Killswitch

by Victoria Buck

  Chase whipped around to face him. “Who in the underground cares about the law? That’s no excuse. I had dreams, and your God said that you would tell me how to…do whatever you people do to connect with Him. But you’re all too busy running from the Feds and bringing in enough stale bread to get through another day.”

  He seethed again at Mel and slipped closer, his face inches from hers. “But never mind the rest of them. You had all the time in the world before all this started. Before I died and got reborn. And you should have told me.”

  She stepped back. Her sorrowful eyes grew wide. And then she dropped out of sight.

  “Mel!” Chase dove to his stomach and reached down the steep slope as far as he could. His hands grasped for her but found only stones and dead grass. The moon gave enough light for him to see her clinging to a root that protruded from the hillside. “Hold on, Mel. Don’t let go. Don’t let go.”

  Large rocks lined the road beneath her. From the corner of his eye, Chase caught sight of a vehicle—bigger than the self-drives that had passed—headed their way. A light band of blue and green flashed across the top. The colors of the WR.

  35

  “Switch, grab my feet and lower me down,” Chase yelled.

  “No,” Mel cried. “You’ve got to get out of here. Run. If they find me—”

  “They are not going to find you! Try to pull yourself up.”

  “You can get me out of whatever center they put me in. I know you can. Just go.”

  “No, Mel. There aren’t any more tricks left in me. Remember?” Chase inched down the slope as Switchblade tightened his grip. “I am not going to lose you. Now grab on!”

  She offered a trembling prayer as she reached for him. “Father God, forgive me. Give this good man strong arms.”

  Chase clutched her hand. He reached farther down and grabbed hold with his other hand. “Pull us up,” he yelled.

  Switchblade yanked Chase’s legs and slid him backwards. Mel’s arms cleared the top of the ridge, and Chase pulled with all that was in him until he had her on level ground. He knelt next to Mel and she collapsed into his arms.

  The approaching vehicle shined a searchlight across the ridge. Chase lifted Mel and carried her away from the edge of the slope and dropped her onto her back. Then he fell on his stomach beside her and put his arm over her.

  “Switchblade, get down,” he said.

  The big man hit the ground, his face in the dirt and his hands over the back of his head.

  The beam crept over the rise and made shadows of the trees. For a moment it hovered. Then it jumped to the other side of the road. Back and forth it snaked. Chase held his breath for a solid minute. Then the light crawled away, down the road, until it was out of sight. Chase eased to a sitting position.

  “I think they’re gone,” he said. “Must not have had any motion or heat detectors.”

  “Hah,” Switchblade said with a laugh as he sat up. “They had both. You know they did. But they didn’t detect nothing.”

  “Divine intervention?” Chase asked.

  “That’s what I’m saying. The exoself don’t got nothing on God. He gets inside you and nobody can take Him out. No matter what. You want some of that, Charlie?”

  Mel lifted herself up and leaned against Chase. He kissed the top of her head and put his arms around her.

  She lifted her face. “It’s something nobody can ever take from you.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I did you wrong. Truth is I never told anybody. Most people in the underground have never told anybody. It’s a wonder any of us ever found the way. I mean, somebody had to tell me before I believed, right?” She dropped her hands to her knees. “It was my father. I grew up in a Christian family. Then I went away to college and got assigned to study A.I. Daddy thought I’d give up on God if I stayed on that road. He made me join a service group. But all I learned from them was how to be quiet. The more the law came down on Christians, the quieter we got. I don’t know how to be anything else.”

  “I know. The people in Atlanta were the same way.” He stroked her hair and pushed it behind her ears. “The leader there, a guy they called Bear, was about to tell me, I think, then he got killed trying to protect me.”

  “I don’t know why I didn’t tell you a year ago, or two years ago. Fear is a powerful thing.”

  “Don’t be afraid.”

