“They got picked up by the Feds,” Chase shouted. “They’re in a center. Or they’re dead.”
“Sparky would know if that was true.”
“Official reports about killing prisoners are deeply coded. So far I’ve got nothing.”
“Then we got some hope,” Switchblade said.
Chase swiped his hands through his hair as information rushed in. “They don’t want older brain tissue for their research. That’s the reason for the bodies. It can only mean one thing for the rest of them. There is no hope.”
“You think what you want, Charlie. I won’t stop praying.”
Chase staggered toward the hall.
“Where are you going?”
“To my room. My old room—not the one I shared with my wife for ten hours.” Chase kicked a chair out of his way. “Don’t bother me, Switchblade.”
“Man, we can’t stay here. We need to get out of town tonight. While it’s dark.”
“Go ahead. Best of luck. Sorry I tried to kill you.” Chase continued on his way as Switchblade yelled after him.
“You can’t give up. You know Melody don’t like that. Come on, man.”
In his room, Chase fell on the bed. He didn’t power the night vision. Didn’t allow more input from the exoself. Didn’t speak to God except to pray for dreamless sleep. He got what he wanted.
56
Long before dawn—the exoself said it was half past three—Chase woke in a start. He powered the night vision. Switchblade lay on the floor in front of the closed door. The man hadn’t fled. Would he ever forget about his bodyguard assignment?
WR reports filled his head in a scrambled mess. They were chasing a man in Montreal who remained hidden in a place they’d already destroyed. How many would suffer because of the misinformation Chase planted? Without Mel’s four S’s, he could do nothing to help them.
But something rushed into the void left by the terminated code. Words welled up inside Chase and he let them pour off his tongue.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light—”
“Man, what are doing?” Switchblade sat up and rubbed is face. “You got a Bible in your head or something?”
Tears fell. “Yes.”
Switchblade lit up his laserlight and crawled to the end of the bed. “I don’t think it’s compliments of the Helgen Institute.” A smile crept onto his face.
“It’s a wedding gift. Mel was working on it when I left for Gagnon.”
“Then she’s out there.” Switchblade jumped to his feet.
“On one of her old laptops,” Chase said. He tried to contact her, but he knew it wouldn’t work. He couldn’t send her messages anymore, or receive them from her. But she’d sent this one sign. He bent his head and wept.
“Thank you,” he cried. “Thank you. Thank you.”
“Pull yourself together, Charlie. We’re getting out of here.”
Chase could barely lift his head. “I don’t know where to go. I have no idea where to look.”
Switchblade grabbed him by the arms and lifted him from the bed. “You find anything you been through lately easy, Charlie?”
Chase shook his head.
“Then this ain’t nothing new. We’re going up. We’re getting out. And we’re praying over every step we take. You got it?”
Chase nodded.
Switchblade led the way through the command center, where Chase gazed one last time at the beautiful painting, now marked with an unbearable message from the WR. He couldn’t move.
Switchblade joined him. “We torching the place before we go?”
“We either cremate our people or let them…” Chase took a breath. “You got a lighter?”
“There’s one in the kitchen.”
In the dining hall, they said a prayer over the gray-haired patrons of the underground. Switchblade went into the kitchen and came back with an old-fashioned lighter. He handed it to Chase.
They piled the torn and broken paintings in the center of the room, and Chase set them ablaze. Then he followed his friend through the bunker, up the stairs, down the tunnel, and out the hole in the alley wall. No use putting back the refuse bin.
They left Herouxville behind and took a southward direction. Switchblade prayed out loud. Chase searched the Bible in his mind for the verse Mel had recited.
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
“That’s right, Charlie.”
But the separation from Mel would rip him apart. He’d bleed to death looking for her.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said as he wiped a tear.
“Man, I ain’t afraid of nothing.”
“Just talking to myself, Switch. But I know one thing you’re afraid of. You don’t want anybody to know your real name. So face your fears and spit it out.”
The big man puffed a frozen white breath in the pre-dawn twilight. “OK. But you can’t tell nobody.”
“Deal.”
“Leslie Honeywell.”
Chase couldn’t hold back the laugh. “That’s kinda pretty.”
Switchblade punched him in the arm. “Don’t you ever…ever…call me that. Now concentrate. You think we should go back to Gagnon?”
Chase yearned for that gut feeling he knew must be the Spirit’s call. And it came. Mel’s last message played in his mind.
…a ghost town like the one we talked about.
A town with no computers. With family.
“We’re going to Detroit,” Chase said.
“Oh, no way. Man, I had some trouble there.”
“Come on, Leslie, we’ve got no choice. God says we’re going to Detroit.” The exoself found the nearest westward road. They’d move far past Montreal before heading south. Chase Sterling was still hiding there—so said the reports.
Switchblade gripped Chase’s shoulder as the first hint of daylight greeted their path. “I’m right beside you,” he said. “Robot.”
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Killswitch Page 26