, but chose not to. See…” he turned to look at the open hatch behind his feet. “Come on up,” he said with a lower voice, then raising and turning to Rush, said, “That shot was actually a compromise with her.”
Carroll appeared from below deck staring Rush down.
The Gov said, “She asked for a kill shot, but settled for a nice graze when I said we had some use for you.”
“Carroll!” Dixon shouted. “What are you doing?”
The Gov wrapped her in a side hug. “Our special girl here has the key to stopping that computer plague from wiping out all the progress our country has seen since the last one. She can help you find freedom from W, and you can help us stop him before his spread becomes too far to rein in.”
65 - Rush / Dixon
The deck of the sarfer shook up into Rush’s knees. Is that an earthquake?
Everyone else was shaking, too. Dixon had Arthur huddled in the crook of his arm, dangerously exposed over the railing as he leaned out to shout, “Carroll, come with us.”
Cool, how close are you? Rush texted from visor to the Wayfinder.
The Gov shook his head. “Not happening. I won’t let you waste her ability.”
Cool? Rush slung the AK on the strap over his shoulder to hang behind him as he carefully stepped beside Dixon and retrieved Arthur.
Star was just as eager, taking the baby while her other hand held a rail for balance.
Scavenger: A.I.: (Sand Divers, Book Two) Page 26