  “It’s simple, really. And yet it’s complicated.” Her voice trembled and she paused for a few seconds. “Back when people used to discuss spiritual things openly, they asked questions about why bad stuff happens. I mean, people are basically good, right? And they don’t understand when life knocks them down.

  “But when I was just a little girl my daddy told me the questions were all wrong, because people aren’t good—compared to the goodness of God, that is. Sin makes us all unrighteous before God. So the real question is: Why do good things happen to sinners?”

  “And what’s the answer?”

  “Grace,” she said. “God’s grace. And the ultimate act of God’s grace was to die. He provided a substitute for us. To suffer our death. To give us life.”

  He knew what she meant. Not that he understood—he didn’t. But all the knowledge planted in the brain of a transhuman couldn’t compare with what now stirred in the depths of his soul. Chase’s connection to the cyber world, to the exoself—that deserter—was nothing.

  “Molly said something when I was at her house.” He squeezed Mel’s hand. “She told me I couldn’t save everybody. Then she said I couldn’t save anybody. Only one could, she said. Only Jesus.”

  “That’s it,” Mel said.

  Chase smiled. “I don’t get it.”

  Mel laughed through her tears. “Sometimes I don’t get it either. But I know it’s the truth. He died to conquer death. I believe and so I live. Death has no power over me. I deserve it, but He died instead of me.”

  “You don’t deserve death, Mel. You’re the best person I know.”

  “Then say hello to Jesus.”

  It took no more than that. Regret welled up inside Chase for the years he’d spent trying to fix people. To save them. To give them a perfect life. But it was his own perfection he’d sought. And he’d gotten it. At least a shot at it. A superhuman, potentially never-ending life. But that wasn’t real. This was real, and Chase knew at that moment the One Mel spoke of had just introduced Himself.

  “It’s that easy,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but a statement. “Thank you, Melody, for telling me.”

  “Will you forgive me for not telling you sooner?”

  “It’s forgotten.” The exoself was gone but another force had entered. Another first. Chase sucked in a breath. “Even though I’m not the lab-built techno man I was a couple of days ago, I think I just became the first, and probably the last, Christian transhuman.”

  “You got that right,” Switchblade said. “But don’t be thinking your transhuman days are over. You’re gonna do what God made you to do. He made you. And He had a reason for letting that stuff get put in you. You ain’t through with your super powers and they ain’t through with you.”

  Chase didn’t know about that. Right now he didn’t care.

  “People gonna be wondering what happened to us,” Switchblade said as he stood. “If we don’t have no more drops off cliffs or life-changing conversations, we might make it home before midnight.”

  36

  Chase held Mel’s hand as they continued their long walk home. Minutes slid into hours. Mel and Switchblade both filled him in on more of their experiences in finding their way to God. Although Chase wasn’t sure they’d found anything anymore than he had. He wasn’t even looking. Maybe God sought him out. But why him of all people?

  Mel smiled. The moonlight danced in her eyes. “Your mom is going to be so happy. Before you showed up, we prayed for you. Not just for your safety or that you’d come and help us, but that you’d join us as a brother in C
hrist.”

  “I don’t know anything about my mother’s story. I wish she would have told me when I first arrived.”

  “I’m sorry nobody sat you down and shared the faith with you as soon as you walked into the command center. Like Switch said, we all kind of assumed that if you got there, which was a miracle to us, you must have already—”

  “I understand, Mel. I haven’t stopped to take a breath since I showed up, and I know the rest of you have had so many other things to worry about.” He stopped walking. “I’ve got to tell you both something before we get back. I’ve kept a secret. I think it’s over, now that the exoself is gone. But I want you to know.”

  “What is it?” Mel asked.

  Switchblade dropped the duffle bag that he’d managed to hang on to through the evening’s adventures. “What’s up, Charlie? Don’t hold nothing back.”

  “A few days ago, after I got settled in at Blue Sky Field, somebody showed up in the exoself. I could see her and talk to her. And she was after me. She’s the one who tracked me to the drone plant.”

  “Kerstin.” Mel crossed her arms. “I knew something was wrong. Why didn’t you just tell me? Maybe if I’d known, I could have helped you.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought I could handle it. And I didn’t want to worry you.” Chase brushed his fingers against Mel’s cheek. “I didn’t want you to think I had anything to do with her showing up like that.”

  “That’s why we went up to look for her in town?” Switchblade asked. “Because she was playing around in the exoself?”

  Mel jerked her head toward Switchblade. “You knew about this?”

  “He told me he thought she might be nearby. He didn’t say nothing about her being in his head, or whatever.”

  “Chase, do you think she has any idea where to find you?” Mel started walking again.

  “No. I could see her but she couldn’t see me. After Kirel had me, she told me about the DNA scanner at the plant. That’s how she found me. And then she activated the killswitch and I haven’t heard or seen her since.”

  “She’s the one who shut you down?” Mel asked. “Oh, Chase, how could you not tell me?”

  “I’m telling you now. Please don’t get all mad at me again, Mel. I’m sorry.”

  She stopped and faced him. Then she put her arms around him. “All that stuff back in the cave—I didn’t mean it. I was just so angry at the way you were giving up. Angry at myself for my part in getting you into this mess. I’m sorry I said all those awful things.”

  Chase held her close. “I promise not to hold back anything else. I just didn’t know what to say about her being in my head like that. I didn’t want any of you to think I’d been compromised.”

  They faltered through the dark woods, the road a hundred feet to their left. Not another vehicle had passed their way.

  Switchblade let out a whistle. “If I were you, Charlie, I’d be glad Sparky jumped ship. Didn’t know the thing was giving you a blast from the past.”

  Mel insisted on being filled in on why the cutesy name was chosen, which led to Chase getting a lesson on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. A more dignified title than the one given to the exoself.

  “So, that’s how I know that God got hold of me tonight—because of the Holy Spirit?”

  “Man, none of us would even know God without the Spirit leading us,” Switchblade told him.

  After another forty-five minutes or so, a few street lights broke the darkness. Herouxville. The trio walked arm in arm—Switchblade on one side of Mel and Chase on the other—right into the center of town and through the front door of the museum. Chase had no idea about the satellite position. It could be shooting images to the WR. He’d have to take it on faith that they weren’t being watched.

  Seemed like forever since he left this place with Switchblade and Windsong. And Kirel. That deceptive dissenter who cared nothing for the Underground Church. Hopefully the guy was in a detention center somewhere.

  “Well, that seems a little bit unforgiving,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?” Mel drew her brows together and grinned.

  “Nothing to worry about. I think God just taught me something.” Chase still hoped the guy never showed his face again.

  Switchblade led the way through the reconstruction mess of the museum and down the hidden stairs that Chase prayed would never be found. When they reached the secret room of the artist’s remarkable paintings, Chase stopped and touched the blue sky concealing the entrance to the underground.

  “Thank you for bringing us home,” he said.

  “Amen,” Mel said.

  “Amen,” Switchblade said as he swung the painting to the side and stepped through. Mel went in next. Chase followed. Then he reached back and pulled Ciel Bleu Domaine into place.

  They kept going down, down to the final door that sealed the world off from the underground. Switch tugged on it. Locked. No surprise. He banged the secret knock Molly had taught Chase before she sent him here.

  A few seconds passed before they heard the sound of the deadbolts unlocking.

  Amos swung the door open. “It’s about time. Why have you been out of contact for so long? We thought you must all surely be dead.” He moved to the side and let them in.

  “To die is gain,” Chase said with a smile.

  Amos crossed his brow and shook his head. “What’s gotten into you?”

  Mel and Switchblade both let out a laugh.

  “Got the H.S. in him now,” Switchblade said.

  “Glory be.” Amos put his arms around Chase and smacked him three times on his back. “Welcome to the family. Took you long enough.”

  “Hey, nobody…Never mind,” Chase said. “Thank you.”

  “I got a message from the leader over at Storm on the River. She says you’re unplugged. Is it true? You lost the exoself?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The systems here can take care of most everything. I can’t see in the dark or hear a cricket fart. But who cares.” Chase put his arm around Amos. “I can’t tell you how your condition is progressing either,” he whispered. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “I’m not. Forget it. My life is in God’s hands.”

  “Yeah, we’ll talk about that later.”

  Mel eased alongside them. “Looks like everybody gave up on us and went to bed.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” Amos said. “They’re all in the meeting room. On their knees. I hope you all aren’t too worn out because there’s about to be a celebration.”

  Chase wanted to go to bed. His travelling companions must feel the same way. But they couldn’t deny these people a party. He laughed. These people. He was one of them now. “I’m up for it.”

  Switchblade rubbed his face. “Just prop me up in a corner. I’ll try to pass out with a smile on my face.”

  Amos stopped walking and looked Chase up and down.

  “What is it? Do I look different?”

  “Leader lady in Gagnon said you took a laser blast in the shoulder and then broke your leg. Sure doesn’t show.”

  Mel took Chase’s hand. “He got better, Amos. Real quick. The exoself is gone but the transhuman stuff is still doing something. Maybe they programmed his blood with regeneration nanobytes.”

  “You didn’t mention that earlier, Mel.” Chase crossed his arms. “I’ve got nano…stuff in my blood?”

  “I said maybe. We have no way of knowing for sure.”

  “I wonder what else we don’t know. I sure would like to talk to Robert. I can’t believe he let me go off not knowing everything.”

  “What they did to you may have progressed, Chase,” Mel said. “Even Dr. Fiender might be baffled by it.”

  “How is that possible? I mean, they told me I was evolutionary. But seriously, I’m evolving?”

  “It’s the mindset of transhumanism,” she said. “To create techno-sapiens that self-adjust to their environment. I’m not saying God approves, but theoretically, if the scientists are right, the
transhuman will show at least some capability of becoming more than he was. More than his designers made him to be.”

  “The singularity,” Chase said.

  “That’s what they want,” Mel said. “I’m glad I got out of it. God was gracious in keeping me from getting assigned to a lab. I could have ended up at the Helgen.”

  “Singularity,” Switchblade said. “The machines take over the world. Right?”

  “Something like that,” Mel said. “We lose control of our own inventions. Our technology outsmarts us.”

  “And I’m part of it,” Chase said. “And now I’m part of this.” He opened door of the meeting room. People were praying. For him.

  He silently begged God to protect them from whatever the future might bring.

  37

  Seemed like some of the people slouching in chairs or kneeling on the floor were close to sleep. The small children and some of the older residents were missing. Chase found his mother clutching Molly’s hand. Both women prayed out loud. At the same time. Practically the same prayer: Bring our loved ones home.

  Chase cleared his throat.

  Mom’s eyes opened up first, then Molly’s. They jumped to their feet and left him breathless and stumbling backward in their embrace.

  If the commotion didn’t break the silence, Molly’s shout did. “Praise the Lord! Our prayers are answered.”

  The crowd lifted their heads. Chase accepted the hugs of people he didn’t know. His mom required a second round of squeezing and crying. She pulled on his ear and put her lips close.

  “You couldn’t call your mother?” she asked.

  “We lost all communication, Mom.”

  “I’m so glad you’re back. I thought you’d gotten caught up there.”

  “Did Amos tell you what happened?”

  She pulled back and met his gaze. “Yes. We know about the exoself. And we don’t care. Don’t you give it a thought.”

  “I was pretty devastated at first. But I found something better.” He smiled.

  “You really are a believer now. Right? I thought when you first arrived that you must have found the truth. Like I did. But then I wondered. It’s been so crazy that we haven’t even had a chance to discuss it.”